One of their newer rationalizations is that Joseph Smith may have used The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain as a source for the Book of Mormon. This theory depends entirely on assumption.

There is no evidence that Joseph Smith ever owned, read, studied, or used The Late War. And even if he had read it, and even if all of the weak parallels are accepted, it still does not account for any of the doctrine or even a tiny fraction of the main ideas and storyline of the Book of Mormon.

What Was The Late War?

The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain was written in 1816 by Gilbert J. Hunt as an account of the War of 1812. It was designed to teach children about patriotism and the major events of the war.

The book was deliberately written in King James-style English and uses biblical parallels along the way, such as comparing Congress to the Great Sanhedrin.

It jumps through the major events of the War of 1812 in rough chronological order and includes information about American patriots James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Stephen Decatur, Oliver Hazard Perry, William Henry Harrison, James Lawrence, Isaac Hull, William Bainbridge, and Thomas Macdonough. It is not a character-driven story but is a patriotic war summary that moves between major war events while presenting American leaders, soldiers, and sailors in a heroic, Bible-style narrative.

Chapters and Verses

The Late War was divided into chapters and verses, like the Bible, so it could be more easily studied by students in school.

An irony of this supposed connection of the use of verses between the Late War and the Book of Mormon is that the original 1830 printing of the Book of Mormon had no marked verses and far fewer chapters. The modern chapter and verse divisions we use in the Book of Mormon today were not added until 1879, decades after Joseph Smith died.

There is no evidence that The Late War was widely circulated or that it was ever used as a schoolbook anywhere near Joseph Smith. There were three editions published in 1816, 1817, and 1819. It is estimated that between all three editions there was about 4,500 total copies printed, but there are no known sales records proving exact distribution.

Anti-Mormon Claims About The Late War

Claims that Joseph Smith stole portions of the Book of Mormon as a reference for the Book of Mormon from The Late War did not first appear until 2013.

Nobody in Joseph Smith’s lifetime ever made this connection. We have no record that any of the people who owned copies of The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain ever associated it or any connections with the Book of Mormon text.

Test Enough Books, You’ll Find a Few Matches

The claim that The Late War may have been a source text for the Book of Mormon was created by ex-Mormons Chris and Duane Johnson using computerized word studies. They searched approximately 100,000 pre-1830 books, looking for shared four-word phrases, or “4-grams,” between the Book of Mormon and other texts.

According to this study, the Book of Mormon and The Late War shared 549 distinct four-word locutions. After applying additional filters for phrases they considered rare, and after attempting to remove biblical matches, the Johnsons claimed there were over 100 “rare” four-word matches between the two books.

That sounds impressive until you realize what is actually being compared.

We are not talking about copied paragraphs., sermons, doctrine, story structure, characters, or copied themes. Just four-word fragments.

Their conclusion was that, because of these similar word sequences, The Late War “may have” been a source Joseph Smith used, despite no historical evidence that Joseph ever owned, read, studied, or used it.

These anti-Mormons searched 100,000 books looking for a naturalistic source candidate for the Book of Mormon. After all that, the best result they could produce was a Bible-style war book that shares short four-word phrases with another book written in Bible-style English that includes significant content about war.

Their claim was that this made the Book of Mormon 99.999% closer to The Late War than to any other book in the study.

Well, yeah.

They ran a computer test on 100,000 books, and this was the one that produced the most four-word sequence parallels. That is not shocking. Both books use King James-style English. The Late War is literally about war, and much of the Book of Mormon also includes war chapters. On top of that, many of the four-word matches are short biblical-style phrases that sound exactly like the Bible.

The study does not show strong parallels in sections, content, doctrine, themes, story structure, or actual extended text. It shows that, after searching approximately 100,000 books, they found two books from a similar language environment with roughly 550 shared four-word locutions, and a smaller set of “rare” four-word matches after applying their filters.

Where Does the other 99.18% of the Book of Mormon Come From?

Even if every one of those 549 four-word clusters were counted as separate words with no overlap, that would only be 2,196 words Joseph Smith stole from the Late War for the Book of Mormon. Compared against the roughly 269,000-word Book of Mormon, that is only 0.82% of the text. And that number overstates the overlap because many four-word sequences overlap with each other and are exactly the same as phrases used in the King James Bible.

That is a tiny overlap of short phrase fragments that are not surprising at all when you consider how many books they went through to find “the best match”.

This method does not provide evidence of plagiarism. And even if it was, how do you account for the remaining 99.18% of the words in the Book of Mormon?

Replicating 4 Consecutive Word Clusters

So how hard is it to find books written in a somewhat similar style that have matching four-word phrases?

Not hard at all.

Books The Wizard of Oz Apparently Plagiarized

I had ChatGPT run four-word phrase comparisons using public domain books against The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The first book I tested it against was The Princess and the Goblin.

Those two books share 490 unique four-word phrases. That is slightly less than the 549 four-word locutions found between the Book of Mormon and The Late War, but the raw number is misleading because the Book of Mormon is much longer. When the size of each subject book is considered, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has a much higher density of shared four-word phrases with The Princess and the Goblin than the Book of Mormon has with The Late War.

If we count those 490 shared four-word phrases as 1,960 possible overlapping words, that would equal 4.9% of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Common four-word phrase matches include:

• in the middle of
• the middle of the
• the top of the
• on the other side
• I should like to
• in her arms and
• the rest of the
• as if she were
• did not know what
• I will tell you
• in the midst of
• to go to the
• at the end of
• in a few minutes
• what shall we do

Okay, maybe I just got lucky with my first try.

Comparing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Peter Pan.

Those two books share 334 unique four-word phrases.

The 1,336 possible overlapping words equal about 3.3% of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Comparing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with The Secret Garden.

Those two books share 606 unique four-word phrases.

That would equal about 6.1% of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

So does this mean The Wonderful Wizard of Oz sourced phrases from The Princess and the Goblin, Peter Pan, and The Secret Garden?

Or is “in the middle of” just a common phrase that multiple authors happened to use without ever looking at or even referencing the other books?

Using this kind of four-word methodology, you either have to believe the literary world is full of plagiarizing plagiarizers stealing common phrases and filler words from each other, or you have to accept that this is just how the English language works. When different writers talk about similar subjects using similar writing styles, four-word phrase matches are natural.

Being that the Book of Mormon is substantially longer than any of these sample books, giving it far more total words with which to potentially create matches. The percentage of matches is substantially less than the comparison books with the Wizard of Oz.

The Book of Mormon has roughly 269,000 words and shares about 549 distinct four-word locutions with the Late War. Even if every one of those were counted as four separate words, that would be 2,196 words. That equals only about 0.82% of the Book of Mormon.

And that still overstates the overlap because many four-word sequences can overlap with each other, and many are ordinary biblical-style phrases.

So when anti-Mormons claim that The Late War is 99.999% closer to the Book of Mormon than any other book in the Johnson study, put things in perspective. After searching approximately 100,000 books, the best candidate they could produce for four word connections was a Bible-style war book that has less than 1 percent of four-word fragments shared.

While this is not evidence of plagiarism, it is evidence that two books using King James-style English can share short phrases. And what it really shows how weak the source theory really is. After searching 100,000 books, critics still could not find a known text that even remotely explains the Book of Mormon’s message, structure, doctrine, themes, or content.

The Matching Four-Word Sequences

Now lets look at some of the matching phrases between the Book of Mormon and the Late War. Let’s see if this is where Joseph got his key ideas from it.

Can someone really look at this list of four-word parallels and believe the “high” rate of connections is because of plagiarism rather than shared biblical language?

These are a few of the obvious four-word connections that are plainly related to shared King James-style phrasing. The connections are based on historical writing style, not shared content, ideas, or storyline.

A four-word overlap can happen because two writers are using the same English style.

For example, “and it came to” is a four-word match. But it proves almost nothing by itself because it is just the lead-in to “and it came to pass.”

But What About the 2000 Stripling Warriors!

The “big” rare connection that anti Mormons like to use to convince people of plagiarism is that both books have an account that mentions 2,000 people going to battle.

The Late War says:

“Immediately Jackson took two thousand hardy men, who were called volunteers, because they had, unsolicited, offered their services to their country, and led them against the savages.

Now the men of war who followed after him were mostly from the state of Tennessee, and men of dauntless courage.”

So which is more likely?

That two books both used the round number 2,000 to describe an approximate group of soldiers going into battle?

Or that “two thousand hardy men” is evidence that Joseph Smith copied this account to create the story of the Stripling Warriors, even though The Late War says nothing about mothers teaching them faith, young men fighting because their fathers had made a covenant not to take up weapons, Helaman leading them, their exact obedience, their miraculous preservation, or every one of them being wounded but none of them dying?

The supposed parallel is just a round number attached to soldiers. It is barely even a similarity.

Now, if there were actual evidence that Joseph Smith used The Late War as a source, and if there were something unique or unusual about a group of 2,000 soldiers going into battle, then maybe this argument might have a little bit of merit.

But neither of those things is true.

There is no evidence Joseph Smith used The Late War, and there is nothing unique about the number 2,000 in military history. Groups of around 2,000 soldiers show up all over the place.

Did the the Late War copy 2,000 soldiers for it’s book from the Wars of Roses and the Revolutionary war? Or might there just have been about 2,000 brave men who battled.

A Few Common Word Sequences or Six Assumptions?

Understanding that it’s the KJV-style that explains the number of four word parallels only requires one fact:

Both The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain and the Book of Mormon use King James-style biblical English.

The plagiarism source text theory requires several extra assumptions:

1. Joseph somehow encountered The Late War.
2. He remembered or had access to its exact phrase wording even though there is no record he ever had it.
3. He used a few of the scattered four-word phrases but not so many to make the plagiarism obvious.
4. He ignored its actual main themes and structure of the late war, but only focused on the phrases.
5. He converted patriotic War of 1812 language into an unrelated ancient religious record.
6. He did this without leaving any historical trace, and nobody discovered it until 187 years later.

Or could it be that both books are utilizing the same King James Bible-style language world?

The Content of The Late War vs. The Book of Mormon

The anti-Mormon argument about The Late War avoids using the full title: The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain because the alone pretty much discredits the plagiarism claims.

If anyone realizes that the Late War is a book about the War of 1812 they immediately realize that it has almost nothing to do with the content of the Book of Mormon. These are two totally different books with different purposes.

If Joseph Smith were sourcing The Late War, or even using it as a reference for ideas, would we not expect the content or themes to match?

I had ChatGPT to break down the 10 main themes of The Late War. If Joseph Smith were plagiarizing it, surely we would find major common parallels.

This is what it concluded:

The Late War is about America defending itself against Britain, patriotic honor, military courage, national memory, using a biblical-style retelling of the War of 1812.

The 10 main themes and ideas of The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain are:

I then asked ChatGPT to determine the 10 main themes of the Book of Mormon.

None of the top 10 themes of either book are even close to matching.

The supposed parallels between the Book of Mormon and The Late War are so weak that they are almost laughable.

Other than a similar English writing style, the subject and intent of The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain have almost nothing to do with the main themes of the Book of Mormon:

The one partially similar theme is that the author of The Late War believed the cause of liberty and freedom was favored by Providence.

As Latter-day Saints, we believe that freedom and liberty are part of God’s work. We believe Columbus was inspired to come to America, that early settlers were led here, and that the Revolutionary War was won through Providence and the divine hand of God.

So if freedom and liberty really are divine causes, especially because they allow people to worship God according to conscience, then it makes sense that both books would include that theme.

Both books touch on a truth that Latter-day Saints believe is eternal: God prepares nations, opens doors, and preserves liberty so His work can move forward.

Conclusion

Are we really supposed to believe that Joseph Smith used The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain as a source for a few prepositional phrases and a tiny percentage of four-word connections, most of which are just common biblical phraseology?

When there are this few meaningful parallels, and this few real connections, it is not only unlikely that Joseph Smith plagiarized portions of The Late War. It would actually be harder to use The Late War as a source while only borrowing insignificant phrases and avoiding its actual content, purpose, and ideas.

The amount of blind faith required to believe that The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain was a source for the Book of Mormon, when there is zero historical evidence, is astounding.

It is shocking that any competent anti-Mormon would still reference this argument today.

The tiny, minuscule connections between four-word sequences, found only after comparing 100,000 different books using the same methodology, are best explained by the obvious fact that both books use King James-style writing.

If this is the strongest evidence the word study can produce for plagiarism, then the entire anti-Mormon source theory is built on a desperate foundation of dry sand. It does not include historical evidence, textual dependence, copied doctrine, matching structure, or meaningful shared content.

Believing that Joseph Smith used The Late War as a source for the Book of Mormon requires far more faith than believing he translated it by the gift and power of God.

Solomon Spaulding Book of Mormon Origins

May 29, 2026

Did Joseph Smith Plagiarize the Late War?

May 29, 2026

Moroni and Cumorah: Did Joseph Smith Copy These Names from Maps?

April 13, 2026

Joseph Smith’s Secret Dartmouth Education

April 3, 2026

Joseph Smith Plagarized Adam Clarke

December 26, 2025

CES Letter Claims that The Book of Mormon Sourced the Late War

Letter for My Wife’s Claims about the Late War

To no surprise, since most of Letter for My Wife is simply regurgitating CES Letter anti-Mormon talking points, the arguments are virtually the same.

Letter For My Wife repeatedly turns possibility into probability. It does not show Joseph owned, read, studied, or used The Late War. It claims he “likely” read it because it was a school-style book and because people around him had teaching connections. That is multiple layers of stacked unverified assumptions.

It also frames short biblical-style parallels as if they prove dependence, while the simpler explanation is that The Late War was intentionally written in scriptural style. A book imitating the King James Bible will naturally share Bible-like phrases with another text using biblical English.

The reason this claim even exists is because of a stacked set of assumptions resting on the work of early anti-Mormon writer Pomeroy Tucker.

Pomeroy Tucker’s Anti-Mormon Book

Pomeroy Tucker wrote his anti-Mormon book Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism: Biography of Its Founders and History of Its Church in 1867. In an effort to portray Joseph as a treasure-seeking fanatic and money-digger, he claimed that Joseph got this worldview from reading Captain Kidd pirate stories, which Joseph supposedly loved. Tucker used those stories to place Joseph inside folk superstition and treasure-seeking culture.

This Book was published four decades after the time when Tucker supposedly knew the Smiths. Think about the people you knew as a child. What do you remember about them from 40 years ago? The fact that you can remember them at all means their was some sort of connection, but specific details are easily blurred. There is a lot of room for memory fade, especially if your motive is hostile and shaped by sensationalism in order to sell a controversial book.

Pomeroy Tucker was about three or four years older than Joseph. He worked in the printing business, and we know that he was acquainted with Joseph Smith and had some involvement with the printing world at the time of the publication of the first edition of the Book of Mormon. Tucker would have been familiar with local gossip, rumors, and newspaper opinions about the Smith family. But there is no evidence that Pomeroy Tucker knew Joseph intimately or had special access to Joseph’s private thoughts, passions, or reading life as a young boy.

So do we know whether Joseph really loved and was inspired by Captain Kidd pirate stories? Do we know whether he even read them before the publication of the Book of Mormon?

Joseph’s Access to Captain Kidd Stories

Anti-Mormons claim that these stories were published in a local Palmyra newspaper. There was at least one mention of Robert Kidd and treasure hunting in a February 16, 1825 issue of the Wayne Sentinel, but that is not a printing of a Captain Kidd story.

There is also a much later claim connected to Philetus B. Spear, published in 1923 from an earlier reminiscence, saying that Joseph “had for a library a copy of the Arabian Nights, stories of Captain Kidd, and a few novels.”

And how reliable is a source that late and indirect? It wasn’t exactly a moving log or catalog of books.

Stealing Moroni from Captain Kidd Pirate Stories

In his Anti-Mormon Book, Pomeroy Tucker never makes the claim that Joseph stole the names Moroni or Cumorah from Captain Kidd stories. Tucker’s argument was that those pirate stories supposedly helped shape Joseph’s treasure-seeking worldview and folk beliefs. He did not build the 2003 Comoros theory.

Tucker wouldn’t have made this claim, because he himself would not have known about obscure islands off the coast of Africa either.

The Captain Kidd materials do discuss islands in the general region where the Comoros are located, but they do not ever mention the names Comoros or Moroni in the primary Kidd material itself.

So how did this accusation ever come up, and what is the basis for it?

Modern Critics and the Fabrication of a Theory

The modern claim came in 2003, when an anti-Mormon familiar with Tucker’s claim of Josephs obsession with pirate stories noticed that the modern capital of the Comoros Islands is named Moroni, which is also the same name as the last prophet in the Book of Mormon.

From there, they started stacking assumptions, likely giddy for a source of something to discredit the Book of Mormon.

These are the assumptions that must be made to have faith in this explanation for two Book of Mormon Names:

• Joseph supposedly knew pirate stories.
• Captain Kidd was connected to stories set in the Indian Ocean.
• The Comoros are in the Indian Ocean.
• Comoros sounds somewhat like Cumorah.
• The modern capital of the Comoros is named Moroni.

Conclusion: both Moroni and Cumorah are in the same general part of the world, so it must be too much coincidence.

Therefore, Joseph Smith must have stolen the names from maps. Origin of this part of the Book of Mormon solved!

The Smoking-Gun Flaw in the Theory

The main problem with this claim, and there are many, is that you have to have faith in layer after layer of assumptions to believe it is true, all for the possibility of explaining just two of the Book of Mormon’s proper names.

The City of Moroni

The biggest problem with this theory is that while Moroni existed long before Joseph Smith, it was not some major world-famous city. It became the seat of the colonial administration on Grande Comore in 1886, and it did not become the capital of the Comoros archipelago until 1958, long after the Book of Mormon was published in 1830. In 1958, its population was still only 6,545.

Moroni Does Not Appear on the Maps Critics Need

The name Moroni does not appear on any known maps prior to an 1843 French naval survey, recorded in a chart titled “Mer des Indes: Croquis du mouillage de Moroni, côte ouest de la Grande Comore.” This was a specialized French maritime chart, not a common map circulating, especially in an irrelevant place like rural New York. And it was made more than a decade after the Book of Mormon was published.

Critics like the CES Letter point to Pinkerton’s 1809 Southern Africa map, include the Comoro Islands but the map does not do not label Moroni. This map was part of a high-end British atlas. It would not have been common in rural western New York and there is no evidence Joseph Smith ever had access to it

And let’s be honest, claiming that Comoros and Cumorah are basically the same thing is a stretch on its own.

How many other place names in the world contain the consonants C-M-R in that order? There is Cameroon, Comrat in Moldova, Camiri in Bolivia, Camorim in Brazil, Cam Ranh in Vietnam, and Cape Comorin in India, just to name a few.

Is that kind of similarity really evidence of source origin?

Assumptions That Must Be Believed to Accept the Theory

To believe that Joseph Smith plagiarized Moroni and Cumorah from pirate stories and island maps, you have to accept all of the following:

→ Joseph made up the Book of Mormon

→ He needed borrowed names

→ Pomeroy Tucker is a reliable source on Joseph’s childhood reading interests

→ Tucker really knew Joseph well enough to know what fascinated him as a boy

→ Joseph learned of the Comoros through Captain Kidd stories, even though the names Comoros and Moroni are not found in the primary Kidd material

→ That interest led Joseph to search for maps of the Indian Ocean

→ Those maps were somehow available to him in rural upstate New York

→ Those maps included the place-name Moroni

→ Joseph studied those maps, even though there is no evidence he had them

→ Joseph noticed the name

→ Joseph remembered the names Comoros and Moroni for later use

→ Joseph modified Comoros into Cumorah

→ Joseph used Moroni to describe the angel who first visited him in 1823, 2 years after the newspaper article that mentions Captain Kidd.

That is a lot of faith in assumptions.

While the claim that Joseph Smith plagiarized tiny island maps to get names for the Book of Mormon is a modern one, it is still one of the weakest anti-Mormon arguments in circulation. It shows how desperate critics are to find any source for the Book of Mormon other than what Joseph Smith actually claimed: that it was brought forth by the gift and power of God.

More resources:

• Fair Article on Joseph Smith and Captain Kidd
• Debunking CES Letter: Captain Kidd
• Misinformation Connecting Joseph Smith, Captain Kidd, and the Comoros Islands

Continue reading at the original source →]]>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 16:58:00 -0700tag:nothingwavering.org,2009-01-12:_80475https://antiantimormon.com/joseph-smith-plagiarized-view-of-the-hebrews/noreply@nothingwavering.org (No Reply)AlmaThe Book of Mormon makes the claim that at least some of the ancestors of Native American Indians originally came from Jerusalem.

If Native Americans originally came from ancient Israel, it would make sense that there would be some evidence of similarities.

The book View of the Hebrews written by Ethan Smith in 1823 presents that argument. This book was published seven years before the Book of Mormon and in roughly the same region of the United States. Ethan Smith argued that:

• Native Americans were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel
• These tribes were taken captive by the Assyrians
• They later migrated across the Bering land bridge into the Americas
• Their descendants became the Indigenous peoples of North and South America
• Converting them to Christianity would restore them to their lost religious heritage

Ethan Smith attempted to support this idea by showing what he believed were Jewish customs among Native Americans, including:

• purification rituals
• circumcision
• Hebrew sounding words
• references to Jehovah

Evidence suggests that Joseph Smith had access to this book, and later in his life he even cited it as supporting evidence that some scholars believed Native Americans had Israelite origins. By the time Joseph referenced it, the Book of Mormon had already been published for years. Joseph used it as outside support for a concept the Book of Mormon had already introduced.

The Book of Mormon as Plagiarism of View of the Hebrews

Roughly a century later, after the Solomon Spaulding theory had been debunked and critics were looking for another way to explain the existence of the Book of Mormon apart from divine revelation by the gift and power of God, critics of the Church began arguing that the loose idea of Native Americans having Hebrew origins was the primary source Joseph Smith used to fabricate the Book of Mormon.

In 1902 the claim was first made that Joseph borrowed ideas from Ethan Smith. Later in 1945, Fawn Brodie in her book No Man Knows My History promoted the theory that View of the Hebrews served as the conceptual source for Joseph Smith’s book.

Modern critics repeat the same list of supposed parallels. The CES Letter and other anti Mormon arguments often present those parallels as if they prove the Book of Mormon originated from Ethan Smith’s book.

Even modern AI searches often repeat the same claim. When I asked Grok about the Book of Mormon it immediately referenced View of the Hebrews as a source.

The book itself is not hidden or suppressed. BYU has published View of the Hebrews and made it freely available online so anyone can read it and compare the two books directly.

This makes it easy for anyone to find out for themselves.

Did the Book of Mormon actually derive from View of the Hebrews?

Or is it a completely independent book that has a few broad similarities.

To answer that question we can start by comparing the books themselves.

Comparing the Books in General

Word Count

View of the Hebrews: ~90,000 words
Book of Mormon: ~270,000 words

The Book of Mormon is roughly three times longer than View of the Hebrews. The majority of the Book of Mormon deals with material that never appears in Ethan Smith’s book.

Writing Style and Type of Book

What Is Plagiarism?

The books are very different, but the question critics raise is whether Joseph Smith borrowed the ideas.

A common definition of plagiarism is:

Presenting another person’s words, ideas, or work as one’s own without proper acknowledgment or citation.

Two common forms of plagiarism include:

Direct plagiarism
Copying text word for word without citation.

Mosaic plagiarism
Taking phrases, sentence structures, or ideas from a source and weaving them into a work without attribution, even if the wording is changed.

When scholars evaluate whether one text was derived from another, they usually look for:

• distinctive shared wording
• unique ideas that rarely appear elsewhere
• similar narrative structure
• a dense pattern of parallels in the same sections
• clear evidence that the author used the earlier source

I had my AI assistant comb through View of the Hebrews to find any examples of possible mosaic plagiarism. It found only two very loose possibilities.

These examples are extremely general and would not qualify as plagiarism under normal literary standards.

First, the phrases themselves are short and common. A phrase like “remnant of Israel” comes directly from biblical language used throughout the Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah. Both View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon draw heavily from the language and worldview of the Bible, so the appearance of the same biblical phrase in both books is expected.

Second, the phrase “bands of robbers” is a very common English expression used to describe groups of criminals. It does not represent a unique or distinctive wording that would indicate borrowing. The contexts in which the phrase appears in the two books are also completely different. In View of the Hebrews it is used as a general historical description, while in the Book of Mormon it refers to a specific narrative group known as the Gadianton robbers.

For scholars to identify plagiarism, they usually look for extended wording, distinctive phrases, or repeated sentence structures that appear in both works. Two or three shared words that already exist in biblical or common English language do not meet that standard.

General themes that already circulated widely within a culture usually carry very little weight when scholars evaluate claims of plagiarism.

When the actual texts of View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon are compared, there is no distinctive shared wording, repeated phrases, or matching names and narratives. There is no evidence of direct copying or mosaic borrowing. If any influence existed, it would have to be limited to broad cultural themes.

Comparing the Main Themes

To explore the comparison further I asked my AI assistant to identify the major themes of both books.

Do the Main Themes Indicate Plagiarism?

The themes by themselves do not demonstrate plagiarism.

Historical and literary analysis requires stronger evidence such as shared wording, unique concepts, similar narrative structure, or clear evidence of direct borrowing.

The themes listed above were common topics in early nineteenth century religious discussion. Ideas about the scattering of Israel, the restoration of Israel, and missionary work among Native Americans appeared in sermons, books, and religious debates across New England.

Shared cultural ideas are usually treated by historians as part of a broader intellectual environment rather than proof that one specific book served as the source for another.

Examining the Historical Record

No Evidence Joseph Smith Saw the Book Before the Book of Mormon

Critics attempt to connect Joseph Smith to Ethan Smith through Oliver Cowdery.

Oliver’s family attended a congregation where Ethan Smith once served as pastor. Critics assume that Oliver therefore knew Ethan Smith’s theories and later shared them with Joseph while acting as the primary scribe for the Book of Mormon.

The timeline creates problems for this theory.

Joseph Smith had already spent years with the plates and had begun translating portions of the record before he met Oliver Cowdery in Harmony, Pennsylvania in the spring of 1829.

Joseph first reported receiving information about the record from Moroni in September of 1823, before the first, very limited edition of View of the Hebrews was printed.

Ethan Smith lived for years after the Book of Mormon was published. He never accused Joseph Smith of borrowing from his book. Contemporary critics who had access to both books also never made that connection.

The plagiarism theory appears decades later, and only took off more than a century later.

Parallels Between the Books

While there are a few broad similarities between the books, many of the proposed parallels become weaker when actually examined.

Scholar John Welch examined the comparison and found that the supposed parallels are superficial or describe very different ideas which provide further evidence that Joseph was not at all influenced by View of the Hebrews.

1. Lost Ten Tribes vs Lehi’s Family

View of the Hebrews argues that Native Americans descended from the Ten Lost Tribes exiled by Assyria in 722 BC.

The Book of Mormon describes a small family leaving Jerusalem around 600 BC from the tribe of Joseph. These are not Lost Tribes but came straight from Jerusalem with a different starting point of the migration.

2. Migration Theory vs Revealed Journey

Ethan Smith suggested migration across Asia and the Bering region.

The Book of Mormon describes ocean voyages directed by God. It includes a detailed account of ship building and the voyage by sea.

3. Native American Customs

View of the Hebrews attempts to prove Hebrew customs survived among Native Americans.

The Book of Mormon never makes that argument. It has no discussion whatsoever of modern Native Americans.

4. Civilized vs Uncivilized Groups

Ethan Smith refers to mound builders and later tribes.

The Book of Mormon describes Nephites, Lamanites, and other groups within a detailed narrative without ever identifying the actual region or people in which they would become.

5. Sacred Interpreters

View of the Hebrews references the biblical Urim and Thummim as the sacred instrument used by ancient Israelite priests for receiving divine guidance.

The Book of Mormon, however, describes interpreters discovered with the plates themselves. The text never uses the term Urim and Thummim. That label was applied later by early Latter-day Saints as a biblical comparison for the seer stones Joseph Smith used in the translation process, which differs from the priestly device described by Ethan Smith.

6. Wars and Destruction

Both books mention wars destroying societies. Wars destroying civilizations appear as one of the most common themes throughout history and literature.

7. Pride and Moral Decline

Both works warn about pride. That theme appears frequently in the Bible and Christian preaching.

8. Restoration of Israel

Both books mention Israel’s restoration. This belief was widely discussed in Protestant religious circles during the early 1800s.

9. Ancient Records

Ethan Smith speculated that ancient peoples may have kept records.

The Book of Mormon claims to be the record itself.

10. Name Similarities

Some critics compare names like Ethan and Ether. The similarity ends with the spelling.

Welch’s analysis shows that many of the proposed parallels come from shared biblical ideas or broad cultural beliefs rather than detailed literary borrowing.

Ethan Smith’s Evidence of Hebraic Origins of the Native Americans

If Ethan Smiths theory is accurate, this is remarkable evidence that the Native American people do indeed include a connection with ancient Hebrews, just like the Book of Mormon claims. This is evidence of the Book of Mormon. Here are some of the points that Ethan Smith argued:

Hebrew-Sounding Language

Ethan Smith claimed that some Native American tribes used words resembling Hebrew. Writers like James Adair described chants or sacred expressions that sounded like “Hallelujah” and names for God that resembled “Jehovah.” Smith argued these were remnants of ancient Israelite worship preserved over time, even if altered through generations.

Ritual Practices and Purification

Smith pointed to accounts of ceremonial behavior among Native tribes that he believed paralleled the Law of Moses. These included ritual washings, purification practices before important events, and structured religious observances. He interpreted these as degraded forms of ancient Israelite ordinances that had survived long after the original religious system was lost.

Circumcision and Covenant Parallels

Some sources available to Ethan Smith claimed that certain tribes practiced circumcision or rites resembling it. He viewed this as especially significant because circumcision was a defining covenant sign in ancient Israel. If true, this would suggest not just general similarity, but a direct connection to Israelite religious identity.

Belief in One Great Spirit

Ethan Smith also argued that many Native American groups believed in a single Great Spirit, which he saw as a form of monotheism. He interpreted this as a retained knowledge of the God of Israel, preserved in a simplified or altered form after centuries of separation from the original covenant tradition.

Migration Traditions

He cited traditions among Native Americans that described ancestors coming from a distant land or crossing large bodies of water. Smith connected these stories to the biblical scattering of Israel, suggesting they were cultural memories of an ancient migration from the Old World.

Tribal Organization

Smith noted that Native societies were divided into tribes and maintained strong lineage identities. He compared this to the structure of the twelve tribes of Israel, suggesting that this social organization reflected a shared ancient origin.

If Plagiarizing, Why Didn’t Joseph Smith Use These Arguments?

And while these are compelling evidence that Eastern US Native Americans had Hebrew traditions, Joseph Smith never used these arguments in the Book of Mormon. If he had been relying on Ethan Smith’s book, if he were trying to provide evidence to convince people that the Book of Mormon was a record of Native Americans,  it would make sense that he would repeat what Ethan Smith considered some of his strongest evidence had he known it.

This in and of itself is evidence that Joseph Smith didn’t know of these connections, and that it was not plagiarism. If he was plagiarizing he surely would have utilzied these strong arguments that would have made the Book of Mormon more believable to those with similar beliefs and viewpoints about the Native Americans as Ethan Smith.

Surface Level Similarities

The similarities between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon are surface level. Ethan Smith lived in a culture that discussed Israel, the Bible, and the origins of Native Americans. At a time when the belief that Native Americans were “savages” and ideas like Manifest Destiny were becoming the dominant narrative, Ethan Smith believed that Native Americans were not only human, but were children of God.

Joseph Smith received a record that was claimed to be a record of ancient Americans with roots in the House of Israel. This record shows that the ancestors of these people had great civilizations, deep religious conviction, a belief in Jesus Christ as their Savior, and a focus on covenant worship and connection.

But most of the Book of Mormon has nothing to do with Ethan Smith’s theory. Large sections of the book focus on prophetic teachings, detailed narratives, the ministry of Jesus Christ among the Nephites, and doctrinal sermons that never appear in View of the Hebrews. The Book of Mormon is written as scripture, as if by trained Hebrew scribes, with symbolism and multiple layers of meaning in the text.

The climax, or central point, of the Book of Mormon is Jesus’s visit to the Americas. View of the Hebrews does not mention Jesus visiting Native Americans at all.

The evidence suggests it is far more likely that Joseph Smith never saw or knew anything about View of the Hebrews at the time he translated the gold plates. Even if he had heard a few of the broad and mostly unrelated ideas found in Ethan Smith’s book, that still does not explain where the rest of the Book of Mormon came from, including the profound doctrine and teachings.

Conclusion

Ethan Smith proposed that Native Americans had connections to ancient Israel. That idea circulated in religious discussions in the early 1800s. These

The Book of Mormon presents a detailed record describing migrations from Jerusalem, centuries of history, prophetic teachings, and the appearance of Jesus Christ to the people in the Americas.

The two books address very different purposes and tell very different stories.

The most reasonable conclusion is that Ethan Smith recognized that some Native American traditions and biblical ideas intersected in interesting ways.

The Book of Mormon presents a detailed narrative of the origins, lives, messages, and covenant focus of an ancient people with the purpose to bring souls to Jesus Christ.

That conclusion, however, depends on a numerous assumptions. It assumes the Book of Abraham must be judged only by modern academic translation standards. It assumes the surviving papyrus represents the entire source of the text. It also assumes Joseph Smith was working from nineteenth century knowledge rather than revelation. Because so many assumptions are required to dismiss the text, a better approach is to examine the Book of Abraham itself.

When we look at the content of the Book of Abraham, does it read like a nineteenth century creation, or does it reflect ideas, structures, and knowledge rooted in the ancient world?

The evidence consistently points in one direction. The Book of Abraham reads like an ancient record.

Abraham Creation Account Closer to Hebrew than King James Bible

The Book of Abraham includes a creation account similar to Genesis, but with clear and meaningful differences. These differences are not random. They consistently align more closely with the underlying Hebrew concepts found in the biblical text than with the English wording of the King James Bible.

I reviewed these differences with my assistant, ChatGPT, comparing Genesis 1 and 2 with Abraham 4 and 5 alongside the Hebrew text. The result was striking. In multiple places, the Book of Abraham preserves ancient Hebrew ideas that are muted or obscured in the King James translation.

Joseph Smith did later study some Hebrew. A Hebrew instructor was hired in 1836. However, the Book of Abraham translation began before that time, and there is no record showing Joseph ever achieved fluency in Hebrew. The question naturally follows. If Joseph Smith was inventing the Book of Abraham, how did he consistently land closer to ancient Hebrew meanings than the Bible translation he already owned?

Below are key examples.

Ancient Language and Cultural Understanding

Language is one of the hardest things to fake. Meanings shift over time, especially in ancient languages where words carry layered ideas. Guessing correctly once might be luck. Guessing correctly across multiple independent concepts points to something else.

The Book of Abraham repeatedly aligns with older conceptual meanings rather than later theological assumptions.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein is a trained Egyptologist with a Ph.D. in Egyptology from UCLA and decades of academic work in ancient Near Eastern studies. He has directed archaeological excavations in Egypt and taught ancient scripture and Egyptian religion at the university level. He has explained that the Book of Abraham contains ancient concepts and cultural details that were not understood or available in Joseph Smith’s day.

In his book Let’s Talk About the Book of Abraham, he presents multiple examples where the likelihood of Joseph Smith correctly guessing these details would be extremely small. The cumulative accuracy of so many ancient elements makes coincidence virtually impossible.

Words Joseph Smith Didn’t Know

Shinehah

One example is the word Shinehah, which the Book of Abraham identifies as referring to the sun and its movement. At the time the Book of Abraham was published, Egyptologists had not identified an Egyptian word with this meaning.

Later research into Egyptian texts from periods associated with Abraham revealed a term pronounced Shaneha or Shinehah that referred to the sun’s course across the sky. This was not the standard Egyptian word used in later eras. The match is specific in meaning and time period.

Joseph Smith did not have access to Egyptian grammar, period-specific vocabulary, or comparative linguistic databases. These connections were identified only after those tools became available.

Kolob and Ancient Astronomy

Kolob is often dismissed as a made-up word, but its description in the Book of Abraham fits ancient astronomy and theology in ways Joseph Smith could not have known. In Abraham chapter 3, Kolob is the greatest governing star, nearest to God, and central in authority. Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern cultures used stars to represent rank, power, and divine order. Kolob functions exactly this way. It is not presented as a scientific claim, but as a symbolic teaching tool that connects the heavens to divine governance.

Even the meaning of the name is significant. The Book of Abraham explains Kolob as being “near unto God,” which aligns with an ancient Semitic root meaning “to be near” or “to draw close,” found across early Semitic and Egyptian-related languages. This kind of name-based wordplay was common anciently but unknown in Joseph Smith’s day. The alignment between the word, its meaning, and its role strongly suggests an ancient framework rather than a nineteenth-century invention.

Geography Unknown in Joseph Smith’s Day

The Book of Abraham refers to the Plains of Olishem, a location not mentioned in the Bible or nineteenth century reference works. For many years, critics assumed the name was invented.

But, ater discoveries of Akkadian texts identified a place called Ulisum in the region associated with Abraham’s early life. In Semitic languages, shifts between O and U and between S and SH are common. The linguistic match is reasonable and expected.

More importantly, the geographic placement aligns with the Book of Abraham narrative. The correspondence is linguistic, chronological, and geographic.

If Joseph was just making up the Book of Abraham he guessed not only the right unknown area, but put it in the right geographic location.

Human Sacrifice and Religious Conflict

The Book of Abraham describes an attempt to kill Abraham because he rejected local gods. For much of the twentieth century, Egyptology textbooks taught that Egyptians did not practice human sacrifice. This became a frequent criticism of the text.

Later research showed that human sacrifice did occur in Egypt, particularly in religious or cultic contexts. Evidence places these practices during the general time frame associated with Abraham. The method described in the Book of Abraham, killing followed by burning, matches known ancient procedures.

The historical context fits the narrative.

Abraham Traditions Verified by Apocryphal Sources

The Book of Abraham includes many details that are not included in the Bible, but these details are confirmed in later Jewish and Islamic traditions. These include accounts of Abraham opposing idolatry, teaching religious knowledge, and facing attempts on his life.

Here’s a list of a few of them and the Apocryphal Sources that tell the same story:

Abraham Nearly Sacrificed by His Father

The Book of Abraham describes Abraham being targeted for sacrifice because he rejected idolatry. Critics claim this story is invented because it does not appear in the bible.

Later-discovered apocryphal sources including the Apocalypse of Abraham, Genesis Rabbah, Book of Jubilees, and the Book of Jasher describe Abraham’s father as an idol worshipper who either participated in or permitted the attempt on Abraham’s life. Several of these sources describe Abraham being bound and nearly executed for rejecting false gods, often involving fire or ritual violence.

These texts were not available in English during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Many were not translated or widely studied until decades or even centuries later. The consistency between the Book of Abraham and these independent ancient traditions strongly suggests Joseph Smith was not inventing a story but restoring an account that had been preserved outside the Bible.

Abraham as an Astronomer

Abraham Chapter 3 tells us that Abraham possessed advanced knowledge of the stars and taught astronomy to the Egyptians. Ancient sources in Josephus, Philo, Pseudo-Eupolemus, and the Book of Jubilees also describe Abraham as an astronomer. They describe Abraham explaining the order of the heavens as part of his religious instruction. Once again, Joseph Smith had no access to these ancient sources. The repeated confirmation of Abraham’s astronomical role across independent traditions makes coincidence an unlikely explanation.

Abraham Prophesying a Famine in Chaldea

The Book of Abraham places a famine in Abraham’s homeland as a key reason for his departure. While Genesis briefly mentions famine later in Abraham’s life, it does not associate it with Chaldea or Abraham’s departure.

The Book of Jubilees, Genesis Rabbah, and other rabbinic traditions describe Abraham foreseeing or praying about a famine in his homeland, which prompted his migration. Some accounts even state that Abraham’s prayers affected the famine itself.

These sources and traditions were not available to Joseph Smith. Many of them were not discovered until after Joseph Smith had been dead for a more than a hundred years. They were preserved in texts and oral traditions outside the biblical canon and were identified later through comparative religious studies. The Book of Abraham aligns with this broader tradition rather than relying solely on biblical material. So once again, If Joseph Smith was just making things up, why were so many of these additions verified by other sources?

An Ancient Literary Form

The Book of Abraham is written as a first-person life account. Abraham introduces himself, explains his lineage, describes threats to his life, and recounts divine guidance and covenant promises.

This autobiographical covenant narrative was common in the ancient Near East but was not recognized as a literary form in Joseph Smith’s lifetime.

In 1939, scholars discovered the Idrimi inscription, an ancient autobiography from the second millennium BC. Idrimi’s account mirrors the same structure seen in the Book of Abraham. Lineage, exile, divine communication, covenant, and future promises appear in the same progression.

Joseph Smith could not have patterned his writing after a form scholars had not yet identified.

Internal Structure and Ancient Writing Pattern

The Book of Abraham is organized around expansion. It begins with Abraham’s personal relationship with God. It then expands outward to family, future generations, humanity, the heavens, and finally the Creation itself.

Each layer builds on the previous one. The structure is deliberate and consistent across chapters.

This expansion pattern matches ancient Near Eastern writing practices. Meaning develops outward from a chosen individual to the cosmos. This type of narrative design was not taught or recognized in nineteenth century religious writing, which focused on sermons or verse-by-verse commentary.

Joseph Smith had no known exposure to ancient literary theory or covenant expansion models. Yet the Book of Abraham reflects them naturally.

Conclusion

If Joseph Smith were guessing, we would expect obvious anachronisms. Instead, we see consistency across language, geography, theology, structure, and tradition.

Independent lines of evidence converge on the same conclusion. The Book of Abraham reflects ancient ways of thinking, writing, and preserving religious memory.

How did a nineteenth century farm boy produced a text that repeatedly aligns with ancient language, culture, stories, geography, and literary structure that would not be known for decades?

The simplest explanation is that the Book of Abraham is in fact from an ancient text and that Joseph Smith received this text by revelation. More evidence will be explained in the sections on regarding the individual facimiles.

The Rosetta Stone – The Ancient Relic Not Related to The Book of Abraham

January 30, 2026

Book of Abraham Facsimile 1

January 29, 2026

Understanding What The Book of Abraham Facimilies Are

January 23, 2026

Book of Abraham – Evidence Joseph Smith Could Not Have Known

January 22, 2026

The GAEL Project – Pre-Temple Doctrine Coding?

January 16, 2026

Doctrine of the Book of Abraham

January 14, 2026

What is the Book of Abraham?

January 6, 2026

That conclusion, however, depends on a numerous assumptions. It assumes the Book of Abraham must be judged only by modern academic translation standards. It assumes the surviving papyrus represents the entire source of the text. It also assumes Joseph Smith was working from nineteenth century knowledge rather than revelation. Because so many assumptions are required to dismiss the text, a better approach is to examine the Book of Abraham itself.

When we look at the content of the Book of Abraham, does it read like a nineteenth century creation, or does it reflect ideas, structures, and knowledge rooted in the ancient world?

The evidence consistently points in one direction. The Book of Abraham reads like an ancient record.

Abraham Creation Account Closer to Hebrew than King James Bible

The Book of Abraham includes a creation account similar to Genesis, but with clear and meaningful differences. These differences are not random. They consistently align more closely with the underlying Hebrew concepts found in the biblical text than with the English wording of the King James Bible.

I reviewed these differences with my assistant, ChatGPT, comparing Genesis 1 and 2 with Abraham 4 and 5 alongside the Hebrew text. The result was striking. In multiple places, the Book of Abraham preserves ancient Hebrew ideas that are muted or obscured in the King James translation.

Joseph Smith did later study some Hebrew. A Hebrew instructor was hired in 1836. However, the Book of Abraham translation began before that time, and there is no record showing Joseph ever achieved fluency in Hebrew. The question naturally follows. If Joseph Smith was inventing the Book of Abraham, how did he consistently land closer to ancient Hebrew meanings than the Bible translation he already owned?

Below are key examples.

Ancient Language and Cultural Understanding

Language is one of the hardest things to fake. Meanings shift over time, especially in ancient languages where words carry layered ideas. Guessing correctly once might be luck. Guessing correctly across multiple independent concepts points to something else.

The Book of Abraham repeatedly aligns with older conceptual meanings rather than later theological assumptions.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein is a trained Egyptologist with a Ph.D. in Egyptology from UCLA and decades of academic work in ancient Near Eastern studies. He has directed archaeological excavations in Egypt and taught ancient scripture and Egyptian religion at the university level. He has explained that the Book of Abraham contains ancient concepts and cultural details that were not understood or available in Joseph Smith’s day.

In his book Let’s Talk About the Book of Abraham, he presents multiple examples where the likelihood of Joseph Smith correctly guessing these details would be extremely small. The cumulative accuracy of so many ancient elements makes coincidence virtually impossible.

Words Joseph Smith Didn’t Know

Shinehah

One example is the word Shinehah, which the Book of Abraham identifies as referring to the sun and its movement. At the time the Book of Abraham was published, Egyptologists had not identified an Egyptian word with this meaning.

Later research into Egyptian texts from periods associated with Abraham revealed a term pronounced Shaneha or Shinehah that referred to the sun’s course across the sky. This was not the standard Egyptian word used in later eras. The match is specific in meaning and time period.

Joseph Smith did not have access to Egyptian grammar, period-specific vocabulary, or comparative linguistic databases. These connections were identified only after those tools became available.

Kolob and Ancient Astronomy

Kolob is often dismissed as a made-up word, but its description in the Book of Abraham fits ancient astronomy and theology in ways Joseph Smith could not have known. In Abraham chapter 3, Kolob is the greatest governing star, nearest to God, and central in authority. Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern cultures used stars to represent rank, power, and divine order. Kolob functions exactly this way. It is not presented as a scientific claim, but as a symbolic teaching tool that connects the heavens to divine governance.

Even the meaning of the name is significant. The Book of Abraham explains Kolob as being “near unto God,” which aligns with an ancient Semitic root meaning “to be near” or “to draw close,” found across early Semitic and Egyptian-related languages. This kind of name-based wordplay was common anciently but unknown in Joseph Smith’s day. The alignment between the word, its meaning, and its role strongly suggests an ancient framework rather than a nineteenth-century invention.

Geography Unknown in Joseph Smith’s Day

The Book of Abraham refers to the Plains of Olishem, a location not mentioned in the Bible or nineteenth century reference works. For many years, critics assumed the name was invented.

But, ater discoveries of Akkadian texts identified a place called Ulisum in the region associated with Abraham’s early life. In Semitic languages, shifts between O and U and between S and SH are common. The linguistic match is reasonable and expected.

More importantly, the geographic placement aligns with the Book of Abraham narrative. The correspondence is linguistic, chronological, and geographic.

If Joseph was just making up the Book of Abraham he guessed not only the right unknown area, but put it in the right geographic location.

Human Sacrifice and Religious Conflict

The Book of Abraham describes an attempt to kill Abraham because he rejected local gods. For much of the twentieth century, Egyptology textbooks taught that Egyptians did not practice human sacrifice. This became a frequent criticism of the text.

Later research showed that human sacrifice did occur in Egypt, particularly in religious or cultic contexts. Evidence places these practices during the general time frame associated with Abraham. The method described in the Book of Abraham, killing followed by burning, matches known ancient procedures.

The historical context fits the narrative.

Abraham Traditions Verified by Apocryphal Sources

The Book of Abraham includes many details that are not included in the Bible, but these details are confirmed in later Jewish and Islamic traditions. These include accounts of Abraham opposing idolatry, teaching religious knowledge, and facing attempts on his life.

Here’s a list of a few of them and the Apocryphal Sources that tell the same story:

Abraham Nearly Sacrificed by His Father

The Book of Abraham describes Abraham being targeted for sacrifice because he rejected idolatry. Critics claim this story is invented because it does not appear in the bible.

Later-discovered apocryphal sources including the Apocalypse of Abraham, Genesis Rabbah, Book of Jubilees, and the Book of Jasher describe Abraham’s father as an idol worshipper who either participated in or permitted the attempt on Abraham’s life. Several of these sources describe Abraham being bound and nearly executed for rejecting false gods, often involving fire or ritual violence.

These texts were not available in English during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Many were not translated or widely studied until decades or even centuries later. The consistency between the Book of Abraham and these independent ancient traditions strongly suggests Joseph Smith was not inventing a story but restoring an account that had been preserved outside the Bible.

Abraham as an Astronomer

Abraham Chapter 3 tells us that Abraham possessed advanced knowledge of the stars and taught astronomy to the Egyptians. Ancient sources in Josephus, Philo, Pseudo-Eupolemus, and the Book of Jubilees also describe Abraham as an astronomer. They describe Abraham explaining the order of the heavens as part of his religious instruction. Once again, Joseph Smith had no access to these ancient sources. The repeated confirmation of Abraham’s astronomical role across independent traditions makes coincidence an unlikely explanation.

Abraham Prophesying a Famine in Chaldea

The Book of Abraham places a famine in Abraham’s homeland as a key reason for his departure. While Genesis briefly mentions famine later in Abraham’s life, it does not associate it with Chaldea or Abraham’s departure.

The Book of Jubilees, Genesis Rabbah, and other rabbinic traditions describe Abraham foreseeing or praying about a famine in his homeland, which prompted his migration. Some accounts even state that Abraham’s prayers affected the famine itself.

These sources and traditions were not available to Joseph Smith. Many of them were not discovered until after Joseph Smith had been dead for a more than a hundred years. They were preserved in texts and oral traditions outside the biblical canon and were identified later through comparative religious studies. The Book of Abraham aligns with this broader tradition rather than relying solely on biblical material. So once again, If Joseph Smith was just making things up, why were so many of these additions verified by other sources?

An Ancient Literary Form

The Book of Abraham is written as a first-person life account. Abraham introduces himself, explains his lineage, describes threats to his life, and recounts divine guidance and covenant promises.

This autobiographical covenant narrative was common in the ancient Near East but was not recognized as a literary form in Joseph Smith’s lifetime.

In 1939, scholars discovered the Idrimi inscription, an ancient autobiography from the second millennium BC. Idrimi’s account mirrors the same structure seen in the Book of Abraham. Lineage, exile, divine communication, covenant, and future promises appear in the same progression.

Joseph Smith could not have patterned his writing after a form scholars had not yet identified.

Internal Structure and Ancient Writing Pattern

The Book of Abraham is organized around expansion. It begins with Abraham’s personal relationship with God. It then expands outward to family, future generations, humanity, the heavens, and finally the Creation itself.

Each layer builds on the previous one. The structure is deliberate and consistent across chapters.

This expansion pattern matches ancient Near Eastern writing practices. Meaning develops outward from a chosen individual to the cosmos. This type of narrative design was not taught or recognized in nineteenth century religious writing, which focused on sermons or verse-by-verse commentary.

Joseph Smith had no known exposure to ancient literary theory or covenant expansion models. Yet the Book of Abraham reflects them naturally.

Conclusion

If Joseph Smith were guessing, we would expect obvious anachronisms. Instead, we see consistency across language, geography, theology, structure, and tradition.

Independent lines of evidence converge on the same conclusion. The Book of Abraham reflects ancient ways of thinking, writing, and preserving religious memory.

How did a nineteenth century farm boy produced a text that repeatedly aligns with ancient language, culture, stories, geography, and literary structure that would not be known for decades?

The simplest explanation is that the Book of Abraham is in fact from an ancient text and that Joseph Smith received this text by revelation. More evidence will be explained in the sections on regarding the individual facimiles.

The Rosetta Stone – The Ancient Relic Not Related to The Book of Abraham

January 30, 2026

Book of Abraham Facsimile 1

January 29, 2026

Understanding What The Book of Abraham Facimilies Are

January 23, 2026

Book of Abraham – Evidence Joseph Smith Could Not Have Known

January 22, 2026

The GAEL Project – Pre-Temple Doctrine Coding?

January 16, 2026

Doctrine of the Book of Abraham

January 14, 2026

What is the Book of Abraham?

January 6, 2026

One of the strongest evidences of Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling is the Book of Moses, which revealed expansive doctrine and ancient history long before comparable apocryphal sources were available in English, many of which later confirmed the same ideas Joseph restored by revelation.

What is the Book of Moses?

One common misunderstanding in the Church is the assumption that the Book of Moses was simply part of Joseph Smith’s Bible translation. The historical record shows that it’s more complex than that. What we now call the Book of Moses is made up of multiple revelatory texts received at different times.

Revelation Given to Joseph Smith the Revelator: Visions of Moses

What is now Moses chapter 1 was originally received as an independent revelation. The earliest manuscript is titled “A Revelation given to Joseph Smith the Revelator, June 1830.” This revelation was received before Joseph Smith began his formal Bible revision and was not initially connected to Genesis. It is the record of a vision given to Moses, including his confrontation with Satan and a revelation of God’s work and creations. Only later was this text attached as an introduction to the Genesis material and designated as Moses 1.

Genesis — A Translation of the Bible

The middle portion of what we now have as the Book of Moses, roughly chapters 2 through 6, does come from Joseph Smith’s work on the Bible revision. However, this material goes far beyond clarifying language or correcting wording. These chapters include substantial expansions of the Genesis narrative, introducing doctrines, dialogue, and events that are not present in the biblical text. The revisions appear to reflect revelation drawn from a more complete or earlier source than the Genesis account preserved in modern Bibles, rather than a simple linguistic translation.

Vision of Enoch — A Revelation Concerning Enoch

The Vision of Enoch, now found primarily in Moses chapters 6 and 7, appears to function as another self-contained revelation embedded within the Genesis revision. This material dramatically expands the brief biblical references to Enoch into a detailed prophetic narrative, including Enoch’s ministry, visions, the establishment of Zion, and God’s interaction with humanity. Portions of the Enoch revelation were published in Church newspapers in 1832, more than a decade before the the rest of the Book of Moses.

Later Compilation as the Book of Moses

These distinct revelations and revision texts were not originally presented as a single book. They were later compiled editorially as part of the Pearl of Great Price by Franklin D. Richards in 1851 while he was serving in England. Joseph Smith himself never created or titled a unified “Book of Moses.” The book as we have it today is the result of later organization, bringing together independent revelations and Genesis expansions that share a common ancient narrative focus.

Was the Book of Moses from an Ancient Record?

Is the Book of Moses an actual ancient record Joseph Smith was translating, or was it simply additional insight he received while translating the Bible?

According to research by Noel Reynolds and Jeff Lindsay, the Book of Mormon contains more than a hundred references to phrases found in the Book of Moses that are not found together in any other book of scripture. This raises an important question. Either Joseph Smith reused the same phrases he personally favored when translating the Book of Mormon, or the prophets in the Book of Mormon were quoting from a scriptural record they already possessed. If these phrases were merely Joseph’s personal speaking style or favorite wording, why do they not appear consistently in the Doctrine and Covenants?

There is strong evidence that the Book of Mormon was referencing this record. This very first of Joseph Smith’s non–Book of Mormon translations could represent a translation of a portion of the Brass Plates, a translation of part of the Book of Lehi (from the lost 116 pages), or large quotations preserved in the Book of Nephi that were drawn from the Brass Plates in the same way Nephi inserted lengthy Isaiah passages.

Why Do We Need the Book of Moses?

In the Book of Mormon, Nephi describes the contents of the Brass Plates and also sees a vision of the latter-day Bible. He says:

1 Nephi 13:24-26

Behold it is a book, and it is a record of the Jews, which contains the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel; and it also contains many of the prophecies of the holy prophets; and it is a record like unto the engravings which are upon the plates of brass, save there are not so many; nevertheless, they contain the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel; wherefore, they are of great worth unto the Gentiles.

And the angel of the Lord said unto me: Thou hast beheld that the book proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew; and when it proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew it contained the fullness of the gospel of the Lord, of whom the twelve apostles bear record; and they bear record according to the truth which is in the Lamb of God.

Wherefore, these things go forth from the Jews in purity unto the Gentiles, according to the truth which is in God.

And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.

From Nephi we learn that the Old Testament we have today is missing much of the fulness and many of the plain and precious truths when compared to the Brass Plates he possessed.

Two major differences between the Book of Mormon record and the Old Testament record—both covering the same early time period—stand out clearly. The Book of Mormon is explicit and direct in its references to Jesus Christ, His mission, and His Atonement, whereas the Bible is far less plain and apparent. In the Bible, references to Christ are often symbolic, presented through types and shadows, or buried in passages that are difficult for regular readers like me to fully understand, such as Isaiah. Additionally, the Bible contains far fewer direct references to Satan, the adversary, and his role in God’s plan.

Why Would this Book of Moses Translation Be So Urgent

With so much happening in the establishment of a new church, and with the Book of Mormon already published, why would God immediately have Joseph begin translating additional scripture—especially scripture that would not be widely available to Church members during Joseph’s lifetime?

The initial and primary reason Joseph needed to translate the Bible, I believe, was for his own study and instruction. A significant portion of the revelations found in the Doctrine and Covenants came as a direct result of questions Joseph had while studying the Bible while performing this “translation work.”

If the Book of Moses draws from the broader “Book of Mormon” record—that is, the full Nephite record rather than what we currently have—it fits well within this framework. We know that the first part of our Book of Mormon comes from the Small Plates of Nephi, while Mormon’s abridgment does not begin until Mosiah.

This makes sense because what we currently have in the Bible is missing several elements needed to fully understand what both the Book of Mormon and Christ Himself call the fulness of the gospel. The Book of Moses restores and expands doctrine that is either absent or only hinted at in Genesis.

The Book of Moses shows that men and women understood the plan of salvation from the beginning. It provides a clearer view of premortal life, including God’s work, Satan’s rebellion, and the central role of agency. It reframes the Creation and the Fall as purposeful steps rather than mistakes and places the Atonement of Christ at the center of God’s plan from the very beginning. The Book of Moses also explains God’s stated purpose for creation, humanity’s relationship to Him, and the covenant structure through which salvation operates. Many of these restored teachings form the doctrinal foundation for later revealed ordinances and covenants that are central to temple worship today.

According to Don Bradley, the Book of Moses is THE KEY to Understanding who we are so that we can understand the Bible.

Part of the Lost 116 Pages?

If what we have as the Book of Moses was included in the “lost 116 pages” helps explain several things. While this doctrine was important—and while the Lord wanted us to understand what is missing from Genesis—Joseph could not translate it as part of the Book of Mormon after the loss of the manuscript. Doing so would have allowed a forger to claim that Joseph had copied from the stolen pages, similar to later accusations involving the Solomon Spaulding manuscript or View of the Hebrews.

Although the Book of Moses was translated in 1830, it was not publicly published for more than a decade. Portions of Moses were first published in 1842 in the Times and Seasons. The full record was not published until 1852 in England, and the Book of Moses was not canonized as part of official LDS scripture until 1880—long after whoever possessed the lost 116 pages was dead and any plan to discredit the Church using them

Doctrine the Book of Moses Reveals

The doctrine found in the Book of Moses is remarkably deep—far beyond anything Joseph Smith could reasonably have produced in1830. Moses 1 was revealed when the Church was barely two months old and consisted of only a small number of members. At that point, Joseph and the early Saints did not yet fully understand baptism by divine authority, priesthood offices, there were no bishops, temple covenants, sealing keys, or the eternal nature of families. Core doctrines such as the full plan of salvation, the non-traditional nature of hell, and the three degrees of glory had not yet been revealed.

Yet in this early period, Joseph received a revelation with sweeping theological claims; multiple inhabited worlds, God’s work and glory centered on humanity’s eternal progression, and connection through a personal, relational God. He received doctrine that directly contradicted the dominant theology of nineteenth-century Christianity.

Historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmott explains:

“The doctrines that are in it are so far beyond where Joseph is in 1829 and 1830 that I’m telling you, as a historian—as a Joseph Smith historian—if the Book of Moses had never been published, if five years ago we found a manuscript called ‘The Revelation given to Joseph the Revelator,’ and it was about Moses and didn’t have a date on it, all of us would conclude that this revelation had to have been received sometime in the 1840s, probably 1843 or 1844.”

Joseph Smith was young and uneducated. He was still learning how to organize and lead a church. Yet he received a revelation containing sophisticated, expansive doctrine that included knowledge and doctrine that would only be understood by church members years later through additional revelation. The Book of Moses stands as powerful evidence that this material did not originate from Joseph’s intellect, but came by revelation, through the gift and power of God.

30 Doctrines Restored in the Book of Moses

1. Old Testament people knew the plan of salvation from the beginning.
   Adam and Eve were taught about Christ, the Fall, redemption, and resurrection early. The Old Testament Prophets Understood this plan.

2. God revealed the plan before mortality began.
   God explained His purpose and plan before sending His children to earth.

3. Humans existed as spirits before birth.
   People lived as intelligences in God’s presence before coming to earth.

4. God personally knew His children before they were born.
   Individuals were known, loved, and called by God prior to mortality.

5. Some were chosen for specific roles before birth.
   Prophets were foreordained because of premortal faithfulness.

6. Jesus Christ was chosen as Savior before the world was created.
   Christ’s role was established from the beginning, not as a reaction to the Fall.

7. Satan rebelled in premortality and was cast out.
   The Book of Moses explains who Satan is, where he came from, and why he opposes God.

8. Agency was the central issue in the premortal council.
   God’s plan preserved choice, while Satan’s plan sought control.

9. Mortality was entered by choice, not by accident.
   People accepted the risks and challenges of earthly life knowingly.

10. Adam and Eve were taught the gospel directly.
    They received commandments, instruction, and promises from God.

11. The Fall was a necessary step, not a mistake.
    Eve understood that the Fall allowed for children, growth, and joy.

12. Adam and Eve understood good and evil as part of progression.
    Moral growth required experience, not ignorance.

13. Sacrifice was taught as a symbol of Christ’s atonement.
    Adam was explicitly taught why sacrifice mattered and what it represented.

14. Animal sacrifice pointed forward to Jesus Christ.
    The shedding of blood was a teaching tool about the future Redeemer.

15. Adam knew about resurrection and eternal life.
    He rejoiced that he would one day see God again “in the flesh.”

16. The gospel was taught within a temple-centric covenant structure.
    Early religion involved covenants, obedience, and promised blessings.

17. Adam functioned as a priest and teacher.
    He taught his children gospel principles and religious practices.

18. Daughters were present from the beginning.
    Early families included daughters who played real roles in humanity’s growth.

19. Satan actively taught false religion.
    He appeared personally and instructed Cain, leading to corrupted worship.

20. Cain’s rebellion was taught, not accidental.
    His offering failed because it followed Satan’s instruction, not God’s.

21. Secret combinations began early.
    Organized wickedness started with Cain and continued through generations.

22. God warned humanity before judgment.
    Destruction never came without preaching, opportunity, and warning.

23. Enoch was called as a prophet to confront widespread wickedness.
    His ministry shows how God responds when society becomes corrupt.

24. Zion existed as a real society.
    Enoch’s people lived in unity, righteousness, and covenant obedience.

25. Translation was a legitimate outcome of righteousness.
    Enoch and his people were taken into God’s presence without death.

26. God’s judgments were just and measured.
    Separation and consequences followed long periods of mercy and teaching.

27. Mortality was designed as a proving ground.
    Life on earth is meant to develop character and faith so that we can receive the greatest blessings from God.

28. Suffering has purpose within God’s plan.
    Hardship is part of growth, not evidence of abandonment.

29. Eternal family relationships were central to God’s promises.
    Posterity and continuation mattered from the beginning.

30. The Book of Moses restores the missing framework of Genesis.
    It explains why the Bible assumes doctrines it no longer fully contains.

Voices Out of the Dust

The translation of the Book of Moses is valuable because it helps us better understand the nature of God and His plan in ways that the Old Testament alone cannot. It helps us understand that other dispensations also understood the fullness of the Gospel and the Role of our Savior. It also serves as powerful evidence that Joseph Smith was a prophet.

Dozens of apocryphal texts have since been discovered that contain many of the same doctrines, themes, and conclusions found in the Book of Moses. Joseph Smith did not have access to these records—many of which surfaced long after his death—and yet he restored doctrines that align with them in remarkable ways.

Restored Doctrines in the Book of Moses and Apocryphal Parallels

Jonah Barnes Book The Lost Gems of Genesis highlights many of these doctrines taught clearly in the Book of Moses that are missing or undeveloped in Genesis, along with ancient sources that independently preserve the same ideas that Joseph Smith had no access too.

Apocryphal Verification That Demonstrate Joseph Smith’s Prophetic Wisdom

Not every apocryphal text should be treated as scripture. Apocrypha are ancient Jewish and early Christian writings that were preserved outside the biblical canon, often because they were not widely circulated or were excluded during later canon decisions. While they are not authoritative scripture, many preserve early religious ideas that were once more widely known.

The value of these texts is that they preserve older religious memory. When the same doctrines appear across multiple ancient sources, written in different places and times, it shows those ideas were not late inventions.

The Book of Moses restores many of these doctrines decades before most of these apocryphal texts were available in English. It places them in the correct early setting and explains gaps left by Genesis. The fact that these same ideas later appear in ancient sources Joseph Smith could not have accessed is strong evidence that he was restoring lost material rather than creating new theology.

Here are five of the most powerful pieces of evidence.

The Missing Sacrificial Sermon Given to Adam

Genesis shows Adam offering sacrifice, but it never explains why, and it never ties it to a future Messiah in a straightforward way. The Book of Moses does. In Moses 5, an angel teaches Adam that sacrifice is a “similitude” of the Son of God. That is not just a minor detail. It is the doctrinal engine that turns sacrifice from a random ancient ritual into a gospel teaching tool. What makes this stand out is that the same “missing sermon” shows up in the Egyptian Life of Adam and Eve, where Adam is taught that as he has shed blood, God will someday shed His own blood when He becomes flesh. That is a very specific match in theme and purpose, not a vague overlap.

Adam’s Knowledge of a Physical Resurrection

Moses 5:10 has Adam rejoicing that he will “again in the flesh” see God. That is a big claim for the earliest pages of scripture. Genesis does not give Adam that theology in a direct way. Jonah’s argument is that Joseph’s version only sounds “too advanced” because Genesis has been stripped down. In the Egyptian Life of Adam and Eve, the resurrection message is tied to a prophecy of God being laid in a rock and rising again after three days. When that context exists, Adam’s joy in the Book of Moses stops looking random and starts looking expected.

Eve’s Explanation of the Fall as Necessary, Not Accidental

Genesis tells the story of the Fall, but it does not linger on the doctrinal “why” in plain terms. The Book of Moses does, and it puts the core conclusion in Eve’s mouth: without the Fall, there would be no children and no real knowledge of good and evil. Jonah points out that this is not just a modern LDS reading forced onto the text. The Armenian History of the Transgression of Adam and Eve preserves the same kind of reasoning from Eve, including the idea that the consequences of their choice lead to light rather than permanent darkness. That is the same conclusion Joseph restores, and it shows up outside his world.

Satan as an Active Teacher of False Worship

Genesis gives very little about Satan’s method. You get the serpent, then you get Cain, and the story moves fast. The Book of Moses slows down at exactly the spot where the doctrine matters. Satan is not just a symbol. He appears, teaches, commands, and twists worship. Cain’s offering is not rejected for arbitrary reasons. Cain is following corrupted instruction. Jonah’s point is that this is how ancient texts often frame the story: Satan shows up “as a man” and actively manipulates the family, which is echoed in the Egyptian Life of Adam and Eve, and reinforced through other Jewish and Near Eastern traditions that treat Cain’s rebellion as taught and cultivated.

The Suppressed Role of Daughters in Early Humanity

Genesis barely acknowledges daughters in the early generations, which makes the family story feel incomplete. The Book of Moses insists they were there, and that the family actually functioned like a growing society from the beginning. Jonah treats this as another example of restoration, not invention. Multiple sources like Jasher, Jubilees, and the Book of the Bee preserve names and narratives about early daughters and their roles. Even if a reader does not treat those texts as scripture, the shared memory is still significant: Joseph’s account aligns with a broader ancient tradition that Genesis does not preserve in full.

Conclusion

The Book of Moses provides some of the clearest evidence that Joseph Smith was restoring lost doctrine rather than inventing new theology. It fills major gaps in Genesis by explaining why sacrifice mattered, how the earliest people understood Christ, the purpose of the Fall, the reality of resurrection, and Satan’s active role in opposing God’s plan. These teachings are not introduced as later developments but are presented as foundational knowledge from the beginning.

What makes this restoration especially significant is that many of these same doctrines appear independently in ancient apocryphal texts. While these writings are not scripture, they preserve older religious memory that aligns closely with the Book of Moses. Joseph Smith restored these ideas decades before most of these sources were translated or accessible, and he restored them in the correct narrative setting.

Taken together, the Book of Moses strengthens the internal consistency of the Bible, explains doctrines that had been lost, and aligns with ancient traditions Joseph Smith could not have known. For readers who want to explore these connections in greater depth, Jonah Barnes’ book The Lost Gems of Genesis is a really fun book that discusses these parallels and their implications.

One of the strongest evidences of Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling is the Book of Moses, which revealed expansive doctrine and ancient history long before comparable apocryphal sources were available in English, many of which later confirmed the same ideas Joseph restored by revelation.

What is the Book of Moses?

One common misunderstanding in the Church is the assumption that the Book of Moses was simply part of Joseph Smith’s Bible translation. The historical record shows that it’s more complex than that. What we now call the Book of Moses is made up of multiple revelatory texts received at different times.

Revelation Given to Joseph Smith the Revelator: Visions of Moses

What is now Moses chapter 1 was originally received as an independent revelation. The earliest manuscript is titled “A Revelation given to Joseph Smith the Revelator, June 1830.” This revelation was received before Joseph Smith began his formal Bible revision and was not initially connected to Genesis. It is the record of a vision given to Moses, including his confrontation with Satan and a revelation of God’s work and creations. Only later was this text attached as an introduction to the Genesis material and designated as Moses 1.

Genesis — A Translation of the Bible

The middle portion of what we now have as the Book of Moses, roughly chapters 2 through 6, does come from Joseph Smith’s work on the Bible revision. However, this material goes far beyond clarifying language or correcting wording. These chapters include substantial expansions of the Genesis narrative, introducing doctrines, dialogue, and events that are not present in the biblical text. The revisions appear to reflect revelation drawn from a more complete or earlier source than the Genesis account preserved in modern Bibles, rather than a simple linguistic translation.

Vision of Enoch — A Revelation Concerning Enoch

The Vision of Enoch, now found primarily in Moses chapters 6 and 7, appears to function as another self-contained revelation embedded within the Genesis revision. This material dramatically expands the brief biblical references to Enoch into a detailed prophetic narrative, including Enoch’s ministry, visions, the establishment of Zion, and God’s interaction with humanity. Portions of the Enoch revelation were published in Church newspapers in 1832, more than a decade before the the rest of the Book of Moses.

Later Compilation as the Book of Moses

These distinct revelations and revision texts were not originally presented as a single book. They were later compiled editorially as part of the Pearl of Great Price by Franklin D. Richards in 1851 while he was serving in England. Joseph Smith himself never created or titled a unified “Book of Moses.” The book as we have it today is the result of later organization, bringing together independent revelations and Genesis expansions that share a common ancient narrative focus.

Was the Book of Moses from an Ancient Record?

Is the Book of Moses an actual ancient record Joseph Smith was translating, or was it simply additional insight he received while translating the Bible?

According to research by Noel Reynolds and Jeff Lindsay, the Book of Mormon contains more than a hundred references to phrases found in the Book of Moses that are not found together in any other book of scripture. This raises an important question. Either Joseph Smith reused the same phrases he personally favored when translating the Book of Mormon, or the prophets in the Book of Mormon were quoting from a scriptural record they already possessed. If these phrases were merely Joseph’s personal speaking style or favorite wording, why do they not appear consistently in the Doctrine and Covenants?

There is strong evidence that the Book of Mormon was referencing this record. This very first of Joseph Smith’s non–Book of Mormon translations could represent a translation of a portion of the Brass Plates, a translation of part of the Book of Lehi (from the lost 116 pages), or large quotations preserved in the Book of Nephi that were drawn from the Brass Plates in the same way Nephi inserted lengthy Isaiah passages.

Why Do We Need the Book of Moses?

In the Book of Mormon, Nephi describes the contents of the Brass Plates and also sees a vision of the latter-day Bible. He says:

1 Nephi 13:24-26

Behold it is a book, and it is a record of the Jews, which contains the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel; and it also contains many of the prophecies of the holy prophets; and it is a record like unto the engravings which are upon the plates of brass, save there are not so many; nevertheless, they contain the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel; wherefore, they are of great worth unto the Gentiles.

And the angel of the Lord said unto me: Thou hast beheld that the book proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew; and when it proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew it contained the fullness of the gospel of the Lord, of whom the twelve apostles bear record; and they bear record according to the truth which is in the Lamb of God.

Wherefore, these things go forth from the Jews in purity unto the Gentiles, according to the truth which is in God.

And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.

From Nephi we learn that the Old Testament we have today is missing much of the fulness and many of the plain and precious truths when compared to the Brass Plates he possessed.

Two major differences between the Book of Mormon record and the Old Testament record—both covering the same early time period—stand out clearly. The Book of Mormon is explicit and direct in its references to Jesus Christ, His mission, and His Atonement, whereas the Bible is far less plain and apparent. In the Bible, references to Christ are often symbolic, presented through types and shadows, or buried in passages that are difficult for regular readers like me to fully understand, such as Isaiah. Additionally, the Bible contains far fewer direct references to Satan, the adversary, and his role in God’s plan.

Why Would this Book of Moses Translation Be So Urgent

With so much happening in the establishment of a new church, and with the Book of Mormon already published, why would God immediately have Joseph begin translating additional scripture—especially scripture that would not be widely available to Church members during Joseph’s lifetime?

The initial and primary reason Joseph needed to translate the Bible, I believe, was for his own study and instruction. A significant portion of the revelations found in the Doctrine and Covenants came as a direct result of questions Joseph had while studying the Bible while performing this “translation work.”

If the Book of Moses draws from the broader “Book of Mormon” record—that is, the full Nephite record rather than what we currently have—it fits well within this framework. We know that the first part of our Book of Mormon comes from the Small Plates of Nephi, while Mormon’s abridgment does not begin until Mosiah.

This makes sense because what we currently have in the Bible is missing several elements needed to fully understand what both the Book of Mormon and Christ Himself call the fulness of the gospel. The Book of Moses restores and expands doctrine that is either absent or only hinted at in Genesis.

The Book of Moses shows that men and women understood the plan of salvation from the beginning. It provides a clearer view of premortal life, including God’s work, Satan’s rebellion, and the central role of agency. It reframes the Creation and the Fall as purposeful steps rather than mistakes and places the Atonement of Christ at the center of God’s plan from the very beginning. The Book of Moses also explains God’s stated purpose for creation, humanity’s relationship to Him, and the covenant structure through which salvation operates. Many of these restored teachings form the doctrinal foundation for later revealed ordinances and covenants that are central to temple worship today.

According to Don Bradley, the Book of Moses is THE KEY to Understanding who we are so that we can understand the Bible.

Part of the Lost 116 Pages?

If what we have as the Book of Moses was included in the “lost 116 pages” helps explain several things. While this doctrine was important—and while the Lord wanted us to understand what is missing from Genesis—Joseph could not translate it as part of the Book of Mormon after the loss of the manuscript. Doing so would have allowed a forger to claim that Joseph had copied from the stolen pages, similar to later accusations involving the Solomon Spaulding manuscript or View of the Hebrews.

Although the Book of Moses was translated in 1830, it was not publicly published for more than a decade. Portions of Moses were first published in 1842 in the Times and Seasons. The full record was not published until 1852 in England, and the Book of Moses was not canonized as part of official LDS scripture until 1880—long after whoever possessed the lost 116 pages was dead and any plan to discredit the Church using them

Doctrine the Book of Moses Reveals

The doctrine found in the Book of Moses is remarkably deep—far beyond anything Joseph Smith could reasonably have produced in1830. Moses 1 was revealed when the Church was barely two months old and consisted of only a small number of members. At that point, Joseph and the early Saints did not yet fully understand baptism by divine authority, priesthood offices, there were no bishops, temple covenants, sealing keys, or the eternal nature of families. Core doctrines such as the full plan of salvation, the non-traditional nature of hell, and the three degrees of glory had not yet been revealed.

Yet in this early period, Joseph received a revelation with sweeping theological claims; multiple inhabited worlds, God’s work and glory centered on humanity’s eternal progression, and connection through a personal, relational God. He received doctrine that directly contradicted the dominant theology of nineteenth-century Christianity.

Historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmott explains:

“The doctrines that are in it are so far beyond where Joseph is in 1829 and 1830 that I’m telling you, as a historian—as a Joseph Smith historian—if the Book of Moses had never been published, if five years ago we found a manuscript called ‘The Revelation given to Joseph the Revelator,’ and it was about Moses and didn’t have a date on it, all of us would conclude that this revelation had to have been received sometime in the 1840s, probably 1843 or 1844.”

Joseph Smith was young and uneducated. He was still learning how to organize and lead a church. Yet he received a revelation containing sophisticated, expansive doctrine that included knowledge and doctrine that would only be understood by church members years later through additional revelation. The Book of Moses stands as powerful evidence that this material did not originate from Joseph’s intellect, but came by revelation, through the gift and power of God.

30 Doctrines Restored in the Book of Moses

1. Old Testament people knew the plan of salvation from the beginning.
   Adam and Eve were taught about Christ, the Fall, redemption, and resurrection early. The Old Testament Prophets Understood this plan.

2. God revealed the plan before mortality began.
   God explained His purpose and plan before sending His children to earth.

3. Humans existed as spirits before birth.
   People lived as intelligences in God’s presence before coming to earth.

4. God personally knew His children before they were born.
   Individuals were known, loved, and called by God prior to mortality.

5. Some were chosen for specific roles before birth.
   Prophets were foreordained because of premortal faithfulness.

6. Jesus Christ was chosen as Savior before the world was created.
   Christ’s role was established from the beginning, not as a reaction to the Fall.

7. Satan rebelled in premortality and was cast out.
   The Book of Moses explains who Satan is, where he came from, and why he opposes God.

8. Agency was the central issue in the premortal council.
   God’s plan preserved choice, while Satan’s plan sought control.

9. Mortality was entered by choice, not by accident.
   People accepted the risks and challenges of earthly life knowingly.

10. Adam and Eve were taught the gospel directly.
    They received commandments, instruction, and promises from God.

11. The Fall was a necessary step, not a mistake.
    Eve understood that the Fall allowed for children, growth, and joy.

12. Adam and Eve understood good and evil as part of progression.
    Moral growth required experience, not ignorance.

13. Sacrifice was taught as a symbol of Christ’s atonement.
    Adam was explicitly taught why sacrifice mattered and what it represented.

14. Animal sacrifice pointed forward to Jesus Christ.
    The shedding of blood was a teaching tool about the future Redeemer.

15. Adam knew about resurrection and eternal life.
    He rejoiced that he would one day see God again “in the flesh.”

16. The gospel was taught within a temple-centric covenant structure.
    Early religion involved covenants, obedience, and promised blessings.

17. Adam functioned as a priest and teacher.
    He taught his children gospel principles and religious practices.

18. Daughters were present from the beginning.
    Early families included daughters who played real roles in humanity’s growth.

19. Satan actively taught false religion.
    He appeared personally and instructed Cain, leading to corrupted worship.

20. Cain’s rebellion was taught, not accidental.
    His offering failed because it followed Satan’s instruction, not God’s.

21. Secret combinations began early.
    Organized wickedness started with Cain and continued through generations.

22. God warned humanity before judgment.
    Destruction never came without preaching, opportunity, and warning.

23. Enoch was called as a prophet to confront widespread wickedness.
    His ministry shows how God responds when society becomes corrupt.

24. Zion existed as a real society.
    Enoch’s people lived in unity, righteousness, and covenant obedience.

25. Translation was a legitimate outcome of righteousness.
    Enoch and his people were taken into God’s presence without death.

26. God’s judgments were just and measured.
    Separation and consequences followed long periods of mercy and teaching.

27. Mortality was designed as a proving ground.
    Life on earth is meant to develop character and faith so that we can receive the greatest blessings from God.

28. Suffering has purpose within God’s plan.
    Hardship is part of growth, not evidence of abandonment.

29. Eternal family relationships were central to God’s promises.
    Posterity and continuation mattered from the beginning.

30. The Book of Moses restores the missing framework of Genesis.
    It explains why the Bible assumes doctrines it no longer fully contains.

Voices Out of the Dust

The translation of the Book of Moses is valuable because it helps us better understand the nature of God and His plan in ways that the Old Testament alone cannot. It helps us understand that other dispensations also understood the fullness of the Gospel and the Role of our Savior. It also serves as powerful evidence that Joseph Smith was a prophet.

Dozens of apocryphal texts have since been discovered that contain many of the same doctrines, themes, and conclusions found in the Book of Moses. Joseph Smith did not have access to these records—many of which surfaced long after his death—and yet he restored doctrines that align with them in remarkable ways.

Restored Doctrines in the Book of Moses and Apocryphal Parallels

Jonah Barnes Book The Lost Gems of Genesis highlights many of these doctrines taught clearly in the Book of Moses that are missing or undeveloped in Genesis, along with ancient sources that independently preserve the same ideas that Joseph Smith had no access too.

Apocryphal Verification That Demonstrate Joseph Smith’s Prophetic Wisdom

Not every apocryphal text should be treated as scripture. Apocrypha are ancient Jewish and early Christian writings that were preserved outside the biblical canon, often because they were not widely circulated or were excluded during later canon decisions. While they are not authoritative scripture, many preserve early religious ideas that were once more widely known.

The value of these texts is that they preserve older religious memory. When the same doctrines appear across multiple ancient sources, written in different places and times, it shows those ideas were not late inventions.

The Book of Moses restores many of these doctrines decades before most of these apocryphal texts were available in English. It places them in the correct early setting and explains gaps left by Genesis. The fact that these same ideas later appear in ancient sources Joseph Smith could not have accessed is strong evidence that he was restoring lost material rather than creating new theology.

Here are five of the most powerful pieces of evidence.

The Missing Sacrificial Sermon Given to Adam

Genesis shows Adam offering sacrifice, but it never explains why, and it never ties it to a future Messiah in a straightforward way. The Book of Moses does. In Moses 5, an angel teaches Adam that sacrifice is a “similitude” of the Son of God. That is not just a minor detail. It is the doctrinal engine that turns sacrifice from a random ancient ritual into a gospel teaching tool. What makes this stand out is that the same “missing sermon” shows up in the Egyptian Life of Adam and Eve, where Adam is taught that as he has shed blood, God will someday shed His own blood when He becomes flesh. That is a very specific match in theme and purpose, not a vague overlap.

Adam’s Knowledge of a Physical Resurrection

Moses 5:10 has Adam rejoicing that he will “again in the flesh” see God. That is a big claim for the earliest pages of scripture. Genesis does not give Adam that theology in a direct way. Jonah’s argument is that Joseph’s version only sounds “too advanced” because Genesis has been stripped down. In the Egyptian Life of Adam and Eve, the resurrection message is tied to a prophecy of God being laid in a rock and rising again after three days. When that context exists, Adam’s joy in the Book of Moses stops looking random and starts looking expected.

Eve’s Explanation of the Fall as Necessary, Not Accidental

Genesis tells the story of the Fall, but it does not linger on the doctrinal “why” in plain terms. The Book of Moses does, and it puts the core conclusion in Eve’s mouth: without the Fall, there would be no children and no real knowledge of good and evil. Jonah points out that this is not just a modern LDS reading forced onto the text. The Armenian History of the Transgression of Adam and Eve preserves the same kind of reasoning from Eve, including the idea that the consequences of their choice lead to light rather than permanent darkness. That is the same conclusion Joseph restores, and it shows up outside his world.

Satan as an Active Teacher of False Worship

Genesis gives very little about Satan’s method. You get the serpent, then you get Cain, and the story moves fast. The Book of Moses slows down at exactly the spot where the doctrine matters. Satan is not just a symbol. He appears, teaches, commands, and twists worship. Cain’s offering is not rejected for arbitrary reasons. Cain is following corrupted instruction. Jonah’s point is that this is how ancient texts often frame the story: Satan shows up “as a man” and actively manipulates the family, which is echoed in the Egyptian Life of Adam and Eve, and reinforced through other Jewish and Near Eastern traditions that treat Cain’s rebellion as taught and cultivated.

The Suppressed Role of Daughters in Early Humanity

Genesis barely acknowledges daughters in the early generations, which makes the family story feel incomplete. The Book of Moses insists they were there, and that the family actually functioned like a growing society from the beginning. Jonah treats this as another example of restoration, not invention. Multiple sources like Jasher, Jubilees, and the Book of the Bee preserve names and narratives about early daughters and their roles. Even if a reader does not treat those texts as scripture, the shared memory is still significant: Joseph’s account aligns with a broader ancient tradition that Genesis does not preserve in full.

Conclusion

The Book of Moses provides some of the clearest evidence that Joseph Smith was restoring lost doctrine rather than inventing new theology. It fills major gaps in Genesis by explaining why sacrifice mattered, how the earliest people understood Christ, the purpose of the Fall, the reality of resurrection, and Satan’s active role in opposing God’s plan. These teachings are not introduced as later developments but are presented as foundational knowledge from the beginning.

What makes this restoration especially significant is that many of these same doctrines appear independently in ancient apocryphal texts. While these writings are not scripture, they preserve older religious memory that aligns closely with the Book of Moses. Joseph Smith restored these ideas decades before most of these sources were translated or accessible, and he restored them in the correct narrative setting.

Taken together, the Book of Moses strengthens the internal consistency of the Bible, explains doctrines that had been lost, and aligns with ancient traditions Joseph Smith could not have known. For readers who want to explore these connections in greater depth, Jonah Barnes’ book The Lost Gems of Genesis is a really fun book that discusses these parallels and their implications.

That assumption has driven a long series of failed theories.

First it was Philastus Hurlbut and Eber Howe, who claimed Joseph Smith plagiarized an unpublished novel by Solomon Spaulding. When that theory collapsed under scrutiny, the explanation shifted to Sidney Rigdon and View of the Hebrews. When that also failed to account for the evidence, critics moved on again.

It does not matter how little evidence exists or how weak the claims are. Ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons spread any unsubstantiated theory they can find as fast as wildfire. Truth is secondary. What matters is preserving a narrative that disparages the prophet Joseph Smith, and they show little concern for misrepresenting facts, omitting evidence, or promoting false claims to achieve that goal. This pattern is clearly visible in the latest accusation that Joseph Smith plagiarized Adam Clarke.

Joseph Smith Plagarized Adam Clarke

The most recent version of this pattern is the claim that Joseph Smith plagiarized a British Bible scholar named Adam Clarke.

Adam Clarke wrote a large and influential Bible commentary between 1811 and 1825. He was a contemporary of Joseph Smith. Because of that, critics argue that Joseph Smith could have had access to Clarke’s work and used it as a source for both the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.

On the surface, this sounds plausible.

The 2017 Adam Clarke Theory

The modern Adam Clarke theory originates with research published beginning in 2017 by Thomas Wayment and his research assistant Haley Wilson-Lemmon. Their work suggested that certain small wording changes in the Joseph Smith Translation resemble comments found in Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary.

At first, this was not controversial. Many Latter-day Saint scholars openly acknowledge that Joseph Smith believed in seeking truth from any source and later studied Hebrew, Greek, and biblical scholarship. Even Wayment himself never claimed plagiarism.

The controversy began when this research was taken out of its scholarly context and repackaged by critics. Wilson-Lemmon later appeared on hostile podcasts, where the word “plagiarism” was introduced and repeatedly used. The claim was no longer about influence or study, but about deception. Joseph Smith, critics said, had been caught stealing.

That charge depended entirely on whether the proposed parallels actually held up.

They did not.

Kent Jackson Reviews the Evidence

Kent P. Jackson is widely recognized as the leading scholar on the Joseph Smith Translation. After the plagiarism claims gained traction online, Jackson conducted a detailed review of every example Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon cited.

His findings were published in the Interpreter journal and were unambiguous. Jackson concluded that none of the proposed Adam Clarke parallels could withstand careful scrutiny.

Not some of them. Not most of them. None.

The problem was not one or two weak examples. The problem was the entire method.

Example One: “Songs of Solomon”

One of the most frequently cited examples involves the Joseph Smith Translation note stating that the Song of Solomon is “not inspired scripture.”

Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon argued that this idea came from Adam Clarke, who also rejected the book as inspired. They further pointed out that Clarke sometimes referred to the book using the Latin plural title Canticles, and that the JST manuscript uses “Songs” rather than “Song.”

This is the entirety of the connection.

Kent Jackson pointed out several fatal problems with this claim. Rejection of the Song of Solomon as inspired was common long before Adam Clarke. Clarke himself referred to the book using singular titles over ninety times. The plural form proves nothing. Most importantly, Joseph Smith had already translated the Book of Mormon, dictated the Book of Moses, and received dozens of revelations by the time he reached this passage. The idea that he required Adam Clarke to make this determination is unsupported.

This is not evidence of dependence. It is coincidence combined with assumption.

Example Two: “Shall” Versus “Will”

Another proposed parallel involves Joseph Smith changing “shall” to “will” in passages such as Exodus 11:9.

Adam Clarke criticized the King James translators for using “shall” in that verse, so the argument is that Joseph Smith must have followed Clarke.

Jackson showed that Joseph Smith made this exact grammatical change repeatedly throughout the JST, including in passages Clarke never commented on and in verses Joseph revised earlier in the translation process. In some cases, Joseph made the same change in identical verses long before reaching the passage in question.

There is no pattern of borrowing. There is only a consistent editing habit.

Example Three: “Without a Cause”

One of the central claims involves Matthew 5:22, where the JST removes the phrase “without a cause.” Adam Clarke noted that this phrase is missing from some Greek manuscripts.

Wilson-Lemmon cited this as her first major discovery linking Clarke to the JST.

Jackson pointed out what the theory ignored. The Book of Mormon already removes the phrase “without a cause” in the Sermon on the Mount found in 3 Nephi. When Joseph Smith revised Matthew 5, he consistently aligned it with the Book of Mormon text, inserting dozens of phrases that have nothing to do with Adam Clarke.

The source for this change is documented and internal. It is not Clarke.

The Mathematical Problem

Jackson also highlighted a problem critics rarely address.

Joseph Smith made changes in roughly 3,600 Bible verses. Adam Clarke’s commentary spans hundreds of thousands of words. Out of that massive body of material, critics identified about thirty vague parallels.

Those parallels are isolated, random, and insignificant when compared to the total number of JST changes. Critics cannot explain why Joseph would supposedly rely on Clarke for trivial wording changes while ignoring Clarke’s many substantial doctrinal arguments. They also cannot explain the thousands of JST revisions that have no resemblance to Clarke at all.

The numbers do not work.

Even the Authors Backed Away

Over time, even the original participants retreated from the strongest claims. Thomas Wayment has consistently rejected the charge of plagiarism. Haley Wilson-Lemmon later stated publicly that Joseph Smith’s work cannot properly be called plagiarism.

Yet critics continue to repeat the accusation as if it were established fact.

This pattern is familiar. A theory is proposed. It is amplified before being tested. When it collapses under review, the accusation remains, stripped of its qualifications and repeated as proof.

The Larger Pattern

The Adam Clarke theory is not unique. It follows the same structure as the Spaulding theory, the Sidney Rigdon Theory and the View of the Hebrews theory before it. When one explanation fails, another is introduced. Evidence is treated selectively. Context is ignored. Coincidence is treated as causation.

The conclusion is always fixed in advance, but the theories cannot be accurate because Joseph Smith was a prophet and translated sacred works by the gift and power of God.

At some point, the pattern itself becomes the evidence.

For more information, listen to the Church History Matters Podcast about it. 

That assumption has driven a long series of failed theories.

First it was Philastus Hurlbut and Eber Howe, who claimed Joseph Smith plagiarized an unpublished novel by Solomon Spaulding. When that theory collapsed under scrutiny, the explanation shifted to Sidney Rigdon and View of the Hebrews. When that also failed to account for the evidence, critics moved on again.

It does not matter how little evidence exists or how weak the claims are. Ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons spread any unsubstantiated theory they can find as fast as wildfire. Truth is secondary. What matters is preserving a narrative that disparages the prophet Joseph Smith, and they show little concern for misrepresenting facts, omitting evidence, or promoting false claims to achieve that goal. This pattern is clearly visible in the latest accusation that Joseph Smith plagiarized Adam Clarke.

Joseph Smith Plagarized Adam Clarke

The most recent version of this pattern is the claim that Joseph Smith plagiarized a British Bible scholar named Adam Clarke.

Adam Clarke wrote a large and influential Bible commentary between 1811 and 1825. He was a contemporary of Joseph Smith. Because of that, critics argue that Joseph Smith could have had access to Clarke’s work and used it as a source for both the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.

On the surface, this sounds plausible.

The 2017 Adam Clarke Theory

The modern Adam Clarke theory originates with research published beginning in 2017 by Thomas Wayment and his research assistant Haley Wilson-Lemmon. Their work suggested that certain small wording changes in the Joseph Smith Translation resemble comments found in Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary.

At first, this was not controversial. Many Latter-day Saint scholars openly acknowledge that Joseph Smith believed in seeking truth from any source and later studied Hebrew, Greek, and biblical scholarship. Even Wayment himself never claimed plagiarism.

The controversy began when this research was taken out of its scholarly context and repackaged by critics. Wilson-Lemmon later appeared on hostile podcasts, where the word “plagiarism” was introduced and repeatedly used. The claim was no longer about influence or study, but about deception. Joseph Smith, critics said, had been caught stealing.

That charge depended entirely on whether the proposed parallels actually held up.

They did not.

Kent Jackson Reviews the Evidence

Kent P. Jackson is widely recognized as the leading scholar on the Joseph Smith Translation. After the plagiarism claims gained traction online, Jackson conducted a detailed review of every example Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon cited.

His findings were published in the Interpreter journal and were unambiguous. Jackson concluded that none of the proposed Adam Clarke parallels could withstand careful scrutiny.

Not some of them. Not most of them. None.

The problem was not one or two weak examples. The problem was the entire method.

Example One: “Songs of Solomon”

One of the most frequently cited examples involves the Joseph Smith Translation note stating that the Song of Solomon is “not inspired scripture.”

Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon argued that this idea came from Adam Clarke, who also rejected the book as inspired. They further pointed out that Clarke sometimes referred to the book using the Latin plural title Canticles, and that the JST manuscript uses “Songs” rather than “Song.”

This is the entirety of the connection.

Kent Jackson pointed out several fatal problems with this claim. Rejection of the Song of Solomon as inspired was common long before Adam Clarke. Clarke himself referred to the book using singular titles over ninety times. The plural form proves nothing. Most importantly, Joseph Smith had already translated the Book of Mormon, dictated the Book of Moses, and received dozens of revelations by the time he reached this passage. The idea that he required Adam Clarke to make this determination is unsupported.

This is not evidence of dependence. It is coincidence combined with assumption.

Example Two: “Shall” Versus “Will”

Another proposed parallel involves Joseph Smith changing “shall” to “will” in passages such as Exodus 11:9.

Adam Clarke criticized the King James translators for using “shall” in that verse, so the argument is that Joseph Smith must have followed Clarke.

Jackson showed that Joseph Smith made this exact grammatical change repeatedly throughout the JST, including in passages Clarke never commented on and in verses Joseph revised earlier in the translation process. In some cases, Joseph made the same change in identical verses long before reaching the passage in question.

There is no pattern of borrowing. There is only a consistent editing habit.

Example Three: “Without a Cause”

One of the central claims involves Matthew 5:22, where the JST removes the phrase “without a cause.” Adam Clarke noted that this phrase is missing from some Greek manuscripts.

Wilson-Lemmon cited this as her first major discovery linking Clarke to the JST.

Jackson pointed out what the theory ignored. The Book of Mormon already removes the phrase “without a cause” in the Sermon on the Mount found in 3 Nephi. When Joseph Smith revised Matthew 5, he consistently aligned it with the Book of Mormon text, inserting dozens of phrases that have nothing to do with Adam Clarke.

The source for this change is documented and internal. It is not Clarke.

The Mathematical Problem

Jackson also highlighted a problem critics rarely address.

Joseph Smith made changes in roughly 3,600 Bible verses. Adam Clarke’s commentary spans hundreds of thousands of words. Out of that massive body of material, critics identified about thirty vague parallels.

Those parallels are isolated, random, and insignificant when compared to the total number of JST changes. Critics cannot explain why Joseph would supposedly rely on Clarke for trivial wording changes while ignoring Clarke’s many substantial doctrinal arguments. They also cannot explain the thousands of JST revisions that have no resemblance to Clarke at all.

The numbers do not work.

Even the Authors Backed Away

Over time, even the original participants retreated from the strongest claims. Thomas Wayment has consistently rejected the charge of plagiarism. Haley Wilson-Lemmon later stated publicly that Joseph Smith’s work cannot properly be called plagiarism.

Yet critics continue to repeat the accusation as if it were established fact.

This pattern is familiar. A theory is proposed. It is amplified before being tested. When it collapses under review, the accusation remains, stripped of its qualifications and repeated as proof.

The Larger Pattern

The Adam Clarke theory is not unique. It follows the same structure as the Spaulding theory, the Sidney Rigdon Theory and the View of the Hebrews theory before it. When one explanation fails, another is introduced. Evidence is treated selectively. Context is ignored. Coincidence is treated as causation.

The conclusion is always fixed in advance, but the theories cannot be accurate because Joseph Smith was a prophet and translated sacred works by the gift and power of God.

At some point, the pattern itself becomes the evidence.

For more information, listen to the Church History Matters Podcast about it. 

Joseph was a 24-year-old subsistence farmer with a second-grade education, no literary training, and not a single prior written work. Yet critics claim he produced a 265,000-word manuscript in roughly 65 working days—averaging over 4,000 words a day—faster than trained novelists using modern keyboards. That alone makes no sense. Then add the fact that the Book of Mormon contains more distinct narrative voices than elite authors like Dickens or Twain, and includes complex structural Hebrew chiasmus that scholars in the 1820s didn’t even know existed. Statistically, each of those features is already an extreme outlier. Combined, the odds that Joseph Smith produced all of them by himself fall somewhere between one in billions and one in tens of billions.

And that doesn’t even include the unusual research and writing conditions that Joseph had no library, no notes, no drafts, no hidden manuscript, and no evidence that he ever wrote anything privately. He dictated the text in one flowing pass, with scribes reading back the words. Nothing about that resembles the behavior of someone secretly composing a massive, structured literary work.

The reason this impossible feat happened is because Joseph Smith did not write the Book of Mormon. He translated it—not in the modern academic sense of knowing two languages, but in the sense that the text was revealed to him word by word. He dictated exactly what he saw through the seer stone or Urim and Thummim, and his scribes wrote it down. That is why the pace, structure, and consistency are so far outside anything a normal human process could produce.

The critics knew how impossible the coming forth of the Book of Mormon was from Joseph Smith.  That is why they always had to try and explain that it was stolen from the works of Solomon Spaulding, Ethan Smith, or Sydney Rigdon.

The Book of Mormon is true. It is of God, and it leads us to Jesus Christ.

The video does a great job illustrating just how statistically impossible the alternative really is.

Why did Joseph Smith practice plural marriage? There are three different places we could go for answers.

We can go to the naturalists—like Fawn Brodie—and the cynics, which are kind of in the same group. We can go to Latter-day Saint apologists, who gave us their own set of reasons. And then we can go to Joseph Smith himself. I’d like to look at these three sources.

The first source is the naturalist—and what I mean by that is somebody who is sure God’s not involved. Okay? It’s all natural processes—hormones, libido, job one—and sex. That’s what’s driving polygamy. That’s their answer.

And Fawn Brodie kind of codified this idea in her 1945 biography, which unfortunately is still probably the most influential book ever written on Joseph Smith. Brodie totally botched the treatment of his sexuality in polygamy. She didn’t even want to get it right—that’s my frustration.

The purest naturalistic view is found in George D. Smith’s 2008 novel, which he called “Nauvoo Polygamy: … but we called it celestial marriage.” I doubt there will ever be a purer naturalistic view written of Joseph the man.

CONTINUED HERE

The post Classic FAIR – Why Did Joseph Smith Practice Polygamy? – Brian Hales, 2010 appeared first on FAIR.

The Topics and Questions, available on the Gospel Library app and ChurchofJesusChrist.org, has three new pages with details on the Book of Mormon translation, the character of Joseph Smith, and the practice of plural marriage. Each page provides information in an easy-to-understand Q&A format.

Book of Mormon Translation

The Book of Mormon Translation page explains that the Book of Mormon came to us through a series of miraculous events. “It is the translation of an ancient record engraven on plates that was preserved for centuries and entrusted to Joseph Smith by an angel named Moroni. The translation was accomplished not using traditional methods, but by divine revelation.”

The page answers several questions, such as “What did Joseph Smith mean when he said he ‘translated’ the Book of Mormon?” and “What do we know about Joseph Smith’s use of the interpreter and seer stone in translating the Book of Mormon?” Other questions touch on the role of the gold plates in the translation and the reliability of the Book of Mormon witnesses.

Joseph Smith’s Character

The page Joseph Smith’s Character explains that “God has always worked through imperfect servants to accomplish His work, raising them up and strengthening them as they do His will. This was certainly true of Joseph Smith.” While Joseph was a remarkable prophet and a man of character, he was also human.

The page answers the following questions:

• What kind of person was Joseph Smith?
• What did Joseph’s contemporaries say about his character?
• Can a person with flaws, as Joseph Smith had, still be a prophet?
• Was Joseph Smith ever convicted of illegal activities?
• Did Joseph Smith pay his debts?
• Did Joseph Smith exercise undue political power in Nauvoo?
• How do I know that Joseph Smith really said the statements that are attributed to him?
• How can I make sense of the conflicting views of Joseph Smith I find online?

Plural Marriage

The page Plural Marriage begins by saying, “The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise. In limited, specific cases the Lord has commanded His followers to practice plural marriage.”

“From the early 1840s to about 1890, in response to revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints taught the practice of plural marriage, also called polygamy. Over a period of about 50 years, 20 to 30 percent of Latter-day Saint men, women, and children lived in families that practiced plural marriage.”

The page answers the following questions about the practice of plural marriage:

• Do members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practice plural marriage today?
• Will there be unwanted marriage arrangements in the next life?
• Does the Church teach that plural marriage is required for exaltation?
• Why did the Church teach and practice plural marriage in the 19th century?
• What is known about the beginning of plural marriage in the Church?
• Did Joseph Smith practice plural marriage, or was it introduced by Brigham Young and others?
• What did Emma Smith know about Joseph’s practice of plural marriage?
• How did women experience plural marriage in the 19th century?
• How did plural marriage end in the Church?

QUESTION:

My dear friend shared with me some information suggesting Joseph Smith’s involvement in plural marriage was doctored in after the fact by Brigham Young and his associates, especially William Clayton. To support this, they refer to public speeches by Joseph and Hyrum Smith, denying participation in plural marriage. So much of what we know depends on what is in the William Clayton diaries, which they say is possibly “revised history.” I also noted that it was announced that the William Clayton Diaries would be made available a few years back, but haven’t been yet. Do you know of any further information on that?

ANSWER FROM FAIR EMPLOYEE SARAH ALLEN:

Was evidence altered to suggest Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage?

There is no evidence whatsoever that Brigham Young and William Clayton colluded to “doctor” official records to implicate Joseph in plural marriage, or that Clayton’s journals were revised after their initial recording. Joseph Smith instituted plural marriage, and no serious, credentialed historian agrees with the claims that he didn’t. There is a wealth of evidence, from journal entries, letters, affidavits, and sworn witness testimony, all backing that up. There are recorded minutes of Hyrum introducing a revelation that sounds remarkably like D&C 132 before the Nauvoo High Council a few months before his death. The Nauvoo Expositor summarized and quoted excerpts from it, showing that it was known by at least some people outside of Joseph’s inner circle in June 1844. Many of his wives and friends signed affidavits and gave deposition testimony under oath. Etc.

William Clayton did what Wilford Woodruff, Willard Richards, and others of the time did: he took notes which he then copied into his journal and into Joseph’s. He wouldn’t always copy his notes word for word, but sometimes rephrased them or incorporated memories he may have left out of his notes.

Sometimes, he copied them a few days or weeks later, as he was a busy man. However, these were not entries he copied years after the fact. By any historical method, they were contemporaneous entries. This practice has been labeled by some non-historians who aren’t educated in historical standards and practices as non-contemporaneous, but that’s only because they don’t know what the professional standards are. No credible historian would ever claim journal entries recorded so shortly after the events were non-contemporaneous.

William Clayton’s Nauvoo Journals

Excerpts from Clayton’s Nauvoo journals have been published in a book called An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton, edited by George D. Smith. The full journals will be published by some of the Joseph Smith Papers editors early next year, in 2026. I believe they’ll be published through Yale University Press, if I’m not mistaken. Yale is a respected academic press which reviews its books thoroughly before publication to ensure they meet professional scholarly standards. The volume should include introductions and other historical explanations similar to those in the Joseph Smith Papers volumes. The journals are not “revised history,” they have been professionally maintained and edited, the editing process and book’s content were put through professional review, and the book containing the journals is being published by a well-respected academic press. None of the claims made by those denying Joseph’s practice of plural marriage have undergone the same scrutiny.

Polygamy Denials

As far as denials by Hyrum and Joseph Smith go, it’s important to note that they, and those in the Anointed Quorum with Joseph, very carefully differentiated between celestial plural marriage, polygamy, adultery, and “spiritual wifery.” In their minds, they were four separate things. The eternal order of marriage was when endowed, married Saints were sealed to one another by one with authority. Polygamy was what Muslims and other foreigners practiced, a copy of divine plural marriage without the command to practice it or priesthood authority to seal the union. Adultery was, obviously, having marital relations with someone other than one’s spouse. And “spiritual wifery” was the system that John C. Bennett concocted, wherein he convinced women to commit adultery with him and some of his friends by claiming it came from God, was approved by Joseph, and that it wasn’t wrong if nobody told anyone else. The denials given by Joseph and Hyrum referred explicitly to polygamy, adultery, or spiritual wifery. They never denied practicing celestial plural marriage.

To learn more about plural marriage in general, this booklet by FAIR volunteer Greg Smith gives a fantastic overview, including the history, theology, and denials: https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/smith-Polygamy_Prophets_and_Prevarication.pdf

Sarah Allen is a Senior Researcher with FAIR, a former member of Scripture Central’s research team, and the 2022 recipient of the John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award. An avid reader, she loves studying the Gospel and the history of the restored Church. After watching some of her friends lose their testimonies, she became interested in helping others through their faith crises. That’s when she began sharing what she’d learned through her studies. She is a co-moderator the LDS subreddit on Reddit and the author of a multi-part series rebutting the CES Letter. She is also the co-host of FAIR’s “Me, My Shelf, & I” podcast. She’s grateful to those at FAIR who have given her the opportunity to share her testimony with a wider audience.

The post FAIR Questions: Are William Clayton’s journals and other evidences suggesting Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage just “revised history”? appeared first on FAIR.