Many Mormons seek solace in the thought that there were enough reliable witnesses to substantiate the Book of Mormon”‘s validity and justify their own faith in it. But just how reliable were these witnesses? Mormons often claim that none of them ever...
Martin Harris did indeed as Mormons claim take a copy of some of the characters Joseph Smith said he copied from the golden plates to Dr. Charles Anthon at Columbia University in New York City. But there truth and LDS fiction part paths. Harris claimed that...
Smith's wife Emma once said that she believed God dictated the Book of Mormon because her husband could hardly speak clearly nor compose a clearly-written letter. The speeches and writings we have of him contradict this assessment. In addition, others...
In 1837 an illiterate youth named James Colin Brewster said that at age ten, he, like Joseph Smith, had been in direct communication with the angel Moroni. Brewster began “translating” non-existent records that he said were the lost books of Esdras, and...
Last week I was interviewed on WNYG in New York on the “Iron Sharpens Iron” broadcast. One of the most significant elements of my upcoming book, The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church (Zondervan 2009) is a section...
