Plates of Palmyra

The Book of Mormon has a better story than you might think, though not quite what you might have heard in Stone & Parker's musical of the same name.

Rather than a tome of collected works, each the subject of contentious discussion in council, The Book of Mormon is an abridgement of a continuous historical record, with a couple appendices of original content and other summarized histories.

Of course, this book is incomplete, and we look into the story of how the first portion went missing before publication, as well as the translation process.

In September 1823, young Joseph Smith, Jr. was visited by an angel named Moroni who had the ancient record of his extinct people, and he needed Joseph to translate and publish his record so that people would renew their faith in Christ. After several trials of Joseph's fidelity, and several years, Joseph obtained the tome, written on sheets of gold to stand the ravages of time.

Several scribes helped Joseph throughout the translation process, and though most of them expressed irreconcilable conflict with Joseph personally at one point or another, they each vehemently defended their testimony of the divine work they helped to accomplish in the Book of Mormon.

The climax of the abridged narrative has the angelic visitation of Jesus Christ himself, followed by a brief summary of the peaceful following centuries, and ending with the complete genocide of the faithful.

This text, sacred to the various churches of the Latter-day Saint movement, is the subject of intense scrutiny, and we're here to help in our own little way.

It's worth noting that the "Mormon Bible" is a poor label for the Book of Mormon, since the church officially sticks with the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) in English-speaking congregations.

All this and more...

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