First, to define a 'terrorist'.

A terrorist act is performed by a terrorist for either political or religious reasons, or both. It is done without warning and without concern for innocent people and/or property.
By this definition, the Mormon Christ is a terrorist in 3Nephi, chapters 8&9, he is not the Bible Christ who on the cross forgave everyone and told the thief being crucified next to him that this thief would be with Christ in Paradise on that very day.

On the other hand if somehow Jesus was lying to the thief, we have to ask ourselves if the destruction that the terrorist Christ caused on the American continents was somehow an awful punishment on millions of men, women and children, we ask, just how would this Jesus know who had been naughty or nice in America when he had no knowledge of what went on in America for at least the last 34 years? At 10 BC did Christ know that if a 10 year old living then, who would now be 44, would this terrorist Christ be pre judging and killing him and his family without a warning to celebrate his crucifixion and the eventual redemption of all people? 3Nephi 8:14-16. Does the end always justify the means!

14 And many great and notable cities were sunk, and many were burned, and many were shaken till the buildings thereof had fallen to the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were slain, and the places were left desolate.

15 And there were some cities which remained; but the damage thereof was exceedingly great, and there were many in them who were slain.

16 And there were some who were carried away in the whirlwind; and whither they went no man knoweth, save they know that they were carried away.

The Biblical Jesus story tells us that there was 3 hours of darkness while Jesus hung on the cross. Smith, as always, tries to do the Bible one better and has 3 days of darkness. He even has one of his false prophets prophesy that there would be 3 DAYS of darkness, not as they may have perceived in Jerusalem, but in the Book of Mormon it covered over all the face of the land!

3Nephi 8: 3 "And the people began to look with great earnestness for the sign which had been given by the prophet Samuel, the Lamanite, yea, for the time that there should be darkness for the space of three days over the face of the land."

Vs 11 "And there was a great and terrible destruction in the land southward.

12 But behold, there was a more great and terrible destruction in the land northward; for behold, the whole face of the land was changed, because of the tempest and the whirlwinds, and the thunderings and the lightnings, and the exceedingly great quaking of the whole earth;

The whole chapter describes the killing and wanton destruction supposedly on an unsuspecting populace in North and South America at the time of the Biblical crucifixion of Christ and the time the Biblical Christ was in Paradise with the thief. The last recorded words of the Bible Christ recorded in Luke 23 were "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" and to the thief "Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise." We can only conclude that the Bible Christ kept his word to the thief but the Book of Mormon Christ went on a rampage in America for those three days destroying the major cities and everyone in them! Whatever the terrorist Christ in America was doing and in whatever timeframe, the Biblical Christ on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, had presumably returned from Paradise to take up his wounded body and interact with his disciples for the next 40 days.

3Nephi 8:23 tells us "And it came to pass that it did last for the space of three days that there was no light seen; and there was great mourning and howling and weeping among all the people continually; yea, great were the groanings of the people, because of the darkness and the great destruction which had come upon them."

This puts God in the awkward position to stop the rotation of the earth so that no light shone on north and south American continents! Wow! This 3 days of darkness would reflect the 3 days before Christ appeared to Mary and the disciples in Jerusalem. But, the Book of Mormon Christ is still terrorizing the populous of America, and with the rotation of the earth stopped to keep it dark in America, it kept the sun burning away in the Middle East for the same 3 days without anyone noticing it! What would we do without Smith to show us these details of the extent that the Mormon God will go to test man's faith!

3Nephi 9:1 "And it came to pass that there was a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the earth, upon all the face of this land, crying:

2 Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people...

Here Smith tells us that this crucified Christ is now, not in Paradise with the thief, but here in Columbia, South America speaking in a language that was unknown to him, and of cities whose names he couldn't possibly know, bragging about all the destruction he has caused. (Probably within hours of forgiving everyone in Palestine.) Only the farfetched story teller Smith could dream up something like this! Not only did the 'devil laugh', Smith was quietly laughing at how gullible people are to believe this nonsense.

3 "Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.

4 And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned. (At least 14 cities are mentioned by name, all unknown to Christ.)

5 And behold, that great city Moronihah (Moron! i hah, hah!) have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face...

15 "Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name."

Mosiah 15: 1 And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.

2 And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—

3 The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son—

4 And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.

Mosiah 16:15 Teach them that redemption cometh through Christ the Lord, who is the very Eternal Father. Amen So through Smith we find that the Jewish God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is ultimately the Mormon terrorist Christ.

Here Smith gives us a perfect explanation of the Triune God about 150 BC or 1829 AD, take your pick..

We must remember the Bible Christ was living for 34 years in Palestine totally cut off from anything happening anywhere else in the world including the preparations in Heaven by the terrorist angels for the American massacre as outlined in the predestined scrip that the Mormon God had followed worlds without number... 
There were obviously innocent women and children burned and drowned indiscriminately by Christ and his angels of death. The Mormon terrorist Christ is here speaking from the heavens so that all could hear over thousands of miles and they are bombarded with reasons why this Christ, who had no idea what had been transpiring here for 34 years, needed to ruthlessly kill and destroy here in America. He tells them many times he would have gathered them, and all Jews, as a hen gathers her chicks, but certainly not during the lifetimes of most of them because he was busy in Palestine. It is also interesting to observe that while Christ spoke mostly Aramaic during his ministry that he immediately knew the Nephite Egyptian dialect so he could converse freely with those who would listen in America. (Are there those who believe that Christ can at will, understand, speak, and think in every dialect spoken on Earth?)

In 3Nephi 10:8 we are told of the final words of the terrorist Christ at that point in time "And now it came to pass that after the people had heard these words, behold, they began to weep and howl again because of the loss of their kindred and friends.

9 And it came to pass that thus did the three days pass away."

We will leave it up to the reader to decide just how these two stories of two different Christ's are reconciled. The Bible Christ arose and took up his body again with the wounds, and appeared to Mary and the disciples. There are those who call what happened a 'resurrection'. It appears that all he did was to activate his mortal body and have it function without blood and with holes still in his feet, side and hands. How oxygen was carried to all parts of his body without blood may be a matter of faith rather than science. How he could walk with holes through his insteps without pain or limping must remain a mystery. Acts 1:3 says he was in Palestine for 40 days after taking up his bloodless body again. 


The Mormons will tell us this was all necessary because the prophets, that only the Book of Mormon knows, spoke of this thing where thousands of dirty people had to put their fingers in all of God's wounds so these 'made up' prophets wouldn't be liars. This was at least a two week event at 8 hrs a day.

Forty days would be a long time for those who were spared the horrific destructions directed by Christ in America, to learn what was in store for them. 3Nephi 11:8 we finally hear how the terrorist Christ finally shows himself in South America: "8 And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards heaven; and behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them.

9 And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying:

10 Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.

Again, Smith has to be more incredulous than the Bible. Smith has an angel of God telling Nephi 550 years before his birth that God had an 'Only Begotten' to send to earth (2Nephi 25:12) and his name would be Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (2Nephi 25:19) Not to make a liar out of the Bible and Paul when he tells us in Acts 11:26 "And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." When Smith tells us it was 73 BC in South America that disciples were first called Christians. Alma 46:16 "all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them gladly the name of Christ, or Christians as they were called because of their belief in Christ who should come."

The Bible has one doubting Thomas, Smith has thousands! With the horrific destructions that the Nephite Jews endured, certainly Nephi or some prophet was arranging for an appropriate reception for the Son of God upon the South American continent. Of the millions of people, what would be a reasonable amount to gather for this event, 10,000? This was not any more just a great teacher in Palestine with 5,000 listeners, this was the Son of God destroying half of America and descending from the Heavens! Martin Luther King got bigger crouds in Washington, DC. Let us say at least 10,000 until the word got around.

3Nephi 11:15 "And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.

We have no idea what Smith had in mind as to which 'prophets' prophesied that the Messiah would be crucified and be raised from the dead with those wounds. However, if there were 10,000 people and if they all went forth, one by one until they all had thrust their hands...etc...what a disgraceful thing that these people with no faith needed to do. If they tried to do it in a dignified manner, say they lined up 15 feet away from Jesus and walked up with reverence and respect, each one might take 30 seconds or 120 for every hour. So Christ would have to stand 83 hours or three and a half days of non stop thrusting into his body! If the word got out after the first day, that crowd may have increased easily to 100,000! If we made it easier on the crowd and divided it into 8 hour days, 5 days a week, we would have two weeks for the thrusting of the first ten thousand. It is of course possible that if this Christ wanted to multitask he could give the sermon on the mount and save a lot of time. We know that the Bible Christ used either Aramaic or Hebrew that he learned while there. How do you suppose he felt speaking reformed Egyptian that he hadn't yet learned, to a bunch of wandering Jews?

Where Have All the Good Writers Gone? You won’t find them in the Book of Mormon

And I’m sure not one of them!

There is no way on God’s green earth that anyone can make logical sense of who wrote what and when to produce the Book of Mormon other than it all came from the head of Smith between 1827 and 1830. 

If we start with the book attributed to Mormon, (3^rd from last in B. of M.) all Mormon was commanded to write on the plates of Nephi were the things he observed during his lifetime. (Mormon 1:3) If this was all that Mormon was to do, he certainly didn’t need to take the unabridged writings of 900 years that, according to some, could weigh hundreds of pounds and jeopardize these gold records in his tent while fighting wars for 60 years over thousands of miles of real estate? A God that would want him to do this would not be very smart or practical. We have to conclude that Ammaron/God didn’t intend for Mormon to take the complete plates of Nephi record at that time, in fact we have to take Mormon’s word that he was just to take the ‘plates of Nephi’. (Mormon 1:4) Smith tells us the lost first 475 years of the book of Lehi were written on the plates of Lehi. Maybe Mormon should take just a few empty plates that Ammaron generously included for the next engraver of the record?  

When you put all the loose pieces together with Cowdery’s statement of the amount of records in the ‘cave’ at Cumorah, where Mormon was supposed to have buried the tons of records that Brigham Young said would represent several ‘wagon loads’, we have to conclude these were the very same records that 300 year old Ammaron buried in hill Shim in South America for Mormon to find. First, to take what Brigham says were several wagon loads, without wagons, this 300 yr. old man would be hard pressed to get it there without finding a neat Aladdin like cave like the one found at Cumorah. (Palmyra, New York) The next  problem would be to put name tags on each individual stack so Mormon could discern from the hundreds of the look alike plates which ones were the plates of Nephi. This is also assuming that Mormon was ever taught by his father to read and write.

But, if Mormon didn’t take some plates with engraved Egyptian how was he to learn to read and write the language? Where was he going to learn Hebrew so he could teach his son, that he doesn’t mention until he is 75 yrs. old, and be able to tell us that the whole history could have been written in Hebrew, if the plates had only been large enough! (Mormon 9:33) But the Mormon God, who isn’t Jewish, had his reasons for Nephi to make smaller plates and keep the Egyptian writing that the Jews hated, but, of course, the last thing Smith would want is have his gold plates written in a Hebrew dialect. 

The book is a maze of contradictions and absurdities and one doesn’t know which ones to point out first. To think that the God of the Universe had anything to do with it would be blasphemy. There is critical dating everywhere you look. The departure date of Lehi and his group from Jerusalem in 600 BC during the reign of Zedekiah could not happen if Zedekiah didn’t ascend the throne until late 597 BC.

It was more than just ‘convenient’ for Lehi with 4 sons plus Zoram, (a male servant of Laban) for God/Smith to come up with a family with 5 unmarried daughters to join the trek into Saudi Arabia with no animals and few provisions. If we count Nephi’s two sisters who didn’t marry, there were initially 16 people sharing Lehi’s tent. 1Nephi 16:6-7 tells us that the four sons of Lehi plus Zoram married the 5 daughters of Ishmael. With the crowded tent we would have to believe Lehi’s 45 year old wife was already pregnant with Jacob when the journey began. Nephi and his brothers had tents when they returned to Jerusalem for the plates of Laban but when Nephi killed Laban and stole the hundreds of pounds of plates, while being chased by Laban’s servants, they were forced to leave their tents behind.

The ultimate first destination that God would have known was Muscat, Oman. The traditional Frankincense Trail would have taken less than 2 months with Camels. By following the guide (Ouija ball that worked like the Ouija board based on the faith of the participants) that the Mormon God furnished, they spent 8 years traveling in circles in what the Arabs called ‘the Empty Quarter’ 250,000 sq. mi of nothing but sand dunes. According to the story the women were giving birth with Lehi’s 45 year old Wife giving birth to her second son in that environment with no fruits, vegetables, milk or anything other than uncooked predator mea,t that was forbidden under the Law of Moses. Why they didn’t all die of scurvy or malnutrition can only happen in a bad fantasy novel. After 8 years of this bodily abuse, they faced an 18,000 mile sea voyage of at least 2 years with the same nourishment problems. By the time they reached the middle of Chile, South America, (according to Smith), their health longevity was greatly impaired. 

However, if Nephi who says he was ‘exceedingly’ young in 600 BC was 15 then his soon to be born brother Jacob would be 16 years younger. The book of Jacob, vs. 1, tells us that it is now 545 BC with Nephi now 70 and about to anoint a king to rule over an extended family of maybe 10 adults with children. In order not to marry his niece, Jacob needed Zoram to have a couple of daughters, one for him and one for his brother Joseph. We know of no children from Nephi other than two girls who may have died on the ship voyage. In Jacob 1:9 we are told that Nephi anointed a MAN to be King over this small family group. 

If Nephi had a son and anointed him, Jacob would have indicated that. If Jacob had a son besides Amos, and he was anointed, he would have said that. 2Nephi 5:6 tells of the split in the original group and who followed Nephi. It tells us Nephi’s older brother Sam with his family and Zoram and his family with no indication if there were sons. It appears Jacob and Joseph were still unmarried and waiting for one of Zoram’s daughters to be old enough. The probable date for this is maybe 570 BC with Lehi having passed away maybe a year or two earlier. The most probable of all the candidates would have been the Son of Sam that uncle Jacob should have honored by saying so! Unless, when Jacob mentioned the various clans in Jacob 1:13, he left out Sam and family because they had all died. The clan of Sam disappears and is never mentioned again in the Book of Mormon. Probably because in 2Nephi 4:11 Lehi wanted Sam to be part of Nephi’s clan. But that is still no reason not to identify a son of Sam as the newly anointed king if that was indeed the case.

We hear of no sons from either Zoram or Joseph but if it had been Joseph’s very young son, we would think Jacob would indicate the MAN/boy was an immediate family member rather than anointing the son of the servant Zoram. Unfortunately, there was no one else! Jacob was 45 at the time, and if Enos, Jacob’s son was 22, it was possible for an even younger son of Jacob, to be king, but not without giving him a name and standing in the family. If Enos was 22 in 545 BC the book of Enos vs. 25 tells us 179 years had passed, which would make it 420 BC and make Enos the healthiest of the Nephites living well past 100. The son of Enos, Jarom, writes in vs. 13 that now 238 years had passed making it 361 BC and if he was born in 535 BC when Enos was 32, Enos’ son Jarom, would now be 174 yrs. old!

This story, ‘critical dating’ gets flakier and flakier. Jacob Vs. 11 tells us “Wherefore, the people were desirous to retain in remembrance his [Nephi’s] name. And whoso should reign in his stead were called by the people, second Nephi, third Nephi, and so forth, according to the reigns of the kings; and thus they were called by the people, let them be of whatever name they would.”

12 And it came to pass that Nephi died.

This is not supposed to be an abridgment from Mormon or anyone else and should be the exact words that Jacob writes. Of course, no one could write this in 644 BC at the time of Nephi’s death. We know this whole story is a series of ‘flashbacks’ or someone like Mormon writing at the end of his life quoting what he may have remembered 50 years earlier. To give Jacob the benefit of the doubt let us say he knew about this reign of kings named Nephi because he waited another 23 years to write it, just a few months before he dies. And manages to put all the 3,800 words of the false prophet Zenos and the stupid story of Sherem in chapter 7 about an unknown man who wasn’t a Lamanite, but knew the traditions of the Jews; however, he somehow spoke the Egyptian dialect that Jacob and his group of maybe 10 adults spoke. Of all the unbelievable characters in the book, this probably takes the cake.

Jacob mentions a second king in vs. 15, so this young unknown first king, not related to the principal characters, did not last long. Jacob 2:1 tells us of a speech that Jacob gave after the death of Nephi where he warns his brother Joseph and any grandson that Zoram might have had about polygamy and that they shouldn’t do it. He talked about the ‘wives’ of Nephi’s ‘people’ that could have been at most 2 couples that Jacob united in marriage in a temple that he and his brothers made as a replica of Solomon’s temple while everyone lived in tents. (2Nephi 5:16)

But we are first told that God spoke to Jacob to get to the temple immediately to warn them about acquiring riches because somehow these two couples were looking for gold and silver rather than planting crops and tending the flocks, as though they could buy something with it at Walmart rather than barter with each other for something useful. One of these grandmothers must have been a seamstress that had brought over a sowing machine and some angel brought down some beautiful cloth from heaven and they were making ‘costly apparel’ where the wife could sit in the café and sip coffee. Come on Jo, you can do better than this! You were lousy with dates, but these people were barely starting out in a new land and half or more of them still living in tents. Who ever learned to spin wool? Where were all the sheep?

Jacob 4:1 tells us of the difficulty of engraving words on plates but not the difficulty of finding and mining the ore to make the plates. Nevertheless, his next chapter is a complete quote from a false prophet named Zenos that he would have to have seen on the stolen brass plates. These were the plates that Jacob would have to have at the temple where these extraordinary young people came to study the scriptures and learn about David and Solomon’s polygamy, of course after someone had taught them to read and write Egyptian. Maybe at most, one or two lucky ones could take time from providing food and shelter and attend 4 hour a day classes held by Jacob who learned Egyptian from of course, Egyptian speaking angels. Nephi had no time with so much metal plate making and engraving he had to do.  He had to find time to engrave on metal plates the writings of his father that had to have been done on parchment. He tells us in 1Nephi 1:17 that he is going to make an abridgment of his father’s record before he gets around to the story of his own life. His father died in Chile maybe about 573 BC after which Nephi was warned by God that his older brothers were planning to kill him and Nephi should leave with all of the important Egyptian writing so his older brothers would continue their Hebrew language and ways, without any written word. It is unclear who among the Egyptian speaking Nephites kept the Hebrew language still viable both spoken and written for 1,000 years. (Mormon 9:33) Someone must have dropped the ball because they could not understand the Hebrew speaking Mulekite/Jews when the Nephites joined with them in their land maybe about 180 BC. (Omni vs17)

Smith was way off base having Jacob ‘engrave’ almost 4,000 words (Jacob 4:1 ‘and I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates’) of the most off the wall, repetitious, plagiarism of Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 11, where Paul spoke to the ‘wild olive tree’, (gentiles in Rome) it had relevance, but to this tiny family of so called Jews, it was ridiculous.

Anyone studying the Book of Mormon as ‘inspired’ actual history has a most difficult job trying to get the sequence of things with any reliable dating. The dating has significance for a variety of reasons not the least of which was the prophecy that Christ would be born exactly 600 years from when they left Jerusalem.

To repeat myself, we have to realize that major changes were made in the first 475 years of the history of the book that Smith was trying to palm off on the unsuspecting world. The lost manuscript for this period of time was referred to by Smith and his God as the Book of Lehi from the plates of Lehi. Lehi was the father of Nephi who, along with the help of Smith gave the beginning account of the same 475 years that Nephi/Smith is trying to cover. These years and story line have to dovetail into what was contained in Smith’s drafts for the rest of the 1,000 years. Smith knew that at any moment those who stole his manuscript to discredit him would produce it if the two story lines differed in any meaningful way. The first 20-30 years coming from the son’s perspective, didn’t have to be a word for word match of his father’s lost record.

For today’s readers who see current events recorded for TV, must understand that every bit of hard news of what claims to be history will be written after the events and often many years later. Such is the case starting with Nephi, whether a fictional character or not. In his first chapter, he certainly is not writing while in Jerusalem or at any time on the Asian continent. His father may have written on parchment scrolls in his house in Jerusalem, or tent in Arabia (we don’t know how he got the scrolls or ink) Smith was smart enough not to have him write on gold plates from some Solomon gold mine. 

It is already most difficult for any serious scholar to believe the Laban ‘brass plates’ story. First of all, Smith should have used the term ‘bronze’ as brass didn’t exist in Jerusalem at the time. Laban, a non Levite, and not from the Scribe profession is totally unlikely to even be able to read and write Hebrew let alone Egyptian. The claim that Lehi preached to the tribe of Judah calling them to repentance in Egyptian is equally preposterous. How would Lehi become a bi-lingual literate man who home schooled his youngest son to be the same without being a Levite Scribe?

Reading, writing and keeping the religious record was the domain of the Levites whose inheritance was the Priesthood. The other tribes were farmers and/or those who tended flocks, made garments and had shops, etc. They were not literate people. Even Jeremiah, a Priest, the current prophet in 600 BC had his scribe write down his words. Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe would have been the only one to mention king Zedekiah in this time frame and was the keeper of Jeremiah’s oracles. It is most unlikely that Baruch would be meeting with Laban, a non Levite, so he could translate and transfer Jeremiah’s prophesies to the brass plates in Egyptian!

If we compare Smith’s history with history from Historians we find during Lehi’s early years that there was considerable turmoil. In 609 King Josiah sided against King Neco of Egypt and was killed. The Egyptian king eventually put a son of the killed Josiah on the throne and called him Jehoiakim. He was hostile to Jeremiah and kept him in prison for much of his reign. 

“On one occasion, when an early draft of the prophet’s writings was being read to Jehoiakim (Jer 36:21), the king used a scribe’s knife to cut the scroll apart, three or four columns at a time, and threw it piece by piece into the firepot in his winter apartment. At the Lord’s command, however, Jeremiah simply dictated his prophecies to Baruch a second time, adding ‘many similar words’ to them.” (That is what true prophets do, take note, Smith.)

We are told by this same Historian that Jehoiakim stayed on the throne through the 605 BC sacking of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon. It included deportation and training of Daniel and his three companions for important work in the king’s palace in Babylon. (Dan 1:2-6)

The historian Josephus gives a graphic description of still another sacking of Jerusalem and what kinds of people were deported to Babylon. 

“Yet when he [King of Babylon] came into the city [Jerusalem] he did not observe the covenants he had made, but he slew such as were in the flower of their age, and such as were of the greatest dignity, together with their king Jehoiakim, whom he commanded to be thrown from the walls, without any burial; and made his son Jehoiachin king of the country and he took the principal persons in dignity for  captives, three thousand in number, and led them away to Babylon; among which was the prophet Ezekiel, who was but young.”

Where were Lehi and his sons while this was going on? Jehoiachin was put on the throne for 3 months in 597 BC. Smith/Nephi tells us that they left Jerusalem in 600 BC, that would be 600 years before the coming of Christ. We get no clue whatever from Nephi that Zedekiah was the uncle of the short reigning king Jehoiachin, and whose name had been changed from Mattaniah to Zedekiah. These accounts are given in Chronicles and Kings but from the historian Josephus in the Antiquities of the Jews the following account of the third sacking of Jerusalem that Lehi and family would have to live through but fail to mention. The king of Babylon was afraid that Jehoiachin might hold a grudge against him for throwing his father to his death, didn’t keep his agreement once again.

“Which agreement they did not observe for a single year, for the king of Babylon did not keep it, but gave orders to his generals to take all that were in the city captives, both the youth and the handicraftsmen, and bring them bound to him; their number was ten thousand eight hundred and thirty-two; as also Jehoiachin, and his mother and friends. And when these were brought to him, he kept them in custody, and appointed Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah, to be king.”

If Zedekiah was not put on the throne until the end of 597 BC, it is likely Nephi and his group didn’t leave before 596 BC, if it was during the reign of Zedekiah. (It is absolutely amazing that Nephi’s family escaped death or deportation during all three sackings without breathing a word to his readers! And of course Lehi is on the streets warning them of things that already happened. And if we can believe 2Kings 24:14 “And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained save the poorest sort of the people of the land”) Then Zedekiah was put on the throne! Vs. 17 says “all those apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.” Lehi’s sons couldn’t possibly fall into any of these categories, at least not in Smith’s fantasy story.

If 596 BC is the correct date, according to world historians, then the coming of Christ 600 years after the departure of Lehi from Jerusalem couldn’t be before 4 AD at the earliest. If we take into account the Jewish lunar calendar that did not have 365 days and was 11 days shorter than the solar, a month was needed to be added every 3 years to make it solar and keep the spring festival in the Spring. If Smith and the Nephite prophets didn’t understand that, we would have 600, divided by 3, divided by 12 to get an additional 16 years to reconcile Christ’s birth and death for the Nephites. So the Mormon Christ comes about 20 years after the Bible Christ and of course we know that the Bible Christ spent the three days after his crucifixion in Paradise with the thief. (Luke 23:43 it is interesting that Smith in his ‘inspired’ version of the Bible inserts along with many other things, this verse in his Matthew gospel) Peter infers in 1Peter 3:19 that Christ may have been preaching to those in prison who were wicked in the days of Noah. The Mormon Christ spent this time with his terrorist angels destroying an exceeding number of cities in North and South America, along with innocent men, women and children. 

So the maze or smoke and mirrors created by Smith is too great for one to come to any rational idea about dates and how historical data was possible that is in line with world historical facts.

Nephi tells us that his Jewish father who lived his whole life in Jerusalem wrote his whole history and translated his Hebrew dreams, visions and revelations into Egyptian to make his Nephite record, or did he write half and half depending on what one is trying to prove. He and a relative, Laban, who his son murdered to steal Laban’s life’s work, were the only ones besides scribes who could do this. 

Nephi 1:16 says, “And now I, Nephi, do not make a full account of the things which my father hath written, for he hath written many things which he saw in visions and in dreams; and he also hath written many things which he prophesied and spake unto his children, of which I shall not make a full account.

17 But I shall make an account of my proceedings in my days. Behold, I make an abridgment of the record of my father, upon plates which I have made with mine own hands; wherefore, after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life.

Verse 17 tells us he is going to make an abridgment of the record of his father, and after he has done that he will start on the record that we are presently reading. This he cannot do until he gets the revelation to make such a record and has the time and ore and plates to do so. To complete his father’s record, he would have to wait until his father was dead and finished his writings which wouldn’t be until Nephi had left Chile for Peru, South America, if you can believe Smith. (The Mormon apologists will say this all happened in Central America.)

Nephi 19:1 tells us Nephi made plates of ore after their arrival in Chile. (According to Smith)

“…the Lord commanded me, wherefore I did make plates of ore that I might engraven upon them the record of my people. And upon the plates which I made I did engraven the record of my father, and also our journeyings in the wilderness, and the prophecies of my father; and also many of mine own prophecies have I engraven upon them.

He doesn’t say here that the record of his father was an abridgment. To be logical, he would want to transfer all of the writings of his father from parchment to plates after his father’s death and after he had escaped from his brother’s plans to kill him. This would put a big burden on his brothers and Zoram in building the Solomon-like temple, tending the flocks and planting seeds that they hopefully harvested while still in Chile. This may have been another reason for his brothers to be angry that Nephi took the seeds and all the written records as well. He wasn’t the next in line to rule the family after the death of their father.

Lehi probably died in Chile about 571 BC so they were all united in one big clan for close to 20 years. Certainly Lehi’s last blessings and prophesies found in 2Nephi chapters 1-4 would be part of the plates of Lehi. We are not told who was transcribing Lehi’s words as they were spoken. We are not told if the daughters of Ishmael and Nephi’s older brothers were all bi-lingual or if Lehi spoke to all in Egyptian or Hebrew. Later in the story we learn that the Lamanites didn’t understand Egyptian, only a Hebrew dialect. It would appear that when Nephi read from the brass plates not many in the Chile group had any idea of what he was saying as they only spoke a Hebrew dialect and couldn't read.

We are also told, contrary to modern science, as Lehi’s clan journeyed in Chile “… in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men.”

It is too bad that Smith didn’t think to include sheep so one could believe that they eventually wore something besides animal skins.  Smith uses the term ‘sheep’ as a metaphor dozens of times and is mentioned once in the Jaredite record as being brought to America in 2200 BC along with the Elephants but it seems no Elephants or sheep greeted Lehi. In 18 years they certainly domesticated these animals for the use of the clan. The writings of Lehi would be a treasure for all the sons of Lehi especially those next in line to rule the clan. When Lehi ‘waxed old’ before he died it fell to Laman to take charge of what the clan possessed. If Nephi was going to make a hard copy of what his father wrote on parchment, this would be the time to do it. He needed to find ore, mine it, refine it and make plates. Laman would look at this as a ‘clan’ effort to preserve their father’s heritage. Nephi would have to be excused from other clan duties to do this tedious work.

When Nephi fled from the clan’s farm with all who went with him, he took not only all the clan’s plates he had made, but the brass plates of Laban that would weigh a couple hundred pounds if it contained the whole Old Testament including Jeremiah. One would think he would take at least a pack horse for the tents and all of the plates. We are told when they got to the land of Nephi that they planted seeds that they stole from Laman, but left the animals because there were plenty of those same animals in Peru that were found in Chile. These animals then magically died out without a trace. (They were brought to America in 2,200 BC by the Jaredites and lived here for at least 2,200 years and then God had them all disappear to test the faith of the Mormons.) With Nephi absconding with all the clan’s treasures it is amazing that Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ishmael did not follow on their fastest horses to get it all back and finish killing Nephi. 

2Nephi 5:7 says: “…And after we had journeyed for the space of many days we did pitch our tents.

8 And my people would that we should call the name of the place Nephi; wherefore, we did call it Nephi.”

Smith was not aware of the vast distances in South America. To travel 1,000 miles certainly took the ‘space of many days’ The action took place here until about 170 BC when the Nephites who followed Mosiah joined the Mulekites in Columbia, in the city of Zarahemla.

Here comes more smoke and mirrors again for in verse 4 we find that Nephi already says he did make another record of events far into the future from his arrival date in Chile in 589 BC.

Wherefore, I, Nephi, did make a record upon the other plates, which gives an account, or which gives a greater account of the wars and contentions and destructions of my people. And this have I done, and commanded my people what they should do after I was gone; and that these plates should be handed down from one generation to another, or from one prophet to another, until further commandments of the Lord.

Book of Mormon dating errors continued...

Smith and Cowdery, in their early twenties were not dumb and had fanciful storytelling abilities. It is not clear what Smith originally had in mind when he first brought up the possibility of two or three stories of two or three different people back in the book of Mosiah. There was the second sketchy account of a voyage of Jews from Jerusalem with an unknown son of Jerusalem’s King Zedekiah, who lived apart from the Nephites in the area of present day Columbia and grew unbeknownst to the Nephites into a great nation...but that is a different discussion.

Smith brings up the discovery of the 24 gold plates in Chapter 8 of Mosiah in this unknown tongue.  At one point Smith was going to have Mormon translate the record and presumably include it in the book of Mosiah. Smith decides to have king Mosiah be a Seer and translator and has him translate this unknown (Adamic tongue) into reformed Egyptian at about 92 BC. (Mosiah 28:11) Whether Smith forgot the Jaredite record was already translated by a Seer, or not, he had Moroni who was not a Seer, translate the 24 gold plates again in the book of Ether. 

It is remarkable that Smith did as well as he did keeping the story with all these records covering over 3,000 years in at least three unrelated languages as believable as he did. Its just that the mind of the average person gets tired of following it all. The only thing consistent about the ‘writers’ is that someone had to know the whole convoluted story and that someone was Smith. But, with the loss of the book of Lehi containing the first 475 years, it presented real logistical problems for Smith and required all of his creative thinking. (maybe with some help from Cowdery)

Smith fails in getting a credible scenario for the winding up scene. He does have a couple of ‘flash backs’ to establish a relationship between Mormon and his newly found son discovered in 385 AD. The story by Moroni saying his father was slain in battle is patently false. (Mormon 8:5) This chapter 8 of his father’s small book is written 15 years after Mormon’s description of the last battle where only he and his son and 22 others survived. Smith has him say in Mormon 6:6 that Mormon had hid up all the records except the few plates that he was going to give his son, Moroni before the last big battle. This is where the story, logistically, bogs down. Mormon could conceivably have made a record of the things he had observed on a few plates as he was commanded to do in Mormon 1:4 and might have wanted to hand those few plates to his son before the battle, but the abridgment of the whole Nephite record supposedly done by Mormon required Mormon to have all the tons of records at his disposal with plenty of time to study to find the 1% that he felt was worthy to include in his abridgment.

The only time this could possibly happen would be if there had been a cave in the Hill Cumorah that both Smith and Cowdery described that contained tons of records that even Brigham Young characterized as being many wagon loads of records, and Mormon felt safe to peruse and find time and a spot to mine ore and make dozens of fresh gold plates to engrave his abridgment on. 

This could only have happened after the big battle where Mormon hid in this cave with all the records. His son and the 23 others deserted him until Smith had Moroni return 15 years later to find the complete abridgment his father had made during those 15 years. He of course had to find the 24 gold plated Jaredite record as well. He could have looked for Mosiah’s translation, but since Smith was going to turn Moroni into an angel he thought making him a Seer first while still in this life was a good twist. It just made God look impractical and not cost effective.

Smith thought the insertion of the Words of Mormon into the record right after the replacement record and before the book of Mosiah would clarify and not make him or his God look like they were inept. Unfortunately, the dating is wrong and Mormon could not have possibly have made the abridgment of the book of Lehi down to the reign of king Benjamin before the big battle. He goes on to say that, at this point, he was still perusing the records and lo and behold he just magically lays his hands on what will be Smith’s ‘replacement record’ that God had Nephi start about 950 years earlier and was never mentioned by any of the record keepers after it was finished, even though Amaleki was to deliver it to king Benjamin, the keeper of the records. (WOM vs. 9) Smith forgot to modify his drafts of the book of Mosiah to cover this important change of events and the new character, Amaleki who Smith let live to be about 300. (Smith needed about 8-10 more father-to-son writers in his replacement record to keep age and dating more in line. The same problem occurs again with Smith in the book called 4 Nephi.)

Smith/God wasn’t thinking clearly when he had Moroni return to hill Cumorah 15 years after the last battle and say his father had been slain in battle, and then insert the WOM saying Mormon was in the big cave with all the records waiting for his son and in the middle of his abridgment. Mormon certainly had a long wait for his son. (15 years to 400 AD!)

How Ignorant did Smith think his readers would be?

Probably the most glaring error of Smith’s fantasy (Book of Mormon/The Most Correct Book on Earth) is in his hysterical (historical)dating. Joseph Smith trusted his first scribe, Martin Harris with his first draft of the first 475 years of his thousand years of Nephite (Jewish?) history (Fantasy) in South America. This draft was stolen by Martin’s wife and never recovered. Smith had a warning from his God that the thieves were waiting for Smith to publish a re-translation of those 475 years. God told Smith that with the magic peep stone he could give a word-for-word retranslation but the thieves would somehow alter his handwritten manuscript without a trace and this would show glaring inconsistencies proving him a false prophet. These 475 years of history were part of what Smith called the Book of Lehi. Lehi was the supposed leader of a group of Jews who God led from Jerusalem to So. America in 600 BC. Nephi says they departed during the reign of Zedekiah who didn’t take the throne until a few years later. This was Smith’s first major error. (1Nephi 1:4)

Smith couldn’t give a word-for-word retranslation because of his many ad-libs so he decided that he would have Lehi’s son Nephi write a similar history of the same period for as long as he lived and then have this new record handed down, not through Nephi’s bloodline, but through his brother’s bloodline until he got to the timeline in the story that Smith had retained with his notes. 

It is a tangled web we weave when we first attempt to deceive. Smith had a nimble. creative mind and like a lot of con artists are good until their spoken word is written down and checked for inconsistencies. The Book of Mormon is a long tedious book with many twists and turns. One is never sure of who kept the records or where and how it got to the next writer to be actual history.

Needless to say, Harris was through as scribe. Smith was lucky, it just so happened that a school teacher named Oliver Cowdery who had been boarding at Smith’s parents house and whose father, along with Smith’s, were Rods-men together before Joseph’s father left Vermont, and was eager and willing to act as scribe and eventually as second Elder to Smith in a new Church.

Together they created out of thin air the first 7 books of the current Book of Mormon. Smith got ‘revelations’ telling Cowdery that he had special gifts of the Witch Hazel stick (Rod) where he would get answers from God, and the gift to translate other ancient records that would come later.

(See original Book of Commandments corresponding to D&C Sec 8)

Somehow, they had a timetable that pushed them to finish the final ‘translation’ and rushed the replacement record with a lot of  quotes from the King James version of Isaiah, and having ‘so called’ prophet/writers live two or three times longer than Nephi or King Mosiah to write two or three verses saying virtually nothing, but getting Smith past the 475 year timeframe.

The loss of the Book of Lehi made it necessary for Smith to re-think the ending of his Nephite ‘history’ and make up a very implausible situation that doesn’t pass the ‘smell test’ in the short ‘book’ called ‘The Words of Mormon’ dated 385 AD. Smith needed to have Mormon, who had no schooling, be literate in both Hebrew and Egyptian, along with his son who spoke and wrote both Hebrew and Egyptian and managed to translate a record written by people living about 2300 BC and who spoke and wrote in a dialect that Adam learned from God in the Garden of Eden. To think Moroni just pops up in Mormon’s record about 485 BC literate in two major languages (Hebrew and Egyptian) and now Smith will have him translate a record that would be a preview of everything that was to happen on earth, written in 2300 BC from Mesopotamia (Arctic Circle?) where history tells us cuneiform was used on clay tablets. But the brother of Jared was to write in still another unknown tongue all of the vision he was shown (Ether 3:24-28) Wow!

Smith had to have Mormon bring tons of gold records at least 5,000 miles from South America to Palmyra, New York in order for Mormon to find ‘extra plates which contained this small account of the prophets from Jacob down to the reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi’ (WOM vs. 3) that Smith used as a replacement record for the lost Book of Lehi, (Which meant that God, Mormon and Nephi knew in 600 BC would be stolen 2400 years later. Then have Mormon at age 70+ abridge the whole Nephite history leaving out 99% of what the  prophets wrote including the words of Jesus that Jesus spoke to the Nephites. (3Nephi 26:6 “And now there cannot be written in this book even a hundredth part of the things which Jesus did truly teach unto the people; (WOM 5; 3Nephi 5:8; Helaman 3:14) Just as Smith has Nephi write his version of the book of his Father years after the purported events, Smith had Mormon and Moroni do the same thing because in Smith’s mind that was more credible that way. But if God was in charge of any of this, it makes him look stupid or inept at best.

Smith becomes ever less credible as a ‘story teller’ and writes stuff that makes God/Christ either stupid, liars or grossly uninformed. Christ told 3Nephi that he would join Jesus in heaven when he reached the age of 72. Smith has him live to be about double that age or longer. He has the last writer of the ‘original’ records, Ammaron, that ended in 320 AD, live to be over 300 years before he buried tons of gold records all by himself without beasts of burden hundreds of miles distant from where he had been keeping them. General Mormon would then find them deep in his enemy’s territory with Mormon needing to transport tons of gold plates 500+ miles through enemy lines a total of 5,000 plus miles to New York while being pursued by an overwhelming Lamanite army bent on recovering the gold and destroying Mormon and the complete Nephite/Jewish race!

The Book of Enos 521-421 BC:

Enos is the son of Jacob, the brother of Nephi, (whose family couldn’t read or write and wanted nothing to do with being historians) he turned the record over to his son Jarom in 420BC having kept the record for 104 years and writing 27 verses. This would be one verse every four years! Jarom starts in 420BC, and writes until 361BC a total of 15 verses in 59 years; similar to the ratio of his father, a verse every 4 years. Omni takes over in 361BC and writes until 317BC, a total of 44 years, with 3 verses; one verse every 14 years! We then have Amaron who writes at least until 279BC, a full 38 years with a total of 6 verses giving us a verse almost every 7 years. 

We then have two writers writing 3 verses along with the last writer for a total of 149 years and a total of 21 verses, giving us a strong feeling that these ‘prophets’ must have been doing something besides writing. For 400 years none of these writers were coordinating their writing or dating with the Nephite Kings, who were supposed to be the principal historical writers for the Nephites. With this last prolific group we have again one verse every 7 years with the last writer writing 90% of the verses. 

To achieve this amount of creative writing God/Smith had these ‘prophets’ live in the 200 plus year range. Can the reader imagine how much we would have if Mormon edited out his usual 99 percent? Can we assume that the lost book of Lehi contains the 400 year King’s history that God doesn’t feel is important anymore? It is strange that Nephi, the most prolific of all of ‘small record’ writers with dozens of pages dies at the age of about 70, while Mosiah, the most righteous king and prolific writer, God has him die at 63. Why then the unrealistic ages for ‘Prophets’ who don’t write? Were the lives of God’s chosen people so shallow at that time that God felt one verse every 4 yrs. was ample? Above is the table with a clear perspective. 

For more on this, see “Fatal Flaws of The Most Correct Book on Earth” at Amazon.com.

As an illustration of what God has to do to make this all work is to take Omni, for whom the book of Omni was named, and if the cycle of birth is maintained in an average fashion, God needed to keep Omni alive until the age of 207 just to write 3 verses of little consequence! Above, in the book of Enos, is a reasonable ‘replenish the earth’ table for the writers from Nephi until the end of the replacement record. We see our God of miracles kept *Chemish alive 221 years to write ONE verse! His son has a few more years of longevity and writes a total of TWO verses! This chart assumes each writer begat his son at an average age of 25 yrs., which would be old.

To illustrate the grave dating problems of the replacement record: These family members are keeping the record with dating that prophesies the coming of Christ in 600 years. The lunar-solar calendar of the Israelites requires the insertion of an extra month every three years. In the space of 100 years it will make the dating short by three years if it is not added in. Since Smith was unaware of this, his characters were as well. The ages of these writers are 2 to 5 times the age of anyone else. If they add multiple years to their own life span, how can we rely on their dating of anything else? Omni is 163 years old when he receives the record in 361BC. He writes two verses and says it is 317BC reflecting 44 years that he has counted in those 3 verses making him 207 years old. He gives the record to his 182 year old son Amaron who waits another 38 years, writes one verse and says it is now 279BC, and him now, 220 yrs. old. For the next 155 years there is no fixed dating until Mosiah 6:4; this gives a date of 124BC and is relied upon for the rest of the BOM. If they didn’t add the extra month every 3 years it would be 111BC for the Nephites and 18 years short for the birth of Christ! CAN THIS BE ANYTHING OTHER THAN JS RUSHING THRU TIME TO GET TO THE KING BENJAMIN SPOT WHERE HIS DRAFTS CONTINUED? I would rather believe there is no God than believe in this inept exalted Man as God, that JS portrays.

If Smith had a more accurate time frame for his book of Lehi that was lost, we will never know. But we can be sure that the book of Lehi, covering the same time frame, would be less than half the pages of the replacement record!  We also know that in 3Nephi JS extends the life spans again because he again doesn’t have enough father-to-son ‘passing of the plates’. According to the promises of Christ recorded in 3Nephi, this third Nephi (the son of Nephi) and also one of Christ’s 12 disciples chosen in America, was supposed to die and go to heaven at the age of 72. He was given the records by his father, who departed to parts unknown in 1 AD. We presume Nephi was at least 20 at the time he spoke with the spirit of Christ, the day before Christ is born in Bethlehem, unless the Nephite calendar is way off, and Christ was already a young lad. If Nephi was 20 in 1 AD he would be about 55 when chosen as a disciple and promised his resurrection at age 72. Yet, in 4Nephi, vs 10, we find 110 years has passed either from the birth of Christ making 3Nephi at least 130 yrs old or 110 years has passed from the appearance of Christ to the Nephites making 3Nephi considerably older and Christ’s promise null and void.

3Nephi passes the record to his son Amos who could easily be over 100 at that time. Vs 21 tells us that 194 years has passed  from the coming of Christ (still ambiguous) but tells us that Amos is 84 years older or about 184 years old and has died. He has passed the record on to his 150 year old son Amos2 with the 194 year time frame. Mormon, who abridged the record, if not JS, writes several verses telling the same type of story with passages of time dates until the death of Amos2.

This occurs in vs 47 where he dies with 305 years having passed away making him about 265. He manages to hand over tons of records to his 260 year old brother Ammaron. Ammaron keeps the tons of buried records in their villa opposite the magnificent temple where Christ gave his second Sermon on the Mount repeating almost letter perfect Matthew’s version of what he said. Waiting 20 years until he was 285 he decided he needed to bury the tons of records in an even safer place that no one had ever heard of in a small obscure hill that he or Smith will soon call Shim. He only needed at age 285 to take tons of records three or four hundred miles and do so without horses and bury them in a manner that Mormon could easily find the plates of Nephi. 

In a true story, during the days of young Mormon where Robbers were in charge for years, and according to 4Nephi vs. 45, “three hundred years had passed away, both the people of Nephi and the Lamanites had become exceeding wicked one like unto the other”. (This was 10 years before Mormon was born.) Mormon would be totally dependent on the dating of these records if we were talking about an actual history. We just have to ask: Who was teaching anyone to read and write both Hebrew and Egyptian and from what written record? Smith’s story gets murky again as to locations. We can be reasonably certain that with the burning of Zarahemla the action of Christ’s visit was at the temple in Bountiful. We know that Zarahemla was rebuilt but we hear nothing of the records returning to Zarahemla and it would not be practical to have Hill Shim in that area. It appears that Ammaron met Nephi where Ammaron lived near the temple at Bountiful and then we are told in Mormon 1:6 that his father took him to the land of Zarahemla when he was 11 yrs. old.

He was 10 years late in following his orders to retrieve the plates of Nephi and with all of the wars and battles, he wouldn’t get around to reading anything, providing he was one of those rare individuals who was home schooled and became literate when there was nothing to read. We hear nothing of his mother and he is separated from his father when he was between 10-14. He was preaching on the street corner at 15 and at 16 led a band of guerilla Nephite fighters for most of his life. Where he learned to read and write Hebrew and Egyptian to teach his son Moroni whom he never mentions until he is 75, we will never know. One would think in abridging the Book of Alma where from chapter 43 until the end of the book he records the name of the commander of the Nephite armies a total of 190 times and never mentions that it is also the name of his son, the only two in the record who have the name of Moroni! This covers a period of about 25 years. 

Mormon then starts his abridgment of the next book called Helaman that mentions the city of Moroni or Moronihah that were named after General Moroni which comes another 16 times over the next 80 years with never a reference to the fact that Mormon has an only son with the same name! The reason for this is plain and simple, Smith is a story teller and he didn’t think of a son by that name for Mormon until after the great last battle where only 24 Nephites were left, one of which was a son named Moroni (Mormon 6:6) and was to be the next protagonist in Smith’s Nephite saga.

For more on this, see “Fatal Flaws of The Most Correct Book on Earth” at Amazon.com.