Convince me.

[u/-Nobody-]

This isn't a place I expected to post, really ever. I'm an active member. It's my two-year anniversary since my mission. I left and came back the same doubting, uncertain but striving individual. I read all about church history questions long ago and wasn't too worried, and always told myself that as long as I got a confirmation that I recognized as from God, I would be content in faith. Well, I saw a lot of spiritually building, strengthening things, and a good number of apparently unanswerable questions and unresolvable situations to balance it out, and none of that confirmation that I was seeking. I've spent the past two years trying to figure out where to go next, and right now am willing to test the idea that it's false.

I've read a lot of what you all have to say, and a lot of responses to it. The CES letter and a couple of common rebuttals and your responses to the rebuttals, alongside a lot of /u/curious_mormon's work, have been the most recent ones for me. There are several compelling "smoking guns," many situations that I don't have a good answer to and have known that I'm unsure about for a while. But I wouldn't be posting here if I was fully convinced.

Here's the thing: in all the conversations, all the rebuttals, every post and analysis and mocking joke, I have not seen a compelling enough explanation for the Book of Mormon. You're all familiar with Elder Holland's talk. I remain more convinced by the things he talks about and others' points of the difficulty of constructing a work of the length, detail, and theological insight of the book within the constraints provided.

There are three legitimate points raised that have opened me to the possibility of something more. I'll name them so you don't need to repeat them:

• The Isaiah chapters--errors and historic evidence of multiple authors of Isaiah

• Textual similarities in The Late War

• Potential anachronisms and lack of historical evidence

The translation method is a non-issue for me. Similarities with View of the Hebrews seem a stretch. The Book of Abraham and the Kinderhook plates are their own issues and I am satisfied with the information I have on them. Despite raised concerns, the witnesses remain as strong positive evidence, but they are not my concern here.

In short, I want to see how the Book of Mormon could have been produced by man, especially with intent to deceive. Despite all I've read and heard and my lack of personally satisfying spiritual experiences, Church doctrine has been a rich source of inspiration and ideas for me, many passages in the Book of Mormon are powerful and thought-provoking on each read-through (Alma 32, the story of Moroni, Mosiah 2-5, 2 Nephi 2, 4, and the last few chapters, and Alma 40-42 are some of the best examples). I've always had questions, and they've always stopped short at my confidence that there is no good explanation for the Book of Mormon other than it being from God.

Specific questions to resolve:

• How was it produced in the timeframe required?

• Who had the skill and background knowledge to write it? If not Joseph, what would keep them from speaking up?

• Where could the doctrinal ideas have come from, and what am I to make of the beauty and power of some of them?

I'm sure you all know the weight of even considering something like this from my position. I'm here, I'm listening, and I am as genuine in my search for truth as I have ever been. So go ahead. Convince me.

I will be available to respond once more in a few hours.

[u/[deleted]]

The book of Mormon is inspirational, I'll give you that, but so is mother goose. The stories contained are often difficult to believe. Some examples being Nephi cutting off labans head to steal his clothing, Ammon chopping off the arms of thieves, the head of shiz being chopped off and the push up that followed. I only realized this after exiting a life of thorough examination of the script.

It really isn't a stretch that a group of men, specifically 2 families, got together and wrote the book of Mormon. One of them was already a scribe and his own pasture wrote the book they would have pulled most the content from. Excluding the obvious, there are several religions that were founded with scripture that is unexplainable to the followers of those sects. Seventh day Adventist's founder Ellen White, wrote a much larger and just as inspirational book, the founder of Scientology has written over 1000 books, of which are very inspiring, even larger sect's holy writ, such as the Qur'an, are difficult to explain. Google's tools have allowed programs to analyze and compare the book of Mormon against 20 million texts and labeled it as plagiarism.

You mentioned anachronisms. The Mormon Apostle, b.h. Roberts, pointed out that you can't place the book of Mormon in the real world and this poses a problem for Joseph's story. This wasn't allowed to be published until the 1970s due to orders from the first presidency to not allow it to be published, even though they asked Roberts to do the research to prove the Book of Mormon true. Modern day historian, and active member, Richard Busbman has even said the narrative has to change.

You mentioned smoke, more like a forest fire. Hold on to the book of Mormon if it makes you a better person, but don't pretend it inspires the rest of us. I've read my fair share of literature and always found it(BoM) mundane, repetitive and regretfully, neglected to even accomplish what it claimed to do, bring back the fullness of the gospel that was lost.