Criticism of Mormonism/Books/An Insider's View of Mormon Origins/Index

This is an index of claims made in this work and responses to them.

Chapter 1: Joseph Smith as Translator/Revelator

Page	Claim	Response
1	Joseph claimed to translate the Kinderhook plates	Kinderhook Plates
1	Illustrations show Joseph Smith translating the plates directly	Church art and historical accuracy
2	Joseph Smith used a seer stone that he placed in his hat	Joseph Smith and seer stones
2-3	The plates were often not nearby while Joseph translated them	Book of Mormon translation method
6	Oliver attempted to translate using a divining rod	Joseph Smith and the occult#Working with the rod
6	Oliver would ask questions of his divining rod in faith and it would move	Joseph Smith and the occult#Source of the power?
7	Alterations in a different handwriting on the 116 pages would have been readily apparent.
8	Joseph was brought to court three times for stone gazing	Joseph Smith's 1826 glasslooking trial
9	After he lost the manuscript, Joseph became more vague regarding the method of translation
9	Joseph altered the Book of Mormon to modify description of God and Jesus to be separate beings
10	Scholars have determined that Joseph consulted an open Bible during translation	Book of Mormon plagiarized from the Bible
10	Joseph copied errors from the King James Bible	Translation Errors from the KJV
11	None of Joseph's changes to the Bible have been supported by manuscript finds	Joseph Smith Translation as a restoration of the original Bible text
11	Some of Joseph's changes to the Bible contradict LDS beliefs
12	Joseph evolved his concept of the Father and Son	The Father: A Spirit vs. Embodied
12	The heiroglyphics next to facsimie 1 state that Hor is the deceased man lying on the altar	Book of Abraham papyri
12	Joseph used this papyrus as his source for Abraham 1 through 2:18	Book of Abraham papyri
13	Near facsimile 3, Hor's name appears at the top and bottom	Book of Abraham papyri
17	Joseph expanded Abraham's curse to include denial of priesthood ordination to blacks	Blacks and the priesthood
17	Joseph got the story for the Book of Abraham from Josephus
19	Joseph's interpretations have been shown by Egyptologists as a mis-reading of the papyrii	Book of Abraham papyri
19	A primary source for much of Abraham is Genesis
21	From 1820 to 1834 Joseph believed in one God.
21	The astronomical concepts in Abraham were common in Joseph Smith's environment
22-24	Joseph's theology was influenced by Thomas Dick's Philosophy of a Future State
29	It is easy to identify the Book of Joseph from the papyrus fragments	Book of Abraham papyri
31	Kinderhook plates	Kinderhook Plates
34-35	Joseph translated a Greek psalter
36	Joseph mistranslated a number of documents

Chapter 2: Authorship of the Book of Mormon

Page	Claim	Response
39	The church has encouraged the questioning of Book of Mormon authorship
40	Joseph Smith was intellectually capable of writing the Book of Mormon himself
40	B.H. Roberts wondered if the Book of Mormon stories were just inspirational tales	B.H. Roberts' testimony of the Book of Mormon
41	B.H. Roberts questioned whether it was history or the product of a "pious but immature" mind	B.H. Roberts' testimony of the Book of Mormon
41-42	The story of Zelph	Zelph
42	Joseph reported that the Kinderhook Plates contained a geneaology back to Ham	Kinderhook Plates
42	Joseph gave many descriptions of heros and their treasures hidden in the New York hills
42	B.H. Roberts concluded that Joseph Smith was capable of writing the Book of Mormon	B.H. Roberts' testimony of the Book of Mormon
46	The Book of Mormon reflects evangelical protestantism
48	The story of Jesus raising Lazerus from the dead is the source of for Alma 19
48	Alma 19 is derived from evangelical conversion experiences common in the 19th century
49	Alma 32 is derived from Jesus's parable of the sower
49	The Book of Mormon was an amalgamation of ideas from Joseph Smith's own environment
50-53	Many Book of Mormon stories are derived from the New Testament
55	The decapitation of Laban parallels the story of Judith in the Apocrypha
57	LDS position is that the Lamanites are the principal ancestors of the American Indians	Search for the Truth DVD:DNA
57	No Hebrew or Egyptian writing has been discovered in the New World	Book of Mormon anachronisms:Reformed Egyptian
57	The Book of Mormon provides too short a time for the disappearance of the Nephite/Lamanite language
57	No indigenous American language has a Hebraic or Egyptian origin.
58	B.H. Roberts thought that View of the Hebrews could be a basis for the Book of Mormon	Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews
58	Roberts investigated the possible connection between the two books because he recognized the utility of having a ground plan to work from to contextualize theological issues	Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews
58	Roberts concluded that there was a great probability that the Smith family read View of the Hebrews	Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews
60	Roberts concluded that a copy of View of the Hebrews could have been supplied by Oliver Cowdery
60-64	B.H. Roberts' parallels between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon	Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews
65-66	Joseph Smith received a revelation to send people to Canada to sell the Book of Mormon copyright for $8000. After expenses, the money was to go to the Smith family.
66	The writing of the 116 pages served as an "apprenticeship" to writing the Book of Mormon

Chapter 3: The Bible in the Book of Mormon

Page	Claim	Response
70-71	Joseph Smith Sr.'s 1811 dreams are similar to Lehi's "first" vision and his "tree of life" dream
82	There are no original motifs in 3 Nephi that are not found in the Gospels	Book of Mormon plagiarized from the Bible
82	Joseph had the words of Christ available to him, but "curiously chose not to use them" for at least half the verses in 3 Nephi 11-28.	Book of Mormon plagiarized from the Bible
82	Joseph may have used a blanket to screen his use of the Bible from his scribe
83	Oliver "neglected to mention" the use of a Bible in the translation
83	The Book of Mormon contains twenty-six full chapters from a 1769 edition of the KJV	Book of Mormon plagiarized from the Bible
83	The Sermon at the Temple includes modern errors found in the KJV	Translation Errors from the KJV
90	The Aramaic word "raca" would not have been intelligible to a Nephite
90	The three days of sunlight is not mentioned in the Bible even though North America and Israel are both in the Northern hemisphere.