I’ve read the Book of Mormon all my life and have spent many years in deep study of it. I searched the book verse by verse for references to Jesus. I collected the largest list of symbols and parallels to Jesus that exists (at least as far as I am aware) of the Book of Mormon. The mind is a pattern finding and solving machine. It looks for patterns and finds patterns in random noise. My sincere search for Jesus in the Book of Mormon led to Parallelomania. I saw connections that were sometimes not justified. Other times, I found real connections because the authors purposefully wove Jesus into the book. The mind fixates on what it searches for. My fixation to find Jesus in the Book of Mormon, created a blind spot to the many issues that are also in the book. Only when my moral compass and Christlike empathy outgrew the limitations of church dogma, was I able to see more clearly what I was previously blind to. The mental self induced thought stopping techniques in response to an emotional identity-self-preservation response were gone. Love overcame fear and allowed me to see more clearly. I could now discern what the Book of Mormon was and what it was not more objectively. While it has many faith promoting stories, I am of the opinion that it is not what it or the church claims it to be.
Scientific inquiry and serious scholarship indicate that the Book of Mormon is NOT historical. The list of issues is vast. Ongoing inquiry continues to find more and more issues that challenge the authenticity and historicity of the Book of Mormon. Some of the issues that used to sit on my metaphorical bookshelf are below. These are issues that I have encountered in the scholarship presented by Bill Reel, Radio Free Mormon, Dr. John Lundwall, John Dehlin, FAIR, various Mormon apologists, and many others. There are also issues listed that I have personally discovered on my own. I have organized my list into Historical Issues, Theological Issues, Problematic Verses, and Other Issues. Links to these pages are listed below.
Theological Issues (including harmful doctrines)
Problematic verses (a verse by verse study)
Other Issues and Contradictions
