The available data indicates that The Book of Mormon is NOT a historical record. A summary of items of significance that I am aware of are listed below. The below list contains items that are significant to me that I became aware of by studying various criticisms of the Book of Mormon. Those who wish to learn more about a specific topic can easily do a search and finds lots of critical commentary and research. Areas specific to my own research should be apparent as I call them out.

HISTORICAL ISSUES
Evidence that The Book of Mormon is NOT a Historical account

Biblical literalism is required for the Book of Mormon to be a historical record. This includes a literal Adam and Eve, a literal Garden of Eden creation story, Noah’s ark where all the animals and a small family were saved from a literal global flood, a single original language, a literal confounding of languages at a Tower of Babel, Israel literally wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, and so on. There really isn’t room for these Biblical scriptures to be seen as creation myths, origin stories, legends, or allegories. The Book of Mormon describes these events as literal and depends on them for the Book of Mormon account to be historical. Genetics, fossil records, geography, textual analysis, and other evidence indicate that these stories are more myth, legend, and allegory than they are historical. In addition, there are contradictions between the several different canonized Garden of Eden stories in the LDS canon. That is ok if they are creation myths or allegories, but presents real problems if they are historical records. The Book of Mormon requires Biblical literalism as a historical record if the Book of Mormon is to be a historical record.

Biblical translation errors within the King James Version of the Bible are found in the Book of Mormon. There is little room to doubt that these Book of Mormon translation errors came from the KJV. How else could specific KJV translation errors be part of the Book of Mormon text? An example is in Isaiah 4:5 where the verse should end with “covering” instead of “defence” which is a translation error. Another example is in Isaiah 5:25 where the KJV translator made an error and used the word “torn” when the correct translation is “filth” or “dung.” In addition, portions of the New Testament such as the long ending of Mark that were not in the original text of Mark but added about 400 years after Jesus are also found in the Book of Mormon text.

Boats and Barges – The Book of Mormon requires at least thee independent oceanic voyages to the America’s to support the immigration of the Jaredites, Lehites, and Mulekites. There are also Hagoth’s voyages from the Americas to either another part of the Americas or to another land. Hagoth had the benefit of an entire society which could have been the investment backbone to help build those ships. The text doesn’t say whether the Mulekites also built their own boats or purchased passage. Apologists have suggested that the Mulekites may have used the riches of the kingdom (literally a king’s ransom) to purchase Phoenician boats which could make the voyage. That would have been much easier and more plausible than constructing their own boats using their own labor. Each Phoenician boat at the time could take up to around 20 people. The book claims that the Jaredites and Lehites built their own vessels. The expertise, labor, time, and resources for a group of people to build an oceanic vessel from scratch to transport their entire group in ancient times is not plausible, which presents problems for the Jaredite and Lehite groups. Nephi’s group did not even have tools or a society to leverage to build their boat when Lehi’s group arrived in Bountiful. Nephi had to strike rocks together to start a fire, find ore, construct tools, and so on. Without the backbone of a society to provide technology and items to leverage in ship building, the time and resources required to build tools, create cordage, make sails, harvest lumber, transport lumber, construct storage vessels for cargo, harvest and preserve food, store water, and so on is extreme. It doesn’t really become plausible. The sheer number of labor hours to do all of the work couldn’t have been completed by Nephi and his brothers in the timeline presented in the Book of Mormon. All of this in addition to gathering food and building shelter just to survive. The Mormon Expression podcast Episode 276: How to build a transoceanic vessel provides additional details of the challenges. Furthermore, the Jaredite barges or arks which sometimes acted as shallow submarines that would turn upside down and were sealed air tight is in many ways even more complex, challenging, and the supplies needed were greater.

Book of Mormon Gold Plates Issue #1 – Joseph did not need possession of the gold plates to produce the Book of Mormon. The gold plates were not even vital to the translation project. For the majority of the project, Joseph is reported to have looked at his seer stone placed in a hat to dictate the text. Sometimes the gold plates weren’t even in the same room. Joseph Smith was able to see and translate ancient texts that were on the other side of the world. In a disagreement with Oliver Cowdery about whether John the Beloved died or was still alive, Joseph Smith settled the dispute by using his seer stone to read and translate a parchment written by John that John had hidden. This translation has been canonized as Doctrine and Covenants section 7. Any guess to who won the dispute? Joseph Smith often used his seer stone to settle disputes between himself and others. Somehow, the received revelations always conveniently sided with Joseph.

Book of Mormon Gold Plates Issue #2 – there is not enough room on the Gold Plates to write the entire text of the Book of Mormon. If larger plates are assumed, then the weight which is already too heavy becomes even heavier.

Book of Mormon Gold Plates Issue #3 – the reported size and weight of the plates makes it improbable that they were made of gold or a gold alloy like tumbaga. However, copper or even tin is a possible match to the reported size and weight. My opinion as that there may have been some type of physical manufactured plates or manufactured object at some point in time, but if so, they were not gold or even a gold alloy like tumbaga. While no one knows what the physical object really was, it is plausible that some or all of may have been made out of common roofing tin. It might have even been painted or treated with an imitation gold paint. To a willing and believing mind that was prepped for a spiritual experience, it may have been enough to convince a person that the plates had the appearance of gold or a gold-copper alloy. Josiah Stowell was a guest at the Smith home when Joseph first received the plates. In a trial involving Josiah, the transcript states “witness saw a corner of it; it resembled a stone of a greenish caste.” Note that roofing tin was often painted green according to Dan Vogel. If Joseph Smith was also able to procure some aged green copper sheets (copper sheets were readily available at the time) that would have met the size and weight requirements. Copper is less than half the density of gold, and is a plausible material at the heavier end. If the top of the plates was copper, then the sealed bottom which accounted from half to two thirds of the plates could be a cheaper and slightly lighter metal like tin. Multiple materials also lends to the idea that different plates could have been combined together (e.g. large plates, small plates, Book of Lehi, etc.).

Book of Mormon Gold Plates Issue #4 – When pressed, Martin Harris stated that he saw the Gold Plates with his “spiritual eyes” rather than natural eyes. It was seen in the imagination of his mind as a city is seen through a mountain. In a magic world view that Joseph Smith, Martin Harris, and others had at the time, the true nature of treasure could only be seen with spiritual eyes. Seers could see treasures that were disguised or buried under the ground. Treasure had a will of its own or was imbued with the will of a treasure guardian spirit. Treasure would disguise itself as normal items like in the story of Aladdin’s lamp. Martin Harris also claimed to have seen and conversed with Jesus Christ in the form of a deer. With a magic world view, normal things, animals, and people were revealed to be treasures, spirits, angels, or even the Lord. With this magic worldview in mind, Martin could have imagined the plates. Or, it is possible that the plates only appeared to be gold or golden if they were seen with the inner eye of faith, while outwardly they did not appear to be golden. Other eyewitness accounts describe the plates as having a green tint. Note that tin was readily available, was thin as paper, was often painted green, and used as a roofing material. I am of the opinion that there was some physical object at least for some of the eyewitness accounts. If you get enough impressionable Bigfoot believers in a room, they will feed off of each other and pretty soon it may start to appear that there is ample evidence for Bigfoot. Highly impressionable people with a powerful imagination who want to believe can even create false memories that they believe are real. They may reinterpret a distant bear that they saw as a child into Bigfoot as they recall and reassemble past memories. Joseph Smith may have selected those who were impressionable to visions, deep desires to believe, and who held a magic world view. For some he may not have needed to show any object in order for them to see the plates. Others may have needed some prompting with sham constructed plates. It was common for Joseph to tell people they had met Moroni or an angel in disguise when they told their story of meeting a stranger on the road. A believing and willing mind is prone to see what it wants to see and interpret data to match a narrative. The brain is a pattern seeking machine looking to fill in the pattern that it is seeking to solve. When your only tool is a hammer, everything is to be treated as if it were a nail. The mind is often blind to what it is not seeking to solve. If witnesses had expected to see gold plates, then that is what a willing mind would see and they wouldn’t question it. A modern example of a witness of the sealed portion of the gold plates that is just as good as any of the original witnesses of the gold plates is John Pratt. He has handled and even photographed the gold plates which are surely a better representation than the original that Joseph constructed. John is a willing believer. He has accepted the doctrine of multiple mortal probations, with the latest reincarnation of Joseph Smith as Mauricio Berger. It is a modern example of seeing what one wants to see and overlooking contrary evidence. https://johnpratt.com/items/docs/2020/witness.html

Brass Plates – didn’t exist and are an anachronism. I am unaware of examples of large codices (bound book) from 600 B.C. or earlier. The evidence suggests that they didn’t exist anciently. There are some examples of unbound individual plates, very small bound decorative plates, or bound tiny talisman plates. However, there are no examples of large texts such as the Brass Plates. If the Brass Plates existed, they would have been of such value and importance, that they would have become part of the sacred temple artifacts and everyone would have known about them and we would have other records of their existence. They would have been safeguarded by kings and temple priests rather than a local mob boss.

DNA – There is no Israelite, Egyptian, or Middle Eastern DNA in North, Central, or South American native peoples that traces to the time periods corresponding to the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon also states in 2 Nephi 1:6-8 that knowledge of the land was kept from other nations so that they would not overrun it. The Book of Mormon does not explicitly state that there were existing peoples in the Americas. Apologists have argued that the population growth in the text is so large, that the existence of other peoples is required. Hence, they argue that the text infers that there must have been other peoples even though they aren’t mentioned. A simpler explanation is that the author left the promised land largely an uninhabited so that the immigrants could build their Zion and the extreme population growth was an oversight in the author’s world creation. During Joseph’s childhood, he observed explosive population growth both from high birth rates and from immigration and the expansion west. Regardless of whether or not there were other peoples, if the Jaredites, Lehites, and Mulekites multiplied as God commanded, then there should be ample DNA markers seeing that the Jaredites came from the Tower of Babel, Lehi’s family came from Jerusalem, and the Mulekites also came from Jerusalem.

First Person Narrative – ancient religious writers did not write extensive accounts in first person narrative. At most they introduced themselves and who they were making the record for. First person narrative occurs extensively at the end and beginning of the Book of Mormon. The translation process after the loss of the 116 pages began in Mosiah and then proceeded through the book and restarted until it wrapped around back to Mosiah. The switch from 3rd person to 1st person halfway through the translation process suggests a change in authorship or at least a change in voice for the second half of the project. A single author can have more than one voice. An example is that the voice used for prayer is different than the voice for everyday conversation. A summary of the issues are 1) ancient writers did not write long texts of scripture using a 1st person voice and 2) the switch in voice from 3rd person narrative during the first half of the translation project to 1st person voice during the 2nd half of the translation project (found in the beginning and end of the Book of Mormon) suggests that it is not a historical record.

Isaiah Issue #1: The book of Isaiah was written across three different time periods by different authors (Proto-Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, and Trito-Isaiah). Deutero-Isaiah chapters are quoted extensively in the Book of Mormon. The best Isaiah scholarship indicates that these texts were written after Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem, meaning that they could not have been on the brass plates. Nephi would not known about Deutero-Isaiah to copy them over to his Gold Plates. Also, if there was limited room on the Gold plates, why spend the limited space copying Isaiah? Just keep them on the Brass Plates and reference them. Or copy over the smaller sections that were most important rather than an entire chapter.

Isaiah Issue #2: Translation quirks, word choices, and errors in Isaiah that are found in the King James Version of the Bible also show up in the Book of Mormon.

Isaiah Issue #3: The Great Isaiah scroll is one of the oldest complete records of Isaiah that exists. It was found more than 100 years after the Book of Mormon was published. Because it is the oldest Isaiah record that we have, if the Book of Mormon copied Isaiah from the Brass Plates, textual differences should be closer to the Great Isaiah scroll than to the King James Version of the Bible. However, when there are differences, the Book of Mormon matches more closely with the King James Version of the Bible.

The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible doesn’t quite match the Biblical text in the Book of Mormon. An example is Matthew 7:1 in the KJV Bible and 3 Nephi 14:1 state, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” The JST states, “Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged; but judge righteous judgement.” Another example is Isiah 29:11 where the KJV and JST match, but 2 Nephi 27:15 contains additional text to better match the Anthon transcript narrative of sharing the Book of Mormon characters with a scholar.

The Law of Moses – The Book of Mormon states that the Nephites followed the Law of Moses with the knowledge that it pointed to the Messiah. However, except for a review of the ten commandments, the Law of Moses with its many other laws and ceremonies is largely absent from the Book of Mormon text. Apologists attempt to find allusions and parallels to the Law of Moses, since that is the best that can be done.

Limited room on the plates – There is lots of wasted text by copying Isaiah onto the plates. Nephi and the subsequent prophets knew that we already had a Bible because of Nephi’s visions about the Bible (2 Nephi 29:3). If Nephi and the subsequent prophets really believed that latter-day Saints would have the words of Isaiah, then Nephi could have simply commented on Isaiah rather than copy all of the text for the latter-day reader. The precious space could have been saved for other spiritual truths. Mormon could have also chosen to pull in some of those other records when abridging the plates. For Nephi’s people, there words of Isaiah were already on the Brass Plates, so Nephi could have used the limited space on the Gold Plates for commentary, sermons, or other spiritual records.

Literacy – The Book of Mormon assumes that Lehi’s entire family and nearly all of the descendants and generations that followed were literate. People were assumed to be literate (see Mosiah 2:8). While a large majority of people in Joseph Smith’s day were literate, this is not how ancient societies functioned. We take it for granted that in ancient times, only a small select few groups of people were literate. Dr. John Lundwall has spoken extensively on this anachronism in the Book of Mormon.

Mosiah Priority – The end of the Book of Mormon runs out of steam suggesting it is a fictional rather than a historical work. In the translation process after the lost 116 pages, the translation work had to start from scratch. It started with Mosiah (hence Mosiah priority), went through Moroni, and then moved to 1st Nephi and continued until it wrapped back to Mosiah. Isaiah filler is found in the Nephi chapters to help make up for the lost 116 pages. As the project was loosing steam in coming to the Words of Mormon, the narrative has the plates being handed off in quick succession from one person to another over several hundred years without any significant events occurring. This provides further evidence that it is fictional rather than historical. The Mosiah priority also causes an issue with Nephite chronology and calendars. Nephi knew that Jesus would be born 600 years after the family left Jerusalem. This would have been a natural point to count time as the people anticipated the birth of Jesus. However, no such calendar system exists. Because of the Mosiah priority, the chapters of Christ’s coming had already been written before Joseph dictated 1st and 2nd Nephi. This creates an anomaly where the people are waiting for Christ but have no idea when he will be born because Joseph hadn’t thought of dictated Lehi’s prophecy yet. Rather than looking back to Lehi’s prophecies and Nephi’s writings, Samuel the Lamanite needs an angel to reveal how many more years it will take until Jesus is born because they were unaware of Lehi’s prophecy and/or how many years it had been since Lehi left Jerusalem.

Oral Performance – The Book of Mormon has the appearance of being an oral performance that was transcribed rather than a written document that was translated. Dr. John Lundwall has spoken extensively about this. This explains chiasmus, instances of self correction, wordy passages, clarifying statements, and so forth. Tight vs Loose Translation – A tight translation is where Joseph saw and then read words with exact spellings that appeared on his seer stone. Examples are curloms and cumoms which are supposed to be some type of work animals. A loose translation is where general concepts and ideas came to Joseph’s mind and he gave his own interpretations on those impressions. This may lead to errors and modern concepts being interwoven into the text as Joseph attempts to convey his impressions. The Book of Mormon is not consistent with either a tight or loose translation suggesting that the narrative about the translation process is also not consistent. There are many 18th century (rather than ancient) concepts and word combinations in the Book of Mormon suggesting that it is a modern rather than an ancient work. Neither a tight translation nor a loose translation match the text. The best match is that there were modern authors who attempted to make it appear that there was a tight translation with words that appeared on seer stones and who claimed that the entire book came about by the power of God and not of themselves, but who also could not prevent modern concepts and wording to also slip into the text.

Theological issues from the early 1800’s are addressed in the Book of Mormon. These are not issues that the Nephites would have been concerned about had they existed. Some easy examples include infant baptism, the concept of a Bible or a closed canon (which wasn’t compiled until many hundreds of years after Jesus), grace vs works debates, the universal salvation of those too young or mentally incapable of choosing God, American exceptionalism, the doctrine of Manifest Destiny which settlers used to displace native peoples, and so on. The issues that the Book of Mormon addresses are issues from the 1800s. They are not ancient issues nor more modern issues. The Book of Mormon was written for our day, IF we are living in the 1800s. The Book of Mormon doesn’t address most of the uniquely Mormon doctrines that emerged after its publication such as temple rites, garments, three degrees of glory, baptism for the dead, the word of wisdom, and so on. It doesn’t address modern society, women’s rights, LGBTQ issues, and a long list of other modern social, moral, and spiritual needs.

Timelines – The 600 year timeline in the Book of Mormon doesn’t match with Jesus’s birth. “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king” (Matt. 2:1) Herod the Great ruled until 4 BC. Therefore Jesus must have been born in 4 BC or earlier. Nephi begins his account stating that it is the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah. Zedekiah began his reign in 597 BC and Lehi’s family left Jerusalem sometime after that. There are not 600 years between when Lehi left Jerusalem and the birth of Jesus. At most there are 594 years, but probably less than that if Lehi didn’t leave the 1st year of Zedekiah’s reign or Jesus wasn’t born in the last year where Herod the Great’s rule ended. Hence there is more than a 6+ year gap in Lehi’s prophecy. My apologetic brain tried to reconcile this by researching ancient calendars which may have been slightly shorter than a solar year, but was unable to find satisfaction. A 360 day calendar could provide a solution since 600 years using a 360 day calendar equates to 591 solar years. However, the Egyptians long before the time of Lehi, the Israelites before the time of Lehi, and the ancient Mayans were all aware of the need for leap days and leap months to correct their calendars. Hence, their calendars were too accurate and calendar errors were not nearly large enough to account for a 6+ year gap in Lehi’s prophesy. The 600 year timeline in the Book of Mormon doesn’t work. I wanted to find out why Joseph Smith may have thought that there were 600 years between the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign and Jesus’ Birth. I searched Adam Clarke’s commentary, which is a source that Joseph Smith used for the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Adam Clarke’s Commentary for Ezekiel 29:1 states that in the tenth year, tenth month, and twelfth day of Zedekiah’s reign, it was Monday February 1st, 3415 in the year of the world (Anno Mundi). I also found out that Adam Clarke relied on the traditional chronology established by Archbishop James Ussher. Hence, using Adam Clarke’s calendar estimate, the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign was 10 years and 10 months and 12 days earlier (almost 11 years) which is Friday March 20th 3404. The year 3404 in the year of the world is 600 BC. Bingo! When using Adam Clark’s commentary, Joseph believed that if Lehi departed Jerusalem shortly after the beginning reign of King Zedekiah, that it would be 600 years until Christ’s birth in 0 B.C. Both of these assumptions and values are false, but it does provide a potential answer for how Joseph may have come up with the 600 year value. For more fun, with the apologetic side of my brain… if we want to match the traditional LDS date of Christ’s birth on April 1st, then Lehi would have departed 12 days into King Zedekiah’s reign (special number for the 12 tribes of Israel) on Wednesday April 1st 600 BC. Exactly 600 years later would then be Saturday (Shabbat – special holy day and completion of the week of creation for the birth of a Jewish savior) April 1st, 0 B.C. My apologetic pattern seeking brain would have thought that it was a home run seeing these parallel connections… even though it is all built on a house of cards and incorrect dates based on the combination of Adam Clarke’s timeline and the Anno Mundi calendar. Joseph Smith worked with ancient calendars and the timelines of the ancient Biblical patriarchs. Calendars, holy dates, and timelines were part of his Christian magic world view. An example is D&C 107:41-53 which is timeline dense.

Word Print studies are a statistical and analytical means for determining the authorship of a text. Diverse word print studies are in agreement that there were a few different authors of the Book of Mormon. No word print study suggests that there are nearly enough different unique voices in the text to account for all of the individual voices that the Book of Mormon claims to have. Many word print studies are decades old. Modern techniques into stylometry, word print, AI, and plagiarism tools can now shed new light on the subject. As new information comes to light about how the Book of Mormon was constructed, new studies are needed. Stylometry suggests that narrative voices are different than the sermon voices when it comes to Book of Mormon authorship. A single person may also multiple voices. They may have one voice that they use to write a document and another voice that they use when speaking and their words are transcribed. How I speak to others is different than how I write. How I speak to people is also different than how I pray. Past word print studies didn’t adequately separate the oral voice from the written voice, nor combined voices to account for collaborate authorship efforts. Future word studies are needed to investigate potential authors for the Book of Mormon. A potential Sydney Rigdon connection can finally be studied as well as collaborative efforts by multiple authors for sections of the text.

Wordy text: The Book of Mormon contains many wordy passages, lots of repetition, and corrections or clarifying statements. This suggests an oral dictation (as proposed by Dr. John Lundwall) and also counters the idea that the authors had to be judicious with their words and word placement due to limited space on the plates.