Ten questions for Latter-Day Saints (Mormons)

 

We would be interested in a response to these questions from any member of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" (commonly known as Mormons).

If you have any answers, send us an email.

 The La Jolla Mormon temple

  1. Why does the Book of Mormon say Jesus would be born in Jerusalem (Alma 7:10) when the Bible says he was born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1)?
  2. Why does the Book or Mormon copy sections from the King James Version of the Bible including translation errors? For example, 2 Nephi 13:17-26 is identical with Isaiah 3:17-26 (except for the italicized words). Yet, recent Hebrew scholarship has shown that the KJV is defective in these verses.
  3. How can the Book of Mormon be dated before AD 421, yet contain extensive quotations from the King James Version of the Bible (including translation errors) which was not produced until AD 1611?
  4. How is it that modern Egyptologists have discovered copies of the Book of Abraham (in 1966) and have identified it as coming from ancient pagan funerary texts like the Book of the Dead? Furthermore, why does not one of Joseph Smith's "translations" comes even close to being right?
  5. How do you explain the claims of Solomon Spaulding, who says he wrote a fictional novel called Manuscript Lost about the early history of America, and that the novel was stolen, adapted, and later published as the Book of Mormon? Furthermore, seven witnesses produced signed statements claiming they had seen drafts of Spaulding's novel before the Book of Mormon was first published.
  6. Why are there no non-Mormon archaeologists who accept the migration from Israel to America, or the large-scale wars such as that alleged near Hill Cumorah in AD 385 (Mormon 6:9-15)?
  7. Why is there so much archaeological evidence for the Bible, yet none for historical accounts in the Book of Mormon?
  8. How could Joseph Smith be a true prophet when he prophesied that the United States government would be overthrown in the 1800s? (History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Deseret Book Company: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1973. 5:394.)
  9. How could Brigham Young be a true prophet when he said that the moon and the sun were both inhabited? (Journal of Discourses, 24 July 1870.)
  10. Why were Mormon males of African descent not allowed in the priesthood up until 1978?