This material is part of a Field Guide profile on Mormonism: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Click here to go to the main page of the Mormon profile.

 

The religious system instituted by Joseph Smith is usually labeled "Mormonism." This leads to a common misperception among non-Mormons--that the religion of the Latter-day Saints gets most of its unique doctrines from the Book of Mormon. This is likely in part because the other writings which are considered "scripture" by the LDS Church are seldom mentioned outside LDS circles. The reality is that those doctrines which primarily set the Mormons apart from other religious groups were introduced and defined not in the Book of Mormon, but in other writings of Joseph Smith and his successors in the LDS denomination.

 

The LDS Church officially recognizes four volumes as scriptural basis for the denomination:

The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible

The Book of Mormon

Doctrine and Covenants

The Pearl of Great Price

 

This overview will clarify the role of each of these in the beliefs and practices of the Latter-day Saints.

 

The King James Bible

When discussing their denomination with non-Mormons, members of the LDS Church usually emphasize that they revere the Bible (specifically the KJV) as a source of knowledge about God and as a guide for life. What they do not emphasize is that this only applies "as the Bible was in its original manuscript form." And they will further avoid mentioning that the teaching of the LDS Church regarding the reliability of the Bible is that it has been in many cases hopelessly corrupted from that original form by deliberate efforts in the early centuries of the Christian era.

This is not speaking of the kind of minor document variations of the Greek and Hebrew early manuscripts, the vast majority of which are obvious copyist errors of transposed letters and such. Most Biblical historians indicate that the number of incidents of any actual change in the meaning of any given passage which exhibits manuscript variations is very minimal. The LDS Church rather claims that the early Roman Catholic Church deliberately changed whole passages in the originals, adding or subtracting words, phrases, whole sentences, even whole sections. These claims are not based on any historical evidence at all. Instead, they take the teachings of Joseph Smith as the "standard" of truth, and wherever the Bible might vary from those teachings, the assumption is that the Bible had been corrupted at that point in the manuscripts.

For clarification of this position, see the Mormon View of the Bible portion of the Quotes section of the Field Guide Mormonism profile.

 

The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon, first published in 1830, purports to be "Another Testimony of Jesus Christ." Mormonism founder Joseph Smith claimed to have been shown by an angel the hidden buried location of "golden plates" on which were written the contents of the Book of Mormon in "Reformed Egyptian" writing. He also claimed to have been given the ability to "translate" the content of the plates "by the gift and power of God." The translation procedure involved use of a stone called by Joseph and others a "seer stone," and objects called the "Urim and Thummim". The names Urim and Thummim obviously come from the Bible, which does not describe these objects at all. Most scholars believe that they were likely two different stones carried in a pocket in the garment of the High Priest of Israel, and used in some way to receive answers from God to important questions. The Bible gives no specific description of what they looked like or how they were used.

Thus Joseph Smith could describe them as he wished, and no one would be able to refute his description. He described them as two stones set in a "bow," somewhat like spectacles. Thus the implication was that one would place them over the eyes and be able to "see" supernaturally. Although these stones are mentioned a number of times in Mormon writings, it would appear from reports of those close to Joseph at the time he was doing the "translating" that he actually used the "seer stone" most of the time when working on his "translation." A "seer stone" was the common name of the time for a rock that was used in somewhat the same way as a fortune teller's "crystal ball." For specifics from early Mormon documents on the "translation" procedure Smith used, see the Book of Mormon "Translation”  portion of the Quotes section of the Field Guide Mormonism profile.

When Smith had completed his alleged translation of the plates, he declared that the plates were reclaimed by the angel who had led him to their place of hiding. Thus there is no way for anyone now to "verify" Smith's claims in any way.

 

Content of the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon purports to tell the history of peoples in the Western Hemisphere from before the time of Christ. The emphasis is on two "migrations" of people from the Middle East to somewhere in North, Central, or South America. (The specific details in the Book make it impossible to pin down exactly where all of the events were alleged to have occurred.) The first group of migrants, the Jaredites, were depicted as making the trip around the time of the Biblical Tower of Babel incident. Their civilization in the New World grew, flourished, then disappeared before the arrival of the second wave of immigrants.

Most of the Book of Mormon is about this second group, which became a great civilization flourishing from about 600 BC to 400 AD. According to the story, a "prophet of God" named Lehi left Jerusalem just before the fall of that city to Babylon, around 600 BC. He sailed across the Indian Ocean and the Pacific with his wife Sariah, sons Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi, and a few others. They also settled down somewhere in the New World and created a flourishing civilization. On Lehi's death, the people divided into two warring tribes, one led initially by Laman, the other by Nephi. Much of the Book of Mormon deals with their disputes and wars.

The Nephites are portrayed as primarily good, the Lamanites as primarily evil. At one point, the Lamanites are cursed with "dark skin," and are believed by the Mormons to be the forebears of the Native Americans. By the end of the Book of Mormon, the Nephites have been almost totally destroyed. Their last leader, Mormon, compiles the history that is to become the Book of Mormon, and inscribes it on golden plates. His son Moroni is the last living Nephite. This Moroni shows up 1400 years later as an "angelic messenger" to tell Joseph Smith the location of the plates.

In the midst of the story of the history of these groups of people, the Book of Mormon includes a miraculous appearance to them by Jesus Christ after His resurrection. He gives them direct personal teachings, much of it presented in the language of portions of the New Testament such as the Sermon on the Mount, but with some significant variations.

 

For commentary and documentation on some of the serious questions regarding the validity of the claims for the Book of Mormon, see the Book of Mormon portion  of the Quotes section of the Field Guide Mormonism profile, and the Science and Social Science and the Book of Mormon section of the main Mormon Overview page.

 

Doctrine and Covenants

During and after the time he was allegedly translating the golden plates to create the Book of Mormon (first published in 1830), Joseph Smith also claimed to be receiving direct revelations from God about matters affecting the organization, leadership, and growing body of beliefs and practices of the Latter-day Saints.

In 1833, Smith and the other Mormon leaders decided to compile 65 of these revelations into a volume titled Book of Commandments and publish it for distribution to the faithful. Other documents of the time show that the Mormons viewed this book as authoritative and inspired, and its contents binding upon the Church.

However, in 1835, the volume was reissued under a new name, Doctrine and Covenants. And not only were 71 new sections added, but many of the earlier sections had material re-written, left out, or added. This was in spite of the fact that much of the material was portrayed as being "first person" declarations from God Himself. Some of the changes, involving from one word to whole paragraphs, changed the meaning or obvious intent of the content in the earlier Book of Commandments. In some cases, they changed such meanings drastically. And those changes were at times evidently designed to give "scriptural" backing to controversial new practices and doctrines which Smith was attempting to impose on those in the Mormon movement.

Critics both inside and outside the Mormon movement have called into question these changes. Those within the movement who were convinced that the first revelations were correct doubted the changes were from God. Those outside the movement questioned whether any of the material, original or revised, was actually given by God since such changes showed evidence of self-serving, calculated manipulation of so-called "divinely inspired" revelations. This called into question the integrity of Smith and his claims to be a prophet. And in modern times, the reluctance of the LDS leadership to come to grips with the enormity of the changes calls into question their honesty in dealing with the history of the denomination.

Most of the peculiarly distinctive doctrines of the LDS Church are based not on the Book of Mormon, but on the teachings contained in Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price (see below). Also, note that the LDS Church believes its head leader, the current President/Prophet at any point in time, to have inherited the role of "seer" that Joseph Smith had. His official statements are believed to be inspired, and any policies or doctrines he might impose upon the Church are believed to be binding on the membership. Thus the Church is not built on only a scriptural foundation, but on scripture PLUS what is believed to be continuing revelation by the mouth of living prophets. Although it is assumed that the proclamations and teachings of any living Mormon Prophet will not contradict those of former Prophets, the historical reality is that there have been many such contradictions in Mormon history.

For an examination of some of the puzzling changes in content between the Book of Commandments and Doctrine and Covenants, and between some of the statements by early and later prophets, and commentary on the controversy surrounding these changes, see the Changes in Mormonism portion of the Quotes section of the Field Guide Mormonism profile.

 

Pearl of Great Price

The Pearl of Great Price is a small collection of documents produced by Joseph Smith and believed by the LDS Church to be inspired and profitable for understanding a number of points of faith, practice, and doctrine in the church. It consists of:

The Book of Moses: A small section of an alleged "improved translation" of portions of Genesis made by Smith. Mormons claim it contains material that was "removed" from the original record by unscrupulous religious leaders down through history, and restored by direct revelation to Smith.

The Book of Matthew: An alleged "inspired" interpretation by Smith of Matt. 23:39-Matt 24:51

Joseph Smith--History: Excerpts of an 1838 document prepared by Smith giving his official testimony and early history

The Articles of Faith: Thirteen major points of LDS doctrine

The Book of Abraham: Smith's alleged translation of Egyptian papyri purported to be written by Abraham himself

 

Since Joseph Smith claimed to be receiving direct, divine revelation for much of his teachings, critics of Mormonism must usually rely on evaluating such problems as internal inconsistencies in his writings or among the teachings of the various Mormon prophets since his time. However, the Book of Abraham unexpectedly provided such critics with an unusual opportunity in 1967 to expose Smith as a fraud. For details on this surprising story, see the Book of Abraham Papyri  section of the Field Guide Mormonism profile.

  

 

Unless otherwise noted, all original material on this Field Guide website
is © 2001-2011 by Pamela Starr Dewey.

Careful effort has been made to give credit as clearly as possible to any specific material quoted or ideas extensively adapted from any one resource. Corrections and clarifications regarding citations for any source material are welcome, and will be promptly added to any sections which are found to be inadequately documented as to source.

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