"Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" - - Groucho Marx

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Photographic Evidence for the Authenticity of The Book of Mormon

By Mike Sageloff

Many critics of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon have made statements that are easily disproved if one does his or her homework. Unfortunately, there are all too many people who are simply unable or unwilling to seek out the truth for themselves, prefering to believe whatever they are told by their teachers, clergymen, or friends regarding the Book of Mormon. I ask only that the seeker of truth believe his own eyes. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. One hopes that this pictorial essay sparks a yearning in you to look beyond the anti-Mormon propaganda, to see the Book of Mormon for what it really is: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.

Send a link to this page to a friend by clicking here!

The Critics:

The Picture:

Commentary:

Bountiful: Everyone knows that there couldn't possibly be a place like the land called "Bountiful" on the arid Arabian penninsula, as described by Lehi in 1Nephi 17:5 - a rich, green garden spot with trees, abundant fruit, water, honey, and a mountain.

Wadi Sayq, Oman

This is a photo of Wadi Sayq, on the southeast coast of the Arabian penninsula. Not only in the right place, but with all the goodies described in the Book of Mormon! Courtesy of: Where Did Nephi Build the Ship by Maurine and Scot Proctor
Meridian Magazine. Also good info on this in Reexploring the Book of Mormon, by F.A.R.M.S. and John Welch

River of Laman: In 1Nephi 2:8-10, Lemuel finds a continually flowing river that flows through a valley and empties into the Red Sea, and names it the River of Laman. Critics say there is no such river.

Photo courtesy of George Potter

Photo of one candidate for the Valley of Lemuel and the River of Laman, 8 miles north of Maqna. The stream flows year-round and empties into the Red Sea. Read more at: The Nephi Project, an Independent Research Group

Swords: Many critics of the Book of Mormon state that it is common knowledge that swords such as those described in Alma 24:12-15 did not exist in meso-america prior to the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors, despite what the Book of Mormon says.

Photo courtesy of:
Corning Museum of Glass

"Montezuma had ... every sort of weapon; many of them were richly adorned with gold and precious stones. There were shields...and a sort of broadsword, and two-handed swords set with flint blades that cut much better than our swords." [Bernal Diaz, Conquistador. "The Conquest of New Spain", Penguin Books, 1963)

Plates of Gold: Some critics have found it ludicrous that the entire Book of Mormon could have been contained on the golden plates that Joseph Smith received from the angel Moroni. Smith described the plates as 6" x 8", thin, and the stack being some 6 inches in height. It weighed some 60 lbs.

Click on photo to see full sized

We don't know what "reformed egyptian" looked like, but if it was similar to Hebrew, note that vowels and small words are omitted, and there is virtually no space between words. One page of Hebrew, in this example, translates to almost 15 pages of English. Also, gold can be hammered thinner than paper.

Lack of Evidence?
Book of Mormon critics continue to claim an overwhelming lack of evidence, while many mainstream scientists label those who do find and present such evidence as crackpots.

Pictographs at Anubis Caves, OK

Hundreds of symbols have been found in Oklahoma's Anubis Caves by self-taught epigrapher Gloria Farley. Many of the pictographs are of traditional egyptian images and motifs. For more info, see the website of Gloria Farley

No Old World Evidences?
Even if some critics begrudgingly acknowledge that some New World evidence may exist, they still held fast to the idea that there's no evidence in the Old World of trans-oceanic contact with the New World. That was before the "Mystery of the Cocaine Mummies"

Mystery of the Cocaine Mummies

Cocaine found in Egyptian mummies could not be explained by contamination, or fakes or by Egyptian plants containing it. There was only one remaining possibility... An international drug trade who's links extended all the way to the Americas. Read a transcript of the Discovery Channel Documentary

Mummies, Part II
For many years, anti-Mormon critics claimed that any cross migration from the Old World to the new World would have to have brought Old World diseases along with it. They smirked, why was there no evidence of this?

Mummies of Ancient Peru

In 1994, traces of tuberculosis DNA were found in the lung of a 1,000-year-old Peruvian mummy. This refuted the widely held theory that European explorers had introduced this disease and indicated that tuberculosis existed in the Americas 500 years before Columbus arrived. Read about it at: Science News Online.

How did the Book of Mormon end up in the northeastern U.S? Critics love to point out that even if the Book of Mormon civilizations existed in meso-america, there's no evidence to explain how Joseph Smith found the Golden Plates in the Northeastern United Sates.

Stonehenge USA, New Salem NH

A maze of man-made chambers, walls and ceremonial meeting places, America's Stonehenge is one of the oldest man-made construction in the US. (over 4000 years old). Archaeological excavations have uncovered an amazing range of historic and pre-historic artifacts-from stone tools, pottery and ancient old world scripts. Stonehenge USA

Unknown Languages:
Many Book of Mormon critics scoff at the concept of "reformed egyptian" being the language of the original plates of the Book of Mormon. However, current science has discovered several previously unknown written languages, such as Paleo-Hebrew.

The Los Lunas Decalog

Discovered in New Mexico in the 1880's, near a large complex of ruins. Written in paleo-Hebrew, unknown to scholars at the time, but now recognized widely. Contains an abridged version of the Ten Commandments. Read about it at United Israel

Highways and Roads? The Book of Mormon speaks of highways and roads in 3Nephi 6:8 and 8:13, yet everyone knows the prehispanic meso-americans were not road builders! Another terrible blunder by Joseph Smith?

Avenue of the Dead
Teotihuacan Mexico

One road in Yucatan is over 50 miles long (A. Bustillos Carillo, "El Sacbe de los Mayas, 1974). Others have been found in Belize, near Mexico City, and other sites in Central America.

Elephants in the Americas? Ether 9:19
And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man..." - Critics scoff. "Even Joseph Smith should have known there were no elephants in the Americas!

Stelae B, Copan - Click to enlarge

Since it couldn't have happened, all evidence that it did must be ignored! Fact is, there are a fair number of Mayan artworks showing elephants. Critics say those are parrots. What do YOU think?

In 1926, Franz Spillman, paleontologist and Max Uhle, archaeologist, excavated in 1926 , an almost complete mastodon skeleton about 12 km. east of Quito, Ecuador, with associated obsidian and bone tools and about 150 potsherds. The animal had been killed, cooked and eaten at the site--at a time well after the introduction of pottery.

Pyramids:
Book of Mormon critics enjoy pointing out that meso-american pyramids are quite different in appearance and often function than their Egyptian counterparts.

Click to see full photo

This carving found at Izapa, Mexico shows what may be ocean waves along the bottom edge, and egyptian style pyramids in the background. Note the pyramids are sloped, not stepped, as many meso-american pyramids are.

Reformed Egyptian:
A favorite of the Book of Mormon critics. They ask, "Why would Hebrews write in the language of the Egyptians, whom they hated? And what the heck was "reformed Egyptian?" No such thing, they claimed.

Egyptian writing evolved into three basic (and well-documented) forms: hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic

Prof. Hubert Grimme, showed that some ancient engravings on the Sinai peninsula, (dating to about 1500 B.C.), were in the pure Hebrew language but the script was hieratic Egyptian that had been "some what changed". (Hubert Grimme, Prof. of Semitic Language at Munster University. pub. in "Althebraische Inschriften vom Sinai")

Horses in the Book of Mormon:
Many scientists believe that horses did not exist in the Americas prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Other scientists say that ancient horses existed in the Americas, but became extinct some 10,000 years ago. Either way, they claim, the stories in the Book of Mormon that tell of horses in Meso-America at the time of the Nephites must be wrong. Abundant evidence to the contrary, unfortunately, tends to be ignored.

One of the "Ica Stones" clearly showing a horse

Ancient carved stones discovered by Dr. Javier Cabera under lava layers in the Ocucaje Desert near Ica Peru. If authentic, the carvings probably pre-date the Nazca lines, since they were found beneath them. Photo courtesy of Ancient American Magazine, Nov/Dec 1993.

Man on horse, Chichen Itza, Mexico

This is a carving from the walls of the Temple of Palques, Chichen Itza, Yucatan Mexico. It shows a bearded man on a horse or donkey. Photo courtesy of Otto Done.

Pre-Columbian Pictograph from Anubis Cave 2, Colorado. Courtesy of Gloria Farley, "In Plain Sight", 1994

Pre-Columbian Pictograph from Picture Canyon, Colorado. Courtesy of Gloria Farley, "In Plain Sight", 1994

Pre-Columbian Pictograph from western Oklahoma. Courtesy of Gloria Farley, "In Plain Sight", 1994

The "Caractors"

Here are some examples that I have not seen gathered in one place anywhere else: a photo of what has been called the "Anthon Transcript," owned by the RLDS Church, a photo of an authentic piece of papyrus containing a sample of Demotic Egyptian script, and a photo of the "Broadside" of an early Book of Mormon bearing samples of the characters found upon the golden plates. Do you see any similarities?

The "Anthon Transcript"
(Right)
The so-called "Anthon Transcript" was a sample of the characters from the golden plates written in Joseph Smith's hand. Given to David Whitmer and kept by the RLDS Church. Not to be confused with the 1980 Mark Hoffman forgery of another version of the Anthon Transcript.

Click on graphic to see a larger version
Purported photo of the authentic "Anthon Transcript"

Click photo to enlarge
A sample of Demotic Egyptian script on ancient papyrus

Click photo to see the entire broadside
The Broadside of The Book of Mormon showing character samples

A Comparison of the three:
As would be expected, the samples taken from the Anthon Transcript and the B.o.M. cover are nearly identical. What is interesting is their similarity to the sample of Demotic Egyptian.

For More Evidence, Click Here.