The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, which, according to Latter Day Saint theology, contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from 600 BC to AD 421 and during an interlude dated by the text to the unspecified time of the Tower of Babel. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi. The Book of Mormon is one of four standard works of the Latter Day Saint movement and one of the movement's earliest unique writings. The denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement typically regard the text primarily as scripture and secondarily as a record of God's dealings with ancient inhabitants of the Americas. The majority of Latter Day Saints believe the book to be a record of real-world history, with Latter Day Saint denominations viewing it variously as an inspired record of scripture to the lynchpin or "keystone" of their religion. Some Latter Day Saint academics and apologetic organizations strive to affirm the book as historically authentic through their scholarship and research, but mainstream archaeological, historical, and scientific communities have discovered little to support the existence of the civilizations described therein, and do not consider it to be an actual record of historical events.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre was a series of attacks during the Utah War that resulted in the mass murder of at least 120 members of the Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train. The massacre occurred in the southern Utah Territory at Mountain Meadows, and was perpetrated by the Mormon settlers belonging to the Utah Territorial Militia who recruited and were aided by some Southern Paiute Native Americans. The wagon train, made up mostly of families from Arkansas, was bound for California, traveling on the Old Spanish Trail that passed through the Territory.
The First Vision refers to a theophany which Latter Day Saints believe Joseph Smith experienced in the early 1820s, in a wooded area in Manchester, New York, called the Sacred Grove. Smith described it as a vision in which he received instruction from God the Father and Jesus Christ.
The Book of Abraham is a collection of writings claimed to be from several Egyptian scrolls discovered in the early 19th century during an archeological expedition by Antonio Lebolo. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased the scrolls from a traveling mummy exhibition on July 3, 1835, to be translated into English by Joseph Smith. According to Smith, the book was "a translation of some ancient records... purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus". Smith said the papyri described Abraham's early life, his travels to Canaan and Egypt, and his vision of the cosmos and its creation.
Oliver H. P. Cowdery was an American Mormon leader who, with Joseph Smith, was an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement between 1829 and 1836. He was the first baptized Latter Day Saint, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon's golden plates, one of the first Latter Day Saint apostles, and the Second Elder of the church.
In orthodox Mormonism, the term God generally refers to the biblical God the Father, whom Latter Day Saints refer to as Elohim, and the term Godhead refers to a council of three distinct divine persons consisting of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. However, in Latter Day Saint theology the term God may also refer to, in some contexts, the Godhead as a whole or to each member individually. Latter Day Saints believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct beings, and that the Father and Jesus have perfected, glorified, physical bodies, while the Holy Ghost is a spirit without a physical body. Latter Day Saints also believe that there are other gods and goddesses outside the Godhead, such as a Heavenly Mother—who is the wife of God the Father—and that faithful Latter-day Saints may attain godhood in the afterlife. The term Heavenly Parents is used to refer collectively to the divine partnership of Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. Joseph Smith taught that God was once a man on another planet before being exalted to Godhood.
David Whitmer was a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who eventually became the most interviewed of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's golden plates.
No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith is a 1945 book by Fawn M. Brodie that was one of the first significant non-hagiographic biographies of Joseph Smith, the progenitor of the Latter Day Saint movement. No Man Knows My History was influential in the development of Mormon history as a scholarly field, though historians of Mormonism have since criticized the book for its methodological deficiencies, factual errors, and overt hostility to Smith.
The Baker–Fancher party was a group of American western emigrants from Marion, Crawford, Carroll, and Johnson counties in Arkansas, who departed Carroll County in April 1857 and "were attacked by the Mormons near the rim of the Great Basin, and about fifty miles from Cedar City, in Utah Territory, and that all of the emigrants, with the exception of 17 children, were then and there massacred and murdered" in the Mountain Meadows massacre. Sources estimate that between 120 and 140 men, women and children were killed on September 11, 1857, at Mountain Meadows, a rest stop on the Old Spanish Trail, in the Utah Territory. Some children of up to six years old were taken in by the Mormon families in Southern Utah, presumably because they had been judged to be too young to tell others about the massacre.
Mormons have both used and been subjected to significant violence throughout much of the religion's history. In the early history of the United States, violence was used as a form of control. Mormons were violently persecuted and pushed from Ohio to Missouri, from Missouri to Illinois and from Illinois, they were pushed west to the Utah Territory. There were incidents of massacre, home burning and pillaging, followed by the death of their prophet, Joseph Smith. Smith died from multiple gunshot wounds from a lynch mob at a jail in Carthage, Illinois; Smith had defended himself with a small pistol smuggled to him by church leader Cyrus Wheelock and he was then shot while trying to flee from a window. There were also notable incidents in which Mormons perpetrated violence. Under the direction of Mormon prophets and apostles, the Mormon burned and looted Davies County, attacked and killed a member of the Missouri state militia, and carried out an extermination order on the Timpanogos. Other Mormon leaders led the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Battle Creek massacre, and Circleville Massacre. Mormons have also been a major part in several wars, including the 1838 Mormon War, Walker War and Black Hawk War.
Although the Mountain Meadows massacre was covered to some extent in the media during the 1850s, its first period of intense nationwide publicity began around 1872. This was after investigators obtained the confession of Philip Klingensmith, a Mormon bishop at the time of the massacre and a private in the Utah militia. National newspapers also covered the John D. Lee trials closely from 1874 to 1876, and his execution in 1877 was widely publicized. The first detailed work using modern historical methods was published in 1950, and the massacre has been the subject of several historical works since that time.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre was caused in part by events relating to the Utah War, an armed confrontation in Utah Territory between the United States Army and Mormon Settlers. In the summer of 1857, however, Mormons experienced a wave of war hysteria, expecting an all-out invasion of apocalyptic significance. From July to September 1857, Mormon leaders prepared Mormons for a seven-year siege predicted by Brigham Young. Mormons were to stockpile grain, and were prevented from selling grain to emigrants for use as cattle feed. As far-off Mormon colonies retreated, Parowan and Cedar City became isolated and vulnerable outposts. Brigham Young sought to enlist the help of Indian tribes in fighting the "Americans", encouraging them to steal cattle from emigrant trains, and to join Mormons in fighting the approaching army.
The Book of Abraham is a work produced between 1835 and 1842 by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) movement founder Joseph Smith that he said was based on Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book was "a translation of some ancient records ... purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus". The work was first published in 1842 and today is a canonical part of the Pearl of Great Price. Since its printing, the Book of Abraham has been a source of controversy. Numerous non-LDS Egyptologists, beginning in the mid-19th century, have heavily criticized Joseph Smith's translation and explanations of the facsimiles, unanimously concluding that his interpretations are inaccurate. They have also asserted that missing portions of the facsimiles were reconstructed incorrectly by Smith.
The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus was a papyrus fragment, part of a larger collection of papyri known as the Joseph Smith Papyri, found in the Gurneh area of Thebes, Egypt, around the year 1818. The owner's name, Sheshonq, is found in the hieroglyphic text on said hypocephalus. Three hypocephali in the British Museum are similar to the Joseph Smith Hypocephalus both in layout and text and were also found in Thebes.
The standard works of Mormonism—the largest denomination of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints —have been the subject of various criticisms. Latter-day Saints believe the Book of Mormon is a sacred text with the same divine authority as the Bible; both are considered complementary to each other. Other Mormon sacred texts include the Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants, which are also recognized as scripture. Religious and scholarly critics outside Mormonism have disputed Mormonism's unique scriptures, questioning the traditional narrative of how these books came to light and the extent to which they describe actual events. Critics cite research in history, archeology, and other disciplines to support their contentions.
Joseph Smith, Jr. was the leader and founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Being Continuationist, the movement is characterized by a belief that the miracles, visions, prophecies, and revelations attributed to the biblical era continue still today, contingent upon need and the faith of those involved. This belief is based both upon scriptural evidence from the Bible and Book of Mormon and upon accounts of such miracles performed by Smith.
Thomas Brown Holmes Stenhouse was an early Mormon pioneer and missionary who later became a Godbeite and with his wife, Fanny Stenhouse, became a vocal opponent of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had a presence in Italy since 1850.
This is a bibliography of literature treating the topic of criticism of Mormonism, sorted by alphabetical order of titles.
