There is a new book out and the author makes several claims about John Smith and how he found the book of Mormon.
The book is called The Angel and the Sorcerer. Youtube discussions with the author are available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaIjm84SPUoHe claims John Smith Jr at the age of 16 was attempting to make money as a dowser, using a diving rod to hunt
for buried pirate treasure in upstate NY. The claim was made that he found a possible treasure with the help of an
angel, who told him he can't have it yet. He returned 4 years in a row and the angel finally told him he could have it.
The location was just East of Rochester in Palmyra, NY.
The treasure actually was a set of gold plates that resembled book pages. They contained some variation of Egyptian
Hieroglyphs. He translated the glyphs into the original book of Mormon.
Wikipedia says:
Smith claimed that the last prophet to contribute to the book, a man named Moroni, buried it in a hill in present-day
New York and then returned to earth in 1827 as an angel, revealing the location of the book to Smith and instructing
him to translate and disseminate it as evidence of the restoration of Christ's true church in the latter days.
Joseph Smith Jr. said that when he was seventeen years of age an angel of God, named Moroni, appeared to him,
and said that a collection of ancient writings, engraved on golden plates by ancient prophets, was buried in a nearby
hill in Wayne County, New York. The writings described a people whom God had led from Jerusalem to the Western
Hemisphere 600 years before Jesus’ birth. According to the narrative, Moroni was the last prophet among these
people and had buried the record, which God had promised to bring forth in the latter days. Smith stated that he
was instructed by Moroni to meet at the hill annually each September 22 to receive further instructions and that four
years after the initial visit, in 1827, he was allowed to take the plates and was directed to translate them into English
Solomon Spaulding claims:
In 1826 Joseph Smith, Jr. was brought under a court's examination for certain acts of mischief, and an eye-witness
to that event later recalled that young Joseph possessed a singular stone, which he said he had obtained "on the
South side of Lake Erie, not far from the New York and Pennsylvania line." According to this account, Joseph "left his
father's house, and with his youthful zeal traveled west in search of this luminous stone.... After traveling some one
hundred and fifty miles," following "some labor and exertion he found the stone... placed it in his hat, and discovered
that... he possessed one of the attributes of Deity, an All-Seeing-Eye."
The more I read, the more confusing this all gets. Some claim the angel was from the Jewish lost tribe of Israel.
Others claim the native Americans are the descendants of that same tribe and also include the great mound builders
of the northern states as part of that group. I have seen some of the mounds and entire cities are constructed around
them.
The actual original golden Book of Mormon doesn't seem to be available for people to examine. I can't find anything
online displaying the actual pages.
Does anyone have any other information or thoughts on this matter?
I am really surprised that the religion is based on a translation of a secret book, that isn't available, by a kid with a
magic stick and a magic rock. Plus it was found buried in upstate NY.
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