The Strongest Case for the Latter-day Saint Faith

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called the Latter-day Saint church on this site, invites people to read the Book of Mormon, pray, and ask God whether it is true.¹² Its leaders and scholars also point to witnesses, to a history of lost and restored authority, and to prophets who speak today.

The five are this site's selection, drawn from the church's scriptures (the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price),³ its manuals, essays, and conference addresses, and Latter-day Saint scholars. This page covers the Latter-day Saint church only; the other churches that trace their origins to Joseph Smith are on the Branches page.

Five of the reasons Latter-day Saints give

1. The Book of Mormon as another testament of Jesus Christ

Latter-day Saints hold that the Book of Mormon is an ancient record written by prophets in the Americas and abridged by a later prophet-historian. Joseph Smith translated it, they teach, by the gift and power of God.²¹ The church's introduction to the book calls it a new and additional witness that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God². Its crowning event, the introduction says, is the personal ministry of Jesus among the Nephites, one of the book's peoples, soon after his resurrection.²

The introduction quotes Joseph Smith calling the book the keystone of our religion². It adds that those who gain a witness of the book from the Holy Ghost will also know that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Joseph Smith is a prophet.² The author Jana Riess, in an entry covering the church through the 1990s, says it used the book heavily in missionary outreach, offering free copies.⁴

Terryl Givens, a Latter-day Saint professor, argues that Joseph Smith stood out among many claimants to revelation because he had something to show. The book, as an object anyone could examine, served as concrete evidence that God had opened the heavens again⁵.⁵⁶

Historians' views: see the Sacred Texts page.

2. The witnesses of the plates

The first edition of the Book of Mormon carried two statements from witnesses. Three men, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, declared that an angel showed them the plates. They also heard God's voice say the translation was done by the gift and power of God⁷. Eight others, members of the Smith and Whitmer families, declared that Joseph Smith showed them the plates and let each one heft⁷ them.⁷ Their statements are printed in every copy of the book.²⁴

The Joseph Smith Papers report that the earliest known copy of the Three Witnesses statement is in Cowdery's handwriting, signatures included, and does not appear to be the original. Whitmer later stated that each witness signed the original.⁸ The church's history page says each of the Three later parted ways with the church, and Cowdery and Harris returned. All three, it says, kept affirming their testimony throughout their lives.⁷

Stephen Burnett, whom the church's witnesses page calls a disaffected member, wrote to Lyman Johnson in 1838 that Martin Harris said in a public meeting that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination⁹, and that the eight witnesses never saw them⁹.⁹⁷

The church's witnesses page says Burnett, citing the revelation to the Three Witnesses, argued that seeing by God's power meant viewing the plates only in vision or imagination. It also says that Harris felt misrepresented and tried to clarify. It adds that some witness accounts came from hostile interviewers or were recorded years later, and that the accounts vary in some details but are generally consistent.⁷

Jeffrey R. Holland said in a 2009 conference address that the witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates¹⁰.

Historians' views: see the History page.

3. A promise anyone can test: ask God

Latter-day Saints teach that the book can be tested by anyone. Near its end, the prophet Moroni writes:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

The next verse widens the promise: And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. (Moroni 10:5)¹¹

Preach My Gospel, the church's missionary manual, teaches that the Holy Ghost usually answers prayer as a quiet assurance through our feelings, thoughts, and impressions¹.¹ The church's essays on the book's translation and on DNA both close with the same promise.¹²¹³

4. A falling away, then a restoration of authority

Latter-day Saints teach that after the apostles were killed, a widespread falling away from the gospel followed, and God withdrew priesthood authority from the earth. Preach My Gospel adds that councils settled religious questions by debate rather than revelation, and that doctrine and ordinances were changed to fit worldly philosophies.¹

In the spring of 1820, Latter-day Saints hold, God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in what the church calls the First Vision.¹ Heavenly messengers then restored authority: John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John, and then Moses, Elias, and Elijah.¹ The church's 2020 proclamation declares that it is Christ's New Testament Church restored¹⁴.

Gordon B. Hinckley, speaking in general conference in 2002, said of the First Vision: Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision.¹⁵¹⁵ He added that if it did not occur, this work is a fraud¹⁶, and if it did, it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens¹⁶.¹⁶

Historians' views: see the History page. Historians' accounts of how the councils of the 4th and 5th centuries defined Christian teaching about God and Jesus are in the section on the early church's core beliefs on the Christianity History page. The Nicene Christian account is on Christianity vs Latter-day Saints.

5. Living prophets and continuing revelation

Latter-day Saints hold that God has always led his people through prophets, and that a living prophet receives revelation to teach and lead the church today.¹ They point to the prophet Amos:

Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

The church sustains the President of the Church as prophet, seer, and revelator, the only person on earth who receives revelation to guide the entire church. It sustains his counselors and the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators too.¹⁸ Members can receive revelation for their own needs, the church teaches, but only prophets receive it for the whole church.¹⁹

Revelation, Latter-day Saints teach, continues and will continue. The ninth Article of Faith says:

We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

The 2020 proclamation, issued by the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles and read at general conference by Russell M. Nelson, says the promised Restoration goes forward through continuing revelation¹⁴.

The hardest objection: is the Book of Mormon an ancient record?

This objection concerns evidence outside the faith's own sources. It is therefore stated partly by two scholars: Simon Southerton, whose book challenges the link between Native Americans and ancient Israel, and Michael D. Coe, who argued that the book is fiction. The church and its scholars answer it.²⁰²¹

Latter-day Saint thinkers pose the question themselves. The church's 2016 essay on DNA says that some people have wondered whether the migrations it describes are compatible with scientific studies of ancient America¹³.¹³ Terryl Givens argued in a 2006 interview that the book refers to things ranging from horses to steel to structures of cement⁵ that archaeologists hold were not present in the New World then. Most of the evidence, he argued, is an argument from absence⁵.⁵⁶

Other scholars press the same point on DNA. The essay reports that some argue the migrations did not occur, because most DNA identified so far in Native Americans most closely resembles that of eastern Asian populations.¹³ Simon Southerton, a research scientist and former Latter-day Saint bishop, argued in a 2004 book that none of nearly 7,500 DNA-tested Native Americans had any link to ancient Israel. Christianity Today reported that more than 99 percent had an Asian heritage.²⁰

On archaeology, Michael D. Coe, a Yale archaeologist, argued in 1973 that nothing found in New World excavations would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of Mormon, as Joseph Smith presented it, is a historical document about early migrants to the hemisphere.²² In a 2006 interview, Coe, who calls himself irreligious, argued that no horse or cattle bones and no wheat or rye have been found at the relevant sites.²¹

Coe also argued that Joseph Smith, after reading an account of Maya ruins, placed the land of Zarahemla in the region he called Guatemala.²¹ The church's geography page says that 1842 newspaper articles tying ruins in Mexico and Central America to the book appeared under Smith's editorship, and that it is not clear how involved he was in writing them.²³

This page takes it as the hardest objection for two reasons. Givens argues that the book's message cannot be separated from the story of its origins,²⁴ and the church has given the book's origin and setting two essays and a topic page of their own.²⁵²³

On where the events happened, the church's only position is that they took place in the ancient Americas; it takes no position on specific places.²³ John Sorenson argued in a 1984 Ensign article, which says it is not official church teaching, that the events covered a limited territory. He argued that only Mesoamerica, central and southern Mexico and northern Central America, fits.²⁶ Givens argued that a good reading indicates the book probably describes a people in an area of roughly 100 to a couple hundred miles, which answers many objections though some remain.⁵

In a 2015 review in Interpreter, a Latter-day Saint journal, Brant Gardner and Mark Alan Wright credit Sorenson with shrinking the lands from a hemisphere to a region roughly the scope of Hebrew history. They also argue that his method of listing cultural parallels is fundamentally flawed, because it too easily leads to false positives.²⁷

On DNA, the church's essay argues that studies cannot decisively affirm or reject the book's authenticity. Nothing is known about the DNA of the book's peoples, the book does not say they were the only inhabitants of their lands, and genetic drift could leave their DNA undetectable.¹³ Sorenson argued in 1992 that statements in the text itself indicate other peoples in the land.²⁸

In an interview PBS published in 2007, Daniel Peterson, then a professor at Brigham Young University (which the church founded, supports, and guides), argued that for metals we don't have the hard archaeological evidence; we have the soft linguistic evidence⁵.²⁹⁵ Givens argued that unresolved anachronisms remain and that the evidence will never be conclusive either way.⁵ Dallin H. Oaks is quoted in the church's essay: secular evidence can neither prove nor disprove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon¹³.¹³

Historians' views: see the Sacred Texts and History pages.

Where to go next

The comparison page sets this case beside Nicene Christianity's own account: Christianity vs Latter-day Saints. The series page describes the matching book, coming soon.