What is the greatest evidence of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon? The text itself. The claim of the Book of Mormon is that it is a record of ancient prophets who left Jerusalem and came to the Americas carrying what they called the brass plates, ancient records kept at that time (around 600 BC). The inspired summary of teachings of these American prophets was done by a prophet named Mormon whose record was translated by Joseph Smith and published in 1830. At that time, only the Deuterocanon (known as the Apocrypha) had been discovered. Since that time, hundreds of apocryphal writings have been discovered and we now see (thanks to the work of people like Jonah Barnes) that there are HUGE parallels in these ancient writings which match up to the Book of Mormon. It is a stunning evidence of the legitimacy of the Book of Mormon’s claim of authenticity.
Get Jonah’s new book, Key to the Keystone, from Plain and Precious Publishing.
Bio: Jonah Barnes climbed out of a meteorite in the countryside in Kansas, USA. Historians estimate it was about 40 years ago. He can run faster than a speeding bullet and leap entire buildings in a single bound. Jonah moonlights as a masked vigilante crime fighter by night and a happily married father of six children by day. He lives in Ridgefield, Washington where he runs a wholesale food company and works as a producer for Ward Radio, a faithful LDS podcast.
Jonah is the author of Turning Little Hearts and I Am My Ancestors, two books that help connect children with their ancestry.
Jonah’s book – Key to the Keystone – is a must read by every faithful latter day saint seeking to increase their appreciation of the “plain and precious truths” the BoM restored to Christians, but were somehow lost from our existing KJV Old Testament. It contains a fascinating review of apocryphal records, many available in ScriptureNotes, that here hastily discounted as credible be early historians because they were too christian sounding. We know, however, that Christ’s gospel has been preached in every dispensation and many of the apocryphal records actually line up very nicely with many of the profound teachings Lehi shared from the brass plates.