The collection is exactly what it purports to be, a reasoned look at the Book of Mormon. The editors introduce their perspective by stating: "The nature of faith is not what is at question here, but rather the structure of reason and theory" (xiii). The work presented is, almost without exception, outlined with clarity and kindness. I suspect that no one reading this collection would find their belief in the divine origins of the book either strengthened or weakened. However, there is little doubt that, if they pay close attention, they will at least understand the source of concern expressed by so many people. The problems that many have with the Book of Mormon are inherent in the fact that it reflects times, places, and understandings that are not consistent with what we know from other sources about these same times, places, and events.

The essays in this collection, as is often the case, are of varied interest and insight, but I found all of them well crafted and interesting. Each has supplied notes and illustrations to support his or her comments. Edwin Firmage Jr. suggests evidence to question the assumptions of antiquity concerning the book in an essay he calls "A Personal Encounter," while Old Testament scholar David P. Wright proposes a modern source, the King James Version, for the Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon. Anthropologist Thomas W. Murphy also focuses on the book's claims of antiquity, providing a significant challenge based on patterns of DNA distribution to the popularly held Mormon understanding that Native Americans had Jewish ancestry.

Addressing concerns over the role of the "author" of the Book of Mormon, Susan Staker makes the case for a parallel between the developing message of the book and the Prophet's evolving self-image. Scott C. Dunn discusses the historical significance of "automatic writing" and raises questions about the manner in which one set of such writings might be more or less acceptable than another. Dealing with the authorship of the Book of Mormon, Robert M. Price compares Joseph Smith with the pseudepigraphists (I wish I'd said that), presenting the possibility that the founder of Mormonism was simply trying to find a way to give ancient authority to new conceptions by the use of well-known Bible stories and American myths.

Vogel has two essays dealing with the environment in which the Book of Mormon made its appearance. In the first, he questions the legitimacy of the claims of the three and eight witnesses that they saw and, in some cases, handled the plates. He argues that their witness was more plausibly based on a visionary, rather than a physical, experience. His second essay also challenges those who would question the connection between the secret practices of an expanding Mormonism with the rites and rituals of early nineteenth-century Freemasonry.

In a delightful essay on B. H. Roberts, George Smith sympathetically documents how this remarkable man, ecclesiastical leader, and apologist began to question the source of the Book of Mormon toward the end of his life because of the vast difficulties he found with its historical and archaeological claims.

What constitutes belief remains the penultimate question of men and women of faith. The degree to which the codifications of reason must be sacrificed to the fires of faith is, in itself, a matter of belief. Thus, the universal problem is created for those for whom faith must emerge from, and be ultimately dependent on, a source for which there is so little evidence of legitimacy.

Despite the degree to which some apologists have gone to preserve the internal legitimacy of the Book of Mormon, there is little that can be done to convince the rational mind (as George Smith summarizes a questioner's perplexities expressed to Roberts) that the appearances of "horses, steel, 'cimeters,' and silk could be legitimately included in a book set in pre-Columbian America since they are absent from the archaeological findings of that period" (125). This, and the close relationship between the Book of Mormon text and previously published works, means that little can be done to make the source of the book and, by implication, what it says any less suspect. Although Roberts wrote a reassuring answer to the questioner, he candidly told a committee of other General Authorities that the answers generally given to these questions may "satisfy people that didn't think, but [constituted] a very inadequate answer to a thinking man" (133).

The need for supernatural agents to serve as the presumed source of moral arguments has been quite apparent in Western civilization. But it troubles skeptics when they find the source of such positions implausible. On the other hand, David Sloan Wilson suggests in his excellent book Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002) that the success of a religious moral code depends on whether it motivates the religion to achieve, not on the truth or fictitiousness of the source. Certainly, like any scripture, the Book of Mormon does not have to be true to be highly significant. But it would help.

Ogden Standard Examiner
This collection of nine essays examines the Book of Mormon as a powerful book of scripture separate from the Bible. Specifically, one of the essays focuses on recent DNA testing which revealed modern Native Americans to be of Siberian ancestry rather than Jewish or Hebrew descent.

"This is a 'Galileo event' for Mormons," say the book's editors. It means that church members will need to consider the book a part of a "scriptural tradition that includes fiction—parables, poetry, hyperbole, psalms, historical verisimilitude, and other genres," according to advance publicity for the book.

The essays, written by academics from across the country, focus on other issues as well, including the presence of Hebrew in some scriptures, while other essays explore the evolution of ideas in the Book of Mormon during the course of its dictation.

Change of one word in Book of Mormon intro spurs debate
Associated Press

The introduction to the 2006 edition of the Book of Mormon has a new word: among. It sounds trivial, but to some it represents a huge change to teachings that have been passed on for generations within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The new wording comes in a passage about American Indians, who have long been presented by Mormon leaders as direct ancestors of a lost tribe of Israel known as the Lamanites. "After thousands of years all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians," the new introduction reads.

In previous editions, the phrase was "are the ancestors." What's the big deal? Church defenders say there is nothing important in the change. But skeptics view it differently.

The issue is that church missionaries have long portrayed Book of Mormon stories as fact. To them, it looks like the new wording is a quiet concession that DNA research accurately contradicts the scriptural claim.

"Now they're going to say, 'We got that wrong?'" said Edmonds Community College professor of anthropology Thomas Murphy in Lynnwood, Wash. A Mormon, Murphy said he predicted the church would ultimately concede the Lamanite story was folklore and not science in a 2002 essay that appeared in American Apocrypha, a collection of writings about the Book of Mormon.

Murphy said the use of "among" makes a somewhat deceptive change. It gives the appearance that the institutional church is moving to a position more consistent with science. "In a way, this is a mask for a more serious problem," said Murphy, who was threatened with excommunication in 2002. "The Book of Mormon is entirely inconsistent with the archaeology, the DNA, actually with all the evidence we have from the ancient Americas."

Mormons believe the Book of Mormon was translated with a seer stone by founder Joseph Smith from a set of gold plates buried in upstate New York. The faithful consider it the word of God and a valid testimony of Jesus Christ's work in the ancient Americas. First published in 1830, it has been translated into 105 languages.

The introduction—where the change has been made—was added in 1981 and thought to be drafted by the late Bruce R. McConkie, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the second-most powerful church governing body.

John L. Sorenson, professor emeritus of anthropology at the church-owned Brigham Young University, said that altering what's understood to be an opinion doesn't change the church or the text of the book itself. "Some people may want to twist this matter of a slight word change into something that they themselves want to communicate," said Sorenson. "An editorial commentary is all that has been changed. They might have decided to put more commas in."

Sorenson's own scholarship preaches a "limited geography" theory of Book of Mormon stories. Its premise is that the book chronicles the lives of people who lived in a small region of Central America. Mormon scholars have moved away from any absolute beliefs about the ancestral lines of Indians, said Sorenson, who called the change a "backhanded" acknowledgment from church leaders of the scholarly drift. "It is impossible for me to see what all the fuss is about," he said.

Bob Rees, a retired UCLA literature professor and former editor of the Mormon Dialogue quarterly, is also puzzled. A central tenet of Latter-day Saint beliefs includes the principle of continuing revelation and an open religious canon, so change should be expected, Rees said. "God speaks to the (Mormon) church as being a living church and if it is, that means it's not static, there's an opportunity for change," he said. "The history of science is the history of revising axioms. The things that we know and were certain of 100 years ago, 50 years ago, even 10 years ago, we now have to say, 'Wow, we didn't know.'" As a believing member, however, Rees said he would have liked church leaders to explain the decision and eliminate the "great opportunity for rumor and innuendo."

Church official have offered only a limited explanation. "That change takes into account details of the Book of Mormon demography which are not known," church spokeswoman Kim Farah said, adding that the change will also appear in future editions of the book. A church web site also addresses the issue. "The scientific issues relating to DNA," it says, "are numerous and complex."

This story appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal, Allentown Morning Call, Arizona Republic, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Columbus Dispatch, Concord Monitor, Contra Costa Times, El Paso Times, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Lansing State Journal, Macon Telegraph, Miami Herald, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Modesto Bee, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Pasco Tri-City Herald, Portland Oregonian, Providence Journal, Provo Daily Herald, Pueblo Chiefton, Raleigh News & Observer, Rochester Post-Bulletin, San Antonio Express-News, San Bernardino Sun, San Jose Mercury News, Spokane Spokesman Review, Springfield News-Leader, Tacoma News Tribune, Tucson Citizen, Tulsa World. Tuscaloosa News, Wichita Falls Times Record, and Worcester Telegram.

Click here for news story on DNA and genealogy
Click here for essay by Thomas W. Murphy on "Galileo Event"
Click here for a reply to FARMS and the Smith Institute