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Te wee hours o  September  oundJoseph Smith climbing the western slope o a promi-nent hill near his home to keep his annual appoint-ment with the angel Moroni.1 Aer our yearso probation, the -year-old prophet was nally entrusted with the golden plates and the sacredstones needed to translate them. Te consequenceso this event have been earthshaking. Te Book o Mormon, translated rom this ancient record, is nowavailable in  languages, and close to  millioncopies have been printed.2Te Book o Mormon challenges the world totake it seriously as an account o God’s dealingswith ancient New World peoples. Nothing less thansalvation is at stake. Te world has not taken thischallenge lying down; it pushes back by denying thebook’s miraculous delivery and authenticity. Whilebillions o people in act remain indierent to thebook, as they do to the Bible, a vocierous cadre o critics clamor that the Book o Mormon is a abrica-tion, an ignorable ction, but one they can’t seem toleave alone.3
relics,
and
book
of
mormon belief
3
VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2, 2005
 
by john e. clark
 
JOURNAL OF BOOK OF MORMON STUDIES
3
Since  critics haveattempted to discredit theBook o Mormon by claimingthat it was written by JosephSmith—not translated—andthat its history has no ground-ing in the real world. Tey believe they are winning theday, but  years o alse-hoods and weak argumentshas not scratched the book’scredibility. Because o whatis at stake, let us agree thatcharges against the book areserious and require response.Te critical question concernsBook o Mormon authorship.Did Joseph Smith Jr. writethe book, or was it revealedthrough divine means? Tisis where archaeology steps inas the only scientic meanso gathering independentevidence o authenticity, andhence authorship. Te Book o Mormon is uniquein world scripture because its claimed divine originscan be evaluated by checking or concrete evidencein the real world. Prove the existence o Zarahemla,or example, and the validity o the rest ollows. Telogic is simple and compelling or both sides.4Let us consider the anti-Mormon position rst.I Joseph Smith made the book up, then its peoplesdid not exist, its events did not happen, and thereshould be no trace o them anywhere. I, aer areasonable period o diligent searching, materialevidence is not ound, then the Book o Mormonwould be shown to be imaginary, and by implica-tion Joseph Smith would be exposed as a liar andthe church he ounded unveiled as a hoax.Te Latter-day Saint position is the near oppo-site. Conrmation o historic details o the Book o Mormon would substantiate Joseph Smith’s accounto how it came to be and thus validate his seershipand the divine origin o both the book and TeChurch o Jesus Christ o Latter-day Saints. Tisbrings us to the astonishing possibility o being ableto test Joseph Smith’s claims through science, a pos-sibility that critics have long tried to exploit. TeBook o Mormon is the keystone o Mormonism;destroy this stone and all that it supports will comecrashing down. Given thestakes involved, the very pos-sibility o testing the book’shistoricity and authenticity becomes a moral obligation todo so.Space precludes a reviewo ull Latter-day Saintinvolvement with these issues;one example will have to do.Let’s revisit Provo’s Academy Square the morning o April . Te assembledstudent body o BrighamYoung Academy bade arewellto their president,  ellowstudents, and others as they rode o or South America.Academy president BenjaminClu Jr. hoped “to discoverthe ancient Nephite capitalo Zarahemla . . . [and] inthis way . . . to establish theauthenticity o the Book o Mormon.”5 Te expedition began with the bless-ing o the Church but not its nancial backing, andits blessing was withdrawn beore the group evenmade it out o the United States. O the original men,  crossed into Mexico and  made it toColombia. Aer the group had boated  milesup the Magdalena River, a point that was  days’ journey rom Academy Square, Colombian ofcialshalted the anxious explorers’ progress just daysshort o their destination.6 Clu and his students
Opposite page: The Maya site of Becán, inCampeche, Mexico. Photo courtesy of John E.Clark. Background: Maya monument sketch byFrederick Catherwood.Clockwise from top:
Moroni Delivering the GoldenPlates
, by Gary Kapp; portrait of Benjamin Cluff Jr.; embarkation of Cluff expedition.
 
0
VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2, 2005
never reached Zara-hemla. Latter-day Saint scholars andtourists have beentrying to get thereever since, but it isnot clear where they should look, howthey should look, orhow they will knowZarahemla whenthey nd it.Clu returnedto become therst president o Brigham YoungUniversity (the new name o the academy).7 His pro-posal or the location o Zarahemla was apparently a popular one among Mormons at the time. He pre-sumed that Book o Mormon lands included bothNorth and South America, a theory known as thehemispheric model.8 Tat it took nearly two years tomeander to Colombia should have given him pause.Te longest trip specied in the Book o Mormontook  days, and that group was lost and on oot(see Mosiah :).9An argument against the hemispheric modelwas provided by Joseph Smith. Te year  inNauvoo had beenhectic as the Prophetmoved the work alongon the Book o Abra-ham and the temple,all the while dodgingalse arrest. He evenassumed editorialresponsibility or the
imes and Seasons
,
 
theNauvoo newspaper.10Months earlier he received a copy o the recent best-seller by John Lloyd Stephens,
Incidents of ravel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan
, the rstpopular English book to describe and illustrateMaya ruins.11Tis book amazed the English-speaking worldwith evidence o an advanced civilization thatno one imagined existed—no one, that is, exceptLatter-day Saints. Te Prophet was thrilled, andexcerpts rom the book were reprinted in the
imesand Seasons
with unsigned commentary, presum-ably his. What Joseph recorded is signicant or theissues at hand:
Since our “Extract” [rom Stephens’s book] waspublished . . . we have ound another impor-tant act relating to the truth o the Book o Mormon. Central America . . . is situated northo the Isthmus o Darien and once embracedseveral hundred miles o territory rom northto south. he city o Zarahemla . . . stood uponthis land. . . . It will not be a bad plan to com-pare Mr. Stephens’ ruined cities with those inthe Book o Mormon.12
The ill-fated Cluff expedi-tion began in Provo, Utah,and ended prematurely inColombia.In the 1840s Stephens’sbook (cover from 1969edition by Dover) providedcompelling evidence for theBook of Mormon. Far right:Map from the book.
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