WThere are a number of words and phrases in the Book of Mormon that are anachronistic—their existence in the text of the Book of Mormon is at odds with known linguistic patterns or archaeological findings.
WThe "Anthon Transcript" is a piece of paper on which Joseph Smith wrote several lines of characters. According to Smith, these characters were from the golden plates and represent the reformed Egyptian writing that was on the plates.
WSince the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830, Mormon archaeologists have attempted to find archaeological evidence to support it. Although some historians and archaeologists consider the book to be an anachronistic invention of Joseph Smith, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement believe that it describes ancient historical events in the Americas.
WThe following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Book of Mormon:
WCumorah is a drumlin in Manchester, New York, United States, where Joseph Smith said he found a set of golden plates which he translated into English and published as the Book of Mormon.
WThe Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) was an informal collaboration of academics devoted to Latter-day Saint historical scholarship. The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) was established in 1979 as a non-profit organization by John. W. Welch. In 1997, the group became a formal part of Brigham Young University (BYU), which is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 2006, the group became a formal part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, formerly known as the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, BYU. FARMS has since been absorbed into the Maxwell Institute's Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies.
WGazelem is a person mentioned in the Book of Alma, within the Book of Mormon.
WThe Book of Mormon, the founding document of the Latter Day Saint movement and one of the four books of scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is an account of three groups of people. According to the book, two of these groups originated from ancient Israel. There is generally no direct support amongst mainstream historians and archaeologists for the historicity of the Book of Mormon.
WThe Heartland model of Book of Mormon geography postulates that the events described in the Book of Mormon took place, primarily, in the heartland of North America.
WMany members of the Latter Day Saint movement believe that the Book of Mormon is historically accurate. Most, but not all, Mormons hold the book's connection to ancient American history as an article of their faith. This view finds no acceptance outside of Mormonism in the broader scientific community. Mormon apologists have proposed multiple theories to explain apparent inconsistencies with the archaeological, genetic, linguistic and other records.
WMilton Reed Hunter was an American author, educator, and religious leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served as a member of the church's First Council of the Seventy from 1945 until his death in 1975.
WJoseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon is a 1985 book by David Persuitte. A second expanded edition was published in 2000. It provides detailed biographical information about Joseph Smith and background information about the origin of the Book of Mormon. In the book, Persuitte provides a large number of parallels in support of the idea that Joseph Smith used an earlier work, View of the Hebrews, as a source of ideas in creating the Book of Mormon.
WKhawr Rawrī or Khor Rori is a bar-built estuary at the mouth of Wādī Darbāt in the Dhofar Governorate, Oman, near Taqah. It is a major breeding ground for birds, and used to act as an important harbour for frankincense trade when it was an open estuary. Khor Rori has been identified as the location of Moscha Limen and Abyssapolis in ancient Greek literature. The area represents a popular tourist spot within Oman and is a part of the world heritage, the Land of Frankincense.
WA limited geography model for the Book of Mormon is one of several theories by Latter Day Saint movement scholars that the book's narrative was a historical record of people in a limited geographical region, rather than of the entire Western Hemisphere as believed by some early and nearly all current Latter Day Saints.
WAccording to most adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement, the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century translation of a record of ancient inhabitants of the American continent, which was written in a script which the book refers to as "reformed Egyptian". This claim, as well as all claims to historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon, are rejected by non-Latter Day Saint historians and scientists. Linguistically based assertions are frequently cited and discussed in the context of the subject of the Book of Mormon, both in favor of and against the book's claimed origins.
WThere are several explanations as to the origin of the Book of Mormon. Most adherents to the Latter Day Saint movement view the book as a work of divinely inspired scripture. Secular theories of authorship propose that it is solely the work of humans.
WThe geographical setting of the Book of Mormon is the set of locations of the events described in the Book of Mormon. There is no universal consensus among Mormon scholars regarding the placement of these locations in the known world, other than somewhere in the Americas. A popular "traditional" view among many Latter-day Saint faithful covers much of North and South America; while many Book of Mormon scholars, particularly in recent decades, believe the text itself favors a limited Mesoamerican or other limited setting for most of the Book of Mormon events.
WWithin the religions of the Latter-day Saint movement that developed in the U.S. during the early 1800s, the phrase record of the Nephites has two distinct but related usages. The primary use is to describe the collection of inscribed metal plates on which the Nephite purportedly recorded their history. An abridged version of this record, reportedly inscribed on gold plates, was the source of the Book of Mormon, according to Joseph Smith. The Record of the Nephites was also the manuscript title of the Book of Mormon. The Whitmerite branch of the Latter-Day Saint movement used The Record of the Nephites as the title for their version of The Book of Mormon.
WThe Book of Mormon, a work of scripture of the Latter Day Saint movement, describes itself as having a portion originally written in reformed Egyptian characters on plates of metal or "ore" by prophets living in the Western Hemisphere from perhaps as early as the 6th century BC until as late as the 5th century AD. Joseph Smith, the movement's founder, published the Book of Mormon in 1830 as a translation of these golden plates. Smith said that after he finished the translation, he returned the golden plates to the angel Moroni.
WThe Spalding–Rigdon theory of Book of Mormon authorship is the theory that the Book of Mormon was plagiarized in part from an unpublished manuscript written by Solomon Spalding. The theory first appeared in print in the book Mormonism Unvailed [sic], published in 1834 by E. D. Howe. The theory is that a Spalding manuscript was stolen by Sidney Rigdon, who used it in collusion with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to produce the Book of Mormon. Although Rigdon claimed that he was converted to the Latter Day Saint movement through reading the Book of Mormon, Howe argued that this story was a later invention to cover the book's true origins.
WStudies of the Book of Mormon is a collection of essays written at the beginning of the 20th century by B. H. Roberts (1857–1933), a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which examine the validity of the Book of Mormon as a translation of an ancient American source.
WThe Waters of Mormon, in the 18th chapter of the Book of Mosiah, is a body of water where about two hundred Nephites were baptized.
WWhite gods is the belief that ancient cultures around the world were visited by white races in ancient times, and that they were known as "White gods".
WZelph is a figure of interest in Mormon studies. In May and June 1834 Joseph Smith led an expedition known as Zion's Camp on a march from Kirtland, Ohio to Jackson County, Missouri. On June 3, while passing through west-central Illinois near Griggsville, some bones were unearthed from a mound. These bones were identified by Smith as belonging to a Lamanite chieftain-warrior named Zelph. The mound in question is now known as Naples-Russell Mound 8.