Is This Book True? is a free service provided to those interested in learning about the Mormon church's central scripture book, The Book of Mormon.

We are a group of students of Mormonism who have realized there are very significant differences between what the Mormon church claims about its book, and what the historical record, linguistic research, DNA evidence, etc. show about it.

Realizing the Mormon church request its potential converts to accept on faith alone that the book is true, we've created this site to complement that faith with some of the facts about the book the church is not sharing with them. We strongly believe faith should be placed on things that are true, and it is our hope Is This Book True? will help you determine if The Book of Mormon is or isn't.

What would be the wisest approach to the many fantastic claims we hear throughout life? Do we accept them as true at face value? Or do we straight up reject everything everybody tells us? We would severely limit our ability to function if we weren't able to trust some of what others tell us. On the other hand, we would certainly sabotage our own lives if we went through life believing everything we hear.

So what is a good, healthy approach to the many eccentric claims we find through our lifetimes? How do we ensure that what we end up believing as reality is, in fact, reality? Do we have any tools at our disposal to help us recognize reality from fantasy or, at least, decide for ourselves what has more reality than fantasy in it?

These are very important questions. The paths our lives take depend on how we answer them.

What is a good, healthy approach to the many eccentric claims we find through our lifetimes?
Extremes are always harmful in every aspect of life. Installing ourselves in any extreme, physical or ideological, is what takes us to unhealthy polarization, fundamentalism and extremism (something we are currently seeing this in American politics and religion). Only the area between the extremes is healthy and balanced.
The same principle applies about fantastic claims. On one extreme is blind belief, which will turn us into uninformed followers. On the other extreme is absolute skepticism, which will make us incapable to function in life. The only good, healthy approach to fantastic claims consists in remaining between those two extremes: to harbor some desire to believe while, at the same time, engaging reason to discern truth from fallacy.
A balance between (a) believing everything and (b) not believing anything is the best approach towards the fantastic claims we receive in life.

How do we ensure that what we end up believing as reality is, in fact, reality?
A balanced attitude towards every new piece of information we come in contact with involves not only finding a healthy middle ground between complete credulity and absolute skepticism, but also finding a healthy middle ground between our emotions and our reason.
There are concepts and experiences in life that reason alone can't help us understand. Things like love, for example. Can one understand love if one has never felt it? Reason can't explain the experience of loving and being loved. Only feelings can. There are also concepts and experiences feelings alone can't help us process. No one sane would calculate a business' yearly expense budget based only on his personal feelings, for example. This is why a good balance between feelings and reason is crucial: we need them both to distinguish reality from fantasy.
In general, it doesn't require much effort to bring our emotional components into play when trying to understand something new. As emotional beings, feelings are an instinctual part of how we function. Our rational skills, on the other hand, require a little more effort to bring into play because, generally, they involve more work: the need to do some basic research on our own, to dig under the surface of things, to consider evidence in favor and evidence against, to review opposite views, to employ logic, etc.
Since emotions are always present, making sure we also use our rational skills is a good template to ensure, to the best of our abilities, that what we end up believing is as close to reality as we can honestly tell.

Do we have any tools at our disposal to help us recognize reality from fantasy or, at least, decide for ourselves what has more reality than fantasy in it?
Feelings are a fundamental instrument to find meaning, to forge lasting and fulfilling relationships throughout our lifetimes, and to connect and function in life among our fellow humans. As mentioned above, though, feelings aren't the best tool to determine what's true and what isn't, or what is reality and what is not. No amount or intensity of feelings will help us determine if Earth is a sphere or a disc, for example; or if Santa Claus is real.
Even in highly emotional situations, the path to discover the truth always involves reason. Imagine one suspects our partner is being unfaithful, for example. Now we need to know the truth in what is a purely emotional circumstance. How do we proceed? Do we sit down to probe our own feelings? Will our own feelings inform us if our partner is in fact cheating? Will we acquire any real facts about our partner's activities just by examining our own emotions? Of course not. Instead, we need to employ our reason and start collecting real clues, looking for actual evidence, etc.
As we see, reason is a much better approach in our quest to distinguish reality from fiction. And the tools reason uses are evidence, facts, historical records, research, differing opinions, etc.

The Mormon church presents its book as a miracle resulting from countless supernatural events without which the book could have never seen the light:

Plates made of gold put together by extinct inhabitants of the Americas, buried for thousands of years in a particular hill of the United States' NorthEast. A young boy receiving the celestial personal visitation of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ in the forest close by. The frequent visitation of the ancient American (now an angel) who buried the plates nearby centuries earlier. The miraculous translation this boy, now a young adult, did from those golden plates using either a set of ancient glasses or a seer stone he had found in a local well years before. The book containing an ancient epic of wars, prophecies and the visit of the Biblical Jesus to ancient America.

Additionally, the Mormon church presents Joseph Smith, the young man claimed to have translated those golden plates, as a prophet chosen by God to restore Jesus' original church, lost through thousands of years of apostasy, again on Earth. An inspired man who received divine revelation as frequently as one makes phone calls, who organized a whole religion and established the doctrines that would guide the lives of millions of believers today. Moreover, the Mormon church declares that its own legitimacy rests in its own claim that the book is true; otherwise - declare its leaders - the church can only be false.

Unfortunately, the church's presentation of its book doesn't include any of the other facts about its contents or Smith that exist in the historical record. The Mormon church also withholds modern linguistic analyses about the book's contents. It also refrains from mentioning current DNA studies that prove the ancient American inhabitants mentioned in the book didn't come from ancient Israel, as the book claims.

In addition, the Mormon church fails to mention Smith's many excesses, abuses, crimes, escapes from the law, secret political plans, schemes to seduce women, etc. The real reason he was murdered is another point the Mormon church remains mute about, claiming instead he was a martyr who died because of his beliefs.

Finally, in an interesting circular maneuver, The Book of Mormon claims in its pages to be true and invites the reader to pray after reading it so that the reader can feel that the book is true. Reason and actual research aren't encouraged in the quest to decide the books validity.

And that is why we have created this website.

The Mormon church, through its missionaries, books and magazines insists that feelings about its book are equal to actual knowledge about its trueness. It also asks its potential converts to avoid and/or discard all information contrary to its claims. We feel this is unfair and deceitful towards those sincerely wanting the truth in order to decide to join or not. Particularly when real, verifiable evidence about the book, its translator and church founder exists in reality. There is no need to limit ourselves to emotions when trying to distinguish what is true and what it false about The Book of Mormon, because objective facts one can examine and consider are actually available.

May you find this site useful in your quest for truth and reality.