According to Smith's account and the book's narrative, the Book of Mormon was originally written in otherwise unknown characters referred to as "
reformed Egyptian"
[4] engraved on
golden plates. Smith said that the last prophet to contribute to the book, a man named
Moroni, buried it in
Cumorah Hill in present-day
New York, then returned to Earth in 1827 as an
angel,
[5] revealing the location of the plates to Smith, and instructing him to translate it into English for use in the
restoration of Christ's true church in the
latter days. Critics claim that it was fabricated by Smith, drawing on material and ideas from contemporary 19th-century works rather than translating an ancient record.
[6][7][8]
The Book of Mormon is the earliest of the
unique writings of the Latter Day Saint movement, the
denominations of which typically regard the text primarily as scripture, and secondarily as a historical record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the
Americas.
[12] The Book of Mormon is divided into smaller books, titled after the individuals named as primary authors and, in most versions, divided into chapters and verses. It is written in English very similar to the
Early Modern English linguistic style of the
King James Version of the Bible, and has since been fully or partially translated into 108 languages.
[13] As of 2011, more than 150 million copies of the Book of Mormon had been published.
[14]
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Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of
Mormonism and the
Latter Day Saint movement. When he was twenty-four, Smith published the
Book of Mormon. By the time of his death fourteen years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religious culture that continues to the present.
Smith was born in
Sharon, Vermont. By 1817, he had moved with his family to what became known as the
burned-over district of western
New York, an area of intense religious revivalism during the
Second Great Awakening. According to Smith, he experienced a series of visions, including
one in which he saw "two personages" (presumably
God the Father and
Jesus Christ) and others in which
an angel directed him to a buried book of
golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published what he said was an English translation of these plates, the Book of Mormon. The same year he organized the
Church of Christ, calling it a
restoration of the
early Christian church. Members of the church were later called "Latter Day Saints", or "
Mormons", and in 1838, Smith announced a revelation that renamed the church as the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communalistic American
Zion. They first gathered in
Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in
Independence, Missouri, which was intended to be Zion's "center place". During the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of the expensive
Kirtland Temple. The collapse of the church-sponsored
Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company and violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians caused Smith and his followers to establish a new settlement at
Nauvoo, Illinois, where he became a spiritual and political leader. In 1844, Smith and the Nauvoo city council angered non-Mormons by destroying a
newspaper that had criticized Smith's power and practice of
polygamy.
[12] After Smith was imprisoned in
Carthage, Illinois, he was killed when
a mob stormed the jailhouse.
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The
Latter Day Saint movement (also called the
LDS movement,
LDS restorationist movement, or
Smith–Rigdon movement)
[1] is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a
Christian primitivist movement founded by
Joseph Smith in the late 1820s. Collectively, these churches have over 16 million members.
[2] The vast majority of adherents—about 98%—belong to
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), with their predominant theology being
Mormonism. The LDS Church self-identifies as Christian.
[3][4] A minority of Latter Day Saint adherents, such as members of the
Community of Christ, believe in traditional
Protestant theology, and have distanced themselves from some of the distinctive doctrines of Mormonism. Other groups include the
Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which supports lineal succession of leadership from Smith's descendants, and the more controversial
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which defends the practice of
polygamy.
The movement began in western New York during the
Second Great Awakening when Smith said that he received visions revealing a new sacred text, the
Book of Mormon, which he published in 1830 as a complement to the
Bible. Based on the teachings of this book and other revelations, Smith founded a Christian primitivist church, called the
"Church of Christ". The Book of Mormon attracted hundreds of early followers, who later became known as "Mormons", "Latter Day Saints", or just "Saints." In 1831, Smith moved the church headquarters to
Kirtland, Ohio, and in 1838 changed its name to the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."
After the church in Ohio collapsed due to dissensions, in 1838, Smith and the body of the church moved to Missouri where they were persecuted and forced to Illinois. After
Smith's death in 1844, a
succession crisis led to the organization splitting into several groups. The largest of these, the LDS Church, migrated under the leadership of
Brigham Young to the
Great Basin (now
Utah) and became most prominently known for its 19th-century practice of
polygamy. The LDS Church
officially renounced this practice in 1890, and gradually discontinued it, resulting in the
Utah Territory becoming a
U.S. state. This change resulted in the formation of a number of small
sects who sought to maintain polygamy and other 19th-century Mormon doctrines and practices, now referred to as "
Mormon fundamentalism".
Other groups originating within the Latter Day Saint movement followed different paths in
Missouri,
Illinois,
Michigan, and
Pennsylvania. For the most part these groups rejected plural marriage and some of Smith's later teachings. The largest of these, the Community of Christ (originally known as the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints"), was formed in Illinois in 1860 by several groups uniting around Smith's son,
Joseph Smith III. Most existing denominations that adhere to the teachings of Smith have some historical relationship with the movement.
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Moroni (), according to the Book of Mormon, was the last Nephite prophet, historian, and military commander who lived in the Americas in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. He is later known as the Angel Moroni, who presented the golden plates to Joseph Smith, who said he translated the plates upon which the Book of Mormon was originally written.
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