Read the Book of Mormon

Stephen Mansfield is the author of the new book The Mormonizing of America. He recently wrote another short article about Mormonism’s American values. He readily agrees with scholars and critics that the Book of Mormon is “an allegory of America: not as a book of revelation but a tale of America spiritualized by [Joseph] Smith’s inventive mind. This view makes Mormonism a religion built upon a mystical version of early America.

I assume the timing of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon (1830) solidifies the idea that Joseph Smith “wrote” what he was experiencing and observing in his northeastern American heritage (both of his grandfather’s fought in the Revolutionary War). The Book of Mormon’s origin dates long before America’s and Joseph Smith was modern day translator and prophet not some aspiring 19^th century author.