Is the Book of Mormon a translation of ancient writings? Where are the gold plates?
The Book of Mormon claims to be the record of three groups of people who emigrated from the Old World to the New World long before Columbus. One group of Hebrews supposedly arrived about 600 BC. The scribe for this group wrote: “I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians” (Book of Mormon, Nephi 1:2). These records were supposedly maintained on gold plates, later buried in the Hill Cumorah (in upstate New York). An angel directed Joseph Smith to their location where he was permitted to unearth them. After Smith finished his translation the plates were returned to the angel. However, there is no evidence that the Book of Mormon people ever existed. Smith claimed to copy off from the plates a sample of the Nephite writing system. It looks more like a collection of various scripts thrown together upside down, backwards, sideward, etc. with no apparent pattern. There is no evidence that such a script was ever us
