Biblically Thinking About Mormonism - Download

MORMONISM (also called the “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”—LDS) developed from the claimed visions and testimony of their “prophet” and founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., who was fourteen years old in the spring of 1820 when “God the Father and Jesus Christ” appeared to him in a vision. These two messengers from heaven told him to join no existing church “for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt” (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith-History 1:19, Intellectual Reserve Inc. [LDS Church], Salt Lake City: 2013).

On September 22, 1823, near his home in New York, Smith also claimed to have been shown a location by the angel Moroni on the hill Cumorah. There, he said, he discovered a stone box alleged to contain golden plates written in “reformed Egyptian” comprising what became The Book of Mormon. Mormonism recognizes Joseph Smith as a prophet to this day.