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Church History Matters

010 What is the Best External Evidence for the Book of Mormon?

Church History Matters

Scripture Central

Religion & Spirituality:christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.91.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Aside from the text of the Book of Mormon itself and a personal witness from God’s Spirit, what is the best evidence for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon? Different people might answer this question in different ways, but in today’s episode of Church History Matters Casey and Scott propose that the very best external evidence for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is the collective testimony of the Three and Eight Witnesses. Their experiences appear to have been premeditated, anticipated, and orchestrated by God in order to help the rest of us have reason to pause and take seriously both Joseph Smith’s testimony and, most importantly, the primary evidence of the text of the Book of Mormon itself. In every copy of the Book of Mormon ever published, the written witnesses of these three and eight have been printed for all to consider. And it’s true that several of these eleven men either left the Church because of difficulties with Joseph Smith or were excommunicated from it, yet none of them ever denied the reality of their experience as a Book of Mormon witness. In this episode we discuss why this matters. For show notes and transcript for this and other episodes go to https://doctrineandcovenantscentral.org/church-history-matters-podcast/

Transcript

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0:00.0

Aside from the text of the Book of Mormon itself and a personal witness from God's spirit,

0:11.0

what is the best evidence for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon?

0:15.1

Different people might answer this question in different ways. But in today's

0:19.5

episode of Church History Matters, Casey and I propose that the very best external evidence for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is the collective testimony of the three and eight witnesses.

0:31.0

Their experiences appear to have been premeditated, anticipated, and orchestrated

0:37.0

by God in order to help the rest of us have reason to pause and take seriously both Joseph Smith's testimony and most importantly

0:45.9

the primary evidence of the text of the Book of Mormon itself. In every copy of the

0:51.7

Book of Mormon ever published the written copy of the Book of Mormon ever published, the written witnesses of these three and eight men have been printed for all to consider.

0:59.0

Now, it's true that several of these 11 men either left the church because of difficulties

1:04.6

with Joseph Smith or were excommunicated from it.

1:08.0

Yet none of them ever denied the reality of their experience as a book of Mormon witness.

1:14.0

Today we discuss why this matters.

1:16.0

I'm Scott Woodward, a managing director at Scripture Central,

1:20.0

and my co-host is Casey Griffiths,

1:22.0

also a managing director at Scripture Central.

1:25.0

And today Casey and I died into our fifth episode in this series dealing with the marvelous, shocking,

1:31.0

and utterly unique story of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

1:35.0

Now let's get into it. Hi Casey.

1:45.0

Hi, how you doing?

1:47.0

So good.

1:48.0

Oh, it's good to see you, Scott.

1:50.0

We're wrapping up our series on the coming forth of the Book of Mormon,

...

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