1830 Edition

By Joseph Smith, Junior, Author and Proprietor

Description

To understand how and why we wrote the Book of Mormon, please refer to the second book of our Trilogy, A New American Scripture—How and Why the Real Illuminati® Created the Book of Mormon. It would behoove the honest inquirer to first read our Introduction to this book, Pentateuch Illuminated.​

The ancient Greeks began writing scripture in order to give hope, purpose, and occupy times of boredom (i.e., entertainment). In so doing, they were able to control human emotions and free will.

The Greek language developed sufficiently to include the art of literature (writing). The Greek stories, the Iliad and Odyssey, are the most recognized ancient scriptures, where “scriptures” speak of humankind’s relationship with supernatural beings, the gods.

Greek success at turning oral histories, storytelling, myth, legends, and communal beliefs into written stories attracted other cultural leaders of the ancient world. Around 600 BCE, Hebrew leaders traveled to Greece and contracted a popular Greek author to turn their oral histories, storytelling, myths, legends, and communal beliefs into a written format. The result was the Pentateuch, the five books of the Hebrew hero, Moses.

Tellingly similar to the Iliad and Odyssey storylines, which were written as poems that actors of the earliest stage could act out in order to entertain, scriptures contain”gore, honour and betrayal, pain and pathos (pity or sadness), love and hatred, a good few villains and even more heroes, all set in the good old days of a glorious but not forgotten past. Above all, [they present] the tragic yet thrilling reality of humanity’s mortality, and as the events unfold, we are ever reminded that our lives are shaped and buffeted by the winds of Fate.”

The Iliad’s hero, Achilles, for example, was replicated in Hebrew legend as the military hero, Joshua. In our new American scripture, we would call our Achilles: Captain Moroni. Mormon and Homer were the names used for the authors of the Book of Mormon and the Iliad respectively.

We designed our new American scripture to be consistent with but counter the Christian King James Bible that was widely used throughout early America. The Bible was controlling humanity and offered little hope or purpose for the cultures that were not named in the Bible as God’s chosen people. Our new American scripture was premised on countering the Bible’s racial and ethnic prejudice by presenting a viable storyline and plot that proved that the native Americans were also members of the “house of Israel,” those who the Bible presents as God’s chosen people.

Furthermore, in our new American scripture storyline, we make the attempt to present all cultures, all peoples, all nations, all kindreds, the entire human race upon Earth as being part of God’s chosen people.

Our Book of Mormon presentation of the Christian hero, Jesus, would have our resurrected Jesus explain that,

“Other sheep I have which are not of this fold [addressing the Jews living in the Eastern Hemisphere]; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

[Addressing the ancient native Americans] And verily, verily, I say unto you that I have other sheep, which are not of this land [America], neither of the land of Jerusalem, neither in any parts of that land round about whither I have been to minister. For they of whom I speak are they who have not as yet heard my voice; neither have I at any time manifested myself unto them. But I have received a commandment of the Father that I shall go unto them, and that they shall hear my voice, and shall be numbered among my sheep [i.e., become part of God’s chosen people], that there may be one fold and one shepherd [throughout Earth]; therefore I go to show myself unto them.

… And he gathered his children from the four quarters of the earth; and he numbereth his sheep, and they know him; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd; and he shall feed his sheep, and in him they shall find pasture.”

The early American Christians to whom we presented our new scripture, rejected the idea that other cultures, especially darker-skinned races, were equal with them in God’s eyes. They have rejected the message we intended for our Book of Mormon even to modern times. The Mormon religions that pretend a belief in our new scripture have not incorporated one part of the doctrines, teachings, or examples we presented in our new scripture. In fact, our Book of Mormon condemns almost all of the modern Mormon religion’s doctrines and teachings.

Modern, and earlier, Mormons believe in continued revelation, which is that Mormon leaders receive instruction from God, even if these instructions override and contradict their own scripture. Knowing of this potential, we included the “sealed part” of our storyline in the Book of Mormon to allow us later opportunity to counter the way that our new American scripture is transfigured by the Mormon religion. (We finally published our The Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon in 2004.)

The first book of our Trilogy, The True History of Religion, How Religion Destroys the Human Race and What the Real Illuminati® Has Attempted To Do Through Religion To Save the Human Race, explains how we were involved in the foundations of both Islam and Mormonism. The reader will also be apprised of a few details about why we had to wait so long before writing a new source of scripture that people would accept as “God’s word.”

Before the advent of printing and copyright laws, it would have been very hard for us to protect our religious writings from being changed by corrupt religious leaders. For this reason, we instructed both Socrates and Muhammad not to leave any of their personal writings. The followers of both of these True Messengers corrupted their message and presented words attributed to them that were not correct. Once we were able to ensure that our writings would not be altered, we wrote our new scripture.

Nevertheless, in spite of the caution we took in preparing our new American scripture, instead of changing the words of the Book of Mormon, modern LDS/Mormon leaders simply ignore what we wrote and supersede and replace our message with their modern-day revelation.​