Jaradites Rugby Sports Club

THE BOOK OF MORMON
CHALLENGE
1 If one scoffs at the missionary’s explanation of the Book of Mormon, he is in so many words claiming it to be false : that it is a fraud formulated through the efforts and talents of a common man.

2 Occasionally you hear someone say, “ I could believe your Mornon Doctrine if
I just didn’t have to swallow the story about Joseph Smith being a man of God
and translating the Book of Mormon from some golden plates that he claimed
he found in a hillside.

3 What is produced by one man, can always be duplicated by another man. The challenge the Book of Mormon makes to the world is that of duplication. The book complies with every one of the following conditions, and in order for you to produce a similar record, you must comply with the same conditions. Here is the challenge can you accept it?

4 You must be between 23 and 24 years of age.

5 You cannot be a college graduate. In fact, you can have no more then 3 years of formal education, and have spent your life in backwood farming communities.

6 Your history must be written on the basis of what you now know. There was no library that held information for Joseph Smith. You must use none. There is to be no research of any kind.

7 You must write a book with 239 chapters, 54 of them about wars, 21 about history, 55 about visions and prophecies, and remember when you begin to write about visions and prophecies you must have your record agree meticulously with the Bible.

8 You must have 71 on doctrine and exhortation, and here too, you must check every statement with the scriptures or yours will be proven to be a fraud.

9 21 chapters on the ministry of Jesus Christ and everything you claim he said, and did and every testimony you write in your book must agree absolutely with the New Testament. There must also be 17 chapters on missionary work.

10 Your history record must be 531 pages long, with over 150 words per page. It must be over 300,000 words in length.

11 You must add 180 proper nouns to the English Language. William Shakespeare added 30.

12 You must write a history of an ancient country, such as Tibet covering a period from 600BC to 420 AD. Why Ancient Tibet? Because you know no more about Tibet than Joseph Smith knew about Ancient America.

13 The record is to contain the history of two distinct and separate nations, along with histories of different contemporary nations or groups of people.

14 Your record must describe the religious, economic, political, and social cultures and institutions. Cover every phase of their society including the names of their coins.

15 Change your style of writing many times, many ancient authors contributed to the Book of Mormon each with his own style.

16 You must announce that your smooth narrative is not fiction but true, yes, sacred history.

17 You must use in your record properly, figures of speech, similes,metaphors, narrations, exposition, description, oratory, epic, lyric and parables.

18 Included in your narration will be authentic modes of travel, whether or not these ancient people used fire; description of their clothing, crops, mourning customs, and types of government.

19 You must invent about 280 new names that will stand up under scrutiny
through the years as to their proper application and derivation. None of these names are to begin with the letters D, F, Q, U, V, W, X, Y.

20 Although very little is even claimed to be known about these ancient civilizations, many of the facts, ideas, and statements given as true in your record must be entirely consistent with the prevailing beliefs of the world.

21 Your record is to fulfil many Bible prophecies, even in the exact manner in which it shall come forth, to whom it shall be given and its purposes and accomplishments.

22 The ancient civilizations you write about must be almost unknown when you publish your manuscript.

23 You must have it published and distributed in over 187 nations in the world today, and translated into over 110 different languages. Sales of the Book since it was first published in 1830 must reach 145 Million copies in the year 2009. Only the Holy Bible has sold more books.

24 The book must not contain any absurd, impossible, or contradictory statements. Your history must not contain any statement that will contradict any other statement elsewhere in the Volume.

25 Thorough investigation, scientific and historical evidence, and archaeological discoveryfor the next 179 years must verify its claims and prove detail after detail to be true. For many of the details you put in your history are still buried beneath the soil of Tibet.

26 You must invite the ablest scholars and experts to examine the text with care, and you must strive diligently to see that your Book gets into the hands of those eager to prove it a forgery and who are most competent to expose any flaw in it.

27 Many theories, and ideas as to the Books origin must arise, and after discovering and examining the facts, they must fall. You have claimed that your knowledge had come from a divine origin, and this claim continues to stand as the only possible explanation.

28 The strength of this explanation must not decrease as time passes, but actually increase to the point where it becomes the only logical explanation.

29 You must call down an angel from Heaven in the middle of the day and have him bear testimony to three honest, dignified citizens of your community that the record is true, and that it is their responsibility to bear testimony of it, which they do.

30 They will do this not for profit or gain, but under great sacrifices and severe persecution, even to their death beds. You must put that testimony to the test by becoming enemies to these men.

31 This angel that has visited you as a messenger from God, must have a name and must be connected with your history.You must have long conversations with him and must leave at least 22 documented written accounts of these visits and many of the reasons why these visits took place.

32 Other people associated with you will also leave documented writings of visits made by this same messenger to them and the reasons why?

33 Eight other witnesses must testify to the world that they saw the ancient records in broad daylight and they handled them and felt the engravings thereon.

34 You must find a farmer to mortgage his farm to finance the publication of the first 5000 copies of your book. The person he finds must be of the understanding that neither he nor you will ever receive any monetary remuneration from it. You must sell the book at cost price.

35 Thousands of great men and women. Intellectual giants, national and International personalities, and scholars for the next 178 years must subscribe discipleship to the record and accept your history and teachings even to the point of laying down their lives

36 Your book must not only raise the standards of millions of people but do it in such a way that they become one of the great moral, ethical and dynamic marvels of the day. They must become world renowned for this.

37 The next 20 years you must move house 17 times, and watch your loved ones being persecuted, driven time after time from their homes, beaten, tortured, starved, frozen, and killed. Tens of thousands must undergo the most extreme hardships in your presence because they believe your claims.

38 You must gain no wealth from your work, but many times lose all that you have, and must submit yourself to the most vile persecutions. And finally after 20 years of this, give your own life in a very savage and brutal manner, for your testimony concerning your book. This must be done willingly on your part.

39 Start right now and produce this record, not in the peaceful atmosphere of your community but under the most trying of circumstances which includes being driven from your home many times. Please have your book completed and printed in 60 days.

40 After pauses for sleep and food, when you are dictating to a sternographer you must never ask to have the last paragraph or last sentence read back to you. Other than a few grammatical corrections, you must have no changes in the text and it must stand forever.

41 You must include within the record this promise to the future reader :

“ And when ye shall receive these things, l would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. (Moroni 10 : 4-5)

Millions must bear record that they know the record to be true, because they put the promise to the test. They must do this, for the next 179 years.

42 Then for the next 179 years over 1,000,000 competent salesmen must be so sold on your book that they will gladly give up two or more years of their lives at their own expense to take it to all parts of the world. They will receive nothing in return for their efforts, but the joy of having shared your book with others.

43 The Church that you belong to is then approached by one of the major book publishers in the world who see your book as a popular addition to their range of religious books.

They want to sell it commercially at 8 times its current costs. An agreement is signed by the two parties and the initial distribution figure is 200,000 copies. Your book will now for the first time in its 174 year distribution history, be available in bookstores for the public to purchase.


44 PARLEY P. PRATT - LATTER - DAY APOSTLE
Was converted to the Church through reading the Book of Mormon. The First time he ever saw one, he expressed these words :

“ My eyes beheld the Book of Mormon that book of books..which was the principal means, in the hands of God of directing the entire course of my future life. I opened it with eagerness, and read its Title Page. I then read the testimony of several witnesses in relation to the manner of its being found and translated. After this l commenced its contents by course.

I read all day, eating was a burden, l had no desire for food, sleep was a burden when the night came, for l preferred reading to sleep. “ As l read, the Spirit of the Lord was upon me, and l knew and comprehended that the book was true, as plainly and manifestly, as a man comprehends and knows that he exists. “

Autobiography of Parley P.Pratt, Page 36 - 37

45 JOSEPH SMITH PROPHET AND TRANSLATOR OF THE BOOK OF
MORMON HAS STATED :
“ I told the Brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the Keystone of our Religion and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book “

History of the Church, Volume 4, Page 461

THE BOOK OF MORMON IS OF DIVINE ORIGIN, AND IS TRULY ANOTHER TESTAMENT OF JESUS CHRIST.