The Book of Mormon

At a Glance

The Book of Mormon is a religious text first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith Jr. in Palmyra, New York. In LDS tradition it is a translation of records engraved on golden plates by ancient Israelite prophets who migrated to the Western Hemisphere around 600 BCE; in academic-historical terms it is a composite nineteenth-century American religious work. The narrative covers roughly a thousand years, centered on the Nephite and Lamanite peoples — two factions descended from the Israelite patriarch Lehi — and culminates in a post-resurrection visit by Jesus Christ to the Americas (3 Nephi 11-28) and the final destruction of the Nephite civilization at the Hill Cumorah around 421 CE. A separate record (the Book of Ether) tells of an earlier migration, the Jaredites, destroyed by civil war. The text is the founding scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and related Latter Day Saint traditions; over 200 million copies have been printed in more than 110 languages.

Why This Book Matters

The Book of Mormon is the founding scripture of the fourth-largest Christian denomination in the United States and one of the fastest-growing religious movements in global Christianity. It is the first major religious text to originate in the United States, the foundational document of a religious tradition that has produced over seventeen million adherents worldwide, and one of the most widely distributed books in American publishing history (over 200 million copies in 110+ languages). Academically, it is a key document of Second Great Awakening religious culture, a case study in the production of new scripture in modern religious movements, and a sustained example of nineteenth-century American religious prose. Regardless of one's view of its divine authority, the Book of Mormon's historical influence on American religious history is foundational.

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