This essay is a survey and critique of the main lines of evidence for the human origin of the Book of Mormon proposed by Mormon Historian and General Authority Brigham H. Roberts in an unpublished paper done in the early 1920’s. In this landmark work Elder Roberts presents a powerful case for the human origin of the Book of Mormon, based on four important observations. (1) The book stands in conflict with what is known about the early American races from scientific investigation. (2) It, however, agrees with the erroneous information believed in the nineteenth-century to have been true about these early Americans. (3) Joseph Smith, Jr., had sufficient creative "knowledge" to have produced such a book. (4) The book evidences such blunders as would have been made by an unsophisticated nineteenth-century mind that lacked formal education as Joseph Smith, Jr., did.

The Mormon organization FARMS is producing the most widely read and seemingly scholarly defenses of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith available in Mormonism today. The organization focuses primarily on a defense of the Book of Mormon as a historical document. Because its members are somewhat isolated from mainstream scholarship, many critics feel they often go out of bounds in their attitude toward those who disagree with their findings and conclusions. In their defense of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon they have been accused of using faulty arguments and inadequate evidence. Despite their use (or misuse) of scholarly references, they have not found much of an audience outside of the rather narrow confines of the Latter-day Saints community.

A careful examination of the Book of Mormon reveals that it contains thousands of words from the King James Bible. In fact, verbatim quotations, some of considerable length, have caused the Mormons no end of embarrassment for many years.