The Book of Mormon
A scriptural record translated by Joseph Smith and presented as an ancient history of peoples in the Americas who encountered the resurrected Christ.
- It was dictated by Joseph Smith over several months in 1829 from metal plates he said an angel delivered.
- The text is divided into fifteen shorter books that follow two main groups of migrants from Jerusalem and their descendants.
- Its central message is an account of Jesus ministering to people in the Western Hemisphere after his resurrection.
- Latter-day Saints use it alongside the Bible for doctrine, personal guidance, and missionary teaching.
The Book of Mormon is a volume of scripture first published in 1830 that Latter-day Saints accept as an additional witness of Jesus Christ, written by ancient prophets in the Americas and translated by Joseph Smith.
How the text reached Joseph Smith
Smith stated that an angel named Moroni showed him the location of a set of gold plates buried in a hill near his home in New York. He retrieved the plates in 1827 after annual visits that began following his 1823 vision. Using interpreters and later a seer stone placed in a hat, he dictated the translation to scribes while the plates remained covered or out of sight.
What the book contains
Fifteen shorter books carry the names of their main narrators. The first section follows a family that left Jerusalem around 600 BC; later sections describe their descendants, a separate migrant group called the Jaredites, cycles of righteousness and apostasy, wars, and sermons. A central episode records the risen Jesus appearing to the people, teaching them, and organizing a church among them.
The Book of Mormon matters to members of the faith because it supplies independent evidence for the reality of the resurrection and the reach of Christ's ministry beyond the Old World. It also supports the claim that God continues to speak through living prophets, which is why daily reading and missionary distribution remain core practices.
