Here are four places where the Book of Mormon flat-out contradicts the Bible. I’m not talking about some kind of theological disagreement where we’re talking about the Trinity or the deity of Jesus or salvation or any of that. No, I’m talking about four places where the Book of Mormon flat-out contradicts the Bible on a historical and factual level. There are four books in Mormonism. There’s the Bible (the King James Version), the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. They use all four of these authorities plus the residing President or the prophet. Joseph Smith, when he found this book, he translated it into English from reformed Egyptian. What he said in the introduction here of the Book of Mormon is: 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. Joseph Smith said the Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on planet Earth. The Bible, according to the Mormons, is the Word of God as long as it’s translated correctly. Let’s go and look at what the “most correct book” has to say about certain events and certain things in the Bible.
In Alma 7:10, we find a prophecy about Jesus Christ his birth. It says in Alma 7:10 “And behold he shall be born of Mary at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers.” If you’ve ever been to Sunday School, if you’ve ever been to a Christmas play, if you’ve ever just listen to Christmas music on the radio, you know that Jesus was not born in Jerusalem, that the Bible clearly says he was born in Bethlehem. In fact, this is a prophecy that would tell us how to identify the Christ. This is a prophecy concerning the first coming of Jesus but Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon somehow managed to mess this prophecy up and they say that Jesus was born in Jerusalem, not Bethlehem, an absolute complete contradiction no matter how you look at it or twist it.
Then we find a prophecy concerning the death of Jesus. In Helaman 14:20, we find that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is being talked about. “But behold, as I said unto you concerning another sign, a sign of his death, behold in that day that he shall suffer death, the Sun shall be darkened and refused to give his light unto you and also the moon and the stars and there shall be no light upon the face of this land, even from the time that he shall suffer death for the space of three days to the time that he shall rise again from the dead.” It says in verse 27 the exact same thing, that darkness should cover the face of the whole earth for the space of three days. If you know the Bible, we understand there were three hours of darkness not three days of darkness. A lot of the Mormons will try to say it’s probably just talking about the Americas, that it’s probably just a specified location. But it clearly says in verse 27 that the whole earth would be covered in darkness for three days from the time of his crucifixion to the time of his resurrection. That just never happened. The Bible never records that and in fact it only says there was a space of darkness of three hours, a flat-out contradiction between the Book of Mormon and the Bible yet again.
Now here’s something interesting concerning the Church of Christ. The “Church of Christ”, that phrase is found in Romans 16 but in Mosiah 18:17, in the introduction of Mosiah chapter 18 it says “This happened about 147 to 145 BC. In Mosiah 18:17 “And they were called the Church of God or the Church of Christ from that time forward.” How in the world do you have the Church of Christ, the name the Church of Christ, 147 years before Christ actually came? How does that happen? The answer is: it doesn’t. This is a fabrication, it’s a complete contradiction of the Bible. “Church of Christ” is first used in Romans 16 after Jesus Christ actually showed up. We also find another weird thing concerning the name of Christ being revealed beforehand because in Alma 46:15, it says this “And therefore at this time, Moroni prayed that the cause of the Christians and the freedom of the land might be favored.” Here we find the word “Christians” being used for these supposed followers of Christ before Christ ever even shows up. The Bible never reveals the name Jesus or Christ before the New Testament. It’s very interesting that these bunch of ancient Americans had all this knowledge that even the Jews in Jerusalem didn’t have. The introduction of Alma 46 says this happened about 73 to 72 BC, that they were called Christians. This is a direct contradiction to the Bible because Acts 11 clearly states that they were first called “Christians” at Antioch. The name “Christian” was first used in Antioch, not in ancient America, the land of Nephi 73 years before Christ shows up.
The Book of Mormon (this refers to the book called Mormon within the Book of Mormon) itself doesn’t even claim to be perfect. In Mormon 9:31 it says “Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father because of his imperfection, neither of them who have written before him but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been. And now behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge in the characters which are called among us, the reformed Egyptian…” By the way, no such thing exists. There is no record of any type of language or writing called reformed Egyptian. This is the language that supposedly the Book of Mormon was written on, on the golden plates that Joseph Smith found on some hill up in New York. He had these seer stones inside of the hat. He would look down and he would translate the Book of Mormon. “…being handed down and altered by us according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew, but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also, and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold he would have had no imperfection in our record.” (Mormon 9:31-33)
He’s clearly claiming here that if the plates would have been big enough and if we could have written in Hebrew, then there wouldn’t be any imperfections in our record. The plates were too small evidently, they didn’t write it in Hebrew and so now there’s imperfections in the record. The Book of Mormon doesn’t even claim to be perfect. In fact, it claims the exact opposite. It claims to have imperfections. How could it be the most correct of any book? Quite on the contrary, the Bible itself claims to be perfect. The Bible is a perfect book. Over and over, we found verses about the perfection of the Bible not its imperfection.
The Book of Mormon is a fairy tale. I am a Bible-believing Christian. I believe the Bible to be the final authority in all matters of faith and practice and if you want to believe that the Book of Mormon is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice and the most correct of any other book on earth, that’s fine, believe it but don’t you dare say that it lives in harmony to the Bible and don’t dare say that it’s another testament of Jesus Christ. This book – the Book of Mormon – and the Doctrines and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, clearly and flat-out contradicts the Bible in so many places. And if it contradicts the Bible just in basic factual matters, then what you have to ask yourself is: where does it contradict the Bible in theological matters? And then you begin to see the whole Mormon faith begins to unravel and fall apart.