As pointed out below, there were witnesses, and in fact Martin Harris (who lost the manuscript) was one of them.

Only fragments of the original papyri have survived. The only part of the papyri that are reproduced directly in the Book of Abraham are two drawings, only one of which survives in part, and the most interesting and controversial parts are not among the scraps that have survived. Egyptologists have argued that the drawings are "wrong,*" but that's actually kind of the point. The author used a variation on the Egyptian funerary drawing to illustrate a story. As for the text itself, that may have come from a separate papyrus that did not survive, or Joseph may have received it as a direct revelation as he did many other passages of scripture. To me, how Joseph got from the papyri to the extant text is not so interesting as the text itself, which I have found to be extremely valuable.

*Some Egyptologists charge that Joseph merely interpolated his own fantastical but incorrect ideas onto the drawings. But the originals were, in fact, on display for a while when Joseph himself had them. Nobody reported then that they were incomplete or that there were any differences between the published drawings and the displayed versions, despite the fact that Joseph had many enemies who were eager to discredit him.

The Book of Mormon does not claim that Native Americans are, as a body, a "lost tribe." It claims that a group of people came from Jerusalem and settled here. They weren't the only ones to do so. But in any case, to say that it is definitively "disproven" that a group of Israelites lived in the Americas is ascribing to the archaeological and genetic sciences greater certainty than even their practitioners credibly can. We have found genetic links between certain Indian tribes and Mongols. That's very interesting and exciting, but does not prove or disprove anything related to the Book of Mormon.

About how you would deal with it if I laid out to you my theory for how I have disproved the existence of trees. You'd look at it and think, "That's interesting, but I know there are trees, because I've seen them. So I suspect there is something missing in your argument."

Occam's Razor: If a person on Slashdot invokes Occam's Razor, the most likely explanation is that he does not understand Occam's Razor and is using it wrong.

Why? Because you don't personally like what they say? What makes them less reliable than any other person? What vested interest did they have in lying for Joseph Smith? If they had one, what interest remained when all three eventually broke with Smith, left the church, and still adamantly maintained the truth of their testimonies? Why did two come back to the church, in abject humility, begging forgiveness from Brigham Young? Why did Martin Harris, the one who did not come back, defend his testimony as true in the most vehement terms to his dying day?

Who is "they"? Although many Mormons (erroneously, in my opinion) believe that the Book of Mormon is a record of people that spanned all over North and South America, the Book itself does not say that, and that idea is beginning to wane in popularity. Indeed, the official (but non-scriptural) introduction to the Book of Mormon used to claim that the people were the "primary" ancestors of the American Indians, while it now merely claims that they are "among" their ancestors. As an educated Mormon, I find the idea of the Book of Mormon spanning all of North and South America absurd and inconsistent with evidence internal to the Book itself. I personally believe they were limited primarily to the Yucatan. Any unique genetic markers that tie them back to Jerusalem (not Egypt) would be significantly attenuated by this point after 3,000 years of intermingling with other people. If such a marker were found, it would neither prove nor disprove anything to me, because I don't believe Native Americans of any variety are a homogeneous race. There is plenty of other historical and archaeological evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon. I find it all interesting and always love to learn more, but I do not base my testimony of that Book on such evidence. The Book of Mormon is a volume of scripture, not a history. I have personally tested and proved its value as scripture many, many times. The historical context is mostly interesting scenery that enriches my enjoyment in reading, but is subject to adjustment as we gain new evidence.

I have a .30-06 that would easily go through the door, and through the intruder, and across the street, and maybe stop at the neighbor's stone fence. But you don't want to shoot at what you can't see, and .30-06 is not a great home defense round. Honestly, for most thugs, the sound of you racking a slide or loading a shell is probably enough to persuade them to pick another home to invade. If not, take up a good defensive position, and nail them as soon as they get through the door.

Yeah, but there could be downsides, too.

FYI, evidence of subsequent remedial measures is generally inadmissible.. It's a good rule, designed exactly for this kind of situation. This is from the Federal rules. As far as I know, most states have similar state rules.

Actually, while the parent was a bit extreme in his paranoia, he was closer to correct than you are. You infringe on a patent whether you saw the patent or not. For copyright, the plaintiff has to prove that you copied the work in some way. If I coincidentally wrote a book that word-for-word identical to Twilight, for example, without ever having seen the original, technically I wouldn't be infringing on the copyright.

You sound like a man at war against himself. On the one hand, you sound like you almost desperately want to believe for some reason. On the other hand, you are angry and disillusioned because you felt hopelessly abandoned. You do not deny that you have felt the influence of the Holy Ghost, but you have deemed those communications unreliable. You want evidence. So let's lay aside Fanny Algers and the Adam-God Theory for now, because those are historical questions that necessarily are heavily influenced by a person's perspective on whether the church is actually what it claims to be. Let's start with experimenting on the word as it is in the present tense.

Your thesis is that the church is a cult for extorting tithing from the members. How does that thesis hold up to examination, beyond the fact that the church receives money? Who benefits? Not President Monson, apparently, since he lives quite modestly. The church builds a lot of impressive buildings, but his personal residence is not one of them. He gets a modest stipend as far as we know, but he is not getting rich off of it. He does not have immense personal holdings to establish a great financial dynasties. He has a great deal of control over the church's expenditures, but he is not intermingling church funds with his own money. Yes, he travels quite a bit, but not to sip Margaritas on the beach. He is constantly meeting and ministering to people. So what does he personally get out of this extortion?

What about the rest of the Twelve? Some seem to have a bit of money, but if this is an extortion racket, it seems odd that those who had the most remunerative careers before they ascended to the upper echelons of this great financial cult are the ones who are best off financially now that they have been admitted to that inner circle. So what are they getting out of it personally? Where are the tithing-funded memberships in exclusive clubs and two-a-month tithing-funded golf vacations at exclusive resorts? Where are the tithing-funded ski junkets? Where are the tithing-funded gilded Cadillacs? Where are the prostitution scandals and secret mistresses of the Twelve? Why do we have to go back to the 1940s to find even a one-off bizarre incident of one of the Twelve being disciplined? If this is a coverup, it is the most insanely successful coverup in the history of the world.

The extortion theory doesn't stand up to rational evidence, so let's move on to an alternative. Let's test the theory that they're really just a bunch of nice old men who, like millions of other Mormons, are sincerely deluded into believing that they are guided by this mystic force called the Holy Ghost that is really just a frenzied mind. If so, doesn't it seem odd to you that this delusion is so general in convincing people to do good things, to help their neighbors, to pay fast offerings, to contribute to communities, and to have strong families? Isn't it odd also that it has warned so many of danger, averted personal catastrophes, and otherwise given sound counsel?

And that's my real point. Faith is not just believing that something will happen, or even merely believing that something is true. Proper faith is a principle of action, and that is what Alma is urging in Alma 32. Experimenting on the word is not just praying and asking if it's true. That's the equivalent of looking up a physical constant in a textbook and trusting that the result is true. Experimenting is doing something and deriving the physical constant yourself. And then repeating the experiment over and over again. If you keep getting the same result, you start to trust that it's not just something written in a book that may or may not be wrong, and that's this isn't merely some one-off quirk or that you got lucky this time. If you want to experiment on the word, let the Holy Ghost direct you to some action, or choose some commandment to keep, and then see what the result of that action is. Then let him direct you to another action and try that one out and see what happens. Be scientific about it. Every time you feel that quirk of emotion we call the Holy Ghost, write down what you think that weird emotional quirk is directing you to do. Then try doing it. Write down the result. See how listening to that weird emotional quirk affects your life over time. I have tried this many times, until it was no longer even faith. As I said in another post, God is no more a theoretical construct to me than is my own mortal father. He is somebody I know personally. We converse frequently, and always to my benefit.

By the way, I don't know how long Slashdot keeps stories "alive," but this one is getting fairly old. If it goes down, feel free to contact me off-list. I'm happy to continue this conversation.

If you have any glimmer of hope left, read this talk. You've probably seen it before, but perhaps you have not looked at it with an eye to the question you just asked. If you feel that God abandoned you, remember that even his own Son once felt (wrongly) that his Father has abandoned him. And as Elder Holland points out, it happened so that the rest of us could know, when we felt abandoned, that we are not alone in our suffering. God does keep his promises, but not always in the way that we hope or expect. I don't know your specific circumstances or what your wife was suffering, or how it turned out. I pray she was okay in the end. But if she was facing a critical or even terminal illness, and especially if your worst fears for her were realized, the most rational comfort I can think of is those very temple ordinances you were keeping. If you feared she may be taken from you, what greater comfort could he give you than to know that no power on earth or in hell can rend her from you permanently so long as you keep your temple covenants? If those temple covenants are true, how has God abandoned you in your moment of need, when he has promised you that you can be reunited with her? What better fruit could you ask for?

As for why he did not give you the emotional comfort you desperately craved, there may be a rational reason for that too. I have been not necessarily in the circumstance you were, but certainly there were times I desperately needed emotional comfort and there seemed to be none. Why would God do that to us? My favorite analogy is the book Dune. Have you ever read it? Why were the Fremen so awesome? Because it was hard. They had to be awesome to survive. Why is Marine Corps boot camp so indescribably awful? Because if it was easy, Marines would be wimps. If God is trying to raise up a race of gods, why does he sometimes leave us casting about in the dark, feeling like there are no answers anywhere, and like we're on our own to figure it all out? Because that's how you raise up a race of gods. It's not just about "testing" us to see if we'll be good. If the Fremen got an extra cup of water, just for the asking, every time they were really, really thirsty, they wouldn't be the most fearsome army in the known galaxy. If God gave us relief from suffering, just for the asking, every time it really, really hurts, we wouldn't learn the fortitude necessary to become like him. But that doesn't mean that God isn't aware of us, or that he stopped caring. It just means that sometimes he gives us what we need instead of what we think we need, and sometimes what we need is the strength to persevere through grief.

Regarding the anti-Mormon stuff you've read, I've seen it. You're right that not all of it is false. Some of the troubling facts alleged (mostly about the prophet Joseph Smith) are true. Others are pure conjecture and innuendo. Some can even be partially verified on the church's own familysearch.org website. But anti-Mormon literature also tends to assume a great deal. It is highly selective in choosing those facts that cast the prophet in the worst light, raising an eyebrow, and assuming bad motives. Unfortunately, many Mormons are just as bad about ignoring the troubling or difficult facts of the prophet's life because they don't want to have to deal with them, or they make silly conjectures like believing none of Joseph's plural marriages were consummated (despite abundant evidence that at least some of them were). I have studied the prophet's life extensively. I'm aware of the facts that are supported by credible evidence. And I am quite pleased to see that the church is recently starting to open up about some of the difficult incidents in our history. I hope they will start to do even more of that. In the meantime, we can ask for each fact alleged: (1) What is the source? (2) How reliable is it? (3) Is it corroborated, and if so, by whom or what? (4) Are there other indicia of reliability that compel me to credit the allegation? (5) How much of the allegation is fact vs. interpolation or interpretation? (6) If I am fully satisfied that this alleged fact is true, is it impossible that God could command his prophet to do this thing, even if I'm not sure why he would? That line of inquiry has yet to yield something that I cannot reconcile with my faith, even when the facts are not things I would choose to do if it were up to me.

Alma 32 contains a repeatable experiment, though one of only many. I think a problem with lifelong mormons is that many of us grow up vaguely believing without ever really testing it ourselves. That works for a while, but ultimately one must experience God directly and personally to progress. When i was a kid, just Luke every other kid, i stood up and said "I know." But i didn't really mean it. I meant "I believe." When i say note that i know, i mean I literally know just like i know what I ate for breakfast this morning. E-mail me offline if you really do want to be able to believe. Let's talk about experimenting.

Exactly. I went to a technical conference for one of my clients. There were a lot of very smart engineers and scientists there. Caucasian males were a decided minority. Most of them were Chinese or Indian, including many women. The Reverend Jesse Jackson needs to direct his white hate somewhere else.

Yes.

Yeah, but what if the State wanted to know where you were a week from last Tuesday, or wanted to look for leverage over you based on your purchasing habits or travel habits? Now it's a bit less innocent.

The point is that there are only a few things that I have any kind of certain knowledge of based on my religious convictions, and none of them have to do with the mechanics of the universe. But let's look at an example. I'm a Mormon, and we believe in the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture that contains an account of actual people who lived somewhere in the Americas between about 2,000 BC and 400 AD. People have many times made archaeological discoveries that seem to contradict certain accounts in the Book of Mormon. But I know that archaeology is an imperfect and inexact science. Every one of those discoveries that I've seen was ultimately adjusted or brought into question as new evidence came to light. None of them made me feel the need to deny the Book of Mormon, because my belief in that Book is not based on archaeological evidence, it's based on my personal experience with the book itself. On the other hand, there is a great deal of Mormon tradition that gets built up around the Book of Mormon, including the belief (still popular in some circles) that the people of the Book of Mormon ranged all over North and South America, and were the principal ancestors of all native Americans on both continents. That idea has been widely discredited based on finding genetic markers that tie North American natives to Mongol ancestors rather than near eastern ancestors. I was never really on board with the idea anyway. I personally favor the theory that they lived in a small area of the Yucatan. But that belief is subject to adjustment as additional evidence comes to light.

So in short, if I find scientific evidence that seems to contradict a religious belief, I keep an open mind while understanding that science evolves, and that my religious knowledge is not comprehensive. To quote from the Book of Mormon, "Yea, wo be unto him that saith: We have received, and we need no more!" And furthermore, "But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God." Far from discouraging inquiry, my religious conviction demands it.

Stupid autocorrect.