I Wrote The Book of Mormon - Sidney Rigdon: The Confession of an Apostate

APOSTATE: One who has abandoned one's religious faith. deserter, traitor, renegade, defector, heretic, turncoat, backslider, recreant


In 1994, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland declared:

"Not everything in life is so black and white, but the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and its keystone role in our religion seem to be exactly that. Either Joseph Smith was the prophet he said he was, a prophet who, after seeing the Father and the Son, later beheld the angel Moroni, repeatedly heard counsel from Moroni's lips, and eventually received at his hands a set of ancient gold plates that he then translated by the gift and power of God, or else he did not. And if he did not, he would not be entitled to the reputation of New England folk hero or well-meaning young man or writer of remarkable fiction. No, nor would he be entitled to be considered a great teacher, a quintessential American religious leader, or the creator of great devotional literature. If he had lied about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he would certainly be none of these...

If Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon as a work of ancient origin, then I would move heaven and earth to meet the "real" nineteenth-century author. After one hundred and fifty years, no one can come up with a credible alternative candidate, but if the book were false, surely there must be someone willing to step forward-if no one else, at least the descendants of the "real" author-claiming credit for such a remarkable document and all that has transpired in its wake. After all, a writer that can move millions can make millions. Shouldn't someone have come forth then or now to cashier the whole phenomenon? "

Let me quote a very powerful comment from President Ezra Taft Benson, who said, 'The Book of Mormon is the keystone of [our] testimony. Just as the arch crumbles if the keystone is removed, so does all the Church stand or fall with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The enemies of the Church understand this clearly. This is why they go to such great lengths to try to disprove the Book of Mormon, for if it can be discredited, the Prophet Joseph Smith goes with it. So does our claim to priesthood keys, and revelation, and the restored Church...' "

To hear someone say something so tremendously bold, so overwhelming in its implications, that everything in the Church - everything - rises or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and, by implication, the Prophet Joseph Smith' s account of how it came forth, is astounding.

Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is or this Church and its founder are false, fraudulent, a deception from the first instance onward." "Either Joseph Smith was the prophet he said he was and he is not entitled to be considered a great teacher or a quintessential American prophet or the creator of great wisdom literature. If he lied about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he is certainly none of those."

I am suggesting that we make exactly that same kind of do-or-die, bold assertion about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the divine origins of the Book of Mormon. We have to. Reason and rightness require it. Accept Joseph Smith as a prophet and the book as the miraculously revealed and revered word of the Lord it is or else consign both man and book to Hades for the devastating deception of it all, but let's not have any bizarre middle ground about the wonderful contours of a young boy's imagination or his remarkable facility for turning a literary phrase. That is an unacceptable position to take - morally, literarily, historically, or theologically.

 

My name is John Rigdon - great nephew of Sidney Rigdon. In this book I explore the real genesis of the Book of Mormon relying on family documents and published affidavits of people who witnessed first hand the creation of the Book of Mormon - men and women who knew Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon personally over their entire lifetime.

For more than 150 years the Mormon Church has endeavored to hide the true origin of the Book of Mormon and gone to great lengths to silence and discredit witnesses and in many cases change original documents, but now that the Internet has made access to those records available to anyone who takes the time to research them, the true history of the fraud of the Book of Mormon and the rise of the LDS cannot be denied by any rational seeker of truth.

The time has come to set the record straight, once and for all. My book will show the involvement that my Uncle Sidney had in the whole affair.