GREATEST HOAX : BOOK OF MORMON

The Book of Mormon is one of the sacred texts of the Latter Day Saint movement. It is regarded by most, if not all, Latter Day Saint groups as divinely revealed and is named after the prophet–historian Mormon who, according to the text, compiled most of the book. It was published by the founder of the LDS movement, Joseph Smith, Jr., in March 1830 in Palmyra, New York, USA.

It is considered to be a divinely inspired book of equal value to the Bible. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon religion, claimed that he was directed by an Angel to a hill near his home in which he found golden tablets containing the full text of the book. With the books he found two objects called the Urim and Thummim which he described as a pair of crystals joined in the form of a large pair of spectacles. Unfortunately, after Smith finished his translation, he had to return the tablets to the Angel, so there is no physical evidence that they ever existed.

WHY THE BOOK OF MORMON IS A FRAUD

First of all, despite claims to the contrary, the Book of Mormon is the work of man and is not inspired by God. Since its original publication there have been over 4,000 alterations made to this supposedly inspired writing. These changes include deletions of entire sections, the changing of characters named in the book, changes of the names of locations, and much more. Yet despite all these alterations, this book still contains numerous errors and contradictions.

The book refers to a group of Jews that moved to and settled in America where Jesus visited them. Some segments of the Book of Mormon contain sections copied directly from the King James version of the Bible - the Bible that was most popular at the time and used by Joseph Smith. One example is Mark 16:15-18 which is quoted nearly word-for-word in Mormon 9:22-24. In addition, the book mimics the literary and linguistic style of the King James Bible. Linguistic experts have stated that the entire book is written by one man, and is not written by a combination of authors (the prophets as claimed by Smith).

The Book of Mormon discusses metals being used in weapons, coins, and buildings. It mentions things such as chariots, swords, scimitars, and breastplates. It talks about crops of wheat and barley. It mentions the donkey, cattle, oxen, horse, pig, and elephants. It also talks about the use of linen and silk. There is absolutely NO archaeological evidence to support any of this.

The Book of Mormon claims that those who lived here used a calendar consisting of a seven-day week. Yet none of the archaeological evidence has ever produced any such calendar. The calendars that have been found mostly used a 20-day period, repeating over and over.

The most compelling proof that Joseph Smith was perpetuating a fraud is the Book of Abraham. In 1835 Smith was able to use his Urim and Thummim to translate some Egyptian scrolls that he was given access to (at that time no one could read hieroglyphics). Upon inspection, Smith declared that they contained the Book of Abraham. He promptly translated the lot and it was accepted as scripture by the church. The scrolls vanished and everyone thought the story would end there. But it didn’t - in 1966 the original scrolls were found in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. The scrolls turned out to be a standard Egyptian text that was often buried with the dead. To this day the Book of Abraham is a source of discomfort for the Mormon religion.

MARY TOFT & HER BABY BUNNIES

In September, 1726 Mary Toft began to give birth to rabbits....

........HUH ??!!


Mary Toft, the Rabbit Woman of Godalming, was a 25-year-old servant girl. A month after suffering a miscarriage in 1726, Mary Toft sent for a doctor, complaining of abdominal pains. She gave birth to a dead, skinned baby rabbit, then several more in the days to follow.

The local surgeon, John Howard, responded to her family's summons and hurried to Mary's house where, to his amazement, he helped her deliver nine of the animals. They were all born dead, and they were actually rabbit parts rather than whole rabbits. Nevertheless, this didn't lessen the amazing fact that she was giving birth to them.

He excitedly wrote to other men of science around the country, urging them to help him investigate this bizarre phenomenon.In the presence of the doctors, Mary continued to give birth to even more rabbits

On November 29th Mary was brought to London. By now her case had become a national sensation, and huge crowds surrounded the house where she was kept. But when kept under constant supervision, Mary stopped giving birth to rabbits, and her case quickly began to unravel.

Witnesses came forward who claimed that they had supplied Mary's husband with rabbits. Then, when a famous London physician, Sir Richard Manningham, threatened that he might have to surgically examine Mary's uterus in the name of science, she wisely decided to confess.

She explained that she had simply inserted the dead rabbits inside her womb when no one was looking, motivated by a desire for fame and the hope of receiving a pension from the King. She was briefly imprisoned for fraud, but was released without trial. It is said that she managed to give birth to a normal, human child less than a year later.

THE GLOZEL CONTROVERSY

Over half a century ago, a hoard of ancient objects were unearthed at Glozel in the French region of Allier set off a furious argument among archeologists.Were the objects found, a total of some 3,000 artefacts, variously dated to Neolithic, Iron Age and Medieval times, remnants of an advenced civilisation or some not-so-clever fakes?


FRAUD OR FIND OF THE 20th CENTURY ???

Émile Fradin, a shrewd peasant lad of 17 years, dug up a number of curiously inscribed brick and clay tablets in a field at Glozel, France on March 1, 1924. Immediately the "Glozel Finds" attracted world wide attention. French archeologists announced that they were important relics of the Stone Age, wrote monographs.

Fradin,along with his grand-father, was working in a field known as “Duranthon”.Émile was holding the handles of a plough when one of the cows pulling it stuck her foot in a cavity. Freeing the cow, the Fradins uncovered an underground structure with walls of clay bricks and 16 clay floor tiles, containing human bones and ceramic fragments.The clay pots found were broken by him quickly in the hope of treasure. But not a single coin was found.He then carried on searching and dug out several other vessels, and clay tablets with mysterious charcters inscribed on them.He reproted this to a teacher with an interest in archeology.

Soon the news spread and it caught the attention of Antonin Morlet, a Vichy physician and amateur archaeologist. Morlet visited Clément and was intrigued by the findings.He believed that some findings might even date from the Magdalenian period (12,000-9500 BC), as they involved bone harpoons and depictions of reindeer, though to be extinct since 10,000 BC. Yet when the writings were studied on other objects , the earliest known form of writing was then established at 3300 BC, and that was in the Middle East.

Antonin Morlet identified Glozel as a transition site between both eras, even though it was known that the two eras were separated by several millennia.

No wonder therefore that French archaeological academia were dismissive of Morlet's report; after all, it was published by an amateur – a doctor – and a peasant boy – who could perhaps not even write properly? The amateurism dripped off their conclusion, for it challenged their carefully established and vociferously defended dogma on several levels.

Despite such allegations, Morlet unearthed thousands of objects over a period of two years, all of varied forms and shape, including a hundred tablets carrying signs and approximately fifteen tablets carrying the imprints of human hands. Other discoveries were sexual idols, polished stones, dressed stones, ceramics, glass, bones, etc. How Fradin could possibly have made thousands of objects, the likes of Vayson de Pradenne never explained…

Furthermore, two other tombs were uncovered in June 1927. One contained 67, the other 121 objects and human remains. It seemed that Glozel was soon to be accepted as a major archaeological discovery. At the meeting of the International Institute of Anthropology in Amsterdam, held in September 1927, Glozel was therefore the subject of heated debate.

A commission was appointed to do further investigations and arrived in Glozel on November 5, 1927. During their three day excavation, the archaeologists uncovered various artefacts, but in their report of December 1927, the commission declared everything, with the exception of a few pieces of flint axes and stone ware, as fake.

But neither side of the controversy were willing to compromise. As a result, the matter remained unresolved until the 1970's, when a new research methods could provide much more precise dating .However even they could not resolve the the mystery surrounding the Glozel finds.

Studies show that the clay tablets are barely 2000 years old and date from Gallo -Roman times, while some bones are as old as 15,000 years.And the some inscribed stones and bones are from Stone Age!!

Hence some believe that Glozel could not be a genuine pre-historic site.They suggest that someone collected objects of various origins.While others who believe in the authenticity claim that the finds have been proven to be ancient.
During the 1980s, France's Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs commissioned new excavation work at the site.

But until new records are found, the quarrel is unlikely to be resolved.