Queries & Comments

Is Mormon Mythology Different from Other Mythologies?

The exchange of letters on the Book of Mormon (Queries & Comments, BAR 14:06, and earlier issues) has been fascinating reading, but why are your correspondents so hard on Mormon mythology?

After all, most of your writers would profess the bodily assumption of Christ into the ether. Those of the Roman Catholic persuasion would add to that the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Or those of the Islamic faith would profess the assumption of Muhammed—and his faithful horse!—into Heaven. Why is the Book of Mormon more outlandish than claims like these?

People who outgrow the need to believe that Santa Claus rides a sleigh across the sky still believe in these other myths. If the Mormon myth does not accord with their myth, can they look at their own myth objectively?

Some of your readers will find this letter blasphemous, but no more blasphemous than I find those letters which state that the Bible was dictated word-for-word by God.

To even imagine that the Creator of all mankind has singled out a tiny portion of His creation and inscribed their history to the detriment of all other histories is blasphemy itself. The internal inconsistencies and self-contradictions in the Bible do not reflect favorably upon the God who allegedly dictated His Word. Surely, God, and humanity, deserves better than this.