Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
If memory serves, and mine usually does, Mormons believe that America is the New Jerusalem, originally populated by the lost Exiles who were then wiped out by the Indians. So there's the inherrent racism. then there's the archaeological nonsense with bronze weapons being used by the Jewish exiles 600 years after they fell pretty much completely out of fashion.

Historical inconsistancies in Christianity certainly exist, but they are much less serious, often geographical errors that demonstrate the writer wasn't native to the region he was describing. There's also the fact that only Smith could see the tablets and yet the Mormons succeeded in translating them to Salt Lake City after his death.
This is somewhat true but not quite. Mormons don't believe that America was populated by the lost Exiles, but by a couple of Jewish families who where led there by God a few years before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians. The Indians are said to be descended from these people. There is no mention of the Jewish exiles using bronze weapons, however there are archaeological inconsistencies, most of which have to do with the people bringing metal tools and animals to the Americas of which no evidence has been found.

The Book of Mormon was translated/written (whatever you want to consider it) quite some time before Joseph Smith's death.