Joseph Smith, Mormon Writing & Evidence of Lost Tribes in America

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Joseph Smith (right) founder of the Mormon Church now known as Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Smith was sent to a mound near Cumorah in New York state by the angel Moroni where he recovered a set of gold plates inscribed by writing known as "Reformed Egyptian." The "seer stones" Urim and Thummim were in a box with the plates. Using the stones, Smith translated the plates into the Book of Mormon.

Smith sent a copy of some of the writing to Charles Anthon of Columbia University. This is a fragment of the sample sent Anthon.

The Bat Creek Stone (right) was uncovered in an undisturbed mound in Tennessee by a Smithsonian excavation in 1889. The stone is a genuine "paleo-Hebrew inscription dated to about A.D. 68. It reads, "a comet (or star) for the Jews - year 1 (or 6)." It relates to the prophecy of a coming Messiah and was produced at the end of the "Jewish Wars" which culminated in the mass suicide of the defenders of Masada in A.D. 73.

Below — the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone is carved on a huge boulder in New Mexico. It was brought to the attention of settlers in the 1800s by Native Americans. It bears the ten Commandments. Courtesy: United Israel. From — Mound Builders: Edgar Cayce's Forgotten Record of Ancient America.