The Book of Mormon

Latter-day Saints affirm the Book of Mormon as scripture alongside the Bible, a record, which they believe Joseph Smith translated by divine gift from ancient golden plates, of peoples in the ancient Americas and of the risen Christ's ministry among them. Subtitled "Another Testament of Jesus Christ," it stands with the Bible and further Latter-day Saint scriptures as authoritative. For members its coming forth is evidence of the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith, and reading it and asking God about its truth is a central invitation of the faith. Joseph Smith dictated the text between 1827 and 1829, working from golden plates he said he obtained near Palmyra, New York, using seer stones placed in a hat; the book was published in 1830, and every edition since has printed the testimonies of the Three Witnesses and Eight Witnesses, associates of Smith who affirmed having seen the plates.

Mainstream archaeology and genetics have not corroborated the book's claim of ancient Near Eastern populations migrating to and populating the Americas: no artifacts, inscriptions, or place names consistent with the narrative have been identified by non-Latter-day Saint archaeologists, and DNA studies of Indigenous American populations show predominantly East Asian ancestry rather than the Near Eastern lineage the traditional reading implies, findings some Latter-day Saint scholars have addressed by proposing a limited geographic and genetic footprint for the events described.