Is there historical and archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon?

What the Book of Mormon claims

The Book of Mormon is not a book of timeless sayings. It narrates history. It describes a family led by Lehi leaving Jerusalem around 600 BC, sailing to the Americas, and growing into rival nations, the Nephites and Lamanites, who build cities, fight large wars and keep records until about AD 421. It also tells of an earlier people, the Jaredites. The Church's Gospel Topics essays rightly stress that the book's primary purpose is spiritual. But its spiritual message is tied to these historical claims, just as the Bible's message is tied to the exodus and the resurrection.

So it is fair, and respectful, to ask whether the history can be found.

Evidence Latter-day Saints point to

Latter-day Saint scholars have worked hard on this question, and their best arguments deserve a fair hearing.

• Nahom. The Book of Mormon says Ishmael was buried at "the place which was called Nahom" in Arabia (1 Nephi 16:34). Altars excavated at the Bar'an temple in Marib, Yemen, bear the tribal name NHM and are dated by excavators to roughly the 7th–6th centuries BC. Terryl Givens and others regard this as the strongest external evidence for the book. Critics reply that the inscription gives only consonants, names a tribe rather than a burial place, and that a similar name could have appeared in sources available in the 1820s.
• Literary features. Some scholars identify Hebrew-like structures such as chiasmus. Others note that chiasmus also occurs in non-ancient writing, including the King James Bible Joseph Smith knew well.
• The witnesses. Eleven men signed statements that they saw the plates. This is testimony, and it should be taken seriously, though the plates themselves cannot now be examined.

What has not been found

The difficulty is in the Americas, where most of the story takes place.

The Yale archaeologist Michael Coe, a leading authority on the Maya, wrote in 1973 that he knew of no professionally trained non-Latter-day Saint archaeologist who saw scientific support for the book's historicity. That assessment has not substantially changed.

Latter-day Saint responses

Latter-day Saint scholars have offered thoughtful responses. Many now favor a limited geography model, proposed by John Sorenson and others, in which the events took place in a small region of Mesoamerica among larger native populations. On this view, words like "horse" may have been applied to unfamiliar animals. The Church's DNA essay argues that Book of Mormon peoples may have been a small group whose genetic signature was lost, and it states that nothing is known about their DNA. The essay concludes that DNA studies cannot be used decisively either to affirm or to reject the book.

These responses deserve respect. But notice what they concede. The book's peoples become small enough, and its words flexible enough, that no discovery could count against it. A historical claim that cannot be tested in any way is hard to distinguish from one that did not happen.

A contrast with the Bible

Biblical faith also involves trust beyond what archaeology can prove. But the Bible's setting is open to inspection. Jerusalem, Babylon and Capernaum are real places. The Assyrian records name kings of Israel. An inscription found at Caesarea names Pontius Pilate. Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible survive in the thousands. Scripture invites this kind of scrutiny: Paul staked the faith on a public event that witnesses could confirm (1 Corinthians 15:6, 14).

Why it matters

Latter-day Saints often love the Book of Mormon because it speaks so much about Jesus. That love is understandable. But the Jesus we need must be anchored in what really happened. The good news is that he is: born in a real town, crucified under a real governor, raised on a real morning in a real city. Faith in that Jesus does not need to fear the spade.