Will you reject it? The history of the Book of Mormon goes beyond Joseph Smith.
Do you know Mormon? He was a person.
My Answer:
Actually, there are two statements in the BoM that come to mind that are are not true. One is found in Mormon 9:32-33, where the claim is made that "reformed Egyptian" hieroglyphics is more compact than their Hebrew. This statement is consistent with early 19th century American knowledge of linguistics, but after Egyptian hieroglyphics were decoded and this knowledge spread to America, it became known that the reverse is true: Hebrew is more compact than Egyptian hieroglyphics will ever be. Since this is an error regarding the source language of the BoM, it can be considered detrimental.
A second piece of error is found in Ether 15:30-31, where a decapitated Shiz struggles for breath. The exact language reads: "he smote off the head of Shiz ... he had smitten off the head of Shiz." Shiz then raised himself up on his hands and "struggled for breath." I'm afraid this is impossible and indefensible.
But, these are only two of the many problems with the information in the BoM. See for instance a book by Mormon historian Grant Palmer: An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins.
Link
Edit: There is an attempted defense of the Shiz story at the non-official LDS apologetic website FAIR. To be fair, I will link to it here: http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Anachronisms/Shiz_struggles_to_breathe
Notice it says it was a "sloppy cut" that killed Shiz. But the Book of Mormon disagrees with this appraisal, for it states quite clearly, twice in fact, that his head was chopped off: "smote off the head of Shiz" (15:30), "smitten off the head of Shiz" (15:31). Far from being a "sloppy cut," the Book of Mormon clearly presents a clean cut. Literally struggling to breath then is impossible, and FAIR dances around this truth by saying it was decerebrate posturing (death throes). Sure, decerebrate posturing is fine and was known before it was medically documented (the date of which is therefore irrelevant and a red herring). But that's not the issue. The issue is, how does someone struggle for breath without a head? It sounds like a case of mixing two different stories together and neglecting to edit the account to present one story. Thus, the problem stands.
Ether 15:
A second piece of error is found in Ether 15:30-31, where a decapitated Shiz struggles for breath. The exact language reads: "he smote off the head of Shiz ... he had smitten off the head of Shiz." Shiz then raised himself up on his hands and "struggled for breath." I'm afraid this is impossible and indefensible.
But, these are only two of the many problems with the information in the BoM. See for instance a book by Mormon historian Grant Palmer: An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins.
Link
Edit: There is an attempted defense of the Shiz story at the non-official LDS apologetic website FAIR. To be fair, I will link to it here: http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Anachronisms/Shiz_struggles_to_breathe
Notice it says it was a "sloppy cut" that killed Shiz. But the Book of Mormon disagrees with this appraisal, for it states quite clearly, twice in fact, that his head was chopped off: "smote off the head of Shiz" (15:30), "smitten off the head of Shiz" (15:31). Far from being a "sloppy cut," the Book of Mormon clearly presents a clean cut. Literally struggling to breath then is impossible, and FAIR dances around this truth by saying it was decerebrate posturing (death throes). Sure, decerebrate posturing is fine and was known before it was medically documented (the date of which is therefore irrelevant and a red herring). But that's not the issue. The issue is, how does someone struggle for breath without a head? It sounds like a case of mixing two different stories together and neglecting to edit the account to present one story. Thus, the problem stands.
Ether 15:
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/15?lang=eng
