Thanks to everybody for your feedback. I've put it all together and made the list even better. Sorry to re-post, it won't let me edit my original ...
* The BOM borrows heavily from literature that didn’t exist at the purported time of writing.
- There are compelling parallels with View of the Hebrews[1] throughout the entire book.
+ Elder B. H. Roberts concluded it hardly leaves a case for mere coincidence.[2]
- Nephi quotes chapters from Isaiah that weren’t written until after Lehi left Jerusalem.[3]
- The BOM incorporates several errors made by the King James translators in the 1600’s.[4]
+ And 3 Nephi 14:1 doesn’t incorporate the JST from Matthew 7:1.
- Joseph Smith’s father had a dream that was nearly identical to Lehi’s tree of life vision.
- There are unlikely similarities with Pilgrim’s Progress and other John Bunyan books. [5]
- Moroni plagiarizes Paul’s discourse on charity.[6]
* There is little to no Archaeological evidence that supports the Book of Mormon.
- Where are the remains from the wealthy, utopian, city building, industrious, Christ worshipping, gold and silver mining, society described in 4th Nephi?
+ The society was built on the ashes of cataclysmic destruction.
+ They multiplied and spread upon all the face of the land.
+ The society lasted longer than the USA has been a country.
- Archaeologists haven’t found one pre-colombian metal sword.
+ The Nephites knew how to work with metal. The plates were made of metal.
+ They said their swords were metal.[7] And their swords could chop off arms.
+ They modeled their swords after the sword of Laban.[8]
+ Joseph Smith saw the sword of Laban. It looked like a sword.
+ Where are all the swords from the relentless warfare?
- Where is the evidence that they had so many elements of Old World culture (wheat, barley, figs, grapes, flax, horses, sheep, cattle, elephants, bees, silk, shipbuilding, chariots, coins)?
- Why doesn’t it mention chocolate, corn, lima beans, squash, potatoes, or tomatoes?
- The Smithsonian Institution released a statement that there is no archeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon, and that the archeology indicates the people never existed.[9]
- To satisfy the population statistics, they would have had to maintain an unrealistic growth rate for their time (unless they assimilated into another population).[10]
- Why doesn’t the Church excavate the hill Cumorah to find out if the cave full of Book of Mormon artifacts is actually there?[11]
* The Book of Mormon is silent on, or even contradicts many unique LDS doctrines.
- No mention of baptisms for the dead, initiatories, garments, endowments, or sealings.
+ But the introduction says it contains the “fulness of the everlasting gospel”.[12]
- No mention of the preexistence, God as our spirit father, kingdoms of glory, or exaltation.
- No mention of baby blessings, priesthood blessings, or patriarchal blessings.
- The Holy Ghost was received automatically after baptism, not by the laying on of hands.
- No differentiation between Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods.
- No mention of most LDS church structure.
- They denounced David and Solomon’s polygamy, but the D&C approves of it.[13]
- Jesus’s church didn’t have a first presidency; just twelve apostles.
* Instead, it reads like popular Christian sentiment from 19th century America.
- Several passages are compatible with or even advocate the Trinity doctrine.[14]
+ The first edition feels even more Trinitarian.[15]
+ The Luke 10:22 JST suggests Joseph Smith originally espoused the Trinity. (The first vision with God and Christ as separate personages wasn’t taught until 1842.[16])
- No passages directly state that God had a body or that God and Christ were separate beings with more clarity than the Bible.
- There were two possible fates after death: Eternal Life or Hell.
- Mortal life was their only chance to work out their salvation.[17]
+ Even one wrong thought right before death could condemn them.[18]
- Men were called of God directly, not through existing priesthood authority.[19]
* But the Book of Mormon people self-identified as Mosaic law-abiding Jews.
- Minimal to no emphasis on Jewish rites, rituals, prayers, ceremonies, and holidays.
- Even before Christ, they were far more similar to Christians than Jews.
* New DNA evidence and inconsistencies between Mayan and Aztec civilizations vs. Book of Mormon ones has forced Church apologists to take a stance that:
- Several civilizations coexisted in the New World during Book of Mormon times.
- The Book of Mormon people were the minority.
* Why does the text not support this? Why didn’t the Church know this all along?
- The introduction used to say the Lamanites were the “principal ancestors” of the Indians.
- Nephi identifies the Indians conquered by early American settlers as Lamanites.[20]
- Lehi makes it clear that the promised land is set aside for them alone.[21]
- The Mulekites and Coriantumr are both mentioned at the end of the small plates, in spite of space limitations.[22] There is no reference to any other groups of people.
- Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were prophets and they clearly stated on many occasions that the Indians in North and South America were of Lamanite origin.
- Spencer W. Kimball said the students in the Indian placement program were Lamanites.
- I was taught my entire life that Indians were Lamanites.
* There are several passages that I find troubling.
- Moroni’s promise doesn’t work in my experience.
- Nephi kills Laban because he feels compelled to.[23]
+ A feeling is not sufficient to justify killing, even if the victim is a bad person.
+ Killing so a nation won’t “dwindle and perish in unbelief” is terrorism.
- The Lord says he’s never before shown himself unto man, but he’s already revealed himself to Enoch.[24]
- The Lord says the barges can’t have windows or they’ll be dashed to pieces.[25]
+ But the Romans were the first known civilization to have glass windows.[26]
- When the Lamanites unite with the Nephites their skin turns white.[27]
+ Their dark skin is described with racist words like sore cursing, not enticing, iniquity, loathsome, idle, mischief, scourge, etc.[28]
- The Jaredite barges and voyage are not plausible.
- The Jaredite final battle is not realistic.
- The acquisition of the brass plates is not sensible.
- Alma baptizes himself.[29]
- The Nephites appoint 15-year-old Mormon to lead their armies because he’s really big.[30]
- The Tower of Babel is the setting for real history.[31]
+ Accepting the BOM requires literal belief in the Tower of Babel story.
- God threatens to make treasures too slippery to pick up.[32]
- Swords and tools disappear when left unattended overnight.[33]
- Joseph in Egypt prophesies of the BOM. He even predicts Joseph Smith’s name.[34]
+ Why are these prophecies only found in the BOM and JST?
- Even though he changed farthing to senine, Jesus speaks the Aramaic word mammon.[35]
- God preserves all the stripling warriors because they have lots of faith.[36]
- The accounts of Sherem and Korihor read like morality plays.
- The story of Ammon reads like a melodrama.
- The Nephites test wine that is likely poisoned on their prisoners.[37]
+ How is that not murder? It’s wine. Why not just throw it away?
+ They do it in the context of not being slow to remember the Lord their God.
- Alma speaks in first person for a chapter.[38]
- Scripture describes women getting raped, tortured, and eaten.[39]
* The history of the gold plates has the earmarks of a scam.
- Joseph translated most the BOM looking into his seer stone with his face buried in a hat.[40]
+ Using stones for clairvoyance is not compatible with modern LDS doctrine.
+ His seer stone was not a Nephite interpreter. He found it earlier in life.
> He used to search for buried treasure with it, but never found any.
> He received a revelation through it to sell the Canadian copyright of the BOM, but it didn’t work.
- God didn’t let Joseph show the plates to almost anybody, including his scribes.
+ They were covered with a cloth or not even in the room while translating.
+ Why wouldn’t God want anybody to see the plates? A con man?
+ Why does the Church still publish artwork and videos of Joseph reading the plates like a book, without a stone, with the plates plain view of his scribe?
- When Joseph was done translating, an angel took the plates. But a few of his close friends and associates signed a testimony that they promise they saw them.
+ The plates aren’t on Earth anymore, so we have to just take their word for it.
- Joseph’s reasoning for not retranslating the lost 116 pages doesn’t track.
+ Could the evil men have changed the ink writing without it being obvious?
+ If so they still could have tried to discredit the translation of the small plates.[41]
+ It would make sense to do what he did if Joseph knew he couldn’t produce the same translation twice.
- Textual corrections to the Book of Mormon contradict the way it was translated.
+ Joseph couldn’t continue if the scribe had written down the wrong word.
+ But the Church later inserted changes that made it feel less Trinitarian.[42]
+ And King Benjamin used to have a role after he died.[43]
+ And many, many more.
________________
[1] View of the Hebrews was a book written in 1823 (the Book of Mormon was published in 1829) by a minister named Ethan Smith. It establishes an Israelite origin for the American Indians, it incorporates much of the prophecies of Isaiah (including whole chapters), the lost tribes divide into two classes (one civilized and the other savage), and there are many more similarities.
[2] Elder Roberts’s entire list of parallels can be found here:
http://20truths.info/mormon/plagiarism.html.
[3] Second Isaiah, or Deutero-Isaiah, comprising chapters 40 to 55, was written by an anonymous author near the end of the Babylonian captivity (clearly after Lehi left Jerusalem). It is quoted by 1 Nephi 20, 1 Nephi 21, 2 Nephi 7, 2 Nephi 8, 3 Nephi 22, and Mosiah 14.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Isaiah#Composition.
[4] For example 2 Nephi 16:2 (first edition only,
http://www.inephi.com/91.htm) copies seraphims instead of seraphim from Isaiah 6:2. 2. Nephi 19:1 copies afflict from the KJV “... and afterwards did more grievously afflict by way of the Red Sea beyond Jordan in Galilee ...” NIV reads correctly: “... but in the future he will honor Galilee …”.
[5] “The parallel narratives are ubiquitous and systemic, appearing with sustained consistency throughout the entire narrative of the Book of Mormon. Indeed, reading the Book of Mormon is tantamount to reading John Bunyan’s many works condensed into a single volume.” -- The Los Angeles Review of Books,
http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=1135&fulltext=1[6] Moroni 7:45-46 vs. 1 Corinthians 13:2-8
[7] Ether 7:9
[8] 2 Nephi 5:14
[9]
http://mit.irr.org/smithsonian-institution-statement-on-book-of-mormon[10]
http://20truths.info/mormon/bompop.html[11]
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=13&num=1&id=338[12] lds.org very clearly differentiates between the gospel, and the gospel in its fullness. The gospel in its fullness is “all the doctrines, principles, laws, ordinances, and covenants necessary for us to be exalted in the celestial kingdom”
http://www.lds.org/topics/gospel?lang=eng.
[13] Jacob 2:24, D&C 132:38
[14] Mosiah 15:1-5, 2 Nephi 31:21, Alma 11:44, Alma 18:26-28, and many more.
[15] Compare 1 Nephi 11:18, 21, 32 13:40 with
http://www.inephi.com/25.htm,
http://www.inephi.com/27.htm, and
http://www.inephi.com/33.htm.
[16]
http://mormonthink.com/firstvisionweb.htm[17] Alma 34:34, 2 Nephi 9:38, Mosiah 2:36-39
[18] Moroni 8:14, Alma 20:17
[19] Lehi, Abinadi, Samuel the Lamanite, etc.
[20] 1 Nephi 13:14
[21] 2 Nephi 1:8-11
[22] Omni 1:14-16,21
[23] 1 Nephi 4:10-18
[24] Ether 3:15, Moses 7:4
[25] Ether 2:23
[26]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window#History[27] 3 Nephi:2:15. Every convert I’ve ever seen kept the same skin color.
[28] 2 Nephi 5:21-22
[29] Mosiah 18:12-14
[30] Mormon 2:1-2
[31] Ether 1:33
[32] Helaman 13:31,33,36
[33] Ether 14:1
[34] 2 Nephi 3:6-16,18-22
[35] 3 Nephi 12:26/Matt 5:26, 3 Nephi 13:24/Matt 6:24. Aramaic was a language spoken by commoners in the Holy Land.
[36] Alma 57:26
[37] Alma 55:31
[38] Alma 9
[39] Moroni 9:9-10
[40]
http://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament[41] For example, they could have changed the names of people and places, or reordered and modified important events.
[42] Compare 1 Nephi 11:18, 21, 32 13:40 with
http://www.inephi.com/25.htm,
http://www.inephi.com/27.htm, and
http://www.inephi.com/33.htm.
[43]Compare Mosiah 21:28 with
http://www.inephi.com/201.htm. Also see Mosiah 6:3-7, 7:1.