One of the four volumes of scripture accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is an abridgment by an ancient prophet named Mormon of the records of ancient inhabitants of the Americas. It was written to testify that Jesus is the Christ. Concerning this record, the Prophet Joseph Smith, who translated it by the gift and power of God, said, “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (see the introduction at the front of the Book of Mormon).

The Book of Mormon is a religious record of three groups of people who migrated from the Old World to the American continents. These groups were led by prophets who recorded their religious and secular histories on metal plates. The Book of Mormon records the visit of Jesus Christ to people in the Americas following His Resurrection. A two-hundred-year era of peace followed that visit of Christ.

Moroni, the last of the Nephite prophet-historians, sealed up the abridged records of these people and hid them in about A.D. 421. In 1823, the resurrected Moroni visited Joseph Smith and later delivered to him these ancient and sacred records to be translated and brought forth to the world as another testament of Jesus Christ.

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