In an attempt to charge the Book of Mormon with a false prophecy, Matthew Paulson wrote the following:
[T]here is a problem with the inability to find the lands of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon makes a prophecy that it will be “carried forth among them,” (1 Nephi 13:20). If the Book of Mormon geography exists in Mexico, then the Book of Mormon is false.
Historically, the Spanish missionaries were first to go to Mexico, Central America, and South America. The methodologies of the missionaries might be in debate; however, what is not in debate is what they taught and the books they used. They were the first to preach from the Bible to the native inhabitants. These missionaries came to Central America about a hundred years before the English first settled in the New World. In fact, many American Indians accepted the friendship of the Spaniards. Some Indians even fought side by side with the Spaniards against the Aztecs (Thomas Woods Jr., How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilisation, pp. 137-8). Could this be the fulfillment of Nephi’s vision that a book “was carried forth among them” (1 Nephi 13:20)? Mormon scholars must find a rationale to object. If the Bible was the first book to be brought to the Indians, the Book of Mormon is false. Historically, Catholic missionaries and preachers were the first to spread the teachings of the Bible across the United States long before and during the advent of the Book of Mormon in 1830 (Elder G.A. Smith claimed the preaching to American Indians actually began in 1847. See his “History of Mohomedism” D&C 3:28).
BYU professor of Anthropology John E. Clark admits, “If one is not worried about pedagogical methods for ‘spreading’ the Bible, it could easily be said that the Spanish brought ‘Christianity’ to more natives than did any other Gentile nation.” Clark falsely concludes, “Indeed, the people of the YSA appear to have done almost nothing to take the Bible to the Indians” (John E. Clark, “The Final Battle for Cumorah Review of Christ in North America by Delbert W. Curtis,” FARMS Review 6:2 [Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1994], p. 92). Clark must advocate a position that Catholic missionaries left the Bible behind. If they taught the Indians about the Bible then it is problematic that the Book of Mormon was to fulfill the holy book for the native inhabitants of the North America. However, the Bible was taught and promoted among the native Indians by the Catholic missionaries. Certainly they were not “nothing.”
In order to allow the fulfillment of the “book” in the Book of Mormon Clark must ignore the use of the Bible by Protestants and Catholics. This is a poor analysis, considering the success of the Catholic missionaries like Father Junipero Serra (1713-1784), Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, S.J., (1645-1711), and Father Francisco Tomás Garcés, (1738-1781). In the early 1700s missionaries from France similarly set out to convert and teach the native Indians of Canada, the American Northeast and Great Lakes region. However, the missionaries ran into a Protestant mission field that had already been in place. These missionaries were chiefly from the British Isles, although in the Middle Colonies, substantial numbers were, among others, German- or Dutch-speaking Lutheran, Reformed, and Moravian church members. It appears that the Bible is in serious contention for being the first book to the many suggested locations for the Book of Mormon. Thus, we must question if there is any location of native Indians where the command by the Book of Mormon character Nephi would said a book “was carried forth among them.” Wherever the Book of Mormon geography is postulated, the Bible seems to be the first religious book taught in that region to the native population. This is an interesting and precarious predicament for Book of Mormon believers. (Matthew A. Paulson, Breaking the Mormon Code: A Critique of Mormon Scholarship Regarding Classical Christian Theology and the Book of Mormon [Livermore, Calif.: WingSpan Press, 2006, 2009], 212-13, emphasis added)
For Paulson, the book in 1 Nephi 13:20 is the Book of Mormon. However, if Paulson bothered to read the next few verses, he would see that it is the Bible, not the Book of Mormon, rendering void his “arguments”; the following is 1 Nephi 13:20-23 (emphasis added)
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that they did prosper in the land; and I beheld a book, and it was carried forth among them. And the angel said unto me: Knowest thou the meaning of the book? And I said unto him: I know not. And he said: Behold it proceedeth out of the mouth of a Jew. And I, Nephi, beheld it; and he said unto me: The book that thou beholdest is a record of the Jews, which contains the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel; and it also containeth many of the prophecies of the holy prophets; and it is a record like unto the engravings which are upon the plates of brass, save there are not so many; nevertheless, they contain the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel; wherefore, they are of great worth unto the Gentiles.
So, instead of being a false prophecy (based on Paulson’s misreading of v. 20 as being a prophecy of the Book of Mormon), it supports the claim, forwarded by LDS scholars, that the Book of Mormon has a setting in Central America. For more on this, see, for example, John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Deseret, 2013) and Brant Gardner, The Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History (Greg Kofford Books, 2015).
