Book of Mormon not a product of its time

Critics may be permitted at this late date to try their hand at winning friends and influencing people by telling the Mormons of today that they are just ordinary folk with an ordinary church. But to say that such was also the case in the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young is neither honest nor sporting. The genial and forced camaraderie of some of the present-day critics of Mormonism is that of the man who finds it easier to pick your pocket by affectionately locking arms with you than by hitting you over the head. The new humane approach is simply an obvious maneuver to rob the Church of a glorious history and to play down every remarkable circumstance of its origin. When it reaches the point of being told that while the Book of Mormon may seem very strange to us, to the contemporaries of Joseph Smith it "would scarcely seem fanciful, possibly not even novel," it is high time to protest. For even the most superficial acquaintance with the literature will show that the Book of Mormon was as baffling, scandalizing, and hated a book in the first week of its appearance as it has ever been since. The idea that the Book of Mormon was simply a product of its time may be a necessary fiction to explain it, but it is fiction nonetheless. If they may be trusted in nothing else, the voluminous writings of the anti-Mormons stand as monumental evidence for one fact: that Mormonism and the Book of Mormon were in no way a product of the society in which they arose. ("The Prophetic Book of Mormon", The Prophetic Book of Mormon)

The Book of Mormon a momentous achievement

A century and a quarter ago, a young man shocked and angered the world by bringing out a large book that he set up beside the Bible, not as a commentary or a key to the scriptures, but as original scripture-- the revealed word of God to men of old--and as genuine history. The book itself declares that it is an authentic product of the Near East. It gives a full and circumstantial account of its own origin. It declares that it is but one of many, many such books that have been produced in the course of history and may be hidden in sundry places at this day. It places itself in about the middle of a long list of sacred writings, beginning with the patriarchs and continuing down to the end of human history. It cites now-lost prophetic writings of prime importance, giving the names of their authors. It traces its own cultural roots in all directions, emphasizing the immense breadth and complexity of such connections in the world. It belongs to the same class of literature as the Bible, but, along with a sharper and clearer statement of biblical teachings, contains a formidable mass of historical material unknown to biblical writers but well within the range of modern comparative study since it insists on deriving its whole cultural tradition, even in details, directly from a specific time and place in the Old World. The Book of Mormon is God's challenge to the world. It was given to the world not as a sign to convert it but as a testimony to convict it. In every dispensation the world must be left without excuse. It is given without reservation or qualification as a true history and the word of God. ("Historicity of the Bible", Old Testament and Related Studies)