View the full PDF (420+ pages)View PDF
View the full PDF (420+ pages)View PDF
The Book of Mormon is remarkably accurate on many different topics which Joseph Smith would have likely been unfamiliar with. One example is that of guerilla warfare.
A definition of guerilla warfare is as follows:
Traditionally, guerrilla warfare has been characterized by small-scale, hit-and-run operations by lightly armed fighters who exploit deception, surprise, and the ability to merge into the local population and terrain.
– Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Second Edition), 2008
Daniel C. Peterson notes how the Book of Mormon is:
considerably beyond anything Joseph Smith would have been likely to create out of his own imagination. It is not simply the Book of Mormon’s precise portrayal of irregular warfare that is foreign to Joseph and his environment. Its realistic and wholly unromantic military narratives do not, it seems clear to me, come from the mind of that Joseph Smith, who, while he abhorred actual battle, loved parades and military pageantry, relished his commission as Lieutenant-General of the Nauvoo Legion, and, uniformed in elegant blue and gold, liked nothing better than to review the troops while mounted on his black stallion, Charlie.
– Daniel C. Peterson, “The Gadianton Robbers as Guerrilla Warriors,” in Warfare in the Book of Mormon, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1990), 146–173.
Where was Joseph Smith learning information like this if he was “less inclined to the perusal of books” than others in his family?
See: