The contents of the Neum (Book of Mormon) page were merged into Book of Mormon on 26 December 2023. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

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	Book of Mormon is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 19, 2004 Refreshing brilliant prose Not kept October 17, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed
	Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the " On this day..." column on March 26, 2011, March 26, 2014, and March 26, 2016.
Current status: Former featured article candidate

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The River Sidon article was blanked on 2024-04-16 and that title now redirects to Book of Mormon. The contents of the former article are available in the redirect's history; for the discussion at that location, see the redirect's talk page.

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The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to any paid contribution; see WP:PAID. For advice about reviewing paid contributions, see WP:COIRESPONSE. Edits made by the below user(s) were last checked for neutrality on March 7, 2024. The paid contributions follow WP:NPOV and have no direct WP:COI. Rae (BYU) ( talk · contribs) has been paid by BYU. Their editing has included contributions to this article.

I've placed an {npov} tag because this article does not clearly present the mainstream view of the Book of Mormon, beginning with what it is and who wrote it. It should say that the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith in the early 19th century. Instead, that fact is quite buried, in the line In the twenty-first century, leading naturalistic interpretations of Book of Mormon origins hold that Smith authored it himself, whether consciously or subconsciously, and simultaneously sincerely believed the Book of Mormon was an authentic sacred history. Even that sentence is inappropriately qualified ... "leading naturalistic interpretations" is the mainstream view, also known as "the truth." "Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon" should be in the lead, and it should be the first view given in the "Origins" section. Before I go about rewriting it, does anybody disagree with this? Levivich ( talk) 17:38, 12 March 2024 (UTC) reply

• Agreed. Switched the order of the lede's first two sentences. starship .paint ( RUN) 13:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC) reply
• Agreed, NPOV is non-negotiable and we should not be presenting fringe views as superior to or the equal of normal ones. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 16:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC) reply

  When you categorize a religious belief held by millions of people as "fringe", and your own beliefs as "normal", I would argue that you are not on NPOV ground. Any belief held by millions of people is notable enough for an encyclopedia, even if it is not factual.

  But I honestly think this article's bigger problem is that it spends far too many words on the question of historicity, especially in the introduction. Contrast, for example, the article on the Torah, another religious text that most scholars do not regard as a historically accurate document, but which many Jews and Christians regard as historical anyway. The Torah article spends virtually no time debating evidence for or against its historical correctness! Instead, its sections are primarily focused on the themes, symbolism, and religious significance of the book.

  Right now, most of the Book of Mormon article's introduction, as well as two major sections ("Origins" and "Views on Historical Authenticity") focus heavily on historicity. That seems excessive to me. I think one section and 2-3 sentences in the introduction would be sufficient. The more space we spend on the historicity issues debate, the greater the temptation for people to insert non-NPOV language.

  TLDR: Religion is not fringe, but I agree this article has problems, and I might have used a Debate or Review cleanup tag instead of NPOV. Statesman 88 ( talk) 22:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC) reply

• Yeah. TrangaBellam ( talk) 18:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC) reply

  Yeah [you're right]., Yeah [I disagree with this]., or Yeah [though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me].? Levivich ( talk) 18:24, 13 March 2024 (UTC) reply

• Agreed on the need for NPOV tag, and on Starship.paint's sentence switch. However I'm struggling to see how "it is patently obvious..." can be considered NPOV, it's a mocking tone rather than "nonjudgmental" and "impartial". It's also inaccurate: if it was "patently obvious that Smith had authored the Book by himself" then neither the plagiarism hypotheses nor the rumours about Smith having help from a third party would ever have gained traction. Pastychomper ( talk) 15:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC) reply

  I agree. I just switched out "patently obvious" for "more widely accepted view", aiming for NPOV. I hope people like that language, but I'm open to continued revision. Statesman 88 ( talk) 22:23, 14 March 2024 (UTC) reply

It looks like someone spent a lot of time scrubbing this article of anything that wasn’t LDS approved. :( 2600:1700:F90:6950:ACF9:19B6:8CC1:724B ( talk) 01:35, 5 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I'd like to move we remove this POV tag now. All the directly POV phrasing has been scrubbed that I can see. Also, I've spent some time breaking out the subsections on Historicity and hopefully making it crystal clear what the mainstream consensus is. Also by increasing its length and relative prominence, that should help with issues of imbalance. That said, since this is an article about a fundamentally religious topic, I think it's perfectly appropriate (and NPOV) for other sections to have a more religious bent, discussing religious significance, content, etc. Trevdna ( talk) 21:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I placed the NPOV tag but have not had a chance to review the article lately, though I am aware that there's been a lot of editing to fix the NPOV concerns. So if other editors who have reviewed the article think the NPOV concerns have been taken care of and the tag is no longer necessary then there's no objection to removing it from me. If I see issues in the future I'm happy to bring them up again, in the meantime I don't want to hold anything up due to my lack of time. Levivich ( talk) 22:53, 23 April 2024 (UTC) reply

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS). Levivich ( talk) 17:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC) reply