If you read the book “Secret History An Eye Witness Account of the Rise of Mormonism” by John Ahmanson (Translated by Gleason L. Archer), you will at least find out what the true source of the Book of Mormon is.
It was taken from a manuscript of a cultural science fiction novel, stolen by Joseph Smith when cleaning out an old woman’s attic.
BTW The book is hard to find because it was purged from public libraries, but can be obtained by placing a ‘want’ with ABE books. I have some copies of it too.
First of all, in my humble opinion, the word “Lamanite” used in the Book of Mormon could be a very generalized term to be those not Nephite. Laman and Lemuel were rebellious brothers who became so opposed to what Nephi and his family followed that they could easily have slipped away from the village into the jungle, mixed in with the other people who inhabited the area and drifted away from any semblance of the beliefs they had originally carried with them from ancient Israel. This could describe the darkness that came upon them, assuming the peoples they integrated with were of Asian Indian background, darker than the white Israeli appearance. They would have appeared wild and war-like stemming from the jealousies that could have carried over to their offspring.
Naturally there would be wars, turf wars so to speak that culminated in one final battle at a Hill Cumorrah where they all basically lived. They are still uncovering ancient cities previously unknown to archeologists, burried by the jungle and time. If there was a survivor or small group of survivors that fled that bloody battlefield, they could have fled north to where the eventual plates were found by Joseph Smith under the direction of Moroni, the ancient warrior leader, and the Hill by Joseph Smith’s home could have been called Cumorrah after the place where there was the last battle of the Nephites who also could have inner bred with people of their geographical area. Or the Lord could have transported them there where Joseph could find them. Joseph said that the angel Moroni took them back from him after their translation. We all want to place human limitations on God. What is remarkable is that Joseph Smith, bright as he may have been, if he wanted to start a new religion which so many other preacher-types were successful at doing, why would he go to all the trouble to make up a huge fib about golden plates which nevertheless wittnesses testified to seeing and handling and would not change their story even after some had a falling out with Joseph, and write a complex Book of Mormon so easily a target and subject of controversy and scruitiny, when it would have been easy to do without it. When you read the detailed accounts, new names, visit by Christ himself, details of geography, and incredibly spiritual principals that in themselves were unique and deep and applicable to us all, its hard to attribute it to just the meanderings and imagination of an uneducated young man with nothing else to do.
Most phony ministers and originators of religions based on lies, deceptions, and falsehoods fall flat on their face and they don’t evolve into the fourth largest organized religion in the United States, with so many distinguished, successful, spiritual, kind and wonderful people who are respected world-wide. It makes no sense, is not logical. These attacks on the validity of the Book of Mormon are childs play as far as causing members of the LDS Church to leave the Church compared to the persecutions the early Saints had to endure, including the murder of Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum. That is when most people split!