Rating: 
Summary: What really matters?
Review: This book is not a light read, but it is an engaging and thoroughly researched evaluation of Thomas Stuart Ferguson's life, career and religious beliefs. Mormon faithful will likely label this text as "anti-Mormon," but an objective reader will sense no rancor in this work. This book is an important read for anyone interested in Book of Mormon studies, and should be kept as a reference on the shelves of minister's studies everywhere.
Rating:
Summary: The truth of the book of Mormon
Review: This book should be required reading for all Mormons and those considering to become Mormon. The book is about a very devout Mormon who spent the better part of his life proving the truthfulness of the book of Mormon so he could share this truth with non Mormons.Anyone interested in the truth will be greatly rewarded by reading Quest for the golden plates.
Rating: 
Summary: And The Light Came On ...
Review: This is a truly sad story of a bright and sincere young man (Ferguson) who quite gradually sees that he (and millions of his co-religionists) have been victimized by a fraud by Joseph Smith. By the end of his life, he realizes what Smith did and (sadly) tries to temporize about the 'good' done by the LDS church despite Smith being a complete fraud.One can sympathize with Ferguson, but the answer is to abandon the entire Smith nonsense. However, admirable the lives of many Mormons, Smith was a fraud and all of their additions to the historic Christian faith share that falsity.
Rating:
Summary: Essential reading for those interested in Mormonism
Review: This is an excellent book, treating the heroic but ultimately doomed quest of one man for support for his beliefs. This book, as described in the Preface "focuses on the efforts of Thomas Stuart Ferguson to verify the authenticity of the Book of Mormon through archaeology." The story in fact shows not only Ferguson's failure to identify a single Book of Mormon city, mountain, or river, but ends in Ferguson's disillusionment with Joseph Smith and his loss of faith in Smith as an alleged prophet, not only because of the years wasted in central America looking for evidence that wasn't there, but also by Ferguson's realization that the exposure by renowned Egyptologists of the "Book of Abraham" papyri, accepted as canonical by the LDS church, as nothing more than pagan funeral texts, proved the supposed prophet Smith very much in error, and certainly unable to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. Earlier in his search, Ferguson had apparently encouraged himself with the publication in 1958 of "One Fold and one Shepherd" as described on page 59 of this book. This earlier work was supposed to present evidence of the antiquity of the Book of Mormon, but, as reported in the book, in actual fact gave evidence only of 16th century post-Conquest Spanish Catholic misssionary influence, even down to the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity ( whch is rejected by Mormonism). So it was quite meaningless for Ferguson to cite this sort of material as evidence for the antiquity of the Book of Mormon. That, and the "shopping list fallacy" mentioned on page 62 (that is, the idea that parallels between cultures, such as idols, sacrifices, slaves, are supposedly significant is erroneous because the parallels are either not complex or not uniques to the two cultures under consideration) effectively destroy any claim of archaeological support for the Book of Mormon.
At the end of the book is given a list of tests for the Book of Mormon, under the categories Plant Life, Animal Life, Metallurgy, Script, and Others. It is quite noteworthy to see that the evidence required to substantiate the Book of Mormon is found failing in every category. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone who is Mormon or to anyone who is considering converting to the LDS church, as it contains information that missionaries will not readily admit.
| 
