“To reduce the Book of Mormon to mere myth weakens, if not destroys, the possibility of it witnessing to the truth about divine things. A fictional Book of Mormon fabricated by Joseph Smith, even when his inventiveness, genius, or ‘inspiration’ is celebrated, does not witness to Jesus Christ but to human folly. A true Book of Mormon is a powerful witness; a fictional one is hardly worth reading and pondering.”

Louis Midgley, Faithful History, “The Acids of Modernity and the Crisis in Mormon Historiography” (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1 April 1992), 214.