By Jack H. West, 1954.
GENERAL SUMMATION AND PROLOGUE
Act III
May I remind you that we are reviewing a case in which the Stick of Joseph (Book of Mormon) was on mock trial under conditions approximating a courtroom to every possible degree. Our old professor at law school had been a judge for many years, and our test for the year was to try a case within all limits of legal procedure. So each student in the class had the opportunity, as the judge called it, of defending or prosecuting some law case against the entire balance of the class.
While studying law, I was also studying and teaching the Book of Mormon. As I did so, with my increasing legal knowledge, I became more and more convinced that God Himself had indeed briefed a case for the authenticity of the “Stick of Joseph” as the Bible called it (see Ezek. 37:15-19) or the Book of Mormon as the world knows it. So I thought to myself, “If you are going to be tested, what better could you do than get the Lord on your side?” So I took the case for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. You see, I had a firm and burning testimony in my heart that the Book of Mormon was true, and I felt sure the evidence would bear me out.
When I selected this case and decided to defend the Book of Mormon (Stick of Joseph) against the charge of fraud, the opposition was elated. The attorneys were certain, when they heard I was defending the Book of Mormon, that they could beat it in a very short time, prove it completely fictitious and the work of the imagination of some poor farmer school boy who had not even approached the eighth grade. Perhaps they were overly enthusiastic and too sure of themselves. I must admit they brought things into the courtroom that I did not have the least idea existed – things that appeared to be evidence against the authenticity of the Book. I had not realized, as many to whom I have spoken in the Church have not realized, that over 1500 books had been written as commentary on the Book of Mormon, and that many of those 1500 books had been written specifically against the Book of Mormon. So time and time again the prosecution brought in evidence which seemed conclusive in its bringing out a fraudulent nature of the Book of Mormon. But, as we got to the facts and sifted away the hearsay, the conjecture, the guesswork, — as we forgot about those things and those people who thought that someone had said, or thought that someone had heard that someone had thought that someone else had said – and it got that ridiculous in some cases – when we got down to prime witnesses, competent witnesses, people who personally had to do with the things we were talking about, we found there was no evidence against the Book of Mormon. Time and time again things which seemed to be against it, like the old boomerang swung around and damaged rather than strengthened the case of the prosecuting attorneys.
Most of these mock trials had lasted a day or two, a week at the very most, but this one completed two weeks and was into a third week.
After the concluding arguments, the judge rendered the decision in favor of the defense and said to the prosecution, “You have not even established a toe hold, much less a foothold, in breaking down the marvelous evidence for the authenticity of the Stick of Joseph.”
Then the judge called me into his office and he said, “Jack, where in the world did you get the evidence you presented in this mock trial?”
I grinned at him and said, “Well, I told you in the court that I did not take credit for one particle of this evidence. It isn’t new. It has been available, for the most part, many years to anyone who wanted to look it up. I believe with all my heart that God himself has set up this evidence, and I told all of you that in the courtroom.”
The judge said, “I want to tell you that it is one of the most nearly perfect law cases I have ever heard. I wouldn’t have given a plugged nickel for your chances of success when you started out.”
Now, we have discussed our presentation. First, we examined the personal witnesses and the testimonies of twelve men, all of whom declared that they saw and handled the ancient golden records from which the Prophet Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. In some cases, they saw these things and heard them under supernatural condition. We investigated their lives and found that none of them ever betrayed his testimony or turned against it, and yet we found almost idea conditions existing for a betrayal, if this thing had been fraud.
Second, we let the Book of Mormon answer for itself, with internal evidence, a whole group of charges made by the prosecution against the book and against those who brought it forth. We found that it was its own best witness – that it could answer the charges of the world against it. We found that there was a oneness between the Book of Mormon (Stick of Joseph) and the Bible (Stick of Judah) as it had been promised in the Old Testament there would be.
Let’s turn again to Ezekiel 37:15-19. We go to this every once in a while. I love this, and I think it sets the stage for the necessity of, indeed, the very commandment of God that there should be such a record as the Stick of Joseph.
The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt though not shew us what thou meanest by these?
Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. (Ezekiel 37:15-19.)
Remember, when I asked the prosecution where the Stick of Judah was, there was hesitation. I am sure any student of the Bible would agree that the Holy Bible is the Stick of Judah. That is the religious and the scriptural record of the tribe of Judah.
Now, some have thought that the New Testament was the Stick of Joseph, but that could not be, for its main character was Jesus Christ, the Son of God. From which tribe of Israel did Christ descend? Judah of Israel, not of Joseph, and so the idea that the New Testament was the Stick of Joseph would not hold.
I asked the prosecution, “Do you have the Stick of Joseph, the religious record of the bribe of Joseph?” Well, you remember, they didn’t happen to have the Stick of Joseph right there handy, but they were sure that they could get it. So they went to their ministers, and their rabbis, and their priests, and they came back-empty handed. They did not have this Stick of Joseph. Peculiarly enough, the ministers did not know where it was.
“Well,” I said, “then you wouldn’t object very much, would you, if I placed the Stick of Joseph in this case as exhibit A?”
They looked at it and said, “But that book says the Book of Mormon. How can it be the Stick of Joseph?”
And I said, “Well, this says the Holy Bible. How can it be the Stick of Judah? We know it is the Stick of Judah because when we read the text we find it is God’s dealings particularly with the tribe of Judah. By the same test, as you read this Book of Mormon, you will find, although it is called today the Book of Mormon, that is it literally the religious record of the tribe of Joseph, thus the Stick of Joseph.”
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