Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr. as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi. According to Smith's account, and written in the book itself, it was originally written in otherwise unknown characters referred to as "reformed Egyptian" on golden plates. Smith said that he received these plates in 1827 from an angel named Moroni, whom Smith identified as a resurrected indigenous American who wrote part of the book over a millennium ago. According to Smith, this ancient Moroni buried the plates in a hill near Smith's home in Manchester, New York.