SAN DIEGO, Sept. 9, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Well known futurist and serial inventor, Elwood G. Norris, a former LDS Church member for more than 40 years, today announced the publication of "The Book of Mormon is Literary Grand Theft," a landmark 772 page work that is the product of greater than 20 years effort. The book proves once and for all that it is not possible for the Book of Mormon to have been translated from ancient gold plates allegedly found buried in a hill in upstate New York in the early 1800's, as declared by Church founder Joseph Smith.

The Mormon Church has grown from a few members to a worldwide membership of greater than 14 million in its 180 plus year history, and is the fastest growing Christian religion in the world today. In spite of this, and no doubt due in part to the explosive growth of the information age caused by the Internet, it is estimated that the Church is now losing more than 200,000 members to apostasy every year.

Norris shows how Joseph Smith plagiarized the words of nearly every New Testament writer, while at the same time attempting to obscure the fact by a technique that is for the first time revealed in this book. Smith indulged in extensive, lengthy, copying of the words of men who would not be born for centuries, and from a Bible rendition of their words that was published 2000 years after the putative brass plates were brought to America. All this bespeaks far more than mere plagiarism; Smith ends up putting first-person words into the mouth of God!

Also, greater than 19 chapters of Isaiah cited in the Book of Mormon are shown to have all been lifted from the King James Bible, copied verbatim, or nearly so, while at the same time declaring themselves as taken from Brass Plates supposedly written in Egyptian hieroglyphics and carried to America by a small band of Israelites around 600 BC.

Using the Bible itself as proof, Norris also debunks the notion that the "two sticks" prophesy recorded in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel predicts the coming forth of the Book of Mormon as Joseph Smith has God declare. Through a step-by-step multi-disciplinary analysis of the words of Ezekiel, the author proves beyond dispute that "books" are not what Ezekiel had in mind when he referred to the now famous "two sticks."

Norris also demonstrates how Joseph Smith's incompetence as a translator magically turns the three prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Elijah into six prophets. Smith's error is traced to an ignorance of how proper names alter in spelling when transliterated from Hebrew into New Testament Greek. Once again, he enlists God to affirm his error.

The book is available on Amazon.com

All proceeds go to charity

Elwood G. Norris 858.735.9407