31 challenges

[James_Fryman]

I think this is the correct place to put this, if not someone can move it. And sorry if this has been posted before but I think that its worth reading over every now and then

These 31 conditions much be complied with in order to produce a similar record under comparable conditions.

1. Write a history of ancient land covering a period from 2200 B.C. to 400 A.D.

2. Include the history of two distinct, separate nations along with histories of different contemporary nations or groups of people.

3. Describe their religious, economic, social, cultural, and political institutions.

4. Weave into their history the religion of Jesus Christ and the pattern of Christian living.

5. You are 23 years of age.

6. You must have no more than three years of formal schooling.

7. Start now and produce this record, covering a period of 2600 years of history, in 60 days.

8. Write not a short, but a long record, even 520 pages of over 150 words per page.

9. You must not make any absurd, impossible or contradictory statements.

10. When you finish in 60 days, you must make no changes in the text. The first edition much stand forever.

11. You must invite the ablest scholars and experts to examine the text with care and strive diligently to see that your book gets into the hands of all those most eager to prove it a forgery and who are most competent to explose any flaws.

12. You must give out that your "smooth narrative" is not fiction, but true; even sacred history.

13. You must write this history on the basis of what you now know. You must publish it to every nation, kindred, tongue and people, declaring it to be the word of God.

14. You must include within the record a marvelous, unique "dangerous" promise: "And when you shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, He will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost." (Moroni 10:4)

15. It is to fulfull the Bible prophecies, even in the exact manner in which it shall come forth, to whom given, the purposes, and the accomplishments.

16. Your descriptions of the cultures in these civilizations are not known when you bring forth this record.

17. Many of the facts, ideas and statements, given as true in your record, must be entirely inconsistent, even the direct opposite of the prevailing belief of the world.

18. Investigation, scientific evidence and archaeological discovery for the next 150 years must verify its claim and prove even the minutest details to be perfectly true.

19. After 150 years of extensive analysis, no claim or fact in the book shall be disproved, but all must be vindicated. All theories and ideas as to its origin, rise and fall, must leave your own claims as the only possible ones.

20. Internal and external evidences and prophecies must be confirmed and fulfilled in the next 150 years.

21. Four accreditable witnesses must testify to the world that an angel from heaven appeared to them and showed them the ancient records from which you claim your record is translated.

22. These four men must handle and lift the records and feel the ancient engravings thereon.

23. You must call out of heaven the voice of the Redeemer to declare to the four men that the record is true and that it is their responsibility to bear their testimony. And that very thing they must do.

24. Eight others in the broad daylight must testify to the world that they saw and handled the ancient records and that they also felt the engravings thereon.

25. The first four and the last eight witnesses must also bear their testimony not for money or gain, but under great personal sacrifices, severe persecution, even to their death beds.

26. Thousands of great men, intellectual giants and scholars, must subscribe discipleship to the record and its movement, even to the point of laying down their lives.

27. Tens and hundreds of thousands must bear record to the world for the next 150 years, and, or, that they know the record to be true, because they put the promise to test and found it to be true and the truth was manifested to them by the power of the Holy Ghost.

28. You must add 180 proper nouns to the English language... Shakespeare added only 30.

29. You must find someone to finance the book with full knowledge that neither you nor he will ever receive any monetary remuneration for it at all. You must sell it at cost or less.

30. You must write a book with 239 chapters, 54 of them about wars, 21 about history, 55 about prophecy, 71 on doctrine, 17 about missionaries, and 21 about the mission of Jesus Christ.

31. After suffering persecution and revilement for the next 20 years, you must then, willingly, give yourself into the hands of a mob, that you know will take your life, which you give as your testimony that the record is from God.

[Csaub001]

32. You must not use a computer, it all has to be hand written. Hence you can not use microsoft word to copy and paste exact quotations from earlier sections of the book.