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This translation became ''The Book of Mormon'', which is revered as "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" by Mormons. The monikers referring to Smith's church as "the Mormon Church" and its members as "Mormons" are derivations from''The Book of Mormon.'' This book purports to be a religious and secular history of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas--called Nephites, Lamanites, Mulekites, and Jaredites--from about 2200 B.C. to A.D. 421. It claims that at least some Native Americans are descended from groups of Near Eastern peoples (mostly [[Judaism|Jews]]) who immigrated during pivotal periods in Israel’s history.
The ''Book of Mormon'' claims that many of these people were openly-practicing [[Christian|Christians]], ''before'' the birth of Christ, with a functioning church organization that mirrored that later taught by Joseph Smith. According to Smith's text, the godly "Nephites" openly administered baptisms, "confirmations" and the Holy Eucharist eons ''before'' the coming of the Savior. The book even claims that our Lord came to visit these peoples Himself after His [[Ascension]]--after raining down several days of death and destruction on the evildoers among them. About four-hundred years after this alleged event, the "Nephites" were destroyed by the wicked "Lamanites," who became among the primary ancestors of the Native American peoples.
This points to a Mormon perspective on the sacrifice of the Savior that is fairly unique. Mormons believe that the sacrifice is as retroactive as it is proactive, meaning that people could be saved by Christ's Atonement before Christ had chronologically sacrificed Himself to atone for the sins of mankind. Mormons believe ancient biblical figures such as Adam, Abraham, and Moses all received the Christian Gospel and were saved by Christ even before His birth.
Interestingly, over 3,000 changes have been noted between the ''Book of Mormon'' currently published by the LDS Church, and the original 1830 edition published by Joseph Smith. Most of these alterations were made by Smith himself, in later editions of the book printed during his own lifetime. And most of them were spelling corrections, printers errors, or formatting corrections (the original copies of the Book of Mormon had no verses and only basic chapters- more detailed chapters and verses were added later on.) Some changes though were to the text itself. For instance, in I Nephi 11:32, our Lord was originally referred to as "the eternal God," but is now referred to as "the ''son'' of the eternal God." In I Nephi 11:18, the [[Theotokos]] was initially referred to as "the mother of God," while today she is referred to as "the mother of the ''Son'' of God."<ref>httphttps://www.geocitiesfairmormon.comorg/conference/swickerscaugust-2002/mormonbkchange.htmlchanges-in-the-book-of-mormon.</ref>
Connections between the history and civilization portrayed in ''The Book of Mormon'' and evidence found by archaeologists in the Americas is debatable. Evidence of horses, elephants, cattle, barley, wheat, steel swords, chariots, shipbuilding, and other Old World paraphernalia has not been found to exist in the Americas until the advent of Europeans. Evidence of these people, the gold plates, or the "seer-stones" has yet to be found.<ref>See, for instance, the Smithsonian Institute's offical statement on the ''Book of Mormon'', at http://www.irr.org/mit/smithson.html.</ref>