Prophecy in the Book of Mormon is a massive response to deistic objections. Smith traced prediction back to the time of Jared, including the note that prophecies from the time of Adam were on the brass plates of Laban (1 Ne 3:20) and, soon after the publication of the Book of Mormon, produced prophecies of Adam himself.

Paine scorned the biblical prophets for giving predictions and then, when no fulfillment was forthcoming, explaining away the failure by supposing that God had “repented.” In line with other millennialists of the time, Smith assigned unfulfilled prophecies to the events surrounding and including the millennium. As for the idea that God repented, Smith never let is be said in the Book of Mormon and edited it out of his Inspired Version. Conditional prophecy was an exception, since its purpose was to effect repentance.

No room was allowed for Pain’s charge that the prophets were “liars and impostors,” for Smith made the gift of prophecy depend upon merit. Prophets were identified by their genealogies, their properly recorded calls from God, their exemplary lives, and their fulfilled predictions.

Smith generally acknowledged the objections that skeptics had toward prophecy. He detailed the case against it as he saw it through the person of Koriohor, the arch-villain and antichrist of the Book of Mormon. Korihor “began to preach unto the people against the prophecies which had been spoken by the prophets, concerning the coming of Christ (Al 30:6). He said:

Why do you look for a Christ? For no man can know of anything which is to come. Behold, these things which ye call prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets, behold, they are foolish traditions of your fathers. How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ. Ye look forward and say that ye see a remission of sins. But behold, it is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so. (AL 30:13-16)

Asked why he taught the people “that there shall be no Christ,” and why he spoke “against all the prophecies of the holy prophets,” Korihor replied:

Because I do not teach the foolish traditions of your fathers and because I do not teach this people to bind themselves down under the foolish ordinances and performances which are laid down by ancient priests, in ignorance, that they may not lift up their hands, but be brought down according to thy words. . . . Ye say that those ancient prophecies are true. Behold, I say that ye do not know that they are true. . . . And ye also say that Christ shall come. Behold, I say that ye do not know that there shall be a Christ. (Al 30:23-26)

Samuel, the Lamanite, also encountered disbelief when he told of specific signs for the coming of the Christ )Hel 13-15). When the signs began to appear, however, the unbelieving Nephites

began to depend upon their own strength and wisdom, saying; Some things they may have guessed right, among so many; but behold, we know that all these great and marvelous works cannot come to pass, of which has been spoken [referring to signs of the destruction and preservation of the Nephites in their remnant]. (Hel 16:15-16)

Smith has presented the rebuttals to the argument from prophecy, arguments popularized by deists: Bible traditions are foolish and untrustworthy; foreknowledge is impossible; prophecy is a delusion used by corrupt priests to manipulate the people; there is no way of knowing the truth of prophecy, since the law of averages would allow for some correct guesses.