What advice would you give someone reading the Book of Mormon for the first time?
Read Dave’s answer
Answer 1
Keep it simple. The Book of Mormon is by its very nature and origins either a miracle and evidence of God or an elegant but utter fraud, so the stakes are high and thus unless you read it with an open mind AND heart, you could be easily deceived one way or the other.
Before you read it, read the Title Page, the Testimonies of the Witnesses, and Joseph Smith’s story about how it came to be. Pay special attention to this line from the Title Page (which Joseph Smith said was written by the prophet Moroni, the angel who first appeared to him in 1823):
And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.
In other words, God reveals Himself to man through prophets, but it’s up to us to sort out, through faith and prayer and study, the mistakes of men from the things of God.
As you read it, ask yourself: could this book have been dictated by a 24-year old to a scribe in 65 or so days?
Finally, as you read it, ask God if it’s true in sincere and humble prayer.
Millions of us who have done this have received the same miraculous visitation of the Holy Spirit witnessing that the Book of Mormon is indeed Another Testament of Jesus Christ, which when added to the many prophetic witnesses in the New Testament and the Old Testament, eliminates confusion about whether God lives, whether Jesus is the Son of God and our Savior, and which Church and religion is true.
Answer 2
I would recommend NOT taking such an academic approach until after you’ve had the spiritual experience in answer to sincere and humble prayer as promised in Moroni 10:4–5.
Before you know it’s true by a witness of the Spirit, you’re likely to find the Book of Mormon to be difficult to process intellectually. After you’ve been baptized and given the Gift of the Holy Ghost, it will be like coming out of darkness into the light. I’ve had many converts describe it to me that way, including my dear friend Britt Hagen, who had casually read the Book of Mormon off and on for years, but didn’t have a spiritual experience with it until he started reading it as a sincere seeker of truth following a miracle he and I had. Britt announced his conversion on Will Zachmann’s Canopus Forum in the ‘90s, which caused a furor at that time, because I was well known there both as IBM’s “official” Online Representative but also as a BYU Graduate and Latter-day Saint. Britt simply read it to know if it was true. The first day after he had read most of 1st and 2nd Nephi, he called me to ask again how old Joseph Smith was when it was published. When I told him 24, he said “No way. That book is too mature for anyone that age to have written it.” I told him to call the missionaries, and a week later he called me to ask me to baptize him. So my point is to approach it like Britt did - with honest curiosity and an open mind - and not as a scholar or student reading some other text to learn intricate details, and ESPECIALLY not to identify flaws in it or logical inconsistencies or any other “mistakes of men” as evidence against it. The Title Page specifically warns against that.
But just to be in compliant with Quora policy about answering your question, consider David Ridges book “The Book of Mormon Made Easy.”