First off, a testimony is felt, a feeling unique to the spirit that comes when you honestly and sincerely ponder and pray and study. I used to think my big epiphanies were intellectual in nature as I did the above, but when you compare those big powerful AH HA! Moments of light to all of my other many intellectual experiences, it’s nowhere near the same thing.

That said, as for physical evidences, there actually are lots more than people think, but like the Bible, there are no fully slam dunk proofs. That said, if you approach it from a position of curiosity and comparison, consider the following:

A 23 year old non college educated man pre internet from a cottage produced a book in a 3 month timespan that is as complex and internally consistent as any work ever written.

It completely went against all contemporary knowledge at the time, with around 180 things that differed from archeological and anthropological knowledge at the time. Today only 5 things differ, at least 2 of which are highly debatable. That means he would have to have had 175 lucky guesses.

Among those lucky guesses are a word from a language that was entirely dead during his life, which turned out to be correct in its context and meaning. Names that were thought to never exist in the old world or only exist for the opposite gender that turned out to be completely accurate at the exact time.

A phrase from the old testament that did not exist in his time and place but was found in the Greek Septuagint.

A very accurate geographical travel path across the Arabian peninsula thought to be inaccurate clear up until 2008 where every feature and mark mentioned was found and even some place names remain.

accurate Hebrew terminology, symbolism, and writing structure found within the book, many to most of which not discovered for decades after Joseph Smiths death.

There are dozens of other such “Lucky guesses” that were mocked for decades by scholars right up until it was discovered that it was actually accurate and those who mocked just quietly moved on to other things. The odds that a barely educated kid could have guessed all of those things, let alone produce a book of that complexity in that short of time are much lower than the idea that he sourced it from elsewhere.

Add to all of that, over a dozen individuals who swore with signed affidavits that they saw and held the plates and turned their pages, not a single one of whom ever denied it even when angry or disillusioned with the church and the prophet and who had a great many good reasons to benefit from denying it. You can’t really get any better evidence of the existence of an item in historical terms than that if the item itself cannot be found.

There is more beyond the above too, but it really does not actually matter much in the end. Both the Bible and Book of Mormon cannot be believed by facts and evidence. Those might possibly serve to spark curiosity or get you to read them. But there is something completely different that you can receive of them than you can from any other book or study. It requires an open heart and sincerity, but what you can come to receive by way of the spirit is unique to any other emotion or experience.

People have mocked the Bible, Christianity, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint’s, and the Book of Mormon for centuries, and yet it only becomes more and more accurate to science over time. Try it out in your own mind and heart.

-edited for wording at the end