The Book of Genesis (comics) was brought up Catholic, and thus is familiar with the more common Bible stories, but gave up the Catholic faith when he was 16. He went through a phase when he was 15 where he "[went] to church a lot, receiving communion, saying the Rosary, praying", but when he started to scrutinize it, "it just fell apart so quickly." Crumb says he is spiritual, gnostic, and not an atheist; he is "interested in pursuing and understanding the spiritual nature of things." He believes there is a God, but "I don't believe [the Book of Genesis is] the Word of God.
The Book of Mormon and the King James Bible Smith had not studied ancient languages and did not "translate" in the traditional sense of the word. Smith claimed a divine origin for his ability to translate. The existence of biblical passages in the Book of Mormon is explained in the text as being the result of Lehi's family bringing with them a set of brass plates from Jerusalem which containing the writings of Moses, Isaiah, and several prophets not mentioned in the Bible. Regarding this record, 1 Nephi 5:11 states: And he beheld that they did contain the five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation