Church leaders have remained silent on the topic of geographical location or setting for the book, but Latter-day Saints revere it as historical and scriptural, a work on par with the Bible. Church founder Joseph Smith said an angel directed him to gold plates buried in western New York from which he translated the book through the power of God.

Brown said while scholars will undoubtedly continue to debate over locations and other details surrounding a historical setting for the book, "one of things that doesn't go out of date are the principles. The teachings and (religious) doctrine remain firm and fixed."

The film has been premiering this week at BYU for audiences at the annual Campus Education Week and follows a documentary first released in 2005 about the foundational story that sets the scene for the Book of Mormon. It chronicles the story of Lehi, Sariah and their family, Hebrews who the book says lived in Jerusalem about 600 A.D. but were told by God to leave that land, build a ship and travel to the New World.

Filmmaker Peter Johnson approached FARMS with the idea of producing documentary films about the book, and that film was the first attempt to do so. Though FARMS is primarily a religious publisher of scholarly works on Mormon studies, Brown said officials decided they would take the leap into film, and "we're still trying to feel comfortable there.

"The reception we got (with the first film) encouraged us to try again. This effort is more complex than the other — it's boiling 1000 years of history into 90 minutes of film, and we had to work very hard to make it sensible."

Johnson said the book was intended as a spiritual, rather than a political record, and contains "no historical chronology that tells us where the (people chronicled) moved and what they did. What we do have embedded in the Book of Mormon are clues."

Scholars who speak during the film have worked for decades, he said, "devot(ing) their lives to researching and understanding that which now bears fruit in the research we have. It is dense."

The film is due out on DVD in September, and advance orders are being accepted at the BYU Bookstore and its web site, www.byubookstore.com.

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com