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Foreword: Joseph Smith the Bookworm?

In anti-Mormon literature, there is an ever-growing list of Books that Joseph Smith allegedly might have used to glean ideas for the Book of Mormon. I would encourage critics to consider just what books Joseph actually could have accessed. He did not have a vast personal library. There was a small reading room in Palmyra with a collection of books, but there is no evidence that Joseph Smith or his family members used it. There was a small library five miles from his farm, the Manchester Rental Library, which some critics have said could have provided books of possible relevance to the Book of Mormon. There are membership records for the library - one had to be a member to fully take advantage of the library - but neither Joseph Smith nor anybody else associated with the rise of the Book of Mormon became a member, nor is there any record of them making direct use of library resources, according to Robert Paul, "Joseph Smith and the Manchester (New York) Library," BYU Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, Summer 1982, pp. 333-356, which provides a list of the holdings of the Manchester library from 1812 to 1845. There were also bookstores closer to home than the library, and occasional book auctions, so Joseph may have had access to many books other than what was in the library. But the mere possibility of access to numerous books does not mean that Joseph was familiar with them.

But the location of some resources in the Palmyra/Manchester area may not be particularly relevant to our understanding of Book of Mormon origins, for it was 120 miles away in Harmony, Pennsylvania, where he spent much of his time during the translation of the Book of Mormon. He moved from Manchester/Palmyra to Harmony in 1827 when he married Emma. He was in Harmony when he was translating the 116 pages in 1828, and in Harmony while translating the vast majority of the existing Book of Mormon during April and May of 1829. So, if Joseph wanted to do scholarly research while writing about Lehi or while working on other parts of the Book of Mormon, we should consider what resources Harmony, Pennsylvania might have offered. Could Harmony have been the source of some vast frontier library that anti-Mormons seem to think Joseph used?

Unfortunately for the theories of our critics, Harmony offered even fewer literary and scholarly resources than the Palmyra area. In the chapter, "Was There a Library in Harmony, Pennsylvania?" apparently by John Welch in Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon, ed. by John W. Welch and Melvin J. Thorne (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1999, pp. 283-284), we read:

Harmony was a small town on the border between the states of New York and Pennsylvania. The region was very remote and rural. Recently we asked Erich Paul [Erich Robert Paul apparently is the full name of the author of the previously cited article, "Joseph Smith and the Manchester (New York) Library"] if he had ever explored the possibility that any libraries existed around Harmony in the 1820s which Joseph Smith might have used. He responded: "In fact, I checked into this possibility only to discover that not only does Harmony and its environs hardly exist anymore, but there is no evidence of a library even existing at the time of Joseph's work."

Accordingly, those who have considered western New York as the information environment for the Book of Mormon may be 120 miles or more off target. One should think of Joseph translating in the Harmony area and, as far as that goes, in a resource vacuum.

Even if Joseph had wanted to pause to check his details against reputable sources, to scrutinize the latest theories, to learn about scholarly biblical interpretations or Jewish customs, or to verify any Book of Mormon claims against the wisdom or theologies of his day--even if he had wanted to go to a library to check such things (something he showed no inclination to do until later)--there simply was no library anywhere for him to use.

In addition to the lack of scholarly resources for Joseph to read, it is well known that he was not a bookworm prior to publication of the Book of Mormon. As Robert Paul explains (op. cit.):

It may be that Joseph's own educational training, both formal and informal, had not prepared him at this early age to deal with libraries and bookstores generally. It is known, for instance, that Joseph briefly attended schools in Palmyra in 1818 and that he used several elementary textbooks in arithmetic and reading. There is little direct evidence that his literary skills extended much beyond a cursory acquaintance with a few books. As Joseph's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, wrote in her biography of the Prophet, Joseph was a "remarkably quiet, well-disposed child." He "seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study." [Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet (Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1853), pp. 73, 84.]

And in the same source quoted by Paul, Joseph's mother notes that Joseph had not read the Bible all the way through by age 18. Providing a plausible origin of the Book of Mormon is becoming an impossibly difficult task for those who claim that Joseph drew upon his vast knowledge of books and the Bible to fabricate it.

When critics provide lists of books that allegedly could have inspired various concepts in the Book of Mormon, we should ask if these books were available to Joseph Smith (e.g., were they even published in the United States in Joseph's day?), and if they were, then ask if there is at least some hint that he actually used any of the books.

In light of the growing body of impressive evidences of authenticity supporting the Book of Mormon, critics are increasingly striving to find hints in various books of Joseph Smith's day that might have suggested material for Joseph to use. As the "Virtual Joseph Smith Library" becomes ever larger, critics have an increasingly difficult task of explaining how he was able to sort the chaff from the wheat. While a few things about the ancient Americas were known to educated people of Joseph's day, so much of what was in print was unsupported speculation. If the Book of Mormon really is derived from other nineteenth century writings, why is it so curiously different, and so able to become increasingly plausible over time? In fact, the Book of Mormon makes much more sense as an ancient Semitic record composed in Mesoamerica than as nineteenth-century fiction. See John L. Sorenson, "The Book of Mormon as a Mesoamerican Record" in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins, ed. by Noel B. Reynolds, (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1997), pp. 391-521. In this monumental survey, Sorenson offers an interesting footnote about the knowledge that Joseph could have gleaned from writings available in his day, which I quote fully on a page at http://www.jefflindsay.com/bme11.shtml. Sorenson shows that the mishmash of speculation and ignorance about the ancient Americas would have done little to guide Joseph Smith into creating a work with so many interesting parallels to ancient Mesoamerica. There is simply no logical basis for Joseph Smith creating the Book of Mormon based on what was known in his day. Given that, the scattered parallels that critics point to in making case for plagiarism consistently fail to impress, and come nowhere close to explaining the origins of that truly impressive masterpiece of ancient literature, the Book of Mormon.

Regarding the books that allegedly were used in Joseph's devious plagiarism, we should actually read the books and see just what one could glean from them. As I read the writings of Alexander von Humboldt, for example, and compare the rich and detailed information on plants, animals, and minerals to the information in the Book of Mormon, it is pretty obvious that Joseph was not relying on von Humboldt, otherwise he was missing huge opportunities to add "instant scientific credibility" to his text. Or in reading James Adair, I am struck with how many alleged evidences Adair conjures up to suggest that North American Indians were derived from Hebrews, but none of these are to be found in the Book of Mormon. The most salient and obvious opportunities to add "credibility" were completely missed, as if there was simply no connection between these books and the Book of Mormon. Truth is, there is no connection. Finding a random phrase or concept on one page out of hundreds that bears some resemblance to a Book of Mormon concept hardly proves plagiarism.

Masochistic Plagiarism?

The critics have never been able to provide a reasonable explanation for why Joseph Smith would bother to plagiarize a document like the Book of Mormon. Did he enjoy suffering? Was he insanely suicidal? The mere mention of revelation, visions, angels and gold plates brought serious persecution from others. His life was in jeopardy before the Book was published, and the text even prophesied of the persecutions and rejection by the world that would come with this volume of scripture. The writing was not just on the plates, it was on the wall: trouble was sure to follow. Why publish the text at all? Why not just claim to have had visions and so forth, while keeping anything concrete out of the hands of a critical world?

Hugh Nibley in "The Book of Mormon: True or False?" Millennial Star Vol. 124, November 1962, pages 274-277, offered insight into what is known about plagiarists and their behavior, and contrasted it with Joseph Smith:

Long ago Friedrich Blass laid down rules for testing any document for forgery [Friedrich W. Blass, "Hermeneutik and Kritik," Einleitende und Hilfsdisziplinen, vol. 1 of Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Nordlingen: Beck, 1886), 269, 271]. Let us paraphrase these as rules to be followed by a successful forger and consider whether Joseph paid any attention to any of them.

1. Keep out of the range of unsympathetic critics. There is, Blass insists, no such thing as a clever forgery. No forger can escape detection if somebody really wants to expose him; all the great forgeries discovered to date have been crudely executed (for example, the Piltdown skull), depending for their success on the enthusiastic support of the public or the experts. The Book of Mormon has enjoyed no such support. From the day it appeared, important persons at the urgent demand of an impatient public did everything they could to show it a forgery. And Joseph Smith, far from keeping it out of the hands of unsympathetic critics, did everything he could to put it into those hands. Surely this is not the way of a deceiver.

2. Keep your document as short as possible [ibid., p. 270]. The longer a forgery is the more easily it may be exposed, the danger increasing geometrically with the length of the writing. By the time he had gone ten pages, the author of the Book of Mormon knew only too well what a dangerous game he was playing if it was a hoax; yet he carries on undismayed for six hundred pages.

3. Above all, don't write a historical document! They are by far the easiest of all to expose, being full of "things too trifling, too inconspicuous, and too troublesome" for the forger to check up on [ibid., p. 271].

4. After you have perpetrated your forgery, go into retirement or disappear completely. For vanity, according to Blass, is the Achilles' heel of every forger [ibid., p. 270]. A forger is not only a cheat but also a show-off, attempting to put one over on society; he cannot resist the temptation to enjoy his triumph, and if he remains in circulation, inevitably he gives himself away. Joseph Smith ignored any opportunity of taking credit for the Book of Mormon - he took only the responsibility for it.

5. Always leave an escape door open [ibid., p. 269]. Be vague and general, philosophize and moralize. Religious immunity has been the refuge of most eminent forgers in the past, beautiful thoughts and pious allegories, deep interpretations of scriptures, mystic communication to the initiated few, these are safe grounds for the pia fraus ("pious fraud"). But the Book of Mormon never uses them. It does not even exploit the convenient philological loophole of being a translation: as an inspired translation it claims all the authority and responsibility of the original.

Granted that any explanation is preferable to Joseph Smith's, where is any explanation? The chances against such a book ever coming into existence are astronomical: Who would write it? Why? Trouble, danger, and unpopularity are promised its defenders in the book itself. Did someone else write it so that Joseph Smith could take all the credit? Did Smith, knowing it was somebody else's fraud, claim authorship so that he could take all the blame?

The work involved in producing the thing was staggering, the danger terrifying; long before publication time the newspapers and clergy were howling for blood. Who would want to go on with such a suicidal project? All that trouble and danger just to fool people? . . .

[T]here were [also] the witnesses, real men who, though leaving the Church for various real or imagined offenses, never altered or retracted their testimonies of what they had seen and heard.

The fact that only one version of the Book of Mormon was ever published and that Joseph Smith's attitude toward it never changed is also significant. After copyrighting it in the spring of 1829, he had a year to think it over before publication and yield sensibly to social pressure; after that he had the rest of his life to correct his youthful indiscretion; years later, an important public figure and a skillful writer, knowing that his book was a fraud, knowing the horrible risk he ran on every page of it, and knowing how hopelessly naive he had been when he wrote it, he should at least have soft-pedaled the Book of Mormon theme. Instead he insisted to the end of his life that it was the truest book on earth, and that a man could get nearer to God by observing its precepts than in any other way [Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1976), p. 194.]

Parallelomania has recently been defined as the double process which "first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary connections flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction" [Hugh W. Nibley, "Mixed Voices: The Comparative Method," Improvement Era (October-November 1959): 744-747, 759, 848, 854, 856]. It isn't merely that one sees parallels everywhere, but especially that one instantly concludes that there can be only one possible explanation for such. From the beginning the Book of Mormon has enjoyed the full treatment from Parallelomaniacs. Its origin has been found in the Koran, in Swedenborg, in the teachings of Old School Presbyterians, French Mystics, Methodists, Unitarians, Millerites, Baptists, Campbellites, and Quakers; in Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, Gnosticism, Transcendentalism, Atheism, Deism, Owenism, Socialism, and Platonism; in the writing of Rabelais, Milton, Anselm, Joachim of Flores, Ethan Smith, and the Early Church; in Old Iranian doctrines, Brahmin mysticism, Free Masonry, and so on.

Now a person who has read only Milton, or Defoe, or Rabelais would have an easy time discovering parallels all through the Book of Mormon, or any other book he might read thereafter. [Webmaster's note: Don't forget Walt Whitman's 1855 Leaves of Grass, filled with richer parallels than what Book of Mormon critics have been able to dredge up using other sources, but which could not possibly have been a source for the Book of Mormon.] It is not surprising that people who have studied only English literature are the most eager to condemn the Book of Mormon.

An example of modern fallacies about Book of Mormon content can be found in the controversy regarding the Book of Mormon's profound discourse about mercy, justice, and the Atonement of Christ, which I discuss on my new page, "Mercy and Justice in the Book of Mormon: Ancient or Modern Concepts?" Critics have charged that Book of Mormon theology is too modern, but I seek to show that Book of Mormon concepts can plausibly fit into the fabric of ancient revealed truths known to Jewish prophets and early Christians - truths which were muddled for centuries and restored beautifully in the Book of Mormon. Failure to appreciate what the ancients already knew and wrote can lead one to see modern derivation when it really isn't there.

The Ethan Smith Connection: Did Joseph Smith plagiarize from View of the Hebrews?

Some critics claim that Joseph Smith copied much of the structure and content of the Book of Mormon from the 1823 book View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith (no relation to Joseph Smith). Ethan Smith's book proposes that the American Indians were the lost tribes of Israel and has several apparent parallels to the Book of Mormon. These parallels include long journeys that were religiously motivated; references to wars, writing, and metal work; and moral overtones such as the denouncement of pride. Also, according to View of the Hebrews, Indians talk of a "lost book" they left in Palestine. But these similarities are rather vague and general. (For elements involving Ethan Smith's citations of Alexander von Humboldt in particular, please see my new page, Alexander von Humboldt and the Book of Mormon.)

An examination of the two books shows that the similarities are far fewer and less significant than the differences. In fact, the Book of Mormon contradicts the View of the Hebrews on almost every major issue that the latter considers (who were the Indians, how did they get to the New World, when did they arrive, what names did they use, how did they live, etc., etc.)

In fact, Brigham Young University's Religious Studies Center actually publishes View of the Hebrews, allowing Latter-day Saints and the rest of the world to see for themselves how unlikely it is that Joseph Smith plagiarized from it. In fact, careful study of that book should do much to strengthen one's appreciation of the novelty of the Book of Mormon. As Andrew Hedges explains ("View of the Hebrews," FARMS Review of Books, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1997, pp. 63-68, available online at byu.farms.edu [after clicking on the link, then click on "Continue to article without a log in"]):

"[T]hose who take the time to read Ethan Smith's oft-cited but rarely seen opus and compare it with the Book of Mormon will find the experience to be wonderfully faith promoting. This is because the further one reads in View of the Hebrews, the clearer it becomes that the Book of Mormon did not -- indeed, could not -- have its origin in it.

Allow me to explain. The tradition in which Ethan Smith was writing was a long and venerable one -- as Richard Bushman has reminded us, English scholars were identifying the American aborigines with Jews as early as the sixteenth century [Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), p. 136]. The idea reached American shores in the mid-1640s when John Eliot, the famous Puritan "Apostle to the Indians"; Daniel Gookin, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Indian Superintendent; and other Puritan divines found the similarities between the Algonquin culture and ancient Israelite practices so compelling that they modified the then popular view--which held that the Indians were gentile "Tartars" from Asia -- to suggest that, at the very least, the Indians were descendants of Hebrews who had made their way to America via a land bridge from Asia and were quite likely descendants of the lost tribes who had come the same route [see the online article for extensive references]. Subsequent generations discussed and promoted the idea until 1775, when James Adair fully developed it in his History of the American Indians. Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews was just one of several books and pamphlets written on the topic in both England and America following the publication of Adair's book, all of which echoed the earlier Puritan contention that the Indians were unchurched descendants of the lost tribes who had come to America from Asia via a land bridge or, at most, "by canoes, or other craft" (p. 84) across the Bering Straits.

A close reading of View of the Hebrews suggests that, while some aspects of this reconstruction could be debated, it is generally so complex as to be quite inflexible, based as it is on a relatively conservative reading of the biblical text and a number of suppositions so interdependent that if one should prove false, the whole model would collapse. Any modifications would have to be relatively small and insignificant, which explains why the basic outlines of the model remained virtually unchanged over the course of two centuries' worth of discussion. For example, churchmen over the centuries could (and did) debate how much of the Mosaic law the Indians as the lost tribes had retained after arriving in America. They could do this because such debates did not alter in the least the basic structure of the paradigm, which posited a pre-Christian migration of Israelites who had some knowledge of Old Testament practices. The churchmen did not, however, at any time debate the possibility that the Indians' ancestors knew of Christ's birth before the event, had engaged in such New Testament practices as baptism in Old Testament times, and had been visited by Christ after his resurrection. This was because the mere suggestion of these things would have done violence to their understanding of the Bible, contemporary evidence from Indian cultures themselves, and other parts of the model. For such a suggestion to be true in the context of early America's understanding of the Bible, for example, the Indians' ancestors would have to have been believing Christians who left the Old World after the time of Christ, since early American scholarship emphatically held that the ancient Israelites completely misunderstood their own messianic prophecies and that ordinances like baptism had not been practiced in Old Testament times. This reconstruction would have flown in the face of all existing anthropological evidence, however -- none of the practices in the native cultures studied resembled New Testament practices -- and, unlike the lost tribes thesis, had no basis in scripture. Given the parameters in which they had to work, the suggestion that the Indians' ancestors engaged in New Testament practices would have created rather than solved problems and would have required an entirely new reconstruction of events -- based on a new reading of the text and other evidence -- to be taken seriously. In short, keeping with our example, either the suggestion that the Indians' ancestors practiced baptism or the model proposed by Adair, Smith, and others would have to be false; they could not both be true, nor -- and this is important -- could the former be considered an unimportant, inconsequential, and perfectly logical modification of the latter.

The Book of Mormon, of course, makes precisely this claim about baptism, along with several others that likewise cannot be reconciled with the nineteenth-century model explaining Indian origins. Thus it was that the further I read in View of the Hebrews, the greater the distance between it and the Book of Mormon appeared. Superficially, of course, the two resemble each other, and it was easy to see how someone with an ax to grind against the LDS Church could, with a little creative negligence, make a case against the Book of Mormon. But as I came to understand the complexity and inflexibility of Smith's model, it became increasingly clear to me that the Book of Mormon's teachings concerning Indian origins and destinies were something entirely new on the American scene and represented far more than mere modifications of the existing explanation. They were, to borrow a phrase, a "strange thing in the land" in every respect.

As another useful resource, L. Aran Norwood's book review, " Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon at FARMS (FARMS Review of Books, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1990, pp. 187-204) deals with one of the most significant anti-Mormon efforts to explain the Book of Mormon. Her review of David Persuitte's Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon discusses both strengths and weaknesses of Persuitte's approach. It also shows that Persuitte's analysis, even if unchallenged, at best accounts for less than 5% of the verses in the Book of Mormon. Further, the scattered parallels Pursuitte points to do nothing to explain away numerous elements pointing to ancient origins (things like chiasmus, Hebraisms, the accurate details from the Arabian peninsula, etc.).

As I note elsewhere on this page, parallels between unrelated books are easier to find than you might think. I believe that the parallels between the Book of Mormon and Walt Whitmans's The Leaves of Grass are more impressive than anything you'll find by reading View of the Hebrews, but that is due entirely to chance since Whitman's work came long after the Book of Mormon and obviously was not influenced by it (no, don't try to craft an argument that Whitman was secretly collaborating with Mormons to account for these chance parallels!). The finding of parallels by itself means very little.

Less than 5% of the Book of Mormon "related" to View of the Hebrews? I bet if I put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and worked hard enough, I could find 7% to be "related" to Whitman. But that's a 7% solution you don't want to drink.

A key issue in dealing with Ethan Smith or other proposed sources for the Book of Mormon is their failure to account for some of the most impressive elements pointing to ancient origins. There is nothing in View of the Hebrews that provides the kind of evidences for authenticity that we see in the Book of Mormon - including the regular occurrence of chiasmus, an ancient form of parallelism (only recently recognized and appreciated) that is a hallmark of Semitic poetry, and correctly and precisely identifying the places Nahom and Bountiful on the Arabian Peninsula, which no Western scholar could have done in the nineteenth century. Nothing in view of the Hebrews, for example, could have given Joseph Smith any clue about the directions to follow through the Arabian Peninsula (there is no discussion of frankincense trails, or anything Arabian at all, other than a couple general references that provide no useful information), nor is there any clue about the existence of the place Bountiful in present-day Oman. The most exciting evidences of Book of Mormon authenticity have no ties to Ethan Smith.

An important fact to remember is that many people in the early 1800s assumed that the Indians had some connection with the Old World, and popular theories included descent from the lost tribes of Israel. For example, Josiah Priest wrote in 1833, "The opinion that the American Indians are the descendants of the lost Ten Tribes, is now a popular one, and generally believed" (as cited by Hugh Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon, p. 195). Joseph had no need to plagiarize from Ethan Smith for this view, which is probably the most "impressive" parallel between the two works. Ethan Smith's view, though developed in great detail, may not have seemed unusual or noteworthy at the time. This may be why critics of the Book of Mormon in the nineteenth century saw no cause for linking the Book of Mormon to View of the Hebrews - the apparent parallels were not specific, distinct, or unusual. As far as I know, it was only around the turn of the century, when newer theories had supplanted earlier speculation about the origin of the Indians, that Ethan Smith's book began to be mentioned as a possible source for the Book of Mormon. Today, it may seem significant that Ethan Smith proposed an Israelite origin for the Indians, for that idea seems odd and unusual from our perspective, but this broad parallel apparently did not seem noteworthy to critics in the early days of the Church.

While there is no evidence that Joseph Smith ever even saw a copy of Ethan Smith's work, it is still physically possible that he could have had one. I have heard claims that Oliver Cowdery's family had a connection to Ethan Smith. There is no proof of any such connection. For the problems with alleged connections between Ethan and Oliver, see "Oliver Cowdery's Vermont Years and the Origins of Mormonism" by Larry E. Morris from BYU Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2000, pp. 107-129. (If Oliver knew of anything close to plagiarism involved in the Book of Mormon, it's interesting that he never mentioned it or denied his testimony of the divinity of that book, even during the time when he was bitterly upset with Joseph Smith and had left the Church.) If Joseph really did use View of the Hebrews as his primary source, then he must have assumed it was accurate and reasonable. If so, one would expect that he would have relied on it for important details, themes, and concepts. Instead, we find that he repeatedly contradicts its content. If Joseph plagiarized from Ethan Smith, we would expect to find that unique aspects of View of the Hebrews - ideas, names, stories that are not also found in the Bible or other sources - would have been incorporated into the Book of Mormon, but no such "fingerprints" are found. There is no real evidence of Joseph relying on that text. In fact, there are extreme differences between the two texts at every turn which seriously challenge the hypothesis that Joseph plagiarized from Ethan Smith. Consider the following anti-parallels noted by John Welch in his article "View of the Hebrews: An Unparallel" in Reexploring the Book of Mormon, Deseret Book, Salt Lake City, UT, 1992, pp. 83-87:

1. View of the Hebrews begins with a chapter on the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. It has nothing to say, however, about the destruction in Lehi's day by the Babylonians.

2. View of the Hebrews tells of specific heavenly signs that marked the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Joseph Smith ignores these singular and memorable details.

3. Chapter 2 lists many prophecies about the restoration of Israel, including Deuteronomy 30; Isaiah 11, 18, 60, 65; Jeremiah 16, 23, 30-31, 35-37; Zephaniah 3; Amos 9; Hosea and Joel. These scriptures are essential to the logic and fabric of View of the Hebrews, yet, with the sole exception of Isaiah 11, none of them appear in the Book of Mormon.

4. Chapter 3 is the longest chapter in View of the Hebrews. It produces numerous "distinguished Hebraisms" as "proof" that the American Indians are Israelites. Hardly any of these points are found in the Book of Mormon, as one would expect if Joseph Smith were using View of the Hebrews or trying to make his book persuasive. For example, View of the Hebrews asserts repeatedly that the Ten Tribes came to America via the Bering Strait, which they crossed on "dry land." According to View of the Hebrews, this opinion is unquestionable, supported by all the authorities.

From there View of the Hebrews claims that the Israelites spread from north to east and then to the south at a very late date. These are critical points for View of the Hebrews, since Amos 8:11-12 prophesies that the tribes would go from the north to the east. Population migrations in the Book of Mormon, however, always move from the south to the north.

5. View of the Hebrews reports that the Indians are Israelites because they use the word "Hallelujah." Here is one of the favorite proofs of View of the Hebrews, a dead giveaway that the Indians are Israelites. Yet the word is never used in the Book of Mormon.

Furthermore, a table showing thirty-four Indian words or sentence fragments with Hebrew equivalents appears in View of the Hebrews. No reader of the book could have missed this chart. If Joseph Smith had wanted to make up names to use in the Book of Mormon that would substantiate his claim that he had found some authentic western hemisphere Hebrew words, he would have jumped at such a ready-made list! Yet not one of these thirty-four Hebrew/Indian words (e.g., Keah, Lani, Uwoh, Phale, Kurbet, etc.) has even the remotest resemblance to any of the 175 words that appear for the first time in the Book of Mormon. [Webmaster's note: Likewise none of the names created by Spaulding, or given by James Adair or other modern sources, are found in the Book of Mormon.]

6. View of the Hebrews says the Indians are Israelites because they carry small boxes with them into battle. These are to protect them against injury. They are sure signs that the Indians' ancestors knew of the Ark of the Covenant! How could Joseph Smith pass up such a distinguished and oft-attested Hebraism as this?! Yet in all Book of Mormon battle scenes, there is not one hint of any such ark, box, or bag serving as a military fetish.

7. The Indians are Israelites because the Mohawk tribe was a tribe held in great reverence by all the others, to whom tribute was paid. Obviously, to Ethan Smith, this makes the Mohawks the vestiges of the tribe of Levi, Israel's tribe of priests. If Joseph Smith believed that such a tribe or priestly remnant had survived down to his day, he forgot to provide for anything to that effect in the Book of Mormon.

8. The Indians are Israelites because they had a daily sacrifice of fat in the fire and passed their venison through the flame, cutting it into twelve pieces. This great clue of "Israelitishness" is also absent from the Book of Mormon.

9. View of the Hebrews maintains that the Indians knew "a distinguished Hebraism," namely "laying the hand on the mouth, and the mouth in the dust." Had Joseph Smith believed this, why is the Book of Mormon silent on this "sure sign of Hebraism" and dozens of others like it?

10. According to View of the Hebrews, the Indians quickly lost knowledge that they were all from the same family. The Book of Mormon tells that family and tribal affiliations were maintained for almost one thousand years.

11. View of the Hebrews claims that the righteous Indians were active "for a long time," well into recent times, and that their destruction occurred about A.D. 1400, based upon such convincing evidence as tree rings near some of the fortifications of these people. The Book of Mormon implicitly rejects this notion by reporting the destruction of the Nephites in the fourth century A.D.

12. View of the Hebrews argues that the Indians are Israelites because they knew the legends of Quetzalcoatl. But the surprise here is that View of the Hebrews proves beyond doubt that Quetzalcoatl was none other than - not Jesus - but Moses! "Who could this be but Moses, the ancient legislator in Israel?" Quetzalcoatl was white, gave laws, required penance (strict obedience), had a serpent with green plumage (brazen, fiery-flying serpent in the wilderness), pierced ears (like certain slaves under the law of Moses), appeased God's wrath (by sacrifices), was associated with a great famine (in Egypt), spoke from a volcano (Sinai), walked barefoot (removed his shoes), spawned a golden age (seven years of plenty in Egypt - which has nothing to do with Moses, by the way), etc. Besides the fact that the View of the Hebrews's explanation of Quetzalcoatl as Moses is inconsistent with the Book of Mormon, none of these hallmark details associated with Quetzalcoatl are incorporated into the account of Christ's visit to Bountiful in 3 Nephi.

The foregoing twelve points could be multiplied literally seven times over. In the face of these differences, the few vague similarities pale.

As for the apparent similarities, they are hardly startling and are far outweighed by the differences. It's important to realize that parallel between stories and documents are easy to find. There are many dozens of parallels between the story of the Pilgrim coming to the New World and the Book of Mormon. There are even parallels between the written history of man's journey to the moon and the Book of Mormon. A number of parallels occurred to me within a brief 20 minute period (with the help of an encyclopedia), resulting in the following article which may shatter the faith of some LDS people:

Man's Journey to the Moon: Inspiration for the Book of Mormon?

(The following section is just tongue in cheek, but is intended to illustrate a point. Please calm down, people! Of course I know that space exploration came after 1830. Why, it wasn't until at least 1869 that we walked on the moon.)

Numerous parallels between the history of man's voyages to the moon and the transoceanic voyages in the Book of Mormon suggest that accounts of lunar journeys may have been a primary source for Joseph Smith. Consider the following startling parallels:

• Both accounts provide detailed stories of long and dangerous journeys.
• Both accounts describe unusual compasses which were used for guidance on the journey.
• Both involved unusual ships for the journey.
• Like the astronauts of Apollo 11 and other spacecraft, the Jaredites traveled to a New World in a generally airtight vessel.
• Special high-tech lighting elements were needed for the sealed Jaredite vessels, just like the electric light sources used by the astronauts.
• In both cases, information is stored on metallic objects - brass or gold plates for the Nephites, and magnetic computer media (iron oxide disks?) for the moon voyagers.
• Both involve the discovery of a new land.
• Both involve a small group of souls departing from a proud and wicked society
• Members of both groups engaged in prayer and respectful reference to God during the journey.
• Both groups expressed great gratitude upon reaching their destinations.
• The initial voyagers in both cases saw their journey as having great significance to future generations.
• Both groups brought objects from the old world to the new world they discovered.
• One group was guided by the strong arm of the Lord, while the other group was led by Neil Armstrong. Surely this is more than mere coincidence!
• Passages in both texts refer to astronomical terms such as the heavens, the stars, the earth, the moon, and the planets.
• The astronauts found the surface of the moon to be desolate, free of vegetation, and the Book of Mormon talks about the discovery of a similar land called the Land of Desolation.
• Some Book of Mormon names show striking similarity to names of objects on the moon. For example, the crater "Mairan" is quite similar to the Jaredite name "Moron" and may even be related to "Mormon."
• The moon crater "Godin" is very similar to the Book of Mormon names "Gideon" and "Gadianton."
• The moon crater "Rabbi Levi" may also account for the Jewish influences seen in the Book of Mormon.
• The Pyrenes mountain range on the moon may explain the Book of Mormon name "Pahoran."
• The moon's Mare Imbrium, the Sea of Rains, may account for the name "Irreantum" given to the "many waters" of the ocean by the Nephites.

Was Nephi really Neil Armstrong? Take out the "ph" from Nephi, and you've got the "Nei" of Neil. Was the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) the source of the name LEMuel? Take out the central "rm" from "Mormon" and you've got "Moon"; take out the "r" and "i" of Moroni and you've got "Moon" again. Yikes - it's all beginning to make sense!

I came up with those silly connections to the moon in about 20 minutes, including the time to find a chart of the moon in an encyclopedia. If I did this sort of thing for a living, perhaps I could even write an entire book: UFO's, the Moon, and Joseph Smith: Uncovering the Black Crater of the Book of Mormon. Update from June 2002: To better understand the silliness of the charges of plagiarism based on a few stray parallels between various texts and the Book of Mormon, please see my new LDSFAQ work, "Was the Book of Mormon Plagiarized from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass?" This work shows that an impossible source - published 25 years after the Book of Mormon - provides much better "evidence" of Book of Mormon plagiarism than what the critics have been able to drum up by poring over the works of Ethan Smith, the Apocrypha, Spaulding, Shakespeare, James Adair or anyone else. For any non-divine source to be considered seriously as a possible source of the Book of Mormon, as a minimum it must provide stronger parallels than I have found with relatively little effort (spare time during a period of a week) by examining Walt Whitman's text.

The point is that broad similarities - and even a few apparent specific ones - do not mean that one text is the source for the other. We must look for consistent, specific, and unique similarities to make a case for plagiarism (and they must be more widespread or impressive than the many "impressive" ones I have found in the unrelated text of Whitman). In considering the possibility of plagiarism, one should ask if there is any consistent relationship between the two texts to show that one was used to construct the other. There is not for the candidates that critics have proposed for the Book of Mormon. There is simply no substance to the alleged link between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon. Even if we assume that every apparent parallel is a genuine sign of plagiarism, View of the Hebrews would only account for a tiny fraction of the Book of Mormon, and would account for none of the truly unique elements such as geographical locations, place names (e.g., Nahom) and human names (e.g., Alma), poetical forms, parallels to other ancient documents, accurate description of ancient warfare, accurate description of ancient olive culture practices, New Year's kingship rituals, etc., etc.

View of the Hebrews apparently was not considered as a probable source for the Book of Mormon by critics in the 1800s, and with good reason, in my opinion: its apparent similarities are too vague and its differences too great. Rather, I propose that it's high time for the critics to seriously consider the possibility that books on the lunar voyages could have been Joseph's source, or, more plausibly (but still impossibly), Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

But let's get back to the specifics of the parallels to Ethan Smith's work. Hugh Nibley (The Prophetic Book of Mormon, pp. 194-202) discusses 18 specific parallels which were noted by B.H. Roberts and have been recited by critics (Hogan and Brodie in particular) as evidence of plagiarism. I'll give a few of his comments here:

If there were only eighteen ideas in all the Book of Mormon and about the same number in Ethan Smith's book, then the eighteen parallels would be indeed suspicious. But there are not only eighteen ideas in the Book of Mormon - there are hundreds! So if we are going to use such a tiny handful as evidence, they had better be good. But when we consider the Roberts' parallels, we find that they are not only very few but without exception all perfectly ordinary. In fact, Mr. Hogan in his recent treatment of the subject has unwittingly robbed the eighteen parallels of any significance by going to considerable pains to point out in his introduction that the ideas shared by Ethan and Joseph Smith were not original to either of them but were as common in the world they lived in as the name Smith itself.... This being the case, why would Joseph Smith need to steal them from Ethan Smith? ...

A number of parallels in the list are attributed to Joseph Smith's stealing from the View of the Hebrews, when he could more easily have found the same material in the Bible. This reaches the point of absurdity in parallel No. 12, where Joseph Smith gets the idea of quoting Isaiah from Ethan since the latter "quotes copiously and chiefly from Isaiah in relation to the scattering and gathering of Israel." This is the equivalent of accusing one scholar of stealing from another because they both quote "copiously and chiefly" from Homer in their studies of Troy. Since ancient times, Isaiah has been the source for information on the scattering and gathering of Israel. Any student writing a term paper on that subject would deserve to be flunked if he failed to quote from that prophet without ever having heard of Ethan Smith!...

Again, No. 10, the first chapter of the Views of the Hebrews is devoted to the destruction of Jerusalem. Since the book claims to be searching out the lost ten tribes, it is hard to conceive how it could begin otherwise. There have been many dispersions from Jerusalem, as the Book of Mormon tells us, and many destructions: the one told of in the Book of Mormon is a totally different one from that described by Ethan Smith, which took place hundreds of years before it. It is hardly likely that the Bible-reading Smiths first discovered that Jerusalem was destroyed by perusing the pages of Ethan's book. Neither did Joseph need Ethan Smith to tell him that God's people anciently had inspired prophets and heavenly gifts (No. 6). This has always been a conspicuous part of Indian tradition, but given the popular belief that the ancient Americans were of Israel, Joseph Smith would have no choice but to attribute to them the divine gifts possessed by God's people. Among these divine gifts was the Urim and Thummim (No. 7) described in the Bible, and only dimly and indirectly hinted at by Ethan Smith in describing an article of clothing worn by medicine men - quite a different article from the Urim and Thummim of either the Book of Mormon or the Bible.

The trouble with this last parallel is that it is not a parallel at all, but only something that is made into one by egregiously taking the part for the whole. The same faulty reasoning characterizes the first of the parallels in the list. No. 1: the place of origin of the two works. Ethan Smith's book was written in Vermont, and Joseph Smith was born in Vermont. That would be a very suspicious coincidence were it not that Joseph Smith left Vermont as a child at least eight years before the View of the Hebrews was published. The time scale which invalidates the argument of place of origin is actually given as another parallel between the two books. No. 3: the time of production - it is held to be most significant that the publication of Ethan Smith's first edition and the appearance of the Angel Moroni occurred in the same year. We must confess our failure to detect anything in Ethan Smith's book that might have suggested the Angel Moroni. All that is proved by the dates is that the View of the Hebrews came out first, so that Joseph Smith could have used it. Of course, if View of the Hebrews had appeared after the Book of Mormon there would be no case - though Mrs. Brodie tries very hard to hint that Joseph Smith covered his tracks by later referring to Josiah Priest, whose book did not appear until 1833! Even Mrs. Brodie concedes that "it may never be proven that Joseph saw View of the Hebrews," but even if he had seen it, that would prove nothing unless we could discover something in the Book of Mormon that could not possibly come from any other source.

What the critics seem to consider the most devastating of all the parallels in the list, the one most often mentioned and on which B. H. Roberts concentrates most of his attention, is No. 9, which deals with the general relations of the ancient Americans to each other. The most obvious and immediate objection to the popular theory that the Indians were the ten tribes was that the ten tribes were civilized and the Indians were not. Since colonial times there were two things that everybody knew about aboriginal America: (1) that it was full of savages, and (2) that it was full of ruins left by people who were not savages. If the Indians were from the ten tribes, then they must have fallen from a higher estate, and that estate was mutely witnessed by the ruins. Using these general speculations as his starting point, Ethan Smith, like any intelligent man, goes on with his own surmises: When the civilized ten tribes arrived in the New World, they found themselves in a wilderness teeming with game, (1) "inviting them to the chase; most of them (2) fell into a wandering idle hunt-life," while the "more sensible parts of this people" continued in their civilized ways and left behind them the ruins that fill the land. "It is highly probable," Ethan Smith continues to speculate, "that the more civilized part of the tribes of Israel, after they settled in America, became (3) wholly separated from the hunting and savage tribes of their brethren; that the latter (4) lost the knowledge of their having descended from the same family with themselves; that the more civilized part continued for many centuries; that (5) tremendous wars were frequent between them and their savage brethren." Then gradually (6) "in process of time their savage jealousies and rage annihilated their more civilized brethren." No other explanation is possible, he thinks: "What account can be given of this, but that the savages extirpated them, after (7) long and dismal wars." As to the state of the savages, "We cannot so well account for their evident degeneracy in any way" except the Bible way: "as that it took place under a vindictive Providence, as has been noted, to accomplish (8) divine judgments denounced against the idolatrous ten tribes of Israel" (emphasis added).

Now consider the eight points from the viewpoint of the Book of Mormon. (1) It was not the joy of the chase that led the Lamanites into the wilderness - the greatest hunters in the Book of Mormon are Nephites. (2) The less civilized group did not upon arriving in America "fall into a wandering . . . life." They were wanderers when they got here, and so were their brethren. (3) In the Book of Mormon "the more civilized part" of the people never becomes "wholly separated . . . from their brethren," the two remaining always in contact. (4) The more savage element never "lost the knowledge" of their descent: The Lamanites always claimed, in fact, that the Nephites had stolen their birthright. (5) The wars were neither tremendous nor frequent - they are almost all in the nature of sudden raids; they involved small numbers of people, and, except for the last great war, they are relatively brief. (6) It was not the savage jealousy and rage of an inferior civilization that destroyed the higher civilization - that higher civilization had broken up completely before the last war by its own corruption, and at the time of their destruction the Nephites were as debased as their rivals. (7) It was not a process of gradual extermination but of a quick and violent end. (8) Finally, the downgrading of the Lamanites is not the fulfillment of prophecies about the ten tribes after the pattern of the destruction of God's people (that would be the Nephites); their degeneracy is given a unique explanation that cannot be found in either Ethan Smith or the Bible.

To establish any connection at all between the books of the two Smiths, it is absolutely imperative to find something perfectly unique and peculiar in both of them. Yet there is not one single thing in common between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon that is not also found in the Bible. Parallel No. 9, discussed above, promises to be the exception to this, containing as it does significant details that are not found in the Bible; yet it is in these very details that the two books are in complete disagreement! Another false parallel is No. 10, the destruction of Jerusalem: Ethan Smith speaks of one destruction, the Book of Mormon of another, but the Bible speaks of both. Here the parallel is not between the two Smiths at all - they are talking of wholly different events - but between them and the Bible only....

So after all Ethan Smith turns in a perfect score; not a single blemish mars the target. In every case where the Book of Mormon might have borrowed from him, it might much more easily have borrowed from the Bible or prevailing popular beliefs. In the few cases where he deals in common with the Book of Mormon with matters not treated in those other sources, the two books are completely at variance.

Finally, if Joseph had stolen material from Ethan Smith, then why on earth would Joseph ever call attention to anything that Ethan Smith had written? But this is precisely what happened in what Michael Griffith describes as a "puzzling incident" on his page, "The Book of Mormon--Ancient or Modern? Could Joseph Smith Have Written the Nephite Record?":

In the June 1 and June 15 issues of the 1842 Times and Seasons there appeared printed extracts from Josiah Priest's book, American Antiquities (1838 edition), which cites and quotes passages from VOTH [View of the Hebrews]. Priest's book was cited as evidence for the Book of Mormon. At that time, Joseph Smith was the editor of the Times and Seasons. A natural question arises: If Joseph Smith had copied from VOTH, would he have risked drawing attention to it by publicly quoting from a book which contained extracts from it? This would have indeed been extremely puzzling behavior if the Prophet had borrowed from VOTH, especially if it had been his "foundational source"!

This is an obvious but important point, and anti-Mormons have yet to satisfactorily explain it. It is just common sense that plagiarists don't go around drawing attention to their sources, especially in a public forum! Since it had not yet occurred to anyone to accuse Joseph Smith of borrowing from VOTH, why on earth would he have risked exposure by quoting (or allowing to be quoted) a book which contained extracts from it?

Why indeed? By calling attention to View of the Hebrews, Joseph provided additional evidence that he had not used it as a source for a deceptive fabrication. Ethan Smith simply was not a source for the Book of Mormon. (For related information on this topic, see my page, Alexander von Humboldt and the Book of Mormon.)

As a postscript, I received this e-mail in 2004 from an LDS couple:

We have done a tiny bit of research (one letter) and found that the one possible source for Joseph to have read the View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith was supposed to have been in the local Palmyra library.

The Palmyra Kings Daughters Free Library, 127 Cuyler St., Palmyra, New York, 14522 is supposed to be the first library in Palmyra.

IT WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1899! As a reading room only!

This librarian wrote that the closest library in the 1820's and 1830's was perhaps in Canandiague, NY, 13 miles away. Typing on the internet for a library in that city did not even come up with a library now, so probably not in Joseph Smith's time.

I recall reading that there was another reading room in Palmyra present before 1899, but will need to check again. On the other hand, I have since found a Web page at PalmyraNY.com giving the history of Palmyra, New York, which states: "In 1899, the Palmyra King's Daughters Free Library was begun as a reading room. Two years later (1901) the library was chartered as a lending library and has remained so until the present." This is consistent with the e-mail given above.

In any case, nineteenth-century Palmyra does not appear to have been a richly developed source of scholarly information for eager young bookworms, even if Joseph had been one. Of course there were books and booksellers and perhaps even reading rooms - but how can that possibly explain the Book of Mormon, even if Joseph Smith had been interested in such things?

Did Joseph Smith plagiarize from Shakespeare?

Surprisingly, one of the most common objections to the Book of Mormon is the claim that Joseph Smith plagiarized from Shakespeare when writing (translating) 2 Nephi 1:14, where elderly Lehi poetically pleads with his rebellious children, knowing that he will soon die. In this passage from 550 B.C., Lehi says:

"Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return; a few more days and I go the way of all the earth."

Critics note that this is similar (they often claim that it is nearly identical) to Hamlet, Act III, Scene I, where Hamlet speaks of

"...the dread of something after death, -
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns...."

Does this really present a compelling case for a fraudulent Book of Mormon? According to the critics, Joseph Smith borrowed from Shakespeare in saying that "no traveler can return" from death (obviously is a poetical way of saying that the dead don't return back to their mortal life, for Lehi clearly understood the Resurrection). Certainly the phrasing is similar in this isolated case, though Lehi does not express fear of death nor does he speak of death as being a country. But the poetical idea of not returning from death has been expressed in similar ways for thousands of years by poets and writers, including many from Lehi's time and before. For example, the ancient book of Job in chapter 10, verse 21 says "...I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death."

Later Job writes "I shall go the way whence I shall not return" (Job 16:22). If Lehi is borrowing from Job, do we really have a problem? Lehi surely had read and studied Job and other more ancient Old Testament writers. In another Old Testament passage, Bathsheba mourns the loss of her son, saying "he shall not return to me" (2 Sam. 12:23).

Early Jewish and Christian poets spoke of death in such terms, though they did not literally believe that there would be no return (thanks to the resurrection, of course). Robert F. Smith ("Shakespeare and the Book of Mormon," F.A.R.M.S. paper, 1980) notes that all of 2 Nephi 1:13-15 (not just a single phrase) closely follows ancient Near Eastern texts (Jewish, Egyptian, and Sumerian), citing many examples. A few examples follow:

Descent of Inanna
"Why, pray, have you come to the 'Land of no return,' on the road whose traveller returns never?"

Pyramid Texts
"May you go on the roads of the western ones [the dead]; They who go on them [travellers] do not return."

Harris Papyrus
"There is nobody who returns from there."
"Behold there is nobody who has gone, who has returned."

I also found that Hugh Nibley has addressed this common objection. I quote from the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.6, Part.7, Ch.21, p.275 - 277:

"No passage in the Book of Mormon has been more often singled out for attack than Lehi's description of himself as one "whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return" (2 Nephi 1:14). This passage has inspired scathing descriptions of the Book of Mormon as a mass of stolen quotations "from Shakespeare and other English poets." Lehi does not quote Hamlet directly, to be sure, for he does not talk of "that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveler returns," but simply speaks of "the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return." In mentioning the grave, the eloquent old man cannot resist the inevitable "cold and silent" nor the equally inevitable tag about the traveler--a device that, with all respect to Shakespeare, Lehi's own contemporaries made constant use of. Long ago Friedrich Delitzsch wrote a classic work on ancient Oriental ideas about death and afterlife, and a fitting title of his book was Das Land ohne Heimkehr--"The Land of No Return." In the story of Ishtar's descent to the underworld, the lady goes to the irsit la tari, "the land of no return." She visits "the dark house from which no one ever comes out again" and travels along "the road on which there is no turning back." A recent study of Sumerian and Akkadian names for the world of the dead lists prominently "the hole, the earth, the land of no return, the path of no turning back, the road whose course never turns back, the distant land, etc." A recently discovered fragment speaks of the grave as "the house of Irkallu, where those who have come to it are without return. . . . A place whose dead are cast in the dust, in the direction of darkness . . . [going] to the place where they who came to it are without return." This is a good deal closer to Lehi's language than Shakespeare is. The same sentiments are found in Egyptian literature, as in a popular song which tells how "the gods that were aforetime rest in their pyramids. . . . None cometh again from thence that he may tell of their state. . . . Lo, none may take his goods with him, and none that hath gone may come again." A literary text reports: "The mockers say, `The house of the inhabitants of the Land of the West is deep and dark; it has no door and no window. . . . There the sun never rises but they lie forever in the dark.' "

"Shakespeare should sue; but Lehi, a lover of poetic imagery and high-flown speech, can hardly be denied the luxury of speaking as he was supposed to speak. The ideas to which he here gives such familiar and conventional expression are actually not his own ideas about life after death--nor Nephi's nor Joseph Smith's, for that matter, but they are the ideas which any eloquent man of Lehi's day, with a sound literary education such as Lehi had, would be expected and required to use. And so the most popular and obvious charge of fraud against the Book of Mormon has backfired."

Even if there weren't cases of nearly identical thoughts being expressed in Lehi's day and before, one short phrase in Hamlet hardly creates a prima facie case for plagiarism in the Book of Mormon, in my opinion.

Did Joseph Smith plagiarize from the King James Bible?

This objection takes several forms. Some people are bothered by the presence of a version of the Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Mormon. "That's plagiarism!" they cry. But don't they realize that the New Testament, which our most vocal critics usually accept as scripture, regularly quotes the Old Testament? Hundreds of times, in fact. Do our critics also denounce the New Testament for its frequent copying of text from the Greek Septuagint? The angel whose words are recorded in Revelation 2:27, for example, was actually using words from Psalm 2:9. Is that plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the act of deceitfully using someone else's words as one's own. So what about the Book of Mormon version of the Sermon on the Mount? Well, here we have Christ speaking to some Book of Mormon people, using words very similar to those that Christ spoke earlier in Jerusalem. Thus, the Book of Mormon claims that the words of Christ were given by - can you guess who? - yes, Christ. Oh, the shame! Has Joseph Smith no decency?

The argument is also made the use of the specific style of language found in the King James Version is improperly borrowed. Specific language found in the King James Bible was obviously used in many cases when Joseph translated passages that quoted the Old Testament (several Isaiah chapters, for example) or translated passages that expressed ideas nearly identical to passages of the Bible. Besides the Isaiah chapters, the most obvious example occurs when the Resurrected Christ, during His brief but powerful ministry to the Nephites and Lamanites in the Book of Mormon, repeated the Sermon on the Mount. Most of the language in that section follows the King James version of the Bible. Using the language style or even specific language of an existing translation for quoted passages of the text is not improper at all.

John Tvedtnes offered the following insight into the use of KJV language for translation of scripture (e-mail, Sept. 23, 2002):

To be sure, the Book of Mormon was translated into what we often call "King James" Language, though, in fact, the King James version (KJV) of the Bible retained some 80% of Tyndale's English translation and Tyndale was partly dependent on the even older version by Wycliffe. It's a long-standing tradition among Bible versions and only surprises people who are acquainted with modern translations prepared after Joseph Smith's time. I should also point out that several renowned Bible scholars have mimicked KJV style in their own translations of ancient texts. Most notable was Robert Henry Charles, whose two-volume work on the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament is still published by Oxford. Because he did his work around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, he rendered the texts into KJV language because that was THE Bible par excellence in his day. So, too, with Joseph Smith.

The objection is often made that King James English is modern, while the Book of Mormon is ancient, so the Book of Mormon must be a fraud to contain modern language. After all, what is language from a book published in 1611 doing in a book allegedly dating to 400 A.D. and earlier? But King James English is not from the original Book of Mormon engravings - it is the vehicle that was used to translate ancient writings into English. A logical explanation is that King James language and phraseology was used as an effective and widely recognized medium for a sacred text, and exact words and phrases found in the King James Version were sometimes used when they adequately matched the meaning of the Nephite record or when Old Testament sources were being quoted.

Note that in Joseph Smith's History, in describing the visitation of the angel Moroni on Sept. 21-22, 1823, Moroni quotes some scriptures to Joseph Smith, largely using King James language but making some alterations in a few verses. Joseph writes, "He quoted also the third chapter of Acts, twenty-second and twenty-third verses, precisely as they stand in our New Testament." Moroni appeared satisfied with using the well-known "standard" translation when it was adequate, and it looks like that approach was followed in the translation of the Book of Mormon. Why unnecessarily change the Bible text and present it in a new and unfamiliar style and create additional controversy and confusion if the text people knew was acceptable?

Some LDS people believe that when Joseph Smith encountered a passage similar to one already existing in the Bible, the printed King James text was used as an aid when that text adequately conveyed the meaning of the passage being translated. The difficulty is that the multiple accounts of those who witnessed him translate never suggest use of the Bible and sometimes seem to rule out that possibility. John Welch and others have suggested that something more miraculous was involved than simply copying passages from an open King James Bible, something on the order of divine quotation or stimulation of latent memories of King James passages.

In any event, there are many differences between related Book of Mormon and King James passages, some major and some subtle, which remind us that Joseph was not simply copying from the Bible. The sophisticated differences between the Sermon on the Mount and the Book of Mormon's Sermon at the Temple are particularly noteworthy, as John Welch has shown in his book, The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount. Those differences actually resolve many great controversies about the meaning and purpose of the Sermon on the Mount, as well as questions about some of its more obscure or hard to understand passages. Something far more than mere plagiarism is involved. Perhaps Joseph's knowledge of the King James version was used as tool by the Lord to facilitate Joseph's translation of related Book of Mormon passages.

The number of passages in the Book of Mormon that directly quote Bible verses are still a minority of the total Book of Mormon text and hardly account for the Book of Mormon itself. If heavy quoting bothers you, please remember that hundreds of verses in the New Testament are quotes from the Old Testament, some with attribution and many without. In spite of many passages being similar between those two testaments, the New Testament truly is new and offers valuable sacred scripture about Christ, as is the case for the Book of Mormon.

Interestingly, New Testament writers quote the Old Testament in the language of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament that came long after the original Hebrew scriptures. This point is important to understand:

"When Jesus and the Apostles and, for that matter, the Angel Gabriel quote the [Hebrew] scriptures in the New Testament, do they recite from some mysterious Urtext? Do they quote the prophets of old in the ultimate original? . . . No, they do not. They quote the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Old Testament prepared in the third century B.C. Why so? Because that happened to be the received standard version of the Bible accepted by the readers of the Greek New Testament."
(Hugh W. Nibley, "Literary Style Used in the Book of Mormon Insured Accurate Translation," in The Prophetic Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989), Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Volume 8, p. 215.)

As one example of how often New Testament writers borrowed from the Old Testament ("plagiarized" would be the words anti-Mormon-like critics might use), consider the case of John's Book of Revelation. The Interpreter's Bible (12:358) states that "John was thoroughly acquainted with the Old Testament, and quoted or alludes to it throughout his book. It has been estimated that 278 verses out of a total of 404 contain references of one kind or another to the Old Testament.... yet in no case does he specifically mention a book of the Jewish scripture, and seldom does he quote verbatim." (I am indebted to D.C. Pyle for this quote.)

If New Testament prophets, apostles, and angels were allowed to quote what was then an accepted modern version of ancient scripture, we shouldn't be outraged that Joseph Smith would do the same (or be guided to do the same) in translating the Book of Mormon. (For more information on the nature of the modern Bible and its origins, see my LDSFAQ page on the Bible.)

I'd like to briefly return to the issue of differences between related passages in the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Some of the variants provide insight into Book of Mormon origins. For example, consider 2 Nephi 12, which quotes Isaiah 2. Verse 16 in the King James version says that the day of the Lord will be "upon all the ships of Tarshish." The Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament says that it would be upon the "ships of the sea" but does not mention the ships of Tarshish. The Book of Mormon version has both phrases: "upon all the ships of the sea, and upon all the ships of Tarshish...." I suggest that the version of Isaiah that Nephi had in 600 B.C. had both phrases on it, but the later Hebrew scriptures would lose one phrase while the Septuagint version would lose the other. (I discuss this issue more fully on my page, "2 Nephi 12 and the Septuagint: Evidence for Fraud or Authenticity in the Book of Mormon?". This page includes my response to a critic's attempt to dismiss this subtle internal evidence for authenticity, and offers some additional new possible evidence for Book of Mormon authenticity.) In translating 2 Nephi 2:16, the Book of Mormon follows the King James version but adds a phrase to properly follow the text he was translating. Several other variants in Isaiah passages find corroboration in recently discovered ancient Hebrew documents, while others do not. The issue of Isaiah variants is actually fairly complex and interesting, making it a hot topic now for scholars. The idea of a simple-minded copying of Bible passages has to be rejected, though it is clear that the King James Bible has been drawn upon in the translation process.

Critics wish to explain away 2 Nephi 2:16 by suggesting that Joseph copied from the Septuagint for this verse or that the textual differences between the Masoretic Hebrew texts and the Greek Septuagint were known to scholars and were "likely" to have been discussed by preachers in Joseph Smith's region before he began writing the Book of Mormon. Both arguments are a stretch! The Prophet did not know Greek when the Book of Mormon was being translated, and there is no evidence that he had access to the Septuagint at that time. As for the Tarshish/ships of the sea issue, even if scholars knew of it, why would preachers bother to discuss that issue? Have you ever heard a modern popular preacher getting into textual differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text for a phrase that seems to have very little doctrinal significance? Can anybody show me a published sermon, intended for common people, that raised the issue of textual variants for Isaiah 2:16?? Please! I have done a Web search for modern sermons and religious articles that treat Isaiah 2. Except for articles that explicitly discuss Isaiah 2:16 and the Book of Mormon, I have not found anything close to a sermon that discusses the textual variants of that passage. It is NOT common knowledge among modern Christians - why would it be common knowledge among farmers of upstate New York in the 1820s?

Isaiah 9:3, which is related to 2 Ne. 19:32 in the Book of Mormon, provides an interesting example in which Joseph Smith's translation differs from the King James Version. This is discussed in an article by Sidney B. Sperry reprinted in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 1995), p. 180:

I shall turn first of all to the King James Version and read it to you. It is a fairly good translation of the Hebrew.

Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. (Isa. 9:3)

Take the Book of Mormon, and we find this reading:

Thou hast multiplied the nation, and increased the joy [the not is left out]-they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. (2 Ne. 19:3)

Of interest here - if you were close enough you could see an asterisk in my Hebrew text. You men here in front can see it, and it refers to the qere, or what is to be read as given in a footnote. The ancient Hebrew scribes felt that the text as traditionally handed down was wrong, that the lo^o, which means "not," should be supplanted by a lo, which would then give the reading as found in the Book of Mormon. In short, a word with the same sound has been improperly substituted for the right one. The Prophet caught the error, and most scholars today would agree in substance with the Nephite reading as one can substantiate with the International Critical Commentary on Isaiah.

Franklin S. Harris, Jr., in The Book of Mormon: Messages and Evidences (The Deseret News Press, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1961), discusses several other Isaiah variants (pp. 50-52):

To Isaiah 29:6 the Book of Mormon (2 Ne. 27:2) reads "and with" for "and" in four places. The Syriac reads as the Book of Mormon suggests. In some cases the Book of Mormon text adds "and," which in Hebrew is represented by a single character "waw," inferring there has been an omission from the present Hebrew text, the addition is confirmed by the Septuagint and the Syriac. Examples are found in Isaiah 3:14 (2 Ne. 13: 14); 48:13 (1 Ne. 20:13); 50:9 (2 Ne. 7:9); 51:18 (2 Ne. 8:18). In Isaiah 48:5 (1 Ne. 20: 5) the Book of Mormon adds "and" which is literally what the Hebrew reads. The Authorized Version translators used "even" in English. "In Isaiah 14:4 (2 Nephi 24:4) the Book of Mormon adds 'And it shall come to pass in that day,' which is without support in the Hebrew. But of striking interest is a similar reading in Codex Alexandrinus (now in the British Museum), 'and thou shall say in that day.' The latter is not found in (Codex) Vaticanus. . . ."

"In Isaiah 2:20 (2 Nephi 12:20) where the Book of Mormon reads 'he hath made' for 'they made' the reading is confirmed by Codex Alexandrinus which renders 'he made.' In Isaiah 51:15 (2 Nephi 8:15) the Book of Mormon revises the Authorized Version 'His name' to read 'my name' and interestingly these readings are found in the Septuagint and Latin."

In Isaiah 5:5 (2 Ne. 15: 5) the Book of Mormon adds "I will" making the clause read "and I will break down the wall thereof." This reading is precisely that of the Septuagint which renders "and I will pull down its walls."

"In Isaiah 5:7 (2 Nephi 15: 7) the Authorized Version translators render the Hebrew 'but behold' which is literally 'and behold' as suggested in the Book of Mormon. To Isaiah 29:21 the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 27:32 adds the phrase "and they" to the beginning of the verse. The Septuagint and Syriac both read the same as the Book of Mormon.

For Isaiah 51:15 the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 8:15) revised the Authorized Version "his name" to read "my name" and interestingly the Book of Mormon form is found also in the Septuagint and the Latin.

An early discovery in this area was reported by Dr. S. B. Sperry (Improvement Era, 38:187; as cited by John Widstoe, Seven Claims of the Book of Mormon, Independence, Mo.: Zion's Printing and Publishing Co., 1937, p. 59):

II Nephi 13:9 (Compare Isaiah 3:9). In this rather remarkable illustration we shall deal only with the first sentence. The Authorized version reads, 'The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.' Contrast this with the Book of Mormon which reads, 'The show of their countenance doth witness against them, and doth declare their sin to be even as Sodom, and they cannot hide it.' The Nephite version has a change in meaning. The ancient Syriac version agrees exactly with the rendering of the clause, 'and they cannot hide it' of the Book of Mormon. Furthermore, in our present Hebrew text, it is possible by shifting the last letter of the second verb before the following word, to get precisely the reading of the Nephite scripture for the part of the verse in question. It is possible, too, that a letter of the Hebrew text has dropped out as some scholars may insist. At any rate who can deny the strong evidence of translation at this point in the Nephite text? Few will be likely to deny that the Nephite version has an attractive reading.

These variants find support in other Biblical texts and cannot be explained by slavish copying of the King James Version nor by random guesswork from Joseph Smith. It seems plausible that Joseph was translating an authentic ancient source which had relationships to other ancient sources.

More details on the Isaiah variants are provided by John A. Tvedtnes "Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon," originally printed in Isaiah and the Prophets: Inspired Voices from the Old Testament (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1984), pp. 165-177, now available online for free on the FARMS Website.

Some questions remain, of course. In several cases, for example, King James language is used that some scholars now say stems from old translation errors. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, one critic has identified 11 places where the King James version may be in error, based on comparison with recently discovered ancient manuscripts, and where the Book of Mormon allegedly preserves the error. John Welch carefully considers these challenges in his book, The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount, pp. 147 ff. In no case is it clear that the Book of Mormon translation is actually incorrect. The differences are so minor as to really make no serious difference in meaning. For example, early Greek manuscripts speak of the body "going off into hell," while the Book of Mormon and the KJV speak of the body being "cast into hell." Is there really a difference here? Other issues are even more trivial, such as whether a plural "ye" or singular "thou" should be used. A more interesting problem concerns the use of the word "almsgiving." I quote from Welch (p. 150):

Matthew 6:1. The earlier texts begin, "Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men"; later ones and the KJV read, "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men." Third Nephi 13:1 also talks about "alms." Has the Sermon at the Temple rendered a false translation? Again the answer is no, mainly because the "righteousness" discussed in Matthew 6:1-4 is unquestionably "almsgiving." All Greek manuscripts that read "righteousness" (dikaiosune) in Matthew 6:1 still have "alms" (eleemosune) in Matthew 6:2. Since the "righteousness" referred to in Matthew 6:1 is clearly "almsgiving," it is not incorrect to translate dikaiosune there as "almsgiving."

For further clarification, the Sermon at the Temple begins 3 Nephi 13:1 with a sentence that is not present in the Sermon on the Mount: "Verily, verily, I say that I would that ye should do alms unto the poor" (3 Nephi 13:1). Since this text makes the topic of these verses explicitly clear, continuing with a reference to "righteousness" would have been awkward, although this could have been done and the reader still would have understood its meaning to be "righteous almsgiving."

Moreover, in Hebrew (and presumably in the Nephite language) there is not nearly so much difference between the two Semitic words "righteousness" (zedeq) and "almsgiving" (Syriac, zedqtha; Hebrew zodaqah, which at Qumran meant "righteousness . . . justified by charity"), as there is between the two Greek words dikaiosune ("righteousness") and eleemosune ("generosity"). Indeed, one of the most important attributes of any person (including God) who is zedeq is that he is charitable: he "gives freely, without regard for gain." "The righteous (zedeq) sheweth mercy and giveth" (Psalm 37:21; see also Daniel 4:27 [Hebrew text 4:24]). If Jesus said in Hebrew, "Watch your zedeq," what did he mean? His message was about generosity, not just "righteousness" in some general sense. The Greek word dikaiosune (from dike, "justice") is, therefore, not a satisfactory term to convey the full meaning of the Hebrew zedeq or its Aramaic cognate, the languages Jesus spoke. "Doing alms," on the other hand, comes closer to conveying the meaning of "righteousness justified by charity." Assuming that Jesus said to the Nephites something like, "Watch your zodaqah" (since he would not have spoken to the Nephites in Greek), Joseph Smith was most correct to translate this by reference to charitable "alms."

Critics usually forget to give the Book of Mormon credit where it is due. One important example involves Matthew 5:22, which reads (KJV) "Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." The Book of Mormon version (from the Sermon at the Temple) lacks the troublesome phrase "without a cause." Likewise, many early New Testament manuscripts lack that phrase. The difference in the texts, in this case, has genuine doctrinal importance - and here we find the Book of Mormon agreeing with earlier manuscripts and not with a possible error in the King James version.

Anti-Mormon writer Stan Larson has also alleged that the Sermon on the Mount in 3 Nephi does not match the earliest Greek texts. John Gee responds to the charges in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1994, pp.67-68:

Another example . . . is Stan Larson's work, wherein he tries to use textual criticism to show that the Book of Mormon is not an authentic witness to the words of Jesus because its readings do not match those of several third- and fourth-century manuscripts of the Sermon on the Mount in eight places.

Larson maintains that "there is no evidence that anything was written down in Jesus' Aramaic language" (p. 117), although the early second century writer Papias wrote that "Matthew compiled the accounts in the Hebrew language" [Papias, fragment 2, in Eusebius, Historiae Ecclesiasticae III, 39, 16.] Unjustly disparaged for years, Papias's comment has now been vindicated with the publication in 1987 of the Hebrew text of Matthew preserved in at least nine manuscripts [George Howard, The Gospel of Matthew according to a Primitive Hebrew Text (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1987)]. Any attempt to reconstruct the original text of Matthew which fails to take this important version into account may justly be said to be defective as it preserves many early readings. Specifically, three of Larson's eight examples are not supported by the Hebrew version (Examples 1-2, 4, pp. 121-24). Thus, at Matthew 5:27 the Hebrew has lqdmwnym, paralleling the disparaged tois archaiois whose parallel "by them of old time" appears in 3 Nephi 12:27. At Matthew 5:44, the Hebrew has 'hbw 'wybykm w'sw twbh lswn'km wmk'yskm whtpllw bsbyl rwdpykm wlwhsykm ("love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you and provoke you and pray on behalf of those who persecute you and oppress you"). Though this is not identical to 3 Nephi, it nevertheless has those phrases that Larson is so positive are not in the original text. At Matthew 5:30, the Hebrew concludes with msy'bd kl gwpk bghynm ("than that thy whole body perish in hell"). Even if this text does not directly support the Book of Mormon, it destroys Larson's requisite unanimity.

It is extremely difficult to reconstruct an original text from multiple conflicting variants. Sometimes several manuscripts may agree, yet they all depart from what may have been the original. Relying on the dates of multiple surviving manuscripts as an indicator of accuracy is also inadequate, for sometimes a later manuscript preserves a newly discovered and correct original reading that was lacking in earlier manuscripts. It is speculative at best to argue that the Book of Mormon is not valid because some verses closely follow the King James text while departing from some manuscripts that are earlier than the ones used by the KJV translators. Indeed, Gee later notes the improper methodology of such attacks (Gee, pp. 70-71):

From the perspective of textual criticism, there is a further flawed assumption that needs to be exposed. Larson, as many before him, assumes that variants in the Book of Mormon should be reflected in Old World manuscripts. As far as textual criticism goes, it is methodologically incorrect to expect the Book of Mormon to agree or disagree with any given manuscript or set of manuscripts on any given textual variant. We no more expect the Book of Mormon to agree with Sinaiticus on any given variant than we expect the Peshitta or Codex Scheide to agree with Sinaiticus on the same variant. The purpose of textual criticism is not to establish the validity of the manuscript witnesses - such validity is always a given - but to use the manuscript witnesses to establish the text. Thus, from the standpoint of textual criticism, Larson cannot use a hammer whose purpose is nailing down the text to saw the Book of Mormon off from his list of manuscript witnesses. While his study demonstrates the independence of the Book of Mormon, this is precisely what we would expect if it is what it claims to be.

Some critics also claim that the Book of Mormon must be false because phrases from the New Testament are found in parts of the Book of Mormon written long before the New Testament. As John Tvedtnes has explained (Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1994, pp. 246-249), these arguments fail to consider several factors:

1. Many passages said to come from the New Testament are also found in the Old Testament - in fact, many are actually quotes of the Old Testament.
2. Some parallels just use common phrases and idioms that are not exclusive to the New Testament.
3. Other phrases, while not found in the Old Testament, may be found in other ancient documents from the Middle East and again are not unique to the New Testament.
4. Since the language of the New Testament was familiar to Joseph Smith, using it would be a natural process in translating similar concepts from one language to the translator's own vernacular.

Naturally, I can't answer all questions about the translation and the translation process. There is a difference, though, between an anomaly and a fatal flaw. The former requires research to fine tune our understanding, while the latter is so serious that it demands a major paradigm shift. Details of how the King James version was employed are needed to fine tune our understanding of the Book of Mormon - they do not comprise a fundamental crisis for the text. The Book of Mormon is still true - I hope you'll read it!

Regarding the "Inspired Translation" of the Bible (JST) and the Book of Mormon
Many people have wondered why Joseph Smith proposed some changes to Bible passages in his unfinished "translation" of the Bible (JST - the Joseph Smith Translation) that don't match the corresponding quotations in the Book of Mormon. A key point is that the JST does not claim to be a restoration of the original text -- in many cases, it may be viewed as an improved English rendering of the existing Greek or Hebrew (or, in many other cases, as a theological improvement of something that may have been unclear or incompletely expressed in the original). Thus, a theological improvement of an English rendering can be proposed without invalidating accurate translations of the original text. Given that the KJV text was apparently followed when it was "close enough" to convey the message of the original text, it is possible that the KJV could be clarified or theologically improved in some places without invalidating the Book of Mormon translation. For further details on this issue, see the FAIRLDS.org "Ask the Apologist" response to a question about Joseph Smith and Matt. 6:13 by Kevin Barney.

Why does the Book of Mormon repeat so much text from the Bible?

Many have objected to the Book of Mormon's frequent use of Old Testament material, quoting from many passages, especially Isaiah, where entire chapters are quoted. In some cases, the Biblical text is reworked or interposed with commentary. For example, 2 Nephi 27 is primarily a quotation of Isaiah 29, but it appears the Nephi has expanded portions of that chapter to add further prophetic details about the Restoration of the Gospel. Some critics have said that God does not need to repeat Himself, and that the Book of Mormon must be a fraud because it unnecessarily repeats scripture that God already gave. Such critics show amazing ignorance of the Bible. The words of Christ and nearly all New Testament writers frequently repeat Old Testament passages. Hundreds of New Testament verses are repetitions of text from the Old Testament, often applied to new situations to make a particular point - just as we find in the Book of Mormon.

The recent discovery of other ancient Jewish texts adds further credibility to the Book of Mormon practice of quoting heavily from the Old Testament and reworking Old Testament passages for special purposes. For example, Marilyn J. Lundberg writing for the University of Southern California's West Semitic Research Project, discusses the ancient Dead Sea Scroll text, "The Words of Moses" (document 1Q22 [1QDM]) in an article at http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/educational_site/dead_sea_scrolls/words_moses.shtml:

The content of the manuscript is heavily influenced by the biblical book of Deuteronomy, which is primarily a long speech by Moses to the people of Israel before they enter the land of Canaan. Deuteronomy itself reviews, quotes and reworks some of the material from Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. The Words of Moses reworks material from Deuteronomy. This is not at all surprising, since much of the literature of this time (3rd century B.C.E. to 1st century C.E.) is based on older biblical texts. It was a common practice, as we can see from many of the Dead Sea Scrolls, to take passages from the Bible and rework them in some way for a particular religious purpose. The Words of Moses was perhaps intended to serve as a reminder to the people to obey the commandments given by God through Moses. It may also have served as a warning of what would happen if they did not.

Book of Mormon passages that draw upon the Old Testament strive for the same purpose: to remind the people to obey God and warn of what would happen if they did not (and, more importantly, to convince people that Jesus Christ is the Messiah).

If the Book of Mormon did not draw upon the words of the Old Testament, then one could rightly question its Semitic origins. The use of previous Jewish scriptures in the Book of Mormon only adds to its credibility as an ancient text with Semitic origins.

What about the use of italicized words in the King James Bible?

This is an interesting issue that has been the basis of several attacks against the Book of Mormon. The italicized words in the King James text are words that the translators had to add in an effort to make the translation be reasonable in English. The italicized words in various editions of the King James text were not explicitly present in the Hebrew or Greek texts. Some critics of the Book of Mormon have pointed to Book of Mormon citations of Isaiah or other texts where the italicized KJV words are also present in the Book of Mormon. This proves, they allege, that Joseph simply plagiarized from the Bible - copying it mindlessly - rather than performing a translation from the gold plates, otherwise why would the same "translator's choice" words be used?

On the other hand, other critics have noted that many of the numerous differences between the Book of Mormon text and the King James Version occur relative to the italicized words, as if Joseph were deliberately but naively trying to add credibility to his "new" translation by changing many of the italicized words to make it look like different "translator's choices" were made while still relying on the King James Bible.

One problem with the latter argument is that there is no evidence that Joseph Smith used a Bible with italicized words or that he was aware of the significance of italics in some printings of the Bible. Oliver Cowdery may have been aware of the significance of italics, but there is nothing to support the idea that Joseph deliberately did anything with the italicized words of the King James Bible or that he even used a Bible in any way during the translation and any preparation of the text for printing. The use of King James language in the Book of Mormon, in my opinion, may have been guided by inspiration, following the existing "standard" translation as long as it was adequate.

More recently, I have encountered allegations that Joseph Smith just slavishly copied from the King James Bible, italicized words and all. The steady borrowing of italicized words from the King James text is thus said to prove the fraud of Joseph's "translation." The problem with this argument, like so many waged against the Book of Mormon and the Church itself, is that it falls apart under closer scrutiny. It's easy to cry out against the effrontery of Joseph Smith's use of italicized words - but have our critics carefully studied the text? I don't think so. Consider, for example, Isaiah 2 and 3 and their corresponding quotations in the Book of Mormon. In the table below, the KJV verses are on the left, with Book of Mormon verses on the right. KJV verses with italicized words are given an enlarged verse number in a different font. If one or more of the italicized passages in the KJV verse has been changed in the corresponding Book of Mormon verse, then the verse number is in red; otherwise, it is black. As you will see, most of the verses with italics in the Bible are numbered in read because the Book of Mormon versions show subtle changes.

Comparison of Isaiah Chapters 2 and 3 in the King James Bible versus Isaiah as Quoted in the Book of Mormon: Focus on KJC Italicized Words
Isaiah 2	2 Nephi 12
1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.	1 The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.	2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, when the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.	3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.	4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks - nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.	5 O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord; yea, come, for ye have all gone astray, every one to his wicked ways.
6 Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.	6 Therefore, O Lord, thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and hearken unto soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.
7 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:	7 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots.
8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:	8 Their land is also full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.
9 And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.	9 And the mean man boweth not down, and the great man humbleth himself not, therefore, forgive him not.
10 Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.	10 O ye wicked ones, enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for the fear of the Lord and the glory of his majesty shall smite thee.
11 The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.	11 And it shall come to pass that the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
12 For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:	12 For the day of the Lord of Hosts soon cometh upon all nations, yea, upon every one; yea, upon the proud and lofty, and upon every one who is lifted up, and he shall be brought low.
13 And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,	13 Yea, and the day of the Lord shall come upon all the cedars of Lebanon, for they are high and lifted up; and upon all the oaks of Bashan;
14 And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,	14 And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills, and upon all the nations which are lifted up, and upon every people;
15 And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,	15 And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall;
16 And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.	16 And upon all the ships of the sea, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
17 And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.	17 And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
18 And the idols he shall utterly abolish.	18 And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
19 And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.	19 And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for the fear of the Lord shall come upon them and the glory of his majesty shall smite them, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
20 In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;	20 In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which he hath made for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
21 To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.	21 To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for the fear of the Lord shall come upon them and the majesty of his glory shall smite them, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
22 Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?	22 Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?
Isaiah 3	2 Nephi 13
1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,	1 For behold, the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem, and from Judah, the stay and the staff, the whole staff of bread, and the whole stay of water -
2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,	2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient;
3 The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.	3 The captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counselor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.	4 And I will give children unto them to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.	5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbor; the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable.
6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand:	6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, and shall say: Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let not this ruin come under thy hand -
7 In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people.	7 In that day shall he swear, saying: I will not be a healer; for in my house there is neither bread nor clothing; make me not a ruler of the people.
8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.	8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen, because their tongues and their doings have been against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory.
9 The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.	9 The show of their countenance doth witness against them, and doth declare their sin to be even as Sodom, and they cannot hide it. Wo unto their souls, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves!
10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.	10 Say unto the righteous that it is well with them; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.
11 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.	11 Wo unto the wicked, for they shall perish; for the reward of their hands shall be upon them!
12 As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.	12 And my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they who lead thee cause thee to err and destroy the way of thy paths.
13 The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.	13 The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.
14 The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.	14 The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people and the princes thereof; for ye have eaten up the vineyard and the spoil of the poor in your houses.
15 What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts.	15 What mean ye? Ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor, saith the Lord God of Hosts.
16 Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:	16 Moreover, the Lord saith: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet -
17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.	17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.
18 In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon,	18 In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, and cauls, and round tires like the moon;
19 The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,	19 The chains and the bracelets, and the mufflers;
20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,	20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings;
21 The rings, and nose jewels,	21 The rings, and nose jewels;
22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins,	22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins;
23 The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.	23 The glasses, and the fine linen, and hoods, and the veils.
24 And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.	24 And it shall come to pass, instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth; burning instead of beauty.
25 Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.	25 Thy men shall fall by the sword and thy mighty in the war.
26 And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.	26 And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she shall be desolate, and shall sit upon the ground.

Of the 27 verses having italicized words in the King James version of these two chapter, 24 of the corresponding verses in the Book of Mormon show changes in the choice of words used for what was italicized in the Bible. Of the 35 total occurrences of italicized phrases or words in these two chapters, 28 of the occurrences show changes in the Book of Mormon. That's hardly slavish copying! The italics-based case against the Book of Mormon as a translation is without substance.

I think these chapters must have more than the average number of changes in italicized passages. But they suffice to show that when the Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah, something other than route copying occurred. (And in any case, quoting from Isaiah or any other writing and stating that the author is being quoted, is hardly plagiarism! Feel free to quote me on this. Just spell my name correctly when you give attribution, and I'll be happy.)

There is much to be gained from a study of the details in these variant