Growing up, I was taught repeatedly that the Book of Mormon was "the most correct of any book on earth." Our family understood that to be literally true. We believed that every single word had been precisely revealed through the urim and thummim to Joseph Smith.

The BoM was a paragon of literary perfection in my ignorant mind.

Well...

One afternoon I decided to try out the new version of Microsoft Word on our family's computer. At that time, the program had just been updated with automated spelling and grammar check tools. (Remember "Clippy"?) I wanted to test the accuracy of the new features. I needed an example of something categorically correct as a sample. So, naturally, I typed in a passage from "the most correct book."

Imagine my shock and disgust when Clippy told me that there were numerous grammatical and syntactical problems with that perfect passage of divine scripture!

"Must be a problem with the software," I concluded.

"The most corrected book"

I'd love it if someone could persuade Deseret Books to print and heavily promote a special "commemorative original edition" of the Book of Mormon.

If someone could get the CEO of Deseret Books to think it was a great idea and good way to celebrate the "marvelous work and wonder" that was the first printed edition of the Book of Mormon, it would be very fun to watch what happens next.

Get a million of those suckers out there and then watch TBM heads explode as they realize for the first time what it really was that came out of that peepstone (i.e. what Joe and his buddies pulled out of their glutei maximi).

Watch the looks on their faces as they read gems like these:

Improper use of "a" in the 1830 edition later deleted from text

---> "… As I was a journeying …" [p. 249]

---> "… he found Muloki a preaching …" [p. 284]

---> "… had been a preparing the minds …" [p. 358]

---> "… Moroni was a coming against them [p. 403]

Hear them involuntarily gasp as they read gems like these:

---> "… Adam and Eve, which was our first parents …" [p. 15]

---> "… the bands which was upon my wrists …" [p. 49]

---> "… the priests was not to depend …" [p. 193]

---> "… they was angry with me …" [p. 248]

---> "… there was no wild beasts …" [p. 460]

Watch them go cross-eyed when they ponder these words:

---> "… they were exceeding fraid …" [pp. 354, 392, 415]

---> "… my soul was wrecked with eternal torment …" [p. 214]

Watch the cognitive dissonance build up as the ponder the following history of changes in a key passage of the Book of Mormon:

---> 2 Nephi 12, p. 117 — … and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a WHITE and a delightsome people. [1830 Book of Mormon text.]

---> 2 Nephi 30:6 (1840 edition) — … and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a WHITE PURE AND DELIGHTSOME people.

---> (Later editions until 1981) … WHITE and delightsome

---> (1981 to current edition) PURE and delightsome

For many more examples, see: http://mit.irr.org/changes-latter-day-scripture

Wow, are there copy editors somewhere slaving away anonymity, quietly issuing these corrections?

AFAIK, they've never announced the specific corrections and revisions in any way and have never claimed that the corrections themselves are based on "revelation."

They usually just quietly come out with a new edition of the Book of Mormon every once in a while like it's no big deal and don't say much of anything at all, leaving one with the impression that the only changes are maybe the size of the text or quality of paper or something.

Comparing the first edition with the latest edition can be quite an eye-opener.

I’m surprised Clippy didn’t lapse into a coma right there on your screen. There have been almost 4000 corrections since being declared the most correct book on Earth.

Turns out that the peepstone (pretentiously known as the Urim & Thummim) had a bad bird-poop stain on the viewing portion of the rock where the words were supposed to appear. Joe tried to clean it off with steel wool, but that left permanent scratches.

Joe was too embarrassed to tell God, Moroni or anyone else that he had badly damaged the peepstone. So...when many of the words could not be read due to the scratches, Joe just made his best guess at what the obscured words were supposed to be.

One time, as he had the hat tightly sealed around his face, he accidentally blew a booger onto the rock just as the word Mosiah was appearing. As a result, he couldn't see any part of the word. (The peepstone had no playback function, so he couldn't pull his head out and get a do-over.) The first name that popped into his head was "Benjamin" because just the previous week Joe had stolen some eggs from Benjamin Buttfurt's hen house and then sold the very same eggs to Benjamin Buttfurt the next day--and Joe was really proud of how he had pulled that one off--so he said "Benjamin" and moved on to the next word appearing on the scratched up stone.

And that's, as they say, the rest of the story.

The church is doing a lot to distance itself from "The most correct book":

"Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else." - Essay on Race and the Priesthood.

From the Book of Mormon:
2 Nephi 5:21-
“And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.”

Jacob 3:8-
“O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.”


Alma 3:6-
“And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.”

3 Nephi 2:15-

“And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites”


The Book of Mormon is "The most correct book", with the exception of its teachings, its historical accuracy, its grammar, and the story of its origins. Other than those things, yeah, it is "The most correct book".

This was a major shelf breaker for me, and what led me into stuff like the CES Letter. If the Book of Mormon teachings are correct, then the church leadership today are false prophets for disavowing those teaching. If the Book of Mormon teachings are incorrect, then the entire church is built on a falsehood. Either way, the church cannot be "true".

Notice that they don't deny that the Church previously embraced all that stuff.

Essentially, the Church TODAY disavows its foundational story.

Obviously Joseph Smith messed up and lied about everything. But given the times and circumstances, the organization that he organized survived and became the multi-billion dollar behemoth that it is today.

The modern leaders want to keep the multi-billion dollar behemoth. But they're embarrassed by its founder and...well...most of its past leaders.

Seems like an awkward position to be in. But they're making their play.

alsd Wrote:

> This was a major shelf breaker for me, and what
> led me into stuff like the CES Letter. If the Book
> of Mormon teachings are correct, then the church
> leadership today are false prophets for disavowing
> those teaching. If the Book of Mormon teachings
> are incorrect, then the entire church is built on
> a falsehood. Either way, the church cannot be
> "true".

I should add a third option, given that I have heard apologists try and make the case that we are not understanding the meaning of the "skin of blackness", and that is that God is a jerk for giving us a book that is supposed to be a second witness and provide us more information, and then filling it with intentionally misleading information and telling us we can only know the truth of it if we pray about it...

The keyword here is "most". It is not stated that the book is 100% correct only that it is the most correct. This "cop out" allows for whatever changes might be deemed necessary to perperuate the image.

to count as a book. And I can prove that it is more correct than the Book of Mormon. As a consequence, I know that they are lying when they say that the Book of Mormon is the "most correct" book.

I also have a how-to book on tying sailor's knots. Everything in it is 100% true and accurate. They never even had to change the prefatory comments.

I'm beginning to think that the claims made by Mormon leaders are the epitome of hyperbole.

The only thing I remember about Clippy was a satire bit: "I see that you are going to have a wank, should I: 1) Grab Lotion, 2) Grab Kleenex, 3) tell your mother you're smoking pot in your room?"

As for the bad use of english, the only excuse they seem to have is "Shakespeare did the same thing" or "It was common usage in Joseph's day" which really doesn't make much sense either from the "tight" or or "loose" translation theories--it's either one or the other, and if it's supposed to be so important to world history then why would God want the language set in early 19th Century colloquial American English?

Believe it or not, Royal Skousen from BYU and Dr. Sanford Carmack (said to be "an independent scholar from Cape Cod", but he's mormon) put out a *5 volume* set which is supposed to show that the BoM is just fine the way it is when compared to all kinds of other stuff.

The most corrupt book. Exchange the “ ec” with “ up”

Most plagiarized book on Earth.

Joseph's Gawd was sure sleeping on the job with this book, and had a hang-up with "and it came to pass" proliferating the beginning of sentences nonstop, saying tons about Joey's taste in fiction.

I myself was never one for scriptures, especially disliking the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament ones with Doctrine in Covenants coming in third. When I found out the BofM had a sh**load of corrections, I thought, well hells bells, they sure did a lousy, and I do mean lousy, job of fixing it!

Them thare corrections didn't help the book at all.

Or he needed more fiber.