In reading the Book of Mormon, the thing that leaps out to me the most is that individuals who are portrayed as having lived before the time of Jesus and Paul, often use phrases, sentences, and concepts right from the New Testament -- such as sayings of Jesus, statements found in Paul's letters, the book of Revelation, etc. This is a well-known fact, but it, more than anything else, immediately causes me to doubt that the Book of Mormon characters are actual historical figures. But I think that for others, this fact might actually increase their testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Here are some explanatory theories I've heard:

-- The Holy Spirit inspired Book of Mormon characters to use language identical to language that same Spirit would later inspire Jesus and Paul to use.

-- The Book of Mormon characters may not have actually used that exact language, but Joseph Smith was inspired to translate what they said using New Testament language that conveys the same underlying meaning of the Book of Mormon characters. This was helpful in relating to those readers of the Book of Mormon who were familiar with the New Testament.

-- Joseph Smith deliberately lifted New Testament language and incorporated it into the Book of Mormon, not realizing that doing so posed a problem.

-- Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, perhaps through a form of automatic writing, and his familiarity with New Testament language caused phrases and sentences from the New Testament to spontaneously appear in his prose without his consciously thinking much about it.

Does anyone here know of other theories?

Many Christians believe there are prophecies in the Old Testament (such as in Isaiah) indicating the eventual coming of Jesus Christ. Here the Book of Mormon differs from the Old Testament, in that the Old Testament does not borrow from documents not yet written! Indeed, there is nothing in the Old Testament that presupposes the future existence of Jesus Christ, or of a Church, or of Christianity. Scholars point out that the prophecies the gospel of Matthew takes as predicting the coming of Jesus, if read in their original Old Testament context, clearly are not referring to a future coming of Jesus. The only way I can see to save these prophecies for Christianity, is to assume that they have a deeper meaning that transcended their immediate context.

Question for the returned missionaries here: While you were on your mission and getting more deeply into the study of the Bible and the Book of Mormon, did you notice the presence of New Testament language in the mouths of Book of Mormon characters? If so, did it raise questions in your mind? Or on the other hand, did it actually strengthen your testimony? Did you ever have investigators who were reading the Book of Mormon point this out or ask you about it?

That's why they have members use the KJV instead of a better translation. The BoM is filled with KJV translation errors.

The NT language actually raised questions in my mind as a missionary. It did not strengthen my testimony. If the book were true it wouldn't have Jesus delivering the sermon on the mount errors and all. It would have corrected them. We probably would expect to see some sayings from the gospel of Thomas or something similar show up too if it were true, but we don't of course. It is supposed to be "the most correct book" remember?

I also failed to see how Paul's "charity never faileth" speech would show up in the BoM, or terms such as "Mammon" or other concepts that the Nephites/Lamanites would have no idea about which were in the NT.

It makes more sense to me that these concepts were put in by preachers such as Spalding/Rigdon as the storyline was being developed. JS wasn't smart enough to recognize these errors.

This actually raised a ton of questions for me both as a missionary and after my mission. I knew enough about the Bible to know that different authors write differently. Paul's style is his own, and he is different than Isaiah and everyone else. That the Book of Mormon used his exact words was very troubling to me.

Other things that bothered me were:

1) Use of "Mammon" in the Sermon at the Temple. Mammon is an Aramaic word, and there would be no reason to include that word in the Book of Mormon. I have had Mormons tell me that this was just because people in Joseph Smith's day were so attached to the King James that Smith left the word untouched. However, Smith didn't mind changing 50% of the Isaiah verses in the Book of Mormon from the King James version despite the supposed love affair that people had with the KJV wording.

2) Textual errors in the Sermon at the Temple. There are a number of phrases used in the King James rendition of the Sermon on the Mount that are not authentic pieces of the New Testament manuscript tradition. An example is the Doxology to the Lord's Prayer ("For thine is the kingdome, and the power, etc"). This doesn't show up in New Testament manuscripts until about 400 AD. Older copies either have different text or remove this appendage entirely. There are about 5 instances of this problem in the Book of Mormon, where Smith copies the King James verbatim including the bogus phrases. I have heard LDS people claim that Smith just recognized the Sermon on the Mount while translating and just deferred to the KJV, but this is silly. Again, 50% of Isaiah as given in 2 Nephi differs from the King James and Smith is paranoid about Biblical corruption. There is no reason to put the seer stone down in 3 Nephi, and no reason that the seer stone would give the bogus King James text during the translation.

3) Mormon 9:22-24. These verses are almost a verse-by-verse copy from Mark 16. New Testament textual criticism, however, has shown that these verses in Mark 16 are not authentic and are added to the New Testament during the 2nd century. Given that the material in Mormon 9 is unique to the corrupted Mark 16, there is no other explanation for its appearance other than copying from the King James Bible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2010 10:44AM by ed.

What does it translate to?

It is an Aramaic loanword that means "riches" or "wealth". It has similar cognates in Greek and Latin.

IIRC Mammon is an Aramaic word that means wealth or greed. Did the Nephites speak Aramaic? No. If Jesus had said "mammon" to them they would have looked at him and said "Huh?"

> The Holy Spirit inspired Book of Mormon characters to use
> language identical to language that same Spirit would later
> inspire Jesus and Paul to use.

In fact, the twin to this is just that the spirit of revelation showed Xian teachings to early prophets, all the way down to Adam. And they knew of Christ's foreshadowing and his life events.

This explanation is given to excuse why the Egyptians, Phoenicians and others have mythologies of a virgin-birth "Messiah" figure that predates jesus by 1000s of years. They're not the source of the Jesus story, but just apocryphal accounts of what Adam, Noah and Moses taught about Jesus.

The Mos have covered a lot of things with this concept.

Our word usage authorship studies (Jockers et al., 2008, and subsequent work) support the conclusion that the Book of Mormon is likely the work of multiple 19th century authors: Solomon Spalding, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith Jr., and Parley Pratt.

Many witnesses described Solomon Spalding's use of the "old style" when he wrote Manuscript Found, the alleged precursor to the Book of Mormon.

John Spalding (1833) said of his brother's writing: “I have recently read the Book of Mormon, and to my great surprise I find nearly the same historical matter, names, &c. as they were in my brother’s writings. I well remember that he wrote in the old style, and commenced about every sentence with “and it came to pass,” or “now it came to pass,” the same as in the Book of Mormon” Howe, Mormonism Unveiled (1834)

Martha Spalding (1833) said of her brother-in-law's writing: “The old, obsolete style, and the phrases of “and it came to pass,” &c. are the same.” Howe, Mormonism Unveiled (1834)

Henry Lake (1833) said of Solomon Spalding's writing: “the so frequent use of the words “And it came to pass,” “Now it came to pass” rendered it ridiculous.” Howe, Mormonism Unveiled (1834)

As a Baptist Preacher, Sidney Rigdon was very familiar with the Biblical style and reportedly "gave great attention to the Bible, and made himself very familiar with all parts of it. He readily committed to memory and thus stored up large portions of the most attractive portions of the Bible.” From Moore’s Rural New Yorker Rochester, New York -- January 2, 1869 THE MORMONS: Pen and Pencil Sketches Illustrating their Early History. http://sidneyrigdon.com/1869Moor.htm

As an old man, Rigdon described himself in his younger days. Speaking in the 3rd person, he said: "he [the younger Rigdon] was a dangerous man, and his knowledge of the Bible was so great that none could stand before him.” This quote is from Section 37 of The Book of the Revelations of Jesus Christ to the Children of Zion (1868), Post Collection, U. Utah Marriott library.

On another occasion, Rigdon described his (IMO, feigned) reaction as a young man to the Book of Mormon when it was presented to him by Cowdery & Pratt (again, speaking about himself in the 3rd person):

“He [Rigdon] was then unlearned & I the Lord myself became his teacher, and assisted him to understand all things till he became the head of the literary world. There was no man living so well qualified to judge of the divine authenticity of the book of Mormon as he was. His knowledge of the Lords manner of writing was such as enabled him to detect it when he saw it, & thus it was that he received the book of Mormon when I the Lord sent it to him.”

This quote is also from Section 37 of The Book of the Revelations of Jesus Christ to the Children of Zion (1868), Post Collection, U. Utah Utah Marriott library.

Note that in the above quote, Rigdon is bragging about his familiarity with the "Lord's manner of writing". For Rigdon, "the Lord's manner of writing" was the Early Modern English that Spalding used for Manuscript Found and that is also found in the King James Bible.

In our 2008 analysis of the Book of Mormon word usage patterns, Rigdon was the most probable author for most of the Biblical-sounding portions of the Book of Mormon, but it appears that all of the likely 19th century contributors were trying to use Early Modern English so as to make the book sound more like "the Lord's manner of writing".

This explains why the Book of Mormon is filled with words like repenteth, shewn, wrought, dwelt, whither, slew, whence, didst, smitten, knowest, sayeth, begat, thine, thy, thee, ye, art, etc. These words were NOT the vernacular of the early 19th century. Use of such language was a deliberate decision to imitate the sound of the Bible.

Basically, the language of the Book of Mormon has become the language of God Maybe this gives some insight into why Mormons today are told to use Early Modern English (thee, thy, thine, art, and so on) in their prayers and why Mormon leaders today like to use archaic phrases, yea, even language that is old and dated.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2010 12:17AM by CraigC.