TEXTUAL CHANGES IN THE BOOK OF MORMON
By Marcel Kahne
Translated by Gerald D. Woodard
(Original French text at www.idumea.org)
Undoubtedly, the most surprising criticism by detractors of the Book of Mormon relates to the number of changes made to the text of the 1830 edition. One went as far as to calculating that there had been 3,913. This is a surprising criticism, as these detractors are mostly fundamentalist protestants who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, i.e. that it contains no errors of any kind, when there are more than 5,000 Greek manuscripts for the New Testament alone with more than 150,000 variations, and the American Bible Society has counted more than 24,000 differences in just six editions of the 1611 King James Version of the Bible published since 1830.
Is the Church hiding something?
Not only do detractors make a point of telling you that there have been 3,913 textual changes to the Book of Mormon, but they suggest that the Church is hiding this, and a lot more, from its members. Let us be very clear: the Church is not hiding anything from anyone. I would quote here what I have already said in my article The World of Anti‑Mormons:
“One technique often used by anti‑Mormons is to convince Church members that the Church is hiding something from them and that, through them, the anti‑Mormons, members will finally be made aware. Where are the anti‑Mormons obtaining their information? The archives that the Church has carefully preserved and made available to researchers. If the Church wanted to hide something, would it not have been easier to simply destroy the sensitive archives or make them inaccessible to the public? In the 1970s, when I locked horns with an apostate printer who regularly sent anti‑Mormon literature to his former fellow Church members, I obtained the sources that he used so I could check his quotes. I had no difficulty in obtaining works such as the Journal of Discourses, 28 volumes containing the discourses of General Authorities from 1853 to 1886, the Times and Seasons, 5 volumes of a newspaper published in Nauvoo, the History of the Church, the Documentary History of the Church, a photocopy of a page of the History of the Church manuscript, the content of which was claimed to have been altered before it was printed, and even a photocopy of the only anti‑Mormon newspaper in Nauvoo, the Nauvoo Expositor. Anyone can obtain whatever they want, if they are interested, due to the Church’s policy of carefully preserving all historical archives possible and making them available to anyone interested. Better still, cost is no longer an issue with the release of several thousand books on CD by FARMS (Infobase Library) and Deseret Book (Gospelink).”
As regards the changes made to the text of the Book of Mormon: (1) the reprint of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon by Wilford Wood has been on sale at Mormon bookstores since 1959. (2) From 1984 to 1987, FARMS created and published a critical edition of the Book of Mormon in three volumes, a first attempt to look at variations in 17 editions, including 12 from the Church and 5 from the Reorganized Church. (3) In 1980, Deseret Book reprinted the1830 edition to mark the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Church. (4) Professor George Horton from Brigham Young University published an article on the topic in the Ensign in December 1983. (5) Royal Skousen, a professor at Brigham Young University, is working on a definitive critical edition of the Book of Mormon in 4 volumes, the first two of which have already been published:
The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon
The Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon (2 volumes)
The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon
Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon
What is the reasoning of detractors and is it valid?
In their opinion, because the Book of Mormon was dictated to Joseph Smith by God, it should be perfect as is and not a single letter should be changed. The truth is that we do not know the exact means by which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. It is certain, however, that it was not mechanical. We know this because of the episode in which Oliver Cowdery tried unsuccessfully to translate it. The Lord told him:
Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me. (D&C 9:7‑9)
The idea of the infallibility of the Scriptures is a concept specific to fundamentalists, but does not exist among Latter‑Day Saints (or among other Christian confessions). The eighth Article of Faith states: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.”
The Nephite authors even indicated reservations regarding the perfection of the original content of the Nephite text:
And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ. (Book of Mormon, Title Page)
Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him. (Mormon 9:31)
If we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record. (Mormon 9:33)
And I am the same who hideth up this record unto the Lord… it shall be brought out of darkness unto light, according to the word of God… And if there be faults they be the faults of a man. But behold, we know no fault; nevertheless God knoweth all things; therefore, he that condemneth, let him be aware lest he shall be in danger of hell fire. (Mormon 8:14, 16‑17)
For Lord thou hast made us mighty in words by faith, but thou hast not made us mighty in writing… and thou hast made us that we could write but little, because of the awkwardness of our hands... wherefore, when we write we behold our weakness, and stumble because of the placing of our words. (Ether 12:23‑25).
Detractors are also incorrect when they claim that the Bible is the Word of God and that, as such, it must not contain any mistakes, even spelling mistakes (this is the basic concept behind Michael Drosnin's book The Bible Code). They are confusing divine revelation, i.e. that God communicates with the minds of his prophets, and the sacred text, which is the prophets’ translation in words of the revelations that they received, a translation that suffers from the inherent imperfections of everything man does. The Bible is not free of this and neither is the Book of Mormon.
Exactly what changes have been made to the text of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon?
Although the detractors are accurate in the number of changes, they are equally vague regarding the nature of those changes, for a very good reason – they are in no way sensational. The following excerpts from an article by Professor Horton, mentioned earlier, should put things in their right place:
Thousands of corrections have been made in the book. In order to understand why all these corrections have been made over the years, we need some historical perspective.
The History of Various Editions
Although Joseph Smith was the translator of the Book of Mormon, the spelling in the first edition was Oliver Cowdery’s, and the punctuation was John H. Gilbert’s.
Oliver described the time he spent as a scribe as “days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven, awakened the utmost gratitude in this bosom! Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translated with the urim and thummim.” (Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1834, p. 14.)
To view the pages of the original manuscript that are still remaining is to be reassured that it is a dictated document.
The man responsible for punctuating the first edition of the Book of Mormon was John H. Gilbert, the non-Mormon typesetter who worked for E. B. Grandin, publisher of that edition. According to Gilbert, it was Hyrum Smith who brought the first twenty-four pages of the handwritten printer’s manuscript to the publisher:
“He had it under his vest, and vest and coat closely buttoned over it. At night [Hyrum] came and got the manuscript, and with the same precaution carried it away. The next morning with the same watchfulness, he brought it again, and at night took it away. … On the second day—[Martin Harris] and [Hyrum] being in the office—I called their attention to a grammatical error, and asked whether I should correct it? Harris consulted with [Hyrum] a short time, and turned to me and said: ‘The Old Testament is ungrammatical, set it as it is written.’
“After working a few days, I said to [Hyrum] on his handing me the manuscript in the morning; ‘Mr. Smith, if you would leave this manuscript with me, I would take it home with me at night and read and punctuate it.’ His reply was, ‘We are commanded not to leave it.’ A few mornings after this, when [Hyrum] handed me the manuscript, he said to me: ‘if you will give your word that this manuscript shall be returned to us when you get through with it, I will leave it with you.’ … for two or three nights I took it home with me and read it, and punctuated it with a lead pencil.’ ” (In Wilford C. Wood, Joseph Smith Begins His Work, vol. 1, Salt Lake City: Wilford C. Wood, 1959.)
His effort resulted in somewhere between 30,000–35,000 additional punctuation marks.
Typesetting from the printer’s manuscript (which was Oliver Cowdery’s handwritten copy of the original manuscript) started in August of 1829. By March of 1830 the book was completed. But Joseph Smith had had little to do with the supervision of the printing for the first edition. In fact, he was reportedly in Grandin’s shop only once for about fifteen or twenty minutes during that printing.
As soon as the first edition was out, readers began finding typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors. On 25 June 1833, Joseph wrote to printer W. W. Phelps, “As soon as we can get time, we will review the manuscripts of the Book of Mormon, after which they will be forwarded to you.” (History of the Church, 1:363.)
With the help of Oliver Cowdery, the Prophet prepared the second (1837) edition. At this point, they made over one thousand corrections—most of them grammatical and added some minor clarifications. By this time, the Prophet, who had limited formal schooling, was learning the rudiments of Hebrew, and English grammar. (See History of the Church, 2:390, 474; 3:26.)
Both the 1840 and 1842 editions were carefully revised by Joseph Smith. By now, however, Oliver Cowdery had left the Church, taking the printer’s manuscript with him.
As late as 15 January 1842 Joseph Smith was still making corrections himself. He recorded: “I commenced reading the Book of Mormon, at page 54, … (the previous pages having been corrected), for the purpose of correcting the stereotype plates of some errors which escaped notice in the first edition.” (History of the Church, 4:494.)
Because the first European edition in English followed the 1837 edition, it did not contain some of these changes made by Joseph Smith. So later American editions, which were taken from the first European edition, perpetuated these omissions.
John Taylor assigned Orson Pratt to prepare a new edition of the book in 1879. Elder Pratt redivided the chapters (increasing them from 114 to 239)—and added verse numbers and references.
After the turn of the century, President Heber J. Grant called James E. Talmage to prepare a new edition. The 1920 edition included double-column pages, revised references, a pronouncing vocabulary, an index, and many grammatical improvements.
And, most recently, the 1981 edition was prepared under the supervision of the Scriptures Publication Committee, under direction of the First Presidency.
American English Grammar and Spelling in 1829
Before we can understand why many of these corrections have been necessary, we must know that American English spelling in 1829 was not yet standardized… About this time, many people in the United States were pressing for a variety of English that would be uniquely American.
Noah Webster led this movement, proposing many new rules for American spellings, seven of which are still in use. As a result of Webster’s innovations, for example, Americans changed the British spelling of theatre to theater. Not all of the spellings he suggested were accepted, however (for example, ake, beleeve, iz, hed, and iland). But Webster’s recommendations reveal a tendency common at the time to spell words phonetically, or as they sound… It is not surprising, then, that many words in the Book of Mormon would need to be corrected as American English spelling became more uniform later in the nineteenth century.
Major Changes in the Various Editions
We also need to remember that Oliver Cowdery wrote what he heard. Many of the words—Nephite and Lamanite names, for example—would have been unfamiliar to Oliver. Joseph apparently had to correct some of these proper nouns.
Oliver’s handwriting also presented a special challenge to the typesetter, His R (which looks like a ‘Palmer’ R) and his N are difficult to distinguish, as are his B and L. So in the first edition, Gadianton was mislabeled “the nobler,” rather than “the robber.” In a similar way, the typesetter apparently mistook Oliver’s RM as UN. So in 1 Nephi 13, where the original manuscript read formation, the typesetter misread founation. Then, thinking the letter d had been left out, he supplied it. In the 1981 edition, foundation has been corrected back to read formation, as originally intended.
Many other spelling errors appear to have been strictly typographical for example, aaswer, amog, bacause, daghter, mnltitude, theit, and uttered.
Another kind of common copying error occurred when the typesetter’s eye momentarily left the page. Then, when he looked back, he would pick up the text at a different spot where the wording was very similar. The most significant example of this is the dropping of thirty-five words in Alma 32:30, where the words seed, good, sprouteth, beginneth, and grow are common to two parts of the verse.
But the most common changes have not been in spelling, but in grammar. For example, there have been 891 changes of which to who, 177 changes of exceeding to exceedingly. Many changes involve a change in number or tense of verbs. Was was changed to were 162 times, is to are 74 times, and done to did 10 times.
A few other changes involving meaning appear to be more significant. In 2 Nephi 30:6, white appeared in the 1830 and 1837 editions. Joseph changed this word to pure in the 1840 edition. But later American editions did not show this change because they had followed the first European and 1837 editions. This correction by the Prophet has finally been restored in the 1981 edition.
In Mosiah 21:28 and Ether 4:1, the first edition had “Benjamin” where the name of Mosiah now appears. In fact, King Benjamin would not likely have still been living in the historical period described by these verses. In the 1837 edition, the Prophet Joseph made this correction.
We can only speculate about the cause of this error. Book of Mormon scholar Sidney B. Sperry has posed this interesting question: “Was it an inadvertent slip of the tongue on the part of Joseph Smith as he dictated his translation to Oliver Cowdery, or did he translate correctly an original error on the part of Mormon, the abridger of the Book of Mormon? (The Problems of the Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1964, p. 203.)
Over the years, a few hundred deletions have also been made, primarily to improve the book grammatically. The most commonly eliminated have been the words that (188 times), the (48 times), it came to pass (46 times), a and and (40 times), and had (29 times).
Additions have been less numerous, probably less than one hundred. For example, of was added 12 times, and, is, and the 7 times. Some additions simply result from rearranging parts of a sentence or returning words inadvertently dropped in earlier editions. These are not “true” additions.
In a few places, however, Joseph Smith did intentionally add to the text to clarify a point. An illustration of this is the added words the son of in 1 Nephi 11:21, 32, and 13:40. The text would be correct with or without the additional words, but the addition helps the reader avoid misunderstanding.
The Concept of Correctness
Understanding the nature of the thousands of small changes in the Book of Mormon may be helpful and interesting. In reality, though, the kind of stylistic accuracy achieved by these changes has little to do with what Joseph meant when he called the Book of Mormon the “most correct of any book on earth.” (History of the Church, 4:461.) His concept of correctness had nothing to do with accepted standards of grammar, spelling, or punctuation. As Joseph Smith himself explained, the ultimate test of its correctness is in the lives of those who use its principles in their lives. Indeed, he promised that we can “get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” (History of the Church, 4:461.)
Disappearance of Hebraisms
It would seem that the corrections to the Book of Mormon even removed some hebraisms that could provide proof of the book's authenticity. John Tvedtnes notes:
The first edition of the Book of Mormon contains many more Hebraisms than later editions. Later editions, especially in 1837, 1840, and 1876, were edited to improve the English in areas where the text appeared to be awkward. Unfortunately, this destroyed some of the evidence for a Hebrew original.
Among others, he notes the following:
During the years 1968-71, I taught Hebrew at the University of Utah. My practice was to ask new students to respond to a questionnaire, giving some idea of their interests and linguistic background. One student wrote that she wanted to study Hebrew in order to prove the Book of Mormon was a fraud. She approached me after class to explain.
When I inquired why she felt the Book of Mormon was fraudulent, she stated that it was full of errors. I asked for an example. She drew my attention to Alma 46:19, where we read, "When Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent part of his garment in the air." She noted that in the 1830 edition (p. 351), this read simply "waving the rent of his garment." In English, the rent is the hole in the garment, not the piece torn out of the garment. Therefore, Moroni could not have waved it. This was an error, she contended, and adding the word part later was mere deception.
This was my first introduction to variations in different editions of the Book of Mormon. Without a Hebrew background, I might have been bothered by it. But the explanation was clear when I considered how Mormon would have written that sentence. Hebrew does not have to add the word part to a verbal substantive like rent as English requires. Thus, broken in Hebrew can refer to a broken thing or a broken part, while new can refer to a new thing. In the verse the student cited, rent would mean rent thing or rent part. Thus, the "error" she saw as evidence of fraud was really a Hebraism that was evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
Still Imperfections?
Professor Skousen, who, as indicated earlier, conducted an in‑depth study of the text, proposes other possible correction, two of which are as follows:
In Mosiah 17:13‑15: “And it came to pass that they took him and bound him, and scourged his skin with faggots, yea, even unto death. And now when the flames began to scorch him, he cried unto them saying: Behold, even as ye have done unto me, so shall it come to pass that thy seed shall cause that many shall suffer the pains that I suffer, even the pains of death by fire.” Pronunciation of the term scourged is almost the same as the word scorched, meaning superficially burned. Oliver may thus have heard the first instead of the second. Since the text immediately following this refers to flames and fire, the correct text should likely be scorched his skin with faggots.
In Helaman 6:37: “And it came to pass that the Lamanites did hunt the band of robbers of Gandianton; and they did preach the word of God among the more wicked part of them, insomuch that this band of robbers was utterly destroyed from among the Lamanites.” Logically, the text should read “the less wicked part of them,” but it is impossible to say whether this was a slip by Mormon or by Joseph Smith when he dictated the text.
Conclusion
Based on all this, it is clear that the changes made to the text of the Book of Mormon are all minor. None affects its meaning, and even less its doctrine. In the end, that is what is important.
SOURCES
Book of Mormon Critical Text, 2nd edition. F.A.R.M.S. 1987.
George Horton, “Understanding Textual Changes in the Book of Mormon”, Ensign. December 1983. pp. 25‑28
John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne, Eds., Rediscovering the Book of Mormon. Deseret Book and F.A.R.M.S. 1991, p. 78.
