I just turned 50 and all my life I've felt the gentle whisperings of the Spirit each time I read from the Book of Mormon that it is true. It just feels good, right, enlightening, loving, etc, and I never could understand how anybody could think that Joseph Smith or any other individual could have written it. For a number of years I had been feeling like I should make a recording of myself reading the Book of Mormon, then in the October 2011 General Conference when Elder Richard G. Scott mentioned that he had done that for his family as a Christmas present back in 1991 I decided again it was time to do the same thing. It took me a few years to finally begin, but I started earlier this year and I am now at the end of the Book of Ether. It's been very interesting to me how much more obvious it is that were many different authors/contributors each with their own unique writing styles when you read the book aloud, in a somewhat condensed period of time, while trying very carefully to not mess up. Thanks for a great article!
Irene Charters-BowenOctober 30, 2015
Brilliant way of studying, now lets get typing..
Thank you for your uplifting story
Nathan RichardsonOctober 29, 2015
SeattleMark, you can download the full text of the Book of Mormon in a single Word file from my website, on the Do-It-Yourself Scriptures page:
https://nathanrichardson.com/gospel/do-it-yourself/
I obtained the text from the official LDS scriptures CD-ROM sold in the Church Distribution Center. On that web page, you can also download the other standard works in stand-alone Word files, as well as the Book of Mormon text with all the punctuation removed.
(If you're handy with Word, the files also have a table of contents inserted, with coordinated heading and ToC styles, to make it easy to insert different levels of headings.)
SondraOctober 29, 2015
I have had a similar journey, though not with specific words. Two years ago I was in an institute class on the doctrine and covenants, and the question was asked: "how many of you can read the Book of Mormon in 90 days, let alone translate it in 90 days?" I was pregnant at the time with my first child and not working, so I took up the challenge to write the Book of Mormon out by hand with the initial intent of doing it in 90 days. Ninety days didn't happen, but I am amazed at details I'm catching, the emotional depth, that I never caught before. I've read it all the way through 8 or 9 times. But this project is helping me focus on what I'm reading, and I feel like I'm actually part of the story, that I'm there experiencing it myself. For instance, when alma goes to Ammonihah and meets Amulek and they are forced to watch the women and children burn, was Amulek's reaction of asking Alma to put forth his hand to stop it because his wife and children were to be burned? How did he feel after his father rejected him, and then his father was killed by the lamanites? This is only two situations among hundreds of such insight into these great men of the Book of Mormon.
RichardOctober 29, 2015
I really enjoyed this article. It is another testament of its authenticity, that Joseph Smith could not have written it from scratch in the short time he spent translating.
I found it amusing you went back to 1 Nephi. I think that happens to most people when they try to read it through. I know it was not for the same reasons, but it was still a funny moment.
DEMOctober 28, 2015
SeattleMark, Project Gutenberg has the complete text of the Book of Mormon on a single web page. Hopefully this link will appear and work for you. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17/17-h/17-h.htm
Jennifer ButlerOctober 28, 2015
Here is a website you can get several different Text versions of the Book of Mormon. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17
Nicol LegakisOctober 28, 2015
Excellent insight. Thank you.
KristyProvoOctober 27, 2015
SeattleMark- you can go to LDS.org and have a free digital copy of the Book of Mormon in Many languages, including ASL and audio versions. You can listen to it on the mormonchannel app or the LDS tools app. :)
NaomiOctober 27, 2015
SeattleMark, the full text of the Book of Mormon can be found here https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng
It isn't in Word format but each chapter can be switched into printable format for easy copy-and-pasting or opened as a PDF or you can download the whole thing, or individual chapters.
SeattleMarkOctober 27, 2015
Where might I obtain the full text of the Book of Mormon (perhaps as a MSWord document)? I would like to study it in some other ways. Thanks.
KOctober 27, 2015
I really wonder how the translation plays into this. When a document is translated, the translator has to choice a voice, a writing style and make many word choices in which there is not one correct answer. Does Joseph Smith every say that he was given the exact words of the BoM? Because the style definitely fits into an academic style of the time, which you can see if you compare to some history books. I'd be curious to see how this "unique word" experiment applies to other documents which are authored by various authors but translated by one translator.
Richard ThurmanOctober 27, 2015
There have been multiple academic evaluations of unique "wordprints" in the Book of Mormon that substantiate these findings. This is only one evidence of multiple authorship in the Book of Mormon.
You could also mention Hebrew literary techniques such as chiasmas, parrelellism, grammer, unique names and other evidences of authenticity of which Joseph Smith would not have been aware.
Mark ChristiansenOctober 27, 2015
Great article. It's hard to prove something like the Book of Mormon is true to skeptics. But if it is true, and Joseph Smith's story about it is true, then there will be plenty of evidence of that, as you have found. Hugh Nibley's Book of Mormon lectures are another example that comes to mind - tons of evidence that it's all true.
Sasha Bill KwapinskiOctober 26, 2015
What is all the more remarkable is that, while it took you a year and a half to complete your typing project of the Book of Mormon, it took Joseph Smith (working with scribes) only about sixty five days to translate it. In comparison, it took 42 biblical scholars 7 years to complete the king James Bible, and they were working in languages which they already knew (Latin. Greek, and Hebrew), plus they also had earlier English translations (Tyndale) to work with.
churchistrueOctober 26, 2015
If you do google book search for those phrases for time period 1770 to 1830, you'll find hits for all those. I believe that kind of language was common for the time in the Protestant Christian world Joseph lived in. That of course doesn't change that fact that the Book of Mormon is inspired, but it might give us insight into how it came about.
Randy CookOctober 26, 2015
Many years ago while preparing to teach my Gospel Doctrine class I actually made brass plates the engraved Hebrew and Nauvoo Alphabet characters. References in the Book of Mormon to making plates of ore and using care to record only events of significant importance (1 Nephi 19:1-6), and using Reformed Egyptian as the short hand language (Morm. 9:32-33) all became very significant to me after that experience. The Book of Mormon is the authentic record it claims to be. The more I know about the book the more I know it is true.
Tom JohnsonOctober 26, 2015
Thanks for all your work in studying the Book of Mormon. You are fulfilling Jesus' commandment to "search the scriptures", not just read them.
Nancy ArdmoreOctober 26, 2015
Thank you for this insightful article. I found the same thing happened to me while my husband and I were on a Spanish speaking mission. I started reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish. I had learned Spanish on my mission so I was still a baby in ability. As I read the book in Spanish a remarkable thing happened. I could tell where the beginnings and endings of different writers were by the difficulty of the Spanish in reading. Some speakers were easy to understand, and some used big words, and wordy sentences that made me have to read over and over again. When I had finished the Book of Mormon the first time in Spanish I was completely convinced that the book had been written by multiple writers. It served to make my testimony of that remarkable book that much stronger, and it served to increase my love of the Book of Mormon. Thanks for the idea of typing the Book of Mormon, I might try that.
jenniOctober 26, 2015
amazing article. i love that you discovered this...i could always tell the voices of the authors of those books, but didn't clarify it like you did. what scripture program did you use? where can i find that? thank you for your article and any help you can give me.
AlvarodrOctober 26, 2015
great thank you very much
Ronald KjarOctober 26, 2015
I've observed, I believe, the same thing with respect to Isaiah and others in the Old Testament. I would be curious to know how the vocabulary and writing style of Isaiah compares to the Savior's vocabulary and sentence structure. I have a feeling that they'll be similar.
DannyOctober 26, 2015
Very interesting -- but didn't Mormon write the last chapter of Mosiah and the first chapter of Alma? How the BoM compiler/editor used the texts before him is something that needs to be explained.
Harold RustOctober 26, 2015
Thanks for opening up a new and unique way of pondering the rich history of authorship for the Book of Mormon. These are the kind of things that can't be made up because the words are the essence of the Book and the words had to come from some mortal--who wrote under inspiration but never-the-less was a mortal.
Comments | Return to Story
ShawnOctober 30, 2015
I just turned 50 and all my life I've felt the gentle whisperings of the Spirit each time I read from the Book of Mormon that it is true. It just feels good, right, enlightening, loving, etc, and I never could understand how anybody could think that Joseph Smith or any other individual could have written it. For a number of years I had been feeling like I should make a recording of myself reading the Book of Mormon, then in the October 2011 General Conference when Elder Richard G. Scott mentioned that he had done that for his family as a Christmas present back in 1991 I decided again it was time to do the same thing. It took me a few years to finally begin, but I started earlier this year and I am now at the end of the Book of Ether. It's been very interesting to me how much more obvious it is that were many different authors/contributors each with their own unique writing styles when you read the book aloud, in a somewhat condensed period of time, while trying very carefully to not mess up. Thanks for a great article!
Irene Charters-BowenOctober 30, 2015
Brilliant way of studying, now lets get typing.. Thank you for your uplifting story
Nathan RichardsonOctober 29, 2015
SeattleMark, you can download the full text of the Book of Mormon in a single Word file from my website, on the Do-It-Yourself Scriptures page: https://nathanrichardson.com/gospel/do-it-yourself/ I obtained the text from the official LDS scriptures CD-ROM sold in the Church Distribution Center. On that web page, you can also download the other standard works in stand-alone Word files, as well as the Book of Mormon text with all the punctuation removed. (If you're handy with Word, the files also have a table of contents inserted, with coordinated heading and ToC styles, to make it easy to insert different levels of headings.)
SondraOctober 29, 2015
I have had a similar journey, though not with specific words. Two years ago I was in an institute class on the doctrine and covenants, and the question was asked: "how many of you can read the Book of Mormon in 90 days, let alone translate it in 90 days?" I was pregnant at the time with my first child and not working, so I took up the challenge to write the Book of Mormon out by hand with the initial intent of doing it in 90 days. Ninety days didn't happen, but I am amazed at details I'm catching, the emotional depth, that I never caught before. I've read it all the way through 8 or 9 times. But this project is helping me focus on what I'm reading, and I feel like I'm actually part of the story, that I'm there experiencing it myself. For instance, when alma goes to Ammonihah and meets Amulek and they are forced to watch the women and children burn, was Amulek's reaction of asking Alma to put forth his hand to stop it because his wife and children were to be burned? How did he feel after his father rejected him, and then his father was killed by the lamanites? This is only two situations among hundreds of such insight into these great men of the Book of Mormon.
RichardOctober 29, 2015
I really enjoyed this article. It is another testament of its authenticity, that Joseph Smith could not have written it from scratch in the short time he spent translating. I found it amusing you went back to 1 Nephi. I think that happens to most people when they try to read it through. I know it was not for the same reasons, but it was still a funny moment.
DEMOctober 28, 2015
SeattleMark, Project Gutenberg has the complete text of the Book of Mormon on a single web page. Hopefully this link will appear and work for you. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17/17-h/17-h.htm
Jennifer ButlerOctober 28, 2015
Here is a website you can get several different Text versions of the Book of Mormon. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17
Nicol LegakisOctober 28, 2015
Excellent insight. Thank you.
KristyProvoOctober 27, 2015
SeattleMark- you can go to LDS.org and have a free digital copy of the Book of Mormon in Many languages, including ASL and audio versions. You can listen to it on the mormonchannel app or the LDS tools app. :)
NaomiOctober 27, 2015
SeattleMark, the full text of the Book of Mormon can be found here https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng It isn't in Word format but each chapter can be switched into printable format for easy copy-and-pasting or opened as a PDF or you can download the whole thing, or individual chapters.
SeattleMarkOctober 27, 2015
Where might I obtain the full text of the Book of Mormon (perhaps as a MSWord document)? I would like to study it in some other ways. Thanks.
KOctober 27, 2015
I really wonder how the translation plays into this. When a document is translated, the translator has to choice a voice, a writing style and make many word choices in which there is not one correct answer. Does Joseph Smith every say that he was given the exact words of the BoM? Because the style definitely fits into an academic style of the time, which you can see if you compare to some history books. I'd be curious to see how this "unique word" experiment applies to other documents which are authored by various authors but translated by one translator.
Richard ThurmanOctober 27, 2015
There have been multiple academic evaluations of unique "wordprints" in the Book of Mormon that substantiate these findings. This is only one evidence of multiple authorship in the Book of Mormon. You could also mention Hebrew literary techniques such as chiasmas, parrelellism, grammer, unique names and other evidences of authenticity of which Joseph Smith would not have been aware.
Mark ChristiansenOctober 27, 2015
Great article. It's hard to prove something like the Book of Mormon is true to skeptics. But if it is true, and Joseph Smith's story about it is true, then there will be plenty of evidence of that, as you have found. Hugh Nibley's Book of Mormon lectures are another example that comes to mind - tons of evidence that it's all true.
Sasha Bill KwapinskiOctober 26, 2015
What is all the more remarkable is that, while it took you a year and a half to complete your typing project of the Book of Mormon, it took Joseph Smith (working with scribes) only about sixty five days to translate it. In comparison, it took 42 biblical scholars 7 years to complete the king James Bible, and they were working in languages which they already knew (Latin. Greek, and Hebrew), plus they also had earlier English translations (Tyndale) to work with.
churchistrueOctober 26, 2015
If you do google book search for those phrases for time period 1770 to 1830, you'll find hits for all those. I believe that kind of language was common for the time in the Protestant Christian world Joseph lived in. That of course doesn't change that fact that the Book of Mormon is inspired, but it might give us insight into how it came about.
Randy CookOctober 26, 2015
Many years ago while preparing to teach my Gospel Doctrine class I actually made brass plates the engraved Hebrew and Nauvoo Alphabet characters. References in the Book of Mormon to making plates of ore and using care to record only events of significant importance (1 Nephi 19:1-6), and using Reformed Egyptian as the short hand language (Morm. 9:32-33) all became very significant to me after that experience. The Book of Mormon is the authentic record it claims to be. The more I know about the book the more I know it is true.
Tom JohnsonOctober 26, 2015
Thanks for all your work in studying the Book of Mormon. You are fulfilling Jesus' commandment to "search the scriptures", not just read them.
Nancy ArdmoreOctober 26, 2015
Thank you for this insightful article. I found the same thing happened to me while my husband and I were on a Spanish speaking mission. I started reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish. I had learned Spanish on my mission so I was still a baby in ability. As I read the book in Spanish a remarkable thing happened. I could tell where the beginnings and endings of different writers were by the difficulty of the Spanish in reading. Some speakers were easy to understand, and some used big words, and wordy sentences that made me have to read over and over again. When I had finished the Book of Mormon the first time in Spanish I was completely convinced that the book had been written by multiple writers. It served to make my testimony of that remarkable book that much stronger, and it served to increase my love of the Book of Mormon. Thanks for the idea of typing the Book of Mormon, I might try that.
jenniOctober 26, 2015
amazing article. i love that you discovered this...i could always tell the voices of the authors of those books, but didn't clarify it like you did. what scripture program did you use? where can i find that? thank you for your article and any help you can give me.
AlvarodrOctober 26, 2015
great thank you very much
Ronald KjarOctober 26, 2015
I've observed, I believe, the same thing with respect to Isaiah and others in the Old Testament. I would be curious to know how the vocabulary and writing style of Isaiah compares to the Savior's vocabulary and sentence structure. I have a feeling that they'll be similar.
DannyOctober 26, 2015
Very interesting -- but didn't Mormon write the last chapter of Mosiah and the first chapter of Alma? How the BoM compiler/editor used the texts before him is something that needs to be explained.
Harold RustOctober 26, 2015
Thanks for opening up a new and unique way of pondering the rich history of authorship for the Book of Mormon. These are the kind of things that can't be made up because the words are the essence of the Book and the words had to come from some mortal--who wrote under inspiration but never-the-less was a mortal.
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