🔃 BoM Changes¶
Estimated time to read: 14 minutes
I’ve seen the claim that 100,000+ changes have been made to the BoM over time. That figure would be a lot more impressive if it wasn't suspiciously round. Fortunately for us, we can see them enumerated or tabulated.
As far as I know, Joseph’s scribes for the first edition did not have education to add in punctuation or meaningful sentence structure. I don’t know what proportion of those changes are for punctuation marks.
That doesn’t account for all of the changes, though.
We can read the 1830 edition for ourselves, no less. The formatting makes it a bit rough, but it can be done.
Since the 1837 version, the Church has published five additional major editions of the Book of Mormon, all of which included slight changes to improve the clarity of the text. The Church’s Scripture Committee is responsible for overseeing the editing process. They research corrections brought to their attention and then make recommendations. All recommendations and any subsequent changes are approved by the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the highest governing body of the Church.
Almost 4,000 editing corrections have been made to the Book of Mormon since the first publication in 1830. For example: the word which has been changed to who 891 times; was has been changed to were 162 times; and the word that has been deleted 188 times. Other examples involve mistakes in the transcription process. While Joseph Smith and a scribe were translating in the book of Alma, for instance, the scribe misheard Joseph and wrote the word whether instead of wither. This mistake, which was included in the first edition, changed the complexion of the sentence and caused confusion among readers. Each correction that has been made has aimed at aligning the text with the original translation.
— Understanding the Process of Publishing the Book of Mormon, Church Newsroom, January 2008
A Scripture Committee? That's something I'd like to read more about. The Church itself is describing "almost 4,000 editing corrections," which makes me think we have an officially sanctioned count and enumeration of those changes. That's also something I'd like to read more about.
What's this? Five major editions? Reader, if you were to grab your printed copy of the Book of Mormon, look through the cover & title pages and let me know if you can find which edition it is. Seems to me that if there were multiple editions, the least the church could do is tell you that upfront.
2013¶
I'll be real; early 2013 is when I entered the missionary training center in Provo Utah. Imagine my surprise when, out on the mission field, I'm told there's a new edition of the Book of Mormon. I had no idea until a Zone Conference, when the message was a very muttering-under-breath "here's the new version, don't worry about it, just hand out the old ones and the replacements will be this edition."
This wasn't a real game changer for me, but it really did put some weight on the shelf. It wasn't until 2024 that I found a document published by the LDS church describing those adjustments. Good on them for delineating the changes. To date, I haven't looked for found other documents from the LDS church itself that outline changes.
What really bothered me as a missionary is the idea that any of these changes were necessary in the first place. Wasn't it the most correct book? The edition I grew up with was the 1980-something print, as I understand it. Have grammar rules changed that drastically since then? The English language has developed since 1830, no doubt there. Comparing the 1830 print to 2013 seems less fair, but... that does raise the question of how divinely inspired is a book of scripture that needs to be edited and adjusted after it's already been printed and distributed? Was its "most correct" condition only applicable to 19th century readers? Wasn't it written for our day? Did God's teachings change? Does God not understand English sentence structure and punctuation? Or did the prophets and scribes misrepresent God's words the first however-many times around?
Intro Page¶
| Pre-2006 | Post-2006 |
|---|---|
| …the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians | …the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians |
Why did this get changed? Could it be due to criticism that Native American DNA shows little to no connection to the Middle East? If so, that suggests that the church isn’t going to double down on this claim.
He said there was a book deposited written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fullness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it as delivered by the Saviour to the ancient inhabitants.
— History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], p. 5, The Joseph Smith Papers
See also Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith in the intro section of the Book of Mormon.
Joseph asserts that Lamanites are “the former inhabitants” of this continent. Did that change? Was he wrong?
The evidence assembled to date suggests that the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA. Scientists theorize that in an era that predated Book of Mormon accounts, a relatively small group of people migrated from northeast Asia to the Americas by way of a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska. These people, scientists say, spread rapidly to fill North and South America and were likely the primary ancestors of modern American Indians.
— Gospel Topics Essay: Book of Mormon and DNA Studies
Holy scripture records that “after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof.” (Ether 13:2.) Such a special place needed now to be kept apart from other regions, free from the indiscriminate traveler as well as the soldier of fortune. To guarantee such sanctity the very surface of the earth was rent. In response to God’s decree, the great continents separated and the ocean rushed in to surround them. The promised place was set apart. Without habitation it waited for the fulfillment of God’s special purposes.
With care and selectivity, the Lord began almost at once to repeople the promised land. The Jaredites came first, with stories of the great flood fresh in their memories...
— A Promised Land, Jeffrey R Holland, Ensign, June 1976
So... The land was "without habitation." I suppose the interpretation here is that since the Jaredite extinction, Lehi's descendants are the sole progenitors of all Native Americans?
What Nephi sees¶
| 1830 | 2023 |
|---|---|
| And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh. (Link) | And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh. (Link) |
| And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father! (Link) | And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! (Link) |
| And I looked and beheld the Lamb of God, that he was taken by the people; yea, the Everlasting God, was judged of the world; (Link) | And I looked and beheld the Lamb of God, that he was taken by the people; yea, the Son of the everlasting God was judged of the world; (Link) |
| These last records . . . shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world; (Link) | These last records...shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; (Link) |
| One could fuss over the punctuation changes in those passages, but... let's be honest with ourselves— if you weren't looking for them, you wouldn't have even noticed the removed commas. |
FAIR explains these changes as "clarifications." Possibly, sure, but you'd think identifying God would be something you'd get right the first time around. The only way God would be ambiguous is if this text was fabricated transcribed by someone with a trinitarian view of deity.
Moreover, in the chapters surrounding these excerpts of visions shown to Nephi, the text does use the phrases God the Father, the Lamb of God, and the Son of God. Meaning, each of those phrases were used in the same context. Were they referring to the same individual by three separate titles? If so, I'd find that confusing and a real cop-out explanation.
24 . . . and I beheld the Son of God going forth among the children of men;
31 . . . and I beheld the Lamb of God going forth. . .
Same chapter, same page.
Yes, Jesus has been referred to by many titles throughout the ages, some more majestic or symbolic than others. That's not the issue. The 1837 edition uses titles for God that we, today, use for Jesus. Those other verses are relevant for contrast when Nephi (or Joseph) got it right, when in the above table, the author got it wrong.
Perfection!¶
In preparing for this conference address, I had the glorious experience of quietly examining several pages of Joseph’s original manuscript of the Book of Mormon, which is safely protected in the Church archive. I was overwhelmed at the purity of the transcription, which had only a very few insignificant corrections, such as a misspelled word. Joseph’s original manuscript is so perfect it could only have come from one source—divine revelation.
— The Translation Miracle of the Book of Mormon, Elder Robert K. Dellenbach Of the Seventy, General Conference April 1995
Now... Maybe Elder Dellenbach and I have a different understanding of the word "perfect". But for two adjacent sentences to first acknowledge flaws, even if insignificant, and immediately after assert perfection... doesn't sit right with me.
That discrepancy aside, calling the original manuscripts perfect makes me think that no further changes would be necessary. Is that unreasonable?
Godhead¶
For the LDS church to tout its non-trinitarian view of the godhead, there sure seems to be some trinitarian views in our flagship scripture.
Now Zeezrom saith again unto him: Is the Son of God the very Eternal Father?
And Amulek said unto him: Yea, he is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last;
And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.
And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son –
The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son –
*And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.*
Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters.
And never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, for never has man believed in me as thou hast. Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image? Yea, even all men were created in the beginning after mine own image.
Teach them that redemption cometh through Christ the Lord, who is the very Eternal Father. Amen.
If I am to believe that Joseph saw God the Father & Jesus, physically, separate, distinct entities, side by side, in the year 1820 (according to the 1838 account), why would Joseph propagate the idea that they're one being? Isn't this meant to be what convinced people that the LDS faith is true & legit? Meaning, the idea of the Book of Mormon's truth necessarily leads us to conclude that Joseph was a prophet, and that lineage is traced all the way to Russel M Nelson in 2023? And we can't identify God?
Enumeration of Changes¶
After some internet scrounging, I've encountered a useful comparison of Book of Mormon editions, found here in Dropbox. I've saved a local copy, in case this link does dark for whatever reason.
It looks to be the work of one /u/spencecopper, so shoutout to him for putting it together.
Here are some notes from his post:
[I] was able to get a text copy of the 1830's version (from the Joseph Smith Papers Project) and with a fairly simple algorithm it separated it into verses leaving only a few hundred for me to check manually.
I've included the raw text of the 1830's and current version, as well as 4 different version's for easier viewing:
- There is the full version which includes all changes, including punctuation.
- A version which shows words that have changed but ignores capitalization and punctuation.
- Two versions where it only shows the major changes, one with the full BoM text and the other with only the verses with major changes. Major changes count as something which is 57 % or less similar to each other. And it also ignores several of the favorite changes such as is changed to are, etc.
Deletions are highlighted in RED and additions are highlighted in BLUE.
Feel free to draw what conclusions you want yourself. There is about 16k changes from the 1830's to current version. Most of this is spelling, grammatical, punctuation, capitalization, and word choice. Some of these could have been introduced by the printer, a lot of them seem to be introduced by someone who wasn't a very good writer. Skimming the changes really gives you a sense of how even poorer written it was when it was first published. A lot has been changed as to not trigger a grammar Nazi into a fit of rage. For example if you though "and it came to pass" was repetitive now, so did someone else and they removed 40 of those instances.
The Dropbox folder has some docx, pdf, featuring the highlighted changes, and txt files with the raw, unformatted contents.
I popped those raw texts into Beyond Compare, since it allowed for more flexible comparisons, such as ignoring case, e.g. "And it came to pass" vs "and it came to pass" syntactically does count as a change, but practically I find those inconsequential.
Once I spend more time on the comparison, I'll look for a way to share my findings here. I intend to describe the enumeration of changes that I see, and actually parse out which of the 16k changes that I would subjectively call meaningful. Meanwhile, you now have the same links I do.