The Book of Mormon , Joseph Smith
4 min read
One of the miracles of the Restoration of the Gospel includes the mechanical process that generated the 269,528 words of the Book of Mormon text. Joseph Smith used the seer stone in a way he never explained and dictated the words to his scribes, who recorded them with quills.
Royal Skousen, a BYU professor and the foremost expert on the original Book of Mormon manuscripts, estimates that the number of words in the blocks of recited text was “20 to 30.” Once recorded, David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon, explained that “the scribe would then read the prayer” so that Joseph could assess its accuracy. Whitmer also recalled, “They worked from morning till night. It was slow work, and only a few pages could be written each day.”
Start where you left off
The Prophet dictated without using notes or external resources. Emma Smith recounted that “nowhere did Joseph Smith have any manuscript or of any kind from which to read or dictate.”
One striking detail describes Joseph Smith's behavior after taking a break. Emma recounted, “Upon returning from meals, or after interruptions, he would immediately begin from where he had left off, without seeing the manuscript or having any part of it read to him. That was habitual for him.” Emma then offered her opinion: “It would have been improbable for an educated man to do this, and for someone with such little education as he, it was simply impossible.” Award-winning novelist Orson Scott Card concurs: “Joseph Smith never asked the scribe to read the part where he had left off. That is a miracle. I cannot do that. No writer I know can.” Card continued, “Even after a day, I must go back and reread several pages before I begin writing again.”
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Between April 7 and the end of June 1829, Joseph Smith dictated nearly 270,000 words that became the printed version of the Book of Mormon in 1830. Once the manuscript was finished, a copy was made and sent directly to the printer. For Jack Kelly, a blogger for the Huffington Post, the fact that Joseph Smith “did not revise a single word before its first printing,” in his own words, “ was astonishing.”
The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon contained no punctuation, but the printers divided the vast string of words into 6,974 sentences. To this day, those sentences remain in the same order in which they were dictated, with one exception. A typographical error juxtaposed two sentences that are now Alma 11:18–19. The printed manuscript presents the sentences in reverse order.
Joseph Smith's efforts are all the more impressive because the average sentence length in the Book of Mormon is nearly twice that found in popular literature. Most novels range from 10 to 20 words per sentence, compared to the Book of Mormon's 42.5. So, to put it in perspective, Joseph Smith's sentence count could possibly double to 14,000 sentences, all published without altering his dictated sequence.
Repeating Joseph Smith's efforts today
Joseph Smith consistently recounted that the Book of Mormon was translated “by the gift and power of God.” Recent technological advances allow us to attempt to replicate his achievement.
Today, we routinely use apps that convert our voice into text messages on our cell phones to send to friends and family. If we wanted to replicate Joseph Smith's effort, all we would have to do is let our cell phones transcribe our words (in place of the writer Oliver Cowdery) and dictate approximately 10,000 text messages of 20-30 words each, one after the other. We would then be allowed to make some grammar and spelling corrections, but the order or meaning of any sentence would not be altered. We also wouldn't be able to review previous messages as we spoke each new sentence. Furthermore, the resulting text would have to include eloquent, religious prose like that found in the Book of Mormon, along with complex narratives, arguments, locations, and geographical movements. Super easy, right?
Article originally written by Brian C. Hales and published on ldsliving.com with the title “ Why Joseph Smith's Dictation of the Book of Mormon Is Simply Jaw-Dropping ”
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