BIBLE |
One of the standard anti-Mormon charges against the Joseph Smith is that he plagiarized the Bible when writing the Book of Mormon. The argument was first introduced by Alexander Campbell (in the first anti-Mormon work) and has been included in most anti-Mormon works since. Because the Book of Mormon does have several verses which are identical or nearly identical to passages from the King James Version Bible, critics have insisted that Joseph Smith merely copied from the Bible when dictating the Book of Mormon.
The term “plagiarism” needs a closer look. “According to Webster plagiarism is ‘ 1. the appropriation or imitation of the language, ideas, and thoughts of another author, and representation of them as one’s original work.’ Well, that would let Joseph Smith off the hook, since he never claimed the Book of Mormon as his own work.“ (Tom Nibley,, 279.) Tom Nibley points out that Jerald & Sandra Tanner (anti-Mormons) claim that 2 Nephi 15:12 was “‘plagiarized from Isaiah 5:12 in the Bible.’” (ibid.) Tom comments:
Sounds very studious, doesn’t it? But what does a complete examination reveal? This verse happens to appear in the midst of a section that starts, “And now I write some of the words of Isaiah, that whoso of my people shall see these words may lift up their hearts and rejoice for all men. Now these are the words, and ye may liken them unto you and unto all men” (2 Nephi 11:8). There follow a number of chapters that certainly do seem to be from Isaiah, and includes the quote the Tanners say is plagiarized. Then we find, “Now I, Nephi, do speak somewhat concerning the words which I have written, which have been spoken by the mouth of Isaiah” (2 Nephi 25:1). Well! I never! Not only to plagiarize the Bible, but to have the unmitigated gall to announce blatantly that he is doing so! Now that the Tanners have been so kind as to redefine the word for us, I hope their readers will do their Christian Duty and, the next time they hear their minister quote a scripture or use a phrase like “wages of sin,” or “charity never faileth,” march themselves right up to the pulpit and have that awful man denounced, debunked, defrocked, dismissed, and destroyed for the terrible crime of plagiarism! (Ibid.)
Elsewhere the Tanners note that it is not so much that he used Bible passages that bothers them, but rather, “What we do object to is Smith appropriating Bible verses and stories into his own works . . . and claiming that he is translating from ancient documents.” (Tanner & Tanner, 1994, 140.). Hebrew scholar, John Tvedtnes, replies: “Ironically, what they describe is precisely what the translators of the King James Bible did.”
Written instructions to the King James Bible translation committee told them to revise the Bishop’s Bible (largely a revision of William Tyndale’s translation) rather than to begin a new translation, but to make any necessary corrections based on the Hebrew and Greek. After the work had begun, the translators were given permission to consult the translations of Tyndale, Coverdale, and Geneva, and to use their wording “when they agree better with the text” of the Hebrew and Greek. They were also instructed to retain familiar passages “as they were vulgarly used.” But the committee also referred to Spanish, French, Italian, and German translations, as also to the Vulgate and other Latin versions, the Syriac New Testament and the Aramaic Targum, and even to the new English Catholic Rheims-Douay Bible, from which they took some Latin terms (e.g., “firmament”) that had been left untranslated from the Vulgate.
Though archaic, Tyndale’s English was retained in the King James Bible, of which 90% comes from Tyndale (e.g., “lylies of the field” in Matthew 6:28, despite the fact that lilies are not meant). In some cases, Tyndale’s wording was kept but some key terms changed (e.g., “love” changed to “charity”). In other cases where the Bishop’s Bible had changed Tyndale’s wording, KJV returned to the original. So the King James Bible is blatant “plagiarism.” The revised Bible versions produced at the turn of the century in the U.S. and Great Britain were produced in the same manner. So Joseph Smith did nothing different from what the KJV translators had done. (Tvedtnes, 1994b, 232-33.)
Tvedtnes also notes that “There is ‘plagiarism’ in the ancient Bible texts as well. Anyone who knows the Bible well is aware that Isaiah 2:24 parallels Micah 4:13. We cannot be sure which of these prophets was quoting the other, but it is significant that neither gives credit to the other. Should we apply the Tanners’ standards for plagiarism to these Bible passages as well?” (Ibid., n.45.)
Davis Bitton, Ph.D., also points out that the improper use of the term “plagiarism” by those who attack the Book of Mormon. “Using another’s work without acknowledgment,” he writes “and presenting it as your own is the general meaning of plagiarism. In a sense it is theft; it is certainly dishonest. ...But is that what is going on when the Book of Mormon quotes biblical passages? Was Joseph Smith indeed trying to claim that he, not Jesus, was the author of the Beatitudes? [see 3 Nephi] Was he trying to pretend that the beautiful prose of the Authorized Version was for the first time being produced by him? How foolish, then, to draw his quotations from the single work most familiar to the public in his lifetime! What intelligent reader of the Bible would fail to notice? If footnotes had been part of the apparatus of the original 1830 publication, most certainly he would have noted at the appropriate places: ‘Here I am using the most widely accepted English translation, the King James version, changing it only when I notice that it varies from the engravings before me.’ Far from making an effort to conceal this relationship, as notes were added they called attention to the biblical passages that are quoted in the Book of Mormon.” (Bitton, 3-4.)
How then do we account for the obvious parallels between the KJV Bible and the Book of Mormon? As for the fact that the Book of Mormon is written King James English, see my related article. As for the fact that the Book of Mormon often appears to quote the KJV Bible, I currently see seven possibilities:
1) Joseph Smith is the sole author of the Book of Mormon and included biblical passage when it fit his narrative. Bible passages were lifted by having the scriptures in hand while dictating the Book of Mormon.
2) Same as above, however: Bible passages were memorized then included into the Book of Mormon at opportune times.
3) Variation of above. Joseph Smith had an uncanny memory (photographic perhaps) and had the recall of Biblical passages at his fingertips.
4) Joseph Smith received the Book of Mormon from God-- word for word-- and the KJV passages in the Book of Mormon reflect Joseph Smith’s revelation in the vernacular and idioms which God elected to reveal to Joseph Smith.
5) Joseph Smith received the Book of Mormon from God according to his own understanding of biblical language (KJV), and turned to the Bible as an aid in translating. When the Bible appeared to harmonize with the impressions he understood the Book of Mormon conveyed, he opted for quoting the KJV.
6) Variation of 3 & 5. Joseph Smith did not have a Bible by his side during dictation. When Joseph Smith encountered passages which were similar in idea to those already expressed in the KJV, he included these passages, drawing upon his extraordinary memory.
7) Variation of above. God empowered Joseph Smith with an extraordinary memory of Biblical passages while translating, thereby suggesting that God approved of the included biblical passages as accurately expressing the ideas contained in the Book of Mormon (this does not suggest that these passages need be entirely accurate, but rather that the point of such verses were accurately portrayed).
Personally, I lean to explanations 4-7, and since the exclusion of explanations 1-3 would have to result in a favorable conclusion for issues 4-7, this article will deal only with the first three options. Options 4-7 are dealt with in my KJV and the Book of Mormon Translation.
#1
Joseph Smith is the sole author of the Book of Mormon and included biblical passage when it fit his narrative. Bible passages were lifted by having the scriptures in hand while dictating the Book of Mormon.
For this explanation to fit at least two ingredients must be present. 1) Joseph Smith must have either owned or had immediate and continuous access to the Bible during the dictation; 2) The Bible would have to have been next to Joseph during his dictation. And if indeed, Joseph sponged quotations from the Bible, “how much of the Book of Mormon,” asks Stephen Ricks asks, “would thus be ‘explained’? A half? A third? A fourth? I doubt even close to that much. So how is the rest of the book to be accounted for? From Joseph Smith’s imagination, that simply overflowed ‘like a spring freshet’? Or is he a naive and unimaginative plagiarist who can’t even recognize how he’s giving the game away when he incorporates into the Book of Mormon an endless string of New Testament phrases and anachronistic passages from the Old Testament? Or is he part creative genius, part plagiarist? And does this account square with the evidence given by those who knew him best while he was translating the Book of Mormon? ...we have yet to see one [theory] that accounts for the evidence of the Book of Mormon better and more completely than the traditional explanation or the Book of Mormon’s internal claims. (Ricks, 1992, 250.)
Concerning the question as to whether Joseph Smith owned a bible, Gee observes, “Granted that Joseph’s parents owned a Bible when he was growing up, why would the family Bible go with Joseph when he left home to set up his own household in Harmony, Pennsylvania? The translation period was one of marked poverty when Joseph sometimes could not even afford paper or food. Joseph’s own Bible was purchased from Egbert B. Grandin on 8 October 1829, thus after the translation of the Book of Mormon and during its printing.” (Gee, 1994, 100-101.) It is possible that Joseph had a Bible, but there is no indication that he did. It is also possible, however, that he had immediate access to a Bible. The second ingredient, that Joseph had the Bible next to him during translating, and he drew upon it during dictation is virtually untenable. In an 1879 interview, Emma Smith (Joseph’s wife) was asked by her son some questions regarding the Book of Mormon translation.
In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us. Q. Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you? A. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from. Q. Could he not have had, and you not know it? A. If he had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me. Q. Are you sure that he had the plates at the time you were writing for him? A. The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book. Q. Where did father and Oliver Cowdery write? A. Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work. Q. Could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him, after having first written it, or having first read it out of some book? A. Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter; let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, and was present during the translation of the plates, and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, “a marvel and a wonder” as much so as to any one else. (Skousen, 1990, 51.)
Likewise, David Whitmer denied that Joseph used the Bible while translating. In an interview with the Chicago Times the reporter wrote: “Mr. Whitmer emphatically asserts as did Harris and Cowdery, that while Smith was dictating the translation he had no manuscript notes or other means of knowledge save the seer stone and the characters as shown on the plates, he being present and cognizant how it was done.” (Cook, 76.) Whitmer was an excommunicated Mormon at this time, and although he never rejoined the Church, he never denied his testimony. All other testimonies of those who witnessed Joseph’s methods in translating never mention the use of the Bible or any other manuscripts. One interview with David Whitmer recorded: “Father Whitmer, who was present very frequently during the writing of this manuscript affirms that Joseph Smith had no book or manuscript, before him from which he could have read as is asserted by some that he did, he (Whitmer) having every opportunity to know....” (Ibid., 139-40.) Some may suggest that any witnesses may not have seen Joseph using reference material because he was hidden behind a curtain. John Welch, however, has demonstrated that the curtain was apparently only used with Martin Harris, and that Joseph often translating in plain view of others. (Welch, 1990, 133-4.) Welch also adds:
While many often assume that Joseph covertly took out his copy of the King James Bible and worked from it when he came to the Isaiah and Sermon on the Mount materials in the Book of Mormon, the following testimonies of people who intimately assisted Joseph Smith in the transcription process and routinely watched him work give evidence that such a thing did not occur. Emma Smith, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, William Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, Elizabeth Anne Whitmer Cowdery Johnson, Michael Morse, Sarah Heller Conrad, Isaac Hale, Reuben Hale, and Joseph Knight, Sr., all left historical comments on what they knew of how Joseph worked when translating the Book of Mormon. None of their statements mentions anything about the use of a Bible or allows room for it. (Ibid., 131.)
It is impossible, in light of the many testimonies, to believe that Joseph had a Bible or other material by his side which he used when dictating the Book of Mormon. Tom Nibley, reviews the claim (made by the Tanners and others) that Joseph Smith was “holding a King James Version of the Bible in his hand when he produced it [the Book of Mormon].” (Tanner & Tanner, 1990, 81.)
First, to get a feel for the work, let’s take a look at Joseph, hunched over his Bible, frantically turning pages as he tries to find something that will go with “Wherefore, beloved brethren...,” which he has just dictated to Oliver Cowdery. Finally his eye alights on 2 Corinthians 5:20, which says, in part, “. . . be ye reconciled to God.” “That works!” he cries to himself, and to Oliver he dictates, “. . . be reconciled unto him . . . ,” keeping two of the words in the phrase exactly the same and the other words pretty close. He breezes through the next five words unassisted, but hits a stone wall after “through the atonement of Christ.” What to say? what to say? . . . Suddenly inspiration strikes--he’ll use a synonymous repetition! (Shall we let him cheat a little here? Oh, why not?) Remembering having seen it on a banner at a football game, his mind leaps to John 3:16, and, mumbling to himself to make sure he eliminates the unusable context, he then loudly says, “his Only Begotten Son.” Oliver dutifully writes it down. Now he’s on his own again. “. . . and ye may . . .” Drat! Stuck again! He picks up the Bible and begins to leaf through it. (Problem--does he read carefully, while at the same time holding the string of the narrative in his head so he’ll know what to use when he finds it? Or does he just skim over the pages jumping here and there until something strikes his eye? Either way, how much sense is this hodgepodge going to make?) Ah, finally! There it is in Luke 20:35, just what he needed: “. . . to obtain that world and the resurrection.” Again, he has to separate it from a context that doesn’t fit at all, but that’s easy enough; you just push a couple of keys on the ol’ IBM, like the Tanners do, right? “. . . obtain a resurrection, . . .” a slight pause and he adds, “. . . according to . . .” Oh rats! According to what? Back to the Bible. According to . . . according to . . . Too bad he couldn’t use a concordance, but that would mean he already knew what he was going to say, in which case he would be able to dictate it without having to have that open Bible in his hand. How long does it take to get from Luke 20 to Philippians 3?
And what is our friend Oliver doing during these long excursions into duplicity? Practicing cat’s cradle maybe, or whittling decoys in anticipation of duck season? And why did he not, eight years later, as Joseph’s enemy, bring up these egregious discrepancies in Joseph’s story, thereby winning fame, fortune, and the undying gratitude of a nation that was looking for any thing and everything it could find to discredit the prophet? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Now, who would like to try the experiment? See how long it takes to write a paragraph in this fashion. And remember that that paragraph is only about an eighth of an average page in a book that is over 500 pages long. And that the man who dictated the translation of the Book of Mormon was only twenty-three years old, had less than one year of formal education, and was in a backwoods region without recourse to research materials, and that the entire time of translation was between three and five months. Joseph’s story is much more credible than the Tanners.... (Tom Nibley, 287-8.)
#2
Joseph Smith is the sole author of the Book of Mormon and he memorized biblical passages which were then included into the Book of Mormon at opportune times.
The complexity and internal consistency rules out this possibility. Keep in mind that the Book of Mormon is over five hundred pages long and was dictated in approximately 70 days. As Dr. Nibley points out “...never once does the author [of the Book of Mormon] get lost (as the student repeatedly does, picking his way out of one maze after another only with the greatest effort), and never once does he contradict himself. We should be glad to learn of any other like performance in the history of literature.“ (Nibley, 1989, 225.)
Some critics contend that Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon after his regular Bible study then repeatedly used Bible phrases while they were “fresh in his mind” (Ashment, 368.). “This hypothesis has its problem,” notes John Gee, (1) the erratic reading order--Isaiah, Hebrews, Matthew, John, Habakkuk, Micah, Isaiah, Malachi, 1 Corinthians, Revelation, Isaiah, Romans--needs an explanation.159 (2) The hypothesis ignores the accounts of the scribes, which claim that Joseph “had neither manuscript nor book to read from. . . . If he had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.” (3) As far as his contemporaries were concerned, “Smith was ignorant of the Bible.” (Gee, 1994, 99-101.)
Another problem which the critics must deal with is the testimony of witnesses that once Joseph had dictated from the Book of Mormon, he did not have any portion repeated back. Several years after Joseph’s death, his son asked his mother Emma about her belief of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, to which she replied:
“My belief is that the Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity-- I have not the slightest doubt of it. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscript unless he was inspired: for, when [I was acting] as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so... unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.” (Kirkham, 1960, 195-6.)
The scholars at FARMS have observed the “extensive, intricate consistencies within the Book of Mormon. Passages tie together precisely and accurately though separated from each other by hundreds of pages of text and dictated weeks apart.” (FARMS Updates, Oct. 1987.) FARMS notes for example that Alma 36 quotes 21 words verbatim from 1 Nephi 1:8, and that Helaman 14:12 quotes 20 words from Mosiah 3:8. And of course as many a critic has noted, the Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah at length. Such internal consistency and lengthy quotes would not be possible with quick memorizations of selected Bible verses, such a feat would require either inspiration or a fantastic memory. Which brings us to....
#3
Joseph Smith is the sole author of the Book of Mormon and had an uncanny memory which allowed him to recall Bible passages at length and at will.
This option would be the most likely of the three critical views, were there not holes in this theory. Then Tanners, who suggest that Joseph Smith was able to recall lengthy Bible passages from memory, also claim that he forgot what he had written on the 116 pages and tried to cover it up (see Tvedtnes 1994b, 208). They also claim that Joseph was inaccurate in information on Old Testament sacrifices in the Book of Mormon, which indicates that he had no “‘real understanding of Old Testament sacrifices and other Jewish customs’” (Tanner & Tanner, 1990, 99-100.) Tvedtnes points out:
The Tanners also seem to vacillate between allowing Joseph Smith to borrow from his earlier dictation when it serves their purpose, while denying him the ability to remember what he had already dictated when that fits their argument. For example, they have him borrowing from Alma 36:22 in 1 Nephi 1:8 and 1 Nephi 8:4 (pp. 50-51). On the other hand, they maintain that Joseph “could not remember exactly what he had written in the last nine books of the Book of Mormon” (p. 53). Consequently, when he dictated Lehi’s 600-year prophecy in 1 Nephi 10:4, he “seemed totally oblivious to the fact that he had already recorded a prophecy by Samuel the Laminate regarding the birth of Christ” (p. 53). To believe that Joseph Smith could remember words from an earlier part of his dictation (Alma 36:22) but could not remember one of the most outstanding prophecies in the Book of Mormon that was dictated later (Helaman 14) stretches the imagination beyond reasonable bounds. (Tvedtnes, 1994b, 208-9.)
The Tanners, and similar critics can’t have it both ways. As Tvedtnes notes: “We are left to wonder if the Tanners consider Joseph Smith to be a brilliant charlatan with a near-photographic memory or a dimwitted fool who believed he could foist his inconsistent story on a gullible public.” (Ibid., 208.)
Obvious Similarities
The three arguments noted above-- that Joseph Smith copied phrases from the Bible-- are all based on the evidence that there are direct quotations/phrases from the Bible which are also included in the Book of Mormon. We can eliminate most everything Old Testament related because the Nephites had access to those records as well. It is a well-known fact that 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon quotes virtually the same teachings of Isaiah as recorded in the Bible. The two records are not exact matches, however, the Book of Mormon does have some variant readings of the Isaiah text. If Joseph Smith was simply copying from the KJV, then when the alterations? Hebrew scholar, John Tvedtnes, has studied these changes and has demonstrated that the Book of Mormon variants accords well with other ancient Isaiah texts, and often provide a superior reading to our KJV Bible (Tvedtnes, 1984, 165-77). Tvedtnes notes, for instance, that the longer 1QIsa, scroll from Qumran (Dead Sea Scroll) “supports the Book of Mormon Isaiah text in a number of cases.” (Tvedtnes, 1994b, 246.) The critics tend to overlook this aspect. It is the phrases which the Nephites supposedly could not have known that bothers the critics. “Our main problem with plagiarism in the Book of Mormon is the material taken from the New Testament.” (Tanner & Tanner, 1994, 140.)
Yes, there are exact King James Bible quotations in the Book of Mormon. On the surface it appears that these quotations were lifted from the King James New Testament. Two questions must be asked of such parallels: 1) Are the parallels exact or superficial? 2) Is it possible that the Nephites and/or the New Testament authors drew up such phrases from older sources? Truman Madsen notes: “Surface resemblance may conceal profound difference. It requires competence, much goodwill and bold caution properly to distinguish what is remotely parallel, what is like, what is very like, and what is identical. It is harder still to trace these threads to original influences and beginnings.” (Madsen, 1980, xvii.)
Matthew Roper who reviewed the Tanner’s list of so-called New Testament plagiarism concludes that most of the Book of Mormon texts cited by the Tanners could just as easily be drawn from the Old Testament by the Nephites. In fact many of these citations are equal to or closer to Old Testament passages than New Testament passages. (Roper, 1991, 174-81.)
Several years ago the critics claimed that the phrase “faith, hope, and charity” from Moroni 7:44-46 was lifted from 1 Corinthians 13:13. Dr. Nibley, however, demonstrated that
the whole passage, which scholars have labeled “the Hymn to Charity,” was shown early in this century by a number of first-rate investigators working independently (A. Harnack, J. Weiss, R. Reizenstein) to have originated not with Paul at all, but to go back to some older but unknown source: Paul is merely quoting from the record. (Nibley, 1989, 216.)
Matthew Roper points out another example, that of the Book of Mormon’s usage of the term “Son of God” and “Son of the Most High God” (1 Nephi 11:6-7) which the Tanners see as obvious New Testament plagiarisms. As Roper points out, however, “both titles have recently turned up in an unpublished Dead Sea Scroll fragment written in Aramaic from before the time of Jesus. Although it is unknown to whom the prophecy refers, the fragment states: [X] shall be great upon the earth. [O king, all (people) shall] make [peace], and all shall serve [him. He shall be called the son of] the [G]reat [God], and by his name shall be hailed (as) the Son of God, and they shall call him Son of the Most High.” Roper quotes a writer for the Biblical Archaeology Review who states, “‘This is the first time that the term “Son of God” has been found in a Palestinian text outside the Bible. . . . Previously some scholars have insisted that the origin of terms like “Most High” and “Son of the Most High” were to be found in Hellenistic usage outside of Palestine and that therefore they relate to later development of Christian doctrine. Now we know that these terms were part of Christianity’s original Jewish heritage.’” “If one small fragment,” comments Roper, “can change our understanding of this term, is it really that hard to believe that other ideas and phrases found in the Book of Mormon, heretofore thought to be anachronistic, might also be verified in the future?” (Roper, 1991, 173-4.)
Two Book of Mormon characteristics which the critics often cite as evidence that Joseph Smith copied from the Bible are the changes in the Book of Mormon to words which are italicized in the Bible, and the inclusion of Jesus’ sermon on the Mount in 3 Nephi. Let’s deal with the italicized words first. Royal Skousen writes:
In 1991, as a part of a course on textual criticism of the Book of Mormon, three of my students (William Calhoun, Margaret Robbins, and Andrew Stewart) wrote research papers on various aspects of this question. Calhoun and Robbins examined various copies of the King James Bible (including a good number that were printed in the early decades of the 1800s). As one might suspect, they found examples of variation in the use of italics, even in King James Bibles published after the supposedly final revision of 1769. Moreover, Calhoun notes that he found only one Bible (printed in London in 1800) that actually mentions (in an introduction) what the italics mean. The original 1611 edition does not explain the use of italics; in fact, it silently borrowed the idea from the Geneva Bible, which does explain the use of italics. Given the general lack of knowledge even today about what the italics mean in the King James Bible, one might surely wonder if Joseph Smith himself knew this, especially in those early years when he was translating the Book of Mormon.
Calhoun and Robbins also compared the italicized words in the King James Bible with the original text of the Book of Mormon (as found in the two manuscripts). And both discovered many examples where Joseph Smith deleted, added, or altered words that are not in italics in any of the King James printings they examined. Each concluded that there was no direct connection between the italics and the original Book of Mormon text. Simply giving examples where changes correspond with italics means nothing; one must look at all the changes, including the ones that occur independently of italics. (Skousen, 1994, 127-8)
John Welch noted similar findings in his study of the Book of Mormon’s sermon at the Temple and the NT’s sermon on the mount. “In the case of the italicized words in the Sermon on the Mount,” notes Welch, “the evidence is inconclusive.” (Welch, 1990, 156-7.) “There are 105 verses in the Sermon on the Mount,” Welch explains. “In 69 of those verses, 3 Nephi 1214 differs from Matthew 57. Of those 69 verses where differences are found, 8 verses contain italicized words, but the differences do not always involve the italicized words. Only 7 italicized words are different in the Book of Mormon sermon. In most of these cases the difference is minor and optional with a translator (e.g., ‘shall be’ for ‘is’ ; ‘cometh of more’ for ‘is more’ ; ‘your’ for ‘thine’), and are the kinds of differences found throughout. Five of the 28 verses that contain italicized words are absent from or very different in the Book of Mormon text. In the remaining 15 of those 28 verses, the Book of Mormon and New Testament texts are the same.” (Ibid., 156-157, n.23.)
This brings us to the Book of Mormon inclusion of the words of Jesus from the NT sermon on the mount as contained in 3 Nephi. Welch’s study demonstrates that at the points where the Book of Mormon and Bible differ in the sermon text is evidence for the Book of Mormon’s ancient origin. Welch’s study “concludes that there are enough important differences between the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon at the Temple that the relationship between these texts cannot be attributed to a superficial, thoughtless, blind, or careless plagiarism. On the contrary, the differences are systematic, consistent, methodical, and in several cases quite deft.” (Ibid., 93) For example (one of many examples), “The KJV of Matthew 5:22 reads, ‘Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause (eik) shall be in danger of the judgement.’ The Sermon at the Temple drops the phrase ‘without a casue.’ So do many of the better early manuscripts.” (Ibid., 161-2.)
Joseph’s translation process produced a text that interestingly agrees with what appears to be the Aramaic words that Jesus originally spoke in Matthew 5:10. The Sermon at the Temple comes closer to the likely original intent of Jesus in this case than does the ancient Greek of the Sermon on the Mount. It is commonly assumed that Jesus usually spoke to his disciples in Aramaic (when and by whom the Sermon on the Mount was soon translated into Greek is unknown). When Jesus spoke to these fishermen and to the popular multitudes in Judea, he probably spoke to them in their local, native language. Accordingly, some scholars have worked hard, although not definitively, attempting to put the Greek of the New Testament back into what might have been the Aramaic of Jesus, to learn what that might tell us about his original intent. In the Sermon on the Mount, several passages have been studied along these lines, but only a few have been detected where the Greek has likely misunderstood an underlying Aramaic word or expression. In most cases, the nuances are very fine and the distinctions rather inconsequential.
The case in Matthew 5:10 is an interesting example of this. Several scholars speculate that the Greek New Testament may have mistranslated the purported Aramaic original. Lachs argues that the word saddiq (“righteous one”) was in the original form of Matthew 5:10, but that it was wrongly read as sedeq (“righteousness”) and accordingly rendered into Greek as dikaiosune. Thus, the Greek reads “blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” But this makes awkward sense compared with the Aramaic idea that one would be blessed for enduring persecution for the sake of the “Righteous One.” The latter is far closer to the translation offered by the Sermon at the Temple: “Blessed are all they who are persecuted for my name’s sake” (3 Nephi 12:10). Accordingly, Joseph’s inspired translation in this detail finds significant independent support from biblical studies.
In the course of this study, I have also explained why, in my opinion, the superficial label of plagiarism does not fit the Sermon at the Temple very well. I consider this an interesting secondary concern of this study. The Nephite text differs for sound reasons from the Sermon on the Mount. These differences are significant and often subtle and, along with many other factors, show that the Sermon on the Mount was not crudely spliced into the text of 3 Nephi. There is much more in the Sermon at the Temple than the theory of plagiarism can account for. (Ibid., 143-4; 180)
The critics, however, also claim that the Book of Mormon quotes passages from the sermon on the mount which current scholarship demonstrates is not accurately translated in the KJV. As Welch has noted however, that is such rare instances there is no conclusive evidence “from the surviving Greek manuscripts how the original Greek of Matthew might relate to the Book of Mormon text” and generally the KJV and the Book of Mormon do render an accurate meaning of the text in question. (Welch, 1994, 153.)
Other problems arise if we assume that the Joseph Smith simply plagiarized the Bible when dictating the Book of Mormon. “If Joseph worked blindly,” asks Christensen “why the complex parallels to ancient year-rites, the accurate details of catastrophic earthquakes and volcanoes, the inclusion of the Hebrew pesher teaching, and the themes of the early Christian forty-day and descensus literatures? If Joseph plagiarized, where did he get the stuff?” (Christensen, 178-9.)
In conclusion the testimony of those who saw Joseph translating rule out the possibility that he cribbed from the Bible while dictating, and the evidence does not support the view that Book of Mormon verses which are similar or identical to the Bible were plagiarized.
Michael R. Ash