KJV italicized text in the Book of Mormon


Question: What are the criticisms of the Book of Mormon based in its use of italics and how can one respond to those criticisms?

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Introduction to Question

The Book of Mormon contains quotations of, echoes of, and allusions to the King James Bible. The quotations contain words from the King James Bible that are placed in italics. The italics in the King James Bible indicated that the word had been added to the text to make sense of the translation. The word was not present in the original Greek or Hebrew text but was added to explain and contextualize the translation.

Some critics believe that the presence of the italics is an indication that Joseph Smith didn’t translate an ancient text and instead just plagiarized a copy of the King James Bible. Critic Jeremy T. Runnells, author of the CES Letter, explains that “[w]hen King James translators were translating the KJV Bible between 1604 and 1611, they would occasionally put in their own words into the text to make the English more readable. We know exactly what these words are because they’re italicized in the KJV Bible.” He then asks “[w]hat are these 17th century italicized words doing in the Book of Mormon? Word for word? What does this say about the Book of Mormon being an ancient record?”[1] The assumption seems to be that the Book of Mormon, if truly a translation of an ancient text, should either not include these words or include different words that reflect the ancient, original text of the biblical passage in question. Since the italicized words from the KJV are included (which, as correctly indicated by Runnells, were inserted beginning in the 1600s), this is evidence that the Book of Mormon is not ancient and that it was plagiarized, at least in part, from the King James Bible. Important to emphasize as a mild correction to Runnells that the italics did not merely make the English more readable but also clarified the underlying meaning of the Greek and Hebrew being translated.

Other critics look at how the Book of Mormon modifies the biblical text in ways that seem to suggest that Joseph was using a 1769 edition of the King James Bible to compose the text of the Book of Mormon. For example, critic Stan Larson argued the following in a 1993 book chapter relating to this subject:

The Book of Mormon text often revises biblical quotations at the very point where the original 1611 edition of the KJV prints the word or words in a different typeface in order to indicate that the words are not found in the Greek. This printing device was both inconsistently and sparsely applied in the 1611 KJV and improved in the 1769 printing. When Smith came to the KJV italics in the Sermon on the Mount, which he knew indicated that whatever was printed in italics was not in the original Greek, he would often either drop the word or revise it. The Book of Mormon sometimes revises the KJV italics that are only found in the 1769 and later printings. For example, the Book of Mormon drops the italics of the 1769 printing at Matthew 6:5, 7; 7:18 (3 Ne. 13:5, 7; 14:18), and the Book of Mormon changes the tense of the italics at Matthew 5:12 (3 Ne. 12:12). On the other hand, the Book of Mormon fails to revise places where the KJV text ought to have been printed in italics but is not. In two places the Book of Mormon copies the noun "men" from the KJV, where it is not in the original Greek and has been improperly added in the KJV.[2]:130–31

Thus Larson is arguing the essentially the same conclusion: that the Book of Mormon text cannot be a genuine translation of an ancient text. Though he’s arguing from a different angle. He doesn’t reason to his conclusion based on the mere presence of KJV italics in the Book of Mormon. He argues this based on the Book of Mormon’s interaction with the KJV italics. In some cases, the italics are simply dropped. In some cases, the italics are revised. In some cases, there is a passage that should have an italicized word but doesn’t. These interactions occur in places only where the 1769 edition of the KJV and later printings place italics. According to Larson, these considerations date the Book of Mormon’s composition (and, more particularly, the Savior's Sermon at the Temple recorded in 3 Nephi) to the 1800s.

Faithful Latter-day Saint author Stan Spencer (not Larson) informs us that "[t]hese variants are usually minor but sometimes result in readings that conflict with the larger context of Isaiah’s message or create ungrammatical or even nonsensical sentences, particularly in the earliest text of the Book of Mormon."[3]:p. 46 Spencer was not using modern editions of the Book of Mormon when making his comparisons and contrasts with the King James Bible but rather Latter-day Saint linguist Royal Skousen's first edition of The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (2009) which is the best reconstruction of the text of the Book of Mormon so as to attempt to capture it as it was originally dictated by Joseph Smith (a second edition was published in 2022). Some critics might ask if these omissions and revisions that are harmful to the grammar and sense of the KJV knock the Book of Mormon from its status as the most correct book.

Thus this article will respond to four critical questions:

  1. Does the presence of the KJV italicized words in the Book of Mormon indicate that Joseph Smith plagiarized from the King James Bible in order to create the Book of Mormon text?
  2. Do the Book of Mormon's interactions with the KJV italics show that Joseph Smith was working from the 1769 edition of the King James Bible?
  3. Do the original Book of Mormon text's omissions and revisions of italics refute the teaching of Joseph Smith that the Book of Mormon is "the most correct book of any on earth"?

The fourth question is one that may arise from critics who respond to this article in the future or it may simply arise in the mind of the casual reader as they progress through this article: do the observations made by this author and the notions of translation subscribed to create a version of Mormonism that doesn't and/or cannot exist?

Response to Question

There’s Debate Over Whether Joseph Smith knew the meaning of the italics

Before all else, we should note that there is debate among scholars of the Book of Mormon as to whether Joseph Smith knew the meaning of the italics.

For those that would argue that Joseph didn't know what the italics in the Bible meant, they might cite six lines of evidence:

  1. Emma Smith reported that, during the Book of Mormon translation, Joseph didn't know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls, a more basic fact that someone should know about the Bible. If Joseph didn't know this basic fact about Jerusalem, can we expect him to know other basic facts about the Bible?
  2. Our critics rely heavily on an assumption that Joseph Smith was deeply familiar with the Bible at the time of the translation of the Book of Mormon. Those closest to Joseph Smith in his early life state otherwise. Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph's mother, stated that "I presume our family presented an aspect as singular as any that ever lived upon the face of the earth-all seated in a circle, father, mother, sons and daughters, and giving the most profound attention to a boy, eighteen years of age, who had never read the Bible through in his life; he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study."
  3. The witnesses to the translation are unanimous that a Bible was not consulted during the translation of the Book of Mormon (click here or here to read their statements).[4] Stan Spencer helpfully observed that "[I]f Joseph Smith used a physical bible, he would have had to do so frequently, since biblical interactions are scattered throughout the Book of Mormon. Continuously removing his face from the hat to make use of a physical Bible would not have gone unnoticed by those who watched him translate."[3]:p. 59 Indeed, given the all the different quotations of whole chapters, phrasal interactions between the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, as well as the phrasal interactions/similarities between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, to conceive of Joseph Smith either memorizing these passages and phrases (for which, like the theory that Joseph consulted a Bible during the translation, there is no evidence) or consulting a Bible during the translation is ludicrous. Someone would have had to have noticed that. Yet no one reports a Bible.
  4. There is no evidence that Joseph even owned a bible at the time of the translation of the Book of Mormon. It is known that Oliver Cowdery purchased a Bible on 8 October 1829. However, the Book of Mormon was already at press by this time, with the copyright being registered on 11 June 1829.[5] Prior to that time, the only Bible Joseph is known to have had access to was the Smith family Bible, which was not in his possession after he married and moved out of the Smith home. Joseph was poor and even poorer after moving away from home.[6] Yet Oliver purchased the Bible for Joseph in October 1829 from the same guy that did the type-setting for the Book of Mormon and Joseph later used that Bible for the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.[7] Why would Joseph, poor as he was, get a Bible if he supposedly already owned one that he consulted/plagiarized from?
  5. Royal Skousen claimed the following in a 1994 paper on the subject: "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).[8] 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.[9] 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.[9]:p. 1–2 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."[10]:p. 127 Newer, professional scholarship confirms that the King James Bible silently followed the lead of the Geneva Bible in indicating words inserted into the English translation not present in the original Greek or Hebrew text.[11] The Geneva Bible explained its use of italics, the King James Bible did not.
  6. Skousen also claims the following: "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 [the original manuscript and printer's manuscript]). 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."[10]:pp. 127–28

For those that believe Joseph did know the meaning of the italics, they argue this conclusion citing typically 3–4 lines of evidence:[12]

  1. The distribution of KJV italics being revised as they come to the Book of Mormon and especially the Isaiah chapters of the Book of Mormon. Royal Skousen has determined that of all the differences in the biblical quotations in the Book of Mormon, 23% involve italics. Of all the italics contained in the KJV, 38% are changed in some way in the Book of Mormon.[13] Skousen sees these facts as evidence that Joseph did not know the meaning of the italics since a much larger amount of changes do not involve italics. Though other scholars read those same percentages as significant; as evidence that Joseph did know the meaning of the italics.
  2. Stan Spencer analyzed many of the Book of Mormon's interactions with the KJV Isaiah italics and argued that the Book of Mormon's interaction with Isaiah italics cannot be due to chance.[3]:pp. 49–55
  3. The practice of crossing out italicized words in the Joseph Smith Translation. The manuscripts are available for people today and anyone can see that there is a consciousness of the italicized words by seeing how frequently Joseph Smith and/or his scribes crossed them out. The production of the JST began in June 1830 and continued intermittently until 1833.
  4. The presence of statements from Joseph Smith's contemporary environment suggesting that there was a broader familiarity with the meaning of the italics. An editorial for the Evening and Morning Star (January 1833) stated the following: "The book of Mormon, as a revelation from God, possesses some advantage over the old scripture: it has not been tinctured by the wisdom of man, with here and there an Italic word to supply deficiencies.—It was translated by the gift and power of God."[14] A few months later (July 1833), the same paper had an editorial that states "[a]s to the errors in the bible, any man possessed of common understanding, knows, that both the old and new testaments are filled with errors, obscurities, italics and contradictions, which must be the work of men."[15] Roughly ten years later (September 1843) in the Latter-day Saint news paper Times and Seasons, another Latter-day Saint writer stated that "[m]uch has been said about the bad translations of the Bible. . . . Every school boy seems to know that when either of the sectarian translators failed in making the two ends of a sentence meet, he filled up the vacuity with italic, by which means God has been greatly helped towards expressing himself so as to be understood by the learned world."[16]

Both perspectives are viable and, as of yet, still in the debate among scholars of the Book of Mormon today.

Three Hypotheses For the Presence of Italicized Words in Book of Mormon

Stan Spencer laid out three hypotheses for the italicized words of the KJV in the Book of Mormon including how and why they ended up there.

  1. The first of these was created by Elder B.H. Roberts. Roberts hypothesized that the italics interaction represents what was on the actual Book of Mormon plates. In Spencer's words: "Roberts attributes the differences in the Book of Mormon to ancient variants in the Nephite plates, presumably reflecting the record on the brass plates, at least in the chapters Nephi and Jacob say they are reading, According to Roberts, the version of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon is consistently “superior [in] sense and clearness.” Spencer calls this the Ancient Variants Hypothesis.
  2. The second hypothesis Spencer calls the Italics Revision Hypothesis. This is the theory held by people like Stan Larson, David P. Wright, and faithful Latter-day Saint Book of Mormon scholar Brant Gardner. This theory holds that Joseph Smith was intentionally targeting italics in the King James Bible, knowing what they meant, and intentionally revising them or dropping them.
  3. The third hypothesis, Spencer's own theory, he calls the Missing Words Hypothesis. This theory holds that Joseph was given a vision of a biblical passage in his mind with missing KJV italics and that part of the work of translation for Joseph Smith was to decide whether to supply words to the passage and, if so, what words to supply.

Now we deal with the questions raised above.

1. Is the presence of italics from the KJV Bible evidence of plagiarism on the part of Joseph Smith to create the Book of Mormon?

The italics make the English text of the Bible more readable. If Joseph Smith and God were trying to keep a good translation of the text and especially one that is readable and comprehensible, why wouldn’t God and Joseph Smith just keep those same italics in the Book of Mormon? It’s nonsensical to claim that the mere presence of the italicized words is in and of itself damning.

There are many more reasons to reject a charge of plagiarism on the part of Joseph Smith:

  1. Nephi and the Savior generally make it clear when they are quoting from Isaiah. Assuming that a modern person (or group of people) is the author of the text (which they aren’t), they are citing their sources directly which is definitionally not plagiarism. At worst, Joseph Smith (and/or his supposed co-conspirators) can only be said to be haphazardly using Isaiah to create the Book of Mormon, not plagiarizing Isaiah. As far as Micah is concerned, the Savior just launches into a word-for-word quotation/reproduction of what God the Father uttered to the prophet Micah in Micah 4:12–13 and 5:8–14 (3 Nephi 16:14–15; 20:16–20; 21:12–18, 21). Why can't he just reproduce what his Father uttered? Give the same prophecy to the Nephites? That's not really plagiarism on Joseph's part. That's the Savior citing his source, God the Father, and transmitting the same prophecy given to Micah to the Nephites.[17] Mormon does similarly with Micah 5:8 in Mormon 5:24. As far as the Sermon on the Mount is concerned, it's obvious that the Savior would teach the same message to all people if he has a singular, unified message to teach them. The Savior repeating himself is not plagiarism on the part of Joseph Smith. John W. Welch has documented important differences between the Sermon on the Mount recorded in the New Testament and what he calls the Sermon at the Temple (basically the Sermon on the Mount given at the Nephite temple in Bountiful) that show that Joseph Smith did not just mindlessly copy the Sermon on the Mount into the Book of Mormon.[18] Why would Joseph or his conspirators plagiarize the one source most familiar to their 19th century, Northeastern, frontier audience? Why would he copy whole chapters haphazardly when that audience was so familiar with his source material?
  2. A closer look at these duplicate texts actually provides us an additional witness of the Book of Mormon's authenticity.[19] One verse (2 Nephi 12꞉16) is not only different but adds a completely new phrase: "And upon all the ships of the sea." This non-King James addition agrees with the Greek (Septuagint) version of the Bible, which was first translated into English in 1808 by Charles Thomson. It is also contained in the Coverdale 1535 translation of the Bible.[20] Such a translation was "rare for its time."[21] John Tvedtnes has also shown that many of the Book of Mormon's translation variants of Isaiah have ancient support.[22] BYU Professor Paul Y. Hoskisson has shown that "[t]he brass plates version of Isaiah 2:2, as contained in 2 Nephi 12:2, contains a small difference, not attested in any other pre-1830 Isaiah witness, that not only helps clarify the meaning but also ties the verse to events of the Restoration. The change does so by introducing a Hebraism that would have been impossible for Joseph Smith, the Prophet, to have produced on his own."[23] This throws a huge wrench into any critic's theories that Joseph Smith merely cribbed off of the King James Isaiah. Why would Joseph Smith crib the KJV including all of its translation errors but then go to the trouble of finding the one phrase, "upon all the ships of the sea", from the Greek Septuagint and 1535 Coverdale Bible, make sure that his translation of Isaiah had support from ancient renderings of Isaiah, and make sure that his version of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon had authentic Hebraisms made to be part of the text as well? It's obviously possible that he did, but highly unlikely.
  3. The witnesses to the translation are unanimous that a Bible was not consulted during the translation of the Book of Mormon (click here or here to read their statements).[24] Stan Spencer helpfully observed that "[I]f Joseph Smith used a physical bible, he would have had to do so frequently, since biblical interactions are scattered throughout the Book of Mormon. Continuously removing his face from the hat to make use of a physical Bible would not have gone unnoticed by those who watched him translate."[3]:p. 59 Indeed, given the all the different quotations of whole chapters, phrasal interactions between the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, as well as the phrasal interactions/similarities between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, to conceive of Joseph Smith either memorizing these passages and phrases (for which, like the theory that Joseph consulted a Bible during the translation, there is no evidence) or consulting a Bible during the translation is ludicrous. Someone would have had to have noticed that. Yet no one reports a Bible.
  4. Latter-day Saint scholar Royal Skousen, using the Original and Printer's Manuscripts of the Book of Mormon, has provided a persuasive argument that none of the King James language contained in the Book of Mormon could have been copied directly from the Bible. He deduces this from the fact that when The Book of Mormon quotes, echoes, or alludes to passages in the King James Bible, Oliver (Joseph's amanuensis for the dictation of the Book of Mormon) consistently misspells certain words from the text that he wouldn't have misspelled if he was looking at the then-current edition of the KJB.[25] Joseph performed most of the translation in the open using the stone and the hat. Thus how do we get the language from the King James version of the Bible? Given this evidence, we could assume that the Biblical passages were revealed to Joseph during the translation process in a format almost identical with similar passages in the King James Bible and then amended them by revelation as he and the Lord felt was necessary. Of course, it's possible that Joseph Smith dictated every portion of the Book of Mormon that quotes Isaiah to Oliver so that Joseph is always looking at the Bible and Oliver isn't; but that's less likely given the consistency with which Oliver misspells the words (wouldn't there be at least one time, throughout all the time that Joseph and Oliver were translating, where Joseph Smith hands Oliver the Bible to more efficiently copy the passages and where Oliver then spells the words correctly?) and the fact that no witnesses to the translation report a Bible in use. When considering the data, Skousen proposes that, instead of Joseph or Oliver looking at a Bible, that God was simply able to provide the page of text from the King James Bible to Joseph's mind and then Joseph was free to alter the text as he pleased. In those cases where the Book of Mormon simply alludes to or echoes KJV language, perhaps the Lord allowed these portions of the text to be revealed in such a way that they would be more comprehensible/comfortable to his 19th century, Northeastern, frontier audience. Even if Joseph Smith were using the King James Bible as a base text, that would hardly be out of line with best practices for translators and hardly considered plagiarism. Some scholars do believe that Joseph Smith used a Bible during the Book of Mormon translation process. Always important to consider opposing views. Those scholars' arguments can be read in part here.

  5. Evidence Central, Evidence #361: Book of Mormon Evidence: Archaic Vocabulary (Article)

    Skousen and Latter-day Saint linguist Stanford Carmack are adamant that Joseph Smith merely read the words off the seer stone/Urim and Thummim and did not consult a bible during translation of the Book of Mormon. A reason they believe this is that the Book of Mormon contains Early Modern English in its translation. They provide many examples that they believe predate Joseph’s English, the English of the 1769 edition of the King James Bible, and even the 1600s edition of the King James Bible. Skousen and Carmack have produced a plethora of publications arguing this. Readers are encouraged to read that work and decide for themselves.[26] Or they can check out the helpful, easy-to-read essay summary by Evidence Central to the right.
  6. It is known that Oliver Cowdery purchased a Bible on 8 October 1829. However, the Book of Mormon was already at press by this time, with the copyright being registered on 11 June 1829.[5] Prior to that time, the only Bible Joseph is known to have had access to was the Smith family Bible, which was not in his possession after he married and moved out of the Smith home. Joseph was poor and even poorer after moving away from home.[27] Yet Oliver purchased the Bible for Joseph in October 1829 from the same guy that did the type-setting for the Book of Mormon and Joseph later used that Bible for the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.[28] Why would Joseph, poor as he was, get a Bible if he supposedly already owned one that he consulted/plagiarized from?
  7. As the Church has made clear in the 1981 and the 2013 editions of the Book of Mormon[29] in footnote "a" for 2 Nephi 12:2: "Comparison with the King James Bible in English shows that there are differences in more than half of the 433 verses of Isaiah quoted in the Book of Mormon, while about 200 verses have the same wording as the KJV".[30] This provides excellent evidence that Joseph Smith is not mindlessly cribbing off of the KJV version of Isaiah. A lot of these changes are indeed (around 30% of the Isaiah variants) merely changes to the italicized words of the King James passages.[3]:p. 50n11 But many others aren't. We can actually prove that Nephi is engaging with the text and making changes to Isaiah that “liken” Isaiah’s messages to Nephi’s then-current situation and theological understanding (1 Nephi 19:23). We can also prove that Nephi is selecting passages of Isaiah with an overriding, coherent theological agenda. That is demonstrated by Book of Mormon Central in the link above and to the right. Thus there is meaningful engagement with the text of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon rather than mindless copy and pasting.
  8. Royal Skousen, with extensive analysis of the Original and Printer's Manuscript of the Book of Mormon,[31] has concluded that the original manuscript, including the quoted Bible chapters, was written from dictation rather than copying of another document. One of the reasons he believes this is that Joseph Smith’s dictation consistently includes precise and sometimes unusual spellings of words not contained in the King James Bible nor any document in his immediate environment, suggesting that exact words were revealed to him and that he wasn't taking inspiration from other sources. An example of this is the name Coriantumr spelled with mr and not an mer as might be expected if Joseph were just getting ideas in his head of what to say and dictating them to Oliver or another one of his scribes. This suggests that Joseph could see words and that he could spell them out exactly to his scribes.
  9. Another reason Skousen believes the Original Manuscript was dictated only is that "[t]he manuscripts include consistent phraseology that suggests Joseph Smith was reading from a carefully prepared text rather than composing the English translation based on thoughts or impressions as he dictated."[3]:p. 88
  10. Emma Smith reported that, during the Book of Mormon translation, Joseph didn't know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls, a more basic fact that someone should know about the Bible. If Joseph didn't know this basic fact about Jerusalem, can we expect him to be plagiarizing from the King James Bible during the translation of the Book of Mormon? Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph's mother, stated that "I presume our family presented an aspect as singular as any that ever lived upon the face of the earth-all seated in a circle, father, mother, sons and daughters, and giving the most profound attention to a boy, eighteen years of age, who had never read the Bible through in his life; he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study." It seems that there is much evidence to suggest that Joseph Smith didn't become as familiar with the Bible as he would need to be in order for our critics' theories to be supported. They all require that Joseph be deeply familiar with the Bible: either memorizing long passages from it or consulting it frequently during the translation of the Book of Mormon.
  11. There is no evidence that Joseph Smith had an eidetic memory.

  12. Evidence Central, Evidence #1: Book of Mormon Evidence: Joseph Smith’s Limited Education (Article)

    There is no evidence that Joseph Smith was ever seen trying to memorize long passages from the King James Bible at, near, or leading up to the time of translation. Joseph's level of education may suggest that he was not even capable of memorizing such lengthy passages (or even shorter passages) required for the Book of Mormon.

2. Does the Book of Mormon's interaction with the King James italics prove that it came from the 1800s?

Given that we don't know and likely can't know whether or not that Joseph Smith had knowledge of the meaning of the italics in the Bible, this question is unanswerable. If we don't know and likely can't know, though, it then follows that we likely have no rational reason to be concerned about this.

3. Do the Changes in Italics Knock the Book of Mormon from Its Status as the "Most Correct Book"?

Another question that will certainly arise as anyone studies the issue is if the changes in italics knock the Book of Mormon from its pedestal as the "most correct book"?

First, it's important that we keep in mind what it means for the Book of Mormon to be the "most correct book". We have responded to that question elsewhere on the wiki.

Today's edition of the Book of Mormon is very readable and comprehensible, but the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon was less so. Stan Spencer in his article lines up passages from the King James version of Isaiah and Royal Skousen's reconstruction of the earliest text of the Book of Mormon (the text as it would presumably have fell from the lips of Joseph Smith) and shows how the changes sometimes have "negative effects on the sense, clarity, or grammar of the text" of the KJV Isaiah.[3]:p. 49 In some cases, the omissions and revisions are drastic enough to lead people into potentially incorrect understandings of various facts. This seems to be part of the reason why Spencer lines up the theories described above and proposes his Missing Words Hypothesis.

In order to give the fullest answer to this criticism, one would have to go through each of the omissions and revisions of italics and determine what sort of message is communicated by the drop or revision: how a person would interpret each passage given the omissions and revisions. They would then have to see if that message is an erroneous theological or ethical message about God.

Royal Skousen, a Latter-day Saint linguist and scholar of the textual history of the Book of Mormon has studied the italicized words and discussed them in volume 3, part 5 of his Critical Text Project entitled The King James Quotations in the Book of Mormon.[32]


Notes

  1. ↑ Jeremy T. Runnells, CES Letter: My Search for Answers to My Mormon Doubts (n.p.: CES Letter Foundation, 2017), 14.
  2. ↑ Stan Larson, "The Historicity of the Matthean Sermon on the Mount in 3 Nephi," in New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology, ed. Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 115–63.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Stan Spencer, "Missing Words: King James Bible Italics, the Translation of the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith as an Unlearned Reader," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 38 (2020): 45–106.
  4. ↑ John W. Welch, "Documents of the Translation of the Book of Mormon," in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd ed. (Provo, UT: BYU Press; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2017), 126–227.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper, "Joseph Smith's Use of the Apocrypha: Shadow or Reality? (Review of Joseph Smith's Use of the Apocrypha by Jerald and Sandra Tanner)," FARMS Review of Books 8, no. 2 (1996): 326–72.
  6. ↑ Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 95–100.
  7. ↑ Robert J. Matthews, "A Plainer Translation": Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible, A History and Commentary (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1985), 26. Cited in John Gee, "La Trahison des Clercs: On the Language and Translation of the Book of Mormon (Review of New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology by Brent Lee Metcalfe)," FARMS Review of Books 6, no. 1 (1994): 101n165.
  8. ↑ William Calhoun, "Isaiah, Italics, and the Book of Mormon," and Margaret Robbins, "King James Version as a Source for the Biblical Passages Quoted in the Book of Mormon," unpublished research papers for Royal Skousen's Fall 1991 course on textual criticism of the Book of Mormon, Brigham Young University.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Calhoun, "Isaiah, Italics, and the Book of Mormon," 2.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Royal Skousen, "Critical Methodology and the Text of the Book of Mormon," Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6, no. 1 (1994): 121–44.
  11. ↑ Kent P. Jackson, Frank F. Judd Jr., and David R. Seely, “Chapters, Verses, Punctuation, Spelling, and Italics,” in The King James Bible and the Restoration, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 108–12.
  12. ↑ Kevin Barney, "KJV Italics," By Common Consent, October 13, 2007, http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2007/10/kjv-italics/.
  13. ↑ Royal Skousen, "The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon: Presentation on Parts 5 and 6 of Volume 3 of the Critical Text Project of the Book of Mormon," Book of Mormon Central, accessed December 24, 2022, https://www.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/documents/Blog%20entry/2020/Presentation%20parts%205%20and%206%20Hinckley%20Center.pdf.
  14. ↑ W.W. Phelps, “The Book of Mormon,” The Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 8 (January 1833): 58.
  15. ↑ “Errors of the Bible,” The Evening and the Morning Star 2, no. 14 (July 1833): 106.
  16. ↑ Times and Seasons 4, no. 20 (September 1, 1843): 318; emphasis in original. Quoted in Kent P. Jackson, “The King James Bible and the Joseph Smith Translation,” in The King James Bible and the Restoration, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 203.
  17. ↑ For the most thorough coverage of the Micah material in the Book of Mormon, see Dana M. Pike, "Passages from the Book of Micah in the Book of Mormon," in They Shall Grow Together: The Bible in the Book of Mormon, ed. Charles Swift and Nicholas J. Frederick (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2022), 393–443.
  18. ↑ John W. Welch, Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple & the Sermon on the Mount (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999), 125–50.
  19. ↑ See Michael Hickenbotham, Answering Challenging Mormon Questions: Replies to 130 Queries by Friends and Critics of the LDS Church (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort Publisher, 2004),193–196. (Key source)
  20. ↑ The implications of this change represent a more complicated textual history than previously thought. See discussion in Dana M. Pike and David R. Seely, "‘Upon All the Ships of the Sea, and ‘Upon All the Ships of Tarshish': Revisiting 2 Nephi 12:16 and Isaiah 2:16," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 2 (2005): 12–25. For earlier discussions, see Gilbert W. Scharffs, The Truth about ‘The God Makers’ (Salt Lake City, Utah: Publishers Press, 1989; republished by Bookcraft, 1994), 172. Full text FAIR link ISBN 088494963X.; see also Milton R. Hunter and Thomas Stuart Ferguson, Ancient America and the Book of Mormon (Kolob Book Company, 1964),100–102.; Hugh W. Nibley, Since Cumorah, 2nd edition, (Vol. 7 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by John W. Welch, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988),129–143. ISBN 0875791395.. See also Royal Skousen, “Textual Variants in the Isaiah Quotations of the Book of Mormon,” in Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, ed. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 376.
  21. ↑ "Thomson's Translation," Wikipedia, accessed August 15, 2022, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson%27s_Translation.
  22. ↑ John A. Tvedtnes, “Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon,” in Isaiah and the Prophets: Inspired Voices from the Old Testament, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1984), 165–78. David Wright responded to John Tvedtnes' chapter there. Tvedtnes responds to Wright in John A. Tvedtnes, "Isaiah in the Bible and the Book of Mormon," The FARMS Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 161–72.
  23. ↑ Paul Y. Hoskisson, "Was Joseph Smith Smarter Than the Average Fourth Year Hebrew Student? Finding a Restoration-Significant Hebraism in Book of Mormon Isaiah," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 17 (2016): 151–58.
  24. ↑ John W. Welch, "Documents of the Translation of the Book of Mormon," in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd ed. (Provo, UT: BYU Press; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2017), 126–227.
  25. ↑ "The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon," Interpreter Foundation, accessed August 15, 2022, https://interpreterfoundation.org/the-history-of-the-text-of-the-book-of-mormon/.
  26. ↑ Stanford Carmack, “A Look at Some ‘Non-Standard’ Book of Mormon Grammar,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 11 (2014): 209–62; “What Command Syntax Tells Us About Book of Mormon Authorship,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 13 (2015): 175–217; “The Implications of Past-Tense Syntax in the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 14 (2015): 119–86; “Why the Oxford English Dictionary (and not Webster’s 1828),” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 15 (2015): 65–77; “The More Part of the Book of Mormon Is Early Modern English,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 18 (2016): 33–40; “Joseph Smith Read the Words,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 18 (2016): 41–64. “The Case of the {-th} Plural in the Earliest Text,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 18 (2016): 79–108; “The Case of Plural Was in the Earliest Text,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 18 (2016): 109–37; “How Joseph Smith’s Grammar Differed from Book of Mormon Grammar: Evidence from the 1832 History,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 25 (2017): 239–59; “Barlow on Book of Mormon Language: An Examination of Some Strained Grammar,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 27 (2017): 185–96; “Is the Book of Mormon a Pseudo-Archaic Text?” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 28 (2018): 177–232; “Bad Grammar in the Book of Mormon Found in Early English Bibles,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 36 (2020): 1–28; “Pitfalls of the Ngram Viewer,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 36 (2020): 187–210; “Personal Relative Pronoun Usage in the Book of Mormon: An Important Authorship Diagnostic,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 49 (2021): 5–36; “The Book of Mormon’s Complex Finite Cause Syntax,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 49 (2021): 113–36; “A Comparison of the Book of Mormon’s Subordinate That Usage,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 50 (2022): 1–32; Royal Skousen, “The Original Text of the Book of Mormon and its Publication by Yale University Press,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 7 (2013): 57–96; “The Language of the Original Text of the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2018): 81–110; Royal Skousen with the collaboration of Stanford Carmack, The Nature of the Original Language, Parts 3–4 of The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon, Volume 3 of The Critical Text of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: FARMS and BYU Studies, 2018).
  27. ↑ Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press; Reprint edition, 1987), 95–100. ISBN 0252060121.
  28. ↑ Robert J. Matthews, A Plainer Translation": Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible: A History and Commentary (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1985), 26; cited in footnote 165 of John Gee, "La Trahison des Clercs: On the Language and Translation of the Book of Mormon (Review of New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology by Brent Lee Metcalfe)," FARMS Review of Books 6/1 (1994): 51–120. off-site
  29. ↑ These were the only editions consulted for this point. More editions may render the same however the author did not have access to them at this time.
  30. ↑ See page 81 of either edition of the Book of Mormon
  31. ↑ Royal Skousen, “How Joseph Smith Translated the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7, no. 1 (1998): 25–31, h; “The Archaic Vocabulary of the Book of Mormon,” Insights 25, no. 5 (2005): 2–6.
  32. ↑ Royal Skousen, The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon: Part 5, The King James Quotations in the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2019), 182–210.
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