Responding to The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon as captured on 2024-09-29.

[very rough draft]

[analogy about the person who is murdered and it’s not at all clear how it was pulled off. But what is without dispute is that the person is murdered. This is how most critics view discussion about how the BoM was created. It is an interesting historical curiosity. There is no question the book is the product of an early 1800s mind, so exactly how it was created is relatively inconsequential.]

Where did the Book of Mormon come from?

The Book of Mormon haunted me when I attempted to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. No matter how hard I tried, I could not develop a working naturalistic theory explaining the Book of Mormon that made sense. There is a large, divine-sized gap between Joseph Smith in 1829 and the Book of Mormon. Any theory asserted by critics only brought up more questions.

There are several viable theories.

Who wrote the Book of Mormon?

Joseph Smith was a poor farm boy from upstate New York with a limited frontier education. …

The data point to Joseph Smith coming from a highly rich educational environment:

  1. Joseph Smith’s father had “been a merchant and a teacher.” (Ensign 1971).
  2. Hyrum attended Moor’s Indian Charity School which was co-located with Dartmouth College. Students attended “daily chapel services at the White Church on campus” and Hyrum may have been exposed to the teachings of Professor John Smith who had recently died after 23 years as Hanover’s minister and influential Dartmouth professor.[^hyrum_smith_at_moor]
  3. Joseph’s grandmother had been a schoolteacher and had taught Joseph’s mother. (source)
  4. Joseph Smith had 3 years of “formal” education. Compare that with other prolific authors of his era:
    • Andrew Jackson Davis: claimed 5 months—dictated the 320,000 word volume “The Principles of Nature” at the age of 20.
    • Jane Austen: about 2.5 to 3 years of formal education[^austen_formal_education]—completed First Impressions (precursor to Pride and Prejudice) at the age of 21.
    • Abraham Lincoln: about 1 year of “formal” education
    • Walt Whitman: 6 years
    • Mark Twain 5 years
    • Herman Melville 6 years

    Each of the above had similar levels of formal education and it goes without saying that they were able to compose works of outstanding literary quality.

  5. A recent analysis of Joseph’s education puts the number of years at possibly closer to seven (Reassessing Joseph Smith Jr.’s Formal Education in the Winter 2016 Dialogue).
  6. In Joseph Smith’s time it was commonplace to downplay “a person’s education in order to accentuate the miraculous nature of his or her accomplishments.” (see pgs 62–65 of William Davis’s Dissertation for many examples)
  7. Palmyra was rich in books, generally.

See the document Was Joseph Smith intellectually and educationally capable of authoring the Book of Mormon? for more.

Until the Book of Mormon, he had never written a book or demonstrated a knack for long dictation.

[Lucy Mack Smith; methodist exhorter]

When the original manuscript was finished in the summer of 1829, Joseph was 23 years old.

See Was Joseph Smith intellectually and educationally capable of authoring the Book of Mormon?

Critics attempt to explain the Book of Mormon with far-fetched and contradictory claims.

There isn’t a lot of data to work from, and the Book of Mormon is impressive in its size and scope. Data poor situations lend themselves to multiple, contradictory claims.

But this shouldn’t automatically disqualify one or more of these theories from being correct. For instance, many of the statements we have about how the Book of Mormon came about are contradictory ([Skousen quote about JS and Oliver]).

If not by divine means, how did Joseph Smith come up with the Book of Mormon? If it wasn’t from God or Joseph, then where did it come from? Who wrote it?

Virtually all of the textual data point to the mind of one or more early 1800s person(s). Certain segments of the Book of Mormon bear a clear signature of having been composed by Joseph Smith. Arguably, the simplest explanation is that JS composed the book.

Historians concede that Joseph Smith had metal plates. Where did he get them from?

The Kinderhook plates give us a template for how this can happen. He could have made them. He could have had them made [elaborate on the blacksmith situation].

The fact that he was typically guarded about how much he let people inspect them (always under very controlled circumstances to controlled groups) [especially compared with the BoA] suggests that they would NOT have survived deep scrutiny. They were enough to convince people who wanted to believe in them.

Copper, brass, and tin plates seem to have been fairly common during this time.

[Need a page devoted to metalwork from this era to demonstrate its ubiquity and how, relatively speaking, simple the construction and engraving of plates would have been compared to all the kinds of things being produced in that era by skilled smiths and engravers.]

Brass plates were commonly made/engraven and put into (on??) cornerstones (h/t https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1flbeum/til_that_1800s_freemasons_made_stone_boxes_to/):

https://www.unc.edu/posts/2016/10/10/the-most-important-artifact-that-we-have/

[supposed to cover engraving and metalwork] https://archive.org/details/cyclopaediaoruni08rees/page/4/mode/2up?q=engraving

An 1841? book on engraving that includes a section on metallic engraving.

If someone else wrote the Book of Mormon, why did no one come forward?

Joseph Smith was the likely author.

Sidney Rigdon was an educated preacher and an early church leader. Critics sometimes say that he wrote the Book of Mormon or provided material for it. If that is true, how was he converted in November 1830 by the book “he wrote” in 1829? Then, he never took credit for it?

Sidney Rigdon probably did not write it. Had he written it (which I’m not arguing for), then he could have pretended to be converted.

Others claim that Oliver Cowdery wrote or gave Joseph Smith ideas about the Book of Mormon. If that is true, why did he never admit it? Wasn’t he estranged from Joseph Smith and the Church for years?

Oliver may have been convinced of the book’s divineness.

In any event, just because someone is estranged does not mean that the calculus immediately shifts towards wanting to calling things out (there is still a loss of credibility involved).

Finally, we do have a clear case of OC obfuscating the story on some level.

If Joseph Smith used other sources, why did he have nothing else with him during the translation process?

The historical record provides lots of instances and means where JS could have consulted other material (although the oral composition model does not require it).

  1. Whitmer farm (they had a private room). This was probably when they were hitting 2nd Nephi.
  2. Curtain dividing.
  3. The hat provided means for notes to be consulted without observation.

Also, having a Bible lying around would not have been remarkable and Emma’s statements were probably in reference to the Spaulding manuscript and were directed at that manuscript/notes being available.

If Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon, how did he dictate a complicated 580-page, 269,320-word religious book with a compelling narrative, consistent geography, and brilliant lectures/sermons/allegories/poetic structures in less than three months?

How could Joseph Smith have composed the Book of Mormon?

Joseph Smith was not formally educated beyond basic primary education in reading, writing, and math.

As demonstrated earlier, he grew up in a rich educational environment and there is modest evidence of his ability to speak well.

He had no documented experience writing books

The BoM was orally dictated. The BoM was mostly modular in construction.

and was not known to be a prolific reader.

Some accounts suggest that he did read a lot [cite]. And, by his own admission, he was reading the Bible and having discussions with local ministers about it at the age of ~14.[cite] A great deal of textual evidence demonstrates that he was very familiar with the Bible.

He had no formal preaching experience

He had informal preaching experience.

and was not well-traveled.

The BoM does not require the author to have been well traveled.

He had limited life experience beyond the hardship of planting and harvesting crops.

Rich family environment. Moved several times. Brother at Moor’s, etc. Can glean much from reading.

How could Joseph create a work like the Book of Mormon?

The kinds of things the BoM discusses and how it discusses them are proportional to that milieu, of which Joseph had been raised and participated in.

In the 173 public Nauvoo discourses, Joseph Smith only referenced two Book of Mormon scriptures, whereas dozens of biblical scriptures were quoted. Joseph seems unacquainted with the Book of Mormon, especially compared to the Bible.

If Joseph Smith is the author of the Book of Mormon himself, why is he so unfamiliar with it compared to the Bible?

He grew up reading and seriously studying the Bible. He did not grow up reading and studying the Book of Mormon.

But this may also suggest that JS appreciated that the BoM was not the source of wisdom that the Bible was, so he continued to study the Bible (e.g., with the JST) and NOT the BoM.

Finally, virtually none of the early Saints seemed to really read from or use the BoM much, so this is consistent with how the book was received generally (as a sign of God’s continual involvement but not necessarily as scripture to be studied as vigorously as the Bible).

How did Joseph Smith dictate the Book of Mormon in 65 (or perhaps 90) days9 in one draft with his limited experience and education?

How could Joseph Smith have composed the Book of Mormon?

How did Joseph Smith create a complex narrative with consistent geography within the book?

Most humans are really good at spatial reasoning (and probably moreso at that time). London taxi drivers must pass a test known as The Knowledge requiring them to memorize 25,000 streets and thousands of landmarks. A typical pneumonic technique is using (method of loci) is to use location to retrieve information (since we are so intrinsically good at this).

There are 100 unique names of places in the Book of Mormon.

How many of them are relevant to the story?

It contains around 600 references to place names.

How many of these factor into the geography?

The distances, relative locations, and topography are consistent throughout the text.

Once a person has a fixed geography in mind, then it does not seem that remarkable that they remembered that geography.

Other authors like JRR Tolkien have sprawling geographies,

Yes, it’s very possible to create geographies far more impressive than that found in the Book of Mormon.

but how did Joseph Smith do it in 65 days?

The way this question is posed seems not to acknowledge the known timeline of how the BoM came to be. The author had years during which he could have planned or prepared aspects of the text. One of those things he could easily have worked out beforehand was the geography.

Other prolific authors have written fictional stories and characters, whereas the Book of Mormon purports to be a historical, not fiction, book. If Joseph Smith is making up the Book of Mormon, why are so many of its claims proving more true as time goes on?

Math. LDS scholars have been working to find any possible fit to the BoM and are using a vast number of cultures, times, and places to call something a “match”. Because the BoM makes a huge number of claims, we expect that such research will yield additional hits over time, even if the book were fictional. However, we also see a massive increase in the number of ways in which it is now known that the BoM matches the early 1800s milieu (this has increased at a far greater pace!). Even despite all the research, there still are a number of issues remaining. This is precisely the outcome we would expect for a fictional book with hundreds of researchers spending decades attempting to find any possible match to various sticking points.

In reality, not a single culture, time, or place satisfies the requirements for the Book of Mormon to have been veridical. various requirements.

If the Book of Mormon comes from the imagination of a 23-year-old farm boy, how have millions of members been touched by it and joined the Church?

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 18. The book sold millions of copies worldwide and is a cornerstone of science fiction today. Perhaps the reason these books were both so impactful (both then and now) is that they addressed topics very timely for the modern era.

Some authors have written short books quickly. How many uneducated and inexperienced authors have written something close to 269,320 words in one draft in less than three months? Is there any example of a feat remotely close to what critics say Joseph Smith did?

Addressed the idea about education above (see here). How many knew the Bible like Joseph Smith? How many had experience storytelling and preaching like he did? There are no end to amazing, idiosyncratic feats (see especially William Davis’s The Book of Mormon and the Limits of Naturalistic Criteria: Comparing Joseph Smith and Andrew Jackson Davis), but we do not immediately require supernatural intervention to try to explain them. There is ample documentation pointing to the fact that human minds are incredibly powerful.

Critics write off the “one draft” argument by pointing out the approximately 4000 authorized changes made in the 1837 and 1840 editions of the Book of Mormon, compared to the 1830 edition.

The draft was remarkable in how few corrections were needed, but a few corrections (e.g., Benjamin to Mosiah) were indeed needed. The manuscript itself captures other corrections [cite William Davis’s set]

Weren’t the vast majority of the changes typographical in nature? The changes were for the purpose of aligning the printer’s manuscript with the original translation, correcting spelling, or clarifying the intended meaning. Sentence structures and order were unchanged, and no more than 4-5 words were changed in any given passage.

Yes, this is my understanding.

Isn’t that feat incredibly impressive for an inexperienced, uneducated, and unknown farmer in upstate New York in the 1830s?

Yes, it’s impressive. [JS was not uneducated, as mentioned before.]

Could Joseph Smith have written or dictated the Book of Mormon by using another, non-divine source? If critics answer “yes,” then they are burdened with developing a working theory for where it came from. The most common candidates are the … , View of the Hebrews, the Late War, The First Book of Napolean [sic], and the Bible.

The Spaulding Manuscript

As stated, this approach seems to misunderstand how most scholars view the creation of the BoM. They see books like View of the Hebrews, the Late War, and the First Book of Napoleon as representative of the kinds of things present in the early 1800s milieu. They are books that the author of the Book of Mormon might have read at some point, but the typical theory does not require Joseph Smith to have even read any of them. [cite Davis, Vogel and Hamer]

The most common candidates are the Spaulding Manuscript …

Most scholars today do not view favorably the Spaulding Manuscript theory. The manuscript we have today is clearly reminiscent of the Book of Mormon in some ways, but no genetic relationship between the two is evident (i.e., it’s not clear that the author of the BoM had ever seen or read that manuscript).

In early church history, critics of the Church gave no credence to Joseph Smith’s intelligence. They presumed someone else wrote the Book of Mormon. The most common source proposed was a lost manuscript by then-deceased Reverend Solomon Spaulding.

Although they had access to other kinds of information and the benefit of sharing that time and place, critics of that era did not have the set of tools we have today for assembling and accessing all available documents on a topic. The notion that JS was incapable of producing the BoM was culturally advanced by LDS members and supported the LDS narrative. I feel no obligation to accept uninformed critical narratives advanced during a time where access to data was so limited.

Initially, there were no copies of the manuscript to compare to the Book of Mormon. Years later, affidavits by critics said that Sidney Rigdon gave Joseph Smith the Spaulding Manuscript, and it was the primary inspiration for the Book of Mormon.13 A manuscript was finally found years later and published in 1885. It was apparent then and now that the Book of Mormon and the Spaulding Manuscript have virtually nothing in common.

If you read it (and are familiar with the BoM), you’ll find they actually share many similarities. Regardless, it is obvious that Manuscript Found is not the source for the BoM.

Manuscript Found14 or the Spaulding Manuscript, is a draft of a pseudo-pirate romance novel about Romans. I have read the manuscript. Any similarity is general and superficial.

When thinking about the book as a source for the BoM, I totally agree. But there are a number of similarities when thinking about the manuscript as the sort of thing that people were producing at that time (themes and approaches, etc). [list out some of these]

Plus, the manuscript is considerably shorter than the Book of Mormon.15

We agree that the manuscript was not the/a direct source for the BoM.

Why do many critics still reference the Spaulding Manuscript as a source for the Book of Mormon? Why talk about a claim that has been debunked since 1886?

Who is doing that? Please list them so we can see the manner in which they are invoking the manuscript. As I understand it, most of them are advancing the idea that another manuscript exists and that was the source for the BoM (cite Criddle and Kircher guy).

Why do critics still maintain that there must be a missing “2nd manuscript”?

Which critics still maintain this? Are they the critics with historical training?

What are the odds that the mysterious (likely non-existent) second manuscript is the Book of Mormon?

The odds are very small but probably non-negligible.

If the first draft was pirate romance fiction, what are the chances that the second draft is the Book of Mormon?

Probably not high. But there are some similarities in concept that do not make the idea that the first manuscript inspired the BoM a possibility (however remote).

Why does the CES Letter omit the Spaulding Manuscript theory? Isn’t the Spaulding Manuscript source theory among the most widely believed critical theories since the publication of the Book of Mormon?

I do not know, but you could ask Jeremy (/u/kolobot). I suspect that it’s because he was aware that the leading scholars/historians do not think it is a very viable theory.

Is there any evidence at all that Joseph Smith used the Spaulding Manuscript? Do we have an eyewitness who saw Joseph using that book? Did he have a copy? Did anyone he knew have a copy?

No, there’s no evidence of this.

Why did the Church of Jesus Christ publish the Spaulding Manuscript if it was a source for the Book of Mormon?

It was clearly not a source for the BoM, so there was no threat in publishing it (if we were to assume the LDS Church would not publish a source for the BoM if there were some kind of direct link [as the question implies]).

Update: Critics labeled the Book of Mormon as heretical gibberish immediately after publication. However, critics had to change tactics once people started reading it, and thousands converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Dismissing Joseph Smith as a fool bolstered the Book of Mormon’s claim of divine origin. In the first major anti-Mormon book, Mormonism Unvailed (1834), Eber Howe explains the Book of Mormon’s sophistication by claiming that the lost Spaulding Manuscript was the source. This theory dominated critical circles for decades as it maintained the ignoramus, treasure-seeking Joseph narrative while still explaining the Book of Mormon. Critics held on to that narrative until the publication of the manuscript in 1885.

These are interesting historical trajectories. I feel no obligation to account for poor theories from times past.

View of the Hebrews

Seventy-two years after the Book of Mormon was published, I. Woodbridge Riley (1902) was the first person to theorize that the View of the Hebrews was a source for it.

Why did none of the critics that were contemporary to the publication of the Book of Mormon think of the View of the Hebrews as a source? Wasn’t the View of the Hebrews widely available in 1830? None of the eager early church critics put two and two together?

The main ideas in View of the Hebrews were common to the milieu. There’s also no direct, textual linkage between VoH and the BoM.

View of the Hebrews was published in Poultney, Vermont, in 1823 and 1825. The Book of Mormon was published in Palmyra, New York, in 1830. Why does the CES Letter falsely relay that the Book of Mormon was published in Sharon, Vermont (a county neighboring Poultney, Vermont), despite its publication being 300 miles away in Palmyra, New York?

It’s important to get facts correct, but I’m not sure why Jeremy wrote this. You should ask Jeremy (/u/Kolobot). However, the idea that the VoH is representative of ideas in JS’s milieu is not dependent on the exact publication location. JS definitely was around the same vicinity at one point in his life, so it’s fair to say that there was at least broad geographical correspondence between the authors of the two works.

The CES Letter insinuates, without evidence, that Oliver Cowdery used the View of the Hebrews as source material for the Book of Mormon.

“This direct link between Joseph and Oliver and View of the Hebrews demonstrates that Joseph is very likely to have been aware of the theme and content of that book.”20 – CES LETTER, section on the View of the Hebrews

I think this is a misreading of the CES Letter. I do not think those words imply that “that Oliver Cowdery used the View of the Hebrews as source material for the Book of Mormon”. Rather, I think the CES Letter words imply that OC may have been responsible for sharing ideas and/or themes with JS that then found their way into the BoM (via influence, not as “source material”).

The CES Letter is vague on exactly how it suggests the VoH influenced the BoM. The loosest version of this influence (which is advanced after a discussion of BH Roberts) is one that I am comfortable defending:

… While this does not prove that the Book of Mormon was plagiarized from the View of the Hebrews [there’s no good evidence for direct plagiarism at all], it does demonstrate that key elements of the story of the Book of Mormon – i.e. Native Americans as Hebrew descendants, ancient records of natives preserved, scattering and gathering of Israel, Hebrew origin of Native American language, etc. pre-dated the Book of Mormon and were already among the ideas circulating among New England protestant Americans.

Many ideas that appear in the BoM were clearly represented in that milieu and that milieu is captured in the VoH.

If this scenario is correct, how do critics explain the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon? Wasn’t that dictated in 1828, months before Joseph Smith met Oliver Cowdery? Joseph Smith met Oliver Cowdery for the first time on April 5th, 1829.21 Oliver Cowdery was Joseph Smith’s primary scribe during the translation of the Book of Mormon from April 7th 1829, to the last week of June 1829, when the dictation was completed. Joseph Smith met Oliver Cowdery for the first time on April 5th, 1829.21 Oliver Cowdery was Joseph Smith’s primary scribe during the translation of the Book of Mormon from April 7th 1829, to the last week of June 1829, when the dictation was completed.

As mentioned above, the ideas were common to that milieu. A theory where the ideas in the VoH were common to JS’s milieu do not require any of the above mentioned elements.

Parallels shown side by side can seem compelling. Such is the case with the Book of Mormon and the View of the Hebrews. Critics use expressive language like “striking parallels” to drive home the point. There seem to be around 26 possible parallels between the two books. How strong of a correlation is that in a 269,320-word book?

Parallels can certainly be spurious. The more that we find together, the more likely they are not due to chance alone (in this case, I’m holding that they are not chance alone because they both derived from the same milieu). How many themes exist in the Book of Mormon? The particular themes shared between them seem significant to me.

Are parallels convincing evidence?

It depends on the strength of the parallels. The more specific and the more copious the parallels the less likely they are to have occurred by chance alone.

If so, do critics give credence to the Book of Mormon for its 35 parallels with the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls found 100 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon?22

Where are these parallels published so that we can understand their strength? [I skimmed the referenced video but didn’t see a slide on them so maybe they were just mentioned in passing?] In a review of the impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on LDS perspectives, BYU scholar Dana Pike does not reference any (only problems raised by the Dead Sea Scrolls for the BoM). Please reference primary research, where possible.

At first, looking at an official-looking table of parallels seemed convincing. Then, as I started reading the View of the Hebrews, the matches characterized as “bullseyes” looked more like a stretch.

Quotations usually indicate a direct quotation. I do not find the word “bullseye” (or any variant) in the CES letter section on the Book of Mormon (including VoH). While acknowledging your experience (you anticipated tight correspondence and found less similarity when examining the book yourself), I do not think it undermines the broad similarities that exist? If you provided a specific example of a theme you did not find compelling then that would make it easier to discuss with resolution.

If the View of the Hebrews was a major source for the Book of Mormon, why did no one notice the loose parallels between them until 1902? Among the people who did not notice the connections was the View of the Hebrews author Ethan Hill, who was alive for 19 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

The ideas were ubiquitous and the BoM was not directly plagiarizing.

The reality is that any parallels with the View of the Hebrews are tenuous at best. High-level parallels are not a source.

The major (and most defensible) claim is evidence of a shared milieu. Runnells never argues that the BoM was a “source” for the BoM, and if he does not mention it explicitly, I make the statement now–it seems unlikely that VoH was any kind of direct source for the BoM. This does not undermine the similarities in themes as evidence of a shared milieu.

Many of the “parallels” are not parallels once they are thoroughly examined:

The chart shows 7 instances where a parallel is actually dissimilar on some level. These kinds of dissimilarities do weaken the specificity of these examples, but a dissimilarity does not necessarily erase the correspondence that still exists. For example, we find that the Egyptian language functions differently in the two books, but the influence of Egyptian in both books is still present. These dissimilarities underscore the fact that VoH was likely not any kind of direct source for the BoM, but that is not what most informed historians are arguing. Similarly the two examples demonstrating that ideas in VoH were also found in the Bible weakens the argument for specific influence, but the Bible has an enormous number of themes within it, so shared themes that happen to exist in the Bible still give some strength to an influence argument (although that is not the argument I am defending).

Why do critics still cite the View of the Hebrews as a source for the Book of Mormon?

They are uniformed.

The View of the Hebrews is around 57,000 words long. If Joseph Smith used the View of the Hebrews as his primary source for the Book of Mormon, where did the other 200,000 words come from?

The CES Letter does not advance this (at least explicitly), and no informed critics are advancing this.

Is there any evidence that Joseph Smith used the View of the Hebrews as a source?

No (unless we view loose thematic similarities as evidence of influence). No. No. We don’t have g

Do we have an eyewitness of Joseph using the book?

No.

Did he have a copy of it?

Not that we are aware, but we do not have a record of all the books he owned (we do know the kinds of books Joseph Smith gave away).

Did anyone else he knew have a copy of it?

We have very few records of the books that others around JS owned.

Do we have anyone in letters or journal entries mentioning him referencing it?

Not that I am aware.

If Oliver Cowdery was involved, why didn’t he admit it when he was estranged from Joseph Smith for years?

Most models do not require OC to be actively involved. He may have believed. [also, costs of whistleblowing]

If View of the Hebrews was a source for Joseph, why did the BYU re-publish and make it available for free to read online?

It’s clearly not a direct source, so publishing it was probably viewed as helpful to their cause (and they may have published it regardless since it’s relevant to the scholarship).

The First Book of Napoleon

From the CES Letter (emphasis added) – “The following is a side-by-side comparison of selected phrases the Book of Mormon is known for from the beginning portion of the Book of Mormon with the same order in the beginning portion of The First Book of Napoleon (note: these are not direct paragraphs).”

The wording “selected phrases,” “known for,” and “from the beginning portion” are suspicious, right? Here is the critic’s attempt to make the Book of Mormon and the First Book of Napolean seem similar.

Location of First Book of Napoleon quotations

“Condemn not the [writing] … (skip a page) an account…(skip a page) the First Book of Napolean (skip two pages)… upon the face of the earth…(skip four pages) it came to pass… (next paragraph) the land…(skip a page) their inheritance, their gold and silver… (skip two pages) the commandments of the Lord… (skip five pages) the foolish imaginations of their hearts… (skip two pages) small in stature… (skip two pages) Jerusalem… (skip four pages) the wickedness and perverseness of the people”

With all due respect, what?

The goal of this presentation was to highlight how the First Book of Napoleon is somewhat similar to the beginning of the Book of Mormon. Some people were misled based on how it was presented to believe the connections between the two were stronger than what they really were. Adding page numbers (or skip pages as you have done) gives a comparison that appreciates the context much better (since the parallels are not direct). It should be noted that the pages of the the First Book of Napoleon are fairly small (i.e., not a lot of words on each page) and these are fairly unique phrases all clustered in the beginning of the BoM. So, even after properly contextualizing the phrases, it should be evident that there is some signficant similarity there. The comparison suggests that the BoM is not unique in its tone or psuedo-biblical register, and comparing the two makes it easier to view the BoM as an example of psuedo-biblical literature from the early 1800s.

Why do Jeremy Runnells and other critics claim that the beginning of the First Book of Napolean is similar to the start of the Book of Mormon?

If you read the first 6 verses of the FBoN, then they do sound similar to phrases and themes from the BoM.1 This is presumably why Jeremy quoted them.

But the similarity between the two books is not entirely subjective. Chris and Duane Johnson showed the similarity (compared with all other books) using 4-gram matches here.

Doesn’t the critic need to use words and phrases from 25 different pages in the First Book of Napolean and several from the Book of Mormon to make them look similar?

No. The similarities are intrinsic to the text. Runnells’ presentation (problematic though it may be), is merely one way to highlight some of these similarities.

Isn’t that connection dishonest?

It is dishonest if the author meant to convey more than what the data allow for? It’s not dishonest if he were merely trying to hightlight (or call attention to) the similarity? The presentation in the CES Letter could definitely be more clear, though, and the implications of that connection made more explicit.

Why include it in the CES Letter?

Presumably because it is a piece of evidence pointing towards the idea that the BoM is a good fit for having been composed in the early 1800s since it is similar to other kinds of pseudo-biblical literature.

You can ask Runnells (/u/kolobot) why he included it.

If I can select words and phrases from dozens of pages, couldn’t I make almost any two books seem similar with this logic?

Sure. But in this case there is more substance to the similarities than any two books pulled at random (again, see here).

Isn’t the First Book of Napolean a quasi-biblical work that describes the French Revolution and Napolean Bonaparte’s rise to power? Isn’t Napolean the central figure of the First Book of Napolean, whereas Christ is the central figure of the Book of Mormon? Aren’t the themes radically different?

This is not how influence works. Many aspects of a particular work may be changed substantially (or ignored) when they influence the author of another work. Differences do not negate similarities (by themselves). See appendix: Why Dissimilarities are Poor Grounds for Rejecting Influence [need to write and/or quote/credit chatgpt4o’s answer to this, which is quite sensible AFAICT].

Did any contemporaries of Joseph Smith notice the parallels between the First Book of Napolean and the Book of Mormon? Why not?

No, not that we have any record of. Perhaps because they had not read it, or because nobody viewed the FBoN as having been a direct source for the BoM.

The First Book of Napoleon has around 22,500 words. If Joseph Smith used the First Book of Napolean as a primary source, where did the other 230,000 words of the Book of Mormon come from?

The CES Letter does not claim the FBoN was a “primary source.” And, by its nature, influence does not work like this. It’s clear that the FBoN did not provide a direct scaffold for the BoM, but the author of the BoM may have read it and some of the ideas and phrasing influenced the way the BoM was written. It’s also possible that both books are mere reflections of a milieu that produced pseudo-biblical registers and were occupied with similar kinds of themes.

Is there any evidence that Joseph Smith used the First Book of Napolean as a source?

No.

Do we have an eyewitness of Joseph using that book?

No.

Did he even have a copy of it?

No, but we don’t know the extent of the books they owned or had exposure to.

Did anyone else he knew have a copy of it?

No, but we don’t have good records of all the books everyone owned.

Do we have anyone in letters or journal entries mentioning him referencing it?

No.

The Late War

In 2013, Chris and Duane Johnson presented results from a breakdown comparing the Book of Mormon with 100,000+ books. Computing power allows for this sort of analysis to happen in modern days. They found that the book most correlated with the Book of Mormon was a textbook published in 1819 called The Late War. The textbook uses a scriptural writing style to describe the War of 1812. Until 2013, no one had made this connection with the Book of Mormon, including anyone in Joseph Smith’s day.

The last sentence is factually incorrect. Rick Grunder had noticed the parallel between the Late War and the Book of Mormon and published it in his book Mormon Parallels in 2008. This is noted by McGuire (and is quoted on the FAIR page you referenced as of 2024-09-10). I own the second edition and Grunder spends nearly 50 pages analyzing the similarities between the two (but I do not know how extensive the comparison was in the first edition).

It is the case, as far as is known, that no one in JS’s day had made the observation or connection. This may be because the book did not have wide circulation (Grunder argues from printings that it was “wildly” circulated while the blog author of Book of Mormonism argues it was much more modest). It may also be because pseudo-biblical texts were somewhat common. Finally, it’s probably also the case that even were someone to notice their similarity, there is not enough there to argue that TLW was a direct source for the BoM.

The Johnsons’ analysis showed 74 parallels between the books; how strong of a correlation is that in a 260,000-word book?

One can compare the strength of the correlations visually here. They seem significant. However, they are of such a nature that the study’s authors eventually decided against the idea that there was necessarily direct influence between TLW and the BoM [cite].

Don’t many of those correlations also correlate with the King James Version of the Bible?

Yes. But many do not.

Isn’t it true that something else would have been the most correlated if not the Late War?

Yes. Something would have been most correlated. Most closely correlated does not indicate direct influence (as you imply by this question).

Why isn’t The View of the Hebrews, The First Book of Napolean, or the Spaulding Manuscript more correlated?

Because of the similarity of the 4 grams. Let’s assume direct influence (which I am not). It’s possible for a work to have been directly influenced by more than one work. One of the direct influences would be most correlated, but that is not mutually exclusive with other books being correlated. See componential creativity [cite]. If we are merely arguing these books were indicative of the milieu that the BoM came about in, then it is equally simple to argue that multiple works may be indicative of the milieu.

Is there any proof that Joseph Smith had read The Late War or even had access to it?

No. [Grunder arguments, though]

Since 2014, after several debunkings, the Johnsons have not followed up on their study. Why?

They concluded that the Late War was not a direct influence on the Book of Mormon (matter of public record) and lost interest (what I inferred from a private conversation with Duane Johnson years ago). Despite the claim that they can leave but they cannot leave it alone, most exmormons I know lose any deep interest in LDS studies after a few years (just starts to be less relevant to their lives).

The Late War has 56,632 words. Where did the other 200,000 words in the Book of Mormon come from if Joseph Smith used The Late War as a source?

The best argument is not that it was used as a source, so the question misunderstands the way literary influence (direct or indirect) works.

Is there evidence that Joseph Smith used The Late War as a source?

No.

Do we have an eyewitness of Joseph using the book?

No.

Did he even have a copy of it?

Not that we know of, but we do not have a record of the books JS owned (besides those he gave away at one point).

Did anyone else he knew have a copy of it?

No.

Do we have anyone in letters or journal entries mentioning him referencing it?

No, but how many books have you used or read and not recorded a journal entry about reading them? We do have statements about him reading in the bookstore [cite].

Is it reasonable to think that Joseph Smith used all these listed sources (and much more) from memory to dictate the Book of Mormon in 65 days?

No. But the question misunderstands the way creativity and influence operate.

Is there any proof that he used any of these sources?

No.

Has anyone ever mentioned seeing Joseph Smith using them or even having them?

No. But how many books have you read that escaped mention by your peers or family?

Were they in Joseph Smith’s library?

We do not know what books were in his library (except a few he gave away at one point).

Did Joseph Smith ever reference these books in casual conversation at all?

Perhaps. We do not have record of most of his conversations.

The Bible

The Book of Mormon and the Bible have parallels for more obvious reasons. Depending on the method used, between 5% and 10% of the Book of Mormon is from the Bible, or 15% at the very most.

Isn’t more than 10% of the New Testament a citation or allusion to an Old Testament scripture? Don’t the biblical parallels make a better, not weaker, case for the Book of Mormon’s divine origin?

Citation or allusion alone is not problematic and could indeed strengthen the case for ancientness. When we examine the usage, it appears to mimic what we’d expect from an early 1800s source and not from what we’d expect from an authentic ancient source. [details]

If 5%-15% of the Book of Mormon is from the Bible, where did the other 85%-95% come from?

The Book of Mormon was a creative work that transcended the Bible.

Is there any evidence that Joseph Smith referenced the Bible during the translation?

The textual evidence is strong [quotation and italics]. It also seems that he was in more private quarters when he was working on the Isaiah chapters. Finally, it’s not clear that anyone would have mentioned the Bible since it lying around may have simply . But OC and JS both were not clear on the instruments, so perhaps they also did not feel like it was inappropriate to use the Bible as reference during the dictation. Regardless, the quotations are not typically word for word, [and italics]

Update: To make all the naturalistic source theories work, critics must suspend belief and imagine Joseph Smith had memorized or memorialized a library of books.

This misunderstands the most common theories of how JS created the BoM. To be influenced (or even inspired) by a source is not to memorize it.

In Fawn Brodie’s biography of Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History (1945), she popularized the “Joseph was a religious genius” theory that is still prevalent today.

Virtually all of JS’s significant output was religious in nature (most of it what members would call “inspired”), so it’s difficult to find the proper control to appreciate his genius outside of this setting.

  • Colesville letters
  • Saxton letter
  • textual metrics comparison of letter to OC

So, in a little over 100 years, critics went from Joseph being an ignorant fool to someone else writing the Book of Mormon to Joseph being a religious genius.

I feel no responsibility to account for theories advanced by people with very partial data to work from.

The Narrative of Zosimus

The Narrative of Zosimus is an ancient text written originally in Hebrew. It appears to be at least as old as the time of Christ and likely much older.

If you follow Welch’s footnote for this claim, then you find that it’s more complex than presented. From a 1981 reprinting of the 1976 source Welch cites:

… Those who know about it [The Narrative of Zosimus] brand it as medieval because its present form is late, perhaps as late as the sixth century as James contended. (Apocrypha Anecdota, p. 95; cf. also Nau, RevSem 6 [1898] 264). A mere cursory examination of James’ discussion, however, reveals that he places the present evolved form of the work in the sixth century, at the latest, and intimates intermittently that the Jewish original must be much earlier (cf. the discussion of the antiquity of the traditions by A. Zanolli, “La leggenda di Zosimo seconda la redazione armena,” Giornale della Societa Asiatica Italiana n.s. 1 [1924] 146–62; see esp. pp. 146-51). Like many of the compilations discussed herein, the Apocalypse of Zosimus contains an ancient core over which are superimposed more than one later layer of tradition. …

And from the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 2:

It is unwise to state the probable original language, date, or provenance of this document until critical editions of the Greek, Syriac, and Ethiopic texts are available. … The date of the History of the Rechabites is the crucial issue, and it is related to the Jewish or Christian character of the various sections. In its present form the work may date from the sixth century A.D., as M. R. James contended.[11] Comparison of the Syriac manuscripts reveals that the document, like many pseudepigrapha (viz. 4Ezra), has received interpolations by Christians; the same observation results from a mere cursory examination and comparison of the Greek manuscripts, and by the recognition that the Greek is expanded by chapters 19 through 23, which are certainly Christian. The Ethiopic, moreover, has been extensively expanded by scribes who were obviously Christian.[12] Some of the present document is Christian, but the Christian interpolations—sometimes found in only one manuscript—raise the possibility that 12:9a-13:5c and 16:1b-8 are not original but a Christian insertion into an earlier document. This hypothetical earlier writing could be a Christian revision of inherited Jewish traditions, or it could be a Christian expansion of an original (partly preserved) Jewish document. [Various scholars] have perceived evidence of a Jewish original behind the present Christian document. Nau even used such terms as “the Christian translator,” “the primitive text,” “the Hebrew text,” and “the Hebrew author.” Working with only the Greek document generates the impression that the beginning and end are Christian and that the central chapters, 3-15, are originally Jewish. Focusing upon the Syriac document leaves the impression that only 12:9a-13:5c and 16:1b-8 are clearly Christian and appear to be interpolated, because they interrupt the flow of thought and contain intrusive ideas. The mention of the name “Zosimus” in the latter section (16:8) suggests that perhaps all passages connected with this name may be from a later stratum,[20] hence chapters 7:12-16:1a, which do not identify the traveler as “Zosimus,” would be earlier and possibly Jewish. It is only in these chapters, and specifically in 8–10, that mention is made of the Rechabites and their history in Jerusalem during the days of Jeremiah.[21] At this stage in our work it is best to suggest only that sections of this document are Jewish or heavily influenced by Jewish traditions, and that they may antedate the second century A.D. …

So, the text is thought to contain an ancient core but also to reflect later Christian embellishment. Welch himself does a good job of capturing the nuance of the dates and later Christian influence in his 1997 “Background and Overview” section; however, Welch’s detailed comparisons between the Narrative of Zosimus and the BoM do not really surface the nuance related to the Christian additions vs. the older core.

Critics usually do not reference this text …

That is probably because LDS scholars and/or apologists do not frequently advance the book as a top evidence. I found a few mentions of it with google (e.g., Dan Peterson’s DN article, Michael Ash’s DN article, as one evidence in the massive show your shelf list) but it’s not usually included in the typical evidence lists I have seen (e.g., this post on MormonDoctrine, Jamie Huston’s list of top 10 Evidences, 3 Evidences from LDS Living, or in Tad Callister’s defense of the BoM as an ancient document). So, while it does occupy a knowhy page as it relates to the tree of life, it’s just not often mustered as top evidence.

If this is meant to imply that critics would rather avoid the topic on some level, I spent some time extracting out the entire Greek and Syriac translations used by Welch in his 1997 analysis so that everyone can more easily read and analyze the narrative (see Transcript: Narrative of Zosimus).

… but the parallels to the story of Lehi are striking.

There are a few interesting parallels between the two works (speaking very broadly), but I think that the list presented here 1) has exaggerated many elements in order to make the similarities seem somewhat more striking. And, more importantly, 2) virtually everything in the story also finds parallels with the Bible, especially the story of the Exodus (which the BoM also parallels) or the story of the nomadic Rechabites recorded in Jeremiah 35.

* The narrative explains how a group of sons, led by their father, escaped the destruction of Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah

This seems exaggerated to me. The narrative itself focuses on Zosimus “And I, Zosimus, issuing from my cave with God leading me, set out not knowing which way I went…”. He’s not accompanied by a “group of sons” and nor does he lead them. The destruction of Jerusalem does not seem an explicit driver for Zosimus at all (perhaps it is implied by the context, but this is not really a strong theme of the narrative it seems to me).

* The family survived the scattering of Israel

As discussed above, Zosimus is not accompanied by a family (unless we’re talking about the Rechabite tribe?, but these are mentioned in the Bible already). I read the text (English translations of the Greek and Syriac) and it’s is not clear that there is any real emphasis on surviving the scattering of Israel (if it is a subtext for the narrative, then it is fairly subtle).

* They were led by God to an ideal land across the ocean

It’s not really clear to me that Zosimus crossed an ocean at all. He is at a “river” and two trees carry him over the river on their branches: “And the tree on this side bent down and received me on its top, and was lifted up exceedingly above the middle of the river, and the other tree met me and received me in its branches and bending down set me on the ground;” While the depth of the river is described as “to the abyss” the breadth of the river is described as “30,000 paces” which is about ~15 miles if these are normal paces. While this is abnormally large for a river, the rest of the descriptions do not suggest that this is an ocean (e.g., no boat is required—just trees to shuttle him over it in their branches).

* Zosimus, dwelling in a cave in the desert, prays to the Lord and obtains spiritual passage to a land of blessedness

There are lots of caves in the bible. The core story of the Exodus is passage to a promised land.

* Zosimus must wander in the wilderness without knowing where he is being led

The Exodus is the story of wandering without knowing where they were going.

* He attains his destination by constant prayer and divine intervention

There is one mention of Zosimus praying, “I had prayed to God” (the Rechabites prayed but trying to understand the reason for Zosimus’s “incursion among them”). There is divine intervention in his journey, but this is a ubiquitous theme of the Bible.

* Zosimus arrives at the bank of an unfathomable river of water covered by an impenetrable cloud of darkness

This makes it sound like the narrative echoes the Tree of Life story in some meaningful way. The cloud is not a “cloud of darkness” at all (“darkness” is not associated with this cloud AFAICT). Here’s the description of his time at the river: “… And behold when I desired to cross the river, some one cried as if from the water, saying, Zosimus, man of God, thou canst not pass through me, for no man can divide my waters: but look up from the waters to the heaven. And looking up I saw a wall of cloud stretching from the waters to the heaven, and the cloud said, Zosimus, man of God, through me no bird passes out of this world, not breath of wind, nor the sun itself, nor can the tempter in this world pass through me [the wall of cloud]…”

* After crossing the water, Zosimus sits beneath a beautiful tree, eating its fruit

There are multiple fruit trees that people eat under in the Bible (either explicitly or implied) (Genesis 3:6 [explicit]; Genesis 18:1-8 [implied]; 1 Samuel 14:2 [implied]; John 1:48 [possibly implied]; Luke 19:1-10 [possibly implied]). Also, there does not seem to be any deeper meaning implied by the text for this—he was merely faint/exhausted. This list of parallels conflates the “ocean” with the same river implied to echo the tree of life story from the BoM, so the parallels seem mixed/incoherent on some level.

* Zosimus is met by an angelic escort, who asks him what he wants

Angelic escorts are common in the Old Testament (Lot’s escape and assistance for Elijah) and New Testament (Peter’s escort from prison; Lazarus’s escort to Abraham’s side; and Jesus’s ascension).

* Zosimus is shown a vision in which he thinks he beholds the Son of God

Given that the document is known to have later Christian embellishments, it seems unsurprising to contain a reference to the “son of God.”

* Their history is “engraved” upon soft stone plates.

The translation Welch provides uses the term “tablets of stone” (not “plates”). The 10 commandments (part of the Exodus story) are commandments written on stone tablets.

* The family is allowed to occupy a land of paradise and abundance

This is a theme of the Exodus (eventually arriving in the land of promise and one “flowing with milk and honey”).

[LATL] Critics may not claim the Narrative of Zosimus as a source for the Book of Mormon, as its first major English publication was not until 1867. If critics claimed it to be a source, they would have to explain how Joseph got his hands on this ancient document decades before it was translated into English.

[LATL] “Accounting for the similarities between these texts is intriguing and complicated. In a religious context, the parallels between the two writings may be explained as deriving from a common source of revelation or religious experience. Academically, the parallels are an intellectual challenge with no definite resolution. Even though I cannot account for these parallels in all respects, their mere existence tends to support claims of ancient Near Eastern origins for Book of Mormon authorship.” (emphasis added) - John Welch

Comparison with the Bible

Welch performed a columnar comparison between the Greek translation and the BoM. To me, the parallels between the BoM and the NoZ do not seem especially precise. To give a sense of their relative strength, I have performed a similar comparison between the Greek translation and the Bible using chatgpt (but being careful to lookup each suggested verse). Even with this very superficial/cursory comparison with the Bible itself, it seems the resonance between the Bible and the Narrative of Zosimus is fairly strong.

Conclusion

After reading the Narrative of Zosimus from end to end (both Greek and Syriac) and looking at comparisons with the Bible itself, I do not find this a particularly compelling evidence for the ancientness of the BoM. This is the sort of thing we would like to see if the Book of Mormon were an ancient text (so I do think it offers some very mild weight on the side of Book of Mormon ancientness, all things considered), but the resonances we see are not precise or ubiquitous enough to defend this as strong evidence for Book of Mormon ancientness. When the parallels are understood in context (and without embellishment), I think the resonances can be easily and fully explained by a modern BoM leaning on the Bible and the NoZ also drawing inspiration from the Bible.

Welch concludes that “[t]oo many similarities exist between these writings to account for them all simply in terms of normal human experience, the commonality of man, or happenstance,” but at the same time he acknowledges that none of the parallels are “conclusive.” and while he concludes that the parallels “corroborate the claim that the authorship of the Book of Mormon is rooted in the ancient Near East” he more generically concludes that “… at least … these two text share a considerable amount of common ground.” Ultimately, I agree with his milder conclusion and posit that the Bible itself constitutes the obvious source of common ground between the two documents.

Vernal Holley Model

In 1992, Vernal Holley theorized that Joseph Smith got the names and geography of the Book of Mormon by altering the names of cities/bodies of water in the Great Lakes area. Below are the two maps provided in the CES Letter (Vernal Holley maps). The insinuation is that Joseph Smith modified names and places from his surroundings. When I first saw these maps, I was unsure what to think. At first glance, in a convincing-looking map, it seemed conclusive.

Here is the problem: The whole thing is bogus. According to the geography of the Book of Mormon, virtually everything in the Vernal Holley map is in the wrong place. Fair Latter-day Saints provides a thorough debunking of the Vernal Holley map. Below is my attempt to fix the map.

Morianton should be by the eastern seashore; Holley places it near the “sea west.” Ramah is the Jaredite name for the Hill Cumorah, yet Holley places it in Ontario, much further north than New York. Holley places Jacobugath in the land southward, while in the Book of Mormon, it is northward. Ogath in the Book of Mormon is south of Ripliancum, not east of it, as Holley’s map proposes. Angola should be north of Zarahemla, not south. Alma should be north of Lehi-Nephi, not far to the west. The list goes on. Worst of all, many of Holley’s “parallels” are locations in the Book of Mormon that are only named once and not given a location. Holley likely leans on Jaredite place names because their location is less clear than Nephite ones.

Why do critics use the Vernal Holley map when it is objectively wrong?

I personally have never used the Vernal Holley map.[^holley_disclaimer] I wrote up my own revised section of the letter, leaning on research from an LDS researcher: Place names near or somewhat near Joseph Smith. Still, we do not have to wonder why Runnells continues to use the map because he wrote about it in his response to the FAIR rebuttal TLAT leans on:[^why_no_link_to_jeremys_response]

  1. At least some of the “objectively wrong” criticisms of the map are arguably not “objectively wrong.” Book of Mormon geography in many instances is not super precise, so various maps can be constructed and considered valid (e.g., Jacobugath) And some of the data used to call a place name “wrong” are not settled (e.g., where is the land of first inheritance).

  2. There’s no requirement that the map need match perfectly, or even well. Runnells explains:

Complaining that Ramah and Morianton are in the “wrong place” on a map is an argument given by minds that believe the Book of Mormon names are real places. On the flip side of this same coin, a critic might say “Joseph & Co. made a mistake and didn’t watch the geography carefully.”

Here’s the point that unofficial apologists and the “Joseph made a mistake and didn’t watch his geography” critics fail to grasp: the point of the map is not whether or not it matches exactly. The point is that it matches mostly. There are a striking number of names around the location in which Joseph Smith grew up, similar versions of which are in the Book of Mormon. Moreover, many of these similar place names are also situated in a geographically similar manner to which they are situated in the Book of Mormon. The coincidence is simply too great to ignore.

The maps do not have to match perfectly or even have to make sense. It’s like pointing out that Lord of the Rings’ Minas Tirith didn’t have enough farmland to support itself. Yes, Minas Tirith is a made up location. Getting it wrong in a fictional book is an indication it is fiction. Ramah being in Canada and being the name “Cumorah” in Jaradite just might be an indication that Joseph & Co. made stuff up.

Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien based his Middle Earth on locations around him at the time of his writings but he changed names and the map so that it would be “his own world.” An exact match isn’t necessary.

I would prefer not to defend Holley’s map specifically, but I think that generally it is easy to view Joseph Smith’s milieu (existing places and Bible names, etc) as sufficient inspiration for the place names in the Book of Mormon (again, discussed here).

There are 86 place names in the Book of Mormon. The Holley model theorizes that 28 of the names were created by looking at a map and altering the names. Joseph would have needed to take names from five US states and two Canadian provinces, hundreds of miles away from the upstate New York farmer.

There’s no strict limit on how a person might incorporate names into a work of fiction, and as mentioned above, there is no requirement that everything correspond exactly (or even loosely). Especially in the vicinity of the Erie Canal, but also generally, there was a growing interest in that time of geography (see Schulten’s Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America and Bernstein’s Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation for discussion). Hence, the idea that the author of the BoM may have been inspired by nearby place names is reasonable (but also not proven in any strict sense).

Aren’t some of the “parallels” a bit of a stretch? (IE Oneida is Onidah, Antioch is Ani-Anti, Monroe is Moroni, and Ripple Lake is Ripliancum)

Yes. But also that’s the way creativity works. If a person were making up names, we would expect the creative process to alter them in significant ways. These alterations limit our ability to drawn any strict correspondence, for sure.

Is it not true that other parallels are Biblical names like Jerusalem, Boaz, Midian, and Jordan?

Strictly speaking the place name is not necessary in these cases, but this is not a strong rebuttal by itself. It’s reasonable to think that correspondence between the Bible and a local-ish name would increase the odds that someone in that milieu might have been inspired to use such a name, so it’s still relevant.

Didn’t many of the 28 parallel cities not appear on 1820-1830 maps? Didn’t many of the parallel cities not exist at all until after the publication of the Book of Mormon?

Jeremy discusses this generally in his geography FAIR rebuttal. He notes how a place is typically called by the name long before it is officially incorporated. Regardless, we can go through these examples in detail. Although I have done some work to find better sources, LDS faithful scholar Mary Ann at Wheat and Tares did much of the heavy lifting in tracking down info, so most of the credit belongs to her.

Angola, New York, was established in 1854, twenty-four years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

A post office named Angola was established in 1822 in Taylor’s Hollow, a hamlet in the town of Collins, Erie County, New York. It was the first post office in Collins. It is cited in the 1825 version of the United States Official Postal Guide (page 5). [Note, this name is not in the Bible as Angola, Angolah, or Angelah.]

Tecumseh did not have a name until 1912, eighty-two years after 1830.

Holley really wanted this to be in “the land northward,” so a Canadian option for this is Tecumseth Township in Simcoe County, Ontario. The name was given in 1821, and settlers arrived soon after. The township is depicted on an 1826 map of Canada. An American option is, of course, the city of Tecumseh in Lenawee County, Michigan. The city was established in 1824, and appears on many maps of the 1820s. The town is also cited in the 1825 version of the United States Official Postal Guide (page 92).

Alma was a small, unincorporated community in Tyler County, West Virginia. It does not appear on the maps Joseph would have used, and it was settled in the early 1830s.

This is correct. Also, the name Alma was a relatively common male name in Joseph’s vicinity, as substantiated in this discuss mormonism thread.

Irish migrants named Conner, Canada, after the migrant’s hometown in Ireland. The name came in 1865, thirty-five years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

Seems correct.

Jacobsburg was established in 1815 but was too small to appear on maps. Its first appearance on a map of Ohio was in 1831, one year after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

Sometimes referred to as Jacobstown in early literature, this town in Belmont County was laid out in 1815. It is cited as Jacobsburg in the 1825 version of the United States Official Postal Guide (page 46).

The Kiskimentas Township in Pennsylvania was named such in 1832, two years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

This is a reference to the Kiskiminetas River along the border of Armstrong County and Westmoreland County in Pennsylvania. There are various spellings of this name, though the most common I’ve seen are Kishkemanetas on early maps (see it on an 1805 map of Pennsylvania) and the standardized Kiskiminetas. Although the township of the name wasn’t established until 1831, somewhere in Westmoreland County there was a post office named Kiskiminitas. It shows up in the 1825 version of the United States Official Postal Guide (page 49).

Mantua Village, Ohio, was incorporated in 1898, sixty-eight years after 1830.

The area of Mantua in Portage County, Ohio, was first settled just ahead of 1800, though the township of the name wasn’t formed until 1810. The community was named in honor of Napoleon, who captured Mantua, Italy, in 1796. It is cited in both the 1823 New Universal Gazetteer (page 446) and the 1825 version of the United States Official Postal Guide (page 56).

Monroe, New York, existed in 1830 but was too small to appear on maps of New York in 1822 or 1831.

Sooo many cities and counties are named Monroe in the 1820s. I mapped the town in Orange County, New York, but you could probably find one closer. It (and many others of the same name) is cited in the 1825 version of the United States Official Postal Guide (page 60).

Creation of Minoa was in 1895, 60 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

Seems correct.

Ripple Lake is already a stretch for the waters of Ripliancum. Even so, it is so small that locating even on modern-day maps is challenging. Plus, it is one of more than 250,000 lakes in Ontario. Did Joseph Smith like the name of a small and obscure body of water hundreds of miles away so much that he kept the first three letters of “Ripple Lake,” added seven letters, and called it Ripliancum?

This one does seem too vague to be of much utility for a modern origin theory.

Here is a breakdown:

I’ve updated the chart to reflect a more nuanced analysis.

Names LATL CES 2.0 Map Actual In Bible
Sodom (Sidom) ✅ ✅ ✅ Sidon
Ripple Lake (Ripliancum) ✅   ✅  
Oneida (Onidah) ✅ ✅ ✅  
Oneida Castle (Onidah, Hill) ✅   ✅  
Moraviantown (Morianton) ✅ ✅ ✅  
Lehigh (Lehi) ✅ ✅ ✅  
Hellam (Helam) ✅   ✅  
Antrim (Antum) ✅   ✅  
Rama (Ramah) ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅
Omer (Omner) ❌   ❌ ✅
Morin (Moron) ❌   ❌  
Minoa (Minon) ❌   ❌  
Mantua (Manti) ❌   ❌  
Kishkiminetas (Kishkumen) ❌ ✅ ✅  
Jacobsburg (Jacobugath) ❌ ✅ ✅  
Conner (Comner) ❌   ❌  
Antioch (Ani-Anti) ❌   ❌  
Alma (Alma, Valley of) ❌ ✅ ✅*  
Land of Midian (Land of Midian) ✅   ✅ ✅
Noah Lakes (Valley of Noah) ✅   ✅ ✅
Jordan (Jordan) ✅   ✅ ✅
Boaz (Boaz) ✅   ✅ ✅
Shiloh (Shilom) ✅❌ ✅ ✅❌ ✅
Monroe (Moroni) ✅❌   ✅ ✅
Jerusalem (Jerusalem) ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅
Ephrem, Saint (Ephraim, Hill) ❌   ❌ ✅
Sherbrooke (Shurr) NA ✅ ✅ ✅ (Shur)

* Alma was a common male name in Joseph’s vicinity, as sourced above. I am keeping it in the chart to demonstrate that it would have been readily accessible as a name while acknowledging that the location shown in the CES Letter (as an extant location in the late 1820s) is not likely defensible.

Note that some of the locations that Mary Ann located do not necessarily correspond with the location on the CES Letter geography map.

In summary, the map in the CES Letter 2.0 seems largely defensible (especially acknowledging that some locations are not definitively known and that the correspondence does not need to closely match) in two ways:

  1. The geography around Joseph Smith could have served as a rough template for the Book of Mormon geography (although the creative process does not mean a one to one correspondence is required).
  2. Taken collectively, there were a significant number of names around Joseph Smith that could have served as creative fodder for the Book of Mormon.

The ultimate significance of these is better qualified in my analysis here.

The following eight names theorized in the Vernal Holley model are also in the Bible. So, if Joseph Smith were to copy them, the Bible would be a more plausible source for these names in the Book of Mormon than random towns and lands, sometimes hundreds of miles away. At the same time, if ancient peoples came from the Old World to the New World, they may have named these cities after Israelite names.

This seems like a false dilemma. The presence of a name in relatively nearby geography AND the presence of the name in the Bible serves to increase the odds that it may have been used creatively (i.e., because it increases the odds that the name may have been impressed upon the author’s mind from either or both sources).

How did Joseph Smith borrow names from small towns and bodies of water hundreds of miles away that did not exist until after 1830?

To re-emphasize, I do not necessarily think that Joseph borrowed names (or place-names) from nearby locations, as I discuss here. That said, there was rising interest in maps and geography in that area during that time (as discussed by Schulten and Bernstein. A name could have been merely discussed in the BoM author’s presence at one point in their life to have become fodder for the creation of a name in a work of fiction.

When I discovered the above facts, I was floored that critics still use the Holley model to criticize the Book of Mormon.

Holley’s hypothesis (strictly speaking) is not as powerful as the map comparison itself might suggest for the two reasons documented (not all of the locations were extant in the late 1820s and not all locations are precise fits for BoM locations). Still, the map serves to demonstrate that the geography around Joseph could have served as a rough template for the BoM geography and that collectively there are a significant number of names in that milieu that could have served as creative fodder for names in the BoM.

Why has Jeremy not removed this section from the CES Letter? Jeremy removed the Monroe and Moroni connection, but the rest remains.

He was thinking about ditching it:

I believe that it’s the weakest part of the CES Letter. The evidence, to me, is meh and not strong enough for my taste. The only way I’d probably keep it in the CES Letter is with a disclaimer of some sort basically saying something to the effect of, “Vernal Holley’s maps and parallels are controversial. This information is not incorrect but it’s not strong either. Here are resources for further research.”

I was one of the people who encouraged him to keep the section (generally), for this reason:

Members never really have a chance to reflect on the idea that the BoM came from Joseph’s milieu. Showing that many of the unique place names can easily be derived from local place names gives credence to the notion that JS could have been the author. Plus, you’ve done some nice original research in your rebuttals with FAIR, meaning that you’ve already been able to dispense with those that are not as strong and can back up all the others with solid evidence.

Since then, I have had the chance to revisit place names in this essay. I think there is some utility in the map presentation, but it should probably include more disclaimers and nuance. The list of placenames requires some additional work, but it is also useful.

After defending the idea that Joseph could have known most of the placenames in Mary Ann’s list, I ultimately conclude in this manner:

What does it mean? Probably not much. We could look for place names similar to Book of Mormon place names in any location on earth and likely find a number of near-matches across the unique 188 names.

Still, it does offer a counterpoint to the query, “where could Joseph have gotten all those names?” He could have made them up, conciously or subconciously being inspired by:

There is no direct evidence that Joseph Smith consulted any of these, but nor would a modern author of the Book of Mormon have been working in a vacuum void of potential inspirational name material.

The original 28 out of 86 connections were not particularly strong in the first place.

They are of varying strength. Some are stronger than others. Collectively, they demonstrate that some significant portion of the place names in the BoM could have been inspired by places (or people) around Joseph Smith at that time.

With only 9% potential connections remaining (8 out of 86), why do critics still use the Vernal Holley model?

After researching the topic in more depth, I would not include the map in a truth-claim summary. I would include lists of placenames (carefully researched and documented) as part of a larger set of potential fodder that may have influenced the BoM author (perhaps subconciously). As I have demonstrated, the names found in the BoM could have been generated by a creative mind from the late 1820s, as I have documented here.

My Questions

[extend the analogy from the first chapter. Even if were able to know enough about the situation to believe very clearly the creation of the BoM was miraculous we are still left with a book that is very clearly an early 1800s work. How or for what purpose would God (or some other supernatural being) intervene in order to produce a work like that? ]

My questions

  • Colesville letters, Saxton letter?
  • Pearl of great price, JST with massive insertions?

  1. I asked chatgpt4o (2024-09-10) to find similarities between the first six verses of the FBoN, as quoted in the CES Letter, and the Book of Mormon. I validated that each verse was similar on some level as advertised (some or more similar than others).

    1. Verse 1: 3 Nephi 6:18-20 and Ether 8:24
    2. Verse 2: Mosiah 29:36-37
    3. Verse 3: Alma 8:9 and Alma 45:12
    4. Verse 4: Ether 9:4-6
    5. Verse 5: Ether 14:17-18
    6. Verse 6: Helaman 6:31 and Ether 11:7

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