The Book of Mormon Site

Non-Biblical Phrases in the Book of Mormon

How can we know if an older (first) text had an influence on a newer (second) text?

If we list a bunch of phrases and some dates of when they were used, does that prove an influence from the first on the second, and not just a correlation? Not necessary, because some other reasonable possibilities exist:

  1. Dispersion. The phrase was so commonly used and there are so many people who used it that we cannot possibly narrow it down to a single source. (The extreme example would be individual English words.) However if this is the case, we would expect to see the phrase all over the place, even in non-religious works, etc. When we do an Ngram search over millions of books, we would expect to see that the phrase occurs as often as is claimed. If the phrase is not actually that common, and we can see the types of books where it was used (religious discussions in a certain branch of Protestantism), then the claim that it is just a common turn of phrase falls over. (In an era of nearly a billion digitzed books, newspapers, and magazines—full text search and Ngram charts, what does “common turn of phrase” even mean, but inconsiderate dismissal?)
  2. Existence proof of some known or unknown influence. Both uses of the phrase (Book of Mormon, older printed work) are copied from a third source, or copied from people who had access to the third source, or copied from an unknown chain of sources to an eventual third source. This doesn’t solve the problem of independence, because it just means if we had that third source in hand, it simply becomes our new first source, and we are left with how to explain that new first source. In other words, hypothesize the existence of a source H (1500–1828, printed or oral) that explains our first source (older text) and our second source (Book of Mormon), and assume that each was explained by H. You still have the problem of explaining how and why H, written after 1500, influenced the Book of Mormon, from after 400 CE, when the plates were buried.
  3. Coincidence. It is possible that the same phrase is included by mere coincidence, or that the phrasing was independently rediscovered. However, how many coincidences are we asked to explain away? And what is the alternate explanation? Appeal to a hidden ancient text that we cannot inspect? This seems like a larger leap than the possibility of simple textual influence, for at least some subset of these candidate data points. (Again, it doesn’t matter if the printed work was sitting open on the table during dictation, it only matters that the phrase and idea definitively postdates the 400 CE burial of the plates.)

To those who ask (for example) how our 1720 source (reprinted in 1788, 1799, 1807, 1820) that says “Every natural man is an enemy to God,” is evidence of the unoriginality of the phrase “the natural man is an enemy to God” in the Book of Mormon, we can say—we have evidence that it was copied nearly verbatim into the Book of Mormon from … somewhere, because we see it copied nearly verbatim into the Book of Mormon from … somewhere. We know the phrase was in use as far back as 1720, having found a source after 400 CE that comes from the modern English print era. If there is an earlier English source that we simply haven’t found yet (1500–1719) which is “the real” common source for Thomas Boston and the Book of Mormon (or a source for a fourth source, or the source for an oral tradition through the 1820s, that JS Jr. absorbed and regurgitated in 1829)—we still haven’t explained anything. Those who follow the orthodox ancient origin hypothesis are left to explain how the phrase cried out of the dust and leaked out of the buried plates (400 CE), crossed the Atlantic Ocean, to 1720 Scotland, where it inspired Thomas Boston, who wrote and published it in print. Or, is it possible Rev. Bostom was a true prophet, and God was the common source? According to 1 Ne. 14:10, “Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.” If the true Church was restored in 1830, how can this 1720 writer belong to the church of the Lamb of God? None of this makes an ounce of sense. If you claim that it wasn’t Thomas Boston, but the broader Protestant world that had absorbed this idea (or that Thomas Boston absorbed the idea in circulation more broadly, and he merely wrote it down) you are still left with the question of how ancient prophets quoted 18th century Protestant ideas, widely in circulation, nearly verbatim. Because, according to Occam’s razor, or the law of parsimony we should not need to assume a breakdown in the arrow of causality, or any weird special pleading argument, double standard, or bizarre exception.

However, recent 21st-century Presidents and Apostles of the Church’s reiterations of orthodox claims, and Joseph Smith’s own claims that he translated the Book of Mormon from an ancient record—a record that we are not at liberty to inspect—throws a wrench in the works. How could textual influences work, in the context of translation? Some may claim that with regards to a translation, an inspired translation, the rules might be different. However, a little thought reveals that it could only work in the same way as outlined above. Unless God has time travel, we can assume the past influences the future, and if we discover precedent before 1829 for a phrase or idea being used a certain way, it is not a stretch to assume that direct or indirect influence is one very plausible explanation, if we see it show up in a similar meaning or context, in the Book of Mormon (1720 and 1830 explication of writings of Paul on the natural man and how sin disconnects us from God—with a friendly reminder that by the same rules, Nephi could not be commenting on Pauline epistles not yet written, only JS Jr. could do so).

Besides dispersion, coincidence, or influence, the only alternate possibility is

  1. Clobbering or Mistranslation, where some actual but unknown ancient text was written on actual metal plates, but instead of translating that verbiage, JS Jr. merely clobbered it with a Protestant idea. If the ideas were close enough not to be considered a mistranslation, we are left wondering how ancient prophets got attested 1720’s Protestant ideas (from the church of the devil, through God?) into their records. If the ideas were different enough that we don’t have to worry about how 1720’s ideas got into an ancient record, we are left wondering if the translation was accurate, or if JS Jr. even knew what he was doing. The more room we make for Joseph’s agency in the process (loose translation or Book of Mormon as revelation), the more room we make for mistranslation, or the more of a stretch to call it translation at all. The more we hew to a tight translation theory, as described by all his scribes, who were witnesses, the harder it is explain ancient prophets quoting modern sources, unless we admit that God has time travel. (Again, if you believe such things, that is your prerogative, but there I cannot help you.)

An Aside

If the Book of Mormon was not actually ancient—If!—then JS Jr. was really rich to pillage all of these theological ideas so freely, conquistador-style, and put them in the mouths of supposedly ancient prophets, and then turn around and call all his sources, collectively, the church of the devil. It’s really ironic and dismissive, honestly. And for all the Book of Mormon’s believers not to care about all the theological conversations leading up to that point in 1829—when Joseph Smith himself considered the ideas clearly interesting enough and rich enough to be included and discussed in the Book of Mormon text—but to just hamfistedly grab the ideas, divorced from their context, uncredited to their sources, is also dismissive and arrogrant. It’s a form of intellectual patricide, frankly, to pile accusations of devil-worship on all the pillaged, dug-up graves of all these forebears and influences. Anyone with any shame would find it embarassing. One can learn quite a lot actually, about many Chrisitan movements, by simple searching for some of these phrases. For example, one could start off knowing zero about the Quakers, Christian Theosophy, Southcottianism, and radical Christianity in 1807 London, but simply search for “temporal body” and be pointed to three or four different narrow religious movements. I didn’t bring this knowledge to the project, I used the Book of Mormon as a literal index into 17th, 18th, and 19th century religious ideas, and watched everything fan out from there. If the ideas were instead ancient and truly original, would we expect this to be such a fruitful game to play?

A Control

Some phrases in the Book of Mormon appear to actually be unique, which can serve as a control of sorts. In other words, when we find non-Biblical phrases in the Book of Mormon—no matter who wrote it, if it was a translation or a flight of fancy—we might expect to find that some of the phrases should not show up in Google Book searches or Ngram searchers, being truly original. When that is the case, it will be indicated here:

But this also demonstrates by contrast that the phrases at the top are likely not included by coincidence by the supposed ancient authors, but put there by JS Jr.

What the data actually shows

The data is not meant to claim direct copying from these exact sources. As quoted elsewhere, Doug Stilgoe (Nemo the Mormon) says (in a slightly different context, but it applies here too):

Apologists make an argument from incredulity about the Book of Mormon, how could it be possible that a farm boy wrote this thing? And all these questions [and data] do is make it far less incredulous that it was possible that he could have just done it himself.

JS Jr. was clearly a sponge, and remixed everything around him. He clearly had an exceptional memory. Elder Holland doesn’t want us to admit it, but it’s part of what made him brilliant, and a big part of what made early Mormonism so exciting.

< Back to Index