Word Prints and the Book of Mormon

Amidst all the trauma of the last days of the Nephites, Mormon had a sacred task to perform.  You will remember that Ammoran visited Mormon when he was ten years old and told him: when you are about twenty and four years old, I would that ye should remember the things that ye have observed concerning this people; and when ye are of that age, go to the land Antum, unto a hill which shall be called Shim; and there have I deposited unto the Lord all the sacred engravings concerning this people.

 

And behold, ye shall take the plates of Nephi unto yourself, and the remainder shall ye leave in the place where they are; and ye shall engrave on the plates of Nephi all the things that ye have observed concerning this people (Mormon 1: 3,4)

 

Mormon did so and, in those rare moments without open warfare, Mormon recorded what he observed on the plates.  When it became clear that the area around the Hill Shim was about to be overrun by Lamanites, he removed many other records and Nephite historical objects (like the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thumin, and the Liahona) and reburied them in a hill which Mormon called Cumorah.  Mormon then set about abridging all the pertinent Nephite records onto metal plates such that a single man could carry them. 

 

He was an interesting editor as he frequently "intruded" himself into the history to make sure that the reader "gets the point."  Readers of the Book of Mormon are aware of the many instances when the record says, "And thus we see . . . " followed by the moral of the story, as it were.  Those notations are all from Mormon. 

 

He is also interesting as to the things to which he gave great attention.  He is very meticulous about dates and readers find the text to be internally consistent, but he elaborates on some points of history and spend less time on others, sometimes scanning over scores of years in a few verses.  Since I believe that Mormon was a prophet in his day, I also believe that his work was guided by the Spirit as he chose his words carefully.  I also believe that he never lost sight of the purpose of his work: to preserve the Nephite history for future generations who might glean from the things that happened among this lost branch of Israel.

 

One point of interest I'd like to introduce at this point is the science of word prints.  How do you know when Mormon is writing as Mormon and when he is directly transcribing the words of Nephi or Alma?  Writers have distinctive styles of writing that are as unique to them as their fingerprints.  Using computers and the statistical analysis of variance techniques, writings can be analyzed to determine authorship.  This technique has been used to prove that Shakespeare did indeed write the works whose authorship had been questioned for years.  Word print studies indicate multiple authors in the Book of Mormon.  Even with Mormon’s abridgement and Joseph’s translation into English, the individual styles of the original authors are evident using word print analysis.  This would have been very difficult if not impossible for any one individual to have fabricated.  Mormon often interjects his own ideas into a passage he is quoting which could be very confusing, but word print analysis can indicate where Mormon is quoting Alma and where Mormon is writing as Mormon.  Word print analysis has also shown that the writings in the Book of Mormon do not match the writing of the 19^th century writers Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, or a man named Spaulding (someone anti-Mormons have claimed for years wrote the Book of Mormon).

But science aside: the only way anyone can gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon as an ancient record of a tribe of Israel is to read the book prayerfully.  If you haven't yet done so, I challenge you to begin.

 

Text copyright February 2014, Gebara Education

 

Pictures from www.lds.org