Episode 10

How the Book of Mormon was Composed

Original Air Date: 2022-08-10

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This video serves as a culmination of the previous nine episodes of the "LDS Discussions" series on the Mormon Stories Podcast. Hosted by John Dehlin with contributors Mike (from ldsdiscussions.com) and Nemo the Mormon, the discussion synthesizes previously established evidence—such as treasure digging, biblical anachronisms, and translation methods—to present a comprehensive theory on how Joseph Smith composed the Book of Mormon 1, 2.

Here is a detailed summary of the arguments and evidence presented in the video:

The "Imbalanced Equation" of Apologetics

The hosts argue that LDS leadership creates an "imbalanced equation" where the conclusion (that the book is ancient and divine) is predetermined, regardless of the evidence 3.

  • Shifting Narratives: Mike notes that leaders like Tad Callister accuse critics of a "flip-flop," changing their argument from Joseph being an "ignorant farm boy" to a "creative genius" 4. The hosts counter that the historical record shows Joseph was not an uneducated "yokel" but a curious, intelligent storyteller, and that the "ignorant" narrative was actually pushed by the Church to make the book seem more miraculous 5, 6.
  • False Equivalencies: President Russell M. Nelson is quoted comparing Joseph’s translation speed to expert translators who produce only one page per day 7. The hosts rebut this by noting that Joseph was not performing an academic translation of ancient languages but was dictating a story he had been developing for years, purportedly using a stone in a hat 8, 9.

    • The Timeline of Composition

    The video challenges the "miraculous" claim that the book was produced in just 85 days.

  • Years of Preparation: Citing Lucy Mack Smith, the hosts point out that Joseph had been telling detailed stories about the ancient inhabitants of America—including their dress, warfare, and animals—as early as 1823, giving him over five years of "character development" and "plot preparation" before the final dictation in 1829 10, 11, 12.
  • The 116 Pages: The loss of the initial 116 pages served as an accidental "dress rehearsal" or "dry run," allowing Joseph to refine his dictation process and fix structural issues before starting over with Oliver Cowdery 13.
  • Dictation Speed: Even within the 85-day window, the workload was manageable. To reach the word count, Joseph only needed to dictate about 3,200 words a day. At a slow speaking pace, this would require roughly three hours of work daily, leaving him ample time to rest, plan, and think about the next sections 14, 15.

    • Sources and "Bricolage"

    The hosts argue Joseph Smith used bricolage—constructing a work from a diverse range of available things—to write the book.

  • The King James Bible: A significant portion of the text is direct plagiarism from the KJV Bible. Approximately 15,000 words are direct Isaiah quotes, and the phrase "it came to pass" accounts for nearly 6,000 words. Together with other biblical paraphrasing, roughly 10% of the book is filler or biblical quotation 16.
  • The Parable of the Olive Tree (Jacob 5): The video uses this chapter to demonstrate how Joseph merged sources. Mike explains that Jacob 5 is a conflation of Isaiah 5 (the vineyard) and Romans 11 (the olive tree). The text becomes confused midway, switching metaphors from an olive tree to a vineyard, likely because Joseph lost track of which biblical source he was riffing on 17, 18, 19.
  • The Malachi Problem: Jesus quotes Malachi in 3 Nephi because the Nephites did not have those records. However, the same verses appear earlier in the Book of Mormon (1 and 2 Nephi). This is anachronistic because the "small plates" (1 and 2 Nephi) were dictated after 3 Nephi (due to the lost 116 pages), meaning Joseph inadvertently included text he had already used, forgetting that the characters in the earlier timeline shouldn't possess it yet 20, 21.

    • Evidence of Oral Dictation

    The text contains "fingerprints" of an orally dictated stream of consciousness rather than a translation from engravings.

  • Self-Corrections: The text features numerous instances of the speaker correcting himself mid-sentence (e.g., "buried their weapons of peace, or they buried their weapons of war, for peace"). The hosts argue a writer etching onto gold plates would not include such clumsy verbal stumbles 22, 23.
  • Memory Lapses: The narrative occasionally forgets names, such as referring to a character as "the woman servant" shortly after naming her Abish, or forgetting the name of the antichrist Nehor 24, 25.
  • Laying Down Heads: Citing William Davis’s work, Visions in a Seer Stone, the video discusses a 19th-century Methodist preaching technique called "laying down heads." This involved memorizing a few key points ("heads") and improvising a sermon around them. The Book of Mormon explicitly mentions Jacob "engraving the heads" of sermons, mirroring this contemporary oral technique 26, 27.

    • Complexity of Names and Places

    The video disputes the claim that the book’s hundreds of unique names prove its ancient origin.

  • Single Use: A word frequency analysis shows that most unique names appear only once or twice in a specific cluster and are then forgotten, suggesting Joseph invented them for a specific scene and then discarded them 28.
  • Environmental Influences: Many names have local parallels. For example, "Luman" and "Lemuel" were names associated with Luman (or Laman) Walters, a mentor of Joseph’s in treasure digging 29. Other names, like Moroni and Comoros, appear on maps or in pirate stories (Captain Kidd) available at the time 30.

    • A 19th-Century Time Capsule

    The summary concludes with a quote from Alexander Campbell, a contemporary of Joseph Smith. Campbell noted in 1831 that the Book of Mormon resolved every major religious controversy of 1820s New York—including infant baptism, the trinity, and freemasonry—rather than addressing issues relevant to ancient America 31. The hosts argue the book is a "time capsule" of the 19th century, written by the only person capable of weaving his specific life events, biblical knowledge, and cultural environment into a single narrative: Joseph Smith 32, 33.

    Episode Info

    Guests: Mike (LDS Discussions)

    Related Article: LDS Discussions