Descriptions:
Have you ever been reading your Book of Mormon and suddenly thought to yourself, “This all seems very familiar…”? Well that’s probably because you’ve encountered that verse before – in the Bible. Let’s talk about that.
-Book of Mormon Central addressed this topic extensively in an awesome 9-part series, which was extremely helpful for me in my research on this subject. Big shout-out to them, because a lot of the information given in this video is just a summary/repackaging of their research. Links:
–Part 1: https://bit.ly/34h4U3S
–Part 2: https://bit.ly/37poJIr
–Part 3: https://bit.ly/3kj7ThX
–Part 4: https://bit.ly/3jjz4I6
–Part 5: https://bit.ly/2FKoQCU
–Part 6: https://bit.ly/34fBH9F
–Part 7: https://bit.ly/34gSBVr
–Part 8: https://bit.ly/3mabX4N
–Part 9: https://bit.ly/35er1Yk
-From Latter-day Saint scholar Michael R. Ash (see pgs. 21-25): https://bit.ly/2ISqe7P
-”Was Joseph Smith Guilty of Plagiarism?” by John Tvedtnes (this article highlights the fact that many accusations against the Book of Mormon are the same kind of accusation made against the Bible by unbelievers): https://bit.ly/2HnzRue
-Tvedtnes also wrote on this topic in these sources: https://bit.ly/2HgWgda / https://bit.ly/2HgKKOB
-Why does Malachi 4:1 show up in 1 Nephi 22:15? See Footnote #1 in this link from Book of Mormon Central: https://bit.ly/3jchQwg
A list of parallels between the Bible and Book of Mormon: https://bit.ly/31IAvtV
“Evaluating the Interaction between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon: A proposed Methodology,” by Nicholas J. Frederick: https://bit.ly/35ERy0U
From Brian Hales on this subject: https://bit.ly/34sLpWe
Video/Transcript from Latter-day Saint Q and A: https://bit.ly/31IMCqN
Notes:
-Another theory to consider: It’s possible that some New Testament passages that show up in the Book of Mormon are actually references to the Old Testament, but the connection may simply be no longer recognizable due to different translation processes. Or, the New Testament could be referencing work that is not included in our Bible. For example, Moroni 7 and 1 Corinthians 13 both talk about charity. But “respected scholars have wondered whether part of 1 Corinthians 13 might come from the earliest Christian record of Jesus’ sayings” (“Understanding Paul,” Richard Lloyd Anderson, pg. 119). Or, in the words of Hugh Nibley, perhaps they “go back to some older but unknown source: Paul is merely quoting from the record” (Source: https://bit.ly/35tT0oc).
-I suppose I should explain how I arrived at my 14.6% and 6.4%. Here’s what I did. I took this list of supposed parallels (https://bit.ly/31IAvtV), and copied/pasted it into a Google Sheet. In total, there were 1,023 verses listed with Biblical parallels (1 row for each verse). Book of Mormon verses with more than one entry (multiple rows for 1 verse) were only counted as 1 verse (since my aim was to count Book of Mormon verses with Bible influence, not Bible verses said to have influenced the BoM). This reduced the 1,023 by 57. There are 6,604 verses in the Book of Mormon. 966/6,604=0.146, or 14.6%. Then I subtracted the Isaiah and Sermon on the Mount verses (439 and 101 respectively, 540 total). 966-540=426. 426/6,604=0.0645, or 6.4%. This was a rather rudimentary experiment (as opposed to a peer-reviewed publication), so I wouldn’t be surprised if my counting was slightly off somewhere. I’d suggest taking these numbers as rough estimates.
-Concerning my percentage estimate, researcher Michael Hickenbotham came to a similar conclusion (7% versus 6.4%): “If Joseph or anyone else actually tried to plagiarize the Book of Mormon, critics have failed to show the source of the remaining 93% (when all similar texts are removed). A 100% non-biblical book of scripture wouldn’t have been much more difficult to produce” -Michael W. Hickenbotham, in “Answering Challenging Mormon Questions.” Of course, I’m not sure how he conducted his study. Perhaps he went so far as to draw that percentage based on word-count versus verse-count. I’m not nearly that patient.
-Questions about Deutero-Isaiah? See this link: http://bit.ly/2uz9VFU For those familiar with this subject, here are my brief thoughts: I believe in the general unity of Isaiah authorship. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if later editors/redactors of Isaiah interpolated post-captivity details into Isaiah’s prophecies (assuming those prophecies had been fulfilled), giving some today the impression that parts of Isaiah are of post-captivity origin.
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