Yet in a surprising turn, recent linguistic research has proven that almost every non-standard word or phrase in the Book of Mormon shows up as acceptable usage in an earlier period of the English language, called Early Modern English.

3įor many years, believers and critics alike have assumed that the Book of Mormon’s unusual grammar was simply a product of Joseph Smith’s rural dialect, or that it might be the result of an uneducated speaker trying to sound biblical. Joseph Smith himself even seemed to have thought so because, when preparing for the Book of Mormon’s republication in 1837, 2 he revised many of its non-standard words and phrases. That is because it really was strange, even in the 1830s. Alexander Campbell, one of the first and most influential critics of the Book of Mormon, claimed that it was “without exaggeration, the meanest book in the English language.” He further declared that, other than its quotations from the Bible, the book had “not one good sentence in it.” 1Īlthough Campbell was overly negative in his assessment of the Book of Mormon’s language, it is understandable that he and others felt its original wording sounded a little strange. Soon after the Book of Mormon came off the press in 1830, Moroni’s fears were realized. For this reason, he was worried that the “Gentiles will mock at these things” ( v.

He explained that “when we write we behold our weakness, and stumble because of the placing of our words” ( Ether 12:25). The prophet Moroni felt self-conscious about the wording of the Book of Mormon.

The bad mormon book