Question.
It seems like Joseph Smith and his scribes simply copied the Isaiah quotations
from the KJV of the Bible. Is that correct?
Answer.
Our knowledge about this matter is incomplete. Perhaps over the coming decades,
we will learn more about this subject; for now, however, there exist several
fascinating and complex pieces of information indicating that Joseph Smith and
his scribes did not simply copy the Isaiah portions of the Book of Mormon from
the King James Version. Consider the following complexities:
1.
The base text of the Isaiah quotations in the Book
of Mormon seems to be the King James Version, but there are also several
textual variants in the Isaiah quotations. Where did those come from if Joseph
Smith and Oliver Cowdery simply copied from the King James Version?
In fact, there exist several textual variants in the Isaiah texts in the Book
of Mormon. Sperry explains, “The text of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon is not
word for word the same as that of the King James version. Of 433 verses of
Isaiah in the Nephite record, Joseph Smith modified about 233. Some of the
changes made were slight, others were radical.” (Sperry, Answers to Book of
Mormon Questions, 92) Some of these variants agree with ancient witnesses.
Skousen and Carmack write, “Are there any significant differences in the biblical
quotations in the Book of Mormon? Yes, and some are not only quite
surprising but are also supported by other ancient textual sources.” (Skousen, “Text
of the Book of Mormon”) If Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had simply copied
the text from the Bible, such textual variants would not exist.
2.
Some writers have claimed, without solid evidence,
that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery must have used a copy of the King James
Version when they came to the Isaiah sections of the Book of Mormon. Contrary
to these writers’ claims, eyewitnesses to the translation of the Book of Mormon
have attested that neither Joseph nor his scribes employed any book or
manuscript during the translation process, let alone a copy of the Bible. In
connection with this, Skousen and Carmack write: “Did Joseph Smith hand over
a marked-up Bible to Oliver Cowdery when he came to the biblical quotations in
the Book of Mormon? Oliver Cowdery’s misspellings tell us that the answer
is no. Joseph Smith dictated the biblical quotations, just like all the rest of
[the] Book of Mormon.” (Skousen, “Text of the Book of Mormon.”)
3.
Oliver Cowdery’s spellings in the Isaiah portions
(in the original manuscript for the Book of Mormon) were often different from
the King James Version. If he simply copied from a Bible, why would there be so
many spelling differences?
4.
Similarly, sometimes Oliver Cowdery wrote down the
wrong word as Joseph Smith dictated the passages from Isaiah. Again, if Oliver
was simply copying from a Bible, such errors would have been less likely to occur.
5.
Some of Oliver Cowdery’s errors are phonological
errors (errors of hearing), which indicates that he was listening to Joseph
Smith and copying Joseph’s words as he heard them, rather than simply copying
from a copy of the Bible.
6.
The original Book of Mormon paragraphing system for
the Isaiah quotations is different from the chapter and versification system of
Isaiah in the King James Bible. It is unlikely that this system would be different
if Oliver Cowdery was copying from the Bible. (Donald W.
Parry, Search Diligently The Words of Isaiah [Provo, Utah: BYU Religious
Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023], 208-9)
