Changes in the Book of Mormon...

The anti-Mormons love to bring up the issue of the changes that have been made to The Book of Mormon since 1830. They especially like to do this while quoting Joseph Smith as saying the Book of Mormon is more correct than even the Bible.

When Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon was the, " most correct of any book on earth", his view had little relation to the grammar, spelling, or punctuation used in the Book of Mormon. Because of the truth that the Book of Mormon brings to the world, the correctness of the book lies in its message. That is why Joseph Smith concluded be saying a person can "get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book".

But what about all the changes in the Book of Mormon? Some anti-Mormon blogs are talking about more than 400 changes since 1830 in the Book of Mormon. Well, they are correct. There are many thousands of little changes in the Book of Mormon. Listed below are some of those changes made in the Book of Mormon since 1830.

- Words deleted: that (188 times), the (48 times), it came to pass ( 46 times), a and an ( 40 times), had (29 times).

-Words added : of (12 times), and, is, and the ( 7 times)

-Grammatical changes: which to who ( 891 times), was to were, (162 times)

-Typographical errors: aaswer, amog, bacause, daghter, theit, uttered, among many.

That is just a short list of these type of changes, which also include many spelling changes that were made.

As late as 1828, there were as many as four dictionaries that were available. Examples from these four dictionaries show the variations in spellings commonly accepted at the time Joseph Smith was dictating the Book of Mormon to his scribes:

Sheridan: published 1784 creatshur scriptshur claushure

Walker: published 1794 cretshure scriptshur clauzhure

Perry: published 1805 creature scripture clauzhure

Jameson: published 1827 creture scriptyur clauzhur

These same type of changes were also made in the Bible. Simply compare a 1611 King James Version of the Bible with a Kings James Version of today, and you will also see thousands of changes. This does not distract from the meaning and message of the Bible....it simply makes it easier to read today.

Visit my blog here to learn more about the changes that the Bible has also seen in the last few hundred years.

Most importantly, neither the Bible nor the Book of Mormon have to be infallible to get its message across.


To learn more about the Lord Jesus Christ, visit JesusChrist.lds.org