SRP Paper#15: Part 4

- Dale R. Broadhurst's SPALDING RESEARCH PROJECT -

The Book and the Manuscript

An Introduction to Book of Mormon Source Criticism

by Dale R. Broadhurst

Independent Media Project Class Presentation Report
ED-376 ( Media and Message in Christian Education)

February 27, 1980
(revised April 2, 1980)

- Part Four -

Return to Part Three: Pages 16 - 22

Return to: SRP Paper 15: Introduction

In this illustration we see a page from another part of the Book of Mormon -- this time from the book of Ether. As with the Alma text, the non-Spaldingish portion is colored green and the more Spaldingish text is colored yellow.

Again it appears that a block of religious material may have been interpolated into a battle story that otherwise very much resembles Spalding's writing.

However, this is only a guess. Whether the text is attributed to Spalding or not, this block of religious material might possibly be original and not a later addition.

Page 24

Here we return again to the book of Alma to view some smaller blocks of the green colored text flanking a much larger, possible editorial insertion.

The smaller green blocks are word groupings foreign to what we know of Spalding's ideas and vocabulary -- and which occur only very rarely in other Book of Mormon Spaldingish texts. However, such words occur frequently in the non-Spaldingish texts of the book.

For these reasons they may be considered possible additions, inserted to adapt the surrounding text and more easily allow a major redactional interpolation.

Page 25

The kind of textual analysis we applied to the Book of Mormon to locate Spaldingish texts can be extended to other sources as well. Here we have added two more colored bands to the plates diagram. The brown band represents a major cluster of quotes and phrases from the "King James" Old Testament. The blue band shows material from the New Testament.

The red band is not the only part in the book where we find Spaldingish text, but it is the largest concentration of that kind of wording. In the same way, the brown and blue bands represent major concentrations of biblical material -- but not the only places where biblical text is copied in the Book of Mormon.

Page 26

Here an Old Testament quote from the King James Bible is shown in brown and Book of Mormon additions foreign to the original are shown in green.

The main body of green and blue is the Book of Mormon's continuing flow of narrative. The smaller areas of green within the Old Testament quotation are redactional additions placed into the Isaiah text by a later hand.

Some Book of Mormon readers see these additions as original words, lost from the KJV Isaiah, and preserved only in the Book of Mormon. However, it is much more likely that they are later textual insertions.

Page 27

The idea that the Book of Mormon preserves the original Isaiah text has been challenged by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls Isaiah texts. These generally support the accepted Hebrew underlying the KJV rather than the altered Book of Mormon version.

Old Testament era baptism texts (such as this one in the LDS Book of Mormon printing of Isaiah 48:1) can also be viewed as late insertions into the KJV original.

It seems likely that editors who put altered biblical texts in Book of Mormon would also have copied altered texts from other sources.

Page 28

In previous examples we've seen what are probably evidences of straightforward textual redaction in the Mormon book. Here is a more complex example from the end of 1 Nephi.

Apparent borrowings from three different textual sources are indicated by the color underlinings. Here the Book of Mormon text seems to be an eclectic rendering of KJV Old and New Testament phrases along with fragments of Spaldingish vocabulary -- all set into the matrix of a Nephite narrative (green background).

The result reads something like a midrash of various scriptural voices, brought together to express a new variation of religious ideas.

Page 29

In this example the plates diagram is turned on its side to better show where the Book of Mormon texts resembling the KJV OT, KJV NT, and Spalding's writings are located.

As in the other diagrams, locations for the biblical-like texts are marked in brown and blue, while the Spaldingish texts are indicated with red. The green color represents either the undifferentialed Nephite narrative matrix or blocks of texts which have not been clearly identified in terms of their possible source material.

The most extensive, densely packed blocks of Spaldingish text begin in Alma XX.

Go to Part Five: Pages 30 - 38

Return to: SRP Paper 15: Introduction