Wesley P. Walters, late pastor of Marissa United Presbyterian Church in Marissa, Illinois, maintained, until his recent death, a long-time interest in the earliest years of the Restoration. The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon, reflective of that interest, was originally submitted by Walters to Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. Missouri, in April 1981. for the Master of Theology degree. and in 1990 was duplicated and distributed by the Utah Lighthouse Ministry, the publishing concern of Jerald and Sandra Tanner.

The title of this study belies its actual scope. While focusing primarily on the use of an Old Testament framework and Old Testament passages in the Book of Mormon-for which he provides a close analysis of the Isaiah passages found there. where they are compared with the King James Version Reverend Walters also deals with the order in which the Book of Mormon was composed, the origin of the names in the Book of Mormon, and eschatological themes found in Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews and in the Book of Mormon. The appendices at the end of the thesis further reflect the wide swath that Reverend Walters intends to cut: "Authoritative 'Scriptures' of the Mormon Church"; "Preliminary Draft of Lucy Smith's History"; "Sources for Book of Mormon Names" ("Book of Mormon Names"; "Patterns in Non-Biblical Names"; "The Name Mormon"); "Checking Variances of Book of Mormon with King James Version-Book of Isaiah"; "Poultney Congregational Church Records"; "Comparison of Book of Mormon and King James Version."

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Wesley Walters is among the most skilled in the craft of anti-Mormon writing. And yet what has he come up with? He has implicitly introduced a general theory to explain the origin of the Book of Mormon. Even if we were to allow all that Walters claims—the Old Testament quotations, the New Testament steals, the egregious anachronisms, the eschatology filched from Ethan Smith-how much of the Book of Mormon would thus be "explained"? A half? A third? A fourth? [doubt even close to that much. So how is the rest of the book to be accounted for? From Joseph Smith's imagination, that simply overflowed "like a spring freshet"? Or is he a naive and unimaginative plagiarist who can't even recognize how he's giving the game away when he incorporates into the Book of Mormon an endless string of New Testament phrases and anachronistic passages from the Old Testament? Or is he part creative genius. part plagiarist? And does this account square with the evidence given by those who knew him best while he was translating the Book of Mormon? As an alternative theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon, Walters's is no worse than the others. But we have yet to see one that accounts for the evidence of the Book of Mormon better and more completely than the traditional explanation or the Book of Mormon's internal claims.