AS TO THE SO-CALLED ANACHRONISMS AND MODERN QUOTATIONS.

Regarding the so-called anachronisms of the record,—as for instance, that Laban’s sword could not have been of “purest steel” because steel had not yet been invented, and that there were no horses, cows, sheep, and swine in America, till they were brought from Europe,—it is sufficient to say here that the gratuitous opinions of savants on these matters do not close the question.

From the very nature of the facts involved, no man can do more than vouchsafe his opinion ; but as the dicta of past antiquarians are being constantly overturned by later discoveries, it will be well to suspend judgment on these disputed points respecting the Book of Mormon. But even should inaccuracies be proved in secular details of this kind, the essential mission of the book would no more be invalidated than is that of the Bible because of manifest discrepancies in the cosmogony of Genesis.

We come now to a very interesting peculiarity in the contents of this ancient record; viz, the fact that many quotations are identical with passages in the King James’ version of the Bible ; passages which it is hardly likely were known by Mormon or Moroni previous to writing this record. Twenty chapters are thus incorporated bodily, or with hut slight changes, from the Old Testament, and three, containing the Sermon on the mount, are taken from the New Testament.

“Besides these,” says Linn, “Hyde counted 298 direct quotations from the New Testament verses or sentences, between pages 2 to 480 covering the years from 600 B. C. to Christ’s birth. Thus Nephi relates that his father, more than 2,000 years before the King James’ edition of the Bible was translated, in announcing the coming of John the Baptist, used these words, “Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose."

These passages when examined prove not to be “direct quotations” but rather indirect. Thoughts couched in New Testament phraseology, made up of bits from various texts,—as if the translator needed to rely upon memorized phrases to move from point to point,—are not infrequent. The quotation above noted, for instance, is made up of two; viz. Mark i, verse 3, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight;” and verse 7, “There cometh one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down to unloose.” But these same passages occur with slight variations respectively in Isaiah 5:27, and 40:3, which book was known to the Nephites.

However, it is not my purpose to evade the idea that Joseph Smith’s translation was affected by the King James’ version of the Bible, for it probably was. This passage from Moroni 7 :45 is too nearly like Paul’s words in Corinthians 13, to be a mere coincidence:

“And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

We come, then, face to face with the question, of how the Book of Mormon,—part of it written 600 years before Christ, the rest of it 400 years after, and in a place completely isolated, so far as we know, from the eastern world,—could nevertheless be influenced by the writings of the New Testament,—and the King James’ version at that,—to the extent of both direct and indirect quotations.