On Saturday, August 10, 2024, Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack spoke at a celebration for the completion of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. A video, an audio recording, and the slides used for those talks are available below.
Royal Skousen’s presentation was entitled “The Innovative and Revolutionary Book of Mormon Critical Text Project.”
Stanford Carmack’s presentation was entitled “The Archaic Language of the Original Book of Mormon.” His slides are pages 85 through 144 of the slides below.
Note that we have not made the audio recording or the slides available for downloading or printing due to copyright issues. Please refrain from attempting to bypass these restrictions.
Dr. Skousen, Thanks for your inspiring work. At the 47:43 mark, you state, speaking of “and,” “It’s not an actual Hebraism.” How do we know the “and” isn’t Hebraic influenced? And if the “and” isn’t Hebraically influenced, where does it come from? Is it archaic English?
I think I refer to the and usage after an initial subordinate clause with interruption as “Hebrew-like”. It isn’t equivalent to the Hebrew usage, which has the and after simple subordinate clauses. So in the Hebrew we would have “if you come and I would come”, but in the B of M this simple kind of if-usage is always “if you come, (then) I would come”, without the and. But if there is an interruption, the B of M has the and, as in “if you come – and surely you should – and I would come”. It would be this way in the Hebrew as well. So there is this overlap, but the B of M usage is not fully equivalent to the Hebrew usage. In the B of M usage, the extra and is motivated since it clearly brings the listener back to the main clause. Originally, I said it was a Hebraism. Now I claim that it is at least “Hebrew-like”.
The commitment and passion of Royal Skousen and team is truly inspiring. When I read the ATV – it is a devotional experience for me. The project is a true blessing.
I’d like to add another comment/question – are there any plans to make the print versions of these works available for a reasonable price in Europe? When I looked at your system and put in shipping to Switzerland, the costs are very, very high. Basically 100% of the cost of the books. FYI – Deseret Books – has a reasonable shipping rate to Europe
It would be nice, but it would require BYU Studies to make this commitment to publish the critical text books in Europe and to establish a distribution center there. Right now I am using my donor funds to publish the critical text here at BYU, and through these funds I am paying 100% of the production costs, not BYU Studies.
I believe amazon.com has distribution centers in Europe, but I don’t know how they work vis-à-vis the American distribution of books. BYU Studies commitment to sell through amazon.com has been checkered, to say the least.
I presume that you could get the Yale edition of the Book of Mormon through Yale’s distribution center in London, but of course they do not carry the critical text per se.
I’m not sure what can be done about these high costs.
I do appreciate your kind comments about how you feel when reading ATV.
With best wishes, Royal
Thanks so much for responding. Taking your time to do that is another example of how much you care about this project.
I just ordered the Yale edition from Blackwell’s – https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/home – which is a great UK based site that ships throughout Europe.
To finally get the other books, perhaps I need to take a flight to Utah and bring an extra piece of luggage
Yes, Jeff, perhaps the saved mailing costs could cover much of the travel! Well, maybe when airline tickets are at their cheapest. Or may a friend or relative traveling to see you could bring what you need, with you paying the extra costs of luggage.
Good luck! Royal
Dear Royal,
Looking at WordCruncher they have for $99.99 “Collation and Analysis of Text Variants of the Book of Mormon” – what is contained in that?
Thanks,
Jeff
Some of these materials are available free online in the Joseph Smith Papers (https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/articles/revelations-volume-5-original-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon ), and those from BYU WordCruncher in ebook format are available for a fee:
ATV 3, for example, can be found online at https://wordcruncher.com/download-book/?book=Computerized%20Collation&etbu=CollATV .
For other items (some free), take a look at the WordCruncher Library, https://wordcruncher.com/library .
The computerized collation is the electronic, lined-up comparison of the two B of M manuscripts and 20 editions of the B of M, from the 1830 to the LDS 1981 (the LDS 2013 is not collated, but it has only 6 substantive differences, which the Church listed when the 2013 edition was first released). The computerized collation is what I have used for the past 20 years to write volumes 3 and 4 of the critical text, in all 14 books (plus the 6 books of a second edition of volume 4 of the critical text.
When you get access to the WordCruncher version of the collation, you also get access to the updated version of Analysis of Textual Variants, based on the second edition (called ATV2) but updated in a number of places (so I refer to it as ATV3). Thus the textual apparatus for the critical text is fully available plus linkage to ATV3, which gives all the arguments both for and against any particular reading of the text. Additional corrections will be continuously made to the databases used here. The WordCruncher version is the engine I have used to do virtually all my work on the critical text. Until 2023, it was available only to me. I have now made this available to any one who wants to do serious textual studies of the Book of Mormon.
WordCruncher also has a grammatically tagged version of my original text of the Book of Mormon, developed by Stanford Carmack. Essentially for syntactic studies of the B of M text. If you remove all the tags, you get the original text, which is different from (but systematically related to) the earliest text of the B of M, published by Yale University Press (2009 first edition, hardbound; 2022 second edition, softbound.
There is also a WordCruncher electronic 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, developed by Stanford Carmack and me. It represents the final text of the 1830, will all intended in-press changes that were implemented in the 1830 edition. All the original typos are retained.
Just purchased it 🙂 Looking forward to exploring it.
Royal – Thanks again for your dedication to this sacred Scripture.
I know the project is nearing completion, but wondering if it is still taking donations and if so, how would one donate?
Yes, there is a continuing need for contributions to the project since it is taking longer than I thought to finish up the last part (part 8), mostly in typesetting costs. Part 7 is now at the bindery in Phoenix, so that book will be shortly out. But prices for printing books continues to rise.
You can write a check to “The Interpreter Foundation”, but make sure that you indicate in the memo portion of the check that it should go to the critical text project. Mail the check to:
The Interpreter Foundation
P. O. Box 970542
Orem, UT 84097
If you have any questions about making a contribution, please contact Deborah Peterson of the Foundation:
dspegypt@gmail.com
I am continually grateful for the many contributors to the project. These contributions have allowed for the independence of the project.
I viewed the 8-10 lecture by Prof./ Bro Skousen. IT is a remarkable study he has brought about. I’ve purchased a number of his materials, including the Yale edition of BoM.
HOWEVER, I take exception to his conclusions re the ‘stone’ in the hat. Witmers accounts are contradictory and he was very poorly disposed toward JS and the church. Only thing I’d believe from him is his witness re BoM. Everything else is ‘crap.’
JS & O. Cowdery, the actual translators, said it was the Urim and Thummin. JS never even called it a seer stone and never said he used it. Also, the D&C 17 says these are the artifacts shown witnesses: gold plates, sword of laban, liahona, urim & thummin, breast plate. NO MENTION OF SEER STONE!
Why we use hearsay accounts, many contradicted, written years after the events, none of which have been critically reviewed, is beyond me.
To ignore what JS and Cowdery said, the very people who produced the BoM and accept uncritically the accounts of those who had nothing to do with its production, is intellectually lazy. I am informed that JS wrote 13 times that he did it with the U&M, that Cowdery never confirmed use of a “seer stone” only the U& M, refutes everything Skousen said. I would request he reconsider his seer stone conclusion. It’s crap, just like Whitmers’accounts.
This person is highly uninformed. He needs to read the 91-page chapter in part 7,The Early Transmissions of the Text, found in volume 3 of the critical text (in press, as I write). The chapter is entitled “The Witnesses of the Book of Mormon”. This chapter has been on the Interpreter Foundation website for the past several years. In that chapter all the points that he inflammatorily refers to are discussed in detail, based on the actual evidence. I can support every statement I make. Every statement he makes is either false or taken out of context. I stand by what I have written. It is accurate and restrained.
For the chapter, please go to: https://interpreterfoundation.org/blog-update-of-the-pre-print-of-a-discussion-of-the-book-of-mormon-witnesses-by-royal-skousen/
This revised version was posted on 25 August 2021, a little over three years ago.
To be specific: it isn’t just the Whitmers (David and Elizabeth); there are six other independent accounts of Joseph Smith using the seer stone. Three of them were never Mormons. Why should they all be lying; what’s the motive here, especially from two teenagers (at the time)?
Does Joseph Smith have a motive (and Oliver Cowdery) for avoiding any mention of the seer stone? Yes, because Joseph used it for treasure hunting, and he wants to avoid that virulent discussion. All the anti-Mormon works at the time attacked him for using the seer stone for that purpose. They still do.
So “pick up and read” the chapter. Frankly, I don’t intend to carry on this discussion any further with anyone unless they (yes, they) have carefully read the 91-page chapter and considered the actual evidence.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how we got the text. What matters is that we got it, a marvelous text through a miraculous means! And people have been ignoring the linguistics of the text ever since the Book of Mormon was published – until the critical text project brought it forth in a new light (1988-2025). Just go read the chapters in The Nature of the Original Language, parts 3 and 4 of volume 3, that deal with Alexander Campbell and his delusions, or several of the other anti-Mormon writers that attacked the language of the Book of Mormon text. There is no foundation to their ignorant arguments.
Excellent presentation by Carmack and Skousen (couldn’t help but think of Nibley, just a little).
I’m only a student of the Book of Mormon, not a scholar, but I have read Skousen’s Yale “The Earliest Text” version and gained a vastly enlarged perspective of it’s beauty.
Three other versions have also opened my eyes in other important ways (to me):
The 2004 Doubleday edition of The Book of Mormon – I loved the fact that it also had no footnotes, and how differently was able I read without distraction.
Grant Hardy’s 2018 Maxwell Institute “Study Edition of The Book of Mormon”, with incredible footnotes, literary analysis, and historical background.
And, Wilford C. Wood’s 1962 “Joseph Smith Begins His Work, Volume 1, Book of Mormon 1830 First Edition, Reproduced from uncut sheets”. I’m still reading it this year, and it has helped me appreciate the book somewhat through Parley P. Pratt’s eyes, and the awe that he experienced.
Thank you so much for posting this presentation online – and I hope the PDF becomes available one of these days (hint, hint)!
Another edition you might find interesting:
https://www.deseretbook.com/product/5135805.html
Since the comment this responds to is listing editions, this is useful. However, as a general rule we should not attempt self-promotion.
Right. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. But Brant, if you won’t mention yet another excellent edition, I will:
https://gregkofford.com/products/plates-of-mormon
wonderful wonderful!
a typo on slide 77-
1 Thessalonians 3:22 does NOT exist. It should be 1 Thess. 3:12
a typo on slide 79–
1 Thessalonians 3:22 does NOT exist. It should be 1 Thess. 3:12
Very nice presentation by Royal.
At I Ne 8:31, slides 62-64, O has “specious,” while P has “spacious” — referring to that great building, representing variously the pride of the world, the vain imaginations and pride of men, and the world and wisdom thereof (I Ne 12:18). Thus, it might be worth pointing out that specious can mean “misleading in appearance, especially misleadingly attractive.” Might that even be the correct reading? Indeed, in Scripture Central’s KnoWhy #546, the abstract online has the phrase at the end “the great and specious building” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tQnwiMDEKk ).
Moreover, Lord Edward Coke (1552-1634) referred to the magnificent London Charterhouse as “the spacious and specious House .” He went on to refer to it as “tanquam Orbis in Urbe [‘as a world within a world’].” Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke, vol. I, https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/shepherd-selected-writings-of-sir-edward-coke-vol-i#Coke_0462-01_845 .
That is not dealt with in ATV1. I haven’t seen ATV2 or ATV3.
I dealt with this issue in ATV2:
1 Nephi 8:31 [2016 addition, ATV2]
and he also saw other multitudes pressing their way towards
that great and [specious 0|spacious 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] building
LuAnn Adams, in an email dated 2 February 2010, wrote regarding the spelling of spacious as specious in the original manuscript. The scribe here in O, referred to as scribe 3, was apparently Christian Whitmer. When Oliver Cowdery copied the text for the passage into the printer’s manuscript, he interpreted specious as a misspelling of the word spacious. But Adams wonders if specious might actually be correct, especially since that word would fit in well with the vain imaginations of those in that building, as stated later in 1 Nephi 12:18: “and the large and spacious building which thy father saw is vain imaginations and the pride of the children of men”. In that passage, once more the scribe in O (in this case scribe 2, who was probably Christian’s brother John Whitmer) wrote specious rather than spacious, just like his fellow scribe.
Scribe 3 in the original manuscript consistently spelled the word spacious with the letter e, as either specious (4 times) or spesious (2 times). The first two occurrences of the word (in 1 Nephi 8:9 and 1 Nephi 8:20) refer to “a large and spacious field”, but there scribe 3 of O writes this phrase as “a large and specious field”. Interestingly, in the first case he corrected the e vowel to a, thus ending up with “a large and spacious field”. In the second case, he left the spelling specious. For those first two cases, it’s quite impossible to interpret our word specious as the actually intended adjective modifying field. The intended reading there is obviously “a large and spacious field”. Shortly there after, when the word building shows up, scribe 3 of O writes “a great and specious building” (1 Nephi 8:26), “that great and specious building” (1 Nephi 8:31), “a large and specious building” (1 Nephi 11:35), and “the great and specious building” (1 Nephi 11:36). Although one could refer to “a specious building” as one that is ‘alluring’ or ‘showy’, I don’t think that would work at all for a field, at least in this context.
Scribe 2 of the original manuscript wrote the word only once, and he also wrote it as specious (in 1 Nephi 12:18, “the large and specious building”). It appears that both these Whitmer brothers pronounced the word spacious with the /e/ vowel (as in the word bet), not the /i/ vowel (as in the word beet), thus their spelling was either specious or spesious. Note that the /e/ vowel is close to the /ei/ vowel, so there is only a slight difference between the Whitmer pronunciation /spešəs/ and Oliver Cowdery’s /speišəs/.
Oliver Cowdery spelled all these seven instances of the word as spacious (but in the printer’s manuscript). He also wrote spacious three more times in P, all as spacious (Mosiah 11:8, Mosiah 11:9, and Ether 10:5). Those three instances refer to buildings or to a palace.
Given the use of spacious with field, I feel confident that in the original manuscript the words specious and spesious, written in the hand of the two Whitmers, are the result of their pronunciation of the word spacious as /spešəs/ rather than the standard /speišəs/. Thus we maintain the traditional reading throughout these passages that refer to “spacious buildings” as well as “spacious fields”.
Awesome. Thank you for making this availble.
It was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Brilliant linguistic research by both! I left Blanding 6 a.m. for Provo, listened to Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack’s presentations on critical text project, and drove back by dark. The 10-hour round-trip drive was well worth it. It is an additional independent witness (among many others) that the Book of Mormon came from Above and could not have been of earthly invention.
Are you the Brian Stubbs who’s been doing the linguistic research? If I had known you were going to be there, I would have tracked you down. I’ve been wanting to get in contact with you about your research and about some ideas that have been brewing in my mind about language and Egyptian writing.
It was a wonderful presentation. I would have liked more time to mingle afterwards, and I’m curious to find out more about Royal’s theory about textual criticism: the differences between copyists and editors.
Sorry I’m slow Charles. I haven’t checked the website several days, but yes, I’m the linguist buried in Uto-Aztecan much of my life.