Writings: Latter-day SaintsThe original (dictated) manuscript of the Book of Mormon2 of 10

Writings: Latter-day Saints

The original (dictated) manuscript of the Book of Mormon

The original manuscript is the Book of Mormon text as Joseph Smith dictated it to scribes in 1829, mostly from April to June. He placed it in a cornerstone in 1841, and water damaged it. Portions of 232 pages, about 28 percent of the text, survive, held by the Church History Library in Salt Lake City and other owners.

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Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    about 600 BCE, the church's date for one group's departure from Jerusalem, to about 421 CE, the church's date for Moroni, the last Nephite prophet in the Book of Mormon (neither date marks when a prophet wrote: the church's Introduction to the Book of Mormon says another group came much earlier and gives no year, and the sources used date neither the writing nor the abridgment within the span; the translation into English, mostly April to June 1829 in the church's account, is a second event that this bar does not draw and that the critical row marks)

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    April 7 to the first week of July 1829, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery's work on the Book of Mormon manuscript, which Fawn Brodie dates and holds Joseph Smith produced (she adds that Martin Harris may have taken dictation for as much as four months before Cowdery, which this bar does not draw; Dan Vogel, as Kyle Walker reports, also holds that Smith produced the text and dates a 'Book of Mormon Project' to 1828 to 1830 and Smith's rehearsal of the stories to 1823 on; the bar draws 1829 only, the year of Brodie's dates; Klaus Hansen reports that modern scholars concluded Smith was the author, Ann Taves is known here only through Grant Hardy's footnote, and Brent Metcalfe's essay describes critical method without dating the text, so none of the three gives a date here)

  3. This copy made

    April to June 1829, the original manuscript, dictated by Joseph Smith to scribes (the Church Historian's Press, an imprint of the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gives April to June 1829, and the Joseph Smith Papers editors write that he finished about the first of July; the sources used report no physical test of the paper or ink; an earlier portion, dictated in 1828, was lost and is not part of this manuscript)

  4. This copy found

    1882, when Lewis Bidamon opened the Nauvoo House cornerstone and found the manuscript, which Joseph Smith had placed there on 2 October 1841, damaged by water (the Joseph Smith Papers editors give both dates; the first portion of the dictation, from 1828, was lost earlier)

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

The original manuscript is the first written form of the Book of Mormon in English that survives, in part. The Joseph Smith Papers, the scholarly edition of Smith's records that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints publishes, say that Smith dictated it to at least seven scribes, copyists who wrote his words as he said them.12 The scribes include Oliver Cowdery, Smith's chief scribe in 1829, and John and Christian Whitmer, said the volume's co-editor Robin Scott Jensen, a historian for the church's Church History Department.345

The church's essay, drawing on witnesses' accounts, says Smith put a seer stone or the interpreters, a pair of clear stones in a metal rim, into a hat and read aloud the English words that appeared on it.5

About 488 pages existed when the dictation ended, and portions of 232 survive, roughly 28 percent of the text.14 The Church News reported in 2022 that seven of the book's 15 books are no longer extant in it.3 The first part of the dictation, from 1828, is lost.1

How the copy was dated

No physical dating test appears in the sources used, so the date rests on accounts of the dictation. The Church Historian's Press, the church's own publisher, dates it to April through June 1829.42 The Joseph Smith Papers editors, whose volume the Press published, write that Smith finished about the first of July 1829. The church's essay on the translation says almost all of the text was translated between April and June.15 The biographer Fawn Brodie dates Smith and Cowdery's start to April 7, 1829 and writes that the manuscript was finished by the first week in July.6 The accounts differ only by days, from late June to the first week of July.71

For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The strip marks the Book of Mormon's text, not this manuscript. Its bars are the same as in the entry on the printer's manuscript: the church's span from one group's departure from Jerusalem to Moroni, and the 1829 work that Brodie dates.896 This manuscript is the nearest written record of the dictation, so both sides read its corrections and errors.

The tradition's view

This column gives the church's Gospel Topics essay, then Royal Skousen, then two scholars who write in a journal of Brigham Young University, which the church founded, supports, and guides. The essay says the original manuscript corroborates Smith's statements that the work was done in a short time and dictated from another language. Its errors suggest the scribe heard words incorrectly, not misread a copy.51011

Skousen is an emeritus professor at Brigham Young University and, with Jensen, co-editor of the Papers volume on this manuscript.113 He argues that the errors came from mishearing and that the text was under tight but not iron-clad control. He writes that the evidence suggests Smith was not its author, though it was revealed through him in his own language.12

Grant Hardy, a University of North Carolina Asheville professor of history and religious studies, writes that neither of two views held among Latter-day Saints has proved entirely satisfactory.10 Kyle Walker, then a BYU-Idaho faculty member reviewing Dan Vogel for BYU Studies, doubts that a farm boy13 could dictate so long a book from memory.

Scholars of the Book of Mormon's origins: Hansen, Brodie, Metcalfe, and, at second hand, Vogel and Taves

Klaus Hansen writes, in an undated encyclopedia entry, that modern scholars concluded Smith was the author of the book. He reports that in 1945 Fawn Brodie supported the view that the book was a product of Smith's imagination.14 Brodie wrote that a manuscript of about 275,000 words, begun by Smith and Cowdery on April 7, 1829 and finished by the first week of July, showed Smith's ability, not powers beyond it.6 Walker reports that Vogel, in a psychobiography of Smith, holds that Smith rehearsed the stories from 1823 and dictated them from memory.13

A Sunstone session description describes Vogel's biography as naturalistic, with a close reading of the Book of Mormon as reflecting Smith's life and concerns.15 Hardy's footnote points to a 2016 book by Ann Taves, an attempt by a non-Latter-day Saint scholar to explain the translation in naturalistic terms, with comparative examples.10 Brent Metcalfe writes in Dialogue, an independent journal, that critical scholars find ultimate authority not so much in statements made by and for scripture as in the text's broad historical and literary framework.1617

Brodie and Skousen each argue one thesis in the works cited here. Hansen, Hardy, and Walker report or weigh others' views, and the sources used include none of Vogel's or Taves's own writing.

How it was found

Smith deposited it himself, and it was found damaged. On 2 October 1841 he placed it, with coins and printed scripture, in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House. This boardinghouse in Nauvoo, Illinois, had been required, the Papers say, by a revelation to him.1 In 1882 Lewis Bidamon, Emma Smith's second husband, opened it while renovating and found the paper contents moldy and partly decayed.1

Bidamon apparently kept what remained, and visitors came away with pieces. Sarah Granger Kimball acquired ten leaves in 1883, Franklin D. Richards parts of 69 in 1885, and Wilford Wood fragments of 29 in 1937, among other recipients.1 The Joseph Smith Papers editors say most of it is held by the Church History Library. The Church News reported in 2022 that portions are also at the Wilford Wood Museum, the University of Utah, and in private collections.73

What it shows, and what it does not

It shows a text taken down by dictation, with crossed-out words, erasures, and insertions in the hands of several scribes.18121 Hardy lists what scholars who hold that Smith read a pre-existing translation from the seer stone take from it as evidence. They point to dictation in blocks of twenty to thirty words that the scribe read back, and to names spelled out and then corrected.10 Brodie reads the pace of the dictation, about 275,000 words finished by the first week of July, as evidence of Smith's ability, not of powers beyond it.6

It does not give the source of the words, and scholars read the same features in different ways. Hardy sets that evidence beside a different view, held, he writes, by many church leaders and scholars, that Smith put revealed impressions into his own words, citing nonstandard grammar and wording common in early nineteenth-century America.10 Vogel, as Walker reports, reads the dictation as stories Smith had rehearsed from 1823.13 The sources used include no critical scholar's reading of the manuscript's corrections.

See also

Sources

  1. Joseph Smith Papers (Church Historian's Press). Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon (introduction to Revelations and Translations, Volume 5). The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Department. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  2. About the Project. The Joseph Smith Papers (The Church Historian's Press). Accessed 2026-11-04.
  3. Christine Rappleye (Church News). Full pages to fragments: see the original Book of Mormon manuscript in the new Joseph Smith Papers print volume. Church News, 2022, article of 25 January 2022. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  4. The Church Historian's Press. Church Historian's Press Releases Landmark Volume on Book of Mormon Manuscript. The Church Historian's Press, an imprint of the Church History Department of the church, 2022, press release dated January 25, 2022. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  5. Book of Mormon Translation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Gospel Topics Essays), 2016. Accessed 2026-11-03.
  6. Fawn M. Brodie. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, second edition, revised and enlarged. Alfred A. Knopf (Vintage Books printing), 1971, pp. 61 to 62 (chapter 4), p. 79, and p. 80. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  7. The Joseph Smith Papers (volume editors Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen). Revelations and Translations, Volume 3: Printer's Manuscript of the Book of Mormon (volume page). The Joseph Smith Papers (Church Historian's Press), the "About This Volume" section. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  8. The Book of Mormon: Introduction. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed 2026-11-03.
  9. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Moroni, Son of Mormon (Guide to the Scriptures). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the entry's first line. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  10. Grant Hardy. The Book of Mormon Translation Process. BYU Studies 60, no. 3, 2021, page 203. Accessed 2026-11-03.
  11. About BYU (mission statement). Brigham Young University. Accessed 2026-11-04.
  12. Royal Skousen. Translating the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript. In Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1997), chapter 4, 1997, pp. 61 to 93 (cited at pp. 61 to 62, 67, 72, 82, and 90 to 91). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  13. Kyle R. Walker. Review of Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004). BYU Studies 45, no. 4, p. 169. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  14. Klaus J. Hansen. Mormonism, Origins of. Encyclopedia of the New American Nation (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com, section "Authorship and Sources of the Book of Mormon". Accessed 2026-11-03.
  15. Sunstone (session description). Author Meets Critics. Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet by Dan Vogel. Sunstone, 2004, the session description. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  16. Brent Lee Metcalfe. Apologetic and Critical Assumptions about Book of Mormon Historicity. Dialogue, A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 3, 1993, pp. 153 to 184 (cited at pp. 155, 156, and 174). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  17. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (home page). Dialogue Foundation. Accessed 2026-11-04.
  18. Robert L. Maxwell. Review of Royal Skousen, ed., The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). BYU Studies 50, no. 2, p. 178. Accessed 2026-11-06.