KnoWhy #542 - Why New Testament Words and Phrases Are in the Book of Mormon Part 9: Above All, Were These Words Given by the Gift and Power of God? (2 Nephi 29:8)

Part 8 of this series of KnoWhys looked at the possibility that many of the New Testament phrases that can be found in the Book of Mormon were introduced into the text at the level of the English translation. This KnoWhy looks at the probability that the translation process was one of “tight control” over the words in English Joseph Smith dictated to his scribes. Joseph’s standard procedure was apparently to place the interpreters into a hat and read aloud the English words that appeared on them. The evidence suggests that Joseph was not responsible for the language of the translation, which was revealed to him word for word. In this view, whatever divine process was responsible for producing the English translation was also apparently responsible for purposefully integrating relevant and appropriate New Testament phrasing into the text. The “revealed words” approach ultimately accounts not only for the fact that short phrases from the New Testament are found in the Book of Mormon but also long near-verbatim quotes as well.