I’ve been reading the Book of Mormon, at least sporadically, for the past fifty years or so. I wish I could say, that I’ve been diligently studying it, but I’m trying to keep it honest. In all those years I have never given any real thought to the historicity of The Book of Mormon—I’m not sure I even knew that was a word. Sure, I knew that there were Book of Mormon tours to South or Central America, and that Joseph Smith taught that it was the actual history of an ancient people, but until recently I had never considered the claims of the critics of the LDS church that archaeological and DNA research show that the Book of Mormon isn’t historical.
I touched on this once before in a post about swords, but again today, I won’t really be discussing Book of Mormon historicity, except just as a starting point for a discovery I made while investigating it. You see, The Book of Mormon mentions horses, but archaeologists say that there weren’t horses in the Americas during this time period. Personally, I’d like to save this discussion for another day, other than to say that it was while reading about horses that I found this information about The Book of Mormon’s limited vocabulary.
According to researcher Benjamin McGuire, The Book of Mormon has about 270,000 words, but a vocabulary of only about 5,500. This number becomes even smaller if you take out the nearly 200 unique Book of Mormon names. This vocabulary is significantly smaller than comparable books written near the same time. One interesting example of this is that moving water is always referred to as a river; there are no streams, brooks, or creeks. Joseph Smith knew and used these words, as all three of them are in the Doctrine and Covenants. All three words also appear in the King James Version of the Bible. Standing water is always a sea. There are no oceans, no lakes (with the exception of fire and brimstone) and no ponds. Once again these words are found in both the Bible and the Doctrine and Covenants. The variety of plant and animals names are also limited.
In Mormon 9:32-33, Moroni writes:
And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.
And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.
Moroni seems to be saying that he and the other writers used reformed Egyptian because it took up less room on the plates. It feels logical that this could have been because it used fewer or simpler characters. He also says that the record would have been more perfect if they had used Hebrew, which could indicate that the words available in reformed Egyptian were less precise. It is also worth noting, that while we think of The Book of Mormon as most correct of any book on earth, Moroni acknowledges that there could be imperfections.
Learning about the limited vocabulary has enriched my reading of The Book of Mormon. Recently someone told me that they were uncomfortable with the term great and abominable church. Many people my age remember being taught in church settings that the great and abominable church was the Catholic Church. Apparently, this was in the first edition of Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine, but LDS leaders pressed him into changing this in the second edition. In this edition and in teachings since, we hear that the great and abominable church, or the church of the devil, refers to any institution whose aim is to lead people away from God.
So, if we are talking about any evil organization, why call it a church? I was curious; might this relate to a limited vocabulary? So I did some investigating and here’s what I found. Church seems to be the catchall word, like river or sea. The word church appears 259 times with positive, negative and neutral connotations.
I spend quite a while trying to think of every other word that could have been used instead to fill in this blank and to represent a group who shared theological or ideological ideas.
The great and abominable ____________.
The word gospel is found 41 times, but it is used almost exclusively in connection with Christ; e.g. the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the Lamb, the gospel of their Redeemer, my gospel, his gospel, etc. It appears that whatever word translated to gospel always had a positive meaning and wouldn’t have worked.
Doctrine appears 29 times, but always strictly as ideas or principles rather than groups or movements, and usually qualified as either the false or foolish doctrines, or the doctrines of Christ.
I found it fascinating that the word religion only appears ten times and all of those occur in Alma Chapters 43-54. These are the war chapters where the Nephites are fighting for a better cause, defending their families, freedom, and religion. These are the chapters where Captain Moroni turns his coat into the title of liberty.
Synagogue is used 26 times, always in reference to a building. Similarly, temple is used as a building 28 times and three more times as the spirit not dwelling in unholy temples, referring to bodies.
Faith appears 304 times. As far as I could tell it was always in the context of being faithful or having faith and not as a belief system like when we say, “the Mormon faith”.
Value is used seven times, five of those in Alma 11 where the Nephite monetary system is described and the other two are also synonyms of worth.
All the other words I could think of aren’t found in The Book of Mormon. Group, sect, theology, ideology, morals, cult, institution, culture, beliefs, values, creed, credo, and dogma don’t appear at all. This seems to support the idea that the word church may be any example of how the limited vocabulary of The Book of Mormon may give us a broad rather than specific idea.
So, why am I so fascinated by the limited vocabulary in The Book of Mormon and why do I care enough about it to spend all this time on it? Let me explain. First of all, critics of the LDS church say that Joseph Smith was a con man who just made it all up, but this is just one of the pieces of evidence that I keep finding that makes this harder to believe. How likely does it seem that Joseph carefully limited the vocabulary all through this long and quickly produced volume, just so that he could have Moroni explain near the end why the vocabulary was limited? If he had gone to all this effort, why didn’t he use it—along with all the other super clever things he included—to perpetuate his fraud? I can’t find any record of him pointing out the intricacies we find in this very complex record.
Instead, we have Moroni’s promise, which asks us to read, ponder and pray for a personal witness. That brings me to the primary conclusion I come to as I think about The Book of Mormon’s limited vocabulary. The Book of Mormon was not meant to be a geography, biology, or even history text, and while it may be interesting to look at these things, focusing on them may lead us to miss the mark. The Book of Mormon is a witness of Jesus Christ, designed to bring us closer to him. The word Christ appears 398 times, Jesus 188, Redeemer 41, Son of God 51, Savior 12, Jehovah 2, Messiah 32, atonement 28, sacrifice 20, repentance 99, resurrection 81, and salvation 88.
This is a book about knowing and following Christ; it is about coming nearer to Him and becoming more like Him. Since its introduction, this is what draws people to the book and changes lives. I love The Book of Mormon and my life is richer when I study and follow its precepts.
