Plagiarisms—The King James Version
By Dr. Walter Martin
Jul 22, 2008, 01:01
A careful examination of the Book of Mormon reveals that it contains thousands of words from the King James Bible. In fact, verbatim quotations, some of considerable length, have caused the Mormons no end of embarrassment for many years.
The comparisons of Moroni 10 with 1 Corinthians 12:1–11; 2 Nephi 14 with Isaiah 4; and 2 Nephi 12 with Isaiah 2 reveal that Joseph Smith made free use of his Bible to supplement the alleged revelation of the golden plates. The book of Mosiah, chapter 14, in the Book of Mormon, is a reproduction of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah the prophet, and 3 Nephi 13 copies Matthew 6 almost word-for-word.
There are other instances of plagiarisms from the King James Bible including paraphrases of certain verses. One of these verses (1 John 5:7) is reproduced in 3 Nephi 11:27. The only difficulty with the paraphrase here is that the text is considered by scholars to be an interpolation missing from all the major manuscripts of the New Testament, but present in the King James Bible, from which Smith paraphrased it not knowing the difference.
Another example of this type of error is found in 3 Nephi 11:33–34, and is almost a direct quotation from Mark 16:16, a passage regarded by many New Testament Greek scholars as one of three possible endings to that gospel. But Joseph Smith was not aware of this, so he even copied in translational variations, another proof that neither he nor the alleged golden plates were inspired of God.
Two further instances of plagiarisms from the King James Bible that have backfired on the Mormons are worth noting.
In the third chapter of the book of Acts, Peter’s classic sermon at Pentecost paraphrases Deuteronomy 18:15–19. While in the process of writing 3 Nephi, Joseph Smith puts Peter’s paraphrase in the mouth of Christ when the Savior was allegedly preaching to the Nephites. The prophet overlooked the fact that at the time that Christ was allegedly preaching His sermon, the sermon itself had not yet been preached by Peter.
In addition to this, 3 Nephi makes Christ out to be a liar, when in 20:23 Christ attributes Peter’s words to Moses as a direct quotation, when, as we have pointed out, Peter paraphrased the quotation from Moses (Acts 3:22–23); and the wording is quite different. But Joseph did not check far enough, hence this glaring error.
Secondly, the Book of Mormon follows the error of the King James translation that renders Isaiah 4:5, “For upon all the glory shall be a defense” (see 2 Nephi 14:5).
Modern translations of Isaiah point out that it should read “For over all the glory there will be a canopy,” not a defense. The Hebrew word does not mean defense but a protective curtain or canopy. Smith, of course, did not know this, nor did the King James translators from whose work he copied.
There are quite a number of other places where such errors appear, including Smith’s insistence in Abraham 1:20 that “Pharaoh signifies king by royal blood,” when in reality the dictionary defines the meaning of the term Pharaoh as “a great house or palace.”
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible renders Isaiah 5:25, “And their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets,” correctly rendering the Hebrew as “refuse,” not as “torn.” The King James Bible renders the passage “And their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets.” The Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 15:25) repeats the King James’ text word-for-word, including the error of mistranslating , removing any claim that the Book of Mormon is to be taken seriously as reliable material.
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