Joseph Smith and the Text of the Book of Mormon

Royal Skousen’s most significant contribution to Book of Mormon scholarship, this paper states, is in openly and systematically detailing the thousands of variants that occur across two manuscripts and twenty editions and showing that these variations do not affect the message or validity of the book as a witness of Jesus Christ. Skousen’s work also offers new insights into the process of translating and publishing the Book of Mormon. Though the work of translation appears to have involved a number of different methods, we can nevertheless be sure that the Book of Mormon was translated by the “gift and power of God.”