CHAPTER XXXVII

INTERNAL EVIDENCES.--THE BOOK OF MORMON, IN STYLE AND LANGUAGE, IS CONSISTENT WITH THE THEORY OF ITS CONSTRUCTION.

I.

_Of the Unity and Diversity of Style._

As already set forth in previous pages, the Book of Mormon, with reference to the original documents from which it was translated, is made up of two classes of writings:

1. Original, unabridged Nephite records;

2. Mormon and Moroni's abridgment of Nephite and Jaredite records.

The translation of the unabridged Nephite records comprises the first 157 pages of current editions of the Book of Mormon. The rest of the 623 pages--except where we have the words of Mormon and Moroni at first hand, or here and there direct quotations by them from older records--are Mormon's abridgment of other Nephite records, and Moroni's abridgment of a Jaredite record. It is quite evident that there would be a marked difference in the construction of these two divisions of the book. How there came to be unabridged and abridged records in Mormon's collection of plates has been explained at length in previous pages, [1] so that it is now only necessary to say that when Joseph Smith lost his translation of the first part of Mormon's abridgment of the Nephite records, comprised in the 116 pages of manuscript which he entrusted to Martin Harris, he replaced the lost part by translating the smaller plates of Nephi which make up the first 157 pages of the Book of Mormon before referred to. Now, if there is no difference in the style between this part of the Book of Mormon translated from the small plates of Nephi, and Mormon's abridgment of the larger plates, that fact would constitute very strong evidence against the claims of the Book of Mormon. On the other hand, if one finds the necessary change in style between these two divisions of the book, it will be important incidental evidence in its support. Especially will this be conceded when the likelihood that neither Joseph Smith nor his associates would have sufficient knowledge of things literary to appreciate the importance of the difference of style demanded in the two parts of the record. Fortunately the evidence on this point is all that can be desired. The writers whose works were engraven on the smaller plates of Nephi employ the most direct style, and state what they have to say in the first person, without explanation or interpolations by editors or commentators or any evidence of abridgment whatsoever, though, of course, they now and then make quotations from the Hebrew scriptures which the Nephite colony brought with them from Jerusalem. The following passages illustrate their style.

THE FIRST BOOK OF NEPHI.