Compare the three texts
In 1775, the Virginia Gazette printed an installment of The First Book of the American Chronicles of the Times, a Revolutionary satire attributed to John Leacock. Its account of a public proclamation uses a transition that also appears in the King James Bible and the Book of Mormon.
| Text | Shared wording | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Genesis 4:3 | “it came to pass” | Cain brings an offering. |
| American Chronicles, 1775 | “And it came to pass” | Jedediah reads a proclamation and the people cheer. |
| 1 Nephi 3:1 | “And it came to pass” | Nephi returns to his father’s tent after speaking with the Lord. |
The phrase is real evidence of a shared biblical register. Because it was available in the Bible and leads into different events, it offers little evidence that one of these later works used the other. A longer, unusual sequence that appears in the same order and is absent from obvious common sources would carry more weight.
What the critics propose
Writing at Lucifer’s Lantern, Mason uses Leacock to show how an early American writer could recast current events in biblical language. Historian Eran Shalev makes a broader case for reading the Book of Mormon in this early American literary context. A book that sounds like scripture could sound familiar to readers who already knew the convention. That matters even if Joseph never saw Leacock’s book. Mason’s comparison · Shalev’s historical study
Peter McLaughlin goes further. He proposes that stock sentences and recurring plot patterns could have helped Joseph dictate quickly, like a later genre writer improvising within templates. McLaughlin calls this a hypothesis and says Joseph left no description of such a method. Speed and repetition make the proposal worth testing. The question is whether the proposed templates explain specific features of the book that competing accounts struggle to explain. McLaughlin’s essay
What would distinguish the explanations?
- A shared style. Check the proposed parallels against the Bible and several early American works. A phrase common across that comparison set has little power to identify an individual source.
- Use of a particular book. Look for a plausible path to Joseph, plus distinctive wording or a sequence of details that survives the comparison. A publication date establishes that a work existed. Evidence of access can make borrowing more plausible.
- Composition by templates. Specify the templates before looking for examples, then see whether they predict recurring sequences across the book, including passages without the proposed patterns. Stanford Carmack reports differences in selected grammatical features between the earliest Book of Mormon text and four comparison works, including Leacock. That gives readers a more specific comparison than impressions about how the texts sound. It addresses the measured features. Carmack’s comparative study
How a Latter-day Saint can respond
I believe Joseph translated an ancient record by the gift and power of God. The book’s published English can speak in a biblical register familiar to its first readers under that account. A modern author could also use that register. I’d grant the literary resemblance and ask which details point specifically to a book Joseph used or a method he followed. Church history of the translation · Separate case on proposed sources