View source for Question: Why were textual changes made to the Book of Mormon over the years after it was first published?

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==Question: Why were textual changes made to the Book of Mormon over the years after it was first published?==
===The few significant modifications were made by the Prophet Joseph Smith to clarify the meaning of the text, not to change it===

The published text of the Book of Mormon has been corrected and edited through its various editions. Many of these changes were made by Joseph Smith himself. Why was this done?

The authenticity of the Book of Mormon is not affected by the modifications that have been made to its text because the vast majority of those modifications are minor corrections in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. The few significant modifications were made by the Prophet Joseph Smith to clarify the meaning of the text, not to change it. This was his right as translator of the book.

These changes have not been kept secret.  A discussion of them can be found in the individual articles linked below, and in the references listed below, including papers in ''BYU Studies'' and the ''Ensign''.

Joseph Smith taught "the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book."<ref>{{WWJ1|vol=2|start=139}} Quoted in {{HoC1|vol=4|start=461}}  See also {{TPJS1|start=194}}</ref> As the end of the preceding quote clarifies, by "most correct" this he meant in ''principle and teaching.'' The authors of the Book of Mormon themselves explained several times that their writing was imperfect, but that the teachings in the book were from God ({{scripture|1|Nephi|19|6}}; {{scripture|2|Nephi|33|4}}; {{scripture||Mormon|8|17}}; {{scripture||Mormon|9|31-33}}; {{scripture||Ether|12|23-26}}).

===There are over 100,000 insignificant changes that have been made to the Book of Mormon===

If one counts every difference in every punctuation mark in every edition of the Book of Mormon, the result is well over 100,000 changes.<ref>Royal Skousen, "[http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2002_Changes_in_the_Book_of_Mormon.html Changes In the Book of Mormon]," 2002 FAIR Conference proceedings.</ref> The critical issue is not the ''number'' of changes that have been made to the text, but the ''nature'' of the changes.

Most changes are insignificant modifications to spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and are mainly due to the human failings of editors and publishers.  For example, the word ''meet'' &mdash; meaning "appropriate" &mdash; as it appears in {{scripture|1|Nephi|7|1}}, was spelled "mete" in the first edition of the Book of Mormon, published in 1830. (This is a common error made by scribes of dictated texts.) "Mete" means ''to distribute'', but the context here is obvious, and so the spelling was corrected in later editions.

Some of these typographical errors ''do'' affect the meaning of a passage or present a new understanding of it, but not in a way that presents a challenge to the divinity of the Book of Mormon. One example is {{scripture|1|Nephi|12|18}}, which in all printed editions reads "a great and a terrible gulf divideth them; yea, even the ''word'' of the justice of the Eternal God," while the manuscript reads "the ''sword'' of the justice of the Eternal God." In this instance, the typesetter accidentally dropped the ''s'' at the beginning of ''sword''.

The current (2013) edition of the Book of Mormon has [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/explanation this notice] printed at the bottom of the page opposite 1 Nephi, chapter 1:

<blockquote>
Some minor errors in the text have been perpetuated in past editions of the Book of Mormon. This edition contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication manuscripts and early editions edited by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
</blockquote>

[[Image:Printing_BoM1.jpg|frame|center|500px|Some Book of Mormon changes were corrections of transcription or printing errors.]]

===There are a few significant changes that have been made to the Book of Mormon===

Changes that would affect the ''authenticity'' of the Book of Mormon are limited to:
*those that are substantive AND
**could possibly change the doctrine of the book OR
**could be used as evidence that the book was written by Joseph Smith.

There are surprisingly few meaningful changes to the Book of Mormon text, and all of them were made by Joseph Smith himself in editions published during his lifetime. These changes include:

*'''[[Book of Mormon/Textual changes/"the Son of"|"the Son of"]]''' added to {{scripture|1|Nephi|11|18}}; {{scripture|1|Nephi|11|21}}, {{scripture|1|Nephi|11|32}}, and {{scripture|1|Nephi|13|40}}.
*'''[[Book of Mormon/Textual changes/"or out of the waters of baptism"|"or out of the waters of baptism"]]''' added to {{scripture|1|Nephi|20|1}}.
*'''[[Book of Mormon/Textual changes/"white" changed to "pure"|"white" changed to "pure"]]''' in {{scripture|2|Nephi|30|6}}.
*'''[[Book of Mormon/Textual changes/"Benjamin" changed to "Mosiah"|"Benjamin" changed to "Mosiah"]]''' in {{scripture||Mosiah|21|28}} and {{scripture||Ether|4|1}}.
*'''[[Book of Mormon/Textual changes/"Words missing in Alma 32:30"|"Words missing in Alma 32:30"]]<ref>Daniel K. Judd and Allen W. Stoddard, "Adding and Taking Away 'Without a Cause' in Matthew 5:22," in ''How the New Testament Came to Be'', ed. Kent P. Jackson and Frank F. Judd Jr. (Provo and Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2006),159-160.</ref> {{scripture||Alma|32|30-31}}

The historical record shows that these changes were made to ''clarify'' the meaning of the text, not to ''alter'' it.

Many people in the church experience revelation that is to be dictated (such as a patriarch blessing). They will go back and alter their original dictation. This is done to clarify the initial premonitions received through the Spirit. The translation process for the Prophet Joseph may have occurred in a similar manner.
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