Opinion: Using the 1830 Edition of the Book of Mormon - A call to originalism

An 1830 Edition of the Book of Mormon with line numbers added.

By Chadwick LaVerl Hyde

What body of writings distinguishes fundamentalist Mormons from members of the mainstream LDS Church? 

The Journal of Discourses. 

No single other compendium has done more to edify and set right all the subsequent changes that have crept into the LDS church. From the changes that were caused by bureaucracy that overtook the church after the Mann Act era of the 1880s during the push for statehood that brought so many alterations to church practice, doctrine, covenants, garments and ceremonies from the 1890s through the 1930s. The beauty of the Journal of Discourses are their flowing style. They teach principles so very well in the stylistic wording and paragraphs they use. In fact, the idea of cutting the journal of discourses up into schizophrenic verses and offering pedants and erstwhile erudites the leeway to contend and quibble away doctrinal truths with philosophical debates is pointless.

Sadly the first book of our faith in this dispensation (the Book of Mormon) flowed once with the same stylistic words and paragraphs for decades before being carved up and dissected into new chapters and verses. This bled the scriptures dry of most of their power, force and vigor. It took real stories and real gospel living and interconnected doctrine and history and turned it into trivial mantras which made it become irrelevant and dry. The Journal of Discourses conference talks followed the original 1830 edition of Book of Mormon in style, force and effect during the waning years of the 1800s because they had no artificial verses and additional chapters.

So why place verses in our sacred works? One would hear “our fellow Christians, Catholics and Protestants do so!” This is not a reason, it is assimilation. They may say, “highly educated men made it easier to understand by re-chaptering the Book and splitting the paragraphs up into verses.” This isn’t a reason - this is the problem. It is not easier to understand, it is rife with false assumptions and bad doctrinal debates.

I would like to issue a challenge to all... Read the Book of Mormon 1830 Edition with its original chapters - and thought-provoking paragraphs - with a prayerful heart and ask yourselves this question. Do I understand the book more clearly and is it more precious to me than with constrictive verses and syntax shackles that were added? You may conclude that the Book of Mormon rings truer in your ears and affects your heart and your life more poignantly. It certainly does for me. It is Joseph’s Book of Mormon.

But I can already hear the cries, “Chad! How will we reference our way through the Book of Mormon when we study it with others?” 

What if a replica 1830 Edition of the Book of Mormon existed with crisp black numbers down the inside right margin. Might it effectively allow anyone, anywhere, to quickly reference any passage in the book (far more quickly than the current method)? How many of us have asked “what page are you on?” Well it’s this easy. Do you want to know where Nephi’s profession of faith to Lehi regarding going back to Jerusalem is? It would always be page 9, line 40. 

Let the mainstream LDS treat the scriptures like a Supreme Court bench brief - we can have our doctrine pure and our scriptures free of such worldly fetters. It’s the writing that matters - not the verses! Our religion was taken by officious pretenders and strangled into an incomprehensible mishmash of verse and chapter. Let’s return to the basics. The original Old and New Testaments were never written in the legalist constraints of verses. We do not need such things.

You can reach Chadwick at fundamentalistmag@gmail.com.

You can purchase an 1830 Edition of the Book of Mormon here.