Book of Mormon parallels to 1800s thought

Richard Bush­man, well-known Mor­mon his­to­ri­an, recent­ly stat­ed:

… there is phras­ing everywhere–long phras­es that if you google them you will find them in 19th cen­tu­ry writ­ings. The the­ol­o­gy of the Book of Mor­mon is very much 19th cen­tu­ry the­ol­o­gy, and it reads like a 19th cen­tu­ry under­stand­ing of the Hebrew Bible as an Old Testament … 

And Blake Ostler, anoth­er well-known Mor­mon schol­ar, has not­ed:

Many Book of Mor­mon doc­trines are best explained by the nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry the­o­log­i­cal milieu. 

It appears that many, if not all, the­o­log­i­cal doc­trines and themes advanced in the Book of Mor­mon had close pre­cur­sors, vari­ants, or a deep foun­da­tion in, the the­ol­o­gy and thought of the ear­ly 1800s.

Shorter documents with more narrow focus

Each of these analy­ses is sig­nif­i­cant in its own right, but these are com­par­a­tive­ly minor com­pi­la­tions and analy­ses. Please con­sult the exten­sive com­pi­la­tions to ful­ly appre­ci­ate the extent of the parallels.

  1. Sim­i­lar­i­ties with Jonathon Edwards Sr/Jr sermons
  2. 19th Cen­tu­ry Protes­tant Phras­es in the Book of Mor­mon and Anachro­nis­tic Chris­t­ian doc­trine (churchistrue)
  3. Anachro­nis­tic Bib­li­cal Phrasing
  4. Oth­er protes­tant mate­r­i­al in the Book of Mormon
  5. Echoes
  6. Sim­i­lar­i­ties with Le Morte d’Arthur
  7. Lam­oni vs. Launcelot
  8. Moroni quotes sec­tions of Mark that are of dubi­ous origin
  9. Jesus sweat drops of blood out of pores a com­mon 1800s argu­ment, with com­men­tary on it in Clarke’s bible notes

Extensive compilations or analyses

  1. Sim­i­lar­i­ties with late war and analy­sis
  2. Sim­i­lar­i­ties with McClin­tock, Keteltas, Sher­wood, Dwight, White­field, and Edwards Sr/Jr (Donofrio) (Thomas Donofrio)
  3. His­tor­i­cal Influ­ences on the Book of Mor­mon (Thomas Donofrio)
  4. Sim­i­lar­i­ties between Dart­mouth pro­fes­sor John Smith’s writ­ings and the Book of Mor­mon (astrona­tusaurus posts 1–10)
  5. The Book of Mor­mon: A Voice from 19th Cen­tu­ry Dust (Ray Anderson)
  6. New Approach­es to the Book of Mormon
  7. Mor­mon Par­al­lels (Rick Grunder)
  8. King James Vers­es in the Book of Mormon
  9. Book of Mor­mon Ori­gins project
  10. 19th Cen­tu­ry Protes­tant Phras­es in Book of Mormon
  11. The Book of Mor­mon and 12 points of Pelagius
  12. Faith of a nat­u­ral­ist (see FST-15–FST-21)
  13. Motif crit­i­cism-anachro­nist theology
  14. Anti-uni­ver­sal­ist Rhetoric in the Book of Mor­mon (Vogel)
  15. Dig­ging in Cumorah (Mark D. Thomas)
  16. Pos­si­ble sources of pla­gia­rism for Joseph Smith
  17. real​bookof​mor​mon​.org Like­ly Sources
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January 19, 2018 4:03 pm

[…] an immense num­ber of ideas and phras­es com­mon to the ear­ly nine­teenth cen­tu­ry (see Book of Mor­mon par­al­lels to 1800s thought for a com­pre­hen­sive list). For instance there are many sim­i­lar­i­ties with the […]

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November 13, 2017 2:04 pm

[…] See Book of Mor­mon par­al­lels to 1800s thought […]

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September 27, 2017 12:03 am

[…] The num­ber of sim­i­lar­i­ties with ear­ly 1800s thought is extensive. […]