CHAPTER XLVI.
OBJECTIONS TO THE BOOK OF MORMON (Continued).
I.
Errors of Style and Grammar.
One of the chief objections to the Book of Mormon from the first has been the uniformity of its literary style, and the defects in its language—errors in grammar, New York Yankee localisms, and the use of modern words—unwarranted, it is claimed, in the translation of an ancient record. Alexander Campbell, in his attack upon the Book of Mormon, 1831, on this subject, said:
The book proposes to be written at intervals and by different persons during the long period of 1020 years, and yet for uniformity of style there never was a book more evidently written by one set of fingers, nor more certainly conceived in one cranium since the first book appeared in human language, than this same book. If I could swear to any man's voice, face, or person, assuming different names, I could swear that this book was written by one man. And as Joseph Smith is a very ignorant man and is called the "Author," on the title page, I cannot doubt for a single moment but that he is sole "Author and Proprietor" of it.
He then proceeds to point out the same idioms of speech in the preface to the first edition—the Prophet's own composition, of course—in the testimony of the witnesses, and in various parts of the Book of Mormon proving, as he claims, unity of style and identity of authorship for the various books that make up the volume. He points out a large number of errors in grammar, also, a number of supposed anachronisms, modernism, etc., giving the pages where the defects occur. Indeed, so ample was Mr. Campbell's criticism on this point, that he has furnished the materials for this argument against the Book of Mormon which has been repeated by nearly all subsequent writers. Howe, for instance, takes up the refrain in this manner:
The style of the Book of Mormon is sui generis, and whoever peruses it will not have doubt but that the whole was framed and written by the same individual hand.[[1]]
Then follows quotations which he regards as justifying the conclusion.
Professor J. B. Turner of Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois, in his "Mormonism in All Ages" follows in the same strain and uses like illustrations.[[2]]