Joseph most likely grew up reading a school book called The Late War by Gilbert J. Hunt and it heavily influenced his writing of The Book of Mormon.

In October 2013, the authors conducted a data analysis comparing The Book of Mormon to over 100,000 books from the pre-1830's era. Out of the top matches, we discovered a book called The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain, a scriptural style account of the War of 1812 published in New York in 1816. Between 1817 and 1819 it was marketed "for the use of schools throughout the United States" under the title The Historical Reader.

Interesting Parallels

	The Late War		Book of Mormon
	Location	Quotation	Quotation	Location
4th of July ...	26:1	the fourth day of the seventh month, which is the birth day of Columbian Liberty and Independence,	the fourth day of this seventh month, which is in the tenth year of the reign of the judges.	Alma 10:6
Teancum ...	27-28	... near Moravian Town ... And it came to pass ... the army ... were under ... a chief warrior, whom they called Tecumseh [...] smote their chief warrior [Tecumseh], and slew him ... he fell to the earth.	... people of Morianton ... And it came to pass ... the army ... was led by a man whose name was Teancum [...] they did pursue Teancum, and slew him ... he was dead, and had gone the way of all the earth.	Alma 50:33,35, Alma 62:36-37
Striplings ...	35:5-6	two thousand hardy men, who ... fought freely for their country ... Now the men of war ... were ... men of dauntless courage.	two thousand of those young men ... to defend their country. ... they took their weapons of war, ... were all young men, and they were exceeding valiant for courage, ...	Alma 53:18-20
Americas ...	20:11-16	... the land ... most plentiful ... yielding gold and silver, and ... all manner of creatures which are used for food, And ... the huge mammoth that once moved on the borders ... It is more wonderful than the elephant;	... the land, ... exceeding rich, ... of gold, and of silver, and ... all manner of ... animals which were useful for the food of man. And ... cureloms and cumoms; ... and more especially the elephants ...	Ether 9:17-19
Forts ...	29:20-23	[men] were prepared ... and they let loose their weapons of war ... and smote ... with great slaughter. And the deep ditch that surrounded the fort was strewed with their slain and their wounded.	[men] were prepared, with their swords and their slings, to smite ... with an immense slaughter ... ditches ...filled up in a measure with their dead and wounded.	Alma 49:20-25
More Forts ...	51	it came to pass ... on the tenth day of the eighth month ... the people began to fortify ... and entrench the high places round about the city. And ... build their strong holds ...	it came to pass ... on the tenth day of the month ... the Nephites had dug a ridge of earth ... so high [...] round about ... the city ... And ... built a strong hold ...	Alma 49,52
Casualties ...	23:24	... fought ... and there were many slain and wounded on both sides	... fought ... and there were many slain on both sides	Alma 52:35
Standard ...	6-7	sent forth a Proclamation, ... abroad ... And it came to pass, that a great multitude flocked to the ... standard of Columbia...they came in battle array against the ...	sent a proclamation throughout ... the land; ... And it came to pass that thousands did flock unto his standard [of liberty] ... they ... went down with their armies ... against the ...	Alma 61-62
Cataclysms ...	19:37-44	...thunders: ... as the mighty earthquake, which overturneth cities. And the whole face of the earth ... overshadowed with black smoke; so that, for a time, one man saw not another: ... sharp rocks had fallen upon them:	...thunder, ... did shake the whole earth ... cities were sunk, and ... the face of the whole earth... could feel the vapor of darkness ... so that ... for the space of three days, that there was no light seen; ... great destruction had come upon them.	3 Nephi 8
Liahona ...	50:24	made partly of brass ... with curious works, like unto a clock; and as it were a large ball.	a round ball of curious workmanship; and it was of fine brass. And within the ball were two spindles	1 Nephi 16:10
Weapons ...	19:13	And ... weapons of war were of curious workmanship	And ... weapons of war ... of exceedingly curious workmanship	Ether 10:27
	51:3-10	it came to pass that the husbandmen ... gathered together, and pitched their tents, [and] assembled together ... And the people shouted with a loud voice, ...	it came to pass that ... the people gathered themselves together ... And ... pitched their tents ... ye should assemble yourselves together ... And they all cried with one voice, ...	Mosiah 2-4
	53:4	... it came to pass, that they gathered together their army ... their navy ... on the borders of the ... land of Columbia ...	... it came to pass that they gathered together all their people ... their flocks ... near the borders of the ... land of Zarahemla	Alma 27:13-15
	13:20	Now when Carden heard these words, his heart leaped with joy;	Now when he had said these words, his heart was swollen ... with joy;	Alma 17:29
	35:34	And the chief warriors gave up their instruments of destruction, and laid them at the feet of Jackson...	And ... their chief captains, ... threw down their weapons of war at the feet of Moroni...	Alma 52:38
	3:29	... people to rise up one against another, and ... their own children.	... people to rise up in rebellion against their brethren.	Helaman 1:7
	44:21	... go with all our might against their chief city	... go forth with all our might against the Lamanites, who were in the city	Alma 58:13
	34:10	it came to pass, in the same year, that the people of Columbia were revenged of the evil:	it came to pass that in the same year that the people of Nephi had peace restored unto them,	Alma 50:37

Note: Some of these parallels were found through manual search, but were deemed interesting enough to highlight here.

While the above parallels are interesting, we believe that the more powerful connection between the two texts is the computer-aided discovery of matching, rare 4-grams.

If a 4 word phrase (4-gram) showed up less than once per thousand books, we considered it to be a rare 4-gram. After all biblical matches were removed from the comparison, the computer algorithm found over 100 rare 4-grams shared by both The Book of Mormon and The Late War. To put this into perspective, we found that The Late War contained more rare 4-gram connections to The Book of Mormon than 99.999% of the other books published before 1830. For comparison purposes, we chose an arbitrary book from Joseph Smith's time, Pride and Prejudice, and compared it to The Book of Mormon. The comparison showed a very low number of rare 4-gram matches per 1,000 words. The Late War, on the other hand, scored significantly higher:

While chiasmus is a pattern that shows up in many English texts, some consider it to be an important marker that differentiates modern and ancient styles of writing. We don't believe this is the case—The Late War contains several significant chiastic structures. For instance:

The War of 1812 was to Joseph Smith what 9/11 was to many of us—very real, and very recent in memory. Why does The Book of Mormon include so much war? Could the War of 1812 have played a part in inspiring Joseph's imagination when he wrote The Book of Mormon?

We believe that like all creative works, The Book of Mormon is a remix—it was remixed from ideas and books contemporary to Joseph. One of those books was Gilbert J. Hunt's The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain, a historical account of the War of 1812 published in New York in 1816. Between 1817 and 1819 it was marketed "for the use of schools throughout the United States" under the title The Historical Reader. It was a historical account of the then-recent War of 1812, written in the "scriptural style". The Book of Mormon is one book of several in this genre. When The Late War was published, Joseph would have been 12 years old.

Interestingly, an academic in New York named Samuel Mitchill wrote a letter of endorsement for Hunt's work, published in the preface of The Late War. Mitchill was pleased that a historian had used the "scriptural style" as a popular means of encouraging children to turn to the Holy Scriptures. When Joseph sent Martin Harris to seek endorsements for The Book of Mormon, one of the people he visited was the same Samuel Mitchill. Could Joseph have sought Mitchill's endorsement because of his support for The Late War, a book that held similarities to The Book of Mormon?

Without a strong link between the two books, the similarities would be difficult to explain. There are over 100 rare phrases that bind The Book of Mormon to The Late War (phrases that do not show up in other contemporary books—or if they do, only once or twice per thousand books). In addition, the two books use very similar language while detailing shared events and themes such as battles at forts and rivers, weapons of curious workmanship, 2,000 soldiers (including striplings), bands of robbers, martyrs burned, righteous vs. savage natives, cataclysmic events, Christopher Columbus, false prophets, fighting for the cause of liberty, freemen vs. men of the king, and silver plates and engravings in brass, among many others (and those further documented by Ryan Thomas).

Joseph Smith probably directed Martin Harris to visit Samuel L. Mitchill, in addition to Martin's famed visit to Professor Charles Anthon. From the Palmyra Freeman, 1829:

So blindly enthusiastic was Harris, that he took some of the characters interpreted by Smith, and went in search of some one, besides the interpreter, who was learned enough to English them; but all to whom he applied (among the number was Professor Mitchell, of New York,) happened not to be possessed of sufficient knowledge to give satisfaction! Harris returned, and set Smith to work at interpreting the Bible.

In the preface to the 2nd and 3rd editions of Gilbert J. Hunt's The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain, Samuel Mitchill endorsed Hunt's book which was "written in the ancient historical style" or "scriptural style" (the description changed between editions). Mitchill wrote:

It seems to me one of the best attempts to imitate the biblical style; and if the perusal of it can induce young persons to relish and love the sacred books whose language you have imitated, it will be the strongest of all recommendations.

Hunt explained his own intention as well:

The author having adopted for the model of his style the phraseology of the best books, remarkable for its simplicity and strength, the young pupil will acquire, with the knowledge of reading, a love for the manner in which the great truths of Divine Revelation are conveyed to his understanding, and this will be an inducement to him to study the Holy Scriptures.

Samuel Mitchill was a strong proponent of a theory of the origins of Ancient Americans that is largely compatible with the Book of Mormon:

Professor Samuel L. Mitchill, formerly of Columbia College, had concluded that two main groups of people once dominated the Americas—the Tartars of northern Asia and the Australasians of the Polynesian islands. Furthermore, they fought one another for many years, culminating in great battles of extermination in what later became upstate New York. This New York theory has much in common with the Book of Mormon. While visiting Professor Charles Anthon in New York in 1828, Martin Harris also met with Mitchill, an encounter that lent support to Harris's work on the Book of Mormon. — Abstract from A Nation Now Extinct

The endorsements in The Late War are clearly an effort to give the book legitimacy, hence improving its marketability. Hunt is quite wise in getting the endorsement of Mitchill, who was well-known as a sort of human encyclopedia. The endorsement from Picket (also in the preface to The Late War) would get him into the educational market, as well. Joseph Smith may well have thought that such an endorsement from Mitchill and Anthon would legitimize the book. — grindael

Ultimately, Mitchill (as well as Charles Anthon), did not endorse The Book of Mormon.

How available was The Late War to students of New York? Hunt intended to sell the book to students, but did it reach his intended audience?

1. The number of copies present in libraries today is relatively large, showing that many copies were indeed printed; and
2. Most copies which I see show considerable wear, suggesting
   1. that they were used heavily over the years, and
   2. that most copies were logically read to death and no longer survive at all (which lends more significance—for presumed large numbers printed—to the number which still survive, than if those modern survivals were all in fresh, unread condition).
— Rick Grunder

There are 158 copies of The Late War listed in the world's largest open library system, the OCLC:

The OCLC system lists 158 copies of the book, in its various 1816-1819 editions, in libraries worldwide. Plus, there are many smaller libraries which don't participate in the OCLC system, and then there are also individual collectors. A friend of mine has several copies and sold many more, much of these in his personal collection acquired that pre-date Hofmann. — Joe Geisner

It seems the book was widely available at the right time and in the right location, but did it reach Joseph Smith in particular? The probabilistic evidence for this is clear from this research; however, there is further reason to believe that Joseph had access to the book: he was closely connected to at least 3 teachers. His father, Joseph Smith Sr. was a teacher during the off season. His wife, Emma Hale Smith, was also a teacher. In addition, Oliver Cowdery's involvement began when as a traveling teacher he lodged with the Smiths.

Another way to look at this question is, given that the War of 1812 was such a prominent historical subject, one that would have been taught and discussed at great length during Joseph Smith's teenage years, what textbook other than The Late War was more likely to have been used to cover this subject matter by teachers he knew?

Both books share a striking similarity in their describing the Americas. The types of things worthy of mention are alike—metals, fruits, and animals. It's noteworthy that The Book of Mormon lists European animals instead of animals native to America (such as the tapir); and, oddly, in the same section that The Book of Mormon mistakenly includes elephants as native to America, The Late War mentions the elephant in comparison to mammoths.

Cureloms as Mammoths?

Orson Pratt said that a "curelom" was a "mammoth":

Now to prepare them against these contingencies, and that they might, have fresh air for the benefit of the elephants, cureloms or mammoths and many other animals, that perhaps were in them, as well as the human beings they contained, the Lord told them how to construct them in order to receive air, that when they were on the top of the water, whichever side up their vessels happened to be, it mattered not; they were so constructed that they could ride safely, though bottom upwards and they could open their air holes that happened to be uppermost" (Orson Pratt, JoD 12:340).

See also wikipedia

Battles at Forts

The elements of the Croghan/Moroni battles are very similar, sharing phraseology and a basic plot: the protagonist men prepare for battle at their fort, the enemy attacks, the ditches around the fort are filled with the enemy's bodies, the enemy flees into the forest.

Some may argue that this structure is a scène a faire—that this is a basic structure common to many battles; however, there are distinctive elements to these descriptions that raise the question, how could two battles separated by nearly 2,000 years be described by two different people in so similar a manner? In the context of the strong evidence of a connection between The Late War and The Book of Mormon is it reasonable to conclude that the structure is coincidental rather than imitative?

Historical works describing the War of 1812 use quite a bit of variation in describing casualties. For instance:

leaving the field strewed with the carnage of more than 2000 wounded, dead and dying" — History of the United States of America, published 1828

The loss of Guerriere was 15 killed, 64 wounded, and 21 missing — The Annals of America, published 1829

It's interesting that The Book of Mormon doesn't include "dying" or "missing" in their battle numbers, and that they are reported, typically, as "slain", like The Late War. One interesting difference is that The Book of Mormon does not mention the "maimed", however.

Frequent reports of the number slain appear throughout the text, rather in the style of the daily reports in the Book of Mormon. And as in the Book of Mormon, near-miraculous differences can occur between casualty numbers of the wicked vs. the righteous. — Rick Grunder, Mormon Parallels

In both books:

The righteous protagonists triumph over the more numerous foe, and the enemy army consistently outnumbers the righteous protagonists. — Ryan Thomas, Direct Literary Dependence?

The Late War does not include the phrase "stripling soldiers" like the Book of Mormon; however, it does share the same context as the distinctive Book of Mormon story: striplings in battle, including a band of 2,000 courageous soldiers who volunteer in a desperate fight for the freedom of their country against an oppressive king (Amalickiah / King George III).

There are numerous references to destroying robbers in the Book of Mormon and none in the Bible. While there are no doubt other potential sources (and I wouldn't make the claim that the robbers in the Book of Mormon are solely based on this one passage) it is interesting that both the Late War and the Book of Mormon speak of going against the band of robbers and destroying them. — Hasa

Righteous Indians vs. Savage Indians

In both books we have references to: thunder, large groups of people falling to the earth, rocks being raised and falling causing deaths, fragments of rocks, the face of the earth, and thick darkness which prevents anyone from seeing each other or anything around them. It is also interesting that there are mentions of sinking and drowning in the Book of Mormon which would make more sense if The Late War had been an influence, since it includes descriptions of water battles. — Hasa

Both The Late War and The Book of Mormon share an anecdote of leaders considering a problem which has never been dealt with before. In The Late War, it is a military leader, captain Carden, who is troubled with the capture of a British war ship as he contemplates the geopolitical implications of the act. In The Book of Mormon, it is a spiritual leader, Alma, who contemplates what should be done with dissenters who are causing trouble in the church, in the context of separation of church and state.

The context for the passages in both books is people choosing sides in a civil war between one side that is loyal to a king and the other side that is in favor of "freedom" from kings. — Juggler Vain

That they both use 'lion' isn't particularly strange since the bible is full of figurative language around the subject.

What strikes me about this is that there were actually no lions in the Americas at any time during the Book of Mormon period.

So for Joseph to have used lions figuratively is anachronistic in my opinion. It makes no sense for him to have used them, it makes no sense for Jesus to have spoken to the Nephites about Lions, since they wouldn't have been familiar with them, and it makes no sense for Mormon to have used them since he wouldn't have known about them either. (Or am I wrong?)

It does make sense if Joseph was being influenced by the Bible and The Late War. Interestingly, Joseph doesn't use 'eagle' (as does Hunt and the Bible) which wouldn't have been anachronistic in a Book of Mormon setting.

— Mary

Before this computer-aided research, many researchers such as Vernal Holley in 1992 had speculated that there was a connection between Tecumseh and Teancum since both sounded similar, and both were connected to Moravian Town/Morianton. FairMormon responded to the Teancum/Tecumseh parallel this way:

Teancum supposedly derived from Tecumseh...A place not named until 1912

Tecumseh, the supposed origin of Teancum, requires considerable creativity to even make the words the same...

But could Joseph have known about Tecumseh, Ontario? As a prophet of God, yes, but as a plagiarizer, unlikely. Tecumseh, Ontario did not get this name until 1912. ... Desperate to save this idea, other critics have suggested the town of Tecumseh, Michigan instead of the Tecumseh, Ontario, replacing a ridiculous candidate with one that is merely silly (and even further from Joseph Smith than its later Canadian cousin).

We were surprised, while reading The Late War, to discover Tecumseh and his army go to Moravian Town. In addition, their leader was slain in a similar way to Teancum. We do not believe Joseph plagiarized from The Late War, but that it may have influenced some of his wording or ideas.

Christopher Columbus was a controversial figure—was he a brutal slave master, or an inspired leader? Whatever he was, The Late War and The Book of Mormon share the same high regard for Columbus. The Late War esteems him so highly that,

Hunt almost always refers to America as the land of "Columbia," following the example of Richard Snowden. — Rick Grunder, Mormon Parallels, p. 732

Significance

Not all books mention dates, but when they do they can be expressed in various formats:

• Fourth/4th of July
• July (the) 4th/fourth
• Fourth day of July
• 4th day of July
• 7/4/1830 etc.

While it may seem odd that both books mention the same date, expressed in the same format, it's not impossible for this to show up by chance. For example the 4-gram phrase "of the seventh month" shows up numerous times in the bible which disqualified it from our initial search algorithm.

However, the 4-gram, "seventh month, which is" turns out to be many times more rare than the actual date match itself. The fact that this rare 4-gram is accompanied by the exact same date makes it even more rare. This was manually discovered long after the computer algorithm had already established that The Late War was significantly connected to The Book of Mormon.

Reign of the Judges

The Reign of the Judges was a government system based on Judges that supplanted the Reign of the Kings in The Book of Mormon.

This change in the Nephite government was apparently devastating to those of high birth, because they later plotted to overthrow the free government and bring back the old system of Monarchy:

[King-men] were desirous ... to overthrow the free government, and to establish a king over the land. And those who were desirous that Pahoran should remain Chief Judge over the land, took upon them the name of freemen; and thus was the division among them: for the freemen had sworn or covenanted to maintain their rights, and privileges of their religion, by a free government.

Notice that the free government is the Nephite system of judges, which is supported by the freemen. The dynamics are similar in The Late War, where we find freemen fighting to maintain a free government in the Second War for American Independence against the servants of the King:

... they were ready and well prepared to meet the servants of the king. Nevertheless, it was so that the freemen who came to the defence of the city, built strong holds and forts, and raised up fortifications

Counting the years of freedom from kings

It is also interesting to note that both The Book of Mormon and The Late War not only replaced the monarchy with a free government, but also used the transition as a date marker. Both books count how many years had passed since the new government had started. Notice that the wording is very similar in both books:

The Late War		Book of Mormon
Location	Quotation	Quotation	Location
	NOW it came to pass ... in the thirty and sixth year after the people of the provinces of Columbia had declared themselves independent of all the kingdoms of the earth;	And now it came to pass in the twenty and ninth year of the reign of the Judges ...
	... in the thirty and seventh year of the independence of the people of Columbia ...	And it came to pass in the thirty and ninth year of the reign of the Judges ...
	AND it came to pass, on the fourth day of the seventh month, which is the birth day of Columbian Liberty and Independence ...	Behold, now it came to pass in the sixty and ninth year of the reign of the Judges over the people of the Nephites ...
	Now on the twenty-sixth day of the ninth month, being in the thirty and ninth year of Columbian Independence, It came to pass, that a certain ...	And it came to pass that in the eightieth year of the reign of the Judges over the people of Nephi, there was a certain ...

While the 4th of July is not used in the Book of Mormon as a national holiday marking the beginning of the Reign of the Kings, it is however used in a phrase that links the two ideas--and this is consistent with our hypothesis that The Late War was previously read by Joseph Smith and subconsciously affected his choice of words and writing style in The Book of Mormon.

Did The Late War inspire Joseph to consider brass as a storage medium for the deeds of an ancient people?

Historical inscriptions or records engraved on brass surfaces are not mentioned in the Bible, but are highly important throughout the Book of Mormon in the brass plates of Laban. — Rick Grunder, Mormon Parallels, p. 732

In addition to mentioning brass as a medium of record, The Late War refers to a "silver plate" awarded to Captain Oliver Perry from the people (the government of Pennsylvania).

The War of 1812 has also been called the "2nd War of Independence" because it settled once and for all the sovereinty of the United States of America, and separated the nation from Great Britain. During this conflict, however, the question of loyalty arose among the colonists once more—would they be true to their new and fledling nation ("freemen"), or yield to the strong ties that they had to their mother country ("Tories")? This division plays out in The Book of Mormon as a battle of might and will between the "freemen" and the "king-men".

The Late War reveals a cultural attitude toward women that is shared by The Book of Mormon. Women are often spoken of as "tender" and "fair", prey to the lusts of men.

These phrases are rare—meaning that they are not found in other contemporary books of Joseph's time, and that they are not found in the King James Version of the bible. The strength of the argument that The Book of Mormon is a remix of The Late War rests on the cumulative improbability of finding all of these phrases somewhere else. No other book, aside from The First Book of Napoleon, approaches the density of rare phrases (4grams, specifically) that are shared by The Book of Mormon.

(For further information about this graph, see Hidden in Plain Sight on AskReality.)

Note that there are perhaps thousands of matching phrases between The Late War and The Book of Mormon, but we do not consider "common phrases" to be important in linking the two books. For example, phrases from the bible that are found in both books such as "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God" do not meaningfully connect the two—it's simply understood that they have a common ancestor, and we ignore those influences.

Word phrases that match exactly are bold red; words that are synonymous, or have some connection (but not an exact match) are italicized orange.

Sara Cranford study of The Late War, 2009

  Topics: Book of Mormon, Translation
  Author: Gilbert J. Hunt
  Title of Book: The Late War, Between the United States and Great Britain
  Title of Article:
  Title of Periodical:
  Place of Publication: New York
  Publisher: Daniel D. Smith
  Date of Publication: 1819
  Library Location: Microfiche Z 1201.S32 Unit 179, 17184-18187
  

Nature of Source: Grunder describes this as an "essentially naive, jingoistic, but extremely popular panoply of American virtues in the face of British wickedness in the war of 1812." However, he justifies putting it on the list because Hunt writes his book in biblical style, which, according to Grunder, illustrates "the ease with which works that sounded like the Bible could be written and marketed in the early United States."

Comment: The author admittedly tries to imitate Biblical style in his writings. He divides his book into chapters and verses and uses similar wording as the Bible. His work does not include books (like Matthew, Mark, etc.) but instead just has chapter and verse numbers. To the untrained eye, the book clearly does resemble Biblical style. However, a trained scholar in ancient texts would easily be able to pick out obvious differences. Furthermore, there is clearly a major difference in content between Hunt's book and the Book of Mormon. Joseph did not try to merely write a familiar historical event in Biblical fashion. His book was of a content never before heard, an entirely new history, and one that he claimed to be directly from God.

Excerpt (pages):

"17 Now it was on the eighteenth day of the fifth month, in the same year, in the afterpart of the day..." (310).

"24 Now these things happened nigh unto a place called Carthagene, on the borders of Spain, and when the Spaniards beheld the skill and prowess of the people of Columbia, they were amazed" (311).

"2 But lo! When his fleet arrived there..." (315).

"39 Now it came to pass, when Jackson heard that Pensacola, the capital of west Florida, had become a resting place for the enemies of Columbia..."(263).

Length of Relevant Material: 317 pps.

The presence of hebraisms and semiticisms in The Book of Mormon is important to some scholars, as well as leaders of the LDS church, who believe the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient record:

If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. — Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland

From the FAIR wiki:

The presence of hebraisms does not prove the Book of Mormon is an ancient record, but they suggest that the translation was (at times, at least) relatively 'tight,' and require the critic to explain where Joseph Smith would have picked up such expressions in rural New York of the 1820s.

For a Semiticism to be strong evidence it must be:

• present in the Book of Mormon, but
• not common to Joseph's language environment (i.e., the KJV, or English of his day.)

— FAIR wiki

the word denoting the object of a verb is sometimes derived from the same root as the verb itself. "Behold," says the prophet Lehi, "I have dreamed a dream." — FAIR wiki

Claim:

If Joseph had authored the Book of Mormon rather than translated it, he naturally would have used tornado rather than whirlwind as a reflection of his "vocabulary, environment, and perceptions" or his "language and vernacular." He certainly would have had no way of knowing that whirlwind was the legitimate choice as a reflection of Maya languages from Mesoamerica....

Joseph's choice of whirlwind rather than tornado went beyond his upstate New York "vocabulary, environment, and perceptions" or "language and vernacular."

In Hebrew, questions that require a yes or no answer are prefixed by ha (an interrogative particle), and negative questions are prefixed by halo (the particle plus the word for no). In contrast to a "simple question, when the questioner is wholly uncertain as to the answer to be expected," these negative questions, Hebrew scholars have pointed out, sometimes have an "exclamatory nuance" or "a special force of asseveration" (i.e., they are being used for rhetorical effect, conveying positive or even emphatic force). [...]

One good example of a potentially Hebrew-based negative question in the Book of Mormon comes from Helaman 9, where Nephi is accused of murdering the chief judge, Seezoram. In prophetically sending the authorities to the true assassin, Seantum, Nephi instructs them to ask Seantum, "From whence cometh this blood [on your cloak]? Do we not know that it is the blood of your brother?" (Helaman 9:32). In other words, "We do indeed know that it is the blood of your brother."

— Ben Spackman "Negative Questions in the Book of Mormon", by Ben Spackman, Insights, Vol. 26, Issue 4.

When English shows a possessive or descriptive relationship between two nouns, it usually puts the possessive or descriptive noun first: the king's house or wood house. Hebrew, however, uses the opposite order: house the king (which would usually be translated house of the king) or house wood (house of wood). If the Hebrew word order is kept in the English translation, the word of must be added, even though it does not exist in the Hebrew.

The Book of Mormon contains a large number of what appear to be translations from the Hebrew preserving the Hebrew word order:

— The Hebrew Background of the Book of Mormon, by John A. Tvedtnes

Hebrew often uses compound prepositions, made up of a preposition plus a noun, in places where English would normally use just a preposition. For example, Hebrew uses compound prepositions that would be translated literally as by the hand of and by the mouth of. English would normally use just by. The Book of Mormon contains many examples that appear to show the influence of this Hebrew use of compound prepositions: — The Hebrew Background of the Book of Mormon, by John A. Tvedtnes

Hebrew uses another compound preposition that would be translated literally as from before the presence of or from before the face of. English would normally use simply from. The influence of the Hebrew can be seen in these Book of Mormon passages: — The Hebrew Background of the Book of Mormon, by John A. Tvedtnes

Hebrew has fewer adverbs than English. Instead, it often uses prepositional phrases with the preposition meaning in or with. The English translation of the Book of Mormon contains more of these prepositional phrases in place of adverbs than we would expect if the book had been written in English originally—another Hebraism. — The Hebrew Background of the Book of Mormon, by John A. Tvedtnes

Lesson 31: "Firm in the Faith of Christ", Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Teacher's Manual, (1999), p.138

"Why do you think Mormon included so much information about war in the Book of Mormon?"

There are 3 editions of The Late War:

• 1816—TLW¹ Written in the Ancient Historical Style (archive.org)
• 1817—Historical Reader Containing TLW¹ Written in the Ancient Historical Style (archive.org)
• 1819—Historical Reader Containing TLW¹ In the Scriptural Style (archive.org)

The 1817 and 1819 editions are almost identical. The authors have a word-for-word comparison of the 1816 and 1819 editions available here.

The full, manually corrected texts are also available.

• Chris Johnson
• Duane Johnson

For further information about the computer analysis of 130,000 books that lead to the discovery of The Late War, please see our notes on the Hidden in Plain Sight study.

• Rick Grunder—author of Mormon Parallels and original researcher to find The Late War
• mms, Kishkumen, grindael, Shulem, Everybody Wang Chung, DrW, Gadianton, Hasa, Mary, and others on the mormondiscussions.com forum who found parallels and basically crowd sourced the research that this web page summarizes.
• Ryan Thomas—author of The Book of Mormon and the Late War: Direct Literary Dependence?