Computer-assisted authorship analysis can identify patterns in vocabulary and function-word use, but its conclusions depend heavily on the texts selected, their genre, editorial history and the statistical model.
Why the studies disagree
Researchers have used stylometry—the statistical analysis of recurring linguistic features—to investigate the Book of Mormon. The studies summarized here asked related but not identical questions and measured different features. Their outcomes therefore should not be treated as direct replications of one another.
Wordprints
Patterns in common words, rare words or letter frequencies are compared across text samples.
Vocabulary richness
The range and distribution of vocabulary is used to compare attributed voices or documents.
Text selection
Sample size, genre, biblical language and editing can materially affect the resulting clusters.
Wordprint analysis found multiple voices
Statisticians Wayne A. Larsen and Alvin C. Rencher, working in a Brigham Young University setting, examined blocks from the Book of Mormon alongside writing associated with Joseph Smith and several nineteenth-century contemporaries. Their approach considered letter frequencies and commonly or rarely occurring non-contextual words, then applied multivariate, cluster and classification methods.
The researchers interpreted their results as evidence for numerous distinguishable authorial patterns and argued that the sampled nineteenth-century writers did not account for those patterns.
Important limitation
Statistician David I. Holmes later argued that words prominent in archaic, biblical-style prose may separate that genre from ordinary nineteenth-century writing without reliably identifying separate authors. In this view, terms characteristic of scriptural register could act as genre markers rather than individual signatures.
Vocabulary analysis found a shared prophetic register
Holmes used a multivariate technique based on vocabulary richness. His material included fourteen large Book of Mormon samples totaling about 120,000 words, early documents written or dictated by Joseph Smith, early revelations from the Doctrine and Covenants, material from Isaiah and the Book of Abraham.
The Isaiah and personal Joseph Smith samples formed distinct groupings in this analysis. Most Book of Mormon prophet samples, early revelation samples and the Book of Abraham grouped more closely together. The attributed Book of Mormon narrators generally did not form consistent narrator-by-narrator clusters.
How to read the result
This study measured vocabulary richness rather than reproducing the earlier wordprint method. Its result is an attribution argument based on statistical proximity, not independent proof of how the text originated.
Sentence openings were compared across texts
A brief analysis by Jerald and Sandra Tanner compared the frequency of sentences beginning with “and,” “but” or “for.” They reported similar proportions in a selected chapter of Alma and in an early account associated with Joseph Smith, and interpreted that resemblance as evidence of one underlying voice.
The comparison drew on an observation by scholar Elinore H. Partridge that Joseph Smith's prose often linked related ideas with simple conjunctions and that punctuation added by scribes or editors could produce many sentences beginning with those words.
Important limitation
This was a narrow comparison rather than a comprehensive stylometric attribution study. Sentence boundaries may reflect transcription and editorial choices, while conjunction-heavy construction is also common in biblical-style English.
What can responsibly be concluded?
These analyses demonstrate that statistical results are shaped by the feature being measured. Function words, vocabulary richness and sentence openings do not capture the same aspect of style. A robust assessment should also account for quotation, translation claims, scribal transmission, revisions, genre and the influence of biblical phrasing.
For readers, the safest conclusion is not that one historical study settled the question, but that each offers evidence within a particular model. Historical documentation and textual scholarship remain necessary alongside computation.
Related reading
References in the archived essay
- Larsen, Wayne A., and Alvin C. Rencher. “Who Wrote the Book of Mormon? An Analysis of Wordprints,” in Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Book of Mormon Authorship (1982).
- Holmes, D. I. “A Multivariate Technique for Authorship Attribution and its Application to the Analysis of Mormon Scripture and Related Texts,” History and Computing, vol. 3, no. 1 (1991), pp. 14, 20–21.
- Partridge, Elinore H. “Characteristics of Joseph Smith's Style and Notes on the Authorship of the Lectures on Faith,” Task Papers in LDS History, no. 14 (1976).
- An archived 1979 newspaper account summarized the BYU-associated research. The earlier page noted that it could not independently locate the original report.
- The informal sentence-opening comparison appeared in a 1993 issue of the Salt Lake City Messenger.