Versions
In textual criticism, any surviving document that transmits a text — whether a manuscript or a printed publication — is called a witness. The following witnesses to the Book of Mormon text are available for comparison, presented in transmission order.
Original Manuscript
Dictated in 1829 by Joseph Smith to a rotating group of scribes, primarily Oliver Cowdery. It is the closest surviving witness to the dictation text, preserving spellings, readings, and word choices not present in any later witness.
In 1841 Joseph Smith placed the manuscript in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House. The seal eventually broke, exposing the pages to moisture and mold. When Lewis Bidamon — Emma Smith's second husband — renovated the building in 1882, he found the manuscript severely damaged. Of the nearly 500 original pages, portions of only 232 survived (roughly 28% total). Bidamon distributed the remaining pages to visitors and missionaries as souvenirs. Most extant fragments were eventually consolidated at the Church History Library, Salt Lake City, where they have been transcribed by Royal Skousen as part of the Critical Text Project.
Printer's Manuscript
Transcribed from the Original Manuscript by Oliver Cowdery in 1829-1830. Nearly 100% extant. It served as the compositor's copy for the 1830 first edition, except for portions where pages of the Original Manuscript were delivered directly to the printer. As the most complete early manuscript witness, the PM is the foundation of most critical text work. Transcription errors introduced during copying — and corrections made by Cowdery and others — are visible when compared against the Original Manuscript.
After printing, Cowdery retained the manuscript. Before his death in 1850 he passed it to fellow witness and brother-in-law David Whitmer, whose family preserved it until Whitmer's grandson sold it to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ) in 1903 for $2,500. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased it in 2017 for $35 million; it is now held at the Church History Library, Salt Lake City.
1830 First Edition
Typeset from the Printer's Manuscript (and portions of the Original Manuscript) and published by E.B. Grandin in Palmyra, New York, with a first print run of approximately 5,000 copies. The first several printings, including the 1830 edition, have no versification; the text is divided into large narrative chapters with no further subdivision.
The typesetting process introduced a new layer of variation: compositor changes, house-style normalization, and a small number of editorial interventions. Comparing the 1830 edition against the manuscripts reveals this layer directly. Not all 1830 editions are identical because deviations were caught and corrected during the printing process after some leafs were already printed. The 1830 edition in this project is sourced from the transcription made available by the Joseph Smith Paper's project on document ID 7272.
1837 Second Edition
Published in Kirtland, Ohio. Joseph Smith personally supervised approximately 3,000 emendations, the large majority of which are grammatical and syntactic — regularizing non-standard verb forms, pronoun agreements, and other constructions present in the dictation text. A smaller set of changes carries semantic or theological weight and has received considerable scholarly attention.
The 1837 edition in this project is sourced from the transcription made available by the Joseph Smith Paper's project on document ID 7273.
2013 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint Edition
The current edition published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Descended from the 1837 edition through subsequent revisions in 1840, 1879, 1920, 1981, and 2013. The most common witness printed and read today.