In Episode 3 of this series, Patrick begins by responding to excellent audience feedback on the 3-Voice Framework from Episode 2. He then highlights a recent Mormonism Live episode that makes a compelling case for the Book of Mormon as a 19th-century text, pointing to 34 doctrines from the early 1800s. But many of those doctrines appear directly connected to debates within Campbellism in Ohio and Pennsylvania—debates Sidney Rigdon was having with Alexander Campbell and Walter Scott. Should that raise new questions about Book of Mormon authorship? A future episode will explore the Campbellism connection more deeply. The heart of this episode focuses on stylometry, also known as wordprint analysis. Patrick explains how researchers create a digital profile of an author’s unique writing habits, then reviews two of the eight major wordprint studies. The second study includes intriguing findings about Joseph Smith’s personal writing style compared to the broader LDS canon—and even identifies a strange anomaly in the early Doctrine and Covenants during the Book of Mormon dictation period. Join us for a thoughtful look at the evidence behind one big question: who authored the Book of Mormon?

Tune in to Mormonish Podcast on Tuesday, June 23rd at 6 pm MT! President Dallin H. Oaks recently declared that the Church will soon have more missionaries than at any point in its history. But what do those numbers actually mean? This episode takes a closer look at the Church’s missionary statistics, the impact of lowering the missionary age for young women, and the growing role of service and senior missionaries in the overall count. We also examine how today’s numbers compare with previous missionary surges, what metrics are being emphasized, and whether record missionary totals necessarily translate into record growth or a more faithful rising generation. Join Ron Yogason and Mormonish as we separate the headlines from the data and explore the bigger picture behind the missionary stats.

In this episode of our continuing series on Book of Mormon authorship theories, Patrick lays the groundwork for understanding how the Book or Mormon is constructed, which is an essential part of considering the Book of Mormon authorship theories. In this episode we consider Rob Terry's work. Data Scientist Rob Terry utilized the BYU Book of Mormon text database to deconstruct the structure of the Book of Mormon. He demonstrates in this Wheat and Tares article https://wheatandtares.org/2020/04/23/book-of-mormon-wordprint-studies-in-2020/ how the Book of Mormon has 3 discrete “voices”. First, the Narrator Voice. This voice contains many attributes that are consistent across the book, regardless of whether the speaker is Mormon, Zeniff, or Helaman. Next, the Sermon Voice is interspersed in the narrative and contains unique attributes across the book, whether in the voice of Alma, Samuel the Lamanite, or Amulek. Finally, in the second half of the book, there is a Late Voice which muddies the clear switching between Narrator and Sermon Voices we see in the first half of the book and introduces a new set of attributes not seen in the other 2 Voices. Terry illustrates the Voices in many graphs to help the audience visualize how the book is constructed. The 3-Voice Framework must be accounted for by any Book of Mormon authorship theory and complicates the notion that the book could have been dictated without an underlying text. Finally, in the episode, we briefly show how the framework helps explain the Book of Mormon wordprint study results.