Refuting “The Robe of Righteousness”: Evidence for a Distinct Isaiah Text in the Book of Mormon

Townsend’s Claims (Anachronism of Isaiah 2–14 and 40–66). Colby Townsend argues that it is “a historical problem” for Book of Mormon prophets to quote Isaiah chapters 40–66, since modern scholars date those chapters to the exile (after 600 BCE) – years after Lehi left Jerusalem. He extends this to note that Nephi’s quotations of Isaiah 2–14 “as they appear in the KJV” would be just as unlikely as including Isaiah 40–55. In effect, Townsend treats the Book of Mormon Isaiah passages as if they were verbatim blocks lifted from the King James Bible (with modern chapter divisions), implying Joseph Smith must have had access to the fully redacted Second and Third Isaiah.

Alternate View: Independent Isaiah Record. By contrast, believing scholarship and apologetic sources observe that Nephite prophets claimed to have Isaiah’s writings on their own plates (see 1 Ne. 19:23–24; 2 Ne. 25:1–2, for example) and that Nephi “wrote many things” from the brass plates (including Isaiah) in his own words. If the Book of Mormon translation was made from an ancient Isaiah text carried by the Nephites, then quoting Isaiah is not anachronistic – it is simply reading Isaiah’s prophecies from their original source.

An important distinction before going further. Two separate questions get run together in this debate: what supplied the English of these chapters, and what supplied the text behind them. On the first, there is no dispute worth having. Sidney B. Sperry counted 199 of the 433 quoted verses running word for word with the King James Version, and he said plainly that the King James wording was used where it already carried the sense of the record. This page is not arguing otherwise. The argument concerns the other 234 verses — the ones that are not identical — because those are the ones that cannot have been copied from any Bible available in 1829, and those are where the evidence of a separate source lives.

Textual Variants: A Non‑Aligned Isaiah Witness

A detailed textual comparison finds that the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah quotations differ from the KJV in many ways – often agreeing with other ancient witnesses, and sometimes showing completely unique readings. Carol Ellertson’s BYU thesis examined all 433 Book of Mormon verses drawn from Isaiah and found 216 verses (50%) contain one or more variants, 370 differences in all. Those 370 sort as follows. The categories describe what kind of support a variant has, so a single variant can appear in more than one of them — a reading that drops a King James italic may also be a reading the Masoretic Hebrew supports:

KJV italics: 119 of the 370 variants fall on words that are italicized in the King James text, indicating English supplied by the translators rather than original Hebrew words. The remaining 251 have nothing to do with italics at all.
Masoretic Text: 52 variants are supported by the traditional Masoretic Hebrew against the King James rendering.
Septuagint (LXX): 40 variants have full or partial support in the Greek Septuagint, with a further 36 in agreement with it — 76 in all.
Dead Sea Scrolls (1QIsaª): 28 variants agree with the Isaiah scrolls from Qumran, 20 of them against the Masoretic Text outright.
Non-aligned (unique): 150 variants have no parallel in any known Isaiah manuscript; they appear to be unique to the Book of Mormon text (Ellertson calls these “non‑aligned” readings).

Taken together, this pattern suggests that the Book of Mormon Isaiah is not simply a corrupted copy of the KJV or Hebrew Isaiah, but a distinct textual tradition. Ellertson notes that under Emanuel Tov’s framework of textual criticism, the Book of Mormon Isaiah qualifies as an “independent” or “non-aligned” witness – exactly what one would expect if the Nephites preserved a separate Isaiah document. In other words, the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah text appears to stand apart from the known biblical “families,” which is most readily explained if it came from its own original autograph rather than from the English Bible.

Apologetic Scholarship: Translation from an Original Autograph

Several Latter-day Saint scholars have explicitly argued that these textual facts indicate the Book of Mormon is a translation of an authentic ancient record, not a modern compilation. For example, Wayne Ham, in a 1961 BYU thesis comparing the Book of Mormon Isaiah with the Great Isaiah Scroll, found “unique phrasing and wording that differs from the King James Version,” even in the same passages of Isaiah. By comparing the Book of Mormon Isaiah with other ancient texts (e.g. the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls), Ham concluded that the prophets’ usage reflects “a unique and distinct approach to interpretation” – consistent with translating a different original text.

Likewise, Sidney B. Sperry argued in 1939 that the Book of Mormon’s use of Isaiah passages has a “unique and distinct approach to interpretation and application, and is consistent with a translation from another original autograph.” He showed that the wording and literary forms in the Book of Mormon fit the ancient Near Eastern context and purposes of the text (rather than the 17th-century KJV context). Sperry emphasized that the Nephite translator “followed [the Hebrew] text only in general, not specifically,” and plainly “had an independent knowledge of the Hebrew language and its idiom.” In Sperry’s view, the Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon are adapted to serve Nephite needs (as he put it, “used in a way to fit the purposes and objectives of the book”) rather than simply copied. Most strikingly, Sperry notes there is “abundant evidence” that Book of Mormon prophets (the Nephites) “had an extensive knowledge of Hebrew culture, language, and literature.” This implies the Nephites could have preserved and rendered Isaiah’s teachings in their own records.

Gary Bishop’s 1974 thesis similarly argues that the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah shows deep familiarity with the original context and is best explained as a translation from a genuine antique text. Sorting the differences against the known traditions, Bishop found that 41% trace to some combination of them and 59% trace to none, concluding that the text “definitely tends to follow its own course.” He also points out unique names and terminology in the Book of Mormon that do not occur in the Bible or contemporary English writings, reinforcing that the Book of Mormon is “a distinct and original work” and not mere biblical plagiarism. All told, these studies conclude that the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah passages align with the idea of a separate autograph, not with Joseph Smith drawing his content from a post-exilic redaction of Isaiah.

Nephites’ Knowledge of Hebrew and Scriptural Context

More generally, critics who see “anachronism” in the Book of Mormon often overlook the text’s own claims about Nephite literacy and scholarship. Sperry and others stress that the Nephites repeatedly demonstrate familiarity with Hebrew idioms and covenantal concepts. As noted, Sperry observes that the BOM translator clearly knew Hebrew idioms, and that Nephite prophets speak and write in terms that presuppose knowledge of Isaiah’s theology. For example, Nephi expressly states that Isaiah wrote his words on the brass plates (1 Ne. 19:23–24) so that his descendants would “know concerning the coming of the Messiah.” In other words, the Book of Mormon itself presents the Nephites as directly preserving Isaiah’s writings. If their record-keepers faithfully transmitted Isaiah, then having those chapters in the Nephite canon is not a problem at all but a direct result of that preservation.

In light of this, the claim that quoting Third Isaiah (chapters 56–66) or the early chapters of First Isaiah (2–14) is impossible for the Nephites rests on a flawed assumption: that they only had what the English KJV happened to contain. If instead the Nephites maintained Isaiah’s words on their own scriptures, then any differences are a feature of that separate source, not evidence of Joseph Smith borrowing his content from modern Bibles.

The Ellertson Thesis — The Variants That Point to a Separate Autograph

The most precise evidence against the plagiarism charge comes from a close analysis of how the Book of Mormon differs from the KJV. Of the 370 total variants Ellertson catalogued, 52 are supported by the Masoretic Hebrew against the King James rendering, and Ellertson identifies 26 verses in which the underlying Hebrew supports the Book of Mormon reading where the King James Version gets it wrong. Many of these involve the King James translators’ italicized supplements. When the Book of Mormon omits those additions, it is not dropping words carelessly; it is restoring the poetic structure of the original Hebrew text. You cannot copy a correction out of the text you are correcting.

This is the key point that defenders against the “KJV plagiarism” theory consistently raise: the Book of Mormon does not deviate from the KJV randomly. It deviates in ways that are consistent with translation from a separate ancient Hebrew autograph — one that left Palestine before either the Masoretic tradition was standardized or the Qumran scrolls were copied. Several specific examples illustrate the pattern:

BoM Matches Hebrew Against KJV — Selected Examples

Isaiah 9:7, 9:17, 10:11 — The Book of Mormon matches the original Hebrew where the KJV translates incorrectly or supplies words not in the Hebrew text: a verb tense, a pronominal suffix, and a dropped preposition respectively.

2 Nephi 12:5–6 (Isaiah 2:5–6) — The Book of Mormon preserves antithetical parallelism (a paired contrast structure central to Hebrew poetry) that the KJV breaks by inserting an italicized phrase.

2 Nephi 12:9 (Isaiah 2:9) — The Book of Mormon preserves epistrophe (repetition of a phrase at the end of successive clauses) that the KJV disrupts.

2 Nephi 12:16 (Isaiah 2:16) — The Book of Mormon adds a line that restores a triadic poetic pattern (three parallel strophes) present in the Hebrew but absent from the KJV.

Beyond the Masoretic agreements, 40 Book of Mormon variants have full or partial support in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, made from Hebrew manuscripts older than any Hebrew copy that survives), with a further 36 in agreement with it. The significance of this is profound: it means the Book of Mormon’s source — the Brass Plates — was its own autograph, independent of both the Masoretic tradition and the Hebrew behind the Septuagint, yet correlating with each at different points as an independent ancient witness.

The Brass Plates were compiled around 600 BC, roughly a century after Isaiah spoke — and centuries before the Great Isaiah Scroll was copied at Qumran, around 125 BC. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, textual scholars were confronted with evidence that “there were several concurrent versions of the biblical text.” The Qumran discovery proved that the single Masoretic text we have today is not the only ancient Isaiah autograph that ever existed. The Brass Plates scenario is therefore not only theologically plausible — it is historically plausible in precisely the way that twentieth-century archaeology confirmed.

Chiasmus — The Hebrew Poetic Structure Joseph Smith Could Not Have Invented

Chiasmus (from the Greek letter chi, X) is a Hebrew literary device in which a passage mirrors itself in an inverted structure: A–B–C–B′–A′. It is a sophisticated literary form used throughout the Old Testament. Robert Lowth had opened the study of Hebrew parallelism in the eighteenth century, but the systematic analysis of chiasmus in biblical scripture belongs to the twentieth — long after the Book of Mormon was published. John W. Welch identified chiasmus in the Book of Mormon in 1967 and published the analysis in 1969, and subsequent work has found numerous examples throughout the text, not only in the Isaiah passages.

What makes these structures significant is not merely their presence, but their complexity and precision. The chiastic structures in the Book of Mormon are:

Characteristics of Book of Mormon Chiasmus

Complex, not simple — Multi-level structures with six, seven, or more paired elements, not the trivial two-part inversions that can appear accidentally in any writing.

Theologically centered — The pivot point (center of the chiasm) in every major example is the most theologically significant statement — exactly as ancient Hebrew authors intended.

Consistent with Hebrew tradition — The structures match the conventions of biblical Hebrew poetry as identified by modern Old Testament scholars.

Distributed throughout the text — Found in narrative passages, sermons, and prophecy alike — not concentrated in the Isaiah quotations alone.

A classic example is Mosiah 3:18–19, which forms a seven-element chiasm with a precise theological center:

Mosiah 3:18–19 — Chiastic Structure

A humble themselves
  B become as little children
    C salvation through the atonement of Christ
      D the natural man is an enemy to God
        E and has been from the fall of Adam
        E′ and will be, forever and ever
      D′ unless he yields to the Holy Spirit
    C′ and becomes a saint through the atonement
  B′ and becomes as a child
A′ submissive, meek, humble

The center of the chiasm — “has been from the fall of Adam / and will be, forever and ever” — is the theological pivot point: the eternal scope of human fallen nature, which gives the atonement its necessity. This is not accidental. This is sophisticated Hebrew poetic construction in which the author places the most critical idea at the structural center precisely so the reader recognizes its weight.

Joseph Smith stated that he had “merely been instructed in reading and writing” and had no access to Hebrew scholarship. Western scholars did not systematically identify and analyze chiasmus as a biblical literary form until well after the Book of Mormon was published. The presence of complex, accurate, theologically precise chiastic structures throughout the Book of Mormon is therefore evidence that the text originates from ancient Hebrew literary sources — not from an uneducated farmer in 1830 upstate New York composing prose that happened, repeatedly and consistently, to mirror a sophisticated ancient convention he could not have known.

A Fourth Text — Why the Plagiarism Charge Fails Textually

The plagiarism charge rests on a foundational assumption: that there is essentially one ancient version of Isaiah’s text standing behind the KJV, and that any departure from it must be an invention. The textual history of Isaiah shows that assumption to be false. Mainstream scholarship already works with several independent witnesses to the text:

The Ancient Witnesses to Isaiah

The Masoretic Text — The Hebrew line that was standardized in the early centuries AD and became the base text for the Old Testament of the King James Version. This is the text most people assume is the “only” Isaiah.

The Septuagint (LXX) — The Greek translation made in the third to second centuries BC from Hebrew manuscripts older than any Hebrew copy that survives. Where it differs from the Masoretic Text it is frequently witnessing to a different and earlier Hebrew reading, not making an error.

The Qumran Isaiah scrolls — Twenty-two Isaiah manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Great Isaiah Scroll copied around 125 BC. They carry hundreds of their own variants, confirming that multiple concurrent Isaiah texts existed in antiquity.

The Brass Plates (~600 BC) — The source of the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah, carried out of Jerusalem before the Hebrew line was standardized and before the Qumran scrolls were copied. Independent of all three above, yet correlating with each at different points.

Emanuel Tov, who has no stake whatever in the Book of Mormon, created a category in Hebrew Bible textual criticism for manuscripts that will not fit the standard families: non-aligned. Such a text agrees with and departs from each known witness in an inconsistent pattern and carries exclusive readings of its own. Tov applied it to a Leviticus scroll from Cave 11 and concluded that the scroll forms a fourth text alongside the three sources known before Qumran. The Book of Mormon’s Isaiah exhibits precisely that profile:

Book of Mormon Isaiah Alignment Pattern

52 variants supported by the Masoretic Hebrew against the KJV — including 26 verses where the Hebrew backs the Book of Mormon reading and the King James rendering is wrong.

40 with full or partial Septuagint support, plus 36 more in agreement — readings preserved in the Greek tradition that the Masoretic line lost.

28 supported by the Qumran scrolls — 20 of them against the Masoretic Text, in manuscripts nobody would read until 1947.

150 aligned with nothing known — readings that appear in no manuscript tradition on earth, exactly what an independent autograph would produce.

This is exactly what we would expect from a genuine ancient Hebrew document carried away around 600 BC — and not what we would expect from an English forger. A forger’s changes are random with respect to Hebrew morphology, Greek voice, and unexcavated scrolls; these are not random with respect to any of the three. The Dead Sea Scrolls discovery — which came over a century after the Book of Mormon was published — only strengthened the case by confirming that multiple Isaiah autographs did exist in the ancient world, and that the scenario the Book of Mormon presupposes is historically credible.

Independent Isaiah Tradition, Not Plagiarism

In sum, a broad range of textual and contextual evidence supports the conclusion that the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah passages derive from an independent ancient source. The King James Version supplied the English in which those chapters reached us, and 199 verses stand word for word with it. The question is what produced the other 234 — the 370 variants across 216 verses, scattered over the Masoretic Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the Qumran scrolls, with 150 readings attested nowhere at all. That is not the signature of copying, and it is exactly what one would expect if the Book of Mormon were rendering an original Isaiah manuscript carried by the Nephites.

Apologetic scholars have long argued that these features – unique phrasing, Hebrew idioms, and purposeful adaptations of Isaiah – demonstrate that the Book of Mormon is “not simply a copy or plagiarism of the Bible, but rather a distinct and original work.” In that light, the patterns Townsend sees as “anachronistic” instead provide evidence of a distinct transmission of Isaiah, rather than proof of literary dependence on a post-exilic redaction. The most plausible explanation for the Book of Mormon Isaiah material remains that it came from its own autograph – a Nephite copy, and translation, of Isaiah.

For the full variant tables, the Tov analysis, and the worked examples from Qumran and the Septuagint, see the companion page: A Second Autograph of Isaiah — The Textual Case.

Sources: Carol F. Ellertson, The Isaiah Passages in the Book of Mormon: A Non-Aligned Text (BYU MA thesis, 2001); Gary L. Bishop, The Tradition of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon (BYU MA thesis, 1974); Wayne Ham, A Textual Comparison of the Isaiah Passages in the Book of Mormon with the Same Passages in the St. Mark’s Isaiah Scroll (BYU MA thesis, 1961); Sidney B. Sperry, “The ‘Isaiah Problem’ in the Book of Mormon,” first published in the Improvement Era, 1939; Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Fortress Press, 1992); Colby Townsend, “The Robe of Righteousness” (Dialogue, 2022); John W. Welch, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon” (BYU Studies, 1969).