Please read the introductory paragraphs from the 'changes' page if you didn't look at it before. The same points apply here too.
Here we have just a few examples of many within the 'Book of Mormon - though bear in mind that the BoM content does not contribute substantially towards different doctine from evangelical Christianity.
As doctrinal changes cannot be shown, I ask you to ponder why the three sets of changes shown here should be made to a 'perfect' revelation by one who claimed to be God's appointed prophet at the time time he was receiving the revelation of the meaning of the gold and brass plates he found in the box in the hillside.
Why the rest of the 3913 changes made should have been may also be thought about too, even though there isn't room on this server for all the illustrations I would like to post. The other 3913 changes I have documented will not be included here, purely for brevity, because there is enough shown in extract on this site from the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants.
Looking at the first of these three pages - the image will open in a seperate browser window so that you may refer to this text at the same time - we start at the flyleaf, and apart from punctuation and gramatical changes (which are fine here) we discover an interesting statement by the man who says he translated the source. Joseph Smith is listed as the AUTHOR AND PROPRIETOR of the Book of Mormon. Translator and proprietor I would accept. It would also enhance his prestige claiming he was the translator. However, he chose to describe himself to the printer as 'Author and Proprietor'
Turning to the second of the three scans here - which also opens in a seperate browser window - we find a completely deleted section from later printings. This is an official statement by the clerk of the registry where the Book of Mormon was deposited for copyright and other legal purposes. Because the quality of the scan is poor, let me type some of the words from the same page on my own original 1830 copy, and I shall quote just the relevant parts...
... Joseph Smith... hath deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit: "The Book of Mormon: an account written by the hand of Mormon.... (etc and etc) - By Joseph Smith, Jun. Author and Proprietor"...
The document is signed by R. R. Lansing, Clerk of the Northern District of the State of New York.
Turning to the third image on this, we see on the left the latter part of the Preface (also removed from all subsequent printings), and still identifying Joseph Smith as the author. To the right we see the opening verses of 1st Nephi with a number of minor alterations.
Let me make an important point. If Joseph Smith registered the book as its author because that was the only way it could be registered, why did he do so at all? A number of years before he produced it, he says that God spoke to him telling him that the ways of the world were utterly wrong, a fact that few evangelical Christians would dispute, even in the year 2000 (when this page was written).
Surely Joseph could have just gone ahead with the printing anyway. No other printer would be likely to touch something that Grandin had already printed (printers were well known for their integrity), so it is unlikely that it was done to protect the text of the Book of Mormon. Could it be that Joseph originally had the work printed as his own work, and later felt it would 'look better' if he wasn't listed as 'author'?
Would a prophet of God dare to claim that the work was his, just for secular reasons, knowing that it had been given to him through supernatural powers by God in order to publish it?
You may care to look at the other changes we have posted on this site.