Updated Thoughts on the Project

I have recently finished a side-by-side comparison of all the chapters in the Book of Mormon where there are either complete or extensive quotes of chapters from the book of Isaiah. These are all the chapters where the chapter heading contains the phrase "Compare Isaiah ___". For years I had seen that phrase and thought about doing a side-by-side comparison to see if there were any differences. At one point, before my mission if I remember correctly, I even sat down with my Bible and my Book of Mormon and attempted to go through verse by verse to discover the differences.

I didn't get very far before I gave up. For me it felt too cumbersome to sit there going back and forth. It also meant a lot of underlining in different colors to denote additions, differences, or variations. Also, every time I wanted to compare the two I would have to find the corresponding chapters or verses in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I know it is not much, but it seemed like just a little too much work for a minimal pay back.

But a few months ago I was looking into something unrelated about the Book of Mormon when I hit on the idea of doing a side-by-side comparison. I think that this format was a good enough format for me that I could stick with it. I am sure that other people have done this, and have published a side-by-side comparison in a book before, but it is not something that can easily be found. Also there are several articles on the Maxwell Institute site that compare not only the text found in the Book of Mormon with Isaiah in the Bible, but they also compare various versions of Isaiah texts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, with the text in the Book of Mormon. While those are impressive, they are rather dense to read and don't always present the comparisons completely or in a user friendly format.

So I decided to do my own version and to do it in a way that someone who was casually looking for it could easily look and find the differences. This is in effect a reference for a general audience who might use this for a Sunday School class rather than an academic audience who might be more concerned with minutia of translation.

I realize that this is not the ideal format, and I will most likely change it in the future, but the bulk of the work is done which means I can easily transfer it to a different format if I decide to change it. All that remains to do a side-by-side comparison of individual Isaiah verses that are either quoted directly or paraphrased through out the Book of Mormon.

[Link to original explanation of this project.]
[Link to explanation of text marking.]
[Link to full listing of Isaiah quotes in the Book of Mormon by Victor Ludlow.]