Author Edward K. Watson
Proof of Deliberate Design Within a Dictated Book
There is something unusual about the Book of Mormon. It should not exist.
Out of millions of books in existence, the Book of Mormon is the only one produced by a static dictation process, where the 23-year-old Joseph Smith dictated the over 269,000-word manuscript to his scribes while looking at his seer stone in a hat between April 7 and July 1, 1829. His output was phenomenal.
Over one-third (34%) of the Book of Mormon is comprised of seventy-five structured essays - a type of literature that can only be created by deliberate design. Most notably, 21% of the book is made up of forty-six argumentative essays - a class of script comprised of a thesis statement, argument/evidence pairs, and conclusion that can only be formed by iterative writing, where a person repeatedly rewords and enhances text following a specific structure.
Anyone who has attended university knows from experience that it is not possible to create structured essays by the dictation process. How then did Joseph Smith do what millions know firsthand cannot be done? Not once, not twice, but seventy-five times?
