The Printed Editions

Skousen, Royal. The Printed Editions In 25 Years of Research: What We Have Learned About the Book of Mormon Text., 2013.

In early 2013, our Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies sponsored three lectures by Royal Skousen called “25 Years of Research: What We Have Learned About the Book of Mormon Text.” It took a while to get all of the requisite permissions, but we finally got the green light to post all three videos on our YouTube channel. The lecture series was also sponsored by the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library.

In the second lecture, “The Printed Editions,” Skousen discussed his analysis of twenty printed editions of the Book of Mormon—fifteen published by the LDS Church, four by the RLDS Church (now the Community of Christ), and one private edition published in 1858 by James Wright in New York City. Skousen compared the LDS and RLDS versions and identified the most innovative changes in the LDS editions. He also brought his analysis up to date by discussing three editions published within the last decade, including Grant Hardy’s A Reader’s Edition (University of Illinois Press, 2003), the 2004 Doubleday edition (with text furnished by the LDS Church), and his own book, The Earliest Text (Yale University Press, 2009). He was introduced by Larry Draper of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at BYU.