Verse & Variance
An open research tool for studying the Book of Mormon's textual history — comparing eight published editions side by side, charting the people and places of its narrative, and measuring how its language relates to the King James Bible.
Explore
The site is organized into four main areas, each approaching the text from a different angle.
Read & Compare
Read any chapter across all eight editions (1830–2013) with character-level highlighting of every change. Step through edition pairs or view them all at once.
Full-text search across the entire corpus
Open the reader →Timelines
Visualize the Book of Mormon's narrative chronology, trace the writing and translation process, and follow events from early church history — all on interactive timelines.
Narrative · Translation · Church history
View timelines →All Changes
Browse every recorded verse-level difference between editions. Filter by book, edition pair, change type, or search for specific wording.
14,924 changes indexed and classified
Browse changes →Analytics
Charts and tables covering revision patterns, text and language metrics, word-frequency treemaps, and a vocabulary comparison with the King James Bible.
Revisions · Text & language · KJV comparison · Methodology
View analytics →Editions & change counts
Major printings are shown in order. Counts are verse-level differences between consecutive editions in this dataset (grammar, spelling, punctuation, and occasional substantive wording).
- 1830→ 1837
First edition — Palmyra, NY
Editor: Joseph Smith / John H. Gilbert (typesetter)
Printed by E. B. Grandin (5,000 copies). Typesetter John H. Gilbert supplied punctuation and paragraph breaks from an unpunctuated manuscript.
3,327 verses changed from 1830 to 1837
Read 1 Nephi 1 → - 1837→ 1840
Second edition — Kirtland, OH
Editor: Joseph Smith & Oliver Cowdery
Over a thousand corrections, following common Bible-publishing practice. Clarified wording such as “the mother of God” to “the mother of the Son of God.”
1,439 verses changed from 1837 to 1840
Read 1 Nephi 1 → - 1840→ 1841
Third edition — Cincinnati, OH
Editor: Joseph Smith
Last edition supervised by Joseph Smith. Compared with the original manuscript; “white and delightsome” became “pure and delightsome.”
1,737 verses changed from 1840 to 1841
Read 1 Nephi 1 → - 1841→ 1879
First European edition — Liverpool, England
Editor: Brigham Young (European mission)
4,050 copies; based on the 1837 text with British spelling and conventions.
3,463 verses changed from 1841 to 1879
Read 1 Nephi 1 → - 1879→ 1920
Pratt edition — Salt Lake City
Editor: Orson Pratt
Modern chapter and verse divisions, footnotes, and cross-references—layout that largely persists today.
4,439 verses changed from 1879 to 1920
Read 1 Nephi 1 → - 1920→ 1981
Talmage edition — Salt Lake City
Editor: James E. Talmage
Double-column layout, chapter headings, chronological data, revised references, and a pronouncing vocabulary.
508 verses changed from 1920 to 1981
Read 1 Nephi 1 → - 1981→ 2013
Modern LDS edition — Salt Lake City
Editor: Committee of the Twelve
Committee updated footnotes, cross-references, and topical guide; restored “pure and delightsome” per Joseph Smith’s 1840 correction.
11 verses changed from 1981 to 2013
Read 1 Nephi 1 → - 2013
Current edition — Salt Lake City
Editor: Church Scripture Committee (correlation)
Minor corrections from 1981—mostly typos and style
Read 1 Nephi 1 →
Why were changes made?
Published editions reflect many kinds of updates: typographical and scribal errors from dictation and typesetting; grammatical smoothing of nonstandard English; occasional clarifications attributed to Joseph Smith; and structural changes such as versification, chapter headings, footnotes, and study aids. The BYU Open Scripture alignment records what differs between printings, not official explanations for each verse.
- Changes to the Book of Mormon (Church History Topics)
- Book of Mormon Critical Text Project (BYU Religious Studies Center)
Data source
Text is derived from the BYU Open Scripture word-aligned TSV files. Verses follow modern chapter/verse references (1879+) for all editions for easier comparison.