All men have heard of the
Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have seen it, or, at least, taken the
trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity
to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so “slow,” so sleepy; such an
insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith
composed this book, the act was a miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at
any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain
ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found
under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was
equally a miracle, for the same reason.
The book seems to be merely
a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model;
followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to
give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our
King James’s translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel—half
modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward
and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he
found his speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he
ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as “exceeding sore,” “and it came to
pass,” etc., and made things satisfactory again. “And it came to pass” was his
pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.
…
The Mormon Bible is rather
stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its
code of morals is unobjectionable—it is “smouched” from the New Testament and
no credit given.
-
Mark Twain, from Roughing It, Chapter 16
["smouched" = to get by stealing or trickery; filched; pilfered]
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