Rhetorical if in the King James Bible and John Bunyan’s writings

Book of Mormon usage is completely different and nonbiblical.

Some say that Bunyanesque English influenced Joseph Smith. There is plenty of counterevidence to such a claim. A rather simple, clear example is that John Bunyan consistently employed the rhetorical if-phrase “if so be” nine times (in thirty-nine texts), as in the King James Bible (18×). Sometimes Bunyan was quoting the Bible, other times he was not.

In contrast, the Book of Mormon consistently has “if it so be.” (Both rhetorical if-phrases came out of Late Middle English.) No modern text has anywhere near as many instances of “if it so be” (42×), and especially not followed by subjunctive, modal shall or should (7×), which is a further indication of archaism. Furthermore, twenty-five pseudo-archaic texts only have “if so be” (5×). These textual realities weaken the case for Bunyanesque English influencing Joseph as he dictated the Book of Mormon.

Another simple example is the “more part” phraseology of the Book of Mormon, which is unlike rare biblical usage. The King James Bible has only two instances of the bare, short form, “the more part,” with no post-modifying prepositional phrase. Bunyan did not employ this older “more part” usage at all in his writings, since it had largely fallen out of use by his time. Pseudo-biblical texts do not have any examples, either. It turns out that the Book of Mormon has the most examples occurring in a text since 1613, 216 years before it was set down in writing.

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