There have been several stylometric analysis done on the Book of Mormon over the years by both Latter-Day Saint and Non Latter Day Saint studies. Stylometry can determine author patterns by examining text for unconscious writing habits like favorite words, sentence rhythm, and vocabulary patterns. These writing traits are very hard for one person to fake across many different voices.

Lights and Perfections posted this video that shows how conclusive the evidence is that the Book of Mormon clearly was compiled by multiple authors.

With AI making it possible for ordinary people to simply and quickly perform detailed studies like this, I decided to run my own as sort of a quadriplegic check to make sure that the Book of Mormon really does identify different authorship thought the text as it claims it does.

I asked Grok to examine the text of the Book of Mormon and run an independent stylometric analysis on the full text of the Book of Mormon. It identified 9 distinct authors and writing styles. I then also added in the Book of Abraham, The Visions of Moses (Moses Chapter 1), Book of Enoch (Moses 6-8) and Joseph Smith History to see if each of these also demonstrated different writing styles and authorship.

Spoiler alert. They do.

Now AI makes mistakes all the time, so I’m not saying these results are perfect, but the patterns are pretty conclusive. Here’s what Groks stylometric Analysis found:

1. Function Word Frequencies

We looked at how often common “connector” words are used (and, the, of, unto, that, behold, came, i/my/me, lord/god, etc.). Different authors naturally use these words at different rates, creating unique stylistic fingerprints.

The results showed clear differences. A few notable outliers:

• Alma the Younger used significantly more “unto,” “that,” “behold,” “Jesus,” and “Christ” — perfectly matching his intense, direct, doctrinal sermon style.
• Mormon (the main abridger) relied heavily on “and,” “of,” “was,” and “came” — exactly what you’d expect from someone summarizing and connecting large amounts of historical material.
• Jacob 5 (the Zenos allegory) stood out sharply from the rest of Jacob’s writings, with higher repetition of “and” and “came” and much lower personal pronouns, supporting that it is a quoted ancient text.
• Moses Chapter 1 has an extremely strong visionary voice — very high usage of “behold,” “i/my/me,” and “lord/god,” giving it a majestic, personal, face-to-face revelation feel.
• Book of Abraham (chapters 1–3) shows a formal, patriarchal tone with elevated “unto,” “i/my/me,” and “lord/god,” while still feeling distinct from both Book of Mormon voices and Moses 1.
• Moses 6–8 (Enoch material) sits comfortably in the ancient narrative/patriarchal range — similar to Nephi and Mormon but with its own balance.

Most notably, Joseph Smith—History is clearly different from all the ancient-style texts. It uses far fewer archaic words like “unto” and “behold,” while showing higher usage of straightforward modern connectors (“and,” “the,” “of,” “in”). This creates a recognizable 19th-century personal history tone that stands apart from the scriptural voices.

2. Average Sentence Length

We measured how long each author’s sentences tend to be.

• Jacob 5 had the longest sentences (34+ words) — fitting for its complex allegory.
• Isaiah also had long, poetic sentences.
• Alma the Younger and Enos used shorter, more direct sentences.
• The longest sentences appear in highly elevated, visionary, or poetic texts: Jacob 5, Moses 1, Abraham, and Isaiah.
• Joseph Smith—History (24.6) is noticeably shorter and more straightforward than most of the scriptural texts — consistent with 19th-century personal writing.
• There is significant variation even among the “ancient” texts, which supports the idea of multiple distinct voices.

This is another way the voices feel distinct.

3. Vocabulary Richness (Type-Token Ratio)

This measures how many unique words each author uses relative to the total number of words.

Key Insights:

• The highest vocabulary richness appears in Moses Chapter 1 and Enos — both highly personal, visionary, and emotionally intense texts.
• Book of Abraham and Isaiah also score very high, showing sophisticated and varied language.
• Jacob 5 remains the lowest — which makes sense because it is a highly repetitive allegory.
• Mormon is also relatively low, consistent with someone doing a lot of historical summarizing and repeating narrative formulas.
• Joseph Smith—History sits right in the middle of the pack (17.9%). It is not extremely rich or poor, which is typical of straightforward 19th-century autobiographical writing.

Jacob 5 is one of the most unique parts of the Book of Mormon. In our analysis, it has the lowest vocabulary richness of any major section. It repeats the same words and phrases instead of using lots of different words. The Book of Mormon claims that it is a brass plates account from a prophet Zenos that is a long allegory about an olive tree (something Joseph Smith would not be familiar with). Instead of trying to sound fancy, it keeps hammering the same ideas and images over and over.

This kind of heavy repetition is more evidence of it being an ancient work. Repetition was not only common, but necessary in ancient times because people didn’t have books or easy ways to write things down. They used repetition to make stories easier to memorize and pass down orally. Many ancient teachings, parables, and prophecies were turned into songs or poems where repeating key phrases were used like the chorus of a song to help people remember them better. This is exactly how ancient Hebrew allegories and parables worked.

The vast differences in this the longest chapter in the Book of Mormon also strengthens the evidence of multiple authors. If Joseph Smith was just making it all up, you’d expect him to write this “impressive” chapter with more varied, flowery language. Instead, it has a completely different feel from regular Jacob or Mormon’s writing. The repetitive, focused style matches ancient writing techniques that Joseph simply wouldn’t have known in 1829. They stylometric analysis demonstrates that Jacob was really quoting a much older prophet named Zenos.

4. “And It Came to Pass” Frequency

This famous phrase appears very differently across sections:

Key Findings:

• Mormon uses the phrase the most (8.9 times per 1,000 words), which fits his role as the main historian and abridger who constantly connects events.
• Jacob 5 (Zenos) is also very high (7.8), showing its repetitive, allegorical style.
• Ancient narrative-style sections (Moses 6–8, Ether, Moses 1, Nephi) all use it frequently — this was a common ancient narrative connector.
• Sermon-style voices like Alma the Younger and King Benjamin use it much less, as they are more direct and exhortative.
• Isaiah almost never uses it (0.8), which fits its poetic/prophetic style.
• Joseph Smith—History has zero occurrences of “and it came to pass.”

This is a very clear distinction. The revealed scriptural texts (Book of Mormon, Moses, Abraham) regularly use this ancient phrase as a storytelling connector, while Joseph’s personal history is written in straightforward 19th-century English without it.

This pattern strongly supports the idea of multiple ancient authors — the phrase appears heavily where the text claims ancient origins, but is completely absent when Joseph is writing in his own natural voice.

5. Overall Visualization

Author / Text	Avg Sentence Length	Vocabulary Richness (TTR %)	“And it came to pass” (per 1k)
Jacob 5 (Zenos)	34.2	14.8%	7.8
Moses Chapter 1	33.8	23.1%	5.9
Isaiah	31.8	22.1%	0.8
Book of Abraham 1–3	31.7	21.4%	4.8
Mormon (abridger)	29.8	15.6%	8.9
Moses 6–8 (Enoch)	28.4	19.7%	7.2
Nephi	28.4	18.2%	5.2
Jacob (general)	26.7	19.5%	4.1
King Benjamin	24.1	18.7%	1.6
Moroni	23.5	17.3%	3.2
Alma the Younger	22.6	16.4%	1.9
Enos	21.8	23.4%	2.4
Joseph Smith—History	24.6	17.9%	0.0

We ran multiple stylometric tests (common word usage, average sentence length, vocabulary richness, and “and it came to pass” frequency) on many different voices in the Book of Mormon, plus the Book of Abraham, Moses Chapter 1, Moses 6–8 (Enoch), and Joseph Smith—History.

The results show clear differences in style between the various ancient voices. Some use long, majestic sentences (like Moses 1 and Jacob 5), others are very personal and word-rich (like Enos), while some are repetitive and narrative-heavy (like Mormon and Jacob 5). These differences line up well with the different roles and personalities the scriptures claim they had.

Most interestingly, Joseph Smith—History stands apart from all the others. It has shorter sentences, more modern wording, and zero use of the common ancient phrase “and it came to pass.” This suggests that when Joseph was writing in his own natural voice, it sounded noticeably different from the ancient records he translated.

Taken together, the data supports the Book of Mormon’s claim of having many different ancient authors rather than one single 19th-century writer trying to imitate them all.

What Does This Mean?

If Joseph Smith had invented the entire book, we would expect one fairly uniform writing style throughout. Instead, the data shows multiple consistent but different stylistic “fingerprints” that match the different prophets the book itself claims wrote it.

Either Joseph Smith was a literary genius who could flawlessly imitate multiple distinct ancient writing styles across hundreds of pages — yet somehow never once mentioned or took credit for this incredible skill — or the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be: a genuine ancient record written by many different prophets, translated by the gift and power of God to testify of Jesus Christ and teach us about the covenants He makes with His children.