title: Blu-ray

text: The biggest difference between Bonus View and BD-Live is that BD-Live requires the Blu-ray Disc player to have an Internet connection to access Internet-based content. BD-Live features have included Internet chats, scheduled chats with the director, Internet games, downloadable featurettes, downloadable quizzes, and downloadable movie trailers. While some Bonus View players may have an Ethernet port, it is used for firmware updates and is not used for Internet-based content. In addition, Profile 2.0 also requires more local storage in order to handle this content.


title: Blu-ray

text: Profile 1.0 players are not eligible for Bonus View or BD-Live compliant upgrades and do not have the function or capability to access these upgrades, with the exception of the latest players and the PlayStation 3. Internet is required to use.


title: Blu-ray

text: As with the implementation of region codes for DVDs, Blu-ray Disc players sold in a specific geographical region are designed to play only discs authorized by the content provider for that region. This is intended to permit content providers (motion picture studios, television production company etc.) to enact regional price discrimination and/or exclusive content licensing. According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, all Blu-ray Disc players and Blu-ray Disc-equipped computer systems are required to enforce regional coding. However, content providers need not use region playback codes. Some current estimates suggest 70% of available movie Blu-ray Discs from the major studios are region-free and can therefore be played on any Blu-ray Disc player in any region.


title: Blu-ray

text: Movie distributors have different region coding policies. Among major U.S. studios, Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, and Sony Pictures have released most of their titles free of region coding. MGM and Lionsgate have released a mix of region-free and region-coded titles. 20th Century Fox released most of their titles region-coded pre-Disney merger. Most of their post-Disney merger content is region-free, however. Vintage film restoration and distribution company The Criterion Collection uses US region coding in all Blu-ray releases, with their releases in the UK market using UK region coding.


title: Blu-ray

text: A new form of Blu-ray region coding tests not only the region of the player/player software, but also its country code, repurposing a user setting intended for localization (PSR19) as a new form of regional lockout. This means, for example, while both the US and Japan are Region A, some American discs will not play on devices/software configured for Japan or vice versa, since the two countries have different country codes. (For example, the United States is "US" (21843 or hex 0x5553), Japan is "JP" (19024 or hex 0x4a50), and Canada is "CA" (17217 or hex 0x4341).) Although there are only three Blu-ray regions, the country code allows much more precise control of the regional distribution of Blu-ray Discs than the six (or eight) DVD regions. With Blu-ray Discs, there are no "special regions" such as the regions 7 and 8 for DVDs.


title: Blu-ray

text: In circumvention of region coding restrictions, stand-alone Blu-ray Disc players are sometimes modified by third parties to allow for playback of Blu-ray Discs (and DVDs) with "any" region code. Instructions ("hacks") describing how to reset the Blu-ray region counter of computer player applications to make them multi-region indefinitely are also regularly posted to video enthusiast websites and forums. Unlike DVD region codes, Blu-ray region codes are verified only by the player software, not by the optical drive's firmware.


title: Blu-ray

text: The latest types of Blu-ray players, suitable for UltraHD content, are not region-free; however; the UHD discs for which they are designed have not been coded to be locked to any region, and will work worldwide.


title: Blu-ray

text: The Blu-ray Disc format employs several layers of digital rights management (DRM) which restrict the usage of the discs. This has led to extensive criticism of the format by organizations opposed to DRM, such as the Free Software Foundation, and consumers because new releases require player firmware updates to allow disc playback.


title: Blu-ray

text: Blu-ray equipment is required to implement the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) system to encrypt the data sent by players to rendering devices through physical connections. This is aimed at preventing the copying of copyrighted content as it travels across cables. Through a protocol flag in the media stream called the Image Constraint Token (ICT), a Blu-ray Disc can enforce its reproduction in a lower resolution whenever a full HDCP-compliant link is not used. In order to ease the transition to high definition formats, the adoption of this protection method was postponed until 2011.


title: Blu-ray

text: The Advanced Access Content System (AACS) is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management. It was developed by AS Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA), a consortium that includes Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Warner Bros., IBM, Toshiba, and Sony. Since the appearance of the format on devices in 2006, several successful attacks have been made on it. The first known attack relied on the trusted client problem. In addition, decryption keys have been extracted from a weakly protected player (WinDVD). Since keys can be revoked in newer releases, this is only a temporary attack, and new keys must continually be discovered in order to decrypt the latest discs.


title: Blu-ray

text: BD+ was developed by Cryptography Research Inc. and is based on their concept of Self-Protecting Digital Content. BD+, effectively a small virtual machine embedded in authorized players, allows content providers to include executable programs on Blu-ray Discs. Such programs can:


title: Blu-ray

text: If a playback device manufacturer finds that its devices have been hacked, it can potentially release BD+ code that detects and circumvents the vulnerability. These programs can then be included in all new content releases. The specifications of the BD+ virtual machine are available only to licensed device manufacturers. A list of licensed commercial adopters is available from the BD+ website.


title: Blu-ray

text: The first titles using BD+ were released in October 2007. Since November 2007, versions of BD+ protection have been circumvented by various versions of the AnyDVD HD program. Other programs known to be capable of circumventing BD+ protection are DumpHD (versions 0.6 and above, along with some supporting software), MakeMKV, and two applications from DVDFab (Passkey and HD Decrypter).


title: Blu-ray

text: ROM Mark is a small amount of cryptographic data that is stored separately from normal Blu-ray Disc data, aiming to prevent replication of the discs. The cryptographic data is needed to decrypt the copyrighted disc content protected by AACS. A specially licensed piece of hardware is required to insert the ROM Mark into the media during mastering. During replication, this ROM Mark is transferred together with the recorded data to the disc. In consequence, any copies of a disc made with a regular recorder will lack the ROM Mark data and will be unreadable on standard players.


title: Blu-ray

text: The Blu-ray Disc Association recommends but does not require that Blu-ray Disc drives be capable of reading standard DVDs and CDs, for backward compatibility. Most Blu-ray Disc players are capable of reading both CDs and DVDs; however, a few of the early Blu-ray Disc players released in 2006, such as the Sony BDP-S1, could play DVDs but not CDs. In addition, with the exception of some early models from LG and Samsung, Blu-ray players cannot play HD DVDs, and HD DVD players cannot play Blu-ray Discs. Some Blu-ray players can also play Video CDs, Super Audio CDs, and/or DVD-Audio discs. All Ultra HD Blu-ray players can play regular Blu-ray Discs, and most can play DVDs and CDs. The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 do not support CDs.


title: Blu-ray

text: High Fidelity Pure Audio (HFPA) is a marketing initiative, spearheaded by the Universal Music Group, for audio-only Blu-ray optical discs. Launched in 2013 as a potential successor to the compact disc, it has been compared with DVD-A and SACD, which had similar aims.


title: Blu-ray

text: AVCHD was originally developed as a high-definition format for consumer tapeless camcorders. Derived from the Blu-ray Disc specification, AVCHD shares a similar random access directory structure but is restricted to lower audio and video bitrates, simpler interactivity, and the use of AVC-video and Dolby AC-3 (or linear PCM) audio. Being primarily an acquisition format, AVCHD playback is not universally recognized among devices that play Blu-ray Discs. Nevertheless, many such devices are capable of playing AVCHD recordings from removable media, such as DVDs, SD/SDHC memory cards, "Memory Stick" cards, and hard disk drives.


title: Blu-ray

text: AVCREC uses a BDAV container to record high-definition content on conventional DVDs. Presently AVCREC is tightly integrated with the Japanese ISDB broadcast standard and is not marketed outside of Japan. AVCREC is used primarily in set-top digital video recorders and in this regard it is comparable to HD REC.


title: Blu-ray

text: The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) created a task force made up of executives from the film industry and the consumer electronics and IT sectors to help define standards for putting 3D film and 3D television content on a Blu-ray Disc. On December 17, 2009, the BDA officially announced 3D specs for Blu-ray Disc, allowing backward compatibility with current 2D Blu-ray players, though compatibility is limited by the fact that the longer 3D discs are triple-layer, which normal (2D only) players cannot read. The BDA has said, "The Blu-ray 3D specification calls for encoding 3D video using the "Stereo High" profile defined by Multiview Video Coding (MVC), an extension to the ITU-T H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) codec currently implemented by all Blu-ray Disc players. MPEG4-MVC compresses both left and right eye views with a typical 50% overhead compared to equivalent 2D content, and can provide full 1080p resolution backward compatibility with current 2D Blu-ray Disc players." This means the MVC (3D) stream is backward compatible with H.264/AVC (2D) stream, allowing older 2D devices and software to decode stereoscopic video streams, ignoring additional information for the second view. However, some 3D discs have a user limitation set preventing the disc from being viewed in 2D (though a 2D disc is often included in the packaging).


title: Blu-ray

text: Sony added Blu-ray 3D support to its PlayStation 3 console via a firmware upgrade on September 21, 2010. The console had previously gained 3D gaming capability via an update on April 21, 2010. Since the version 3.70 software update on August 9, 2011, the PlayStation 3 can play DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio while playing 3D Blu-ray. Dolby TrueHD is used on a small minority of Blu-ray 3D releases, and bitstreaming implemented in slim PlayStation 3 models only (original "fat" PS3 models decode internally and send audio as LPCM). The PlayStation VR can also be used to watch these movies in 3D on a PlayStation 4. As of 2018, most major home entertainment studios, such as Walt Disney Studios, Sony Pictures, MGM, and Universal Pictures had discontinued the Blu-ray 3D format in North America, but continued to produce and sell them in other regions such as South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Paramount Pictures has ceased sales and productions of 3D Blu-ray Discs all over the world, its last 3D releases being "Ghost in the Shell" and "", while Warner Bros. still continues to sell and produce 3D Blu-ray Discs to this day in all regions, notable titles including: "Wonder Woman", "Blade Runner 2049", "Justice League", "Tomb Raider", "Rampage", "Aquaman", "", "Shazam!", and "".


title: Blu-ray

text: Ultra HD Blu-ray Discs are incompatible with existing standard Blu-ray players. They support 4K UHD (3840 × 2160 pixel resolution) video at frame rates up to 60 progressive frames per second, encoded using High-Efficiency Video Coding. The discs support both high dynamic range (HDR) by increasing the color depth to 10-bit per color and a greater color gamut than supported by conventional Blu-ray video by using the Rec. 2020 color space.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Sorry to Bother You is a 2018 American surrealist black comedy film written and directed by Boots Riley, in his directorial debut. It stars Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick, Terry Crews, Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Danny Glover, Steven Yeun, and Armie Hammer. The film follows a young black telemarketer who adopts a white accent to succeed at his job. Swept into a corporate conspiracy, he must choose between profit and joining his activist friends to organize labor.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Principal photography began in June 2017 in Oakland, California. "Sorry to Bother You" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 6, 2018, by Annapurna Pictures through Mirror Releasing. The film received critical acclaim for its cast, concept, and soundtrack, as well as Riley's screenplay and direction.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Cassius "Cash" Green lives in his uncle Sergio's garage with his girlfriend, Detroit, an artist. Struggling to pay rent, Cash gets a job as a telemarketer for RegalView. Cash has trouble with customers until Langston, an older co-worker, teaches him to use his "white voice" and adopt a blithe, affluent persona on calls, at which Cash excels.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Cash's coworker Squeeze forms a union and recruits Cash, Detroit, and their friend Sal. When Cash participates in a protest, he expects to be fired but is instead promoted to an elite Power Caller position. In the luxurious Power Caller suite, Cash is told by the lead Power Caller, Mr. _______, to always use his white voice, and learns that RegalView secretly sells military arms as well as cheap labor from the corporation WorryFree, through which employees sign lifetime contracts to work and be housed in factories, which many condemn as slave labor.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Though Cash is initially uncomfortable with the job, he is celebrated at work, and can now afford a new apartment, a flashy new car, and pays off Sergio's house (in the process keeping him from joining WorryFree). He stops participating in the union push and Detroit quits her RegalView job to avoid conflicting loyalties between the two, while secretly participating in the Left Eye Faction, an anti-WorryFree activist movement. She breaks up with Cash, arguing that his immoral job has changed him, while he insists he has the right to be proud of his success. He later attends Detroit's art exhibit and artistic performance uninvited, at which she uses a white voice of her own. When Cash is escorted through the union's picket line one morning, a picketer wounds him with a can of soda. Footage of the incident becomes an Internet meme; the thrower profits off of it herself, even signing a sponsorship with the brand of the soda she threw.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Cash is invited to a party with WorryFree CEO Steve Lift, where he is goaded into rapping for the predominantly white guests. In a private meeting, Lift offers Cash a powdered substance which Cash snorts, believing it is cocaine. Looking for the bathroom, Cash discovers shackled half-horse, half-human hybrids who beg him for help. Lift explains that WorryFree plans to make their workers stronger, more obedient, and thus more profitable by transforming them into hybrid "Equisapiens" through snorting a gene-modifying powder. Cash fears that he just ingested the substance, but Lift assures him it was cocaine. Cash refuses an offer of $100 million to become an Equisapien for five years and act as a false revolutionary figure to keep the employees in line.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Cash discovers he dropped his phone when he encountered the Equisapiens, who recorded a plea for help and sent it to Detroit. Taking advantage of his infamy as a meme, Cash appears on the extremely popular television show "I Got the Shit Kicked Out of Me", enduring humiliations and beatings to share the video, and spreads the word about WorryFree's cruelty. The plan backfires: Equisapiens are hailed as a groundbreaking scientific advancement, a cult of personality worshipping Lift develops, and WorryFree's stock reaches an all-time high.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Cash apologizes to Squeeze, Sal, and Detroit, and rallies the union in a final stand against RegalView. He uses a security code from the Equisapien's video to break into Lift's home. He goes to the picket line, where the police start a riot and detain Cash, but the Equisapiens overpower them and free Cash. Detroit and Cash reconcile and later move back into Sergio's garage. Cash suddenly starts to grow horse nostrils. Later, fully transformed, he leads a mob of Equisapiens to Lift's house and breaks down the door.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Boots Riley describes the film as "an absurdist dark comedy with aspects of magical realism and science fiction inspired by the world of telemarketing". The screenplay for "Sorry to Bother You" was inspired by his own time working as a telemarketer and telefundraiser in California and his need to put on a different voice to find success. Riley finished the screenplay in 2012, and with no means to produce it, recorded an album of the same title with his band The Coup, inspired by the story. The screenplay was originally published in full as part of "McSweeney's" issue 48 in 2014.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: In June 2017, it was announced that production would go forward on "Sorry to Bother You", directed by Riley, and that Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson and Steven Yeun had been cast in the film. Nina Yang Bongiovi and Forest Whitaker of Significant Productions served as producers, along with Jonathan Duffy, Kelly Williams, Charles D. King and George Rush. Financing was provided by Significant Productions, MACRO, and Cinereach. The same month, Armie Hammer, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick and Terry Crews also joined the cast. In July 2017, Danny Glover, David Cross and Patton Oswalt joined the cast, with Kate Berlant, Robert Longstreet and Michael Sommers added later that month.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Principal photography began on June 22, 2017, in Oakland, California, and concluded on July 30, 2017.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: It was rumored that Steve Buscemi performed Danny Glover's character's "white voice", but Riley said it was actually the film's sound engineer.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Following the premiere at Sundance, producer Megan Ellison gave Riley $200,000 for reshoots and an additional scene.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: The film score was composed and performed by Tune-Yards. Riley and The Coup recorded an original soundtrack for the film as well, which was released June 13, 2018. The first single, "OYAHYTT", featuring Lakeith Stanfield, was released July 13, 2018.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: Boots Riley has said that the film offers a radical class analysis of capitalism, not a specific analysis of the United States under President Donald Trump. He wrote the initial screenplay during Barack Obama's administration, and the target was never any specific elected official or movement, but "the puppetmasters behind the puppets." While most of the final script remained the same, minimal changes were made to avoid appearing to critique Trump specifically, including removing a line where a character says "Worry Free is making America great again," written before Trump used the line in his 2016 presidential campaign.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: The film's title has a double meaning, referencing both the phrase's use by telemarketers and its general usage when telling a person something they might not like to hear, such as the film's anti-capitalist message. According to Riley, "when you're telling someone something that is different from how they view things, different from how they view the world, it feels like an annoyance or a bother. And that's where that comes from." The plot of a strike was used to reflect the need to "organize people in the workplace" and for workers to recognize their power.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2018. Shortly after, Annapurna Pictures acquired distribution rights. It also screened at South by Southwest on March 12, 2018. The film was initially scheduled to be released on June 29, 2018, but was pushed back a week to July 6, 2018, where it began with a limited release before expanding wider on July 13.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: The film had difficulty getting international distribution. On September 18, 2018, Riley announced that Universal Pictures and Focus Features had picked up its international distribution rights. It premiered at the 2018 London Film Festival, followed by a UK release on December 7.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: "Sorry to Bother You" was released on digital copy on October 9, 2018, and on Blu-ray and DVD on October 23.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: , "Sorry to Bother You" has grossed $17.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $792,464 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $18.3 million, against a production budget of $3.2 million.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: The film earned $727,266 from 16 theaters in its limited opening weekend, for an average of $45,452, the fourth-best average of 2018. It finished 16th at the weekend box office. It had its wide release, in 805 theaters, on July 13, alongside the openings of "Skyscraper" and "", and was forecast to gross around $3.5 million over the weekend. The film made more on its first day of wide release ($1.5 million) than it had in its full week of limited release ($1.1 million). It went on to gross $4.3 million over the weekend, an increase of 485%, finishing 7th at the box office. The film was added to another 245 theaters in its third week of release and made $2.8 million, finishing 10th.


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Fearlessly ambitious, scathingly funny, and thoroughly original, "Sorry to Bother You" loudly heralds the arrival of a fresh filmmaking talent in writer-director Boots Riley." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film an 84% overall positive score and a 72% "definite recommend".


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: James Berardinelli of "ReelViews" said ""Sorry to Bother You" blends conventional comedy with political satire to produce a film that will generate laughter and a sense of discomfort in equal doses." David Sims of "The Atlantic" wrote, "The story's heightened reality works best when it's barely distinguishable from our own—though it starts to lose steam the more it drifts into fantasy. The movie is at times a mess, but a compelling one, and this debut from Boots Riley should herald a fascinating filmmaking career." Peter Debruge of "Variety" magazine praised the film, calling it "deliriously creative and ambitious to a fault", but expressed reservations about its second half: "As the movie's allegorical relation to real-world problems blurs, audiences are left to wonder what Riley's point is supposed to be." Jesse Hassenger of "The A.V. Club" described the film as "often wildly funny, and if its broad arc is familiar stuff about a down-on-his-luck everyman experiencing success but at what cost, at least the plot specifics are unpredictable". Randall Colburn of "Consequence of Sound" called it "a mess, but a glorious one" and said it "is fun until it's overwhelming, and Riley would likely have benefited from a good editor."


title: Sorry to Bother You

text: A.A. Dowd of "The A.V. Club" reviewed the film at the Sundance Film Festival and dissented from his peers, calling it "a scattershot, intermittently pointed satire whose jokes and insights land with about the same (in)frequency." Dowd was critical of the writing and direction: "There's a messy, first-draft quality to how the film fits said ideas together, and a general sloppiness to the execution, with Riley botching the timing on too many jokes ... "Sorry To Bother You" is plainly a first feature, and that's no insult: Even as some of the film's comedy fell flat for me, I distantly admired its something-to-prove chutzpah."


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) is one of the upper gastrointestinal chronic diseases where stomach content persistently and regularly flows up into the esophagus, resulting in symptoms and/or complications. Symptoms include dental corrosion, dysphagia, heartburn, odynophagia, regurgitation, non-cardiac chest pain, extraesophageal symptoms such as chronic cough, hoarseness, reflux-induced laryngitis, or asthma. On the long term, and when not treated, complications such as esophagitis, esophageal stricture, and Barrett's esophagus may arise.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Risk factors include obesity, pregnancy, smoking, hiatal hernia, and taking certain medications. Medications that may cause or worsen the disease include benzodiazepines, calcium channel blockers, tricyclic antidepressants, NSAIDs, and certain asthma medicines. Acid reflux is due to poor closure of the lower esophageal sphincter, which is at the junction between the stomach and the esophagus. Diagnosis among those who do not improve with simpler measures may involve gastroscopy, upper GI series, esophageal pH monitoring, or esophageal manometry.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Treatment options include lifestyle changes, medications, and sometimes surgery for those who do not improve with the first two measures. Lifestyle changes include not lying down for three hours after eating, lying down on the left side, raising the pillow/bedhead height, losing weight, and stopping smoking. Foods that may precipitate GERD symptoms and could be avoided include coffee, alcohol, chocolate, fatty foods, acidic foods, and spicy foods. Medications include antacids, H receptor blockers, proton pump inhibitors, and prokinetics.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: In the Western world, between 10 and 20% of the population is affected by GERD. It is highly prevalent in North America with 18% to 28% of the population suffering from the condition. Occasional gastroesophageal reflux without troublesome symptoms or complications is even more common. The classic symptoms of GERD were first described in 1925, when Friedenwald and Feldman commented on heartburn and its possible relationship to a hiatal hernia. In 1934 gastroenterologist Asher Winkelstein described reflux and attributed the symptoms to stomach acid.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: The most common symptoms of GERD in adults are an acidic taste in the mouth, regurgitation, and heartburn. Less common symptoms include pain with swallowing/sore throat, increased salivation (also known as water brash), nausea, chest pain, coughing, and globus sensation. The acid reflux can induce asthma attack symptoms like shortness of breath, cough, and wheezing in those with underlying asthma.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: GERD sometimes causes injury to the esophagus. These injuries may include one or more of the following:


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: GERD sometimes causes injury of the larynx (LPR). Other complications can include aspiration pneumonia.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: GERD may be difficult to detect in infants and children since they cannot describe what they are feeling and indicators must be observed. Symptoms may vary from typical adult symptoms. GERD in children may cause repeated vomiting, effortless spitting up, coughing, and other respiratory problems, such as wheezing. Inconsolable crying, refusing food, crying for food and then pulling off the bottle or breast only to cry for it again, failure to gain adequate weight, bad breath, and burping are also common. Children may have one symptom or many; no single symptom is universal in all children with GERD.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Of the estimated 4 million babies born in the US each year, up to 35% of them may have difficulties with reflux in the first few months of their lives, known as 'spitting up'. About 90% of infants will outgrow their reflux by their first birthday.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Acid reflux into the mouth can cause breakdown of the enamel, especially on the inside surface of the teeth. A dry mouth, acid or burning sensation in the mouth, bad breath and redness of the palate may occur. Other not so common symptoms of GERD include difficulty in swallowing, water brash which is flooding of the mouth with saliva, chronic cough, hoarse voice, nausea and vomiting.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Signs of enamel erosion are the appearance of a smooth, silky-glazed, sometimes dull, enamel surfaces with the absence of perikymata, together with intact enamel along the gum margin. It will be evident in people with restorations as tooth structure typically dissolves much faster than the restorative material, causing it to seem as if it “stands above” the surrounding tooth structure.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: GERD may lead to Barrett's esophagus, a type of intestinal metaplasia, which is in turn a precursor condition for esophageal cancer. The risk of progression from Barrett's to dysplasia is uncertain, but is estimated at 20% of cases. Due to the risk of chronic heartburn progressing to Barrett's, EGD every five years is recommended for people with chronic heartburn, or who take drugs for chronic GERD.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: A small amount of acid reflux is typical even in healthy people (as with infrequent and minor heartburn), but gastroesophageal reflux becomes gastroesophageal reflux disease when signs and symptoms develop into a recurrent problem. Frequent acid reflux is due to poor closure of the lower esophageal sphincter, which is at the junction between the stomach and the esophagus.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: In 1999, a review of existing studies found that, on average, 40% of GERD patients also had "H. pylori" infection. The eradication of "H. pylori" can lead to an increase in acid secretion, leading to the question of whether "H. pylori"-infected GERD patients are any different than non-infected GERD patients. A double-blind study, reported in 2004, found no clinically significant difference between these two types of patients with regard to the subjective or objective measures of disease severity.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: The diagnosis of GERD is usually made when typical symptoms are present. Reflux can be present in people without symptoms and the diagnosis requires both symptoms or complications and reflux of stomach content.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Other investigations may include esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD). Barium swallow X-rays should not be used for diagnosis. Esophageal manometry is not recommended for use in the diagnosis, being recommended only prior to surgery. Ambulatory esophageal pH monitoring may be useful in those who do not improve after PPIs and is not needed in those in whom Barrett's esophagus is seen. Investigation for H. pylori is not usually needed.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: The current gold standard for diagnosis of GERD is esophageal pH monitoring. It is the most objective test to diagnose the reflux disease and allows monitoring GERD patients in their response to medical or surgical treatment. One practice for diagnosis of GERD is a short-term treatment with proton-pump inhibitors, with improvement in symptoms suggesting a positive diagnosis. Short-term treatment with proton-pump inhibitors may help predict abnormal 24-hr pH monitoring results among patients with symptoms suggestive of GERD.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Endoscopy, the looking down into the stomach with a fibre-optic scope, is not routinely needed if the case is typical and responds to treatment. It is recommended when people either do not respond well to treatment or have alarm symptoms, including dysphagia, anemia, blood in the stool (detected chemically), wheezing, weight loss, or voice changes. Some physicians advocate either once-in-a-lifetime or 5- to 10-yearly endoscopy for people with longstanding GERD, to evaluate the possible presence of dysplasia or Barrett's esophagus.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Other causes of chest pain such as heart disease should be ruled out before making the diagnosis. Another kind of acid reflux, which causes respiratory and laryngeal signs and symptoms, is called laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) or "extraesophageal reflux disease" (EERD). Unlike GERD, LPR rarely produces heartburn, and is sometimes called "silent reflux". Differential diagnosis of GERD can also include dyspepsia, peptic ulcer disease, esophageal and gastric cancer, and food allergies.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: The treatments for GERD may include food choices, lifestyle changes, medications, and possibly surgery. Initial treatment is frequently with a proton-pump inhibitor such as omeprazole. In some cases, a person with GERD symptoms can manage them by taking over-the-counter drugs. This is often safer and less expensive than taking prescription drugs. Some guidelines recommend trying to treat symptoms with an H antagonist before using a proton-pump inhibitor because of cost and safety concerns.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Medical nutrition therapy plays an essential role in managing the symptoms of the disease by preventing reflux, preventing pain and irritation, and decreasing gastric secretions.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Some foods such as chocolate, mint, high fat food , and alcohol showed to relax the lower esophageal sphincter increasing the risk of reflux. It is also recommended to lose weight if overweight or obese, Avoid eating bedtime snacks or lying down immediately after meals, Consume meals 2–3 hours before bedtime, Elevate head of bed on 6-inch blocks, Avoid smoking, Avoid wearing tight clothing that increases pressure in the stomach, avoid spices, citrus juices, tomatoes and soft drinks, as well as consume small frequent meals and drink liquids between meals . Some evidence suggests that reduced sugar intake and increased fiber intake can help. Although moderate exercise may improve symptoms in people with GERD, vigorous exercise may worsen them. Breathing exercises may relieve GERD symptoms.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: The primary medications used for GERD are proton-pump inhibitors, H receptor blockers and antacids with or without alginic acid. The use of acid suppression therapy is a common response to GERD symptoms and many people get more of this kind of treatment than their case merits. The overuse of acid suppression is a problem because of the side effects and costs.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs), such as omeprazole, are the most effective, followed by H receptor blockers, such as ranitidine. If a once-daily PPI is only partially effective they may be used twice a day. They should be taken one half to one hour before a meal. There is no significant difference between PPIs. When these medications are used long term, the lowest effective dose should be taken. They may also be taken only when symptoms occur in those with frequent problems. H receptor blockers lead to roughly a 40% improvement.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: The evidence for antacids is weaker with a benefit of about 10% (NNT=13) while a combination of an antacid and alginic acid (such as Gaviscon) may improve symptoms by 60% (NNT=4). Metoclopramide (a prokinetic) is not recommended either alone or in combination with other treatments due to concerns around adverse effects. The benefit of the prokinetic mosapride is modest.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Sucralfate has similar effectiveness to H receptor blockers; however, sucralfate needs to be taken multiple times a day, thus limiting its use. Baclofen, an agonist of the GABA receptor, while effective, has similar issues of needing frequent dosing in addition to greater adverse effects compared to other medications.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: The standard surgical treatment for severe GERD is the Nissen fundoplication. In this procedure, the upper part of the stomach is wrapped around the lower esophageal sphincter to strengthen the sphincter and prevent acid reflux and to repair a hiatal hernia. It is recommended only for those who do not improve with PPIs. Quality of life is improved in the short term compared to medical therapy, but there is uncertainty in the benefits of surgery versus long-term medical management with proton pump inhibitors. When comparing different fundoplication techniques, partial posterior fundoplication surgery is more effective than partial anterior fundoplication surgery, and partial fundoplication has better outcomes than total fundoplication.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Esophagogastric dissociation is an alternative procedure that is sometimes used to treat neurologically impaired children with GERD. Preliminary studies have shown it may have a lower failure rate and a lower incidence of recurrent reflux.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: In 2012 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a device called the LINX, which consists of a series of metal beads with magnetic cores that are placed surgically around the lower esophageal sphincter, for those with severe symptoms that do not respond to other treatments. Improvement of GERD symptoms is similar to those of the Nissen fundoplication, although there is no data regarding long-term effects. Compared to Nissen fundoplication procedures, the procedure has shown a reduction in complications such as gas bloat syndrome that commonly occur. Adverse responses include difficulty swallowing, chest pain, vomiting, and nausea. Contraindications that would advise against use of the device are patients who are or may be allergic to titanium, stainless steel, nickel, or ferrous iron materials. A warning advises that the device should not be used by patients who could be exposed to, or undergo, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) because of serious injury to the patient and damage to the device.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Some patients who are at an increased surgical risk or do not tolerate PPIs may qualify for a more recently developed incisionless procedure known as a TIF transoral incisionless fundoplication. Benefits of this procedure may last for up to six years.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: GERD is a common condition that develops during pregnancy, but usually resolves after delivery. The severity of symptoms tend to increase throughout the pregnancy. In pregnancy, dietary modifications and lifestyle changes may be attempted, but often have little effect. Some lifestyle changes that can be implemented are elevating the head of the bed, eating small portions of food at regularly scheduled intervals, reduce fluid intake with a meal, avoid eating 3 hours before bedtime, and refrain from lying down after eating. Calcium-based antacids are recommended if these changes are not effective, aluminum- and magnesium hydroxide -based antacids are also safe. Antacids that contain sodium bicarbonate or magnesium trisilicate should be avoided in pregnancy. Sucralfate has been studied in pregnancy and proven to be safe as is ranitidine and PPIs.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: Babies may see relief with smaller, more frequent feedings, more frequent burping during feedings, holding the baby in an upright position 30 minutes after feeding, keeping the baby's head elevated while laying on the back, removing milk and soy from the mother's diet or feeding the baby milk protein-free formula. They may also be treated with medicines such as ranitidine or proton pump inhibitors. Proton pump inhibitors however have not been found to be effective in this population and there is a lack of evidence for safety. The role of an Occupational Therapist with an infant with GERD includes positioning during and after feeding. One technique used is called “the log roll technique” which is practiced when changing an infant's clothing or diapers. Placing an infant on their back while having their legs lifted is not recommended since it causes the acid to flow back up the esophagus. Instead, the occupational therapist would suggest rolling the child on the side, keeping the shoulders and hips aligned to avoid acid rising up the baby's esophagus. Another technique used is feeding the baby on their side with an upright position instead of lying flat on their back. The final positioning technique used for infants is to keep them on their tummy or upright for 20 minutes after feeding.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: In Western populations, GERD affects approximately 10% to 20% of the population and 0.4% newly develop the condition. For instance, an estimated 3.4 million to 6.8 million Canadians have GERD. The prevalence rate of GERD in developed nations is also tightly linked with age, with adults aged 60 to 70 being the most commonly affected. In the United States 20% of people have symptoms in a given week and 7% every day. No data supports sex predominance with regard to GERD.


title: Gastroesophageal reflux disease

text: An obsolete treatment is vagotomy ("highly selective vagotomy"), the surgical removal of vagus nerve branches that innervate the stomach lining. This treatment has been largely replaced by medication. Vagotomy by itself tended to worsen contraction of the pyloric sphincter of the stomach, and delayed stomach emptying. Historically, vagotomy was combined with pyloroplasty or gastroenterostomy to counter this problem.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, which, according to Latter Day Saint theology, contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from 600 BC to AD 421 and during an interlude dated by the text to the unspecified time of the Tower of Babel. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi. The Book of Mormon is one of four standard works of the Latter Day Saint movement and one of the movement's earliest unique writings. The denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement typically regard the text primarily as scripture and secondarily as a record of God's dealings with ancient inhabitants of the Americas. The majority of Latter Day Saints believe the book to be a record of real-world history, with Latter Day Saint denominations viewing it variously as an inspired record of scripture to the lynchpin or "keystone" of their religion. Some Latter Day Saint academics and apologetic organizations strive to affirm the book as historically authentic through their scholarship and research, but mainstream archaeological, historical, and scientific communities have discovered little to support the existence of the civilizations described therein, and do not consider it to be an actual record of historical events.


title: Book of Mormon

text: According to Smith's account and the book's narrative, the Book of Mormon was originally written in otherwise unknown characters referred to as "reformed Egyptian" engraved on golden plates. Smith said that the last prophet to contribute to the book, a man named Moroni, buried it in the Hill Cumorah in present-day Manchester, New York, before his death, and then appeared in a vision to Smith in 1827 as an angel, revealing the location of the plates and instructing him to translate the plates into English. Most naturalistic views on the origins of the Book of Mormon hold that Smith authored it, drawing, whether consciously or subconsciously, on material and ideas from his contemporary 19th-century environment, rather than translating an ancient record.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon has a number of doctrinal discussions on subjects such as the fall of Adam and Eve, the nature of the Christian atonement, eschatology, agency, priesthood authority, redemption from physical and spiritual death, the nature and conduct of baptism, the age of accountability, the purpose and practice of communion, personalized revelation, economic justice, the anthropomorphic and personal nature of God, the nature of spirits and angels, and the organization of the latter day church. The pivotal event of the book is an appearance of Jesus Christ in the Americas shortly after his resurrection. Common teachings of the Latter Day Saint movement hold that the Book of Mormon fulfills numerous biblical prophecies by ending a global apostasy and signaling a restoration of Christian gospel. The book is also a critique of Western society, condemning immorality, individualism, social inequality, ethnic injustice, nationalism, and the rejection of God, revelation, and miraculous religion.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon is divided into smaller books, titled after individuals named as primary authors or other caretakers of the ancient record the Book of Mormon describes itself as and, in most versions, is divided into chapters and verses. Its English text imitates the style of the King James Version of the Bible, and its grammar and word choice reflect Early Modern English. The Book of Mormon has been fully or partially translated into at least 112 languages.


title: Book of Mormon

text: According to Joseph Smith, in 1823, when he was seventeen years old, an angel of God named Moroni appeared to him and said that a collection of ancient writings was buried in a nearby hill in present-day Wayne County, New York, engraved on golden plates by ancient prophets. The writings were said to describe a people whom God had led from Jerusalem to the Western hemisphere 600 years before Jesus's birth. (This "angel Moroni" figure also appears in the Book of Mormon as the last prophet among these people and had buried the record, which God had promised to bring forth in the latter days.) Smith said this vision occurred on the evening of September 21, 1823, and that on the following day, via divine guidance, he located the burial location of the plates on this hill and was instructed by Moroni to meet him at the same hill on September 22 of the following year to receive further instructions, which repeated annually for the next three years. Smith told his entire immediate family about this angelic encounter by the next night, and his brother William reported that the family "believed all he [Joseph Smith] said" about the angel and plates.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Smith and his family reminisced that as part of what Smith believed was angelic instruction, Moroni provided Smith with a "brief sketch" of the "origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments... righteousness and iniquity" of the "aboriginal inhabitants of the country" (referring to the Nephites and Lamanites who figure in the Book of Mormon's primary narrative). Smith sometimes shared what he believed he had learned through such angelic encounters with his family in what his mother Lucy Mack Smith called "most amusing recitals".


title: Book of Mormon

text: In Smith's account, Moroni allowed him, accompanied by his wife Emma Hale Smith, to take the plates on September 22, 1827, four years after his initial visit to the hill, and directed him to translate them into English. Smith said the angel Moroni strictly instructed him to not let anyone else see the plates without divine permission. Neighbors, some of whom had collaborated with Smith in earlier treasure-hunting enterprises, several times tried to steal the plates from Smith while he and his family guarded them.


title: Book of Mormon

text: As Smith and contemporaries reported, the English manuscript of the Book of Mormon was produced as scribes wrote down Smith's dictation in multiple sessions between 1828 and 1829. The dictation of the extant Book of Mormon was completed in 1829 in between 53 and 74 working days.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Descriptions of the way in which Smith dictated the Book of Mormon vary. Smith himself called the Book of Mormon a translated work, but in public he generally described the process itself only in vague terms, saying he translated by a miraculous gift from God. According to some accounts from his family and friends at the time, early on, Smith copied characters off the plates as part of a process of learning to translate an initial corpus. For the majority of the process, Smith dictated the text by voicing strings of words which a scribe would write down; after the scribe confirmed they had finished writing, Smith would continue.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Many accounts describe Smith dictating by reading a text as it appeared either on seer stones he already possessed or on a set of spectacles that accompanied the plates, prepared by the Lord for the purpose of translating. The spectacles, often called the "Nephite interpreters," or the "Urim and Thummim," after the Biblical divination stones, were described as two clear seer stones which Smith said he could look through in order to translate, bound together by a metal rim and attached to a breastplate. Beginning around 1832, both the interpreters and Smith's own seer stone were at times referred to as the "Urim and Thummim", and Smith sometimes used the term interchangeably with "spectacles". Emma Smith's and David Whitmer's accounts describe Smith using the interpreters while dictating for Martin Harris's scribing and switching to only using his seer stone(s) in subsequent translation. Grant Hardy summarizes Smith's known dictation process as follows: "Smith looked at a seer stone placed in his hat and then dictated the text of the Book of Mormon to scribes". Early on, Smith sometimes separated himself from his scribe with a blanket between them, as he did while Martin Harris, a neighbor, scribed his dictation in 1828. At other points in the process, such as when Oliver Cowdery or Emma Smith scribed, the plates were left covered up but in the open. During some dictation sessions the plates were entirely absent.In 1828, while scribing for Smith, Harris, at the prompting of his wife Lucy Harris, repeatedly asked Smith to loan him the manuscript pages of the dictation thus far. Smith reluctantly acceded to Harris's requests. Within weeks, Harris lost the manuscript, most likely stolen by a member of his extended family. After the loss, Smith recorded that he lost the ability to translate and that Moroni had taken back the plates to be returned only after Smith repented. Smith later stated that God allowed him to resume translation, but directed that he begin where he left off (in what is now called the Book of Mosiah), without retranslating what had been in the lost manuscript.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Smith recommenced some Book of Mormon dictation between September 1828 and April 1829 with his wife Emma Smith scribing with occasional help from his brother Samuel Smith, though transcription accomplished was limited. In April 1829, Oliver Cowdery met Smith and, believing Smith's account of the plates, began scribing for Smith in what became a "burst of rapid-fire translation". In May, Joseph and Emma Smith along with Cowdery moved in with the Whitmer family, sympathetic neighbors, in an effort to avoid interruptions as they proceeded with producing the manuscript.


title: Book of Mormon

text: While living with the Whitmers, Smith said he received permission to allow eleven specific others to see the uncovered golden plates and, in some cases, handle them. Their written testimonies are known as the Testimony of Three Witnesses, who described seeing the plates in a visionary encounter with an angel, and the Testimony of Eight Witnesses, who described handling the plates as displayed by Smith. Statements signed by them have been published in most editions of the Book of Mormon. In addition to Smith and these eleven, several others described encountering the plates by holding or moving them wrapped in cloth, although without seeing the plates themselves. Their accounts of the plates' appearance tend to describe a golden-colored compilation of thin metal sheets (the "plates") bound together by wires in the shape of a book.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The manuscript was completed in June 1829. E. B. Grandin published the Book of Mormon in Palmyra, New York, and it went on sale in his bookstore on March 26, 1830. Smith said he returned the plates to Moroni upon the publication of the book.


title: Book of Mormon

text: No single theory has consistently dominated naturalistic views on Book of Mormon composition. In the twenty-first century, leading naturalistic interpretations of Book of Mormon origins hold that Smith authored it himself, whether consciously or subconsciously, and simultaneously sincerely believed the Book of Mormon was an authentic sacred history.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Most adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement consider the Book of Mormon an authentic historical record, translated by Smith from actual ancient plates through divine revelation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the largest Latter Day Saint denomination, maintains this as its official position.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon as a written text is the transcription of what scholars Grant Hardy and William L. Davis call an "extended oral performance", one which Davis considers "comparable in length and magnitude to the classic oral epics, such as Homer’s "Iliad" and "Odyssey"". Eyewitnesses said Smith never referred to notes or other documents while dictating, and Smith's followers and those close to him insisted he lacked the writing and narrative skills necessary to consciously produce a text like the Book of Mormon. Some naturalistic interpretations have therefore compared Smith's dictation to automatic writing arising from the subconscious. However, Ann Taves considers this description problematic for overemphasizing "lack of control" when historical and comparative study instead suggests Smith "had a highly focused awareness" and "a considerable degree of control over the experience" of dictation.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Independent scholar William L. Davis posits that after believing he had encountered an angel in 1823, Smith "carefully developed his ideas about the narratives" of the Book of Mormon for several years by making outlines, whether mental or on private notes, until he began dictating in 1828. Smith's oral recitations about Nephites to his family could have been an opportunity to work out ideas and practice oratory, and he received some formal education as a lay Methodist exhorter. In this interpretation, Smith believed the dictation he produced reflected an ancient history, but he assembled the narrative in his own words.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Early observers, presuming Smith incapable of writing something as long as complex as the Book of Mormon, often searched for a possible source he might have plagiarized. In the nineteenth century, a popular hypothesis was that Smith collaborated with Sidney Rigdon (a convert to the early movement whom Smith did not actually meet until after the Book of Mormon was published) to plagiarize an unpublished manuscript written by Solomon Spalding and turn into the Book of Mormon. Historians have considered the Spalding manuscript source hypothesis debunked since 1945, when Fawn M. Brodie thoroughly disproved it in her critical biography of Smith.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Historians since the early-twentieth century has suggested Smith was inspired by "View of the Hebrews", since both associate American Indians with ancient Israel and describe clashes between two dualistically opposed civilizations ("View" as speculation about American Indian history and the Book of Mormon as its narrative). However, twenty-first-century scholarship argues that any relationship between "View" and the Book of Mormon is not straightforward. A pseudo-anthropological treatise, "View" marshaled allegedly empirical evidence in support of its hypothesis. The Book of Mormon is written as a narrative, and Christian themes predominate rather than supposedly indigenous parallels do not. Additionally, while "View" supposes that indigenous American peoples descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, the Book of Mormon actively rejects the hypothesis; the peoples in its narrative have an "ancient Hebrew" origin but do not descend from the lost tribes, the perceived mystery of which the book preserves and escalates. The book ultimately heavily revises, rather than borrows, the Hebraic Indian theory.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon may creatively reconfigure, without plagiarizing, parts of the popular 1678 Christian allegory "Pilgrim's Progress" written by John Bunyan"." For example, the martyr narrative of Abinadi in the Book of Mormon shares a complex matrix of descriptive language with Faithful's martyr narrative in "Progress". Some other Book of Mormon narratives, such as the dream Lehi has in the book's opening, also resemble creative reworkings of "Progress" story arcs as well as elements of other works by Bunyan, such as "The Holy War" and "Grace Abounding".


title: Book of Mormon

text: Historical scholarship also suggests it's plausible for Smith to have produced the Book of Mormon himself, based on his knowledge of the Bible and enabled by a democratizing religious culture.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The English text of the Book of Mormon resembles the style of the King James Version of the Bible, though its rendering can sometimes be repetitive and difficult to read. Nevertheless, narratively and structurally the book is complex and carefully crafted with multiple arcs that diverge and converge in the story while contributing to the book's overarching plot and themes. Historian Daniel Walker Howe concluded in his own appraisal that the Book of Mormon "is a powerful epic written on a grand scale" and "should rank among the great achievements of American literature".


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon presents its text through multiple narrators explicitly identified as figures within the book's own narrative. Narrators describe reading, redacting, writing, and exchanging records. The book also embeds sermons, given by figures from the narrative, throughout the text, and these internal orations make up just over 40 percent of the Book of Mormon. Periodically, the book's primary narrators reflexively describe themselves creating the book in a move that is "almost postmodern" in its self-consciousness. In an essay written to introduce to the Book of Mormon, historian Laurie Maffly-Kipp explains that "the mechanics of editing and transmitting thereby become an important feature of the text".


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon is organized as a compilation of smaller books, each named after its main named narrator or a prominent leader, beginning with the First Book of Nephi (1 Nephi) and ending with the Book of Moroni.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The book's sequence is primarily chronological based on the narrative content of the book. Exceptions include the Words of Mormon and the Book of Ether. The Words of Mormon contains editorial commentary by Mormon. The Book of Ether is presented as the narrative of an earlier group of people who had come to the American continent before the immigration described in 1 Nephi. First Nephi through Omni are written in first-person narrative, as are Mormon and Moroni. The remainder of the Book of Mormon is written in third-person historical narrative, said to be compiled and abridged by Mormon (with Moroni abridging the Book of Ether and writing the latter part of Mormon and the Book of Moroni).


title: Book of Mormon

text: Most modern editions of the book have been divided into chapters and verses. Most editions of the book also contain supplementary material, including the "Testimony of Three Witnesses" and the "Testimony of Eight Witnesses" which appeared in the original 1830 edition and every official Latter-day Saint edition thereafter.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The books from First Nephi to Omni are described as being from "the small plates of Nephi". This account begins in ancient Jerusalem around 600 BC, telling the story of a man named Lehi, his family, and several others as they are led by God from Jerusalem shortly before the fall of that city to the Babylonians. The book describes their journey across the Arabian peninsula, and then to a "promised land", presumably an unspecified location in the Americas, by ship. These books recount the group's dealings from approximately 600 BC to about 130 BC, during which time the community grows and splits into two main groups, called Nephites and Lamanites, that frequently war with each other throughout the rest of the narrative.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Following this section is the Words of Mormon, a small book that introduces Mormon, the principal narrator for the remainder of the text. The narration describes the proceeding content (Book of Mosiah through to chapter 7 of the internal Book of Mormon) as being Mormon's abridgment of "the large plates of Nephi", existing records that detailed the people's history up to Mormon's own life. Part of this portion is the Book of Third Nephi, which describes a visit by Jesus to the people of the Book of Mormon sometime after his resurrection and ascension; historian John Turner calls this episode "the climax of the entire scripture". After this visit, the Nephites and Lamanites unite in a harmonious, peaceful society which endures for several generations before breaking into warring factions again, and in this conflict the Nephites are destroyed while the Lamanites emerge victorious. In the narrative, Mormon, a Nephite, lives during this period of war, and he dies before finishing his book. His son Moroni takes over as narrator, describing himself taking his father's record into his charge and finishing its writing.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Before the very end of the book, Moroni describes making an abridgment (called the Book of Ether) of a record from a much earlier people. There is a subsequent subplot describing a group of families who God leads away from the Tower of Babel after it falls. Led by a man named Jared and his brother, described as a prophet of God, these Jaredites travel to the "promised land" and establish a society there. After successive violent reversals between rival monarchs and faction, their society collapses before Lehi's family arrive in the promised land.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The narrative returns to Moroni's present (Book of Moroni) in which he transcribes a few short documents, meditates on and addresses the book's audience, finishes the record, and buries the plates upon which they are narrated to be inscribed upon, before implicitly dying as his father did, in what allegedly would have been the early-400s CE.


title: Book of Mormon

text: On its title page, the Book of Mormon describes its central purpose as being the "convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations." Jesus is mentioned every 1.7 verses on average.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Although much of the Book of Mormon's internal chronology takes place prior to the birth of Jesus, prophets in the book frequently see him in vision and preach about him, and the people in the narrative worship Jesus as "pre-Christian Christians." For example, the book's first narrator Nephi describes having a vision of the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus, said to have taken place nearly 600 years prior to Jesus' birth. Late in the book, a narrator refers to converted peoples as "children of Christ". By depicting ancient prophets and peoples as familiar with Jesus as a Savior, the Book of Mormon universalizes Christian salvation as being accessible across all time and places. By implying that even more ancient peoples were familiar with Jesus Christ, the book also presents a "polygenist Christian history" in which Christianity has multiple origins.


title: Book of Mormon

text: In what is often called the climax of the book, Jesus visits some early inhabitants of the Americas after his resurrection in an extended bodily theophany. During this ministry, he reiterates many teachings from the New Testament, re-emphasizes salvific baptism, and introduces the ritual consumption of bread and water "in remembrance of [his] body", a teaching that became the basis for modern Latter-day Saints' "memorialist" view of their sacrament ordinance (analogous to communion). Jesus's ministry in the Book of Mormon resembles his portrayal in the Gospel of John, as Jesus similarly teaches without parables and preaches faith and obedience as a central message.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon depicts Jesus with "a twist" on Christian trinitarianism. Jesus in the Book of Mormon is distinct from God the Father, much as he is in the New Testament, as he prays to God while during a post-resurrection visit with the Nephites. However, the Book of Mormon also emphasizes Jesus and God have "divine unity," and other parts of the book call Jesus "the Father and the Son" or describe the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as "one." As a result, beliefs among the churches of the Latter Day Saint movement range between social trinitarianism (such as among Latter-day Saints) and traditional trinitarianism (such as in Community of Christ).


title: Book of Mormon

text: Distinctively, the Book of Mormon describes Jesus as having, prior to his birth, a spiritual "body" "without flesh and blood" that looked similar to how he would appear during his physical life. According to the book, the Brother of Jared lived before Jesus and saw him manifest in this spiritual "body" thousands of years prior to his birth.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Christian concept of God's plan of salvation for humanity is a frequently recurring theme of the Book of Mormon. While the Bible does not directly outline a plan of salvation, the Book of Mormon explicitly refers to the concept thirty times, using a variety of terms such as "plan of salvation", "plan of happiness", and "plan of redemption". The Book of Mormon's plan of salvation doctrine describes life as a probationary time for people to learn the gospel of Christ through revelation given to prophets and have the opportunity to choose whether or not to obey God. Jesus' atonement then makes repentance possible, enabling the righteous to enter a heavenly state after a final judgment.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Although most of Christianity traditionally considers the fall of man a negative development for humanity, the Book of Mormon instead portrays the fall as a foreordained step in God's plan of salvation, necessary to securing human agency, eventual righteousness, and bodily joy through physical experience. This positive interpretation of the Adam and Eve story contributes to the Book of Mormon's emphasis "on the importance of human freedom and responsibility" to choose salvation.


title: Book of Mormon

text: In the Book of Mormon, revelation from God typically manifests as "personalized, dialogic exchange" between God and persons, "rooted in a radically anthropomorphic theology" that personifies deity as a being who hears prayers and provides direct answers to questions. Multiple narratives in the book portray revelation as a dialogue in which petitioners and deity engage one another in a mutual exchange in which God's contributions originate from outside the mortal recipient. The Book of Mormon also emphasizes regular prayer as a significant component of devotional life, depicting it as a central means through which such dialogic revelation can take place.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Distinctively, the Book of Mormon's portrayal democratizes revelation by extending it beyond the "Old Testament paradigms" of prophetic authority. In the Book of Mormon, dialogic revelation from God is not the purview of prophets alone but is instead the right of every person. Figures such as Nephi and Ammon receive visions and revelatory direction prior to or without ever becoming prophets, and Laman and Lemuel are rebuked for hesitating to pray for revelation. In the Book of Mormon, God and the divine are directly knowable through revelation and spiritual experience.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Also in contrast with traditional Christian conceptions of revelations is the Book of Mormon's broader range of revelatory content. In the Book of Mormon, revelatory topics include not only the expected "exegesis of existence" but also questions that are "pragmatic, and at times almost banal in their mundane specificity". Figures petition God for revelatory answers to doctrinal questions and ecclesiastical crises as well as for inspiration to guide hunts, military campaigns, and sociopolitical decisions, and the Book of Mormon portrays God providing answers to these inquiries.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon depicts revelation as an active and sometimes laborious experience. For example, the Book of Mormon's Brother of Jared learns to act not merely as a petitioner with questions but moreover as an interlocutor with "a specific proposal" for God to consider as part of a guided process of miraculous assistance. Also in the Book of Mormon, Enos describes his revelatory experience as a "wrestle which I had before God" that spanned hours of intense prayer.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon's "eschatological content" lends to a "theology of Native and/or nonwhite liberation", in the words of American studies scholar Jared Hickman. The Book of Mormon's narrative content includes prophecies describing how although Gentiles (generally interpreted as being whites of European descent) would conquer the indigenous residents of the Americas (imagined in the Book of Mormon as being a remnant of descendants of Israelites), this conquest would only precede the Native Americans' revival and resurgence as a God-empowered people. The Book of Mormon narrative's prophecies envision a Christian eschaton in which indigenous people are destined to rise up as the true leaders of the continent, manifesting in a new utopia to be called "Zion". White Gentiles would have an opportunity to repent of their sins and join themselves to the indigenous remnant, but if white Gentile society fails to do so, the Book of Mormon's content foretells a future "apocalyptic reversal" in which Native Americans will destroy white American society and replace it with a godly, Zionic society. This prophecy commanding whites to repent and become supporters of American Indians even bears "special authority as an utterance of Jesus" Christ himself during a messianic appearance at the book's climax.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Furthermore, the Book of Mormon's "formal logic" criticizes the theological supports for racism and white supremacy prevalent in the antebellum United States by enacting a textual apocalypse. The book's apparently white Nephite narrators fail to recognize and repent of their own sinful, hubristic prejudices against the seemingly darker-skinned Lamanites in the narrative. In their pride, the Nephites repeatedly backslide into producing oppressive social orders, such that the book's narrative performs a sustained critique of colonialist racism. The book concludes with its own narrative implosion in which Lamanites suddenly succeed over and destroy Nephites in a literary turn seemingly designed to jar the average antebellum white American reader into recognizing the "utter inadequacy of his or her rac(ial)ist common sense".


title: Book of Mormon

text: Adherents of the early Latter Day Saint movement frequently read the Book of Mormon as a corroboration of and supplement to the Bible, persuaded by its resemblance to the King James Version's form and language. For these early readers, the Book of Mormon confirmed the Bible's scriptural veracity and resolved then-contemporary theological controversies the Bible did not seem to adequately address, such as the appropriate mode of baptism, the role of prayer, and the nature of the Christian atonement. Early church administrative design also drew inspiration from the Book of Mormon. Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith, respectively, used the depiction of the Christian church in the Book of Mormon as a template for their "Articles of the Church" and "Articles and Covenants of the Church".


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon was also significant in the early movement as a sign, proving Joseph Smith's claimed prophetic calling, signalling the "restoration of all things", and ending what was believed to have been an apostasy from true Christianity . Early Latter Day Saints additionally tended to interpret the Book of Mormon through a millenarian lens and consequently believed the book portended Christ's imminent Second Coming. And during the movement's first years, observers identified converts with the new scripture they propounded, nicknaming them "Mormons".


title: Book of Mormon

text: Early Mormons also cultivated their own individual relationships with the Book of Mormon. Reading the book became an ordinary habit for some, and some would reference passages by page number in correspondence with friends and family. Historian Janiece Johnson explains that early converts' "depth of Book of Mormon usage is illustrated most thoroughly through intertextuality—the pervasive echoes, allusions, and expansions on the Book of Mormon text that appear in the early converts' own writings." Early Latter Day Saints alluded to Book of Mormon narratives, incorporated Book of Mormon turns of phrase into their writing styles, and even gave their children Book of Mormon names.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Like many other early adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith referenced Book of Mormon scriptures in his preaching relatively infrequently and cited the Bible more often, likely because he was more familiar with the Bible, which he had grown up with. In 1832, Smith dictated a revelation that condemned the "whole church" for treating the Book of Mormon lightly, although even after doing so Smith still referenced the Book of Mormon less often than the Bible. Nevertheless, in 1841 Joseph Smith characterized the Book of Mormon as "the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of [the] religion". Although Smith quoted the book infrequently, he accepted the Book of Mormon narrative world as his own and conceived of his prophetic identity within the framework of the Book of Mormon's portrayal of a world history full of sacred records of God's dealings with humanity and description of him as a revelatory translator.


title: Book of Mormon

text: While they were held in Carthage Jail together, shortly before being killed in a mob attack, Joseph's brother Hyrum Smith read aloud from the Book of Mormon, and Joseph told the jail guards present that the Book of Mormon was divinely authentic.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) accepts the Book of Mormon as one of the four sacred texts in its scriptural canon called the "standard works". Church leaders and publications have "strongly affirm[ed]" Smith's claims of the book's significance to the faith. According to the church's "Articles of Faith"—a document written by Joseph Smith in 1842 and canonized by the church as scripture in 1880—members "believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly," and they "believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God," without the translation qualification. In their evangelism, Latter-day Saint leaders and missionaries have long emphasized the book's place in a causal chain which held that if the Book of Mormon was "verifiably true revelation of God," then it justified Smith's claims to prophetic authority to restore the New Testament church.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Latter-day Saints have also long believed the Book of Mormon's contents confirm and fulfill biblical prophecies. For example, "many Latter-day Saints" consider the biblical patriarch Jacob's description of his son Joseph as "a fruitful bough... whose branches run over a wall" a prophecy of Lehi's posterity—described as descendants of Joseph—overflowing into the New World. Latter-day Saints also believe the Bible prophesies of the Book of Mormon as an additional testament to God's dealings with humanity, such as in their interpretation of Ezekiel 37's injunction to "take thee one stick... For Judah, and... take another stick... For Joseph" as referring to the Bible as the "stick of Judah" and the Book of Mormon as "the stick of Joseph".


title: Book of Mormon

text: In the 1980s, the church placed greater emphasis on the Book of Mormon as a central text of the faith and on studying and reading it as a means for devotional communion with Jesus Christ. In 1982, it added the subtitle "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" to its official editions of the Book of Mormon. Ezra Taft Benson, the church's thirteenth president (1985–1994), especially emphasized the Book of Mormon. Referencing Smith's 1832 revelation, Benson said the church remained under condemnation for treating the Book of Mormon lightly.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Since the late 1980s, Latter-day Saint leaders have encouraged church members to read from the Book of Mormon daily, and in the twenty-first century, many Latter-day Saints use the book in private devotions and family worship. Literary scholar Terryl Givens observes that for Latter-day Saints, the Book of Mormon is "the principal scriptural focus", a "cultural touchstone, and "absolutely central" to worship, including in weekly services, Sunday School, youth seminaries, and more.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The church encourages those considering joining the faith to follow the suggestion in the Book of Mormon's final chapter to study the book, ponder it, and pray to God about it. Latter-day Saints believe that sincerely doing so will provide the reader with a spiritual witness confirming it as true scripture. The relevant passage in the chapter is sometimes referred to as "Moroni's Promise."


title: Book of Mormon

text: Approximately 90 to 95% of all Book of Mormon printings have been affiliated with the church. As of October 2020, it has published more than 192 million copies of the Book of Mormon.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or RLDS Church) views the Book of Mormon as scripture which provides an additional witness of Jesus Christ in support of the Bible. The Community of Christ publishes two versions of the book. The first is the Authorized Edition, first published by the then-RLDS Church in 1908, whose text is based on comparing the original printer's manuscript and the 1837 Second Edition (or "Kirtland Edition") of the Book of Mormon. Its content is similar to the Latter-day Saint edition of the Book of Mormon, but the versification is different. The Community of Christ also publishes a "New Authorized Version" (also called a "reader's edition"), first released in 1966, which attempts to modernize the language of the text by removing archaisms and standardizing punctuation.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Use of the Book of Mormon varies among Community of Christ membership. The church describes it as scripture and includes references to the Book of Mormon in its official lectionary. In 2010, representatives told the National Council of Churches that "the Book of Mormon is in our DNA". The book remains a symbol of the denomination's belief in continuing revelation from God. Nevertheless, its usage in North American congregations declined between the mid-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Community of Christ theologian Anthony Chvala-Smith describes the Book of Mormon as being akin to a "subordinate standard" relative to the Bible, giving the Bible priority over the Book of Mormon, and the denomination does not emphasize the book as part of its self-conceived identity. Tens of thousands of members in some congregations outside North America, such as Haiti and Africa, do not use the Book of Mormon at all and may be entirely unfamiliar with it. Some Community of Christ members remain interested in prioritizing the Book of Mormon in the church's religious practice and have variously responded to these developments by leaving the denomination or striving to re-emphasize the book.


title: Book of Mormon

text: During this time, the Community of Christ moved away from emphasizing the Book of Mormon as an authentic record of a historical past. By the late-twentieth century, church president W. Grant McMurray made open the possibility the book was nonhistorical. McMurray reiterated this ambivalence in 2001, reflecting, "The proper use of the Book of Mormon as sacred scripture has been under wide discussion in the 1970s and beyond, in part because of long-standing questions about its historical authenticity and in part because of perceived theological inadequacies, including matters of race and ethnicity." When a resolution was submitted at the 2007 Community of Christ World Conference to "reaffirm the Book of Mormon as a divinely inspired record", church president Stephen M. Veazey ruled it out-of-order. He stated, "while the Church affirms the Book of Mormon as scripture, and makes it available for study and use in various languages, we do not attempt to mandate the degree of belief or use. This position is in keeping with our longstanding tradition that belief in the Book of Mormon is not to be used as a test of fellowship or membership in the church."


title: Book of Mormon

text: Since the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, there have been approximately seventy different churches that have been part of the Latter Day Saint movement, fifty of which were extant as of 2012. Religious studies scholar Paul Gutjahr explains that "each of these sects developed its own special relationship with the Book of Mormon". For example James Strang, who led a denomination in the nineteenth century, reenacted Smith's production of the Book of Mormon by claiming in the 1840s and 1850s to receive and translate new scriptures engraved on metal plates, which became the Voree Plates and the Book of the Law of the Lord.


title: Book of Mormon

text: William Bickerton led another denomination, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (today called The Church of Jesus Christ), which accepted the Book of Mormon as scripture alongside the Bible although it did not canonize other Latter Day Saint religious texts like the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. The contemporary Church of Jesus Christ continues to consider the "Bible and Book of Mormon together" to be "the foundation of [their] faith and the building blocks of" their church.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Nahua-Mexican Latter-day Saint Margarito Bautista believed the Book of Mormon told an indigenous history of Mexico before European contact, and he identified himself as a "descendant of Father Lehi", a prophet in the Book of Mormon. Bautista believed the Book of Mormon revealed that indigenous Mexicans were a chosen remnant of biblical Israel and therefore had a sacred destiny to someday lead the church spiritually and the world politically. To promote this belief, he wrote a theological treatise synthesizing Mexican nationalism and Book of Mormon content, published in 1935. Anglo-American LDS Church leadership suppressed the book and eventually excommunicated Bautista, and he went on to found a new Mormon denomination. Officially named "El Reino de Dios en su Plenitud", the denomination continues to exist in Colonial Industrial, Ozumba, Mexico as a church with several hundred members who call themselves "Mormons".


title: Book of Mormon

text: Separate editions of the Book of Mormon have been published by a number of churches in the Latter Day Saint movement, along with private individuals and organizations not endorsed by any specific denomination.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Mainstream archaeological, historical, and scientific communities do not consider the Book of Mormon an ancient record of actual historical events. Principally, the content of the Book of Mormon does not correlate with archaeological, paleontological, and historical evidence about the past of the Americas. For example, there is no correlation between locations described in the Book of Mormon and known American archaeological sites. There is also no evidence in Mesoamerican societies of cultural influence from anything described in the Book of Mormon. Additionally, the Book of Mormon's narrative refers to the presence of animals, plants, metals, and technologies of which archaeological and scientific studies have found little or no evidence in post-Pleistocene, pre-Columbian America. Such anachronistic references include crops such as barley, wheat, and silk; livestock like sheep and horses; and metals and technology such as brass, steel, the wheel, and chariots. The Book of Mormon also includes excerpts from and demonstrates intertextuality with portions of the biblical book of Isaiah whose widely-accepted periods of creation postdate the alleged departure of Lehi's family from Jerusalem circa 600 BCE.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Furthermore, until the late-twentieth century, most adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement who affirmed Book of Mormon historicity believed the people described in the Book of Mormon text were the exclusive ancestors of all indigenous peoples in the Americas. However, linguistics and genetics proved that impossible. There are no widely accepted linguistic connections between any Native American languages and Near Eastern languages, and "the diversity of Native American languages could not have developed from a single origin in the time frame" that would be necessary to validate such a view of Book of Mormon historicity. Finally, there is no DNA evidence linking any Native American group to ancestry from the ancient Near East as a belief in Book of Mormon peoples as the exclusive ancestors of indigenous Americans would require. Instead, geneticists find that indigenous Americans' ancestry traces back to Asia.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Despite this, most adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement consider the Book of Mormon to generally be historically authentic. Within the Latter Day Saint movement there are several apologetic groups and scholars, most of whom are Latter-day Saints, that seek to answer challenges to or advocate for Book of Mormon historicity. For example, in response to linguistics and genetics rendering long-popular hemispheric models of Book of Mormon geography impossible, many apologists posit Book of Mormon peoples could have dwelled in a limited geographical region while indigenous peoples of other descents occupied the rest of the Americas. To account for anachronisms, apologists often suggest Smith's translation assigned familiar terms to unfamiliar ideas. In the context of a miraculously translated Book of Mormon, anachronistic intertextuality may also have miraculous explanations.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Advocating for their interpretation of the book's historicity, some apologists strive to identify parallels between the Book of Mormon and antiquity, such as the presence of several complex chiasmi resembling a literary form used in ancient Hebrew poetry and in the Old Testament. When mainstream, non-Mormon scholars examine alleged parallels between the Book of Mormon and the ancient world, however, scholars typically deem them "chance based upon only superficial similarities" or "parallelomania", the result of having predetermined ideas about the subject.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Despite the popularity and influence among Latter-day Saints of literature propounding Book of Mormon historicity, not all Mormons who affirm Book of Mormon historicity are universally persuaded by apologetic work, and some claim historicity more modestly, such as Richard Bushman's statement that "I read the Book of Mormon as informed Christians read the Bible. As I read, I know the arguments against the book's historicity, but I can't help feeling that the words are true and the events happened. I believe it in the face of many questions."


title: Book of Mormon

text: Some denominations and adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement consider the Book of Mormon a work of inspired fiction akin to pseudepigrapha or biblical midrash that constitutes scripture by revealing true doctrine about God, similar to a common interpretation of the biblical Book of Job. Many in Community of Christ hold this view, and the leadership takes no official position on Book of Mormon historicity; among lay members, views vary. Some Latter-day Saints consider the Book of Mormon fictional, although this view is marginal in the community at large.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Influenced by continental philosophy, a handful of academics argue for understanding the Book of Mormon not as "historical" or "unhistorical" (either factual or fictional) but as "nonhistorical" (existing outside history). In this view, both skeptical and affirmative approaches to Book of Mormon historicity make the same Enlightenment-derived assumptions about scriptures being representations of external reality, whereas a premodern understanding would accept scripture as capable of divinely ordering, rather than simply depicting, reality.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Contact with the indigenous peoples of the Americas prompted intellectual and theological controversy among many Europeans and European Americans who wondered how biblical narratives of world history could account for hitherto unrecognized indigneous societies. From the seventeenth century through the early-nineteenth, numerous European and U. S. American writers proposed that ancient Jews, perhaps through the Lost Ten Tribes, were the ancestors of Native Americans. One of the first books to suggest that Native Americans descended from Jews was written by Jewish-Dutch rabbi and scholar Manasseh ben Israel in 1650. Such curiosity and speculation about indigenous origins persisted in the United States into the antebellum period when the Book of Mormon was published, as archaeologist Stephen Williams explains that "relating the American Indians to the Lost Tribes of Israel was supported by many at" the time of the book's production and publication. Although the Book of Mormon did not explicitly identify Native Americans as descendants of the diasporic Israelites in its narrative, nineteenth-century readers consistently drew that conclusion and considered the book theological support for believing American Indians were of Israelite descent.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Additionally, European settlers viewed the impressive earthworks left behind by the Mound Builder cultures and had some difficulty believing that the Native Americans, whose numbers had been greatly reduced over the previous centuries, could have produced them. A common theory was that a more "civilized" and "advanced" people had built them, but were overrun and destroyed by a more savage, numerous group. Some Book of Mormon content resembles this "mound-builder" genre pervasive in the nineteenth century. Historian Curtis Dahl wrote, "Undoubtedly the most famous and certainly the most influential of all Mound-Builder literature is the "Book of Mormon" (1830). Whether one wishes to accept it as divinely inspired or the work of Joseph Smith, it fits exactly into the tradition." However, the Book of Mormon does not comfortably fit the genre, since, as historian Richard Bushman explains, "When other writers delved into Indian origins, they were explicit about recognizable Indian practices", such as Abner Cole, who dressed characters in moccasins in his parody of the book. Meanwhile, the "Book of Mormon deposited its people on some unknown shore—not even definitely identified as America—and had them live out their history in a remote place in a distant time, using names that had no connections to modern Indians" and without including stereotypical Indian terms, practices, or tropes, suggesting disinterest in making connections to mound-builder tropes.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Book of Mormon can be read as a critique of the United States during Smith's lifetime. Historian of religion Nathan O. Hatch called the Book of Mormon "a document of profound social protest", and Bushman "found the book thundering no to the state of the world in Joseph Smith's time." In the Jacksonian era of antebellum America, class inequality was a major concern as fiscal downturns and the economy's transition from guild-based artisanship to private business sharpened socioeconomic disparity. Poll taxes in New York limited access to the vote, and the culture of civil discourse and mores surrounding liberty allowed social elites to ignore and delegitimize populist participation in public discourse. Ethnic injustice was also prominent, as Americans typically stereotyped American Indians as ferocious, lazy, and uncivilized. Meanwhile, some Americans thought antebellum disestablishment and denominational proliferation undermined religious authority through ubiquity, producing sectarian confusion that only obfuscated the path to spiritual security.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Against the backdrop of these trends, the Book of Mormon "condemned social inequalities, moral abominations, rejection of revelations and miracles, disrespect for Israel (including the Jews), subjection of the Indians, and the abuse of the continent by interloping European migrants". The book's narratives critique bourgeois public discourse where rules of civil democracy silence the demands of common people, and it advocates for the poor, condemning acquisitiveness as antithetical to righteousness. Within the narrative, Lamanites, whom readers generally identified with American Indians, at times were overwhelmingly righteous, even producing a prophet who preached to backsliding Nephites, and the book declared natives to be the rightful inheritors to and leaders of the American continent. According to the book, implicitly-European Gentiles had an obligation to serve the native people and join their remnant of covenant Israel or else face a violent downfall like the Nephites of the text. In the context of the nineteenth-century United States, the Book of Mormon rejects American denominational pluralism, Enlightenment hegemony, individualistic capitalism, and American nationalism, calling instead for ecclesiastical unity, miraculous religion, communitarian economics, and universal society under God's authority.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon to several scribes over a period of 13 months, resulting in three manuscripts. Upon examination of pertinent historical records, the book appears to have been dictated over the course of 57 to 63 days within the 13 month period.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The 116 lost pages contained the first portion of the Book of Lehi; it was lost after Smith loaned the original, uncopied manuscript to Martin Harris.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The first completed manuscript, called the original manuscript, was completed using a variety of scribes. Portions of the original manuscript were also used for typesetting. In October 1841, the entire original manuscript was placed into the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House, and sealed up until nearly forty years later when the cornerstone was reopened. It was then discovered that much of the original manuscript had been destroyed by water seepage and mold. Surviving manuscript pages were handed out to various families and individuals in the 1880s.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Only 28 percent of the original manuscript now survives, including a remarkable find of fragments from 58 pages in 1991. The majority of what remains of the original manuscript is now kept in the LDS Church's archives.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The second completed manuscript, called the printer's manuscript, was a copy of the original manuscript produced by Oliver Cowdery and two other scribes. It is at this point that initial copyediting of the Book of Mormon was completed. Observations of the original manuscript show little evidence of corrections to the text. Shortly before his death in 1850, Cowdery gave the printer's manuscript to David Whitmer, another of the Three Witnesses. In 1903, the manuscript was bought from Whitmer's grandson by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now known as the Community of Christ. On September 20, 2017, the LDS Church purchased the manuscript from the Community of Christ at a reported price of $35 million. The printer's manuscript is now the earliest surviving complete copy of the Book of Mormon. The manuscript was imaged in 1923 and was recently made available for viewing online.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Critical comparisons between surviving portions of the manuscripts show an average of two to three changes per page from the original manuscript to the printer's manuscript, with most changes being corrections of scribal errors such as misspellings or the correction, or standardization, of grammar inconsequential to the meaning of the text. The printer's manuscript was further edited, adding paragraphing and punctuation to the first third of the text.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The printer's manuscript was not used fully in the typesetting of the 1830 version of Book of Mormon; portions of the original manuscript were also used for typesetting. The original manuscript was used by Smith to further correct errors printed in the 1830 and 1837 versions of the Book of Mormon for the 1840 printing of the book.