Specific works/Christopher Marc Nemelka

Christopher Marc Nemelka

This page is based on an answer to a question submitted to the FAIR web site, or a frequently asked question.

Question

Mr. Nemelka claims to have been commanded to tranlate the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon, as well as the lost 116 pages. What can you tell me about this?

Answer

The "Book of Lehi"

As part of his 'prophetic call,' Nemelka produced what he claims is a translation of the lost 116 pages, or "Book of Lehi." This portion of Mormon's abridgement (from Lehi to King Benjamin, roughly) was lost by Martin Harris after the manuscript was loaned to him by Joseph Smith (See D&C 3, D&C 10).

Nemelka's decision to produce the "Book of Lehi" was unwise, since his claims about it can be easily checked against what is known about Joseph Smith's translation of the same material.

Problems with Length

There are two extant Book of Mormon manuscripts. The original, dictated by Joseph Smith to his scribes, was probably about 480 pages long; we have fragments from 236 of these pages. A copy was made of the original manuscript—the so-called "printer's manuscript"—and is completely extant save three lines on the first page. This version occupied 464 manuscript pages. Thus, the two manuscript lengths agree within 3-4%.

A computerized count of the original 1830 publication of the Book of Mormon yields 270,745 words. Thus, each original manuscript page would have held about 564 words; the printer's manuscript about 583.

Nemelka's "Book of Lehi" contains 26,709 words when the italicized chapter summaries are excluded. Dividing by 116 pages, we get 230 words per page. The "Book of Lehi" seems, therefore, to contain only about 41% (at best) of the material which one would expect.

Mr. Nemelka includes an introduction to his "translation" of the "Book of Lehi", in which he indicates that

It depended on the particular writing style of each individual scribe, but generally, there were about 225 words per page that were translated by the prophet and written down by his scribe…

— <www.thesealedportion.com/tsp/lost116.htm>, last accessed 5 July 2005.

Unfortunately for his plan to produce the 116 pages, Nemelka has his details wrong. The paper was folded either lengthwise or widthwise before being written on. Both methods were used during the Book of Mormon translation, though widthwise was more common.

Count of lengthwise pages: Page seven of the manuscript (corresponding to 1 Nephi 4:20-37) contains over 580 words by my count, which matches the estimate of 583 words per page nicely.

Count of widthwise pages: Alma 45:17-46:6, Helaman 1:5-17, and Alma 42:29-43:10 are all extant widthwise pages from the original manuscript. Word counts in the 1830 edition give values of 523, 526, and 511 respectively, again much closer to the estimate of 583 from the actual Book of Mormon text than Nemelka's claimed 225.

This discrepancy demonstrates that Nemelka is missing at least half of the material that should be present. One might not expect his translation to match Joseph Smith's word-for-word, but the Book of Mormon text produced by Joseph is not so wordy that one could simply eliminate over half of it and retain the same meaning. Mr. Nemelka has underestimated how much material he needed to produce, and so his work is revealed for what it is—an amateurish forgery.

Problems with Missing Material

Hugh Nibley was the first to note that the Book of Mormon contains "colophons." As one review explained:

A colophon--Greek for "summit, top, finishing"--is a title or header, before or after a text, that may identify an author (such as by name, parentage, origin, education, etc.), the title of text, book, or section…

— Thomas W. Mackay, "Mormon as Editor: A Study in Colophons, Headers, and Source Indicators," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2:2 (1993): 90-109.

Such colophons can be seen throughout the Book of Mormon—in the English scriptures, they are the italicized portions which precede the chapter heading at the beginning of 1 and 2 Nephi, Jacob, Alma, Helaman, 3 and 4 Nephi, and Ether. Mosiah is the only large book without such an introduction. The books of Mormon and Moroni have no colophons, but they are the editors and authors throughout the abridgement, and so have already "given" their colophons initially, as well as identified themselves throughout the text. It's another subtle but authentic touch that no one of Joseph Smith's day knew anything about, or remarked upon until our century.

The lack of a colophon for Mosiah is not surprising, since the first two 'chapters' of Mosiah were part of the lost 116 pages.

Mr. Nemelka betrays himself here by being almost "too clever." He properly includes a colophon at the beginning of his Book of Lehi (imitating, perhaps, 1 Nephi's beginning). But, by the time he has reached the end of his "translation," he has forgotten (if he ever knew) that he needed a Book of Mosiah division with its own colophon.

Further reading

FAIR web site

• FAIR Topical Guide: