Editing Book of Mormon (section)

==== Methods ====
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''".<ref>{{Cite Q|Q124395703|last=Hardy|first=Grant|pages=vii–xxviii|chapter=Introduction|ol=23212827M|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/bookofmormonearl0000unse/page/n25}}</ref><ref name="Davis-2012" /> Eyewitnesses said Smith never referred to notes or other documents while dictating,<ref>There is some disagreement over this point and whether eyewitnesses may have exaggerated. William L. Davis notes some authors on the subject, [[Hugh Nibley]] and [[B. H. Roberts]] among others, believe Smith might have consulted a King James Bible while dictating. {{Harvnb|Davis|2020|p=199n4}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Taves|2020|p=180}} Some naturalistic interpretations have therefore compared Smith's dictation to automatic writing arising from the subconscious.<ref name="Hales-2019" /> 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.{{sfn|Taves|2020|pp=170–171, 185–186}}

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.{{sfn|Davis|2020|p=190}} 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.{{Sfn|Davis|2020|p=35–37, 165–168|ps=. Though Smith never became an ordained exhorter, perhaps because he was not a Methodist member in full standing (36).}} In this interpretation, Smith believed the dictation he produced reflected an ancient history, but he assembled the narrative in his own words.<ref>Davis describes a "ubiquitous presence of nineteenth-century compositional techniques", and "sermonizing strategies" in the Book of Mormon's text (such as figures describing their preaching in terms of "heads" as an outline to "touch upon" in further detail as the text progresses) which "point directly and specifically to Joseph Smith as the source and assembler of these narrative components" (see {{Harvnb|Davis|2020|pp=63, 91}}). A review published in ''Choice'' disagrees as to whether there is sufficient evidence of these oratorical techniques in the Book of Mormon; see {{Cite magazine |last=Alexander |first=Thomas G. |author-link=Thomas G. Alexander |date=September 2021 |title=''Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon'' |magazine=[[Choice Reviews|Choice]] |type=review |volume=59 |issue=1}}</ref>