Introduction

Although Jacob records some 8,500 of his own words, placing him as the seventh-most-frequently heard voice in the Book of Mormon,[1] he is sometimes underappreciated among Book of Mormon prophets. C. Terry Warner writes, “This is partly because his story is scattered over 125 pages of the Book of Mormon, and partly because he wrote little about himself. Nevertheless, from what we do know, a picture emerges of a shepherd of his people who also loved us, the Saints of future years, and who by that love calls forth our love for him.”[2]

Although we tend to focus more on major narrators such as Nephi or Mormon than we do Jacob, several scholars have identified both the contributions and the distinctive voice of Jacob. Deidre Nicole Green begins her 2020 book Jacob: A Brief Theological Introduction by writing, “Jacob has a unique voice in the Book of Mormon.”[3] Writing some thirty years earlier, John S. Tanner notes, “Jacob’s style is unique among Book of Mormon authors. He simply sounds different. He used a more personal vocabulary than most and took a more intimate approach to his audience.”[4]

Marilyn Arnold similarly points to the tender nature of Jacob’s writing, suggesting that his words stand in contrast to those of others. She writes, “Although Jacob is gifted in language and solid in his testimony, to me he seems unusually tender, even a bit fragile, in his emotional makeup.”[5]

Tanner highlights specific words that are predominantly used by Jacob in the Book of Mormon. For example, Tanner points out that half (four out of eight) of the references to anxiety in the Book of Mormon occur in Jacob’s words. [6] Indeed, Jacob is the only individual in the Book of Mormon to use this word more than once. At the outset of his discourse beginning in 2 Nephi 6, Jacob states, “I am desirous for the welfare of your souls. Yea, mine anxiety is great for you; and ye yourselves know that it ever has been” (2 Nephi 6:3).[7] At the start of another significant sermon, given several years later, Jacob said, “I this day am weighed down with much more desire and anxiety for the welfare of your souls than I have hitherto been” (Jacob 2:3).[8] Thus not only does Jacob most frequently use the word “anxiety,” he also has a distinctive way of using it by describing his feelings at the beginning of an important discourse.

Furthermore, Tanner writes that half the occurrences of the word shame come from Jacob, and notes that “he is the only person to have used delicate, contempt, and lonesome. Likewise, he is the only Book of Mormon author to have employed wound in reference to emotions; and he never used it, as everyone else did, to describe a physical injury. Similarly, Jacob used pierce or its variants frequently (four of the ten instances in the Book of Mormon), and he used it exclusively in a spiritual sense. Such evidence suggests an author who lived close to his emotions and who knew how to express those emotions.”[9]

Part of Tanner’s overall thesis is that individual Book of Mormon authors, such as Jacob, have distinctive writing styles. He writes, “I do not believe that God’s co-authorship normally eradicates an individual’s voice, since the Lord speaks through his servants ‘in their weakness, after the manner of their language’ (D&C 1:24).”[10] The purpose of this chapter is to deepen our understanding of Jacob, the person and prophet, by further examining distinctive aspects of his words. But first I pause to discuss why it matters whether we find distinct voices in the Book of Mormon.

Do Distinctive Voices Matter?

Because the Book of Mormon claims to be a multiauthored work, distinctive writing styles should be found within its pages[11]. Such differences in style and voice would suggest multiple authorship of the Book of Mormon.[12] Roger Keller examined this idea by studying “content words,” words that “are theologically, culturally, and historically significant.”[13] He created related groups of words and analyzed them to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in how they were used. For example, Keller identified a group of 109 words related to the ancient Near East, including Babylon, Egypt, Jeremiah, and Moses. Keller found that “the authors who are most distant in time from the ancient Near East context use the words of this group the least, while those nearest in time [including Jacob] use them the most.”[14] This led Keller to conclude that the Book of Mormon is in fact a multiauthored work, noting that “there are clear and recognizable differences in the content words used and the meanings attached to them by the authors within the Book of Mormon.”[15]

Keller's research was based on stylometry, a statistical analysis of individual writing styles. One application of stylometry that has received attention in Book of Mormon scholarship is sometimes referred to as “wordprints.” This branch of stylometry suggests that just as everyone has a unique fingerprint, authors likewise have a distinct voice and style. Stylometry has been used by scholars to determine the authorship of many disputed texts, including Wuthering Heights, some of The Federalist Papers, writings purportedly authored by Shakespeare, and many other works of literature.

If the Book of Mormon were shown to have only one author with no unique voices, that could be problematic for a text that claims to be a multi authored work. However, multiple stylometric studies clearly show that there are distinctive voices in the Book of Mormon. The initial studies on wordprints in the Book of Mormon looked at sample sizes of at least 5,000 words and examined “the use of the small, function words, i.e., the, and, but, of, etc.” in an effort to “recognize that different authors did indeed write the various strands within the Book of Mormon.”[16] Later wordprint studies used a statistical methodology to analyze various word clusters and concluded that “the Book of Mormon displays multiple writing styles throughout the text consistent with the book’s claim of multiple authors and that the evidence does not show the writing styles of alleged nineteenth-century authors to be similar to those in the Book of Mormon.”[17]

Nevertheless, the possibility remains that a clever author could create distinctive voices within a text. In 2021, scholars Paul Fields, Larry Bassist, and Matt Roper used stylometry to show that famous 19th-century novelists were indeed able to create a distinct voice for multiple fictional characters, including the narrators, in their stories.[18] However, these scholars also found that “the level of voice diversity among Book of Mormon characters surpassed the diversity among fictional characters created by the 19th-century novelists. The Book of Mormon’s voice diversity value was more than twice that of the average for the 19th century novelists.”[19]

This research suggests that while it is technically possible for sophisticated authors to create multiple voices for different characters, the distinctive voices in the Book of Mormon go beyond what would likely be created by one sophisticated author. This finding is particularly striking when we recall that Joseph Smith was twenty-three years old and had very little formal education at the time of the Book of Mormon translation. At a minimum, the different voices in the Book of Mormon can demonstrate a level of complexity clearly beyond Joseph’s capabilities.

Other studies have shown the unique writing patterns of Book of Mormon authors by examining words or phrases that they use in distinctive ways. For example, Samuel the Lamanite demonstrates “an especially marked reliance on certain biblical titles and phrases.” [20] Alma₂ and Abinadi together account for more than half of all uses of the word resurrection in the Book of Mormon, even though their words account for less than 10 percent of the text,[21] and Jesus Christ uniquely emphasizes the word baptize.[22]

Many other such patterns exist among Book of Mormon authors. For example, Grant Hardy showed that Mormon’s narrative is distinct from Nephi’s writing: “[Mormon] does not offer much scriptural exegesis, and he has little interest in House of Israel connections or messiah theology—the word messiah occurs twenty-three times in Nephi’s writings but only twice in Mormon’s work.”[23] John W. Welch focused on the different names for Jesus Christ used by Book of Mormon authors. He wrote, “the many personal testimonies of Jesus Christ . . . differ in their emphasis and style. Most interestingly, the attributes of Jesus Christ emphasized by the various prophets are often the attributes with which each prophet especially identified because of his own spiritual experiences, callings, and individual circumstances. . . . Each Book of Mormon prophet related to and testified of Jesus in his own individual way.”[24]

Collectively, these studies suggest that, based on unique words, phrases, and emphases, the Book of Mormon was in fact written by multiple authors—just as it claims. In the present study, I further examine aspects of Jacob’s writings that highlight him as having a unique voice within the pages of the Book of Mormon. My purpose is not to do an in-depth study of any of Jacob’s distinctive phrases; rather, I will identify and briefly discuss several phrases that collectively illustrate his unique voice. As we will see, Jacob has distinctive ways he speaks of Deity. In 2 Nephi 9, he emphasizes harsh words and phrases such as “angels to a devil” (v. 9), “monster” (v. 10), “fire and brimstone” (v. 16), and “awful guilt” (v. 46). At the same time, he focuses on the power of Christ’s Atonement in unique ways as he teaches of the Lord’s “great condescensions” (Jacob 4:7), “the power of the resurrection” (2 Nephi 9:12), “the pleasing word of God” (Jacob 2:8), and Christ’s ability raise us from death and bring us “into the eternal kingdom of God” (2 Nephi 10:25).

I first identify the specific passages where we hear Jacob’s voice. Next, I discuss Jacob’s references to Deity, followed by distinctive phrases from Jacob found in both 2 Nephi and Jacob. Finally, I identify selected phrases that are unique to Jacob, but used in only one of the pericopes in which he speaks.

Jacob’s Words in the Book of Mormon

There are two sections in the Book of Mormon where we hear Jacob’s voice. The first is found in a sermon Jacob gives at Nephi’s behest in 2 Nephi 6, 9–10 (2 Nephi 7 and 8 both comprise quotations from Isaiah). Although Jacob quotes from others in these chapters, most of the words belong to him.[25] The second pericope is the book of Jacob, which, other than a large quotation from Zenos, is nearly entirely written in his voice.[26] When all of Jacob’s words are collected, they account for approximately 3 percent of the text of the Book of Mormon.

It is particularly noteworthy when patterns for Jacob’s words hold across his speech in 2 Nephi 6, 9–10 and the book that bears his name. Because nearly forty pages of text separate 2 Nephi 10 from Jacob 1, we might expect the text from 2 Nephi 6, 9–10 to be closer to 2 Nephi 4–5 or 11 than to the book of Jacob. However, in several instances that I will identify in this chapter, Jacob’s distinctive voice can be heard in both pericopes, suggesting that in fact Jacob was indeed a separate author from Nephi, writing with a unique voice. We next turn to ways in which Jacob discusses Deity.

Jacob’s References to Deity

John W. Welch has pointed out some unique aspects of Jacob’s descriptions of Deity, noting that Jacob uses the word Creator more than any other author (four out of ten total references),and he accounts for one-third of the total uses of the word Maker.[27] Jacob is the only author to refer to Jesus as “great Creator,” and he does so three times (see 2 Nephi 9:5, 6; Jacob 3:7). Jacob both numerically and proportionally uses the title the Holy One of Israel more than any other author.[28] All of these distinguishing characteristics appear both in 2 Nephi 6, 9–10 and in the book of Jacob, adding credibility to the thesis that Jacob is the unique author of both pericopes.

One interesting aspect of Jacob’s references to Deity is his use of the word God.[29] Using a database that parses the text of the Book of Mormon by the person to whom the text is attributed,[30] I counted the times that Nephi and Jacob each used the words Lord and God. The results are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Comparing Nephi and Jacob’s use of the words Lord and God.

These data clearly show different frequency patterns in the ways Nephi and Jacob use the words Lord and God. Nephi is much more likely to use the word Lord than Jacob is, whereas Jacob is more likely to use the word God.[31]

Jacob’s distinctive use of the word God holds true both in 2 Nephi 6, 9–10 and in the book of Jacob, again emphasizing that Jacob’s distinctive voice remains intact in the chapters attributed to his voice. Although many modern readers might consider the words “Lord” and “God” synonymous, Nephi and Jacob use the word God with distinctively different frequencies that are statistically measurable. One commonly accepted measure of statistical significance in corpus linguistics is log-likelihood (LL). The higher the LL, the less likely that differences in word use between two texts are due to chance.[32] A LL score of 6.63 is equivalent to a p value < .01, indicating statistical significance. When comparing Jacob’s words to Nephi’s the LL values for God and Lord are respectively 20.5 and 11.0, making it extremely unlikely that their distinctive usages of these words occurs by chance. It is also interesting to note that the word God, which Jacob has a penchant for using, does not appear in Jacob 5. This chapter, the longest chapter in the book of Jacob, is almost entirely a quotation from a different voice—that of Zenos.

Distinctive Phrases in Both 2 Nephi and Jacob

In addition to his descriptions of Deity, there are other phrases that are distinctively used by Jacob across his words in 2 Nephi and the book of Jacob. In this section, I briefly identify and discuss these phrases, acknowledging that much more analysis could be done on each phrase. My purpose in this present study is to broadly illustrate the distinctive phrases used by Jacob.

Fire and Brimstone and Endless Torment

The phrase fire and brimstone appears ten times in the Book of Mormon, six of which are in the words of Jacob.[33] The first time it occurs in the Book of Mormon is in 2 Nephi 9, where it appears three times. In this stern discourse Jacob warns of torment that awaits those who are filthy. Jacob specifically identifies the filthy as “the devil and his angels” and says that “their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and has no end” (v. 16). In other uses, Jacob often connects fire and brimstone with the phrase endless torment. He twice highlights a merciful Savior who “delivereth his saints from . . . that lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment” (v. 19; compare v. 26).

As in 2 Nephi 9:16, the next time Jacob uses the phrase fire and brimstone, it is connected with the devil’s angels. In Jacob 3:11 he exhorts, “arouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may awake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell that ye may not become angels to the devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death.”

Jacob’s final two uses of the phrase fire and brimstone occur in Jacob 6:10, where he writes that those who reject the words of Christ “must go away into that lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever, which lake of fire and brimstone is endless torment.” Again we see a distinctive connection made by Jacob. In both 2 Nephi 9:19 and 2 Nephi 9:26, Jacob defined the “lake of fire and brimstone” as “endless torment.” He reiterates that definition in Jacob 6:10. The phrase endless torment appears six times in the Book of Mormon, and Jacob accounts for half of those usages. The only other individual who connects fire and brimstone with endless torment is Nephi (see 2 Nephi 28:23).

Angels to the Devil

There are six instances in the Book of Mormon that specifically refer to the devil’s angels, and half of them come from Jacob (see 2 Nephi 9:9, 16; Jacob 3:11).[34] In addition to the passages described in the previous section, Jacob teaches that without God’s mercy and grace, we would “become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God” (2 Nephi 9:9). Jacob is the only author on the small plates to talk about the devil’s angels.[35] He is also the only Book of Mormon author to connect the devil’s angels with fire and brimstone.[36]

Awful Guilt

The word awful and its derivatives appear forty-nine times in the Book of Mormon; thirteen of these occurrences (27 percent) come from Jacob. Jacob speaks of the “awful” state of the wicked (2 Nephi 9:27), the “awfulness of yielding to the enticings” of the devil (2 Nephi 9:39), and the “awful consequences” of “every kind of sin” (Jacob 3:12). Jacob’s use of the phrase awful monster (discussed in the final section of this paper) is unique to his sermon in 2 Nephi; the use of the phrase awful guilt is also unique to Jacob, and it appears in both pericopes where he speaks.

In 2 Nephi 9:46, Jacob says, “Prepare your souls for that glorious day when justice shall be administered unto the righteous, even the day of judgment, that ye may not shrink with awful fear; that ye may not remember your awful guilt in perfectness, and be constrained to exclaim: Holy, holy are thy judgments, O Lord God Almighty—but I know my guilt; I transgressed thy law, and my transgressions are mine; and the devil hath obtained me, that I am a prey to his awful misery.” For Jacob, “awful guilt” connects to the day of judgment when, in front of God, we acknowledge our sins.

This same structure appears in Jacob’s other use of this phrase. As he draws to the conclusion of his book, Jacob tells those who reject prophetic words that “the power of the redemption and the resurrection, which is in Christ, will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God” (Jacob 6:9).

To modern ears, sermons on “fire and brimstone,” “endless torment,” becoming “angels to a devil,” and “awful guilt” sound extremely severe. In the following generation, Jacob’s son Enos tells us, “Nothing save it was exceeding harshness, preaching and prophesying of wars, and contentions, and destructions, and continually reminding them of death, and the duration of eternity, and the judgments and the power of God, and all these things—stirring them up continually to keep them in the fear of the Lord...nothing short of these things...would keep the people from going down speedily to destruction” (Enos 1:23). Based on Enos’s words, we can see that Jacob likely used such intense phrases to “stir up” the people to repentance.

The Power of the Resurrection

The phrase power of...resurrection occurs seven times in the Book of Mormon, and five of these instances come from Jacob.[37] Jacob consistently focuses on Jesus Christ as the source of the power of resurrection. He speaks of “the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel” (2 Nephi 9:12) and twice refers to “the power of the resurrection which is in Christ” (Jacob 4:11; see also Jacob 6:9). Although Jacob emphasizes the centrality of the “power of the resurrection” in overcoming death, he also points out that for those who have rejected God’s word, “the power of the redemption and the resurrection, which is in Christ, will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God” (Jacob 6:9).

Beloved Brethren

The phrase beloved brethren appears seventy-two times in the Book of Mormon, and nobody uses it more than Jacob. Jacob is the first individual to use this phrase; he does so by beginning his speech in 2 Nephi 6 with the statement “behold, my beloved brethren” (v. 2). After completing a lengthy quotation from Isaiah, he resumes speaking by stating, “And now, my beloved brethren” (2 Nephi 9:1). After taking a break for the evening, Jacob again begins speaking by saying, “And now I, Jacob, speak unto you again, my beloved brethren” (2 Nephi 10:1). Similarly, as Jacob begins his later discourse to the Nephites, the first words he says are, “Now, my beloved brethren” (Jacob 2:2).

Jacob uses the phrase beloved brethren twenty times, more than 25 percent of the total occurrences in the Book of Mormon. The only speaker to come close to Jacob’s usage is Nephi, who uses the phrase sixteen times. Given that Nephi speaks more than three times as many words as Jacob, we see a statistically significant difference in the frequency with which Jacob and Nephi use this phrase.[38]

Shame and Cross

The words shame and cross collocate (appear together) two times in the Book of Mormon,[39] both in the words of Jacob. In 2 Nephi 9:18, Jacob says that “they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it” will “inherit the kingdom of God . . . and their joy shall be full forever.” Later Jacob writes of his deep desire to persuade all people to “believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world” (Jacob 1:8). Deidre Green notes, “Jacob is the only Book of Mormon figure besides Christ himself to explicitly call on followers of Christ to suffer Christ’s cross and thereby to make suffering with Christ a required task of discipleship.”[40]

God’s Great Condescensions

The word condescension and its variants appear only five times in the Book of Mormon. The angel guiding Nephi twice speaks of “the condescension of God” (1 Nephi 11:16, 26), and Nephi speaks of the Lord’s “condescension unto the children of men” (2 Nephi 4:26). Jacob uniquely uses the adjective “great” to describe God’s condescensions on two separate occasions. In 2 Nephi 9:53 he says, “Behold how great the covenants of the Lord, and how great his condescensions unto the children of men.” Similarly, he later writes that it is by the Lord’s “grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men” that he has power to perform miracles (Jacob 4:7).

Counseling with God

The ideas of counseling with God and receiving/rejecting counsel from God’s hand are not unique to Jacob;[41] however, no Book of Mormon author speaks of these topics more frequently than he does. In both 2 Nephi 9 and Jacob 4, Jacob urges his audience to receive counsel from the Lord. He warns that those who “hearken not unto the counsel of God . . . shall perish” (2 Nephi 9:28), at the same time stating that “to be learned is good if [one] hearken[s] unto the counsels of God” (2 Nephi 9:29). Similarly, in Jacob 4:10 he urges, “Seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.” Jacob thus emphasizes the importance of receiving guidance from God.

Jacob’s Unique Phrases

In addition to the distinctive phrases that Jacob uses across his words in 2 Nephi and the book of Jacob, he authored many unique phrases that do not appear elsewhere in the Book of Mormon. In this section, I briefly identify and discuss two of these phrases, although many more could be added. Additional words or phrases unique to Jacob in the Book of Mormon but not discussed herein include the following: “merciful plan” (2 Nephi 9:6); “father of lies” (2 Nephi 9:9); “angel of light” (2 Nephi 9:9); “captive spirits” and “captive bodies” (2 Nephi 9:12); “delivereth his saints” (2 Nephi 9:19); “not . . . shaken” (2 Nephi 9:40; Jacob 7:5); “hearken diligently” (2 Nephi 9:51); “hang down” (2 Nephi 10:20); “cheer up” (2 Nephi 10:23); “grace divine” (2 Nephi 10:25); “responsibility” (Jacob 1:19; 2:2); “labor in sin” (Jacob 2:5); “wounded soul” (Jacob 2:8); “piercing eye” (Jacob 2:10); “hand of providence” (Jacob 2:13); “be familiar with all” (Jacob 2:17); “sobbings” (Jacob 2:35); “slumber of death” (Jacob 3:11); “thankful hearts” (Jacob 4:3); “beyond the mark” (Jacob 4:14); and “power of justice” (Jacob 6:10).

Hell and the Awful Monster

The word hell appears fifty-nine times in the Book of Mormon, and ten of those occurrences are in the words of Jacob. Thus Jacob, writing just 3 percent of the total words in the Book of Mormon, disproportionally accounts for 17 percent of the instances of hell. In comparison with the total number of words attributed to individual authors, no Book of Mormon speaker uses this word proportionally more than Jacob.

Jacob not only speaks of hell frequently; he also talks about it in unique ways. More than any other author, Jacob collocates death and hell in his descriptions of what happens to the wicked. He is also the only scriptural author to collocate monster with hell and the only scriptural author to use the phrase awful monster, which he does three times in 2 Nephi 9.[42] In verse 10, Jacob refers to an “awful monster” as “death and hell,” which he calls “the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.”[43] On two additional occasions in this discourse, Jacob speaks similarly, praising the Holy One of Israel who “delivereth his saints from that awful monster the devil, and death, and hell” (2 Nephi 9:19) and explaining that those who do not have the law given to them “are delivered from that awful monster, death and hell” (2 Nephi 9:26).

As a point of contrast in how the word hell is used by Book of Mormon authors, Alma₂ (who is the second most likely individual to use the word hell) frequently refers to the chains of hell, whereas Jacob never uses this phrase.[44] Jacob uses the phrase death and hell four times, and he refers to hell as an “awful monster” three times, but these phrases are never used by Alma₂.[45]

The Pleasing Word of God

The word pleasing occurs twelve times in the Book of Mormon, and half of these occurrences come from Jacob’s words. As Jacob draws his book to a close, he writes, “I bid you farewell, until I shall meet you before the pleasing bar of God” (Jacob 6:13). It appears that Moroni utilizes this phrase from Jacob in his final words, writing, “I bid unto all, farewell. . . . [I will] meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah” (Moroni 10:34).[46]

Jacob uses the phrase the pleasing word of God three times (see Jacob 2:8, 9; 3:2). Jacob is the only author to use this phrase, as well as the only author to use the shorter phrase pleasing word. During his speech to Nephite men in Jacob 2–3, Jacob tells the Nephites that the “pleasing word of God . . . healeth the wounded soul” (Jacob 2:8). Jacob also encourages listeners to “receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love” (Jacob 3:2). As with other Jacobean sayings discussed throughout this chapter, this distinctive phrase indicates his unique authorial voice.

Conclusion

Jacob is a key figure in the Book of Mormon and his words had a lasting impact—not only in their original form, but also in how later Book of Mormon prophets echoed his words.[47] In this chapter I have focused on Jacob’s distinctive words and phrases that focus on topics such as God, fire and brimstone, endless torment, angels to a devil, awful guilt, power of resurrection, beloved brethren, and others. These words and phrases are disproportionately used by Jacob and appear in his writings in both 2 Nephi 6, 9–10 and the Book of Jacob. While these phrases do not provide definitive evidence that Jacob is a separate author from Nephi, the fact that multiple phrases appear to be distinctively from Jacob certainly suggests multiple authorship.

Ultimately, the power of identifying Jacob’s distinctive voice may not be in its apologetic value, but rather in its showing us a tender portrait of a faithful prophet. Although Jacob was concerned he would “stumble because of [his] over anxiety” (Jacob 4:18), he also taught that through the Lord’s “grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men,” weaknesses can be overcome (Jacob 4:7). He taught that the “pleasing word of God . . . healeth the wounded soul” (Jacob 2:8). Jacob’s voice speaks to those who have suffered and points to the Savior as the source of healing.

Jacob’s distinctive phrases also provide rich doctrinal insight. His teachings regarding an “awful monster,” “death and hell,” and “a lake of fire and brimstone” have the power to persuade individuals to change their lives.[48] Although he makes many strict and severe statements, Jacob also offers hope that God will “raise [us] from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that [we] may be received into the eternal kingdom of God” (2 Nephi 10:25). The undercurrent of Jacob’s words is one of hope and empowerment: God will keep his promises to his children (see 2 Nephi 10:2, 17), and it is within our power to keep our promises to him and live (see Jacob 6:5–6).

Notes

[1] Book of Mormon individuals who account for more words than Jacob are Mormon, Nephi₁, Alma₂, Moroni₂, Jesus Christ, and the Lord. For more information about this data, see John Hilton III and Jana Johnson, “The Word Baptize in the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 29, no. 1 (2018): 65–80. In the present chapter, when I use wordcounts of Jacob’s writings, I’m specifically referring to words directly attributed to Jacob in the text. Words that could be attributed to Zenos or the Lord of the Vineyard in Jacob 5 were not counted as belonging to Jacob.

[2] Warner, “Jacob,” Ensign, October 1976, 25.

[3] Green, Jacob: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2020), 2.

[4] Tanner, “Jacob and His Descendants as Authors,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon: Insights You May Have Missed Before, ed. John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1991), 58.

[5] Marilyn Arnold, “Unlocking the Sacred Text,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8, #1 (1999): 52.

[6] Tanner, “Jacob and His Descendants,” 59.

[7] Throughout this chapter, all emphases in scriptural references have been added.

[8] Note that Jacob connects “desire” with “anxiety” in both passages. These words collocate four times in the Book of Mormon—twice in Jacob’s words, once in Lehi’s (2 Nephi 1:16), and once in Mormon’s (Mosiah 28:12).

[9] Tanner, “Jacob and His Descendants,” 59.

[10] Tanner, “Literary Reflections on Jacob and His Descendants,” in The Book of Mormon: Jacob Through Words of Mormon, To Learn with Joy, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 1990), 253. John A. Tvedtnes points out that Jacob’s literary style may have been influenced by Lehi. He states, “An examination of Jacob’s two sermons and his treatise show that he was clearly influenced by the admonitions addressed to him by his father Lehi in 2 Nephi 2.” Tvedtnes, “The Influence of Lehi’s Admonitions on the Teachings of His Son Jacob,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 3, no. 2 (1994): 35.

[11] For a more detailed explanation of the unique voices in the Book of Mormon, see John Hilton III, Voices in the Book of Mormon: Discovering Distinctive Witnesses of Jesus Christ (Provo UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2024).

[12] It is technically possible for authors to create characters with distinctive voices. Scholar Dorota M. Dutsch examined Roman literature written by Terence and Plautus and found that the female characters of these authors had distinctive patterns of speech relative to male speakers. Dutsch, Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy: On Echoes and Voices, Oxford Studies in Classical Literature and Gender Theory 3 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Such a literary feat is impressive and would be particularly unlikely in the case of somebody with Joseph Smith’s education level.

[13] Roger R. Keller, Book of Mormon Authors: Their Words and Messages, Religious Monograph Series 9 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1996), xii–xiii.

[14] Keller, Book of Mormon Authors, 8. Keller also notes two exceptions to this general pattern, namely Nephi₂ and Mormon, in his sermonic materials.

[15] Keller, Book of Mormon Authors, xiii.

[16] Keller, introduction to Book of Mormon Authors, xii. See also Wayne A. Larsen and Alvin C. Rencher, “Who Wrote the Book of Mormon? An Analysis of Wordprints,” in Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds, Religious Monograph Series 7 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 1982), 157–88; and John L. Hilton, “On Verifying Book of Mormon Wordprint Studies: Book of Mormon Authorship,” BYU Studies 30, no. 3 (1990): 89–108.

[17] Matthew Roper, Paul J. Fields, and G. Bruce Schaalje, “Stylometric Analyses of the Book of Mormon: A Short History,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 21, no. 1 (2012): 43.

[18] These authors were Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), and James Fenimore Cooper. This research, which still has not been formally published, was reported in “Book of Mormon Evidence: Voice Diversity,” November 22, 2021, https://evidencecentral.org/recency/evidence/voice-diversity.

[19] “Book of Mormon Evidence.”

[20] Shon Hopkin and John Hilton III, “Samuel’s Reliance on Biblical Language,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 24, no. 1 (2015): 31.

[21] John Hilton III and Jana Johnson, “Who Uses the Word Resurrection in the Book of Mormon and How Is It Used?,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 21, no. 2 (2012): 30–39.

[22] Hilton and Johnson, “The Word Baptize in the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter 29 (2018): 65–80.

[23] Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (Ne67w York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 91. Hardy also notes that Moroni’s writing style is distinctive from both Nephi’s and Mormon’s; Understanding the Book of Mormon, 217–67.

[24] John W. Welch, “Ten Testimonies of Jesus Christ from the Book of Mormon,” in A Book of Mormon Treasury: Gospel Insights from General Authorities and Religious Educators (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 2003), 316, 322.

[25] In 2 Nephi 6–10, Jacob quotes several sources, including Jesus Christ (textually identified as such), the Lord (textually identified as such), Isaiah, and an angel. For the purposes of analyzing Jacob’s words in the present study, I am only examining the words specifically attributed to him.

[26] In the book of Jacob, Jacob quotes from the Lord, Zenos and Sherem. Again, in the present study I examine only words specifically attributed to Jacob.

[27] Maker appears six times in the Book of Mormon; it is used twice by Jacob, twice by the Lord, and once each by Enos and Mormon. For more information on distinctive titles for Christ used by different Book of Mormon authors, see Welch, “Ten Testimonies of Jesus,” 316–42.

[28] This title appears forty times in the Book of Mormon and is used seventeen times by Jacob, ten by Nephi₁, six by Isaiah, two each by Zenos, Amaleki, and Lehi₁, and once by the Lord. Welch notes that Nephi and Lehi use the title most frequently after Jacob and points out that “after the time of the small plates, this title drops out of Nephite usage—perhaps because the temple service declined in prominence as people knew that its sacrifice merely typified the only meaningful sacrifice—Christ’s—or perhaps because the Nephites, over time, became less inclined to identify personally with a remote and by then unfamiliar land of Israel.” Welch, “Ten Testimonies of Jesus,” 326–27.

[29] This was pointed out to me several years ago by my son Joseph, who was at the time an elementary school student. Joseph had been inspired by President Russell M. Nelson’s invitation to find every reference to Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon. (See Nelson, “Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel,” Ensign or Liahona, November 2018, 69–70.) While doing so, Joseph created a spreadsheet of each title and where it occurred. He discovered that Nephi was much more likely than Jacob to use the word Lord, but that Jacob was much more likely than Nephi to use the word God. I gratefully acknowledge Joseph’s insight as a catalyst for the present study.

[30] This database was created by John Hilton III, Shon Hopkin, Jennifer Platt, Randal Wright, and Jana Johnson. Further details on this database can be found in Hilton and Johnson, “Baptize in the Book of Mormon,” 69n10. The database is available for researchers on the computer program WordCruncher (see https://wordcruncher.com).

[31] Nephi uses the phrase “Lord God” 39 times (1.4 times per 1,000 words spoken), while Jacob uses it 13 times (1.5 times per 1,000 words spoken). Although they use the phrase Lord God with essentially the same frequency, this is not the case with the titles Lord and God. While Nephi and Jacob use the words Lord and God distinctively, it is not clear whether Nephi and Jacob saw these words as having different meanings, or if they simply preferred one word over the other.

[32] Daniel Allington provides additional background to this statistical technique: “In corpus analysis, it is customary to compare word frequencies within the language corpus under analysis with word frequencies within a ‘reference corpus’ considered typical of language use more generally, with log-likelihood generally being considered the best measure of statistical significance. The log-likelihood of a lexical item is referred to as its ‘keyness’, which is customarily treated as a measure of the item’s overuse or underuse relative to its expected frequency of occurrence in the corpus under analysis, taking its frequency within the reference corpus as the assumed norm. Thus, while a log-likelihood of 6.63 is sufficient to indicate significance at the level of p < 0.01, log-likelihood is also conventionally used to compare the relative importance of items within a corpus: the higher the log-likelihood, the more ‘key’ an item’s presence or absence is assumed to be.” Allington, “‘It actually painted a picture of the village and the sea and the bottom of the sea’: Reading Groups, Cultural Legitimacy, and Description in Narrative (with Particular Reference to John Steinbeck’s The Pearl),” Language and Literature 20, no. 4 (2011): 320. I note that most of the distinctive phrases I discuss in this book do not occur with sufficient frequency to merit statistical analysis. In this chapter, one other phrase, discussed below, will be statistically analyzed.

[33] The other four usages are by Nephi₁ (2 Nephi 28:23), The Lord (Mosiah 3:27), Alma₂ (Alma 12:17), and the chief judge of Ammonihah (Alma 14:14) (all one time each).

[34] The other half occur in the words of Jesus Christ (see Mosiah 26:27; 3 Nephi 9:2) and Mormon (Moroni 7:17).

[35] Both Lehi and Jacob talk about the devil himself as an angel (see 2 Nephi 2:17; 9:8). Korihor speaks of the devil appearing “in the form of an angel” (Alma 30:53).

[36] In Mosiah 26:27, Jesus Christ says that those who never knew him “shall depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” This is the only other Book of Mormon reference outside of Jacob’s words that collocates “fire,” “devil,” and “angels.”

[37] The other two are in 2 Nephi 2:8 and Moroni 7:41. Four additional verses that speak of Christ’s “power” in terms of the “resurrection” (without using the specific phrase “power of . . . resurrection”) are Mosiah 15:20; 18:2; Alma 4:14; and 41:2.

[38] The LL for “beloved brethren” between Nephi and Jacob is 17.49. Between Jacob and the Book of Mormon as a whole, the LL for this phrase is 60.8. Speaking probabilistically, this means that it is extremely unlikely that Jacob’s heavy use of this phrase is due to chance.

[39] These words also collocate in Hebrews 12:2.

[40] Green, Jacob, 21.

[41] See 1 Nephi 19:7; 2 Nephi 9:28–29; 28:30; Jacob 4:10; Alma 29:8; 37:12, 37; and Helaman 12:5–6. It is possible that Alma was influenced by Jacob’s words regarding “counsel[ing] in wisdom” (Jacob 4:10; compare Alma 29:8; 37:12). For additional information on later Book of Mormon authors’ use of Jacob, see Hilton, “Jacob’s Textual Legacy,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 22, no. 2 (2013): 52–65.

[42] For more details on Jacob’s use of the word “monster,” see Daniel Belnap, “‘I Will Contend With Them That Contendeth With Thee’: The Divine Warrior in Jacob’s Speech of 2 Nephi 6–10,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 17, no. 1: 20–39.

[43] Two verses later, Jacob explains that “spiritual death is hell” (2 Nephi 9:12). Jacob is the only scriptural author to explicitly equate “spiritual death” with “hell.”

[44] The phrase chains of hell appears six times in the Book of Mormon and is nearly unique to Alma (see Alma 5:7, 9–10; 12:11; 13:30). Ammon uses it one time in Alma 26:14.

[45] The phrase “death and hell” appears six times in the 2013 edition of the Book of Mormon: four times in Jacob’s words and twice in Nephi’s (see 2 Nephi 28:23, where the phrase comes twice in quick succession). Royal Skousen suggests that one of the phrases attributed to Nephi is a duplicate and was not present in the earliest text. If Skousen is correct, this makes Jacob’s use of this phrase even more unique. Given that Nephi’s writings in 2 Nephi 28 take place after Jacob’s sermon in 2 Nephi 9, it is possible that Nephi is drawing on Jacob’s words. See Skousen, “Some Textual Changes for a Scholarly Study of the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies Quarterly 51, no.4 (2012):107–108.

[46] Royal Skousen suggests that both Jacob 6:13 and Moroni 10:34 should read “pleading bar.” But given Jacob’s unusual penchant for using the word “pleasing” and the fact that he never uses the word “pleading,” it is certainly possible that “pleasing bar” is in fact the correct reading and that Moroni was alluding to Jacob’s words. For further discussion see Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part Two: 2 Nephi 11–Mosiah 16 (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2005), 1047–52.

[47] See Hilton, “Jacob’s Textual Legacy,” 52–65.

[48] On a personal note, my first encounter with Jacob’s words came when I was ten years old. While I was certainly not wicked, I could be quite mischievous at times. One Monday night we had a family home evening and read from 2 Nephi 9. Jacob’s teachings regarding fire, brimstone, and hell motivated me to make some changes. I am not suggesting that I was an evil ten-year-old, nor that the best reason to be righteous is fear; I am simply illustrating in a personal way the influence Jacob’s words can have.