Studies of the Book of Mormon

Studies of the Book of Mormon is a collection of essays written at the beginning of the 20th century (though not published until 1985) by B. H. Roberts (1857–1933), a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which examine the validity of the Book of Mormon as a translation of an ancient American source.

Roberts "served in the innermost circles of Mormonism" and for decades "used his great oratorical and writing skills, as well as his scholarly and research abilities, to defend the Book of Mormon and give it intellectual respectability." According to Brigham Young University professor Marvin S. Hill, controversy over the book "has focused not upon the historical issues which Roberts raised but rather on whether or not he lost his testimony of the book and the church."

Critics of Mormonism claim that Roberts lost his belief in the Book of Mormon after completing the study, even though he continued to publicly affirm the divine origin of the book. According to religion writer Richard N. Ostling, Mormon apologists were faced with one "of the most delicate situations" after publication of the book and "went into high gear" to make responses to it because "Roberts could not be dismissed as an outsider or an anti-Mormon."

In the early 1920s, Roberts was asked by the First Presidency of the LDS Church to develop an apologetic to explain difficulties in the Book of Mormon, such as the lack of Hebrew or Egyptian vestiges in the languages of the Native American peoples and such historical anachronisms in the Book of Mormon as mentions of horses, oxen, wheat, and steel swords in ancient America.

Roberts also compared the Book of Mormon with Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews (1823), published five years before the Book of Mormon. Smith, a Vermont clergyman, drew on, what were at the time, commonplace ideas about the relationship of the Hebrews and the American Indians. Not only did Smith's work go through many early editions, but Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith's scribe and one of the Three Witnesses to the golden plates, grew up in the Vermont town where Ethan Smith pastored the church and where Cowdery's mother and half-sisters were members. According to religion writer Richard Ostling, "it is probably safe to assume that Joseph Smith was familiar" with Ethan Smith's book.