Textual Critisim is a scholary analysis and attempt to recreate the original text. Even relativley modern manuscripts like Joseph Smith's English translation of the Book of Mormon can go through changes. For instance the Book of Mormon had Joseph Smith's manuscript, the printer's manuscript and then multiple editions. Each of these offered a chance for accidental and deliberate changes to the text.

Royal Skousen has documented these alteration in his work: Analysis of textual variants of the Book of Mormon BX 8622.1 .Sk58a 2004

by Donald W. Parry, Jeanette W. Miller, and Sandra A. Thorne

Note:

While this resource is still available as described an improved version is available at http://atom.lib.byu.edu/scriptures

A bibliography of 6,300 items, including books, articles, reviews, pamphlets, some creative pieces such as plays and poetry, substantive newspaper articles, and selected theses and dissertations on the Book of Mormon. Covers scholarship regarding the Book of Mormon from 1830 - 1993 (with an unannotated addendum which spans 1994-1995).

The entire published work is available online at the Maxwell Institute's website. To use the work, first go to the Index which is an alphabetical list of topics all on one page, scroll or Ctrl-F search the page for your topic. For example here is the entry for "record keeping":

record keeping
B.566         P.051         P.083         P.216         P.340         R.479         S.236         S.641         W.167         W.227         W.290

Each of the coded identifiers represent an annotated entry in the bibliography. Back on the main page you can click on the letter corresponding to the entry you want to view, in this case letter B for the first one. These pages are alphabatized by author, which is the letter in the code, and then numbered. Scroll or Ctrl-F search for the entry B.566

B.566 Bushman, Richard L. "The Book of Mormon in Early Mormon History." In New Views of Mormon History: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington, edited by Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, 3-18. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987. Many scholars have concluded that magic "lay at the heart of nineteenth-century Mormonism," but they overlook the role that the Book of Mormon played in the attitudes of the early Church. Bushman proposes to analyze broad themes in the Book of Mormon and consider how they affected the early Church. Also explains how prominent the theme of record keeping is in the Book of Mormon, and the manner in which whole societies lived, perished, and were restored based on record keeping. The importance of records and their translation greatly affected the Church, especially Joseph Smith who was constantly occupied with translating records. [B.D.]

Other articles and books written by Richard Bushman are listed above and below.

The bibliography is also available in print BX 8601 .C7379 1996

The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies (1992-2008) is a peer-reviewed journal, in 2009 the title was changed to Journal of Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture (2009-present)