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Did Joseph Smith’s Bible Translation Borrow From Adam Clarke? The JST and a Nineteenth-Century Commentary

Recent Latter-day Saint scholarship has argued that portions of Joseph Smith’s Bible revision show hundreds of parallels with Adam Clarke’s influential Methodist Bible commentary. Other LDS scholars dispute the extent and significance of the dependence. The evidence does not justify the slogan that the entire JST was plagiarized, but it does complicate any model in which its revisions are…

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Joseph Smith’s revision of the Bible occupies an unusual place in Latter-day Saint thought.

It is commonly called the Joseph Smith Translation (JST), but Joseph did not work from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts in the ordinary way a modern translator does. He revised the King James Bible while claiming inspiration, sometimes making small wording changes and sometimes adding large blocks of new material.

That already means “translation” has to be defined carefully.

A newer historical question makes the issue even more interesting:

Did Joseph use Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary while making some of his revisions?

Who was Adam Clarke?

Adam Clarke was a prominent Methodist scholar whose multi-volume Bible commentary was enormously influential in the English-speaking Protestant world.

His work discussed:

  • Greek and Hebrew;
  • textual variants;
  • history and geography;
  • grammar;
  • alternative translations;
  • and theological interpretation.

It was exactly the kind of learned biblical resource available in Joseph Smith’s nineteenth-century environment.

Thomas Wayment and Haley Wilson-Lemmon compared the JST with Clarke and argued that they found roughly two hundred to three hundred places where Joseph’s revisions appear to draw on Clarke’s commentary.

That claim came from scholars working inside the broader Latter-day Saint academic world, not merely from an anti-Mormon tract.

What kind of parallels are being claimed?

The argument is not simply:

“Clarke and Joseph sometimes explain the same Bible verse similarly.”

That would prove almost nothing.

The more significant cases involve places where Clarke proposes a particular clarification, wording, textual judgment, or grammatical interpretation and the JST then makes a corresponding change.

Wayment has argued that the influence becomes especially visible in portions of the New Testament revision.

BYU Studies summarizes the proposal candidly and notes that Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon see Joseph using Clarke for historical questions, textual questions, wording clarification, and theological nuance.

The claim is disputed

This is essential.

Kent P. Jackson and other Latter-day Saint scholars have challenged the proposed dependence, arguing that some parallels are weak, obvious, coincidental, or explainable by common biblical reasoning.

Therefore the responsible conclusion is not:

“Scholars proved Joseph copied Clarke 300 times.”

The number depends on criteria for what counts as a meaningful parallel.

Some examples are much stronger than others.

The historical question is cumulative: is there a pattern sufficiently specific and concentrated to make literary influence more likely than coincidence?

Wayment and his collaborators answer yes. Critics of their analysis argue that the evidence has been overstated.

Why would using Clarke matter?

Using a commentary is not immoral.

Christian pastors and scholars use commentaries every day.

Joseph himself encouraged learning “out of the best books.” There is no theological rule saying a prophet cannot learn from a scholar.

The issue concerns what the JST is claimed to be.

If a specific revision is presented as restored ancient biblical text, but the wording can be traced to an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Protestant commentary, the restoration claim becomes harder to maintain for that revision.

The same change might still be spiritually insightful.

But “inspired interpretation” and “restored wording once present in the ancient manuscript” are not the same claim.

LDS views of the JST are already more flexible than critics assume

Modern Latter-day Saint scholarship frequently emphasizes that the JST had several functions.

Joseph may have:

  • restored material;
  • clarified doctrine;
  • modernized language;
  • harmonized passages;
  • supplied inspired commentary;
  • or used the Bible as a catalyst for revelation.

This broader model handles Clarke more easily.

If the JST is partly prophetic commentary on Scripture, then using scholarly input does not automatically falsify the project.

But it comes at a cost.

The more flexible the category becomes, the harder it is to cite any given JST change as evidence that Joseph supernaturally recovered a lost original reading.

A restoration claim needs evidence that distinguishes restoration from interpretation.

Compare the manuscript question

Suppose Joseph adds or changes a passage and there is no Hebrew, Greek, Dead Sea Scroll, Septuagint, early Christian, or manuscript evidence supporting the proposed lost wording.

If the same idea is also found in a commentary Joseph could access, the simpler historical explanation becomes obvious.

That does not logically rule out revelation.

God could reveal something through a commentary.

But once again, the theological explanation cannot function as independent historical proof.

This is different from JST Genesis 50

The site already treats JST Genesis 50 as a self-authenticating addition because Joseph’s revision introduces a prophecy about a future seer named Joseph.

The Adam Clarke question is different.

It is not primarily about Joseph inserting himself into Scripture.

It is about method.

Did Joseph’s revision process combine revelatory claims with normal nineteenth-century scholarly resources?

If so, the JST looks less like recovery of a lost ancient Bible and more like a nineteenth-century prophetic revision of the Bible Joseph already possessed.

The strongest LDS response

An informed Latter-day Saint can say:

Joseph never claimed every JST change came from a lost manuscript. Revelation can incorporate study. Doctrine and Covenants itself commands seeking wisdom from good books. If Clarke helped Joseph identify a better reading, that is compatible with inspired revision.

That is a serious answer.

But it changes the apologetic use of the JST.

One cannot simultaneously insist that a change is evidence Joseph restored ancient text and then, when a modern source appears, retreat to “translation only means inspired commentary” without providing a criterion for distinguishing the categories.

Final Verdict

The Adam Clarke evidence does not justify saying that Joseph Smith plagiarized the entire JST, and the extent of dependence remains debated among Latter-day Saint scholars. Nevertheless, the parallels are substantial enough that the older picture of every revision arriving independently by revelation is difficult to sustain.

If Joseph used a contemporary Methodist commentary, the JST may still be defended as religious interpretation. What it cannot credibly be treated as, without ancient manuscript evidence, is a straightforward restoration of wording lost from the Bible. The Muslim-style move of postulating a corrupted earlier text is no substitute for textual witnesses.

This matters to the restoration claim: borrowing nineteenth-century scholarship while presenting revisions as inspired recovery fits ordinary modern composition better than unique prophetic access to the apostolic text. The Clarke evidence is not the whole case against Joseph Smith, but the LDS defense does not restore the evidential force often claimed for the JST.

Key Sources

Topic: Mormonism