The Book of Mormon
Joseph Smith Jr. (translator; LDS tradition: ancient American prophets) (1830)
“Published in Palmyra, New York, in March 1830, the Book of Mormon is the founding scripture of a distinctly American religion — claiming to recover a thousand-year record of ancient Israelite migrations to the Western Hemisphere, Christ's post-resurrection visit to the Americas, and the eventual destruction of the Nephite civilization at the Hill Cumorah.”
Similar Books
Thematic connections across eras and genres — books that talk to each other.
The Bible
Various Authors
Primary stylistic and theological source; the Book of Mormon is written in sustained KJV pastiche and positions itself as complementary scripture to the Bible
The King James Bible
Translators commissioned by King James I of England
The specific translation the Book of Mormon's prose mimics; the italicized-addition issue directly links the two texts textually
The Quran
Muhammad (traditional attribution)
A parallel case of new scripture founding a new religious movement; comparison illuminates how new scriptures establish authority, recruit adherents, and generate community across different historical moments
The Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Contemporary (1848) foundational text of a new movement, published just nine years after Smith's death; comparing movement-founding texts across religious and political genres illuminates what texts do for movements
Walden
Henry David Thoreau
Near-contemporary American text (1854) emerging from the same broad Second Great Awakening spiritual ferment; Thoreau's Transcendentalism and Smith's Restoration represent two different American responses to denominational Christianity
Pilgrim's Progress
John Bunyan
Earlier (1678) narrative in biblical-inflected English from a religious-revival context; provides a generic antecedent for religious-narrative prose in English