does it read like metal plates?

[_Tarski]

Imagine you were going to write down the most important record for your civilization. Suppose further that you have to engrave the record on metal plates making it almost impossible to edit things.
I am sure you would think about each sentence before you wrote it. Engraving is hard work and you are under pressure to get it just right since it is all so sacred. Plus, space is precious since it costs in metal and has ramifications in terms of weight (poor Joseph will have to be running though the woods with it).

You would want to say things in the most efficient way without rambling or repeating yourself (one wouldn't want the record to be 10 times bigger than necessary.) You will pause and think before you start pounding away on the unforgiving metal.

Now open up the Book of Mormon and read. Does that sound like a concise way of writing?

Of course, I am not the first or the last to notice this.

Have you ever noticed that when typing up a post on a message board it is easier to just extend sentences with clarification rather than rewrite the sentence (using phrases like "in other words")?
This is how people speak and even write in conversational situations but not how people write when there is pressure to be succinct and precise.

Almost nothing in the Book of Mormon sounds like a record engraved on metal (metal!). It sounds more like someone spinning a tale out loud while trying to sound biblical but being forced to modify or clarify on the fly. Sometimes it is difficult to explain exactly why it feels that way but other times it is just so obvious:

For the things which some men esteem to be of great worth, both to the body and soul, others set at naught and trample under their feet. Yea, even the very God of Israel do men trample under their feet; I say, trample under their feet but I would speak in other words--they set him at naught, and hearken not to the voice of his counsels.

This is according to the account of Nephi; or in other words, I, Nephi, wrote this record.

What the heck?

And because he said unto them that Christ was the God, the Father of all things, and said that he should take upon him the image of man, and it should be the image after which man was created in the beginning; or in other words, he said that man was created after the image of God, and that God should come down among the children of men, and take upon him flesh and blood, and go forth upon the face of the earth

And it came to pass that they took him; and his name was Nehor; and they carried him upon the top of the hill Manti, and there he was caused, or rather did acknowledge, between the heavens and the earth, that what he had taught to the people was contrary to the word of God; and there he suffered an ignominious death.

I say unto you, Nay; except ye make our Creator a liar from the beginning, or suppose that he is a liar from the beginning

There are just tons of examples even forgetting the interminable parade of instances of "it came to pass that".

Even the first sentence of the book seems drawn out and clumsy.
How about I give the first verse a try. Here is Nephi's introductory verse.

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

My version:

I, Nephi, had good parents who taught me a few things. I have suffered some but God has favored me and given me godly wisdom. This is my record.

Really there is no need to mention the fact that I Nephi am making a record since that is kind of obvious. In fact, how important is it for Nephi mention that he was taught the learning of his fathers?

Better yet.

I Nephi am righteous. Here is my story.

Even better:

I am Nephi and...

[_jon]

Except Joseph didn't get the Book of Mormon from the engravings on the plates. He got them from a stone in his hat - and as you know, there's loads of space in a magic stone...

[_consiglieri]

If the job fell to me, I, Consiglieri, being taught by my parents to take the easiest and most effective way of accomplishing what the Lord had commanded me, would write everything out on bark or in the sand or something perishable and cheap; and only then would I copy it onto the metal plates.

Don't know if that helps, but there it is.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_Buffalo]

I remember being bothered by this as a homodox Mormon. It's funny how many things bother you as a believer, but you shake them off and put them on the shelf. They add up, though.

[_Tarski]

If the job fell to me, I, Consiglieri, being taught by my parents to take the easiest and most effective way of accomplishing what the Lord had commanded me, would write everything out on bark or in the sand or something perishable and cheap; and only then would I copy it onto the metal plates.

Don't know if that helps, but there it is.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

I'd probably slow down and say twice as much in half the space and also cut out the self righteousness faux humility.

Here is another:

wherefore, he that is not condemned, or he that is under no condemnation

[_Chap]

They had to write like that in order to make sure that there was plenty of room for all that chiasmus, so that we could be sure that the Book of Mormon was really an ancient text written by people familiar with Hebraic literary forms.

Better that they should get cramps in the wrists than that you should dwindle in unbelief.

[_Tarski]

Maybe Nephi and the other prophets were just having giddy fun. It's just a little inside humor. It is rather entertaining in a way to talk like that exactly when it makes no sense to do so:

Indeed, and for sure, as I, Tarksi (son of a good and righteous Mormon bishop), write out this message, or as I type this message into my computer to be more precise, yes, even as I type this sentence into my Mac I should say, well, my Mac at work (is this Mac mine in any sense I wonder? Who knows.), I feel a kind of wandering freedom, even a sense of liberty, license or latitude, to verbally meander as if my sentence, yes even my run on sentence, or my words or thoughts need not come to a finish, close, or termination at any time or temporal location in the near or even distance future or, as one might put it, I find that as long as I continue running out the sentence, (and I will do the same on the level of paragraphs), without touching down, then I will have plenty of time or space to concoct or search out some point to this unplanned, shot in the dark sentence which was clearly started before I had any idea where I was going (and, come to think of it, "where am I going?" I wonder) or for what real purpose did I Tarski (son of a good and righteous Mormon bishop) set out to ..........

[_Pollypinks]

Would you say the plates weighed roughly around 300 pounds, and that Joseph was not the beefiest guy in the fields? How far did he have to carry them, and then carry them back, lest somebody see them? Was there a soothsayer to provide relief to his back after he did the aformentioned?

[_Dantana]

I have no idea how many letters are in the "Reformed Egyptian" alphabet, but maybe it was a manageable number for Nephi to craft some form of stamp, or even a crude typewriterhammer.....outfit. Yeah, I bet that's it! Problem solved.

[_Chap]

The sheer implausibility of the rambling and repetitious style of much Book of Mormon prose, supposed to have been laboriously graven on precious metal plates to be preserved for posterity, is one of the many things that lead one to that luminous insight enunciated by Sethbag (and here I quote from memory):

Mormonism not only is not true. It's obviously not true.

The whole art of LDS apologetics is to distract people from arriving at this wonderful and (for many it appears) liberating perception.