Joseph Smith Plagiarisms Discovered by BYU Student Haley Wilson Lemmón | Ep. 1338

Introduction

Haley Wilson Lemmón enrolled at Brigham Young University to deepen her faith. Instead, her undergraduate research uncovered evidence of Joseph Smith plagiarism that challenges the foundational story of Mormon scripture. Working with classical studies professor Thomas Wayment, Lemmón documented how the Prophet relied heavily on Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary, a Methodist reference work published in 1824, while producing the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.

The discovery did not involve a single borrowed phrase or theological coincidence. Lemmón identified hundreds of parallel passages where Smith's "translation" follows Clarke's interpretive choices, specific wording, and even the commentator's doubts about biblical authorship. For a church that teaches the JST represents the restoration of ancient biblical text through divine means, the implications cut to the core of prophetic authority.

Background: The Project That Changed Everything

Lemmón came to BYU as a committed believer, fresh from a mission in Panama and fluent in biblical languages. She had already confronted difficult academic material, including the Documentary Hypothesis and Q Source theories, without losing her footing. When Wayment proposed comparing digitized manuscripts from the Joseph Smith Papers project against Clarke's commentary, Lemmón assumed she would find minor correlations at best.

The standard correlated narrative presents the JST as a miraculous restoration. According to church