In 2nd Nephi 26-27 for instance, Nephi manages to reproduce the first half of Isaiah 29, in order, within a much longer discourse by inserting phrases here and there. As a small example of that, see how Isaiah 29:3-4 (highlighted in bold) is dispersed into 2nd Nephi 26:15-16.
“After my seed and the seed of my brethren shall have dwindled in unbelief, and shall have been smitten by the Gentiles; yea, after the Lord God shall have camped against them round about, and shall have laid siege against them with a mount, and raised forts against them; and after they shall have been brought down low in the dust, even that they are not, yet the words of the righteous shall be written, and the prayers of the faithful shall be heard, and all those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not be forgotten.
For those who shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of the ground, and their speech shall be low out of the dust, and their voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit; for the Lord God will give unto him power, that he may whisper concerning them, even as it were out of the ground; and their speech shall whisper out of the dust.”
If you say Joseph Smith just made up and dictated things like this with his face in a hat, I don’t think the argument that the “Book of Mormon is pretty ordinary” holds. If that is not displaying knowledge of Biblical literacy, I don’t know what is.
These connections fascinate me for many reasons, not the least of which is that they escalate the degree of difficulty in producing the Book of Mormon text. Keep in ind that there is no historical evidence of Joseph using notes or revising the dictated text in any significant way prior to publishing the first edition of the book. Thus any claim that he must have been working from prepared notes is nothing more than unsubstantiated conjecture.
In other words, the author of the Book of Mormon must have had a lot of notes and a lot of time. Joseph Smith had neither. (Another growing list.)
