Big New York firm to publish LDS text

After 174 years of publication and 120 million copies, the Book of Mormon is about to mark another milestone.

Doubleday in New York will become the first major trade publisher to produce an official, commercial edition of the book considered the keystone of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The hardcover edition of "The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ," will be available in bookstores Nov. 16 and sell for $24.95.

Doubleday first approached LDS-owned Deseret Book about the edition. The matter was referred to the First Presidency, the highest governing body of the church, for consideration. A contract between the church and Doubleday is expected to be finalized soon.

"The Mormon faith has become one of the largest in America," Doubleday Religion Division vice president Michelle Rapkin said. "We're proud to be the first publisher to bring this vitally important work to bookstores across the country and to add it to our outstanding library of authorized religious texts."

The Book of Mormon is considered the foundational religious text and scripture for 12 million Latter-day Saints who regard it as a companion volume to the Bible.

Doubleday and LDS officials have worked for more than a year on this project, ensuring that the text remains faithful to the authorized edition already used by church members and missionaries.

The new hardcover edition will reflect design changes introduced by Doubleday to make the volume more easily read and understood by a non-LDS audience, but it will remain faithful to the text itself.

For example, the new edition will not include the exhaustive cross-references and index included in the volume used by church members, and footnotes have been eliminated. A special seven-page Reference Guide will be included to help orient readers who are less familiar with the church.

Jan Shipps, a professor emeritus of history and religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, has studied Mormonism for 45 years. She said this new publication effort means the Book of Mormon is becoming more universal, like the Bible.

"This reflects that the (LDS) church is the sixth-largest church in the nation," she said.

Strictly speaking, Shipps said this isn't the first non-church publication for the Book of Mormon. The University of Illinois Press also printed "The Book of Mormon: A Reader's Edition," edited by Grant Hardy and designed for non-LDS scholars, in 2003. It does include footnotes and is not like the Doubleday effort.