Book of Mormon References, D&C 84:57, and Ezra Taft Benson

A few weeks ago, I posted about the top referenced scriptures at General Conference. This week I wanted to continue that with a few graphics showing the top referenced books of scripture (New Testament, Old Testament, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price), and look at the impact of Ezra Taft Benson on Book of Mormon references in General Conference.

Below is a graph showing the relative frequency with which each book of scripture is referenced in general conference talks from 1971 to 2013. Data comes from BYU's LDS scripture citation index and is grouped by decade.

The main change in the graph over time is the increase in Book of Mormon references in the 1980s. To get more detail on the change, the graph below shows the percent of Book of Mormon references by year. This additional detail shows that a sharp increase occurred over the years 1984 to 1986.

What changed in 1984? I believe it was spurred by Elder Ezra Taft Benson's October 1984 talk "A New Witness for Christ". In this talk Elder Benson opened with the following words:

My beloved brethren and sisters, for some years now I have been deeply concerned that we are not using the Book of Mormon as God intends.

As I participated in the Mexico City Temple dedication, I received the distinct impression that God is not pleased with our neglect of the Book of Mormon.

In the eighty-fourth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord decreed that the whole Church was under condemnation, even all the children of Zion, because of the way they treated the Book of Mormon. “And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent,” said the Lord, “and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon.” (D&C 84:57).

 This was not the first time Elder Benson had made strong declarations regarding the Book of Mormon (see April 1975 conference, "The Book of Mormon is the Word of God"). However, it seems that the message of the 1984 talk had a strong impact--at least to speakers at general conference. Over the next few years this message was emphasized by Ezra Taft Benson as he served as President of the Church.

The timeline below shows references to D&C 84:57 from 1971 to 2013 by all speakers. Clearly, Ezra Taft Benson had a strong repeated emphasis of "remember[ing] the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon" throughout the mid-80s.

Although President Benson's emphasis on the Book of Mormon is well known, it is interesting to see the quantifiable impact of his emphasis. If the data on Book of Mormon references in General Conference is representative, then his influence was not just a flurried spike of activity over a few years, but a lasting influence into the future.

Sunday School Lesson Scripture Network

I was asked to substitute for a youth Sunday School class today. The topic for March in Come Follow Me was on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. One of the outlines was on what the scriptures teach about the atonement. I came up with a scripture network related to the Topical Guide topic Jesus Christ, Atonement through, and printed out a large copy. The class started at the center and traced a line out to a scripture of their choice. We would read the scripture and discuss it, and then follow it to another connecting topic and a subsequent connecting scripture. We would then discuss how those scriptures were connected and what they taught us about the atonement. The youth gave some insightful comments and we had some good discussions about how to connect and find patterns in the scriptures. One of my favorite comments was at the beginning when a young man said, "Well, those aren't all the scriptures about the atonement." We agreed that a chart with all the scriptures related to the atonement of Jesus Christ would probably be unreadable.

Top 12 Scripture References in General Conference

What scripture is cited the most in General Conference? Thanks to the LDS Scripture Citation Index, we can answer that question. I looked at the scripture citations in General Conference from 1971 to 2013 (the latest date provided in the Citation Index). Here's the Top 12 list by verse:

Moses 1:39 is the most-referenced verse of scripture. It gets a total of around 180 references, or about two references per general conference. The other scriptures drop off to a total of around 100 references per scripture, or about one reference per general conference.

How do these scriptures relate to each other? Below is a scripture network which looks at the interconnections between scriptures and their respective topical guide references. For example, Matt. 25:40 and Matt. 22:39 are connected by the topical guide category of "Neighbor." Matt 22:39 and D&C 121:45 are connected by the topical guide entry "Charity." The colors provide a visual guide for seeing connections, but you might see things grouped together a little differently. I can think of the following connecting topics:

Plan of Salvation
Restoration
Covenants
Commandments
Love/Charity

How do these scriptures connect together for you? Down below I have the scripture verses displayed so you can read them over.

Scripture references (note: over half are seminary Scripture Mastery scriptures):

Moses 1:39 
For behold, this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

JS-H 1:17
It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!

Mosiah 18:9
Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life

Mosiah 3:19
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

D&C 121:45
Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

Matt. 22:37
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Matt. 22:39
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Matt. 11:28
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

D&C 20:77
O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.

Matt. 25:40
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

2 Ne 31:20
Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

Moro 10:32
Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

Top 20 Words of President Monson

As a follow-up to last week's blog on the Top 20 Words of President Benson, this week's post will be the "Top 20 Words of President Monson." Using similar methods to last time, I created a histogram of the top 20 words used by President Thomas S. Monson with the 100 most common words in the English language (i.e. "Standard Lexicon") removed. The percent occurrence of each word is illustrated by the gray bars in the graph. In the same graph, I've plotted the percent occurrence that those same top 20 words occur when you subtract the percent occurrence of the average general authority (i.e. "General Conference Lexicon"). These are given in the light blue bars.

As might be expected, the words god, lord, church, Jesus, and Christ are in the top. However, compared to the average general authority conference talk, President Monson uses those words less frequently. To be clear, those are still in the top twenty for President Monson, they are just diluted by the many other words that he uses. For example, President Benson's top word was church, and it has ~0.55% occurrence. President Monson's top word of god occurs with just under 0.3% occurrence.

Why the discrepancy? My interpretation is that President Monson has a wider diversity of words than the average general authority, and thus his top-used words occur less frequently because they are diluted by his linguistic diversity. Comparing President Monson to President Benson, President Monson has ~15,000 unique words in all of his talks from 1971 to 2015, whereas President Benson has ~8,000 unique words in his set of talks. Hmm...perhaps a future post can consider word diversity among different general authorities.

Now let's look at what President Monson's top twenty words are compared to the average general authority. The graph below shows the top twenty words when the percent occurrence has the average % occurrence of all general authorities subtracted out. In other words, it's taking the blue bars from the graph above and reordering them. The next graph shows the same top twenty words, but compares the relative percent increase (i.e. President Monson's percent occurrence divided by the average percent occurrence, minus 100%)

Looking at these words, we can come up with some interesting comments about President Monson's topics and speaking style. For example, President Monson's top words compared to other general authorities in absolute percent occurrence is president and brother. I was a little puzzled by this at first. Does president refer to the president of the church, to President Monson, to the president of the United States? Does brother refer to the brotherhood of man, his own brother, Brother so-and-so, or what? After looking at a few examples of both word usages, I came to the conclusion that president and brother are largely used as the name-titles President and Brother. 

As an example, you can look at the word tree below from the talks of President Monson from 2011 to 2014:

Most of the instances using the word president refer to President Somebody. The same pattern occurs with brother. [Follow this link and you should be able to create your own word tree from President Monson's 2011-2014 talks].

Anyone familiar with President Monson's style of speaking knows that storytelling is an integral part of his talks. Thus the use of the name-titles President and Brother are consistent with stories of individuals. Similarly, in President Monson's top 20 list, the words each, years, ago, (think "years ago..."), city, where, ever, came seem particularly applicable to recalling specific accounts and happenings. The occurrence of the word Monson even fits into this category because he of necessity refers to his own actions or conversations with others--usually referring to himself as "Brother Monson."

Other themes that I draw from the top twenty words are:

• Ministering to individuals: each, service, priesthood, hand, courage (see The Service That Counts)
• Home and family: mother, home (see Hallmarks of a Happy Home)
• Church meetings: general, conference (e.g. Welcome to Conference)

I was confused by the words proposed and manifest, though. Why would proposed be used 350% more often than the average general authority, and manifest 200% more? Then I looked at the examples and found that over the course of President Monson's service as a counselor in the First Presidency, he has said "It is proposed that we sustain..." and "All in favor, please manifest..." many, many times!

In addition to looking at words that were used most frequently, I found it interesting to look at words that were used infrequently. For example, the word repent has only been used 4 times by President Monson in general conference from 1971 to 2015. Although he clearly teaches people to repent, improve, and change their lives, apparently you are not likely to hear President Monson directly proclaim "Repent!" Instead, he'll say something like:

May we return to our homes with a resolve in our hearts to be a little better than we have been in the past. May we be a little kinder and more thoughtful. May we reach out in helpfulness, not only to our fellow members but also to those who are not of our faith. As we associate with them, may we show our respect for them. (Closing talk of 2014 October General Conference)

I also found it interesting to find words that President Monson used only once, and that no other general authority used at conference from 1971 to 2015. To finish up, here is a list of a few of the many words that you can only find once in the conference archives--and that once is by President Monson. See if you can find them (exact word forms only!):

• ascertained
• auctioned
• avocados
• bachelor
• Beatles
• billboard
• blogging
• bobbed
• caboose
• canine
• clown
• dentistry
• humanities
• periscope
• snuck
• sombrero
• Tylenol
• ukuleles
• vaccines
• vagrant
• vendors
• viewer
• wastebasket
• Wheaties

Top 20 Words of Ezra Taft Benson

For this blog post, I wanted to do something related to Ezra Taft Benson, since we are studying out of the manual Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson for 2015. One visualization method I've been playing around with lately is an Excel-based word histogram tool. Basically, you add a text to an Excel document and then the tool counts up each word to see how many times it's used in a text.

Using some basic web scraping, I downloaded the texts for all LDS General Conference talks from 1971 to 2014. I then separated out the talks given by Ezra Taft Benson from 1971 to 1989. I then did a word histogram analysis on the 139,000 words used in those talks to see which words he used most frequently. And the result was...

the, of, and, to, in, a, that, is, we, you...

Hmmm...not very informative on President Benson (I'll refer to him as President Benson, even though I'm also including talks he gave as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve). It turns out that President Benson's  most commonly used words match up pretty well with the most commonly used words in the English language. For things to get a little more interesting, we have to take out the most common words in the English language. Below is a histogram showing the frequency of President Benson's top 20 words (out of ~139,000) when the hundred or so most common words in the English language (aka the "Standard Lexicon") are removed.




A little more interesting, huh? The top word used is church, followed by God, Lord, Christ, book, Mormon, Jesus, etc.

Are there insights into the themes of President Benson's talks from this graph? Perhaps. However, what if these top twenty words are just the standard words used by all general authorities in their general conference talks? In other words, how do we differentiate the words that President Benson used in particular versus the standard "General Conference Lexicon"?

To address that question, I did a histogram analysis of all conference talks from 1971 to 2015. That's about 3,400 talks and roughly 6.2 million words. As you might imagine, it took a good Sunday afternoon plus a few Excel crashes to get it all processed. The result is very interesting, though. It turns out that President Benson does use very similar words to other general authorities. However, by subtracting the percent frequency occurrence of the words in an average general authority talk from the words used by President Benson, you start to get some insightful results. Below is a graph showing the same list from above after subtracting the general conference frequency.



It turns out, that among President Benson's top 20 words, some are standouts, while others are not. For example, church, God, Lord, Christ, book, and Mormon are all used with a higher frequency than the average general authority, with book and Mormon standing out the most. And while Christ is used more frequently, Jesus is used slightly less frequently. President Benson clearly preferred the more formal name Christ over the more familiar name Jesus.

Looking at the remainder of the list is somewhat interesting, but things get more insightful if we re-sort the list to contain the top 20 words after subtracting the General Conference Lexicon. Here's a graph showing the re-sorted list:





Now we're getting to the gold! Both book and Mormon take the cake in % frequency as compared to other general authorities. The word book occurs 519 times and the word Mormon occurs 432 times in his talks. The combined phrase Book of Mormon appears 401 times in his texts, indicating that book and Mormon are really just a slightly inflated indicator of the frequency with which President Benson referred to the Book of Mormon. President Benson's reputation as an advocate for the Book of Mormon comes from his vehement endorsement in talks such as The Book of Mormon--Keystone of Our Religion or The Book of Mormon Is the Word of God. However, the histogram indicates that he consistently referred to the Book of Mormon throughout his ministry.

After book and Mormon, the words God, church, Lord appear at a higher frequency. Apparently President Benson made frequent mention of these already commonly used words. Looking for additional topics, there are words related to family life (home, family, fathers) and government (states, earth, constitution, land, government). With these topics combined, you can see President Benson's emphasis on "God, Family, Country." Other notable top 20 words include Joseph & Smith, mission, and pride. President Benson's talk Beware of Pride contributes more than half of his usage of the word pride, but it would still be on the "more frequent" list even without that seminal talk.

The graph above shows the absolute frequency of occurrence, but what about the relative frequency of occurrence? The graph below shows the ratio increase of the words above. In other words, not only did President Benson use the words book and Mormon 0.3% more on an absolute usage basis than the average general authority. However, those words are at a ratio of 4 times (400%) more. From this view, the word constitution stands out as being used 2000% or 20 times more frequently than the average general authority. Although constitution was not the most frequently used word by President Benson, the use by the average general authority is rare. The result being that President Benson uses it at a much higher ratio.



What word shows up when you re-sort the % increase list? Interestingly, it is the word communism. Apparently the word communism occurs in conference talks from 1971 to 2015 about 21 times, 17 of which are in talks by President Benson. In case you're wondering, the other 4 occurrences are by Dallin H Oaks, Loren C Dunn, Bruce R McConkie, and Harold B Lee, each with one mention of the word communism.

What are some of your favorite talks by Elder/President Benson? Any notable words you remember from those talks?