Mosiah 2:3

King Benjamin's speech, given in approximately 124 B.C., has much similarities to nineteenth century revival meetings that Joseph Smith attended. -Vogel, Making of a Prophet, pp. 147-162.

Captain Frederick Marryat wrote, as cited in Uncommon Americans, "The camp was raised upon...a piece of tableland...at one end... was a raises tand, which served as a pulpit for the preachers...Outside of the area, which may be designated as the church, were hundreds of tents pitched...In front of the pulpit was a space railed off...which I was told was the anxious seat... girl after girl dropped down upon the straw on one side, and men on the other... Every minute the excitement increased; some wrung their hands and called for mercy..."

Famous nineteenth century revival preacher, Charles G. Finney, described the response from attenders in the following way: "I had not spoken to them... more than a quarter of an hour when all at once an awful solemnity seemed to settle down upon them; the congregation began to fall from their seats in every direction, and cried for mercy... nearly the whole congregation were either on their knees or prostrate..." -Charles G. Finney, Memoirs of Rev. Charles G. Finney, p. 103.

LDS historian B. H. Roberts noted, "It will not be necessary to further repeat the scenes, nor describe again the manner of these 'religious' manifestations. It is clearly established now that these scenes of religious frenzy were common in the vicinage where Joseph Smith resided in his youth and early manhood... The question is, did his knowledge of these things lead to their introduction into the Book of Mormon narrative? I think it cannot be questioned but where there is sufficient resemblance between the Book of Mormon instances of religious emotionalism and those cited in the foregoing quotations from the works of Edwards et al. to justify the thought that the latter might well have suggested and indeed become the source of the former." -B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, ed. Brigham D. Madsen (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), p. 308.

"According to the law of Moses, the firstlings of their flocks were never offered as burnt offerings or sacrifices. All firstlings belonged to the Lord, de jure, and could not be counted as a man's personal property—whereas, all burnt offerings, or sacrifices for sin of every kind, must be selected from the man's own personal property, or be purchased with his own money for that purpose, while all firstlings of the flock, as the Lord's property, came into the hands of the high priest, and by him could be offered up as a peace offering, not as a burnt offering or a sin offering, himself and family eating the flesh. (See Ex. 13:2, 12 and 22:29, 30; Numb. 3:13; 2 Sam. 24:24; Numb. 18:15-18..)." —M. T. Lamb, The Golden Bible; or The Book of Mormon, Is It From God? (New York: Ward and Drummand, 1887), 109–110.

Lamb and other critics cite Mosiah 2:3 as evidence that the author misunderstood Israelite sacrificial law. On this reading, the passage reflects confusion regarding Jewish ceremonial practice and thus suggests a non-Jewish origin for the text.

LDS scholar Matthew Roper, a research associate with the Maxwell Institute and author of "A Black Hole That's Not So Black," disputes this interpretation. He argues: "First, while firstlings, as we currently understand their use in ancient Israel, were probably not offered as the olah or burnt offering in ancient Israel, as Anderson notes, 'It would not be accurate to say that the requirements for the burnt offering, peace offering, and reparation offering were rigidly fixed; there was room for variability...' While apparently not used for the burnt offering, firstlings could and frequently were used along with other animals in the sacrificial peace offering. The Book of Mormon correctly states that the Nephites brought their firstlings to the temple to be sacrificed, for firstlings clearly were sacrificed at the temple." —Matthew Roper, "A Black Hole That's Not So Black," Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6, no. 1 (1994).

Roper is correct that firstlings could be used in the peace offering. Nevertheless, a straightforward reading of the passage appears to suggest that the firstlings themselves were being used for "sacrifice and burnt offerings." Because the verse lacks clear detail and contextual clarification, its precise meaning remains uncertain.

For this reason, the passage may be too ambiguous to serve as decisive evidence either for or against the Book of Mormon’s familiarity with Jewish sacrificial law. Both critics and defenders may therefore wish to exercise caution in relying heavily on this verse when assessing the book’s authenticity in relation to ancient Israelite practice.