A side-by-side comparison of the Book of Mormon and Covenant of Christ texts is now up and available to see. It is located at this link found on the CovenantofChrist.org website: Read text of both.
The original text appears first, and the new version appears next. All the text of both books are now there for a comparison review.
The objective of the effort in this new version was not to rewrite the book into smooth and flawless modern English, but was only to restate the text in a way that a modern English reader would comprehend the material. Therefore, the modern English text is only directed at accomplishing that singular objective: to be stated in a way that can be understood.
It was apparent to me while working from the original that the middle English translation by Joseph Smith was an actual translation from a language other than English. The syntax, phrasing, grammar and entire structure continually suggested that there was another language used to record the original. Joseph Smith was turning that into something akin to King James English.
Because some of the structure in the original version was very difficult to untangle the thought as rendered in the text, occasionally the text had to be reorganized. Therefore some of the verses (used by the LDS) were rearranged to make it understandable for a modern reader. When that happened the verse numbers that are part of the text are shown in the rearranged text as originally numbered in the LDS version. This is why sometimes verses are numbered out of order in the rearranged and restated text.
Every verse of the original remained part of the restated text. Nothing was omitted. Nor was anything changed in meaning from the original with only a few exceptions. Because the Lord provided assistance, some of His assistance clarified the text and the Lord’s clarifications were adopted in the new version.
There was a protocol adopted of using capitalization for pronouns referring to God. That was done to allow text that refers to “he” and “him” to be distinguished between “He” referring to the Lord and “he” referring to Lehi, or some other man. That protocol was adopted in order to make the text better understood and thereby eliminate ambiguity.
Finally, readers should bear in mind that the original contained NO punctuation when Joseph Smith finished the translation. All the punctuation was provided by John Gilbert, an employee of the EB Grandin printshop. Some punctuation remains, some have been reordered to clarify text and eliminate what I’ve referred to as “Trinitarian commas” in a talk I gave some time ago. Those adjustments were to make the text read in a way that conformed to the Lectures on Faith.
Minimalist punctuation was deliberate. It allows a modern reader to confront the text without imposing too much on how it ought to be read. If you have a pencil, you can punctuate it as you please. But what is important is that there is a clear text that reliably covers the material in a way you can better understand it. That alone was the objective.