Since its publication in 1830, many have wondered
who wrote the Book of Mormon.
Believers claim it was written by ancient prophets.
Skeptics often assume Joseph Smith or an associate
wrote it.
In order to shed light on this issue,
several studies have relied upon a type of statistical analysis called stylometry.
Stylometry measures linguistic patterns
and can identify an author's unique writing habits.
It has most famously been used to help answer
questions about texts with disputed authorship,
such as the Federalist Papers and some of
Shakespeare's plays.
Over the past few decades,
various stylometric
studies have been conducted on the Book of  Mormon.
A 1980 study was the first.
By measuring patterns of function words,
it concluded that the Book of Mormon has multiple, distinct authorship styles,
and that none of these styles match the writing habits of Joseph Smith or his associates.
Another study in 1990
used a different measurement called word-pattern ratios.
It largely agreed with the previous study,
concluding that the Book of Mormon was indeed "multiauthored,
with authorship consistent to its own internal claims."
Then, in 2008,
another study utilized a statistical
method developed for genomic testing.
It concluded that the Book of Mormon's literary
style most closely matches writing samples
from Solomon Spaulding and Sidney Rigdon.
This study, however, contained at least eight errors,
including that it didn't allow for the possibility
that the text could have been written by anyone but the study's selected 19th century authors.
The most recent work in 2011
corrected these errors
and introduced a way to determine if  the text was written by an author outside of the group of selected candidates.
With these adjustments in place,
Sidney Rigdon and Solomon Spaulding each had a 0% likelihood of writing the Book of Mormon.
Joseph Smith fared little better at 3%.
In contrast,
the chance of it having been
written by one or more authors not included in the set
turned out to be 93%.
Thus, the 2011 study
offers a third stylometric study which contradicts theories of 19th century  authorship.
In light of the above studies,
it can be responsibly
concluded that the Book of Mormon's internal claims
about its authorship are consistent
with the best stylometric evidence currently available.
It should be understood, though,
that stylometry cannot prove that the Book of Mormon was written  by ancient prophets.
What it can reliably demonstrate is (1)
that the Book of Mormon was written in multiple, distinct authorship styles,
(2) that these
distinct styles are consistent with the authors
designated within the text itself,
and (3)
that none of the proposed 19th century authors
including Joseph Smith himself
have writing styles that are similar to those found in the Book of Mormon.
And now you know why
