Zosimus

If King Benjamin was the first to formulate it, then he wouldn't have done it by merging 1 Corinthians and Romans. The simpler explanation is that Rev Boston did the merging, Edwards borrowed from him a year later, and then Joseph wrote it into Mosiah 3:19.

Boston's sermons with both phrases had been republished in New York in 1811 by Evert Duyckinck, who coincidentally also published Anthon's Classical Dictionary, which IMO was another source for Book of Mormon narrative elements

Very funny, after you posted this I also looked up "plan of salvation" in Google Books and one of the same books that came up for my search on "natural man is an enemy to God" popped up again. Both phrases are in one text: Human nature in its four-fold state by Rev. Boston (1735) Plan of salvation is in there three times, and it looks like Wesley lifts his passage from Boston almost verbatim Boston: "Every natural Man is an Enemy to God, as he is revealed in his Word. An infinitely holy, just, powerful, and true Being, is not the God whom he loves, but the God whom he loaths. In effect, Men naturally are Haters of God..." Wesley: "Every natural man is an enemy to God, as he is revealed in his word, — to an infinitely holy, just, powerful, and true Being. In effect, men are naturally 'haters of God'..."

Also variations found in a sermon by Jonathan Edwards in 1736, and then published within America MEN NATURALLY GOD'S ENEMIES. AUGUST, 1736. SERMON, VII. "A natural man is as full of enmity against God."

WW Phelps was an editor of one in nearby Canandaiga. Phelps has a lot of telling phraseology that gives away his learning. He certainly had access to books, journals and editorials from all over the country, and Europe. Phelps read the Book of Mormon just 3 days after it was published and a year later was called to "to head printing and publishing for the Church" I think we often overlook that much of the unique theology in Mormonism was developed after 1830, when Joseph was swimming in theological, philosophical and political conversations, and lots of print

That was my first thought, but George's journal has far more detail, such as: "When the spies first began to question us, it was observed that they picked out the greenest looking fellows in the Camp to quiz. As I was only 16, very large of my age, my eyes weak and naturally deficient of sight, wore a pair of striped bed-tick pantaloons, which were worn off on the inside, nearly up to my knees on account of my interfering as I walked, my straw hat having been smashed by accidentally sitting on it in the tent, Joseph invited me to throw myself in a position to answer such questions; and on passing through the towns I generally fell somewhat in the rear cutting a sorry figure which naturally singled me out — on the principle that children and fools always tell the truth. In this way I had many amusing conversations with inquisitive strangers. I tried to treat them with kindness and urbanity, but presume very few of them gained much information by talking with me." And if History isn't sourcing the account from GAS, then I don't know where else it would be coming from

Yes, the George A. Smith journal is nearly word-for-word, so it must come from there, with the [as I was called] insertion added later. The question would be when did the editors gain access to George A. Smith's journal? He was only 16 during Zion's Camp, and it seems he is writing much of it from memory after the fact.

As Weebles mentioned, it is also in the A1 volume of the History of the Church, which was partly dictated and edited by Joseph Smith. The George A. Smith account published later is almost word-for-word, so the History of the Church version must have been taken from his journal? There is an insertion in the paragraph that attributes the account to Joseph Smith, suggesting the editors (if not Joseph himself) intended the account to be first person: After reading the full entry, I am surprised that the camp was not making an effort to fool the attendees into thinking they were a camp full of liberal freethinkers. They served sacrament to all attendees, and it was only Joseph's speech that was not related to a Christian topic like baptism or free grace or restorationism. It was Joseph who decided the topic and the speaker, so I wonder why Joseph chose to speak on liberal freethinking, when he could have given himself any topic he wanted. Makes me think either, 1. he was very comfortable with the topic, or 2. he wanted to communicate ideas that resembled liberal freethinking. I suppose there are other options, but those two seem most logical to me

The footnote in the Bushman article is confused or wrong. But found it here

I don't think we know the names of any other local youth who participated the debate club. There were the Lapham brothers, Increase Lapham (b 1811) went on to become an accomplished antiquarian and scientist. He was the first to excavate the burial mounds of Aztalan, Wisconsin, thought to be the location of the Aztec homeland at that time. So at some point he was able to become one of the leading experts on the moundbuilders. His brother Fayette would interview Joseph Smith Sr. in 1829. But they were a few years after Joseph and moved around a lot, so they don't fully represent the learning available to a young man in Palmyra in the 1820s. There's also Luther Bradish, who at the time Joseph would have been participating in the debate club, was traveling deep into Egypt/Sudan and was riding camels into Jerusalem and Syria before continuing on through Europe to Scandinavia. Bradish wasn't in Palmyra between 1820 and 1826, but since his parents lived in Palmyra at the time, I imagine his travels were closely followed and discussed by the locals. Bradish would of course become the first to give his opinion on the transcript of the gold plate characters. It was possible for a young man from Palmyra to access the outside world. That account was not Turner's, it was George A. Smith, Joseph's first cousin (source)

Turner was clear, he thought Joseph was lacking in intellect and ambition. Which makes it all the more convincing when he admits Joseph had enough intellect to help solve questions at the debate club, and that he had enough ambition and skill to very passably exhort on theological topics at the camp meetings. Portentous had a more specific meaning between 1830s and 1850s. This is how Turner used the word in a different context in the same book: "In 1786, '7, a boy, I saw the Revolutionary fathers in their primary assemblies. The scene was solemn and portentous! They found their common country without a constitution and govern- ment, and without a union. The supposed oppressive measures of an adjoining State had so alarmed the people of a portion of it, that open resistance was made for self-protection, and the protection of property." Source Regardless of any intended sarcasm, Turner is saying that Joseph Smith participated in discussions of topics that would have certainly required some overlap with texts that were sitting right there on the shelves of the print shop and of the old red school house on Durfee Street. I find it unthinkable that Joseph Smith wouldn't have picked up any of those books, and even if he didn't, that he didn't ponder deeply the questions others were discussing at the debate society. It raises another question. If Moroni had been instructing Joseph Smith on so many topics from theology to the ancient inhabitants of the Americas since 1823, then wouldn't Orasmus Turner have seen some of that learning sneak though? Why would Joseph be able to tell so many wonderful things to his family about the ancient inhabitants of America, but then Turner didn't notice anything remarkable? I think Turner was actually impressed by Joseph, and was simply underselling his intellect and ability

You think its far out that young boys are meeting at a debate society to discuss articles from a dictionary about the religions of the world that they found in the local iibrary? When exactly did Joseph learn enough much about freethinking deism to convince two to three hundred people over the space of an hour that he was one of the greatest reasoners they had ever heard? We need to explain where he picked up all that knowledge. I seriously doubt he was reading Paine, Hume and Volney after he restored the Gospel. I seriously doubt Moroni taught him enough freethinking deism that he could convince hundreds of people that he was one. The simple answer is, as one of the most respected Mormon scholars argues, he learned it while discussing books like Hume, Paine and Volney at the debate club. If those books were known to the youth at the club, why couldn't they also know the books like Dictionary of all Religions and Travels of Cyrus which were available at the Manchester Library? Both these books were widely circulating and popular. How is this far out?

the tool I’m referring to is simple, you load a pdf of a book into it and ask questions about the contents, and discuss in more detail the responses. In a similar way,Joseph would have been able to ask questions to people who had read the books in the Manchester Library, and then discuss in more detail the responses. It seems like this is exactly what would have been happening in the debate club on Durfee Street when Joseph was helping to solve moral and ethical questions being discussed Good example of how I imagine things played out. Lucy mentioned in her account that the neighbors accused them of stopping their farm work to win the Faculty of Abrac. Her response was something like the family did in fact endeavor “to remember the service of & welfare of our souls”, but not to the neglect of their farm. So let’s say Joseph spent the majority of his day working on the farm and then set an hour or two of his day to learning more about Abrac. He would go to Durfee Steet to discuss such questions. Let’s say someone at the club had checked out Hannah Adam’s Dictionary of All Religions at the nearby Manchester Library. They could have shared that Abraxas was the chief angelic spirit of a vast multitude of beings in the religious system of Egyptian Christians in the second century. These beings then formed a heaven for their own habitation and brought forth other beings of a slightly inferior nature. Then someone could say, hey, that sounds like the doctrine of order out of chaos I read about in Ramsay’s Travels of Cyrus down at the Manchester Library. Then they could debate whether or not angels and spirits preexisted and whether or not beings and creation emanated out of God, or were created out of nothing Joseph could then take those learnings back to the farm and ponder them for several hours while working in the fields Also, Lucy doesn’t say Joseph couldn’t read, only that he was less inclined to reading than his siblings. My sense is he preferred to do things like solve questions “of a religious nature” (as Lucy phrased it) from discussions he’d have at places like the debate club, and then ponder them in deep study, as Lucy herself suggests

He's referring to his mother's intellect shining through feebly, not to his public speaking skills. Also Orasmus Turner's account is hostile, so we should expect some effort to continue portraying Joseph in a negative light. When he says "Joseph had a little ambition", it feels to me like he's underselling Joseph's ambition, in line with the previous sentence portraying Joseph as being "lounging, idle, (not to say vicious,) and possessed of less than ordinary intellect" In any case, Joseph went from being a "very passable exhorter" able to help solve "portentous questions of moral or political ethics" to "one of the greatest reasoners" the crowds around Zions' Camp in 1834 had ever heard. The dictation of the Book of Mormon occurred at some point along that spectrum

"But Joseph had a little ambition, and some very laudable aspirations; the mother's intellect occasionally shone out in him feebly, especially when he used to help us to solve some portentous questions of moral or political ethics, in our juvenile debating club, which we moved down to the old red school-house on Durfee street, to get rid of the annoyance of critics that used to drop in upon us in the village; amid, subsequently, after catching a spark of Methodism in the camp-meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road, he was a very passable exhorter in evening meetings." Source If we consider Joseph's (with Moroni's instruction) ability to entertain his family with stories of ancient civilizations alongside his (without Moroni's instruction) public speaking abilities on theology, free-thinking, moral and ethical issues, we're pretty close to understanding how he would have been able to dictate the text of the Book of Mormon.