We'll review 2024 in the next four days.
Tuesday: Joseph Smith Papers
Wednesday: Translation and other developments
Thursday: Critics
Friday: The Rational Restoration and looking forward
_____
The Joseph Smith Papers project concluded this year with a conference in September that I attended. President Oaks announced a new biography of Joseph Smith will be written. The proceedings are available here:
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/articles/2023-joseph-smith-papers-conference-registration
A nice overview of the project was published in the Deseret News here:
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2023/12/22/24012203/joseph-smith-prophet-18000-page-monument
The Joseph Smith Papers are an essential resource for anyone interested in Church history. The documentation is impeccable and comprehensive. I encourage everyone to become familiar with the Joseph Smith Papers website.
Most of the editorial commentary is outstanding. The notes provide useful, relevant historical background for the original documents and show relationships among documents and sources that aid in interpretation and understanding.
But, as I've noted before, there is an unfortunate and undisclosed editorial bias throughout the papers. In the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, I discussed that bias with respect to Volume 5 of Revelations and Translations in a paper I posted on academia.org.
https://www.academia.edu/67756647/Agenda_driven_editorial_content_in_the_Joseph_Smith_Papers
While I hope that the errors produced by the bias will eventually be corrected, to date it has not been. Recently I updated that paper. I'm posting the update below for convenience.
_____
Agenda-driven
editorial content in the Joseph Smith Papers
Review
of The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 5: Original
Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, eds. Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen
(Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2021), 755 pages.
Abstract: This volume is a monumental
achievement. The eagerly awaited publication of high-resolution images of the
extant pages of the Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, with detailed
transcripts, enables students of the Book of Mormon to explore the earliest
text for themselves. The volume editors, Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen,
also edited the equally impressive Volume 3, parts 1 and 2, which contained the
Printer’s Manuscript. The bulk of Volume 5 consists of the documents and
transcripts, which speak for themselves. Appendixes (226 pages) provide
additional images and information. All of this is excellent. The 16-page Volume
5 Introduction provides historical context about the discovery, translation,
and usage of the material. However, the editorial content in several instances
impedes an objective analysis because the editors have manipulated the
historical record to reflect their own editorial positions on controversial
topics, specifically the manner of translation and the historicity of the
narrative of the Book of Mormon. A future addendum, or perhaps revisions in the
digital version of this volume, could alleviate these problems by providing a
more comprehensive and accurate historical context for understanding the
Original Manuscript.
_____
Students of the Book of Mormon have long anticipated Volume 5
of Revelations and Translations, the Original Manuscript of the Book of
Mormon. The volume expertly fulfills its principal objective, as set out on
the website:
“The Joseph Smith Papers Project
is an effort to gather together all extant Joseph Smith documents and to
publish complete and accurate transcripts of those documents with both textual
and contextual annotation.”
The transcripts of the outstanding facsimile reproductions of
the extant pages of the Original Manuscript are clear and easy to follow. The
captions at the upper right of each page enable readers to rapidly locate the
passages according to the current LDS versification, but oddly do not indicate
the page number in the 1830 edition. Adding the RLDS (CofC) versification would
have been helpful for students from that tradition.
As expected, the Volume contains an introduction and
footnotes, pursuant to the policy set forth in the Joseph Smith Papers website
“The print volumes include rich
annotation, including series and volume introductions, a full source note and
historical introduction for each document, and textual and contextual
footnotes.”
Such annotation is appropriate because the historical context
for these documents is somewhat complex and obscure to modern readers. As a
publication of the Church Historian’s Press, readers understandably assume that
the editorial content will present, or at least accommodate, faithful Church
narratives.
But there are multiple faithful Church narratives. Favoring
one over another does a disservice to readers, particularly where alternative
faithful narratives are suppressed by manipulating the historical record.
This volume, like several other volumes of the Joseph Smith
Papers, is impaired by unstated but obvious editorial agendas. One would expect
a review process to compensate for editorial bias, but that has not been the
case, perhaps because the reviewers share the same agendas.
The volume editors, Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen,
also edited Volume 3, parts 1 and 2, which contained the Printer’s Manuscript.
Royal Skousen has been widely recognized as the preeminent
scholar of the text of the Book of Mormon. For decades he has studied the text
in both the Original and Printer’s Manuscripts, offering numerous insights. His
factual research and presentations are exemplary. However, he has presented
controversial opinions and theories based on his subjective interpretations of
the facts. While everyone is entitled to an opinion, promoting one’s opinion by
manipulating historical sources is unworthy of scholarly work such as the
Joseph Smith Papers—especially when the bias is not presented for readers’
consideration.
Skousen’s views as they affect Volume 5 impact two separate
topics: Book of Mormon historicity and the source of the words Joseph Smith
dictated.
Skousen
has separately written a comprehensive scholarly series titled
The History
of the Text of the Book of Mormon, including several parts, published by
BYU
Studies and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS).
FARMS and BYU Studies have long promoted the “limited
geography” Mesoamerican/Two-Cumorahs (M2C) theory of Book of Mormon geography. As
of this writing (January 2022), BYU Studies still features study aids
that promote M2C, including “Ten Essential Features of Book of Mormon
Geography”
that present Mesoamerica as the only possible setting, and maps showing Cumorah
in southern Mexico
and Book of Mormon sites in Mesoamerica.
John (Jack) Welch, one of the founders of FARMS, was the
Editor-in-Chief of BYU Studies from 1991 to 2018. In 2016 he co-founded
Book of Mormon Central (BMC), which heavily promotes M2C.
One manifestation of the BMC agenda is its
adoption of the FARMS Logo. The logo depicts the four languages of the
scriptures: Hebrew for the Old Testament, Greek for the New Testament, Egyptian
for the Book of Abraham, and Mayan for the Book of Mormon.
The FARMS logo is printed on the title page of each volume of
Skousen’s History of the Text of the Book of Mormon.
FARMS publications, like BMC publications, promote M2C to the
exclusion of other possible settings for the Book of Mormon—particularly
settings that incorporate the New York Cumorah as described in Church history
documents. As will become apparent in this paper, the editors of Volume 5
resorted to unusual editorial methodology to accommodate M2C in the face of
historical documents that establish the New York Cumorah.
Regarding the second topic—the source of the words Joseph
dictated—Skousen has explained that, in his opinion, Joseph Smith did not
translate the plates. For example, in Volume XX, he wrote, “
More recently, Skousen has explained that he not only rejects
the claim that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to produce the text we have
today, but he believes Joseph and Oliver intentionally misled the world about
the translation.
“Joseph Smith’s claim that he
used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s
statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the
scribe appear to be intentionally misleading.”
At a minimum, the editors of Volume 5 should alert readers to
their biases in favor of M2C and SITH. Ideally, they would do so while
acknowledging alternative interpretations of the same historical facts,
including interpretations that corroborate what Joseph and Oliver claimed.
These editorial biases are not limited to Volume 5. Examples
can be found in the editorial annotations, notes and commentary throughout the
Joseph Smith Papers, both in the printed versions and the online material.
Unless and until the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers
address this pervasive problem of editorial bias, readers will continue to be
deprived of the full range of information they need to make their own informed
decisions.
The rest of this paper gives examples of the editorial bias
in Volume 5, citing original material in bold typeface, followed by
analysis.
Analysis
as of December 27, 2021. Original in blue,
my comments in purple
Page
xi
In the earliest hours of 22 September 1827, Joseph Smith
left his parents' home in Manchester, New York, with his wife Emma and traveled
a few miles to a nearby hill.
You
can see the cited page in Lucy's History here: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/112.
The
earlier version of Lucy's history is here: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/60.
The
passage says nothing about where Joseph and Emma went that night, let alone
that they "traveled a few miles to a nearby hill." An accurate
footnote would be placed after "Emma" in this sentence. Instead, the
editors misleadingly put it after "nearby hill."
Why
would careful editors commit such an obvious error? Perhaps the answer has to
do with where we get the information about the "nearby hill" this
sentence refers to.
The
phrase "nearby hill" appears nowhere in Lucy's histories, but she did
explain that (i) the hill was 3 miles from their home and (ii) between their
home and Manchester. Her explanation supports the idea that the
"hill" was "nearby," but the JSP editors never quote or
cite these passages because in both of them, Lucy explicitly identified the
hill as Cumorah.
The
JSP editors have collaborated with the M2C scholars to accommodate M2C by
employing terminology that is not in the historical record and avoiding
quotations of (or even citations to) the actual record.
Lucy
described the proximity of the hill in the passage that the M2C scholars refuse
to quote or cite, but we can all read it right in Lucy's own history when she
related what Moroni told Joseph during his first visit:
the
record is on a side hill on the Hill of Cumorah 3 miles from this place
remove the Grass and moss and you will find a large flat stone pry that up and
you will find the record under it laying on 4 pillars <of cement>—
then the angel left him
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/41
We
see from Lucy's account that Cumorah was only 3 miles from the Smith home,
which can reasonably be described as "nearby." But others might think
"nearby" connotes a distance much less than 3 miles. Why use the
ambiguous term "nearby" when we have an actual historical account of
the distance? And why not cite Lucy's specific statement instead of citing a
passage that doesn't even mention the hill?
If
you go to that link, you'll see that the JSP editors have lined this passage
out of the transcript, even though we can all see it is not lined out on the
original manuscript. An accurate transcript could show the blue marks that the
editors apparently assumed were equivalent to a line-out. Instead, they imposed
their editorial line-out.
Another
passage from Lucy about the "hill" shows its proximity to the home,
but the JSP editors never quote or cite this one, either.
Lucy
related that one day in early 1827, Joseph went to Manchester on an errand. He
was late coming home. He explained that he had received a severe chastisement.
His father became angry and wanted to know which of the neighbors was involved.
Joseph replied (and Lucy put this in quotations):
“Stop,
father, Stop.” said Joseph, “it was the angel of the Lord— as I passed by the
hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel of the Lord met me and said,
that I had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord; that the time had
come for the record to <be> brought forth...
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/111
We
see from Lucy's account that Joseph and his family already knew the name of the
hill before he even translated the plates, and that the hill was located
between Manchester and the family home. This account corroborates what Moroni
told Joseph; i.e., that the hill Cumorah was 3 miles from the Smith home.
The
JSP editors should not omit these informative, relevant and authentic
historical accounts, particularly when they do so to present their own theories
as fact.
He later recounted that while at the hill, he unearthed a
set of “plates of gold," whose existence had been revealed to him four
years earlier by an angel.
If
you search the Joseph Smith Papers for the phrase "plates of gold,"
you get 12 results.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/search?query=%22plates%20of%20gold%22&sort=relevance&page=1&perpage=10&startdate=&enddate=&transcripts=false&issuggestion=false&types=documents-papers|documents-papers-histories|documents-papers-revelations-and-translations|documents-papers-documents|documents-papers-introductions|documents-papers-administrative|documents-papers-journals|related-materials|biographical-directory|geographical-directory|glossary|event
Not
one of these mentions a hill:
He
told me also of a sacred record which was written on plates of gold. I
saw in the vision the place where they were deposited.
After
being warned several times, he went to the spot and found the record engraved
on leaves or plates of gold fastened together by rings passing through
one edge of all the leaves
he
revealed unto me that in the Town of Manchester Ontario County N. Y. there was plates
of gold upon which there was engravings which was engraven by Maroni his
fathers the servants of the living God
he
told me of a sacred record which was written on plates of gold, I saw in
the vision the place where they were deposited, he said the indians, were the
literal descendants of Abraham
He
told me also of a sacred record which was written on plates of gold. I
saw in the vision the place where they were deposited. He said to me the
Indians were the literal decendants of Abraham.
To
learn the plates were deposited in a hill, we have to go to Lucy Mack Smith,
but the JSP editors won't tell readers that because in those statements Lucy
explained the hill was called Cumorah by Moroni himself. Instead, they refer to
the hill and quote "plates of gold" as if the same source provided
both elements.
To
be sure, Lucy's 1845 history includes an insertion from the 1842 Times and
Seasons that refers to a hill of considerable size "Convenient to the
village of Manchester..." But "convenient" does not mean
"nearby." We rely on Lucy's accounts, as well as Letter VII, to learn
that the hill was actually nearby. But the JSP editors won't explain their
sources to their readers.
Readers
should also know that the 1842 Times and Seasons account was composed by
Joseph's scribes several years after Letter VII had already established that
the Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 is the same hill where Joseph found the plates.
Letter VII was republished in the 1841 Times and Seasons as well so that
readers of the 1842 Times and Seasons already knew the hill that was
"convenient to the village of Manchester" was named Cumorah
anciently.
Because
of this misdirection by the JSP editors, even "engaged learners" who
read this volume 5 of the Joseph Smith Papers are kept in the dark about all of
this actual history.
During his first encounter with the angel, Smith saw in a
vision the location of the plates and was told that they contained an ancient
record that God intended to bring forth to the world.
Here
again, the editors omit Lucy’s explanation that Moroni told Joseph the name of
the hill during this first encounter.
When Smith attempted to acquire the plates after the
angel's first visit, the angel informed him that he must wait to receive them
and should return to the same spot annually for further instruction. Finally,
in 1827, Joseph Smith was allowed to take possession of the plates.
Within two and a half years of obtaining them, he had produced a manuscript and
published the Book of Mormon, an account of ancient inhabitants of the Western
Hemisphere.
This
is revisionist history that should have no place in a historical volume. If the
editors insist on editorializing instead of presenting accurate history, they
should clearly explain what (and why) they are doing.
The
term "Western Hemisphere" is a modern construct. It has been applied
to Church history to obfuscate the actual accounts and to accommodate the
Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory.
If
you search the Joseph Smith Papers for the term "western hemisphere,"
you'll see that there are zero historical documents related to the Book of
Mormon that use this term.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/search?query=%22western%20hemisphere%22&sort=relevance&page=1&perpage=10&startdate=&enddate=&transcripts=false&issuggestion=false&types=documents-papers|documents-papers-histories|documents-papers-documents|related-materials|biographical-directory|geographical-directory|glossary|event
Instead,
we find the JSP editors using the term to editorialize in their commentary:
Moroni,
Smith was to learn, was the last in a long line of prophets in the Western
Hemisphere who had written their story, just as the prophets in Palestine
had written the Bible.
In
his description of the Book of Mormon, Orson Pratt superimposed his
understanding of Book of Mormon geography onto the Western Hemisphere by
placing the Nephites in South America and the Jaredites in North America.
The
actual history, which the JSP editors never quote or cite out of deference to
M2C, is far more specific:
I
was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country,
and shown who they were, and from whence they came... The remnant are the
Indians that now inhabit this country.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/church-history-1-march-1842/2
See
also https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/latter-day-saints-1844/3
He
then proceeded and gave a general account of the promises made to the fathers,
and also gave a history of the aborigenes of this country, and said they
were literal descendants of Abraham.... He said this history was written and
deposited not far from that place, and that it was our brother’s privilege, if
obedient to the commandments of the Lord, to obtain and translate the same by
the means of the Urim and Thummim, which were deposited for that purpose with
the record.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/68
Using
the term “Western Hemisphere” as if it was a historical term discredits the
credibility of the editorial content throughout the Joseph Smith Papers.
A little over a decade after the publication of the Book
of Mormon, the manuscript was deposited in the cornerstone of a boardinghouse
then being built in Nauvoo, Illinois. When the manuscript was retrieved several
decades later, it had sustained significant damage from water seepage.
What was left of the manuscript was parceled out to various individuals in the
final decades of the nineteenth century.
This volume of The Joseph Smith Papers features what
remains of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon dictated by Joseph
Smith. Of the nearly 500 pages that were placed in the Nauvoo House
cornerstone, portions of 232 pages survive, amounting to roughly 28 percent of
the text. Some of what remains is badly faded, obscured, or otherwise damaged.
This volume presents photographic and typographic facsimiles of each Book of
Mormon fragment that can be identified and placed among the other leaves or
fragments. This presentation allows researchers unprecedented access to the
earliest text of the Book of Mormon.
The transcripts and annotation in this volume rely upon years of earlier work
by volume editor Royal Skousen as part of the Book of Mormon Critical Text
Project. This volume adds to
Page xii
that work by presenting high-resolution photographs of
every page or identifiable fragment of the manuscript.
The statement of editorial method on page xxvii herein provides a description
of the differences between the transcription approach used in this volume and
the approach followed in Skousen's earlier work.
Joseph Smith and his contemporaries often spoke of his
work dictating the Book of Mormon text from the plates as a divine or
miraculous “translation.”
The
use of scare quotes here tells readers not to read the term literally or in its
ordinary sense. The editors share an opinion that Joseph didn’t translate the
plates in any normal sense of the word.
Smith and his supporters testified that his ability to
translate was a gift from God, which allowed him to dictate in English the text
of an ancient history written in a forgotten language, even though he had no
scholarly training.
When mentioning the translation process, Joseph Smith
stated on several occasions that he had translated the Book of Mormon “by the
gift and power of God."
While
technically accurate, the quoted phrase omits Joseph’s references to the Urim
and Thummim such as “Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated
the record by the gift and power of God.” and “being translated by the gift and
power of God by the use of the Urim and Thummim.”
The
editors don’t explain why they omit the Urim and Thummim when the mention the
translation process, but we can infer one reason is the widespread belief among
LDS scholars that Joseph did not use the Urim and Thummim. One of the editors
of this volume, Royal Skousen, has declared that, in his opinion, “Joseph
Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and
Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he,
Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading.”
Skousen’s
bias permeates the editorial content of this volume of the Joseph Smith Papers.
If anyone directly involved in the translation described
it in a contemporaneous diary, letter, or other record, that documentation has
not been discovered. Though in this same period Joseph Smith dictated
revelations that addressed the translation process, he presented those texts as
containing the thoughts and words of God on the Book of Mormon translation,
rather than his own.
Smith himself never gave a detailed account of the translation, [this is the
logical fallacy that the absence of any record of a detailed account means
Joseph never gave such an account] and all the available historical sources
describing the process are imperfect [no historical source can be perfect]—some
are later recollections of those who participated in or observed the process,
others are rumors that were reported shortly after the translation, and still
others are secondhand accounts, preserved either in documents from the time
period or in later reminiscences.
[Even people claiming to be eyewitnesses did not
distinguish between what they actually saw, what they assumed they saw, what
they inferred, and what they heard from others.]
Such sources are incomplete in part because Smith was
assisted by at least seven scribes, meaning that he himself was the only person
present for the entire translation.
Because elements of the process—including the use of an instrument, the
location of translation work, and the scribe assisting Smith—evidently changed
over time, a witness who observed the translation only at a certain point in
the process would be unable to describe what the process looked like at other
stages. Nevertheless, the contours of Joseph Smith’s translation process can be
discerned by studying the accounts of Smith and his associates and by comparing
their assertions against one another's and against the evidence in the original
manuscript itself.
[We need to also consider the context and other factors
that may have motivated the witness testimony.]
p. xiii
Translation Begins
Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, recorded that her
son acquired the plates in the early morning of 22 September 1827.
Joseph Knight, a friend and early supporter, reported that Joseph Smith spoke
that same morning of plates “writen in Caracters" and of his desire that
they be translated. Knight also remembered the troubles that arose after Smith
obtained the plates: "He (Smith) was Commanded not to let no one see those
things [the plates].... But many insisted and oferd money and Property to see
them [.] But for keeping them from the Peopel they persecuted and abused them
(the Smith family) and they ware obliged to hide them."
Many people in rural New York in Joseph Smith's time believed they could
exercise supernatural power—to find buried treasure, for instance through the
use of seer stones or divining rods or through prescribed rituals.
Joseph Smith spent time in his youth digging for treasure with neighbors and
friends, and many of his former treasure-digging associates felt they had a
claim to the plates.
[Notice
the changed editorial treatment that reflects editorial bias. In this
paragraph, Lucy “recorded” and Knight “reported” and “remembered,” but the last
two sentences are reported as fact. An accurate, unbiased narrative would
observe that some sources reported that Joseph dug for treasure.
Neighbors in Manchester and nearby Palmyra, New York, made
“the most strenious exertions" to steal the plates from Joseph Smith.
[Throughout
this introduction and the Joseph Smith Papers themselves, the editors accept
Lucy Mack Smith’s account as accurate and factual except whenever Lucy’s
account contradicts the editors’ opinions and theories. The Cumorah example is
notorious, but there are other examples as well.]
If Smith tried to translate the plates in Manchester
during the final months of 1827, that activity is lost to history. According to
family and friends, his main focus at that time was protecting and hiding the
plates from those who sought to steal them.
Eventually, the disruptions proved too great to bear; in late 1827, he and Emma
moved about 150 miles southeast to live near her family in Harmony Township,
Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, where he could focus on translating the
ancient record.
Once in Harmony, Joseph Smith began studying the plates
closely. He recalled in 1832 that his Palmyra neighbor Martin Harris arrived in
Harmony and said that God "had shown him that he must go to new York City
with some of the characters” from the plates. Smith and Harris “proceeded to
coppy some of them and he [Harris) took his Journy to the Eastern Cittys.”
Smith recalled years later that when he arrived in
Harmony, he “copyed a considerable number” of characters, along with
translations of some of the characters, and Harris then arrived and took them
to New York City.
[This sentence is out of order
chronologically and again omits the key role of the Urim and Thummim. In his
history, Joseph was not vague about the details of timing and his use of the
Urim and Thummim. “immediately after my arrival there [in Pennsylvania] I
commenced copying the characters off the plates. I copied a considerable number
of them, and by means of the Urim and Thummim I translated some of them,
which I did between the time I arrived at the house of my wife’s father, in the
month of December, and the February following.” (Joseph Smith—History 1:62)
While in New York City, Harris visited scholars who were
skilled with languages. He
p. xiv
met with Samuel Mitchill, a linguist who had studied
several Native American languages, and Mitchill referred him to Charles Anthon,
a specialist in Latin and Greek.
Anthon and Harris gave differing accounts of their
encounter. Harris recalled that Anthon told him that the “translation was
correct," affirmed that the characters were “true characters,” and supplied a
written certificate attesting to that. But when Harris told Anthon about the
characters' origin, Anthon retrieved the note he had just written and tore it
up, “saying that there was no such thing now as ministring of angels.”
Anthon's accounts [more accurately, “accounts attributed to Anthon” because
these are republications of Anthon’s work, not letters in Anthon’s handwriting],
however, suggest that he questioned the document and its origin
story from the beginning and feared Smith was defrauding Harris of his money.
Harris left New York empty-handed, having obtained neither an independent
translation of the characters nor written confirmation of their authenticity.
Nevertheless, Harris returned to Harmony with conviction that the work was
divinely inspired, and he left behind his own family and farm in New York for a
time in order to assist Smith in the translation effort.
Translation in Harmony
After Harris returned to Harmony in April 1828, Joseph
Smith began translating in earnest. He apparently spent about two months
dictating a sizable portion of text.
Emma Smith, Martin Harris, and Reuben Hale acted as scribes for this earliest
portion of the manuscript.
One source states that Harris wrote this portion, while Emma Smith recalled
that she wrote "a part of it.”
Because this portion of the manuscript was later lost, it is impossible to
determine how much each scribe assisted.
Emma Smith and Martin Harris both stated that Joseph Smith
used an object or instrument to assist in translation: he would place the
instrument into a hat and, burying his face in the hat, would peer into the
instrument.
[The
two citations here differ substantially, such that combining them is
misleading. They were 50 years apart. Emma’s purported “Last Testimony” was
published after her death, lacked her acknowledgment, supported the positions
of her son who produced it, and was strongly repudiated with respect to the
polygamy portions, to the point that witnesses in Salt Lake suggested Emma
didn’t say what the testimony claims. The “Golden Bible” citation is a brief
newspaper summary that appears to amalgamate rumors, possibly including what
Martin said, but postdates the translation in Fayette for which Martin was not
a scribe.]
One of the instruments Smith used was apparently a set of
two stones, at times called “spectacles" in early sources, that he said
were recovered from the hill along with the plates.
These spectacles were thought to be the “interpreters” that the Book of Mormon
text says would be preserved
p. xv.
with the plates.
[The
term “apparently” here casts doubt on the explicit statements by Joseph and
Oliver that he translated by means of the Urim and Thummim. Use of the passive
voice (“thought to be”) suggests this was merely a tradition instead of the
express teaching of Joseph and Oliver. The citations to Alma are misleading
because in the Original Manuscript and 1830 editions, Alma referred to directors,
not interpreters. That wording was changed in later editions.]
Decades later, Harris [reportedly] described
these objects: "Two stones set in a bow of silver were about two inches in
diameter, perfectly round. ... The stones were white, like polished marble,
with a few gray streaks.”
Joseph Smith himself described the instrument as consisting of "two
transparent stones.” [The
note cites the Wentworth letter in which Joseph referred to the instrument as
the Urim and Thummim.]
Lucy Mack Smith, who remembered seeing the spectacles
before her son's move to Harmony, gave a description of the instrument that is similar
to Harris's: "2 smooth 3 cornered diamonds set in glass and the glass was
set in silver bows conected with each other in the same way that old fashioned
spectacles are made.”
In the course of the translation, Smith also used a seer
stone that was in his possession before he obtained the plates. [Here
is an example of stating an opinion as fact instead of accurately reporting
what witnesses said and letting readers decide for themselves.]
Both the spectacles and the seer stone were at times
called interpreters, and the biblical term Urim and Thummim was later used to
refer to both instruments as well.
[This
is another example of stating an opinion as fact instead of accurately
reporting what witnesses said and letting readers decide for themselves. This
one is especially egregious because it is based not on contemporary historical
accounts but on later speculation by modern scholars, such as the cited paper
by Mark Ashurst-McGee who is the Senior Research and Review Editor of the
Joseph Smith Papers (an example of the citation cartel). The note cites Oliver
Cowdery’s Letter 1, in which he explicitly connects the Urim and Thummim to the
Nephite interpreters. The note doesn’t cite Joseph Smith’s explicit statement
that Moroni identified the interpreters that accompanied the plates as Urim and
Thummim. This issue deserves more discussion, but it is inexcusable for these
scholars to present their own theories as fact.]
Before Joseph Smith switched to using primarily the seer
stone for translation, Martin Harris recalled that Smith often used the stone
instead of the spectacles “for convenience.”
[It’s
difficult to tell whether this sentence was merely written poorly or is
intentionally misleading. The Martin Harris recollection came decades after
Joseph died, not before Joseph “switched” to the seer stone. And the
claim that Joseph “switched” to the seer stone is thinking past the sale. Emma
claimed Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the 116 pages, directly
contradicting the Harris recollection. Joseph and Oliver always said Joseph
translated by means of the Urim and Thummim, meaning that whatever Joseph did
with the seer stone, it was not translating. Yet the authors here glide right
over these problems by presenting their theories as fact.]
Harris also remembered that only the specific stone Smith
used would work for translating.
[That’s not what Harris said, even if his account recorded
over 50 years after the fact is credible and reliable. Harris himself is quoted
as saying Joseph used the Urim and Thummim behind a blanket and that he never
dared look to see what Joseph used. Joseph always said he used the Urim and
Thummim, not the “specific stone” the editors refer to here.]
An interviewer later recorded Harris's account of a time
when he tested Smith by replacing the instrument Smith ordinarily used with a
similar-looking stone. During a break in the translation work, Harris “found a
stone very much resembling the one used for translating, and on resuming their
labor of translation, Martin put in place the stone that he had found.” When
they resumed translating, Smith was silent for some time and then exclaimed,
“Martin! What is the matter? All is as dark as Egypt.” Harris confessed to
switching the stones and explained that "he had done so ... to stop the
mouths of fools, who had told him that the Prophet had learned those sentences
and was merely repeating them.”
[There are several problems with this account that I have
discussed previously. It’s astonishing that the editors would quote this
account in full without once (so far) quoting what Joseph and Oliver said about
the translation.]
Some accounts discuss the mechanics of this earliest
translation work. Emma Smith told her son Joseph Smith III later in her life,
“I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he
sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating
hour after hour with nothing between us.”
[This is the same “Testimony” attributed to Emma that she
never authenticated, that was recorded shortly before she died, and that JSIII
published after her death and 50 years after the events. JSIII had begun the
interview by specifically seeking to refute the Spalding theory. Emma’s
comments, even if authentic, explicitly refuted the Spalding theory.]
She continued, “When acting as his scribe, your father
would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after
interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either
seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him.”
[JSIII failed to ask obvious follow-up questions to test
reliability and credibility, such as “Which parts of the Book of Mormon did you
write?” and “When and where did you write?” Her statement here is consistent
with Joseph translating the plates; i.e., he could end a session at the bottom
of a plate and resume at the top of the next plate.]
In another interview, she added more details: “When he
came to proper names he could not pronounce, or long words, he spelled them
out, and while I was writing
p. xvi.
them, if I made any mistake in spelling, he would stop me
and correct my spelling though it was impossible for him to see how I was
writing them down at the time.”
[Note 36 below explains that there are misspelled words
throughout the manuscript. While none of the extant Original Manuscript is in
Emma’s handwriting, claims that Joseph corrected spelling before the
translation could continue are disproven by the manuscript, even if Joseph did
spell out some names.]
A particular memory remained with Emma throughout her
life: “One time while he was translating he stopped suddenly, pale as a sheet,
and said, 'Emma, did Jerusalem have walls around it?' When I answered 'Yes', he
replied, 'Oh! I was afraid I had been deceived.""
An 1881 article based on Martin Harris's reminiscences
recounted what he had observed and inferred of the translation process: “By aid
of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and
written by Martin, and when finished he would say, “Written,” and if correctly
written, that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if
not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was
just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used.”
[Here
again, we don’t have the 116 pages, but the extant Original Manuscript contains
numerous errors. Plus, Joseph made thousands of editorial changes in subsequent
editions. No one thought to ask Harris obvious follow-up questions, such as
asking for specific examples from the text or time and place of these events.]
Both Harris and Emma Smith testified the translation was
given to Joseph Smith by divine means.
Several accounts from other observers suggest that a
partition separated Smith from his scribes during an early phase of the
translation process but that later they worked with nothing separating them.
Sallie McKune, a neighbor to the Hale and Smith families in Harmony, recalled
“nails used for hooks to hang blankets on during the translation of the golden
bible.”
[The
entire premise of the 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed was that Joseph
dictated from behind a screen, curtain, blanket—a “vail” of some sort. The
existence of the screen was widely known; that’s why the Spalding theory
prevailed. The book also ridiculed the idea of the stone-in-the-hat and,
separately, the Urim and Thummim, to the extent that those methods did not
require Joseph to use the plates. If Joseph didn’t use the plates at all, the
book pointed out, then the testimony of the witnesses of the plates was
irrelevant.]
Sources that relate Harris's experiences also mention a
sheet dividing the translator from the scribe. “Harris declares," reported
one local newspaper, “that when he acted as amanuenses, and wrote the
translation, as Smith dictated, such was his fear of the Divine displeasure,
that a screen (sheet) was suspended between the prophet and himself."
It is possible that these accounts refer to the time Smith spent copying
characters from the plates before the actual translation began.
[Anything is possible, but the quoted statement referred
to Harris as scribe. Besides, Joseph said he copied and translated the
characters before Harris arrived in Harmony.]
He took care that no one else saw the plates, as he said
the angel commanded.
[Instead of citing Joseph’s own teachings, note 40 cites the
book by MacKay and Dirkmaat that sets out some of the scholarly theories this
Introduction repeats.]
Accounts from Emma Smith either do not mention or
specifically refute the presence of a sheet or other barrier between translator
and scribe. [Emma
was refuting the Spalding theory, as was David Whitmer.] While
Joseph Smith appears to have ceased separating himself from his scribes at some
point in the process, there are no accounts that report the plates being
visible to the scribe during translation; indeed, one account states that the
plates themselves were wrapped in a cloth when there was no barrier present.
[The way this is written, the reader might conclude there
were several accounts relating different details, but the authors keep citing
Emma’s problematic “Last Testimony.”]
Shortly before Emma Smith was to give birth to her first
child, Harris felt driven to prove to his family the legitimacy of the
translation. He convinced Joseph Smith to allow him to return to Palmyra with
the pages of translated English text to show to his wife, parents, brother, and
sister-in-law. Smith was initially
reluctant to let Harris
p. xvii.
take the manuscript. Harris asked Smith several times to
take his request to God in prayer, and finally Harris was given permission. On
15 June 1828, shortly after Harris departed with the manuscript, Emma Smith
delivered a baby who either was stillborn or died shortly after birth, and the
labor left her near death. Over the next three weeks, as the Smiths grieved the
loss of their child and Emma slowly began to recover, Joseph Smith grew
increasingly concerned that he had not heard from Harris. Once her condition
started to stabilize, Emma encouraged her husband to travel to Manchester to
determine what had become of the manuscript.
In Manchester, Joseph Smith discovered that the fruit of their collective
efforts—the single copy of the manuscript—had been stolen during Harris's stay
in Palmyra. Neither the circumstances
of the loss nor the ultimate fate of the manuscript is known.
Lucy Mack Smith, who was still living in Manchester when
the loss occurred, recalled in her 1845 history that her son returned to
Harmony almost immediately after learning the manuscript had been lost: “We
parted with heavy hearts; for it now appeared that all which we had so fondly
anticipated, and which had been the source of so much secret gratification was
in a moment fled, and fled forever.” She further stated, “I well remember that
day of darkness, both within and without: to us at least the heavens seemed
clothed with blackness, and the earth shrouded with gloom.”
Following the loss of the manuscript in the summer of
1828, Joseph Smith recalled, “The Plates was taken from me by the power of God
and I was not able to obtain them for a season.”
He also recalled that the interpreters he had unearthed with the plates were
taken from him at this time.
It was apparent to Smith's family and friends that his ability to translate was
tied not just to his obedience but also to his possession of the plates and the
interpreters.
[This
explains why Joseph and Oliver always said he translated the plates with the
Urim and Thummim, the name by which Moroni identified the interpreters.]
The period following the loss of the manuscript was a time
of mourning the lost text but also, as Smith reported later, a time of
repentance and divine forgiveness. He stated that shortly after the manuscript
was lost, an angel, whom he identified in later records as Moroni, came to him,
temporarily returning the interpreters so that he could seek divine guidance by
revelation. The resulting
communication told Smith that while he was “chosen to do the work of the Lord,”
it was possible that he could fall. His responsibility was to “repent of that
which thou hast done & he (God) will only cause thee to be afflicted for a
season & thou art still chosen & will again be called to the work.”
The angel then took the interpreters back, according to Smith's
p. xviii
account, and later returned both the interpreters and the
plates after a period humility and affliction of Soul.”
Lucy Mack Smith did not learn that her son had received
the plates again until she and her husband, Joseph Smith Sr., visited Harmony
in early September 1828. [This
interpretation of events contradicts what Lucy dictated, as shown in note 53.] Immediately
upon seeing her son, she sensed his easy and relaxed manner, which she interpreted
to mean that “something agreeable" had occurred. Indeed, Smith told his
mother that he had been “humble and penitent” and had received the ability and opportunity
to translate again. Lucy Mack Smith recorded that it was with delight that her
son stated he had “commenced translating,” with Emma's assistance.
During the latter part of 1828, however. Smith's financial
obligations and duty to provide for his family prevented him from doing much
translating. A friend and believer
stated that Smith “could not translate But little Being poor and nobody to
write for him But his wife and she Could not do much and take Care of her
house.”
Winter 1828–1829 appears to have passed with less translation than Smith had
hoped for. According to several entries in an account book belonging to Emma
Smith's brother David Hale, Joseph Smith spent several days in fall 1828 and
winter 1828–1829 laboring to pay off debts.
Still, Joseph Smith expected that a way would be opened
for him to translate the plates. Lucy Mack Smith recorded that when the angel
returned the plates to Smith, he also promised “that the Lord would send [him)
a scribe.” Smith may have looked for
fulfillment of that promise in the arrival of his father and brother Samuel
Smith in early 1829. The Smith men came from Manchester to Harmony by way of
the Colesville, New York, home of believers Joseph Knight Sr. and Polly Peck
Knight. Joseph Knight Sr. recalled accompanying Joseph Smith Sr. and Samuel to
Harmony in January and giving Joseph Smith "a little money to Buoy [buy)
paper to translate.”
Samuel remained in Harmony, apparently serving as a scribe for the translation.
Knight returned to Harmony in March and spoke with Smith "about his
translating and some revelations he had Received.”
Perhaps one of the revelations he referred to was the one instructing Smith
that “when thou hast translated a few more pages ... then shalt thou stop for a
season even untill I command thee again.”
It is impossible to tell from what remains of the
manuscript how much was translated during the fall of 1828 and the ensuing
winter. Textual evidence suggests that
p. xix
when work resumed after the loss of the initial portion of
the manuscript, Joseph Smith and scribes Emma and Samuel Smith began in the
book of Mosiah, roughly a third of the way into what was later published as the
Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, the
original manuscript for the book of Mosiah is no longer extant, making it
impossible to determine who was serving as scribe when work resumed.
[There is evidence in the Printer’s Manuscript indicating
that when Oliver copied Mosiah, he was copying someone else’s handwriting,
presumably Emma’s. For example, he copied “Helaman” instead of “Helam” and had
to correct his error by crossing off the last two letters.]
By the next point in the surviving manuscript—the tenth
chapter of the book of Alma, which immediately follows Mosiah—the text is in
the handwriting of an individual whom Joseph Smith would meet in early April
1829: Oliver Cowdery.
Translating with Oliver Cowdery in
Harmony
In the fall of 1828, a young schoolteacher named Lyman
Cowdery was appointed to fill a teaching position in the Palmyra area. Upon
finding that other responsibilities prevented him from fulfilling the
appointment, he asked the school board if his brother Oliver could take his
place. The board agreed, and Oliver Cowdery began teaching sometime in October
1828, taking lodging for a time with the Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith
family.
Cowdery soon heard rumors of gold plates. When he asked Palmyra residents how
they knew that the plates existed, they stated that they had seen the place
where the plates were unearthed.
Cowdery took advantage of his access to the Smith family and asked them to
explain.
Given the antagonism of their neighbors, Lucy Mack Smith
and her husband were reluctant to share their son's experiences with their new
acquaintance. According to Lucy Mack Smith's reminiscence, Cowdery eventually
gained the trust of the Smiths, who explained to him “the facts which related
to the plates.” What Cowdery heard so
resonated with him that he told Joseph Smith Sr. “that he had been in a deep
study upon the subject all day, and that it was impressed upon his mind, that
he should yet have the privilege of writing for Joseph.”
Cowdery stated that this feeling was "working in [his] very bones.”
Cowdery told Lucy Mack Smith and her husband, “There is a work for me to do in
this thing and I am determined if there is to attend to it.”
Cowdery journeyed to Harmony beginning in late March 1829,
arriving there on Sunday, 5 April 1829. Though Cowdery and Joseph Smith had
never met, Cowdery explained to Smith his interest in the plates and was
quickly taken into Smith's confidence—on 6 April, he helped Smith with the
paperwork to complete the purchase of a home, and on 7 April, he began
assisting with the translation of the Book of Mormon.
In an 1834 letter to church leader William W. Phelps,
Cowdery recalled his experience with the translating process: "These were
days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the
inspiration of heaven, awakened the utmost gratitude of this bosom!” Besides
affirming that the translation was done under divine
p. xx
influence, Cowdery added a brief description of the
process: “Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as
he translated, with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites whould
have said, 'Interpreters,' the history, or record, called ‘The book of Mormon.’”
Sometime in April, at a time when Smith and Cowdery were
working “with little cessation,” Cowdery “became exceedingly anxious to have
the power to translate bestowed upon him.”
He believed that such a power was acquired not through study but through the
bestowal of a gift from God.
[This mind-reading about Cowdery’s belief fits the
editors’ theory of translation but historical documentation supports
alternative interpretations.]
In response to Cowdery's desire, Smith dictated a
revelation that promised Cowdery that he could “translate all those ancient
Records which have been hid up which are Sacred.”
Smith dictated another revelation in April that explained to Cowdery that
translation was not what he had first supposed. “Behold I say unto you, my son,
that, because you did not translate according to that which you desired of me,
and did commence again to write for my servant Joseph, even so I would that you
should continue until you have finished this record.” The revelation informed
Cowdery that God removed the gift of translation from Cowdery because "you
did not continue as you commenced," or he supposed that God “would give it
unto you, when you took no thought, save it was to ask me.” The revelation
continued, “You must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be
right, and if it is right, I will cause that your bosom shall burn."
The days of Smith and Cowdery working in Harmony with few
interruptions were productive but short-lived. Cowdery remembered that after
about five weeks, Smith had completed the books of Mosiah, Alma, and Helaman,
plus some of 3 Nephi.
[Mosiah had likely been finished before Oliver arrived,
which indicates that the translation took longer than most estimates suggest.]
The productivity would not last. Lucy Mack Smith stated
later that “evil designing people were seeking to take away Joseph's life in
order to prevent the work of God from going forth among the world.”
[This
is another case of deliberate misinformation. The editors want readers to
believe that Oliver wrote a letter to David because of the evil designing
people, but Lucy explained otherwise. She said Joseph was commanded through the
Urim and Thummim to contact David. Notice what she says about how Joseph looked
on the plates after applying the Urim and Thummim to his eyes.
Referring
to the Lucy Harris lawsuit in Palmyra, Lucy Mack Smith wrote,
In the mean
time Joseph was 150 miles distant and knew naught of the matter e[x]cept
an intimation that was given through the urim and thumim for as he
one morning applied the<m> latter to
his eyes to look upon the record instead of the words of the book being
given him he was commanded to write a letter to one David
Whitmore [Whitmer] this man Joseph had never seen but
he was instructed to say him that he must come with his team immediately in
order to convey Joseph and his family <Oliver
[Cowdery]> back to his house which was 135
miles that they might remain with him there untill the translation should
be completed for that an evil designing people were seeking to
take away Joseph’s life in order to prevent the work of God from going
forth among the world.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/100.
This
statement is especially important because Joseph and Oliver were near the end
of the translation of the abridged plates. Joseph was not looking at a stone in
a hat; he was applying the Urim and Thummim to his eyes and looking on the
record, meaning the plates.
People
can argue that Lucy Mack Smith merely assumed this is what happened, but the
details could only have originated with Joseph (or Oliver). Readers can decide
for themselves why the Joseph Smith Papers editors don’t quote or cite this
specific usage of the Urim and Thummim, which contradicts their
stone-in-the-hat narrative.
Cowdery, who had previously written to his friend David
Whitmer regarding his involvement in the work, wrote again, this time asking
Whitmer for a place where he and Smith could translate. Whitmer arrived in
Harmony shortly after he received the letter and offered to allow Smith and
Cowdery to translate in his parents' home, free of charge. Leaving Emma Smith,
who would join them at some later time, the three men journeyed about one
hundred miles north to Fayette, New York, arriving about 1 June 1829.
[The editors omitted another important sequence here.
Before leaving Harmony, Joseph gave the abridged plates to an angel, as Lucy
Mack Smith reported here:
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/158
On the road to Fayette, Joseph, Oliver and David
encountered the angel, or messenger. David asked if he’d like a ride to
Fayette, but the messenger declined, saying he was going to Cumorah. David
remembered that this was the first time he heard the word “Cumorah” and he
asked Joseph about it. Joseph explained that the messenger had the plates and
that he was one of the Nephites.
This sequence explains the enigma of D&C 10. There,
the Lord instructed Joseph and Oliver to not retranslate the first part of the
plates that had been lost (the Book of Lehi that was in the 116 pages), but
instead Joseph would have to “translate the engravings on the plates of Nephi.”
We can tell from Moroni’s Title Page that the abridged plates did not include
the plates of Nephi because no original plates are mentioned in the Title Page.
The revelation raises the question, how did Joseph get the plates of Nephi?
Because the messenger who had the abridged plates said he
was taking them to Cumorah, we can infer that the messenger would leave those
plates in the repository and pick up the plates of Nephi, which he then brought
to Fayette. That’s why Joseph translated the plates of Nephi in Fayette.
The sequence informs us that Joseph was actually
translating the engravings on the plates, so he needed the correct plates to
translate. If he was merely reading words that appeared on a stone, without
referring to the plates, it wouldn’t have mattered which plates he had.
Translating in Fayette
The Whitmers welcomed Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.
David Whitmer remembered that Emma Smith arrived in Fayette “a short time after
Joseph and Oliver came.”
[This explains why Emma’s writing is not found in 1 Nephi.
David said she was a scribe, though, which suggests she wrote part of 2 Nephi
through Words of Mormon.]
The Whitmers' early belief and support were important to
Joseph Smith, and they provided connections to neighbors who were “friendly,
and disposed to enquire in
p. xxi
to the truth of these strange matters, which now began to
be noised abroad.” In fact, Smith recalled that many opened their houses to us,
in order that we might have an opportunity of meeting with their friends for
the purpose of instruction, and explanation.”
At least two additional scribes, David Whitmer's older
brothers Christian and John, assisted Joseph Smith with translation in Fayette.
Because so many leaves of the manuscript have been lost or severely damaged, it
is unclear where Smith and Cowdery were in their translation work at the time
they moved to Fayette.
[This is another reason why the encounter with the
messenger going to Cumorah is important. D&C 10 tells Joseph not to
retranslate the first part of the abridged plates, a commandment that made
sense if Joseph and Oliver we considering such a project after finishing with
the abridged plates. The messenger who had the abridged plates went to
Cumorah.]
Analysis of the original manuscript suggests that after
completing the translation through the book of Moroni, Smith returned to the
beginning of the story, translating what are now the books of 1 Nephi through
the Words of Mormon. The portion of the manuscript now called 1 Nephi includes
the first text with handwriting from any Whitmer scribe. [Thus,
this part was dictated in Fayette.]
Hosting the Book of Mormon translation efforts proved
challenging to the Whitmers. Supporting two or three additional individuals was
not without expense and added to the domestic burdens of the matriarch, Mary
Musselman Whitmer. Her grandson John C. Whitmer said that she once encountered
a stranger while doing her chores. This man, who she later concluded was an
angel, “explain[ed] to her the nature of the work which was going on in her
house," whereupon “she was filled with unexpressible joy and satisfaction."
[The note cites the Historical Record, a
compilation by Andrew Jenson. Jenson visited the grandson, John C. Whitmer, and
provided Whitmer’s statement in quotation marks, but Jenson also inserted his
editorial comments in parenthesis. Whitmer explained that his grandmother was
shown the plates “by an holy angel, whom she always called Brother Nephi.” Jenson,
however, concluded this was an error. He inserted his own comment in
parentheses. “(She undoubtedly refers to Moroni, the angel who had the plates
in charge.)”
Jenson’s bizarre insertion, unsupported by any other
evidence, directly contradicts what David Whitmer said, as well as what David
reported that Joseph said. David explained that he had face-to-face
conversation with both the messenger on the road to Fayette and the angel who
showed the plates to him, Oliver Cowdery, and Joseph Smith (presumably Moroni).
David knew they were different people. He also said the messenger his mother
saw was, based on her description, the same one he met on the road to Fayette,
which makes sense. See the Joseph F. Smith reference in the note.
David also reported that Joseph said the messenger was
“one of the Nephites” which is consistent with what Mary Whitmer called him, as
John C. Whitmer said. Andrew Jenson simply made up his Moroni story, yet that’s
what our historians have gone with, putting it in the Saints book and
other publications. There is no principle of historical analysis that would
justify such a preference for the speculation of an author nearly 60 years
after the fact which contradicts the statements of eyewitnesses, but that’s
what they have done. The only justification for such an approach is to
delegitimize the evidence about the New York Cumorah.]
David recalled that his mother told him the words of the
angel served as recompense for her sacrifices: "You have been very
faithful and diligent in your labors, but you are tried because of the increase
of your toil,” she was told. “It is propper therefore that you should receive a
witness that your faith may be strengthened.”
The messenger then showed her the gold plates containing the text of the Book
of Mormon.
[This poorly written sentence is an editorial modification
of the historical accounts. The “text of the Book of Mormon” is what Joseph
dictated in English; the plates contained engravings, as the witnesses made
clear. John C. Whitmer said “I have heard my grandmother say on several
occasions that she was shown the plates of the Book of Mormon by an holy angel….
This strange person turned the leaves of the book of plates over, leaf after
leaf, and also showed her the engravings on them.” That description fits
whether she saw the abridged plates or the plates of Nephi.]
The work of translation at Fayette was observed by several
members of the Whitmer family. Elizabeth Whitmer, who was present in the family
home and was later married to Oliver Cowdery, recalled that she was familiar
with the manner of Joseph Smith's translating the book of Mormon. ... I often
sat by and saw and heard them translate and write for hours together. Joseph
never had a curtain drawn between him and his scribe while he was translating.
He would place the director in his hat, and then place his face in his hat, so
as to exclude the light," and then read the words “as they appeared before
him.”
[Elizabeth
was 14 years old when Joseph and Oliver were translating in the Whitmer home. It’s
misleading to say Elizabeth recalled as though she wrote this statement. The
only source of this statement from Elizabeth is William E. McLellin’s copy of
an alleged affidavit that Elizabeth gave. By 1870, McLellin had spent decades
opposing Joseph Smith’s role as a prophet, but at the same time he sought to
establish the divinity of the Book of Mormon. He said he did not believe Joseph
ever had the Urim and Thummim, and Elizabeth’s statement corroborates his claim
(while contradicting what Joseph and Oliver always said). Although Elizabeth
died in 1892, there are no records that she ever authenticated the McLellin
copy or made another similar statement.
Assuming
McLellin copied Elizabeth’s statement accurately, we turn to its credibility
and reliability. We just read how the messenger showed the plates to her
mother, Mary, because she was overburdened with so much extra work. Is it
credible that Mary’s fourteen-year-old daughter nevertheless “often” had
“hours” to spend sitting and watching Joseph and Oliver translate? It seems
unlikely. More likely, she was one of those sitting around the table during the
demonstration that David reported.
Certainly
Elizabeth could not see whatever Joseph saw in the hat; at least for that
detail, she necessarily repeated hearsay or inference as fact.
It’s
also interesting that she refers to a “director” in the hat, apparently an
allusion to the passage in Alma, using a term other witnesses did not use.
David Whitmer, who was frequently interviewed later in his
life, was fairly consistent in his description of the translation as he
observed it: “Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat,” Whitmer wrote,
“and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the
light; and in the darkness the
p. xxii
spiritual light would shine.”
What Smith saw in the stone, of course, was not obseryable by Whitmer, but
Smith may have explained the process to him.
“A piece of something resembling parchment would appear,” Whitmer continued, “and
on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under
it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English
to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down
and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would
disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear.”
Like other believers, Whitmer understood this process as divine, concluding,
“Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not
by any power of man.”
As work on the original Book of Mormon manuscript neared
completion, Smith began preparing for the book's publication. On 11 June 1829
he secured a copyright for the work, and by the end of that month, the title
page was published in a Palmyra newspaper, the Wayne Sentinel.
Also in June, three men—Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David
Whitmer-testified that they were shown the plates by an angel of the Lord and
that they heard the voice of God declare that the Book of Mormon had been
translated by divine power.
At about the same time, eight individuals—three Smith men and four Whitmer men,
plus Hiram Page (the husband of Catherine Whitmer)—testified that Smith had
shown them the plates. He allowed them to handle the plates and examine the
engraved characters.
Formal statements that recorded the experiences and bore the names of all
eleven men were published with the Book of Mormon.
These shared experiences, along with more private experiences such as those of
Mary Whitmer, gave new believers confidence that the plates were genuine and
the translation was of God.
About a month after Smith and Cowdery moved from Harmony
to Fayette, they completed the translation. A month later, in early August
1829, Smith asked Cowdery to begin making a complete copy of the Book of Mormon
text.
It was mostly from
p. xxiii
this second manuscript—often called the printer's
manuscript—that printers set type for the published Book of Mormon in late 1829
and early 1830.
Use and Legacy of the Manuscript
The creation of the original manuscript of the Book of
Mormon ushered in important changes for early believers in Joseph Smith's
religious message and became an important symbol for those who would join the
church. The manuscript is a crucial source for scholars and others interested
in better understanding the translation, publication process, and text of the
Book of Mormon.
Before the Book of Mormon was translated, Joseph Smith and
those who believed in the accounts of his religious experiences interacted
mainly through informal conversations. Their small gatherings may have begun
with spoken stories of heavenly messengers, supernatural visions, and buried
plates. But the written text gave new power to the young religious movement.
The written text allowed the network of believers to grow as more people became
familiar with the Book of Mormon text through copied excerpts or private
readings. The Book of Mormon translation not only created a text on which the
body of early believers could rely—it also shaped the record keeping of the
nascent church.
Even before the Book of Mormon was completely translated,
the original manuscript was used in early proselytizing efforts. David Whitmer
recalled that Oliver Cowdery wrote several letters to him while translation was
underway in Harmony. The first apparently included Cowdery’s witness of the
truth of Smith’s stories and informed Whitmer that Cowdery planned to act as
scribe for Smith. In the second letter, Cowdery gave Whitmer "a few lines
of what they had translated.” Whitmer showed the letters to his family, who all
became convinced that the work was divinely inspired.
One report stated that Joseph Smith visited George Crane, “a Quaker of
intelligence, property, and high repectability,” and showed him “several
foolscap quires of these so-called translations, for his perusal and opinion.”
Around the same time, a man named Solomon Chamberlin heard rumors of the Book
of Mormon and sought out the Smith home in Manchester, New York. Chamberlin
remained for two days with the Smith family, who instructed him “in the
manuscripts of the Book of Mormon.”
In these encounters, the Book of Mormon manuscript served as evidence of Joseph
Smith's divine calling well before the printed book could be shared by
missionary-minded followers.
As the translation neared completion, Smith dictated a
revelation in which God told Cowdery, “I have manifested unto you, by my Spirit
in many instances, that the
p. xxiv
things which you have written are true: Wherefore you know
that they are true; and if you know that they are true, behold I give unto you
a commandment, that you rely upon the things which are written; for in them are
all things written for in them are all things written, concerning my church, my
gospel, and my rock.”
The revelation implied not only that the Book of Mormon contains divine wisdom
but also that the book would serve as a foundation for the church, which had
yet to be organized. When Lucy Mack Smith received word that the translation
was complete, she, her husband, and Martin Harris traveled to the Whitmer home.
Once gathered, they spent the evening “in reading the manuscript.” She later
recalled that they “were greatly rejoiced for it then appeared to us who did
not realize the magnitude of the work which could hardly be said at that time
to have begining; as though the greatest difficulty was then surmounted.”
For early supporters of Joseph Smith, the original manuscript was recognized as
the culmination of years of collective effort. But the manuscript of the Book
of Mormon also pointed to the future, when the growing faith community would
depend not only on a seer who saw visions and a prophet who spoke the will of
God but also on a revelator who recorded scripture for the direction and use of
a growing church.
Latter-day Saints continued to venerate the manuscript
itself long after the text of that manuscript was available in print. A
reminiscent account described the day in 1841 when Joseph Smith placed it in
the Nauvoo House cornerstone, saying that Smith “came up with the manuscript of
the Book of Mormon and said that he wanted to put that in the cornerstone), as
he had had trouble enough with it.”
Ebenezer Robinson, who observed the cornerstone ceremony, was struck “with
amasement” by Smith's comment about the manuscript because Robinson “looked
upon it as a sacred treasure.”
The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon may have reminded Smith of the
persecution that had hounded him much of his life, but for Robinson and others
like him, the manuscript represented faith in the prophet who translated it.
Over forty years after the original manuscript was placed
in the cornerstone, Lewis Bidamon, Emma Smith's second husband, retrieved it.
Unfortunately, the care that had been taken to make the cornerstone watertight
proved insufficient. Ebenezer Robinson reported that Joseph Smith III told him,
“Major Bidamon had taken down the wall and opened the stone, and found the
manuscript ruined. It had gathered moisture, and much of it had become a mass
of pulp, and only small portions of it were legible.”
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Utah passed
through the Midwest, they visited Nauvoo and often acquired portions of the
manuscript from Bidamon. Pieces of the manuscript survived through the efforts
of these individuals and some of their descendants, who preserved various pages
and fragments.
The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon is the only
surviving firsthand, contemporaneous testament to events of the translation.
The manuscript offers invaluable
p. xxv
evidence that can be compared with secondhand accounts and
later reminiscences or suppositions about the translation process. For
instance, several individuals recalled Smith correcting the spelling of the
scribes during the dictation process.
David Whitmer, who observed the translation process in his home, stated that
Smith was able to discern mistakes scribes made while taking dictation.
[David Whitmer clarified that he was not present for most
of the translation, which took place upstairs. He described a session
downstairs when family members surrounded the table as Joseph dictated with his
face in the hat.]
Certainly some spelling was corrected at the time of
dictation; for instance, in the book of Alma, “Zenock" was changed to
“Zenoch” by Oliver Cowdery.
But analysis of the manuscript itself suggests that such corrections were rare;
moreover, not all errors and inconsistencies were corrected. For instance, the
name “Amalickiah” in the book of Alma was not consistently spelled the same
way.
As another example of the value of the original manuscript, lengthy quotations
from the Bible in the Book of Mormon text raise the question of whether Joseph
Smith's scribes copied some passages directly from the Bible. Close study of
the manuscript indicates that the Bible passages that appear in the extant
pages were dictated, not copied.
The manuscript also confirms or supports numerous details
from accounts of the translation. Textual evidence in the manuscript shows that
Cowdery acted as scribe for the majority of the extant manuscript, which
matches his own description of the process.
[The note quotes part of Cowdery’s message when he
rejoined the Church in 1848, but omits his declaration that Joseph translated
the Book of Mormon “by the means of the Urim and Thummim, or, as it is called
by that book, ‘holy Interpreters.’ I beheld with my eyes and handled with my
hands the gold plates from which it was translated. I also saw with my eyes and
handled with my hands the ‘holy interpreters.’” https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/joseph-smith-translates-the-gold-plates?lang=eng.
Cowdery’s testimony on this occasion is particularly
relevant to the translation because while he was making this declaration, he
still possessed the brown seer stone mentioned by Emma, David and Martin.
Cowdery did not display it or refer to it.]
David Whitmer recalled years later that his brother John
served as scribe for Joseph Smith as well, and John Whitmer's handwriting does
in fact appear in what is now the book of 1 Nephi.
Joseph Knight, an early believer in Joseph Smith's message, recorded that he
supplied lined paper for the translation effort.
The surviving portions of the manuscript reveal several different types of
lined paper, which supports the idea that Smith was procuring paper in the
midst of the translation process. Such correctives and confirmations of
reminiscent accounts and scholarly theories illustrate the primacy of the
original manuscript in establishing the history of the Book of Mormon
translation.
Finally, the original manuscript offers a crucial data
point in understanding the evolution of the Book of Mormon text. It is
impossible to know how carefully the scribes captured the words of the Book of
Mormon first spoken by Joseph Smith. Having access to the extant portions of
the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon, however, allows readers the chance
to assess the accuracy of the textual transmission through all subsequent
editions. Even though the majority of the original manuscript is no longer
extant, comparison of the extant text with the printer's manuscript shows the
care with which the copyists did their work. And while some scribal errors were
introduced to the printer's manuscript, the text shows virtually no signs of
editing between the
p. xxvi
initial dictation of the original manuscript and the
printing of the 1830 edition except
for spelling corrections, minor word changes, and the introduction of punctuation
and capitalization. The majority of the 1830 edition was typeset from the
printer's, so the printed text was already one step removed from the original
manuscript. This distance was only increased when the second edition (1837) was
set from the 1830 edition, with some consultation of the printer's manuscript
but no known reference to the original manuscript.
As more editions were printed—particularly after the original manuscript was
deposited into the Nauvoo House cornerstone and became unavailable to those
publishing later editions of the text—a number of small, unintended errors made
their way into the Book of Mormon text.
In spite of these errors, the text has remained remarkably stable up to the
present day.
The same autumn that Joseph Smith placed the manuscript
into the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House, he said that “the Book of Mormon was
the most correct of any Book on earth & the keystone of our religion &
a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than any other Book.”
[This quotation from Wilford Woodruff’s journal appears to
be Woodruff’s own summary of Joseph’s teachings that day, not a direct
quotation of Joseph’s words. Woodruff often used quotation marks in his journal
to designate direct quotations, but he did not do so in this case.]
The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon offered a
touchstone to a nascent faith community, and what remains of the manuscript
continues to provide an irreplaceable witness to Joseph Smith's most
consequential work of translation.
Much of
this earlier work has been published as Royal Skousen, ed., The Original
Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: Typographical Facsimile of the Extant Text (Provo,
UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young
University, 2001); Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book
of Mormon. 60 (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon
Studies, Brigham Young University, 2004-2009); and Royal Skousen, ed., The
Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
20, the publication of Skousen's transcript in 2001 and the publication of this
volume, Skousen made a number of corrections to the transcript. A list of those
corrections can be found in Appendix 3: Transcript Updates since 2001, p. 741
herein.
JS History, vol. A-1, 9, in SP,
Hr:240 (Draft 2). Some individuals who interacted with Harris in New York City
made no mention of an English translation accompanying the copied characters
that Harris showed to scholars. (Charles Anthon, New York City, NY, to Eber D.
Howe, Painesville, OH, 17 Feb. 1834, in Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 270-272;
Charles Anthon, New York City, NY, to Thomas Winthrop Coit, New Rochelle. NY 2
Apr 1841, in Clark, Gleanings by the Way, 233; Turner, History of the Pioneer
Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase and Morris' Reserve, 215; “Golden
Bible," Gem, of Literature and Science (Rochester, NY]. 5 Sept. 1829, 70)
JS History, ca. Summer 1832, 5, in
JSP, H1:15; JS History, vol. A-1, 7, in JSP, H1:232 (Draft 2).
JS, “Church History,” Times and Seasons, 1 Mar. 1842,
3:707, in JSP, H1:495.
See “Printer's Manuscript of the Book
of Mormon," in JSP, R3, Part 1, pp. xviii-xix; Oliver Cowdery, Norton, OH,
to William W. Phelps, 7 Sept. 1834, Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1834,
1:14; “Mormonism," Kansas City (MO) Daily Journal, 5 June 1881,
[1]; and Woodruff, Journal, 27 Dec. 1841. The earliest [known] recorded use of the biblical term Urim
and Thummim to describe the instrument Joseph Smith used for translation
dates from 1832. (“Questions Proposed to the Mormonite Preachers and Their
Answers Obtained before the Whole Assembly at Julien Hall, Sunday Evening,
August 5, 1832," Boston Investigator, 10 Aug. 1832, [2]; see also
Exodus 28:30; Leviticus 8:8; Numbers 27:21; Deuteronomy 33:8; 1 Samuel 28:6;
(William W. Phelps), “The Book of Mormon," The Evening and the Morning
Star, Jan. 1833, [2]; Van Dam, The Urim and Thummim; and
Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood," 312–316, 325.)
Oliver Cowdery, Norton, OH, to William
W. Phelps, 7 Sept. 1834, Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1834, 1:14: Agreement
with Isaac Hale. 6 Apr. 1829, in JSP, D1:28–34;
JS History, vol. A-I, 13, in JSP, H1:276 (Draft 2).
JS History, vol. A-1, 22, in JSP,
H1:308 (Draft 2); James H. Hart, “About the Book of Mormon,” Deseret Evening
News (Salt Lake City), 25 Mar. 1884, [2].
Joseph F. Smith, New York City, NY,
to John Taylor et al., [Salt Lake City, Utah Territory), 17 Sept. 1878. draft,
Joseph F. Smith, Papers, CHL; Stevenson, Diary, 23 Dec. 1877; 9 Feb. 1886; 2
Jan. 1887. [See http://jared.pratt-family.org/report-of-elders-orson-pratt-and-joseph-f-smith.html.]
John C. Whitmer, Statement, in [Andrew
Jenson], “The Eight Witnesses," Historical Record, Oct. 1888, 621; Joseph
F. Smith, New York City, NY, to John Taylor et al., [Salt Lake City, Utah
Territory] 17 Joseph F. Smith, Papers, CHL; Stevenson, Diary, 23 Dec. 1877; 9
Feb. 1886; 2 Jan. 1887.
Elizabeth Whitmer Cowdery, Statement,
is Feb. 1870, in William McLellin, Independence, MO, to "My Dear Friends.”
Feb. 1870, CCLA. The last part of this statement is cut off because a portion
of the page written is missing. Only the top half of the next line is visible.
There is no evidence that a curtain was in use to separate Smith from his
scribe during the later portion of the translation. [There is circumstantial evidence both from Joseph’s emphasis
that he couldn’t allow anyone to see the plates or Urim and Thummim, and from
the denials by his supporters (which wouldn’t have been necessary if there had
never been a curtain).]
For example, around the time the
translation of the Book of Mormon was complete, Joseph Smith dictated a
revelation that instructed Oliver Cowdery to "rely upon the things which
are written." In response to that directive, Cowdery created the
"Articles of the Church of Christ." This document, which quotes
extensively from the recently finished Book of Mormon, instructed believers on
ways to "build up the church.” (Revelation, June 1829-B, in ISP. D1:70-71
(D&C 18:3-5); “Articles of the Church of Christ,” June 1829, in JSP,
D1:368-377.)
Cowdery relayed to a gathering of
Latter-day Saints in 1848 his role in the Book of Mormon. “I wrote with my own
pen the intire book of Mormon (save a few pages) as it fell from the lips of
the prophet.” (Miller, Journal, 21 Oct. 1848.)
P. Wilhelm Poulson, “Interview with
David Whitmer,” Deseret Evening News (Salt Lake City), 16 Aug. 1878,
[2].
