The evidence that Joseph translated the plates continues to accumulate. I uploaded an annotation of 1 Nephi 1 to Mobom, here:
https://www.mobom.org/bm-kjv-and-je-1-nephi-1
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In somewhat related news, this week (5-6 Sept) there is a Church History Conference in SLC. The list of speakers is here.
https://churchhistory.cventevents.com/event/2025conference/speakers
I'm sure it will be interesting, informative, and inspirational. I encourage everyone to watch and/or attend.
I say that with two caveats, both of whom are great guys, faithful Latter-day Saints, smart, etc., but both of whom promote the SITH/M2C narratives.
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One of the speakers, Anthony Sweat, created the infamous illustration of Mormonism Unvailed's translation narrative. This widely distributed illustration has normalized E.D. Howe's anti-Mormon narrative that Joseph and Oliver successfully refuted--until a handful of LDS scholars revived it in recent years.
For anyone not familiar with Mormonism Unvailed, here is the narrative that book set out, which Brother Sweat illustrated and teaches:
The translation finally commenced. They were found to contain a language not now known upon the earth, which they termed "reformed Egyptian characters." The plates, therefore, which had been so much talked of, were found to be of no manner of use. After all, the Lord showed and communicated to him every word and letter of the Book. Instead of looking at the characters inscribed upon the plates, the prophet was obliged to resort to the old ''pecp stone," which he formerly used in money-digging. This he placed in a hat, or box, into which he also thrust his face. Through the stone he could then discover a single word at a time, which he repeated aloud to his amanuensis, who committed it to paper, when another word would immediately appear, and thus the performance continued to the end of the book.
https://archive.org/details/mormonismunvaile00howe/page/18/mode/2up?q=Urim
It continues to amaze me that Brother Sweat and other LDS scholars have embraced the Mormonism Unvailed narrative. They simply reject what Joseph and Oliver consistently and repeatedly taught. I discussed that here:
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/the-sith-problem-1829-2024.html
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Another speaker, Keith Erekson, famously teaches that the sword of Laban was in Moroni's stone box, contrary to the explicit descriptions from Joseph and Oliver.
He relies on a late recollection by Joseph's sister, who did not even say the sword was in the stone box. But Keith seems obsessed with supporting M2C (and SITH), which requires people to teach and convince Latter-day Saints that the sword could not have been in the repository in the Hill Cumorah in New York (again, contrary to all the historical accounts) because, according to M2C, the "real Cumorah" is yet to be found in southern Mexico.
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/real-vs-rumor-keith-ereksons-failed.html
People can believe whatever they want, of course.
But it is not cool when historians promote their private theories by suppressing and even censoring authentic, faithful historical accounts by the principals, in this case Joseph and Oliver, solely to promote the private theories of a handful of scholars, in this case the advocated of M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory.)
