My review of the essay, Translation of the Book of Mormon

12/21/2017

This time we will be looking at the church’s Essay, Book of Mormon Translation. Again, it will be my evaluation of it with special attention to the sources referenced. I will also admit that I will take the liberty to add quotes from previous church leaders as I feel it might be necessary to show the changing attitude of both the church, and God I guess, since the prophets do speak for him.

            OK, the original essay (found here on the churches website) will be copied here for reference. I will leave it exactly as it stands (so there are a few links within it as well) literally copied and pasted from the website. My response and interjections will be inserted into the text, but will be distinguished by the color green. I will ensure to check each source for what it claims to add as support for their statement. In most cases, I will likely only paraphrase the scripture or other reference to save space, but will have it linked so that you can go and ensure that I am not trying to skew too much.

            Here we go!

Joseph Smith 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 by any other Book.”¹ The Book of Mormon came into the world through a series of miraculous events. Much can be known about the coming forth of the English text of the Book of Mormon through a careful study of statements made by Joseph Smith, his scribes, and others closely associated with the translation of the Book of Mormon.

Alright, before I go off on this, lets link up to the first source. This is from a journal of Wilford Woodruff. The church doesn’t provide a direct link to it, so I will, here it is. Now, on to my comments- LOAD OF CRAP! I am going to focus on the 7 words, “most correct of any book on earth.” This statement comes from the Journal of Woodruff, it was dated Nov. 28, 1841. The BOM was first printed in 1830, and reprinted/edited multiple times since then. OK, I know that there was no punctuation in the first printing, and that alone might have needed to be fixed, but that is not the only thing that was altered. Some of these are rather big changes; “the lamb of God is the Eternal Father” changed to “the lamb of God is the son of the Eternal Father.” This changes the whole meaning! There are also cases of words being added and deleted. Do I have sources for all of these? Yes, yes I do.

The first source I want to use is a study that compared the 1830 version to the 1964 version. In this study, they found nearly 4,000 changes!

There were significant changes between the 1920 and 1981 versions as well- summarized here for your viewing pleasure. No, not every change here is significant (word changed to words-lame), but there are a few that change the whole meaning (come changed to gone- opposite words?).

Another source is a book from 1987 by Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism- Shadow or Reality? While I can’t find a scanned copy of the book online, I did find a summary of the differences that they point out in this book, which can be found here. Or another book that they wrote, 3913 Changes in the Book of Mormon, a summary can be found here.

Again, not every one of these changes is “that big of a deal.” But when you go around saying that it is “the most correct of any Book on earth,” then there should not have to be ANY edits made, large or small.

“By the Gift and Power of God”

Joseph Smith reported that on the evening of September 21, 1823, while he prayed in the upper room of his parents’ small log home in Palmyra, New York, an angel who called himself Moroni appeared and told Joseph that “God had a work for [you] to do.”² He informed Joseph that “there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang.” The book could be found in a hill not far from the Smith family farm. This was no ordinary history, for it contained “the fullness of the everlasting Gospel as delivered by the Savior.”³

Reference 2- This references a history book of Joseph Smith Histories, and the Joseph smith papers, but as has become a normal, they do not provide any sort of link. I was able to find this from the church though, or from JSH as well.

For reference 3 we are back to the Joseph Smith Histories again. Also again, no link. So I have a link to it, found in verse 34. This statement I have found problems with, so let’s dig just a bit deeper.

D&C 20:9 states that the BOM “contains a record of a fallen people, and the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and to the Jews also.” But if that were the case, then why are there SO many things not taught in it? So we take the BOM and the Bible together, still they don’t have everything that the church teaches. It sure doesn’t talk about the stuff that happens in the temple (but the Masonic rituals sure show up there). It doesn’t say anything about no alcohol/coffee/tea (in fact Jesus turns water into wine). It does talk about polygamy in the BOM, but only to say that it is against the will of God. There is nothing about the “nature of God,” or that he was once a man on another planet. There really is nothing specific about the whole 3 kingdoms of heaven at all in the BOM, and only a weak reference in the Bible. This is the same with baptisms for the dead, nothing in the BOM and only a single verse in the Bible related to it. Long story short, for having “the fullness of the everlasting Gospel,” there sure are a LOT of things missing in it.

The angel charged Joseph Smith to translate the book from the ancient language in which it was written. The young man, however, had very little formal education and was incapable of writing a book on his own, let alone translating an ancient book written from an unknown language, known in the Book of Mormon as “reformed Egyptian.”⁴ Joseph’s wife Emma insisted that, at the time of translation, Joseph “could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictat[e] a book like the Book of Mormon.”⁵

4- Reformed Egyptian- it lists Mormon 9:32 which talks about the language in which they write. 

5- Is a quote we have heard in the church forever that Joseph couldn’t have made up something like the BOM since he “could neither write nor dictate a … well-worded letter,” according to his wife Emma (1^st wife, non-polygamous). The reference here still provides no link, but I was able to track one down. This is it, go to page 289 and you will find it. This was Emma right before she died, talking to her son and leaders of the RLDS church. So while this statement is here, there seems to be others that contradict it quite heavily.

Before I go on to these, I also want to hit on something else that is found on the exact same page as the above quote. Emma is also quoted as saying:

“He [Joseph] had no other wife but me; nor did he to my knowledge ever have.”
“He did not have improper relations with any woman that ever came to my knowledge.”
“I know that he had no other wife of wives than myself, in any sense, either spiritual or otherwise”

So that is interesting to hear. We have plenty of other very well-known sources that state that she indeed did know, and even consented to a few of the wives. So this begs the question, if she is known to be lying on these points, what is stopping her from lying about Joseph not being able to “dictate a coherent and well-worded letter” as she says? Let’s look a bit further into that.

Before ever having the gold plates, Joseph already seemed to have a fair bit of information in his mind about the peoples of the BOM. This is a quote from his mother, Lucy Smith:

“During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them.” Source, page 85.

Yes, the argument can be made that she said this after Joseph had some of his “visions,” and as such could have learned these things from that. There is another answer, he has been imagining this story line for years, just a thought.

Joseph received the plates in September 1827 and the following spring, in Harmony, Pennsylvania, began translating them in earnest, with Emma and his friend Martin Harris serving as his main scribes. The resulting English transcription, known as the Book of Lehi and referred to by Joseph Smith as written on 116 pages, was subsequently lost or stolen. As a result, Joseph Smith was rebuked by the Lord and lost the ability to translate for a short time.⁶

Source 6 does link this time to the Joseph Smith papers. This project by the church has been rather fascinating. But anyway, this story and its source are classic Mormon stories.

Joseph began translating again in 1829, and almost all of the present Book of Mormon text was translated during a three-month period between April and June of that year. His chief scribe during these months was Oliver Cowdery, a schoolteacher from Vermont who learned about the Book of Mormon while boarding with Joseph’s parents in Palmyra. Called by God in a vision, Cowdery traveled to Harmony to meet Joseph Smith and investigate further. Of his experience as scribe, Cowdery wrote, “These were days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven.”⁷

The footnote #7 here has two separate sources, neither of which have links.

The first reference is “Joseph Smith History, ca. summer 1832, in Joseph Smith Histories, 16” which I found in the Joseph Smith Papers project. This document is also where we get the 1832 first vision narrative, where it says that the first vision took place when JS was 15 years old, only Jesus came and forgave him of his sins. It also fails to mention anything about an unseen power trying to stop him from praying. Sorry, I digress. It goes on to talk about the story of how Oliver Cowdery came into contact with Joseph and how he ended up helping in the translating process.

The second reference is a set of eight letters that Oliver Cowdery wrote to W.W. Phelps concerning the discovery of the plates, and had William publish these letters in a pamphlet form. It is from this source that we get the quote above. The whole of these letters is a very lengthy document (87 or so pages if I were to print it as it stands). I did scan the document quickly, just to see if there was anything else of interest, but can’t say I found much in my quick study, so I will continue with the essay.

The manuscript that Joseph Smith dictated to Oliver Cowdery and others is known today as the original manuscript, about 28 percent of which still survives.⁸ This manuscript corroborates Joseph Smith’s statements that the manuscript was written within a short time frame and that it was dictated from another language. For example, it includes errors that suggest the scribe heard words incorrectly rather than misread words copied from another manuscript.⁹ In addition, some grammatical constructions that are more characteristic of Near Eastern languages than English appear in the original manuscript, suggesting that the base language of the translation was not English.¹⁰

Source 8 speaks of how the manuscript was damaged. We also know of the original printers manuscript that the church recently purchased to the tune of $35 million.

Source 9 has a couple of sources that show that the scribe writing the wrong or misheard words is the reason for any errors in the original manuscript.

Source 10 is multiple books all trying to know that the some of the names and wording are of Hebrew background. This is an interesting argument, seeing as the DNA studies have found absolutely no Hebrew DNA from anyone in the Americas prior to Columbus (I covered this information here, see section 2.4).

Unlike most dictated drafts, the original manuscript was considered by Joseph Smith to be, in substance, a final product. To assist in the publication of the book, Oliver Cowdery made a handwritten copy of the original manuscript. This copy is known today as the printer’s manuscript. Because Joseph Smith did not call for punctuation, such as periods, commas, or question marks as he dictated, such marks are not in the original manuscript. The typesetter later inserted punctuation marks when he prepared the text for the printer.¹¹With the exceptions of punctuation, formatting, other elements of typesetting, and minor adjustments required to correct copying and scribal errors, the dictation copy became the text of the first printed edition of the book.¹²

OK, 11 talks about how when translating, there was no punctuation, and that this had to be added prior to printing. It lists 2 sources for this information (no, no link provided in the essay). Here is what I found when I did a search for the first source, talking about the man who did the typesetting for the first printing. From here we find this quote, “Every chapter, if I remember correctly, was one solid paragraph, without a punctuation mark, from beginning to end. . . . I punctuated it to make it read as I supposed the author intended, and but very little punctuation was altered in proof-reading.”

The second source, “The Disciple as Witness: Essays on Latter-day Saint History and Doctrine in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson” Doesn’t seem to show anything about the punctuation issues that I have been able to find. So, a very pointless source.

Source 12 is interesting. Please keep in mind the very first thing we read about with the Book of Mormon being the “most correct of any book on earth.” This will be important here again. The source reads as thus, “Some grammatical constructions that sound odd to English speakers were edited out of later editions of the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith or others in order to render the translation into more standard current English.” It also says something that I don’t know how to fully wrap my head around. It says, “Approximately five-sixth of the 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon was typeset from the printer’s manuscript. The other one-sixth was typeset from the original manuscript.” I thought that was the point of the printer’s manuscript, use that as the frame of what the whole thing should be. Why then would they go back and use the original manuscript for the type set?

OK, it references a book as well. How We Got the Book of Mormon, by Richard E. Turley Jr. and William W. Slaughter. You apparently can buy the book, but there doesn’t seem to be a scanned copy of it that I can find.

Translation Instruments

Many accounts in the Bible show that God transmitted revelations to His prophets in a variety of ways. Elijah learned that God spoke not to him through the wind or fire or earthquake but through a “still small voice.”¹³ Paul and other early apostles sometimes communicated with angels and, on occasion, with the Lord Jesus Christ.¹⁴ At other times, revelation came in the form of dreams or visions, such as the revelation to Peter to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, or through sacred objects like the Urim and Thummim.¹⁵

13- 1 Kings 19:11–12. Nothing special, just a scripture

14- Acts 9:1–8; 12:7–9. Sources for the original 12 apostles seeing angels, but doesn’t say anything in these about communicating with Jesus. So yeah, they lied about this source.

15- Acts 11:4–17; 16:9–10; Exodus 28:30; Leviticus 8:8; Numbers 21:9. Acts 11: saw a vision in a trance- told to preach to the gentiles. Acts 16: Vision in the night to go to Macedonia. Exodus: uses the term Urim and Thummin, but all it says it to place them in the “breastplate of judgment,” nothing else as to what they are. Leviticus: “And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.” Again, this tells us nothing as to what they are?! Numbers: I don’t see how this applies? It is the serpent made of brass on a stick that the children of Israel had to look at to live after God sent the fiery serpents to bite and kill the people.

OK, I want to go on a quick tangent here. First, is this supposed to be a “sacred object” and that is why it is used as a reference here? If so, then why was Moses all bent out of shape when the children of Israel built the golden calf and worshiped it? This one is made out of brass, but still it is placed up in front of the people. No they are not praying too it, but it sure sounds like an idol that they have to look to for salvation none the less. Besides, God seems like a bit of a prick to have sent these serpents in the first place. He sure seems to be trying to hold these people to a very high standard.

Joseph Smith stands out among God’s prophets, because he was called to render into his own language an entire volume of scripture amounting to more than 500 printed pages, containing doctrine that would deepen and expand the theological understanding of millions of people. For this monumental task, God prepared additional, practical help in the form of physical instruments.

There are a few things I could put in here, but I will hold off and use them later. Also, no footnotes to dig into.

Joseph Smith and his scribes wrote of two instruments used in translating the Book of Mormon. According to witnesses of the translation, when Joseph looked into the instruments, the words of scripture appeared in English. One instrument, called in the Book of Mormon the “interpreters,” is better known to Latter-day Saints today as the “Urim and Thummim.” Joseph found the interpreters buried in the hill with the plates.¹⁶ Those who saw the interpreters described them as a clear pair of stones bound together with a metal rim. The Book of Mormon referred to this instrument, together with its breastplate, as a device “kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord” and “handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting languages.”¹⁷

16- The source here is back to the Joseph Smith papers project, again not linked. A search for it leads to a document that you can purchase. So trying to find an online copy, I found something, but cannot guarantee that it is what they were going for exactly. What I did find (here) mirrors what the essay talks about, the classic clear stones in a silver bow that we all learned about in church. It then goes on to talk about an individual seer stone that was placed in a hat that we learn now was used for the majority of the translation. The really odd thing to me, Joseph also called this rock (brown in color that he found while digging a well years before) a Urim and Thummim. As the source says, “thus making it difficult to determine in later accounts whether they were referring to the device found with the plates or a separate stone that performed the same function.”

I may be beating a dead horse at this point, but I really want to dig in here before moving on. This was something that I never learned from going to church. You never see a picture of the translation as described like this:

“Later accounts by Joseph Smith’s close associates—either scribes or other early believers who likely learned of the process from Smith or his scribes—provide some idea of what appeared on the Urim and Thummim or seer stone during the translation process. Joseph Knight Sr., a family friend, recalled that after Smith “put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes,” a sentence “would apper in Brite Roman Letters then he would tell the writer and he would write it then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on But if it was not spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite so we see it was marvelous.” http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/doc/introduction-to-documents-volume-1-july-1828-june-1831

Why was this NEVER taught? Why do all of the pictures in every church library just show Joseph with his finger on the plates as if reading them directly? The picture should be of him with his face smashed into a hat. With it like that, he wouldn’t even need the plates near him. It doesn’t even mention that the plates were needed near him while his head was in the hat.

Ok, off that soapbox. Reference 17 has Mosiah 28:14–15, 20; see also Mosiah 8:13, 19; and Ether 4:5 listed. All of these just talk about the interpreters and passing them on, or hiding them up. After the listed scriptures it goes on to list a bunch of references talking about the interpreters / spectacles / urim and thummim. Too many to dig through, nothing interesting looking anyway.

The other instrument, which Joseph Smith discovered in the ground years before he retrieved the gold plates, was a small oval stone, or “seer stone.”¹⁸As a young man during the 1820s, Joseph Smith, like others in his day, used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure.¹⁹ As Joseph grew to understand his prophetic calling, he learned that he could use this stone for the higher purpose of translating scripture.²⁰

18- I will just quote it, “Joseph Smith probably possessed more than one seer stone; he appears to have found one of the stones while digging for a well around 1822.” It was literally a rock he found while digging a hole, nothing special.

19- Again, I’ll just quote it. “Joseph did not hide his well-known early involvement in treasure seeking. In 1838, he published responses to questions frequently asked of him. “Was not Jo Smith a money digger,” one question read. “Yes,” Joseph answered, “but it was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it.”

Wait, what is this about Joseph trying to find buried treasure? Yes, in fact he was taken to court by someone who hired him to find treasure. When he turned up nothing, he was accused of being a “glass looker” and found guilty. This all took place in 1826. I tell you what, the Joseph Smith Papers is turning out some fantastic information.

20- This one seems interesting. It’s a master’s thesis from Utah State University in 2000. Thankfully, USU puts these up online for us (since yet again, the essay didn’t link anything). Ok, I hope this guy passed with flying colors, the thesis is nearly 400 pages, found here. On page 45 it talks about the trial of Joseph being a glass looker too. As for the source, it’s huge. Just a search for “seer stone” in this nearly 400 page document turns up over 400 results. It goes through the history of the whole Smith family, including Joseph’s mother and father, all using seer stones or peep stones, usually to try and find buried treasure. Personally, I do want to look into this thesis paper more, but that will have to be its own project when I have a lot more free time.

Apparently for convenience, Joseph often translated with the single seer stone rather than the two stones bound together to form the interpreters. These two instruments—the interpreters and the seer stone—were apparently interchangeable and worked in much the same way such that, in the course of time, Joseph Smith and his associates often used the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer to the single stone as well as the interpreters.²¹ In ancient times, Israelite priests used the Urim and Thummim to assist in receiving divine communications. Although commentators differ on the nature of the instrument, several ancient sources state that the instrument involved stones that lit up or were divinely illumined.²² Latter-day Saints later understood the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer exclusively to the interpreters. Joseph Smith and others, however, seem to have understood the term more as a descriptive category of instruments for obtaining divine revelations and less as the name of a specific instrument.

21 is an entry from the journal of Wilford Woodruff stating that he saw the stone and called it the urim and thummim. There is no link in the essay, but I was able to find this, again from the Joseph Smith Papers compilation. And it shows the source of the information.

Source 22 is a book printed in 1997 that does not appear to have a copy online. I was able to find this however. It is a review of the book that was created and printed for The Jewish Quarterly Review and was published in 1998. It is a very interesting read, and talks way more about the possible biblical (Old Testemant) use of the urim and thummim that I guess I never knew existed.

So I guess I got side tracked on a tangent; where in the Bible is the Urim and Thummim even mentioned? Well, after a quick search, I found that it mentions Urim alone in: Num 27:21; 1 Sam 28:6. And to find both the Urim and Thummim we find: Exod 28:30; Lev 8:8; Ezra 2:63; Neh 7:65. So I guess the next logical question, what do these say?

Numbers 27:21- “who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the Lord”
1 Samuel 28:26- “And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.”
Exodus 28:30- “And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim”
Leviticus 8:8- “And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.”
Ezra 2:63- “And the Tirshatha said unto them, that they should not eat of the most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim.”
Nehemiah 7:65- “And the Tirshatha said unto them, that they should not eat of the most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim.”

OK, it is mentioned a few times. But I fail to find anything of real worth here. It is something that they could ask counsel from, and a way to get answers from God. But other than that, it goes with a breastplate, and it allowed them to eat “the most holy things.” No real answers.

Some people have balked at this claim of physical instruments used in the divine translation process, but such aids to facilitate the communication of God’s power and inspiration are consistent with accounts in scripture. In addition to the Urim and Thummim, the Bible mentions other physical instruments used to access God’s power: the rod of Aaron, a brass serpent, holy anointing oils, the Ark of the Covenant, and even dirt from the ground mixed with saliva to heal the eyes of a blind man.²³

This source is for all of the references made in the paragraph. It lists the biblical scriptures where these events took place: Exodus 7:9-12; 30:25; 40:9; Leviticus 8:10-12; Numbers 21:9; Joshua 3:6-8; John 9:6. But not much else can be really dug out of here, moving on.

The Mechanics of Translation

In the preface to the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith wrote: “I would inform you that I translated [the book], by the gift and power of God.” When pressed for specifics about the process of translation, Joseph repeated on several occasions that it had been done “by the gift and power of God”²⁴ and once added, “It was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the book of Mormon.”²⁵

I’m getting tired of them not linking right from the essay. This one would be an easy one too. 24 is the Preface to the Book of Mormon, Oh, the 1830 edition; that might be harder to find? Again, the Joseph Smith Papers comes through for us, and we find the Preface here. Although there isn’t much more to it than that. Maybe one day I will take and print out the 1830 Book of Mormon and compare it to the current edition, really see how many changes have been made to it, maybe.

OK, maybe I spoke too soon. 25 has a link, and it links wonderfully. Now, I do have to state that I find this answer provided by Joseph Smith himself to be shady. Why can’t we know about the translation process? He has already gone out on a limb and asked people to believe that he (ok, I was going to say saw God and Jesus, but that story, which took place in 1820, never was spoken of prior to 1832, so I’ll skip that one) has spoken to multiple angels, or at least the same angel multiple times. That he was led to find golden plates hidden in a stone box in a hill near his family farm. Just from a quick view of that, he already sounds crazy, what more could happen if he were to just open up and tell us about the translation process?

Nevertheless, the scribes and others who observed the translation left numerous accounts that give insight into the process. Some accounts indicate that Joseph studied the characters on the plates. Most of the accounts speak of Joseph’s use of the Urim and Thummim (either the interpreters or the seer stone), and many accounts refer to his use of a single stone. According to these accounts, Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument.²⁶ The process as described brings to mind a passage from the Book of Mormon that speaks of God preparing “a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light.”²⁷

OK, 26 again talks to putting his face in a hat, something that has never been mentioned up until this point. But here the source seems to try and say that this has been talked about, even there being two times when a member of the Q12 published something about a head in a hat in a church magazine. So I guess it is my own fault that I didn’t know, when it is so easy to find: “See Neal A. Maxwell, “‘By the Gift and Power of God,’” Ensign, Jan. 1997, 36–41; Russell M. Nelson, “A Treasured Testament,” Ensign, July 1993, 61–63; Richard Lloyd Anderson, “‘By the Gift and Power of God,’” Ensign, Sept. 1977, 78–85; and Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831, xxix–xxxii.”

And 27 is a link to: Alma 37:23-24. I guess this could be talking about the peep stone. I don’t know why, but I always thought this was talking about the rocks that the Jaredites used to light their boats.

The scribes who assisted with the translation unquestionably believed that Joseph translated by divine power. Joseph’s wife Emma explained that she “frequently wrote day after day” at a small table in their house in Harmony, Pennsylvania. She described Joseph “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.”²⁸According to Emma, the plates “often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth.” When asked if Joseph had dictated from the Bible or from a manuscript he had prepared earlier, Emma flatly denied those possibilities: “He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.” Emma told her son Joseph Smith III, “The Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity—I have not the slightest doubt of it. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me for 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.”²⁹

28 and 29 both reference something known as “Last Testimony of Sister Emma.” This is the same reference used in #5 above, here is the link again for your ease, and again it starts at page 289. So again, I will state that we know for a fact that she lied in this interview about Joseph having other wives. That alone should be enough to make us question if she is again lying in this case. There has even been some research done looking at how it may have occurred that there were multiple authors of the Book of Mormon. I won’t go into that here, but you can check out these sources- https://www.mormonwiki.com/Spaulding_Manuscript, or this podcast (part 1 and part 2), or this one- http://solomonspalding.com/docs2/2001vern.htm.  

Another scribe, Martin Harris sat across the table from Joseph Smith and wrote down the words Joseph dictated. Harris later related that as Joseph used the seer stone to translate, sentences appeared. Joseph read those sentences aloud, and after penning the words, Harris would say, “Written.” An associate who interviewed Harris recorded him saying that Joseph “possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone.”³⁰

OK, I am stumped. Source 30 is from a newspaper in 1881, and I cannot find a copy of it online at all. I don’t think it matters too much in this case, there doesn’t seem to be anything controversial in this paragraph anyway.

The principal scribe, Oliver Cowdery, testified under oath in 1831 that Joseph Smith “found with the plates, from which he translated his book, two transparent stones, resembling glass, set in silver bows. That by looking through these, he was able to read in English, the reformed Egyptian characters, which were engraven on the plates.”³¹ In the fall of 1830, Cowdery visited Union Village, Ohio, and spoke about the translation of the Book of Mormon. Soon thereafter, a village resident reported that the translation was accomplished by means of “two transparent stones in the form of spectacles thro which the translator looked on the engraving.”³²

Source 31 lists a magazine from 1831. I was able to find a source online, even from the BYU library. Of note, I have never heard of the author, A.W. Benton before. It seems that he is writing into this publication to give what he calls a, “fuller history of … Joseph Smith Jr.” I can see many people within the church reading just the first few lines and dismissing this as some anti-Mormon writing. Yet the church here uses it as a source. Why would they consider it anti-Mormon? Let’s look at a few quotes:

“Messrs. Editors—In the sixth number of your paper I saw a notice of a sect of people called Mormonites; and thinking that a fuller history of their founder, Joseph Smith, jr., might be interesting to community, and particularly to your correspondent in Ohio, where, perhaps, the truth concerning him may be hard to come at, I will take the trouble to make a few remarks on the character of that infamous impostor. For several years preceding the appearance of his book, he was about the country in the character of a glass-looker: pretending, by means of a certain stone, or glass, which he put in a hat, to be able to discover lost goods, hidden treasures, mines of gold and silver, &c. Although he constantly failed in his pretensions, still he had his dupes who put implicit confidence in all his words. In this town, a wealthy farmer, named Josiah Stowell, together with others, spent large sums of money in digging for hidden money, which this Smith pretended he could see, and told them where to dig; but they never found their treasure. At length the public, becoming wearied with the base imposition which he was palming upon the credulity of the ignorant, for the purpose of sponging his living from their earnings, had him arrested as a disorderly person, tried and condemned before a court or Justice.”

Ok, this is all true stuff. We have the paperwork from the court showing that he was charged as a “glass looker.” Here again is the link to that one. OK, this paper is really interesting, so I am going to keep going with more quotes from it. I’ll be honest, I really just want to copy the whole thing, it is that interesting. Yeah, I am going to do just that. Here is the rest of it-

“But, considering his youth, (he then being a minor,) and thinking he might reform his conduct, he was designedly allowed to escape. This was four or five years ago. From this time he absented himself from this place, returning only privately, and holding clandestine intercourse with his credulous dupes, for two or three years.
“It was during this time, and probably by the help of others more skilled in the ways of iniquity than himself, that he formed the blasphemous design of forging a new revelation, which, backed by the terrors on an endless hell, and the testimony of base unprincipled men, he hoped would frighten the ignorant, and open a field of speculation for the vicious, so that he might secure to himself the scandalous honor of being the founder of a new sect, which might rival, perhaps, the Wilkinsonians, or the French Prophets of the 17th century.

“During the past Summer he was frequently in this vicinity, and others of the baser sort, as Cowdry, Whitmer, etc., holding meetings, and proselyting a few weak and silly women, and still more silly men, whose minds are shrouded in a mist of ignorance which no ray can penetrate, and whose credulity the utmost absurdity cannot equal.
“In order to check the progress of delusion, and open the eyes and understandings of those who blindly followed him, and unmask the turpitude and villany of those who knowingly abetted him in his infamous designs; he was again arraigned before a bar of Justice, during last Summer, to answer to a charge of misdemeanor. This trial led to an investigation of his character and conduct, which clearly evinced to the unprejudiced, whence the spirit came which dictated his inspirations. During the trial it was shown that the Book of Mormon was brought to light by the same magic power by which he pretended to tell fortunes, discover hidden treasures, &c. Oliver Cowdry, one of the three witnesses to the book, testified under oath, that said Smith found with the plates, from which he translated his book, two transparent stones, resembling glass, set in silver bows. That by looking through these, he was able to read in English, the formed Egyptian characters, which were engraved on the plates.

“So much for the gift and power of God. by which Smith says he translate his book. Two transparent stones, undoubtedly of the same properties, and the gift of the same spirit as the one in which he looked to find his neighbor’s goods. It is reported, and probably true, that he commenced his juggling by stealing and hiding property belonging to his neighbors, and when inquiry was made, he would look in his stone, (his gift and power) and tell where it was. Josiah Stowell, a Mormonite, being sworn, testified that he positively knew that said Smith never had lied to, or deceived him, and did not believe he ever tried to deceive any body else. The following questions were then asked him, to which he made the replies annexed.

“Did Smith ever tell you there was money hid in a certain place which he mentioned? Yes. Did he tell you, you could find it by digging? Yes. Did you dig? Yes. Did you find any money? No. Did he not lie to you then, and deceive you? No! the money was there, but we did not get quite to it! How do you know it was there? Smith said it was! Addison Austin was next called upon, who testified, that at the very same time that Stowell was digging for money, he, Austin, was in company with said Smith alone, and asked him to tell him honestly whether he could see this money or not. Smith hesitated some time, but finally replied, “to be candid, between you and me, I cannot, any more than you or any body else; but any way to get a living.” Here, then, we have his own confession, that he was a vile, dishonest impostor. As regards the testimony of Josiah Stowell, it needs no comment. He swears positively that Smith did not lie to him. So much for a Mormon witness. Paramount to this, in truth and consistency, was the testimony of Joseph Knight, another Mormonite. Newel Knight, son of the former, and also a Mormonite, testified, under oath, that he positively had a devil cast out of himself by the instrumentality of Joseph Smith, jr., and that he saw the devil after it was out, but could not tell how it looked!

“Those who have joined them in this place, are, without exception, children who are frightened into the measure, or ignorant adults, whose love for the marvellous is equalled by nothing but their entire devotedness to the will of their leader; with a few who are as destitute of virtue and moral honesty, as they are of truth and consistency. As for his book, it is only the counterpart of his money-digging plan. Fearing the penalty of the law, and wishing still to amuse his followers, he fled for safety to the sanctuary of pretended religion.”

I really don’t know how much more I could add to that. Now I understand that this is a single individual making these claims. But we have sources that back up a number of things stated here. Sorry for that being really long, but I thought it was needed in its entirety.

The source for number 32 I was able to find through the Utah State University, here, and starts on page 147. The source here talks of Richard McNemar, who was a known Shaker. He received a Book of Mormon from Oliver Cowdery, and then went on to write “one of the earliest theological reviews of the Book of Mormon.” The Shaker community as a whole apparently found the Book of Mormon, “as not interesting enough to keep them awake while reading.” In the end, McNemar ridiculed the process of translation, “and proclaiming it doctrinally inept.”

So again, I wonder why the church chose this particular source. It doesn’t do anything more than allow them the single line that they want to use about the translation process. That was then ridiculed by the individual they are quoting. Strong work.

Conclusion

Joseph Smith consistently testified that he translated the Book of Mormon by the “gift and power of God.” His scribes shared that testimony. The angel who brought news of an ancient record on metal plates buried in a hillside and the divine instruments prepared especially for Joseph Smith to translate were all part of what Joseph and his scribes viewed as the miracle of translation. When he sat down in 1832 to write his own history for the first time, he began by promising to include “an account of his marvelous experience.”³³ The translation of the Book of Mormon was truly marvelous.

Source 33 is linked itself in the essay (link here also). This just links back to the history that Joseph Smith started writing that we have already looked at in source 17.

The truth of the Book of Mormon and its divine source can be known today. God invites each of us to read the book, remember the mercies of the Lord and ponder them in our hearts, “and ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true.” God promises that “if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.”³⁴

Source 34 is the classic Moroni 10:3–5, AKA: Moroni’s promise. I haven’t gone into this topic yet, but I do have some issues with the wording of this “promise”. The phrase, “ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true.” This is a leading statement. Asking “if these things are not true” is not the same as asking “if these things are true.” The word “not” changes the whole assumption of the question from one of skepticism to one of belief. In other words, by asking “if these things are not true” the assumption is that they are already true, and we are asking if our belief is incorrect. On the other hand, by asking “if these things are true” the assumption is that they are false, and we are asking if our currently belief is incorrect. So, we don’t approach God in prayer, believing that the Book of Mormon is false, and wanting to know if it is true. Using that approach, we will get nothing by way of an answer. Instead we approach God in prayer, already believing that the Book of Mormon is true and wanting to know if it is false. Then the Lord confirms to us that it is true. And this is where I find fault. You already have to have the thought in your mind that it is indeed true. And only then, already believing it to be true, will you get the warm fuzzies confirming that.

Then the follow up to that is that you have to have a “sincere heart” and “real intent.” And if you don’t get an answer, then that means that you didn’t have either (or both) of these things. Basically, you are stuck in this infinite loop until you finally either quit, or start actually believing that it is true, then you get the warm fuzzy reassurance. From the biochemical standpoint, it is easy for your body to want to produce the reward hormones and chemicals that give you those warm, fuzzy feelings. So going into the situation with a happy answer, it doesn’t take much for the body to agree and send out those chemicals of happiness.

My closing statement- Just because an article or essay has sources, doesn’t automatically mean that it is a solid statement. If I wanted to prove a point, and I cited a source that turns out to be a friends blog who happens to agree with me, does not solidify the statement. In cases like this, the church has before turned to an Egyptologist to talk about how the information is xyz. Well, turns out that this Egyptologist got their degree from BYU. And when you go out and ask others from the Egyptologist community from other institutions, you find that the claims made by the BYU guy are not followed community wide. Dig into the sources! That is why I have the links to the sources right here, in the document. That way, anyone can click on it and see what it says for themselves. *I should note, that I can’t guarantee that these sites won’t change something so that my link fails. All I can say is that they worked at the time I published the post.