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Yea, he saith, come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life.
—Alma 5:34

One of the most referenced sermons in the Book of Mormon is Alma’s discourse to the church in Zarahemla in about 83 BC. Alma 5 seems to derive its narrative structure, distinctive language, and symbolic imagery from Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision. Alma’s sermon in this chapter twice directly references the “tree of life” (5:32, 62). These references constitute two of the six times the symbol is mentioned by Alma in the Book of Mormon (Alma 32:40; 42:3, 5–6). The only other prophets to use the phrase are Lehi and Nephi. This fact seems significant. Famously, the tree of life is a key symbol in Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision. The tree of life is not the only parallel between Alma 5 and these early revelations, though, suggesting that Alma is dependent on these texts in his sermon. Lehi’s influence on Alma 5 has been discussed for over a decade, but no one to my knowledge has described the full extent of this influence.^[1] A thorough study of this influence is thus in order. I demonstrate here that Alma uses Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision to arrange his address.

In 2022, four Book of Mormon scholars published a brief survey of the field of Book of Mormon studies. Their survey identifies seven common methodological approaches to the Book of Mormon, all of which, more or less, have been applied to other forms of sacred literature. The seven approaches include these: (1) textual production, (2) historical origins, (3) literary criticism, (4) intertextuality, (5) theological interpretation, (6) reception history, and finally, (7) ideology critique. Of these, I am most interested in intertextuality (how one text influences another). The authors of the survey explain that although intertextual approaches to sacred literature have been around since at least the 1970s, in the case of the Book of Mormon, intertextuality “has come into use . . . only recently.” They caution that commonality between texts may imply “deliberate dependence,” but it doesn’t necessarily mean more than “suggestive interaction in the mind of a reader.”^[2] Here, I will argue for deliberate dependence while not ruling out suggestive interaction.

In addition, neither the elements of Lehi’s dream nor Nephi’s vision nor, for that matter, much else in the record can perfectly be disentangled from its associated material. This is because one of the qualities of great literature, and thus divine scripture, is what may be termed poetic fusion. This literary convoluting of associated parts within a given text is a common aesthetic of not only the most symbolic texts but also, to a lesser degree, prophetic sermons such as Alma 5. That is, although my analysis attempts to neatly divide Alma 5 into three distinct parts, the complexity of it will of necessity challenge that endeavor with overlap and intersection.

Accordingly, to make this intertextual argument, I will do my best to demonstrate the direct and indirect intersection between three aesthetically challenging texts: 1 Nephi 8 (Lehi’s dream); 1 Nephi 11–14 (Nephi’s vision); and Alma 5 (Alma’s sermon to Zarahemla). In the first of these texts, Lehi emerges from a dark wilderness to partake of the fruit of the tree of life. He sees many others also wandering toward and away from the tree. Many in his dream inhabit a great and spacious building. In the second text, Nephi beholds the things that his father saw and more. In a series of juxtaposed episodes, he sees redemptive history unfold from the time of Christ to nearly the end of the world. The third text, Alma’s sermon to Zarahemla, contains Alma’s remarks to the Nephite church after he has relinquished his role as the chief judge. In his bold sermon, Alma calls many in the church to repent and be born again that they might be prepared for what is to come.

In what follows, (1) I will suggest that Alma 5, somewhat like Lehi’s dream, begins with an account of the forefathers (men and women) passing through a wilderness only to find a special tree and its fruit; (2) I will demonstrate the allusive presence of the tree of life in Alma 5 and attempt to get at the language’s redemptive implications; and (3) I will demonstrate the allusive presence of the great and spacious building (or its inhabitants) in Alma 5. This particular order is important because it follows the order of events and symbols as we receive them in Nephi’s account of his father’s dream and in his own vision.^[3] My primary claim is that the three-part shape of Lehi’s dream, more or less, appears to dictate the shape of Alma’s significant sermon.

Lehi’s and Nephi’s Influence on the First Part of Alma 5

To further get at Lehi’s influence on Alma 5, we will first need to turn our attention to Alma’s intriguing prologue (Alma 5:3–13). In Lehi’s prologue he seems to be spiritually struggling in darkness before happening upon a tree with joy-inducing fruit (1 Nephi 8:4–12). Similarly, Alma emphasizes his forefathers’ experiences in temporal captivity and their deliverance from spiritual darkness. He couches this spiritual deliverance in terms of emerging from “darkness” unto “light” (5:7). Alma’s “invok[ing] of the fathers” is consistent with the angelic admonition he received at the time of his own conversion and, for reasons that will be forthcoming, seems noteworthy (Mosiah 27:16).^[4] Lehi’s own dream experience is emblematic of the more recent historic deliverances described by Alma to those assembled to hear him in Zarahemla. Thus, Lehi’s prologue seems to more or less parallel Alma’s prologue in at least seven ways.

First, in each account a dark and difficult wilderness serves as the setting for the action involved. Although Nephi’s account of Lehi’s dream prologue is brief and likely incomplete, the setting of the wilderness is referred to variously as a “dark and dreary wilderness” and as a “dark and dreary waste” (1 Nephi 8:4, 7). The implications of finding himself in this place caused Lehi to “fear exceedingly” (8:4). Nephi only recounts Lehi’s dream for his reader after he says that “my father tarried in the wilderness” south of Jerusalem (8:2). Once delivered from his ordeal, Lehi, we are told, stumbles upon a “large and spacious field” (8:9). The vastness implied by this last detail suggests that Lehi experienced the darkness of his wilderness as an oppressive and smothering mist.^[5]

Alma’s prologue also describes a wilderness. It is directly referred to in Alma 5:3–5 as that wilderness “in the borders of Nephi” (Alma 5:3). It is there that Alma, after fleeing Noah’s court, establishes a church “in the wilderness” (5:5). Alma explains that while yet among Noah’s people, “they [Alma’s followers] were in the midst of darkness” (5:7).^[6] To be more specific, before their conversion, “they were encircled about by the bands of death and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them” (5:7). “[N]evertheless,” we are told, “their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word,” and “their souls did expand” (5:7, 9).^[7]

Second, in each account the dark and difficult wilderness is traversed by a father (or fathers). Nephi tells of his father’s dream as part of a more extensive abridgment of Lehi’s prophecies and revelations (see 1 Nephi 1–10). Presumably out of respect for his father, Nephi begins his overall record stating he was “taught somewhat in all the learning of [his] father” and that he makes his record “in the language of [his] father” (1 Nephi 1:1–2). It is no wonder therefore that Lehi’s dream as recounted by Nephi begins with his father’s experience in the wilderness. Indeed, Lehi’s dream begins and ends with his fatherly concerns for his sons, Laman and Lemuel, and by implication, their posterity (1 Nephi 8:4, 36). Lehi appears to discover (while beholding the abyss of his wilderness) that he himself was lost in it (8:7).

Alma begins his sermon with the account of his own father in the wilderness. From the time of his own conversion, as mentioned, the son Alma had been admonished to remember his forefathers’ captivity (Mosiah 27:16). This may be because he and the sons of Mosiah had fought against the authority and teachings of their fathers earlier in their history (27:14–15). Accordingly, Alma asks his own people if they have “sufficiently retained in remembrance the captivity of [their] fathers” (5:6). He is emphatic on this point. Further, early in his sermon Alma describes his father’s own conversion and reminds his people that their fathers also were delivered out of their wilderness and ultimately saved from the “bands of death, and the chains of hell” that did encompass them before they came to a knowledge of the truth (Alma 5:7–9).

Third, in each account a father or fathers are granted the inspired word of an angelic or prophetic guide to help them through the wilderness. In Lehi’s dream, after seeing the “dark and dreary wilderness,” he is joined by “a man” who guides him. The unidentified man is described as “dressed in a white robe” (1 Nephi 8:4–5). The white robe reference is reminiscent of the theophany in 1 Nephi 1:8–13. It certainly is suggestive of the man’s positive guiding presence. In Lehi’s early vision, after God and angels are observed, one descends “out of the midst of heaven” (1:9). His “luster was above that of noon-day” (1:9). Further, “twelve others” followed him; their “brightness did exceed that of the stars” (1:10). The man in the white robe in Lehi’s dream first stands “before [him],” and then bids Lehi to “follow him” (8:6). Thereafter, he is not mentioned anymore. This robed figure seems to be an angel or prophet, one who prepares the way for Lehi to reach the tree and taste the fruit that “filled [his] soul with exceedingly great joy,” even though he says little in the account (8:12).

Similarly, in Alma’s sermon Alma explains that the fathers (his own included) were delivered from their wilderness by following the words spoken by a “holy prophet” (Alma 5:11). Alma asks the members of the church, “did not my father Alma believe in the words which were delivered by the mouth of Abinadi?” (5:11) Alma follows this question up with a statement about the effect of his own father’s words upon the fathers of those whom he addresses: “And behold, he [my father] preached the word unto your fathers, and a mighty change was wrought in their hearts” (5:13). The result of Abinadi’s and Alma’s preaching was that they “humbled themselves” and “their souls did expand, and they did sing redeeming love” (5:9, 13).

Fourth, in each account a father (or fathers) seeks heavenly help and finds deliverance through prayer. Due to the brevity of the account of Lehi’s dream, much must be inferred about Lehi’s experience in his dark wilderness. What seems clear, though, is that in seeking deliverance from his ordeal he undergoes a transformation. It has been suggested that Lehi, the traveler, is “lost and helpless,” even confused, as if by a “mist of darkness (sultry and thick).”^[8] Only once Lehi begins to follow his guide does he perceive his real situation. After presumably trailing his guide for “many hours in darkness,” Lehi appears to hunger for divine deliverance (1 Nephi 8:8). As a result, he reports: “I began to pray unto the Lord” (8:8). Due to his prayer, Lehi is delivered from his wilderness into a “large and spacious field” (8:4, 9). The fervent prayer offered in despair and darkness (not the guide per se) seems to be the primary means of deliverance.

Alma also alludes to their fathers’ deliverance from King Noah and later Amulon (priest of Noah). The account of these deliverances is most fully recorded in Mosiah 23–24. In those chapters we learn that Alma and his newly converted people had been “delivered out of the hands of King Noah” (Alma 5:4) only to fall victim to Amulon (Mosiah 23:39). While in bondage to Amulon in the wilderness the members of the church were not permitted to pray to God vocally, so they “did pour out their hearts to him” (Mosiah 24:12). Through “their faith and their patience” they were ultimately delivered from their captivity and were able to travel to Zarahemla. Alma’s people sought help and found temporal and spiritual deliverance by means of prayer.

Fifth, in each account a father or fathers is eventually delivered by a merciful act of God. In 1 Nephi 1:20, Nephi promises his reader that he “will show unto [him or her] that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he has chosen . . . to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.” True to his word, Nephi describes Lehi while yet in darkness praying unto the Lord “that he would have mercy on [him], according to the multitude of his tender mercies” (8:8). As indicated, Lehi’s deliverance out of his wilderness follows. Further, Nephi wraps up the account of his father’s dream by returning to the theme of mercy. Lehi’s post-dream hope for his eldest sons, Laman and Lemuel, is recorded as follows: “that perhaps the Lord would be merciful to them, and not cast them off” (8:37).

Mercy also figures in Alma’s sermon. Indeed, Alma says that his fathers were delivered from their wilderness by an act of divine mercy. Speaking of the church’s deliverance from Noah, he writes, “And behold, I say unto you, they were delivered out of the hands of the people of king Noah, by the mercy and power of God” (Alma 5:4). In the next verse, we learn that the earlier merciful deliverance (out of Noah’s hands) and the subsequent deliverance (out of Amulon’s hands) came “by the power of [the Lord’s] word” (5:5). Alma then searchingly asks his audience, “Yea, have you sufficiently retained in remembrance his mercy and long-suffering towards them [fathers]?” (5:6)

Sixth, in each account the fruit of the tree of life is seen and then tasted, the tree being an emblem of renewed spiritual life and the attendant joyful hope of redemption. Once Lehi enters upon a “large and spacious field” (1 Nephi 8:9), he beholds a tree that is later identified by Nephi as the “tree of life” (11:25). Lehi sees that the tree’s “fruit was desirable to make one happy” (8:10). Once Lehi approaches and partakes of the fruit of the tree, he discovers that it is “most sweet” and “white, to exceed all the whiteness that [he] had ever seen” (8:11). The fruit “filled [Lehi’s] soul with exceedingly great joy” (8:12). Thereafter, Lehi invites his family to the tree to partake of the fruit with him. About this time, he learns that some of his family members are willing to “come unto [him],” but some are not. (Lehi also sees many other symbols in and around the tree, we are told, including a path, a rod, a river, a mist, a building, etc.)

In Alma’s sermon, the tree of life is suggested early on (as early as Alma 5:7) but not explicitly referenced until later. As indicated, Alma invites his audience to the fruit of the tree in these unmistakably allusive words: “Behold, he [Lord] sendeth an invitation to all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent and I will receive you. Yea, he saith: Come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life; yea, ye shall eat and drink of the bread of life freely” (5:33–34). Further, after Alma speaking by way of commandment implores the members of the church to come and partake, he ends his sermon addressing those not of the church who are also present on the occasion in these words: “and unto those who do not belong to the church I speak by way of invitation, saying: Come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life” (5:62).

Seventh, in each account the tree of life is emblematic of sweet and pure redeeming love. Redeeming love is implicit in the tree of life’s description and in Lehi’s actions relative to his family members (1 Nephi 8:11–12). This becomes more explicit, however, in Nephi’s vision when the tree is clearly associated with the “love of God” (11:21–22, 25). And, as the account says, Nephi sought to behold the “things which [his] father saw”; this, at least initially, especially includes the tree his father saw (11:3). Nephi later receives that privilege (1 Nephi 11–14; see also 15:21–22). The tree of life, introduced in Lehi’s dream, is explicitly discussed during Nephi’s vision and thereafter alluded to often. There, it takes on many allusive resonances, as we shall see. Nephi directly references Lehi’s tree early and, at first, often (11:4, 7–9, 21). Thereafter, though, he mostly only suggests it using certain descriptive words and phrases (as did his father) such as “white” and “exceedingly fair and beautiful” (13:15). White, or a white exceeding anything earthly, has described the tree from 1 Nephi 8 (8:11; 11:8). In his vision, Nephi variously associates Lehi’s tree and its fruit with the righteous across time (11:8, 15; 12:10–11; 13:15–16; see also 15:26–36). In Nephi’s revelation, the tree of life is most plainly associated with redeeming love. That is, after Nephi asks his first guide for the “interpretation” of the tree, he is shown the fair, white, and beautiful virgin birth of the Son of God, according to the “love of God,” which is “most desirable” and “most joyous,” even “precious above all” (11:9, 11–23). Lehi similarly describes the fruit of the white tree as “desirable to make one happy”; indeed, when Lehi partook of the tree’s fruit “it filled [his] soul with exceedingly great joy,” and he began to be “desirous” that his family should partake of it also (1 Nephi 8:9–12).

Alma speaks of redeeming love in a similar symbolic context. As we have seen, Alma’s prologue points out that the fathers were delivered from their wilderness when they emerged from darkness and began to experience light and love. Hearkening to the words of the prophets, Abinadi and Alma, the fathers’ hearts were changed, Alma says, and “their souls did expand, and they did sing redeeming love” (Alma 5:9, 26). Alma refers to the “mighty change” of heart that fills them with the “song of redeeming love” twice in his sermon (5:14, 26). He does so in context with his discussion about how the fathers obtained mercy and the initial hope of salvation. Redeeming love is what one feels when one has freshly emerged from the wilderness. Once Alma’s prologue is concluded, then, he points his people to the prospect of salvation through Christ. The imagery at the midpoint of Alma 5 becomes ever more suggestive of the tree of life, the same periodically described or suggested in 1 Nephi 8 and 11–14 (see also 1 Nephi 15:21–22, 36).

To summarize, there are seven ways in which the beginning of Lehi’s dream parallels Alma’s opening sermon in Alma 5. Each account begins in a difficult wilderness. There, a father (or the fathers) struggles for deliverance. In process of time, he is delivered from his circumstance by the mercy and power of God. In Lehi’s case, he follows a man robed in white; in Alma’s case, he says the fathers (including his own) obtained salvation by heeding the words of a prophet. Further, we have seen that both accounts allude to the tree of life and God’s “redeeming love,” as manifest toward those who choose to come unto him and be “saved” (5:9–13). That is, the first part of each account, directly or indirectly, introduces us to the tree of life.

Accordingly, in what follows I will (1) demonstrate how Alma in the middle part of his sermon symbolically suggests Lehi’s and Nephi’s tree of life more fully using the word clusters referenced earlier and (2) show how in the last part of his sermon Alma suggests the great and spacious building that we are introduced to in Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision. Doing this will conclude my case that Alma has inventively shaped his sermon in Alma 5 on the three-part pattern found most clearly in Lehi’s dream.

Lehi’s and Nephi’s Influence on the Second Part of Alma 5

After Alma’s prologue, the theme that dominates Alma 5 (verses 14–36) is that of qualifying for salvation or eternal life through the Lord’s atonement. Throughout this middle section of the sermon, we are to equate Alma’s earlier discussion of salvation and reference to redemptive love with the tree of life. While delivering his sermon, Alma sees himself, much as Abinadi and Alma once did, figuratively inviting his wandering people to the tree of life where they can find redeeming love, and ultimately salvation, if they “humble . . . themselves” enough to repent and remain there with the others gathered to the “true and living God” (Alma 5:13, 7:6; Mormon 9:28; Ether 2:8; see also 3 Nephi 30:1; Mormon 5:14).

The following examples demonstrate how Alma directly alludes to and adapts certain distinctive words and phrases we first find in Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision, particularly references to the tree of life (but also the building’s inhabitants). Some references are more explicit than others. The less-than-obvious echoes may require explanation, but the direct references should make the less precise references more plausible. Indeed, the explicit references (Alma 5:34, 62) invite the reader to consider the possibility of the more subtle connections. Significantly, the more explicit borrowings allow for the less obvious resonances to be perceived—and, in time, appreciated—as belonging to this further simplified pattern of the entire sermon: (1) the wilderness and father (or fathers) led to the tree, (2) the tree of life itself, and (3) the great building.

Having analyzed the seven prologue/wilderness parallels between Lehi and Alma, we will now examine certain additional tree of life parallels between Lehi’s dream (and Nephi’s vision) and Alma’s sermon.

First, as indicated in each account, the tree of life and its fruit are explicitly and implicitly referenced using similar words. The tree of life and its fruit are explicitly referenced in Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision. In 1 Nephi 8, the tree’s fruit is described as “desirable to make one happy”; “most sweet, above all”; and “white, to exceed all whiteness” (8:10–11). The tree’s fruit, we are told, filled Lehi’s soul with “exceedingly great joy” (8:12). Nephi’s first guide (the Spirit of the Lord) also remarks on the tree’s “whiteness” (11:8). Not much later, Nephi compares the tree and its fruit to the “love of God,” which he explains is “most desirable” and “most joyous” (11:22–23, 25). The Spirit employs additional descriptors when referring to the tree such as “exceeding of all beauty” (later “exceedingly fair” and “most beautiful”) and “precious above all” (11:8–9, 13–15). In Nephi’s vision, the tree and its fruit are associated with the Lamb of God and his life (11:21, 34–36). The Lamb is equated there with the Good Shepherd (13:41). The righteous are also associated with the tree and its fruit, including groups such as the Jewish twelve apostles (11:29–36), the Nephite twelve disciples (12:6, 10–12), and the latter-day Gentiles (13:15–16).

Though the tree of life is directly described by Nephi and Lehi, many of the above references to it are only allusive. Nevertheless, they are identifiable by tracing distinct word clusters. For instance, in 1 Nephi 12:10–12 the tree of life is suggested by phrases such as “they [the Nephite twelve] are righteous forever” and “their garments are made white in his [Lamb’s] blood” (12:10–12). (Alma will rely more on the Good Shepherd identifier for the divine figure in his sermon.) This reading of 1 Nephi 12:10–12 is reasonable for three reasons: (1) The twelve apostles have recently been associated with the Lamb of God (after crucifying him, the world fought against them from the “great and spacious building,” 11:36). (2) Speaking of chapter 12 specifically, this special imagery has been invoked after allusions to “a mist of darkness” (12:4–5) and before references to the “river” and the “large and spacious building,” so one suspects that other symbols from Lehi’s dream such as the tree of life are likely implicitly present (12:16–18). (3) Phrases such as “made white” and “were white” are repeated three times in 12:10–11. This concentrated repetition of these phrases so soon after the tree’s description in 1 Nephi 11:7–9 and so proximate to the other recycled symbols obliges the reader to scrutinize the cluster of words and to follow them forward with Lehi’s dreamscape in mind.^[9]

A careful perusal of the words associated with the tree of life and its fruit first introduced in Lehi’s dream and/or Nephi’s vision along with those new terms accumulating through 1 Nephi 11–14 (and even 1 Nephi 15) yields interesting results. As indicated, Alma directly refers to the “tree of life” on three separate occasions: he directly uses the phrase “tree of life” twice while preaching to the church in Zarahemla (Alma 5:34, 62); he employs the phrase one time while preaching among the poor Zoramites (Alma 32:40); and he deploys the phrase three more times while teaching his wayward son Corianton (42:3, 5–6). However, most of Alma’s allusive references in Alma 5 that echo Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision are less obvious, and thus require attending to contextual clues, as well as being willing to compare Alma 5 with other passages ascribed to Alma. As this is an important point, I will return to Alma’s choice of characteristic words after I establish their salvific context in Alma 5. For now, it should be noted that certain words that directly refer to and/or suggest the tree of life and its fruit are shared by Lehi, Nephi, and Alma. These are the only prophets in the Book of Mormon who use the phrase “tree of life.”

Second, in each account the theme of final judgment and salvation provides the backdrop for the direct reference to the tree of life. It is plain from Nephi’s abridgment of his father’s dream that Lehi understands what he has seen in reference to the tree of life and the great and spacious building to represent the possible cutting off of his sons (if not their posterity) from the blessings of ultimate salvation in the kingdom of God. According to Nephi, Lehi prefaces his dream by speaking of the salvation of his sons in these words: “And behold, because of the thing which I [Lehi] have seen, I have reason to rejoice in the Lord because of Nephi and also of Sam; for I have reason to suppose that they, and also many of their seed, will be saved” (1 Nephi 8:3). However, this reference to ultimate salvation is immediately followed by Lehi’s concern for his older sons: “But behold, Laman and Lemuel, I fear exceedingly because of you” (8:4). His fear for these sons is not made known until the dream has been recorded. Nephi records Lehi’s delayed conclusion in these words: “because of the things which he saw in a vision, he exceedingly feared for Laman and Lemuel; yea, he feared lest they should be cast off from the presence of the Lord” (8:36).

Given the immediate dream context for this statement, it must be understood that to be cut off from the tree of life and its fruit is to be “cut off from the presence of the Lord” and, if we include the next verse in the equation, from his redemptive mercy (8:37). Nephi reports that after Lehi imparted his dream to them, he preached to them, exhorting them to keep the commandments of God. It appears, though we do not have the sermon, that Lehi’s dream was the basis for a sermon he delivered to his sons, one in which with some urgency he exhorted them and prophesied. (This is essentially what Alma does in Zarahemla. He appears to use Lehi’s dream to construct a three-part prophecy that his people might return to the Lord and partake of the goodness and mercy of God as made available through his infinite atonement.) Lehi understands his dream to suggest the ultimate salvation of Nephi and Sam and the final fate of his other sons if they do not turn their course and partake of the redemptive blessings extended to them.

Alma also situates his direct and indirect references to the tree of life and its fruit within the context of final judgment and ultimate salvation. Like Lehi, he perceives that his people will not be saved unless they repent and come unto Christ through his (Alma’s) words to partake of what elsewhere is called the goodness of God. Judgment and salvation are major themes running through the early and middle portions of Alma’s sermon. While yet discussing their fathers’ experiences in the wilderness, he asks his people, “on what conditions are they saved? Yea, what grounds had they to hope for salvation?” (Alma 5:10) Later, after asking his people to look forward to the day of their final judgment, he asks, “can ye think of being saved when you have yielded yourselves to become subjects to the devil?” (5:20) He immediately answers his own question: “I say unto you, ye will know at that day ye cannot be saved; for there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white” (5:21). No one can gain salvation “or sit down in the kingdom of God” unless they repent and come to the tree of life (5:24).

Third, in each account a significant person invites others to come and partake of the fruit of the tree of life. In Lehi’s dream, a figure in authority invites others to come to where he stands to partake of the fruit of the tree of life, which represents Christ and the redemptive blessings he extends to the repentant who are washed clean and pure through him. In Lehi’s dream, he as husband and father to the family invites his wife and sons in sequence to come to the tree by which he stands to partake of its most sweet and exceedingly white fruit: “And it came to pass that I beckoned unto them; and I also did say unto them with a loud voice that they should come unto me, and partake of the fruit, which was desirable above all other fruit” (1 Nephi 8:15). As we have seen, some in the family heed Lehi’s invitation while others do not. In consequence, some are cut off from the presence of the Lord. Lehi’s dream, being prophetic in nature, truly predicted what later actually occurred. His older sons (and others who followed them) were “cut off from the presence of the Lord” around the time of his death (see 2 Nephi 5:20–21). Nephi saw in his vision the troubles among his people and his brothers’ seed and was distraught at the prospect (see 1 Nephi 15:4–5). He also saw that the Lord would in a latter day invite all to come unto him by means of bringing forth “other books” (13:39–41). This divine person who invites “all men . . . to come unto him” in the account is referred to as the “Lamb” and “Shepherd” (13:41).

Alma implores his people to come unto the Lord and partake of the blessings of his redemption through repentance and baptism. He stands before his people and extends to them the Lord’s “invitation” (an invitation extended to all within his hearing and beyond). The invitation: “Repent, and I will receive you” (Alma 5:33). Alma continues speaking for the Lord: “Yea, he [the Lord] saith: Come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life; yea, ye shall eat and drink of the bread and the waters of life freely. Yea, come unto me and bring forth works of righteousness” (5:34–35). A similar invitation to those not of the church is repeated in the final moments of Alma’s sermon. He declares: “Come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life” (5:62).

In Alma’s role as high priest over the church of God, he stands before the church in Zarahemla commanding and/or inviting the people present to come unto him and partake of the salvation and goodness of God. In Lehi’s dream, Lehi “stood” (the word is repeated at least four times in 1 Nephi 8:13–21) to issue his invitation to his family members to come unto him and partake of the fruit. It appears that Alma, who stands before the church in Zarahemla, sees himself as doing what Lehi did. Both Lehi and Alma invite the others to come and partake of the tree of life.

Alma relinquished his role as the chief judge to dedicate more time to the preaching of the word according to his “order” (Alma 5:43–44, 49). Thus, he declares this to those present in the “energy of [his] soul”: “I am commanded to stand and testify unto this people the things which have been spoken by my fathers” (5:44). Alma’s figurative invitation unto his people is not to come to the tree of life so much as it is an invitation to come unto Christ through his doctrine. As indicated, Alma suggests that the act of partaking of the tree of life’s fruit means to repent and be baptized and to bring forth righteous works.

Fourth, in each account the editor/abridger uses uncommon atonement imagery to describe the blessings associated with the tree of life and its fruit. Before wrapping up these observations, it may be useful to state again that certain representative passages contain word clusters allusive of the atonement. These uncommon word clusters suggest that the characteristics of the tree of life and its cleansing effects are used in a salvific context. In Nephi’s vision, the tree of life and its fruit acquire manifold symbolic meanings. Nephi is the first to employ the word clusters spoken of here. He uses them for one purpose: to refer to the righteous (those made white through the blood of Christ) who, by implication, partake of the fruit of the tree of life in their generation. For instance, Nephi refers in these exclusive terms to Mary (1 Nephi 11:13–15), the twelve Nephite ministers (12:10–11; see also 2 Nephi 5:21), and the Gentiles (1 Nephi 13:15).

After mentioning the tree of life to his brothers who dispute his father’s teachings, Nephi suggests that the “righteous”—those he calls the “saints of God”—are separated from the filthy (those not made pure through the blood of Christ) (1 Nephi 15:28, 36). The filthy, he says, inherit a “place of filthiness,” while the righteous inherit the “kingdom of God” (15:34). He concludes this part of his account with another reference to the symbolic imagery of his father’s dream: “Wherefore, the wicked [filthy] are rejected from the righteous [the purified or white] and also from that tree of life, whose fruit is most precious and most desirable above all other fruits; yea, and it is the greatest of all the gifts of God” (15:36). In Alma 5, Alma, drawing on Lehi and Nephi again, directly exhorts the righteous to separate from the filthy in explicit context with the tree of life and its fruit that produced, as Nephi understood, the redemptive love of God and eternal life (see 5:57).

In Alma 5, we learn that Alma conjures up in similar words the whole image of the tree of life as suggested by his predecessors using more or less the same imagery that is found in the revelations and writings of his fathers, Lehi and Nephi. Alma especially adapts a phrase that is perhaps best associated with 1 Nephi 12:10–11.^[10] There Nephi recounts the history of Lehi’s seed, including the sacred history concerning the twelve Nephite disciples and those righteous generations after them who were visited by the Lord as recounted in 3 Nephi. Here is the relevant language and imagery referencing the tree of life from 1 Nephi 12:

And these twelve ministers whom thou [Nephi] beholdest shall judge thy seed [in that final day of judgment] . . . for because of their faith in the Lamb of God their garments are made white in his blood.

And the angel said unto me: Look! And I looked, and beheld three generations pass away in righteousness, and their garments were white even like unto the Lamb of God. And the angel said unto me: These are made white in the blood of the Lamb, because of their faith in him. (1 Nephi 12:10–11)

Like Nephi, in Alma 5, Alma creatively adapts this distinctive language cluster and tree of life/atonement imagery from Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision (1 Nephi 8:11; 12:10–11; see also 15:21–36). He uses certain suggestive words in a concentrated way such as “garments,” “white,” “purified,” “cleansed,” and “blood” in context with the final judgment and salvation of his people (Alma 5:21).

Further, Alma teaches his people that on the day of judgment they will stand before the Lord and receive according to their works. The combination of select terms is added to in ways reminiscent of Lehi’s and Nephi’s revelations. To familiar terminology, Alma adds “filthiness,” “kingdom of God [or kingdom of heaven],” “spotless, pure and white,” and even “redeeming love” (5:22, 24, 26). These words remind us of Nephi’s relevant teachings. In 1 Nephi 15, while explaining his father’s dream symbols, Nephi repeats the word “filthiness” (or a variation of it) nearly ten times in context with the bright “justice of God,” the final judgment, and the unclean being “cast off [or cast out]” from the “righteous” (1 Nephi 15:30, 33, 35).

In Nephi’s explanation of Lehi’s symbols (including the tree of life, rod of iron, and river of water), the phrase “kingdom of God,” or its variant, “kingdom of heaven,” is repeated five times in the course of only three verses (1 Nephi 15:33–25). Indeed, the symbol of the filthy river that Lehi saw is described as if the tree of life itself. After explaining that the river “separated the wicked from the tree of life, and also from the saints of God,” Nephi says to his brothers, “our father also saw that the justice of God did divide the wicked from the righteous; and the brightness thereof was like unto the brightness of a flaming fire” (15:30, 35; emphasis added). As did Alma when adopting this imagery, Nephi then speaks about the final judgment and the “kingdom of God” and its opposite, “a place of filthiness” (15:34). Nephi’s explanation concludes as it began: with a clear reference to the tree of life (15:21–23, 36).

This invitation to repent from “all manner of filthiness” and be baptized suggests that Alma views partaking of the fruit of the tree of life as symbolically equivalent to partaking of the blessings of the Lord’s atonement (5:22). For Nephi, until one repents and is baptized, he or she may not access forgiveness and the exceeding joy of redemption. “Happiness” is the “end of the atonement” (2 Nephi 2:10). For Alma, through the “blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers,” the repentant and baptized person may be “washed white; yea, purified until cleansed from all stain” and find life in Christ (5:21). In this way, the repentant may find access to the blessings of the Holy Ghost, including sanctification. Alma understands that it is by the blood of the Lord that one’s “garments are cleansed,” enabling them to find “redeeming love” (5:24, 26). Thus, Alma refers on occasion to the blessings of the Lord’s blood atonement without directly mentioning the fruit of the tree of life. The effects of the Lord’s blood atonement, including becoming “spotless, pure, and white,” implicitly refer to partaking of the tree’s fruit and the result of experiencing redeeming love (5:24). The tree of life and its fruit are suggested by words that remind Alma’s reader of the blessings of salvation from sin and its consequences. It also represents the blessings of sanctification and ultimate salvation in the “kingdom of God” (5:24–25).

Accordingly, as demonstrated, this concentrated language and atonement imagery is situated by Nephi and Alma in a context connected with final judgment and salvation in the kingdom of God. Alma asks his own rebellious brethren, “can ye think of being saved” in your current “state of . . . unbelief?” (Alma 5:20; 7:6) Without a verbal signal, his response to those in this circumstance takes the form of an allusive warning (italicized are words and phrases that appear to be borrowed from Nephi):

I say unto you, ye will know at that day that ye cannot be saved; for there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white, yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins.

And now I ask of you, my brethren, how will any of you feel, if ye shall stand before the bar of God, having your garments stained with blood and all manner of filthiness? Behold, what will these things testify against you? . . . .

Behold, my brethren, do ye suppose that such an one can have place to sit down in the kingdom of God, with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and also all the holy prophets, whose garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure, and white?

I say unto you, Nay . . . (Alma 5:21–25)

When we compare 1 Nephi 12:10–11 and 15:21–36 with Alma 5:21–25, we see that Alma evokes the imagery we associate with Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision as it regards the tree of life and its redemptive fruit. Alma pulls together many of these early Nephite terms throughout his teachings (see Alma 7:14, 25; 13:11–12; 34:36), including a reference to faith on the “Lamb of God” (Alma 7:14; see 1 Nephi 12:10–11). The cluster of atonement words that first appear in Nephi’s vision (i.e., “garments,” “white,” and “blood”) when he recounts the angel’s efforts to describe the humble righteous assembled under the tree of life and partaking of its fruit are almost exclusively found in Alma’s teachings in the Book of Mormon. However, they are especially concentrated in Alma 5.

Lehi’s and Nephi’s Influence on the Third Part of Alma 5

Alma seems to have in mind Lehi’s and Nephi’s revelations and teachings when he invites his people to “Come [and] partake of the fruit of the tree of life” (Alma 5:34; see also 5:62). This tree of life imagery reflective of the Lord’s cleansing atonement follows Alma’s discussion of his fathers’ sojourn in the dark and dreary wilderness. The parallels suggest that he loosely shapes his sermon on the three-part pattern laid out by Nephi in 1 Nephi 8, where Lehi’s dream is first recounted in abridged form. If so, one should expect the third part of Alma’s sermon to echo what Nephi called the “great and spacious building,” or at least the specific flaws and characteristics of its proud inhabitants. These proud persons are presumably not gathered at the tree of life and thus not washed white in the blood of Christ, remaining ever separate from and in opposition to him and his people who “humble themselves and do walk after the holy order of God” (Alma 5:54).

As early as Lehi’s dream, we learn of the proud inhabitants who occupied the “great and spacious building . . . high above the earth” (1 Nephi 8:26–28, 31–33). In Nephi’s vision this “strange building” is again plainly referred to as the “large and spacious building” inhabited by those who “fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb of God” (1 Nephi 11:34–36). The building is again directly mentioned in 1 Nephi 12:18 and beyond. After chapter 12, it appears that the building transforms into the “great church,” a “church most abominable above all other churches” (13:4–9, 26, 28, 32, 34). The “great and abominable church” also appears in 1 Nephi 14, again in opposition to the “church of the Lamb of God” (14:3, 10, 12). There it is referred to as the “whore of all the earth” and as the “great mother of abomination” (14:11, 13). In Lehi’s and Nephi’s accounts, it is a universal church.

If Alma’s sermon tracks Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision as I have claimed, it may be suggested that the “great and spacious building” (or its proud and scoffing inhabitants) may also find its way into the sermon’s imagery. This specific imagery presumably would come in the latter part of the sermon as it does in Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision. It would come after the wilderness and tree have been invoked. Indeed, that is what happens. Near the second half of Alma’s sermon, we see Alma employ the general imagery of the large building that serves as opposition to the tree of life and those who partake of its fruit.^[11]

Near the middle of his sermon, Alma stacks three of his people’s sins on top of each other in patterned language that suggests that they are of a piece. These sins—pride, envy, and mocking of others—seem to be representative of those who once inhabited the great and spacious building seen by Lehi; or, we might say, the symbol of the building was indicative of those who were proud, envious, and disposed to mock others. As indicated, this has been the case since the strange building was first introduced to Nephi’s reader in 1 Nephi 8:26–33 and 11:35–36. After invoking the clustered imagery of the tree of life and its redeeming power, Alma asks his audience these penetrating questions:

Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, if ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God. Behold ye must prepare quickly: for the kingdom of heaven is soon at hand, and such an one hath not eternal life.

Behold, I say, is there one among you who is not stripped of envy? I say unto you that such an one is not prepared; and I would that he should prepare quickly, and he knoweth not when the time shall come; for such an one is not found guiltless.

And again I say unto you, is there one among you that doth make a mock of his brother, or that heapeth upon him persecutions?

Wo unto such an one, for he is not prepared, and the time is at hand that he must repent or he cannot be saved [tree of life]. (Alma 5:28–32)

This three-level rhetorical pattern (three similar questions in succession accompanied by the phrase, “I say unto you . . .”) alludes to the proud and contentious members of the church who were among the “old and young, both bond and free . . . the aged, and also the middle aged, and the rising generation” (Alma 5:49).

This series of coordinated phrases in part matches with what Nephi said his father saw. The proud in the large building, according to him, were “old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit” (1 Nephi 8:27). Accordingly, Alma cries to all within the sound of his voice that they must repent and be born again or they cannot gain salvation or partake of the “tree of life” (Alma 5:34, 62; see also 1 Nephi 15:36).

Further, we learn in Alma 5 that the unrepentant who were “puffed up in the vain things of the world” were fully separated from the righteous (Alma 5:37). The proud had persecuted the humble and poor among them (5:53–55). These church members insisted on “wearing costly apparel and setting their hearts on the vain things of the world, upon [their] riches” (5:53). Nephi explained that the worldly inhabitants of the building had an inordinate interest in fine apparel and indulged in “vain imaginations of the children of men” (1 Nephi 8:27; 12:18; 13:7–8). In Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision, the worldly and proud despised the humble followers of God; similarly, Alma admonishes the proud among his people to cease to persecute the humble (Alma 5:53–54). Alma, after this manner, interrogates the worldly and proud of the church:

Yea, will ye persist in supposing that ye are better one than another; yea, will ye persist in the persecution of your brethren, who humble themselves and do walk after the holy order of God, wherewith they have been brought into this church, having been sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and they do bring forth works which are meet for repentance—

Yea, and will you persist in turning your backs upon the poor, and the needy, and in withholding your substance from them? (Alma 5:54–55)

After these questions addressed to the proud, we learn that Alma calls for the humble to separate (Alma 5:57–60). Alma exhorts those who will hear the Shepherd’s voice to “come . . . out from the wicked, and be ye separate and touch not their unclean things” (5:57). Those who do not hear Alma’s invitation will be cut off from the church: “the wicked shall not be numbered among . . . the righteous,” Alma declares (5:57).

This language is reminiscent of Nephi’s vision where we learn that the Gentiles who hear his word and come unto the Shepherd “shall be numbered among the seed [of Lehi]” (1 Nephi 14:2). Both Nephi and Alma suggest that hearkening to the Good Shepherd’s voice leads to salvation, whereas not hearkening to his voice is grounds for separation. As already indicated, this full separation between the proud and humble (the wicked and the righteous) is discussed extensively in 1 Nephi 15, where symbols of the early revelations are explained in context with the tree of life and its fruit.

Finally, it would appear that Alma borrows from Lehi’s and Nephi’s symbol of a large and spacious building occupied by the proud and well-dressed when he confronts the pride and materialism rampant in the church in Zarahemla. Most of the evidence for this claim appears in the second half of Alma’s sermon, especially in the latter third of it. As before in the earlier revelations, again in Alma 5 the tree of life and its redemptive fruit stand in opposition to the building and its inhabitants. These early Nephite symbols (tree and building) appear to have been suggested to the audience in Alma 5 shortly after Alma recites the history of their fathers emerging from their wilderness to become “illuminated by the light of the everlasting word” (Alma 5:7). Alma’s discussion of concepts such as pride, apparel, and persecution in this distinctive three-part arrangement alludes to Lehi’s and Nephi’s great and spacious building or its inhabitants.

Conclusion

Alma appears to structure his first great sermon to the church in Zarahemla using Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision as a guide. Alma seems to imagine himself standing at the tree of life extending to his people an invitation to come unto the Lord and partake of his salvation and goodness. In his three-part sermon, Alma attempts to persuade the most proud and combative among his people to repent of their sins against the humble members of the church. He warns them to repent and become clean and pure through the blood of Christ’s atonement. This prophetic invitation to repent and be born again is equated to partaking of the redeeming love of Christ.

Specifically, I have attempted to demonstrate that Alma’s allusive three-part arrangement (a lose arrangement with overlapping aspects) echoes Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision as follows: (1) using an intertextual method, we have seen that as Nephi represents his father’s deliverance by the mercy of God from a wilderness, so Alma represents his fathers’ deliverance from their historical and spiritual wildernesses; (2) observing relatively rare verbal clusters, we have seen that as Lehi invited his family to partake of the fruit of tree of life that they might find salvation, so we have seen that Alma invited his people to partake of the fruit that they might sit down in the kingdom of God; and (3) we have seen that the proud and mocking inhabitants of the great and spacious building from Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision were alluded to in the way Alma spoke to his audience. In short, Alma shapes his great sermon using early Nephite revelations and language. Truly, there remains much in the Book of Mormon to be done on this and related subjects, as we are only beginning to emerge from the wilderness of assumptions we have made about the landscape of the Nephite record.

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^[1] Daniel L. Belnap, ‘“Even as Our Father Lehi Saw’: Lehi’s Dream as Nephite Cultural Narrative,” in The Things Which My Father Saw: Approaches to Lehi’s Dream and Nephi’s Vision, edited by Daniel L. Belnap, Gaye Strathearn, and Stanley A. Johnson (Provo: Brigham Young University, 2011), 214–39; Daniel L. Belnap. “‘There Arose a Mist of Darkness’: The Narrative of Lehi’s Dream in Christ’s Theophany,” in Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture, edited by Andrew C. Skinner and Gaye Strathearn (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2012), 75–106.

^[2] Daniel Becerra, Amy Easton-Flake, Nicholas J. Frederick, and Joseph M. Spencer, eds., Book of Mormon Studies: An Introduction and Guide (Provo: Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University, 2022), 31–62, here at 46.

^[3] Amy Easton-Flake, “Lehi’s Dream as a Template for Understanding Each Act of Nephi’s Vision,” in The Things Which My Father Saw, 179–213.

^[4] Robert A. Rees, “Alma the Younger’s Seminal Sermon,” in Bountiful Harvest: Essays in Honor of S. Kent Brown, edited by Andrew C. Skinner, D. Morgan Davis, and Carl Griffin (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2011), 329–43, here at 337. Rees points out that in his sermon Alma transitions from the phrase ‘“my father’ and ‘your fathers,’ to the collective ‘our fathers’” (337, referencing Alma 5:21).

^[5] Hugh W. Nibley suggests that Lehi’s dream wilderness likely borrows from his own reality. Hugh W. Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites, edited by John W. Welch, Darrell L. Matthews, and Stephen R. Callister, vol. 5 in The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (Salt Lake City: Desert Book Company, 1988), 43–46.

^[6] According to Royal Skousen, there is reason to think that “midst of darkness” should be rendered as “mist of darkness,” though he does not adopt the latter phrase in his work The Earliest Text. See Royal Skousen, ed., The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), 292.

^[7] Daniel L. Belnap perceives suggestive resonances here between the early Nephite revelations and Alma’s imagery. Belnap, “Even as Our Father Lehi Saw,” 224; Belnap, “There Arose a Mist of Darkness,” 93.

^[8] Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, 43–46.

^[9] Easton-Flake, “Lehi’s Dream as a Template,” 179–213.

^[10] The whiteness of the tree is first introduced in 1 Nephi 8:11 and runs well beyond 1 Nephi 14, as Belnap has demonstrated. Belnap, “Even as Our Father Lehi Saw,” 214–39.

^[11] We see Mormon signal this early and often in the framing of Alma 5 where he describes the most arrogant members of the church as variously “lifted up” or as “lifting themselves up,” or conversely, as needing to be “pulled down” (Alma 4:6, 8, 12; Alma 6:3). Alma himself uses the term “puffed up” (Alma 5:53), which like the other terms is suggestive of the inhabitants of the building reaching back to Nephi and his teachings (see 1 Nephi 22:13–15, 22–23). Moroni also uses these types of “up-terms” to suggest the building in his teachings in Mormon 8–9 (see Mormon 8:28, 32–33, 36, 40).

[post_title] => “I Am Commanded to Stand and Testify Unto This People The Things Which Have Been Spoken By Our Fathers”: Lehi’s and Nephi’s Influence on Alma 5 [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 57.3 (Fall 2024): 39–80
In what follows, I will suggest that Alma 5, somewhat like Lehi’s dream, begins with an account of the forefathers (men and women) passing through a wilderness only to find a special tree and its fruit; I will demonstrate the allusive presence of the tree of life in Alma 5 and attempt to get at the language’s redemptive implications; and I will demonstrate the allusive presence of the great and spacious building (or its inhabitants) in Alma 5. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => i-am-commanded-to-stand-and-testify-unto-this-people-the-things-which-have-been-spoken-by-our-fathers-lehis-and-nephis-influence-on-alma-5 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-11-19 23:38:09 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-11-19 23:38:09 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=46880 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 45918 [post_author] => 3966 [post_date] => 2024-07-03 15:40:09 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-07-03 15:40:09 [post_content] =>

Trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family looks like family traits. Trauma decontextualized in a people looks like culture.

Resmaa Menakem[1]

Introduction

The field of biblical studies has made significant inroads in understanding scripture through a trauma hermeneutic in recent years, with efficacious results.[2] Biblical interpreters using the lens of trauma have drawn on the fields of psychology, sociology, comparative literature, and refugee studies to understand scriptural text in new ways. A trauma hermeneutic (or trauma-informed lens or reading) not only recognizes the ways in which the experience of trauma immediately affects individuals but also how trauma ripples through generations and communities and how the text may reflect the effects of unprocessed trauma and play a role in healing from traumatic events. Rather than a single method of interpretation, the field of biblical trauma studies has created a “frame of reference” that draws on many different trauma theories and is intended to be coupled with other diverse forms of biblical criticism.[3] It is “a fluid orientation, or sensitivity in reading with different possible emphases.”[4] Yet this “heuristic framework”[5] has been severely underutilized in readings of the Book of Mormon, a scriptural text that contains an abundance of stories of traumatic events. Two important exceptions to this are in the work of Deidre Green and Kylie Nielson Turley, both of whom have brilliantly used a trauma-informed hermeneutic to yield fascinating insights into the characters of Jacob and Alma.[6] This article will explain what trauma is and how to be trauma informed, describe a few examples from the Book of Mormon in which a sensitivity to trauma could reveal greater insights from the text, and argue for the importance of using a trauma hermeneutic. We conclude with an application of a trauma hermeneutic in religious settings and an argument for the importance of being aware of how scriptural trauma may interact with the potential trauma of readers.

Defining Trauma

The word “trauma” has become a modern buzzword, often applied to contexts or situations without a clear understanding of the term. Literally “wound” in Greek, trauma can be physical, such as the physical trauma to our organs resulting from a bullet wound, or psychological, such as the mental and emotional trauma we carry with us after an upsetting or violent event. Trauma “results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.”[7] Psychological trauma, the focus of this article, can be understood by examining (1) the event, (2) how it is experienced, and (3) its effects.[8]

Trauma can occur on a macro or micro scale. Macrotraumatic events (also called communal trauma) simultaneously impact a large group or a society, introducing long-term consequences with which members of the group must grapple with for many years. These include natural disasters, wars, mass shootings, pandemics, and other violent or destructive events with the power to upend many lives. They can also include institutional action or inaction, such as a church or university covering up abuse or failing to protect marginalized individuals.[9] Though the situations at the heart of such institutional trauma may directly impact only a small number of individuals (e.g., those abused by persons in power), the implications of an institution protecting abusers or failing to act when its members were harmed can trigger ripples of distress, harm, and distrust across the institution, leading to a macrotraumatic event. Microtraumatic events hold the same power to upend lives and destroy mental health as the macro events, though these typically impact a smaller number of people at once. Micro traumas can include familial events such as abuse, death, or divorce; experiences of or exposures to community violence such as assault, exploitation, or bullying; or any other interpersonal or individual event that causes injury, shame, or other physical or psychological harm for those involved.[10]

Trauma can also be passed intergenerationally in various pathways, including biochemically, culturally, and narratively. Biochemically, trauma can be inherited via epigenetic effects wherein markers at the chromosomal level are passed across the generations. Culturally, it may be taught via parenting practices or familial expectations. These pathways may be closely intertwined. For example, a Jewish mother who has survived the extermination camps of World War II may pass the trauma of that experience to her children in their inherited epigenetic markings and through her discipline and nurturing practices, both of which were shaped by the trauma she experienced.[11] These inherited traumas may then be passed to her grandchildren both epigenetically and by the parenting and mental health of her children in their parental role. Collective trauma can be transmitted intergenerationally, as a massive, macrotraumatic event can disrupt “the fabric of communal life, changing core social institutional and cultural values.”[12] These shifts impact not only those alive who experience the traumatic event but the society and culture into which future generations are born.

Narratively, trauma may become an integral part of a group’s shared history.[13] Examples of this can be seen in calls to “never forget” from a community following a terrorist attack or from an ethnic group targeted in a genocide. Collective group-based traumas can have far-reaching effects on the well-being of group members. Collective trauma not only creates psychological wounds that can exist for generations but also shapes the stories used to understand these wounds and the manner in which members seek to build resilience and overcome these adversities. Whether named or ignored, trauma shapes the individual lives and collective communities or cultures that it touches.

A Trauma-Informed Hermeneutic

Knowing the definition of trauma is different from being trauma informed. To be trauma informed means to approach an individual, group, or context with a view and understanding of how they (or it) has been shaped by trauma and adjusting the approach or expectations of the person(s) based on this understanding.[14] To use a trauma-informed lens means to shift perspective from a critical, accusatory one of “What is wrong with you?” to a more sensitive, person-centered one of “What has happened to you? What have you experienced?”[15] Because trauma is a nearly universal experience, the trauma-informed approach is not siloed to only those providing psychological care to trauma survivors; instead, it is a lens that can allow us all to see the humanity and the history of the individuals, groups, and cultural traditions surrounding us. The trauma-informed lens can be flexible in its application and has space for considering how context, culture, and history impact how individuals process events and the impact these potential traumas have.

A trauma-informed lens allows us to interpret how someone’s trauma history may affect their behavior and beliefs and reminds us that our language and actions should be adjusted with others’ traumas in mind. This lens is a reminder that “trauma shapes our thinking” and the thinking of others “in ways that are both explicit and hidden.”[16] To be trauma informed is to allow our understanding of trauma to influence how we interpret the world and what we put out into the world with a recognition of both the traumas of others and the personal traumas we carry.

Using a trauma-informed hermeneutic means considering how trauma affected and continues to affect writers and readers of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is a text unusually focused on human suffering: war, rape, famine, abuse, murder, slavery, natural disasters, and other forms of violence all occur within its pages. As Helaman states in the book of Alma, “They have received many wounds.”[17]

We propose that a trauma-informed hermeneutic is a valuable lens through which to consider the Book of Mormon, as it empowers readers with unique tools and perspectives on the text. A trauma-informed lens applied to scripture (1) inherently acknowledges that a reader does not have a complete understanding of the text unless the effects of trauma on individuals within the text and on the narrative as a whole are considered; (2) allows for alternate interpretations of the text, including symbolic representations of violent or traumatic events; (3) complements historical and literary approaches to scripture via an examination of the impact of trauma on individuals and communities and via the creation of survival literature; (4) can help a reader approach the text, its characters, and its writer(s) with increased empathy; and (5) facilitates the transformation of disturbing passages of scripture into healing ones.

Methodology

As Grant Hardy has noted, the Book of Mormon is “first and foremost a narrative, offered to us by specific, named narrators.”[18] In this reading, we take those narrators at their word and engage with them as complex individuals with personal histories, private thoughts, and goals. Whether reading the Book of Mormon as literary fiction or as history, this approach offers readers a more serious examination of the text. Perhaps more importantly, this method helps readers and scholars of the Book of Mormon use the book—in whatever capacity—in ways more sensitive to survivors of trauma.

Potential Difficulties

One difficulty of using a trauma-informed lens is the possibly unanswerable question of whether ancient people experienced trauma in the ways as trauma theory posits today. It appears they certainly had different sensibilities regarding human life and the inevitability of suffering. Pastor James Yansen argues that some language of a trauma hermeneutic, such as a diagnosis of “post-traumatic stress disorder” would be anachronistic for a biblical interpretation. He writes, “Being intentionally self-critical is crucial in applications of insights from trauma studies to biblical texts. It is important to avoid the distinctive danger of ethnocentrism in ‘imposing the Western trauma model’ on non-Western entities and texts.”[19] Certainly, scholars must proceed cautiously in negotiating the interface of modern understandings of trauma theory with ancient texts, particularly as the scientific study of trauma has largely occurred in Western cultures.

However, there is good evidence to argue that trauma and its effects can be observed in scripture. As explained above, the trauma response is a neurological condition that occurs because of a person’s inability to cope with their lived experiences. Broadly speaking, it is a physiological rather than a cultural condition, although cultural context shapes the ways in which trauma is experienced.[20] Trauma specialist Marten deVries has argued convincingly that while trauma and its biological effects are universal, methods of healing are heavily based on cultural values and social support.[21] While trauma has only emerged as a recognized field of study within the last few decades, people have long observed, but been unable to articulate or explain, the markers of trauma. Trauma is not new, even if our language to analyze and understand it is.[22]

Perhaps the best way of exploring whether people in scriptural text experienced trauma is simply to carefully read the text in search of signs of trauma-response behavior in individuals and communities. If individuals seem to experience lasting harm after disaster or if communities show the destructive and identity-forming effects of trauma, we may infer that a trauma hermeneutic is reasonable. As theologian Daniel Smith-Christopher argues, we must ask the question, “Were these events faced by the ancient exiles, or ancient warriors, actually traumatizing for the people involved? Were they really disastrous for them?”[23] This article argues that on an individual and communal scale, the observational answer for the Book of Mormon is in the affirmative.

Individual Trauma: Examples from the Life of Nephi

Individual, or micro, traumas can be found throughout the stories of the Book of Mormon, beginning with Nephi. Many instances of violence and trauma marked Nephi’s life, including threats to his life and the lives of family members, dislocation, food insecurity, physical abuse, and witnessing the abuse of family members. Reading the record of Nephi with a trauma-informed lens means sitting with the hurt and harm of each of these events and pondering how Nephi’s traumas—individually and cumulatively, as they compounded throughout his life course—impacted his health, his worldview, and his ministry across his life. It also involves considering how the individual traumas that Nephi experienced shaped his interactions with others, as a parent and a leader, expanding the impact of these traumas beyond Nephi as his words and behaviors were influenced by his traumatic experiences. His parenting was almost certainly affected by the family violence and traumas he survived, meaning the impact of his individual trauma was passed to subsequent generations via attachment, epigenetic, and behavioral pathways. While we call these more focused or familial events individual traumas, a trauma-informed reading requires that we acknowledge and consider how the trauma experienced by one person (or a few people) ripples outward to impact the lives of many more people, including moving forward in time to affect those not yet born.

Rather than giving a singular interpretation, a trauma hermeneutic illuminates difficult questions for the reader to ponder and themes to explore. We offer a few examples of such questions here and invite the reader to ponder these questions and consider what other questions could be drawn from a trauma-informed reading of Nephi’s life and words.

Nephi is beaten with a rod and an angel intervenes (1 Nephi 3:28–30). Nephi and Sam are abused by their older brothers, Laman and Lemuel. The text indicates that verbal abuse (“many hard words” spoken) escalated to physical abuse, which was severe as the younger brothers were beaten with a rod. Only once the violence escalates to severe physical abuse does an angel appear and intervene, perhaps because Nephi and Sam would have otherwise been killed.

A trauma hermeneutic of this incident leaves the reader to consider how the abuse and the timing of the intervention represents a trauma for Nephi. We are left to ponder how this shaped his life and his understanding of God.

• Does Nephi interpret this trauma to mean that God tolerates or allows some abuse, given the late timing of the intervention? Does this event shape his understanding of what violence God sees as acceptable? Does this impact what he teaches his children about God and violence?
• Does Nephi understand the issue here to be his brothers’ wickedness, rather than their violence? Consequently, does this event shape his belief that as long as a person perpetrating/doing violence is not “wicked” or has faith in God that the violence is acceptable?

Nephi kills Laban (1 Nephi 4:5–18). Nephi enters Jerusalem to obtain the plates of brass from Laban. He finds an unconscious Laban and feels compelled by the Spirit to kill him with his own sword. After some resistance, he kills Laban by decapitation.

This event immediately follows Nephi’s own severe victimization inflicted by his older brothers. He then feels required by the Spirit to step into the role of perpetrator and enact more violence by killing Laban. We are left to ponder how these violent events impacted each other and Nephi.

• How has Nephi’s traumatic experience with his brothers and the angel impacted him as he perpetuates this violence and creates this trauma? How does the late intervention by the angel, along with the command to kill Laban, shape Nephi and his views about how God feels about violence, suffering, and harm for the rest of his life?

Nephi is bound in the wilderness and threatened with death (1 Nephi 7:16–19). Laman and Lemuel bind Nephi with cords and leave him in the wilderness. When Nephi prays and is released from the bounds, he speaks to his brothers again, who are once again enraged and seek to hurt him. Only when the wife, daughters, and son of Ishmael step between Nephi and his angry brothers is the situation diffused.

Nephi watches as others step in the line of violence to save his life and stop the abuse. These women and this boy risk being abused or hurt themselves for Nephi’s sake. Nephi is seeing that the abuse in his family that is targeted at him can hurt and threaten others, including those outside of his family. We are left to wonder how this shapes his view of families and his role in relation to the violence.

• Do these episodes of violence and harm inflicted on him and others cause Nephi to parent his children in a way that ensures they are prepared to respond swiftly and efficiently to threats and violence? How do these traumatic events shape the narratives he passes to his family and children about the Lamanites, which fuel justification for generations of war?

Nephi’s bow breaks and his fatigued and hungry family complain about their suffering (1 Nephi 16:17–22). After many days of travel, Nephi and those in his company stop to rest and find food. Nephi breaks his bow and can no longer hunt. Many in the group—Laman, Lemuel, sons of Ishmael, Lehi, and (likely) their wives and children—complain of their hunger and all that they have suffered in the wilderness since leaving Jerusalem. Nephi is affronted by their complaints and murmuring.

This passage lays out behavior by Nephi that may seem harsh or lacking in empathy. Nephi is impatient and frustrated by the complaints of those in the group when they are tired and hungry and have just lost their means of obtaining food. Readers who have experienced severe hunger or food insecurity may know well the consuming ache of gnawing hunger and exhaustion and the difficulties of not complaining in those circumstances. A trauma-informed reading may help us understand the actions of Nephi here, given the violence and trauma he has already experienced in life, and cause us to consider the ongoing impact of that trauma through Nephi’s actions and worldview.

• How have Nephi’s traumas shaped his response to complaints about hunger and fatigue? Because he has survived worse, is he less patient with those who are suffering under less severe or less abusive conditions? What does this passage tell us about how his individual trauma may have influenced his parenting and governing of the coming generations? Do these experiences represent potential traumas for the younger generations around Nephi?

Once Nephi and the others reach the promised land, the difficult and traumatic events in his life do not end. His life continues to be marked by violence and upheaval with much of his suffering at the hands of his older brothers. His role as a prophet did not exempt him from these abusive and violent experiences. However, these experiences do seem to have left their mark in the form of trauma that shaped his views and the words he recorded as a prophet. To uncritically accept these words of Nephi without a trauma-informed lens is to not only miss enormous context and nuance in the text—it also risks passing on the harm of some of his words, such as when he emphasizes the nonfair skin of the Lamanites and describes them as having “a skin of blackness,” “cursed,” and “loathsome.”[24] This understanding brought on by a trauma hermeneutic is the only way to stop the cycle of harm and interrupt the perpetuation of further harm in our readings and teachings. If we recognize and name the individual trauma woven through Nephi’s life and words, we are able to ensure that Nephi’s hurt and trauma does not cause further damage among us.[25]

Communal Trauma: Examples from the Book of Alma

Trauma does not only function individually; it also has “a social dimension.”[26] Communal trauma occurs when an event such as a war, natural disaster, epidemic, or technological calamity affects an entire society and collective identity. It looks fundamentally different from individual trauma. Although it is made up of a collection of singular experiences, the harm generated by communal trauma is greater than the sum of its parts. “When traumatic violence reigns down upon a whole society, trauma becomes a public disaster. When suffering and loss heaped upon one person is no more than a miniscule moment in the massive destruction of a society and its habitat, violence magnifies its effects in uncountable ways.”[27] Communal trauma creates additional problems for traumatized people by creating or exacerbating disconnection and hindering healing. Three primary effects emerge from communal trauma, all of which may be observed in the Book of Mormon, particularly in the Book of Alma.

Broken-Spiritedness

The first effect is a term coined from refugee studies, called “broken-spiritedness.” If “spirit” is “a sense of connection to self, others, and nature; to the vision and hopes for the future; to God and sources of meaning in life; and to the sacred,”[28] then broken-spiritedness is when a major disaster disrupts or interferes with “sources of meaning and the sacred, challenging the power of religion.”[29] Without sources for meaning-making, a culture that previously shared spiritual narratives of purpose and identity may be caught “mid-mourning,” without the tools to process the trauma and heal from it.[30]

Sociologist Kai Erikson describes an example of broken-spiritedness in the case of Grassy Narrows, which involved the dumping of 20,000 pounds of mercury into the Lake of the Woods region of Ontario by a paper and pulp company between 1962 to 1970. When the dumping came to light in early 1970, the Ojibwa First Nations people who lived and made a living fishing there were devastated. Their environment had been decimated, their major source of income disappeared, and many suffered debilitating health effects from the mercury. The Ojibwa people struggled with a wave of religious and cultural disaffection that the Ojibwa leaders were unable to hold back in the following years. The collective effect of individual traumatic experiences of the flood led to a weakening of the community as broken-spiritedness strained people’s sense of context or meaning in the world.[31]

One possible example of broken-spiritedness in the Book of Mormon is in Alma 45:21–24, when the Nephites were recovering from a particularly bloody war with the Lamanites and Zoramites. The text states that “because of their wars with the Lamanites and the many little dissensions and disturbances which had been among the people, it became expedient that the word of God should be declared among them, yea, and that a regulation should be made throughout the church” (Alma 45:21; emphasis added). The word “because” implies that the impact of violence is to necessitate Helaman and other church leaders to shore up the church. In the wake of the severe trauma of the “work of death” (Alma 44:20), the people began to disassociate from the church. Regardless of their efforts, “dissension” arose, and the people would no longer follow their traditional leaders. Although the text claims that this is because the people grew proud because of riches (Alma 45:24), a trauma hermeneutic would be sensitive to whether this community is suffering from broken-spiritedness following disaster. It might ask the following questions.

• How do the Nephite soldiers who have recently participated in extremely bloody warfare and then “returned and came to their houses and their lands” (Alma 44:23) reintegrate into their communities? Did any of the violence they experienced in war affect their families?
• What were the “little dissensions and disturbances” (Alma 44:21), and were they related to the greater violence? Was this a part of a pattern of violence and a community that was in a crisis of faith?

Helaman repeats the work of establishing a “regulation” in the church following the end of war in Alma 62:44, and again the text attributes the need for it to the violence and contention that has occurred. These two moments in Alma following long-standing bloodshed indicate that the people experienced some degree of broken-spiritedness in the periods following war.

Social Destruction

Similar, but not identical, to broken-spiritedness is when communal trauma prompts social disintegration and “damages the textures of community.”[32] Traumatized communities are not merely a collection of traumatized individuals.[33] The social body, as an organism, sustains damage over time that is difficult to repair. The original trauma, rather than acting as a discrete event, prompts a decrease in trust, intimacy, shared traditions, and communality and an increase in fear, suspicion, and isolation, creating long-term repercussions and a lack of support for healing. As Erikson describes the damages to the social organism of the community: “‘I’ continue to exist, though damaged and maybe even permanently changed. ‘You’ continue to exist, though distant and hard to relate to. But ‘we’ no longer exist as a connected pair or as linked cells in a larger communal body.”[34] The social fabric cannot withstand the compounded stress, and people disconnect and withdraw, creating conditions more likely to result in conflict and perhaps further trauma. Helsel describes this as a “vicious cycle of disconnection in which individual trauma and the erosion of communality [go] hand in hand.”[35]

This “vicious cycle of disconnection” is precisely what we see throughout the Book of Alma, which is essentially a story about a society moving between states of negative peace, fragmentation, and outright war (with some exceptional periods of true peace). It begins in the very first chapter of Alma, in which Nehor kills Gideon[36] and incites a schism with the Nephite nation.[37] In the following chapters, the peoples of the Book of Mormon do not go more than six years without a major battle, with the text describing in striking detail the viciousness of violence and the subsequent mourning.[38]

Although the book claims periods of “continual peace,”[39] in actuality these last only a few years at a time, making them more like ceasefires than a true peace. These stretches of time in between overt violence are where readers can observe patterns of social disconnection. This is most clearly seen in the ruptures within the Nephite church. These take several different forms, but they all share a pattern of social hierarchies that disturb human relationships, decrease cohesion, and increase isolation.

In one example of social disconnection during a period of “peace,” the text describes Alma’s success efforts to “establish the church more fully,”[40] although this claim is compromised by the immediate fracturing into socioeconomic hierarchies. The text says they became “scornful, one towards another, and they began to persecute those that did not believe according to their own will and pleasure.”[41] Even within the church, “there were envyings, and strife, and malice, and persecutions, and pride.”[42] Thus, a social institution meant to function as a unifying and foundational part of Nephite culture is not only failing, but actually acting to alienate and harm people. Clearly, the social fabric is extremely frail.

Reading this period without the context of the wars that immediately preceded and followed it fails to reveal the possible reasons why the social fabric was so weak. It makes it easy to read the text as binary or simplistic, with some people as casually evil. Erikson’s theory of communal trauma puts those people in the context of the violence and disruption they have very recently experienced. Only a few years previously, “tens of thousands” of people died in battle in Nephite land.[43] The composite body sustained a wound that would not heal easily or quickly. Erikson’s description of collective trauma as “a blow to the basic tissues of social life that damages the bonds attaching people together and impairs the prevailing sense of communality”[44] can be observed in this society so forcefully dividing itself into antagonistic groups shortly after disaster. The violence and trauma that occurs within the Nephite society, then, is potentially an effect of the recent violence and trauma that has occurred between the Nephites and the Lamanites. As Erikson describes, trauma leads to the social disintegration that then prompts further violence. Questions that arise for readers might include the following.

• How did this social destruction seen in Alma impact the future generations? How could this failing social fabric and lack of a unified “we” shape the relationship people and families had to each other, the church, and God, and what evidence of this may exist in the text?
• The loss of community and connection can breed distrust and less grace in one’s interactions with others. How did this traumatic social disintegration impact the stories the people told about their families and people (e.g., within the Nephite church)? How did it impact the stories and perspectives people believed about their “enemies”?

Scholar Philip Browning Helsel argues that a critical contribution of a trauma hermeneutic to biblical studies is to understand the ways in which violence, collective trauma, and social destruction is cyclical and chronic and how that appears in sacred text.[45] Reading the Book of Mormon through this lens, as a text about the “disruption to the relational fabric of community,”[46] may lend important new insights into how violence has long-term consequences for individuals and societies and how this affects their spiritual health.

Social Construction

Paradoxically, trauma also sometimes functions as a socially constructive force, establishing or strengthening groups that have a shared traumatic experience. Trauma scholar Jeffrey Alexander describes this phenomenon occurring when a collective body accepts a particular trauma narrative and uses it to form a social identity. The narrative does four things: (1) it describes a certain group that has suffered in similar ways and for the same reason; (2) it recounts the hardship endured; (3) it names the agent responsible for the wound; and (4) it petitions those outside of the group for sympathy.[47] The formation of a post-traumatic social construction group identity is not an automatic outcome of collective trauma. “It occurs through a process of representation that brings about a new collective identity.”[48] On the composite level, trauma becomes a powerful social force, integrated into the “communal memory through acts of representation and meaning-making.”[49] This process may play a critical role when a group faces the forces of social destruction described above. When a community faces the stress of collective trauma, creating meaning from an event and renegotiating an identity formed under the experience of that trauma may counteract the forces of social disintegration.[50]

What is most salient in the formation of the identity is the trauma narrative not the factual events of what occurred. Whether or not the community members acted as aggressors or victims, whether or not the community actually underwent certain tragedies, and/or whether or not the named agent was in fact responsible is less important than the story the community tells itself in establishing or reinforcing identity. As biblical scholar David Janzen writes, “From this point of view, trauma is a social construction of meaning.”[51] Alexander describes this story as the “master narrative”: a story or set of stories that hold the identity of a community in place.[52]

Identity formed through collective trauma can be passed down through generations. Citing sociologist Vamik Volkan, Janzen describes how even “shared feelings of powerlessness . . . can help bind a community together, and groups can choose to reawaken these and other feelings associated with the trauma—can deliberately claim this experience, in other words—even generations after the event, in order to portray a current enemy as responsible for past trauma.”[53] In other words, trauma is being passed down not only epigenetically but also narratively and sometimes even voluntarily, as part of a social force to form a cohesive group with an antagonistic relationship toward the agent responsible for the trauma.

The repeating theme of shifting identities, dissenting groups, and new names makes this idea of social construction through trauma interesting to consider throughout the Book of Mormon. One fascinating example of social construction following trauma is that of the Zoramites.

The Zoramites first function as an important part of the Book of Mormon plot in Alma 30, although the text makes a passing reference to them earlier.[54] It is unclear whether the Zoramites in Alma 30 are a stable ethnic group descended from that previous reference or whether these Zoramites are a newly formed dissenting group from the Nephites. It is also unclear whether they are biological descendants of the Zoram who came with Nephi out of Jerusalem or whether they name themselves after their current leader, also named Zoram.[55] However, what is pertinent is that they identify with the story of Zoram, whether or not they factually are biologically related to him. This becomes clear later in the conflict between the Zoramites and the Nephites, when the Zoramites’ leader, Ammoron, attacks Moroni with the words “I am Ammoron, and a descendant of Zoram, whom your fathers pressed and brought out of Jerusalem. And behold now, I am a bold Lamanite.”[56]

These two sentences have a fascinating ethnic and narrative background. Because the record only offers Nephi’s version of events, readers do not know how willingly Zoram went into the wilderness with Lehi’s family. However, even Nephi admits that he used force in the situation.[57] Zoram’s choice between dislocation and death was hardly a choice.[58] The Zoramites, who appear to have lived on the margins of a stratified Nephite society,[59] apparently have a narrative in which their ancestor experienced severe trauma at the hands of Nephi. This version of their origin story, exacerbated by their current state of relative powerlessness in the Nephite/Mulekite society, appears to have strengthened the influence of ethnic identity. In Alma 31, the Zoramites have become Nephite dissenters and removed themselves to the city of Antionum. They construct a new society, including a new government, church, and social order. Others have observed that the Zoramites seem intent on building a nation that is intentionally oppositional to the Nephites, rather than toward ideals of their own.[60] When Alma and his companions disrupt that new (immensely hierarchical) society and attempt to reform it with Nephite teachings, the elite Zoramites are further radicalized toward their Zoramite identity. The remainder of their story within the Book of Mormon is one of extreme violence, as they become virulently anti-Nephite and lead the Lamanite military in attacking the Nephites.[61] Ammoron’s strange declaration that he is “a bold Lamanite” is the final realignment in shifting group identities.

Were the Zoramites simply bad people? A trauma-informed reading reveals a more complex story of this group, in which people inherited a narrative of a traumatic event, claimed the experience, identified an agent responsible for their suffering, and strengthened an identity that might otherwise have become dormant. The violence they perceived as enacted on them—directly through Nephi’s treatment of Zoram and structurally through the hierarchies of Nephite society—generated a trauma response. This does not excuse the violence they commit, but it does better explain it.

A Trauma-Informed Hermeneutic for Survival Literature

Survival literature is “literature produced in the aftermath of a major catastrophe and its accompanying atrocities by survivors of that catastrophe.”[62] The devastation may occur on an individual or collective level. Rev. David Garber draws the analogy of if trauma is the injury, then survival literature is the scar: “the visible trace offered by the survivor that points in the direction of the initial experience.”[63]

One of the most important functions of survival literature is its role in the meaning-making process. One of the primary characteristics of trauma is that it resists integration into the broader narrative of a survivor’s life. It becomes a memory fragment, a shard that continues to cause disruption and disconnection until it can be articulated and processed.[64] Turning a traumatic experience into narrative form and interpreting it to have cause and purpose is not merely a creation of record; it is also a crucial part of re-creating order, agency, and meaning, thus facilitating recovery.[65] In scripture, this narrative has an added layer: it interprets the events in relationship to God. Thus, the meaning-making is interwoven with the speaker’s faith in a divine being who has allowed or even caused disastrous events to happen. In a trauma hermeneutic, then, one purpose of scripture is to “name the suffering experienced by the community and to bring that lived reality before the presence of God.”[66] This work has the potential capacity to help survivors replace harmful memories and thoughts with a narrative that restores a sense of well-being.

In this, however, there lies an important paradox. Survival literary theory “maintains as a cornerstone the unknowability of trauma.”[67] Even while survivors attempt to use words to articulate what happened to them, they will never be fully able to convey the experience. Trauma specialist Cathy Caruth describes this as “speechless terror” or “the incomprehensibility of pain.”[68] Turley effectively notes how the narrative of Alma the Younger’s experience in Ammonihah, in which he witnessed the brutal deaths of women and children by fire, points to Alma’s trauma in the experience. The chief judge of Ammonihah questions Alma and Amulek and physically abuses them while demanding a response, yet they remain silent. “Silence can be a rational choice, but it can also be a response to shocking trauma. . . . What a person’s eyes saw or ears heard or body felt is recorded in the brain, but . . . [the memories] are scattered and recorded in fragments.”[69] While the text may strive to bear witness and “to respond so that horror and violence do not have the last word,” terrible suffering is often beyond human language.[70]

This limitation of language helps explain some of the signs of survival literature: it is often told in fragments, with a heavy use of imagery, symbols, wordplay, and “multiple levels of meaning.”[71] It uses the world of analogy, poetry, and repetition because of the struggle to convey disaster in a straightforward manner. Survival literature does not merely “report facts but, in [a] different way, encounter—and make us encounter—strangeness.”[72] Because the right words do not exist, the text is not straightforwardly referential. Importantly, this does not make survival literature unreliable or useless for historians. Instead, according to Caruth, those who wish to understand “must permit ‘history to arise where immediate understanding may not.’”[73] This may change the framework for those reading scripture: rather than interpreting it as a historical account, a trauma hermeneutic sees holy text as an interpretive account. It is “art more than history, or better, art intervening in history.”[74]

Where might readers see signals of survival literature in the Book of Mormon? Clearly, the Book of Mormon does not contain any passages comparable to Lamentations, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, with their poems and verses about exile and genocide. The Book of Mormon seems to be intended more as a record than as a lament. Yet some verses seem to qualify as survival literature in their use of imagery and metaphor to describe the suffering and struggle the author has experienced:

O then, if I have seen so great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow, and my flesh waste away, and my strength slacken, because of mine afflictions? (2 Nephi 4:26)

I conclude this record, declaring that I have written according to the best of my knowledge, by saying that the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore, we did mourn out our days. (Jacob 7:26)[75]

And it came to pass that there was thick darkness upon all the face of the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof who had not fallen could feel the vapor of darkness. And there could be no light, because of the darkness, neither candles, neither torches; neither could there be fire kindled with their fine and exceedingly dry wood, so that there could not be any light at all. (3 Nephi 8:20–21)

These are three of many examples that a trauma hermeneutic would be sensitive toward, understanding that the imagery used might be intended to convey a feeling or experience rather than a factual event. A trauma-informed lens centers how the author uses text to process their own trauma and narrates God into that experience. It seeks to connect with the concerns of the survivor and look for multiple meanings of the text.

Trauma Hermeneutic and Theodicy

A trauma hermeneutic notices the ways in which people use scriptural text to make sense of the world and God’s role within it. It is common within the Bible and the Book of Mormon for the text to blame death, famine, loss in battle, plague, and natural disasters as a curse from God. As readers, we are left to ponder: is God in fact the vengeful perpetrator of destructive wrath? As Alexander notes, “When causality is assigned in the religious arena, it raises issues of theodicy.”[76] When trauma happens, any survivor must confront the question of why it occurred and who is responsible. In the case of a person or community of faith, that question has the added complexity of God’s culpability. Survivors might wonder: Did God let it happen? Was God unable to stop it? Was God too weak or did God simply not care? If I cannot count on God for protection, then when might it happen again? Frequently, scriptural text seems to evade these questions through claiming the will of God and the sinful actions of the victim or victims as responsible for the disaster. By blaming God for destruction, the narrator paradoxically reclaims agency and power. For example, the book of Ezekiel insists that the Babylonians’ triumph over Israel was due to Israel’s sinfulness and Yahweh’s desire for punishment[77] rather than the Babylonian’s superior military strength or faithfulness. Theologian Brad Kelle argues that this simultaneously rejects the Babylonians’ claim to power over Israel and rhetorically identifies Israel as God’s people in need of repentance rather than as a conquered society.[78] This way of making sense of trauma is not unusual for trauma survivors. Those who endure horrific events sometimes blame themselves in order to restore some sense of order out of a chaotic universe. It can feel easier to be guilty than to be helpless.[79] As scholars Elizabeth Boase and Christopher Frechette argue, “An overwhelmingly threatening event often prompts interpretations of the cause of the experience in a way that places irrational blame on the self. Doing so serves as a survival mechanism; by providing an explanation and asserting a sense of control, blaming the self helps a person to confront the imminent threat of overwhelming chaos.”[80]

In this way, scriptural survival literature constructs a worldview that gives hope and order to a society, although it comes with costs, including blaming victims for the disasters and violence they have suffered.[81] While restoring mental balance and reducing feelings of chaos, this may increase emotional anguish and possibly hinder the healing process as people struggle with shame and guilt for bringing their difficulties upon themselves. It also can create a crisis of theodicy. Boase points out that this crisis may take two forms: the belief that God is responsible for the trauma and God’s apparent silence as it occurs.[82] Thus, “Yahweh is both an oppressive presence . . . but is also silently absent.”[83] Survival literature may help a community in crisis but create other harm in the process. A trauma hermeneutic is aware of how the narratives derived in a post-traumatic setting have complex effects.

The Book of Mormon offers many possible examples of authors and characters attempting to make sense of the horrific by blaming victims’ sinfulness and/or God’s will. Two cases include:

• The text blaming Limhi’s people for their own suffering in Mosiah 21. The multiple military defeats they endure and their situation of effective slavery under the Lamanites is attributed to God’s will[84] rather than the superior strength or numbers of the Lamanites. The text also claims that these traumatic events happened in order to pressure the people into repentance but that after they “did humble themselves even in the depth of humility” that “the Lord was slow to hear their cry because of their iniquities.”[85]
• When the Nephite dissenters and Lamanites successfully attack the land of Zarahemla, the text explains the Nephites’ defeat as directly caused by the moral failings of the Nephites: “Now this great loss of the Nephites, and the great slaughter which was among them, would not have happened had it not been for their wickedness and their abomination which was among them; yea, and it was among those also who professed to belong to the church of God. . . . And because of this their great wickedness, and their boastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength; therefore they did not prosper, but were afflicted and smitten, and driven before the Lamanites. . . . And it came to pass that they did repent and inasmuch as they did repent they did begin to prosper.”[86]

Scriptural claims that God not only sanctioned slavery and death in order to force repentance but then did not listen to prayers asking for help because of past transgressions are theologically burdensome for readers who have themselves suffered extreme violence or whose ancestors did. Those who inherited the effects of trauma due to a family history of slavery might question whether God truly approves of such methods in order to compel obedience. Yet a trauma-informed reading understands that even those who live through the original trauma and create survival literature might attempt to find order in chaos by choosing a narrative in which God has chosen suffering for them. Doing so allows a powerless victim to “take the initiative and act effectively”[87]—they can contain their misfortunes through making moral choices.

A trauma-informed hermeneutic comprehends the complexity of trauma literature and the ways in which it subtly appears within text. Indirect language, metaphor, and poetry might hint at pain hidden just below the stated idea or narrative. Theological explanations for suffering should be taken as the author’s attempt to make sense of the senseless rather than an authoritative description of divine will. As Boase and Frechette write, “To grasp the ways in which language can represent trauma opens up new avenues for understanding violent imagery, especially violent depictions of God, and shed light on organizing principles.”[88] To read the Book of Mormon in this way is an opportunity to understand how people who survived extreme trauma constructed theology.

Application of a Trauma-Informed Lens

A trauma-informed reading of the Book of Mormon requires an additional step beyond our interpretation of the text. In fact, the trauma-informed lens explicitly pushes us to not only consider and acknowledge the trauma contained in the text of the scripture and the voices (or missing voices) therein but to also examine how our own trauma shapes our reading. Additionally, as there is a long-standing tradition in the in the Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints to teach the stories and sermons of the Book of Mormon over the pulpit and in church classroom groups, it is also crucial to be sensitive to and acknowledge the trauma of those sitting in these rooms and how these interpretations in our sermons and lessons impact them. As such, to approach the Book of Mormon with a trauma-informed lens in the twenty-first century, we are required to consider at least three loci of trauma: the speaker (or editor or group) in the Book of Mormon, our own, and those who hear us discuss the text (figure 1).

To examine the trauma present—whether acknowledged or not—in the text of the Book of Mormon without consideration of trauma we, as the reader of the text, may carry severely limits and distorts the trauma hermeneutic applied. For example, imagine yourself as a reader of the Book of Mormon who has experienced severe family violence perpetrated by a sibling encountering Nephi’s words of his brothers beating him with a rod (1 Nephi 3).[89] If that reader seeks to consider how trauma has shaped the perspective and words of Nephi without considering their own response to this shared traumatic event, they will likely be unable to move deeply and meaningfully through a trauma-informed reading, as they are not recognizing how their own trauma is shaping the questions they are asking of or assumptions they are making in the text. They may struggle to relate to the response Nephi has to this event if it differs from their own response to the violence in their lives. Alternatively, they may feel anger that an angel was sent to intervene to stop this beating in Nephi’s life but that they did not receive this form of divine intervention. Any of these responses are valid and arise from their own trauma impacting how they engage with the trauma in the text. By acknowledging, rather than repressing, the violence and trauma in their past, the reader may be able to step closer to the text, allowing them to engage in a trauma-informed reading that is more vulnerable and that brings more empathy for Nephi and the traumas in his story while also giving themselves space for their own traumatic history. This allows the reader to explicitly acknowledge that, though their trauma responses may differ from Nephi’s or their path with God may diverge from his, there is beauty and value in considering his words through the lens of trauma while giving grace for how their own perspective has been shaped by trauma.

Finally, given the tradition to discuss the stories of the Book of Mormon over the pulpit and in church classes, it is crucial that any exploration of the words or lives in the Book of Mormon respects the unseen and unspoken traumas of those in the congregation or class. A teacher or speaker seeking to apply a trauma hermeneutic to the stories of Alma preaching in Ammonihah (Alma 14) or to the abduction of Lamanite daughters by the priests of Noah (Mosiah 12) must carefully consider the traumas that those listening to their lesson, sermon, or comment may have. There may be listeners who have experienced the loss of a parent or loved one by murder or fire (Alma 14:8) or experienced sexual assault (Mosiah 12:5), which will shape the way they respond to these tragic and traumatic stories. To apply a trauma-informed lens thus requires that all discussion—by the teacher and by others in the room—of these events from the Book of Mormon is sensitive to the trauma that others in the room may carry. Rambo explains this idea as making space for trauma and its effect on faith stating, “Marking this space is not simply a way of advocating for persons who are unaccounted for. Instead, attempting to map the experiences of trauma comes from my conviction that our lives are inextricably bound together. Given what we know about the historical dimensions of trauma, no one remains untouched by overwhelming violence. Trauma becomes not simply a detour on the map of faith but, rather a significant reworking of the entire map.”[90] To make this space when exploring these stories in Alma 14 or Mosiah 12, a teacher or class member may want to approach the text to consider the traumatic implications for Alma of watching the murder by fire of women and children in Ammonihah; before they speak, they must thoughtfully reflect on what their words imply to those listening who may carry trauma. Do their insights into the text honor and respect those hurts? Or do they downplay the harm inherent in the events?[91] Application of a trauma-informed lens that is sensitive to the trauma in the room can provide religious discussions that empower listeners rather than further traumatize them. Likewise, approaching the trauma in the text while holding space for our own trauma allows us to find more humanity and connection in the traumatic and human stories contained there. Rather than causing further harm to ourselves and others via a harsh or critical reading of the text that ignores the trauma in the stories and the traumas of today, a trauma-informed hermeneutic can create a nurturing space that allows for readings of the Book of Mormon that can face and, potentially, heal the trauma we carry in ourselves or that listeners carry.

Conclusion

The benefits of using a trauma hermeneutic are clear. Scripture has long served as a narration of individuals’ and communities’ understanding of their relationship to God. In the wake of disaster, a trauma hermeneutic perceives that the readers’ understanding of this narration is incomplete without an appreciation for the ways in which “trauma erodes aspects of identity and solidarity necessary for well-being.”[92] Stories of intense suffering, especially those attributed to divine punishment, have consistently raised questions of theodicy. Sections of scripture depicting God as destructive, abusive, and wrathful frequently seem inconsistent with those describing God as loving and merciful. A trauma-informed reading of scripture understands the human will to make order out of disorder and reassert control over chaos.[93] By attributing suffering to sin and divine will, a small amount of order is reinstated in the aftermath of catastrophe.

Second, a trauma hermeneutic allows for alternative interpretations of the text, including the recognition of “symbolic representations corresponding to actual violence”[94] and the importance of “fragmented and impressionistic images” that defy a “plain-sense account of events.”[95] Strange imagery and language may indirectly point readers toward experiences of terror and loss.[96]

Third, a trauma hermeneutic complements both historical and literary approaches to scripture. The field of comparative literature has helped shape the field of trauma biblical studies through the analysis of the “survival literature” produced during the atrocities of the twentieth century.[97] The investigation of narrative, symbolism, poetry, and testimony can all be deepened through an understanding of trauma. Additionally, historical scholars can benefit from a better awareness of the realities of the short- and long-term effects of traumatic violence on individuals and communities. This builds upon, rather than contradicts, historical-critical models of reading.[98]

Fourth, those who have survived trauma often struggle to communicate their experiences to others effectively. Without understanding trauma, readers may shy away from certain passages or characters because they seem distasteful, frustrating, or incomprehensible. One of the most important goals of trauma studies is “to ask how we can listen to trauma beyond its pathology for the truth that it tells us.”[99] Whether readers enjoy sections of scripture about suffering and the people involved in them may be moot. Instead, looking through the lens of trauma could help readers understand even if they do not like or enjoy scripture. A trauma-informed biblical hermeneutic supports an interrogation of scriptural characters and writers in which readers transform the question “What’s wrong with you?” into “What happened to you?”[100] This shift in thinking crosses cultural boundaries and helps increase empathy and compassion for subjects that may otherwise seem foreign.

Finally, the use of a trauma hermeneutic may make scripture relevant for readers today and help transform disturbing books of scripture into healing ones. Given current world events, many students of holy texts are searching for answers to questions about theodicy, human suffering, and how people narrate God into their lives during periods of darkness. It also gives a particular set of tools for reading scripture for those who have experienced trauma. One Old Testament professor has described how using a trauma-informed lens has transformed the dynamic in her seminary classes: “As the class unfolded and the student’s stories came out, I recognized something else about Jeremiah that before had been only an unarticulated hunch. The book did more than give voice to the afflicted. It was and is a most effective instrument of survival and healing.”[101] This is, effectively, expanding the role of scripture, giving it an additional and critical function in pastoral care.

To the degree in which the Book of Mormon functions as survival literature, its coherence does not depend on a single narrative thread of trauma or a single identifiable point in which the record attempts to make sense of the trauma experienced. Throughout the book, people within the Book of Mormon endure a wide variety of individual and collective traumatic events. As is typical, their responses vary, with some people/groups reacting with further violence while others construct a theology that explains and reorganizes the disruption. Violence, suffering, trauma, and trauma responses run throughout this book of scripture. While the field of biblical studies has already begun a serious study of how to use a trauma hermeneutic, the use of this method is rarely used for the Book of Mormon. The increasing understanding that trauma is, to varying degrees, a universal part of the human condition makes this a compelling field of greater study. This article is clearly not an exhaustive review of all the trauma found in the text but rather an invitation to all readers to use this lens. Further work in this area should be cross-disciplinary, including the work in biblical studies, refugee studies, psychology, literary studies, and sociology. Most particularly, it should focus on the perspectives of those who have suffered most deeply from trauma and who stand on the margins of society. Their voices are critical in this work.

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^[1] Nicholas Collura, “When Patients Talk Politics: Opportunities for Recontextualizing Ministerial Theory and Practice,” Pastoral Psychology 71 (2022): 556, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-022-01013-3.

^[2] See, for example, Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, Bible Through the Lens of Trauma (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016); David M. Carr, Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2014); and Kathleen M. O’Connor, Jeremiah: Pain and Promise (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011). A review of the study of the Bible and trauma theory can be found in David G. Garber Jr.’s “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” Currents in Biblical Research 14, no. 1 (2015): 24–44.

^[3] Garber, “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” 25.

^[4] James W. S. Yansen Jr., Daughter Zion’s Trauma: A Trauma-Informed Reading of the Book of Lamentations (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2019), 13.

^[5] Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma’ as a Useful Lens for Biblical Interpretation,” in Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, 13.

^[6] Deidre Nicole Green, Jacob: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020); Kylie Nielson Turley, Alma 1–29: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020); and “Alma’s Hell: Repentance, Consequence, and the Lake of Fire and Brimstone,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 28, no. 1 (2019).

^[7] Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (US), Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services, Treatment Improvement Protocol Series 57 (Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [US], 2014), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207201/.

^[8] NHS Scotland, “NES Trauma Informed—What Is Meant by Trauma?,” accessed Aug. 15, 2022, available at https://transformingpsychologicaltrauma.scot/resources/understanding-trauma/.

^[9] Daniel Gutierrez and Andrea Gutierrez, “Developing a Trauma-Informed Lens in the College Classroom And Empowering Students through Building Positive Relationships,” Contemporary Issues in Education Research 12, no. 1 (2019):13, https://doi.org/10.19030/cier.v12i1.10258.

^[10] Gutierrez and Gutierrez, “Developing a Trauma-Informed Lens,” 13–14.

^[11] Natan P. F. Kellermann “Epigenetic Transmission of Holocaust Trauma: Can Nightmares Be Inherited?” Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences 50, no. 1 (2013) 33–39; Natan P. F. Kellermann, “Epigenetic Transgenerational Transmission of Holocaust Trauma: A Review,” Oct. 12, 2015, https://peterfelix.tripod.com/home/epigeneticttt_2015.pdf.

^[12] Laurence J. Kirmayer, Robert Lemelson, and Mark Barad, “Introduction: Inscribing Trauma in Culture, Brain, and Body,” in Understanding Trauma: Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives, edited by Laurence J. Kirmayer, Robert Lemelson, and Mark Barad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 10.

^[13] Kirmayer, Lemelson, and Barad, “Introduction: Inscribing Trauma”; Ami Harbin, “Resilience and Group-Based Harm,” International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 12, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.3138/ijfab.12.1.02.

^[14] NHS Scotland, “NES Trauma Informed.”

^[15] “Viewing Your Work through a Trauma-Informed Lens,” Relias, modified Dec. 27, 2018, accessed June 6, 2022, https://www.relias.com/blog/viewing-your-work-through-a-trauma-informed-lens.

^[16] Kirmayer, Lemelson, and Barad. “Introduction: Inscribing Trauma,” 4.

^[17] Alma 58:40.

^[18] Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), xv.

^[19] Yansen, Daughter Zion’s Trauma, 9.

^[20] Yansen, Daughter Zion’s Trauma, 7.

^[21] Marten W. deVries, “Trauma in Cultural Perspective,” in Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, edited by Bessel A. van der Kolk, Alexander C. McFarlane, and Lars Weisaeth (New York: Guilford Press, 1996), 398–413.

^[22] Shelley Rambo, Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 3.

^[23] Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, “Reading War and Trauma: Suggestions Toward a Social-Psychological Exegesis of Exile and War in Biblical Texts,” in Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts, edited by Brad Kelle (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011), 264.

^[24] 2 Nephi 5:21–25.

^[25] Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming, The Book of Mormon for the Least of These (Salt Lake City, Utah: BCC Press), 1:66–68.

^[26] Kai Erikson, “Notes on Trauma and Community,” in Trauma: Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 185.

^[27] O’Connor, Jeremiah, 3.

^[28] John P. Wilson, “The Broken Spirit: Posttraumatic Damage to the Self,” in Broken Spirits: The Treatment of Traumatized Asylum Seekers, Refugees, and War and Torture Victims, by John P. Wilson and Boris Droždek (New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2005), 112.

^[29] Philip Browning Helsel, “Shared Pleasure to Soothe the Broken Spirit: Collective Trauma and Qoheleth,” in Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, 85.

^[30] Helsel, “Shared Pleasure,” 85.

^[31] Kai T. Erikson, A New Species of Trouble: Explorations in Disaster, Trauma, and Community (New York: Norton, 1994), 27–57.

^[32] Erikson, “Notes on Trauma and Community,” 187.

^[33] Garber, “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” 28.

^[34] Erikson, “Notes on Trauma and Community,” 233.

^[35] Helsel, “Shared Pleasure,” 87.

^[36] Alma 1:9.

^[37] Alma 1:16.

^[38] For example, Alma 3:26, 16:9, 30:2, 4:2, 28:4, and 28:5–6.

^[39] Alma 4:5.

^[40] Alma 4:4.

^[41] Alma 4:8.

^[42] Alma 4:9.

^[43] Alma 3:26.

^[44] Erikson, A New Species of Trouble, 233.

^[45] Helsel, “Shared Pleasure,” 100.

^[46] Helsel, “Shared Pleasure,” 100.

^[47] Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 8.

^[48] Elizabeth Boase, “Fragmented Voices: Collective Identity and Traumatization in Lamentations,” in Bible Through the Lense of Trauma, 54.

^[49] Boase, “Fragmented Voices,” 55.

^[50] David Janzen, “Claimed and Unclaimed Experience: Problematic Readings of Trauma in the Hebrew Bible,” Biblical Interpretation 27 (2019): 171.

^[51] Janzen, “Claimed and Unclaimed Experience,” 170.

^[52] Alexander, Trauma: A Social Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 17.

^[53] Janzen, “Claimed and Unclaimed Experience,” 170.

^[54] Such as Jacob 1:13.

^[55] Alma 31:1.

^[56] Alma 54:23.

^[57] 1 Nephi 4:31.

^[58] Salleh and Olsen Hemming, The Book of Mormon for the Least of These, 1:90.

^[59] Sherri Mills Benson, “The Zoramite Separation: A Sociological Perspective,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 1 (2005): 78–79.

^[60] Benson, “The Zoramite Separation,” 84.

^[61] Alma 43:44.

^[62] Tod Linafelt, Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe, Lament, and Protest in the Afterlife of a Biblical Book (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 18.

^[63] Garber, “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” 28.

^[64] Brad E. Kelle, “Dealing with the Trauma of Defeat: The Rhetoric of the Devastation and Rejuvenation of Nature in Ezekiel,” Journal of Bible Literature 128, no. 3 (2009): 483.

^[65] Margaret S. Odell, “Fragments of Traumatic Memory: Ṣalmȇ zākār and Child Sacrifice in Ezekiel 16:15–22,” in Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, 112; O’Connor, Jeremiah, 5; Yansen, Daughter Zion, 14; Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 11.

^[66] Garber, “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” 31.

^[67] Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 11.

^[68] Bessel A. van der Kolk and Onno van der Hart, “The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma,” in Trauma: Explorations in Memory, 172.

^[69] Turley, Alma 1–29, 89.

^[70] Ruth Poser, “No Words: The Book of Ezekiel as Trauma Literature and a Response to Exile,” in Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, 39.

^[71] Garber, “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” 26.

^[72] Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (Milton Park, England: Taylor and Francis, 2013), 7.

^[73] Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 11.

^[74] O’Connor, Jeremiah, 5.

^[75] Deidre Nicole Green characterizes Jacob’s description of the state of his people in this passage as “mass disassociation, or a dreamlike trance that distances people from a reality that would otherwise be too overwhelming to cope with, which is indicative of traumatic stress lived out on a grand scale.” Green, Jacob, 113.

^[76] Alexander, Trauma: A Social Theory, 19.

^[77] For example, Ezekiel 6:1–4; 12:17–20; 15:8; 33:28–29; 38:21–23.

^[78] Kelle, “Dealing with the Trauma of Defeat,” 489.

^[79] Poser, “No Words,” 36.

^[80] Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 5–6.

^[81] Janzen, “Claimed and Unclaimed Experience,” 169.

^[82] Elizabeth Boase, “Constructing Meaning in the Face of Suffering: Theodicy in Lamentations,” Vetus Testamentum 58 (2008): 456.

^[83] Garber, “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” 31.

^[84] Mosiah 21:4.

^[85] Mosiah 21:14–15.

^[86] Helaman 5:4:11–15.

^[87] Poser, “No Words,” 36.

^[88] Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 16.

^[89] Certainly, some of you will not need to imagine such a circumstance, as you have found yourself in that position and experienced this form of family violence in your life. We are heartbroken and sorry this happened to you and are glad you are still here today.

^[90] Rambo, Spirit and Trauma, 9.

^[91] For instance, do they dismiss or minimize the loss of innocent lives in Alma 14:8 because of the promise of heaven for those victims and instead focus on the trauma Alma experienced by viewing such an event? Or are they careful to ensure that those listening will know that such a tragic loss of life and instance of community violence is painful and worthy of being mourned?

^[92] Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 15.

^[93] Boase, “Fragmented Voices,” 61–62.

^[94] Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 16–17; though it is worth noting that “actual” violence is not a prerequisite for trauma or applying a trauma hermeneutic, nor is it reasonable to require the text to accurately represent a potentially violent event to make this hermeneutic applicable.

^[95] Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 13–14.

^[96] Kelle, “Dealing with the Trauma of Defeat,” 482.

^[97] Garber, “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” 26.

^[98] Boase and Frechette, “Defining ‘Trauma,’” 13.

^[99] Caruth, Unclaimed Experience, viii.

^[100] Caralie Focht, “The Joseph Story: A Trauma-Informed Biblical Hermeneutic for Pastoral Care Providers,” Pastoral Psychology 69 (2020): 210.

^[101] O’Connor, Jeremiah, 5

[post_title] => “They Have Received Many Wounds”:Applying a Trauma-Informed Lens to the Book of Mormon [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 57.2 (Summer 2024): 5–40
This article will explain what trauma is and how to be trauma informed, describe a few examples from the Book of Mormon in which a sensitivity to trauma could reveal greater insights from the text, and argue for the importance of using a trauma hermeneutic. We conclude with an application of a trauma hermeneutic in religious settings and an argument for the importance of being aware of how scriptural trauma may interact with the potential trauma of readers. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => they-have-received-many-woundsapplying-a-trauma-informed-lensto-the-book-of-mormon [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-07-17 15:03:01 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-07-17 15:03:01 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=45918 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 34914 [post_author] => 1942 [post_date] => 2023-09-19 20:02:20 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-09-19 20:02:20 [post_content] =>

Practitioners and historians of Book of Mormon archaeology have tended to narrate the emergence and history of the field as a story of conventional scholarly investigations by Latter-day Saint professionals, professors, and ecclesiastical leaders. These narratives foreground the efforts of educated, white, upper-middle-class professionals and Church-funded institutions based in Salt Lake City and Provo, near the centers of Mormon power. The historiography ignores charismatic figures from the social periphery who spurned formal training and excavated artifacts with the help of revelation and religious texts. In contrast to the “official” history of the formal field, their efforts are relegated to the informal domain of “folklore.”

Historian Stan Larson titled his history of Book of Mormon archaeology Quest for the Gold Plates, but the academics he studied never searched for gold plates.[1] In fact, Brigham Young University anthropologist Ray Matheny once said that if he dug up gold plates, he would put them back in the ground.[2] In contrast, charismatic figures like José Dávila, Jesus Padilla, and John Brewer not only searched for but actually claimed to discover ancient metal and stone records of Book of Mormon peoples. Archival documents and interviews with their associates help unearth the stories of their extraordinary archeological and religious claims.

Such figures are important to the history of Book of Mormon archaeology in part because they served as the foil against which the field defined itself. When the search for physical evidence of Book of Mormon historicity first got underway in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, no clear boundaries separated what folklorists call the “official culture” (which is created, filtered, and broadcasted by influential publications and institutions) and the “folk culture” (which arises and spreads more organically, person-to-person, with fewer quality controls). Academics with formal training worked alongside charismatics who claimed special spiritual knowledge of Book of Mormon geography and who presented artifacts of uncertain provenance. Even as the official field worked to define itself by pushing away the folk practitioners, the boundaries between folk and official often blurred. Folk practitioners used scientific techniques and presented their findings to experts and high-ranking LDS Church leaders, some of whom endorsed their work. Official culture (which here includes both the Church and the academy, in that both are elite institutions with cultural cache) completed the folk practitioners’ marginalization only as their establishment allies deceased.

The spiritual archaeologists’ vivid and colorful stories are also important in their own right—not just as an adjunct to the history of an academic field. Their experiences present a case study of religious revitalization and the sect-church process by which new religious movements spin off from older traditions. As the official Latter-day Saint culture pushed charismatic archaeologists—and their charismatic artifacts—to its margins, an array of Mormon revitalizers and splinter groups laid claim to them. Though repulsive to the gatekeepers of official culture, folk practitioners’ stories appealed to some rank-and-file Latter-day Saints who longed for a more literal and charismatic faith.

A Short History of Book of Mormon Archaeology

Latter-day Saints have long hoped to prove the historicity of the Book of Mormon through the excavation and study of ancient American artifacts. Joseph Smith himself looked to unearthed bones, ruins, and metal records as evidence of the veracity of the narrative he had translated from the gold plates.[3] Reflecting on the 1834 Zion’s Camp expedition, he wrote fondly of “wandering over the plains of the Nephites, . . . picking up their skulls & their bones, as proof of its [the Book of Mormon’s] divine authenticity.”[4]

After Smith’s 1844 martyrdom, others also looked for physical relics of ancient Book of Mormon civilizations. Many followed spiritual cues, as when succession claimant James J. Strang in 1845 dug up a set of brass plates from a Wisconsin hill he had seen in vision, or when Bishop John Koyle opened a “Dream Mine” near Salem, Utah, to dig for gold records that the angel Moroni had shown him in vision in 1894.[5] Others scoured the secular scientific literature for clues, as when John E. Page in 1848 identified the Book of Mormon city of Zarahemla with the Maya ruins at Palenque, or when educator George M. Ottinger in 1879 compared the Book of Mormon to the sacred K’iche’ Maya manuscript known as the Popol Vuh.[6] In the last year of the nineteenth century, Brigham Young Academy president Benjamin Cluff Jr. led an expedition to Colombia, where he hoped “to discover the ancient Nephite capital of Zarahemla” on the Magdalena River and “to establish the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.”[7]

In the twentieth century, other Mormon academics followed in Cluff’s footsteps. In 1909, Deseret Museum director James E. Talmage investigated clay, copper, and slate tablets discovered two decades earlier in Michigan. Perhaps reflecting a cultural shift toward a more secular scientific sensibility, Talmage debunked the artifacts as frauds despite their faith-promoting potential.[8] And in contrast to traditional interpretations of the Book of Mormon that saw its narrative encompassing the whole of North and South America, many early twentieth-century writers proposed “limited geography” interpretations that set the narrative mostly within a small region of Central America.[9]

Building on these early efforts, Mormon researchers in the 1940s and 1950s developed Book of Mormon archaeology into a formal scientific subfield. In 1952, amateur anthropologist Thomas Stuart Ferguson founded the New World Archaeological Foundation, a nonprofit with a mandate to carry out archaeological excavations of Preclassic Maya sites in Central America with an eye to scientifically confirming the Book of Mormon. Milton R. Hunter, a president of the Seventy and amateur archaeologist, served as a vice president of the organization, and Max Wells Jakeman, Brigham Young University Department of Archaeology chair, served prominently on the foundation’s archaeological committee. In partnership with BYU anthropologists like Jakeman, Ross T. Christensen, and Bruce W. Warren, Ferguson led numerous Central American expeditions and excavations in the 1950s. These efforts caught the interest of Church authorities, who extended Church funding to the NWAF in 1955 and folded it into BYU in 1961.[10]

The establishment of a formal academic subfield by no means marked the end of excavations by spiritual methods in the style of Strang and Koyle. The mid-century Book of Mormon archaeology boom inspired spiritual as well as scientific artifact-seeking, with considerable overlap between the two. In the 1950s, a Mexican Mormon tour guide named José Dávila guided NWAF archaeologists on some of their expeditions to southern Mexico and Guatemala. Dávila seamlessly blended scientific and spiritual methods, drawing on archaeological scholarship and personal revelation to find Book of Mormon sites. Presented with a set of inscribed gold plates, he translated them with the help of scholarly lexicons of Egyptian hieroglyphics, which he used in combination with a nineteenth-century Egyptian grammar book apparently dictated through revelation by Joseph Smith. Similarly, in the 1960s, an arrowhead hunter named Earl John Brewer excavated many inscribed stone tablets and metal plates from a cave near Manti, Utah, where he professed to have encountered the angel Ether. Both Dávila and Brewer understood themselves to be engaged in archaeology, and both received support from BYU anthropology professor Paul R. Cheesman and from Church authorities such as apostle Mark E. Petersen and Milton R. Hunter, a president of the Seventy.

Thus, while the NWAF’s founding was a triumph, historians should resist the temptation to narrate it as a story of progress from “folk” to “scientific” methods. Not only does this imply a one-sided moral judgment, but it’s also somewhat anachronistic because folk and scientific efforts were not clearly distinguishable from each other in the early days of Book of Mormon archaeology. Arguably, academic archaeologists at BYU defined the folk in the process of defining their scientific discipline. They professionalized Book of Mormon archaeology partly through the gradual marginalization and exclusion of spiritual practitioners like Dávila and Brewer. While a few BYU scholars, like Cheesman, received Dávila’s and Brewer’s claims with sympathy, others dismissed them. In particular, Ray Matheny became BYU’s go-to artifact authenticator (and debunker) and Dávila’s and Brewer’s principal antagonist. A former student of Matheny recalls that he used to “regale us with stories about the crazy things people would bring . . . for evaluation and potential authentication. He once told me he sometimes felt like a modern Charles Anthon.”[11] (Charles Anthon was the nineteenth-century New York linguist who had thumbed his nose at Martin Harris’s transcript of characters from the Book of Mormon plates.)[12]

While Matheny and others succeeded in marginalizing spiritual approaches to Book of Mormon archaeology and relegating them to the domain of the “folk,” they won no total victory. Certainly, the academic debunkers found good reasons to doubt the purity of Dávila’s and Brewer’s motives and the authenticity of artifacts they championed. In addition to saving souls, the purveyors of these artifacts stood to gain money, notoriety, and spiritual authority by offering proof of the Book of Mormon’s historicity. But the folk archaeologists got in their own licks against the establishment scholars, whom they saw behaving more like critics than believers, in pursuit of secular academic respectability and advancement in secular careers. They organized themselves into a kind of alternative establishment—a network of nonprofits and fundamentalist sects—that still thrives today, doing cultural work worthy of study. What follows is a first attempt to tell the origin story of that alternative establishment and to understand the work its practitioners are doing.

José Dávila and the Padilla Gold Plates

In the first few years after the NWAF’s 1952 founding—as Book of Mormon archaeology struggled to find its scientific footing—BYU scholars went on several exploratory expeditions to Central America to find potential excavation sites. To help them navigate the unfamiliar landscape, they employed Mexican guides at a salary of $225 per month.[13]

One of those guides was José Octavio Dávila Morales, a Spanish-English bilingual mestizo (mixed-blood) Huastec-Maya Indian born in Tampico, Mexico in 1925.[14] By his twenties, Dávila worked as a licensed Mexican federal tour guide for archaeological sites.[15] He also served as a Latter-day Saint branch president in Puebla, Mexico, having married a widow from Bountiful, Utah, and converted to her Mormon faith in 1946.[16] The semi-nomadic couple flitted back and forth between Mexico and Utah, where Dávila joined the University Archaeological Society (UAS) at BYU.[17]

By 1951, Dávila owned a small business, the Puebla Travel Service.[18] Coiffed hair, a winning smile, and earnest intensity accounted for only part of Dávila’s tour business success. He also read voraciously and possessed an uncanny power to retain what he read.[19] Although he had no formal archaeological training, Maya history held him in the grip of a lifelong passion matched only by his newfound enthusiasm for the Book of Mormon, which he felt might unlock the ancient Maya’s secrets.[20] (Maya script would not be fully deciphered until the late 1970s.)

At BYU, Dávila met Max Wells Jakeman and fully embraced his “limited geography” interpretation of the Book of Mormon. In 1953 and 1954, Dávila guided Jakeman and an NWAF team on exploratory expeditions to southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. In Guatemala, they found ruins they identified with the Book of Mormon city Zarahemla. Dávila helped excavate the ruins in 1956.[21]

In 1954 and 1955, Dávila also guided NWAF vice president Elder Milton R. Hunter of the Seventy on three “archaeological trips” to Mexico and Guatemala, during which the two men documented skin-color differences among Central American Indigenous populations and similarities between Hebrew and Indigenous cultures. Hunter published an extensive chronicle of his adventures with Dávila in search of Book of Mormon evidences.[22]

Except for a lecture that Dávila delivered before the UAS in January 1961, Dávila’s association with the NWAF largely ended after 1956.[23] Perhaps the BYU archaeologists no longer wanted his services. Clark S. Knowlton, who was actively seeking a job in the BYU archaeology department, wrote to BYU professor Ross T. Christensen in 1955 that he was “ironically amused” by a newspaper account of Hunter’s expeditions with Dávila. Knowlton felt that Hunter was “the type that can and has done considerable harm to Book of Mormon archaeological studies,” and he even expressed a desire to “vote against him sometime in Church.”[24] This candid assessment of a General Authority illustrates how quickly academic Mormon archaeologists had soured on amateur involvement in their field.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the entrepreneurial Dávila struck out on his own. He crafted his own map correlating archaeological sites with Book of Mormon cities. He conducted his own not-entirely-legal excavations in search of Lehi’s ship, Nephi’s temple, and King Benjamin’s tower. And he presented his findings in lectures and tours directed to audiences of Utah Mormon laypeople. By 1960, he counted Church president David O. McKay and apostle Harold B. Lee among those who had taken his tours.[25] In these endeavors he drew on a combination of archaeological science and divine guidance in the form of visions and dreams.[26]

Meanwhile, in February 1961, a Mexican physician named Jesus Padilla Orozco took the missionary discussions in Cuautla, Mexico. The missionaries gave Padilla a Spanish-language tract containing a facsimile of the first four (out of seven) lines of Book of Mormon “Caractors” that Martin Harris had shown to Columbia College professor Charles Anthon in 1828.[27]

Padilla carefully studied the tract and then told the missionaries that he owned a set of gold plates inscribed with similar characters. He had found them while working for the government on an aerial mineral survey in 1959. The surveyors’ plane had set down in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Padilla and several other men had hiked into the jungle. In the jungle they stumbled upon the ruins of an ancient city inhabited by naked, white-skinned Indians.[28] Inside the ruins they found a coffin that contained some gold plates. Padilla claimed to be the only survivor of the expedition, the other four having died of drowning, falling, accidental gunshot, and snakebite, respectively.[29]

The missionaries doubted the story, having previously heard Padilla tell colorful stories that didn’t add up. They asked to see the plates, but Padilla said he had left them with a linguist in Mexico City. He promised to bring them back and show them to the missionaries, but “week after week as we visited them [the Padillas] or stopped by, he claimed that he had forgott[e]n.” One day Padilla produced from a safe a handwritten copy of some characters from the plates. The missionaries remarked upon their similarity to the Book of Mormon characters on the pamphlet they had shown him, and Padilla agreed with their assessment. Finally, after about a two-month delay, Padilla presented three postage stamp–sized hinged gold plates, which he had strung onto a charm bracelet for his wife. He asked the missionaries “if anyone in the Church would be interested in buying” the three plates at an $80,000 price. The missionaries met with their mission president and apostle Marion G. Romney to discuss the proposal. Fearing that the plates might be a hoax, Romney advised the missionaries to mail photographs of the plates to BYU for authentication. They did so, and BYU archaeologist Ross T. Christensen replied that the plates were probably fraudulent and not worth pursuing.[30]

José Dávila did not share the BYU scholar’s skepticism. He heard about the plates and visited Padilla, who showed him five plates, including the three with hinges that he had previously shown the missionaries. Dávila “immediately recognized the writing as . . . Nephite reformed Egyptian” and offered to buy the plates. Padilla asked for too much money, so Dávila left without making a deal. But later that year, Padilla’s wife contacted Dávila and, pleading financial difficulty, offered to sell or lease the plates for $2,000. (The parties later disagreed as to whether the transaction was a lease or sale.) Dávila raised the money from a backer in Utah and exchanged it for the plates.[31]

Dávila tried to donate the plates to the LDS Church, but apostle Marion G. Romney declined the donation on the grounds that it would be illegal to take them out of Mexico. That didn’t stop Dávila, who arranged for his wife to take the plates to Utah. Church authorities there again declined to take custody of the plates and referred the matter to the department of archaeology at BYU. BYU archaeologists Max Wells Jakeman and Ross T. Christensen examined the plates and in 1962 published an article in the UAS newsletter expressing their opinion that the plates were fake and that the Dávilas had committed a crime by bringing them to the United States.[32]

This offended Dávila, who continued to insist on the plates’ authenticity. The metallurgist hired by BYU had noted that the plates looked freshly polished and lacked the wear that comes with age. To Dávila, this evoked the Book of Mormon’s promise in Alma 37:5 that plates containing sacred records “must retain their brightness.” Thus, his scriptural literalism led him to different conclusions than the BYU academics drew from the same data point.[33]

Dávila spent the next two years translating the Padilla plates. Donations from Utah Church members funded the work, and apostle Joseph Fielding Smith helped by providing Dávila a copy of an Egyptian grammar book supposed to have been composed by revelation by the Church’s founder, Joseph Smith.[34] Using a pair of early twentieth-century hieroglyphic dictionaries in combination with the methods outlined in Smith’s grammar book, Dávila managed to place an interpretation upon the Padilla plates’ script. The full translation portrayed Jesus Christ as a “Sky God” whose “celestial boat was wrecked upon the cross,” neatly blending Mormon and Egyptian motifs.[35]

In 1963, a farmer named Del Allgood heard rumors of Dávila’s translation work and invited him to come examine some petroglyphs in Chalk Creek Canyon near Fillmore, Utah. Allgood and a business partner named Harold Huntsman believed that the petroglyphs marked the location of an old Spanish or Indian mine. The pair had filed several mining claims on the site in 1950 and had scoured the area for evidence of mineral wealth, but they had come up empty so far. They turned to Dávila in the hope that this half-Maya translator might be able to interpret the glyphs and reveal the location of the mine.[36]

Using the same method he had employed with the Padilla plates, Dávila teased a message from the mysterious glyphs. Amazingly, they gave instructions for how to locate a “natural stone chamber” containing “metal tablets” or “garlanded everlasting mineral records.”[37] Still more stunning, one pair of esoteric glyphs—the Jewish hamsa and the Taoist yin yang—comprised the signature of the angel Moroni. Dávila hypothesized that after the Lamanites destroyed the Nephites in a final apocalyptic battle in Mexico, Moroni had fled north with the Nephite records and buried them in New York to be discovered by Joseph Smith. En route, Moroni had passed through Utah and buried a portion of the Nephite library in Chalk Creek Canyon. Dávila concluded that “it would not be far fetched to estimate we are considering here the resting place of the twenty[-]four plates of Ether” mentioned in the Book of Mormon.[38]

In 1964 and 1965, Dávila gave a series of public lectures about this discovery. Through these lectures he recruited a hundred volunteers and a smattering of financial backers to excavate the site. Dávila explained to them that the excavation’s objective was to promote salvation and “to deliver these records to the LDS Church.” In the summer of 1965, the excavators spent over $4,000 drilling six hundred feet of exploratory holes. Frustrated by his lack of success, Dávila revisited his translation and discovered an error: “All the Summer and Fall of 1965 has been employed in work done over 100 f[ee]t off the true spot.”[39]

Meanwhile, a breach opened between Dávila and Harold Huntsman, the majority owner of the mining claims on which Dávila was excavating. Dávila examined the paperwork for the Huntsman-Allgood claims and concluded that Huntsman and Allgood had failed to meet the legal requirements to maintain the claims. In February 1966, Dávila challenged the prior claims and filed his own mining claims on the site. Huntsman ordered Dávila off the claims and signed an agreement with filmmaker DeVon Stanfield to excavate the gold plates and make a documentary film about the excavation. Dávila, who felt the discovery was too sacred for television, came to blows with Stanfield when he found him on the property.

In October 1966, Huntsman sued Dávila. Dávila’s lawyer admitted in court that Dávila had made “open, notorious, hostile adverse use of the property” without Huntsman’s permission, but he argued that none of that mattered because Huntsman’s mining claims were invalid. The court ultimately disagreed and ruled against Dávila, barring him from the site and awarding Huntsman $10,000 in damages.[40]

The lawsuit precipitated a tragedy. On November 5, 1966, Harold Huntsman showed up at the property and informed two of Dávila’s volunteers that the court had ordered them to halt excavation. The two men refused to leave, so Huntsman left and told them he would be back with the sheriff. Realizing their time was short, the volunteers made one last big push to find the plates. They stuffed the bottom of a twenty-foot shaft with ninety-one sticks of dynamite and detonated the lot. They waited two hours for the carbon monoxide gas to clear and then went down the shaft. They hadn’t waited long enough, and both men died of carbon monoxide poisoning. If only they hadn’t worked on the Sabbath, lamented their friends.[41]

Adding tragedy upon tragedy, Huntsman had the thirty-six-year-old documentary filmmaker DeVon Stanfield continue the excavation where Dávila left off. Stanfield took more care than his predecessors, but on August 10, 1967, he too succumbed to carbon monoxide gas.[42]

A bankrupted Dávila returned to Mexico by 1970.[43] Meanwhile, in 1970, Jesus Padilla wrote to the anthropology department at BYU claiming to be in possession of seven more gold plates from the same tomb as the five that he had leased or sold to Dávila. In 1971, Dr. Paul Cheesman visited Padilla to examine the additional plates.

Several discrepancies quickly emerged in Padilla’s story. In speaking years earlier with the missionaries who first contacted him, he had claimed to have found the plates during a survey trip to Oaxaca in 1959. Now he said he had found them while camping with some friends in Guerrero in 1955. The new plates didn’t have hinges like three of the originals had, which seemed to embarrass Padilla. He claimed that José Dávila had added the hinges to the originals, but photographs taken prior to Dávila’s acquisition of the plates proved that the hinges had been present all along.[44]

José Dávila heard a rumor that BYU might buy the seven plates from Padilla for $35,000. Fearing that this would make the seven new plates inaccessible to him, he contacted Mexican authorities and alerted them of a pending illegal artifact sale. Then he called Padilla, told him what he had done, and warned him to hide the plates. This enraged Padilla, but he took Dávila’s advice. By the time police raided Padilla’s home a few days later, he had hidden his collection of artifacts. Before the police let him go, Padilla suggested to them “that Mr. Davila might well bear investigation on similar charges.”[45]

Dávila was arrested on July 6, 1971 and charged with crimes related to looting and illegal artifact smuggling. Most charges were eventually dropped for lack of evidence, but Dávila spent a few years in prison for driving unregistered vehicles.[46] During the investigation, Utah collector J. Golden Barton visited Dávila in jail, coaxed him to tell where he had hidden his five Padilla plates, sneaked the plates out of Dávila’s home under the noses of watching police officers, and then smuggled the plates out of Mexico under his toupee.[47]

Meanwhile, Padilla provided his seven new plates to BYU professor Paul R. Cheesman for study and authentication. He refused to tell exactly where in the Mexican state of Guerrero he had found them, “but if there were some way to obtain a subsidy,” he promised to arrange for scientific dating of the site.[48] Cheesman showed the plates to various experts. Anthropologists Frederick Dockstader and Gordon Ekholm pronounced them fakes engraved with a modern steel tool. Diffusionist epigrapher Cyrus Gordon and BYU Egyptologist Hugh Nibley thought the plates might be genuine. Cheesman agreed with Gordon and Nibley.[49]

Cheesman’s BYU colleague Ray Matheny made a comprehensive study of the plates and pronounced them fraudulent. He noted pictographs on the plates apparently copied from famous Maya and Aztec artifacts, and he argued that the plates’ perfectly square corners and “very straight edges” suggested they had been cut with modern tools. Matheny also found that the plates contained a majority of the symbols from the first four lines of the Book of Mormon “Caractors” document that Martin Harris had shown to Charles Anthon, whereas they contained almost no characters from the bottom three lines of that document. Recall that the missionaries who had first contacted Padilla had shown him a missionary tract that reproduced the first four lines of the “Caractors” document but not the bottom three. Matheny concluded that Padilla had borrowed from the missionary pamphlet to fabricate the plates.[50]

J. Golden Barton—a private collector and friend of Paul Cheesman—read an early draft of Matheny’s report and penned a rebuttal. Matheny had drawn these conclusions from incomplete information, Barton protested. Matheny had had access to the seven new Padilla plates but not to the five originals. Barton’s “naked eye” examination of Dávila’s five plates revealed rounded corners cut at oblique angles. Moreover, apparent contradictions in Padilla’s narratives of discovering the plates could be harmonized. Oaxaca and Guerrero were adjacent states, and the camping trip that Padilla had described to Paul Cheesman might have occurred during the survey mission that he had described to the missionaries.[51]

Barton provided Dávila’s five plates to Cheesman in the hope that this additional evidence might help prove the plates’ authenticity. Matheny only grew more confident in his conclusions after examining them, however. The hinges attached to the plates had “been made with modern tubing dies” and attached with modern solder, and the edges of the plates bore marks from a jeweler’s saw and metal file. He pronounced the case against the plates’ authenticity “closed once and for all.”[52]

The Church-owned Deseret News newspaper piled on with an editorial about Dávila in 1975. The article recounted a story from two Mormon missionaries who had gone “on a one-day expedition with Dávila while on their Mexican mission. Dávila led them to a mountain where he claimed to have found a cave filled with gold, lowered himself over a ledge by rope, and disappeared into an opening in the cliff face. A few minutes later, the two heard a shot and pulled Dávila up. One foot was bleeding. He said an angel had shot him for trying to touch the sacred gold.”[53] In an acid letter to the editor, Barton complained that the editorial sounded like “the Palmyra ‘Reflector’ [of] New York state, [in] the year 1831, in which Obadiah Dogberry was describing the character of Joseph Smith in his Book of Mormon find.”[54]

After Dávila’s release from prison, he returned to work giving tours of Mexican archaeological sites. In 1978, he befriended Connecticut Mormon public health professor Jerry L. Ainsworth, who became a sort of Dávila disciple. Ainsworth once accompanied Dávila on an expedition to Cerro del Bernal—which Dávila identified as the Hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon—in search of a “Nephite library” of metal plates. Uncanny storms and snakes drove them off the hill, which Ainsworth concluded “remains taboo [i.e., supernaturally protected] at this time.” Ainsworth also befriended Jesus Padilla, who supplied him with a steady stream of new artifacts from the same tomb as the Padilla plates.[55]

Eventually Ainsworth wrote a book and a series of online posts to popularize Dávila’s ideas. In one post, Ainsworth described a conversation he had once had with BYU skeptic Ray Matheny. Ainsworth had asked what Matheny would do if he discovered authentic gold plates inscribed with reformed Egyptian characters. Matheny had replied that he would put them back in the ground and never tell anyone because such a discovery would end his career.[56] This anecdote illustrates the gap that had opened between the official and the folk, with neither able to countenance the other’s perspective on gold plates.

John Brewer and the Manti Plates

José Dávila never met Earl John Brewer, as far as I know, but the two men ran in similar circles and had similar experiences. Like Dávila, Brewer offered metal records to confirm the Book of Mormon. Like Dávila, he combined amateur archaeology with the supernatural. And like Dávila, he found himself pushed to the edges of official Mormon culture and into the arms of the Mormon folk.

Born in Moroni, Utah, on February 11, 1933, Brewer worked as a turkey farmer and sanitation worker at different times in his life. Although he had a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he stayed home Sundays and smoked, cursed, and drank coffee.[57] He was a loving father and husband and loved by his kids.[58]

In 1963, Brewer and his friend Carl Paulsen brought some limestone tablets to a collector named Leona Wintch. She contacted her nephew, Utah State Archaeological Society president George Tripp, and he contacted Dr. Jesse Jennings of the University of Utah Department of Anthropology. Jennings examined the stones and pronounced them a hoax, noting that they appeared stained with fresh topsoil and freshly engraved.[59] According to an affidavit made out by Carl Paulsen, he grew suspicious after hearing Jennings’s findings and ransacked Brewer’s room. Beneath the mattress he found several pieces of partially inscribed stone. He confronted Brewer and accused him of forging the stones. “He, John Earl Brewer, had no comment and shrugged off the accusation.”[60]

It’s unclear what story Brewer told Wintch and Jennings about the discovery of these tablets, but his later narrations fitted the incident into a grand narrative of Jaredite treasure caves. A “diary” in Brewer’s voice misdates the Wintch incident to 1960 rather than 1963 and turns the stone tablets into metal plates. According to Brewer’s one-time friend John Heinerman, Brewer wrote the diary years after the fact to make sure he had his story straight. The diary represents an evolved version of a story that by then Brewer had told many times.[61]

Tellings of Brewer’s story differ in their details but agree in their shape. The story begins with Brewer arrowhead hunting for an art display for the Sanpete County Fair about 1955. His friend George Keller, an African American ranch hand who claimed to know secret Indian places, agreed to tell Brewer where to find arrowheads in exchange for some wine. Brewer supplied the wine, and Keller took him to an overhang on the hill behind the Manti Temple and told him to dig beneath.

Brewer dug, and his shovel unearthed a stairwell that led down into a large chamber. The chamber contained two ten-foot-long stone coffins, each containing an eight-foot-tall mummy in full metal armor. One mummy had red hair, and the other had blonde. In addition to the coffins, the chamber also contained stone boxes wrapped in juniper bark and pitch. Brewer broke some of them open and found inscribed metal plates.

In some versions of the story, Brewer also encountered a glowing angel who identified himself as the Jaredite prophet Ether and warned him not to sell anything from the cave for gain. He also found stone tablets, which he assembled like a jigsaw puzzle to reveal a map to the locations of additional caves. Like Joseph Smith before him, he carefully guarded the secret of his cave’s location and struggled prayerfully through feelings of personal unworthiness and greed.

Indeed, in Brewer’s journal he explicitly wondered “if maybe this was anything like [Joseph Smith] went through.” He thought perhaps not, because Smith “was a better man than I am. But the thought wouldn’t leave me all day,” so he followed Smith’s example by asking God for help to understand the artifacts he’d found. No answers came right away. He felt that the Lord would guide him in the search for other caves but that God also wanted him to work to find answers on his own. “I know that he is [guiding me,] for I am not a very smart person and some of these things that come to me are not mine,” he wrote.[62]

Word of Brewer’s discovery reached BYU by 1965, when University of Utah anthropologist Melvin Aikens showed the limestone tablets to BYU’s Ray Matheny. Matheny wrote to Aikens, “As you may know, many of these kinds of finds have been made in the past to exploit Mormons and we, at B. Y. U., would like to carefully record each of these, in order to expose the people involved for what they are.”[63]

Paul R. Cheesman shared Matheny’s enthusiasm for investigating Brewer’s find, though not to expose it as a fraud. Cheesman put one of Brewer’s tablets on display in BYU’s Joseph Smith Building, and in 1971 he convinced Church president Spencer W. Kimball and apostle Mark E. Petersen to supply $1,000 to fund research into Brewer’s find.[64] Several BYU anthropologists visited Brewer in Sanpete County on the Church’s dime. Cheesman came away a believer, while his colleagues Ray Matheny, William J. Adams Jr., and Hugh Nibley came away convinced that Brewer’s artifacts were fake.[65]

Like Jennings, Matheny found the inscriptions and the pitch that coated them too fresh to be ancient, and he also found evidence that Brewer’s metal plates had been cut with scissors and inscribed with a modern chisel. Adams, a linguist, examined the inscriptions and found fewer clusterings of symbols than you’d expect from a meaningful script. Later, he ate at an area restaurant and found a napkin decorated with local cattle brands that closely resembled the symbols from the plates. In 1972, Matheny and Adams coauthored a report debunking the plates.[66] As for Nibley, “Brewer’s wife told somebody he [Nibley] knew that Brewer had made the plates himself.”[67]

Undeterred, Cheesman organized another trip to Sanpete County with apostle Mark E. Petersen on March 5, 1974. Cheesman’s wife Millie, his student aide Wayne Hamby, and his friend J. Golden Barton accompanied him on the trip. The group met with Brewer at his bishop’s home in Moroni, Utah. Brewer told the visitors the tale of his discovery and withdrew from a briefcase about sixty inscribed plates made from various metals, including some gold plates he had framed under glass. “He told us he generally kept these plates in a safe deposit box at the local bank,” Barton wrote. “He also told us he had used the plates a[s] security for a loan with a private party.” Brewer also presented a sealed set of copper plates that he had never shown anyone before and which he proposed to open in Elder Petersen’s presence. The apostle demurred, saying the seal should only be broken in the presence of archaeological experts.

The visitors pressed Brewer to reveal the location of his cave for scientific study. Brewer “seemed reluctant to commit himself to an immediate excursion,” but he promised that once the snow had cleared, he would enlarge the cave entrance and show the cave first to Cheesman, and then to a team of archaeologists from BYU.

During the drive home, each member of the party that had come to meet with Brewer shared their opinion on the meeting. Elder Petersen chimed in first with his view that Brewer “was telling the truth and most likely did not have the capacity to perpetuate such an elaborate hoax.” The rest of the group agreed.

After dropping Cheesman off in Provo, Barton accompanied Elder Petersen back to Salt Lake City. During the drive, Barton showed Petersen José Dávila’s Padilla plates and shared his opinion that Dávila was sincere and “worthy of Church confidence.” Barton then “talked about some of the difficulties Dr. Cheesman and also myself had experienced when seeking help from the New World Archaeological Foundation in regards to both the Mexican plates and Cheesman’s work with Brewer.” The apostle “appeared somewhat distressed with the attitude of the Foundation toward archaeology of the scriptures.” According to Barton,

He clearly stated that he did not believe we had any reason to hide our views from intellectual circles in regards to these matters. He strongly advocated that L.D.S. students do their homework and not be hindered or harassed in the presentation of Book of Mormon archaeology. He further stated that in his opinion the Church had no reason to be embarrassed by the discovery or recovery of Gold Plates. After all the very foundation of the Joseph Smith story was based on such knowledge. He said that angels and gold plates were a very real part of Mormon history and that the Church witnessed the same to all the world.[68]

The two men also favorably discussed a cache of Ecuadorian gold plates described in a book by ufologist Erich von Däniken, who in 1968 had famously proposed that aliens had built the Great Pyramid of Giza.[69]

In the months following this meeting, Petersen eagerly pressed Cheesman for news. “We are very interested in this, as you know,” he wrote. “President Kimball has inquired of Brother [Milton R.] Hunter [of the First Council of the Seventy] and myself on two different occasions as to what the status of the matter is.”[70] He also mentioned that “Our brethren here are very interested and it will not surprise me at all if they should authorize purchase of the land involved so that we may get full control.”[71] Barton, hearing a rumor of the Church’s intent to buy the land on which Brewer’s cave was located, visited the Sanpete County recorder’s office and learned “that the Corporation of the L.D.S. Church had in fact been deeded a parcel of ground directly east of the [Temple].”[72]

Unfortunately, Brewer did not make good on his promises. “Spring came and went in the Manti valley and John Brewer [m]ade no effort to contact Dr. Cheesman and fulfill the agreement that he had made in early March,” Barton wrote. “We received information that Brewer was experiencing some marital difficulties and so we chose not to pressure this man as he sought to solve his personal problems.”[73] In a letter to Petersen that summer, Cheesman reported that “John Brewer’s wife left him with all the children to care for, therefore a delay in our plans,” and “Brewer lost his job and is in the midst of changing to another job—further delay.”[74]

Alongside its scathing 1975 exposé of José Dávila, the Church-owned Deseret News published an exposé of Brewer.[75] Brewer frankly told the Deseret News reporter that “Whenever I don’t understand anything, I stall.” He told the reporter that concerns about privacy, credit for the discovery, and his children’s inheritance had caused him to keep the secret close.[76] Meanwhile, Brewer’s bishop reported back to Cheesman that Brewer had discovered a second treasure cave containing additional boxes of plates.[77]

Even as he stalled his friends in high places, Brewer made a smattering of folksier friends. In 1974, an anonymous “Canadian Indian” translated some of the plates, revealing that a group of Jaredites led by a man named Piron had settled in the American Southwest in 2500 BCE. The group had buried more than five million inscribed gold plates throughout the Americas, the translation said, and had known the secret of making electric batteries.[78]

Around the same time, Brewer met Gail Porritt, a kindly eccentric who considered himself to be the “one mighty and strong” prophesied in Doctrine and Covenants section 85. Porritt heard rumors of Brewer’s discovery and visited him to learn more. “He showed me some round lead plates with inscriptions on them with a hole in the middle,” Porritt remembers. Porritt befriended Brewer, and Brewer gave him some artifacts and showed him a hill where “the largest and most important repository of records” was buried, according to the map he had found in his cave. “They’re up there; good luck to you if you can find them,” Brewer invited.[79]

A man named Dave Tomlinson also befriended Brewer. Brewer took Tomlinson on mountain hikes to search for sites marked on his Jaredite map. According to Brewer, the map marked Jaredite burials spanning from Colorado to Idaho, “with little footprints going from one to the other.” The “main” site on the map, however, seemed to be west of Manti, Utah. Brewer and Tomlinson searched the mountains for a “trail marker” depicted on the map, but they couldn’t find it.[80]

In the 1970s, Brewer fell in with a man named John Heinerman. Like Porritt, Heinerman heard rumors of Brewer’s discovery and sought him out. Heinerman claims that Brewer showed him his cave, a claim that Brewer denied. The wonders Heinerman witnessed in the cave included a Jaredite battery and a unicorn head. He and Brewer also tried their hand at translating the plates.

Brewer and Heinerman somehow became entangled with a group of polygamist fundamentalists led by Ervil LeBaron. At minimum, Ervil’s nephew Ross LeBaron Jr. stole some photographs of Brewer’s artifacts from a photographer’s office.[81] To hear Heinerman tell the story, the LeBarons also demanded to know the location of Brewer’s cave and tortured and killed Brewer’s son. Police concluded that Johnnie Brewer Jr. died of an accidental drug overdose, but Heinerman believes it was staged.[82] Another source implies that Heinerman and Brewer conspired with the LeBarons to sell fraudulent artifacts to wealthy Latter-day Saints.[83]

By 1990, Brewer and Heinerman had a spectacular falling-out. Their dispute concerned a Canadian woman named Louise to whom Heinerman had been engaged. Louise complained to Brewer that Heinerman had deceived her and defrauded her out of $34,000. Brewer helped her move out of Heinerman’s home, and he also testified against Heinerman before a Church court. According to a thirdhand account of Brewer’s testimony, he confessed at the hearing that he and Heinerman had conspired to sell fake copper plates to members of the Church.[84] Heinerman retaliated with a priesthood curse consigning Brewer and his progeny to hell.[85]

In 2001, Heinerman published a book to popularize Brewer’s story.[86] Brewer complained about the book in an interview with Gail Porritt. According to Brewer, many claims in the book were fabricated, and the book’s publication had complicated the resolution of a lawsuit over ownership of the land where the cave was located. “I’ve tried to let it cool off, more or less. Tried to say, well, no, you know, forget it, it’s not true, whatever. Tried to cool it down. And I thought it was until he brought that dang book out.”[87]

When Porritt asked how soon Brewer expected to go public with the location of the cave, Brewer said it would be sometime within the next two years. In addition to needing to resolve the lawsuit over ownership of the land, he also expected the Lord to bring forth a couple of archaeologists to assist with the work. Porritt then asked if Brewer would mind recording his story on video for posterity. Brewer replied, “Well . . . I’m not too . . . not ready for that. I don’t want to be like John Heinerman. Okay?”[88] Brewer did not reveal his secrets sometime within the next two years. Instead, he kept them until 2007, when he took them to his grave.[89]

According to Brewer’s friend Terry Carter, near the end of his life Brewer “blew the entrance to the cave up” and vowed never to reveal its location while he was alive. Carter wrote in 2006 that Brewer “has become a recluse, is starting to go senile and denies that his cave ever existed and will not talk to anyone about it. His wife is much more abrasive and will threaten to shoot anyone who tries to talk to John, or steps foot on their property.” Carter, a believer in the cave, explained away Brewer’s denial. Brewer “was given an ultimatum by his wife to deny that his cave, mummies and artifacts ever existed in order to re-store harmony to the family.”[90] Senile or no, Brewer had decided that being a father and husband made him happier than being a finder of plates.[91]

Dávila’s and Brewer’s Legacies

Rejected by the Mormon establishment, Dávila’s and Brewer’s projects have been taken up by an array of fundamentalist prophets and nonprofit organizations. One of the first to make use of Brewer’s story was Gerald Peterson Sr., who in 1978 founded a polygamous sect called the Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Peterson claimed that Brewer had taken him inside his cave in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Peterson also borrowed some of the plates, which he translated. His followers are forbidden to read the translation until the appointed time. For four decades they have kept the translation under a sacred seal.[92]

In 1990, Manti, Utah resident Jim Harmston led a group of locals to search the hills near the Manti Temple for Brewer’s cave. They found esoteric petroglyphs much like those in Fillmore that José Dávila had identified as the angel Moroni’s signature glyphs. In short order “there was an excavation going on the West side of the Manti valley,” and rumors circulated that someone had found Brewer’s treasure cave. Harmston’s bishop in Manti objected to the illegal dig and worried that his ward members might embarrass the Church. Four years later, Harmston founded his own polygamous sect.[93]

Another Manti polygamist, Jerry Mower, married John Brewer’s sister and claims to have learned the secret of Brewer’s cave. In 2001, Mower showed historians H. Michael Marquardt and Gerald Kloss “many artifacts he claims he found in the valley of Manti,” including stone boxes and gold plates. Mower told the historians that he had “found many caves in the Valley of Manti and mummies, including he claims, the mummies of Adam and Eve—since he believes this was the Garden of Eden site and the site where Noah built the Ark. He feels the second coming will take place in The Valley of Manti. He also showed us [a] translation of the gold plates with symbols for God the Father, Jesus the son, and The Holy Spirit, who is Joseph Smith.”[94]

Mower added colorful science-fiction flourishes to Brewer’s stories. Among his artifacts is a disc-shaped rock that he says is an ancient CD. He also claims to know of a hidden temple in the mountains with three altars—telestial, terrestrial, and celestial. The celestial altar is booby-trapped, and to reach it requires taking a literal “leap of faith” by walking off a cliff onto an invisible ledge. The ancient Nephite general Moroni, Mower says, teleported between Mexico, Utah, and New York with the help of a network of portals.[95]

Fundamentalist prophet Ross LeBaron Jr. owes more to José Dávila than to Brewer. LeBaron has provided his own translation of Dávila’s Fillmore petroglyphs, declaring that the yin-yang symbol represents the location in southern Utah where the ark of the covenant was deposited by the priests of David and Solomon. The ark was buried there and then guarded by the direct descendants of David until the last of the guardians died out a hundred years ago. The last guardian carved the petroglyphs so that the hiding place would not be lost. From the Jewish hamsa symbol, LeBaron learned that Adam, Jacob, and other important biblical figures are buried in Zion National Park.[96]

Like Dávila, LeBaron treated the petroglyph symbols as composites of multiple sub-symbols. Unlike Dávila, however, he did not use either Joseph Smith’s “Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar” or scholarly Egyptian lexicons. Instead, he combined direct revelation with bits of lore derived from ostensibly ancient texts such as the Forgotten Books of Eden. LeBaron claimed that virtually every important event in gospel history took place in Utah. After being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lived in a Utah “treasure cave.” After the Flood, Noah landed on a mountain in present-day Utah. Utah was the location not only of the Tower of Babel, but also the original lands of Israel and Egypt. “Anyone who believes in that copy-cat area over there [in the Middle East] is part of the Babylonian confusion. It’s all right here in Southern Utah.”[97]

In contrast to the fundamentalists, the Ancient Historical Research Foundation (AHRF) investigates Brewer’s and Dávila’s stories from an orthodox Latter-day Saint perspective. Terry Carter cofounded the organization in the 1990s to study “mystery glyphs” such as those translated by José Dávila. Dávila’s friend J. Golden Barton and Brewer’s friend David Tomlinson served as trustees for the organization until their deaths. Other trustees include marginal or controversial Latter-day Saint scholars such as Rodney Meldrum, Wayne May, and Steven E. Jones.[98]

In 2005, the AHRF carbon-dated a piece of bark from Brewer’s cave and found it to be approximately 2,161 years old.[99] AHRF founder Terry Carter allows that aspects of the Brewer story are fishy, but he insists that the carbon-dated tree bark “couldn’t have been forged.” Members of the AHRF continue the search for Brewer’s cave, although they feel that guardian spirits and booby traps may prevent it from being found until God’s appointed time.[100] They also continue the quest for the Fillmore, Utah metal records sought by José Dávila. In the 1980s, David Tomlinson went so far as to purchase “the placer [i.e., mining] claims” to Dávila’s Chalk Creek Canyon mine.[101]

Members of the AHRF see Mormon academics as their rivals. They accuse professional academics like Ray Matheny of bullying amateur explorers and stealing or covering up their finds. To these faithful Mormon folk, the establishment’s rejection of Dávila’s and Brewer’s charismatic artifacts is a symptom at least of incompetence, if not of apostasy or malign intent.[102]

Folk and Official Culture and the Routinization of Charisma

Academic folklorists define “folk culture” as culture that is “shared person to person” and that varies or changes each time it’s transmitted. This contrasts with “official culture,” which is broadcast in a single version by an authority or intellectual property owner.[103] While this definition foregrounds the process of transmission, it also references the social position of the message’s purveyors. Most Mormon folklore scholarship has emphasized the transmission process, perhaps to the neglect of social position.[104] To quote folklore studies professor Stephen Olbrys Gencarella’s summary of the critical theories of Antonio Gramsci, “the official exists in no small measure because it defines folklore,” and “folklore exists . . . in part because it officiates as the Other for the official.”[105]

This dynamic is well illustrated in the history of Book of Mormon archaeology. Charismatic or spiritual practitioners have favored person-to-person storytelling, whether orally at firesides and “pow-wows” or on the internet in message boards and YouTube channels. Characteristically for folklore, their stories have transformed and taken on new proportions with repeated retelling. However, they tend to favor this mode of transmission not because they lack the ambition to broadcast their message through authoritative channels but because they are denied access to those channels. They are denied access because of their social position—their poverty and lack of Church or academic credentials—and because they have made useful foils for official Church and academic culture. BYU archaeologists like Ray Matheny established their scientific bona fides in part by distancing themselves from archaeological claims they viewed as fraudulent or fantastical. As a result, “folk” and “scientific” Book of Mormon archaeologies arose together symbiotically.

Folklorists emphasize that “folk culture is no more or less important than official culture. It doesn’t exist above or beneath the official culture but right next to it.”[106] That, however, is not the attitude of most guardians and gatekeepers of official culture. Official culture actively enforces its single version, drawing and maintaining strict boundaries between itself and the folk, and it tends to look down on anything that doesn’t meet its standards for inclusion within its scope. So when a recent edited volume on Mormon folklore began its discussion of folklore by invoking Carl Sagan’s contrast between the folkloric “superstitious mind” and the scientific “critical mind,” it perhaps uncritically adopted the stance and language of official culture rather than the stance and language of folkloristics.[107] Academics engaged in the study of folklore may personally agree with academic critiques of folk culture, but as scholars we must also recognize that we occupy a privileged social position and have a vested interest in the struggle to distinguish folk from official, so we are not disinterested observers. Also noteworthy is that while folklore studies have historically focused on non-elite “folk,” the discipline increasingly recognizes that “elites will have, inasmuch as they adhere in groups, a lore as well.”[108] We find good examples in the stories that Ray Matheny told his students about the “crazy” artifacts that people brought to him for authentication and in the story that William J. Adams Jr. told about his discovery of symbols from Brewer’s plates on a restaurant napkin.

Moving to a different disciplinary frame borrowed from the sociology of religion may help elucidate what cultural work the folk and official archaeologists were doing in their contests over Dávila’s and Brewer’s discoveries. According to the German sociologists Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, something like the tension between folk and official culture plays out in every religion and intensifies as the religion gets older. They called this the “sect-church cycle” or “routinization of charisma.” According to this theory, a religious sect begins with a “charismatic” event—a breaking-in to history of something thrilling but uncontainable, like miraculous divine power or invisible gold plates. But as the sect matures into a full-fledged church, it builds systems, institutions, and routines around its founding charisma to contain the charisma and make it safe. It returns its gold plates to their stone box to prevent them from endangering the stability or quality of faith.[109]

Charisma is thrilling, but routine is not. Inevitably, some adherents seek to “revitalize” their faith by liberating charisma from its containment—by removing the plates from their box. Religion’s official gatekeepers may tolerate these folk revitalization movements if they find them nonthreatening enough. Or they may sanction and exclude them, at which point the revitalization movements fizzle out, go independent, or go underground. Many failed revitalization movements give rise to new religious movements, beginning the sect-church cycle all over again.[110]

Thomas Ferguson’s NWAF began with an ambition to revitalize the LDS faith by finding concrete evidence of the Book of Mormon and its glittering gold plates.[111] But from the beginning, conservative forces in Mormonism’s official culture resisted Ferguson’s quest. Apostles Joseph Fielding Smith and Marion G. Romney worried that Book of Mormon archaeologists promoted heterodox interpretations of the Book of Mormon that limited its geographical scope in direct contradiction to statements made by the Church’s founder Joseph Smith.[112] Other General Authorities and Mormon academics felt “considerable embarrassment over the various unscholarly postures assumed” by Book of Mormon archaeologists and feared that their work would damage the academic reputation of BYU. This, in no small part, is why the Church folded NWAF into BYU in 1961 and placed its administration and finances under the control of the Church Archaeological Committee. By 1963, the committee decreed that the foundation should do its archaeological work in a secular way and that “any attempt at correlation or interpretation involving the Book of Mormon should be eschewed.”[113]

In an illustrative exchange, apostle Marion G. Romney accosted BYU archaeologists in Mexico City. According to Max Wells Jakeman,

[Apostle Romney] immediately asked me, <in an important manner,> if I was expecting to find ‘Lehi’s Tomb’ on this expedition. I assured him that I was leaving this up to the missionaries. Yesterday he called Carl, Ray, Harvey, and Larry into a room by themselves, and there—according [to] the report they gave me—he gave them ‘serious instructions’; namely, that they must send back only sound scientific reports of their findings, and must leave all conclusion, with respect to the Book of M., to others—i.e. the ‘committee’?—back home. They said they were interested only in doing scientific work at Aguacatal, as the Department had done in the past, but he didn’t have <the> time to hear them out.[114]

While the archaeologists resented this interference in their work, they also took the lesson to heart. Despite the title of Stan Larson’s history of the NWAF, Quest for the Gold Plates, theirs was a quest for conventional archaeological evidence, not for sensational artifacts like gold plates. They increasingly functioned as an arm of official culture, helping keep the lid on the stone box. By 1969, BYU archaeology grad Dee F. Green—who had personally participated in NWAF excavations—could write that “the first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists.”[115]

The official culture did not speak with one voice on this subject. BYU academics like John Sorenson continued to work and publish on Book of Mormon archaeology, though more quietly and informally than before. And BYU archaeologist Paul R. Cheesman and General Authorities Mark E. Petersen and Milton R. Hunter each kept up a sympathetic correspondence and relationship with amateur archaeologists like José Dávila and John Brewer who continued the search for ancient Nephite and Jaredite artifacts and records. The charismatic quest for sensational artifacts like gold plates was pushed to the folk periphery of Mormon culture, but Cheesman, Petersen, and Hunter prevented it from being pushed out of Mormon culture altogether while they were alive.

After their deaths, gold plates became chiefly the domain of Mormon-inspired new religious movements and breakaway fundamentalist sects. And so the sect-church process began anew, with new charisma spilling forth from unearthed metal plates, luminous and uncontainable.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

^[1] Stan Larson, Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson’s Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Freethinker Press, 1996).

^[2] Jerry Ainsworth, “Response to Brant Gardner’s Article Regarding The Lives and Travels of Mormon and Moroni,” The Reading Room: Book of Mormon Geography, Aug. 2006.

^[3] Kenneth W. Godfrey, “What Is the Significance of Zelph in the Study of Book of Mormon Geography?,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8, no. 2 (1999): 70–79; Matthew Roper, “Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early Interpretations,” FARMS Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 243; Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst-McGee, “‘President Joseph Has Translated a Portion’: Joseph Smith and the Mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates,” chapter 17 in Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, edited by Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Brian M. Hauglid (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2020), 452–523.

^[4] Joseph Smith, Letter to Emma Smith, June 4, 1834, in Letter Book 2, 56–59, Joseph Smith Collection, MS 155, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

^[5] Roger Van Noord, The King of Beaver Island: The Life and Assassination of James Jesse Strang (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 33–35, 102; Ian Barber, “Dream Mines and Religious Identity in Twentieth-Century Utah: Insights from the Norman C. Pierce Papers,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 70, no. 3 (2009): 433–69; Kevin Cantera, “A Currency of Faith: Taking Stock in Utah County’s Dream Mine,” in Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore, edited by Paul W. Reeve and Michael Scott Van Wagenen (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011), 125–58.

^[6] John E. Page, “Collateral Testimony of the Book of Mormon,” Gospel Herald (Voree, Wisc.) 3, no. 26, Sept. 14, 1848, 123; G. M. Ottinger, “Votan, the Culture-Hero of the Mayas,” Juvenile Instructor 14, no. 5, Mar. 1, 1879, 57–58.

^[7] Ernest L. Wilkinson and W. Cleon Skousen, Brigham Young University: A School of Destiny (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1976), 151.

^[8] Mark Ashurst-McGee, “Mormonism’s Encounter with the Michigan Relics,” BYU Studies 40, no. 3 (2001): 174–209.

^[9] Roper, “Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon,” 260–65.

^[10] Larson, Quest for the Gold Plates, 45–70.

^[11] Chris Watkins, email to Christopher Smith, Nov. 2, 2020.

^[12] See Richard E. Bennett, “‘Read This I Pray Thee’: Martin Harris and the Three Wise Men of the East,” Journal of Mormon History 36, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 190–94.

^[13] John F. Forber & Company to Thomas S. Ferguson, Jan. 12, 1953, MSS 1549, Thomas S. Ferguson Papers, 1936–1975, box 9, folder 3, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[14] José O. Dávila to John A. Wilson, Oct. 15, 1965, in Veryle R. Todd Notebook, circa 1965–1975, MS 9263, LDS Church History Library.

^[15] “Archaeologist to Lecture in Pl. Grove,” The [Provo, Utah] Daily Herald 91, no. 165 (Mar. 19, 1964): 13A.

^[16] “Personal History of Claudious Bowman, Jr. and His Wife Nelle,” chap. 6; “Mexico Guide Dated by Society at Y.,” Deseret News and Salt Lake [City, Utah] Telegram 354, no. 158 (Dec. 31, 1960): A7; “Hazel Argyle Stocks,” Family Search (accessed March 5, 2020).

^[17] Max Wells Jakeman, “Recent Explorations in the Proposed, Region of Zarahemla,” UAS Newsletter 22 (Aug. 23, 1954).

^[18] “Archaeologist to Lecture in Pl. Grove”; “Join December Tour of Book of Mormon Lands in Mexico” (advertisement), The [Provo, Utah] Sunday Herald 33, no. 23 (Nov. 6, 1955): 2B.

^[19] Jerry L. Ainsworth, The Lives and Travels of Mormon and Moroni (n.p.: Peace-Makers Publishing, 2000), 5, 15; Terry L. Carter, “Jose Davila & the Gold Plates,” June 2009; “Mexican Travel Guide Presents New Ideas on Book of Mormon Sites,” Ogden [Utah] Standard-Examiner 84, no. 241 (September 10, 1955): 3.

^[20] “Book of Mormon Attracts Guide to LDS Religion,” Deseret News and Salt Lake [City, Utah] Telegram 354, no. 104 (Oct. 29, 1960): 6.

^[21] “Mexican Travel Guide Presents New Ideas.” The NWAF’s official papers and expedition reports omitted any mention of Dávila, but Max Wells Jakeman noted his participation in an article published in the newsletter of the UAS. Jakeman, “Recent Explorations.”

^[22] Milton R. Hunter, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1956).

^[23] “Mexico Guide Dated by Society at Y.”; “Guide Lectures at BYU Society,” Deseret News and [Salt Lake City, Utah] Telegram 355, no. 2 (Jan. 3, 1961): 2B/.

^[24] Clark S. Knowlton to Ross T. Christensen, February 7, 1955, MSS 1716, Ross T. Christensen Collection, 1891–1992, box 5, folder 5, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[25] “Mexican Guide to Tell Book of Mormon Theory,” Ogden [Utah] Standard-Examiner 84, no. 225 (Aug. 25, 1955): 16B; “Mexican Travel Guide Presents New Ideas”; Merle Shupe, “Guide Plans Map on Book of Mormon,” The Ogden [Utah] Standard-Examiner 89, no. 257 (Oct. 3, 1959): 3; “Mexico Guide Dated by Society at Y.”; José O. Dávila, “An Account of Our Book of Mormon Lands Tour, Jan. 27th to Feb. 16th, 1961,” Americana Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; José O. Dávila, “Physical Evidences of the Book of Mormon,” December 1965, MSS 2049, box 63, folder 2c, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; José O. Dávila, “The Geography of the Nephites,” December 1965, MSS 2049, box 63, folder 2c, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[26] Dávila, “An Account of Our Book of Mormon Lands Tour,” 36–37, 43.

^[27] Ray T. Matheny, “An Analysis of the Padilla Plates,” BYU Studies 19, no. 1 (Fall 1978): 33–40.

^[28] When paraphrasing primary sources, especially where they draw upon racial myths and stereotypes, I generally preserve their racial terminology (e.g., “Indian”) rather than substitute an alternative label.

^[29] Richard Averett, letter to Ross T. Christensen, May 7, 1961, quoted in Paul R. Cheesman, Ray Matheny, and Bruce Louthan, “A Report on the Gold Plates Found in Mexico,” January 1973, 4–5, 8–9, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 2, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; Gerald C. Kammerman, letter to Diane E. Wirth, Nov. 20, 1978, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 2, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; “Padilla Follow-Up,” n.d. [ca. 1978], in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 2, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[30] Kammerman to Wirth, Nov. 20, 1978; Wayne Hamby, “Padilla Plates,” Apr. 29, 1974, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 2, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; Kammerman to Wirth, Nov. 20, 1978; “Padilla Follow-Up”; Ainsworth, Lives and Travels, 18; J. Golden Barton, “A Rebuttle Written by J. Golden Barton to ‘A Report on the Gold Plates in Mexico’ by Paul R. Cheesman, Ray Matheny and Bruce Louthan January, 1973,” 2, 9, 15, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 4, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[31] Ainsworth, Lives and Travels, 18–19; Kammerman to Wirth, Nov. 20, 1978; Barton, “A Rebuttle,” 8; José O. Dávila, “Moroni’s Petroglyphs in Utah,” Dec. 23, 1964, MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 63, folder 2c, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[32] Kammerman to Wirth, Nov. 20, 1978; Barton, “A Rebuttle,” 9–10; “Gold Plates from Mexico,” U.A.S. Newsletter 78 (Jan. 17, 1962): 4.

^[33] José O. Dávila, “Laboratory Analysis of the Amuzgus Front Plate,” in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 2, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[34] Ainsworth, Lives and Travels, 19; Barton, “A Rebuttle,” 10; “Join Our December Tour to the Book of Mormon Lands in Mexico, December 10 to 30” (advertisement), Ogden [Utah] Standard-Examiner 34, no. 291 (Oct. 30, 1955): 6B.

^[35] Carter, “Jose Davila & the Gold Plates”; Ainsworth, Lives and Travels, 19; José Dávila, “The Full Translation,” n.d., in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 2, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[36] Memorandum of Jose Octavio Davila, in Harold Huntsman and Flora Huntsman v. Jose Octavio Davila, Mrs. Jose Octavio Davila, E. Del Allgood, and Mrs. E. Del Allgood, case no. 5634, District Court of the Fifth Judicial District in and for Millard County, Utah, Oct. 1966, Millard County Clerk’s Office.

^[37] Recall that Jesus Padilla had “garlanded” his gold plates by stringing them together on a necklace for his wife. José O. Dávila, “The Translation of the Large Texts,” n.d., in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 63, folder 2c, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; José O. Dávila, “Translation of Fillmore Symbols,” n.d.; José O. Dávila, “The Chalk Creek Canyon Texts from Fillmore, Utah, Translated by J. O. Dávila,” Nov. 1965, MS 2105, LDS Church History Library.

^[38] José O. Dávila, “Moronai in Utah, or, Hidden Treasures in Your Backyard,” Dec. 24, 1965, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 63, folder 2c, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University. See also Jerry L. Ainsworth, “Is There Evidence That Mormon and Moroni Visited the American West?” Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum, 2015; Ainsworth, Lives and Travels, 201–03.

^[39] Dávila, “Moroni’s Petroglyphs in Utah”; Dávila, “Moronai in Utah”; Stephen B. Shaffer, Treasures of the Ancients (Springville, Utah: Plain Sight Publishing, 2013), 155; Dávila, “The Chalk Creek Canyon Texts”; Dávila to Wilson, Oct. 15, 1965.

^[40] Complaint, Harold Huntsman and Flora Huntsman v. Jose Octavio Davila, Mrs. Jose Octavio Davila, E. Del Allgood, and Mrs. E. Del Allgood, case no. 5634, District Court of the Fifth Judicial District in and for Millard County, Utah, Oct. 1966; photocopies provided by Millard County Clerk’s Office; Memorandum of Davila, Oct. 1966; Carter, “Jose Davila & the Gold Plates”; Shaffer, Treasures of the Ancients, 155.

^[41] Carter, “Jose Davila & the Gold Plates”; Shaffer, Treasures of the Ancients, 154–55; “2 S.L. Men Killed in Mine,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah) 366, no. 111 (Nov. 7, 1966): 1B; “Carbon Monoxide Cause of Shaft Deaths,” Deseret News, Nov. 8, 1966, B11; “Search to Continue for Metal Tablet Cache Despite Deaths,” Idaho State Journal (Pocatello, Idaho) 65, no. 203 (Nov. 8, 1966): 1; “Gas Is Fatal for Pair in Mine Shaft,” The [Twin Falls, Idaho] Times-News 63, no. 206 (Nov. 8, 1966): 9.

^[42] Carter, “Jose Davila & the Gold Plates”; “Blast Gas Fatal to Miner in Hunt for Silver,” The Salt Lake [City, Utah] Tribune 195, no. 119 (Aug. 11, 1967): 1B.

^[43] Carter, “Jose Davila & the Gold Plates.”

^[44] Paul R. Cheesman, Report, n.d. [1971–1972], in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 2, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; Barton, “A Rebuttle,” 11; Ainsworth, Lives and Travels, 19; Matheny, “An Analysis of the Padilla Plates,” 21n4; Cheesman, Matheny, and Louthan, “A Report on the Gold Plates Found in Mexico,” 9; Kammerman to Wirth, November 20, 1978; “Padilla Follow-Up”; Ainsworth, Lives and Travels, 18; Barton, “A Rebuttle,” 2, 9, 15.

^[45] Barton, “A Rebuttle,” 12–13.

^[46] Carter, “Jose Davila & the Gold Plates”; Dale Van Atta, “The Angel, the Gold—and Jose Davila M.,” Deseret News 383, no. 283 (Nov. 26, 1975): B10; Ainsworth, Lives and Travels, 19; Cheesman, Matheny, and Louthan, “A Report on the Gold Plates Found in Mexico,” 9; Barton, “A Rebuttle,” 13–14; Shaffer, Treasures of the Ancients, 116.

^[47] In telling this story, Stephen Shaffer refers to Barton only as “Jake.” I infer Barton’s identity from other sources that allude to this escapade. According to Barton’s obituary, “Jake” was his nickname. Shaffer, Treasures of the Ancients, 116–19; “J. Golden (Jake) Barton” (accessed April 5, 2020); Linda Karen Petty, comp., Linda Karen Petty’s Personal History, vol. 4 (New Harmony, Utah: Petty Family Records Center, 2016); Christopher C. Smith, interview with Gail Porritt, St. George, Utah, Jan. 19, 2013.

^[48] Jesús Padilla Orozco, letter to Paul R. Cheesman, June 26, 1971, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 66, folder 3, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; Cheesman, Matheny, and Louthan, “A Report on the Gold Plates Found in Mexico.”

^[49] Cheesman, Report, n.d. [1971–1972].

^[50] Cheesman, Matheny, and Louthan, “A Report on the Gold Plates Found in Mexico,” 8–18; Matheny, “An Analysis of the Padilla Plates,” 21–40.

^[51] Barton, “A Rebuttle,” 4–7.

^[52] Matheny, “An Analysis of the Padilla Plates,” 22–30, 40.

^[53] Van Atta, “The Angel, the Gold—and Jose Davila M.”

^[54] J. Golden Barton, “Archaeological Fraud?” n.d. [ca. 1975], in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 65, folder 4a, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[55] Ainsworth, Lives and Travels.

^[56] Ainsworth, “Response to Brant Gardner’s Article.”

^[57] “Earl John Brewer,” Family Search (accessed Feb. 8, 2020); Christopher C. Smith, Interview with John Heinerman, April 15, 2017; [J. Golden Barton], “Manti Enigma,” 1974–1990, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, Box 7, fd. 3, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[58] Jed Brewer to Christopher Smith, April 4, 2021.

^[59] George Tripp, “Manti Mystery,” Utah Archaeology 9, no. 4, (Dec. 1963): 1; Jesse Jennings to Mrs. J. Wallace Wintch, Nov. 27, 1963, Anthropology Departmental Records, University of Utah Archives; Jesse Jennings to Lambrose D. Callinahos, Jan. 28, 1969, Anthropology Departmental Records, University of Utah Archives. Special thanks to archivist Kirk Baddley for finding and providing the Jesse Jennings correspondence.

^[60] Carl and Louise A. Paulsen affidavit, Apr. 13, 1973, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 65, folder 4a, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[61] John Brewer journal typescript, June 17, 1960, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 65, folder 4a, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University; Smith, interview with Heinerman, Apr. 15, 2017.

^[62] Jared G. Barton, “Secret Chambers in the Rockies,” The Ancient American 4, no. 28 (June/July 1998): 3–4, 6; “John Brewer Has a Cave, but He’s Not Giving Tours,” Deseret News, Nov. 26, 1975, B10; Smith, interview with Porritt, Jan. 19, 2013; Smith, interview with Heinerman, Apr. 15, 2017; [Barton], “Manti Enigma”; John Heinerman, Hidden Treasures of Ancient American Cultures (Springville, Utah: Bonneville Books, 2001), 147–48; Shaffer, Treasures of the Ancients, 31–32; John Brewer journal typescript.

^[63] Ray T. Matheny to Melvin Aikens, Mar. 17, 1965, Anthropology Departmental Records, University of Utah Archives. Special thanks to archivist Kirk Baddley for finding and providing this document.

^[64] Letter from Paul R. Cheesman to Gary B. Doxey, May 3, 1971, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 1, folder 5, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[65] Barton, “Secret Chambers in the Rockies,” 6.

^[66] “John Brewer Has a Cave, but He’s Not Giving Tours”; Ray T. Matheny and William James Adams, Jr., “An Archaeological and Linguistic Analysis of the Manti Tablets,” typescript of a paper presented at the Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures, Provo, Utah, Oct. 28, 1972, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 65, folder 4a, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University. The napkin is preserved in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 65, folder 4a, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[67] Post by bobhenstra, Apr. 3, 2011, in “We’re surely in it now: Hel/3 Nephi, Revelation D&C 29, 45,” LDS Freedom Forum; Smith, interview with Heinerman, Apr. 15, 2017.

^[68] [Barton], “Manti Enigma.”

^[69] [Barton], “Manti Enigma.”

^[70] Mark E. Petersen to Paul R. Cheesman, June 27, 1974, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 1, folder 6, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[71] Mark E. Petersen to Paul R. Cheesman, Apr. 10, 1974, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 65, folder 5j, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[72] [Barton], “Manti Enigma.”

^[73] [Barton], “Manti Enigma.”

^[74] Paul R. Cheesman to Mark E. Petersen, June 24, 1974, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 1, folder 6, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[75] “John Brewer Has a Cave, but He’s Not Giving Tours.”

^[76] “John Brewer Has a Cave, but He’s Not Giving Tours.”

^[77] [Barton], “Manti Enigma.”

^[78] Gail Porritt, “Report and Interpretation by a Canadian Man on Very Ancient Inhabitants of Utah,” n.d., in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 24, folder 3, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; miscellaneous translations, June–December 1974, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 24, folder 3, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[79] Smith, interview with Porritt, Jan. 19, 2013. Diarist Linda Petty’s notes on Porritt’s stories from the 1990s add evocative details. To get to the cave whose general location Brewer had pointed out to Porritt, “there is a 200 foot drop. At the 30 foot level it [is] necessary to swing onto a ledge and take steps down from there.” Petty, Linda Karen Petty’s Personal History.

^[80] Carter and Tomlinson, “Ancient Nephilim Giants Tomb”; David L. Tomlinson to Paul R. Cheesman and Millie Cheesman, Nov. 25, 1987, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 30, folder 1, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[81] Smith, interview with Porritt, Jan. 19, 2013. Terry Carter identifies the photographer as Lucian Bound. Carter and Tomlinson, “Ancient Nephilim Giants Tomb.”

^[82] Heinerman, Hidden Treasures, 203–08; Smith, interview with Heinerman, Apr. 15, 2017.

^[83] [Barton], “Manti Enigma.”

^[84] [Barton], “Manti Enigma”; Smith, interview with Porritt, Jan. 19, 2013; Carter and Tomlinson, “Ancient Nephilim Giants Tomb.” I did not ask John Heinerman about Brewer’s confession, but he volunteered an anecdote in which Brewer’s brother-in-law Jerry Mower enticed Brewer to manufacture and sell fake plates, and “they had to go and repay.” Smith, interview with Heinerman, Apr. 15, 2017.

^[85] Smith, interview with Heinerman, Apr. 15, 2017.

^[86] Heinerman, Hidden Treasures.

^[87] Porritt, interview with Brewer, n.d. [ca. 2001].

^[88] Porritt, interview with Brewer, n.d. [ca. 2001].

^[89] “Earl John Brewer.”

^[90] Post by Terry L. Carter, Oct. 5, 2006, in “9’ tall mummies . . . cool!” on the Ancient Lost Treasures Message Board.

^[91] According to John Brewer’s son Jed Brewer, his father “paid my rent for 2 years so I could get my college degree.” Jed sent his father checks to repay the money, but when he visited, he found the uncashed checks in a stack. John “was always positive to what I was doing. He was never manipulative with any of my family,” says Jed. Brewer, instant message to author, Apr. 4, 2021.

^[92] Christopher C. Smith, interview with Michael Peterson, Nov. 5, 2018. Brewer told Gail Porritt that no one had ever been inside the cave save himself and his son. Porritt, interview with Brewer, n.d. [ca. 2001].

^[93] [Barton], “Manti Enigma.”

^[94] Gerald John Kloss, “My Visit to Utah: A Personal Reflection,” in Latter Day Saint History 13 (2001): 18–19; additional details provided by H. Michael Marquardt on Aug. 8, 2011. See also May, “Utah’s City in the Clouds,” Ancient American 27 (April/May 1999): 3–4, 37–39. For more on the history of this idea, see Cristina Rosetti, “Praise to the Man: The Development of Joseph Smith Deification in Woolleyite Mormonism, 1929–1977,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 54, no. 3 (2021): 41–65.

^[95] Smith, interview with Rodgers, Mar. 14, 2017.

^[96] Gail Porritt, “Ross LeBaron’s Interpretation of Characters,” 1–4, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 24, folder 4, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[97] Gail Porritt, report on an interview with Ross LeBaron, n.d., 3–4, 11, in MSS 2049, Paul R. Cheesman (1921–1991) Papers, box 24, folder 4, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[98] Terry Carter and Shawn Davies, “Mysterious Petrogylphs in the Western US”; Terry Carter, “About my youtube channel, Treasure Hunting, Nephilim Giants, out of place archaeology, etc.,” YouTube, Dec. 8, 2017; “AHRF Bios."

^[99] Steven E. Jones, “Radiocarbon Dating of Bark Sample from Brewer’s Cave, Manti Area,” Ancient American 15, no. 90 (Mar. 2011): 8.

^[100] Terry Carter, “Nephilim Giants found in Utah, Brewers Cave the untold story,” YouTube, Jan. 18, 2017; Carter and Tomlinson, “Ancient Nephilim Giants Tomb.”

^[101] Paul R. Cheesman and David L. Tomlinson, “Egyptian and Hmong Clues to a Western American Petroglyph Group,” Epigraphic Society Occasional Publications 18 (1989): 303–10; Shaffer, Treasures of the Ancients, 161–63.

^[102] Post by DrJones, Feb. 26, 2011, in “We’re surely in it now: Hel/3 Nephi, Revelation D&C 29, 45,” LDS Freedom Forum; Robert Shrewsbury, “An Open Letter to the President of the United States,” Terra Firma Assayers, Oct. 23, 2004.

^[103] Lynne S. McNeill, Folklore Rules: A Fun, Quick, and Useful Introduction to the Field of Academic Folklore Studies (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2013), 1–13.

^[104] See, for instance, W. Paul Reeve and Michael Scott Van Wagenen, “Between Pulpit and Pew: When History and Lore Intersect,” in Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore, edited by W. Paul Reeve and Michael Scott Van Wagenen (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011), 4; and Tom Mould and Eric A. Eliason, “Introduction: The Three Nephites and the History of Mormon Folklore Studies,” in Latter-day Lore: Mormon Folklore Studies, edited by Eric A. Eliason and Tom Mould (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013).

^[105] Stephen Olbrys Gencarella, “Folk Criticism and the Art of Critical Folklore Studies,” Journal of American Folklore 124, no. 494 (Fall 2011): 259.

^[106] McNeill, Folklore Rules, 66.

^[107] Reeve and Van Wagenen, “Between Pulpit and Pew,” 1–2.

^[108] Roger D. Abrahams, “Towards a Sociological Theory of Folklore: Performing Services,” Western Folklore 37, no. 3 (July 1978): 161.

^[109] The concept of “routinization of charisma” was pioneered by German sociologist Max Weber, whose fullest treatment of the subject has been translated into English as The Theory of Social and Economic Organizations, translated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New York: The Free Press, 1947), 358–92. German theologian Ernst Troeltsch elaborated Weber’s theory into the idea of the sect-church cycle in Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1931). The concept has been treated in a Mormon context by Armand L. Mauss and Philip L. Barlow, “Church, Sect, and Scripture: The Protestant Bible and Mormon Sectarian Retrenchment,” Sociological Analysis 52, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 397–414.

^[110] Anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace popularized the phrase “revitalization movement” in “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologist 58, no. 2 (Apr. 1956): 264–81.

^[111] See, for instance, Thomas S. Ferguson to David O. McKay, Jan. 25, 1954, MSS 1549, Thomas S. Ferguson Papers, 1936–1975, box 2, folder 4, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[112] See, for example, Milton R. Hunter to Thomas S. Ferguson, Aug. 12, 1954, MSS 1549, Thomas S. Ferguson Papers, 1936–1975, box 2, folder 4, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

^[113] Dee F. Green, “Book of Mormon Archaeology: The Myths and the Alternatives,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4, no. 2 (Summer 1969): 76.

^[114] Max Wells Jakeman to Ross T. Christensen, Feb. 28, 1961, MSS 1716, Ross T. Christensen Collection, 1891–1992, box 13, folder 6, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University. Angle brackets indicate a supralinear insertion.

^[115] Green, “Book of Mormon Archaeology,” 76. For Green’s participation in BYU-NWAF expeditions, see Ross T. Christensen, Expedition Journal, 1962, MSS 1716, Ross T. Christensen Collection, 1891–1992, box 13, folder 7, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

[post_title] => A People’s History of Book of Mormon Archeology: Excavating the Role of “Folk” Practitioners in the Emergence of a Field [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 56.3 (Fall 2023): 1–33
Practitioners and historians of Book of Mormon archaeology have tended to narrate the emergence and history of the field as a story of conventional scholarly investigations by Latter-day Saint professionals, professors, and ecclesiastical leaders. These narratives foreground the efforts of educated, white, upper-middle-class professionals and Church-funded institutions based in Salt Lake City and Provo, near the centers of Mormon power. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => a-peoples-history-of-book-of-mormon-archeology-excavating-the-role-of-folk-practitioners-in-the-emergence-of-a-field [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-02-18 00:23:49 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-02-18 00:23:49 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=34914 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 31435 [post_author] => 3996 [post_date] => 2023-01-27 22:51:17 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-01-27 22:51:17 [post_content] =>

Listen to the Out Loud Interview about this article here.

The American history of Joseph Smith looks for causes: what led Joseph Smith to think as he did? Comparative, transnational histories explore the limits and capacities of the divine and human imagination: what is possible for humans to think and feel?^[1]

Drawing on observations and suggestions from scholars of Tibetan Buddhism and Mormonism, this article compares the production of the Book of Mormon with that of the class of Tibetan Buddhist scripture known as gter ma (“Treasure,” pronounced “terma”).^[2] In brief, both are said to have been authored by ancient religious figures, buried with the anticipation of future discovery, discovered by visionaries with the help of supernatural beings, and “translated” from an obscure language into the discoverers’ native tongue by supernatural, revelatory means.^[3]

More specifically, this article aims to use a new lens—a gter ma lens, if you will—to explore and extend existing theories of the relationship between the gold plates that Joseph Smith claimed to discover and his translation of those plates, the Book of Mormon. Before continuing, it will be important to briefly clarify and justify the use of comparison for the purpose of analyzing these two culturally, geographically, and temporally separate phenomena, and especially the idea that the analysis of one can be used to shed light on the other.

Whereas comparative methodologies were once common to the field of religious studies, they have become increasingly unpopular since the postmodern turn.^[4] One of the persistent postmodern critiques has been that the logic of comparative religion rests on the unwarranted assumption that there is such a thing called “religion” that can be compared cross-­culturally. Indeed, the concept of religion has been shown to be a modern concept birthed from the rise of, and hence modeled on, Protestant Christianity.^[5] As such, when scholars compare “religious phenomena” they are often imposing anachronistic and provincial categories that distort that which they intend to illuminate.

In light of such critiques, I want to be clear that in using events and ideas located in Tibetan Buddhist history to shed light on Joseph Smith’s translation of the gold plates, I am not arguing that because Tibetan Buddhists acted and thought in a certain way, Joseph Smith must have acted and thought in a similar way, based on some sort of preposterous organic connection.^[6] Rather, I am arguing that as we attempt to trace associations between Smith’s gold plates and the Book of Mormon, considering how other people in radically different times and places have described structurally similar events can serve to highlight and challenge assumptions previously taken for granted, and introduce new possibilities that would be otherwise indiscernible.^[7]

Reading Smith’s interactions with the gold plates alongside structurally comparable events in the Tibetan gter ma tradition—as well as alongside how scholars of Tibetan Buddhism have approached those events—highlights and challenges two prevailing paradigms in Mormon studies and serves to introduce a novel possibility on how Smith experienced his translation of the Book of Mormon. In brief, this comparison first draws attention to problematic assumptions about the nature of human subjectivity in relation to the material world that have fueled longstanding debates that posit the Book of Mormon must be either a translation of an authentic historical document or a fraud. Moreover, although I agree with much of the work of scholars such as Karl Sandberg, Ann Taves, and Sonia Hazard, whose work transcends this either/or binary by showing the gold plates could have functioned as something other than an inert object subject to linguistic translation, I will take issue with their persistent return to Smith’s subjective imagination or creativity as one of the (if not the primary) driving source of his “translation.”

In light of the gter ma tradition, where the discovered material scroll acts as an agent that draws forth the memory of a particular teaching given by the Buddhist master Padmasambhava in a previous life, and where the work of “translation” consists primarily of ritually orienting oneself in relation to its power as to be an effective intermediary for Padmasambhava’s message,^[8] I will argue that the gold plates can similarly be thought of as having their own “generative potencies” that acted on Smith in “unpredictable ways.”^[9] As such, I will suggest that Smith’s “translation” be approached as a set of rituals in relation to an agentive material object that enabled him to act as a present intermediary for past voices crying out “from the dust.”^[10] I will also contend that this idea is plausible in light of recent work concerning Smith’s use of the term “translation,” some of Smith’s later theological innovations, and postcolonialist and new materialist theories of subjectivity and agency.

The primary goal of this article is to use this idiosyncratic pairing of Tibetan Buddhist and Mormon modes of scriptural production to help us trace the associations between Smith, the gold plates, and the Book of Mormon in a way that better aligns with the primary sources. To do so, I will begin in part 1 by outlining a set of important functional similarities between the gold plates and gter mas within their respective religious traditions. This portion of the article is meant to provide fuller context for introducing my own critiques and theories in part 2, as well as to make a broad case for the comparability of the two traditions that could be generative of future comparative work. Focusing the bulk of the article on their comparability and my own critiques and theories concerning Smith’s translation will admittedly leave a number of relevant questions about the implications of this study for Smith’s life and legacy unanswered. Nevertheless, I will conclude by briefly discussing two implications of this study, namely around questions of the Book of Mormon’s historicity and Smith’s later theological innovations on the theme of materiality, which will have to be fully developed elsewhere.

Part 1: Functional Similarities Between the Tibetan Treasure (gter ma) Tradition and the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon

What is particularly interesting to note in this section of the article is how these apocryphal scriptures functioned within their respective traditions, which gives us an idea of the comparability of the activities of Joseph Smith and the Tibetan gter ma discoverers (gter ston) despite their highly distinctive temporal and geographical contexts. Specifically, Smith and the Tibetan gter stons discovered and translated ancient material objects as a means of bridging the religiously authoritative past with the present to address contested questions of religious authority and national identity amid religious and political paradigm shifts. In doing so, their scriptures posed similar challenges to the received authority of preexisting canonical texts and expanded traditional canonical boundaries beyond their previous geographical and temporal limitations, thereby sacralizing their native lands and contextualizing them within the larger arc of Christian/Buddhist history, as well as authenticating the otherworldly prowess of their discoverers and the contested authenticity of their own traditions.

The gter ma tradition can be seen as a mix of native Tibetan traditions of pragmatic treasure burial and Indian Buddhist revelatory traditions that coalesced into a unique response to contested questions of canonical, denominational, and personal religious authority, as well as religio-­national identity, amid religious and political paradigm shifts. The gter ma tradition emerged within what is now called the Nyingma (rnying ma) tradition of Tibetan Buddhism around the twelfth century,^[11] during a period denoted by Tibetan historiographers as the later spread of the Dharma in Tibet, juxtaposed to the earlier spread of the Dharma. These two periods of Buddhist transmission are divided by a hundred year “period of political fragmentation” or “dark period,” brought about when the Tibetan central government, and thus imperially sponsored monastic Buddhism, dissolved following the assassination of the putatively anti-­Buddhist king Lang Darma by a Buddhist monk in the mid-­ninth century.^[12]

When political and economic conditions restabilized amid a cultural renaissance and religious revival in the latter half of the tenth century,^[13] the authenticity of extant Buddhist scriptures and practices became a topic of serious concern. Many of the new religious authorities suspected that many, if not all, of the tantras^[14] said to have been transmitted to Tibet during the imperial age—denoted as Old or Nyingma (rnying ma) tantras—were not authentic Buddhist teachings but Tibetan fabrications. In addition, individuals associated with the old dark-­period religious traditions were charged with engaging in a variety of disreputable activities, implying that they had misinterpreted or deliberately abused these traditionally esoteric teachings and were thus operating within a lineage corrupted by heresy.^[15] The only possible solution, it seemed, was to “send young men to India . . . to bring back to Tibet the pure esoteric dispensation,” resulting in a baseline standard of scriptural authenticity defined as texts of Indic origin, transmitted to Tibet post-­late-­tenth century.^[16]

Amid this importation of new Indic scripture, new Tibetan Buddhist schools also emerged that articulated their ecclesial authority and authenticity by linking their teaching lineage to current Indic traditions “in the face of the supposed corruption and antiquity of previous Tibetan Lineages.”^[17] These previous lineages were subsequently dubbed Nyingma (“old”) in contrast to the new schools. In response, the Nyingma began articulating their own lineal heritage through the Buddhist masters of the imperial period—the ancient Tibetan kings and Indian Buddhist ambassadors who had come to be remembered as great bodhisattvas (awakened beings) and who compassionately introduced Buddhism to Tibet between the seventh and eighth centuries CE.^[18]

It is within these religious paradigm shifts around the turn of the eleventh century that individuals primarily associated with this fledging Nyingma tradition claimed to discover gter mas: heretofore unknown sacred historical, ritual, and doctrinal texts attributed to a Buddhist master (typically Padmasambhava, who will be discussed below) from Tibet’s imperial age.^[19] Thus, the Nyingma tradition began to distinguish itself from other Tibetan Buddhist schools over the doctrine of “continuing revelation” against an ostensibly closed canon^[20] by appealing to discoveries of ancient, buried treasure across a period of perceived religious corruption.

Although Nyingma apologists attempted to legitimate their innovations by appealing to similar revelatory precedents in Mahāyāna sūtras,^[21] this movement posed a unique challenge to traditional modes of scriptural transmission—known as spoken transmission. By establishing a direct link between the enlightened beings of Tibet’s imperial age and the present, the gter ma discoverers created a timeless repository of ancient knowledge that turned “the original critique of decline among the ‘old school’ . . . on its head.”^[22] Whereas the Indian tantras brought to Tibet following the close of the dark period in the late tenth century by new school representatives were transmitted from teacher to student for generations upon generations and thus—according to Nyingma apologists—subject to corruption, the gter mas shortened the lineage, placing the gter ma discoverer in direct communication with an enlightened source.^[23] Thus, the Nyingma were able to claim that the gter mas were a direct revelatory corrective to gaps, errors, or misinterpretations of the current canon. Moreover, as such had been hidden by an enlightened being with the express purpose of discovery at a precise future date, they were said to be better designed to “suit the mental desires, needs and capacities of people born in those times.”^[24] Thus, the gter mas existed in a dialectic relationship to the existing canon, which served as a source of legitimacy, yet in turn was made to appear somewhat obsolete as comparatively more distant and less personalized.

Here, it is worth noting that the Book of Mormon likewise positioned itself both as a corrective to erroneous biblical translations and interpretations across a period of spiritual darkness, and a source of fresh prophetic wisdom designed to uniquely address contemporary needs amid turbulent times. Moreover, it existed in a comparable dialectic relationship to its own canonical counterpart, the Bible.

Joseph Smith both propagated the idea that the early Christian church had apostatized soon after the death of Christ and his apostles,^[25] as well as joined a number of marginal voices challenging the cessationist notion that the Christian canon had been sealed with the writing of the New Testament.^[26] Yet Smith did not only couch his claim in his own words, or even the words of God revealed to him, but in the words of ancient Israelite prophets who—unbeknownst to the rest of the world—had anciently inhabited portions of the American continent. With prophetic foresight, these prophets maintained and ultimately buried an ancient record (the gold plates) that preserved the “plain and most precious parts of the gospel,” which would be taken away from the Bible,^[27] and which would uniquely speak to the needs of the latter-­day followers of Christ.^[28] Thus, by discovering and translating the gold plates, Smith could likewise claim direct access to uncorrupted and personalized prophetic wisdom against the comparatively erroneous and provincial Bible.

Yet just as this new scripture challenged the Bible’s inerrancy, universality, and soteriological sufficiency, the Book of Mormon’s function within the early Mormon movement was most often to the signal the impending fulfillment of eschatological and restorationist biblical prophecies, and was itself defended through reference to biblical passages interpreted as prophesying its emergence.^[29] Many saw in its emergence the fulfillment of a variety of Old and New Testament prophecies that signaled the impending restoration of the primitive Christian church after a period of apostasy, the literal restoration of Israel, and the establishing of God’s kingdom in anticipation of Christ’s millennial reign.^[30] Thus, similar to the gter mas, the Book of Mormon’s meaning and legitimacy was both defined in relation to the rest of the Christian canon while simultaneously rivaling its previously unparalleled authority.

In addition to their role as canonical innovations, the gter mas and the Book of Mormon were also important means of legitimating the religious careers of their discoverers, the authority of their associated tradition, and a means of contextualizing those traditions within the larger arc of Buddhist and Christian history. As Gyatso has analyzed in depth,^[31] the gter ston’s claiming part in the prophesied discovery and propagation of a gter ma—itself a complicated semiotic process consisting of locating oneself in canonical prophecies and interpreting external signs to be discussed below—is “powerfully self-­legitimating.” In doing so, the discoverer “accrue[s] to their own person the exalted qualities of that text and its holy origins,”^[32] and his or her tradition becomes authenticated against its detractors through recourse to a “competing power structure located in the culturally powerful memories of the dynastic period.”^[33] Moreover, as this competing power structure consisted of ancient Tibetan voices in the face of a canonical tradition in which “Indian provenance [had become] the sine qua non of religious authority,”^[34] the gter ma tradition not only expanded canonical boundaries past their traditional temporal and geographical constraints but made Tibet “an active partner in the Buddhist cosmos. Instead of being the disheveled stepchild of the great Indian civilization, by means of [gter ma] the snowy land of Tibet became the authentic ground of the Buddha’s enlightened activity.”^[35]

Likewise, the Book of Mormon’s origin story—both its miraculous translation and what its claimed ancient authors prophesied about this event—served to route the fulfillment of restorationist and eschatological biblical prophecies through the inspired actions of a particular individual—Joseph Smith. As the seer who brought to light this ancient scripture, whose very existence signaled the incipience of the long-­awaited “restitution of all things” as prophesied in the New Testament book of Acts,^[36] Smith went from rural visionary to God’s newly called prophet,^[37] and his movement to the culmination of God’s dealings with humankind. Moreover, by placing both the internment and discovery of this pivotal text—with its accompanying mythology of ancient Christian worship and even a visit from the resurrected Christ in the Americas—Smith brought his followers into a new (or restored) Christian teleology in which God’s plan had always included, and would culminate with, the prophetic work of his chosen peoples on the American continent.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of the role these texts have played within their respective religious traditions, nor is it an exhaustive list of the commonalities between the two. Much could be written, for example, about how this revelatory mechanism enabled these traditions to give modern doctrinal, ritual, and theological innovations a historical guise, and how these texts validated canonical texts whose authenticity was being called into question.^[38] Nor is it to say that their functionality has not changed over time, as it surely has; although I would argue that the concerns mentioned here have been rather constant.^[39] Yet, this brief comparison indicates that Joseph Smith and the Tibetan gter ma discoverers were—in some important ways—engaged in functionally comparable projects.

More specifically, this comparison highlights that the ancient artifacts discovered within these two traditions operate in functionally similar ways. In both traditions, a material artifact enables a discoverer to bring to light ancient voices across a temporal divide. This act has dramatic personal implications related to that individual’s religious authority and that of their tradition, but those implications are defined by the relationships that the material artifact forges between the discoverer and a variety of other agents. And it is precisely by analyzing how the material artifact is said to do this in the gter ma tradition and applying the theoretical possibilities that this analysis opens up concerning what a material artifact can do—rather than merely what it could be or what Smith could be doing with it—to Smith’s translation of the gold plates that we can begin to tug at the seams of the assumptions undergirding some of the current theories.

Part 2: The Gold Plates in Light of the Tibetan Treasure Tradition

A serious challenge to reading Joseph Smith’s translation of the gold plates in light of the gter ma tradition is its sheer diversity. Whereas discoveries of ancient, buried texts as an institutionally recognized means of scripture production in Mormonism begins and ends with Joseph Smith,^[40] the gter ma tradition has generated hundreds of discoveries and discoverers since the late tenth century.^[41] The origins of the tradition, and what holds it together as a tradition, are ongoing points of debate.^[42] My reading of the gter ma tradition draws heavily on Do Drubchen III’s (1865–1926) analysis of gter ma discovery and translation in his essay “Wonder Ocean, an Explanation of the Dharma Treasure Tradition,” translated and elaborated by Tulku Thondup in his book Hidden Teachings of Tibet. I supplement this reading with accounts of gter ma discovery drawn primarily (but not exclusively) from the lives of the Tibetan gter stons Jigme Lingpa (1730–1798) and Nyangrel Nyima Ozer (1124–1192), as well as broader theorizations about how treasure materials (gter rdzas) exert power in ritual contexts by the Tibetan ritual master Sokdokpa (1552–1624).

Thus, my reading is neither comprehensive nor governed by an emphasis on a particular time period or gter ma lineage within the Nyingma school. As such, the sources cited below are not to be taken as unilaterally congruent. In addition to spatial restraints, this focus has mostly to do with accessibility to what is still a rather understudied tradition. Yet, by focusing on the few individuals whose treasure discoveries and theories related thereto have been subjects of in-­depth analyses by contemporary scholars of religion—Janet Gyatso, Daniel Hirshberg, and James Gentry, respectively—this study will also provide an opportunity to reflect on how contemporary scholars of religion operating in a different field have delt with this peculiar revelatory mechanism in relation to scholars in the field of Mormon studies.

I will begin with an explanation of the relatively standard mythology undergirding the tradition. Around the twelfth century, gter mas began to be traced primarily to the eighth-­century tantric master Padmasambhava.^[43] Recent scholarship on Padmasambhava suggests he came to Tibet from present-­day Pakistan at the request of King Trisong Detsen to subdue the local deities who were obstructing efforts to build Tibet’s first monastery, Samye monastery. Soon after arrival, the earliest sources claim he was expelled from Tibet because his exceptional powers made him a dangerous political rival; although, some scholars have suggested his removal had more to do with the controversial, transgressive tantric teachings he promoted.^[44] Nevertheless, by the twelfth century, a counternarrative arose that has since become characteristic of his representation in the Nyingma tradition and foundational to gter ma discovery: after pacifying the opposing indigenous forces and enlisting them in the protection and propagation of Buddhism, Padmasambhava traveled throughout Tibet, teaching his many students and burying his inscribed teachings and other relics in the Tibetan soil for later recovery.^[45] In conjunction with this narrative, Padmasambhava has taken on the status of “second Buddha” in the Nyingma tradition, remembered as the primary protagonist in Tibet’s conversion to Buddhism, who graciously hid his teachings on account of his prophetic perception of the future challenges Tibetan Buddhist practitioners would face.^[46]

The content of Padmasambhava’s teachings that were inscribed as gter mas are perceived as scripturally authoritative in part because he preached them, but he is more of a codifier than an author. Like the conventional, spoken transmissions of the Nyingma tradition, these teachings were said to have been first transmitted nonverbally by a buddha in a pure land (“transmission of the realized”), then semiotically by early Nyingma patriarchs (“transmission in symbols for the knowledge holders”), and lastly in conventional discourse (“transmission into the ears of people”), which is where Padmasambhava appears.^[47] Within this last step, the gter ma tradition posits its own three-­step transmission process. First, through a tantric ceremony known as a “benedictory initiation,” Padmasambhava transmitted teachings and appointed specific students to reveal them in future lifetimes; second, he prophesied their future revelation; and third, he appointed dākinīs or Treasure protectors^[48] to protect the gter ma and help the gter ma discoverer find them. After, his consort, Yeshey Tsogyal, recorded the teachings on “yellow scrolls.” Finally, the texts were concealed, often in a container with other material objects (gter rdzas).^[49]

The historicity of this narrative, as well as the claims of discovery and translation by each individual gter ma discoverer, have been a popular topic of debate in Tibetan Buddhist inter-­ and intra-­denominational polemics, as well as modern academic scholarship.^[50] Yet, although some scholars have dubbed the entire gter ma enterprise a blatant fraud,^[51] academic scholarship on the gter ma tradition as a whole has been considerably less polarized and more nuanced than studies of the Book of Mormon.^[52] There are myriad potential reasons for this difference;^[53] yet, what is important to note for our purposes is that among scholars of the gter ma tradition there is a tendency to refrain from making comprehensive claims about the plausibility, and thereby historical authenticity, of the gter ma discoverer’s claims. Rather, scholars (especially Janet Gyatso and Thondup) have critically analyzed the phenomenology of gter ma discovery and revelation in conjunction with the traditional mythology and claimed material discoveries, shedding light on a complex revelatory interplay between agentive material, human, and superhuman forces, as well as Buddhist theories of reincarnation, no-­self, prophecy, interdependent origination, and Tibetan semiotics.

In the field of Mormon studies, there has been a persistent idea that the Book of Mormon’s claim to be rooted in “artifactual reality” rather than the “nebulous stuff of visions” automatically shifts the scholarly debate around Smith’s claims “from the realm of interiority and subjectivity toward that of empiricism and objectivity.”^[54] As argued by Mormon studies scholar Terryl Givens:

Dream visions may be in the mind of the beholder, but gold plates are not subject to such facile psychologizing. They were, in the angel’s words, buried in a nearby hillside, not in Joseph’s psyche or religious unconscious, and they chronicle a history of this hemisphere, not a heavenly city to come. As such, the claims and experiences of the prophet are thrust irretrievably into the public sphere, no longer subject to his private acts of interpretation alone. It is this fact, the intrusion of Joseph’s message into the realm of the concrete, historical, and empirical, that dramatically alters the terms by which the public will engage this new religious phenomenon.^[55]

In accordance with this logic, much of the scholarly debate on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon has centered around using historical and inter/intratextual criticism to verify the book’s internal, historical claims in what are often called the “Book of Mormon wars”—debates over perceived archaisms^[56] vs. anachro­nisms,^[57] evidence of many ancient authorial voices consistent with its internal claims,^[58] or evidence of nineteenth-­century interpolations interwoven by a nineteenth-­century editor.^[59] This information, in turn, is used to make sense of what Smith was doing—whether he was restoring a long-­lost scripture as part of his larger Christian restorationist project or deceptively trying to accrue personal power by playing on the religious sensibilities of his time.^[60] In this way, rather than asking what the unique revelatory mechanism that facilitated the book’s production reveals about its origins and significance, scholars have focused primarily on what its textual content reveals about its origins and significance. That is, they have conflated the gold plates with the Book of Mormon, creating the logic that the existence of the former can be verified by the antiquity of the latter. And although some have bracketed the question of the gold plates origins, focusing rather on how the idea of the plates influenced Smith’s movement, most religious studies scholars and historical biographers make their opinion known on the basis of perceived metaphysical plausibility and/or historical evidence, and proceed to either depict Smith as a rural visionary turned prophet^[61] or conscious (or delusional) deceiver.^[62] This, in turn, has generated a scholarly field sharply divided along emic/etic lines.^[63]

Although we need not discard the possibility that Smith was actually linguistically translating an ancient text, or that he was making the whole thing up, comparison with the gter ma tradition demonstrates that this binary is not necessitated by the revelatory mechanism alone. Returning to the gter ma tradition, it is interesting to note that although gter mas are said to be translated, the material scroll which is “translated” in practice serves more as an instigator and facilitator of revelation. In fact, the content of the core text of a transcribed gter ma cycle—the portion of the gter ma discoverer’s oeuvre authorially attributed to Padmasambhava—is traced not to the inscriptions on the discovered scroll but to the memory of Padmasambhava’s oral transmission (described above in the first unique step of gter ma transmission). At that moment of oral transmission, it is said that the teaching goes from the mind stream of Padmasambhava to the “luminous natural awareness . . . of the minds of his disciples,” which makes the teachings impermeable to karmic forces across the protectors’ various lifetimes.^[64] According to Thondup, this act of embedding a particular teaching in the recesses of a future revealer’s mind, known as “Mind-­mandate Transmission,” is the defining feature of a Nyingma gter ma.^[65]

In fact, the material scroll often contains no more than a couple of characters or a brief phrase which may or may not be thematically related to the teaching itself. Moreover, the scroll is encoded with a secret script and often written in a secret language,^[66] hindering attempts at conventional translation. The scroll’s function is not to preserve the teaching itself, but to awaken the memory of its being taught to the gter ma discoverer in a previous lifetime. The contents of this memory are subsequently transcribed by the gter ma discoverer (or a scribe), yet authorially attributed to Padmasambhava. Some who receive Mind-­mandate Transmission even reveal gter mas by accessing the memory without a material support, known as mind gter ma.^[67] I will focus here on the revelatory mechanics of earth gter ma, as this revelatory mode best aligns with the Book of Mormon, but that such a genre exists serves to accentuate the unique mnemonic and revelatory character of gter ma production, and carries interesting parallels with some of Joseph Smith’s other revelatory activities.^[68]

Although there is much to elaborate here, allow me to briefly return to Joseph Smith and the gold plates to consider what is known about the gold plate’s role in the production of the Book of Mormon. Smith was rather quiet on the specifics of the translation process. Most of what scholars now believe about the mechanics of translation come from his scribes and other eyewitnesses. From Smith’s recorded statements about the translation between 1830 and 1843, it can be gathered that he felt “it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the book of Mormon,”^[69] but that “by the gift and power of God”^[70] he “translated the Book of Mormon from hieroglyphics”^[71] with the “spectacles” that the “Lord had prepared.”^[72]

Smith worked on his translation of the gold plates periodically between October 1827 and late June 1829 with the help of eight different scribes.^[73] Here, I will quote at length from the most detailed account, that of David Whitmer:

Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, 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 by Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear.^[74]

Whitmer’s comments about a “spiritual light,” that “something resembling parchment would appear,” and that the translation proceeded one character at a time may be his own suppositions as they are not mentioned by anyone else. However, all eyewitness accounts are remarkably consistent in stating that Joseph Smith would put either the spectacles he found buried with the plates or a “seer stone”—a circular, chocolate-­colored stone that Smith had found in 1822, through which he could reportedly see hidden objects^[75]—into a hat, and then dictate the words of the Book of Mormon to his scribe a couple of sentences at a time, pausing to spell out peculiar proper names and large words,^[76] and to check that it was transcribed correctly by having the scribe read the text back to him. Emma Smith, Joseph’s wife, and others also make clear that during the process he did not consult the plates, as they “lay on the table . . . wrapped in a small linen tablecloth” while his face was buried in his hat.^[77] Nor did he consult any other external source. In fact, Emma reports that he never even consulted the English translation as he went along: “and when returning from meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having a portion of it read to him.”^[78]

Scholarship on how Smith experienced his translation of the gold plates has generally operated under the assumption that Smith was in fact translating an ancient document. The debate has centered around what this translation looked like as it passed through Smith’s seer stone—did Smith see actual words in the seer stone as David Whitmer reported? Or did he receive images or ideas that he then explained in his own language?^[79] Those who advocate the former position point out certain archaisms and scribal errors that they take as evidence of a literal word-­to-­word translation.^[80] Most, however, have opted for a form of translation in which imagery or ideas were presented by the stone that Smith then elaborated.^[81] This theory is backed by an exuberant number of awkward “corrective conjunctive phrases”—phrases such as “or rather” that aim to clarify the meaning of a particular passage—that some claim signal Smith’s grappling with the meaning of an idea or image in a way that the original authors presumably would not have, especially considering that they were inscribing hieroglyphs into gold plates.^[82] This theory also accounts for anachronistic elements reflective of Smith’s nineteenth-­century environment, especially the obvious contextual and grammatical influence of the King James Bible on Smith’s translation,^[83] and the fact that, in addition to grammatical changes, Smith did make a few substantive contextual changes to the text of the Book of Mormon between the publications of the 1830, 1837, and 1840 editions.^[84]

Yet the inescapable problem here is that Smith did not look at the gold plates while “translating” them. Although most note but then ignore this fact, two have suggested that perhaps their purpose was simply to reassure Smith and others that the words he dictated came from the plates.^[85] However, this supposition relies on an excessively narrow plausibility structure, and seems to be a last-­ditch effort to ground Smith’s work in an empirically verifiable activity contra the eyewitness evidence. What is clear from the primary sources is that Smith discovered a set of gold plates and that he orally dictated a narrative about ancient Israelites in the Americas with his head in a hat looking at seer stones while the plates were nearby. That the role of the gold plates was to provide the content of Smith’s dictation is only surmised by the term “translation” and reinforced by the dominant empiricist/historicist stance discussed above. How do we understand Smith’s production of the Book of Mormon as a “translation” of gold plates if the plates seem irrelevant to the production process? Here is where notions of agentive material objects as gleaned from the gter ma tradition are quite useful to think with.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the transmission of tantric teachings from master to disciple coincides with an initiation ceremony known as an empowerment. The empowerment mediates the flow of power from master to disciple, which enables the disciple to both intellectually grasp the teaching and put it into practice. This empowerment is also associated with a particular set of vows that bind the initiate to a strict set of ethical imperatives, as well as to the master in what is often compared to a father-­son bond.^[86] To qualify for initiation, the prospective student is required to demonstrate competency in maintaining preliminary vows, as well as undergo rigorous intellectual training accompanied by spiritual realizations, which demonstrate that he or she can comprehend the intricate tantric ceremonies and rituals, and possesses the emotional commitment necessary to maintain the vows.^[87]

It is in this context that gter ma “translation” and the role of agentive material objects therein can be understood. As elaborated by Gentry in his study of the writings of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual master Sokdokpa (1552–1624), treasure objects (gter rdzas) are regarded as the material embodiment of Padmasambhava’s ancient tantric vows with his now reincarnated students.^[88] As such, they are treated as “receptacles of blessings and power, [whose] transformational potency poises them to variously act upon persons, places, and things.”^[89] According to Gentry, they have “the particular feature of binding those who encounter them via the senses to . . . all the masters, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and deities who were once in contact with [the objects],”^[90] as well as the capacity to act “as mediators, which variously embody, channel, and direct the transition of power and authority between persons, things, [and] communities.”^[91] The role of the gter ma revealer, then, is to “[give] presence to Padmasambhava’s distributed being in ever-­new contexts,” by serving as an effective medium in cooperation with a force that acts on the revealer both sensually and mnemonically, rather than just as a linguistic medium.^[92]

Here, it is important to note that a few scholars in the field of Mormon studies have also treated the gold plates as more than an inert linguistic medium. Ann Taves, for example, has analyzed Smith’s translation of the gold plates through a comparative, phenomenological lens that depicts Smith as neither literal translator nor fraud, but creative agent who expressed his subjective vision of an angel and gold plates through a material object he created.^[93] For example, Taves suggests that Smith’s presentation of the gold plates may be comparable to a Catholic priest’s consecration of the eucharist: just as the priest takes a mundane wafer and calls upon the Holy Spirit to transform it into the body of Christ, perhaps “Smith viewed something that he made—metal plates—as a vehicle through which something sacred—the ancient gold plates—could be made (really) present.” She also suggests that it could be similar to a placebo: just as placebos mimic therapeutic treatment in a way that has demonstrable positive effects, perhaps Smith had “eyes to see what could be (a non-­pharmacologically induced-­healing process) and the audacity to initiate it.”^[94]

Karl Sandberg, drawing on both Jungian theories of how extreme focus on material objects can provide access to the unconscious as well as theories of performativity in which savants tap into a seemingly independent guiding force through a combination of action and material instruments, has suggested that Smith’s seer stones acted as a “catalyst—because of his belief in the stone and his attunement to the world of the numinous, or the unconscious, where unseen powers moved, collided, contended, danced, and held their revels, the stone became the means of concentrating his psychic energies and giving them form.”^[95] Sandberg has also pointed out that a similar process seems to be operative in Book of Mormon accounts of translation, where “seers” do not “go from document to document” miraculously interpreting characters,^[96] but use stones which “magnify to the eyes of men the things which [they] shall write.”^[97] And although I am not convinced that we should take statements about translation within the document that Smith translated to be speaking directly to the means by which he translated it, Sandberg’s argument (most recently also made by Hickman)^[98] does demonstrate that the Book of Mormon’s internal narrators’ focus on maintaining a linguistically accurate record for future generations does not imply that Smith was necessarily engaged in an act of literal linguistic translation.

Most recently, Sonia Hazard has argued that Smith’s so-­called gold plates were actually printing plates that he either found or encountered in a printing shop and then constructed himself. Hazard draws on an impressive body of research to argue that nineteenth-­century printing plates align with the descriptions in the witness accounts in a variety of ways and offers three reasonable scenarios within which Smith could have encountered them.^[99] More important for the purposes of this paper, Hazard suggests that as a “starting point for understanding creativity and change” we should not assume that the gold plates were solely products of Smith’s mind or cultural milieu, but “an assemblage of ideas and concrete material things.”^[100] As such, Hazard emphasizes that Smith’s production of the Book of Mormon began as an encounter with what to him could have easily appeared to be an otherworldly object. Hazard explains:

to encounter something or someone—whether an object, a space, a person, a mood, and so on—is to enter into the other’s “field of force” (to borrow a phrase used by Charles Taylor) and, thus, to assemble with the other, be made vulnerable to change in oneself, and become different. Such encounters expand the field of what was before possible. They rescript future events. This is what I have in mind when I say that the materiality of the printing plates mattered, in the sense that Smith’s encounter with them changed his course and continued to direct that course in particular ways.^[101]

Thus, although Hazard makes clear that Smith’s imagination, social relationships, and “surrounding cultural and religious imaginary” certainly played an important role in the Book of Mormon’s production, these are merely one part of a broader assemblage that not only includes but was instigated by, “the powers of material things.”^[102]

Of the three scholars surveyed above, Hazard’s notion of “encounter” draws the closest to Sokdokpa’s ideas on materialist agency. Illustrating where Sokdokpa diverges will be helpful to further shed light on the questions and challenges the gter ma tradition poses to our analysis of Smith and the gold plates. This becomes most clear in Gentry’s discussion of Sokdokpa’s responses to critics who interpret sacred material objects as symbols, instruments, or mnemonic cues. According to Gentry, Sokdokpa makes clear that, through these objects, “the transformative powers of subjective qualities” of past Buddhist masters are materialized to the extent that, “by way of physical and existential connection,” they “have the capacity to bring forth the presence of past masters and timeless buddhas and bodhisattvas.”^[103] This is not to render the agency of the humans who encounter such objects mute; Sokdokpa concedes that the ability of the object to affect people is “based on the individual’s respective level of spiritual development” as well as the successful ritual treatment thereof.^[104] Nevertheless, one’s spiritual development does not just make one more vulnerable to personal transformation within the objects sphere of influence; it enables him or her to function as a medium for the presence of a past master.

This interplay between preparation and ritual action in relation to bringing forth past voices is especially operative in the gter ma discovery and translation process. The process of discovering a gter ma typically begins with the discovery or reception of a prophetic guide, often through a supernatural agent such as a manifestation of Padmasambhava or a gter ma protector. Although its contents vary, their most significant feature is a prophecy, couched in the words of Padmasambhava, which addresses the prospective gter ma discoverer by name, or clearly alludes to the circumstances of his or her own life. As such, the prophetic guide serves as proof of one’s identity as a reincarnation of one of Padmasambhava’s students, contextualizing them within a providential narrative that qualifies him or her for the task of gter ma revelation due to their having received a particular teaching and commission to reveal it in a past life.^[105] This pivotal event, in turn, sets off a series of arduous tasks, ranging from mastering particular ritual practices prescribed in the prophetic guide, appeasing the gter ma protectors through propitiatory rites, and discerning external signs which reveal when, where, and with whom to uncover the gter ma.^[106]

Once removed from its burial place,^[107] the process of cracking the gter ma’s “code” begins. As mentioned above, the scroll serves as the signifier of the signified encoded teaching implanted in the mind stream of the future revealer, functioning both as a tool of secrecy by making the teaching legible only to the appointed revealer, and a type of revelatory mnemonic device. However, awakening the memory is no easy task. Often, the discoverer is required to enter that same deep level of consciousness within which the original teaching was implanted through meditative practice.^[108] Moreover, the text is often subject to spontaneous change, and stabilizing it requires aligning oneself again with the right people, at the right place, at the right time, and often requires engaging in sexual yoga with a karmically aligned tantric consort.^[109] After the text stabilizes, the gter ma discoverer may be able to perceive its decoded form spontaneously through exposure to an external stimulus, by repeatedly analyzing the scroll, by merely glancing at the scroll, or even through an alphabetical key that accompanied the discovered gter ma.^[110] Once decoded, the all-­important memory comes forth. However, that memory may need to be translated out of a secret language (not to be confused with the secret script) and the gter ma discoverer must come to comprehend its contents and/or learn to effectuate its rituals before transmitting it to others. In all, this process, which must be kept secret from those not directly involved, can span years.^[111]

Yet, despite such active engagement in decoding the scroll, claims of agency are consistently mitigated and ultimately authorial identity is shifted to Padmasambhava. As Hirshberg has observed in the case of the gter ma discoverer Nyangrel Nyima Ozer (1124–1192), “the consistent use of intransitive sentence constructions [is used to mitigate] his agency. He is literally omitted from the action and is merely the one present to directly receive the treasures when the time has come for them to emerge on their own.”^[112]

Of course, none of this need imply that Smith experienced his translation of the gold plates in a way directly comparable to the Tibetan gter stons. But it should give us pause to rethink—taking after Bruno Latour—where in Smith’s account we may have “invented believers” instead of tracing the agents (human and nonhuman) that make these so-­called believers act.^[113] I agree with Hazard’s turn to take Smith’s material encounter with the gold plates seriously rather than (pace Taves) “as a materialization of an idea into a material thing.”^[114] This option both transcends the problematic dichotomized prophet/fraud options surveyed above, as well as aligns with the primary sources’ clear emphasis on Smith’s encounter with a material object he discovered.^[115] Nevertheless, I am concerned by the bracketing of Smith’s claim by all three of the aforementioned scholars to not have only been personally influenced by the plates, but to have translated myriad ancient voices.

The issue here is reminiscent of the postcolonial theorist Mary Keller’s intellectual history of religious studies analyses of spirit possession. Keller observed that, despite individuals’ claims to being overcome by the agency of ancestors and other invisible forces, their experiences were consistently reduced to symbolic actions reflective of cultural beliefs that served to address “real” social issues.^[116] The effect of such an analysis is to trace the claims undergirding diverse religious expression insofar as they do not exceed modern metaphysical sensibilities, at which point the turn is to impose the pervasive modern Western assumption that “religiousness is a matter of belief” to account for the remainder against something apparently more “real.”^[117] Not only does this misrepresent the diverse worlds inhabited by religious practitioners, but it ignores that in such cases, “it is receptivity” to an other agency, comparable to “a hammer, flute, or horse that is wielded, played, or mounted,” that “makes the possessed body powerful.”^[118] To explore the implications of this shift in the role of the human subject in religious experience, Keller states:

We need to create a discursive space in which the agency of religious forces can be recognized as such. This is not because religious forces are ‘real’ and thus should not be scrutinized critically. This is a methodological argument regarding our ability to recognize alternative modes of subjectivity and to subject ourselves to the agency of the others who attract our attention. Methodologically it allows the scholar to represent religious bodies at war as bodies that are negotiating with power that is not the same power that Western scholars have identified as hegemony and ideology.^[119]

Likewise, I would suggest that we need to consider the possibility that Smith really experienced being spoken through by other voices.^[120] Without doing so, I believe we are missing a crucial point from which to explore the world that Smith inhabited and the nature of religious experience therein. My suggestion then is that in light of the gter ma tradition, we can both move past claims of literal linguistic translation or fraudulent deception—which, as I have argued, stretch the primary source accounts of Smith’s translation in unreasonable ways—while still taking seriously Smith’s claim to be giving voice to other agents. In this view, Smith can be seen as one who encountered a material object that not only had personal effects on him but forged relational bonds between him, an angel, and a past civilization in seemingly unpredictable ways—most importantly, by enabling him to channel a type of revelatory mode through which he served as a medium for ancient voices, yet only while in the object’s presence.^[121] In this way, Smith’s four years of preparation to retrieve the plates from the angel Moroni, chastisement at the hands of that angel resulting in the plates being removed and his ability to translate muted,^[122] as well as attempts to create and maintain amicable relationships with aids throughout the process,^[123] can be seen as Smith ritually orienting himself in relation to the power of a sacred object over a prolonged period of time in order to become an effective medium for its message.

I also think this reading aligns well with compelling recent arguments regarding what Smith could have meant in using the term “translation” to describe his project,^[124] particularly that made by Jared Hickman. Hickman has recently argued against “the paradigm of linguistic translation” in favor of what he calls “metaphysical translation.”^[125] Hickman notes that “the word ‘translate’ and its variants appear only five times in the King James Bible, and none of these refers to linguistic translation.”^[126] In fact, three are found in the fifth verse of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews—which happens to be one of the most cited chapters of scripture in the early Mormon movement^[127]—which speaks of God translating Enoch “that he should not see death.” Moreover, Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary offers five definitions of the term translate before arriving at today’s conventional usage of “[rendering] into another language,” all of which convey the sense of transporting something from one place to another.With this notion of translation in mind, Hickman argues that Smith’s “[bringing] forth” ancient voices “as if [they] had cried from the dust”^[128] can plausibly be seen not as a conversion of the language of the gold plates into English, but as Smith’s transferring ancient voices across time and space.

I diverge with Hickman slightly where he emphasizes Smith’s role as an activist, claiming that the qualifier in the last line, “as if,” arguably opens “a gap between the Book of Mormon text and indigenous voices, emphasizing Smith’s role . . . as an activist; that is, someone acting on behalf of Native peoples as a ‘spokesman’ . . . rather than as an actual medium of Native peoples.”^[129] My reading, on the other hand, tries to take after Bushman’s observation that the “signal feature” of Smith’s life was “his sense of being guided by revelation”^[130]—that is, that he was driven by real forces outside him rather than acting on behalf of forces he encountered in vision. Nevertheless, the general idea that Smith’s metaphysical translation consisted of Smith “[translating] himself into the ancient American world through the virtual reality technology of the seer stone and then [translating] that world back into his own through the virtual reality technology of oral storytelling,” thereby “altering the way Euro-­Christian settlers inhabit the indigenous cosmos they find themselves in,”^[131] I find to be compatible with my reading of Smith’s translation.

I also believe that my reading could provide insights into Smith’s own theological innovations around themes of materiality and historicity, which I will only have space to briefly mention here. Moving forward very tentatively, I would suggest that my theory resonates with Rosalynde Welch’s use of the term “prime agency”—drawing implications from Smith’s “King Follet Sermon,” and his claim that “spirit is matter”^[132]—to suggest that in Smith’s radically re-­envisioned Christian cosmos, agency resides “not in the human personality but in Mormonism’s plural ontology of intelligent matter; prime agency, in other words, is hardwired into the basic structure of reality.”^[133] As my theory that the plates were agentive objects that facilitated Joseph Smith’s channeling of ancient voices across time and space constitutes one of Smith’s founding religious experiences, reorienting the dominant paradigm of interior, subjective belief as the foundation of religious experience to an interaction with an agentive material world,^[134] I suggest that Smith’s distinctive cosmic vision could stem from formative encounters with the material world that imbued in him a pervasive sense of materialist agency, seen in not only claims of material monism but further distinctive ritual actions around materials, in, for example, building temples and wearing sacred garments.

Finally, I would suggest that moving past claims of linguistic translation need not coincide with an outright rejection of the Book of Mormon’s historical claims. Although it should be clear that the manner by which Joseph Smith produced history is not amenable to modern conceptions of historiography, this should not amount to a declaration that his means are ineffable and his claimed historical productions are impermeable to critical examination. Rather, it would be useful to take up Charles Stewart’s usage of the term “historical consciousness,” referring to “whatever basic assumptions a society makes about the shape of time and the relationships of events in the past, present and future,” the form of which “in any given society is an open question, requiring empirical, ethnographic investigation.”^[135] That Smith had a unique conception of time that can be investigated to better understand his “historical productions” has been fruitfully explored by Kathleen Flake and Samuel Brown.^[136] Stewart’s application of the term includes an emphasis on how discoveries of buried objects “charged with human-­like attributes,” “performative icons” capable of mediating “visionary knowledge,”^[137] in conjunction with dreams in nineteenth-­ and twentieth-­century Island Greece (which he explicitly compares to Joseph Smith’s discovery of the gold plates)^[138] aid in influencing such unique conceptions of time. It is precisely such an approach, put into conversation with my theory of the gold plates as agents, which could be productive in forwarding theories of Mormon historical consciousness, thereby providing further glimpses into the unique world Smith inhabited.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

^[1] Special thanks to Dr. Dominic Sur for inspiring this article, and Drs. David Holland and Janet Gyatso for hosting independent studies in which I developed much of my ideas while pursuing a master of theological studies at the Harvard Divinity School. Thanks also to Drs. Frank Clooney and Kimberley Patton for allowing me to present an early draft to the Harvard Comparative Studies Doctoral Colloquium.

Richard L. Bushman, “Joseph Smith’s Many Histories,” Brigham Young University Studies 44, no. 4 (2005): 11.

^[2] I am not the first to notice similarities between these two traditions. However, only Donald Lopez has done more than merely note superficial similarities. In his The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), Lopez observed that both Joseph Smith and the Tibetan Book of the Dead’s revealer, Karma Lingpa (karma gling pa; 1326–1386), legitimated their discoveries by posthumously attributing their text’s authorship to an authoritative religious figure after purportedly uncovering them from their native lands and translating them from an obscure language by supernatural means. Creating this link to a sacred past, Lopez argues, bolstered the Tibetan Book of the Dead’s popularity while leading to widespread suspicion and persecution of Smith, “at least in part, because [he] lived in a chronologically recent and geographically proximate past” (137–39, 148–52). As for other Buddhist studies scholars who have noted the comparison, in chronological order: Janet Gyatso, Apparitions of Self (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), 147; Matthew Kapstein, Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 136; Gananath Obeyesekere, The Awakened Ones (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 503–4; Robert Mayer, “Indian niddhi, Tibetan gter ma, Guru Chos dbang, and a Kriyātantra on Treasure Doors: Rethinking Treasure (part two),” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 64 (2022): 368–69. As for Mormon studies scholars: Grant Underwood, “Attempting to Situate Joseph Smith,” Brigham Young University Studies 44, no. 4 (2005): 46; Elizabeth Quick, “Emma Smith as Shaman,” Salt Lake City Symposium, January 1, 2008, Sunstone; Grant Hardy, introduction to The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, edited by Royal Skousen (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), xxv–xxvi; Ann Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation,” Numen 61 (2014): 195n20; Grant Hardy, “Ancient History and Modern Commandments,” in Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, edited by Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Brain M. Hauglid (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2020), 216n37. Also tangentially related are the comments of Douglas Osto (“Altered States and the Origins of the Mahāyāna” in Setting Out on the Great Way, edited by Paul Harrison [Bristol, CT: Equinox, 2018], 196n5) and Daniel Boucher (Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008], xii, xiv) that comparisons with Mormonism could aid in understanding the origins of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Both are drawing on comments from Jan Nattier, who has only briefly made the comparison once herself (A Few Good Men [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003], 170). Robert Mayer has also suggested that cross-cultural comparisons with anthropological accounts of treasure recovery could aid in understanding the origins of the Tibetan Treasure tradition (“Rethinking Treasure [part two], 368–69); “Rethinking Treasure [part one],” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 52 [2019]: 144–46). Also worth mentioning are Edward Conze’s comparison of the Tibetan Treasure tradition and Gnosticism (“Buddhism and Gnosis” in Le Origini Dello Gnosticismo, edited by Ugo Bianchi [Leiden: Brill, 1970], 651–67) and Lawrence Foster’s claim that Mormon studies scholars “greatest single weakness” in theorizing Smith’s translation “has been their failure to take into account comparative perspectives on revelatory and trance phenomena” (Religion and Sexuality [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981], 295).

^[3] Although I have presented these actions in the past tense for grammatical symmetry, it is important to note that Tibetan Treasure discoveries continue in the present day. See David Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body” in Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet, edited by Melvyn C. Goldstein and Mathew T. Kapstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 53–94; Holly Gayley, “Ontology of the Past and Its Materialization in Tibetan Treasures,” in The Invention of Sacred Tradition, edited by James R. Lewis and Olav Hammer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 213–40; and Hanna, “Vast as the Sky,” in Tantra and Popular Religion in Tibet, edited by Geoffrey Samuel, Hamish Gregor, and Elisabeth Stutchbury (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 1994), 1–14.

^[4] For a more thorough summary (and partial rebuttal) of postmodern critiques of comparative religion, see Kimberley C. Patton and Benjamin C. Ray, introduction to A Magic Still Dwells, ed Kimberley C. Patton and Benjamin C. Ray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 1–22.

^[5] See Brent Nongbri, Before Religion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013); Craig Martin, A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion (London: Routledge, 2017), 4–10; and Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

^[6] This is a paraphrase of Underwood’s comment about comparing these two traditions (“Attempting to Situate Joseph Smith,” 46).

^[7] This approach takes after Barbara A. Holdrege’s observation that comparison can serve to “test and critique prevailing paradigms, expose their inadequacies, and generate a range of possible models to account for the multiplicity of religious traditions” (“What’s Beyond the Post,” in Patton and Ray, A Magic Still Dwells, 85).

^[8] As I will make clear below, the Tibetan gter ma tradition is around 1,000 years old and very diverse. This is a particular reading of that tradition, the sources for which are discussed in part 2 of this article.

^[9] These are terms borrowed from Tibetan Buddhist studies scholar James Gentry in his discussion on treasure objects (gter rdzas) as agents in his book Power Objects (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 8, 13, 36. They will be elaborated below.

^[10] 2 Nephi 3:19 (citations with chapter and verse references refer to the Book of Mormon).

^[11] Andreas Doctor claims that Nyangral Nyima Ōzer’s writings in the twelfth century “are the first to show a self-conscious movement” (Tibetan Treasure Literature: Revelation, Tradition, and Accomplishment in Visionary Buddhism [Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion, 2005], 20). However, Hirshberg traces the beginning of the gter ma tradition to the thirteenth century when Guru Chöwang wrote his Great History of the Treasures (gter byung chen mo), since this work marks the first attempt at “deliberate codification” (Remembering the Lotus-Born: Padmasambhava in the History of Tibet’s Golden Age [Somerville, Mass.: Wisdom, 2016], 85–86).

^[12] Traditional sources depict Darma as a demon-possessed tyrant set on ridding Tibet of Buddhist influences, subsequently murdered at the request of the patron goddess of Tibet, dPal ldan lha mo, by the monk Lhalung Pelgyi Dorjé to save Darma from incurring further negative karmic retribution and to preserve Buddhism in Tibet. Jens Schlieter provides an overview of traditional depictions of Darma’s assassination in “Compassionate Killing or Conflict Resolution?,” in Buddhism and Violence, edited by Michael Zimmermann (Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2006), 131–58. Scholars have questioned this Buddhist suppression narrative, describing him more as a victim of preexisting clan tensions, which he exacerbated by reducing imperial funding of Buddhist activities, inter alia, in response to his brother’s—King Ralpacan (806–841)—unprecedented Buddhist patronization, military spending, and altering of linguistic and cultural customs, which had led to his own assassination a year earlier. See Ronald Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 64–66; David Snellgrove and Hugh Richardson, A Cultural History of Tibet (Boston: Shambala, 1986), 93–94; and Kapstein, Tibetan Assimilation, 10–12, 52; Per K. Sørensen, The Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies (Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994), 423–424n1488. Some have even questioned whether this regicide actually occurred. See Tsultrim K. Khangkar, “The Assassinations of Tri Ralpachen and Lang Darma,” Tibet Journal 18, no. 2 (1993): 19–22; and Zuiho Yamaguchi, “The Fiction of King Dar ma’s Persecution of Buddhism” in Du Dunhuang au Japon, edited by Jean-Pierre Drège (Geneva: Droz, 1996), 231–58.

^[13] The religious revival was spearheaded by two forces: Central Tibetans affiliated with Tridhé—a purported descendant of Lang Darma who sent young men to receive ordination from monastic refugees on the eastern edge of the empire, who subsequently revived Central Tibetan monastic institutions (Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 87–102); and Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055) in the west, who initiated monastic revivals and translation efforts with the patronage of Lha Lama Yeshe Ö (947–1019?) (David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism [Boston: Shambala, 2002] 471–72, 477–79; Samten Karmay, “The Ordinance of Lha Bla-ma Ye-shes-’od,” in Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson, edited by Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi [England: Biddles Ltd., 1979], 150–51).

^[14] The term tantra refers to texts associated with tantric or Vajrayāna Buddhism (rdo rje theg pa), a loose rubric under which an important part of Tibetan Buddhist practice and ritual is categorized. Traditionally, tantric practice and transmission occur within an intimate teacher-student relationship outlined in initiation ceremonies and sealed through a covenant or vow (dam tshig). This stringent mode of transmission ensures that the teachings—which often prescribe sexual and/or other transgressive actions—are conveyed accurately and only to those spiritually and intellectually qualified, and thus typically operates under an aura of secrecy—as opposed to the mainstream transmission of Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna sūtras, which received little polemical attention in Tibet. During the earlier spread of Buddhism in Tibet, tantras even faced heavy regulations by the imperial court, who relegated their distribution to a tight aristocratic circle and even altered or removed entire passages from certain tantric texts. See Jacob P. Dalton, The Taming of the Demons (London: Yale University Press, 2011), 56–57; Jose I. Cabezón, The Buddha’s Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1–2.

^[15] Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 73–80, 105–7.

^[16] Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 121. Although, Davidson notes that the standard was often selectively applied. Some of the texts and practices revered by the Nyingma but scorned as Tibetan fabrications by their detractors were actually of Indic origins. Similarly, some of the texts considered authentic by the new (gsar ma) Buddhist schools were Tibetan/Indian hybrids Davidson calls “gray texts.” See Davidson, “Gsar Ma Apocrypha,” in The Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism, ed. Helmut Eimer and David Germano (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 203–24).

^[17] Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body,” 73.

^[18] Kapstein, Tibetan Assimilation, 33–36, 144–47, 159; see also Gayley, “Ontology of the Past,” 214; and David Germano, “The Seven Descents and the Early History of Rnying Ma Transmissions,” in Eimer and Germano, Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism, 225–64.

^[19] On the various contextual genres of gter ma, see Gyatso, “Drawn from the Tibetan Treasury,” in Tibetan Literature, ed. José Ignacio Cabézon and Roger R. Jackson (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion, 1996), 155–60.

^[20] E. Gene Smith, Among Tibetan Texts (Boston: Wisdom, 2001), 15; Robert Mayer, A Scripture of the Ancient Tantra Collection (Oxford: Kiscadale, 1996).

^[21] As for sūtras, the Āryasarvapuṇyasamuccayasamādhi mentions treasures in mountains, ravines, and woods and that the doctrine will emerge from the sky, walls and trees. The Āryadharmasamgītisūtra refers to concealing doctrines “as treasures.” The Nāgarājaparipṛcchāsūtra describes “four great treasures.” The chu-klung rol-pa’i mdo refers to doctrinal texts being concealed as mind and earth treasures. The Bodhicharyavatara refers to people spontaneously hearing the doctrine, as do a variety of others. See Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, trans. Gyurme Dorje and Matthew Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom, 1991), 743–44, 747–48, 928. The Pratyutpannasamādhi describes itself being stored in caves, stūpas, the earth, under rocks, in mountains, and into the hands of devas and nāgas. See Paul Harrison, The Samadhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas of the Present (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1990), 98, 103–4. Gyatso notes that this particular passage has not been noticed by the treasure apologists (“The Logic of Legitimation,” History of Religions 33, no. 2 [1993], 105n17), although Mayer has argued that it may have served as the theoretical basis for the entire tradition (“Scriptural Revelation in India and Tibet,” Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture 2 [1994]: 533–45). There are also some events described in Mahāyāna history that allude to similar occurrences. It is said, for example, that the Mahāyāna sūtras were held hidden in the Dragon World until the appropriate time and that Nāgārjuna retrieved the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā from the nāgas at the bottom of the sea. Similarly, Dudjom notes that “all the tantrapiṭaka which were reportedly discovered in ancient India . . . were, in fact, treasure doctrines,” for they were hidden until revealed to “accomplished individuals [who] were given prophetic declarations” (Nyingma School, 927). Guru Chos-dbang makes a similar point in his gter ’byung chen mo (see Gyatso, “An Early Survey of the Treasure Tradition and Its Strategies in Discussing Bon Treasure,” in Tibetan Studies 1, edited by Per Kvaerne [Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, 1994], 276–77), as does Tukwan Lobzang Chokyi Nyima (thu’u bkwan blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma; 1737–1802) (translated in Eva M. Dargay, The Rise of Esoteric Buddhism [Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1977], 67). There are also a number of sūtras held to be canonical by the gsar ma schools that came about by similarly revelatory means, listed by Kapstein in Tibetan Assimilation, 132–34.

^[22] Gayley, “Ontology of the Past,” 224.

^[23] Dudjom, Nyingma School, 745; Tulku Thondup, Hidden Teachings (Boston: Wisdom, 1997), 49; Gyatso, “Genre, Authorship, and Transmission in Visionary Buddhism,” in Tibetan Buddhism: Reason and Revelation, edited by Steven D. Goodman and Ronald M. Davidson (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 96–100; Gyatso, “Drawn from the Tibetan Treasury,” 149–50.

^[24] Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 62–63, see also 150; see also Gayley, “Ontology of the Past,” 223–24.

^[25] Theodore D. Bozeman offers a robust summary of the varying Protestant and pre-Protestant “primitivist” claims, from the tenth century to the Puritan era (To Live Ancient Lives [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988], 19–50). On similar strands in Joseph Smith’s religious environment, see Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 26–27.

^[26] David Holland, Sacred Borders (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 50–53, 84, 97–98, 127, 137–53.

^[27] 1 Nephi 13:26–40. Smith claimed that the Bible was fully God’s word “as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers.” However, “ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors” (“History, 1838–1856, vol. E-1 [July 1, 1843–April 30, 1844],” October 15, 1843, 1755, The Joseph Smith Papers). Thus, Smith wrote: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God” (“The Articles of Faith,” in The Pearl of Great Price.)

^[28] On the claimed prophetic foresight of the Book of Mormon authors, see 1 Nephi 13; 2 Nephi 3:19, 27, 29; Enos 1:13–17; 3 Nephi 21:9–11, 23, 26:2, 26:8; and Mormon 5:9–14, 8:26–41. For an analysis of this topic as well as examples of this rhetoric among LDS leaders, see Richard D. Rust, “Annual FARMS Lecture: The Book of Mormon, Designed for Our Day,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011 2, no. 1 (1990): 1–23.

^[29] See note 21 above.

^[30] Grant Underwood, “Book of Mormon Usage in Early LDS Theology,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17, no. 3 (1984): 35–74; Phillip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 48; Terryl Givens, By the Hand of Mormon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 62–88; Steven C. Harper, “Infallible Proofs, Both Human and Divine,” Religion and American Culture 10, no. 1 (2000): 99–118. As for the biblical references, see Ezekiel 37:15–22; Isaiah 11:10–12, 29:10–14; Daniel 2:34–35, 2:44–45; Joel 2:28–32; John 10:16; and Revelations 14:6–7.

^[31] Janet Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998); Janet Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 9, no. 2 (1986): 7–35; Gytaso, “Logic of Legitimation.”

^[32] Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 150.

^[33] Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body,” 75; see also Mayer, “Rethinking Treasure (part one),” 137.

^[34] Dominic Sur, “Constituting Canon and Community in Eleventh Century Tibet,” Religions 8, no. 40 (2017): 1.

^[35] Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 231; see also 243.

^[36] Acts 3:21.

^[37] To paraphrase Richard Bushman’s apt phrasing of Smith’s transformation (Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling [New York: Vintage Books, 2007], 58).

^[38] Germano has written that gter ma functioned to “authorize and authenticate the Nyingmas’ religious traditions,” “appropriate and transform . . . new intellectual and religious materials stemming from India without acknowledging them as such,” and to develop unique “theories, practices, and systems” in the form of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) (“Remembering the Dismembered Body,” 75; see also Janet Gyatso and David Germano, “Longchenpa and the Possession of the Ḍākinīs,” in Tantra in Practice, ed. David Gordon White [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000], 232–39). Similarly, Davidson notes that gter ma made apocryphal bka’ ma texts with Great Perfection teachings “into true tantric scriptures, for the authenticity of one secured the authenticity of its related works” (Tibetan Renaissance, 228). The Book of Mormon has likewise served to authenticate parallel biblical narratives under the same logic (Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 177). Although some have noted that there is not much by way of doctrinal innovation in the Book of Mormon (Hardy, “The Book of Mormon,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, ed. Terryl L. Givens and Phillip L. Barlow [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015], 134), Givens has written much on its status as a signifier of the validity of the innovations carried out by Joseph Smith (By the Hand of Mormon, 228–39). Further, Gerald Smith has recently argued that the Book of Mormon does in fact carry innovative teachings that contributed to in content, rather than mere sign, to LDS doctrine (Schooling the Prophet [Provo: Brigham Young University, 2015]).

^[39] Doctor, for example, notes that Jamgӧn Kongrtul issued many of the same defenses against twentieth-century polemics, as did Guru Chӧwang in the thirteenth (Tibetan Treasure Literature, 38). Although, it is clear that gter ma responded to changing religious, social, cultural, and political concerns, as can be seen in the work of the gter ston Orgyen Lingpa (o rgyan gling pa; 1323-?) (see Giuseppe Tucci, Religions of Tibet, trans. Geoffrey Samuel [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970], 38) and Sera Khandro (se ra mkha ‘gro; 1892–1940) (see Sarah Jacoby, Love and Liberation [New York: Columbia University Press, 2014], 100). For the evolution of Book of Mormon usage, see Underwood, “Book of Mormon Usage,” and Reynolds, “The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon in the Twentieth Century,” BYU Studies 38, no. 2 (1999): 6–47.

^[40] There have been other non-canonized and generally uninfluential discoveries within Mormonism, such as James Jesse Strang’s Record of Rajah Machou of Vorito (see Don Faber, James Jesse Strang [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016], 58, 65–70) and W. W. Phelps’s discovery and translation of some Native American petroglyphs in Utah (see Christopher J. Blythe, “By the Gift and Power of God,” in MacKay, Ashurst-McGee, and Hauglid, Producing Ancient Scripture, 47). Christopher Smith has recently drawn attention to a heretofore neglected figure, Earl John Brewer (1933–2007), who claimed to have been led by an angle to find hundreds of inscribed plates in Utah, purportedly placed there by the Jaredites See “The Hidden Records of Central Utah and the Struggle for Religious Authority” in Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition, ed. Christine Elyse Blythe, Christopher J. Blythe, and Jay Burton (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2022). chap. 15.

^[41] Gyatso and Smith both place the first discovery in the tenth century (Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 30n2; Smith, Among Tibetan Texts, 15). It is important to note, however, as observed by Doctor, that “although the Nyingma school traces the beginning of Treasure revelation in Tibet to the master Sangye Lama (eleventh century); Nyangral Nyima Ōzer’s writings a century later are the first to show a self-conscious movement” (Tibetan Treasure Literature, 20). Although there is no definitive list, Thondup has compiled the names and dates (if available) of 278 known gter stons (Hidden Teachings of Tibet, 189–201). Dudjom provides short biographies of twenty-four important discoverers (Nyingma School, 743–881).

^[42] See, for example, Doctor, Tibetan Treasure Literature; Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 210–42; Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus-Born, 85–140; Robert Mayer, “gTer ston and Tradent,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 36/37 (2013/2014): 227–42; and Mayer, “Rethinking Treasure (part one)” and “Rethinking Treasure (part two).”

^[43] Hirshberg has recently suggested that scholars differentiate between pre-tradition gter ma—the early gter ma that did not operate within a clear taxonomical schema and origins myth—and post-tradition gter ma, artificially divided by the first classificatory study on the topic, Guru Chöwang’s Great History of the Treasures (gter ‘byung chen mo) written in 1264–1265. (On the topic of earlier vs. later gter ma, see Doctor, Tibetan Treasure Literature, 15–53.) In relation to this schema, as my focus is on Do Drubchen III’s (rdo grub chen, 1865–1926), my study focuses primarily (but not exclusively) on post-tradition gter ma.

^[44] Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus-Born, 14; see also Jacob P. Dalton, “The Early Development of the Padmasambhava Legend in Tibet,” in About Padmasambhava, ed. Geoffrey Samuel and Jamyang Oliphant (Shongau, Switzerland: Garuda Books, 2020), 29–64.

^[45] Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus-Born, 1–18.

^[46] Germano, “The Seven Descents,” esp. 232–37; Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 50, 62–63, 150; Dudjom, Nyingma School, 744–45; Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 16.

^[47] Gyatso, “Logic of Legitimation,” 112–15; Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 8. On this process in the spoken transmissions (bka’ ma), see Jacob P. Dalton, The Gathering of Intentions (New York: Colombia University Press, 2016), 3, 13–19.

^[48] Dākinīs—literally “sky-goers”—are described by Sarah Harding as “female deities who . . . clear away obstacles and help bring about wisdom” (Machik’s Complete Explanation [Boston: Snow Lion, 2013], 374). Harding describes protectors as “beings or spirits who act to protect a given place or person. Dharma protectors are beings that have been tamed by a great teacher like Padmasambhava and actually serve the best interests of the Dharma” (378). In Tibetan Treasure literature, the terms are used interchangeably (Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 161). For a brief history of their role and development from Vedic religion to Tibetan Vajrayāna, see Jacoby, Love and Liberation, 135–37.

^[49] Gyatso, Apparitions of Self, 159–61; Gyatso, “Drawn from the Tibetan Treasury,” 151; Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 9; Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body,” 61. Thondup follows a different order and different terminology: (1) “Aspirational Empowerment of the Mind-mandate Concealment” or “Mind-mandate Transmission” in the “expanse of the awareness state or the Buddha nature of the mind”; (2) transcription of the teachings and entrustment to the dākinīs; (3) “Prophetic Authorization” (61, 67–70, 84). Further, two additional orderings yet similar descriptions are given in Thondup’s translation of Wonder Ocean (104–6).

^[50] On the pervasiveness of this historical question, see Doctor, Tibetan Treasure Literature, 32–44; and Gyatso, “Logic of Legitimation,” 102–6, esp. 103n14.

^[51] See, for example, L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet (1894; repr. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1939), 166–67; and Michael Aris, Hidden Treasures and Secret Lives (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1988), 96–98.

^[52] Hirshberg offers an apt summary of the differing views on this topic, as well as his own nuanced position (Remembering the Lotus Born, 85–87, 134–139). See also Doctor, Tibetan Treasure Literature, 42–51; and Anne C. Klein and Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Unbounded Wholeness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 206.

^[53] One is that the interplay between the Tibetan Buddhist belief in reincarnation and traditions of pragmatic treasure burial prior to the fall of the Tibetan empire create the social and psychological conditions within which scholars could see one actually finding a buried textual object and connecting it with a purported memory of a past live in conjunction with the aforementioned narrative (Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body,” 54; Gyatso, “Drawn from the Tibetan Treasury,” 151–52; and Gytaso, “Logic of Legitimation,” 107–8). In fact, Hirshberg has made this very argument in sympathy with the claims of the first well-documented gter ston, Nyangrel Nyima Ozer (nyang ral nyi ma ‘od zer, 1124–92) (Remembering the Lotus-Born, 136). See also Kapstein, Tibetan Assimilation, 137. Although, it has been noted that Smith lived in a social sphere in which interest in and discoveries of artifacts, even textual artifacts, from indigenous civilizations were common. See Samuel M. Brown, In Heaven as it is On Earth (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 69–87; and Lester E. Bush, “The Spalding Theory Then and Now,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10, no. 4 (1977): 40–69. It could also be said that this is because some scholars have actually found authentic ancient materials in some gter mas (although, as we will see below, Book of Mormon scholars have made similar claims). This is particularly true regarding the bka’ thang sde lnga, whose ancient materials are surveyed by Mayer, “Rethinking Treasure (part one),” 120–33. Donald Lopez, the only scholar to address the question directly, claims that this discrepancy has to do with the general public and academia’s sliding scale for tolerance of and interest in supernatural claims in conjunction with their chronological and geographical context. In his recent comparison of the Western public reception of the Book of Mormon and the famed Tibetan Book of the Dead, Lopez notes that this gter ma’s unique origin story greatly contributed to its mystical allure and widespread popularity, whereas Smith’s similar claims brought widespread suspicion, and even violent persecution, which persists (although generally nonviolently) to the present day. These discrepancies, Lopez argues, have to do not with their respective “intrinsic value, regardless of how that might be measured, but, at least in part, because [Smith] lived in a chronologically recent and geographically proximate past” (The Tibetan Book of the Dead, 148). Aris (Hidden Treasures, 96–98) and Terryl L. Givens (Viper on the Hearth [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], 83, 90–94) make similar claims not on this comparison specifically but on the treatment of these texts in general. To this possibility, I would also add that the multiplicity of gter stons has served to diffuse the perceived religious implications of the veracity of a single gter stons claims, thus mitigating against the emic/etic divide obviously operative not only in Mormon polemics but religious studies as well, which seeks for clear either/or answers regarding the Book of Mormon’s origins.

^[54] Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 12

^[55] Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 42.

^[56] For two extremely influential works, see Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon (1957; repr. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1988); and John Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013). Givens gives an excellent summary of the many others who have followed the work of these pioneering figures (By the Hand of Mormon, 117–54).

^[57] Alexander Campbell, Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon (Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1832) 13; Woodbridge Riley, The Founder of Mormonism (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1903); Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (1945; repr. New York: Vintage Books, 1995); Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District (New York: Cornell University Press, 1950); Marvin S. Hill, “Quest for Refuge,” Journal of Mormon History 2 (1975): 3–20; Brent L. Metcalfe, New Approaches to the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993); Michael D. Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998); Anderson, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999); Dan Vogel and Lee Metcalfe, eds., American Apocrypha (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002); Dan Vogel, The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004); Clyde Jr. Forsberg, Equal Rites (New York: Colombia University Press, 2004).

^[58] Through computational stylistics, scholars have found over 2,000 authorship shifts between twenty-four unique authorial styles, “consistent to [the Book of Mormon’s] own internal claims.” See John L. Hilton, “On Verifying Wordprint Studies,” BYU Studies Quarterly 30, no. 3 (1990): 89–108. Skousen has also found evidence in favor of Smith’s claim to have orally dictated the book to a scribe without prior knowledge of its contents or referencing external sources. These include errors reflective of “mishearing what Joseph had dictated” rather than “misreading while visually copying”—such as writing “&” as a mishearing of “an” or consistently misspelling a name that would be phonetically ambiguous—as well as “scribal anticipation errors,” where phrases from later in a sentence would be written and crossed out before their proper place, due to hearing Smith dictate faster than they were able to write (“How Joseph Smith Translated,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7, no. 1 [1997]: 23–31). Moreover, even in sections of the text that seem like obvious plagiarisms—such as when the text quotes verbatim from the book of Isaiah—Skousen has noted the same scribal errors consistent with the oral composition of the rest of the text, unorthodox divisions, and even readings that align not with the King James Bible of Smith’s time but the Masoretic (traditional Hebrew) text and the Septuagint (Greek) (“Textual Variants in the Isaiah Quotations” in Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, edited by Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch [Provo: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1998], 369–90).

^[59] Two common theories have been that Smith plagiarized from Solomon Spalding’s “Manuscript Found” and Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews. On the original Spalding hypothesis as first explicated in 1834, see E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH: By the author, 1834), 278–88. For a detailed account of the theory in all its expansions, redactions, and challenges, see Bush, “Spalding Theory Then and Now.” Bushman also offers a quick synopsis (Rough Stone Rolling, 90–91). On that of the View of the Hebrews, see Charles D. Tate Jr.’s introduction to the 1996 reprint of View of the Hebrews (1825 2nd Edition) (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1996), ix–xxii. For a succinct summary, see Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 161–62; and Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 96–97. See also William L. Davis, Visions in a Seer Stone (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020); David P. Wright, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon,” in Vogel and Metcalfe, American Apocrypha, 157–234.

^[60] For two paradigmatic examples of these divergent approaches, see Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 58–83; and Vogel, Making of a Prophet, 129.

^[61] Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 58.

^[62] This is a paraphrase of Vogel’s statement that “existence of the Book of Mormon plates themselves as an objective artifact which Joseph allowed his family and friends and even critics to handle while it was covered with a cloth or concealed in a box . . . [is] compelling evidence of conscious misdirection” (Making of a Prophet, xi).

^[63] This is perhaps most evident in that one of the few etic scholars who has taken their existence seriously, Jan Shipps, has been since dubbed an “insider-outsider” (Shipps, “An ‘Inside-Outsider’ in Zion,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 1 [1982]: 139–61; Bushman, “The Worlds of Joseph Smith” in Believing History, ed. Reid L. Neilson and Jed Woodworth [New York: Colombia University Press: 2004], 10). On the pervasiveness of this divide in the field, see Jan Shipps, “The Prophet Puzzle,” Journal of Mormon History 1 (1974): 19; Bushman, “A Joseph Smith for the Twenty-first Century” in Neilson and Woodworth, Believing History, 262–78; Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation,” 183–87.

^[64] Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 106.

^[65] Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 61.

^[66] This is often a form of ḍākinī script (mkha’ ‘gro brda yig) and symbolic language of the ḍākinīs (mkha’ gro brda skad), although Gyatso and Thondup mention myriad other protentional scripts and languages (Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 12, 18; Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 69–70).

^[67] Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 61–62, 64–66, 85–90, 102–7, 125–35, 159.

^[68] For example, the seventh section of the Doctrine and Covenants claims to come from a “record made on parchment by John [the apostle of Jesus] and hidden up by himself,” not physically discovered by Smith but revealed by him. The “Book of Moses” in the Pearl of Great Price claims to be a revelation of historical events in the lives of the Old Testament prophets Moses and Enoch, the latter of which Smith alluded to being from the prophecy of Enoch mentioned in the book of Jude in the New Testament (Jude 1:14; “History, 1838–1856, vol. A-1 [December 23, 1805–August 30, 1834],” December 1830, 81, The Joseph Smith Papers). Again, Smith never claimed to recover a physical manuscript In a similar mode, verses 6 to 17 of the 97th section of the Doctrine and Covenants are cast as a revelation given to the apostle John. Smith described Doctrine and Covenants section 76 as a “transcript from the records of the eternal world” (“History, 1838–1856, vol. A-1 [December 23, 1805–August 30, 1834],” January 25–February 16, 1832, 192, The Joseph Smith Papers). The “Book of Abraham,” also contained in the Pearl of Great Price, claims to be a translation of a set of Egyptian papyri which Joseph purchased in 1835.

^[69] “Minute Book 2,” October 25–26, 1831, 13, The Joseph Smith Papers.

^[70] Joseph Smith Jr., preface to The Book of Mormon (Palmyra, N.Y.: E. B. Grandin, 1830).

^[71] “History, 1838–1856, vol. E-1 [July 1, 1843–April 30, 1844],” November 13, 1843, 1775, The Joseph Smith Papers.

^[72] “History, circa Summer 1832,” The Joseph Smith Papers, 5. For all other accounts not cited above, see “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1,” The Joseph Smith Papers, 9; “Elder’s Journal, July 1838,” The Joseph Smith Papers, 43; Vogel, Early Mormon Documents 1 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), 17; “Journal, 1835–1836,” The Joseph Smith Papers, 26; “Letter to Noah C. Saxton, 4 January 1833,” The Joseph Smith Papers; “Minute Book 1,” The Joseph Smith Papers, 44; “History, 1838–1856, volume C-1,” The Joseph Smith Papers, 1282; and “Times and Seasons, 2 May 1842,” The Joseph Smith Papers, 772.

^[73] These are Emma Smith, Reuben Hale, Martin Harris, Samuel Smith, Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, Christian Whitmer, and David Whitmer. See John W. Welch, “The Miraculous Translation of the Book of Mormon,” in Opening the Heavens, ed. John W. Welch (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 83–98.

^[74] Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Missouri: By the author, 1887), 13.

^[75] On Smith’s seer stone and its use before his translating the gold plates, see Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 48–52; and Richard V. Wagoner and Steve Walker, “Joseph Smith: ‘The Gift of Seeing,’” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 2 (1982): 53–62. How much Joseph Smith used the spectacles buried with the plates, and how much he used the seer stone, is still debated; see James E. Lancaster, “The Method of Translation of the Book of Mormon,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 62–63; and Michael H. MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, “Firsthand Witness Accounts of the Translation Process,” in The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon, ed. Dennis L. Largey et al. (Provo: Brigham Young University, 2015), 68.

^[76] On spelling out proper names and large words, see Emma Smith’s description from her 1856 interview with Edmund C. Briggs: Briggs, “A Visit to Nauvoo in 1856,” Journal of History, October 1916, 454.

^[77] “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” The Saints’ Herald 26, no. 19 (1879): 289–90. For what other scribes and eyewitnesses reported, see Wagoner, “Gift of Seeing”; Lancaster, “Method of Translation”; and MacKay and Dirkmaat, “Firsthand Witness Accounts.”

^[78] “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” 289–90.

^[79] Skousen groups the possibilities into three categories: iron-clad control (the seer stones ensured that Smith nor the scribe could make any errors); tight control (Smith was revealed words and tasked with reading them to a scribe); and loose control (where Smith was impressed with ideas). See “How Joseph Smith Translated,” 24.

^[80] For just a few influential examples, see Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert and The World of the Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft Publishing Co., 1952), 184–89; John W. Welch, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon,” Brigham Young University Studies 10, no. 1 (1969): 69–84; and Skousen, “How Joseph Smith Translated,” 28–31. Skousen has also made this argument based on certain scribal errors that he claims indicate Smith spelled out complicated proper names to his scribe and had access through the seer stone to about twenty words at a time (Skousen, “How Joseph Smith Translated,” 27).

^[81] Brant A. Gardner, The Gift and Power (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), 183–95; Samuel M. Brown, “Seeing the Voice of God,” in MacKay, Ashurst-McGee, and Hauglid, Producing Ancient Scripture, 144–46; Blake T. Ostler, “The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20, no. 1 (1987): 104; Michael D. Quinn, L. Mayer, D. Young, “The First Months of Mormonism,” New York History 54, no. 3 (1973): 321; Stephen D. Ricks, “Translation of the Book of Mormon,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2, no. 2 (1993): 201–6.

^[82] Gerald Smith, however, has recently studied the corrective conjunction phrases and noted that “over time and across editions the Prophet chose to retain the original translation of corrective conjunction phrases, including seemingly obvious errors and mistakes,” meaning that perhaps they were in fact part of the original text (Schooling the Prophet, 38–39).

^[83] Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 28–33.

^[84] On these substantive changes, see Royal Skousen, “Changes in the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 11 (2014): 169–72. For all textual variants in the various additions, see Skousen, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), 739–89.

^[85] Wagoner, “The Gift of Seeing,” 53; MacKay and Dirkmaat, “Firsthand Witness Accounts,” 71–72.

^[86] Tsele Natsok Rangdröl, Empowerment and the Path of Liberation (Hong Kong: Rangjung Yeshe, 1993), 17–23; Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 45; Tucci, Religions of Tibet, 44–45.

^[87] Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher, trans. Padmakara Translation Group (Boston: Shambala, 1998), 143–45; Jamgön Kongtrul, The Teacher-Student Relationship, trans. Ron Garry (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion, 1999), 139–43; Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Guru Yoga, trans. Matthieu Ricard (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion, 1999), 57–61; Rangdröl, Empowerment and the Path, 33, 35–37.

^[88] Gentry, Power Objects, 10–11.

^[89] Gentry, Power Objects, 13.

^[90] Gentry, Power Objects, 11.

^[91] Gentry, Power Objects, 26.

^[92] Gentry, Power Objects, 52, see also 49.

^[93] Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation”; see also Ann Taves, “Joseph Smith, Helen Schucman, and the Experience of Producing a Spiritual Text,” in MacKay, Ashurst-McGee, and Hauglid, Producing Ancient Scripture, 169–86; and Ann Taves, Revelatory Events (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2016).

^[94] Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation,” 195, 202.

^[95] Sandberg, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 22, no. 4 (1989): 22–24.

^[96] Sandberg, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again,”20–21.

^[97] Ether 3:24.

^[98] Jared Hickman, “‘Bringing Forth’ the Book of Mormon,” in MacKay, Ashurst-McGee, and Hauglid, Producing Ancient Scripture, 78–80.

^[99] Sonia Hazard, “How Joseph Smith Encountered Printing Plates,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 31, no. 2 (2021): 150–178.

^[100] Hazard, “How Joseph Smith Encountered,” 140, 146.

^[101] Hazard, “How Joseph Smith Encountered,” 148.

^[102] Hazard, “How Joseph Smith Encountered,” 180–81.

^[103] Gentry, Power Objects, 299–303.

^[104] Gentry, Power Objects, 246, 310.

^[105] Janet Gyatso, “The Relic Text,” (unpublished manuscript), 7–12; Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 72–76; Jacoby, Love and Liberation, 142.

^[106] Gyatso describes the semiotic process by which one determines the necessary conditions for revelation in detail in her study of the gter ston Jigme Lingpa (Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 162–81) and elsewhere (“Signs, Memory and History,” 22–27; see also Drubchen, Hidden Teachings, 130).

^[107] For detailed examples of gter ma discovery, see Hanna, “Vast as the Sky”; Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body”; Gyatso, Apparitions of Self, 161–74; and Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus-Born, (96–139).

^[108] Germano and Gyatso, “Longchenpa and the Dakinis,” 242.

^[109] Thondup describes the consort as one who “helps to produce and maintain the wisdom of the union of great bliss and emptiness, by which the adept attains the ultimate state” (Hidden Teachings, 82–83; see also Gyatso, Apparitions of Self, 173, 194–97). Elsewhere, Gyatso explains this as facilitating the “breaking of codes (brda grol), here a metaphor for the loosening of the psychic knots that bind the cakras, necessary for the mature rendering of the full Treasure scripture in determinant form” (“Signs, Memory and History,” 22).

^[110] Although Gyatso is sighting Drubchen (Hidden Teachings, 124–135), her systematic outline of this process is quite helpful (see Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 17–22).

^[111] Jigme Lingpa’s revelation of the Logchen Nyingtig (klong chen snying thig) for example, took seven years (Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 168).

^[112] Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus-Born, 133.

^[113] Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 234–37.

^[114] Hazard, “How Joseph Smith Encountered,” 146.

^[115] Emma Smith accompanied her husband on his discovery expedition, and many others provided transportation, lodging, protection from thieves, places to hide the plates, and witnessed him return from the hill with a set of plates (although under a cloth) (Bushman, Believing History, 93–105). Emma also describes “[moving] them from place to place on the table, as it was necessary in doing my [house]work” (“Last Testimony of Sister Emma”). A select eleven were even given permission by the angel Moroni to “handle” them and “[see] the engravings thereon” (see “The Testimony of the Three Witnesses” and the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses” in the Book of Mormon). For a discussion on the credibility of their accounts, see Dan Vogel, “The Validity of the Witnesses’ Testimonies,” in Vogel and Metcalfe, American Apocrypha, 79–122; and Steven C. Harper, “Evaluating the Book of Mormon Witnesses,” Religious Educator 11, no. 2 (2010): 37–49.

^[116] Mary Keller, The Hammer and the Flute (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 33, 35–37, 54–72.

^[117] Keller, Hammer and the Flute, 7, see also 41, 44–46.

^[118] Keller, Hammer and the Flute, 9, see also 48.

^[119] Keller, Hammer and the Flute, 159–60.

^[120] One other interesting alternative is Taves’s and Dunn’s theory that Smith’s ability to dictate extensive narratives without external sources through reference to trance states that enable “automatic writing” (Taves, Revelatory Events, 250–69; Taves, “Joseph Smith, Helen Schucman”; Scott C. Dunn, “Automaticity and the Dictation of the Book of Mormon,” in Vogel and Metcalfe, American Apocrypha, 17–46). This cross-cultural phenomenon refers to states of consciousness within which an individual can write or dictate words to a scribe for extensive periods of time without prior knowledge of, or control over, the words themselves, and thus attributes them to an external force. The primary problem with this theory, however, is its reliance on Smith’s natural knack for storytelling and high degree of familiarity with the King James Bible to posit a robust set of mentally stored raw materials upon which Smith’s mind drew while under hypnosis to produce the content of the Book of Mormon. There is scant evidence for these innate qualities and/or cultivated knowledge base. In making this claim, Taves and others (Rodney Stark, “A Theory of Revelations,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38, no. 2 [1999]: 294; Hickman, “‘Bringing Forth’ the Book of Mormon,” 76–77) rely exclusively on Lucy Smith’s (Joseph Smith’s mother) comment that during their “evening conversations,” Smith would give “amusing recitals” about “the ancient inhabitants of this continent” before discovering the plates (Scot F. Proctor and Maurine J. Proctor, eds., The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996], 112). However, I think they are reading too deeply into this comment. This seems to be a reference to what Moroni told Smith during their first meeting. In Smith’s own words: “I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this Country, and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people was made known unto me” (“History, 1838–1856, vol. C-1 [November 2, 1838–July 31, 1842],” March 1, 1842, 1282, The Joseph Smith Papers). For a critique of the automatic writing theory, see Brian C. Hales, “Automatic Writing and the Book of Mormon,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 52, no. 2 (2019): 1–35.

^[121] The closest approximation to my theory thus far in Mormon studies are Josh E. Probert’s brief comments that the seer stone “acted on Smith” and “acted as a mediator” (“The Materiality of Lived Mormonism,” Mormon Studies Review 3 (2016): 26–27). My emphasis on the plates instead of the seer stones stems primarily from their being the claimed contextual source of the translation and the fact that, when the angel took the plates away, Smith could no longer translate despite having access to seer stones.

^[122] Smith’s mother recorded in the late winter or early Spring of 1827 that Joseph had received “the severest chastisement” of his life at the hand of Moroni for being “negligent” with respect to “the things that God had commanded [him] to do” (Proctor and Proctor, Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith, 135). After preparing the first 116 pages of the plates, Smith mistakenly allowed his scribe, then Martin Harris, to show the transcript to family members, after which they were lost and the plates subsequently taken from Smith from June 15 to September 22, 1828 (Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 66–69).

^[123] Two early sources written by friends of Smith record that the angel told him he must “bring the right person” to retrieve the plates, who Smith later learned was Emma Hale, a local woman who married a few months later. These accounts written by these friends, Joseph Knight and Willard Chase, are summarized in Quinn, Early Mormonism, 158, 163. Smith also had to retain an amicable relationship with Emma to be able to translate (“Letter from Elder W. H. Kelley,” Saints’ Herald 1 [1882]: 68) and was inspired to engage with different scribes throughout the process.

^[124] Other comparable, interesting arguments for non-linguistic translation, which I do not have space to survey here as they extend to Smith’s other translation projects, are Kathleen Flake, “Translating Time,” Journal of Religion 87, no. 4 (2007): 497–527; and Samuel M. Brown, Joseph Smith’s Translation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

^[125] Hickman, “‘Bringing Forth’ the Book of Mormon,” 54.

^[126] The other two appearances of the term are in 2 Samuel 3:10 and Colossians 1:13.

^[127] Grant Underwood, The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 163–64n4.

^[128] 2 Nephi 3:15–19.

^[129] Hickman, “‘Bringing Forth’ the Book of Mormon,” 75.

^[130] Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, xxi.

^[131] Hickman, “‘Bringing Forth’ the Book of Mormon,” 54, 60, 75, 77–78.

^[132] Doctrine and Covenants 131:7.

^[133] Rosalynde Welch, “The New Mormon Theology of Matter,” Mormon Studies Review 4, no. 1 (2017): 70.

^[134] On this pervasive, Protestant influenced paradigm of religious studies, see Peter J. Bräunlein, “Thinking Religion Through Things,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 28, no. 4/5 (2016): 370–72; and Brigit Meyer, “How Pictures Matter,” in Objects and Imagination: Perspectives on Materialization and Meaning, edited by Øivind Fuglerud and Leon Wainwright (New York: Berghahn, 2015), 165–66.

^[135] Charles Stewart, Dreaming and Historical Consciousness in Island Greece (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 2.

^[136] Flake, “Translating Time”; Brown, Joseph Smith’s Translation.

^[137] Stewart, Dreaming and Historical Consciousness, 51, 64, 68.

^[138] Stewart, Dreaming and Historical Consciousness, xvii–xviii.

[post_title] => The Production of the Book of Mormon in Light of a Tibetan Buddhist Parallel [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 55.4 (Winter 2022): 41–83
Drawing on observations and suggestions from scholars of Tibetan Buddhism and Mormonism, this article compares the production of the Book of Mormon with that of the class of Tibetan Buddhist scripture known as gter ma (“Treasure,” pronounced “terma”) [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-production-of-the-book-of-mormon-in-light-of-a-tibetan-buddhist-parallel [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-11-14 23:46:15 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-11-14 23:46:15 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=31435 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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The book of Isaiah has enjoyed an enduring presence within Christian thought since the earliest period of Christian history. Isaiah has famously been called “the fifth gospel”^[1] because of its ubiquitous presence within Christian writing, thought, and history and its immense influence on the New Testament.^[2] The importance of Isaiah within broader Christianity carries over into early Mormon texts as well, and readers of The Book of Mormon^[3] get a sense early on in their reading that they will have to deal with a significant amount of quoted material from Isaiah if they are going to engage the book and take it seriously. The book’s earliest character and émigré prophet, Nephi, explicitly states that he does not just want his readers to know his interpretation of Isaiah’s message. Instead, he wants them to read and know Isaiah’s words, mediated at least through a slightly revised and updated version of the King James text of Isaiah.

Scholars of The Book of Mormon have noted at least since H. Grant Vest that it is a historical problem for the book to quote from Isaiah chapters 40–66 because it is widely accepted in biblical scholarship that this section of the book dates to after 600 BCE, the period when Lehi and Nephi left Jerusalem.^[4] Numerous previous studies have examined the “problem of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon,”^[5] however, few have set this issue in the more comprehensive, poignant problem of the influence of the entire King James Bible on the composition of The Book of Mormon as a whole.^[6] As a contribution to the larger project of examining the King James Bible’s influence on The Book of Mormon, this essay focuses on several aspects of the problem of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon as they relate to the more significant issue. I will focus on two problems with the use of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon. First, previous scholarship has assumed that none of Third Isaiah has had any effect on the text of The Book of Mormon and the Isaiah chapters it quotes. This assumption has relied on a mistaken way of identifying influence by looking only for long quotations. Second, I examine how biblical scholarship on Isaiah complicates having a block quotation including portions of not only Isaiah chapters 40–55 but also those from chapters 2–14 as well. It was just as unlikely for a sixth-century Israelite immigrating from the Middle East to the Americas to have Isaiah 2–14 as they appear in the KJV as it was to have 40–55, and it is the fact that most of the scholarship on The Book of Mormon up to now has obscured this that I wish to address.^[7]

1. The Problem of Dating Isaiah

Since the pioneering eighteenth-century work of both Johann Christoph Döderlein and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, scholars have understood the compositional history of the book of Isaiah to be far more complicated than the notion that Isaiah of Jerusalem wrote all sixty-six chapters of the book.^[8] In fact, since the last quarter of that century, scholars have argued that historians need to separate the historical person, Isaiah of Jerusalem, from the literary book itself. This observation is partially due to how scholars argue that Isaiah wrote portions of chapters 1–39 but not 40–66.^[9] Scholars continued to examine and refine this approach to the compositional history of the book of Isaiah, and it became the leading theory of the book’s authorship soon after the publication of Döderlein’s and Eichhorn’s work in the 1770s and 1780s.

The best expression of this position is found a century later in Samuel R. Driver’s 1891 study An Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament.^[10] Driver argued that chapters 40–66 are clearly of a later date and authorship than 1–39 because, primarily, the prophecies in 40–66 presuppose a sixth-century audience without ever claiming to be about the future and, secondarily, the literary style and theological perspective of the later chapters differ significantly from the earlier chapters.^[11] A year after the publication of Driver’s book, Bernhard Duhm identified a third author in the book, Trito-Isaiah, and argued that this anonymous author wrote later than both Isaiah of Jerusalem and Deutero-Isaiah.^[12]

Duhm’s theory would later become the standard account of the book’s formation. In the wake of Duhm’s work, most scholarship on Isaiah has engaged the book by dividing it into these three sections, roughly chapters 1–39, 40–55, and 56–66. This designation has remained a valuable tool in biblical studies to quickly explain three of the major blocks in the formation of the book,^[13] although for the purposes of this study, it is beneficial to break down the sections of Isaiah further in order to go beyond this simplified and truncated portrait of the critical understanding of the book. The oversimplification of the division of source material in the book of Isaiah has unfortunately led scholars within Mormon studies to assume that only the quotation of Isaiah 48–54 in The Book of Mormon is historically problematic.^[14] It is time for a broader and deeper engagement with all the relevant data.

2. Identifying Third Isaiah in The Book of Mormon

The influence of specific phrases from portions of verses in Isaiah 56–66 on The Book of Mormon has almost wholly eluded scholars of the book since they became aware of the problem of Isaiah’s authorship over a century ago. H. Grant Vest, a master’s student at Brigham Young University in the 1930s working under Sidney B. Sperry, believed that he found one example of Third Isaiah in The Book of Mormon, but it comes from Isaiah 55. When he was working on his thesis, scholars identified Isaiah 55 as part of Third Isaiah.^[15] To my knowledge, only one other scholar has previously connected language in The Book of Mormon with Third Isaiah.^[16] In the following sections, I will describe The Book of Mormon verses influenced by Third Isaiah individually.

2.1 Isaiah 61:10

In 2 Nephi 4, the Lehite company has just arrived at the New World, and Lehi has provided patriarchal blessings and counsel to his and Ishmael’s sons and grandchildren. In verse 12, he dies, and soon after Nephi states that his brothers Laman and Lemuel were again angry with Nephi for chastising them (vv. 13–14). Scholars have labeled the text from verse 15 to the end of the chapter “the Psalm of Nephi,” the “only . . . psalm in the entire volume,”^[17] and in verse 33, we find the first instance of language from Third Isaiah in The Book of Mormon. “O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness!”^[18]

The phrase “the robe of righteousness” is found in the KJV only in Isaiah 61:10. The separate words “robe” and “righteousness” are not found together in any other verse in the KJV. In Isaiah 61, the author states that they “will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.”^[19] As Claus Westermann has argued, this is related to the songs of praise in Deutero-Isaiah, but the two different authors show “characteristic” differences in how they present their songs of praise. As Westermann states, Deutero-Isaiah’s songs of praise are “sung by the community (call to praise in the imperative),” whereas the song in Isaiah 61:10 is “sung by an individual.”^[20]

At stake is Nephi’s use of a part of Isaiah that dates far after his leaving Jerusalem sometime around 600 BCE. It is similar to his quotations of Romans 7:24 in 2 Nephi 4:17 (“O wretched man that I am!”), Hebrews 12:1 in 2 Nephi 4:18 (“I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which doth so easily beset me”), and both James 1:5 (“I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh”) and James 4:3 (“if I ask not amiss”) in 2 Nephi 4:35.^[21] These texts date to well after the period that an ostensible historical Nephi could have used them.^[22] The key here is that the author of 2 Nephi 4 is dependent on a phrase in Third Isaiah and blends the language taken from that source with language taken from multiple books in the New Testament.

Dependence on this phrase from Isaiah 61:10 is also found in 2 Nephi 9:14.^[23] Beginning in 2 Nephi 6:6–7, Jacob quotes Isaiah 49:22–23, then Isaiah 49:24–52:2 in 2 Nephi 6:16–8:25. Jacob expounds on these chapters in 2 Nephi 9, like Nephi did for Isaiah 48–49 in 1 Nephi 22. In verse 14, Jacob explains how “the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness.”^[24] Nephi and Jacob both approach the text of Isaiah in the same way by quoting entire chapters and then explaining those chapters to their audiences. Although the two sermons are decades separated, Jacob continues Nephi’s quotation and is dependent in his exposition on the exact phrase from Isaiah 61:10 that we find Nephi using in 2 Nephi 4:33. This brings attention to the singular use of Isaiah by two characters in the narrative.

Likewise, we also find many biblical quotations and echoes in this chapter from several New Testament sources. As Philip Barlow has previously shown, 2 Nephi 9:16–17 borrows language from a range of texts, including (in the order they appear in the verses) Matthew 24:35; Revelation 22:11; Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:10; Hebrews 12:2; Matthew 25:34; and John 15:11.^[25] We can also add an informal quotation of 2 Corinthians 5:10 in 2 Nephi 9:15 to this long list (“must appear before the judgment seat of the Holy One of Israel”).^[26] Jacob’s extensive use of the New Testament around the phrase “robe of righteousness” in 2 Nephi 9 is similar to what we found in Nephi’s dependence on Third Isaiah in 2 Nephi 4. Both sections of The Book of Mormon are dependent on Third Isaiah and several texts from the New Testament. These verses also cannot be stripped from Nephi’s or Jacob’s texts without doing irreparable harm to their message. The author of these chapters knew Third Isaiah and the New Testament.

2.2 Isaiah 65:2/Romans 10:21

The second example of a phrase in Third Isaiah that influenced The Book of Mormon is found in Isaiah 65:2. However, the use of this verse was mediated through the New Testament’s quotation of this same passage, specifically in Romans 10:21.^[27] The formal quotation of Isaiah 65:2 in Romans 10:21 takes only from the first half of the source text. This part of Isaiah 65:2 reads in the KJV, “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people.” Romans 10:21 says, “But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.” Although slightly varying among themselves in terminology, each of the three verses in The Book of Mormon dependent on Isaiah 65:2 is far closer in its wording to the KJV of Romans 10:21 than Third Isaiah.^[28] We find the one exemplar that deviates most from the other two in 2 Nephi 28:32. There the divine states, “for notwithstanding I shall lengthen out mine arm unto them from day to day, they will deny me.”^[29] Both Jacob 5:47 and 6:4 agree with Romans 10:21 and have “stretched” and “stretches,” respectively, instead of “lengthen,” like in 2 Nephi 28:32, whereas Isaiah 65:2 has “spread out.” The two verses in Jacob also have “all the day long,” which is closer to Romans 10:21, “all day long,” contrary to 2 Nephi 28:32, “from day to day.” These are all different than what we find in Isaiah 65:2, “all the day.” The similarity in thought and imagery suggests that the author was familiar with the basic idea stated in Isaiah 65:2 as quoted in Romans 10:21 but, due to the disparity in wording, likely could not recall the exact wording so instead relied on their memory.^[30]

Each of the three verses in The Book of Mormon ends with a negative sentiment about those God reaches out to help. They will deny him (2 Nephi 28:32), they are corrupted (Jacob 5:47), and “they are a stiffnecked, and a gainsaying people” (Jacob 6:4).^[31] In each verse, there is some improvisation in how the author uses the language from the source texts. 2 Nephi 28:32 is, just like Jacob 5:47 and 6:4, ultimately dependent on Isaiah 65:2 through Romans 10:21 but more freely engages with the imagery in the text rather than the specific language.^[32]

2.3 Isaiah 63:1

Nephi continues to echo Third Isaiah when he is about to “make an end of [his] prophesying” in 2 Nephi 31:19.^[33] Earlier in the chapter, Nephi wants the implied audience to remember that he prophesied about how John the Baptist would baptize Jesus, so, it follows, it is vital for everyone to follow Jesus’ actions. In verse 19, Nephi asks if the reader has started on the path of discipleship and whether they are now done; he answers in the negative. “For ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.”^[34] The one “mighty to save” is explicitly Jesus in his capacity as savior and redeemer of humanity, an explicitly Christian soteriology that is significantly different from anything found in the book of Isaiah.

There are two other instances of this “mighty to save” language. In Alma 7:14, Alma states that in order to “inherit the kingdom of heaven” a person has to “be baptized unto repentance” and “washed from your sins, that ye may have faith on the Lamb of God . . . which is mighty to save and to cleanse from all unrighteousness.”^[35] Alma 34:18 is more ambiguous, however. After describing the importance of Jesus’ atonement, in verse 18, Amulek echoes Isaiah 63:1 when he states, “Yea, cry unto him for mercy, for he is mighty to save.”^[36]

The Book of Mormon brings a Christological interpretation to Third Isaiah’s phrase. In contrast to how Third Isaiah employs the terminology of YHWH being the one “mighty to save,” the way the chapters of The Book of Mormon specifically engage with Isaiah 63:1 place Jesus front and center as the one “mighty to save.” This Christianizing of the text clarifies how historians should date the texts Smith dictated in a period after the development of Christian soteriology and the rereading of Isaiah 63 as Jesus’ second coming. This development in the history of ideas is crucial for the composition of the passages in The Book of Mormon that are dependent on Isaiah 63:1.

2.4 Isaiah 66:1 and Matthew 5:34–35

The final verse from Third Isaiah that has influenced The Book of Mormon is also found in the New Testament, like the examples above. In Jesus’ injunction against oath swearing (Matthew 5:34–35), Matthew cites Isaiah 66:1: “The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” The passage is also referenced in the New Testament in Acts 7:49. Both 1 Nephi 17:39 and 3 Nephi 12:34–35 are dependent on Matthew 5:34–35, the latter more explicitly than the former because 3 Nephi 12–14 is a block quotation of Matthew 5–7. 1 Nephi 17:39 reads, “He ruleth high in the heavens, for it is his throne, and this earth is his footstool.” The particle “for,” found in both 1 Nephi 17:39 and Matthew 5:34—but not in Acts 7:49 or Isaiah 66:1—just before describing the heavens as the throne and the earth as the footstool, indicates the dependence of 1 Nephi 17:39 on Matthew 5:34 rather than either Acts 7:49 or the ultimate source, Isaiah 66:1. Still, that the idea and language originate with Third Isaiah supports the influence of Third Isaiah on The Book of Mormon as mediated through the New Testament.

3. Deutero-Isaianic, Exilic, and Post-Exilic Revision of Isaiah 2–14

As noted above, the dominant approach to the “Isaiah problem” of The Book of Mormon has been to see the uses of First Isaiah, including chapters 2–14, as posing no historical problem for the Nephite record. However, this view adopts a theory that all or nearly all of First Isaiah is authentic and available in its current form by 600 BCE. Many scholars have noted that other parts of Isaiah 2–14 were not written by Isaiah of Jerusalem but rather in the exilic or post-exilic periods. Bernhard Duhm, the scholar who initially proposed the tripartite division of the book of Isaiah in 1892,^[37] also recognized that not all of chapters 1–39 could be ascribed to Isaiah of Jerusalem. Instead, scholars had to recognize that much of this material was composed and added to the book of Isaiah centuries after Isaiah’s prophetic career.^[38] It is essential to recognize this fact and not forget that the tripartite division is more a heuristic model than an exact representation of scholarship over the last three centuries.

In his 1994 study, H. G. M. Williamson convincingly argued that Deutero-Isaiah redacted, and therefore reorganized and rewrote, much of the material in Isaiah 2–14.^[39] Although not everyone accepts his theory exactly as he argued it, Williamson brilliantly grounded his entire argument on specific verses in Isaiah 1–39 that most Isaiah scholars already accepted as later than Isaiah of Jerusalem. The rhetorical power of this approach allowed Williamson to focus on the similarities between the later additions in First Isaiah and the lexicon, historical setting, and theological perspective in Isaiah 40–55 over against those of the sections of 1–39 that scholars view as original to Isaiah himself.

Some scholars have rightly cautioned against approaches they see as too confident in identifying “the editorial growth of a biblical book over the centuries with the barest minimum of actual evidence.”^[40] But, as is also the case in J. J. M. Roberts’s commentary, sometimes the later additions and editorial structures are so clear that even a more cautious commentator like Roberts must note how First Isaiah developed well after Isaiah of Jerusalem’s lifetime. It is essential to note the specific passages in Isaiah 2–14 that Roberts, Williamson, and most other Isaiah scholars have agreed are later additions or editorial changes to these passages. The fact that parts of Isaiah 2–14 were either revised, restructured, or composed during or after the Babylonian exile complicates the assumption that Nephi or any of his descendants could have quoted these chapters in full the way Nephi did in 2 Nephi 12–24. As we will see, the shape of Isaiah 2–14 would have been drastically different in a pre-exilic setting than what we find in the KJV, and therefore The Book of Mormon. Due to space constraints, I will only analyze a few examples.

3.1 Isaiah 2:1–5

The block quotation of Isaiah 2–14 begins in 2 Nephi 12:1. The first verse of this quotation is widely recognized as a later addition to Isaiah 2. Roberts views Isaiah 2:1 as a late addition—even later than Williamson dates the verse—connecting Isaiah 1:29–31 to 2:2–4.^[41] Isaiah 2:2–4 has a complicated history because of its close parallel in Micah 4:1–4, but the entire pericope, too, is almost universally recognized as a late addition to First Isaiah. Roberts argues that 2:1 was added to bridge Isaiah 2 to Isaiah 1:29–31 and contextualize 2:2–4 and claims that the oracle is original to Isaiah and not Micah.^[42] Most scholars also argue that the text in Micah 4:1–4 is a late addition to that book,^[43] although scholars often view the version in Micah as more complete than what is found in Isaiah 2:2–4.^[44]

There is also the problem of Isaiah 2:5. Williamson argues that Deutero-Isaiah added this verse to connect 2:2–4 to 2:6–21.^[45] Otto Kaiser, Hans Wildberger, Ulrich Berges, and others support the argument that 2:5 is a late addition to the text, even though some scholars believe 2:2–4 is original to Isaiah.^[46] Recent scholarship has identified at least parts, if not the whole, of Isaiah 2:1–5 as being too late of an addition to the book of Isaiah to have been available on the brass plates as described in The Book of Mormon.

3.2 Isaiah 3:18–23

According to Wildberger and most Isaiah scholars, Isaiah 3:18–23 is a redactional interpolation that interrupts the continuity between verses 17 and 24.^[47] There have been several attempts to argue that this is not the case, most recently by Roberts, but the responses have failed to adequately counter all the reasons for seeing Isaiah 3:18–23 as a later, post-exilic (according to Williamson and others) interpolation.^[48] Although Williamson notes that for these verses, “Authorship and date is impossible to determine with certainty,”^[49] the latter part of his statement is determinative. Williamson, along with numerous other scholars, identifies the final editor of this section, chapters 2–4, as working in the post-exilic period.^[50] Wildberger and Kaiser both restructure this section in their commentaries to account for the interpolation of verses 18–23, moving verse 24 after verses 16 and 17.^[51] Williamson notes that “Verse 24 follows smoothly on v. 17 both in subject matter and in form.”^[52] Many scholars view the use of the phrase “in that day” at the beginning of verse 18 as introducing a redactional gloss,^[53] and Williamson sees the statement in verse 18 that “the Lord will take away” as a reference to verse 1, “suggesting a reader who had the wider passage in view rather than being just a late annotator who worked atomistically.”^[54] The list of women’s fine clothing and jewelry in verses 18–23 would have a significant influence on the editing of the whole of Isaiah 2–4, according to Williamson, especially as it was developed further in Isaiah 4:2–6, another later addition to this section.

3.3 Isaiah 4:2–6

Wildberger notes that chapters 2–4 have a great deal of material that originally comes from Isaiah of Jerusalem, but that “it is common to find secondary messages” added “at the conclusion of each” of these three chapters.^[55] He sees 4:2–6 as a likely addition to the text and non-Isaianic for the following reasons: (1) the introduction includes the formula “on that day,” which he notes several times in his commentary as usually indicating a secondary expansion;^[56] (2) the passage uses “the prosaic form in vv. 3ff.”;^[57] and (3) there is much secondary material in chapters 2–4 that includes messages of salvation, especially at the ends, that verses 2–6 share. For Wildberger, these verses have to be described generally as post-exilic, since they are a part of the later “shaping of the book of Isaiah, including such additions which announce salvation, and thereby set all of the harshnesses of the preceding words of judgment into the framework of Yahweh’s eventual goal for history and for his people.”^[58] Accordingly, this later rethinking of the earlier judgments “was not the learned work of someone sitting at a writing desk, but developed instead in the liturgical use of the prophetic writings in the assemblies of the community during the era of the second temple.”^[59] Williamson further notes that 4:2–6 works with 2:2–4, which we saw earlier is a secondary edition, as a “bookend” to this section of Isaiah, chapters 2–4.^[60] These two additions were integral to the final redactor’s purposes in their attempt to unify the disparate content that became Isaiah 2–4. I will show further below that more recent scholarship has argued that at least 4:2–6 was authored either by Third Isaiah^[61] or one of their contemporaries.

3.4 Isaiah 5:25–30

In his commentary on First Isaiah, which we have seen is more critical of the idea that parts of 2–14 were edited, rewritten, and shifted to their current position within the text at later periods, Roberts places Isaiah 10:1–4a between 5:8–24 and 5:25–30. He does this because “there are a number of indications that the connection between v. 24 and v. 25 is secondary” and that “In terms of form, it would appear that 10:1–4a goes with 5:8–24 and 5:25–30 goes with 9:7–20, probably at its conclusion.”^[62] The text as it now stands in 2–14 is not even close to the original order Roberts argues it would have been in during the earlier stages of the book. Although there is some uncertainty about what order exactly these four sections of Isaiah 5, 9, and 10 would have been in, many scholars agree that its current form is due to later redactional activity and that 5:25–30 was heavily edited and added last to its current position.^[63] Most of Isaiah 6–9 gets in the way of this earlier organization of the text of First Isaiah.

3.5 Isaiah 8:21–23a

Scholars have long argued that Isaiah 8:21–23a is an intricate collection of small text fragments that likely go back to Isaiah.^[64] Williamson noted in his study on the role of Isaiah 40–55 on the editing of 1–39 that 8:21–23a “has been compiled along exactly the same lines as those we suggested for 5:25–30,”^[65] namely, that “the redactor was responsible for giving [5:25–30] its new and present setting in the book”^[66] and comes closest to the thought and revisionary perspective, against what is in First Isaiah, to Deutero-Isaiah.^[67] Although scholars disagree on the dating of this passage, whether it is originally Isaianic or later,^[68] they agree that the way it has been edited and brought into its current position occurred later in the book’s history.^[69] Wherever these verses might have been initially in a collection of writings by First Isaiah, it is clear that they would not have been in their present position because they do not flow with the surrounding text and that the editor changed some of the wording to fit its new location in the text.

3.6 Isaiah 11:10–12:6

In his commentary on Isaiah 1–12, Wildberger notes that there has been an almost universal agreement in Isaiah scholarship that Isaiah 11:10–16 and all of chapter 12 do not come from First Isaiah.^[70] This depiction of the field was accurate up to the time Wildberger was working^[71] and it is still the current position within biblical studies.^[72] After considering all the reasons why scholars view 11:10–16 and chapter 12 as later additions to 2–11, Williamson shows that none of the objections raised by scholars allow a date of this material beyond the time of Deutero-Isaiah. Because 11:10–12:6 build upon 2–11 in ways similar in theme and content to the way that Isaiah 40–55 build on these earlier chapters as well as the other later additions to 2–11, and because they act as a literary bridge to 13–27 (highlighting their editorial nature), Williamson argues that they likely come from the same hand as the editor he identified for the other sections: Deutero-Isaiah himself.^[73] Even if Williamson is incorrect to state that these chapters were either edited or authored by Deutero-Isaiah, the point still stands that Isaiah 11:10–12:6 would not have been a part of the book of Isaiah before 600 BCE because they were written either by Deutero-Isaiah or a contemporary.

3.7 Isaiah 13–14

According to Williamson, most scholars generally date Isaiah 13, which they view as mostly a unified, discrete text, to right before the rise of Cyrus, king of Persia.^[74] He notes that some of the major attempts to connect this chapter with Isaiah of Jerusalem have failed because of the text’s references to the nations at play. The Medes, in particular, are depicted in a way in Isaiah 13 that does not comport with the time when Assyria was the dominant power in the Near East, but the prophecy also does not reflect what most likely took place during Cyrus’s reign ca. 539 BCE either.^[75] Isaiah 14 does not incorporate enough historical information for scholars to date it exactly, but the fact that the editor has joined it with chapter 13 means that the text refers to the king of Babylon. Williamson notes how the editorial material in Isaiah 14:1–4a and 22–23 make this connection explicit, therefore setting chapters 13–14 in this later context well after the life of Isaiah and into the sixth century, decades after the Lehite group are depicted as leaving Jerusalem.

Even at the minimum, based on the knowledge that we have about the growth of the book of Isaiah, a pre-exilic Israelite scribe or author would not have had access to the full text of Isaiah 2–14, or in the order it is found in the KJV. Although The Book of Mormon quotation of these chapters does vary from the source text, sometimes more than others—this also indicates a redactional and expansionistic approach in Smith’s quotation—it very rarely deletes text from Isaiah, for the most part preserving the text that is found in the KJV. Nephi would not have had available to him most or significant parts of Isaiah 2:1–5, 3:18–23, 4:2–6, 5:25–30, 8:21–23a, 11:10–12:6, or 13:1–14:32. Other verses could also be isolated and analyzed throughout Isaiah 2–14 that would not have been available to Nephi, but for the sake of both space and argument, these examples suffice to highlight the problem that this block quotation poses to simple explanations of the problem of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon. I will now turn to six examples of late additions to Isaiah 2–14 and 48–55 that scholars identify as either related to the circle that produced Isaiah 56–66 or, possibly, written by Third Isaiah himself as he redacted, and therefore rewrote, the book of Isaiah.

4. Third Isaiah in Isaiah 2–14 and 48–55

Recent scholarship has highlighted the probability that several of the late additions to Isaiah 2–14 and 48–55 were composed by the same author as the final redaction of Third Isaiah. The principal scholar proposing this argument has been Jacob Stromberg, whose 2011 publication Isaiah After Exile: The Author of Third Isaiah as Reader and Redactor of the Book has had a positive reception in the field since it was initially published.^[76] Likewise, Williamson incorporated Stromberg’s findings in the most recent volume of his commentary on Isaiah 1–27.^[77] Further problematizing the issue, this opens the possibility that more of Third Isaiah is in The Book of Mormon than just the verses already discussed in section 2, specifically in the block quotations of Isaiah 2–14 and 48–55 themselves. This also means that The Book of Mormon formally quotes material from Third Isaiah. I will now examine the sections of Isaiah 2–14 and 48–55 that Stromberg and Williamson have identified as Third Isaiah and their reasons for doing so.

4.1 Isaiah 4:2–6

As noted above, Isaiah 4:2–6, quoted in 2 Nephi 14, is not likely traceable to the historical Isaiah. According to Stromberg, Isaiah 4:2–6 is “a text almost universally regarded as much later than the prophet himself, and usually dated to at least as late as the post-exilic period.”^[78] Many of the studies published in the years leading up to Stromberg’s work pointed toward his argument that Isaiah 4:2–6 was composed by the final author of Third Isaiah.^[79] Most of these scholars asserted that Isaiah 60–62 influenced the author of Isaiah 4:2–6, but Stromberg emphasizes how the author of 60–62 developed these ideas and language to frame the beginning and end of Isaiah 56–66.^[80]

Those who reject a post-exilic dating for Isaiah 4:2–6, like J. J. M. Roberts,^[81] often fail to engage exhaustively with the reasons why most scholars do so. Roberts notes how the connection between Isaiah 3:16–4:1 and 4:2–6 “and the difficulty of analyzing the oracle as poetry have led many scholars to treat the oracle as a post-exilic insertion.”^[82] In fact, the arguments put forward for this view are far more robust than this. Marvin Sweeney, for example, provides at least four reasons outside of the two noted by Roberts to view 4:2–6 as post-exilic in origin.^[83] Sweeney notes that (1) the reference to “YHWH’s book of life” is now understood by scholars “as a late concept in Biblical literature,” (2) “the use of Exodus motifs is not characteristic of Isaiah of Jerusalem” but is an integral part of Deutero-Isaiah, (3) “the use of creation language, such as bara in v. 5, is characteristic of Deutero-Isaiah,” not Isaiah of Jerusalem, and (4) these verses are influenced by “an unmistakable priestly stamp which is not characteristic of Deutero-Isaiah but does appear in the Trito-Isaiah materials.”^[84] Due to these specific considerations in the development of biblical traditions and the uncharacteristic nature of the vocabulary and ideas to Isaiah of Jerusalem, Sweeney and most other scholars view Isaiah 4:2–6 as originating in the post-exilic period.^[85]

Important to our present purposes, those scholars who argue that Isaiah of Jerusalem wrote Isaiah 4:2–6 do so by reordering the verses. As Wildberger has noted, both Bernhard Stade and Karl Budde argued that the verses in Isaiah 4:2–4 are original but have them in the following order: after verse 1, it then goes verse 4, verse 3, and then verse 2. Verse 5 is, according to them, later than Isaiah of Jerusalem.^[86] This rearrangement suggests that even if we went with the minority view that some of the verses in 4:2–6 are original to Isaiah, they should be in a completely different order than found in 2 Nephi 14:2–6. The ordering throughout The Book of Mormon simply follows the KJV.

4.2 Isaiah 6:13b

Nephi’s quotation of Isaiah chapter 6 in 2 Nephi 16 includes the second half of verse 13. Stromberg was not the first to connect Third Isaiah with Isaiah 6:13, although he is the first to argue the relationship in detail and explore the possibility that Third Isaiah wrote 6:13.^[87] Sweeney also suggested this in an essay originally published in 1997, as did Willem Beuken in an essay in 1989.^[88] Berges notes how most scholars view Isaiah 6:12–13 as a late addition to the chapter, some arguing for up to four additions in these two verses.^[89] Berges argues convincingly that verses 12–13a are from only one hand and that a later redactor added 13b (“so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof,” KJV) with Isaiah 4:3 in mind.^[90] As we saw in section 4.1, Isaiah 4:2–6 is a late addition and, if we follow Stromberg’s argument, either written by Third Isaiah or one of his contemporaries.

According to Stromberg, after analyzing the connections between Isaiah 6:13b and the rest of Isaiah and finding that Isaiah 65:9 is the only text that clearly shares a relationship with this gloss, “it seems best to ascribe 6:13bb either to the same author who composed 65:9 or to a later imitator familiar with this passage.”^[91] Stromberg supports the former option by comparing how the author of Isaiah 57, Third Isaiah, alluded to and developed Isaiah chapter 6 in chapter 57 the same way the gloss does in Isaiah 6:13b. It would make sense, then, since Third Isaiah redacted the book that he would harmonize his addition and Isaiah 6:13b.

4.3 Isaiah 7:15

Again, as part of Nephi’s large block quotation of the early chapters of Isaiah, 2 Nephi 17 quotes Isaiah 7:15. In general, for decades, scholars have understood Isaiah 7:15 as a later addition to this chapter, meant to further elaborate on the sign in 7:14. Citing Paul Humbert, Wildberger noted that Isaiah 7 verses 14 and 16 followed what Humbert called “the biblical annunciation style,” or, as Wildberger preferred, “an annunciation oracle.”^[92] In this style or oracle formula, there are generally four elements: (1) a clause that begins with “behold” that announces pregnancy or birth; (2) a clause that “instructs the mother how to name the child”; (3) a clause introduced by “for” or “because” (כי, ki) that explains the name; and (4) supplementary information describing what the son will do.^[93] This is significant because Isaiah 7:14 and 7:16 follow this annunciation formula perfectly, but the structure is interrupted by 7:15. In every one of the other cases of the formula in the Hebrew Bible, “the naming element is immediately followed . . . by כי.”^[94]

The addition builds off both 7:16 and 7:22, initially appearing as a doublet of 7:16 because both texts state that the boy will learn “how to reject the bad and choose the good.”^[95] According to Stromberg, this combination of verses 16 and 22 in the interpolated material in verse 15 works “to project the sign into the future beyond the time of Ahaz.”^[96] Stromberg notes the close connections between 7:15 and Isaiah 4:3 and chapters 36–39, both of which Stromberg argues to have likely been the work of Third Isaiah.^[97] Although Stromberg notes, “That both 7 and 36–9 are so closely related, and that the sign in each has been edited to point beyond the circumstances of its respective narrative, seems beyond coincidence,”^[98] he concludes by stating that 7:15 is tentatively the work of Third Isaiah. In the end, whether one follows Stromberg’s arguments to their conclusion or not, 7:15 is a later addition to the chapter and would not have been included in a pre-exilic version of Isaiah 2–14.

4.4 Isaiah 11:10

The large block quotation of Isaiah in 2 Nephi includes Isaiah 11:10 as well. Stromberg argues that the author of Third Isaiah read Isaiah 11 and integrated the idea of a peaceful reign in verses 6–9, which is a later addition to 11:1–5,^[99] into his writing of Isaiah 65:25.^[100] Because of the evidence that Third Isaiah was reading Isaiah 11 and incorporating aspects of it into his composition well after the return from exile, Stromberg asks if it is also possible that the same author redacted chapter 11 and added verse 10. As Williamson recently noted, “The verse has to be a join between the two parts [i.e., 11:1–9 and 11–16], and so later than them both” because the depiction of a root as a signal or banner in verse 10 “can only be understood as the result of the welding together of figures from vv. 1 and 12.”^[101] Verse 10 therefore cannot be part of either 11:1–9 or 11:11–16 but instead works to bridge the two together as a later addition to the chapter.^[102]

In this light, then, Stromberg notes the following clear and unique links between Isaiah 11:10 and 65:25. In no other place in the Hebrew Bible do you find the concept of “rest place” and “my holy mountain” together, and these two sections of Isaiah are both explicitly connected to the idea of the Davidic covenant. Scholars have also understood the verse as an editorial addition commenting on the chapter because the verse begins with the formula “on that day,” which is generally understood to mean that it is a later addition, and verse 10 blends material from the first and second halves of the chapter.^[103] In all of the examples that Stromberg finds where Third Isaiah most likely wrote the later additions to parts of Isaiah 1–39 or 40–55, he notes that Third Isaiah’s actions as an editor are related to the ways that he reads these earlier chapters of Isaiah and incorporates them into his writing. In this example, Isaiah 11:10 builds on 11:12 the same way that sections of Third Isaiah (Isaiah 56:8 and 66:18–20) built on 11:12 by being more inclusive concerning the nations than the earlier authors in Isaiah had been.^[104] Williamson accepts Stromberg’s thesis and notes that “Within the major redactional phases in the growth of the book of Isaiah which I identify, this verse may be set among the last.”^[105]

4.5 Isaiah 48:1, 19b, 22

A smaller block quotation of Isaiah 48 appears in 1 Nephi 21. Stromberg and several other scholars have noted that Isaiah 48:22 is an additional verse added to the end of Isaiah 40–48 to connect this part of the book to what comes later. Specifically, they view Isaiah 48:22 as an editorial insertion that builds on Isaiah 57:21, part of Third Isaiah.^[106] Stromberg shows how the dichotomy between salvation for the righteous and the wicked, found only in Isaiah 48:22 and nowhere else in Deutero-Isaiah, develops Isaiah 40–48 in the same way that Isaiah 57 does. That “there is nothing in Isaiah 48:20–21 that prepares for the same statement in 48:22” is telling^[107] and supports the notion that the verse is a later addition that tries to temper the universalizing views on salvation in Isaiah 40–48. Accordingly, Stromberg views this verse as having been added by the author of Isaiah 57 since they both build on and revise Isaiah 40–48 in the same way.

4.6 Isaiah 54:17b

The Book of Mormon also includes a citation of Isaiah 54 in 3 Nephi 22.^[108] Several scholars in recent decades have viewed Isaiah 54:11–17 as a later addition to the chapter that stems from historical groups contemporary to Third Isaiah.^[109] Stromberg focuses only on verse 17b and agrees with Odil Hannes Steck that verses 1–16 share a great deal with Isaiah 40–55 in general, but that 17b has some significant variations that go against the norms in Deutero-Isaiah.^[110] Primarily, in every place the term “servant” is found in Isaiah 40–55, it is in the singular except for in Isaiah 54:17b. On the other hand, every time the phrase is found in Isaiah 56–66, it is always in the plural, “servants of the Lord,” as found in 54:17b. After examining the arguments about the composition of chapter 54, Stromberg notes that verses 1–16 could still be a later hand than Deutero-Isaiah, but that 17b itself is connected to Third Isaiah, and, since it is generally viewed as an editorial addition, it makes sense to view this as having been added by Third Isaiah.

Conclusion

Although the problem of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon has been a part of Mormon studies since its beginning as an academic subfield, scholars have yet to fully incorporate biblical scholarship into their work on this crucial issue. Prior work has attempted to isolate the problem of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon as only regarding the dating of Deutero-Isaiah. Attempts to understand this issue have not involved more direct engagement with continuing contemporary scholarship on Isaiah. Relatedly, very few attempts to further identify the influence of all of Isaiah on The Book of Mormon have been carried out in the last several decades. This paper invites those engaged in the study of The Book of Mormon to not remain in isolation but to broaden their studies by incorporating different methods, fields, and approaches to locating and analyzing the influence of the Bible on The Book of Mormon. This influence is crucial to understanding the content, message, and composition of the book.

Further, attention to Isaianic scholarship and its relation to the dating of the block quotations of Isaiah 2–14 and 48–55 in The Book of Mormon complicates the normative approach to explaining the quotation of these chapters. The Book of Mormon not only dates them to the pre-exilic period, but it also assumes that before 600 BCE, the book of Isaiah was in its present form and had been well-known and accepted scripture as it is in the KJV, or close to it. Isaiah 2–14 would have been a far shorter text in the pre-exilic period than what is cited in 2 Nephi 12–24. Scholarship on Isaiah broadly speaking has identified numerous verses in both Isaiah 2–14 and 48–55 that date well after Deutero-Isaiah. If Stromberg’s thesis is to be adopted, some of these were composed during the redactional process of the book by the final author of Third Isaiah or one of his contemporaries. This evidence, blended with what we know about how other parts of The Book of Mormon utilize biblical texts,^[111] suggests that the author of The Book of Mormon only knew the book of Isaiah as it is found in the KJV.

One of the most important implications of a fresh view of this scholarship is a reconsideration of the influence of Third Isaiah on The Book of Mormon. Until now, the consensus has been that Third Isaiah was missing entirely from The Book of Mormon. In this paper, I have identified several verses in The Book of Mormon that are dependent on Third Isaiah. 2 Nephi 4:33 and 9:14 allude to Isaiah 61:10 for the phrase “robe of righteousness.” 2 Nephi 28:32, Jacob 5:47, and Jacob 6:4 allude to Isaiah 65:2 but are mediated through Romans 10:21, further problematizing the dating and dependence of these Book of Mormon passages on Third Isaiah. 2 Nephi 31:19, Alma 7:14, and Alma 34:18 allude to the description that God is “mighty to save,” originally from Isaiah 63:1. The author of these verses knew both Third Isaiah and New Testament passages dependent on Isaiah 63:1. We can no longer say that Third Isaiah did not influence the composition of The Book of Mormon or that Third Isaiah cannot be found within the book.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

^[1] John F. A. Sawyer, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

^[2] Steve Moyise and Maarten J. J. Menken, eds., Isaiah in the New Testament (London: T&T Clark, 2005).

^[3] I refer to the 1830 printing of The Book of Mormon, just as other early Americanists do, when describing the text throughout this essay. My focus is on The Book of Mormon as a part of the print culture of the early national period of US history, and I recognize it as a major site where scholars of Mormon studies can more fully interact with other fields in the academy. See Joseph Smith Jr., The Book of Mormon (Palmyra: E. B. Grandin, 1830); Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, eds., Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

^[4] H. Grant Vest, “The Problem of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1938). There were earlier treatments and acknowledgements of the “problem,” including by B. H. Roberts and Sidney B. Sperry. However, Vest’s stands, in my opinion, as the first formal, sophisticated discussion of the issue in an academic setting.

^[5] See Sidney Brenton Sperry, “The Text of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon” (master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1926); H. Grant Vest, “The Problem of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon”; Sidney B. Sperry, Answers to Book of Mormon Questions (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967), 73–97; Wayne Ham, “A Textual Comparison of the Isaiah Passages in The Book of Mormon With the Same Passages in the St. Mark’s Isaiah Scroll of the Dead Sea Community” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1961); Gary L. Bishop, “The Tradition of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974); John A. Tvedtnes, The Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon (Provo: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1981); Carol F. Ellertson, “The Isaiah Passages in the Book of Mormon: A Non-Aligned Text” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 2001); David P. Wright, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon: Or Joseph Smith in Isaiah,” in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, edited by Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 157–234; Ronald V. Huggins, “Joseph Smith’s ‘Inspired Translation’ of Romans 7,” in The Prophet Puzzle: Interpretive Essays on Joseph Smith, edited by Bryan Waterman (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 199), 259–87; Dana M. Pike and David Rolph Seely, “‘Upon All the Ships of the Sea, and Upon All the Ships of Tarshish’: Revisiting 2 Nephi 12:16 and Isaiah 2:16,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 2 (2005): 12–25, 67–71; Joseph M. Spencer, “Isaiah 52 in the Book of Mormon: Notes on Isaiah’s Reception History,” Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception 6, no. 2 (2016): 189–217; and Joseph M. Spencer, “Nephi, Isaiah, and Europe,” in Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah: 2 Nephi 26–27, edited by Joseph M. Spencer and Jenny Webb, 2nd ed. (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute Press, 2016), 19–35.

^[6] There is at least one exception to this rule. See Wesley P. Walters, The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1990). Some reviewers criticized Walters for including analysis on The Book of Mormon’s use of the New Testament, but this is a strength of his master’s thesis. The Book of Mormon blends phrases from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The way the Bible influences The Book of Mormon cannot be analyzed unless scholars consider both. See John A. Tvedtnes, review of The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon, by Wesley P. Walters,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 4, no. 1 (1992): 228ff.

^[7] There are two exceptions to this. See Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 69; and Joseph M. Spencer, The Vision of All: Twenty-five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2016), 21. Both Hardy and Spencer point out how scholarship on Isaiah problematizes the availability of Isaiah 2–14 to characters of The Book of Mormon.

^[8] Johann Christoph Döderlein, Esaias ex Recensione Textus Hebraei (Altorfi: Officina Schupfeliana, 1775); and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, Einleitung ins Alte Testament, 5 vols. (Leipzig: Weidmanns Erben and Reich, 1780–1783).

^[9] Although the theory proposed by these eighteenth-century scholars broadly argued that a later author wrote all of chapters 40–66 during the sixth century, Eichhorn believed that he could extract more “inauthentic” material from chapters 1–39 as well. Christopher R. Seitz, “Isaiah, Book of (First Isaiah),” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 3: H–J, edited by David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 473.

^[10] S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons, 1910).

^[11] Driver, Literature of the Old Testament, 230–246. See John Goldingay and David Payne, Isaiah 40–55, Volume 1: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, International Critical Commentary (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2006), 1n2.

^[12] Bernhard Duhm, Das Buch Jesaja (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892). Duhm would change his position to separate the three sections to 1–39, 40–57, and 58–66 in the third edition (1914) of the commentary. See Øystein Lund, Way Metaphors and Way Topics in Isaiah 40–55, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe, 28 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 25n86.

^[13] While some scholars deny the idea that there is a Third Isaiah, the vast majority of scholarship on this question accepts the notion that there is a broad, tripartite division in the composition history of Isaiah: a Proto-, Deutero-, and Trito-Isaiah. However, all major scholars on Isaiah view chapters 40–66 as written well after 600 BCE. See Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969); Goldingay and Payne, Isaiah 40–55, 1; J. J. M. Roberts, First Isaiah: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 2–3; and Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 28–39: A Continental Commentary, translated by Thomas H. Trapp (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 496ff. Two of the most relevant scholars who see chapters 40–66 as still later than 1–39 but written by a single author include Benjamin D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66, Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998), 187–95; and Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, The Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 12.

^[14] Cf. Kent P. Jackson, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon,” in A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine and Church History, edited by Laura Harris Hales (Provo: Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University and Deseret Book Company, 2016), 69–78.

^[15] Vest, “Problem of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon,” 230.

^[16] See footnote 32.

^[17] Sidney B. Sperry, Our Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Stevens & Wallis, Inc., 1948), 110.

^[18] Smith, The Book of Mormon, 70–71.

^[19] All quotations from the Bible are from the KJV unless otherwise noted.

^[20] Westermann notes Isaiah 44:23 as an example of this kind of song in Deutero-Isaiah. See Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 371. Joseph Blenkinsopp provides this longer list: 42:10–13; 44:23; 45:8; 49:13, and to cf. 12:1–6. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56–66: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible Commentary, 19b (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 230.

^[21] Smith, The Book of Mormon, 80.

^[22] It is noteworthy that Smith also used the terminology from these sources in Doctrine and Covenants 29:12 and 109:76. See Michael Hubbard MacKay, et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 179; and Brent M. Rogers, et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 5: October 1835–January 1838 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2017), 206n139.

^[23] I made the connection to 2 Nephi 9:14 independent of the Joseph Smith Papers editors in the previous note.

^[24] Smith, The Book of Mormon, 80.

^[25] Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 30.

^[26] The KJV of the beginning of 2 Corinthians 5:10 reads, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. . . .”

^[27] See J. Ross Wagner, “Isaiah in Romans and Galatians,” in Isaiah in the New Testament, edited by Steve Moyise and Maarten J. J. Menken (London: T&T Clark International, 2005), 124–25; and Steve Moyise, Evoking Scripture: Seeing the Old Testament in the New (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 33–34n5.

^[28] Isaiah 65:2a reads, “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people,” whereas Romans 10:21 reads, “But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”

^[29] Smith, The Book of Mormon, 115.

^[30] It is common for Smith, and other early Americans, to not remember the exact wording of a biblical source text but retain the main idea and vocabulary within their allusions. One example found in a handful of Smith’s texts is at the end of Doctrine and Covenants section 4. I have argued elsewhere that in the earliest version, Smith likely realized that he could not remember exactly the list of virtues in 2 Peter 1:5. After a failed attempt, he left a placeholder, “&c,” which was then published in The Book of Commandments (1833) and subsequently updated to reflect the wording in 2 Peter 1:5 in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. See Michael Hubbard MacKay, et al, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 13.

^[31] Smith, The Book of Mormon, 139.

^[32] I am not the first to note the connection between at least one of the three links to Isaiah 65:2 in The Book of Mormon. Brent Metcalfe independently identified this same influence back in the 1980s, decades before my work. At the Sunstone Symposium in 1988, Metcalfe described his forthcoming edited collection New Approaches to the Book of Mormon in a presentation entitled “Chiasmus as Necessary Proof of Ancient Semitic Origins of the Book of Mormon.” In the course of giving the presentation, Metcalfe mentioned the intertextual connection between Jacob 6:4 and Isaiah 65:2 and how it is through Paul’s epistle to the Romans that Third Isaiah influenced Jacob 6:4. See Brent Lee Metcalfe, ed., New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), though Metcalfe’s published paper was ultimately on a different topic. For the presentation, see “New Approaches to the Book of Mormon,” Sunstone, Jan. 1, 1988, available in audio form at https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/new-approaches-to-the-book-of-mormon/. Metcalfe describes the connection just after the 48-minute mark.

^[33] The quotation is found in 2 Nephi 31:1.

^[34] 2 Nephi 31:19. Smith, The Book of Mormon, 120.

^[35] Smith, The Book of Mormon, 240–41.

^[36] Smith, The Book of Mormon, 320.

^[37] Bernhard Duhm, Das Buch Jesaja übersetzt und erklärt, 4th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1922).

^[38] While discussing “literary continuity” between the different parts of Isaiah, Kent Jackson recently stated that, “In fact, the literary variations within chapters 1–35 are such that if one wanted to, one could argue for multiple authors within that section alone.” Jackson, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon,” 74. The problem is that this is not hypothetical; scholars have been making this exact argument since the eighteenth century.

^[39] H. G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).

^[40] Roberts, First Isaiah, 3.

^[41] Roberts argues that Isaiah 2:1 was added as a bridge to connect Isaiah 1:29–31, even though most scholars think that chapter 1 was added as part of the latest redaction of the book as a whole, well into the post-exilic period. See Roberts, First Isaiah, 35. Williamson argues that the author of Deutero-Isaiah added Isaiah 2:1 as the heading of the book as it was in the late exilic period, before the return of the Israelites from Babylon. See Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 153.

^[42] Roberts, First Isaiah, 35.

^[43] Cf. Hans Walter Wolff, Micah: A Commentary, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990), 116–18. Gary Stansell leaves it as a given that critical scholarship has isolated Micah 4:1–4 as a later addition to the book. Gary Stansell, Micah and Isaiah: A Form and Tradition Historical Comparison, SBL Dissertation Series 85 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 7. Berges has noted, “the post-exilic origin of Isa. 2.2–4/Mic. 4.1–3 is nearly universally accepted,” in Ulrich F. Berges, The Book of Isaiah: Its Composition and Final Form, Hebrew Bible Monographs 46 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012), 61. These scholars note that Wildberger is an outlier, believing that Isaiah 2:2–4 is original. See Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 85–87. Williamson notes that “a very early post-exilic date is favoured by a number of the most recent studies of the passage.” Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 148.

^[44] Cf. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 149. As Williamson has noted in his commentary, though, fragment 1of 4QIsae of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) complicates this notion by agreeing with both the Masoretic Text (MT; the traditional Hebrew Bible) of Micah instead of Isaiah, as well as varying from the standard text and Micah in its own way. H. G. M. Williamson, Isaiah 1–5: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, International Critical Commentary (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2006), 166.

^[45] Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 146. Roberts accepts 2:5, as he does 2:2–4, as being original Isaiah but fails to engage critically with all of the major points brought up by Williamson, Blenkinsopp, Berges, and others. Cf. Roberts, First Isaiah, 44.

^[46] Otto Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), 56; Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 84; Berger, The Book of Isaiah, 60–61.

^[47] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 147, contra Roberts, First Isaiah, 60. Roberts offers an argument similar to one made by H. Barth in 1977. Williamson responds exhaustively to Barth’s argument (Williams, The Book Called Isaiah, 139), but Roberts does not engage with Williamson—or any of the other numerous scholars on this point besides Wildberger—in his argument that these verses are original. Berges, The Book of Isaiah, 69, notes the obvious textual problems in the traditional Hebrew Bible (MT) and the different versions, showing how 1QIsaa of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) resolves the issue by adding the word “shame.” Roberts takes this reading as a given rather than dealing with the textual problems. According to Roberts, “MT seems clearly defective,” but this is right at the point of the literary seam. Roberts, First Isaiah, 60.

^[48] Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 288; Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 79; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 201; Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 147f. Sweeney says that “3:16–24 could have been composed at any time” (Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 110), demonstrating at least a slight shift from his earlier thinking that all of Isaiah 3:16–4:1 was Isaianic (Sweeney, Isaiah 1–4 and the Post-Exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Traditions, 178, 181).

^[49] Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 288.

^[50] Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 238.

^[51] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 148–51; Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 79–80.

^[52] Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 286.

^[53] Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 286; Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 147.

^[54] Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 290.

^[55] The following all view Isaiah 4:2–6 as a later addition: George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912), 77; Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 85; Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 165; Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 143; Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 110–11; Berges, The Book of Isaiah, 69; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 204; Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 305–06; Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 174–83; Roberts, First Isaiah, 67.

^[56] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 147, 164.

^[57] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 164.

^[58] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 165. Cf. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 204, develops some of Wildberger’s points even further and shows how “We are . . . justified in suspecting that this kind of language is presenting an idealization of the specific form of temple community existing in the province of Judah under Iranian rule (sixth to fourth century B.C.E.).”

^[59] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 165.

^[60] Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 305n13.

^[61] In biblical scholarship, it is common to call both the text and the potential author Third Isaiah.

^[62] Roberts, First Isaiah, 85.

^[63] Gray, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 95; Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 96, 110–11; Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 194f.; Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 132; Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 195; Berges, The Book of Isaiah, 75; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 211, 217, 221–22.

^[64] Gray believed that it was three separate fragments. Gray, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 157. Cf. Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 378–79.

^[65] Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 140.

^[66] Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 134.

^[67] Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 140–43.

^[68] Wildberger made a convincing case for its origins with Isaiah. Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 378–79.

^[69] See Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 244–45.

^[70] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 489, 502.

^[71] Cf. Driver, Literature of the Old Testament, 210–11; Gray, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 223; Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 262, 269–70.

^[72] Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 204 (but see H. G. M. Williamson, “The Theory of a Josianic Edition of the First Part of the Book of Isaiah: A Critical Examination,” in Studies in Isaiah: History, Theology, and Reception, edited by Tommy Wasserman, Greger Andersson, and David Willgren [London: Bloomsbury, 2017], 3–21); Berger, The Book of Isaiah, 113–14; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 266–68; Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 5, 84–86; Williamson, Isaiah 6–12, 669–70, 687–89.

^[73] Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 118–23, 141–43.

^[74] Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 158.

^[75] Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 158n5.

^[76] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile.

^[77] H. G. M. Williamson, Isaiah 6–12: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, International Critical Commentary (London: T&T Clark, 2018).

^[78] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 174.

^[79] For instance, as noted above, Sweeney’s fourth argument for dating Isaiah 4:2–6 as post-exilic. Others include Blenkinsopp, who, after noting that some of the language in 4:2–6 best connects to Isaiah 66:15–16, states that “all of this highly charged language projecting a future very different from the unsatisfactory present is in keeping with the perspective of the last few chapters of the book,” i.e., Third Isaiah. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 204. Stromberg notes others in Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 175n114.

^[80] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 176.

^[81] Roberts, First Isaiah, 67–68.

^[82] Roberts, First Isaiah, 67.

^[83] Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–4 and the Post-Exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Tradition, Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 171 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), 179–81. Cf. Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 174.

^[84] Sweeney, Isaiah 1–4, 179–180.

^[85] See also Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 143–44; and Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 203–04; and Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 205–15; and Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 164–65; and Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 85; and Berges, The Book of Isaiah, 69–70.

^[86] Stade wrote in 1884 and Budde in 1932. Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 164.

^[87] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 160–74.

^[88] Cited in Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 161n53. The essay was republished in Marvin A. Sweeney, Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 45 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 46–62. Sweeney briefly notes the connection on p. 56. W. A. M. Beuken, “Does Trito-Isaiah Reject the Temple? An Intertextual Inquiry into Isa. 66:1–6,” in Intertextuality in Biblical Writings: Essays in Honour of Bas van Iersel, edited by Sipke Draisma (Kampen: Uitgeversmaatschappij J. H. Kok), 53–66.

^[89] Berges, The Book of Isaiah, 87. Stromberg also notes that the following scholars view 13b as a later gloss: Beuken, Blenkinsopp, Childs, Clements, Duhm, Gray, Kaiser, Marti, Skinner, Barthel, Emerton, and Williamson. Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 161. As J. A. Emerton notes, “There thus seems to be a contrast, or even a contradiction, between the total disaster of which the beginning of the verse speaks and the hope that is implied at the end.” Emerton, “The Translation and Interpretation of Isaiah vi.13,” in Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: Essays in honour of E.I.J. Rosenthal, edited by J. A. Emerton and Stefan C. Reif (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 86.

^[90] Berges, The Book of Isaiah, 88.

^[91] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 164.

^[92] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 307.

^[93] Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 307.

^[94] Williamson, Isaiah 6–12, 163–164, nt. 70.

^[95] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 223.

^[96] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 224.

^[97] See Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 174–183, 205–222.

^[98] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 227.

^[99] Gray views all of Isaiah 11:1–16 as at least late or post-exilic. Gray, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 214–15, 223.

^[100] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 101–09.

^[101] Williamson, Isaiah 6–12, 669.

^[102] Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 262; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 266–67; Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 463; Jongkyung Lee, A Redactional Study of the Book of Isaiah 13–23 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 164n2.

^[103] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 184–85.

^[104] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 191.

^[105] Williamson, Isaiah 6–12, 670.

^[106] Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 205; Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah, 210–11; Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 304; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55, 286f.; Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 230; Berges, The Book of Isaiah, 310.

^[107] Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 230.

^[108] Nephi quotes Isaiah 48:1–52:2 and 55:1–2. If Nephi had these chapters, then he presumably would have had chapter 54 by implication.

^[109] Cf. Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 245n63.

^[110] Odil Hannes Steck, Gottesknecht und Zion: Gesammelte Aufsätze zu Deuterojesaja (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 111–12, 124, 170–71. Cited in Stromberg, Isaiah After Exile, 245.

^[111] See Colby Townsend, “‘Behold, Other Scriptures I Would that Ye Should Write’: Malachi in the Book of Mormon,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 51, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 103–37; and David P. Wright, “‘In Plain Terms that We May Understand’: Joseph Smith’s Transformation of Hebrews in Alma 12–13,” in New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology, edited by Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 165–229; and Wright, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon,” 157–234. The way The Book of Mormon uses biblical texts is similar to what we find in the revelations Smith dictated during his lifetime, most of which are now in the various versions of the Doctrine and Covenants in the churches based on Smith’s restoration movement. For a complete analysis of these from 1828–1830, see Colby Townsend, “Rewriting Eden with the Book of Mormon: Joseph Smith and the Reception of Genesis 1–6 in Early America” (master’s thesis, Utah State University, 2019), 75–131.

[post_title] => “The Robe of Righteousness”: Exilic and Post-Exilic Isaiah in The Book of Mormon [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 55.3 (Fall 2022): 75-106
As a contribution to the larger project of examining the King James Bible’s influence on The Book of Mormon, this essay focuses on several aspects of the problem of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon as they relate to the more significant issue. I will focus on two problems with the use of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon. First, previous scholarship has assumed that none of Third Isaiah has had any effect on the text of The Book of Mormon and the Isaiah chapters it quotes [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-robe-of-righteousness-exilic-and-post-exilic-isaiah-in-the-book-of-mormon [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-09-28 15:53:54 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-09-28 15:53:54 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=30749 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 28733 [post_author] => 2994 [post_date] => 2021-12-10 20:57:15 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-12-10 20:57:15 [post_content] =>

Introduction

Despite its alleged antiquity, jutting back centuries before the Common Era, and its predominant setting in the Americas, the Book of Mormon contains several Matthean and Lukan additions to Mark made in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. Scholarly consensus in biblical studies today is that the Gospel of Mark was written circa 65 CE, then Matthew and Luke were written in the 70s–90s approximately, and their anonymous authors both expanded and contracted Mark here or there as they reshaped it.^[1] One of these add-ons, Matthew 27:51b–53 KJV, describes the earthquake, rent rocks, opened graves, and resurrection of “many bodies of the saints” who “appeared unto many” in the aftermath of the crucifixion and Jesus’ own empty tomb. The retelling of this same story in the Book of Mormon is no accidental anachronism (Helaman 14:21–25; 3 Nephi 8:6–19, 10:9–10, 23:6–14). It reflects the way that the Book of Mormon intervened in early US debates about the reliability of the Bible. The chronological priority of the Gospel of Matthew over Mark was still assumed throughout most of the 1800s. But Matthew’s added details about the resurrection faced a problem, nevertheless. Commentators had noted that the verses seemed to be missing from Mark and Luke as well as John. What was worse, this and other exegetical observations had been hijacked, and the passage derisively challenged, in Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason; Paine wrote the three installments of the Age of Reason in France, but he published the third in New York City, and compendium editions were reprinted there too into the 1820s.^[2] Matthew 27:51b–53 was among the numerous passages in the Bible that Paine attacked. Many Christians felt that all of holy writ was under siege. Joseph Smith, a scrying treasure-hunter from Palmyra, New York, on the Erie Canal, came to the rescue, as did those more qualified. The unlikely apologist did not try to meet reason with more reason in the form of another learned commentary or refutation of the deist “Mr. Paine.” Instead Smith shored up revealed religion with more revelation in the form of another bible, one that was recorded by Israelite-American prophets and apostles, then buried in the ground for hundreds of years, and finally translated “by the gift and power of God” (Book of Mormon title page; Testimony of Three Witnesses; see also D&C 1:29, 20:8), hence safe from any manuscript corruption or translation error.^[3] Smith’s solution to the problem of Matthew 27:51b-53 is a prime example of how he endeavored to save the Christian scriptures from skeptics. On the whole, the biblical apologetic thrust of the Book of Mormon should be obvious (1 Nephi 13:39–40; 2 Nephi 3:11–13; D&C 20:11), and the general thesis, that one of the functions of Smith’s text was to defend the Old and New Testaments against threats such as deism, is quite widely accepted.^[4] There is also a longstanding tendency, however, for Smith’s corroboration of the Bible to be minimized by his text’s role as new scripture and its status as blasphemy against the Christian canon (see already 2 Nephi 29).^[5] My contribution builds on the general thesis and highlights the intricate if gaudy armor Smith hammered out to protect Protestant Christianity against Paine’s battering of Matthew 27:51b-53, a passage they and their contemporaries thought was absent from the other gospels—not added to Mark by Matthew—on the venerably wrong assumption that Matthew was the first evangelist and an apostolic eyewitness.^[6] To be explicit about what I myself am postulating, in this article I connect three literary occurrences that stretch from the late 1600s to the early 1800s, namely, (1) the writing and publication of a few influential British commentaries, (2) Paine’s theological works, and (3) responses to the “arch-infidel” in England and America including the Book of Mormon.^[7] I understand these occurrences to have a loosely reactionary link, not just a heuristic connection. Whether directly or indirectly, the exegetes influenced Paine, who in turn provoked replies. As for Smith, the business of his sources is doubly fraught since he dictated his “translation” of the golden plates in what could be termed an altered state of consciousness while gazing into a folk-magic peep stone. Smith may have regularly relied on memory for his use of the Bible, although hefty quotations from the KJV strongly suggest that he had a copy in front of him now and then.^[8] At any rate, he was not interacting with the KJV in a vacuum; he was also interacting with the Christian and deist thought of his day. How, exactly, Smith was exposed to that thought, as a semi-educated farm laborer and “money digger,” will remain unknown. Much of the exposure may have been face-to-face in verbal exchanges with relatives and acquaintances during the years leading up to his dictation of the Book of Mormon. Even if he was not familiar with the very exegetical and apologetic literature that I cite, it is representative, and his text can be compared and contrasted with it to great value. I push more for Smith’s familiarity with Paine which I think is unavoidable—whether or not he was always aware of responding to him, given the nature of religious experience.^[9]

From Biblical Commentaries to the Age of Reason

Paine’s challenge to Matthew 27:51b-53 did not come out of nowhere. English exegetes were both interrogating the pericope and defending it against infidels before him. Paine popularized and also radicalized an ongoing discussion and debate. In the British-American theological culture that Paine (1737–1809) and then Smith (1805–1844) shared, some of the most influential biblical commentaries were those by the Presbyterian nonconformist Matthew Poole (1624–1679), the Arminian Daniel Whitby (1638–1726), the Presbyterian nonconformist Matthew Henry (1662–1714), and the Congregationalist nonconformist Philip Doddrige (1702–1751).^[10] They were a mixed bag of potential vulnerability and antagonism to freethought. It was openly acknowledged in these commentaries that Mark, Luke, and John did not contain any accounts of the Matthean earthquake, rent rocks, opened graves, and resurrected saints at or around Jesus’ death. Moreover, a spate of perplexing interpretive issues was discussed but without clear resolution, chiefly who the nameless saints were, who saw them, whether they were raised from the dead prior to or following the resurrection of Jesus, and whether they had ascended to heaven or re-entered the ground to await the eschaton.^[11] The exegetes also had to fight off incredulity about Matthew’s unique account. As Henry described the problematic passage: “This matter is not related so fully as our curiosity would wish; for the scripture was not intended to gratify that; . . . . We may raise many inquiries concerning it, which we cannot resolve . . . .” In sum: “We must not covet to be wise above what is written. The relating of this matter so briefly, is a plain intimation to us, that we must not look that way for a confirmation of our faith.”^[12] Henry’s disapproval of curiosity and covetous wisdom was a tacit reply to probing rationalist critiques at the dawn of the Enlightenment, and his disclosure that Christian belief might need to be confirmed was an involuntary admission of their vigor.^[13] Doddridge, in his commentary, did not resort to laments. He struck back and was pleased to say that “a deist lately travelling through Palestine was converted, by viewing one of these rocks,” that is, the rent rocks of Matthew 27:51b, “which still remains torn asunder, not in the weakest place, but cross the veins; a plain proof that it was done in a supernatural manner.”^[14] This was the stage onto which British expatriate Thomas Paine stepped as the first two parts of his Age of Reason were published in 1794 and 1795. He challenged Matthew 27:51b-53 in the second part, turning the observations of the biblical commentators against them at length.^[15] Paine devoted more space to those few verses than almost any others from the Old or New Testament. He began with the silence of the rest of the evangelists. Confusing Mark and Luke as apostles, he thought they and John could not have ignored the earthquake and the rending of the rocks; they had to be there with Matthew. More momentous was what happened after the tremor:

An earthquake is always possible, and natural, and proves nothing; but this opening of the graves is supernatural, and in point to their doctrine, their cause, and their apostleship. Had it been true, it would have filled up whole chapters of those books, and been the chosen theme, and general chorus of all the writers; but instead of this, little and trivial things, and mere prattling conversations of, he said this, and she said that, are often tediously detailed, while this most important of all, had it been true, is passed off in a slovenly manner, by a single dash of the pen, and that by one writer only, and not so much as hinted at by the rest.^[16]

Paine then satirized the interpretive issues surrounding the appearance of the awakened dead in Matthew 27:52–53. He accused the first evangelist of being a liar and a poor one at that:

The writer of the book of Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the city, and what became of them afterwards, and who it was that saw them; for he is not hardy enough to say that he saw them himself;—whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he-saints and she-saints; . . . whether they remained on earth, and followed their former occupations of preaching or working; or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive, and buried themselves. Strange indeed, that an army of saints should return to life, and nobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have any thing to tell us! Had it been the prophets who (as we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, they must have had a great deal to say. They could have told us everything, and we should have had posthumous prophecies, with notes and commentaries upon the first, a little better at least than we have now. Had it been Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua, and Samuel, and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained in all Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the times then present, every body would have known them, and they would have out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. But instead of this, these saints are made to pop up like Jonah’s gourd in the night, for no purpose at all, but to wither in the morning. Thus much for this part of the story.^[17]

Paine’s challenge merged a large dose of mockery and a swift indictment for lying. But the two main features of his critique were already in the commentaries. First was the trouble of the missing earthquake, rent rocks, opened graves, and resurrected saints, all absent from Mark, Luke, and John. Second was the trouble of the limited information in Matthew, yielding the inquiries of who the awakened dead were, whom they appeared to, and where they went after their appearance. The skeptic did not just exacerbate a well-known exegetical problem, however. He also maintained, with a jeer, that if the risen saints were to be identified among the prophets and other heroes of the Old Testament, one of the options in the commentaries, there should be “posthumous prophecies” on record from these pre-Christians. Paine developed this more earnestly when he augmented the first two parts of his Age of Reason with a third, under the title Examination of the Passages in the New Testament, Quoted from the Old, and Called Prophecies Concerning Jesus Christ. It was published in New York City in 1807. As he rejected centuries of christological veiling over Jewish scripture, all the way back to the Gospel of Matthew’s fulfillment citations, Paine inadvertently called for a retro-prophecy of the events in Matthew 27:51b-53 and of the darkness in Mark as well:

Matthew concludes his book by saying, that when Christ expired on the cross, the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the bodies of many of the saints arose; and Mark says there was darkness over the land from the fifth hour until the ninth. They produce no prophesy [sic] for this. But had these things been facts, they would have been a proper subject for prophesy, because none but an almighty power could have inspired a fore knowledge of them, and afterwards fulfilled them. Since, then, there is no such prophesy . . . , the proper deduction is, there were no such things, and that the book of Matthew is fable and falsehood.^[18]

Paine’s full critique of Matthew, then, hinged not only on the lack of multiple attestation for the evangelist’s individual claims, nor solely on the questions of the identity of the resurrected saints and so forth, but also on the fact that, unlike Matthew’s fulfilment citations, these events were not supported by Old Testament prophecy. To be sure, Paine did not believe any Jewish scripture had been fulfilled in the life of Jesus. He did not expect anyone to compose the wanting prognostication for Matthew 27:51b-53 either. That is what happened, though, some twenty years later, when another resident of New York, Joseph Smith, dictated the Book of Mormon as a translation of prophetic records from the ancient Americas, imagined to be Israelite-Christian. Smith’s text would present a partial solution to the tripartite problem.^[19]

Responses to Paine before Smith

The Age of Reason was widely discussed. Between the publication of its three installments and the publication of the Book of Mormon, scores of biblical commentators and other defenders of holy writ were replying to Paine. The vast majority of them were responding to the first two installments, not the third, and only a portion sought to answer his challenge to the passage in Matthew 27: the Anglican Richard Watson (1737–1816), Bishop of Llandaff, Wales; the outwardly Anglican but inwardly evangelical Thomas Scott (1747–1821); and the Presbyterian Elias Boudinot (1740–1821), a US politician and future head of the American Bible Society.^[20] Their responses are valuable for the contrast they provide to Smith as much as for the comparanda. About Paine’s contention that there should be more accounts of the opened graves and resurrected saints besides Matthew’s, Bishop Watson assumed Matthean priority and said that the “omission” of events by the second and third evangelists “does not prove, that they were either ignorant of them, or disbelieved them.” The other synoptic writers’ selective retelling of Matthew 27 may be explained from their different audiences and purposes. If the people to whom the saints had appeared were themselves alive when Matthew wrote, subsequently they may have been deceased when Mark and Luke came to write—no need to reiterate the appearance, then. As for the fourth gospel, it was intentionally “supplemental.” Furthermore, the bishop averred, Matthew could not have been mendacious because the Jews he was writing to witnessed what did and did not transpire in Jerusalem; he could not have risked being constantly confronted, so the earthquake, rent rocks, opened graves, and resurrected saints had to be the truth.^[21] Scott applied similar logic to Mark, Luke, and John: “Matthew is generally allowed to have written before the other evangelists; had they not therefore credited his account of the miracles attending Christ’s death, they would have contradicted it: for the circumstances he related were of so extraordinary and public a nature, that they could not have escaped detection, had they been false.”^[22] Boudinot likewise stated the events were “capable of immediate contradiction and refutation, had they not been known to be true.”^[23] About Paine’s contention that the Matthean account of the awakened dead itself should be longer, Watson affirmed:

You amuse yourself . . . and are angry with Matthew for not having told you a great many things . . . ; but if he had gratified your curiosity in every particular, I am of opinion that you would not have believed a word of what he had told you. I have no curiosity on the subject: . . . . If I durst indulge myself in being wise above what is written, I must be able to answer many of your inquiries relative to these saints; but I dare not touch the ark of the Lord, I dare not support the authority of the scripture by the boldness of conjecture.^[24]

The bishop was shifting ownership of the inquiries from the exegetes to Paine and taking a page out of Henry’s commentary with its disapproval of overly curious freethinkers. Speculation on the identity of the saints and so forth in the commentaries had become a liability that Paine exploited. Accordingly, Watson retreated to the position that asking to know too much was sinful. He cast Paine as petulantly brazen, whereas he himself was satisfied with the amount of information the apostle Matthew, or rather God, had given. Scott followed suit: Paine’s questions were “degrading” of scripture, as if the arch-infidel did not get cues from previous biblical commentators.^[25] Boudinot said nothing of the interpretive issues per se, but he amplified Watson’s point. Not only would Paine have no faith in Matthew regardless of the evangelist’s specificity on the resurrected saints, he would be suspicious of the risen Lord too. Boudinot chastened and summoned him to repent for disbelieving the scriptural warrants that Jesus was the messiah—for instance, “the rending of the rocks (to be seen at this day),” a parenthetical allusion to the anecdote of the deist converted in the holy land. Then Boudinot stressed Paine’s pride and skepticism hyperbolically: “For although Christ had appeared after his resurrection to every man in Jerusalem, nay even to all the then world, on the principle advanced in the Age of Reason, our author would not have been obliged to believe, because he himself had not seen him. But if the divine Saviour should even now appear to him,” Boudinot quipped, “as he did to another unbelieving Thomas, and show him his hands and his sides, I have as great doubts of his assent to the truths of the Gospel, as the disciples had of the Jews, who refused equal evidence.”^[26] Together, these educated elites resorted to summersaults of intelligence in order to explain the missing material, and they contended that neither an increase in information from Matthew nor in revelation from Jesus would be effective because of Paine’s bottomless skepticism. The unlearned Joseph Smith was more commonsensical than Watson, Scott, or Boudinot on this tally. In a concession to the skeptic, he would simply blame Jesus’ other disciples for forgetting to record the appearance and ministry of the saints. And the translator of the gold bible would exhibit scarcely any satisfaction with the limited information in canonical verse. In the Book of Mormon, the resurrected Jesus would appear to the Amerindians, not for the sake of rhetorical device, but in an alternate reality of salvation history, while deists would be vanquished at last, or so Smith grew to fantasize.^[27]

The Smiths and the Age of Reason in Vermont and New York

Paine’s biting critique of revelation and revealed religion affected the Smith family, like other Americans. Per Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of Joseph Smith Jr., her Universalist father-in-law Asael so severely recommended the Age of Reason that in a disagreement over Methodism, Asael hurled a copy of it at her husband, Joseph Sr., and “angrily bade him read it until he believed it.”^[28] That was when the Smiths were living in Vermont. There is some indication, although from a hostile source, that Joseph Sr. may have acted on the endorsement and gone past what Asael hoped. The Green Mountain Boys, who supposedly knew Joseph Sr., later described him as having frequently said “that the whole bible [sic] was the work of priestcraft . . ., that Voltairs writings was [sic] the best bible then extant, and Thomas Paines age of reason [sic], the best commentary.”^[29] Whatever the state of affairs with Joseph Sr. in Vermont before the family relocated to New York, and whatever lasting talks about Universalism and freethought the Smiths might have had as Joseph Jr. passed his adolescence in Palmyra, the Age of Reason was a documented topic of conversation in the village. For example, a newspaper column on “The Effects of Infidelity” was printed in the Palmyra Register in 1820, when Joseph Jr. was a religiously anxious minor:

The following anecdote was related about eight[een] years ago in a sermon preached by the Rev. Alphonsus Gunn [1760–1806], at Lothbury Church [in London]. “I was lately (observed Mr. Gunn) called on to attend the death-bed of a young man at Hoxton [in East London]. On my entering the room, I found him in the greatest agony of mind. Thinking, perhaps, that it arose from that deep remorse sometimes attendant on the death bed of a sinner, I began to point him to Jesus, the Sinner’s only friend, and to the glorious promises of the Gospel. When, with an agonizing look of despair, he replied, ‘Ah! Sir, but I have rejected the Gospel. Some years since, I unhappily read Paine’s Age of Reason; it suited my corrupt understanding; I imbibed its principles; after this, wherever I went, I did all that lay in my power to hold up the Scriptures to contempt; by this means I led others into the fatal snare, and made proselytes to infidelity. Thus I rejected God, and now he rejects me, and will have no mercy upon me.’ I offered to pray by him, but he replied, ‘O, no, it is in vain to pray for me!’ then with a dismal groan cried out, ‘Paine’s Age of Reason has ruined my soul,’ and instantly expired.”^[30]

Long after his own demise in New York City in 1809, the skeptic was still haunting both sides of the Atlantic. Britain and the US were not so distant from one another, the reported concerns of metropolitan churchmen in England from farming life in up-state New York. This column originated in a London-based periodical; within a year, it was in the Palmyra news.^[31] The tale of the despairing deist was not the last of Paine’s press coverage there. In 1826, another Palmyra newspaper, the Wayne Sentinel, printed a “Letter from Dr. [Benjamin] Franklin to Thomas Payne” about a draft of his that Franklin had read and counselled him to destroy for the sake of the youth, whose commitment to morality would not endure if he were to publicize his views on religion: “I would advise you,” Franklin had penned to an unspecified recipient, “not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person.”^[32] Further newspapers in the state and elsewhere did more than imply that the letter was about Paine’s infamous title; they prefixed stories to it asserting that the draft Franklin read was in fact the Age of Reason.^[33] New York divine William Wisner (1782–1871) enlarged the stories into a pamphlet, “Don’t Unchain the Tiger,” amid the many anti-deist ephemera of the 1820s and ’30s.^[34] Reverend Wisner himself spent the first half of the 1800s preaching across the western portion of the state and may well have visited Palmyra. In his memoirs, he related exchange after exchange with Universalists, infidels, male and female alike, even the rare atheist, and he told of denouncing the evils of freethought to his congregations. In one city, he organized an “infidel Bible class” by inviting the local deists and skeptics to supply him with written cases against scripture and in favor of skepticism. He then would read them aloud and dismantle them in front of his parishioners. The infidels also attended, and he kept the weekly class going a full season.^[35] In another town, he sermonized on “the influence of infidelity upon the moral character and happiness of men in this world,” and to demonstrate he outlined Paine’s rise and fall. Afterward, he ascertained that “one of the young men who heard it . . . had been an admirer of the ‘Age of Reason’ and had adopted the sentiments of its author, but had gone home from hearing the sermon and burnt the book, and had taken up his neglected Bible to learn what he must do to be saved.”^[36] These vignettes, though packaged for consumption as literature, were nonetheless indicative of the revivalist atmosphere in western New York, as it was recalled by one Presbyterian reverend, for whom all Universalists were on the brink of spiritual ruin. In sum, the revivals were not only competitions between this or that style of Christianity; they were also battles against rural deism and skepticism.^[37] Western New Yorkers who read the Franklin correspondence in the papers or in the many thousands of copies of Wisner’s pamphlet could not have known that the letter itself was left unaddressed, and that it was not about the Age of Reason, which Paine wrote several years after Franklin died in 1790.^[38] Paine’s promoters caught the miscalculation and decried the pamphlet, even the letter, as “fraud” and “forgery.”^[39] But this was likely inconsequential to most. It was too alluring to have Franklin, the very person who sponsored Paine’s emigration to America, also repudiate his writing and call for the burning of the Age of Reason. Joseph Smith Jr. did one much better by having an ancient prophet and the resurrected Jesus respond to him nearly two millennia ago.^[40]

The Book of Mormon qua Rejoinder to Paine

In 1827, the year after Franklin’s letter “to Thomas Payne” was printed in the Wayne Sentinel, Smith acquired or fabricated the golden plates, if they ever existed other than as visionary objects, and he began to translate them.^[41] One of the ancient Amerindian prophets and apostles within their cast of characters is Samuel the Lamanite. In Smith’s text, the Lamanites, named for Laman, the disobedient son of Lehi and brother of Nephi, are said to be the iniquitous branch of the Native Americans “cursed” by God with “black” or “dark” skin, whereas the other branch, the righteous Nephites, the scriptural record keepers, are “white,” “fair,” and “delightsome,” except for interludes when the racist trope is inverted to an extent (see 1 Nephi 12:23, 13:15; 2 Nephi 5:21, 30:6–7; Jacob 3:5–9; Enos 1:20; Words of Mormon 1:8; Alma 3:5–12; 3 Nephi 2:15–16; 4 Nephi 1:10; Mormon 5:15–24; Moroni 9:12). At the close of the first century BCE, Samuel preaches to the backsliding Nephites. His Lamanite standing and that of other dark-skinned proselytes serves to underscore the hardheartedness and disbelief of the paler visages.^[42] Samuel prophesies of their doom if they do not repent, and he predicts several signs that will punctuate the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus—whose ministry the dwindling ranks of faithful Amerindians have been awaiting with conspicuous detail since their Nephite and Lamanite ancestors vacated Jerusalem and sailed to the Americas. Samuel declares that at the incarnation there will be a day with no night: “And behold, there shall be a new star arise, such an one as ye never have beheld” (Helaman 14:5; cf. Matthew 2:1–12).^[43] Then he pronounces that at the crucifixion there will be the opposite, the darkness that Paine doubted.^[44] The Lamanite prophet ups the ante from three hours in the synoptic gospels (e.g., Matthew 27:45) to three days, saying that the light will vanish when Jesus expires on the cross and will only be seen again at his resurrection (Helaman 14:20).^[45] Samuel also predicts the Matthean earthquake, rent rocks, opened graves, and resurrected saints, the final components of the retro-prophecy that Paine had unwittingly called for:

And the earth shall shake and tremble. And the rocks which is [sic] upon the face of the earth, which is both above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time is solid—or the more part of it is one solid mass—shall be broken up. Yea, they shall be rent in twain and shall ever after be found in seams and in cracks and in broken fragments upon the face of the whole earth, yea, both above the earth and beneath. And behold, there shall be great tempests. And there shall be many mountains laid low like unto a valley. And there shall be many places which are now called valleys which shall become mountains whose height thereof is great. And many highways shall be broken up; and many cities shall become desolate. And many graves shall be opened and shall yield up many of their dead; and many saints shall appear unto many. (Helaman 14:21–25)

To bolster his prognostication, Samuel informs the Nephites that he has received it from one of God’s heavenly messengers: “And the angel said unto me that many shall see greater signs than these, to the intent that they might believe—that these signs and these wonders should come to pass upon all the face of this land, to the intent that there shall be no cause for unbelief among the children of men—and this,” Samuel cautions, “to the intent that whosoever will believe might be saved and that whosoever will not believe, a righteous judgement might come upon them; and also if they are condemned, they bring upon themselves their own condemnation” (Helaman 14:26–29). When Samuel concludes his sermon, the Lamanite prophet is rejected by most of the Nephites, who are violently apostate, so he runs away to “his own country” where he teaches “his own people” (Helaman 16:1–7). At the turn of the era, as the messianic passages in Nephite scripture are finally being fulfilled, and as Samuel’s prophecy of the sign of the incarnation is about to be accomplished, some believe; others do not. The skeptical Nephites plan to murder the faithful if the day with no night does not happen. It does, and the Matthean birth star sines forth, but that is not enough to convince everyone (3 Nephi 1:4–23). Thirty years later, once more there are “great doubtings and disputations” about the prophesied signs of the crucifixion and resurrection (3 Nephi 8:4). In a reversal of the past episode, God/Jesus sends catastrophes to slay the wicked for their unbelief. The lethal quaking of the earth and rending of the rocks lasts three hours, the darkness three days, as witnessed by myriad survivors. Cities are destroyed. With more than a touch of revenge fantasy, the earthquake and other wrathfully providential natural disasters serve to punish the evil doubters and disputants (3 Nephi 8:5–10:14). Regarding the opened graves and the appearance of the resurrected saints in the Americas, the fulfillment of that key aspect of Samuel’s prophecy is not narrated, but it does receive the highest certification from the risen Jesus himself when the light returns and he appears to the survivors of the earthquake. Like so many semi-doubting Thomases, he invites them to examine the wounds in his side, hands, and feet (3 Nephi 11:12–15).^[46] He stays with them a while, and during his post-resurrection ministry to the Amerindians, he picks twelve disciples and checks the Nephite scriptures for completeness.^[47] Looking at their records, Jesus says to his New World apostles: “I commanded my servant Samuel the Lamanite that he should testify unto this people that at the day that the Father should glorify his name in me that there were many saints which should arise from the dead and should appear unto many and should minister unto them.” Perturbed, he asks: “Were [sic] it not so?” The disciples attest: “Yea, Lord, Samuel did prophesy according to thy words, and they were all fulfilled.” Jesus goes on to reproach them: “How be it that ye have not written this thing?—that many saints did arise and appear unto many and did minister unto them.” Then Smith’s narrator editorializes: one of the disciples “remembered that this thing had not been written. And it came to pass that Jesus commanded that it should be written. Therefore it was written according as he commanded” (3 Nephi 23:9–13). Jesus is not checking for the completeness of the Nephite scriptures but rather the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John. He already knows the fulfillment of the key aspect of Samuel’s prophesy is missing from the Amerindian bible before he commands his disciples to record it. Without having seen the Nephite records, he says to them: “Behold, other scriptures I would that ye should write that ye have not” (3 Nephi 23:6). Obviously, Jesus’ omniscience covers the contents of the New Testament gospels as well, where Matthew’s is the sole account of the earthquake, rent rocks, opened graves, and resurrected saints. From the list of items in Samuel’s prophecy of Matthew 27:51b-53, it is striking that Jesus isolates the appearance of the awakened dead. “An earthquake is always possible, and natural, and proves nothing,” as Paine stated; “but this opening of the graves is supernatural. . . . Had it been true, it would have filled up whole chapters of those books, and been the chosen theme, and general chorus of all the writers; but instead . . . this most important of all . . . is passed off in a slovenly manner, by a single dash of the pen, and that by one writer only, and not so much as hinted at by the rest.”^[48] In the Book of Mormon, when Jesus reprimands his New World disciples for not recording the fulfillment of the key aspect of Samuel’s prophesy, he obliquely reprimands Mark, Luke, and John for not supporting Matthew, the first evangelist. After Jesus gets them to attest to the fulfillment of Samuel’s words about the awakened dead, thus corroborating the verses in Matthew—they were there and saw the appearance of the saints but forgot to write it down—Jesus censures the disciples themselves for abandoning Matthew to Paine’s derisive challenge.^[49] Placed in the context of biblical commentaries as well as other apologetic responses to the Age of Reason, Smith and his text stick out as intrepidly creative, albeit fantastical. Whereas Henry’s method for dealing with rationalist critiques was to denounce them as curiosity and covetous wisdom, and whereas Bishop Watson told Paine he was afraid that conjecture alone would be tantamount to steadying the ark of God’s sacred word, Smith had no qualms creating another entire bible in the process of rescuing Matthew 27:51b-53—among his text’s pluriform drives. As with the darkness at the crucifixion, he embellished the natural phenomenon of the earthquake to the degree of the blatantly preordained.^[50] He also brought the evidence to the skeptics. While Doddridge and Boudinot could point to Matthew’s rent rocks visible in far-off Jerusalem, Smith could gesture toward any one of the taller mountains in the western hemisphere as proof that God/Jesus directed nature, that Jesus was the Son of God, and that prophecy had been fulfilled. So deists in the US did not need to travel to the holy land; they only needed to consult the Book of Mormon and a topographical map. If they persisted in their faithlessness—and Smith may have grasped that he could not persuade most of them—as some consolation believers might feel assured that infidels would be destroyed at the second coming of Christ, on the model of apostate Nephites’ ruin. Like Boudinot, Smith summoned skeptics to repent and believe the scriptural warrants of Jesus’ messiahship. But for Smith, unlike Boudinot, extra-canonical post-resurrection appearances of the Christian savior across the globe were not hypothetical (3 Nephi 15:11–16:3; see also 2 Nephi 29:12–13). When it came to Matthew’s opened graves and resurrected saints absent from the rest of the gospels, Smith broke with exegetes and other apologists. He conceded to the arch-infidel that the omitted material did constitute a discrepancy in scripture, and employing some commonsense rationalism, he blamed the disciples for their forgetfulness. He was willing to portray the second, third, and fourth evangelists as fallible in order to guard the essence of biblical infallibility—in this case, the trustworthiness of singular truths in the first gospel, which had to be vouchsafed at all costs if any of the evangelists were to retain eyewitness and apostolic authority. This solution in 3 Nephi—to the problem of Matthew 27:51b-53, exacerbated by Paine—brought with it an unresolved tension. If the risen Jesus could remind and command the disciples in the New World to write, he could have done the same in the Old. Where, then, were the Markan, Lukan, and Johannine accounts of the appearance of the awakened dead? Perhaps Smith resolved the tension as he dictated the remainder of the Book of Mormon. In the final segment of the text, which he dictated last but which comprises the start of the narrative, Smith had the sixth-century-BCE prophet Nephi, son of Lehi, report a sweeping apocalyptic and anti-Catholic vision of Europe/Britain and colonial America. In Nephi’s vision, the Bible is transferred from the Jews to the Christian Gentiles, and from them to a remnant of Israel living in the Americas: the once Christian Indians. But en route, the Bible is corrupted by a “great and abominable church” that is said to have “taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious” (1 Nephi 13:26). Nephi sees that “other books” would be revealed in order to prove to the Christian Gentiles, the Amerindians, and the balance of the scattered Jewish population “that the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true,” and in order to “make known the plain and precious things which have been take away from them” (1 Nephi 13:39–40; nota bene the synecdoche of traditional authorship: the Old Testament is subsumed under “the records of the prophets,” and the New Testament under “the records of the apostles”). One of those “other books” is the Book of Mormon itself. And one of those “plain and precious parts” that were “taken away” from the Bible is arguably the passage corresponding to Matthew 27:51b-53 that seemed to be missing from Mark, Luke, and John.^[51] Smith certainly had these unique verses in Matthew on the brain while dictating 1–2 Nephi.^[52] As back-up to Samuel’s prophecy from the first century BCE, Smith also produced a shorter one for the Matthean earthquake and rent rocks, as well as the darkness, and attributed it to an Old World prophet named Zenos, whose words are supposed to have been on the brass plates, a fuller, Christianized version of Jewish scripture that Lehi and company possessed when they sailed to the Americas. Smith had Nephi echo the words of Zenos and Samuel during the report of his apocalyptic vision (1 Nephi 12:4; cf. Helaman 14:20–27), and he quotes and/or echoes them twice more in the opening of the gold bible (1 Nephi 19:10–12; 2 Nephi 26:3), thereby pushing the prediction many hundreds of years further into the past, from Samuel to Nephi to Zenos.^[53] Smith’s finished picture was somewhat incomplete. As he dictated the prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite and its fulfillment, he blamed the apostles for the missing verses. As he continued to dictate, he also alleged that the Catholics had subtracted things from the Bible, things that his text would restore. Thus altogether: the disciples forget; Jesus reminds and commands them to write, and they do (in the New World); but then a “great and abominable church” deletes their record/s (in the Old World, along with the writings of Zenos on the plates of brass), which is why there is no Markan or Lukan or Johannine account of the Matthean earthquake, rent rocks, opened graves, and resurrected saints. Smith’s fellow Protestants could read a kind of parallel account in his text, although the fulfilment of the key aspect of Samuel’s prophecy was not narrated there either. For that, readers would need to flip to Matthew 27 in their Bibles. They would need to go back to the KJV.

Conclusion

The Book of Mormon had and continues to have many functions. In the early 1800s, one of them was to defend the Bible against threats such as deism in general and Thomas Paine in particular. Paine’s attack ranged broadly, including assaults on the traditional authorship of the books of Moses and Isaiah, the framework of christological interpretation of the Old Testament, and the existence of a historical Jesus. In this article, I’ve spotlighted what I consider to be the most blatant response to Paine within Smith’s text, but let me rehearse a caveat from before: how Smith was exposed to Paine is unknown. No copy of the Age of Reason can be definitively put into his hands, since he did not mention or quote Paine in any of his translations, revelations, teachings, or other papers.^[54] Then again, neither would that be a prerequisite for contextualization. Samuel the Lamanite’s prophecy and its fulfilment are clearly of a piece with Anglophone discussion and debate surrounding the Matthean earthquake, rent rocks, opened graves, and resurrected saints. Paine was not the only participant in this, not even the only challenger, but it was Paine who drew the most attention to the problematic passage, and it was Paine who said that there ought to be a prophecy of the events.^[55] If Smith had no familiarity with Paine, and if his text just happened to supply that prophecy, the coincidence would be astounding. A connection must be made. Nothing, however, could be more banal than making connections in literature from the same cultural and linguistic milieu. Comparisons and contrasts have been my central interest. Apart from his literary creativity, his claims to be a revelator, and his ignorance of ancient tongues, what distinguished the youthful Joseph Smith within exegetical and apologetic ranks was his concession to skeptics of the Bible that the Christian scriptures were at variance and that they had been corrupted. The disciples forgot to record some things, plus some things had been “taken away from,” not added to, “the gospel of the Lamb” in the post-apostolic phase of manuscript copying. As Protestant as his beliefs were in diverse areas, Smith’s model of corruption by omission was not. Out of necessity, he made a move that few if any others ventured to make in order to save God’s word from the onslaught of skeptics: he admitted the gospels were inconsistent, while chalking it up to the humaneness of the evangelists and providing a parallel scriptural account as well as prophetic utterances to compensate. Precisely because Smith was uncredentialed, he could disregard apologetic dogma—from the Anglican archdeacon William Paley (1743–1805) to the Baptist restorationist Alexander Campbell (1788–1866)—that gospel omissions were not discrepancies or contradictions no matter how many infidels came forward.^[56] The scryer did not respond to Paine in the learned discourse of qualified exegetes and apologists. But with his folk-magic peep stone, he did defend the Bible, taking Paine more seriously than many trained clergy and academics.^[57] In fact, by having an Israelite-Amerindian prophet forecast the events in Matthew 27:51b-53, and by having Christ descend from the clouds to guarantee that the prediction’s realization be written down, Smith composed what is probably the longest and most elaborate answer to Paine’s challenge ever imagined. This has not been recognized before in scholarship maybe because the Book of Mormon is often studied in terms of revelation and an open canon of scripture. No either/or approach to the text is required, and I do not deny it had that extracanonical function and many others already in the beginnings of Mormonism.^[58] It was also meant to defend the Old and New Testaments at a time when Matthew was still assumed to be the first gospel and hence the frontline for Bible-believing Christians to hold against freethinkers, deists, infidels, and skeptics.^[59] The overall biblical apologetic thrust of Smith’s text deserves more consideration, which will be of significance not only for understanding the impulses of his movement in the early 1800s but also for sussing out what type of bonds the assorted Latter-day Saints are to have to the Bible, and whatever tenuous ties to biblical criticism, in our information age—as faith is yet again in crisis.

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^[1] Many thanks to David Mihalyfy and Taylor Petrey for their feedback on drafts, both rough and polished. David had also teamed up with me on some of the mid-stage research. As I shopped around my polarizing argument, a total of eight reviewers gave advice, some pro, others vehemently contra. Each brought improvements, and any stubborn faults are mine. I presented initial findings at the Fourth biennial Faith and Knowledge Conference, hosted at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington DC, in 2013, with a follow-up in the Latter-day Saints and the Bible section of the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion in 2019. My gratitude goes to the organizers at both venues, especially Jason Combs and Jill Kirby, and to Benjamin Park for his generous engagement at the SBL-AAR. For the decline of Matthean priority and for Matthew’s fusion of Mark, other Jesus-material, and the Jewish Bible, see, for example, Carl R. Holladay, Introduction to the New Testament: Reference Edition (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2017), 193–200. ^[2] I will be using one such compendium edition, The Theological Works of Thomas Paine (London: R. Carlile; New York: W. Carver, 1824). ^[3] Quotations are from Royal Skousen, ed., The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009). ^[4] Robert N. Hullinger, “Joseph Smith, Defender of the Faith,” Concordia Theological Monthly 42, no. 2 (1971): 72–87; Robert N. Hullinger, Joseph Smith’s Response to Skepticism (1980; Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), esp. 121–65; Timothy L. Smith, “The Book of Mormon in a Biblical Culture,” Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980): 3–21; Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion (1991; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 11, 27; Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 7, 186–91; Heikki Räisänen, “Joseph Smith as a Creative Interpreter of the Bible,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 43, no. 2 (2010): 68–70, 80–81; David F. Holland, Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 144–47; Philip L. Barlow, “To Mend a Fractured Reality: Joseph Smith’s Project,” Journal of Mormon History 38, no. 3 (2012): 40–41; Grant Hardy, “The Book of Mormon and the Bible,” in Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon, edited by Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 107, 111–13; Daniel O. McClellan, “2 Nephi 25:23 in Literary and Rhetorical Context,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 29 (2020): 15–16. ^[5] Recently Samuel Morris Brown has recharted much of the same territory that Hullinger had (and without citing Hullinger’s article or monograph), but whereas the one saw Smith as a champion of the Bible against deism, the other sees him as being almost in league with skeptics against Protestants. Brown, Joseph Smith’s Translation: The Words and Worlds of Early Mormonism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), esp. 127–61. I think Brown is right about Smith trying to save the Bible; I think Brown is wrong about Smith trying to “kill it” or “light it on fire” in order to do so. For me, the bulk of perceived inimicalness is, first, Smith’s allowances to deism and, second, his frustrations with fellow Protestants who would not appreciate what he was doing for the cause of revealed religion. I can sign onto Brown’s proviso that Smith and his movement belong “outside the usual binary of Protestants versus freethinkers or religious versus secular” (11), which makes it odd to have Brown then nearly switch the dichotomy and insist that Smith was “an ardent anti-Protestant” (130). Smith may defy categorization, but he was aligned far more closely with biblical apologists than he was with Paine or any other derider of God’s word in the KJV and Textus Receptus. ^[6] In the 1920s in an essay that languished for over half a century, B. H. Roberts discretely explored the chance that the prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite and its fulfillment in the Book of Mormon were spurred by the Gospel of Matthew and “other sources” that he figured may have been “available” to Smith, though the source/s eluded him. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, edited by Brigham D. Madsen (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 236–38; I thank Colby Townsend for the reference. ^[7] Within scholarship on Paine, the Age of Reason, and its reception, interest has usually dropped off after Paine’s lifetime. See, for example, Edward H. Davidson and William J. Scheick, Paine, Scripture, and Authority: The Age of Reason as Religious and Political Idea (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 1994); and Patrick Wallace Hughes, “Antidotes to Deism: A Reception History of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, 1794–1809” (PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2013). But that is changing, and in current research, the religious landscape of the early US looks to have been profoundly dotted with deists and skeptics, Paine and others, to whom the faithful were duty-bound to respond generation after generation. See, for example, Mark A. Noll, “Religion in the Early Republic: A Second Tom Paine Effect,” Modern Intellectual History 14, no. 3 (2017): 883–98; Leigh Eric Schmidt, Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2016); and Christopher Grasso, Skepticism and American Faith: From the Revolution to the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). ^[8] See, for example, Hardy, “The Book of Mormon and the Bible,” 118–20. ^[9] For Smith’s schooling, and for the oral composition of his text through sermon techniques, see William Davis, “Reassessing Joseph Smith Jr.’s Formal Education,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 49, no. 4 (2016): 1–58; and William L. Davis, Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020). For the dictation of the Book of Mormon, (half-) altered states of consciousness, (self-induced) hypnotism, and religious experience, see Ann Taves, Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2016), 240–69 ^[10] Twists and turns of publication and reprinting are beyond my scope, particularly since the annals for the commentaries are wonderfully cluttered with postmortem completions, enlargements, and reconfigurations. But as a signal of lasting influence and of shared British-American theological culture, the volumes of Samuel Austin Allibone’s A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, and British and American Authors . . . (Philadelphia: Childs and Peterson; J.B. Lippincott, 1858–1871) should suffice. Poole, Whitby, Henry, and Doddrige are endorsed there along with Richard Watson, Elias Boudinot, Thomas Scott, Adam Clarke, Samuel Thomas Bloomfield, and even William Wisner, whom I will be citing. Allibone also had entries on Paine and the literary “impostor” Smith, though he did not recommend either. ^[11] Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible; . . .The More Difficult Terms in Each Verse are Explained, Seeming Contradictions Reconciled, Questions and Doubts Resolved, and the Whole Text Opened (repr., New York: R. Carter, 1853), 3:141–42; Daniel Whitby, A Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament; repr. in A Critical Commentary and Paraphrase on the Old and New Testament and the Apocrypha, by Patrick, Lowth, Arnald, Whitby, and Lowman, edited by J. R. Pitman (London: R. Priestley, 1822), 5:222; Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament . . . with Practical Remarks and Observations (repr., New York: R. Carter, 1827), 4:288; Philip Doddridge, The Family Expositor; Or, A Paraphrase and Version of the New Testament, with Critical Notes, and a Practical Improvement of Each Section (repr., Charlestown, Mass.: S. Etheridge, 1807), 2:555. ^[12] Henry, Exposition of the Old and New Testament, 4:288. ^[13] See Henry, Exposition of the Old and New Testament, 4:iv. ^[14] Doddrigde, Family Expositor, 2:555. Doddridge got the anecdote from Robert Fleming who heard it from “a worthy Gentleman” on the tour with the deist. Fleming, Christology, A Discourse Concerning Christ . . . (London: A. Bell, 1707), 2:97–98 note c. ^[15] Although Paine wrote parts one and two in France, where he was incarcerated, for the writing of the second part he was out of jail and living in the Paris home of US ambassador James Monroe. Under those conditions, he could have had ready access to a sizable English library as well as French books, to say nothing of his prior learning in England and America. See Davidson and Scheick, Paine, Scripture, and Authority, 54–69, 105–7; Hughes, “Antidotes to Deism,” 35–48, 58–64; J. C. D. Clark, Thomas Paine: Britain, America, and France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 339–47. ^[16] Theological Works of Thomas Paine, 132–33. ^[17] Theological Works of Thomas Paine, 133–34. ^[18] Theological Works of Thomas Paine, 241. ^[19] It was also in France that Paine wrote (much of) the third installment/s of the Age of Reason, before returning to America in 1802, but he waited another half decade to publish his Examination of the Passages. See Davidson and Scheick, Paine, Scripture, and Authority, 102–103; Hughes, “Antidotes to Deism,” 77–87; Clark, Enlightenment and Revolution, 349. Bringing the 1794, 1795, and 1807 installments together, compendium editions were reprinted in New York during Smith’s residence. Most fascinating is the edition of a couple thousand copies done in New York City in 1825, sponsored by an associate and ally of Paine. Apprehensive about reprisals, the printer feigned to be operating in London, but buyers hardly worried, and the copies sold quickly. See “John Fellows to Thomas Jefferson,” Oct. 3, 1825, Library of Congress; also referenced in Grasso, Skepticism and American Faith, 535n47. A slightly earlier compendium edition, the one that I have been using, was printed jointly in London and New York City with no US trepidation: The Theological Works of Thomas Paine (London: R. Carlile; New York: W. Carver, 1824). ^[20] Watson’s response to the first and second installments prompted Paine’s third. For more on Watson, Scott, and Boudinot, see Davidson and Scheick, Paine, Scripture, and Authority, 90–91, 106, 114–15; Holland, Sacred Borders, 81–83, 106–7; Eric R. Schlereth, An Age of Infidels: The Politics of Religious Controversy in the Early United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 53–56, 62–63; Eran Shalev, American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013), 126–133; Hughes, “Antidotes to Deism,” 186–91, 203–4, 259–60, 311–12, 326, 330; David Francis Mihalyfy, “Heterodoxies and the Historical Jesus: Biblical Criticism of the Gospels in the U.S., 1794–1860” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2017), 70–81; Clark, Enlightenment and Revolution, 348–52; Grasso, Skepticism and American Faith, 194, 218, 550n43; and Elizabeth Fenton, “Nephites and Israelites: The Book of Mormon and the Hebraic Indian Theory,” in Fenton and Hickman, Americanist Approaches, 283–87. ^[21] Richard Watson, An Apology for the Bible, In a Series of Letters Addressed to Thomas Paine, author of a Book entitled, The Age of Reason . . .(New York: J. Bull, 1796), 156–61. ^[22] Thomas Scott, A Vindication of the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and of the Doctrines Contained in Them: Being an Answer to the Two Parts of Mr. T. Paine’s Age of Reason (New York: G. Forman, 1797), 109; see also 105–6. ^[23] Elias Boudinot, The Age of Revelation. Or, The Age of Reason Shown to Be an Age of Infidelity (Philadelphia: A. Dickins, 1801), 196. ^[24] Watson, Apology for the Bible, 159. ^[25] Scott, Vindication of Divine Inspiration, 110. ^[26] Boudinot, Age of Revelation, 195–98. ^[27] As the young prophet may have been cognizant of, a multipronged threat to Matthew 27:51b-53 was emerging. In addition to the skeptical Paine, there were liberal German Protestant critics on the horizon, with their insidious ideas about interpolations from apocryphal gospels and their budding program of demythologization. What is more, there were commentators such as Adam Clarke in Anglophone countries aiding and abetting German critics of this “skeptical school,” to the disappointment of their countrymen such as Samuel Thomas Bloomfield. See Clarke, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments . . . (repr., New York: N. Bangs and J. Emory, 1825), 4:258; Bloomfield, Recensio Synoptica Annotationis Sacræ: Being a Critical Digest and Synoptical Arrangement of the Most Important Annotations on the New Testament, Exegetical, Philological, and Doctrinal . . . (London: C. and J. Rivington, 1826), 1:522–55. For Smith’s potential use of Clarke, either in the Book of Mormon or his other writings, see, for example, Davis, Visions in a Seer Stone, 42–44, 174–75, 208n57 and the studies listed there. ^[28] Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 291; also referenced in Jan Ships, Mormonism: The Story of A New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 8; Hullinger, Smith’s Response, 35–36, 43n4; Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 25–26, 567n60; Holland, Sacred Borders, 144, 170n52. ^[29] “Green Mountain Boys to Thomas C. Sharp,” Feb. 15, 1844, in Early Mormon Documents, edited by Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books), 1:597. ^[30] Palmyra Register, July 12, 1820; also referenced in Hullinger, Smith’s Response, 38, 45n24. The “effects of infidelity” are analogous in the Book of Mormon, though the outcome is not always so bleak. See Jacob 7:1–23; Mosiah 26–27; Alma 11:21–12:7, 15:3–12, 30:6–60. ^[31] Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle 27 (Nov. 1819): 455. Before and after its printing in the Palmyra Register, the column was printed in the Washington Wig (Bridgeton, N.J.), July 10, 1820, and the Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pa.), July 26, 1820. ^[32] Wayne Sentinel, Aug. 4, 1826; also referenced in Hullinger, Smith’s Response, 39, 45n26. The paper was not the first to print the letter or have it addressed to Paine. It ran years before in the Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pa.), Nov. 15, 1820, without any proposal of addressee. It was printed once more in the Adams Sentinel (Gettysburg, Pa.), July 12, 1826, as a “Letter from Dr. Franklin to Thomas Paine.” ^[33] Western Sun and General Advertiser (Vincennes, Ind.), Sept. 16, 1826; Black River Gazette (Lowville, N.Y.), June 9, 1830; Wabash Courier(Terre-Haute, Ind.), Sept. 26, 1833. ^[34] The date of the tract cannot be pinpointed, not even when it was anthologized: Tracts of the American Tract Society 8, no. 280. For Wisner’s authorship, see the Ninth Annual Report of the American Tract Society . . . (New York: F. Fanshaw, 1834), 14, wherein that reporting cycle alone the society printed 122,000 copies of it (p. 20). For its circulation and importance, see also “Don’t Unchain the Tiger: One of the Prize Tracts of the American Tract Society,” Christian Advocate and Journal (Chicago, Ill.) 8 no. 6 (Oct. 4, 1833): 21. ^[35] William Wisner, Incidents in the Life of a Pastor (New York: C. Scribner, 1851), 82–85. ^[36] Wisner, Life of a Pastor, 312. ^[37] For his description of the revivals as such, see Wisner, Life of a Pastor, esp. 271–83. ^[38] Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Collected and Edited with a Life and Introduction (1907; New York: Haskell House, 1970), 9:520–22. ^[39] “Don’t Unchain the Tiger,” Free Enquirer (New York) 1 no. 44 (Nov. 2, 1834): 352; “Don’t Unchain the Tiger,” Western Examiner (St. Louis, Miss.) 1 no. 23 (Dec. 1, 1834): 182; Calvin Blanchard, The Life of Thomas Paine . . . (New York: C. Blanchard, 1860), 73–74; Joseph N. Moreau, Testimonials to the Merits of Thomas Paine . . . (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1874), 53–56. ^[40] About fictive stories, it is worth noting that in a response to Paine’s Examination of the Passages, one apologist, John B. Colvin, defended the New Testament and Christianity as a noble lie: if all scripture were phony, that would not invalidate the religion “because the ‘faith’ of a christian [sic] rests not so much on the genuineness of the books that contain his creed, as upon the correctness of the doctrines which they teach.” Colvin, An Essay Towards an Exposition of the Futility of Thomas Paine’s Objections to the Christian Religion . . . (Baltimore: Fryer and Rider, 1807), 5. ^[41] Acquired: If while scrying and treasure hunting Smith did discover something buried in the ground, as he said, it was not what he thought it was. Fabricated: For the both/and position that without being a fraud Smith himself ‘materialized’ the plates in an act akin to the ritual of transubstantiation, see Ann Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation: Joseph Smith and the Materialization of the Gold Plates,” Numen 61, no. 2/3 (2014): 182–207; and Taves, Revelatory Events, 50–65. For other purported discoveries and translations of ancient texts within the genre of “pseudobiblicism” in the US, see Shalev, American Zion, 108–10; and Shalev, “An American Book of Chronicles: Pseudo-Biblicism and the Cultural Origins of The Book of Mormon,” in Fenton and Hickman, Americanist Approaches, 145–46. ^[42] For sustained assessments of the racial dynamics in Smith’s text, which can be quite sympathetic in a number of passages, see, for example, Jared Hickman, “The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse,” American Literature 86, no. 3 (2014): 429–61; Max Perry Mueller, Race and the Making of the Mormon People (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 31–59; and Kimberly M. Berkey and Joseph M. Spencer, “‘Great Cause to Mourn’: The Complexity of The Book of Mormon’s Presentation of Gender and Race,” in Fenton and Hickman, Americanist Approaches, 298–320. ^[43] The New World equivalent of the Matthean star was featured in Elias Boudinot’s writing about the Indians as Israelites; in Smith’s text it becomes literal, but there it had been metaphoric. Boudinot, A Star in the West; Or, A Humble Attempt to Discover the Long Lost Ten Tribes of Israel . . . (Trenton, N.J.: D. Fenton, S. Hutchinson, and J. Dunham, 1816), i–ii; see also Shalev, American Zion, 127. ^[44] A generation prior to Paine, the three hours of darkness at the crucifixion had been challenged by Edward Gibbon, historian of the later Roman Empire. Watson wrote the most successful reply to Gibbon, in which the bishop met the historian half-way, rationalizing but still defending scripture. By the early 1800s, Watson’s responses to Gibbon and Paine were reprinted together; see, for example, Richard Watson, Two Apologies: One for Christianity, in a Series of Letters Addressed to Edward Gibbon, Esq.; the Other for the Bible, in Answer to Thomas Paine . . . (London: Scatcherd and Letterman, 1820), 95–102. Smith, in contradistinction to the rationalizing Watson, doubled down on the darkness. ^[45] In Smith’s text, Jesus is the Johannine “light and life of the world” (3 Nephi 9:18; cf. John 1:4–5, 3:19, 6:33, 8:12, 9:5), so there is darkness while he is dead and entombed. In the synoptic gospels, however, the three hours of darkness occur as Jesus is on the cross, before his death. For a variety of Johannine elements within the gold bible and Smith’s revelations, see Krister Stendahl, “The Sermon on the Mount and Third Nephi,” in Reflections on Mormonism: Judeo-Christian Parallels, edited by Truman G. Madsen (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1978), 139–54; Nicholas J. Frederick, The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity (Maddison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016); and Nicholas J. Frederick and Joseph M. Spencer, “John 11 in the Book of Mormon,” Journal of the Bible and Its Reception 5, no. 1 (2018): 44–87. ^[46] Paine had discussed the New Testament witnesses of the resurrection, the reluctant and doubting Thomas among them (Theological Works, 34–35, 136–137). As stated in the first and second parts of the Age of Reason, the quantity was low and the evidence insufficient, being restricted to one corner of the world. Smith’s text spans both sides of the globe and multiplies the witnesses exponentially to some 2,500 people (3 Nephi 17:25). See also Hullinger (Smith’s Response, 49, 145–46), Holland (Sacred Borders, 146–47), and Brown (Smith’s Translation, 142–44) on the Book of Mormon and the regionalism of the Bible. ^[47] Paine had discussed the foundation of Christianity too (Theological Works, 43–44). As stated in the first part of the Age of Reason, Jesus was Jewish and did not found “a new religion” or “new system,” unlike Moses and Muhammed, who did: Christianity was devised by the authors of the New Testament and other “mythologists” who palmed it off on Jesus. But in Smith’s text, after Jesus calls the twelve, he teaches them to baptize, to bless the bread and wine of communion, and he gives them other ecclesiological instructions, even informing them what the name of the church should be (3 Nephi 11:18–41, 18:1–16, 27:1–12). See also Brown (Smith’s Translation, 158–60) on the Book of Mormon, Protestant factions, and the hitch of “Getting from Bible to Church.” ^[48] Theological Works, 133. It is also striking that in 3 Nephi 24, Smith’s Jesus then pivots from Matthew 27 to Malachi 3. Paine had attacked them both consecutively in that order (Theological Works, 241–42), in his Examination of the Passages, as he made his way through the quotations of the Old Testament in the gospels, from Matthew 27:51b-53, where no prophecy is quoted, to Mark 1:1–3, where the preaching of John the Baptist is supposed to be a fulfillment of Malachi 3:1. This Matthew-Malachi order, shared between Paine and Smith, is perhaps the strongest suggestion, such as it is, that Smith may have had a copy of Paine at hand. ^[49] Granted that one of Smith’s main goals behind composing the prophecy and fulfillment was to protect Matthew all along, a bit of a puzzle persists, namely why he did not go on to compose an account of the appearance and ministry of the awakened dead in the New World. In my estimation, only a couple of scenarios are plausible. Either Smith decided the task was too hard: biblical commentators had reached a similar verdict in their efforts to explicate Matthew 27:52–53, and Paine’s satire rendered the interpretive issues much more difficult. Or he apprehended that whatever he composed in the Book of Mormon, he could never rewrite the actual gospel manuscripts, which was ultimately Paine’s demand. Hickman (“Amerindian Apocalypse,” 452, 457n4) thinks Smith has the Christian savior unmask Nephite racism against Lamanites and by extension the white supremacy of British-American churches; the fact that there is no account of the appearance and ministry of the awakened dead after Jesus’ reminder and command is due to perpetual Nephite prejudice. Analyzing the scene for race as well, Mueller (Mormon People, 49–50, 242n82) diverges from Hickman in that he thinks Jesus commands the disciples to record the prophecy of the saints’ appearance, not its fulfillment in 3 Nephi, and they do, which is why the prophecy can be read in the book of Helaman. See also D. Lynn Johnson, “The Missing Scripture,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 3, no. 2 (1994): 84–93. It seems indisputable to me, however, that Smith’s Jesus is focused on the recording of prophecy fulfilled. He asks the disciples why they failed to write that the saints “did arise and appear” and “did minister” (3 Nephi 23:11), not merely that the saints would. Be that as it may, an implication of my argument is that this dominical care has more to do with defending and supporting the first canonical gospel than it does with integrating the subaltern into the canon, though Smith certainly made a deliberate choice of a Lamanite to utter the retro-prophecy Paine called for, just as the Bible’s particularism was another deist critique. ^[50] Sans context, Roberts (Studies of the Book of Mormon, 238) aptly perceived the embellishment already in the 1920s. ^[51] Even while the text speaks of distorted biblical manuscripts and situates itself as more scripture, it aims to “establish the truth” of the Old and New Testaments (1 Nephi 13:40). This bears some resemblance to the Qur’an. See Räisänen, “Creative Interpreter,” 69; Grant Hardy, “The Book of Mormon,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, edited by Terryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 140. The similarities may not only be structural. Besides anti-Catholic polemic from Protestants and criticism from deists about the corruption of the Bible, Smith could have picked up knowledge of Muslim belief from such best sellers as Charles Buck’s Theological Dictionary. Buck had entries on the “Koran” and “Mahometanism,” including overviews of Muslim belief in lost books of Adam, Seth, Enoch, and Abraham; belief in the corruption of Jewish and Christian scripture; and belief in the restoration of that scripture through God’s angel and prophet. Buck, A Theological Dictionary: Containing Definitions of All Religious Terms . . . (repr., Philadelphia: W. W. Woodward, 1815), 248–53, 279–88. For some usage of Buck in Smith’s other more collaborative writings, see, for example, John Henry Evans, Joseph Smith, an American Prophet (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 95–96. ^[52] Davis (Visions in a Seer Stone, 155–57) hypothesizes that Helaman 13–15, 1 Nephi 12, and 2 Nephi 26 incorporate Smith’s summaries of the narrative, committed to memory. ^[53] See also Hullinger (Smith’s Response, 143–51) and Brown (Smith’s Translation, 140, 152–54) on the Book of Mormon and the in-house production of prophecy fulfilled. ^[54] In Minute Book 1 of the Joseph Smith Papers is a complaint and request for scrutiny that Smith filed with the Kirtland High Council in 1835 about the conduct of one of his followers, Almon Babbitt. Smith’s brother William had hosted a debate club or school, inter alia, on the question of whether divine revelation was indispensable to happiness. Smith attended, helping with the positive case, but he became uncomfortable after the negative was presented too well, so he wanted the school to halt. The brothers clashed badly over this and other grievances. On William’s side, Babbitt said Smith was a sore loser in debate, and that there was no cause for disbandment of the club since there was no harm in playing devil’s advocate. To illustrate, Babbitt boasted “he could read Tho. Paine or any other work without being swerved,” insinuating Smith’s constitution was frail, all of which must have hit a sensitive spot for Smith to launch formal proceedings. See Minutes, 28 Dec. 1835, 132, The Joseph Smith Papers. ^[55] For another challenge to Matthew 27:51b-53 after the fashion of the second part of the Age of Reason but lacking the third part’s call for a retro-prophecy, see the anonymous Critical Remarks on the Truth and Harmony of the Four Gospels . . . by a Free-Thinker (1827, 82–84). ^[56] William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity . . . (repr., Boston: I. Thomas and E. T. Andrews, 1803), 271–74; Alexander Campbell, “Letters to Humphrey Marshall, Esq. Letter V,” Millennial Harbinger (Bethany, Va.) 2 no. 4 (Apr. 4, 1831): 150–56. In the midst of his debate with Humphrey Marshall that spun off from his larger debate with Robert Owen, Alexander Campbell critiqued the Book of Mormon. He noticed the prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite and the recording of its fulfillment, but he could not or would not appreciate what Smith was doing as a co-defender of the Bible. Campbell, “Delusions,” Millennial Harbinger (Bethany, Va.) 2 no. 2 (Feb. 7, 1831): 89. ^[57] On learned versus popular discourse in British-American biblical interpretation, see Mihalyfy, “Heterodoxies and the Historical Jesus,” 14–23. ^[58] For recent studies of how Smith’s text undermines the fixity of holy and secular writ and how it mimics print copies of the Bible so as to position itself with biblical weight and substance, see, respectively, Elizabeth Fenton, “Open Canons: Sacred History and American History in The Book of Mormon,” J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanist 1, no. 2 (2013): 339–61; and Seth Perry, “The Many Bibles of Joseph Smith: Textual, Prophetic, and Scholarly Authority in Early-National Bible Culture,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84, no. 3 (2016): 750–775; Seth Perry, Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2018), 110–28. I do not deny, but I do wonder whether that may be ancillary. ^[59] Matthew 27:51b-53 is one of several passages from the first gospel supported in the Book of Mormon. Before the Common Era, Nephi’s apocalyptic vision encompasses the virgin birth (1 Nephi 11:13–21; see also 2 Nephi 17:14; Alma 7:10; cf. Matthew 1:18–25; and Luke 1:26–38). The same Nephi preaches a proleptic homily on why Jesus would be baptized “to fulfill all righteousness” (2 Nephi 31:4–13; cf. Matthew 3:14–15 KJV). Then over a half millennium later, when the resurrected Christ appears to the Amerindians after the light of the star at his nativity (Helaman 14:5; 3 Nephi 1:21; cf. Matthew 2:1–12), and after the darkness and the earthquake at his death, he delivers the Sermon on the Mount (3 Nephi 12–14; cf. Matthew 5–7). Unique to Matthew (and Luke), any of these passages would have been an easy critical target, and Paine assailed the virgin birth with as much choler as the resurrection (Theological Works, 33–34, 112–14, 120, 127–28, 145, 215–19, 221–24). There are, as well, many subtler examples of Matthean phraseology from the KJV used creatively in Smith’s text having nothing to do with defense of the Bible. For some within the words of Samuel the Lamanite, see Fenton, “Nephites and Israelites,” 290; and Berkey and Spencer, “Complexity,” 301–5. [post_title] => Joseph Smith, Thomas Paine, and Matthew 27:51b–53 [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 54.4 (Winter 2021): 1–33
Despite its alleged antiquity, jutting back centuries before the Common Era, and its predominant setting in the Americas, the Book of Mormon contains several Matthean and Lukan additions to Mark made in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => joseph-smith-thomas-paine-and-matthew-2751b-53 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-28 19:31:12 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-28 19:31:12 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=28733 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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In an 1879 interview with her son, Emma Smith famously asserted: “My belief is that 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.” In support of her declaration, Emma turned from a confessional assertion to a naturalistic line of reasoning, arguing, “for, when [I was] 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 a portion of it read to him. This was a usual thing for him to do. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.”[1] Emma’s turn to naturalistic criteria offers an opportunity to explore the persistent relationships that often emerge in Mormon communities between personal testimonies and naturalistic arguments, which usually take the form of direct claims or indirect assumptions about Joseph’s alleged ignorance and illiteracy. Emma’s statement offers a template for this pervasive dynamic: her testimony suggests that her belief in the Book of Mormon hinged, at least in part, on her disbelief in Joseph’s ability to produce the work on his own accord.

Emma, of course, was not alone in this attitude. Early accounts of Joseph’s intellectual abilities, from critics and followers alike, often emphasize his illiteracy and lack of education; whereas those hostile to him did so in order to assert that another person or persons composed the text (hence the Spalding–Rigdon theory), believers did it in an effort to provide supporting evidence for the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.[2] In time, such naturalistic arguments occasionally evolved into complex lists of criteria aimed at disqualifying Smith—or any other individual, for that matter—as the author of the work. In a 1955 devotional at Brigham Young University, the future LDS apostle Hugh B. Brown provided his audience with criteria that would influence subsequent lists of such naturalistic argumentation. “I submit to you that the Prophet Joseph Smith in translating the Book of Mormon did a superhuman task,” Brown declared to his audience. “I ask you students to go out and write a Book of Mormon. . . . I ask you to write, if you can, any kind of a story of the ancient inhabitants of America, and I ask you to write it without any source material.” Brown continued with a list of selective criteria, focusing on the ability to produce multiple chapters devoted to wars, history, visions, prophecies, and the ministry of Jesus Christ. In addition, any undertakers of such a task would need to incorporate “figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narration, exposition, description, oratory, epic, lyric, logic, and parables.” Moreover, alluding to Joseph’s age and lack of education, Brown singled out “those of you who are under twenty” to write the book (Joseph was twenty-three when he dictated the current text), while reminding them that “the man that translated the Book of Mormon was a young man, and he hadn’t had the opportunity of schooling that you have had.”[3] Like Emma’s assertions regarding Joseph’s lack of ability, Brown’s declarations offered a buttress for faith based on naturalistic lines of reasoning.

Brown’s list apparently inspired BYU professor Hugh Nibley to produce a similar but more detailed set of criteria. In addition to the general ideas proposed by Brown, Nibley specified that anyone attempting to replicate Joseph’s feat must produce a work “five to six hundred pages in length,” provide the names of hundreds of characters, and “be lavish with cultural and technical details—manners and customs, arts and industries, political and religious institutions, rites, and traditions, include long and complicated military and economic histories,” among several additional requirements.[4] Brown’s and Nibley’s selective catalogues spurred numerous imitations, often referred to as the “Book of Mormon Challenge.” They might also contain additional exclusionary points of comparison, such as, “You are twenty-three years of age,” “You have had no more than three years of formal school education,” and “Your history must be 531 pages and over 300,000 words in length [at approximately 269,510 words, the Book of Mormon actually falls short of this criterion].”[5] The popularity of such lists has long saturated the cultural imagination of believers, reinforcing the idea that Joseph’s translation of the Book of Mormon would require, to use Brown’s words, a “superhuman task” to duplicate.

Such frameworks of evaluation, though unofficial and nondoctrinal, ostensibly gratify a need for tangible evidence of divine intervention, and variations of these lists make regular appearances in formal and informal settings. In a recent conference addressing the topic of Joseph Smith’s translation, for example, Richard L. Bushman offered an informal set of criteria that revealed the presence of such framing: “Despite all the naturalist arguments, I still do not believe that no matter what his [Smith’s] genius, he could have done it as himself.” In support of his position, Bushman proposed a comparative framework of naturalistic criteria intended to demonstrate the improbability of Smith’s possible authorship: “What I want is a text of similar complexity, produced under such primitive conditions, with so little background or training or precedence, to turn out his master work—not at the end of his career but at the beginning of his career, just as he’s getting started. That seems to me really beyond anything you could call natural.”[6] Bushman’s response was, of course, improvised, rather than a formal statement on the matter. Even so, his observations offer a fitting example of the ways in which naturalistic checklists weave their way into informal discussions about the origins of the Book of Mormon, influencing opinions and oftentimes buttressing the very foundations of faith.

Within the broader spectrum of Mormon apologetic discourse, the regular appearance of such comparative “proofs” (either as individual issues or collective catalogues) reflects a strong and common tendency to move beyond confessional affirmations—such as testimonies of spiritual witnesses confirming the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon—to decidedly non-confessional appeals to naturalistic criteria.[7] Nevertheless, such proposals, which directly entangle naturalistic criteria with the effort to strengthen faith, carry inherent and unpredictable risks. Should the proffered checklists fail to distinguish the Book of Mormon in any substantive way from other notable contemporary examples, then such comparisons not only result in the weakening of popular supports to faith but potentially undermine faith itself. As Loyd Isao Ericson cautions, the possibility then exists that “instead of tearing down potential stumbling blocks to faith, Mormon apologetics actually and unknowingly engages in building and establishing those blocks.”[8] Moreover, such comparisons are burdened with implications of unspoken (and unintended) commentaries on the very nature of faith and belief. The insistent turn to naturalistic criteria in the cultural imagination of believers strongly suggests the existence of an unacknowledged, paradoxical, and potentially incompatible component within the foundations of faith: belief in the Book of Mormon contains an embedded disbelief in Smith’s capacity to create it, or even to participate actively in its creation.

Within the community of faith, the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon finds its anchors exclusively in the personal spiritual witnesses and lived experiences of believers, independent of any additional appeals to naturalistic assumptions. Such, at least, is the idealistic and theological claim. The relentless invocations of naturalist arguments, however, trouble this idealism. Whether appearing as broad claims asserting Joseph’s alleged ignorance and illiteracy or as detailed catalogues of idiosyncratic criteria, it becomes clear that naturalistic arguments do, in fact, participate in the actual framework of day-to-day belief and workaday faith concerning the origins and authenticity (and therefore the authority) of the Book of Mormon. The pragmatic nature of faith seems not only to reflect a belief in “things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21), but likewise involves a subjective disbelief in alternative possibilities. Thus, doubt comes to play a role in the composition of faith. The embedded reliance on naturalistic arguments, however tangential, therefore presents the uneasy and troubling possibility that a portion of one’s faith rests upon a foundation of limited mortal assumptions, constrained within the narrow and finite compass of an individual’s personal knowledge, hopes, needs, and experience. As such, the presumably solid rock foundation of faith turns out to contain a lot of destabilizing sand.

Comparing American Seers

With such thoughts on faith and belief serving as a meditative backdrop, we might treat these naturalistic arguments as a convenient analytic framework to compare—and contrast—Joseph Smith and his 1829 translation of the Book of Mormon with Andrew Jackson Davis (1826–1910), another early American “prophet and a seer,” and his trance performance of The Principles of Nature (1847).[9] For within this comparison, we find another complex text produced by a speaker with limited formal education and training, created under similar conditions and circumstances, and a work that stands as its young creator’s greatest masterpiece, even though the text was created at the dawn of the speaker’s career. Davis, like Smith, was raised in a poor household and received little formal education—Davis, in fact, would claim to have received only “little more than five months” of schooling.[10] Davis also received visions and met with angelic messengers, who informed him that he was chosen to reveal important truths to the world. Through a mystical process of mesmeric trance and “conscious clairvoyance,” Davis dictated—without the use of notes, manuscripts, or books—his first and most popular volume, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind, which, at approximately 320,000 words, contains a collection of intricate revelations that many of his readers treated as new scripture.[11] Though Davis eventually composed more than thirty books, The Principles of Nature would remain “the most famous” and influential text of his career.[12]

These broad-stroke comparisons do not, however, do justice to the compelling and oftentimes uncanny similarities between Smith and Davis. A closer examination of the circumstances surrounding the oral production of their works—both their similarities and important differences—can thus provide crucial insights into the cultural context in which these two fledgling seers performed their respective texts into existence. Moreover, such a comparative exploration alerts us to the problems of invoking arbitrary criteria in a strategic effort to privilege the work of a favored candidate.

The Poughkeepsie Seer

In April of 1829, when Joseph Smith started dictating the Book of Mormon in Harmony, Pennsylvania, Andrew Jackson Davis, not yet three years old, lived just over one hundred miles away in Blooming Grove, New York, a small town in the Hudson River Valley.[13] Like Smith, Davis was born into an impoverished family: his father was a weaver and journeyman shoemaker, while his mother occasionally supplemented the family’s meager income through domestic work in neighbors’ homes.[14] Their indigent circumstances forced them into a peripatetic life, moving from town to town in a constant search for work, disrupting any sense of familial stability. Their arrival in Poughkeepsie in 1841, when young “Jackson” turned fourteen years old, would mark the seventh time the family had moved.[15]

According to Davis, the constant moving from one town to another, coupled with the impoverished circumstances of the family, resulted in a poor education. Indeed, Davis’s supporters and detractors alike would eagerly embrace his claim of having little more than five months of formal education, arguing that Davis’s miraculous revelations could not possibly have come from the mind of such an untutored, ignorant boy. J. Stanley Grimes, a well-known contemporary mesmerist and phrenologist, argued that “Davis was notoriously ignorant and illiterate. . . . How, then, was he to write a superior book?”[16] The Reverend William Fishbough, Davis’s scribe during the dictation of The Principles of Nature, described the young visionary’s purported naïveté in more florid terms: “He remained, then, up to the commencement of his lectures, the uneducated, unsophisticated child of Nature, entirely free from the creeds, theories, and philosophies of the world.”[17] Ira Armstrong, a Poughkeepsie merchant who once hired Davis as an apprentice, stated, “His education barely amounted to a knowledge of reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic.”[18] Armstrong’s description (a common refrain in the period) might well be compared to Smith’s claim that “I was merely instructed in reading, writing, and the ground rules of arithmetic.”[19] The familiar trope of the illiterate mouthpiece of God’s pure and undefiled word offered a convenient framework in which to cast the budding prophet’s career, and Davis’s self-reported ignorance provided his supporters with compelling evidence of divine intervention.[20]

Like the Smiths, the transient life of the Davis household also reflected their restless search for a religious home—at least for some of the family members. Davis’s father seems not to have held much interest in religion, yet his mother was deeply spiritual. Along with formal religious organizations, she was also a firm believer and practitioner in various forms of folk magic. “She had real clairvoyance,” Davis would later recall, adding that she had a “mysterious faculty to foretell the future.”[21] Davis also attended various churches with his mother, who joined at least two different denominations: the Dutch Reformed Church and the Presbyterians.[22] Working as both a farm laborer and an apprentice shoemaker, Davis would also frequently attend the churches to which his employers belonged, exposing him further to the Episcopalians, Methodists, and (indirectly) Universalists.[23]

Among these traditions, Methodism emerged as perhaps the most influential—another commonality with Smith. Davis’s interest began in the spring of 1842, when he started working as an apprentice to Ira Armstrong, a devout Methodist. Davis participated in a variety of services, including probationary meetings, class meetings, Sunday services, and at least one revival.[24] In such gatherings, Davis would have observed ministers and lay members engaged in semi-extemporaneous speaking, praying, and exhorting. He also would have witnessed the audience responses, which, apart from members rising and “shouting” out praises and calling for mercy, would have included members falling unconscious or into trance-like states of spiritual conviction.[25]

Davis’s prophetic career began in December 1843, shortly after J. Stanley Grimes, an itinerant lecturer, arrived in Poughkeepsie to demonstrate the wonders of mesmerism (a form of hypnotism) and phrenology (inferring an individual’s personality traits based on features of the cranium).[26] Davis volunteered as a subject, yet Grimes failed to hypnotize him. A few days later, however, William Levingston, a local tailor studying Chauncy Hare Townshend’s Facts in Mesmerism (1840) and an amateur mesmerist in his own right, approached Davis and asked if he could try to succeed where Grimes had failed. In this next attempt, Davis slipped into a deep trance.[27] In time, among other clairvoyant skills, Davis claimed that he could see the internal organs of people placed before him, as if “the whole body was transparent as a sheet of glass.”[28] This alleged ability prompted Davis and Levingston to set up a clairvoyant medical practice in March of 1844.[29] Levingston, acting as Davis’s “operator,” would induce the mesmeric trance, and then Davis, wrapped in a mystical vision, would look into the patient’s body, diagnose the ailments, and then advise homeopathic remedies.

During this early period, Davis also received visions in which angelic messengers met with him and foretold his mission in life. In his best known vision, much like Moroni’s visit to young Joseph, Davis would claim that the spirits of Galen, the ancient Greek physician and philosopher, and Emanuel Swedenborg, the eighteenth-century mystic and theologian, appeared to him and guided him in a quest to reveal greater spiritual truths to humankind.[30] Such “prophetic admonitions,” as Davis described them, revealed that he was destined for a higher calling as a prophet and seer.[31]

In the months that followed, a Universalist minister in Poughkeepsie, the Reverend Gibson Smith, took great interest in Davis and Levingston’s medical practice and convinced the pair to travel with him on a healing/lecture tour throughout the region, stopping at Albany, New York, and Danbury, Connecticut.[32] During the tour, Davis not only diagnosed patients but spoke in trance about the natural and universal laws that governed all creation. The lectures fascinated Gibson Smith, and Davis “promised to give him three or four lectures on the subject.”[33] Nonetheless, and apparently without Davis’s permission or editorial input, Gibson Smith revised and published the lectures in a thirty-two-page pamphlet, Lectures on Clairmativeness: Or, Human Magnetism (1845). But Davis was not happy with Gibson Smith’s alterations or the resulting publication, describing the pamphlet as “a fugitive and mongrel production—containing a strong infusion of the editor’s own mind.”[34] As Catherine L. Albanese notes, “Davis would later disown the pamphlet.”[35]

As he continued his clairvoyant medical practice, Davis began to focus more attention on the revelation of eternal truths. His patients, in fact, often prompted this transition. “From the very beginning of my mystical experience,” Davis recalled, “convalescing patients and investigating minds” had peppered him with theological questions: “‘Can you tell me what constitutes the soul?’ or ‘Is man’s spirit immortal?’ or ‘Is man a free agent?’ ‘Is God a person, or an essence?’ ‘What is life?’ . . . ‘What is the main purpose of man’s creation?’ ‘Is the Bible all true, or in part only?’”[36] In time, the barrage of questions and Davis’s responsive revelations led to the incremental formation of a complete and systematic cosmology. Later, when patients continued to ask such questions, Davis replied that he would “dictate a Book, which will contain my answers to your interrogatories.”[37] This ambitious book, according to Davis, would contain “a series of extraordinary revelations” that would outline a new system of scientific theology encompassing the natural and spiritual laws that governed all creation.[38]

Later, in the fall of 1845, Davis ended his partnership with Gibson Smith and Levingston.[39] In their place, Davis enlisted the help of a homeopathic physician in Bridgeport, Connecticut, one Dr. Silas S. Lyon, who would act as Davis’s new mesmeric operator.[40] Davis and Lyon then moved to Manhattan, where they set up a clairvoyant medical practice in a local boarding house.[41] In preparation for recording Davis’s revelations, they also recruited the help of the Reverend William Fishbough, a Universalist minister living in New Haven, Connecticut, to act as the scribe for the project.[42] Davis and Lyon then arranged to have three formal witnesses regularly attend the trance lectures in order to provide eyewitness testimony concerning the process of dictation. Along with these witnesses, no less than twenty-three additional observers attended some of the proceedings, “ranging from one to six” guests per session.[43] “Among the more noteworthy visitors,” Robert W. Delp notes, “were Edgar Allan Poe and the organizer of communitarian experiments, Albert Brisbane.”[44] After approximately three months of preparation, in which Davis supported himself and Lyon by seeing patients in their clairvoyant medical practice, Davis finally started delivering the “lectures” on November 28, 1845.[45] The ambitious prophet and precocious seer had only recently turned nineteen years old.[46]

If presented as a tableau, Davis’s revelatory sessions would look similar to Smith’s translations with the seer stone. Both Smith and Davis would sit center stage in a room, their scribes near at hand writing furiously to keep pace, with a small but select audience of eyewitnesses to observe the proceedings.[47] There were, of course, differences. Smith used a seer stone in an upturned hat to block out light, while Davis was blindfolded and induced into a mesmeric trance by his operator, Lyon. Nevertheless, some of the parallel mechanics of the sessions prove intriguing. For example, Davis, like Smith, dictated the majority of his work one phrase at a time, pausing after each phrase and waiting for the operator or scribe to repeat each line back to him. According to Davis, the purpose was “to make sure that each word was correctly heard and written.”[48] Fishbough also described the dynamic: “A few words only are uttered at a time, which the clairvoyant requires to be repeated by Dr. Lyon, in order that he may know that he is understood. A pause then ensues until what he has said has been written, when he again proceeds.”[49] In this phrase-by-phrase process, Davis appeared to slip in and out of his trance state: “the passage into and out of the spiritual state occurs at an average of about once every sentence.”[50] Thus, Davis, like Smith, retained some form of conscious awareness of the development of the transcribed text.

In addition, Davis also spelled out unfamiliar words. When transcribing the term “Univercoelum,” a word that Davis coined to describe the original state of all the physical and spiritual components of the universe, Fishbough interrupted and asked, “What was that word?” Davis then “carefully spelled it, letter by letter, to make the scribe’s writing a matter of certainty.”[51] Moreover, Davis never referred to notes, manuscripts, or books during his trance state—he was, after all, blindfolded.[52] Neither did he review the physical manuscripts of his prior revelations before launching into new revelations. He did, however, claim to review visionary manifestations of the manuscripts in his clairvoyant state. Fishbough recalled, “At each entrance into the abnormal state for the purpose of lecturing, he [Davis] was capable, by an effort of a few moments’ duration, of reviewing all the manuscripts of his previous lectures.”[53] From the very beginning of the project, Davis also claimed that in his trance state he had the ability to view and scan the entire outline of his work.[54] Thus, through this clairvoyant process, Davis was able to start each new dictation session where the last one left off, without referring to material notes or texts—a feat that Smith had also performed during the translation of the Book of Mormon.[55]

In another noteworthy comparison, Davis also explicitly equated his mesmeric trance visions with the same visionary perceptions that allegedly occurred with the use of seer stones. When Davis was still in Poughkeepsie and developing his newfound skills in clairvoyance, an “old English gentleman” by the name of Dr. Maryatt came for a visit and “brought an egg-shaped white crystal, into which he requested me [Davis] to look, and tell him what I saw.” Initially confused about how to make the seer stone operate, Davis eventually succeeded in invoking its power. Within the “glass” he saw visions that revealed Maryatt’s house, environs, and family circumstances in England.[56] Later, when reflecting on the experience and how the seer stone worked, Davis observed that the object merely facilitated the same form of clairvoyance that he experienced with mesmerism: “it occurred to me that my gazing into it [the seer stone], with so much characteristic earnestness, had induced, temporarily, the state of conscious clairvoyance, which had enabled me first to see the landscape, house, paper, &c., and then, by simple concentration of thought, produced a miniature reflection of them in the glass before me.” This “conscious clairvoyance,” as Davis continued to describe it, allowed crystal-gazers to slip into a conscious trance-like state, “without going into sleep.”[57]

Davis’s level of consciousness during the dictation of his revelations alerts us to another important similarity between Smith and Davis. Even though Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon and Davis’s trance lectures have both been analyzed in terms of automatic writing, neither of these two young seers was actually operating within that particular process.[58] With automatic writing, the person receiving the revelations is the same person writing them, acting as a passive medium through whom some other disembodied spirit physically communicates a message. Though Scott C. Dunn has proposed that trance dictation and automatic writing “are only different techniques or expressions of the same underlying process,” the conflation of these modalities obliterates significant and crucial distinctions.[59] Apart from the challenge that neither Smith nor Davis claimed to channel the voice of another spirit or supernatural being, for example, the argument contains an embedded and faulty assumption that a text arising from an oral performance would express the same content, language, and characteristics as a written effort (conscious or otherwise). But these two modes of composition inevitably express significant and crucial differences.[60]

Moreover, Davis vehemently argued that his process of revelatory dictation did not equate to that of writing and speaking mediums: “how glaring becomes the misapprehension of those who advertise my lectures as ‘given through the mediumship of A. J. Davis’—as if my mind . . . were an insensible, unintelligent, and passive substance, or spout, through which disembodied personages express or promulgate their own specific opinions! This is an egregious error—a most unwholesome misrepresentation.”[61] Davis did not passively channel other spirits but rather spoke actively as himself, communicating the enlightened knowledge and divine revelations that flooded into his mind during his transcendent state.[62] When analyzing this process of performance, we find that neither the spontaneous utterances of automatic writing nor the free associations of extemporaneous trance speaking provides an adequate framework for the revelations and oral performances of either Davis or Smith.[63]

Another point of comparison involves the time it took to produce Smith’s and Davis’s revelations, and their resulting lengths. Smith produced the Book of Mormon within a three-month span, while Davis’s revelations occurred over a period of fifteen months.[64] In terms of actual working days, however, the disparity is not so great as these inclusive times might suggest. Scholars believe that Smith produced the Book of Mormon within a period ranging from fifty-seven to seventy-five working days, during which time he often worked at a full-time pace.[65] And, as David Whitmer observed, “the days were long, and they [Smith and Cowdery] worked from morning till night.”[66] Davis, on the other hand, supported himself and Lyon with the proceeds from their shared clairvoyant medical practice when he was not performing his revelations.[67] Financial exigencies forced Davis to produce the lectures intermittently and on a part-time basis, while devoting the majority of his time to treating enough patients to cover the living expenses for himself and his partner. In all, Davis intermittently delivered 157 lectures, each varying in length “from forty minutes to about four hours.”[68] If he could have worked “from morning till night,” as Smith had done, Davis theoretically could have produced at least two lectures per working day, spending a total amount of time that would have ranged from a low of one hour and twenty minutes per day to a high of eight hours. Thus, Davis’s total amount of dictation time, when converted to “full-time” days, equates to a rough estimate of 78.5 working days, and his series of revelatory lectures resulted in a work containing approximately 320,000 words.

When preparing the scribal manuscript for publication, Davis supervised the process but made few editorial corrections to the original outpouring of inspired words. Fishbough, who handled the preparations, stated, “With the exception of striking out a few sentences and supplying others, according to [Davis’s] direction, I have only found it necessary to correct the grammar, to prune out verbal redundancies, and to clarify such sentences as would to the general reader appear obscure.” Occasionally, the original manuscript was apparently illegible, requiring Fishbough to “reconstruct sentences” using “only the verbal materials found in the sentence as it first stood, preserving the peculiarities of style and mode of expression.” In perhaps the most invasive change, Fishbough indicated, “The arrangement of the work is the same as when delivered, except that in three instances contiguous paragraphs have been transposed for the sake of a closer connexion.” Finally, Fishbough asserted, “With these unimportant qualifications, the work may be considered as paragraph for paragraph, sentence for sentence, and word for word, as it was delivered by the author.”[69] In this regard (apart from Fishbough’s transpositions), the final published text of The Principles of Nature parallels similar editorial modifications that appeared in the 1837 and 1840 editions of the Book of Mormon, in which Smith revised the grammar and made selective changes in both editions.[70]

In terms of textual complexity, a comparison between Smith and Davis falls prey to subjective measurement, given that their texts are two fundamentally different products of oral performance. Smith produced an epic narrative containing a relatively complex collection of story episodes that included, as Grant Hardy has detailed, “flashbacks,” “embedded documents,” “year-by-year chronological markers through a century of judges,” “multiple wars,” “scriptural quotations and exegesis,” and “successions of rulers,” among several other standard narrative typologies.[71] Hardy has further argued (curiously) that the stories are “original.”[72] By comparison, Davis produced a series of lectures that outlined his vision of a scientific theology that would guide the world to a state of harmonious perfection. Such lectures, however, lacked the compelling drive of narrative structures filled with interesting, exotically named characters and dynamic storylines. Yet, as a systematic course of instruction that developed a new way of understanding the world, Davis’s lectures were never meant to be an epic narrative—a difference that hinders any direct comparison with the Book of Mormon. Evaluating the complexity of Davis’s thought therefore requires another perspective.

In terms of overall structure, The Principles of Nature contains three major divisions: “Part I.—The Key,” which establishes the fundamental framework of Davis’s ideas; “Part II.—The Revelation,” which Catherine L. Albanese describes as a “Swedenborgian-plus-‘popular-science’ section”; and “Part III.—The Application,” which ultimately provides a utopian vision of a harmonious society, or “The New Heaven and the New Earth.”[73] Albanese also observes that “The Principles of Nature was a complexly combinative work” that moved “in emphatically metaphysical directions.” And, in spite of its “trance dictation and sententious prose,” the work “possessed a logic and coherence that were, in structural terms, clear.”[74] This three-part division offers a simple yet effective organization for the entire work, though, from a structural viewpoint, it does not approach the complexity of the narrative twists and turns found in the Book of Mormon.

Moving beyond structure to evaluate the content, however, the reader discovers a sophisticated syncretism of contemporary scientific, theological, and philosophical thought. Though most of his ideas are now long outdated, especially with regard to scientific theories, Davis nevertheless stakes out positions and provides commentary on cutting-edge scientific theories of his day. And his philosophical forays reveal unexpected adaptations and developments of complex ideas. In the opening “Key,” for example, Davis sets about the task of reshaping the readers’ fundamental epistemologies, moving them away from standard theological narratives and traditional histories to novel views and assumptions informed by Enlightenment ideas, biblical criticism, scientific advances, and new philosophical perspectives. Davis alerts readers that their understanding of the world—how it operates, the nature of universal and divine laws, conceptions of God, and the spiritual nature of all things—is fundamentally distorted. For instance, as David Mihalyfy indicates, Davis addresses the issue of a historical Jesus, insisting rationally that Christ “was no apocalyptic prophet,” but a gifted (mortal) healer and, as Davis describes him, “the great Moral Reformer.”[75] In a quasi-primitivist turn, Davis also reveals that in order to understand how the universe truly operates, we need to sweep away false traditions and conceptions (with an emphasis on traditional religious opinions) and go back to the beginning of creation to understand how the world came to be, how it developed into its current state, and the principles that will structure further development.

In doing so, Davis invokes an overt Neoplatonic concept of material reality, where tangible matter and material forms exist in concert with perfected ideals (their “ultimate” state): “forms and appearances are effects of matter in approximating to its future state of perfection; while its perfected state, or ultimate, is in return controlling and refining these substances and forms.”[76] In this modification of Plato’s theory of forms, Davis extrapolates multiple “spheres” of existence, in which earthly matter interacts with its perfected ideal on higher planes of existence—planes that also offer error-free concepts, greater truths, and complete knowledge. But these relationships do not remain static. With this philosophical foundation, Davis incorporates contemporary scientific advancements into his philosophy to postulate a process of biological evolution.

Drawing on adapted concepts of Newtonian physics and laws of motion to theorize a mechanism for evolution (revising Newton’s concept of vis inertia and commenting on the relationships among rectilinear, curvilinear, and spiral motion) and incorporating contemporary studies in geology and paleobiology (the evolution of lower life forms observed in “the remains of the mollusca, radiata, articulata, and vertebrata” found in successive geological strata), Davis traces the origin, development, and transmutation of plants and animals in the natural world.[77] Not one to avoid controversy, Davis further includes the evolution of “Man” (the human body, though not the spirit) as the pinnacle form of that evolutionary process.[78] Thus, in his 1846 and 1847 trance lectures, Davis rejected a literal interpretation of the traditional story of Adam and Eve and the instantaneous six-day creation of all things and substituted a controversial model of biological evolution that contemporary scholars were fiercely debating in the years leading up to the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859.[79]

Moreover, in a point critical to note, Davis did not simply regurgitate information from a wide range of contemporary source materials and fields of knowledge. Rather, he saw their interrelated connections (or presumed relationships) and used those links to construct the scaffolding of a new belief system. For instance, this modified conception of the universe provided Davis with a philosophical and scientific explanation for how his own trance states operated: while in trance, his spirit transcended this earthly state to the higher planes of existence, where he received pure and unadulterated knowledge, which, in turn, he would share with the world through his revelatory trance utterances. Through a series of adaptations and calculated borrowings, especially from Swedenborg, Davis amalgamated the disparate fields of his knowledge and beliefs into a cohesive and multifaceted cosmology that served his ultimate project of social reform. He was, in essence, a magpie prophet-scientist, drawing on diverse sources of knowledge in order to weave his own innovative patchwork quilt explaining the laws that governed all creation. When we further consider that Davis performed these lectures while blindfolded, at the ages of nineteen and twenty, without the aid of notes or manuscripts for easy reference, and all the while supporting himself and an associate, we might begin to understand why many of his observers believed that this barely educated, substantially illiterate, poverty-stricken son of a poor journeyman shoemaker must have been truly inspired.

Turning from content to form, Davis also displays a wide range of rhetorical devices on par with those found in the Book of Mormon.[80] Because Fishbough kept his editorial changes to a minimum, The Principles of Nature preserves a number of interesting characteristics of Davis’s oral performance techniques, specifically regarding the use of rhetorical figures. Throughout the text, Davis makes use of such devices as anaphora (successive phrases beginning with the same word or words); antithesis (ideas set in opposition); epistrophe (successive phrases ending with the same word or words); various forms of parallelism; symploce (a combination of anaphora and epistrophe); zeugma (multiple phrases, often in a series or catalogue, controlled by a single verb); and, among many other devices, various types of “ring composition” or “envelope patterns” (also called simple and complex “chiasmus,” “inclusio,” and “inverted parallelism,” among other terms).[81]

Indeed, Davis’s pervasive use of chiastic structures suggests that the various patterns of ring composition—patterns of repetition and expansion quite common in oral traditions—reflect a habit of mind in the organization of his thoughts. Scholarship has not yet examined Davis’s use of complex chiastic structures, though it is highly unlikely that Davis knew about or intentionally formed them, particularly when they often lack the precision and clarity of consciously constructed (and revised) literary texts. Davis’s style of dense repetition, however, allows for the ready imposition of chiastic patterns onto his thoughts. A cursory reading can locate numerous examples, which, though certainly produced unconsciously, rival similar complex patterns found in the Book of Mormon (see figures 1 and 2).

Given the prominence of complex chiastic structures and the techniques of ring composition (conscious or otherwise) in oral performances, it would appear that the scholarship on chiasmus in the Book of Mormon needs to address further critical questions regarding the differences between literary and orally derived chiastic structures, as well as revisiting the purported intentionality behind them. Attributing such structures exclusively to the presence of underlying Hebraic literary devices ignores the global pervasiveness of such structures in both spoken and literary contexts, creating yet another illusory buttress to faith that crumbles upon closer examination.

Fixations on Idiosyncratic Criteria

In discussions concerning the origins and nature of the Book of Mormon, the fixation on naturalistic comparisons continues to thrive as a prominent and insistent need. The persistent creation of arbitrary taxonomies that divide and subdivide lists of selective criteria in an effort to privilege a predetermined chosen text suggests that such naturalistic comparisons play a far more important role in the cultural performance of faith and belief in the Book of Mormon than is usually acknowledged (or theologically desirable). Such lists attempt to manufacture miracles with an impressive array of contested categories, such as natural versus supernatural composition; conscious versus unconscious production; the purported significance of lengthy texts; the fixation on (often irrelevant) stylistic differences; dubious lists of information that the speaker allegedly could not possibly have known; and, above all, the purported ignorance and illiteracy of the person producing the work.[82] Given that such non-theological issues ideally do not participate in the confirmation of faith, the inordinate obsession with such naturalistic comparisons would seem to offer a troubling distraction, sending the tacit signal to the audience of believers that such comparisons and criteria must indeed be a crucial if unofficial component of faith.

The introduction of selective criteria, however, presents a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. We might, for example, create a new framework of naturalistic criteria, one calculated to dismiss Smith and the Book of Mormon in favor of Davis and The Principles of Nature: 1) The author or translator must be only twenty years of age or younger when he or she produces the work; 2) The author or translator cannot receive financial support from outside sources during the course of the project but must financially support himself or herself and an associate for the duration of the work; 3) The inspired text must consist of no less than 300,000 words, without being artificially expanded by the incorporation of extensive passages from other texts, especially the Bible; 4) When describing historical events and circumstances, the subject must frequently refer to known historical events and traditions that witnesses can independently verify for accuracy, using sources outside the text; 5) As evidence of truly divine revelation, the author must predict the existence of a planet in the solar system before the scientific community has discovered that same celestial body; and, finally, 6) When in a visionary state, the revelator must have the ability to utter phrases in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Sanskrit, even though the subject has never studied such languages, and then have a reputable university professor of Hebrew witness and verify such a feat.[83] If we were to accept this arbitrary list of criteria, we might hail Andrew Jackson Davis as a true prophet and seer, while Joseph Smith would be disqualified at every point along the way.

While naturalistic catalogues prove popular as rhetorical tools of persuasion, and while the mobilization of exclusionary rhetoric and claims of textual exceptionalism might appear to buttress belief, such dependence on arbitrary naturalistic criteria runs the risk of making faith more vulnerable. Indeed, the damage might already be done: the common day-to-day expressions of belief in the Book of Mormon strongly suggest that the persistent turn to naturalist comparisons reveals an entanglement of personal opinion, belief, theory, and faith. Belief in the Book of Mormon becomes inextricably bound to disbelief in Smith’s ability to create it—a position that reveals the uncomfortable prospect that the foundation of faith contains limited mortal perceptions, impressionability, and finite experience.

With such potential hazards, we might pause for a moment to ask what cultural work these comparative lists of selective criteria are actually performing and inadvertently revealing—not just about the texts but about ourselves. Such projects, after all, cannot prove or disprove the divine origins of the Book of Mormon. They never will. Such lists merely consist of tailored, calculated requirements that artificially isolate a preferred outcome, even as they showcase the preconceptions and assumptions of those who create and/or employ them. Such special pleading thus puts our own biases into sharp relief. Even if a text involves unusual characteristics beyond anything that we might personally describe as “natural,” the conclusion that the text must therefore be “divine” reveals a fatal leap in logic. We thereby display a faulty line of syllogistic reasoning that equates things purportedly unique and allegedly inexplicable with things miraculous and divine, as if these concepts were all somehow synonymous.

The persistent valorization of such projects, which ultimately compete with the development of authentic faith and potentially threaten whatever faith may already exist, should therefore make us pause and question their real value. Though such catalogues of criteria aim to impress (and entertain) an audience of believers, and though they might initially appear to strengthen faith, their effects prove ultimately unreliable and illusory. Moreover, they obfuscate historical complexities, transforming the young Joseph Smith into a two-dimensional, illiterate, know-nothing boy, when a close reading of historical sources rather reveals a young man with a gifted intellect and ambitious desires for self-education and self-improvement. Perhaps most importantly, however, naturalistic sets of criteria reveal more about ourselves than they reveal about Joseph Smith or the origins of the Book of Mormon: instead of discovering eternal markers that signal the presence of the divine, we merely discover the limitations of our individual experience, the borders of our imagination, and the measure of our credulity.

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^[1] This essay is indebted to insights from Brent Metcalfe, David Rodes, Colby Townsend, and the editor and anonymous readers for Dialogue.

Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), 1:542. Hereafter EMD.

^[2] Joseph Smith Sr. may well have started the tradition. According to Fayette Lapham, a farmer from nearby Perinton (aka Perrinton), New York, who visited the Smith home in 1829 or 1830, Joseph Sr. referred to Joseph Jr. as “the illiterate.” EMD 1:457.

^[3] Hugh B. Brown, “The Profile of a Prophet” (devotional, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, Oct. 4, 1955). Modified transcript. For an audio recording, see BYU Speeches, “The Profile of a Prophet | Hugh B. Brown,” YouTube video, 27:04, June 29, 2018, 17:10–19:55. The quotations follow my own transcription of the original audio recording.

^[4] Hugh Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, edited by John W. Welch, vol. 8 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989), 221–22.

^[5] For a common list of criteria, together with commentary, see Jerald and Sandra Tanner, “Book of Mormon Challenge,” Salt Lake City Messenger 107, Oct. 2006. For the 269,510-word count, see John W. Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2018): 22.

^[6] Richard L. Bushman (panel discussion, “New Perspectives on Joseph Smith and Translation” conference, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, sponsored by USU Religious Studies and Faith Matters Foundation, Mar. 16, 2017). See Faith Matters Foundation, “The Translation Team—with highlights,” YouTube video, 18:53, Apr. 27, 2017, 3:30–4:06.

^[7] As neither a doctrine nor principle of faith, the issue of plausibility falls technically outside the realm of theological apologetics.

^[8] Loyd Isao Ericson, “Conceptual Confusion and the Building of Stumbling Blocks of Faith,” in Perspectives on Mormon Theology: Apologetics, edited by Blair G. Van Dyke and Loyd Isao Ericson (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2017), 209.

^[9] J. Stanley Grimes describes how Davis came to the realization that he “was a prophet and a seer.” J. Stanley Grimes, The Mysteries of Human Nature Explained (Buffalo, N.Y.: R. M. Wanzer, 1857), 353.

^[10] Andrew Jackson Davis, The Magic Staff: An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis (New York: J. S. Brown, 1857), 173.

^[11] Catherine L. Albanese aptly describes Davis’s work as “a new Bible of Nature.” See Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007), 212. See also Grimes, Mysteries, 354. Brian Hales estimates that The Principles of Nature contains approximately 340,000 words, though I can only account for approximately 320,000. See Brian C. Hales, “Automatic Writing and The Book of Mormon: An Update,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 52, no. 2 (Summer 2019): 5.

^[12] Anthony A. Walsh, “A Note on the Origin of ‘Modern’ Spiritualism,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 28, no. 2 (Apr. 1973): 170. See also Albanese, Republic of Mind, 218.

^[13] For a sample of biographical sketches on Andrew Jackson Davis, see Albanese, Republic of Mind, 206–20, and Albanese, “On the Matter of Spirit: Andrew Jackson Davis and the Marriage of God and Nature,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 60, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 1–17. Robert W. Delp, “Andrew Jackson Davis: Prophet of American Spiritualism,” Journal of American History 54, no. 1 (June 1967): 43–56; Delp, “A Spiritualist in Connecticut: Andrew Jackson Davis, the Hartford Years, 1850–1854,” New England Quarterly 53, no. 3 (Sept. 1980): 345–62; and Delp, “Andrew Jackson Davis and Spiritualism,” in Pseudo-Science and Society in 19th-Century America, edited by Arthur Wrobel (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987), 100–21. See also Grimes, Mysteries, 350–62.

^[14] Davis, Magic Staff, 24–26, 68, 119.

^[15] Davis, Magic Staff, 40, 51, 87, 118, 123, 136, 169–70, 177, 185.

^[16] Grimes, Mysteries, 354, italics in the original.

^[17] Grimes, Mysteries, xiv, italics in the original.

^[18] Andrew Jackson Davis, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind (New York: S. S. Lyon and Wm. Fishbough, 1847), ix.

^[19] EMD, 1:27, spelling and punctuation modernized. Davis, describing himself in the third person, would assert that prior to his revelations he had only read one book in his lifetime “on a very unimportant subject” (later identified as The Three Spaniards [1800], a Gothic melodrama by George Walker) and that he knew “nothing of grammar or the rules of language.” Magic Staff, 304–05.

^[20] In spite of Davis’s claims, a careful reading of his autobiography suggests that he deliberately downplayed the actual amount of formal and informal education he received.

^[21] Davis, Magic Staff, 110, 119; see also 94–95.

^[22] Davis, Magic Staff, 160, 178.

^[23] Davis, Magic Staff, 158, 191, 200 (“Rev. A. R. Bartlett” was a Universalist preacher).

^[24] Davis, Magic Staff, 192.

^[25] Davis, Magic Staff, 192–93, 199.

^[26] Davis, Magic Staff, 201.

^[27] Grimes, Mysteries, 350. Davis, Magic Staff, 201–02, 210.

^[28] Davis, Magic Staff, 215.

^[29] Davis, Principles of Nature, xii.

^[30] Albanese, Republic of Mind, 207–08; Delp, “Andrew Jackson Davis: Prophet,” 44; Davis, Magic Staff, 238–45; for Davis’s identification of these visitors, see Magic Staff, 248.

^[31] Davis, Magic Staff, 244.

^[32] Davis, Magic Staff, 277.

^[33] Davis, Magic Staff, 275; see also 276, 279.

^[34] Davis, Magic Staff, 279. Likewise, Joseph Smith produced three recorded revelations (Doctrine and Covenants sections 3, 4, and 5) before the publication of the Book of Mormon.

^[35] Albanese, Republic of Mind, 207.

^[36] Davis, Magic Staff, 286.

^[37] Davis, Magic Staff, 286.

^[38] Davis, Magic Staff, 286.

^[39] Davis, Magic Staff, 296–98. Albanese, Republic of Mind, 208.

^[40] Albanese, Republic of Mind, 208; Delp, “Andrew Jackson Davis: Prophet,” 44; Davis, Magic Staff, 298; Davis, Principles of Nature, viii, xiii.

^[41] Davis, Magic Staff, 299.

^[42] Albanese, Republic of Mind, 208; Delp, “Andrew Jackson Davis: Prophet,” 44; Davis, Magic Staff, 300.

^[43] Davis, Principles of Nature, xv; see also 2.

^[44] Delp, “Andrew Jackson Davis: Prophet,” 44.

^[45] Davis, Principles of Nature, xviii.

^[46] Davis was born on August 11, 1826.

^[47] For David Whitmer’s description of Smith’s dictation sessions, see EMD, 5:153–54.

^[48] Davis, Magic Staff, 307.

^[49] Davis, Principles of Nature, xviii.

^[50] Davis, Principles of Nature, xviii.

^[51] Davis, Magic Staff, 318.

^[52] Davis, Principles of Nature, xvii.

^[53] Davis, Principles of Nature, xx.

^[54] Davis, Magic Staff, 299.

^[55] See e.g., EMD, 1:542.

^[56] Davis, Magic Staff, 266–68.

^[57] Davis, Magic Staff, 268. Davis borrowed the term “conscious clairvoyance” (and plagiarized portions of text) from William Gregory’s observations on the use of seer stones. See William Gregory, Letters to a Candid Inquirer, on Animal Magnetism (London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly, 1851), 367–76.

^[58] See e.g., Scott C. Dunn, “Automaticity and the Dictation of the Book of Mormon,” in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, edited by Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 17–46; Hales, “Automatic Writing,” 1–35; Robert A. Rees, “The Book of Mormon and Automatic Writing,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no. 1 (2006): 4–17, 68–70.

^[59] Dunn, “Automaticity,” 23.

^[60] Anita M. Mühl conducted experiments with subjects narrating memories by dictation via crystal gazing and also automatic writing. Though the subjects described the same stories in both modes, the expression of events were inevitably different (e.g., alterations in phraseology, vocabulary, and narrative omissions and additions from one mode to the next); see Anita M. Mühl, “Automatic Writing Combined with Crystal Gazing as a Means of Recalling Forgotten Incidents,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology 19, no. 3 (Oct. 1924): 264–73. More recently, Alexandra A. Cleland and Martin J. Pickering observe that “language is clearly used differently in written and spoken production,” identifying differences in the use of passives, complex phrasal constructions, and size of vocabulary; see “Do Writing and Speaking Employ the Same Syntactic Representations?,” Journal of Memory and Language 54, no. 1 (2006): 185–98, esp. 185–86. In an oft reprinted article, David Crystal offers a concise list of distinctions between written and spoken language; see “Speaking of Writing and Writing of Speaking,” Longman Language Review 1 (repr. 2005): 1–5. For a more comprehensive analysis, see Douglas Biber, Variation Across Speech and Writing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

^[61] Davis, Magic Staff, 311–12, italics in the original.

^[62] Davis referred to several different trance states, with different levels of consciousness, ranging from being oblivious to his surroundings to being acutely aware of his environment. For Davis’s sketch outline of four trance (“magnetic”) states, see Principles of Nature, 35–37. For his scribe Fishbough’s observations of different trance states, see Davis, Principles of Nature, xvii-xviii.

^[63] For the historical context regarding the development of conscious and unconscious trance states, see Ann Taves, Fits, Trances and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 207–27.

^[64] Fishbough states that the first lecture began on November 28, 1845, and the last ended on January 25, 1847; see Davis, Principles of Nature, xviii. In other words, Davis spent fourteen months of actual work time spanning a fifteen-month calendar period.

^[65] For John Welch’s most recent estimate “of only 57 to 63 available full-time working days,” see Welch, “Timing the Translation,” 34.

^[66] EMD, 5:104.

^[67] Davis, Principles of Nature, xiv.

^[68] Davis, Principles of Nature, xviii.

^[69] Davis, Principles of Nature, xviii–xix.

^[70] For a concise description of Smith’s changes, see Paul C. Gutjahr, The Book of Mormon: A Biography (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012), 63–65.

^[71] Grant Hardy, ed., The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2018), 621.

^[72] Hardy recently claimed that one of the features of the Book of Mormon is its “originality,” specifically stating that, “the content [of the Book of Mormon] is original.” See Grant Hardy, “Textual Criticism and the Book of Mormon,” in Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources, edited by Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 39. In the absence of clarification, Hardy’s claim is debatable, given the large body of research in literary criticism that hotly contests the meaning of “originality” in the way that Hardy appears to use the term. The stories of the Book of Mormon, though often “original” with regard to surface features, nevertheless rely heavily on preexisting core narrative templates for their shape and structure.

^[73] Davis, Principles of Nature, xxiii; Albanese, Republic of Mind, 210.

^[74] Albanese, Republic of Mind, 209.

^[75] David Mihalyfy, “What They Don’t Want You to Know About Jesus Christ and the Seer of Poughkeepsie,” Contingent Magazine, June 21, 2019; Davis, Principles of Nature, 434. For a detailed analysis of Davis’s views on a historical Jesus and biblical criticism, see David Francis Mihalyfy, “Heterodoxies and the Historical Jesus: Biblical Criticism of the Gospels in the U.S., 1794–1860” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2017), esp. 7, 180–84, 193–217.

^[76] Davis, Principles of Nature, 47.

^[77] For Davis’s references to Newton’s laws, see Principles of Nature, 57, 69. For his discussion on lower life forms, see 78–79. For evolution, see e.g., 57–85.

^[78] Davis situated his theory in what we describe today as intelligent design. See Principles of Nature, 70–76, 92. For an unambiguous statement on the evolutionary process resulting in humankind, see 328.

^[79] Darwin was not, of course, the first to propose a theory of biological evolution. Rather, he proposed new theories regarding the mechanisms driving the transmutation of species (e.g., natural selection). For a contemporary study that acknowledges the controversies of biological evolution and includes the categories of Radiata, Mollusca, Articulata, and Vertebrata, see Charles Girard, “Life in its Physical Aspects,” Proceedings of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science (annual meeting, National Institute for the Promotion of Science, Washington, DC, Jan. 15, 1855), 2–22, esp. 20–22.

^[80] For a detailed and helpful overview of several species of parallelism and a selection of rhetorical devices in the Book of Mormon, see Donald W. Parry, Poetic Parallelisms in the Book of Mormon: The Complete Text Reformatted, 2nd ed. (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2007), xi–xlvi.

^[81] The final paragraph on page 6 of The Principles of Nature (1847) offers several common examples: “This ignorance still exists; this bigotry and superstition still exist” (parallelism, symploce); “It has in its long career,” “It has obstructed,” “It has obscured,” “It has covered,” “It has sapped,” “It has produced” (anaphora, parallelism); “Wisdom/folly,” “Knowledge/ignorance,” “Happiness/misery” (antithesis). Such devices are ubiquitous in oral traditions as storytelling techniques, as well as in written texts. Thus, any assertion that such devices provide evidence of the Book of Mormon’s literary (written) origins faces the added burden of proving how such devices were exclusively literary constructions and not orally derived features.

^[82] See e.g., Hales, “Automatic Writing,” 1–35. Rees, “The Book of Mormon and Automatic Writing,” 4–17; 68–70.

^[83] Albanese notes how Davis “predicted an eighth [planet]—in a lecture delivered six months before the discovery of Neptune.” Albanese, Republic of Mind, 211. George Bush, a New York University professor of Hebrew and a devoted Swedenborgian, stated, “I can most solemnly affirm, that I have heard him correctly quote the Hebrew language in his Lectures.” Bush also claimed that Davis dictated phrases “from the ancient languages,” including “long extracts from the Sanscrit [sic].” See George Bush, Mesmer and Swedenborg, 2nd ed. (New York: John Allen, 1847), 161, 203. The “ancient languages” would be later identified as “Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.” See Theophilus Parsons, “Review,” New Jerusalem Magazine 20, no. 5 (Boston: Otis Clapp, Jan. 1847), 190.

[post_title] => The Limits of Naturalistic Criteria for the Book of Mormon: Comparing Joseph Smith and Andrew Jackson Davis [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.3 (Fall 2020): 73–103
Davis compares the two men, saying “Davis, like Smith, was raised in a poor household and received little formal education—Davis, in fact, would claim to have received only “little more than five months” of schooling.” [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-limits-of-naturalistic-criteria-for-the-book-of-mormon-comparing-joseph-smith-and-andrew-jackson-davis [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-28 18:47:05 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-28 18:47:05 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=26727 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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“And upon these,” Nephi writes, differentiating his smaller set of plates from the original historically focused record begun over thirty years prior, “I write the things of my soul” (2 Ne. 4:15). As he opens his intimate psalm, he establishes how much he personally values this second record and intends the writings thereon “for the learning and the profit of [his] children.” That Nephi designates this parallel diary for the paramount preaching of his and successive generations is evident in his explications of the text’s existence (1 Ne. 9:3–5; 19:1–3; 2 Ne. 5:29–32), as well as his directions to those who would subsequently keep and add to this sacred portion of his corpus (1 Ne. 6:6; 19:3; Jacob 1:2). He prioritizes this “small account” as the vessel for retaining the choicest Nephite teachings: “I, Nephi, received a commandment that the ministry and the prophecies, the more plain and precious parts of them, should be written upon these plates” (W of M 1:3; 1 Nephi 19:3, emphasis added).[1] Nephi clearly desires that his posterity treasure the writings on the “small plates” (Jacob 1:1), that they study and teach them (Jacob 1:1–4). 

Thus, having been assigned the highest value, the small plates would warrant the most conscientious treatment by authors throughout the Book of Mormon text. Presumably the doctrines, prophecies, and language on the small plates would be woven through subsequent writings, as those of Hebrew prophets in Jesus’ day, the King James Bible in nineteenth-century America,[2] and Isaiah within portions of the Book of Mormon. Unexpectedly, however, this does not occur with Nephi’s “plain and precious” record (1 Ne. 19:3).[3] As Joseph Spencer muses, “That the small plates are never specifically mentioned again and are seldom quoted is somewhat confusing and one wonders how the small plates had become so marginalized over the course of the centuries.”[4] Despite Nephi’s several exhortations to his posterity to “preserve these plates and hand them down” (Jacob 1:3) and “that the things which were written should be kept for the instruction of my people” (1 Ne. 19:3), his posterity seem unaware of their existence. Questions posed by Alma₂ in particular suggest that he does not possess the same understanding that is expressed in the books of Nephi and Jacob. The Book of Mormon prophets, therefore, do not exhibit consistent degrees of doctrinal and prophetic understanding. 

Such inconsistencies may cause some readers to question the credibility of the text. Upon observing doctrinal and prophetic variation within the Book of Mormon, some dismiss the book’s divinity. Conversely, others deny inconsistencies exist at all and attempt to interpret passages to support the book’s unchanging truth, defending its authenticity. 

Among others, Brent Metcalfe and Matthew Roper represent these two viewpoints.[5] Metcalfe explains variation in Book of Mormon prophets’ understanding by considering the dictation sequence.[6] As Joseph’s own language or ideas change over time, the language of the text parallels that variation when considered in dictation order. He presents as evidence the dictation’s historical context, stylistic and textual development that appear parallel to the dictation sequence, and early prophecies unknown to subsequent prophets in the middle period. The text’s ideological/prophetic development coincides with a Mosian priority dictation order. He therefore concludes that Joseph Smith is the primary creator of the text: “The composite of those elements . . . point to Smith as the narrative’s chief designer.”[7]

Responding directly to Metcalfe, Matthew Roper argues for unchanging prophetic understanding throughout the Book of Mormon.[8] He reframes certain passages that Metcalfe cites and bypasses others, asserting that Benjamin and Alma exhibit the same prophetic understanding as Nephi and Lehi. While his argument against Metcalfe’s differentiation between “Christocentric” and “penitent” baptism, among others, is persuasive, he overlooks key differences in spiritual knowledge clearly exhibited among various prophets.[9] Further, his fundamental anxiety is more troubling: that variation in the spiritual knowledge exhibited by prophets somehow threatens the book’s historicity and, therefore, validity. 

Though the original discussion between Roper and Metcalfe ensued nearly three decades ago, many of the concerns they express perpetuate in scriptural discussions today. Both authors are tied up in an assumption: that if variation exists in the text, the book as a divine source of knowledge must be invalid. Readers may consider another approach to canonized texts: embracing changeableness, rather than unchangeableness, as a characteristic of scriptural texts. Variation need not invalidate sacred books. Rather, recognizing and exploring such variation can augment our understanding as we allow the text to be what it is. 

Through examining the text of the Book of Mormon, I intend first to establish that scriptural texts can indeed exhibit variation in spiritual understanding and second, that such variation does not devalue sacred texts but can rather be insightful and, in the case of the Book of Mormon, align with and enrich the narrative. Before doing so, I first wish to preempt the possibility that readers may presume I subscribe to a particular theory that explains the text’s dictation. I am not commenting on the historicity of the text nor the degree of divine involvement in the dictation process.[10] Frankly, I keep rather aloof from such discussions, but prefer instead to focus on the document we all have before us. However, I will often refer to the Book of Mormon, in part or whole, as “record” or “history” because it refers to itself in this way through its characters/authors. Ultimately, the book remains a rich and mysterious complexity. Assumptions have perpetuated that are not only illogical but do a disservice to the text. Here I seek to expose the problematic nature of some of these assumptions, hopefully lending the text its due respect and wonder. I therefore offer an alternate reading to those presented by Metcalfe and Roper and others they may represent: that a careful examination of the Book of Mormon text presents a literary case that, sometime in the generations before Alma, the small plates of Nephi and the teachings thereon are lost or obscured from view.[11]

Sources of Evidence 

Many textual indications in the Book of Mormon suggest that the Nephites were unaware of the spiritual knowledge present on the small plates during the middle period. Evidence for this possibility is subsumed under a few categories. The strongest case is provided by direct evidence: certain doctrines and prophecies—clearly written on the small plates—are longed for and overtly acknowledged as absent or unknown. At times this sought-for understanding develops throughout the middle period (the second century BC, according to the text) as it is obtained through diligent searching, revelation, and at times angelic visitation, but previous teachings are not referenced. Another type of textual clue is more circumstantial and includes prophecies, concepts, or phrases that are simply absent during the middle period but present in the writing of Mormon and (mostly) Moroni. This evidence is abundant but only correlational and does not in itself demonstrate the Nephites’ lack of access to the small plates. Considered in addition to direct evidence, however, and taken into account as an entire body, it corroborates the case for the Nephites’ unawareness of the small plates during the middle period. In addition to these specific textual clues, the broader contextual narrative demonstrates a principle that spiritual knowledge increases or decreases based on people’s attentiveness to it. This offers a possible rationale for the small plates’ absence, as well as the depreciation and eventual reacquisition of spiritual knowledge and teachings thereon. 

“Now as to this thing I do not know. . .” (Alma 7:8) 

Alma₂ provides especially substantive evidence suggesting that the Nephites lack knowledge contained on the small plates. He seeks to understand or expound multiple doctrines and prophecies that are found on the small plates of Nephi, but he must toil to acquire them by revelation and uses restraint in expressing anything uncertain. Alma deliberately states what he does not know, what he gives “as [his] opinion” (Alma 40:20), and what he knows with certainty by revelation (e.g., Alma 5:46). He does not know when Christ would come (Alma 13:25), how the event would happen (Alma 7:8), or details as to the timing of the Resurrection (Alma 40:4–5). As the high priest, and because he is so cautious about speculating beyond certainty, Alma qualifies as a valid measure of general doctrinal knowledge. If he does not know a point of doctrine, it is plausible that no one else in the church would during that time. 

Doctrines 

In the period that opens as Mosiah1 leads Nephite followers to Zarahemla, recorded doctrinal expositions and prophecies do not at first reflect the same understanding as Lehi, Nephi, and Jacob. Alma2 and those preceding him diligently seek understanding of these doctrines, which return little by little, “line upon line” (2 Ne. 28:30), during something of a renaissance that begins in the second century BC.

Resurrection 

“I have inquired diligently of God that I might know . . . concerning the resurrection,” Alma confides to his son Corianton (Alma 40:3). Alma describes this doctrine as a “mystery” that must be “unfold[ed],” which demonstrates that he does not have access to a satisfactory explication of resurrection doctrines. However, the small plates contain thorough expositions on the Resurrection: Lehi teaches this doctrine to his son Jacob (2 Ne. 2:8), who later speaks in great detail concerning the resurrection of the dead (2 Ne. 9:4–22). He clearly teaches that “the spirit and the body is restored to itself again” in resurrection and that the Resurrection brings to pass the judgment (2 Ne. 9:13). However, this doctrine is not taught again with such detail until Amulek and Alma2 teach the doctrine (Alma 11:42–45).[12]

King Benjamin does not speak much about the nature of the afterlife. He does not teach about a universal resurrection, though he does mention that Christ “shall rise the third day from the dead” (Mosiah 3:10). He only speaks of possibly being “received into heaven” or “brought to heaven” (Mosiah 2:41; 5:15).[13] Most notably, he does not mention the spirit and body’s restoration to each other, as does Jacob, according to Nephi’s record of his teaching on the small plates. The word “resurrection” is only used by Abinadi (Mosiah 15:20–26), then Alma₁, both teaching that the righteous will be “numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life” (Mosiah 18:9). Although they use the term “resurrection,” they offer little more detail concerning the afterlife than Benjamin offers his people. They make no mention of the reuniting of spirit and body.[14]

On the other hand, Amulek, likely having been taught by Alma2 (the high priest), gives unprecedented doctrinal insights that “the spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame” (Alma 11:42–45). Doctrines he teaches, previously unrecorded in his century, include the reuniting of spirit and body in an incorruptible state and a universal resurrection for all, which then brings about divine judgment in the presence of God for both the guilty and the righteous. Nephi records all these doctrines on the small plates as Jacob had taught them: “the bodies and spirits of men shall be restored to one another . . . and all men become incorruptible, and immortal, and they are living souls, having a perfect knowledge like unto us in the flesh . . . and then must they be judged according to the holy judgment of God” (2 Ne. 9:12–13, 15; see 2 Ne. 9:4–22). 

Spirit World 

Alma 40 offers a particularly poignant window into Alma’s inquisitive mind and thirst for further spiritual understanding, in which he relates to his son Corianton that he has “inquired diligently of God that I might know . . . what becometh of the souls of men from the time of death to the time appointed for the resurrection” (Alma 40:3, 7). He relates that it must be “made known unto [him] by an angel” concerning this state of happiness or misery of the soul before the resurrection (Alma 40:11). Why must he “inquire diligently of God” and why must he receive angelic manifestations? Doctrines he learns after such toil concerning the “state of the souls of the wicked . . . as well as the righteous in paradise until the time of their resurrection” (Alma 40:14) are the first of their kind recorded in his century; yet they do not expand beyond Nephi’s record of Jacob’s public address teaching of states of “hell” and “paradise” before “the spirit and body is restored unto itself again” (2 Ne. 9:12–13).

Alma states that he must come to an understanding of the spirit world and the resurrection by seeking answers from God and then by receiving angelic declaration and other revelation (Alma 40:11) (see table 1). His awareness of the material on the small plates appears to be cursory at best. Yet, he is a diligent gospel scholar. It seems unlikely that Alma would have only a perfunctory understanding of a record so replete with the answers he seeks. More viably, Alma has no such writings before him to search, or is unaware of their existence.

Prophecies

“In six hundred years . . . ” 

Nephi records three separate statements from three different sources that Christ would come to earth six hundred years after Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem (1 Ne. 10:4; 19:8; 2 Ne. 25:19). These prophecies appear to be unknown to the Nephites in the middle period, and nothing indicates that people observed their fulfillment at the time of their occurrence. By contrast, the biblical Gospel writers, for example, frequently quote earlier prophecies, testifying of their fulfillment (e.g., Matt. 2:17–18, 23; 3:3). 

Alma’s brooding contemplations indicate that these prophecies are unknown to him. Although he knows of Christ’s coming, he is unaware of the timing of his coming: “And now we only wait to hear the joyful news declared unto us by the mouth of angels, of his coming; for the time cometh, we know not how soon. Would to God that it might be in my day; but let it be sooner or later, in it I will rejoice” (Alma 13:25, emphasis added).[15] If Alma searched the records available to him, he makes no indication of it.

Christ’s Life 

After an angelic visitation, King Benjamin prophesies of Christ’s life (Mosiah 3). Benjamin relates little that was not already recorded on the small plates.[16] The account the angel gives Benjamin of the Savior’s life (Mosiah 3:5–10) is similar to that given by Lehi (1 Ne. 10:4–11) and Nephi (1 Ne. 11), except Benjamin’s address omits Christ’s baptism and the exact time of his coming. Why would he need an angel to declare this account to him when it had already been recorded? Benjamin never cites earlier records as he speaks to the people, only the words of the angel. 

Additionally, the angel’s words to the people through Benjamin appear to be an increase of knowledge based on their righteousness. The angel says to Benjamin, “The Lord hath heard thy prayers, and hath judged of thy righteousness, and hath sent me to declare unto thee that thou mayest rejoice; and that thou mayest declare unto thy people, that they may also be filled with joy” (Mosiah 3:4). Because of their righteousness, Benjamin and his people receive the knowledge to follow, after much faith and prayer. The knowledge is new to them and could only be given by revelation. It appears the knowledge was not available to them by any other known means. 

Christ’s Coming Among the Nephites 

Nephi receives a vision outlining the future destiny of his people, including the pinnacle event: Christ’s coming among them. Nephi relates that he “saw the heavens open, and the Lamb of God descending out of heaven; and he came down and showed himself unto them” (1 Ne. 12:6). Nephi later relates these events in greater detail: 

And after Christ shall have risen from the dead he shall show himself unto you, my children, and my beloved brethren; and the words which he shall speak unto you shall be the law which ye shall do. . . . 

The Son of Righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them, and they shall have peace with him, until three generations shall have passed away, and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness. (2 Ne. 26:1, 9) 

Alma, however, is not clear as to any of these details. He writes, “I do not say that he will come among us at the time of his dwelling in his mortal tabernacle; for behold, the Spirit hath not said unto me that this should be the case. Now as to this thing I do not know” (Alma 7:8). Later, however, “they were taught that he would appear unto them after his resurrection” (Alma 16:20; see also Alma 45:10). Alma’s newfound understanding of this prophecy demonstrates that he is unaware of the small plates.[17]

Purpose and Destiny of the Nephite Record 

Nephi also prophesies extensively concerning the purpose and destiny of the records he keeps. He relates details about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon to a gentile nation that would then bring the record to the Nephites and the Jews. The records would establish the Bible’s truthfulness and restore the plain and precious things that are absent from the biblical record. These prophecies abound throughout the small plates (1 Ne. 13; 2 Ne. 3; 27–30). 

Alma’s musings, however, consistent with his carefully responsible yet enthusiastically inquisitive character, indicate that he does not know of these prophecies: 

And who knoweth but what they will be the means of bringing many thousands of them [the Lamanites], yea, and also many thousands of our stiffnecked brethren, the Nephites, who are now hardening their hearts in sin and iniquities, to the knowledge of their Redeemer? 

Now these mysteries are not yet fully made known unto me; therefore I shall forbear. 

And it may suffice if I only say they are preserved for a wise purpose, which purpose is known unto God. (Alma 37:10–12, emphasis added) 

Alma knows and senses that these records are important and will bring to pass “great things” (Alma 37:6–7). He surmises the possibility of greater conversions occurring due to the writings contained thereon. However, he is careful not to speculate when he cannot speak authoritatively on the subject. Again, it appears that Alma did not have access to the small plates, because he would have been able to cite Nephi’s prophecies foretelling the coming forth of the Book of Mormon unto the Gentiles, then the Jews, and “the remnant of our seed” (2 Ne. 30:3–4; see also 1 Ne. 13:35–39; 2 Ne. 27) as well as Enos, who further prophesies in particular concerning the Book of Mormon coming unto the Lamanites (Enos 1:13, 16–17). He also ignores other prophets like Jarom, who expresses his understanding that the record he keeps is “for the intent of the benefit of our brethren the Lamanites” (Jarom 1:2). 

Mormon and Moroni 

Perhaps the most obvious evidence for the Nephites’ ignorance of the small plates is Mormon’s surprise upon discovering them. He must “search among the records” to find “these plates” (W of M 1:3) only after he has abridged the large plates through the account of Benjamin. Typically, Mormon incorporates various authors’ accounts within the sequence of the larger narrative, but the small plates stand alone without his editorial hand. We do not know at what point during his abridgment of the large plates he reads the small plates, but the record suggests that by the time he had finished the abridgment, he knew the material on the small plates, and that influences his later writing, as well as and especially that of his son Moroni.[18]

Several more of Nephi’s prophecies on the small plates are never mentioned during the centuries before Christ comes among the people. Then, after they are absent from the record for nearly a millennium, these prophecies vigorously reappear in the writing of Mormon and Moroni, who have the small plates before them. For example, while Alma appears to have no knowledge of earlier prophecies pertaining to the destiny of Nephite records (as previously noted), Mormon and Moroni express a more comprehensive vision for the records they keep. They repeat and confirm prophecies regarding the records’ purpose (3 Ne. 29:1; Morm. 5:12–15; 8:26). Moroni’s prophetic writings pertaining to a latter day (Morm. 8) all exist within the context of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon record: “And no one need say they shall not come, for they surely shall” (Morm. 8:26). 

Many other prophecies, concepts, and phrases contained on the small plates remain absent throughout the middle of the Book of Mormon until they return in the writing of Mormon and Moroni, including:

• Seeing and speaking to a latter-day universal audience (2 Ne. 33:10, 13; Morm. 3:17–18; 7:1; 8:35; Ether 5; title page) 
• Twelve Jerusalem judges and twelve Nephite judges (1 Ne. 12:9–10; Morm. 3:17, 19) 
• The latter-day state of affairs: Book of Mormon to come forth in a time of unbelief (2 Ne. 26–29; Morm. 8:26–39; 9:7, 15; Moro. 10:24) 
• Three witnesses (2 Ne. 27:12–13; Ether 5:2–4) 
• “God who can do no miracles” (2 Ne. 28:6; Morm. 9:15; Ether 12:12) 
• “He that shall” “bring forth” “this thing to light” “by the power of God” (2 Ne. 3:11–15; Morm. 8:14, 16, 25) 
• “Voice” “crying from the dust,” “speaking out of the dust” (2 Ne. 3:19–20; 26:16; 27:13; 33:11, 13; Morm. 5:12; 8:23, 26; Moro. 10:27) 
• “Meet[ing] . . . before the pleasing bar of God” (2 Ne. 33:11; Jacob 6:13; Moro. 10:34) 

In these examples, Mormon’s and Moroni’s language is at times so similar to Nephi’s it is difficult to ignore a connection between them. Table 2 provides a list of the prophecies absent during the middle period that are reiterated by Mormon and Moroni. That these prophecies and lexical groupings are absent in the generations before Mormon provides further evidence that the Nephites are unaware of the small plates from the time (or before) Amaleki finishes them until Mormon finds them.

Observed Parallels Between the Small Plates and Mosiah, Alma

Of course, Mormon’s collection and abridgment of the large plates are not without passages that appear to originate from the small plates. Despite variation in spiritual understanding as noted above, much common knowledge exists from one Nephite period to the next, such as the commandment to keep the law of Moses until it is fulfilled (2 Ne. 25:24; Mosiah 13:27–28; Alma 25:15–16; 30:3; 34:13–14).[19] Joseph Spencer has observed parallels between the writing of Nephi and Zeniff.[20] John Hilton has observed textual similarities between Jacob and King Benjamin.[21] Furthermore, Alma 36:22 appears to be a direct quote from the small plates (1 Ne. 1:8). 

All of these anomalies suggest the existence of (at least) two parallel records, the large plates and small plates, from which later text may have been derived. Moreover, it is feasible that Nephi copied some of his original record onto the small plates, as he began the latter account after first recording thirty years of history and prophecy on the large plates (1 Ne. 19:1–2; 2 Ne. 5:28–30).[22] The exact text of Alma 36:22, for instance, also appears very early in Nephi’s second account—the eighth verse (1 Ne. 1:8)—which may have been copied from the large plates. 

Though traces of Jacob exist within Mormon’s abridgment of the large plates, they are relatively few. John Hilton points out several textual similarities between King Benjamin’s address (Mosiah 2–4) and Jacob’s address as recorded by Nephi in 2 Nephi 9, specifically within a span of only twenty-nine verses (2 Ne. 9:16–44).[23] Contrastingly, Jacob’s influences on Moroni draw from a much broader range of Jacob’s writings, including 2 Nephi 9 and Jacob 2, 3, 4, and 6. It is possible that Nephi recorded portions of Jacob’s address on his large plates, perhaps before he made the small plates; Nephi recounts forging the small plates (2 Ne. 5:28–30) just prior to his account of Jacob’s sermon (2 Ne. 6–10). Jacob’s language is otherwise absent from most other writings until Moroni, thus more fully supporting the premise that subsequent Book of Mormon authors do not have most of his words. 

Joseph Spencer notes several correlations between the record of Zeniff and Nephi’s opening to the small plates, as well as connections between Jacob and Abinadi.[24] Although Spencer highlights striking similarities between Nephi and Zeniff’s record, the use of the small plates as a template for Zeniff’s record is problematic in at least one way: Amaleki still has the plates in his possession while he records on them the group’s first and second trips to the land of Nephi.[25] As in the cases addressed above, it is possible that Nephi’s parallel set of large plates may account for the noted correlations between portions of the small plates and the record of Zeniff and Abinadi’s doctrinal teaching. At any rate, these exceptions demonstrate the book’s complexity and defy the parallels with the dictation sequence that Metcalfe observes.[26]

Narrative Context 

That Nephi’s small plates are unknown to the Book of Mormon’s most diligent gospel scholars of the second century BC is baffling and especially contradictory to Mormon’s assertion that King Benjamin “took them and put them with the other plates” (W of M 1:10). Indeed, Amaleki states his intent to give them to Benjamin (Omni 1:25). How can these statements be reconciled with Alma’s apparent lack of awareness of the small plates? 

As mentioned above, Brent Metcalfe aligns the variation he sees in the text with the dictation order, which is an informative yet incomplete con sideration.[27] In an effort to defend the book’s historicity, Matthew Roper responds to the “purported anomalies” Metcalfe presents largely by making the case for unchanging prophetic understanding throughout the Book of Mormon.[28] The data presented in this analysis demonstrates that the latter static approach to the Book of Mormon text (not unique to himself) must be reconsidered.[29] Additionally, while acknowledging (and expanding upon) Metcalfe’s observations of prophetic variation, the forgoing offers a reading that takes into account the literary context and maintains the literary integrity of the Book of Mormon. A broader view of the Book of Mormon narrative, considered through the lens of a principle laid out by its own prophets, provides a rationale as to the plates’ absence during the second century BC. 

“According to the heed and diligence which they give. . .”

The Book of Mormon itself characterizes individuals’ and societies’ spiritual knowledge acquisition as a dynamic endeavor rather than a static state of being. Alma2 describes a positive relationship between people’s earnestness toward the word of God and God’s imparting of it: 

It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him. 

And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full. 

And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries. (Alma 12:9–11) 

A similar relationship between righteousness and prosperity is expressed numerous times as the Book of Mormon opens (1 Ne. 2:20; 4:14; 2 Ne. 1:9, 20), and as the text progresses, prosperity is understood not only to mean wealth but also security and protection (2 Ne. 1:9; Jarom 1:9; Omni 1:5–6). Throughout the Book of Mormon, the text draws a correlation between righteousness, collective security, and spiritual knowledge. These variables do not remain constant throughout the book, but all, including recorded prophetic understanding, ebb and flow. This is certainly the case in the generations following Nephi.[30]

After Nephi bestows the small plates on his brother Jacob, they are passed from generation to generation, father to son and brother to brother, each keeping the record with varying degrees of conscientiousness. Also, in the generations following Nephi, prophets report a decline in righteousness, revelatory reception, and safety and peace. The people spiral downward from “prosper[ing] exceedingly” (2 Ne. 5:13) to “indulg[ing] themselves somewhat in wicked practices . . . under the reign of the second king” (Jacob 1:15) until eventually “the more wicked part of the Nephites were destroyed” in a few generations (Omni 1:5), which Amaron attributes to the people’s failure to keep God’s commandments (Omni 1:6). Five generations of small plates record-keepers (Jarom, Omni, Amaron, Chemish, Abinadom) become increasingly casual and lose sight of the record’s original purpose, for getting their father Nephi’s original instructions to them (Jacob 1:1–2).[31] Dissemination of spiritual knowledge ceases; Abinadom states “I know of no revelation . . . neither prophecy” (Omni 1:11).

Meanwhile, unlike Nephi and Jacob, a weak relationship appears to exist between the keepers of the small (originally more spiritually oriented) plates and the kings who have stewardship over the historical records. Beyond Jacob’s subtle criticism of the people’s hardening behavior “under the second king” (Jacob 1:15) and Jarom’s mentioning that their “kings and their rulers were mighty men in the faith of the Lord” (Jarom 1:7), there seems to be little connection, personally at least, between Jacob’s posterity and the kingly line. Not until Amaleki celebrates Mosiah1, who, in contrast to the immediately previous generations, leads them “by many preachings and prophesyings” (Omni 1:12, 13), does an author mention a direct association with a king.[32]

By the time King Benjamin receives stewardship over the main corpus of records (what we understand as the large plates), how aware is he of the small plates’ existence? Amaleki, upon observing that “these plates are full” (v. 30) and that he has no posterity to bestow them upon, determines it would be best to deliver them to Benjamin, “knowing [him] to be a just man before the Lord” (Omni 1:25). According to Mormon, Amaleki does just that, and King Benjamin then “took them and put them with the other plates” (W of M 1:10). What happens next? Do the people receive the records with rejoicing, public readings, or deliberate study, as with other acquired records, such as those of Zeniff, Alma₁, and the Jaredites (Mosiah 25:5–6; 28:11–19)? The text makes no mention of such a reception of the small plates.

Given the generations and centuries that have, by this time, passed through darkness, destruction, and casual record keeping by those who appear largely disconnected from the kings who keep the other records,[33] it is possible that, upon delivery, the value of the “plain and precious” record is not recognized (1 Ne. 19:3). Perhaps “this small account” (W of M 1:3) does not even make it directly into the hands of Benjamin before being filed away, perhaps in an unknown location. Or perhaps Benjamin is commanded to “keep them, that they should not come unto the world,” as Mosiah does the sealed portion of the Jaredite plates (Ether 4:1–2). Despite several conjectural possibilities, we cannot be certain of the plates’ location and accessibility in the Nephite library at this point. However, the Book of Mormon record itself provides evidence that, whatever the reason, the Nephites hereafter appear to be unaware of the small plates of Nephi, perhaps even as the account exists in their possession all along. With few exceptions (noted above) these middle-period prophets and kings do not reference or quote the material on the small plates. Several doctrines and prophecies contained therein are evidently unknown or eventually learned independently during the centuries leading to the coming of Christ. 

Conclusion 

The evidence herein supports the premise that the Nephites living after Amaleki (and perhaps before) are unaware of the small plates of Nephi until the day that Mormon finds them among the records. Alma2 is a particularly helpful source regarding the Nephites’ doctrinal and prophetic knowledge; he reports having no certain knowledge of a large body of doctrine and prophecies clearly written on the small plates. Additionally, many prophecies contained on the small plates are never referred to in subsequent books, missing from the record until they return prominently in the writing of Mormon and Moroni, after Mormon discovers the small plates. 

The present analysis offers an alternative reading of the text that both acknowledges and expands upon Metcalfe’s observations of the “less well developed” concepts of the “middle section of the book (Mosiah and Alma)”[34] while offering a literary rationale for such textual variation, thus maintaining the integrity of the entire Book of Mormon narrative as a whole—a narrative that aligns with principles laid out by the book’s own prophets. Further, I offer a response to Metcalfe’s hypothetical: “Why would Mormon or Moroni have inserted later, more developed elements into the narrative in some cases but neglected to do so in the homilies of Benjamin, Mosiah, Abinadi, and both Almas?”[35] Meanwhile, Roper’s argument attempting to defend the Book of Mormon’s historicity by asserting that its peoples’ doctrinal and prophetic knowledge remains static and unchanging over a period of a millennium is indefensible—and ahistorical. Prophetic knowledge exhibited throughout scriptural texts does not remain constant. Acquisition of spiritual knowledge is instead represented as a dynamic process of development and, at times, decay. 

I suggest that there is a viable reading of the Book of Mormon narrative that accounts for differences in language, prophecies, and doctrines taught during various periods of the book, a book that follows its own rules as to the spiritual knowledge acquired by its people. Despite Nephi’s writing on the small plates “for the learning and profit of [his] children” (2 Ne. 4:15) and his directions to his posterity to “write upon these plates . . . things which [they] considered to be most precious . . . for the sake of our people” (Jacob 1:2–4), it appears that in only a few generations these “plain and precious things” are “taken away” from them until just prior to their final destruction (1 Ne. 13:26). 
[Editor’s Note: For Table 1 and Table 2, see PDF below.]

---

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] The phrase “plain and precious” appears seven times in 1 Nephi 13, during Nephi’s recorded vision (1 Ne. 11–14). Four times, these words specifically refer to “plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God” (1 Ne. 13:28, 29, 34). However, three more instances of “plain and precious” things appear in this chapter, and refer to “much of my gospel” (v. 34), which “thy seed . . . shall write” (v. 35), and that “shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away” (v. 40). In only one other instance does the phrase “plain and precious” appear in the Book of Mormon, wherein Nephi refers to the writings on the small plates. When Latter-day Saints refer to “plain and precious things,” they often speak of those writings eventually lost from the biblical record. For example, the Joseph Smith Translation entry in the Guide to the Scriptures relates that “The Joseph Smith Translation has restored some of the plain and precious things that have been lost from the Bible (1 Ne. 13)” (“Joseph Smith Translation (JST),” Guide to the Scriptures, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/joseph-smith-translation-jst?lang=eng). Bible Dictionary entries on the Joseph Smith Translation and Sermon on the Mount offer similar treatments of the phrase. The Topical Guide and index to the triple combination entries on the word “plain” offer verses from 1 Nephi 13 and 14, but not 1 Nephi 19:3. General conference addresses utilizing the phrase “plain and precious” also refer to 1 Nephi 13–14, but 1 Nephi 19:3 is likewise not mentioned.

[2] See John S. Tanner, “The King James Bible in America: Pilgrim, Prophet, President, Preacher,” BYU Studies 50, no. 3 (2011): 4–24. 

[3] Several authors have observed some parallels between the small plates and the books of Mosiah and Alma, such as John Hilton, “Jacob’s Textual Legacy,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 2 (2013): 52–65, and Joseph M. Spencer, An Other Testament: On Typology, 2nd ed. (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2016). These will be addressed later in this article. 

[4] Spencer, An Other Testament, 125.

[5] Brent Lee Metcalfe, “The Priority of Mosiah: A Prelude to Book of Mormon Exegesis,” in New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology, edited by Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 395–444, and Matthew Roper, “A More Perfect Priority?,” review of “The Priority of Mosiah: A Prelude to Book of Mormon Exegesis,” by Brent Lee Metcalfe, FARMS Review of Books 6, no. 1 (1994): 363. 

[6] Metcalfe, “The Priority of Mosiah.” 

[7] Ibid., 433. 

[8] Roper, “A More Perfect Priority?” 

[9] Ibid., 367. Roper considerably reframes Alma 13:25 and overlooks Alma 7:8 and Alma 16:20 (ibid., 363–65). These will be addressed later in this article.

[10] I do not deny the possibilities that Joseph Smith may have been influenced by his environment, that he uses the language of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts, or that the dictation sequence aligns with and explains some of the language and understanding exhibited within the text. However, I believe that attempting to explain the text solely through this lens is an incomplete approach. 

[11] Metcalfe makes some observations similar to those that follow, as will be noted, and he observes that concepts and language appear to develop parallel to a widely accepted Mosian priority dictation sequence (Metcalfe, “The Priority of Mosiah”). The present analysis acknowledges and confirms those observations, while offering an alternative reading that considers the narrative context, to be discussed later.

[12] For a more thorough review of doctrinal teachings on the resurrection, see Robert J. Matthews, “Doctrine of the Resurrection as Taught in the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies 30, no. 3 (1990): 41–56. Matthews notes differences in the teaching of the resurrection by various Book of Mormon doctrine teachers, but he does not go so far as to say that understanding varies from person to person. 

[13] Mosiah 26:2 may indicate more had been taught, but it is not clear who taught it; this verse is referring to a time after Alma1 enters Zarahemla.

[14] Simply because the record does not provide these details does not in itself mean they were not known, of course. Roper contests that such is an “argument from silence” (Roper, “A More Perfect Priority?”). As demonstrated here, however, the text is not only doctrinally reduced for a large period but includes concurrent or eventual instances in which authors seek understanding of that which is not known, as especially demonstrated in the queries of Alma. The possibility that the Nephites may not have completely understood the doctrine of resurrection is also supported in the apparent confusion on the subject as later reported and clarified by Alma₂ to his son Corianton (Alma 40:15–18). There appears to be disagreement over terminology, perhaps originating in the way the doctrine is originally taught in this period, before it is more fully understood.

[15] Metcalfe observes the Nephites’ lack of awareness of this prophecy (Metcalfe, “The Priority of Mosiah”). Roper responds that the Nephites did indeed know of the prophecy and maintains that Alma 13:25 refers specifically to Christ’s coming to the people in their own land (Roper, “A More Perfect Priority?”). I agree that the specific verse alone is ambiguous, but little evidence supports the certain interpretation he asserts. To the contrary, Alma 7:8 indicates uncertainty that they would be visited at all, and whether it would be during Christ’s mortal life. It is not until Alma 16:20 that the Nephites receive a clearer understanding of his visit among them after his resurrection. A holistic approach to Nephite understanding during this period confirms their lack of awareness of the original six-hundred-year prophecy. 

[16] The angel does teach two new pieces of knowledge not recorded on the small plates, however: Mary’s name and the description of Christ’s bleeding from every pore (Mosiah 3:7–8).

[17] Unbelievers’ later complaints also provide evidence of the lack of universality of the knowledge of Christ’s coming among the Nephites. Unbelievers reportedly “began to reason and to contend among themselves, saying that it is not reasonable that such a being as a Christ shall come; if so, and he be the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of earth, as it has been spoken, why will he not show himself unto us as well as unto them who shall be at Jerusalem? Yea, why will he not show himself in this land as well as in the land of Jerusalem?” (Hel. 16:17–19). It may be that the teaching of Christ’s appearance to the Nephites after his resurrection (Alma 16:20) is not widely understood beyond those who are believers. Because it is a relatively new teaching for their time, unbelievers are perhaps complaining about something that had already been addressed but was not universally known. They would have understood, perhaps, had they listened to recent prophets and prophecies.

[18] Although Mormon states that he discovers the small plates while abridging the large plates (W of M 1:3), we do not know when he studies them in detail. He reads them enough to note the “prophecies of the coming of Christ,” which are “pleasing to me” (W of M 1:4), though these words are written when he is “about to deliver up the record which I have been making into the hands of . . . Moroni” (W of M 1:1).

[19] See Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 193. 

[20] See Spencer, An Other Testament. 

[21] See John Hilton, “Jacob’s Textual Legacy,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 2 (2013): 52–65. 

[22] See John W. Welch, “When Did Nephi Write the Small Plates,” in Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon: The FARMS Updates of the 1990s, edited by John W. Welch and Melvin J. Thorne (Provo: FARMS, 1999), 75–77. S. Kent Brown also addresses Nephi’s copying from previous sources such as the book of Lehi and the brass plates in “Nephi’s Use of Lehi’s Record,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, edited by John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1991). See also David E. Sloan, “The Book of Lehi and the Plates of Lehi,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 6, no. 2 (1997): 269–72.

[23] Hilton, “Jacob’s Textual Legacy.” 

[24] Spencer, An Other Testament. 

[25] It is intriguing, however, that Amaleki is personally connected with the group: his brother goes with them. The mysterious origins inherent in the characters of Zeniff and especially Abinadi and their temporal proximity to the small plates’ intended deliverance into the royal depository do invite some amount of conjecture as to these persons’ possible contact with Nephi’s second smaller account. Even so, Zeniff’s people fall into apostasy and Abinadi is martyred, and any knowledge of the small plates that they may have had does not appear to endure through subsequent generations. 

[26] Metcalfe, “The Priority of Mosiah.”

[27] Ibid. 

[28] Roper, “A More Perfect Priority?,” 362. 

[29] E.g., Matthews, “Doctrine of the Resurrection,” and Daniel C. Peterson, “Authority in the Book of Mosiah,” FARMS Review 18, no. 1 (2006): 149–85 also offer a treatment of the text that asserts unvarying spiritual knowledge throughout its history.

[30] For a thorough examination of these patterns, see Rebecca A. Roesler, “Heed and Diligence: Correlations of Righteousness and Truth in the Book of Mormon,” unpublished manuscript in author’s possession.

[31] Jacob expresses understanding of the record’s special purpose: “Nephi gave me, Jacob, a commandment . . . that I should write upon these plates a few of the things which I considered to be most precious; that I should not touch, save it were lightly, concerning the history of this people” (Jacob 1:1–2). Furthermore, he states, “For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ” (Jacob 4:4). Jarom’s writing does not reflect the same priorities. He states that he writes so that “our genealogy may be kept” and that it is “written for the intent of the benefit of our brethren the Lamanites” (Jarom 1:1–2). Although Jarom communicates the importance of obedience as his main message and includes the witness of the Christ to come as taught by others, he leaves nothing of his own witness for future readers. Omni, introducing himself as “a wicked man” (Omni 1:2), acknowledges the importance of obedience (“as I ought to have done”) but leaves no witness of Christ in his actions or words and states that the plates’ only purpose is “to preserve our genealogy” (Omni 1:1). Amaron indicates that he understands the purpose of obedience and acknowledges that the judgments of God are the consequence of disobedience (Omni 1:4–7). He leaves no testimony of Christ, however. Testimony and doctrine in the writing of Chemish is nonexistent, and yet he declares, “And after this manner we keep the records, for it is according to the commandments of our fathers” (Omni 1:9). Abinadom, six generations after Nephi’s mandate to Jacob, demonstrates some degree of understanding of the expectation regarding the keeping of the record. He states he knows of no revelation, but that “that which is sufficient is written” (Omni 1:11). It would seem he is saying, “I know I’m supposed to write the revelations we’re receiving, but I don’t know of any, so I guess what’s there will do.”

[32] Interestingly, Mosiah is not reported as having been king in the land of Nephi. His familial connection to the original Nephite line of kings is not stated, but he does, of course, somehow acquire the records on the large plates; they are passed down to his son Benjamin. 

[33] Over the course of twelve verses (Omni 1:1–12), from Jarom to Amaleki, approximately two centuries and four generations pass.

[34] Metcalfe, “The Priority of Mosiah,” 415. 

[35] Ibid., 427.

[post_title] => Plain and Precious Things Lost: The Small Plates of Nephi [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.4 (Winter 2019): 85
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“The question of the ultimate origin of a purported revelation,” writes Grant Underwood, “is ultimately beyond the scope of academic analysis.”[1] Professor of religious studies James D. Tabor concurs: “We can evaluate what people claimed, what they believed, what they reported, and that all becomes part of the data, but to then say, ‘A miracle happened,’ . . . goes beyond our accessible methods [as historians of religion].”[2]

A prime example of such a report is the Three Witnesses’ account of hearing the voice of God and seeing an angel with plates. Although this is a confirmation of what Joseph Smith had already been saying, the veracity of the claim is a religious, not historical, issue. A historical argument relies on documented experiences empirically accessible, at least in theory, to any competent observer, and because hearing God’s voice and seeing angels are not part of normal human experience, the origin of these purported miracles goes beyond the scope of academic investigation.[3] (Historians should report evidence of fraud, collusion, mental illness, and the like, however, for these fall squarely within the realm of scholarly analysis.) 

It follows, of course, that accounts of the plates involving normal sensory experience fall within the scope of scholarly inquiry. Seventeen people reportedly saw or handled the plates (or both) under such conditions, and this paper examines the documentary evidence surrounding these empirical events to discover what information they offer about what Terryl Givens calls the “pure physicality of the plates.”[4] 

Witnesses Among Joseph’s Family, Friends, and Acquaintances 

Emma Smith 

Joseph Smith III interviewed his mother, seventy-four-year-old Emma Hale Smith Bidamon, in February of 1879, two months before her death. “These questions, and the answers she had given to them, were read to my mother by me, the day before my leaving Nauvoo for home, and were affirmed by her,” wrote Joseph III. An excerpt from that interview follows: 

Question. Had [Joseph Smith] not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?

Answer. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from. Question. Could he not have had, and you not know it?

Answer. If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.

Question. Are you sure that he had the plates at the time you were writing for him?

Answer. The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen tablecloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.[5]

Emma did not specify when she handled the plates. 

William Smith (younger brother of Joseph)

In 1884, seventy-three-year-old William said: 

When Joseph received [the plates], he came in and said: “Father, I have got the plates.” All believed it was true, father, mother, brothers and sisters. You can tell what a child is. Parents know whether their children are truthful or not. The proof of the pudding is not in chewing the string, but in eating the pudding. Father knew his child was telling the truth. When the plates were brought in they were wrapped up in a tow frock. My father put them into a pillow case. Father said, “What, Joseph, can we not see them?” “No. I was forbidden to show them until they are translated, but you can feel them.” We handled them and could tell what they were. They were not quite as large as this Bible. Could tell whether they were round or square. Could raise the leaves this way (raising a few leaves of the Bible before him). One could easily tell that they were not a stone, hewn out to deceive, or even a block of wood. Being a mixture of gold and copper, they were much heavier than stone, and very much heavier than wood.[6]

Lucy Mack Smith

Although Lucy Smith’s memoir tells of her handling the spectacles and breastplate of the Urim and Thummim through a covering, it is silent on whether she saw or handled the plates. A secondhand account has survived, however. Sally Bradford Parker and her husband converted to the Church in Maine around 1834. In June of 1837 they migrated to Kirtland, Ohio, where they lived until March of 1838. In August 1838, Sally wrote: 

[Lucy Smith] told me the whole story. The plates were in the house and sometimes in the woods for eight months on account of people trying to get them. They had to hide them once. They hid them under the hearth. They took up the brick and put them in and put the brick back. The old lady told me this herself with tears in her eyes and they run down her cheeks too. She put her hand upon her stomach and said she, “O the peace of God that rested upon us all that time.” She said it was a heaven below. I asked her if she saw the plates. She said no, it was not for her to see them, but she hefted and handled them.[7]

This is consistent with William Smith’s assertion that the Smith family handled the plates but was not allowed to see them. 

In 1842, British clergyman Henry Caswall visited Nauvoo and reported Lucy’s saying, “I have myself seen and handled the golden plates; they are about eight inches long, and six wide; some of them are sealed together and are not to be opened, and some of them are loose. They are all connected by a ring which passes through a hole at the end of each plate, and are covered with letters beautifully engraved.”[8] Because Parker knew Lucy well and asked her specific details about her experience—and because Parker’s account of Lucy’s handling but not seeing the plates is corroborated by other sources and Caswall’s claim that she saw them is not—Parker’s is the more reliable source.[9]

Katharine Smith (younger sister of Joseph Smith)

Katharine’s grandson Herbert S. Salisbury related two instances of Katharine’s handling the plates:

She told me [when Joseph first brought the plates home in 1827] Joseph allowed her to “heft” the package [of plates wrapped in a frock or a pillow case] but not to see the gold plates, as the angel had forbidden him to show them at that period. She said they were very heavy.[10]

Catherine Smith Salisbury told me that while dusting up the room where the Prophet had his study she saw a package on the table containing the gold plates. . . . She said she hefted those plates and found them very heavy like gold and also rippled her fingers up the edge of the plates and felt that they were separate metal plates and heard the tinkle of sound that they made.[11]

Joseph Smith Sr.

As noted, William Smith said that when Joseph carried the frock-covered plates into the house in 1827, Joseph Sr. put them in a pillowcase, which would have involved handling and lifting them. Although Joseph Sr. testified in 1829 of seeing and handling the plates as one of the Eight Witnesses, he is not known to have offered any details on receiving the plates from Joseph Jr. in 1827. 

Martin Harris 

William S. Sayre, who apparently talked to Harris in 1829, wrote that Joseph Smith “would not let him [Harris] see the bible but let him feel of it when it was covered up.”[12] In 1853, Harris told David B. Dille he had once held the plates on his knee “an hour and a half, whilst in conversation with Joseph, when we went to bury them in the woods. . . . And as many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated, I handled with my hands, plate after plate.”[13] In addition, Tiffany reported Harris’s saying, “I hefted the plates many times, and should think they weighed forty or fifty pounds,” adding that the plates were held together by three silver rings and were about four inches thick, with each plate about as thick as a plate of tin.[14]

Oliver Cowdery

When Cowdery spoke to a group of Saints at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on October 21, 1848, Reuben Miller recorded those remarks: “Friends and brethren my name is Cowdery, oliver Cowdery. . . . I wrote with my own pen the entire book of Mormon (save a few pages) as it fell from the lips of the prophet, As he translated <it> by the gift and power of god, By 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.”[15]

Josiah Stowell

Stowell and Joseph Knight were visiting the Smith family in September 1827 when Joseph obtained the plates and were present when he brought them to the Smith home a few days later. Although Stowell left no firsthand account of Joseph’s bringing the plates to the house, two individuals who talked to Stowell produced reports. “If I under stood him [Stowell] wright,” Martha Campbell wrote to Joseph Smith in 1843, “he was the first person that took the Plates out of your hands, the morning you brough[t] them in & he observed blessed is he that seeeth & believeeth & more blessed is he that believeeth without seeing & says he has seen & believeed he seems anxious to get there [Nauvoo] to renew his covenant with the Lord.”[16] If accurate, this means Stowell was the first person other than Joseph to handle the plates.[17] 

A Colesville, New York court record sheds further light on Stowell’s experience with the plates. On June 30, 1830, Stowell testified in a case in which Joseph was accused of “a breach of the peace . . . by looking through a certain stone to find hid[den] treasures.” After being sworn before Justice of the Peace Joel K. Noble, Stowell said “that about two years since, witness was at Palmyra, and saw prisoner; that prisoner told witness that the Lord had told prisoner that a golden Bible was in a certain hill; that Smith, the prisoner, went in the night, and brought the Bible, (as Smith said;) witness [Stowell] saw a corner of it; it resembled a stone of a greenish caste; should judge it to have been about one foot square and six inches thick; he would not let it be seen by any one; the Lord had commanded him not; it was unknown to Smith, that the witness saw a corner of the Bible, so called by Smith.”[18] 

These two statements indicate that when Joseph reached the house, he handed the frock-covered plates to Stowell, who apparently caught a glimpse of them as he set them down, making Stowell the only witness to see the plates “by accident.” As for the color of the plates, Ann Taves writes, “A greenish cast would suggest copper rather than lead or gold and pages could be made out of copper more easily than lead.”[19]

Alvah Beman (also spelled Beaman or Beeman)

“As soon as it was noised around that there was a golden Bible found (for that was what it was called at the time),” wrote Alvah’s daughter, Mary Adeline Noble, “the minds of the people became so excited and it arose at such a pitch that a mob collected together to search the house of Father Joseph Smith to find the records[. M]y father was there at the time and assisted in concealing the plates in a box in a secluded place where no one could find them although he did not see them.”[20]

Martin Harris added that “when they [the plates] were taken from there [the cooper’s shop], they were put into an old Ontario glass-box. Old Mr. Beman sawed off the ends, making the box the right length to put them in, and when they went in he said he heard them jink, but he was not permitted to see them. He told me so.”[21]

Joseph McKune Sr. 

McKune was a neighbor (and relative through marriage) of Isaac Hale’s. Joseph Smith had several interactions with the McKune family, most of them negative. Mehitable Smith Many Doolittle (1802–1894) was a granddaughter of Joseph McKune Sr.[22] and grew up knowing Emma. An 1887 newspaper interview with Mrs. Doolittle reported: “While Joe was upon his farm he had the Mormon Bible. Whether he professed to find it before or after marriage Mrs. Doolittle does not remember. Her grandfather was once privileged to take in his hands a pillow-case in which the supposed saintly treasure was wrapped, and to feel through the cloth that it had leaves. From the size and the weight of the book, Mr. McKune supposed that in dimensions it closely resembled an ordinary Bible in the print of those days.”[23] This uncorroborated account makes McKune the only outsider to handle the plates. 

“What emerges as alone indisputable,” writes Givens, “is the fact that Joseph Smith does possess a set of metal plates. . . . Dream-visions may be in the mind of the beholder, but gold plates are not subject to such facile psychologizing.”[24] 

The Eight Witnesses

The testimony of the Eight Witnesses, states the Joseph Smith Papers, “reads like a legal document” and “describes a sensory experience that involved both sight and touch as the witnesses handled and lifted the plates.”[25] Given such apparently straightforward facts, one would expect a consensus about the nature of the Eight’s experience, but several historians argue that the five members of the Whitmer family[26] and three members of the Smith family saw and handled the plates “in vision,” thus disqualifying their testimony as empirical evidence. 

The key question is this: What did the Eight themselves say about the event? Certainly, they are the authorities on their own experience and should be allowed to speak for themselves. Their statement reads as follows:

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr. the Author and Proprietor of this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated, we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record, with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety, that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen: and we lie not, God bearing witness of it. 

CHRISTIAN WHITMER, JACOB WHITMER, PETER WHITMER, JR., JOHN WHITMER, HIRAM PAGE, JOSEPH SMITH, SEN., HYRUM SMITH, SAMUEL H. SMITH.[27]

“As a historical document, the Testimony of Eight Witnesses is disappointing,” writes Vogel. “It fails to give historical details such as time, place, and date. Neither does it describe the historical event or events, but simply states that the eight signatories, collectively, have seen and handled the plates.” In addition, “Joseph Smith’s History is vague about events behind the Testimony of Eight Witnesses” and fails to “describe the historical set ting in which the eight men saw the plates.” Finally, “subsequent statements by the eight witnesses shed very little light on the historical event behind their Testimony.”[28]

These points are well taken—no one provided the kind of details students and scholars of early Mormon history yearn for. The lack of specifics about the historical setting, however, hardly means the testimony is not empirical. Indeed, the testimony is emphatically empirical because it mentions both sight and touch, identifies Joseph Smith as the one who displayed the plates, and neither claims nor even hints that the occurrence included a miracle. 

Moreover, the testimony of the Eight meets three crucial standards of source criticism by being (1) a firsthand document (2) produced near the time of the event in question and (3) signed by multiple witnesses. Except for the nonempirical statement of the Three Witnesses, none of the hundreds of other Book of Mormon documents comes close to having such bona fides. And while Lucy Mack Smith, John Corrill, and Luke Johnson said they heard testimonies from all eight men but recorded no specific details,[29] three of the Eight left firsthand confirmations of the original testimony: John Whitmer, Hyrum Smith, and Hiram Page. 

A close look at these recitals shows that although these men clearly felt a divine commission to testify of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and sometimes spoke of their religious and empirical experience in the same breath, they made no claims of examining the plates in a supernatural setting. 

John Whitmer 

In his official history of the Church, Whitmer wrote: “And also other wit nesses even eight Viz. Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, John Whitmer, Peter Whitmer Jr. Hyram [Hiram] Page, Joseph Smith [Sr.], Hyram [Hyrum] Smith, and Samuel H. Smith. are the men to whom Joseph Smith Jr showed the plates, these witnesses [including the three witnesses] names go forth also of the truth of this work in the last days. To the convincing or condemning of this generation in the last days.”[30]

In an 1836 editorial, Whitmer added:

To say that the book of Mormon is a revelation from God, I have no hesitancy; but with all confidence have signed my name to it as such; and I hope, that my patrons will indulge me in speaking freely on this subject, as I am about leaving the editorial department [of the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate]—Therefore I desire to testify to all that will come to the knowledge of this address; that I have most assuredly seen the plates from whence the book of Mormon is translated, and that I have handled these plates, and know of a surety that Joseph Smith, jr., has translated the book of Mormon by the gift and power of God.[31]

Whitmer intertwined his role as a witness with his religious testimony while at the same time affirming the sensory nature of his examination of the plates. (His statement that he signed his name as confirmation that the Book of Mormon was a revelation from God was technically incorrect, of course, because his signature simply confirmed the reality of the plates.) 

In one of his last letters, Whitmer stated, “I conclude you have read the Book of Mormon, together with the testimonies that are thereto attached; in which testimonies you read my name subscribed as one of the Eight witnesses to said Book. That testimony was, is, and will be true henceforth and forever.”[32]

Hyrum Smith

In August 1838, Sally Parker, then in Sunbury, Ohio, wrote that she had heard Hyrum Smith preach. (He had passed through the area a few months earlier as he migrated from Kirtland to Far West, Missouri.) “We were talking about the Book of Mormon,” she wrote, “[of] which he is one of the witnesses. He said he had but two hands and two eyes. He said he had seen the plates with his eyes and handled them with his hands and he saw a breast plate and he told how it was made. . . . Why I write this is because they dispute the Book so much.”[33]

In an 1839 letter, Hyrum wrote, “I had been abused and thrust into a dungeon, and confined for months on account of my faith, and the ‘testimony of Jesus Christ.’ However I thank God that I felt a determination to die, rather than deny the things which my eyes had seen, which my hands had handled, and which I had borne testimony to, wherever my lot had been cast; and I can assure my beloved brethren that I was enabled to bear as strong a testimony, when nothing but death presented itself, as ever I did in my life.”[34]

Hiram Page

Page, who left the Church in 1838, wrote to William E. McLellin in 1847: 

As to the book of Mormon, it would be doing injustice to myself, and to the work of God of the last days, to say that I could know a thing to be true in 1830, and know the same thing to be false in 1847. To say my mind was so treacherous that I had forgotten what I saw. To say that a man of Joseph’s ability, who at that time did not know how to pronounce the word Nephi, could write a book of six hundred pages, as correct as the book of Mormon, without supernatural power. And to say that those holy Angels who came and showed themselves to me as I was walking through the field, to confirm me in the work of the Lord of the last days—three of whom came to me afterwards and sang an hymn in their own pure language; yea, it would be treating the God of heaven with contempt, to deny these testimonies, with too many others to mention here.[35]

True, the Eight Witnesses “knew” that Joseph had learned of the plates from an angel and considered themselves honor bound to “bear witness unto the world” of what they knew. They made no distinction between religious and empirical truth and believed their experience with the plates to be tightly bound up with Joseph’s authentic calling and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Still, they insisted throughout their lives that they “did handle [the plates] with [their] hands” and that they had “seen and hefted,” with no reference to a miraculous setting.

Empirical or Religious? 

As to why the testimony of the Eight is sometimes claimed to be religious rather than empirical, consider the following: 

Thomas Ford’s Speculation 

In No Man Knows My History, Fawn Brodie reprints the statement of the Eight Witnesses and adds, “One of the most plausible descriptions of the manner in which Joseph Smith obtained these eight signatures was writ ten by Thomas Ford, Governor of Illinois, who knew intimately several of Joseph’s key men after they became disaffected and left the church”[36]—and follows up with a long paraphrase of Ford’s description.

“I have been informed by men who were once in the confidence of the prophet,” wrote Ford, “that he privately gave a different account of the matter. . . . The prophet had always given out that [the plates] could not be seen by the carnal eye, but must be spiritually discerned; that the power to see them depended upon faith, and was the gift of God, to be obtained by fasting, prayer, mortification of the flesh, and exercises of the spirit.” Therefore, when Joseph saw “the evidences of a strong and lively faith in any of his followers . . . he set them to continual prayer, and other spiritual exercises, to acquire this lively faith by means of which the hidden things of God could be spiritually discerned.” Then, “when he could delay them no longer, he assembled them in a room, and produced a box, which he said contained the precious treasure. The lid was opened; the witnesses peeped into it, but making no discovery, for the box was empty, they said, ‘Brother Joseph, we do not see the plates.’” Joseph responded, “‘O ye of little faith! how long will God bear with this wicked and perverse generation? Down on your knees, brethren, every one of you, and pray God for the forgive ness of your sins, and for a holy and living faith which cometh down from heaven.’” Lumping the Three and Eight Witnesses together, Ford claimed they “dropped to their knees, and began to pray in the fervency of their spirit, supplicating God for more than two hours with fanatical earnestness; at the end of which time, looking again into the box, they were now persuaded that they saw the plates.”[37] 

We don’t know who Ford’s informants were, whether they were trust worthy, or whether they were really “in the confidence of the prophet.” With no names, dates, or locations given, attempting to corroborate this account is virtually impossible. Nor did any of the witnesses report any experience that resembles the one depicted by Ford. And while nineteenth-century “historians” frequently relied on the kind of hearsay and rumormongering employed by Ford, a modern reader expects more careful source criticism from Brodie, writing in the mid-twentieth century and trained at the University of Chicago. 

Because it is a thirdhand, anonymous account not corroborated by any first- or secondhand sources, Ford’s story offers little in the way of evidence—except as proof, perhaps, of the kind of rumors making the rounds twenty years after the fact. Nevertheless, it was also cited by a historian as prominent as Dale L. Morgan. The section of Morgan’s manuscript dealing with the Eight Witnesses, chapter 4, added nothing significant to Brodie’s analysis (although it was still in draft form when Morgan died). Like Brodie, he included a lengthy quote from Ford and used Ford as his sole nineteenth-century source (other than the testimony of the Eight itself).[38]

The influence of Brodie and Morgan has hardly waned. In the posthumously published Natural Born Seer (2016), Richard S. Van Wagoner quotes the testimony of the Eight and then moves immediately to the same excerpt from Ford cited by Morgan.[39]

Stephen Burnett’s Letter to Lyman E. Johnson 

Burnett began losing his faith as he talked with Luke S. Johnson, John Boyn ton (original apostles with Lyman Johnson), Martin Harris, and others who had been excommunicated late in 1837 after the collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company triggered widespread disillusionment with Joseph Smith.[40] Burnett wrote: “When I came to hear Martin Harris state in a public congregation that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver [Cowdery] nor David [Whitmer] & also that the eight witnesses never saw them & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it, the last pedestal gave way, in my view our foundations was sapped & the entire superstructure fell a heap of ruins.”[41]

Burnett’s claim of what Harris said was partially confirmed by a letter from Warren Parrish, formerly a trusted secretary of Joseph but by mid-1837 his most hostile critic: “Martin Harris, one of the subscribing witnesses, has come out at last, and says he never saw the plates, from which the book purports to have been translated, except in vision, and he further says that any man who says he has seen them in any other way is a liar, Joseph not excepted.”[42]

This report is a portent of Harris’s future oblique references to the Eight. As the only Book of Mormon witness communicating with the dissenters, Harris had become the de facto spokesman for the others. The irony, of course, is that of the eleven men in question, Harris is the only one known to have been alone with Joseph when he saw the plates, making him the one least qualified to speak for the others.

Adding one complication to another, Burnett’s letter subsequently reports that three weeks after Harris’s controversial statement about the witnesses, “Harris arose & said . . . he never should have told that the testimony of the eight was false, it if had not been picked out of air but should have let it passed as it was.” Rather than confirming that the Eight saw the plates in vision, Harris’s calling their testimony false only muddies the water. Two decades later, Harris further confused the picture when he said, “The plates were kept from the sight of the world, and no one, save Oliver Cowdrey, myself, Joseph Smith, jr., and David Whitmer, ever saw them.”[43]

Amazingly, all of this is preamble to the most important question involving Harris’s purported disclosure: Where did he get his information? Neither Burnett’s nor Parrish’s letter says anything about Harris claiming to have talked to the Eight. It is therefore entirely possible, especially given Harris’s temperament and his bent toward “religious enthusiasm,” that he made presumptions about the experience of the Eight without ever consulting them. 

The deeper we delve into Harris’s connection—or lack thereof—with the Eight Witnesses, the more mysterious things get. Between 1829 and 1939, close to fifty individuals recorded accounts of Harris’s experience with the founding of Mormonism, but of all the folks who heard Harris recall his incredible journey, only one said he specifically mentioned the Eight: Stephen Burnett.[44] And while Harris enthusiastically rejoiced after seeing the angel and the plates with Joseph near the Whitmer farm, there is no indication that Harris was even present at the Smith farm in Manchester a few days later when the Eight saw and hefted the plates. Nor do Harris’s biographers note any conversations he had with the Eight about their experience.[45]

Given Martin Harris’s standing as a Book of Mormon witness, Burnett, Parrish, and others naturally put a good deal of stock in his comments. We can especially sympathize with Burnett, who was still clinging to his conviction that the plates were real when Harris’s declaration that the Eight saw the plates only in vision brought his once-strong faith crashing down into “a heap of ruins.” But what Burnett quite understandably failed to realize was that Harris’s apparently ironclad pronouncement was fragile and that the 1829 empirical statement of the Eight was still the best evidence of what they claimed to have experienced. 

Notes Made by Thomas Bullock, circa 1845

Early in 1839, Church member Theodore Turley was appointed to a committee helping the Saints evacuate from Missouri. On April 4 of that year, Turley and Heber C. Kimball visited Joseph Smith and others in Liberty Jail. The next day, Kimball and Turley were in Far West, at the committee’s office, when John Whitmer and seven other men entered the room. A passage in the History of the Church describes the encounter that followed, and that passage is based on notes taken by Thomas Bullock in Nauvoo around February 1845 when he interviewed Turley. The complete published account reads as follows: 

Friday, April 5.—Brothers Kimball and Turley arrived at Far West. 

This day a company of about fifty men in Daviess county swore that they would never eat or drink, until they had murdered “Joe Smith.”

Their captain, William Bowman, swore, in the presence of Theodore Turley, that he would “never eat or drink, after he had seen Joe Smith, until he had murdered him.” 

Also eight men—Captain Bogart, who was the county judge, Dr. Laffity, John Whitmer, and five others—came into the committee’s room [i.e., the room or office of the committee on removal] and presented to Theodore Turley the paper containing the revelation of July 8, 1838,[46]  to Joseph Smith, directing the Twelve to take their leave of the Saints in Far West on the building site of the Lords House on the 26th of April, to go to the isles of the sea, and then asked him to read it. Turley said, “Gentlemen, I am well acquainted with it.” They said, “Then you, as a rational man, will give up Joseph Smith’s being a prophet and an inspired man? He and the Twelve are now scattered all over creation; let them come here if they dare; if they do, they will be murdered. As that revelation cannot be fulfilled, you will now give up your faith.” 

Turley jumped up and said, “In the name of God that revelation will be fulfilled.” They laughed him to scorn. John Whitmer hung down his head. They said, “If they (the Twelve) come, they will get murdered; they dare not come to take their leave here; that is like all the rest of Joe Smith’s d—n prophecies.” They commenced on Turley and said, he had better do as John Corrill had done; “he is going to publish a book called ‘Mormonism Fairly Delineated;’ he is a sensible man, and you had better assist him.” 

Turley said, “Gentlemen, I presume there are men here who have heard Corrill say, that ‘Mormonism’ was true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and inspired of God. I now call upon you, John Whitmer: you say Corrill is a moral and a good man; do you believe him when he says the Book of Mormon is true, or when he says it is not true? There are many things published that they say are true, and again turn around and say they are false?” Whitmer asked, “Do you hint at me?” Turley replied, “If the cap fits you, wear it; all I know is that you have published to the world that an angel did present those plates to Joseph Smith.” Whitmer replied: “I now say, I handled those plates; there were fine engravings on both sides.

I handled them;” and he described how they were hung, and “they were shown to me by a supernatural power;” he acknowledged all. 

Turley asked him, “Why is not the translation now true?” He said, “I could not read it [in the original] and I do not know whether it [i.e., the translation] is true or not.” Whitmer testified all this in the pres ence of eight men.[47]

The late Grant Palmer covers the Eight Witnesses more extensively than Brodie, Morgan, Van Wagoner, or Taves, relying heavily on Burnett’s letter and on this History of the Church excerpt, especially Whitmer’s purported statement that “I handled those plates; there were fine engravings on both sides . . . they were shown to me by a supernatural power.” Palmer and others conclude that “this added detail of how [Whitmer] saw indicates that the eight probably did not observe or feel the actual artifact.”[48]

The “added detail,” of course, concerns the phrase supernatural power. The published version, which includes Willard Richards’s edits, is straight forward, but Bullock’s original manuscript is not as clear: “‘I now say I handled those plates. there was fine engravings on both sides. I handled them.’” and he described how they were hung and they were shown to me by a supernatural power. he acknowledged all.”[49] Not only does the narration make an unnatural shift from the second-person he to the first-person me, the critical phrase they were shown to me by a supernatural power is not in quotation marks, leaving doubt as to whether Turley intended to be directly quoting Whitmer. 

Another source, however, tends to support the History of the Church version by citing another instance of Whitmer using the same phrase. In August 1878, one month after Whitmer’s death, Myron H. Bond wrote of “that record [the Book of Mormon] which old Father John Whitmer told me last winter, with tears in his eyes, that he knew as well as he knew he had an existence that Joseph translated the ancient writing which was upon the plates which he ‘saw and handled,’ and which, as one of the scribes, he helped to copy, as the words fell from Joseph’s lips, by supernatural or almighty power.”[50] While confirming Whitmer’s inclination to use the phrase, Bond’s account also demonstrates an instance of Whitmer using it while describing a purely empirical event, namely his acting as scribe in the Whitmer home in June of 1829 while Joseph dictated the text of the Book of Mormon as he was looking at the seer stone in his hat. Despite the belief of Whitmer and others that Joseph was inspired as he dictated, the process of translation was neutral in terms of whether a miracle was involved. 

Certainly, the Three Witnesses, who reported seeing an angel with the plates, could have said, “The plates were shown to us by a supernatural power.” The Eight, however, took pains to avoid such language, stating at the beginning of their testimony that “Joseph Smith Jr. . . . has shewn unto us the plates” and at the end that “the said Smith has shewn unto us” and “the said Smith has got the plates.” Whitmer reiterated this point in his official history of the Church: “[the Eight Witnesses] are the men to whom Joseph Smith Jr showed the plates.”[51]

At the same time, Whitmer’s empirical experience with the plates was irrevocably linked to his religious convictions—he was intent on testifying that the Book of Mormon was a revelation from God and proclaimed to the inhabitants of the earth that he had freed his garments of their blood. Isn’t it therefore possible or even probable that when he said the plates had been shown to him by a supernatural power, he was reaffirming his conviction that God had directed the ancient creation of the plates and Joseph’s obtaining them through instructions by an angel?

After all, Turley himself had challenged Whitmer with a statement that (inaccurately) conflated Whitmer’s empirical and religious testimonies: “All I know is that you have published to the world that an angel did present those plates to Joseph Smith.” (The testimony of the Eight, of course, said nothing of an angel or any other miraculous occurrence.) Then, in the presence of eight witnesses of a different stripe—including the virulent anti-Mormon Samuel Bogart, later to flee Missouri after committing murder[52]—Whitmer responded with a detailed empirical description of the plates followed by his assurance that a supernatural power played a crucial role in the translation of the Book of Mormon. 

We can’t be certain of Whitmer’s meaning, but that uncertainly itself shows that concluding “the eight probably did not observe or feel the actual artifact” goes beyond the evidence. Bullock’s thirdhand notes lack the historiographical authority to overrule both the testimonies of the witnesses themselves and the secondhand accounts of those who talked directly to them. 

The Materialization of the Golden Plates 

Already well respected in religious studies, UC Santa Barbara professor Ann Taves turned her attention to the Book of Mormon with “History and the Claims of Revelation: Joseph Smith and the Materialization of the Golden Plates” (2014) and Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths (2016). “For the sake of argument,” writes Taves, “I want to assume that there were no plates or at least no ancient golden plates and at the same time take seriously believers’ claim that Smith was not a fraud. If we start with these premises, then we have to explain how the plates might have become real for Smith as well as his followers.” She subsequently argues that the “materialization” of the plates can be “understood as an interactive process that involves a person with unusual abilities, intimate others who recognized and called forth those abilities, and objects that facilitated the creation of both the revelator and the revelation.”[53]

Taves successfully opens “new options” by turning to a “letter written by Jesse Smith, Joseph Smith’s staunchly Calvinist uncle, to Joseph’s older brother Hyrum in June 1829” and gets good mileage from Jesse’s stinging rejection of the “gold book,” especially his charge that his nephew Joseph “has eyes to see things that are not, and then has the audacity to say they are.” Building on this point, Taves turns “away from discovery as a literal recovery of ancient golden plates buried in a hill in upstate New York to discovery as skillful seeing.”[54] A close look at her arguments, however, reveals that Taves’s effort to employ “historical critical” tools and build “on a review of the evidence for the materiality of the plates”[55] falls short largely because she fails to deal adequately with the testimony of the Eight Witnesses. 

Take these examples: Taves writes that “the Book of Mormon contained the testimony of two sets of witnesses (‘the three’ and ‘the eight’) . . . who claimed they had seen or handled the plates. . . . the three and eight witnesses [claimed] to have seen the plates directly.” This summary is problematic because it obscures crucial differences between the accounts of the Three and the Eight: the Three offered a religious testimony—repeatedly using the words grace, heaven, and Christ—in which they claimed to see, but not handle, the plates in a miraculous setting, and the Eight a matter-of-fact empirical testimony—using none of those words—in which they claimed to see, handle, and heft the plates, with no mention of an angel or the voice of God. Although Taves could have printed both statements in their entirety— which seems mandatory in a major scholarly paper about the plates—she opts instead to cite brief excerpts or paraphrase parts of those testimonies, sometimes conflating the two, leaving these questions unanswered: How can both the Eight and the Three have facilitated Joseph’s “skillful seeing” when their declarations are so radically different? If Joseph and the Three “only saw the plates through the power of God in faith,” what is the significance of faith not being mentioned in relation to the Eight—or, for that matter, the Eight never being specifically mentioned in either the Book of Mormon or in Joseph’s revelations? Taves, however, shows such little interest in the Eight that she does not even identify any of them by name.[56]

Taves’s claim that “the inner circle that saw and touched the plates generally acknowledged that they had either seen the plates in vision or obscured by a covering”[57] is blatantly inaccurate. As discussed above, the only individuals who both “saw and touched the plates” were Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, Josiah Stowell, and the Eight Witnesses, and of those eleven, only Harris and Cowdery saw them in vision, and only Harris (allegedly) said he saw them through a covering.[58] Taves’s presumption that the Eight saw the plates in vision is apparently based on Burnett’s and Parrish’s reports of Harris’s 1838 statement, but, again, as shown, Harris is not a reliable source on the matter. Taves has thus failed to let the Eight speak for themselves. 

Taves’s hypothesis that the materialization of the plates was “a process that unfolded over a period of years beginning with the dream-visions of September 1823 and culminating in the publication of the Book of Mormon [in 1830]” is similarly problematic. For Joseph’s family, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon certainly unfolded over the period mentioned by Taves. It is also true that Joseph’s family “shared Smith’s belief in ancient Nephites, the angel Moroni, and ancient buried plates long before Smith claimed to recover them” and that family members were “deeply invested in the translation process and strongly disposed to believe.”[59] What Taves fails to explain, however, is how this notion of the plates materializing over several years could possibly apply to the Whitmer family, who had known Joseph for less than a month when John, Jacob, Christian, and Peter Whitmer Jr. and their brother-in-law Hiram Page became the majority of the Eight (and David became one of the Three). The sole evidence offered by Taves that these men participated in the materialization of the plates is their testimony itself—essentially the argument that anyone who believed and assisted Joseph must have played a role in the materialization—but such a contention is clearly tautological and therefore evidence of nothing. 

Although Seth Perry argues that the “scholarly heft” Taves brings to her work “makes it important reading” and that “her notion of materialization” is “essential reading for the ever-growing set of scholars interested in material religion,”[60] a painstaking discussion of the testimony of the Eight Witnesses would have added considerable weight to that “heft.” 

Conclusion 

What, then, is the upshot of the statements of the seventeen empirical witnesses of the plates? By their very nature, of course, those statements cannot prove that an angel delivered an ancient record to Joseph. What those accounts do demonstrate is, in the words of the Eight, that “the said Smith has got the plates” and that those plates had “engravings thereon, all of which [had] the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship.”[61] In addition, those accounts are consistent: William Smith, in the autumn of 1827, and the Eight Witnesses, in the summer of 1829, as well as Emma Smith, Martin Harris, and Joseph McKune Sr. sometime in between, all described an object with leaves, or pages. Some of the pages were sealed and some were not. There is no evidence that Joseph used sand or anything else to “represent” the plates.

Individual accounts add that the pages were pliable, about as thick as plates of tin, about four to six inches thick, clearly not fashioned from stone or wood, and connected by rings. The plates were heavy, much heavier than stone, with estimates of their weight ranging from forty to sixty pounds. They measured about six or seven inches by eight inches and had a greenish color.[62] The documentary evidence indicates there was one set and one set only. Dan Vogel aptly describes the inevitable conclusion: “The plates were either ancient or modern.”[63]

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] Grant Underwood, “The Dictation, Compilation, and Canonization of Joseph Smith’s Revelations,” in Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Sources, edited by Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 107. 

[2] James D. Tabor, “Do Historians of Religion Exclude the Supernatural?,” HuffPost, Sept. 5, 2016.

[3] Lyman E. Johnson and Mary Whitmer also offered “religious” accounts of the plates. Johnson left no firsthand account of his experience, but others heard him discuss it. Benjamin Stokely wrote: “An angel brought the Mormon Bible and laid it before him (the speaker); he therefore knows these things to be true” (cited in William Shepard and H. Michael Marquardt, Lost Apostles: Forgotten Members of Mormonism’s Original Quorum of Twelve [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2014], 43—see Lost Apostles, 46 and 91, for similar examples). In interviews given in 1878, 1887, and 1889, David Whitmer told how he, Joseph Smith, and Oliver Cowdery met a “messenger with the plates,” as they traveled from Pennsylvania to the Whitmer home in Fayette, New York, in June 1829. Variously described as “an old man,” “one of the three Nephites” and “the angel Moroni,” this personage showed the plates to Whitmer’s mother, Mary Musselman Whitmer, who told her family of the experience but left no first-hand account. (See Lyndon W. Cook, ed., David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness [Orem, Utah: Grandin Book, 1991], 27, 215–16, 217–18.)

Lucy Harris, Martin’s wife, is also sometimes mentioned as a religious witness of the plates because Lucy Mack Smith’s memoir includes a description of Lucy Harris reporting a dream in which a personage appeared to her and showed her the plates. See Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool: S. W. Richard, 1853), 112. In an 1833 affidavit, however, Lucy Harris indicated that she never believed Joseph’s story about the angel and the plates. 

[4] Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 4. Accounts from those who claimed to have simply lifted the plates inside a container are not included in this discussion.

[5] “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald 26, no. 19, Oct. 1, 1879, 289–90.

[6] “The Old Soldier’s Testimony. Sermon preached by Bro. William B. Smith, in the Saints’ Chapel, Deloit, Iowa, June 8th, 1884. Reported by C. E. Butterworth,” Saints’ Herald 31, no. 40, Oct. 4, 1884, 643–44. 

[7] Janiece L. Johnson, “‘The Scriptures Is a Fulfilling’: Sally Parker’s Weave,” BYU Studies 44, no. 2 (2005): 115–16. The original text reads as follows: “she told me the hole story the plates wass in the house and some times in the woods for eight monts and on acount of peopel trying to git them thay had to hide them wonce thay hide them under the hearth they took up the brick and put them in and put the brick back the old lady told me this hur self wih tears in hur eyes and they run down hur cheeks too she put hur hand upon her stomack and said she o the peace of god that rested upon us all that time she said it wass a heaven below I axter if she saw th pates she said no it wass not for hur to see them but she hefted and handled them.”

[8] Henry Caswall, The City of the Mormons: or, Three Days at Nauvoo, in 1842 (London: J. G. F. & J. Rivington, 1842), 26–27.

[9] In his interview with Joel Tiffany, Martin Harris said, “When he [Joseph] arrived at home, he handed the plates in at the window, and they were received from him by his mother” (“MORMONISM—No. 2,” Tiffany’s Monthly, May–July 1859, 167).

[10] H. S. Salisbury, “Things the Prophet’s Sister Told me,” Church History Library, MS 4122, folder 2. Salisbury typed this statement in 1945.

[11] “The Prophet’s Sister Testifies She Lifted the B. of M Plates,” The Messenger (Berkeley, Calif.), Oct. 1954, Church History Library, MS 4134. The narrative that Katharine “rippled her fingers up the edge of the plates” is problematic because the residence Katharine presumably would have been cleaning was the Smith frame home in Manchester. However, it is quite unlikely—given the efforts of hostile neighbors to steal the plates—that Joseph would have left the plates on a table. Also, this account is remarkably similar to one (reprinted above) related by Emma. Both accounts mention dusting the room, feeling the edge of the plates, perceiving separate leaves, and hearing the metallic sound created when the leaves were thumbed. See Joseph Smith III to Mrs. E. Horton, letter, Mar. 7, 1900, in Early Mormon Documents, edited by Dan Vogel, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996–2003), 1:546. Such similarity in detail raises the distinct possibility that Katharine initially told of Emma’s experience but that over the interim of several decades, Herbert Salisbury mistakenly attributed it to his grandmother rather than his great-aunt. 

[12] William S. Sayre to James T. Cobb, letter, Aug. 31, 1878, Theodore A. Schroeder Papers, Archives, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin, in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents 4:144–45. 

[13] “Additional Testimony of Martin Harris (One of the Three Witnesses) to the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon,” Millennial Star 21, Aug. 20, 1859, 545.

[14] “MORMONISM—No. 2,” 166, 165.

[15] “Reuben Miller journals, 1848–1849,” Church History Library, MS 1392. David Whitmer stressed that he, Cowdery, and Joseph saw but did not handle the plates. See Lyndon W. Cook, ed., David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Orem, Utah: Grandin, 1991), 152, 188.

[16] “Letter from Martha Campbell, 19 December 1843,” The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library.

[17] Stowell’s being the first other than Joseph to handle the plates is not consistent with William Smith’s claim that Joseph Sr. received them or with Harris’s claim that Lucy Mack Smith did.

[18] “Mormonism,” Morning Star (Limerick, Maine), Nov. 16, 1832, available at http:// contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/BOMP/id/1369/rec/16. 

[19] Ann Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation: Joseph Smith and the Materialization of the Golden Plates,” Numen 61, nos. 1–2 (2014): 192n13. Copper turns green when exposed to the elements, also true of bronze (an alloy of copper and zinc), brass (an alloy of copper and tin), and some types of tumbaga (an unspecified alloy of gold and copper). 

[20] Mary Adeline Noble reminiscence, circa 1836, in Joseph B. Noble reminiscences, 1836–1866, autograph document, p. 3, Church History Library.

[21] “MORMONISM—No. 2,” 167.

[22] Background information from Middletown Daily Argus, Dec. 10, 1894 and from McKune family genealogical records at Ancestry.com.

[23] “Early Days of Mormonism,” Chenango Union, Apr. 12, 1877.

[24] Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 40, 42. 

[25] Michael Hubbard MacKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, eds., Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831, vol. 1 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, Richard Lyman Bushman, and Matthew J. Grow (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 387.

[26] Hiram Page married Catherine Whitmer on November 10, 1825.

[27] 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, 590. David Whitmer said each witness “signed his own name” to the testimonies (Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, 44). 

[28] Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 3:464. One important question is whether the Eight saw the plates together or in smaller groups. P. Wilhelm Poulson, who interviewed John Whitmer in April 1878, reported in a July 31, 1878 letter that Whitmer said the Eight examined the plates in a room at the Smith home, four at one time and four at another (Deseret News, Aug. 14, 1878). This report is uncorroborated, however; nor was it approved by Whitmer before his death on July 11, 1878. 

[29] See Smith, Biographical Sketches, 140–41; John Corrill, Brief History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (Commonly Called Mormons;) Includ ing an Account of Their Doctrine and Discipline; with the Reasons of the Author for Leaving the Church (St. Louis: For the Author, 1839), 11–12; and “History of Luke Johnson [By Himself],” History of Brigham Young, Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 26, no. 53, Dec. 31, 1864, 835.

[30] “The Book of John, Whitmer kept by Comma[n]d,” ca. 1838–ca. 1847, handwriting of John Whitmer, ninety-six pages, in Histories, Volume 2: Assigned Historical Writings, 1831– 1847, edited by Karen Lynn Davidson, Richard L. Jensen, and David J. Whittaker, vol. 2 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2012), 37, emphasis added. 

[31] John Whitmer, “Address,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2, no. 6, Mar. 1836, 286–87.

[32] John Whitmer to H. C. Smith Esq., letter, Dec. 11, 1876, in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 5:244.

[33] Johnson, “Sally Parker’s Weave,” 115. The original document reads as follows: “wee wass talking about th Book of mormon which he is ons of the witnesses he said he had but too hands and too eyes he said he had seene the plates with his eyes and handeled them with his hands and he saw a brest plate and he told how it wass maid . . . why I write this is because they dispute the Book so much.”

[34] Hyrum Smith “to the Saints scattered abroad,” letter, Times and Seasons 1, no. 2, Dec. 1839, 20, 23.

[35] Hiram Page to “Bro. William” [William E. McLellin], letter, May 30, 1847, Ensign of Liberty 1, Jan. 1848, 63.

[36] Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 79.

[37] Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois, From Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847 (Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co., 1854), 256–58.

[38] John Phillip Walker, ed., Dale Morgan on Early Mormonism: Correspondence and a New History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986), 304.

[39] Richard S. Van Wagoner, Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805–1830 (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2016), 359–61. 

[40] John Smith, president of the Kirtland High Council, wrote: “The spiritual condition at this time is gloomy also. I called the High Council together last week and laid Before <them> the case of a compan<y> of Decenters 28 persons[,] where upon mature Discussion [we] proceeded to cut them off from the ch[urc]h; the Leaders were Cyrus Smalling Joseph Coe Martin Harris Luke Johnson John Boyton and W[arren] Parrish” (John and Clarissa Smith to George A. Smith, letter, Jan. 1, 1838, cited in Shepard and Marquardt, Lost Apostles, 158).

[41] If Harris indeed used the phrase “in vision,” what he meant by that is open to debate. Speaking of his experience with Oliver and Joseph, for example, David Whitmer wrote: “Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view, but we were in the body also, and everything was as natural to us, as it is at any time.” (David Whitmer to Anthony Metcalf, letter, April 1887, in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, 247.) Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, letter, Apr. 15, 1838, Joseph Smith Papers, Letterbook 2, 65, Church History Library.

[42] Warren Parrish to E. Holmes, letter, Aug. 11, 1838, The Evangelist 6, Oct. 1, 1838, 226, available at https://user.xmission.com/~research/central/parrishletters.pdf.

[43] “MORMONISM—No. 2,” 166, emphasis added. 

[44] See Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 2:253–393. 

[45] Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter, Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon (Provo: BYU Studies, 2018).

[46] A footnote in the original reads as follows: “See Doctrine and Covenants, sec. cxviii.”

[47] Joseph Smith Jr., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, edited by B. H. Roberts, 7 vols., 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1980 printing), 3:306–08. The original document, entitled “Theodore Turley’s Memorandums,” is in Bullock’s hand, making this a thirdhand source—with the account going from Whitmer to Turley to Bullock. Furthermore, the document offers no information about possible interaction between Turley and Bullock and does not contain Turley’s signature or any other indication that he approved it.

[48] Grant H. Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 206.

[49] “Theodore Turley’s Memorandums,” Church History Library, transcription by Larry E. Morris.

[50] Myron H. Bond to Editors, letter, Aug. 2, 1878, Saints’ Herald, Aug. 15, 1878, 253, emphasis added. 

[51] “The Book of John, Whitmer kept by Comma[n] d,” ca. 1838–ca. 1847, hand writing of John Whitmer, ninety-six pages, CCLA, in Joseph Smith Papers, H2:37. 

[52] Samuel Bogart biography, available at https://josephsmithpapers.org/person/ samuel-bogart.

[53] Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation,” 185, 186–87.

[54] Ibid., 185–86.

[55] Ibid., 183, 182.

[56] Ibid., 190. Taves mentions Joseph Sr. and Hyrum Smith but not in the context of their role as witnesses. 

[57] Ibid., 189. 

[58] John A. Clark, an acquaintance of Martin Harris, wrote that a “gentleman in Palmyra” told Clark that in answer to the question of whether Harris saw the plates with his “bodily eyes,” Harris replied that he saw the plates “just as distinctly as I see any thing around me,—though at the time they were covered over with a cloth.” (John A. Clark, Gleanings by the Way [Philadelphia: W. J. & J. K. Simon; New York: Robert Carter, 1842], 257.) Of course, this is a weak source because it is third hand and includes an anonymous witness.

[59] Ibid., 203, 297, 203. 

[60] Seth Perry, review of Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths, by Ann Taves, Mormon Studies Review 5 (2018): 99.

[61] The forgery of the so-called Kinderhook plates, “discovered” in 1843 and considered ancient by many until 1980, shows that it was possible in the nineteenth century for a group of men, including a blacksmith working in his shop, to use plates of brass and acid to create an artifact having the “appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship,” with “engravings thereon.” See Brian M. Hauglid, “Did Joseph Smith Translate the Kinderhook Plates?” in No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, edited by Robert L. Millet (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 93–103, available at https://rsc.byu.edu/ archived/no-weapon-shall-prosper/did-joseph-smith-translate-kinderhook-plates.

[62] Although Josiah Stowell judged the plates to be “about one foot square,” that estimate is suspect because he only claimed to see “a corner” of the plates. 

[63] Vogel, Making of a Prophet, xi.

[post_title] => Empirical Witnesses of the Gold Plates [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.2 (Summer 2019): 59–84
Due to the fact that visiting with angels isn’t part of the normal human experience, it makes it hard for historians to prove that it happened through an academic investigation. The best way, as discussed by the author, to determine what really happened is by studying other individual’s first-hand accounts about the Gold Plates. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => empirical-witnesses-of-the-gold-plates [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-24 16:59:29 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-24 16:59:29 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=23880 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 23881 [post_author] => 3838 [post_date] => 2019-07-17 15:46:09 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-07-17 15:46:09 [post_content] =>

Richard Bushman has called the gold plates story “the single most trouble some item in Joseph Smith’s history.”[1] Smith famously claimed to have discovered, with the help of an angel, anciently engraved gold plates buried in a hill near his home in New York from which he translated the sacred text of the Book of Mormon. Not only a source of new scripture comparable to the Bible, the plates were also a tangible artifact, which he allowed a small circle of believers to touch and handle before they were taken back into the custody of the angel. The story is fantastical and otherworldly and has sparked both devotion and skepticism as well as widely varying assessments among historians. Critical and non-believing historians have tended to assume that the presentation of material plates shows that Smith was actively engaged in religious deceit of one form or another,[2] while Latter-day Saint historians have been inclined to take Smith and the traditional narrative at face value. For example, Bushman writes, “Since the people who knew Joseph best treat the plates as fact, a skeptical analysis lacks evidence. A series of surmises replaces a documented narrative.”[3] Recently, Anne Taves has articulated a middle way between these positions by suggesting that while Smith most likely fabricated the plates, he may nevertheless have been sincere in his belief in their spiritual authenticity and antiquity.[4]

For now, I would like to set aside the question of Smith’s motivations and innermost understanding of himself and the gold plates and inquire into the more basic issue of the historical plausibility of the plates themselves. After all, whatever Smith may have said about the plates and however strong the evidence that his family and friends accepted their existence and authenticity, the gold plates and its narrative congeners (brass plates, plates of Nephi, plates of Ether, etc.) represents a historical datum capable of investigation and substantiation by itself. For not only are they claimed to be a product of remote antiquity, but are said to stem from writing cultures with roots in the ancient Near East and Israel-Judah in particular. Assuming historicity and that the peoples of the Book of Mormon were constrained and inflected by human culture and technology, we should expect to find circumstantial corroboration within the available historical record for this general picture of preserving lengthy sacred narrative on metal.

As is well known, the topic has already received extensive treatment in Latter-day Saint apologetic scholarship. In the face of general skepticism regarding the plates, Latter-day Saint scholars and scripture enthusiasts have documented archaeological evidence for writing on metal in antiquity in an effort to authenticate the Book of Mormon and buttress claims of the gold plates’ ancient origin, which has typically involved constructing lists of comparative parallels.[5] However, the weaknesses of this general approach have become increasingly apparent. Not all writing on metal is equally relevant to the Book of Mormon plates, considering that inscriptions in the ancient Near East were engraved on all types of objects, were of diverse length, and featured a wide range of content and literary genres. The tendency has been to treat any and all metal inscriptions as having probative value, highlighting vague material and content parallels at the expense of a careful consideration of how their individual contexts differ from the Book of Mormon and what that may suggest about the latter’s origin. In addition, there is no attempt to explain how these disparate metal epigraphic traditions gave rise to the Book of Mormon metal plates or even how the Book of Mormon’s presentation of metal document record-keeping fits into the larger sweep of human writing history. 

The following study aims to evaluate the Book of Mormon claims of gold and other metal documents and to determine to what degree they have credible antecedents or parallels in the broader ancient Near East. The purpose is not to defend or attack the Book of Mormon as a religious document but to gather and weigh evidence in the spirit of Bushman’s recent call to bridge the conversation between believers and nonbelievers on difficult topics such as the gold plates.[6]

To that end, I will first present a comprehensive review of inscriptions on metal from the ancient Near East/eastern Mediterranean by region along with a brief analysis of their typologically significant features, for example, major literary genres, length, social background, and ideological and religious functions. Because I am interested in finding texts closely comparable to the Book of Mormon plates, a tradition that is alleged to have originated in Israel-Judah before the sixth century BCE and perhaps much earlier with the Jaredites, I will limit my investigation to inscriptions that a) date from the third millennium to fifth century BCE; b) include continuous text of more than one line, excluding mere dedications or the listing of private names; and c) were written on a flat surface, such as a plate or sheet, that mimics material used for archival writing (e.g., papyrus, leather, clay tablet, etc.), excluding arrowheads, knives, armor, statues, bowls, cups, vases, jewelry, etc. Such a broad analysis will lead to the identification of a number of common patterns in the use of metal as epigraphic support across the ancient Near East/eastern Mediterranean as a whole. Next, I will describe metal record-keeping as recounted in the Book of Mormon and consider how the practice fits into the above context of ancient metal epigraphy. Finally, I will critically examine the hypothesis that Israel-Judah once had a metal writing tradition that gave rise to the Book of Mormon.

Metal Epigraphy from Ancient Near East/Eastern Mediterranean[7]

Mesopotamia

Almost all known inscriptions of continuous text recorded on metal in Mesopotamia were foundation deposits or similar building-dedicatory inscriptions, which have been catalogued and discussed by Ellis.[8] As explained by Pearce, “Stone and metal were generally reserved for inscriptions commissioned by members of royalty, although not all royal inscriptions were written on these materials. Since Mesopotamia was poor in mineral resources, gold, silver, and basalt were imported. Metals were attested only infrequently as a writing material and were reserved for texts of importance to the crown.”[9] The use of metal as a writing medium was intended to convey prestige as well as permanence, in addition to aiming to please the deity to whom the inscription was directed.[10]

Iran/Persia 

Metal inscriptions are exclusively associated with royal authority in Iran/ Persia, their function ranging from royal decree, foundation deposit, to display inscription. Valuable metal was apparently used to mark the prestige of the document owners as well as their devotion to deity.[11]

Anatolia 

Anatolia had a long and rich tradition of writing on metal, including the Hittite practice of publishing important political documents on metal tablets. As explained by Van den Hout, “Metal tablets are said to have been made in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and such copies were probably made only of very important texts, serving as engrossed copies. Signs must have been ‘punched’ in with an instrument that imitated the impression left by a normal stylus in a clay tablet. Such metal tablets are attested for treaties, loyalty oaths and, possibly, a land grant, but also for historical texts. Only one bronze example has survived so far, containing the treaty of the Great King Tuthaliya IV (ca. 1240–ca. 1210 BCE) with Kuruntiya, viceroy in the southern province of Tarhuntassa. Treaties are known to have been deposited ‘before the deity’ and we may assume that all such engrossed copies in metal were kept there.”[12] The bronze, iron, gold, and silver documents are uniformly of royal background and seem to have been intended to perform a symbolic display function, communicating power, wealth, and piety to both local and external audiences. 

Phoenicia and Phoenician Colonies 

Aside from some early inscriptions on bronze dedicatory spatula, in Phoenicia and its colonies the use of metal as a medium for writing continuous text occurs only in relation to the production of amulets.[13] The metal sheets were typically inscribed with short incantations and apotropaic imagery, rolled up, and stored in capsules. The choice of precious metal in this case was likely a factor of the amulet owner’s wealth and status; in addition, such metal had a numinous or sacred quality and therefore may have been seen to possess enhanced apotropaic properties.[14]

Israel-Judah 

The only examples of continuous text on metal from ancient Israel-Judah are the Ketef Hinnom inscriptions, which are short incantations that functioned as amulets against demonic forces.[15] As with the Phoenician inscriptions discussed above, the choice of precious metal as material support was likely a factor of the amulet owner’s wealth and status, in addition to that such metal facilitated an apotropaic function.[16]

South Arabia

Numerous bronze plaques have been recovered from the lands of ancient South Arabia.[17] However, only a small number date from the early Sabaic period. Generally short in length, the inscriptions are dedicatory or votive in function, representing a gift to deity to commemorate a certain pious act and/or engender divine favor, and to put on display in temple structures. 

Egypt 

In Egypt no document on metal is presently extant before the Greco Roman period, though the Harris Papyrus shows that metal was used much earlier in the case of royal votives intended for display in the cult. As noted by Eyre, “inscriptions [on metal] may have been commoner than the evidence suggests—metal objects were the first target for recycling—but always special in purpose.”[18]

Ancient Greece and Greek Settlements

Writing on metal is abundantly attested in the Greek world. In fact, more inscriptions of continuous text are extant from Greece and Greek colonies than from anywhere else in the ancient Near East/eastern Mediterranean. The texts on bronze and lead are generally short, the longest ranging between twenty and forty lines. No lengthy literary text has been preserved, though Pausanias reports he had seen a copy of Hesiod’s Works and Days recorded on a lead tablet at the sanctuary of Mount Helicon in the second century CE. 

With the increased development of mining in the Archaic period,[19] bronze and lead suddenly come into use as an inscriptional medium from the sixth century BCE, with bronze employed “especially in regions where it is more abundant than stone or marble or where the stone is of poor quality, such as around Olympia, where the stone is a shelly limestone, difficult to engrave.”[20] Bronze was ordinarily used for documents of an official, normative, or public character, such as treaties, laws, contracts, wills, or dedications, and were put on display at sanctuaries. Cole explains, “Greek sanctuaries were used for the display of inscribed legal documents, in part for publicity, but also to make clear the involvement of the gods in the legal process at the human level. The inscription itself, whether on bronze plaque, stone stele, or the wall of the temple had the status of votive object, declared sacred to the god. . . . Both the inscription itself and the legal acts it contained were protected by the gods from tampering and destruction.”[21]

With regard to the use of bronze at Olympia, Sophie Minon states,

The bronze plaques once inscribed were displayed on the walls of the temples at Olympia (small fixing holes in some), though it is assured that these displayed texts were not readable since they were too small to be read from afar. They were thus sacred records by being engraved on a non-perishable material and entrusted to the god (the plaque is in general called “property of Zeus”). Clearly, only a part of the archives, probably only texts of the law, was engraved. The rest was to appear on more perishable supports, such as wooden tablets. . . . [Bronze writing] serves to display, that is to say to give a form of publicity, to communicate. It is used for this purpose for its perennial character. And probably because the material is sufficiently noble to give a form of authority to the decisions and acts of public life that they carry.[22]

Lead was used for private documents, such as letters, curses, and oracular questions and responses, because it was relatively inexpensive and easy to engrave.[23]

Italy 

Outside of Greek-populated areas in Magna Graecia, continuous text on metal is rarely attested in ancient Italy before the Roman period, limited to a few short Etruscan inscriptions on gold and lead.[24] The gold Pyrgi inscriptions were votive and intended for public display in the sanctuary, while the lead inscriptions appear to be of a cultic nature. As is well known, bronze was widely used by the Romans for the publication of important political and legal documents.[25]

Analysis of Comparative Data 

From this review of inscriptions on metal from the ancient Near East/ eastern Mediterranean, we are now in a position to identify a few common patterns in the material: 

First, the inscriptions are generally short, with the majority averaging around ten lines and the longer examples representing the equivalent of several modern printed pages. 

Second, the range of genres employed in writing on metal was limited, both within cultures and across the ancient Near East/eastern Mediterranean as a whole. The most prominent types include dedication, memorial, foundation deposit, building inscription, legal decree, treaty, incantation, and curse. The language is generally formulaic, lacking literary complexity. 

Third, inscriptions on metal had a prominent symbolic function.[26] They were typically meant to be seen, whether by deity, other elites, or the community, and so were put on display, the most common venue being the sanctuary. 

Fourth, the use of metal as epigraphic support is most commonly associated with royal sponsorship or wealthy individuals who could bear the significant expense.[27]

Fifth, because of its high value and solidity, requiring laborious engraving, metal was not generally used as an archival material for the storing of large-scale information or a log to which content could be added incrementally. Writing on metal belonged to the sphere of skilled craftsmanship, and inscriptions tended to be produced all in one go, i.e., as complete text. 

The most notable exceptions to the above patterns with regard to length and genre are The Deeds of Šuppiluliuma written on bronze tablets and Hesiod’s Works and Days written on lead. The texts are not only unusually long, approaching one thousand and eight hundred lines respectively, but relatively unique in their high literary character. Deeds is a historiographic account of the reign of Šuppiluliuma I composed by his son Muršili II that served as prologue to an annalistic account of the latter’s reign, while Works and Days is an epic poem combining myth and practical teaching. However, these exceptions only prove the rule with regard to the non-use of metal as archival support, since the bronze version of Deeds was most likely a display inscription celebrating the royal Hittite dynasty and the lead copy of Works and Days, if the report of Pausanias is reliable, was a votive at the sanctuary near Mount Helicon. 

Metal Epigraphy in the Book of Mormon 

The character of the metal plates tradition in the Book of Mormon can be gathered from evidence mostly internal to the narrative itself.

First, the use of metal documents is extensive. We have mention of at least six metal plate collections representing lengthy independent documents, including the brass plates (1 Ne. 5:11–13), small plates of Nephi (1 Ne. 9:2–4; 2 Ne. 5:30–32), large plates of Nephi (1 Ne. 9:2, 4; 19:4), plates of Zeniff (Mosiah 8:5; 22:14), plates of Mormon (W of M 1:3; 3 Ne. 5:10–11; Morm. 6:6), and plates of Ether (Mosiah 8:9; Ether 1:2). These are the primary examples of formal writing in the narrative, and indeed other epigraphic support materials such as leather skins, wood tablets, wax, or stone are never directly referenced, only a single cryptic allusion to non-plate substances (Jacob 4:1–2).

Second, the tradition is ancient and proximately of Judean-Israelite background. The plates of brass are labeled the “record of the Jews,” implied to be a national history and document tradition tracing back to the time of Joseph in Egypt (1 Ne. 5:16). Nephi, a native of Jerusalem, is responsible for constructing and initiating the large and small plate collections, which remained in use throughout Nephite history and presumably along with the plates of brass were the models upon which later plate traditions were fashioned. In addition, the Jaredites apparently had a metal epigraphic tradition independent of the Nephites, since the prophet Ether is said to have composed a history of the Jaredites on gold plates containing a continuous account from the time of Adam (Ether 1:2–4). 

Third, the metal plates functioned as regular archival material, that is, they were intended primarily for informational storage (1 Ne. 5:11–13; 6:3–6; 9:2–4; 19:3–5; 2 Ne. 5:30–33; Jacob 1:2–4; 4:3; etc.). The independent metal documents contained complex historiographical and biographical narrative, interweaving multiple literary genres, and were generally of a lengthy character, representing the equivalent of hundreds of modern printed pages. They also tended to be composed incrementally, with a single author adding to a document on multiple occasions or multiple authors contributing to the same document. For example, the brass plates were updated with prophecies from Jeremiah in the time of Lehi (1 Ne. 5:13); Nephi writes his personal ministry on the small plates after the separation from the Lamanites and subsequently expands with additional teaching material (2 Ne. 5:30–32; 10:2; 31:1–2; 33:3); Jacob and his descendants fill out the small plates of Nephi (Jacob 1:1–2; Jarom 1:1, 15; Omni 1:30); and Moroni fills out the plates of Mormon with chapter 8 of Mormon through Moroni (Morm. 8:1, 5). 

Fourth, metal documents were created, maintained, and handed down by the spiritual leaders of Book of Mormon peoples. Nephi kept the large plates before being made king by the Nephites (1 Ne. 19:1) and passed on the small plates to the prophet Jacob (Jacob 1:1–2), ordering that they be handed down “from one prophet to another” (1 Ne. 19:4). Although the large plates tradition was kept by the kings of the Nephites from Nephi to Mosiah1 (W of M 1:10), beginning with prophet-king Benjamin the small and large plates were handed down together. After Mosiah2 and Alma the Younger (Mosiah 28:20), they became solely the preserve of prophets again (Alma 37:1–2; 3 Ne. 1:2; 4 Ne. 1:19, 47–48; Morm. 1:2–4; 6:6; 8:5). Ether, the author of the Jaredite history, was also a prophet (Ether 1:2; 12:2). The major authors of the Book of Mormon were not only prophet-scribes but skilled craftsmen responsible for having fashioned the metal plates (1 Ne. 1:17; 19:1; 3 Ne. 5:11; cf. Morm. 8:5) and engraved them (1 Ne. 19:1; Jacob 4:1, 3; Morm. 1:4). 

Finally, the metal plates were apparently in the form of a codex. According to Joseph Smith’s description of the gold plates, “each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long, and not quite so thick as common tin. They were . . . bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book, with three rings running through the whole” (1842). This means that at least the plates of Mormon were constructed in codex form, with multiple leaves bound on one side. However, there can be little doubt that this form applied to other plate collections as well. Not only are the documents referred to variously with plural and singular forms (“plates” and “record”), but the collections are ordered sequentially such that they have beginnings and ends. For example, Lehi is said to have searched the plates of brass “from the beginning,” which contained “the five books of Moses . . . and also a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah” (1 Ne. 5:10–12). In abridging the plates of Ether, Moroni omits “the first part of the record, which speaks concerning the creation of the world, and also of Adam, and an account from that time even to the great tower” and treats only the part of the narrative “from the tower down until [the Jaredites] were destroyed” (Ether 1:3, 5). The small plates of Nephi are obviously sequential, and the same can be assumed for the large plates, which is the source behind the plates of Mormon. Such lengthy sequential narrative seems to presuppose codex-like organization, since without a binding the metal sheets would be prone to disarrangement and confusion, and the employment of simple catchphrases or colophons to link so many together would have been impracticable.[28]

Accepting the accuracy of this description, the Book of Mormon metal writing tradition clearly stands outside of documented practices of ancient metal epigraphy. Salient factors include the following:

• consistent use of metal to the exclusion of other epigraphic support materials 
• extensive use of gold in particular 
• exceptional length 
• complex melding of literary genres 
• archival informational storage function of the plates 
• incremental addition to plate documents 
• non-mention of a display role for plates in sanctuary 
• provenance of metal epigraphy outside of royal power and politics 
• combination of scribal art and metal craftsmanship into single author
• codex form 

As is well known, the codex form developed in the Roman period and gradually replaced the scroll over the first millennium CE.[29]

Taken altogether, the presentation of metal epigraphy in the Book of Mormon is deeply implausible on historical grounds. It is not simply a matter that the Book of Mormon lacks any credible parallel or antecedent writing on metal from the ancient Near East, since ultimately this is an argument from silence and it is always possible that further metal documents may eventually be found, but the fact that the social, political, economic, technological, and literary features of Book of Mormon metal writing so strongly contradict what we would expect for the time and culture. Multiple lines of evidence all contribute to the case for disconfirmation. 

Metal Epigraphy in Israel-Judah

We saw above that the Book of Mormon implies that the proximate background of the plates tradition was ancient Israel-Judah, from which derived the plates of brass and Nephi, who was responsible for initiating the large and small plates in Nephite record-keeping. So Latter-day Saint scholars have been keen to establish potential examples of metal epigraphy in archaeological and biblical sources, both from Israel-Judah as well as later Second Temple Judaic culture.[30] Aside from the Ketef Hinnom inscriptions, which we have already discussed do not provide a viable parallel to the Book of Mormon because of their short length and genre as magical incantations, other proposed examples of writing on metal include Exodus 28:36; Job 19:23–24; Isaiah 8:1; Isaiah 30:8; 1 Maccabees 8:22; 14:48–49; and the Copper Scroll from Qumran. I will briefly look at each of these texts and consider whether as secondary and/or late evidence they point to the existence of an earlier metal writing tradition that by chance has not yet been revealed through archaeological excavation.

Exodus 28:36: “You shall make a crown/rosette [s.ys.] of pure gold, and engrave on it the seal inscription, ‘Holy to YHWH.’” 

Hamblin writes, “The oldest example of Hebrew writing on metal is the engraved gold plate attached to the front of the turban of the high priest (at least 10C). According to Exodus 28:36, Moses was ordered to ‘make a plate (tzitz) of pure gold and engrave upon it as an engraved seal (khotem), ‘Holy to Yahweh.’”[31] However, there are various problems with this characterization. Aside from the fact that the dating of the passage is uncertain, we have many more reliable examples of early Hebrew writing on metal objects, and the translation of ṣyṣ with “plate” is undoubtedly incorrect.[32] The inscription is brief and therefore unremarkable. 

Job 19:23–24: “O, would that then my words be written! Oh, would that they be engraved [wyh.qw] in an inscription [spr]! With an iron stylus and lead, they be hewn upon a rock forever.”

Noting that the verb ḥqq properly means “to engrave,” Barney supposes that spr in this context may refer to a bronze or copper tablet, based on a proposal advanced by earlier biblical scholars that the Hebrew word is related to Akkadian siparru bronze.[33] On this understanding, the bronze and rock material are two examples of writing intended to be permanent. However, this explanation of spr is speculative and unnecessary. In the context of the passage, which is about Job’s words being written, the consonants s-p-r are more easily related to the sphere of writing.[34] Not only that, Hebrew already had a common word for “bronze.” Others have observed that spr can mean “inscription,” which provides a nice parallel to the following line in verse 24 about having words cut into rock with an engraving tool. Suriano has recently argued that the passage describes a “single location of writing that is consistent with a tomb inscription.”[35]

Isaiah 8:1: “And YHWH said to me, ‘Take a large stele [glywn gdwl] and write on it with a human engraving tool [h.rt.], ‘Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’” 

Although glywn is a hapax whose precise meaning is unknown, Latter-day Saint scholars have identified it as another possible example of a metal table because ḥrṭ elsewhere denotes a graving tool used on hard surfaces and a similarly spelled glynym appears in Isaiah 3:23, which has been interpreted as “polished metal, i.e., mirrors.”[36] However, this view meets with several difficulties. First, it is not clear that glynym in Isaiah 3:23 means “mirrors,” since the references that precede and follow it in the catalogue appear to be articles of clothing. The same term has been linked to Akkadian gulēnu/ gulīnu/gulānu “overgarment” and Hebrew glwm “coat, wrap.”[37] Second, the story of the glywn gdwl presumes that it was publicly visible and therefore legible to observers. A relatively small bronze mirror would serve poorly for this purpose. Third, Hebrew already had a straightforward terminol ogy for mirror, mrʾh or rʾy, and tablet, lwḥ. Fourth, the command to “take” a large glywn and write on it implies that whatever the object was it was relatively accessible and common, that there were large glywns as well as small glywns. This would have not been the case for a luxury object such as a bronze mirror or tablet. Fifth, the glywn is unlikely to be metal considering that the term derives from a simple root (gly “to uncover” or gll “to roll”) and lacks any specification for the material of the object. Lastly, the recent analysis by Williamson plausibly relates glywn to Aramaic gll and Akkadian galālu and identifies the object as a stone slab or stele.[38]

Isaiah 30:8: “Now come, write it [ktbh] on a tablet [lwh.]! Come [?], inscribe [h.qh] it on a scroll [spr]! That it may be a for a future day as a witness forever.”

Some Latter-day Saint exegetes have related one or both parts of this passage to metal epigraphy.[39] For example, Barney writes, “The same verb and noun combination as in the second line appears in Job 19:23 in a similar context of a writing intended to last a long time (KJV ‘for ever and ever’). Therefore the allusion in Isaiah 30:8 may also be to a writing on a bronze tablet, with the first writing (on wood) containing the headings or a summary, and with the second writing (on metal) containing the full message in permanent form.”[40] However, a basic problem with such a reading is that the material of the “tablet” and “scroll” are left unspecified, suggesting that neither has in view rare metal. In the Hebrew Bible lwḥ generally refers to flat pieces of stone or wood, and spr means simply, “writing, document, scroll.” As stand-alone terms they do not point in the direction of metal epigraphy. Similar to Job 19:23–24, spr is unlikely to mean “bronze” reflecting Akkadian sipparu since the immediate context relates to the writing down of words.[41]

The passage is nonetheless enigmatic and has engendered diverse interpretations among biblical scholars, including wax writing board, clay tablet, and papyrus scroll.[42] None of these are particularly satisfactory, since a wax inscription would be a poor material to last very long, clay tablets were not customarily used in Israel-Judah and neither are they known to have been designated lwḥ or spr in Hebrew, and papyrus scrolls were never inscribed or cut into. My own preference is to take lwḥ and spr with their standard meanings as “a hard tablet-like surface” and “scroll document” and note that the expected verbs have been reversed in each case, ktb-lwḥ and ḥqq-spr rather than ktb-spr and ḥqq-lwḥ.[43] The immediate and broader context seems to play with the notion of written revelation as authoritative (see Isa. 28:9–13; 29:11–13, 18), so the author has alluded to stone tablets and papyrus scrolls upon which to record YHWH’s condemnation of his people, suggesting that the prophetic torah of Isaiah 28:9 functions to counter an alternative written torah. In this context, lwḥ and spr can only evoke authoritative documents such as the famous stone tablets of the law and other Deuteronomistic affiliated writings from the Pentateuch. The language is thus rhetorical and ideologically constructed, going so far as to reverse the verb and noun combinations of ktb-spr and ḥqq-lwḥ. 

1 Maccabees 8:22; 14:48–49

1 Maccabees 8:22–32 and 14:27–49 report two separate inscriptions on metal from the second century BCE, bronze tablets containing a treaty between Judas Maccabeus and Rome and a decree affirming the election of Simon as high priest, military commander, and ruler in Judea. As rare examples of continuous text on metal from the Second Temple period, they have often been thought to support the existence of an earlier Jewish metal epigraphic tradition.[44] However, these inscriptions fit well within the standard use of bronze during the Greco-Roman period, when treaties and legal decrees were created for display in public spaces and sanctuaries.[45] The texts are basically short, functional, and monothematic, their political importance underlining the exceptional nature of bronze as epigraphic support. 

Copper Scroll from Qumran (3Q15) 

For Latter-day Saints, the Copper Scroll is significant not only because it demonstrates the use of metal as a writing material among Jews but because it was hidden in the ground for safekeeping.[46] For example, Hamblin writes, “The most well-known example of Hebrew writing on metal plates is the famous Copper Scroll (3Q15) from Qumran (1C AD), containing a list of hidden temple treasures. Although the origin and purpose of the Copper Scroll is widely debated, it is a clear example of an attempt to preserve an important sacred record by writing on copper/bronze (Heb. nechushah) plates and then hiding the document.”[47] However, the use of the Copper Scroll as a parallel to the Book of Mormon breaks down on closer analysis. First, the text is formally that of an inventory or list, describing the locations of various hidden treasures in a dry, enumerative style, lacking a narrative framework of any kind. Second, the use of metal as epigraphic support is unique to this one text. No examples of biblical or para-biblical literature written on metal were found in the archive at Qumran.[48] Although the reason why copper was used in this case is unknown, and theories range from durability intended for the preservation of valuable information, ritual purity, or dependence on biblical analogs,[49] the fact that expensive metal was used to record a list of buried treasure seems unlikely to be mere coincidence. Third, the genre and historicity of the text is uncertain, and some scholars have argued that it is a literary fiction.[50] Fourth, the document was constructed to resemble the form of a regular parchment scroll, highlighting its unusual material character as well as distinguishing it from the codex-like plates of the Book of Mormon. Fifth, the provenance of the Copper Scroll in an underground cave is a feature shared in common with the other Dead Sea Scrolls, so its deposition there should be explained in relation to these other documents, not apart from them. 

In sum, none of the arguments for finding parallels to the Book of Mormon plates in the Bible or Second Temple Judaic culture are convincing. Either the biblical passages admit of more plausible readings or the examples of authentic writing on metal bear little in common to the Book of Mormon narrative. Although metal was undoubtedly used as an epi graphic medium in Israel-Judah from early times, there is no evidence to support the assumption that it figured in an established scribal tradition of lengthy literary composition or archival storage. 

Concluding Thoughts 

The Book of Mormon is an impressive literary and cultural artifact. It reflects significant religious creativity and imagination and as such is deserving of careful study and appreciation. Whatever the book’s origins, the text stands on its own merits. But while the narrative’s world-making ability is real enough, its status as a translation of an ancient document is most unlikely, which is perhaps nowhere better seen than in its claims regarding gold and other metal plates as the original sources from which the document was produced. Comparison of documented practices of metal epigraphy from throughout the ancient Near East/eastern Mediterranean show that the Book of Mormon tradition of writing extensive literary compositions on metal for archival purposes was conspicuously outside the norm, without historical precedent or parallel. In addition, biblical and archaeological evidence do not support the notion that Israel-Judah was exceptional or distinctive with regard to its use of metal as epigraphic support. Metal was not employed for the writing of continuous literary text, which was reserved for papyrus, leather, wax tablet, and wood, all perishable materials.[51]

It is worth noting as well that the problem of metal plates cannot be resolved by resorting to the explanation of culturally mediated (mis)translation, since the nature of the plates and plate writing are so thoroughly described in the narrative. For Joseph Smith to have gotten this aspect of the “translation” so wrong and inserted his own ideas into the story world, we may as well no longer call the Book of Mormon a translation.

On the other hand, in contrast with the Book of Mormon’s divergence from almost all aspects of ancient metal epigraphy, the notion of ancient peoples having composed lengthy documents on metal in codex-like form was current in the world of Joseph Smith.[52]

Appendix 

The appendix to this article has been made available exclusively on the Dialogue website. To see Ryan Thomas’s exhaustive catalog of known examples of metal writing in antiquity, please visit Dialogue online at https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-gold-plates-appendix.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 58. 

[2] E.g., Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945); Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004). 

[3] Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 58.

[4] Ann Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation: Joseph Smith and the Materialization of the Golden Plates,” Numen 61, nos. 2–3 (2014): 182–207. 

[5] E.g., Ariel L. Crowley, Metal Record Plates in Ancient Times (United States: The author, 1947); Franklin S. Harris, Jr., “Others Kept Records on Metal Plates, Too,” Instructor 92 (1957): 318–21; H. Curtis Wright, “Metallic Documents of Antiquity,” BYU Studies 10 (1970): 457–77; Mark E. Petersen, Those Gold Plates! (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1979); C. Wilfred Griggs, “The Book of Mormon as an Ancient Book,” in Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, edited by Noel B. Reynolds (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1982), 75–101; Paul R. Cheesman, Ancient Writing on Metal Plates: Archaeological Findings Support Mormon Claims (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1985); Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988); Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988); John A. Tvedtnes, The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books: “Out of Darkness unto Light” (Provo: FARMS, 2000); Aaron P. Schade, “The Kingdom of Judah: Politics, Prophets, and Scribes in the Late Preexilic Period,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem: The Kingdom of Judah: Politics, Prophets, and Scribes in the Late Preexilic Period, edited by John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely (Provo: FARMS, 2004), 319–23; William J. Hamblin, “Sacred Writing on Metal Plates in the Ancient Mediterranean,” FARMS Review 19, no. 1 (2007): 37–54. 

[6] “Will believers and unbelievers learn to talk about the miraculous elements at the foundation of Mormonism with the same even-handedness as we discuss the Utah War? Can we bridge the belief gap on such subjects as the gold plates?” (Richard Lyman Bushman, “Reading the Gold Plates,” Journal of Mormon History 41, no. 1 [2015]: 69).

[7] See the appendix for a catalogue of inscriptions from individual regions. 

[8] Richard S. Ellis, Foundation Deposits in Ancient Mesopotamia, Yale Near Eastern Researches 2 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968), 104, 188–94. 

[9] Laurie Pearce, “The Scribes and Scholars of Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, edited by Jack Sasson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995), 4:2269.

[10] Ellis, Foundation Deposits, 107, 140; Laurie E. Pearce, “Materials of Writing and Materiality of Knowledge,” in Gazing on the Deep: Ancient Near Eastern and Other Studies in Honor of Tzvi Abusch, edited by Jeffrey Stackert, Barbara N. Porter, and David P. Wright (Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 2010), 167–80. 

[11] C. L. Nimchuk, “Empire Encapsulated: The Persepolis Apadana Foundation Deposits,” in The World of Achaemenid Persia: History, Art and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East, edited by John Curtis and St. John Simpson (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 224; Douglas Fear, “utā pavastāyā utā carmā grftam āha—Written on Clay and Parchment: Old PersianWriting and Allography in Iranian,” in Communication and Materiality: Written and Unwritten Communication in Pre-Modern Societies, edited by Susanne Enderwitz and Rebecca Sauer (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 76. 

[12] Theo van den Hout, “The Written Legacy of the Hittites,” in Insights into Hittite History and Archaeology, edited by Hermann Genz and Dirk Paul Mielke (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2011), 52–53.

[13] Christopher Rollston, “Phoenicia and the Phoenicians,” in The World around the Old Testament: The People and Places of the Ancient, edited by Bill T. Arnold and Brent A. Strawn (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2016), 284–94; Philip C. Schmitz, “Reconsidering a Phoenician Amulet,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2002): 817–23; Jeremy D. Smoak, The Priestly Blessing in Inscription and Scripture: The Early History of Numbers 6:24–26 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 44–49. 

[14] Amir Golani, Jewelry from the Iron Age II Levant (Göttingen, Germany: Vanden hoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 15–16; Irene J. Winter, “Radiance as an Aesthetic Value in the Art of Mesopotamia (With some Indian Parallels),” in Art, the Integral Vision: A Volume of Essay in Felicitation of Kapila Vatsyayan, edited by Baidyanath N. Saras wati, Subhash C. Malik, and Madhu Khanna (New Delhi: D.K. Printworld, 1994), 123–32; Susan Limmer, “The Social Functions and Ritual Significance of Jewelry in the Iron Age II Southern Levant” (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2007), 393–99; Christopher A. Faraone, The Transformation of Greek Amulets in Roman Imperial Times (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 80.

[15] Gabriel Barkay, Marilyn J. Lundberg, Andrew G. Vaughn, and Bruce Zucker man, “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 334 (2004): 41–71; Smoak, The Priestly Blessing, 12–42; Angelika Berlejung, “Der gesegnete Mensch. Text und Kontext von Num 6,22–27 und den Silber-amuletten von Ketef Hinnom,” in Mensch und König: Studien zur Anthropologie des Alten Testaments. Rüdriger Lux zum 60. Geburtstag, edited by Angelika Berlejung and Raik Heckl (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 37–62. 

[16] Gabriel Barkay, “The Priestly Benediction on Silver Plaques from Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem,” Tel Aviv 19 (1992): 174; Smoak, The Priestly Blessing, 42. 

[17] Christian Robin, “Saba’ and the Sabaeans,” in Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen, edited by St. John Simpson (London: British Museum, 2002), 63–64; William D. Glanzman, “Arts, Crafts and Industries,” in Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen, edited by St. John Simpson (London: British Museum, 2002), 114; Barbara Jändl, Altsüdarabische Inschriften auf Metall, Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel 4 (Berlin: Wasmuth, 2009). 

[18] Christopher Eyre, The Use of Documents in Pharaonic Egypt (Corby: Oxford University Press, 2013), 32.

[19] Thilo Rehren, “Metallurgy, Greece and Rome,” in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger S. Bagnall, et al. (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 4466–69. 

[20] Sophie Minon, email message to author, June 9, 2017. See also L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, rev. ed. with supplement by A. W. Johnston (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 55; Bradley H. McLean, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods: From Alexander the Great to the Reign of Constantine (323 BC–AD 337) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 206; Anne Kolb, “Bronze in Epigraphy,” in New Research on Ancient Bronzes: Acta of the XVIIIth International Congress on Ancient Bronzes, edited by Philippe Della Casa and Eckhard Deschler-Erb (Zürich: Chronos, 2015), 344. 

[21] Susan Guettel Cole, “Civic Cult and Civic Identity,” in Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State: Symposium, August, 24–27 1994, edited by Mogens Herman Hansen (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1995), 306.

[22] Sophie Minon, email message to author, June 9, 2017. 

[23] Antonia Sarri, Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World: 500 BC–AD 300 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 72–73; D. R. Jordan, “Early Greek Letters on Lead,” in A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity, edited by Anastasios-Phoibos Christidēs and Kentro Hellēnikēs Glōssas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 1355–66; Esther Eidinow and Claire Taylor, “Lead-Letter Days: Writing, Communication and Crisis in the Ancient Greek World,” Classical Quarterly 60 (2010): 30–62; Esther Eidinow, Oracles, Curses, and Risk Among the Ancient Greeks (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, translated by Franklin Philip (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 133; McLean, Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, 207. 

[24] Luciano Agostiniani, “The Etruscan Language,” in The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa (New York: Routledge, 2013), 460–64. 

[25] Callie Williamson, “Monuments of Bronze: Roman Legal Documents on Bronze Tablets,” Classical Antiquity 6 (1987): 160–83; Kolb, “Bronze in Epigraphy”; Werner Eck, “Documents on Bronze: A Phenomenon of the Roman West?,” in Ancient Documents and their Contexts: First North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (2011), edited by John Bodel and Nora Dimitrova (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 127–51.

[26] John Bodel, “Epigraphy and the Ancient Historian,” in Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions, edited by John Bodel (New York: Routledge, 2001), 19–24. 

[27] See Christopher A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age, Archaeology and Biblical Studies 11 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 64–66.

[28] For ancient strategies of linking large amounts of text together, see Alan Millard, “Books in the Late Bronze Age in the Levant,” in Past Links: Studies in the Languages and Cultures of the Ancient Near East, edited by Shlomo Izre’el, Itamar Singer, and Ran Zadok (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998), 171–81.

[29] J. van Haelst, “Les origines du codex,” in Les Débuts du codex, edited by Alain Blanchard, Bibliologia 9 (Brepols, Belgium: Turnhout, 1989), 12–35; Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002), 124–35; June Ashton, Scribal Habits in the Ancient Near East: C.3000 BCE to the Emergence of the Codex (Sydney: Mandelbaum, 2008), 177–79; Adam Bülow-Jacobsen, “Writing Materials in the Ancient World,” in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, edited by Roger S. Bagnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 3–29. 

[30] See Crowley, Metal Record Plates; Nibley, Since Cumorah; William J. Adams, Jr., “Lehi’s Jerusalem and Writing on Metal Plates,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 3, no. 1 (1994): 204–06; Tvedtnes, The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books; Kevin L. Barney, “A More Responsible Critique,” FARMS Review 15, no. 1 (2003): 97–146; Hamblin, “Sacred Writing on Metal Plates.”

[31] Hamblin, “Sacred Writing on Metal Plates,” 40. 

[32] William H. Propp, Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 2A (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 446–47. 

[33] “Responsible Critique,” 107–08.

[34] Marvin H. Pope, Job: Introduction, Translation, and Notes, Anchor Bible 15 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), 143–44; Robert Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation, and Special Studies (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978), 204; Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job, A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 292; Matthew J. Suriano, “Death, Disinheritance, and Job’s Kinsman-Redeemer,” Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 1 (2010): 51–52; C. L. Seow, Job 1–21: Interpretation and Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2013), 802–03. 

[35] Suriano, “Death, Disinheritance,” 51. 

[36] Crowley, Metal Record Plates, 16; Tvedtnes, The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books, 149; Barney, “Responsible Critique,” 106–07. 

[37] Hugh G. M. Williamson, Isaiah 1–5: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, International Critical Commentary (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 282–83; Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary, translated by Thomas H. Trapp (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 155.

[38] Hugh G. M. Williamson, “The Practicalities of Prophetic Writing in Isaiah 8:1,” in On Stone and Scroll: Essays in Honour of Graham Ivor Davies, edited by James K. Aitken, Katharine J. Dell, and Brian A. Mastin (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 357–69. 

[39] Crowley, Metal Record Plates, 28; Barney, “Responsible Critique,” 109.

[40] “Responsible Critique,” 109. 

[41] Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 28–39: A Continental Commentary, translated by Thomas H. Trapp (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 139–40.

[42] K. Galling, “Tafel, Buch und Blatt,” in Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William Foxwell Albright, edited by H. Goedicke (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), 207–23; A. Baumann, “חול lûaḥ,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testa ment, edited by G. J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, ‎H. J. Fabry (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1975–2015), 7:480–83; J. D. Moore, “Writing Religion: A Comparative Study of Ancient Israelite Scribes, their Writing Materials and their Methods Used in the Writing of the Hebrew Prophecies” (master’s thesis, Brandeis University, 2011); A.L.H.M. van Wieringen, “חול board, tablet,” KLY Database: Utensils in the Hebrew Bible, 2011, available at http://www.otw-site.eu/KLY/lwj.pdf; William Henry Irwin, Isaiah 28–33: Translation with Philological Notes (Rome: Biblical Institute, 1977), 79; J. C. de Moor, The Rise of Yahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1997), 158; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 415; J. J. M. Roberts, First Isaiah: A Commentary (Min neapolis: Fortress, 2015), 388. 

[43] Hugh G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in the Composition and Redaction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 104.

[44] Crowley, Metal Record Plates, 13–14; Tvedtnes, The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books, 149; Hamblin, “Sacred Writing on Metal Plates,” 40–41; Barney, “Responsible Critique,” 106. 

[45] Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, “Josephus, Bronze Tablets and Greek Inscriptions,” L’Antiquité Classique 64 (1995): 211–15; Linda Zollschan, Rome and Judaea: Inter national Law Relations, 162–100 BCE (London: Taylor and Francis, 2016), 18–21. 

[46] Nibley, Since Cumorah. 

[47] Hamblin, “Sacred Writing on Metal Plates,” 41.

[48] Emanuel Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert (Leiden: Brill, 2004). 

[49] Cf. George J. Brooke, “Introduction,” in Copper Scroll Studies, edited by George J. Brooke and Philip R. Davies, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series 40 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 7; Émile Puech, The Copper Scroll Revisited (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 7; Judah K. Lefkovits, The Copper Scroll (3Q15): A Reevaluation. A New reading, Translation, and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 463; Jesper Hogenhaven, “Geography and Ideology in the Copper Scroll (3Q15) from Qumran,” in Northern Lights on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Nordic Qumran Network 2003–2006, edited by Anders Klostergaard Petersen, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 87–88. 

[50] Jozef T. Milik, “Le Rouleau de Cuivre provenant de la Grotte 3Q (3Q15),” in Le rouleau de cuivre, edited by Maurice Baillet, Jozef T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux, DJD 3 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), 201–302; Hogenhaven, “Geography and Ideology”; cf. Al Wolters, “Apocalyptic and the Copper Scroll,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49, no. 2 (1990): 145–54; Piotr Muchowski, “The Origin of 3Q15: Forty Years of Discussion,” in Copper Scroll Studies, edited by George J. Brooke and Philip R. Davies, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series 40 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 257–70.

[51] André Lemaire, “Writing and Writing Materials,” in The Anchor Bible Diction ary, edited by David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:999–1008; Ashton, Scribal Habits, 20–42; Moore, “Writing Religion.”

[52] Michael G. Reed, “The Notion of Metal Records in Joseph Smith’s Day” (paper presented at the Summer Seminar on Mormon Culture, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, Aug. 18, 2011, available at https://publications.mi.byu.edu/ fullscreen/?pub=3468&index=9); Brent Lee Metcalfe, “Apologetic and Critical Assumptions about Book of Mormon Historicity,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 3 (1993): 157.

[post_title] => The Gold Plates and Ancient Metal Epigraphy [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.2 (Summer 2019):37–58
Ryan Thomas highlights the different metal writing cultures from around the same time as the Book of Mormon periods to see if it is historically likely for the Gold Plates to exist from that time period. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-gold-plates-and-ancient-metal-epigraphy [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-31 18:07:11 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-31 18:07:11 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=23881 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 23877 [post_author] => 1851 [post_date] => 2019-07-17 15:20:50 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-07-17 15:20:50 [post_content] =>

At a Church conference in 1831, Hyrum Smith invited his brother to explain how the Book of Mormon originated. Joseph declined, saying: “It was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.”[1] His pat answer—which he repeated on several occasions—was simply that it came “by the gift and power of God.”[2]

Attributing the Book of Mormon’s origin to supernatural forces has worked well for Joseph Smith’s believers, then as well as now, but not so well for critics who seem certain natural abilities were responsible. For over 180 years, several secular theories have been advanced as explanations.[3] The more popular hypotheses include plagiarism (of the Solomon Spaulding manuscript),[4] collaboration (with Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, etc.),[5] mental illness (bipolar, dissociative, or narcissistic personality disorders),[6] and Joseph’s intellect (with help from the Bible, View of the Hebrews, par allelism, or his environment).[7] Even today the topic remains controversial without general consensus.[8] 

A fifth explanation attributes the Book of Mormon text to “automatic writing,” also called “spirit writing,” “trance writing,” “channeling,” “psychography,” “abnormal writing,” “direct writing,” and “independent writing.”[9] In psychological terms, automatic writing is described as “ideomotor effect,” “motor automatism,” and automaticity.[10] 

Understanding “Automatic Writing” 

Psychiatrist Ian P. Stevenson, who served as the chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, explains: “The term ‘automatic writing’ is used to designate writing that is done without the writer being conscious of what he is writing. . . . Usually the writing proceeds rapidly, sometimes far more so than the subject’s normal writing does.”[11]

Independent researcher Irving Litvag further writes: “One type of psychic activity, known as ‘automatic writing,’ began to attract attention through the activities of a group of mediums, mostly English, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Automatic writing involves the reception and transcription of various types of communications in written form. The medium claims to have no control over the writing that is produced.”[12]

While the process is called automatic writing, it can produce words through speech or through other modes of communication: “The subject may speak what is in his mind, as occurs in ordinary cases of mental mediumship with oral utterances; or he may rest two or three fingers lightly on a pointer that moves around a board with letters printed on it,” commonly called a Ouija board.[13] “Planchettes” may also be used, which are described as “a miniature table, usually shaped like a heart, less than eight inches long [with] two easy rolling wheels supported at one end, and a pencil fastened in a hole at the top.”[14]

In summary, through automatic writing, subjects can produce words using several different methodologies, but in every case the author is believed to be unconscious of the letters and sentences being created. Historically, multiple texts have been attributed to automatic writing (see Table 1).

Publication	Year	Author	Birth Year	Education	# Words	Source of Words	Comments	Pub.
Great Gospel of John	1851–  1864	Jakob Lorber	1800	Trained to be the village teacher. Gifted in music.	5,500 pages	God through an “inner voice”	Jakob, who started writing at age 40, referred to himself as “God’s scribe.” Works were published posthumously.	GGOJ
The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind	1847	Andrew Jackson Davis	1826	Basic writing and arithmetic.	340,000	Trance state	Prior to dictating, a “magnetizer” would magnetize him, cover his eyes, and await his entrance into a trance.	TPON
Oahspe: A New Bible	1880–  1882	John Ballou Newbrough	1828	Fluent in several languages. Worked as a physician and dentist.	298,840	“Jehovih” “The Great Spirit”	Oahspe is made up of a series of related books discussing earth and heaven.	O:ANB
Spirit-Identity	1879	William Stainton Moses	1839	Educated at Exeter College, Oxford.	37,532	Channeling from the dead	Psychologist Théodore Flournoy wrote Moses was capable of creating the words of his books subconsciously.	S-I
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ	1908	Levi H. Dowling	1844	Graduated from medical school and worked as a physician.	84,940	Transcribed from the Akashic records	The Akashic records are reportedly encoded in a non physical plane of existence.	TAG
Clothed with the Sun	1889	Anna Kingsford	1846	University of Paris. Medical Degree.	89,670	Trance state	Anna claimed association with fairies as a child and had many channeled visions.	CWTS
From India to the Planet Mars	1900	Catherine-Elise Müller	1861	Local schools to age 15.	122,000	Martians via trances while sleeping	“Hélène Smith” adopted name as a medium.	FITTPM
A Dweller on Two Planets	1905	Frederick Spencer Oliver	1866	“Without any solid education.”	161,463	Phylos The Thibetan	Prophesies of airplanes in the future.	ADOTP
The Impersonal Life	1914	Joseph Sieber Benner	1872	Attended public schools.	79,670	Directly from God	Author reported having his mind subsumed by a larger Being, acting co-creatively with God.	TIL
[Multiple]	1911–  1945	Edgar Cayce	1877	Cayce’s education stopped in the ninth grade because his family could not afford the costs involved.	[multiple-short]	Trance state	Called “The Sleeping Prophet,” Cayce gave answers while in a trance.	[Multiple]
The Sorry Tale: A Story of the Time of Christ	1915–  1917	Pearl Curran	1883	Schooling ended at age 13. Admit ted to be a “mediocre student.”	264,000	Deceased Patience Worth	Pearl Curran communicated via Ouija Board with a spirit named “Patience Worth” in a unique English dialect producing over 4,000,000 words.	TST
The Urantia Book	1924	[Unidentified]		Unknown.	650,070	Celestial beings	Medium portrayed as not being in an ordinary trance, but unconscious of surroundings and communications. Described as a “clearing house for the coming and going of reported extra-planetary personalities.”	TUB
The Scripts of Cleophas	1928	Geraldine Cummins	1890	Trained in journalism and creative writing.	128,986	Spirit-guide “Astor”	Cummins described as a spiritualist medium, novelist and playwright, who produced many channeled writings.	TSOC
The Seth Material	1963–  1984	Jane Roberts	1929	Attended public schools and Skid more College.	95,480	An energy personality who called himself “Seth”	Contact with spirit personality Seth produced messages in Roberts’ head.	TSM
A Course in Miracles	1965–  1972	Helen Schucman	1909	Helen Schucman received a PhD in psychology.	413,230	Inner voice she identified as Jesus	“Scribed” by Schucman between 1965 and 1972 through a process of inner dictation.	ACIM
Conversations with God Book 1	1995–  2017	Neale Donald Walsch	1943	Informally studies comparative theology for many years.	69,130	Panentheistic God	Walsch says his books are not channeled but affirms he can hear God talking to him, just as if God stood next to him.	CWGI
The Book of Mormon	1830	Joseph Smith	1805	Frontier schooling.	269,528	“Gift and power of God”	Some critics allege a direct parallel between the Book of Mormon dictation and automatic writing	TBOM

Comparing the Book of Mormon with The Sorry Tale 

Pearl Curran’s The Sorry Tale is most often compared to the Book of Mormon to support an automatic writing theory. A number of similarities can be identified. 

The Book of Mormon Dictation 

A brief review of the details of the Book of Mormon dictation show that Joseph spoke virtually all of the 269,320 words to scribes who recorded them with quill pens.[15] He and the scribe worked with dictations of twenty to thirty words at a time.[16] The scribe immediately read back the text to assure accuracy. The dictations proceeded linearly without stops to review previous pages or paragraphs. Joseph Smith often spelled out proper names when first encountered in the text. No books, manuscripts, or other documents were consulted during the dictation.[17] After breaks, Joseph would start where he left off without reading back the previous portion.[18] Of the nearly seven thousand sentences in the 1830 Book of Mormon, Joseph did not rearrange the sequence of a single one after dictation.[19] No rewriting or content editing occurred; emendations were made, but the core messages and storylines were published without any significant changes.[20]

Pearl Curran’s The Sorry Tale 

In 1913, thirty-year-old Pearl Curran visited a friend and after initially resisting, participated in a Ouija board experience. Within a year, Pearl’s Ouija board sessions became common, and among the messages spelled out were communications from an entity identifying herself as a deceased spirit named Patience Worth: “Many moons ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name.”[21]

During the next twenty-four years, Patience Worth communicated over four million words of dictation to Pearl Curran through her Ouija board and later without it. Included were “seven full-length books, thousands of poems ranging from a few lines in length to hundreds, uncounted numbers of epigrams and aphorisms, short stories, a few plays, and thousands of pages of witty trenchant conversations.”[22] 

In July 1915, Patience began communicating the text of a new book entitled The Sorry Tale (with Pearl Curran as medium), finishing it in February less than two years later. Set at the time of Christ, some have referred to it as a “fifth Gospel.”[23] Casper S. Yost described the process through which Curran dictated the text: 

[Pearl Curran] sits down with the Ouija board as she might sit down to a typewriter, and the receipt of the communications begins with no more ceremony than a typist would observe. Mrs. Curran has had no experience in literary composition and has made no study of literature, ancient or modem. Nor, it may be added, has she made any study of the history, the religions, or the social customs of the period of this story, nor of the geography or topography of the regions in which it is laid. . . . 

Some time was given to its transmission on two or three evenings of every week until its completion. In the early months she proceeded leisurely with the task, usually writing 300 to 1,000 words of the story in an evening, and, in addition, poems, parables, or didactic or humorous conversation, as the mood or the circumstances prompted. . .

As The Sorry Tale progressed she gave more and more time to it, producing on many evenings from 2,500 to 3,500 words of the tale in a sitting of an hour and a half or two hours. In one evening 5,000 words were dictated, covering the account of the Crucifixion. At all times, however, it came with great rapidity, taxing the chirographic speed of Mr. Curran to the utmost to put it down in abbreviated longhand. . . . 

From start to finish some 260 persons contributed in this way to the com position. . . . Each time the story was picked up at the point where work was stopped at the previous sitting, without a break in the continuity of the narrative, without the slightest hesitation, and without the necessity of a reference to the closing words of the last preceding instalment.[24]

The book was published later that year, apparently with little or no editing. Concerning A Sorry Tale, a New York Times reviewer wrote: “The long and intricate tale is constructed with the precision and accuracy of a master hand. It is a wonderful, a beautiful, and a noble book, but it is not easy to read. . . . Its archaic language and its frequently indirect modes of expression make necessary constantly the closest attention.”[25] More recently BYU professor Richard L. Anderson wrote less favorably: “The Sorry Tale spins overdone human tragedy but fades out the divine tragedy of Christ’s atonement for sin. Its Jesus teaches an unstructured ‘kingdom of love’ but drops out the realities of sin and salvation, church and ordinances. Such oversimplified humanism does not match the Christ of the Gospels.”[26] 

Similarities Between the Book of Mormon and The Sorry Tale 

Several parallels between the creation of The Sorry Tale and the Book of Mormon can be recognized. The books are of similar length and involve Christian themes. Each process was facilitated by a mystical instrument, a Ouija board for Pearl Curran and a seer stone for Joseph Smith. 

The dictation speeds are also similar. While Curran spaced out her sessions, the number of words generated in her most productive day may have been equal to or greater than the average dictation given through Joseph Smith and recorded by Oliver Cowdery. A curious detail, common to both, is that after taking a break from dictating, scribes were never required to read back the previous portion before moving on. The lack of editing is another match. 

The Book of Mormon Dictation and Automatic Writing: Similarities 

Table 1 and the origin of The Sorry Tale demonstrate several general parallels between books produced by automatic writing and the Book of Mormon dictation.

Automatic writing can produce texts as long as the Book of Mormon

Automatic writing can produce short prose in a single sitting, or as seen in Table 1 even book-length manuscripts compiled over multiple sessions that are much longer than the Book of Mormon.

Automatic writing can create complex books with complicated storylines 

Among the books in Table 1 are several that parallel the Book of Mormon in apparent complexity.

Automatic writing texts do not employ standard composition methodology 

Neither the Book of Mormon nor the other automatic writing books were composed through standard writing techniques that involve author researching, outlining, drafting, and/or revising. In some cases the precise methodology may be less clear, but sending a manuscript directly to the printer with little or no modification is most common.

None of the automatic writing authors were considered to have a genius level IQ 

Table 1 lists the educational achievements for each author. Some are impres sive, but most are ordinary and unremarkable. None of the authors otherwise distinguished themselves as intellectuals or demonstrated a genius-level IQ. 

The Book of Mormon Dictation and Automatic Writing: Dissimilarities 

Besides these similarities, a couple of dissimilarities can also be identified. 

Joseph Smith’s Alleged “Trance State” 

Historically, authors describing the Book of Mormon translation are split on whether they believe Joseph Smith entered a trance state as he recited the words. Lawrence Foster, Harold Bloom, T. B. H. Stenhouse, I. Woodbridge Riley, and G. St. John Stott assume Joseph went into a trance when dictating. On the other hand, authors like Richard Van Wagoner and Richard Abanes stress that he did not.

Historically, multiple eyewitnesses describe Joseph Smith as looking in the hat and simply dictating.[27] None imply an altered state of consciousness to describe his appearance or behavior while looking into the hat.[28] One might argue that burying his face would obscure signs of a trance state, but any change in Joseph’s voice quality or demeanor would probably have been mentioned by his sometimes skeptical observers.[29] In addition, the process of dictating involved the scribe reading back the previous sentences to ensure the accuracy of the manuscript before moving on.[30] Such interruptions seem inconsistent with trance state.

Use of a Seer Stone 

A second dissimilarity involves the physical objects that are connected with the creation of the Book of Mormon.[31] Seer stones or their near equivalent are not associated with any of the other automatic writing books listed in Table 1. 

Supernatural Answers to: “Where Do All the Words Come From?” 

Whether dealing with the Book of Mormon or the other automatic writing texts, it is helpful to ask, “Where do all the words come from?” The answers can be divided into supernatural and natural explanations. Table 1 identifies authors who universally attributed their words to supernatural origins. Several general categories of sources can be identified.

Deity 

Communication with deity is commonly reported. It may be Jesus or a universal God, but the highest source of truth is often invoked directly or indirectly. Some automatic writing philosophies attempt to unify all theologies into one whole. Sometimes Christ may be mentioned or listed as the source of words, but his Christian roles as messiah and redeemer are usually diminished or ignored. 

Deceased Persons 

Reports of automatic writings coming “from deceased persons, or from unknown discarnate entities” are common.[32] Professor C. D. Broad of Trinity College, Cambridge, wrote in 1965 that some “automatic scripts” suggest “rather strongly that certain human beings have survived the death of their physical bodies and have been able to communicate with certain others who are still in the flesh.”[33] Information from dead relatives is the most sought after, although random deceased spirits may show up like Patience Worth in Pearl Curran’s writings. 

Ancient Records 

Besides the Book of Mormon, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ is reported to be derived from an ancient source, the Akashic records, which “are supposed to contain data on everything that has ever happened, is happening, or ever will happen in the entire universe.”[34]

Spirit Guides

Spirit guides or personalities serve as “a go-between with the ‘other world’” and communicate the messages recorded.[35] 

Trance States 

Several of the reports simply list a “trance state” without professing a provenance of the words they speak beyond the implication that they originate outside of and ostensibly superior to the author. 

Joseph Smith’s Explanation for the Sources of Automatic Writing 

It is likely that Joseph Smith would have agreed with many of the claims of supernatural assistance affirmed by the automatic writing authors. In the arithmetic of his cosmology, such were not unexpected. Joseph taught that spiritual manifestations were real, but that “every Spirit or vision . . . is not of God.”[36] Besides originating from deity, Joseph identified another potential source as he cautioned that “there are many spirits which are false spirits, which have gone forth in the earth, deceiving the world. And also Satan hath sought to deceive you, that he might overthrow you” (D&C 50:2–3). In 1839, Joseph cautioned: “Lying Spirits are going forth in the Earth.”[37] In 1829, Joseph Smith encountered Hiram Page, brother-in-law to David Whitmer, who was receiving revelations through his own seer stone and had influenced many of the Whitmers.[38] Early dissenter Ezra Booth wrote that Page “had written over considerable paper” of his revelations.[39] In response, Joseph prayed and dictated the following revelation: “And again, thou shalt take thy brother, Hiram Page, between him and thee alone, and tell him that those things which he hath written from that stone are not of me and that Satan deceiveth him” (D&C 28:11). Hiram put away his seer stone at that moment, and though one of the Eight Witnesses, he eventually left the Church.[40] 

Within the context of Joseph Smith’s teachings, a fairly straightforward spiritual dichotomy is detected. God facilitated the dictation of the Book of Mormon. In contrast, automatic writings that contradict these things are from false spirits. This attitude represents a sort of revelatory elitism for Joseph Smith as he later warned: “A man must have the discerning of spirits, before he can drag into daylight this hellish influence and unfold it unto the world in all its soul destroying, diabolical, and horrid colors: for nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit, when they think they have the spirit of God.”[41]

Skeptics often group Joseph Smith’s dictations with those of other automatic writers as they discount all reports of extra-worldly connections. Clustering these authors together might seem to provide an explanation, but in reality, clustering is not explaining. To successfully refute the supernatural claims of automatic writings and the Book of Mormon, a plausible natural explanation is needed. Otherwise, the argument just reframes Joseph’s reports of the “gift and power of God” into a different, but still suprahuman, construct. 

Where Do All the Words Come From? Natural Explanations

Numerous skeptics have approached automatic writers and mediums attempting to debunk their reports of mystical communications.[42] Since automatic writing became popular in the early 1900s, most of the psycho logical studies were performed at that time.

The most popular natural explanation is that the words emerge from a portion of the automatic writer’s unconscious. That is, a mechanism is employed to transfer control of the writing from the author’s consciousness to nonconscious mental forces, and from there the words flow. An article in the March 1930 Popular Science Monthly explains, “The source of such composition is the spontaneous expression of a submerged fraction of a person’s personality.”[43]

To summarize, explanations that the Book of Mormon was produced through automatic writing necessarily credit all of the words to Joseph Smith’s unconscious mind. This leads to additional important inquiries. 

How Does the Unconscious Take Control? 

If the words emerge from an automatic writer’s unconscious mind, what happens to mentally transfer supervision of speaking from conscious to unconscious control? Normally humans are very much aware of their surroundings and cannot switch to an unconscious mode voluntarily. Several descriptions of triggers exist, with significant overlap between them, explaining how mental control switches from conscious to unconscious during automatic writing. 

Psychological Techniques Expose the Unconscious 

Psychologists may deliberately attempt to probe the unconscious through therapeutic techniques. Psychotherapist J. H. van der Hoop explains that in addition to analyzing “dreams [and] visions,” and inducing “hypnosis [and] trance states,” another useful “means of enquiring into the contents of the unconscious mind was afforded by automatic writing.”[44] Anita M. Muhl, author of Automatic Writing, further explicates: “The use of automatic writing in conjunction with psychoanalysis is invaluable in getting at unconscious processes quickly.”[45] Researcher Ian Stevenson explains: “The altered state of consciousness that usually occurs before and during the act of automatic writing facilitates the emergence into consciousness of material that is ordinarily kept outside awareness [unconscious]. The condition is thus somewhat like that of dreaming and also like that of a hypnotic trance. . . . We should remember that our minds are stored—one could say stuffed—with much more information than we ordinarily need or ever become consciously aware of.”[46] 

While advocated by some health care providers, automatic writing has never enjoyed wide acceptance in medical settings and is seldom practiced today. 

Dissociation Taps the Unconscious 

A second way to transition out of consciousness to write automatically is described as entering a dissociated state, which is like a person with multiple personalities leaving the conscious self to enter into another identity.[47] In his 1998 book The Sword of Laban: Joseph Smith Jr. and the Dissociated Mind, plastic surgeon William D. Morain theorizes that Joseph Smith’s childhood knee operation was his “maiden voyage into ‘dissociation’” and that “there would be many more” during his lifetime.[48] Explaining that it “cannot be known how successful Joseph’s dissociation was in blotting out the pain,” Morain insists that “the fantasies arising through his dissociations” tormented Joseph for the rest of his life.[49] Ostensibly, the repressed pain also influenced his dictation of some of the storylines in the Book of Mormon.[50]

According to the 2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: “Dissociative disorders are characterized by a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior.”[51] The resulting pathologies include multiple personalities, amnesia, depersonalization, and fugue (forgetting one’s own identity).[52] Morain and others postulate that less severe manifestations of dissociation might have permitted Joseph Smith to access previously unconscious functionality and creative abilities.

Ann Taves, Automatic Writing, Hypnosis, and Dissociation

In her 2016 book Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths, Ann Taves, professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, examines Joseph Smith and the origin of the Book of Mormon. In a very complex discussion involving repeated references to consciousness, hypnosis and hypnotic states, automatic writing, and dissociation,[53]^, she acknowledges that Joseph’s dictation came as a “flow of words that seems to arise outside consciousness.”[54]

Taves describes how the seer stone “triggered” or “cued” the equivalence of a “formal hypnotic induction” of Joseph Smith. From there he entered “an imaginative storytelling mode,” a “subjective experience of an altered state,” a “visual modality,” a “highly focused awareness,” or a “translating mode” that caused him to “dissociate” in some ways.[55] 

According to Taves, the resulting state enhanced Joseph’s “imaginative skills,” improved his ability to focus “on a target goal,” and “cued the suspension of [his] normal self-referential processing.”[56] Thereafter, he was able to “dissociate control over the flow of words and automate the process so that it flowed quickly and smoothly. Indeed, dissociating the flow of words so that they did not seem to be [his] own meant that [he was] nonconsciously reflecting on them as [he] dictated.”[57] For Taves, the mental condition—triggered by the seer stone and controlled by nonconscious forces—enabled Joseph to “effortlessly” produce the Book of Mormon text.[58]

Confidence in the Unconscious

Generally speaking, psychologists confidently attribute the origin of words arising from automatic writing to the unconscious of the author, sometimes even without evidence showing how the words originally got in there. Since almost all research on lengthy automatic writings occurred in the early twentieth century, psychological theories embraced generally today are traced to that era. For example, writing in 1906 after discussing an auto 

matic writing narrative that contained specific details that were seemingly impossible for the writer to have known, Columbia University professor James H. Hyslop explained a psychological theory of automatic writing that is advocated by several authors who classify the Book of Mormon as a product of automatic writing: 

We are, therefore, left to pure conjecture for the source of the subcon scious ideas. We may suppose that it is the resurrection of some forgotten knowledge, or a dream fabrication associating disconnected names and incidents in a consistent whole. As for proof of this, there is none. . . . 

The resourcefulness of subconscious mental actions is thus shown to be very great, and that little material knowledge is necessary for more or less perfect dramatization, and the believer in “spirits” will have to learn that he has first to exhaust the field of abnormal psychology before he can trust his judgement to accept any explanation of such phenomena but that of secondary personality [dissociation].[59]

Hyslop emphasizes, “The claims for the supernormal are summarily thrown out of court, and we are left with subconscious mental action of the subject as the one general source which cannot be doubted.”[60]

The Book of Mormon as the Product of Joseph Smith’s Unconscious 

To further investigate the possibility that the Book of Mormon emerged from Joseph Smith’s unconscious, I will examine four characteristics of the Book of Mormon production:

• The complexity of the dictated text (the Book of Mormon) • The challenges associated with creative dictation 
• Joseph Smith’s conscious abilities, which correlate to his unconscious abilities 
• The documented capabilities of the unconscious mind (from scientific studies) 

Quadrangulating these four data points provides a clearer assessment of the cognitive challenges associated with the Book of Mormon creation and the ability of automatic writing theories to explain them. 

The Complexity of the Book of Mormon Text

The Book of Mormon storyline dictated by Joseph Smith is complex, men tioning 337 proper names with 188 being unique to the Book of Mormon.[61] It references the activities of over 175 individuals and groups who existed in at least 125 different topographical locations.[62] It describes more than 425 specific geographical movements among these characters.[63] The Book of Mormon also includes literary devices that would be memory-intensive to construct and recite in real time, including 430 distinct chiasms, with over thirty being six-level or greater,[64] and over one thousand Hebrew literary elements.[65]

How does the Book of Mormon’s complexity compare to other books?[66] Modern literary experts can estimate the reading difficulty of a book using a device called the Lexile Framework for Reading, which “involves a scale for measuring both reading ability of an individual and the text complexity of materials he or she encounters.”[67] The Lexile scale applies to grades 1–12. 

For example, books used in the eleventh grade curriculum in the United State public schools in 2004 carried an average Lexile score of 1120, and for twelfth 1130.[68] The Book of Mormon Lexile score is 1150,[69] which correlates to the reading level of some sixth graders and most in the eleventh grade.[70] Other popular books with an 1150 Lexile score include Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov (364,153 words), Melville’s Moby Dick (206,052 words), and Dickens’s Great Expectations (162,690 words).[71]

At nearly 270,000 words, the Book of Mormon is much longer than other religious texts, including the New Testament (138,020), the English translation of the Qur’an (77,701), and the Torah (just under 80,000). Yale University chair of history Daniel Walker Howe summarizes: “True or not, the Book of Mormon is a powerful epic written on a grand scale with a host of characters, a narrative of human struggle and conflict, of divine intervention, heroic good and atrocious evil, of prophecy, morality, and law. Its narrative structure is complex.”[72] 

Challenges of Creative Dictation 

The second data point involves creative dictation. This describes texts that are dictated and sent straight to the printer, like most automatic writings. It bears both similarities and differences to creative writing. 

Modeling Creative Dictation 

While it is possible that Joseph Smith’s dictations came by reading a preexisting manuscript concealed in the hat, such a ruse would probably have been detected through the weeks of translation, and multiple docu ments affirm he used no outside resources.[73] Alternatively, Joseph might have memorized the roughly four to five thousand words each day from a concealed transcript, but no such transcript has come to light. Time for secret memorization sessions also seems to have been unavailable. David Whitmer recalled how the translation sessions proceeded: “It was a laborious work for the weather was very warm, and the days were long and they worked from morning till night.”[74]

Most observers assume Joseph Smith created all the words in real time. Historian Dan Vogel acknowledges: “Smith’s method of dictation did not allow for rewriting. It was a more-or-less stream-of-consciousness composition.”[75] 

It appears that a stream-of-consciousness form of dictation would require the mental convergence of several important elements: proper motivation, sufficient knowledge of the English language, an understanding of the rules of composition, a rich reservoir of personal experiences to draw from, research data regarding the topic, potent creativity, proficient memory, and above-normal intellectual processing power. Modeling these demonstrates possible individual interactions and importance (see Figure 1). 

[Editor's Note: For Figure 1, see PDF]

One of the heaviest burdens in creative dictation is carried by memory (long- and short-term). In creative writing, the author can consult printed matter in the forms of research materials and previous drafts in order to supplement natural memory. In creative dictation, the author’s memory is responsible for all recall and data storage. Long-term memory supplies facts, details, ideas, and outlines, as the text is generated on the fly. Short-term memory provides constant vigilance over the spoken sentences to assure coherency with words recently dictated as well as text recited hours and days previously. Psychologists Linda Flower and John R. Hayes explain how longer texts are more difficult to produce: “Each word in the growing text determines and limits the choices of what can come next.”[76] That is, the word choice of the 200,000th word cannot ignore the 20,000th word, the 2,000th word, or any that had been spoken up to that point, if accuracy and sentence integrity is to be maintained. Without the short-term memory’s perpetual attentiveness, inconsistencies will crop up in the manuscript and will expand as the text is enlarged.

Comparing Creative Dictation to Creative Writing 

Creative writing has been investigated for many decades and shares many parallels with creative dictation.[77] Maxine Hairston and John J. Ruszkiewicz, authors of The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers, explain, “Researchers who have studied how writers work do agree that there are discernible patterns among writers, and that, generally speaking, they seem to work through” specific stages, which can be distilled as follows: pre-writing, choosing a topic, creating an outline, researching pertinent documents; writing, putting words on the paper in the form of a completed first draft; and rewriting revisions, rewriting, content and copy editing, as well as typesetting.[78] Automatic writing theories explaining manuscripts mentioned above, including the Book of Mormon, assume that these steps were not needed unless they were performed within the confines of the nonconscious brain. According to this model, Joseph Smith was involuntarily writing and rewriting the text simultaneously.[79] 

Part of the reason creative dictation is poorly understood both by research ers and by lay people today is because it is so rare. Practically speaking, virtually no scholars have elected to dictate long manuscripts off the top of their heads and then send them directly to the printer. Even the most intellectual geniuses today pre-write, write, and rewrite their manuscripts prior to completion.[80]

Joseph Smith’s Conscious Intellectual Skill Set 

The third component involves Joseph Smith’s conscious composition abilities because they were closely tied to his unconscious capabilities (see below). Ann Taves writes that at times he engaged in “imaginative storytelling” and could recount “narratives of great vividness.”[81] She also quotes a questionable source that says Joseph “acquired knowledge very rapidly and learned with special facility all the tricks of the scoundrels who worked in his company. He soon outgrew his teachers.”[82] 

The historical record describes activities showing Joseph Smith was intelligent and inquisitive.

• Orasmus Turner recalled that as a youth Joseph helped “solve some portentous questions of moral or political ethics, in our juvenile debating club.”[83]
• Lucy Mack Smith recalled that in 1823 “Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined.”[84]
• Pomeroy Tucker portrayed Joseph as an active reader of “dime novels.”[85] 
• Joseph reportedly said, “I can take my Bible, and go into the woods, and learn more in two hours, than you can learn at meetings in two years, if you should go all the time.”[86] 
• When learning Hebrew in 1835, Joseph was second only to Orson Pratt in the ability to memorize and learn the language.[87]

It is probable that Joseph Smith’s competency in reading and writing, even as a twenty-three-year-old farmer, was above average. However, no available recollections describe him as exhibiting extraordinary intellectual capabilities by 1829. It seems a majority of the printed recollections described him as ignorant or illiterate.[88]

Isaac Hale recounted in 1834 that “I first became acquainted with Joseph Smith Jr. in November, 1825. . . . His appearance at this time was that of a careless young man—not very well educated.”[89] Similarly, John H. Gilbert, who typeset the Book of Mormon in 1830, remembered: “We had a great deal of trouble with it [the Book of Mormon manuscript]. It was not punctuated at all. They [Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery] did not know anything about punctuation.” When asked: “Was he [Joseph Smith] educated?” he responded: “Oh, not at all then.”[90] 

[Editor's Note: For figure 2, see PDF] 

Cognitive Abilities of the Unconscious 

After reviewing the first three components—the Book of Mormon complexity, the challenges of creative dictation, and Joseph’s qualifications while conscious—the fourth element asks and tries to answer the question: “What capabilities would have been enhanced by switching from an awake Joseph Smith to an unconscious or hypnotized version?”[91]

Hypnosis and Unconscious Changes 

As discussed above, hypnosis may be used to transfer mental control to the unconscious. Graham F. Wagstaff, professor of cognitive social psychology at the University of Liverpool, recognizes that “[t]he traditional view of the hypnotized person as someone in a state of automatism, possessed of transcendent powers, is still popular among the general public.” But is this “traditional view” accurate? Wagstaff continues: “However, it is now the opinion of most researchers that hypnosis does not induce a state of automatism, and caution should be exercised when employing hypnotic procedures to facilitate memory.”[92]

Also, in a clinical setting, hypnosis has been touted as providing impor tant health benefits. “The effectiveness of incorporating hypnosis in clinical interventions has gained positive empirical support in pain control, anxiety, depression, trauma, weight loss, and eating disorders among other areas.”[93]

So while the traditional view of the hypnotic state may describe superior abilities as compared to a conscious state, are such assumptions supported by scientific studies? Does hypnosis or an unconscious state improve a per son’s cognitive capabilities, as touted by some proponents? Could hypnosis (or a similar mental state) have endowed Joseph Smith with the capacity to create the Book of Mormon through creative dictation? 

General Studies 

As the field of psychology embraced the concept of hypnosis in the early twentieth century, researchers quickly explored the capacities of individuals in a hypnotic state. The earliest studies by Paul C. Young in the 1920s concluded, “There is no noticeable difference between the normal and hypnotic states in the ability of normal persons in the fields of sensation, perception, finer discriminations, present memory (learning and retention), or physical work which does not involve fatigue.”[94] Over a decade later, Hans. J. Eysenck reported up to 77 percent improvement in some tasks under hypnosis as compared to the conscious state, but he cautioned, “There is roughly an inverse relation between the difficulty of a test, and improvement in it under hypnosis; the easier and more mechanical the test, the greater the improvement.”[95] These results are still accepted today.”[96]

Unconscious Memory 

As discussed above, one of the greatest mental burdens of creative dictation involves both long- and short-term memory. Scott C. Dunn notes: “Automatic writers [have] produced detailed information from books that they have read but in some cases cannot remember reading.” He then explains that Joseph’s memory, when in the automatic writing mode, was sufficient: “It should not be surprising, therefore, to find Smith’s scriptural productions repeating things he may have heard or overheard in conversation, camp meetings, or other settings without any concerted study of the issues.”[97] Ann Taves too posits that Joseph rapidly “absorbed information” and “acquired knowledge” that was stored in his memory to be later regurgitated when he entered his “imaginative storytelling mode.”[98]

Despite these opinions, multiple psychological studies demonstrate that entering a hypnotic state does not enhance overall memory recall.[99] Cognitive social psychologist and prolific author John F. Kihlstrom explains, “Hypnosis appears to be incapable of enhancing memory [but] hypnotic procedures can impair memory.[100] “Enhanced memory, or hypermnesia, has also been claimed for hypnosis . . . ; however, empirical evidence for hypnotic hypermnesia has never been particularly convincing.”[101] Jean Holroyd, of UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry, explains: “There is some evidence that being hypnotized may actually interfere with reasoning and memory.”[102] Former president of the Society of Psychological Hypnosis Marty Sapp agrees: “There is no experimental evidence to support the use of hypnosis to refresh memory.”[103] While anecdotal reports exist of individuals recalling obscure details from the past, virtually all studies show that the process is not reliable or consistent. 

Kevin M. McConkey and Sachiko Kinoshita examined “The Influence of Hypnosis on Memory After One Day and One Week” and concluded, “The number of incorrect items increased across the test periods . . . for all subjects. The use of hypnotic procedures, however, did not influence the number of total incorrect items” either positively or negatively.[104] This supports the idea that, as Joseph Smith was dictating his 200,000th word, his unconscious memory would have been no more accurate than his conscious memory recalling the 150,000th word or 100,000th word dictated weeks earlier. 

Many other researchers could be cited to show that hypnosis or dissociation does not reliably enhance the recall of previously learned information, whether actively or passively absorbed. 

Unconscious Cognitive Function 

A second substantial mental responsibility of creative dictation involves cognitive function—the act of creating coherent sentences one right after the other in real time. Ann Taves postulates that in his “altered state,” Joseph Smith’s “level of organization of the nonvolitional [nonconscious] story . . . exceeds what [he] would have been able to do volitionally [consciously].”[105] Dunn writes that the human mind has the “ability to think and plan without conscious awareness of these processes” and that “the presence of one’s own language or memories in a text by no means indicates that it was produced through extensive mental effort or conscious planning.”[106] In other words, by shifting to unconscious control, Joseph recruited nascent creative talents enabling the recitation. 

However, psychological studies do not appear to support these theories. John A. Bargh and Ezequiel Morsella of Yale University conclude that, “Although concept activation and primitive associative learning could occur unconsciously, anything complex requiring flexible responding, integra tion of stimuli, or higher mental processes could not.”[107] Harvard professor Anthony G. Greenwald concurs: “Unconscious cognition has been found to be severely limited in its analytic capability.”[108] And a 2005 study demonstrates that hypnotized individuals are not in “a state of highly focused attention.”[109] 

Peter Farvolden and Erik Z. Woody observe that, “Asking hypnotized participants to complete a fairly extensive battery of demanding cognitive tasks, such as the memory tasks [word recall] . . . is simply incompatible with maintaining a ‘state’ of hypnosis.”[110] Peter W. Sheehan in his article “Memory and Hypnosis” explicates: “Hypnotized people do not in general critically analyze incoming detailed information.”[111] In fact, as Stanford professor Ernest R. Hilgard explains, the mental reasoning under hypnosis may “distort” reality: “Reality distortions of all kinds, including acceptance of falsified memories, changes in one’s own personality, modification of the rate at which time seems to pass, doubling of persons in the room, absence of heads or feet of people observed to be walking around the room, inappropriate naming, presence of hallucinated animals that talk, and all manner of other unrealistic distortions can be accepted without criticism within the hypnotic state.”[112] As another study concludes, “Hypnotized persons tend to mix perception and imagination in a way that is logically incongruous and that they tolerate the incongruity without seeming to resolve it.” It may be defined as “trance logic.”[113] 

It appears that no available scientific studies support the idea that a person in an unconscious state is able to consistently perform complex cognitive tasks effectively. Creative dictation would probably fall into that category. 

Creativity and Other Abilities 

A common belief is that hypnosis enhances creativity by diminishing anxiety. Julie Regan summarizes this popular belief: “Hypnosis and hypnotic induced states provide an individual with the opportunity to relax the conscious, ego-controlling mind thus suspending the logical observing and thinking processes and enabling amongst other things fantasy, imagination, and unconscious material to arise and be accessed.”[114] The question is whether this perception is accurate—can hypnosis actually increase creativity? Regan concludes, however, that “There is a lack of clear evidence that hypnosis can enhance creativity.”[115] Another study concluded that “Hypnosis does not appear to bolster creativity, relative to non-hypnotic conditions.”[116] 

Specifically regarding Joseph Smith and dissociation, psychiatrist Robert D. Anderson, author of Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith, offers this evaluation: “If Smith experienced dissociative states while creating the Book of Mormon, they were, in my opinion, limited in degree. Dissociative states require amnesia, significant distress, impairment in functioning, and/or a disruption of the integrative functions of consciousness, memory, and identity. But the Book of Mormon contains integrated careful calculations of fact and date, creating a complex history instead of a disorganized mess. This result suggests either full or nearly full personality [conscious] function at the time of dictation.”[117]

A practical example of the unconscious mind’s limitations is the process of dreaming because “dreams are the clearest expression of the unconscious mind.”[118] While dreams may include elaborate ephemeral plotlines and sweeping imaginings, they cannot be flipped on and off at will. Neither do they deliver the type of minute organization and sustained complexity found in many automatic writings including the Book of Mormon.[119]

Ernest Hilgard’s Hypnotized Storyteller 

A key piece of evidence cited by both Dunn and Taves to support their posi tions involves a young storyteller introduced by Ernest Hilgard in his book Divided Consciousness.[120] He described a “highly hypnotizable student” who, while hypnotized, could tell stories with such “clarity and verisimilitude” that they seemed real to listeners.[121] In one experiment, Hilgard challenged the student under hypnosis to fabricate a story about being in a cave with friends. From there, he recited a seventeen-minute narrative with impressive details regarding geography and the group’s activities. The student later related how “In hypnosis, once I create the pattern, I don’t have to take any more initiative; the story just unfolds.”[122] 

Dunn refers to this student’s state as “dissociation,” which allows a person access to the “latent abilities of the human mind” so they can “rapidly produce writing of a quality superior to their natural powers.”[123] Taves agrees that the student demonstrates how, through hypnosis, a person “could tap into levels of mental activity that were not available to the consciousness of the hypnotized person.”[124] Focusing on the student’s described ease of dictation, Taves writes, “Both dream narratives and ‘confabulations’—defined as ‘fictive narrative[s] produced effortlessly, without insight as to . . . veracity’—provide evidence that most people can produce stories effortlessly.”[125] While this may be true, Taves does not address the length, quality, and complexity of the narratives produced “effortlessly.”

As a parallel to Joseph Smith, Hilgard’s hypnotized student has limitations. The seventeen minutes of recited text would equate to roughly 2,500 words, so memory requirements would not parallel the creation of a text over one hundred times as long during a three-month span. Additionally, Hilgard does not provide a transcript, so it is impossible to know whether the sentences flowed with sufficient polish to allow them to go straight to press with minimal editing. Other dissimilarities can be identified suggesting that a hypnotized storyteller’s short yarn would require only a small fraction of the cognitive functionality (whether conscious or unconscious) needed to create lengthy automatic writings or the Book of Mormon.[126] 

Nonconscious Control Diminishes Intellectual Capabilities

It seems that descriptions of a person entering a nonconscious state where they perform complex cognitive functions that are well beyond their conscious abilities are simply describing a psychological unicorn—a mental condition that scientific experiments have not yet shown to exist. John F. Kihlstrom and Eric Eich write that “Hypnosis does not appear to enhance the performance of people whose sensory and perceptual abilities are intact.”[127] While Taves acknowledges that Joseph Smith “stands out,” she does not attempt to close the gap between psychological descriptions of documented unconscious capabilities and those required in creative dictation.[128] A possible analogy might be identifying a person skillfully drawing stick figures and then assuming their skills would allow them to paint the Mona Lisa. The available data does not seem to support the leap of logic required by the theory. Additional supportive documentation is needed. 

Perhaps some recalcitrant clinicians, like James H. Hyslop mentioned above, would look at the historical data and still maintain that the unconscious is responsible for lengthy automatic writings. This position could be greatly strengthened by performing a prospective study where a subject is examined while creating a continuous text through multiple sessions of automatic writing in a way that generally duplicates the origins of The Sorry Tale or the Book of Mormon. If the process occurs naturally, scientific experimentation ought to be able to replicate it. 

To date, texts attributed to automatic writing attain that classification well after they have been written—through retrospective observations. That is, authors like Pearl Curran, Helen Shucman, and Joseph Smith have been studied by academics only after producing their epic works that have been labeled automatic writings.

To summarize, in their 1992 article “Is the Unconscious Smart or Dumb?” psychologists Elizabeth F. Loftus and Mark R. Klinger review the literature on the topic and ultimately conclude: “There seems to be a general consensus that the unconscious may not be as smart as previously believed.”[129] Theories that task the nonconscious mind with the ability to complete complicated intellectual projects remain unproven. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, the similarities between the creation of the Book of Mormon and other automatic writings are undeniable. While automatic writing has been promoted as “the best model for understanding the translation of the Book of Mormon,” the apparent connection does not constitute an actual explanation of how these compositions were generated.[130] Grouping the Book of Mormon with automatic writing provides no answer to the question, “Where did all the words come from?” 

Secularists will understandably reject Joseph Smith’s revelations describing different types of supernatural forces influencing both the creation of the Book of Mormon and automatic writings. Even as psychological explanations attribute the words to the subconscious minds of the authors, prospective experiments demonstrating this to be a possibility have yet to be performed. Neither have assumptions that entering a trance state could enhance the natural compositional abilities of the authors been proven. Indeed, available scientific studies appear to demonstrate the opposite.

These observations might explain the reason why, historically, automatic writing has never gained wide acceptance among naturalistic theories explicating the origin of the Book of Mormon. It appears that Joseph Smith’s intellectual qualifications in 1829, the complexity of the Book of Mormon, the difficulties of creative dictation, and the inherent cognitive limitations of an unconscious state fail to coalesce into a plausible explanation of how he generated all the words. Nevertheless, the findings presented in this article should not be considered the final word; additional research is warranted to explain Joseph Smith’s loquaciousness even if automatic writing is insufficient to do so. 

[Editor’s Note: For Table 2, see page 35 of PDF.]

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., Far West Record: Minutes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830–1844 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983), 23. 

[2] “Journal, 1835–1836,” in Journals, Volume. 1: 1832–1839, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, vol. 1 of the Journals series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008), 89; “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 5, Mar. 1, 1842, 707.

[3] See Brian C. Hales, “Naturalistic Explanations of the Origin of the Book of Mormon: A Longitudinal Study,” BYU Studies 58, no. 3 (Spring 2019): forthcoming.

[4] See Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painsville, Ohio: 1834), 290; Walter Martin, The Maze of Mormonism (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1978), 59; and Wayne L. Cowdrey, Howard A. Davis, and Arthur Vanick, “References,” Spalding Research Associates, Aug. 10, 2018, http://www.solomonspalding.info.

[5] See William Owen, “Mormon Bible,” Free Enquirer [New York], Sept. 3, 1831, 364; Meredith Ray Sheets and Kendal Sheets, The Book of Mormon: Book of Lies (McLean, Va.: 1811 Press, 2012), 13–16.

[6] See I. Woodbridge Riley, The Founder of Mormonism: A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith, Jr. (New York: Dodd, Mean, and Company, 1902), 70; William D. Morain, The Sword of Laban: Joseph Smith Jr. and the Dissociated Mind (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1998), 25, 72, 95–96, 105, 109, 113, 172.

[7] Alexander Campbell, “Delusions,” Millennial Harbinger, Feb. 7, 1831, 93; Wesley Walters and Michael Marquardt, Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record (Salt Lake City: Smith Research Associates, 1994), 126.

[8] See Anonymous, “Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon?,” MormonThink, Aug. 27, 2017, http://www.mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm.

[9] See Robert A. Rees, “The Book of Mormon and Automatic Writing,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no.1 (2006): 5.

[10] Daniel M. Wegner, Betsy Sparrow, and Valerie A. Fuller, “Clever Hands: Uncontrolled Intelligence in Facilitated Communication,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 1 (2003): 6.

[11] Ian Stevenson, “Some Comments on Automatic Writing,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 72 (Oct. 1978): 316–17.

[12] Irving Litvag, Singer in the Shadows: The Strange Story of Patience Worth (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 8.

[13] Stevenson, “Some Comments on Automatic Writing,” 316–17.

[14] Milbourne Christopher, ESP, Seers and Psychics (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1970), 124.

[15] On February 18, 2019, Book of Mormon scholar Stanford Carmack wrote: “The 1830 first edition has 6,852 full stops in 269,318 words . . . if we count the first instance of ‘me thought’ as two words (18, 41; the second is spelled as one word) and the second instance of ‘for/asmuch’ as two words (111, 32; no hyphen; the first is spelled as one word), then we get 269,320 words.” Comment following Brian C. Hales, “Curiously Unique: Joseph Smith as Author of the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 31 (2019): 151–90.

[16] Royal Skousen, “Translating the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript,” in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins, edited by Noel B. Reynolds (Provo: FARMS, 1997), 67–83.

[17] David Whitmer quoted in Chicago Times, Oct. 14, 1881; Emma Hale Smith quoted in Joseph Smith III to James T. Cobb, Feb. 14, 1879, Community of Christ Library-Archives; Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald 26, Oct. 1, 1879, 289–90.

[18] See Emma Smith’s comments in Edmund C. Briggs, “A Visit to Nauvoo in 1856,” Journal of History 9 (Oct. 1916): 454.

[19] Brian C. Hales, “Why Joseph Smith’s Dictation of the Book of Mormon Is Simply Jaw-Dropping,” LDS Living, Nov. 10, 2018.

[20] Royal Skousen, “Changes in the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 11 (2014): 161–62. See also Royal Skousen, The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon: Part One Grammatical Variation (Provo: FARMS and BYU Studies, 2016), 11. See also Brian C. Hales, “Changing Critics’ Criticisms of Book of Mormon Changes,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 28 (2018): 49–64.

[21] Litvag, Singer in the Shadows, 15.

[22] Ibid., 2, 240.

[23] Scott C.Dunn, “Spirit Writing: Another Look at the Book of Mormon,” Sunstone 10 (June 1985): 22.

[24] Patience Worth, communicated through medium Mrs. John H. [Pearl] Curran, The Sorry Tale: A Story of the Time of Christ, edited by Casper S. Yost (New York: Henry Holt, 1917), iii–iv.

[25] “The Sorry Tale,” editorial, New York Times, July 8, 1917, 255.

[26] Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Imitation Gospels and Christ’s Book of Mormon Ministry,” in Apocryphal Writings and the Latter-day Saints, edited by C. Wilfred Griggs (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1986), 62–63.

[27] Martin Harris, quoted in “The Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon,” Millennial Star 48, June 21, 1886, 389–90; David Whitmer, in Kansas City Daily Journal, June 5, 1881; Isaac Hale, quoted in Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 264–65; Joseph Knight, “Reminiscences,” 2–6, MS 3470, Church History Library. 

[28] See accounts in “Documenting the Translation Chronology,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations 1820–1844, edited by John W. Welch (Provo: BYU Press, 2005), 118–213.

[29] Besides followers Martin Harris, Emma Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Samuel Smith, John Whitmer, Christian Whitmer, and David Whitmer, unbelievers Reuben Hale and Michael Morse are listed as witnessing the translation process. 

[30] Skousen, “Translating the Book of Mormon,” 83.

[31] See Jenny Champoux, “Sacred Stones and Fleshy Tablets: Litholatry and Mormonism,” unpublished manuscript, 2018.

[32] James Randi, An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural: Decidedly Skeptical Definitions of Alternate Realities (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), 21.

[33] Charles D. Broad, foreword to Swan on a Black Sea: A Study in Automatic Writ ing: The Cummins-Willett Scripts, by Geraldine Cummins (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), vii–viii.

[34] Randi, An Encyclopedia of Claims, 8.

[35] Ibid., 222.

[36] Joseph Smith, sermon, Aug. 8, 1839, Willard Richards Pocket Companion, in The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, edited by Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1980), 12.

[37] Ibid. 

[38] Newel Knight, autobiography and journal, 1846, Church History Library.

[39] Ezra Booth quoted in Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 215–16.

[40] See also the account of James Colin Brewster in Dan Vogel, “James Colin Brew ster: The Boy Prophet Who Challenged Mormon Authority,” in Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History, edited by Roger D. Launius and Linda Thatcher (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 120–39.

[41] Joseph Smith, ed., “Try the Spirit,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 11, Apr. 1, 1842, 744.

[42] Christopher, ESP, Seers and Psychics; Randi, An Encyclopedia of Claims; Walter Franklin Prince, The Case of Patience Worth (New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1964).

[43] Wesley R. Wells, “The Truth about Hypnotism,” Popular Science Monthly (Mar. 1930): 163.

[44] Johannes Hermanus van der Hoop, Character and the Unconscious: A Critical Exposition of the Psychology of Freud and of Jung (New York: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1923), 6, 59.

[45] Anita M. Muhl, Automatic Writing (Dresden: Theodor Steinkopff, 1930), 96.

[46] Stevenson, “Some Comments on Automatic Writing,” 317–18. See also Theodore Flournoy, Spiritism and Psychology, translated by Hereward Carrington (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1911), viii.

[47] See Morain, The Sword of Laban, 95–96, 105, 109, 113, 172.

[48] Morain, The Sword of Laban, 25.

[49] Ibid., 25, 72. See also 95–96, 105, 109, 113, 172.

[50] Ibid., 95–96, 105, 109, 113, 172.

[51] American Psychiatric Association, “Dissociative Disorders,” Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2013), available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi. books.9780890425596.dsm08. See also Jerrold S. Maxmen and Nicholas G. Ward, Essential Psychopathology and Its Treatment, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 311.

[52] Dianne Hales and Robert E. Hales, Caring for the Mind: The Comprehensive Guide to Mental Health (New York: Bantam, 1995), 443–63.

[53] Ann Taves, Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2016). See “conscious” (252, 254, 256), “dissociate” (252, 254, 256, 261), “automatic writing” (256, 262), and hypnosis or hypnotic state (251, 253, 254, 256, 259, 264).

[54] Ibid., 256; see also 249–50.

[55] Ibid., 250, 252, 253, 255, 259.

[56] Ibid., 264, 258.

[57] Ibid., 257–58.

[58] Ibid., 258.

[59] James H. Hyslop, “Apparent Subconscious Fabrication,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1, no. 5 (1906): 208, 213.

[60] Ibid., 213.

[61] Paul Y. Hoskisson, “Book of Mormon Names,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 1:186.

[62] See John L. Sorenson, The Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Source Book (Provo: FARMS), 217–326.

[63] Ibid.

[64] Modified from Donald W. Parry, The Book of Mormon Text Reformatted Accord ing to Parallelistic Patterns (Provo: FARMS, 1992); James T. Duke, The Literary Masterpiece Called The Book of Mormon (Springville, Utah: CFI, 2004), 116.

[65] Donald W. Parry, “Hebraisms and Other Ancient Peculiarities in the Book of Mormon,” in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon, edited by Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W. Welch (Provo: FARMS, 2002), 156–89.

[66] See Brian C. Hales, “Curiously Unique: Joseph Smith as Author of the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 31 (2019): 151–90. 

[67] “Understanding Lexile® Measures.”

[68] See Gary L. Williamson, Heather Koons, Todd Sandvik, and Eleanor Sanford Moore, “The Text Complexity Continuum in Grades 1–12,” Metametrics Research Brief, Oct. 1, 2012.

[69] The Lexile Framework for Reading, Publisher Report, containing the certified Lexile score for the text of the 1830 Book of Mormon was issued August 17, 2017, commissioned by Brian C. Hales for LDS Answers, Inc. Due to the lack of an ISBN number for the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, the Lexile score is not included in the Lexile score database. 

[70] See “Typical Lexile Reader Measures by Grade” chart.

[71] See Fab.lexile.

[72] Daniel Walker Howe, “What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848,” Oxford History of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 314.

[73] See David Whitmer interviews, Chicago Times, Oct. 17, 1881; cited in Lyndon W. Cook, ed., David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book, 1991), 74–76; “St. Louis Republican (16 July 1884),” in Cook, ed., David Whitmer Interviews, 139–40. See also Emma Smith quoted in Joseph Smith III to James T. Cobb, Feb. 14, 1879, Community of Christ Library-Archives; Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald 26, Oct. 1, 1879, 289–90.

[74] James H. Hart, “About the Book of Mormon,” Deseret Evening News, Mar. 25, 1884.

[75] Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), xix.

[76] Linda Flower and John R. Hayes, “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing,” Col lege Composition and Communication 32, no. 4 (Dec. 1981): 371.

[77] See Falk S. Johnson, How to Organize What You Write: A New Look at an Old Problem (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company), 1; Lynn Quitman Troyka, Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 13; Jean Wyrick, Steps to Writing Well, 12th ed. (Boston: Wadsworth, 2014), 91–92.

[78] Maxine Hairston and John J. Ruszkiewicz, The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 5–6.

[79] In a private communication, Dan Vogel explained that Joseph “worked it out in his mind and therefore had done the editing before dictating rather than after” (Dan Vogel to Brian Hales, Facebook message, Dec. 22, 2015, used with permission).

[80] See Stephen Hawking, My Brief History (New York: Bantam Books, 2013), 93–94; Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory and other Essays (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1956), 195.

[81] Taves, Revelatory Events, 252–53.

[82] Taves, Revelatory Events, 253. Instead of quoting the original source, Taves lists “quote in Persuitte, 2000, 15,” which is David Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Ori gins of The Book of Mormon, 2nd ed. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000), 15. There Persuitte documents the source as Wilhelm Wyl (von Wymetal), Mormon Portraits (Salt Lake City: [Tribune Printing and Publishing Co.], 1886), 25. Wyl’s book is highly biased and includes some claims that are over-the-top unbelievable (e.g., 65, 68, 70, 90, 91, etc.), which undermines its credibility to some degree.

[83] Orasmus Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement (Rochester, N.Y.: William Alling, 1851), 214. 

[84] Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1853), 85. Lucy reports these activities occurred after September 22, 1823.

[85] Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York: D. Apple ton and Co., 1867), 13–14.

[86] Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, 90.

[87] Matthew J. Grey, “‘The Word of the Lord in the Original’: Joseph Smith’s Study of Hebrew in Kirtland,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo: Religious Study Center, 2015), 266.

[88] See George Peck, ed., “Mormonism and the Mormons,” Methodist Quarterly Review 25 (1843): 112; Orlando Saunders, William Van Camp, and John H. Gilbert, quoted in “The Early Days of Mormonism,” Lippincott’s Magazine 26 (Aug. 1880): 198–206, 211; John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Historical Collection of the State of New York (New York: S. Tuttle, 1841), 580–81. Jonathan Hadley, “Golden Bible,” Palmyra Freeman, Aug. 11, 1829; Reuben P. Harmon, statement, in Naked Truths about Mormonism 1 (Apr. 1888): 1.

[89] Isaac Hale quoted in Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 262–63.

[90] John H. Gilbert, quoted in “The Hill Cumorah and the Book of Mormon,” Saints’ Herald 28, June 1, 1881, 165–66.

[91] It is assumed that the unconscious can be accessed through both hypnosis and dissociation although their relationship is controversial and largely dependent on the specific definitions of the terms employed by the authors. See Irving Kirsch and Steven Jay Lynn, “Dissociation Theories of Hypnosis,” Psychological Bulletin 123, no. 1 (1998): 112; Jonathan M. Cleveland, Brandon M. Korman, and Steven N. Gold, “Are Hypnosis and Dissociation Related? New Evidence for a Connection,” International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 63, no. 2 (2015): 207. 

[92] Graham F. Wagstaff, “Hypnosis and the Law: Examining the Stereotypes,” Criminal Justice and Behavior 35, no. 10 (Oct. 2008): 1277.

[93] Tobias Egner, Graham Jamieson, and John Gruzelier, “Hypnosis Decouples Cognitive Control from Conflict Monitoring Processes of the Frontal Lobe,” NeuroImage 27 (2005): 969.

[94] Paul Campbell Young, “An Experimental Study of Mental and Physical Func tions in the Normal and Hypnotic States,” American Journal of Psychology 36, no. 2 (Apr. 1925): 231. See also Paul Campbell Young, “An Experimental Study of Mental and Physical Functions in the Normal and Hypnotic States: Additional Results,” American Journal of Psychology 37, no. 3 (July 1926): 345–56.

[95] Hans J. Eysenck, “An Experimental Study of the Improvement of Mental and Physical Functions of the Hypnotic State,” British Journal of Medical Psychology 18, nos. 3–4 (Feb. 1941): 308, 315.

[96] See for example, John F. Kihlstrom, “The Domain of Hypnosis, Revisited,” in The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Theory, Research, and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 22, 52; Daniel Druckman and Robert A. Bjork, Learning, Remembering, Believing: Enhancing Human Performance (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1994), 223, 354.

[97] Scott C. Dunn, “Automaticity and the Dictation of the Book of Mormon,” in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, edited by Dan Vogel and Brent Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 34–35.

[98] Taves, Revelatory Events, 252–53.

[99] Joseph Barber, “Hypnosis and Memory: A Hazardous Connection,” Journal of Mental Health Counseling 19, no. 4 (Oct. 1997): 311, 313; John F. Kihlstrom, “Hypnosis, Memory and Amnesia,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 352, no. 1362 (Dec. 1997): 1727–32; Steven Jay Lynn and Irving I. Kirsch, “Alleged Alien Abductions: False Memories, Hypnosis, and Fantasy Proneness,” Psychological Inquiry 7, no. 2 (1996): 151–55; Peter W. Sheehan, “Memory and Hypnosis—General Considerations,” in International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis, edited by Graham D. Burrows, Robb O. Stanely, and Peter B. Bloom (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), 52; Graham F. Wagstaff, et al., “Facilitating Memory With Hypnosis, Focused Meditation, and Eye Closure,” International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 52, no. 4 (2004): 434.

[100] John F. Kihlstrom, “Hypnosis, Memory, and Amnesia,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 352, no. 1362 (Dec. 1997): 1731.

[101] John F. Kihlstrom, “Hypnosis and Cognition,” Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice 1, no. 2 (2014): 142.

[102] Jean Holroyd, “Hypnosis as a Methodology in Psychological Research,” in Contemporary Hypnosis Research, edited by Erika Fromm and Michael R. Nash (New York: Guilford Press, 1992), 219.

[103] Marty Sapp, Hypnosis, Dissociation, and Absorption: Theories, Assessment, and Treatment (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 2015), 135.

[104] Kevin M. McConkey and Sachiko Kinoshita, “The Influence of Hypnosis on Memory After One Day and One Week,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 97, no. 1 (1988): 50, 52.

[105] Taves, Revelatory Events, 258.

[106] Dunn, “Automaticity,” 31–32.

[107] John A. Bargh and Ezequiel Morsella, “The Unconscious Mind,” Perspectives on Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science 3, no. 1 (2008): 73–79.

[108] Anthony G. Greenwald, “New Look 3: Unconscious Cognition Reclaimed,” American Psychologist 47, no. 6 (June 1992): 775.

[109] Tobias Egner, Graham Jamieson, and John Gruzelier, “Hypnosis Decouples Cognitive Control from Conflict Monitoring Processes of the Frontal Lobe,” NeuroImage 27 (2005): 975. 

[110] Peter Farvolden and Erik Z. Woody, “Hypnosis, Memory and Frontal Execu tive Functioning,” International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 52, no. 1 (2004): 19. 

[111] Sheehan, “Memory and Hypnosis,” 58.

[112] Ernest R. Hilgard, Hypnotic Susceptibility (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965), 9. Both Taves and Dunn quote Hilgard as authoritative.

[113] Kevin M. McConkey, Richard A. Bryant, Bernadette C. Bibb, and John F. Kihlstrom, “Trance Logic in Hypnosis and Imagination,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 100, no. 4 (1991): 464.

[114] Julie Regan, “Painting Like Picasso: Can Hypnosis Enhance Creativity?,” Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis 37, no. 2 (Spring 2015): 5.

[115] Ibid., 7. 

[116] Steven Jay Lynn and Harry Sivec, “The Hypnotizable Subject as Creative Problem-Solving Agent,” in Contemporary Hypnosis Research, edited by Erika Fromm and Michael R. Nash (New York: Guilford Press, 1992), 332.

[117] Robert D. Anderson, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999), xiii–xiv.

[118] Calvin S. Hall and Vernon J. Nordby, A Primer of Jungian Psychology (New York: Mentor Books, 1973), 118.

[119] An additional concern of automatic writing is that it does not address the statements of the Three and Eight Witnesses who declared they viewed tangible artifacts like the gold plates. Perhaps they might be dismissed as a conscious ruse to supplement the otherwise unconscious production of the words. For an innovative treatise of this topic, see Ann Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation: Joseph Smith and the Materialization of the Golden Plates,” in The Expanded Canon: Perspectives on Mormonism and Sacred Texts, edited by Blair G. Van Dyke, Brian D. Birch, and Boyd J. Petersen (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2018), 93–119.

[120] Dunn, “Automaticity,” 25–26, 37, 41, 42, and 44. Taves, Revelatory Events, 250–51, 261–62.

[121] Ernest R. Hilgard, Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought and Action, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1986), 196; see also 51.

[122] Ibid., 198.

[123] Dunn, “Automaticity,” 26.

[124] Taves, Revelatory Events, 252.

[125] Taves, Revelatory Events, 258.

[126] While Hilgard speaks of a hidden part of the unconscious that assisted the hypnotized storyteller (called the “hidden observer”), he does not consider that hidden part of the mind to represent “unrealized human potential” (Hilgard, Divided Consciousness, 209). Hilgard’s research supports that neither the uncon scious, nor this hidden part, possess the cognitive potential assumed by Taves and Dunn (Ibid., 196–215).

[127] John F. Kihlstrom and Eric Eich, “Altering States of Consciousness,” in Learning, Remembering, Believing: Enhanced Human Performance, edited by Daniel Druck man and Robert A. Bjork (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1994), 222.

[128] Taves, Revelatory Events, 258.

[129] Elizabeth F. Loftus and Mark R. Klinger, “Is the Unconscious Smart or Dumb?,” American Psychologist 47, no. 6 (June 1992): 762.

[130] Dunn, “Automaticity,” 33. See also Taves, Revelatory Events, 256; Riley, The Founder of Mormonism, 84.

[post_title] => Automatic Writing and the Book of Mormon An Update [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.2 (Spring 2019):1–58Attributing the Book of Mormon’s origin to supernatural forces has worked well for Joseph Smith’s believers, then as well as now, but not so well for critics who seem certain natural abilities were responsible. For over 180 years, several secular theories have been advanced as explanations. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => automatic-writing-and-the-book-of-mormon-an-update [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-07-13 20:19:10 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-07-13 20:19:10 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=23877 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19013 [post_author] => 3174 [post_date] => 2018-10-26 00:11:29 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-10-26 00:11:29 [post_content] =>

In April 2011, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that it had distributed the 150 millionth copy of the Book of Mormon. The first copy had been printed in 1830. By the year 2000, the Church was printing one copy every seven seconds. Translated into eighty-two languages, the book is considered by Latter-day Saints to be “another testament of Jesus Christ.”[1] While Mormons and non-Mormons alike have conducted literary analysis on the text, there are only a few studies that consider the history of the book itself.[2] Even more rare—perhaps nonexistent—are studies of how the Book of Mormon touches the lives of Latter-day Saints. This essay attempts to remedy, in part, that lack.

One of the challenges of any textual religion is to create an environment where people can develop relationships with the characters and events documented in a sacred book. In the case of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an additional challenge is to maintain a commitment to the literal truth of the text. The text is not merely a guide to facilitate a relationship with God; it is a history of that relationship. The Book of Mormon is not solely an ethical guideline; it is a report from the past. For orthodox Mormons, Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from real gold plates, and the text documented the complicated history of real ancient peoples. Throughout his life, Joseph Smith rejected the Protestant notion that the extraordinary experiences of Jesus and the apostles were trapped in the past. As a prophet, he unlocked the world of the supernatural—making the divine-human interaction simultaneously more literal and more personal than was customary in Protestant America. Over the centuries, as influential groups of Americans became more rational and more willing to accept layered interpretations of the Bible, Mormons continued to call potential believers to ask: is the Book of Mormon true or is it false? 

Maintaining a conviction of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is no easy task in the era of DNA studies, archaeological excavations, and aggressive attacks by evangelical Protestants. Latter-day Saints cultivate commitment to the veracity of the Book of Mormon in many different ways. Some techniques are obvious: private scriptural study, church going, and being open to the impromptu and sometimes miraculous revelations of the Holy Spirit. Other ways of practicing the truth are less conventional but increasingly popular. 

I want to stress that I use the word “practicing” deliberately. Like playing the piano, if one stops practicing, one’s skills get rusty. In order for religious truths to become normal, natural, and transparent they must be made familiar.[3] To maintain a conviction in a truth one must not simply “believe it.” Belief must be cultivated through bodily acts and through spiritual experiences. For those who have made a statement of the truth of the Book of Mormon, this process must be continual, communal, and creative. How is it that Mormons acquire a “taken-for-granted” understanding of the Book of Mormon? 

An increasingly popular way of practicing the truth of the Book of Mormon is through tourism. Mormons who travel to Mexico and Central America often visit ancient ruins in order to enliven their relationship with the scriptures. I prefer “tourism” to “pilgrimage” to underscore the nature of such religious travel. Tourism is enabled by leisure and stimulated by the desire for entertainment. Tourists seek diversion, pleasure, authenticity, education, and uplift. They visit religious places as a part of that wider desire. Spiritual uplift is secondary and not the intended result of travel. Religious tourism, I would argue, lacks the conscious spiritual focus of pilgrimage. This is not to say that tourists do not find spiritual or religious inspiration in their travels; in lived religion, there are no clear boundaries between sacred and profane.[4] Most of us move easily between our roles as tourist and pilgrim. 

I also eschew the term pilgrimage because pilgrimage studies tend to be focused on the religious experiences of the pilgrim. Pilgrims go on pilgrimages, but there is no easy term for those who create and maintain the pilgrimage site. In this essay, I am primarily interested in what enables the pilgrim rather than the pilgrim per se. Consequently, my focus is not on the American Mormon tourists who hope to “see” Book of Mormon lands. A fuller examination of the various types of Latter day Saint tourists is left for other scholars. What I am looking at are the Mexican Mormons who interpret their homeland to visitors. How did Mexico become a site for Mormon tourism? I am less interested in the transformative power of the journey for visitors and more interested in how a sacred text becomes enlivened through a parachurch entity—a tour guide company. Since more Mormons currently live outside of the United States than inside, it also behooves us to pay particular attention to how non-Americans practice this quintessentially “American” faith. 

Using recent theoretical work developed by historian of American religions Robert A. Orsi, I argue that in order for the Book of Mormon to have a vivid and compelling immediacy it has to be “enlivened.”[5] For most Latter-day Saints, this occurs through private or family scripture study. This is where they feel the truth of the scriptures that makes the text more real than symbolic. Within tourism to Book of Mormon sites, however, one family of tour guides use what I will call “fragmentary presence” to bring life to the sites. Such presence makes the ruins more than dramatic backgrounds to history stories and gives them sacred power. Well aware of the discrepancies between archaeological dating and Book of Mormon events, the guides discuss the ruins and the people who made the ruins in terms of their ability to carry the fragmentary remains of an ancient truth. The role of the Mormon tour guide is to both exemplify Latter-day Saint belief in his or her life and to point out where one can see the fragments of the Book of Mormon events within the ruins of the Maya. It is in the process of experiencing both the faith of the Mexican tour guide and the architectural decoding that Latter day Saints emotionally connect with the enduring legacy of the sacred. 

Mormons in Mexico

The intermingling of US Mormons and residents of Mexico has a long and complicated history.[6] Mormons first came to Mexico in 1875 when Brigham Young sent Daniel W. Jones and four other men to scout out land for possible Latter-day Saint colonies. Ten years later, when anti-polygamy laws tightened the noose around Utah Mormons, seven communities were established in northern Mexico. By the turn of the century, Mormons had replicated their Zion in the Casas Grandes River Valley: canals and dams brought water to irrigate crops, wide streets bisected neatly kept villages, and English-language schools were built. Ward leaders made sure that order was maintained. Almost 4,000 Latter-day Saints, many living in plural marriages, were residing in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora in 1912. While some Mexican converts were made, this was essentially an American enclave. Mitt Romney’s father, for example, was born into this community. 

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 severely disrupted the Mormon colonies, so leaders in Salt Lake City called members back to the United States. A few Mexican Saints kept the faith but times were difficult for all religious people in Mexico. Once a privileged religious organization, Catholic religious, political, and social influence had been severely limited by liberal anticlericalism. In 1926, all foreigners were banned from missionary work. It would not be until 1940 that US citizens could enter Mexico as missionaries. At that point, Mormons joined with a host of evangelicals, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses from “El Norte” to convince Mexican Catholics to leave their church. By 1961 there were 25,000 Latter-day Saints in Mexico.[7]

Being a Latter-day Saint in Mexico was not easy. For many Mexican Mormons, conversion meant facing the distinct possibility of rejection from family and fellow workers. Mexican society was defined by Catholic folkways that expected kinship networks to be strengthened by baptismal sponsorship and lubricated by drink—activities not permitted to Mormons. As in other Latin American countries, family ties also enabled children to find and secure jobs. Catholic rituals, family commitments, and economic structures were tightly interwoven. To leave Catholicism for a “foreign” religion like Mormonism was to make a strong statement that could break families apart. Employers were suspicious and often hostile to those who rejected Catholicism. 

As the Latter-day Saint community in Mexico grew, however, a fictive kinship network developed. Mormons cultivated emotional and eco nomic ties that circumvented both family and Catholic folkways. When Mexican Mormons began businesses, they employed other Mormons. Knowing that those hired did not drink or get caught up in expensive family celebrations was reassuring. Minority cultures often support each other financially and socially; Mexican Mormons were no different. 

Finding the Book of Mormon 

Mexicans and other Mesoamericans had always been of interest to Latter-day Saint missionaries, but in the mid-twentieth century Mormons also became fascinated by the ruins of their southern neighbors. In 1952 Thomas Ferguson, a Latter-day Saint and lawyer, founded the New World Archaeological Foundation with the purpose of studying pre-classical New World archaeology. His intention was to find material proof of the Book of Mormon in the jungles of Central America. Ferguson and his friend J. Willard Marriott (of hotel fame) had travelled to Mexico in 1946 and filmed sites that they believed could prove that ancient Israelites had landed in the New World. As with most Latter-day Saints of that time, Ferguson believed that the Book of Mormon “is the only revelation from God in the history of the world that can possibly be tested by scientific physical evidence. . . . Thus, Book of Mormon his tory is revelation that can be tested by archaeology.”[8] Initially using his own money, but eventually receiving funds from the LDS Church and Brigham Young University (where he had been hired as an anthropologist), Ferguson conducted a series of excavations in Mexico.

Although the Book of Mormon describes how families sailed from ancient Israel to the New World, it provides no place names that would be recognizable to a modern reader. Joseph Smith did not provide any geographical insights prior to his death in 1844. However, Joseph Smith did say that the angel Moroni “said there was a book deposited written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the source from which they sprang” (Joseph Smith–History 1:34; emphasis mine). Early Mormons argued that the Native American burial mounds that dotted the US countryside were the “sacred archives” of lost peoples.[9]

Throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, most Mormons agreed with the sacred geography laid out by early Mormon apostle Orson Pratt (1811–1881). Between October 1850 and January 1851, while Pratt served as the president of the British Mission, he wrote an extensive essay titled “The Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon.” In it he argued that the Book of Mormon should be seen as either totally true or totally false. The story either happened literally as it was written or it did not. To substantiate his position that the Book of Mormon was true, he called on archaeological and historical evidence. Ruins had recently been found in Central America that to his mind substantiated the Book of Mormon’s veracity.[10] “In the 384th year,” Pratt wrote in the Millennial Star, “the occupants of Yucatan and Central America, having been driven from their great and magnificent cities, were pursued by the Lamanites to the hill Cumorah in the interior of the state of New York, where the whole nation perished in battle.”[11] When Pratt prepared the 1879 edition from the original 1830 Book of Mormon text, he included explanatory footnotes among other revisions. Seventy-five geographical references identified where the events took place. 

While the names of families and general geographical markers are included in the 1830 Book of Mormon, Pratt provided modern names and biblical references in his notes to help the reader connect to the sacred history. For instance, the Book of Mormon explains how after the fall of the Tower of Babel, one set of families (Jared and his relatives, “Jaredites”) boarded eight barges and sailed to the New World (Ether 2:1–21). Pratt added notes explaining that they traveled through China to the coast. Centuries later, around 600 BC, two other groups of colonists arrived in the New World from Israel. Followers of Mulek are mentioned as coming from Jerusalem, but the Book of Mormon gives few additional details. The land the “Mulekites” settle on is also called “Mulek” (Helaman 6:10) as is their city (Alma 52:16). Pratt has them landing near the “straits of Darien” (Isthmus of Panama) and then emigrating to the northern parts of South America.[12]

The main Book of Mormon narrative, however, centers around the Jewish family of Lehi who sailed from a land they called “Bountiful” (1 Nephi 17:5). Pratt notes that they landed in Chile.[13] For nineteenth century Latter-day Saints, the descendants of the original families lived throughout the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Book of Mormon lands could be almost anywhere.[14] 

By the turn of the century, Mormon intellectuals began to question Pratt’s two-hemisphere geographical model. Out of that questioning, two perspectives on Book of Mormon geography emerged. One set of thinkers argued that while the Book of Mormon was true, the geography was irrelevant. Church leaders in particular promoted this perspective. At a conference on the Book of Mormon in 1903, Latter-day Saint president Joseph F. Smith explained that while geographical questions were interesting, if specific cities “could not be located the matter was not of vital importance.”[15] Most importantly from a doctrinal point of view, “if there were differences of opinion on the question it would not affect the salvation of the people.” Mormons should not consider geography “of such vital importance as the principles of the Gospel.” A leading Church intellectual and general authority, B. H. Roberts, reiterated this point at the conference. The Book of Mormon was not a “physical geography” but rather “a history of the hand dealings of God with this people on this continent” [sic]. This institutional disinterest in sacred geography was solidified when the geographical footnotes were removed from the 1920 edition of the Book of Mormon. Rather than make authoritative statements about where the Book of Mormon took place, Church leadership decided not to make any definitive assessment. They backed away from the literalness that drove early Latter-day Saints to root the Book of Mormon in place as well as time. 

That a 1903 conference on the Book of Mormon included a long discussion of geography, however, indicated the strength of the second perspective. If the gold plates were real, and if the Jaredites, Nephites, and other ancient peoples were real, then surely smart people should be able to unearth evidence of where these monumental events took place. In 1900 Benjamin Cluff Jr., host of the conference and president of what would become Brigham Young University, had mounted an unsuccessful expedition to Colombia with the purpose to discover the Nephite capital of Zarahemla.[16] Since Church leaders had decided not to make geographical matters central to faith, interested Latter-day Saints could embark on a detective adventure without fear of contravening established Church doctrine. The doors of speculation swung wide open. 

Debating the specifics of Book of Mormon geography became a preoccupation for a set of Mormons. Using internal textual evidence, comparative history, and modern archaeological techniques, Latter-day Saints began to rethink the “two-hemisphere” model of Orson Pratt. Maybe ancient tribes did not settle the New World from Chile to upstate New York? In 1927, Janne M. Sjödahl published An Introduction to the Study of the Book of Mormon, a seven-volume commentary on the sacred text. A Swedish convert to the Church, Sjödahl introduced a “limited geography model” to Latter-day Saint readership. 

Sjödahl proposed that the Book of Mormon took place entirely in Central America, perhaps going as far north as Mexico. From that point onward, Mesoamerica became the homelands of the Nephites, Lamanites, and Jaredites with scholars arguing over the geographic details. Sjödahl’s ideas were published in the Church publication Improvement Era in 1927. The descendants of Lehi all settled in a limited area in Mesoamerica, where they raged their battles and where Jesus visited. While their descendants would later spread north and south, the Book of Mormon events only took place in the original area.[17] A 1938 Church Department of Education study guide, while warning that no one theory was correct, noted the trend to greatly reduce the area of Book of Mormon history to a small area in Central America.[18] By the 1960s, Brigham Young University professor Sidney B. Sperry could even argue that the final battle of the Nephites, once thought to have taken place in upstate New York, actually occurred in Mesoamerica.[19] Archaeological attention was now firmly focused on the ruins of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize, and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Touring in Mexico, much more accessible than other areas of Central America, increasingly held allure. 

While it made sense doctrinally to retreat from specifying where the Book of Mormon events took place, devotionally it did not. Increasingly, Mormon leaders wanted the people in the pews to cultivate both knowledge of Book of Mormon events and a spiritual relationship with its truth.[20] Up until the mid-twentieth century, average Mormons were more familiar with the Bible than the Book of Mormon.[21] Conservatives within the hierarchy also wanted to stop any liberal movement toward turning the Book of Mormon into allegory.[22] To encourage Latter-day Saints to read and meditate on the Book of Mormon, Church leaders directed attention toward appropriating the text in multiple ways. In the early 1950s, Primary general president Adele Cannon Howells paid for twelve illustrations by Arnold Friberg to appear in The Children’s Friend.[23]

These muscular depictions of Book of Mormon heroes eventually became classic depictions. In 1961, BYU instituted, for the first time, a required course in the Book of Mormon. When the Church reprinted the 1920 edition in 1963, photographs of Mesoamerican archaeological ruins were added to the Book of Mormon.[24] This popular paperback edition became the standard missionary scripture and was handed out by the thousands at the New York World’s Fair (1964–65). LDS publications and meetinghouses made John Scott’s Jesus Christ Visits the Americas (1969) famous by widely reprinting it. Scott places the Chichen Itza pyramid from the Yucatan prominently in his painting’s background. Visual representations of ruins increasingly appeared in LDS publications, and a wide range of Mormon writers debated exactly where in the jungles of Central America could be found the ruins of Zarahemla.[25]

Luis Petlacalco 

In the early 1970s, Luis Petlacalco was one of millions of Mexicans with little education and not much hope for the future.[26] He had, however, a few things going for him. He had married well, falling in love with the daughter of a Mexican mother and German father. His wife set high standards for the family. A stint working in New York gave him a foundation in spoken English. With facility in a global language and a love for the archaeological heritage of Mexico, Luis began offering tours of historic sites near Mexico City to North American tourists. Perhaps most important of all, in 1959 as a young man Luis converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Luis discovered that the growing LDS community valued his skills as a guide. In the early 1970s, when Luis had lost his job as a guide at the sites near Mexico City, he received a call from one of the men in his ward. There was an adventurous Mormon couple coming from Utah, and they wanted to tour the Aztec and Mayan ruins. They would need a Spanish-speaking guide and driver to help them navigate the foreign country. Would he be available to show them around the area? 

The trio travelled together for a month, even though Luis had thought they only wanted to see the ruins at Teotihuacan near Mexico City. Luis Petlacalco ended his trip with the gringo Mormons at the Mayan site of Tulum on the northeast coast of the Yucatan. There they saw a dramatic series of temples and stone homes lining the edge of a cliff that overlooked a turquoise blue ocean. The site was stunning and especially evocative to the young Mexican who spoke Nahuatl, the language of the natives of central Mexico. There was something that drew him to this place settled long before the Spanish had conquered. 

Returning to his family in Mexico City, he described what he saw to his wife. The few tourists who were at Tulum were simply wandering around the ruins. Some had guidebooks but most were just trying to figure things out on their own. The ruins were extensive and the location beautiful. The government had made a commitment to build a tourist resort about an hour north in a town called Cancun. They were going to build hotels and an airport. One of the things the state was advertising was the resort’s proximity to the major ruin of Chichen Itza. Foreigners were being told that they could lie in the sun during their snowy winters as well as visit Mayan cities from centuries ago. Luis wanted to move the family to the Yucatan and start a business guiding tourists through the Mayan ruins. 

Luis’s wife Luz Estella was not impressed. In the early 1970s, this part of Mexico was an undeveloped wilderness. Tulum, where Luis wanted to move his family, had no electricity, no running water. There were no schools or churches or department stores. Luz Estella agreed with those who said that the Yucatan had nothing but “Mayas and mosquitos.” And for residents of Mexico City, Mayans were not the architects of grand ancient cities; they were tiny brown people who lived in thatched huts in the jungle. Luis should go, she concluded, but the family would stay in Mexico City. Seeing the logic of her argument, Luis left his family for the promise of steady employment as a tour guide. Every two weeks, he would get into his beat-up old car and make the twenty-six-hour drive back to Mexico City. Luis took seriously his religious commitment to serve as leader and spiritual head to his growing family. 

Luis made sure that his children bore the stamp of their Mormon heritage. While his first daughter was called Julia and his first son carried his own name of Luis, most of the other children had Book of Mormon names: Moroni, Mosia, Limhi, Helaman, Alma. Daughter Ruth was named after the Old Testament heroine and only the youngest, Dayana, eluded the mark of the scriptures. “When we were little, my mother told us we had to read the Book of Mormon,” recalled daughter Alma, “so we could learn where our names came from.” Luz Estella was a strong woman who kept her children in line and managed Luis’s growing income with aplomb. They sent their children to the Latter-day Saint school in Mexico City. 

The growth of Luis’s family paralleled the growth of tourism in the Yucatan, which in turn paralleled his own economic rise. In 1974, the Mexican government selected the newly formed state of Quintana Roo as the site for the nation’s first master-planned resort. Cancun, an empty spit of land wedged between a lagoon and the ocean, was to be transformed into an international tourist destination by the Mexican government.[27] Each year more and more high-rise hotels were being built and soon the area looked like Las Vegas on the beach. During the early 1990s, a deep-water pier was built on the nearby island of Cozumel. Cruise ships now could dock, and their travelers also were looking for a diverting adventure on land. After several days of sunburns and margaritas, tourists wanted something different. A day trip to Tulum, with an hour tour of the Mayan ruins by an English-speaking local guide, fit perfectly into vacation itineraries. 

By the turn of the millennium, the “Mayan Riviera” was the premier travel destination in Mexico. In 2002, almost four million stay-over visitors and two million cruise ship passengers visited the area.[28] After a business partnership with a fellow Mormon turned sour, Luis looked to his children to cater to the ever-growing number of tourists. All nine of the Petlacalco children would work as tour guides at Tulum, which had grown into a real town with electricity and schools. Luis agreed to build a cement house for his wife, and the family moved to Carrillo Puerto, a village ninety kilometers from Tulum. 

As the number of tourists rose at Tulum, the Petlacalco guides noticed that their names were gaining attention from the tourists. More and more, after some of the Americans learned their names, they would ask their guides: “Are you Mormon?” The Church had discontinued publishing photographs of ruins in its new 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon, but Mesoamerica had long been joined to the struggles of the Nephites. Especially through visual culture, fascination with sacred geography and history had become a critical part of Latter-day Saint culture. 

Performing Latter-day Saint History 

Parallel to the rise of the Yucatan as a tourist designation was an upswing in Latter-day Saint interest in its own historic sites. While some sites had been renovated by the Church in the 1970s and 1980s and staffed by volunteers, vigorous efforts to fund, maintain, and staff historic sites became an institutional priority in the 1990s. Just as Cancun and Cozumel were becoming popular vacation sites, Latter-day Saints were being schooled in understanding the link between material culture and spiritual experiences. Geographer Michael Madsen maintains that under the influence of President Gordon B. Hinckley, historic sites were increasingly transformed from amateur museums into “sacred spaces.”[29] Millions of dollars had been spent renovating Nauvoo, and in 1999, Hinckley announced the rebuilding of the Nauvoo Temple (destroyed in the mid-nineteenth century) on its original footprint. He also oversaw construction of a new temple close to the Sacred Grove, where Joseph had his visions, near Palmyra, New York.[30] Sister missionaries replaced local volunteers as guides through sites like the Grandin Building, where the Book of Mormon was first published in New York, and Brigham Young’s home in Salt Lake City. Their presentations to visitors are now carefully scripted to reflect core Latter-day Saint values as well as Mormon history. Buildings and spaces were more than just repositories for historical information about the past. Objects and places, members were told, could evoke intense spiritual experiences. 

While initially Latter-day Saints hoped that non-Mormons would visit their historic sites in order to learn more about Mormonism, it soon became clear that the vast majority of visitors were Mormons. Latter-day Saints were visiting historic sites as a part of family vacations. Such religious tourism accompanied increased interest in Mormon history, which spiked in 1997 after the sesquicentennial celebrations of the great trek to Utah. Visiting historic sites accompanied reading historical novels, watching inspirational films about the frontier, dressing children in nineteenth-century garb for Pioneer Day celebrations, and reenacting pulling handcarts to Zion.[31] Each year, hundreds of Mormons perform in historical pageants and thousands watch this theater.[32] Historian Davis Bitton referred to these efforts as the “ritualization of Mormon history.”[33] No other American religious community has gone to such an extent to represent its past to its members. 

Visiting the archaeological ruins in the Yucatan became part of a wider Mormon practice of visiting Church history sites while on family vacation and participating in the performance of Latter-day Saint history. For Mormons, these are emotional “testimony-building” activities that connect them with the faith, sacrifices, and accomplishments of their religious ancestors. While the pageants and historic sites were initially constructed and run by local Latter-day Saints, most are now sophisticated professional productions. After Latter-day Saints visit Salt Lake City, Palmyra, Kirtland, and Nauvoo—they look farther afield to Israel and, of course, Book of Mormon lands. 

Book of Mormon Tours 

The Petlacalco guides knew how to recognize their fellow Mormons, who increasingly recognized them by their Book of Mormon names. In a land where the bikini is queen and cut-off shorts are considered appropriate eveningwear, Mormons had to cover their priesthood garments with shorts and t-shirts. Neatly groomed and often wrestling with multi-generational families, Mormon tourists were easy to spot among the vacationers. Guides and tourists each recognized the marks of Mormonism in the other. That recognition strengthened their mutual identity as belonging to a universal religious community. Key to making ruins come alive for Latter-day Saint visitors is conveying the religious convictions of the men and women who provide the tours. The Mormonism of the guides is critical to opening up the ruins to their religious potential. 

Soon a list evolved at Tulum of LDS guides who were available for Mormon tourists. Mormon tourists sought tours to illuminate how the ruins connected to the Book of Mormon and believed that Mormon guides would be honest and fair with their fees. As cruise ships brought more and more tourists to the region, Mormon entrepreneurs in Utah began to organize tours and book blocks of rooms on the ships. Life was good for the Petlacalcos. As he aged, Luis began to pass more of his business to his children. They worked at the site and, most days, took home enough money to provide for their families. Not too much money, but then, not too much work. 

In 1999, however, life began to change. Luis was almost retired and his son Helaman was taking over most of the tours. Two LDS couples that Helaman took on a tour of the ruins of Tulum asked to see Chichen Itza, an even more elaborate Mayan site located a two-hour drive west. Chichen Itza was the largest site in the Yucatan but had no LDS guides. The group and Helaman enjoyed their time together. At the end of the tour, one man asked Helaman for his email address. “Email?” Helaman responded, “I don’t even have a computer.” The Americans quickly laid out how important it was to move beyond just selling his knowledge to the random tourist who turned up at Tulum. Helaman should start a tour company geared toward Mormon visitors to Mexico. “LDS tourists need you,” they explained. Helaman remembers that he was skeptical, but the American wives in particular stressed that their husbands were successful businessmen; their advice was worth considering. 

Helaman listened patiently to the gringos, but he knew that creating a business would mean leaving his hometown of Carrillo Puerto, a sleepy town south of Tulum, and moving to the bustling city of Cancun. Helaman was experiencing what his Church leaders told him would happen if he worked hard, followed the principles of the gospel, kept the Word of Wisdom, and donated ten percent of his earnings to the Church. Faithful Mormons would prosper. Now Helaman Petlacalco was about to build his dream home in Carrillo Puerto. Starting a business that would take Mormon tourists around the Yucatan would mean forgoing living that dream for a while. 

Helaman also had ethical concerns about starting a company for Mormon tourism. He was not so sure it was a good idea to use the scriptures to make money. It was one thing to respond to the needs of Mormon tourists who arrived at Tulum and another thing to focus exclusively on explaining Mayan ruins through the Book of Mormon. Would it look like he was using his religion in order to make money? Did his training for teaching seminary give him enough background to interpret not only Tulum but also Chichen Itza and Coba? After praying, he talked with his wife. “Let’s try it,” she said. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll come back to build the house.” They launched their business, Helaman Tours, in 2000. 

The timing was not perfect. The Twin Towers bombings, the Great Recession of 2008, and increasing Mexican drug violence weakened the tourist economy of Cancun. However, the North American businessmen were right. Helaman Tours took off. Mormons could now search with Google using words like “tour” and “LDS” and come across Helaman’s web page. They then could send him an email and get information back. Dates could be set and confirmed. Cell phones made it easier to contact clients when they arrived in Mexico. The Mormon population was growing, and American Latter-day Saints were increasingly prosperous. Even the promotion of a “heartland model” that places the Book of Mormon lands squarely in what is now the United States did not diminish interest in the Yucatan.[34]

Helaman’s success in his business paralleled his increasing responsibilities at church. He served three times as branch president and four times on his stake’s high council. Holding leadership positions at church cultivated practical talents that supported small business activities. Church leaders learned how to accommodate members who were having personal or family problems, manage finances, efficiently run meetings, and negotiate with authorities in the Salt Lake City head quarters. In addition, casually mentioning his callings would reassure potential clients of his trustworthiness. While Helaman’s father, Luis, had never been financially secure enough to support his children to be missionaries, Helaman’s son Nefi (also a Book of Mormon name) was able to accept a mission call. 

While most of Helaman’s brothers and sisters stayed as guides at Tulum, his sister Alma and her husband Miguel began a similar tour company in Cancun, and they are now Helaman’s major business com petition. Alma Petlacalco snaps up the returned Mexican missionaries who come back from North America fluent in English and teaches them to be guides. One of her daughters attended Brigham Young University and married a fellow student. Miguel and Alma’s children now work in their business. If Alma’s comfortable Mercedes-Benz is any indication, business is good. After completing his mission and studying aviation, Helaman’s son Nefi also decided to become a tour guide and begin a company. Joining with Helaman’s brother Lemuel and cousin-in-law Carlos, they formed LDS Tours Cancun. The men have also held leadership positions in the ward, and in 2013, Lemuel became stake president.

The Petlacalco family exemplifies the fluid nature of religion. For them religion is not a discrete, isolated entity but rather is bound up in a web of family and economic dynamics. Commitment to Mormonism and faith in the truth of the Book of Mormon cannot be untangled from business success and church leadership. Even though there is rivalry between the siblings that causes tension in the family, there also is an unrelenting spirit of optimism that the tour companies will continue to prosper because they are doing the Lord’s work. Strengthening the commitments of Latter-day Saints serves both a religious and economic good. 

Fragmentary Presence 

When the Petlacalco family members give tours, what do they hope to accomplish? How do they understand the ruins through which they walk? First and foremost, they carry with them the assumption of the absolute truth of the Book of Mormon. This truth is not simply a belief, but rather it is the full culmination of the experiences of an individual embedded in a family and a community. The Book of Mormon is enmeshed in the lives of tour givers who as second-generation Latter-day Saints have felt it as immediately and undeniably real. The Petlacalco family perceives the Book of Mormon as “holy”—defined by Robert Orsi as “something that is more than the sum of its social parts . . . [with] a life of its own independent of the humans out of whose imaginations, inheritances, and circumstances it emerged.”[35] Consequently, the Book of Mormon is not simply words in a text but it has “come to have a vivid and compel ling immediacy in the present.”[36]

This “vivid and compelling immediacy” is clearly described within the Book of Mormon itself. Before Christ can begin his teaching, the physical reality of his presence must be experienced. “Arise and come forth unto me,” he explains, “that you may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world” (3 Nephi 11:14). The Book of Mormon recounts how “the multitude” put their hands into Christ’s side, hands, and feet. “One by one until they had all gone forth,” the text continues, “and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record” (3 Nephi 11:15). It is only then, after this very physical experience of God, “did they fall down at the feet of Jesus and did worship him” (3 Nephi 11:17). When Christ visits the New World, he does not simply calm one doubting Thomas (John 20:24–29); he invites a whole people to intimately touch him so they can then “bear record.” 

Just as it is in the Book of Mormon that the immediacy of touch is attached to the miraculous and not to a moral system, so it is in the Petlacalco mind. At no time during any of their tours did the family members refer to the ethical dimension of the Book of Mormon. They were not giving tours to point out how the Book of Mormon could act as a guide in the lives of Latter-day Saints. While actions within the Book of Mormon were often mentioned, they were not used to point to something beyond themselves. When Book of Mormon events were discussed, they were presented as carriers of something unique and special. Petlacalco guides were focused on the miraculous, enduring nature of the Book of Mormon narrative rather than its ability to provide guidelines for moral living. That the immediate, holy, and profoundly real character of the text was stressed is not surprising. Latter-day Saints come to a site of ruins not to experience the moral or symbolic force of the Book of Mormon text but to tap into its enduring power. 

What the Petlacalco family does is to bring Mormon families into a web of intimacies and associations, thus intensifying both groups’ feel ings about the sacred text. Obviously, this is not done through scriptural study but through listening and seeing. The Petlacalco guides speak almost continuously, and when they stop speaking, there is silence in the touring vans. The touring model is not of question and answer but of testimony. The guides speak biographically and devotionally, offering their personal history to the tourists. Before arriving at the ancient sites, the Petlacalco guides have already presented themselves as decipherers of the holy. The guides’ ability to convince their guests of their authentic faith and insightful knowledge works to eliminate, perhaps for just this trip, the concerns that guests might have about the literal veracity of the Book of Mormon. 

The Petlacalco guides seek to unlock the inner meaning of the sites. While they all are aware of the contributions of modern archaeology, it is their understanding of the Book of Mormon that enables them to under stand the ruins in a deeper way. The Mexican guides and the American tourists both share the Book of Mormon, but the Petlacalco guides can “see” the sacred text in the ruins. “I want you to imagine yourself back in time,” Carlos explains to a Mormon family from Dallas, “near one of those temples . . . round about the Land of Bountiful. That day you hear a voice that you don’t understand. But that voice causes an effect that makes your body shake and your heart pierce.” It is Jesus Christ whose voice “sounded in the sky” and who eventually walks among Nephites. This is the core holy event. 

The Petlacalco guides are quick to point out that neither the ruins at Tulum nor at Chichen Itza are the remains of the Land of Bountiful where Jesus walked. The Maya ruins date from a much later period. The Book of Mormon also explains that prior to Christ’s coming, there were storms, earthquakes, fires, and whirlwinds that destroyed cities and deformed the face of the earth (3 Nephi 8:5–18). Whatever existed prior to the sacred moment was significantly rearranged. “If Chichen Itza, Coba, or Tulum were occupied during Book of Mormon times,” Helaman observed, “then we don’t get to see the structures. They were buried or destroyed. What you see on top was built way after the Book of Mormon times.” Both time and space disconnect the present-day viewer from the sacred time when Nephites actually touched Jesus and then went on to follow his religion. Unlike a Catholic pilgrim who can see the exact Lourdes grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette, Mormons cannot see the Land of Bountiful. 

What Petlacalco guides offer instead is what might be called “fragmentary presence” and is more equivalent to visiting a replica shrine of Lourdes.[37] This is not the “real presence” that Catholics believe reside in the Eucharist and that religious historian Robert Orsi argues has been banished by modernity.[38] It is a trace of the sacred. At one real point in time and in space, a holy event occurred. The Nephites touched the Christ, and he went on to teach them true religion. However, the people did not stay true to that religion. Carlos explained that they “twisted the gospel,” creating other churches. This happened in both the Old and the New Worlds. “What we can find at Tulum,” Carlos summarized, “is just a few remains of the few things they preserved from the gospel. They never forgot Christianity; they just twisted and perverted Christianity. Therefore, every aspect of Mesoamerican religion can be perfectly understood from the perspective of a perverted Christianity.” Alma voiced the same sentiment: “At one time the people of Tulum had the truth. At the beginning, they had the truth but later they got mixed up.” Full connection with the holy, complete “presence” is unobtainable, but fragments and traces of the truth remain. What the Petlacalco guides do is help Latter-day Saints recognize this fragmentary presence.

Arnie, who served his LDS mission in Arkansas and works for Alma Petlacalco, stands at the Great Ballcourt in Chichen Itza and describes the bloody religion of the Maya. He points out the shapes of human skulls chiseled into walls and describes how decapitated heads and bodies would be rolled down the steps of the temple. “In this case,” he clarifies, “they would participate [in the rite] by eating the flesh and drinking the blood.” The Maya, it seems, had forgotten what the Lord had taught them. They had twisted the meaning of blood and flesh. “We as Latter-day Saints, every Sunday,” also eat “of the body and blood, but of course [we do it] symbolically. They did it literally.” The Maya and the Mormons share the truth of the presence of God, but the Maya only have a fragment of that presence. Making that fragmentary presence apparent is the goal of the Petlacalco guides. Arnie has an Idaho woman read from the Book of Mormon: “And it is impossible for the tongue to describe, or for man to write a perfect description of the horrible scene of the blood and carnage which was among the people, both of the Nephites and of the Lamanites; and every heart was hardened, so that they delighted in the shedding of blood continually” (Mormon 4:11). “As we are reading about it,” Arnie reiterates, “we have the picture and then the scene right here.” 

Carlos and Helaman see fragmentary presence in the Maya stone statues of chacmool that dot the sites. The chacmool are sculptures of reclining figures, leaning on their elbows, with propped up knees. On their stomachs sit a disk or a bowl. The Petlacalco guides tell tourists that human hearts sacrificed to the gods were placed in the bowls. Helaman explains that the Maya believed they were “taking our broken hearts to God.” And, in this, they got it partially right. They had “twisted” what Jesus had earlier told the Nephites: to no more offer up “the shedding of blood” but instead a “broken heart and a contrite spirit” (3 Nephi 9:19, 20). The same message existed in ancient Israel before it, too, was twisted. “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart,” sang the Psalmist, “and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit” (Psalms 34:18; see also, Psalms 51:17). And, in 1831, Joseph Smith revealed that they would be blessed who “offer a sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in righteousness, even that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit (Doctrine and Covenants 59:8). God gave the full truth, which then echoed through the religions of the Jews and the Maya and was restored by Joseph Smith. 

The language that the tour guides use is visceral and embodied. While the visitors might be skeptical about the religious significance of the ruins they are looking at, the Petlacalcos are caught up in the reality of what they are describing. They participate both in an institutional Mormonism but also in a more mystical religion that comes into daily contact with special places. It is their involvement with what anthropologist Kevin O’Neill calls “affective space” that binds the Petlacalcos together with the American Mormons into a religious collective.[39] The physicality of the ruins and the vibrant language used to describe them and their connection to the Book of Mormon stimulate the imagination. Unlike official Church materials that tend toward the bland and disciplined, the stories of the Petlacalcos explore the terrifying aspects of religion. The Book of Mormon events happened in the distant past and so are neutralized, but through fragmentary presence a sense of the sacred violence is shared between the guides and the visitors. 

To decode how the sacred past can be seen in Maya ruins is the goal of the Petlacalco guides. Pointing at stone pillars at Tulum, Carlos reminds us “this is exactly a replica of King Solomon’s temple, with two pillars, an altar for the water container and an altar for sacrifices.” Later he describes how the “saunas” the Maya used to purify themselves connected to baptism. The Maya thought that “the maize god, the bread of life, sweated to pay for the bad works of the people.” They had a memory that water would purify and clear their spiritual life, but they had distorted the teachings of the One True God on baptism. At Chichen Itza, Arnie pointed out that at the entrance to the Ballcourt “there is a stone box with a dome cover. Joseph Smith was shown by the angel Moroni where the golden plates were hidden in a stone box. Those were used as safes by the ancient Maya. They put important stuff, records, books, offerings, jewelry, valuable things in there. Just like Joseph Smith described.” For Helaman, even the local bees, which make sweet honey but have no stingers, could be explained using the Book of Mormon. When Jared and his family left Israel for the new promised land, they carried with them “swarms of bees” (Ether 2:3). Helaman speculated that those bees, in order to make the journey less problematic for the Jaredites, probably had no stingers. How else would such bees have gotten to Mexico? 

The Petlacalco guides also set the iconic building at Chichen Itza, El Castillo, firmly within the orbit of Mormonism. The step pyramid is believed by archaeologists to be the Temple of Kukulkan, a feathered serpent deity related to the Aztec Quetzalcoatl. As with all the Meso-american gods and goddesses, Kukulkan is understood by the Petlacalco guides as a twisted version of the Jesus who had visited centuries earlier. Every year at the spring and autumn equinoxes, thousands of tourists descend on Chichen Itza to watch the light play on the edges of the pyramid. If you look at the northwest corner of the pyramid in the afternoon light, a set of shadows forms the body of a snake connecting to its sculpted feathered head at the base. Helaman and Arnie explain that the optimal date for watching Kukulkan descend is not the spring equinox but April 6. On that day, one can see the full body of the snake illuminated. And why April 6? April 6 was both the date the Latter-day Saint Church was established in 1830 and the true birthday of Jesus (Doctrine and Covenants 20:1).[40] The spring sessions of general conference, when the current prophet and apostles speak to the contemporary church, is also held near April 6. 

Discerning fragmentary presence is not unique to the Petlacalco guides. Deciphering the world’s religions to see elements of the truth—and how they reflect Latter-day Saint theology and practice—is a common endeavor of Mormon intellectuals. Hugh Nibley’s analysis of ancient history assumes that gospel truth can be uncovered and recognized in disparate sources. Nibley explained that if we examined pagan texts we would discover “that all their authors possess are mere fragments which they do not pretend to understand.”[41] For Mormons, the truth is continually being established, rejected, and reestablished. Latter-day Saints teach that Adam in his pre-earth life was taught true religion (the plan of salvation), and he held a position of authority next to Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve continued to learn God’s plan both in the Garden of Eden and more intensely after the Fall. However, the descendants of Adam and Eve became wicked and prideful. They lost their way and would not return to the true religion until they humbly repented and other prophets appeared. Moses, for instance, taught about the Melchizedek priesthood, but the children of Israel “hardened their hearts” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:24). A similar cycle appears in the Book of Mormon. Latter-day Saints are familiar with this “pride cycle” and typically cite it to illustrate the repeating pattern of wickedness, repentance, and change—of individuals, communities, and even civilizations. 

While the pride cycle warns people about the inevitability of human weakness, it can also be used to illustrate the enduring legacy of the sacred. Although people fall away from the truth and forget what they have been taught by God and his prophets, there is always some remnant of the original teaching. The holy cannot be fully forgotten. The inverse of the pride cycle could be considered a “fragmentary presence” cycle. The Petlacalco guides, like most of those who write about Book of Mormon geography, attempt to assemble traces of a sacred past from the puzzle of ruins. They look for clues of the holy, what Robert Orsi warned would be “a wedge of unpredictability [inserted] into history and society, of the unforeseeable and unaccountable.”[42] It is through these many ways—from naming children to starting tour companies to deciphering ruins—that one family of Mexican Mormons experiences the sacred nature of “another testament of Jesus Christ.” 

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] “Book of Mormon Reaches 150 Million Copies,” Church News and Events, April 20, 2011, https://www.lds.org/church/news/ book-of-mormon-reaches-150-million-copies. 

[2] Latter-day Saint explorations of the Book of Mormon are extensive but certainly not approaching the number of studies of the Bible. Recent examples of this genre include: Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Royal Skousen, ed., The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009); Robert A. Rees and Eugene England, eds., The Reader’s Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Press, 2008); S. Kent Brown, From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998); Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1988); and John W. Welch, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies 10 (Autumn 1969): 69–84. 

For cultural histories, see Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The Ameri can Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) and its abridgement, The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) as well as Paul C. Gutjahr, The Book of Mormon: A Biography (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012). 

[3] I discuss the importance of practicing religion in Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 2, 272. For theoretical explanations of practice, see Manuel A. Vásquez, “‘Ceci n’est pas un texte’: From Textualism to Practice,” in More than Belief: A Materialist Theory of Religion (New York: Oxford, 2011), 231–57 and Courtney Bender, “Practicing Religions,” in The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, edited by Robert A. Orsi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 273–95.

[4] McDannell, Material Christianity, 4–8.

[5] See Robert A. Orsi, History and Presence (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni versity Press, 2016), 1–47. Art historian David Freedberg provides the classic argument on how objects become alive in his book The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 283–316.

[6] See F. LaMond Tullis, Mormons in Mexico: The Dynamics of Faith and Culture (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1987).

[7] “Facts and Statistics,” Newsroom, http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts and-statistics/country/mexico. Member statistics in this essay are those reported by the LDS Church, who counts all who have been baptized. Very frequently individuals stop going to church but are not taken off of Church rolls, so the numbers are inflated.

[8] Thomas Ferguson, Letter to the First Presidency, Jan. 27, 1955, as cited in Stan Larson, “The Odyssey of Thomas Stuart Ferguson,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 64.

[9] Elias Higbee and Parley Pratt, “An Address,” Times and Seasons 1, no. 5 (March 1840): 69, as cited by Samuel Morris Brown, In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 73.

[10] John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1841) and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1843). For the cultural impact of their discoveries, including on Joseph Smith, see R. Tripp Evans, Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820–1915 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004). Stephens’s discoveries were mentioned in Times and Seasons 3, Oct. 1, 1842, 927 and in “Conference Minutes,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 10, Nov. 15, 1848, 343 and in “Yucatan,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 10, Nov. 15, 1848, 346–48.

[11] “Yucatan,” 347.

[12] Orson Pratt, “Sacred Metalic [sic] Plates,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 28, Dec. 1, 1866, 761. 

[13] Pratt wrote the references for the 1879 printing of the Book of Mormon. He annotated 1 Nephi 18:23 as such (footnote K): “1 Nep 2:20, believed to be on the coast of Chili S. America.”

[14] For instance, see John Taylor, “The Discovery of Ancient Ruins in Northern California,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 13, Mar. 15, 1851, 93–95. 

[15] “Book of Mormon Students Arrive,” Deseret News, May 25, 1903. All quotations in this paragraph are from this source. According to Terryl Givens in By the Hand of Mormon, archaeological ruins would not be found because “the cataclysmic upheavals in the Western Hemisphere accompanying the death of Christ, as described in 3 Nephi, would render modern-day identification of Nephite monuments and places impossible” (107).

[16] Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 105–06.

[17] Janne M. Sjödahl, “Suggested Key to Book of Mormon Geography,” Improve ment Era, Sept. 1927, 977, as cited in Matthew Roper, “Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early Interpretations,” FARMS Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 262. 

[18] William E. Berrett, Milton R. Hunter, Roy A. Welker, and H. Alvah Fitzgerald, A Guide to the Study of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: LDS Department of Education, 1938), 44-45, as cited in Roper, “Limited Geography,” 263.

[19] Sidney B. Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), as cited in Roper, “Limited Geography,” 264–65. An overview of this argument is found in David A. Palmer, In Search of Cumorah: New Evidences for the Book of Mormon from Ancient Mexico (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1981).

[20] Noel B. Reynolds, “The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon in the Twentieth Century,” BYU Studies 38, no. 2 (1999): 7.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid., 22–26.

[23] Robert T. Barrett and Susan Easton Black, “Setting a Standard in LDS Art: Four Illustrators of the Mid-Twentieth Century,” BYU Studies 44, no. 2 (2005): 25–80. 

[24] The 1963 copyright edition contained the same text as the 1920 edition but included illustrations. This reprint was widely circulated, especially by missionaries. It sported a blue paperback cover with an image of the angel Moroni. The year before, Deseret Book Company published a larger format Book of Mormon that contained the Friberg illustrations and even more photographs of Mesoamerican ruins, gold jewelry, and wall murals.

[25] Examples of studies of Book of Mormon geography published prior to the 1970s include: Verla Leone Birrell, The Book of Mormon Guide Book: An Internal Reconstruction of the Archaeology, History, and Religious Teachings of the Ancient Peoples of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Verla Leone Birrell, 1948); Thomas Stuart Ferguson and Milton R. Hunter, Ancient America and the Book of Mormon (Oakland, Calif.: Kolob Book, 1950); Dewey Farnsworth, Book of Mormon Evidences in Ancient America (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1953); Milton R. Hunter, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1956); J. Nile Washburn, Book of Mormon: Lands and Times (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1974); and Paul R. Cheesman, These Early Americans: External Evidences of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1974).

[26] All biographical information on the Petlacalco family as well as quotes from their tours is based on interviews with Alma and Helaman Petlacalco, Miguel Rodriguez Diaz, Carlos Aleman Artiz, and Arnie [Arnulfo Rodriguez Diaz] in March 2013. 

[27] Rebecca Maria Torres and Janet D. Momsen, “Gringolandia: The Construction of a New Tourist Space in Mexico,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95, no. 2 (2005): 314–35.

[28] Ibid., 315.

[29] Michael H. Madsen, “Mormon Meccas: The Spiritual Transformation of Mormon Historical Sites from Points of Interest to Sacred Space” (PhD diss., Syracuse University, 2003), summarized in Michael H. Madsen, “The Sanctification of Mormonism’s Historical Geography,” Journal of Mormon History 34, no. 2 (2008): 228–55. A more critical appraisal of the same trend is Barry Laga, “In Lieu of History: Mormon Monuments and the Shaping of Memory,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 43, no. 4 (Winter 2010): 131–54. Kathleen Flake argues that after the final end of polygamy, Mormons sought to link their “peculiar” religious identity to the visions and history of Joseph Smith. Monuments became key to establishing the memory of early LDS history. See her “Re-placing Memory: Latter-day Saint Use of Historical Monuments and Narrative in the Early Twentieth Century,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 13, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 69–109. For examples of Mormons using the term “sacred” to describe special sites, see the six volumes of LaMar C. Berrett, Sacred Places: A Comprehensive Guide to LDS Historical Sites (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1999–2007).

[30] “President Hinckley and the Nauvoo Temple,” Ensign, July 2002, https://www. lds.org/ensign/2002/07/president-hinckley-and-the-nauvoo-temple?lang=eng, and “Palmyra New York Temple,” Church News, Mar. 9, 2010, http://www. ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/58961/Palmyra-New-York-Temple.html. In 2001, a temple was dedicated near the “Winter Quarters” in Omaha, Nebraska. It sits on a hill adjacent to the cemetery and across the street from the Mormon Trail Center.

[31] Historical fiction written by Mormons about their experiences begins with Susa Young Gates, John Stevens’ Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon War (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1909) but does not flourish until the end of the twentieth century. Examples of this genre include Samuel W. Taylor, Nightfall at Nauvoo (New York: Macmillan, 1971), Marilyn Brown, The Earthkeepers (Provo: Art Publishers, 1979), the multiple novels of Dean Hughes, and the nine-volume series by Gerald N. Lund, The Work and the Glory (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990–1998). In their Standing on the Promises series, Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray have told the stories of African American Mormons in three novels (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000, 2002, 2003). See also, Lavina Fielding Anderson, “Fictional Pasts: Mormon Historical Novels,” in Excavating Mormon Pasts: The New Historiography of the Last Half Century, edited by Newell G. Bringhurst and Lavina Fielding Anderson (Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2006), 367–94. Two volumes of The Work and the Glory (2005, 2006) have been made into films. See also, Saints and Soldiers (2004); Emma Smith: My Story (2008); and 17 Miracles (2011). 

On Mormon pioneer nostalgia, see Paul L. Anderson, “Heroic Nostalgia: Enshrining the Mormon Past,” Sunstone 5 (1980): 47–55; Eric A. Eliason, “Pioneers and Recapitulation in Mormon Popular Historical Expression,” in Usable Pasts: Traditions and Group Expressions in North America, edited by Tad Tuleja (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1997), 175–214; and Megan Sanborn Jones, “(Re)living the Pioneer Past: Mormon Youth Handcart Trek Re-enactments,” Theatre Topics 16, no. 2 (2006): 113–30. For general instructions on commemorative handcart pulls, see “Pioneer Treks,” Youth Activities, http://www.handcarttreks.com/General/generalindex.html. 

[32] In the United States, the LDS Church sponsors: the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York; the Mesa Easter Pageant in Mesa, Arizona; the Oakland Temple Pageant in Oakland, California; the Castle Valley Pageant in Castle Dale, Utah; Manti—The Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti, Utah; and the Clarkston Pageant—Martin Harris: The Man Who Knew in Clarkston, Utah. In 2013, it started The British Pageant: Truth will Prevail in Hartwood Green Chorley, Lancashire, England. On pageants’ cultural function, see Martha S. LoMonaco, “Mormon Pageants as American Historical Performance,” Theatre Symposium 17 (2009): 69–83 and Kent Richard Bean, “Policing the Borders of Identity at the Mormon Miracle Pageant” (PhD diss., Bowling Green State University, 2005). 

[33] Davis Bitton, “The Ritualization of Mormon History,” Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (January 1975): 67–85, reprinted in Davis Bitton, The Ritualization of Mormon History and Other Essays (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 171–88.

[34] In recent years, proponents of a “heartland theory” have challenged the Mesoamerica theory. Rod L. Meldrum and Bruce H. Porter vigorously pro mote the heartland theory in books, videos, and tours. See Rod L. Meldrum, Exploring the Book of Mormon in America’s Heartland (Salt Lake City: Digital Legend Press, 2011) and Bruce H. Porter and Rod L. Meldrum, Prophecies and Promises: The Book of Mormon and the United States of America (Salt Lake City: Digital Legend Press, 2009).

[35] Robert A. Orsi, “The Problem of the Holy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, edited by Robert A. Orsi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 91.

[36] Ibid., 101.

[37] For a discussion of religious replication, see McDannell, Material Christianity, 154–62.

[38] Orsi, History and Presence, 37–42.

[39] Kevin Lewis O’Neill, “Beyond Broken: Affective Spaces and the Study of American Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, no. 4 (2013): 1093–116.

[40] The Encyclopedia of Mormonism states: “Presidents of the Church, including Harold B. Lee and Spencer W. Kimball, have reaffirmed that April 6 is the true anniversary of Christ’s birth, but have encouraged Church members to join with other Christians in observing Christmas as a special day for remembering Jesus’ birth and teachings” (John Franklin Hall, “April 6,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow [New York: Macmillan, 1992], 62. Available at http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/April_6). 

[41] Hugh W. Nibley, “The Expanding Gospel,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless: Classic Essays of Hugh W. Nibley, 2nd ed. (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004), 44, as discussed in Eric F. Mason, “The Saints and the Scrolls: LDS Engagement with Mainstream Dead Sea Scrolls Scholarship and Its Implications,” in New Perspectives in Mormon Studies: Creating and Crossing Boundaries, edited by Quincy D. Newell and Eric F. Mason (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013), 169–95. For more recent explorations of Book of Mormon geography that illustrate “fragmentary presence,” see F. Richard Hauck, Deciphering the Geography of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988); John L. Sorenson, Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life (Provo: Research Press, 1998); and Warren P. Aston, In the Footsteps of Lehi: New Evidence for Lehi’s Journey Across Arabia to Bountiful (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994).

[42] Orsi, “The Problem of the Holy,” 103.

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Good morning, brothers and sisters. It’s my pleasure today to speak about something that absolutely distinguishes Mormonism from other religious traditions—namely, the book from which it takes its name. Say it with me now: the Book of Mormon. To put the cart ahead of the horse, let me simply state the main point I hope to get across today: among the many important functions often ascribed to the Book of Mormon—whether validating Joseph Smith’s prophethood or providing “another testament of Jesus Christ”—one of its most important functions may be to invite us to rethink entirely our practices of reading scripture and, more broadly, our sense of how revelation works. In what follows, I hope to begin to substantiate this claim.

I should begin by disclosing that I may bring a somewhat unique perspective to the Book of Mormon. I am an English professor who studies nineteenth-century American literature and religion, and I regularly teach the Book of Mormon in a course called American Bibles that examines nineteenth-century texts that were biblical in their inspirations, aspirations, and proportions. One of the things we talk about in that course is how the Book of Mormon interacted with the intensely Bible-focused culture of early nineteenth-century American Protestants, who, in the era of the Book of Mormon’s publication, went “all-in” on the Bible as perhaps no group before ever had. They took Martin Luther’s Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura—Latin for “by Scripture alone”—to a whole new level. Many American Protestants, especially those swept up in the evangelical revivals that Joseph Smith describes in his personal history, came to believe that the Bible was the literal word of God—that “every direction contained in its pages was applicable to all men at all times”—and that the Bible was sufficiently legible that any person, regardless of his or her learning, was capable of discerning those directions and living his or her life accordingly in the confidence that he or she was “good with God,” so to speak. Many American Protestant traditions today maintain these positions or variations thereof, as some of you in this congregation may well know, whether through missionary encounters or as former or current devotees of those traditions. 

Now I want to suggest that one of the reasons that American Protestants felt empowered to read the Bible as a text whose meanings were self-evident and whose words were absolutely binding is the way the biblical narrative typically works. Literary critics see in the most ancient portions of the Bible an especially powerful formal innovation—namely, a third-person omniscient narrative voice. Now please don’t tell the English professor that you’ve forgotten these terms from your English classes! You remember, right? Here’s a quick refresher on the off-chance you have forgotten. In a narrative written from a third-person point of view, the characters in the story are viewed entirely from without—referred to by the pronouns he, she, they. If the narrative point of view is, further, an omniscient one, then the narrator of the story has total access to the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters and, really, everything else about the narrative world. Such a narrative voice often sounds matter-of-fact and seems authoritative. For the reader, it can be easy to trust such a knowing voice that seems to float impersonally above the events—however dramatic—that are related. Take the first few verses of Genesis 1 as an example: 

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.” 

These words—about nothing less than the creation of the world—come at us from nowhere. It is not stated by whom or whence or why this information is relayed. And these words may be compelling in part precisely because they seem to come at us from nowhere, from something like the very formless void mentioned in these verses. One might even see an analogy between the way God is depicted as creating the world—by simply stating what he wishes to be—and the way the narration works here—bringing a coherent narrative world into being through the abrupt assertion of a no-nonsense impersonal point of view. The point is: Even though the subject matter is about as grandiose as one can imagine, the manner in which the events are narrated is so forceful and forthright as, perhaps, to foreclose our asking any questions about who, when, where, and why.

Now compare this to the first few verses of the Book of Mormon: 

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days. 

What’s different about the narrative voice here? In technical terms, this is a narrative written from a first-person rather than third-person point of view—we are confronted with Nephi’s “I” right from the get-go; the pronouns “I” and “my” appear eight times in this single verse. The reader is placed inside Nephi’s perspective rather than privileged to stand outside it with an omniscient narrator. Whereas in the Genesis passage any trace of the author or narrator is rigorously effaced, here we are bombarded with particulars about the individual—Nephi—who has written and/or narrated what we are reading. We know precisely where this story is coming from.

What do we do with this striking difference? What is different or should be different about reading a scripture written in a magisterial third-person perspective that strikes such an authoritative posture as to presuppose readerly confidence, consequently causing some to hear it as the literal word of God, as opposed to reading a scripture written from an unabashed first-person perspective that both openly admits and also not-so-openly reveals its human limitations? At the time the Book of Mormon “came forth” in 1830, American Protestants were struggling with what Harvard historian David Holland—who also happens to be Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s son—calls the problem of “revelatory particularity.” What does he mean by this term—revelatory particularity? Well, in the eighteenth century, as textual criticism of the Bible and historical understanding of the ancient near East became more advanced, some people began to realize what the Book of Mormon itself clearly sets out—that the Bible was composed and translated over long periods of time by many hands and that it was substantially transformed as a result. This view posed a real challenge to any naïve notion of the Bible as seamless word of God—it became clearer and clearer that particular people at particular times and places for particular reasons had written down ancient stories in the particular manner that they did. The question was: What happens to the status of divine revelation when it is itself revealed to issue from historically and culturally particular circumstances that inevitably produced certain blind spots?

For some, this realization became the basis for rejecting the Bible as the source of theological authority: if the Bible, the argument went, had the fingerprints of particular individuals and cultural groups all over it, then it seemed problematic to make it the first and last word about a god who ostensibly created and loved all people. Some of these people touted what they called natural rather than revealed religion as the basis of a sound faith—the better source of information about God’s character was “the book of nature” rather than one of many books of scripture; it was in the universal workings of natural law rather than the particular commandments enshrined by one cultural group that one could get the best idea about who God was and what he expected of his creatures. By Joseph Smith’s time, as I suggested before, many American Protestants tended to evade this problem of revelatory particularity by suggesting that the words of the Bible were the literal word of God, applicable in all times and places and accessible in its universal meaning to any right-minded person. These folks papered over the cracks the textual critics of the Bible had noticed, in part by hewing to the slick surface created by that remarkable third-person narrative voice of the Bible that I described a moment ago. They happily succumbed to the power of that narrative voice.

So the Book of Mormon comes onto this scene of struggle with the problem of revelatory particularity, and what does it do? It not only confronts the problem of revelatory particularity; it fairly rubs the reader’s nose in it. It gives us a series of first person prophet-narrators—Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, etc.—who, on the one hand, self-consciously apologize for their “faults”—that is, admit their human fallibility—and, on the other, maintain their divine inspiration. How are we to approach such a scripture? And how does this scripture, which we regard as uniquely “written for our day,” instruct us as “latter-day saints” to interact with scripture in general?

The first thing to say is that the Book of Mormon discourages us from reading it—and any other text—as the literal word of God in the way that some American Protestants came to read—and still read—the Bible. For instance, the book of 1 Nephi, it is impressed upon us as readers, is not written by God but very much by Nephi, who reminds us at every turn that the words we are reading are his words, as inscribed by his own hand on plates he himself made. By foregrounding rather than downplaying the extent to which particular human beings mediate the transmission of the divine word, by going so far as to emphasize that the text contains “the mistakes of men,” as Mormon puts it, the Book of Mormon asks us to read it—and other scriptures—with what I might call critical discernment. That is to say, the Book of Mormon itself suggests that we cannot take it or any other text, scriptural or otherwise, purely at face value as “God’s own truth,” so to speak. The Book of Mormon underscores for us that what we are reading when we read scripture is the word of God “given unto [his] servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language,” to borrow the terms of D&C 1:24.

So what does this mean for how we think about scripture? Does such a view necessarily lessen the authority of scripture? Is it inherently irreligious to read scripture as partial—in both the senses of that word as incomplete and biased? No, I hasten to say! A literalist, deferential reading of scripture is not the only way to read scripture devotionally. The most profound meanings, by definition, may not lie right at the surface in what the words themselves explicitly state. If scripture—as the Book of Mormon suggests—cannot be treated as a well of truth undefiled—as the literal word of God, unmediated by particular, fallible human beings—that does not mean it does not have saving truths to teach us. It simply means that our way of accessing those truths may not always be as straightforward or simple as we might want them to be. It means that rather than treat scripture as a repository of timeless truths just waiting there right on the page to be picked up, we might instead need to treat scripture as a wrestling partner with whom—and against whom—we grapple and so develop our spiritual strength. “Searching the scriptures” may not simply mean devising an elaborate system of cross-referencing that happily harmonizes the standard works as though they were but a single, self-reinforcing text, as I tended to think on my mission, but rather engaging the revelations to particular human beings the scriptures contain with our own and others’ revelations as particular human beings. The scriptures may not be meant to supply us with the easy certainties we crave as so-called “natural” men and women as much as to push us toward hard spiritual self-discovery.

Let me conclude with an example of how such a reading practice might proceed, one I think is apropos in light of the recent statement on “Race and the Priesthood” issued on the Church’s website, which I’d strongly encourage all of you to read if you haven’t already. I’ve already shown how Nephi never allows us as readers to forget for a moment that he is the one writing the words we are reading in 1 and 2 Nephi. What are the implications of this narrative fact for how Nephi and his descendants describe Laman and Lemuel and their descendants? I would draw your attention in particular to 2 Nephi chapter 5, which contains the following verses. First, verses 21 and 24:

And he [the Lord] caused the cursing to come upon them [Laman and Lemuel and their associates and progeny], yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delight some, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them . . . And they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey. 

Now verses 11, 17, and 27:

And the Lord was with us; and we did prosper exceedingly; for we did sow seed, and we did reap again in abundance. And we began to raise flocks, and herds, and animals of every kind . . . And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cause my people to be industrious and to labor with their hands . . . And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. 

How are we to reconcile Nephi’s quite cold-blooded relation of the curse of his brothers with his fulsome account of the blessing of what he pointedly calls “my people”? How are we to take the fact that the first-person plural pronoun “we” now emphatically excludes his brothers and nephews and nieces, etc.? Under a literalist, deferential reading, we have no other choice but to accept Nephi’s account of things. As morally retrograde or politically suspect as it may seem to us for Nephi to espouse such blatant theological racism, we just have to say: I guess that’s what the Lord in his wisdom saw fit to do, and maybe I don’t understand it, but that’s just how it is. What I, by contrast, want to submit for your consideration is that the Book of Mormon—by foregrounding the human mediation of scripture—invites us as readers to consider the possibility that Nephi’s “faults” as a human being have in this case—quite literally—colored his account of events. After all, patently and quite pointedly, we don’t have Laman and Lemuel’s side of the story, now do we? The question I want to pose is: What if the spiritual “message,” as it were, of these verses does not necessarily consist of the explicit pronouncement made by Nephi here—God cursed the Lamanites for their wickedness? Might it be possible, in light of the Book of Mormon’s particular narrative construction, that these verses instead or at least also provide an example of how even the seemingly best of us might be subject to the tendency of excluding others to the extent that we can’t even see them as being like ourselves, that we banish them to the margins or cast them as villains in the stories we tell about ourselves? 

That such a reading might be supported by the Book of Mormon, I conclude by drawing your attention to an interesting episode during Christ’s visit to the Americas in 3 Nephi. In chapter 23, Christ asks another Nephi, a descendant of the original, to bring all their records for him to peruse. And he immediately notes a glaring absence: “Verily, I say unto you, I commanded my servant Samuel, the Lamanite, that he should testify unto this people, that at the day that the Father should glorify his name in me that there were many saints who should arise from the dead, and should appear unto many, and should minister unto them. And he said unto them: Was it not so? And his disciples answered him and said: Yea, Lord, Samuel did prophesy according to thy words, and they were all fulfilled. And Jesus said unto them: How be it that ye have not written this thing, that many saints did arise and appear unto many and did minister unto them?” (23:9–11).

How be it, indeed, that they did not write this thing? Is there laid bare here a reluctance on the part of the Nephite prophets to include in their narrative something they themselves recognize as true prophecy, because, perhaps, it came from a Lamanite who had excoriated the Nephites for their wickedness? What does it mean that the literal voice of God in the text singles out for distinction precisely the voice the Nephite narrative does not, at least not willingly, include—the prophetic voice of the Lamanite? It seems to me the Book of Mormon here makes a vital distinction between the voice of God and the voices of the Nephite narrators who claim inspiration from God. Implicit in this arrangement is the question of how capable the Nephite narrators are of faithfully transmitting the message of Lamanite exaltation that Jesus himself has just expounded in the preceding chapters. Is the “scripture,” so to speak, in the Book of Mormon not entirely co-extensive with the narrative of the Book of Mormon? Does the Book of Mormon at this point and others unravel its white Nephite narrative in order to reveal a god who has no patience for white supremacism in particular and simplistically takes things at face value in general? This—to me—deep and deeply relevant spiritual truth can be unlocked only if one is willing to accept the invitation the Book of Mormon itself extends: to read it and, by extension, all scripture in an earnestly interrogative spirit. Read boldly, I say; in my experience, the scriptures can take it. And they will take you to “an infinity of fulness.” 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

[post_title] => Learning to Read with the Book of Mormon [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 48.1 (Spring 2015):169–177
In this “From the Pulpit,” Jared Hickman discussed the self-confessed weaknesses of multiple authors in the Book of Mormon, indicating that the text is not the literal word of God. He observes that it still has sacred truths to teach us including on racism. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => from-the-pulpit-learning-to-read-with-the-book-of-mormon [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-18 14:32:06 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-18 14:32:06 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=9356 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Initially, I intended only one article on the usage of archaic pronouns and the implications of certain irregularities. But as I delved deeper into the implications, particularly what the erratic usage suggests about the translation of the Book of Mormon, it became obvious that this particular detour needed to stand alone as a companion piece to the main article. In that first article, among other matters, I explored briefly the inconsistent usage of second-person pronouns in the English translation of the Book of Mormon. In a nutshell, the text shifts back and forth randomly between the singular (thou and its variants) and the plural (ye and its siblings) in contexts where the singular form is required. What, we might then ask, can this information tell us about the process by which the Book of Mormon was translated? By itself, not much. But when considered in conjunction with other knowledge about the translation process, these pronoun usage patterns and other grammatical anomalies shed light on the larger question, and certain conclusions become more intriguing, perhaps even more obvious.

Some might ask why we should care how the Book of Mormon was translated, and for these individuals this may be a purely tangential concern. But if you recognize that imperfections and inconsistencies in the book—both grammatical and theological—are relevant to the larger question of exactly what the Book of Mormon is and just how divine it is, the translation question becomes important. The book itself, on both the title page and internally (Moroni 9:31), admits it is imperfect, but do the imperfections originate with the writers or with the translator—or perhaps even with the translation process itself? This possibility may shed significant light on the nature of revelation and of God’s interactions with his children. So these are not just idle questions. The answers may tell us a good deal about God’s methods of working with his children and his apparent reluctance to be either dictatorial (in the linguistic sense of the word) or even particular about specific details. 

As I began a systematic editorial examination of the Book of Mormon, I initially assumed that the particular grammatical problem I was focusing on (pronoun usage) was a result of Joseph Smith’s poor education and perhaps even sloppiness. But the accounts left by Joseph and those who were closely associated with him, particularly during the time he was translating and shortly thereafter,[1] don’t leave any room for this possibility. Joseph was reportedly very careful, even to the point of correcting his scribes’ spelling before being allowed by the “interpreters” to move on to the next textual segment. This process wouldn’t permit a huge slip such as he would have to make in reading “thou canst” and yet dictating “ye can.” So I began to entertain other possibilities. The conclusion I arrived at surprised me, as it may others, but even though it may appear naïve on the sur face, it does account for several anomalies that other translation theories either circumvent or awkwardly dismiss. Because the English translation of the Book of Mormon is such a complex and in many ways inscrutable document, all translation theories are unsatisfactory in one way or another, this one included, but I feel this possibility needs to be published so that it can be included in the conversation and evaluated on its merits.

Based on clues in the text of the Book of Mormon itself and on the descriptive accounts left by Joseph and others, two general theories have arisen regarding this unusual translation process.[2] One theory, based on later recollections from those who observed Joseph translating, proposes that the young Prophet was actually seeing text spelled out before his eyes and was then dictating this text to the scribe. In essence, God (or the Holy Ghost, or the Urim and Thummim, or the seer stone) was revealing to Joseph the exact wording, and even the exact spelling of certain words and names. If these accounts are accurate, then John H. Gilbert, compositor of the 1830 Book of Mormon, makes a very astute observation: “The question might be asked here whether Jo or the spectacles [Urim and Thummim] was the translator.”[3] In other words, if Joseph was just reading the English text to his scribe, who actually translated the Book of Mormon? The other theory asserts that the Lord was revealing ideas to Joseph, which the Prophet then had to frame to the best of his ability in his nineteenth-century approximation of King James English. Significantly, no one seriously entertains the possibility that Joseph was somehow tutored in “reformed Egyptian” and subsequently labored with the text itself, much as an ordinary translator would (except with a dose of divine enlightenment), thus wrestling it from its ancient source into an unremarkable replication of KJV syntax and vocabulary. For the moment, let us set this possibility aside, but I will return to it later. If we limit ourselves to the two general translation theories mentioned above, it is important to note that the first and secondhand accounts of the process, as well as the text itself, provide compelling evidence for both theories. 

The accounts of Joseph spelling out difficult-to-pronounce names, for instance, support the first theory. So do accounts of Joseph correcting the spelling of his scribes without even looking at their handwritten manuscript, although some of these accounts have been called into question.[4] Many other accounts, by both believers and skeptics, speak of Joseph either looking into the Urim and Thummim or peering into a hat that concealed a seer stone and reading the English text that appeared before his eyes. On the other hand, grammatical errors in the book, New Testament-influenced language, the translator’s apparent awareness of italicized words in the King James Version as he translated, nineteenth-century revival language, Protestant concepts and terminology, doctrinal development that follows the translation sequence rather than the narrative’s chronology, and the fact that Joseph freely edited the text all support the second theory. B. H. Roberts also observed that “to assign responsibility for errors in language to a divine instrumentality, which amounts to assigning such error to God . . . is unthinkable, not to say blasphemous.”[5] But “errors in language” are certainly present, and they do present us with both questions and clues about the translation process. 

Errors in Pronoun Usage 

As I began to explore usage of pronouns in the Book of Mormon, I realized I needed to conduct a thorough editorial examination of the book. For this project, I used the (at the time current) 1981 version of the Book of Mormon,[6] noting every grammatical inconsistency I could find. I then compared the resulting anomalies with Royal Skousen’s The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text,[7] which follows the printer’s manuscript and extant portions of the original manuscript meticulously, as well as incorporating a few changes to reflect what Skousen concluded was the intended text dictated by Joseph. A table summarizing the findings of this editorial study can be found at the end of this article.

Among other things, I discovered that second-person pronoun usage was inconsistent, but not uniformly so throughout the Book of Mormon. In particular, usage in the portion of the book that came from the small plates of Nephi is more consistent than usage in the portion that came from Nephi’s large plates. I will make an observation about this discrepancy later. At any rate, second-person pronouns do not appear regularly in the book because it is a history and is therefore written largely in the third person. Some second person discourse in the book is also in the form of speeches, which use primarily the plural form, and most of the errors involve the use of the plural where context requires the singular. Consequently, the seven chapters in Alma (36–42) that report Alma₂’s instructions to his individual sons (all in second person) contain a large percentage of the pronoun usage errors. Outside of these chapters, Alma 30 (conversations with Korihor), Alma 54 (Moroni₁ and Ammoron exchanging letters), Helaman 10 (the Lord’s instructions to Nephi₂), and Ether 3 (the Lord’s conversation with the Brother of Jared) contain heavy concentrations of errors. This is understandable, since these chapters feature significant second-person-singular discourse. Indeed, Alma 30 contains more pronoun errors than any other single chapter in the Book of Mormon.

While it is possible that erratic usage of singular and plural pronouns of address in the English translation could be due to a similar randomness in the source language, this is quite unlikely. If the Nephite language was in a state of flux regarding second person pronouns, the confusion we see in the English translation might be merely an accurate reflection of similar confusion in the source language. But how likely is it that such a pronoun shift would have endured for a thousand years? Perhaps we can put this question to rest by looking at another uneven feature of the English Book of Mormon. 

A Second Inconsistent Usage 

A second fundamental morphological difference between King James English and modern English—besides the archaic second person pronouns—is the third-person-singular verb conjugation (hath or knoweth instead of the modern has or knows). The King James Version is almost flawless in its usage of the archaic -th form. In fact, the only -s ending I am aware of in the KJV is the idiomatic expression “must needs” (as in “it must needs be”), which occurs twelve times in the KJV and forty times in the Book of Mormon.[8] A computer search of the Bible, for example, reveals exactly zero instances of the word has in the KJV. A similar search for has in the Book of Mormon (current 2013 edition on lds.org) shows that this word appears 271 times. Admittedly, many of these non–King James conjugations were introduced later, in the various printed versions of the book, as indicated by a comparison between the 1981 printed edition and Royal Skousen’s Earliest Text. This comparison showed fifty-seven instances of has in the Earliest Text, meaning that 214 times hath was changed to has sometime between the handwritten manuscript and the 2013 edition. In my editorial examination of the 1981 printed edition of the book, which I then compared with the Earliest Text, including all instances of has and must needs, I identified 345 -s verb endings in the 1981 edition and 129 in the Earliest Text. This means that the handwritten manuscripts (the printer’s manuscript and the portions of the original manuscript that still exist) contain at least thirty-two modern verb conjugations such as prospers, gains, prophesies, and comes.[9] Regard less of the actual numbers, though, the modern English -s ending appears frequently enough to indicate inconsistency that does not occur in the KJV.[10] Significantly, this shift in third-person singular verb endings from -th to -s is unique to English and would have been extremely unlikely to have any corresponding morphological shift in the ancient Nephite language, especially over a period of a thousand years. The only possible conclusion regarding the presence of -s endings in the English Book of Mormon, therefore, is that these were introduced by someone whose consistency was incomplete in applying King James forms to the Book of Mormon’s English translation.[11] 

While I certainly missed some of the grammatical inconsistencies in my examination of the book, I did identify 345 instances of -s endings, compared with 1,708 instances of -th endings in the 1981 edition, while only 129 instances of -s endings appear in the Skousen volume. And the usage of these forms is just as uneven as the usage of second-person pronouns (although the second-person pronoun usage is more consistent between the 1981 edition and the Earliest Text, apparently because fewer of these pronoun errors were corrected in later printed editions). In 1 Nephi 19:12, for example, we read, “And all these things must surely come, saith the prophet Zenos. . . . The God of nature suffers.” While at least 199 instances of has are later alterations that did not appear in the manuscripts,[12] most of the instances of other verbs using modern -s endings appear both in the manuscripts and in the 1981 edition. Spot checks of -s endings in a facsimile copy of the 1830 edition indicate that the 1830 edition is consistent with Skousen’s Earliest Text, which means that most of these changes occurred in later editions of the book.

 The presence of so many -s endings in the Book of Mormon suggests that these were almost certainly introduced by the translator, and it is tempting to assume that it was Joseph Smith who introduced these inconsistencies during the translation process. But that assumption supposes that Joseph was the translator. 

A New Translation Theory 

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. I would like to take a step back and look at Book of Mormon translation possibilities from a different angle. John Gilbert’s question of whether the book was translated by Joseph Smith or by the “spectacles” is not just a flippant dismissal by an early skeptic. Gilbert was intimately acquainted with the text, since it was he who provided the initial punctuation for the Book of Mormon, and his question brings up an important point. There are three possible origins for the translation of the Book of Mormon. It was either a divine translation, a human translation, or a machine translation. What I mean by “machine” translation is some sort of preprogrammed mechanical process. Either the Urim and Thummim (or seer stone) was a device of some sort that could mechanically (automatically) trans late language (similar to our modern though still crude computer translation programs) or it was a tool through which language (or thoughts) were communicated. If the accounts are true of Joseph looking into his hat and reading word-for-word English text to the scribe without referring at all to the plates, then we must assume that Joseph was not the translator of the Book of Mormon.

I have a little experience with translation and am also acquainted with translation theory. Years ago, for instance, when I was more fluent in German than I am now, I translated Theodor Storm’s novella Immensee into English. This was an intense labor that required a sound understanding of nineteenth-century German and the ability to recraft those German thoughts and sentences into an English equivalent that preserved not only the meaning and literary feel of the source text but also, with as much precision as possible, the sentence structure. Because English is a Germanic language, this was quite feasible though challenging. But what Joseph did in producing the Book of Mormon is not at all similar to this process. As David Mason put it, somewhat tongue in cheek, “Joseph Smith had a lot of experience translating documents that he couldn’t read.”[13] In other words, what Joseph did was not what we would normally call translation. Translation requires ample understanding not just of the source language but also of the source culture—an understanding, I might add, that is evident in the Book of Mormon translation. 

If Joseph was merely reading English text that was revealed to him through divine instrumentality, then, we must ask, who did translate the text? Did the spectacles? Were the Urim and Thummim some sort of celestial equivalent to Star Trek’s universal translator? Unlikely. Certainly the Book of Mormon is not a machine translation. Any mechanical process, particularly one using a heavenly instrument, would not have produced the inconsistencies I have identified above. A machine translation would likely be awkward to read, as much of the English Book of Mormon text is, but it would at least be morphologically consistent. By the same token, I think we can rule out a divine translation—in other words, a translation by God or by the Holy Ghost—unless we wish to attribute such overt grammatical errors to Deity, which B. H. Roberts suggests would amount to blasphemy. Joseph’s willingness to edit the text also suggests he did not regard the exact wording as being of divine origin. 

So, if the English text of the Book of Mormon is not a machine translation or a divine translation, this leaves us with only one other possibility: it is a human translation. And it shows all the signs of being just that. Someone wrestled with the words and phrases and did so very imperfectly. But who was the human translator? Joseph? I doubt this. Brant Gardner has proposed the theory that Joseph was receiving by the power of God various pieces of prelanguage concepts, which Steven Pinker calls mentalese. He then had to express these ideas that originated in a different, indeed an unknown, language, not only in English but in the religious idiom of his day—King James English. His mind somehow then produced the words he “saw” in his hat.[14]

I find this theory unconvincing, for several reasons. First, Joseph’s ability to craft (or dictate) an extensive and intricate English document was rather limited. The vocabulary of the Book of Mormon itself was likely far beyond his abilities in 1829. According to his wife, Emma, he could not even pronounce names like Sarah and had to spell them out.[15] Second, the sentence structure of the book is very complex, with long, convoluted sentences sometimes employing multiple layers of parenthetical statements and relative clauses (see, for instance, 3 Nephi 5:14), which would have been far beyond the language capabilities of a young man whose wife claimed that he “could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter; let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon.”[16] Add to this fact the reality that Joseph dictated an unpunctuated text, and this task stretches far beyond Joseph’s ability to formulate prelanguage concepts into the complex sentence structure of the Book of Mormon. Without the help of punctuation to separate embedded clauses, this feat would have been mind-boggling. Third, Joseph would have been incapable of reconstructing long chapters from the King James Version from memory, even if prompted by some form of “mentalese.” Joseph was so famously unacquainted with the Bible that he was unaware Jerusalem had walls;[17] it is therefore untenable that he could have reproduced whole chapters of Isaiah from memory. It is obvious that the translator, whoever it was, had direct access to the printed Bible text, including italicized words that were often changed or omitted in the Book of Mormon, sometimes causing nonsensical or ungrammatical sentences. These are a few of the problems I find with Gardner’s theory. 

But if Joseph did not “translate” the book, who did? I once saw a comment following a blog post about the Book of Mormon translation suggesting that perhaps the King James translators performed the translation in the spirit world. While an enticing notion, this proposition is improbable. Neither they nor William Tyndale, another likely postmortal candidate, would have made the mistakes with pronoun usage and third-person verb conjugations that we find in the Book of Mormon. The final result would also have been far more elegant. But perhaps this suggestion is on the right track. Perhaps the book was indeed translated by a postmortal (but not yet divine) being. Do we know of anyone who was proficient in reading and writing the reformed Egyptian characters recorded on the plates, who also spoke English, and who tended to quote passages from the Bible with deviations from the King James text? Yes, we do: Moroni.[18]

Interestingly, the Book of Mormon often reads not like a text converted from a foreign language into the translator’s native tongue, but more like a text converted by the translator from his native tongue into a language he is not completely comfortable with. The phrasing is often awkward in English. My friend Avraham Gileadi, who helped retranslate the Book of Mormon into Hebrew, claims that it went “back” into Hebrew very smoothly. Indeed, he assured me that some of the awkward phrasing I specifically asked him about is perfectly idiomatic Hebrew. Of course, how closely the reformed Egyptian characters correspond to modern Hebrew is an unanswerable question, but the fact that the text often seemed more natural in Hebrew than in English supports the idea that the translation may have moved from a language native to the translator to a tongue foreign to him instead of in the usual direction. 

The possibility that the translation was performed by a resurrected but not yet divine being and then communicated by miraculous means to a mortal intermediary raises interesting questions and offers fascinating insights into both the postmortal existence and the restrained manner in which God interacts with his children on earth. For instance, we might ask how Moroni learned English. If this theory is accurate, then it is obvious that Moroni was not somehow miraculously endowed with a perfect command of what would have been to him a foreign language. Did he have to labor over this language acquisition much as we do, even when we are assisted by the Spirit? Did he have to practice conversing in English? With whom? In the spirit world or here on earth among mortals? (If the latter, fascinating possibilities come to mind.) Assuming he had to study not just nineteenth century English but also the already archaic religious idiom of the day and become versed in expressions of religious ideas and doctrines, this may explain the presence of common Protestant doctrines and even specific religious terminology in the Book of Mormon. It certainly explains the presence of lengthy but slightly altered King James quotations.

And what about God’s involvement in this endeavor? What can we learn from the idea that God didn’t prepare a perfect translation himself and miraculously present it to Joseph? This fact seems to support the homely metaphor a friend of mine once coined: “God doesn’t send cookies baked in heaven.” Unless we imagine to ourselves a God whose grasp of King James English was inferior to that of the King James translators, we must assume that he left the translation largely in the hands of his still imperfect children, mortal or immortal. For a volume as important as the Book of Mormon to come forth with such labor pains and such imperfections suggests perhaps a more hands-off God than some of us prefer to imagine. Subtlety and restraint appear to be two of his most prized attributes. 

Some Concluding Thoughts 

As mentioned earlier, my editorial pass through the book uncovered another interesting fact: second-person pronoun usage is far more consistent and correct on the portion translated from the small plates than in Mormon’s or Moroni’s abridgments. The usage of “must needs” is also much more frequent in the text from the small plates. This makes me wonder if the English translation was performed by at least two translators—one who understood the more ancient writing on the small plates and one who was more conversant with the later text composed primarily by Mormon. Whether or not this is accurate, one thing is certain: Joseph Smith did not “translate” the Book of Mormon, not if we mean that translating involves having a sound understanding of the source language and culture and then converting a document from that language into the target language. 

After a quarter century studying the manuscripts and various editions of the Book of Mormon, linguist Royal Skousen insists that the translation was given to Joseph word for word—a very closely controlled translation. I tend to believe him, which means Joseph himself wasn’t translating but was receiving text translated by someone else, delivered to him “by the gift and power of God” (Book of Mormon title page). If Joseph knew the English text was a human translation and was flawed in certain respects, this may explain his eagerness to make corrections and changes that he probably wouldn’t have made if he had viewed the text as divine and therefore perfect. Of course, the fact that it was unpunctuated was a clear indication that the text as dictated by Joseph and written down by his scribes was neither perfect nor ready for publication. 

The fact that the dictated English text was unpunctuated brings up other questions and difficulties with the theory presented here. Assuming Moroni or some other postmortal Nephite who was conversant in King James English performed the translation, one must ask why the text was unpunctuated, even those sections adapted from the King James Version. The unpunctuated nature of the dictation lends support to Brant Gardner’s “mentalese” theory. But it certainly leaves many other questions unanswered. Of course, it is also possible that the text Joseph was reading was indeed punctuated but that he dictated it without speaking out the punctuation marks, just as we usually read punctuated text aloud. Unfortunately, Joseph left no record of such translation details. In the end, I suppose, we must still admit that the Book of Mormon translation methodology is largely a mystery, and it will remain so unless God chooses to reveal more on this topic.

[Editor’s Note: See PDF from page 67 onward for Appendix.]

This article is the second in a two-part series about LDS usage of archaic pronouns. The first article appeared in the previous issue and was titled “What Shall We Do with Thou? Modern Mormonism’s Unruly Usage of Archaic English Pronouns.” 

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] See John W. Welch, ed., Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844 (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 77–213.

[2] See Brant A. Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), and Don Bradley, “Written by the Finger of God? Claims and Controversies of Book of Mormon Translation,” Sunstone 161 (December 2010): 20–29, for a more complete description of these two theories. Gardner actually describes three theories that originated with Royal Skousen—loose control, tight control, and iron-clad control—but the latter two can be lumped together for our purposes here.

[3] “John Gilbert’s 1892 Account of the 1830 Printing of the Book of Mormon,” quoted in Gardner, The Gift and Power, 251. 

[4] For instance, Brant Gardner points out that this “inerrant” translation theory “presupposes the absence of error and [Royal] Skousen’s work makes it clear that errors occurred,” which means that “an inerrant translation is simply not a supportable option to explain the translation of the Book of Mormon.” Gardner, The Gift and Power, 148.

[5] B. H. Roberts, “Book of Mormon Translation: Interesting Correspondence on the Subject of the Manual Theory,” Improvement Era 9 (July 1906): 706–13.

[6] According to the Church’s statement on the 2013 version, “Changes to the scriptural text include spelling, minor typographical, and punctuation corrections.” I am assuming that any changes to pronouns or verb endings would have been minimal or nonexistent. “Church Releases New Edition of English Scriptures in Digital Formats” (accessed July 15, 2014).

[7] Royal Skousen, ed., The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009).

[8] I should mention that the search engine at lds.org is not completely accurate. For instance, it did not identify all the instances of “must needs” that I found in my editorial read-through of the Book of Mormon. By the same token, I did not find all the instances that it did, so this number (forty) is actually a combination of my finds and the search engine’s results. There may actually be more than forty. It is possible that both I and the search engine missed a few. This cautionary note applies to all other numbers listed in this article that are derived from either my examination of the book or the lds.org search function. They must be seen as close approximations, nothing more. But they are close enough to make the point this article is concerned with.

[9] This is derived from 129 (-s endings) – 57 (instances of has) – 40 (instances of must needs) = 32.

[10] The incidence of second-person pronouns and third-person present tense verb conjugations is, of course, sporadic throughout the book, since it is written mostly in third-person past tense. Second-person pronouns occur primarily where conversations or divine discourse are being reported. Third-person present-tense verbs occur primarily in conversations, editorial commentaries, and reports of things God “hath done” or “hath said.”

[11] It is also relevant to note that the manuscripts written mostly by Oliver Cowdery contain grammatical oddities such as “I hath” and “thou can” (see Ether 3:4–15, in Skousen, The Earliest Text, 679, 681). It should be noted that Joseph Smith was certainly not alone in his inconsistent usage of -th and -s endings. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” for instance, contains the phrase “He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword” as well as “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat.” Julia Ward Howe composed these lyrics in 1861.

[12] This is derived from 256 (instances of has in my examination) – 57 (instances in Skousen’s Earliest Text) = 199.

[13] David V. Mason, My Mormonism: A Primer for Non-Mormons and Mormons, Alike (Memphis, Tenn.: Homemade Books, 2011), 99.

[14] Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 90, quoted in Gardner, The Gift and Power, 274.

[15] “Emma Smith Bidamon, interviewed by Edmund C. Briggs (1856),” in Opening the Heavens, 129. 

[16] “Emma Smith Bidamon, interviewed by Joseph Smith III (1879),” in Opening the Heavens, 131.

[17] “Emma Smith Bidamon, interviewed by Edmund C. Briggs (1856),” and “Emma Smith Bidamon, interviewed by Nels Madsen and Parley P. Pratt Jr. (1877),” in Opening the Heavens, 129–30.

[18] After Joseph Spencer (with my permission) gave a preview of my Moroni-as-translator theory in a blog post on Patheos (see “On Translation Theories and the Interpretation of the Book of Mormon”), I received an email from Stanton Curry, sharing with me a short essay he had written a couple of years previously, in which he also proposes Moroni as the translator. I find it significant that he arrived at this conclusion independently and from a different angle—certain information found on the book’s title page and an attempt to explain the King James quotations in the text. J. Stanton Curry, “A Possible Explanation for King James Bible Passages in the Book of Mormon” (unpublished paper, copy in my possession). Brant Gardner mentions another LDS writer who proposed Moroni as translator. Carl T. Cox included this theory in “The Mission of Moroni,” published in three parts on his website. The relevant text is available online. This reference somehow slipped by me, and I did not remember it when I had completed my editorial examination of the Book of Mormon and started considering translation theories. It is very possible that this idea was lurking in my subconscious and surfaced in what I thought was an original insight. If so, I am glad to give Carl T. Cox the credit for this idea. See Gardner, The Gift and Power, 254. 

[post_title] => Archaic Pronouns and Verbs in the Book of Mormon: What Inconsistent Usage Tells Us about Translation Theories [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 44.3 (Fall 2014):53–101
Initially, I intended only one article on the usage of archaic pronouns and the implications of certain irregularities. But as I delved deeper into the implications, particularly what the erratic usage suggests about the translation of the Book of Mormon, it became obvious that this particular detour needed to stand alone as a companion piece to the main article [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => archaic-pronouns-and-verbs-in-the-book-of-mormon-what-inconsistent-usage-tells-us-about-translation-theories [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-23 00:59:36 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-23 00:59:36 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=9389 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 9423 [post_author] => 1753 [post_date] => 2018-03-14 18:54:04 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-03-14 18:54:04 [post_content] =>

A notable feature of many ancient societies was the set of customs related to hospitality. Hosts often had an obligation to give comfort, friendship, and protection to wandering strangers, while guests often had an obligation to give gifts, gratitude, and proper respect to their hosts. In addition, the ethic of hospitality was often linked to religion and divine commands. In ancient Greek literature, for example, Zeus himself oversees the treatment of strangers, and the theme of xenia or “guest friendship” pervades Greek mythology and the Homeric epics. The Trojan War, as partially described in Homer’s Iliad, begins with a violation of the hospitality ethic (as a guest of Menelaus, Paris transgresses xenia by kidnapping his host’s wife, Helen), while the Odyssey is an extended consideration of the behavior of guests and hosts. Hospitality also plays a key role in some of the most memorable stories in the Old Testament, and, as we will see, it is connected in important ways to Israelite religious understanding. This article will examine hospitality as it is found in the Book of Mormon. We will look at instances when a person (or group) invites an outsider (or group of outsiders) into the home or community, making note of how the hospitality is exercised, what motivates it, what role it plays in the Book of Mormon narrative, and what spiritual or religious dimensions it is assigned. Paying particular attention to hospitality as a process by which “an outsider’s status is changed from stranger to guest,”[1] we will examine how the theme of hospitality is present in the book’s stories, themes, sermons, and metaphors. 

Old Testament Hospitality 

It will be useful to review instances of hospitality in biblical literature, particularly the Old Testament, since this forms the setting in which the Book of Mormon is placed. In the Hebrew Bible, there are numerous examples of hospitality. Abraham is approached on a summer afternoon by three strangers. He “ran” to meet these strangers, bowing to them with respect, urging them to stay, saying, “Pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant.” He does not ask them any questions about who they are or what their business is. Instead, he puts Sarah to work making bread, he picks out the best of his calves to offer to them, and he gives them butter and milk to eat (Genesis 18:1–8). After they are fed, these holy men promise Abraham and Sarah that they will have a child. Shortly thereafter, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, demonstrates hospitality to perhaps an outrageous extreme, offering his own daughters to the men of Sodom, either as sexual bribery or, as Scott Morschauser convincingly argues,[2] as a legalistic hostage exchange, to protect the guests under his care (Genesis 19:1–9). Here again, like Abraham, Lot offers to shelter them and to wash their feet, without asking any questions of them. These initial examples of hospitality are multiplied throughout the Old Testament: Elijah is commanded by the Lord to rely on the meals and shelter of a poor widow, but he returns the favor to her by providing a continuous supply of food and oil and by raising her son from the dead (1 Kings 17:9–23). Elisha is offered sustenance and a place to stay by a woman who is unable to have children. After the woman assists Elisha, she and her husband also welcome a child (2 Kings 4:8–17). In the Hebrew Bible, the hospitality ethic encourages a willingness to impart of one’s means, no matter how meager. God will facilitate the hospitality by providing blessings to those who offer it.[3] In all of these stories, the guest-host relationships become inverted through divine sanction, as the guest turns out to be the one who blesses the host.

The hospitable encounter between a guest and host becomes an image that defines Israelite self-understanding. As God’s chosen people, the Israelites have themselves been wanderers and see their own story in the plight of peripatetic strangers (Exodus 23:9). As a wandering people, they have empathy for those without a home and care for strangers as they themselves have been sustained by God, acting as their generous hosts. The Israelites, in fact, are reminded that they are strangers even in their own land, since it is, in the end, God’s land, and they are his guests (Leviticus 25:23). The Lord tells the Israelites that they should treat strangers as they would their own family (Leviticus 19:34). Taking in all these considerations, Christine Pohl concludes, “The teachings of the Law, the warnings of punishment for disobedience, and the promise of blessing on obedience reinforced Israelite hospitality toward strangers, as did the individual hospitality stories: guests might be angels, messengers from God, bringing divine promise or provision.”[4]

Scholars have identified some things that typically happen as part of an act of biblical hospitality.[5] The host goes out to meet the stranger, not asking any questions until the basic needs have been satisfied (Genesis 18, 19, and 24:33), provides a meal, and washes the guest’s feet (Genesis 18:4, 19:2, 24:25). It is the host’s responsibility to protect the guest (Genesis 19:8; Joshua 2:2-4; Judges 19:22–24). The invitation to hospitality often includes a time span, stipulating how long a guest can stay (Genesis 18:5; Judges 19:5, 20). The hospitality relationship sometimes includes a covenant between the guest and the host (Genesis 26:31). Once the invitation is accepted, Victor H. Matthews describes biblical customs surrounding hospitality in this way: (a) the guest should not ask for anything or insult the host; (b) the host should protect the guest, provide the best provisions he has available, and should not insult the guest; and (c) the guest should accept what is offered with gratitude and praise.[6] While these elements are not universal across all the stories, they are common enough to form recognizable patterns and type-scenes. Hospitality, then, plays an important role in Hebrew scripture. It drives biblical narratives forward and contributes to Israelite self-understanding. There are some common elements to the stories of hospitality that give them a recognizable structure. Given this Old Testament background, we should expect hospitality, then, to play some role in the Book of Mormon. We shall see that it does, but also that the Book of Mormon has its own emphasis relating to hospitality.

Hospitality in Book of Mormon Narratives 

Nephi and Zoram

The first example of hospitality involves Nephi and his invitation to Zoram to join the Lehite family exodus. So long as he serves in Laban’s household, it is important to note that Zoram remains unnamed; he is referred to only as “the servant of Laban.” Although he has obviously been given substantial authority within the household, we first seem to encounter this servant as a thing, a mere possession of Laban. Whatever identity this servant may have had in the household of Laban does not seem to be recognized by the narrator: We are given no lineage or family history, no background, not even a name. The servant seems at first to be a minor figure, hidden in the larger drama surrounding the brass plates, a mere tool in the hands of more powerful men, first as a tool of Laban and then as a tool of Nephi. As Nephi and this nameless servant walk to the city walls of Jerusalem after acquiring the brass plates, there is the scattered record of their conversation. The servant talks of the “elders of the Jews”; his clear emphasis on “of the Jews” (repeated twice) suggests his status as a stranger, as if he were on the outside of the covenant community looking in. As far as the narrator is concerned, Zoram is initially a person without a name or place, lost in the stories of others. 

From the perspective of the reader, particularly, Zoram is in a precarious position. His master is dead and he has unwittingly participated with Nephi in stealing the brass plates. He will be subject to suspicion when Laban’s household finds out what is done—who would believe his story, after all, that he did not recognize Nephi under Laban’s clothes? He is obviously fearful that Nephi and his brothers will do him harm—they would seem like violent, murderous men to him. Also, it is important to remember that Zoram is living in a doomed city, Jerusalem, a place that will be destroyed in a matter of years. Zoram is in a more precarious position than perhaps even he himself realizes.

After leaving Jerusalem, Nephi promises to this unnamed outsider by “an oath” that “he need not fear; that he should be a free man like unto us if he would go down in the wilderness with us” (1 Nephi 4:33). Significantly, Nephi promises to the unnamed servant that he should “have place with us” (1 Nephi 4:34). It is only after this invitation that Laban’s servant is finally named in the narrative as “Zoram.” In Nephi’s promises to have a place and to be free, the Book of Mormon links both identity (as the narrator finally gives the reader Zoram’s name) and freedom to hospitality. With Lehi’s family, Zoram, a formerly unnamed servant without place, is eventually given a family (a wife) and friendship (with Nephi) within the covenant community. Nephi is extending his kin, making Zoram part of his circle. Nephi has turned, as Matthews argues, a threat into an ally,[7] and he has done this through hospitality. The enduring relationships go beyond hospitality, but hospitality has made them possible.

Compare the experience of Zoram to the process of hospitality that Pohl outlines in her work, where strangers without connections are given place within a web of relationships:

Strangers, in the strict sense, are those who are disconnected from the basic relationships that give persons a secure place in the world. The most vulnerable strangers are detached from family, community, church, work, and polity. . . . When we offer hospitality to strangers, we welcome them into a place to which we are somehow connected—a space that has meaning and value to us. . . . In hospitality, the stranger is welcomed into a safe, personal, and comfortable place, a place of respect and acceptance and friendship. Even if only briefly, the stranger is included in a life-giving and life-sustaining network of relations.[8]

Through the act of hospitality, Zoram not only achieves the safety of leaving the city that will soon be destroyed, but also begins to form the protective connections that come with ties to family and community. The invitation to be part of Lehi’s family is received by oath, emphasizing that Zoram has become part of the web of covenant relationships. Zoram’s connection to Lehi brings him into a family that is itself a part of multiple covenants—the covenants between Israel and its God, and between Lehi and the Lord (1 Nephi 2:20) relating to their journey to the Promised Land. The notion that hospitality creates covenant relationships connects to the biblical typology of hospitality. Somewhat mysteriously, Nephi’s justification for inviting Zoram is this: “Surely the Lord hath commanded us to do this thing; and shall we not be diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord?” (1 Nephi 4:34). The commandment Nephi refers to is designated “this thing” and is left ambiguous. The thing that is commanded is connected logically (with a “therefore” statement) to the act of giving a place to Zoram: “Therefore, if thou wilt go down into the wilderness to my father thou shalt have place with us.” Nephi is offering Zoram a place with his family because, in some sense, it is related to the thing that he has been commanded to do. It is unclear why the specific commandment to retrieve the plates should also imply that Nephi needs to invite Zoram to have place with them. Of course, silencing Zoram would be important for the success of Nephi’s escape (verse 36), but this could have been accomplished in ways other than making Zoram part of the family—he could have been taken prisoner or enslaved, or (using the same reasoning behind the killing of Laban) simply dispatched. Perhaps Nephi, in talking about “this thing,” is referring to the commandment to leave Jerusalem and find safety in the promised land, with the retrieval of the plates being only one part of the larger commandment. Nephi may be connecting the hospitality that God offers to Lehi’s family, and the place of safety they have been offered in the promised land, with his own offer of a “place” to Zoram. At first glance, the story of hospitality toward Zoram is somewhat different from other ancient stories in the biblical material. For instance, there is no household to speak of. And yet, the tent of Lehi is repeatedly affirmed as Lehi’s place of dwelling, and the story ends as Nephi and Zoram depart for this place of dwelling, “the tent of our father” (1 Nephi 4:38). Those offering the hospitality, Nephi and his brothers, are vulnerable and in danger here, at least as much as the recipient of the invitation. Zoram, in fact, constitutes a threat to them since he alone of the household knows what happened to Laban. This introduces a theme that seems to be emphasized in the Book of Mormon, the theme of dangerous hospitality. Hospitality is offered even when it places the host at great risk. Another difference from the biblical typology is that the offer from Nephi to Zoram involves an indefinite length of stay rather than a specific time period. Indeed, the offer of hospitality is not simply to stay and be temporarily protected; instead, it is to become part of the fugitive family. In this moment, the Book of Mormon seems to broaden the scope of hospitality in several ways. It is not about temporary protection but about permanent change of identity. It suggests that hospitality is not simply about offering room and board, but that it involves forming enduring relationships.

Alma and Amulek, Ammon and Aaron

Chapters 5–35 in the book of Alma detail the ministry of Alma, the sons of Mosiah, and the subsequent aftermath. There is an underlying theme of hospitality driving the structure of these chapters. Consider first the story of Alma and Amulek. After Alma’s successful visits to Zarahemla, Gideon, and Melek, he finds himself in Ammonihah. The people of Ammonihah cast him out of their city but Alma returns to the city, hungry (Alma 8:19). One commenter suggests that Alma’s hunger may be at least partially attributable to a lack of hospitality on the part of the wicked communities that he visited.[9] Amulek, though, takes in the holy stranger and offers him food, drink, and protection. Consistent with biblical hospitality, Alma does not give a full account of himself until after the meal, and Amulek does not ask questions of Alma beyond what he has learned from the angel (Alma 8:23). 

Hospitality to strangers is particularly important in biblical narratives because wanderers sometimes turn out to be holy messengers, either angels or prophets. Whether the occasion is Abraham hosting the three holy men or the widow of Zarephath giving her sustenance to Elijah, strangers can bear important spiritual messages, offer blessings, and can themselves be significant figures. It is not within temples or tabernacles, synagogues or holy mountains that some lessons are to be given and received, but within the confines of individual households. This message is consistent with what we find in the Book of Mormon, particularly in this part of the book of Alma, where the question of how prophets are received by communities is a major theme.

The events surrounding the meeting of Alma and Amulek are discussed twice in the Book of Mormon, once by the narrator (Alma 8) and once again by Amulek himself (Alma 10). In both accounts, the site of the interaction between Alma and Amulek, the household, is repeated. In Alma 8:18–22, Amulek speaks through the narrator, inviting Alma “into [his] house” and awaiting the promised blessings that will come to “[his] house.” The narrator follows up relating that Alma did indeed bless “Amulek and his house.” Thus, the location of the hospitality, “his house,” is stressed three times by the narrator. In Amulek’s own account of his initial encounter with Alma, the location of the events as his house is emphasized even more emphatically. Amulek says that an angel told him to return to his “own house” where he would meet a “holy man,” a person whom he should receive “into [his] house and feed him.” If Amulek did this, he was told twice that the stranger would bless him and his house (Alma 10:7). It is remarkable that the location of the household as the setting for the encounter is repeated eight times. Clearly, Alma’s invitation into Amulek’s house is not a trivial or incidental detail; rather, it is the essential part of the story that Amulek wanted to tell. By emphasizing the hospitality of Amulek’s household, the underlying contrast seems to be with the city Ammonihah. Instead of rejecting the prophet, the people of Ammonihah should have welcomed the prophet into their homes and communities, just as Amulek has done. 

The angelic command to Amulek to offer hospitality to Alma plays several roles within the story. First, the idea that Amulek’s hospitality is to contrast with that of Ammonihah is underscored by Amulek’s story of the angel. As we said, the Hebrew tradition encouraged hospitality because of the possibility of hidden prophets and angels disguised as wandering strangers. Here, the stranger is fully unmasked as God’s messenger, making the condemnation of Ammonihah’s continuing lack of hospitality more thorough and complete. The status of outsider has been recognized by one of the city’s own citizens. With the angel’s introduction, Alma’s identity as a divine messenger is revealed to Amulek and subsequently to the Ammonihah community, and the city is left without excuse. Second, the angel’s involvement in this act of hospitality also serves to introduce another theme within Book of Mormon hospitality, that of guided hospitality. This is the idea that the Lord is actively involved in setting up guest and host relationships, arranging them to accomplish his purposes. In the Bible, particularly after the book of Genesis, the hand of God can be inferred in hospitality relationships, but in the Book of Mormon that involvement is front and center.

In the story of Alma and Amulek, hospitality is linked to spiritual blessings. Being instructed by an angel to take care of the prophet, Amulek receives Alma into his house warmly: “Therefore, go with me into my house and I will impart unto thee of my food” (Alma 8:20). Similar to other biblical accounts of hospitality to men of God, the act of hospitality given by Amulek, “a chosen man of God” (Alma 10:7), brings “blessings” to both himself and to his family (Alma 8:22). Amulek testified that the prophet “hath blessed mine house, he hath blessed me, and my women, and my children, and my father and my kinsfolk; yea, even all my kindred hath he blessed. And the blessing of the Lord hath rested upon us according to the words which he spake” (Alma 10:11). Amulek describes not only the angelic visit but also the events of the household as he talks with his fellow citizens. As the wandering guest becomes the source of blessings, we see the inversion theme of hospitality in biblical material. As Waldemar Janzen writes of the “Jesus Paradigm” of hospitality, “The guest who is offered hospitality turns into the host from whose blessing the hosts-turned-guests can continue to live a new life.”[10] As Alma blesses Amulek, he becomes the host-turned-guest, offering spiritual rebirth (Alma 10:6, 11) to Amulek just as Amulek has before offered him physical sustenance.

A complicating factor in this story of “blessings” is, of course, the grim fate of Amulek’s household. From one perspective, Amu lek hardly seems blessed, even being forsaken by some of his family (Alma 15:16). Yet Amulek himself continues to honor the teachings of Alma, indicating their continued meaning for him after the destruction of his former life. 

The story of Alma and Amulek is usefully compared with the story of Lot and the men of Sodom. In both stories, angels are involved in the act of hospitality. In the case of Lot, the guests were angels themselves; in the case of Alma, the guest was introduced by an angel. In both stories, the respective cities are being condemned partly because of their lack of hospitality. In both stories, one home opens up to the outsiders and provides them with protections, and these acts of hospitality come at great potential cost to the host: Lot must offer to sacrifice his daughters to the mob; Amulek seems to lose his family and household completely. And, finally, although both inhospitable cities are thereafter destroyed, the charitable host is able to escape the destruction. In both cases, inhospitality is used to expose the moral corruption of the cities. As Pohl writes, “Deliberate acts of inhospitality, such as seen in the stories of the men of Sodom . . . exposed foolish, evil, or corrupted character.” She continues, “The contrast between hospitality and inhospitality in Genesis 19 . . . highlights the utter lawlessness and degradation of the communities.”[11] This dynamic holds true with Ammonihah, a city that would let Alma go hungry. In the story of Alma and Amulek, the community’s inhospitality is emphasized and, as with Sodom, the degradation of the community is exposed. What is noteworthy in this story of Amulek’s hospitality to Alma is that Amulek does not simply remain a host who serves a prophet by caring for his temporal needs. Through hospitality to a holy man, Amulek himself becomes a holy messenger, becoming, in other words, the type of person whom he had previously served. Through hospitality, two strangers, Alma and Amulek, turn into allies in a very literal sense. As the story continues, we learn that Alma “tarried many days with Amulek before he began to preach unto the people” (Alma 8:27). During this stay, Amulek becomes convinced by Alma’s teachings. In his defense of Alma before the people of Ammonihah, Amulek declares: “I know that the things whereof he hath testified are true; for behold I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, even so has he sent his angel to make these things manifest unto me; and this he has done while this Alma hath dwelt at my house” (Alma 10:10; emphasis added). In this passage, the emphasis on the location “in my house” seems to strengthen Amulek’s argument: people who live together, who share meals and sleep under the same roof know one another in an intimate way, and thus are better able to judge character. Hospitality, in this sense, strengthens Amulek’s witness of Alma’s teachings. Living in the same household allowed Amulek to feel Al ma’s sincerity and spiritual power. When Amulek’s words were finished, the people of Ammonihah “began to be astonished” because of what they heard and saw, especially the fact that there was “more than one witness” who called them to repentance and shared things to come (Alma 10:12). Amulek serves Alma, the hungry traveling minister, with his generous hospitality but also comes to play an important role in advancing God’s work: He defends the wandering prophet as a good host would do and also becomes a holy man of God himself. 

The subsequent story of Ammonihah continues, with the theme of hospitality always in the background. The people in Ammonihah who had believed Alma, we read, fled into the land of Sidom (Alma 15:1). There, it seems that many of the outcasts from Ammonihah had received refuge, sheltered in the houses of the Nephites who were living there. At least we know that Zeezrom, who had led the arguments against Amulek, was being cared for in the house of one of the unnamed inhabitants. Alma goes “in unto the house unto Zeezrom” (Alma 15:5) to visit his former adversary. Someone had apparently taken in this sick and sorrowful refugee. This appears to be the first instance in what will shortly become a common feature of the Book of Mormon: a community opening itself up to care for religious refugees. This act of community hospitality again appears to function as a way of revealing the character of the community. In this case, the revelation is positive. In turn, the people of Sidom respond well to Alma’s message and the church is established among them (Alma 15:12–13). 

The story of Alma and Amulek reaches its most poignant moment as the setting of the household is mentioned one last time in connection to their companionship. Alma “took Amulek to his own house, and did administer unto him in his tribulations” (Alma 15:18). Just as Amulek had taken in and comforted Alma, now Alma takes in Amulek. After all that has happened to Amulek, we can understand why some healing might be necessary. Hospitality remains central to the story of Alma and Amulek to the end. It plays a role in our evaluation of entire cities but also reveals the contours of their friendship.

Immediately after the revelation of Sidom as a welcoming city, we are told of the downfall of Ammonihah, and the attention of the Book of Mormon turns to additional encounters between communities (this time Lamanite cities) and prophet/missionaries (Ammon and Aaron). While the Lamanite rulers are initially suspicious of these new messengers, in contrast to the people of Ammonihah they are able to welcome them into their homes and communities, benefiting spiritually from their message. Ultimately, where the people of Ammonihah suffer annihilation, the converts of Ammon and Aaron receive protection and comfort.

The story of Ammon and King Lamoni is interesting, not so much because it exemplifies the characteristics of good hosts and guests, but because it initially does the opposite, at least if we take seriously the elements of biblical hospitality described earlier. Not only does King Lamoni break the rules of hospitality with his rough treatment of Ammon (Alma 17:20), but the narrator informs us that Lamoni immediately begins questioning Ammon about his plans (Alma 17:22). Rather than offering an invitation that includes a prescribed length of stay, Lamoni suspiciously asks how long Ammon intends to stay. For his part, Ammon apparently sees no need to follow the rules of the guest. When Lamoni offers Ammon his daughter, Ammon refuses, thus rejecting what has been offered to him (a breach of protocol on the part of a guest; see Alma 17:24–25). Perhaps all of this heightens the dramatic tension. We know that Ammonihah had rejected the prophet, while Sidom had not. The inhospitable initial encounter and explicit play of elements of hospitality make the reader wonder what will happen in this new city.

Whatever failures there might have been here (and it is not clear whether Ammon and Lamoni would have known about or have felt compelled to follow any ritual practices of hospitality), the initial awkwardness is overcome as Ammon actively and repeatedly degrades his own social status. Hospitality in the ancient world often demanded that the gifts of the host be equal to the status of the guest. It is possible, as Peter J. Sorensen suggests, that Ammon rejects the daughter because he believes that the gift is not commensurate with the status of a lowly “servant” that he wishes to adopt. His rejection of the gift may not have been a rejection of the hospitality protocol but a gentle correction to Lamoni’s misreading of the demands of hospitality in that instance.[12] His desire to “dwell among” the Lamanites, possibly until the day of his death, signifies a willingness to leave behind his Nephite heritage and adopt a new identity among the Lamanites. Despite this, it seems that Lamoni has taken Ammon as a guest under his protection, since we subsequently learn that Lamoni protects Ammon from the attack of his father in Alma 20:13–18. 

Ammon’s self-degradation here, his lowering of his own social status, allows King Lamoni to accept Ammon into his household. As we saw with Alma and Amulek, an underlying message of these chapters is the power of letting a messenger of God into one’s home. Amulek was impressed by what he received from or through Alma as Alma was living in his household. Similarly, once Ammon is allowed into the royal household, he is able to perform the miracles that so greatly impress King Lamoni, beginning with the miraculous protection of the king’s flocks. Hospitality, allowing God’s servants inside one’s home, sets the stage for the workings of God’s spirit. Hospitality, the Book of Mormon implies, gives the foothold the Spirit needs to convert hearts and minds.

The pattern repeats with King Lamoni’s unnamed father, who is king of all the Lamanites. The father of Lamoni had been prepared by his encounter with Ammon earlier (Alma 20:8–27). Unlike the people of Ammonihah, he opens up his house to a traveling missionary, this time Aaron, who teaches by the Spirit, working miracles within the king’s home—most notably curing the king of his spiritual coma in front of the queen and the other members of the household (Alma 22). After converting, the king proclaims a type of religious freedom that enshrines hospitality into law: “Yea, he sent a decree among them, that they should not lay their hands on them to bind them, or to cast them into prison; neither should they spit upon them, nor smite them, nor cast them out of their synagogues, nor scourge them; neither should they cast stones at them, but that they should have free access to their houses, and also their temples, and their sanctuaries” (Alma 23:2). Interestingly, the king does not require religious conversion, but he does require that the people receive the messengers into their most intimate places—a policy that seems quite successful as many convert to the church.

The Nephite-Ammonite-Zoramite Hospitality Cycle 

In the Book of Mormon, stories of hospitality are not simply about individuals hosting individuals, but also about communities hosting communities. We have already seen how the people of Sidom took the refugees from Ammonihah into their homes. Earlier, during the reign of King Mosiah, the Nephite community had received two groups of wandering refugees. He welcomed first the people of Limhi into the Nephite community “with joy” (Mosiah 22:14); later, the group led by Alma was also received “with joy” (Mosiah 24:25). The parallel references to Mosiah’s emotional response highlight a celebratory attitude toward hospitality, a joyful openness to others. It is true that the people of Limhi were kinfolk to the Nephites, but the hospitality should not be discounted for this reason, particularly given the Book of Mormon background in which brothers quickly became strangers and enemies to each other.[13] These wanderers are welcomed, not only as people in need, but also as people with sacred records and stories to tell. As Thomas Ogletree writes in his influential study of Christian hospitality, “Hospitality designates occasions of potential discovery which can open up our narrow, provincial worlds. Strangers have stories to tell which we have never heard before, stories which can redirect our seeing and stimulate our imaginations.”[14] Similarly, as the people of Nephi hear the stories of these strangers and read their records, they are “struck with wonder and amazement” and “knew not what to think,” being torn by emotions of “exceedingly great joy” on the one hand and “many tears of sorrow” on the other (Mosiah 25:7–9). Clearly, the stories of these wanderers stimulated the imagination of Nephites. They had access to those stories through their hospitality.

Perhaps the most impressive examples of communal hospitality to strangers in the Book of Mormon narrative begin where we left off with the Lamanite converts of Ammon and the sons of Mosiah, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. In their story, we find repeated acts of large scale hospitality offered to destitute groups that seemingly have little to offer to the host community. The people who are eventually converted through Ammon’s efforts later become politico-religious refugees, no longer welcome among the Lamanite/Amalekite communities. They seek and, in another act of dangerous hospitality, receive refuge and a place among the Nephite people in the land of Jershon (Alma 27). A few details make this act of hospitality particularly impressive. First, the name Jershon may be linked to the Hebrew root yrö, meaning “to inherit.” If this is accurate, it amplifies the invitation of the Nephites that this would be an inheritance, that is, it was not simply a temporary arrangement until a better situation could be found. As with Zoram, the Nephite offer is one of permanent refuge, not temporary shelter. Second, the offer of hospitality is what we might call a grass-roots decision, with a “voice” of the people vowing to take in the Ammonites (Alma 27:22). This contrasts with other communities, such as Ammonihah, where the popular sentiment seemed to go against hospitality. Third, the offer of hospitality brings with it a new identity for the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, signified in a new name, the “people of Ammon” (Alma 27:26).The Anti-Nephi-Lehi identity is constituted by their role as generous hosts to Ammon and Aaron, while the people of Ammon’s identity is constituted by their role as guests to the generous Nephites. Hospitality is again linked to the deepest sense of identity, just as it is in the story of Zoram, where groups or individuals are given a new name as they receive hospitality. Fourth, as in the case of Amulek, we have an instance of guided hospitality (see Alma 27:12), with the Lord playing a role connecting community with community and homes with those who are wandering.

Unfortunately, the Amalekites had angrily turned the people of Ammon into cultural scapegoats (Alma 27:3); and, in taking them in, the Nephites commit what the Lamanites interpret as an act of war. The people of Ammon refuse to participate in armed conflict, however, even though their presence is itself the cause of “tremendous slaughter” among the Nephites who defend them (Alma 28:1– 3). Thus, taking in this group gives no strategic advantage to the Nephites and instead causes them to endure tragic losses—an act of dangerous hospitality, a decision fraught with peril and tragic political implications. Here again we see a theme we found in the initial encounter of Nephi and Zoram. Each time hospitality comes up in the Book of Mormon, the consequences of the hospitality become more and more dire.

This pattern of dangerous hospitality is quickly repeated as the people of Ammon themselves offer protection to poverty-stricken refugees from the Zoramite community: “They did receive all the poor of the Zoramites that came over unto them, and did clothe them, and did give unto them lands for their inheritance; and they did administer unto them according to their wants” (Alma 35:9). We are told little about these refugees, other than that they were “many.” We know that these refugees were expelled based on a secret plot (Alma 35:3–6) driven by the Zoramite elite (Alma 35:3–6), the elite expulsion contrasting with the welcoming hospitality of popular “voice” of the people toward the people of Ammon. The narrative closely parallels what happened earlier when the people of Ammon themselves had been taken in as refugees. Now, however, it is their act of hospitality that causes the problem: threats are issued against the people of Ammon for accepting the Zoramite poor and another war is initiated (Alma 35:8–11). Here, the results of the dangerous hospitality become catastrophic. This conflict, in fact, ignites the series of bloody wars detailed in the remainder of the book of Alma. The saga of the people of Ammon, who act as both needy guests and generous hosts, does not give the impression that hospitality is safe or convenient—quite the opposite. 

Throughout Alma 5–35, then, we are presented with a series of comparisons among individuals and cities, all involving hospitality to outsiders. Amulek’s hospitality is contrasted with the city of Ammonihah, while Ammonihah is also contrasted with Sidom. King Lamoni and his father, after initially going against the biblical typology, turn toward hospitality, as does the “voice” of the Nephite people. In the later chapters of this Alma, we see the final comparison as the Zoramites are contrasted with the people of Ammon. While the people of Ammon demonstrate reciprocity, providing hospitality as they had been given it, their contemporaries, the Zoramites, show an extreme lack of hospitality. Indeed, there is a distinct hostility shown by the wealthy Zoramites toward their poor, powerless, and needy. We read that the poor were not permitted to cross the threshold into the Zoramite communities of worship: “They were not permitted to enter into the synagogues to worship God, being esteemed filthiness; therefore they were poor; yea, therefore they were esteemed by their brethren as dross” (Alma 32:3). As we will see, this lack of congregational hospitality will come under severe condemnation in many Book of Mormon sermons. 

Hospitality in Book of Mormon Homily 

Given that communities are judged by their hospitality in the book of Alma, it is no surprise that many Book of Mormon sermons condemn inhospitable treatment and use the imagery of hospitality to convey their ideas. Sorensen writes that this is certainly the case with Abinidi’s sermon before the greedy king Noah: “The prophet is reminding Noah that his people are beggars in the promised land, and that Jehovah will tolerate neither inhumanity nor arrogance.”[15] We should note that it also plays a role in Jesus’s sermons to the Nephites. Whereas the wealthy Zoramites had cast out the poor from their meetings, Jesus commands that even unrepentant sinners should not be cast off: “ Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will re turn and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them” (3 Nephi 18:32).

In Book of Mormon sermons, this hospitality within communities and congregations of worship mirrors God’s open invitation to his children. Just as congregations should open their arms to sinners and strangers, so God offers an open invitation to his people to come unto him. God is portrayed as the welcoming host in Nephi’s sermon in 2 Nephi 26:25–33, as he offers to share food with those who come unto him:

Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price. Behold, hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden. 

Perhaps the most interesting sermon relating to hospitality in the Book of Mormon can be found in the King Benjamin homily at the beginning of the book of Mosiah. In this address, Benjamin implores his people, saying, “And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish” (Mosiah 4:16). The physical imagery of “turning him out” or being “turned away” describes a failure of hospitality. The language of “turning him out” suggests that the beggars in question are homeless wanderers, who belong within the household or community in at least one sense. The language of “turning him away” also has overtones of a lack of hospitality. This language is used specifically with reference to strangers in 3 Nephi 24:5, where the resurrected Jesus, quoting Malachi, says that the Lord will frown upon those that “turn aside the stranger,” explicitly connecting the language of “turning away” with a failure of hospitality. Turning away implies a face-to-face encounter, as the poor are met, possibly at the threshold of home and community. The poor are portrayed as seeking entry into the lives of the community. At the door, the needy request entrance, are denied, and are physically turned away from the threshold or turned out of the community. Benjamin urges his people to grant the poor entrance into their homes, or otherwise give them help and sustenance, rather than turning them out in this way.

This call to hospitality through the physical imagery of turning away or turning out coheres with the larger rhetorical and theological context of the sermon. A major goal of the sermon seems to be to explain why people should not be turned out in this way. King Benjamin sets up his reasons for service, including acts of hospitality, with reminders of his people’s political and theological equality. All are beggars in need of aid, and all need to be taken in—that is, all are in need of hospitality (beggars, recall, are those that in Mosiah 4:16 have been “turned out”). People are equal theologically, first, because of their equal dependence on God for continuing life and sustenance (Mosiah 2:21–24) and second, because of their equal indebtedness in that they were all created initially from the “dust of the earth” (verse 25). Such initial and continuing dependence, he says, makes it impossible for his people to claim self-sufficiency, to boast, and to make distinctions of what they deserve among themselves (verses 24–25). Since one cannot claim to have earned one’s belongings, one should not refuse to share one’s belongings (or, it follows, one’s household) with others. True, individuals are unequal in their material possessions and social status, but the theological equality prevents the wealthy from rationalizing away their inhospitable treatment.

King Benjamin uses this theological equality of neediness as a justification for a notion of political equality, saying, “For I am no better than ye yourselves are; for I am also of the dust.” Even kings, in other words, cannot escape the basic theology of equality. Earlier, his statements reflecting his political positions—his forbidding of slavery, his desire to earn a living through contributing to the work of the community—are prefaced by his affirmation of equality: “I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind.” Benjamin undercuts all claims that people have earned wealth and privilege, including any claim he himself might make. He stresses, “None shall be found blameless” (Mosiah 3:21) and asks, “Are we not all beggars?” (Mosiah 4:19). 

Benjamin not only undercuts the boasting of the wealthy and powerful, invalidating their rationalizations about what they think they deserve, but he also signifies the suffering of the poor and sorrowful. Indeed, he relates the message of an angel, describing the future Messiah figure as one who suffers—he shall “suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue” (Mosiah 3:7). One thing Benjamin is asserting is that people who are hungry and thirsty are not to be despised, since that is how the Messiah himself would live. The word “fatigue” specifically implies a wanderer without a place to rest, without a home. It is the image of Christ as a suffering person, without a place to rest, an image present in parts of the New Testament, which dominates King Benjamin’s sermon. In a world divided between the rich and poor, Benjamin places the Messiah himself within the circle of the homeless beggars. How can the poor deserve to suffer, Benjamin seems to ask, if Christ himself was a poor wanderer? How can we then turn out the poor from our homes and communities? 

After the affirmation of theological and political equality, the humbling of the rich and the exaltation of the poor, Benjamin launches into the specifics of his social ethic, which is centered on the care of the needy and suffering. All are beggars before God; and, in this sense, turning away the poor is a denial of one’s own dependence on God—it is an act of willful self-deception concerning the realities of one’s own existence. People should not turn away the needy when God does not turn away from them. Not only is it an act of pride, but turning away the poor is also an affront to the coming Messiah, who himself will wander poor, hungry, and homeless.

The logic of the sermon involves linking knowledge with service. Benjamin first equates serving others with serving God (Mosiah 2:17) and then stipulates that serving God is the only way to know him (Mosiah 5:13). This leads to the conclusion that serving others brings knowledge of God, and it is no accident that this connection follows the detailed account of his ethic of service. As individuals turn away strangers and beggars, they become strangers to God; we fail to know him. “For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served,” Benjamin probes, “and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?” This is another Book of Mormon example of Ogletree’s linkage of hospitality, knowledge, and interpersonal discovery: As people engage in hospitality, they learn about each other and from each other.

Mormon excoriates the Nephites who turn their backs on the poor (Alma 4:12–13). He asks, “Yea, and will you persist in turning your backs upon the poor, and the needy, and in withholding your substance from them?” (Alma 5:55). Amulek warns the Zoramites that they will not be redeemed if they turn away the needy and naked (Alma 34:28). Mormon laments that the Gadianton robbers “did trample under their feet and smite and rend and turn their backs upon the poor and the meek” (Helaman 6:39). When Moroni was without living family or friend, he exclaimed, “Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?” (Mormon 8:39). This very physical imagery, “turning away,” “turning aside,” or letting the poor “pass by” suggests not only caring from the poor from a safe distance, but also encountering the poor in their embodied presence, meeting them face to face, eyes looking into eyes, hands clasping hands. The connection of this imagery to acts of hospitality is strengthened when we recognize in the biblical literature the link that is made between charity and hospitality (e.g., Isaiah 58:7). The household was the place where food was prepared, where clothes were made, and where shelter was given. There were few other institutions that supplied these material needs. To talk about charity, in many cases, was at the same time to talk about hospitality—welcoming the needy into one’s space and community.

Hospitality in the Book of Mormon: God as Host to Strangers in the Promised Land 

Another way hospitality is shown in the Book of Mormon is through the imagery of Lehi’s family, a wandering branch of Israel, being taken in by God in a promised land. The ancient Israelites saw themselves as strangers who were being shown God’s hospitality in the land of promise. The ethic of hospitality was derived theologically from this understanding of God: God had been hospitable to Israel, therefore Israel should be hospitable to strangers (Deuteronomy. 10:19). Pohl writes that the Israelites “were to view themselves as aliens in their own land, for God owned the land and they were to be its stewards and caretakers, living in it by God’s permission and grace. They were the chosen people—chosen, yet still aliens.”[16] 

The image of God as a gracious host to aliens in the land of promise is echoed in the Book of Mormon. It seems that the children of Lehi think of themselves as strangers in a foreign land, feeling acutely the need of a generous host: “Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land” (Alma 26:36). God, like an ancient host, protects his wandering people. Likewise, Jacob describes his people as “a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness” (Jacob 7:26; see also Alma 13:23). Clearly, the Lehites sometimes understood themselves as strangers in a strange land, wanderers, outcasts in need of protection.

These strangers recognize that their continued survival is dependent on their host, who receives them mercifully: “Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations . . . and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever” (2 Nephi 1:9). The guests are told they can stay in the Lord’s promised land if they abide by the terms of the covenant. It is not an unreasonable interpretation of the narrative sweep of the Book of Mormon to posit that the decline of the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations comes about through violations of the hospitality covenant. Hospitality is not only found in stories and homilies but may also be central to understanding the larger story of the rise and fall of civilizations. 

But what part of hospitality have the Nephites violated, exactly? The terms by which the children of Lehi are allowed to stay in the Promised Land, it could be said, mirror the terms of the hospitality relationship in the ancient world. Once hospitality is offered and accepted, the participants must abide by the rules of hospitality. The guest may violate the terms of hospitality in various ways, as T. R. Hobbs explains: “As a guest, the stranger is in a liminal phase, and may infringe upon the guest/host relationship: by insulting the host through hostility or rivalry; by usurping the role of the host; by refusing what is offered.”[17] Although all of these violations may apply, it is this last condition that the Nephites seem to have broken most prominently. God states they have rejected his offer of gathering them to him. He laments, “How oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not” (3 Nephi 10:5). The guests have, in other words, refused what had been offered by the generous host. The protection of the host is thereby lost.

Conclusion and Implications 

The ethos of hospitality in the Book of Mormon reveals itself in the stories, homilies, themes, and imagery that pervade the text. In many ways, its hospitality ethic parallels the ethic of hospitality in the ancient world. As in the Bible, hospitality in the Book of Mormon is a standard by which entire communities are judged. A community's hospitality, in short, reveals its character. Of particular interest in the Book of Mormon is how prophets and missionaries are treated, which echo themes from the Bible as “holy men” are taken into homes through hospitality. As in the Old Testament, strangers like Zoram are turned into allies, and kin relationships are expanded through acts of hospitality. In the Book of Mormon, hospitality also seems to involve a set of mutual expectations on the part of the host and the guest, just as it did in the ancient world. God hosts Lehi’s family in the Promised Land on terms established by covenant, and Nephi hosts Zoram on similar terms. The image of God as a generous host to guests who abide by the rules of hospitality connects the themes of the Book of Mormon to the Old Testament.

The Book of Mormon also seems to contain some new points of emphasis. It highlights the need for hospitality not only in households but also in congregations and communities. Indeed, the Book of Mormon seems to expand the scope of hospitality. Hospitality should be offered not simply when one is safe and comfortable, but also in dangerous circumstances. Hospitality involves not just supplying food and shelter but also providing enduring relationships and community connections. These connections have the potential to fundamentally change one’s identity, signified in the Book of Mormon by the assignment of new group names. In addition to dangerous hospitality, the Book of Mormon also emphasizes the idea of guided hospitality, where God directly arranges meetings of guests and hosts through revelation. Finally, the Book of Mormon, in looking at Amulek, Lamoni, and Lamoni’s father, emphasizes the role of hospitality in connecting individuals to moments of spiritual power. As characters let each other into their intimate spaces, spiritual miracles ensue.

The Book of Mormon, by expanding hospitality and framing it as community inclusion based on equality, may speak to the current debate about how hospitality should be lived in the modern world. Travel is no longer as dangerous as it was anciently, so the sociological conditions driving the ancient practice are virtually non-existent today. For these reasons, writers such as T. R. Hobbs have complained that ancient hospitality had little to do with “being kind to strangers” and that “indiscriminate use of this ancient material”[18] commits what he calls the “teleological fallacy,” which is using ancient documents as a “springboard for modern polemic.”[19]

In contrast, other writers have pointed to contemporary conditions that mirror ancient conditions and that thus serve to make hospitality relevant. Pohl writes: 

We struggle to find better ways to respond to homeless people, people with disabilities, immigrants and refugees. Questions about diversity and inclusion, boundaries and community challenge us daily. We search for more personal ways to respond to youth who are detached and alienated from family, school, and church. In many cases, we feel as if we are strangers ourselves, even in our own families and churches, and we long for bonds that give life and meaning.[20] 

Waldemar Janzen seems to concur with this assessment, and argues that certain contemporary conditions are analogous to what was faced by the ancients, and that these conditions call for renewed attention to hospitality in the modern world. Janzen writes: 

It may help us remember that travel, in the ancient world, was only undertaken for grave reasons, often negative in nature, such as flight from persecution or search for food and survival. Hospitality, under those circumstances, has little to do with modern tourism, but embraces the biblical equivalent of our policies regarding refugees, immigration, welfare, and social security.[21]

The emphasis in the Book of Mormon, we suggest, directs readers in this interpretive direction rather than the direction suggested by Hobbs. Hospitality in the Book of Mormon emphasizes the more expansive aspects of hospitality hinted at in the Old Testament—hospitality tied not just to personal honor, as Hobbs suggests, but also to understandings of human and divine communities. Hospitality in the Book of Mormon is not just a host increasing his honor by being generous to a potential enemy under his roof; it is also an opportunity to act as God acts toward others, with kindness and mercy, offering up one’s home as a place of safety and protection. In this case, the Book of Mormon highlights the need for a greater sense of face-to-face hospitality in contemporary life, a hospitality extended to strangers and to the poor, a hospitality offered to immigrants, sinners, and refugees, a hospitality where individuals see in others the image of the God they serve, a hospitality that reminds the readers of their equal dependency and venerability. It is a hospitality that is required even when it is inconvenient or risky. It is the same hospitality that human beings seek as they yearn for the presence of a generous God.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] Bruce J. Malina, “The Received View and What It Cannot Do: III John and Hospitality,” Semia Studies 35 (1986): 181.

[2] Scott Morschauser, “‘Hospitality,’ Hostiles and Hostages: On the Legal Background to Genesis 19.1–9,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 27 (2003): 461–85. 

[3] Other examples from the Hebrew Bible include Genesis 24, 29; Exodus 2; Joshua 2:1–21; and Judges 1.

[4] Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 1999), 29.

[5] See Victor H. Matthews, “Hospitality and Hostility in Judges 4,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 21 (1991): 13–21; Bob Stallman, “Divine Hospitality in the Pentateuch: A Metaphorical Perspective on God as Host” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary [Philadelphia, Pa.], 1999); Malina, 171–86; T. R. Hobbs, “Hospitality in the First Testament and the ‘Teleological Fallacy,’” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 26 (2001): 3–29; R. A. Wright, “The Establishing of Hospitality in the Old Testament” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1989).

[6] For specific New Testament examples of this ethic of hospitality, see Malina, “The Recieved View,”184–85.

[7] Matthews, “Hospitality and Hostility,” 14.

[8] Pohl, Making Room, 13.

[9] Peter J. Sorensen, “The Lost Commandments: The Sacred Rites of Hospitality,” BYU Studies 44, no. 1 (2005): 21.

[10] Waldemar Janzen, Old Testament Ethics: A Paradigmatic Approach (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), 208.

[11] Pohl, Making Room, 26. 

[12] Sorensen, “The Lost Commandments,” 22–23.

[13] We would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful input. One reviewer points out that most of the references to “strangers” in the Book of Mormon come from the brass plates. Perhaps this is because the Lehites saw themselves as a family, and the concept of a stranger therefore did not therefore apply in their new environment.

[14] Thomas W. Ogletree, Hospitality to the Stanger (Philadelphia: For tress Press, 1985), 2–3.

[15] Sorensen, “The Lost Commandments,” 22.

[16] Pohl, Making Room, 27.

[17] Hobbs, “Hospitality in the First Testament,” 11. 

[18] Ibid., 29.

[19] Ibid., 5.

[20] Pohl, Making Room, 7.

[21] Janzen, Old Testament Ethics, 43.

[post_title] => Hospitality in the Book of Mormon [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 47.1 (Spring 2014):24–57
his article will examine hospitality as it is found in the Book of Mormon. We will look at instances when a person (or group) invites an outsider (or group of outsiders) into the home or community, making note of how the hospitality is exercised, what motivates it, what role it plays in the Book of Mormon narrative, and what spiritual or religious dimensions it is assigned. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => hospitality-in-the-book-of-mormon [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-24 19:36:42 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-24 19:36:42 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=9423 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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In their study American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, Robert Putnam and David Campbell observe that a characteristic of modern American religions, including Mormonism, is the belief that those of other faiths may be eligible for salvation.[1] However, Putnam and Campbell fail to point out that this Mormon inclusivism is not recent, but rather extends back to the very formative period of Mormon theological development. The early evolution of these beliefs has not been extensively studied and is not without controversy. For example, modern scholars have pointed to the apparent tension between the positions of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s subsequent revelations over the acceptance of Universalism, the teaching that all will be saved. While the Book of Mormon consigns wicked humans to an eternal torment, the later revelations endorse what Michael Quinn has described as “a theology of nearly universal salvation.”[2] Richard Bushman finds the revelations to be a “perplexing reversal . . . [that] contradicted the book’s fi rm stand.”[3] This conclusion is obviously problematic, as it implies that the early Church repudiated teachings from the Book of Mormon immediately following its publication. Thus there is a need for a reassessment of the relation between early nineteenth-century Universalism and the teachings of the Book of Mormon and subsequent revelations.

The principal American opponents of the early nineteenth-century Universalists were the mainline Protestant denominations (e.g., Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, and Episcopalians). Although disagreeing among themselves on various issues, these had all inherited from the Reformers the teaching that all humans would be awarded an eternal future stay either in heaven or in hell (a “two-outcome” theology). For this paper I will refer to this group as the “anti-Universalists.” Likewise, early nineteenth-century Universalists, while agreeing on the ultimate salvation of all humans (a “one-outcome” theology), disagreed on other issues with the great majority being classified as either “modern” or “restorationist” Universalists. A central dispute between the two was whether there would (restorationists) or would not (moderns) be punishment for unresolved sin in the future life.[4] Not surprisingly, both the Universalists and their critics held that their own beliefs were the only reasonable interpretation of scripture and echoed the teachings of the early Christian Church.

In this paper I shall review the spectrum of early nineteenth-century American Universalism at the time of the publishing of the Book of Mormon, the responses of some contemporary Christian theologians who opposed Universalism, the early Mormon positions in these disputes as contained in the Book of Mormon, and some contributions of Joseph Smith’s subsequent revelations. I shall argue that (1) the Book of Mormon refutes “modern” Universalism, (2) the Book of Mormon’s treatment of the restorationist doctrines of salvation is ambiguous, and (3) reflections and discussions between Joseph Smith and other early Church members over the issues disputed between Universalists and their opponents resulted in several revelations that progressively defined an official Mormon interpretation of the Book of Mormon and resulted in a novel and complex schema of human salvation that incorporates theological elements of both traditional Protestant Christianity and restorationism.

The Early Nineteenth-Century Picture 

A number of important disputes dominated the American theological landscape in the first third of the nineteenth century. From its publication in 1830, knowledgeable readers noticed that the Book of Mormon seemed to take sides on these issues. For example, in his 1832 critical book review, Mormon opponent Alexander Campbell (1788–1866) noted that the Book of Mormon reproduced “every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years” and “decides all the great controversies.”[5] So what had been discussed in New York during the preceding decade? One of Campbell’s “great controversies,” that of “eternal punishment,” was the chief battle-ground between Universalists and their opponents.

In 1833, the Boston historian of Universalism Thomas Whitte more (1800–1861) observed that Universalism had been in America “about fifty years” and was rapidly increasing in adherents. In New York during the 1820s there were an estimated 150 Universalist societies, several Universalist periodicals, and a large number of additional individuals with Universalist leanings; and it was asserted that Universalism had become the fourth or fifth largest “among the denominations of the land.”[6] Thus New York Presbyterian Pastor Joel Parker (1799–1873) lamented in 1830 that “there is a numerous class of people who hold the doctrine of Universal Salvation” and additional “multitudes who feel powerfully inclined to reject a doctrine of . . . future and eternal punishment.”[7]

Whittemore identified the three principal founders of American Universalism as John Murray (1741–1815), Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797), and Hosea Ballou (1771–1852),[8] each of whom gave rise to distinct movements. Murray was a traditional Calvinist who found the doctrine of Universalism to be the antidote for the ap parent injustice of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, which included the teaching that most people will be condemned to never-ending future punishment through no fault of their own. Conversely, Winchester held that humans will be subject to future punishment precisely because of their own unresolved sins but likewise found never-ending torment to be unjustly harsh. A similar view would subsequently be adopted by the restorationist Universalists, who at the time of the Book of Mormon included Paul Dean (d. 1860) and Charles Hudson (1795–1881).

Although Murray and Winchester agreed with the anti-Universalists on beliefs such as the Trinity, substitutionary atonement, and future punishment, Ballou had radically departed,

denying the traditional Christian doctrines of the full deity of Jesus, the substitutionary atonement, the impurity of the sinful soul after death, and future punishment for sin.

Those who adhered to a similar schema were termed “modern” or “ultra-” Universalists by their opponents. Among the influential modern Universalists in 1830 were Ballou, Walter Balfour (1776– 1852), and Whittemore. Shortly before publishing his results in 1830, Whittemore surveyed “the principal Universalist clergy” in America and found that the great majority agreed with Ballou on future punishment and the deity of Jesus.[9] Not surprisingly, Universalist opponents were particularly alarmed at the modern Universalists' teachings and influence. For example, New York Methodist minister Timothy Merritt (1775–1845) charged that “the modern doctrine of universal salvation . . . lays another foundation [than traditional Christianity]” and constitutes “another gospel” altogether.[10]

Historian Ann Lee Bressler has pointed out that, in the early nineteenth century, Universalists “were most openly and consistently engaged in battle with other religious groups, [and this] was also the period of the denomination’s most rapid growth and greatest overall vitality.”[11] The advances of Universalism were accompanied by a proliferation of publications both supporting and opposing Universalist teachings. These peaked in number about the time the Book of Mormon appeared.[12]

The Universalist Paul Dean identified the two major American Christian theological persuasions that had become Universalism’s principal opponents. Those in the first group held that salvation and the effects of the atonement were available only to the “elect” whom “God . . . determined of his own good pleasure to select . . . for eternal glory . . . without the least reference to works done, or to be done.” This group was the Calvinists. By the early nineteenth century, American Calvinism had splintered into a spectrum of theological points of view (traditional “Old Calvinists,” New Divinity, New Haven theologians, and others) and denominations (Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Reformed). Dean’s second group believed that “salvation is truly and freely offered to all, upon such conditions as they can readily accept or reject . . . and that during . . . the day of probation many will continue willfully to reject the terms of grace and . . . come forever short of [salvation].”[13] These were the Arminians, the most numerous and influential of which were the American Methodists.[14]

Given this tumult, what did the Book of Mormon bring to the American discussion of Universalism? Recent scholars have concluded that the Book of Mormon “decides” the controversies over Universalism by uniformly siding with Universalism’s opponents. For example, Mark Thomas observed that the Book of Mormon “attacks” Universalism,[15] Dan Vogel that “the Book of Mormon . . . explicitly attacked the notion of universal salvation,”[16] Terryl Givens that “the Book of Mormon refuted universal salvation,”[17] Grant Palmer that “there appears to be a specific denouncement” of Universalism,[18] and Richard Bushman that “the Book of Mormon argued against universal salvation.”[19]

In addition, Catholic sociologist of religion Thomas F. O’Dea (1915–1974), who resided in Utah for several years, concluded that “The doctrine of the book [Book of Mormon] is wholeheartedly and completely Arminian.”[20] This observation is important in interpreting the Book of Mormon’s responses to the debates over Universalism. Both the Calvinists and the Methodists produced early nineteenth-century works opposing Universalism, but each chose the arguments that supported their own theological views. Thus, in instances where the two groups differed in approach, examining the specific Methodist/Universalist disagreements is likely to be more productive in elucidating Book of Mormon teachings.

The Early Nineteenth-Century Calvinists, Methodists, and Universalists Debate the Big Question: Who Will Be Saved? And the Book of Mormon Weighs In

Like the anti-Universalists, the Book of Mormon teaches a two-outcome theology of ultimate reward or punishment: “eternal life” vs. “everlasting death,” “heaven” vs. “hell.” Traditional Calvinists believed that God himself had already made the decisions as to who went where, totally independent of human endeavor, so the division of souls in the future life needed no additional theological considerations. But problems presented themselves for the Methodists (and believers in the Book of Mormon and even some progressive Calvinists) who held that, in addition to divine grace, humans must voluntarily choose to accept Jesus during mortality in order to be saved. These had to address such difficult questions as how a just God would handle humans who were seemingly denied the opportunity to choose, e.g., those who died in infancy, or were mentally impaired, or were heathens who had never heard of the Bible. 

To deal with such issues both the Methodists and the authors of Book of Mormon divided humans into the same five groups, each of which required placement into one of the two outcomes. Both agreed that those dying in early childhood (“little children” in the Book of Mormon) are not accountable for personal sin, would be saved from the effects of the fall through the atonement, and would be awarded “eternal life”;[21] we will not deal further with them here.

The four remaining groups are accountable for their future rewards and punishments. The first of these is those who have faith in Jesus during their mortal life as manifested by a “change of heart,” repentance, living moral lives, and remaining committed to the end of mortal life (2 Nephi 31:18; 3 Nephi 15:9). Likewise for Method ism’s founder John Wesley (1703–1791) the “condition of final salvation” is “faith” followed by “holiness.”[22] This group we will term “the faithful.”

The second group is those, including the “Heathens,” who do not have an opportunity to learn about Jesus. These are “the untaught” (2 Nephi 9:26; Mosiah 3:11, 15:24). Wesley observed that “enlightened Heathens in the ancient world” and “the most intelligent Heathens that are now on the face of the earth” are “totally ignorant . . . [of] those [things] which relate to the eternal Son of God.”[23]

The third group is those who are taught but then reject the gos pel message throughout the remainder of their mortal lives, thus failing to show the requisite faith in Jesus and to conform their lives accordingly (Mosiah 3:12; Alma 12:16, 32). Wesley taught that “God did from the beginning decree to reprobate all who should obstinately and finally continue in unbelief” but condemned the Calvinist doctrine of the “absolute, unconditional” reprobation.[24] We will term these “the unrepentant.” 

Lastly are those who are truly converted by the Holy Ghost and then knowingly seek to undermine Christian progress by teaching falsehoods. These have committed the “unpardonable” sin and, unlike the unrepentant, cannot repent and be freed from liability for future punishment during the remainder of their mortal lifetimes (Jacob 7:19; Alma 39:6). These are “the unpardonable.” Referring to Matthew 12:31–32, Wesley noted that “it is plain, if we have been guilty of this [unpardonable] sin, there is no room for mercy.”[25] In the early nineteenth-century Methodist Book of Discipline the unrepentant and the unpardonable were clearly distinguished: “Not every sin willingly committed after justification, is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore, the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after justification . . . [providing they] truly repent.”[26]

The authors of the Book of Mormon agreed with the Methodists and Universalists on the salvation of the faithful who, according to the Book of Mormon, will be awarded “eternal life” (3 Nephi 15:9; Mosiah 15:25). However, they sided with the Methodists against the Universalists in affirming the everlasting punishment of the unrepentant and the unpardonable. As New York Methodist Timothy Merritt explained, those who give in “to the will of the devil, are condemned by the law of God . . . and heirs of everlasting punishment.”[27] Likewise, the Book of Mormon states that the unrepentant who “die in their sins” and the unpardonable are respectively destined for “everlasting destruction” and “eternal punishment” (Alma 12:16–17; Jacob 7:18–19). 

Conversely, the Book of Mormon and the Universalists agreed against the Methodists in affirming the universal salvation of the untaught. For the Methodists, the untaught will be accountable for their conduct and justly subject to future eternal punishment. Thus, referring to Paul’s teaching (Romans 2:14–15), Methodist theologian Richard Watson (1781–1833) concluded that although the heathen had “received no revealed law,” they had the law “written in their hearts” and “consciences,” and, thus, “we are bound to admit the accountability of all.”[28] Since the untaught were accountable and had not fulfilled the conditions for salvation during mortal life, they were not eligible for salvation. As Methodist Timothy Merritt insisted: “Salvation is offered to sinners upon conditions [faith, repentance, etc.] . . . [if] those conditions . . . are not performed by man during the present life, he cannot be saved, but must suffer a future, everlasting punishment.” And Methodist Luther Lee (1800–1883) agreed: “all who do not repent and obtain salvation, within the limits of this probationary state, must be forever lost.”[29] But the seeming injustice of consigning even the more morally upright un taught to eternal damnation weighed on the minds of some Methodists. For example, Wesley argued that “nor do I conceive that any man living has a right to sentence all the heathen and Mahometan [sic] world to damnation” and Richard Watson left open the possibility of salvation for a minority of heathens who obeyed the law as they knew it.[30]

To the contrary, the Universalists argued that all the untaught will be saved. To condemn the heathen, as the Methodists had done, seemed to Universalist Paul Dean both irrational and unjust: 

The limitation of all means and methods of grace to the narrow span of this life . . . is opposed to reason and equity. . . . Think what vast numbers of the heathen have lived and passed off the stage of life, without ever hearing so much as the name of Jesus. . . . Shall we at once turn all these to destruction without even the possibility of escape? How much more reasonable is it for us to believe that Christ . . . will continue to use with all his creatures, in all conditions, the most appropriate means for their reformation.”[31]

The authors of the Book of Mormon agree with the Universalists that all of the untaught will be saved. Thus, all humans who die “in their ignorance, not having salvation declared unto them” will “have eternal life, being redeemed by the Lord” (Mosiah 15:24). 

Thus, Book of Mormon teaching agrees fully with neither the Universalists nor the Methodists but puts forward a novel and complex schema that includes some features of each.

The Book of Mormon and the Early Nineteenth-Century Debates over Universalism 

The authors of the Book of Mormon side with the opponents of the modern Universalists 

As already noted above, at the time the Book of Mormon appeared, a number of mainline Christian clergy, including those in New York, were publishing works critical of modern Universalism. For example, New York Anglican rector Adam Empie (1785–1860) noted that “Universalists of the present day . . . [reject] what the Chris tian Church has always received and revered as the peculiar, distinguishing, and most essential doctrines of the Gospel.”[32] New York Presbyterian pastor Edwin F. Hatfi eld (1807–1883) listed the doctrines in which modern Universalists were heterodox. Hatfield included among these the rejection of the full deity of Jesus, human depravity, and vicarious atonement.[33] In these three disagreements the authors of the Book of Mormon clearly support the opponents of modern Universalism (for examples, see Book of Mormon Title Page, Ether 3:2, and Helaman 5:9, respectively). But there is a caution to this conclusion because similar positions to the modern Universalists on these issues were also held by the early nineteenth-century liberal New England Unitarians. Thus, from an examination of these issues alone we cannot be sure that the Book of Mormon objections were specifically aimed at the modern Universalists. To show this we must look more closely at some disputes between the modern Universalists and the Unitarians.

Although agreeing on some issues, the early nineteenth-century modern Universalists and Unitarians were quite distinct even though the Universalists would see themselves “in a grand liberal alliance” with the Unitarians later in the century.[34] As Ann Lee Bressler has emphasized, the two descended from different theological pedigrees, and the better-educated Unitarians were (like the writers of the Book of Mormon) much more Arminian in outlook.[35] To show that the Book of Mormon was aimed at modern Universal ism, I will examine the Book of Mormon positions on two issues on which the Unitarians and the anti-Universalists agreed against the modern Universalists. For the contemporary Unitarian positions, I turn to William E. Channing (1780–1842), Unitarianism’s most influential early nineteenth-century spokesman. 

Issue 1. Is there punishment for sin in the future life? 

Modern Universalists held that all punishment for sin is confined to mortal life. In the celebrated 1817 exchange between Ballou and his friend, restorationist Edward Turner (1776–1853), Ballou argued that there is no need for punishment in the future life because sin is confined to the physical body and, therefore, “death, by dissolving the body of sin, fits the soul for the kingdom of heaven”[36] Walter Balfour felt that the doctrine was not only rational but scriptural: “limited punishment after death, could no more be defended from the Bible, than endless punishment.”[37] Congregation al pastor Joel Hawes (1789–1867) was critical of such Universalist belief noting that “by far the greater part of them deny all punishment in the future world, and suppose that every man receives the due reward of his offences in the present life.”[38] Likewise referring to modern Universalists, Channing noted, “It is maintained by some among us that punishment is confined to the present state. . . . To my mind, a more irrational doctrine was never broached.”[39] The Book of Mormon clearly teaches a doctrine of future punishment for the wicked. Thus a human who “dieth in his sins, the same drinketh damnation to his own soul; for he receiveth for his wages an everlasting punishment” (Mosiah 2:33).

Another pertinent passage is the conversation between the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi and his two disobedient older brothers. After Nephi discourses on “that awful hell which . . . was prepared for the wicked,” his brothers ask, “Doth this thing mean the torment of the body in the days of probation, or doth it mean the final state of the soul after the death of the temporal body?” Nephi then explains the consignment of the unrepentant to “that awful hell” as the “final state of the souls of men” (1 Nephi 15:26–36), clearly siding with the opponents of modern Universalism.

Issue 2. Is the human soul freed from sin and moral evil after death?

Hosea Ballou had concluded that all “sin and evil” are caused by and limited to “flesh and blood,” and cannot “extend beyond these.”[40] Methodist Luther Lee disagreed: “The scriptures teach that men will possess the same moral character in a future state, with which they leave this. . . . If sin attached itself to the body only, it might be contended that it dies with the body; but having its seat in the soul, it will live with it when the body dies. Death cannot destroy sin.”[41] Channing leveled a similar criticism: “It is maintained by some among us . . . that in changing worlds we shall change our characters; that moral evil is to be buried with the body in the grave. . . .”[42] Rather Channing insisted that “one and only one evil can be carried from this world to the next and that is . . . moral evil . . . ungoverned passion, the depraved mind.”[43]

The Book of Mormon also refutes the modern Universalist doctrine that at death the soul is freed from the effects of sin. For example, the prophet Amulek held that those who are taught the gospel but “procrastinate” their repentance until death will face an “awful crisis” because “that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life . . . will have power to possess your body in that eternal world” (Alma 34:33–34).

The Book of Mormon Sides with the Restorationist Universalists in Their Disputes with Modern Universalists

Between 1827 and 1829, restorationist Charles Hudson and modern Universalist Walter Balfour published a series of works detailing the areas of dispute between the two.[44] Balfour noted that the two disagreed over three interrelated “principle questions:” “Is the soul immortal? Is there an intermediate state of existence? And is the immortal soul to be punished in this state?”[45] To each question Balfour answered in the negative and Hudson in the affirmative. It should be noted that many but not all modern Universalists of the time agreed with Balfour on the question of the soul’s immortality. Regarding this issue, Balfour held that “the Bible does not teach the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, or its existence in a disembodied state, but [these ideas] are relics of heathenism.” Hudson disagreed: “It appears both from scripture and reason, that men will retain their consciousness after death; they will be the same individuals there they were here.”[46]

In each of these questions the Book of Mormon agrees with the restorationists against Balfour. As examples, the Book of Mormon prophet Alma pointed out that “the soul could never die,” and “concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection . . . as soon as they are departed from this mortal body . . . the spirits of the wicked . . . [are received into a] state of misery” which lasts “until the time of their resurrection” (Alma 42:9, 40:11–15). The anti-Uni versalists also agreed with the restorationists on these issues.[47]

In the Disputes between the Anti-Universalists and Restorationists, the Book of Mormon Consistently Sides with Neither

We have already seen evidence for this conclusion in the Book of Mormon handling of the outcomes of the five groups. Below are two additional examples. 

Example 1. Is hell a place? 

Dean noted that “It has been a question whether the punishment of the wicked . . . will be produced by the place occupied by the sufferer . . . [or] from his character.”[48] For early nineteenth-century anti-Universalists, as with their Reformer predecessors, hell is a place in which the inmates, who are forced there involuntarily, experience everlasting torment. Thus Presbyterian Pastor Joel Park er (1799–1873) observed that hell is “a place for the punishment of the wicked in a future state” and Methodist Richard Watson that hell is “the place of torment reserved for the punishment of the wicked in a future state.”[49] Conversely, restorationists held that hell is nothing more than a state of mind. For example, Charles Hudson pointed out that “We do not believe that men will be consigned to any particular place of punishment, as such; but that the punishment will arise from their own unholy feelings and disturbed minds. The remorse of conscience will be the punishment, and hell will be found within them.” Similarly, Dean believed that “hell is a state or condition of sinners in a future world, rather than a place . . . [T]he punishment of sinners will consist . . . in a sense of shame, regret, remorse, and fear, inflicted by the righteous Judge of all, upon the awakened conscience.”[50]

The Book of Mormon seems to endorse both alternatives. Thus the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi echoes Revelation 14:10, 19:20, and 20:15 and the anti-Universalists when he states that the wicked “must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment” (2 Nephi 28:22–23). Conversely, King Benjamin observed that in the future life the wicked would be “consigned to an awful view of their own guilt and abominations, which doth cause them to shrink from the presence of the Lord into a state of misery and endless torment.” (Mosiah 3:24–27). And if hell is a state of mind, then it might also be experienced in mortality and not necessarily for an eternal duration. Thus during his conversion Alma recalled that “my soul was racked with eternal torment” (Mosiah 27:29). 

Example 2. Will the unrepentant have a second chance in the future life?

In this question the anti-Universalists were united in the negative and the restorationists in the affirmative. Methodist Luther Lee argued that “nothing can be more clear than that the gospel offers salvation in the present tense.”[51] Conversely, restorationist Charles Hudson insisted that: “Those who die impenitent will, after death, enter into a state of misery, consisting of anxiety, guilt, and remorse, which will continue until repentance [and salvation].”[52]

The Book of Mormon does not contain a doctrine of repentance and salvation in the future life for the unrepentant, but rather seems to lean toward the anti-Universalist position:

This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God . . . the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors . . . after this day of life . . . if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed. Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God . . . for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world . . . [T]he devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked (Alma 34:32–35). 

However, it is worth noting in this passage that the reason the unrepentant cannot be redeemed is not the irreversible justice of God, as many anti-Universalists maintained, but that the soul of the unrepentant is incapable of change. But are all the unrepentant the same? Could those who had not repented because they had been deceived still be capable of change in the future life with the right education? As we shall see below, this issue would arise again and be addressed in the 1832 revelation known as “the Vision.”

Subsequent Revelations Address Problems of Justice the Book of Mormon Leaves Unresolved 

Yale theologian George Lindbeck (1923– ) has pointed out that “for the most part, only when disputes arise about what it is permissible to teach or practice does a community make up its collective mind and formally make a doctrinal decision.”[53] In the following I propose that such disputes arose in the early Church over the issues of divine justice and Book of Mormon interpretation in the background context of the debates over Universalism. Early nineteenth-century theologians all agreed that there is divine justice and sought to show that their systems were most compatible with this tenet. As Presbyterian Joel Parker noted: “We receive it as an axiom in religion, that God is just.”[54] Very early Church members had come to the new faith from a variety of previous theological persuasions including Calvinism (the Whitmers, Hyrum Smith), Method ism (Joseph Smith, Emma Smith), and restorationist Universalism (Martin Harris, Joseph Knight). Thus, it would not be surprising if differences of opinion arose. Some of these issues were brought to Joseph Smith for divine resolution, initiating seminal revelations that clarified and expanded the doctrines of the Book of Mormon. We may discern three major steps in this process.

Step 1: “Eternal torment” does not necessarily mean never-ending punishment 

The idea that future punishment may be limited in duration ex tends at least as far back as the great church father Origen (184–253) and was found in the late medieval church as the doctrine of Purgatory. Subsequently such doctrines were rejected by the Reformers but resurrected by the restorationists. In approximately March of 1830, the same month the Book of Mormon appeared in print, it appears that a group of individuals approached Joseph Smith with the question of whether the biblical phrase “eternal damnation” (Mark 3:29) and the Book of Mormon phrase “endless torment” imply a never-ending duration. In the resulting revelation[55] the Lord answered: “Nevertheless, it is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment. Again, it is written eternal damnation. . . . Endless punishment is God’s punishment . . . for Endless is my [God’s] name.” (D&C 19:6–7, 10–12). 

This restorationist-sounding interpretation of the Bible and Book of Mormon was accompanied by additional arguments addressing other criticisms of early nineteenth-century opponents of restorationist Universalism. For example, the anti-Universalists had reasoned that God would not have allowed such words as “eternal” and “everlasting” to be used in scripture if they did not mean never-ending. Dean had responded that the purpose of such radical phrases was simply to scare humans into obedience by producing “an apprehension of being judged.”[56] The revelation adopts a similar position: “Wherefore it is more express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men” (verse 7). Also, the anti-Universalists had charged that a doctrine of limited punishment encourages sin. Dean had countered that limited punishment could provide the necessary deterrence, but only if it was sufficiently severe.[57] The revelation notes: “But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain” (verses 17–18; note that Jesus’s suffering was both limited and severe).

Although the revelation remained ambiguous on the question of whether some wicked humans might still suffer a never-ending punishment, some of Smith’s followers apparently were stressing a thoroughly restorationist interpretation. This error necessitated a strong statement to the contrary in a revelation the following September: “Never at any time have I declared from mine own mouth that they should return, for where I am they cannot come. . . . But remember that all my judgments are not given unto men.”[58] By now it was becoming apparent that the Mormon solution to these problems was going to be complex, and more revelation would be needed. 

Step 2: Subdividing the Book of Mormon outcomes of “eternal life” and “everlasting destruction”: A solution to the four accountable groups/ two-outcomes problem of divine justice.

The idea that everyone destined for eternal life (heaven) will receive an equal outcome has long been questioned in Christian history. Multiple levels of heaven were described by late medieval poets and visionary mystics. Such views were generally rejected by the Reformers, who regarded the question as secondary, although they did not completely reject the idea of different rewards.[59] Later, the renowned Reformed theologian Francis Turretin (1623–1687), whose comprehensive Institutes of Elenctic Theology was used in early nineteenth-century American Calvinist seminaries, traced the dispute at least as far back as Jerome (c. 347–420) who asserted “an in equality of glory from the inequality of merit.” Being a good Calvin ist, Turretin did not agree with Jerome regarding a contribution of human merit to salvation but did agree that there must be “degrees of glory” in heaven based on 1 Corinthians 15:41–42.[60]

In early 1831 Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon were engaged in revising the New Testament. It appears that as they came to certain key passages needing correction they received revelations clarifying and expanding on the passage in question. Several of these revelations were combined into “The Vision.”[61] One was received during the revision of 1 Corinthians 15:40–41, a passage on the resurrection that differentiates between celestial and terrestrial bodies and between the “glory” of the sun, moon, and stars. 

The Book of Mormon had created an apparent problem of divine justice by awarding “eternal life” to both the faithful and un taught. This outcome for the latter seems in obvious tension with its own textual (and anti-Universalist) assertion that only those truly believing in Jesus and being baptized during mortal life will be eligible for salvation (2 Nephi 31:18, 33:4), suggesting that the two groups do not justly deserve the same outcome. The Vision address es this problem by interpreting 1 Corinthians 15:40 as describing two subdivisions of the Book of Mormon outcome of “eternal life”: a superior world composed of individuals with “bodies celestial” (the faithful) and an inferior world of “bodies terrestrial” for the untaught, i.e., “[those] who died without law” (verse 72).[62]

Analogous to the history of arguments about heaven, the idea that the heterogeneous subgroups of humans consigned to hell will receive the same punishment has long been challenged. Christian works, apocryphal and otherwise, extending to at least the second century C. E. speculated on the subject. A famous example is Dante’s fourteenth-century Inferno, which describes nine levels of hell, the outer portion of which is inhabited by virtuous unbaptized individuals who, unlike the others, receive no punishment.[63] The Book of Mormon again created an apparent problem of divine justice by assigning both the unrepentant and the unpardonable to the same outcome of eternal torment. The Vision addressed this not by conigning to differing subdivisions of hell but to different durations in hell. Thus, in the Book of Mormon, “eternal torment” of the unpardonable is a never-ending stay in hell as the anti-Universalists had proclaimed (verses 32–38), but that of the unrepentant is a limited duration as the restorationists taught (verses 83–85). It should be noted that this clarified the ambiguity of the March 1830 revelation.

However, this unique treatment of the unrepentant created another problem. Where are the unrepentant to go after they had concluded their limited punishment? Certainly they are no longer required to reside in hell, but neither do they seem to qualify for eternal life. The Vision solved this problem by interpreting the three glories (1 Cor. 15:41) as three “worlds” in the future life: the glory of the sun (celestial world) for the faithful who have bodies celestial, the glory of the moon (terrestrial world) for the untaught who have bodies terrestrial, and the glory of the stars. In order to make the two types of bodies mentioned in verse 40 correspond to the three glories mentioned in verse 41, Joseph Smith modified verse 40 by adding “bodies telestial,” a neologism. According to the Vision, those with bodies telestial correspond with the glory of the stars and reside in the telestial world, which was between those of eternal life and hell. Although technically residing in the kingdom of God, these were not allowed to see His face, as the revelation of September 1830 had stated.

Step 3: Heterogeneity within the Book of Mormon groups: Addressing additional problems of divine justice 

Subdividing the Unrepentant 

Expanding the number of outcomes to four to eliminate the difficulty of consigning heterogeneous groups to the same outcome did not solve all the problems of divine justice. Additional questions arose regarding heterogeneity within the four accountable groups discussed above. The first group addressed was the unrepentant. These were divided into those who knowingly chose and preferred sinning during mortal life and those who were unknowingly deceived, the “honorable men of the earth, who were blinded by the craftiness of men” (verse 75). Divine justice would reasonably require different outcomes. As we have seen, the restorationists had taught that all of the unrepentant would have a second chance to accept the gospel in the future life and all would accept. The Method ists restricted acceptance to mortal life but emphasized the voluntary nature of salvation, meaning that only some would accept. This issue was resolved in the Vision by including portions of each view into a unique synthesis. All unrepentant would be given a second chance to gain “the testimony of Jesus” in the future life but acceptance would be voluntary. Those who would accept would be those who had been deceived, the only subgroup capable of change, and these would be promoted to the terrestrial world (verses 73–75). This subgroup was a new development not considered in the Book of Mormon. Those knowingly preferring sin would, as the Book of Mormon had proclaimed, retain the same spirit, not accept, and remain in the telestial world (verse 82). 

Subdividing the Untaught 

Some time subsequent to the Vision, the question of the just treatment of subsets of the untaught would also arise. As we have seen, Methodist theologian Richard Watson struggled with this issue, ultimately hypothesizing that perhaps those heathens who lived honorable lives might somehow be considered for salvation. But for Watson, who believed that faith and holiness in mortality were necessary for salvation, and who lacked the restorationist concept of rescue in the future life, it was problematic “by what means repentance, and faith, and righteousness, would be . . . wrought in them, as that they shall become acceptable to God.”[64]

The Vision created a somewhat similar problem by consigning, without exception, the untaught to an inferior portion of “eternal life.” Again, the solution included elements of the Methodists, who taught that people must voluntarily accept the gospel in mortal life in order to be saved, and the restorationists, who insisted that the untaught would be saved in the future life. In January 1836, Joseph Smith recorded another vision in his journal. Smith was surprised to see his untaught brother Alvin, who had died before conversion to Mormonism and baptism, in the celestial world—seemingly against the schema of the Vision. He then learned that “all who have died with[out][65] a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it, if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial Kingdom of God.” That this change was meant to resolve a problem of divine justice is evident from the statement that follows: “for I the Lord judge all men according to their works according to the desires of their hearts.”[66] The importance of this unique synthesis for subsequent Mormon teaching and practice cannot be overemphasized. For if some of the untaught can merit the same ultimate outcome as the faithful, then Mormonism was left with the same problem as Watson: what of the scriptural requirements for faith, baptism, etc.? This new doctrine would form the theological foundation for the subsequent Mormon practices of work for the dead.

Subdividing the Faithful? Maybe 

There may also have been subsets of the faithful defined in the Vision, although this is less clear. The Vision stated that those “who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus” are consigned to the terrestrial world and forfeit “the crown over the kingdom of our God” (D&C 76:79). Given the state of doctrinal development at the time the Vision was published, this passage could conceivably have referred to (1) the initially faithful who forfeit the crown by failing to endure to the end of mortal life but do not qualify as unpardonable or (2) the unrepentant who forfeit the crown by not accepting the gospel in mortal life but do accept it in the future life. Although some commentators have suggested the latter option,[67] the former interpretation seems to be the more popular, undoubtedly in part because of its utility in Mormon preaching to Church members.[68] Such a teaching would have been pertinent for a number of early members who, through persecution and other problems, were no longer actively supporting and/or had abandoned the fledgling Church. 

Conclusions 

The Book of Mormon’s relation to Universalism is complex. From one perspective, the book could be placed alongside a number of works critical of the modern Universalists that appeared in the 1820s and ’30s before modern Universalism went into decline. But the Book of Mormon and the revelations Joseph Smith received are more than this since their authors also seem interested in resolving the early nineteenth-century anti-Universalism/Universalism controversies, especially those between the Methodists (Arminians) and the restorationist Universalists. In this regard, the Book of Mormon is best seen as the initial step of an ongoing process of attempting to solve a number of problems of divine fairness. Contrary to the idea that the Book of Mormon is pure Arminianism (Methodism), this work had already moved in the direction of the restorationists, as the teachings on the untaught, hell, and others demonstrate. The subsequent revelations continued the process, consistent with an ongoing dialogue with contemporaries and the Mormon claim to continuing revelation. Thus, the subsequent revelations are probably best interpreted as carrying the Book of Mormon innovations to their logical conclusions rather than abrupt reversals of doctrine. 

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 534–40.

[2] D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987), 173.

[3] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 200. 

[4] The dispute between modern and restorationist Universalists (the “restorationist controversy”) was at its height at the time the Book of Mormon was published; for a history of the major participants and issues, see Richard Eddy, Universalism in America, A History, 2 vols. (Boston: Universal ist Publishing House, 1894), 2:260–342. 

[5] Alexander Campbell, “The Mormonites,” Millennial Harbinger 2 (January 1831): 93.

[6] Thomas Whittemore, “State of the Doctrine and Denomination of Universalists,” The Expositor and Universalist Review 1 (January 1833): 61; L. S. Everett, The Life of Rev. John Murray, Late Minister of the Reconciliation, and Senior Pastor of the Universalists, Congregated in Boston (Boston: Marsh, Capen and Lyon, 1837), 272. 

[7] Joel Parker, Lectures on Universalism (Rochester, N.Y.: Elisha Loomis, 1830), 8.

[8] Thomas Whittemore, The Modern History of Universalism from the Era of the Reformation to the Present Time (Boston: 1830), 431–33.

[9] Whittemore, History of Universalism, 439–41. 

[10] Timothy Merritt, A Discussion on Universal Salvation in Three Lectures and Five Answers Against That Doctrine (New York: B. Wauch and T. Mason, 1832), 11. 

[11] Ann Lee Bressler, The Universalist Movement in America, 1770–1880 (New York: Oxford, 2001), 54. 

[12] Ibid., 55. 

[13] Paul Dean, Course of Lectures in Defence of the Final Restoration (Boston: Edwin M. Stone, 1832), 30, 43.

[14] For a discussion of some of the early nineteenth-century Calvinist/ Arminian disputes and the Book of Mormon see Clyde D. Ford, “Lehi on the Great Issues: Book of Mormon Theology in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38 (Winter 2005): 75–96. In 1830 the rapidly growing American Methodist churches were estimated to have a half-million members. See David Hampton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven: Yale University, 2005), 212. 

[15] Mark Thomas, “Revival Language in the Book of Mormon,” Sun stone 8 (May-June 1983): 20. 

[16] Dan Vogel, “Anti-Universalist Rhetoric in the Book of Mormon” in Brent Lee Metcalfe, ed., New Approaches to the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 47. 

[17] Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (Oxford: Oxford University, 2002), 187.

[18] Grant H. Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 128. 

[19] Bushman, Joseph Smith, 199.

[20] Thomas F. O’Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1957), 28. 

[21] Mosiah 15:25; Moroni 8:8–22. For the Methodist view, see Richard Watson, Theological Institutes: or, a View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity (1823–1829). Reprinted in 2 vols. (New York: Lane & Scott, 1850), 2:344–5. 

[22] John Wesley, “A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” in The Works of John Wesley, 14 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958), 8:68. 

[23] Wesley, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” in Works, 6:506.

[24] Wesley, “A Dialogue between a Predestinarian and His Friend,” in Works, 10:266.

[25] Wesley, “A Call to Backsliders,” in Works, 6:523. 

[26] The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2:12.

[27] Merritt, Universal Salvation, 38. 

[28] Watson, Institutes, 2:446. 

[29] Merritt, Universal Salvation, 36; Luther Lee, Universalism Examined and Refuted (Watertown, N.Y.: Knowlton & Rice, 1836), 230.

[30] Wesley, “On Living without God,” in Works, 7:353; Watson, Institutes, 2:445. 

[31] Dean, Lectures, 51. 

[32] Adam Empie, Remarks on the Distinguishing Doctrine of Modern Universalism (New York: T. and J. Swords, 1825), 14. 

[33] Edwin F. Hatfield, Universalism as It Is or Textbook of Modern Universalism in America (New York: J. A. Hoisington, 1841).

[34] Bressler, Universalist Movement, 146. 

[35] Ibid., 5–6.

[36] Hosea Ballou, The Gospel Visitant 2 (no. 1) (April 1817): 187.

[37] Walter Balfour, Three Essays on the Intermediate State of the Dead, the Resurrection from the Dead, and the Greek Terms Rendered Judge, Judgment, Condemned, Condemnation, Damned, Damnation, &c. in the New Testament with Remarks on Mr. Hudson’s Letters in Vindication of a Future Retribution, Addressed to Mr. Hosea Ballou, of Boston (Charlestown, Mass.: G. Davidson, 1828), ix.

[38] Joel Hawes, Reasons for Not Embracing the Doctrine of Universal Salvation (New York: American Tract Society, 1833), 76. 

[39] William E. Channing, “The Evil of Sin,” in The Works of William E. Channing, D.D. (Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1882), 350.

[40] Hosea Ballou, “Lecture Sermon on Hebrews 2:14–15” in Lecture Sermons (Boston: Henry Bowen, 1818), 237.

[41] Lee, Universalism Examined, 157–58. 

[42] Channing, “The Evil of Sin,” 350. 

[43] Ibid., 353. 

[44] Charles Hudson, A Series of Letters Addressed to Rev. Hosea Ballou, of Boston, Being a Vindication of the Doctrine of a Future Retribution, against the Principal Arguments Used by Him, Mr. Balfour, and Others (Woodstock, Vt.: David Watson, 1827); Walter Balfour, Three Essays; Charles Hudson, A Reply to Mr. Balfour’s Essays: Touching the State of the Dead and a Future Retribution (Woodstock, Vt.: David Watson, 1829); Walter Balfour, Letters on the Immortality of the Soul, the Intermediate State of the Dead and a Future Retribution in Reply to Mr. Charles Hudson (Charlestown, Mass.: G. Davidson, 1829).

[45] Balfour, Letters on the Immortality of the Soul, 1. 

[46] Balfour, Three Essays, 109; Hudson, Series of Letters, 93.

[47] For example, see Watson, Institutes, 2:458–59.

[48] Dean, Lectures, 61. 

[49] Joel Parker, Lectures on Universalism (Rochester, N.Y.: Elisha Loom is, 1830), 18; Richard Watson, A Biblical and Theological Dictionary (New York: T. Mason and G. Lane, 1837), 446. 

[50] Hudson, Letters, 94; Dean, Lectures, 62.

[51] Lee, Universalism Examined, 251.

[52] Hudson, Letters, 91. 

[53] George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1984), 75. 

[54] Parker, Lectures, 88. 

[55] Section 19 in the current edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. Like several other revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 19 appears to be a combination of two originally separate communications placed back to back, comprising verses 1–24 and 25–41. The first, which is of primary concern here, was directed to a group of individuals (see verse 9); the second to Martin Harris.

[56] Dean, Lectures, 65–66. 

[57] Ibid., 101.

[58] Doctrine and Covenants 29:27–29. 

[59] Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang, Heaven: A History (New Haven: Yale University, 1988), 69–156.

[60] Turretin discusses the questions “Will there be degrees of glory? And will the glory in heaven be equal or unequal and unlike?” in Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 vols. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Publishing, 1997), 3:621–30. 

[61] The earliest surviving versions of The Vision were recorded in the “Kirtland Revelation Book” by Frederick G. Williams in early 1832 and in the “Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord” in Missouri by John Whitmer. The originals may be viewed in Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations, Manuscript Revelation Books (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2009), 243–55, 415–33. An edited version appears as Doctrine and Covenants Section 76. A more detailed discussion of the literary history of The Vision is beyond the scope of this article but will be the subject of a subsequent study. 

[62] Further evidence of this division of “eternal life” into two ultimate outcomes can be seen in the need to clarify the future status of infants who die. The Book of Mormon consigns these to “eternal life,” but would they join the faithful or the untaught in the future life? In 1836 it was revealed to Joseph that these would go to the celestial world. See Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008), 168 and Doctrine and Covenants 137:10. 

[63] See Alice K. Turner, The History of Hell (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993), 83–88, 133–44. 

[64] Watson, Institutes, 2:445. 

[65] This vision was recorded in Joseph’s journal by Warren Parrish (1803–77) on January 21, 1836. Parish wrote “with,” undoubtedly a scribal error for “without.” The original may be viewed at josephsmithpapers.org, accessed March 8, 2014.

[66] See Jessee, Ashurst-McGee, and Jensen, Journals Volume 1, 168. This revelation was added to the Doctrine and Covenants in edited form in 1976 as Section 137.

[67] Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People (New York: Random House, 2012), 33; Stephen E. Robinson and H. Dean Garrett, A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 2:318. The latter suggests both interpretations as legitimate possibilities.

[68] For examples see Sidney B. Sperry, Doctrine and Covenants Compendium (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1960), 353; Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 820; and Roy W. Doxey, The Doctrine & Covenants Speaks, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), 2:26.

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Having been witnesses to the perpetual collapse of their buildings, their political systems, their churches—indeed of their entire civilization—the writers of the Book of Mormon might well have been peculiarly preoccupied with the collapse of structure, be it politically, institutionally, and even linguistically. In this paper, I argue that this preoccupation with structural collapse legitimizes a critical consideration of the way that language functions in the book, rendering the Book of Mormon particularly well-suited to a reading that employs the techniques of post-structural criticism. Let me be clear that when I suggest a post-structural approach to the Book of Mormon, I do not propose that the Book of Mormon is it self claiming to be a post-structural text; such a claim would of course be a hopeless anachronism, given the 1,600 years from Moroni to Derrida. Rather, what I suggest is that elements of con temporary post-structuralist thought may help to illuminate certain of the literary moves made in the Book of Mormon text. Specifically, I argue that the Book of Mormon’s text participates in its own self-deconstruction, systematically undermining the reader’s confidence in the text while also engaging in what Derrida termed “freeplay” with words (i.e., their meaning shifts with context), all so as to ensure that faith is exercised in the referent, not the signifiers. 

I must first risk summarizing the barest basics of structuralist and post-structuralist discourse. The body of thought that has come to be called “structuralism” originated in the early twentieth-century work of Ferdinand Saussure, who wrote that the relationship between the signifier and the referent is purely arbitrary—whether we call a tree “a tree,” “un arbor,” or “ein Baum,” the word, or “signifier,” does not itself somehow contain the essence of tree-ness. In Saussure’s own words, “The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound image.”[1] That is, it is only the concept of a tree, not the tree itself, that our minds encapsulate—there are no little trees growing in our brains when we hear the signifier “tree.” In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida raised the stakes by stating not only that words have no intrinsic relation to the thing they represent, but also that words themselves have no fixed meaning, or “transcendental signifier,” that can ground the rest of language: “The absence of the transcendental signifier extends the domain and the interplay of signification ad infinitum.”[2] That is, because words can only be defined tautologically by other words with similarly non-fixed and slippery meanings, all words are inherently tautological and unreliable. Derrida’s ideas help inform the discourse we generally (and provisionally) la bel as post-structuralism, since he posits that the structure of language ultimately collapses on itself. Every text, then, is inherently unstable, slippery, and in “freeplay,” that is, open to re-signification through ever-shifting re-contextualization. 

The early Christians understood language’s slipperiness. Paul for example declared that “the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20), implying that words are mere representations, not purveyors, of the power they signify. No power is contained in words, just as no “tree-ness” is contained in the mere signifier “tree.” One does not learn what salt tastes like from hearing the word “salt,” but only from tasting salt. We can understand Paul’s declaration, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7) as a tautology: since we are unable to bypass the senses, we must perforce exercise faith that there is an external reality with which our poor senses interact and then, lamely, communicate to our brains. Yet still we must rely on our senses and sensation, since they are all we have. We cannot escape the mediation of our senses. The Book of Mormon also describes faith in terms that de pend on sensation. Alma, for example, describes the “seed of faith” as something that “will begin to swell within your breasts . . . you feel these swelling motions . . . it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. . . . O then, is not this real?” (Alma 32:28, 35, emphasis added). Swelling, feeling, enlarging, deliciousness— Alma creates a constant appeal to the senses, for what else do we have but sensation to determine whether something is real? Paul calls the Holy Ghost “the unspeakable gift” for the simple reason that no mere sound-waves contain the referent. Consequently, our testimonies, such as they are, are not reliant on unreliable language for determining their veracity, but on feeling itself—just like everything else. If LDS testimony meetings often come off as clichéd and platitude-ridden, it’s because the words we often use cannot hope to contain the experiences we wish to (and are unable to) communicate. Mormons often feel the inadequacy of words more keenly at the microphone than anywhere else. 

Likewise, the near constant lament of the Book of Mormon’s writers is that language is inherently inadequate and unreliable. Over and over, the Nephite writers assure us that their words can not communicate even “a hundredth part” (3 Ne. 26:6; WoM 1:5; 3 Ne. 5:8; Jacob 3:13; Ether 15:33; Hel. 3:14) of their record. Repeatedly throughout the Book of Mormon, people hear a “voice and . . . understand not” (3 Nephi 11:4), are “baptized with fire, and . . . know it not” (3 Nephi 9:20) and “hear it not” (Moroni 2:3). Words cannot hope to communicate the referents they represent without a prior experience to reference. “O that I were an angel,” exclaims Alma, “that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth” (Alma 29:1) for his frustration is that shaking the earth is one thing his words can’t do; when the angel shook the earth at the time of Alma’s own conversion, the power derived from a source that accompanied his words but, was not part of them, for there is no intrinsic relationship between words and power. “Neither am I mighty in writing,” cries Nephi, “for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men” (2 Nephi 33:1), implying that signifiers carved into plates do not in and of themselves intrinsically communicate the Spirit. Moroni himself likewise laments 

our weakness in writing; for Lord thou hast made us mighty in word by faith, but thou hast not made us mighty in writing; for thou hast made all this people that they could speak much, be cause of the Holy Ghost which thou hast given them; And thou hast made us that we could write but little, because of the awkwardness of our hands . . . Thou hast also made our words powerful and great, even that we cannot write them (Ether 12:23–25). 

Moroni’s lament about the inadequacy of writing, as compared to speech that is mediated between speaker and hearer by God’s Spirit, recognizes implicitly that words as a collection of symbols on a page (or a metal plate) have only an arbitrary and incidental correspondence to the referent; words about God do not contain power to create a relationship with God, apart from the wordlessly direct influence of God’s spirit that conveys meaning between speaker and hearer. Joseph Smith believed that the things God reveals to us “are revealed to us in the abstract . . . revealed to our spirits precisely as though we had no bodies at all,”[3] affirming that God’s power is communicated wordlessly, outside verbal dis course. Moroni knew that merely writing about something powerful did not make the words themselves powerful by association. 

But then, truth shouldn’t be based on text; LDS missionaries regularly preach of the plethora of churches that have been established based on interpretations of the inherently unstable text of the Bible, such that even young Joseph Smith lost “all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible” (JS-H 1:12). Language fails because, as Mormon declares, “All things must fail” (Mor. 7:46), language included. Nephi celebrates and even embraces the failure of text, as when he writes, “we speak concerning the law that our children may know the deadness of the law; and they, by knowing the deadness of the law, may look forward unto that life which is in Christ, and know for what end the law was given. And after the law is fulfilled in Christ, that they need not harden their hearts against him when the law ought to be done away” (2 Nephi 25:27, emphasis added). For the Nephite writers, words, laws, and language are already dead, and are not only expected to collapse, but are to be treated as though they already have. Nephi cares less about the law than he does about what the law points toward. Furthermore, it is not only the law that is dead; the words that express it are dead too. Abinadi for example accuses the priests of Noah of not having “the words of God . . . writ ten in your hearts” (Mosiah 13:11); he acknowledges that they teach the Law of Moses and the Decalogue, but he also feels compelled to remind these priests that these words do not and cannot contain the salvation they signify. He also tells these priests that what they do to him “shall be as a type and a shadow of things to come” (Mosiah 13:10), for though his death is real, the written transmission of it points to another reality. The Book of Mormon is full of similar assertions that words can only point to, not contain or transmit, reality. 

The Book of Mormon’s attention to the limits of language brings to mind the way certain mid-twentieth-century writers played with a text’s dependency on context for intelligibility. By placing quotations in new contexts, they radically re-contextualized the text in the process. One pertinent example is the Jorge Luis Borges short story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” wherein the author reviews the work of a fictional Frenchman who rewrites Cervante’s Don Quixote word-for-word, three centuries after the original. The reviewer prefers the Menard version to the Cervantes, saying “Menard’s fragmentary Quixote is more subtle than Cervantes’ . . . Cervantes’ text and Menard’s are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer.”[4] Menard’s Quixote, says the reviewer, shifts in meaning since it is now written from a modern, not a Renaissance, perspective. The exact same phrase in Don Quixote, “history, the mother of truth,” is “a mere rhetorical praise” in Cervantes, but is an “astounding idea” in Menard, since Menard is informed by William James and other contemporary thinkers.[5]

In a similar mode of free-play, the Book of Mormon includes long passages from Isaiah, often word for word, but accompanied with the explicit instructions to “liken them unto yourselves” (1 Ne. 19:23), inviting the reader (as does Borges) to explore how meanings shift and read differently based upon time, place, reader, and context. Nephi and his followers read Isaiah differently than Lehi’s contemporaries in Jerusalem could have: just as the identical text of Quixote reads differently when written by Menard instead of Cervantes, so also the very same words one prophet spoke shifted meanings entirely when hammered into brass by another, who understood Isaiah’s words as prophecies of Christ. Those same words mean something else again when “likened” to modern readers, who look neither for the literal redemption of the tribes of Israel, nor the incarnation of Christ out of the stem of Jesse, but toward another kind of incarnation and redemption. 

In 3 Nephi chapters 24–25, Christ himself quotes Malachi to the Nephites—that is, he quotes a prophet that he himself spoke to, thus calling into question the very category of authorship itself; as Roland Barthes writes, 

It is language which speaks, not the author . . . We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single “theological” meaning (the “message” of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.[6]

No writers write in a vacuum, but are constantly interacting, copying, and conversing with all writers that come before and after them. The text has no single Author-God directing its meaning, any more than God himself does. When Christ quotes Mala chi quoting him, the speaker is not Christ or Malachi alone, but language, that is, Barthe’s “tissue of quotations” drawn from a variety of interrelating sources, sources that Christ and Malachi participate in, but do not originate. Indeed, the Book of Mormon is a collage of polyphonic voices all conversing with each other at once. Mormon’s is the dominant voice, but the text also features other strong authorial voices, such as Nephi, Jacob, Benjamin, Zeniff, Alma, Helaman, Moroni, and even Christ himself, revealing a wide range of voices and personalities interacting with each other, speaking in the first, second, and third persons, likewise destabilizing the text by constantly keeping off-balance any contextual basis a reader might use to derive a single, authoritative meaning from the text. Since the text is no longer able to ground itself in a single meaning, all hope of settling any theological conviction based upon an appeal to text is out of the question, and the reader is left again to rely upon spirit, not signifiers. 

The Book of Mormon itself is written in a collage of genres, such as sermons, prayers, coronation ceremonies (Mosiah 2–5), poetry (2 Nephi 5, Alma 29), epistolary, and Hebrew scripture. We might also term this collage what Derrida calls “bricolage, the necessity of borrowing one’s concepts from the text of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined”;[7] Mormon himself certainly borrows not just his concepts but also much of his text from a heritage which had been coherent, and then became quite liter ally ruined. Mormon is not a creative innovator or originator, no matter how strong his authorial and editorial voice may be, but ac cording to Derrida, that is at it should be; Mormon is instead the “bricoleur,” the one who rearranges pre-existing articles into new formations. This collage of voices and genres calls attention to how meaning changes depending on context, inviting the reader to consider the ever-shifting signification of meanings swarming around, pointing toward, while never touching, the referent. 

The Derridean move of acknowledging that there is no fixed center elucidates another important feature of the Book of Mormon text. (To be clear, Derrida makes explicit that there is always a center, but whatever occupies the center constantly shifts.) He writes that “the notion of a structure lacking any center represents the unthinkable itself,”[8] and that “the center is a function, not a being—a reality, but a function.”[9] Since the center is a function in stead of a being, any being or object can fulfill that function. Hence, though one may rightfully argue that Christ is always the center of the Book of Mormon (Mormon has placed him there), for Nephite civilization, the structure is constantly being reoccupied by riches, fine clothing, gold, silver, covetousness, murder, hunger for power, and “the vain things of the world” (Alma 39:14). If the center were immutable, then the prophets would not have to constantly risk their lives in preaching a recentering in Christ. Instead, the Nephite prophets fully understand that the structure’s center will shift inexorably—Christ can be the center of one’s society, or life, or even one’s discourse, but though one may argue that Christ should be, there is no guarantee that he will be. In fact, it is necessary that Christ should not be held at the center of the discursive universe of the Book of Mormon, because Christ’s incarnation must be read by Lehi’s family as yet to come, by the Nephites at Zarahemla as immediately present, and by Mormon’s anticipated audience as having occurred. The center must move as successive linguistic and religious structures collapse and are reconstituted “according to our manner of speech” (Mormon 9:32) and “altered . . . according to the minds and circumstances of the people, in every generation” (Alma 11:4). 

This constantly shifting center is suggested early in the book, with Lehi’s declaration that “there must needs be an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). He describes a productive tension between good and evil that enables agency. The rest of the book illustrates that such an oppositional structure is inherently unstable, and finds equilibrium only in righteousness centered in Christ’s atonement. However, this equilibrium cannot become stasis—the great and last sacrifice must be made continually, be cause the possibility of righteousness implies the inevitability of sin. These tensions must remain lively and resist the kinds of reified categories that human beings are wont to create to give the illusion of stability and permanence: Nephite and Lamanite, rich and poor, hard-hearted and penitent, persecutor of Christians and missionary of Christ’s gospel. In Derridean terms, these constructions are known as “false binaries,” wherein two different sides are constructed in opposition to each other, with the implication that one side must be absolutely right, and therefore the other absolutely wrong. 

The Book of Mormon is interested in deconstructing these binaries, thereby liberating us from the tyranny of a structure that has made itself more important than the reality it claims to represent. Various prophets constantly called the Nephites to repentance for this binary construction, from Jacob crying, “the Lamanites your brethren whom ye hate because of their filthiness . . . are more righteous than you” (Jacob 3:5) to Mormon lamenting, “notwithstanding this great abomination of the Lamanites, it doth not exceed that of our people” (Moroni 9:9). Furthermore, the fact that so many Nephites apostatized and defected to the Lamanites, while so many Lamanites converted en masse and joined the Nephites, causes the entire false binary of Nephites/Lamanites to collapse, as thoroughly multi-ethnic squadrons battle each other throughout the war chapters in Alma. In fact, the Nephite/ Lamanite re-division in late 4 Nephi is along ideological, not ethnic lines. Thus, the easy apocalyptic binary established in 1 Nephi 12, wherein presumably-racial Lamanites are prophesied to wipe-out presumably-racial Nephites in genocidal war, is also surprisingly undermined. The final deconstruction of Nephite civilization is itself deconstructed. No matter how desperately we would like to impose a clean, easy binary on the Book of Mormon, the book itself won’t allow it. The structures of the Book of Mormon perpetually self-deconstruct, as they must, in or der for repentance and salvation to remain permanently possible. 

Herein lies a key difference between much late modern and postmodern literature and the Book of Mormon. Since all structure must collapse and “all things must fail,” much of this literature is written as though the structure has already collapsed, in much the same way that Mormon’s editing is performed with a post-apocalyptic perspective (both the apocalypse of his own civilization, and the foreseen apocalypse of ours). Yet while this col lapse is often occasion for despondency in much literature, in the Book of Mormon the collapse is salvific; every cause for despair in the former is a cause for rejoicing in the latter. For example, in the finale of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Aureliano finally reads the undecipherable book given by the gypsies at the novel’s inception. As a final catastrophic storm destroys his town of Macondo, Aureliano realizes that the book he is reading describes the entire history of Macondo up to this final storm, ending with a description of Aureliano reading the book; that is, Aureliano is reading himself reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is an ending of great melancholy, for reality must col lapse because the text that represents reality must likewise collapse. 

The Book of Mormon also has a book unreadable until the end of the world; as the angel said to Nephi, “But the words which are sealed he shall not deliver, neither shall he deliver the book. For the book shall be sealed by the power of God, and the revelation which was sealed shall be kept in the book until the own due time of the Lord, that they may come forth; for behold, they reveal all things from the foundation of the world unto the end thereof“ (2 Nephi 27:11). Nephi, as early as 1 Nephi 12, has already beheld the final destruction of his people, and both he and Mormon write as though their people are already dead—this apocalyptic melancholy is co-present throughout the entire Nephite narrative. Yet while Marquez despairs that all has been written down, for Nephi, this revelation is one of great promise and com fort. All has already been written, and what is written must col lapse—yea, even this whole wicked world must collapse, and the mountains be made low, the valleys high, and all the elements melt with a fervent heat. But what is left then is not the words that represent, but the fullness of that truth which was (always partially and haltingly) represented. Along with Aureliano reading himself reading, we also read the Brother of Jared reading us when “all the inhabitants of the world” are revealed to him, but the effect is not one of final dissolution á la Marquez—quite the opposite, in fact. 

For when Aureliano’s words self-deconstruct, only emptiness is left. When the Book of Mormon is deconstructed, what is left is the mediation itself—specifically the Great Mediator, the “Word made flesh” (John 1:14). Christ is the word that mediates between God and man, just as words mediate between our sensual data and conceptualizations. The text collapses, but the great mediation remains, standing alone among the ruins of language as Moroni stands among the ruins of his people. The Book of Mormon’s self-deconstruction results not in the destabilization but affirmation of meaning; the Nephite record does not mourn the inescapability of mediation, but celebrates and embraces the mediation. 

Moroni writes, “whoso receiveth this record, and shall not condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the same shall know of greater things than these . . . were it possible, I would make all things known unto you” (Mormon 8:12). This text does not contain perfection; it falls short of the perfection it conceptualizes, as all words inevitably must. The Book of Mormon it self is un-interested in Biblical literalists—“if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ” (2 Nephi 33:10), cries Nephi, for what is most important to him is not the words themselves but the concepts that the words correspond to. The words, the signifiers, are ultimately irrelevant, save that words alone are how we conceptualize much of reality. Moroni’s promise in Moroni 10:3–5 is not that readers will know the truthfulness of the words on the page, but rather, that they will know what the words themselves point at—in this case, namely, “how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men” (Moroni 10:3). Hence, the record must remain imperfect, unstable, slippery, and self-deconstructive, to ensure that it continues to “point” toward the intended truth, and not be accused of possessing some essentialized truth that it cannot contain—to ensure that the text serves as a means to an end, and not an end unto itself. “For all things must fail,” declares Mormon, this text not excluded, so that all that is left is precisely that which does not fail. 

What’s left, according to Mormon, is “charity—which never faileth” (Moroni 7:46), which is significant because charity, “the pure love of Christ,” is characteristically relational in nature. Structuralism and post-structuralism alike are likewise concerned with not the words themselves, but the relationships between the words. It is through words’ relationships with each other that con text and meaning is derived—thus, it is in the empty absences between words that charity never faileth. Signifiers may be dependent upon their relationships with each other for their signification, and hence meaning is slippery; what is not slippery, however, is the fact that these relationships must exist in spite of words. 

Once language collapses, it is only charitable relationships— between human beings reconciled to one another and to God by the mediating Word—that persist. In a sense, the Book of Mormon text is performative; for as this text repeatedly calls attention to the manner in which meaning ever shifts based on unstable context, it demonstrates that the relationships between the words themselves and between the words and us are the one sure constant in all these textual collapses. Since our relationships are all that are left us, it is paramount that our relationships be charitable. Moroni pleading with us to “not condemn [the text] because of the imperfections which are in it” is a plea to approach the text charitably—a hermeneutics that will hopefully transfer to our relationships with others and with our God, as well. If we ever do at last lay hold of the truth that the Book of Mormon points toward, namely the charity that allows us to become like and withstand the presence of God (Moroni 7:48), it will be because this unique scriptural text has taught us to value charitable relationships above all the collapsing and self-deconstructing structures where we would instead place our faith. 

---

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] Ferdinand Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), 66.

[2] Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” in The Structuralist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man, edited by Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), 249.

[3] Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 355.

[4] Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” Ficciones. (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 37.

[5] Borges, 38. Borges himself invokes William James in this story; he writes: “Menard, a contemporary of William James, does not define history as an inquiry into reality but as its origin. Historical truth, for him, is not what has happened; it is what we judge to have happened.” 

[6] Roland Barthes, Image Music Text (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977). 

[7] Derrida, 255.

[8] Derrida, 248.

[9] Derrida, 271.

[post_title] => Association of Mormon Letters Conference: “For All Things Must Fail”: A Post-Structural Approach to the Book of Mormon [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 45.3 (Fall 2013):138–177
In this paper, I argue that this preoccupation with structural collapse legitimizes a criti￾cal consideration of the way that language functions in the book, rendering the Book of Mormon particularly well-suited to a read￾ing that employs the techniques of post-structural criticism. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => association-of-mormon-letters-conference-for-all-things-must-fail-a-post-structural-approach-to-the-book-of-mormon [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-23 01:30:40 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-23 01:30:40 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=9564 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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God . . . at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets . . .

Heb. 1:1, KJV

One of the most rewarding aspects of interfaith dialogue is open and honest engagement with the scriptures of traditions other than our own. Many of us will testify to the fact that drinking from other peoples’ wells can be a dramatically life-changing and life-enhancing experience. As a lifelong Bible reader, I would now con sider my life profoundly incomplete without the wisdom and beauty of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Dhammapada, the Qur’an, the Tao Te Ching, and the other classics that form our world’s vast spiritual library. 

For just about a century and a half, the comparative and respectful study of humanity’s sacred literature has become a commonplace of American higher education and a standard feature of parish religious education. Emerson’s generation had to depend on the dynamics of nineteenth-century maritime commerce and the vagaries of British imperial ambition to make the holy books of “non-Christian” Asia available to readers west of Boston Harbor’s India Wharf. Today, thanks to the mass market paperback and the internet, virtually the entire world bible is at our fingertips, ready to expand and enrich our worldview and, as Thoreau once suggested, challenge our “puny and trivial” modern minds.[1]

One text from the global sacred canon, however, tends to be ignored in this enterprise of inter-scriptural exchange, and liberals and conservatives seem to be about equally guilty of the oversight. It’s fairly easy to find college courses on the sacred writings of the East and church study groups investigating the “lost books” of the Bible. Dig up a copy of Hinduism’s Rig Veda, Buddhism’s Lotus Sutra, the writings of Baha’u’llah, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and you’re bound to come across an interest group not too far away, primed for spirited, and perhaps spiritual, discussion. 

Of course, no one in these circles will demand strict endorsement of the claims found in the text or formal affiliation with the institution tied to the text as a condition for appreciation of the text. We know how to read disputable history as moving myth and putative prophecy as inspiring, if not inspired, poetry. We value these works precisely because they’re classics, masterpieces that bear an uncontrollably universal significance transcending creed, cult, culture, and century. 

What seems to be missing from all of these admittedly com mendable venues, however, is a sacred text known by name and reputation (and even by sight and probably even by touch) to al most every literate American. Ask any one of these otherwise educated and tolerant students of world scriptures why he or she has overlooked this particular volume and you’ll be met with either the blank stare of ignorance or the curled lip of impenitent bias: “Why would I want to read that?” 

I’m well acquainted with this response, because I, too, resisted reading this book for a number of years. Even after my doctoral training in theology, I had somehow convinced myself that I could serve my profession without actually reading this holy text in a serious and comprehensive way. For the last ten years or so, I’ve tried to make up for this indefensible attitude by incorporating this piece of sacred literature not only into my routine of critical study but even into my private practice of spiritual reading. I’m happy to report that my evolving experience with this text has been effectively the same as my on-going experiences with other great works from the world’s treasury of spiritual wisdom. 

The scripture I have in mind, of course, is the Book of Mormon. What follows is a Gentile’s appreciation—even recommendation—of this well-known but largely unread example of world class scripture. 

***

Before I go further, I should make it clear that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Mormon. I’m not affiliated with the 13-million-strong, Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints—popularly known simply as the Mormon or LDS Church. Nor do I belong to the smaller Missouri-based Community of Christ (formerly Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) or any of the scores of sects that have branched off from the original Mormon movement. 

I’m what Latter-day Saints call a Gentile: a non-Mormon. As a Gentile, though, I should also dissociate myself from what amounts to a community of anti-Mormons in our society. Many Americans pick up a strain of anti-Mormonism in the same way that some of our fellow citizens catch a bit of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia. Some anti-Mormons publish books and tracts, internet screeds and YouTube propaganda, warning all who care to read or view of the grave errors in Mormon doctrine and the near-criminal nature of Mormon practice. Some anti-Mormons even go “pro,” taking their message—complete with costumes and props—to the centers of Mormon population and pilgrimage. In my visits to Mormon sacred sites across the country, I’ve had direct contact with more than a few of these zealots. 

Anti-Mormon bigotry is by no means limited to the uneducated and misguided. Before JFK, anti-Catholicism was described as the anti-Semitism of the liberal elite. Today, anti-Mormonism plays a comparable role. Recent political events have demonstrated that anti-Mormonism is alive and well in our republic. It’s largely unspoken and usually well behaved, but its presence can be felt—especially if you have the right kind of theological or sociological radar. In the academic world, specialization in Mormon studies can wreck a promising career. Suggest that the LDS worldview deserves serious philosophical consideration and may actually correspond to at least a portion of reality, and you could easily find yourself classed with Holocaust deniers and flat-earth kooks. Anti-Mormonism seems to be one of our nation’s last acceptable prejudices. 

***

As neither Mormon nor anti-Mormon, I find myself strategically—maybe even providentially—positioned to recommend a reading of the Book of Mormon that is free and candid, yet empathetic. Intellectually responsible believers and skeptics can profit especially from a multi-faceted approach to the Book of Mormon that views the text through a variety of lenses. We can consider the Book of Mormon as literature, as ancient history, as divine revelation, and as universal wisdom. 

Whatever else it might be, the Book of Mormon is an extraordinary piece of literature. A queer one, too. Ever since it was first published in 1830, it has sparked intense controversy—a remark able achievement for a book that has attracted so few diligent readers. Critics have mocked its imitation of King James Bible English, its preposterous proper nouns, its apparent anachronisms, its convoluted plot lines. One wag claimed it would be nearly half its size if a single oft-repeated phrase were systematically deleted: “And it came to pass.” Doomed to enter American letters in the age of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, the Book of Mormon was dismissed by Mark Twain as “chloroform in print.”[2]

Twain was funny but not completely right. (No religious group, by the way, reveres Life on the Mississippi as holy writ.) Approached on its own terms, the Book of Mormon can, in fact, be riveting reading. Its fifteen documents, named supposedly after ancient American prophets and kings, introduce us to a fascinating cast of characters: the patriarch-writer Nephi, the prophet martyr Abinadi, the stripling warriors of Helaman, the war-renouncing tribe of Anti-Nephi-Lehies, and a memorable class of villains, including bad King Ammoron, the “bold Lamanite.” The documents also rehearse unforgettable accounts of adventure on the high seas, the rise and fall of civilizations, the agony of collective heroic sacrifice, and the ecstasy of individual moral transformation. (Romance, it seems, is the only major theme without a significant presence in the book—curious, given Joseph Smith’s folk status as over-sexed charlatan.) The dramatic climax of the Book of Mormon, unmatched in all literature sacred and profane, is the New World appearance of the resurrected Christ. 

Reject claims of supernatural origin, and we’re still stuck with homespun creativity that defies comprehension. Call Smith a plagiarist, and the prodigious nature of his backwoods intellectual theft registers higher on the miraculous scale than his own tales of angelic visitation. At the very least, the Book of Mormon deserves a special place in the American canon, on a par with Moby-Dick, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Roots, and, yes, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What’s more, I think we can make a case for ranking it among near-sacred texts of the Western heritage such as The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Narnia, and Lord of the Rings. 

***

Latter-day Saints, of course, see the Book of Mormon as far more than a neglected literary classic. For them, it is nothing less than sacred scripture. They also accept it as an accurate, but not infallible, record of at least a portion of ancient American history. 

Here’s where we come face to face with the audacity of Mormon belief. Some religions speak of heavenly messengers sent to earth. Some speak of divine books delivered supernaturally to select human agents. Some speak of living prophets loaded with di vine mandate. Some speak of holy objects handled by the chosen few during a golden age of faith. Some speak of lost empires. 

Mormonism does it all. The real scandal of the Mormon worldview for the outsider may be its metaphysical greediness. It believes too much! 

Regarding what some would call the outlandish historical claim embedded in the Book of Mormon narrative, let me just say this. Imagine that we were somehow convinced that the Mayflower expedition truly represented Europe’s first contact with the Americas. If that were the case, we would greet the idea of a Spain sponsored fifteenth-century trans-Atlantic voyage with profound skepticism. As a matter of fact, ancient Egyptians, Minoans, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks all performed tremendous feats of oceanic exploration—often without navigational instruments or anchors. The only reason to reject the hypothesis of a Jewish journey across the Pacific around the time of the Babylonian Exile is credible historical evidence to the contrary—not dogmatic attachment to an Italian mariner or a Viking pirate or anybody else as the true “discoverer” of America. 

For Latter-day Saints, this set of historical claims can never be separated from the supernatural aura surrounding the Book of Mormon itself. When Muhammad’s detractors asked why he didn’t perform any miracles, he consistently pointed to the Qur’an as the real miracle for his generation. Joseph Smith and his followers have similarly envisioned the Book of Mormon as a miracle in print. 

Any missionary can tell you the miraculous story. The teen aged Joseph Smith has a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ and is instructed to avoid all existing churches. A second vision—this time of an angel named Moroni—informs him of an ancient record engraved on golden plates buried in a hill not far from his home. A few years later, Smith uncovers the record and begins to translate a portion of it—through supernatural means— from “reformed Egyptian” into English. While still completing the manuscript of what will become the Book of Mormon, he receives additional heavenly visitations and revelations, all of which direct him to restore the rites and doctrines of the authentic church of Christ and reestablish the “ancient order of things.” All before his thirtieth birthday! 

Given the highly charged character of this narrative, you might say that no one but a true believer could acknowledge the Book of Mormon as scripture. It’s easy to get paralyzed in an in sider/outsider dichotomy when it comes to Mormonism and its unapologetic supernaturalism. Iron Rod Mormons warn against any kind of middle position. I think, though, that we can argue for a legitimate third option—an option available to anyone even tentatively open to what William James called “‘piecemeal’ supernaturalism.”[3] Such a demythologized approach invites us to trans pose the symphony of Mormon wisdom into a key more accessible to Gentile ears. 

Today, signs of that emerging third option can be seen in the academy. A few non-Mormon scholars are beginning to enroll Joseph Smith into the communion of the world’s “great souls.” That storied fellowship of spiritual pioneers who have witnessed the “sundry times” and “divers manners” of divine penetration into human experience will never be complete without the founder of America’s premier world religion. This thawing of prejudice is long overdue. For many years, I’ve embraced Smith as a type of vernacular visionary, who in another time and place would have simply been accorded the title of mystic. 

Honoring Smith as an interfaith saint, ironically, may be just another attempt to tame an original and unruly spirit. We’ve seen it happen to Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, King, and too many others. The book Joseph produced, however, defies domestication. It calls into question virtually every assumption that undergirds our overly secular lives. Thoreau had this experience when he read the newly translated Hindu and Chinese scriptures during his excursions on the Concord and the Merrimack and his sojourn at Walden Pond. The Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, Confucius, and Mencius forced him to confess just how “puny and trivial” his modern mind really was. “I would give all the wealth of the world,” he said, “and all the deeds of the heroes, for one true vision. But how can I communicate with the gods, who am a pencil-maker on the earth, and not be insane?”[4]

The Book of Mormon fuels this desperately modern drive for a single true vision. Like all great sacred classics, it confronts us with the truth about ourselves and our ultimate purpose on this planet. Excavated from the bedrock of upstate New York or harvested from the fertile soil of a farm boy’s frontier imagination, it reminds us that the ground upon which we stand is enchanted and that the age of miracles is nowhere near its final chapter. The so-called “burning in the bosom,” well known to missionaries and Mormon-phobes alike, may, after all, be a remarkably accurate way to describe the book’s uncanny effect on the heart of the ear nest reader—even latter-day Gentiles like me. 

The New Testament book of Hebrews concludes with sage ad vice: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). Today, this apostolic counsel is a basic axiom of the interfaith imperative. I encourage you to apply it to the least-read volume in the world’s family of bibles. If we listen to the strange voice of this New World scripture, we may begin to hear again the long-forgotten tongues of angels. 

---

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), 346. 

[2] Mark Twain, Roughing It (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 127. 

[3] William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, edited by Mar tin E. Marty (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 520.

[4] Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, edited by Carl F. Hovde (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 140. 

[post_title] => A Gentile Recommends the Book of Mormon [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 45.3 (Fall 2013):188–206
The scripture I have in mind, of course, is the Book of Mormon. What follows is a Gentile’s appreciation—even recommen￾dation—of this well-known but largely unread example of world￾class scripture. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => a-gentile-recommends-the-book-of-mormon [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-21 15:01:44 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-21 15:01:44 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=9786 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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In his "Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm," Earl Wunderli argues that the chiastic structure of Alma 36, which was first documented in 1969 by John W. Welch,[1] was not intended by its author. Wunderli also dismisses our recent statistical calculations, which indicate that the chiastic structure of Alma 36 is likely to be intentional.[2] The purpose of this comment is to respond to Wunderli's critique. 

Background 

Ancient Hebrew writers are among those who employed chiasmus, a literary form that introduces a number of literary elements in one order and then reemploys them in the reverse order.[3] Since 1969, chiasmus in the Book of Mormon has attracted considerable attention because the book purports to be a translation of a record written anciently by Hebrew descendants. No direct evidence exists that Joseph Smith knew about chiasmus when he translated the Book of Mormon in 1829.[4]

Many people regard examples of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon as deliberate applications of the chiastic form. This group includes both proponents and critics of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. While proponents regard chiasmus as evidence of this authenticity,[5] critics suggest that Joseph Smith or some other modern author must have known about chiasmus and incorporated it in writing, rather than in translating, the Book of Mormon.[6]

Others, including Wunderli, hold that the proposed chiasms in the Book of Mormon are not deliberate applications of the chiastic form and ascribe their chiastic structure to the ingenuity of the analyst, rather than to the intent of the author.[7] This group regards chiastic structure in the Book of Mormon as nothing more than repeated occurrences of words and ideas that fall inadvertently into chiastic patterns and that are identified only through the scrutiny of the analyst. 

Alma 36 

Alma 36 has received considerable attention in this context. Many regard this chapter as a deliberate application of the chiastic form because of the large number of literary elements that fit the chiastic pattern, the strength of the associations between paired elements, and the importance of the chapter's focal point.[8] Others, including Wunderli, argue that repetitiveness within the chapter opens the door for analysts to pick and choose from among multiple appearances of key ideas and to adjust the boundaries of chiastic sections to impose chiastic structure where none was intended.[9] Because of these multiple appearances, even those who regard this chapter as a deliberate application of the chiastic form disagree on some of the details of its structure.[10] No one knows for sure, of course, whether the author of Alma 36 intended it to be chiastic. 

Some imprecision in the chiastic form does not preclude it from being deliberately chiastic. An author may deliberately apply the chiastic form while at the same time taking some liberties with the form, such as repeating key elements outside of their intended chiastic sections or varying the length of certain sections for dramatic emphasis. 

If Alma 36 is not the result of some deliberate application of the chiastic form, then its apparent chiastic structure must have come about in advertently, that is to say, as a result of unintentional pairings of repeated ideas. In other words, as the chapter was written, its author would have employed literary elements in an order that just happened to be chiastic and this order would have been revealed only later by the analyst. 

In an effort to aid analysts in assessing the degree of deliberateness behind specific chiastic proposals, Welch proposed fifteen indices of chiastic strength and used them to argue that Alma 36 reflects a high degree of chiasticity.[11] Wunderli applies and extends these fifteen criteria to argue the opposite, maintaining that Alma 36 violates literary standards that he expects deliberate chiasmus to obey. 

Wunderli also dismisses our recent statistical calculations on the basis of such violations. However, meaningful statistical results do not require adherence to the literary standards devised by Welch or Wunderli. While we acknowledge the importance of their literary analyses, we emphasize that their approaches are fundamentally different from our statistical approach and further emphasize that most of Welch's fifteen criteria and Wunderli's extensions of these criteria have little bearing on the validity of our statistical results. Exceptions include Welch's quantifiable criteria of length, density, mavericks, and reduplication, which are embodied implicitly in our statistical approach. Wunderli imposes his particular set of literary standards in an attempt to discredit our statistical approach, implying that one can't use statistics to analyze a text unless it obeys his or Welch's literary standards. We disagree. 

While valid statistical results do not require adherence to these particular literary standards, they do require careful attention to identifying and strictly accounting for all of the important elements in a passage, both those paired elements that participate in the basic chiastic structure of the passage, called chiastic elements, and those that do not. Statistical results are meaningless unless this crucial requirement is met; ignoring it leads to the mistaken conclusion that spurious chiastic structure such as that found in a computer manual must have been intentional.[12]

We developed six rules to ensure adherence to this requirement and to enable a uniform comparative analysis of various texts.[13] We used these rules to identify and account for all chiastic and non-chiastic elements in each passage studied. We then used elementary statistics to calculate the likelihood that random rearrangements of these elements would be chiastic. In other words, this is the likelihood that chiastic structure could have appeared by chance rather than by design. Welch's and Wunderli's literary standards are largely irrelevant to this process. 

We validated our approach by confirming that it yields very small likelihoods for well-known deliberate chiasms such as Leviticus 24:13-23 and that it yields moderate or large likelihoods for spurious chiastic structure such as that found in the computer manual. Although authors do not select words at random as if from a hat when composing passages of text, the actual composition process yields passages having likelihoods that are comparable to those for random word selection when the author has no intention of writing chiastically. This observation further validates our statistical approach. 

We analyzed dozens of chiastic structures proposed by others in the standard works and elsewhere. We found that the vast majority of these structures, including all of those in the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Abraham, could easily have appeared by chance because they have few chiastic elements or many non-chiastic elements, or both. On the other hand, a few chiasms in the Book of Mormon and the Bible stand out as having small likelihoods of having appeared by chance because they possess many chiastic elements and few non-chiastic elements.[14] One of these is Alma 36, whose ten-element chiastic rendering has a likelihood of less than one in 100,000 of having appeared in the Book of Mormon by chance.[15] Our calculations do not absolutely preclude the conclusion that the chiastic structure of Alma 36 appeared inadvertently but indicate less than one chance in 100,000 that it could have. 

Wunderli alleges that our analysis of Alma 36 violates our own Rules 1 and 4. These allegations are untrue, as is discussed in our detailed online response.[16]

We agree that Alma 36, because of its length and complexity, presents special challenges to the analyst, but we nevertheless judge the statistical evidence as sufficient to justify the conclusion that Alma 36 was the result of the deliberate application of the chiastic form. We find nothing in Wunderli's study that threatens to overturn this conclusion. 

Beyond Alma 36 

Wunderli's critique focuses exclusively on Alma 36 and ignores other chiasms in the Book of Mormon with small likelihoods of appearing by chance. Some of these satisfy Wunderli's literary standards better than Alma 36 because they are shorter and simpler. Accordingly, the case for the significance of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon does not rest on Alma 36 alone. 

Those desiring to reach an informed judgment regarding the significance of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon will include Mosiah 3:18-19, Mosiah 5:10-12, Alma 36:1-30, and Helaman 9:6-11 in their investigations. These four chiasms have likelihoods that are less than or equal to that of a simple chiasm with five chiastic elements and no non-chiastic elements. The likelihood is less than one in fifty that these four chiasms could have appeared in the Book of Mormon by chance.[17] This result strengthens the case that the appearance of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon was intentional. 

---

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

The authors express appreciation to Nadine Edwards and John W. Welch for reading an early draft of this manuscript and for making several valuable suggestions. 

[1] John W. Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies 10, no. 1 (1969): 69-84. 

[2] Boyd F. Edwards and W. Farrell Edwards, "Does Chiasmus Appear in the Book of Mormon by Chance?" BYU Studies 43, no. 2 (2004): 103-30; available online at http://byustudies.byu.edu/chiasmus/. 

[3] John W. Welch and Daniel B. McKinlay, eds., Chiasmus Bibliography (Provo, Utah: Research Press at Brigham Young University, 1999).

[4] John W. Welch, "A Steady Stream of Significant Recognitions," in Echos and Evidences, edited by Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W Welch (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002), 340; John W. Welch, "How Much Was Known about Chiasmus in 1829 When the Book of Mormon Was Translated?" FARMS Review of Books 15, no. 1 (2003): 47-80. 

[5] John W. Welch, "Chiasmus in Alma 36" (Provo, Utah: FARMS Preliminary Report, 1989), 49 pp.; John W Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, edited by John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thome (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1991), 114-31 (this chapter is a shortened version of the 1989 report); Jeffrey R. Lindsay, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon," http://jefflindsay.com/chiasmus.shtml (accessed April 10, 2006); and John W. Welch, "What Does Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon Prove?" in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited, edited by Noel B. Reynolds (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1997), 199-224. 

[6] Sandra Tanner, "Chiasmus and the Book of Mormon," http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/chiasmusandthebom.htm (accessed April 10, 2006); Dan A. Vogel, "The Use and Abuse of Chiasmus in Book of Mormon Studies," paper presented at the Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City, August 2001, audiocassette SL-01374. 

[7] Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "A Black Hole in the Book of Mormon: Computer Reveals Astounding Evidence on Origin of Book of Mormon," Salt Lake City Messenger, no. 72, http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no72.htm (1989); http://www.lds-mormon.com/chiasm.shtml (accessed April 10, 2006); Brent Lee Metcalfe, "Apologetic and Critical Assumptions about Book of Mormon Historicity," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 162-71; re viewed by William J. Hamblin, in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6, no. 1 (1994): 434-523. 

[8] Welch, "Chiasmus in Alma 36"; Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36"; Lindsay, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon." 

[9] See Vogel, "The Use and Abuse of Chiasmus"; http://www.lds-mormon. com/chiasm.shtml; Metcalfe, "Apologetic and Critical Assumptions," 162-71; Hamblin, review of "Apologetic and Critical Assumptions," 434-523. 

[10] Welch presents such arrangements in "Chiasmus in Alma 36," 2-15.

[11] John W. Welch, "Criteria for Identifying and Evaluating the Presence of Chiasmus," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 4, no. 2 (1995); reprinted in Welch and McKinlay, Chiasmus Bibliography, 157-74; http://farmsresearch.com/.

[12] Edwards and Edwards, "Does Chiasmus Appear in the Book of Mormon by Chance?" 117. 

[13] Ibid., 111-14. 

[14] Ibid., 110-11. 

[15] Ibid., 123. 

[16] Boyd F. Edwards and W. Farrell Edwards, "Response to Earl Wunderli's 'Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm,"' Dialogue Online: http://www.dialoguejournal.com/content/?p=24#more-24. 

[17] Edwards and Edwards, "Does Chiasmus Appear in the Book of Mormon by Chance?" 110-11. The likelihood that these particular four chiasms could have appeared by chance in the Book of Mormon is actually much smaller than 1 in 50 because three of these four have likelihoods that are lower than that of a simple five-element chiasm.

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In 1967, John W. Welch, now a professor of law at Brigham Young University, discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon while on a mission in Germany. He wrote an article about it in 1969 and has been its foremost champion since then.[1] LDS scholars have acclaimed chiasmus as strong internal evidence for the Hebraic origin of the Book of Mormon.[2] Other scholars disagree.[3] Few scholars have published critical analyses of Book of Mormon chiasms.[4]

Although Welch and others have found a number of extended chiasms in the Book of Mormon, including the entire books of First and Second Nephi and Mosiah,[5] I will limit myself in this paper to a critique of Welch's Alma 36 chiasm. He calls it a "masterpiece of composition," one of his favorites, and "one of the best" from among hundreds he has evaluated.[6] He has written about it at least four times.[7] It reflects most of the problems with all of his extended chiasms. My argument is that he has imposed chiasmus on the Book of Mormon where none was intended. 

What Is Chiasmus? 

According to Welch, chiasmus is inverted parallelism. The term chiasmus derives from the Greek letter chi (X) and from the Greek word chiazein ("to mark with a X"), because X is descriptive of the chiastic form.[8] For example, "The last shall be first, and the first shall be last" (1 Nephi 13:42//Matt. 20:16) is a chiasm[9] because if written thus: 

The lastshall be first, and
The first shall be last, 

and a line is drawn between the last's and another between the first's, as shown, a X is formed. There are many other simple chiasms in the Bible, such as: 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. (Isa. 55:8) 

This is a simple chiasm because it contains only two elements, my and your. Simple chiasms, which are most characteristic of those written in western languages such as Greek, Latin, and English, are distinguished from extended chiasms characteristic of Hebrew and other ancient languages, in which there can be any number of elements written in one order and then repeated in reverse order, e.g., a-b-c-d- . . . -x-x- . . . -d-c-b-a.[10] For example, Psalm 3:7-8 is an extended chiasm with five paired elements: 

Save me 
O my God, 
For thou has smitten 
All my enemies 
On the cheek-bone 
The teeth 
Of the wicked 
Thou has broken. 
To Yahweh 
The salvation.[11]

Welch notes that chiasmus is a rhetorical device that has been used sporadically in poetry and prose for nearly three thousand years but doubts that Joseph Smith knew of it at the time he dictated the Book of Mormon.[12]

Analysis of Alma 36 

Welch has constructed an impressive chiasm out of Alma 36. His rendering of it has changed each time he has written about it, and his latest (1991) version follows (verse numbers in parentheses): 

a My son give ear to my words (1) 
b Keep the commandments and ye shall prosper in the land (1)
c Do as I have done (2) 
d Remember the captivity of our fathers (2) 
e They were in bondage (2) 
f He surely did deliver them (2) 
g Trust in God (3) 
h Supported in trials, troubles, and afflictions (3) 
i Lifted up at the last day (3) 
j I know this not of myself but of God (4) 
k Born of God {5) 
1 I sought to destroy the church (6-9) 
m My limbs were paralyzed (10) 
n Fear of being in the presence of God (14-15) 
o Pains of a damned soul (16) 
p Harrowed up by the memory of sins (17) 
q I remembered Jesus Christ, a son of God (17) 
q' I cried, Jesus, son of God (18) 
p' Harrowed up by the memory of sins no more (19) 
o' Joy as exceeding as was the pain (20) 
n' Long to be in the presence of God (22) 
m' My limbs received strength again (23) 
1' I labored to bring souls to repentance (24) 
k' Born of God (26) 
j ' Therefore my knowledge is of God (26) 
h' Supported under trials, troubles, and afflictions (27) 
g' Trust in him (27) 
f' He will deliver me (27) 
i' and raise me up at the last day (28) 
e' As God brought our fathers out of bondage and captivity (28-29) 
d' Retain in remembrance their captivity (28-29) 
c' Know as I do know (30) 
b' Keep the commandments and ye shall prosper in the land (30)
a' This according to his word (30).[13][14]

There is much to challenge in this chiasm, including the unexplained asymmetry of element i’. One has only to highlight these thirty-four elements in Alma 36 to see how much text—more than 80 per cent of it—Welch has ignored in constructing his chiasm. Alma 36 is full of repetitious language, and the language Welch selects for an element is often only one of two or more occurrences of the same term or phrase. Selected language and ignored language often work together to create false symmetry. Some paired elements are imbalanced in size, and some are creatively labeled to convey precision. Nearly all of the paired elements have these or other problems; the following nine are illustrative. 

1. Elements a and a' pair "my son give ear to my words" (v. 1) with "this according to his word" (v. 30). As in verse 1, Alma also counsels his son to hear his words in verse 3: "And now, O my son Helaman .. . I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words." Welch has selected words in 

verse 1 for the chiasm but ignored words in verse 3. Likewise, as in verse 30, Alma refers to the Lord's word in verse 26: "For because of the word which he has imparted unto me." Again, Welch has selected the Lord's word in verse 30 and ignored the Lord's word in verse 26. 

Welch explains simply that elements a and a' "introduce and conclude the chapter by referring to Alma's 'words' and the 'word' of God." But if Alma's words in verse 1 and the Lord's word in verse 30 qualify as elements, it is not clear why Alma's words in verse 3 and the Lord's word in verse 26 do not also qualify as elements (not to mention the angel's words in verse 11), except that to pair them with each other would create asymmetry and thus Welch ignores them. 

2. Welch pairs element e, "they were in bondage" (v. 2), with element e', "as God brought our fathers out of bondage and captivity" (w. 28-29). Element e' exhibits not only the typical selectivity and ignored text, but also creative labeling and imbalance. Element e' is derived from verses 28 and 29: 

Yea, and I will praise him forever, for he has brought our fathers out of Egypt, and he has swallowed up the Egyptians in the Red Sea; and he led them by his power into the promised land; yea, and he has delivered them out of bondage and captivity from time to time. Yea, and he has also brought our fathers out o/the land of Jerusalem; and he has also, by his everlasting power, delivered them out of bondage and captivity, from time to time even down to the present day. 

In these verses, "he has brought our fathers out o f is used each time with a place, i.e., Egypt or Jerusalem, while "he has delivered them out o f is used each time with the condition of bondage and captivity, but Welch has combined one of two occurrences of "he has brought our fathers out of," not with a place, but with one of two occurrences of the condition "bondage and captivity." This creative combination makes the best match with e ("they were in bondage") without repeating the key word in the adjacent f ("he will deliver me"). Element e' does use captivity, which is used in the other adjacent element, d' ("retain in remembrance their captivity"), but it can hardly be avoided because it is half of the phrase bondage and captivity. Thus, Welch has italicized bondage in e' but not captivity. 

Elements e and e' are also imbalanced. He has brought our fathers out of (v. 28)... bondage and captivity (v. 29) comprise seventy-four words, which are paired with a single four-word clause ("they were in bondage") in verse 2. 

As with many other elements, Welch ignores much language in e': Alma's praising God; and God's bringing Alma's fathers out of Egypt, God's swallowing up the Egyptians in the Red Sea, God's leading Alma's fathers into the promised land, and God's bringing Alma's fathers out of the land of Jerusalem. 

3. In elements f, "he surely did deliver them" (v. 2), and f, "he will deliver me" (v. 27), Welch uses only two of the six occurrences of deliver in Alma 36. In verse 2, deliver occurs twice; he uses the second one. Deliver(ed) occurs twice in verse 27 and once each in verses 28 and 29. Welch uses the second one in verse 27. The first one in verse 27 is out of order. The two occurrences in verses 28 and 29 each appear between the two phrases that Welch has selected to create element e', "as God brought our fathers out o f and "bondage and captivity." This would make element f somewhat asymmetrical, so Welch uses neither delivered in verses 28 and 29, even though they pair well with f because all four delivers in verses 2, 28, and 29 relate to Alma's fathers, while the two delivers in verse 27 relate to Alma. 

4. Welch pairs 1, "I sought to destroy the church" (w. 6-9), with 1', "I labored to bring souls to repentance" (v. 24), in the first of a series of paired elements that express contrasts. This is because 1 and 1' begin and end the story of Alma's conversion. Alma's account of his conversion proceeds chiastically, from his rebellion against the church to his epiphany and his embrace of the church. In such a story, it is not difficult to find contrasting elements (e.g., rebellion against church versus embrace of church; physical effects versus relief from physical effects). 

Element 1 comprises four verses, which begin and end with seeking to destroy the church of God. In between, much is ignored, which creates an imbalance in the two elements. The two occurrences of seeking to destroy the church of God and all the ignored language in between comprise ninety-seven words. Element 1' contains twelve words. 

5. The contrasting elements m, "my limbs were paralyzed" (v. 10), and m', "my limbs received strength again" (v. 23), pair the only two uses of limbs in Alma 36 while ignoring language that does not work chiastically. Element m ignores Alma's falling to the earth in verse 10, which matches or contrasts with "we all fell to the earth" in verse 7, "I arose and stood up" in verse 8, "I fell to the earth" in verse 11, or "I stood upon my feet" in verse 23. Element m also ignores Alma's being unable to open his mouth for three days and nights, which are the same three days and nights in verse 16. And m' ignores Alma's being "born of God," which is used in k and k'. None of this matching or contrasting language works chiastically and Welch ignores it. 

6. There is more ignored language between m and n—all of verses 11, 12, and 13—than between any other two elements. Elements n, "fear of being in the presence of God" (vv. 14-15), and n', "long to be in the presence of God" (v. 22), are both creatively labeled. 

Verse 14 reads in part: "the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror." Welch re duces this clause to "fear of being in the presence of God" for n and avoids using rack, which occurs four other times in Alma 36 but all in the front part of Welch's chiasm with n: verses 12 ("I was racked with eternal torment" and "racked with all my sins"); 16 ("was I racked"); and 17 ("I was thus racked with torment"). None of these matches chiastically with rack in verse 14, and Welch ignores them all. 

Presence of God occurs twice in verses 14 and 15 (n), but not at all in verse 22 (n'). Welch simply adds presence of God to n' and it becomes a literal match with n. 

7. Welch pairs element o, "pains of a damned soul" (v. 16), with element o', "joy as exceeding as was the pain" (v. 20). His key word is pain(s). On the front side of his chiasm, pains appears twice, inverses 13 ("I was tormented with the pains of hell"), which he ignores as out of sequence; and 16 ("was I racked, even with the pains of a damned soul"), which he selects. In the second half of his chiasm, pain(s) appears three times, in verses 19 ("I could remember my pains no more"), which he ignores as out of sequence; 20 ("joy as exceeding as was my pain"), which he selects; and 21 ("nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains"), which he ignores. 

Welch's selection of the language in verse 20 is the worst match with o. Indeed, the language in any two of the other four verses is a better match than the language in verses 16 and 20 because pains is plural in all four rather than singular as in verse 20, and all four deal only with pains rather than contrasting pain with joy as in verse 20. 

8. Element p, "harrowed up by the memory of sins" (v. 17), and element p', "harrowed up by the memory of sins no more" (v. 19), illustrate once again the selectivity behind Welch's chiasm. Between o ("pains of a damned soul") (v. 16) and p, the clause "I was thus racked with torment" is ignored; but read in combination with p, this part of verse 17 reads, "I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins." This language pairs better with other ignored language from verse 12 than with p' in verse 19. Verse 12 reads, "But I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins." Verses 12 and 17 thus have two phrases in common: "racked with torment" and "harrowed up with sins." In contrast, p in verse 17 and p' in verse 19 have only one clause in common: "harrowed up by memory of sins." Welch, however, ignores verse 12 as out of sequence. 

9. Elements q, "I remembered Jesus Christ, a son of God"(v. 17), and q', "I cried, Jesus, son of God" (v. 18), are the turning point in Welch's chiasm. Welch notes that "the main idea of the [chiastic] passage is placed at the turning point."[15] One problem is that Welch has changed his mind over time about what the turning point is—that is, what Alma's "main idea" is. In 1969, he had a one-line turning point: 

Called upon Jesus Christ (v. 18); 
in 1981, he added a matching element: 
Alma remembers one Jesus Christ (17) 
Alma calls upon Jesus Christ (18); 
in 1982, he included the atonement, which became a one-line turning point: 
Alma remembers one Jesus Christ (17) 
Christ will atone for the sins of the world (17) 
Alma calls upon Jesus Christ (18) 
and in 1991, he returned essentially to his 1981 turning point:
I remembered Jesus Christ, a son of God (17) 
I cried, Jesus, son of God (18). 

[Editor's Note: For designed chiasmuses, see PDF]

If the turning point really is as important as Welch affirms, then it should, logically, be less difficult to identify. 

A related problem is that Welch ignores some text between q and q': "to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart." He explains: "At the absolute center stand the words 'atone,' 'mind,' and 'heart,' bordered by the name of Jesus Christ. The message is clear: Christ's atonement and man's responding sacrifice of a broken heart and willing mind are central to receiving forgiveness from God." However, the omitted language says nothing about a "responding sacrifice" of a "broken heart and willing mind." Furthermore, the consistent requirement throughout the Book of Mormon, as articulated by Lehi, Jesus, Mormon, and Moroni, is of a "broken heart and a contrite spirit" (2 Ne. 2:7, 4:32; 3 Ne. 9:20, 12:19; Morm. 2:14; Eth. 4:15; Moro. 6:2). This new formulation of a "broken heart and willing mind" is not Alma's "clear message" (or "main idea") but Welch's invention. 

In short, Alma 36 seems hardly to be a carefully crafted masterpiece by Alma but a creatively fashioned chiasm imposed on the text by Welch.[16]

Efforts to Defend Alma 36 as a Chiasm 

In his 1991 article on Alma 36 as a chiastic masterpiece, Welch does two additional things of interest here. First, he divides Alma 36 in its entirety into eleven paired units and labels them A through K to pair with K' through A', thus creating a "full text" chiasm.[17] Welch refers to the eleven paired units as sections. These sections are "panels of text filling in the gaps" between the "main girders of the structure," which are the seven teen paired elements in his Alma 36 chiasm, which I examined above.[18]

Second, Welch defends Alma 36 as an extended chiasm using fourteen of a set of fifteen criteria he proposed in 1989 for identifying and evaluating the presence of chiasmus.[19] He republished these criteria in 1995 with slight modifications, using Alma 36 to exemplify nine of them.[20]

The "full text" chiasm is, if anything, even weaker than Welch's "main girder" chiasm. It has an extra A section comprising the first twenty-eight words of verse 3 and appearing asymmetrically between D and E with no matching A' section. Welch does not explain this absence of a chiastic pairing, but by one of his fifteen criteria (length), "an extended chiasm is probably not much stronger than its weakest links."[21]

The extra A section is only one of many weaknesses. For example, under the criterion of "balance," Welch asserts that Alma 36 is balanced because "the first half of the structure contains 52.4% of the words, and the second half, 47.6%. Even minor words like 'behold' (six times in each half) and 'my' (eighteen times in the first half and seventeen in the second) occur equally in the two halves."[22]

Welch's inclusion of minor words like my and behold is not only a stretch but invites a look at analogous words that challenge his chiasm's balance. I, for example, is analogous to my but is used thirty-five times (57.4%) in the first half and twenty-six times (42.6%) in the second half; and yea is analogous to behold but is used only four times in the first half and fifteen times in the second half. Of more importance, however, Welch's eleven paired sections range in length from seven to 213 words. Section E' (sixty-six words) is twice as long as E (thirty-three words); D' (ninety-two words) is two and one-half times longer that D (thirty-six words); B' (fifty-eight words) is nearly three times longer than B (twenty-one words); and H (213 words) is more than four times longer than H' (forty-eight words). As "panels" between "main girders," the sections are so unbalanced, and the "main girders" are so unevenly spaced within the sections, that they fail not only Welch's "balance" test but his "aesthetics" test as well. 

Welch's "purpose" criterion looks for "an identifiable literary reason why the author might have employed chiasmus," and his "boundaries" criterion specifies that a chiasm operates "across a literary unit as a whole" and does not "unnaturally [chop] sentences in half."[23] To examine this last point first, Welch divides sentences in half between sections A and B; C and D; the second A and E; G and H; J and K; H' and G'; G' and F'; E' and D'; and D' and C\ Some of these mid-sentence divisions may be a function of punctuation, and not all of them may be unnatural, but some of them are. G', for example, ends, "For because of the word which he has imparted unto me, behold, many have been born of God"-, and F' begins, "and have tasted as I have tasted .... " This is clearly an unnatural mid-sentence division but was apparently done to keep born of God out of F', where it would weaken the chiasm under another of Welch's criteria called "mavericks."[24] (Born of God does occur in H' as a maverick, however). This mid-sentence division keeps born of God in G' where there is another born of God, both to pair with a single born of God in G.[25]

Regarding the purpose and boundaries of Alma 36 as a chiasm, Welch notes that "an understanding of chiasmus will also greatly enhance interpretation of Book of Mormon scriptures."[26] In other words, recognizing a chiasm will help us to understand better what the writer is saying. But the imposition of a chiasm on chapter 36 may actually obscure the message, which suggests that no such chiasm was intended. 

To Welch, Alma 36 is where "Alma tells his son Helaman about his dramatic conversion."[27] But it seems strange, if this is what Alma 36 is about, that so much of Alma's conversion experience is ignored in Welch's "main girders" chiasm. Indeed, most of what is omitted from Welch's "main girders" chiasm occurs in verses 6 through 19, which comprise Alma's actual conversion experience. 

What, then, is Alma's real message? Alma 36 begins the first of three talks that Alma gives to his three sons, to Helaman in Alma 36-37, to Shiblon in Alma 38, and to Corianton in Alma 39-42. If we consider Alma 36 apart from Alma 37, we arguably lose what Alma was trying to accomplish in speaking to his son Helaman. Alma 36 seems to be about preparing Helaman to receive the sacred records that Alma turns over to him in Alma 37. The two chapters go together; indeed, they are a single chapter (XVII) in the first edition of the Book of Mormon. If Alma 36 should be read together with Alma 37, then by imposing a chiasm on Alma 36 alone, Welch creates a chiasm that does not operate "across a literary unit as a whole," viz., Alma 36 and 37 together, contrary to his "boundaries" criterion, and he misses Alma's main purpose, which was to prepare Helaman to receive the sacred things. 

Nevertheless, two physics professors, W. Farrell Edwards and his son, Boyd F. Edwards, claim to have demonstrated statistically the intentionality of Alma 36 as an extended chiasm. They use the four of Welch's fifteen criteria that can be "quantified numerically, namely: length (number of chiastic elements), density (the fraction of the passage that is devoted to chiastic elements), mavericks (the number of extra appearances of chiastic elements ...) , and reduplication (the extent of repetition of nonchiastic elements)."[28] They distill these four quantitative criteria into a single quantity L, which they use in their algorithm to calculate P, the chiastic probability that a chiasm could have appeared by chance. Their algorithm "establishes with 99.98 percent certainty" that "the strongest chiasm in the Book of Mormon, Alma 36 . . . appeared in this book by design and rules out the hypothesis that it appeared by chance."[29] Their "quantitative judgments regarding the intentionality of chiasmus," however, "are based only on the order of words and ideas and disregard the overall integrity and literary merit of chiasms." Thus, they recognize that their tools "may add to, but not replace, Welch's nonquantitative criteria and other indices of chiastic strength."[30]

For their analysis, Edwards and Edwards created two "full text" chiasms from Alma 36, both differing from Welch's. (See their Appendix L.) One has ten paired sections, at least half of which are unbalanced, and the most unbalanced of which is G with 213 words and G' with fifteen. Furthermore, there are two extra sections without matching sections, a second E between F and G, and a second I between G and H. 

There is much more to challenge in their ten-section chiasm. For example, they pair F' (120 words) with a much shorter F (twenty-one words), each reflecting the idea that "I (and others) were born of God."[31] Born of God occurs once in F and three times in F', but Edwards and Edwards permit multiple occurrences of key words in a section by their Rule 4, which is one of "a set of strict selection rules" they followed to guide their construction of their chiasm.[32] F' is long because it begins with born of God in verse 23b, picks up born of God in verse 24, and ends with born of God in verse 26a, and thus there is no born of God maverick. 

To avoid a born of God maverick, however, F' begins in the middle of a sentence. G' comprises the first fifteen words of the sentence: "But behold, my limbs did receive their strength again, and I stood upon my feet," and F' begins with the last thirteen words of the sentence: "and did manifest unto the people that I had been born of God." To include the entire sentence in G' would create a maverick of born of God so it is forced into F in the middle of a sentence.[33] Thus, their long section F avoids a maverick.

The long section F ignores the exceeding joy that Alma experiences in verses 24 and 25, which is also permitted by Rule 4 "as long as [such nonchiastic elements] .. . do not appear outside this section."[34] Thus, Rule 4 permits any amount of extraneous language in a chiastic section as long as it stays within the section. But Alma also experiences joy in verses 20 (expressed twice) and 21 outside F , and it is not clear how, under Rule 4, Edwards and Edwards can ignore Alma's joy, which he expresses five times. 

The long section F also ignores the language, "I labored to bring souls to repentance," which is Welch's element V in his "main girders" chiasm. Welch contrasts this language with "I sought to destroy the church," which occurs twice in his ninety-seven-word contrasting element 1. Edwards and Edwards ignore this language, too, even though it occurs three times in their much longer, 213-word section G. They ignore it because by their Rule 2, the literary elements must share the same essential word or words, and Welch's "I labored to bring souls to repentance" and "I sought to destroy the church" do not share the same essential words. Thus, language that Welch includes in his "main girders" chiasm is ignored by Edwards and Edwards, which suggests some flexibility in constructing chiasms. 

While this survey by no means exhausts the problems with the ten-section chiasm, Edwards and Edwards also developed an eight-section chiasm with the same imbalances between sections and many of the same problems but with one notable advantage: it eliminates the extra E and I of the ten-section chiasm. They did this by simply combining both E's ("I received knowledge of God") with F ("I (and others) were born of God") into a single section e ("I (and others) received knowledge of God, and were born of God"); and both I's ("I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins (no more)") with H ("I feared (longed) to be with God") into a single section g ("I feared (longed) to be with God and was harrowed up by the memory of my sins (no more)"). 

The "full text" chiasms of both Welch and Edwards and Edwards simply swallow up ignored language in their large sections and avoid mavericks by including multiple chiastic elements in these sections, but their "full text" chiasms also reveal the amount of repetition in Alma 36, the flexibility in fashioning a chiastic structure, and the consequent uncertainty about just what it was that Alma supposedly crafted with such care. 

Conclusion 

The existence of extended chiasmus in the Book of Mormon seems far from proved by Alma 36. While the inverted parallelism developed by Welch is impressive on first reading, on closer analysis it is Welch's creativity that is most notable. By following flexible rules, he has fashioned a chiasm by selecting elements from repetitious language, creatively labeling elements, ignoring text, pairing unbalanced elements, and even including asymmetrical elements. His efforts to defend it with a "full text" chiasm and fifteen criteria only highlight all the problems as well as his own creativity. 

As for Edwards's and Edwards's analysis, they acknowledge that their "quantitative judgments" are based "only on the order of words and ideas" that they themselves select. They explicitly "disregard the overall integrity and literary merit" of the chiasm, which, as shown above, has little "chiastic strength" under Welch's own criteria.[35]

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] John W. Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies 10, no. 1 (Autumn 1969): 69-84. Although Welch's scholarly efforts have not been limited to chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, he wrote his M.A. thesis, "A Study Relating Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon to Chiasmus in the Old Testament, Ugaritic Epics, Homer, and Selected Greek and Latin Authors" (Brigham Young University, 1970), on the topic and the following articles, among others: "Introduction" and "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon," in Chiasmus in Antiquity, edited by John W Welch (Hildesheim, Germany: Gerstenberg Verlag, 1981), 9-16, 198-210; "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon," in Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, edited by Noel B. Reynolds (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), 33-52; "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, edited by John L Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book/Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies [FARMS], 1991), 114-31; and "What Does Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon Prove?" in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited, edited by Noel B. Reynolds (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1997), 199-224. 

[2] See, for example, Noel B. Reynolds, "Nephi's Outline," in Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, edited by Noel B. Reynolds (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), 53-74; Donald W. Parry, "Climactic Forms in the Book of Mormon," in Reexploring the Book of Mormon, edited by John W. Welch (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book/Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992), 290-92; Davis Bitton, "B. H. Roberts and Book of Mormon Scholarship; Early Twentieth Century, Age of Transition," in journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8, no. 2 (1999): 60-69; Hugh W. Pinnock, Finding Biblical Hebrew and Other Ancient Literary Forms in the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1999); Robert A. Rees, "Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the American Renaissance," Dialogue: A journal of Mormon Thought 35, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 83-112; Terryl L Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 125, 133, 173, 222.

[3] See, for example, John S. Kselman, "Ancient Chiasmus Studied," Dia logue: A journal of Mormon Thought 17, no. 4 (Winter 1984): 146-48; Brent Lee Metcalfe, "Apologetic and Critical Assumptions about Book of Mormon Historicity," Dialogue, A journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 153-84; Dan Vogel, "The Use and Abuse of Chiasmus in Book of Mormon Studies," Paper delivered at Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City, August 2001; David P. Wright, "Isaiah in the Book of Mormon: Or, Joseph Smith in Isaiah," in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, edited by Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 157-234; David P. Wright, "The Fallacies of Chiasmus: A Critique of Structures Proposed for the Covenant Collection (Exodus. 20:23-23:19)," in Zeitschri/t fur Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 10 (2004): 162-63 note 37. 

[4] Vogel, for example, "The Use and Abuse," examines in detail Parry's 1992 chiasms of 1 Nephi 1:20-2:1 and 1 Nephi 15:25. 

[5] Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1969); Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1981); Reynolds, "Nephi's Outline"; and Noel B. Reynolds, "The Political Dimension in Nephi's Small Plates," in BYU Studies 27, no. 4 (Fall 1987): 15-37. 

[6] Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," 116. 

[7] Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1969); "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1981); "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1982); and "A Masterpiece: Alma 36" (1991). 

[8] Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1982), 35. 

[9] This particular chiasm is also found in Ether 13:12//Matthew 19:30, although the order is first, last, last, first. 

[10] Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1982), 36.

[11] Ibid., 36-37. The King James translation does not form a chiasm. It reads: "Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord: thy blessing is upon thy people." Welch explains, ibid., 51-52 note 3, that many chiasms have not survived the King James translation but are clear in Hebrew. 

[12] John W. Welch, "How Much Was Known about Chiasmus in 1829 When the Book of Mormon Was Translated?" FARMS Review 15, no. 1 (2003): 47-80, acknowledges that Joseph Smith could have known about chiasmus but in sists that there is no direct evidence that Smith, in fact, did. He states: "Today, I acknowledge that people in Joseph Smith's environs [in] 1829 could have known of chiasmus, but I still doubt that Joseph Smith actually did." Ibid., 75 note 107.

[13] Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," 117. 

[14] [Editor’s Note: There is no footnote 14 in-text, so I have added it here] Ibid., 124.

[15] Ibid., 114. See also Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1982), 42. In Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1969), 76, he states: "The thoughts which appear at the center must always be given special attention." Wright, "The Fallacies of Chiasmus," 145 note 5, points out that the first and last elements of a chiasm may be the most important.

[16] [Editor’s Note: There is no footnote 16 in-text, so I have added it here] Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," 127.

[17] Ibid., 119-24. 

[18] Ibid., 118. 

[19] Welch, Criteria for Identifying the Presence of Chiasmus (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1989). 

[20] Welch, "Criteria for Identifying and Evaluating the Presence of Chiasmus," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 4, no. 2 (1995): 1 -14.  

[21] Welch, "Criteria for Identifying and Evaluating the Presence of Chiasmus," 6. He notes that there are degrees of chiasticity. If the researcher intends to use the analysis for a specific purpose other than to simply identify orderliness or balance in the text, "the analysis must be more rigorous. The bolder the implications to be drawn [e.g., the Hebraic origin of the Book of Mormon], the greater the support the analysis needs" (10). 

[22] Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," 130.

[23] Welch, "Criteria for Identifying and Evaluating the Presence of Chiasmus," 5, 6. 

[24] Ibid., 7. According to Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," 129, "A chiasm is less convincing if important words in the structure appear elsewhere in the text outside the suggested arrangement [e.g., mavericks]." 

[25] Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," 128-29, explains away the weaknesses of Alma 36 as an extended chiasm by observing: "If an author uses chiasmus mechanically, it can produce rigid, stilted writing. . . . Alma, however, does not simply stick a list of ideas together in one order and then awkwardly and slavishly retrace his steps through that list in the opposite order. His work has the markings of a skillful, painstaking writer, one completely comfortable with using this difficult mode of expression well." But Welch apparently wants it both ways. In his 1995 article, "Criteria for Identifying and Evaluating the Presence of Chiasmus," 7, he wrote that "tightness in the text is indicative of greater craftsmanship, rigor, focus, intention, and clarity." 

[26] Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1982), 42. 

[27] Welch, "A Masterpiece: Alma 36," 116. See also his "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" (1982), 49.

[28] Boyd F. Edwards and W. Farrell Edwards, "Does Chiasmus Appear in the Book of Mormon by Chance?" in BYU Studies 43, no. 2 (2004): 103-30, esp. 107; retrieved in February 2005 from http://byustudies.byu.edu/chiasmus.

[29] Ibid., 123. 

[30] Ibid., 111. 

[31] Ibid., 122. 

[32] Ibid., 112.

[33] It is not clear why this occurrence does not violate their Rule 1, which requires that "chiastic boundaries .. . be located at the ends of sentences or significant phrases" to preclude "contrived boundaries . . . without regard to interruptions of grammatical structure." Ibid. 

[34] Ibid., 113.

[35] Ibid., 111.

[post_title] => Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 38.4 (Winter 2006):105–156
He has written about it at least four times. It reflects most of the problems with all of his extended chiasms. My argument is that he has im￾posed chiasmus on the Book of Mormon where none was intended. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => critique-of-alma-36-as-an-extended-chiasm [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-30 23:07:40 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-30 23:07:40 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10382 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1