Introduction to Revelations and Translations: Volume 3
Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon
Joseph Smith recounted that he was
visited in 1823 by an angel who told him that gold
plates containing an ancient record were buried near his home in
, New York.
Smith stated that the angel returned annually for the next four
years to give further instruction and finally allowed him to take
possession of the record in September 1827. During the first
several months he possessed the plates, he evidently analyzed the
characters inscribed on them; an associate even sought out scholars
to assist in deciphering characters copied from the plates.
Finally, Joseph Smith began the translation himself, dictating the
text by what he called the “gift and power of God.” When
completed, the translation comprised hundreds of manuscript pages
and was titled the Book of Mormon. For early believers, the book was
not only a religious history of ancient inhabitants of the Americas
and a text on the gospel of Christ—it also served as a witness of
Smith’s divine calling and as a foundation of their newfound
faith.
The Book of Mormon is principally the narrative of a
family who left Jerusalem circa 600 BC and traveled to the New
World. Fraternal strife and unequal spiritual conviction led the
family of Lehi and Sariah to separate into two groups. Lehi and
Sariah’s oldest son, Laman, along with his brother Lemuel, rejected
the visionary experiences of his father and younger brother Nephi,
which led to a lasting division in the family, with Laman and Lemuel
and their descendants on one side and Nephi, three other brothers,
and their descendants on the other. Nephi kept a record of his
people that was passed down from generation to generation of scribal
custodians. Throughout much of the Book of Mormon’s narrative, the
Lamanites and the Nephites are depicted as competing societies;
though both groups experience cycles of belief and unbelief, the
Nephites are generally presented as the more righteous group.
The text records that from the time Lehi and Sariah’s
family left Jerusalem, prophets taught of the eventual coming of
Jesus Christ. At the climax of the narrative, Christ visited the
Americas following his resurrection, ushering in an era of peace.
After two centuries of righteousness, however, both the Lamanites
and the Nephites fell into wickedness. In a great, final war, the
Lamanites destroyed the Nephites. Around AD 400, Mormon, the last
Nephite commander, compiled on gold plates an abridged history of
his people and then passed the plates to his son, Moroni, who added
his own testimony and a few additional writings before burying the
plates. In chronicling these ancient peoples, the Book of Mormon
contains narrative history; sermons; letters; accounts of visions,
dreams, and prophecies; and commentary on the significance of both
spiritual and secular events.
After Joseph Smith dictated the Book of
Mormon text, , the principal scribe
for the Book of Mormon, made a second copy of the manuscript, from
which most of the first edition of the Book of Mormon (1830)
was set in type in , New York. Less
than 30 percent of the first manuscript, known as the original
manuscript, survives. The second copy, known as the printer’s
manuscript, is missing only three lines of text. Because
the printer’s manuscript is virtually complete, it is presented
first in this Revelations and Translations series of The
Joseph Smith Papers; publication of the extant portions
of the original manuscript will follow in a later volume. Each
manuscript will be presented in a facsimile edition, featuring an
image of each page of the manuscript with its accompanying
transcript. Because this volume presents the complete text, this
introduction will give an overview of the discovery, translation,
and publication of the Book of Mormon. The introduction to the
forthcoming volume will contain a more detailed discussion of the
process and chronology of the translation.
The transcripts and annotation in this volume rely upon
nearly two decades of earlier work done by volume editor Royal
Skousen as part of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. This volume adds to that work by presenting
full-color photographs of each page of the manuscript and
color-coded transcripts that indicate which portions were written by
each scribe. A more detailed description of the differences between
the transcript in this volume and the transcript previously
published by Skousen is found in the Editorial Method. The
annotation in this volume also highlights significant variants
between the printer’s manuscript on the one hand and
the extant portion of the original manuscript as well as the 1830, 1837, and 1840
editions of the Book of Mormon on the other hand. All four editions
of the Book of Mormon published during Joseph Smith’s life, including the
1841
British edition (the publication of which Joseph Smith
approved but did not participate in), can be found on the Joseph
Smith Papers website, josephsmithpapers.org.
As of the printing of this volume, more than 150
million copies of the Book of Mormon have been printed, the book has
been completely translated into over eighty languages, and it is
viewed by millions as scripture. Nevertheless, as
Nathan Hatch, a leading scholar of American religious history,
observed in 1991, “For all the recent attention given to the study
of Mormonism, surprisingly little has been devoted to the Book of
Mormon itself.” The Book of Mormon, Hatch continued, “still receives
scant attention from cultural historians.” In the academic
fields of American history and religious studies, Hatch’s
observation is still largely true. The present volume will
facilitate scholarly study of both the textual history and contents
of this significant document.
Obtaining the Plates
Joseph Smith and some of his close
associates recorded several accounts of the appearance of the angel
and the eventual recovery of the plates. He wrote about these
experiences in his first detailed history, which was recorded
in 1832 but not published in his
lifetime. Smith
and his followers first published an account in 1835, when and printed a series of letters in a church
newspaper. Their version was based on Joseph Smith’s retelling but
included few details.
The most extensive first-person narrative appears in Smith’s multivolume manuscript history. Joseph Smith apparently
dictated the story of his early life for this history, including an
account of the retrieval of the plates and their translation, in
spring 1838. This
account survives in an 1839 transcription that was first published in 1842.
In this account, Joseph Smith began
the retelling of his visionary experiences with a description of a
vision of God and Jesus Christ, which he experienced in 1820.
Three years later, Smith retired to bed on the night of 21 September 1823 feeling condemned
for his “weaknesses and imperfections.” Anxious to know the state of
his soul, he prayed to “Almighty God for forgiveness of all my sins
and follies” and asked “for a manifestation to . . . know of my
state and standing” before God.
Smith recounted that an angelic “messenger sent from the presence of
God” visited him throughout that night, stating that “God had a
work” for him and that his “name should be had for good and evil
among all nations kindreds and tongues.” In a hill near his house in
upstate , he was told, there was “a book
deposited written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former
inhabitants of this continent and the source from whence they
sprang.” The angel, whom Joseph Smith identified in later records as
Moroni, said “that the fullness of the everlasting Gospel was
contained in it [the book] as delivered by the Saviour to the
ancient inhabitants.”
The angel instructed Joseph Smith about God’s work in the last days
and then left. In the course of the night, the angel appeared twice
more, each time giving the same instructions.
The next morning, Joseph Smith went to
work in the fields as usual but found he was too exhausted to
continue, and his sent him home to rest.
Before Smith reached the house, the same angel appeared and again
delivered a message about his responsibilities in connection with
the plates. The angel also charged him to inform his father, Joseph
Smith Sr., “of the vision and commandments which [he] had
received.” Joseph Smith went back to his
father in the fields and “rehearsed the whole matter to him,” and
his father urged him to follow the angel’s instruction.
Smith then immediately went to the hill to retrieve the plates, only
to be denied access to them by the angel because he “had been
tempted of the advisary and saught the Plates to obtain riches and
kept not the commandme[n]t that [he] should have an eye single to
the Glory of God.” Joseph
Smith’s mother, , recalled that her
son returned home after the first visit to the hill with empty hands
but with a promise that he would obtain the plates in the
future.
Upon arriving home, Joseph Smith “told
the whole family all that he had made known to his father in the
field.” His family became the first
audience for the account of what he later termed his “marvilous
experience,” and rather than doubting as they might have in the
absence of physical evidence of the plates, they were enthusiastic
and eager for him to receive the record.
wrote, “We were
convinced that God was about to bring to light something that we
might stay our minds upon some thing that we could get a more
definite idea of than anything which had been taught us heretofore
and we rejoiced in it with exceeding great joy.” The Smiths’
anticipation was not dimmed even by the death of the oldest brother,
, in late 1823. Lucy Mack
Smith reported that Alvin’s final words to Joseph included the
admonition to “do everything that lays in your power to obtain the
records be faithful in receiving instruction and keeping every
commandment that is given you.”
According to his 1838–1839 account, Joseph Smith returned to the hill
once a year for the next four years, receiving “instruction and
intelligence” from the angel until he was finally allowed to
retrieve the plates in 1827.
During these years Smith, his family, and his early supporters tried
to control the circulation of information regarding his experiences.
remembered her son’s
warning: “We must be careful not to proclaim these things or to
mention them abroad For we do not any of us know the wickedness of
the world.” Though he confided in his family
and certain friends, Smith was cautious in sharing with others a
narrative of angelic visitations and ancient plates.
Over time, however, Joseph Smith and his
family shared his experiences with neighbors and associates,
especially as the time for obtaining the plates approached. Once
out, stories of visions circulated quickly. Neighbor
Willard Chase recalled that visited him in
June 1827 and related the story of a
“spirit” telling Joseph Smith “in a vision” the location of “a
record on plates of gold.”
, an early supporter,
wrote in his later history of learning from Smith about “the
Conversation he had with the personage which told him if he would Do
right according to the will of God he mite obtain the [plates] the
22nt Day of Septemer Next [1827]
and if not he never would have them.” On that night, family members
and others, including Knight, gathered at the Smith home in
anticipation. According to his later accounts,
Smith went to the hill with his wife and removed the plates. He
initially hid them in the woods to throw off possible pursuers and
then brought them home several days later. His reported that assailants
attempted to steal the plates as he brought them home from the woods
and that after the plates were stored at the Smith home, various
groups attempted to take them.
The Smiths and many in their community drew upon
long-established traditions of what some scholars have termed folk
religion or folk magic; these traditions may help explain the
reactions of many Palmyra residents to Joseph Smith’s experiences.
Many people in rural in Smith’s time
believed they could exercise supernatural power—to find buried
treasure, for instance—through the use of seer stones or divining
rods or through prescribed rituals. In 1826, Joseph Smith and his both affirmed in court that
the younger Smith used a seer stone, and Joseph Smith later acknowledged that he
had been employed to seek out treasure before he obtained the gold
plates.
Some people in and
the surrounding area understood the news of ancient gold plates in
light of a common belief in the reality of buried treasure; for
them, the angel of Joseph Smith’s visions seemed similar to the
treasure guardians of folk belief. But
Smith’s experiences also came at a time when these folk religious
beliefs and practices were fading as a result of pressure from both
Christian denominations and Enlightenment rationalism. For many in
the community, Smith’s treasure digging or magic activities
discredited his religious claims.
Faced with rumors that he was an active or even leading
participant in local treasure-digging activities and concerned that
his history might prove an obstacle for some to accepting his
religious message, Joseph Smith rarely mentioned his
participation in treasure digging and never in great detail. But
neither did he deny his early activities. He wrote in his 1838–1839
history that “the very prevalent story of my having been
a money digger” arose because he had been employed by in 1825 to “dig for the silver mine” near , Pennsylvania.
In a July 1838 question-and-answer column
for a church newspaper, Smith answered the question, “Was not Jo
Smith a money digger[?]” by saying, “Yes, but it was never a very
proffitable job to him.” The caution with which Joseph Smith
wrote about his involvement in treasure digging suggests that he was
mindful of an audience largely skeptical of such activities.
While many rejected Joseph Smith’s
claims of visionary experiences, others were convinced of their
authenticity. Even some opponents believed in the reality of the
plates. According to a later recollection by early supporter , met some
“young men . . . [who] were very angry against Joseph . . . for he
had promised to give them some of the golden plates when he obtained
them.” Hearing of their disappointment, Cowdery asked if it were
possible that Smith did not have the plates, whereupon “they replied
angrily: We know he has, for we have seen the place on the hill
where he got them.”
Family members and close friends later testified to the
existence of the plates, and they claimed their knowledge of the
plates from a variety of experiences. Several people testified that
they had handled or lifted the plates. Smith’s wife recalled feeling the plates as
they lay on the table, covered with a cloth, and “tracing their
outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and
would rustle with a metalic sound when the edges were moved by the
thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.” Smith’s
sister remembered hefting
a package that contained the plates. Several individuals reportedly lifted the
plates in a pillowcase or some other covering. A story repeated
by a grandson of the Whitmers, who were closely associated with the
Smiths at the time, fondly recalls ’s
account of being shown the plates by an angel after a day in which
she felt particularly overburdened by the excessive work brought on
by having the translation proceed in her home.
These moments of witness culminated with the
experiences of eleven men who became official witnesses of the
plates. These men testified to seeing the plates in June 1829, as translation was drawing
to a close. Three of them affirmed that an angel showed them the
plates and other artifacts associated with the Book of Mormon; the
other eight testified that Joseph Smith showed
them the plates. The eight witnesses stated that they had “seen
& hefted” the plates and therefore knew “of a surety” of their
existence. The
witnesses’ testimonies, contained in two separate statements, were
published in the first edition of the Book of
Mormon and in each subsequent Joseph Smith–era
edition.
Translating the Plates
According to Joseph Smith’s 1838–1839
history, the angel instructed Smith during the 1823 visits that the plates were to be translated.
But Joseph Smith may have been unsure how to proceed or uncertain
that it was his personal responsibility to translate, because he
apparently did not attempt to translate the plates as soon as he
obtained them. recalled that after
Smith had possessed the plates for some time, he “began to be
anxious to git them translated.” With neighborhood criticism
of Joseph Smith’s stories mounting, he moved to , Pennsylvania, with his wife , to live with her parents. , another early believer in the gold plates,
supplied the young couple with fifty dollars to aid them in moving
to , where translation might proceed.
soon became a key figure in the
commencement of the translation. He claimed that he was shown in a
vision “that he must go to with some of the characters,” after which he
went “imediately” to to visit Joseph Smith. There,
he and Smith “proceeded to coppy” characters from the plates, and
Harris then set out for New York City in an attempt to confirm their
authenticity. The editor
of the Gem (Rochester, New York) reported that Harris
went “in search of some one to interpret the hieroglyphics.”
Harris showed the characters to several scholars, including , a young professor of classics at Columbia
College. In his three known
accounts of these events, Anthon insisted that he told Harris that
he would not help translate the characters because he suspected a
hoax. By contrast, Harris said Anthon
confirmed the characters’ ancient origins and authenticity, though
he did not translate them. Harris and other Mormons frequently
retold this version of the story.
Whatever happened between Harris and Anthon, Harris returned with
renewed conviction. In , one skeptic of Joseph Smith’s claims who spoke
with Harris after his return described Harris as having become a
“perfect believer” in “Smith’s divine commission.” The
editor of the Gem reported that Harris learned during
his trip “that no one was intended to perform that all important
task [of translation] but Smith himself.”
Joseph Smith’s translation of the
plates was not the scholarly process normally associated with that
word. Rather than drawing upon familiarity with a foreign or ancient
language, Smith declared that he translated “by the gift and power
of God.”
Smith, , and other early believers came
to see Harris’s visit to as a fulfillment
of a prophecy in Isaiah 29 respecting a learned man’s inability to
read a sealed book. Smith’s 1832
account records:
He [Harris] took his Journy to the Eastern
Cittys and to the Learned saying read this I pray thee and
the learned said I cannot but if he would bring the blates
[plates] they would read it but the Lord had forbid it and
he returned to me and gave them to me to translate and I
said cannot for I am not learned but the Lord had prepared
spectacles for to read the Book.
The
“spectacles” refer to an instrument for translation that Smith said he found with the plates
and began using soon after ’s return. The
ancient scribe Moroni in the Book of Mormon spoke of including these
“interpreters” with the plates when he buried them, in order to aid
the translation. Earlier in the Book of Mormon
narrative, the missionary Ammon explained the purpose of the
interpreters to a king who had in his possession unreadable records:
“I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the
records: for he hath wherewith that he can look, and translate all
records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the
things are called interpreters.”
Joseph Smith and others often spoke
of the interpreters or “spectacles” as one of the means by which
Smith translated the Book of Mormon. Decades later, described them: “The two stones set in a bow of
silver were about two inches in diameter, perfectly round. . . . The
stones were white, like polished marble, with a few gray
streaks.” Reverend John A.
Clark, a resident, recalled Harris describing the
spectacles as “two transparent stones, through which, as a sort of
spectacles, he could read the Bible [i.e., the plates]. . . . By
looking through those mysterious stones, he had transcribed from one
of the leaves of this book.” Smith himself
described the instrument as “two transparent stones.”
, who remembered
seeing the spectacles before her son’s move to , gave a description of the instrument that is
similar to Harris’s: “2 smooth 3 cornered diamonds set in glass and
the glass was set in silver bows conected with each other in the
same way that old fashioned spectacles are made.”
For much of the translation, though, Joseph Smith used a different
instrument: a seer stone. explained
that her husband first translated “by the use of Urim and Thummim,
and that was the part that lost. After that he used a small stone, not exactly
black, but was rather a dark color.” Joseph Smith owned more than one seer stone,
though evidence generally points to the brown seer stone as the one
used in translation. Martin
Harris recalled that before switching exclusively to the seer stone,
Joseph Smith often used the stone instead of the spectacles “for
convenience.” Both the spectacles and the
seer stone were at times called interpreters.
And as evidenced by Emma Smith’s recollection, the biblical term Urim and Thummim was later used to refer to
both the spectacles and the seer stone.
Joseph Smith felt, at times, a
reticence to share the details of the translation experience. When
invited by his brother to provide details
to a church conference, he declined. He may
have provided some information to Jonathan
Hadley, editor of the Palmyra Freeman,
whom he and visited in 1829 when searching for someone to print the Book of
Mormon. After the visit from Smith and Harris, Hadley wrote in his
paper that a “huge pair of Spectacles” was found with the plates and
that “by placing the Spectacles in a hat, and looking into it, Smith
could (he said so, at least,) interpret these characters.”
Some of Smith’s early
associates left more detailed accounts of the translation. Some
accounts stem directly from the scribes, while others are second- or
thirdhand—the result of interviews with scribes or reminiscences of
conversations with them. Other individuals who left accounts, such
as , may have observed some
aspects of the translation; though Whitmer never served as a scribe,
for example, the translation was completed in his parents’ home.
Many accounts of the translation contain similar features.
John Clark, who heard describe the process, later reported that Smith
would look into “his spectacles, or transparent stones,” and then
the scribe would write down what Smith saw on the stones.
, who served as scribe
during the early translation work in , said her husband put his face into a hat to
block out the light while he looked into the spectacles or a seer
stone. In an interview with her son , Emma stated that
“in writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often
sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried
in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with
nothing between us.”
With the assistance of , , and
perhaps others, Joseph Smith translated the first
portion of the book, which was identified as coming “from the Book
of Lehi.” But Harris’s desire to convince others of the
authenticity of the translation almost brought the endeavor to an
end. Harris wished to share the text with his family and friends,
particularly his wife, ,
who doubted Smith’s claims and expressed frustration at her
husband’s financial support of the work. According to the account in his
1838–1839
history, Joseph Smith took Harris’s request to God, and
after two negative responses, received divine permission for Harris
to show the unfinished manuscript to a limited number of specific
individuals. Harris and Smith wrote a covenant detailing the
agreement, and Smith released the manuscript to Harris. But permission came at a cost: Joseph
Smith later said that because he had “wearied the Lord” in asking
through the interpreters to allow Harris to take the writings, the
instrument was taken from him.
And in the end, Harris’s desire to share the text proved too
powerful. He showed the manuscript to more individuals than
permitted, and the manuscript was lost or stolen. Neither the
circumstance of the loss nor the ultimate fate of the manuscript is
known. The following year, Joseph Smith dictated a revelation that proclaimed that wicked men stole the
manuscript to “alter the words” in order to discredit him and the
translation.
In July 1828, not long after lost the manuscript, the angel who had previously
appeared to Smith returned the interpreters to
him. Smith immediately “enquired of the Lord through them and
obtained” a revelation of chastisement.
He was told that “although a man may have many Revelations &
have power to do many Mighty works yet if he boast in his own
strength & Sets at naught the councils of God & follows
after the dictates of his will & carnal desires he must fall to
the Earth & incur the vengence of a Just God upon him.” The angel then left, taking with him both the
plates and the interpreters. According to Joseph Smith, the
items were returned “a few days” after the reprimand; , however, stated that
the moratorium on translation lasted until September 1828. In any event, it appears that no
additional translation was done until March 1829.
A revelation in the spring of 1829
addressed the loss of the manuscript and instructed Joseph Smith to “see that you are
faithful and go on unto the finishing of the remainder of the
work.”
This revelation forbade retranslating the portion of the plates
containing the “Book of Lehi” and directed that the work recommence
where it ended, likely near the beginning of the book of Mosiah. The
revelation also directed Smith to translate a record “engraven on
the plates of Nephi,” a parallel account written by Lehi’s son Nephi
that covered the same period as the lost manuscript. Once the rest
of the translation was complete, Smith was to turn to Nephi’s record
to supply the beginning of the narrative.
The loss of the manuscript marked the end of ’s work as principal scribe. Beginning in early April
1829, , a schoolteacher,
became Joseph Smith’s full-time scribal
assistant. A native of , Cowdery had just
finished teaching a term in a school near the and family home in , New York. Cowdery learned of Joseph Smith’s
experiences while boarding with the Smiths.
According to Smith’s 1832
history, Cowdery sought him out in after the “Lord appeared” to him and “shewed unto
him the plates in a vision and also the truth of the work and what
the Lord was about to do through me his unworthy Servant.” Between 7 April and
early July 1829, Smith dictated the bulk of the current
Book of Mormon text to Cowdery. After beginning this process in
Harmony, they moved to , New York, in early June
1829, where the translation was completed in the home of and , the
parents of Cowdery’s friend . By the time the text of the Book of
Mormon was finished, Smith had dictated portions to at least seven
scribes: Martin Harris,
,
,
Reuben Hale, Oliver Cowdery,
, and . Cowdery penned
more extant pages by far than all the other scribes combined.
Not long after began to work
with Joseph Smith, he sought a more
active role in the translation process. A revelation dictated by Joseph Smith and directed to
Cowdery stated that the Lord would “grant unto you [Cowdery] a gift
if you desire of me, to translate even as my servant Joseph.” After a failed attempt, however, Cowdery was told
through another revelation that he had misunderstood the
translation process and “took no thought, save it was to ask [God].”
While that ended Cowdery’s attempt to translate the Book of Mormon,
he was promised that he would receive power to “assist to translate”
other records in the future. Cowdery’s failed attempt underscored that the
responsibility for translating the Book of Mormon rested with Smith.
The revelation addressing Cowdery’s attempt to translate directed
him to assist Smith, who would be given “sufficient strength” to
translate. In 1834, Cowdery expressed great pleasure in his role as
Smith’s scribe:
These were days never to be forgotten—to sit
under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven, awakened the utmost
gratitude of this bosom! Day after day I continued,
uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translated,
with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites whould have said,
“Interpreters,” the history, or record, called “The book of
Mormon.”
Besides
the scribes, the translation also drew in others who wished to
observe.
recollected her experience in her home in ,
where she “often sat by and saw and heard them translate and write
for hours together.”
, who was interviewed often in later life
about the translation process, explained how he understood the
process.
Michael Morse, ’s brother-in-law, recalled
that he “had occasion more than once to go into his [Smith’s] immediate presence, and
saw him engaged at his work of translation.” The recollections of these observers
suggest that the translation was, in some ways, a shared event,
which interested individuals could occasionally witness. The
retelling of the stories of Smith’s translation extended this sacred
experience to members of the first and second generations of
Latter-day Saints.
Those who were curious about and eventually believed in
Joseph Smith’s visionary
experiences, the gold plates, and the translation soon formed the
core group from which a larger religious movement grew. While
working on the translation in May 1829, Smith and encountered a passage about “baptism for the
remission of sins” that led them to pray for understanding. They
later recounted that in response to their prayer, they were visited
by John the Baptist, who conferred upon them the authority to
baptize, and Smith and Cowdery proceeded to baptize one
another.
After the Book of Mormon manuscript was completed around the first of July 1829, Cowdery, who
was likely responding to a Joseph Smith revelation, prepared a
document with guidelines for early believers to practice their
faith. That document, called the “Articles
of the Church of Christ,” included instructions on
baptism, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and ecclesiastical
organization, and much of its text was drawn directly from the Book
of Mormon. After the Book of Mormon was published in March 1830, the Church of Christ was
officially established on 6 April 1830. Soon, the “Articles
and Covenants of the Church of Christ,” a document similar
to Cowdery’s “Articles” that relied in part on the same Book of
Mormon passages, was written to guide members in their newfound
faith. Through the Articles and Covenants, the Book of Mormon served
as a pillar on which the church based itself. The church’s founding
members were those who accepted the Book of Mormon as a revealed
text, brought forward “by the gift and power of God.”
These early believers felt the Book of Mormon’s primary
purpose was as a scriptural record that taught about Jesus Christ
and contained “the fulness of the gospel.” The
title page
of the 1830 edition asserts that it was written for a divine
purpose: “to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the
Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting Himself unto all nations.” And
a passage near the end of the book reminds readers:
Know ye that ye must come to the knowledge of
your fathers, and repent of all your sins and iniquities,
and believe in Jesus Christ, that he is the Son of God. . .
. Therefore repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus,
and lay hold upon the Gospel of Christ, which shall be set
before you, not only in this record, but also in the record
which shall come unto the Gentiles from the Jews.
Publishing and Sharing the Book of Mormon
Following the completion of the translation, was tasked with creating a second copy of
the manuscript. Joseph Smith was concerned about
the safety of the completed manuscript after ’s loss of the “Book of Lehi.” To provide a security copy and to facilitate
publication of the Book of Mormon, therefore, Cowdery and two other
scribes produced the printer’s manuscript in 1829 and 1830.
Even before the publication of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, , and other early believers spread news of it.
After Smith and Cowdery were baptized, Joseph Smith’s brother visited to inquire after the work. They showed Samuel the
translation “and labored to persuade him concerning the Gospel of
Jesus Christ which was now about to be revealed in it’s
fulness.”
While working as Joseph Smith’s scribe in Harmony, Cowdery wrote to
about his experiences.
Decades later, Whitmer recalled that Cowdery “gave me a few lines of
what they had translated, and he assured me that he knew of a
certainty that he had a record of a people that inhabited this
continent, and that the plates they were translating gave a complete
history of these people.” Cowdery and Smith also read several
of the not-yet-published chapters of the book to the locally
respected Quaker George Crane, which suggests
their belief in the book’s ability to convert. Despite being “an
attentive listener,” Crane rejected the book’s message as
“blasphemous.”
An explosion of print technology and the expansion of
publishing networks in the early American Republic made it easier
than ever before for this new work to reach a wide public. In 1830, the year the Book of Mormon was printed, the
American Bible Society announced plans to supply a Bible for every
household in America. Although this goal was not reached, almost one
million Bibles were printed in the
by the end of 1831. In 1829, the American Bible Society’s most prolific year of
printing to that point, printer
agreed to print five thousand copies of the Book of Mormon,
an ambitious print run for a small-town printer, considering that
the average print run for a book in the United States in the 1820s
was roughly two thousand copies. Believing that
the publication of the Book of Mormon was a landmark spiritual
event, Joseph Smith and his followers
published the book on a large scale, and the brown leather binding
was even styled to match the two most common Bibles printed in 1829
and 1830.
Excerpts of the printed Book of Mormon text were
circulated by both believers and skeptics even before books came off
the press. At least two believers left with
portions of the unbound sheets in order to convince friends,
neighbors, and family of the book’s authenticity. Having heard of
“the Golden Book found by a youth” named Joseph Smith, traveled to
Palmyra, where he spoke with and . When he returned to his home in , he took
with him an uncut sheet of sixteen printed pages (or a signature)
from the Book of Mormon. When he showed the pages to his , she “was much pleased
Fe[e]ling it to be the word of God.” After meeting with the Smith family,
Solomon
Chamberlin took sixty-four pages (four signatures) with
him on a missionary trip to , preaching “all that [he]
knew concerning Mormonism.” Those who insisted that the book was a
fraud also sought evidence in the text. Palmyra newspaper editor
, whose newspaper was printed
each weekend on the same press used during the week to publish the
Book of Mormon, pirated and reprinted parts of the Book of Mormon
without extensive critical commentary. “The Book,” Cole observed to his readers, “when it shall come
before the public, must stand or fall, according to the whims and
fancies of its readers.”
Besides distributing the published book, missionaries
of the early Church of Christ told of how the book had come to be,
recounting a narrative of Joseph Smith’s
visions, ancient plates, translation by the power of God, and a God
who interacted with humankind in modern times. Although the book’s
title page, copyright notice, preface, and witness statements
contain hints of that narrative, the Book of Mormon itself conveys
little information about Joseph Smith or his experience in bringing
forth the book. The witness statements, which are found at the end
of the book, testify to the reality of the plates but do not mention
how they were discovered or translated, except to say that they were
translated “by the gift and power of God.”
The preface, written by Joseph Smith, briefly discusses the book’s
origins but focuses largely on ’s loss of the
initial portion of the manuscript. Smith concluded his preface by
stating simply, “I would also inform you that the plates of which
hath been spoken, were found in the township of , Ontario county, New-York.”
While many individuals read the book with little or no
background knowledge about its origins and were convinced of its
divinity, others gained that conviction through conversing with
those who knew the history of the discovery and translation of the
text. In
fall 1830, four
missionaries were commanded by revelation to preach to various tribes of American
Indians west of the border who were
considered by Joseph Smith and many church
members to be descendants of Lamanites. On their way to Indian
Territory, and his missionary companions
converted more than a hundred individuals in .
John Riggs, a convert in , Ohio, recalled that Cowdery and the other
missionaries recounted the narrative of the angel, the recovery of
the plates, and the translation.
Samuel Underhill, an observer critical of the
new faith, noted that recent converts in Ohio “believe[d] that
Joseph Smith was led by supernatural power to discover and to
translate the Golden Bible.”
When writing to church leadership in of his successes in Ohio, Cowdery pleaded for more
books: “There is considerable call here for books, and I wish you
would send five hundred immediately here.”
By 1831, word of Smith’s early
visionary experiences and the translation had circulated widely
enough that newspapers had published reports in both New York and
Ohio. Early members shared the story of the
book’s miraculous origins in part because readers would not learn
that context by reading the book itself.
Early Mormons accepted the Book of Mormon as scripture,
adopting teachings and stories from the book into the developing
church structure, liturgy, and community. Over the next decade,
church leaders published three more editions, notwithstanding the
church’s serious financial troubles. Recognizing the importance of
the book, those skeptical of the faith called believers Mormonites
and later Mormons, after the book they accepted as scripture.
The Book of Mormon thus became, in Joseph Smith’s words, the
“keystone” of the faith. It not only helped shape the theology of
the new religious movement but also provided a foundation for a
community of believers committed to spreading their message
throughout the world. In the preface to
the second edition (1837), the compilers highlighted their belief in
the power and destiny of the book:
Expecting, as we have reason to, that this
book will be conveyed to places which circumstances will
render it impossible for us to visit . . . we cannot
consistently let the opportunity pass, without expressing
our sincere conviction of its truth, and the great and
glorious purposes it must effect, in the restoration of the
house of Israel, and the ushering in of that blessed day
when the knowledge of God will cover the earth, and one
universal peace pervade all people.
The Book
of Mormon became a powerful symbol: its text demonstrated to early
followers of Joseph Smith that God spoke with
the inhabitants of the ancient Americas, and Smith’s experiences in
obtaining the gold plates and translating the book offered evidence
to them that God continued to speak to humankind through prophetic
leaders.