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Book of Mormon Manuscript Excerpt, circa June 1829 [1 Nephi 2:2b–3:18a]

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Book of Mormon Manuscript Excerpt, circa June 1829 [1 Nephi 2:2b–3:18a]

Source Note

Book of Mormon, original manuscript excerpt, [3]–[4]; [likely , Seneca Co., NY; ca.June 1829]; handwriting of , , and one unidentified scribe; CHL.
Leaf measuring approximately 16⅜ × 7 inches (42 × 17 cm). The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon was placed in the cornerstone of the in 1841. In 1882 the manuscript was removed, but it had suffered considerable damage from water. Lewis Bidamon, second husband of , gave portions of the manuscript to visitors to . Through the years, many of these have been collected or donated to several different repositories, including the Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, and the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Additionally, some fragments of the manuscript are in private possession. Only about 28 percent of the original manuscript is now known to be extant, and much of that is in the form of fragments. The excerpt featured below was acquired with about twenty other pages by Sarah M. Kimball in September 1883 and given to Joseph F. Smith, a member of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in October 1883. It is unknown when the fragment came into the possession of the Church Historian’s Office. The excerpt below—not a complete text, but included to provide a sense of the Book of Mormon text—is featured because it contains the work of the three scribes whose handwriting is found in the extant portion of the manuscript and because the document is in relatively good condition.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    The handwriting of this scribe matches handwriting of a partially extant copy of a 9 December 1830 revelation created in Ohio around early 1831. Thus, the unidentified scribe is narrowed to someone who served as scribe both in Fayette in 1829 and Ohio in 1831. Unfortunately, no known identifiable or significant samples of Martin Harris’s or Christian Whitmer’s handwriting have been found. According to his brother David Whitmer, Christian assisted Oliver Cowdery in writing the Book of Mormon as JS dictated the text. (Revelation, 9 Dec. 1830, Revelations Collection, CHL [D&C 36:3–8]; “The Last Man,” Times [Chicago], 17 Oct. 1881, 5.)

    Revelations Collection, 1831–ca. 1844, 1847, 1861, ca. 1876. CHL. MS 4583.

    Times. Chicago. 1854–1895.

  2. [2]

    JS, Journal, 29 Dec. 1841; see also Foote, Autobiography, 2 Oct. 1841; and Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” Return, Aug. 1890, 315.

    Foote, Warren. Autobiography, not before 1903. Warren Foote, Papers, 1837–1941. CHL. MS 1123, fd. 1.

    The Return. Davis City, IA, 1889–1891; Richmond, MO, 1892–1893; Davis City, 1895–1896; Denver, 1898; Independence, MO, 1899–1900.

  3. [3]

    “Relics of the Old Nauvoo House,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 4 Oct. 1882, 577.

    Deseret News. Salt Lake City. 1850–.

  4. [4]

    Skousen, Original Manuscript, 6–7; see also 33–37.

    Skousen, Royal, ed. The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: Typographical Facsimile of the Extant Text. Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University, 2001.

  5. [5]

    Sarah M. Kimball, Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to George Reynolds, [Salt Lake City, Utah Territory], 19 July 1884, in George Reynolds, “History of the Book of Mormon,” Contributor, July 1884, 366; see also “Editorial Notes,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 July 1883, 20.

    Reynolds, George. “History of the Book of Mormon.” Contributor, July 1884, 361–367.

    Woman’s Exponent. Salt Lake City. 1872–1914.

  6. [6]

    Jessee, “Original Book of Mormon Manuscript,” 266.

    Jessee, Dean C. “The Original Book of Mormon Manuscript.” BYU Studies 10 (Spring 1970): 259–278.

Historical Introduction

JS’s history recounts that on the night of 21–22 September 1823, “a messenger sent from the presence of God” visited JS and “said there was a book deposited written upon , giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent.” JS found the plates in a stone box embedded in a hill not far from the Smith residence, “under a stone of considerable size.” On 22 September 1827, after yearly visits to the spot, JS obtained the plates. He moved from , New York, to , Pennsylvania, a few months later, and his wife and her brother Reuben Hale began recording JS’s dictation from the plates. From mid-April to mid-June 1828, , a supporter from Palmyra, was JS’s primary scribe and finished a considerable portion of the , but he then lost the transcription. A messenger sent from God chastised JS for allowing the manuscript to be lost and took the plates from JS, but returned them “in a few days.” Rather than retranslating the lost pages, JS was directed to finish “the remainder of the work” and apparently picked up where he and Harris had stopped, in the book of Mosiah. Although Emma Smith, JS’s brother , and possibly others served as scribes for JS over the next several months, progress was slow and sporadic. JS moved forward in earnest only after arrived to serve as his full-time scribe in early April 1829. During April and May 1829, JS and Cowdery apparently translated the portion of the Book of Mormon from Mosiah through the concluding book of Moroni.
JS and relocated to the home in , New York, in early June 1829 and promptly resumed the translation. “It was a laborious work,” recalled , “for the weather was very warm, and the days were long and they worked from morning till night.” While the timetable of the translation is not known with certainty, analysis of the manuscript suggests that JS translated the portion from the first book of Nephi through Words of Mormon—what became the first part of the Book of Mormon—at the Whitmer home during June. This was in accordance with a revelation that had instructed JS to translate “the engravings which are on the plates of Nephi,” which covered the same time period as the pages lost by , a manuscript that JS made no effort to retranslate. The representative sample selected for inclusion in this volume is taken from this portion of the manuscript JS and Cowdery produced, now known as the “original manuscript.”
The featured text is primarily in the handwriting of , but it also contains short passages inscribed by and one unidentified scribe, who replaced Cowdery for brief periods. This selection exhibits the traits typical of the original Book of Mormon manuscript, most noticeably a lack of punctuation. After the translation, scribes added chapter numbers and the typesetter added paragraph breaks and punctuation to the printer’s manuscript as it was being prepared for publication. The text transcribed here, as with other extant portions of the original manuscript, exhibits very few signs of editing. It contains spelling errors characteristic of each particular scribe. The Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers will extend this analysis and present the complete text of the extant portions of the original manuscript and the complete text of a second manuscript, the “printer’s manuscript” that was copied from the original for use by the typesetter.
The text featured here begins on the third manuscript page (second leaf) of what in the published Book of Mormon was titled “The First Book of Nephi: His Reign and Ministry.” The first leaf is no longer extant. Page 3 picks up the narrative of the record at the point when Nephi’s father, Lehi, acting under inspiration, departs the Jerusalem area with the assurance that if he and his family are righteous they will be led to a promised land. This is the inaugural event in the multigenerational family saga that dominates most of the Book of Mormon. In the lost manuscript, the story was presumably told from the perspective of the father, Lehi, whereas here it is told from the perspective of the son, Nephi.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    JS History, vol. A-1, 5, 7; see also Oliver Cowdery, “Letter VI,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, Apr. 1835, 1:108–112; and Oliver Cowdery, “Letter VII,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, July 1835, 1:155–159.

    Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.

  2. [2]

    Knight, Reminiscences, 4; Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald, 1 Oct. 1879, 289; JS History, vol. A-1, 9–10. JS and Harris stopped translating on 14 June, the day before Emma Smith gave birth to a son who either was stillborn or died shortly after birth.

    Knight, Joseph, Sr. Reminiscences, no date. CHL. MS 3470.

    Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.

  3. [3]

    JS History, vol. A-1, 11.

  4. [4]

    Revelation, Spring 1829 [D&C 10:3]; see also Historical Introduction to Revelation, July 1828 [D&C 3].

  5. [5]

    JS History, ca. Summer 1832, [6].

  6. [6]

    Not all of the plates were translated. According to Oliver Cowdery, a heavenly messenger had previously told JS that “a part of the book was sealed, and was not to be opened” until “the people of the Lord are prepared, and found worthy” to receive it. (Oliver Cowdery, “Letter IV,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, Feb. 1835, 1:80; see also Book of Mormon, 1830 ed., 111 [2 Nephi 27:21–22].)

    Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.

  7. [7]

    James H. Hart, “About the Book of Mormon,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 9 Apr. 1884, 190.

    Deseret News. Salt Lake City. 1850–.

  8. [8]

    Revelation, Spring 1829 [D&C 10:41]; see also JS History, vol. A-1, 21–22. Most scholars of the Book of Mormon believe that JS and Cowdery translated the portion from Mosiah to Moroni first, and the portion from the first book of Nephi to Words of Mormon second. (See, for example, Welch, Opening the Heavens, 100–101, 115–117; and Metcalfe, “Priority of Mosiah,” 396–399.)

    Welch, John W., ed. Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2005.

    Metcalfe, Brent Lee. “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, 395–444. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993.

  9. [9]

    A complete transcript of the extant parts of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon has been published as Royal Skousen, ed., The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: Typographical Facsimile of the Extant Text (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University, 2001).

  10. [10]

    Skousen, “Translating the Book of Mormon,” 75–82, 85–87; Skousen, Original Manuscript, 1:25. Decades later, eyewitnesses Emma Smith, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer recalled details about the translation process, mentioning, for example, that JS spelled out difficult proper names when necessary. (Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald, 1 Oct. 1879, 289–290; Edward Stevenson, “One of the Three Witnesses,” Deseret News [Salt Lake City], 28 Dec. 1881, 762–763; “Mormonism,” Kansas City Daily Journal, 5 June 1881, 1; see also “Joseph Smith Documents Dating through June 1831.”)

    Skousen, Royal. “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, 61–93. Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1997.

    Skousen, Royal, ed. The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: Typographical Facsimile of the Extant Text. Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University, 2001.

    Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.

    Deseret News. Salt Lake City. 1850–.

    Kansas City Daily Journal. Kansas City, MO. 1878–1891.

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<​Nephi goeth up to jerusalem to bring the <​Records​> of the jews​> [rebe]l again[s]t me also & if it so be that they rebell against me they sha[ll b]e a Scourge unto thy seed to stir them up in the ways of remembernce & it came to pass that I Nephi returned from speaking with the Lord to the tent of my father & it came to pass that he spake unto me saying behold I have dreamed a dream in the which the Lord hath commanded m me that thou & thy Brethren shall return to Jerusalem for behold Laban hath the reckord of the Jews & also a genealogy of my forefathers & they are engraven upon plates of Brass wherefore the Lord hath commanded me that thou & thy Brethers should go unto the house of Laban & seek the reckords & bring them down <​hither​> into the wilderness & now behold thy Brethers murmur saying it is a hard thing which I have required of them but behold I have not required <​it​> of them but it is a commandment of the Lord therefore go my Son & thou shalt be favoured of the Lord because thou hast not murmured and it came to pass that I nephi said unto my father I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men Save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them and it came to pass that when my father had heard these words he was exceding glad for he knew that I had been blessed of the Lord and I Nephi & my Brethren took our Journey in the wilderness whith our tents to go up to the Land of Jerusalem and it came to pass that when we had gone up to the land of Jerusalem I & my Brethren did consult one with another I & we cast lots which of us should go in [unto] the house <​of​> Laban & it came to pass that the lot <​[fel]l​> upon Laman & Laman went in unto the house of Laban & he talked with him as he sat in his house & he desired of Laban the Records which were engrave[n] upon the plates of brass which contained the genealogy of my father that <​&​> behold it came to pass that Laba[n] was angry and thr[u]st him out from his presence [and] he would not that he should have the records wher[e]fore he said unto him behold thou art a robber and I will slay thee but laman fled out of his presence and told the things which laban had done unto us & we began to be exceeding sorrowful & my brethren where were about to return unto my father in the wilderness but behold I said unto them that as the Lord liveth & as we live we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have acconplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us wherefore let us be faithful in keeping the comma[n]dments of the Lord therefore let us go down to the Land of our fathers inheritence for behold he left go[ld] & silver & all manner of riches & all this he hath don[e] because of the commandment <​of the Lord​> for he knowing that Jerusalem must be destroyed because of the wickedness of the people for behold they have rejected the words of the prophets wherefore if my father should dwe[ll] in the land after that he hath been commanded to flee out of the land behold he would also perish [p. [4]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Book of Mormon Manuscript Excerpt, circa June 1829 [1 Nephi 2:2b–3:18a]
ID #
6556
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D1:58–63
Handwriting on This Page
  • Unidentified
  • Oliver Cowdery
  • John Whitmer

Footnotes

  1. new scribe logo

    Insertion in unidentified handwriting. This line was added to describe the content of the page and was not part of the original dictation. (See Skousen, Original Manuscript, 25.)

    Skousen, Royal, ed. The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: Typographical Facsimile of the Extant Text. Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University, 2001.

  2. new scribe logo

    Oliver Cowdery handwriting ends; John Whitmer begins.

  3. new scribe logo

    Insertion in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery.

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