The Most Credible Accounts of the Translation of the Book of Mormon

Taken en masse, the many historical accounts of the translation of the Book of Mormon are contradictory and confusing. However, when we look at them critically and consider the sources, a consistent description of the translation begins to emerge.

In January of 1849, Oliver Cowdery shared with Samuel W. Richards his understanding of how the Book of Mormon was translated. Over 58 years later, on May 21, 1907, Richards recorded his recollection of what Oliver Cowdery had said. According to that recollection, Cowdery told him that when Joseph Smith was translating, words appeared and “remained in the translator” until transcribed correctly.[1] The “translator” could have referred to the interpreters or, alternatively, to Joseph Smith’s brown seer stone. The need for the seer to look “in” the stone agrees with the Book of Mormon’s description of how seer stones are used (Mosiah 8:13). A typed copy was soon made of Richards’s recollection and dated May 25, 1907. Because Richards’s original account did not read smoothly in some spots, someone (probably the typist) did some light editing. As a result of this editing, Oliver Cowdery is represented in the typed copy as saying that the words Joseph Smith saw while translating appeared and “remained on the ‘interpreter.’”[2] These changes in the text reflect assumptions both about what instrument was used and about how it functioned. There may be even greater differences between Richards’s May 21 account and what Cowdery actually said many decades previously — differences due to Richards’s own faulty recollection and assumptions. Because of such probable but unknowable differences, we must use Richards’s account and all other secondhand (and third-hand, and fourth-hand) accounts with caution, if at all.

Even secondhand accounts written shortly after an interview are likely to have errors. In 1881, after an interview that David Whitmer granted the Kansas City Daily Journal was published with several errors, he wrote a letter of correction to the editor:

I notice several errors in the interview had with me by one of your reporters as published in the DAILY JOURNAL of June 5th, ‘81, and wish to correct them.

I am reported as saying that “the young men in the neighborhood saw the plates in the hill.” The language used was, that “we saw the place (not the plates) in the hill from which the plates were taken, just as he described them to us before he obtained them.” … I do not wish to be understood as saying that those referred to as being present were all of the time in the immediate presence of the translator, but were at the place and saw how the translation was conducted. I did not say that Smith used “two small stones” as stated nor did I call the stone “interpreters.” I stated that “he used one stone (not two) and called it a sun [seer] stone.” The “interpreters” were as I understood taken from Smith and were not used by him after losing the first 116 pages as stated. It is my understanding that the stone refer[r]ed to was furnished him when he commenced translating again after losing the 116 pages.

My statement was and now is that in translating he put the stone in his hat and putting his face in his hat so as to exclude the light and that then the light and characters appeared in the hat together with the interpretation which he uttered and was written by the scribe and which was tested at the time as stated.[3]

Before the use of recording equipment became standard practice, interviewers had to reconstruct statements from hastily written notes, filling in gaps and smoothing over rough spots with their own words based on their sometimes-faulty memories of what was said and assumptions of what was meant. The chance for error was high. (The problem was made worse by faulty typesetting, such as “sun stone” instead of “seer stone” in the letter quoted above.)[4] This tendency for error limits the utility of secondhand accounts for reconstructing historical events. For this reason, and for the sake of brevity, I will rely primarily on firsthand accounts for reconstructing the process by which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. These include accounts written or dictated personally by those who witnessed the translation, as well as interview transcripts that were reviewed and approved by the interviewed witnesses. All the known firsthand accounts that provide details of the translation process are provided or summarized below.

In Joseph Smith’s description of the translation in the earliest manuscript of his history, he says that “the Lord provided spectacles for to read the book.”[5] Near the end of his life, in a letter he wrote to the Times and Seasons, Joseph Smith quoted Mormon 9:34 and then stated: “Here then the subject is put to silence, for ‘none other people knoweth our language,’ therefore the Lord, and not man, had to interpret, after the people were dead.”[6] In his other published statements, Joseph Smith provided little additional information, indicating only that he translated “through the medium of the Urim and Thummim … by the gift and power of God.”[7]

The only firsthand statement describing the translation we have from Oliver Cowdery is equally spare and vague:

I … commenced to write the Book of Mormon. 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 [sic] have said, ‘Interpreters.’[8]

In this description, Cowdery has Joseph Smith translating “with the Urim and Thummim” but also dictating “by the inspiration of heaven.” The means of divine inspiration is not specified, and could refer to either thoughts or visual images presented to Joseph Smith’s mind. Inspiration in a religious context is often equated with the direct instilling of thoughts by the Holy Ghost, but the word also has a more general meaning of influence, and it is unclear in which sense Cowdery is using it.

Cowdery’s statement is also equivocal regarding the instrument being used to translate. “The Urim and Thummim” could refer to the interpreters or to one of Joseph Smith’s own seer stones. By mentioning “interpreters,” Cowdery may have intended the reader to infer that Joseph Smith translated in his presence with the Nephite interpreters, but that is not exactly what he said. All he necessarily said was that the Nephite term for urim and thummim was interpreters: “the urim and thummim, or as the Nephites would have said, ‘interpreters.’” Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery both avoided using the term “seer stone” in their public statements. Talk of revelation by seer stone in a society increasingly intolerant of folk religious practices would have only increased the hostility Joseph Smith and his followers faced because of their unconventional religious views. That may have been why, when Joseph Smith was asked during an 1831 conference in Ohio to relate information regarding the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he opined that “it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the book of Mormon” and “it was not expedient for him to relate these things.”[9] The Church has since made efforts to inform the public about Joseph Smith’s use of a seer stone in translating.[10]

Martin Harris granted an interview to Joel Tiffany, editor of the spiritualist periodical, Tiffany’s Monthly, in 1859. Tiffany’s report of the interview begins by noting efforts to assure that Martin Harris’s statements were accurately recorded: “The following narration we took down from the lips of Martin Harris, and read the same to him after it was written, that we might be certain of giving his statement to the world.” The account relates Martin Harris’s description of the interpreter stones and how they might have been used:

The two stones set in a bow of silver were about two inches in diameter, perfectly round, and about five-eighths of an inch thick at the centre; but not so thick at the edges where they came into the bow. They were joined by a round bar of silver, about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and about four inches long, which, with the two stones, would make eight inches.

The stones were white, like polished marble, with a few gray streaks. I never dared to look into them by placing them in the hat, because Moses said that “no man could see God and live,” and we could see anything we wished by looking into them; and I could not keep the desire to see God out of my mind.[11]

The two round stones set in a metal frame superficially resembled spectacles. With the dimensions that Martin Harris gave for the interpreters, however, they were too wide to have been worn like eyeglasses. Martin Harris’s statement that the interpreters were used by placing them in a hat is corroborated by an account written by Joseph Knight Sr., a close friend of Joseph Smith who remained true to him and the church he established throughout his life. Joseph Knight was present at the Smith home when Joseph Smith first obtained the plates and interpreters. He also provided material support, including paper, for the translation and visited Joseph Smith several times during the translation period. He likely would have been permitted to observe Joseph translating. In his account, Joseph Knight describes Joseph Smith’s reaction to obtaining the interpreters and gold plates and how he used the “glasses” in translating.

But he seamed to think more of the glasses or the urim and thummem then he Did of the Plates for says he I can see any thing they are Marvelus Now they are writen in Caracters and I want them translated Now he was Commanded not to let no one see those things But a few for witness at a givin time.

… Now he Bing an unlearned man did not know what to Do. then the Lord gave him Power to Translate himself then ware the Larned men Confounded, for he By the means he found with the plates he Could translate those Caricters Better than the Larned. Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes then he would take a sentence and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters then he would tell the writer and he would write it then <that would go away> the next sentance would Come and so on

But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite so we see it was marvelous thus was the hol translated. Now when he Began to translate he was poor and was put to it for provisions and had no one to write for him But his wife and his wifes Brother would sometimes write a little for him through the winter.[12]

This account confirms that the “glasses or the urim and thummem” were used in translating, not by wearing them, but by placing them in a hat.[13]

Joseph Smith’s brother William may have also witnessed the Book of Mormon translation in the earliest days. If not, he must have been privy to discussions about the process. In a pamphlet that he published in 1883, he wrote,

He translated them by means of the Urim and Thummim, (which he obtained with the plates), and the power of God. The manner in which this was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light, (the plates lying near by covered up), and reading off the translation, which appeared in the stone by the power of God.[14]

William Smith’s statement agrees with those of Knight and Harris that the interpreters were used by placing them in a hat.

The remaining firsthand accounts of translation describe Joseph Smith using a single seer stone rather than the two interpreter stones to translate. David Whitmer indicated in his letter to the Kansas City Daily Journal that the interpreters were not used after the loss of the 116 manuscript pages. Whitmer’s statement is supported by a letter written by Emma Smith to Emma Pilgrim in 1870, in which she describes Joseph Smith’s brown seer stone: “Now, the first part my husband translated, was translated by the use of the Urim, and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a dark color.”[15]

Emma Smith was interviewed in 1879 by her son Joseph Smith III, who was careful to verify that he had recorded her words correctly: “These questions and the answers she had given to them, were read to my mother by me … and were affirmed by her.”[16] In the transcript of the interview, she speaks of the manner of translation and of her belief in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon:

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. … He had neither manuscript nor book to read from. … If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me. … The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth..…

Joseph Smith … could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone a book like the Book of Mormon..…

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; for, when 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 any 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.[17]

In early June of 1829, Joseph, Emma, and Oliver Cowdery moved to the Peter Whitmer home in Fayette, New York, to complete the translation, with Oliver Cowdery as the principal scribe. The translation was conducted in plain view of others, as described in 1870 by Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery, David Whitmer’s sister who later married Oliver Cowdery:

I cheerfully certify that I was familiar with the manner of Joseph Smith’s translating the Book of Mormon. He translated the most of it at my Father’s house. And I often sat by and saw and heard them translate and write for hours together. Joseph never had a curtain drawn between him and his scribe while he was translating. He would place the director in his hat, and then place his face in his hat, so as to exclude the light.[18]

Both Elizabeth Cowdery and David Whitmer retained a firm belief in the Book of Mormon the remainder of their lives. David Whitmer, having given many interviews to newspaper reporters and other interested persons and often being misquoted, issued a corrective statement in 1879 through his friend, John Traughber:

With the sanction of David Whitmer, and by his authority, I now state that he does not say that Joseph Smith ever translated in his presence by aid of Urim and Thummim; but by means of one dark colored, opaque stone, called a “Seer Stone,” which was placed in the crown of a hat, into which Joseph put his face, so as to exclude the external light. Then, a spiritual light would shine forth, and parchment would appear before Joseph, upon which was a line of characters from the plates, and under it, the translation in English; at least, so Joseph said.[19]

The main facts in this statement are corroborated in the transcript of an 1885 interview of David Whitmer by Zenas Gurley:[36]

The “Interpreters” were taken from Joseph after he allowed Martin Harris to carry away the 116 pages of Ms—of the Book of Mormon as a punishment, but he was allowed to go on and translate by the use of a “Seers stone” which he had, and which he placed in a hat into which he buried his face, stating to me and others that the original Character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in english, which enabled him to to read it readily.

While Brother Whitmer was too feeble to write much, being unable to write the answers to the foregoing 25 questions in person—Yet it was with his consent and in his presence that I wrote them and corrected them, as they appear here.

Both of these statements name Joseph Smith as the ultimate source of information.[20] They also name Joseph Smith’s own seer stone as the instrument used. While Joseph Smith, his mother, Oliver Cowdery, Wilford Woodruff, and some others close to him consistently referred to Joseph Smith’s seer stone as urim and thummim, others, including Joseph Knight, Emma Smith, and David Whitmer, were content to call it a seer stone or glass and reserved urim and thummim for the interpreters. David Whitmer was a firm believer in the sacred use of seer stones and consistently testified that Joseph Smith translated by the “gift and power of God.”[21]

David Whitmer’s statement agrees with those of the other translation witnesses that the instrument was placed in a hat, which served to exclude the light. Like Joseph Knight, Whitmer mentions the appearance of words, but describes the translation in terms even more suggestive of a visionary experience. A “parchment would appear” by “spiritual light” and on it, the Book of Mormon text.[22] This accords with the visionary experiences of Lehi, Ezekiel, and John, in which a text appeared on an envisioned “book.” The book Lehi saw in vision would have most likely been a “roll of a book” like that read by Ezekiel in his great vision. The standard books at the time of Lehi and Ezekiel were rolls of papyrus or leather. By the time John envisioned a “little book,” writing on sheets of parchment was becoming more common.[23]

None of these accounts indicate words appearing on a stone, as is sometimes assumed. The words simply “appear” (Joseph Knight’s account), or they appear “in the hat” (David Whitmer’s 1881 letter) or “in the stone” (William Smith’s account) or on a “parchment” that “would appear before Joseph” (Whitmer’s 1879 account). Martin Harris had indicated that a person might “see anything we wished” by “looking into” stones placed in a hat. These different descriptions are all consistent with one another if the translation was a visionary experience. In the darkness of Joseph Smith’s hat, a stone may not have been visible at all. As he gazed in the direction of the stone(s) and saw a vision of words on parchment, he may have thought of the vision as appearing in or through the stone(s).

David Whitmer published a pamphlet in 1887 in which he testified that he was “an eye-witness to the translation of the greater part of the Book of Mormon” and again shared his understanding of the translation process:

God gave to an unlearned boy, Joseph Smith, the gift to translate it by the means of a STONE. See the following passages concerning the “Urim and Thummin,” being the same means and one by which the Ancients received the word of the Lord. (1 Sam. xxviii:6. Neh. vii:65. Ezra ii:63. Num. xxvii:21. Deut. xxxiii:8. Exodus xxviii:30. Lev. viii:8). But this is a great stumbling-block to the people now. They cannot understand why God would work in this manner to bring forth his word; and why he would choose such a man as Joseph Smith to translate it; and they think the canon of scripture is full: and that angels do not minister unto men in these days.…

I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. 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 to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.…

At times when Brother Joseph would attempt to translate, he would look into the hat in which the stone was placed, he found he was spiritually blind and could not translate. He told us that his mind dwelt too much on earthly things, and various causes would make him incapable of proceeding with the translation. When in this condition he would go out and pray, and when he became sufficiently humble before God, he could then proceed with the translation.…

Brother Joseph did not write a word of the Book of Mormon; it was already written by holy men of God who dwelt upon this land. God gave to Brother Joseph the gift to see the sentences in English, when he looked into the hat in which was placed the stone. Oliver Cowdery had the same gift at one time.[24]

Whitmer’s account of the translation process is consistent with those of other witnesses and puts the translation in a larger context of divine revelation. The means by which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon was, according to Whitmer, the same means by which he received other early revelations and the same means by which ancient Israel’s high priests received the word of God through the Urim and Thummim. Specifically, “the gift and power of God” by which Joseph Smith translated was “the gift to see.”

These are the surviving firsthand accounts of those who witnessed or likely witnessed Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon. To these principal accounts can be added the firsthand accounts of those who apparently heard Joseph Smith describe some aspect of the translation process. There are only seven such accounts that provide any relevant information beyond Joseph Smith’s stating that he translated by the gift or power of God or by urim and thummim.[25] Although the authors of these accounts were unbelieving of or even hostile toward Joseph Smith’s claims, their statements agree in most details with the accounts of the believing witnesses.[26]

The earliest known account of the translation process was published in August of 1829 by Jonathan A. Hadley, editor of the Palmyra Freeman, after Joseph Smith came to him seeking a publisher for the Book of Mormon. Hadley reported that Joseph Smith had found a “huge pair of Spectacles” with the engraved gold plates and that “by placing the Spectacles in a hat, and looking into it, Smith could (he said so, at least) interpret these characters.“[27]

Hadley’s report that the interpreters were used by placing them in a hat accords with the statements of Harris, Knight, and William Smith.

Ezra Booth, a Methodist minister who converted to Mormonism after meeting Joseph Smith, was one of the first high priests and missionaries in the Church, but he soon became disillusioned with Joseph Smith and returned to his former religion. In a letter to another Methodist minister dated October 24, 1831, Booth notes the similarity between Joseph Smith’s visions of celestial beings and his translation of the Book of Mormon:

Smith is the only person at present, to my knowledge, who pretends to hold converse with the inhabitants of the celestial world. It seems from his statements, that he can have access to them, when and where he pleases. He does not pretend that he sees them with his natural, but with his spiritual, eyes; and he says he can see them as well with his eyes shut, as with them open. So also in translating. — The subject stands before his eyes in print, but it matters not whether his eyes are open or shut; he can see as well one way as the other.

…

These treasures were discovered several years since, by the means of the dark glass, the same with which Smith says he translated the most of the Book of Mormon.[28]

The “dark glass” that Joseph Smith used to translate “most of the Book of Mormon” in Booth’s account accords with the stone of “rather a dark color” mentioned by Emma Smith and the “dark colored, opaque stone” mentioned by David Whitmer. Booth’s claim that Joseph Smith himself provided this information suggests that, at least in his private conversations, he was initially more open about the translation process and objects used.

According to Booth’s letter, Joseph Smith could see the translation of the Book of Mormon whether his eyes were “open or shut,” just as when he saw visions of heavenly beings. As traditionally understood, the visions of Lehi, Ezekiel, and other prophets were dreamlike experiences in which persons and objects were seen that were not physically present, or were seen with other than the physical eyes. These are traditionally called “imaginative visions.”[29] Imaginative in this sense does not mean imaginary. It simply means that a vision is perceived through the brain’s imaginative faculty or the mind’s eye, as one perceives a dream or other vivid mental image, rather than through the physical senses. Booth and others of his time would say such visions were perceived by “spiritual eyes” with “spiritual light,” rather than by the “natural eye.” In D&C 76, Joseph Smith relates seeing such a vision: “And while we meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about. And we… saw the holy angels, and them who are sanctified before his throne… And while we were yet in the Spirit, the Lord commanded that we should write the vision” (D&C 76:19–28). Imaginative visions include revelatory dreams, which are described in the Bible as visions of the night (Job 4:13; 33:15, Genesis 46:2; Daniel 2:19, 26–18; 7:1–2). Revelatory dreams and visions are also equated in the Book of Mormon, as Lehi said: “Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision” (1 Nephi 8:2).

Nancy Towle, an itinerant preacher who met with Joseph Smith in October of 1831, reported in 1832 that he claimed to have found with the gold plates, “a pair of ‘interpreters,’ (as he called them,) that resembled spectacles; by looking into which, he could read a writing engraven upon the plates, though to himself, in a tongue unknown.” The translated book, she learned, was regarded by believers as the “Word of Inspiration.”[30]

In a sworn statement in about 1833, Henry Harris, a neighbor of the Smiths in New York, recalled how Joseph Smith described the translation: “By looking on the plates he said he could not understand the words, but it was made known to him that he was the person that must translate them, and on looking through the stone was enabled to translate.”[31]

Peter Bauder, a minister who interviewed Joseph Smith at the Whitmer home in 1830, reported in a book he published in 1834 that Joseph Smith told of having “obtained a parcel of plate resembling gold, on which were engraved what he did not understand, only by the aid of a glass which he also obtained with the plate, by which means he was enabled to translate the characters on the plate into English.”[32] Bauder refers to the interpreters as a “glass,” a local term for seer stone.[33]

Truman Coe, a pastor in Kirtland, Ohio, reported the following in 1836:

The manner of translation was as wonderful as the discovery. By putting his finger on one of the characters and imploring divine aid, then looking through the Urim and Thummim, he would see the import written in plain English on a screen placed before him. After delivering this to his emanuensi, he would again proceed in the same manner and obtain the meaning of the next character, and so on till he came to a part of the plates which were sealed up, and there was commanded to desist: and he says he has a promise from God that in due time he will enable him to translate the remainder. This is the relation as given by Smith. …The book thus produced, is called by them The Book of Mormon, and is pretended to be of the same Divine Inspiration and authority as the Bible.[34]

Coe’s mention that the translated text would appear on a “screen” accords with David Whitmer’s mention of the text appearing on “something like parchment.” Coe’s account differs from those of Whitmer and others in having Joseph Smith interacting physically with the plates, which may describe Joseph Smith’s initial perusal of the plates rather than his later manner of translating with the plates covered.

In a letter to his wife in 1840, Mathew Davis, a journalist, summarized a speech he heard Joseph Smith give the previous evening: “The Mormon Bible, he said, was communicated to him, direct from heaven. If there was such a thing on earth, as the author of it, then he (Smith) was the author; but the idea that he wished to impress was, that he had penned it as dictated by God.”[35]

Although “dictated” usually implies that words are spoken aloud, that interpretation is not consistent with any of the other principal accounts of translation. Based on the rest of the statement, Joseph Smith was more likely trying to communicate the idea that the words of the Book of Mormon were divinely revealed. In any case, Davis’s account portrays the translation as a revelation of words rather than of ideas or impressions and as a direct revelation from God rather than something produced in Joseph Smith’s mind or by a translating device.

These are the principal accounts of the translation of the Book of Mormon. They are remarkably consistent with one another, which attests to their reliability. Taken together, they suggest that Joseph Smith would look seemingly “into” or “through” one or more opaque stones in the darkened interior of a hat and see the translation written on a parchment or similar surface. This description is consistent with a visionary experience. The biblical prophets Ezekiel (Ezekiel 2:8-10), John the Revelator (Revelations 10), and perhaps Isaiah (Isaiah 1:1-2) and Amos (Amos 1:1-3) had visions in which they read books or saw written words of scripture.

The above text was taken with slight modification from Seers and Stones: The Translation of the Book of Mormon as Divine Visions of an Old-Time Seer. In this article, you can also read other accounts that suggest that Joseph Smith received other scriptures and revelations in visions facilitated by the use of seer stones.

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  1. “Oliver Cowdery Interview with Samuel W. Richards, January 1849,” in  Early Mormon  Documents, vol. 2,  ed.  Dan  Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), 500–501, emphasis added.
  2. “By Samuel Whitney Richards,” signed by S. W. Richards 25 May 1907, Americana BX 8608.Ala #1678, Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library.
  3. “David Whitmer to  Kansas City Journal  13 June  1881,” in Early Mormon Documents, 5:81–82.
  4. “David Whitmer to Kansas City Journal 13 June 1881,” 82n1.
  5. In about summer of 1832, Joseph Smith wrote in his personal history that “the Lord had prepared spectticke spectacles for to read the Book.” “History, circa Summer 1832,” 5, The Joseph Smith Papers; http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/history-circa-summer-1832?p=5.
  6. Joseph Smith, Times and Seasons 4 (15 May 1843): 194.
  7. ‘“Church History,’ 1 March 1842,” 707, The Joseph Smith Papers; http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/church-history-1-march-1842?p=2. Joseph Smith may have found his words in Omni 1:20. For Joseph Smith’s other accounts, see John W. Welch, “The Miraculous Translation of the Book of Mormon,” in Opening the  Heavens:  Accounts  of  Divine  Manifestations,  1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2005), 121–129.
  8. Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps, 7 Sep 1834, Messenger and Advocate 1 (Oct 1834), 14, spelling and italics as in the original.
  9. “Minutes, 25–26  October  1831,”  13,  The  Joseph  Smith Papers; http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/minutes-25–2 6-october-1831?p=4.
  10. For example, Turley et al., “Joseph the Seer,” 49–55, n16.
  11. “Martin Harris    Interview   with   Joel   Tiffany,  1859,”  in Early Mormon Documents, 2:302, 305.
  12. “Joseph Knight,   Sr.,   Reminiscence,  Circa   1835–1847,”  in Early Mormon Documents, 4:15–18, emphasis added.
  13. In this same account, Joseph Knight refers to Joseph Smith’s seer stone as “his glass” as opposed to “the glasses or the urim and thummem,” meaning the interpreters. “Joseph Knight, Sr., Reminiscence, Circa 1835–1847,” 13.
  14. “William Smith, On Mormonism, 1883,” in Early Mormon Documents, vol. 1, ed. Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), 497.
  15. “Emma Smith Bidamon to Emma Pilgrim, 27 March 1870,” in Early Mormon Documents, 1:532–533.
  16. Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald 26 (October 1, 1879), 290.
  17. Smith, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” 289–290.
  18. “Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery Affidavit.”
  19. John L. Traughber Jr., “Testimony of David Whitmer,” Saints’ Herald 26 (November 15, 1879): 341.
  20. As quoted in 1885 by Zenas H. Gurley, editor of the Saints’ Herald, David Whitmer reported Joseph Smith “stating to me and others that the original character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in English.” Questions asked of David Whitmer at his home in Richmond, Ray County, Missouri, 1885, by Elder Z. H. Gurley, manuscript, MS 4633, Church  History Library, quoted in Van Wagoner and Walker, “Gift of Seeing,” 54, emphasis added.
  21. See “The Testimony of  the  Three Witnesses,” The Book of Mormon; also, Whitmer, Address to All Believers, 6, 12, 42.
  22. An object appearing out of nowhere would seem to indicate an imaginative  vision,  unless  one  surmises  that  an  actual piece of parchment  materialized in Joseph Smith’s hat. In our technological world, we might alternatively imagine the seer stone physically projecting an image of a parchment into Joseph Smith’s  eyes. Although  such a miraculous  transformation  of stone to projector is plausible, it is not required to explain the witness accounts. Also, none of those who watched Joseph Smith translate reported seeing any light escape from Joseph Smith’s hat, and the light in Whitmer’s account is described as “spiritual,” not physical.
  23. Jack Finegan,  Encountering New  Testament  Manuscripts: A Working Introduction to Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1974), 19–29.
  24. Whitmer, Address to All Believers, 6, 12, 30, 37, emphasis added.
  25. For more accounts of the translation, see Welch, “Miraculous Translation,” 121–198.
  26. The hostility of a witness does not itself justify dismissing a statement as unreliable. Defenders as well as opponents can be motivated to misrepresent facts.
  27. “PalmyraFreeman,circaAugust1829,”inEarlyMormonDocuments, 2:221.
  28. Booth’s sources of information included “several interviews with Messrs. Smith, Rigdon and Cowdery.” “Ezra Booth Accounts, 1831,” in Early Mormon Documents, 5:308–309, emphasis added.
  29. Supernatural visions that are thought to be perceived by physical light entering through  the eyes of the body, or  the “natural eye,” are traditionally called “corporeal visions.” L. Roure, “Visions and Apparitions,” in Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912), 15:477.
  30. Nancy Towle, Vicissitudes Illustrated in the Experience of Nancy Towle, in Europe and America (Charleston, SC: James L. Burges, 1832), 138–39.
  31. “HenryHarrisStatement,circa1833,”inEarlyMormonDocuments, 2:76, emphasis added.
  32. “Joseph Smith Interview with Peter Bauder, October 1830,” in Early Mormon Documents, 1:17.
  33. For examples of the use of “glass” and “glass-looking” in reference to seer stones, see statements by Ezra Booth, Isaac Hale, and Joseph Knight herein. Seer stones were also called diamonds. Quinn, Early Mormonism, 171.
  34. “Truman Coe Account, 1836,” in Early Mormon  Documents, 1:47. There is no  record  of Coe’s  having interviewed Joseph Smith. In his introduction to Coe’s account, Dan Vogel suggests that Joseph Smith may have provided the information while preaching to Coe’s congregation.
  35. History of the Church, 4:79.
  36. “David Whitmer Interview with Zenas H. Gurley, 14 January 1885” in Early Mormon Documents, 5:138.