Peer review of Brant Gardner’s The Plates of Mormon and Engraven Upon Plates, Printed Upon Paper
Published in 2023 by Greg Kofford Books
Brant’s thoughtful books address aspects of the translation
of the Book of Mormon that some Latter-day Saints may be unaware of: (i) the
order of translation, (ii) the punctuation problems, and (iii) Joseph as
translator. Brant’s treatment of these three aspects is effective and
thoughtful, apart from a couple of specific issues that lead us to wonder why
his peer reviewers did not bring these up, or, if they did, why Brant did not
address the problems.
In this peer review, we’ll focus on Brant’s unstated
assumptions and suggest improvements for any future edition.
Background
1.
Order of translation. Historically there
may have been some confusion about which parts of the Book of Mormon were
translated where; i.e., what parts were translated in Harmony, PA, and what
parts in Fayette, NY. The extant Original Manuscript shows us that Joseph
translated what is now Mosiah through the Title Page (the abridged plates) in
Harmony, PA, and translated what is now 1 Nephi through Words of Mormon (the
original plates of Nephi, commonly called the “small plates”) in Fayette.
2.
Punctuation alternatives. Because Joseph
Smith dictated the text of the Book of Mormon without punctuation, the
typesetter, John Gilbert, and apparently Oliver Cowdery, placed punctuation
where they thought it made sense. These choices were not unreasonable, but also
not mandatory. Several readers have proposed alternative punctuation. For
example, I’ve proposed alternative punctuation to resolve some of the geography
issues. I don’t have any specific comments on Brant’s proposals.
3.
Joseph as translator. The paucity of trustworthy
accounts of the translation process has led to a variety of views about how
Joseph produced the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Lucy Mack
Smith, and John Whitmer consistently explained that Joseph used the Urim and
Thummim that came with the plates. Others claimed that Joseph put a seer stone
in a hat and read the words that appeared. Some scholars assume that, due to
his ignorance, Joseph himself could not have produced the text, so he was
merely a transmitter; i.e., he read words that someone else had translated and manifested
on the stone. Others think that the U&T gave Joseph a conceptual, or alternatively
a literal, translation that Joseph had to express through English using his own
syntax and vocabulary.
Brant’s solutions
1. Order of Translation. To reflect the order of
translation, Brant physically places Joseph’s translation of the abridged
plates (Mosiah through the Title Page) ahead of the translation of the plates
of Nephi (the small plates). Here’s his explanation in his Introduction, with
my interlinear comments. Original in blue,
my comments in red.
A reader’s first experience with
the Book of Mormon is not with the record that its ancient author and namesake
originally intended.
This assumes that readers start
at the beginning, but many readers experience the Book of Mormon through
quotations, excerpts, and specific references (such as Moroni 10:4-5). Brant
does make an important point that Mormon did not intend his book to start with
Nephi’s record, as he discusses next.
Instead, since its first edition
in 1830, the Book of Mormon has opened with a replacement text containing
records from earlier ancient authors who had different reasons for writing. The
set of plates known as the small plates replaced the beginning of Mormon’s
record that disappeared when the so-called “lost 116 pages” containing the book
of Lehi and the opening chapters of the book of Mosiah were stolen.
This is the narrative
explanation provided by D&C 10.
The Book of Nephi: His Reign and
Ministry (also known as First Nephi) was the first book of those small plates
that restored the Nephite history and stories that were on those pages.
Technically, all we can say is
that the “small plates” contained “a more particular account,” which may or may
not have restored what Mormon had abridged. For example, Joseph once mentioned
how the mounds were important to the Nephites, a concept that is not in the
present text and so may have come from the lost 116 pages.
39 Yea, and you remember it
was said in those writings that a more particular account was given of these
things upon the plates of Nephi.
40 And now, because the
account which is engraven upon the plates of Nephi is more particular
concerning the things which, in my wisdom, I would bring to the knowledge of
the people in this account—
(Doctrine and Covenants
10:39–40)
While the small plates offer a
parallel history to the narrative that Mormon had written, he did not intend
them to be a part of his account (W of M 1:1-7), and they do not reflect the way
he compiled and framed his record.
This is important to remember.
Because of those lost pages, the
great mind that conceived the Book of Mormon does not appear in the standard
published text until The Words of Mormon. Like the books of the small plates,
this short explanation was not part of Mormon’s intended record.
Joseph Smith called it the “original
Book of Mormon.”
It was rather written as an
introduction to that small set to explain why they were appended to his
history.
This is assumption and inference.
Mormon never said he appended these plates to his history. And Mormon’s
comments were at the end of the plates (like the Title Page), not as an
introduction the way we think of it today.
Although they were an
introduction, evidence suggests that it was placed at the end of the small
plates.
Brant doesn’t explain the
evidence he claims here, but it’s reasonable to assume that Joseph translated
the Words of Mormon after finishing with Omni.
This edition has thus elected to
begin with what has been retained of Mormon’s planned Book of Mormon, opening
with a placeholder for the lost book of Lehi as well as the unknown number of
lost chapters from the beginning of the book of Mosiah. Those are followed by
the books of Mosiah through Moroni.
This also follows the order of
translation.
The small plates books (1 Nephi
through Omni) are then included as an appendix of sorts, with The Words of
Mormon acting as their introduction.
Instead of presenting the
material the way Mormon intended, with his words at the end, Brant is moving
Words of Mormon to the beginning of the plates of Nephi.
Similarly, the Title Page was
the last leaf on Mormon and Moroni’s plates.
This is true, but Brant adds a
spin that some readers might not catch. Joseph Smith explained that “the Title
Page of the Book of Mormon is a literal translation, taken from the very last
leaf, on the left hand side of the collection or book of plates, which
contained the record which has been translated.”
IOW, Brant accurately stated
that the Title Page was the last leaf on the plates created by Mormon and
Moroni, which Moroni put in the stone box, which we know today as the abridged
plates, and which are specifically described in the Title Page (“an abridgment
of the record of the people of Nephi,” “an abridgment taken from the Book of
Ether also, and “sealed by the hand of Moroni).
The Title Page says nothing
about any original plates of Nephi contained in the “book of plates.”
But Brant wants us to believe
that the “small plates” were somehow “appended” to the set of plates after
the Title Page, which directly contradicts what Joseph explained.
Although physically at the end,
it has always been moved to the beginning. This edition follows that convention.
It’s strange that Brant moves
the Title Page to the front of the record when we all know it was originally
the last plate. This violates his purported purpose; i.e., to present the text
the way Mormon planned it. He should have put the Title Page right after the
end of Moroni.
He doesn’t give a reason for
that choice, other than following “that convention.” Moving the Title Page to
the front is confusing, but also seems intended to deflect from the peristent
problem of explaining where the “small plates” supposedly fit in the “book of plates”
Joseph obtained from the stone box.
The obvious solution is that the
“small plates” were not included in the stone box with the abridged plates.
This is why the Lord told Oliver
that when he finished with “this record” in Palmyra (the abridged plates), the
Lord had “other records” he would help to translate.
I would that ye should
continue until you have finished this record, which I have entrusted unto him.
2 And then, behold, other
records have I, that I will give unto you power that you may assist to
translate.
(Doctrine and Covenants
9:1–2)
Then in the very next section of
the D&C the Lord explained what those “other records” were when He instructed
Joseph to “translate the engraving” on the plates of Nephi—plates he did not
yet have while in Harmony.
41… you shall translate the
engravings which are on the plates of Nephi, down even till you come to the
reign of king Benjamin, or until you come to that which you have translated,
which you have retained;
42 And behold, you shall
publish it as the record of Nephi
(Doctrine and Covenants
10:41–42)
Because Brant forgot to tell his
readers about the “two sets of plates” scenario, we are let to surmise that
this oversight reflects his M2C belief that the Hill Cumorah/Ramah is not in
New York, and he doesn’t want readers to even know about the historical and
other evidence that corroborates what Joseph, Oliver and their contemporaries
always claimed about Cumorah/Ramah
_____
In Engraven Upon Plates, Printed Upon Paper, Brant
explains his reasoning in more detail.
After quoting D&C 10:38-42, Brant provides his
interpretation on page 216.
The revelation indicates that
there remained a source text that could be translated to replace the lost
stories. However, it wasn’t specific about what that source was, and the
reference to the “plates of Nephi” may have led Joseph to assume that he would
be given the large plates to translate and take the place of the portion of the
abridged history that had been lost.
The problem with this assumption
is that the Lord referred to something Joseph already knew about the plates of
Nephi, in a passage Brant quoted but apparently ignored:
39 Yea, and you remember it
was said in those writings that a more particular account was given of these
things upon the plates of Nephi.
(Doctrine and Covenants
10:39)
We could infer that these
instructions from the Lord were confusing to Joseph, or we can infer that Joseph
understood the Lord’s instructions because Mormon, in his abridgment of what
was lost in the 116 pages, explained that there were at least two sets of
plates, which we now refer to as the large plates and the small plates. For
example, Mormon could have mentioned the “small plates” in his abridgment of
the Book of Lehi. In fact, that may be the reason he searched for these plates
in the repositor in Cumorah
Either way, it is apparent from
the revelation that Joseph did not yet have the plates of Nephi, which were the
“other records” the Lord mentioned in D&C 9.
Brant continues:
Thus, it may not have been until
Joseph was translating 1 Nephi 9 that he realized that he was now translating a
completely separate record from the one Mormon had based his history on.
This speculation by Brant ignores
the interplay between D&C 9 and 10. It assumes that Joseph wasn’t really reading
from the plates, contrary to Brant’s explanation of the translation. If Joseph
didn’t know he was translating “the plates of Nephi” instead of the abridgment
by Mormon/Moroni, then how did he know whether he was obeying the Lord’s
instructions? For that matter, why would the Lord specify what plates he should
translate? And why would Joseph and Oliver even think of re-translating the
book of Lehi if they still had a stack of untranslated plates after the Book of
Moroni and the Title Page?
That Brant ignores these
questions may be explained by his omission of David Whitmer’s explanation that
the messenger who took the abridged plates from Joseph in Harmony declined
David’s offer of a ride to Fayette because he was “going to Cumorah.”
(For trip to Fayette references,
see https://www.mobom.org/trip-to-fayette-references)
Obviously, the Cumorah problem
looms large in this narrative.
Brant is an M2Cer, which means
that he believes the “real Cumorah” is somewhere in Mesoamerica, while the “hill
in New York” was falsely named Cumorah because of ignorant speculation by
Oliver Cowdery and/or others (including Joseph Smith). If, as David’s account
unambiguously states, the messenger (who Joseph said was one of the three
Nephites) took the abridged plates to Cumorah before arriving in Fayette with
the plates of Nephi (the small plates), we naturally ask, what was the purpose
of the detour?
In my view, the most rational
explanation is that the messenger returned the abridged plates to the
repository in Cumorah and picked up the small plates. Then he took the small
plates to Fayette so Joseph could translate them.
Although Brant is fully aware of
this scenario, he ignored it in his narrative, thereby depriving his readers of
a far more rational explanation than the one he gives.
This is an example of why the
M2Cers cannot be trusted, despite their touted “peer review” process. They (and
their peer reviewers) promote their own narratives without acknowledging, let
alone addressing, alternatives.
Back to Brant.
The plates were returned to
Joseph on September 22, 1828, but the translation would not fully resume until
April 1829.
“Fully resume” is the key phrase
here. How much Joseph translated between September and April is not known
because the original manuscript is not extant before Oliver Cowdery’s
handwriting in Alma. There is evidence to support the inference that Joseph
translated all or most of Mosiah, and possibly the first few chapters of Alma,
before Oliver arrived in April.
When Joseph’s parents visited
Harmony in November 1828, Joseph told
them that the messenger had returned the plates with the U&T in September
1828 and that Emma was then writing for him.
Joseph separately reported that after he received the plates and U&T
again, he “did not however go immediately to translating but went to laboring
with my hands upon a small farm… to provide for my family.” Joseph naturally worked on the farm during
the fall harvest and preservation season in the last week of September and most
or all of October.
Because Emma had begun writing
for Joseph by the time the Smith’s visited in November, that leaves five months
of possible translating before Oliver arrived in Harmony (Nov-Mar). When added
to the traditional three months (Apr-Jun), we get eight months, which is how
long the translation took according to David Whitmer.
Rather than starting over with
the replacement text, Joseph began translating where they had left off in the
early chapters of the book of Mosiah with Oliver Cowdery as the primary scribe.
“Where they had left off” is a
confusing phrase. Who is “they” here?
In his 1832 history, Joseph
explained that before Oliver arrived in Harmony in April 1829, his brother
Samuel scribed for him.
my wife had written some
for me to translate and also my Brothr Samuel H Smith but we had become reduced
in poverty and my wives father was about to turn me out of doores & I had
not where to go and I cried unto the Lord that he would provide for me to
accomplish the work whereunto he had commanded me
Oliver Cowdery was an answer to
this prayer.
Another pre-Oliver scribe might
have been Martin Harris, who visited Harmony in March 1829 and requested a
revelation. The revelation (D&C 5) includes this comment about the
translation.
29 And if this be the case,
I command you, my servant Joseph, that you shall say unto him [Martin Harris],
that he shall do no more, nor trouble me any more concerning this matter.
30 And if this be the case,
behold, I say unto thee Joseph, when thou hast translated a few more pages thou
shalt stop for a season, even until I command thee again; then thou mayest
translate again.
This raises the possibility that
Martin resumed some scribal activity, leaving us with four potential pre-Oliver
scribes for Joseph after he lost the 116 pages: Emma, her brother Reuben,
Samuel Smith, and Martin Harris. Because the relevant pages of the OM are gone
(Mosiah 1 through Alma 10:31), it is impossible to tell which of the pre-Oliver
scribes may have written what portion of the OM. Of these four, both David
Whitmer and John Gilbert mentioned only Emma’s handwriting.
By May 31, he would have
finished the translation of the book of Moroni and the Title Page, the latter
of which Joseph would later describe as “a literal translation taken from the
very last leaf, on the left hand side of the collection or book of plates,
which contained the record which has been translated.”
Exactly. But now look what Brant
writes:
The Title Page therefore closed
the set of plates that completed Mormon’s intended Book of Mormon (including
Moroni’s additions). Only after completing the book Mormon intended did Joseph
begin to translate the replacement text.
Here Brant has backed himself
into a corner. He accurately quoted Joseph’s statement about the Title Page.
Because it was the “very last leaf” of the plates, there was nothing more to
translate.
Brant ignores (and his peer reviewers
apparently ignored) this glaring problem with Brant’s narrative. Instead of
clarifying that Joseph finished translating the abridged plates in Harmony and
then translated the “plates of Nephi” in Fayette, he slides right by the
conflict in his narrative as if it didn’t exist.
John Welch’s timeline for the
translation process has Joseph beginning with 1 Nephi on June 5, 1828. By June
28, he had finished with Omni and Words of Mormon.
Welch’s timeline for the
translation in Fayette makes reasonable assumptions and inferences, but his
timeline for the translation in Harmony omits important evidence, which is what
leads him to conclude that the translation took 3 months instead of 8 months.
Just as the Title Page
introducing the Book of Mormon came at the end of Mormon’s plates, so too did
the Words of Mormon, which introduces the small plates, come at the end of that
set, and there is internal evidence that Mormon wrote it soon after reading the
end of Omni.
As Brant observes here, there were two separate sets of plates, each with an
introduction (or summary) at the end on the “last leaf.” Because the Title Page
was on the last leaf of the set of plates Joseph translated in Harmony, there were
no additional plates. Joseph obtained the plates of Nephi later, from the
messenger who brought them over from Cumorah.
I’ve
discussed all of this in more detail in my book Whatever Happened to the
Golden Plates?
Understanding
that there were two sets of plates resolves many questions about the plates and
the translation.
In a
future edition, Brant should at least explain this scenario for the benefit of
his readers, and if he disagrees with it, he should explain why.
Joseph as an agent of translation.
Brant’s book Engraven Upon Plates, Printed Upon Paper,
opens with a chapter titled “Joseph and Translation,” which provides an
overview of the debated about whether, and how much, Joseph was an “agent of
translation.” On page 7 he observes that
Perhaps
the best indication that the words themselves were not seen as divinely perfect
and therefore unchangeable was joseph Smith’s own 1837 edition of the Book of
Mormon. Here, the only person who had actually experienced the process did not
feel that the words themselves were divinely perfected and could not be
improved.
That’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s also useful to
mention the 1840 edition, the title page of which contains the statement “Carefully
revised by the translator.”
Overall, in the opening chapters of his book Brant makes a
good case for Joseph as translator, and he effectively refutes some of the
claims made by Skousen and Carmack. Hopefully Brant’s work will help to counter
Skousen’s claims that Joseph and Oliver intentionally misled everyone about the
translation.
However, Brant overlooked an opportunity to develop his
thoughts more fully.
Brant’s chapter two is titled “Nineteenth-Century Influence
on the Text.” He makes a good case that Joseph was a “cultural translator” for
his origin audience and subsequent readers. But he discusses only quotations
from and allusions to the King James Bible. On page 27, Brant points out that
his book The Plates of Mormon has footnotes to most of the quotations
and allusions. (Ironically, of the first 6 examples he gives here, only 1 is
actually found in The Plates of Mormon.)
On page 30, Brant observes that
Although
the quotations are obvious, it is also important to note that they are not
precise. Rather, they often recreate new sentences using elements from separate
passages in the New Testament. This both further argues against Joseph copying
directly from an existing physical text and provides further evidence of Joseph’s
mind in the translation.
This is essentially the same approach taken by Royal Skousen
with his “blending” concept. It makes sense, because each of us develops our
own vocabulary and syntax by assimilation what we read and hear, often in “chunks”
of words and phrases.
But limiting our focus on the KJV is a result of a mere
assumption that Joseph did not look beyond the Bible; i.e., that he did not
have the “intimate acquaintance with those of different denominations” that he
claimed to have.
On page 31, Gardner’s Table 2B, which “lists the
biblical verse on the left side and the Book of Mormon quotation of that verse
on the right,” consists of seven examples. Here is #5 and 6:
|
Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed
unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: |
Alma 12:27 But behold,
it was not so; but it was appointed unto men that they must die;
and after death, they must come to judgment, even that same judgment
of which we have spoken, which is the end. |
There are some similarities between the NT verses and the
BofM verses. But the similarities are weak, compared with the similarities to
the works of Jonathan Edwards.
I’ve annotated several chapters of the BofM and sections of
the D&C to distinguish between KJV and non-KJV terms, phrases and concepts.
Here’s an annotation of Alma 12:27, with footnotes at the
bottom. Bold phrases are found in the KJV and JE. Bold red phrases
are found only in the BofM and JE.
Alma 12:27 But behold, it was not so[1];
but it was appointed unto men[2]
that they must die[3];
and after death[4],
they must come to judgment[5],
even that same judgment[6]
of which we have[7]
spoken, which is the end[8].
This is not to say that Joseph Smith could not have composed
these phrases on his own as part of the translation process, or learned them
from another source. But to say (or even imply) that the KJV was the only
source of his vocabulary and syntax misses important information that can
enhance our understanding of the scripture. In this case, for example, “which
is the end” is usually thought of as the end of the world, or the final
judgment. But looking at how Edwards used the phrase, “the end” could mean “the
purpose,” “the objective,” etc., which is a much different connotation.
Here is Gardner’s next example from Table 2B:
|
Hebrews 7:3 Without
father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days,
nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest
continually. |
Alma 13:9 Thus they
become high priests forever, after the order of the Son, the Only Begotten of
the Father, who is without beginning of days or end of years, |
Alma 13:9 includes a phrase also found in verse 7:
7 This high priesthood being after the order of his Son,
which order was from the foundation of the world; or in other words, being
without beginning of days or end of years, being prepared from eternity
to all eternity, according to his foreknowledge of all things—
(Alma 13:7)
“Beginning of days” appears in this frequency: NT (1) BM (2)
DC (2) PGP (2). We see that the NT usage is similar to the BofM usage.
“End of years” appears in this frequency: OT (1) BM (3) DC
(1) PGP (2). The OT uses it with a different meaning: “And in the end of
years they shall join themselves together (Daniel 11:6), but the D&C
and PofGP use it in the same sense as the Book of Mormon.
Brant presumably would consider Alma 13:7,9 as examples of
blending of the NT and OT passages.
Alternatively, we can look at Jonathan Edwards.
Although Edwards quoted Hebrews 7:3 several times, he also
paraphrased it using the exact same phrase Joseph Smith did in the BofM, D&C,
and PofGP.
Edwards: “When we think upon that being which is without
beginning of days or end of years, whose goings forth are
from everlasting, who had a being endless ages before the foundation of the
world, who had no beginning: is it not enough to make us wonder, to see this
God hanging upon the cross in the flesh?”
For more examples of this type of annotation, see https://www.mobom.org/jonathan-edwards
Conclusion
Overall, Engraven Upon Plates, Printed Upon Paper and
The Plates of Mormon contain some useful insights. Hopefully a second
edition will improve on the work by telling readers about alternative
explanations, even if Brant disagrees because of his M2C theory..
[1] NT
(1) BM (1) JE (30)
[2] NT
(1) BM (2) JE (6) NT: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after
this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27)
[3] “They
must die” BM (1) JE (30); “must die” OT (4) BM (2) JE (130) JE: “When the appointed
time for men to die comes, they must die”
[4] BM
(1) JE (110) JE: “as it is appointed to men once to die in
consequence of their sin, and after death is but one judgment”
[5] BM
(1) JE (9) JE: “we commonly say Christ will come to judgment at
the end of the world”
[6] NT
(1) BM (2) JE (2)
[7] BM
(1) JE (35) JE: “seemed to be sure of their purpose, of which we have spoken
already.’
[8] BM
(2) JE (15) JE: “the passing a right judgment of these things within
himself, which is the end of human trials” [suggesting
that “end” means purpose or objective.”
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