Overall
conclusion. I spent the
time to go through Skousen’s book because of the significance of his conclusion
that Joseph and Oliver intentionally misled everyone about the translation.
In my view,
Skousen did a cursory, outcome-determined analysis of the witness statements to
support his conclusion. He also omitted relevant sources that contradict his
conclusion.
The FAITH model
requires a careful, consistent consideration of all the Facts, distinguished
from Assumptions, Inferences, and Theories that lead to the overall Hypotheses.
My analysis leads me to the conclusion
that Joseph and Oliver told the truth about these events, and that others who
disagreed with them had various motives to do so (both apologetic and critical),
relied on hearsay, mingled assumptions and inferences with facts, and for these
reasons reached unreliable conclusions about SITH.
Hopefully other
scholars will avoid the outcome-driven approach that Skousen used in his book
and instead adopt the principles of the FAITH model of analysis--or any other legitimate academic method.
_____
Part 2 of my review of Royal Skousen's Part Seven
Applying the FAITH model to the section on Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.
The FAITH model
starts with identifying all the relevant Facts, which everyone can agree upon,
and then moves to an analysis of the various Assumptions, Inference, and
Theories that lead to the overall Hypothesis or Worldview being advocated. By
separating objective Facts from subjective Assumptions, Inferences, etc.,
everyone can clearly understand the thought process followed by each of the
multiple working hypotheses about the translation of the Book of Mormon.
For example, the
existence and content of a particular historical document are facts everyone
can agree upon. Whether the contents of that document are factual is a
separate question that involves assumptions and inferences, as well as
evidentiary criteria such as about credibility, reliability, means, motive, and
opportunity.
Regarding
personal accounts, when a purported witness relates an account without
mentioning personal experience (or in a context when personal experience is
known independently), my default assumption is that the account is hearsay.
In this section
of his book, Skousen mingles facts with assumptions, inferences, etc. By
applying the FAITH model of analysis, we can separate the facts and enable
readers to make informed decisions for themselves.
As mentioned
above, Skousen quotes the brief minutes from the 1831 meeting. Then he makes
this statement:
Joseph
liked to simply refer to the translation as having been done "by the gift
and power of God", which doesn't really tell us anything about the actual
translation procedure.
Although Skousen
states this as a fact, it is not accurate to say that Joseph “simply” referred
to the translation as having been done “by the gift and power of God.” To the
contrary, he usually accompanied that statement with clarity about the
instrument he used, as we’ll see in his statements.
_____
On page 50,
Skousen discusses what he calls “the first method” with this heading:
The first
method: Using the Nephite interpreters along with the plates
To his credit,
Skousen quotes JS-H 1:62 (although he inexplicably cites Vogel and Welch
instead of JS-H).
I
commenced copying the characters off the plates. I copied a considerable number
of them, and by means of the Urim and Thummim I translated some of them. (Joseph
Smith—History 1:62)
Skousen dismisses
this first-hand statement by saying it “does not provide much detail.” In my
view, Joseph tells us here that he was learning and then translating individual
characters “by means of the Urim and Thummim.” This is much different than the
concept that he was reading complete sentences off a stone without looking at
the plates.
The FAITH model
recognizes the statement as at least approved by Joseph Smith (although
apparently written by scribes). It’s a reasonable assumption that the statement
is factual, meaning Joseph Smith actually did copy characters and translate
them, which is corroborated by Martin Harris taking Joseph’s translation to New
York. People can make different assumptions about whether and how Joseph used
the U&T.
Skousen and
others characterize this as the “first method” because they cannot reconcile
Joseph translating individual character with SITH, as we’ll see.
Next, Skousen
quotes the John A. Clark statement based on what he claimed was Martin Harris’
account.
Before we discuss
the Clark statement, you might wonder why Skousen did not include other
statements by Joseph Smith or the accounts from Oliver Cowdery. Skousen saves
those for later, on page 62, in a section he titles “Generic accounts from
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery,” which we’ll discuss below.
The Clark
statement:
“Smith
concealed behind the blanket, pretended to look through his spectacles, or
transparent stones, and would then write down or repeat what he saw, which,
when repeated aloud, was written down by Harris, who sat on the other side of
the suspended blanket.”
Next Skousen
quotes two accounts by Charles Anthon. The first is from Mormonism Unvailed:
“being thus concealed from view, put on the spectacles occasionally, or rather,
looked through one of the glasses, decyphered [sic] the characters in the book…”
Anthon’s 1841 letter describes it a little differently: “having fastened the
spectacles to his head, had read several pages in the golden book, and
communicated their contents in writing to certain persons stationed on the
outside of the curtain.”
Skousen doesn’t
comment on these references, which are all hearsay based on what Martin Harris
related. Obviously, if Martin was behind a curtain he could not know what
Joseph was doing unless Joseph explained it to him, or demonstrated it somehow.
These accounts
are at least consistent. They corroborate what Joseph said about the
commandment not to show the Urim and Thummim or the plates, because otherwise
there would be no need for a curtain. This curtain—this “vail”—surfaces in the
title of the book Mormonism Unvailed.
Skousen then
provides the Nancy Towle account from 1831, another hearsay account:
He
accordingly went; and was directed by the angel to a certain spot of ground,
where was deposited a 'Box, and in that box contained 'Plates,' which resembled
gold; also, 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.
Here again we
have Joseph looking into, or though, the pair of interpreters to read the
engravings on the plates. This corroborates Joseph’s account in JS-H where he
was translating characters.
_____
Skousen’s next
section starting in page 51 is titled:
Shifting from
the first method to the second one
But before going
through this section, we note that Skousen inexplicably omits two important
accounts of “the first method,” both related by actual scribes.
1. Samuel H.
Smith
Samuel H. Smith,
brother of Joseph Smith, was one of the scribes Joseph used and was thus an
eyewitness of the translation.
For Samuel as a
scribe, see https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letterbook-1/12
In 1832, Samuel
was a missionary companion with Orson Hyde. They responded to a reporter's questions,
as reported in the Boston Investigator. The Q&A included the translation of
the Book of Mormon:
Q.-In
what manner was the interpretation, or translation made known, and by whom was
it written?
A.-It
was made known by the spirit of the Lord through the medium of the Urim
and Thummim; and was written partly by Oliver Cowdery, and partly by Martin
Harris.
Q.-What
do you mean by Urim and Thummim?
A.-The
same as were used by the prophets of old, which were two crystal stones,
placed in bows something in the form of spectacles, which were found with the
plates.
Note: it is
unclear why Samuel did not mention that he was also a scribe. Perhaps he
refrained out of humility, or to avoid complicating the conversation. He (and
Orson) also did not mention Emma, John Whitmer and Christian Whitmer, possibly
because Samuel was not present when they were scribing. D&C 5:30 implies
that Martin served as a scribe in March 1829 before Oliver arrived.
Had Samuel not
been a scribe, these answers might have been hearsay. As one of the scribes,
for however briefly he may have served. Samuel is a first-hand witness of the
translation process. People can make different assumptions and inferences about
the accuracy of the newspaper account, but it corroborates what Joseph and
Oliver always said.
Some may argue
that Samuel was a scribe only for the lost 116 pages, but that doesn’t fit the
chronology of Joseph’s history.
_____
2. John
Whitmer
John Whitmer,
David's brother, served as a scribe in Fayette, NY, where Joseph translated the
plates of Nephi (as commanded in D&C 10).
The book Opening
the Heavens includes John's statement here:
104. John
Whitmer, as interviewed by Zenas H. Gurley (1879)
He
had seen the plates; and it was his especial pride and joy that he had written
sixty pages of the Book of Mormon. . . . When the work of translation was going
on he sat at one table with his writing material and Joseph at another with the
breast-plate and Urim and Thummim. The latter were attached to the breast-plate
and were two crystals or glasses, into which he looked and saw the words of the
book. The words remained in sight till correctly written, and mistakes of the
scribe in spelling the names were corrected by the seer without diverting his
gaze from the Urim and Thummim.
It’s unclear why
Skousen omits this account, which is Gurley’s hearsay account directly from
John, because John was a scribe in Fayette and therefore had nothing to do with
the lost 116 pages. This account has Joseph and the scribe sitting at separate
tables with no mention of a curtain between them. The account has John
specifically seeing the plates (he was one of the Eight Witnesses) but the
account of the Urim and Thummim is more ambiguous, leaving it up to us to
assume whether John was describing what he personally saw, what Joseph told
him, or what he heard from others.
These accounts
from Samuel Smith and John Whitmer contradict Skousen’s conclusion, but that’s
no excuse for omitting them.
_____
Let’s return to
Skousen’s next section that begins on page 51.
Shifting from
the first method to the second one
Skousen writes:
A
few witnesses clearly distinguish between the two translating instruments.
According to these accounts, the Nephite interpreters were used for translating
the lost 116 pages (or only in part, according to Martin Harris's account), but
afterwards Joseph Smith used only the seer stone:
“A few” means
Emma Smith Bidamon, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris.
Skousen provides
an excerpt from Emma’s 1870 letter to Emma Pilgrim:
Now
the first that my husband translated, was translated by the use of 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.
The existence of
this letter and its content are facts everyone can agree upon. Whether the
contents are factual, however, is a question of assumptions and inferences that
lead to different conclusions. It is significant that Emma distinguished
between the Urim and Thummim and the seer stone, a distinction that some modern
LDS scholars have sought to blur.
In terms of
credibility, the first thing to notice is the date: 1870, over 50 years after
the fact. The lateness of the account is not dispositive; people can recall
details their entire lives. But in this letter, Emma says she could give a
better answer if she could look at the Times and Seasons, but someone
had taken her copies, which suggests her memory was vague. She gives no details
about where she scribed or what she scribed, and does not express personal
knowledge, such as “I saw” or even “Joseph told me.” Instead, it comes across
as hearsay which anyone could have related. In the same letter, Emma also explains
she couldn’t even remember who had baptized her.
The letter seems
to contradict Emma’s later “Last Testimony” in which she claimed Joseph used
the stone-in-a-hat to translate the portion she wrote, presumably in Harmony during
the translation of the 116 pages (because she wrote “day after day” and doesn’t
mention other people being present). But in the Pilgrim letter, she claims Joseph
used the Urim and Thummim to translate those pages and used the seer stone
after those pages were lost (which was David Whitmer’s belief). If her
statements are both correct, she could not have written any part of the 116
pages, but could only have been a scribe for the existing Book of Mosiah and/or
a portion of the plates of Nephi in Fayette. (In my view, Emma was a scribe during
all three portions of the translation, but she adopted SITH for apologetic
purposes.)
Another factor is
the prevalence of the Spalding theory, which held that Joseph was reading a
pre-existing manuscript from behind a curtain. The SITH narrative serves as an
apologetic refutation of the Spalding theory. And in this time frame, William
McLellin had been visiting all the Reorganized members, pushing the stone in
the hat theory. McLellin claimed Joseph never had any Urim and Thummim.
Juxtaposed to
these credibility problems with the Pilgrim letter is the more contemporaneous,
specific, and first-hand account from Joseph’s mother, recorded in 1844-5. When
she came to visit Joseph in Harmony in the fall of 1828, she related that
when I
entered his house the first thing that attracted [p. 135] my attention was a
red morocco trunk, that set on Emma’s bureau; which trunk Joseph shortly
informed me, contained the Urim and Thummim and the plates… [quoting
Joseph] “on the 22d of September, I had the joy and satisfaction of
again receiving the Urim and Thummim; and have commenced translating
again, and Emma writes for me; but the angel said that the
Lord would send me a scribe, and <I> trust his promise will be verified. He also seemed pleased with me, when
he gave me back the Urim and Thummim; and he told me that the Lord loved me,
for my faithfulness and humility.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/142
Contrary to
Emma’s claim in the Pilgrim letter, Joseph was using the Urim and Thummim after
the loss of the 116 pages. The angel had taken the U&T when he lost the
pages but then returned it so Joseph could “commence translating again.”
With respect to
the Urim and Thummim, Lucy Mack Smith’s account is far more credible and
specific than the Pilgrim letter.
Next Skousen
quotes an excerpt from the 1877 David Whitmer interview recorded by Edward
Stevenson. “David said that the Prophet translated first by the Urim &
thumim [sic] & afterwards by A Seer Stone.”
This statement
corroborates Emma Smith’s distinction between the Urim and Thummim and the seer
stone, but David is vague about when and where Joseph used either instrument
and what he translated. Furthermore, the statement is compound hearsay because
Edward was reporting a summary of what David said and David was never present
in Harmony for the translation and so had no personal knowledge of how Joseph
translated there. David doesn’t share the basis for his belief.
The third
statement in this section is from Martin Harris, recorded by Edward Stevenson.
Stevenson claimed Martin related the account on 4 September 1870 during the
train ride to Utah from Ohio. Martin died in 1875 after giving many interviews,
but apparently did not relate this account to anyone else. Stevenson first
published the account on 30 November 1881.
He
said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to
translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then
used the seer stone. [Martin then described the Urim and Thummim.]
This statement is
the source of the “convenience” narrative. Martin’s other accounts, discussed
above, describe a blanket or screen between him and Joseph. The Stevenson
statement doesn’t explain how Martin would know what instrument Joseph was
using. Martin’s description of the Urim and Thummim likely was based on his
experience as one of the Three Witnesses.
Skousen omitted
another account that would fall in this category.
Zenas Gurley,
Jr., a member of the Reorganized Church, interviewed David Whitmer and others
of Joseph’s associates. He published an account of his visit with David and discussed
the Urim and Thummim at some length, pointing out that
Had
the Book of Mormon been translated from ‘behind a blanket,’ as its opponents
assert, it would even then be in harmony with that kind of practice among the
high priests, as seen from the above quotation [from Dr. Robinson’s Bible
Encyclopedia].
Then Gurley
wrote,
That Joseph had another
stone called seers' stone, and ‘peep stone,’ is quite certain. This stone was frequently
exhibited to different ones and helped to assuage their awful curiosity; but
the Urim and Thummim never, unless
possibly to Oliver Cowdery.
[Gurley then quotes Oliver Cowdery’s account which is now the note at
the end of JS-H.]
This agrees with Joseph Smith’s account of the translation; and though
Joseph lost the Urim and Thummim through transgression, the latter part of June
(probably), 1828, yet they were returned to him in July of the same year; by
which, according to his statement above, he accomplished by them what was required at his hand…
Zenas H. Gurley, Jr., “The Book of Mormon,” Autumn Leaves (1892), Vol. 5, quote at pp. 452-3, available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433075797161&seq=485
Gurley thus
offers an explanation of the translation that fits the evidence; i.e., that
Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim (interpreters) that came
with the plates, but he also had a seer stone that he showed to “assuage their
awful curiosity.” What Gurley meant by that is open to assumptions and
inferences. One possibility is that Joseph, having been commanded not to show
the Urim and Thummim, used the stone to explain how the translation worked by
demonstrating it. This would explain him putting the stone in a hat and
dictating words as related by the witnesses discussed below. Another
possibility is that Joseph simply used the stone as a sort of prop, even though
he didn’t need it to receive revelations.
At any rate,
Skousen should have included Gurley’s account in this section for his readers
to assess.
_____
The next section,
starting on page 52, is titled
The second
method: Placing the seer stone in a hat in order to obscure the light
Skousen
introduces this section with this statement:
All
eight primary witnesses of the translation independently refer to Joseph Smith
using the seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon, from the beginning in the
early months of 1828 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, to the end in June 1829 at
the Peter Whitmer home in Fayette, New York; that is, from some portion of the
116 pages containing the book of Lehi to the small plates of Nephi; and from
the first scribes, Emma Smith, Reuben Hale, and Martin Harris, to the final
scribes, Oliver Cowdery and two Whitmers, John and Christian. Nearly all
mention obscuring the light or at least having the viewing occur in darkness;
all explicitly state that the seer stone was placed in a hat. In these
statements, there is some variety in how the seer stone is referred to: once as
"the Urim and Thummim" (Joseph Knight), once as "the
director" (Elizabeth Anne Whitmer), three times as simply "the
stone" (Emma Smith, Elizabeth McKune, and Joseph McKune), and three times
as "the seer stone" (Michael Morse, David Whitmer, and Martin
Harris). By implication, there was no curtain or blanket separating Joseph
Smith and his scribe. Nor did Joseph have any books, manuscripts, or notes that
he was consulting.
There is a lot to
unpack here.
When Skousen
refers to “all eight primary witnesses of the translation,” he specifically
omits Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Samuel Smith, and John Whitmer, none of
whom stated, suggested or implied any use of the seer stone in the hat (SITH).
In other words, Skousen identifies the SITH witnesses as the “primary
witnesses.”
Skousen says
these witnesses “independently” refer to SITH. Yet as we’ve seen, Skousen also
points out that the “walls of Jerusalem” anecdote, which presumably originated
with Emma Smith, was repeated by David Whitmer instead of being an
“independent” account. What Skousen describes as “some variety” is not
necessarily evidence of independence but can also be seen as confusion from
multiple hearsay accounts. Here are the eight “primary witnesses.”
1. Joseph
Knight Senior wrote this
reminiscence between 1835 and 1847:
Now
the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned
his Eyes then he would take a sentance 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
[whole] translated.
Nothing in this
account indicates first-hand observation or the source of Knight’s knowledge.
Skousen simply assumes Knight was an actual witness. Because he thinks it would
be impractical for Joseph to put large spectacles in a hat, Skousen writes, “I
have assumed that here in his description of the translation process, Joseph
Knight uses the term ‘urim and thummim’ to mean the seer stone.”
Obviously it is
not difficult to put eyeglasses into a hat. It’s a question of relative size.
Skousen’s assumption here is neither logical nor likely.
When a purported
witness relates an account without mentioning personal experience, my default
assumption is that the account is hearsay. In this case, Skousen uses compound
assumptions to reconcile obvious problems to make Knight’s statement fit the
SITH narrative.
2. Elizabeth
Anne Whitmer Cowdery’s
account, which purports to be “a certificate in her own hand,” exists only as a
copy by William E. McLellin in a letter dated 15 February 1870. Elizabeth was
14 years old during the translation. She later married Oliver Cowdery.
Skousen gives
this excerpt from the McLellin letter:
I
staid in Richmond two days and nights. I had a great deal of talk with widow
Cowdry, and her amiable daughter. She is married to a Dr Johnson, but has no
children. She gave me a certificate, And this is the copy. “Richmond, Ray Co.,
Mo. Feb 15, 1870———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, and then [read the
words?] as they appeared before him.
At first glance,
this appears to be a first-person account of direct observation. But the
context raises serious questions. Even assuming that a 14-year-old farm girl
would plausibly sit for hours listening to Joseph dictate the Book of Mormon,
Elizabeth doesn’t relate what Joseph dictated on these occasions. Was he
quoting Isaiah? Dictating Nephi’s original words? We don’t know.
In his letter,
McLellin writes he “visited David Whitmer again in Richmond…” This is important
context. Elizabeth’s purported statement was written 42 years after the fact,
in the presence of her brother David, who was the primary promoter of SITH.
This raises an inference that Elizabeth was supporting her brother’s accounts,
or perhaps her statement was coached. It was hardly an “independent” statement.
Furthermore,
McLellin copied her statement: the original is not extant. We can’t know
whether he copied it accurately or adjusted it to fit his own agenda, which he
expressed elsewhere in his letter. Before getting to Elizabeth’s account,
McLellin wrote, “I dont think there would be much object of his [David’s]
acting much without he can obtain the Interpreters.”
After relating Elizabeth’s
account, McLellin wrote
“I
am now looking for some man to rise with the Interpreters or Directors—those
ancient eyes by which hidden treasures can and will come to light. (Joseph in
his history and all L.D.S.ism call those interpreters the Urim & Thummim),
but I prefer calling it by its proper name—it never was Urim nor Thummim but
LDSism nicknamed almost every holy thing which it touched I have less and less
patience with its unholy doings, the more I see of it.
McLellin rejected
what Joseph (and Oliver) said about the translation, raising an inference that
he used his visit to David and Elizabeth to confirm his biases.
Skousen notes
that “In the Book of Mormon, the interpreters are sometimes referred to as
directors (Alma 37:21, 24) while the singular director is used to refer to the
compass that Lehi found, also called the Liahona (Mosiah 1:16; Alma 37:38, 45).”
Skousen’s
analysis is complicated by D&C 3:15: “thou hast suffered the counsel of thy
director to be trampled upon from the beginning.” Does “director” here
mean the Lord (a unique name) or the Urim and Thummim? Also, D&C 17:1 uses
the plural: “the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in
the wilderness, on the borders of the Red Sea.”
McLellin referred
to “interpreters or directors,” plural, while Elizabeth’s statement refers to
“the director.” Perhaps the latter was a copy error by McLellin, but it could
also be a discrepancy between their respective beliefs (i.e., spectacles,
plural, and seer stone, singular). In either case, Joseph had been commanded
not to show the Urim and Thummim (spectacles) to anyone, so presumably
Elizabeth did not see the Urim and Thummim. But if Elizabeth was referring to
the spectacles, her account is corroborated by the Knight account that Skousen
disputed.
One view could be
that McLellin reached his conclusion because of what Elizabeth and David said.
On the other hand, McLellin had his falling out with Joseph Smith decades
earlier and spent much of his life justifying his position.
Bottom line:
Elizabeth’s account, which appears credible at first glance, has serious
credibility problems when read in context.
3. Emma Smith
Bidamon’s account,
recorded by her son Joseph Smith III in 1879, is so problematic that even
Joseph Smith III didn’t refer to it when he later concluded in a careful
article that his father used the Urim and Thummim to translate the plates.
For more analysis, see the book By Means of the Urim and
Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration, by Jim Lucas and
Jonathan Neville. Also this website:
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2023/08/credibility-of-emma-smiths-last.html
4. Michael
Morse, brother-in-law to
Emma Smith, was interviewed in May 1879 by W.W. Blair. Blair letter describing
the interview was published in the June 15, 1879, issue of The Saints’
Herald.
Skousen quotes an
excerpt from the letter in which Blair reported his version of Morse’s
recollections from 50 years earlier. Blair was a missionary for the Reorganized
Church who wrote letters to local newspapers as part of his work and visited
local congregations, including the one at Amboy. He was also a co-editor of The
Saints’ Advocate with Zenas Gurley.
Below is the
excerpt Skousen quotes:
He
further states that when Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon, he,
(Morse), had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw
him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in
Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face
into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his
knees, and then dictating, word after word, while the scribe-Emma, John Whitmer,
O. Cowdery, or some other, wrote it down.
The full article
is available here:
https://archive.org/details/TheSaintsHerald_Volume_26_1879/page/n189/mode/2up
At first glance,
this is a persuasive account because Blair writes that Morse said he went into
Joseph’s “immediate presence and saw him engaged at his work of translation.”
But a closer examination raises questions beyond the 50-year gap between the
events and the recollection.
First, there is
evidence of why Morse contacted Blair. Blair wrote the letter, dated May 22,
1879, from Sandwich, Illinois, stating that “When at Amboy a few days since, I
learned from Mr. Mochel Morse…” . Sandwich is about 40 miles from Amboy,
Illinois.
On April 30,
1879, the Amboy (Ill.) Journal had published an article titled “Mormon
History” by Joseph Lewis and Hiel Lewis. The week before they had published
affidavits in the same newspaper.
The Lewis
brothers were cousins of Emma’s. They were sons of Nathaniel Lewis, a Methodist
lay preacher who was opposed to Joseph’s activities. Among other things, Joseph
Lewis reported that he confronted Joseph Smith about joining the local
Methodist Episcopal church and got him to strike his name from the class book
because he, Joseph Lewis, thought Joseph Smith’s “name would be a disgrace to
the church.”
In their
affidavits and article the Lewis brothers related accounts of Joseph Smith
engaging in “peeping” using a “peep stone” to find local hidden treasures and
tied this to his translation of the Book of Mormon. On June 4 and June 11 Hiel
and Joseph published additional articles in the paper. Hiel Lewis claimed
Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by means of the same enchanting
spirit that directed him to make dog sacrifices.
Because the first
two of these highly critical articles appeared in the local Amboy newspaper
just a few weeks before Blair met with Morse in Amboy, it is reasonable to
assume that Morse was influenced by the articles. It is likely that these
article prompted Morse to contact Blair, although Blair doesn’t explain how he
came to meet Morse.
Skousen notes
Morse was “never a Mormon.” Blair pointed out that “Mr. Morse is not, and has
never been a believer in the prophetic mission of Joseph,” and that Morse
“states that the sons of Mr. Hale seemed opposed to and at enmity with Joseph
from the first, and took occasions to annoy and vex him, and that at one of
these times, when out fishing, Joseph threw off his coat and proposed to defend
himself.”
Morse married
Emma’s sister so these “sons of Mr. Hale” were his brothers-in-law, and from
his description, Morse shared their enmity toward Joseph. Morse described
Joseph as “an awkward, unlearned youth.” When asked whether Joseph could have
composed the text, “Mr. Morse replied with a decided emphasis, No. He said he
then was not at all learned, yet was confident he had more learning than Joseph
then had.”
In the statement,
Morse refers to three scribes: Emma, John Whitmer, and O. Cowdery. Whitmer was
never a scribe in Harmony. This suggests Morse was repeating information that
he heard or read somewhere, or mingling others’ accounts with his own, instead
of relating his personal knowledge. Blair says Morse related “Joseph's placing
the Seer Stone,” a term that Morse may have borrowed or Blair supplied, because
Morse didn’t believe Joseph had prophetic powers.
On the other
hand, Blair’s letter is the first known source to describe Joseph putting a
stone into the “crown” of the hat (a term David Whitmer adopted later that
year). It is also the only known source to describe Joseph “resting his elbows
upon his knees.” Those specific details suggest credibility.
The Morse
interview raises the question of why Joseph was commanded not to show the
plates or the Urim and Thummim. If just anyone could repeatedly walk in on the
translation—particularly antagonistic skeptics—with no problem, then Moroni had
no reason to warn Joseph against showing the U&T. He wasn’t using it
anyway.
Like the other
late SITH accounts, the Morse account could be either a mishmash of derivative
hearsay or an authentic personal experience tainted by errors.
5. David
Whitmer. David provided
by far the most numerous accounts of SITH. Lyndon Cook’s book David Whitmer
Interviews contains over 250 pages of transcripts of his various accounts. The
bottom line: David’s first accounts of the translation described the Urim and
Thummim, but he later changed his narrative to promote the SITH narrative.
Skousen begins his
discussion of Whitmer with the Traughber interview, published in The Saints’
Herald on 15 November 1879. It’s an interesting choice because this
interview is the first known account of David Whitmer relating the SITH
narrative. It includes the “crown” description from the letter that Blair
published in The Saints’ Herald a few months earlier in May. The article
even quotes from the Blair letter.
The Traughber
article is mainly a response to an earlier article (April 15, 1879) in The
Saints’ Herald in which T.W. Smith said he heard David Whitmer say
that
he saw Joseph translate, by the aid of the Urim and Thummim, time and again… as
the translation was being read by the aid of the Urim and Thummim of the
characters on the plates by Joseph Smith, which work of translation and
transcription he frequently saw.
https://archive.org/details/TheSaintsHerald_Volume_26_1879/page/n127/mode/2up?q=Urim
Smith’s article,
“Origin of the Mormon Bible,” was largely an apologetic defense against the
Spalding theory. Smith concluded his article by writing “I would suggest that
if the Book of Mormon is Solomon Spaulding’s Romance, that the novel loving
public get and read it as a novel.”
Because
Traughber’s article argued in favor of SITH and directly contradicted Smith’s
account, Smith published a rejoinder in the 1 January 1880 edition of The
Saints Herald that we’ll consider after we discuss the Traughber article.
In the excerpt
Skousen provides, Traughber claims that
I,
too, have heard Father Whitmer say that he was present many times while Joseph
was translating; but I never heard him say that the translation was made by aid
of Urim and Thummim; but in every case, and his testimony is always the same,
he declared that Joseph first offered prayer, then took a dark colored, opaque
stone, called a "seer-stone," and placed it in the crown of his hat,
then put his face into the hat, and read the translation as it appeared before
him. This was the daily method of procedure, as I have often heard Father
Whitmer declare; and, as it is generally agreed to by parties who know the
facts, that a considerable portion of the work of translation was performed in
a room of his father's house, where he then resided, there can be no doubt but
what Father David Whitmer is a competent witness of the manner of translating…
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.
I provided
Skousen’s entire excerpt above because the part he omitted, indicated by the
ellipses, is highly relevant. It consists of the author’s assessment of the
translation debate.
https://archive.org/details/TheSaintsHerald_Volume_26_1879/page/n339/mode/2up?q=Urim
My comments are
inserted in brackets below.
I
am aware of the fact that the “Urim and Thummim” story has long been foisted
upon the world as the true account of the origin of the Book of Mormon;
[Traughber
refers to accounts by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, in much the same vein as
Skousen’s conclusion that Joseph and Oliver deliberately misled everyone]
but
the times demand, and, the interest of truth demands, that the truth should be
told. We need not be afraid of truth ; and I greatly doubt if anybody will be
ultimately benefitted by the perpetuation of a falsehood, which was invented
for the purpose of gaining prestige, in the minds of the people, for ambitious
leaders.
The
proofs are clear and positive that the story of Urim and Thummim Translation
does not date back, for its origin, further than 1833,
[This
1833 narrative has been refuted by the 1832 Boston newspaper account that we
discussed above in connection with Samuel Smith. Yet it remains prevalent among
many LDS scholars today and persists even in parts of the Joseph Smith Papers.]
or,
between that date and 1835; for it is not found in any printed document of the
Church of Christ up to the latter part of the year 1833, or the year 1834. The
“Book of Commandments” to the Church of Christ, published in Independence, Mo.,
in 1833, does not contain any allusion to Urim and Thummim; though the term was
inserted in some of the revelations in their reprint in the “Book of Doctrine
and Covenants” in 1835.
[Among
some modern LDS scholars, this narrative has been reframed as an “embarrassed”
explanation; i.e., that Joseph and Oliver were embarrassed by SITH because of
its connections with folk magic, so they introduced the Urim and Thummim
narrative to avoid embarrassment. See the discussion here: https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2024/09/the-embarrassed-narrative-and-sith.html.]
Who
originated the Urim and Thummim story, I do not know ; but this I do know, that
it is not found in the first printed book of revelations to the Church of
Christ, and there is other testimony to show that it is not true. It is proper
to notice what it is claimed the Urim and Thummim was. P. P. and 0. Pratt both
say it was an instrument composed of two clear or transparent stones set
in the two rims of a bow. It is also confounded with the “Intrepreters,” which
were shaped something like a pair of ordinary spectacles, though larger.
Now
let us see. David Whitmer declares, and I have shown him to be a competent
witness, that Joseph Smith translated by aid of a dark stone, called a “seer
stone,” which was placed in the crown of a hat, into which Joseph thrust his
face.
In
the Saints’ Herald of June 15th, 1879, pages 190 and 191, 1 find a
letter from President W. W. Blair, in which he states some facts, learned from
Mr. Michael Morse, who married a Miss Hale, “a sister to Sr. Emma.” Among other
things which I have not space to notice here, but which your readers can find
by following the reference I have given, President Blair says :
[quoting
from the Blair letter as Skousen excerpted]
The
above agrees perfectly with David Whitmer’s statements, and goes far to confirm
Father Whitmer’s testimony;
[As
we’ve seen, Morse’s testimony claimed he saw John Whitmer act as scribe, but
John was never in Harmony, indicating Morse at least incorporated that element
of David’s statements about the translation. The agreement between Morse and
David Whitmer is as much evidence of influence and coordination as it is of any
independent, accurate recollection from 50-year-old events.]
but
this is not all. In the Saints’ Herald of October 1st, 1879, in an
article headed “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” on first page of the Herald,
third column, near the bottom of the page, Sr, Emma is represented as saying:
“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 ”
This
statement was made to President Joseph Smith, by his mother in February, 1879.
The wife of Joseph Smith — who acted sometimes as his scribe, certainly is a
competent witness, and her last testimony is entitled to respectful
consideration, and she says Joseph translated by a stone placed in his hat.
[As
we’ve seen, Joseph Smith III did not even mention his mother’s account when he
assessed David Whitmer’s SITH narrative and concluded that his father used the
Urim and Thummim.]
Why
did not Mrs. Bidamon not say that Joseph translated by aid of Urim and Thummim?
[Traughber
was apparently unaware of the Pilgrim letter in which Emma did say Joseph used
the Urim and Thummim, although in that account only for the first part of the
translation.]
The
reason is obvious in the light of the facts, to which I have briefly alluded:
because he translated with a stone, a Seer Stone; not two clear stones set in
the rims of a bow. Thus we see that Mr. Morse and Mrs. Bidamon both agree that
Joseph Smith used a stone and not Urim and Thummim, nor Interpreter either.
[Here
Traughber confuses the facts of the existence and content of the various
statements with the separate question of whether that content is factual. He
assumes these statements support one another, but they just as logically
demonstrate interlocking influence.]
Will
those who hold the Urim and Thummim story to be correct, still continue to give
the lie to David Whitmer, Michael Morse and Mrs. Emma Bidamon ? Or will they
have the courage to admit that those who have held high positions have been
guilty of gross fabrication ?
[This
logical fallacy—the appeal to authority—falls flat, particularly in the face of
the authority of Joseph and Oliver, who specifically and repeatedly refuted
SITH.]
[The
article continues with the second excerpt that Skousen provides.]
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.
In
her last testimony Mrs. Emma Bidamon said to President Joseph Smith :
“David
Whitmer I believe to be an honest and truthful man. I think what he states may
be relied on.”
[Of
course, this cuts both ways. Emma, who admitted a faulty memory in her Pilgrim
letter, may well have simply deferred to David Whitmer’s SITH narrative. That
would explain her lack of specificity—where, when and what she wrote as Joseph
translated.]
So
say all who know him. And as sure as he is truthful and honest, the Book of
Mormon was translated by means of a Seer Stone. And if it was not, I say
distinctly that David Whitmer, the only surviving witness to the Book of
Mormon, is not truthful.
[This
false dilemma is another logical fallacy. It’s entirely possible that David
Whitmer observed Joseph put a stone in a hat and dictate words. But whether he
was dictating the text of the Book of Mormon on that occasion is unknown and
unknowable. Gurley’s conclusion, after interview David and others, that Joseph
used the seer stone to “assuage the awful curiosity” of people is a rational
alternative interpretation that accounts what seems to be a direct conflict
between the SITH accounts and the Urim and Thummim accounts.]
J.
L. Traughber, Jr
As mentioned
before, Thomas Wood Smith published a response to Traughber in the January 1,
1880, Saints’ Review, published in Cook, 56-7.
Bro.
Joseph: When I first read Mr. Traughber’s paper in Herald of November 15th,
I thought that I would not notice his attack at all, as I supposed that I was
believed by the Church to be fair and truthful in my statements of other men’s
views, when I have occasion to use them, and I shall make this reply only: That
unless my interview with David Whitmer in January, 1876, was only a dream, or
that I failed to understand plain English, I believed then, and since, and now,
that he said that Joseph possessed, and used the Urim and Thummim in the
translation of the inscriptions referred to, and I remember of being much
pleased with that statement, as I had heard of the “Seer stone” being used. And
unless I dreamed the interview, or very soon after failed to recollect the
occasion, he described the form and size of the said Urim and Thummim. The
nearest approach to a retraction of my testimony as given in the Fall River
Herald and that given publicly in many places from the stated from January,
1876, till now, is, that unless I altogether misunderstood “Father Whitmer” on
this point, he said the translation was done by the aid of the Urim and
Thummim. If he says he did not intent to convey such an impression to my mind,
then I say I regret that I misunderstood him, and unintentionally have
misrepresented him. But that I understood him as represented by me frequently I
still affirm. If Father Whitmer will say over his own signature, that he never
said, or at least never intended to say, that Joseph possessed or used in
translating the Book of Mormon, the Urim and Thummim, I will agree to not repeat
my testimony as seen in the Fall River Herald on that point.
T.
W. Smith
Smith’s account
reflects his strong confidence in what he remembers David having told him in
1876. The Traughber article elicited an even earlier account of David
testifying about the Urim and Thummim.
The 1 March 1880
issue of The Saints’ Herald included a letter dated January 25, 1880, by
Eri B. Mullin, relating a memory from 1874.
Dear
Brethren:--
I
have been reading the news in the Herald for several years, and among the many
testimonies that I have read is one from Mr. L. Traughber, of Carrol county,
Missouri, said to be from D. Whitmer. Mr. D. Whitmer told me in the year 1874,
that Joseph Smith used the Urim and Thummim when he was translating. But now it
is said that he lost it when he gave the first part of the book to Martin
Harris; after that he used the Stone. Bro. T. W. Smith, I think was right.. I
for my part know he said that Joseph had the instrument Urim and Thummim. I
asked him how they looked. He said they looked like spectacles, and he (Joseph)
would put them on and look in a hat, or put his face in the hat and read. Says
I, “Did he have the plates in there.” “No; the word would appear, and if the
failed to spell the word right, it would stay till it was spelled right, then
pass away; another come, and so on.” Now this Mr. Traughber used to say that
the Reorganized Church was right, but now he fights against us; says we are not
right, neither the Book of Covenants. I believe both to be right, but that Mr.
Whitmer carried the idea that the translation was by both, or either Urim and
Thummim and the stone.
Eri
B. Mullin
We can all see
the dilemma. The earliest known accounts of David Whitmer relating his
knowledge of the translation are recollections from 1874 and 1876. Both
accounts have David saying that Joseph translated with the Urim and Thummim.
On April 15,
1879, The Saints’ Herald publishes T.W. Smith’s recollection from 1876,
relating David’s account of the Urim and Thummim.
Also in April,
the Lewis brothers start publishing their antagonistic memories of Joseph Smith
in Amboy, Illinois. In May, Blair interviews Morse in Amboy, who relates a SITH
account.
On June 15, 1879,
The Saints’ Herald publishes Blair’s letter about Morse’s SITH account.
On 15 November
1879 Traughber publishes David Whitmer’s first SITH account, incorporating one
detail from the Morse interview.
In January 1880,
The Saints’ Herald publishes T. W. Smith’s letter reaffirming his
recollection of David Whitmer’s U&T account.
To corroborate
Smith’s account, Mullin writes a letter that is published in The Saints’
Herald, explaining that in 1874 David Whitmer testified about U&T.
The rest of
Skousen’s quotations from David Whitmer postdate 1880 and continue the SITH
narrative.
Skousen provides
excerpts from an interview published 1 June 1881 in the Kansas City Journal,
which David later claimed was incorrect because, as he wrote to the paper, “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 stone.” The following year David wrote a letter complaining that he did
not write “sun stone” but instead wrote “seer stone.”
These accounts
illustrate the confusion that arose from David’s accounts. Skousen includes an
excerpt from a Chicago Times interview which says “The tablets or plates
were translated by Smith, who used a small oval kidney-shaped stone, called
Urim and Thummim.”
In ensuing
accounts, he became more adamant about the SITH narrative, to the point that in
his 1887 An Address to all Believers in Christ, David doesn’t even use
the term Urim and Thummim. Instead, gives the oft-quoted “description of the
manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated,” and relates the SITH
narrative.
But he introduces
this narrative with a discussion of the Spalding theory.
https://archive.org/details/addresstoallbeli00whit/page/10/mode/2up
The historical
record leaves no clear indication of why David changed his narrative about the
translation from the Urim and Thummim to SITH, but because he addressed the
Spalding theory in connection with his SITH account, we can reasonably infer
that he saw SITH as an apologetic response to the Spalding theory.
6. Martin
Harris.
Skousen provides
an excerpt from Edward Stevenson’s recollection from 4 September 1870,
published in 1881, which we discussed above.
Skousen comments
that
Martin
Harris died on 10 July 1875; thus this account was published more than six
years after Martin's death. Since this reminiscence dates from the Sabbath
meeting that occurred on 4 September 1870, then this account would be over 11
years old. One aspect that is unexplained is what Joseph and Martin did when
the text did not disappear after Martin said "written". It seems that
they would have had to repeat the text in some manner in order to correct it.
Although this account does not mention any hat being used for the darkening, it
clearly indicates that Joseph Smith was viewing the text under conditions of
darkness, thus Joseph's exclamation "All is as dark as Egypt."
The credibility
of this account is dubious for the reasons we previously discussed. Stevenson
was the sole witness of this account, recorded it after the fact, and didn’t
publish it until long after Martin died.
7. Elizabeth
L. McKune.
Elizabeth was a
niece of Issac Hale and the sister of the Lewis brothers (Hiel and Joseph) that
we discussed above. Her statement is part of the series of antagonistic
articles that the Lewis brothers published in 1879 (50 years after the fact).
Elizabeth claimed she “saw Smith translating his book by the aid of the stone
and hat. Reuben Hale, acting as scribe…” This fits the SITH narrative,
reflecting allegiance with her brothers’ determination to damage Mormonism.
Hiel Lewis wrote
that “Smith’s excuse for using his spectacles (that is, peep-stone) and hat to
translate with, instead of those spectacles, was that he must keep the
spectacles concealed, but any and all persons were permitted to inspect the
peep-stone; and that he could translate just as well with the same.”
Skousen suggests
that “Lewis’s actual statement accidentally replaces his intended peep-stone
with spectacles, in anticipation of the following use of spectacles.” That’s
one possibility. Another possibility is that Lewis’ was confused about
terminology and what actually happened.
8. Joseph
Fowler McKune, in a
reminiscence recorded by Rhamanthus M. Stocker in 1887, reportedly lived in
Broome County, NY and “was quite often in Smith’s home. Mr. McCune states that
Reuben Hale acted as scribe a part of the time. He says Smith’s hat was a very
large one, and what is commonly called a “stove pipe.” The hat was on the table
by the window and the sone in the bottom or rather in the top of the hat. Smith
would bend over the hat with his face buried in it so that no light could enter
it, and thus dictate to the scribe what he should write.”
Skousen comments
that:
Stocker
is here referring to the early translating of the Book of Mormon, in 1828, when
Reuben Hale was one of the scribes. This provides additional evidence that the
seer stone was used early on in the translation. McKune himself was born in
1815, so he would have been about 13 years old when he observed Joseph Smith translating.
Of course, this
contradicts the Pilgrim letter, in which Emma said Joseph used the Urim and
Thummim for the first part of the translation that Martin Harris lost.
Stocker actually
interviewed McKune’s widow, Sarah (Sallie) McKune, years after Joseph Fowler
McKune died. Stoker documented her recollections of her husband’s experiences
in Centennial History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania (1887).
Separately, Sarah claimed she knew there was a blanket between Joseph and his
scribes, which corroborates the second-hand accounts based on what Martin
Harris said. Naturally, the use of a blanket contradicts the accounts of Joseph
using SITH in the open.
_____
In the next
section, Skousen categorizes elements of the SITH statements.
Characteristics
of the second method
-
The
plates were not directly used.
Skousen observes that two accounts state the plates were not directly used:
Emma’s “Last Testimony” and the 1881 Kansas City Journal article. We
discussed the credibility of each above. If Joseph didn’t need the plates or
the Urim and Thummim to produce the Book of Mormon, not only were those items
superfluous, but the arduous work of Mormon and Moroni abridging the records,
Moroni depositing them in the Hill Cumorah to preserve them for centuries, and
then Joseph’s exertions to protect them would seemingly all be in vain. Not to
mention, as Mormonism Unvailed did in 1834, the testimony of the Three
and Eight Witnesses were of no use if Joseph didn’t even use the plates anyway.
-
There
was curtain or blanket between Joseph Smith and his scribe. Skousen surmises that the blanket “seems
to have been used only in the very beginning, when Joseph Smith had the plates
out in the open… In using the seer stone, there was no need for a curtain since
the plates were not being used.” The latter conclusion is axiomatic, but the
first is merely an assumption that contradicts the sources. If Joseph had no
reason to conceal anything from public view, then Moroni’s warning to Joseph
that he would be destroyed if he did show them was a pointless threat. On the
other hand, if, as Gurley concluded, Joseph used the seer stone to “assuage the
awful curiosity” of people, a blanket would impede that effort.
-
There
were no notes, manuscripts, or books.
Whether Joseph was reading words off the stone in the hat, or translating the
engravings on the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim, he would not have
referred to extraneous sources. Every account that mentioned this point was
consistent, usually in connection with a reference to the Spalding theory
(e.g., Emma’s “Last Testimony” and David Whitmer’s Address to All Believers
in Christ.).
_____
Next, Skousen
provides accounts that he excluded from consideration.
1. Truman Coe
wrote a letter to the editor of the Ohio Observer, published 11 August
1836, that included this passage:
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 Thummin, 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.
Skousen rejects
this account (he uses scare quotes around “relation”) because, he says, “Joseph
Smith always refused to give this kind of detailed account.” That obvious
tautology—Joseph didn’t give a detailed account to Coe because he didn’t give
detailed accounts—comes across as cognitive dissonance on Skousen’s part.
Skousen also
objects because Coe didn’t mention a blanket or curtain, which would have been
required if the plates were in the open for Joseph to access. But Coe said he
was relating what Joseph said, not what a witness or scribe might have said.
Joseph would have no reason to mention a blanket.
Skousen further
objects that “a single character corresponding to an entire thought… seems to
be impossible.” Yet we have Joseph’s own account of copying characters and
translating them.
Finally, Skousen
writes that “Joseph was also told in advance not to touch the sealed portion,
so this description of him working up to the sealed part and then suddenly
being told not to go on also contradicts Joseph’s own account of the sealed
portion.”
Think about that
objection. Moroni spelled out the commandment: “I have told you the things
which I have sealed up; therefore touch them not in order that ye may
translate; for that thing is forbidden you, except by and by it shall be wisdom
in God.” (Ether 5:1)
If Joseph wasn’t
handling the plates when he was translating, as Skousen claims, this is another
superfluous command from Moroni. The stone would simply not display the
forbidden translation. But if he was handling the plates, he would naturally
come to a place where the plates were sealed. Coe’s statement is a little
ambiguous, but it can be read consistently with Moroni’s commandment; i.e.,
that there, at that point, Joseph knew he had been commanded not to proceed.
In terms of the
FAITH model, the Coe account has advantages over the SITH accounts, including
proximity to the events (published in 1836 instead of the 1870s), published
during Joseph’s lifetime with no known objection by Joseph, specificity that
corroborates what Joseph said about translating characters and what Moroni
warned against in Ether 5:1, and corroboration of what Joseph and Oliver always
said about the Urim and Thummim.
Skousen’s
objections boil down to incompatibility with Skousen’s SITH narrative.
2. Eri B.
Mullin’s recollection David Whitmer’s statement from 1874.
We discussed this
account above. Here is Skousen’s rationale for rejecting it:
So
David supposedly says that Joseph Smith put on the Nephite interpreters (the
spectacles) and then looked in the hat, "or put his face in the hat and
read" -without anything in the hat? This account mixes up the seer stone
with the Nephite interpreters.
Eri said David
described the Urim and Thummim (“they looked like spectacles”) and said Joseph
would put them on and look in a hat. The point of spectacles is to put them on,
so that part makes sense. Skousen doesn’t explain why he objects to words
appearing on the Urim and Thummim instead of on a stone, but the function is
the same. The account is not detailed, leaving open the question of whether
Joseph first looked at the engravings on the plates before reading the U&T
in the darkness of the hat.
This is the
earliest known account of David describing the translation, which lends it
credibility over later accounts. Eri wrote the letter to the editor in response
to the Traughber article, which is a legitimate motivation.
Again, Skousen’s
objections boil down to incompatibility with Skousen’s SITH narrative.
3. Chicago
Times, August 1875, report of an interview with David Whitmer. This
account relats that “Having placed the Urim and Thummim in his hat, Joseph
placed the hat over his face, and with prophetic eyes read the invisible
symbols syllable by syllable and word by word, while Cowdery or Harris acted as
recorders…. Three times has he been at the hill Cumorah and seen the casket
that contained the tablets, and the seer-stone.”
Skousen rejects
this account because it “mixes up the (Nephite) interpreters with the seer
stone.” However, this account, sandwiched in time between the Eri Mullin and
T.W. Smith accounts, also precedes David’s later accounts when he shifted to
pure SITH.
4. Samuel W.
Richards interview of
Oliver Cowdery. Cowdery stayed with Richards during the winter of 1848-9. 58
years later, on May 21, 1907, Richards hand wrote his recollection.
He
[Oliver] represents Joseph as sitting by a table with the plates before him,
and he reading the record with the Urim & Thummim. Oliver, his scribe, sits
close beside to hear and write every word as translated. This is done by
holding the translators over the words of the written record, and the
translation appears distinctly in the instrument, which had been touched by the
finger of God and dedicated and consecrated for the express purpose of
translating languages. This instrument now used fully performed its Mission.
Every word was made distinctly visible even to every letter, and if Oliver did
not in writing spell the word correctly it remained in the translator until it
was written correctly. This was the Mystery to Oliver, how Joseph being
comparatively ignorant could correct him in spelling without seeing the word
written, and he would not be satisfied until he should be permitted or have the
gift to translate as well as Joseph. To satisfy Oliver, Joseph with him went to
the Lord in prayer until Oliver had the gift by which he could translate, and
by so doing learned how it was that Joseph could correct him even in the
spelling of words.
Skousen rejects
this testimony, claiming it is “full of error.”
“First of all,”
Skousen writes, “Oliver had not yet seen the plates. It is possible that this
is how the (Nephite) interpreters worked, but Joseph Smith would have done this
behind a curtain at this time, if he had been translating using the
interpreters.”
These are
Skousen’s assumptions, but there are at least two plausible explanations.
Although Oliver sat close to Joseph, there could have been a curtain between
them that Richards didn’t mention, at least until Oliver was given the gift of
translation and thus presumably had access to the plates and the interpreters.
Oliver himself said he handled both. Richards’ account is not necessarily
chronological; he may have started with Oliver’s explanation of the process
that Oliver learned after he had been given the gift to translate.
Skousen
continues: “But with the seer stone it was done with a hat and no plates being
directly used, although they were often nearby wrapped up in a cloth.”
Obviously, Skousen’s statement, written as a fact, contradicts what Richards
remembered Oliver saying. Skousen’s theory collides with the Richards account,
but that alone is not a basis for rejecting the Richards account.
Skousen also
objects because “Richards invokes an ironclad interpretation for the
transmission of the text, and even has Joseph correcting Oliver's spelling. Yet
Oliver Cowdery's frequent misspellings are never corrected in the original
manuscript.” This is a good point, but it applies as well to several SITH
statements that claim the stone corrected the spelling of the scribes. A
plausible explanation is that the spelling correction occurred for certain
proper nouns and was then loosely related in more general terms.
5. Nathan
Tanner Junior interview
of David Whitmer, 13 May 1886, recorded on 17 February 1909.
Tanner said that
David said that Joseph was separated from the scribe by a blanket, and “that he
had the Urim and Thummim, and a chocolate colored stone, which he used
alternatively, as suites his convenience…. He said that Joseph would—as I
remember—place the manuscript beneath the stone or Urim, and the characters
would appear in English, which he would spell out, and they would remain there
until the word was fully written and corrected.”
Skousen objects
to this account because Tanner’s diary entry for 13 May 1886 lacks the
information, and the account “is compounded by the folklore that had arisen by
the early 1900s.”
But that same
objection applies to all the accounts from the 1870s and later.
Skousen objects
to the “ironclad” approach of one word at a time and other discrepancies.
_____
Skousen’s next
section, starting on page 62, is titled:
Generic
accounts from Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery
In this section,
Skousen provides the well-known accounts from Joseph and Oliver. He rejects
them all. We’ll assess his reasoning after listing the accounts. Skousen bolded
the passages as indicated below.
-
Joseph’s
“Answers to Questions” in the July 1838 Elders’ Journal: “I obtained
them, and the Urim and Thummim with them; by the means of which I translated
the plates; and thus came the book of Mormon.”
-
The 1842
Wentworth letter: “With the records was found a curious instrument which the
ancients called “Urim and Thummim,” which consisted of two transparent stones
set in the rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate. Through the medium of the
Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift, and power of God.”
-
Oliver
Cowdery, Letter I, JS-History note: “Day after day I continued, uninterrupted,
to wrote from his mouth as he translated, with the Urim and Thummim, or,
as the Nephites would have said, ‘Interpreters,’ the history, or record, called
‘The book of Mormon.’”
-
Oliver
Cowdery, 1848, recorded by Reuben Miller: “I wrote with my own pen the entire
Book of Mormon (save a few pages) as it fell from the lips of the Prophet as
he translated it by the gift and power of God by means of the Urim and Thummim,
or as it is called by that book, holy interpreters.”
Here is Skousen’s
reasoning, with my comments in brackets.
The
two individuals that could have told us the most about the translation process
are Joseph Smith, the translator, and Oliver Cowdery, his primary scribe.
[While
this is undoubtedly true as far as it goes, it is an ironic statement because
Skousen explicitly rejected more detailed accounts from both Joseph and Oliver
on the ground that they never gave detailed accounts—the tautology that we
discussed above.]
Besides
stating that the translation was done by "the gift and power of God",
they both explicitly claim that Joseph made the translation using the Urim and
Thummim, meaning the interpreters that came with the plates.
[Exactly.
The consistent, formal, published statements from Joseph and Oliver, when read
in historical context, responded to the SITH claim in Mormonism Unvailed.
Affirming that the translation was accomplished through divinely-appointed
means instead of through a superstitious and occult “peep stone” was more
important that satisfying curiosity about the specific mechanism. And yet, they
did relate the specific mechanism to some people, as recorded in the accounts
that Skousen rejects.]
But
in no case did they give any details, nor did they ever mention the seer stone.
[We
saw in the previous section that both Joseph and Oliver did give details, but
Skousen just rejected the accounts. There was no reason for Joseph and Oliver
to “mention the seer stone” because, as they repeatedly explained, Joseph used
the Urim and Thummim instead.]
It
appears that their witness statements purposely avoid mentioning the stone in
the hat, the method that would have linked Joseph to treasure hunting.
[This
is the “embarrassment” narrative used to explain and justify SITH. Obviously
they would have avoided mentioning SITH because Joseph never used SITH to
translate.]
And
although it is true that Joseph used the interpreters in the very beginning of
the translation, there is no firsthand witness who confirms their use after the
loss of the 116 pages of manuscript.
[Except
Joseph, Oliver, Samuel Smith, and John Whitmer.]
In
fact, three witnesses gave evidence that the seer stone was used when Oliver
was the scribe: Emma Smith (February 1879), Michael Morse (8 May 1879), and
David Whitmer (14 October 1881); Emma's evidence is indirect, but the two
others specifically list Oliver by name.
[Morse
also listed John Whitmer, who was never in Harmony, showing that Morse was
relating hearsay. Besides, John Whitmer said Joseph used the Urim and Thummim
and breastplate. The 14 October 1881 account is not a direct quotation from
David but a newspaper reporters version that conflates various accounts. The article
never mentions a hat. It reads, “The tablets or plates were translated by
Smith, who used a small oval kidney-shaped stone, called Urim and Thummim… Frequently,
one character would make two lines of manuscript, while others made but a word
or two words.” Skousen rejected another account for such a statement about the
characters. And if David told the reporter that the seer stone was called Urim
and Thummim, then David’s accounts are even more inconsistent than we thought.]
Thus
Joseph Smith's claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true;
and Oliver Cowdery's statements that Joseph used the original instrument while
he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading.
[Of
course, this is Skousen’s remarkable conclusion that prompted me to write this
review. By now it is obvious that Skousen reached that conclusion first, then
assembled and organized the evidence to support the conclusion.]
On page 63,
Skousen starts a section titled “Other claims,” but before reviewing that
section we should consider some additional statements that Skousen omitted from
consideration.
1. The Reuben
Miller account. Skousen
provided an excerpt of the Miller account (which he promptly dismissed as
intentionally misleading), but when viewed in context, the account is more
significant that Skousen’s readers will realize.
When Cowdery
returned to Church membership in 1848 he spoke to an Iowa conference. His words
there were recorded by Reuben Miller. Recall that on this occasion, he had
possession of the brown stone that Skousen and others say Joseph used to
translate the Book of Mormon, yet Oliver did not mention that stone at all. He
did not display it to the audience to prove his testimony.
Instead, he addressed
ongoing challenges to the Restoration: SITH, Spalding, and Priesthood.
First, Oliver reaffirmed
the translation by the Urim and Thummim. Then he specifically addressed the
Spalding theory from Mormonism Unvailed. Finally, he reiterated the
literal restoration of the Priesthood.
I
wrote with my own pen the entire Book of Mormon (save a few pages) as it fell
from the lips of the Prophet as he translated it by the gift and power
of God by means of the Urim and Thummim, or as it is called by that book, holy
interpreters.
I
beheld with my eyes and handled with my hands the gold plates from which it
was translated.
I
also beheld the Interpreters.
That
book is true.
Sidney
Rigdon did not write it.
Mr.
Spaulding did not write it.
I
wrote it myself as it fell from the lips of the Prophet. ….
Bro.
Hyde has just said that it was all important that we keep in the true channel
in order to avoid the sandbars. This is true, the channel is here, the
priesthood is here. I was present with Joseph when an holy angel from God came
down from heaven and conferred, or restored, the Aaronic priesthood. And said
at the same time that it should remain upon the earth while the earth stands. I
was also present with Joseph when the Melchizedek priesthood was conferred by
the holy angels of God which we then confirmed on each other by the will and
commandment of God.”
Skousen infers
that Oliver intentionally misled his audience about the translation but
presumably accepts Oliver’s testimony about the plates, the interpreters, the
Spalding theory, and the restoration of the Priesthood.
Readers can make
up their own mind about the plausibility of Skousen’s approach.
You can see the
original Reuben Miller journal entries about Oliver's return to the Church
here:
See also https://www.mobom.org/oliver-returning-to-the-church
2. Letter IV. The fourth of Oliver Cowdery’s essays
about early Church history, published in 1835, includes a detailed account of
Moroni’s visit. Oliver introduced the account by writing “to use his [Joseph’s]
own description.”
Among other
things, Oliver explained that Moroni said
this
history was written and deposited not far from that place, and that it was our
brother’s privilege, if obedient to the commandments of the Lord, to obtain and
translate the same by the means of the Urim and Thummim, which were deposited
for that purpose with the record.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/69
Scholars debate
whether it was Moroni, Joseph Smith, or Oliver Cowdery who used the term “Urim
and Thummim” here. The passage can be read to support all three positions.
Skousen presumably would cite this as more evidence of the “embarrassment”
narrative, but he should have included it in his list of sources because it
corroborates what Joseph and Oliver always said.
Letter IV, like
the other seven essays Oliver wrote, were originally published in the Messenger
and Advocate, then copied into Joseph’s own history as part of his life story,
and later republished (with Joseph Smith’s encouragement) in 1841 in the Gospel
Reflector and Times and Seasons. They were republished in the Millennial
Star (1841) and The Prophet (1844) (and later in the Improvement
Era). In 1842 they were published together in a pamphlet in England that
sold thousands of copies.
Other than
scriptural passages, Oliver’s eight letters were the most frequently published
content during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Whether these letters were part of an
intentional deception as Skousen claims, or a legitimate account of early Church
history that Joseph helped write and fully endorsed, readers can decide.
3. D&C 10. There is a bit of controversy about
D&C 10 because the earliest extant version, published in the Book of
Commandments as Chapter IX, reads differently from the current version.
Chapter IX (1832):
NOW,
behold I say unto you, that because you delivered up so many writings, which
you had power to translate, into the hands of a wicked man, you have lost them,
and you also lost your gift at the same time, nevertheless it has been
restored unto you again:
D&C 10 (1835
Doctrine and Covenants)
1
Now, behold, I say unto you, that because you delivered up those writings
which you had power given unto you to translate by the
means of the Urim and Thummim, into the hands of a wicked man, you have
lost them.
2
And you also lost your gift at the same time, and your mind became
darkened.
3
Nevertheless, it is now restored unto you again;
The change looks
like a clarification of the original version. Presumably when the original
revelation was given, everyone involved knew that Joseph was translating with
the Urim and Thummim, but that was not known by those outside Joseph's close
associates. The 1835 change also corresponds with the account of Moroni's visit
published by Oliver Cowdery in Letter IV, based on Joseph's "own
description" as we saw above.
Nevertheless,
some scholars (both critical and faithful) argue that Joseph and Oliver made
this change to the revelation because Joseph was "embarrassed" about
having used the seer stone in the hat (SITH) instead of the Nephite
interpreters.
Presumably Skousen
views this change as more evidence that Oliver deliberately misled everyone
about the translation process.
Everyone can read
the accounts and make informed decisions for themselves. For more analysis, see
https://www.mobom.org/urim-and-thummim-in-1832.
But there is more
in D&C 10 about the translation that Skousen should have considered.
When Joseph and
Oliver finished translating the abridged plates in Harmony, they considered
going back to the beginning to re-translate the book of Lehi.
But the Lord
instructed Joseph otherwise.
38
And now, verily I say unto you, that an account of those things that you have
written, which have gone out of your hands, is engraven upon the plates of
Nephi;
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—
41
Therefore, 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; and thus I will
confound those who have altered my words. (Doctrine and Covenants 10:38–42)
None of this
makes sense if Joseph was simply reading words off a stone in the hat, as
Skousen claims. According to SITH, it was the stone that provided the words,
not the engravings on the plates. According to SITH, Joseph didn’t even use the
plates and would have had no idea what part of the physical plates corresponded
to what he was reading on the stone.
The first 26
verses of D&C 10 are superfluous if Joseph wasn’t actually translating the
engravings on the plates. For that matter, Joseph couldn’t have intentionally
obeyed or disobeyed the commandment in verse 41; the stone in the hat was doing
all the work.
4. D&C 17. Another revelation that would be superfluous
in part is D&C 17:1.
1
Behold, I say unto you, that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with
full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also of the
breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given
to the brother of Jared upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to
face, and the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in the
wilderness, on the borders of the Red Sea. (Doctrine and Covenants 17:1)
In 1834, Mormonism
Unvailed pointed out the futility of the Three Witnesses seeing the Urim
and Thummim if Joseph didn’t even use that instrument to translate the plates.
As an artifact it would be useful to corroborate the historicity of the
narrative in the Book of Mormon, but its utility as a translation device is
zero according to SITH. It is also significant that in D&C 17:1 it is the
Lord who names the instrument. This corroborates the narrative that it was
Moroni who used the term in the first place.
Presumably
Skousen would argue that D&C 17:1 is part of the scheme by Joseph and
Oliver to intentionally mislead everyone, but he should make his position
explicit instead of avoiding it by simply not mentioning these important
sources regarding the translation.
_____
Other claims (page 63). In this section Skousen notes “additional
claims the witnesses of the translation made.” Skousen discusses how long it
took to translate, how Joseph had to be in the right spirit to translate, what
Joseph saw in the instrument, etc. I’ll comment only on the first claim.
1. Joseph
Smith was ignorant of the walls of Jerusalem.
Emma famously
claimed that Joseph did not know Jerusalem had walls, presumably when she was
scribing the book of Lehi in early 1828 (part of the 116 pages). Skousen notes
that both Martin Harris and David Whitmer made the same claim, “but this remembrance
of David’s is probably based on what he had heard from Emma Smith about Joseph’s
translation of the book of Lehi.” I agree with Skousen on this point. And it is
a perfect example of coordinating stories about the translation, where a
non-witness to the event nevertheless testifies about it.
The walls of
Jerusalem anecdote leads Skousen to this conclusion: “This incident regarding
the walls of Jerusalem shows that Joseph Smith was not the author of the Book
of Mormon text. He just didn't know enough about the Bible, for one thing.”
Another view is
that Joseph had a legitimate question. The Bible does not say there were walls
around Jerusalem when Lehi left Jerusalem. The Book of Mormon refers to the
"first year of the reign of Zedekiah." This is in 2 Kings 24. There's
nothing in the Bible about walls around Jerusalem in that year. Asking about
walls around Jerusalem at this time seems like a reasonable question. 2 Kings
25:1 skips to the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, after Lehi had left. That
chapter does discuss walls, but not when they were built. The 2 Chronicles
36:19 version of the history says the Chaldeans brake down the wall of
Jerusalem, but again, that was several years after Lehi left. This is not a
critical issue, but it's a stretch to say Joseph didn't know the Bible because
he didn't know if there were walls around Jerusalem when Lehi left the city.
_____
Overall
conclusion. I spent the
time to go through Skousen’s book because of the significance of his conclusion
that Joseph and Oliver intentionally misled everyone about the translation.
In my view,
Skousen did a cursory, outcome-determined analysis of the witness statements to
support his conclusion. He also omitted relevant sources that contradict his
conclusion.
The FAITH model
requires a careful, consistent consideration of all the Facts, distinguished
from Assumptions, Inferences, and Theories that lead to the overall Hypotheses.
My analysis leads me to the conclusion
that Joseph and Oliver told the truth about these events, and that others who
disagreed with them had various motives to do so (both apologetic and critical),
relied on hearsay, mingled assumptions and inferences with facts, and for these
reasons reached unreliable conclusions about SITH.
Hopefully other
scholars will avoid the outcome-driven approach that Skousen used in his book
and instead adopt the principles of the FAITH model of analysis.
