Author: Jonathan Neville

And for those asking, I will discuss the connection between the peep stone narrative and M2C.

But today we need to discuss an important news item.
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A federal lawsuit has been filed based on the claims of the revisionist historians.

https://www.wnd.com/2019/08/deceived-scorching-lawsuit-blasts-mormon-scheme-of-lies/

Basically, this is the case:

the plaintiff is claiming she was deceived because for decades Church leaders have taught Joseph Smith’s version of Church history instead of William E. McLellin’s, but (according to her and the revisionist Church historians), McLellin was correct. 

To summarize the two competing narratives (discussed previously here):

Joseph Smith: I translated the engravings on the plates with the Urim and Thummim that I found with the plates.

This was also taught by Oliver Cowdery and all their successors as leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.






William E. McLellin: Joseph didn’t translate the plates; he just read words that appeared on a peep stone in a hat.

This was also taught by David Whitmer and others who left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with revisionist Church historians, the Saints book, the Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Translation, Anthony Sweat’s artwork, etc.

Now that our revisionist Church historians have established McLellin’s version instead of Joseph’s, this plaintiff says she was deceived.

Aside from the legalities, I often hear about members who have left the Church after these Gospel Topics Essays were posted. In some cases, the former members said they never knew this “history,” even though there’s nothing in those essays that hasn’t been around for a long time. The distinction between the peep-stone-in-a-hat and the Urim and Thummim has been clear since at least 1834, although our revisionist historians have recently created a false historical narrative present to combine the two narratives.

In most cases, I don’t think it’s the information in the essays that is the problem.

Instead, it’s the idea that the revisionist Church historians are promoting McLellin’s version instead of Joseph’s that people find troubling. 

Seeing McLellin’s version being taught through Church media is highly troublesome for many people, especially when BYU professors are saying his version is correct and Joseph’s is not.

If the lawsuit makes it past a motion to dismiss, what would the defense be? What would you say to this plaintiff? What do you tell friends and family who are troubled by this issue?

Do you follow the teachings of the revisionist Church historians and tell them you now accept McLellin’s version of the translation instead of Joseph’s? 

Or do you tell them you still accept the narrative taught by Joseph and Oliver instead of McLellin’s?
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I haven’t seen the complaint in this case, but based on the news report, there are several possibilities.

When I was practicing law, I would occasionally attend meetings of trial lawyers who discussed and coordinated approaches to large-scale litigation. They would strategize about forum selection, ideal plaintiffs, new theories of liability, etc.

This case could be a one-off, isolated situation that will be dismissed on motions. Or, it could be part of a large-scale coordinated effort that will eventually involve thousands of plaintiffs.

Either way, it seems likely that the case will focus more attention on the Joseph Smith vs. William E. McLellin issue like never before.

It’s easy to imagine the presentation of the case. The plaintiff enters into evidence (i) the teachings of the prophets over the years, starting with Joseph and Oliver; and (ii) the work of the revisionist historians who claim to be telling the “real” story (McLellin’s version).

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Next, someone will probably sue because our M2C intellectuals have determined that Joseph, Oliver and all the other prophets/apostles were wrong about the New York Cumorah, as we’ll see on display at the FairMormon conference….

Interesting times.

Our M2C intellectuals continue to complain when I observe that they are repudiating the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah, the translation of the plates with the Urim and Thummim, and other issues. I’ll discuss that more tomorrow.
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For the next few days, we’re going to preview and take a look at the FairMormon/Book of Mormon Central annual conference taking place this week in Provo.

You can see the program here:

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2019

I really wish I could support these groups, both financially and philosophically. I really like personally, and respect and admire professionally, everyone involved with these organizations. They’re great people, talented, faithful members of the Church, etc.

They also have lots of useful material, but because of their single-minded focus on M2C, they mix all the good with two unacceptable elements: censorship and ridicule of fellow faithful members of the Church who still believe the teachings of the prophets.

Consequently, IMO, both FairMormon and Book of Mormon Central are contradicting the Church’s official position of neutrality and they are raising barriers to faith.

Some of them say the same thing about me, but they all know that I frequently cite and link to their work, openly share their views on the issues, and encourage people to compare.

If they did the same, I would support them.

I would love to see these groups present a comparison table, chart, and analysis that lets everyone in the world understand why so many members of the Church still believe the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah, despite the efforts of the M2C citation cartel to suppress and censor those teachings.

That seems obvious, doesn’t it? Who, in 2019, supports censorship except those who don’t trust their readers?

Why would any group that professes to support the Church’s teaching of neutrality be so adamantly opposed to a neutral comparison of the two perspectives?

The answer: FairMormon and Book of Mormon Central know most members of the Church, if fully informed, would reject M2C. And they have invested far too much into M2C to allow that to happen.

These groups have not offered such a comparison so far, and they never will with the current management of FairMormon, Book of Mormon Central, the Interpreter, Meridian Magazine, etc.
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If you watch the events this week, I suspect you’ll see plenty of examples of what I’m describing here.

I’ve written a lot about M2C and bias confirmation because that’s an easy paradigm for people to understand. People experience bias confirmation all the time.

The challenge is recognizing it in ourselves.

But actually, the term bias confirmation includes several elements that are useful and important.

A relevant article  in Psychology Today pointed out that bias confirmation “can refer to the following tendencies:  

•      Search: to search only for confirming evidence (Wason’s original definition)

•      Preference: to prefer evidence that supports our beliefs

•      Recall: to best remember information in keeping with our beliefs

•      Interpretation: to interpret evidence in a way that supports our beliefs

•      Framing: to use mistaken beliefs to misunderstand what is happening in a situation

•      Testing: to ignore opportunities to test our beliefs

•      Discarding: to explain away data that don’t fit with our beliefs”

What we really need to watch out for is fixation, a term that encompasses the last three tendencies.

The topic is explored very effectively by Dr. Gary Klein here:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/seeing-what-others-dont/201906/escaping-fixation

The concept of fixation is that we get stuck on an initial explanation. Often, that initial explanation will be accurate but when it is wrong, with hindsight we can see that we held on to it too long. 

In my view, M2C persists because of fixation; M2C intellectuals got stuck on an initial explanation (M2C) and, with hindsight, we can see that we held onto it for too long. 

Of course, the M2C intellectuals reject the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah on the same rationale. 

That’s why it’s up to each individual to make an informed decision.

And that’s why the ongoing censorship by Book of Mormon Central is so pernicious.

But fixation errors aren’t just holding onto our initial explanation too long—fixation gets compounded when we dismiss any anomalous evidence that runs counter to our original diagnosis instead of taking these anomalies into account and revising our beliefs. DeKeyser and Woods (1990) speculated about some ways that fixation works, and Feltovich et al. (2001) called these tactics, “knowledge shields” that we use to deflect contrary data.

These six knowledge shields are pervasive in the literature of the M2C citation cartel.

Chinn & Brewer (1993) listed six basic ways that knowledge shields can operate, ways that we can react to anomalous data that are inconsistent with our beliefs: 

(i) we can ignore the data; 

(ii) we can reject the data by finding some flaw or weakness in the way the data were collected or analyzed or even speculate that the data reflected a random occurrence; 

(iii) we can decide that the data don’t really apply to the phenomenon of interest; 

(iv) we can set the data aside for the present in the expectation that future developments will show why the anomaly is not really a problem 

(v) we can find a way to interpret the data that allows us to preserve our beliefs; 

(vi) we can make cosmetic changes to our beliefs and fool ourselves into thinking that we have taken the data into account. 

Chinn and Brewer found that college students displayed each of these tactics and so did established scientists. Chinn and Brewer also listed a seventh type of reaction—we can accept the data and change or discard our initial beliefs.
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This seventh reaction is the one I eventually used to discard my belief in M2C. I’ll explain in upcoming posts.

97% on Rotten Tomatoes!

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_fighting_preacher

This is the story of Willard Bean, who was called on a mission to Palmyra in the early 1900s.

The boxing ring he set up was in the building across Main Street from today’s Oliver Cowdery Memorial, too.

The photo in this article shows the boxing ring:

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900064140/new-film-the-fighting-preacher-is-the-best-church-history-story-youve-never-head-of-director-says.html

The movie is doing some good business, but not as good as it deserves. Go see it. And take someone.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=thefightingpreacher.htm

2019 BYU Education Week

This is a timely topic because at BYU Education Week from Aug 20-23, 2019, in the Marriott Center (capacity of 19,000), the stone-in-a-hat is about to get a major boost.

One of the most prominent promoters of the stone-in-a-hat theory, BYU Professor Anthony Sweat, is conducting eight classes in the Marriott Center on Tuesday through Friday between 1:50-2:45 and 3:10-4:05.

The Marriott Center is the largest venue at BYU. It’s where Elder Gary E. Stevenson is speaking on Tuesday for the Education Week Devotional.

BYU is giving two hours of time, during all four days of Education Week, in the Marriott Center, to Brother Sweat.

In the first class, he’s speaking on his new book, Seekers Wanted. (I discuss that book below.)

In the second class, he’s displaying his latest artwork under the title of “Repicturing the Restoration.” This is a perfect title for revisionist Church history.

You can see the program here.

https://byucemedia.org/edweek/booklet/2019_edweek_final.pdf

I won’t be in Utah during Education Week, but I hope some readers will attend so you can go to these presentations and see them for yourselves. Blog about them. Post on Facebook and Twitter, etc. 

Members of the Church need to know what’s going on.

If they allow Q&A, feel free to ask questions.
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In past years, I’ve been astonished at some of the things I’ve heard at BYU Education Week. A few years ago I heard one speaker, an expert in Church history, note that Joseph Smith said the Title Page was a literal translation of the last leaf of the plates. But then this expert said, “We don’t know how Joseph could have known that because he never used the plates.”

That’s how absurd this whole stone-in-a-hat narrative has become.
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I don’t know Brother Sweat, and I’m sure he’s an awesome teacher, a wonderful artist, a faithful member of the Church, a great guy in all ways. But that has nothing to do with whether we should accept what he’s teaching. None of my observations are personal; I’m focused on the message.

And I’m all in favor of artistic license. People should be able to paint whatever they want, just as we can all believe whatever we want.

What I’m not in favor of is teaching a long-discredited theory as a fact that overrides the teachings of the prophets.

In 2017, BYU’s Daily Universe published an article that portrayed the stone-in-a-hat theory from Mormonism Unvailed as a fact.

https://universe.byu.edu/2017/08/21/education-week-artwork-influences-how-members-learn-the-gospel/

From the article: “Sweat used depictions of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon as an example of artwork that can teach incorrect facts if viewers are not careful. 

[The irony in that sentence is compounded by what comes next.]

While Smith translated the Book of Mormon using seer stones inside of a hat, almost all current artwork shows Smith studying open plates without the hat or seer stones in sight. Sweat said because of this, people often believe the translation process was entirely different than it actually was.”

This statement of fact repudiates the consistent teachings of the prophets for generations. It refutes what Joseph and Oliver themselves taught. 

First, Joseph himself said he copied the characters off the plates. (JS-H 1:62) How could he do that if he didn’t handle them openly, as depicted in the artwork brother Sweat is criticizing? 

Second, Joseph said he translated some of the characters by means of the Urim and Thummim. Joseph never said he translated the plates with a seer stone he found in a well.  

Third, Joseph never said he used a hat. It makes sense that he may, on occasion, have put the Urim and Thummim in a hat to make it easier to read, but we have to infer that from others. 

Fourth, I agree with Brother Sweat that many of these paintings do not depict the Urim and Thummim as part of the translation process, and to that extent they do not reflect that actually happened. But, ironically, Brother Sweat’s paintings also don’t depict the Urim and Thummim. Worse, as we’ll see below, he doesn’t depict Joseph even using the plates, in direct contradiction to Joseph’s own testimony.
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Another way to understand this is looking at William E. McLellin, one of the original Twelve Apostles. He left the Church in 1838. As we discussed in part 2, in 1880, he wrote an explanation of why he was not a “Mormon” that included a list of 55 “Things which I do not believe that is generally believed by Latter Day Saints most firmly.”

Among these were several that involved the translation:

1. I do not believe that Joseph translated the book of Mormon. He only read the translation as it appeared before him. The Lord translated it for him, so says the book. “Wherefore, thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee.” Page 111, of the Palmyra edition (2 Ne. 27:20).

3. I do not believe he ever possessed the Interpreters after he lost the 116 pages first translated.

25. I do not believe, in pretending to translate with Urim and Thummim when only a small Stone was used.

Today, revisionist Church historians have embraced McLellin’s disbelief in these teachings.

The Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Translation sets out the McLellin narrative instead of the teachings of the prophets. Brother Sweat illustrates stone-in-a-hat narrative and frames the McLellin position as how the translation “actually was.”

In fact, Brother Sweat’s new book, Seekers Wanted, teaches the stone-in-a-hat theory by censoring the teachings of the prophets.
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Seekers Wanted has a chapter on “Studying Church History” that is a good guide to how we can persuade ourselves, step-by-step, that the prophets are wrong.

Here’s a passage from the book (in blue) with my comments (in red).

Relationship to Other Sources 

The next factor to examine for the reliability of a historical source is to compare and contrast the account with other sources dealing with the same events. Are the dates, facts, details and claims consistent with other sources? What are the major similarities and differences? Why might those exist? 

This is a good statement of the historian’s task. Historians are basically detectives. When I practiced law, I found that, like in most detective novels, the actual explanation for the facts was often not what seemed obvious at the outset.  

[Brother Sweat next cites the different accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision, arguing the essential details are consistent despite discrepancies.]

As an artist and a professor of Church history and doctrine, some of my research has to do with how the Book of Mormon translation has been depicted in Church are over the years.19 Notably, until recently there were no known paintings produced by Latter-day Saint artists or published in Church materials that depicted Joseph Smith translating the book Mormon by using a seer stone(s) placed in a hat. I decided to attempt to create this image, as I felt it was important to have this historical visual. The painting was later published in the book From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon. 

Here is a forensic clue akin to the dog that didn’t bark. Brother Sweat doesn’t explain here whether he considered why no such paintings had been created before.

The answer is easy. The historical record shows that the peep stone-in-a-hat vs. the Urim and Thummim were two alternative narratives (the way Mormonism Unvailed presented them in 1834). Church leadership, starting with Joseph and Oliver, have always taught the Urim and Thummim narrative. Even if only by implication, Joseph, Oliver and the others rejected the stone-in-a-hat narrative. [I think they were more explicit than by implication, but can’t get into that in this blog post.] Consequently, for 180+ years, no one who accepted Church leadership as honest, credible and reliable would depict the stone-in-a-hat narrative in a painting.

That deliberate choice between the two narratives leaves the stone-in-a-hat testimony hanging out there for critics to latch onto, just as Mormonism Unvailed did in 1834.

Some Church members apparently dismissed the stone-in-a-hat testimony as mere lies, but that strikes me as an unreasonable, nonhistorical position. That’s the type of explanation that non-Mormons would find not credible. It’s purely apologetic in nature, and it plays into the hands of the critics.

Apparently, Brother Sweat and other revisionist Church historians (such as the authors of From Darkness unto Light) also found that position untenable. Instead of choosing between the two narratives, they proposed a way to reconcile them. They came up with the idea that actually, there were not two different narratives. 

They concluded that when Joseph, Oliver and their successors were teaching the Urim and Thummim narrative, they were also teaching the stone-in-a-hat narrative because they used the term Urim and Thummim to apply to both the Nephite interpreters and the seer stone.  

This is a clever approach that has obvious appeal, but it relies on a false historical narrative present (meaning what people living in the 1830s and 1840s believed). Everyone can read Mormonism Unvailed and see that the two narratives were separate and distinct. As we’ve seen, Oliver Cowdery’s eight essays on Church history declared as a fact that Joseph translated with the Urim and Thummim that accompanied the plates; it was a deliberate affirmation of that narrative as opposed to the stone-in-a-hat.

Relying on a false historical narrative present to reconcile the accounts is problematic; it’s really no better, in terms of credibility, than claiming the stone-in-a-hat witnesses were all liars. 

So what to do? 

After examining all the evidence, it seems obvious to me now that the stone-in-a-hat witnesses truthfully testified about what they observed, but they were not observing the actual translation of the Book of Mormon. Instead, they were observing a demonstration that Joseph conducted to satisfy their curiosity and explain what he was doing, albeit without showing the actual plates and Urim and Thummim he was using, and which he had been commanded not to show to anyone.

If you read all the accounts carefully, along with the ensuing testimonies from Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, Heber C. Kimball, and other contemporaries of Joseph Smith, no other interpretation is viable.

As you read the rest of Brother Sweat’s explanation, see what you think.

After the painting was published and began to be circulated, I received an email from someone who had been a mentor to me as I began my career in LDS religious education. His email asked, “Can you help me understand the purpose in teaching that the Prophet translated in this manner [using the hat]?” His email showed good scholarship, asking why I would choose to rely on sources for my painting from disaffected members of the Church who have potential for bias, such as David Whitmer or Emma Smith. 

This is the commonly held position that all the stone-in-a-hat witnesses were liars, as discussed above. As I explained in Part 3, Emma Smith definitely had biases, as did her son who reported what she said. Every witness has biases, of course; ideally we would examine each one. In my book, where I get into more detail about all of this, I examine bias, opportunity, motive and the other indicia of credibility. Overall, I think the witnesses were mostly reliable and credible, but much of what they said was based on their own inferences and what they heard from others. 

Unfortunately, Joseph Smith is relatively silent on the mechanics of translation, saying only that the translation was done “by the gift and power of God”20 and sometimes adding the line “by means of the Urim and Thummim” (Joseph Smith-History 1:64). 

Here is an example of Brother Sweat’s bias. You see this same truncation of what Joseph and Oliver actually said throughout the writings of the revisionist historians, including in the Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Translation. 

The citation here should be JS-H 1:62, but that’s not the only place in JS-H that refers to the Urim and Thummim.

JS-H 1:35 is too specific to accommodate the peep stone. “Also, that there were two stones in silver bows—and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim—deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were what constituted “seers” in ancient or former times; and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.”

JS-H 1:42 explains that Joseph was forbidden to show the Urim and Thummim to people. Oliver Cowdery’s letter I, excerpted in the footnotes to JS-H, also excludes the peep stone: “Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write 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.’” 

It’s not only the accounts of Joseph and Oliver that the revisionist historians censor. For example, I haven’t seen any of them address Lucy Mack Smith’s explanation that, in May 1829, Joseph received the commandment to write to David Whitmer after he had applied the Urim and Thummim to his eyes and looked on the plates.  

Her observation contradicts the McLellin narrative that the revisionist Church historians have adopted as their own. But it’s not good scholarship to simply ignore her observation as if it didn’t exist.

To understand the process of the Book of Mormon translation, we are left to rely on those who saw Joseph Smith translate (a type of primary source because they can relate what they personally observed of the translation process) or heard him tell about it. 

Here’s the fallacy of the stone-in-a-hat narrative. Brother Sweat simply assumes that the witnesses saw Joseph translate because the witnesses thought they saw Joseph translate. But none of them recorded what Joseph actually dictated during these sessions, and none of them quote Joseph or Oliver as saying they were translating the Book of Mormon during these sessions. Their testimony is consistent with having observed a demonstration.

In my email reply to my friend, I sent the following accounts, and I share them here with you. The questions are: What is consistent across each account? What differs? 

Fair enough.

First, an early contemporary account (1829) of the translation by an antagonistic source, Jonathan Hadley, a local printer who declined to print the Book of Mormon when he was approached with the offer by Joseph Smith. Hadley published the following in The Palmyra Freeman on August 11, 1829: 

“It was said that the leaves of the (Gold) Bible were plates, of gold about eight inches long, six wide, and one eighth of an inch thick, on which were engraved characters or hieroglyphics. By placing the spectacles in a hat, and looking into it, Smith could (he said so, at least,) interpret these characters.”21

This is a secondhand account, as Hadley would have been told the details of the translation by someone else (assumedly Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Martin Harris, or Oliver Cowdery). 

Why assume it was one of those brethren? Hadley wrote “it was said” but he doesn’t say by whom. He didn’t write “Smith could (he told me, at least),” which would have been a first-person account. Hadley had declined to publish the Book of Mormon, so it’s unclear why he would have heard any of this from Joseph, Hyrum, Martin or Oliver. By August 1829, all of the stone-in-a-hat witnesses had already observed whatever they observed and were talking about it. Any of them, or anyone who had heard their accounts, could have been Hadley’s source.

However, it is a strong contemporary account from 1829, the earliest on record and before the Book of Mormon was published. 

Here’s another indicia of bias. What makes this account “strong” when it is, on its face, hearsay from an unidentified source?

Here is another secondhand, contemporaneous account (1831), this time by a less antagonistic Shaker man who had heard Oliver Cowdery preach, saying that the Book of Mormon was translated by “two transparent stones in the form of spectacles” through which the translator “looked on the engraving & afterwards put his face into a hat & the interpretation then flowed into his mind.”22 

Even though this is not a direct quotation of what Oliver actually said, this account directly contradicts the stone-in-a-hat narrative that brother Sweat has painted. The account relates the Urim and Thummim narrative, not the stone-in-a-hat narrative, and is consistent with everything Joseph, Oliver and their successors taught. 

Joseph “looked on the engraving” with the Urim and Thummim, then put his face into a hat to read it.

Instead of this narrative, Brother Sweat’s art shows the plates under a cloth and the Urim and Thummim nowhere to be seen. This is also what the Church’s recent movies show.  

Here are some more moderate translation sources, by individuals who believed in the Book of Mormon but did not remain faithful to or come westward to Utah with the Church. 

[In this section, Brother Sweat relates the 1879 Emma interview that I examined in Part 3, one of the David Whitmer accounts, the Joseph Knight account, and a Martin Harris account. All of these are a combination of hearsay and inference by people who never saw the plates or the Urim and Thummim (except for David and Martin, and then only after the translation was finished). I have a detailed treatment of David and Martin similar to the one I did on Emma in Part 3, but that’s too much detail for this blog post.] 

I’ve presented six sources that give details about the Book of Mormon translation. 

Again, Brother Sweat assumes these witnesses were observing the translation instead of a demonstration.

All of them are tainted in various ways through bias, or secondhand nature, or late reminiscence. Independent of one another, however, what do they each consistently claim? After laying out these sources I replied in my email to my mentor/colleague, “I do think there is enough consistent mention of Joseph using a hat to translate to logically deduce he may have done so. In my opinion there are just too many independent sources that mention the hat in the to try to explain it away or ignore it. 

This is a reasonable conclusion, but the same evidence supports the use of a hat for both a demonstration and a translation as two separate events.

Thus, in the painting I did, I wanted to faithfully show Joseph using the hat to translate, as we (Church members) didn’t have any images showing the hat process that many documents seem to support.” 

By now, you can see the two problems with this. Brother Sweat’s painting of Joseph and Oliver alone together expressly rejects what Oliver said in the account Brother Sweat quoted above. That is not a faithful depiction. 

An accurate depiction of what others said would show the witnesses around the table, watching a scene that would be at least ambiguous enough to constitute either a demonstration or a translation.  

When analyzing historical accounts, we should not carelessly dismiss unique claims in various historical narratives, we should weigh those details with other accounts, looking for consistency. Consistency is the friend of surety.

These two sentences contradict everything Brother Sweat has written up to this point. He has admitted that the statements from the stone-in-a-hat witnesses were inconsistent. What he ignores is that the statements from Joseph, Oliver and their successors are not inconsistent at all. For 180 years they have consistently taught that Joseph translated the engravings on the plates with the Urim and Thummim that accompanied the plates Moroni put in the stone box. 

So far, none of brother Sweat’s paintings depict that consistent teaching.

I hope someone asks him about this at BYU Education Week. Actually, I hope a lot of people, including his students, ask him about this.

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2019/07/peep-stones-vs-urim-and-thummim-part-2.html

Here in part 3, we’ll address this question: Why did Emma say Joseph used the stone-in-a-hat method?

In part 4, we’ll address this question: How are revisionist historians (including BYU professors) teaching the youth that the prophets are wrong?

In part 5, we’ll discuss how all of this implicates M2C.
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To clarify my position (based on comments people are making), I completely agree with historians who think it’s important to examine the entire historical record. I don’t agree with those who think Mormonism Unvailed and other sources should be censored or ignored. I don’t agree with those who think every historical account that disagrees with their personal theory is a lie.

However, I also don’t agree with those who accept a historical account uncritically solely because it confirms their own bias. And I don’t agree with those who, for the same reason, put more credence on secondary sources than they do on primary sources.

When it comes to the translation of the Book of Mormon, they’re all secondary sources except for Joseph and Oliver. 

[If you’re thinking, what about Emma, that’s what this post is all about.]

Besides, there’s an easy explanation for the differences between what Joseph and Oliver taught (Urim and Thummim), and what the others taught (stone-in-a-hat). Joseph and Oliver did the actual translation, using the plates and Interpreters that Joseph was forbidden from showing to any unauthorized persons. The others merely observed a demonstration of the process that Joseph conducted to satisfy their curiosity, and then they inferred they were watching the actual translation. It’s really no more complicated than this.
Except, probably, in the case of Emma.
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Regarding the translation, there’s another important point to consider.

Throughout the late 1800s, LDS leaders repeatedly reaffirmed the teaching that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the engravings on the plates. [I’ve listed several examples later in this post.] Without understanding the historical context, we might wonder why they kept repeating something that Joseph and Oliver had made plain.

The existence and usage of the Urim and Thummim was a big issue during that era. These Church leaders were all fully aware of the alternative stone-in-a-hat theory set forth in Mormonism Unvailed. When they gave these sermons, they were responding to critics (such as Emma) who denied that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the plates.

For example, around 1880, William E. McLellin, one of the original Twelve Apostles who left the Church in 1838, wrote a document titled “Reasons Why I Am not a ‘Mormon'” that listed 55 things he did not believe.* The first 3 are relevant.

1. I do not believe that Joseph translated the book of Mormon. He only read the translation as it appeared before him. The Lord translated it for him, so says the book. “Wherefore, thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee” Page 111, of the Palmyra edition [2 Ne. 27:20]

2. I do not believe he ever possessed the Urim and Thummim during his whole life.

3. I do not believe he ever possessed the Interpreters after he lost the 116 pages first translated.

Now that I look at McLellin’s list, I realize where I’ve seen it before. Numbers 1 and 3 are currently being taught throughout the Church today, thanks to the revisionist Church historians.

IOW, the very points that McLellin cited for not being a Mormon are being taught as doctrine by employees at CES, BYU, and COB.

That should give us pause, to say the least.

Which brings us to the question, Why did Emma say Joseph used the stone-in-a-hat method?
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The easy answer is that she was supporting her son, Joseph Smith III, and opposing Brigham Young and the Saints who followed him to Utah.

I realize that a lot of people have a deep investment in the credibility of Emma’s statement, so I’ll take some time to explain.

The 1877 quotation from Emma’s “Last Testimony” has been cited everywhere by the revisionist Church historians. They accept it on its face because it supports the stone-in-a-hat theory that they favor over the Urim and Thummim narrative.

Awesome illustration of Emma’s story

Here’s how the anonymous Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Translation frames it:

Joseph’s wife Emma explained that she “frequently wrote day after day” at a small table in their house in Harmony, Pennsylvania. She described Joseph “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.”

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng#note28

The Maxwell Institute rates Emma’s “Last Testimony” so highly that its Study Edition of the Book of Mormon places her testimony right after the testimony of the Three and Eight Witnesses–and before the Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith from JS-H.

I find this emphasis on Emma’s “Last Testimony” astonishing.

The revisionist historians accept this testimony without question, but when considered in its historical context, Emma’s “Last Testimony” has all kinds of problems that would ordinarily give historians pause. If not for bias confirmation (because her testimony supports their stone-in-a-hat theory), the revisionist historians would at least qualify their embrace of this testimony. 

The interview with Emma was conducted in February 1877, a couple of months before she died. She never signed it. It was published six months after she died so she never saw it in print. 

(You can see the original here: http://www.mormonthink.com/files/emma-interview-1879.pdf.)

Worse, the questions were prepared by RLDS leaders who were in an ongoing ecclesiastical battle with the LDS leadership in Utah. In a section of the interview that the Maxwell Institute and the Gospel Topics Essay omitted, Emma insists Joseph Smith never taught or practiced polygamy, never had another wife, and never received a revelation on polygamy. 

Of course, plural marriage was one of the biggest controversies between RLDS and LDS at the time. For Joseph Smith III, the President of the RLDS who certified the accuracy of his mother’s testimony, Emma’s denial that Joseph ever practiced or taught polygamy was a major victory in his ongoing battle with Brigham Young and the Utah Mormons. 

During this period, RLDS missionaries were going to Utah. In General Conference, Brigham Young warned the Saints against these missionaries, but they converted 3,000 Utah Mormons (a significant number in those days). 

I’ve listed these historical details below, but this quick overview of this historical context is essential to assess the credibility of Emma’s “Last Testimony.”

The revisionist Church historians who embrace Emma’s “Last Testimony” for the stone-in-a-hat theory all reject the rest of her testimony that deals with polygamy. It’s a strange but unmistakable case of cherry picking.

It’s also important to recognize what Brigham Young said about Emma in the October 1866 General Conference. “To my certain knowledge, Emma Smith is one of the damnedest liars I know of on this earth; yet there is no good thing I would refuse to do for her, if she would only be a righteous woman; but she will continue in her wickedness.” See http://www.eldenwatson.net/1860s.htm#14

In October, 1863, Brigham Young commented on  Joseph Smith III. “You have heard that Young Joseph Smith, the son of Joseph Smith the Prophet, has presented himself as the leader of the Latter-day Saints. I will take this for my text. In the first place I will say to the saints that I know more about Joseph Smith, the prophet of the last days, and his family, than all the apostates that ever did or ever will leave this church…. Joseph Smith that now is living in the state of Illinois, the son of Joseph the Prophet, will never lead the Latter-day Saints: he may lead apostates, and will lead them to hell.”

Brigham Young had a lot more to say about Emma and Joseph Smith III, but you get the idea from these quotations.
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By now, you’re wondering, what does this have to do with the Urim and Thummim and the translation?

We have to remember that Joseph Smith, Jr., was under a strict command to not show the plates or the interpreters to anyone except those the Lord authorized. There is no record that Emma was ever authorized to see the plates or the Urim and Thummim, and she never claimed to have seen them. Whatever she witnessed, it would not have been those items.

Second, when considered in the context of the RLDS/LDS competition, possession of the Urim and Thummim was strong evidence of divine authority. Possession of the Urim and Thummim, called the Interpreters in the Book of Mormon, is what constituted a seer (Mosiah 8:13).

In August 1853, prior to the RLDS reorganization but during a time when other restoration groups that had not followed Brigham Young were actively opposing the Utah LDS, President Heber C. Kimball noted that people often asked whether Brigham Young had the Urim and Thummim.

He said, “The question is asked many times, ‘Has brother Brigham got the Urim and Thummim?’ Yes, he has got everything; everything that is necessary for him to receive the will and mind of God to this people. Do I know it? Yes, I know all about it; and what more do you want?”
https://jod.mrm.org/2/105

In a contest over Priesthood authority, that statement was especially important. For example, in 1854, William E. McLellin published a “Treatise on Faith” in which he explained the importance of the Urim and Thummim to Priesthood authority.* Everyone who read the Book of Mormon knew the Mosiah reference. In his treatise, McLellin quoted from the Bible to expound on the importance of the Urim and Thummim.

Consequently, it was important for RLDS leaders to deny that Joseph had the Urim and Thummim, (at least after he lost the 116 pages, as Emma claimed) because if he didn’t have it, he couldn’t have given it to Brigham Young.

Emma’s “Last Testimony” accomplished this for her son Joseph Smith III.
_____

I realize this is getting more detailed than most readers want to know. These are really my notes for another project, but I hear from enough readers to know that some of you are interested in these details. Feel free to bail on this post at any time, but there’s more good stuff below.

🙂

There are other reasons to doubt Emma’s “Last Testimony,” such as the absence of her handwriting on any extant portion of the Original Manuscript. True, she might have written part of the 116 pages, but she also claimed that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate those pages, and only after they were lost did he use the seer stone.

If her testimony is accurate–if she wrote while Joseph read words off a stone-in-a-hat–then she could only have been writing after the 116 pages were lost. But then we would expect to see her handwriting somewhere on the Original Manuscript. (To be sure, the extant portion starts with Alma 22, a point I discuss below.)

We have to also wonder, if Emma was writing “day after day,” why did Joseph need Martin Harris or Oliver Cowdery to serve as scribes?

When we look at her “Last Testimony,” Emma is not even sure who baptized her, a normally memorable event that took place after the translation of the plates. When asked if Joseph forbid her from examining the plates, she replies “I do not think he did.” She says she felt of the plates and thumbed them, but “was not specially curious about them.” Although she moved them from place to place, she never uncovered them to look at them.

Of course, it’s impossible to assess the credibility of a published statement made by a witness decades ago without cross examination. The best we can do is consider context, motives, bias, opportunity to observe, reliability, and other indicia of credibility.

It’s not impossible that Emma was completely truthful in everything she said. But if so, her testimony directly opposes some of the core teachings of Brigham Young and his contemporaries and successors as leaders of the Church. Not least among these teachings is the affirmation of what Joseph and Oliver consistently taught; i.e., that Joseph translated the engravings on the plates with the assistance of the Urim and Thummim.
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A great source for information about the early days of Church history is the book Opening the Heavens, edited by John W. Welch. I recommend the second edition in print. You can see the book online, thanks to Book of Mormon Central, here:

https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/miraculous-translation-book-mormon

(This is an example of how Book of Mormon Central can provide some really great service. If only they would abandon their editorial policy of insisting on M2C, they would be a go-to source for the entire world instead of an advocate and fundraiser for teaching people that the prophets are wrong.)

To be sure, Opening the Heavens has its problems because of the editorial bias of its editor, as I’ve discussed before.

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2017/12/opening-heavens-but-censoring-history.html

But in this case, we’ll use it as a reference because everyone can see it right on the Internet.
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The book contains 6 entries under Emma Smith Bidamon (numbers 38-43, starting on page 129).

I’ll paste them below for ease of reference, with my interlinear commentary.

First, let’s consider the historical context of Emma’s statements, particularly after 1844 when she made the statements that led to the 6 entries.

From wikipedia:

Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (July 10, 1804 – April 30, 1879) was the first wife of Joseph Smith and a leader in the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, both during Joseph’s lifetime and afterward as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church)….

Later years in Nauvoo, 1844–79[edit source]

Emma later in life, ca. 1870s

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This background provides several important items of context.

1. There are no extant records of Emma making statements about the Book of Mormon translation during the lifetime of Joseph Smith or Oliver Cowdery (who died in 1850).

2. Emma made her most extensive statements (her “Last Testimony”) in February, 1877, a few months before she died on April 30, 1877. The testimony consisted of responses to a series of questions written by H. A. Stebbins and other leaders of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS). (The RLDS church had been reorganized in 1860 with Joseph Smith III, the 27-year-old son of Joseph and Emma, as President.)

3. During the late 1800s, there was significant competition between the LDS and RLDS churches. Leaders and members debated Priesthood succession, polygamy, and other issues. RLDS missionaries went to Utah and converted around 3,000 LDS members.

In 1866, Brigham Young called 27-year-old Joseph F. Smith, son of Hyrum and cousin to Joseph Smith III, as a member of the First Presidency. This seems to be at least in part an effort to offset the family influence of Joseph Smith III. (By 1901, the cousins were each Presidents of their respective churches.)

4. In early 1877, Brigham Young, although in poor health, introduced important temple ordinances and procedures in the St. George temple. He reorganized the Priesthood throughout Utah and reaffirmed important teachings such as the New York Cumorah. He died on August 29, 1877.

5. Although Emma gave her “Last Testimony” in February, 1877, the RLDS paper The Saints’ Herald did not publish Emma’s “Last Testimony” until October 1, 1877. This meant Brigham Young never had an opportunity to respond to it.
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After Brigham Young led the LDS to Utah, Church leaders delivered numerous sermons in various conferences in which they reaffirmed the teaching that Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim. Several of these are included at the end of this post.

None of these Church leaders ever said Joseph used a seer stone to translate the plates. They knew the difference between the Urim and Thummim and the peep stone because each of these Church leaders was familiar with the controversy associated with Mormonism Unvailed. To the extent they mentioned peep stones, it was in a negative context.

For example, Heber C. Kimball mentioned that “When I came back from England there were but a few left in Kirtland. There was one little society of men that pretended to take the lead and oversight of the people, and they were guided by a peep stone.” https://jod.mrm.org/6/63

In my view, these teachings about the Urim and Thummim are in direct contradiction to the testimony of Emma Smith and others such as William E. McLellin who claimed Joseph didn’t really translate the plates but instead read words that appeared in a stone-in-a-hat.

Ultimately, we each have to decide what to believe. We can each assess the credibility of the witnesses and Church leaders, the plausibility of alternative explanations, and the relevance of scriptural passages. We can seek our own witness from the Spirit.

All I ask of the revisionist historians who are promoting the stone-in-a-hat theory is to recognize that many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don’t agree with their theory. While we’re fine with people believing whatever they want to believe, many of us think their theory is destructive of faith and disloyal to Joseph, Oliver, and their successors.

We ask for accommodation of alternative perspectives whenever the stone-in-a-hat theory is taught. IOW, please stop teaching the stone-in-a-hat as the gospel truth.
_____

The historical record of Emma’s statements. Original in blue, my comments in red.

38. Emma Smith Bidamon, as interviewed by Edmund C. Briggs (1856)

When my husband was translating the Book of Mormon, I wrote a part of it, as he dictated each sentence, word for word, and when he came to proper names he could not pronounce, or long words, he spelled them out, and while I was writing them, if I made any mistake in spelling, he would stop me and correct my spelling, although it was impossible for him to see how I was writing them down at the time. Even the word Sarah he could not pronounce at first, but had to spell it, and I would pronounce it for him.       

When he stopped for any purpose at any time he would, when he commenced again, begin where he left off without any hesitation, and one time while he was translating he stopped suddenly, pale as a sheet, and said, “Emma, did Jerusalem have walls around it?” When I answered “Yes,” he replied “Oh! I was afraid I had been deceived.” He had such a limited knowledge of history at that time that he did not even know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls.38

38. Edmund C. Briggs, “A Visit to Nauvoo in 1856,” Journal of History 9 (October 1916): 454. Edmund C. Briggs and Samuel H. Gurley traveled to Nauvoo to visit Joseph Smith III and testify to him of the reorganization of the Church, which had recently occurred in Wisconsin. Briggs and Gurley arrived at the Mansion House in Nauvoo on December 5, 1856, and interviewed Emma Smith Bidamon three days later. 

It is difficult to reconcile this account with the other statements attributed to Emma, let alone extrinsic evidence. We notice that this account was first published 60 years after the interview; Emma had no chance to review it, and we have no original notes or other manuscript to compare to the published account. Emma mentions Sarah, but the only mention of Sarah in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon is in 2 Nephi 8:2, which was translated in Fayette. There are no records of Emma acting as scribe in Fayette. (It may be significant that Sarah is mentioned twice in D&C 132, a revelation that Emma denied Joseph ever received.)

If Emma was referring to the translation of the 116 pages, she later contradicted herself because she claimed (i) Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate those pages but did not use the Urim and Thummim after they were lost, and (ii) Joseph used the stone-in-a-hat to translate the portion she wrote. If her statements are correct, she could not have written Joseph’s dictation from the 116 pages. 

Overall, this published account looks to me more like Emma (or Briggs) incorporating accounts she (or he) heard from others, such as the Jerusalem wall question.  

39. Emma Smith Bidamon to Emma Pilgrim (1870)

Now, the first part 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.39

39. John T. Clark, “Translation of Nephite Records,” The Return 4 (July 15, 1895): 2. Written from Nauvoo on March 27, 1870, the original letter is located in the Emma Smith Papers, Library-Archives, Community of Christ, Independence, Mo. (hereafter cited as Community of Christ Library-Archives).

To date, I have not seen the original of this letter, but I’ll assume this passage is accurate and not taken out of context. As noted above, this pretty well excluded Emma as a scribe for the 116 pages. She never claimed to have seen the Urim and Thummim, and Joseph had been warned never to show it. Even in this statement, she doesn’t say she saw the stone; she describes it the same way anyone would who had heard someone else describe it. 

This entire passage could be either an eye-witness account by someone who forgot to mention she was an eye-witness, or an explanation based on what she heard others say.

Another problem with this statement is that Lucy Mack Smith explained that in May 1829, Joseph applied the Urim and Thummim to his eyes to look on the plates but instead of the translation he received a commandment to write to David Whitmer. Obviously this was well after the 116 pages were lost.  

40. Emma Smith Bidamon,  as interviewed by Nels Madsen and Parley P. Pratt Jr. (1877)     

Q. Did he receive the plates from which he claimed to have translated the Book of Mormon?       
A. Yes, They lay in a box under our bed for months but I never felt at liberty to look at them.

In regard to the Book of Mormon Mrs. Bidemon stated emphatically that he husband, Joseph Smith could not have written such a book without inspiration. He had not read the Bible enough to know that there were walls around Jerusalem and he came and asked me if there were walls around the city of Jerusalem.40

40. Nels Madsen, “Visit to Mrs. Emma Smith Bidamon,” 1931, Church Archives. Madsen and Parley Pratt Jr. visited Bidamon in Nauvoo while they were missionaries.

This passage says little about the translation. It’s yet another version of the “walls around Jerusalem” story that David Whitmer also repeated. 

I’m curious about that story anyway. Does the Bible say there were walls around Jerusalem when Lehi left Jerusalem? No. 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 to me, and I’d be curious what Emma’s answer was.

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.

It’s not a big deal, but I think 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.

41. Emma Smith Bidamon,  as interviewed by Joseph Smith III (1879)       

Q. Who were scribes for father when translating the Book of Mormon?       
A. Myself, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and my brother, Reuben Hale.        
Q. Was Alva Hale one?        
A. I think not. He may have written some; but if he did, I do not remember it. . . .        
Q. What of the truth of Mormonism?        
A. I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the Church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. 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.       
Q. Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?        
A. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.        
Q. Could he not have had, and you not know it?       
A. If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.       
Q. Are you sure that he had the plates at the time you were writing for him?        
A. The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metalic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.        
Q. Where did father and Oliver Cowdery write?       
A. Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work.
Q. Could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him, after having first written it, or having first read it out of some book?        
A. Joseph Smith [and for the first time she used his name direct, having usually used the words, “your father,” or “my husband”] could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter; let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, and was present during the translation of the plates, and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, “a marvel and a wonder,” as much so as to any one else.       
Q. I should suppose that you would have uncovered the plates and examined them?        
A. I did not attempt to handle the plates, other than I have told you, nor uncover them to look at them. I was satisfied that it was the work of God, and therefore did not feel it to be necessary to do so.       

Major Bidamon here suggested: Did Mr. Smith forbid your examining the plates?        
A. I do not think he did. I knew that he had them, and was not specially curious about them. I moved them from place to place on the table, as it was necessary in doing my work.       
Q. Mother, what is your belief about the authenticity, or origin of the Book of Mormon?       
A. My belief is that the Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity—I have not the slightest doubt of it. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him. This was a usual thing for him to do. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.41

41. Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald 26 (October 1, 1879): 289–90; and Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Advocate 2 (October 1879): 50–52. Joseph Smith III wrote that Emma reviewed the answers he had recorded for her. The answers “were affirmed by her” on the day before he left Nauvoo. Emma’s husband Lewis C. Bidamon asserted that Emma’s answers were “substantially what she had always stated” at times when they discussed the translation of the Book of Mormon.

The full interview is available here: http://www.mormonthink.com/files/emma-interview-1879.pdf. 

Notice that the ellipses in the excerpt above involve Emma’s statement that “there was no revelation on either polygamy, or spiritual wives…. No such thing as polygamy, or spiritual wifery, was taught, publicly or privately, before my husband’s death, that I have now, or ever had any knowledge of…. [Joseph] assured me… that there was no such doctrine, and never should be with his knowledge, or consent. I know that he had no other wife or wives than myself, in any sense, either spiritual or otherwise.” 

I discussed the credibility of this interview above. In 1870, Emma claimed Joseph used the stone-in-the-hat after the 116 pages were lost. Here, she claims she wrote “hour after hour” and “day after day” as Joseph dictated from the stone-in-a-hat. That means she had to have been recording Joseph’s dictation beginning with Mosiah.

Oliver Cowdery arrived in Harmony on April 5, 1829 and commenced writing for Joseph on April 7th. Oliver was an answer to Joseph’s prayers for a scribe. The extant original manuscript does not include Mosiah, which is where Joseph began translating after losing the 116 pages, so it’s possible that Emma wrote some of Mosiah. However, Oliver testified that he wrote the entire manuscript save a few pages, and there are a few pages in 1 Nephi written by one of the Whitmers. 

It’s difficult to figure out how Emma’s work as a scribe fits the rest of her statements, especially since she never indicated what portions she wrote.

42. Emma Smith Bidamon,  as recorded by Joseph Smith III (1879)

She wrote for Joseph Smith during the work of translation, as did also Reuben Hale, her brother, and O[liver]. Cowdery; that the larger part of this labor was done in her presence, and where she could see and know what was being done; that during no part of it was did Joseph Smith have any Mss. [manuscripts] or Book of any kind from which to read, or dictate, except the metalic plates, which she knew he had.42

 42. Joseph Smith III to James T. Cobb, February 14, 1879, Community of Christ Library-Archives; cited in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1:544.

This statement seems like an expansion of the “Last Testimony.” I find it interesting because she didn’t mention Reuben in the Last Testimony, nor did she mention that Joseph had the “metalic plates” from which to read. She also doesn’t mention Martin Harris.  

43. Emma Smith Bidamon,  as recorded by Joseph Smith III (1900)

My mother [Emma Smith] told me that she saw the plates in the sack; for they lay on a small table in their living room in their cabin on her father’s farm, and she would lift and move them when she swept and dusted the room and furniture. She even thumbed the leaves as one does the leaves of a book, and they rustled with a metalic sound. Yes, mother did some of the writing for father while he was translating[.] She testified that father found and had the plates, and translated them as the history states; that she had no doubt as to the truth of it.43

43. Joseph Smith III to Mrs. E. Horton, March 7, 1900, Community of Christ Library-Archives; cited in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1:546–47.

This is another restatement of the Last Testimony that doesn’t add much if anything.
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Let’s look a moment at Opening the Heavens to see an editorial treatment of Emma’s testimony.

On page 85, we find this editorial introduction to an important quotation from Emma:

Apparently during this time, when the book of Lehi was being translated and Emma was acting as scribe, Joseph translated a passage describing Jerusalem as a walled city (compare 1 Ne. 4:4) and stopped to ask Emma if Jerusalem indeed had walls. 

Note that this is an editorial inference, not something that Emma stated. In fact, she said the opposite. As we saw above, she said she wrote while Joseph dictated from a stone-in-a-hat, but she also said Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the 116 pages and only thereafter used the stone-in-a-hat. 

[After quoting Emma’s 1856 statement, Opening the Heavens says this:

 (document 38; details corroborated in documents 40, 54, 88, 93, 95, and others)


Several further accounts similarly focus on the point that Joseph Smith was poorly equipped educationally to produce the Book of Mormon. David Whitmer stated that “Joseph Smith was a man of limited education” who was “ignorant of the Bible”24 (document 95). In 1875, David Whitmer expressed a similar view:

So illiterate was Joseph at the time, said Mr. Whitmer, that he  didn’t even know that Jerusalem was a walled city and he was utterly unable to pronounce many of the names which the magic power of the Urim and Thummim revealed, and therefore spelled them out in syllables and the more erudite scribe put them together.2

This reiteration of the walls of Jerusalem and proper noun stories strikes me as hearsay. Perhaps David heard it from Emma, or perhaps from one of his brothers who was a scribe for part of 1 Nephi. Not knowing how to pronounce proper nouns is enough of a problem that many editions include a pronunciation guide. It’s not a question of literacy, especially when the names are transliterated from another language.  

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For many years, LDS Church leaders have reiterated the teachings of Joseph and Oliver that Joseph translated the engravings on the plates with the Urim and Thummim, or Interpreters, that he obtained from Moroni’s stone box along with the plates.

Here are some examples from the Journal of Discourses. These are significant because the speakers were contemporaries of Joseph Smith.

1859, Aug. 14. Elder Orson Pratt. In the year 1827 he was permitted to take those plates from their long deposit, and with them the Urim and Thummim—a sacred instrument such as was used by ancient Prophets among Israel to inquire of the Lord. He was commanded of the Lord, notwithstanding his youth and inexperience, to translate the engravings upon those plates into the English language. He did so, and others wrote from his mouth.

1864, June 4. President Brigham Young. The Lord had not spoken to the inhabitants of this earth for a long time, until He spoke to Joseph Smith, committed to him the plates on which the Book of Mormon was engraved, and gave him a Urim and Thummim to translate a portion of them, and told him to print the Book of Mormon, which he did, and sent it to the world, according to the word of the Lord. https://jod.mrm.org/10/299

1864, Nov. 6. President Brigham Young. The first act that Joseph Smith was called to do by the angel of God, was, to get the plates from the hill Cumorah, and then translate them, and he got Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery to write for him. He would read the plates, by the aid of the Urim and Thummim, and they would write. They had to either raise their bread from the ground, or buy it, and they had to eat and drink, and sleep, and toil, and rest, while they were engaged in bringing forth the great Work of the last days. All these were temporal acts, directed by the spirit of revelation.
https://jod.mrm.org/10/358

1869, Feb 24. Elder Orson Pratt said, “He uncovered the spot of ground, took off the crowning stone on the stone box, and there beheld the sacred record of the ancient inhabitants of this continent; by its side lay the Urim and Thummim, an instrument for its translation…. The work of translation was done with the Urim and Thummim, for Mr. Smith was not a learned man, and in fact was scarcely in possession of an ordinary common school education. He could write a little, but was by no means an expert penman, and, in the work of translation, he had to employ first one and then another to write the words of the records as he translated them with the Urim and Thummim, consequently the manuscripts of the Book of Mormon were written by different scribes. Not long before the time he obtained the plates, Mr. Smith got married, and he employed his wife to write some of it. Martin Harris also wrote some portion of it; but the greater part was written by Oliver Cowdery—a still younger man than Joseph—and that the manuscript is in his handwriting, anyone can satisfy himself by appealing to the original. https://jod.mrm.org/12/352

1870, Nov. 27. Elder Orson Pratt. And having revealed this book, and it having been translated by the gift and power of the Holy Ghost—the same gift and spirit which enabled Joseph Smith to interpret the language of this record by the use of the Urim and Thummim;
http://jod.mrm.org/14/289

1872, Sept. 22. Elder Orson Pratt. The Prophets who deposited those plates in the hill Cumorah were commanded of the Lord to deposit the Urim and Thummim with them, so that when the time came for them to be brought forth, the individual who was entrusted with them might be able to translate them by the gift and power of God. https://jod.mrm.org/15/178

1874, June 21. President Brigham Young. We have passed from one thing to another, and I may say from one degree of knowledge to another. When Joseph first received the knowledge of the plates that were in the hill Cumorah, he did not then receive the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood, he merely received the knowledge that the plates were there, and that the Lord would bring them forth, and that they contained the history of the aborigines of this country. He received the knowledge that they were once in possession of the Gospel, and from that time he went on, step by step, until he obtained the plates, and the Urim and Thummim, and had power to translate them.

This did not make him an Apostle, it did not give to him the keys of the kingdom, nor make him an Elder in Israel. He was a Prophet, and had the spirit of prophecy, and had received all this before the Lord ordained him. And when the Lord, by revelation, told him to go to Pennsylvania, he did so, and finished the translation of the Book of Mormon; and when the Lord, in another revelation, told him to come back, into New York State, and to go to old Father Whitmer’s, who lived in a place opposite Waterloo, and there stop, he did so, and had meetings, and gathered up the few who believed in his testimony.
http://jod.mrm.org/18/235

[Note: Lucy Mack Smith explained that Joseph received this revelation through the Urim and Thummim, after he applied it to his eyes and looked on the plates. This occurred in May 1829 while Joseph and Oliver were translating in Harmony.]

1875, Sept. 12. Elder Wilford Woodruff. And what I wish to say to the Elders and to the Latter-day Saints is—Have we faith in God and in his revelations? Have we faith in our own religion? Have we faith in Jesus Christ? Have we faith in the words of the Prophets? Have we faith in Joseph Smith, who, by the aid of the Urim and Thummim, translated the Book of Mormon, giving a record of the ancient inhabitants of this country, and through whom the Lord gave the revelations contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants? If we have faith in these things, then we certainly should prepare ourselves for the fulfillment of them. https://jod.mrm.org/18/109

1877, Dec. 2. Elder Orson Pratt. The time having fully arrived, in this the 19th century, for the prophecies to be fulfilled, in regard to the setting up of the latter-day kingdom, the Lord and his angel, as predicted in the 14th chapter of John’s Revelation, revealed the original plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated by inspiration and the aid of the Urim and Thummim, is found to contain the fullness of the Gospel of the Son of God, as revealed in ancient times to the Israelites of this western hemisphere, the forefathers of our Indian race. https://jod.mrm.org/19/168

1878, June 30. Elder Wilford Woodruff. For by faith Joseph Smith received the ministration of God out of heaven. By faith he received the records of Nephi, and translated them through the Urim and Thummim into our own language, and which have since been translated into many different languages. https://jod.mrm.org/19/357

1882, March 5, President John Taylor. We have here on the ceiling of this building pictured to us, Moroni making known to Joseph Smith the plates, from which the Book of Mormon was translated, which plates had been hidden up in the earth; and in connection with them was the Urim and Thummim, by which sacred instrument Joseph was enabled to translate the ancient characters, now given unto us in the form of the Book of Mormon; in which is set forth the theories, doctrines, principles, organizations, etc., of these peoples who lived upon this continent. People talk about their disbelief regarding these things. That is a matter of no moment to us. I do not intend to bring any argument upon this question, caring nothing about what people believe. We know certain things, and knowing them we regard them as matters of fact. https://jod.mrm.org/23/28

1882, May 6. Elder Erastus Snow. At first Joseph Smith received the gift of seeing visions and the gift of translating dead languages by the Urim and Thummim, and when he had exercised himself in these gifts for a season, he received the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood, together with his Brother Oliver, under the hands of John the Baptist, who was a resurrected being…
https://jod.mrm.org/23/181

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*See Larson and Passey, ed., The William E. McLellin Papers, p. 380. 

I’ve observed people from tour groups and EFY participants stop and read the display, take the handouts, etc.

Many more people are learning about Letter VII and the New York Cumorah as a result of this new location.