{Pascal the existential Russian blue cat continues his deep dive into the quirky history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.}
“I heard of the sacred harp long ago back in my hometown / but I sure never thought old Daniel’d be the one to come and bring it around.” (The Band, “Daniel & the Sacred Harp”)
We should begin by reviewing Joseph Smith’s original visionary experiences.
- In 1820, the fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith was living with his family on a small plot outside of Palmyra, New York. Experiencing an adolescent crisis of faith, Joseph went into the woods by himself to pray for divine guidance. Surprisingly enough, he got what he wanted; God the Father and God the Son (Jesus) appeared and commanded Joseph not to join any of the existing churches, all of which, they said, were false. They told him to go home and to await a future vision that would reveal to him the truth.
- One night in September 1823 (200 years ago!), the previously unknown angel Moroni appeared in Joseph’s bedroom and told him of a hidden book engraved upon gold plates (tablets) which was buried somewhere in the hills outside Palmyra. The book, said the angel, contained the True Gospel of Jesus Christ and, as a bonus, the history of human settlement of the North American continent. Joseph was given a brief, tantalizing preview of the book but then was told he would have to wait another four years before the book’s exact location would be disclosed to him.
- Punctually, in September 1827, Moroni reappeared and directed Joseph to the gold plates, which were buried under a stone slab on a hill (Hill Cumorah) three miles south of the Smith family’s farm. Joseph was entrusted with the plates; he was also assigned the task of translating them with the assistance of Uma Thurman Urim and Thummim, two “seer stones” unearthed with the plates. 1 Joseph was explicitly cautioned against translating certain sections of the book, because mankind was not yet ready for the whole revelation.
Why was Joseph Smith forced to wait seven years after his first vision of God before being allowed access to the Book of Mormon? Perhaps (though we have no evidence of this) he needed to undergo a process of purification, of studying scripture, of preparing himself spiritually, or of brushing up on Egyptian hieroglyphics, which the writing on the gold plates would be said to resemble. In fact, he seems to have spent his time helping on the family homestead, doing odd jobs for neighbors, using a dowsing rod to look for everything from water to buried treasure, and generally distinguishing himself by being completely undistinguished. By 1827, however, the 21-year-old lad was ready.
Having taking possession of the golden plates, Joseph took great pains to keep them hidden from greedy treasure-seekers, as well as from the merely curious and from skeptics hoping to debunk his tale. At various times, he hid the plates inside a hollowed-out log; in a cherrywood chest at home which he arranged to have built for just that purpose; and, on one occasion, inside a barrel of beans in the back of a wagon. Even in the safe confines of the family home, Joseph, under orders from Moroni, allowed no one else to see the actual plates, though he would occasionally let someone heft whatever container the plates were stored in so that they could affirm the weight, if not the actual contents, of said container.
The text written (engraved? chiseled?) on the plates would have been indecipherable, especially for Joseph, who was not entirely literate even in English. Fortunately, the seer stones, the Urim and Thummim, would unlock the mysteries of the Book of Mormon, and they would do so only for Joseph Smith, thus making him the sole translator of the text. Several individuals (primarily Martin Harris, Emma Smith, and Oliver Cowdery) transcribed Joseph’s oral translation as he relayed to them passages from the divinations of Urim and Thummim; those secretaries never examined the Book of Mormon, but dutifully took Joseph’s word for its contents.
The process of translation and transcription of the gold plates was, so far as I know, unprecedented, and it remains so to this day. As Paul Gutjahr understatedly notes, “Translating the plates was no easy task.” Joseph and Emma Smith, hounded by their neighbors in Palmyra who wanted to confirm Joseph’s discovery for themselves, relocated to Harmony, Pennsylvania where Emma’s family lived. They were soon joined by Martin Harris, a wealthy farmer from Palmyra for whom Joseph had occasionally worked; he was persuaded by Joseph of the plates’ authenticity (he was not, of course, allowed to see them) and he agreed to assist with translating them. As Gutjahr relates:
“The two men sat down to translate the plates, depending ever more heavily on the ‘interpreters’ [Urim and Thummim] and later a single seer stone (which Joseph had found while digging a well in 1822) to guide them. They sat at a table with a curtain dividing them as Joseph used the ‘interpreters’ to painstakingly dictate the plates’ message.2 The work was so arduous, and Joseph’s claims at times so unbelievable, that Harris began to question whether Joseph was indeed translating ancient plates or simply making a fool of him and trying to swindle him out of his money. As the work proceeded, Harris repeatedly asked to see the plates, and repeatedly Joseph refused. Not even granted a glimpse of the plates, Harris began to doubt the whole endeavor.”
Those doubts were to be overcome.
Joseph also enlisted his wife Emma and his younger brother Samuel in the task of translating the plates. “As they worked, Joseph removed the curtain between him and Emma. The plates simply sat on the table between them, although they remained hidden from view, wrapped in a linen tablecloth.” This arrangement meant that Joseph was unable to see the text he was translating, which proved only a minor inconvenience. Instead, he took to placing the seer stones inside a hat into which he peered; he would see words appearing in “bright Roman letters,” and he would then dictate twenty or thirty words at a time (“he even spelled out the more difficult names of people and places”) to his attentive scribe. According to Paul Gutjahr:
“Emma never saw the plates, but she did feel them, later reporting that they gave off a metallic sound when she thumbed them like pages in a book. Throughout the translation process, she sat in awe of Joseph’s ability to dictate such a complex work. She claimed that no other book was near him as he dictated God’s message, and she steadfastly maintained that Joseph could not have hidden such a book from her. Emma recalled that when they took breaks to eat or do chores, Joseph invariably resumed the story exactly where he had left off without referring to the manuscript they had just transcribed or to any other material.”
Emma—whose father, Isaac Hale, had once told Joseph to stop the nonsense about angels and gold plates and to find honest work instead—was as loyal a wife as any man, much less an appointed prophet of God, could have wanted. Over the years, her loyalty would be put to the test.
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Paul Gutjahr quotes are from his The Book of Mormon: A Biography.
1 Urim and Thummim are said to be mentioned in the Old Testament; to my knowledge, there is no reference in scripture to Uma Thurman.
2 The curtain was necessary because the angel Moroni had made it clear to Joseph that no one else was permitted to see the gold plates. Joseph’s secretiveness in the matter led to, shall we say, suspicions.
DIY Scripture! (Seer stones not included)
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