Joseph called it “the most correct of any book on earth.” To the Latter-day Saints,

the Book of Mormon is the keystone of their religion.

Its coming forth is a remarkable story.

Today, we'll join the scholars as they share insights that they've gleaned from the papers of Joseph.

So in 1826, Joseph has an ultimatum from the angel.

Imagine that. That

and more coming up on The Joseph Smith Papers.

KJZZ Television, in cooperation with the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presents this weekly series, highlighting the research of scholars and historians as they prepare for the publication of The Joseph Smith Papers. And now your host, Glenn Rosen.

Joseph Smith considered the coming forth of the Book of Mormon as a wonderful event,

a new revelation, he said, that would open the eyes of millions and make plain the old paths. Now, as with the First Vision,

there are other accounts of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon that fill out the story and enrich the details. From various locations and settings, our scholars today will pick up the story where we left off with the First Vision and take us through to the publication of the Book of Mormon. We begin with Dr. Larry Porter, standing on the Hill Cumorah.

Joseph said that “I continued to pursue my daily vocation,”

and what was that? It was assisting his father in the farming operation, digging and rocking up wells and being available as a day laborer. But always in the back of his mind is “Where do

I do I stand before the Lord in this process?”

We believe that three and a half years that transpired was a maturing time, a time for him to grow into

the role which was being divested upon him.

This desire to know of his state and standing before the Lord led Joseph again to earnest prayer. In 1835, Oliver Cowdery wrote an article for the church periodical The Messenger and Advocate.

In that article, Oliver describes those moments Just before Moroni appeared on Sunday night,

September 21, 1823, as Joseph related them to him.

“Previous to retiring to rest,

our brother’s mind was unusually wrought up on the subject,

which had so long agitated his mind.

His heart was drawn out and fervent prayer,

and his whole soul was so lost through everything of a temporal nature that earth to him had lost its claims,

and all he desired was to be prepared in heart to commune with some kind of messenger.

At length, the family retired, and he, as usual, went his way in silence, where others might have rested their weary frames,

locked fast in sleep’s embrace but repose had fled.”

For those who've ever wondered about the physical circumstances in the cabin that night when Joseph prayed, Dr. Porter describes:

He’s in the the log home,

and there’s only so much space in a story-and-a-half log cabin,

a log house. And has he picked his way among the the beds and conceivably some straw [INAUDIBLE],

there are those who are lying in repose about them,

and he’s offering up here

his whole soul to his Father in Heaven.

Historian Stephen Harper,

using Joseph's first account written in 1832,

picks up the narrative and points out what it was that night that so wrought upon Joseph's mind.

Three and a half years after Joseph’s First Vision,

he knelt by his bedside to ask forgiveness. He'd said he'd fallen into some sins again, and he knew that he could receive forgiveness of his sins.

“I fell,” he says, “into transgression”—

and let make sure I can read the words—

“and sinned in many things which brought a wound to my soul.

And there were many things,” he says, “which transpired that can’t be written,

and my father’s family had been persecuted,” he says, because of his First Vision. “And when I was 17 years of age”— perhaps I can see that—“I called again upon the Lord,

and he showed unto me a heavenly vision. For behold, an angel of the Lord came and stood before me,

and it was by night, and he called me by name, and he said that the Lord had forgiven my sins.

And he revealed to me that there was a book”— a Book of Mormon as we know it today—

“buried in a hill”—engravings,

you can see the word perhaps right there “engravings,”

“which was engraved by Moroni and his fathers.” Joseph says

that Moroni told him,” I should go and get them,” that is the plates that were in the hill that Moronoi revealed to Joseph Smith.

“And he revealed unto me many things concerning the inhabitants of the earth, which since have been revealed.”

Joseph had gone to the hill, expecting to get the plates.

So you can imagine his surprise when he was forbidden to take them. He would have had no idea at that time that it would be four years before he would be permitted to receive the record.

Moroni, who, as you know, is the—in life the

the prophet who sealed up those plates and put them there for Joseph. There's no way he's going to hand over this sacred record to somebody who doesn't have much confidence in. And so he even talks to Joseph in the Book of Mormon itself.

And Moroni is determined that Joseph Smith is not going to be in possession of those plates until Joseph is capable,

capable of overcoming the overwhelming temptations he’ll face, capable of bearing up under the oppression, the persecution will come from outside.

Something happened that first day on the hill that caused Moroni to forbid Joseph possession of the plates. In his 1832 account, Joseph describes what happened.

“Thrice,” he says, “made an attempt to get them, and was exceedingly frightened,” he says. So three times that first day at the hill,

Joseph Smith tries to get the plates from the box.

He can't, and he's frightened.

“Therefore, I cried unto the Lord in the agony of my soul.”

Joseph if, if you’ll notice, is a passionate speaker. When you read Joseph’s Journal entries that he writes himself, they're always much more emotional, much more passionate than

expressive individually.

So he felt deeply, Joseph did. It was a very difficult thing for Joseph, and he here cries out to the Lord in the agony of his soul. “Why can I not obtain this book?

Behold, the angel appeared,” he says, “and unto me again and said unto me,

You have not kept the commandments of the Lord,

which I gave to you. Therefore, you cannot now obtain the book.” Now, the last time Moroni had visited him the night before, he had said: “You cannot have the plates for wealth. You can’t.

You’ve got to beware of covetousness.”

There’s two things you can’t have the plates for: to get famous and to get rich. And so again, the next day when Moroni comes, he emphasizes that point about covetousness.

And this is a point we should we should dwell on for just a minute. Joseph Smith's no more prone to covetousness than anybody else, but his family owes one hundred all or cash mortgage payment on their farm at the end of every year,

and everybody in the Smith family's very, very conscious of that, and it's a difficult thing for them. He works awfully hard as his brothers and sisters and mom and dad do to try to raise that money.

And you can imagine, I hope you can imagine, that a stack of gold in a hill nearby would have at least more meanings in it to Joseph than the sacred meaning that Moroni intends, right? Let’s summarize: what does Joseph Smith know when he’s done on the hill that first day?

He knows that he's supposed to come back one year from that time

and talk to Moroni again and get more instructions. It’s clear, very clear from the early sources from this book, from Joseph’s 1835–36 Journal, from Joseph’s mother’s memoir that the Smith family, including Joseph, believes that if Joseph will meet the angel’s conditions,

that he can have the book in 1824.

So imagine that. It’s just a much richer picture, much more exciting story. Joseph’s not thinking, “Oh, it’ll be four years.” Four years to a teenager

is long time. He’s thinking: “It’ll be next year, and I know I can get them next year. I know what I did wrong in 1823.”

And so, in accordance with Moroni’s instructions, Joseph returns to Cumorah

September 22, 1824 eighteen.

Now remember, over the course of this last year, his oldest brother, Alvin, had passed away,

leaving Joseph with the charge to “be a good boy and obtain the record.”

The second time he goes the hill 1824,

he hopes to get them, and in fact, we know from his mother’s account—

Joseph is more terse in his various accounts— but his mother tells us that he gets the plates out of the hill, actually, and turns to bring them home and then sets them down.

Joseph Knight also corroborates this story.

And it’s at that point that Joseph thinks, “I know that Moroni has told me I can’t use the plates for my personal wealth or fame, but there's other things in there that might be beneficial in those ways.” So he has these motives again,

that Moroni says to him as he as he mentions here, that Joseph has to have an eye

single to the glory of God—you can see those words right there.

And whenever Joseph doesn't, then Moroni is always there to hold him accountable.

So he puts the plates down to cover up the box.

When he turns to get them again, they’re gone, and he’s horrified,

he’s horrified. He kneels to pray, asks the Lord where they are.

And Moroni comes and explains to him why the plates are gone, why he can't have them. Joseph was greatly relieved.

He opens the box again, and there are the plates. He reaches in to get them, and he’s hurled backwards.

He goes home, weeping for grief and disappointment, his mother says. “Did you get them?” Joseph Senior’s asking.

“No father. I could not take them.” “Well, I would have got them if I were in your shoes,” he says.

“Father, you don’t know what you say.

The angel of the Lord would not let me.”

And you can just feel the spirits of the Smith family fall.

Joseph comes home weeping,

worried about whether his family will continue to believe him or not, and it's a really powerful account.

Now, the 1825

visit, we know nothing about except Joseph infers that it happens in several different accounts. But none of the historical sources tell us any detail.

By the time Joseph returns to the Hill in 1826,

the Smith family have lost their farm.

We do know that in 1826, according to Joseph Knight,

Joseph gets an ultimatum. That the personage which told him if he would do right according to

the will of God, he might obtain the plates on the 22nd day of September, next,

that is in 1827, and if not, he would never get them.

He would not have them.

So in 1826, Joseph has an ultimatum from the angel.

Imagine that. That’s a little pressure. Indeed, indeed. And so he rises to it. He measures up to it. This is the remarkable thing about Joseph. I don’t believe in a flawless Joseph Smith.

Joseph Smith didn’t believe in a flawless Joseph Smith.

I love that about Joseph Smith.

So here he is, struggling with the teenage struggles that we all do, plus a little added pressure from a messenger sent from the presence of God, who is holding him to a very high standard of thinking purely, having right motives before God, also the moral strength—not just the will to do it, but Joseph's got to have the capacity,

even the physical strength to carry this

very difficult project off. By September 22, 1827,

Joseph has now married Emma Hale, and they’ve moved back to Manchester to live with Joseph's family.

Joseph went to Cumorah just after midnight to avoid his enemies.

Emma went with him.

Mother Smith said that she’s had it played as a work for other oppressed upon her hand.

And finally, around midnight,

Emma came through in her riding dress with Joseph and accompanied him to the hill, in Mr. Knight’s wagon. Joseph went up on the hill and there met with the angel for a final instructions,

and he told him that if he would protect the plates and see to the work that he had been commissioned that the angel would protect him.

He receives the plates from the angel.

He buries the plates in the woods. He leaves them in a hollow log, he says, but he brings back within the seer stones,

called trim and thummim.

That morning, he comes for breakfast with his father and Joseph Knight. And sometime that morning he gets Joseph Knight aside, and Joseph puts his head in his hands like this and says, according to these lines here on the bottom of the page, “I am so disappointed.” Now, nobody's dared hardly even broach the subject at this point, you know. “Did you get them? Where are they?”

So he says, “I am so disappointed.”

And Joseph Knight tries to console him. “Well, everything will be all right. It’s OK. It’s going to work out.” “I am greatly disappointed,” Joseph says.

And then we can almost see the smile break across his face; he can’t hold it in any longer. He says:

“It is 10 times better than I expected.

They are marvelous,” he says. “I can see anything,”

speaking of of the urim and thummim.

That first night, then, Joseph hid the plates in the woods just off the hill

but later, threats to the place caused Joseph to return for them.

It was on that night, if you recall the story, that he left the road and went through the woods on trails to avoid being seen. Now about those trails,

Don Enders learned this most fascinating detail.

I wondered about those, that pathway, because a person just wouldn't leave the road and walk into the

the wilderness not being aware of where he’s going; you don't do that in this area.

We had a missionary couple on our staff; he was retired

of a lifetime of service as an aerial photographer.

And we got him to looking at some aerial photography maps with us and said, “Where might such a trail have been?”

And after a few minutes of observing the aerial photographs,

he pointed his finger to it and outlined it precisely

for what we knew about it.

He was able to show us

a number of prehistoric trails that crossed through this area.

One that left Cumorah area,

and there would have been then others that extended to

the Southeast, etc. But a particular path led northwest.

It actually crossed the Smith farm.

Now, for any of you that are planning on going to Cumorah and looking for the stone box or the place of buried,

think again. Curious about that very thing,

Don learned the following.

The data that I have from my research efforts indicates that Farmer Robinson, around 1910,

was getting a little bit disappointed and disgusted that these Mormons who came to this area tramping

across his crops came up here to the hill.

So he put up the sign saying “No Trespassing” in what was left,

he says, of the depression, which we surmised is not too deep,

he he filled in. And so that was obliterated.

In 1842 Joseph, described the plates as follows:

“Each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long

and not quite so thick as common tin.

They were filled with engravings in Egyptian characters and bound together in a volume as the leaves of a book with three rings running through the hole.

The volume was something near six inches in thickness,

a part of which was sealed.”

It was now Joseph's responsibility to translate a language that neither he nor any other modern had ever seen before.

He was 21 years old.

Joseph’s wondering now, “Well, how do I translate reformed Egyptian?” And we,

I think, maybe assume that it’s too— it’s so very, very simple. You know, does he even know how to do it? Well, no, he doesn't.

Martin Harris takes evidently some,

a piece of paper, with some Book of Mormon characters on it, along with some translations,

presumably a few few lines or more that Joseph has translated. He goes to New York City, where he visits a renowned professor named Charles Anthon Now Anthon was, everybody grants one of the foremost scholars in antiquities.

But there's really no way he could have known these things.

Being a professor, I know how this goes. The last thing on earth you want to do is confess that you don’t know everything in the world.

But Anthon would have been better served if he’d said: “Really, I have no idea. I can’t read those characters.”

That is the whole point.

And Joseph didn’t understand that at the beginning. He didn’t send Martin Harris to New York City to fulfill Isaiah Chapter 29. But it's after Harris comes back,

having had Anthon say, “I can’t read a sealed book.”

It’s after Harris comes back, having had that experience, at some point that Joseph sees himself as the unlearned translator of Isaiah 29.

What an awakening that must have been. Just imagine that for yourself to be an obscure boy, as Joseph called himself,

and then to find yourself the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. And in any case,

Martin Harris comes back from New York City more convinced than ever that Joseph Smith is telling the truth. And he sits down for the next several months now, the next few months, and writes

for Joseph Smith. As Joseph dictates, Harris scribes 116 pages.

And you may know the story that results from that.

Harris begs Joseph Smith to let him take those pages up to his

wife, especially and relatives, in upstate New York, and prove to them that he's not an idiot,

that he’s not giving his money and time to Joseph Smith for four foolish reasons.

And the letter book here of Joseph Smith’s first history

tells how that whole episode plays out.

“We had translated 116 pages

and that he desire to carry them to read to his—

to his friends. He wanted peradventure to”—let’s see.

“persuade them,” I think, is the gist of it, “of the truth.

Therefore, I inquired of the Lord, and the Lord said unto me that he must not take them.”

What we’ve sometimes thought is that it’s the Lord who recognizes that he's made a mistake here. It’s as if He says: “Oh, I was being a little too hard on you. I’m sorry about that.” That’s not what happened.

He clearly expressed His will. And then they badgered Him long enough until He said: “Do whatever you want. Let him go with them.

You know what I’ve said.”

Joseph tries to have it both ways, and you can try to imagine the predicament he’s in.

Harris is his benefactor. He supplies the money.

He does the scribing. Who’s going to help if Martin Harris leaves. And Harris is almost to the point of saying, “Well,

you don't do what I'm asking you to do, Joseph, you can forget my help.”

So Joseph's in a terrible predicament. Well, you know the story. Martin Harris takes the pages.

He loses them. He never does come back.

Joseph has to go up to New York and find out there that Martin Harris lost them. This is a terrible turning point,

a terrible and wonderful turning point in Joseph Smith’s life. Initially, he thinks he may be finished as a revelator. I should say that when Joseph gives the pages of translated manuscript to Martin Harris, Moroni confiscates the plates and the seer stones.

If Joseph is going to break the commandments,

he’s not going to be the Lord’s translator anymore, or at least he’s suspended from doing so.

When Harris doesn’t come back, Joseph is seriously worried.

And indeed, when he learns that the pages are lost,

he fears that that’s the last time that he's going to disobey the commandments.

Well, wonderful news: the Lord gives him a revelation;

it’s one of the most beautiful of all revelations.

Section 3 of the Doctrine and Covenants hinges—20 verses long or so—hinges right in the middle. After the Lord has rebuked Joseph soundly in the first half in the voice of a just God, right in the middle, it says: “But remember, God is merciful,

therefore repent of what was done and thou art again call to the work.” Joseph repents,

and that September, he gets the plates and the stones back again, and he can read. So one year from the day he first got them, their return to Joseph September of 1828 now, and he’s ready to go again. But Martin Harris will never scribe for Joseph after that. From September of 1828 through the winter to April of 1829,

very little work of translation is done in Joseph and Emma's farm home in Pennsylvania.

The effort seemed to be on survival.

What we need then, is a new scribe. And Joseph prays to the Lord and asks Him to send someone to help.

And in the spring of 1829,

after having taught school in Manchester, New York, where Joseph's parents and siblings live,

Oliver Cowdery comes down to Susquehanna, Pennsylvania,

to meet Joseph Smith, having heard about the Book of Mormon translation.

He’s accompanied by Joseph’s younger brother Samuel,

and he comes and arrives on the 5th of April 1829. On the seventh day of April, they start to write the Book of Mormon.

We might wonder how it was that Oliver was so certain of Joseph and the work that he would change the entire course of his life.

Ron Barney, quoting Joseph’s 1832 history,

gives us this amazing insight.

When Oliver had determined to leave Palmyra and come to Harmony,

the Lord had appeared to Oliver Cowdery and showed him what he was doing with Joseph—

so that when Oliver Cowdery got to Harmony, Pennsylvania, on April the 5th 1829,

Joseph didn’t have to convince him of anything.

“And it came to pass after much humility and affliction of soul,

I obtained them again when the Lord appeared unto a young man by the name of Oliver Cowdery and showed unto him

the plates in a vision and also the truth of the work.”

One of the things that makes all informed souls marvel in the translation of the Book of Mormon is just how long it actually took.

They wrote at a pace that is staggering.

They start on the 7th day of April 1829. On the 11th of June, having moved in the meantime from Pennsylvania to New York,

they filed for copyright at the Utica Office of Lands—Mr. Lands and obtained a copyright.

We believe, and all evidence suggests, they are finished with the translation by the end of June 1829. Do you think about that: May, or April 7,

end of June 1829. You’ve read the Book of Mormon,

that’s an impressive piece of work.

And there is not any evidence in the manuscript of redrafting of going back, of fixing of,

you know, polishing, not any.

It seems, in fact, like a stream of consciousness from beginning to end.

And the original manuscript shows all the evidence of being a dictation. That is, there are errors in it.

There are the errors of hearing.

There where Oliver will write the word as he hears it, even if it's not just the right word.

They're not the errors of a copyist. And so I think it's absolutely fascinating that the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon is itself, probably, it is itself the most profound testimony that the book is what Joseph says it is.

The Book of Mormon is a marvelous work in the wonder. It's it's never been duplicated.

It’s the most remarkable book of which I know. It’s the most self-conscious book. It knows exactly what it is.

It’s so intentional.

Its authors, their point to emphasize Christ, and everybody who’s ever tried to duplicate it has spent, has failed miserably. And yet there are lots of critics. There's no shortage of alternative explanations for the Book of Mormon. The interesting thing about every one of them is that they have to deny the historical record.

We looked at several documents here today that assert

the story of the Book of Mormon coming forth, as Joseph Smith told it.

It's verified by Joseph in a variety of counts. It’s also verified by other eyewitnesses. David Wittmer, Oliver Cowdery,

Elmer Smith, and others testified that Joseph told the truth.

And so the point is, and this is a remarkable point,

everybody should remember this,

and that is that those who knew Joseph Smith best believed him most. Think about that. OK.

Those who knew Joseph Smith best believed him most.

Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God,

and the people who knew him, knew him from the time he was born,

in the case of his mother and father, were there in the house when he was doing it, In the case of Emma Smith, had written for him and said as much as a marvel to me as to anyone else.

And in Emma’s case, his wife’s case, it’s remarkable.

Now it's left for all the world to decide whether Joseph was telling the truth or lying.

I wonder if in this modern age there ever was so much that depended on one man's integrity.

The Book of Mormon is available. Every man can hold it,

He can read it, and he can decide for himself.

In our next show, we go to Harmony, Pennsylvania.

It was there that Joseph meets the woman who will become his wife.

There was no wife stealing in the case of Emma Smith.

A woman with the legal age at 18 and needed no consent from the father or anybody else about getting married.

So when she married Joseph at age 22,

Isaac had no say in the matter. Period, photograph.

That and more next week on the Joseph Smith papers.