The Lost 116 Pages, by Don Bradley

[_Meadowchik]

What are the chances that losing the pages was intentional on the part of Joseph Smith?

It's quite possible that the lost portion ended up being less satisfactory to Joseph or was headed in a direction he regretted. Suppose the initial request of Martin Harris prompted ideas in Josephs' mind? If he could "lose" the pages with minimised blame, then he could reboot his translation.

After all, Joseph was accostumed to "looking for lost things" at the time. He might have gone to the Harris place himself, or sent someone (among the people who just passed by who were shown the papers) found them without disclosing he did, and then hidden them away, or even sent them off separately to a publisher.

Just speculative of course, but in my opinion an interesting line of thought.

[_Kishkumen]

What are the chances that losing the pages was intentional on the part of Joseph Smith?

It's quite possible that the lost portion ended up being less satisfactory to Joseph or was headed in a direction he regretted. Suppose the initial request of Martin Harris prompted ideas in Josephs' mind? If he could "lose" the pages with minimised blame, then he could reboot his translation.

After all, Joseph was accostumed to "looking for lost things" at the time. He might have gone to the Harris place himself, or sent someone (among the people who just passed by who were shown the papers) found them without disclosing he did, and then hidden them away, or even sent them off separately to a publisher.

Just speculative of course, but in my opinion an interesting line of thought.

That is an interesting thought and one worthy of serious consideration. I tend to think his expressions of shock, horror, and despondency in reaction to the loss cut against your hypothesis, but I suppose he may have faked those reactions.

[_Fence Sitter]

What are the chances that losing the pages was intentional on the part of Joseph Smith?

It's quite possible that the lost portion ended up being less satisfactory to Joseph or was headed in a direction he regretted. Suppose the initial request of Martin Harris prompted ideas in Josephs' mind? If he could "lose" the pages with minimised blame, then he could reboot his translation.

After all, Joseph was accostumed to "looking for lost things" at the time. He might have gone to the Harris place himself, or sent someone (among the people who just passed by who were shown the papers) found them without disclosing he did, and then hidden them away, or even sent them off separately to a publisher.

Just speculative of course, but in my opinion an interesting line of thought.

That is interesting, especially given how entirely unbelievable the story Joseph Smith gave about not being able to reproduce the lost pages due to evil men changing the text on the original if he tried to re-translate them. I wonder if Don addresses that aspect of the 116 pages?

[_Brackite]

What are the chances that losing the pages was intentional on the part of Joseph Smith?

I would say less than 5% chance. I very much doubt it was intentional on the part of Joseph Smith.

[_Dr. Shades]

What are the chances that losing the pages was intentional on the part of Joseph Smith?

I'd say barely above 0%, of that. Coming up with a believable cover story for re-doing the same material was far too troublesome, not to mention risky. Not to mention the extreme pain in the tail that re-producing material to cover the same time period would be.

It'd be easier to just manually force things in a new direction if that's what he wanted.

[_Dr Exiled]

What are the chances that losing the pages was intentional on the part of Joseph Smith?

It's quite possible that the lost portion ended up being less satisfactory to Joseph or was headed in a direction he regretted. Suppose the initial request of Martin Harris prompted ideas in Josephs' mind? If he could "lose" the pages with minimised blame, then he could reboot his translation.

After all, Joseph was accostumed to "looking for lost things" at the time. He might have gone to the Harris place himself, or sent someone (among the people who just passed by who were shown the papers) found them without disclosing he did, and then hidden them away, or even sent them off separately to a publisher.

Just speculative of course, but in my opinion an interesting line of thought.

That is interesting, especially given how entirely unbelievable the story Joseph Smith gave about not being able to reproduce the lost pages due to evil men changing the text on the original if he tried to re-translate them. I wonder if Don addresses that aspect of the 116 pages?

It's from a faithful perspective. So, any coverage of this issue will be from nothing to just believe the obvious smoking gun lie, is my guess.

[_Fence Sitter]

It's from a faithful perspective. So, any coverage of this issue will be from nothing to just believe the obvious smoking gun lie, is my guess.

In my experience, Don does not shy away from controversial topics. While he may be trying to provide a faithful explanation, I would expect him to do so with some evidence to back it up. Remember he was the one who pointed out that Joseph Smith actually did produce a translation of the Kinderhook plates.

[_Dr Exiled]

It's from a faithful perspective. So, any coverage of this issue will be from nothing to just believe the obvious smoking gun lie, is my guess.

In my experience, Don does not shy away from controversial topics. While he may be trying to provide a faithful explanation, I would expect him to do so with some evidence to back it up. Remember he was the one who pointed out that Joseph Smith actually did produce a translation of the Kinderhook plates.

I'm not trying to disparage Mr. Bradley. I'm just pointing out that he didn't want to wade into controversial topics (I think he said as much in one of his responses) and so probably didn't cover this issue.

[_Meadowchik]

What are the chances that losing the pages was intentional on the part of Joseph Smith?

I'd say barely above 0%, of that. Coming up with a believable cover story for re-doing the same material was far too troublesome, not to mention risky. Not to mention the extreme pain in the tail that re-producing material to cover the same time period would be.

It'd be easier to just manually force things in a new direction if that's what he wanted.

But he did come up with the cover story which is actually used as a faith-promoting element of the Book of Mormon: that God directed the inclusion of redundant material because some would be lost later.

Of course, the hypothetical motive of an intentional loss could be something else. How do the obligations of Harris to Joseph change after this event?

[_DonBradley]

Don, any comment about that rumor from a year or two back about the pages turning up in someone’s safe deposit box and now being in the church’s possession? Dan Judd is the guy’s name, I think. I was super skeptical on first hearing it, but then thought ehhhh, maybe. Regardless of this specific example, I think it’s possible they still exist somewhere. As you say in the interview, the notion that they were burned isn’t really the certainty that was previously thought. So who knows, they could still turn up. And we have two examples of important Mormon artifacts thought lost for a century or more that were discovered; a Kinderhook plate and some of the Book of Abraham scrolls.

Hey Grudunza,

While I would think they would have turned up by now, it really is possible that they still exist.

One thing I did in my research on the theft was lined up all the sources I could find about it (about 45 of them) in chronological order. Once you do that, patterns start to emerge. The most interesting of these has to do with Lucy Harris burning the manuscript. The earliest report of this, 23 years after the theft, was Orsamus Turner stating that, “With sacriligious [sic] hands, she [Lucy Harris] seized over an hundred of the manuscript pages of the new revelation, and burned or secreted them.” Another report a few years later repeated these options, emphasizing the first. And yet another a few years after that dropped the second option altogether, stating simply that Lucy had burned the manuscript. This gets repeatedly with increasing frequency over time. The pattern in the sources is that the further you get from the actual theft, the more likely people were to say that Lucy Harris burned the manuscript. If the sources reporting this actually know it to be the case, then it's odd that it is first proposed merely as a hypothesis and that people become more and more certain about it the longer it gets into the past. What it looks like happens is that the disgruntled wife casting the pages into the flames is just a good "meme"--it sticks! Maybe that's what happened; maybe it's not. But it's by no means definite, and I explore other possibilities in the book.

If it's not definite that Lucy Harris burned the pages, they could conceivably have survived--and as a historian i sure hope so! =)

I did see the claim you about the lost pages being in a safe deposit box. And in fact the person making this claim contacted me. I didn't follow up on it. But that's a story in itself.

Don