Encoded Confessions

[Limnor]

Something I’ve been thinking through when developing “sense-making” of the book:

In my confessional/allegorical codex, viewtopic.php?f=4&t=160587, the Book of Mormon’s unusually dense network of murders, assassinations, and secret combinations can be read as the encoded confessions of a group of conspirators—Joseph Smith, his brothers, his scribes, his theological partners, and the esoteric circles they moved in—each of whom was implicated in one of two foundational deaths: the allegorical slaying of Alvin in 1824 and the conspiratorial disappearance of William Morgan in 1826.

In this interpretation, every man carried some piece of guilt, ambition, fear, or silence related to these two deaths, and each confession enters the record disguised as a murder story: Laban, Lehonti, Gideon, Abinadi, Seezoram for Alvin, and Kishkumen, Gadianton, Seantum, and the Jaredite kings for Morgan. The Book of Mormon becomes a confessional ledger in which two deaths are retold by many voices, and every conspirator is guilty through participation.

Within the codex, the men closest to Joseph are implicated in the conditions that made these deaths meaningful: Alvin’s death opened a space Joseph eventually filled, and Morgan’s disappearance encoded the protection of secret Masonic rituals and hidden brotherhoods, while providing the printing plates—which were to be used to expose Masonic secrets—necessary for an expansion of “records” into “plates” within the book.

Confessors implicated in Alvin’s “slaying” were encoded into stories about righteous elders being removed after three refusals, with younger successors taking their place. These appear as the Lehonti poisoning, Laban’s beheading, Gideon’s killing, and Abinadi’s martyrdom. Confessors implicated in Morgan’s “slaying” encoded their fear into stories of secret bands, assassinations, and oaths, such as Kishkumen (not ours) Gadianton (also not ours), Seezoram and Seantum, and the Jaredite conspiracies. Each narrative preserves the symbolic signature of a participant’s guilt while disguising it within the Book of Mormon, later forming the basis for a kind of mutually-assured blackmail: the confessions are canonized, and thus none of the conspirators can break ranks.

The Book of Mormon’s murder narratives are therefore not accusations but confessions—each man admitting, in symbolic language, his allegorical guilt in the two deaths.

However, in the codex framework, several Book of Mormon deaths are symbolic, and represent the “killing off” of Joseph’s earlier theological possibilities—particularly universalism, rationalist religion, and non-authoritarian models of Christianity.

Figures like Nehor, Alma’s intellectual opponents in Ammonihah, and Korihor represent ideas Joseph once found attractive or plausible: universal grace not bound by exclusive ordinances, charismatic egalitarianism, and a spirituality rooted in reason or democratic access to revelation.

When Nehor is executed, the text announces symbolically that universal salvation dies; when Ammonihah is destroyed, intellectual pluralism dies; when Korihor is silenced, rationalist dissent dies. Each “death” is less about the character than about Joseph relinquishing a possible version of himself and internal submission to a narrower, priesthood-centered system.

The Book of Mormon therefore records not only murders of individuals but the ritual slaying of Joseph’s ideological competitors. Ideas that must be rejected for the emerging priesthood order to stand.

[Limnor]

I’ve been working on the significance of the repeated use of a three-refusal pattern before an assassination or execution—Nephi/Laban, Abinadi, Lehonti, even Gideon/Nehor. Each figure is approached or warned three times, rejects or resists three times, and only then does the killing occur.

That same pattern appears in the Hiram Abiff drama of Freemasonry. In the ritual, Hiram is confronted by three ruffians, each demanding the Master’s Word. He refuses the first, refuses the second, refuses the third—and only then is he struck down. Notably, there is a mythic “Gold Plates of Enoch” legend referenced within Freemasonry. That’s why the parallel in the Book of Mormon stands out to me.

I don’t think any LDS scholar—whether from a faithful or critical point of view—has explicitly spoken the implications of this pattern. Grant Hardy, John Welch, and John Sorenson have all pointed out that the Book of Mormon employs a triadic structure—three attempts, three stages, three repetitions—but they discuss this as a literary form, not as a pattern tied to the murder scenes. And while Masonic historians have long noted the three demands and three refusals in the Hiram Abiff ritual, no one in LDS scholarship has connected that structure to the “three refusals before a killing” sequences in Laban, Abinadi, Lehonti, or Gideon/Nehor.

Before 1827, Joseph Smith’s inner circle already had deep ties—direct and indirect—to Freemasonry and Masonic-influenced concepts. His father, Joseph Smith Sr., and brother Hyrum both had documented or strongly attested associations with local Masons in Vermont and New York. Oliver Cowdery’s family was connected to men involved in Masonic lodges in Vermont, and the young Oliver grew up around the rhetoric of Masonry and antipathy to it during the Morgan affair. Martin Harris moved in circles that were thoroughly intertwined with both Masons and anti-Masons in Palmyra, and was acquainted with several men who were members of the local lodge.

Interestingly, The Book of Mormon is threaded with anti-Masonic themes, all portrayed as corruption that must be exposed and destroyed. This contrasts with the embracing of masonry Joseph later adopted in Nauvoo.

However, when viewed through an allegorical lens, this contrast reflects Joseph’s early attempt to “put to death” competing systems within his own circle—universalism, esoteric secrecy, and rival sources of authority, as previously mentioned—by encoding them as enemies of God. Later, when he needed those same ritual tools to build his community, the symbols he had once condemned were re-employed.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N03_15.pdf

https://gospeltangents.com/2020/06/maso ... r-cowdery/

https://bhroberts.org/records/0OAwhk-QZ ... nd_beliefs

[I Have Questions]

When Joseph retrieved the plates, he was attacked on his journey by three assailants.

[Kishkumen]

If I recall correctly, one of the treasure-digging group's marks was murdered. I forget the detail, unfortunately. I have usually read the Book of Mormon's secret combinations in relation to the Masonically-tinged treasure groups. This is a great thread thus far, by the way. You have a wealth of fascinating ideas about how we should read the Book of Mormon. Bravo!

[Limnor]

If I recall correctly, one of the treasure-digging group's marks was murdered. I forget the detail, unfortunately. I have usually read the Book of Mormon's secret combinations in relation to the Masonically-tinged treasure groups. This is a great thread thus far, by the way. You have a wealth of fascinating ideas about how we should read the Book of Mormon. Bravo!

You are probably talking about Oliver Harper. A man named Jason Treadwell was convicted for his murder. The evidence is explained as circumstantial, and he proclaimed his innocence until he was executed.

Much of the story is included in the link here, within the “historical background” pulldown menu:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper ... ical-intro

Also thank you!

[Limnor]

When Joseph retrieved the plates, he was attacked on his journey by three assailants.

There is a connection there, and what I find interesting is that while Joseph’s story seems to copy the “ritual of threes,” there is a wildly different ending: where Hiram Abiff dies, Joseph is victorious. This subtly casts Joseph as a triumphant Hiram figure, one who passes the trial the Masonic hero did not survive.

[Limnor]

Tying it Together

If we treat Zoram as the allegorical Oliver Cowdery, then the rumored Cowdery–Morgan connection becomes the missing bridge between Zoram, Alma, and the real history as inserted from the text.

Seen through an allegorical lens, the Abinadi and Alma story—set in 1824—becomes the encoded story of an internal fracture inside the early esoteric/Masonic-adjacent circle: Abinadi (standing for Alvin and the brother of Jared) is initially part of that world but turns against it, condemning its secrecy, authority, and moral corruption. His rejection of that system seals his fate—he is allegorically “slain” by the fraternity he once belonged to.

Alma, representing Oliver Cowdery, occupies the space between worlds: he begins inside the system (the court of Noah/Joseph Smith Sr, the esoteric brotherhood), but when Abinadi is destroyed, Alma flees.

This flight reflects Oliver’s departure from the older treasure-digging/Masonic order and his refusal to participate in the “killing” of the dissenter. Alma/Oliver escapes with the memory and message of the slain figure—Abinadi’s words become “scripture” to Oliver.

Later, in the Morgan story of 1826, Oliver is said to have assisted or at least moved within the same ritual-oath world Morgan threatened to expose. In the Book of Mormon, Oliver is seen as Zoram, the “keeper of the plates” under Laban—custodian of a record that could expose—or legitimize—a prophetic claim.

In my view, those are the copper printing plates later used as “prop” gold plates by Joseph and represent the “Gold Plate of Enoch.” Zoram’s pivotal act is choosing to switch sides and join with Nephi/Joseph, just as Oliver becomes the scribe who shifts his loyalty from exposing Masonic secrets to Joseph’s new prophetic narrative.

Together, Zoram and Alma encode both dimensions of Oliver’s role—the man who once stood near the Alvin and Morgan worlds of exposing oaths and secrets, and the man whose scribal loyalty allowed Joseph to seize the plates and shape the new record.

[Kishkumen]

Much of the story is included in the link here, within the “historical background” pulldown menu:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper ... ical-intro

Also thank you!

Thanks, Limnor. That "historical bacground" information is interesting, but it seems to me to be filled with problematic, apologetic claims. The idea that Joseph Smith did not receive revelations in a treasure-digging context, for example, is laughable. He was receiving revelations for how to secure the treasure all the time. That's kind of what being a treasure seer is about. Furthermore, the idea that he did not participate in treasure digging before 1825 is also silly. He got his first seer stone much earlier than that, and he wasn't using it for rock-skipping in ponds.

[Limnor]

Much of the story is included in the link here, within the “historical background” pulldown menu:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper ... ical-intro

Also thank you!

Thanks, Limnor. That "historical bacground" information is interesting, but it seems to me to be filled with problematic, apologetic claims. The idea that Joseph Smith did not receive revelations in a treasure-digging context, for example, is laughable. He was receiving revelations for how to secure the treasure all the time. That's kind of what being a treasure seer is about. Furthermore, the idea that he did not participate in treasure digging before 1825 is also silly. He got his first seer stone much earlier than that, and he wasn't using it for rock-skipping in ponds.

Agreed. When searching for the information about Oliver Harper, the Joseph Smith Papers site was one of the sources I came across—Paul has cautioned me about apologetic sources, and I agree and understand the need to be aware of the intent of those sources.

I do find some fascinating “near admissions” in some of the apologetic sources, and think there is value in the primary source material apologist’s use—checking the source data has yielded interesting information I may not have seen, and if I do use bits of those sources in the future I’ll be careful to highlight the apologetic commentary as just that—apologetic.

Dan Vogel has published a paper on the early use of seer stones here:

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/article ... re-quests/

And when I was searching for Oliver Harper I found a reference here:

https://genealogytrails.com/penn/susque ... crime.html

There was a primary source newspaper article on Dale Broadhurst’s olivercowdery.com site also, but I can’t seem to find it now.

I had been considering the execution by hanging of Jason Treadwell as a possible reference within the book, perhaps aligned to the “ignominious death” of Nehor in Alma 1, but I haven’t really fleshed that idea out yet.

Also, I chuckled at “rock-skipping.”

[yellowstone123]

Limnor wrote:

the Book of Mormon’s unusually dense network of murders, assassinations, and secret combinations can be read as the encoded confessions of a group of conspirators—Joseph Smith, his brothers, his scribes, his theological partners, and the esoteric circles they moved in—each of whom was implicated in one of two foundational deaths: the allegorical slaying of Alvin in 1824 and the conspiratorial disappearance of William Morgan in 1826.

In this interpretation, every man carried some piece of guilt, ambition, fear, or silence related to these two deaths, and each confession enters the record disguised as a murder story: Laban, Lehonti, Gideon, Abinadi, Seezoram for Alvin, and Kishkumen, Gadianton, Seantum, and the Jaredite kings for Morgan. The Book of Mormon becomes a confessional ledger in which two deaths are retold by many voices, and every conspirator is guilty through participation.

Within the codex, the men closest to Joseph are implicated in the conditions that made these deaths meaningful: Alvin’s death opened a space Joseph eventually filled, and Morgan’s disappearance encoded the protection of secret Masonic rituals and hidden brotherhoods, while providing the printing plates—which were to be used to expose Masonic secrets—necessary for an expansion of “records” into “plates” within the book.

Confessors implicated in Alvin’s “slaying” were encoded into stories about righteous elders being removed after three refusals, with younger successors taking their place. These appear as the Lehonti poisoning, Laban’s beheading, Gideon’s killing, and Abinadi’s martyrdom. Confessors implicated in Morgan’s “slaying” encoded their fear into stories of secret bands, assassinations, and oaths, such as Kishkumen (not ours) Gadianton (also not ours), Seezoram and Seantum, and the Jaredite conspiracies. Each narrative preserves the symbolic signature of a participant’s guilt while disguising it within the Book of Mormon, later forming the basis for a kind of mutually-assured blackmail: the confessions are canonized, and thus none of the conspirators can break ranks.

The Book of Mormon’s murder narratives are therefore not accusations but confessions—each man admitting, in symbolic language, his allegorical guilt in the two deaths.

I always thought that if the Smiths were not involved in William Morgan’s disappearance, they at least knew a lot about it. But I’ve checked some things recently and learned they weren’t even in the area—they were about 70 miles east, digging for treasure and having visions. The most likely person responsible was Henry L. Valance, who on his deathbed in 1848 confessed to helping drown Morgan and sink his body near the mouth of the Niagara River. I thought—wait, you mean the river that runs through a narrow stretch of land between two great bodies of water?

The whole area is so rich in history.

After Morgan’s disappearance, the Anti-Masonic Party arose in western New York and was in full swing when the Book of Mormon was published and the LDS Church began. In November 1828 Martin Van Buren, running as a Jacksonian Democrat, easily won the New York governorship but resigned after only a few months to become President Andrew Jackson’s secretary of state. Jackson, like Van Buren, was a high-ranking Mason, a celebrated War of 1812 general, and widely seen as a defender of the nation. He later became famous for fighting the Seminoles (sometimes referred to as “Lamanites” in that era) in Florida with a take-no-prisoners attitude.

Martin Van Buren served as president of the United States from March 4, 1837, to March 4, 1841.

William H. Seward, one of the early leaders of the Anti-Masonic Party, saw an opportunity as that party faltered and helped merge the Anti-Masons into the emerging Whig Party. Later, as the Whig Party itself began to collapse, northern Whigs flowed into the newly formed Republican Party. Seward served two-year terms as governor of New York, then as a U.S. senator, and entered the 1860 Republican convention as the clear favorite for the presidential nomination. After Lincoln was nominated and elected, Seward became secretary of state. On the night President Lincoln was assassinated, conspirators also attacked Seward at his home; he was critically injured but survived. He continued in office under President Johnson, negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, and retired in early 1869. Soon afterward he began a world tour, stopping in Utah to meet the man who, in his youth, had done carpentry work—possibly the fireplace—in a house Seward owned in Auburn, New York. That man was Brigham Young.

On September 1, 1870, Seward had a private audience with King Wilhelm I, King of Prussia.

Four months later King Wilhelm I was proclaimed German Emperor.