The lost 116 pages

[_AlmaBound]

If God didn't want the pages to get lost, He should have never given Joseph permission in the first place.

Exactly.

"God" may have well wanted them to get lost, so they could be replaced with an alteration.

[_AlmaBound]

You see, "God" knew that the words were to be altered:

D&C 10:11 And behold, I say unto you, that because they have altered the words, they read contrary from that which you translated and caused to be written;

There was no guesswork - it was already known that the words were going to be different.

[_cinepro]

This assumes Lucy stole them and if she did that she acted alone, neither of which are known.

Actually, the Lord constantly referred to the perpetrators as "the men". Here is how the scheme is layed out in the scriptures, with the revelation of Plan B:

D&C 10:

8 And because you have delivered the writings into his [Martin Harris's] hands, behold, wicked men have taken them from you.
9 Therefore, you have delivered them up, yea, that which was sacred, unto wickedness.
10 And, behold, Satan hath put it into their hearts to alter the words which you have caused to be written, or which you have translated, which have gone out of your hands.
11 And behold, I say unto you, that because they have altered the words, they read contrary from that which you translated and caused to be written;
12 And, on this wise, the devil has sought to lay a cunning plan, that he may destroy this work;
13 For he hath put into their hearts to do this, that by lying they may say they have caught you in the words which you have pretended to translate.
14 Verily, I say unto you, that I will not suffer that Satan shall accomplish his evil design in this thing.
15 For behold, he has put it into their hearts to get thee to tempt the Lord thy God, in asking to translate it over again.
16 And then, behold, they say and think in their hearts—We will see if God has given him power to translate; if so, he will also give him power again;
17 And if God giveth him power again, or if he translates again, or, in other words, if he bringeth forth the same words, behold, we have the same with us, and we have altered them;
18 Therefore they will not agree, and we will say that he has lied in his words, and that he has no gift, and that he has no power;
19 Therefore we will destroy him, and also the work; and we will do this that we may not be ashamed in the end, and that we may get glory of the world.

29 Now, behold, they have altered these words, because Satan saith unto them: He hath deceived you—and thus he flattereth them away to do iniquity, to get thee to tempt the Lord thy God.
30 Behold, I say unto you, that you shall not translate again those words which have gone forth out of your hands;
31 For, behold, they shall not accomplish their evil designs in lying against those words. For, behold, if you should bring forth the same words they will say that you have lied and that you have pretended to translate, but that you have contradicted yourself.
32 And, behold, they will publish this, and Satan will harden the hearts of the people to stir them up to anger against you, that they will not believe my words.
33 Thus Satan thinketh to overpower your testimony in this generation, that the work may not come forth in this generation.
34 But behold, here is wisdom, and because I show unto you wisdom, and give you commandments concerning these things, what you shall do, show it not unto the world until you have accomplished the work of translation.
35 Marvel not that I said unto you: Here is wisdom, show it not unto the world—for I said, show it not unto the world, that you may be preserved.
36 Behold, I do not say that you shall not show it unto the righteous;
37 But as you cannot always judge the righteous, or as you cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous, therefore I say unto you, hold your peace until I shall see fit to make all things known unto the world concerning the matter.
38 And now, verily I say unto you, that an account of those things that you have written, which have gone out of your hands, is engraven upon the plates of Nephi;
39 Yea, and you remember it was said in those writings that a more particular account was given of these things upon the plates of Nephi.
40 And now, because the account which is engraven upon the plates of Nephi is more particular concerning the things which, in my wisdom, I would bring to the knowledge of the people in this account—
41 Therefore, you shall translate the engravings which are on the plates of Nephi, down even till you come to the reign of king Benjamin, or until you come to that which you have translated, which you have retained;
42 And behold, you shall publish it as the record of Nephi; and thus I will confound those who have altered my words.
43 I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil.
44 Behold, they have only got a part, or an abridgment of the account of Nephi.
45 Behold, there are many things engraven upon the plates of Nephi which do throw greater views upon my gospel; therefore, it is wisdom in me that you should translate this first part of the engravings of Nephi, and send forth in this work.
46 And, behold, all the remainder of this work does contain all those parts of my gospel which my holy prophets, yea, and also my disciples, desired in their prayers should come forth unto this people.

[_AlmaBound]

Why would he want them to be different?

Because:

D&C 10:45 Behold, there are many things engraven upon the plates of Nephi which do throw greater views upon my gospel; therefore, it is wisdom in me that you should translate this first part of the engravings of Nephi, and send forth in this work.

From the standpoint of a 19th century authorship, the "greater views" involve some alteration in theology learned and adopted since the beginning of the project.

[_cinepro]

There was no guesswork - it was already known that the words were going to be different.

Oh, it's even better than that.

God set this whole scenario up around 385AD, when he had Mormon prepare "The Words of Mormon". Not only did God know that Martin would lose the pages, he knew the exact paragraph that the 116 pages would end on, so there could be a smooth transition into Mosiah.

That's quite a plan.

[Bedlamite]

...
As a chapel Mormon, the plan of evil men making changes to the pages made perfect sense to me!
...

Of course it did.

And here is exactly how I envisioned that old scenario, back when my mind was less open.

1. The Devil inspires Lucy Harris to steal the sacred pages

2. The Devil inspires and empowers Lucy's evil male associates to re-write those pages,
so that the alterations match exactly with the handwriting of Martin Harris.

3. Lucy takes the re-written pages to a local area newspaper and gets excerpts published.

4. When curious people come to Lucy, she shows them that the published excerpts are not
like the published Book of Mormon.

5. When skeptics demand more proof of the Mormon fraud, Lucy displays the re-written pages.

6. When skeptics demand even more proof, Lucy shows them specimens of Martin's handwriting.

What Satan did not take into account here, was that Joseph Smith could have simply rejected
Martin Harris totally, and called him an apostate liar, in collusion with his wicked wife & evil men.

Therefore, once the book was published, Lucifer abandoned his first plan, and started up the
Spalding-Rigdon authorship claims, as having a better chance of success.

UD

[Guest]

That's quite a plan.

Nicely done, God.

You know, this might just do it for me, such a carefully laid out plan, implemented in light of Joseph not needing any plates to translate from at times, anyway.

Awesome.

[_AlmaBound]

Therefore, once the book was published, Lucifer abandoned his first plan, and started up the
Spalding-Rigdon authorship claims, as having a better chance of success.

UD

Now that was funny.

Thanks, Dale.

[_cinepro]

Of course it did.

And here is exactly how I envisioned that old scenario, back when my mind was less open.

1. The Devil inspires Lucy Harris to steal the sacred pages

2. The Devil inspires and empowers Lucy's evil male associates to re-write those pages

3. Lucy takes the re-written pages to a local area newspaper and gets excerpts published.

4. When curious people come to Lucy, she shows them that the published excerpts are not
like the published Book of Mormon.

5. When skeptics demand more proof of the Mormon fraud, Lucy displays the re-written pages.

6. When skeptics demand even more proof, Lucy shows them specimens of Martin's handwriting.

What Satan did not take into account here, was that Joseph Smith could have simply rejected
Martin Harris totally, and called him an apostate liar, in collusion with his wicked wife & evil men.

Therefore, once the book was published, Lucifer abandoned his first plan, and started up the
Spalding-Rigdon authorship claims, as having a better chance of success.

UD

Didn't Grandin or another local publisher start printing excerpts from the Book of Mormon before its release, and Joseph simply told them to stop based on his ownership of the copyright?

And why do we never ask what happened to the pages after Joseph implemented Plan B? Again, Lucy's plan was a long-term plan. Did the conspirators just get bored? Or forget they had the pages? Obviously, the pages would have had some value to someone, so did they never think to try and sell them after their plan had fizzled? Did they just shrug their shoulders when they learned about Plan B, admit that God had gotten the best of them when He had the alternate set of plates prepared, and amicably go their separate ways?

I could understand Lucy's "plan" working if she were an anti-Mormon, and were offended by the religious principles of the operation and were determined to stop the spread of the ideas. But as far as I can tell, she objected to the time and money that Martin was spending. Her plan would certainly work to stop the spread of the Book of Mormon, but at an even greater cost of time and money.

It's just a very curious situation.

[_cinepro]

Therefore, once the book was published, Lucifer abandoned his first plan, and started up the
Spalding-Rigdon authorship claims, as having a better chance of success.

UD

Good point. Here's another situation where the scriptures claim that the devil came up with a really awesome, super tricky plan (like in Alma 11:21), but then it turns out that the plan is really pretty lame and doesn't work anyway.