Redacting Plates into Ether

[Gadianton]

Whether read literally (as an authentic recovery of ancient records) or literarily (as Joseph or his circle enacting the idea of discovery), the message is the same: the book openly displays its own assembly, unapologetically presenting itself as a collage of prior revelations (without proper source documentation, I might add—I’ve spent countless hours in the Turabian world, and think Joseph should have to be held to the same rigor. Hmmph)

I think I've been daft here, honestly, my memory isn't getting any better in my early 100s. Right, so I've been stuck on this part about why would an author be so obvious about it? It's a well-known idea that writers put themselves in their stories, though good writers probably try to avoid that as much as possible. I've been averse to the idea that the Book of Mormon is a transparent psychoanalysis of everything Joseph was doing at the time. If I pick up a Stephen King novel, should I expect to learn about everything going on in Stephen King's life at the time?

But maybe that's really the case, and maybe there's a reason for it, including the fact he was a rank amateur. The Book of Mormon could legitimize certain religious ideas as if they have ancient backing, but the most important thing to legitimize is the discovery of ancient records. The Bible most definitely doesn't do that and Christians believe it to be a closed book. So Joseph needs his ancient text to go overboard with the idea that new prophetic records along with prophets with gifts cropping up regularly has been a thing for a very long time. The problem with this is it makes the con super obvious.

I think it is funny that Nephi has to confirm, almost to himself, that the record is “true”—is he convincing us or himself?)

I think this is more of the same. The ancient source Nephi legitimizing the idea of "knowing that a record is true" -- the testimony. This is important as there is no parallel in Bible culture. The Bible is true by it's own circular authority. The Book of Mormon must bootstrap it's own epistemology, and the framework for accepting Joseph Smith himself as a prophet. It's rather transparent and amateurish when compared to a serious conman like Mark Hoffman, but we've got plenty of rubes in the world to suck it up, I suppose.

His reuse of the KJV text and phrasing from Adam Clarke’s commentary suggests he was drawing from a familiar textual toolbox

This may be your strongest argument so far for multiple sources. Again, something that just wasn't in my head. You are right, it's indisputable that Joseph Smith used the KJV and Clarke's commentary. So we know he sat there at his desk scheming with at least two sources. That doesn't mean he had more sources, but it destroys the idea he was totally winging it from his own imagination. Given there were two so heavily used, it's certainly an open question if there were more than that, and I'd think the more the merrier.

I’d argue this self-referential structure parallels 19th-century “found-manuscript” fiction and antiquarian pseudo-biblical works (e.g., The Book of Jasher, The Manuscript Found), which built authenticity by pretending to recover ancient records.

I'm not sure this addresses my point. It's very similar to UFO lore. There is a tradeoff between intrigue and cringe when it comes to anomalous discoveries.

1) I found a mysterious device with strange markings that Google fails to reverse image, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It burned my hand and I missed my job interview, damned that thing! (high intrigue, low cringe)
2) Oh shoot, I've had these repeating nightmares -- similar scenes of devastation every time. I'm giving that damned device to a neighbor to store in their shed just in case. (medium intrigue, medium cringe)
3) The scenes of devastation are from their planet, which is also our planet, for they are us in the future! And I am the child of the great physicist of that day who made the discovery of time travel. I suppose my life makes more sense now, why my mother never encouraged me to seek out my father. The markings on the device bear my very name in their language. (low intrigue, high cringe)

The Book of Mormon is a solid 3. Only the most gullible of the rubes would find it the least convincing. Mark Hoffman operated at a .5. My question is, at what level do the other found manuscripts operate on? Seems like those authors go for a 1 to 1.5 max. But you know the genre better than I do. What do you say?

[Limnor]

You are right, it's indisputable that Joseph Smith used the KJV and Clarke's commentary. So we know he sat there at his desk scheming with at least two sources.

More later, but I want to point out that we don’t know that it was limited to Joseph using those sources, I believe the inferential clues with the text provide additional insight into source documents—an example includes the “dreams and visions” of Joseph smith Sr and Lehi. A source whose evidences isn’t revealed until much later by Lucy Mack Smith.

Those inferential evidences aren’t as strong, but looking at it as a foundational methodology as demonstrated, I’ve worked to apply that method consistently across the book.

I’ll expand my responses to your post—busy right now.

[Limnor]

I think I've been daft here, honestly, my memory isn't getting any better in my early 100s. Right, so I've been stuck on this part about why would an author be so obvious about it? It's a well-known idea that writers put themselves in their stories, though good writers probably try to avoid that as much as possible. I've been averse to the idea that the Book of Mormon is a transparent psychoanalysis of everything Joseph was doing at the time. If I pick up a Stephen King novel, should I expect to learn about everything going on in Stephen King's life at the time?

But maybe that's really the case, and maybe there's a reason for it, including the fact he was a rank amateur. The Book of Mormon could legitimize certain religious ideas as if they have ancient backing, but the most important thing to legitimize is the discovery of ancient records. The Bible most definitely doesn't do that and Christians believe it to be a closed book. So Joseph needs his ancient text to go overboard with the idea that new prophetic records along with prophets with gifts cropping up regularly has been a thing for a very long time. The problem with this is it makes the con super obvious.

100s! Don’t sell yourself short, Dean, you’re asking the right questions that force me to consider and explain within my framework.

The “obviousness” is key. It’s not subtle fiction, rather it’s an internal act of revelation demonstrated both literarily and in real time. That transparency is actually a feature and not a bug.

You’re right that most good writers try to avoid putting too much of themselves in their work, but Joseph wasn’t writing a novel, he was writing a prophetic autobiography disguised as scripture. In that kind of writing, self-insertion isn’t vanity, it’s the mechanism.

Nephi, Mormon, Alma the Younger, and Ammon II are versions of Joseph as reflected through what he saw as a revelatory medium. What feels amateurish to us may have felt like honesty (even a confessional, when you consider the actions of some of the characters) to him—I’ve often thought his quote that “no man knows my history” was a frank acknowledgment of that point.

I believe you’ve absolutely nailed the reason he goes so far with the “found record” structure.

The Book of Mormon doesn’t just legitimize internal and external doctrine; it legitimizes the act of discovering or inheriting scripture with the authority that act carries—“Kings” were among those whose hereditary lines were described as necessary and aligned with “records” that give legitimacy to authority.

This culminates in the idea that where the Bible closes the canon, Joseph can assert, through the structure provided within the book, to have the authority to reopen it. Every “I found this record” or “I abridged these plates” is a marker that solidifies this authority.

So yes, it makes the con—or if you prefer, the conceit—painfully visible. But that’s also what makes it work. Early readers didn’t want subtlety—they wanted a miracle unfolding in front of them, a “Restoration” of the ancient pattern of God speaking to humanity. The book gives them that experience.

In Islam the adherents refer to the Quran as a miracle—I think the same concept applies to the Book of Mormon.

I think this is more of the same. The ancient source Nephi legitimizing the idea of "knowing that a record is true" -- the testimony. This is important as there is no parallel in Bible culture. The Bible is true by it's own circular authority. The Book of Mormon must bootstrap it's own epistemology, and the framework for accepting Joseph Smith himself as a prophet. It's rather transparent and amateurish when compared to a serious conman like Mark Hoffman, but we've got plenty of rubes in the world to suck it up, I suppose.

That’s a really good observation, Dean—I agree completely that the Book of Mormon has to build its own epistemology from scratch.

The Book of Mormon can’t rely on the same authority claims as the Bible; it has to teach its audience how to recognize truth, and in doing so, it also teaches how to recognize Joseph as a bearer of that truth.

That’s why Nephi’s “I know the record is true” feels so self-conscious. It’s not just a testimony; it’s a training exercise in prophetic validation. The book creates a model reader—someone who learns to “know” truth the way the characters do—so that the reader can then apply that same method to Joseph himself.

You’re right that it’s transparent and maybe clumsy, but I think that’s because Joseph had to make the mechanism visible. The book isn’t trying to pass itself off as ancient in a scholarly way; it’s trying to demonstrate how revelation is verified.

So it’s less like Hoffman’s sleek forgeries and more like a workshop in spiritual epistemology—one that ends with Joseph himself as the living continuation of that pattern.

This may be your strongest argument so far for multiple sources. Again, something that just wasn't in my head. You are right, it's indisputable that Joseph Smith used the KJV and Clarke's commentary. So we know he sat there at his desk scheming with at least two sources. That doesn't mean he had more sources, but it destroys the idea he was totally winging it from his own imagination. Given there were two so heavily used, it's certainly an open question if there were more than that, and I'd think the more the merrier.

I agree, this part does open the door to a multiple-source foundation. The KJV and Adam Clarke are solid examples of what he had within reach, and I like how you frame it as Joseph sitting there with a few open texts, blending and adapting as he went.

These ideas provide the impetus for me to look for other sources to come into view—he was probably pulling from whatever material was in his atmosphere.

It feels kind of like a kind of live synthesis, and that is what fascinates me. It reveals traces of sources we can identify with certainty, but also the fingerprints of someone channeling and reshaping those sources in the act of “translation.”

I'm not sure this addresses my point. It's very similar to UFO lore. There is a tradeoff between intrigue and cringe when it comes to anomalous discoveries.

1) I found a mysterious device with strange markings that Google fails to reverse image, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It burned my hand and I missed my job interview, damned that thing! (high intrigue, low cringe)
2) Oh shoot, I've had these repeating nightmares -- similar scenes of devastation every time. I'm giving that damned device to a neighbor to store in their shed just in case. (medium intrigue, medium cringe)
3) The scenes of devastation are from their planet, which is also our planet, for they are us in the future! And I am the child of the great physicist of that day who made the discovery of time travel. I suppose my life makes more sense now, why my mother never encouraged me to seek out my father. The markings on the device bear my very name in their language. (low intrigue, high cringe)

The Book of Mormon is a solid 3. Only the most gullible of the rubes would find it the least convincing. Mark Hoffman operated at a .5. My question is, at what level do the other found manuscripts operate on? Seems like those authors go for a 1 to 1.5 max. But you know the genre better than I do. What do you say?

Ha! I love this framework, Dean—“intrigue vs. cringe” is a very useful way to summarize the whole found-manuscript genre.

I think you’re right that The Book of Mormon lands way up near a 3.0 because Joseph makes the mechanism too visible—he shows us every plate hand-off, every abridgment, every buried and rediscovered text. My conclusion is he is not trying to hide the “miracle” that will result in authority—he’s purposefully performing an act to “stage it” as a demonstration that will legitimize his authority.

I’m not an expert in the genre of found scripture, im just an analyst—but I f I had to plot the others:

The Book of Jasher: about a 1.0. It simply claims to be a lost biblical book, nothing showy about how it was “found.”

Manuscript Found: maybe a 1.5. Framed as an archaeological discovery, but the “editor” stays offstage; the intrigue stays intact.

I like the the trade-off you’re described: the more transparent the miracle, the more cringe by modern standards—but also the more convincing for an audience that wanted to see revelation happen.

Therefore Joseph wasn’t aiming for subtlety; he was creating a public act of Restoration, and probably why the book feels overexposed as fiction but powerful as myth.

[Gunnar]

I have long regarded the Book of Ether as the silliest part of the Book of Mormon and marveled at how any even semi-rational, well-informed person could even begin to take it seriously or the book that contains it.

[Limnor]

I have long regarded the Book of Ether as the silliest part of the Book of Mormon and marveled at how any even semi-rational, well-informed person could even begin to take it seriously or the book that contains it.

Yes, Ether is absurd. It’s almost pointedly unbelievable, and I’ve wondered if that was deliberate. It does expose something about belief itself, though.

On a personal note, one that exposes some vulnerability but as an acknowledgment of what has been called the hypocrisy of Christian approaches to Mormonism—I’ve been asked how someone can accept the absurdities in the Bible—talking donkeys?—yet reject the ones in the Book of Mormon (Shiz comes to mind). It can become, “Oh, but I believe those.”

For me, it comes down to how you process faith, how you sort parable from historical fact, or whether you even try. Thomas Jefferson used biblical references to inform his moral and political thought, yet famously removed all references to the miraculous.

Some people treat religious texts as history that must be defended, others see it as parable that gains its worth through introspection.

Why did the donkey talk? To expose a seer who couldn’t see. Why did Shiz rise up and gasp headlessly? I can’t find the lesson there—unless it’s something about how losing one’s head leaves nothing meaningful to say. Allegorically, I’ve come to the conclusion that the story reflected something that really happened.

In fine ( ), and to me, there’s more value in a donkey revealing that a man was acting worse than a stubborn donkey than in whatever we’re meant to learn from Shiz.

[Gadianton]

I think I'm enough on the same page you're coming from Limnor, that it's mainly a matter of:

These ideas provide the impetus for me to look for other sources to come into view—he was probably pulling from whatever material was in his atmosphere

The KJV is as dead of a hit as a hit could possibly be. Clarke's commentary is more subtle. So which additional source do you consider to be #3?

[Limnor]

I think I'm enough on the same page you're coming from Limnor, that it's mainly a matter of:

These ideas provide the impetus for me to look for other sources to come into view—he was probably pulling from whatever material was in his atmosphere

The KJV is as dead of a hit as a hit could possibly be. Clarke's commentary is more subtle. So which additional source do you consider to be #3?

Before we settle on a “#3,” I think we should define and agree on what we’re even counting as a source.

There are at least three kinds we could be talking about:

A) Textual: a written source that Joseph (or someone else) copies from, with or without a gloss by the transcriber. This type of source has to have been plausibly accessible (i.e. the KJV, Clarke, maybe Thomas Scott’s Commentary or Henry & Scott’s Exposition).

B) Conceptual: the environmental air he was breathing. These sources might not have to be physically written down word for word and copied (Alma’s seed and theological expositions mimicking contemporary and near-contemporary theological structures “transposed” into the book; Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, early 19th-century sermon structure; Sidney Rigdon’s theological preferences; Masonic ideas; esoteric imagery).

C) Autobiographical/biographical: the personal information that indicate Joseph was “transposing” himself and others into the text (Mormon, Nephi, Ammon, Alma, Ammoron and the like).

The first two are relatively easy to map. But the last one—the autobiographical/biographical—is what really interests me.

Noticing the alignment to Joseph’s own life and taking into consideration the D&C in which “code names” are used, the book seems to combine the collage of external sources into an autobiographical/biographical expose—maybe even a “confessional” that binds the group together (I’ve even considered this a form of the book itself’s biographical accounting of “how it came to be).

So maybe “#3” as an example isn’t another text at all. Maybe it’s Joseph and his companions themselves—their lived experience transposed through the idiom of the KJV.

[Limnor]

The more I think about those “code names” the more obvious it is that there was some sort of conspiracy.

Everyone identified in that D&C “knew” the code name that represented them, and that “revelation” was meant to protect individuals from lawsuits or seizure, in effect “binding” them together. I think there is more similarity of that methodology in relation to the Book of Mormon than is realized.

[huckelberry]

The more I think about those “code names” the more obvious it is that there was some sort of conspiracy.

Everyone identified in that D&C “knew” the code name that represented them, and that “revelation” was meant to protect individuals from lawsuits or seizure, in effect “binding” them together. I think there is more similarity of that methodology in relation to the Book of Mormon than is realized.

Limnor , I find myself wondering if the patterns of involvement in a conspiracy could be created by people not realizing their part in such a role. They could be people involved who in the desire to believe allowed themselves to look the other way to avoid seeing some of the translation process. Due to desire they may have been willing to believe angels with help from Joseph. They may not have been aware of conspiracy in creating a fiction but were willing to not look too closely and in so doing became co-conspirators.

[Limnor]

The more I think about those “code names” the more obvious it is that there was some sort of conspiracy.

Everyone identified in that D&C “knew” the code name that represented them, and that “revelation” was meant to protect individuals from lawsuits or seizure, in effect “binding” them together. I think there is more similarity of that methodology in relation to the Book of Mormon than is realized.

Limnor , I find myself wondering if the patterns of involvement in a conspiracy could be created by people not realizing their part in such a role. They could be people involved who in the desire to believe allowed themselves to look the other way to avoid seeing some of the translation process. Due to desire they may have been willing to believe angels with help from Joseph. They may not have been aware of conspiracy in creating a fiction but were willing to not look too closely and in so doing became co-conspirators.

Interesting—yes, the collective will to believe because the “prophet” promises the adherent what they want to believe.

I can see that method happening in the story of Ammon.

If that’s the case, maybe that thinking never really went away. The mechanism is the same; a quiet agreement not to look too closely because the reward of belief feels truer than the facts that might disturb it.