BYU (Brigham Young University) is operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often mistakenly called the “Mormon Church.” BYU students take nearly a semester of spiritually uplifting, stimulating religion classes.

In this series (see below), students enrolled in scripture study classes have shared their thoughts, insights, and reflections on the Book of Mormon in the form of letters to someone they know. We invite you to take a look at their epiphanies and discoveries as they delve into the scriptures.

In publishing these, we fulfill their desire to speak to all of us of the relevance, power and beauty of the Book of Mormon, a second witness of Jesus Christ and complement to the Bible. The Book of Mormon includes the religious history of a group of Israelite who settled in ancient America. (The names they use are those of prophets who taught the Book of Mormon peoples to look forward to the coming of Christ—Nephi, Lehi, Alma, Helaman, and other unfamiliar names. We hope those names will become more familiar to you as you read their inspiring words and feel the relevance and divinity of their messages through these letters.)

Let us know if you’d like to receive your own digital copy of the Book of Mormon, and/or if these messages encourage and assist you spiritually as well.

 Mormon Bible: The Veil Is Not Far

The stripling warriors may be one of the most famous and favorite stories from the Book of Mormon. It is a story of about 2,000 young men who go to war to defend their families because their parents have made a covenant with God to not take up arms against their enemies. These families were taken in by a group called the Nephites who went to war to protect them. When the Nephites began to suffer great loss, however, the parents wanted to step in to help. Afraid of the consequences their parents’ might suffer for breaking their covenant with God, these young men rise to the occasion.

Professor Griffin’s insight on their background was eye-opening for me and made me think a lot of their upbringing. He taught that many of the boys grew up without their fathers, which made me think of where their fathers were while they were fighting. I pictured them looking down from heaven being as proud as a father could be of his son. I pictured them being so close in spirit with the veil so thin. It seemed beautiful to me to imagine protection, comfort, and aid from the stripling warriors’ dads.

 Obviously I can’t know if these warriors’ fathers were looking down on them, but I do have a testimony that those who have passed away are still with us. They want to share our lives, especially in times of distress, celebration, happiness, or need. I can feel their comfort and help and have faith that they are there burning within us because of their love for us. Brigham Young (a Latter-day Saint “Mormon” prophet) told us that if we could see clearly, heaven is right in front of us.

 I like to remember my ancestors because their lives impacted mine and allowed me to come to earth at this time. I am very fortunate for those who came before me. All have played a role in who I am today, regardless if they were involved with me while I was growing up.

 Look to those who love you so deeply. Most of all, this is our dear Savior Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. Even when you feel most lonely and as if you have no friend in the world, they are always rooting for you.

In this series (see below), students enrolled in scripture study classes have shared their thoughts, insights, and reflections on the Book of Mormon in the form of letters to someone they know. We invite you to take a look at their epiphanies and discoveries as they delve into the scriptures.

In publishing these, we fulfill their desire to speak to all of us of the relevance, power and beauty of the Book of Mormon, a second witness of Jesus Christ and complement to the Bible. The Book of Mormon includes the religious history of a group of Israelites who settled in ancient America.  (The names they use are those of prophets who taught the Book of Mormon peoples to look forward to the coming of Christ—Nephi, Lehi, Alma, Helaman, and other unfamiliar names.  We hope those names will become more familiar to you as you read their inspiring words and feel the relevance and divinity of their messages through these letters.)

Let us know if you’d like to receive your own digital copy of the Book of Mormon, and/or if these messages encourage and assist you spiritually as well.

Mormonism: Focusing Our Lives

Hey family!!

As I have been contemplating what to share with you all this week, my mind was especially caught up in contemplating the principle of happiness. It seems to be something that each one of us tries for in life. We gain our happiness in a variety of ways, sharing time with family and friends, reading a good book, playing with our children, and countless other methods. I would honestly hope that everyone who reads this message has a desire to be happy in this life.

As I was pondering the meaning of happiness, I found myself in Alma 41 in the Book of Mormon. For those of you not super familiar with this part in the Book of Mormon, it is when Alma, the prophet at the time, is talking to his rebellious son Shiblon. Shiblon has done some really bad things in his life that, at first, appeared to give him the happiness that he sought, but he quickly learned when he was taught by his father about how true happiness is attained and I feel that it has application to our lives. Alma shares in verse 10 of chapter 41 that “wickedness never was happiness.” I want you guys to ponder on that for a moment. “Wickedness never was happiness.” How many times in life have we had choices to make that appeal to us as human beings? We are confronted every day with “methods of happiness” that the world would lead us to believe as the true ways to feel better about ourselves and to gain greater satisfaction in this life. Often those ideas lead us to focus on how we can get ourselves to feel better. It leads us to focus completely on what we want and what we need. We are then tempted to do things that initially bring us pleasure, but that ultimately cause the Spirit to leave. I testify that the only true way that we can receive lasting, deep happiness is by focusing our lives on the Savior Jesus Christ and living His Gospel.

I have not been exempt to the wicked ways of the world. There have been many times when I have thought of how I can gratify myself and gain what I thought was true happiness. I quickly learned, that these were merely empty feelings that quickly faded away unless I indulged constantly in them. I know that this is not the way.

I want each of you to know that I love you and that I truly want each of you to be happy. But I know that the only way that we can truly get that happiness is by following the Lord and doing all that He asks us to do through His living prophets. I know that we are guided by living prophets and that the Lord loves each of you so much!! He wants us all to be happy and to live together forever. My prayer is that each of us will look deep inside and try to see if what we are doing in our lives is truly giving us happiness and peace. If it’s not, let us make those changes so that we can feel the Spirit in our lives and be a forever family!!!

Love you all tons!!!
Kraig

In this series (see below), students enrolled in scripture study classes have shared their thoughts, insights, and reflections on the Book of Mormon in the form of letters to someone they know. We invite you to take a look at their epiphanies and discoveries as they delve into the scriptures.

In publishing these, we fulfill their desire to speak to all of us of the relevance, power and beauty of the Book of Mormon, a second witness of Jesus Christ and complement to the Bible. The Book of Mormon includes the religious history of a group of Israelites who settled in ancient America. (The names they use are those of prophets who taught the Book of Mormon peoples to look forward to the coming of Christ—Nephi, Lehi, Alma, Helaman, and other unfamiliar names. We hope those names will become more familiar to you as you read their inspiring words and feel the relevance and divinity of their messages through these letters.)
Let us know if you’d like to receive your own digital copy of the Book of Mormon, and/or if these messages encourage and assist you spiritually as well.

Alma 36: A Message of Hope!

Hi! My name is Kira Webster. I am a freshman at BYU and I am going to be serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 6 months! I am so excited! Here is an excerpt from my blog:

Every week, I am going to post some of my feelings from what I am currently reading in the Book of Mormon. Whether you are of my faith or not, I truly want you to know my feelings of the truths within this book. It is extremely special to me and I want to be able to share with you the things that I know to be true.

To me, Alma 36 is one of the most beautiful chapters within the Book of Mormon. No matter what each one of us may be experiencing in our lives, it is applicable at every stage of our life. Every single one of us makes mistakes. Whether we are making mistakes now or are trying to forgive ourselves for past sins, we can know there is hope for us because of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He did much more than die on a cross for each and every person who has ever lived and will ever live. He took upon Himself our pains, our sins, our afflictions, our trials, and our infirmities. He is the one person who is not only there to support us but actually knows every emotion we are feeling. Through Him, we can overcome anything that may cross our path because He has already overcome it. We just have to look to Him always if we want to be able to do so.

In Alma 36:17, Alma talks about how he was reminded of all of his sins:

     And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by              the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.

The first line of the scripture sounds absolutely horrible. The guilt, the regret and the sorrow Alma must have felt as he remembered his past and the terrible choices he had made must have been unbearable. Then the next line brings hope. Now when I talk about hope, I will always be referring to Jesus Christ. Without Him, we would feel as Alma does in the first line of this scripture at all times. We would not have someone by our side who knows EXACTLY how we feel. It is through Christ that we can repent and forgive ourselves for our past sins and when we do this our joy will exceed our pain (Alma 36:20).
I know this firsthand. I have not always made the best choices in my life. There have been times where I have felt as though I was too far beyond the help of the Savior, but that is NEVER true. Here is a quote from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles today (just like James, Peter and John were during Christ’s time).

I do not know who in this vast audience today may need to hear the message of forgiveness inherent in this parable (Matthew 20:1-15), but however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines (“The Laborers in the Vineyard,” Ensign, May 2012).

Like the Savior was there for Alma, He will always be there for us. He is just waiting for us to reach out to Him.

Everything in life can be seen as a positive or a negative occurrence. Some events like an unfortunate death are inherently possibly a negative occurrence; however, to be happy, one must keep a positive attitude or else the winds and storms of life will always overcome you. One the most paramount lessons in the Book of Mormon is that you get what you make out of life. The Book of Mormon promotes hard work, integrity, and humility. All of these qualities will necessarily make one’s life better due to the perspective that the individual uses to view one’s life.

As a student at a university such as BYU, it is sometimes hard to remain humble. I am among wonderful people and in a great location. However, whenever I get a whiff of this realization, I immediately feel worse about myself. It is not until I humble myself that I begin to feel good about myself again.

All over the Holy Bible, and the Book of Mormon, there have been similar stories like this where a group of individuals were “proud” and then they had to humble themselves. This cycle can be applied to many things. It can be applied to even a broader scale than “pride” and humility. As humans, we recognize that there are cycles for everything. There are times in my life in which I feel happier than other times. Then, undoubtedly, I feel not as good a little later. It is how we deal with these cycles and these differences in life that define ourselves. I strive every day to be a person that I would want to associate myself with. I am nowhere near perfect, however, I feel as if this is one of the best goals to have. One of my favorite thoughts is the idea that character is what you do when no one is looking. When I was 10, I found a $100 bill on the ground at my school. Instead of using it to buy many baseball cards (which I was tempted to do), I turned it into the school office. Looking back, that was one of the biggest defining moments of my life. It was then that I had acted on the teachings of my parents to live a life that I wanted to live.

By Alex W.

Additional Resources:

The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. Request your free copy today.

What Do Mormons Believe about Life, Happiness, and Jesus Christ?

Learn about Thomas S. Monson, the prophet of the LDS Church.

Now, geneticists have done about 100 genetic studies on about 75 of the 500 known Native American groups. Their results show that those 75 Native American populations do have genetic signatures that closely resemble modern-day Asians. Again, this book claims that this disproves the Book of Mormon.

This assumes, however, that Mormons believe that the House of Israel contains the only ancestors of the Native Americans.  Even the prophet Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, did not discount that other races and peoples might’ve lived on the American continents alongside the groups covered in the Book of Mormon – as well as before and after them.  And especially after the fall of the Nephite civilization (maybe the major group covered in the Book of Mormon), intermarriage may have been a strong possibility.  We don’t know how large the Book of Mormon populations were and after wars depleted those populations, there may not have been many left.  Other populations on the American continent, maybe larger, may have assimilated them and, through intermarriage, the Jewish, Middle Eastern DNA may have been almost eliminated over the following centuries.  Thus, the DNA of modern Native Americans could easily appear, or very well be, more Asiatic than Middle Eastern.

Also, other geneticists have remarked that discovering ancestry by DNA is not an exact science and that the outcome can be affected or changed by many variables.

Official Statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

“The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ is exactly what it claims to be — a record of God’s dealings with peoples of ancient America and a second witness of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The strongest witness of the Book of Mormon is to be obtained by living the Christ-centered principles contained in its pages and by praying about its truthfulness.

Recent attacks on the veracity of the Book of Mormon based on DNA evidence are ill considered. Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin…”1

Latter-day Saints See the Possibility of Other Groups

Especially in light of these recent DNA studies, Book of Mormon critics have leapt on the idea that Joseph Smith (and Mormons) believed Abraham is the only ancestor of the Native Americans.  However, nothing Joseph Smith said would necessarily exclude the idea of any other ancestors.  (After all, no one can have only one ancestor.)

“In a statement made in 1835, Joseph Smith described the visit of an angel to him twelve years earlier: ‘He told me of a sacred record which was written on plates of gold. I saw in the vision the place where they were deposited. He said the Indians were the literal descendants of Abraham.’

In response to the prophet’s comment Mathew Roper, a sociologist at BYU, says, “My great-great-grandfather is John Whetten, but it would not be reasonable to assume that in making this statement I am declaring that I have no other ancestors. Joseph Smith’s statement plainly allows for Abraham to be one ancestor among many others.” 2

And although the following was reported by a Mormon publication, it does represent a possibility that Mormons were not the only ones who saw the connection between Israel and Native American peoples.  The Times and Seasons, edited by Joseph Smith and John Taylor (a future president of the Church), cited an account by Don Juan Torres, grandson of the last king of the Maya, which stated that “the Toltecas themselves descended from the house of Israel, who were released by Moses from the tyranny of Pharaoh, and after crossing the Red Sea, fell into Idolatry. To avoid the reproofs of Moses, or from fear of his inflicting upon them some chastisement, they separated from him and his brethren… passed from one continent to the other, to a place which they called the seven caverns, a part of the kingdom of Mexico.” 3

Hugh Nibley, renowned LDS historian, found this further significant.  Although the account also claims Israelite ancestry, it represents a completely different group than that mentioned in the Book of Mormon, traveling by a completely different route.  And Joseph Smith and John Taylor were open enough to the account to publish it in the Times and Seasons.

In 1909, B.H. Roberts, a member of the Seventy, believed that Norsemen could well have visited the American coast, and that a migration of Asian groups over the Bering Straight was very probable.  He further said, “The records now in hand, especially that of the Jaredites, are but very limited histories of these people. Thus, even in Jaredite and Nephite times voyages could have been made from America to the shores of Europe, and yet no mention of it be made in Nephite and Jaredite records now known.” 4

Hugh Nibley, renowned LDS historian, believed God led other peoples to the Americas. He says, “Now there is a great deal said in the Book of Mormon about the past and future of the promised land, but never is it described as an empty land. The descendants of Lehi were never the only people on the continent, and the Jaredites never claimed to be.” 5

Other scholars note that, like the Bible, the Book of Mormon records the doings of a small group of people in a specific area.  It is not meant to be a complete history of all the American peoples.  The Bible is concerned with the Israelites and the nations they were in contact with, their friends, neighbors, and enemies.  It does not mention groups outside of their immediate knowledge.  Neither does the Book of Mormon.

In 1961, Ariel Crowley, a Book of Mormon scholar stated, “The Book of Mormon is no more the history of all peoples and doings of past ages on the American continents than the Bible is a history of all the peoples and nations of the East. Each covers its own time and provenance and makes no pretense beyond that… The Book of Mormon attests the presence of the blood of Israel. It is not in the least impugned by extraneous proof that other blood, by other migrations, found this land and mingled with the peoples there.”6

Also, the Book of Mormon itself is not a complete historical record, even of the Book of Mormon peoples.  It is an abridged record, covering centuries, which was compiled by Mormon in the last years of his civilization.  He drew from many different records and many different plates, which we do not have access to, distilling only the essential (and largely religious) information into the book we have today.  In the many plates he drew from, there may have been record of other groups, but these records were not abridged into the final work.

Book of Mormon May Reference Other Groups

Nonetheless, the Book of Mormon is not without evidence that other people lived in the Americas at the same time as the Book of Mormon group.  The Book of Mormon follows the story of Lehi’s family and their descendents and, even from the landing of Lehi’s family on the American coast, may point to contact with other peoples.  At one point, Nephi, son of Lehi, flees into the wilderness, because his older brothers were plotting his death, and says, “I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words.” 7

Nephi carefully specifies who of his immediate and extended family flees with him.  Who is included in “all those who would go with me?”  It’s possible that these may have been people who already lived on the continent, who believed and followed Nephi.  At this time, Lehi’s family is divided into two separate groups.  Nephi refers to his group as the “people of Nephi,” 8 “a term that may be suggestive of a larger society including more than his immediate family.”9

Later, the Lord speaks to Nephi as such, “Wherefore, I will consecrate this land unto thy seed, and them who shall be numbered among thy seed, forever, for the land of their inheritance; for it is a choice land, saith God unto me, above all other lands, wherefore I will have all men that dwell thereon that they shall worship me, saith God.” 10

While “them who shall be numbered among thy seed” is not detailed, it, again, seems odd that people outside Nephi’s family should be hinted at if there were no others.  In any case, the Americas do not seem to be meant only for Nephi’s direct descendants.

Matthew Roper shares other Book of Mormon evidences in his review of Nephi’s Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations.

DNA Testing Not Completely Accurate

DNA testing a modern population, to determine their ancestry, is a fairly new science – still changing, still under development.  As state by geneticist John Relethford, “Although working in such a young and developing field is exciting, it is also frightening because the knowledge base changes so rapidly”.11

As yet, a DNA test can’t determine all previous genetic lineages. Only a small fraction of someone’s ancestry can be tracked by current procedure – which involves testing the Y-chromosome, passed on by the males, and the mitochondrial DNA, passed on by the females.

In Iceland, geneticist did a good number of DNA tests that “traced the matrilineal and patrilineal ancestry of all 131,060 Icelanders born after 1972 back to two cohorts of ancestors, one born between 1848 and 1892 and the other between 1798 and 1742.” 12 The study showed that the sheer number of descendents coming from those ancestors was skewed, “with the vast majority of potential ancestors contributing one or no descendants and a minority of ancestors contributing large numbers of descendants.”13

Even after only 150 years, DNA tests could not accurately trace the ancestry of these 131, 060 Icelanders.  The tests gave every one of them one of two common ancestors.  Based on these results, it’s not impossible to believe that the DNA Lehi and his descendants passed to the Native Americans would be completely unfindable.

Another modern day geneticist explains the limitations of using mitochondrial DNA (MDNA) to identify the origins of any population:

• MDNA is passed on from mother to child. However, if a woman had no daughters, she would not pass on her MDNA, which is passed entirely through the maternal line.  Later generations would have no genetic markers from this maternal ancestor at all.
• Regular DNA combines both maternal and paternal DNA.  MDNA alone carries only a small portion.  Mind, MDNA doesn’t change from generation to generation, which makes it relatively constant across centuries and, so, potentially very useful. But MDNA can only give a limited view of an individual’s or group’s complete genetic make up, since it lacks the bulk of their genetic information.
• If a woman marries into a new group, she introduces her MDNA into the population and changes the gene structure of future generations.

“With this in mind, let’s imagine we have ten generations of a family tree in front of us, beginning from the top down to the bottom, over the ten generations. If we are only considering MDNA, as we look at any individual in the 10th generation at the bottom of the chart (which, let’s say, represents the current generation), because of the above limitations, we, by no means, have an accurate understanding of the original genetics of this population.” 14

(1) DNA and the Book of Mormon Los Angeles Times, 16 February 2006
(2) Roper, MatthewReview of Nephi’s Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations. Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2003. Pp. 91–128
(3) “Facts Are Stubborn Things,” Times and Seasons 3 (15 September 1842): 922.
(4) B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God. 2:356-57
(5) Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 218–19.
(6) Ibid., 145.
(7) 2 Nephi 5:5–6
(8) 2 Nephi 5:9
(9) Roper, MatthewReview of Nephi’s Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations. Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2003. Pp. 91–128
(10) 2 Nephi 10:18–19
(11) Relethford, J.H. Genetics and the Search for Modern Human Origins. Wiley-Liss: New York (2001); quotation from p. 205.
(12) Butler, John. “Addressing Questions Surrounding The Book of Mormon and DNA Research”. FARMS. February 2006.
(13) Helgason, A., Hrafnkelsson, B., Gulcher, J.R., Ward, R., Stefansson, K. “A population-wide coalescent analysis of Icelandic matrilineal and patrilineal genealogies: evidence for a faster evolutionary rate of mtDNA lineages than Y chromosomes.” American Journal of Human Genetics 72: 1370-1388 (2003).

(14) Johnson, Cooper. DNA and the Book of Mormon. FAIR – Defending Mormonism.

The Book of Mormon is made up of records of history, prophecy and revelation, which records were kept by ancient prophets of the Americas over hundreds of years. These records were finally abridged by a prophet named Mormon, for whom the book is named.

Two broad groups of people are accounted for in the Book of Mormon.  One came from Jerusalem to the American continent in 600 BC and afterward separated into two nations known as the Nephites and the Lamanites.  The other civilization came to the American continent much earlier and is known as the Jaredite nation.

The Jaredite nation came to the American continent after the events of the Tower of Babel – in fact, they were guided to the Americas by the hand of the Lord.  Unfortunately, the nation eventually split into violent factions and destroyed itself.  When Nephite explorers happened on Jaredite lands later, they called it a “land of bones.”

The Nephite nation is the focus of the Book of Mormon – and the Book of Mormon is written by Nephite prophets.  They write of their testimonies and prophecies of the coming Messiah and council against sin and selfishness.  Pre-Christ Book of Mormon peoples, being descendants of Jacob, lived according to the Law of Moses as they looked forward to the coming of Christ.  They understood the Plan of Salvation and the atonement many years before Christ’s coming.

To a lesser degree, the book also details the Nephite wars with the other principal nation mentioned in the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites, who, “because of the traditions of their fathers,” hated the Nephites ferociously.  The wars were primarily defensive, however, and a hope for the conversion of the Lamanites is a running theme throughout the book.

Another running theme throughout the Book of Mormon is something Mormons call the “pride cycle.”  When the Nephites were righteous, the Lord blessed them with prosperity.  Eventually, some Nephites would take pride in their prosperity and start to set themselves above the less prosperous.  Pride and arrogance would always lead to a general disregard for the prophets and for precepts of the gospel, especially love and charity.  The Nephite nation would fall into wickedness and would be chastened, whether by famine or war.  They would then repent and the cycle would begin again.

The Lamanite nation also went through cycles.  The converted Lamanites would convert with such passion and strength that they often served as examples to the Nephites.  At one point, a group of converted Lamanites laid down their arms before an oncoming army of their own people and refuse to fight, because they had vowed before the Lord never to kill again.  At another point, the children of these Lamanites fought alongside the Nephites and, because of their incredible faith, not one of them was killed.

Jesus Christ came to visit the people of the Nephites and Lamanites after His ministry in Palestine and His resurrection.  He established His gospel and Church among the people, who had been awaiting His coming since their ancestors’ arrival six hundred years before.  A golden age of peace and equanimity followed for a number of generations, but when the sure testimony of Christ faded in the memory of the people, they split back into factions and began warring again.  By the fourth century after Christ’s coming, the Nephites, who had become wicked and aggressive, had been utterly destroyed.  In Mormon belief, the Lamanites are the principal ancestors of some of the native peoples living in the Americas today.  This would make some native North and South Americans descendants of the tribe of Joseph.

Mormon, who compiled and abridged the Book of Mormon, died in one of the final battles.  His son, Moroni, added to the end of the book, and hid up the plates.  (The Book of Mormon was inscribed on metal plates.) Mormons believe that, in 1823, the same Moroni appeared as a heavenly messenger to the Prophet Joseph Smith and instructed him about the ancient record. Joseph Smith later received and translated the Book of Mormon into English through the power and direction of the Lord.

Additional Resources:

Get a Free Copy of the Book of Mormon

Learn More about Mormon Scripture

Jesus Christ in Mormonism

Joseph Smith first learned about the existence of the golden plates from an angel in 1823.  In 1827 he was entrusted with the golden plates and charged with a mission to translate them and deliver their message to the world.  Buried with the plates were the Urim and Thummim, the devices prepared for the purpose of translation from ancient times.

Each witness seems to have a differing account of the method by which the translation took place, each of which may be correct, since history suggests that Joseph Smith struggled with a few methods to find the one that worked best.  One account describes Joseph wearing the breastplate of the Urim and Thummim and looking directly at the plates through the two stones set in a silver bow.  The other widely-recorded method tells of Joseph putting his own personal seer stone in a hat and placing his face in the hat to block out all light.  The plates were left covered when using this method.  What Joseph saw through the interpreters or his seer stone is also the speculation of his scribes and other acquaintances based on their conversations with him.  Each scribe reported Joseph dictating one sentence at a time, spelling out words or names if he did not know the pronunciation, and then having them read back the sentence to confirm.

The language of the Book of Mormon is written in the language of the King James Version of the Bible, the one Joseph read and was familiar with, and contains elements of 1830 New York dialect.  This seems to suggest that Joseph Smith was instrumental in formulating the language.  Some who knew him during the translation supposed that he actually saw the words appear in English, but whether this was a physical manifestation or a mental one is not known.  The particulars of the Book of Mormon translation will remain a mystery, but from the process observed by others, and the time frame within which it was accomplished (two months), it was a supernatural effort.

Said Emma Smith to her son shortly before her death: “I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired. For when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him. This was a usual thing for him to do. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this, and for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible” (Saints’ Herald 26 (1879):290).

Said Oliver Cowdery: “I wrote with my own pen the entire Book of Mormon (save a few pages) as it fell from the lips of the Prophet as he translated it by the gift and power of God by means of the Urim and Thummim, or as it is called by that book, holy interpreters. I beheld with my eyes and handled with my hands the gold plates from which it was translated. I also beheld the Interpreters. That book is true. … I wrote it myself as it fell from the lips of the Prophet” (“Journal of Reuben Miller,” 21 Oct. 1848; for background see R. L. Anderson, “Reuben Miller, Recorder of Oliver Cowdery’s Reaffirmations,” BYU Studies 8 (1968):277).

Urim and Thummim

“The urim and tumim are associated with the breastplate worn by the High Priest. This breastplate had twelve precious stones, arranged in four rows of three, upon which the names of the tribes were engraved: ‘The stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve in their names, engraved, each person with his name on it, for the twelve tribes’ (Exodus 28:21). A later verse instructs, ‘And you shall place in the Breastplate of Judgment the urim and the tumim, and they shall be on Aaron’s heart when he comes before G-d, and Aaron shall carry the judgment of the children of Israel on his heart before G-d, always’ (Exodus 28:30).

“While the High Priests wearing of the breastplate atoned for the Courts mistakes in judgment, the urim and tumim inside the breastplate dispensed judgment of their own. Rashi explains that when the Jewish People needed to know something of great import, the urim and tumim could be consulted to reveal the will of G-d, as in the verse, ‘Before Elazar the priest, [Joshua] will stand and seek from him the judgment of the urim’ (Numbers 27:21). Urim and tumim, Rashi explains, refers to a special name of G-d that was written and placed in the fold of the breastplate through which the breastplate illuminated and clarified its message. This, the Talmud explains, is the source of its name: urim being related to or, the Hebrew word for light; tumim being related to tam meaning perfect (Yoma 73b).

“Ramban describes the phenomenon in greater detail: ‘[The urim, (specifically)] were holy names, by whose power the letters on the stones of the breastplate lit up to the eyes of the priest who was asking for judgment. For example, when they asked ‘who should lead the way for us to fight against the Canaanites?’ the priest would concentrate on the Divine names which are the urim, and the letters would light up to his eyes [But] he still did not know their correct order, for from the letters which can be ordered ‘Yehuda ya’aleh (Judah shall go up) it is possible to make of them’hey al Yehuda‘ (woe unto Judah) and many other words’” (Ohr.edu, Jewish Information Resource: Urim and Thummim).