Re: translation of Book of Mormon

Curt wrote:
We now know that Joseph Smith used a seer stone put inside a hat, to
which he then placed his face, to translate, at least in part, the
golden plates into the Book of Mormon.

Do we know this? To my knowledge, there are at least three different
accounts of how the translation process took place, no two of which
agree in every detail. It appears that almost everyone who made a
statement one way or the other about the translation process felt the
need to make ambiguous statements. Oliver Cowdery testified under oath
that the translation process used "two transparent stones, resembling
glass, set in silver bows." His widow, some 50 years later, is reported
to have told William McLellan that Smith used a chocolate-colored
egg-shaped stone in a hat. Some say that the translators (some time
later called the Urim and Thummin) we used before the loss of the 116
pages and not afterwards, but Martin Harris, who translated the 116
pages, talks about the seer stone. I'm of the opinion that we don't know
what processes were used for which portions of the book, and probably
never will - so few of the witness still being around to explain it more
clearly.

The typical Mormon depiction
of Joseph and Oliver sitting at a table separated by a curtain, with
Joseph studying the gold plates on one side and Oliver dutifully
writing down what Smith said to him on the other, is fiction.

It's an artist's depiction, for heaven's sake, not a photograph. Of
course it's fictionalized. I suspect neither man actually looked like
they are depicted, the furniture is wrong, the room is wrong and the
lighting and cleanliness are exaggerated to modern standards. I would
consider it a useful visual aid. It probably would serve no purpose for
the church to produce a picture that would be historically accurate,
even if we had a decent idea of what that would be. Most images are
produced with an artistic intent in mind and may, indeed, present an
unrealistic picture. There's a very frequently used picture of the
Washington, DC Temple showing the temple and a reflection in a
crystal-smooth pool. The picture is - essentially - fiction. For anyone
with an interest, you might consider a challenge to find the setting
where that picture was taken.

I suppose it is entirely plausible that this was God's way of bringing
forth the Book of Mormon; nothing about this necessarily calls to mind
the occult. Still, why do most Mormons appear not to know this?

I suspect there are many reasons. One of the significant ones for me is
that people don't know what you know because they may disagree with your
conclusions. It does not mean they are unfamiliar with the premises,
just that they assemble them into a different shape. For others,
independent study of Church history just isn't on their agenda. I
suspect it's fair to say that most of the 12M+ members of the LdS church
don't "know" how Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon, but I would
guess that the majority of the ones I know are aware of the "face in the
hat" description.

Why
does Mormon art continues to depict the fictional view?

Why does most Christian art present Christ as a northern European with a
great dentist, hair stylist and fashion consultant? You want to talk
about fiction, well ...

Craig

.

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