Early this week I posted a brief notice for the book From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon. With permission from professor Anthony Sweat, the artist behind the new artwork depicting Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon, the new pieces from the book are posted below.
Brilliant. Love these pictures. A step in the right direction.
That’s great! Now if we could just make it to where people actually learn it in church, as opposed to an obscure article on the apologist website.
or on a book they have to buy
Very interesting! The first and last illustrations seem to be Joseph with Oliver Cowdery and then the others must be Martin Harris and Emma Hale Smith. These definitely urge me to read the book for the details.
This seems quite disrespectful. Are you saying that Joseph Smith was actually talking out of his hat? You might not agree with his writings, but that doesn’t make it ok to mock the beliefs of others!
Is that a sincere question Adam? Because if it is, you’re going to have your world rocked if you research this
Adam there is no mocking or disrespect here. Here’s a good church website that compliments what this one portrays. https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng
Somehow when the details of the translation of the Book of Mormon are on the Church website I don’t think the claim of “obscure apologist website” is fair. Nor do I think obscure describes FairMormon.
On another issue while I have heard hundreds of people testify to Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon, I have never heard anyone explain it more in depth in testimony meeting than saying it was “by the gift and power of God.” The mechanistic way the Book of Mormon was translated is not often addressed at all. The results mater more than the mechanics of how they were arrived at.
Interesting! I hope to see more artwork, it’s very mysterious. I had a history teacher talk about New England in the 1800s … apparently seer stones were a trend back then.
I was taught at BYU, in religion classes, that thr Prophet used the Urim and Thummin to do the work of translation. That’s why Mormon included them with the plates when he hid them. While I understand the use of the seer stone, how could he translate the plates if he wasn’t looking at or studying them? I don’t understand the use of a hat at all. And, it makes me wonder about the translation – whether it is a real translation of the plates or something else, created as he gazed at the stone in the hat. How does one translate something he doesn’t look at or study? What gives?
Hi, Linnea! Thanks for your comment.
Joseph Smith had both a seer stone and also the Nephite interpreters in his possession, and he used both in the translation process. Both of these items came to be called “Urim and Thummim” several years after the translation process was finished. This article on the FairMormon website has more information about this:
http://en.fairlatterdaysaints.org/Book_of_Mormon/Translation/Urim_and_Thummim
Joseph’s translation wasn’t a translation done in the typical sense (reading one language and converting it to another). This article explains the point of having the plates if Joseph didn’t look at them when translating:
http://en.fairlatterdaysaints.org/Book_of_Mormon/Translation/Location_of_the_plates
I hope this is helpful.