Joseph Smith/Translator

Criticism

Critics claim that Joseph Smith claimed to translate other texts or items, which can be checked against modern academic translations. They claim that this "cross-checking" proves that Joseph could not have translated the Book of Mormon or other ancient texts.

Source(s) of the Criticism

• Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 290. ( Index of claims )
• Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002) 34–35. ( Index of claims )

Answer

Book of Abraham

See main article in FAIR Wiki: Book of Abraham

Kinderhook plates

See main article in FAIR wiki: Kinderhook Plates

Greek psalter

On 19 April 1842, an English clergyman named Henry Caswell visited Nauvoo, and would later claim that he had shown Joseph Smith a Greek psalter, which the Prophet claimed to translate:

Of this claim, John Taylor would later say:

Concerning Mr. Caswell, I was at Nauvoo during the time of his visit. He came for the purpose of looking for evil. He was a wicked man, and associated with reprobates, mobocrats, and murderers. It is, I suppose, true that he was reverend gentleman; but it has been no uncommon thing with us to witness associations of this kind, nor for reverend gentlemen; so called, to be found leading on mobs to deeds of plunder and death. I saw Mr. Caswell in the printing office at Nauvoo; he had with him an old manuscript, and professed to be anxious to know what it was. I looked at it, and told him that I believed it was a Greek manuscript. In his book, he states that it was a Greek Psalter; but that none of the Mormons told him what it was. Herein is a falsehood, for I told him. Yet these are the men and books that we are to have our evidence from.^[1]

There is no other evidence of Caswell's claim save his anti-Mormon work. That Caswell took no steps in Nauvoo to get Joseph on record, or to get more witnesses for his story, is suspicious.