With the release today of an electronic edition of Why I Stay: The Challenges of Discipleship for Contemporary Mormons, Signature Books now has 7 Kindle editions available at Amazon.com for between $6.00 and $20.00 each. Soon enough, there will be many more titles available, but this is a new frontier for us and we’re making every effort to see that the electronic books are as attractive and readable as the print editions.

“Preparing e-books is easy and fun,” says Signature production manager Connie Disney. “You start with an InDesign file unless the original book was formatted in Ventura Publisher, in which case you convert it to MS Word and clean it up, then bring it into InDesign and add paragraph and character tags. Then you export the text as an ePub file and open it in a program called oXygen, where you do some editing in HTML codes and bring it into Calibre to convert it to a MOBI file, testing it in Digital Editions to see what it will look like, and finally uploading it to Amazon as a Kindle book.”

“How long did it take you to prepare your first e-book?” we asked assistant editor Devery Anderson. He laughed and said, “All of the month of September, and that was with help from Connie.” But he was quick to add that he’s down to “a week now for one book and think I’ll be able to improve my time to a book a day. That’s the plan,” he says. “The best e-book people can turn around a title in a half a day, depending on the original format and degree of complexity. It makes a difference whether there are photographs, charts, footnotes, or foreign scripts.”

“How well are the books selling?” “Well, that’s a little embarrassing,” Devery said. “One of the books we’ve released is The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000, which I happen to be the author of. It’s selling well as an e-book—over 60 copies in two months. That’s not the problem. A month ago we released my boss’s book, Nauvoo Polygamy: “… but we called it celestial marriage,” and it’s only sold 12 copies so far. That’s a good performance for the first month, but I need to see an improvement before I submit a report to George Smith.”

For now, Connie is back to her normal job of designing and typesetting print-edition books, and Devery is back to editing a forthcoming book. “I’m learning so much here,” Devery said. “Today I learned the abbreviation for the Shepherd of Hermas’s Similitudes is ‘Herm. Sim.’ Imagine how useful that is!” Devery is editing Robert Price’s forthcoming book, The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul. Connie is currently typesetting The Midwife: A Biography of Laurine Ekstrom Kingston by Victoria Burgess. “All in due time,” says Connie. “Salt Lake City wasn’t built in a day, you know.” Indeed.

Dan Vogel

When my essay “The Validity of the Witnesses’ Testimonies” appeared in 2002 in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon,¹ a close examination of the nature of the eleven Book of Mormon witnesses’ experiences was long overdue. One purpose of my essay was to challenge the apologetic use of these testimonies, particularly the assumption that the experience of three witnesses was, in the words of emeritus Brigham Young University professor Richard L. Anderson, a “natural-supernatural appearance of the angel with the plates”²—in other words, it was an objective and physical visitation of an angel rather than a subjective and inward vision—and that the eight witnesses saw and handled the plates in a completely natural and a non-visionary manner. My investigation showed that subsequent statements by David Whitmer and Martin Harris made it clear that their experiences with the angel and plates were more subjective than their published group statement implied, and that the naturalistic-wording of the Testimony of Eight Witnesses is misleading.

In the decade since publication of my essay, some Mormon apologists have attempted in various ways to dismiss it. The most serious response was published in 2005 by Richard L. Anderson titled “Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses,”³ which also critiqued Grant Palmer’s handling of the same issue in his An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins.⁴ Although I will respond mainly to Anderson’s critique, I will also take this opportunity to respond to other apologists.

Response to Richard L. Anderson

Is the Testimony of Eight Witnesses Clearly Non-Visionary?
I took great pains to show how a prima facie reading of either the Testimony of Three Witnesses or Testimony of Eight Witness cannot be used to recreate the historical events behind them. By drawing on subsequent statements, I showed how the Testimony of Three Witnesses leaves out important details—such as place, date, and the appearance of other objects on a table—and gives the false impression that all three were present at a single vision. Both Martin Harris and David Whitmer gave descriptions of their visions that challenge Anderson’s assumption that it was a “natural-supernatural” event—meaning the angel was objectively present in the woods having been supernaturally transported there—a notion that he undoubtedly took from the spare and simplistic wording of the Testimony. Harris later said the angel and plates were seen with “spiritual eyes” and Whitmer that they were only seen “in the Spirit.” In other words, it was a visionary or extrasensory experience.⁵

In similar fashion, it is a mistake to attempt to reconstruct the historical situation behind the Testimony of Eight Witnesses based solely on its simplistic and non-historical wording. Nevertheless, Anderson wants to repeat this mistake without addressing any of the concerns and warnings I raised. He argues:

the Witnesses speak of viewing the plates themselves with unobstructed vision, noting they had the appearance of gold … of ancient work … of curious workmanship. In their official testimony, they looked closely at the engravings while turning the leaves, seeing and handling at the same time. Thus the published testimony contradicts the current subjective theory, which asserts the eight men saw the plates in a mystic group experience but handled them only on other occasions when they were covered.⁶

Of course, the Testimony does not say the witnesses had an “unobstructed” view of the plates; that’s Anderson’s assumption. Nor does it say they turned the leaves, but instead ambiguously states that “as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands.” Conceivably the leaves could be turned even while under a cloth or in a sack, which Anderson admits is possible when he states in a footnote “Martin [Harris] spoke of handling the leaves of the plates, but possibly when the record was covered, as William and Emma Smith did.”⁷ Regardless, since the Testimony can accommodate either Anderson’s purely naturalistic reading or my spiritual-sight reading or even Palmer’s purely subjective reading, it begs the question to quote the Testimony as contradicting the subjectivists’ position. We saw how the naturalistic language of the Testimony of Three Witnesses led Anderson to make similar assumptions that were disproved by the subsequent statements of Harris and Whitmer, so Anderson is on shaky ground when he inserts his naturalistic assumptions into his reading of the Testimony of Eight Witnesses.

Anderson tries to label the subjectivist interpretation of the Testimony of Eight Witnesses as mind reading, arguing that Palmer’s position “is really based on knowing their ‘mind-set’ instead of focusing on what they repeatedly said about their experience.”⁸ Anderson has long neglected an examination of the witnesses’ lives in light of their pre-Mormon participation in early nineteenth-century visionary culture, which preconditioned them to Joseph Smith’s claims and potential manipulations. His 1981 book Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses explores the lives and characters of the witnesses in great detail, but nothing is said about their propensities for visionary experience.⁹ Regardless, there is little difference in Palmer’s contextualizing the Testimony within a visionary culture and Anderson’s adding “unobstructed” and “turning the leaves” and assuming a detailed description of the plates precludes a visionary experience. Because the Testimony can be read from multiple perspectives, it is pointless for Anderson to reference instances of the witnesses reaffirming their published Testimony—it only begs the question.

While Anderson makes it appear that there is no basis for Palmer’s interpreting the Testimony from the perspective of early nineteenth-century visionary culture other than “discovering the inner workings of their minds,” this is simply not the case.¹⁰ Immediately preceding his conclusion that “the eight, like the three, saw and scrutinized the plates in a mind vision,”¹¹ Palmer briefly discussed John Whitmer’s reported statement that the plates had been shown to him “by a supernatural power” and Martin Harris’s public announcement that he “never saw the plates with his natural eyes … & also that the eight witnesses never saw them [with their natural eyes].” Despite Anderson’s subsequent apologetic dismissal of these sources, which will be examined below, Palmer’s employment of them shows that his interpretation has little to do with mind reading and more to do with contextualizing the Testimony as it was understood by first-generation Mormons. It is therefore disingenuous to assert, as Anderson does in a footnote, that Palmer exhibits a “pattern of assuming the witnesses’ ‘mind-set’ without evidence.”¹² Anderson and other apologists might disagree with Palmer’s (or my) use of these two sources, but to say that the subjectivist interpretation rests on unfounded mind reading is just plain wrong.

Ad hominem
In typical apologetic form, Anderson wants to exploit my public statement that “there is simply no reliable proof for the existence of the supernatural.”¹³ To him, this means that analysis of the witnesses is inherently flawed by bias. In his words, “Reading Vogel on the Book of Mormon witnesses, therefore, is tracking a conclusion in search of evidence.”¹⁴ He says this apparently oblivious to his own bias. Of course, such a statement is an attempt at distraction since the bias of the arguer says nothing about the validity of the argument. And there is an additional problem with Anderson’s accusation since it presupposes a chronology that is not supported by my biography. At what point in my journey from belief to disbelief did I become biased and my assessment of evidence infected by it?

An Incomplete and Partial Reconstruction
Since there is no account detailing exactly how the eight witnesses came to see and handle the plates near the Smith cabin in Manchester, New York, there are several possible reconstructions, which I explored in my 2002 essay. “Assuming the experience of the eight witnesses was visionary,” I said, “there are at least three possible scenarios to explain how they both saw and handled the plates.”¹⁵ First, there is Palmer’s view that the witnesses saw and handled the plates in vision. Second, as some former Mormons told Thomas Ford, Joseph Smith may have produced an empty box and the witnesses were induced to see the plates. In this instance, handling of the plates necessarily refers to previous exposure to the covered plates of at least some of the witnesses. Third, the box Joseph Smith showed the witnesses contained a set of fake plates or some other material of similar weight and the witnesses viewed the plates supernaturally or clairvoyantly through the box. In this instance, the witnesses could claim that they had both seen and hefted the plates. Fourth, it is also possible that a set of fake plates were presented concealed in a cloth, which would allow for all the elements to occur on the same day to all the men. This would be similar to Harris’s statement that in addition to his vision of the angel and plates, “he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box [or] with only a tablecloth or a handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain.”¹⁶

Against the second proposition, Anderson cites Lucy Smith’s 1845 history as contradictory, stating she “refutes a split experience of seeing on one day and lifting the plates at an earlier time.”¹⁷ Indeed, Lucy said the men went into a grove near the Smith cabin and, she declared, “Here it was that those 8 witnesses recorded in the Book of Mormon looked upon the plates and handled them of which they bear witness in the following words …”¹⁸ However, it is unclear whether Lucy was stating what she remembered happened on that day, or was merely reflecting the content of the Testimony of Eight Witnesses, which she was introducing. Because Lucy gave no details of her own and relied on the published Testimony, we have no way of knowing if her memory and the Testimony were not one and the same.

Anderson overstates the significance of this source when he argues that Lucy “insists that they ‘looked upon the plates and handled them’ near her house on that day, an understanding gained from observation, conversation, and hearing the Eight Witnesses in the evening meeting when all >declared those facts that we knew to be true.’”¹⁹ Lucy did not “insist” anything, because she was unaware of our future debates, and her statement is not specific enough to support the kinds of assumptions Anderson tries to attach to it. Regardless, at most Anderson’s use of Lucy Smith’s statement might exclude the empty-box theory. Indeed, Lucy’s statement only requires that the witnesses “handled” the plates on that day, which is fulfilled by the other possibilities listed.

Thomas Ford’s Informants
Anderson believes my use of Thomas Ford’s report is an example of “how little real evidence supports the subjective theory regarding the eight witnesses.”²⁰ In his 1854 History of Illinois, Ford included a detailed description of the witnesses’ experiences, which he claimed came from “men who were once in the confidence of the prophet”:

It is related that the prophet’s early followers were anxious to see the plates; the prophet had always given out that they could not be seen by the carnal eye, but must be spiritually discerned; that the power to see them depended upon faith, and was the gift of God, to be obtained by fasting, prayer, mortification of the flesh, and exercises of the spirit; that so soon as he could see the evidences of a strong and lively faith in any of his followers, they should be gratified in their holy curiosity. He set them to continual prayer, and other spiritual exercises, to acquire this lively faith by means of which the hidden things of God could be spiritually discerned; and at last, when he could delay them no longer, he assembled them in a room, and produced a box, which he said contained the precious treasure. The lid opened; the witnesses peeped into it, but making no discovery, for the box was empty, they said, “Brother Joseph, we do not see the plates.” The prophet answered them, “O ye of little faith! how long will God bear with this wicked and perverse generation? Down on your knees, brethren, every one of you, and pray God for the forgiveness of your sins, and for a holy and living faith which cometh down from heaven.” The disciples dropped to their knees, and began to pray in the fervency of their spirit, supplicating God for more than two hours with fanatical earnestness; at the end of which time, looking again into the box, they were now persuaded that they saw the plates.²¹

Ford does not specify which set of witnesses his account describes, but it is obviously about the experience of the eight witnesses. There are several problems with Ford’s account, which I have freely admitted in my uses of it. It is unattributed and at best thirdhand and apparently garbled. For this reason, I said “Fawn Brodie was probably mistaken to place so much weight on his account alone.”²² However, since the subjective element in Ford’s account is supported by Martin Harris’s 1838 statement and John Whitmer’s 1839 testimony, I argued that “Ford’s narrative cannot be dismissed out of hand” and that the “details of the story transmitted by Ford may be inaccurate, but the essence of the account contains an element of truth.”²³

Anderson argues that “Ford’s story traces to no reliable source and appears to be outright folklore.”²⁴ However, he has difficulty explaining how Ford’s “informants” knew about the subjectivity of the experience of the eight witnesses when there were no published sources making such claims in the 1840s. He tries to argue: “But slander circulating in one location is not proved true by similar slanders developed elsewhere, as the history of political campaigns shows.”²⁵ Of course, labeling difficult testimony “slander” is also a ploy of political campaigns and hardly disproves the veracity of the testimony. Moreover, this depiction of the sources is highly inaccurate since neither John Whitmer nor Martin Harris, as believers, had an interest in slandering either themselves or the eight witnesses. The same can be said for Theodore Turley, a believer who undoubtedly had no motivation to misrepresent Whitmer’s testimony. Stephen Burnett’s reporting of Harris is also not “slander” since, as I will show, his account was reasonably accurate. Indeed, he had little motivation to slander, defame, or discredit Harris since he was using him as justification for dismissing the Testimony of Eight Witnesses.

Theodore Turley’s Report
In 1845, with the help of clerk Thomas Bullock, Theodore Turley recounted various events associated with the Mormon exodus from Missouri, including a conversation he had with John Whitmer in April 1839:

I said <Turly replied> “if the cap fits you wear it”. all I know, you have published to the world that an angel did present those plates to Joseph Smith.” and he said <Whitmer replied> “I now say I handled those plates. there was fine engravings on both sides. I handled them.” and he described how they were hung[,] and they were shown to me by a supernatural power. he acknowledged all. I <Turly> asked him why the translation is not <now> true? he said, “I cannot read it, and I do not know whether it [the translation] is true or not.” he <Whitmer> testified all this in the presence of 8 men.²⁶

The key phrase is Whitmer’s claim that the plates had been “shown to me by a supernatural power,” which I said “would suggest something other than a normal, physical experience.”²⁷ Palmer similarly observed: “This added detail of how he saw indicates that the eight probably did not observe or feel the actual artifact.”²⁸ Anderson counters this by arguing that “a strange ‘added detail’ is a red flag,” and suggests Whitmer was “misquoted” since Turley’s account “differs from all other John Whitmer accounts.”²⁹ This claim is misleading since these other accounts are either simple affirmations or ambiguous statements that Whitmer had seen and handled the plates, which is not inconsistent with the subjectivist interpretation. “Many are brief and general,” Anderson admits, “but when details are given, they speak of seeing and/or handling as a normal event.”³⁰ This is simply Anderson’s assumption circulating through his reading of ambiguous sources in a question-begging fashion.

Anderson quotes Joshua Davis’s 1875 report that John Whitmer told him: “I, with my own eyes, saw the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated, and I also saw an angel who witnessed to the truth of the Book of Mormon.”³¹ From this obviously mistaken reporting that Whitmer saw an angel, Anderson constructs an argument from analogy:

But John Whitmer’s own words counter the odd particulars in these two reports. … Since John Whitmer personally states that the angel appeared only to the Three Witnesses, Davis obviously got that detail wrong in reporting what John told him. And six statements from John Whitmer speak of handling the plates, including the full Turley reference … Davis correctly gave John’s statement about seeing the plates but confused the testimonies of the Three and Eight Witnesses concerning seeing an angel. So the Davis interview shows the fallacy of proof-texting with a single phrase suggesting the marvelous.³²

Not only is this an example of the fallacy of proof by analogy,³³ but Anderson is suppressing significant differences that make comparison less useful. The Davis account is an obvious error that is easily explained, but Turley’s account is not so obvious and not so easily explained, although Anderson tries. The error in the Davis account might have something to do with the fact that it was written by the editor of the Deseret Evening News “a few days” after speaking with Davis, who had recounted an interview he had with Whitmer the previous month. So it is uncertain if the mistake is Davis’s or the editor’s. How well either of these men knew the content of the witnesses’ Testimonies to prevent such error is unknown, but Turley was certainly in a better position to know the meaning of Whitmer’s testimony, and there was ample opportunity to correct his report by knowledgeable reviewers if it had been mistaken.

Although in the handwriting of Thomas Bullock, Turley was present giving the actual words that Bullock recorded. Although Turley’s statement was emended and changed from first to third person by church historian Willard Richards, the statement about seeing the plates “by supernatural power” stood without correction and was copied by Bullock into Book C-1 of the Manuscript History in March 1845.³⁴ This portion of Book C-1 was reviewed by George A. Smith and Heber C. Kimball on 19 August 1845,³⁵ and although Kimball inserted additional reminiscences as Turley’s fellow committee member and occasional companion, he apparently found nothing objectionable about Turley’s report of Whitmer’s testimony.

Anderson also sees contradiction between Turley’s report that the plates were shown to Whitmer “by a supernatural power,” and Whitmer’s statement in his history that he was one of seven “to whom Joseph Smith Jr showed the plates.”³⁶ However, this contradiction is only apparent and not real, because saying the plates were shown to him “by supernatural power” does not exclude the presence of Joseph Smith, who had brought the artifact into the grove. Both statements were true, and both were also incomplete.

Another contradiction Anderson sees is Turley’s statement to Whitmer: “you have published to the world that an angel did present those plates to Joseph Smith.” From this, Anderson supposes that Turley “erroneously thought the published statement of the Eight Witnesses testified of the miraculous,” and that it was this “preconception” that led Turley to insert the reference to “supernatural power.”³⁷ However, Anderson’s reasoning simply does not follow here. Testifying to the world that an angel delivered the plates to Joseph Smith says nothing about the nature of Whitmer’s experience as one of the Eight Witnesses. Indeed, nothing in Turley’s statement assigns the “miraculous” to Whitmer’s testimony, and therefore there is no evidence of Turley’s “preconception” or of his supposed “erroneous” understanding of the Testimony of Eight Witnesses. Turley’s statement does not match the content of the Testimony, to be sure, but rather than assume Turley was so wildly mistaken (and that it escaped the notice of the reviewers) it is more likely that Turley was stating what the Testimony rhetorically meant to believing Mormons, not what it actually said. In other words, Whitmer’s testimony was proof that Joseph Smith had indeed received plates from the angel as he claimed. Thus Anderson’s apologetic against Turley’s report is weak and his failure to include it makes his analysis of the witnesses incomplete.

Stephen Burnett’s Reporting of Martin Harris
In an April 1838 letter to Lyman E. Johnson, a former member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles living in Far West, Missouri, Stephen Burnett explained the cause of his recent disillusionment with Mormonism. According to Burnett, Martin Harris declared at a public meeting in Kirtland, Ohio, that he “never saw the plates with his natural eyes,” and that “the eight witnesses [also] never saw them [with their natural eyes] & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it.” Upon hearing Harris’s statement, Burnett said “the last pedestal gave way” and concluded: “if the witnesses whose names are attached to the Book of Mormon never saw the plates as Martin [Harris] admits, [then] there can be nothing brought to prove that any such thing ever existed.”³⁸

Three weeks later at another public meeting, according to Burnett, Harris said he was “sorry for any man who rejected the Book of Mormon for he knew it was true, he said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or a handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain.” He also expressed regret about revealing the true nature of the experience of the eight witnesses, stating that “he never should have told that the testimony of the eight [witnesses] was false, if it had not been picked out of [h]im but should have let it passed as it was.”³⁹

Burnett’s account is supported by Warren Parrish, a fellow dissenter who was also present and heard Harris’s statements. Parrish reported in August 1838 that “Harris, one of the subscribing witnesses, has come out at last, and says he never saw the plates, from which the book [of Mormon] purports to have been translated, except in vision, and he further says that any man who says he has seen them in any other way is a liar, Joseph [Smith] not excepted.”⁴⁰ So there are two independent witnesses to Harris’s public statements.

Anderson attempts to diminish the importance of these two sources, describing Burnett’s letter as “hostile and accusatory, adding distracting static to the line of information.”⁴¹ Hostile for Anderson apparently means that Burnett was a Mormon dissenter and skeptic, but this is nothing but circular reasoning since Burnett’s disbelief was the result of what he had learned from Harris. Rather than supporting and lending credibility to Burnett’s report, Anderson believes Parrish’s account only “clarifies how disbelievers reinterpreted the witnesses’ printed testimonies.” Thus Anderson attempts to explain away independent verification by speculating an interpretive conspiracy by the dissenters to misquote Harris in support of their own reinterpretation of the eight witnesses’ testimonies. Of course, Anderson has no evidence for his ad hoc conspiracy theory and no reason to postulate one other than his need to explain away multiple witnesses.

Anderson points to Parrish’s “except in vision” and Burnett’s “only in vision or imagination” as signs of “static” and “reinterpretation”. Of course, the wording reflects their own conclusions about what Harris had said, and obviously Harris would not have said “only” or “imagination”, but what historical source does not have the reporter’s interpretation or conclusion? Neither was trying to provide a transcript of Harris’s statement. However, these conclusions are easily separated from Harris’s simple statement that the plates were never seen with the natural eye by either the three or eight witnesses. Because Parrish and Burnett personalized what Harris had said does not render their account unreliable.

Anderson tries to suggest that Parrish and Burnett were influenced in their fabrication of Harris’s public confession by E. D. Howe’s 1834 publication of apostate Ezra Booth’s 1831 conclusion that the three witnesses had seen the angel and plates “by faith or imagination.”⁴² Booth had based this conclusion on the same June 1829 revelation cited by Harris (D&C 17), which remained unpublished until 1835. The revelation promised the three witnesses a view of the plates by “faith” and by the “gift” and “power” of God, and instructed them to testify to the world that they had seen the plates “with their eyes … even as my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., has seen them; for it is by my power that he has seen them, and it is because he had faith” (D&C 17:5). As Booth summarized the unpublished revelation, the witnesses “were informed that they should see and hear those things by faith, and then they should testify to the world, as though they had seen and heard, as I see a man, and hear his voice,”⁴³ which we know from subsequent statements was not the case. So when Anderson reads the published Testimony of Three Witnesses as describing a “natural-supernatural” experience, or argues that “if Harris used the word vision to describe the Three Witnesses’ experience, he would have meant there was a real visit of an angel,” he is being led by a document that was intentionally worded to give the wrong impression.

Indeed, the revelation can be read two ways. It could mean either that both Joseph Smith and the witnesses saw the plates with their natural eyes or they both saw them in vision. In other words, Harris’s conclusion about Joseph Smith was based on what was true about himself, and since his experience was subjective and visionary, so was Smith’s. Subsequent statements by Martin Harris and David Whitmer contradict Anderson’s naturalistic reading of the published Testimony and support Parrish’s and Burnett’s reporting of Harris.

Anderson glides over the fact that it was Harris, not Parrish, who referenced the revelation in his 1838 discussion. Anderson asserts that it was Parrish who drew on it “to show that faith was required to see the plates, which proved to Parrish that preconditioning produced a religious delusion.”⁴⁴ However, Parrish was only supplying the implied source for Harris’s statement, and that it was Harris who said “any man who says he has seen them in any other way is a liar, Joseph not excepted; see new edition, Book of Covenants, page 170, which agrees with Harris’s testimony.” Booth had applied the revelation to the three witnesses only, but Harris alluded to it as a principle that also applied to the eight witnesses and Joseph Smith.

Burnett does not explicitly say Harris referenced the revelation, but the wording of his letter strongly implies it. “Martin admits that there can be nothing brought to prove that any such thing ever existed,” writes Burnett, “for it is said on the 171 page of the book of covenants that the three [witnesses] should testify that they had seen the plates even as J[oseph] S[mith] Jr & if they saw them spiritually or in vision with their eyes shut—J[oseph] S[mith] Jr never saw them any other light way & if so the plates were only visionary.” Of course, this statement is couched in rhetorical language and deals with the implications of Harris’s statement, rather than his actual words. However, Burnett’s claim that Harris admitted that there was no visual evidence that the plates existed implies his use of the revelation for justification just as Parrish reported. Anderson’s conclusion that Howe’s 1834 publication of Booth’s letter provided “a promptbook for Burnett and Parrish interpreting Harris in 1838” is therefore ad hoc speculation and ultimately irrelevant since the revelation was used in completely different ways.

Anderson’s next line of argument is to reinterpret Burnett’s account of Harris’s second statement as a complaint that he had been misquoted about the eight witnesses and that despite this complaint Burnett persisted in misrepresenting Harris. Responding to my observation that Harris was a reliable source because he knew the eight witnesses and their testimony well, Anderson argues that the “real question is whether Burnett quoted Harris accurately. The answer is that Burnett continued to believe in a visionary experience for the Eight Witnesses even after Harris said he had given the wrong impression on that issue.”⁴⁵ Of course, Burnett did not confess to doing this—not even a hint. Again, Anderson indulges in ad hoc speculation when he tries to replace Burnett’s report with what he thinks Harris really said at the second meeting. The result is an eisegetic and idiosyncratic interpretation of Burnett’s words with a heavy infusion of Anderson’s own bias.

To justify his heavy-handed mangling of Burnett’s report, Anderson exaggerates Burnett’s bias, arguing that “Burnett’s bias is clear in reporting Harris’s original remarks, where the witness supposedly acknowledged he saw the plates ‘in vision or imagination.’ Yet the word imagination would not have come from Harris, who later wrote, ‘no man ever heard me in any way deny … the administration of the angel that showed me the plates.”⁴⁶ Obviously, Burnett was both reporting and interpreting Harris’s words, but that does not mean he was misrepresenting Harris. He was explaining why Harris’s words had pushed him into disbelief. Burnett said he heard Harris state “he never saw the plates with his natural eyes, only in vision or imagination.” The imagination part is Burnett’s verbalization of an unspoken implication or possibility that existed apart from what Harris believed about it. Harris obviously believed it was a real supernatural experience, which Burnett dutifully reported—lending credibility to his account. So Burnett was not trying to make it appear that Harris denied the reality of his vision, and Anderson’s quoting Harris’s later statement that he had never denied his testimony is irrelevant. More significantly, Burnett’s report that Harris admitted that he had not seen the plates with his “natural eyes” receives independent verification from several residents of Palmyra, New York, who subsequently reported that Harris told them that he had seen the plates with his “spiritual eyes”—all of which were discussed and quoted in my essay but Anderson chose to ignore. John H. Gilbert, who set the type for the Book of Mormon, for example, recalled:

Martin was in the office when I finished setting up the testimony of the three witnesses. … I said to him,—“Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?” Martin looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, “No, I saw them with a spir[i]tual eye.”⁴⁷

As also discussed in my essay, “spiritual eyes” was a term used by other mystics to designate seeing things invisible to the natural eyes. Despite his own beliefs, Harris was well aware that the distinction between spiritual eyes and natural eyes opened the door to skepticism—a door he could have closed by mentioning the completely natural and physical experience of the eight witnesses, but he left that door open as well, which speaks to his integrity as a witness. To interpret Harris’s words as Burnett did is not in itself evidence of bias. Burnett was a troubled believer who was pushed over the edge by what he heard Harris say. Labeling unfavorable testimony as biased simply because it is unfavorable is circular; it is Anderson’s way of immunizing his position against negative evidence.

Another of Burnett’s comments that Anderson believes shows bias is his conclusion that “if they [the witnesses] saw them [plates] spiritually or in vision with their eyes shut … the plates were only visionary.”⁴⁸ Anderson calls this an “interpretive paraphrase” and complains that “there is no parallel for the witnesses equating seeing ‘in vision’ with having ‘their eyes shut.’”⁴⁹ This may be true, but if this is Burnett’s “interpretive paraphrase” it means that the three witnesses’ experience was inward and subjective and not external and objective or—to use Anderson’s interpretive paraphrase—a “natural-supernatural” event. The problem for Anderson is that his paraphrase is based on a superficial reading of the published Testimony, which is not supported by the subsequent clarifying statements of Harris and Whitmer—which were quoted in my essay but Anderson neglected to discuss. David Whitmer, for example, was interviewed in 1885 by returning Mormon missionary James Henry Moyle, who recorded in his journal that the witness said the vision “was indiscribable that it was through the power of God. … he then spoke of Paul hearing and seeing Christ but his associates did not. Because it is only seen in the Spirit.” Moyle “asked if the atmosphere about them was normal.” In other words, did the angel appear in normal surroundings, as Anderson’s interpretation would predict, or had the vision entirely obscured the natural world? According to Whitmer, “it was indescribable, but the light was bright and clear, yet apparently a different kind of light, something of a soft haze.” Moyle noted his disappointment: “I was not fully satisfied with the explanation. It was more spiritual than I anticipated.”⁵⁰ Moyle’s anticipation for a different answer from Whitmer was likely based on his reading of the published Testimony, which means that Anderson is using a faulty gauge for accusing Burnett of bias.

Evidence therefore supports Burnett’s reporting of Harris’s first public statement about the three witnesses, and his reasonable conclusions based on what he heard Harris say are easily separated. Despite this, Anderson feels justified in creating a fiction that Burnett’s report of Harris’s second statement is masking the fact that the witness was “protesting he was misunderstood” and his “words were misused” by the dissenters.⁵¹ This is pure fantasy.

Of course, the main weakness of Anderson’s interpretation is that it is not supported by Burnett’s account, and there is no evidence that he would deliberately misrepresent Harris. Burnett was reporting what Harris had said publically, apparently without fear of being contradicted either by Harris or the many witnesses. Before unpacking Anderson’s convoluted reasoning, Burnett’s report of Harris’s second statement bears repeating in full. According to Burnett, after he, Warren Parrish, and former apostles Luke Johnson and John Boynton had addressed the assemblage,

M[artin] Harris arose & said he was sorry for any man who rejected the Book of Mormon for he knew it was true, he said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or a handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain. And said that he never should have told that the testimony of the eight [witnesses] was false, if it had not been picked out of [h]im but should have let it passed as it was.⁵²

This certainly does not support Anderson’s contention that Harris was “protesting he was misunderstood” and his “words were misused” by the dissenters.⁵³ Rather, it seems obvious that he was merely expressing regret that his disclosure should be used to reject the Book of Mormon and a wish that he could take it back. In other words, he should have withheld this information. There is no complaint that he was being misunderstood or misquoted. Responding to a similar statement in my essay,⁵⁴ Anderson similarly argues: “… but the context is Harris straightening out Burnett by adding his own testimony that there were physical plates.”⁵⁵ But if Harris was trying to straighten out Burnett with regard to the eight witnesses, he could have simply said that they had handled the plates uncovered, but he did not do that. Instead, he referred to his own experience with the covered plates, which implies that he had not been misunderstood or misquoted with regard to himself or the eight witnesses. He was merely attempting to bolster his vision of the plates by adding his physical experience with them on other occasions, not thinking that the two experiences had different possible explanations. Indeed, this added information did nothing to alter what he had said about the visionary experiences of the three and eight witnesses. It is notable that Burnett was not bothered by this information in the least, and he undoubtedly reminded Harris that although he had felt an object through a cloth that he believed were gold plates, “he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain.”

Harris had evidently told the dissenters what he had told John A. Clark in 1828, that he saw the plates “with the eye of faith Y just as distinctly as I see any thing around me,—though at the time they were covered over with a cloth.”⁵⁶ The weakness of such evidence even in Harris’s mind is revealed by his own actions following his meeting with Clark. In March 1829, Harris showed up at Joseph Smith’s door in Harmony, Pennsylvania, demanding to see the plates. Isaac Hale remembered: “Martin Harris informed me that he must have a greater witness, and said that he had talked with Joseph about it.”⁵⁷ At this time, Smith dictated a revelation: “Behold, I say unto you, that my servant Martin has desired a witness from my hand, that my servant Joseph has got the things of which he has testified, and borne record that he has received of me.”⁵⁸ Harris told Isaac Hale that “Joseph informed him that he could not, or durst not show him the plates, but that he (Joseph) would go into the woods where the book of plates was, and that after he came back, Harris should follow his tracks in the snow, and find the book, and examine it for himself.” Hale said that “Harris informed me afterwards, that he followed Smith’s directions, [but] could not find the plates, and [that he] was still dissatisfied.”⁵⁹ Three months later, Harris would receive his “greater witness” by becoming one of the three witnesses, but he never saw the plates uncovered with his natural eyes. Given Harris’s own attitude about his pre-vision experience with the plates, he could hardly blame the dissenters for being unmoved by such stories.

If Harris believed his lifting of the plates in a box or handling them in a cloth contradicted the dissenter position, he was mistaken judging by Burnett’s lack of concern. Anderson interprets this as stubbornness, but it more likely indicates that Harris misunderstood their position. Burnett does not give a theory as to what was in the box or under the cloth, but emphasized that Harris had not seen it. So it was not Harris who “straightened out” Burnett and the other dissenters, but it was Burnett who corrected Harris in his letter, if not in person.

Nevertheless, Anderson continues to argue, “Harris’s response in this second stage represents his true attitude, since Harris said his earlier words were misused. This shows that caution is required in quoting Burnett’s version of any of Harris’s words.”⁶⁰ However, this argument is nonsensical since Harris’s second statement had not modified anything in his first statement and nothing was corrected. Harris may have believed he was adding information about the physicality of the plates that contradicted the dissenter position, but Burnett’s response indicates this was wrong. Similarly, Anderson’s assertion that “the reader comes closer to Harris’s true views when Burnett reports Martin’s later rebuttal” is also nonsense since nothing he said in his second statement about handling the covered plates changed what he had said about seeing the plates with spiritual eyes.⁶¹

Anderson adds speculation to speculation, asserting that Harris “modified his initial comments on the Eight Witnesses,” although nothing in Burnett’s report changed what Harris had said before. Harris’s complaint that he would not have revealed the true nature of the eight witnesses’ experience “if it had not been picked out him” is interpreted by Anderson to mean that Harris had made the statement “under pressure” and that he was “confused by leading questions” and did not mean to say that the eight witnesses had not seen the plates with their natural eyes or that they had hesitated to sign the published Testimony.⁶² “If we compensate for Burnett’s loaded language,” argues Anderson, “Harris’s retraction was essentially this: he never would have agreed that the Eight Witnesses saw the plates through spiritual sight if he had not been confused by leading questions, but would have let their written testimony speak for itself.”⁶³ Compensating for Burnett’s bias requires little more than removing his conclusion that visions are equivalent to imagination, which Harris obviously did not believe. There is therefore no justification for Anderson’s fantasy reconstruction, which flatly contradicts Burnett’s account and is nothing more than his own biased ad hoc insertion into the story. There is also no justification for Anderson’s assertion that “Burnett continued to believe in a visionary experience for the Eight Witnesses even after Harris said he had given the wrong impression on the issue.”⁶⁴ To conclude Burnett was “stubborn” we must first conclude Harris said something other than what Burnett reported, and there is simply no evidence for that.

Individual Statements by the Eight Witnesses
Anderson believes the subsequent statements by some of the eight witnesses affirming that they had handled and seen the plates contradict my thesis. Except for one late interview with John Whitmer, discussed below, these statements are simple affirmations and lack the detail Anderson needs to establish his point. John Whitmer’s 1836 statement, for example, that “I have most assuredly seen the plates … and that I have handled these plates,”⁶⁵ neither affirms Anderson’s reconstruction nor contradicts my theory. Simply, Whitmer could make this statement having handled the plates in a cloth while seeing them in vision.

Anderson responds to my statement that “specific declarations by the witnesses about handling the plates are few and vague”⁶⁶ by calling it “disturbing” and arguing that the “9 references to handling the plates are more than a few. Nor is the word handling vague.”⁶⁷ Of course, “few” is in contrast to the many statements by Harris and Whitmer of their experience; and “vague” is in reference to the lack of detail about the actual manner of their having handled and seen the plates. Anderson overstates what can be learned from these vague and ambiguous sources when he argues that “the Eight Witnesses speak of unlimited direct contact, not a vision of the plates with previous experiences of lifting them when covered.”⁶⁸ Obviously, simple affirmations of seeing and handling the plates neither supports Anderson’s description nor contradicts my theory.

Anderson again tries to argue against my observation that handling and seeing the plates are not necessarily the same experience. I have suggested that the witnesses handled the covered plates but saw them with spiritual eyes, as Harris revealed. If the plates were presented to the group in a box as Ford’s informants claimed, then the handling and lifting of the leaves may have reference to prior experience with the covered plates, although technically they still handled the plates in the box as a group. However, if the plates were presented in a sack or some kind of cloth covering, then the whole experience could have happened at once. Anderson cites Lucy Smith and David Whitmer as evidence that the handling and seeing happened on the same day. As previously discussed, Lucy’s 1845 statement is problematic and is not a specific memory of what was said by the witnesses on the day Joseph Smith showed them the plates. Likewise, Whitmer’s statement is unable to resolve the issue at hand. Anderson quotes Whitmer’s off-handed comment that “the eight witnesses saw them [plates], I think, the next day or the day after” the three witnesses saw them as proof that he believed “the experience of the Eight Witnesses [w]as an event on a given date.”⁶⁹ Regardless, my theory does not deny that the eight men accompanied Joseph Smith into a grove near the Smith cabin where they saw and handled the plates. Only the exact method Joseph Smith employed and the precise nature of the eight witnesses’ experience on that day and how the published Testimony relates to it are at issue. Similarly, the Testimony of Three Witnesses makes it sound like a single event, whereas subsequent statements revealed that Harris had a separate vision of the angel and plates.

Hyrum may have responded to Harris’s public statements about the eight witnesses when he visited Sunbury, Ohio, in April or May 1838 and reportedly said that “he had but too [two] hands and too [two] eyes[.] he said he had seene the plates with his eyes and handeled them with his hands.”⁷⁰ Anderson quotes this source in his book and again in his response to me and Palmer, apparently without realizing that Hyrum’s statement confirms Burnett’s reporting of Harris. Rather than denying he had seen the plates with “spiritual eyes,” Hyrum obfuscated by saying he had only two eyes—which was not a denial of a visionary experience. In my essay, I compared Hyrum’s remark to a similar statement David Whitmer made in 1886: “I have been asked if we saw those things with our natural eyes. Of course they were our natural eyes. There is no doubt that our eyes were prepared for the sight, but they were our natural eyes nevertheless.”⁷¹ Neither Whitmer nor Hyrum were denying the visionary nature of their experiences, only quibbling about the terminology being used and the implication that it was imaginary.

There is only one reported statement of John Whitmer that explicitly mentions handling the plates uncovered, but the source is unreliable and dubious. Not surprisingly, Anderson labors to rehabilitate this source. P. Wilhelm Poulson, an eccentric Mormon with serious involvement with psychic and spiritualistic phenomena, interviewed both David and John Whitmer in April 1878 and made separate reports to the Deseret News in August. According to Poulson, John Whitmer described the plates as being “very heavy … 8 by 6 or 7 inches” joined by “three rings, each one in the shape of a D with the straight line towards the centre.” Then Poulson asked a specific but curious question:

I—Did you see them covered with a cloth?
He—No. He [Joseph Smith] handed them uncovered into our hands, and we turned the leaves sufficient to satisfy us.⁷²

Where did Poulson hear that the witnesses had seen the plates covered? Burnett’s letter was unknown to him. Possibly he spoke to Harris, but more likely he heard it from John Whitmer—the witness who, according to Theodore Turley, said that the plates were shown to him by “a supernatural power.” Poulson likely changed Whitmer’s statement to read the opposite of what he said during the interview, and there is good reason for believing this.

Unfortunately, John Whitmer was dead when Poulson’s account was published and could not challenge the accuracy of the reported interview. However, Poulson’s subsequent publication of his interview with David Whitmer was challenged by the interviewee as containing invented conversation. In a letter to S. T. Mouch, 18 November 1882, David Whitmer complained about Poulson’s account of the interview: “As to what you Say about the correspondence published by P Wilhelm Poulson M D Aug[ust] 20^th 1878. I surely did not make the Statement which you Say he reports me to have made, for it is not according to the facts. And I have always in the fear of God, tried to give a true statement to the best of my recollection in regard to all matters which I have attempted to Explain. And I do not now remember of talking to Mr Poulson on the subject referred to.”⁷³ Unfortunately, we do not know what portion of the interview Whitmer referred to since we do not have Mouch’s letter of inquiry. That there was an inaccuracy suggests that Poulson probably did not keep careful notes during his interviews. At the end of the present account, Poulson states that his conversation “was mostly written down word for word half an hour after the interview.”⁷⁴ “Mostly” suggests that in some instances it may have gone beyond his notes and drew from memory about four months later.

Anderson tries to minimize this problem by arguing that Whitmer “corrected one issue in a report consisting of answers to 20 questions,”⁷⁵ but he was responding to the one question asked of him by Mouch. This does not imply that Whitmer had no other objections. Anderson further argues “about two-thirds of what David reportedly said is corroborated by what he said in other published interviews (most of the other third being new material that cannot be compared for consistency), so Poulson’s report of his interview with John Whitmer likely reflected a similarly high degree of accuracy.”⁷⁶ However, the inaccurate part in David’s interview happens to be the most significant portion, and the parts of John’s interview that can be shown to be inaccurate are likewise major.

Poulson’s interview contains several improbable statements, including David Whitmer’s purported claim that the plates he saw in his vision were “[a]bout eight inches wide and six or seven inches long, as they appeared a little wider than long,” that “[a]bout the half of the book was sealed,” and that “[w]e copied some [of the characters].” But one statement stands out as completely fabricated to resolve an apparent contradiction between the Testimony of Three Witnesses and Joseph Smith’s History. While the Testimony made it appear that all three witnesses had seen the angel and plates together in a single vision, Smith’s History revealed that Harris had his vision separately, after Whitmer and Cowdery had theirs, with only Smith being present. Thus Smith’s History states that following two unsuccessful attempts, Harris withdrew believing he was the cause of their failure. In Harris’s absence, an angel appeared and showed the remaining men the plates. After this vision, Smith joined Harris who was praying “a considerable distance” away, and together, according to Smith, they experienced the same vision.⁷⁷ Poulson tries to harmonize this discrepancy:

He [Harris] was not by us at all when we first saw the angel. First when we told him what we had seen, and were the second time in prayer all together, and when the angel appeared for a second time, we saw Martin Harris by us, and he saw, and we saw it, and our testimony, which we give to the world, is true exactly as you read it.

This is likely the part of the interview Mouch was attempting to verify and Whitmer denied saying, which appears to be an intentional fabrication to strengthen the published Testimony. Given this troubling aspect of Poulson’s interview with David, it is irresponsible for Anderson to not mention this problem, and disingenuous of him to use accurate minor elements to argue that “Poulson’s report of his interview with John Whitmer likely reflected a similarly high degree of accuracy.” In truth, however, Poulson’s handling of David’s interview does not reflect favorably on the unique information contained in his previously published interview with John Whitmer, where a similar pattern emerges. Poulson’s interview with John contains a major problem, which Anderson tries to explain away. According to Poulson, John gave answers to the following:

I—In what place did you see the plates.
He—In Joseph Smith’s house; he had them there. …
I—Were you all eight witnesses present at the same time?
He—No. At that time Joseph showed the plates to us, we were four persons, present in the room, and at another time he showed them to four persons more.

Of course, this flatly contradicts Lucy Smith’s account of the men leaving her in the cabin and going to a nearby grove and returning. Anderson admits these are “problematic answers,” but argues that they are “minor” and offers ad hoc explanations that “John Whitmer possibly said something like ‘at Joseph Smith’s house,’ meaning to him that the Eight Witnesses viewed the plates on that property. … Perhaps John Whitmer originally said that the Eight Witnesses were composed mainly of two groups, meaning the four Whitmer brothers and the three Smiths, with Hiram Page not included in the general comment. Two sets of witnesses might have been mistaken for two separate viewings of the plates.”⁷⁸ And thus we see, once again, Anderson resorting to ad hoc speculations to escape adverse evidence. Whatever the reason, if Poulson can be that far off on the circumstances of the witnesses viewing the plates, how can he be trusted about other unique elements in his account? Despite Anderson’s apologetic, these are not “minor” details.

Poulson’s biography does not support his being a truthful reporter when his self-interest is involved. Anderson tries to minimize this fact—“Though Poulson became an eccentric and fictionalized his background, his ability as a reporter is the main issue in evaluating his interviews with David and John Whitmer.”⁷⁹ Really? What does Poulson have to do to make Anderson skeptical of his ability as a reporter? Here we have an explanation for the fictional elements that appear in his interviews with David and John Whitmer that appear nowhere else and are contradicted by more reliable sources.

Anderson takes issue with my statement that “[i]ndividual statements by the eight witnesses are rare due largely to their early deaths.”⁸⁰ He argues that “rare is inaccurate” since I also list “17 times when one of the Eight Witnesses explained or validated his published testimony or when family members said he was always faithful to it.”⁸¹ However, the context of my statement was accounts containing “[d]etails of what transpired in the Smith grove” and “the historical event behind their Testimony.” At the conclusion of my list, I clearly state: “As can be seen, except for Poulson’s late interview with John Whitmer, specific declarations by the witnesses about handling the plates are few and vague.” This is in contrast with the statements of David Whitmer and Martin Harris about their experience with the plates, both of whom were interviewed many times in their later years.

Anderson, who is a very good collector of sources himself, then quotes a few third hand sources not included in my compilation and claims that he “can document over 40 instances when one of the Eight Witnesses restated his testimony, with the printed declaration of that testimony mentioned or understood in the statement or conversation”⁸²—none of which changes my description that the majority of surviving statements by the eight witnesses are vague and lack historical detail. To cite instances of the eight witnesses affirming their published testimony only begs the question, for it is not the same as affirming Anderson’s interpretation of the Testimony. Context changes how one reads the Testimony, and without additional information from Burnett’s report of Harris and Turley’s report of John Whitmer, one might be led to a naturalistic interpretation. But this additional information changes the context in which both the Testimony and subsequent affirmations are to be read.

The same is true for the Testimony of Three Witnesses, which led Anderson to incorrectly conclude it was based on a “natural-supernatural appearance of the angel with the plates.” Moyle had the same assumption, but was surprised to learn that “[i]t was more spiritual than I anticipated.” Yet, Whitmer said that “our testimony as recorded in the Book of Mormon is strictly and absolutely true just as it is there written.”⁸³ Obviously, the Testimony is ambiguous enough to accommodate more than one interpretation. So when David Whitmer affirmed the truth of the published Testimony, he was not affirming Anderson’s assumption that it was based on a “natural-supernatural” experience. To read it that way would be begging the question, or assuming what one is attempting to prove.

The same is true for Anderson’s assumptions about the Testimony of Eight Witnesses, particularly his concluding argument: “Judged by the agreement of 40 other interviews of the Eight Witnesses, the historian should conclude that Turley misquoted John Whitmer on a miraculous viewing of the plates.”⁸⁴ The fact that these “other interviews” are ambiguous, either containing a generic statement of seeing and handling the plates or affirming the published Testimony, and in no way contradict Turley’s reporting of John Whitmer, means that Anderson’s argument assumes what he is trying to prove. Turley’s account was reviewed by several knowledgeable early Mormon authorities and historians without correction, and is supported by Burnett’s report of Harris as well as the implications of D&C 17 and cannot be discarded based on Anderson’s question-begging assumption—no matter how many times he does it.

Anderson’s closing statement shows just how convoluted and circular his reasoning is:

Among 42 statements or personal reports from the Eight Witnesses, 39 percent give some detail of the experience, such as seeing, handling, or lifting. And as discussed, 10 of these mention handling the plates. The above assertions of Hiram Page, Hyrum Smith, and John Whitmer give a different kind of response, a report of the witness expressly affirming the printed testimony. These simple reaffirmations are 33 percent of the total. Since the original testimony refers to a material event, such restatements do the same and therefore qualify as physical descriptions. Thus over two-thirds of the statements or interviews of the Eight Witnesses are in fact physical descriptions. The remaining interviews are generic assurances of continued belief in the Book of Mormon, which are essentially shorthand reaffirmations of their published testimony.⁸⁵

To assume the original Testimony describes a “material event”—that is, the presence of the uncovered plates—is to beg the question since the testimony does not explicitly state that the plates were uncovered, only that they were seen and handled by the witnesses. This in no way precludes the details provided by Turley’s interview with John Whitmer and Burnett’s report of Harris, and therefore no amount of “simple reaffirmations” substantiate a biased reading of the original Testimony. Anderson’s argument also rests on a false dichotomy of physical versus subjective, and ignores the fact that the Ohio dissenters as well as some current interpreters combine physical handling with subjective sight. Thus Anderson is mistaken when he says: “Although current critics claim a conflict between later sources and the original published testimony, its accuracy is the stated or implied theme of all interviews with the Eight Witnesses.”⁸⁶ It has been stated that the Testimony is misleading, not inaccurate. The Turley and Burnett reports did not contradict the published Testimony, but added detail that clarified the historical setting behind the statement.

In an ad hominal argument, Anderson tries to use my and Palmer’s words against us: “Finally, advocates of a group illusion for the Eight Witnesses admit that the original declaration ‘seems to describe a literal event,’ and its language ‘implies a natural, physical experience.’”⁸⁷ Of course, we also believe the ambiguous language of the original testimonies was intentional, which explains why, as Harris reported, the eight “hesitated to sign that instrument” and why their statements were brief and vague. It also explains why Harris (and by implication all three witnesses) was specifically instructed to say: “I have seen the things which the Lord hath shown unto Joseph Smith, Jun., and I know of a surety that they are true, for I have seen them, for they have been shown unto me by the power of God and not of man. And I the Lord command him, my servant Martin Harris, that he shall say no more unto them concerning these things” (D&C 5:25-26).⁸⁸ Fortunately for historians Harris did not strictly adhere to this commandment and he and David Whitmer supplied details to correct our assumptions and incomplete reading of their Testimony. The same is apparently true for the Testimony of Eight Witnesses by our best interpretation of the evidence.

Anderson argues that my and Palmer’s use of seems and implies should be deleted from our descriptions of the Testimony of Eight Witnesses because “[n]o evidence to the contrary can be shown to come from the witnesses themselves.”⁸⁹ Anderson, who freely uses the reminiscent accounts of the witnesses’ relatives as well as Poulson’s problematic interview, wants to exclude Burnett’s and Parrish’s report of Harris and Turley’s report of John Whitmer because they are secondhand. Mormon apologists typically try to exclude undesirable sources because they are secondhand testimony, but as Louis Gottschalk’s well-known historical primer explains, hearsay evidence or testimony from interested witnesses is not automatically excluded provided it can be demonstrated to come from a credible source.⁹⁰ Turley, Parrish, and Burnett have been shown to be reliable reporters through independent verification, while Poulson was demonstrably unreliable, and the reminiscent accounts were shown to be irrelevant. Even firsthand statements were too vague to establish Anderson’s assumptions.

Response to Steven C. Harper

In a journal for the LDS Church education system called the Religious Educator, Steven C. Harper, an associate professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University and an editor with the Joseph Smith Papers project, published a response to my essay in American Apocrypha, but conflated and confused it with Palmer’s interpretation. “But some have questioned the nature of the witnesses’ experiences, arguing that they were supernatural and visionary,” Harper begins. After citing my essay in an endnote, he continues: “The witnesses, this argument asserts, did not see or touch ancient artifacts as we see or handle trees or chairs but only through unreliably subjective ‘spiritual eyes,’ rending their statements null and void.”⁹¹ “Null and void” is not the conclusion I reached, but that the testimonies of both the three and eight witnesses were based on visionary experiences and therefore should be approached with the same skepticism that accompanies any religious testimony or claim. Harper also misses the point when he states that his purpose is to argue against the “assumption that seeing with spiritual eyes negates one’s witness,” which is a position that neither I nor Palmer articulated. Knowing the experiences of both the three and eight witnesses were visionary changes how one views those experiences, but it does not automatically negate them. The lack of historical verification for the Book of Mormon as well as historical and literary anachronisms brings the reality of their experiences into doubt. No Nephites, no plates. Harper also fails to distinguish between Palmer’s position, which argues that “the [eight] witnesses seem to have seen the records with their spiritual eyes and inspected them in the context of a vision apparently never having actually possessed or touched them,”⁹² and my theory, which combines the physical “hefting” of fake plates concealed in a box or cloth covering with visionary sight.

Harper’s methodology is no better than Anderson’s, repeating many of the same mistakes. He mentions, for example, the “hearsay” accounts of Martin Harris saying he saw the angel and plates with “spiritual eyes,” without mentioning the element of independent corroboration, and uses the same question-begging approach that Anderson used, quoting firsthand statements of Harris and Whitmer affirming they had seen the angel and plates.

Attempting to dismiss all secondhand accounts in this matter, both pro and con, Harper argues: “This kind of evidence is both the most plentiful and the most problematic because it is hearsay. It is not personal knowledge of a witness but filtered through someone else. These statements were heard, written, and sometimes published by persons with vested interests either in affirming the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon or undermining it.”⁹³ Ironically, one of the most “undermining” accounts comes from believer James Henry Moyle’s interview with David Whitmer, which makes his account most credible and lends support to other similar accounts by so-called “interested” reporters. Indeed, Moyle’s report that Whitmer’s account “was more spiritual than I anticipated” and that Whitmer “spoke of Paul hearing and seeing Christ but his associates did not. Because it is only seen in the Spirit” is little different than multiple non-Mormon reports of Harris seeing with “spiritual eyes.”

Harper attempts to portray all secondhand reports as biased: “These statements are most valuable of how a variety of people have chosen to interpret and respond to the Book of Mormon witnesses.” All reports are merely interpretations based on interest? But, as we have seen with Moyle, that is simply not the case. Historians deal with biased testimony all the time. One way around bias is independent corroboration, another is testimony given by a reporter that is not favorable to his own position. As my previous quote from Gottschalk’s historical primer shows, it is not standard historical methodology to dismiss out-of-hand secondhand testimony as Harper implies.

Harper says he writes “as an historian who chooses to believe in the testimonies of the Book of Mormon witnesses” and wants to extend “an invitation to my readers to join me in making that informed choice.”⁹⁴ But this is not what the discussion is about. It is not a matter of belief vs. disbelief, but rather of what kind of testimony he is choosing to believe. Neither Palmer nor I have accused the witnesses of lying, although the published Testimonies of both sets of witnesses are misleading. What Harper should worry about is whether his belief is based on a true or false historical understanding of the experiences of the eleven witnesses. If he wants his readers to join him in making an “informed choice,” he should make sure that it is a correctly informed choice? But, alas, it is not.

Harper’s promise of “informed choice” quickly evaporates when he makes the simplest of errors, claiming that “Joseph Smith’s history is the primary historical source that tells how Y eight other men gathered to see and heft the plates themselves.”⁹⁵ However, Smith’s history merely reproduces the Testimony of Eight Witnesses without any explanation as to how it was obtained. He then quotes the simple firsthand affirmations of Hyrum Smith, Hiram Page, and John Whitmer, that they had seen and handled the plates. Thus, using these question-begging quotes, he knocks down a straw man by making it appear that the critics have ignored this evidence.

Harper then moves to “hearsay evidence”. He begins by giving a lecture about the problems associated with such evidence, but this lesson is incomplete as he fails to explain how historians decide which is more credible than others. He argues that hearsay “is, by nature, unverifiable,” without mentioning the possibility of independent corroboration. He attempts to throw them into one category and label them as “inconsistent,” thereby dismissing the entire category of secondhand testimony. “What witnesses reportedly said in one account differs from the next. … People trying to reconstruct from hearsay what the witnesses saw will end up frustrated. … It is not reliable for reconstructing their experiences.” Lumping all secondhand and hearsay testimony together as hopelessly contradictory and favoring the official account are a typical apologetic maneuvers, but it’s not standard historical methodology. As Gottschalk states: “The historian Y uses primary (that is, eyewitness) testimony whenever he can. When he can find no primary witness, he uses the best secondary witness available. … Thus hearsay evidence would not be discarded by the historian.”⁹⁶ This is just such an instance where the primary testimony is inadequate to answer our questions. Historians are justified in drawing on this secondary testimony, provided they are mindful of credibility, independence, and corroboration.

I believe Harper’s complaint about hearsay is disingenuous since I doubt he would raise the same objection when historians draw on them for less controversial elements. It is only from these secondary sources, for example, that we learn that the three witnesses in addition to seeing the angel and plates also saw a table with other relics on it, such as the Urim and Thummim, brass plates, Liahona, and sword of Laban, in fulfillment of the promise of the June 1829 revelation (D&C 17). Historians who have included this element in their reconstructions are justified because it was reported by competent interviewers of David Whitmer and Martin Harris on more than one occasion.⁹⁷ The same is true for the eight witnesses seeing the plates spiritually.

Response to Daniel C. Peterson and Richard L. Bushman

As discussed above the dissenters in Ohio did not elaborate a theory as to what Harris and the eight witnesses “hefted” in the box or wrapped in a cloth; they were mainly concerned that no one had actually seen the object uncovered. That Joseph Smith had a metallic book of some kind seems probable based on the available testimony. Even antagonist Isaac Hale reported, “I was allowed to feel the weight of the box, and they gave me to understand, that the book of plates was then in the box—into which, however, I was not allowed to look.”⁹⁸ Harris reported that when Alvah Beman put the box of plates into a barrel of beans for transport to Harmony “he said he heard them jink.”⁹⁹ Emma Smith examined the bundle of plates through the cloth and remembered that they would “rustle with a metalic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.”¹⁰⁰ William Smith said the plates “weighed about sixty pounds according to the best of my judgment.”¹⁰¹ Martin Harris said he hefted the plates many times and estimated that the plates “weighed forty or fifty pounds.”¹⁰² From this, the unavoidable conclusion is: Joseph Smith either had in his possession authentically ancient plates or he had a fake set of plates of his own construction.

In my essay, I suggested that “it would have been possible for him to make plates out of tin—which would be consistent with the reported weight of between forty and sixty pounds—and allow the chosen few to feel them through a cloth.”¹⁰³ In my biography of Joseph Smith, I elaborated on this suggestion:

The construction of such a book would have been relatively easy. There were scraps of tin available on the Smith property and elsewhere in the vicinity, and during the several hours Joseph was separated from Emma the night they went to the hill, and on other occasions, he could have easily set up shop in the cave on the other side of the hill or in some corner of the forest. Using a pair of metal shears, it would have been easy to cut a number of 6 x 8 inch sheets. A hole punch, nail, or some similar instrument could have been used to make three holes along one edge of each plate. Then it would have been a matter of passing three wires or rods through the holes and bending them into rings. A book made of tin plates of the dimensions (6 x 8 x 6 inches) described by Smith would have weighed between fifty and sixty pounds, which corresponds to weight that was mentioned by eye‑witness accounts.¹⁰⁴

In a footnote, I calculated the weight of the plates as follows:

A block of solid tin measuring 7 x 8 x 6 inches, or 288 cubic inches, would weigh 74.67 pounds. If one allows for a 30 percent reduction due to the unevenness and space between the plates, the package would then weigh 52.27 pounds. Using the same calculations, plates of gold weigh 140.50 pounds; copper, 64.71 pounds; a mixture of gold and copper, between 65 and 140 pounds.¹⁰⁵

Leading apologist Daniel C. Peterson responded to my theory by misrepresentation and ad hominal mockery. His apologetic is so incredibly silly it deserves to be quoted in full:

But perhaps, Vogel casually suggests in a throwaway line at the end of his essay, Joseph also created some tin plates with which to dazzle the yokels. (The invocation of this secondary prop may indicate that Vogel himself, to his credit, is not entirely persuaded by his “subjective hallucination” thesis.) But once we’ve posited a previously unnoticed Deseret Custom Design Metal Foundry operating under Joseph’s management on the outskirts of Palmyra, that industrial concern also needs to produce the breastplate seen by various witnesses, as well as the brass plates, the Urim and Thummim, the sword of Laban, and the Liahona. One wonders how many skilled metallurgists and craftsmen were available in the area at the time, what the local wage scale was, and why nobody ever seems to have reported the noise and the belching smoke of Joseph’s fraud-producing furnaces.¹⁰⁶

First, I did not contradict my theory with a “throwaway line at the end of [my] essay”; it was an integral element in my theory all along. My examination of the experience of the eight witnesses was centered on a resolution of the problem of physically handling the plates while seeing them spiritually. The line at the end about the ability of Smith to make plates and its accompanying footnote calculating the weight of tin plates merely expressed in detail what was implied in the previous discussion. Peterson’s critique, therefore, is not of my essay but a straw man of his own imagination and lack of attention to detail.

Second, Peterson creates another straw man argument by making the construction of the plates as difficult as possible. Although in my essay I did not go into detail about how Smith could make a set of plates out of a tin sheet, Peterson could have read the elaboration of this point in my biography, which he elsewhere quotes in his essay.¹⁰⁷ It is entirely reasonable to suggest Smith had the ability to make a set of fake plates, as the subsequent examples of James Strang’s plates as well as the Kinderhook plates demonstrate, the former of which Peterson has publically discussed.

Third, Peterson alludes to the vision of the three witnesses when he suggests Smith would also have had to make the breastplate, brass plates, Urim and Thummim, sword of Laban, and Liahona, which has nothing to with the experience of the eight witnesses. Obviously, Joseph Smith would not have needed to construct these additional items since they were only seen in vision and never touched by the three witnesses, although Lucy Smith may have claimed to have felt the breastplate and large spectacles (Urim and Thummim) through a cloth.¹⁰⁸

Despite the irrelevance and absurdity of this line of argument, Peterson continues to repeat it in discussions on the internet, specifically the Mormon Dialogue and Discussion Board, although I have corrected him numerous times.

Because no one—Joseph Smith in particular—explicitly said the plates were made out of tin, Peterson claims my theory is an ad hoc speculation driven by my need to explain away evidence that challenges my theory. He argues:

A marvelous example of ad hoc improvisation occurs in his 2002 essay on “The Validity of the Witnesses’ Testimonies,” where, after a lengthy attempt to discredit the witnesses by portraying them as alienated from empirical reality and as having merely imagined the plates of the Book of Mormon, or seen them in a subjective hallucination, he suddenly introduces the idea, without even a trace of supporting evidence, that Joseph Smith might perhaps, conceivably, have faked a set of tin plates in order to deceive his friends. … However, rigidly unwilling to accept the testimony of the witnesses at face value, he invents an unevidenced and rather implausible pseudofact in order to salvage his rejection of their claims. … Dogmatically committed to his position, Vogel is willing to resort to what seem to me painfully obvious ad hoc just-so stories in order to eliminate evidence that challenges his position.¹⁰⁹

Apparently, Peterson is unaware that his theory that the box or cloth concealed a genuinely ancient artifact is also ad hoc—by his own definition—because no one saw the plates uncovered in a non-visionary situation. Given the fact that Joseph Smith deliberately withheld this information, there is no documentation for either theory. But that’s my point. Contrary to apologetic assumptions, the door is open for more skeptical interpretations that are consistent with a non-historical Book of Mormon. Previously in the same essay, Peterson had acknowledged the need for explaining the origin of the object Joseph Smith presented to the witnesses and others: “If the plates really existed, somebody made them. And if no Nephites existed to make them, then either Joseph Smith, or God, or somebody else seems to have engaged in simple fraud. The testimony of the witnesses exists, I think, to force a dichotomous choice: true or false?”¹¹⁰ If an answer to this question is unavoidable, on what basis does he privilege his speculation and categorically exclude others? The simplest answer—the least ad hoc—is that Joseph Smith concealed the plates from view because they were made out of tin and could not pass visual inspection. Otherwise, the ban on visual inspection is highly suspicious and makes no sense. Moreover, tin was plentiful in Smith’s immediate environment and consistent with the reported weight. On the other hand, because gold is too heavy, Peterson is forced to make further “ad hoc” speculations about the metallic composition of the plates to avoid evidence that challenges his position.¹¹¹ Ultimately, Peterson’s characterization of my position as an example of an ad hoc escape from negative evidence is flawed since my discussion of the nature of the eleven witnesses’ experiences is documented and the existence of an object that no one sees is hardly a challenge to my conclusion that there were no Nephites. Contrary to Peterson’s assertion, there is nothing inherently wrong with supplying an explanation of the plates that is consistent with a non-historical Book of Mormon.

In his biography of Joseph Smith, historian Richard L. Bushman similarly tried to dismiss my suggestion that Joseph Smith fabricated a set of plates from tin as unwarranted speculation:

Dan Vogel, a recent biographer, hypothesizes that Joseph fabricated the plates from tin while he was at Cumorah. Contemporaries speculated that he wrapped a tile brick in a cloth. One deception led to another until Joseph had fabricated a fabulous tale. These explanations keep the story within the realm of the ordinary but require considerable fabrication themselves. Joseph “may” have done this and “probably” did that. Since the people who knew Joseph best treat the plates as fact, a skeptical analysis lacks evidence. A series of surmises replaces a documented narrative.¹¹²

Bushman’s suggestion that there is only one “documented narrative” is simply untrue. By his own admission some of Smith’s contemporaries “speculated” that something other than real gold plates were under the cloth. That those who “knew Joseph best” chose to believe him doesn’t make their position any less speculative than other contemporaries. Of course, the Smiths had more accurate information about the object under the cloth than outsiders and knew the tile-under-the-cloth theory and sand-in-the-box theory were untrue. Regardless, the possibility that Joseph Smith could have made a set of fake plates is also part of the “documented narrative.” This would be true even if non-believers had not suggested it, as demonstrated by Martin Harris seeking a “greater witness,” although he had hefted the plates in the cloth many times. There would be no reason to believe, if there were not also a reason for skepticism.

Because the plates were covered, the statements of Smith’s family and friends are only evidence of their trust. Nothing more. They concluded Joseph was telling the truth because they could feel the plates and rings through the cloth and could hear a metallic sound when they ruffled the pages. But that is where their testimony ends. While their testimonies can be used to dismiss specific speculations—that the box contained sand or the cloth concealed a brick tile, for instance—they cannot be used to eliminate speculation altogether because they are themselves speculations.

Moreover, Bushman should have recognized that my discussion of the plates did not begin with a wild speculation about how Joseph Smith could have made them out of tin, but rather, as explained in my introduction, with the assumption that the Book of Mormon is not real history. Thus, to the extent that one believes the evidence points to a non-historical Book of Mormon, it also points to something other than real gold plates under the cloth. The two are inseparably connected. Bushman’s attempt to straitjacket historians with a one-sided narrative that serves the believer’s agenda should be rejected. It is one thing to narrate the story from the believers’ point of view, as Bushman does, but quite another to proscribe other historians from exploring other aspects of the story. The fact is that Smith, by concealing the plates as he did, invited speculation. It is a part of the story that cannot be ignored.

Response to Alan Goff

In his 2004 critique of American Apocrypha, Alan Goff failed to discuss the specifics of my essay—whether or not the three and eight witnesses viewed the plates subjectively and the possibility that they hallucinated—but instead attempted to derail the discussion with an esoteric and irrelevant discussion about epistemology, using a postmodern critique of knowledge as an apologetic against a position I did not take. Indeed, it is Goff’s extreme anti-positivist stance and lack of familiarity with the sources and subject that cause him to distort my arguments.

This is apparent right from the beginning of his discussion, where he says “Vogel’s goal in his essay about Book of Mormon witnesses is to deny any material or naturalistic witness of plates or angels,” and then claims that I follow the “positivists who believe an event is valid only if it can be demonstrated empirically.”¹¹³ Of course, I never made that argument, but Goff attempts to justify this assertion by quoting the following statement I made:

Despite the use of naturalistic language in the Testimony of Three Witnesses—particularly the emphasis on seeing the plates with their “eyes” as well as the failure to mention the angel’s glory—subsequent statements by Harris and Whitmer point to the visionary aspects of their experience. In other words, the event was internal and subjective and in the fullest sense a vision.¹¹⁴

The connection Goff makes between my argument and positivism as he defines it is loose and his understanding of my argument is incomplete and amounts to a straw man. My goal here was not to argue that visionary experiences are automatically discounted, as Goff asserts, but to controvert Richard Anderson’s superficial reading of the published Testimony (that the three witnesses’ experience was a “natural-supernatural appearance” of the angel and plates, that the angel was literally, physically, and objectively present) by bringing into the discussion the subsequent statements of Whitmer and Harris, which make it clear that it was spiritual, supernatural, and subjective. Thus the discussion was about the nature of the three witnesses’ experience, not about the nature of reality. Goff conveniently ignores this context and tries to force the discussion into a path he understands better. If my discussion stresses the non-physical subjective nature of the witnesses’ experience, it’s not necessarily because I’m a positivist, naturalist, empiricist, or naive realist, but because apologists have presented the published Testimonies as empirical evidence for the existence of the gold plates.

Goff follows this misinterpretation with another: “Vogel conflates visions with hallucinations to make the straightforward assertion that visionary experiences do not amount to historical evidence.” Of course, to count visionary experiences as historical evidence one would have to decide that visionary experiences were real, as opposed to hallucination or deception. However, that was not the context of what I was discussing. To support his assertion that I reject visions as historical evidence, Goff quotes my statement: “The real question is not the trustworthiness of the witnesses but whether testimony resulting from visions or hallucinations is reliable.”¹¹⁵ This statement was in response to Anderson’s argument that the vision of the angel and plates was real because the witnesses were honest, intelligent, God-fearing people. Anderson’s argument indicates that he, like Goff, has a blind spot for the possibility of hallucination. We know humans hallucinate; we don’t know that they have extrasensory experiences with real angels and plates. Before we treat visions as historical evidence, Goff needs to tell us how to distinguish hallucination from a real vision, or at least acknowledge the ambiguous nature of such evidence.

Rather than automatically dismissing visions as non-historical, as Goff asserts, the obvious point I was attempting to make is that when the experience is properly understood as a vision and that the witnesses did not experience the angel and plates the same as they did the natural world the possibility for hallucination exists. This is repeatedly and clearly stated in my essay.¹¹⁶ Is Goff willing to concede the possibility of hallucination? Thus I conclude: “Given the fact that the three witnesses saw a vision and that the experience of the eight witnesses seems to have been similarly visionary, there is no compelling evidence that Joseph Smith actually possessed anciently constructed plates.”¹¹⁷ Note that this conclusion is a rejection of the empirical-evidence arguments of the apologists, not a categorical rejection of supernaturalism. Nevertheless, Goff veers off topic into a discussion of the nature of reality:

The positivist worldview denies the supernatural. That denial is not based on evidence but on presuppositions. Modernity presupposes that material reality is all there is. Religious belief requires that reality not be exhausted by a naive materialism. But to claim that materialism is adequate to explain all of reality is to invoke a metaphysics. We must recognize that modernity is being contradictory here, for to claim that materialism is all there is goes beyond material claims; it is not itself empirically verifiable.¹¹⁸

This statement is a jumble of incoherence. Of course, a denial of the supernatural is not based on evidence, but a lack of it. Strictly speaking, one can’t prove something doesn’t exist, only that the warrant for such belief is insufficient. Goff has also smuggled in a question-begging definition of “reality” that includes the supernatural and then argues that materialism can’t explain all reality. Obviously, one must assume reality includes supernaturalism before one can accept Goff’s criticism of materialism as an incomplete worldview. Like assuming invisible purple elephants exist before conceding the categories of grey and white (and rare pink) elephants are incomplete. Thus Goff begs the question by assuming what he has yet to demonstrate, and that’s a problem for him. So he attempts to shift the burden by suggesting that materialists need to prove supernaturalism doesn’t exist—otherwise they hold a “naive” worldview based on metaphysics, the same as the supernaturalists. This is not only a highly questionable way of attaching the label of metaphysics, but also a feeble attempt to defend faith by attacking naturalists and materialists with tu quoque (“you too”) ad hominem. My own skepticism of the supernatural is not based on naturalism or materialism, but rather on the insufficient warrant and incoherence of the supernaturalists’ position.¹¹⁹

While I have been forthright about my naturalistic bias, it is not necessary to resolve the naturalism/supernaturalism debate to make an assessment of Mormon testimony. Even if supernaturalism is a legitimate worldview that does not mean that every claim of it is true.

Again, the purpose of my essay was not to automatically discount visions as hallucinations; it was less ambitious. My aim was to dismantle the apologetic of some Mormon scholars who believe the testimony of the three and eight witnesses prove Joseph Smith possessed real anciently engraved gold plates. However, evidence indicates that the witnesses’ experiences were less material than assumed. This discovery opens the possibility of hallucination, but it does not prove it. I’m not that naive. However, if I were to argue that the witnesses’ experiences with the plates were hallucinatory, I would base that argument on the lack of historical verification for the Book of Mormon. No real Nephites, no real plates, therefore the witnesses hallucinated. If one concludes the Book of Mormon is not historical which, given the state of our evidence at the moment is the most reasonable conclusion, then it is also reasonable to conclude the witnesses hallucinated. Unlike other religious traditions, Mormonism is vulnerable to this kind of critique.

In the final analysis, Goff contributes nothing towards the historical question raised in my essay regarding the nature of the Book of Mormon witnesses’ experiences. Were the experiences of the three and eight witnesses based on subjective experiences rather than the objective presence of an angel or the uncovered plates? Because he does not engage the arguments of either side of the debate and fails to consider the evidence and sources, Goff’s esoteric discussion on the nature of reality is irrelevant and a red herring.

Notes:

1. Dan Vogel, “The Validity of the Witnesses’ Testimonies,” in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, ed. Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 79-121. I also discuss my assessment of the Book of Mormon witnesses in Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996-2003), 2:254-58, 3:464-72; 5:9-11, 345-47 (hereafter cited as EMD); and Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 443-50, 466-69.

2. Richard L. Anderson, Review of Lyndon W. Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, in Journal of Mormon History 20 (Spring 1994): 188.

3. Richard L. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14/1 (2005): 18-31, 125-27.

4. Grant H. Palmer, “Witnesses to the Golden Plates,” chap. 6 of An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 175-213. Palmer’s views about the experiences of the witnesses are similar to mine, although I regard his suggestion that the eight witnesses “handled the plates in vision” as unlikely (206). I favor the view that the witnesses’ experience was aided by a set of fake plates concealed under a cloth that were physically felt but spiritually seen. Palmer also suggests that Smith may have made “a plate-like object to persuade belief” (207), although he does not combine this with the experience of the eight witnesses.

5. For a discussion and sources of this, see below. Note that I am not making an assessment about the reality of visionary experiences. At this point, I’m merely attempting to establish the nature of what the witnesses experienced and contrast that with the claims of some apologists.

6. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 20.

7. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 125, n. 10. Anderson’s source for this comment is David B. Dille, “Additional Testimony of Martin Harris (One of the Three Witnesses) to the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon,” Millennial Star 21 (20 August 1859): 545-55 (EMD 2:297), who quoted Harris saying: “did I not at one time hold the plates on my knee an hour-and-a-half, whilst in conversation with Joseph, when we went to bury them in the woods, that the enemy might not obtain them? Yes, I did. And as many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated I handled with my hands, plate after plate.” The similarity between this reported statement and the Testimony of Eight Witnesses may be due to Dille’s incorrect assumption that Harris saw the plates uncovered and the time-lapse between his interview with Harris and recording it on 15 September 1853, after his arrival in England (see EMD 2:297-98, n. 2).

8. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 20.

9. Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1981).

10. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 20.

11. Palmer, Insider’s View, 206.

12. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 126, n. 13.

13. Vogel, Joseph Smith, xvi. This quote is taken from the following argument: “Arguing that skeptics like me are victims of their own ‘naturalistic assumptions’ attempts to divert attention from the fact that there is simply no reliable proof for the existence of the supernatural. Naturalism is part of our everyday experience; supernaturalism is not. The burden of proof rests with those making supernatural claims, and until such claims are proven ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ one is justified to approach such claims skeptically.”

14. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 21.

15. Vogel, “Validity,” 102.

16. Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 15 April 1838, Joseph Smith Letterbook (1837-43), 2:64-66, Joseph Smith Papers, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City (EMD 2:292). Harris told John A. Clark that he saw the plates “with the eye of faith … just as distinctly as I see any thing around me,—though at the time they were covered over with a cloth” (John A. Clark, Letter to Dear Brethren, 31 August 1840, The Episcopal Recorder [Philadelphia] 18 [12 September 1840]: 99 [EMD 2:270]). This is probably what Harris told David B. Dille in 1859, though Dille omitted the cloth and echoed the wording of the Testimony of Eight Witnesses: “did I not at one time hold the plates on my knee an hour-and-a-half, whilst in conversation with Joseph, when we went to bury them in the woods, that the enemy might not obtain them? Yes, I did. And as many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated I handled with my hands, plate after plate” (“Additional Testimony of Martin Harris …,” Millennial Star 21 [20 August 1859]: 545-55 [EMD 2:297]).

17. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 21.

18. Lucy Smith, “Preliminary Manuscript,” 104, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City (EMD 1:396).

19. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 22; emphasis added.

20. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 22.

21. Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois, from Its Commencement As a State in 1818 to 1847 (Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Co., 1854), 258 (EMD 3:333).

22. Vogel, “Validity,” 103. See Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 79-80.

23. Vogel, “Validity,” 103.

24. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 22.

25. Ibid.

26. Theodore Turley, Memoranda, [2]-[3], Joseph Smith History Documents, Bx 1, fd 15, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Handwriting of Thomas Bullock; interlinear insertions (enclosed in angled brackets) by Willard Richards. Apparently dates to 28 February 1845, when Bullock recorded in Church Historian’s Office journal: “Turley in office all afternoon relating the difficulties in Missouri” (2:9; cf. 1:30.) Cf. DHC 3:307-8.

27. 5:240.

28. Palmer, Insider’s View, 205-6.

29. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 23.

30. Ibid.

31. “A Visit to John Whitmer,” Deseret Evening News 8 (12 April 1875): 3; rept. Deseret News 24 (14 April 1875): 13.

32. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 23.

33. According to historian David Hackett Fischer, “The fallacy of proof by analogy is a functional form of error, which violates a cardinal rule of analogical inference—analogy is a useful tool of historical understanding only as an auxiliary to proof. It is never a substitute for it, however great the temptation may be or however difficult the empirical task at hand may seem” (Historian’s Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought [New York: Harper and Row, 1970], 255).

34. Manuscript History, Book C-1, 913, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

35. Minutes, Review of Book C-1, 29 July-11 Nov. 1845, Located inside back cover of Book C-1, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Handwritings of Willard Richards, Thomas Bullock, Franklin D. Richards, and Wilmer Benson.

36. Bruce N. Westergren, From Historian to Dissident: The Book of John Whitmer (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 56.

37. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 23.

38. Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 15 April 1838, Joseph Smith Letterbook (1837-43), 2:64, 65, Joseph Smith Papers, LDS Church History Library (EMD 2:291, 292-93).

39. Ibid., 64 (EMD 2:291).

40. Warren Parrish to E. Holmes, 11 August 1838, in Evangelist (Carthage, OH) 6 (1 October 1838): 226. Parrish supplies the scriptural reference alluded to by Harris: the revelation dictated by Joseph Smith in June 1829 that promised the three hopeful witnesses a view of the plates if their faith was strong and instructed them to testify to the world that they saw the plates “even as my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., has seen them; for it is by my power that he has seen them, and it is because he had faith” (D&C 17:5).

41. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 24.

42. Ezra Booth to Reverend Ira Eddy, 24 October 1831, “Mormonism—No. III,” Ohio Star (Ravenna, OH) 2 (27 October 1831): 3; rept. in E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH: author, 1834), 186-87 (EMD 5:309).

43. Ibid.

44. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 24.

45. Ibid., 25.

46. Ibid., 24-25. Quote is from Martin Harris to H. B. Emerson, January 1871, Saints’ Herald 22 (15 October 1875): 630 (EMD 2:338).

47. John H. Gilbert, “Memorandum, made by John H. Gilbert Esq, Sept[ember]. 8th, 1892[,] Palmyra, N.Y.,” 5, Palmyra King’s Daughters Free Library, Palmyra, NY (EMD 2:548). See also John H. Gilbert to James T. Cobb, 16 Mar. 1879, Theodore A. Schroeder Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library, New York, NY (EMD 2:526); “Mormon Leaders at Their Mecca,” New York Herald (25 June 1893): 12 (EMD 2:551). Pomeroy Tucker, who was foreman in Grandin’s printing office, said Harris “used to practice a good deal of his characteristic jargon about ‘seeing with the spiritual eye,’ and the like” (Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism [New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1867], 71). Palmyra Presbyterian minister Jesse Townsend reported that Harris claimed to have seen the plates with “spiritual eyes” (Jesse Townsend to Phineas Stiles, 24 December 1833, in Ibid., 290). When pressed about his vision, Harris also told John A. Clark: “I saw them with the eye of faith” (John A. Clark to Dear Brethren, 31 August 1840, Episcopal Recorder (Philadelphia) 18 (12 September 1840): 98 (EMD 2:270).

48. Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 15 April 1838, 65 (EMD 2:292-93).

49. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 25; emphasis added.

50. James Henry Moyle, Diary, 28 June 1885, LDS Church History Library (EMD 5:141)

51. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 24.

52. Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 15 April 1838, 64 (EMD 2:291).

53. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 24.

54. See Vogel, “Validity,” 100, where I state “Harris expressed regret about revealing the true nature of the experience of the eight witnesses.”

55. Ibid. Emphasis added.

56. John A. Clark, Letter to Dear Brethren, 31 August 1840, The Episcopal Recorder [Philadelphia] 18 (12 September 1840): 99 (EMD 2:270).

57. “Mormonism,” Susquehanna Register 9 (1 May 1834): 1 (EMD 4:286).

58. Book of Commandments 4:1; cf. D&C 5:1.

59. “Mormonism,” Susquehanna Register 9 (1 May 1834): 1 (EMD 4:286-87).

60. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 25.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid.

64. Ibid.

65. John Whitmer, “Address,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2 (March 1836): 286-87 (EMD 5:239).

66. EMD 3:468.

67. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 27.

68. Ibid.

69. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 27. “Report of Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith,” Deseret News, 16 November 1878; reprinted in the Millennial Star 40 (9 December 1878): 771-74 (EMD 5:50).

70. Sally Parker to John Kempton, 26 August 1838, microfilm, Family History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, microfilm no. 840025.

71. Nathan Tanner, Jr., to Nathan A. Tanner, 17 February 1909, LDS Church History Library (EMD 5:170). After his interview with Whitmer, Tanner recorded in his journal: “He then explained that he saw the plates and with his natural eyes, but he had to be prepared for it—that he and the other witnesses were overshadowed by the power of God and a halo of brightness indescribable” (Nathan Tanner, Jr., Journal, 13 May 1886, [54-55], LDS Church History Library [EMD 5:166]).

72. P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors, 31 July 1878, Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878 (EMD 5:248).

73. David Whitmer to S. T. Mouch, 18 Nov. 1882, Whitmer Collection, Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence, MO (EMD 5:36). Anderson believes the recipient of the letter was “L. F. (or T.) Monch (or Mouch),” whom he identifies as probably Louis F. Moench, an Ogden educator.

74. P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editor, 13 August 1878, Deseret Evening News, 16 August 1878 (EMD 5:40).

75. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 27.

76. Ibid.

77. J. Smith, Manuscript History, Book A-1, 24-25 (EMD 1:84-85); cf. Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 7 vols. (2nd ed. rev.; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1948 printing), 1:52-57; and “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 3 (1 September 1842): 897-98.

78. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 28, 127 n. 62.

79. Ibid., 27.

80. EMD 3:465.

81. Anderson, AAttempts to Redefine,@ 28.

82. Ibid.

83. Joseph F. Smith, Diary, 7-8 September 1878, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City (EMD 5:44).

84. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 30.

85. Ibid., 31; emphasis added.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid. Quoting Palmer, Insider’s View, 204, and Vogel, “Validity,” 97.

88. To Joel Tiffany’s question, “How did the Lord show you these things?” Harris replied, “I am forbidden to say anything how the Lord showed them to me, except that by the power of God I have seen them” (“Mormonism—No. II,” Tiffany’s Monthly 5 [August 1859]: 166; EMD 2:306).

89. Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine,” 31.

90. Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method, 2nd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), 150. On p. 165, Gottschalk states: “The historian Y uses primary (that is, eyewitness) testimony whenever he can. When he can find no primary witness, he uses the best secondary witness available. Y Thus hearsay evidence would not be discarded by the historian.”

91. Steven C. Harper, “Evaluating the Book of Mormon Witnesses,” Religious Educator 11/2 (2010): 37.

92. Palmer, Insider’s View, 207

93. Harper, “Evaluating,” 38.

94. Ibid.

95. Ibid., 38-39.

96. Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method, 2nd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), 165.

97. See, for example, Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 78.

98. “Mormonism,” Susquehanna Register, and Northern Pennsylvanian 9 (1 May 1834): 1 (EMD 4:286).

99. “Mormonism—No. II,” Tiffany’s Monthly 5 (August 1859): 167; (EMD 2:307).

100. Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald 26 (1 October 1879): 290 (EMD 1:541).

101. William Smith, William Smith on Mormonism (Lamoni, IA: Herald Steam Book and Job Office, 1883), 12 (EMD 1:497).

102. “Mormonism—No. II,” 166 (EMD 2:306).

103. Vogel, “Validity,” 108.

104. Vogel, Joseph Smith, 98.

105. Ibid., 600, n. 65. See also Vogel, “Validity,” 120-21, n. 134.

106. Daniel C. Peterson, “Editor’s Introduction—‘In the Hope that Something Will Stick’: Changing Explanations for the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Review 16/2 (2004): xxviii.

107. Ibid., xxxi, nn. 66 and 67.

108. Lucy Smith, “Preliminary Manuscript,” 61-62, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City (EMD 1:328-29); Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for many Generations (Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1853), 107 (EMD 1:339).

109. Daniel C. Peterson, “Editor’s Introduction—Not So Easily Dismissed: Some Facts for Which Counterexplanations of the Book of Mormon Will Need to Account,” FARMS Review 17/2 (2005): xlii-xliii.

110. Ibid., xxiv.

111. I address this theory in Vogel, “Validity,” 120-21, n. 134: “Using the same calculations, plates of gold would weigh 140.50 pounds. Reed Putnam has suggested that the plates were made of copper with a 23-carat gilded surface—much like the ancient Mesoamerican alloy tumbaga. Reducing the weight of the plates by 50 percent, Putnam estimates that tumbaga plates would have weighed between 53 and 86 pounds (see Reed H. Putnam, “Were the Plates of Mormon of Tumbaga?” Papers, 15^th Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures [Provo, UT: BYU Extension Publications, 1964; and “Were the Golden Plates Made of Tumbaga?” Improvement Era [Sept. 1966]: 788-89, 828-31). Following my own calculations, plates of copper would weigh sixty-five pounds, even without the gilding. The earliest tumbaga specimen—found in British Honduras and dating to the early classic period—has little to do with Nephi’s supposed construction of plates a thousand years earlier. Metallurgy as such was not known to Central America until circa A.D. 900. Besides, with such a high copper content, the plates would have certainly corroded during their 1400-year deposit in the moist soil of western New York, a fact that Putnam’s theory cannot explain.”

112. Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 58.

113. Alan Goff, “Positivism and the Priority of Ideology in Mosiah-First Theories of Book of Mormon Production,” FARMS Review 16/1 (2004): 20.

114. Vogel, “Validity,” 86.

115. Ibid., 108.

116. “Since the vision of the three witnesses can be classified as a mystical experience, the subject of hallucination cannot be ignored” (Ibid., 90); “While one might feel confident about visions experienced by multiple witnesses, such a phenomenon does not automatically rule out the possibility of hallucination” (Ibid., 105).

117. Ibid., 108.

118. Goff, “Positivism,” 21.

119. Elsewhere I have said: “No biographer is completely free of bias. As is no doubt apparent, my inclination is to interpret any claim of the paranormal—precognition, clairvoyance, telekinesis, telepathy—as delusion or fraud. I do not claim that the supernatural does not exist, for it is impossible to prove a negative. I maintain only that the evidence upon which such claims rest is unconvincing to me” (Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), xii.

September 7, 1844; Saturday. [p. 500][The] High Council [met] Sep[tember] 7 1844. E[lde]r S[amuel] Bent offered a motion that all withdraw except the Councilors after which E[lde]r Bent called upon E[lde]r [William] Huntington to state the business. E[lde]r W[illiam] Huntington said the business he had was that he felt to make an objection to bro[ther] [Leonard] Soby’s sitting as councillor in consequence of his saying that [Sidney] Rigdon was president.⁴⁶

E[lde]r Soby said it was like a thunderstorm to him. He wondered why bro[ther] [William] Clayton⁴⁷ was invited this morning and now why he should be appointed clerk. He would like to know what you mean. ["]Has there been any charges brought against me — Am I to be cut off contrary to the practice[?] I challenge this council to show where I have committed an immoral act. What have I done that I should be treated this way[?] I don’t want to commit myself [to secrecy] — [You say] I must be made a sacrifice [to] all in secret — [to a policy] concocted in secret[.] If you feel disposed to sacrifice me — if you feel disposed to reject me, do it.["]

E[lde]r Bent said he was aware that bro[ther] Huntington was [p. 501]going to reject bro[ther] Soby and thats why he wished the council alone. It was out of regard to his feeling. The brethren thought it was best to be alone. E[lde]r Soby again replied that his objections was not against [what] the brethren put out[,] but against bro[ther] Clayton being called in to be clerk. ["]Has any brother come to labor with me[?] I have no objections to [an] investigation. All I want is [that] the same measure I have measured to others should be measured unto me[,] and [with] the measure you mete to me[,] [you] shall be measured[,] [the same] to you. I say it in the name of the Lord Jesus.["]

Pres[ident] [Charles C.] Rich said that he considered this move to be a course designed to save brother Soby and not destroy him. Bro[ther] Huntington had objections and this is the place where it should be investigated while we are by ourselves. There has been no feelings but to save each other and we should not suffer prejudice to rise in our hearts. If there is any thing wrong it is our privilege to have it investigated. As to bro[ther] Clayton being here for clerk it was voted by the Council.

Bro[ther] Huntington said he had talked on the subject with bro[ther] Soby and he said that when he had talked in secret his language had been misconstrued. It is a time of great interest to the church[.] There are many [claimants] rising up and calling [us] up. It is ["]lo here & lo there["] [in] no less than five branches — I have found that your house is a house of resort for Pres[ident] Rigdon — I dont think it is right. I think Pres[ident] Rigdons course is got up by the devil. and No man on earth[,] I believe[,] has any idea of killing Pres[ident] [William] Marks. Your house is a place of resort for those who are seeking to uproot the kingdom. I have good feeling towards you so far as you go right. The authority is in the twelve.⁴⁸

E[lde]r Soby said there has always been good feelings. ["]A few days ago our private clerk was turned out of the room in a case of more importance than mine. I[t] must be brought up [that in this instance][,] the clerk must write down all I say without a moment warning. Is that christian like[?] Did bro[ther] Huntington advise me [p. 502][of what to expect?] — I thought so little of our discourse I have not thought of it. The remarks I then made ^in this upper room^ are as firm now as they was then.⁴⁹

I said I believed E[lde]r Rigdon was the man, I still believe it — Why was I not cut off then[?] Bro[ther] Bent could ha[ve] as easily consulted me as to bring bro[ther] W[illia]m Clayton to write down all I say.⁵⁰ It seems to be for my destruction — I dont want to injure this place, the twelve or any man — I have not had a bad heart — I prayed and got the highest degree of evidence I could — Bro[ther] Hyrum [Smith] told me I was not to blame. Bro[ther] Joseph [Smith] did not curse me as has been supposed. Why not give me another week to give me a chance to act my feelings out[?] — I have not expressed my feelings untill within a day or two.["]

E[lde]r Bent said to bro[ther] Soby[:] ["]This is the place where we should express our feelings["] — He asked bro[ther] Soby to tell his feelings about E[lde]r Rigdon — Soby said he did not want to be judged in haste[.] ["]Dont ask me questions here to condemn my­self.["]­ E[lde]r Bent said he was willing that S[oby] should have time. The question he wanted to ask was, did he acknowledge E[lde]r Rigdon to preside or the Twelve[?]

E[lde]r G[eorge] W Harris moved that the charges be written out and presented for trial at a future meeting. This was objected to by several. S[oby] said he would not answer any questions to day. E[lde]r [Alpheus] Cutler said the charges can be made out in a few minutes. Soby has took a course for his own injury. Had the other clerk been here he would have been rejected. This charge is brought up by the authority of the Twelve, and if brother Soby is not with the Twelve he is no longer a counseller here. E[lde]r Rigdon has no authority to lead this church.

[p. 503]E[lde]r [Henry G.] Sherwood said brother Sobys objection to the clerk was of no use [because] at the time he refers to we had no need of a clerk. Another objection [was] at the time we had a private council — he says he had the same feelings and [asked] why did we not cut him off then — It would have been moonshine⁵¹ untill there was a proper organization. He referred to Sobys objections against the clerk. ["]The position you have taken[,] bro[ther] Soby[,] has gone against you — And I have objections to setting in Council with you untill this is settled — We set in council to judge of matters in the Church and I want all to be in the same faith. I think bro[ther] Soby is disqualified from being a counciller["] —

E[lde]r Soby said he had no man to defend him. ["]I can answer his objections — but there is no one to defend me. Has there been no defence in other cases[?] This thing has been concocted by the Twelve — therefore my doom is fixed [and] my die is cast. Who could make a speech without there being some objections[?] You do not expect me to be infallible.["] E[lde]r Marks proposed that he withdraw, but [Thomas] Grover objected untill he had answered certain questions.

E[lde]r Rich said this council[,] if it is any thing[,] it is the council of God to judge matters pertaining to the Kingdom of God. If there are things in the Council which are wrong we are not fit to do business. Bro[ther] Soby has been ordained by E[lde]r Rigdon and is going away and [they] are using an influence against this place[.] We object to holding on to any one who are taking this course. We want to take a course to save ourselves — and this is the reason why we want bro[ther] Soby to come out and answer the charges.

Soby said he felt sorry that he should cause this body to be so impure — He came to this place and would not enter into any traffick with men [in a way that would compromise his principles][,] that he might keep himself pure. ["]If I err it is in doctrine — I have not made bogus⁵² or committed adultery[,] but because I err in doctrine I must be given to the buffetings of Satan. I am in your hands — do with me as you please. The Quorum of the Twelve have made a decision against me (corrected)[.] The intimation is strong. Will you destroy [p. 504]me[?] I am an innocent man before God. Because I esteem that man and you do not[,] am I to be sacrificed[?] — I believe this to be the High Council of God and I am one of its members. I stand high in authority and must not have the chance of a common member. I hold this is the council of God but we may make a wrong decision.["]

Bro[ther] Grover called upon the chair for order — & insisted that bro[ther] Soby shall answer questions. Bro[ther] [David] Fullmer said this is a meeting of inquiry — Bro[ther] Grover said the council has been insulted forty times and the chairman has taken no notice of it. [Soby] admitted that this was the High Council of God — And if he will not answer questions it is the option of the church to cut him off.

E[lde]r Cutler said, ["]This council is resolved not to sit in council to try our fellow men[,] [with] one of us following one and another following another. We have decreed never to turn [our] back upon the Twelve and when a man does it I will not fellowship with him. Nobody acused you of adultery or bogus making. There is no compulsions but you cant travail the road you have done and I [remain on the same] council with you. When we see you running astray we shall not come to you to know if we shall have a clerk.["]

Soby said[:] ["]It seems this council has been a merciful council[,] but not so with me. What if I have gone astray[?] — Am I not to be heard[?] It will be your turn sometime. I never had any difficulty with those brethren, and that I should be treated so. Go [after] it[,] go [after] it[,] go [after] it with a rush, [but] I am innocent[.] [Even so][,] there is no use keeping me here.["]

E[lde]r Harris renewed his motion which was again objected to[.] E[lde]r Harris still thought he ought to have till Monday or Tuesday. E[lde]r Grover said he should have any time only now. ["]E[lde]r Rigdon­ has been here for three or four weeks.⁵³ I ha[ve] known that this council did not believe Sidneys revelations except he and bro[ther] Marks — He has been initiated into some high rank — deep in Rigdons instructions.["]⁵⁴

[p. 505]September 8, 1844; Sunday.⁵⁵ [The] Congregation⁵⁶ [was] brought to order by Brigham Young at ¼ past ten oclock[.] After singing & prayer by Elder Orson Hyde, Br[other] Young said[:]

I will now call upon the congregation [and] will attend to the subject which is now before us. Police.⁵⁸ I will now lay before the congregation [the issue as] well [as I can]. Some are for Paul, some for Cephas, and there are a great many for Christ; & I will now Say [p,. 506]there is some for Bro[ther] Joseph & Hyrum [Smith] & the Book of Mormon & revelations & for the building of the temple & some for [James] Emmet⁵⁹ & Some for Sidney Rigdon & there will be some for the Twelve — for I will say now that those who are for Bro[ther] Joseph & Hyrum, the book of Mormon & doctrine & covenants & building up of the temple are for the Twelve [and] this will be considered one party & those that are for Sidney Rigdon [—] I want them to be just as honest as what they are in their Secret Combinations⁶⁰ & boldly Manifest the Same when they shall be called upon, also those who are for Lyman Wight[,] let them do likewise.

Now to our organization this morning according to the Book of Doctrine & covenants, with the high council [and] with Bishop [Newel K.] Whitney as their head[,] who is one of the oldest bishops in the church, the high council was organized in Kirkland [Ohio]⁶¹ & their are many of them here to day & they can sit in judgement against any of the first presidency.⁶² So we this Morning will sit in [p. 507]judgment on the case of Sidney Rigdon. Again[,] he is a Man that I esteem very much indeed for this eleven years past & I have watch[ed] over him with my gun upon my shoulder to guard him from the enemies & he is a man that I do love.

Sidney Rigdon has sent [word] up here to inform us that he is unwell & cannot attend this morning, but I can tell you that they [Rigdon’s followers] have had a council this morning already & I dare say he is just as much unwell as I was & that he had plenty of time to send up & let us know if he wished us to defer this case until [the] future & he has not [done so] & I think he has had plenty of time[,] for we gave him notice on Tuesday evening last⁶³ [p. 508]& we also heard that [Rigdon and others] had a Meeting on the same evening & were ordaining some to be prophets[,] Seers & Revelators & some to [be] Kings & Priests & I asked Elder Orson Hyde if he would go down & see Elder Rigdon & see if it was really the case that such conduct was going on. Accordingly Orson Hyde & myself went down to see Bro[ther] Rigdon & I had to ask many a question before I could [get] any definite answer from him & asked him if it was the case if they had a Meeting & [were] ordaining men to such & such office & he asked Bro[ther] [Leonard] Soby if they had a Meeting last night & they looked at each other & after much ado they said they guessed they had, after which we asked Elder Rigdon if he would wish to have the twelve in council in his house that night.⁶⁴

Orson Hyde [followed Brigham Young with the following remarks]:

I have not had the opportunity before until this morning [to consider this matter][,] for [I was not available] at the time of the death of the Prophet [Joseph Smith] & Patriarch [Hyrum Smith][,] [p. 509][at] which time I was [in the] state of Connecticut & went to Boston where I found Elder Young to get the twelve all together[.] Consequently I sent a letter to Elder Rigdon & John E. Page & requested them to come to Nauvoo & [to be] where slumbered the ashes of our Murdered brethren[,] & we came home as quick as we could & to our astonishment Bro[ther] Rigdon was here after receiving the letter from us, but we saw there was a great anxiety to hurry business & matters in this place.

Now if Bro[ther] Rigdon had got a revelation from his God that he was designated to be the President or guardian of this people[,] I think he would not have been in such a great hurry as to get the business over[,] for it was his desire & intention to get the matters all over & settled before the Twelve came[,] for if these men came here he was sure he would not accomplish his designs. Again there is a quorum here in this place that can test all the revelations before they can go forth to the public according to the order of our beloved Bro[ther] Joseph.⁶⁵ Again when Elder Rigdon came to this place[,] did he go to this quorum or call this quorum together & lay before them his revelations that he stated he had rece[ive]d? No! He did no such thing! But he wanted to get all these important subject[s] and matter[s] hurried on & get it settled before the Twelve comes here.

Again we called the Twelve sent & requested Bro[ther] Rigdon to meet us in council but we could never get him to attend our councils. Consequently we went to see him [to ask] of him if he had got any Keys higher than the twelve in authority & he ans[wered] no! He said he had no jurisdiction over us — but[,] said [p. 510]he[,] there will be many churches built up, for there will be one here & another there. When Bro[ther] B[righam] Young said to him th[at] it will not be the church of Christ[,] for where there is a Kingdom divided against itself [it] cannot stand, & he claimed no jurisdiction over the twelve.

After which a testimony was read to the congregation but the man did not wish his name to be made know[n][,] but if it is necessary[,] [he said][,] you can call out my name & I will answer to it.⁶⁶

[Then Orson Hyde continued][,] [saying]:] When we asked Elder Rigdon to give up his license he would not do it, because he said he did not get [it] from us. Now for example if I was abroad & saw an Elder in transgression & I requested his licences to be given up, [I would expect to receive it][.] But now[,] said E[lder] Rig[don][,]­ ["]Since­ you have done this & demanded my licence I will consider it my duty & [will] publish it in the public prints & there is a scourge &c which awaits this people for I will write the history of this people since they came to Nauvoo of all their iniquity & midnight abominations.["]⁶⁷ To which Elder Hyde stated ["]I have just got the secrets of your heart & it is all we wanted & I did not have to get at it before but we have all counted the cost and our lives are ready to be laid down for the cause of God, in which we are engaged.["] But Elder Rigdon said ["]as much if you do so[,] I will turn traitor & publish all your iniquities[.]["]⁶⁸

[p. 511][Elder Hyde continued][:]

For about the space of 2 or 3 months before the martyrdom of our prophet & Pat[riarch] of the church of God[,] when we were in council together[,] [at the time] when Bro[ther] Joseph carried us through all the ordinances of the house of God[,] now says he (Joseph) ["]Upon your shoulders [(]the Twelve[)] the burden of this church rests & you must turn round up your shoulders to the same[,] for the Lord is going to let me rest a little while.["] Again when Joseph Smith was [a] speaker [in our meetings][,] when [he said this repeatedly][,] [why] did he not say Hyrum [?] ["The spirit knew that Hyrum would be taken with him, and hence he did not mention his name; Elder Rigdon’s name was not mentioned, although he was here all the time"][.]⁶⁹

P[arley] P. Pratt —

I rise up to bear my testimony before the Bishop & the high council[.] I was well acquainted with Bro[ther] Sidney Rigdon before this church was organized & it is now near 15 or 16 years since & I was the man that first carried the tidings of this gospel & I was witness to his coming into this Kingdom[.]⁷⁰ When I arrived i[n] this place I went to shake hands together with a few others & as he was shaken hands at the same time I said that is just what we wanted & I invited him to attend a council of the few of the twelve [p. 512]that was here in this city at the time to meet at Bro[ther] [John] Taylors as he was lying at the time with his wounds.⁷¹ I called at Elder Rigdon the next Morning at 8 oclock to get him down along with us to reason & council together with the few of the twelve that was here so that we could get each others feelings upon the subject which was before us. But he said he was engaged with some person being in the house at the time & we could not get Elder Rigdon to any of our councils to see what was best to be do[n]e for this people but there seemed to be a great anxiety with him to get matters settled.

[We] consequently called a meeting of the church on Tuesday, when I was determined if it were to be the case I would go up to the stand & close the meeting in the name of the Lord until the twelve would return home[.] This was previous to the Thursday when the Twelve was here. Consequently the meeting was pos[t]­poned until Thursday w[h]e[n] [the] business was hurried over & [I] asked Elder Rigdon [if he would not agree] that there was no use of [saying we would be] choosing a President or guardian [next week] & he said [if that was what I thought][,] I was mistake[n] for it was only to be a prayer Meeting & [to] p[o]ur out our souls in supplication to God & consequently I told [this to] the people [who] came enquiring of me ["]Was it to be a business meeting or a prayer meeting[?]["] to which I said that Elder Rigdon said it was to be a prayer meeting & afterwards I heard that he had contradicted himself three differ[en]t times & it was give[n] out on the Sunday following previous by President Marks that Elder Rigdon requested a full meeting of the church on Thursday[—] first for the people to choose their guardian[,] & if it had been so & the twelve [had not] got here, I for one would have come up to the stand & dismiss[ed] the people in the name of the Lord.

Consequent[ly] I was called upon by the rest of the twelve to go down to Elder Rigdon on Tuesday evening concerning ordaining men to such unheard offices in our organization[,] for he neither ordained them unto the quorums of the high Priests or the Seventies, Elders, Priests, Teachers or Deacons, & last Sunday when he was upon the stand he told us he had told all of his revelation[s] [p. 513]which he received at Pittsburgh but on Tuesday next we received a great deal more of it.

Now I want the council & the Bishop & the Clerks which is here to take notice of what I am going to say — for I charge him with false revelations & visions & in telling lies in the Name of the Lord! I know it is the case. Now said I to Elder Rigdon[,] that [regarding] the battle of which you prophecy that will take place in Pittsburgh & you at the top, now if the God has sent me in these last days I tell you that this battle will not take place at the place of which you state it will & I oppose it in all shapes & manners.

Elders Orson Hyde, Amasa Lyman & Myself were appointed to go & demand the licence of Elder Rigdon when he began to state what Elder Hyde stated. But there is sum more of the revelations & visions which [he] had in Pittsburgh. [He said he was] sitting laughing at the conduct of the twelve in cutting him off from the church. He said that we were fulfilling the very revelation which he had[,] for it was revealed unto him that the twelve would do what you have done this evening & [he has] been sitting laughing at it to see it fulfilled.

Now you will remember that last Sunday he had nothing but blessings in his head for us, but when Bro[ther] Hyde [s]aid that he had found out the bottom of his heart[,] then Rigdon began to say that he would not publish[,] for to [do so would be to] bring iniquity upon this people. We the twelve have not said go to the prairies of Dieuchiene⁷²

or like [James] Emmet[t] gather together into secrets chambers & let the temple alone[.] [We have said to] pay [your tithing] & receive your endowments for yourselves & your dead according to the admonition of our beloved prophet Joseph Smith & get that temple finished as soon as possible. Now concerning the revelation of Sidney — it is a peice of lies — hatched up to destroy this people.

O[rson] Hyde said he had got up to relate a story[:] ["]Now in the days of Solomon two women went to bed together & each of them [p. 514]had a child & one of the women lay upon her child & it died[.] ["As soon as she discovered this, she took her own dead child and placed it by the side of the mother of the living child, and took the living child to herself. When the mother of the living child awoke in the morning, … she found it was not her child."⁷³] That [is] the story I wanted to tell.["]

Amasa Lyman[:]

After the much as has been said already by Bro[ther]s Young, Hyde, & Pratt, & I can say no mor[e] but that it is all true & I may say I have seen most of it with my eyes & heard with my ears. Now we want this people to [be] at [one] in wisdom when they are called upon & state whether they will sustain the Twelve & uphold them or will they follow Sidney Rigdon & choose him for there president & let the Twelve go away some other way. Now what has Elder Rigdon done to build up the church of God within the last four or five years ago[,] while there is some of my brethren [here who] has travelled through all the states & in Europe & away to Palestine⁷⁴ while he at the same time he was asleep & while he was awake he would sit in the corner smoking his pip[e] or drinking his liquor. Now this is the man that the god of heave[n] has give[n] this wonderful revelation & not one of the twelve has received it[,] nor President Marks who has been here all the time. Again there is a revelation from Appenoose⁷⁵ stateing that Elder Rigdon was to take the charge of this people & John C. Ben[n]ett was to take his (Sidney Rigdon’s) place.

Again I have no doubt when the decision of this people is carried to him he will say that he was sitting laughing at the proceedings of the church for it was just fulfilling some more of the revelation which he had in Pittsburgh, that he knew before he came [p. 515]here that the people would reject him & that it would just filfil one important passage in the scripture v[i]z “that the stone which the builders rejected, would become the head of the cor[n]er,” to carry out the idea that he was some great one — & no person has ever heard of Sidney Rigdon receiving any revelation this four or five years, but now when he Sidney [is] in a manner cursing God saying that he had suffered too much that he was in Jail & also was poor in Missouri[.] & while at the same time Bro[ther] B[righam] Young did not say anything about being in prison[,] neither did Parley P. Pratt[,] [but] was in [prison a] good while long[e]r than what [Rigdon] was & yet this is the man [Rigdon] that has so much of the spirit & receive[s] revelation & [a] vision which had in it the destruction of the body of the church of Christ[,] & his preaching has been that all along [he was] for a division of this body[.]

He [Lyman] then related [from] 1832 about a revelation he (Sidney) had received & Joseph told him it was from the devil & that he would be give[n] into the hands of the devil to be buffeted [and] demanded his [two] licence[s][,] for said he (Joseph) the less power you have[,] the devil will have the less power over you. He gave up his licence[s] & Bishop Whitney has them to this day (to which Bishop Whitney said that was a fact,) and according to the testimony of his ownself (Sidney Rigdon) that the devil pulled him out of his bed three times by his heels & he was buffetted & tormented by his (Satanic Majesty) the devil for the space of three or four months. Now when we went down & demanded his licence he said he would publish all the history of this people & their iniquities but if it is [to be so][,] [no wonder "he was in a wonderful hurry to bet back to Pittsburgh][.]“⁷⁶

W[illiam] W. Phelps —

It becomes necessary[,] as it is a matter of great consequence[,] [to become] acquainted with all the fact[s][.] Only the last evening we [have seen] the council of the twelve [assemble the relevant evidence]. When I heard that Josep Sidney was coming from Pittsburgh I thought that their was something wrong but [that was] before I [had] read a revelation which I hold now in my hands. I [p. 516]am tolerable acquainted with the revelation — The twelve are the High travelling council & they are the men who comes in next after the first Presidency no matter wither there was two or three presiding. Now w[h]ether will you follow one man or will you follow the twelve whom you the other day choose & to abide by their council[,] [involves this question] again, [which is] what did you all gather together to Zion [for][?] It was to build up a holy city & a temple.

[He] then read a revelation give[n] on the 19th [of] Nov[ember] 1833 concerning Elder Rigdon.⁷⁷ [He continued][:]

If I had time[,] I would say some more concerning this Man. I would make a few remarks but enough has been said for I have went to see Sidney & he has told me two different stories.⁷⁸ I say then that his revelations that has [been] give[n] upon this stand to this people [are for you to consider][.] I say [this to] anyone that has the spirit of God in them, but that they could judge for themselves[,] for the Lord God said that he would make them Ju[d]ges in the last days. I want to know if there is any person here to day that will [follow Sidney Rigdon and thus] barter & give away that which they have received & go down to perdition where there is weeping & wailing & gnashing of teeth where they shall be given up to the Judge [of perdition].

H[eber] C. Kimball.

I have set here & heard my brethren speak & [can say] that I have been in their councils & [know] what they have stated is correct[,] [p. 517][and] although I was not among the three of the committee that went to see Elder Rigdon[,] but I was with them both before & after & he has been in but few councils for this three years aback only when brother brother Phelps brought him to the council this spring. I know all the ordinances that he received on his head & I know what we I have received. You all remember that when there were some thousands gathered together when Joseph threw him off his shoulders & would not have him any more as his councillor but he said if you (the Church) will have him you may, but I never will, but Hyrum said [we should] have a little mercy upon him to which Bro[ther] Joseph replied ["]if you will have him you take him upon your own responsibility for I never will["] & here is the man [(]pointing to Amasa Lyman[)] who was ordained & [was to be] put in the place of Sidney Rigdon as councillor to Joseph.⁷⁹

[p. 518]B[other] Brigham Young —

Now if Bro[ther] Sidney Rigdon will publish our iniquities[,] we will publish his[.] [And] what is his [but] the revelations & visions in a secret chamber in Pittsburgh[?] But he will just be like John C. Ben[n]ett [and] others who have left this church, he will just publish li[e]s, for if he has the keys of conquest & [there is] still iniquity going on & [he does] not publish & purge & cast it away, [it would be a sin][.] I wonder who is here that has seen men make bogus money or any of my brethren [of] the twelve or in passing counterfeit money, & if I could believe what the prophet said[,] [that] the spirit[,] power & authority [that] was taken from Elder Rigdon was conferred upon Amasa Lyman[,] he is here & he is not making any great fuss, but he is at our side & is as one with us [with] heart in hand & I likewise requested Elder Rigdon to be as one with us.

[Brigham Young] then read some testimonies [against those who were associating with Rigdon] & gave these individuals into the hands of the devil to be buffetted — which was sanctioned by the congregation with a hearty Amen.⁸⁰

[p. 519][Nauvoo Stake] President [William] Marks[:]

I feel disposed to speak in favor of Elder Rigdon & I will take up the opposite side & I have always been a friend to Elder Rigdon & I suppose there is many here that loves him too & it has been a long time since I have been [asked to defend someone as] the president of the [high] council & I feel for a few moments to take his side[.] I do [not] wish to do what is wrong. Nor I do not wish to uphold any lies or [be involved] in any thing that is wrong — but I will endeavor to do justice to him. There has been many [faults] & a great many crimes that has been alleged against that man [in the past] & as there are many of you here today [who] know that none of the charges were [ever] sustained against him & if there was no [additional] charges against him [than] that[,] that there was no use of bringing the[m] up again at this time but [we should only] bring up the charges preferred against him at the present time.⁸¹

[p. 520]I have heard Joseph [Smith] Say a short time before [Sidney] left to go to Pittsburgh that Sidney was all right & that he had nothing against [h]im & that he had blessed him & that he was going to Pittsburgh to build up a Kingdom unto himself. Again Sister Emma [Smith] at the same time had peculiar feelings against Sidney Rigdon but afterwards confessed that she had no hard feelings against him. The twelve know & the high council know that this quorum should [n]ever be laid down & thrown away. Again I have laid on hands myself along with Joseph Smith some where about Two years ago & that at the time he (Sidney) was ordained to be a prophet, seer translator & revelator & if he held that power & authority at that time he still holds the same for I have [no reason to suspect][,] nor do [I] know[,] that he is guilty of any crimes, & th[erefore] he should still remain as a member of this council.⁸²

I have searched diligent & if I know I am honest before God[,] [then I know] that there should always be a first presidency over this people (This is My idea) to receive revelations through Joseph & from him to this people & to lead the Church. If I am right[,] I feel that this quorum (the first presidency) should continue[,] but if I a[m] wrong I wish to be corrected — The idea [about] the twelve[,] that I had had concerning them[,] was [that they were] to be the travelling high council to go to all the Nations of the earth & to build up the Kingdom [in] all the wor[l]d, & it is my opi[ni]on that if this is to be done I think it is enough for twelve men to do.

[p. 521]I have had a long acquaintance⁸³with Bro[ther] Sidney & if the congregation feels to sever him from the body I am will[ing] to go by the Majority of the church[.] I feel to go with it, but perhaps through a long acquaintance my mind may be prejudiced against [this], but I may be wrong for I am unqualified to say that he is guilty of any crimes & if he is guilty I do not know, & I do not know of any other man this day that has the same power to receive revelations as Sidney Rigdon[,] as he has been ordained to be a prophet unto this people, & if he is cut off from the body this day I wish to see the man if there is any that has the same power as he (Elder Rigdon).⁸⁴

Bro[ther] Young said that[:]

Sidney had done as much [as was needed to show his unworthiness] when he arrived from Missouri[;] he had done as much as would sever any man from the priesthood[,] for he said that Jesus Christ[,] that [t]he [man] Jesus[,] was a blamed fool & that he [Sidney] would not go to hell if all the people would go to hell along with [him] & that he would have the riches of the earth & when he came here he wanted to go back to Kirkland where the[re] was fine rods & plent[y] of peaches & apples & the reason why he was ordained to be a prophet & seer was in consequence of his continually whining [about his "sufferings"] & it was to save him if possible & keep here in Nauvoo & Bro[ther] Hyrum plead mightily on his (Sydney[’s]) behalf that Joseph would try him once more ["bless him — hold on to him, for I believe he will yet straighten out"], & when he went away to Pittsburg Joseph blessed him, but what was it for, it was to see if he would do good, but has he done any good[?] No! and they have prophecied that the temple will [not] be finished & that this church will go to the devil.⁸⁵

[p. 522]Bro[ther] John Taylor[:]

I wish to say a few more words as my testimony & that there has been as much said against him that so as to criminate. I know that the twelve are his friends & they have solicited h[im] (Sydney) to unite & be with the twelve & to hold & build up the Kingdom of God, but has he, No! & has he fulfilled the Mission he got from Joseph to go to Pittsburgh & to take no other person with him[?] No! But he has held secret meetings & [has been] ordaining men to the offices of Prophets, Priests & Kings, illegal[ly] and without authority, & yet at the same time while he himself does not hold the office of a Prophet, Priest, or King,⁸⁶

& can is it reasonable that a Priest can ordain an Elder & an Elder an High Preist, No! & he is in possession of the same spirit which hurled the devil & those who we[r]e with him from heave[n] down to perdition[.] This is an important subject[,] this[,] & there cannot be enough said about it. I will tell you whom I look upon as the murder[er] of Joseph & Hyrum. I do not hold the men who loaded & fired the guns & killed the prophet & patriarch as much [responsible] as those who were the instigators, never the less they are Murderers but I blame W[illia]m & Wilson Laws, the [Robert D. and Charles] Fosters & [Chauncey and Francis M.] Higbees as the Murderers [o]f Joseph & Hyrum Smith, having said so much upon this subject I feel satisfied.

O[rson] Hyde.

I would say to this people that Bro[ther] Marks said [he did not know] if there was any one ordained to the office of a Prophet[.] I would say to this people that when Joseph [was "in one of their councils," he "told the Twelve that he had given them all the keys and ordinances which had been committed to him"].⁸⁷

[p. 523]Bishop [Newell K.] Whitney.

I call the attention of the high council & as I could give a history of Bro[ther] Rigdon for about the last twenty years past[,] I de[em] it unnecessary & [will say] that I have been acquainted with him & I tell you I never put much confidence in his revelations[,] for I have heard Bro[ther] Joseph say unto rebuke him time & time again for speaking in the name of the Lord & [it] has been stated Joseph took him in council along with four others & told him to give up his licences for he would go into the hands of Satan & he [Satan] will handle you as one does another. I feel that Elder Rigdon came here with a bad spirit & as he calls it a Revelation & think[s] that the less we have to do with the source from when it came[,] the less we have to do with it[,] the better, & I think that he wants to scatter this people & [is planning on] taking them away from this place instead of a gathering & [is not planning on] building up the house of our God & he has preached lies here on the stand[,] for what he preached here the first day & [in] another [sermon] the second day [was false][,] & I feel to sustain the twelve in taking fellowship from him & I feel to do so [now] & if this meets the decision of this council let them signify the same by standing up.

[It was] moved by Elder Phelps that Sydney Rigdon be cut off from the Church & delivered over to the buffettings of Satan until he repents. It has now passed the high council unanimously. Then it was proposed to the congregation & seconded when it was carried unanimously as above. [It was] motioned by Elder Phelps that all those who hold up their hands to support [Sidney] Rigdon as Prophet & Revelator to this people be withdraw[n] from fellowship until they be tried before the high council.⁸⁸

[It was] motioned by O[rson] Hyde & second by Elder Phelps that fellowship be withdraw[n] [from Samuel James] until he makes full [p. 524]satisfaction to this people.⁸⁹ [It was] motioned & seconded that whereas Jared Carter⁹⁰ had gon[e] from this place without council ["on some mission, contrary to council, under the new revelation"]⁹¹ [,] that he [be informed] we [are] withdrawing [fellowship] from him until he return & make satisfaction. [It was] motioned by Amasa Lyman & seconded that Samuel Bennet⁹² be cut off from the church ["for having received a false ordination"]. [It was] also motioned & sec[onde]d that Bro[ther] Soby be cut off from the church ["for the same cause"].⁹³

[p. 525][It was] m[oved] & sec[onde]d by Brigham Young, [that] George Movey be cut off from the church. [It was] moved & sec[onde[d that Jos[eph] H. Newton be cut off fro[m] the church. [It was] moved & sec[onde]d that John A Forgeus⁹⁴ be cut off.⁹⁵ [It was] moved & seconded that we get an expression from Bro[ther] Marks if he is in approval of this days proceedings.⁹⁶ [It was] moved & seconded that the Meeting be dismissed which was carried.⁹⁷ [It was] moved & seconded that the Minutes of this day be published.

NOTES:

46. Soby thought that as a surviving member of the First Presidency, Rigdon held authority superior to that of the high council and that he could not be judged by it. This rankled some of the high councilmen. In the context of the tussle for leadership, with the Quorum of Twelve stepping forward to claim preeminence, the high council thought Soby’s position was at least undiplomatic.

47. William Clayton was born in Penwortham, England, in 1814. He was one of the first Mormon converts in England in 1837. The very next year, he was named to the mission presidency. He immigrated to America in 1840 and settled in Nauvoo to become a secretary to Joseph Smith, Nauvoo City treasurer, and temple recorder. He was one of the pioneer company that arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847; he also invented the wagon odometer to measure the daily mileage. He had ten wives. As a lyricist, he is best remembered for his words to “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” He died in Salt Lake City in 1879 (“Biographical Registers,” BYU Studies, byustudies.byu.edu).

48. This determination to follow the Twelve had come only within the past month when Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon alternately spoke to a Church gathering, stating their respective claims to be the rightful successor to Joseph Smith (Richard S. Van Wagoner, “The Making of a Mormon Myth: The 1844 Transfiguration of Brigham Young,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 28 [Winter 1995]: 1-24).

49. Soby is probably referring to an altercation involving Orson Hyde, Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon, and himself on September 3, 1844, when Young and Hyde questioned Rigdon and Soby about meetings in which they had ordained individuals “prophets, priests, and kings.” See Richard Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 354.

50. William Clayton misdates the meeting to September 6 and says nothing about the fact that he was brought in behind Soby’s back, saying only that Sobey “spouted hard” when questioned (George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991], 148.)

51. The word “moonshine,” in the context used above, meant “a matter of no consequence or of indifference” (Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language [New York: S. Converse, 1828], s.v. “moonshine”).

52. That is, counterfeit money.

53. Rigdon had been sent to Pittsburgh by Joseph Smith to establish residency in another state since he was Smith’s running mate for the U.S. presidency, also to build up the Church there. He had not run away, as Brigham Young and others insinuated. Like the Twelve, who were also away at the time, Rigdon rushed back to Nauvoo when he heard of the assassinations (Van Wagoner, “Making of a Mormon Myth,” 3-4).

54. According to History of Church, 7:268, by the time the meeting had adjourned, “Leonard Soby was disfellowshipped by the high council for following Elder [Sidney] Rigdon.” A few days beforehand, Clayton had written regarding those in sympathy with Ridgon: “Every one of his followers as far as I can learn are ordained prophets and immediately receive the same spirit Elder Rigdon is of. In the evening the Twelve and a few others of us met at Elder Youngs and offered up prayers for our preservation and the preservation of the church, and that the Lord would bind up the dissenters that they may not have power to injure the honest in heart.” See also Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 148.

55. See History of Church, 7:268-69 and transcription in D. Michael Quinn Papers, Special Collections, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

56. This session of the High Council was convened at the meeting ground in Nauvoo to allow spectators to observe the consideration of charges against Sidney Rigdon. Although it is nominally considered to be a high council meeting, the members of the Quorum of the Twelve present take over and conduct the meeting and offer the testimony against Rigdon. The members of the Twelve present on the stand are Orson Hyde, Heber C. Kimball, Amasa Lyman, Orson Pratt, Parley P. Pratt, George A. Smith, John Taylor, and Brigham Young. They are accompanied by William Marks, stake president; Charles C. Rich, counselor; and high councilmen James Allred, Samuel Bent, Alpheus Cutler, David Fullmer, Thomas Grover, George W. Harris, Aaron Johnson, Henry G. Sherwood, and Lewis D. Wilson. The three members who were absent were replaced by Ezra T. Benson, Reynolds Cahoon, and Asahel Smith. The proceedings were published as “Trial of Elder Rigdon,” Times and Seasons, Sept. 15, Oct. 1, 15, 1844, pp. 685-87, 660-67, 685-87.

57. The singing was performed by a choir, which sang both before and after Hyde’s prayer.

58. Young said, “I will first make a request that the police will attend to the instructions given them by the Mayor [Orson Spencer] this morning, and that is, to see that there is perfect order on the outside of the congregation. We are not afraid of disturbance here, but there is generally some disposed to talk on the outside, which prevents those from hearing who are near them, and we wish all to hear what is said from the stand” (Times and Seasons, Sept. 15, 1844, 647).

59. James Emmett was born in Boone County, Kentucky, in February 1803. He and his wife were baptized in Illinois in 1831. Six years later he was briefly disfellowshipped, but by 1841 he was serving on the Iowa high council. By 1843 he was employed as a Nauvoo policeman and as one of Joseph Smith’s twelve body guards. After Joseph Smith’s murder in 1844, Emmett led a group of followers to Camp Vermillion in South Dakota. Most of his group eventually migrated down to Utah, but Emmett remained aloof. After settling in California in 1849, he died there in December 1853 (Donald Q. Cannon, Richard O. Cowan, and Arnold K. Garr, Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001).

60. This was a rhetorical slur, "secret combinations" being a Book of Mormon term for criminal alliances. Ironically, any secret meetings in Nauvoo were attended jointly by both Young and Rigdon. They were both members of the Masonic lodge, both members of the Council of Fifty that had crowned Joseph Smith "King, Priest, and Ruler over Israel on the Earth," and both participants in temple ceremonies where individuals had been ordained "kings and priests, queens and priestesses." For the sake of argument, if Rigdon were the rightful heir, he would not need Young’s permission any more than Young thought he needed Rigdon’s permission to engage in clandestine deliberations and rituals. See Michael W. Homer, "The Mormon Temple Endowment in Nauvoo, Illinois," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 27 (Fall 1994): 33-34; D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 124, 128, 137, 140, 229, 534.

61. The first stake high council was established in Kirtland, Ohio, on February 17, 1834. It was presided over by a stake presidency consisting of Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams. Its members were Jared Carter, John S. Carter, Joseph Coe, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, Orson Hyde, John Johnson, Luke Johnson, John Smith, Joseph Smith Sr., Samuel H. Smith, and Sylvester Smith. Its purpose was "settling important difficulties which might arise in the Church, which could not be settled by the Church or the Bishop’s council to the satisfaction of the parties" (History of Church, 2:28). In other words, it was a court of last resort.

62. The Doctrine and Covenants specifies that "inasmuch as a President of the High Priesthood shall transgress, he shall be had in remembrance before the common council of the church, who shall be assisted by twelve counselors of the High Priesthood" (107:82). By citing this, Young seems to acknowledge that Rigdon has retained his position as a member of the First Presidency with authority over all of them. The scripture may remind readers that as originally conceived, there was to have been one high council for the entire Church, commonly referred to as the "standing high council" as opposed to the Quorum of Twelve, which was called the "traveling high council" and was subordinate to the First Presidency.

That hierarchical order will be turned on its head and forever changed after this meeting—something that was perhaps inevitable as a result of Church growth. Already there had been a proliferation of stakes and standing high councils. "The Twelve [Apostles],” Joseph Smith had said at about the time of their creation in 1835, “will have no right to go into Zion, or any of its stakes, and there undertake to regulate the affairs thereof, where there is a standing high council” (History of Church, 2:220). For more on this, see Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Origins, 65; Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, 166; Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Mangrum, Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 35; Gregory A. Prince, Power from on High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 48, 61-62; B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: LDS Church, 1911), 1:343; James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: LDS Church, 1899), 215.

63. William Clayton recorded: “Last evening the Twelve and some others met together with Elder Rigdon to investigate his course. He came out full against the Twelve and said he would not be controlled by them. They asked him for his license, and he [said if he had to give it up][,] he would … expose all the works of the secret chambers and all the iniquities of the church. The Twelve withdrew fellowship from him and James Emmett” (Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 147-48). George A. Smith recorded that Rigdon “was angry and said he would expose the councillors of the Church and publish all he knew” (Diary, September 3, 1844, LDS Church History Library and Archives).

64. Historian Andrew Ehat wrote that at the meeting in question, “Sidney said his authority was greater that than of the Twelve. He claimed to have [had] many visions and revelations.” By ordaining “prophets, priests, and kings in secret meetings,” this “implied [that] he had higher authority than any [other] man in the Church” (“Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1982, 214-15).

The Times and Seasons, Sept. 15, 1844, 649, explained that “eight of the Twelve together with bishop Whitney, went to elder Rigdon’s,” then met at Willard Richards’s house to decide how to proceed. “A committee of three was chosen, who went over and demanded [Rigdon’s] license, but he refused to give it up, at the same time saying, ‘I did not receive it from you, neither shall I give it up to you.’” They therefore published a notice in the newspaper that they would try him for his membership at the meeting ground on September 8. The Twelve were only to be “witnesses in this trial, and not judges.”

65. Hyde is referring to the Quorum of the Anointed, or Holy Order, not to the Quorum of the Twelve. In the published account of the trial, this is made clear:

There is a way by which all revelations purporting to be from God through any man can be tested. Brother Joseph gave us the plan[.] Says he, when all the quorums are assembled and organized in order, let the revelation be presented to the quorums[.] If it pass one[,] let it go to another, and if it pass that, to another, and so on until it has passed all the quorums; and if it pass the whole without running against a snag, you may know it is of God. But if it runs against a snag, then says he, it wants enquiring into: you must see to it. It is known to some who are present that there is a quorum organized where revelation can be tested. Brother Joseph said, let no revelation go to the people until it has been tested [t]here (Times and Seasons, Sept. 15, 1844, 649-50).

66. Presumably in the interest of expediting the process, Hyde read aloud from several prepared testimonies by individuals who were present in the crowd and “ready to testify to the same before the congregation if it [was] necessary.” The man who requested anonymity said that Rigdon told him his intent was to “divide the people” and take those who would follow him “and let the remainder follow the Twelve” (ibid., 650).

67. Rigdon is likely referring to polygamy. Joseph Smith had proposed to Nancy Rigdon, Sidney’s nineteen-year-old daughter, in April 1842, and Sidney thought this kind of libertinism was what put Joseph and Hyrum “into the power of their enemies and was the immediate cause of their death[s]” (George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: “… But We Called it Celestial Marriage” (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 147-54, 440-41).

68. In the published version, Hyde said Rigdon later admitted he had been “angry and did not mean” what he said. “But I would ask this congregation,” Hyde continued, “can a man say what is not in his heart? I say he cannot.” Hyde blamed Rigdon for the Mormon War in Missouri, saying no one had been as provocative than Rigdon when he spoke at Far West on July the Fourth, 1838: “He was the cause of our troubles in Missouri, and although Brother Joseph tried to restrain him, he would take his own course, and if he goes to exposing the secrets of this church, as he says, the world will throw him down and trample him under their feet” (Times and Seasons, Sept. 15, 1844, 650). In the speech referred to, Rigdon prophesied that Mormons would “exterminate” their Missouri neighbors (“It shall be between us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is spilled or else they will have to exterminate us.”). This infuriated Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, who three months later ordered the Mormons to leave or face “extermination” (Heman C. Smith and Joseph Smith III, History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 4 vols. [Independence, MO: Herald House, 1951], 2:165).

69. The quoted sentence comes from the Times and Seasons, Sept. 15, 1844, 651.

70. Parley P. Pratt had been a member of Rigdon’s Reformed Baptist Congregation in Mentor, Ohio. When Pratt converted to Mormonism in 1830, he sought out Rigdon and introduced him to the Book of Mormon. Rigdon was baptized in November of that year.

71. John Taylor was with Joseph Smith at his death and was himself shot five times in the jail cell. He was laid up for months as his wounds healed (History of Church, 7:104-05). Sometimes the meetings were held in his house to facilitate his attendance.

72. Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, is about 200 miles northwest of Nauvoo and sixty miles south of where the Black River, which led to the Church’s lumber mills (“pineries”), meets the Mississippi River. At the time, Apostle Lyman Wight and Bishop George Miller were there to investigate whether to establish a Church colony in Wisconsin, but they would soon reject Young outright and take a faction of the Church to Texas (Flanders, Nauvoo, 289).

73. Hyde went on to say, drawing from 1 Kings 3:16-2, that the two mothers went to King Solomon, both claiming the child was theirs, and the king suggested cutting the baby in half to share it equally, at which the true mother forfeited her interest in the child rather than see it sacrificed. “Elder Rigdon says let the child be divided, … and I believe if the great God would speak from heaven this morning, he would say to the Twelve, you are the mother, (or rather the father) of the living child, and the church shall not be divided” (Times and Seasons, Sept. 14, 1844, 654).

74. Orson Hyde served a short mission to Palestine in 1840 to pray on the Mount of Olives (History of Church, 4:454-60).

75. Appanoose Township, like Nauvoo, was located in Hancock County.

76. Lyman added: “Brother Joseph has said at different times, that if elder Rigdon was to lead the church twelve months, he would lead them to the devil. When he attempted to lead the people in Kirtland, it was to lead them to the devil” (Times and Seasons, Oct. 1, 1844, 660).

77. The revelation, which is addressed to “Brother Sidney,” says Rigdon is “like unto an ass” and that in order to learn “his master’s will,” he needs “the stroke of the rod.” Although it predicts that Rigdon will eventually be lifted “up out of deep mire,” it does not leave an entirely positive impression (Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, The Joseph Smith Papers: Journals [Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008], 1:19).

78. These “two stories” were that Rigdon “said he wanted to form an intimacy with the Twelve, but he has never taken one step to do it, but has in every instance endeavored to shun them. The devil has blinded his eyes, and he has endeavored to blind the minds of the people against those revelations that have been our guide since we came into this church” (Times and Seasons, Oct. 1, 1844, 663).

79. A significant portion of Kimball’s remarks were omitted from the minutes. They are important, both in their criticisms of Rigdon and his followers and in addressing Rigdon’s diminished relationship with Joseph Smith:

Elder Rigdon is a man I have always respected as a man, but I have not respected his course for more than five years past. — Brethren, I have known his course and was aware of it all the while. When I have gone abroad to preach and have returned again, I would not have the privilege of sleeping, before Brother Joseph would call us to council; and there is not a thing of importance which was ever done, but Brother Joseph counselled with us. Elder Rigdon after he came from Pittsburgh never attended council only when he could not avoid it.

He has no authority only what he receives from the church. If he was one with us, why was he not in our councils? He was not in the council pertaining to the High Priesthood until just before he started for Pittsburgh. Brother Phelps was the means of bringing him in, but he has not got the same authority as others; there are more than thirty men who have got [second anointings and have] higher authority than he has. Elder Rigdon has intimated that if we opposed him we should have a mob on us. — Brethren, if I have to be martyred for the truth, amen to it! If I have to go as Joseph and Hyrum did, it will be a short work.

Elder Rigdon has not been in good standing as a counsellor to Brother Joseph for some years. Brother Joseph shook him off at the conference a year ago, he said he would carry him no more; if the church wanted to carry him they might, but he [Joseph] should not. Joseph said, he [Rigdon] had no more authority in his office as counsellor. Elder Amasa Lyman was appointed in his stead, and all the power and authority and blessings which Elder Rigdon ever had, was put on the head of Brother Amasa. Brother Hyrum plead to have Elder Rigdon restored, he said try him a little longer, try him another year; Brother Joseph would not receive him again but shook him off.

The church voted to try him again, and it was the church that received him and not Brother Joseph. If Elder Rigdon was in good standing, why has he not been with Bro[ther] Joseph in all his councils. He has not acted as a councillor in Bro[ther] Joseph’s councils for five years, but the Twelve have, they have never forsaken him. Now when Bro[ther] Joseph is gone, he [Rigdon] comes and sets us aside. I have handled with my hands, and have heard with my ears, the things of eternal reality, but I never betrayed Bro[ther] Joseph.

Brethren, as it was in the days of Moses, so it is now. When Moses went into the Holy of Holies, he pulled off his shoes; Bro[ther] Joseph has passed behind the vail and he pulled off his shoes, and some one else puts them on, until he passes [beyond] the vail to Bro[ther] Joseph. President Young is our president, and our head, and he puts the shoes on first. If Brother Hyrum had remained here, he would have put them on — Hyrum is gone with Joseph and is still his counsellor. The Twelve have received the keys of the kingdom and as long as there is one of them left, he [Smith] will hold them in preference to any one else. I wish the people would hear and be wise, and those who have been upholding Brother Sidney, would turn about before they go into everlasting despair (ibid., 663-64).

80. Young’s published remarks were more colorful and mocking than the summary in the minutes, making William Marks’s defense of Rigdon all the more courageous:

Brother Sidney says, “if we go to opposing him he will tell all of our secrets!” but I would say, oh dont, Brother Sidney! dont tell our secrets, oh dont! But if he tells of our secrets, we will tell of his — tit for tat. He has had long visions in Pittsburgh revealing to him wonderful iniquity amongst the saints. Now, if he knows of so much iniquity, and has got such wonderful power, why dont he purge it out? He professes to have got “the keys of David.” Wonderful power, and revelations, and he will publish our iniquity! Oh dear, Brother Sidney, dont publish our iniquity! Now dont! John C. Bennett said in his exposure, he knew all of Brother Joseph’s secrets, and he would publish them. Joseph H. Jackson, says he has published all Joseph’s secrets, but nobody believes their tales, because they lie! And if Sidney Rigdon undertakes to publish all of our secrets, as he says, he will lie the first jump he takes. If Sidney Rigdon knew of all this iniquity why did he not publish it sooner?

If there is so much iniquity in this church, as you talk of, Elder Rigdon, and you have known of it so long, you are a black hearted wretch because you have not published it sooner. If there is not this iniquity you talk of, you are a blackhearted wretch, for endeavoring to bring a mob upon us and murder innocent men, women and children! Any man that says the Twelve are bogus makers, or adulterers, or wicked men, is a liar; and all who say such things shall have the fate of liars, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Who is there that has seen us do such things? No man (ibid., 664).

81. Rigdon had previously been accused of corresponding with “John C. Bennett, with Ex-Governor Carlin, and with the Missourians” and of demonstrating “a treacherous character” in “endeavoring to defraud the innocent” (Times and Seasons, Sept. 15, 1843, 329-30). The new accusations were that he had prophesied that the temple would never be built, that Nauvoo would be overthrown, and that God would reject the Saints. In addition, the Twelve were unhappy that he, as someone who had not yet received his second anointing, was administering the temple endowment (Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, 352-55).

82. Marks added: “As respects his not presenting his vision or revelation before the first quorum [Quorum of the Anointed], I can say, that Elder Rigdon did not know that this order was introduced. Brother Joseph told us that he, for the future whenever there was a revelation to be presented to the church[,] he should first present it to that quorum, and then if it passed the first quorum, it should be presented to the church. But Brother Rigdon did not know this, for he was only just brought into the quorum before he left to go to Pittsburg” (Times and Seasons, Oct. 1, 1844, 665). Rigdon received his endowment on May 11, 1844 (Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845: A Documentary History [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005], xxxix-xliii).

83. The minutes repeat the words “I have had,” deleted here.

84. Marks also commented that “men [have] been ordained prophets, priests, and kings, but I have never heard of any one being ordained a seer and revelator, … and if he is cut off, who will we have to obtain revelations? … If there is a man ordained to lead this people, I do not know it. I dont believe there are sufficient revelations given to lead this people, and I am fully of the belief that this people cannot build up the kingdom except it is done by revelation” (Times and Seasons, Oct. 1, 1844, 666).

85. The bracketed items in quote marks are from the published version. Brigham Young predicted that if the high council retained Rigdon, “you will soon have John C. Bennett here, with the Laws and Fosters and all the murderous clan.” Rigdon was “liable to be deceived, and has already been deceived” (ibid., 666-67).

86. Although Rigdon had been endowed, he had not received the so-called “fullness of the priesthood.” The second anointing “would have made Rigdon a prophet, priest, king, and god in the flesh.” The reluctance to advance Rigdon, according to historian Richard Van Wagoner, was “probably because Smith could not win him over to polygamy” (Sidney Rigdon, 353).

87. The bracketed words in quotation marks come from the published version of the trial. At this point, the congregation called for the matter to be settled, and “President Young without further ceremony submitted the case to Bishop Whitney and the High Council” (Times and Seasons, Oct. 15, 1844, 686).

88. The published version mentions that before the congregation voted, “President Young arose and requested the congregation to place themselves so that they could see all who voted. We want to know who goes for Sidney and who are for the Twelve.” After the vote, “Elder Young arose and,” for good measure, “delivered Sidney Rigdon over to the buffetings of Satan, in the name of the Lord, and all the people said, amen” (ibid.).

89. After the vote to excommunicate Rigdon, there followed a series of suggestions to summarily excommunicate other members by simple acclamation. Hyde wanted James Emmett and Zachariah Wilson to be removed from the rolls “until they repent,” but “at the request of Elder Young the motion was withdrawn.” It was not yet certain whether Emmett was a rival to Young, although notice from note 63 that William Clayton thought the Twelve had already disfranchised Emmett. In any case, things would not go so well for Samuel James, whom Hyde said had been asked by Young to preach a funeral sermon, and what he preached was “any thing but a funeral sermon.” When he was through with the eulogy, Hyde said, he added that if Brigham Young wanted something better, “he might preach it himself.” It was therefore “moved that Samuel James be disfellowshipped from the church. The vote was unanimous” (ibid., 686-87).

90. Jared Carter was born in Benson, Vermont, in June 1801. He was baptized in 1831 and moved to Ohio, where he was ordained a priest and demonstrated a healing gift. He served a mission to the eastern states. On his return, he was named to the Kirtland High Council. After moving to Missouri, he served on the Far West High Council, where he also participated in the assaults on neighbors by the Danites. He became disaffected in Nauvoo when Joseph Smith prevented him from taking a plural wife. In September 1846 Carter joined William Marks in escorting the Smith family north on a steamboat to Fulton to wait until it was safe enough to return to Nauvoo. Carter then traveled on to Chicago and died three years later in July 1849 in DeKalb, west of Chicago.

91. The quoted words in brackets come from the published version in the Times and Seasons, Oct. 15, 1844, 687. Originally, members were encouraged to act on personal revelation. “If ye have desires to serve God, ye are called to work,” the revelation stated (D&C 4:3). But by the Nauvoo period, it became impractical to allow people to act on individual impulse.

92. Samuel Bennett was born in England in 1810. After serving as the presiding elder in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1840, he became an alderman and associate justice of the municipal court in Nauvoo. He was among the conspirators who were arrested for destroying the Nauvoo Expositor. He left the Saints after Joseph Smith’s death and associated with groups led by James Strang and Sidney Rigdon.

93. The vote was unanimous” (Times and Seasons, Oct. 15, 1844, 687).

94. John A. Forgeus was born in 1809 in Pennsylvania. He was baptized in 1840 and immediately contributed $200 toward a third printing of the Book of Mormon. He served two missions and ran unsuccessfully for Nauvoo City Recorder. After his excommunication, he became president of Rigdon’s Quorum of the Twelve. In 1862 John and his wife joined the RLDS Church and settled in Little Sioux, Iowa. A local history claims he was irascible and one day got into a fistfight with a neighbor, both of whom “were cripples, the former using crutches, while the latter could scarcely get beyond a respectable walk.” Forgeus was also tarred and feathered and reportedly “loudly objected” to the way the tar was removed by well-meaning neighbors wielding knives and the “careless manner in which these instruments were used on certain parts of his person” (Joe H. Smith, History of Harrison County, Iowa [Des Moines: Iowa Printing, 1888], 300-01).

95. In both instances, the vote was unanimous (Times and Seasons, Oct. 15, 1844, 687).

96. Marks was in attendance. He “arose and said he was willing to be satisfied with the action of the church on the case” (ibid.).

97. The meeting ended at 4:00 p.m., with a prayer by William W. Phelps (ibid.).

On or just before July 3, 1835, a touring exhibitor named Michael H. Chandler brought to Kirtland, Ohio, four Egyptian mummies and a selection of Egyptian papyrus documents. Kirtland resident Joseph Smith, Jr., founder and prophet of the Church of Latter-day Saints,¹ who had produced The Book of Mormon five years earlier based on claimed translations from gold plates inscribed in “Reformed Egyptian,” took an immediate interest in the Egyptian texts and offered preliminary translations to the exhibitor. Within the month, members of the young church (“the brethren”) purchased Chandler’s exhibit for $2400.² Copying the texts with the assistance of select “scribes,” Smith quickly recognized several biblically-themed compositions within the papyri, eventually including the Book of Abraham (P. Joseph Smith 1), the record of Joseph of Egypt (P. Joseph Smith 2 and 3) and a tale of an Egyptian princess Katumin or Kah tou mun (P. Joseph Smith 4). Only the first of these translations was ever published, beginning in serialized excerpts during 1842, well before Jean François Champollion’s correct decipherment of Egyptian was generally known in America.³

Smith exhibited the mummies and papyri in his and his mother’s Nauvoo (Illinois) cabins and in his “Mansion House” museum. A representative example of his banter is recorded for the May 15, 1844, visit to the museum by Josiah Quincy and Charles Francis Adams: “Opening pine presses along the wall, he disclosed four black, shrunken bodies. ‘These are mummies,’ he said. ‘I want you to look at that little runt of a fellow over there. He was a great man in his day. Why that was Pharaoh Necho, King of Egypt!’ He pointed to various hieroglyphs on the papyri, which were preserved under glass. ‘That is the handwriting of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful; this is the autograph of Moses, and these lines were written by his brother Aaron. Here we have the earliest accounts of the Creation, from which Moses composed the first Book of Genesis.’ ”⁴ In the same year, he made his last attempt at Egyptian translation (among 17 foreign languages): “Egyptian, Su-e-eh-ni (What other persons are those?)”⁵

Following Smith’s arrest and death in June 1844, the church divided, with most (but not all) of the Egyptian materials left behind by the dominant faction led by Brigham Young to Utah. As part of the collection The Pearl of Great Price, the full text of the Book of Abraham was published in pamphlet form in 1851 in Liverpool and reissued by the church in Utah in 1878. In 1880, it was adopted as canonical scripture by what is now the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In contrast, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (based in Independence, Missouri and since 2001 the Community of Christ) treats the Book of Abraham as mere speculative writing by Smith with no formal scriptural status.

The brief tale of Abraham, only 15 printed pages including woodcut illustrations explicitly said to be part of the book, presents a curious narrative. Abraham is miraculously rescued from Chaldean priests in Ur, who commit human sacrifice “unto the god of Pharaoh … after the manner of the Egyptians”(!) on a hill named after the Egyptian Potiphar (1:6-15 and 20). The name Potiphar, taken from the Bible, employs a Late Egyptian grammatical construction (“The one whom Pre has given”)⁶ and the late form of the sun god Re’s name with the definite article (“Pre”), so that it cannot be contemporary with any date typically assigned to Abraham. The anglicized Latin term “Egyptus” is said to be Chaldean for “that which is forbidden” in reference to the cursed race of Ham who are denied the “right of Priesthood” (1:23-27), a statement that served as the basis for Mormon racial discrimination⁷ until a “revelation” during the modern era of civil rights legislation reversed the policy (but not the “scripture”) in 1978. A famine takes Abraham to Egypt, where he is ultimately shown “sitting upon Pharaoh’s throne, by the politeness of the king,” “reasoning upon the principles of Astronomy.”⁸ The three woodcut illustrations purport to depict: (1) the “sacrifice” on an “altar” (wrongly restored from a scene of Anubis tending Osiris on the funerary bier), (2) an astronomical scene of planets (actually a hypocephalus), and (3) enthroned Abraham lecturing the male Pharaoh (actually enthroned Osiris with the female Isis). In the last image alone, Smith’s interpretation turns the goddess Maat into a male prince, the papyrus owner into a “waiter,” and the black jackal Anubis into a “slave.” As true ancient history, the Book of Abraham has no validity, yet the tale and the papyri that inspired it were to become a minor, if protracted, chapter in the history of American Egyptology.⁹

By 1861, Théodule Devéria had noted a series of anachronisms and absurdities in the supposed translation and woodcut vignettes, and in 1912 a solicitation for professional opinions on the matter of “Joseph Smith, Jr., as a Translator” by F. S. Spalding, Episcopal Bishop of Utah, drew uniformly derisive assessments from A. H. Sayce, W. M. F. Petrie, J. H. Breasted, A. C. Mace, J. Peters, S. A. B. Mercer, E. Meyer, and F. W. von Bissing.¹⁰ Apologetic response was muted, as the papyri no longer belonged to the church when it migrated west to Utah, and they were thought to have been lost, perhaps in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Aside from ad hominem attacks on the Egyptologists themselves,¹¹ the matter generated little further discussion. “Faced by a solid phalanx of PhD’s, the Mormons were properly overawed.”¹² A rebuttal of sorts did come from a certain “Robert C. Webb,” in a series of LDS publications beginning in 1913 and in “The Case Against Mormonism” published in 1915.¹³ Although posing as an unbiased “Non- ‘Mormon’ ” and a Ph.D., “Webb” was in fact a non-degreed writer for hire named J. E. Homans.¹⁴ “Webb”’s fraudulent expertise would be revived by Nibley in his attacks on professional Egyptology following the next major event in the saga of the Joseph Smith papyri.¹⁵

The state of affairs changed dramatically on November 27, 1967, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made a gift to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of eleven papyrus fragments that had passed from the mother of Joseph Smith to an employee’s family before acquisition by the museum in 1947.¹⁶ Comparison of the papyrus illustrations with the woodcuts in the Pearl of Great Price confirmed that these fragments were those once owned by Joseph Smith and employed as the basis for the Book of Abraham.¹⁷ In January and February of the following year, sepia-toned photographs of the fragments were published in the official LDS magazine The Improvement Era,¹⁸ and on the basis of these photographs, the independent publication Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought commissioned translations and commentaries on the texts, now designated as “The Joseph Smith Papyri.” In the summer issue of 1968, Egyptologists John A. Wilson and Richard A. Parker identified fragments within Smith’s original collection as sections of a late mortuary text known as a “Book of Breathings,” copied for a Theban priest named Hôr, as well as portions from additional Books of the Dead.¹⁹

The rediscovery of the primary documents that inspired, but in no way corroborate, a canonical book of Mormon theology has resulted in more than a generation of confrontation between Egyptological scholars and Mormon traditionalists. Whereas earlier apologists had condemned Egyptologists for not translating the defectively copied hieroglyphs of the woodcuts, new translations of the actual documents were even more disturbing.²⁰ Some religious Mormons have sought Egyptological degrees merely to pursue the argument with scholarly status. Attempts to salvage the Book of Abraham over the years have been varied, creative and ultimately desperate: 1) Egyptian hieroglyphs had multiple readings, unknown to modern Egyptologists,²¹ 2) Smith used the Hôr papyrus merely as a “mnemonic device” for channeling inspiration, not as a true source of translation,²² and 3) the portion of the Hôr papyrus containing the original Book of Abraham is now lost, with only the words “Beginning of the Book of …” surviving.²³

While recent disputes over this or that feature of Smith’s interpretation typically dominate these exchanges, often lost in the greater picture is the simple fact that the Mormon defense of the Book of Abraham has been lost for well over a century. Long past are the days when any speculation could be attributed to the Egyptian language or history; such fantasies are intellectual casualties from Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition and the decipherment of hieroglyphs by Champollion. As noted in the included essay by Christopher Woods, the depiction of Mesopotamian society in the Book of Abraham is no less problematic. The basic events of Smith’s romance do not correspond with either Mesopotamian or Egyptian history, and outside of Mormon confessional institutions, the Book of Abraham is not taught —or usually even noted— in studies of ancient history, religion or society.

If the Egyptian documents used by Smith in his composition of the Book of Abraham have been discussed and translated on several occasions (Papyrus Joseph Smith 1 and the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq), the remainder of Smith’s papyri remains unedited, aside from the initial comments of Wilson and Parker in 1968. It is the purpose of this volume to provide the first, comprehensive edition of the papyri of Joseph Smith.

The impetus for the current volume derives from two sources: 1) an initial invitation in February 2004 by Gary James Bergera of the Smith-Pettit Foundation to produce a complete translation and transliteration of the Joseph Smith Papyri, with footnotes providing a synoptic comparison of all the varying published readings of the texts (Smith, Nibley, Baer, Rhodes, et al.),²⁴ and 2) a steady stream of emails from both scholars and laymen requesting further information on the true nature of the Smith Egyptian papyri and their contents following my publications of “The Breathing Permit of Hôr” (2002-2003a). In 2004, Bergera also solicited discussions of the acquisition history of Smith’s papyri from H. Michael Marquardt and of the ancient ownership and dating of the papyri from Marc Coenen. The original proposal from the Smith-Pettit Foundation was not realized, but the current volume of studies is a direct result of that undertaking, and the contributions by Marquardt and Coenen are included here with sincere gratitude to Bergera and to the authors.²⁵ Although the authors consulted in 1912 included the Assyriologist A. H. Sayce, comments on the Book of Abraham from a Mesopotamian perspective have been few, and I am indebted to Christopher Woods for revisiting this issue. Thus even the location of Abraham’s home, “Ur of the Chaldees” (Genesis 11.28-31, 15.7, Nehemiah 9.7, Book of Abraham 2.4), is disputed, with sites identified at Uri (Mugheir/ Tell el-Muqayyar) in southern Babylon or near Harran/Haran in modern Turkey.²⁶ In neither area, however, were (supposed) Egyptian sacrificial rites locally dominant.

Clearly, the need for a full edition of these texts is both justified and long past-due, and, given their importance in American religious and social history, the publication must be accessible not merely to Egyptologists but to non-specialists within and outside of the LDS religious community for whom the Book of Abraham was produced. This dual focus necessarily repeats older, and obsolete, translations of minor value for modern Egyptologists, but of great significance for the historiography of the papyri and for demonstrating to non-Egyptologists the evolving process of deciphering the fragmented documents. Rather than restricting these variant translations to footnotes, as originally suggested, the variants are provided in the body of the text for easy comparison. In return, the editions contain specialized transliterations and often complex notes establishing major or minor differences in the Egyptian readings and interpretations. Such minutiae have been largely confined to the footnotes so that the nonspecialist reader need not be detained.

The commentary on the accuracy of readings and interpretations of the Smith Papyri is a necessary feature of this volume provided in direct response to over seven years of (often anguished) requests. As such, these assessments are neither equivocal nor muted, but have no partisan basis originating in any religious camp, financial incentive or personal animus. Published criticism by Mormon apologists (often vituperative) is further treated in the notes (often bluntly), where they may be ignored by Egyptologists, who have little interest in such parochial matters. The footnotes thus contain specialized materials for either set of readers. It must be stressed that all opinions in the volume are those of the individual authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or co-authors.

Attentive readers may notice some minor inconsistencies in grammar, punctuation, reference citations, etc., in the essays that follow. Each of the essays was written more or less independently and so tends to reflect each author’s stylistic approach to such matters.

Robert K. Ritner
The Oriental Institute
The University of Chicago
Chicago, 2010

Notes:

1. Popularly termed “the Mormon Church” by both members and the general public, the official name of the institution (since 1851) is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter abbreviated LDS). An intermediate 1838 revision had spelled “Latterday” as “Latter Day.”

2. An overview of the Mormon purchase in the context of American interest in mummies as “artifacts,” as well as possible identifications of surviving mummies, appears in Wolfe and Singerman 2009, “The Leg of Pharaoh’s Daughter, the One who Saved Moses,” pp. 96-131 and 136. One or more of the “lost Mormon mummies” —formerly in the Niagara Falls Museum— may now be found in the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. The date July 3 is noted in the official History of the Church, but correspondence suggests that the mummies arrived in Kirtland at the end of June; see ibid., p. 111. The history of Smith’s Egyptian project, and its intellectual and political motivations, is recounted in Brodie 1945, pp. 168-75. Smith later claimed that his mother had bought the Egyptian materials “with her own money at a cost of six thousand dollars”; see Brodie 1945, pp. 170 and 293. The Mormon mummies were apparently first found in a pit-tomb at Gurna by the Italian adventurer Antonio Lebolo; for whom see Dawson, Uphill and Bierbrier 1995, p. 241; Herbin 2008, p. 5; John A. Larson 1994, and the chapter by Marquardt, below. For Lebolo’s presence at Thebes, see his graffiti at the Ramesseum (“Lebolo 1820”) and Theban Tomb 32 (“Lebolo”) in De Keersmaecker 2010, pp. 35-36.

3. For Smith’s conflation of Egyptian and Greek, see Brodie 1945, p. 290. Champollion’s discovery was reported in the United States in the New York Herald, December 28, 1842. For its potential restraint on Smith’s future translations, see Brodie 1945, pp. 291-92 (regarding the falsified “Kinderhook plates” supposedly found in an Indian mound). Smith noted in his journal that he “translated a portion” of the plates, which he thought recounted the history of a person buried in the mound, “a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.” The translations of this hoax were not published.

4. Quotation in Brodie 1945, p. 293. See also Adams 1952 for the visit.

5. The Voice of Truth (1844), pp. 16-17; quotation in Brodie 1945, p. 292. Gee’s interpretation (1992, p. 114, n. 58) of Sue-e-eh-ni as s n¡m (“who is the man?”) is untenable phonetically (Sue-e-eh cannot represent s/ADD IMAGE OF TEXT and the final ADD IMAGE is preserved in all dialects) and grammatically (the proper sequence should be ADD IMAGE OF TEXT HERE). In the same appeal to the “Brave Green Mountain Boys” (Brodie 1945, p. 292), Smith attempted an extensive passage in Chaldean (a dialect of Aramaic). His rendition and translation is described by my colleague Gene B. Gragg, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages at the Oriental Institute, as incompetent and based on sources misunderstood or misrepresented; personal communication, September 14, 2010. Similarly, Rebecca Hasselbach, Asst. Professor of Comparative Semitics at the Oriental Institute, noted that the Chaldean “is Aramaic, but a pretty butchered version,” perhaps “because he (or his source) transliterated the gutturals as vowels instead of consonants and some of the forms seem to be made up”; personal communication September 17, 2010.

6. Ranke 1935, p. 123, no. 11. For the late date of the name, see Vergote 1959, pp. 146-48. Examples survive from Dynasty 21, and the form is not grammatically possible before Dynasty 18.

7. See Brodie 1945, pp. 172-74. The translated Book of Abraham conveniently served to resolve an abolitionist dispute within the developing Mormon community.

8. Facsimile No. 3, Explanation.

9. See the brief discussion accorded Joseph Smith in Trigger 1995, p. 22, in an article on Egypt and “the American Imagination.” The longest Egyptological treatment to date is John A. Larson 1994.

10. Spalding 1912. Reaction to the Egyptologists’ condemnation is found in “Helping Out the Mormon,” Life (February 10, 1916), vol. 67, issue 1737, p. 265: “The papers say the younger Mormons have taken notice of this discrepancy to the dismay of their elders, and that it is one thing that led to the recent flare-up in the University of Utah, when four Gentile professors were dismissed and fourteen members of the faculty resigned in protest.” See also “Are the Mormon Scriptures Based on Fraud?,” Current Opinion (February 1913), vol. LIV, no. 2, pp. 134-35.

11. Cf. Nelson 1913, pp. 606 ff: “… a jury of Gentiles, prejudiced, ill-tempered and mad with the pride of human learning” (as cited in Nibley 1968-70 [January 1968], p. 24, n. 6).

12. Nibley 1968-70 (January 1968), p. 23. Within this and continuing installments, Nibley undercuts this “appeal to authority” by a series of personal attacks: Mercer, “a hustling young clergyman” (ibid., p. 21), is extensively attacked in May 1968, pp. 55-57, and June 1968, 18-22, not “primarily to discredit the authority” of the scholar, but to illustrate “the limitations and pitfalls of Egyptology in general” (June 1968, p. 22). Presumably for the same reason, Nibley notes that Sayce was a “spoiled dilettante” (July 1968, p. 50), that Petrie “never went to a theatre” (ibid.), that Meyer “lacked aesthetic sense” (ibid, p. 51) but had a rationalistic bent that “ineffectively (!!) disqualifies himself from the jury” (p. 52), that Breasted was “pro-German” (p. 54), and that von Bissing had “an uncompromising loyalty to a feudal society and feudal religion —hardly the man to look with a kindly eye on the supernaturalism … of a Joseph Smith” (p. 54, emphasis added). European “feudal religion,” of course, presupposed the reality of supernatural intervention, but Nibley’s logic is peculiar in these tracts circulated only among the faithful. The Egyptologists are stigmatized as being idiosyncratic and aloof, which should make their unified assessment even more compelling. In any case, Nibley wanted a sympathetic audience, not Egyptological fact. The August 1968 continuation derides the careers of T. Devéria, J. Peters, A. C. Mace, A. M. Lythgoe, G. Barton, E. Banks and E. A. W. Budge. Nibley’s tactic has been adopted by his followers. In 2002, however, the New Yorker signaled exhaustion with the topic: “Today, even Nibley seems weary of the effort to authenticate the Book of Abraham” (Lawrence Wright 2002, p. 53). Nibley’s zealous involvement with the Smith papyri would later be blamed in a family tragedy; see Scott Gordon‘s LDS review (2005) of Martha Nibley Beck’s 2005 biography, Leaving the Saints: “Beck accuses her father of putting on an Egyptian costume and ritually abusing her, something all seven of her siblings deny … Martha claims (p. 147) that her father dressed up as the Egyptian god Amut the Destroyer by putting on a costume with an alligator head and a lion’s body and molesting her between the ages of 5 and 7… Martha blames the whole incident on the stress of having to defend the Book of Abraham when  Nibley knew it was a fraud.”

13. The Spalding volume is disputed in Webb 1915, pp. 26-34. For a list of contemporary Mormon responses to the Spalding publication, see Kevin L. Barney 2005, pp. 109-10, n. 9.

14. His true identity was revealed in Brodie 1945, p. 175n: “Webb, whose real name is J. E. Homans, is neither an Egyptologist nor a Ph.D.” For the Spalding episode and its aftermath, see Charles M. Larson 1992, pp. 27-30. In his 1915 book, “Webb” consistently misspells Spalding’s name as Spaulding, and this has influenced Larson on p. 30 (only).

15. See Nibley 1968-1970 (January 1968), p. 24, nn. 2 (equating Webb with J. C. Homans), 5, 11, 16 and 22; (February 1968), p. 21, nn. 45, 47, 52, 56, 58, 68, 80 and 94.

16. MMA 47.102.1-11 (acquired through the Rogers Fund). The papyri were accompanied by documents of sale, indicating that they had formally passed from church ownership; see Howard 1968, p. 91, with reference to Dialogue 2/4 (1967): 57 note. For the early history of the papyri, see n. 2, above.

17. The Book of Abraham is subtitled: “Translated from the Papyrus by Joseph Smith,” and the initial vignette of P. Joseph Smith 1 reappears (in altered form) in the Book of Abraham as “A Facsimile From the Book of Abraham. No. 1.”

18. Subtitled “The Voice of the Church” and described as the “Official organ of the Priesthood Quorums, Mutual Improvement Associations, Home Teaching Committee, Music Committee, Church School System, and other agencies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (p. 1).

19. John Wilson 1968, and Parker 1968a and 1968b (partial translation).

20. See Nibley 1968-70 (March 1968): 20, for Mormon complaints that the 1912 reviewers did not translate the (hand copy) inscriptions. For an overview of the negative reactions to the papyrus translations of 1968, see the quotations selected in Mormon Quotes, “Book of Abraham.”

21. So George Reynolds 1879, p. 44: “Egyptian hieroglyphics had at least two (but more probably three) meanings, the one understood by the masses — the other comprehended by the initiated, the priesthood.” Quotation also in Brodie 1945, p. 175n. The argument was revived by Nibley in 1968; see Charles M. Larson 1992, pp. 114-16.

22. So Crapo and Tvedtnes 1968 and 1969; Tvedtnes 1970; and Urrutia 1969. The argument (disputed in correspondence by Baer with Jay Todd) was adopted by Nibley later in 1968; see Charles M. Larson 1992, pp. 116-19. Tvedtnes complained about his “unfair treatment” in Baer’s correspondence in Gee 1992, pp. 109-10, n. 48, but admitted that Baer remained unconvinced by the mnemonic theory. Crapo and Tvedtnes 1968 and 1969 are cited in Charles M. Larson 1992, p. 233, nn. 4-5, contra Gee 1992, p. 109, n. 48.

23. So Gee 2000a, p. 10, 2000b, p. 212, n. 57, and 2005, p. 96. For discussion of Gee’s reasoning and “sources,” see the description of the size of the P. JS 1 manuscript in the relevant chapter on “Comparative Transliterations and Translations,” below. A variant of this theory, that the Book of Abraham was on another, now-missing scroll, was adopted by Nibley in 1975 (p. 2); for this and other defenses, see Ritner 2003a, p. 166, n. 31; and Charles M. Larson 1992, pp. 119-40.

24. A new volume by Michael D. Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub, Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2010, reached me (February 25, 2011) while my manuscript was in press, too late to be incorporated in my study.

25. I am particularly indebted to Bergera, Brent Lee Metcalfe and Edward H. Ashment, whose forwarded encouragement, articles and photographs have benefited this volume greatly.

26. For “Ur of the Chaldees,” see Pinches 1909, Hastings, Grant and Rowley 1963, p. 1019, Margueron 1992, and Kobayashi 1992. Gee 1992, p. 116, prefers a northern location, but this cannot justify the supposed Egyptian sacrificial rites practiced in the area. See further the chapter by Christopher Woods in this volume.

Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Papers: A History
H. Michael Marquardt

During the years 1817 to 1822, an unspecified number of Egyptian mummies and other artifacts came into the possession of Giovanni Pietro Antonio Lebolo (b. 1781). Lebolo was an associate of Bernardino Drovetti (1776-1852), France’s Consul General to Egypt from 1803 to 1814. For several years, Lebolo had assisted Drovetti in looking for ancient Egyptian relics. When Lebolo returned to Italy in 1822, he took with him a collection of at least eleven mummies and some additional artifacts. The mummies had been found in catacombs near Thebes, about 400 miles south of the Mediterranean Sea on the Nile River. In 1830, Lebolo died in Castellamonte, Piedmont (now Italy). The eleven mummies and various antique objects were subsequently sent to New York City with instructions that they be sold and that the proceeds benefit Lebolo’s heirs.¹

Lebolo’s eleven mummies may constitute the largest shipment of Egyptian mummies to America up to that time. Only a small number of public exhibits of mummies had been previously reported in major American cities. A man named Michael H. Chandler (1797-1866) reportedly secured Lebolo’s mummies in early 1833 and started to exhibit them, beginning in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, though to date there has been no independent confirmation of this.² What can be documented is that from early April to June 1833, the mummies and some papyri were displayed in the Masonic Hall and the Philadelphia Arcade. Adults were charged 25 cents, children 12½ cents. An early advertisement read:

The largest collection of EGYPTIAN MUMMIES ever exhibited in this city, is now to be seen at the Masonic Hall, in the Ches[t]nut Street above Seventh. They were found in the vicinity of Thebes, by the celebrated traveler Antonio Lebolo and Chevalier Drovetti, General Council of France in Egypt. Some writings on Papirus [Papyrus] with the Mummies, can also be seen, and will afford, no doubt, much satisfaction to Amateurs of Antiquities.³

Next on the mummies’ tour was Baltimore, Maryland, from mid-July to mid-August 1833. By this time, however, the eleven mummies had been reduced to six. Two had been sold to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia; another was reported to have been stripped of its wrappings in New York.⁴ In December 1833, Dr. Samuel George Morton conducted a dissection of the two mummies sold to Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. The following certificate was issued by a group of medical doctors:

Having examined with considerable attention and deep interest, a number of Mummies from the catacombs, near Thebes, in Egypt, and now exhibited in the Arcade, we beg leave to recommend them to the observation of the curious inquirer on subjects of a period so long elapsed; probably not less than three thousand years ago. The features of some of these Mummies are in perfect expression. — The papyrus, covered with black or red ink, or paint, in excellent preservation, are very interesting. The undersigned, unsolicited by any person connected by interest with this exhibition, have voluntarily set their names hereunto, for the simple purpose of calling the attention of the public to an interesting collection, not sufficiently known in this city.

JOHN REDMAN COXE, M.D.
RICHARD HARLAN, M.D.
J. PANCOAST, M.D.
WILLIAM P.C. BARTON, M.D.
E. F. RIVINUS, M.D.
SAMUEL G. MORGAN [MORTON], M.D.

I concur in the above sentiments, concerning the collection of Mummies in the Philadelphia Arcade, and consider them highly deserving the attention of the curious.

W. E. HORNER, M.D.⁵

The traveling exhibition, featuring the remaining six Lebolo mummies–by now, clearly in Chandler’s possession–continued to Lancaster, then to Harrisburg, and on to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the end of 1833 and into 1834, the relics were on display in Cincinnati, and in January and February 1834 they were at the Louisville Museum in Kentucky. Before leaving Louisville, Chandler sold two more of the mummies, this time to the Louisville Museum.⁶

Early the next year, Chandler was in Ohio. In February 1835, his exhibit was in Hudson, and by March had reached Cleveland, some twenty miles north. A description of Chandler’s remaining four mummies appeared in the nearby Painesville, Ohio, Telegraph. There were three female mummies and one male mummy. Rolls of writings were associated with three of them. Of particular interest is the male mummy: “No. 3. — Height 4 ft. 4½. — Male, very old, say 80; arms crossing on the breast, each hand on its opposite shoulder; had a roll of writing as No. 1 & 2; superior head, it will compare in the region of the sentiments with any in our land; passions mild.”⁷

A Cleveland newspaper–reporting that the mummies were three males and one female–described the writing found in “the arms of the old man” to measure in length “10 or 12 inches, and 3 or 4 [inches] in width.” Continuing, the article said, “The characters are the Egyptian hyeroglyphics; but of what it discourses none can tell.”⁸ The publication of these two newspapers accounts shows the difficulty in identifying the gender, age, and condition of the four mummies. This problem continued throughout the years by those who examined the mummies.

As the Cleveland newspaper noted, no one in America at this time could provide a reliable English translation of these or any other Egyptian hieroglyphs. Books such as J. G. H. Greppo’s Essay on the Hieroglyphic System of M. Champollion, Jun. (Boston, 1830) contained some rudimentary ideas. Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), a young French scholar, helped to decipher the Rosetta stone, which contained the same text written in hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Classical Greek.⁹ But at his death, he left his important works on translation to be published posthumously in Paris. His ground-breaking books Grammaire égyptienne [Egyptian Grammar] (1836) and Dictionnaire égyptienne [Egyptian Dictionary] (1841) together with the studies of other scholars led eventually to the successful decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

 Acquiring the Egyptian Papers

On June 30, 1835, Chandler’s tour arrived with its four mummies and rolls of papyri in Kirtland, Ohio, headquarters of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (later Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44), the twenty-nine-year-old prophet-president of the five-year-old Church, was shown the Egyptian artifacts. According to a promotional flyer Chandler had prepared, the mummies “may have lived in the days of Jacob, Moses, or David” and the papyri with their ancient writing “will be exhibited with the Mummies.”¹⁰

Five years earlier, in March 1830, Smith had published the Book of Mormon, an account of the immigration of a Hebrew family to the Americas circa 600 B.C.E., which, according to Smith, had originally been engraved upon golden plates in a language said to be “reformed Egyptian.”¹¹ Having seen Chandler’s relics, Smith was especially interested in the papyri–extant in two rolls and some fragments. He took some of the papyri home and, examining them, believed he knew who had written them. William W. Phelps (1792-1872), a scribe for Smith, reported that the Mormon Prophet considered some of these records to relate to the lives of the legendary Old Testament patriarchs Joseph of Egypt and his forebear Abraham who, according to Genesis, also had lived for a time in Egypt.¹² Chandler asserted that he had previously been able to obtain “in a small degree, the translation of a few characters.”

John Whitmer, to whom Smith had dictated some of the Book of Mormon text as well as his subsequent revision of the Bible, recorded that “Joseph the Seer saw these Record[s] and by the revelation of Jesus Christ could translate these records, which gave an account of our forefathers, even abraham Much of which was written by Joseph of Egypt who was sold by his brethren Which when all translated will be a pleasing history and of great value to the saints.”¹³

In mid-July 1835, Phelps explained to his wife:

Last evening we received your first letter after an absence of twelve weeks and twelve hours. … Brother Joseph [Smith] remarked that it was as easy to shed tears while reading that letter as it was when reading the History of Joseph in Egypt. …

The last of June [1835] four Egyptian mummies were brought here; there were two papyrus rolls, besides some other ancient Egyptian writings with them. As no one could translate these writings, they were presented to President [Joseph] Smith. He soon knew what they were and said they, the “rolls of papyrus,” contained the sacred record kept of Joseph in Pharaoh’s Court in Egypt, and the teachings of Father Abraham. God has so ordered it that these mummies and writings have been brought in the Church, and the sacred writing I had just locked up in Brother Joseph’s house when your letter came, so I had two consolations of good things in one day. These records of old times, when we translate and print them in a book, will make a good witness for the Book of Mormon. There is nothing secret or hidden that shall not be revealed, and they come to the Saints.¹⁴

Smith believed that one of the papyrus rolls contained the writings of Abraham and the other the writings of Joseph. He also showed Chandler some characters on the papyrus he said were similar to the characters found on the Book of Mormon golden plates.¹⁵ For these reasons, Smith decided to purchase the relics. Chandler presented the following certificate to Smith before the purchase was made:

Kirtland, July 6th, 1835.

This is to make known to all who may be desirous, concerning the knowledge of Mr. Joseph Smith, jr. in deciphering the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic characters, in my possession, which I have, in many eminent cities, shown to the most learned: And, from the information that I could learn, or meet with, I find that [i.e., the translation] of Mr. Joseph Smith, jr. to correspond in the most minute matters.

(Signed) Michael H. Chandler.

Travelling with, and proprietor of Egyptian Mummies.¹⁶

Chandler’s asking price for the items was $2,400, a substantial amount considering the expenditures Smith’s church was incurring in constructing the large meetinghouse to be known as the Kirtland House of the Lord, or Kirtland Temple. According to Joseph Coe, arrangements were made to make the purchase before Chandler left Kirtland. Coe said eight years later, in 1844, that Chandler was merely the agent for the real owners of the relics: “Previous t[o] closing the contra[c]t with Chandler I made ar[r]angements with S[imeon]. Andrews for to take one third part and your self [Joseph Smith] & Co. one third leaving one third to be borne by myself. … Chandler was only an agent acting for some men in Philadelphia.”¹⁷

As noted, Smith believed the papyri were the records of Joseph and Abraham. Oliver Cowdery (1806-50), another of Smith’s early confidantes, related that the “beautifully written” papyrus, which included writing in red ink, was that of Joseph.¹⁸ The more damaged record was of Abraham, father of the Hebrew nation.

An emphasis on priesthood authority was an important topic in the LDS Church in 1835. Smith’s father, Joseph Sr., had been appointed as the Church’s first patriarch by December 1834 to give patriarchal blessings to Church members. Smith wanted to trace the Church’s new office of patriarch back to biblical times. He taught that the patriarchal priesthood “was confirmed to be handed down from father to son, and rightly belongs to the literal descendants of the chosen seed, to whom the promises were made.”¹⁹ A listing, including the line of this heavenly authority from Adam to Noah, was reportedly “written in the book of Enoch.”²⁰

In addition, since 1830, Smith had been working on a new “translation” of the King James Version of the Bible. By June 1835, he had edited his revision of Genesis to adjust the ages of some of the Old Testament patriarchs who lived before Noah, and was preparing to “print the New Translation [of the Bible].”²¹ In fact, on June 21, shortly before Chandler’s arrival, Smith publicly “preached in Kirtland on the evangelical [i.e., patriarchal] order.”²⁰ Given Smith’s interest in priesthood, patriarchs, and the translation of ancient texts, the arrival in Kirtland of Chandler’s traveling exhibit of ancient Egyptian artifacts was fortuitous.

An “Egyptian Alphabet”

Shortly after acquiring Chandler’s mummies, papyri, and other ancient Egyptian writings, Smith embarked upon preparing an alphabet of the Egyptian characters to help him translate what he believed was the Abraham papyrus. The end result of this so-called “Egyptian Alphabet” is contained in a bound book used by Smith to record his translation and interpretation of Egyptian characters and other symbols. Only thirty-four pages of Smith’s “Egyptian Alphabet” Ms. 1 have writing on them. The majority of the handwritten pages were recorded in July 1835. The original book is preserved today in the archives of the LDS Church.²³

Smith worked closely with Cowdery and Phelps on this Alphabet. Smith regularly used scribes to help him write important records. These include the Book of Mormon, his revelations, his revision of the Bible, many of his letters, and his personal journal entries. While Smith’s own handwriting sometimes appears in texts produced by him, the majority of his writings were dictated to and/or recorded by scribes. That a document is not in Smith’s hand does not mean that it was not produced by him. Smith’s translation of the papyri, the “Book of Abraham,” was dictated to scribes.

The “Manuscript History of the Church,” also known also as the “History of Joseph Smith” or History of the Church, contains the following two entries for the month of July 1835:

I [Joseph Smith], with W. W. Phelps and O. Cowdery, as scribes, commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics.²⁴

The remainder of this month, I [Joseph Smith] was continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients.²⁵

The surviving manuscripts of this Alphabet (see below) contain the Egyptian characters copied by Smith, Cowdery, Phelps, and later in November 1835 by a third scribe, Warren Parrish (1803-77). Some of the characters were copied directly from the original papyrus–from the vignette (or illustration) of what Smith published in 1842 as Facsimile No. 1 of his “Book of Abraham” translation. Smith, Phelps, and Cowdery first worked together on manuscripts 3 to 5. Phelps then recorded Smith’s interpretations for each degree on manuscript 1. Later, Parrish briefly wrote in manuscript 1 for Smith. While Smith’s Alphabet does not provide accurate English translations of the Egyptian characters, it does offer insight into the way Smith approached the papyri prior to dictating the “Book of Abraham” text.²⁶

Joseph Smith’s “Egyptian Alphabet” Manuscripts

Ms. 1: “EGYPTIAN ALPHABET” on outside spine; also labeled at top of 1st to 4th degree “Egyptian Alphabet”; inserted on first page of 5th degree above first line is “Grammar & A[l]phabet of the Egyptian Language”; Egyptian characters with English interpretations; in Phelps’s handwriting, with additional entries by Parrish; bound book with handwriting on 34 pages, 184 blank pages remaining. No date on manuscript, progressive order: 1st to 5th degree. Approximate division: pp. 1-22 (first part) written July 1835; pp. 23-34 (second part) written October-November 1835.

Ms. 3: “Egyptian Alphabet”; in Phelps’s handwriting, with an entry by Parrish; 4 pp., lettered C, D, E, and F. No date, written July, October-November 1835.

Ms. 4: “Egyptian Alphabet” labeled at top of four pages; in Smith’s handwriting, with additions by Cowdery; 5 pp. lettered B, T, U, V, and W (9 leaves). No date, written July, October-November 1835.

Ms. 5: Untitled (but probably “Egyptian Alphabet”); in Cowdery’s handwriting; 4 pp., lettered A, X, I, and unlettered p. 4. No date, written July, October 1835.

Smith and his scribes also produced some additional working papers in conjunction with his “Book of Abraham” project.²⁷ These are:

Other Egyptian Materials in Joseph Smith’s Possession

Ms. 2: “Egyptian Counting”; characters with English interpretations; in Phelps’s handwriting; 2 pp., lettered G and H. No date, written July-November 1835.

Ms. 6: “Valuable Discovery of hid[d]en records that have been obtained form the ancient bur[y]ing place of the Egyptiens [Egyptians] Joseph Smith Jr”; title probably in handwriting of Frederick G. Williams (a fourth scribe), with Smith’s signature; English contents in Cowdery’s handwriting; 4 pp.: title, pp. 1-3 (hieratic characters copied from Amenhotep papyrus, with translation on p. 3), remaining 9 pages blank; small notebook. No date, written July-October 1835.

Ms. 7: Untitled; cover reads “FGW” and “Williams” (for Frederick G. Williams); English contents in Phelps’s handwriting; 3 pp. (pp. 1-3, with remaining 9 pages blank); small notebook. P. 1: “A Translation of the next page” with “in part” added; p. 2 contains hieratic characters copied form Amenhotep papyrus and drawings from other vignettes; p. 3 contains characters also copied, but upside down. No date, written July-November 1835.

Ms. 8: Untitled; hieratic characters copied from what is now known to be the “Book of the Dead” (of Ta-sherit-Min); one page folded.

Ms. 9: Untitled; hieratic characters copied from what is now known to be the “Book of the Dead” (of Ta-sherit-Min); partially copied from Joseph Smith Papyrus IX.

Ms. 10: Untitled; loose pieces of Egyptian papyrus adhered to sheet of paper; same as Joseph Smith Papyrus IX; known as “Church Historian’s Fragment.”

The English text of the majority of the thirty-four-page “Egyptian Alphabet” Ms. 1 clearly reflects Smith’s dictation to Phelps and Parrish. On page 1, there is mention of “In translating this character,” showing that Smith was giving his interpretation. The book is divided into two sections. In the first, the Egyptian characters are interpreted as relating to ancient Egypt. The second section continues the same general topic, but also mentions a type of astronomy said to have been practiced by the Egyptians.

The English “translation” of each Egyptian character is presented according to five “degrees” of interpretation. Each degree represents a level of interpretation. In some cases, the interpretation relates to grammar, such as parts of speech. Below are some examples of how Smith studied the Egyptian characters. First, the characters were copied by his scribe onto the left side of the previously blank page in the record book. Next appears in English the presumed sound of the word-symbol, followed by the English interpretation, appearing at the right. Sometimes a character is dissected into its smaller constituent pen strokes and each stroke is then interpreted. (In the examples cited below, page numbers of Smith’s “Egyptian Alphabet” Ms. 1 are given in parentheses.)

A number of Smith’s interpretations relate to how he believed Abraham’s record had been preserved with an Egyptian mummy since the time of Genesis. Smith believed the records had been hidden in Egypt according to the “tradition of Ham and according to the tradition of their elders: by whom also the art of embalming was kept” (4). Years later, the records were deposited with one the royal Egyptian families, being placed with those embalmed individuals and buried in Egypt, like Joseph, son of Jacob/Israel, who was first buried in Egypt (Gen. 50:26).

That Smith believed the records were preserved among the Egyptians is further referred to in the Alphabet’s 5th Degree. The sound “Kah tou mun” is interpreted to mean: “a lineage with whom a record of the fathers was intrusted [sic] by the tradition of Ham, and according to the tradition of their elders, by whom also the tradition of the art of of [sic] embalming was kept” (4). The sound “Toan tau ee tahee tahes toues” is explained: “Under the Sun; under heaven; downward; pointing downward going downward; stooping down going down into another place, = any place: going down into the grave — going down into misery = even Hell; coming down in lineage by royal descent; in a line by onitas one of the royal families of the Kings of Egypt” (5).

An interpretation from the 3rd Degree for the sound “Zub zool” means, according to Smith, “pointing to the end of a fixed period[.] A road which leads to some particular place for instance: from Chaldea I travelled to dwell in the land of Canaan” (14). Another character sounding “Ho-oop hah” is shown in each of the five degrees to mean:

1st Degree: “Crown of a princess, or unmarried queen” (21).

2nd Degree: “Corwn [Crown] of a married Queen” (17).

3rd Degree: “Crown of a widowed queen” (13).

4th Degree: “Queen who has been married the second time” (9).

5th Degree: “Queen Kah tou mun, a distinction of Royal <female> lineage or descent, from her whom Egypt was discovered while it was under water, who was the daughter of Ham — a lineage with whom a record of the fathers was intrusted [sic] by the tradition of Ham and according to the tradition of their elders: by whom also the tradition of the art of embalming was kept” (3-4).²⁸

Smith did not work every day on the Egyptian records. In fact, except for the later additions by Parrish, and because of the small number of pages of the four Alphabet manuscripts (Mss. 1, 3-5), one concludes that only a short time period was involved. The first part of each of the five degrees on all of these documents was recorded in July 1835 prior to and in connection with the bound “Egyptian Alphabet” Ms. 1.

Even before September 1835, work on the “Egyptian Alphabet” had come to a standstill. Phelps wrote to his wife, Sally, on September 11: “Nothing has been doing in translation of the Egyptian Record for a long time, and probably will not for some time to come.”²⁹ Smith’s personal journal for 1835 begins on September 22. The first entry was recorded by Cowdery; entries for the next two days were written by Smith himself. Cowdery started recording again on September 25. On October 1, Cowdery wrote: “This after noon labored on the Egyptian alphabet, in company with brsr [brothers] O. Cowdery and W. W. Phelps: The System of astronomy was unfolded.”³⁰ This “unfolding” is contained in the second part of the Alphabet. The last symbols in each of the five degrees contain Smith’s description of the system of ancient Egyptian astronomy, including the relationship between the Earth, moon, sun, and fixed stars or planets.

For example, the symbol (meaning the Earth) is given the sound “Jah-oh-eh.” The beginning of its explanation according to the 5th Degree includes these words: “The earth under the governing <powers> of oliblish, Enish go on dosh, and Kai-e van rash, which are the grand governing Key or in other words, the governing power, which governs the fifteen fixed stars … that belong governs the earth, sun & moon, (which have their power <in> one) with the other twelve moving planets of this system (24).”

This “System of astronomy” is what Phelps recorded in the “Egyptian Alphabet” on October 1, 1835, under Smith’s dictation. Six days later, on October 7, Frederick Williams (1787-1842) wrote: “this afternoon recommenced translating th[e] ancient reccords.”³¹ This was Smith’s first opportunity to return to work on the “Egyptian Alphabet” and related pages since the afternoon of October 1.

One scholar has suggested that Smith’s diary entry for October 1 “provides a date for the progress achieved to that point in the translation of the Book of Abraham, a point further along in the Book of Abraham than was ever published.”³² In fact, what we find is that “Egyptian Alphabet” Mss. 3-5 contain characters and symbols recorded on each document. Cowdery and Phelps were clearly working closely with Smith. Phelps then records the fuller explanation of astronomy onto the pages of the bound “Egyptian Alphabet” volume (Ms. 1).

The following comparison indicates the close relationship between Ms. 3 (written by Phelps) and the final recording (also by Phelps) on October 1, 1835, as the system of astronomy was unfolded to Smith. The Egyptian-like symbol in this case is nowhere found on the original papyrus, now labeled as Joseph Smith Papyri I (hereafter JSP followed by Roman numeral[s]).³³ The example that follows shows that Phelps wrote “Moh nit tish” on both Mss. 3 and 1, then crossed it out on both and subsequently added “Flo-ees” with the interpretation expanded according to the five degrees in Ms. 1.

Parrish was not appointed to assist Smith until October 29, 1835. Cowdery had left Kirtland and returned on November 20, being gone about two weeks, and brought with him some Hebrew, Greek, and English books. There is no record that Smith did any additional work on the Alphabet from October 8 to October 31. A revelation to Smith given on November 14, 1835, mentions Parrish’s calling as a scribe, and states, in part:

behold it shall come to pass in his day that he shall see much of my ancient records, and shall know of hid[d]en things, and shall be endowed with a knowledge of hid[d]en languages, and if he desires and shall seek it at my hand, he shall be privileged with writing much of my word, as a scribe unto me for the benefit of my people, therefore this shall be his calling until I shall order it otherwise, in my wisdom and it shall be said of him in a time to come, behold Warren the Lord[']s Scribe, for the Lord[']s Seer whom he hath appointed in Israel³⁴

According to this revelation, Parrish should see “my ancient records.” The revelation documents Parrish’s call in connection with the Egyptian records. Later, Parrish records on the topic of astronomy, for example, adding the word “Kolob” to Ms. 3. His handwriting also appears on the final pages in the second part of the each of the five degrees in Ms. 1, bringing to a close the written explanations in the bound book.

As an additional scribe to Smith, Parrish also recorded entries in Smith’s journal. Parrish wrote entries for part of October 1835, for all of November 1835 (except for part of a letter copied in the journal by Frederick Williams under the entry of November 16), and for all of December 1-18, 1835. Smith attended the School of the Prophets (a kind of adult education for male LDS Church members) from November 2 to November 13, 1835. A revelation given on November 8 states that Phelps and John Whitmer, editor of the Messenger and Advocate, were “under condemnation before the Lord”³⁵ (the condemnation lasted only a short time). On November 17, Smith “ex[h]ibited <the Alphabet> of the ancient records to Mr. [Erastus] Holmes and some others.”³⁶ All indications are that Smith’s scribes–Phelps, Cowdery, Williams, and Parrish–took dictation as they worked closely with him on the Egyptian papers project.

The “Book of Abraham”

The next entries in Smith’s personal journal record the work done on translating the text of Abraham papyrus, or “Book of Abraham,” during four days in the second half of November 1835.

[November 19:] I returned home and spent the day in translating the Egyptian records

[November 20:] we spent the day in translating, and made rapid progress

[November 24:] in the after-noon, we translated some of the Egyptian records

[November 25:] Spent the day in Translating³⁷

The story, according to Smith, concerns Abram (or Abraham). Abram’s father is an idolater. A priest binds Abram and attempts to have him serve as a human sacrifice. Abram is rescued by an angel. The King (Pharaoh) of Egypt is descended from Ham and has Canaanite blood. All Egyptians come from this Canaanite lineage. The story of the discovery of Egypt by Zeptah (or Egyptus) is told, and a brief explanation of the government of Egypt is provided. The rights of the priesthood–the patriarchal lineage–are explained as coming from Noah. These same elements figure prominently in Smith’s “Book of Abraham” translation (Abr. 1:26-27).

In either October or November 1835, Smith dictated to Phelps the opening sentences of what Smith would publish less than seven years later as the “Book of Abraham”:

Translation of the Book of Abraham written by his own hand upon papyrus and found in the Catacombs of Egypt

In the land of the Chaldeans, at the residence of my fathers, I, Abraham, saw, that it was needful for me to obtain another place of residence, and seeing there was greater happiness and peace and rest, for me, I sought for [the] blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same: Having been a follower of righteousness; desiring to be one who possessed great Knowledge; a greater follower of righteousness; <a possessor of greater knowledge;> a father of many nations; a prince of peace; one who keeps the commandments of God; a rightful heir; a high priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers, from the beginning of time; even from the beginning, or before the foundation of the earth, down to the present time; even the right of the first born, or the first man, who is Adam, or first father, through <the> fathers, unto me.³⁸

Smith’s dictation is found in the three Translation Manuscripts of the “Book of Abraham” (Translation Mss. 1-3, below). The scribes for Smith were Phelps, Parrish, and Williams. A point of interest is that by comparing the three manuscripts, one concludes that Parrish and Williams wrote simultaneously as Smith dictated. At the top of each translation manuscript are the words “Sign of the fifth degree of the second part,” clearly indicating a connection to the “Egyptian Alphabet.” After taking dictation from Smith, Parrish transferred his text from Translation Ms. 3 to Translation Ms. 1 beginning on page 1 (below some text recorded by Phelps) and continuing to page 7. After this text was transferred, Smith continued to dictate to Parrish the remainder of pages 7 to 10 (of Translation Ms. 1). These pages have words crossed through and occasionally words added above the line, indicating that Parrish was taking dictation again directly from Smith. Smith believed the writings he was “translating” had been written by Abraham (see Abr. 1:1, 12, 14, 28, 31).

To the left of the original of the Egyptian papyrus illustration subsequently published as “Book of Abraham” Facsimile No. 1 (1842) is writing in two columns (JSP XI, see below). Copies of the Egyptian characters in the first column nearest the illustration appear on all three of Smith’s Translation Manuscripts. They come from the first three lines of the Egyptian text. There is an exception, however; where there is a lacuna (gap or break) in the original, there were no characters available to copy. To rectify this, restorations were drawn by Smith or his scribes to fill in the missing area.³⁹ Smith believed that line 1 of the original Egyptian papyrus was the commencement of the “Book of Abraham” text.

Joseph Smith’s “Book of Abraham” Translation Manuscripts, 1835

Translation Ms. 1: “Translation of the Book of Abraham written by his own hand upon papyrus and found in the Catacombs of Egypt”; English text of Abraham 1:1-2:18; in Phelps’s and Parrish’s handwriting. No date, written October-November 1835. 10 pp. grouped as follows:

1. First half of p. 1 recorded from dictation by Smith to Phelps.
2. Second half of p. 1 copied from Ms. 3 (below) by Parrish.
3. P. 2 to part of p. 7 mostly copied by Parrish from Ms. 3 (below).
4. Part of p. 7 to p. 10 recorded from dictation by Smith to Parrish.

The above pages have Egyptian characters and proposed “restored” symbols in left-hand margins. Source of Egyptian characters for JSP XI, column 1, lines 1, 2, 3, and part of 4. Column 1 immediately adjoins left-hand side of original of Facsimile No. 1 and is part of same papyrus roll.

Translation Ms. 2: English text of Abraham 1:4 to 2:6 (2:3-5 repeated); in Williams’s handwriting; 4 pp., lettered J, K, L, and M; recorded from dictation by Smith at the same time as Ms. 3 (below) was recorded. “Sign of the fifth degree of the second part” with Egyptian characters and proposed “restorations” in left-hand margin. No date, written November 1835. Source of Egyptian characters in JSP XI, column 1, lines 1 and 2.

Translation Ms. 3: English text of Abraham 1:4 to 2:2; in Parrish’s handwriting; 6 pp., lettered S, R, W, P, N, and O; recorded from dictation by Smith at the same time as Ms. 2 (above) was recorded; copied into Ms. 1 (above) by Parrish. “Sign of the fifth degree of the second part” with Egyptian characters and proposed “restored” symbols in left-hand margin. No date, written November 1835. Source of Egyptian characters: JSP XI, column 1, lines 1 and 2.

Printer’s and Other “Book of Abraham” Manuscripts, 1842

Printer’s Ms. 4: Abraham 1:1-9, 12-31, 2:1-18; no date, transcribed ca. February 1842; Abraham 3:18-26; transcribed March 1842; in Willard Richards’s handwriting; 16 pp., one of which (i.e., p. 4) is presently missing.

“A Fac-Similee [sic] from the Book of Abraham — Explanation of the <above> cut”: twelve explanations of Facsimile No. 1 in Richards’s handwriting; 1 p.; no date, transcribed February 1842.

“Cut 2″: 21 explanations of Facsimile No. 2 of “Book of Abraham” (Fig. 20 skipped); in Richards’s handwriting; 3 pp.; no date, transcribed March 1842.

Drawing of damaged original of Facsimile No. 2 (hypocephalus, to be placed under the head of the deceased).

From the entries of November 19-20 and 24-25, 1835, in Smith’s personal journal, recorded by Parrish, it appears that Smith on these days dictated the final text of what is now Abraham 1:1 through Abraham 2:18. Parrish was the last scribe to have recorded in “Egyptian Alphabet” Ms. 1 and in Translation Ms. 1, which ends at what is now Abraham 2:18.

On November 26, Parrish recorded in Smith’s diary: “we spent the day in transcribing Egyptian characters from the papyrus.”⁴⁰ This entry only mentions copying characters, not “translating.” Smith and Parrish were both battling colds, and no work was done in connection with the “Book of Abraham” translation on November 27. Smith’s journal entry for November 28 reads, “I am conciderably [considerably] recovered from my cold, & I think I shall be able in a few days to translate again, with the blessings of God.”⁴¹ In fact, Smith did not immediately return to his work on the “Book of Abraham,” though he did continue to speak about the project.

A year later, on November 25, 1836, returning to Kirtland from a proselytizing mission, Wilford Woodruff and missionary companion Abram O. Smoot went to the House of the Lord (Kirtland temple), accompanied by Warren Parrish, to view the Egyptian records and mummies. Woodruff, later ordained an LDS Church apostle, subsequently wrote in his journal: “visited the upper rooms & there viewed four Egyptian Mum[m]ies & also the Book of Abram [Abraham] Written by his own hand & not ownly [only] hieroglyphicks [sic] but also many figures that this precious treasure Contains are Calculated to make a lasting impression upon the mind which is not to be erased.”⁴² Smoot recorded in his personal journal for the same day: “we had the privilege of beholding the great wonders of Egypt, the mummies that were taken from the Calicomes [Catacombs] in Egypt; these were the greatest wonders I ever saw. I had also a view of the records that came with them, the Book of Abraham which was written by his own hand in Hyrogliphics [sic].”⁴³

Non-Mormon William S. West of Braceville, Ohio, came to Kirtland to learn firsthand about the Latter-day Saints. After paying twenty-five cents to see the temple, including the Egyptian mummies and records, he returned to examine the objects again the next day. He later reported:

They say that the mummies were Egyptian, but the records are those of Abraham and Joseph … These records were torn by being taken from the roll of embalming salve which contained them, and some parts entirely lost, but Smith is to translate the whole by divine inspiration, and that which is lost, like Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, can be interpreted as well as that which is preserved; and a larger volume than the Bible will be required to contain them. … Is it possible that a record written by Abraham, and another by Joseph, containing the most important revelation that God ever gave to man, should be entirely lost by the tenacious Israelites, and preserved by the unbelieving Egyptians, and by them embalmed and deposited in the catacombs with an Egyptian priest[?] … I venture to say no, it is not possible. It is more likely that the records are those of the Egyptians.⁴⁴

Of his experience as a scribe for the “Book of Abraham,” Parrish recalled not quite three years later: “I have set [sic] by his [Joseph Smith's] side and penned down the translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks [sic] as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from Heaven.”⁴⁵ Parrish’s statement indicates that he, and presumably the other scribes, sat alongside Smith as he interpreted and dictated the Egyptian characters.

The following chart chronicles the work done on the “Egyptian Alphabet” and on the “Book of Abraham,” as well as Smith’s occasional exhibitions of his Egyptian relics and study of biblical Hebrew, during the second half of 1835, into 1836, and finally the publication of Smith’s “Book of Abraham” in early 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois. (A more detailed account of 1842′s activities is given farther below.)

A Time-Line of Joseph Smith’s Involvement with the Egyptian Papers

1835

1836

1842

In summary, Joseph Smith’s Egyptian papers project began about July 7 and ended on November 26, 1835, then resumed again with preparations for publication, and the actual publication, of the text and engraved facsimiles of the “Book of Abraham” from February 19 to May 16, 1842. Smith dictated most of the text from “Book of Abraham” chapter 1 through chapter 2, verse 18, in about three and a half days. W. W. Phelps’s work as scribe on Translation Ms. 1 may have extended into November 1835. Frederick G. Williams’s work occurred about November 19-20, 1835; and Warren Parrish’s on November 19-20 and 24-26, 1835. Six years later, with the help of Wilford Woodruff, another scribe (Willard Richards), and an engraver (Reuben Hedlock), Smith’s “Book of Abraham” text and explanations of three facsimiles (of illustrations from the papyri) were published in the Times and Seasons (see below).

The “Egyptian Alphabet,” Genesis, and the “Book of Abraham”

The “Book of Abraham” text contains ideas that clearly depend upon material found in “Egyptian Alphabet” Ms. 1. In the examples below are some of the ideas and wording that were first interpreted in the Alphabet and subsequently incorporated into the text of the “Book of Abraham.” This is especially evident where there is new information regarding Abraham. Included in the Alphabet are some Egyptian-like characters nowhere found on the papyri. The English explanations in the “Book of Abraham” are found in their fullest context in the Alphabet’s 5th Degree. For example, in Abraham chapter 1, the name “Abraham” comes from a character in the Alphabet having the sound “Ah broam” or “Ah brah-oam” which is interpreted through the Alphabet’s five degrees to mean:

1st Degree: “The Father of the faithful. The first right — The elder” (20)

2nd Degree: “a follower of righteousness” (16)

3rd Degree: “one who possesses great knowle[d]ge” (13)

4th Degree: “a follower of righteousness a possessor of greater knowledge” (9)

5th Degree: “a father of many nations a prince of peace, one who keeps the commandments of God. A patriarch a rightful heir, a high priest” (2)⁴⁶

The corresponding “Book of Abraham” text (1:2) reads:

having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I [Abraham] became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers.⁴⁷

According to the “Egyptian Alphabet,” another character has the sound “Iota toues-Zip Zi.” This character described how the land of Egypt was discovered:

1st Degree: “The land of Egypt” (21)

2nd Degree: “The land which was discovered under water by a woman” (18)

3rd Degree: “The woman sought to settle her sons in that land. She being the daughter of Ham” (14)

4th Degree: “The land of Egypt discovered by a woman who afterwards sett[l]ed her sons in it.” (10)

5th Degree: “The land of Egypt which was first discovered by a woman <whter [while?] under water>, and afterwards settled by her sons she being a daughter of Ham” (5)

The corresponding “Book of Abraham” text (1:23-24) reads:

The land of Egypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the daughter of Ham … When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.⁴⁸

For another character, having the sound “Zub Zool eh,” the Alphabet’s 5th Degree explains:

In the days of the first patr[i]archs In the reign of Adam; in the days of the first patriarchs; in the days of Noah; in the blessings of Noah; in the blessings of the children of Noah; in the first blessings of men; in the first blessings of the church. (6)

The corresponding “Book of Abraham” text (1:26) agrees:

in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his [Ham's] father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.

While the meaning of this passage may not be entirely clear, the theme had already been developed in the “Egyptian Alphabet”: Shem obtained the priestly blessings (that is, the right to the patriarchal priesthood) from his father, Noah. Smith’s Alphabet interpreted the character with the sound “Ho-e-oop” in the 5th Degree to mean: “A prince of the royal blood, a true des[c]endant from Ham, the son of Noah, and inheritor of the Kingly blessings from under the hand of Noah, but not according to the priestly blessing, because of the tran[s]gressions of Ham, which blessings fell upon Shem from under the hand of Noah (4).”⁴⁹

From the “Egyptian Alphabet,” Smith proceeded to explore other topics also found in the “Book of Abraham” text. Thus, Abraham 1:26 is more understandable when compared to what Smith dictated to Phelps regarding the blessing and cursing of Ham who could not officiate in the patriarchal priesthood.⁵⁰

While dictating “Book of Abraham” chapter 2, Smith used the King James Version of Genesis as a guide. In fact, the actual wording of Smith’s “translation” relies heavily on Genesis in forming part of the text. Smith believed that Genesis had been written by Moses after the time of Abraham. (It may be of some interest that the wording from Genesis begins where Smith left off editing Genesis 11:16 in his Bible revision.)⁵¹ The “Book of Abraham” account is represented as being a first-person autobiographical record. The name “Abraham” was spelled “Abram” in a number of places when Smith’s “translation” was first published in the Times and Seasons (1842), but currently appears as “Abraham” in the 1981 text (published by the LDS Church) below.⁵² It seems clear that Smith had the Bible open to Genesis as he dictated this section of the “Book of Abraham.” Smith’s additions to the Genesis account are shown in bold (except for the name Abraham and some other minor variations).⁵³

The “Book of Abraham” next includes what was dictated by Smith in March 1842 and continues its narration of what took place prior to Abraham’s going to Egypt. This explains why the corresponding text from Genesis stops before the first mention of Pharaoh (Gen. 12:15).

Abraham next mentions the stars, the moon (lesser light), and the sun (greater light). He also describes spirits that are intelligent, have no beginning and no end, and were organized before the formation of the Earth, which was created from already existing materials. He explains that a great star named Kolob is nearest the throne of God. According to Abraham, a day to the Lord is a thousand years (3:4; compare Ps. 90:4 and 2 Pet. 3:8), while the time of the moon is longer than that of the Earth (Abr. 3:7).

In the text of the “Book of Abraham” dictated in Nauvoo, Smith followed very closely the transliteration pattern given on page 6 of a Hebrew grammar book used in Kirtland in 1836. The following are the Hebrew words Smith used: kokob for a star (Abr 3:13), kokaubeam for stars (Abr. 3:13, 16), and gnolaum for eternal (3:18). When Smith worked on the explanations of Facsimiles 1 and 2, he used some additional Hebrew words: raukeeyang for expanse or firmament (Fac. 1, Fig. 12; Fac. 2, Fig. 4), shaumahyeem for heavens (Fac. 1, Fig. 12), and hah-ko-kau-beam for the stars (Fac. 2, Fig. 5).⁵⁴ This indicates that Abraham chapter 3 and Smith’s explanations were written after Translations Mss. 1-3.

In addition, the basic narrative in Abraham chapters 4-5 concerning the creation of the Earth draws upon Genesis chapters 1-2. Note in the Abraham text the use of the plural form of God. The author of the Kirtland Hebrew grammar would probably not have agreed with Smith’s interpretation of Genesis as including a plurality of gods.

While incarcerated in Liberty Jail, Clay County, Missouri, in 1838-39, Smith gave instructions to the Church that included a shift from a belief in monotheism (one god) to polytheism (many gods). God, explained Smith, would reveal knowledge not previously revealed. There would be “a time to come in the which nothing shall be with held whither [whether] there be one god or many gods they shall be manifest all thrones and dominions, principalities and powers shall be revealed and set forth upon all who have indured [endured] valiently [valiantly] for the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Smith told the Church in 1839:

if there be bounds set to the heavens or to the seas or to the dry land or to the sun, moon or starrs [stars] all the times of their revolutions all their appointed days, month[s] and years and all the Days of their days, months and years, and all their glories, laws and set times shall be reveal[e]d in the days of the dispensation of the fullness of times according to that which was ordained in the midst of the councyl [council] of the eternal God of all other Gods before this world was.⁵⁵

Later, a year prior to recommencing his work on the “Book of Abraham,” Smith made use of his study of Hebrew in sermons he delivered in Nauvoo. On March 9, 1841, he said:

This earth was organized or formed out of other planets which were broke up and remodelled [remodeled] and made into the one on which we live. … The sun has no beginning or end, the rays which proceed from himself have no bounds, consequently are eternal. … In the translation, “without form and void” it should read “empty and desolate.” The word “created” should be formed or organized.⁵⁶

In revising the text of Genesis in 1830, Smith had retained the wording: “the earth was without form and void” (Moses 2:2). But in 1842, his new teaching about the formation of the Earth was incorporated in the “Book of Abraham.” What Smith brought to Abraham was a developed understanding of Genesis based on his study of Hebrew in 1836.

On May 4-5, 1842, Smith introduced the temple endowment ceremony to the founding members of his Quorum of the Anointed. Smith’s new ceremony included an account of the council of the creation gods. The next month, June 1842, Smith told Rev. George Moore: “We believe in three Gods, equal in power and glory. There are three persons in heaven, but those three are not one.”⁵⁷ When the endowment was later fully administered in the Nauvoo temple, the names of the three gods involved in the planning and organization of the Earth were identified as Eloheem [Elohim], Jehovah, and Michael.⁵⁸

When revising the Bible in June 1830, Smith had reported that God (singular) was the Creator.⁵⁹ While the teaching of one god is found in the Book of Mormon (1829-30), by the time Smith worked on the last chapters of the “Book of Abraham” twelve years later in early March 1842, he had come to accept polytheism.⁶⁰ There are forty-eight references to the plurality of gods in Abraham chapters 4-5. (Again, bold type signals Smith’s additions to the Genesis account.)

Smith probably decided not to include Genesis 2:11-14, which named the four rivers flowing out of Eden (and which he retained in his 1830 revision of Genesis),⁶¹ in the “Book of Abraham” because he now believed that Adam had lived in what is now the state of Missouri.⁶² On July 8, 1838, Smith received a revelation that contained the following question: “Is there not room enough upon the mountains of Adam Ondi Awmen [Ahman], and upon the plains of Olah[a] Shinehah, or in the land where Adam dwelt.”⁶³

In a new settlement named Adam-ondi-Ahman (shortened to Diahman), LDS Church members later recalled, Smith discovered what was believed to be the remains of an altar on which Adam offered sacrifices.⁶⁴ The name Adam-ondi-Ahman was used prior to 1838 as the place of Adam’s residence. It was used in Kirtland; and a hymn composed by W. W. Phelps bore the same title. This may explain why the names of the rivers were omitted in preference to the new location revealed in 1838.

The text of Abraham now follows Genesis in wording except for the substitution of “Gods” instead of “Lord God.” Besides two verses from Genesis 2 being rearranged (verses 19-20), the text of the “Book of Abraham” follows Genesis closely.

The Abraham revision of Genesis 2 concludes at the last verse of chapter 5. In all, nearly half of the “Book of Abraham” clearly reflects a dependency upon the King James Version of Genesis. As David P. Wright, a professor of the Bible and Ancient Near East at Brandeis University, observed of Smith’s “translations”: “in all his work there is a consistency in approach and method: he is not working in any of them with ancient languages (except for the bit of Hebrew in Abraham) and in all of them there is attention (to a greater or lesser degree) to revising or responding to the KJV.”⁶⁵

An Earlier Attempt at an Alphabet

When dictating the text of the Book of Mormon (1828-29), Joseph Smith reportedly transcribed an alphabet he said was found on one of the Book of Mormon golden plates. The characters were to be shown to those who professed knowledge in languages other than English. Lucy Mack Smith (1775-1856), Smith’s mother, recalled in her history (dictated in 1844-45) the following concerning the year 1827:

It soon became necessary to take some measures to accomplish the translation of the record [the Book of Mormon] into English but he [Joseph Smith] was instructed to take off a fac simile of the alphabet Egyptian characters <composing the alphabet which were called reformed egyptian> Alphabetically and send them to all the learned men that he could find and ask them for the translation of the same.⁶⁶

Lucy continued her narrative concerning the Book of Mormon’s “reformed Egyptian” alphabet:

Joseph started [in] Dec[ember]. [1827] for Penn[sylvania] it was agreed that Martin Har[r]is [another early scribe] should follow him as soon as he <Joseph> should have sufficient time to transcribe the Egyptian alphabet which Mr. Harris was to take to the east and through the country in every direction to all who professed linguists to give them an opertunity [opportunity] of showing their talents⁶⁷

Lucy added in comments to LDS Church members in October 1845 that she had been called “upon by Joseph to go & tell Martin Harris & family that he [Joseph Smith] had got the Plates & he wanted him [Martin] to take an a[l]phabet of the Characters & carry them to the learned men to decypher [decipher].”⁶⁸

Smith’s father understood that the last engraved golden plate of the Book of Mormon contained an alphabet. As he explained to Fayette Lapham about 1830: “The remaining pages [of the golden plates] were closely written over in characters of some unknown tongue, the last containing the alphabet of this unknown language.”⁶⁹

One of the learned persons whom Martin Harris visited in 1828 with the transcribed characters was Professor Charles Anthon (1797-1867) of Columbia College in New York City. In two letters, Anthon wrote that the sheet of paper looked to him as though the characters came from various alphabets. The first extract is from an 1834 letter, the second from an 1841 letter:

This paper … consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets.⁷⁰

… the marks in the paper appeared to be merely an imitation of various alphabetic characters, and had in my opinion no meaning at all connected with them. ⁷¹

The above references indicate that one of the first things Smith did was to prepare an alphabet to the Book of Mormon. This consultation with Anthon was used to explain that the learned could not read the writing or book but the unlearned man, Smith, could.

In April 1829, Smith received a revelation for Oliver Cowdery. Cowdery evidently tried to translate some words of the Book of Mormon text but had failed. The revelation explained:

But, behold, I say unto you [Cowdery], that you must study it [the meaning] out in your mind; then you must ask me if it [the meaning] be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me. ⁷²

If this is also a description of how Smith approached the “translation” of the Book of Mormon, then it may offer some insight into the production of Smith’s revelations, restoration of biblical texts, “Egyptian Alphabet,” and “Book of Abraham.” Whatever interpretation entered Smith’s bosom (mind and heart) and was then dictated was considered to be revelatory.

As he would later do in producing the “Book of Abraham,” Smith also used the Bible in dictating the Book of Mormon. In 1829, when he “translated” portions of the Book of Mormon, he read directly from the common Bible of the day, the King James Version. Passages in the Book of Mormon, when compared to passages in the King James Version, show that the Bible was used when certain portions of the Book of Mormon were being dictated and recorded. ⁷³

The “Book of Abraham” Published

That portion of the “Book of Abraham” produced in November 1835 was finally published in early March 1842 in the Church’s new headquarters, Nauvoo, Illinois. ⁷⁴ Smith also published some additional “Book of Abraham” text, which he had recently dictated to scribe Willard Richards (1804-54). This included “explanations” based on the three illustrations–or facsimiles–from the Egyptian papyri Smith said contained the “Book of Abraham,” and which accompanied the 1842 publication of the same.

In early 1842, Smith and an engraver, Reuben Hedlock (1809-69), worked on re-rendering the three original illustrations for publication. Accompanying the “Book of Abraham” text, they are known today as Facsimiles Nos. 1, 2, and 3. From the “Egyptian Alphabet” and Smith’s published explanations, we know that Smith believed the illustrations represented teachings regarding ancient Egyptian astronomy. As Facsimile No. 1 was being prepared for publication, the hieroglyphs in the columns on the original papyrus were omitted and the damaged papyrus was “restored.” The original illustration of Facsimile No. 3 was evidently on the inside of the papyrus roll, and thus was better preserved. The head of Figure 6 (in Fac. 3)–”a slave belonging to the prince”–was altered by Smith or Hedlock (with Smith’s approval) and included the original Egyptian characters that accompanied the illustration. Facsimile No. 2–the hypocephalus (which would have been placed under the head of the mummy)–was re-drawn as a complete circle with “restored” portions inserted from a number of places. Characters from the Egyptian papyrus used in preparing the three Translation Manuscripts were also added to an area of the damaged document. To a casual reader, Facsimile No. 2 probably does not appear to have been once damaged. However, persons comparing it with the sketch of the original easily see it as fragmented. These three “restored” and “reconstructed” illustrations have since appeared in almost all subsequent printings of the “Book of Abraham.” ⁷⁵

Smith spent some additional time in early 1842 working on the “Book of Abraham” text and preparing his explanations of the three “restored” facsimiles. They first appeared in the LDS Church periodical the Times and Seasons, published semi-monthly in Nauvoo. Apostle Wilford Woodruff helped set some of the type for the “Book of Abraham.” Woodruff wrote a summary statement in his journal:

Joseph [Smith] the Seer has presented us some of the Book of Abraham which was written by his [Abraham's] own hand but hid from the knowledge of man for the last four thousand years but has now come to light through the mercy of God. Joseph has had these records in his possession for several years but has never presented them before the world in the English language untill now. But he is now about to publish it to the world or parts of it by publishing it in the Times & Seasons, for Joseph the Seer is now the Editor of that paper & Elder [John] Taylor assists him in writing while it has fallen to my lot to take charge of the Business part of the esstablishment [establishment]. I have had the privilege this day of assisting in setting the TIPE for printing the first peace [piece] of the BOOK OF ABRAHAM that is to be presented to the inhabitants of the EARTH in the LAST DAYS. ⁷⁶

The Council of the Twelve Apostles–a presiding quorum second only in authority to Smith’s First Presidency–issued a notice asking the Church’s local congregations to send their tithes to the Trustee in Trust (Smith) to support various works, including the “new translation of the bible, and the record of Father Abraham [be] published to the world.” ⁷⁷ The March 1, 1842, issue of the Times and Seasons states, “This paper commences my [Joseph Smith's] editorial career, I alone stand responsible for it.” The original version of Smith’s editorial, as written by Willard Richards, contained the following:

In the present no. [number] will be found the commencement of the Records discovered in Egypt, some time since, as penned by the hand of Father Abraham, which I shall continue to translate & publish as fast as possible till the whole is completed. — and as the saints have long been anxious to obtain a copy of these records, those [who] are now taking the Times & Seasons, will confer a special favor on their brethren, who do not take the paper. ⁷⁸

A volume entitled “The Book of the Law of the Lord” kept by Richards recorded Smith’s activities in the latter half of February and early March 1842. Under the date of February 23, Richards writes that Smith “gave R. Hadlock [Reuben Hedlock] instructions concerning the cut for the altar & Gods in the Records of Abraham. As designed for the Times and Seasons.” The next day, Smith “was explaining the Records of Abraham To the Recorder [Willard Richards].” On March 4, Smith exhibited the “Book of Abraham” “in the original, To Bro[ther] Reuben Hadlock [Hedlock]. so that he might take the size of the several plates or cuts. & prepare the blocks for the Times & Seasons. & also gave instruction concerning the arrangement of the writing on the Large cut. illustrating the principles of Astronomy.” ⁷⁹ The “Large cut” refers to Facsimile No. 2 and was printed in the Times and Seasons as a two-page fold-out. Though represented as “A Fac-simile from the Book of Abraham,” the illustration was larger in size and not from the same papyrus scroll as Facsimiles Nos. 1 and 3.

The “Book of Abraham” begins with the deaths of three virgins upon an altar because they would not worship gods of wood or stone. As an aid to the reader, the text notes in reference to “this altar” (Abr. 1:12): “that you may have a knowledge of this altar, I will refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record. It was made after the form of a bedstead” (vv. 12-13), meaning Facsimile No. 1. The text also indicates that it was Abraham himself who drew the original of this illustration: “That you may have an understanding of these gods, I have given you the fashion of them in the figures at the beginning” (v. 14).

Facsimile No. 1

Sometime soon after the original papyri were purchased by Smith (and others) in mid-1835, the original of this papyrus vignette was glued to a piece of backing paper, presumably for support. On the backing paper someone filled in the missing pieces of the illustration by drawing a head and a knife for the standing figure (Fig. 3) to hold. In his engraving, Hedlock did not use this sketch. Instead, he had Fig. 3′s head (white attached to an apparently black-skinned body) resemble Fig. 2′s head. (According to Smith, Fig. 3 is an idolatrous priest, whereas Fig. 2 is Abraham.)

The characters on the side of the original illustration were not included in Hedlock’s engraving in order to fit the illustration vertically into the text block of the Times and Seasons page without having to turn the page horizontally. Though the original illustration was damaged, the reproduction as engraved by Hedlock was printed as though the original was complete and not damaged.

Various newspapers subsequently reproduced Facsimile 1 according to the Times and Seasons engraving. While there was interest in what Smith was doing, virtually none of the newspapers took his translation work seriously. Smith said that Facsimile 1 represented Abraham on an altar about to be sacrificed.

Facsimile No. 2

In publishing Facsimile No. 2, which dealt with Egyptian astronomical beliefs, Smith paid careful attention to fill in the missing areas in and around the hypocephalus. The damaged parts were filled in from other papyri in order to make the hypocephalus appear complete.

Smith spent a total of two days in early March 1842 working on the “Book of Abraham” text, evidently producing the material from Abraham 2:19 through 5:21. Richards recorded for March 8, 1842, that Smith “Commenced Translating from the Book of Abraham, for the 10 No [Number] of the Times and Seasons-and was engaged at his office day & evening.” The next afternoon, Smith “continued the Translation of the Book of Abraham. … with the Recorder [Willard Richards]. & continued translating & revising.” ⁸⁰ The same day, March 9, Smith wrote, “I am now very busily engaged in Translating,” ⁸¹ and Richards told his brother he was “writing the translation of the Book of Abraham in which I am engaged today.” ⁸²

Facsimile No. 3

Two months later, Smith’s explanation of Facsimile 3–the last of the three facsimiles–was printed in the May 16, 1842, issue of the Times and Seasons. The original papyrus illustration is not extant. Three of the figures (nos. 2, 4, and 5, see below) on Facsimile 3 point to Egyptian writing above the illustration. Under the various explanations is: “Abraham is reasoning upon the principles of astronomy, in the king[']s Court.”

Fig. 2. “King Pharaoh; whose name is given in the characters above his head.”
Fig. 4. “Prince of Pharaoh, King of Egypt; as written above the hand.”
Fig. 5. “Shulem; one of the king[']s principle waiters; as represented by the characters above his hand.” ⁸³

In giving the above explanations, Smith has his interpretations closely aligned with the original papyrus illustration. This confirms that the Egyptian records Smith purchased in 1835 were associated with Smith’s interpretation of the characters and the “restored” symbols.

Though Smith promised “further extracts from the Book of Abraham” to subscribers of the Times and Seasons, this did not materialize. ⁸⁴ In mid-May 1844, a month before Smith’s death on June 27, Josiah Quincy Jr. (future mayor of Boston) and his cousin Charles Francis Adams visited Nauvoo, viewed the Egyptian mummies, and talked to Smith about the ancient records. Adams recorded in his diary: “He [Joseph Smith] then took us down into his mother’s chamber and showed us four Egyptian mummies stripped and then undertook to explain the contents of a chart or manuscript which he said had been taken from the bosom of one of them. … `This,['] said he, [`]was written by the hand of Abraham and means so and so. If anyone denies it, let him prove the contrary. I say it.’”⁸⁵

From Adams and others, it is clear that Smith continued to believe that the “Book of Abraham” had originally been written by Abraham himself. The text of the “Book of Abraham” states that Abraham retained the records, was going to write on them, and that they were in his possession at the time he was writing: “for the records have come into my hands, which I hold unto this present time” (1:28). In fact, these preserved records are the very ones Abraham is now writing on: “But the records of the fathers … the Lord my God preserved in mine own hands; therefore a knowledge of the beginning of the creation, and also of the planets, and of the stars, as they were made known unto the fathers, have I kept even unto this day, and I shall endeavor to write some of these things upon this record, for the benefit of my posterity that shall come after me” (v. 31).

The “Book of Abraham” after Joseph Smith

After Smith’s death on June 27, 1844, his younger brother William (1811-93) and mother, Lucy, continued periodically to display the Egyptian records and mummies to visitors. In August 1851, newly appointed Church Apostle Franklin D. Richards (1821-99) published a small pamphlet in England entitled The Pearl of Great Price, which featured the text of Smith’s “Book of Abraham” and the three facsimiles, which had been re-engraved. Some five years later, Théodule Devéria (1831-72), a young artist, photographer, and student of Egyptology working in the Louvre Museum (Paris, France), examined the “Book of Abraham” facsimiles. In commenting on Facsimile No. 3, Fig. 5, he wrote: “The deceased led by Ma into the presence of Osiris. His name is Horus, as may be seen in the prayer which is at the bottom of the picture, and which is addressed to the divinities of the four cardinal points.” ⁸⁶ Devéria was thus the first to observe that what Joseph Smith had published as a “Facsimile from the Book of Abraham” was actually an ancient funeral illustration for a deceased Egyptian man named Horus.

Less than two weeks after Lucy Smith’s death in May 1856, her son Joseph’s Egyptian papyri and mummies were purchased by a man named Abel Combs (1823-92). The bill of sale gave a brief history of the artifacts including: “From translations by Mr. [Joseph] Smith of the records, these [four] mummies were found to be in the family of Pharo [Pharaoh], king of Egypt.” The bill was signed by Lewis C. Bidamon, his wife Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (Joseph Smith’s widow), and her eldest son Joseph Smith III. ⁸⁷

Combs subsequently sold two of Smith’s mummies and some of the papyri to Edward Wyman’s St. Louis Museum (in Missouri) and kept the others. When the museum placed some of the items on display in 1856, Gustaf Seyffarth, a visiting professor at the Concordia Seminary in St. Louis County who had studied Egyptian, also read the name of the person for whom Facsimile No. 3 had been made: “the papyrus roll is not a record, but an invocation to the Deity Osirus, in which occurs the name of the person, (Horus,) and a picture of the attendant spirits, introducing the dead to the Judge, Osiris.” ⁸⁸

The mummies and papyri were eventually resold to Joseph H. Wood, owner of the popular Col. Wood’s Museum in Chicago (the museum changed its name a number of times). They were on exhibit and were probably destroyed in the Chicago Fire in October 1871. ⁸⁹ This is the last known location of the two mummies and artifacts. Also after Lewis Bidamon’s death in 1891, his son Charles Edwin Bidamon retained in his possession the ten pages of “Book of Abraham” Translation Manuscript 1. This manuscript, together with other historical items, was later sold by Bidamon to LDS collector Wilford Wood in July 1947. Wood afterwards donated the pages to the LDS Church.⁹⁰

In 1873, T. B. H. Stenhouse, a dissident Momrmon, published this book The Rocky Mountain Saints: A Full and Complete History of the Mormons, which reprinted Deveria’s comments on the “Book of Abraham” facimiles. Stenhouse’s book was republished at least four timesby 1905.⁹¹ These republications circulated more widely Devéria’s observation that some of the “Book of Abraham” material was funerary in nature and that Facsimile No. 3, in particular, had originally been made for an Egyptian named Horus.

The second edition of the Pearl of Great Price, as edited by LDS Apostle Orson Pratt (1811-81), was issued in 1878. It was here that the words “purporting to be” were removed from the heading description of the “Book of Abraham,” thereby cementing the assertion that Abraham himself wrote the “Book of Abraham.” George Reynolds, another LDS Church official, the next year published a defense of the “Book of Abraham” as a divine and ancient record. ⁹² Then, on October 10, 1880, the Pearl of Great Price, including the text of the “Book of Abraham,” was publicly canonized by LDS Church members as official scripture together with the Holy Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants. ⁹³ Later, in a new edition, the Pearl of Great Price was again publicly voted upon as official scripture on October 6, 1902. ⁹⁴ (Until 1981, the LDS Church printed the text of the 1902 edition of the “Book of Abraham,” which relied on re-engraved copies of the facsimiles first published by Franklin Richards in 1851. Beginning in 1981, the Church returned to printing all three facsimiles as originally engraved by Reuben Hedlock in 1842.)

In 1912, the Rev. Franklin S. Spalding (1865-1914), Episcopalian Bishop to Utah, released his own independent study of the “Book of Abraham.” Spalding’s work printed letters from eight prominent Egyptologists, Orientalists, linguists, and historians who had responded to his inquiry regarding Joseph Smith’s interpretations of the three facsimiles. ⁹⁵ (The published facsimiles provided at the time the only means for evaluating the accuracy of Smith’s “translations.”) All eight scholars independently reported that the facsimiles were ancient Egyptian funerary illustrations and bore no relationship to the English text of Smith’s “translation.”

In the intervening years, a few rebuttal articles appeared in LDS Church periodicals dealing with Spalding’s book, and attempting to establish an ancient origin for the “Book of Abraham.” Except for a handful of articles or books mentioning the controversy, nothing of importance occurred again until the 1960s.

As it turned out, Abel Combs retained in his possession the bill of sale and some of the papyri he had purchased from Lucy Smith’s estate in 1856. After his death in 1892, these items passed to his nurse Charlotte Benecke Weaver. The papyri and bill of sale eventually ended up in the possession of Weaver’s daughter Alice Combs Weaver Heusser, who approached the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City about selling them in 1918. At the time, the museum was not interested in acquiring the materials. Almost three decades later, however, the museum revisited its decision and purchased the papyri artifacts in 1947 from Edward Heusser, Alice’s widower. ⁹⁶ (The fate of the two remaining Chandler mummies is unknown, though Combs probably sold them to another museum or private individual.)⁹⁷

By the mid-1960s, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had decided to raise funds by selling some of its less unique holdings. Coincidently, Aziz S. Atiya, a Coptic studies scholar at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, was shown the papyri while researching some of the museum’s collections in 1966. ⁹⁸ Though not a member of the LDS Church, Atiya knew of the papyri’s importance to Mormons and soon was in touch with N. Eldon Tanner of the Church’s First Presidency. Negotiations with the museum began a few weeks later. Eventually, an anonymous patron agreed to make a donation to the museum to cover the cost of the transfer, thereby facilitating the museum’s “gift” of the items to the LDS Church on November 27, 1967. ⁹⁹

The museum’s transfer included eleven pieces, or fragments, of papyri–including the original of Facsimile No. 1–which once belonged to three separate papyri. These fragments have since been numbered as JSP (Joseph Smith Papyri) I-VIII, X-XI, and may be described as follows: ¹⁰⁰

Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Papyri (JSP) Transferred to LDS Church in 1967

These eleven fragments joined a twelfth fragment of pieced-together papyri long-held by the LDS Church and known as the “Church Historian’s Fragment” (now JSP IX, originally part of Ta-sherit-Min’s “Book of the Dead”). The LDS Church subsequently published photographs of all of these papyri in the February 1968 issue of its official Improvement Era magazine. Scholarly translations by Egyptologists John A. Wilson and Klaus Baer of some of the papyri followed in the independent LDS periodical Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought in its summer and autumn 1968 issues. ¹⁰¹ Their translations again confirmed the status of the papyri as Egyptian funerary materials.

In addition to the fragments listed above, there are other Egyptian documents known to have once been in Joseph Smith’s possession, the present location of which, if any, is not known.

Other Egyptian Documents Known to Have Beenin Joseph Smith’s Possession

The “Book of Abraham” Today

The conclusion of all scholarly studies of the Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers–beginning in 1859-60 and continuing to the present–is that Smith, like other Americans of his time, had no knowledge or understanding of ancient Egyptian language(s). Before the Egyptian papyri were relocated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, most Latter-day Saints believed that Smith could accurately translate Egyptian. Since 1967, most analyses of the “Book of Abraham” by LDS Church members no longer argue for the work as a literal translation of an ancient text. The papyrus that contains the Egyptian characters appearing on the three Translation Manuscripts is today preserved in the LDS Archives.

There has been a variety of Church-related responses to the “Book of Abraham.” The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, published in 1992, proposed: “Since it is not known just how Joseph Smith translated, it is reasonable to postulate that, when studying the Egyptian papyri purchased from Michael Chandler, Joseph Smith sought revelation from the Lord concerning them [the papyri] and received in that process the book of Abraham.” ¹⁰² Eight years later, a study guide published by the LDS Church recommended: “The greatest evidence of the truthfulness of the book of Abraham is not found in an analysis of physical evidence nor historical background, but in prayerful consideration of its content and power.” ¹⁰³

LDS historian Glen M. Leonard, in his history of the LDS Church in Nauvoo (published in 2002), referred explicitly to the “Book of Abraham” as a “revelation,” explaining: “Joseph Smith’s biblical studies relied more upon supernatural knowledge than earthbound book learning.” ¹⁰⁴ Some other faith communities originating with Smith, such as the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), approach the “Book of Abraham” as a work of theological speculation and do not include it in their own scriptural canon. ¹⁰⁵

While Joseph Smith may be “the first native-born American who is known to have made an effort to translate writings and to interpret vignettes found on ancient Egyptian funerary papyri,” his translations, according to John A. Larson of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago in 1994, “can, at best, be described as unorthodox.” Nevertheless, Larson continues, “the position of the Mormon prophet is secure within the early history of American speculation about ancient Egypt. As a manifestation of American interest in the culture of ancient Egypt, the story of Joseph Smith and his ancient Egyptian mummies and papyri is one of the more curious chapters in the early history of American Egyptology.” ¹⁰⁶Egyptologist Lanny Bell, formerly of the University of Chicago and more recently of Brown University, adds:

Smith’s approach to the translation of ancient Egyptian documents ranks him squarely in the tradition of the esoteric interpretation of hieroglyphics … [Given the] disagreement[s], even rancor, over the decipherment of hieroglyphics persisting among Egyptologists until well after his death in 1844, we should hardly expect Joseph Smith to have been able to familiarize himself with Champollion’s work, properly assess its validity, and possibly incorporate it into his own translation of the papyrus he had before him. ¹⁰⁷

Notes:

1. H. Michael Marquardt is an independent historian. He is the author of, among other works, The Joseph Smith Revelations: Text and Commentary, The Rise of Mormonism: 1816-1844, The Book of Abraham Revisited, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers, and (as co-author) Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record. He lives in Sandy, Utah. For their suggestions and advice, he thanks Edgar C. Snow and Gary James Bergera.

H. Donl Peterson, The Story of the Book of Abraham: Mummies, Manuscripts, and Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1995), 78-79, 83. Peterson’s book–part history, part autobiography–is a good introduction to the topic.

2. See “Mystery of the Mummies: An Update on the Joseph Smith Collection[:] Interview with Brian L. Smith by Philip R. Webb,” Religious Studies Center Newsletter (Brigham Young University), 20/2 (2005): 3.

3. U.S. Gazette, Apr. 3, 1833, Philadelphia, in Peterson, Story of the Book of Abraham, 89.

4. Ibid., 92.

5. “Egyptian Antiquities,” Times and Seasons 3 (May 2, 1842): 774, Nauvoo, Illinois. See also “Egyptian Mummies–Ancient Records,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2 (Dec. 1835): 235, Kirtland, Ohio.

6. See Brian L. Smith, “A Book of Abraham Research Update,” Religious Studies Center Newsletter (Brigham Young University), May 1997, 5-8; and “Mystery of the Mummies: An Update on the Joseph Smith Collection[:] Interview with Brian L. Smith by Philip R. Webb,” Religious Studies Center Newsletter (Brigham Young University), 20/2 (2005): 1-5.

7. “Mummies,” Telegraph 13 (Mar. 27, 1835), Painesville, Ohio. See Jay M. Todd, The Saga of the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1969), 134; and Peterson, Story of the Book of Abraham, 117. The comments regarding the head of the mummy reflect an awareness of phrenology.

8. “A Rare Exhibition,” Cleveland Whig, Mar. 25, 1835, Cleveland, Ohio, in Peterson, Story of the Book of Abraham, 112. In fact, the writing is both Egyptian hieroglyphs and hieratic.

9. Egyptian hieroglyphs feature pictures that represent meaning(s) or sound(s) or combination(s) of both. They were used during the period 3100 B.C.E. to 400 C.E. Hieratic writing emerged in tandem with hieroglyphs and features a simplified cursive script used primarily by priests. Demotic texts (beginning about 650 B.C.E.) are written in a simplified form of hieratic.

10. “Egyptian Antiquities,” Times and Seasons 3 (May 2, 1842): 774.

11. See 1830 Book of Mormon, 538; LDS Mormon 9:32.

12. It would be a major discovery if the papyri contained mention of the patriarch Abraham and Joseph of Egypt. In fact, they would constitute the oldest authentic documents ever found regarding them.

13. “The Book of John Whitmer Kept by Commandment,” 76, Community of Christ Archives, Independence, Missouri; also Bruce N. Westergren, ed., From Historian to Dissident: The Book of John Whitmer (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 167.

14. William W. Phelps, Letter to Sally Phelps, July 19-20, 1835, in Leah Y. Phelps, “Letters of Faith from Kirtland,” Improvement Era 45 (Aug. 1942): 529. See Bruce A. Van Orden, ed., “Writing to Zion: The William W. Phelps Kirtland Letters (1835-1836),” BYU Studies 33 (1993): 554-56.

15. Oliver Cowdery, Letter to William Frye, Dec. 22, 1835, Oliver Cowdery Letterbook, 72, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California; published in Messenger and Advocate 2 (Dec. 1835): 235.

16. Ibid.

17. Coe, Letter to Joseph Smith, Jan. 1, 1844, Joseph Smith Collection, Archives, Family and Church History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; hereafter LDS Archives. It is not known how the one-third share was finally disposed of and how the Smith family retained the mummies and papyri. Joseph Smith replied to Coe, “I have got your Deed … for all the interest you ever held in the Mummies” (Smith, Copy of letter to Coe, Jan. 18, 1844, LDS Archives; see Dean C. Jessee, comp. and ed., Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, Rev. Ed. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co./Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002], 593).

18. Cowdery, Letter to William Frye, Dec. 22, 1835, Oliver Cowdery Letterbook, 69; Messenger and Advocate 2 (Dec. 1835): 234.

19. H. Michael Marquardt, The Joseph Smith Revelations: Text and Commentary (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999), 269; LDS D&C 107:40.

20. Marquardt, Joseph Smith Revelations, 270; LDS D&C 107:39-57. Joseph Smith was said to recover, while revising Genesis, the lost book of Enoch mentioned in Jude 1:14. He now provided the line of patriarchal authority.

21. Smith, Letter to “Dear brethren in the Lord,” June 15, 1835, LDS Archives. See Jessee, Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 363.

22. Manuscript History, Book B-1:595, LDS Archives; Joseph Smith Jr. et al., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Period 1, Brigham H. Roberts, ed., revised and enlarged, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), 2:234, hereafter History of the Church.

23. See Church Historian’s Office Journal, Oct. 17, 1855. See also Todd, Saga of the Book of Abraham, 286.

24. Manuscript History, Book B-1:596; History of the Church, 2:236. In January 1843, Smith “gave some instructions about Phelps & [Willard] Richards uniting in writing the history of the church” (Joseph Smith, Journal, Jan. 20, 1843, LDS Archives). These scribes wrote in Smith’s name and with his authorization. The information was based upon Phelps’s recollection as he was in Kirtland at the time working with Smith. The two entries for July 1835 were actually written in September 1843.

25. Manuscript History, Book B-1:597; History of the Church, 2:238.

26. I retain the numbering of the manuscripts as found in Hugh Nibley, “The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers,” BYU Studies 11 (Summer 1971): 351. The original manuscripts are in LDS Archives.

27. At one time, there was a sample of some Arabic writing (provence unknown) with the manuscripts.

28. Angled brackets here and elsewhere indicate interlinear insertions in the original.

29. W. W. Phelps, Letter to Sally Phelps, Sept. 11, 1835, William Wines Phelps Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. See Van Orden, “Writing to Zion,” BYU Studies 33 (1993): 563.

30. Joseph Smith, Journal, 3, LDS Archives; Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith: Journal, 1831-1842, Vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1992), 45; Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 1: 1832-1839 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008), 67 (hereafter Joseph Smith Papers: Journals). In 1843, the following clarifying words were added at the end of the journal entry: “and during the research, the principles of astronomy as understood by Father Abraham and the ancients, unfolded to our understanding; the particulars of which will appear hereafter” (Manuscript History, Book B-1:622; History of the Church, 2:286).

31. Joseph Smith, Journal, 7, LDS Archives; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:50; Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, 71.

32. John Gee, “Eyewitness, Hearsay, and Physical Evidence of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” in Stephen D. Ricks, Donald W. Parry, and Andrew H. Hedges, eds., The Disciple as Witness: Essays on Latter-day Saint History of Doctrine in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies [FARMS], Brigham Young University, 2000), 200. Gee believes that “The Kirtland Egyptian Papers are at best a by-product of the translation” (203) of the “Book of Abraham.” A comparison of the text shows that some of the ideas in Abraham Chapter 1 come after the interpretations given in “Egyptian Alphabet” Ms. 1.

33. See Klaus Baer, “The Breathing Permit of Hôr: A Translation of the Apparent Source of the Book of Abraham,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3 (Autumn 1968): 128.

34. Marquardt, Joseph Smith Revelations, 276; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:79; Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, 99-100.

35. Marquardt, Joseph Smith Revelations, 275; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:68; Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, 86.

36. Joseph Smith, Journal, 45; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:85; Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, 105.

37. Joseph Smith, Journal, 47, 49-50, written by Warren Parrish; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:87-88, 90; Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, 107, 109-10.

38. Translation Ms. 1, 1, LDS Archives. See H. Michael Marquardt, comp., The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers (Cullman, AL: Printing Service, 1981), 147-48.

39. See Baer, “The Breathing Permit of Hôr,” 129-32.

40. Joseph Smith, Journal, 50; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:90; Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, 110-11.

41. Joseph Smith, Journal, 51; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:91; Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, 112; not included in History of the Church, 2:321.

42. Wilford Woodruff, Journal, Nov. 25, 1836, LDS Archives; Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Typescript, 9 Vols. (Midvale, UT/Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1983-85), 1:107.

43. Abram O. Smoot, Journal, Nov. 25, 1836, Perry Special Collections.

44. William S. West, A Few Interesting Facts Respecting the Rise, Progress and Pretensions of the Mormons (Warren, Ohio?, 1837), 5-6.

45. Parrish, Letter to the Editor, Feb. 5, 1838, Painesville Republican 2 (Feb. 15, 1838). Parrish, for a variety of reasons, had left the LDS Church by this time.

46. See also the 5th Degree for “Kiah abran oam,” in “Egyptian Alphabet” Ms. 1, 3.

47. The wording differs slightly from that in Translation Manuscript No. 1, 1. In quoting the published version of the “Book of Abraham,” I cite the 1981 edition published by the LDS Church which follows the 1902 division into chapters and verses. The versification in the 1981 version differs from the paragraph numbering that was first published in the Times and Seasons.

48. For the use of Noah’s curse to support slavery, see Stephen R. Haynes, Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

49. The 1830 manuscript for Smith’s revision of Genesis 9:26 reads, “And he [Noah] said blessed be the Lord God of Shem and Canaan shall be his servent [servant] and a vail [veil] of darkness shall cover him that he shall be known among all men” (Old Testament Manuscript 1, 25, Community of Christ Archives). See also Messenger and Advocate 2 (Apr. 1836): 290, in The Essential Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 87.

50. In Smith’s day, the patriarchal priesthood was understood to mean the LDS Church priesthood office of presiding Church Patriarch. It was a hereditary office that passed from father to son. See LDS D&C 107:40 and H. Michael Marquardt, comp., Early Patriarchal Blessings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2007), vii-xvi.

51. Old Testament Manuscript 2, 34, Community of Christ Archives. See Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds. Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004), 587, 635.

52. After Abram returned from Egypt, his name was changed to Abraham in Genesis 17:5. In the “Book of Abraham,” as published in Times and Seasons, both names appear. For example, using current versification, Abraham 1:1; 2:2, 20-21, 25; 3:1, 6, 11, 15, 22-23; and 5:13 contained the longer name, while 1:16-17; 2:3, 6, 14, and 17 originally had the shorter.

53. Smith usually added words to biblical texts. See H. Michael Marquardt, The Four Gospels According to Joseph Smith (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2007).

54. Louis C. Zucker, “Joseph Smith as a Student of Hebrew,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3 (Summer 1968): 51; J[oshua]. Seixas, A Manual Hebrew Grammar for the Use of Beginners (2nd ed., Gould and Newman, 1834), 12, for raukeeyang, and 78, for the Hebrew form of raukeeyang with the definition “an expanse.”

55. Marquardt, Joseph Smith Revelations, 297, epistle of Joseph Smith Jr. et al. “To the church of Latter-day Saints at Quincy[,] Illinois and scattered abroad and to Bishop Partridge in particular,” March 20, 1839; LDS D&C 121:28-32. When the letter was printed, the edited version omitted the words “of all other Gods” (Times and Seasons 1 [May 1840]: 103).

56. “Extracts from William Clayton’s Private Book,” as cited in Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, comps. and eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980), 60. See Seixas, A Manual Hebrew Grammar, 85.

57. George Moore, Journal, entry for June 3, 1842, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. See also “A Visit to Joe Smith,” Times and Seasons 3 (Sept. 15, 1842): 926.

58. Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:380. See Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, eds., The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845-1846: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005), 5, 21, 23n20.

59. Old Testament Manuscript 1, 3, Community of Christ Archives; Moses 2:1.

60. For essays on the LDS concept of God, see Gary James Bergera, ed., Line Upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990).

61. Old Testament Manuscript 1, 5, Community of Christ Archives. See Faulring, Jackson, and Matthews, Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible, 89; Moses 3:11-14.

62. Brigham Young, second LDS Church president, said he heard about the location of the biblical Garden of Eden from Joseph Smith. Wilford Woodruff reported Young saying, “Now Jackson County is the garden of Eden Joseph has declaired [declared] this & I am as much bound to believe it as much as I am to believe Joseph is a prophet of God” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 5:33, entry for Mar. 15, 1857; see also 7:129).

63. Marquardt, Joseph Smith Revelations, 294; LDS D&C 117:8.

64. For example, see Benjamin Franklin Johnson, “A Life Review,” 30, LDS Archives; Benjamin F. Johnson, See My Life’s Review (Independence, MO: Zion’s Printing and Publishing Co., 1947), 36.

65. David P. Wright, “`In Plain Terms that We May Understand’: Joseph Smith’s Transformation of Hebrews in Alma 12-13,” in Brent Lee Metcalfe, ed., New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 211. See also Wright, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon: Or Joseph Smith in Isaiah,” in Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe, eds., American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 157-234.

66. Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 393.

67. Lucy Mack Smith, Manuscript Draft, LDS Archives; see Anderson, Lucy’s Book, 402.

68. Norton Jacob, Journal, Oct. 8, 1845, LDS Archives. See Ronald O. Barney, The Mormon Vanguard Brigade of 1847: Norton Jacob’s Record (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005), 53.

69. “The Mormons,” Historical Magazine 7 (May 1870): 307. See Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996-2003), 1:462-63.

70. Charles Anthon, Letter to Eber D. Howe, Feb. 17, 1834, in Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH: Printed and Published by the Author, 1834), 271; Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 4:380.

71. Anthon, Letter to Rev. T. W. Coit, Apr. 3, 1841, The Church Record 1 (1841): 231; Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 4:384-85.

72. Marquardt, Joseph Smith Revelations, 37; LDS D&C 9:8-9.

73. See H. Michael Marquardt, Literary Dependence in the Book of Mormon: Two Studies (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Institute for Religious Research, 2000).

74. See Times and Seasons 3 (Mar. 1, 1842): 704-706, Joseph Smith, editor.

75. For more, see Edward H. Ashment, “The Facsimiles of the Book of Abraham: A Reappraisal,” Sunstone 4 (Dec. 1979): 33-48.

76. Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 2:155, entry for Feb. 19, 1842. The text of the “Book of Abraham” was published in Times and Seasons 3 (Mar. 1, 1842): 704-706, paragraphs 1-13 (Abr. 1:1-2:18, written in Oct.-Nov. 1835), and ibid. 3 (Mar. 15, 1842): 719-22, paragraphs 14-32 (Abr. 2:19-5:21, written in Mar. 1842).

77. “Temple Friends,” Times and Seasons 3 (Mar. 1, 1842): 715; History of the Church 4:517. The new translation (revision) of the Bible was not published in Joseph Smith’s lifetime.

78. The draft editorial is in the handwriting of Willard Richards, with spelling of words by Richards completed (“Times & Seasons,” Joseph Smith Collection, LDS Archives). Only a portion of the editorial (first paragraph reworded) was published in Times and Seasons 3 (Mar. 1, 1842): 710. Richards had been appointed recorder for the Nauvoo temple and scribe for President Joseph Smith on December 13, 1841.

79. “The Book of the Law of the Lord,” as cited in Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:360, 366. Regarding Facsimile No. 1, Richards wrote that Smith was at “the printing office correcting the first plate or cut. of the Records of father Abraham. prepared by Reuben Hadlock [Hedlock] for the Times & Seasons” (ibid., 2:363-64, entry for Mar. 1, 1842). The next day, Smith “Read the Proof of the `Times and Seasons’ as Editor for the first time, No.9-Vol 3d in which is the commencement of the Book of Abraham” (ibid., 2:364).

80. Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:367; History of the Church 4:548.

81. Smith, Letter to Edward Hunter, Mar. 9-11, 1842, Joseph Smith Collection, LDS Archives; in Jessee, Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 550. A copy of the letter was recorded in Joseph Smith Letterbook 2:229.

82. Willard Richards, Letter to Levi Richards, Mar. 7-25, 1842, in Joseph Grant Stevenson, ed., Richards Family History (Provo, UT: Stevenson’s Genealogical Center, 1991), 3:88. This portion of the letter was written on March 9. Richards’s manuscript (Ms. 4) contains Abraham 1:1-2:18 and 3:18-26, English text only.

83. “Explanation of Cut on First Page,” Times and Seasons 3 (May 16, 1842): 784.

84. “Notice,” Times and Seasons 4 (Feb. 1, 1843):95.

85. Charles Francis Adams, Diary, May 15, 1844, emphasis retained, Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; “Charles Francis Adams Visits the Mormons in 1844,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 68 (1952): 285.

86. First published in French in Jules Remy, Voyage au Pays des Mormons, 2 vols. (Paris: E. Dentu, 1860), and in English in Jules Remy and Julius Brenchley, A Journey to Great Salt Lake City (London: W. Jeffs, 1861), 2:546.

87. The bill of sale is dated May 26, 1856, LDS Archives. See Todd, Saga of the Book of Abraham, 290; Peterson, Story of the Book of Abraham, 203. The bill was printed in “The Mormon Prophet’s Mummies,” Daily Missouri Democrat, June 12, 1857, St. Louis, Missouri.

88. As cited in Catalogue of the St. Louis Museum (1859), 45, in Todd, Saga of the Book of Abraham, 298. See also Stanley B. Kimball, “New Light on Old Egyptiana: Mormon Mummies, 1848-71,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 16 (Winter 1983):73-74.

89. See Kimball, “Mormon Mummies,” 77-82; “Mystery of the Mummies,” 4-5.

90. Todd, Saga of the Book of Abraham, 326-31.

91. T. B. H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints: A Full and Complete History of the Mormons … (New York: D. Apppleton and Co., 1873), 513-19. Republished in 1874 (London), 1878 (London), 1900 (New York), and 1904 (Salt Lake City).

92. See George Reynolds, The Book of Abraham. Its Authencity Established as a Divine and Ancient Record (Salt Lake City: Deseret News and Publishing Establishment, 1879). This forty-nine-page booklet had previously appeared serially in the Deseret Evening News, Dec. 1878-Mar. 1879.

93. See Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 42 (Nov. 15, 1880): 724. Six years later, Devéria’s examination was published in W. Wyl [pseud. Wilhelm Ritter von Wymetal], Mormon Portraits or the Truth about Mormon Leaders from 1830 to 1886 (Salt Lake City: Tribune Printing and Publishing Co., 1886), 221-23.

94. This edition was prepared by James E. Talmage and contains chapters and verses to the text of the “Book of Abraham.”

95. Franklin S. Spalding, Joseph Smith, Jr., As a Translator (Salt Lake City: Arrow Press, 1912); Roger R. Keller, “Episcopalian Bishop Franklin S. Spalding and the Mormons,” Utah Historical Quarterly 69 (Summer 2001): 244-45. While Spalding was aware of The Rocky Mountain Saints and Journey to Great Salt Lake City, he solicited his own independent evaluations.

96. Peterson, Story of the Book of Abraham, 242-47.

97. Stanley Kimball concluded in 1983: “If they indeed exist, they are probably in storage, unknown, unidentified, and forgotten. Would the papyri be with them? Probably not” (“Mormon Mummies,” 90).

98. Also in April 1966, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, critics of the LDS Church, published a photographic reproduction (based on a microfilm copy) and a transcription of Joseph Smith’s various Egyptian alphabet manuscripts: Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar (Salt Lake City: Modern Microfilm Co., 1966).

99. “An Interview with Dr. [Henry G.] Fischer,” conducted by Norman Tolk, Lynn Travers, George D. Smith Jr., and F. Charles Graves, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 2 (Winter 1967): 64.

100. Hugh W. Nibley numbered the papyri in Improvement Era 71 (Feb. 1968): 40, 40-A to 40-I; see also John Gee, “Eyewitness, Hearsay, and Physical Evidence of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” in Ricks, Parry, and Hedges, eds., The Disciple as Witness, 188-89; and Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 10-11. For the dating of JSP I, X, and XI, see Marc Coenen, “The Dating of the Papyri Joseph Smith I, X and XI and Min Who Massacres His Enemies,” Egyptian Religion: The Last Thousand Years, Part II, Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, vol. 85), eds. Willy Clarysee, Antoon Schoors, and Harco Willems (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement Oosterse Studies, 1998), 1103-15. For the dating of JSP II, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII, see John A. Wilson, “A Summary Report,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3 (Summer 1968): 70.

101. For later translations, see Robert K. Ritner, “The `Breathing Permit of Hôr’ Thirty-four Years Later,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 33 (Winter 2000): 97-119; Ritner, “The `Breathing Permit of Hôr’ among the Joseph Smith Papyri,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 62 (2003): 161-80; and Michael D. Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings: A Translation and Commentary (Provo, UT: FARMS, Brigham Young University, 2002). Ritner’s publication in Dialogue is dated 2000, but was actually completed in 2001 and was printed in March 2002. Rhodes’s work was published several months later in 2002.

102. Michael D. Rhodes, “Facsimiles from the Book of Abraham,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism: The History, Scripture, Doctrine and Procedure of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4 vols., ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992), 1:136. Smith himself said that it was by revelation that he concluded that the two papyri scrolls contained the writings of Abraham and Joseph. That the Egyptian records that illustrate the “Book of Abraham” were copies and not written by Abraham and other arguments concerning the revelation worked out by Joseph Smith are interesting topics for future research.

103. Church Educational System, The Pearl of Great Price: Student Manual Religion 327 (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2000), 28.

104. Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co./Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002), 210-11.

105. See Richard P. Howard, Restoration Scriptures: A Study of Their Textual Development, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1995), 192-210.

106. John A. Larson, “Joseph Smith and Egyptology: An Early Episode in the History of American Speculation about Ancient Egypt, 1835-1844,” in David P. Silverman, ed., For His Ka: Essays Offered in Memory of Klaus Baer (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1994), 160.

107. Lanny Bell, “The Ancient Egyptian `Books of Breathing,’ the Mormon `Book of Abraham,’ and the Development of Egyptology in America,” in Stephen E. Thompson and Peter Der Manuelian, eds., Egypt and Beyond: Essays Presented to Leonard H. Lesko upon His Retirement from the Wilbour Chair of Egyptology at Brown University, June 2005 (Providence, RI: Brown University, Department of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies, 2008), 30, 33.

Origins
I have long had a great admiration for the essay collections produced by Signature Books. As an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, I devoured The New Mormon History, Faithful History, and The Prophet Puzzle, among others. These collections were so valuable because they provided convenient access to some of the finest historical writing on the topic of Mormonism. Several years ago, as a doctoral student at Indiana University, I was in the habit of collecting new articles dealing with Mormonism. It occurred to me that the time was right for the publication of another collection of essays, and you are holding in your hands a book I would love to have had as a graduate student. That way, I could have simply thrust it wordlessly into the hands of those who expressed skepticism about the fitness of Mormonism as an object of serious academic study. Anyone who gives the essays in this book a thorough and fair reading will be left with no reservations on that score.

Happily, the people at Signature Books agreed on the need for a new collection, and I began the painful process of choosing which of the many worthy and cutting-edge articles to include and which to leave out. For every essay that made it into this collection, two or three others had to be sacrificed in the interest of space. Readers should think of this book as an introduction to the kind of fine scholarship that is flowering in the field rather than as anything approaching a comprehensive archive. The collection will be a success if it leads readers to other books and articles in the expanding world of Mormon studies. Moreover, its success will be amplified if it provides writers and researchers with new ideas and approaches to energize their own work.

Mormon studies
I have been talking about Mormon studies as if it actually exists as a discipline. In fact, there is some debate about the term. Mormon studies, the argument goes, is too exalted and slightly pretentious. In the academic world, when the word studies is attached (as in American studies or religious studies), it typically suggests the inclusion of a wide variety of methodological techniques to a subject area. For instance, one would expect such a field to include sociological, anthropological, historical, literary-critical, folkloric, economic, political, and perhaps quantitative/statistical methods under its umbrella. The most common objection to the Mormon studies denomination is that Mormon history is the more accurate term.

It’s true that most of what one might consider serious scholarship on Mormonism has traditionally been of a historical bent. This is due in large part to the astonishingly vast manuscript records that document the rise and history of the faith. Out of these records, straight-forward narrative histories emerged and continue to form the bulk of scholarly work on Mormonism. However, such narratives have for decades been complemented by more interpretive work that draws on the historical record and applies, tests, works through, and evaluates broader theoretical issues and ideas. Perhaps the first serious effort in this vein was I. Woodbridge Riley’s psychobiography of Joseph Smith. It appeared in 1902. Riley’s work was at that time an outlier in its methodological approach, to be sure. But things have changed a little since then.

Now we are at a point where it is no longer necessary, or even helpful, to think of data and interpretation in tension with one another. They are in tandem. Some researchers are better at mining facts and others are better at offering interpretations of facts. Some gifted few excel at both. In any case, a thriving field of inquiry requires active efforts in both areas. In this anthology, the essays demonstrate with force and clarity that Mormonism is a rich field of inquiry into which theories and methods of a vast array of disciplines are being widely and skillfully integrated.

This book examines Mormonism from a variety of contexts including ritual studies, sexuality, folklore, comparative religion, architecture, collective memory, film studies, literary studies, and Jewish studies. In fact, the essays deal with the entire chronological span of Mormonism from its origins to today: from appearances of Cain/Bigfoot to Wilford Woodruff’s vision of the Founding Fathers; from Joseph Smith’s founding experiences to Edward Tullidge’s reservations about those events; from W. W. Phelps’s ghostwritten texts to David O. McKay’s natural eloquence; from Mormon women’s fiction to Mormon writing on the Holocaust; from anti-Mormon films to healing rituals; from constructions of collective memory to the uses of sacred space in fundamentalist groups. This anthology will provide readers with an example of the entire depth, breadth, complexity, and sophistication of Mormon studies as it is being practiced today.

Voices
The essays are organized under the thematic rubrics of biography, theory, memory, experience, and media/literature. These divisions highlight the developing tendency to engage in a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. I should mention that a number of the contributors are not professional historians. That is, they do not hold a Ph.D. in history and are not professors of history or related disciplines. Mormonism as a field of scholarship has long been open to all who possess the drive and interest necessary to mine the archives and the creativity and vocal power to weave their gleanings into interesting, insightful, and important narratives. In this volume, such voices are complemented by views of professional academics and graduate students in training to become such.

All of this diversity is one of the most attractive elements of the current state of Mormon studies. In this book, there are essays by a medical doctor, a chemist, a college dean, history professors, religious studies professors, a professional editor, independent researchers, and a professor of literature. Graduate students make appearances as well. What binds them together is their commitment to thorough and thoughtful scholarship. In contrast to some other fields of study, there is no Mormon studies elite, cloistered away in one or two academic departments, dictating the tone, tenor, and direction of the field. The voices here are robust and vigorous, not timid or unduly tentative. No one will agree with every conclusion made by every author in this book. As with all good scholarship, there are more debates to come. In that sense, the collection serves as an invitation for others to join the fray if they have the interest. It is an open field, wide enough to accommodate all who put forth the effort and expend the intellectual energy to contribute.

Audiences
As the editor, I naturally feel this book ought to be read by everyone. Tempering my idealistic impulse for the sake of practicality, I hope this collection will serve at least two broad groups of readers. The first are those who have what might be termed a casual interest in Mormon issues. That is, they aren’t steeped in the field, they don’t spend weekends and vacations doing archival research, and they do not wait with bated breath for the annual conference of the Mormon History Association. Rather, they are, collectively, a thinking, reading, curious bunch. I imagine they might find some of the essays somewhat challenging if they are unaccustomed to academic prose. My hope is that they will be rewarded for struggling through the scholarly jungle and even surprised by the accessibility and ease with which one might come to grips with such essays, provided that they have devoted a little effort to it.

Many of the readers who make up this first audience will be tied to Mormonism in some personal way. Some may be practicing Latter-day Saints, others may have left the institutional Church but treasure their cultural heritage. A good number will be somewhere in between. These essays are not intended to be theological treatises, apologetic tracts, or anti-Mormon literature. However, one cannot deny that they will have the potential to change the way readers relate to Mormonism on personal and emotional levels. My hope is that the complexity of Mormonism, and of Mormons, evident in these articles will enrich the reader’s relationship with their religion, whatever the nature of that relationship might be.

The second audience consists of those of an academic bent, readers who are familiar with the historiography of Mormonism but who are looking for a digest of some of the most recent scholarship in the field. The breadth and creativity of the essays collected here may provide useful information and perhaps sparks of inspiration for others to apply to their own work. A subset of this group consists of those who teach college students. I have received requests from colleagues for a selection of readings that might be used profitably in courses dealing with Mormonism. The recent emergence of academic departments offering regular courses on the subject has intensified that demand. With these factors in mind, the editorial process that shaped the anthology was informed by the notion that the book might be deployed in undergraduate classrooms. The articles are suitably accessible for undergraduates and particularly useful in courses where the instructor wants to highlight the confluence of data and interpretation in modern scholarship.

How to read
I spend most of my time teaching undergraduates. Many of them have never read an academic book. My advice to them is not to merely read this book but to step into a boxing ring with it and engage the ideas they encounter there. Take up a pen and analyze the authors’ positions. Interrogate them. Express in the margins your agreement and perplexity and contempt and frustration or, on the other hand, your agreement and surprise and joy at what you learn. I would recommend seizing the arguments and ideas and wringing out their implications. To me, reading is not a passive activity. It is a contact sport. I think that religion especially, instead of being treated with solemnity and deference, ought to become internalized. Some of the essays presented here have the potential to change one’s life, either in the direction of piety in a traditional sense or toward the kind of liberty the Apostle Paul characterized as freedom through conversion to an idea, rather than allowing oneself to be governed by something one doesn’t understand.

—Stephen C. Taysom, Shaker Heights, Ohio; May 31, 2010

Buckeye’s Laments
Two Early Insider Exposés of Mormon Polygamy
Gary James Bergera

On Wednesday, February 7, 1844, the Whig-oriented Warsaw Message published, on its front page, a satirical poem about Joseph Smith. Titled “Buckeye’s Lamentation for Want of More Wives,” it demonstrated an insider’s awareness of Nauvoo’s most secret goings-on. Because Warsaw, Illinois, was situated about twelve miles south of the bustling headquarters of Smith’s Latter-day Saint Church, the newspaper liked to tweak the noses of the LDS faithful. As Thomas Gregg, the paper’s thirty-five-year-old editor, explained, “The poem … comes to us post marked ‘Nauvoo.’ It is not perfect in versification, but contains some hits at the Prophet, his Apostles, and their practices, which most readers will understand.” ¹ Smith learned of the 104-line poem that afternoon and, according to his later official history, quickly dismissed it as “a piece of doggerel … evidently the production of Wilson Law [an LDS dissident], and breathing a very foul and malicious spirit.”²

The feisty Gregg represented the older residents of Illinois who had grown leery of the Mormons’ growing political power, but he urged peace even while stirring the pot of contention.³ Less than five months earlier, in late September 1843, Gregg had editorialized that while he despised “the whole system of Mormonism,” he nonetheless urged nonviolence: “Let it suffice for the present to say that our remedy must be a peaceable one … We can advocate no measure of redress that does not carry along with it the doctrine of Obedience to the Laws, from the beginning to the end.”⁴

Two months after its initial appearance, “Buckeye’s Lamentation,” together with a longer but equally cheeky companion poem entitled “The Buckey’s First Epistle to Jo,” ran again, this time in the Message’s successor, the Warsaw Signal, which had been re-acquired by twenty-five-year-old Thomas C. Sharp. The Signal was actually the Message’s forerunner, but Sharp had sold the paper to Gregg, who had renamed it and operated it for several years, then sold it back to Sharp. Much like Gregg, Sharp opposed Smith’s Church; but unlike Gregg, who was a Quaker, Sharp advocated its violent overthrow. “War and extermination is inevitable!” he thundered against the Mormons before year’s end. “Citizens ARISE, ONE and ALL!!! – Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! to rob men of their property rights, without avenging them. We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. Let it be made with POWDER and BALL.” ⁵

“Buckey’s First Epistle,” running twenty-two stanzas of six lines each, totaled 132 lines. “Buckeye’s Lamentation,” which was thirteen stanzas long, was reprinted with only minor alterations, mostly converting italics to small capital letters, though four words were changed. Two days after the two poems’ publication on April 25, Joseph Smith mentioned in his diary that he had seen the “Warsaw Signal about Mormonism.” The later historians who expanded Smith’s diary into an official Church history said he “read in the Warsaw Signal a vile article against the Saints,” ⁶ apparently treating the two poems as one. The next issue of the weekly Signal did not appear until May 1.

The value of Buckeye’s poetry lies not in its creative expression but in its accurate, albeit sensationalized, parallels to historical facts. ⁷ By 1844, Smith’s doctrine of plural marriage had become one of Illinois’s better-known secrets. Despite his and others’ denials, Smith himself had married (or been “sealed” to) thirty-plus women, while many of his closest disciples had taken an equal, or greater, number of plural wives.⁸ This circle of confidants does not include other potential authors of the poems such as parents, siblings, children, friends, and colleagues. Buckeye’s verses evinced an understanding not only of Mormon polygamy’s practice but, just as importantly, of its theology. The author seems clearly to have been a knowledgeable insider-turned-dissident who wanted to expose Smith’s scandalous secrets—particularly those involving a young woman named Nancy—while also dropping enough hints to enable readers to venture a tentative identification.

The first of the two poems, “Buckeye’s Lamentation,” is preceded by an author’s note, reading in part: “It is time that all should know that there are hundreds and thousands in Nauvoo who will neither worship the image nor bear the yoke of the tyrant.” The poem begins by noting Buckeye’s feigned fear that he will not be saved in heaven because he only has “one lone wife” (ln. 5), and not “half a score” (8), since “beardless Joe” Smith (12) teaches that salvation depends on the number of wives a man has.⁸ Monogamy was the practice anciently, the poem asserts, but Heaven’s gate has become narrower. Smith received permission “to open the broad way” (16) “of greater glories far” (26) by sanctioning multiple wives. In fact, “the prize” (33) is no longer “some lone twinkling star” (28), or even two wives (29), but ten, since “with it you will shine as bright / as the bright shining sun” (35-36). In heaven, such husbands will “reign like mighty Gods, / creating worlds so fair; / at least a world for every wife / that you take with you there” (37-40). Men who do not embrace a plurality of wives “will find a bitter fate” (44), for as in Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30), those few wives will be given to a more deserving husband.

Through the end of the sixth stanza, overlooking the sarcasm, Buckeye presents a plausible explanation for plural marriage. ¹⁰ In fact, it is possible to draw a rationale for Mormon polygamy from sympathetic sources that is similar to what Buckeye proposes. Theoretically, a plurality of wives facilitates the passage into mortality of a larger number of spirits than results from normal birth and conversion rates. “For if I will raise up seed unto me,” God says in Smith’s Book of Mormon, “I will command my people” (Jacob 2:30).¹¹ In fact, Smith’s revelation on plural marriage, recorded in mid-1843, stipulated that plural wives “are given unto [the husband] to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, … that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified” (D&C 132:63). “When Lorenzo Snow was twenty-nine years old,” the biographer of one of Snow’s plural wives explained, “the Prophet, Joseph Smith, had a talk with him and Lorenzo was told it was urgent that he marry right away and do his part in replenishing the earth.”¹²

Likewise, after the resurrection of the righteous, polygamy will aid in peopling other worlds, according to Apostle George A. Smith, who said the practice will “exalt mankind to celestial glory and increase.”¹³ “[T]he Prophet taught us,” an early Mormon elaborated, “that Dominion & powr in the great Future would be Comensurate with the n[umber] of ‘Wives Childin & Friends’ that we inheret here,” “that our great mission to earth was to Organize a Neculi of Heaven to take with us. To the increace of which there would be no end.”¹⁴ “I understand,” another of Smith’s followers reported, “that a Man’s Dominion will be as God’s is, over his own Creatures[,] and the more numerous[,] the greater his Dominion.”¹⁵ Sarah Rich, the first wife of Apostle Charles C. Rich, consented to polygamy because she believed that “those holding the Priesthood of Heaven might, by obeying this Order attain to a higher glory in the eternal world.” ¹⁶ When Joseph Smith invited seventeen-year-old Lucy Walker to become his wife, he told her “this principle … would prove an everlasting blessing to my father’s house and form a chain that could never [be] broken, worlds without end.” ¹⁷ For worthy men, plural marriage was thus “a privilege with blessings.”¹⁸ “It is your privilege,” Joseph Smith told his male secretary, “to have all the wives you want.”¹⁹ “The Lord had given him the keys of this sealing ordinance,” Smith’s cousin remembered, and “he felt as liberal to others as he did to himself … and said to me ‘You should not be behind your privileges’.”²⁰

In the remaining seven stanzas, Buckeye reports that Smith sometimes sanctioned a friend or a faithful priesthood bearer to take another man’s wife or daughter: “Some priest or king, may claim your wife / because that you are poor” (51-52). Those who reject Smith’s counsel risk damnation; those who obey are forever blessed: “He’ll seal you up, be damned you can’t, / no matter what you do[;] / if that you only stick to him, / he swears he’ll take you through” (62-64). This “secret doctrine” (73), Buckeye continues, is taught and practiced by Smith and the “red rams,” referring to red-headed apostles Brigham Young and Orson Hyde (74), “though they deny it publicly” (75), and even by Smith’s older brother and Church Patriarch, Hyrum (83). In fact, Buckeye implies that Hyrum has already taken a widow as a plural wife: “For sure, ’twould be quite impolite, / if not a great disgrace, / to have a widow sister fair / spit in a Prophet’s face!” (85-88). Still, Buckeye asserts, Joseph Smith, “at snaring[,] beats them all, / and at the rest does laugh; / for widows poor, and orphan girls, / he sets his snares around for all, / and very seldom fails / to catch some thoughtless Partridges, / Snow-birds or Knight-ingales!” (89-96). Some women are not so easily “drag[g]ed to hell” (99), Buckeye says, especially those “whose sires have bled in days gone by, / for their dear country’s cause; / and who will still maintains its rights, / its Liberty and Laws!” (101-04).

Again using sources friendly to Joseph Smith, Buckeye’s allegations find support. To that man who is given ten talents “shall be given more,” Smith taught, “and from him that had but one should be taken … and given to him who had ten. This, so far as I could understand,” explained one of Smith’s followers, “might relate to families.”²¹ Rejecting these teachings imperiled one’s soul: “All those who have this law revealed unto them,” God said to Smith in the revelation on plural marriage, “must obey the same. For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory” (D&C 132:3-4). One faithful father who agreed to “consecrate” his teenage daughter to Smith was promised: “[T]he thing that my servant Joseph Smith has made known unto you and your Family … shall be rewarded upon your heads with honor and immortality and eternal life to all your house both old & young.”²² “If you will take this step,” one of Smith’s plural brides reported him saying, “it will insure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.”²³ In fact, only those who accepted the doctrine of plural wives²⁴ were worthy to receive the Church’s highest blessing: the “promises that worthy men could become kings and priests and that women could become queens and priestesses in the eternal worlds,” this guaranteeing their exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom.²⁵

By the time of “Buckeye’s Lamentation,” in early February 1844, Mormonism’s “red rams,” apostles Young and Hyde, had already been sealed, as Buckeye says, to three and two plural wives, respectively.²⁶ Of the remaining ten members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, Heber C. Kimball had taken a plural wife in 1842, Parley P. Pratt in July 1843, Willard Richards in January 1843, and John Taylor in December 1843 and again in February 1844. Apostle Ezra Taft Benson would marry polygamously in April 1844, as would Lyman Wight, probably in May 1844, John E. Page sometime in 1844, Orson Pratt later that fall, George A. Smith in November 1844, and Wilford Woodruff in April 1846. In addition, Smith’s brother Hyrum had, in August 1843, married as his first plural wife Mercy Rachel Fielding Thompson, sister of his legal wife, Mary Fielding Smith, and relict of Robert B. Thompson, who had died in August 1841.

Joseph Smith himself had married some thirty-plus women by this time, in addition to his first wife.²⁷ Of these, four were widows and four, though not orphans per se, had lived with Smith as their de facto guardian. The widows—Agnes Coolbrith Smith (m. January 1842), Martha McBride Knight (m. August 1842), Fanny Young Murray (m. November 1843), and Delcena Johnson Sherman (m. before July 1842)—ranged in age from thirty-three to fifty-seven; Smith’s charges—Sarah and Maria Lawrence (both m. May 1843) and Emily Maria and Eliza Dow Partridge (both m. March 1843)—were from seventeen to twenty-two years old.²⁸ Notice that Buckeye also correctly identifies by surname four of Smith’s plural wives: the Partridge sisters, Eliza Roxcy Snow (m. June 1842), and Martha Knight: the “thoughtless Partridges, / Snow-birds or Knight-ingales!”

Not all plural wives greeted the practice enthusiastically, as Buckeye writes;²⁹ and not all would-be wives, despite threats of damnation, submitted to Smith’s solicitations.³⁰ One of Smith’s intended wives said she would “sooner go to hell as a virtuous woman than to heaven as a whore.”³¹ “Teach it to someone else,” replied another woman.³² In referring to those whose fathers had “bled in days gone by, / for their dear country’s cause,” Buckeye may have meant Cordelia Calista Morley, daughter of Isaac Morley, a veteran of the War of 1812. With Smith’s blessing, Isaac took his first plural wife in January 1844, about the same time, according to Cordelia’s autobiography, that “plural marriage was introduced to me by my pearents from Joseph Smith asking their consent … [for] me to be his wife. Imagine if you can my feelings to be a plural wife. Something I never thought I ever could be[,] I [k]new nothing of such religion and could not [ac]cept it. Neither did I.”³³ Following Smith’s death, however, Cordelia changed her mind and was sealed to him posthumously in January 1846.³⁴ Finally, some writers³⁴ have interpreted Buckeye’s closing reference to “Libery and Laws!” as a nod to his identity as one or both of the renegade Mormon brothers Wilson and William Law. On the other hand, Buckeye may have simply been saluting other prominent dissidents like himself.

The second of Buckeye’s two poems focuses on Smith’s slanderous charges against the poet. In the first five stanzas, Buckeye trumpets his earlier broadside and calls himself a “certain chief” who had “learned to sing” and “turn’d out a poet great, / or some such thing” (3-6). “Like some great herald,” he proclaims Smith’s “wicked ways, / your tyran[n]y, your sin and shame, / in these last days” (10-12). People should know “there is still one child who dare / and will be free” (lns. 17-18). Buckeye reveals that he “lives in Nauvoo,” where he once was a true friend “to you, / in days that’s past,” until Smith slandered him, throwing “fair fame to blast” (21-24). Only then did the poet see that “you were not what you had been,” displaying instead iniquity “in every way; / And from fair virtue’s paths did lean[,] / vile plans to lay” (26-30).

The next eleven stanzas address Smith’s courtship of a young woman for whom Buckeye has strong romantic feelings. “Have you forgot,” he asks Smith, “the snare you laid / for Nancy, (lovely Buckeye maid?) / … assisted by that wretched bawd / who kept the house” (31-32, 35-36). Nancy would not yield to Smith’s doctrines, “although the scriptures you did wield / in your relief” (41-42). Faced with rejection and the threat of exposure, Smith “chang’d your lovers sighs, / and vengeful hate flash’d in your eyes” (49-50). “Circulating lies” (53), Smith hoped to “destroy her fame, / and give to her a ruin’d name, / so that if she should ever proclaim / what you had tried; / your friends might turn on her the shame / and say she lied” (55-60). Instead of cowering, Nancy “met you face to face / … and like a counterfeit she nail’d / you tightly down” (63-66). “Although you tried,” Buckeye gloats, “to make this gentle creature … eat her words, / … strong in truth, she in that hour / told you you lied” (67-72). Humiliated, Buckeye says, Smith went to Nancy’s father and admitted that “what she had said, was true,” but explained that he had simply been testing her virtue to “keep herself all pure and free / from base seducers like to me, and Joab vile,” both of whom, Smith had been told by God, would attempt to “beguile” her (75-84). Though pained by Smith’s “slanderous tongue” (85), Buckeye would have said nothing of Smith’s infamy, provided Smith repent (89). Instead, Smith continued to voice his “slanders vile” (91), which Buckeye—“this child” (92)—now refuses to bear any longer: “Although by nature he is mild, / and well disposed; / thy sins from continent to isle / shall be exposed” (93-96).

While giving vent to his anger, Buckeye discloses his own shaken faith in Smith and promises to expose “Missouri’s deeds … / though perpetrated in the night, / by hirelings who thought it right / to do thy will / by cabin conflagration bright[,] / to scalp and kill” (98-102). Buckeye pleads for Smith to repent and “think, how mighty and sublime / thy calling first [is,] / and in black sackcloth bow thee down / low in the dust / … and I’ll forgive” (103-14). Otherwise, “your dark deeds in Nauvoo, / as well as in Missouri too[,] / like Hamlet’s ghost shall rise to view” (115-17). Buckeye may be a “child” (125), but he can trace his lineage back to William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, champions of Scottish freedom who “for Liberty did raise / the sword, and broke / (as I intend in these last days) / a tyrant’s yoke” (lns. 129-32).

From a variety of sources, it is clear that “Nancy,” the “lovely Buckeye maid,” is Nancy Rigdon, daughter of Sidney Rigdon, one of Smith’s two counselors in the three-man First Presidency.³⁶ According to Rigdon biographer Richard S. Van Wagoner,³⁷ thirty-one-year-old Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde, though civilly married to Orson Hyde, was sealed to Smith about this time and was probably the “wretched bawd / who kept the house.” Marinda asked Nancy in April 1842 to accompany her to talk with Smith. Smith was unable to meet the two women, and Nancy later mentioned the episode to twenty-three-year-old Francis (“Frank”) M. Higbee, who at the time was courting Nancy.³⁸ John C. Bennett, one of Smith’s boosters-turned-traitors, cautioned Higbee that Smith was interested in nineteen-year-old Nancy. Higbee allegedly told Nancy of Smith’s interest, and when she subsequently met Smith, she spurned his advances. Within the next few days, Smith sent Nancy a pleading letter to change her mind. The letter read, in part: “That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be and often is, right under another. … Everything that God gives us is lawful and right; and it is proper that we should enjoy His gifts and blessings … Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in his views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive.” Nancy told her family of the encounter and gave the letter to Higbee, who handed it to Bennett, who soon published it. Relations between the Rigdons and Smith soured, and some of Smith’s followers publicly branded Nancy a prostitute.³⁹

Smith succeeded in accounting for his actions in such a way to satisfy everyone involved except Higbee. Meeting privately with him on June 29, 1842, Smith explained that his criticisms of Higbee had been spoken “in self defense.” Smith later told a small group of followers that he would attack the credibility of anyone who violated his trust, that those who did so were covenant-breakers and liars, especially if they threatened his or his people’s safety, and it did not matter if his criticisms of them were true or not. According to Smith’s secretary, Higbee seemed “humble, and promised to reform.”⁴⁰ Higbee, however, remembered the encounter differently and never forgot Smith’s rationalization. In recounting this same episode, Buckeye reported Smith’s contention that he had merely been preparing Nancy to resist the amorous overtures of young men such as Buckeye and lechers like Joab (one of John Bennett’s well-known noms de plume).⁴¹ By 1844, Bennett’s own extramarital escapades circa 1841-42 had become common knowledge. For Buckeye, Smith’s assertion that he had been protecting Nancy was a coup de grâce which “burning tears from me have wrung” (86). Still, Buckeye forbore, and only after subsequent slanders did he, like the Scottish patriots, dare to break the “tyrant’s yoke.”

In this second poem, Buckeye shows his hand most clearly to be Nancy Rigdon’s suitor, Francis Higbee.⁴² In addition to calling himself Buckeye, signaling his status as Ohio-born, he scatters throughout his verses the following hints regarding his identity:

● He is a “child” living in Nauvoo, who was both a friend and follower of Smith until Smith slandered him;

● He is familiar with Smith’s teachings on plural marriage and knows some of those who took other wives, including Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, Orson Hyde, and others of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles; he also knows that Joseph Smith married widows and orphans and the identities of four wives; he knows that some women rejected Smith’s proposals, including women whose fathers are veterans;

● He is well acquainted with Nancy Rigdon. He knows that Smith proposed to her and what arguments Smith used to persuade her; he knows that Nancy rejected the prophet, that Smith and others attempted to discredit her, and that Smith admitted his guilt but explained he had been preparing her for seduction by others;

● He knows about being saved in mortality as a king and priest or queen and priestess.

Of these clues, Francis Higbee seems to satisfy the greatest number.⁴³ Born in 1820 in Tate, Ohio, to Elias Higbee and Sarah Elizabeth Ward (m. 1818), Francis’s family joined the Mormon Church in Ohio in early 1832. Like other new Latter-day Saints, the Higbees moved to Jackson County, Missouri, the following year but left in 1835 to settle in Kirtland, Ohio, another Mormon stronghold. In 1836 they relocated to Missouri, left again, and by early 1839 had migrated to Illinois and helped establish Nauvoo. Like others, it may have taken the Higbees years to recover from the horrors associated with their experiences in Missouri. Francis’s father, Elias, was a county judge in Missouri, a leading officer in the Church’s Missouri quasi-militia sometimes called the Danites, and accompanied Joseph Smith to Washington, D.C., to plead the Mormons’ case for redress in 1839-40. Elias was Church Recorder from 1838 until June 1843 when he died from cholera. His passing devastated his forty-two-year-old wife and seven or so children, ranging in age from four to twenty-three. Smith had scolded Elias the previous year for not being “as diligent as you ought to have been, … [to] make your children industrious,”⁴⁴ but now at his funeral said that in the resurrection Elias would “come forth and strike hands with the faithful, and share the glory of the kingdom of God for ever and ever.”⁴⁵

In 1841, twenty-one-year-old Francis was elected a colonel (“a certain chief”) in the Nauvoo Legion, a county-wide militia, with Smith and John Bennett as his superior officers. About this time, Francis became serious about Nancy Rigdon, whom he had met in Missouri. He apparently began seeing her in early 1842. Nancy had been born in Pennsylvania, but Francis seems to have thought she was from Ohio, probably because her parents had married there in 1820 and Ohio was where several of her siblings were born.

At about the same time as Joseph Smith’s proposal to Nancy in April 1842, allegations erupted that Bennett and others had defiled several young women and said that Smith had sanctioned such behavior.⁴⁶ By this time, Smith had been sealed to at least eight women, and for nearly ten months, from September 1840 to July 1841, Bennett had lodged with him and was evidently privy to Smith’s first plural marriage on April 5, 1841. Bennett seems to have felt authorized to initiate others into his version of plural marriage. Smith worried that Bennett was exposing the Church to criticism and decided by mid-May 1842 to rid himself of his counselor. Bennett apparently confessed his guilt prior to resigning the mayorship of Nauvoo and membership in the Church, then left town in June and was succeeded as mayor by Smith. Prior to his departure, Bennett announced under pressure that he had never known Smith “to countenance any improper conduct whatever either in public or private; and that [Smith] never did teach to me in private that an illegal, illicit intercourse with females, was under any circumstance justifiable, and that I never knew him to so teach others.”⁴⁷ When Smith became connected to women, it was through a marriage sealing ceremony performed by an authorized priesthood holder, whereas Bennett believed that a marriage ceremony was unnecessary.⁴⁸

Francis Higbee’s brother Chauncey was among the city’s young men who fell under Bennett’s spell. Despite swearing to an affidavit virtually identical to Bennett’s, Chauncey, as a lesson to all, was formally expelled from the Church on May 24, 1842, “for unchaste and unvirtuous conduct towards certain females, and for teaching it was right, if kept secret, &c.”⁴⁹ To counter any suspicion of complicity after Chauncey invoked Joseph Smith’s name in his defense, Chauncey was sued for “slander[ing] and defam[ing] the character of the said Joseph Smith, and also the character of Emma Smith, his wife.”⁵⁰ Chauncey felt his situation differed little from that of Bennett, who at this point had not been disciplined, or from Smith’s own younger brother William, who was never punished for his sexual liaisons.

The Higbees were furious at what they perceived to be Joseph Smith’s hypocrisy. In fact, Smith became worried they might attempt to convince the brother of a woman Smith intended to court to disrupt his plans, and Smith therefore called the brother away on a mission to get him out of town.⁵¹ For a brief time, Francis collaborated with John Bennett, who denied any wrongdoing and on July 8, 1842, began publishing a series of letters to expose Smith.⁵² Francis gave Bennett the letter Smith had sent to Nancy, which had the unintended effect of ending Francis’s relationship with her. Chauncey initiated a civil action against Smith so he could call women as witnesses who could be forced to admit to immorality by Smith.⁵³

After some three months, Smith dropped his own suit and went into hiding, trying to avoid extradition to Missouri. Authorities there wanted to charge him with an attempted assassination of a former governor. In addition, the Higbees had retreated from their earlier threats of reprisal.⁵⁴ Smith no doubt sensed that a trial might expose his marriage teachings. “I want [all] to understand,” a chastened-sounding Francis wrote in late November 1842 to the editor of a Nauvoo newspaper, “that I have no feelings against Joseph.” He had “fully satisfied myself that [Smith] has been called of God, to do a great, and mighty, work in the earth, and let it suffice to say I am fully satisfied with him.—All our former difficulties (if such they might be called), were forever effectually settled before I left.”⁵⁵ “My object,” Chauncey later added, “is not to vindicate or anathamatise either party”; but “free from the shackles of party litigation,” he “desire[d] peacefully to pursue the duties of my daily avocation; while—thankful for the boon—I hope long to remain a citizen of our flourishing city.”⁵⁶

“If … I have done anything to injure my character,” Smith himself confessed four months later, “I am sorry for it; and if you will forgive me, I will endeavor to do so no more. I do not know that I have done anything of the kind. But if I have, … I want you to come boldly and frankly, and tell of it; and if not, [for]ever after hold your peace.”⁵⁷ When the Higbees’ father passed away in June, the Times and Seasons editorialized: “He has raised a large family—all to respectability—all to ultimate usefulness.”⁵⁸ But Smith offered a mild rebuke to Francis and Chauncey when, during the funeral sermon, he advised “the mourners” to “do as the husband and the father would instruct you, and you shall be reunited.”⁵⁹

Francis soon relocated to Cincinnati until mid-summer 1843 when he returned to Nauvoo and found his name linked to ongoing efforts to extradite Smith to Missouri. He had not, in fact, forgiven Smith for his overtures to Nancy Rigdon. Maybe he had shared his feelings on the topic with others. “My father’s death has been enough,” he wrote to Smith on September 8, 1843, anxious to clear his name,

when taken in connection with other things of less moment, to engage my whole attention without seeking to draw down upon my own head, the heads of my mother’s family, another scourge, such as we suffered in Missouri. Who suffered more and hazarded life oftener than did I—God forbid that ever I should be instrumental in bringing destruction not only upon my friends, but upon myself and relatives—Then, Sir, please read this, or announce to the public that the charge with which I stand charged is false, false, false, and greatly oblige.⁶⁰

Within weeks Francis participated in a special “pleasure party and dinner” hosted by Smith,⁶¹ who subsequently “expressed himself satisfied that Col. Frances M. Higbee was free, even of reproach or suspicion, in that matter.”⁶² But rumors of Higbee’s disloyalty would not die. In late December, Smith expanded Nauvoo’s police force, which doubled as a personal security force, in response to Missouri’s efforts to capture him.⁶³ During his charge to the forty new recruits, Smith declared:

My life is more in danger from some little dough-head of a fool in this city than from all my numerous and inveterate enemies abroad. I am exposed to far greater danger from traitors among ourselves than from enemies without … and if I can escape from the ungrateful treachery of assassins, I can live as Caesar might have lived, were it not for a right-hand Brutus. … Judas was one of the Twelve Apostles, even their treasurer, and dipt with their Master in the dish, and through his treachery, the crucifixion was brought about; and we have a Judas in our midst.⁶⁴

Almost immediately, William Law, who was one of Smith’s counselors in the First Presidency, and William Marks, who was president of the Nauvoo Stake, were told that Smith had reference to them.⁶⁵ Both had rejected Smith’s teachings on plural marriage, and Law in particular was an increasingly vocal critic.⁶⁶ Smith tried to reassure the two that he had not meant them,⁶⁷ but in the course of his comments he had linked the unnamed traitors with a rejection of polygamy: “Mayor [Joseph Smith] spoke on Spiritual Wife system, and explained, The man who promises to keep a secret and does not keep it[,] he is a liar, and not to be trusted. … When a man becomes a traitor to his friend or country who is innocent, treacherous to innocent blood[,] [I] do consider it right to cut off his influence so that he could not injure the innocent, but [it is] not right to meddle with that man without testimony, law & trial.”⁶⁸

The Nauvoo City Council asked Francis on January 5 what he knew about Law and Marks. “Have received the impression from rumor that Mr. Law, Mr. Marks and probably one or two others could not subscribe to all things in the Church, and there were some private matters that might make trouble,” he replied.⁶⁹ Annoyed at Higbee’s mention of “private matters,” Smith said before the close of the meeting that he “thought Francis Higbee had better stay at home and hold his tongue, lest rumor turn upon him and disclose some private matters which he would prefer kept hid. Did not believe there was any rumor of the kind afloat [regarding Smith’s private matters], or [Higbee] could have told some of the names of his informants. Thought the young men of the city had better withdraw from [Higbee’s] society, and let him stand on his own merits. I by no means consider [Higbee] the standard of the city.”⁷⁰

William Law’s account of Smith’s remarks suggest that the official minutes may not do full justice to Smith’s warning:

Joseph made another speech, and in it said that F. M. Higbee had better be careful or a train of facts would be disclosed concerning him that he would not like; gave us to understand that [Higbee] was conniving with Missouri &c., and that [Higbee] only disgraced anyone who associated with him, and that [Smith] had denied him the privilege of [entering] his house (or words like that) and would not allow him to associate with his females &c; that he had been called on to lay hands on him when he stank from a cause that he did not like to name (or such a saying).⁷¹ I did not believe the story at all, and cannot see why he should tell it.⁷²

During the next few days, Higbee fumed over Smith’s accusations and before the end of the week sent what Smith called “a long equivocating letter charging me with having slandered his character and demanding a public trial before the Church. It contains no denial of the charges which he accuses me of having spoken against him, but is full of bombast.”⁷³ Barely able to contain his anger, Higbee replied:

The inconsiderate, the unwarented, and unheard of attack you made upon my character on the 6th inst before the City Council impels me to demand an investigation of you, and that without delay[,] before the eclesiastical powers. For if I am guilty of either of those charges, omitting the guilt of the whole, I most unquestionably am not worthy a name among a people making as great proffesions as do the people called mormons. It is said I seek the hours of the midnight assassin to seize my victim, when no one is near to bear witness of the crime or attest the unhallowed deed, that I sympathized with the afflicted and oppressed, that I may devour their vitals, that I seek the mantle of religion to envelop my scorpion body, that I may better practeice my nefarious designs. Then sir, if I am acting in this sphere, am I not acting in the sphere of a hypocrite, and am I not a dark body suffered a place on the fair escutcheon of our religion? In deciding this question, let us not sever the moorings of Christianity, [for if we do, do we not] plunge into the mad sea of revenge? persuade the mariner to sell his compass? or Washington his sword? persuade an intelegent man to pluck out his eyes, to enjoy the unmitigated horrors of blindness? Truth is our compass in the stormy sea of life; before which wealth, power, authority, talent and genious tremble, as did Felix on his thrown; when Heaven and Earth shall pass away[,] [t]ruth shall arise like the angel on Manoah’s sacrifice, upon the flame of Natures funeral pyre, and ascend to her source, her heaven and her horne, the bosem of the Holy, and eternal God.⁷⁴ …

Sir, you have struck a blow at evry thing which renders existance sweet; you have sought to blast evry proud hope, and evry fond expectations by throwing into free circulation reports, the truth of which, God is some day to judge. The cause of your course towards me has astonished many, from the fact that they can not divine the reason, and as for myself I am as ignorant of the cause, as a child unborn. As for the opinion which I always, and still entertain, with regard to the propriety of one mans having more than one woman, or this spiritual business, I am not ashamed to avow, in your presence or in the face and eyes of the world; I have repeatedly said and am still of the same opinion “fixed and determined as the polar star” that any revelation commanding or in any wise suffering sexual intercourse under any other form than that prescribed by the laws of our country, and which has been ratified by special revelation through you, is of HELL; and I bid defiance to any or all such. As far as my character and influence extends, I am willing, not only willing but determined, to oppose it, under evry form it can present itself. Whether [or not] my name shall be sounded, my opposition to such a hellish fabrication shall be known, at the peril of my life, my fortune and my sacred honor. “Though the people should riot and pro[t]e[s]t in insurrection[,] though tyrants should rage and threaten distruction, though the hurricane should lay upon the bed of the sea; though the earthquake should tear the globe in peices; though the stars should fall from their sphere, and the frame of nature be dissolved I know virtue will protect her votaries while the good men will remain tranquil amidst the ruins of the world.[”]

That man who pursues a course different from that which I have persued and am still determined to persue, may reach the regions of pleasure when the happy companions [of] contentement, friendship, Knowledge, wealth, dignity, and fame shall greet him, but alas! how soon must he according to the inevitable decree of Heaven, be consigned to sorrow, remorse and dispair. Then sir[,] with me it is virtue or vice. I am a devoted friend to virtue, and Sir a court or council of the church must declare no[thing] otherwise immediately; or I shall think you unjust [i]n the extreme; then Sir I cla[i]m the right of investigation, I claim the right to a fair and impartial and public trial; and that without delay. From your mere ipse dixit [unfounded assertion] I shall extricate myself, for bear it I will not; I am quite determined not to remain quiet under the foul imputations cast upon me.⁷⁵

Smith ignored Higbee’s demand for a public investigation, and word soon surfaced that Francis intended to publicly sue Smith for slander.⁷⁶ Smith responded by arranging to have Higbee tried before Nauvoo’s municipal court “for absenting himself from City Council without leave, when summoned as a witness, and for slanderous and abusive language towards one of the members of the Council [i.e., Smith].”⁷⁷ Instead of a trial, however, Smith and Higbee cobbled a tentative reconciliation. According to the official minutes:

Mayor [Smith] announced that all difficulties between him & Francis M. Higby [were eternally buried] and he was to be his friend forever & F. M. Higby said I will be his friend forever and his right hand man. And A[lderman] Hiram Smith stated that all aspersions which may have been supposed to have been cast upon Higby are false a mistake[,] tis not so. Mayor explained at length [illegible] what, in substance, he had said at previous councils on the same subject. … F. M. Higby spoke stating his distraction of mind the past week, glad the difficulties are settled shall be his friend as said before. The observations by the mayor before the council on the 5th inst. concerning F. M. Higby were ordered to be stricken from the minutes.⁷⁸

Unfortunately, the détente proved short-lived, and three weeks later “Buckeye’s Lamentation for Want of More Wives” appeared in the Warsaw Message.

Before the end of the month, on February 26, 1844, Higbee again crossed paths with Smith. By now a practicing attorney, as was his brother Chauncey, Francis represented Orsimus F. Bostwick, whom Hyrum Smith had charged with slandering him in connection with “certain females of Nauvoo.”⁷⁹ The mayor’s court found Bostwick guilty, and Francis informed the tribunal that he would appeal the decision to the circuit court, which he felt would be less biased, knowing the influence Joseph Smith wielded over the city’s legal system.⁸⁰ Smith countered: “I told Higbee what I thought of him for trying to carry such a suit to Carthage [the county seat]—it was to stir up the mob and bring them upon us.”⁸¹ Ten days later, Smith addressed a general gathering of Nauvoo’s citizens and placed Francis Higbee on notice:

[W]e have a gang of simple fellows here who do not know where their elbows or heads are. … [I]f there is any case tried by the authorities of Nauvoo, they want it appealed to Carthage to the circuit court. …

From this time I design to bring such characters who act against the interests of the city before a committee of the whole; and I will have the voice of the people, which is republican, and is likely to be the voice of God; and as long as I have a tongue to speak, I will expose the iniquity of the lawyers and wicked men.⁸²

“I despise the man who will betray you with a kiss,” Smith added; “and I am determined to use up⁸³ these men, if they will not stop their operation. … I will disgrace every man by publishing him on the house top, and who will not be still and mind his own business.”⁸⁴ “Wo to the man or lawyer,” the women of Nauvoo joined in, “that filthies himself by advocating such rotten hearted raven’s rights,” meaning the right to defend oneself in court on the charge of insulting the Church.⁸⁵

Before the end of March 1844, people were becoming increasingly aware that dissidents were organizing themselves into a knowledgeable cabal as Smith, in particular, lashed out at Chauncey Higbee, for instance. “The lies that C. L. Higbee has hatched up as a foundation to work upon” Smith said, included the claim that Smith had “had men’s heads cut off in Missouri” and that he had “wanted to kill and put out of the way” the dissidents. “I won’t swear out a warrant against them,” Smith postured, “for I don’t fear any of them: they would not scare off an old setting hen. I intend to publish all the iniquity that I know of them. … I am willing to do anything for the good of the people.”⁸⁶ Smith’s critics had, in fact, met to discuss how best to expose Smith’s iniquities, and tensions escalated. On April 1, the Higbees were arrested for “assaulting the police” but were acquitted. Chauncey was then arrested for “using abusive language to and insulting the city marshal while in the discharge of his official duty.”⁸⁷ Chauncey reciprocated by having the complaining policemen arrested for “false imprisonment.” Nauvoo’s municipal court intervened, released the three policeman, and ruled that Higbee was a “very disorderly person,” noting that the suit was “malicious” and ordering “that said Higbee pay the costs.”⁸⁸

Smith’s opponents demanded that their complaints be aired fully during an upcoming Churchwide general conference. Unwilling to give his enemies a forum, Smith decided differently. “It had been expected by some that the little petty difficulties which have existed would be brought up and investigated before this conference,” he announced, “but it will not be the case; these things are of too trivial a nature to occupy the attention of so large a body.”⁸⁹ Ironically, Hyrum Smith tried to defuse the situation during the same conference by saying the Laws had “done a great deal of good … I do not believe that the Messrs. Laws would do anything against me.”⁹⁰ Joseph Smigh was not pleased with this olive leaf.⁹¹ On April 17, he confronted Chauncey with evidence that Chauncey had threatened to him him. The next day, Smith had William and Wilson Law formally expelled from the Church for “unchristianlike conduct.”⁹² This was the catalyst for the Higbees, Laws, and other dissenters meeting on April 21 to form a new Church. A few days later, on April 26, a skirmish broke out between three of the dissenters, including Chauncey, and Nauvoo policemen when the latter asked for help in bringing a prisoner to the mayor’s office. They were arrested for “resisting the authorities of the city.”⁹³ The previous day, “Buckey’s First Epistle” had appeared in the Warsaw Signal, together with the reprint of “Buckeye’s Lamentation.”

Eight days later, Francis formally charged Joseph Smith with slander and had him arrested by the circuit court in Carthage, hoping to forego a hearing in Nauvoo. It is unclear what immediately prompted the suit; perhaps others of Higbee’s immediate circle had talked about Smith’s earlier accusations against him. Smith petitioned Nauvoo’s municipal court the same day to allow him to respond to Higbee’s charges and to force Higbee to justify why Smith should remain under arrest.⁹⁴ During the May 8 proceeding, which Higbee did not attend, Smith proved good on his threat to try to expose Higbee.⁹⁵ According to the published minutes:

Joseph Smith sworn … Francis M. Higbee said he was grieved at me, and I was grieved at him. I was willing on my part to settle all difficulties, and he promised if I would go before the City Council and tell them he would drop every thing against me forever. I have never mentioned the name of Francis M. Higbee disrespectfully from that time to this; but have been entirely silent about him; if any one has said that I have spoken disrespectfully since then, they have lied: and he cannot have any cause whatever. I want to testify to this court of what occurred a long time before John C. Bennet left [t]his city. I was called on to visit Francis M. Higbee; I went and found him on a bed on the floor.

[Here follows testimony which is too indelicate for the public eye or ear; and we would here remark, that so revolting, corrupt, and disgusting has been the conduct of most of this clique, that we feel to dread having any thing to do with the publication of their trials; we will not however offend the public eye or ear with a repetition of the foulness of their crimes any more.]⁹⁶

Bennet said Higbee⁹⁷ pointed out the spot where he had seduced a girl, and that he had seduced another. I did not believe it, I felt hurt, and labored with Higbee about it; he swore with uplifted hands, that he had lied about the matter. I went and told the girl’s parents, when Higbee and Bennet made affidavits and both perjured themselves, they swore false about me so as to blind the family. I brought Francis M. Higbee before Brigham Young, Hyrum Smith and others; Bennet was present, when they both acknowledged that they had done these things, and asked us to forgive them. I got vexed, my feelings had been hurt; Higbee has been guilty of adulterous communication, perjury, &c. which I am able to prove by men who heard them confess it. I also preferred charges against Bennett, the same charges which I am now telling: and he got up and told them it was the truth, when he pleaded for his life, and begged to be forgiven; this was [Bennett’s] own statement before sixty or seventy men; he said the charges were true against him and Higbee. I have been endeavoring to throw out shafts to defend myself, because they were corrupt, and I knew they were determined to ruin me: [Higbee] has told the public that he was determined to prosecute me, because I slandered him, although I tell nothing but the truth. Since the settlement of our difficulties, I have not mentioned his name disrespectfully; he wants to bind up my hands in the circuit court, and make me pay heavy damages for telling the truth. In relation to the conspiracy, I have not heard Francis M. Higbee say he would take away my life; but Chauncey Higbee [and two others] … said they would shoot me, and the only offence against me is telling the truth.

Although Hyrum Smith had earlier insisted that such accusations were “a mistake,” he and others now joined their testimony to Joseph Smith’s regarding Francis’s reported depravity:

Brigham Young, sworn, With regard to Francis M. Higbee, at the time that is spoken of, I stopped opposite Mr. Laws’ store, we had been conversing with Dr. Bennet when I came into the room, Francis Higbee rather recoiled and wished to withdraw; he went out and sat upon a pile of wood. He said it is all true, I am sorry for it, I wish it had never happened. I understood Bennet who related some of the circumstances, he cried and begged of us to forgive him, and said if he could be permitted to stay in the city as a private individual he should be happy; that was about what he said; it is true, I am sorry for it I wish it had never been so; as we came up, Dr. Bennet, Mr. Higbee, and Mr. Smith, had been talking about it, I have not mentioned it before, I knew of the whole affair, it was on the 4th of July, or a few days after[;] it was shortly after I came from England. I was in the City Council when Mr. Higbee said all was settled. …

Hyrum Smith swore,—I recollect a settlement of difficulties between Francis M. Higbee and my brother Joseph, about which some of the court may recollect. I recollect Dr. Bennett asking forgiveness of the [Masonic] Lodge when there was about sixty present—Francis M. Higbee acknowledged that it was the truth, that he was sorry, and had been a thousand times: he acknowledged his connection with the woman on the hill; I did think he was with Dr. Bennet at the time, the statement of Bennet was, that he was guilty, he was sorry and asked forgiveness, he said he had seduced six or seven, he acknowledged it, and said if he was forgiven, he would not be guilty any more. Francis said he knew it was true, he was sorry and had been a hundred times; the very things that we had challenged him with, he acknowledged. I told Francis that it had better be settled[.] [H]e said, Joseph had accused him—if his character was gone all was gone, he said he would settle it and they went into the room, he did not deny any charge, he said he was sorry, that he wanted it buried, and it was agreed to do so. Francis did not say any thing about his sickness, but Dr. Bennet … doctored him in the time of his sickness. …

Heber C. Kimball, sworn—I think it is near two years: I had some conversation with Francis Higbee, he expressed himself indignant at some things; he expressed himself that he was sorry, he would live a new life, he never would say a word against President Joseph Smith; he had an inclination to write that what he published was false. … The last time I conversed with him, he said, “if I had taken your council, I should now have been a man looked on with respect; he said he was not connected with the people that opposed President Smith and never would”—he much regretted the course he had taken.⁹⁸

At the end of the hearing, the court discharged Joseph Smith and ruled that “Francis M. Higbee’s character having been so fully shown, as infamous, the court is convinced that this suit was instituted through malice, private pique and corruption; and ought not to be countenanced; and it is ordained by the court that said Francis M. Higbee pay the costs.”⁹⁹ To underscore his commitment to expose Higbee, Smith had the court record, including his own testimony, published in the Nauvoo Neighbor the next week.

Before the end of the month, Higbee issued his own public statement to the Warsaw Signal:

The nature of the above case was as follows:—On the 1st day of May, 1844, I sued out a capias, from the Clerk of the Circuit Court, of the Fifth Judicial District of Illinois, against Joseph Smith, who, immediately on being arrested obtained a writ of habeas corpus, from the Municipal Court at Nauvoo, that he might under that garb or semblance of justice, extricate himself from the just demands of violated law, as has always been the case before when men have attempted to bring him to justice. On the return of said writ before the Municipal Court, Joseph Smith in justification of his own wickedness, corruption and infamy, swore first, as follows: “That I was grieved at him, and he was grieved at me,” but he does not tell the cause of my “grief,” neither does he give the world to understand the cause of his. He, as well as I, recollects well, the cause which first induced me to question his pretentions to sincerity, and which gave rise as he says, to my ‘grief:’ which was the base attack he (Joseph Smith) made upon the virtue of Miss Nancy Rigdon, in 1842, to whom I was at that time paying my addresses. The attack was of so base, so loathesome, and of so detestable a character, that I could not conceal my feelings from the base seducer, and I assailed Joseph Smith about the matter; in (as I think quite likely,) rather a rough manner, for I felt much excited indeed; when he (Smith) assured me I must keep perfectly dark, and be quiet, or he would serve a quietus upon me—But I could not feel reconciled towards Joseph, and I made another assault upon him, in front of Mr. James Ivin’s store, (or where he at that time kept,) and he upon that occasion told me he would blow my character to the four winds, if I did not be still, for God would deal with him, if I would be still and mind my own business, and that I was only exciting and agitating the attack, he made upon Nancy for the sake of insuring to myself an imperishable name, (or some words to that effect.)

The excitement upon my part was still on the increase, for as I reflected upon the matter, the more and more I became astonished; to think that Joseph Smith, a man professing to be a Messiah, sent by the God of Heaven to revolutionize and christianize this depraved and fallen generation, would have the presumption to attack the virtue of any female, with whom I was corresponding, and that too under the cloak of Christianity, was more than I could or ever will bear from him or any other man made in the image of his God;—I care not what his pretentions of Christianity may be, or how many revelations he may call to his aid—he is a dark fiend from the Tartarian regions,¹⁰⁰ and hell stands wide to swallow him up; and I would here recommend that Joseph Smith should look well to the west, for the figure of the Lord hath written it upon the wall “Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.”¹⁰¹

Smith discovered my feelings and commenced raging against me, by assailing my character in every corner of the street and in any private circle, and he soon commenced his outrageous attacks upon my character from the public stand. I met Smith in the public street before Hiram Smith’s office, about that time (in ’42,) when he presented his hand for my acceptance, I carried mine behind me, and refused to accept his, when he stated that he was sorry the things had assumed such an aspect, for he always loved me and did still, and I was a good boy, and every body knew it, and if every body did not know it, they were not as smart as he was. At that time he eulogized my moral worth to the skies, but could not come [to] it, for I still persisted, and utterly refused to extend my hand to any one so base, so lost to every sense of honor and virtue.”

The above is a brief statement of some things that passed between Joseph and myself, about the time he made the attack upon the virtue of Miss Nancy, sufficient, however, to acquaint the public with the reasons for my feeling towards him, as he stated I did. As for himself he could not succeed in his unhallowed attempts, and that is what made him feel so bad, but all the man had to do, I suppose in mitigation of the crime, was to offer up the entrails of a lamb, if John T. Barnett would sell another, as he did when Mr. Samuel Pratt repeated his attempts.¹⁰²

Joseph Smith continues his statement before the Municipal Court, at great length with regard to myself, during which statement he (Joseph) tells but one falsehood, and that includes all the man said from the time he rose to swear, until he closed his testimony—which was a lie of the basest kind, and constitutes him a perjured villain, and so he stands on the docket of that Court, and what is still more painful and desperate, is to know as I do verily know, that he stands before the Bar of Heaven and own[s] [i.e., admits] that he has lied, and that too, for the sole purpose of destroying him who has never harmed the hair of any man’s head, or injured any female under Heaven.¹⁰³

Smith continued to go toe-to-toe with his critics. The day after his testimony against Higbee, he saw to it that Wilson Law was cashiered from Nauvoo’s militia for “ungentlemanly and unofficer-like conduct.”¹⁰⁴ The next day, the Laws, the Higbees, and others began distributing the prospectus for a new independent publication, the Nauvoo Expositor, promising “to give a full, candid and succinct statement of facts as they really exist in the City of Nauvoo[,] fearless of whose particular case the facts may apply.”¹⁰⁵ “It shall be the organ through which we will herald the Mormon ribaldry,” Francis explained. “It shall also contain a full and complete exposé of his Mormon Seraglio or Nauvoo Harem—; and [the prophet’s] unparelleled and unheard of attempts at seduction. As it regards Joe I am as well satisfied that he excells Solomon, Tiberius, or even the black prince of Dahomeny himself, among the women as I am that he is the bigest villain that goes unhung.”¹⁰⁶

On the 12th, Smith seethed:

All the lies that are now hatched up against me are of the devil, and the influence of the devil and his servants will be used against the kingdom of God. … I never told you I was perfect; but there is no error in the revelations which I have taught. … I testify that no man has power to reveal it but myself—things in heaven, in earth and hell; and all shut your mouths for the future.¹⁰⁷

Within the week, Chauncey returned briefly to Nauvoo’s municipal court to represent a complainant in a civil case.¹⁰⁸ Two days later, Frank and three others were officially excommunicated “for apostasy.”¹⁰⁹

On May 23 word circulated that William Law intended to charge Joseph Smith with adultery.¹¹⁰ Two days later, on the strength of Law’s affidavit about Smith living in “an open state of adultery,” two indictments were issued against Smith.¹¹¹ Francis Higbee’s testimony was rejected, according to Smith’s history.¹¹² Smith gave a feisty public response: “The Lord has constituted me so curiously that I glory in persecution. I am not nearly so humble as if I were not persecuted. If oppression will make a wise man mad, much more a fool. If they want a beardless¹¹³ boy to whip all the world, I will get on the top of the mountain and crow like a rooster: I shall always beat them.”¹¹⁴ He decided he would not avoid the trial and traveled the next day to Carthage, Illinois, where he hoped to “have the indictments against me investigated.” However, since one of the witnesses was absent, the case was postponed until October and Smith returned home.¹¹⁵

On May 29 the Nauvoo Neighbor published affidavits from three women who had, two years earlier, testified that Chauncey Higbee seduced them. Smith’s history noted that this was done “to show the character of the men who are now seeking to destroy my life and usefulness, and overthrow the work of the Lord which He has commenced through my instrumentality.”¹¹⁶ The editor of the Neighbor explained:

After all that this Chauncey L. Higbee has done in wickedly and maliciously using the name of Joseph Smith to persuade innocent females to submit to gratify his hellish lusts, and then blast the character of the most chaste, pure, virtuous and philanthropic man on earth, he, to screen himself from the law of the land and the just indignation of an insulted people, and save himself from the penitentiary, or whatever punishment his unparalleled crimes merit, has entered into a conspiracy with the Laws and others against the lives of those who are knowing to his abandoned conduct, thus hoping to save himself from the disgrace which much follow an exposure, and wreck his vengeance and gratify his revenge for his awful disappointment.¹¹⁷

Not everyone was convinced. The Warsaw Signal editorialized: “No Joe, these affidavits are but evidence against yourself. They show conclusively, that the females of your city, are taught by you, to hold virtue, chastity, decency and propriety, eh! every thing that gives adornment to the character of the sex, as subservient to your will and desire. … Shame where is thy blush?”¹¹⁸

Two days later, on June 4, Smith wondered about his prospects if he were to sue the Laws and others for “perjury, slander, etc.,” perhaps in behalf of one of the women implicated in his alleged adultery.¹¹⁹ Before the end of the week, the first (and only) issue of the Nauvoo Expositor appeared, publishing three affidavits attesting to Smith’s revelation on plural marriage. “Infinite are the gradations which mark this man’s attempts for power,” wrote Francis Higbee of Smith.

Is it not a shame and a disgrace, to think we have a man in our midst, who will defy the laws of our country; the laws which shed so gentle and nourishing an influence upon our fathers, which fostered and protected them in their old age from insult and aggression; shall we their sons, lie still and suffer Joseph Smith to light up the lamp of tyranny and oppression in our midst? God forbid, let the departed spirits of our fathers, cry from the ground against us. Let us arise in the majesty of our strength and sweep the influence of tyrants and miscreants from the face of the land, as with the breath of heaven.¹²⁰

Smith was outraged and feared more exposures; he convened the city council on June 8 and 10 and orchestrated passage of a new ordinance and resolution declaring the Expositor a public nuisance and ordering its destruction.¹²¹ During these meetings, Hyrum Smith insisted that his brother’s revelation on “a multiplicity of wives” was “in answer to a question concerning things which transpired in former days, and had no reference to the present time.”¹²² He said William Law had confessed to adultery and that Francis Higbee “had the P** [pox, meaning syphilis].”¹²³ Joseph Smith admitted to preaching plural marriage “on the stand from the bible, shewing the order in ancient days, having nothing to do with the present times,” after which Hyrum again stressed that the revelation “was in reference to former days, and not the present times.”¹²⁴

Following destruction of the Expositor,¹²⁵ most dissenters left Nauvoo, hoping to avoid arrest and fearing for their lives.¹²⁶ On June 12, Smith was arrested for causing “a riot” and appeared before Nauvoo’s court, which freed him. Five days later he was again arrested and discharged. Informed that angry citizens were gathering in Warsaw to storm Nauvoo,¹²⁷ Smith mobilized the Nauvoo Legion and declared martial law. He then decided to escape to the west, believing that the Saints would be safer without him; but when told that troops were being sent to occupy the city and that he would be protected, he returned to Nauvoo to stand trial. While imprisoned in nearby Carthage Jail, Joseph and Hyrum were killed on June 27, 1844. The Higbees and Laws were not directly involved in the assassination, but their rhetoric helped to ignite the volatile situation. If dissenters hoped their actions would cause the demise of polygamy, they underestimated the power of Smith’s revelation.

The Higbees continued for a time to practice law in and around Nauvoo. Chauncey married Julia May White in 1854 in Quincy, then resettled to Pittsfield. That same year, he was admitted to the bar and elected to the Illinois general assembly. Four years later he joined the state senate. In 1861, he was elected as a circuit judge. He was appointed a member of the appellate court in 1877 and served as president of First National Bank, of which he was a charter member. He supported construction of the Pittsfield East School and a new Methodist Episcopal church. He remained in Pittsfield and died in 1884.¹²⁸

Francis is more difficult to track. A Mormon source claims he was arrested in mid-1846 for anti-Mormon activities,¹²⁹ but he was still residing in Hancock County four years later when census takers identified him as a merchant and his younger brother Jackson as a clerk.¹³⁰ He reportedly died in New York.¹³¹ Whether or not he married and had descendants is unknown. While he may have had help in composing the two Buckeye poems,¹³² they reflect aspects of his life, personality, and temperament that seem to mark him as their principal creator. The poems are significant as evidence of the controversial environment in which Joseph Smith was assassinated, particularly with regard to the beginnings of plural marriage, as well as being artifacts of the author’s own stormy encounter with Mormonism.

Appendix

BUCKEYE’S LAMENTATION for want of more wives.
(Warsaw Message, Feb. 7, 1844, 1; Warsaw Signal, Apr. 25, 1844, 3)

1.

I once thought I had knowledge great,
But now I find ’tis small;
I once thought I’d Religion, too,
But I find I’ve none at all.
5 For I have got but one lone wife,
And can obtain no more;
And the doctrine is, I can’t be saved,
Unless I’ve half a score!

2.

The narrow gate that Peter kept,
10 In ages long ago,
Is locked and barred since he gave up
The keys to beardless Joe.
And Joe proclaims it is too small,
And causes great delay,
15 And that he has permission got
To open the broad way.

3.

The narrow gate did well enough
When Peter, James, and John,
Did lead the saints on Zion-ward,
20 In single file along:
When bachelors, like good old Paul,
Could win the glorious prize,
And maids, without a marriage rite,
Reach “mansions in the skies.”

4.

25 But we have other teaching now,
Of greater glories far;
How a single glory’s nothing more
Than some lone twinkling star.
A two-fold glory’s like the moon,
30 That shines so sweet at night,
Reflecting from her gracious lord
Whatever he thinks right.

5.

A tenfold glory—that’s the prize!
Without it you’re undone!
35 But with it you will shine as bright
As the bright shining sun.
There you may reign¹³³ like mighty Gods,
Creating worlds so fair;—
At least a world for every wife
40 That you take with you there.

6.

The man that has got ten fair wives,
Ten worlds he may create;
And he that has got less than this,
Will find a bitter fate.
45 The one or two that he may have,
He’d be deprived of then;
And they’ll be given as talents were
To him who has got ten.

7.

And ’tis so here, in this sad life–
50 Such ills you must endure–
Some priest or king, may claim your wife
Because that you are poor.
A revelation he may get—
Refuse it if you dare!
55 And you’ll be damned perpetually
By our good Lord the Mayor!¹³⁴

8.

But if that you yield willingly,
Your daughters and your wives,
In spiritual marriage to our Pope,
60 He’ll bless you all your lives;
He’ll seal you up, be damned you can’t,
No matter what you do—
If that you only stick to him,
He swears he’ll take you through.

9.

65 He’ll lead you on to¹³⁵ the broad gate,
Which he has opened wide—
In solid column you shall march,
And enter side by side.
And no delay you’ll meet with there,
70 But “forward march” you shall:—
For he’s not only our Lord Mayor
But Lord Lieutenant-ral.¹³⁶

10.

This is the secret doctrine taught
By Joe and the red rams*—
75 Although in public they deny—
But then ’tis all a sham.
They fear the indignation just,
Of those who have come here,
With hands thats clean and honest hearts,
80 To serve the Lord in fear.

11.

Thus, all the twelve do slyly teach,
And slyly practice, too;
And even the sage Patriarch,
Wont have untied his shoe:
85 For sure, ’twould be quite impolite,
If not a great disgrace,
To have a widow sister fair
Spit in a Prophet’s face!

12

But Joe at snaring beats them all,
90 And at the rest does laugh;
For widows poor, and orphan girls,
He can ensnare with chaff,
He sets his snares around for all,—
And very seldom fails
95 To catch some thoughtless Partridges,¹³⁷
Snow-birds¹³⁸ or Knight-ingales!¹³⁹

12. [sic]

But there are hundred¹⁴⁰ other birds
He never can make sing;
Who wont be driven nor draged to hell,¹⁴¹
100 By prophet, priest nor king:
Whose sires have bled in days gone by,
For their dear country’s cause;
And who will still maintains its rights,
Its Liberty and Laws!

^*B. Y. & O. H.¹⁴²

_________________________

The Buckey’s First Epistle to Jo.
(Warsaw Signal, Apr. 25, 1844, 1)

1

Friend Jo, I have been told of late,
That you had got it in your pate
A certain chief, to vent his hate,
Had learned to sing;
5 And had turn’d out a poet great,
Or some such thing.

2

Because the “Warsaw Message” came
With tidings from that state of fame,
Like some great herald to proclaim
10 Your wicked ways,
Your tyrany, your sin and shame,
In these last days.

3

With Buckey’s trumpet sounding clear,
That Democrat and Whig might hear,
15 And Priest-rid Mormons, who in fear,
Bow down to thee;
That there is still one child who dare
And will be free.

4

That Buckeye child lives in Nauvoo,
20 And some there are, who know how true
A friend, he ever was to you,
In days that’s past,
Till slanders base around you threw
Fair fame to blast.

5

25 Till for himself he’s fairly seen
That you were not what you had been,
But that iniquity you’d screen
In every way;
And from fair virtue’s paths did lean
30 Vile plans to lay.

6

Have you forgot the snare you laid
For Nancy, (lovely Buckeye maid?)
With all your priestly arts array’d
Her to seduce;
35 Assisted by that wretched bawd
Who kept the house.

7

But she, in virtues armour steel’d,
Was proof against what you reveal’d,
And to your doctrines would not yield
40 The least belief;
Although the scriptures you did wield
In your relief.

8

And when you saw, she would detest
Such doctrines, in her noble breast,
45 And did d[e]pise the man, ’tho priest;
Who taught them too
A sallow, yellow, lustful beast,
Poor Joe, like you.

9

’Twas then you chang’d your lovers sighs,
50 And vengeful hate flash’d in your eyes
When you found out she did despise
You as a man;
So took to circulating lies,
Your usual plan.

10

55 Just that you might destroy her fame,
And give to her a ruin’d name,
So that if she should ever proclaim
What you had tried;
Your friends might turn on her the shame
60 And say she lied.

11

But Joe, in this you fairly tail’d,
Though you her father’s house assail’d
She met you face to face; you quail’d
Before her frown,
65 And like a counterfeit she nail’d
You tightly down—

12

Although you tried, by priestly power
To make this gentle creature cower
And eat her words, that you might tower
70 In priestly pride;
But strong in truth, she in that hour
Told you you lied.

13

And when you found it would not do,
Then like a coward paltroon,¹⁴³ you
75 Acknowledg’d what she had said, was true
Unto her sire;
But then you’d nothing more in view
Than just to try her—

14

And put her on her guard, that she
80 Might keep herself all pure and free
From base seducers like to me,
And Joab¹⁴⁴ vile—
For that it was reveal’d to thee
We would beguile.

15

85 O Jo! O Jo!! thy slanderous tongue
Some burning tears from me have wrung,
And I had thought t’ have held my tongue
And nothing said—
If thou had’st but repentance shown
90 And shut thy head.

16

But thy repeated slanders vile
Shall not be long borne by this child;
Although by nature he is mild,
And well disposed;
95 Thy sins from continent to isle
Shall be exposed.

17

Missouri’s deeds shall come to light
Though perpetrated in the night,
By hirelings who thought it right
100 To do thy will—
By cabin conflagration bright
To scalp and kill.

18

Repent, repent, there still is time—
And add no more dark crime to crime,
105 But think, how mighty and sublime
Thy calling first—
And in black sackcloth bow thee down
Low in the dust—

19

And put away far from thy heart,
110 Each wicked, sensual, sinful art;
And from the truth no more depart
Long as you live—
But stop and make another start,
And I’ll forgive.

20

115 If not, your dark deeds in Nauvoo,
As well as in Missouri too—
Like Hamlet’s ghost shall rise to view
With old white hat¹⁴⁵ —
Then tremble tyrant, for but few
120 Will sanction that.

21

But I must stop this long epistle,
“My pen is worn down to the gristle,”
And ’tis the poet’s only missill
In truth’s relief—

125 For, be it known to all, this child
Aint yet a chief—

22

’Tho he his lineage can trace
Back to the Bruce¹⁴⁶ and Wallace¹⁴⁷ days,
When they for Liberty did raise
130 The sword, and broke
(As I intend in these last days)
A tyrant’s yoke.

Notes
1. Warsaw Message, Feb. 7, 1844, 3. Ironically, Joseph Smith had just disciplined a follower for preaching the very thing Buckeye accused him of: “polygamy, and other false and corrupt doctrines” (see “Notice,” Times and Seasons, Feb. 1, 1844, 423.

2. Joseph Smith et al., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Period I. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1973), 6:210. I cite the published history when it does not differ materially from the manuscript version. In his diary, Smith does not mention having seen the poem, and his reaction is probably a later interpolation by LDS historians. See Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books/Smith Research Associates, 1989), 445. The Church’s historians may have assumed that Law was the author since three weeks earlier the Church had published one of Law’s poems. See “Farewell, Illinois,” in Ebenezer Robinson to John Taylor, Nov. 20, 1843, Times and Seasons, Jan. 15, 1844, 412-13; see also “Love of God” by “W. L.” in Times and Seasons, Jan. 1, 1841, 270.

3. By the fall of 1840, Nauvoo counted more than 2,400 residents. Eighteen months later, its population had grown to 4,000. B 1845, there were more than 11,000 residents, nearly half the population of the county and only 1,000 shy of Chicago’s. James E. Smith, “Frontier Nauvoo: Building a Picture from Statistics,” Ensign, Sept. 1979, 17-19, found that “cities the size of Nauvoo were rare in the American West” and that “the Mormons almost single-handedly caused Hancock County to be the most populated county in Illinois by the time of the 1845 Illinois State census” (17-18). It was second only to “Chicago and St. Louis in the region,” according to Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book and BYU Press, 2002), 179.

4. In John E. Hallwas, Thomas Gregg: Early Illinois Journalist and Author (Macomb: Western Illinois University, 1983), 47. Gregg was a self-taught newspaper man who once wrote a feature story under the name “a Buckeye.” He was an abolitionist and teetotaler. He founded a total of eight newspapers and four magazines during his lifetime.

Other examples of “Buckeye” used as a pen name include a newspaper series by Samuel Sullivan Cox, written from Europe in the 1840s under the nom de plume, “A Buckeye Abroad.” See Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio: An Encyclopedia of the State, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: State of Ohio, 1902), 1:204; also “Buckeye,” “The Grand Union Barbecue,” Harper’s Weekly, Oct. 12, 1861, 647. In 1841, U.S. President William Henry Harrison was known as “the Buckeye president.”

5. Warsaw Signal, June 12, 1844, 2. See also the editorials reprinted in John E. Hallwas and Roger D. Launius, eds., Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1995), 79-81, 247-51.

6. Faulring, American Prophet’s Record, 474; Smith, History of the Church, 6:345. Again, the account in the History of the Church is probably a later addition.

7. Buckeye was not the first to publicize Joseph Smith’s doctrine of marriage. Almost two years earlier, John C. Bennett had published a series of letters in the nearby Sangamo Journal detailing what he had seen or learned, which he expanded in The History of the Saints (Boston: Leland & Whiting, 1842). For more on Bennett’s activities, see Andrew F. Smith, The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997). Another early insider exposé was Oliver Olney’s The Absurdities of Mormonism Portrayed (Hancock County, IL: the author, 1843).

8. See the data in George D. Smith, “Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy, 1841-46: A Preliminary Demographic Report,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 27 (Spring 1994): 1-72. The fact of Joseph Smith’s polygamy is generally accepted by historians today, but not entirely. For a contrary opinion based on Smith’s own denials, see Richard and Pamela Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy (Independence, MO: Price Publishing, 2000).

9. In citing the poetry, I have put line numbers in parenthesis and inserted a solidus at each line break. In addition, I have removed the capitalization at the beginning of each line, the emphasis (italics, small capitals), and superfluous dashes. For the full punctuation, see the Appendix.

10. Another possible early explication was Udney Hay Jacob’s The Peacemaker, excerpts from which were published in 1842 in Nauvoo by “Joseph Smith, Printer.” See Lawrence Foster, “A Little-known Defense of Polygamy from the Mormon Press in 1842,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 9 (Winter 1974): 21-34.

11. “What if,” asks twentieth-century LDS educator Danel W. Bachman, “God was interested in raising up a certain lineage or a group of children through a special core of spiritual elite, who had been initiated into the mysteries of God and were thereby qualified to instruct others? How better might this be expeditiously accomplished than through multiple wives? These women might perpetually bear children of the men of modern Israel—‘holy men’ whom God had ‘reserved’ and chosen” (Bachman, “A Study of the Mormon Practice of Plural Marriage before the Death of Joseph Smith,” M.A. thesis, Purdue University, 1975, 96).

12. Mildred H. Bray, “Elenor Houtz Snow (Fifth Wife of Pres. L. Snow),” typescript, 2-3, Archives, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, hereafter LDS Archives. LDS historian Kathryn M. Daynes observes: “Joseph Smith’s counseling another of his followers to marry a fecund woman is consonant with a second reason for plural marriage: ‘to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment’” (More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910 Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001, 29).

13. George A. Smith to Joseph Smith III, Oct. 9, 1869, in the Journal History, LDS Archives.

14. In Dean R. Zimmerman, ed., I Knew the Prophets: An Analysis of the Letter of Benjamin F. Johnson to George F. Gibbs, Reporting Doctrinal Views of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Horizon Publishers, 1976), 47.

15. In Andrew F. Ehat, “‘They Might Have Known That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet’: The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding,” BYU Studies 19 (Winter 1979): 154.

16. “Autobiography of Sarah DeArmon Pea Rich,” typescript, 36-37, LDS Archives.

17. “Statement of Lucy Walker Smith Kimball,” nd, typescript, LDS Archives.

18. Sarah M. Kimball, in Augusta J. Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret, A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Pictures of the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham & Co., 1884), 26.

19. In “William Clayton’s Testimony,” Feb. 16, 1874, rpt. in George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books / Smith Research Associates, 1995), 557.

20. George A. Smith to Joseph Smith III, 1869.

21. Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life’s Review: Autobiography of Benjamin F. Johnson (Orem, UT: Grandin Book, 1997), 84.

22. In “A Revelation to Newel K. Whitney,” July 27, 1842, rpt. in The Essential Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 165.

23. Helen Mar Kimball, in Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 293. “The promise was so great,” Kimball admitted, “that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.” See also Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), 355.

24. “These sealing ordinances,” LDS scholar Andrew F. Ehat writes, “were being administered to those who were at least willing to believe in the divinity of plural marriage. … Acceptance of plural marriage was a demonstration that they would obey the actual laws that God taught were absolutely prerequisite to such blessings” (Ehat, “Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1982, 74-75).

25. Leonard, Nauvoo, 260-61.

26. Young had married Lucy Ann Decker in mid-June 1842 and Augusta Adams and Harriet Elizabeth Cook on November 2, 1843. Hyde had married Martha Rebecca Browett in February-March 1843 and Mary Ann Price on July 20, 1843. Young would marry a fourth wife, Clarissa Decker, in May 1844. These and other dates come from Smith, “Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy,” and from subsequent correspondence with the author (copies in my possession).

27. This is according to Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 4-7.

28. The Partridge sisters lived with Joseph and Emma Smith for three years following the death of their father on May 27, 1840. Their mother remarried on September 27, 1840. Smith was appointed guardian of the Lawrence sisters in 1841 following the death of their father. Their mother remarried in late 1841. Smith’s critics would later point to his relationship with the Lawrence sisters, whom he had married, as evidence of adultery.

29. See Smith, “Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy,” 22-24.

30. Ibid., 24-26.

31. In Ronald W. Walker, “Rachel R. Grant: The Continuing Legacy of the Feminine Ideal,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15 (Autumn 1982): 109.

32. Sarah M. Kimball, in Crocheron, Representative Women, 26.

33. Cordelia Calista Morley Cox, “Autobiography,” ca. Mar. 17, 1909, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo.

34. Compton, Sacred Loneliness, 8.

35. See, e.g., Bachman, “Mormon Practice of Plural Marriage,” 264-65; and Ehat, “Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances,” 276n377.

36. See Bachman, “Mormon Practice of Plural Marriage,” 265.

37. The following account is from Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, 294-302.

38. Francis M. Higbee to the editor, Warsaw Signal, May 29, 1844, 2.

39. But see the editor’s notice in The Wasp, Sept. 3, 1842.

40. Smith, History of the Church, 5:49.

41. See William Smith’s “Bennettiana; The Microscope with Double Diamond Lenses,” The Wasp Extra, July 27, 1842. William was Joseph Smith’s younger brother.

42. For one writer’s approach to Higbee and other dissidents, see Ted Gibbons, Like a Lamb to the Slaughter: The Nauvoo Expositor, Traitors, and Treachery (Orem, UT: Keepsake Paperbacks, 1990).

43. Wilson Law was born in Northern Ireland in 1807. In 1818 his family immigrated to Pennsylvania and later to Canada. He was baptized and ordained an elder in Nauvoo. In 1841 he was elected to the city council and promoted to brigadier general in the Nauvoo Legion. On July 22, 1842, he presented a public resolution attesting to Smith’s good character; two weeks later was elected major general of the legion, replacing John Bennett. In mid-August, Smith said Law was of “noble stature, of noble hands, and of noble deeds” (Smith, History of the Church, 5:109). On December 25, 1842, he married Elizabeth Sikes, who died fifteen months. By 1844 the thirty-seven-year-old joined his younger brother William, a counselor in the LDS First Presidency, in opposing plural marriage. He and his brother were excommunicated on April 18 and discharged from the legion on May 9, 1844. He helped to found the Nauvoo Expositor. By 1850, he was living in Pennsylvania and died ca. 1877. While he was aware of Mormonism’s secret doctrines, he was not connected to Ohio or to Nancy Rigdon and had not been repeatedly “slandered” by Smith.

44. Smith, History of the Church, 4:503.

45. Ibid., 5:421.

46. Again, see Van Wagoner’s treatment in Sidney Rigdon.

47. Affidavit dated May 17, 1842, in Smith, History of the Church, 5:11.

48. See the affidavits, first published by the LDS Church in the Nauvoo Neighbor, May 29, 1844, rpt. in Price and Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy, 135-42.

49. Smith, History of the Church, 5:18.

50. See the documents reprinted in Price and Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy, 146-55.

51. See Compton, Sacred Loneliness, 349.

52. Francis also neglected his duties in the Nauvoo Legion. In early June 1842, he was tried for negligence after failing to hold a court of assessment on May 14 and court of appeals on May 28, “thereby depriving the Legion of the use of the Funds which would have been assessed, & has suffered delinquents to escape Justice.” Higbee “admitted his guilt” and was allowed to continue to serve. See “Capt. John H. Tippets versus Francis M. Higbee, Col.,” June 3, 1842, Nauvoo Legion Papers, LDS Archives.

53. See Price and Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy, 154-55.

54. See, e.g., the public certificate from Elias and Francis denying one of Bennett’s allegations in the Times and Seasons, Aug. 1, 1842, 874.

55. Francis M. Higbee to Elias Higbee, Nov. 28, 1842, in the Times and Seasons, Dec. 15, 1842, 47.

56. Chauncey L. Higbee to the editor, The Wasp, Dec. 3, 1842.

57. Smith, History of the Church, 5:328.

58. “Death of Elias Higbee,” Times and Seasons, June 15, 1843, 233.

59. Smith, History of the Church, 5:530.

60. Francis M. Higbee to Joseph Smith, Sept. 8, 1843, in the Journal History; underlining in original.

61. Smith, History of the Church, 6:42-43.

62. See Times and Seasons, Sept. 15, 1843, 331, reporting remarks delivered Oct. 9, 1843.

63. For more on Nauvoo’s police force, see John Lee Allaman, “Policing in Mormon Nauvoo,” Illinois Historical Journal 89 (Summer 1996): 85-98.

64. Smith, History of the Church, 6:152.

65. Ibid.,162-70.

66. Law’s objections are detailed in Lyndon W. Cook, William Law (Orem, UT: Grandin Book, 1994), 11-34.

67. Nonetheless, Smith’s official History of the Church (6:170) reported him thinking: “What can be the matter with these men e.g., William Law, William Marks, et al.? Is it that the wicked flee when no man pursueth, that hit pigeons always flutter, that drowning men catch at straws, or that Presidents Law and Marks are absolutely traitors to the Church, that my remarks should produce such an excitement in their minds. Can it be possible that the traitor … is one of my quorum i.e., First Presidency?” Though these thoughts are not recorded in his diary, they are probably representative of Smith’s suspicions.

68. Nauvoo City Council Minutes, Jan. 3, 1844, LDS Archives. Smith’s comments do not appear in the published version in the History of the Church, 6:162-65.

69. Smith, History of the Church, 6:168.

70. Ibid., 169.

71. Smith implies that Higbee had contracted a venereal disease. This is the first, but not the last, mention of it.

72. William Law diary, Jan. 7, 1844, in Cook, William Law, 45-46.

73. Smith, History of the Church, 6:174.

74. The references are to Antonius Felix, the former slave who became governor of Judea and trembled when the apostle Paul spoke to him (Acts 24:24-27), and to Manoah, the Danite father of Samson, who is said to have seen an angel ascend to heaven in the flame of his sacrifice (Judges 13:19-20).

75. Francis M. Higbee to Joseph Smith, Jan. 10, 1844, Joseph Smith Papers, LDS Archives; underlining in original.

76. Smith, History of the Church, 6:176.

77. Ibid., 178.

78. Nauvoo City Council Minutes, Jan. 16, 1844. These are summarized in Smith, History of the Church, 6:178. Where the references to Higbee were “ordered to be crossed out,” they were subsequently published verbatim in Smith’s History (6:169).

79. Smith, History of the Church, 6:225. Bostwick’s allegations, although not specified in the official history, had to do with Hyrum’s and others’ polygamy. Bostwick allegedly bragged that he could “take a half bushel of meal, obtain his vile purpose, and get what accommodation he wanted with almost any woman in the city” ( in “Virtue Will Triumph,” Nauvoo Neighbor, Mar. 20, 1844, 2).

80. Unlike other municipal courts in Illinois, Nauvoo’s mayor automatically served as chief justice and the city’s aldermen as associate justices. “Thus,” write legal historians Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Mangrum, “the lawmaker was also the law interpreter, creating a concentration of power that was absent” elsewhere (Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988, 86-87; 92-105).

81. Smith, History of the Church, 6:225. Francis appealed the court’s decision (326).

82. Ibid., 237-38.

83. Smith’s use of the phrase “use up” must have been disconcerting to his audience. Consider, e.g., Brigham Young’s later use of the term in reference to the Utah War. As U.S. troops approached, he boasted that “we could go out and use them up, … but we do not want to kill men (Journal of Discourses, comp. George D. Watt, 26 vols. Liverpool: Latter-day Saints Book Depot, 1854-86, 5:234; cf. 1:171, 10:110; History of the Church, 2:181; 6:559).

84. Smith, History of the Church, 6:238, 239.

85. “Virtue Will Triumph,” Nauvoo Neighbor, Mar. 20, 1844, 2.

86. Smith, History of the Church, 6:272.

87. Ibid., 285. According to the History of the Church, Higbee had threatened to shoot a policeman two days earlier. What prompted such a threat is not explained.

88. Ibid., 285-86.

89. Ibid., 287-88.

90. Qtd. in Cook, William Law, 50n26.

91. “My brother Hyrum called in the evening,” Joseph Smith later reported, “and cautioned me against speaking so freely about my enemies, &c., in such as manner to make it actionable. I told him that six months would not roll over his head before they would swear twelve as palpable lies about him as they had about me” (Smith, History of the Church, 6:403).

92. Smith, History of the Church, 6:341.

93. Ibid., 344; see also 348-49. The Nauvoo Expositor said they committed the “very enormous offence of refusing to assist the notorious Orrin Porter Rockwell, and his ‘dignity’ John P. Green, in arresting a respectable and peaceable citizen, without the regular process of papers” (June 7, 1844, 3). The three men appealed the verdict to the municipal court but did not appear when that court convened on June 3. The court sent the case back to the mayor’s court for dismissal or a rehearing (History of the Church, 6:426; Nauvoo Expositor, June 7, 1844, 3).

94. Smith, History of the Church, 6:356.

95. See Joseph Smith’s testimony in “Municipal Court,” Nauvoo Neighbor, May 15, 1844, rpt. in Times and Seasons, May 15, 1844, 538-39. While the testimony of Smith and others was later reprinted in the official history (Deseret News, Aug. 12, 1857, 1-2), it was deleted from the twentieth-century revision.

96. This bracketed paragraph appears in the published minutes. Most historians have tended to accept Smith’s charges without question. Some have speculated that the deleted testimony concerned possible homosexual activity (D. Michael Quinn, Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996, 268, 362n121), but I suspect not.

97. This may actually refer to Chauncey Higbee.

98. See the testimony in “Municipal Court,” Nauvoo Neighbor, May 15, 1844, rpt. in the Times and Seasons, May 15, 1844, 539-41.

99. This amounted to a little over thirty-two dollars (see Smith, History of the Church, 6:427). Higbee appealed the decision to the circuit court in McDonough County (“Circuit Court,” Nauvoo Expositor, June 7, 1844, 3).

100. Higbee has in mind the Russian Mongols who had converted to Islam and ate raw meat—in other words, the most exotic people he could think of.

101. Dan. 5:25-28: “Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting.”

102. Higbee refers to an incident recorded in Bennett’s History of the Saints, 231, when Smith allegedly sacrificed a lamb to atone for trying to coerce an unwilling participant.

103. Higbee to the Warsaw Signal, May 29, 1844, 2.

104. Smith, History of the Church, 6:362. Among the witnesses against Law, Cyrus H. Wheelock testified: “I heard Mr. Law say … he knew Mr. Smith was the greatest villain, and guilty of the darkest deeds of any man on the earth—he said Mr. Smith was a whoremaster—all his religion was to carry out his points—He did not know but that he was guilty of every thing but murder.” John Scott added: “I was at Mr. Laws a few days before they were cut off … he said he did not believe that ever there was a more cursed scoundrel than Joseph Smith ever hung between the heavens and the earth, he said it voluntarily” (“Evidence taken at a Court Martial held on Major General Wilson Law,” May 9, 1844, Nauvoo Legion Papers).

105. Smith, History of the Church, 6:363, 444.

106. Francis M. Higbee to Thomas Gregg, May 1844, Chicago Historical Society, Chicago. By “dark prince,” Higbee may have meant the Brazilian slave trader Francisco Felix de Sousa, who allegedly had 1,000 women in a harem and worked from the Kingdom of Dahomey in west Africa, now the Republic of Benin, whose king had thousands of wives and an army of female soldiers (Wikipedia).

107. Smith, History of the Church, 6:366-67.

108. Ibid., 379.

109. Ibid., 398.

110. Ibid., 403.

111. Ibid., 405.

112. Ibid.

113. This may refer to “Buckeye’s Lamentation,” line 12, “beardless Joe.”

114. Smith, History of the Church, 6:408.

115. Ibid., 413; “Circuit Court,” Nauvoo Expositor, June 7, 1844, 3.

116. Smith, History of the Church, 6:407.

117. Ibid.

118. “Last Resort of Joe,” Warsaw Signal, June 5, 1844, 2.

119. Smith, History of the Church, 6:427.

120. Francis M. Higbee, “Citizens of Hancock County,” Nauvoo Expositor, June 7, 1844, 3. The last two lines echo the closing stanzas of “Buckeye’s Lamentation”: “Whose sires have bled in days gone by, / for their dear country’s cause; / and who will, still maintains its rights, / its Liberty and Laws!”; and “Buckey’s First Epistle”: “When they for Liberty did raise / the sword, and broke / (as I intend in these last days) / a tyrant’s yoke.”

121. Smith, History of the Church, 6:432.

122. “City Council, Regular Session, June 8th and 10th, 1844,” Nauvoo Neighbor, June 19, 1844, 2 (the last eight words of Hyrum’s remarks were omitted from the History of the Church, 6:435).

123. Ibid.

124. Ibid., 3. Again, the last eight words of Joseph’s comments, as well as all of Hyrum’s testimony quoted here, do not appear in History of the Church, 6:441. Both men’s assertions were intended to disprove the affidavit, published in the Nauvoo Expositor, of a man whose twenty-nine-year-old daughter had been sealed to Smith a year earlier on June 1, 1843 (see Compton, Sacred Loneliness, 543-57).

125. Francis reportedly threatened that any who “lay their hand upon it the press or break it, they may date their downfall from that very hour, and in ten days there will not be a Mormon left in Nauvoo” (in Smith, History of the Church, 6:451; cf. Orrin Porter Rockwell’s testimony of Higbee’s threats, 457).

126. Ibid., 450.

127. See the special issue of the Warsaw Signal, June 14, 1844. Francis told the angry Illinoisans of “his personal knowledge of the Mormons, from their earliest history, through their hellish career in Missouri and this State—which has been characterized by the darkest and most diabolical deeds which has ever disgraced humanity.”

128. See The Official Magazine of the Isaac Higbee and Sophia Somers Family Organization, July 1957, 1:18-22.

129. Leonard, Nauvoo, 602.

130. The 1850 Census of Illinois Hancock County (Richland, WA: Locust Grove Press, 1977), 136.

131. Andrew Jenson, Autobiography of Andrew Jenson (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938), 178.

132. In September 1903, ninety-one-year-old Joseph A. Kelting, while swearing to his knowledge of Joseph Smith’s marriages, recited virtually verbatim a handful of verses from “Buckeye’s Lamentation,” which he placed in the mouth of William Law. It is not clear if Kelting, or his aide, was suggesting Law wrote the poem or was merely using the poem to give voice to Law’s criticisms (Kelting Affidavit, Sept. 11, 1903, LDS Archives).

133. The Warsaw Signal has “shine.”

134. Smith was appointed mayor of Nauvoo following the resignation of John Bennett on May 19, 1842.

135. The Warsaw Signal has “through.”

136. Smith was named lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion by Illinois’s governor on March 10, 1841. The last general commander to hold such a rank was George Washington. Buckeye’s addition of “-ral” seems simply to have aided the poem’s rhyming scheme.

137. Emily Dow Partridge and her sister Eliza Maria Partridge.

138. Eliza Roxcy Snow.

139. Martha McBride Knight.

140. The Warsaw Signal has “a hundred.”

141. The Warsaw Signal has “Who wont be dragged to hell.”

142. Brigham Young and Orson Hyde.

143. Variant of “poltroon,” a “spiritless coward, a mean-spirited wretch” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary).

144. John C. Bennett.

145. Bennett claimed that Smith signed a love letter to one woman as “Old White Hat” (History of the Saints, 235).

146. Robert the Bruce.

147. William Wallace.

Now, for the first time, the surviving papyri have been translated into English in their entirety. In analyzing and translating the ancient texts, Robert K. Ritner, foremost American scholar of Egyptology, has determined that they were prepared for deceased men and women in Thebes during the Greco-Roman period. They have nothing to do with Abraham, Joseph, or a planet called Kolob, as Smith had claimed.

“Except for those willfully blind,” writes Professor Ritner of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, “the case is closed.” In his new book, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition, he also accuses two scholars of Egyptology at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University of borrowing and distorting his own writings in trying to defend Smith’s interpretations as authentically translated Egyptian. Smith’s translation narrative tells of a young Abraham who is about to become a human sacrifice at the request of his father. It also tells of a human pre-mortal existence and teaches that the Egyptian pharaohs were cursed by God (leading to the Mormon priesthood restrictions on African Americans). It also established the Mormon theology for multiple gods.

The Mormon Church restricts access to the original papyri, which it owns. Ritner gained access to high resolution scans through a third party. He concluded that the papyri are ordinary Egyptian funeral texts, with possibly a few interesting side notes. For example, one of the Smith papyri is the “Document of Breathing Made by Isis” and is the oldest known datable copy (pre-150 BCE). Otherwise, Ritner states, anyone investigating claims of ancient evidence for Smith’s translation should not “waste his time,” although he does admit “that the study of the Mormon period of Egyptomania is interesting by itself.”

Concerning the charges of uncredited borrowing, Ritner draws attention to the “striking resemblance” to his own work in later publications by Michael D. Rhodes, an Associate Research Professor of Egyptology with BYU’s religion faculty. “One can legitimately raise the question of plagiarism,” says Ritner. In some cases, Rhodes “tacitly adopted my reading, but failed to remove his punctuation from an earlier attempt to translate the artifacts.”

Ritner is equally critical of the work of Associate Research Professor of Egyptology John Gee, of BYU’s Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and the late Hugh Nibley, a BYU religion professor (BYU does not have a department of Egyptology).

For members of the Mormon religion, Smith’s “translation” remains a product of their faith.

The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition by Robert K. Ritner with contributions by Marc Coenen, H. Michael Marquardt, and Christopher Woods is published by the Smith-Pettit Foundation of Salt Lake City, and distributed by Signature Books, also of Salt Lake City. The type was set by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

About the authors and their essays: Robert K. Ritner, Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, has published over 100 books and articles on Egyptian religion, magic, medicine, language, and literature, as well as social and political history. Christopher Woods is an Associate Professor of Sumerology, University of Chicago (“The Practice of Egyptian Religion at ‘Ur of the Chaldees’”), Marc Coenen has an Egyptian Studies PhD., University of Leuven, Belgium (“The Ownership and Dating of Certain Joseph Smith Papyri”), and H. Michael Marquardt, is author of The Revelations of Joseph Smith: Text and Commentary (“Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Papers: A History”).

“The publication of the Nauvoo city and high council minutes are a game changer in Mormon studies,” says Tom Kimball of Signature Books. “It is also interesting, with publication of this book, that the LDS Church History Library just opened up a typescript of the city council minutes for the public.” In the past, historians have been denied access to any version of these minutes. The originals are still unavailable to researchers.

Dinger will be at:

Confetti Antiques and Books
273 North Main St.
Spanish Fork, Utah
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 6:30 p.m.
801-798-0137
To see the Youtube of this event click here.

Benchmark Books
3269 South Main Street, Suite 250
Salt Lake City, Utah
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 5:30 p.m.
801-486-3111
To see the Youtube of the event click here.

These days, it is fairly rare that a previously unpublished documentary source of importance appears. Buckle up. Signature Books has once again produced a gem in *The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes* edited by John S. Dinger.

While the Nauvoo high council minutes have appeared (albeit in somewhat abridged format) previously, only tantalizing excerpts here and there from the city council minutes have ever emerged. John Dinger brings his legal expertise to the table in a yeoman’s effort to produce coherent sets of minutes for both of these key Nauvoo decision-making bodies. Despite working almost until the point of no return from confusing transcripts, Dinger has compiled a fascinating chronology of the chaos that swirled almost constantly in Nauvoo.¹

The physical makeup of the minutes is practically as interesting—in both cases (city and high council), scribes would take contemporary rough notes which would then be transferred and cleaned up into bound minute books. In the case of the city council, one more step was added of producing a finished set of minutes suitable for publication. However, teasing gaps remain—the missing book containing the trial of John C. Bennett being the prime example. No other source that I have read gives such a feeling of being “on the ground”—one can easily grasp what issues were on the minds of citizens and how quickly those could change.

Though Dinger himself muses about a true critical edition of the minutes appearing at some point, much of the footnoting serves just that purpose. The editor notes additional material that appears in either the loose minutes or the bound minute books and uses a system of symbols to show when he moves from one source type to another. Footnotes also give brief biographical details for participants and refer to other entries that shed greater light on the discussion at hand, perhaps the greatest value of the notes. Occasionally, the reader can sense the grief that Dinger went through trying to make sense of cryptic entries—at times, he admits that at a distance of 170 years, it is simply impossible.

Leafing through the entries, one quickly notes the breadth of matters that the city council considered. In a unique “created” community where virtually no one had much experience in government, the reader sees a group consulting other cities for precedent and experimenting with ordinances. The entries cover the most mundane (dogs were clearly a pressing problem—several ordinances deal with them!) to matters such as what to do with the Nauvoo Expositor. The color of meetings dealing with the latter show through boldly in the minutes: W.W. Phelps asking whether they were trampling upon anyone’s rights, resounding answers of “No!” and resultant discussions of reimbursing those who had property destroyed with some council members stating they didn’t think such action would even be necessary. The meetings leading up to the final decision to suppress the Expositor (and take down Robert Foster’s barn as a casualty) are probably the climax of the book.

Though histories of the period mention the dissent and commotion present in late Nauvoo, these entries bluntly show a city hurtling toward complete chaos in a way that a secondary history written at a distance of decades cannot. The minutes, though understandably dealing with tedious governmental matters at times, are fascinating for anyone with even a passing interest in Mormon history.

The high council minutes don’t lag behind the city council in interesting subject material. In the period predating the formation of the city council, one can easily see the seamless blend of temporal and spiritual in their discussions. As time passes and secular matters move to the other body, the high council turns attention to hearing complaints. These range from the trivial (she took some of my trinkets, waah) to more important matters like what to do with Francis Gladden Bishop who would move in and out of favor until finally becoming a minor player in the succession events. The most riveting to me were the many trials of 1842 when polygamy begins to really be whispered about and people begin to claim authority from Joseph Smith to have sex with anyone they want. Candid depositions with a degree of detail unexpected in the Victorian era make for entertaining reading. The divide between the two Nauvoos—one composed of the elite privy to details and the general populace—is never more apparent than in reading this section. Council member Wilford Woodruff notes in his diary the “exhertion abo[u]t these days to clense the Church,” an effort that would only intensify as time passed.

As might be expected in trying to annotate such a collection, there are some minor hiccups. The brief biographical details given on most of the people mentioned are in some cases helpful, others with little more than birth and death dates not so much. On the other side of the coin, Alanson Ripley gets two sketches (p 346, 364)! When mentioning that Hosea Stout had later filled in names of high council members mentioned at first only by number, Dinger occasionally anticipates that four members always appear when only two are mentioned (p 379 n 92, 380, n 97). There are a few typos also: “Alonson Ripley.” “Stephen C. LeSeuer,” “legal council,” etc. but, with such a large amount of data (names, dates, places) this is almost to be expected.

A few more substantive issues came up—at this point in Mormon historiography, unqualified references to *History of the Church* are beginning to seem out of place. With the upcoming publication of Dan Vogel’s annotated edition of this source, one more barrier between reader and subject will be removed. Also, occasionally a footnote referring to a general topic could have used a little more oomph—for example, in a note dealing with attempts to publish the JST, Dinger says simply “Joseph Smith was re-writing portions of the Bible.”

John Dinger and Signature are to be commended for publishing such a notable addition to the field of Mormon history. Writers and researchers treating the Nauvoo period now have a major addition to their pool of sources. Perhaps someone will employ this treasure in finally writing the definitive history of Nauvoo.

1. Only as they were preparing to go to press were the author and publisher able to consult scans of the originals which allowed them to confirm their understanding of the confusion.

Review by Doug Gibson, Ogden Standard-Examiner

The LDS Church Library no longer allows access to the Nauvoo City Council and High Council minutes from 1839 to 1845. That’s a shame, but the minutes, when accessible, were recorded. Signature Books, with the assistance of historian John Dinger, has published the minutes, along with notes, and they’re just plain fascinating for enthusiasts of history. Without spin, they lay out the controversy that swirled in Nauvoo prior to Joseph Smith’s murder and the LDS exodus west.

The documents lend credence to the belief that the then-secret doctrine of polygamy sparked much of the contention that roiled Nauvoo. Many of those associated with the anti-Smith publication, the Nauvoo Expositor, were accused of using polygamy as an excuse to commit adultery. In the city council meeting of June 8, 1844, Hyrum Smith is cited as claiming that Joseph Smith’s revelation on polygamy, read to the Nauvoo High Council on Aug. 12, 1843, “was in answer to a question concerning things which transpired in former days & had no reference to the present time.” As curiously noted, “Hyrum Smith married four plural wives in 1843.” It’s clear that Hyrum Smith had rationalized that it was OK to mislead. Also, on page 255 of the Nauvoo City Council minutes, the LDS prophet, and Nauvoo mayor, Joseph Smith, supports Hyrum’s incorrect words, saying that he had not preached the doctrine in public or private.

From reading the various minutes and notes commentary, polygamy was used as a cudgel in a conflict between the Smiths and their enemies, such as William Law, Wilson Law, Robert and Charles Foster, Chauncey and Francis Higbee, Sylvester Emmons, and others. These accusations were often judged in the non-secular, but equally powerful, Nauvoo High Council meetings. On May 24, 1842, “Chancy” Higbee was excommunicated by the high council after being judged guilty of adultery and for teaching “the doctrine that it was right to have free intercourse with women if it was kept secret …” Higbee, the minutes report, claimed “that Joseph Smith autherised (sic) him to practice these things.”

Other accusations used to discredit critics included counterfeiting, stinginess, and plots to kill Joseph Smith. The final accusation was probably closest to the truth, as the violence that was commonplace in that era made lynching and murder a real possibility. The City Council minutes note how the Smiths used Nauvoo civil law to construct a habeus corpus statute so far-reaching that it could blunt any attempt to have Smith or others extradited to Missouri or anywhere outside of Nauvoo. In fact, Smith used habeus corpus to initially avoid arrest for trashing the Nauvoo Expositor press.

The city council debate that preceded the Nauvoo police’s destruction of the Expositor press as a “nuisance” is very interesting. Anger from past atrocities against Mormons, notably the Haun’s Mill massacre, were used as rationales to destroy the Expositor’s press. Interestingly, one Nauvoo councilman, Benjamin Warrington, opposed destroying the press. He wanted to give the editors time to stop publishing and assess them a $3,000 fine.

Both Smiths spoke in opposition to Warrington’s proposal, Hyrum adding that he doubted the publishers had the money to pay the fine. Those in favor of the press’ destruction cited ” Blackwater’s Commentaries on the Laws of England,” a reference book widely used in that era. Nauvoo city attorney and councilman George P. Stiles used “Blackwater” as evidence, “{saying a} Nuisance is any thing {that} disturbs the peace of {the} community.”

The destruction of the Expositor began before the city council meeting authorizing the act had finished. As are most decisions made in haste and with excessive emotion, it backfired, increasing the danger to Joseph Smith and others. An attempt to use Nauvoo’s liberal habeus corpus law to escape legal heat failed, and to protect Nauvoo from armed mobs, Joseph and Hyrum agreed to be jailed in Carthage, Ill. Assurances of safety from a feckless governor, Thomas Ford, failed, and history records that both Smiths were murdered by a mob.

The Nauvoo City Council minutes after the Smiths’ murders are interesting. There is little of the anger or bluster that was part of the meeting that sanctioned the press’ destruction. It’s muted, and frankly reflects the shock and despair that must have surrounded Nauvoo and church members at the loss of their prophet. Much of the minutes cover discussion on how much the city must remunerate the Nauvoo Expositor for the destruction of its property. Hiram Kimball was assigned the task of dealing with the remuneration.

Also, it’s clear that city leaders were concerned that the mobs that had killed the Smiths were still eager to attack Nauvoo. The council endorsed pleas by Governor Ford and others to avoid violent reprisals.

“The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes” is a massive, indispensible treasure trove of Mormon history in Illinois. I’ll have further blog entries that will concentrate on the minutes of meetings that determined the church successors to the slain Smiths, and another blog will focus on day-to-day matters that fell before the high council. Some were amusing; one recounts a man brought for church discipline because he sold his wife for her weight in catfish!

Reviewed by Roy Schmidt for the Association for Mormon Letters

When I first heard Signature Books was to publish The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, I was very excited. While these records have been partially published in the past, they were not easily accessible. I could not be more pleased with this publication.

Editor John S. Dinger is a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for Ada County in Boise, Idaho. He is also a member of the editorial board for the Mormon History Association. He has, in my opinion, done a remarkable job in presenting the material contained in the book in a professional and highly competent way.

The book itself is nicely bound and attractive. There is an excellent index, and footnotes are used throughout. In addition, appendices include the complete Nauvoo City Charter, the Prospectus of the “Nauvoo Expositor,” as well as excerpts from the first (and only) edition of that newspaper. These resources aid in our understanding of many of the items addressed by the City Council, and to some degree the Nauvoo High Council.

Dinger has included short biographical sketches of those who served as City and Stake Councilmen. Many of the names will be familiar to readers: John C. Bennett, Ezra T. Benson, Zebedee Coltrin, Heber C. Kimball, the Pratt brothers, and brothers Don Carlos, Hyrum, Joseph, Samuel Harrison, and William Smith. Others, such as Samuel Bent, Phillip Hammond Buzzard, Noah Packard, and Leonard Soby, will probably be less familiar. To give a idea as to the quality of these sketches, I present that of Samuel Bent mentioned above:

“Samuel Bent was born in March 1798 in Concord, Vermont. In 1833 he converted to Mormonism and moved to Kirtland, Ohio, three years later, then to Missouri, where he became a paramilitary Danite from June – October 1838. In the 1840s he lived twenty miles southeast of Nauvoo in Ramus, Illinois, and then on to a farm a few miles south of Nauvoo. In September 1847 he arrived in Utah, right behind the original pioneer company and settled in what became Bingham Canyon. Later he helped settle Ogden and became a ward bishop, stake patriarch, and territorial legislator. He died in May 1882.” (xlvii)

I find it interesting to note several of those serving on the City Council also served on the Nauvoo High Council, such as William Marks, Ezra T. Benson, Shadrach Roundy, David Fullmer, and Reynolds Cahoon. Some nonmembers, like Daniel H. Wells who later joined the LDS Church, also served on the Nauvoo City Council.

All sorts of things came before both councils. I noted one of my personal heros, Elder Elijah Abel, was paid a sum for building a coffin (349). Elder Abel made his living in Nauvoo as a mortician. Readers may recall Abel as an African-American who held the Melchizedek Priesthood. He was ordained a Seventy, and served several missions for the Church. He and members of his family are buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

Then there was the case of one Henry Lyman Cook, who was brought before the high council for selling his wife for her weight in catfish. The record reads, in part, as follows: “Upon examination of the case, it appeared, from the evidence, that Cook had lost his wife not long since and was left with three children [,] and being in destitute circumstances, and not in condition to keep house, thought that he best get married again and advised with who also thought best if he could get a suitable companion. Not long afterwards, upon a short acquaintance of some of his friends, he got married to Mary. Not long after this he found she was in the habit of traveling about of nights when there was no need of it&c. and that she would shamefully use his children & set bad examples before them, use very indecent language to them &c and also would abuse & insult him without a cause and entirely refuse to be subject to him or be under his control, boasting that she would not be governed by no man and threaten[ed] to use violence on him and his children[,] and that she would go off and leave him, but come back again and many such like improprieties, and that he had remonstrated against such proceedings with as much patience as could be expected under the circumstances[,] and used every method to bring her to her duty that he thought would avail any thing with her[,] and afterwards that he had whipped her pretty sevearly (which was his own testimony)[,] thinking that it might bring her to her duty. [He said] that he did not sell her but something had been said about it which was understood as a joke by himself and the witness[,] but the party making the offer held it as a bargain & so did she. It also appeared that he had formerly been a civil upright man who desired to live in peace and good order, all of which was abundantly proven.

“President Hyrum Smith spoke at some length on the subject, and, after giving Cook a very appropriate and severe reprimand for whipping his wife, he thought that Cook had acted as well as could be expected under his circumstances and decided that he should be acquitted. The vote was then put to the council by Pres[iden]t Mark[s] and carried unanimously(438-439).” (Note: spelling as in original.)

While many important cases were brought before the Nauvoo City Council, none were more important than those involving habeas corpus, and the Nauvoo Expositor. Regarding the former, Editor Dinger writes: “The habeas corpus acts passed in Nauvoo were so expansive that the municipal court could review not only the legality of the arrest warrant but determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant, eliminating the possibility for a later trial regardless of where the crime occurred or where the warrant was issued. No other American city possessed such broad laws. This enabled Nauvoo’s Mormon-dominated municipal court to try all cases against Joseph Smith and other LDS leaders (xxi-xxx).” Many objected to these expansions which was one of the reasons the Illinois Legislature eventually repealed the Nauvoo City Charter.

The case of the Nauvoo Expositor is most interesting. On June 7, 1844 the Expositor published its first and only issue. In it, Joseph Smith was accused of teaching and practicing plural marriage, theocracy, and the plurality of gods, etc. It is fascinating to note the charges were mostly true. Nonetheless, Joseph and other leaders took exception, and deigned to have the Nauvoo Expositor declared a public nuisance, and its press destroyed. I was under the impression the case was brought before the City Council in sort of a kangaroo court, and the press simply ordered destroyed, and that was the end of it. The story is more complicated than that. On June 10, 1844, the City Council met, and continued their meeting of the 8th which was adjourned. Joseph brought up the Expositor: “The Mayor said – if he had a council who felt as he did, the establishment (referring to the Nauvoo Expositor) would be [declared] a Nuisance before night . . . .(254).” After some discussion, the council adjourned for an hour. After coming back into session, the council considered passages from James Kent’s “Commentaries on American Law,” and portions of Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England.” Satisfied the law was on their side, the council passed an ordinance to destroy the press.

One councilor, Benjamin Warrington, argued against the destruction, feeling a fine of $500 would suffice should suffice. The discussion became quite heated at times: “C[ouncillor] Phelps continued [that he] felt deeper this day than he ever felt before. – [He] wanted to know by yes if there was anyone here who to avenge the blood of that Innocent female. Yes, resounded from every quarter of the room. – [He] referred to the Tea Plot at Boston[.] Are we offering[,] or have we offered[,] to take away the right of anyone [by] this [action] 2 day [today]? No!! from every quarters. – N[o] – Refered to [the] Laws grinding the poor – and spoke at great length – in support of active measures to put down iniquity (262).” The ordinance, as noted above, passed and the press destroyed, and the type scattered. In a footnote on page 266, Editor Dinger finds: “Before the city council had adjourned at about 6:00 p.m., the police had already entered the Expositor offices on Mulholland Street, and, as described by Francis Higbee, ‘tumbled the press and materials into the street and set fire to them, and demolished the machinery with a sledge-hammer, and injured the building.’”

This review is already too long, but I would call attention to the trial of Sidney Rigdon before the High Council as found on pages 505-25. Several things impressed me. The trial was held in public as opposed to the closed sessions found in the church today. Sidney chose not to attend the court. Rigdon’s excommunication was a foregone conclusion as everyone but Stake President William Marks spoke against him. I find myself having a much higher opinion of Marks than I had heretofore. Most important is that the Quorum of the Twelve took over the meeting from the Nauvoo High Council, and did much to establish itself as the presiding council of the church.

One final remark. The original records of the Nauvoo City Council, and High Council Minutes are held by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John Dinger was denied access to these records. He writes: “In preparing the minutes for publication, I relied on typescripts, photocopies, and photographs. In addition, as we were preparing to go to press, other researchers achieved access to some digital scans that helped clarify questions I had (xvi).”

The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, is, I believe a most important work. Scholars, researchers, and other interested parties will gain a much deeper understanding of the goings-on of the church and its leaders at a most important time. Although somewhat pricy, a purchase of this work will be money well spent.

Remember the sacrament gem? Back when we had Priesthood Meeting in the mornings (and Relief Society and Primary during the week) followed a little later by Sunday School–with the Sacrament passed to both Junior and Senior Sunday School, then Sacrament Meeting in the evening–someone would stand before the sacrament hymn and recite a scripture the congregation could think about during the sacrament.

(I think it was the same verse all month because one week it was my turn and I recited what I had heard in Sacrament Meeting, proudly memorized. But of course the Junior Sunday School had a different gem, and I was too embarrassed to recite something else.)

Maybe a year or two after Donna and I were married we were down in Provo on a visit and I noticed Ed Kimball, who had moved in next door about 15 years earlier, was bishop. Before the sacrament Bishop Kimball stood and said that after Jesus gave his Bread of Life sermon,

“From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” (John 6:66)

I’m sure I had read that verse a few times but I hadn’t noticed it. It hadn’t moved me. Sometimes you have to take a gem out of its setting for it to shine.

Several of the writers in Robert Rees’s new anthology “Why I Stay: The Challenges of Discipleship for Contemporary Mormons” quote this passage, and Rees ends his essay, and therefore the book, with the passage, followed by a story about what it means to stay, the story of Levi Savage choosing to go with a handcart company leaving too late in the season, choosing to suffer their doom with them.

That illustration of the scripture and of the book’s title is a nice rhetorical touch, but the scripture itself is worth looking at rhetorically. The Bread of Life sermon seems to me meant to drive disciples away, perhaps those who aren’t serious, who come to him just to get a free meal with no real belief or desire to believe, but Jesus only learns after they leave how it feels to have disciples leave, and he expresses his grief in a question.

As Dennis Rasmussen says in “The Lord’s Question,” a question invites response, and Peter doesn’t give his response–his comfort–as something like, “There, there, don’t cry. We still love you.” He gives his response as a question, which invites a further response, both from Jesus and the readers.

Several writers note that the book’s title, after the popular series at Sunstone theological Symposiums where the essays were first spoken, implies a question. Claudia L. Bushman says she doesn’t like the question, though she’s had reason to leave if she wants. “[W]hy should I leave? I love the Church. I don’t want to leave it” (31).

Armand Mauss says the implied question contains or is part of another question: Why _should_ I stay? and finds it a bit troubling that the question seems so popular among “the most recent generations of Church members” (39).

But Lael Littke says, “I Always Intended to Leave.” It is a remarkable essay, both for its engaging quality and its lack of omen. Rather than feeling ominous it feels a little like a cross between “It’s a Wonderful Life” and a joke. That is, you can predict a punch line, like, “maybe after X is finished I can finally leave.” The light touch allows her to explore some painful things without the exploration being painful, and the ending is much better than the punchline we can guess at but hope won’t be the last line.

Karen Rosenbaum’s “How Frail a Foundation” could also sound ominous, but instead expresses the hope and yearning of one who has given place for the seed to be planted and is waiting for it to grow. And waiting, and waiting. And hoping.

But the title implies something besides a question. Theology is not necessarily the same as belief, and going to a theological symposium is not necessarily the same as going to church or practicing the doctrines you’re exploring. Inviting a response a question invites people to say, because I belong here, because I find the Church good, “I Stay to Serve and Be Served,” as Molly Bennion puts it. The implied
question gives respondents a chance to bear and bare testimony, as in Fred Christensen’s “A Surgeon’s Overwhelming Gratitude.”

But there are those for whom scholarship is itself an act of worship. Thomas F. Rogers suggests this in the first essay, his declaration “It Satisfies My Restless Mind,” which I keep remembering as questing mind, and Mary Lythgoe Bradford’s “It Takes Many Villages” is a lovely portrait of a questing body and mind.

Robert Rees’s closing essay also suggests scholarship as service, and Gregory R. Prince’s “I Trust the Data” talks about reading hundreds of thousands of pages in studying and writing about the Mormon priesthood and the life of David O. McKay. “The gospel of Christ is breathtaking,” says Chase Peterson (141).

Several, including Cherry Bushman Silver and Grethe Peterson and Morris Thurston, talk about childhood or family life in the Church. “In order to stay somewhere you have to be there in the first place,” (53) Thurston says. “The prophet of my youth was Heber J. Grant and he lived in my ward,” says J. Frederick “Toby” Pingree (75).

In counterpoint, “My Reasons and Motivations” by D. Jeff Burton talks about the need to fully explore our motivations, even their darker side, and William D. Russell’s piece suggests that many in The Community of Christ have a different attitude toward prophets. He talks about revelations and preaching, but isn’t nearly as taken with the idea of a charismatic prophet as many in the LDS Church are. The contrast is most interesting.

And finally I found Lavina Fielding Anderson’s “A Coin Balanced on Its Rim” as poignant as I thought it would be, and was surprised by the sense of loss in Charlotte England’s “My Leaps of Faith.” “Through this and other experiences I was able to work my way out of the deep, dark hole I was in after losing Gene and start creating the new life that I would live without my dear Gene” (175).

The pictures that grace several of the essays, related thematically to the essays, remind me of the dignity of the black and white photograph.

This is the kind of book that you put down as you finish an essay, saying, “I finished that essay and it’s only another mile till my stop,” then you pick it up again, saying, “I’ve got a whole mile. I might as well start the next one.”

It’s also a fine book to share.

Both sets of minutes were pieced together by John S. Dinger, a Mormon history enthusiast and assistant district attorney in Boise, Idaho, and are being published by Signature Books of Salt Lake City. Dinger compiled the minutes from typescripts prepared years ago by archivists and historians during a time when Church archives were more welcoming. Now, typescripts of portions of the documents reside in the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Marriott Library at the University of Utah, and the Merrill-Cazier Library at Utah State University.

“The minutes are a treasure trove of material relating to the religious and secular life of the early Latter-day Saints,” Dinger writes in the preface to his 700-page The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes. “These sets of documents are, I believe, two of the most important primary sources for the period.” Regarding confidentiality, he says that the high council trials were held in rooms that were “crowded to excess” with “curious onlookers.” If too many spectators appeared, the council moved to a bigger space “to accommodate the large audience.” The trial of early Mormon leader Sidney Rigdon was held outdoors so everyone could attend. The charges and verdicts were published in the Church newspaper, which often included the minutes of the proceedings, all of which, Dinger says, were meant to dissuade anyone else who might be contemplating sin.

The origin of the high council is interesting. It is not biblical, explains Dinger. During the first few years after the Mormon Church was founded, Joseph Smith met informally with small ad hoc groups to plan events and resolve disputes. Later, he formed a permanent council that met in his home in Kirtland, Ohio, that he called “the high council of the church of Christ.” It became the primary governing Church body and appellate court for high councils later organized elsewhere.

In Nauvoo, the high council conducted business in a solemn fashion, even though the cases were sometimes outlandish. For example, in 1843 Henry Cook was summoned to answer the charge of unchristian-like conduct and for selling his wife for her weight in catfish. From evidence introduced at the hearing, it appeared that Cook’s first wife had died and he was struggling to care for three young children. He remarried, but his new wife walked the streets at night, used bad language in front of the children, and refused to obey him. Cook also said she threatened him with violence. In return, he whipped her “pretty severely.” The high council sided with Cook, ruling that he had acted as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The vote for acquittal was unanimous.

The city council, by contrast, addressed issues of loose animals, taxes, distribution of liquor (allowed to be sold only in quantities of one gallon or greater), and more importantly, protection against arrest for Mormons, which was a persistent source of contention with neighbors. After Joseph Smith became mayor in 1842, his dual civil and religious roles blurred, which added to the growing conflict with outsiders.

In July 1843, Smith’s revelation on plural marriage was read to the high council. Soon, a group of dissidents which included members from both councils began to speak out and founded an opposition newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor. Smith urged the city council to declare the newspaper a public nuisance. In the process, he incited the council into a frenzy that called the police and militia to march through town and smash the printing press with sledgehammers. Within two weeks, a different mob armed with guns stormed a small town jail in nearby Carthage and murdered the Mormon prophet.

This and other incidents of significance are recorded in dramatic eye-witness fashion in the scribes’ narratives found in The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, “making publication of the minutes a milestone in Mormon studies,” says Dinger. “The record shows conflict among the political and religious powerbrokers and shines a light on the behind-the-scene issues that led to Joseph Smith’s struggle for control, the defamation of significant community leaders, and the pulse-pounding events that ended in Smith’s death, followed by the evacuation of the second-largest city in Illinois. As you read, you can feel the tension on every page. The reading is sometimes pretty gripping.”

The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes
John S. Dinger, editor
700 pp. 978-1-56085-214-8
$49.95. hardback.

See more books about the city of Nauvoo:
Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845: A Documentary History, Gary James Bergera and Devery Scott Anderson, editors
Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845-1846: A Documentary History, Gary James Bergera and Devery Scott Anderson, editors
The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000, Devery Scott Anderson, editor
Nauvoo Polygamy: “but we called it celestial marriage …,” George D. Smith
Nauvoo Sealings, Adoptions, and Anointings: A Comprehensive Register of Persons Receiving LDS Temple Ordinances, 1841-1846, Lisle Brown, editor

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