Category: Translation
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Anthon Transcript
By Sandra Tanner What is the Anthon Transcript? An excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism Vol. 1, explains: The Anthon Transcript was a sheet of paper, thought to be lost, upon which Joseph SMITH copied sample “reformed Egyptian” characters from the plates of the Book of Mormon. In the winter of 1828, Martin HARRIS showed…
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Professor Charles Anthon Letter
Typescript of a letter from Professor Charles Anthon, explaining his experience with the “reformed Egyptian” characters, purportedly copied from Joseph Smith’s gold plates and brought to Anthon for his educated opinion on their authenticity.
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Book of Mormon Overview
By Sandra Tanner Storyline The Book of Mormon contains the purported stories of three different groups which sailed to the Americas. Jaredites Mulekites Lehi and family Translation The Urim and Thummim, specially prepared spectacles preserved with the golden plates as an aid in translating, were used to translate the first 116 pages of the Book…
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Joseph Smith Sermon: Plurality of Gods
Railing against his “apostate” critics, Joseph Smith claims to know, by revelation and by an enlightened understanding of the Bible, that there are countless other Gods like our own Heavenly Father. As printed in History of the Church, vol. 6, chpt. 23, pp. 473-79 (typescript) [page 473] CHAPTER XXIII. . . . SERMON BY THE…
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Was Joseph Smith a Magician?
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner How did Joseph Smith translate the supposed ancient record he found in the hill? The eye-witnesses to the translation process of the Book of Mormon seem to be describing a magical event. Joseph Smith would put a stone in his hat and then the “translation” of the plates would appear…
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The Stolen Manuscript: The Lost 116 Pages of the Book of Mormon (The Golden Bible, excerpt)
[An excerpt from the book, The Golden Bible by Rev. M. T. Lamb, 1887, pp. 118-126] K. The Stolen Manuscript. Strangely enough we find inserted in the middle of the Book of Mormon, pages 141-143 [Book of Mormon, pp. 143-145 in the 1981 edition] a little book entitled the “Book of Mormon,” or “Words of Mormon.” It is…
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Joseph Smith and the Kinderhook Plates (tract)
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In 1843 six brass plates were found in a mound in Kinderhook, Illinois. Mormons who saw the plates were impressed by their ancient appearance and felt that they would prove Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon. In a letter written from Nauvoo, Illinois, dated May 2, 1843, Charlotte Haven said that…
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The Kinderhook Plates
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner Excerpted from our book, Answering Mormon Scholars, Vol. 2, pp. 118-123 In his attack on our book, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Mormon professor William J. Hamblin tried to downplay our work on the Kinderhook plates: The Tanners relish in linking Joseph Smith with this early nineteenth-century forgery . . .…
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Joseph Smith’s Use of the Apocrypha
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In 1968, we did a study of the relationship between the Book of Mormon and the Apocrypha. Our research led us to believe that Joseph Smith borrowed material from the Apocrypha in creating his Book of Mormon. Recently, we took a closer look at the Apocrypha and discovered additional evidence…
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King James 1611 Preface and Joseph Smith’s “Cloud of Darkness”
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner Evidence of Joseph Smith’s possible plagiarism from the Preface of the King James Bible into the Book of Mormon [Excerpt from Salt Lake City Messenger #84] Cloud of Darkness Robert Williams, of North Wales, discovered an important parallel between the Book of Mormon and the Preface of the King James…