A SCIENTIFIC EVALUATION OF THE ZELPH REVELATION

Numen, 2014

The Mormon claim that Joseph Smith discovered ancient golden plates buried in a hillside in upstate New York is too often viewed in simple either/or terms, such that the plates either existed, making Smith the prophet he claimed to be, or did not, making him deceptive or delusional. If we assume that there were no ancient golden plates and at the same that Smith was not a fraud, then the task of historical explanation is more complex. Building on a review of the evidence for the materiality of the plates, the paper uses a series of comparisons — between the golden plates and sacred objects in other religious traditions, between Smith’s claims and claims that psychiatrists define as delusional, and between Smith’s role as a seer and the role of the artist and the physician as skilled perceivers — to generate a greater range of explanatory options. In light of these comparisons, we can view the materialization of the golden plates in naturalistic terms as resulting from an interaction...

Joseph Smith as a Visionary: Heavenly Manifestations in the Latter Days, 2025

A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine and Church History, 2016

Chapter 9 from A Reason for Faith: In the spring of 1843, a group of men dug into a Native American mound near Kinderhook, Illinois - about seventy-five miles downriver from the Mormon settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois. Several feet into the mound, they found human bones and a set of six brass plates covered with inscriptions. These "Kinderhook plates" were soon brought to Nauvoo. The official History of the Church records that Joseph Smith examined the plates and translated from them. Many years later, two of the men present when the plates were uncovered revealed that the plates had been a hoax. The leader of the excavation had made the plates with some help from the village blacksmith and planted them in the mound just prior to their discovery. In 1980, the one surviving plate was examined and determined to be a modern forgery. This finding has been used to impugn Joseph Smith's credibility as a prophet and translator of ancient scripture. This polemical use of the incident ignores the historical context of Joseph Smith's personal interest in languages. A close investigation of the episode indicates that Smith's "translation" from the Kinderhook plates was an attempt at traditional translation. He had not attempted a translation with divine aid, as he had with the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, and he did not lead others to believe he had. His incorrect translation of the Kinderhook plates was simply a human error.

2021

Smith family typically began their narrative of the church's earliest history by recounting events connected to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. 1 Joseph Smith's immediate family also recollected more specific details about the 1823-1830 KYLE R. WALKER is a faculty member at Brigham Young University-Idaho, where he works in the Counseling Center. He is the author and editor of two volumes on the Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith family. His most recent biography, entitled William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet (2015), won the best biography award from the John Whitmer Historical Association. He has served as a board member for the John Whitmer Historical Association and on the book awards committee for MHA.

Joseph Smith as a Visionary: Heavenly Manifestations in the Latter Days, 2025

ing with his apparent primary reason for writing, that is, telling his forgiveness-commission story as a latter-day prophet-apostle? Because this exegesis is "a modest imaginative craft, not an exact science," 17 I leave it for readers to decide whether the proposed connections exist. At a minimum, I hope to demonstrate the Bible is not merely present in the 1832 First Vision account, but that it frames, forms, and illuminates the account too.To what degree and why that might be the case, of course, are open questions I will address briefly in the conclusion. Before delving into this analysis, however, I will provide a concise introduction to the 18 3 2 account to situate it in its historical context.

John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, 2011

2004

2014

During the time the Latter-day Saints lived in Nauvoo, John Stephens and Frederick Catherwood published Incidents of Travel in Central America, an illustrated report of the first discovery of ancient ruins in Central America by explorers. These discoveries caused great excitement among the Saints, and subsequently five editorials appeared in the Times and Seasons commenting on what these meant for the church. Although the author of the editorials was not indicated, historians have wondered if Joseph Smith penned them since he was the newspaper’s editor at the time. We examined the historical evidence surrounding the editorials and conducted a detailed stylometric analysis of the texts, comparing the writing style in the editorials with the writing styles of Joseph Smith, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff—the only men involved with the newspaper during the time the editorials were published. Both the historical and stylometric evidence point toward Joseph Smith as the most likely aut...