Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man. Russell Nelson, A Treasured Testament, Ensign July 1993
There are some things the Book of Mormon is not. It is not a textbook of history, although some history is found within its pages. Russell M Nelson, 23rd June 2016
Fifty-one of Palmyra’s leading citizens said the Smith family was ‘famous for visionary projects’. One of these centered on a nearby glacial drumlin, later called Hill Cumorah. Orsamus Turner said there were ‘[l]egends of hidden treasure’ associated with the hill and Martin Harris said that ‘money [was] supposed to have been hidden [there] by the ancients’. This is what drew the Smith family to the hill. Between 1820 and 1827, both father and son were digging at and having experiences with Cumorah’s guardian spirit. Before, during, and after the golden plates saga, the Smiths were engaged in seeking its treasures. There is solid evidence that, during this eight-year period, Joseph Smith and his father both claimed to have seen into the caves of the surrounding hills using second sight. The family freely shared these experiences with others. Katherine, Joseph’s sister, said that Joseph ‘went frequently to the hill and upon returning would tell us; I have seen the records’. Lucy Smith and Henry and Martin Harris all heard from Joseph that it was by means of a seer stone that he was able to view the records hidden in the hill. Over time, Cumorah’s cave became increasingly important to the family. Joseph Junior informed Orson Pratt: ‘[T]he grand repository of all the numerous records of the ancient nations of the western continent was located in the hill [Cumorah], and its contents under the charge of holy angels.’ According to the Smiths, Moroni was the hill’s primary guardian. Grant Palmer, board post 9th May 2006 ‘The Golden Pot’
Solomon Spalding (1761-1816) is considered by some researchers to be the original author of the Book of Mormon. One aspect not addressed in the research is that Spalding engages in an acceptable practice of the day, namely heavy borrowing and outright plagiarism. This will have implications for the validity of wordprint studies comparing Spalding’s manuscript and the Book of Mormon. Spalding demonstrates a lack of originality both in vocabulary and concept. The evidence for this is illustrated by comparing his manuscript to the History of The Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, published in 1805 by Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814). Anonymous, board post 28th August 2005, ‘The Spalding Manuscript’
Before Smith became God’s prophet he was a con man. He pretended to be able to see buried treasure in a small brown stone (a ‘seer’ or ‘peep’ stone) into which he looked by putting the stone into the bottom of a hat, covering the hat’s opening with his face and looking at the stone. He would say that he saw treasure buried on a particular property, and sometimes the property’s owner would hire him to dig up the treasure. There is no evidence that he ever found treasure, but he evidently put on quite a show. Not good enough, however, to satisfy all of his treasure-less customers – we have court documents related to his conviction on charges of ‘glass looking’ in connection with a failed treasure digging adventure.
It is interesting to note that Smith used the same ‘stone in a hat’ routine to ‘translate’ the Book of Mormon. Smith acknowledged that most of this ‘translation’ occurred without the golden plates being present. Anonymous, board post 18th October 2005, ‘Draft Submission to Newsweek’s My Turn Re: Joseph Smith's Birthday and Mormonism’; viz Bob McCue, Mormon Curtain
There is a lot of evidence connecting Rigdon to Spaulding and his various manuscripts. The Spaulding story is usually panned by Mormon apologists because the only Spaulding manuscripts that survived bear little resemblance to the Book of Mormon. However, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that Spaulding has at least one other manuscript that did not survive, that this manuscript bore a striking resemblance to the Book of Mormon, and that it ended up in Rigdon’s possession.
Rigdon was a Cambellite minister. Cambellite theology has a few unusual twists, and Rigdon had more of his own. Somehow, a lot of these ended up in the Book of Mormon.
It was commonly believed in Rigdon and Smith’s time that the Native Americans were descendants of Israel. Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews clearly indicates this. This view went back to shortly after the Americas were discovered ...
So, the idea is that Rigdon, with the best of intentions, cobbled together the Book of Mormon using primarily Spaulding’s lost manuscript, and adding ideas from Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews, perhaps The Golden Pot, and a few Smith family stories (such as the iron rod – tree of life – great and spacious building narrative, which Joseph Smith’s mother tells us is a vision received by Smith Senior).
The theory suggests that Rigdon then fed the manuscript to Joseph Smith after recruiting him to help him bring the book to life. Joseph Smith was necessary since it would be too convenient if Rigdon himself found an ancient book that verified his views. If a known mystic like Joseph Smith did it, however, Rigdon could simply point to the book and then use his influence to promote its views. He would support it, and it would support him. Anonymous possibly Bob McCue, Mormon Curtain board post 3rd June 2005, ‘Sydney Rigdon and the Book of Mormon’
By aid of the Seer Stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say ‘written’, and if correctly written, the sentence would disappear and another appear in its place; but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used. B H Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church 1:29
The material in Ethan Smith’s book [View of the Hebrews] is of a character and quantity to make a ground plan for the Book of Mormon: it supplies a large amount of material respecting American antiquities – leading to the belief that civilized or semi-civilized nations in ancient time occupied the American continents. B H Roberts, church historian, Studies of the Book of Mormon p240
In light of this evidence, there can be no doubt as to the possession of a vividly strong, creative imagination by Joseph Smith, the Prophet. An imagination, it could with reason be urged, which, given the suggestions that are to be found in the ‘common knowledge’ of accepted American Antiquities of the times, supplimented [sic] by such a work as Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews would make it possible for him to create a book such as the Book of Mormon is ...
Here is a certain lack of perspective in the things the book relates as history that points quite clearly to an undeveloped mind as their origin. The narrative proceeds in characteristic disregard of conditions necessary to its reasonableness, as if it were a tale told by a child, with utter disregard for consistency ...
Is this all sober history ... or is it a wonder-tale of an immature mind, unconscious of what a test he is laying on human credulity when asking men to accept his narrative as solemn history? ibid.
I told them then, that I considered the whole of it a delusion, and advised them to abandon it. The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret, was the same as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, and his hat over his face, while the Book of Plates were at the same time hid in the woods!
Joseph Smith Junior resided near me for some time after this, and I had a good opportunity of becoming acquainted with him, and somewhat acquainted with his associates, and I conscientiously believe from the facts I have detailed, and from many other circumstances, which I do not deem it necessary to relate, that the whole ‘Book of Mormon’ (so called) is a silly fabrication of falsehood and wickedness, got up for speculation, and with a design to dupe the credulous and unwary – and in order that its fabricators may live upon the spoils of those who swallow the deception. Isaac Hale, Joseph Smith’s father-in-law, sworn statement 20th March 1834
In February, 1852, I was snowbound in a hotel in Mentor, Ohio, all day. Martin Harris was there, and in conversation told me he saw Jo Smith translate the Book of Mormon with his peep-stone in his hat. Oliver Cowdery, who had been a schoolteacher, wrote it down. Sidney Rigdon, a renegade preacher, was let in during the translation. Rigdon had stolen a manuscript from a printing office in Pittsburgh, Pa., which Spaulding, who had written it in the early part of the century, had left there to be printed, but the printers refused to publish it, but Jo and Rigdon did, as the Book of Mormon. Martin said he furnished the means, and Jo promised him a place next to him in the church. When they had got all my property they set me out. He said Jo ought to have been killed before he was; that the Mormons committed all sorts of depredations in the towns about Kirtland. They called themselves Latter-Day Saints, but he called them Latter-Day Devils. R W Alderman, letter 25th December 1884
Once while reading scripture, he [Martin Harris] reportedly mistook a candle sputtering as a sign that the devil desired him to stop. Another time he excitedly awoke from his sleep believing that a creature as large as a dog had been upon his chest, though a nearby associate could find nothing to confirm his fears. Several hostile and perhaps unreliable accounts told of visionary experiences with Satan and Christ, Harris once reporting that Christ had been poised on a roof beam.
No matter where he went, he saw visions and supernatural appearances all around him. He told a gentleman in Palmyra, after one of his excursions to Pennsylvania, while the translation of the Book of Mormon was going on, that on the way he met the Lord Jesus Christ, who walked along by the side of him in the shape of a deer for two or three miles, talking with him as familiarly as one man talks with another. John A Clark, letter 31st August 1840