Did Joseph Smith really use a seer stone? — The Standard of Truth podcast

The Standard of Truth podcast is hosted by Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, associate professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University, and Richard LeDuc, a professor in the Masters of Business Creation Program at the University of Utah. In their weekly episodes, they “explore the early days of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith, expertise, and humor.”

Gerrit Dirkmaat has a PhD in American history and worked on the Joseph Smith Papers Project as a historian and writer. He is, in my estimation, better acquainted with the life and teachings of Joseph Smith than just about any other living historian.

In their most-recent episode, Dirkmaat and LeDuc discussed “a rising trend/movement among Church members [who] adamantly reject that Joseph Smith used seer stones placed into a hat (in order to block out the light) to translate the Book of Mormon.” They politely didn’t name names, but it’s apparent from the context of their discussion that they’re referring to the book Seer Stone v. Urim & Thummim: Book of Mormon Translation on Trial by Hannah and James Stoddard, as well as several books written by Jonathan Neville.

I enthusiastically recommend the Standard of Truth podcast—and this episode in particular—to anyone who’s interested in this topic:

—Mike Parker [‘Peter Pan”]
 

An open reply to Jonathan Neville

On March 31, 2023, I received the following email from Jonathan Neville:

Hi Mike. People have been sending me excerpts from your blog. Seems like it would make more sense to communicate directly. As you know, when I was on Kerry’s podcast [see here—ed.] someone asked if you and I would have lunch and be friends, despite our different views. I’m happy to do that if you are. It turns out, I’ll be in Southern Utah ████ ██████ (███ ██).

I remembered that about 6 years ago you wrote to me suggesting a correction to one of my charts.

I want to accurately represent the position of the M2C/SITH believers. Could you let me know if there is anything in the table below that is incorrect?

Thanks in advance.

All the best,

Jonathan

At the bottom of his email was a table with a side-by-side comparison of his beliefs with his version of the beliefs of those who disagree with him about the location of the hill Cumorah and the means of translating the Book of Mormon. (I’ve included his table below, with my corrections.)

I was happy to have a discussion with him—this is, until I saw what he posted on his “Interpreter Peer Reviews” blog the same day. I have my differences with Jonathan Neville, but I have never called him names as he did by referring to Daniel Peterson—twelve times, no less!—as “Slander Dan.” Likewise, he again stooped to using language from the temple endowment to imply that Peterson is somehow like Satan. (This is a repeat of the same reprehensible behavior he engaged in last December.)

So, after reading his blog post, I’m afraid lunch won’t be possible. If he wants to engage in a free and open dialog, it must be done without name-calling, misrepresentation, and disrespectful use of the temple to disparage those he disagrees with.

Regarding the feedback he requested: I’m being as charitable as possible when I say that the second column in his comparison table grossly misrepresents the views of the people he names at the top of column two. His degree of misrepresentation is so extreme that the second column could only have been written in ignorance or in bad faith.

His comparison table is an example of dichotomous thinking that he regularly appeals to. Framing the debate as “Joseph and Oliver either told the truth or they didn’t tell the truth” leaves no room for complexity, nuance, or ambiguity. In doing so, he has cast aside critical analysis and replaced it with the logical fallacy of the false dilemma (“either A or B only”). By characterizing others’ beliefs in the worst light possible—something he does regularly—he can dismiss anyone who disagrees with him as being unfaithful and motivated by prestige, status, or money. This is not an honest or considerate way to approach any debate or discussion.

My suggested corrections to what he wrote in the second column (in red) can be found in the third column (in blue) below. I can’t speak for the other people named in the heading to the second column; I only speak for myself. (Please also note that Stephen Smoot has never used the abbreviated name “Steve.”)

Jonathan Neville	Jonathan Neville’s synopsis of Dan Peterson, Mike Parker, Steve Smoot, Jack Welch, Royal Skousen, and their followers and donors	Mike Parker (who has neither followers nor donors)
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery told the truth about the Hill Cumorah in New York. Extrinsic evidence corroborates their teachings.	Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery did not tell the truth about the Hill Cumorah and the translation of the Book of Mormon. Oliver Cowdery invented the New York Cumorah, but he was speculating and was wrong. Joseph Smith passively adopted Oliver’s false theory about Cumorah.	There has been no divine revelation that identifies the hill near Joseph Smith’s home as the hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon. Claims that Moroni called the New York hill Cumorah are late and secondhand and should therefore be treated with caution. Early Latter-day Saints believed that the two hills were the same. That belief was based on assumption, and we cannot and should not fault them for coming to that conclusion. They, of course, did not realize their own assumptions, which is an extremely common human tendency. Extrinsic evidence does not confirm that the New York hill was the hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon, and internal evidence from the text also strongly suggests that it was not.
Their faithful contemporaries and successors in Church leadership reaffirmed the truth about Cumorah in New York, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference.	Their faithful contemporaries and successors in Church leadership, like Joseph Smith, passively adopted Oliver Cowdery’s false theory about Cumorah and thereby misled everyone for decades until the scholars found the truth.	Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery’s contemporaries and successors shared the same assumptions about the text that they did, and they taught and testified in good faith based on these assumptions. These assumptions became traditions, but just because something is traditional does not make it true (as has been seen in the Church’s recent disavowal of theories that for over a century were used to explain the priesthood ban). The location of the hill Cumorah is not a matter that pertains in any way to salvation; therefore, no one has been “misled” by general authorities who expressed their belief that the hill in New York is the hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon.
Origin of M2C. Scholars starting with RLDS scholars Stebbins and Hills, and continuing with LDS scholars Sorenson, Welch, Peterson, et al, decided JS, OC and their successors were wrong about Cumorah. Instead, these scholars determined that the real Cumorah is somewhere in southern Mexico (Mesoamerica). Hence the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory, or M2C, which repudiates the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah and is merely the speculation of intellectuals.	Origin of M2C. Scholars starting with RLDS scholars Stebbins and Hills, and continuing with LDS scholars Sorenson, Welch, Peterson, et al, decided JS, OC and their successors were wrong about Cumorah. Instead, these scholars determined that the real Cumorah is somewhere in southern Mexico (Mesoamerica). Hence the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory, or M2C, which repudiates the mere false speculation of the prophets about Cumorah and is the truth that must be defended against those who still believe the teachings of the prophets.	Framing the issue as “scholars decided the prophets were wrong about Cumorah” both dishonestly misrepresents the people involved and unfairly accuses them of “repudiating the teachings of the prophets.” No one began or ended with the conclusion that “the prophets were wrong” about anything. Since there has been no revelation about Book of Mormon geography—including the location of the hill Cumorah—the question has been entirely one of finding a location in the Western Hemisphere that best fits, geographically and anthropologically, the descriptions given in the Book of Mormon. Beginning in the late 19th century, careful readers of the Book of Mormon began to realize that the action it describes could not have taken place across the entire Western Hemisphere and must have happened in a much more limited area. Latter-day Saints and members of the Reorganized Church were working along parallel lines (similar to how Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz both independently discovered calculus), but there is no evidence that Saints in Utah were aware of RLDS publications. In 1880, Latter-day Saint George Reynolds proposed the first limited geography model, with Desolation—the land where the hill Cumorah was—located in Central America. (This was published by the Church in their periodical The Juvenile Instructor.) The anonymous 1886 Latter-day Saint publication Plain Facts for Students of the Book of Mormon situated the entire text of the book in northern South America and Central America. In 1909 Elder B.H. Roberts wrote, “The question of Book of Mormon geography is more than ever recognized as an open one by students of the Book,” and that the lands of the Book of Mormon might “be found between Mexico and Yucatan with the isthmus of Tehuantepec between.” During the 20th century, many Latter-day Saint scholars and students of the Book of Mormon developed and refined several competing Mesoamerican Book of Mormon geographical models. (Daniel Peterson and John W. Welch are not key individuals in this and haven’t published any independent research on Book of Mormon geography.) None of these scholars and students has ever written or spoken anything resembling the assertion that a Cumorah in Mesoamerica “is the truth that must be defended against those who still believe the teachings of the prophets.” Those who favor a Mesoamerican geography remain open to serious, reliable evidence that it took place elsewhere. The fraudulent artifacts and implausible geographical models proposed by followers of the Heartland movement fail in every way to meet that standard.
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery both told the truth about the translation of the Book of Mormon; i.e., that Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates.	Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery both intentionally misled everyone about the translation because in fact, Joseph never used the plates or the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon (at least the text we have today).	Framing the issue as “Joseph and Oliver intentionally misled people” dishonestly misrepresents the views of those who accept that Joseph also used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. Martin Harris—Joseph’s first scribe in translating the Book of Mormon—testified that Joseph used both the Nephite interpreters and a seer stone in the process. The historical record suggests that early Latter-day Saints referred to both items as “Urim and Thummim.” And it’s more than a little disingenuous for Jonathan Neville to accuse others of claiming Joseph Smith “intentionally misled everyone about the translation” when he himself has used his “demonstration theory” to argue that Joseph Smith did exactly that. (See below.)
Witnesses who rejected the leadership of Brigham Young, such as David Whitmer and Emma Smith, are less credible than what Joseph and Oliver (and their successors) said, so even if Joseph Smith dictated words while looking at the stone in the hat (SITH), this was a demonstration, not the translation of the Book of Mormon.	Witnesses who rejected the leadership of Brigham Young, such as David Whitmer and Emma Smith, are more credible than what Joseph and Oliver (and their successors) said, so we know that, instead of using the U&T and the plates, Joseph Smith merely read words that appeared on the stone in the hat (SITH).	What eyewitnesses to the translation of the Book of Mormon believed about succession in the presidency of the Church is immaterial to their credibility as witnesses of the translation process. (The same principle applies in the law: A witness to a crime cannot be ignored or rejected just because he is a communist, a MAGA Trump supporter, or a flat-earther.) Not one single eyewitness to the translation process ever denied that Joseph Smith was inspired by God to translate the Book of Mormon. The witnesses—Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, Emma Smith, David Whitmer, and others—are equally credible, and their statements must be examined and understood in the context of when, how, and why they were made. Dismissing an eyewitness’s testimony because the content of that testimony does not fit one’s hypothesis is a fatal error that reflects a biased, prejudiced methodology. No one who accepts the overwhelming number of eyewitness testimonies that Joseph did use a seer stone to translate has ever claimed that Joseph “merely read words that appeared” to him; rather, Joseph’s early revelations clearly indicate that the translation process also required study, prayer, and spiritual confirmation, as described by the revelation to the Prophet Joseph in D&C 9. Also, no one is claiming that the seer stone was not a sacred consecrated object at the time the Book of Mormon was translated, nor is anyone asserting that the translation could have been accomplished without the gift of seership from God. On the contrary, both the interpreters and other seer stones worked through the gift and power of God. No firsthand eyewitnesses or secondhand accounts (or any later Church leaders, for that matter) have ever suggested that Joseph Smith “demonstrated” the translation process to curious individuals by using a seer stone in a hat. Jonathan Neville’s claim that Joseph did this is an ad hoc hypothesis, completely lacking in any evidence whatsoever and invented solely to resolve the problem of the multitude of eyewitness statements that Joseph used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon in Harmony and in Fayette.

Jonathan Neville claims to want to “accurately represent the position of the M2C/SITH believers.” It will be interesting to see if and how he modifies the table in his blog post based on my feedback.

—Peter Pan (Mike Parker)
 

Scholarship vs. activism

James W. Lucas and Jonathan Neville are coauthors of the new book, By Means of the Urim & Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration.

Lucas has one other published work, Working Toward Zion: Principles of the United Order for the Modern World, coauthored with Warner P. Woodworth and published in 1996. (This book was favorably reviewed in the FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 10/2.)

Lucas and Neville’s latest book returns again to a subject of much passion for Jonathan Neville: the means by which the Book of Mormon was translated. Amazon’s description of By Means of the Urim and Thummim tells us exactly where the authors stand on this matter:

Joseph Smith claimed the Book of Mormon was his translation of writings on ancient plates made using an even more ancient translation device called the Urim and Thummim. By Means of the Urim and Thummim explores the many controversies surrounding this claim. Did Joseph actually use a magic rock he put in a hat rather than the ancient interpreter device? Did he write the Book himself rather than translating an ancient record? Was Joseph really a near illiterate country bumpkin, or was he plausible as an actively engaged translator? And if he was a real translator as he claimed, how would such a translation process have worked to produce the Book of Mormon as we have it, with its strange melange of 1820s American English and the Bible underlain by ancient concepts and linguistic forms in an incredibly complex narrative? By Means of the Urim and Thummim will be a must read for anyone interested in the unique and unusual work that is the Book of Mormon.

The phrasing in that description sadly follows the same polemical approach to Church history that Neville has almost made a career out of. It refers to Joseph Smith’s seer stone as “a magic rock” and implies that those who believe that Joseph translated with a seer stone think he was “a near illiterate country bumpkin.”

James Lucas has recently made similarly antagonistic comments regarding Joseph’s seer stone. When asked about the stone, the Salt Lake Tribute quotes him as saying, “It’s just a rock, just a dumb rock. A dumb brown rock.”

Just a dumb, brown rock that President Wilford Woodruff consecrated upon the altar of the Manti Temple.

Lucas also owns a baseball cap that, the Tribune explains, “touts his belief that Joseph Smith used the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon” and “his rejection of the narrative that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by peering at a ‘seer stone’ in a hat”:

This is totally normal and not at all weird.

All of this once again demonstrates that, if Heartlanders wish to be taken seriously, they need to act seriously and present their evidence and conclusions in a more objective manner. Perhaps Lucas and Neville’s book does this—I haven’t read it yet—but their public statements manifest that for them, this an us-versus-them battle against historical evidence that they reject wholesale because of their zeal for traditional narratives that no longer hold up.

—Peter Pan
 

Another response to Rian Nelson of the FIRM Foundation

This is a response to Rian Nelson’s comment on my December 20, 2022, blog post.

I don’t believe we will ever agree on the Fantasy Map idea so lets [sic] move on after a short comment. The way the map is, you should have simply shown any shape and just listed the order of the cities from bottom (Where Lehi landed) to the top where (hill Cumorah is located). In other words your fantasy map could be called instead, an “accurate list of Book of Mormon cities from landing place to extinction place.”

Your description of the BYU Book of Mormon Conceptual Map reveals that you haven’t given it any consideration or study. I have used it in my Book of Mormon study for the last five years and have found it to be thoroughly consistent with the descriptions and directions given in the text of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon Conceptual Map is far more internally consistent than Moroni’s America – Maps Edition, which is radically at odds with the Book of Mormon, logic, and common sense. (I have critiqued elements of your book here, here, and here.)

If anything fits the description of a “fantasy map,” it’s Moroni’s America – Maps Edition. Yet I will still give you the courtesy of referring to your book by its actual title. If you wish to continue smearing those you disagree with by using pejorative labels, that’s up to you. It’s certainly not in keeping with common courtesy and respect for opposing views, though.

We know the purpose of the scriptures is to teach truth. I will never believe David, Emma, and Martin over the the two first hand witnesses, Joseph and Oliver, nor over the scriptures. The scriptures say what instruments came with the plates, and that they were used to translate. No need to add conjecture.

Emma Smith, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer were firsthand eyewitnesses to the translation, Rian. For heaven’ sake, Emma and Martin were scribes for Joseph Smith in the translation of the Book of Mormon before Oliver Cowdery even met the Prophet, and the translation was completed in the Whitmer home, where David and his entire family witnessed the translation.

The earliest published account of the translation of the Book of Mormon—printed in 1829 by Jonathan Hadley—reported that “By placing the Spectacles in a hat, and looking into it, [Joseph] Smith could (he said so, at least,) interpret these characters.” This report was given in August 1829 after Joseph met with Hadley, publisher of the Palmyra Freeman, about printing the Book of Mormon. Another non-Mormon, Richard McNemar, who heard Oliver Cowdery preach in Ohio in November 1830, wrote in his diary in January 1831, “There is said to have been in the box with the plates two transparent stones in the form of spectacles thro[ugh] which the translator looked on the engraving & afterwards put his face into a hat & the interpretation then flowed into his mind.”

In short, the number of eyewitness and and secondhand sources that claim Joseph Smith translated while looking at a seer stone or the Nephite interpreters in hat is simply overwhelming. You’re cherry-picking a very limited number of specific sources and interpreting them so that they support your beliefs. That’s completely irresponsible, and it demonstrates the desperate lengths Heartlanders go to when making their case.

I really don’t have a problem with your opinions as you are free to have them.

Quite clearly you do have a problem with them, since, according to your and your fellows, I and other people who disagree with you are “rejecting the teachings of the prophets,” promoting anti-Mormon claims, causing a loss of faith leading to apostasy among members, and are responsible for a decline in growth of Church membership.

As long as you continue to make such claims, your own statements belie your assertion that you don’t have a problem with alternative opinions.

The Book of Mormon speaks to a specific land, not Greenland, not, Guatemala and not Peru. I Nephi 13 is obviously speaking of the United States. The Church approved header to Chapter 13 says, “Nephi sees in vision the church of the devil set up among the Gentiles, the discovery and colonizing of America, the loss of many plain and precious parts of the Bible, the resultant state of gentile apostasy, the restoration of the gospel, the coming forth of latter-day scripture, and the building up of Zion.”

I think you’re misreading the heading to that chapter. It doesn’t say “the discovery and colonizing of the United States of America”; it says, “the discovery and colonizing of America.” America refers to the entire continent of North and South America, which Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Hyrum Smith, Ezra Taft Benson, and Mark E. Peterson testified is “the land of Zion” and “a choice land.”

1 Nephi 13 speaks of events that took place in what would become the United States, but it’s also a prophecy of many other things, including the voyages of Christopher Columbus, who never set foot on the North American continent.

The “choice land” Nephi saw includes the United States, Greenland, Guatemala, Peru, and the rest of the American continent.

This statement above and common sense says, I will stick with my quote of, “I know The United States is the promised land foretold in the Book of Mormon, as the Lord chose it. He did not choose it because those who live here are better people, or because it is a more beautiful place than other parts of the world, but He chose it to be the place of the Restoration of the Gospel in the Latter-days. Why? Because He chose it!” It’s what I believe.

You may believe it, but it’s still circular reasoning. And it conflicts with the statements of the prophets mentioned above who testified that the entire North and South American continent is the choice land mentioned in the Book of Mormon. The United States was the place chosen for the restoration of the gospel, and that gospel has gone forth to the peoples in Latin America. These people are the descendants of the Lamanites, a truth that has been believed and taught by many Church leaders, including Oliver Cowdery, Brigham Young, Anthony W. Ivins, Marion G. Romney, and most recently Gerrit W. Gong and President Russell M. Nelson.

No need to respond as we have agreed to disagree. May the Lord bless you.

Well, I decided to respond anyway. I wish you and your family a very merry Christmas.

—Peter Pan
 

My reply to Rian Nelson of the FIRM Foundation

On December 18, 2022, Rian Nelson published a post about me on the FIRM Foundation blog. I responded to his post the next day with an open letter. Rian replied with a comment on this blog. The following is my reply to his comment.

Mr. Pan, I appreciate you responding to by blog. Just a few responses.

There’s no need for formalities. Please, call me Peter.

Calling the CES Map a “Fantasy Map” is accurate. It does not relate to any current geography in the world.

Come now, Rian; be honest. You use that term as a derogatory label. We both know it.

The name of the BYU Book of Mormon Conceptual Map explains its purpose and goal, and its website informs us that it was designed and prepared to give “a basic idea of approximate directions and theoretical relationships between various geographical features mentioned in the stories.” It is not a “fantasy map” like the one of Middle-earth created for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Calling it a “fantasy map” misrepresents the intent of the project. This is similar to how you and Jonathan Neville use terms like “SITH,” which has sinister origins. It’s an unfair practice that demonstrates that you and your associates are not acting in good faith.

I have always referred to your book, Moroni’s America – Maps Edition, by its full title. The least you can do is refer to the Book of Mormon Conceptual Map by its proper name.

There is not one scriptural quote about Joseph using a stone in a hat to translate, and there are at least 4 or 5 scriptures that say he used the two stones fastened to a breastplate.

Your argument is a non sequitur. There are many events in Church history that happened but are not mentioned in the scriptures. For example, Joseph Smith began the translation of the Book of Mormon in Harmony, Pennsylvania, where he and Emma and Oliver Cowdery struggled financially. David Whitmer invited them to come to his father’s home in Fayette, New York, where they would receive free room and board and also assistance with writing while Joseph translated. Joseph took David up on his offer, and they moved there in early June 1829. There is nothing about any of that in the scriptures—not in the Book of Mormon, not in Joseph’s revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, not in the canonized portion of Joseph’s 1838 history that’s in the Pearl of Great Price. Therefore, according to your logic, Joseph either never moved to Fayette or he was not authorized by the Lord to do so.

Joseph, of course, did use the Nephite interpreters/Urim and Thummim to translate portions of the Book of Mormon, but he also used a seer stone. Martin Harris—who was Joseph’s scribe for a time, an eyewitness to the translation process, and one of the Three Witnesses—said that “the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone.” Either Martin was correct, or he was mistaken, or he was lying. The fact that so many other eyewitnesses to the translation (including Emma Smith, David Whitmer, Joseph Knight Sr., Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery, and others) also reported that Joseph used a seer stone indicates that Martin was neither mistaken nor lying. (Jonathan Neville’s “demonstration hypothesis” is nothing more than an ad hoc way to dismiss the overwhelming eyewitness testimony that doesn’t fit with his beliefs.)

There are many things that are not in the scriptures but are nonetheless true.

I have no problem with those of you who believe differently in the geography and the translation than I do, as we all have that freedom.

But you and your associates clearly do have “a problem with those of [us] who believe differently,” because you keep claiming that if we don’t agree with your beliefs, then we’re “rejecting the teachings of the prophets,” promoting anti-Mormon claims, causing a loss of faith leading to apostasy among members, and are responsible for a decline in growth of Church membership.

Until you and your collaborators stop making these false assertions, please don’t claim that you “have no problem” with those who don’t agree with you.

When people say we are a hoax, or an apostate sect, or we are critical of the Brethren, or say we think we are racially superior to some, those are incorrect and small statements.

I disagree. Jonathan Neville has repeatedly claimed that Church leaders and Church employees are censoring Church history, misleading members, and publishing anti-Mormon arguments. These statements (among many others) are clear evidence that he is promoting an apostate form of the restored gospel that is critical of the Brethren.

Your own racially charged statements about the people of Latin America are directly at odds with what the prophets have taught.

I think the evidence demonstrates that my assertions are correct. And as long as Jonathan Neville can claim that “M2C” is a hoax, then I think it’s only reasonable that I can make the same claim about the Heartland movement.

Let me rephrase when I called you a “small person”, and say your comments are small minded.

Thank you for rephrasing that.

I know The United States is the promised land foretold in the Book of Mormon, as the Lord chose it. He did not chose it because those who live here are better people, or because it is a more beautiful place than other parts of the world, but He chose it to be the place of the Restoration of the Gospel in the Latter-days. Why? Because He chose it!

First, your statement is an example of circular reasoning and is thefore logically fallacious.

Second, I also believe that the United States was set apart by God to be the cradle of the Restoration—not because the Book of Mormon teaches that but because Joseph Smith’s revelations do.

Certain statements in the Book of Mormon can be interpreted to be references to the United States, but most of them are so nonspecific that they could refer to other nations as well. For example, the prophecy of the “mighty nation” that would scatter Lehi’s descendants (1 Nephi 22:7–8) cannot refer to the United States because that scattering was prophesied to take place before the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the expulsion of the American Indian tribes from the Eastern United States didn’t take place until after the Book of Mormon had already been published. (I wrote about this here.) Likewise, President Ezra Taft Benson and Elder Mark E. Peterson both declared that the “choice land” prophecy in Ether 2:9–12 refers to the entire Western Hemisphere, not just the United States.

May the Lord bless you in sharing the love of Christ, as I will try and do a better job of doing so as well.

Thank you! I also hope the Lord blesses you in your righteous endeavors. I also pray that he will hinder me, you, and anyone else who tries to lead people away from the truth of the restored gospel and the teachings and authority of living prophets.

—Peter Pan 

Jonathan Neville shills for anti-Mormons (again)

“Stuff You Missed in Sunday School” is an online meme page that tries to point out supposed contradictions in Latter-day Saint beliefs. I’m not going to provide them a link—you can look them up online yourself, if you’re so inclined—but their content lacks even a modest level of depth or understanding. Their modus operandi is to take advantage of the low level of knowledge many Saints have about difficult or complex issues involving Church history and doctrine.

Considering his willingness to freely use and even defend anti-Mormon resources, it’s not at all surprising that Jonathan Neville posted this “Stuff You Missed in Sunday School” meme to his “Book of Mormon Central America” blog on November 29, 2022:

Neville followed up with this statement:

One quotation is from an anonymous essay written by scholars who promoted their own theories and never bothered to quote what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said on the topic.

The other is from a President of the Church who served as an apostle for 62 years and 2 months, second only to David O. McKay (63 years and 9 months). He also served as Church historian for nearly 50 years.

The meme and Neville’s commentary overlook the long and complex history of how Latter-day Saint historians have treated the many eyewitness accounts of Joseph Smith using a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon and receive revelations. Many historians have accepted these accounts, and their eyewitness testimonies have been printed in Church-published books and newspapers in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. A very small number of historians have rejected these eyewitness testimonies, Joseph Fielding Smith being the most prominent example.

In his comments, Neville has employed the logical fallacy of appeal to authority: Insisting that a claim must be true simply because someone important said it was true, without any other supporting evidence offered. In this case, he has appealed to Joseph Fielding Smith, who “personally [did] not believe” that Joseph Smith used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. Neville argues, fallaciously, that Joseph Fielding Smith’s view is correct because he was an apostle and served as Church historian; serving in those two positions does not make him infallible, however, and Neville himself would certainly disagree with some of the views he held.

In summary, “Stuff You Missed in Sunday School” has tried to pit the current official stance of the Church concerning a historical matter against the personal stance of a prophet who has been dead for over fifty years. Joseph Fielding Smith wasn’t correct in the first place, so his personal views are inconsequential. What’s worse, though, is that Jonathan Neville has decided, once again, to use the “any stick with which to beat them” approach to dealing with those who disagree with him, to the point of being willing to repost anti-Mormon claims that are designed to destroy the testimonies of the spiritually weak and historically unaware.

Neville should be ashamed of his actions, but my guess is that he’s not.

—Peter Pan
 

Jonathan Neville’s claims eerily similar to those in a famous anti-Mormon book

Jonathan Neville continues undeterred in his claim that the language of the Book of Mormon was derived from the sermons of Jonathan Edwards. In a recent blog post, Neville repeated his argument that the famous phrase in King Benjamin’s sermon “the natural man is an enemy to God” was derived from Jonathan Edwards’s sermon on how “natural men are God’s enemies.” Since September 2019, he has maintained a blog devoted to proving that Joseph Smith copied much of the language in the Book of Mormon from the published writings of Jonathan Edwards. His response to Spencer Kraus’s thorough takedown of his hypothesis demonstrates that he has not read Kraus’s criticisms carefully and that he’s too personally invested in his view to admit that it has any flaws.

Dozens of times Neville has asserted that historical claims that Joseph Smith used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon are simply repeating the assertions made in the 1834 anti-Mormon book Mormonism Unvailed. In an ironic twist, Neville’s claims that Joseph didn’t see anything in the Urim and Thummim and that he copied the language of contemporary sermons repeats a similar explanation given by T.B.H. Stenhouse in his famous 1873 anti-Mormon book The Rocky Mountain Saints:

Like Stenhouse, Neville believes that Joseph Smith didn’t “see” anything in the Urim and Thummim or seer stones—quite odd for a prophet who was called a “seer” (Mosiah 8:13; D&C 21:1)—and that “the language of modern preachers and writers” explains the origins of the language in the Book of Mormon.

Rather than demonstrating the miraculous origins of the Book of Mormon—the keystone scripture of the Restoration—Neville is providing ammunition to its critics who wish to find commonplace explanations for how it came to be.

—Peter Pan
 

Jonathan Neville’s unheard-of “faithful” explanation

The Interpreter Foundation gave Jonathan Neville the opportunity to respond to Spencer Kraus’s reviews of Neville’s two books, A Man that Can Translate and Infinite Goodness, that were published in Interpreter last June. Neville’s reply was published last week as “A Man That Can Translate and Infinite Goodness: A Response to Recent Reviews.”

Neville’s reply is interesting for what it says and what it doesn’t say. Kraus’s rebuttal—published in the same issue of Interpreter as “A Rejoinder to Jonathan Neville’s ‘Response to Recent Reviews’”—brings up most of the key issues, but there’s one thing Neville wrote in his response that struck me as particularly odd. Neville writes:

There are three basic explanations for the Book of Mormon. Proponents of each find support in historical documentation, which indicates the evidence is inconclusive and can support multiple working hypotheses.

1. Joseph Smith translated the ancient engravings into English, using “translate” in the ordinary sense of the word of converting the meaning of a manuscript written in one language into another language.
2. Joseph Smith (and/or confederates) composed the text and Joseph read it surreptitiously, recited it from memory, or performed it based on prompts or cues.
3. Joseph Smith dictated words that supernaturally appeared on a seer stone he placed in a hat.

Until recently, explanation 1 was the “faithful” explanation, while explanations 2 and 3 were the critical or unbelieving explanations. Lately, explanation 3 has been embraced by many believers (including Kraus) as a faithful explanation that replaces explanation 1.

In the considerable time I’ve spent as an active member of the Church and student of Church history—not to betray too much about myself, but let’s just say that I’m older than 45 and younger than 70—I have never heard Neville’s explanation 1. Not even once. I have always been told or have read that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by miraculous means by seeing words in the Urim and Thummim—the Nephite interpreters—or in a seer stone (explanation 3). The claim that Joseph translated “in the ordinary sense of the word” is something I’ve never encountered until I began reading Jonathan Neville’s writings.

Neville’s claim that “Lately, explanation 3 has been embraced by many believers…as a faithful explanation that replaces explanation 1” is clearly and patently false. As I wrote in April 2021, “eyewitnesses to the translation process, early Latter-day Saint publications, Church leaders in the 19th through the 21st centuries, and official histories published by the Church have accepted and taught that Joseph Smith used a seer stone that he placed into a hat—along with the Nephite interpreters—to translate the Book of Mormon.”

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was taught by then-Elder Russell M. Nelson in 1992 and published in the Ensign in 1993.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was included in the six-volume Comprehensive History of the Church, edited by Elder B.H. Roberts and published by the Church in 1930.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was repeated by Apostle Orson F. Whitney in his 1921 book, Saturday Night Thoughts.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was affirmed by Joseph Knight Sr., one of the Prophet’s closest friends and an eyewitness to the translation process.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was corroborated by a Shaker in northern Ohio who heard Oliver Cowdery preach in 1830.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was reiterated by Hugh Nibley, who wrote in 1975:

Nothing could be less like the normal ways of scholarship than the inspired mood and method in which the Prophet Joseph did his translation. “In the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment 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. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God and not by any power of man.” If all the Prophet had to do was to read off an English text, why did he need the original characters in front of him? He didn’t! “I frequently wrote day after day,” Emma Smith recalls, “often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.… He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.… The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth.” David Whitmer confirms this: “He did not use the plates in the translation, but would hold the interpreters to his eyes…and before his eyes would appear what seemed to be a parchment, on which would appear the characters of the plates…and immediately below would appear the translation in English.”

[Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, 1975, p. 51 / 2005, p. 59; ellipses in the original]

The question of how much of what Joseph saw in those stones was directly revealed by God and how much of it was Joseph’s own language remains open. (As I explained in January 2020, Book of Mormon scholars Royal Skousen and Brant Gardner disagree on this matter.) But no one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever claimed that Joseph Smith translated “in the ordinary sense of the word,” as Jonathan Neville has asserted.

If there is any evidence of a Church leader or recognized scholar teaching what Neville is claiming, then I would be very interested to read what they said or wrote. Please leave a comment below.

—Peter Pan
 

Another stake in the heart of Neville’s SITH hypothesis

Jonathan Neville insists that Joseph Smith used only the Nephite interpreters (the “Urim and Thummim”) to translate the Book of Mormon, that he did not use a seer stone to translate, and that he never placed either instrument into a hat. Instead, Neville insists that Joseph’s use of a stone in a hat was only a “demonstration” of the translation process to satisfy the curiosity of other people.

Neville’s claim is contradicted by the testimony of multiple eyewitnesses to the translation process, including Martin Harris and Emma Smith (who served as Joseph’s scribes during the translation), David Whitmer (one of the Three Witnesses), Joseph Knight Sr. (a close friend of Joseph Smith who supported the Prophet during the translation effort), Elizabeth Ann Whitmer (Oliver Cowdery’s wife), and others. Neville was forced to develop his “demonstration” hypothesis to account for the overwhelming number of witnesses who said Joseph translated by means of a stone that he placed into a hat.

Neville further claims that the “stone-in-the-hat” story was popularized by Eber D. Howe and set forth in Howe’s 1834 anti-Mormon book, Mormonism Unvailed. Neville tells us:

According to Mormonism Unvailed, one explanation was that Joseph Smith used a “peep” stone that he found in a well years before he obtained the plates from the hill in New York. Joseph placed the stone into a hat. Words appeared on the stone. He put his face in the hat to block the light and read the words to his scribes (primarily Martin Harris for the 116 pages and Oliver Cowdery for the Book of Mormon we have today).

Some new evidence has recently come to light that destroys Neville’s claim that the “stone-in-the-hat” explanation was developed by anti-Mormons. The evidence comes from Richard McNemar (1770–1839), a Shaker who lived in Ohio and who encountered the Book of Mormon in late 1830. In November 1830, Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer Jr., Parley P. Pratt, and Ziba Peterson spent four weeks in the area of Kirtland, Ohio, preaching and baptizing, before continuing on their mission to the Lamanites in the West. In his diary entry for Saturday, January 29, 1831, McNemar wrote:

Friday & Saturday I spent mostly in reading the book of Mormon which was [handed?] to me by Elder Solomon. It is a duodecimo volume of 590 pages printed at Palmyra in the state of New York a certain Joseph Smith securing the copy right as author & proprietor. It claims its origin from original engravings on plates of brass deposited in a stone box & [buried?] in the earth sometime in the fourth century & showed to the said Smith by an angel & dug up by the said Smith & translated by inspiration the engraving being unintelligible to learned & unlearned. There is said to have been in the box with the plates two transparent stones in the form of spectacles thro[ugh] which the translator looked on the engraving & afterwards put his face into a hat & the interpretation then flowed into his mind, which he uttered to the amanuensis who wrote it down. The said amanuensis by name Oliver Cowdery, was lately at the North lot & gave this account. He & others being on their way Missouri to open this new revelation to the Indians whose genealogy it professes to trace from the line of Joseph & from the line of their first settlement in America at the period of the Babylonish captivity.… There being no intelligible correspondence between the marks on the plates, & the dictates of the pretended interpreter, all his ideas were acquired by looking into a hat, where in all probability the translation appeared quite plainly in our English language. We must therefore conclude that the confabulation was cunningly devised, whether by visibles or invisibles & whether those bright & unsullied plates had been deposited in ancient or modern times. [Emphasis added.]

McNemar spent the remainder of his diary entry explaining why he could not believe the Book of Mormon to be true. What is interesting, however, is the accuracy of his description of the book, how it was found, and how it was translated. Many early non-Mormon sources garble the story of the book’s translation and contents, but McNemar—with the exception of confusing the gold plates of Mormon for the brass plates of Laban—accurately summarized what he had heard Oliver Cowdery preach and what he himself had read in the Book of Mormon.

From McNemar’s contemporary account of what he heard Oliver Cowdery preach, it’s plainly evident that Oliver himself was teaching in late 1830 that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by placing the Nephite interpreters into a hat, and that Joseph received the translation by having it “flow into his mind” by “appear[ing] quite plainly in our English language,” as Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and Joseph Knight Sr. also later described.

This single, early account shatters Neville’s claims that (1) Joseph did not translate by using a stone in a hat, (2) that the stone-in-the-hat theory was created by anti-Mormon sources, and (3) that Joseph translated “in the ordinary sense of the word” and only used the Urim and Thummim to confirm that his translation was correct.

—Peter Pan

I am grateful to Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat’s Standard of Truth podcast and Spencer Kraus’s Latter-day Light and Truth blog for bringing this historical item to my attention.
 

Those who live in glass houses, pt. 16

(Part sixteen of a series.)

On August 24, 2022, Jonathan Neville wrote:

Some people wonder why I discuss SITH on this page which originated as a discussion about M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory). One reason is that both theories share the claim that Joseph and Oliver were unreliable speculators who misled the Church. M2C teaches that Joseph and Oliver misled everyone about Cumorah. SITH teaches that they misled everyone about the translation.

“SITH teaches that [Joseph and Oliver] misled everyone about the translation.”

This, from the man who claims that Joseph Smith merely pretended to translate when he used a seer stone in front of other people as a “demonstration” that all who observed him believed to be the actual process of translation.

This, from the man who claims that Joseph pretended to translate the Isaiah portions of the Book of Mormon, but instead he memorized Isaiah from the King James Bible and recited it back to his scribes.

As I said in my previous “glass houses” post, it takes true audacity—or cluelessness, or both—for a man like Jonathan Neville to accuse fellow Latter-day Saints of doing precisely what he himself does on nearly a daily basis.

—Peter Pan
 

Spencer Kraus: “A swing and a miss from Jonathan Neville”

Jonathan Neville has continued his critique “peer review” of Spencer Kraus’s review of his book, A Man that Can Translate.

In his latest blog post, Neville makes some fundamental errors because he misreads both the original sources and Kraus’s review. (For a former lawyer, he has a surprisingly poor ability to understand what he reads.)

On his own blog, Spencer Kraus has replied to Neville’s misfire:

https://latterdaylightandtruth.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-swing-and-miss-from-jonathan-neville.html

—Peter Pan
 

Recommended watching: Spencer Kraus’s interview with Robert Boylan

Even though this interview goes into more detail about this blog than I’m comfortable with, I still warmly recommend it to my reader(s):

—Peter Pan
 

Those who live in glass houses, pt. 15

(Part fifteen of a series.)

On July 11, 2022, Jonathan Neville wrote:

As I’ll show in upcoming posts, the critics of the Church are having a field day with the “stone-in-the-hat” theory (SITH). It’s astonishing to see our so-called “apologists” make every effort to support SITH by trying to find “evidence” in the historical record that SITH has been taught by Church leaders in the past.

First of all, critics of the Church have been “having a field day” since 1829 by mocking and deriding the Saints for things they believe which are true. Just because some critics today think that translating a sacred record from a stone placed into a hat is preposterous doesn’t make it any less true. Our reaction to them—and to Jonathan Neville—should be the one given by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf: “Not long ago, the Church published photos and background information on seer stones. People have asked me, ‘Do you really believe that Joseph Smith translated with seer stones? How would something like this be possible?’ And I answer, ‘Yes! That is exactly what I believe.’ This was done as Joseph said: by the gift and power of God.”

Secondly, the evidence (a word that I won’t use in scare quotes as Neville did) that leaders of the Church have taught that Joseph Smith translated from stone that he placed into his hat is overwhelming, and Jonathan Neville’s feeble attempts to hand-wave this evidence away doesn’t make it any less true. As this blog has demonstrated, Church leaders who have publicly and privately taught that Joseph Smith used a seer stone include President George Q. Cannon, President Wilford Woodruff, and Elder B. H. Roberts, as well as respected, faithful eyewitnesses to the translation like Joseph Knight Sr. Modern prophets and apostles have continued to teach this, including President Russell M. Nelson, President M. Russell Ballard, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Elder Quinten L. Cook, and Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Jr.

The only thing that’s “astonishing” is Jonathan Neville’s repeated, continual attempts to disregard the many testimonies and witnesses of prophets and apostles, past and present, who have taught what what he rejects.

But where Neville really goes off the rails in his most recent blog post is when he writes (emphasis in the original):

The SITH scholars insist that Joseph didn't even use the plates but merely read words that appeared on the stone he found in a well. E.g., from BYU Studies: “when Joseph “translated,” he was rarely looking at the characters on the plates, which were usually either on the table covered in cloth or hidden elsewhere in the house or vicinity.” Essentially, these scholars claim that Joseph merely pretended to translate.

“Merely pretended to translate.”

This, from the man who claims that Joseph merely pretended to translate when he used a seer stone in front of other people as a “demonstration” that all who observed him believed to be the actual process of translation.

This, from the man who claims that Joseph pretended to translate the Isaiah portions of the Book of Mormon, but instead he memorized Isaiah from the King James Bible and recited it back to his scribes.

It takes true audacity—or cluelessness, or both—for a man like Jonathan Neville to accuse fellow Latter-day Saints of doing precisely what he himself does on nearly a daily basis.

—Peter Pan
 

Jonathan Neville’s misleading rhetoric

I’ve stated numerous times that I do not like to classify people who disagree with me as being either stupid or evil. Honest, intelligent people can and often do disagree with one another for legitimate reasons, no matter how strongly they hold to their beliefs or how persuasive they think the arguments for them are.

It’s especially hard for me to stick to that position, however, when Neville writes things like this:

Nearly two years ago, I noted a book titled Visions in a Seer Stone by William L. Davis. I recommend that people read it because Davis relies on the same SITH accounts that our LDS apologists do. Like the citation cartel, Davis argues that Joseph Smith didn't really translate anything.

I completely disagree. I think Joseph and Oliver told the truth about the translation.

To be clear, I think Joseph translated the engravings on the plates and did not merely read words that appeared on a stone in a hat, or in a vision

Since his book A Man that Can Translate came out in 2019, Neville has been claiming that while he believes that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, those who disagree with him believe that “Joseph didn’t translate” anything.

That claim is, of course, completely absurd. Both Neville and those who agree with the leaders of the Church (including President Russell M. Nelson and apostles Dieter F. Uchtdorf, D. Todd Christofferson, and Quentin L. Cook) believe that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. The difference is that Neville believes Joseph performed this work via his own intellect with the Urim and Thummim simply confirming what he translated, while living prophets and apostles affirm that Joseph translated “by the gift and power of God,” as he and others who knew him repeatedly testified.

Neville insists that his explanation for how the translation was carried out is the only legitimate one, but in April 2012 General Conference, Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Twelve warned the Saints:

Obsessive focus on things not yet fully revealed, such as how the virgin birth or the Resurrection of the Savior could have occurred or exactly how Joseph Smith translated our scriptures, will not be efficacious or yield spiritual progress.

Jonathan Neville has disregarded Elder Cook’s counsel. He and his readers will suffer spiritually because of that decision.

—Peter Pan
 

Jonathan Neville continues to mislead about the Church’s position on seer stones

Jonathan Neville has repeatedly quoted President Russell M. Nelson’s teaching, “Good inspiration is based upon good information.”

President Nelson’s counsel is true. Would that Jonanthan Neville would put it into practice. Instead, he withholds key pieces of information, leaving his readers uninformed in order to mislead them.

One example of this is Neville’s July 4, 2022, blog post, “The seer stone in Harmony.” In this post, Neville disputes the historical narrative on display at the Priesthood Restoration Site in northern Pennsylvania. Neville complains:

The display nudges visitors toward accepting SITH, even to the point of misrepresenting what both Joseph Smith and Lucy Mack Smith actually wrote.

Because it’s an overview display, we can’t expect it to relate the entire history in any detail. But visitors should be able to rely on the display being at least accurate, instead of teaching the opposite of what the sources tell us.

Following this, Neville critically reviews the historical record on display at the visitor center, concluding by mentioning “the SITH exhibit of the table with the hat and the covered plates.”

Because “good inspiration is based on upon good information,” one could expect that Neville would mention that President Russell M. Nelson agrees with the narrative at the Priesthood Restoration Site and has taught it himself in a Church video recorded at that very site.

But Neville didn’t mention this key piece of information, potentially leaving his readers to be misled into thinking that it was renegade Church employees who were responsible for the narrative at Harmony.

Jonathan Neville has opined before on what he believes is wrong information being taught at Church visitor centers. So far, Church leaders have wisely ignored his criticisms.

—Peter Pan
 

Spencer Kraus’s devastating review of Jonathan Neville’s A Man that Can Translate

Jonathan Neville’s 2019 book A Man that Can Translate: Joseph Smith and the Nephite Interpreters (which was revised and updated in 2021) argues that Joseph Smith did not use a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon, that Joseph used exclusively the Nephite interpreters to accomplish the translation, and that the plethora of firsthand witnesses who saw Joseph using a seer stone to translate were mistaken because Joseph only did so as a “demonstration” of how the translation process worked.

Today, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship published Spencer Kraus’s sixty-two-page critical review of Neville’s book and his theories under the title “An Unfortunate Approach to Joseph Smith’s Translation of Ancient Scripture.” From the abstract:

[Jonathan] Neville has long argued that Joseph Smith did not use a seer stone during the translation of the Book of Mormon, and he has more recently expanded his historical revisionism to dismiss the multitude of historical sources that include the use of a seer stone. Neville’s “Demonstration Hypothesis” is explored in A Man That Can Translate, arguing that Joseph recited a memorized text from Isaiah rather than translate Isaiah from the Book of Mormon record. This hypothesis, meant to redefine how Joseph Smith used a seer stone during the translation of the Book of Mormon, however, fails to deal with the historical record seriously or faithfully. Neville, in a purported effort to save Joseph Smith’s character, ironically describes Joseph as a liar, reinvigorating old anti-Latter-day Saint claims that Joseph simply recited a memorized text, even to the point that Neville defends hostile sources while targeting Church-published histories and publications. He further attacks the witnesses of the translation in an effort to discredit their testimonies regarding the seer stone, and repeatedly misrepresents these sources. Coming from a Latter-day Saint, such claims are troubling and demand a response.

As someone who has long been disturbed by and disagreed with Neville’s “SITH” theories, I warmly recommend Kraus’s review to all my readers.

—Peter Pan
 

Heartlanders expect the apostles’ views to change

My personal life has been very busy lately, and this blog has suffered for new content because of it. For that, I apologize; I wish there was something I could do about it.

Just to offer you a little morsel, here’s a disturbing exchange that took place on the Facebook page of the FIRM Foundation. In response to another bizarre post by Rian Nelson—who doesn’t seem to know that a hostile non-Mormon editor punctuated the first edition of the Book of Mormon—a critic of the Church dropped in and commented that Heartland views on Joseph Smith and seer stones don’t line up with what modern Church leaders are saying. (His statement is factually correct, despite the fact that he was mocking the Church.)

A Heartlander responded by claiming that the apostle was wrong but might come around someday.

“Give him time – opinions can change.” That’s the Heartland way of explaning why their views contradict what living prophets are teaching. They believe that the Church is off course, and they’re hoping that Church leaders will someday start believing and teaching Heartlanderism.

—Peter Pan
 

Rian Nelson pulls a Michael Scott

Rian Nelson—manager of the FIRM Foundation’s blog and social media sites, author of Moroni’s America – Maps Edition, and hardcore conspiracy theorist—has written a new book: These Stones, Fastened to a Breastplate.

In the product description for his book on the FIRM Foundation’s website, Nelson declares:

I believe Lucy Mack Smith is credible and not Martin Harris, David Whitmer, or even Emma Smith, who all spoke about the stone in the hat but never saw the spectacles, the breastplate nor the plates during translation.

This is, of course, the same argument made by Jonathan Neville. It’s a bizarre, fatally flawed claim, in that it gives undue credence to Lucy Mack Smith, who never witnessed the translation of the Book of Mormon, over three key firsthand witnesses to the translation process.

I do have to confess, though, that I found this statement on the back cover of Nelson’s book to be unintentionally amusing because of its resemblance to a famous quote-within-a-quote:

—Peter Pan
 

Elder D. Todd Christofferson, SITH intellectual

On October 20, 2019, Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke at a devotional for Latter-day Saints living in the North America Northeast area. He recalled his recent visit to the Priesthood Restoration Site in Harmony, Pennsylvania, where most of the Book of Mormon was translated. He told the Saints:

The Church has reconstructed the home of Joseph and Emma on its original site, together with the larger home of Emma’s parents, Isaac and Elizabeth Hale, close by. We entered Joseph and Emma’s re-created home with a feeling of reverence. As I stood at the fireplace in the relatively small main room that served for cooking, dining, and every other purpose except sleeping, I reflected on their meager resources and humble circumstances. I looked at the small table, similar to something they would have had in that space, and in my mind’s eye envisioned the Prophet seated at one side with the golden plates on the table before him, perhaps covered with a cloth, and Oliver Cowdery on the other side of the table with his little ink pot, turkey quill pen, and the paper that was so expensive and difficult to obtain in those days. I imagined them there, hour upon hour, as Joseph, using the Urim and Thummim or his own seer stone, dictated the revealed text while Oliver faithfully wrote down what the Prophet spoke.

(A PDF transcript of Elder Christofferson’s remarks is available on the Church Newsroom website.)

This adds Elder Christofferson to the list of modern prophets and apostles who believed and taught that Joseph Smith used a seer stone, in addition to the Urim and Thummim, to translate the Book of Mormon. This list includes such leaders as President George Q. Cannon, President Wilford Woodruff, Elder B.H. Roberts, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, President M. Russell Ballard, and President Russell M. Nelson—the current prophet, seer, revelator, and president of the Church.

Jonathan Neville rejects the teachings of the prophets. He insists that Joseph Smith never used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. He’s published an entire book and dozens of blog posts making this claim.

Fortunately, there are still many Saints who believe the teachings the prophets and reject the false claims of Jonathan Neville and other Heartlanders.

—Peter Pan