Welcome to another episode of Mormon Discussion Podcast. I'm your host Bill Real, and today we're

going to dive into the Book of Mormon Translation. The official story that most people grew up

hearing is simple. Joseph Smith translated the book of Mormon by reading characters engraved

on gold plates, using sacred instruments called the Yermen

Thumum, but known as the Nephite spectacles. The plates were physically present. They were

the source of the words. Joseph's role was to translate what was written on them.

Now this makes intuitive sense. If you're

translating a physical record, the record must be involved in the process. But eyewitness accounts

from the people who watched Joseph translate describe something very different. Joseph did not

read directly from the plates. Instead,

he placed a small stone, into a hat, put his face into the hat to block out light,

and dictated the words that appeared to him. The plates were often not even in the room.

Sometimes they were covered. Sometimes they were hidden elsewhere entirely.

The stone that Joseph used was not unique to the Book of Mormon translation. It was the same

seer stone that he had previously used while working as a treasure digger. He claimed it helped him locate buried treasure underground.

Now this creates an obvious question. If the words appeared in the stone and the plates were not

being consulted, what role did the plates actually play? If Joseph could produce the text without physically referencing the plates,

then the plates were not necessary for the translation itself. The stone alone was sufficient.

Now this matter is because Joseph's claim was that he translated an ancient record written on physical plates.

But the described method does not involve reading the plates.

In fact, scribes and witnesses to the translation, along with D&C, Doctrine and Covenants, Section 10,

imposed that Smith was doing a literal translation of reformed Egyptian characters into English in what is described as a tight translation method.

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