The Book of Mormon

In 1820, a boy named Joseph Smith went into the woods near his home and prayed for Christ’s truth. In 1830, he stood in a print shop in Palmyra, New York, and held the result of that truth in his hands. Though the distance between the Smith’s home and Grandin’s print shop is not great, the 10-year journey between Joseph Smith’s First Vision and the printing of the first edition of the Book of Mormon covered a lot of ground.

Joseph’s choice to follow what he was told by God in a vision meant not joining any of the churches around him. That cost him some mentors and friends. As a boy “of very tender years” in a new town, he felt their absence. For years he would have no spiritual home.

Left to find his own friends and way, he sometimes struggled to live up to his sense of greater purpose. Over the next three years, he frequently “felt condemned” for his “weaknesses and imperfections.” How could a person feel God’s love so strongly and still stumble?

One night in September 1823, Joseph began to pray. “I repented heartily for all my sins,” Joseph recalled, “and humbled myself before Him whose eyes are over all things.” And then, once again, he saw a bright light.

Within the light stood an angel from heaven who said that his name was Moroni. He had once lived on earth as the last prophet of an ancient American people. It was, in part, through their forgotten records, he said, that Joseph would find the “fulness of the everlasting Gospel” the Lord had promised him.  

The task of bringing to light this ancient work would be difficult. Moroni warned against using the plates for personal gain. Joseph could only be entrusted with the gold plates the records were engraved on if his heart was focused solely on God’s work.

From Moroni Joseph learned where the records were buried in a nearby hillside. He felt sure “he could keep every commandment given him” as he went to find the place. He removed a large stone that uncovered a box made of cut stone. There were the plates, as Moroni had described. After removing them, “the thought flashed across his mind that there might be something more in the box” that he could sell without breaking his promise. Because of that thought, Moroni appeared and told him to wait another year before returning for the records.

Every September for the next four years, Joseph went to the hill. While his family “doubled [their] diligence in prayer” on his behalf, he met with Moroni and worked to prepare himself and purify his motives. Would his efforts be enough?

The long-awaited moment finally came. Borrowing a carriage from a close family friend named Joseph Knight, Joseph and his new bride, Emma, went to the hill shortly after midnight on September 22, 1827, and obtained the plates at last.

In later years, Joseph would often be mocked and persecuted by those who didn’t believe his experiences had been real. His first problems, though, were with some old friends who fully believed he had gold plates. They cared far less about their spiritual value than their monetary worth.

In the fall of 1827, several attempts were made to steal the plates. To protect them, Joseph found hiding places in and around the family’s home.

• The plates were sometimes kept in various boxes including a wooden box that had been the shipping container for panes of glass and a chest made specifically for the plates.
• At one point, Joseph buried the plates under the hearth in the parlor and carefully re-laid the bricks.
• Later, Joseph hid the plates in the cooper shop loft.
• One night when the house was broken into, Joseph gave the plates to his sisters Sophronia and Katharine to hide in their bed.

Joseph and Emma finally left Palmyra for the relative calm of her family’s farm in Harmony, Pennsylvania. Most of the Book of Mormon was translated there by revelation to Joseph Smith. At least seven scribes—including Emma and her brother—wrote as Joseph dictated. Emma later recalled, “Though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired and was present during the translation . . . it is marvelous to me, ‘a marvel and a wonder,’ as much as to anyone else.”

In the unfolding Book of Mormon text, Joseph Smith found answers to some of the questions that had brought him to the Sacred Grove as a 14-year-old boy. Many people close to the process were moved by the book’s message and eagerly waited for a renewal of old covenants and the restoration of Christ’s Church.

At the same time, opposition to the project grew. Joseph relocated from his home in Pennsylvania to the Whitmer Farm in Fayette, New York to complete the translation of the record.

Some neighbors saw the miraculous story of its origins as superstitious; others saw the claim of new scripture as blasphemy. But supporters were willing to give of their time and means to see the work go forward. As the manuscript neared completion, eleven men testified in writing that they had seen the gold plates, adding validity to Joseph Smith’s own testimony.

With the manuscript in hand, Joseph Smith asked E. B. Grandin, Palmyra’s only printer, to publish the book. He initially refused, but he reconsidered after friends assured him his role would be seen as “merely a business matter.” Martin Harris, a firm believer in the work, mortgaged part of his farm to finance the printing. The order was enormous—5,000 copies. It took seven months to complete the printing process and for the first bound books to be ready for sale. The last copies would not be bound and ready for another year.

A few weeks after the book’s publication, the restored Church of Jesus Christ was organized, concluding Joseph Smith’s 10-year wait for a spiritual home.

The Book of Mormon is now read by millions of people in over a hundred languages. The same words published in Palmyra nearly two centuries ago still answer questions and bring Christ’s power into lives today.