“An Author’s Perspective on the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” Liahona, Aug. 2024, United States and Canada Section.
An Author’s Perspective on the Translation of the Book of Mormon
My testimony of the Book of Mormon rests on the witness of the Holy Ghost, and authoring books has affirmed to me that the idea of Joseph Smith creating the Book of Mormon is impossible.
Painting by J. Kirk Richards, may not be copied
The Book of Mormon has blessed my life in many ways. Without question, it has brought me closer to Christ than nearly any other thing. The Spirit has borne witness to me of its truthfulness, and that’s the way I know it’s the word of God.
As an author, I find it fascinating that there are aspects about the translation of the book itself that help me more deeply appreciate its divine origins. The Lord has told us that revelation will come to us both through our intellect and our spirit. He said in a revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery, “Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost” (Doctrine and Covenants 8:2; emphasis added). I love that when it comes to this book, my mind and my heart are in harmony.
Much has been said about the impossibility of Joseph Smith creating the Book of Mormon from his own head. The Hebrew writing style of the language, the echoes of ancient Near Eastern culture he couldn’t have known of, his youth (23 years of age), his lack of formal education or nearby resources, and a myriad of other things make it quite impossible for him to have simply written the book. But as an author, I’ve noticed my own list of reasons. They are personal to my own experience, and I love this further evidence my list provides me.
70 Miraculous Days
Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in about 70 working days. That comes out to about eight or nine pages per day. As an author, I have on rare occasion written that many pages in one day, and certain other authors do it routinely, but I could never maintain that pace for more than a couple of days—and only if I had nothing else to do whatsoever. Just to put things in perspective, 47 scholar-theologians needed seven years to translate the King James Version of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew. The Lord of the Rings and Les Misérables each took 12 years to write.
In the time between Joseph receiving the plates in September 1827 and finishing the translation, his life was full of many other events, including issues with Emma’s parents and an outpouring of other revelations pertaining to the Restoration of the gospel. During the period of translation (April to June 1829), he maintained a spiritual and mental focus that is truly phenomenal during a time when, in his own report, he and Oliver Cowdery experienced “a spirit of persecution” and were “threatened with being mobbed” (Joseph Smith—History 1:74–75). The burden and pressure he was under would be paralyzing for me. Surely he had the Lord’s blessings as he translated the Book of Mormon “by the gift and power of God.”
The Daily Writing Process
My workflow as an author goes something like this: when I sit down to write, I jump back into the story by reading through the pages I wrote the previous day, editing and rewriting as I go. This refreshes my memory about where I am in the narrative, and then I am able to be back “inside” my story to draft the next few pages.
But Joseph Smith didn’t do this. He was able to begin translating exactly where he left off, without prompts from his scribe as to where to begin. To me, this would be mind-bogglingly hard to do with a work of fiction, especially with complicated storylines and multiple characters and settings to keep track of.
I keep a whole binder full of notes where I track characters, story arcs, setting information, maps, and so on. There’s no way my brain could remember those kinds of things without my story notebook. Joseph Smith had nothing like this that he referred to. A memory like that would be prodigious indeed. He was a highly intelligent man, but even so, that would have been quite a feat.
Names and Places
When I name my characters, I labor over the task almost like I’m naming a child. I pore over lists of names, looking for ones that evoke the land I am creating. I often spend days on the process, and sometimes end up changing a character’s name after writing about him or her for a while, as I get to know the character better. I do the same thing for the imaginary places for my story: countries, cities, and villages all need to have a cohesive sound, like they could really belong to a particular culture.
There are 665 proper names in the Book of Mormon pronunciation guide, including both people and places. Some, like Seth or Syria, are names we might recognize from the world around us. But many, many more are names that appear only in the Book of Mormon. The task of inventing all of those names and making them sound like they belong to an ancient culture with a common language root would be incredibly daunting. This reminds me of how President Jeffrey R. Holland, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, once described the Book of Mormon as a “text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity.”
Often in my writing process, I need to research things I don’t personally know about: details about a historical period, how particular items are used, how far certain areas are from each other, and so on. I have the advantage of being able to search the internet for instant information about nearly every subject I want to write about. I can watch travel videos of similar places and even virtually walk the streets of faraway locales. Not so with Joseph Smith, of course.
Especially interesting to me are Captain Moroni’s battle tactics. I’ve written war scenes, and for me to get them right is difficult to the extreme, since I’ve never been a military general or studied the topic. I cannot imagine how Joseph Smith could possibly have come up with the war descriptions alone, to say nothing about all the hundreds of other details the Book of Mormon contains.
Knowing the Truthfulness of the Book
There are many other aspects about authoring a book that make the idea of Joseph Smith creating the Book of Mormon rather than translating it astounding and, to me, quite impossible. Yet my testimony of the Book of Mormon rests on the witness of the Holy Ghost, who has confirmed its truthfulness in my heart over and over.
I love this quote by President Russell M. Nelson: “Whenever I hear anyone, including myself, say, ‘I know the Book of Mormon is true,’ I want to exclaim, ‘That’s nice, but it is not enough!’ We need to feel, deep in ‘the inmost part’ of our hearts, that the Book of Mormon is unequivocally the word of God. We must feel it so deeply that we would never want to live even one day without it. I might paraphrase President Brigham Young in saying, ‘I wish I had the voice of seven thunders to wake up the people’ to the truth and power of the Book of Mormon.”
I am so deeply grateful that ancient prophets were inspired to keep these records. Joseph Smith stated that we’d “get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” Through the Book of Mormon’s pages, I have come closer to Jesus Christ, and I will depend on the book to guide me ever closer to Him throughout the rest of my life. Comparing my experiences as an author to what Joseph Smith accomplished gives me added confirmation that the Book of Mormon is a true record, preserved for us by God and translated by His power, and that feels personal and precious to me.