"face In The Hat Translation" - New Pictures In An Lds Book!

[CCRW]

I think what strappinglad is suggesting is that to dictate the text to scribes, Joseph probably brought his face out of the hat. Otherwise, the sound would have been muffled and hard to hear and his scribe would have made all kinds of errors. 

ah, I see ... good heavens ... this is good news I'm surprised about the complaining

[Sevenbak]

"Naysayer" is not the word I would use.

 

"Quibbler," perhaps. Or "nitpicker." Maybe "whiner."

 

Why couldn't the art be regarded as depicting the moment just before his face is pressed into the hat?

Well, we wouldn't want Joseph's bald spot showing in the depiction!  Faces tend to make better illustrations.  ;-)

[Scott Lloyd]

I think what strappinglad is suggesting is that to dictate the text to scribes, Joseph probably brought his face out of the hat. Otherwise, the sound would have been muffled and hard to hear and his scribe would have made all kinds of errors.

makes a lot of sense.

[JulieM]

Two points:

 

1. Are we now saying that Joseph never ONCE used the U&T ( spectacles) to translate ?.

I remember reading that they were only used in the translation of the lost 116 pages and not for any of the Book of Mormon we have today. Others may know more about that though or can correct me if I'm mistaken.

[JulieM]

Can anyone scan in the other pictures or do we just need to wait and buy the book?

[nealr]

Can anyone scan in the other pictures or do we just need to wait and buy the book?

 

Stephen Smoot, the author of the FairMormon blog post linked to in the OP has scanned all the images that include the stone and hat. But, he chose to only use the pictures the author had already made available on public domain for his blog post, out of respect to the artist and authors. I share his reservations in making the images widely available free of charge. Not sure if it would violate any copyright laws, but it just seems like the polite and respectful (perhaps even right? I don't know) thing to do.

 

I would really encourage buying the book, though. I was expecting a predicable summary of the narrative I already know, with the familiar (to me) stuff of stone-in-hat, etc. being worked in. I've read several scholarly books and articles on the translation before, and even worked some with the primary sources, so didn't really expect much new. But already in the first chapter, I have learned a few new things and encountered some unfamiliar details. This book really is a legit contribution to the field.

[Calm]

I gave a summary of the four pictures, you can compare the three seen to imagine how well the fourth summary might compare to the real one. The setting is the same, the only real differences are the scribe is Harris and Joseph has his face fully into the hat...and Martin doesn't look the least bit disturbed and is just writing away so we can all be reassured that Joseph isn't having a sick moment after all. I think it may have been Martin that saves the day and makes the picture look like what it is supposed to be, he adds a certain gravity to the moment that may save it from typical juvenile remarks...at least in a church setting.

I think the artist wants to deliver the story of the creation of his art a certain way and he should get to do that, just as he would if it were displayed in a gallery...given the report of the feedback he was getting, it appears he wants to present the fourth picture with more explanation of how he developed. The other pictures are either similar to other art or in the case of the seer stone has been referenced enough in church stuff over the years so I bet there wasn't much confusion with what was going on there.

Edited April 29, 2015 by calmoriah

[canard78]

If a person has a problem with Joseph having his face in a hat and believes Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon, have them put their face in a hat and dictate from memory several chapters of Isaiah almost perfectly from the KJV. Let see how they do.

Actually this is really the point and part of the reason there was no real benefit to a sanitised history.

I believed: An ancient American visited Joseph Smith as an angel guiding him to a set of 1400 year old gold plates written by Hebrew descendants in reformed Egyptian. The book was translated wearing an ancient form of breastplate and spectacles.

I was then shocked to find that those spectacles and later Joseph's favourite seer stone were placed in a hat to complete the translation.

Where in that belief was I describing stuff that non-Mormons would think "well that sounds normal." It was certainly way before the hat is introduced.

So really, we shouldn't be worried about a hat at all.

[stemelbow]

Stephen Smoot, the author of the FairMormon blog post linked to in the OP has scanned all the images that include the stone and hat. But, he chose to only use the pictures the author had already made available on public domain for his blog post, out of respect to the artist and authors. I share his reservations in making the images widely available free of charge. Not sure if it would violate any copyright laws, but it just seems like the polite and respectful (perhaps even right? I don't know) thing to do.

 

I would really encourage buying the book, though. I was expecting a predicable summary of the narrative I already know, with the familiar (to me) stuff of stone-in-hat, etc. being worked in. I've read several scholarly books and articles on the translation before, and even worked some with the primary sources, so didn't really expect much new. But already in the first chapter, I have learned a few new things and encountered some unfamiliar details. This book really is a legit contribution to the field.

Any nuggets to whet our appetites with? I'm kinda like you were in wondering whether there is anything new or innovative to say about the topic.

Edited April 29, 2015 by stemelbow

[pogi]

Some would say its purely speculation that the Nephites and Lamanites ever existed.  So

before one could say the Mayans were inspired by the Nephites, you would have to show

that the Nephites first existed. 

 

An artist doesn't have to prove anything..it's art.  

I never said that the Mayan's were inspired by the Nephite temples.  My point is that your critisicm of the artist's depiction is silly when you have no clue what they looked like or if they even existed.  

[MormonFreeThinker]

I was then shocked to find that those spectacles and later Joseph's favourite seer stone were placed in a hat to complete the translation.

 

why? that is just psychology,  there is nothing immoral about putting a stone in a hat. 

 

Just because the church doesn't publish that story in every Ensign cover doesn't mean it is wrong, the church can't publish everything. 

[nealr]

Any nuggets to whet our appetites with? I'm kinda like you were in wondering whether there is anything new or innovative to say about the topic.

 

I've only had time to read the essay from the artist (okay, I skipped to the back to read that first because I knew that was where all the buzz would be), and chapter one. There were a handful of new things and some things that I heard, but never seen contextualized within the believing narrative. To pick one from the chapter, they talk about the stone box and talk about reports that others had actually seen it. This just added even more weight to the sheer physicality of Joseph's stories. There was actually a stone box in the hill that others at the time went and saw (after the plates, etc. had been removed). Late in the 19th century the framer who owned the land had pulled up the slabs of stone and rolled them to the bottom of the hill, but was Edward Stevenson was still able to see the stones and the hole in the ground where the box had been. So it is not something you can still go see today (how cool would that have been?), but other people were able to see it. It is just another detail that really grounds Joseph's story, in my opinion. 

[stemelbow]

I've only had time to read the essay from the artist (okay, I skipped to the back to read that first because I knew that was where all the buzz would be), and chapter one. There were a handful of new things and some things that I heard, but never seen contextualized within the believing narrative. To pick one from the chapter, they talk about the stone box and talk about reports that others had actually seen it. This just added even more weight to the sheer physicality of Joseph's stories. There was actually a stone box in the hill that others at the time went and saw (after the plates, etc. had been removed). Late in the 19th century the framer who owned the land had pulled up the slabs of stone and rolled them to the bottom of the hill, but was Edward Stevenson was still able to see the stones and the hole in the ground where the box had been. So it is not something you can still go see today (how cool would that have been?), but other people were able to see it. It is just another detail that really grounds Joseph's story, in my opinion.

Thanks. That actually did it for me. I want more of that.

[ALarson]

why? that is just psychology,  there is nothing immoral about putting a stone in a hat. 

I agree.  I think where many have problems (or at least questions) is when they learn this is the same stone and technique that Joseph used in his seeking hidden treasures prior to this.

[stemelbow]

I agree.  I think where many have problems (or at least questions) is when they learn this is the same stone and technique that Joseph used in his seeking hidden treasures prior to this.

Hey ALarson, curious what sources you have in mind when you say the above. Can you point me to them?

[ALarson]

Hey ALarson, curious what sources you have in mind when you say the above. Can you point me to them?

Sure:

 

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng

 

From the essay (emphasis added):

 

Joseph Smith and his scribes wrote of two instruments used in translating the Book of Mormon. According to witnesses of the translation, when Joseph looked into the instruments, the words of scripture appeared in English. One instrument, called in the Book of Mormon the “interpreters,” is better known to Latter-day Saints today as the “Urim and Thummim.” Joseph found the interpreters buried in the hill with the plates.¹⁶ Those who saw the interpreters described them as a clear pair of stones bound together with a metal rim. The Book of Mormon referred to this instrument, together with its breastplate, as a device “kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord” and “handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting languages.”¹⁷

The other instrument, which Joseph Smith discovered in the ground years before he retrieved the gold plates, was a small oval stone, or “seer stone.”¹⁸ As a young man during the 1820s, Joseph Smith, like others in his day, used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure.¹⁹ As Joseph grew to understand his prophetic calling, he learned that he could use this stone for the higher purpose of translating scripture.²⁰

 

[stemelbow]

Sure:

 

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng

 

From the essay (emphasis added):

Hey thanks. I'm really concnered with any reference that suggest the same technique was used.

[Nevo]

Hey thanks. I'm really concerned with any references that suggest the same technique was used.

 

Here's one:

 

"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 in the woods!" (Isaac Hale, 1834)

Edited April 29, 2015 by Nevo

[stemelbow]

Here's one:

 

"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 in the woods!" (Isaac Hale, 1834)

Awesome thanks. Isaac Hale? 1834? Ah well...not a very important point.

[Scott Lloyd]

Awesome thanks. Isaac Hale? 1834? Ah well...not a very important point.

I've heard it said that Joseph lived in a milieu where people trusted in the supernatural and that thus facilitated his acceptance of the concept of revelation when the time came for him to receive it.

 

Even today, in parts of the Midwest and, presumably, elsewhere, there are intelligent, rational people who swear by, say, water witching and the use of divining rods.

 

I, myself, have experienced that. In 1996, after a symposium in Des Moines, Iowa, I was with a small group of Church history scholars who took a day-long auto tour of Mormon Trail sites. We stopped at Mount Pisgah, where the landowner showed us how he used bent coat hanger wires to find where the ground had been disturbed and thus unearthed foundations of Mormon Pioneer structures. He let us each have a try at using a hanger to find water beneath the surface of his yard.

[Nevo]

Awesome thanks. Isaac Hale? 1834? Ah well...not a very important point.

 

If you want a more scholarly citation, see Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996–2004), 4:287.

 

Isaac Hale was Emma Smith's dad. Joseph translated the lost 116 pages and a fair bit of the current Book of Mormon while living on Hale's property in Harmony, PA.

[Scott Lloyd]

If you want a more scholarly citation, see Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996–2004), 4:287.

 

Isaac Hale was Emma Smith's dad. Joseph translated the lost 116 pages and a fair bit of the current Book of Mormon while living on Hale's property in Harmony, PA.

I expect to be going there this summer or early fall when the Priesthood Restoration Site is dedicated.

[stemelbow]

If you want a more scholarly citation, see Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996–2004), 4:287.

 

Isaac Hale was Emma Smith's dad. Joseph translated the lost 116 pages and a fair bit of the current Book of Mormon while living on Hale's property in Harmony, PA.

Sure. Isaac grew to dislike Joseph. 1834 is tough because there was criticism of Joseph concerning his translation and prophet status. he was being spoken about as if he was a religious fraud. So the one source, while interesting, can't really be considered an establishment of the point. Then again, one must ask, how else do you use a seer stone? Where else might that technique have come?

I used to stare at things thinking by doing I'd see things unseen by the natural eye. Didn't work though.

[Nevo]

I expect to be going there this summer or early fall when the Priesthood Restoration Site is dedicated.

 

You've got a pretty great job, I have to say. When I was living in Toronto in the early 2000s, I joined my sister's family on a road trip to Washington, DC. We traveled down through New York state on the I-81 and stopped for gas just across the Pennsylvania border. To my astonishment, right next to the gas station was a historical marker mentioning that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in the vicinity. I'd seen Harmony on maps in the D&C before, but this was a gas station in the middle of nowhere (I guess, technically, we were between Great Bend and Hallstead). I wish we'd been able to explore the area more but we had to move on. Anyway, I'm glad the Church is dedicating a new historical site there. I loved the trip I took to Palmyra and Fayette several years ago. One of the great experiences of my life.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Nevo

[Scott Lloyd]

You've got a pretty great job, I have to say. When I was living in Toronto in the early 2000s, I joined my sister's family on a road trip to Washington, DC. We traveled down through New York state on the I-81 and stopped for gas just across the Pennsylvania border. To my astonishment, right next to the gas station was a historical marker mentioning that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in the vicinity. I'd seen Harmony on maps in the D&C before, but this was a gas station in the middle of nowhere (I guess, technically, we were between Great Bend and Hallstead). I wish we'd been able to explore the area more but we had to move on. Anyway, I'm glad the Church is dedicating a new historical site there. I loved the trip I took to Palmyra and Fayette several years ago. One of the great experiences of my life.

As much traveling as I've done to view Church historic sites, there is a great deal I haven't seen yet. My experience goes as far east as Nauvoo and the sites in Missouri. I've never seen KIrtland or anything in New York yet. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to this.