Don Bradley's Lost 116 Pages is out...

[the narrator]

On 11/22/2019 at 10:16 PM, strappinglad said:

Questions that I have about the lost pages start with … why?

Why give the entire manuscript to Martin?

Why not bring Martin's wife to the house and show her what has been done so far? 

Why not make a copy of at least a few pages to give to Martin?

Don addresses these in the first part of the book. In short, Martin missed both the prime planting season for his farm and his daughter's wedding and was about to lose his marriage. He was desperate and wanted to show that the he was busy doing something big and important.

[Tacenda]

Curious, but since it's not quite out yet and only have the table of contents, thanks Robert. How does Don manage to write about something that isn't available to read or see in person, like the lost 116 pages? Dumb question? Or he's just writing about what happened? ETA: This gave me more information though...https://www.academia.edu/41028278/The_Lost_116_Pages_Reconstructing_the_Book_of_Mormons_Missing_Stories_-_PREVIEW_EXCERPT

Edited November 25, 2019 by Tacenda

[Ahab]

On 11/23/2019 at 10:43 AM, strappinglad said:

When I see the fun critics had with the Spaulding work, I can just imagine the chaos created with a close work if it could be attributed to Joseph or someone else. 

They still did that, though.  They said whatever he wrote was written by either himself or somebody else.  What I imagine is the look on their face when they tried to find the content of those 116 pages in what was published as the Book of Mormon.  Where was it?  And where to look for it?  Do we even know what it was?  2 Nephi seems to have a natural ending so I don't think it was more that would have been there.  After 2 Nephi we have small accounts with other person's names on them.  What would the 116 pages have been called?  Later in the Book of Mormon there is a section called 3 Nephi so I don't think the 116 pages would have fit in there.  From what I've been told the content of the 116 pages was replaced by those small accounts after 2 Nephi, in the time period between 2 Nephi and 3 Nephi.  But what would they have been called and how would anyone who found those 116 pages have known where to look to find the same content or something close to what was on those pages?

Edited November 26, 2019 by Ahab

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Ahab said:

They still did that, though.  They said whatever he wrote was written by either himself or somebody else.  What I imagine is the look on their face when they tried to find the content of those 116 pages in what was published as the Book of Mormon.  Where was it?  And where to look for it?  Do we even know what it was?  2 Nephi seems to have a natural ending so I don't think it was more that would have been there.  After 2 Nephi we have small accounts with other person's names on them.  What would the 116 pages have been called?  Later in the Book of Mormon there is a section called 3 Nephi so I don't think the 116 pages would have fit in there.  From what I've been told the content of the 116 pages was replaced by those small accounts after 2 Nephi, in the time period between 2 Nephi and 3 Nephi.  But what would they have been called and how would anyone who found those 116 pages have known where to look to find the same content or something close to what was on those pages?

Yes, we know what it was. Mormon tells us explicitly what time period it covers.

In the original 3 Nephi and 4 Nephi were just the Book of Nephi (we added numbers to clarify references) so that observation explains nothing.

 

[Ahab]

41 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Yes, we know what it was. Mormon tells us explicitly what time period it covers.

In the original 3 Nephi and 4 Nephi were just the Book of Nephi (we added numbers to clarify references) so that observation explains nothing.

 

Ah, I think I see now.  So if the 116 pages had not been lost, and we had them in our translation of the Book of Mormon, it's possible that we likely wouldn't have the accounts between 2 Nephi and 3 Nephi and what we would have instead could have been called 3 Nephi with the current 3 Nephi called 4 Nephi instead and what we have now called 4 Nephi could have been called 5 Nephi instead.  Hmm, okay.

I wonder if Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, etc wrote more in what could have been called 3 Nephi if we didn't have the smaller accounts we have of them now and what we now call 3 Nephi? 

Do you think those 116 pages covered the period after what we now call 2 Nephi was written up until the reign of King Benjamin, as Mormon seemed to indicate in his writings which we call the 'Words of Mormon'?

If that's true then maybe Jacob, Enos. Jarom, Omni etc wrote a lot more than we realize since all we have now are their small accounts instead of the lost 116 pages and can't see what they might have written.

[ksfisher]

23 minutes ago, Ahab said:

I wonder if Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, etc wrote more

What we call the small plates were kept by Jacob and his descendants.  The large plates, which includes the lost book of Lehi, seem to have been kept by the kings on down to the time of the last king, Mosiah.  These seem to have been descendants of Nephi.  It would then seem unlikely that writings from those you named would be on the lost portion.

[cinepro]

On 11/23/2019 at 12:48 PM, Avatar4321 said:

Why do you think it would be necessary to make it obvious that the changes weren't made? All Satan needs is an excuse.  A reason, no matter how flimsy, to disbelieve and he could get people to disbieve. Just look at all he does with the obvious nonsense out there about the Church

Whether we attribute the plan to Lucy Harris or Satan, either way the "plan" makes no sense.

If you're Satan and you want to stop the Book of Mormon from coming forth, you don't steal the pages, hide them, and then wait for a the BoM to be published months or years later and then alter and produce the previous pages (while depending entirely on readers of the Book of Mormon to rationally compare between the published book and your altered pages and make a reasoned judgement based on their critical thinking skills).  You destroy the pages.

If you're Lucy Harris and your husband is pouring his time and money into an endeavor that you see leading to your financial and marital ruin, you don't create a plan that will require your husband to spend even more time and money to finish the project at which point you then act to destroy your best shot at getting your money back.  You destroy the work in progress in the hopes that he and his partner get discouraged and give up.

Edited November 26, 2019 by cinepro

[Calm]

7 minutes ago, cinepro said:

If you're Lucy Harris and your husband is pouring his time and money....

Lucy may have gotten a bad rap.  Perhaps all she did was speak of her frustration and how her husband was trying to persuade her to friends and one of them took things farther.

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

What we call the small plates were kept by Jacob and his descendants.  The large plates, which includes the lost book of Lehi, seem to have been kept by the kings on down to the time of the last king, Mosiah.  These seem to have been descendants of Nephi.  It would then seem unlikely that writings from those you named would be on the lost portion.

So what was written on the lost 116 pages?  Or who wrote them?  Am I correct in understanding you to be suggesting those lost 116 pages were written by descendants of Nephi? 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Ahab

[ksfisher]

13 minutes ago, Ahab said:

So what was written on the lost 116 pages?  Or who wrote them?  Am I correct in understanding you to be suggesting those lost 116 pages were written by descendants of Nephi? 

Yes, they were the records kept by the kings, who seem to have been Nephi and his descendants. 

To find out what's on them I guess we'll just have to read Don Bradley's book 😉  I think my copy arrives tomorrow.

[rchorse]

8 hours ago, cinepro said:

Whether we attribute the plan to Lucy Harris or Satan, either way the "plan" makes no sense.

If you're Satan and you want to stop the Book of Mormon from coming forth, you don't steal the pages, hide them, and then wait for a the BoM to be published months or years later and then alter and produce the previous pages (while depending entirely on readers of the Book of Mormon to rationally compare between the published book and your altered pages and make a reasoned judgement based on their critical thinking skills).  You destroy the pages.

If you're Lucy Harris and your husband is pouring his time and money into an endeavor that you see leading to your financial and marital ruin, you don't create a plan that will require your husband to spend even more time and money to finish the project at which point you then act to destroy your best shot at getting your money back.  You destroy the work in progress in the hopes that he and his partner get discouraged and give up.

I agree with you that the "plan" doesn't make a lot of sense. That said, in my experience, the plans and thinking of those heavily influenced by the adversary often don't make much sense. From what I've seen, listening to Satan tends to produce the most irrational decision making.

The "reasoning" and plans behind most murders that I've read about, for example, are completely irrational.

[Tacenda]

15 hours ago, ksfisher said:

Yes, they were the records kept by the kings, who seem to have been Nephi and his descendants. 

To find out what's on them I guess we'll just have to read Don Bradley's book 😉  I think my copy arrives tomorrow.

But how does Don know these things, is he just surmising? Connecting dots? 

[Calm]

16 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

But how does Don know these things, is he just surmising? Connecting dots? 

He is pulling comments of those who were told or read the manuscript perhaps out of journals and such things as well as connecting dots.

Here is a podcast if you prefer:

https://interpreterfoundation.org/ldsp-the-lost-116-pages-with-don-bradley/

Quote

Over the past decades, Don sought to discover the missing meanings and narratives of the 116 pages through research. But how does one go about discovering lost words, lost pages, and lost content? He explains there are a couple of ways. There are “internal evidences” like how the “small plates” of 1 Nephi through Omni or Words of Mormon cover the same period as the lost pages. Even though these small plates are rather light on history, they give us at least a thumbnail sketch of what was in the lost 116 pages.

Another internal evidence is comprised of echoes or flashbacks where later Book of Mormon accounts refer back to an earlier narrative that we don’t have. One example of this would be in Mosiah 11 that mentions King Noah building a tower on this hill that was north of the land Shilom, “which had been a resort for the children of Nephi at the time they fled out of the land.” The current Book of Mormon does not mention any details about this “resort” or the time they “fled out of the land,” but it assumes that we already know about this story, indicating that it had been in the part of the Book of Mormon that is now lost.

Don also speaks of “external evidences” like statements or other sources outside of the available text of the Book of Mormon, like Joseph Smith’s earliest revelations. The most obvious of those is in section 10 of the Doctrine and Covenants where it actually says to Joseph Smith, in essence, “You’ll remember that it was said in what you translated before, that the plates of Nephi had a more extensive account of these things referring to the large plates.”

The most significant types of external evidence are direct statements. The only one of these that has been very widely known is by Apostle Franklin D. Richards, who left an account that when he was in Nauvoo, he heard the prophet Joseph Smith explaining to someone how the Book of Mormon could be the stick of Ephraim. His explanation was that it said in the lost pages that although Lehi was a descendant of Manasseh, Ishmael was a descendant of Ephraim.

There are other sources that give more significant details. Sometimes, they supply extra information regarding accounts we already have and sometimes whole narratives are found that we don’t have. While the details can’t always be verified secondarily, they fit hand in glove with what we do know.

 

[Tacenda]

Just now, Calm said:

He is pulling comments of those who were told or read the manuscript perhaps out of journals and such things as well as connecting dots.

Here is a podcast if you prefer:

https://interpreterfoundation.org/ldsp-the-lost-116-pages-with-don-bradley/

 

I haven't been following this, great help Calm!

[Calm]

16 hours ago, Calm said:

Lucy may have gotten a bad rap.  Perhaps all she did was speak of her frustration and how her husband was trying to persuade her to friends and one of them took things farther.

Came across this today:

Quote

Pilkington said, “She [Lucy Harris] took the manuscript from him and she was perusing them when someone jerked them from her, and then another got it, and Martin told me it disappeared, and he never saw it any more.” In “Interviews with William Pilkington, 1874–1875,” in Vogel, EMD, 2:361–362).

https://rsc.byu.edu/es/archived/coming-forth-book-mormon/lost-116-pages-story-what-we-do-know-what-we-don-t-know-and-what

[mfbukowski]

On 11/23/2019 at 12:08 AM, Calm said:

Only when someone else points me there, do I venture.  There is no real way to search and it is difficult to pull up long conversations all at once.  

I have to say I really, really dislike it and don't understand the appeal unless one wants to just notify people of things rather than discuss.

Far flung family.

That's the only reason I use it.  Get the pics of the grandbabies etc.  It's good for that- !

[mfbukowski]

On 11/25/2019 at 9:35 AM, the narrator said:

Don addresses these in the first part of the book. In short, Martin missed both the prime planting season for his farm and his daughter's wedding and was about to lose his marriage. He was desperate and wanted to show that the he was busy doing something big and important.

If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Oft said in Elder's quorums hereabouts.  But don't tell any sisters- they get upset if you say that online.    Shhhhh....

PS- love that cover, you must have gotten someone very talented to design that. 

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Who was it who posted here who said he HAS the lost manuscript?  Or at least a fragment?

I think I remember his avatar but don't want to post it in case I get it wrong....

[tkv]

Quote

Mosiah 11 . . mentions King Noah building a tower on this hill that was north of the land Shilom, “which had been a resort for the children of Nephi at the time they fled out of the land.” The current Book of Mormon does not mention any details about this “resort” or the time they “fled out of the land,” but it assumes that we already know about this story, indicating that it had been in the part of the Book of Mormon that is now lost.

How does he get that the text assumes we already know about this story?

[pogi]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Who was it who posted here who said he HAS the lost manuscript?  Or at least a fragment?

I think I remember his avatar but don't want to post it in case I get it wrong....

I remember that fellow.  I don't remember if he posted here or if we just talked about him here.  He was a wealthy weirdo collector who hinted at a really important acquisition that had the name "Joseph Smith" on it and the total number of pages was around 116 ( a few more I think).  I don't think he ever came out and said that he had the lost manuscript though, but he sure seemed to hint towards it.  I don't know if that is the same guy you are thinking of.

Edited November 27, 2019 by pogi

[SeekingUnderstanding]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Who was it who posted here who said he HAS the lost manuscript?  Or at least a fragment?

I think I remember his avatar but don't want to post it in case I get it wrong....

 

37 minutes ago, pogi said:

I remember that fellow.  I don't remember if he posted here or if we just talked about him here.  He was a wealthy weirdo collector who hinted at a really important acquisition that had the name "Joseph Smith" on it and the total number of pages was around 116 ( a few more I think).  I don't think he ever came out and said that he had the lost manuscript though, but he sure seemed to hint towards it.  I don't know if that is the same guy you are thinking of.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/71707-brass-plates-gold-plates/

 

[DonBradley]

56 minutes ago, tkv said:

How does he get that the text assumes we already know about this story?

Not going to be responding a lot here, but curious whether you read the verse:

Quote

Mosiah 11:13 And it came to pass that he caused many buildings to be built in the land Shilom; and he caused a great tower to be built on the hill north of the land Shilom, which had been a resort for the children of Nephi at the time they fled out of the land

If the phrase "...at the time that..." is a way of introducing something new to the reader, it's one I'm not familiar with. I believe the observation that this was in the lost pages initially came from the late John Tvedtnes, in his Most Correct Book.

Don

[pogi]

19 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

 

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/71707-brass-plates-gold-plates/

 

I forgot about this guy.  I was actually thinking of someone else. 

[DonBradley]

Someone asked about the methodology of reconstruction.

That is presented somewhat in the Introduction, which is available online here: https://gregkofford.com/blogs/news/preview-the-lost-116-pages

It's also described further in Chapter 6 and demonstrated in action throughout the book.

I've got a host of sources, including the small plates, Mormon's narrative callbacks later in his abridgment, Joseph Smith, Jr., Joseph Smith, Sr., three of Joseph's early revelations (two of them later modified in later publication to eliminate unfamiliar allusions back to the lost pages), Emer Harris (brother to Martin, ancestor to Dallin Harris Oaks), other close associates of Martin Harris, and so on!

Questions about methodology and such are probably best addressed by the book itself, since the methods are both explained there and demonstrated in practice.

 

It may also be interesting for potential readers to note the reception thus far:

Quote

 

"Don Bradley's ability to see connections the rest of us miss is the stuff of legend. What he has assembled in this study is among the most audacious attempts to make sense of the Book of Mormon yet seen. This is a book that rewards reading, re-reading, and re-re-reading."

-- Joseph M. Spencer, editor, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, author of The Vision of All: Twenty-five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi's Record

 

 

Quote

 

"Extraordinary. Sparkling with fresh and important insights into the history, nature, and contents of the lost portion of the Book of Mormon--and of the portion that we still have." 

-- Daniel C. Peterson, editor, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

 

 

Quote

 

"Don Bradley's years of ingenious sleuthing have yielded a landmark work­­. Its methods and conclusions will be discussed and refined for years to come. It presents an enthralling case for the contents of the missing manuscript pages of the early Book of Mormon, which in turn sheds light on the extant Book of Mormon and on the Bible itself. The volume will intrigue church members, their observers, and scholars interested in processes of scripturalization, canonization, and textual reconstruction."

- Philip L. Barlow, Senior Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, author of Mormons and the Bible, and editor with Edwin Gaustad of New Historical Atlas of Religion in America

 

 

Quote

 

The Most Important Release in Book of Mormon Studies in Decades — Absolute Game-Changer!!!

Bradley's "The Lost 116 Pages" is perhaps the most important release in Book of Mormon Studies in decades, one that I believe will revolutionize how scholars and believers alike approach the origins of Mormonism and the nature of the Book of Mormon text.

[rest of the review available on the book's Amazon page]

- Jaxon Washburn, ASU religious studies and history major, recently returned missionary, co-host of the Sunstone podcast

 

 

 

The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories

https://www.amazon.com/…/158…/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

 

Thanks all for your interest in this!

 

FAIR was actually my first venue for presenting this information, in my talk shortly after my return to the church "Piercing the Veil: The Temple in the Lost 116 Pages."

 

A transcript is available here, though it may have some errors in transcription. You know, the mistakes of men. 😉😉 

Interpreter is also providing a venue for some of this work, publishing this Friday an excerpt from my chapter "A Passover Context for Lehi's Exodus."

So grateful to all those who've believed me in enough to encourage me, help me along the way, and provide venues for this work. The experience of both opposition and support has been epic for me.

Don

Edited November 28, 2019 by DonBradley

[DonBradley]

Why Kofford Books?

A few reasons.

First, as The Narrator has indicated, Kofford does great work. 

I recall Richard Bushman saying a few years ago that Kofford Books was putting out the best new scholarship in Mormon history.

Second, it was Greg Kofford who suggested to me the idea of doing a book on the subject, after hearing me speak on the subject at a history conference.

Third, unlike how it probably would have been with a university press, Kofford Books let me write this book in the language of faith. I was not required at all to change things like describing Joseph translating the book, the book's internal authors being real voices rather than literary fictions, and so on. In fact, they got the vision of what I was doing here very well and greatly encouraged me in it.

Fourth, in particular Loyd Isao Ericson was a gem to work with. He got it and really helped me transform this vision into a reality. He reined me in where I might be pushing the envelope, and he helped sharpen several of my insights and give all of them a clearer expression.

This was such a good experience for my first book that I would highly encourage anyone to publish with Kofford. It's been delightful!

BTW, while I may occasionally chime in like this, I won't be able to engage all the questions, praise, objections that arise about this book. In putting it out there I am giving it a kind of independent life of its own. No longer is it just a part of me, in my head. It now lives separate from me and will even survive me. And my intention is to primarily let this book have a life of its own. It's ideas will be embraced, challenged, refined, built on, and carried in new directions beyond what I can foresee or intend.

I am under no illusions that this book will be the last word on the subject, but I hope it is a good first word, as it were. I hope it will enter into a larger "Mormon dialogue" about the Book of Mormon's lost pages, coming forth, and meanings.

Thank you all for your interest in this book! It has been a long time in the making and I've put a lot of myself into it!

Yours,

Don

Edited November 28, 2019 by DonBradley