Don Bradley's the Lost 116 Pages.

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

but Helaman isn't made king until Helaman 2

I'm sure you mean "chief judge" (but the slip is understandable, considering that the differences between the chief judge and a king are less significant than they may at first appear). 

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

i don't think that statement is entirely accurate. He appears to use the book names/dynastic names as they were on the large plates, even though he uses other sources inside those books. The headers indicate that he is basing his text on the large plates, as they don't contain information from the secondary sources. The chapter headers typically introduce the new material.

However, I wouldn't put it past him to change the actual name. Mormon plays with the names, and might have taken a name on the dynastic record and made it fit to what he was doing. I suspect that for Alma and Helaman. I also suspect that the book of we know as 3 Nephi (and therefore 4 Nephi) had a different name, and Mormon used the name Nephi for literary/theological reasons.

Sounds reasonable to me.

[morgan.deane]

I'm kind of broke but would love a copy. My local libraries, even the research ones, have lousy Mormon study collections even when they were open. I was 32 out of 33 on books I needed for my research on classical Chinese military theory and picked up another that had translated documents from the Kamakura Bakafu.  But can't find more than one or two I need for Mormon topics.  If anybody has a copy they wouldn't mind loaning to me I'd love to read it. 

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, morgan.deane said:

I'm kind of broke but would love a copy. My local libraries, even the research ones, have lousy Mormon study collections even when they were open. I was 32 out of 33 on books I needed for my research on classical Chinese military theory and picked up another that had translated documents from the Kamakura Bakafu.  But can't find more than one or two I need for Mormon topics.  If anybody has a copy they wouldn't mind loaning to me I'd love to read it. 

Send me a private message on where you live and I will see if I can make it work.  I am not reading mine right now and likely won't for a bit due to concentration issues and other books I need to read when I can, but my husband might be.

[Rivers]

At the end of the book, Don tells of how doing research on the lost pages actually brought him back to the church.  I find this intriguing since the whole story of the lost manuscript is laughable to most critics.  South Park even pokes fun at the story.   The critical view is that the translation of the small plates was purely damage control after the 116 pages got lost.  Yet somehow Don ended up with renewed faith as he worked on this project. Fascinating.

[longview]

9 hours ago, Rivers said:

At the end of the book, Don tells of how doing research on the lost pages actually brought him back to the church.  I find this intriguing since the whole story of the lost manuscript is laughable to most critics.  South Park even pokes fun at the story.   The critical view is that the translation of the small plates was purely damage control after the 116 pages got lost.  Yet somehow Don ended up with renewed faith as he worked on this project. Fascinating.

I would not fault Don Bradley for finding meaning in the saga of the "Lost 116 Pages."  I consider this to be a major event foreseen by God who allowed it to happen and prompted Mormon to abridge BOTH the small plates (sacred records, rendered in 1st person narrative) and the large plates (political history maintained by kings, rendered in the 3rd person by Mormon).  Both sets covered the same period (from the time of Old Jerusalem to the reign of king Benjamin).

This is on par with the Anthon experience which was also foreseen by God and prophesied of by Isaiah.  This event was mocked by critics.  Even Anthon in later years made derisive comments to anti-mormon reporters about his meeting with Martin Harris.

Both events needed to happen.  God needed to teach Joseph Smith NOT to second guess the Lord.  It was a very serious lesson for Joseph.  I believe the Lord is indirectly letting us know that the "Book of Lehi" may still be brought back to the world.  Hopefully before the Second Coming. 

Who knows but the 116 pages may still be lying somewhere in an old trunk stashed in a dusty attic of an out of the way farmhouse?  Along with the set of revisions prepared by the thief who intended to discredit Joseph Smith if he were to re-translate the same pages.

Review the amazing story of how an Oberlin College president made a surprise find of the Spaulding Manuscript.  It was discovered in the footlocker his friend was keeping at his home in HAWAII (of all places).

[Stargazer]

On 3/24/2020 at 2:00 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

I tried buying it at Deseret and at Seagull, but they didn't have it or hadn't heard of it.  So I have now ordered ti from Kofford, where it is on sale for $20.97.  Thanks for reminding me.

That's weird. I guess. I got my copy on Kindle through Amazon. Odd that Deseret wouldn't be carrying it.

Edited to add: Found it on Deseret Book's website (Here), though they want almost $30 for it.

Edited March 29, 2020 by Stargazer

[Stargazer]

18 hours ago, longview said:

Who knows but the 116 pages may still be lying somewhere in an old trunk stashed in a dusty attic of an out of the way farmhouse?  Along with the set of revisions prepared by the thief who intended to discredit Joseph Smith if he were to re-translate the same pages.

I've thought that myself.

In fact, reading this pair of sentences gave me a wild thrilling feeling. Makes me think that this is something that will, in fact, happen at some point.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I've thought that myself.

In fact, reading this pair of sentences gave me a wild thrilling feeling. Makes me think that this is something that will, in fact, happen at some point.

The whole point of the theft was to be able to prove that Joseph couldn't reproduce the text a second time, but that belies the simultaneous claim that Joseph was merely cribbing it from an already extant source.  Either way, Joseph stood to lose credibility.  That's why the Lord had generated a different set of plates with Nephi's account covering the same period (the Small Plates).  That provided an end run around the thief's machinations.

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The whole point of the theft was to be able to prove that Joseph couldn't reproduce the text a second time, but that belies the simultaneous claim that Joseph was merely cribbing it from an already extant source.  Either way, Joseph stood to lose credibility.  That's why the Lord had generated a different set of plates with Nephi's account covering the same period (the Small Plates).  That provided an end run around the thief's machinations.

Yes, I do understand that.

What I was trying to express was my optimism that the original stolen manuscript, along with the replacement the thieves prepared, would both be found.  I'd love to read that which was lost, and see the vindication of the preparation the Lord made which is recorded in the Book of Mormon.  It might very well be that it will be found nearer the end of things, to spur some on to more faith.

At least that is my thought on the matter.

Edited March 29, 2020 by Stargazer

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Yes, I do understand that.

What I was trying to express was my optimism that the original stolen manuscript, along with the replacement the thieves prepared, would both be found.  I'd love to read that which was lost, and see the vindication of the preparation the Lord made which is recorded in the Book of Mormon.  It might very well be that it will be found nearer the end of things, to spur some on to more faith.

At least that is my thought on the matter.

Perhaps the thieves expected their forgery to pass muster.  Of course, any questioned-document examiner today would be able to show immediately that it was a forgery just based on handwriting.  However, content would also be very amenable to the analysis of someone like Stan Carmack, since the thief did not know that the manuscript was in Early Modern Engiish, and the forgery would be in a much more current language.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/28/2020 at 3:02 AM, Rivers said:

At the end of the book, Don tells of how doing research on the lost pages actually brought him back to the church.  I find this intriguing since the whole story of the lost manuscript is laughable to most critics.  South Park even pokes fun at the story.   The critical view is that the translation of the small plates was purely damage control after the 116 pages got lost.  Yet somehow Don ended up with renewed faith as he worked on this project. Fascinating.

Just doing basic research, Don found a number of surprises which negated some notions which he and many others had mistakenly assumed to be true.  For example, the centrality of temple ritual is normally taken as a later accretion to LDS theology, yet he found it central to the BofM.  Along with that, he was also surprised to find that what he had always heard about Mormonism being a restoration of primitive Christianity was not really the most powerful direction of Joseph's restoration.  Indeed, the BofM was actually a restoration of OT religion in the form of Judaism (here he narrowed what was actually a restoration of the entirety of the religion of the Twelve Tribes, not just Judah, but that is a common error which modern rabbinic Judaism also makes).  In other words, he finds that the facts refute the commonly held notion that "there is not much Mormonism in the Book of Mormon" (page 287).

My own research has led in the very same direction, yet he got none of that from me, unless he has been reading me on this board over the years, and failed to acknowledge it.