April 2, 2020

Celebrating the Restoration Day 4: Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon

Post contributed by

 

Welch, Jack

For a further analysis of the question, how long it took for Joseph to translate the Book of Mormon, see my recent article, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: ‘Days [and Hours] Never to Be Forgotten,’” BYU Studies Quarterly 57 no. 4 (2018): 10–50.

Amazingly, the translation of the Book of Mormon as we now have it took less than 65 actual days of translating. That is a lot less time than you might have thought, or than anyone can actually imagine. Four “anchor dates” solidly pin down the beginning, middle, and ending points in those days, which Oliver Cowdery later said, were “days never to be forgotten.” For a reality check, take a few minutes to at least scan and fathom the attached chart, which hopefully is self-explanatory.

Each of the historical facts in “The miraculous Timing of the Translation of the Book of Mormon” is established by sources mentioned in the footnotes or in the document section (quoting 206 documents!) of the longer of these two articles. That collection of primary source documents is 102 pages long. Reading even only a few of these accounts left by people who were closely involved in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, or by others who were involved early enough in this historical development to have heard from these eye-witnesses, can be very moving for anyone, young or old.

I can't think of any other event in world history that matches the accomplishment of translating and bringing forth the Book of Mormon. The amount of consistent and coherent independent statements that document these day-by-day events is extraordinary.

There is surely more here than anyone can read in a day. That is not the purpose here. But everyone should know that this detailed history exists. It is credible. It is impressive. If you feel a bit overwhelmed, that's OK. Just think how Joseph, Emma, Oliver, Lucy Smith, Martin Harris, and the others involved in this daunting task must have felt!

Table 1: Estimated Day-by-Day Translation in 1829
Table 2: Word counts in the Large and Small Plates

Further Reading

John W. Welch, “The Miraculous Timing of the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, edited by John W. Welch, 79–213. Provo, UT/Salt Lake City: BYU Press/Deseret Book, 2005.

Read the Other Restoration Posts

Book of Mormon Translation
Book of Mormon

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