I first stumbled across Don Bradley in 2015, first reading a snippet about his thoughts regarding the lost pages from the Book of Mormon, then reading his excellent article on Fanny Alger. I adore his careful scholarship. And I love how he came back from “faith dismissal/crisis” to re-embrace his original faith precisely because his scholarship taught him that the Gospel and the Book of Mormon were true, despite his younger skepticism.

I’d been busy living life over the holidays, so it took an unacceptable amount of time to notice that Don’s long-awaited book about the lost manuscript had finally been published [thanks to Rameumpton’s fine review]. Now that I’ve read the book myself, I think anyone who is a student of the Church of Jesus Christ in its various forms must read Don’s book. It will save both doubter and believer from embarrassing ignorance about the faith they wish to either embrace, understand, or criticize.

As Ram mentioned in his review, the book is divided into two parts: Five chapters about the now-lost manuscript itself and ten additional chapters examining the stories most of us lost when the manuscript was taken by unknown persons.

I had thought that much of Don’s research was informed by little-known statements arising from those who read the missing pages or those who provided second hand accounts. The insights Don gleans from little-known sources are luminous. But more astounding to me are the numerous profound insights that have been in the text all along, had we read as closely as Don.

About the manuscript pages themselves, Don provides rationale for why the lost manuscript was referred to as 116 pages even though there were likely ~300 pages at the time of the loss. He challenges the popular claim that Lucy Harris stole the plates and provides two men and their associates who are much more compelling as suspects. And Don provides us insight to the process of rendering the sacred text into English that evokes temple rituals both in Kirtland and Nauvoo. The Kindle version I read contained several irritating grammar errors. And I have a quibble with Don about the grammar of the translation itself. But in all I’d give the first five chapters a solid B+.

A+ goes to the chapters about the stories it appears we lost in the stolen manuscript.

Two powerful insights solely known through obscure second-hand sources are the provenance of the so-called sword of Laban and the way the interpreters (or Urim and Thummim) became part of the sacred Nephite temple artifacts. Based on one of these accounts, the sword (and brass plates) Laban possessed were originally created by Joseph, as in the son of Rachel who was sold into Egypt. The sword was reportedly wielded by Joseph’s direct descendant, Joshua, in the conquest that followed the exodus from Egypt, a purpose for which a visionary Joseph had created the sword. It almost seems odd that this sword wouldn’t therefore have become part of the set of relics kept in the tabernacle/temple thereafter, particularly once we realize that the sword of Goliath was retained in the temple.

Don shows us why Passover should be understood as the setting of Lehi’s flight from Jerusalem and Nephi’s act of beheading Laban. Though this insight was initially prompted by a secondary account, it becomes clear that the reading should be obvious from what we known of history and the extant portion of the Book of Mormon. This Passover setting renders Lehi’s flight a reenactment of the Exodus of Israel under the guidance of Moses. Laban becomes resonant with the Egyptian firstborn who died at Passover, as well as the Egyptian armies who drowned in the Red Sea. And the sword-wielding Nephi becomes resonant with another sword-wielding youngest son: David, who became King of Israel.

Where most of us chuckle with amusement when we read the terse Book of Omni, Don squeezes epic meaning from these few verses. He points us to an apex of faith-induced prosperity 200 years after Lehi’s Exodus, which descends into wickedness. Resonating with the time of peace and subsequent apostasy reported in 4 Nephi, Don brings to life the dramatic scene of God writing on the wall of the temple, evocative of the creation of Moses’s stone tables, and Aminadi rebuking the people, much as Samuel the Lamanite would do decades before the destruction of the wicked after Christ’s death.[ref]For what it’s worth, Don doesn’t point out the resonance between Aminadi and Samuel – I’m sure he noticed it, but stated up front that there are many things he notices that he didn’t include, in deference to keeping the book acceptably short and wishing to focus on those aspects of the stories that would matter to scholars who do not believe.[/ref] Then Mosiah (father of Benjamin) saves the righteous remnant of the Lehites, as Joseph saved Israel by bringing them forth from drought and Moses saved Israel by bringing them forth from captivity and Lehi saved a remnant of Israel by escaping the pending Babylonian captivity.

It is Mosiah, in refuge on a hill north of Sidon, who is led by the Liahona to a pair of clear, triangular stones – the interpreters originally divinely given to the brother of Jared. Where the Liahona pointed one spindle at what was being found and the second spindle at the direction of the thing to be found, the interpreters allowed a faithful prophet to see the meaning of unreadable writings. These insights, gleaned from textual clues and contemporaries of Joseph Smith and Martin Harris, allow us to see the interpreters as higher than the Liahona, as some see the Liahona to be higher than the iron rod. After this find, Don shares, the Liahona reportedly stopped working, though it continued to be revered as a holy artifact.

The theme of the lost pages was the restoration of Israel, through exodus from wickedness, temple worship, and focus on the Messiah who would come to save all mankind. Lehi was a new Moses. Nephi was both a new David and a new Melchizedek. Mosiah, in turn, was a renewed Moses/Lehi, as well as evoking David and Melchizedek.

I can’t help but wonder whether Joseph would have died in 1844 had the early Saints had the understanding the lost manuscript would have given them. Instead, too many of them became latter-day Lamanites, willing to kill their brother who, like Mosiah, was assuming a united role as prophet, temple-builder, and righteous “king.” Because such a thing was not known to Western culture, a few worked to kill Joseph while too many failed to champion him.

Read Don’s book, and experience the many reasons his reconstruction should be considered more than mere guesswork. And learn of the many other luminous insights Don gleans from contemporary reports and a close reading of the extant Book of Mormon text.

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One quibble.

During Don’s description of the Book of Mormon manuscript, he cites Royal Skousen’s edition of The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text to tell us that many of the grammatical differences between the 1981 version of the Book of Mormon and the original manuscript arose from Joseph’s rural vernacular. In fairness, though I had read Royal Skousen’s edition before posting my Amazon review, I thought (and posted) the same thing.

For this reason, with the “study it out” instructions in D&C 9:8, Don insists that Joseph at times did function as what we think of as a “translator,” rendering a sacred text in his own vernacular.

But Don also shares with us the descriptions of Joseph seeing the words written out in light on the seer stone, or projected on the veil when viewed through the interpreters. This is not language translation as we know it, but movement of a sacred text from one realm (the unreadable) to another realm (English).

I have indicated here in the past that it seems the scholars who rendered the Bible into English might have played some role in how the sacred text was moved from the unreadable realm to the manuscript dictated by Joseph.

In the forward of Skousen’s edition, it does indicate the earliest text contains some 19th century dialectisms (e.g., drownded, massacreed, and had ought to – words Joseph might have said despite a more classic term being on the stone/veil and Oliver might have written without thinking to question), it is more striking that the grammar in the original reflects Early Modern English usage from the 1500s and 1600s. Also, biblical quotes in the original text are generally closer to the 1611 KJV than the quotes as they appear in the 1981 Book of Mormon.[ref]Grant Hardy, ”Introduction,” The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, Royal Skousen, editor, 2009, page xx.[/ref]

Therefore I think it more correct to imagine that Joseph’s “translation” as similar to how Aminadi and later prophets were able to “translate” or move the meaning of unreadable writing in a manner presented to them in their own language. I assert it is more correct to think of Joseph and Aminadi as voicing the sacred words, without imagining there was substantial room for interpreting or altering words presented to them.

End quibble.