Yup, it had to start with this. I mean, the numbers match. (I’m now debating about whether Reason #3 will be the Three Witnesses or the Three Nephites.)

The 116 pages story was one of the BIG issues for me, and a significant part of the final collapse of my belief in all things Mormonism. In a true ranking, it would be a contender for #1. But why is it even a problem, at all? Well, let’s dive in…

Nutshell background: Joseph Smith is translating the Book of Mormon from the gold plates he alleges to have. Martin Harris is one of his scribes, writing from Joseph’s oral dictation. Martin is also the main (perhaps the only) financier of this operation, and his wife, Lucy, is highly skeptical about Joseph and about Martin giving him any more of their money. Martin repeatedly asks Joseph if he (Martin) can show Lucy the work they’ve been doing, certain that by doing so, she’ll be convinced that Joseph is the prophet that he claims to be. Joseph eventually agrees to let Martin take the first completed part of what they’ve been working on (comprising 116 pages) to show Lucy, but later the pages go missing and are never seen again.

I invite you now to open your scriptures to D&C 10, where we read the Lord chastising Joseph Smith for trusting in that wicked Martin Harris, and then the Lord explaining how an alternate solution was (very conveniently) provided. The solution did not involve solving the problem in the present through any number of more reasonable means (which we’ll get to), but solving the problem two thousand years before it even happened. Yes, this is essentially a time travel mechanism. Points for generating both sci-fi and comedy with the same story!

The solution involved God knowing waaaaay ahead of time that those 116 pages would be lost or stolen, and having one of the original authors from the plates write a separate set of plates/scriptures that kinda sorta followed the same story and history as the 116 pages, but also kinda sorta didn’t. You see, rather than Joseph Smith merely re-translating this super important work from the gold plates that were painstakingly etched and carried and buried by ancient prophets, it was deemed better that an alternate backup set of plates be painstakingly etched and added to the pile of heavy plates that those ancient prophets had to lug around.

Although of course Joseph *could* have re-translated exactly word-for-word what had been done on the 116 pages, it was determined by the Lord, two thousand years prior, that if he did that, the people that stole those 116 pages would alter those pages in ways that would make Joseph’s new translation appear to be different. And therefore, even though he had totally re-translated it perfectly, the altered first draft coming to light would have ruined his reputation and the Book of Mormon’s purpose would have been thwarted.

Apparently, enough people would have seen how the re-translation said, “and it came to pass,” and where in the altered original pages someone had added “lo,” so they now read, “lo, and it came to pass.” And the public-at-large would have said, “Oh, see?? Totally different! No way this guy has gold plates and the power to translate them!” You’d think that any significant alterations to the handwritten pages would have been easily noticed by observers, but apparently this was another example of wise prescience by the Lord, who clearly saw the day when the discernment of the entire Mormon leadership would be fooled by the forgeries of Mark Hofmann.

So after you’ve read that D&C section carefully and ponderized a bit, ask yourself this question… Does what is being laid out there sound like A) a reasonable solution from the God of the universe, or B) the shifty dancing of a scam artist?

Now, I realize that for the hardened, church-broke believer, there is no “B” answer allowed. For years, as a believer, myself, when I heard the 116 pages story or read through D&C 10, the “A” answer never sat well at all, but I just let it not sit well. I simply couldn’t or wouldn’t entertain the possibility of “B.” And when that ol’ cognitive dissonance would start to hit hard, I’d just try to think about anything else. Oh hey, how about that David Archuleta?! He really killed on American Idol last night. Ha ha, yes. The stone rolls forth!

The essence of this is something that’s at the heart of a lot of what makes letting go of belief in Mormonism so difficult. Because D&C is in the voice of *GOD.* Such a simple and powerful thing, that is. Once you’ve chosen to accept that, or been indoctrinated to accept that, it’s very hard to ever relinquish that idea that GOD himself is in the words you are reading. You open those nicely bound books and look at that scripturey font with an implicit sense of reverence, because you believe that what is contained therein came directly from the mouth of Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father. And the idea of some mere human writing those words but claiming they are from God is so abhorrent, so distasteful, that we naturally do not want to taste it.

But it’s also as simple and powerful as that on the other side of the coin… Humans lie. Especially when they are trying to pull something over on someone else by deceit. Especially (especially) when they’ve been put on the spot about something relating to that deceit. Could Joseph Smith have just *said* that the Lord declared something, and it wasn’t actually the Lord God of all creation saying it? I’ll whisper it to you, if that helps… “Yes. Yes, he could have. And everything about this incident seems to indicate that he did.”

I suggest an exercise for the believer. As a test, you must provide at least, let’s say, 7 other solutions to the same problem of the 116 pages being lost, which are different than the official version. If you need help, I’ll give you a head start with 5 of my favorites, so you only need two more:

1. Joseph inquires of the Lord, via his seer stone or directly in prayer, to find where the 116 pages are. In the course of his history, Joseph makes inquiries of the Lord about all kinds of mundane things, which the Lord responds to, so surely this would merit special attention, no? The Lord, knowing all things… such as knowing two thousand years ahead of time that the 116 pages would be lost… relays the information of their whereabouts to Joseph. “Oh, the 116 pages are hidden in that log outside of Lucy’s house? Great, I’ll go retrieve them later!” “Oh, the pages were burned up in Lucy’s fireplace? Well, that’s good to know, so now I can just re-translate without the worry of someone altering the text. Whew!”

2. Knowing in advance that the pages would be stolen, in any of the several times that Joseph supposedly inquired of the Lord about whether he should let Martin borrow the pages in the first place, the Lord just tells him specifically that if he does that, the pages *will* be stolen. So the Lord flatly says no, we can’t have them stolen. Period. Stop asking!

3. The Lord, who is capable of smiting and striking people blind and dumb, smites/strikes Lucy Harris when she attempts to steal or destroy the pages. Lucy says, “Ouch!” (or tries to mumble “ouch” if she is struck dumb), and the pages are safely recovered.

4. As described in the official scenario, Joseph re-translates exactly word-for-word, and the agents of Satan alter the stolen 116 pages slightly. Joseph then says, “Hey, those pages are slightly altered! But no worries, I’ll prove it by translating yet again.” He gives his first re-translation to a neutral third-party to keep in a safe, then produces a second word-for-word re-translation, which perfectly matches his first re-translation. (They could have even done this with a small sampling of the pages, not necessarily all 116.) The evil doubting people are now like, “Oh! Well, I guess maybe he really does have those plates and might actually be a prophet, after all. Okay, sorry. Our bad!”

5. Joseph re-translates everything exactly. Included in the full book, as presumably would have been in the completed first translation, is the promise in Moroni 10 that if you pray about the book in sincerity, by the power of the Holy Ghost you will know whether it is true or not. Since this is the same condition for knowing its truth that is already accepted by all who adhere to the BoM being true, it should also apply perfectly well in this case. So what if someone alters a few words on those stolen pages? This new version not only is complete (i.e., it finishes everything beyond what was in the 116 pages), but being the “true” version, it should give you that real spiritual confirmation! (Unless, maybe, possibly, those kind of spiritual confirmations are essentially meaningless… ah, but I’m jumping ahead to Reason #28.) With the weight that all believing Mormons have put on Moroni’s Promise, why wouldn’t that have been an easy and effective way to solve this apparent problem?

6-7. ??

There you go. I can think of several other solutions that fit perfectly well within the framework and context of Mormon theology. All you need is to come up with two more. If you can’t, then you’re just not trying, and/or your sense of rational cognitive skill has been severely poisoned by your belief. Thing is, you can come up with other possible solutions and yet continue to believe the official story. I just want you to at least be able to acknowledge that these other very rational solutions exist, and then again ask yourself whether the official answer feels more like the wise solution of the Lord Almighty or the shifty dancing of a fraudster.

Another game you can play with this story is “What else might God have handled the way He handled the lost 116 pages?” For example, to prevent the Crusades, He could have inspired the original Bible writers to add an extra “Book of Not Killing Others to Try to Convert Them.” And to prevent the severe criticism the Book of Abraham has received in recent decades, God could have had the ancient Egyptians who buried the Chandler mummies include a papyrus that, ya know… contained something that actually pertained to Abraham.

My #1 and #4 solutions above bring up another major issue related to this. By describing the reason for not re-translating the plates as being because Satan would influence those with the pages to change the text, thus conflicting with the perfect re-translation, Joseph Smith, er, the Lord, was committing the whole process to a “tight translation.” Meaning, everything that is in the book is exactly how it came from the Lord into the stone in the hat. And that also jibes with the description of those involved in the translation process; that it was a tight translation with exact words and phrases appearing on the seer stone.

Here was a golden opportunity for Joseph to open things up, to say, “Well, I mean, I’ll re-translate, but I gotta tell ya, it’s a bit of a fudgy process, so things might be a little different this time.” But that’s not what is described in D&C 10! The assumption is that he will indeed make a perfect re-translation. He has committed himself to a tight translation. And I believe he said that because of the other scribes’ descriptions, talking about how the exact phrases would appear on the seer stone in the hat and wouldn’t go away until they had been transcribed exactly. Not being able to see that for themselves, how would they know that? Because that must be what Joseph had told them.

So not only is Joseph trying to walk a line of deception with Lucy Harris, who he thinks will call him out on his baloney if he produces a substantially different re-translation, but he also has his immediate followers to think of. And Martin Harris and his money was probably a higher priority to keep in his confidence, even with Lucy having some sway on Martin. So if Joseph knew that Martin also expected an exact re-translation, then that really explains this particular dance of his. He *had* to say that he could re-translate perfectly, but knowing he couldn’t actually do that, he had to come up with some way of explaining why he could, but also couldn’t do that in this case. And hoo boy, was it ever clunky and obvious as a deflection, but at least in terms of moving onward with the project and keeping the credulous Martin on board, it served its purpose, which was all that Joseph needed at the time.

But in committing to a tight translation, it creates major problems for other aspects of The Book of Mormon; namely, its many anachronisms and issues with copying parts of The Bible with its errors, etc. (These things will certainly comprise several of my remaining 115 Reasons.) Apologists can say that when Joseph described a horse, what he may have meant was a tapir (known as “loan shifting”), and you might say well okay, that could sorta kinda make sense if this were actually a very fudgy translation. But when the BoM also includes very specific words like “cumoms” and “senines,” which are meant to be exclusive to the ancient culture being recorded, then it becomes clear that it needs to be both a very tight translation and a very loose one. And Joseph Smith, and D&C 10, and several scribal participants all commit it to being only a tight translation. Whoops. So much for the loan shifting.

I wanted to start with this subject because to me, it’s the most obvious example of Joseph’s “dancing.” He demonstrates many times in his life how he, like every great conman before and after him, can finagle and mold and manipulate situations and revelations and people to his immediate needs. And he often does so quite deftly and with some measure of subtlety. In this case, though, it may have served its purpose in the short term, but the shifty dancing is well on display and appears to be of Elaine Benes quality.

Soundtrack for this post: https://weirdalma.bandcamp.com/track/tapirback-rider (Refers to the subject of loan shifting: If cureloms, cumoms, and senines are words, then why couldn’t Joseph just have used the term “tapirback riders”?)

As a side note, there has been a rumor floating around in recent years that the 116 pages were stored for decades in a safe deposit box, and the church now has them and might release them soon. I’m very skeptical about all aspects of that, but I don’t rule out the possibility. Though the common story is that Lucy burned the pages, that was only one person’s account, related well after the time, and at least one other account has the pages given to a doctor friend of Lucy’s. So who knows?

It might seem unlikely for something as significant as that to turn up nearly 200 years later, and sure, it definitely is unlikely. But we do have two examples of important Mormon artifacts turning up over a century after having been thought to be lost forever; some of the Book of Abraham related papyri, and one of the Kinderhook plates. So again, who knows?? But if one of President Nelson’s big General Conference reveals in April turns out to be the 116 pages (hey, that would actually be a big reveal for a change!), then don’t be quite as surprised. But also don’t hold your breath for that to happen. Even if the Church does have the pages (which is already a big “if”), there’s a good chance that they have already gone into a shredder or deep into the vaults, considering that they’re probably a further embarrassment to the official story in ways we both can and can’t imagine.