{"id":45698,"date":"2023-10-14T09:30:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T15:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=45698"},"modified":"2023-10-14T09:30:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-14T15:30:50","slug":"joseph-smiths-gold-plates-a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2023\/10\/joseph-smiths-gold-plates-a-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Smith\u2019s Gold Plates: A Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Lyman Bushman\u2019s <\/span>Joseph Smith\u2019s Gold Plates: A Cultural History<\/span><\/i> (Oxford University Press, 2023) is an important contribution to Book of Mormon studies. As a cultural history of the gold plates, the book traces the story of the plates and the translation of the Book of Mormon, reactions to the story and the development of folklore about the gold plates over the subsequent two centuries. It also discusses how the plates have been portrayed in artwork and literature, used in teaching programs in the Church, and some of the debates about the plates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even while visiting the story of the plates\u2014as he has before in <\/span>Rough Stone Rolling<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism<\/span><\/i>\u2014Bushman provides fresh perspectives on the story. For example, he focuses on the idea that Joseph Smith may not have understood the purpose of the plates as a record that needed to be translated initially, rather than being a treasure. At first, Joseph Smith may have approached the plates with his treasure hunting in mind rather than a religious perspective. After all, the idea of a book-length record on gold plates wasn\u2019t really something that was a common idea. It was only gradually, as he became acquainted with the interpreters and what was on the plates that he realized it needed to be translated. It was a perspective that I\u2019ve not seen emphasized before (at least within my memory).<\/span><\/p>\n

As you read, you can tell that Richard Bushman did a lot of in-depth research to bring the book together. He discusses the history, as I\u2019ve mentioned, but adds in art, folklore, and literature to the discussion (not something covered in his previous work or other discussions like Terryl Givens\u2019 <\/span>By the Hand of Mormon<\/span><\/i>). He discussed some fascinating-sounding but obscure novels about Joseph Smith, Navajo pottery that digests the idea of the gold plates and the Book of Mormon and presents them in a thoroughly Din\u00e9 form, and more. He also covers better-known artistic treatments of the gold plates, such as the artwork of Arnold Friberg and Minerva Teichert and the sculptures of Torleif Knaphus. And on the folklore front, I think he\u2019s the first person to discuss in-depth the lore of Joseph Smith leaving the plates in or working on the translation in a cave (from both Latter-day Saints in Utah and Palmyra locals). He was able to add a lot of interesting cultural history in discussing dimensions of the gold plates beyond history and scientific arguments.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing that caught me off guard was how the book veered into devotional belief on occasion. From the get-go, Bushman acknowledges that \u201ca logical path for a Latter-day Saint growing up in the modern world, especially one who became a historian, would be to grow out of my childhood beliefs. \u2026 But my life did not follow that course. The plates have continued to have a hold on me\u201d (ix). He occasionally returns to expressing his belief and arguing for it throughout the book, though he does leave room for other interpretations. For example, at one point he writes: \u201c[What] was the origins of the idea of the plates in Joseph Smith\u2019s mind. Where did he get the conception of a set of plates containing the history of lost civilizations and engraved in ancient characters? No satisfactory answer has been found other than angelic visitation,\u201d though he also acknowledges that \u201cthere is also a gap in believers\u2019 story of the plates\u201d (157\u2013158). This wasn\u2019t an unpleasant surprise to me as a member of the Church, but was more apologetic than what I expected going into an Oxford University Press book.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph Smith\u2019s Gold Plates: A Cultural History<\/span><\/i> is important because of the broad swath of information and perspectives it pulls together in one place about the Book of Mormon and the gold plates. In addition to the areas that I\u2019ve mentioned, Bushman discusses the nature of the gold plates as an artifact and what might be displayed with them in a museum (bringing in many theories about what the plates were or what they might have been made from as proposals for what could be in a museum display with the plates), where the gold plates fit in with other sacred objects in faith traditions across the world, and how the plates have been used in Church curriculum (both in missionary literature and Church Education System literature). Appendixes also discuss the structure of the plates\/Book of Mormon and the translation debates. All told, the book brings together an impressive array of information about the gold plates and their ongoing existence in the minds of those who have reacted to the idea of their existence.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Lyman Bushman\u2019s Joseph Smith\u2019s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (Oxford University Press, 2023) is an important contribution to Book of Mormon studies. As a cultural history of the gold plates, the book traces the story of the plates and the translation of the Book of Mormon, reactions to the story and the development of folklore about the gold plates over the subsequent two centuries. It also discusses how the plates have been portrayed in artwork and literature, used in teaching programs in the Church, and some of the debates about the plates.\u00a0 Even while visiting the story of the plates\u2014as he has before in Rough Stone Rolling and Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism\u2014Bushman provides fresh perspectives on the story. For example, he focuses on the idea that Joseph Smith may not have understood the purpose of the plates as a record that needed to be translated initially, rather than being a treasure. At first, Joseph Smith may have approached the plates with his treasure hunting in mind rather than a religious perspective. After all, the idea of a book-length record on gold plates wasn\u2019t really something that was a common idea. It was only gradually, as he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,52,2910],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-of-mormon","category-book-reviews","category-joseph-smith"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45699,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45698\/revisions\/45699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}