So, what is this scary Salamander Letter that the church is hiding from everybody? \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Start with some background. \u00a0In the 1970s, church historian Leonard Arrington took over and began a policy of strong support for academic writing about LDS history, especially using archive documents. \u00a0 A number of important books came out of this “Camelot” time period. \u00a0Also,\u00a0the increased buzz about LDS history led to an expanded and very lively market for early LDS documents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One more piece of academic background: \u00a0In the early 80s, various writers were discussing Joseph Smith’s use of folk magic. \u00a0The most detailed descriptions and far-reaching conclusions came from\u00a0D. Micheal Quinn, and they were extremely controversial at the time. \u00a0(They still are, to some extent). \u00a0Quinn’s name has become synonymous with folk magic, but the fact is that other people discussed folk magic at the time (e.g., Bushman’s _Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism_), though not everyone accepted all of Quinn’s conclusions. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This set the stage for a novel and ultimately deadly instance of document fraud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Document dealer Mark Hofmann was one of the players in the rare Mormon documents scene. \u00a0He launched his careeer by “finding” the original transcript from Martin Harris to Charles Anthon, which no one had seen before. \u00a0He subsequently “found” several other important, original documents. \u00a0He was able to sell some of these to the church and to private collectors, for moderately large amounts of money. \u00a0Hofmann owned some genuine documents at some points in time; however, the documents which he “found” tended to be forgeries. \u00a0Hofmann was a talented forger who generally used authentic era paper, and who developed complicated techniques for making documents appear old. \u00a0Notably, all of Hofmann’s new discoveries had major provenance problems — no one had seen these documents until they suddenly appeared in Hofmann’s possession. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Hofmann fooled many of the leading scholars of the time. \u00a0He fooled Dean Jessee, who accepted Hofmann’s forgeries as real. \u00a0He also fooled a number of experts in antique documents. \u00a0And he fooled church leaders. Hofmann sold forged documents to the church, under the direction of then-Elder Gordon B. Hinckley. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1984, Hofmann produced his Salamander Letter. \u00a0It purported to be a letter from Martin Harris about Joseph Smith’s magical practices. \u00a0It talked about a magical salamander spirit guarding the golden plates who demanded that Joseph bring his dead brother Alvin to get the plates. \u00a0The letter was designed to highlight the sensational and then-controversial ideas about folk magic. \u00a0It suggested that folk magic was not an early stage that Joseph Smith abandoned, but was crucial in the Book of Mormon translation process. \u00a0Because of its controversial content, Hofmann hoped the church would buy the letter in order to hide it. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The church was not willing to buy the letter for Hofmann’s asking price, but Hofmann was able to sell the letter to a private collector who wanted to donate it to the church. \u00a0 The letter was mentioned a few times in church contexts, and appeared in books like Dean Jessee’s _Personal Letters of Joseph Smith_. \u00a0[Update: Actually, I don’t believe it was the Salamander letter in Jessee’ volume, I think it was another Hofmann forgery] \u00a0Meanwhile Hofmann continued to produce fake documents, and was able to borrow a lot of money, in part through his business contacts with church leaders. \u00a0Hofmann’s scheme fell apart when he was unable to produce a set of forged documents against which he had borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars. \u00a0He sent pipe bombs that killed two people — a document collector and the wife of the collector’s business partner. \u00a0Hofmann was seriously injured in a premature explosion of one of his own bombs. \u00a0He was charged with murder, took a plea, and is currently serving a life sentence. \u00a0<\/p>\n
What does it mean?<\/p>\n
Church critics suggest that the Hofmann forgeries show that the church is too secretive about its history; that church leaders want to suppress or whitewash negative aspects of church history; that church members do not know about controversial parts of history. \u00a0Critics also suggest that the incident shows lack of inspiration in church leadership — if they are prophets, why didn’t they realize Hofmann was a forger?<\/p>\n
On the question of document suppression, I’m not sure that the incident is particularly damning. \u00a0The church bought documents of questionable provenance, and generally made them available, even before the forgery was known. \u00a0The church could have been more forthright about them — I’m a fan of Arrington’s approach myself — but I can understand the desire not to emphasize controversial documents. \u00a0Elder Oaks wrote a lengthy discussion of the Hofmann incident, including a defense of the church’s policies, in the Ensign in 1987<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n