Scott Woodward:
The more carefully one studies the production process of the Book of Mormon, the more interesting the questions become. For example, since Joseph Smith never could read the original base language engraven on the plates, what did he mean when he said he “translated” the Book of Mormon, and was his translation best characterized as a “tight” translation, a “loose” translation, or something else entirely? And if the Book of Mormon was translated correctly the first time, why did Joseph Smith make changes and adjustments to the text for subsequent editions years later? Also, did Joseph translate with one seer stone or two connected in a bow? And just how common was seer stone use in the broader New England culture in Joseph Smith’s day? And when did their use die off in both U.S. and church culture? Today on Church History Matters, we sit down with Dr. Michael MacKay, one of the world’s foremost scholars on seer stones and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, to discuss these and other great questions. I’m Scott Woodward, a managing director at Scripture Central, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a managing director at Scripture Central, and this is our sixth and final episode in this series dealing with the marvelous, shocking, and utterly unique story of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Now, let’s get into it. Hello, Casey.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hello, Scott, how are you?

Scott Woodward:
Super good, man. I’m excited about today’s episode particularly. We’ve been talking a lot about Book of Mormon translation. You and I have been through, what, five hours so far of discussion about Book of Mormon translation, the coming forth, the witnesses? And today we get to have a special guest with us. We’re excited. Do you want to tell us who’s with us?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yes! We have with us Dr. Michael Hubbard MacKay, who is a colleague of mine here at Brigham Young University. Used to be just down the hall from me. Dr. MacKay is an associate professor of religion in the Department of Church History and Doctrine. He’s a former historian and writer for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. He teaches world religions, history of Joseph Smith, Doctrine and Covenants, Foundations of the Restoration. He’s also the author of several books focusing on antebellum American religion, Joseph Smith, and the production of Latter-day Saint scripture. He’s currently working within ritual studies in the midst of publishing an edited volume re-examining the work of Victor Turner and co-authoring a book on the development of Latter-day Saint ritual and scripture. I wanna also take a minute and point out some of the best books Mike has been involved with, that our listeners should get their hands on a copy of. Each of these are essential reading when it comes to Book of Mormon Translation. Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones, Mike wrote that along with Nick Frederick. There’s a new one, a short one, out called Let’s Talk About the Translation of the Book of Mormon by Mike and Gerrit Dirkmaat that’s a quick read but would give you the essentials. And then there’s the volume that really kind of introduced a lot of people to these ideas. It’s called From Darkness Unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon. That is also co-authored with Gerrit Dirkmaat, who’s another great scholar on Book of Mormon translation.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Mike, welcome to the show. We’re so excited to have you.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Thanks.

Scott Woodward:
You’re a great friend, a great scholar.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Excited about this new podcast.

Scott Woodward:
Well, that means a lot coming from you. If Mike MacKay endorses it, then I feel good. Well, I guess you didn’t go so far as to say “endorse.” You just said “excited,” so I’ll be modest. We’ll take whatever we can get. Yeah. So, Mike, can we ask you a bunch of questions today? Is that all right? We have a ton of…

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
That’s an endorsement.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, good.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s not a condemnation, so I guess we’ll take it. We’re just glad you’re here.

Scott Woodward:
We’ll take whatever we can get.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We’re just glad you’re here.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Could you begin maybe by telling us a little bit about how you got interested in studying so deeply about, you know, seer stones and all things related to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, that whole world? Like, how’d that get started for you, Mike?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, it’s—I think the first time I was, like, deeply invested in this was probably when I started it, the Joseph Smith Papers project. This was an idea that was being kicked around. We were reading everything that was written about it, trying to uncover the historical record that described the translation process. Before that, though, I remember I had a mission companion. I went to Honolulu, Hawaii mission. I remember I had a mission companion who like asked me what I thought about Joseph Smith’s seer stones, and I was like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” So that was probably the first time I heard about it.

Scott Woodward:
Fast forward to the guy who actually writes the book about it. That’s a fun beginning.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah. But at the Joseph Smith Papers Project, doing Documents Volume One required analysis and research on the topic. And even in, you know, 2009, there’s still, there’s tons and tons of research that’s been done by that time. There’s so many people that have written on it. Mark Ashurst-McGee was my next door neighbor. He probably still is the OG, probably the person that knows more about the translation than anyone. And so he was—he was helping me. That’s when I got really interested. Mark has a way of developing historical interest in everybody’s mind. He’s, like, one of the greatest gifts to Mormon history that we have. He’s, he’s amazing.

Scott Woodward:
Wow.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So I think under Mark’s tutelage, I started thinking—the other thing, like, me and Gerrit Dirkmaat, who was working on it with me—you know, the academic understanding of it was sort of foreign to both of us. And Don Bradley came on board too, I think it was for, like, a year or something. And Don Bradley, he was like Mark Ashurst-McGee, and he was fully invested years before that, you know? But yeah, the Joseph Smith Papers is when it happened. And then we got involved in the essays and things like that, and it all took off from there.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. Very cool, very cool, well, we’re excited to ask you some questions today.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I want to start with a question about seer stones. Just how common were seer stones used by other people in Joseph Smith’s New England culture? There’s, like, this girl down the street, Sally Chase, who seems to have one. We hear about others that have them. That’s kind of the first part of the question, and then second part is when did the use of seer stones kind of die off in U.S. culture, and what about in church culture? When was that no longer a thing?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, that’s a good question. Like, I think the answer automatically you want to say, “Well, Joseph Smith’s time, this was a predominant culture that he just participated in.” Like, we have the tendency to want to make it, like, normalize it really quickly.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I think in general, so there’s been several articles that have been written about this in the broader American antebellum scene, and it demonstrates that this is an esoteric culture.

Scott Woodward:
Meaning what?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Meaning that it isn’t widespread. So for example, like, would you have a leader that’s been elected or a civic leader, someone who is publicly recognized, would they be using a seer stone? And the answer is very much likely “No.” They wouldn’t be able to have, like, a public presence if they were using it. So it’s a kind of Christian folklore, so an average Christian might buy into the use of a seer stone for something. So things like, especially in an agrarian culture, water witching, which has made its way all the way to modern agricultural culture.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, people still do that today, right?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah. So when it comes to, like, an utter rejection of it, that certainly is the case in certain areas of society. For Joseph Smith, though, when you think about a local culture, which, like, his ability to tap into a national culture and mimic the norms that are—that a civic leader might have is less likely. So his local environment, his local culture actually does have, it’s pretty common that we have lots of examples of individuals using seer stones, but it still isn’t rampantly being done. It isn’t the common practice.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And so that’s probably worth thinking about, like, is he doing this just because it is actually the way that one would imagine scripture being produced? Well, the answer to that is “No.” Like, in a Protestant culture, for scripture to be produced would be heretical, right? So that’s this position that we’re in.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Now that being said, the culture continues because it emerges in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, but it still isn’t even common in the church. You don’t have lots of church members using seer stones. You have the occasional use of seer stones, and then eventually Brigham Young, of course, speaks out against it, and you get a serious decline from the small number of people who are actually—

Scott Woodward:
Uh-huh.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Like, for example, the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum, they actually have two seer stones from bishops.

Scott Woodward:
For real?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah! You know, in the 19th century, bishops aren’t very common. There are very few people. So you have an example of high leadership in the church using seer stones, but it still is not common in the church or out of the church.

Scott Woodward:
Whoa. So do we know more about those bishops using seer stones? Are they doing that to, like, discern who should serve in callings, or like, what are they—what are they using seer stones for?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, yeah, they’re using it for revelation. Like, Heber C. Kimball is the one we have, like, some of the most examples of after Joseph Smith. You know, he’s water witching, he’s divining revelation, things like that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And so, especially with, like, the onset, the—the rise of secularism versus religion, where you have, like, a category in society that becomes distinctly different than religion. It’s not like it doesn’t produce morals and ethics, but the secularism that emerges in the 19th century categorizes and makes things normal or not normal. And so religious practices in a secular environment are seen as less normal. And so the normalization and the development of secularism in the 19th century eventually pushes off some of these religious practices.

Scott Woodward:
Interesting.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
But religious practices is what we want. I’m not looking for a secular world. If I’m a religious person, which I am, I am looking for that which can’t be explained. And so I’m—I’m very moved by this. I’m moved by the fact that Joseph Smith is turning to the miraculous instead of, like, actually translating Egyptian. What? That’s not very likely. If someone told me Joseph actually translated, I would say, “I doubt it.” But the fact of the matter is you get this remarkable book that is consistently demanding that there isn’t an explanation.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, it—clearly he used seer stones, and then the product of that was the Book of Mormon somehow, right? And—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And you’re saying we should bring back seer stones, is that correct, or?

*all laugh*

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I think that would be cool. Yeah, but—

*all laugh*

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I’m not sure that’s gonna happen. But if there was another remarkable and miraculous way that God was delivering a message to us, I would find that appealing, yes.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And if it came through seer stones, or it came through, like—like, a handkerchief that healed the sick, or like a basket of bread that was bottomless that fed the poor. If you think I’m gonna turn away from that as a religious person, that’s where you’re crazy. The fact that I would—I would try to uncover, like I would scientifically or somehow, like, take the miracle of the bottomless bread basket and want to unravel it so that we could maybe even reproduce it and capitalize on it. I’d be like, “Hey, I’m done with whatever you’re doing.”

Scott Woodward:
Let the miracle be the miracle.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah. I am distinctly a religious person, so I’m looking for the miracle as not just legitimate, but as the way of life.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
No, it’s the miraculous side of the seer stones that kind of is attractive to you. Is that fair to say?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yes.

Scott Woodward:
So, now, can I ask a follow-up question?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
You mentioned that you’re not so sure that Joseph could translate Egyptian, right? Whether we’re talking about Book of Mormon, Reformed Egyptian, or the papyrus later on.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yes.

Scott Woodward:
And yet he—he insists on the word “translate,” but we use that word, he uses that word differently than others in his day, a secular use of or definition of the word “translate.” So are there any problems with us continuing to use the word “translation,” or is this just certain ways that we ought to think about translation as it pertains to Joseph Smith?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, this seems like a good place to start. Whoever asked that question was, I think, on to something there.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Like, when you start thinking about this, like—so Joseph Smith differentiates between the revelation that he gets. He doesn’t just call it all revelation. He specifically chooses things that are translation, like the Book of Abraham or the Book of Mormon. Like even revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants—so Doctrine and Covenants is revelation. And so, specifically, Joseph Smith is choosing the language and has a maintenance of the kind of language that he’s using there. And yet, we’re talking about revelation anyways. And so I think there’s a marker in the sand here. The word “translation” has to have some sort of meaning. And the differentiation between normal revelation and revelation that’s considered translation are two different things. So the term “translation” is in fact a demand that Joseph Smith is making about the historicity of these texts. He’s demanding that the historicity of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham are being identified through the word and use of the concept of translation, even though he’s not translating.

Scott Woodward:
Interesting. So you’d say that translation is a subcategory of the broader umbrella term of revelation, that Joseph Smith is on purpose calling it something distinct from the rest of the kind of revelations he receives in order to point to the historicity of these texts?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So you—you’d categorize it as a type of revelation that transmits ancient text to us in our language mediated by revelation, something like that.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, using the word “translation” demands that there is a historicity of a previous text. The term “translation,” it’s—it’s hard to disconnect it from a claim to historicity.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And that Joseph Smith is consistently doing it and differentiating it from revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants, that’s—it’s just a simple point. And I think that’s why he does it. And it doesn’t mean that he’s actually doing the translation.

Scott Woodward:
Interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think in one of your many things you’ve written on this, you suggested that when Joseph Smith reaches out or sends Martin Harris to contact those scholars, it may have been a legitimate attempt at traditional translation, right?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And then he gives up on that—

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—and realizes the only way to actually carry out the work is this inspired, revelatory translation. Is that fair to say?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah. I think this is interesting, like going back to the idea of the relationship between the secular and the religious that’s emerging very distinctly in 19th century religion and America. In this case, like, the distinction here is that Joseph Smith actually deals with the secular answer. So, like, “Well, can this be translated?” And he was convinced enough by the visit from Harris to Mitchell and others, that, like, this is something that could be translated by scholars. And I think that gave Joseph Smith confidence. It certainly gave Martin Harris confidence.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Martin Harris had every reason to bail at—at any given point, you know?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And so the idea of, “How convincing are secular answers?” Well, to Joseph Smith and Martin Harris, they’re convincing.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Now, the question of whether they did a secular translation, they admittedly say, “We did not.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Saying, “I translated by the gift and power of God” is a very clear marker that they did not translate.

Scott Woodward:
Mm. Interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Let’s move on to another question, because this is one I’m anxious for you to answer, and I’ll just read it the way one of our listeners submitted it. They wrote, “In the last decade there has been much to-do made about how Joseph translating the Book of Mormon by not only using the Nephite interpreters that came with the plates but also one of his seer stones. But from the historical record, Joseph and Oliver, the ones who knew best, always seemed to almost exclusively refer to the Nephite interpreters as the instrument of translation, at least in their firsthand accounts. Testimonies of Joseph translating with a single stone don’t seem to show up until the 1870s to 1880s from Emma Smith, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris. How big of a deal is it that these single-stone sources are quite late, and how should we think about that? And why do you think Joseph and Oliver never mentioned the single stone if it was used significantly in the translation process?”

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Isn’t this an interesting question? Like, this is the question of the internal battle. So now you have, like, a whole bunch of people who are sold on the kind of miraculous translation. So Latter-day Saints now saying, “Well, wait a minute. It couldn’t have happened that way. It has to happen this way. This question is a question about the analysis of documents as the evidence to demonstrate whether he was using one item or the other item to receive the translation on. And that’s a pretty narrow, like we have to have had, we had to have made about a thousand assumptions to get to the point of this question, right? And I think that’s, like to narrow it down and to begin to analyze this in real terms, now I obviously think that’s totally wrong.

I think individuals like us to engage in this debate and come to some conclusion and demonstrate that the other one is wrong. I’m not really in the fight like that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I think it’s remarkable that individuals are perpetuating an answer that it has to be the Nephite interpreters as if I would be offended about that. Like, it sounds like a pretty cool argument. Like, if they were the Nephite interpreters, that sounds pretty cool. And so my position on this is I obviously think that’s totally wrong. I’ve written about this for 10 years now, and I disagree with those writing about that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I think the Book of Mormon is the best evidence against this.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, interesting. So tell us why.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
For one, like the Nephite interpreters, they’re obviously in the Book of Mormon. I think it starts with Mosiah the first, this is what I write in Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones, and then they’re passed down to Mosiah the second, you end up with Helaman, and they—they just keep passing down in this prophetic line. Now, that’s pretty cool. So they’re all using, and it’s described as two stones. That’s what the Nephite interpreters are. The Book of Mormon text is very clear about this. Two stones in a bow. I don’t know what that really means. So you’ve got two stones. Okay, that’s my first evidence. So whether it’s one stone or two stones, like it seems like this is why we’re splitting hairs here.

Scott Woodward:
Uh-huh.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And then, as it’s described, like, they actually get those Nephite interpreters, according to Joseph Smith, right? So he ends up with the Nephite interpreters, not a Urim and Thummim, not a biblical device, but a Nephite translation device.

Scott Woodward:
Which he later calls “Urim and Thummim,” probably to speak to a broader biblical culture, correct?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, and it’s pretty clear when that actually become[s] institutionalized. So in 1835 you see all of the Doctrine and Covenants sections, every place that said “stone” or “interpreters” is changed over to Urim and Thummim by the 1835 version of the Doctrine and Covenants. So you can see it kind of working through, which gives you an association with Nephite interpreters, biblical interpreters, and also these seer stones that Joseph Smith possesses, you know?

Scott Woodward:
Okay.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And so you have an item, some sort of item that Joseph Smith is receiving the translation of something on or revelation through.

Scott Woodward:
Uh-huh.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So this is the biggest evidence here for me, is differentiating between them is an interesting historical sort of activity, but it’s, I don’t know that it’s in the end that meaningful to say “It had to be this one or it had to be that one.” And this is where I think individuals start splitting the evidence, and they’re like, “Well, I think it’s this one or I think it’s that one.” And I’ve done some of that, and part of the reason I’ve done that is, like, the statement that that caller had where he says “Oh, none of these happened until 1870,” that’s just flat-out not true at all. Martin Harris has very early sources. You know, some of his most explicit ones come even before Nauvoo. He has them after. Martin Harris has a consistency of these remarks, and then you also have traditions through, like for example, the tradition of Oliver Cowdery. The very first one where you get him and his head in a hat with the seer stone is 1830. Like, it’s one of the earliest sources where you have the Shaker visit. And in that Shaker visit, you get a very explicit, on-the-ground description of these, like, seer stones or seer stone in a hat, so to argue that all the early sources were interpreters is just not true.

Scott Woodward:
Gotcha.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Oliver Cowdery is also doing that. Oliver Cowdery also perpetuates the idea of the single seer stone. So traditionally now, Oliver Cowdery is the one that wants to go get the seer stone or identifies the seer stone with the Whitmers. And so you have this long tradition where the Brighamites then connect themselves and want to get the seer stone also, and so to say that Oliver Cowdery or Joseph Smith are outside of this is crazy. There’s no explicit propositional statement that they want out of this. That’s pretty close to true. Yet you have this long tradition which I would refuse to ignore. And I’m still confused why they want it not to be a seer stone, but they want it to be two seer stones that were delivered by Moroni. Like, the very notion behind it is problematic for me. I really don’t get why they want it to be that way.

Scott Woodward:
Was there any sort of stigma early on, do you think, that Joseph and Oliver were trying to avoid, because I—like, most of their statements do mention the Urim and Thummim or the Nephite interpreters. Was there some sort of an effort to distance themselves from, like, common scrying or glass-looking or anything like that, that one seer stone might have a stigma, whereas the two that came with the plates may not? I mean, is there any reality to that?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
That’s possible because of Mormonism Unveiled. Mormonism Unveiled perpetuates one single seer stone.

Scott Woodward:
And what is Mormonism Unveiled for some of our listeners who might not know what Mormonism Unveiled is?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Mormonism Unveiled is probably the best anti-Mormon book ever written. Like, almost every anti-Mormon trope comes from that book.

Scott Woodward:
It’s the OG.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
It is the og of disrespecting Latter-day Saint belief and custom, so.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Can I ask you a follow-up question? You mentioned Oliver goes to the Whitmers to get the seer stone. Is that after he comes back into the church, or what’s the time frame there?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So the tradition goes that, so David Whitmer tells this story, too. So Oliver Cowdery was supposed to have gotten [Joseph’s] seer stone. David Whitmer, he describes that [Joseph] gives Oliver Cowdery one of his seer stones. And it’s that tradition where Oliver Cowdery actually is given one of them, so when Oliver Cowdery dies, he is in possession of a seer stone.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s the brown one that is in the JSP volumes.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
It’s the brown or the white one. There’s arguments for both of those.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm. OK.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I mean, I have my opinion, but I don’t think the evidence is good enough.

Scott Woodward:
OK, so wait: Let’s pause for a second. So Joseph Smith had, total, how many seer stones? Like, he had a white one, he had a brown one. Are there any others, or?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
He definitely had a white one, a brown one, and then—like, in the back of Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones there’s some that were, like, speculated, so I’ve put them in there.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Some say like the green stone.

Scott Woodward:
Green stone.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I don’t know that there’s really evidence for that, but.

Scott Woodward:
OK, so for sure a white one and for sure a brown one.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, I think that’s, I think the green one’s created from people in the 20th century trying to sell it, you know?

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So Oliver Cowdery got a seer stone from Joseph Smith. And this is supposed to be part of where Oliver Cowdery was going to translate like Joseph. And he participates in a lot of the translation process, or at least some of them. And so he gets the seer stone, and he possesses it.

Scott Woodward:
So is this, like, circa D&C 6, 7, and 8 and 9? Like that era?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Well, he—he gets it once the church is organized.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, OK.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So he gets, he’s actually given one of Joseph Smith’s seer stones, and we get this in a letter in which Brigham Young finds out about the seer stone, or he knows about the seer stone. And so we have a letter that—that says, “Yes, that seer stone is extant.” And Oliver Cowdery dies, and so Phineas Young goes and gets the seer stone from Oliver Cowdery’s wife.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is Elizabeth Whitmer, right?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Elizabeth, yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And so Elizabeth has the seer stone, and then we have documented letters on the ground that Phineas Young went and got it, and the Whitmers are angry because Brigham Young has it, but Brigham Young wanted it because it was Joseph Smith’s seer stone. And so, like, all of that actually has a lot of historical evidence to demonstrate that there is a single seer stone. Joseph possessed it. He gave it to Oliver Cowdery. Oliver Cowdery died. He gave it to Phineas Young. Phineas Young gives it to Brigham Young, and Brigham Young makes a speech that he got it in Utah. So we have a Journal of Discourse[s] speech where Brigham Young says, “I have Joseph Smith’s Seer Stone.”

Scott Woodward:
So that’s pretty solid provenance.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s a pretty brief provenance, yeah. And this provenance is all about that brown seer stone that shows up in the JSP volumes.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mike, as someone that worked on the JSP volumes, was there controversy as to putting a photograph of that brown seer stone into those books?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Because the JSP’s seen as authoritative by most church members.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, we—like, we wanted for D1, which had the translation in it, for Documents Volume 1, we put up a request and did a lot of work on provenance to say, “You know, this is part of the Joseph Smith volume. Like, it’s the production of text.” And as part of that volume, we asked for it, and they didn’t feel like it was the right timing, but they, at that point, you know, there was enough evidence that we had produced anyways that they had it, that, you know, it was taken seriously. And then once they decided to do the printer’s manuscript, they asked again. And the decision was to actually take a picture of it. And so—still, I never saw it. Like, I think it’s a sacred item. I think it’s a kind of relic that should be treated with sacredness. Like for me, you know the handkerchief, Joseph’s handkerchief in the museum?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, the big, red one?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
For me, it’s a hard pass. I don’t think—like, someone who values the, the sacrality of something like that, I’d prefer not to put it out on display. Now, that’s with some thought. I think originally I thought, “Oh, we need to show the seer stone.” But you know, like 10, 12 years on, my religious side wants to think, “Well, let’s treat this more like a sacred relic instead of like a—a museum piece. Like, I want it to be religious. This isn’t just some historical adventure or adventure in provenance.

Scott Woodward:
And just for any listeners who are wondering what in the world, the handkerchief is all about, that was not involved in the translation process: There were stones, there was a hat, yes, but the handkerchief, that’s a Nauvoo story. Yeah, that’s—there’s someone, he’s got sick twins across the river, comes to Joseph.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Joseph Smith can’t go and—and give a blessing to these sick infant twins, so he gives his handkerchief to Wilford Woodruff.

Scott Woodward:
That’s it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Wilford Woodruff takes it, and actually, Wilford Woodruff, I think, treats it as a relic, it’s fair to say.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There are several times in his journal when he mentions giving a blessing and then putting the handkerchief on them because he believed it had sacred powers.

Scott Woodward:
And those kids were healed when he wiped their faces with the handkerchief, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And I think he said he kept it as something of—of a league between him and Joseph, right? It was a tie, a physical symbol of their bond, which is cool. So.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And so, like at some level, like this handkerchief that’s being passed off and healing people through the power of God is literally one of those religious moments that should be wondered about, should be thought about, should be valued.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And by turning it just into a handkerchief, I think that’s part of the secularization process. Maybe that’s a little bit too philosophical, but I think that makes sense to people. Like, so in the last podcast, I heard you guys talking about—you explain that it’s [the translation is] done in 60 days, or I think it—isn’t it 56, his latest one?

Scott Woodward:
About 60, I think he says, yeah, about 60.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
About 60 days, and that’s pretty cool. That’s a very interesting fact. And it’s actually a piece of secular evidence that would demonstrate that he couldn’t have done that.

Scott Woodward:
Right. I think that’s the point, yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So it’s an evidentiary piece of work that demonstrates a miracle. Doesn’t that seem strange to you, that I’m producing evidence that it was a miracle?

Scott Woodward:
Well, doesn’t it push against—I mean, we have to use the categories that are at our disposal, right? We have to say, like, “Well, what do you mean it’s a miracle?” And say, “Well, we can’t explain it.” “Well, what do you mean we can’t explain it?” “Well, it was done in 60 days. He’s only 23, and it’s got all these complex Hebraisms and stuff. Like, how do you explain that except to say it’s a miracle?” I mean, I think it’s nice to have the secular ideas to push against in order to define what is miraculous and what is not, right? If it cannot be explained by secular means, then I think we can say that’s kind of smacking up against the miraculous, don’t you think?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I like this discussion. I think it’s the right discussion to have. So secularism isn’t, like, in opposition to religion.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
It’s actually in juxtaposition to religion. Now, that being said, like, they also produce their own kinds of norms and morals and ethics, and those normative realities that secularism produces creates tools to analyze things in the secular world.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I would demand that if we’re really looking at religion, I would think that we would need, outside of comparisons, like what you said, I thought that was a very good answer.

Scott Woodward:
Thank you.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Outside of comparisons, to say you’re different, I would suppose the tools that we possess should be different.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm. Because it’s un-demonstrable, like it defies demonstration, particularly in the case of the Book of Mormon, like—and we went the rounds two weeks ago, in our episode two weeks ago, just saying, “Listen, it’s inexplicable, un-demonstrable. Like, how else this could have been done but through miraculous means? But there I am again using secularism and pushing against that to say and to suggest the miraculous.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Come on, be honest with me: Do you believe the Book of Mormon is true because of chiasmus?

Scott Woodward:
I think it’s compelling. I think my mind is compelled by the complexity of that and the beauty of that. I think it’s something that needs to be dealt with. Like, if someone wants to not believe in the Book of Mormon, like, you probably can’t slough that off. If someone wants to believe in the Book of Mormon, I’d say that’s probably not sufficient to go on, but it’s pretty awesome. It’s like, it’s a factor in the complex universe of testimony.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’d say stuff like chiasmus is the icing on the cake, right? But it’s not the primary substance of where our belief comes from. It comes from, like you said, a spiritual witness, because those secular arguments towards the Book of Mormon are helpful. They are. They genuinely helped me when I was exploring the Book of Mormon and gaining my testimony. But they’re frosting. You know? They’re not going to be sustaining enough to keep a person there. It’s something that you’d look at and file under your, “That’s interesting” file, but probably wouldn’t affect or change your life. It’s something deeper, and like the words you’ve been using, “inexplicable,” if we’re trying to explain why we believe.

Scott Woodward:
Chiasmus is almost dumbfounding. It’s like, “How on earth did that get in the Book of Mormon right?” Joseph’s 23 in 1829 in America, where we don’t even know chiasmus, where that’s not something that people are aware of here yet. It’s dumbfounding, yeah. I think it does stand in the logic and reason part of my brain as like a lion in the path of trying to explain away the Book of Mormon through some secular logic.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s another question here that I’ve heard you talk about before, Mike, and I’d love to have our listeners hear from you. The question that one of our listeners submitted was, “Do you see any way to reconcile the two main theories about how Joseph Smith produced the English Book of Mormon: Tight translation, where Joseph is seeing and reading directly from the stones with little to no volition, versus loose translation, where Joseph sees or receives the general ideas non-verbally or pre-verbally and has high volition to compose the text and using his own words?” So I’ve heard you talk before about that dichotomy of loose translation versus tight translation. This person asks, “After having examined the evidence, how do you come down on this? And do you take a side, or do you have a reconciliatory third option?”

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
First of all, like, Royal Skousen has done so much for Book of Mormon studies and, like, using tight and loose has become, like, a real language that we use to talk about it. So I appreciate this. I think it’s—it’s part of, like, this Latter-day Saint culture of trying to identify the value of scriptural text at this point, you know? And, now, here’s my position on this. I think the problem that comes in with Skousen’s model is choosing one.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Like, I’ve had this discussion with quite a few other colleagues here. Like, when they read the text, there’s parts of it that they want to argue that read as if it’s a direct, absolute translation. It appears ancient. And then there’s other places that don’t appear ancient, right? The text isn’t even across the whole of the text. And so making a blanket statement, like I think it’s all tight translation is more like a statement saying, “I know God is the Translator, therefore I trust every word in here is what God wanted it to be.” That’s not really tight translation. In fact, God could have, in a concept of translation, it could have been a religious translation where he was translating what was written on the gold plates to relate to a 19th century readership in exact terms of that translation for them to get a religious meaning out of it that was originally embedded on the plates and then in the text of the Book of Mormon.

Scott Woodward:
Which doesn’t, one way or another, disprove either side, does it? Because it could be tight translation and still be malleable, or it could be loose and be malleable, correct?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, that’s getting at why choosing one of those categories—they’re just thinking categories. They’re not a position one takes. And that’s why, you know, thinking through them is fun. Like, you think about the tight translation, what one might mean and what one might not mean. I think that Skousen has given us a great model there.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
But he also doesn’t say, “and don’t complicate these.” That’s not what Skousen is saying. And so my take on it is simple. Like, I think there is a kind of tight translation as a devotional practice, but I’m also very curious about why God translated parts of it the way that he did and wonder if it represents the original exactly. I don’t think it ever exactly, but…

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, one of our colleagues, Stefan Tager, he likes instead to use the term “tight dictation,” saying that God’s translating loosely, but Joseph is getting a tight dictation from God, calculated to a 19th-century audience.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Another kind of variation of this theme.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Interesting. Well, for any listeners that want to dig deeper into this, we’ll put in the show notes—Grant Hardy just published a great article summarizing all of this with the complexity of it on both sides, great scholars on both sides. And now you’ve heard another great scholar with his thoughts on this. That’s super cool. Thank you, Mike, for that. Let me go to another question that you kind of touched on, I want to dig deeper on. Another listener asked this: “Is there any good evidence to help us understand Joseph’s reasons for considerable revisions made in the second edition” was that 1837? “and to some extent the third edition” was that 1840, maybe? “of the Book of Mormon.” Like, do we know why Joseph revised? Did he ever give reasons, or do you have any hypotheses for the the purposes behind his revisions?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I imagine, and even with the translation of the Bible—this is, like, an old theory that—Robert Matthews favored this in his book, but—this idea that he saw this vision and—and it was actually his opinion, he felt as if he knew what happened. He knew the broader understanding of what was going on, and so that’s what he did with the Bible translation where he’s—he’s adjusting it according to what was more accurate according to what he saw. And if all-seeing visions are like the vision of Nephi, where he actually sees Jesus in the stable, it’s, like, a vision of the stable, and he sees Jesus on the cross in this all-seeing vision, I think it’s fun to think through this as the concept. Like, in 1837, is—is Joseph to the point where he feels as if he gets what happened and he’s adjusting the text according to what he believes God has revealed to him? I imagine whether it’s his all-seeing vision, he definitely feels confident enough to make changes in 1837.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, that doesn’t seem like he feels like that’s out of bounds at all in terms of his prerogative as a prophet. Like, he can do that.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I feel like in 1837, correct me if I’m wrong, he’s just taking out a ton of, “and it came to passes,” clarifying instead of, like, Mary being the mother of God, Mary is the “mother of the Son of God.” Maybe that’s where “pure and delightsome” is changed in 1837.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It doesn’t seem like there’s major, major changes happening. It seems almost to, like, update the text to make it more readable. Some of the grammar is being tweaked to maybe—with some of the Pratt brothers giving him feedback, all that kind of stuff. Is that fair? Or is there more to the changes that you see might be connected to some of this panoptic visions that Joseph has had?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I mean, it’s—the reason I go there is the question is does Joseph feel like he can just make it more grammatically correct, right? Is his engagement with the text more than just an editorial process where he’s like, “Oh, I actually think it reads better this way.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Which, certainly, maybe that’s some of it, and I think there’s some evidence for that. So my attempt here is to say something like, I think Joseph feels more than just, “I’m an editor.” He feels as if he is representing what God might represent from his prophetic position.”

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
And so I think with changes within these scriptures, I don’t want it just to be editorial, even though it can be that because they feel as if editorial God wants them to change it. But I don’t think Joseph has lost the sense, nor do Latter-day Saints even up till now, that when there’s these adjustments that they don’t feel empowered by God to do them.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Cool. Well, this is fun. I’m going to go to another question here. Someone asked, “There are sometimes some who claim that Joseph was assisted by the co-translators in writing what amounts to scriptural fan fiction. What’s your read of the historical evidence in favor or against this?” Two episodes ago we went through Brian Hales’s article going through the various naturalistic theories on Book of Mormon production. If it wasn’t miraculous, then how do we explain it through some secular means? I think this is a variation on that. What do you want to say about this, Mike? Your read of the historical evidence? Any co-translators, co-conspirators, co-writers with Joseph?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So someone helping him do it, right? So whether Solomon Spaulding or Oliver Cowdery or Sidney Rigdon?

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I don’t think there’s any good evidence. That—that’s the short answer. The issue with that is that Oliver Cowdery and Sydney Rigdon in particular, who were the closest to him—like, if those two helped him write it or were co-authors or collaborators or—or the author of the Book of Mormon and they had more time to do it—

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
—they both were disassociated from Joseph Smith in ways that they actively tried to disregard some of the things that he did.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Even that he was a prophet, like, both of them at points were questioning that.

Scott Woodward:
That he was maybe a fallen prophet, right?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, a fallen prophet. So in those moments, you would imagine that if they wrote the Book of Mormon, they might have said that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, those would have been opportune moments for them to kick or to push back against Joseph.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Okay. Well, here’s another one. “Why do you think Joseph himself, the one who knew the most about the translation process, why didn’t he offer many details about it?” There was this one, like, perfect moment. They were in, like, this church council.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Hyrum’s there. Hyrum says, “Joseph, why don’t you tell us how the Book of Mormon was translated?” And with a perfect setup, bump set, all Joseph had to do was spike it, he said, ah, “It’s not expedient for me to relate these things. It’s not expedient that this generation should know at this time,” something like that.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Do you have a theory on why Joseph wouldn’t share or why the Lord didn’t want him to share the details? I mean, here we are speculating. This could have been a much shorter series if we just had Joseph himself just telling us exactly how it worked.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Why do you think there’s some caution around that?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I think with, like, some document analysis of that 1832 Hyrum conference that you’re talking about—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
You can tell that they’ve shifted the topic. They weren’t talking about that. This was a side conversation, and Joseph Smith wants to move back to what they were doing. So we have pretty tight minutes of that meeting, and they capture that, and Joseph Smith moves back. I don’t think Joseph Smith is saying, “I’m never going to tell you guys how I translated the Book of Mormon.” Like, it appears that, from Emma and Martin Harris, they saw it, and there’s also other records of people who didn’t see it that are getting the story from Joseph Smith. So I’m not sure that’s a good enough piece of evidence to say that Joseph Smith never, ever said anything.

Scott Woodward:
Gotcha. It was his way of saying, “Let’s get back on topic. That’s a distracting question, Hyrum. Let’s go back to what we were talking about.”

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, he’s avoiding the topic because they’re in the middle of a conference and someone changed the topic.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, interesting.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
I mean, you can go read those minutes on Joseph Smith website, but that’s the way I think is the right way to read that passage.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
We could debate about that, but I think that’s the right way to read it.

Scott Woodward:
Gotcha.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Go back to that question again, Scott. What was the question? I think I wanted to say something else.

Scott Woodward:
OK. Why did Joseph feel guarded about sharing the details? Was there some reason you think that he was guarded about that?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, I think the other part of this, and I think—like, imagine, like, what—Joseph Smith experiencing the translation. It’s this miraculous occurrence where words appear on the seer stone.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So that’s, like, a brief demonstration of what’s going on. And the real phenomenological question to ask there is, “Is that occurring in his head? Is it occurring on the stones?” Like, Mark Ashurst-McGee, in his master’s dissertation, dealt with this 25 years ago. But the experience, what this demonstrates is the experience that Joseph Smith had. He must have, and I think there’s evidence, that he struggled how to tell people about it. No matter what, when you’re saying, “I saw words on a seer stone, and I read them out,” and at what level and how much is Joseph unsure what’s happening?

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
So there’s a lot of psychological questions there, and it goes back to the question, “How do you describe a miracle like that?”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Are you likely to give great details when you don’t feel you can express some of them? I think all of those questions have to be asked when you wonder why Joseph Smith—there aren’t a ton of records of Joseph Smith writing down what happened.

Scott Woodward:
His favorite way to say it was, “gift and power of God.” That’s how it happened, right?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And that’s an interesting thought, that maybe he himself couldn’t fully explain it. Maybe if you said, “Yeah, but, like, how did it work?” He might say, “I don’t know, exactly.”

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Which then turns Oliver Cowdery’s, Martin Harris’s, and Emma’s witnesses into the very first theory of translation.

Scott Woodward:
Meaning what?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Meaning that they sat there and watched him do it and then made sense of what they saw. Everyone else past that has their concept and theory of translation, but we value those three individuals’ witnesses because they’re the ones that saw it and are making sense of it. And they’re likely asking Joseph what’s going on. We don’t have any direct record of that conversation, but…

Scott Woodward:
Hmm. Interesting. You make us think. I love it. Well done. Well done.

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Thanks.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mike, for our last question, we just want to ask: You’re bright, you’re good, you’re honest. What makes you a believer in the prophetic mission of Joseph Smith and the core claims of the Restoration?

Michael Hubbard Mackay:
Yeah, that’s a good question. As a teacher at BYU, I get a chance to sort of think through this a lot. Students are always wondering what is it that makes you believe. And I think the character of Joseph Smith himself is one of the key factors for me. I think his ability to go through so much and—and have a maintenance of the things that he saw. Like, at some given point, you know, giving up on them would be an option. It’d be a lot easier. And I think his character alone puts me in a—a place where I can have a genuine interest, a space where I can consider the things that he’s claiming. And so it’s important for me to get into the belief in the Restoration through the person who’s restoring these things, and so I’m earnestly investigating the Restoration because I have a kind of trust in him automatically. Now, that being said the things that are that are being delivered, like the the world that he creates, it’s not just a church. It’s not just an institution. It’s a world that he creates and that survives even today. A space where, like, my experience of the restoration often comes when, like, I get my 16-year-old, and we visit an old lady, and we bring her food and we shovel other people’s walks in the—in the winter. We build a family. We come together with a community of people who are usually pretty different than us. And it’s created this unbelievable world for me that fosters a need to help the poor, a moral system that enables me to be honest even when it’s easy not to be. It creates relationships that have been unbelievably life-changing, and it’s endowed me with a belief that I can come together with everybody. Like, I can be a part of God’s plan that he’s created. And so maybe Joseph Smith just restored a bunch of ideas and some scripture. Those are remarkable in themselves. But for me, these ideas come together in a very real world, a world that has shaped my life and made me into a good person. Well, as good as a person that God could possibly make out of me. And that shape that my life has come under and become is because of the Restoration. And so the experience of God has come through the Restoration for me. And when I live that Restoration authentically, I am my very best self. And I find God the most often in that. And so this isn’t, like, a deductive model, “and so Joseph Smith is a prophet.” This model is me saying, “I live in the world that Joseph Smith restored, and that world has enabled me to be good and to find God.” That’s why I believe.

Scott Woodward:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. For more on Dr. Michael MacKay’s scholarship on the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, we highly recommend beginning with his book co-authored with Gerrit Dirkmaat, entitled From Darkness Unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon. Today’s episode was produced and edited by Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.