Work with such past texts was “usually associated with some kind of artifact - real or imagined - such as plates or parchment or papyri,” they write. Hauglid, explain that Smith drew a clear distinction between “revelation,” which he saw as a direct outpouring from God, and translation, “which was only used to recover the writings of ancient prophets.” In their introduction, Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee and Brian M. Indeed, Mormonism’s founder saw translation as one of the spiritual gifts mentioned by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, and, though other church leaders of the time were given the titles “prophets and seers,” Smith reserved the role of “translator” for himself, according to a new book of essays, “Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity.” (Rick Egan | Tribune file photo) Historian Richard Bushman speaks at Benchmark Books in Salt Lake City in 2018. To Smith, it was “a divine calling,” says Bushman, author of the acclaimed “ Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling,” “embedded in the providential working of history, in which one people’s prophets instruct the people of another time and place.” “Translation was one of the distinguishing eccentricities of Joseph Smith’s prophethood,” declares preeminent Smith biographer Richard Bushman, which the Latter-day Saint prophet saw as more than “a mechanical operation.” They are looking not just at that keystone scripture, but also at Smith’s other projects - including the Book of Abraham, and his so-called “ inspired” translation of the Bible. Now, some faithful Latter-day Saint scholars and respectful outside historians - laying aside the book’s historicity claims - have begun exploring Smith’s work as a translator. Smith simply said he translated it by “ the gift and power of God,” offering no details about what he experienced as he worked on it. It is scripture, to be read and reread by believers in more than a hundred languages. To members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the “coming forth” of the sacred text was not natural, but supernatural. There has never been a definitive naturalistic explanation for how the nearly 600-page Book of Mormon came to be. Was it plagiarism? Collusion with a co-author? Mental illness or auditory hallucinations? Or, as researcher Dan Vogel argues, brilliant fiction springing from Smith’s subconscious mind and childhood experiences? The whole project by a relatively unschooled and little-known young man was completed in about three months during the spring of 1829, leaving many questions in its wake. The church published photos of a small sacred stone it believes founder Joseph Smith used to help translate the Book of Mormon. 4, 2015, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church History Library, in Salt Lake City. (Rick Bowmer | AP photo) A picture of a smooth, brown, egg-sized rock is shown in the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon after a news conference Tuesday, Aug.
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