The ablest scholars can rarely make two translations precisely alike from any foreign language, for the idiomatic expressions of one tongue often find several equivalents in another, and when the translation has been made from hieroglyphics, in which a sign represents a sentence or a paragraph, the difficulty of obtaining two perfectly similar translations is proportionately increased. Joseph understood this. His soul was sick, and " the Lord," ever ready to aid the penitent, came to his assistance, denounced Martin Harris as "a wicked man," and revealed to the Prophet how the difficulty could be obviated.
In the revelation which he then received,[1] Joseph was informed that Satan had inspired Martin Harris and his friends to get possession of the manuscript, and that they had determined that, if his second translation differed from theirs, they would expose him, and say that he was an impostor and had only pretended to translate, and, should he make a perfect duplicate of the first, they would alter their copy, and so make him contradict himself. To circumvent all this, Joseph was instructed that among the plates a "Book of Nephi" existed, and that that would serve the purpose equally as well as the lost manuscript. Joseph obeyed the heavenly oracle, and thus the sacred volume now actually commences with the Book of Nephi, instead of the Book of Mormon as originally intended. In this way was lost that narrative which had been so carefully prepared by an ancient Judo-American prophet and engraver, under such very trying circumstances: a narrative which, according to Joseph, had been hidden up in the stone box at least twelve hundred years, until finally revealed by an angel of God for the salvation of the human family, and for the preservation of which Joseph had already suffered much persecution. Mrs. and Mr. Harris have much to answer for.
Some persons may have read the Book of Mormon through consecutively, but as a general thing, even among the Mormons, the foundation of their faith is never boasted of as being an interesting document. The substitution, therefore, of Nephi for a commencement, instead of that intended by "the Lord" but stolen by the devil, has not probably caused any irrelevancy nor cut the thread of the story if it ever had one.
- ↑ "Doctrine and Covenants," p. 169.
