The Gold Plates and the Translation of the Book of Mormon

According to Joseph Smith’s later accounts, three years after he experienced his first vision of Deity, an angel appeared to him in 1823 and told him of an ancient record written on gold plates. He explained that he retrieved the plates from a hillside in upstate New York in 1827 and thereafter translated them with help from several scribes. In 1830, the translation was published as the Book of Mormon.

Over the course of his life, Joseph Smith wrote, dictated, or assigned others to prepare documents that included information about how the Book of Mormon came to be. Some of his contemporaries who heard him recount these events also wrote them down. The following list identifies detailed accounts of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and other related documents found on the Joseph Smith Papers website. The list is divided into three categories: detailed accounts from Joseph Smith, other Joseph Smith documents that give partial accounts of or mention these events, and accounts written by his contemporaries.

For further discussion on the Book of Mormon and the translation process, see the “Joseph Smith Documents Dating through June 1831.” For a compilation of accounts on the coming forth of the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith and his contemporaries, see John W. Welch, “The Miraculous Translation of the Book of Mormon,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, (Second Edition), ed. John W. Welch (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2017), 78–227.

Detailed Joseph Smith Accounts

History, circa Summer 1832, 4–6

Journal, 9–11 Nov. 1835 (later copied into JS History, 1834–1836, 121–122)

History, 1838–1856, vol. A-1, 4–26, 34–35

An earlier, incomplete draft of this account is found in History, circa June–October 1839, [1]–[7], [9].

Two later, lightly edited drafts of this account are found in History, circa 1841, draft, 5–48, 61–62; and History, circa 1841, fair copy, 5–48, 60–61.

“Church History,” Times and Seasons, 1 Mar. 1842 (also found in the 1844 essay “Latter Day Saints,” in Israel Daniel Rupp (ed.), He Pasa Ekklesia [The whole church])

Detailed Accounts by Contemporaries of Joseph Smith

Oliver Cowdery letters published in the Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1834–July 1835, copied in Joseph Smith’s 1834–1836 history, 47–48 (recounting Cowdery’s experience assisting with the translation), 62–65 (recounting the angel’s visit), 81–99 (detailing the discovery of the plates).

Orson Pratt, A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, 6–14, 22–23, providing an overview of the Book of Mormon’s origins.

Orson Hyde, Ein Ruf aus der Wüste [A cry out of the wilderness], 17–30 (modern English translation here), providing an overview of the Book of Mormon’s origins.

Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, providing many details about these events: bk. 3, [10]–bk. 4, [3]; bk. 5, [5]–bk. 9, [4]; bk. 9, [6]–[12]

A later draft of this material is found in Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845, 79–89, 103–168