On the Number of Pages in the Lost "Book of Lehi" and the Rate of Translation

In his recent anti-Mormon book, Robert Bowman wrote the following:

We know that in early 1828 he had dictated about 116 pages, which then became lost after Martin Harris (Joseph’s first main scribe) took the pages home to show to his fairly . . . one reason to suspect that the rate of translation in the spring of 1829 was not as miraculous as it might seem is that Joseph was unable to translate at a comparable rate in 1828. Joseph reportedly dictated about 116 pages to Martin Harris in just over two months (April 12 through June 13), less than two pages a day on average. Mormon scholars typically estimated that Joseph dictated at an average rate of seven or eight pages a day a year later (April 7 through July 1). What caused the difference? We do not know, but one possible factor is that Joseph had a clearer knowledge of the narrative he wished to dictate. Another possibility is that Oliver Cowdery, Joseph’s principal scribe in 1829 and a schoolteacher by profession, might have been of some help in producing the text. (Robert M. Bowman Jr., Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions: Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism [Tampa, Fla.: DeWard Publishing Company, 2020], 269)

Bowman’s acceptance of the traditional view of there being 116 pages produced by Joseph Smith that were lost was called into serious question by Don Bradley before Bowman’s book was published:

Don Bradley, Chapter 5: The Long Blue Lost Manuscript in The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2019), pp. 83-103.

One should pursue the chapter, as Bradley presents a good case that between 200-400 pages were produced initially by Joseph Smith, not 116. What Bowman should have done was interact with, and refute Bradley’s work on this topic, as he relies upon the 116 figure for his conspiracy theorizing that Oliver Cowdery “was in the know” of Joseph’s fraud and his comparison with the rate of translation before and after the missing pages, especially in light of the fact that, if Bradley is correct, Bowman’s argument was blown out of the water before the book was published! Hardly credible scholarship (like his bogus Temple of Solomon argument). For instance, Emer Harris, Martin Harris’ brother, told an audience in Provo, Utah, on April 6, 1856, that Martin was the scribe for “near 200 pages” of the initial Book of Mormon manuscript before it was lost, a time when the 116 figure was part of early LDS tradition, indicating that Emer knew Martin lost more than 116 (General Minutes, April 6, 1856, Provo Utah Central Stake).

As to the 116 figure, as Bradley notes the following about the preface to the 1830 Book of Mormon:

The preface Joseph added to the Printer’s manuscript was also where he introduced the description of the lost manuscript as 116 pages. Viewing that figure in context of the preface, and of the Printer’s Manuscript more broadly, raises questions about the figure’s adequacy.

The preface’s purpose of bridging the gap between Mormon and Nephi did not require an accurate page count. Even the most approximate description of the lost manuscript would have served the intended purpose. Given the preface’s hurried production and use of simplified stand-in information for the Book of Mormon’s actual complexity, it would not be surprising if the preface’s page tally served simply as a placeholder for the lost manuscript’s actual, and likely unknown, page count.

Examining the preface in context suggests that the figure was, in fact, such a placeholder. When this figure is put in the larger context of the manuscript in which it was introduced, a striking, almost certainly non-random coincidence emerges. The length Joseph gives for the lost manuscript happens to be the exact length of the manuscript that replaced it. When the Book of Mormon Printer’s Manuscript was prepared for publication, the length of the small text (1 Nephi through Words of Mormon) that substituted for the lost text came out to a full 116 pages, spilling over just two and a half lines onto page 117 (“Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, circa August 1829-circa January 1830”). This precise match between the replacement manuscript’s known page count and the lost manuscript’s reported page c count pages raises the question of just where Joseph acquired the 116-page figure. Given that the Book of Mormon describes the small plates narrative as a “small account” (W of M 1:3), it is improbable that both the initial manuscript and its abbreviated replacement would be the same length. (Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 89)

One should pursue the entire chapter to see the (IMO, strong) case Bradley makes. If Bradley is correct, Bowman’s arguments and conspiracy theorising were blown out of the water even before his book was published. What Bowman should have done was interact with, and refute, Bradley’s arguments, defending the traditional 116 figure so support his claims.

And if Bowman will pull the “well, Bradley’s book came out in late 2019,” so did Terryl Given’s The Pearl of Greatest Price, a book Bowman cites in his discussion of the reliability (or lack thereof) of Joseph Smith-History in the Pearl of Great Price.

Even allowing for the 116-page figure to be correct does not help Bowman's conspiracy theorizing; it only shows his ignorance of early LDS history. How so? As a friend wrote, "The translation of the Book of Lehi happened in Harmony, Pennsylvania where Joseph was obliged to work to support himself and Emma and was handicapped by not having a dedicated scribe (Emma, Reuben Hale, and Martin all scribed at this point in the translation). The whole point of moving to the Whitmer farm in Fayette, New York and getting Oliver (a schoolteacher with some training in printing) as a dedicated scribe was precisely to make the process go faster and more smoothly (Joseph didn’t have to be interrupted by working to support his family and had a dependable scribe to quickly take dictation)."