Did Joseph believe that he
possessed scrolls written by Abraham and Joseph? Or did he simply make up a
fanciful story? Scholars cannot access the Book of Mormon plates, but some of
the Egyptian materials have been preserved. While they confirm that Joseph was
wrong about the contents of the scrolls, his Egyptian project wasn’t a
straightforward act of deception. The labor of creating notebooks, alphabets,
and the Grammar points to serious, if misguided, effort. Joseph could
have dictated a text in a much less arduous fashion, as he did with the Book of
Mormon. This time around he wanted to demonstrate his bona fides as a
translator, and he continued to tell people that he could interpret hieroglyphics.
