Remember the New Covenant, Even the Book of Mormon

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Joseph Smith

Today we will speak of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon - its characteristics and importance!

The appearance of Moroni

What did Joseph Learn from this vision/manifestation?

Is this a complete account of the vision? No! (vs 41)

The very next day - the angel comes again!

What do we learn from this experience of Joseph?
Why was he so exhausted?

Was it just one night without sleep?

Why didn't Joseph Get the Plates?

GOD knows the beginning from the end!

Recovery of the Plates

No account exists detailing everything that transpired that night at the Hill Cumorah. From Joseph Smith’s own record, we know that Moroni met Joseph there and delivered the plates with the warning “that I should be responsible for them,” wrote the Prophet, “that if I should let them go carelessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off; but that if I would use all my endeavors to preserve them, … they should be protected” (JS—H 1:59). The Prophet’s mother, no doubt getting her information from Joseph, recorded Moroni’s words in greater detail:

“Now you have got the record into your own hands, and you are but a man, therefore you will have to be watchful and faithful to your trust, or you will be overpowered by wicked men, for they will lay every plan and scheme that is possible to get them away from you. And if you do not take heed continually, they will succeed. While they were in my hands I could keep them, and no man had power to take them away, but now I give them up to you. Beware, and look well to your ways, and you shall have power to retain them until the time for them to be translated.”

After receiving the plates at the hill, the Prophet hid them nearby in a hollow birch log whose tough bark had resisted the forces of decay better than the wood itself. Cutting a hole in the bark and peeling it back, he placed the plates in the cavity of the log thus exposed, then replaced the bark and “laid across the log in several places some old stuff that happened to lie near, in order to conceal, as much as possible, the place in which they were deposited.” ⁹ All this was apparently done in the absence of Emma, who presumably was waiting in the wagon nearby.

Emma and Joseph Go out together at night to get them: Sep 2015 Joseph Smith In Harmony - Elder Steven E Snow

The retrieval of the plates:

The Prophet Joseph Smith apparently went to retrieve the plates immediately after arranging for the chest with Hyrum. Considering all that had already transpired that day, it must have been well after noon by the time Joseph removed the plates from their hiding place in the log. Once they were out of the log, Joseph wrapped them in his linen frock and started for home along the Canandaigua road, the record tucked under his arm. Leaving the road after “a short distance” for the safety of the woods, he eventually came to a “large windfall” where several trees had blown down.  His mother wrote:

“As he was jumping over a log, a man sprang up from behind and gave him a heavy blow with a gun. Joseph turned around and knocked him to the ground, and then ran at the top of his speed. About half a mile further, he was attacked again in precisely the same way. He soon brought this one down also and ran on again, but before he got home, he was accosted the third time with a severe stroke with a gun.” 

Joseph struck this third and final attacker with such force that he dislocated his own thumb. He continued running, “being closely pursued until he came near his father’s house,” at which time his assailants, “for fear of being detected,” broke off the chase.  Reaching a fence corner, he “threw himself down … to recover his breath,” then rose and continued running until he reached the house. 

His mother and sister Catharine (or Katharine) were there when he came in. He “entered the house running,” the plates “clasped to his side with his left hand and arm, … his right hand … badly bruised from knocking down at least three men who had leaped at him from behind bushes or fences as he ran.”  “Panting for breath,” the Prophet reportedly allowed Catharine to take the plates from him. 

After regaining his strength, the Prophet asked his mother to have his father, Joseph Knight, and Josiah Stowell go in pursuit of his attackers, and also to have Hyrum bring the chest. Hyrum, as it turned out, had indeed located an appropriate chest but had neither emptied it of its contents nor remembered his appointment with Joseph. Having been reminded of his duty by Don Carlos, Hyrum quickly dumped the contents of the chest on the floor and left to find Joseph, the chest on his shoulder. His house guests—two of his wife’s sisters—were convinced by his sudden actions that he was “positively crazy.” After Hyrum arrived, Joseph immediately locked up the record and, after a further rest on the bed, met with his father and the others who had returned after an unsuccessful search for his assailants. Joseph told them all that had happened, then asked his father to put his dislocated thumb back into place. 

The use of Sorcery to find the plates

Notice the multiple movements

The Plates