When I was in Utah four or five years ago, I listened to a radio host interview the "South Park" creators about their episode on Mormonism. By that time, I had come to terms with the fact that JS was wrong about polygamy and BY was wrong about race. I doubted the BOM's veracity, and felt certain that D&C was nonsense.

In listening to this interview, and later watching the South Park episode, I was struck by one thing: the focus on "The Lost Manuscript." With so much to choose from, Parker and Stone honed in on JS's claim that since he had lost the first book, he could re-tell the same story from Nephi's perspective instead of going back and re-translating (failing to reproduce) the Book of Lehi.

I felt that I was well-versed in Mormonism, and for me, it seemed odd to hone in on that story, instead of "the First Vision," the plagiarism of the Bible in the BOM, The Book of Abraham, polygamy, or so many other vulnerable doctrines. Why did they do it? I decided it was an attempt to avoid the heftier stories by focusing on one silly part of Mormonism.

After seeing the BOM Musical, I know that I was wrong.Anyone who would portray Mormon Jesus wearing a 24-inch penis is clearly unafraid of the "sacred" stories.

I will probably never know what exactly inspired Parker and Stone to focus on Martin Harris and his wife, but I can say that the South Park episode was the first time I ever saw the Lost Manuscript as a major part of Mormonism. Why?

It is the genesis of JS's story. Without the BOM, no one followed him. The truthfulness of the church is not so dependent on whether JS had a dream-state "vision" of JC and God as whether he lied about the BOM. Also, God's instructions about how to deal with the Manuscript were among the FIRST revelations Mormon Jesus ever gave to JS. There was never much focus on this at church, but looking back, the Mormon Jesus in D&C 1-3 looks like a weak scammer.

I am thankful that the lunacy of this story was pointed out to me by South Park, in the voice of a little child saying, "Wait, you mean Mormons know this story, and they STILL believe?!"

I never thought much of the lost pages incident as a TBM, but I think it's a ridiculous, easy-to-understand problem with the story. Even if evil, conspiring men had stolen the pages, Joe could have gone ahead and re-translated this portion of the book. It would have been impossible for men to make undetectable changes to the 116 pages or to forge all new pages to try to disprove the work. Who would even try it when there was plenty of other evidence that the work was a hoax from the beginning? I believe multiple people said that Martin's wife burned the pages. If you could prove that, I think you have another single incident that disproves all of mormonism.

IF evil, conspiring men had really stolen the pages, and their plot was foiled by God's direction to not re-translate that portion, what would those evil men have done? Would they have just gone ahead and destroyed the pages? I probably would have sold them back to the church.

And why have they never, ever seen the light of day?

Another interesting theory is that around page 116 JS realized that he would do much better with a religious history of the indians rather than a purely secular one, and cooked up the lost manuscript story to cover for a complete change of pace.

The explanation in the front of the BoM even covers for the shift:

"The Plates of Nephi, which were of two kinds: the small plates and the large plates. The former were more particularly devoted to spiritual matters and the ministry and teachings of the prophets, while the latter were occupied mostly by a secular history of the peoples concerned (1 Nephi 9:2–4). From the time of Mosiah, however, the large plates also included items of major spiritual importance."

If JS really were translating plates, he would be able to make multiple, identical copies. It wouldn't matter if evil men brought forth the modified 116 pages.

The story reeks of someone who was making stuff up on the fly and knew he couldn't re-tell the story the same way twice.

I feel like I must have been blind to have missed it for so many years.

Oh-ho, but if you read the apologists, you'll discover that ole Joe wasn't doing a literal word-for-word translation, he was seeing images and impressions and dictating in his own language. Hey, that even explains the latest research showing the influence of the First Book of Napoleon and the Late War, because he had read them and they helped shape the language he spoke related to his impressions. So no, the re-translation would not have come out the same, because he would see the same images and impressions, but would vary in how he verbalized it.

Oh wait, but then there's the whole testimony of Martin Harris as to how the translation occurred:

"By aid of the Seer Stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say 'written;' and if correctly written, the sentence would disappear and another appear in its place; but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used"

And that pesky correlating testimony of David Whitmer:

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man."

Hmm, I guess we're back to wondering why the hat wouldn't work twice.

I remember watching that episode as a TBM and thinking South Park was so stupid for portraying ole Joe translating with his face in his hat. I turned to my wife and said, "this is why anti-Mormon crap doesn't have any power over the church."

After learning the real history and leaving the church, I was very sad to think the so-called "anti-Mormons" knew more about my own church history then I, a 40 year member, knew. Or, for that matter, my 72 year old bishop. {eye roll}

I felt certain that the antis made up the hat thing!

More on why the Lost 116 pages is a problem:

http://mormonthink.com/lost116web.htm