The 116 Pages
In June of 1828 Martin Harris took the 116 pages of their
translation of the Book of Mormon home from Harmony to show his wife and other
close associates. These contained pages
that were scribed by both Emma and Martin himself, and the
text “was the book of Lehi taken from Mormon’s abridgment of the large
plates of Nephi.” Our understanding is
that it contained material somewhat analogous to what we now have in 1 Nephi through
Omni in our Book of Mormon. It was
Mormon’s abridgment of Nephi’s account that he wrote on his “other plates” as
mentioned in 1 Nephi 9. We call that
original account started by Nephi and passed down by the prophets the “large
plates,” although that term is not itself in the Book of Mormon. I believe it comes from the fact that Jacob referred
to the “small plates” as what he was writing on that we now have, and so we
suppose that the other plates must have been larger and they got the name “large
plates” (Jacob 1:1). Since Joseph was
instructed by the Lord not to retranslate but to translate those small plates,
we know relatively little of what the 116 pages actually contained.
There
are a few things that are known, though, about what was on the 116 pages. Nephi gave us this description of his record on
the large plates: “Upon the other plates should be engraven an account of the
reign of the kings, and the wars and contentions of my people; wherefore these
plates are for the more part of the ministry; and the other plates are for the
more part of the reign of the kings and the wars and contentions of my people”
(1 Nephi 9:4). Mormon abridged that
record and it became the 116 pages. So
there may have been a lot more history as it relates to the wars and leaders of
the Nephites that is only alluded to in our current Book of Mormon (see for
example Enos 1:24, Jarom 1:7, Omni 1:10). When the Lord gave Nephi instructions to not
retranslate what had been lost He said, “You shall translate the engravings
which are on the plates of Nephi, down even till you come to the reign of king
Benjamin, or until you come to that which you have translated, which you have
retained” (D&C 10:41). This seems to
suggest that Joseph had reached the account of King Benjamin on the large
plates, and so the 116 pages covered the time from Nephi down to King Benjamin. The Lord gave one more brief mention in
D&C 10 of what those 116 pages said.
He said to Joseph, “Yea, and you remember it was said in those writings
that a more particular account was given of these things upon the plates of
Nephi” (D&C 10:39). In other words,
on what Joseph had already translated, Mormon mentioned in some way the other
(small) plates of Nephi. I think this
ties in with what Mormon said in verse 3 of the Words of Mormon. As Mormon abridged the large plates of Nephi,
he included Nephi’s reference to his other plates, but Mormon at that point
didn’t know where they were. But after
he finished his abridgement up to King Benjamin, he told us, “I searched among
the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates,
which contained this small account of the prophets, from Jacob down to the
reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi.” Mormon went searching for them because Nephi
referred to them, and the fact that he had to look for them shows just how many
records he had.
As
far as I’m aware the first person to scribe for Joseph was Emma. She was his scribe in early 1828 before
Martin Harris arrived in Harmony, and so she would have scribed the first
portion of the 116 pages. She recounted
how Joseph “did not even know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls” when he
came to that part in the text. Our
current Book of Mormon mentions the walls of Jerusalem in 1 Nephi 4, but that’s
not what Emma scribed for him—she was writing down the translation of Mormon’s
abridgement of the large plates that was lost.
So it would seem that Mormon told the story of Nephi getting the plates—in
which his brothers waited outside the walls of Jerusalem—in his abridgement of the
large plates as well. That story was significant
enough that Nephi recorded it both on his large plates and small plates. Other than that we have very little info
about what the 116 pages contained other than the general knowledge that it
covered some of the same material as we have in our current Book of
Mormon. Perhaps the most important
message is that God prepared a way for Joseph to have a second chance. And just as He did for Joseph, He can do for
us—when it seems that all is lost after a serious mistake, we may find that He
has prepared a way for us if we will repent.
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