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The theft of the Anthon transcript? How then did John Whitmer copy it in 1831? He didn't. Compare Whitmer's "Caractors" document with Anthon's (and others') description of the 1828 transcript. Either everyone who saw the original transcript was on hallucinogens at the time or it was a who...

Lucy Smith claims that there were many friends of Martin Harris who read the original 116 pages of the manuscript. How come there is not one account by anyone who read it? There are myriad things that happened in the history of this time for which we don't have firsthand accounts - there's nothing ...

Well done, Dr Moore. This is a credit to Cassius U! Wikipedia, citing Bledsoe Jr., Dave (2011). "Handwriting Speed in an Adult Population". Advance for Occupational Therapy Practitioners. 27 (22): 10, has this: For an adult population (age range 18–64) the average speed of copying is 68 le...

D&C 132 was given in 1843. I suspect by that time, Joseph was far more practiced with his prophetic voice than in 1829 during the Book of Mormon translation. Taking place 14 years later, it doesn't strike me as a good comparison. But for the sake of putting the numbers together, here's what I f...

Hell, Jersey! Hell! Congratulations on your new book, Don Bradley. You have always been one of the most admirable and authentic people I've known in or out of Mormonism. I pray your book does well as it should and that you and yours have a wonderful year ahead filled with spiritual richness and con...

I should mention that the late David Whitmer report isn't irrelevant; it just isn't very useful or specific, for the reasons I gave above. If there are more accounts like it, they should all be put into the hopper to see what comes out. The most concrete datum I can think of is William Clayton sayin...

We do have a few data points: 1. Emma reported "hour after hour" of translation work, "returning after meals " to pick up where they left off. This implies a whole day affair, spanning across "meals". 2. Hart's About the Book of Mormon quotes David Whitmer, recalling t...

Listening to the Swinburne-Janssen dialogue. Non-reductive physicalism, which Janssen argues for, is a serious philosophical and theological position. Janssen definitely makes a great deal of sense in describing how personal identity works in the brain. Yet I find it surprising how naïve he is about...

If there is no soul then it is said the LDS spend all that time and money baptizing folks by proxy for them. The evidence against the existence of the soul is compelling. See Whatever Happened to the Soul. Our memories die with us. Watch a debate between Swinbune and Janssen m So...if what you got ...

Hell, Jersey!