116 Pages
Mention “116 pages” to most members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they will know exactly what that term refers to.
Martin Harris acted as one of the scribes who wrote down the text of the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith dictated. From April 12 to June 14, 1828, 116 manuscript pages were produced.
“To gain family support, Harris persuaded Joseph to let him take the pages to Palmyra to show his family, and during a three-week period when he visited relatives, attended to business, and served jury duty, the 116 pages were stolen. It is reported that Lucy Harris said that she burned them. . . . [1]
- The day after Joseph and his wife Emma bid farewell to Martin, Emma gave birth to their first child. The child was either stillborn or died soon after birth. Emma almost died in childbirth. After two weeks, and although Emma was still very much convalescing, Joseph and Emma’s mutual anxiety about those manuscript pages prompted him to leave his wife in the care of her parents and make the long trip to Palmyra to find out why he had not heard anything yet from Martin.
- Joseph had good reason to be uneasy as he made the trip. He reported that an angel had taken the interpreters from him even before he had discovered that the pages had been lost, taken “in consequence of [his] having wearied the Lord in asking for the privilege of letting Martin Harris take the writings.” This nagging anxiety so visibly affected Joseph that a fellow stagecoach passenger insisted that he accompany Joseph on the last leg of the trip to Joseph’s parents’ home in order to ensure that Joseph did not collapse under the weight of his worries.[2]
After the loss of the manuscript, Harris ceased his work as scribe.[3]
- At the time the manuscript disappeared, Joseph Smith and Martin Harris did not know of Nephi’s abridgment. As a result, when Joseph learned that Harris had lost the manuscript, Joseph thought he had failed in his divine commission. Joseph did not resume translating for about nine months. Later, when he and his new scribe, Oliver Cowdery, had nearly reached the end of the record, Joseph asked for revelation about whether to retranslate the lost pages. The revelation (see Doctrine and Covenants 10) said the plates of Nephi contained an account similar to the book of Lehi but with a greater focus on the spiritual history of Lehi’s family. Joseph learned that he should translate the plates of Nephi until he reached the place where the lost manuscript had ended. The revelation also forbade Joseph from retranslating the book of Lehi and warned him of adversaries possessing the lost manuscript who might attempt to manipulate the text and then discredit the published version of the Book of Mormon.[4]
- What little is known of the lost manuscript’s contents comes from Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi. Joseph wrote that the lost pages contained the book of Lehi. Like much of the Book of Mormon, the record of Lehi was an abridgment by the prophet Mormon of what Joseph called the plates of Lehi. Lehi’s son Nephi explained that this record contained accounts of Lehi’s dreams, visions, prophecies, and teachings to his children. Nephi had abridged Lehi’s record before composing his own history. According to some scholars, Nephi’s abridgment comprises the early chapters of the Book of Mormon. Others speculate the lost manuscript contained not only the book of Lehi but also material written by others, perhaps Mormon or someone who lived sometime between Lehi and King Benjamin.[5]
The possibility of Lucy Harris immediately burning the pages counters revelation given to Joseph Smith about conspiring plans to discredit him and the Book of Mormon by altering the lost translation and taking it out of hiding once the Book of Mormon was published. However, it can be accurately stated that the lost pages have never been recovered. It is not known what happened to those pages or if they still exist.
The 116 pages are also known as the Book of Lehi or the Lost Manuscript of the Book of Mormon. Convicted murderer and forger Mark Hofmann intended to create or was creating some of the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon, according to evidence recovered during the police investigation.[6]
