Jonathan Neville’s unheard-of “faithful” explanation

The Interpreter Foundation gave Jonathan Neville the opportunity to respond to Spencer Kraus’s reviews of Neville’s two books, A Man that Can Translate and Infinite Goodness, that were published in Interpreter last June. Neville’s reply was published last week as “A Man That Can Translate and Infinite Goodness: A Response to Recent Reviews.”

Neville’s reply is interesting for what it says and what it doesn’t say. Kraus’s rebuttal—published in the same issue of Interpreter as “A Rejoinder to Jonathan Neville’s ‘Response to Recent Reviews’”—brings up most of the key issues, but there’s one thing Neville wrote in his response that struck me as particularly odd. Neville writes:

There are three basic explanations for the Book of Mormon. Proponents of each find support in historical documentation, which indicates the evidence is inconclusive and can support multiple working hypotheses.

1. Joseph Smith translated the ancient engravings into English, using “translate” in the ordinary sense of the word of converting the meaning of a manuscript written in one language into another language.
2. Joseph Smith (and/or confederates) composed the text and Joseph read it surreptitiously, recited it from memory, or performed it based on prompts or cues.
3. Joseph Smith dictated words that supernaturally appeared on a seer stone he placed in a hat.

Until recently, explanation 1 was the “faithful” explanation, while explanations 2 and 3 were the critical or unbelieving explanations. Lately, explanation 3 has been embraced by many believers (including Kraus) as a faithful explanation that replaces explanation 1.

In the considerable time I’ve spent as an active member of the Church and student of Church history—not to betray too much about myself, but let’s just say that I’m older than 45 and younger than 70—I have never heard Neville’s explanation 1. Not even once. I have always been told or have read that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by miraculous means by seeing words in the Urim and Thummim—the Nephite interpreters—or in a seer stone (explanation 3). The claim that Joseph translated “in the ordinary sense of the word” is something I’ve never encountered until I began reading Jonathan Neville’s writings.

Neville’s claim that “Lately, explanation 3 has been embraced by many believers…as a faithful explanation that replaces explanation 1” is clearly and patently false. As I wrote in April 2021, “eyewitnesses to the translation process, early Latter-day Saint publications, Church leaders in the 19th through the 21st centuries, and official histories published by the Church have accepted and taught that Joseph Smith used a seer stone that he placed into a hat—along with the Nephite interpreters—to translate the Book of Mormon.”

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was taught by then-Elder Russell M. Nelson in 1992 and published in the Ensign in 1993.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was included in the six-volume Comprehensive History of the Church, edited by Elder B.H. Roberts and published by the Church in 1930.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was repeated by Apostle Orson F. Whitney in his 1921 book, Saturday Night Thoughts.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was affirmed by Joseph Knight Sr., one of the Prophet’s closest friends and an eyewitness to the translation process.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was corroborated by a Shaker in northern Ohio who heard Oliver Cowdery preach in 1830.

This method of translating the Book of Mormon was reiterated by Hugh Nibley, who wrote in 1975:

Nothing could be less like the normal ways of scholarship than the inspired mood and method in which the Prophet Joseph did his translation. “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. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God and not by any power of man.” If all the Prophet had to do was to read off an English text, why did he need the original characters in front of him? He didn’t! “I frequently wrote day after day,” Emma Smith recalls, “often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.… He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.… The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth.” David Whitmer confirms this: “He did not use the plates in the translation, but would hold the interpreters to his eyes…and before his eyes would appear what seemed to be a parchment, on which would appear the characters of the plates…and immediately below would appear the translation in English.”

[Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, 1975, p. 51 / 2005, p. 59; ellipses in the original]

The question of how much of what Joseph saw in those stones was directly revealed by God and how much of it was Joseph’s own language remains open. (As I explained in January 2020, Book of Mormon scholars Royal Skousen and Brant Gardner disagree on this matter.) But no one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever claimed that Joseph Smith translated “in the ordinary sense of the word,” as Jonathan Neville has asserted.

If there is any evidence of a Church leader or recognized scholar teaching what Neville is claiming, then I would be very interested to read what they said or wrote. Please leave a comment below.

—Peter Pan