The Interpreter Foundation, with support from FAIR and Book of Mormon Central, has created a new website to highlight the experiences of witnesses of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. It can be found at WitnessesoftheBookofMormon.org. This website is being created as a resource for people studying Church history and the Doctrine and Covenants this year, and for years to come. The creation of this site also coincides with the production of two films about the witnesses of the Book of Mormon: a feature film called Witnesses, and a documentary called Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon (Summer, 2021). People who watch the films and have more questions can go to the website to learn more about the Three Witnesses, the Eight Witnesses, others who saw and handled the golden plates, and people of the modern age who also believe the Book of Mormon is true. As further research is conducted regarding the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, this site will continue to grow to become one of the foremost tools in the study of the history of the witnesses and their testimonies of the Book of Mormon.
I saw in the promotion for the new film “Witnesses,” that the film shows a white sheet separating Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery when translating the Book of Mormon. This a myth. There is no evidence that there was a sheet separating the two. I suggest you eliminate this error in the film if there’s still time.
For the initial translation efforts with Martin Harris Joseph used the Urim & Thummim and that method required that he touch a character on the plates and the translation would show on the sheet almost like a projection. So a sheet for at least a portion of the translation is accurate.
Aris, I haven’t seen this account. Would you provide the source, I’m interested in knowing about it.
Hi Brant, yes it’s from the book “The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories” by Don Bradley.
Thanks. I checked with my source on this, and apparently there is evidence that a blanket of some kind was used initially, but not with Oliver Cowdery, as has sometimes portrayed in paintings.
For accounts of a blanket being used, even during the time Oliver Cowdery was the scribe, see: https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2009/10/24/twa-project-the-curtain-accounts
The problem is that apparently neither Joseph Smith nor Oliver Cowdery wrote down exactly how the translation process was done. I see several of the accounts you cite say “there was no sheet between them.”
Does the film show the Prophet Joseph hiding his head in his hat with the seer stone, which was apparently the way he translated/transcribed the Book of Mormon?
Yes. There are different accounts. This may be due to there being a difference in the translation process at different times. The film does not purport to represent every different way that is reported in the historical record.
Regarding the depiction in the film, there is a scene with Joseph looking into a hat as he dictated the text.
I think your plans are exciting. I am a Book of Mormon convert. We attended graduate school at Ohio State University and became familiar with early restoration geography and events.