what do mormons really think about this?
what do mormons really think about this?
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Many either don’t know or think about it.
The usual picture seen of Joseph Smith “translating” the Book of Mormon, he is sitting at a table, with the “golden plates” in front of him and looks like he is reading them. That is the image MOST LDS have of the translation process. Few question it or anything else the “leaders” tell them.
I was LDS for over a year before I heard about the use of a “seer stone”. When I asked about it, I was told that the plates were used but some of it came as “direct revelation”, meaning God told Joseph Smith what to write down EXACTLY.
And at the time, that was an acceptable answer. Only later, after I discovered that there were almost 4,000 changes to the Book of Mormon (not just spelling and punctuation, but word changes, verses taken out and added), that I had an “ah ha” moment.
If God HAD dictated the BoM to Smith, then there would have been NO need for any changes.
That realization was part of what led me out of Mormonism.
Hope this helps.