007 Joseph Smith’s Creative Efforts to Outsource the Book of Mormon Translation

<p>After four years of waiting, learning, and personal refinement, 21 year old Joseph Smith was finally entrusted by the angel Moroni with the ancient record that for centuries had lain in waiting in a stone box embedded in a hill near his home. Recalling this time years later, Joseph said that almost as soon as he had received the plates “the most strenuous exertions were used to get them from me. Every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to for that purpose. The persecution became more bitter and severe than before, and multitudes were on the alert continually to ge...