FAIRwiki:Sandbox

Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism

Quote used...	The rest of the story...
"‘I heard Joe tell my Mother and Sister how he procured the plates...When he took the plates there was something down near the box that looked some like a toad that rose up into a man which forbid him to take the plates’ ”	“I heard Joe tell my Mother and Sister how he procured the plates. He said he was directed by an angel where it was. He went in the night to get the plates. When he took the plates there was something down near the box that looked some like a toad that rose up into a man which forbid him to take the plates.”
Ronald V. Huggins, "From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 36 no. 4 (2003), 22. (needs URL / links)	Benjamin Saunders interview, circa September 1884, cited by Larry E. Morris, "'I Should Have an Eye Single to the Glory of God’: Joseph Smith’s Account of the Angel and the Plates (Review of: "From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism")," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 11–82. off-site PDF link; citing Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996–2003) 2:137.

Commentary

• Huggins wishes it to appear that Joseph Smith introduced angelic messengers late in the telling of his tale of obtaining the Book of Mormon; he therefore excludes mention of the angel to hide its existence.

Resources