Windy Sydney

One thing I continue to complain about over and over again (and I probably will forever) is how the Mormon Church uses drawings and paintings that depict certain Mormon events in an untrue light. Yes, I get that the artist is the one who created the actual picture, but it is the Mormon Church who uses that picture in lessons while teaching it's members and people investigating the church before baptism. I thought I would point out some of the paintings that bother me the most and give you my opinion about them.

The Mormon Church has finally admitted that the Book of Mormon wasn't translated this way. Joseph Smith and Martin Harris were not right in front of each other, at the same desk, golden plates in plain view. No, no, and no.

As a matter of fact, I was taught that a sheet or blanket was put up between Joseph Smith and his scribe so the scribe wouldn't see the golden plates. That was obviously a fabrication... where that story originally came from we might never know.


Joseph Smith had a peep-stone or seer-stone he had found in the bottom of a well. He claimed this stone helped him see things long before the plates were "given" to him. In order to translate the Book of Mormon, he would put the seer-stone in a top hat, cover the light, and claim the words were lighting up on the stone itself in the hat. He would then read these words to the scribe for translation.

The golden plates were not even in the room. If Joseph Smith didn't need the plates, why in the world was it necessary for them to exist in the first place? If God could somehow give him divine messages through the stone he found in the well, why the need to keep it so hush-hush?


The true story was never told to me by anyone in the church. How did I learn about this? Believe it or not I learned it by watching South Park. I know most Mormons groan when they hear that, but the South Park cartoon actually had more truth in it than any story taught to me by the church and it's leaders about the translation's true events. Isn't that sad?

This is a painting of how the translation really happened.


Why don't they tell the truth? Why don't they retire this older version of the painting and use this one instead? It's misleading and dishonest to knowingly use a picture of an event that you know is incorrect. The church needs to be called out on this... big time.

If they have nothing to hide, why not use the painting above?