The Lost 116 Pages

Before discussing the 116 pages, I shall first describe what they are for those of you unfamiliar with the LDS Religion (more commonly known as the Mormon religion). According to the LDS beliefs, Joseph Smith was directed to the Gold Plates, an ancient record bearing the account of the people in the Americas. Through divine inspiration he translated the record into English and published it as the Book of Mormon. Joseph started translating the plates with the assistance of Martin Harris. Martin Harris served as a scribe as well as providing the necessary money to purchase ink and paper. The first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon were referred to as the Book of Lehi. Upon completion of this book, Martin Harris believed that he could convince his wife of the truth of the book if he could just show her these pages. When Joseph asked the Lord if he could let Martin take the pages, the initial answer was no. Martin pressured him to ask again and again until the Lord allowed him to take the pages, but warned him the consequences would be great. Martin Harris lost these pages and they are not part of the published Book of Mormon.

This weeks class reading taught me a lot about these 116 pages that I was not previously aware of. I thought that the majority of the teachings in this document were lost when the pages were lost. I realized later that this thought wasn't well thought out. I believe God to be omnipotent, which means He would be aware that the first 116 pages of the book would be lost before those pages were initially written. It is for this reason he commanded Nephi (pronounced knee-fi), the son of Lehi to write his account of the same events. He recorded Lehi's prophecies and dreams as well as the historical events that happened to the family. The Lord will not allow men to prevent his plans from coming to pass. The Lord will never back out on a promise, he promised the people of the Americas that their records would be preserved and come forth in the latter days to convert people to the Gospel. Because He promised the record would come forth, and he knew part of it would be lost, He made sure there was a second account of the events, prophecies, and doctrines taught in the portion of the book that would be lost.

I also learned that, even though Martin Harris lost 116 pages of a book that, in its current published form, is fewer than 600 pages, God gave him the chance to repent and promised him that if he would do so, Martin would have the chance to be one of the Three Witnesses that saw the Gold Plates. Despite losing 116 pages, which seems like a pretty big mistake, Martin, like everyone else, still could turn to the Lord and ask for forgiveness. Then, once he had repented, he would still have the chance to go do great things.