Campbell describes the BOM translation process as occurring in a dark room with spectacles.

Date
Feb 7, 1831
Type
News (traditional)
Source
Alexander Campbell
Critic
Non-LDS
Hearsay
Unsourced
Journalism
Reference

Alexander Campbell, "Delusions," Millennial Harbinger 2, no. 2 (February 7, 1831): 93, 95

Scribe/Publisher
Alexander Campbell
People
Alexander Campbell, Joseph Smith, Jr.
Audience
General Public
Transcription

This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in N. York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies - infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the rights of man. All these topics are repeatedly alluded to. How much more benevolent and intelligent this American Apostle, than were the holy twelve, and Paul to assist them!!! He prophesied of all these topics, and of the apostacy, and infallibly decided, by his authority, every question. How easy to prophecy of the past or of the present time!! . . .

These are but as one drop out of a bucket compared with the amount of Smithisms in this book. It is patched up and cemented with 'And it came to pass' - 'I sayeth unto you' - 'Ye saith unto him' - and all the King James' HATHS, DIDS and DOTHS - in the lowest imitation of the common version; and is, without exaggeration, the meanest book in the English language; but it is a translation made through stone spectacles, in a dark room, and in the hat of the prophet Smith from the REFORMED EGYPTIAN!! It has not one good sentence in it, save the profanation of those sentences quoted from the Oracles of the living God. I would as soon compare a bat to the American eagle, a mouse to a mammoth, or the deformities of a spectre to the beauties of Him whom John saw in Patmos, as to contrast it with a single chapter in all the writings of the Jewish or Christian prophets. It is as certainly Smith's fabrication as Satan is the father of lies, or darkness the offspring of night. So much for the internal evidences of the Book of Mormon.

Citations in Mormonr Qnas
Copyright © B. H. Roberts Foundation
The B. H. Roberts Foundation is not owned by, operated by, or affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.