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<\/a>It\u2019s Friday! \u00a0So, as has happened on many hundreds of Fridays before, there is a new article on the Interpreter Foundation website: \u00a0\u201cFrom Wilderness to Covenant Threshold: Land, Literacy, and Religious Readiness in the Book of Mormon,\u201d<\/a> (Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em> 67 [2025]: 401-424),\u00a0written by John E. Cochran II<\/a> and Joseph D. Cochran<\/a>:<\/p>\n Abstract:<\/strong> Using a case study from the Book of Mormon, this article explores how divine preparation can create the conditions for covenantal receptivity. Focusing on the Lamanite transformation during the mission of the sons of Mosiah, we propose that their readiness to receive the gospel reflects a \u201ccovenant threshold.\u201d This is defined as a moment when spiritual soil, shaped by both divine and social forces, becomes capable of receiving a covenant. Drawing on Alma 13:24, which describes angels preparing hearts ahead of the gospel\u2019s arrival, we examine how developments in land use, record-keeping, and communal organization are portrayed as signs of gospel readiness. Developments such as the spread of literacy and the influence of Nephite religious frameworks are treated here not as prerequisites for faith, but as signs of a broader readiness, cultivated over time. We do not claim these elements are universally necessary for covenantal engagement; instead we observe how the Book of Mormon links spiritual receptivity to changing conditions in this particular scenario. Our interdisciplinary approach draws from Mesoamerican anthropology, covenant theology, and narrative analysis\u2014deferring to the scriptural text as primary. In framing societal transformation as one mode of divine cultivation, we offer a model for interpreting how God prepares peoples, communities, and individuals to receive him.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And I would like to call your attention to another article, as well. \u00a0It\u2019s from one of the most consistently original and interesting historians currently devoting attention to the story of the early Restoration: \u00a0Donald Patrick Bradley Sr., \u201cWere Nephi\u2019s Small Plates Contained in Mormon\u2019s Gold Plates?\u201d BYU Studies<\/em> 64\/4 (2025): 38-57<\/a>. \u00a0I share here a few passages from Don\u2019s article to give you a glimpse of the intriguing argument that he is making:<\/p>\n Latter-day Saints have generally visualized the relationship of Mormon\u2019s plates and Nephi\u2019s small plates as two segments of a single record, bound together into one book by a shared set of rings. I will argue in this article that this visualization may also be faulty\u2014that Mormon\u2019s plates and Nephi\u2019s small plates were not bound together into a single book but were utilized separately and sequentially by the Prophet Joseph Smith in translating the Book of Mormon. Evidence pointing to the model that the small plates and Mormon\u2019s plates were separate records may be found in the Book of Mormon text and in sources from the early history of the Church. (40-41)<\/p>\n In addition, the timeline of the Book of Mormon\u2019s translation and the associated exchanges of plates between Joseph Smith and the angel Moroni similarly suggest that Joseph used two distinct sets of plates in succession to translate the Book of Mormon. I will argue from historical sources that when Joseph completed his work with Mormon\u2019s set of plates at the end of May 1829, Joseph returned Mormon\u2019s plates to the angel before leaving Harmony, Pennsylvania. Joseph\u2019s remaining translation work, carried out in Fayette, New York, was exclusively from Nephi\u2019s small plates, with no need for him to further access the plates of Mormon that he had returned to the angel. This article will argue that the model of two separate sets of plates best accounts for both the textual and the historical data. (41)<\/p>\n If Nephi\u2019s small plates and Mormon\u2019s plates were not bound together, this suggests the possibility that our present Book of Mormon text was translated from two independent sets of plates\u2014that is, from two distinct records that were not ringed together into a single set. (45-46)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If accepted, Don Bradley\u2019s thesis puts the experience of Mary Musselman Whitmer with the mysterious messenger who showed her a set of golden plates into a quite different light:<\/p>\n What plates did he bring? The plates Joseph needed at this point were those he had not yet translated\u2014the small plates of Nephi. The messenger, who had been headed to Cumorah, brought these plates from Cumorah to Fayette. The messenger would thus have brought the small plates right when they were needed\u2014just in time for Joseph to translate them. . . .<\/p>\n Mary Whitmer\u2019s encounter with the heavenly bearer of the plates has typically been interpreted as a purely personal experience given to her for her own comfort and edification but with no spiritually substantive role in the Book of Mormon\u2019s coming forth. Yet Mary Whitmer\u2019s experience appears to have had just such a role.(53, 54)<\/p>\n While interpreters of the Book of Mormon have sometimes read into the Words of Mormon that Nephi\u2019s small plates were bound with the plates of Mormon, the text does not say this. Indeed, the textual data of the Words of Mormon and the title page are at least as well explained\u2014if not much better explained\u2014on the model that Nephi\u2019s small plates were simply placed with, rather than bound with, the plates of Mormon. Historical sources and the Book of Mormon\u2019s translation timeline also align with this model, indicating that Joseph Smith returned the plates to the angel just when we would expect if those plates contained only Mormon\u2019s record, not Nephi\u2019s small plates. (55-56)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Mary Whitmer\u2019s experience with the plates is depicted in the 2022 Interpreter Foundation docudrama Undaunted Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em>., which is currently available for viewing at no cost<\/a>. \u00a0See also:<\/p>\n Posted from St. Louis, Missouri<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 It\u2019s Friday! \u00a0So, as has happened on many hundreds of Fridays before, there is a new article on the Interpreter Foundation website: \u00a0\u201cFrom Wilderness to Covenant Threshold: Land, Literacy, and Religious Readiness in the Book of Mormon,\u201d (Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 67 [2025]: 401-424),\u00a0written by John E. Cochran II […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":17751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56,4940,13166,1218,1615,28088],"class_list":["post-114462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-gold","tag-golden","tag-mary-whitmer","tag-plates","tag-small-plates"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a>\n