1820–1830 (with disputes running to the present)
How a 588-page scripture came out of a hat, a farm, and a printing shop
21 sources, ordered by evidentiary weight — primary and contemporary first, then documentary editions, then the argument. 20 of them are held as full text in the Mormon Corpus; the other 1 are reached only as quotations inside works that are held, and are marked.
Bainbridge court record, 20 March 1826, with the Neely and De Zeng bills
Albert Neely, Philip M. De Zeng
That Joseph Smith was examined as a 'disorderly person and an Impostor' and testified under oath that he used a stone to locate buried treasure for Josiah Stowell.
Testimony of the Three Witnesses and Testimony of the Eight Witnesses, June 1829
Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Martin Harris, and eight others
The exact wording eleven men put their names to — and, equally, what those statements do not contain: no date, no place, no description of the event, and no surviving signed original.
Book of Mormon copyright, 11 June 1829
Richard R. Lansing, clerk, Northern District of New York
That the title page existed in printed form by 11 June 1829, and that Joseph Smith was entered as claiming the book 'as author' — the statutory wording, and a perennial point of attack.
Martin Harris, mortgage to Egbert B. Grandin, 25 August 1829
Martin Harris
The financial spine of the whole project: 151 acres pledged for $3,000, payable within eighteen months, and sold in April 1831 when the book did not sell.
The Book of Mormon (1830 edition)
Joseph Smith Jr.
The text as it was first published, including the one-paragraph preface on the lost manuscript, the title page, the copyright notice, and the pre-1837 readings such as 'the mother of God' at 1 Nephi 11:18.
Doctrine and Covenants (1835 first edition)
Joseph Smith and others
The June 1829 revelation promising Cowdery, Whitmer and Harris a view of the plates 'by your faith' — the instruction that precedes and shapes the Three Witnesses' experience.
Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 1838
Stephen Burnett
A contemporary report that Martin Harris told a Kirtland congregation he had seen the plates only 'in vision or imagination,' and that the eight witnesses hesitated to sign — the strongest early evidence for the visionary reading.
"Last Testimony of Sister Emma," Saints' Herald, 1 October 1879
Emma Smith Bidamon, interviewed by Joseph Smith III
The closest eyewitness account of the mechanics of dictation, from the person who wrote first and had least to gain.
An Address to All Believers in Christ
David Whitmer
Whitmer's own description of the seer stone and hat, his 1881 proclamation that he never at any time denied his testimony, and his simultaneous rejection of Joseph Smith's church after 1834.
Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon
Alexander Campbell
The first sustained textual critique — arguing the book answers the religious controversies of Joseph Smith's own decade rather than those of 600 BC.
Mormonism Unvailed
Eber D. Howe
The Hurlbut affidavits on Smith family money-digging, Anthon's own 1834 letter, and the original statement of the Spalding–Rigdon theory.
Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols.
Dan Vogel, ed.
The single most useful reservoir of transcribed contemporary documents on the plates, the witnesses, the printing and the neighbours' affidavits.
Lucy's Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir
Lucy Mack Smith; Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed.
The household narrative — Moroni's visits, the hiding of the plates, Martin Harris's return without the manuscript, and the chronology of the Grandin contract.
"Book of Mormon Translation" (Gospel Topics Essay)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church's own current statement that Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat and read aloud the words that appeared, and that the two instruments were 'apparently interchangeable.'
"Book of Mormon and DNA Studies" (Gospel Topics Essay)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church's position that population genetics cannot settle the question, since the founding DNA of Lehi's party is unknown and founder effect and drift can erase small lineages.
Saints: The Standard of Truth, 1815–1846 (vol. 1), chs. 5–6
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
How the institution narrates the Anthon visit and the lost manuscript today — including that it declines to name the hill Cumorah in its own account of the plates.
"The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon" (April 2020 General Conference)
Ulisses Soares
The current devotional telling from the pulpit: Moroni's three visits, the four years of preparation, and Emma waiting at the hill in September 1827.
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
Richard Lyman Bushman with Jed Woodworth
The standard believing-scholarly synthesis: the Smiths inside treasure-seeking folklore, the difficulty of the Anthon accounts, and the provenance of the surviving transcript through David Whitmer to the RLDS church in 1903.
3,913 Changes in the Book of Mormon (with the introductory study)
Jerald and Sandra Tanner
The catalogue of textual changes between the 1830 edition and later ones, including the four Godhead passages in 1 Nephi altered in 1837.
New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology
Brent Lee Metcalfe, ed.
The dictation-order argument (Metcalfe's 'Priority of Mosiah') and Deanne Matheny's critique of the limited Mesoamerican geography.
An Insider's View of Mormon Origins
Grant H. Palmer
The case that the Moroni narrative was standardised after 1830 and that the earlier tellings describe a different kind of visitant.
