The Interpreter Foundation is promoting its latest film, Six Days in August.
https://witnessesfilm.com/
Because I don't live in Utah or Idaho, I haven't seen it.
Let's hope it is more faithful and historically accurate than their Witnesses film.
In the pursuit of charity, we assume everyone at the Interpreter acts with good intentions. They are certainly entitled to believe whatever they want, and they can promote their beliefs freely.
In the pursuit of understanding, we seek to understand their reasoning and we have no compulsion to change their minds. It seems like they are trying to reconcile and rationalize what David Whitmer said about the translation (SITH, or the stone-in-the-hat narrative) by converting SITH into a faithful narrative.
That's the most charitable explanation I can think of. If someone has a better explanation, send it to me at lostzarahemla@gmail.com.
In the process, though, the Interpreter ignores what Joseph and Oliver said about the translation. As Joseph himself explained, "as plain as word can be," when he responded to ongoing confusion about the translation, in the Elders Journal in 1838.
Question 4th. How, and where did you obtain the Book of Mormon?
Answer. Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the Book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me and told me where they were and gave me directions how to obtain them. I obtained them and the Urim and Thummim with them, by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the Book of Mormon.
(Elders’ Journal I.3:42 ¶20–43 ¶1)
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/elders-journal-july-1838/11
In the pursuit of clarity, we note that those who watched Witnesses may recall its portrayals of SITH, which are bizarre and counter-historical, to say the least. The film teaches that Joseph and Oliver misled everyone about the translation of the Book of Mormon, for example. It misrepresents David's trip to Fayette, omits the encounter with the messenger taking the plates to Cumorah, and much more.
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Here are some stills from the movie to give you an idea.
They spent about 3 full minutes relating the goofy narrative attributed to Martin Harris, which wasn't published until years after his death, and was based on a conversation he had with Edward Stevenson on the train to Utah. Shortly before the trip, Martin had fallen in a field and was delirious. Whether the stone-swapping account was the product of a dream, a delusion, or an actual memory is impossible to tell, of course, but the narrative never made sense.
And yet, to the scholars at the Interpreter, Martin's stone-swapping story is so important that it consumes 3 minutes with lots of shots on different locations, all in a film that is only 103 minutes long.
Look at these stills to get an idea of how ridiculous the whole narrative is.
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| Here the Interpreter scholars present their own narrative that repudiates what Joseph and Oliver always said about the origin of the Book of Mormon. Neither of them ever once stated or implied that Joseph used anything other than the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. |
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| Joseph using SITH to produce the Book of Mormon. We wonder what purpose the screen served if the plates were covered and the Urim and Thummim was not being used. |
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| Martin Harris finds a rock by the river |
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| Martin Harris puts the rock in his pocket |
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| Martin Harris swaps his river rock for the "seer stone" that supposedly provided the words for Joseph to read. |
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| Joseph Smith is supposedly duped by Martin Harris' river rock |
One of the craziest parts of the film appears near the end.
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| This endorsement of David Whitmer's honesty was published a year after his pamphlet An Address to All Believers in Christ, in which David Whitmer related SITH, claimed Joseph was a fallen prophet, that there was never any Priesthood restoration, etc. |
Anyone can read that pamphlet here:
Not surprisingly, the SITH sayers are fond of quoting this pamphlet for David Whitmer's account. Few LDS realize what else David claimed in the pamphlet.
While we give the Interpreter the benefit of the doubt and are fine with them believing and promoting whatever they want, we also recognize that the whole SITH narrative is an appalling refutation of what Joseph and Oliver clearly taught.
But it's all in fun, apparently, for our popular LDS scholars.
