“The Learned Say: “I Cannot Read It””

D. Kelly Ogden, Andrew C. Skinner

Martin Harris’s 1828 meeting with Charles Anthon in New York City is reported in Joseph Smith–History 1:63–65. This episode in latter-day Church history was, at least in part, seen, heard, and recorded by the prophet Isaiah twenty-five hundred years before it happened.

The “learned” was the renowned professor of classical languages, Charles Anthon, from Columbia College, now Columbia University. The one “not learned” was Joseph Smith, who had received only about three years of formal education and who, during the translation of the Book of Mormon record, enlisted others to serve as scribes for him (see Joseph Smith–History 1:61–65). 80

Verse by Verse: The Book of Mormon: Vol. 1

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