Among the historical episodes regarding the translation of the Book of Mormon, perhaps the most well-known is that of the supposedly 116 pages of lost manuscript that were lost by Martin Harris.

In June 1828 and while translating the Book of Mormon, Martin Harris had inquired of Joseph Smith to be able to show the Book of Mormon manuscript to his wife and family. Joseph inquired of the Lord and the Lord answered that Joseph should not give the manuscript pages to Martin. Martin continued to importune Joseph to ask the Lord additional times. After a few attempts, Martin was granted permission to show the manuscript to only his wife, his wife’s sister, his brother, and his father and mother. However, Martin broke the covenant the Lord made with him and showed the manuscript to one of his close friends as well as others. The manuscript went missing and has never been recovered.

Martin was apparently devastated. As Lucy Mack Smith recalled in 1853:

But at half past twelve we saw him walking with a slow and measured tread towards the house, his eyes fixed thoughtfully upon the ground. On coming to the gate, he stopped, instead of passing through, and got upon the fence, and sat there some time with his hat drawn over his eyes. At length he entered the house. Soon after which we sat down to the table, Mr. Harris with the rest. He took up his knife and fork as if he were going to use them, but immediately dropped them. Hyrum, observing this, said ‘Martin, why do you not eat; are you sick?’ Upon which, Mr. Harris pressed his hands upon his temples, and cried out in a tone of deep anguish, “Oh, I have lost my soul! I have lost my soul!”³³

Joseph Smith left Manchester, NY––where the Book of Mormon was being translated––in July 1828 and returned to Harmony, PA. “There he received from an angel the Urim and Thummim, which had been taken from him when Martin lost the manuscript.”³⁴Through that Urim and Thummim, Joseph received Doctrine & Covenants 3: the Lord’s answer to the missing manuscript. In it, the Lord chastises Joseph and Martin for losing the manuscript and for continuing to ask regarding showing the manuscript to others. Joseph lost his ability to translate for a time but was granted the ability again. Doctrine & Covenants 10 records the Lord giving the ability to translate back to Joseph.

Lucy Harris, Martin Harris’ wife, is often said to be the thief of the lost missing pages. She was one of the earliest people to be speculated to have taken the manuscript. Historical research, however, favors other candidates as the thieves. These individuals include Flanders Dyke, Martin Harris’ son-in-law, an unidentified “very particular friend” of Martin Harris’, local money diggers in Palmyra, and/or Samuel Lawrence: very likely the “very particular friend” of Martin Harris.³⁵

While 116 is the common amount of pages said to be lost, research indicates that there were many more pages lost than this. One clue is that 116 pages were the amount of pages necessary to translate Nephi’s abridgement of his large plates that we currently read in the Book of Mormon. If 116 pages were necessary to cover an abridged story, then certainly more pages would be necessary to cover the unabridged version of the same story. One historian makes an informed estimate that Martin lost anywhere from 345 to over 400 pages of manuscript.³⁶

The loss of the pages of manuscript has also prompted much speculation regarding what was on it. The best work on this question has been done by historian Don Bradley in his book The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories. In that work, Bradley discusses evidence from the Book of Mormon itself including from the small plates and Mormon’s abridgement, from the Doctrine & Covenants, and from other historical documents that help to reconstruct what was on the lost pages. Much of this work has been summarized by Scripture Central in an online essay on the subject.³⁷

The episode of the lost manuscript teaches us many lessons today. It teaches us to not impute our own wills onto revelation; to not importune the Lord for the answer we want to prayers. It also teaches us that God can make up for and plan for our failures and weaknesses–especially when such weaknesses and mistakes can frustrate His great plan of happiness for all of His children (1 Nephi 9:6). The episode is a gift of revelatory insight into the nature of God and how we, as His children, can better understand that nature and align our own wills with His.