The Lost 116 Pages
How the 1828 manuscript loss forced a change in the Book of Mormon translation and brought Oliver Cowdery into the work
- Martin Harris lost the first 116 pages dictated from the large plates in summer 1828.
- A revelation instructed Joseph Smith not to retranslate that section to thwart planned alterations.
- The translation resumed with the small plates of Nephi, covering the same era from a different record.
- The delay ended when Oliver Cowdery arrived as scribe in April 1829.
In summer 1828, Martin Harris took the first 116 handwritten pages of Joseph Smith's dictated translation of the Book of Mormon to Palmyra to show his wife and others; the pages disappeared and were never recovered.
The events of the loss
Joseph had been dictating to Harris from what are called the large plates, beginning with the Book of Lehi. Harris, under pressure at home, received permission to take the manuscript. After it vanished, Joseph returned to Harmony, Pennsylvania, where his wife Emma helped him resume limited work once he received a revelation that rebuked his earlier decisions and instructed him to stop translating for a season.
The new translation approach
A later revelation directed that the lost material not be retranslated; instead the translators turned to a different set of plates—the small plates of Nephi—which covered the same time period but contained a more condensed, spiritually focused account. These became the books of 1 Nephi through Omni in the final text, bypassing the historical detail that had been on the lost pages.
Oliver Cowdery's arrival
The months of waiting after the loss ended in early 1829 when Oliver Cowdery, a schoolteacher boarding with the Smith family, traveled to Harmony. He became Joseph's primary scribe and the two completed the bulk of the remaining translation between April and June of that year.
The episode mattered because it altered the final shape of the published book and demonstrated that the translation process could adapt when the original record was threatened. It also marked the point at which reliable scribal support stabilized the work after earlier disruptions.
