October skies

Julian laughed. ‘Nothing like the Bible. Hang on,’ he said, opening his satchel and pulling out a wad of foolscap, covered with his handwritten notes. ‘Let me read you a little on the founding of Mormonism. It’s great stuff.’

He flicked through the pages. ‘Ah, here we are. Okay… so yeah, the whole thing was founded by a guy called Joseph Smith in the 1830s.’ He looked up at Sean and grinned. ‘You simply couldn’t make this stuff up. This guy, Smith, wasn’t anyone special: son of a local farming family with acres and acres of grazing land in some rural area just outside of New York. Anyway, there was a craze going round at that time for treasure hunting. Apparently everyone suddenly suspected their small-holding might contain ancient Native American treasure hordes. Well, this Joseph Smith got bitten by the treasure bug, and really got into it, digging little holes all over his family’s land. Then all of a sudden, he announces the find of all finds.’

Julian paused, teasing Sean into splaying his hands impatiently. ‘And?’

‘Smith claimed he had found the word of God.’

‘What do you mean word of God? Are we talking stone tablets?’

‘No, Smith wanted to go one better than that. Not stone… gold. He claimed he’d found the word of God on several golden scrolls.’

‘Just like that, eh? Started digging and found these scrolls?’

‘Oh no, it gets better. He claimed it wasn’t just blind luck. He added to his story by claiming he was guided to a remote hillock on his family’s farm by an angel that came to him at night, and spoke inside his head, giving him directions to this place.’

‘Ah, yes… the classic prophet story.’

‘Well, yes, it is. Arguably it’s no more credible — or incredible — than all the others. But this one gets crazier and crazier. Smith claims he was guided to this remote place, dug up an ancient stone box containing these golden scrolls, the remains of the guiding angel, and some things called seer stones. From this point on, the story reads a bit like David Icke on a bad day.’

‘Go on.’

‘At about this time, like I say, 1820s, early 1830s, another craze doing the rounds in England and America was a fascination with Ancient Egypt. There were a lot of fanciful theories going around amongst hobbyist historians. One, for example, being that the Native Americans were descendants of the Pharaohs. So guess what?’

Sean shrugged in response.

‘Making his magical find sound even sexier, he announced it was written in a holy language of the angels, otherwise known as Reformed Egyptian.’

‘Reformed Egyptian?’

‘Sounds vaguely legitimate, though, doesn’t it? It certainly helped to sex his story up back then. Smith claimed the angel was resurrected with an elaborate ritual and made flesh so that he could help him translate the scrolls. And so, the story goes, night after night, he spent time out on this hill, alone with this angel, translating the scrolls, which were meant to be the actual spoken words of God. The angel also told him the complete correct history of man, from the Egyptians onwards.’

Sean smiled wryly. ‘The correct history?’

‘The angel told Smith his name was Nephi, or Moroni, depending on varying early accounts by Smith and his first followers. He explained to Smith that several ancient tribes sailed for the Americas a couple of thousand years before Christ came along, back around the time of the Tower of Babel. These people sailed for the Americas, settled there and built themselves a huge, advanced civilisation — which perhaps might be a nod to Atlantis, who knows. Anyway, this civilisation did very well for itself for several hundred years until a war amongst them destroyed everything.’

‘Leaving absolutely no archaeological traces behind it.’

Julian smiled. ‘Yup, leaving no traces because, according to Nephi, it was a ferocious war. There were two groups, Nephites and Lamanites. Only one of these people survived this war: Nephi — this angel. With God’s help, he transcribed the history of his people and the new commandments of God on these golden scrolls writing in his language — this Reformed Egyptian — and then buried these scrolls in a hill.’

Julian forked up a mouthful of his cooling dinner. ‘Which, many centuries later, would end up being a hill in the middle of Mr Smith’s farm.’

‘Wow.’

‘And this history, this story I’ve just told you, is pretty much what the original Book of Mormon contains. Smith wrote it all down, published it and began selling copies. He revised the book over the ensuing years, adding to it from further sections of the scrolls that he claimed he’d yet to translate fully.’

‘With this Nephi guy?’

‘No, not after the initial translation. The angel was never seen by anyone. After his initial moonlit sessions on the hill, Smith claimed that he no longer required Nephi’s assistance, as the angel had taught him how to use the Seer Stones to translate the Reformed Egyptian. So now he could do it all by himself, the angel Nephi presumably became dusty bones once again, and vanished in a puff of make-believe.’