Who stole the Lost Pages of the Book of Mormon?  Up to now, suspicion has been squarely laid at the feet of Lucy Harris, Martin’s wife.  Historian Don Bradley believes that Lucy is innocent of the charge.  How does he come to that conclusion?
Don:  Lucy Harris was a very devout Quaker. She also was someone who really tended to speak her mind. She had a reputation for being combative. She’s not somebody who tended to slink around, lie, do things behind people’s back and hide them. She was very forthright, and she was very devout in her Quaker beliefs. For her to say before God, on her death bed, which is what the account says, that she didn’t know what happened to the manuscript gives us pretty good reason to believe that she didn’t know what happened to the manuscript. Someone who was completely convinced by this was Martin Harris. So even though they had been estranged for eight years, Martin Harris was no stranger to the fact that his wife had become an enemy to Mormonism. She was certainly an antagonist to him. She was a combative person. She had her faults, but he could not bring himself to believe, when he found out she said this on her deathbed, that she had lied on her deathbed about this as she’s about to meet God. He couldn’t believe it. So he then completely abandons the view for the rest of his life that Lucy Harris had anything to do with the theft. Recall, he never thought she burned the manuscript.
Don further explains how the story about her burning the manuscript came about decades later.  (By the way, here is a link to Don’s book on Amazon.)  Check out our conversation….
Don’t miss our other conversations with Don!
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359: Temple Endowment in Lost Pages
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357: More than 116 Pages Lost?
356: How Much of BoM is Missing?
355: Re-Writing Oliver’s Words: Dirty, Nasty, Filthy Scrape?
354: Dating Fanny Alger