The lost pages of the Book of Mormon are known as the lost 116 pages. Historian Don Bradley thinks the actual number of pages lost could be two to three times that amount! How does he come to that conclusion? He’ll answer that question in our next conversation.
Don: So one of my sources on the length of these pages, is the ancestor of one of our living apostles. At a stake conference in Provo, on April 6, 1856, a man named Emer Harris spoke about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and he talked about the lost 116 pages. He says explicitly some of what was in those pages, which is in my chapter 14, on the story of Mosiah and the Mulekites. He talks more about Mulekites and he also says something about the length of the lost manuscript. He says–oh, and the living apostle is Dallin Harris Oaks. Most people don’t know that’s what the H stands for. But it is. He’s, I believe, a great, great, great grandson of Emer Harris.
GT: So how’s Emer related to Martin?
Don: Oh, did I not mention it? He’s his brother.
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Don: As historians, we create models of the past, and the model that can explain the most data in the simplest way is the best model. So what I’m doing here in describing the evidence for the manuscript length, and I end up arguing, but it’s like over 200, and maybe even up to around 300, well actually possibly more, but maybe nearly 300 pages, maybe 250.
Check out our conversation….
