Joseph Smith's Interpreters

Joseph Smith's Interpreters were spectacles that, according to the account of Joseph Smith's translation, allowed their wearer to understand the reformed Egyptian characters on the Gold Plates. Their role was practical and temporary: they made the first phase of decipherment possible, then disappeared from the work when the translation resumed in 1828, leaving Joseph Smith to use Joseph Smith's Seer Stone instead.

Description and Claimed Function

The text presents the Interpreters as a divinely endowed instrument supplied by Moroni, rather than as ordinary spectacles. Their stated purpose was to make an otherwise unreadable ancient script comprehensible to the person wearing them. The Gold Plates were described as a sacred record engraved in reformed Egyptian, so the Interpreters provided the means by which Joseph Smith could begin turning those inscriptions into dictated English text.

The account assigns the object a specific place in the translation process. Joseph Smith dictated to Martin Harris, who served as his scribe, and after two months of work they completed the first 116 pages. The Interpreters are thus linked not merely to the plates as a sacred object, but to a collaborative sequence of reading, dictation, and manuscript production.

Removal and Replacement

During a break in the work, Moroni retrieved both the Gold Plates and the Interpreters. Joseph Smith later allowed Martin Harris to borrow the manuscript, which was lost. After prayer and contrition, Joseph Smith received the plates again in September 1828, and translation resumed, initially with Emma Smith as scribe. The Interpreters did not return with the plates.

The absence changed the method of work without ending it. Joseph Smith instead used Joseph Smith's Seer Stone, placing it in an upturned hat and dictating the lines he said appeared to him. The narrative therefore distinguishes two instruments and two phases: the spectacles enabled the initial effort, while the stone became the tool for the resumed translation. By the end of June 1829, the translation was complete.

Narrative Significance

The Interpreters mark the transition from a translation described as direct decipherment of an ancient script to a process mediated by another object. Their removal follows the loss of the first manuscript, but the account does not present their absence as a permanent barrier: translation continues through a different method. That succession gives the object a sharply bounded function in the story. It authorizes the opening phase, then yields to the Seer Stone as the narrative carries the work forward toward the publication of The Book of Mormon.