[Page 191]Review of William L. Davis, Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020). 250 pages with index. $90.00 (hardback), $29.95 (paperback).

 

Abstract: Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon introduces a new perspective in the examination of the construction of the Book of Mormon. With an important introduction to the elements of early American extemporaneous speaking, Davis applies some of those concepts to the Book of Mormon and suggests that there are elements of the organizational principles of extemporaneous preaching that can be seen in the Book of Mormon. This, therefore, suggests that the Book of Mormon was the result of extensive background work that was presented to the scribe as an extended oral performance.

William L. Davis has provided a new view of the way in which the Book of Mormon may have been created. He focuses on the well-known fact that the text was dictated to suggest that mechanisms behind oral performance should be used to understand the text. It is a completely logical premise.

Davis intends to place his examination in the neutral territory of an academic study. While his hypothesis does not require the divine intervention that anchors explanations from believers, he does not place his work as opposed to the text. In his introduction, he notes: “Readers hoping for a study that debunks Joseph Smith and attacks the Book of Mormon will be disappointed with this work. This is not to say, however, that I will not be challenging some of the unofficial, nondoctrinal traditions and theories surrounding the text” (ix).

[Page 192]Davis is equally clear that: “I would encourage believing scholars and readers to recognize that this study addresses a readership that extends beyond the religious boundaries of the various denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement to include those who do not embrace the Book of Mormon as an inspired or authentic ancient text”(xi). As a reviewer who declares himself a believer, it is perhaps inevitable that I would disagree with some of what Davis proposes. Nevertheless, I must respect his purposes and look at his work in the context in which it was intended.

The overall theme of the book is clearly stated in the very first sentence of the first chapter: “In 1829 Joseph Smith Jr., the future prophet and founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, produced the Book of Mormon in an extended oral performance” (7). The second sentence introduces a perhaps unfamiliar reader to the reason that such “an extended oral performance” should have generated enough controversy to require a book-length treatment: “His process of spoken composition, however, was anything but usual: taking a mystical ‘seer stones,’ an object in Western esotericism that functioned like a crystal ball (also described as ‘peep stones,’ ‘spectacles,’ ‘crystals,’ ‘glasses,’ and ‘show-stones,’ among other terms), Smith placed the stone into the bottom of his upturned hat, held the hat to his face to block out all light, and then proceeded to dictate the entire narrative to his attentive scribes” (7).

Extended oral performances are not entirely unexpected, but such performances being associated with the surprising use of a seer stone requires some explanation. Davis therefore begins with a historical summary that a reader should know to understand the seer stone aspect of the oral performance process.

The overview of the place of seer stones in Western culture provides the basic understanding that the use of such implements followed a long tr...