Did Joseph Smith borrow the Moroni story from The Golden Pot?

The short answer

Grant Palmer saw parallels between Hoffmann’s fairy tale and early accounts of Joseph Smith and the gold plates. He suggested Luman Walters might have carried the tale’s ideas to the area. There is evidence that early critics associated Walters with treasure stories. The sources examined here leave his contact with Hoffmann’s tale unverified. Read Palmer’s argument

Three things to check

• The objects. Anselmus copies manuscripts onto parchment, and the golden pot is part of Serpentina’s dowry. In Joseph’s account, the gold plates are the engraved record. Compare the stories
• The proposed route. The local advertisement Palmer cites was for a magazine carrying a review. Cole’s 1830 parody identifies Walters’s book as Cicero in Latin. Neither source places Hoffmann’s tale in Joseph’s hands. Check the Walters evidence
• The dates. The German tale appeared in 1814, Carlyle’s English translation in 1827, and the plates story is documented in 1829. The reported visit in 1823 is dated in later accounts. Check the timeline

What to say

“I see why the two stories invite comparison. A supernatural figure and unfamiliar writing appear in both. Which detail most clearly points to Hoffmann, and what puts that detail in Joseph’s reach?”

What did Palmer argue?

Grant Palmer argued that E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Golden Pot and European stories about spirits guarding treasure helped shape accounts of the Book of Mormon’s origins. He compared the tale with reports from Joseph Smith, his family, and their neighbors. What struck him was the cluster of details. In both stories a young man encounters a supernatural figure, gains access to unfamiliar writing, and faces conditions on his work. Palmer suggested that Luman Walters, a local man associated with treasure seeking, could have encountered the tale in a European language and carried its ideas to the area. In a later clarification, Palmer described Hoffmann as one influence among several. His argument concerns how the Moroni and plates story was told. Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, chapter 5 · Palmer’s later notes

Compare the two stories

What is the assignment?

Hoffmann: Lindhorst hires Anselmus to make faithful copies of manuscripts, including some in unfamiliar characters. The instructions call for transferring the marks to parchment in ink. Later, Anselmus comes to understand unfamiliar writing with Serpentina’s help. Palmer adds [and translated] in brackets to the instructions about copying. The bracketed words are his interpretation. Carlyle’s translation, Vigil 2 · Vigil 8 · FAIR’s comparison of Palmer’s excerpt and Carlyle’s text

Joseph’s account: A messenger tells Joseph about an engraved record kept in the earth. The later history says the record is written on gold plates and that interpreters were deposited with it for translation. Joseph describes the book as a record of ancient inhabitants. 1832 history, p. 4 · Manuscript history A-1, p. 5

What role does gold play?

Hoffmann: The golden pot belongs to Serpentina and is promised with her as a dowry. The manuscript Lindhorst hands Anselmus in Vigil 8 appears as an emerald leaf before it is unrolled as parchment. Gold and unusual writing appear in the same tale. The pot and the manuscript have separate roles. Carlyle’s translation, Vigil 6 · Vigil 8

Joseph’s account: The precious object itself is the engraved record. Joseph reports that it had been deposited and preserved by God’s command. The messenger tells him he cannot obtain it yet, and the later history describes recurring visits before Joseph receives it. 1832 history, p. 4 · Joseph Smith—History 1:50–54, 59

What happens at the equinox?

Palmer treats the timing as a close match. In the fairy tale’s equinox scene, Veronica goes to a crossroads with a witch and obtains a magic mirror. In the next vigil, Lindhorst gives Anselmus a parchment, and the narration gives no calendar date for that handoff. Joseph’s history gives September 22, 1827 as the date he received the plates. The late-September motif is worth comparing. To claim the same act on the same date, we would need to establish the date and purpose of the parchment scene from the tale itself. Carlyle’s translation, Vigil 7 · Vigil 8 · Palmer’s account of Vigils 7–8 · Joseph Smith—History 1:59

Both accounts pair supernatural instruction with unusual writing and obstacles. The parallels get weaker when we ask what each object is, why it matters, and what the recipient is supposed to do with it.

Could Walters have passed it on?

Publication gives us a possible window. Hoffmann’s tale appeared in German in 1814. Thomas Carlyle published an English translation in 1827. Palmer cites a November 30, 1827 Wayne Sentinel advertisement for a Philadelphia magazine carrying a review of Hoffmann’s work. The surviving issue carries Walter Scott’s essay on supernatural fiction. That documents an American publication about Hoffmann. Establishing access to the tale itself would take evidence that a copy or a telling reached Joseph or Walters. Berlin State Library, publication history · Carlyle edition record · November 1827 magazine reprint, p. 442

Local reports name Walters. Abner Cole’s 1830 parody casts Walters as a magician who reads from a book and tells stories of guarded treasure. Cole identifies the book in parentheses as Cicero’s orations in Latin. In 1831 a letter from Palmyra residents speculated that Walters had suggested the idea of a book to the Smiths. It also describes a Latin book. These sources tell us what early critics were saying about Walters. Neither identifies Hoffmann’s tale as the book he used or describes him relaying its story to Joseph. Cole’s Book of Pukei, June 12, 1830 · Palmyra residents’ letter, March 1831 · James B. Allen’s review of Palmer

What do the earliest records show?

The 1829 reports establish that an angel and buried record were part of the story before the Book of Mormon appeared in print. They are later than Carlyle’s translation. The reported 1823 visit predates that translation, but that date is preserved in later accounts. The chronology leaves room for a question about how people told the story. It supplies no link to Hoffmann by itself.

What would make borrowing likely?

A dated reference to Walters or Joseph encountering this specific tale would make the route stronger. Distinctive wording or a sequence of actions with the same function in both accounts would give the comparison more weight. A local reference to guarded treasure, or the appearance of gold and strange writing in two stories, gets us partway. The records examined here give us no clear handoff of Hoffmann’s tale.

Latter-day Saints can take the parallels seriously and still take Joseph’s account on its own terms. The claim that Moroni delivered a record also has to reckon with what Joseph and the witnesses reported. A proposed literary parallel only answers that wider question to the extent that it can explain the evidence. Compare what the witnesses said · Read the other literary source theories