Rewriting D&C 28, 30, 32

Saints: The Standard of Truth (Volume 1), rewrites D&C 28 to accommodate M2C, as we see in this excerpt from page 98. 

The revelation then called Oliver to go nearly a thousand miles to the western edge of the United States to preach the restored gospel to American Indians, who were remnants of the house of Israel. The Lord said that the city of Zion would be built near these people, echoing the Book of Mormon’s promise that God would establish the New Jerusalem on the American continent prior to the Second Coming of Christ. He did not identify the city’s exact location, but He promised to reveal that information at a later time.20

Here's what the actual revelation says:

D&C 28:8 And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them; and inasmuch as they receive thy teachings thou shalt cause my church to be established among them; and thou shalt have revelations, but write them not by way of commandment.


9 And now, behold, I say unto you that it is not revealed, and no man knoweth where the city Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. Behold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites.

Notice the difference?

The term "Indians" is not found in any of the scriptures, but Saints creates a false historical narrative by telling us Oliver was called to preach to "American Indians" instead of what the scriptures say: "Lamanites."

This is a deliberate change of wording from the scriptures. Note 20 mentions the change from the original to the publication.

20. Knight, Autobiography, 145–47; Doctrine and Covenants 28 (Revelation, Sept. 1830–B, at josephsmithpapers.org); Covenant of Oliver Cowdery and Others, Oct. 17, 1830, in JSP, D1:204; see also Doctrine and Covenants 29 (Revelation, Sept. 1830–A, at josephsmithpapers.org); 3 Nephi 21:23–24; and Ether 13:3–10. The revelation said the place for the holy city would be “among the Lamanites” but was edited for publication to read “on the borders by the Lamanites.” (Book of Commandments 30:9, in JSP, R2:80.) Topics: American Indians; Zion/New Jerusalem; Gathering of Israel.

D&C 30 and 32 reiterate that Oliver and his companions were called to preach to the Lamanites.

D&C 30:5 Behold, I say unto you, Peter, that you shall take your journey with your brother Oliver; for the time has come that it is expedient in me that you shall open your mouth to declare my gospel; therefore, fear not, but give heed unto the words and advice of your brother, which he shall give you.

6 And be you afflicted in all his afflictions, ever lifting up your heart unto me in prayer and faith, for his and your deliverance; for I have given unto him power to build up my church among the Lamanites;

D&C 32:1 And now concerning my servant Parley P. Pratt, behold, I say unto him that as I live I will that he shall declare my gospel and learn of me, and be meek and lowly of heart.

2 And that which I have appointed unto him is that he shall ago with my servants, Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, Jun., into the wilderness among the Lamanites.

Nevertheless, on page 105, Saints tells us Oliver was thinking about American Indians, not Lamanites.

As pleased as he was with their success in Ohio, though, Oliver knew the Lord had called them to preach to the American Indians who lived beyond the western border of the United States. 

Here again, Saints is creating a false historical narrative by changing the wording of the historical record to accommodate a modern theory of Book of Mormon geography.

This isn't the biggest problem with Saints, but it's another unforced error. I think we'd all be much better off if Saints had stuck with the language of the scriptures instead of creating a false historical narrative to accommodate M2C.


The end

Peep stone vs. Urim and Thummim in Saints

One of my favorite aspects of the Saints book, volume 1, is how it ignores the teachings of the prophets while emphasizing the teachings of others, especially the speculation of revisionist Church historians.

We're assured that Saints was reviewed by lots of people, but did anyone check the sources? Did anyone ask why the teachings of the prophets are so methodically censored or overridden by the rhetoric of revisionist Church historians?

The censorship of Cumorah was the most obvious example. The phony story of Moroni showing the plates to Mary Whitmer is an annoying piece of misinformation driven by M2C* that the historic sites missionaries tell everyone who comes. 

The treatment of the translation of the Book of Mormon is equally problematic.

We start off with this:

Moroni spoke of gold plates buried in a nearby hill. On the plates was etched the record of an ancient people who once lived in the Americas. The record told of their origins and gave an account of Jesus Christ visiting them and teaching the fullness of His gospel.8

Buried with the plates, Moroni said, were two seer stones, which Joseph later called the Urim and Thummim, or interpreters. The Lord had prepared these stones to help Joseph translate the record. The clear stones were fastened together and attached to a breastplate.9

8. Joseph Smith, Journal, Nov. 9–11, 1835, in JSP, J1:88.22

9. Joseph Smith—History 1:35; Joseph Smith History, 1838–56, volume A-1, 5, in JSP, H1:222 (draft 2); Joseph Smith History, circa Summer 1832, 4, in JSP, H1:14; Oliver Cowdery, “Letter IV,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, Feb. 1835, 1:65–67; Turley, Jensen, and Ashurst-McGee, “Joseph the Seer,” 49–54; “Mormonism—No. II,” Tiffany’s Monthly, July 1859, 164. Topic: Seer Stones

Everything in bold is revisionist history, designed to accommodate modern theories, including M2C.

There are at least two sources that show Moroni himself calling the "nearby hill" Cumorah. Everyone alive during Joseph's lifetime knew this; it is only modern revisionist historians and their M2C colleagues who censor that important component of Church history.

The term "the Americas" appears nowhere in actual documents from early Church history. It's a term invented later to obscure what the actual documents say to accommodate M2C. Below we'll see what Moroni actually said.

The revisionist historians think W.W. Phelps first applied the term Urim and Thummim to the Nephite interpreters, for various reasons I've explained before.

Notice that footnote 9 cites Oliver Cowdery's Letter IV, but they don't actually use that source. Instead, Saints relates the theories of modern revisionist historians that would have been alien to Joseph, Oliver, and their contemporaries.
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If the editors of Saints wanted to create an authentic narrative present (meaning if they wanted to show what the historical figures actually thought), they would have presented the version of events that Oliver Cowdery described in 1835.

Everyone at the time accepted this account, including Joseph Smith who had it copied into his own journal as part of his life history. He later had it republished in every Church newspaper so all the members of the Church could know the actual history.

Here is Oliver's account, which Joseph assisted him to write. Notice how different it is from what Saints teaches:

He then proceeded and gave a general account of the promises made to the fathers, and also gave a history of the aborigenes of this country, and said they were literal descendants of Abraham. He represented them as once being an enlightned and intelligent people, possessing a correct knowledge of the gospel, and the plan of restoration and redemption. He said this history was written and deposited not far from that place, and that it was our brother’s privilege, if obedient to the commandments of the Lord, to obtain and translate the same by the means of the Urim and Thummim, which were deposited for that purpose with the record.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/68

Here's how the above passage would read if it was an honest narrative present:

Moroni spoke of a history of the aborigines of this country that had been written and deposited not far from Joseph's home in a Hill that Moroni called Cumorah. The ancient people possessed a correct knowledge of the gospel. Buried with the plates, Moroni said, were the Urim and Thummim, which Joseph could use to translate the record if he was obedient to the commandments of the Lord.

You'll never read what Joseph and Oliver actually taught unless you seek out the original sources for yourself.
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We won't take the time to go through everything, but let's look at how Saints portrays the translation:

Saints, p. 61:  Meanwhile, Joseph and Oliver started translating. They worked well together, weeks on end, frequently with Emma in the same room going about her daily work.24 Sometimes Joseph translated by looking through the interpreters and reading in English the characters on the plates. Often he found a single seer stone to be more convenient. He would put the seer stone in his hat, place his face into the hat to block out the light, and peer at the stone. Light from the stone would shine in the darkness, revealing words that Joseph dictated as Oliver rapidly copied them down.25

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/content/ldsorg/media-library/ebook-pdf/Saints-v1-English-PD60001624.pdf?lang=eng 

24. Joseph Smith History, 1838–56, volume A-1, 15, in JSP, H1:284 (draft 2); Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–45, book 8, [4]; Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald, Oct. 1, 1879, 290. Topic: Daily Life of First-Generation Latter-day Saints 

25. “Book of Mormon Translation,” Gospel Topics, topics.lds.org; Joseph Smith History, 1838–56, volume A-1, 15, in JSP, H1:284 (draft 2); Oliver Cowdery to William W. Phelps, Sept. 7, 1834, LDS Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1834, 1:14; Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald, Oct. 1, 1879, 290; “Golden Bible,” Palmyra Freeman, Aug. 11, 1829, [2]. Topic: Book of Mormon Translation

This all sounds great until you look at the references and think a moment.

The paragraph relies primarily on "Last Testimony of Sister Emma," an account prepared by her son, Joseph Smith III, who was in an ongoing doctrinal battle with the Utah Church led by Brigham Young. I discussed the problems with Emma's "Last Testimony" here:

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2019/07/peep-stones-vs-urim-and-thummim-part-3.html

The section of Saints that I bolded above is a mishmash of accounts that contradicts everything Joseph and Oliver actually wrote. They consistently and persistently declared that Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that accompanied the plates. The "convenient" seer stone idea came from Martin Harris many years later. The "shine in darkness" language comes from Alma, but Alma referred to directors, not interpreters (the language was changed in the 1920 LDS edition). 

Notice that instead of citing the many accounts from Joseph and Oliver, Saints focuses on dubious statements by others. Certainly Emma's 1879 "Last Testimony" was not part of the narrative present for Joseph and Oliver, who described the translation much differently. 

It continues to amaze me that a book that supposedly portrays a "narrative present" ignores the actual contemporaneous documents and instead creates a "narrative present" from documents created long after Joseph and Oliver were dead. 

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*According to David Whitmer, Joseph Smith, and Mary Whitmer herself, it was actually one of the Three Nephites who showed Mary the plates, but that means Cumorah is in New York, contrary to the false historical narrative present that Saints created to accommodate M2C.

https://saintsreview.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-mary-whitmer-problem.html

 

Saints, Volume 2, looks great

The first chapter of Volume 2 of Saints, titled No Unhallowed Hand, has been released.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/saints-volume-two-chapter-one

You can read chapter 1 here:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/saints-v2/part-1/01-gather-up-a-company?lang=eng

I'm happy to say that so far, it's a big improvement over Volume 1.

The chapter opens with Lucy Mack Smith's address in General Conference in October, 1845. After quoting some of her comments, the book's editors established an accurate historical present, meaning they explained the context of her remarks from the perspective of those who were present to hear her.

She paused, remembering Joseph, her martyred son. The Saints in the room already knew how an angel of the Lord had led him to a set of gold plates buried in a hill called Cumorah. They knew that Joseph had translated the plates by the gift and power of God and published the record as the Book of Mormon. Yet how many Saints in the assembly hall had truly known him?

This is a very welcome correction to Volume 1. 

You recall that Volume 1 completely censored Cumorah from the historical record.

That omission created a false historical present because during Joseph Smith's lifetime, every member of the Church, and everyone who heard or read what the missionaries taught, knew about the Hill Cumorah in New York. Letter VII had been published and republished many times. D&C 128:20 was part of a letter Joseph wrote to the entire Church that was published in the Times and Seasons just a year after Letter VII had been published in the same newspaper.

On his first missionary journey in 1830, Oliver Cowdery explained the Book of Mormon to his listeners this way. "This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him, Cumorah, which hill is now in the State of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario County."

(You can read these accounts here: http://www.lettervii.com/p/byu-packet-on-cumorah.html.)

Now, in Volume 2, we are reading about members of the Church as they actually were. It's excellent work.
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Some may be dissatisfied with the language "a hill called Cumorah" because it is equivocal; i.e., it doesn't say who first called the hill Cumorah. Was it Moroni? Joseph Smith? Oliver Cowdery? Or was it someone else who created a false tradition that Joseph passively accepted, which is the theory being taught by our M2C scholars and revisionist historians?

The historical record shows it was Moroni who named the hill, but those who want Cumorah to be in Mexico dispute the historical record. And that's fine. People will believe whatever they want to believe. They will confirm their biases regardless of what the evidence is.

But at least now, readers will have an accurate historical present in mind when they read this volume of Church history.

(BTW, it's not too late to fix the electronic versions of Saints Vol. 1, The Standard of Truth. I'm still hopeful that happens.)

How Saints portrays the translation of the Book of Mormon

This post is cross-posted at another of my blogs.

It's important for readers of Saints to realize how modern historians are adopting the ideas presented in Mormonism Unvailed, an 1834 anti-Mormon book published near Kirtland. In response to this book, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith wrote a series of 8 essays about Church history. The essays were published as letters in the Messenger and Advocate.

Joseph and Oliver emphasized that they were using facts to contradict the rumors contained in that book.

Revisionist LDS historians are reviving the ideas from Mormonism Unvailed, including the idea that Joseph translated the Book of Mormon using a stone in a hat instead of the Urim and Thummim he got from Moroni. This post explains that in more detail.

This is the same tactic these revisionist LDS historians use to reject what Letter VII taught about the New York Cumorah.
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Yesterday we looked at the obvious problem that, in many places, the growth of the Church has stalled. IMO, this is due, in part, to obstacles constructed by modern intellectuals.

Today we'll look at one of the obstacles being created by revisionist Church historians. This obstacle is the new narrative about the translation process. I address all of this in far more detail in my upcoming book, but this post discusses the key issues.
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Traditional depictions of the translation

Regarding the translation of the Nephite plates, there are many accounts that boil down to two lines of evidence:

1. Joseph and Oliver (and the Book of Mormon and the revelations in the D&C) always said Joseph translated the engravings on the plates by the gift and power of God, using the Urim and Thummim (also called interpreters) that Moroni put in the stone box with the original set of plates (the Harmony plates that contained the abridged record).

2. Others said that Joseph translated by reading words that appeared on a seer stone Joseph put in a hat.

Can these two separate categories be reconciled?
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Here is a table in my upcoming book (which delves into this topic in detail, with an appendix containing all known statements about the translation).

Witness Category 1	Witness Category 2
Joseph translated the entire Book of Mormon from engravings on ancient metal plates. He used the Urim and Thummim—the spectacles or the Nephite interpreters—that Moroni put in the stone box	Joseph translated the entire Book of Mormon by putting his face in a hat and reading words that appeared on a seer stone that he put in a hat to block out ambient light.

For decades, Church leaders have reaffirmed what Joseph and Oliver taught; i.e., that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the plates, as established by Witness Category 1 (and the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants).

The evidence from Witness Category 2 was long known, but mostly ignored.

In recent years, though, some Church historians have revisited the evidence. They have sought to reconcile the two disparate categories of evidence, giving equal weight to both.
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There have been three basic approaches toward reconciliation. Below I'll propose a fourth approach that I think makes the most sense.

1. Joseph and Oliver were accurate and complete; the others were wrong (lying or mistaken).
2. Joseph and Oliver were wrong (lying or mistaken); the others were right.
3. Joseph and Oliver used the term "Urim and Thummim" to refer to both the Nephite interpreters Moroni put in the stone box and the seer stone Joseph found in a well.

UT=SS - Joseph translating without
looking at the plates

Approach #3 (Urim and Thummim = Seer Stone, or UT=SS) has been widely adopted by Church historians and is now being disseminated throughout the Church as the mainstream view. It's not unreasonable, on its face. But it causes a serious problem, which is why I consider it a serious impediment to missionary and reactivation work, as I'll explain below.

UT=SS has been published in the Ensign, the Gospel Topics essay and the Saints book. It is depicted in the new Church movies about Harmony and Fayette. It is depicted at the Priesthood Restoration site and will soon be in more visitors centers, if it isn't already.

The Saints book describes it this way:

UT=SS - Joseph translating
by staring at a stone in a hat

Meanwhile, Joseph and Oliver started translating. They worked well together, weeks on end, frequently with Emma in the same room going about her daily work.²⁴ Sometimes Joseph translated by looking through the interpreters and reading in English the characters on the plates.

Often he found a single seer stone to be more convenient. He would put the seer stone in his hat, place his face into the hat to block out the light, and peer at the stone. Light from the stone would shine in the darkness, revealing words that Joseph dictated as Oliver rapidly copied them down.²⁵

The obvious problem with UT=SS is that it contradicts what was taught by Joseph, Oliver, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.

Do you recognize that pattern?

It's the same principle taught by the M2C intellectuals; i.e., the prophets were wrong about the New York Cumorah because they were ignorant (or negligent) speculators who adopted a false tradition and thereby misled the Church.

Once one accepts that principle (the "distrust the prophets" principle), it's easy to also conclude that Joseph, Oliver and the scriptures were wrong about the translation because they, too, were negligent, imprecise or just didn't want people to know the truth about the seer stone.

I consider this "distrust the prophets" principle inexcusable in both cases because it undermines faith and is not required by the evidence.
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Joseph, Oliver and the scriptures all teach that Joseph translated the Book of Mormon with the Nephite interpreters called the Urim and Thummim prepared for that purpose. Moroni put the interpreters in the stone box specifically so Joseph could use them to translate the plates.

For example, Joseph explained that it was Moroni himself who used the term:

He told me also of a sacred record which was written on plates of gold. I saw in the vision the place where they were deposited. He said to me the Indians were the literal decendants of Abraham. He explained many of the prophecies to me; one of which I will mention, which is in Malachi 4th chapter. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh <​(&c​> He also informed me that the Urim & Thummim was hid up with the record, and that God would give me power to translate it with the assistance of this instrument; he then gradually vanished out of my sight or the vision closed. 

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/125

Oliver explained:

These were days never to be forgotten—to <​sit​> assist under the voice sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven, awakened the utmost gratitude of this bosom! Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to  write from his mouth, as he translated with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites should have said, [“]Interpreters,”32 the history, or reccord, called “the book of Mormon.[”]

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/49

It's true that the Book of Mormon does not use the term Urim and Thummim for the interpreters, but in these quotations, Joseph and Oliver both equated the terms. Neither of them mentioned a "seer stone," let alone a seer stone that Joseph found in a well long before he removed the plates and interpreters from Moroni's stone box.

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We wonder, what led the UT=SS intellectuals to conclude that Joseph, Oliver and the scriptures didn't mean what they said?

What led them to equate the Urim and Thummim with the seer stone?

The UT=SS intellectuals note that the first published use of the term "Urim and Thummim" in connection with the translation appeared in an article written by W.W. Phelps in 1833. They conclude that all other references to the "Urim and Thummim" are based on the Phelps article; i.e., that Joseph, Oliver, and the revelations in the D&C adopted Phelps' idea retroactively.

Here is the article.

1833. “The Book of Mormon… was translated by the gift and Power of God, by an unlearned man, through the aid of a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles—(known, perhaps, in ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim) and while it unfolds the history of the first inhabitants that settled this continent, it, at the same time, brings a oneness to scripture.” (“Book of Mormon,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Jan. 1833, 58.)

https://archive.org/details/EveningAndMorningStar18321834/page/n57

From the grammar here, it's easy to see why the UT=SS intellectuals think Phelps was the first to apply the term "Urim and Thummim" to the Nephite interpreters. They assume Joseph and Oliver were loose with the facts anyway (which is one reason why they reject the New York Cumorah), and they view everything through that filter.

There is another obvious interpretation of the Phelps article. Phelps was writing to a non-LDS audience, explaining the Book of Mormon to the world. If Phelps knew from Joseph and Oliver that Moroni had identified the interpreters as the Urim and Thummim (as Joseph claimed in the excerpt above), he would have introduced the idea to his non-LDS readers just the way he did in this article.

IOW, we can read the Phelps article to be consistent with what Joseph and Oliver taught, or to be inconsistent with what they taught.

The UT=SS intellectuals choose to interpret the article to be inconsistent with what Joseph and Oliver taught; i.e., that it was not Moroni who first described the interpreters as the Urim and Thummim, but instead it was Phelps himself who came up with the idea.

And that's fine, so far as it goes. That, by itself, does not create the impediment.

The problem is when these same UT=SS intellectuals take the next step of equating the Nephite interpreters with the seer stone.
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The UT=SS intellectuals have created a narrative that is depicted in the common Internet meme shown here.

Although intended as ridicule, the meme focuses specifically on the logical endpoint of the stone-in-the-hat theory.

Imagine being a youth in the Church, or an investigator, and reading the Saints book, the Gospel Topics essay, etc.

Even if you don't know that UT=SS contradicts the plain teachings of Joseph, Oliver, and the scriptures, how could you not wonder to yourself exactly what this meme depicts?

In my view, UT=SS is a major impediment to accepting the Book of Mormon.

The idea of an angel appearing to Joseph Smith and directing him to the golden plates is difficult enough for many people to accept at first. Translating them with interpreters prepared for that task makes sense once you accept the idea of the angel and the plates.

But the idea that Joseph translated by looking at a stone in a hat undermines the credibility of the entire experience Joseph and Oliver described.

I realize there are plenty of accounts in Church history that support the stone-in-the-hat idea, which is why I propose a fourth reconciliation method (below).

UT=SS contradicts the basic narrative that the interpreters were prepared by the Lord for the translation of the plates, that Moroni put them in the box for that purpose, and that Joseph used them for that purpose.

UT=SS undermines one of the most basic foundations for the Book of Mormon itself.

I urge everyone involved to reconsider the UT=SS path because of the ramifications it is having and will continue to have in the future.
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Reconciliation approach #4.

4. Joseph used the seer stone in the hat to demonstrate, but not to actually perform, the translation of the plates.

I explain this in more detail in the book, but there are two key points.

First, I think most of the people involved were simply relating what they observed. They weren't lying.

Second, I think what they observed was a demonstration, not the actual translation.

When you look at the accounts of Joseph translating by reading words off a stone in a hat, none of them relate exactly what words Joseph was dictating.

Think of the situation Joseph was in. Most of the accounts are from Fayette, where he and Oliver were translating the Fayette plates (the plates of Nephi) upstairs in the Whitmer home. The Whitmers were curious. Their neighbors were curious. People were coming by all the time asking about what was going on.

Joseph had been commanded not to show the interpreters or the plates to anyone. How could he satisfy the curiosity so he and Oliver could finish the work in peace?

Naturally, he would perform a demonstration. David Whitmer explains that they arranged chairs around a table so everyone could watch. Joseph came downstairs and showed a stone (whether it was a functioning seer stone or not doesn't matter) and put it in a hat and dictated words to a scribe (presumably Oliver Cowdery).

It would be consistent with Joseph's character to let the audience think he was translating the Book of Mormon, even without claiming he was doing so. [I give similar examples of this in the book.]

The demonstration would solve two problems: it satisfied the curious crowds, and left him and Oliver to work on the translation in relative peace.

[This also explains why Joseph gave the seer stone to Oliver when they finished the translation; he didn't need it any longer because he wouldn't need to do any further demonstrations.]

The accounts from Martin Harris and Emma Smith have similar explanations that I don't have time to explain for now.
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The bottom line: The historical evidence is consistent with Joseph Smith translating the entire Book of Mormon with the Urim and Thummim that Moroni put in the stone box.

The stone-in-the-hat meme is the product of an understandable effort by some Church historians to reconcile inconsistent accounts from Church history, but it creates impediments for missionary and reactivation work because it contradicts the teachings of the prophets and the scriptures.

Can they correct Saints?

I frequently encounter members of the Church who are appalled by the Saints book. Some have objections I haven't publicly commented on, but many besides me have noticed the censorship of Cumorah.

It is obvious to everyone who knows Church history that the Saints book creates a false historical narrative present. This was not a mistake. The issue of Cumorah was raised and discussed at the highest levels of the Church history department long before the excerpts were published in the Ensign, which was many months before the book was released.

This means the authors intentionally misled readers. They publicly admitted that they changed the history to accommodate M2C, as we've discussed before.

https://saintsreview.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-historians-explain-censorship-in.html

All of this leads to the question, can the historians correct Saints?
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The easy answer is, yes, of course they can correct Saints. They are capable of fixing the problems, despite the logistics of translation and printing. The book has been out less than a year. They could publish an errata sheet for printed versions.

They can correct the digital versions instantly.

The real question is, will the historians correct Saints?

The answer to that seems obvious: No. 

The revisionist historians who wrote Saints have no intention of relating the truth about Cumorah and everything else related to Cumorah. They are systematically erasing Cumorah from the historical record to accommodate their peers and colleagues who continue to promote M2C (the Mesoamerican/two Cumorahs theory).

Will Church leaders insist that they correct the book?

That appears unlikely. Church leaders delegate everything they can, and they have long trusted the historians and intellectuals. In my view, these employees have violated their trust.

The beauty of censorship is that readers don't know what they're missing.

Just as M2C censorship makes sure that students will never learn what the prophets have taught about the Hill Cumorah in New York, censorship also prevents Church leaders to know what they are missing when they read the materials published by the M2C intellectuals and revisionist Church historians.

Fortunately, President Nelson is emphasizing that Church members have an obligation to do their own study.

We're not beholden to or dependent upon the M2C intellectuals and revisionist Church historians.

But we have to take President Nelson's guidance seriously.

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Recently Scott Adams observed that history books are written to promote agendas.

History is written by the winners for the purpose of brainwashing the youth. If you don't know that that is what history is for, you're probably living a confused life. History, in terms of the history books and history lessons, is not designed to tell you what happened. It doesn't have that purpose. 

You're taught that it has that purpose when you go to school. You think you're learning history for the purpose of becoming educated, becoming a citizen who knows how to function, etc. But that's not the purpose. That's not even the intention. 

It is expressly for brainwashing.

Now, I'm not complaining about that because brainwashing children is what you need to do to children. If you didn't brainwash children to be good citizens, they would not be as good a citizens. You have to train children because they have no critical reasoning... If you don't do that you don't get good citizens.

[History can be written in two ways.] The question is, which truth will be in the history books?

https://www.pscp.tv/w/1rmxPeWozNDKN?q=scott+adams

Oliver was truthful about everything except...

Reading Saints reminds me of a post I made years ago on my Letter VII blog.

The authors of Saints have publicly acknowledged they created a false narrative present to promote their agenda regarding a so-called "neutrality" position on Book of Mormon geography. But as you read the book, the authors rely quite a bit on Oliver Cowdery's accounts.

Readers of Saints see plenty of citations to Oliver's writings. But they also see his observations in Letter VII about the New York Cumorah are completely censored.

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Letter VII from Messenger and Advocate, July 1835

Those who reject Letter VII cite no reasons other than their preference for a different location for the Hill Cumorah.

It is interesting to take a look at Oliver Cowdery's participation in the Church to put Letter VII in context. When he wrote it, he was the Assistant President of the Church. He had been commanded by revelation to select materials to publish. All eight of Oliver's letters about history are accepted by Church historians as important insights into the early events of the Church. 

The only ones who object to any of Oliver's writings are the Mesoamerican advocates who reject just a few paragraphs out of one of the eight letters.

Oliver published Letter VII in July 1835. In February 1835, he, as one of the Three Witnesses, had selected the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He gave them their aspostolic charge. In April 1836, he, along with Joseph Smith, was visited in the Kirtland temple by Moses, Elias, Elijah, and the Savior Himself. Oliver and Joseph were given the keys of the gathering of Israel and the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham.

Mesoamerican advocates expect you to believe that Oliver Cowdery could faithfully record the entire Book of Mormon, most of the Book of Moses, and much of Church history. Oliver could faithfully edit and publish two Church newspapers, the Book of Commandments, and the original Doctrine and Covenants. He could accurately write the statement for the Three Witnesses. Of all the writing he did, you're supposed to believe he was faithful and accurate except for a few paragraphs in one letter, solely because those paragraphs contradict the opinions of the scholars.

Here is the chronology. Everything that is okay is marked green. The items the scholars object to is marked red.

	Date	Event
	1829 April	Transcribes Book of Mormon as Joseph dictates
	1829 May	Receives Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist, baptizes Joseph and is baptized by him
	1829 May	Receives Melchizedek Priesthood from Peter, James and John
	1829 June	Sees the plates and angel as one of the Three Witnesses
	1829 June	Completes Book of Mormon and makes a printer’s copy, supervises printing and publication
	1830 April	Helps organize the Church as a Second Elder and apostle, ordains Joseph Smith as First Elder
	1830 June	Transcribes Book of Moses 1:1 through 5:43
	1830 Oct.	Leaves on mission to the Lamanites
	1830 Nov.	Baptizes Sidney Rigdon
	1831 Jan.	Arrives in Jackson County, Mo.
	1831 Summer	Meets Joseph in Jackson County
	1831 Nov.	Takes revelations from Ohio to Missouri for publication
	1832	Helps Phelps with printing operation in Missouri
	1832 Apr.	Approves Book of Commandments
	1833 Nov.	Sets up printing press in Kirtland, reprints Evening and Morning Star
	1833 Dec.	Begins editing Evening and Morning Star
	1834 Feb.	Chosen as founding member of Kirtland Council
	1834 May-Aug.	Leader in Kirtland after Zions Camp left
	1834 Oct	Edits LDS Messenger and Advocate and Northern Times
	1834 Oct	Publishes Letter I about Church history, part of which is in the current Pearl of Great Price
	1834 Nov	Publishes Letter II about Church history
	1834 Dec	Publishes Letter III about Church history
	1834 Dec	Ordained by Joseph Smith as “Assistant President of the Church”
	1835	Publishes Letter IV about Church history
	1835 Feb	With David Whitmer and Martin Harris, selects first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
	1835 Feb	Gives apostolic charge to the Twelve Apostles
	1835 Mar	Publishes Letter V about Church history
	1835 Apr	Publishes Letter VI about Church history
	1835 May	Resigns from Messenger and Advocate
	1835 July	Publishes Letter VII about Church history
	1835 Aug.	Gets Doctrine and Covenants approved for printing
	1835 Oct.	Publishes Letter VIII about Church history
	1836 Mar.	Resumes editing the Messenger and Advocate
	1836 Apr.	Visited in Kirtland temple by Moses, Elias, Elijah, and Christ, receives the keys of the gathering of Israel and dispensation of gospel of Abraham
	1836 July	Accompanies Joseph to Salem, MA
	1837 Feb.	Turns over printing company to Joseph and Sidney
	1838 July	“Excluded from fellowship” for accusations against Joseph
	1848 Nov.	Rebaptized into the Church
	1850 March	Dies in Richmond at home of David Whitmer

Selective standards toward historical sources

The power and influence of M2C is evident in the way that the book Saints features a variety of selective standards toward the historical accounts.

The most egregious, of course, is authors' deliberate violation of their own claim that they wanted to portray characters in their narrative present, meaning as those characters saw themselves at the time. This is an ideal way to write history; it puts readers into the actual world of the people they are reading about.

However, because of their desire to promote a modern narrative about Book of Mormon geography, the authors created a false narrative present by portraying figures in Church history as unaware of the Hill Cumorah in New York.

To create this false narrative present, the authors used a variety of selective standards. Let's look at some.

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The authors claimed that Joseph Smith never referred to the "hill in New York" where he got the plates as the hill Cumorah.

However, they know that Lucy Mack Smith gave us a direct quotation of Joseph referring to the hill as Cumorah in 1827 before he even got the plates. The editors avoid this evidence by editing around it, as I showed in another post.

They also know that in D&C 128:20, Joseph specifically referred to Cumorah. How did they get around this evidence that contradicts their narrative present? Simply by quoting portions of D&C 128 from before and after verse 20 (see p. 477).

The authors also know that Joseph Smith helped Oliver write the eight historical letters that they cited many times, but they don't inform readers that Joseph had the letters copied into his personal history, or that he approved the republication of these letters multiple times.
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They also apply a selective standard to the evidence they cite throughout the book.

Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that the editors were correct; i.e., let's pretend Joseph never referred to Cumorah. Is that a justification for censoring the term?

The editors don't apply that standard with regard to other topics. Throughout the book, they write about what Joseph thought, felt, wanted, etc., all based on their inferences.

On page 434, they acknowledge that "Joseph himself left no record of his own views on plural marriage or his struggle to obey the commandment. Emma too disclosed nothing about how early she learned of the practice or what impact it had on her marriage. The writings of others close to them, however, make clear that it was a source of anguish for both of them."

This lack of an actual record is no obstacle because this is a topic the authors of Saints wanted to discuss. The book goes on to make speculative statements such as this: "Yet Joseph felt an urgency to teach it to the Saints, despite the risks and his own reservations."

Making reasonable inferences is fine, but notice the selective standard. The authors censor Cumorah because they claim Joseph "left no record of his own views" on Cumorah, but they also censor "the writings of others close to them" that "make clear that" Joseph and his associates all believed Cumorah was in New York.

IOW, on the topic of plural marriage, the authors of Saints speculate at length about what Joseph thought, based on the writings of others. But on the topic of Cumorah, not only do they censor what Joseph actually said and wrote, but they censor the writings of others that corroborated Joseph's own words.
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Another example is the treatment of Parley P. Pratt's autobiography and its sources. When Pratt wrote something that fit the narrative the authors wanted, they freely quoted from his writings.

For example, on pages 367-8, they related Joseph Smith's rebuke of the prison guards in Richmond, Missouri, in 1838. They provide a direct quotation of what Joseph said, taken from Pratt's Autobiography (which in turn was based on a letter Pratt wrote in 1853).

However, Matt Grow, one of the historians who defended the censorship of Cumorah in Saints, provided a different interpretation of this quotation in another book. Here's an explanation from an article about the topic.

Givens and Grow provide the following assessment of the narrative: “Written years after Smith’s death, the account describes a hero of inspiring proportions; if Pratt did not express such veneration during Smith’s lifetime, distance and the aura of martyrdom made it easier for Pratt, as his disciple, to describe such a moment of mythic splendor. With his tendency toward Victorian grandiloquence, his Manichean worldview, and the sense of poetic license, Pratt perhaps embellished the scene. . . . However, there is no reason to doubt the essentials of the account.” Givens and Grow, Parley P. Pratt, 144. The fact that Pratt did not even mention the rebuking incident in his History of the Late Persecutions (most of which he wrote between December 1838 to mid-March 1839), supports Givens and Grows conclusion that over time, the incident became even more impressive in his mind.

http://mormonhistoricsites.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/%E2%80%9CSilence-Ye-Fiends-of-the-Infernal-Pit%E2%80%9D-Joseph-Smith%E2%80%99s-Incarceration-in-Richmond-Missouri-November-1838.pdf
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I bring this up to show how, when it fits the desired narrative, the authors of Saints had no problem providing direct quotations, even when they knew the quotations were first recorded 15 years after the event, were never mentioned earlier, and were probably embellished on top of that.

But when a quotation from the same source contradicts the desired narrative, it becomes unreliable and subject to censorship.

The New York Cumorah contradicts the modern M2C narrative, so the authors of Saints censor it, even though Parley P. Pratt's Autobiography included the following quotation.

"This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him, Cumorah, which hill is now in the State of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario county." p. 57.

The authors of Saints also dismissed Lucy Mack Smith's quotation of Joseph Smith referring to Cumorah in 1827, apparently because she didn't record it until 1845, although she related it verbally prior to that. M2C advocates say Lucy's memory was unreliable on this one point (the New York Cumorah), but they cite her account throughout Saints and other accounts of Church history.
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