Moroni

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Moroni in the Book of Mormon

Moroni has always stood out to me as one of the most haunting and powerful figures in the Book of Mormon. He’s introduced as the last prophet of a collapsed Christian civilization in the ancient Americas. As the son of Mormon, he inherits the heavy responsibility of finishing and preserving the sacred record that would become the Book of Mormon.

He writes during a time of utter devastation, alone and hunted, yet determined to complete his father’s work. Moroni adds his own chapters to the record (Mormon 8–9), abridges the Book of Ether, and finally contributes his own short book—Moroni—filled with teachings on the Church, the sacrament, faith, and hope.

At the very end, in Moroni 10, he seals up the plates and offers what’s now known as “Moroni’s Promise”: an invitation to pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true. This passage is not just a doctrinal keystone; it’s a cultural one. Every active adult member of the Church is expected to have followed Moroni’s challenge. Most say they received a divine confirmation, usually felt internally as a warm, peaceful assurance—a prompting from the Holy Ghost, understood as deeply personal and real.

Moroni’s Role in the Origins of the LDS Movement

Growing up learning about Church history, I was taught that Moroni didn’t vanish into the ether—he returned, centuries later, as a resurrected being. Joseph Smith claimed that Moroni appeared to him on the night of September 21, 1823, telling him that God had a work for him and that an ancient record was buried in a hill near his home.

Smith said that Moroni appeared annually for four years before he was finally allowed to retrieve the plates in 1827. He described the process of translation as being done through the “gift and power of God.” Eventually, Smith returned the plates to Moroni after the Book of Mormon was translated.

Folk Magic and the Moroni Narrative

Over time, as I researched more deeply, I began to see how the earliest versions of this story share elements with New England folk magic. Smith and his family were treasure seekers, using seer stones and divining rods—common tools of the trade for locating buried treasure. What struck me is how much these practices overlapped with the early Moroni story.

In early accounts, Moroni doesn’t sound like a traditional biblical angel—he’s more like a guardian spirit of buried treasure, appearing and disappearing, and requiring ritual worthiness.
Joseph used the same stone-in-a-hat technique to receive revelations that he once used to locate hidden treasure.
The idea that the plates vanished or moved when mishandled parallels common explanations in folk magic for failed treasure digs.
As the Church matured, these magical elements were reframed to present Moroni as a heavenly messenger, distancing the story from its occult roots.

My Interpretation: Moroni as Part of a Treasure Hunting Pattern

I want to be upfront: my view of all this is biased by a skeptical lens. When I look at the Moroni story, it doesn’t feel separate from Joseph Smith’s earlier treasure-digging experiences—it feels like a continuation of them. Smith was known for convincing neighbors that he could find lost gold using magical stones. He was even tried in court in 1826 for these practices.

The guardian: Moroni, at first, fits the mold of a treasure guardian spirit, more than a resurrected angel with divine authority.
Denied access: Like other magical treasure tales, Joseph was repeatedly denied the plates for seemingly mystical reasons.
Translation method: The brown stone in the hat wasn’t new—it was Joseph’s old divination tool, just renamed for religious use.
Evolution of the story: Moroni became more angelic and authoritative as Joseph’s status grew—what began as folklore was canonized.

D. Michael Quinn’s research in Early Mormonism and the Magic World View maps these connections with extraordinary detail. Dan Vogel’s biography of Smith paints a similar picture: a man with storytelling gifts who knew how to turn his reputation as a “seer” into spiritual authority. It’s hard, from a skeptical perspective, not to see the Moroni narrative as a polished version of Joseph’s earlier con games—just more sophisticated, and more consequential.

Sources

The Book of Mormon: Mormon 8–9; Ether 1; Moroni 1–10
Joseph Smith—History 1:27–59 (Pearl of Great Price)
Doctrine and Covenants 6–8, 27
Quinn, D. Michael. Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. Signature Books, 1998.
Vogel, Dan. Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet. Signature Books, 2004.
Bushman, Richard Lyman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. Knopf, 2005.
MormonThink.com, articles on seer stones and treasure digging
Heber C. Kimball journals (quoted in secondary sources)
Church History Topics: "Seer Stones," "Divining Rods" (churchofjesuschrist.org)
Guide to the Scriptures: "Moroni, Son of Mormon" (churchofjesuschrist.org)
Exmormon.org and Christianity Stack Exchange discussions (for interpretive commentary)