The Quote the CES Letter Needs To Be True
If the Kinderhook Plates are meant to function as a strong “gotcha” in the CES Letter, the keystone they are made to be, that strong piece of evidence, everything rests on one central claim: that Joseph Smith actually translated the plates. Not examined them. Not compared characters. Not speculated.
Translated.
That is why it is worth slowing down and asking a basic question.
Where is the evidence that Joseph Smith ever produced a translation of the Kinderhook Plates?
The CES Letter presents the episode as if that point is settled, by quoting a statement in the first person as though Joseph said it. But when you trace where that quotation comes from, it becomes harder to treat it as a direct “Joseph Smith said this” moment. The entire argument that Joseph was a fraud, and that the Church is being deceptive about it, depends on that assumption holding up.
It may be worth asking why the CES Letter does not spend more time showing that the “translation” actually happened as a translation event, with dictated text and a record of what was produced. If you could actually show that Joseph Smith made a false translation of fake plates, then that would be something! That would be evidence to strike at the foundation of Mormonism.
But the details of The Kinderhook Plates described here, clearly demonstrate that not only was there not a translation “by the gift and power of God” but that there was NO TRANSLATION whatsoever.
What the Primary Source Actually Is
The key “translation” line does not begin as a published statement from Joseph Smith.
It begins as a private journal entry by William Clayton. Clayton’s entry is the source critics point to when they claim Joseph translated the plates. The problem is that the CES Letter treats Clayton’s wording as if it is Joseph’s own voice, even though it is not a direct quotation and does not describe a translation process.
Clayton’s journal entry is later echoed and amplified through a much more familiar source: History of the Church. That is where readers often encounter the statement in the first person, as though Joseph himself is speaking.
This is not a small detail. A first-person quotation carries rhetorical force. It sounds like a formal declaration. It sounds like an admission. It feels decisive.
But the first-person form is a later reconstruction. The underlying material was compiled after Joseph’s death from multiple journals and sources, then edited into a first-person narrative style. Even the CES Letter’s own expanded discussion acknowledges that the line originated in Clayton’s journal and was rewritten into first person when included in History of the Church.
If the strongest “Joseph said it” version of the quote depends on later editorial phrasing, then the next question is obvious.
What did Clayton actually see, and what was he assuming?
Did Joseph actually translate?
Did Clayton actually see translation?
Or did Clayton just make a false assumption that has blown up into a misunderstanding that Joseph performed any kind of translation on the Kinderhook plates?
The GAEL Overlap the CES Letter Does Not Highlight
This is where the Kinderhook argument is completely derailed.
Clayton’s entry does not exist in isolation. It has an unusually tight textual overlap with content found in Joseph Smith’s 1835 Egyptian study materials, commonly referred to as the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL).
On page 10 of the Joseph Smith Papers transcript of the GAEL, the language includes:
- “A prince of the royal blood”
- “a true desendant from Ham”
- “kingly power by the line of Pharoah”
- “possessor of heaven and earth”
Those phrases appear in the GAEL notebook, page 10), right next to the BOAT Icon, which resembles the boat icon found on one of the Kinderhook plates!
Now compare that to what Clayton wrote about the Kinderhook Plates:
A descendant of Ham through Pharaoh, receiving a kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth.
That is not a loose similarity. It is the exact same concept.
This is where a question starts to form that the CES Letter does not really answer.
Why is the GAEL overlap not presented as a central fact, when it offers a straightforward explanation for why Clayton wrote what he wrote?
In other areas, the CES Letter spends substantial time building parallels and suggesting literary dependence, including repeated comparisons between the Book of Mormon and other texts such as View of the Hebrews. But here, where there is a close, documented overlap between Clayton’s “translation” summary and a known written source that was physically available in Nauvoo, the overlap is often treated as secondary or ignored.
That seems backwards.
If a critic wants to argue “Joseph fabricated a translation,” the GAEL overlap matters, because it points to a more basic possibility: Clayton was describing content he encountered in an existing notebook, not recording a new dictated translation from Joseph Smith.
That line of reasoning is laid out directly in Letter to My Wife’s Kinderhook summary, including the observation that Clayton was not involved in the 1835 Egyptian papers project and may not have understood what he was looking at.
Did Joseph actually translate?
What Evidence Is Missing if a Translation Really Happened
Even if someone wants to argue that Joseph Smith made remarks that Clayton interpreted as translation, another question remains.
Where is the translation record?
When Joseph Smith produced scripture, he consistently used scribes and produced text. Manuscripts exist for the Book of Mormon translation process, the Book of Abraham manuscripts, and many revelations that became the Doctrine and Covenants. A translation event normally leaves paper behind.
In the Kinderhook case, there is no dictated manuscript, no sustained translation attempt, and no produced text that can be evaluated. The entire “translation” claim is reduced to a journal summary that is later rewritten into a first-person quotation, that sounds like a false assumption made by a scribe.
If the Kinderhook Plates are presented as decisive evidence, should the evidentiary standard be higher than that?
Shouldn’t there be at least a little bit of believable evidence?
A More Natural Explanation the CES Letter Moves Past Quickly
The CES Letter’s argument benefits from speed. If the reader moves quickly from “plates” to “translation” to “hoax,” the conclusion feels automatic.
But if the reader pauses and asks what Clayton likely encountered, the simplest explanation becomes harder to avoid.
Joseph Smith compared characters. The GAEL materials were present and contained language about Ham, Pharaoh, and kingly lineage. Clayton, who arrived years after the GAEL project began, may have assumed the notebook represented a translation framework. He then summarized what he believed the plates contained, using the same conceptual language found on the GAEL page.
This is not a forced reading. It fits what we actually have in the record.
It also explains why no dictated translation document exists. It explains why the episode ends without producing anything. It explains why later retellings need the first-person rewrite to make the story feel decisive.
Again, the most thorough walk-through of this explanation, with the sources side by side, is in Letter to My Wife’s Kinderhook article, and the GAEL wording can be checked directly in the Joseph Smith Papers transcript.
Questions the CES Letter Leaves Hanging
If the Kinderhook argument is meant to prove Joseph was a fraud and the Church is deceptive, it is worth asking why so much of the presentation depends on rhetorical shortcuts.
- Why present Clayton’s summary in a way that many readers will interpret as Joseph’s direct quote?
- Why rely on a later first-person reconstruction when the underlying source is third-person and interpretive?
- Why not foreground the near word-for-word overlap with the GAEL, when it offers a natural explanation for Clayton’s entry?
- Why treat the absence of a translation manuscript as if it does not matter?
Those are not questions designed to “win” an argument. They are questions that follow from the sources themselves.
And they point to a quieter conclusion than the CES Letter suggests.
The Kinderhook story may not be a case of Joseph being caught translating a hoax. It may be a case of later critics needing the story to function that way, even though the record is thin, the quotation is editorially amplified, and the strongest textual match points back to a preexisting notebook.