Voree Plates - Translation and Testimony

Translation and Testimony

Strang's published translation of the Voree Plates reads as follows:

"My people are no more. The mighty are fallen, and the young slain in battle. Their bones bleached on the plain by the noonday shadow. The houses are leveled to the dust, and in the moat are the walls. They shall be inhabited.

"I have in the burial served them, and their bones in the Death-shade, towards the sun's rising, are covered. They sleep with the mighty dead, and they rest with their fathers. They have fallen in transgression and are not, but the elect and faithful there shall dwell.

"The word hath revealed it. God hath sworn to give an inheritance to his people where transgressors perished. The word of God came to me while I mourned in the Death-shade, saying, I will avenge me on the destroyer. He shall be driven out. Other strangers shall inhabit thy land. I an ensign there will set up. The escaped of my people there shall dwell when the flock disown the Shepherd and build not on the Rock.

"The forerunner men shall kill, but a mighty prophet there shall dwell. I will be his strength, and he shall bring forth thy record. Record my words, and bury it in the Hill of Promise."

Strang published facsimiles of the plates. and his translation in his church's newspaper, The Voree Herald. Many Latter Day Saints found this new discovery quite compelling, and believed it to be a sure sign that James Strang was indeed Joseph Smith's true successor. For those who remained skeptical or merely curious, Mormon or non-Mormon, Strang (unlike Smith) readily produced the plates themselves for personal examination.

One such investigator was the non-Mormon Christopher Sholes, inventor of the first practical typewriter, and a later inspiration to Thomas Edison. As the editor of the Southport Telegraph, Sholes called upon Strang and perused his discovery. Sholes offered no opinion on the plates, but he described Strang as "honest and earnest" and opined that Strang's followers ranked "among the most honest and intelligent men in the neighborhood."

The LDS Church and the Community of Christ, the two largest factions of the Latter Day Saint movement, each reject James Strang's claims to prophetic leadership and his "Voree Record."