An Insider's View of Mormon Origins

He finds that much of what we take for granted as literal history has been tailored over the years-slightly modified, added to, one aspect emphasized over another-to the point that the original narratives have been nearly lost. What was experienced as a spiritual or metaphysical event, something from a different dimension, often has been refashioned as if it were a physical, objective occurrence. This is not how the first Saints interpreted these events. Historians who have looked closer at the foundational stories and source documents have restored elements, including a nineteenth-century world view, that have been misunderstood, if not forgotten.