Additionally, one of the most significant points about the translation process is Joseph’s reticence to personally explain it, saying the means were not given to this generation, only to say it was done by the power of God.

On depictions of the translation, I should note one thing in response to smb. The original post states Some have felt Smith saw words in the stones, others have felt he connected thereby with the meaning of the glyphs. This has not been settled, and Smith did not give much direct indication for historians.

David Whitmer’s account, however, relates the following about the time he served as scribe:

A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.

Thus, according to this account, as Ben S. pointed out in # 25, the two are not mutually exclusive and at least one contemporary observer of the process explains that both glyphs and English words appeared in the stone together.

Perhaps South Park chose to depict a top hat because of its current association with stage magic.

I’m not sure why, but my impression is that people often find the hat more troubling than the seerstone itself. I see the hat as just being a convenient way of excluding light. He could have drawn the blinds, but then the scribe would have had difficulty writing. He might have used a cloth or blanket of some sort, but the hat just seems much simpler to use. I don’t see the hat as being any more integral to the process than the chair he was sitting on. The use of a hat to exclude light reminds me of a photographer’s focusing cloth used with old large-format cameras, and to me seems a fairly mundane part of the translation process. But perhaps my perception is influenced by the fact that I’ve spent a lot of time with my face in a focusing cloth myself.

One main reason might be that due to Oliver Cowdery’s place in the Doctrine and Covenants in the context of his role as scribe during the translation process of the 116 pages (see Doctrine and Covenants Section 8 and Section 9), the Oliver Cowdery description of translation with Joseph sitting behind a screen reading from the plates with the use of the U&T seems to be the default depiction.

It is also more aesthetically interesting or pleasing, I would think, since the face isn’t covered up.