The question of whether or not Joseph Smith participated in the translation of the Book of Mormon as an actual translator, or merely as a transcriber, remains a point of debate in Mormon studies. Did Joseph receive spiritual impressions and visionary experiences by means of a translation device (seer stone, interpreters, and/or Urim and Thummim) and then articulate them into English by tapping into his own mental storehouse of English vocabulary, phraseology, and conceptualizations (the theory of “loose control”)? Or did Joseph simply read the words of a preexisting translation that appeared to him on the surface of the translation device, without any significant contributions of his own (the theory of “tight control”)? As Richard Bushman aptly observes, “Latter-day Saints themselves cannot agree on how the writings engraved on the gold surfaces relate to Joseph Smith’s oral dictation to his secretaries.”