Historian of Joseph Smith and early Latter-day Saint history who has written on the origins of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham.
So probably in the universe at Golden West College was about the time I stopped believing.
Prominent Joseph Smith Historian — Dan Vogel, Episodes 1051–1053
Vogel argues that the Egyptian characters paired with English text in the 1835 manuscripts tie the Book of Abraham’s production to the surviving papyrus and language papers, rather than to a lost ancient Abraham document. He concludes that Smith produced the book himself from the papyri and his language studies, and that its parallels to Abraham traditions draw on material available in Smith’s time.
Vogel argues that the Book of Mormon’s accounts of migration, ancient civilization, and the destruction of a former population participate in earlier American debates about Native origins and mound builders. He examines literature including View of the Hebrews as part of this shared intellectual environment, while distinguishing cultural parallels from identifying a particular book as a direct source.
The better one understands the pre-1830 environment of Joseph Smith, the better he or she will understand the Book of Mormon.
Vogel argues that the Book of Mormon’s account of American origins belongs to the religious and historical debates available in Joseph Smith’s environment. He treats its themes as a modern synthesis of ideas about Indigenous peoples, ancient civilization, and biblical history, as Smith’s own synthesis of ideas current in his environment.
Vogel argues that Smith consciously composed the Book of Mormon and presented it as an ancient record while pursuing sincere religious purposes. He links the seer stone used in dictation to Smith’s earlier treasure seeking and reads the narrative alongside Smith’s life as evidence of his developing religious ideas.
Vogel argues that Smith’s First Vision retellings changed alongside his teachings about God. He reads the single Lord in the 1832 account as consistent with early Mormon modalism, in which Father and Son were one person, and the later two-personage accounts as reflecting a subsequent distinction between Father and Son.
Smith's recitals of his first vision began to reflect the same view of the Godhead.
Vogel argues that the Three’s experience was visionary and that the Eight’s statement is best explained naturalistically. He proposes reconstructions in which the witnesses handled a covered object Smith had made while perceiving its contents through spiritual sight, and reads their sincerity and close ties to Smith as consistent with testimony to something other than ancient plates.