It is unknown how much Joseph Smith and Martin Harris knew about the debates over the origins of the Native Americans, but various people had offered religious and anthropological theories since the first European explorers arrived in the Americas. Some early theories claimed that the Indians were of Asian origin or even that they were a race derived from the lost city of Atlantis, while most others viewed their origins in Christian terms-for example, claiming they were descendants of Noah or that they were pre-Adamites. Many early Americans, including influential leaders like William Penn and Roger Williams, embraced theories that the Indians were part of the lost ten tribes of Israel. James Adair, a naturalist who spent forty years among the Indians, gave teeth to the argument about the ten tribes by comparing the language, customs, and cultures of Native Americans to Jewish cultures and customs. Reverend Ethan Smith backed away from Adair's approach, but further popularized the theory that the Indians were descendants of the ten lost tribes in his 1825 book entitled View of the Hebrews.

More-academic naturalists, like Alexander von Humboldt, provided a very different argument for where the Native Americans came from by systematic analysis of the ruins, hieroglyphics, and personal observations of the tribes. Humboldt argued fervently, with great success, that Native Americans originated from northeastern Asia and had traveled across the Bering Strait before populating the Americas. Humboldt believed that there was originally one common language and that all races derived according to the commonalities found within the languages of other societies. His method and theory were championed by a handful of scholars in Philadelphia at the American Philosophical Society, and Pierre Du Ponceau, the society's leader, was a major proponent of this kind of linguistic research and of Humbold's conclusions. There certainly was no better place to find a translator for an ancient American document than under the umbrella of the society.