One thing I have given a lot of thought to recently is the identity of the spirit(s) and/or angel(s) that appeared to Joseph Smith in the 1820s. What makes this a difficult task is that Mormon belief, which evolved over time, identifies the being as an angel and confidently applies the name Moroni to him. It is only when one digs into the history that certainty melts away. A number of Mormon history enthusiasts are familiar with the question of the angel's name. By 1835, the angel was known as Moroni, but Joseph Smith's 1838 history identifies the angel as Nephi.
Those who are familiar with the discussion of Joseph Smith's treasure digging also encounter the question of whether angel started out as an angel or the ghost or spirit of a murdered person who became the treasure guardian of the gold plates. Such guardian spirits were common in treasure digging narratives and schemes, so it would not be unusual if there were a treasure guardian involved in the story of the gold plates. Moreover, Moroni, being the last person to write in the plates and the person who ultimately buried them, would be the most natural figure to have become the guardian of the treasure.
This does not necessarily mean, however, that the figure that revealed the plates to Joseph was the same as figure as the one that guarded the plates. More than one non-mortal personage could have been involved in these events. Still, the precise nature of these figures remains somewhat mysterious. Joseph Smith, Jr. told Henry Harris between 1828 and 1830 that "an angel appeared and told him he could not get the plates until he [Joseph] was married." This may be the earliest reference to the involvement of an angel in the story of the retrieval of the gold plates. The earliest references to Moroni depict him as a little old man with grey hair and a beard, but he is not identified as an angel.
Of course, the three witnesses claimed that on Sunday, June 28, 1829, "an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon." Perhaps this angel was Moroni, and the angel was identified in more general terms because the name Moroni would not mean anything to first-time readers of this witness statement. On the other hand, it is possible that the angel was not known to the witnesses as Moroni and, furthermore, that he may not have been Moroni at all but some other angel. If an angel is simply a messenger of God, it is not clear why every time a message or object is conveyed it should necessarily be the same figure that does it each time.
To this potentially growing cast of non-mortal personages we must add the angel appearing in the June 17, 1829 letter of Jesse Smith in response to an 1828 letter from the Smith family. The author of the initial letter to Jesse, perhaps Joseph Smith, Jr. himself, "writes that the Angel of the Lord has revealed to him the hidden treasures of wisdom & knowledge, even divine revelation, which has lain in the bowels of the earth for thousands of years [and] is at last made known to him, he says he has eyes to things that are not, and then has the audacity to say they are; And this Angel of the Lord (Devil it should be) has put me in possession of great wealth, gold and silver and precious stones so that I shall have dominion in all the land of Palmyra."
If we read all of these accounts dating to the the period of 1828-29 together, we can safely conclude that an angel or angels visited Joseph Smith, Jr. and the three witnesses. The angel or angels who visited Joseph Smith gave him instructions concerning the plates, revelations, and promises of great wealth and power. The angel who visited the Three Witnesses brought the plates from heaven to them and placed the plates before their eyes. At no time is the name Moroni associated with these angelic visitations. If one accepts only the earliest testimonies regarding the angel, one is forced to conclude that while Smith and his associates claimed an angel appeared to them, none of them identified that angel as Moroni.
It is noteworthy that up until 1834-35, any angel involved in the story of the gold plates is simply identified as an angel in more or less elaborate terms. He is "an angel of the Lord," "the angel of the Lord," "the holy angel," etc. One thing he is not is Moroni. So, it is frustrating to read otherwise well written and researched histories of the Book of Mormon that routinely refer to the angel Moroni as if there were no question of the angel's identity, or whether there was an angel at all. This is not because I am convinced there was no angel, but because it is not yet established that the story of the gold plates involved an angel until the plates were being translated.
Let's suppose that the angel was not Moroni after all. Who might the angel then be? If the angel was as Jesse Smith claims his source identified him, then he would be "the Angel of the Lord." If this clue is taken from the New Testament, then the angel may have been Gabriel. In Luke 1:11, the angel who appears to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and announces the future miraculous birth of John to aged parents, as well as the mission of John "to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous," identified himself as Gabriel. Gabriel here alludes to Malachi 3-4. Joseph Smith will later reveal that the angel who visited him quoted Malachi 3-4 to him. For these reasons, I would submit that Gabriel is a very good candidate for the identity of the angel who later comes to be called Moroni.
Another outside possibility is the angel Nalgah, whose symbol and name appears on the magical lamens of the Smith family. Nalgah appears in Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft and Sibly's Occult Sciences. Both books were consulted in the construction of the Smith family lamens. Nalgah is "devoted to the protection of those who are assaulted by evil spirits or witches, and whose minds are sunk in fearful and melancholy apprehensions of the assaults of the Devil and the power of death." On the positive side, Nalgah's "proper office is to fortify the mind, and to lead the senses to a contemplation of the attributes of God, and the joys of heaven, the reward of all good works." See Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1998), 107.
Nalgah is not one of the canonical angels. It is not clear to me where Nalgah comes from other than Scot, where he is listed among the "seven good Angels," and, later, Sibly. It is worth noting that in Scot, the following passage appears after the naming of the seven good Angels and seven evil genii:
"These are the names of the seven good and evil daemons (according to ancient usage as opposed to the later Christian "demon") according to the antient writing, on the Magical Art: who do also to many particular Cities and Countries, ascribe certain good and evil Angels; the one whereof protects and defends, the other inflicts Pestilence and Famin upon them."
If we recall the text of the Jesse Smith letter, Smith claims that young Joseph, Jr. had said the Angel of the Lord had given him "dominion in all the land of Palmyra." Such a claim would fit the vision of angelic competence cited by Scot, wherein certain good angels have a kind of dominion over a city or country, wherein they protect and defend the place from the assaults of evil daemons.
In the end, however, Gabriel appears to be a better fit inasmuch as his message in Luke and its connection both to Malachi 3-4 and also John the Baptist, who would later appear to Joseph Smith, slot comfortably into the story of the Restoration as we know it. It is important to remember, however, that many angels and spirits could have been involved and that the later narrative of the Restoration could have been streamlined because it made for a less confusing story. One could easily get lost in all of the details suggested by the evidence, and, instead of seeking to simplify them in order to affirm a narrative we already know, we ought to be open to the possibility that the organically complex elements in the earliest evidence may be closer to what happened on the ground at the time.