Guardiands wrote:There are many factors, as you point out, in analyzing a "testimony."
I can't address all the issues you raise, so I'd like to touch upon one or two. Essentially I'd like to deal with semantics. It seems to me that some have taken issue with Oliver Cowdery's usage of the phrase "spiritual eyes." I am curious what leads people to believe this phrase calls into question his actual viewing of the plates? As always to understand what is meant one must delve into connotation of phrases and words. So when dealing with angelic visits, visits from God, and the supernatural it seemed that a phrase "spiritual eyes" was what they used to describe the witnessing of such events.
To show the connotation I will quote from a scripture in Moses that uses this: "Moses 1: 11
11 But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence; but his glory was upon me; and I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him."
Juding from the usage of "spiritual eye" here, the only thing that Oliver Cowdery's usage of that term means is that he was transfigured. It does not mean it was a dream, it does not mean he did not actually see it. etc.
This of course is not 100% for sure what he meant, but by taking the one scripture that uses the phrase we can see the connotation and as such I would be left to conclude that Oliver did very much see the plates, though he was in a transfigured state at the time (thus moses 1 would lead us to believe)
I think saying that being "transfigured" is a valid explanation for Harris's "spiritual eyes" comment doesn't help me any more than just accepting his actual comment of "spiritual eyes". What is the difference? I don't know what being transfigured means any more than I know what spiritual eyes are?
I know I have physical eyes and they receive light and my brain acts on that light to form images. I know that I have physical hands and that when I touch something the nerves in my hands transmit those feelings into my brain and it stores those feelings.
For the Witnesses to be giving testimony that involved a transfiguration leaves me unable to determine if that testimony is helpful to me. For all I know a transfiguration is another word for drug-induced hypnosis that doesn't provide me with valuable information. Although your explanation could be 100% accurate I am afraid it leaves me without further light and knowledge.
Guardiands wrote:As for the claim of those not believing the Book of Mormon. As far as I know it the apostacy that took place centered around the authority and expanded powers that Joseph had taken. The witnesses continued to hold to seeing the plates, even though they themselves were disenfranchised with Joseph as a leader.
I think that the people who left the church in 1838 did so because of what Harris had said.
Stephen Burnett wrote:"...when I came to hear Martin Harris state in public that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver nor David & also that the eight witnesses never saw them & hesitated to sign the instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it, the last pedestal gave way, in my view our foundation was sapped..."(Burnett to Lyman Johnson, 15 April 1838, quoted in "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins")
Warren Parrish wrote:"Martin Harris, one of the subscribing witnesses, has come out at last, and says he never saw the plates, from wich the book purports to have been translated, except in vision and he further says that any man who says he has seen them in any other way is a liar, Jospeh New Testament excepted."(Parrish to E. Holmes, 11 Aug 1838, ibid.)
I think that they were feeling, like I was, that they had been lied to. The Witnesses purported to have "seen and handled" the plates. That's what their written testimony says -- the one that I surmise Joseph dictated. I think that's what investigators thought they had done. That's what *I* thought had happened all my life.
Guardiands wrote:Odd that when you are upset with a man and hold the power to tear him down you still continue to state that you viewed the plates.
One would certainly be in a quandry, that's for sure. "Your Honor. Is the witness lying now or was he lying then?"
What I am sure of is that I know nothing about the men that would lead me to believe that they were trustworthy and certainly some doubt, from these and other sources, that their trust could be questioned. I also am left to wonder why testimonies to physical facts are necessary for a spiritual work. Especially if we can't examine the evidence ourselves.
I'm just saying that it really sounds just like a carnival shell game, to me. You know the one where the pea (like the plates) isn't under any of the shells.
"Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're just making him madder and madder" --Homer Simpson's version of Pascal's Wager
Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.
Religion is ignorance reduced to a system.