Sethbag wrote: By the way, I skimmed through that Valentin Arts article at FARMS, and I have to say: ROFL! Valentin did as good a job as any critic in pointing out the total hash Joseph Smith made of the whole sealed vision/interpreters/24 plates thing. He shows that the impossibility of the commonly-understood interpretation, that is, that it was first through the people of Limhi that the Jaredite records came into Nephite posession. Rather than recognize this impossibility as a problem, however, he just uses it as deductive proof that the Nephites must have had the sealed portion of the Brother of Jared's vision on a different set of plates, which they had earlier, and the discovery of which was not recorded in the Book of Mormon.
I noticed that - you'd think this would warrant at least a passing comment.
So, according to the paper, the interpreters were in the possession of Mosiah, who used them to translate a record from a large stone:
The Nephites in Zarahemla were aware, however, that their king had the interpreters, because he had used them to translate the large stone containing a history of the Jaredites (see Omni 1:20; Mosiah 8:13–14). This knowledge was clearly demonstrated when Ammon met King Limhi in the land of Nephi. After Ammon heard about the 24 plates, he was very quick to inform Limhi that his own king had interpreters that could be used for translating.
and:
The first instance that we know of wherein the interpreters were ever used was for the translation of the large stone brought to the people of Zarahemla by Coriantumr. It was Mosiah the elder who undertook the translation of the account engraved on this stone.
But we're also told:
The interpreters were to remain with the record for which they were prepared until it was translated.
We note again that in the above summary the interpreters were never separated from the sealed record for which they were given. No person ever held the interpreters without possessing the record of the brother of Jared, either sealed or unsealed.
So the fact that Mosiah had interpreters has been used to infer, to deduce, that he must have had a second set of plates as well.
Except the problem is, if the plates are never without interpreters, as the paper says, why didn't Limhi have a set of interpreters with his plates? And, since there are 24 plates referred to in Mosiah 8 and 24 plates referred to in Ether, where did this extra set postulated in the paper come from?
If the set of 24 plates were in possession of the people of Limhi, how did they get separated from the interpreters? Alternatively, how did Mosiah get hold the interpreters if he didn't have the plates the paper says they are not to be separated from?
This is the best part - the author of the paper suggests that Ether somehow delivered the stones to Mosiah, either apart from the plates, or perhaps with a second set of plates, though we only read of the set of 24 plates:
If such an important event as an appearance of Ether to Mosiah the elder occurred, why was it not explicitly recorded in the Book of Mormon?
...
Maybe there was information on this topic in the 116 pages that were lost by Martin Harris.
Heh.