The Kinderhook Plates: Another Testimony of Smith's Deceptio

[_wenglund]

What credence do you give it? How would Joseph know that the inscriptions on a few smallish metal plates would expand out in English to 1200 pages? Was he pulling out that Egyptian Grammar stuff again, where one character could mean a word, or a sentence, or a paragraph or whatever, depending on what "degree" it was?

At any rate, that Joseph would even comment at all on how much English text would be generated from those plates shows that he was spouting crap that he made up out of thin air. He didn't know how to read those plates, and he couldn't have known, and yet that didn't stop him pronouncing on them in one way or another.

I may just have to go back and re-read the apologetics on this one, but I find it pretty funny that William Clayton's journal is being doubted - it looks awfully like it's only being doubted because of the implications about Joseph's true prophethood. Elsewhere Clayton's journal entries even became scripture. William Clayton was his scribe, an eyewitness to a lot of things that went on, was let into the practice of polygamy by Joseph, ie: he was "inner circle".

That was quite a long way of not answering my question.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Sethbag]

I don't know if Fugate was telling the truth or not. I will say that it's actually plausible that Joseph could have said the plates would yield a 1200 page book - all it would require was that the characters were in the "fifth degree" or whatever, just like the descriptions of Egyptian in the KEP.

For people who aren't aware, William Clayton was about as "inner circle" as it got. He personally officiated at a number of Joseph Smith's secret polygamous marriages, and he was given multiple polygamous wives by Joseph Smith. It really didn't get any more "inner circle" than that. He handled at least one Kinderhook plate, tracing it on the back of the same page he reported being at the Smith home, and what Smith is reported to have said.

I think the whole "Clayton's journal entry is unreliable" is a boatload of wishful thinking. But I don't think there's any good reason to doubt it.

[_moksha]

But if he were a fraudster and did not see through this fraud and story, I am afraid that I would need to see him in a different light.

You mean like in the movie, The Sting?

[_wenglund]

I don't know if Fugate was telling the truth or not. I will say that it's actually plausible that Joseph could have said the plates would yield a 1200 page book - all it would require was that the characters were in the "fifth degree" or whatever, just like the descriptions of Egyptian in the KEP.

For people who aren't aware, William Clayton was about as "inner circle" as it got. He personally officiated at a number of Joseph Smith's secret polygamous marriages, and he was given multiple polygamous wives by Joseph Smith. It really didn't get any more "inner circle" than that. He handled at least one Kinderhook plate, tracing it on the back of the same page he reported being at the Smith home, and what Smith is reported to have said.

I think the whole "Clayton's journal entry is unreliable" is a boatload of wishful thinking. But I don't think there's any good reason to doubt it.

I find it interesting that you keep harping on the 1200 pages, while repeatedly remaining conspicuously silent about the far more relevant point of "he would not agree to translate them until they were sent to the Antiquarian society at Philadelphia, France, and England."

Even more interesting is your evidently viewing Clayton's journal as infallible and beyond even the slightest doubt. As a believing member I don't even hold sacred scripture to that high standard, let alone someone's journal. But, to each their own.

It just seems more than a little ironic to find disbelievers having such unwaivering faith in the words of a believer, even more so than believers, while so easily dismissing the words of a disbeliever. Up is down, and down is up.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Sethbag]

Did not Joseph Smith supposedly send a copy of characters from the Golden Plates to Charles Anthon? How is Joseph asking the KHP to be sent to the Antiquarian Society any different?

Also, what if him asking for them to be sent there was just stalling for time? Either way, I don't see how the Fugate testimony hurts the critical theory around the KHP like you apparently do.

Also, I don't regard the Clayton journal as "infallible". What I do think is that William Clayton wrote down in his journal what he heard Joseph Smith say. Joseph could have been lying to him you know, or, you know, making it up.

I don't have "unwavering faith in the believer", but I see no reason to doubt that Clayton believed what he wrote down in his journal. If he said he married Joseph to yet another young woman on such and such a date, it probably happened. If he wrote that Joseph was translating such and such, he probably was. I haven't yet seen any reason why I should doubt that Clayton believed the things he was writing in his journal, or that he was in a position to know the things he wrote.

[_Doctor Steuss]

Hello Doctor Steus,

If I recall it was also published in The Times and The Seasons, another Latter-Day Saint publication.
[…]

Hi Doctor C.,

I’m sorry, by “Utah Church” I didn’t think you meant the early publications about the plates in the back east LDS periodicals prior to the western exodus.

As far as those references go (which I am admittedly going from memory there) none of them talk of a translation, only about the discovery of the plates (please correct me if I’m wrong). That is with the notable exception of a Times and Seasons broadside that advertised that the translation of the K plates would be published once completed.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hello Doctor Steus,

If I recall it was also published in The Times and The Seasons, another Latter-Day Saint publication.
[…]

Hi Doctor C.,

I’m sorry, by “Utah Church” I didn’t think you meant the early publications about the plates in the back east LDS periodicals prior to the western exodus.

As far as those references go (which I am admittedly going from memory there) none of them talk of a translation, only about the discovery of the plates (please correct me if I’m wrong). That is with the notable exception of a Times and Seasons broadside that advertised that the translation of the K plates would be published once completed.

Hello Doctor Steus,

Considering the Utah church traces its origins all the way back to Joseph Smith I consider including the Smith's family's pre-Brigham Young era part of its history, too.

That being said, Joseph Smith offered a cursory translation of the plates, which, if you believe the History of the Church was accurate in its offerings provided the following quote by Joseph Smith, "I have translated a portion of them and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth."

The Utah-based Mormon church is in a pickle with this one, I believe. Some prophet, whether it was Joseph Smith, or any of the follow-ons should have been clued in by Divinity that the Kinderhook Plates were a fraud and either that quote was not Joseph Smith's, or that his translation was, in effect, bogus.

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Paul O. writes:

Please tell me why the plates ended up in the Church historical vault of the First Presidency. Why were they taken to Utah?

They weren't. They didn't. In fact, once they were returned (by Joseph), the church no longer had any connection to the plates (although they did publish images of them).

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Sethbag writes:

I may just have to go back and re-read the apologetics on this one, but I find it pretty funny that William Clayton's journal is being doubted - it looks awfully like it's only being doubted because of the implications about Joseph's true prophethood. Elsewhere Clayton's journal entries even became scripture. William Clayton was his scribe, an eyewitness to a lot of things that went on, was let into the practice of polygamy by Joseph, ie: he was "inner circle".

Clayton's journal contains a number of incorrect elements. Most prominent among them is the non-existent skeleton. But we have the wrong county for the discovery and other issues. So, there are reasons in the text to be skeptical of the account.

What's more interesting is the late Fugate retelling of the event contains the simple sentence "There was no skeleton". The only published account of the Kinderhook plates that contains a skeleton (Pratt's account was not published then) was the History of the Church reworking of the Clayton journal entry. Fugate is responding specifically to Clayton's journal entry and not to some other account.

Given this, and the fact that (from Pratt's account which contradicts and supports in a way Clayton's account) there seem to have been other versions floating around, I think there is more than reasonable support to suggest that Clayton is recording heresay.

Furthermore, this is all of it. We don't get any more journal entries. No continuing details. This is a flash in the pan and its gone.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Paul,

I really don't care what you think of me. Having been through this before with you, it doesn't even bother me. I think that your view is more harmful than beneficial. What I am doing is not belittling leaders of the church. That is not my intention. It isn't what I am doing.

I personally believe that you are very combative with what you perceive as the establishment. And your protective belligerence is simply one way that this surfaces. And really, I am going to continue with what I do. While what you suggest is probably quite appropriate in religious discourse, this is not religious discourse.