Defenders: Why didn't Joseph show Isaac Hale the plates?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Please, leave the a priori crap at the door and just talk like a human being. Honestly. Openly.

I always talk honestly and openly, but I'm not going to dispense with legitimate words, concepts, and tools of analysis simply because you don't like them.

That, coupled with your puerile lack of civility, makes you easy to ignore. So I'll go on ignoring you.

[_harmony]

I'm not sure I'm needed here, really, since you folks seem to be supplying "the FARMS side" of the conversation on your own, as you conceive it to be.

Yes, you are! Absolutely! Necessary! at least to me

The simple fact is that there are witnesses who remember being there when Joseph made it to the Smith family house panting and near collapse from exhaustion, with a dislocated thumb, and immediately thrust an extremely dense and heavy covered object into his sister's arms and asked her to hide it.

Oh sure. Give it to the sister.

So are you really trying to argue, a priori, that Joseph didn't have in his possession, and carry, an extremely dense and heavy covered object?

That doesn't make what he carried gold, plates, or ancient.

[_Daniel Peterson]

That doesn't make what he carried gold, plates, or ancient.

And it doesn't prove that Brigham Young didn't order the Mountain Meadows Massacre, or that the universe will go on expanding without a contraction, or that Freud's dream-interpretation theories are correct, or that you'd be wise to invest in the Dow Jones Industrial Index if the bail-out bill doesn't pass tomorrow.

I never said that it proved any of those things.

[Guest]

Please, leave the a priori crap at the door and just talk like a human being. Honestly. Openly.

I always talk honestly and openly, but I'm not going to dispense with legitimate words, concepts, and tools of analysis simply because you don't like them.

That, coupled with your puerile lack of civility, makes you easy to ignore. So I'll go on ignoring you.

Color me utterly shocked. Your intention here isn't to engage in any sort of debate beyond the puerile, so I oblige. You're still more than welcome to waste your time, as it were, on the Celestial forum where I'm sure there are more than a few people who would love to indulge you in your fantasy. I'm just not interested, and most likely will never be...



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[_moksha]

1) Isaac Hale was not allowed to see the plates because he was not faithful. If the Lord allowed him to physically see the plates he would not require faith. Faith precedes the miracle.

2) The plates could have weighed 2,000,000 lbs and Joseph still could've carried them because god wanted him to, and god can lighten the load. Are you saying god could not make the 60 pound plates lighter so Joseph could escape his attackers?

We need to sign you up for MAD duty immediately. See you at next years FAIR conference. Hang around Kerry and you can be immortalized on video!

Seriously though, has it not been said that faith makes your burden lighter?

[_TAK]

DCP:

..and immediately thrust an extremely dense and heavy covered object into his sister's arms and asked her to hide it.

What??
So not only is Joseph so strong he can run around with 65 lbs.. apparently so is his sister? BS - He may have been carrying something wrapped up, but it could not have been gold plates nor did it weigh 65 lbs..

Case closed.. Turn off the lights.

[_Tom]

I came across an Ensign article from 2001 that details Joseph's (and his mother's and sister's) feats of strength. According to Andrew Hedges:

Considering all that had already transpired that day, it must have been well after noon by the time Joseph removed the plates from their hiding place in the log. Once they were out of the log, Joseph wrapped them in his linen frock and started for home along the Canandaigua road, the record tucked under his arm. Leaving the road after “a short distance” for the safety of the woods, he eventually came to a “large windfall” where several trees had blown down. His mother wrote:

“As he was jumping over a log, a man sprang up from behind and gave him a heavy blow with a gun. Joseph turned around and knocked him to the ground, and then ran at the top of his speed. About half a mile further, he was attacked again in precisely the same way. He soon brought this one down also and ran on again, but before he got home, he was accosted the third time with a severe stroke with a gun.”

Joseph struck this third and final attacker with such force that he dislocated his own thumb. He continued running, “being closely pursued until he came near his father’s house,” at which time his assailants, “for fear of being detected,” broke off the chase. Reaching a fence corner, he “threw himself down … to recover his breath,” then rose and continued running until he reached the house.

His mother and sister Catharine (or Katharine) were there when he came in. He “entered the house running,” the plates “clasped to his side with his left hand and arm, … his right hand … badly bruised from knocking down at least three men who had leaped at him from behind bushes or fences as he ran.” “Panting for breath,” the Prophet reportedly allowed Catharine to take the plates from him.

Hedges notes that Martin Harris, however, told Joel Tiffany that "[w]hen [Joseph Smith] arrived at home, he handed the plates in at the window, and they were received from him by his mother."

[_harmony]

“As he was jumping over a log, a man sprang up from behind and gave him a heavy blow with a gun. .

If the guy had a gun, why didn't he just shoot him?

[_Daniel Peterson]

What?? So not only is Joseph so strong he can run around with 65 lbs.. apparently so is his sister?

You're making things up. Nobody said that she "ran around" with anything. They lived in a tiny little house. All she had to do was to move a few feet with the object.

Nor did the object necessarily weigh sixty-five pounds. A common estimate among the witnesses is sixty pounds, and some put it as low as forty.

BS - He may have been carrying something wrapped up, but it could not have been gold plates nor did it weigh 65 lbs..

Case closed.. Turn off the lights.

Dogmatic certainty from nearly two centuries after the event Trump's collective and independent eyewitness testimony, repeated over decades, of people who actually saw, touched, and held the object.

Oh well. It's best, I suppose, to let sleeping dogmatists lie.

If the guy had a gun, why didn't he just shoot him?

Apparently not everybody is as comfortable with the thought of homicide as the Scartchmeister says I am.

[_Tom]

The Hill Cumorah is approximately three miles southeast of the Smith farm. That's a long trek.