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It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Sat May 14, 2022 7:39 pm
by Spectator80
Joseph Smith's account cannot be confirmed because there is no source document for thr Book of Mormon; i.e., there are no plates. If God had really wanted J.S. to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness, He would have provided the plates for the world to see. Absent the plates,
all we have is J.S.'s word. One must conclude therefore, contrary to the Church's position, that God didn't want J.S. to be the instrumentality by which the gospel would be restored. It really isn't any more complicated than that.

Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 1:00 am
by Dr Exiled
Yes, the hidden plates are troubling to the "truthfulness" of Mormonism. Why hide them when faith would be greatly improved if scholars backed up Joseph Smith's work? However, an apologist like DP would point to the witnesses as a bridge to your lack of plates problem. How do you resolve that? Surely, the witnesses were delusional (Harris and Whitmer) or in on it (Cowdery)? Harris was a witness to many delusions and cannot be trusted. Whitmer probably was too proud to admit folly. Cowdery was in on the priest craft, claiming revelation where there was none in collaboration with Joseph Smith.

Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 1:33 am
by Spectator80
All of the witnesses had a reason--multiple reasons, in fact--to say what they said. Why didn't J.S. call on a third party to be a witness,
or, better yet, one of his most strident critics? Wouldn't that have solidified his credibility? Also, as I recall, Martin Harris hedged when he said he saw the plates with his "spiritual eyes." Hmmm. There are no plates for scholars to examine because, ahem, there were no plates.

Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 4:16 am
by Moksha
How did Israel cope with its historical records being stolen? Were they forced to make up new stories at the end of the Babylonian exile?

Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 4:21 am
by Philo Sofee
Moksha wrote:
Sun May 15, 2022 4:16 am
How did Israel cope with its historical records being stolen? Were they forced to make up new stories at the end of the Babylonian exile?
Yes, but instead of 116 lost pages, they ended up with 116 lost books...

Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 2:50 pm
by Kishkumen
It all comes down to the Book of Mormon itself. Either you value what is contained therein or you do not.

Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 3:27 pm
by K Graham
Spectator80 wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 7:39 pm
Joseph Smith's account cannot be confirmed because there is no source document for thr Book of Mormon; i.e., there are no plates. If God had really wanted J.S. to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness, He would have provided the plates for the world to see. Absent the plates,
all we have is J.S.'s word. One must conclude therefore, contrary to the Church's position, that God didn't want J.S. to be the instrumentality by which the gospel would be restored. It really isn't any more complicated than that.
Actually the debate over the Book of Mormon has become superfluous given the evidence against the Book of Abraham. These are both supposedly ancient documents that were translated to English from their original source documents. Even if we had the plates, apologists could always fall back on the fact that there is no way to disprove translations from an unknown language like "Reformed Egyptian." The Book of Abraham on the other hand, purports to be a literal translation from Egyptian to English, and thanks to the discover of the Rosetta Stone, we can now decipher the hieroglyphics. So if we know for a fact that Joseph Smith couldn't properly translate extant Egyptian papyri, then what does that say about his supposed ability to translate a conveniently absent block of gold plates?

It all comes down to the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, which is why the issue exploded in 2006 when none of the apologists could address the issue and decided they had to recruit the likes of Hauglid and Gee to combat the overwhelming evidence presented by Metcalf. Before Metcalf's bombshell photos, people in the Church were content to believe the nonsense from Nibley and Gee about missing scrolls and red ink. Once those apologetic explanations were blown out of the water, it became a whole new ball game and the critics have been pitching a shutout ever since.

Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Sun May 15, 2022 6:55 pm
by bill4long
Spectator80 wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 7:39 pm
If God had really wanted J.S. to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness, He would have provided the plates for the world to see.
Even that wasn't required. Why not some simple charcoal-on-paper "grave-stone rubbing" impressions of a few pages? Apparently "God" reeeeaaaallly didn't want anyone seeing the contents of those "plates."

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Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Mon May 16, 2022 9:04 pm
by Spectator80
If J.S. had actually uncovered ancient plates, he wouldn't had to have two groups of witnesses. He could simply announce his discovery and
invite the world to see the plates. The enlistment of two groups of friendly witnesses was simply designed to lend some measure of credibility
to the non-availability of the plates.

Re: It All Comes Down to the Plates

Posted: Mon May 16, 2022 10:09 pm
by drumdude
It’s important to note the vast majority of people who have heard of Mormonism never take the Book of Mormon seriously, because from the outside it makes zero sense. South Park captured this perfectly.

You need all the indoctrination and spin to even begin to believe it. The Book of Mormon doesn’t stand alone, it needs encyclopedias full of rationalizations and excuses to prop it up.