But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

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Analytics
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But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by Analytics »

A few days ago, a blogger wrote an article entitled, But what do the witnesses’ testimonies prove?

It was a pretty good article, as such things go. There seemed to be an honest endeavor to engage with a few responses critics make to the testimonies. However, it still misses the mark, so I offer the following to continue the conversation.

The blogger’s main point comes down to this: “The facticity of the plates (a great word, that—“facticity”) forces a stark either/or choice: Either Joseph (perhaps aided by one or more of the witnesses themselves) was a deliberate and conscious liar who somehow created or obtained a set of bogus metal plates, or he was telling the truth about them.”

Here is the way I look at it.

First, we know that ancient cultures didn’t keep records on metal plates that were bound in books: we know that Nephi didn’t steal a copy of the old testament written on brass plates that contained an anachronistic reworking of Isaiah (see David P. Write’s definitive work on the topic). Lehi didn’t keep a journal on one set of metal plates while his son Nephi was keeping another journal on metal plates. And there weren’t then multiple volumes of large plates and small plates that contained the record of a civilization for a thousand years, which were then abridged onto yet another set of plates that Moroni eventually buried.

If the Book of Mormon universe with ubiquitous books written on metal plates were real, archeologists would have stumbled upon some of them by now, just as the people of Limhi stumbled upon even more plates—the 24 golden plates that tell the story of the Jaredites.

Understanding that golden plates are merely an imaginary artifact of the imaginary world of The Book of Mormon, what do the witnesses’ testimony prove? Maybe it proves that there really were plates in the 1800's, but that doesn’t lend any credence whatsoever to the plates being of ancient origin, much less to the assertion that they have anything to do with the text of the Book of Mormon itself.

So the testimonies don't really prove anything of significance.

Nevertheless, they are fishy.

A prosecutor named Joseph wants to prove that John committed murder. Joseph claims he has definitive forensic evidence that John did it: DNA evidence. John’s fingerprints in the victim’s blood on the murder weapon. A video of the whole thing happening from a security camera. Everything. Joseph briefly shows the evidence to eleven of his closest friends, writes a statement about what he showed them, and had the friends sign the statement.

Joseph then deliberately destroys all of the evidence, except for this statement. We are left with no forensic evidence. No murder weapon. No video. No body. No missing person. Not even evidence that a crime was committed.

Yes, the witness testimony is impressive evidence when viewed in isolation. But in context it is problematic; the person who is trying to prove his assertions is deliberately withholding infinitely better evidence that would support his own case. If the plates were genuine, why would he go through this charade? There is no good reason, which is why almost everybody disbelieves the witnesses with a shrug.

The plates being fake is plausible. The witnesses being coconspirators is plausible. The plates being of ancient origin is not.
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by Gadianton »

author wrote:I would be happy, sometime, to discuss the suggestion that the family relationships among the various witnesses somehow justify rejecting their testimonies.
Nobody has argued for that. But the author, of course, is a humorist, not a historian.

He sets up several several strategic objections to the witnesses without citing any actual critics. Sure, it was a short article, and not meant to be the pinnacle of three-witness scholarship (and it's not, don't worry), but a detailed citation was provided for Richard L. Anderson's quote.

One argument is that the critics argue that the witnesses weren't metallurgists. Did he see the Hoffman drama on Netflix? Even then...

As analytics points out, validating there were real plates means little, at the end of the day. Does the author accept the witness testimony of Strang's plates? Probably. What does that mean for him? Exactly nothing. Strang's witnesses have more credibility than Smith's do, but that's not enough to move the needle to minimal interest, for the non-historian.

There is so much context this author leaves out. Smith doesn't just have plates, he has plates of pure gold that are worth a fortune, and provided by an angel. Plates that nobody is allowed to see, and that are built up in majesty in story after story. Plates translated by miraculous means to produce hundreds of pages of lost Christian history in multiple lost languages and over multiple periods, spanning thousands of years. The plates, in terms of materials and content, would be unrivaled as a find. No artifact found, ever, would come close to rivaling the value of the gold plates. And so when talking about skepticism of "the plates" are we talking about plates (A) plates (B) or plates (C)? If we are talking about plates (c), a basic set of metal plates that look like they have writing on them, skepticism is at it's lowest.

However, skepticism still remains. There is not a high level of confidence that Smith had even a cooked-up set of plates. Strang had far more credibility for his plates (c). It's most likely all Smith ever had was a tile brick. Lol! But perhaps he did have plates, eventually? I'm not going to say he didn't. But I will say, for whatever plates he could likely come up with by his means, technologically or financially, it was going to take some heavy confirmation bias on the part of his witnesses to make the connection between the final product and the plates of his stories.
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Bought Yahoo
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by Bought Yahoo »

The witnesses' stories has intrigued me on a number of fronts, as a lawyer and as a marginal believer.

John Whitmer was one of the eight. He left the church. He published a retraction of his affirmation.

One of my ancestors went to visit him to ask him why he retracted his affirmation.

John Whitmer said that when he turned the leaves of the metal plates, the writings on the plates weren't in English so how could he attest to the fact that the plates were of the Book of Mormon?

As a lawyer I can say that this is the highest quality witness. He's disaffected and left the organization. He wants to impeach his own testimony and retract it, but in doing so he affirms it as a non-believer.
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by Fence Sitter »

Bought,

He affirmed nothing besides seeing 'something'.

All he can claim is Smith showed him some metal sheets with scratches on them.

It is only evidence that Smith might of had a prop.

15 years later, Smith and those around him were easily fooled by the Kinderhook plates.

Rubes.
Last edited by Fence Sitter on Mon Apr 12, 2021 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by Physics Guy »

I haven’t heard of this account before. If it’s somehow reliably attested that Whitmer really said that then I do find that to be significant evidence that Smith did show some kind of plates with symbols on them. Someone acknowledging that, even though repudiating Smith as a prophet, is a lot more impressive than the printed witness statements.

It does still sound a bit weird for a witness who had rejected Smith to have it as their only complaint, that the plates weren’t in English. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was hard to confirm that Whitmer really said that. His purported remarks sound a bit too much like what a Mormon who knew Whitmer had rejected Smith would want Whitmer to say. It has that smell of faith-promoting legend about it.
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by Fence Sitter »

Physics Guy wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 8:10 pm
I haven’t heard of this account before. If it’s somehow reliably attested that Whitmer really said that then I do find that to be significant evidence that Smith did show some kind of plates with symbols on them. Someone acknowledging that, even though repudiating Smith as a prophet, is a lot more impressive than the printed witness statements.

It does still sound a bit weird for a witness who had rejected Smith to have it as their only complaint, that the plates weren’t in English. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was hard to confirm that Whitmer really said that. His purported remarks sound a bit too much like what a Mormon who knew Whitmer had rejected Smith would want Whitmer to say. It has that smell of faith-promoting legend about it.
John Whitmer was hardly unbiased. His brother David was promoting the Book of Mormon and was/had set up a church based upon it and John Whitmer was a part of it as were other witnesses such as Martin Harris, Hyrum Page, and Oliver Cowdery at one time or another.
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by honorentheos »

I posted this in another thread but feel it helps illuminate John Whitmer's place in LDS history to some extent.
honorentheos wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 7:34 pm
The LDS church suffered a schism early on that caused a partial divide between two of the three witnesses from Smith and Sidney Rigdon. Oliver and David, along with the Whitmer family, essentially lead a branch of the church under their leadership in Missouri while Smith and Rigdon lead the Ohio saints for a period. Both groups had problems with their neighbors, but the Ohio saints failed when the Kirkland Anti-bank scheme collapsed. Facing insurmountable creditor claims and opposition, the move of the Smith-branch of saints to recombine with the Whitmer-Cowdery branch resulted in a new crisis of leadership. The failed saints of Ohio, and most importantly Smith and Rigdon, claimed common property with the saints of Missouri. Cowdery and Whitmers were more free-market minded, and felt their success shouldn't be robbed by the Ohio saint's failures.

When Oliver, John and David Whitmer were excommunicated, it was over this challenge of leadership. Oliver began speaking openly about Joseph's affairs as a power move, not because he just found out about it.

You'll notice this dynamic in letters written by Smith and Rigdon from that time, stating they are the presidency of the "whole church of latterday saints". For example, this letter demanding John Whitmer turn over his documented history of the Church:
Mr J. Whitmer
Sir. We were desireous of honouring you by giving publicity to your notes on the history of the Church of Latter day Saints, after such corrections as we thaught would be necessary; knowing your incompetency as a historian, and that your writings coming from your pen, could not be put to the press, without our correcting them, or elce the Church must suffer reproach; Indeed Sir, we never supposed you capable of writing a history; but were willing to let it come out under your name notwithstanding it would realy not be yours but ours. We are still willing to honour you, if you can be made to know your own interest and give up your notes, so that they can be corrected, and made fit for the press. But if not, we have all the materials for another, which we shall commence this week to write.

your humble Servents
Joseph Smith Jr
Sidney Rigdon
Presidents of the whole
Church of Latterday Saints
This is a pattern that is evident throughout the history of Smith as leader.

I strongly contend that the original make-up of the leadership (Smith, Cowdery, David Whitmer) was tied to their all being knowingly involved in the creation of the Book of Mormon. The lost pages written prior to the arrival of Cowdery were a failure, and Smith was debating giving up on their creation when Cowdery arrived. The process that produced the book include both Smith and Cowdery retiring to the Whitmers to be able to work on it, and the Whitmer family was knowledgeable of the scheme. Harris was not part of this leadership group because his only role was to finance the cause. He was a target of the leadership, and his role was never as meaningful once the church was established.

The conversion of Sidney Rigdon, along with his congregation, was a major moment in Church history as well. Had it not happened, it's doubtful we'd all be Mormons. Or in my case, even been born. This was a critical moment that exploded the growth of the Church. But more importantly, Rigdon brought a spark to the theological ideas that made them more appealing and contemporary. It was Rigdon, and his attachment to the Stone-Campbell originalist movements, that gave the restoration meaning and roots in a manufactured original Christianity. And Smith saw his future being in Rigdon rather than Oliver and the Whitmers. Later on, Smith would abandon Rigdon in the Nauvoo Period as John C. Bennett became his new confidant and right hand through the creation and expansion of spiritual wifery. And once Bennett was abandoned, he turned last to his brother Hyrum right before the end.

The three witness were all part of a scheme. The Whitmers went on to start another church using David's claim to being a witness as the source of authority. Cowdery went on to try and leave it behind him, though his sister being married to Brigham Young's older brother, Phineas, meant he was always aware and kept in touch. It was through Phineas that Cowdery explored returning. His letters leading up to it show he was interested in seeing the witness authority reinstated as part of the leadership structure of the Church. Brigham may have entertained it brief during the Succession Crisis following Smith's lynching to bolster his own authority. But once it proved unnecessary for him to take control of the leadership of the main body of saints, Cowdery's approaches were rebuffed. He ultimately did return once his health and financial woes became too much late in his life.
It's interesting to think that Mormonism survived because it had partially split within five years of it's founding. Had Cowdery and the Whitmer's been less successful in Missouri, it's quite likely the small candle of Mormonism would have been blown out by the Kirkland Anti-Bank scheme and fallout.

It's the little odd bounces in history that allow one idea to survive and thrive while other essentially equal ideas perish that are most interesting to me when I look at Mormon history these days. This is one such odd bounce.
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by honorentheos »

Bought Yahoo wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 5:25 pm
John Whitmer was one of the eight. He left the church. He published a retraction of his affirmation.
Would you mind sourcing this retraction, please? It would seem to be at odds with much of his later post-Smith life and I question if he actually published a statement like this.
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by Moksha »

Image
A 2000-year-old Thracian chariot with horse skeletons. Just a matter of time before BYU archeologists are able to find similar evidence in the Yucatan and a witness found to verify it. It might be a sled running over slippery grass pulled by some muscular tapirs, but that would still be all true. So there.
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Re: But what do the witnesses' testimony prove?

Post by Bought Yahoo »

Physics Guy wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 8:10 pm
I haven’t heard of this account before. If it’s somehow reliably attested that Whitmer really said that then I do find that to be significant evidence that Smith did show some kind of plates with symbols on them. Someone acknowledging that, even though repudiating Smith as a prophet, is a lot more impressive than the printed witness statements.

It does still sound a bit weird for a witness who had rejected Smith to have it as their only complaint, that the plates weren’t in English. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was hard to confirm that Whitmer really said that. His purported remarks sound a bit too much like what a Mormon who knew Whitmer had rejected Smith would want Whitmer to say. It has that smell of faith-promoting legend about it.
Maybe. I'm going off the journal entry of my ancestor. Theodore Turley. Who can say what he was really told, so it is another layer of hearsay.

I've read a lot of journal type information and have published on them. Reliability is always a question mark.
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