How Many Spaulding Manuscripts are we talking about?

[_Jersey Girl]

Doesn't that jive with witness accounts?

'Jibe' vs 'jive'

Sorry. Pet peeve.

I stand (sit) corrected!
:-)

p.s. jive turkey.

[_beastie]

Harmony, have you examined the witness statements to the Spaulding manuscripts? Years later, when interviewed, after reading about the Book of Mormon, or being told about it (I don't recall any that said they had acutally read the Book of Mormon itself), they recalled that what they had heard someone tell them sounded like the Book of Mormon. Not very much better than "I heard my cousin say that his first grade teacher told him that she thought she had seen something but she couldn't remember it very well after 35 years." If you like that kind of "evidence" you are very naïve and gullible.

On the other hand the witnesses to the gold plates recorded their evidence at the time.

I had a police officer tell me one time that if I were to ever witness any event which might end up in litigation to get a piece of paper, record what I had seen, and put a date and a time on it. Time is very important in testimony. Give a year, 10 years, and any witness loses reliabiility with each clock tick.

Let me tell you about memory. If you see something you think you have a memory of that event locked in. But memory degrades, and when we realize we have forgotten some detail, we fill in with something. If someone asks us a question about the event, the words they use to ask will have an influence on the memory. For instance, if you saw a car collision, if you are asked "How fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other?" you will give a different response than if you are asked "How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" The question shaped the response.

So if one of the witnesses was being questioned, and they were asked, "Do you remember if the words Nephi and Moroni were used?" They will get a different answer than if they ask, "What names do you remember from what was read to you?"

Whenever we have "witness" testimony, the circumstances of the recording of the testimony is vital to evluating it.

Care to apply this standard to the First Vision?

[_harmony]

Harmony, have you examined the witness statements to the Spaulding manuscripts? Years later, when interviewed, after reading about the Book of Mormon, or being told about it (I don't recall any that said they had acutally read the Book of Mormon itself), they recalled that what they had heard someone tell them sounded like the Book of Mormon. Not very much better than "I heard my cousin say that his first grade teacher told him that she thought she had seen something but she couldn't remember it very well after 35 years." If you like that kind of "evidence" you are very naïve and gullible.

On the other hand the witnesses to the gold plates recorded their evidence at the time.

I had a police officer tell me one time that if I were to ever witness any event which might end up in litigation to get a piece of paper, record what I had seen, and put a date and a time on it. Time is very important in testimony. Give a year, 10 years, and any witness loses reliabiility with each clock tick.

Care to apply this standard to the First Vision?

Or the Gospels in the New Testament. Charity is digging her own grave.