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

[_marg]

One would have to be an idiot to actually believe the metal plates described by Joseph existed.

[_Daniel Peterson]

One would have to be an idiot to actually believe the metal plates described by Joseph existed.

I love comments like this.

[_collegeterrace]

One would have to be an idiot to actually believe the metal plates described by Joseph existed.

Hence, my avatar.

[_collegeterrace]

What a heavy burden old Joe left his defenders to carry.

Since many apologists agree that the plates were not used in most of the translation, its too bad for them that Joe & Co. did not skip the plates prop and come up with some other story, like "I just wrote down what the resurrected white American Indian told me."

He did that with the D&C, Book of Moses, and his so-called translation of the Bible..

[_antishock8]

Wow. The silence is deafening. They got nuthin'.

[_Jersey Girl]

And the Spalding theory, which, for very good reason, no serious historian of Mormonism -- LDS or non-LDS (not even Fawn Brodie or Dan Vogel) -- has accepted for roughly a century, is reasserted.

http://farms.BYU.edu/publications/revie ... m=2&id=584

See also Lester E. Bush Jr., "The Spalding Theory Then and Now," Dialogue 10/4 (1977): 40—69

I simply disagree, Daniel.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Yes, I'm afraid we disagree very strongly on this one.

I think the evidence for the existence of the plates is strong, and that the evidence for the Spalding theory is remarkably weak. And, with regard to the latter proposition, I seem to be in agreement with every serious historian of Mormonism -- believer or unbeliever -- for at least the past century.

[_Jersey Girl]

Yes, I'm afraid we disagree very strongly on this one.

I think the evidence for the existence of the plates is strong, and that the evidence for the Spalding theory is remarkably weak. And, with regard to the latter proposition, I seem to be in agreement with every serious historian of Mormonism -- believer or unbeliever -- for at least the past century.

Daniel,

I am content to say that I acknowledge and accept that each of us holds differing perspectives, biases and convictions with regards to Mormonism.

I am okay with the fact that we strongly disagree regarding Spalding/Rigdon.

[_marg]

.

I think the evidence for the existence of the plates is strong,

You've GOT to be joking....

[_Daniel Peterson]

You've GOT to be joking....

You've got to be smug and deeply ignorant.

Which, in my experience with you, you are.

You're not a serious conversation partner, Marg. Whatever you may imagine.