For those interested in reading more of this article:
An Incredible Story Part IV — Those Mysterious Golden Plates
Rich Kelsey
(Continued...)
Spirits guarding treasure in Smith’s day were usually evil.[xxxiii]
“The utmost silence was necessary to success. More than once, when the digging proved a failure, Joe explained to his associates that, just as the deposit was about to be reached, some one, tempted by the devil, spoke, causing the wished-for riches to disappear.”[xxxiv]
Defending Mormonism:
“If Joseph actually did possess the ability as the witnesses testified would he be judged guilty of glass looking? Yes. But wouldn't that also mean that he was innocent of deception and the reason the law was created?” (Just the Facts - The 1826 Trial (Hearing) of Joseph Smith, lightplanet.com)[xxxv]
Because Mormon apologists imply that,
“…Joseph actually did possess the ability as the witnesses testified…”
[so],
“…he was innocent of deception…”
let’s consider what the witnesses said in court to see if this argument holds up under examination:
· Josiah Stowel said “…that he positively knew that the prisoner could tell, and professed the art of seeing those valuable treasures through the medium of said stone… that he had been in company with prisoner digging for gold and had the most implicit faith in prisoner's skill.” (1826 Trial, Tuttle account)
· Stowell also said, “that the prisoner possessed all the power he claimed, and declared he could see things fifty feet below the surface of the earth…” (1826 Trial, Purple account)
· Jonathan Thompson stated, “he believes in the prisoner's professed skill...” (1826 Trial, Tuttle account)
Note: Not all of the witnesses who testified in the 1826 Glass Looking Trial believed Smith had the ability to see things in his stone:
· Arad Stowel testified: ”The deception appeared so palpable, that [he] went off disgusted.” (1826 Trial, Tuttle account)
· McMaster testified: “…he went with Arad Stowel to be convinced of prisoner's skill, and likewise came away disgusted…”(1826 Trial, Tuttle account)
One thing is clear: the witnesses who believed in Smith were the ones telling Judge Neely about a chest full of treasure being watched over by a dead Indian and how Smith could see this by looking in his stone.[xxxvi] This in itself points to deception on Smith's part; because, there was never a chest full of treasure to be found.
Instead of trying to discredit those court testimonies, are Mormon apologists really asking us to believe them?
No.
It's not likely that apologists are asking investigators to accept what the witnesses said about the trunk full of treasure slipping away from them as they dug for it, etc. In fact, they would probably dismiss that as nonsense, while still holding to the notion that Smith could see things invisible to the human eye. Yet, claiming Smith could see things in his stone, while admitting that what he claimed he saw was not real, is nothing less than doubletalk.
Also, the problem with picking and choosing what parts of Smith’s story to believe, is that practically everything the witnesses testified to in court is beyond belief. Surely Smith did not see buried treasure and a dead Indian in his stone.
This is a real problem for Mormons; because, if what Smith told Stowell and his crew is fictitious, then the odds are good that the gold plates story, which is along similar lines, is also pure fiction.
The gold plates were also supposedly buried in a box by the ancients and held in charge by the spirit of a dead man.[xxxvii] Smith was telling people he was trying to obtain the gold plates during the same period in his life he was brought before Judge Neely for glass looking.[xxxviii]
Gold Plates — Illusion or Reality:
It is written,
“The golden plates are history's most stunning 'find' in the field of religion.” (Neal A. Maxwell)
Yet, unlike other stunning 'finds’ in history, the gold plates are nowhere to be found; and stories of their final resting place are just like stories found in mythical tales:
“… the hill was not only the place where Joseph Smith received the plates but also their final repository, along with other sacred treasures, after the translation was finished. …Joseph Smith and others returned the plates to a cave in the Hill Cumorah after he finished translating them. At least 10 different accounts, all secondhand, refer to this cave and what was found there.
With these reports of a cave in the Hill Cumorah comes the question, Was this a real cave that Joseph and others actually walked into, or was it a visionary, or "virtual," experience?”
The author goes on to say,
“…this question cannot be answered unless we find firsthand information regarding the cave." (Cumorah's Cave - Cameron J. Packer)
Obviously, if the cave was a visionary experience then Smith did not take any real plates to any real cave. The gold plates seem to have the same elusive qualities as buried treasure from Smith’s money digging days.
For example: Brigham Young, the Second "Prophet, Seer, and Revelator" of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, painted a picture of a man of faith praying and then seeing angels and plates in the vision of his mind.
“Some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and to disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel. One of the Quorum of the Twelve - a young man full of faith and good works, prayed, and the vision of his mind was opened, and the angel of God came and laid the plates before him, and he saw and handled them, and saw the angel, and conversed with him as he would with one of his friends; but after all this, he was left to doubt, and plunged into apostacy, and has continued to contend against this work. There are hundreds in a similar condition.” (Brigham Young, JoD: vol. 7 p. 164, June 5, 1859)
In the material world, people do not need faith to see or handle things, nor do people usually doubt they once handled tangible objects; unless they are suffering from a delusionary state. Perhaps these people were mesmerized by the power of suggestion;[xxxix] then later, they woke up to the reality that they had only imagined seeing gold plates? For hundreds of people to be “in a similar condition”[xl] indicates that something is seriously wrong!
And, as usual, details surrounding the gold plates are beyond belief.[xli] One newspaper in Oregon called the Book of Mormon,[xlii] along with the witnesses' testimonies,
“the most deplorable fraud recorded in history.”[xliii]
The record gets worse:
Included in Joseph Knight’s account of Smith’s first attempt at obtaining the gold plates is this troubling piece of evidence:
Knight records:
● He took hold of the book, but this time he could not move it.
● Smith asked, “Why..?”
● He was answered, “You can’t have it now.”
● Smith asked, “When can I have it.”
● He was answered, “The 22nd day of next September if you bring the right person.”
● “Joseph says, ‘Who is the right person?’”
● “The answer was, ‘Your oldest Brother.’”
● “But before September came his oldest Brother died.”
(BYU Studies, Joseph Knight’s Recollection of Early Mormon History, Dean Jessee, 1976)
According to the Bible, God knows,
“the end from the beginning.”[xliv]
Smith’s oldest brother Alvin died[xlv] 10 months before, “the 22nd day of next September.” If the spirit really was an,
“angel of the Lord,”[xlvi]
the angel should have known that Alvin could not possibly accompany Joseph to the Hill Cumorah[xlvii] the following year.
Therefore, if an actual spirit did appear to Smith, it was very unlikely to be a messenger from God. One would think that after Alvin died, Smith himself would have realized that he was merely dealing with an evil spirit, once again; just as he had in past money digging ventures. One thing we can be certain of: Joseph Smith did not know his oldest brother would die before next September 22nd.
Alvin’s death over this period of time is no doubt the reason this version[xlviii] of Smith’s story is unknown to most Mormons today. Knowledge of it would certainly hinder those trying to build faith in Smith as a prophet.
An Odd Admission:
Joseph Smith recorded in his 1832-34 diary that because he sought the plates for impure motives he was prevented from acquiring them until he was 21 years old:
"for now I had been tempted of the advisary and sought the Plates to obtain riches and kept not the commandments that I should have an eye single to the glory of God therefore I was chastened and sought diligently to obtain the plates and obtain them not until I was twenty one years of age..." (Page 5, lines 1-5)
Obviously, this runs contrary to earlier accounts, such as the one written by Joseph Knight, where the personage promised Smith that he could have the plates next September 22nd if he brought the right person.
Smith planning to obtain the plates for their material value and to not keep God’s commandments over this 3 to 4 year time-span certainly is an odd admission!
Endnotes:
[xxxiii] -- He [Joseph Smith Sr.] also revived, or in other words, propagated the vulgar, yet popular belief that these treasures were held in charge by some evil spirit...” (THE REFLECTOR February 1, 1831)
[xxxiv] (Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1880 / narrative from the book: Mormon Origin, William Alexander Linn, Hackensack, N. J., 1901)
[xxxv]
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/182 ... facts.html [xxxvi] There had lived a few years previous to this date, in the vicinity of Great Bend, a poor man named Joseph Smith, who, with his family, had removed to the western part of the State, and lived in squalid poverty near Palmyra, in Ontario County. Mr. Stowell, while at Lanesboro, heard of the fame of one of his sons, named Joseph, who, by the aid of a magic stone had become a famous seer of lost or hidden treasures. … as a seer, by means of the stone which he placed in his hat, and by excluding the light from all other terrestrial things, could see whatever he wished, even in the depths of the earth.” (CHENANGO UNION, Vol. 30, Norwich, N. Y., Thursday, May 2, 1877, No. 33, Joseph Smith The Originator of Mormonism, Historical Reminiscences of the town of Afton, BY W. D. PURPLE)
[xxxvii] "Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the Book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them." (Smith, 1838, pp 42-43).
[xxxviii] “…he had a certain stone, which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were; that he professed to tell in this manner where gold-mines were a distance under ground, and had looked for Mr. Stowel several times, and informed him where he could find those treasures” (1826 Trial, Miss Pearsall Account, Joseph Smith Jr. Testimony).
[xxxix] “Suggestion is the psychological process by which one person guides the thoughts, feelings, or behaviour of another.” (Wikipedia Encyclopedia on-line, Suggestion, 2011)
[xl] “…the vision of his mind was opened, and the angel of God came and laid the plates before him, and he saw and handled them, and saw the angel, and conversed with him as he would with one of his friends; but after all this, he was left to doubt, and plunged into apostacy, and has continued to contend against this work. There are hundreds in a similar condition.” (Brigham Young, JoD: vol. 7 p. 164, June 5, 1859)
[xli] “For most readers, the plates are beyond belief, a phantasm, yet the Mormon sources accept them as fact." (Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling, Bushman Richard Lyman, 2005, p.58)
[xlii] “ I have this month received sixteen pages of this work, from page 353 to 368 inclusive… in these sixteen pages, I noticed 'yea' was repeated 34 times; and even 21 times in two pages. The words, 'It came to pass,' is repeated 56 times in 16 pages, and even ten times on one page. 'Now' and 'behold,' are reiterated near the commencement of sentences, full thirty times apiece, and more, in these sixteen pages. Consequently these four things are repeated 162 times on the eardrum, while speaking of the war of the Nephites and Lemanites, in the day of Moroni, and reign of the judges, according to the book of Alma.
Thus, in page 359, it is written--"Yea, verily, verily, I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni--yea, the devil would never have no power over the hearts of the children of men: [never to have no power, is ever to have some power.]…
These facts are given to caution people not to spend their money uselessly for a book, that is more probable a hoax--or a money-making speculation--or an enthusiastic delusion, than a revelation of facts by the Almighty.” C. C. BLATCHLY. (New-York Telescope, Vol. VI, No. 38, Saturday, February 20, 1830, page 150, original in Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, Illinois)
[xliii] "Packing his valise, he [Martin Harris] cut sticks for Kirtland, where he lived unto 1870, when he went to Utah and ended a miserable life, raving in his last delirium over the Book of Mormon -- witnesses, facts and fictions of the most deplorable fraud recorded in history. Never was credulity or avarice more useful in a bad way, or knavery more successful than in the lives of Joe Smith and Martin Harris." (Morning Oregonian Vol. XV. Sept 16, 1875 No. 189)
[xliv] “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’” Isaiah 46:10, NIV)
[xlv] Alvin Smith (11 February 1798 – 19 November 1823) was the older brother of Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. (Wikipedia, 2011)
[xlvi] “When he <Joseph> took the plates into his hands at this time the angel of the Lord stood by and said now you have have got the record into your own hands and you are but a man therefore you will have to be watchful and faithful to your trust or you will be overpowered by wicked men…” (Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches, First Draft, 1844/45 p. 388)
[xlvii] The Hill Cumorah is located. It is one of many drumlin hills in the Finger Lakes region in Western New York in Manchester, where Joseph Smith Jr. said he found a set of golden plates.