Joseph Antley wrote: Considering Joseph's disdain for organized religion and the "scholars of religion" combined with statements from his mother to the effect that he devoted his religious study exclusively to the Bible, I think it unlikely that Joseph Smith would have been an avid reader of biblical scholarship in the 1820s.
While I agree that most of the ideas like writing on metal plates probably came to Joseph through oral means, we should be careful how we take the words of people like Joseph's mother. I know many mothers including my own who would get many things wrong about their kids and some of their activities. Joseph may have had some negative views about some or most of the religions around him, but he always(as far as I know) had a keen interest in religion and folk religion.
Joseph Antley wrote: What are you talking about? I said in my previous post:
I think Mike's overall thesis is certainly correct, but I think the ideas would have circulated to Joseph and his neighbors through oral means rather than through Joseph Smith's copious adolescent book reading or that of his family members.
Oh, I'm sorry, Young Antley. You're right. You said he got the information from "oral tradition" instead of the Bible. My bad.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
Joseph Smith as a child left the family scriptures out on a stump during a rain storm. Young Alvin Smith brought them in, their father proclaimed, "You better take better care of those, their not written on gold plates."
Themis wrote:... and the amount of information claimed to be able to put on these plates.
This concern is old hat. Both Why Me and myself will attest to this problem being solved by compressed photonic burst transmissions decodable through congruent stone media.