zeezrom wrote:I take that back. 12 inches is too small. A free standing box like that would need to be at least 18-24 inches thick
Z, you know how I hate to disagree with you, and I'm certainly not a defender, but 4 inches on the cap stone and two inches on the supporting stones would have worked if the box were made of good quality granite (a maximum span of 40 inches). Unless the box was buried under a very deep and heavy load of soil, a 4 inch capstone would have worked. Whether or not good granite could be found around Palmyra is another question.
Stone sarcophagus:
The real trouble is the water. It rains and snows in New York. If the stone box was not waterproof anything other than the gold items would be in a sorry state.
I have a medieval steel knife (from the town of York in England) that is so delicate that I try never to touch it. Every time I do another small, rusty piece falls off.
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true" Twain.
The box is actually a "bag of holding" or a tesseract. While we have not determined which yet, we are trying to replicate its unique ability to have a larger internal volume than its dimension would allow.
It is our belief that full understanding of this phenomena will lead to either warp drive or a working Einstein-Rosen bridge.
Dr. Steel of the Credulous institute of the Research of Advanced Physics.
It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener at war.
Some of us, on the other hand, actually prefer a religion that includes some type of correlation with reality. ~Bill Hamblin
Tchild wrote:The current apologetic rationale is that the plates were made of tumbaga ( non-specific alloy of gold and copper with anywhere from 97%-3% gold content).
Tumbaga is the natural apologetic explanation because the "witnesses" who lifted or hefted the plates (covered of course) estimated their weight from about 40-60 lbs. So, it stands to reason from the LDS mindset, given the dimensions of the plates, that the gold content must have been rather low. Also, tumbaga was used extensively by pre-columbian cultures in central and south america.
Why don't apologists factor in the possibility that the plates were a prop made of tin that could readily be found at a local cooper shop, such as was owned and operated by a Joseph Smith Sr.?
What is the weight of tin with the same measurements as the plates? About 40 lbs.
Let me have another go at that calculation, except I'll use copper:
Copper has a density of 8.94 grams per cubic centimeter, and the plates were described at being 8" x 6" x 6".
8 x 6 x 6 inches = 20.32 x 15.24 x 15.24 centimeters which equals 4719.47 cubic centimeters. 4719.47 cm3 multiplied by 8.94 grams per cm3 = 42,192 grams = 41.192 kilograms = 92.8 lbs.
So, if we assume that these plates were not gold, but rather a 97% copper +3 % gold alloy, we can see the weight drops to less than half, but that weight is still more than 93 pounds. If we allow a 100% air gap (plate thickness to air gap ratio) then we can bring the weight down to ~46 lbs, right where the apologists need it to be.
But then we go back to the problem with the box, which could not have been made water-tight. Any substance which is 97% copper is gonna have a helluva time with oxidation (corrosion). Plates made of this material may physically be able to last for thousands of years, but any writing upon them would surely be so badly eroded by the patina of copper oxide as to make it difficult to read.
I'd say the apologetic Tumbaga Gambit causes as many problems as it solves. Which is to say it is in good company with many other apologetic explanations hastily concocted with the vain hope of saving the church from its own sordid history.
See the jskains quote in my Sig. God just created a gold that was lighter than normal gold. Crisis averted!
It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener at war.
Some of us, on the other hand, actually prefer a religion that includes some type of correlation with reality. ~Bill Hamblin
SteelHead wrote:The box is actually a "bag of holding" or a tesseract. While we have not determined which yet, we are trying to replicate its unique ability to have a larger internal volume than its dimension would allow.
It is our belief that full understanding of this phenomena will lead to either warp drive or a working Einstein-Rosen bridge.
Dr. Steel of the Credulous institute of the Research of Advanced Physics.
You have to be really careful with a bag of holding, too. If sharp objects are placed in it and the bag rips, the contents of the bag of holding will be lost forever in the astral dimension. It is plausible that Joseph Smith forgot to re-sheathe Laban's +1 vorpal sword one time, thus ripping the bag of holding in which the undead paladin, Moroni, had placed the Nephite artifacts (Liahona, golden plates, etc.), causing them to be lost in the astral plane, which is why we can't find them now.
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
zeezrom wrote:I take that back. 12 inches is too small. A free standing box like that would need to be at least 18-24 inches thick
Z, you know how I hate to disagree with you, and I'm certainly not a defender, but 4 inches on the cap stone and two inches on the supporting stones would have worked if the box were made of good quality granite (a maximum span of 40 inches). Unless the box was buried under a very deep and heavy load of soil, a 4 inch capstone would have worked. Whether or not good granite could be found around Palmyra is another question.
Stone sarcophagus:
The real trouble is the water. It rains and snows in New York. If the stone box was not waterproof anything other than the gold items would be in a sorry state.
I have a medieval steel knife (from the town of York in England) that is so delicate that I try never to touch it. Every time I do another small, rusty piece falls off.
Now why would you hate to disagree with me? I'm glad for your criticism! It means you care about my work! Like you said, water is a concern and particularly where it freezes and thaws each year. Stone is very good at resisting compression but not tension, which would be exerted under conditions found on Cumorah.
I stand by my claim that the walls must be thick because this is a buried vault in those soil/weather conditions and in an area of moderate seismic activity.
Where was this box you mention stored? Was it buried in the earth?
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
