The Three Witnesses: Unqualified and Irrelevant

[_Darth J]

The evidence is clearly relevant. Legally, relevance simply means having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence. Clearly someone is over thinking the issues if they can't admit that an angel appearing to three men and offering verification of the experiences (which included angels) that J.S. claimed has a tendency to make J.S'. claims more probable. How much weight one grants for that probability is another issue. Simply ask is the Book of Mormon more (however slight or great this may be) probable in being what it purports to be with the statements of three witnesses seeing what to them was an angel of God? Of course.

I'm not engaging in the legal analysis you are reading into the OP, but since you brought it up, the witness to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is God. Since this is absolute knowledge, the testimony of a mortal man is needlessly cumulative. If God tells me the Book of Mormon is true, I don't need David Whitmer et al. For the same reason, their testimony is duplicative. Even assuming there was sufficient foundation for the Three Witnesses to testify about the authenticity of the Book of Mormon based on personal knowledge (which there isn't), it wold be excluded under Rule 403. We have God. We don't need them.

Regarding hearsay, if it was brought in Court and D.J objected on hearsay grounds the three witnesses would clearly be allowed their statements on present sense impression, it would include res gestae purposes as well. (Although that word is disliked in many courts). What the angel said was contemporaneous and necessary for the story of the angel's appearance to be understood by the trier of fact.

Again, I'm not proposing a legal analysis, but since you volunteered this, for what purpose would their testimony be allowed? Not for the truth of the matter asserted (that the Book of Mormon is true), because that is pure hearsay. If you were merely trying to prove that they had the experience, then they could testify as to what they claimed to have experienced. But the angel or the voice of God or whatever declaring that the Book of Mormon is true would be res gestae only for the purpose of describing the experience. It would not be permissible for a trier of fact to use the hearsay from the angel and/or God as evidence in favor of the out-of-court statement (that the Book of Mormon is true). There would be a limiting instruction under Rule 105.

The three could also use their signed statements as recollection recorded to refresh their memories of the event.

Even assuming the existence of such a signed statement (which nobody seems able to find), the Three Witnesses never said they couldn't remember what happened. (They did give inconsistent statements about the nature of the experience, though.)

Historically, a legal foundation need not be laid.

And nobody is saying otherwise.

Hearsay is commonly accepted doing history, the reliability of the historical context and any verification that can found or the opposite is what is sought for.

regards, mikwut

That is completely beside the point. The "admissibility" of hearsay in history or in daily life is not disputed. It is personal knowledge that is at issue. Under any standard, the Three Witnesses had no personal knowledge that the Book of Mormon is true.

[_mikwut]

Hi D.J.,

OK, so I think I better understand where your coming from, your use of the word foundation confused me into a limited legal setting. So, the issue is personal knowledge. The witnesses have personal knowledge, i.e. a seemingly to them angelic personage that told them the providence of the golden plates the angel held and showed to the witnesses. This seemingly supernatural appearance was suitable for the witnesses to correspond with the experiences purported by J.S. That personal knowledge although lacking in expert education about the characters on the plates (why that is necessary is confusing) is valuable evidence for the reliability of J.S. and the means by which the Book of Mormon came about.

There is no reason to assume that communication from God cannot or should not be correlated with other experiences, whether mundane natural ones such as the eight and/or more supernatural occurrences such as the 3. It is valuable and relevant evidence for the believer. I am not a Mormon believer any more, but I believe in God. I don't believe it is appropriate to box God into absolute knowledge. That seems to be how your making your point. All of our faculties correspond with our other faculties, we see, hear, touch etc.... if we see something and question its veracity we check our other faculties such as hearing and touch if relevant to bolster the veracity of our experiences. Experiencing of purported visions, grace, or "burning in bosoms" need not be absolute nor cumulative. They are proper checks and balances.

mikwut

[_Darth J]

Hi D.J.,

OK, so I think I better understand where your coming from, your use of the word foundation confused me into a limited legal setting.

No.

foundation

1. the basis or groundwork of anything: the moral foundation of both society and religion. (my underline)
...............
1. that on which something is founded; basis

So, the issue is personal knowledge. The witnesses have personal knowledge, i.e. a seemingly to them angelic personage that told them the providence of the golden plates the angel held and showed to the witnesses.

They have personal knowledge as to that experience, not that their interpretation of the experience means what they claim it means. I can say God told me that Elvis was Jack the Ripper. But I have no personal knowledge of that, because I wasn't there in Victorian London. And since evidence outside my claimed experience shows that what God supposedly told me is wrong (Elvis Presley wasn't alive when Jack the Ripper was killing prostitutes), it further shows that I cannot possibly be a witness of the substance of what God is supposed to have told me. I can only say that I think God told me this.

This seemingly supernatural appearance was suitable for the witnesses to correspond with the experiences purported by J.S. That personal knowledge although lacking in expert education about the characters on the plates (why that is necessary is confusing) is valuable evidence for the reliability of J.S. and the means by which the Book of Mormon came about.

The reason why it is necessary for a person to have personal knowledge that the golden plates were an ancient artifact before purporting to be a witness of that claim is that it makes the person cease to be a witness at all. God is the witness, not the Three Witnesses. What you're talking about is exactly what a fallacious appeal to authority is.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... ority.html

This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.

When a person falls prey to this fallacy, they are accepting a claim as true without there being adequate evidence to do so. More specifically, the person is accepting the claim because they erroneously believe that the person making the claim is a legitimate expert and hence that the claim is reasonable to accept. Since people have a tendency to believe authorities (and there are, in fact, good reasons to accept some claims made by authorities) this fallacy is a fairly common one.

There is no reason to assume that communication from God cannot or should not be correlated with other experiences, whether mundane natural ones such as the eight and/or more supernatural occurrences such as the 3. It is valuable and relevant evidence for the believer.

That still does not make them witnesses to the Book of Mormon. God is the witness to the Book of Mormon. If God is the witness, they are irrelevant. I need God to tell me that their claimed experience really happened, which just adds another superfluous step to Moroni's Promise (asking if the Three Witnesses told the truth, instead of just asking if the Book of Mormon is true). But if I can obtain this knowledge from God, per Moroni 10, then the Three Witnesses are redundant, so I am not relying on them as to making it more likely the Book of Mormon is true, which means they are irrelevant.

Instead of being evidence used to arrive at a conclusion, what happens with the Three Witnesses is this: I have a "testimony" from the Holy Ghost, because I followed Moroni's Promise. Then I see that the Three Witnesses bolster my preconceived belief. The short name for this procedure is confirmation bias.

I am not a Mormon believer any more, but I believe in God. I don't believe it is appropriate to box God into absolute knowledge. That seems to be how your making your point. All of our faculties correspond with our other faculties, we see, hear, touch etc.... if we see something and question its veracity we check our other faculties such as hearing and touch if relevant to bolster the veracity of our experiences. Experiencing of purported visions, grace, or "burning in bosoms" need not be absolute nor cumulative. They are proper checks and balances.

mikwut

No, that is how the LDS Church its making its point. God is omniscient according to the Church, and he also actively participated in the events recorded in the Book of Mormon. That is why God has personal knowledge and can be a witness of the Book of Mormon.

[_why me]

The critics just cannot get their head around the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. They are problematic for them because these witnesses make a strong case for the Book of Mormon. I think that the critics need to accept what the witnesses saw or felt with their hands and move on.

[_Darth J]

Nuh-uh!!!

Perhaps you would like to substantively address the OP, Why Me.

[_Bob Loblaw]

The critics just cannot get their head around the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. They are problematic for them because these witnesses make a strong case for the Book of Mormon. I think that the critics need to accept what the witnesses saw or felt with their hands and move on.

Oh, I don't think so. First of all, other than the written, quasicanonical testimony, most of these witnesses spoke of seeing the plates with their "spiritual eyes" and "by the power of God." In other words, they saw the plates in a vision, and even the ones who said they "hefted" the plates said they did so spiritually (how you do that, I don't know).

But even if you take the testimony at face value, it is only evidence that they saw and touched something that looked like plates of gold. Their testimony that it was an ancient record and that it was translated correctly by Joseph Smith is something they could only have known through the Spirit, and that's not compelling to most people.

Martin Harris talked to Jesus, who appeared in the form of a deer. His witness makes a strong case for Jesus as a deer. I think that you need to accept that Martin saw the Jesus-deer and move on.

[_Drifting]

The critics just cannot get their head around the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. They are problematic for them because these witnesses make a strong case for the Book of Mormon. I think that the critics need to accept what the witnesses saw or felt with their hands and move on.

So...Joseph showed eight family members and friends some plates, gold in appearance. Now what?

[_son of Ishmael]

The critics just cannot get their head around the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. They are problematic for them because these witnesses make a strong case for the Book of Mormon. I think that the critics need to accept what the witnesses saw or felt with their hands and move on.

David Whitmer said: "If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to 'separate myself from among the Latter-day Saints'... [Address to all believers in Christ, p27, 1887.]

So if I believe him about the Book of Mormon I should believe that God told him to leave the church.

[_Drifting]

The critics just cannot get their head around the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. They are problematic for them because these witnesses make a strong case for the Book of Mormon. I think that the critics need to accept what the witnesses saw or felt with their hands and move on.

David Whitmer said: "If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to 'separate myself from among the Latter-day Saints'... [Address to all believers in Christ, p27, 1887.]

So if I believe him about the Book of Mormon I should believe that God told him to leave the church.

No.
You should only believe the things that Whitmer said that align with current Church teachings (which are subject to change).

[_marg]

All of this goes to the heart of what Dan Vogel has been writing about for years. For anyone to put faith in the witnesses statements in the divine nature of the Book of Mormon is as problematic as thinking the Gospel according to John is a historical witnesses of Jesus divinity.

Correct me if I'm wrong Joe, but doesn't Dan accept the Book of Mormon witness statements as based on truth ..that is the Book of Mormon statement reflects a true experience the witness had perhaps they experienced visions...but none the less he accepts all of them as honest truthful witnesses.