The Three Witnesses: Unqualified and Irrelevant

[_why me]

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

They held on to the end when it was against the odds that they would do so.

[_Drifting]

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

They held on to the end when it was against the odds that they would do so.

No they didn't.
A number ditched Joseph and his Church.
A number changed their story to say they only saw stuff spiritually.
All of them changed their story from Joseph authoring the Book of Mormon to Joseph translating the Book of Mormon.
None of them saw Joseph translating the Book of Mormon so they lied.

[_Joe Geisner]

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.

Marg,

I am not sure I understand your question.

If you are asking: Does Dan believe the witnesses were not a part of Smith's fraud? Then I would say you need to ask him. I have not seen him suggest this, but I am not sure if Dan has ever made a statement on the subject.

I know I am skeptical of such a claim. It would take evidence for me to believe the witnesses were a part of the fraud. I have seen no evidence for such a conclusion in my studies.

[_Fence Sitter]

When you think about it, the Kinderhook Plates fooled the entire LDS Church for over a hundred years, passing off some sort of prop to 8 witnesses who had no idea what they were looking at kind of pales in comparison.

One interesting thing to note, is that Joseph Smith seemed to believe the plates were genuine. If he knew his own story to be a farce, why would he believe another, knowing his reputation was at stake?

I don't think J.S. thought the golden plates existed. There are too many implausible stories surrounding their existence and use. He was unable to retrieve from their hiding place on the hill Cumorah for several years because he didn't have the right person and or keys to get them, or running through the forest carrying them while escaping from 5 men, or hiding beneath the hearth stone only to move them just in time to avoid detection by a divining rod that could find the 2nd to last hiding place of the plates but not where they actually were, or the implausibility of the Anthon transcript manuscript story, or not using the plates in the actual translation process, and so on. His plates seemed to have the quality of all the other burred treasures that he himself looked for, in that they were always just beyond the reach of anyone else who was looking for them.

What I think all this shows are that the stores that J.S. created were stories he himself believed were possible and that he thought other people would also accept as possible. When he was shown the Kinderhook plates he was as susceptible to his own type of fraud as were others because he believed they might actually be real.

[_marg]

I know I am skeptical of such a claim. It would take evidence for me to believe the witnesses were a part of the fraud. I have seen no evidence for such a conclusion in my studies.

The first thing that comes to my mind when there are 3 people who claim to see an angel, hear the voice of God..with God telling them the same thing..is they are lying...not that they all experienced a vision or an halluciation.

My 90 year old dad experiences hallucinations in that he sees people which at the time are very real to him. The brain can play tricks or not function properly. But if 2 more people were in the room with my dad and they said they saw the same thing as him when he experiences these visions..I'd no longer think they were all hallucinating..because the probability of the same hallucination given they are healthy is much more unlikely. I'd think one or more were lying. Of course in the case of the 3 witnesses what the Book of Mormon witness testimony makes claim to is also much more extraordinary/supernatural ..therefore less probable and my first assumption is they are likely lying..as opposed to hallucinating. There is no evidence they were on drugs or mentally ill.

I know you subscribe to the Smith alone theory and that pretty much subscribes to treating the witnesses as if they are honest and not aware of or part of the fraud.

[_Fence Sitter]

The first thing that comes to my mind when there are 3 people who claim to see an angel, hear the voice of God..with God telling them the same thing..is they are lying...not that they all experienced a vision or an halluciation.

My 90 year old dad experiences hallucinations in that he sees people which at the time are very real to him. The brain can play tricks or not function properly. But if 2 more people were in the room with my dad and they said they saw the same thing as him when he experiences these visions..I'd no longer think they were all hallucinating..because the probability of the same hallucination given they are healthy is much more unlikely. I'd think one or more were lying. Of course in the case of the 3 witnesses what the Book of Mormon witness testimony makes claim to is also much more extraordinary/supernatural ..therefore less probable and my first assumption is they are likely lying..as opposed to hallucinating. There is no evidence they were on drugs or mentally ill.

I know you subscribe to the Smith alone theory and that pretty much subscribes to treating the witnesses as if they are honest and not aware of or part of the fraud.

My mother (middle 80's now) through out her life has related experiences she has had, mostly in the temple, of seeing spirits. She has even told stories of when she and others have seen the same person. I believe that she considers these as actual events where something material appeared to her and others. These experiences are very similar to many of the experiences related by early members and similar to what the three witnesses claim. Given the right preparation, I think it is quite possible to make multiple people believe they see the same thing. Besides in the case of the three witnesses it was actually two separate events as Harris had to leave the group.

[_why me]

No they didn't.
A number ditched Joseph and his Church.
A number changed their story to say they only saw stuff spiritually.
All of them changed their story from Joseph authoring the Book of Mormon to Joseph translating the Book of Mormon.
None of them saw Joseph translating the Book of Mormon so they lied.

They were pretty convincing on their deathbeds. And even david wanted his testimony on his tombstone. And olive was pretty clear about his experience at the end. They claimed to either see the plates or to handle the plates. And they held on to the end and as they lay dying confirming it.

[_marg]

Fencesitter, your mother's experience is more random. That is in any given room of people, in your mother's case acquaintances at church, one might find a few claiming to have seen a spirit. Seeing a spirit sounds pretty general. One would have to ask them particular questions to determine if it was the same vision. My dad can give particulars such as what the people are wearing, what their hair is like, what they did. It is not likely even with suggestibility preparation that details of a true vision among people would be the same.

In the Book of Mormon case these were not random people. They were involved in helping Smith before the Book of Mormon was written and there weren't that many helping him. They were given high positions in the church afterwards. Since they are not random the probability of all having the same vision is even less..than for a random group. And given they had a vested interest in the success of the church the motivation to lie increases. So when I compare the likelihood of them all having a similar vision versus lying..for me the probability of lying far outweighs them all having the same vision. I realize Harris had his at a different time but none the less the claim is of the same vision.

[_Fence Sitter]

Fencesitter, your mother's experience is more random. That is in any given room of people, in your mother's case acquaintances at church, one might find a few claiming to have seen a spirit. Seeing a spirit sounds pretty general. One would have to ask them particular questions to determine if it was the same vision. My dad can give particulars such as what the people are wearing, what their hair is like, what they did. It is not likely even with suggestibility preparation that details of a true vision among people would be the same.

In the Book of Mormon case these were not random people. They were involved in helping Smith before the Book of Mormon was written and there weren't that many helping him. They were given high positions in the church afterwards. Since they are not random the probability of all having the same vision is even less..than for a random group. And given they had a vested interest in the success of the church the motivation to lie increases. So when I compare the likelihood of them all having a similar vision versus lying..for me the probability of lying far outweighs them all having the same vision. I realize Harris had his at a different time but none the less the claim is of the same vision.

I did not fill in enough details about my mother's experiences but they were not random spirits, rather they usually were/are people she knew and are very descriptive stories. In fact her stories are very similar to your dad's. She also would relate that other people present with her would claim to see (maybe even hear?) the same event. Some times it would be a deceased person who was from the same ward that she and others in the group attended. Usually it is regarding one of her dead relatives.

Here is how I think some of them happen. After an endowment session, in the celestial room, she will be talking with other people (usually someone she knows) and she will relate to them that she has just seen such and such a person, at which time it is not unusual for the someone else present to claim having seen the exact same person. These stories remind me on several of the ones told by J.S. himself regarding divine appearances wherein someone will claim to have seen the same thing J.S. describes.

By the way I think it is very likely that having heard a description the second person to chime in will agree with what has been described, regardless of what they may or may not have seen. I think our memories are not really accurate representations of an event rather that are a mixture of what we actually saw combined with our brain filling in the details we missed. Think of how many different descriptions eyewitnesses give of the same event.

[_marg]

Once again Fencesitter I think what you are describing is a much more random and therefore likely occurrence..not due to lying. What alledgedly occurred with the Book of Mormon 3 witnesses is these particular people all on cue ..claimed to have the same vision. I realize Harris had difficulty having the vision Cowdery and Whitmer claimed. So I think Cowdery and Whitmer were in on the con and flat out lied. Harris claimed to have the same vision later because he felt pressure to do so and he too lied. In all the cases I don't thinkn any of them had on cue the same vision.

As an aside my dad takes medication to control these visions. I don't think he can at will bring them on. He definitely has a medical issue..partly caused by an aging brain and extremely low vision. But when he reflects on the experiences later he appreciates it was his all in his imagination. And the other thing is his visions are not a one-of...he has them with frequency though less so with medication.