Converts to Limnor's Book of Mormon Origins?

[I Have Questions]

There is now a lot of research into how and why eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. It becomes exponentially more unreliable when they eye witness testimony is coordinated by a single, interested, authority figure.

In the lost-in-the-mall study, implantation of false memory occurred when another person, usually a family member, claimed that the incident happened. Corroboration of an event by another person can be a powerful technique for instilling a false memory. In fact, merely claiming to have seen a person do something can lead that person to make a false confession of wrongdoing.
This effect was demonstrated in a study by Saul M. Kassin and his colleagues at Williams College, who investigated the reactions of individuals falsely accused of damaging a computer by pressing the wrong key. The innocent participants initially denied the charge, but when a confederate said that she had seen them perform the action, many participants signed a confession, internalized guilt for the act and went on to confabulate details that were consistent with that belief. These findings show that false incriminating evidence can induce people to accept guilt for a crime they did not commit and even to develop memories to support their guilty feelings.
Research is beginning to give us an understanding of how false memories of complete, emotional and self-participatory experiences are created in adults. First, there are social demands on individuals to remember; for instance, researchers exert some pressure on participants in a study to come up with memories. Second, memory construction by imagining events can be explicitly encouraged when people are having trouble remembering. And, finally, individuals can be encouraged not to think about whether their constructions are real or not. Creation of false memories is most likely to occur when these external factors are present, whether in an experimental setting, in a therapeutic setting or during everyday activities.

False memories are constructed by combining actual memories with the content of suggestions received from others. During the process, individuals may forget the source of the information. This is a classic example of source confusion, in which the content and the source become dissociated.
Of course, because we can implant false childhood memories in some individuals in no way implies that all memories that arise after suggestion are necessarily false. Put another way, although experimental work on the creation of false memories may raise doubt about the validity of long-buried memories, such as repeated trauma, it in no way disproves them. Without corroboration, there is little that can be done to help even the most experienced evaluator to differentiate true memories from ones that were suggestively planted.

https://staff.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm

In the case of Joseph’s witnesses, grouping them together actually makes the chance of “false memory” more, not less, likely. 11 unrelated people seeing something similar at 11 different times and places is one thing. But 11 related people, grouped together in one location by a single interested party who leads the statement and even tells them what they “saw”…come on.

If 11 of L. Ron. Hubbard’s close family and friends signed a statement to say that Thetans are real and that they’d seen them, would MG or any other born-in-the-church committed Mormon, or Mormon apologist find that to be compelling evidence for Scientology being the true religion?

[Limnor]

I worked on this last night but didn’t post it, as, like MG said, there have been plenty of discussions about those plates. But I decided I might as well post it since I did the work.

From the descriptions provided by witnesses to the “plates,” I’ll offer what it sounds like they saw to this “investigator”:

Copper printing plates available in Joseph Smith’s Palmyra environment sound remarkably similar to objects described by witnesses as the “gold plates.”

These types of plates were commonly used in printing shops, like at E. B. Grandin’s shop where Oliver worked as a scribe and proofreader.

Copper, or brass, printing plates were thin sheets of polished metal, typically six to eight inches in size, sometimes drilled or pinned along one edge for registration.

When stacked, those types of plates would resemble a compact, book-like block that weighed between thirty and sixty pounds, the same range cited by early witnesses.

Polished copper or brass gave off a rich golden sheen, easily mistaken for gold under lamplight, and shallow engraved or etched lines could resemble “reformed” characters to the untrained eye.

The metallic clink, flexibility, and ring-bound construction described by the witnesses could be similarly produced by printing plates.

https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2024/03/fabr ... -printing/

This “investigator’s” conclusion: without the ability to ask follow-up questions of the witnesses, this naturalistic explanation sounds much more plausible.

Follow-up: Since Joseph didn’t even need the plates to translate, why is the witness testimony needed in the first place?

[MG 2.0]

The metallic clink, flexibility, and ring-bound construction described by the witnesses could be similarly produced by printing plates.

Thickness doesn't match. Copper plates were likely too thick (1.5 to 3mm) to rustle or bend easily unless specially modified. Rigidity of plates diverge from witness descriptions. Witnesses said the plates “rustled” when thumbed.

Regards,
MG

[Limnor]

I don’t consider this a “smoking gun,” so much as an assessment of what the witnesses described.

While we lack direct documentation of Grandin’s exact plate gauge, copper printing plates of about 0.8 mm were demonstrably available in the 1820s.

That makes copper the more plausible material if one takes the witnesses’ ‘rustling’ description literally. Gold, by comparison, would have been far too heavy and soft to produce that effect.

Gold, even at 0.5 mm, would be dense and heavy (roughly 10× heavier than copper for the same volume) and too soft for sustained handling without deformation. It wouldn’t “rustle,” it would clack or stick.

For gold to “rustle,” you would need gold foil: At ≤0.02 mm (20 µm) a sheet starts to flutter and could “rustle,” but that’s foil/leaf territory—far too delicate to engrave on both sides without stretching or puncturing.

Maybe the bigger question is “what kind of metal plates “rustle” like paper?” Is the description even plausible?

I’d also note that you’ve added the description of “rustling” to the official accounts.

[Limnor]

Revisiting the rustle, Emma’s description of the “plates” sounds more like the presence of a book beneath a napkin rather than plates. It was something she could feel, but not allowed to see; something that existed but remaining under a veil of secrecy. It is plausible that what she described was a copy of the KJV.

Later, when Oliver enters Grandin’s shop, the plates take on new substance. There, the idea of plates could become tangible, an opportunity to frame the plates as a performance to validate the story.

The witnesses’ testimonies then function as extensions of that performance. They are “true” within the framework of what they were invited to see — the translation of a spiritual claim into a material form, facilitated by copper printing plates.

Most of the time I think things that happened were poor magic tricks, easily exposed.

[huckelberry]

Revisiting the rustle, Emma’s description of the “plates” sounds more like the presence of a book beneath a napkin rather than plates. It was something she could feel, but not allowed to see; something that existed but remaining under a veil of secrecy. It is plausible that what she described was a copy of the KJV.

Later, when Oliver enters Grandin’s shop, the plates take on new substance. There, the idea of plates could become tangible, an opportunity to frame the plates as a performance to validate the story.

The witnesses’ testimonies then function as extensions of that performance. They are “true” within the framework of what they were invited to see — the translation of a spiritual claim into a material form, facilitated by copper printing plates.

Most of the time I think things that happened were poor magic tricks, easily exposed.

Limnor these possibilities make sense to me
There have been times when I have wondered if Joseph may have found a stash of such plates hidden by somebody in a time such as war. Perhaps the treasure hunting located printing plates which became a source of imaginative inspiration. My scenario is speculation of course.

Your observation of rustling being paper as in a book makes sense as well. Both these versions could be true. Having happened different times with different people.

[Limnor]

Thanks Huck.

This shift from a “book” to “plates” bears out within the Book of Mormon itself, the transition from book to plates can be traced linguistically.

Recall that Emma’s experience describes a book, not metal: a bound, covered object that rustled like paper and was kept beneath a cloth. By contrast, the later witnesses describe plates.

The earliest narrative core (Mosiah–Moroni) speaks of records and books (“the record of Zeniff,” “the book of Ether,” “this record”), while the later insertions—1 Nephi through Words of Mormon—recast those books as engraved plates.

The seam between Words of Mormon 1:3–6 and 1 Nephi 19:1 marks the textual moment when the Book of Mormon’s “record” turns into “plates.”

In Words of Mormon, the narrator speaks as an editor: he abridges, searches, and chooses among pre-existing records, handling texts already “delivered into [his] hands.” The verbs belong to compilation, not creation.

But in 1 Nephi 19:1, the vocabulary shifts decisively: Nephi makes plates.

This change in diction—from editorial verbs like abridge and write to ones like make and engrave—signals a distinct change from finished “records” into “plates.”

Within my allegorical thesis, in which Joseph usurps Rigdon by writing himself into the book, that shift is supported here.

No longer is Joseph simply “finding a book,” he has created his own abridgment and used copper printing plates as a performative act to solidify his role.

[MG 2.0]

I don’t consider this a “smoking gun,” so much as an assessment of what the witnesses described.

While we lack direct documentation of Grandin’s exact plate gauge, copper printing plates of about 0.8 mm were demonstrably available in the 1820s.

That makes copper the more plausible material if one takes the witnesses’ ‘rustling’ description literally. Gold, by comparison, would have been far too heavy and soft to produce that effect.

Gold, even at 0.5 mm, would be dense and heavy (roughly 10× heavier than copper for the same volume) and too soft for sustained handling without deformation. It wouldn’t “rustle,” it would clack or stick.

For gold to “rustle,” you would need gold foil: At ≤0.02 mm (20 µm) a sheet starts to flutter and could “rustle,” but that’s foil/leaf territory—far too delicate to engrave on both sides without stretching or puncturing.

Maybe the bigger question is “what kind of metal plates “rustle” like paper?” Is the description even plausible?

I’d also note that you’ve added the description of “rustling” to the official accounts.

Emma Smith described the plates as “pliable like thick paper” and said they would “rustle with a metallic sound” when thumbed. This statement comes from her 1879 interview published in The Saints’ Herald.

Full excerpt:

“I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.”
https://bhroberts.org/records/nvGFqb-gc ... the_plates

Regards,
MG

[I Have Questions]

I don’t consider this a “smoking gun,” so much as an assessment of what the witnesses described.

While we lack direct documentation of Grandin’s exact plate gauge, copper printing plates of about 0.8 mm were demonstrably available in the 1820s.

That makes copper the more plausible material if one takes the witnesses’ ‘rustling’ description literally. Gold, by comparison, would have been far too heavy and soft to produce that effect.

Gold, even at 0.5 mm, would be dense and heavy (roughly 10× heavier than copper for the same volume) and too soft for sustained handling without deformation. It wouldn’t “rustle,” it would clack or stick.

For gold to “rustle,” you would need gold foil: At ≤0.02 mm (20 µm) a sheet starts to flutter and could “rustle,” but that’s foil/leaf territory—far too delicate to engrave on both sides without stretching or puncturing.

Maybe the bigger question is “what kind of metal plates “rustle” like paper?” Is the description even plausible?

I’d also note that you’ve added the description of “rustling” to the official accounts.

Emma Smith described the plates as “pliable like thick paper” and said they would “rustle with a metallic sound” when thumbed. This statement comes from her 1879 interview published in The Saints’ Herald.

Full excerpt:

“I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.”
https://bhroberts.org/records/nvGFqb-gc ... the_plates

Regards,
MG

That sounds very supportive of Limnor’s theory about the use of locally sourced copper plates to create the prop. Thanks for that corroboration MG.

[Limnor]

Let’s consider some additional facts and analysis:

Emma gave that description fifty years later, after decades of living inside a community where “gold plates” were the foundational image.

Over time, episodic memory (the raw tactile feeling) tends to fade, while semantic memory (the story and its words) stays active.

That means when she reached for language in 1879, it is plausible that she explained a combination of real sensory fragments with the dominant narrative she’d heard repeated for half a century, and may well have merged the “rustle” of her memory with the metallic imagery everyone had come to associate with the plates.

I wouldn’t characterize that as a deliberate invention meant to mislead, but I might consider it “reconstructive recall”—memories reshaped to fit later meaning.