Converts to Limnor's Book of Mormon Origins?

[MG 2.0]

there were actual plates but simply trying to explain them away as something of an artifice to dupe ignorant men.

I think we ought to give these guys a bit more credit. You are basically giving them no credit at all.

I’ll ask you to recall that I believe they were in on it, albeit through blackmail.

So this gave them the opportunity to “tell the truth” about what they saw, to dupe other ignorant men.

Could you show what evidence that you have exterior to the Book of Mormon itself that they were in it because of being blackmailed? This is new to me.

Regards,
MG

[Limnor]

The strength is in the inferential evidence from the book itself, if it is “true.”

But there was considerable external pressure to maintain their testimony.

Martin Harris mortgaged his farm to fund the book’s printing, binding him economically to Joseph Smith. Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer risked reputational ruin if they retracted their witness statements.

Later interviews show that Whitmer, for instance, felt he “dared not deny” his testimony out of fear.

[Limnor]

The greatest barrier to your theory that I can think of offhand, and I'm not a good student of Mormon history I admit, can be summarized by this quote from our dear Reverend:

The Book of Mormon starts off as a treasure that he and other treasure seers were looking for. The translation springs out of that, and it cannot be divorced from it. He had first to convince others that he recovered the plates. Then he eventually commits to translating them himself. Knowing that this all originated in a ruse, we should instead think it would have been strange for him to do other than he did.

It needs work, but see below DRAFT reflections of the translation/medium/technology shift:

Internally, the narrative shows a shift in translation technology that mirrors the text’s own compositional layers:

Ether (Jaredite Record): The earliest layer features stones explicitly used as revelatory tools (“two stones” prepared for translation; Ether 3:23–28). This “seer stone” model depicts the earliest account of translation.

Book of Zeniff / Record of Zenith (Mosiah 9–10): When Mosiah I translates the “record of the people of Zeniff,” he uses interpreters “prepared for the purpose of interpreting languages” (Mosiah 8:13). This introduces a distinction from the earlier “stones.”

Mosiah / Alma Redactional Layer — The transition between the book form and plates form becomes evident.

Mosiah 28:13–17 narrates the passing of both “interpreters” and “records” to Alma II, marking an institutional handoff of translation authority. The “Words of Mormon” (W of M 1:3–7) explicitly describes the insertion of one record into another—evidence of editorial bridging and layered abridgment.

Nephi 1–2 (Late Framework): The “plates of Nephi” (small and large) redefine the source as a physical, metallic archive rather than a “book” or “record.” This framing reframes earlier “translation” as literary transcription from plates, aligning the entire work retroactively.

Externally, this trajectory parallels the historical shift in Joseph Smith’s descriptions, from seeing through stones (seer stone in a hat, as reported by early witnesses) to using interpreters attached to a breastplate (the later Urim and Thummim narrative).

Internally, the redactional layering—from Ether to Nephi—preserves that same movement in symbolic form: stone to interpreters to plates to abridged record.

In short, the text itself describes the evolution of its own translation process, moving from stones and books to interpreters and plates.

The Words of Mormon following the “loss” of the 116 pages acts as the hinge between those two worlds.

[MG 2.0]

Later interviews show that Whitmer, for instance, felt he “dared not deny” his testimony out of fear.

There is no reliable primary source where Whitmer says he was afraid to deny his testimony. He did say:

“I have never at any time denied that testimony or any part thereof... I have always adhered to that testimony.”

He reaffirmed his testimony “in the fear of God,” which is a common 19th-century religious expression denoting reverence and sincerity, not coercion or fear of retribution.

I think your assertion of blackmail on the part of the witnesses is unfounded. Granted, non-believers are hard pressed to find any and all explanations to do away with them.

Regards,
MG

[Limnor]

I think your assertion of blackmail on the part of the witnesses is unfounded. Granted, non-believers are hard pressed to find any and all explanations to do away with them.

You’re right that nonbelievers can sometimes overreach in trying to explain away the witnesses—I’ll grant that, though I’d offer there is little anyone could say in opposition that would not be interpreted as proof of persecution, or as a “prophesied” opposition that validates a position. From the outside perspective, that reflex compounds the problem: it turns any critique into confirmation, making an open conversation difficult.

However, being constrained to provide evidence external to the book as evidence of blackmail, I’ll retract but adjust my statement of external evidence to highlight the kind of pressure that can act like moral leverage.

Early revelations warned that denying their testimonies would bring divine punishment, creating a lasting system—one that I’d argue continues today—that maintains loyalty through fear of spiritual and social loss.

So while not blackmail in the legal sense, the dynamic fits what could be called spiritual blackmail—pressure framed in terms that made dissent feel precarious.

Along those lines, I’ve always been amazed by the 1826 “glass-looker” case involving Joseph Smith Jr.. According to testimony, he used a seer stone to search for buried treasure while working for Josiah Stowell. One witness, Jonathan Thompson, admitted he “could not remember finding anything of value” despite the efforts.

The fact that people continued to believe in Smith’s “gift” despite repeated null results always struck me as strange—and maybe reveals what might be framed as spiritual blackmail: the idea that to deny meant something more than just acknowledging failure.

Lastly, I’ll reiterate that I believe the witnesses did see something, I just think that something was copper printing plates. Given the opportunity to question the witnesses, I would have liked to have pursued that line of inquiry.

[Limnor]

I find it oddly ironic that the Book of Mormon itself is disallowed from a discussion about coercion or blackmail.

The text is filled with covenantal warnings, oaths, and divine threats for disbelief—essentially the theological DNA of spiritual blackmail.

Characters who reject divine manifestation are cursed, struck dumb, or destroyed; entire peoples are wiped out for disbelief.

The witnesses lived inside that same narrative logic—one that made doubt spiritually perilous.

It is striking that the very book used to justify the witnesses’ sincerity also encodes the belief system that could keep them bound to it through fear.

[Limnor]

This is absolutely fascinating. What was the stimulus to move from a 'record' to plates?

Presented for your consideration, Dean Robbers.

Tying Nephi and Seantum to their Interpretive Roots, an Allegorical View:

In 1826, the “Illustrations of Masonry” published by William Morgan was printed at the Batavia, New York press of David C. Miller.

That edition included engraved illustrations (emblems, ritual diagrams, signs of the fraternity), which implies the use of metal-engraved plates (likely copper) for the images.

In the months following Morgan’s abduction—a scandal that triggered significant anti-Masonic agitation in western New York—regional newspapers amplified warnings of “secret oaths” and “works of darkness,” creating a cultural backdrop in which secret writings on metal plates suppressed or threatened by oath-bound orders became a charged metaphor.

The timing of these regional anxieties overlaps closely with the period in which Joseph Smith Jr. said he recovered his “gold plates,” suggesting the printing-plate imagery was already circulating in the popular imagination.

Interpretive parallel: regional memory of engraved (copper) plates could be seen as tied to secret knowledge and suppression after the Morgan affair, a sacred narrative about a secretive brotherhood, concealed crime, and public exposure (Helaman 8–9).

The idea is that the literal copper printing plates from the Morgan affair could have formed the cultural prototype for the “seized plates” imagery later embedded in the Book of Mormon’s stories (Seantum/Nephi).

[Gadianton]

I have wondered where "gold plates" came from. As a pirates treasure, it makes a little bit of sense, but it's not a stereotypical example of a pirates treasure. On the other hand, the Book of Mormon is quite at home with pseudo Bible literature, but where are "plates" in those stories? So I think it's a very interesting idea.

Tell me where I'm going wrong there: The Book of Mormon started with Mosiah through Moroni and then starts back at Nephi. My naïve expectations of the theory would be the discussion of "records" in the abstract in Mosiah, perhaps assumed to be parchment, which then become plates in Nephi. But plates of Nephi and brass plates are both mentioned in Alma. Is this because somebody went back and changed it, or did the evolution complete itself between Mosiah and Alma?

[Physics Guy]

If you want to restore ancient Scripture, and contrast the authority of your restored version with the unreliability of traditional Scriptures that have only been preserved through a long sequence of copyings, then you need an original ancient document. Your options for writing media that can obviously survive that long without special conditions are stone and metal. Stone slabs tend to be thick; enough of them to record a book would be a small mountain. Thin metal plates are the obviously more convenient alternative, that could plausibly be hidden, dug up, and transported—and then taken to Heaven without anyone asking why no-one was asking where the huge pile of stone tablets had suddenly gone.

[Morley]

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

MG, in the interview you drew this quote from, Emma Hale proves herself to be hopelessly unreliable. In it, she repeatedly and shamelessly lies through her teeth. You already knew this, but you chose to use this source anyway. Why is that?