Gazelam wrote:From "Rough Stone Rolling", pg. 489-490
In April, a dozen men in Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois, said they had dug twelve feet into a mound on the property of a local merchant, Robert Wiley, and found six small bell-shaped brass plates with undecipherable writing on them. Withen a few weeks, the plates were in Joseph's hands with request for a translation. Wiley claimed he began the dig after dreaming about treasure in the mound three nights in succession. The more likely story is that wiley, one W. Fugate, and a local blacksmith named Whitton counterfeited the plates by engraving the characters with acid. They cast this lure before the Mormon prophet in hopes of catching him in a feigned translation. A letter was sent to the Times and Seasons explaining the find, and the plates were taken to Nauvoo. An editorial in the Quincy Whig, a paper hostile to the Mormons, baited the prophet by saying that "some pretended to say that Smith, the Mormon leader, has the ability to read them." In a classic temptation, the paper observed that if he could, "it would go to prove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon".
John Taylor, editor of the Times and Seasons, classed the Kinderhook plates with the discoveries of Mayan ruins recently described in John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood's immensely popular Incidents of Travel in Central America. Taylor, like all Mormons at the time, counted every building and artwork in ancient Mexico as evidence for the Book of Mormon. When the Book of Mormon first came out, Taylor pointed out, the inhabitants of the Americas were thought to have been "a rude, barbarous race, uncouth, unlettered, and without civilization." The Book of Mormon appeared like "a wild speculation." Now the picture was changing daily. The "various relics that have been found indicative of civilization , intelligence, and learning" give testimony to the authenticity of the book. The Kinderhook find, showing that ancient people wrote on plates, should "convince the skeptical that such things have been used and that even the obnoxious Book of Mormon may be true." Taylor had no doubt "but Mr. Smith will be able to translate them."
Taylor said he had not ascertained Joseph's opinion, but the Prophet had his chance when "several gentlemen" showed him the plates. Richards said Joseph sent William Smith for a Hebrew Bible and Lexicon, as if he was going to translate conventionally. Clayton, in a conflicting account, wrote that "Joseph has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found and he was a decendant of Ham through the Loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth." Joseph seemed to be stepping into the trap, but then he pulled back. pressure from Taylor and the Quincy Whig did not push him any further. After the first meeting, no further mention was made of translation, and the Kinderhook plates dropped out of sight. Joseph may not have detected the fraud, but he did not swing into a full-fledged translation as he had with the Egyption scrolls. The trap did not quite spring shut, which foiled the conspirators' original plan. Instead of exposeing the plot immediately, as they had probably intended to do, they said nothing until 1879, when one of them signed an affidavit describing the fabrication. Church historians continued to insist on the authenticity of the Kinderhook plates until 1980 when an examination conducted by the Chicago Historical Society, possessor of one plate, proved it was a nineteenth-century creation.
Personally I'd add that Josephs life was fairly insane at the time with all that was going on. the whole Kinderhook incident would have been just one more thing added to the heap of difficulties going on.
Gaz
There are a few conclusions that can be reached depending on how we want to deal with the sources. If we want to try to reconcile all of them then the conclusion would go something like this:
A - The Prophet attempted with his dictionaries and lexicons to translate the plates (completely different than his other translations), and may have conjectured on a few words or sentences, which, of course, would have been wrong. Clayton may have heard this conjecture and written it down as a true translation. That no revelation was ever claimed is significant, as is the fact that no interest was ever shown after this preliminary evaluation. That Joseph demanded they be authenticated before translating shows he was suspicious of the plates.
If we want to try to toss out a source in favor of another then we can go in two different directions:
B - Joseph tried to translate the plates using a dictionary and lexicon, and couldn't come up with anything, leaving him uninterested in the plates. Clayton's entry is just speculation, which was rampant in Nauvoo during this time and concerning the plates, and the other accounts are relatively accurate representations of the events.
C - Joseph did attempt a translation, by conventional means, and came up with a few sentences or even paragraphs that were completely bogus. Enough, anyway, to guess at about a 1,200 page total translation length. Clayton witnessed this and wrote it down, and the other accounts saying no translation was attempted are speculation from people who weren't there.
A is likely. Many times I've seen script that I've not recognized, and using knowledge of other languages made attempts at a few words, or a name here and there. This is entirely possible, but Joseph's insistence that the plates be examined shows he wasn't entirely confident in their veracity. That he dropped them like they were hot shows he didn't want to waste time standing up for them.
B is also likely. There is much documented speculation concerning the plates, and different accounts say different things, and often they contradict. The whoel Zelph story is another example of this. The suspicion and reticence of the Prophet to pursue the plates makes this also likely.
C is the most unlikely of the three. How on earth could Joseph Smith have ever guessed at 1,200 pages from six tiny plates when a six inch thick stack of plates yielded just over 500? In addition, why would he suddenly just stop caring about an opportunity to produce a text almost four times the length of the Book of Mormon, and why would he suddenly demand authentication before continuing? In another addition, why would the Times and Seasons editorial have said Joseph's opinion of the plates was uncertain if he had indeed made this conjecture?
Too many questions arise from the third option, and the first two do nothing to cast any doubt whatsoever on the divine calling of Joseph Smith as a prophet, so I consider the issue resolved unless someone would like to introduce new evidence or challenge my conclusions.
