The "Witnesses" Movie as Outright Mopologetics

[_Dr Moore]

Will the movie show how Joseph hid things in the woods? The plates, of course. He sure spent a lot of time out in the woods instead of working. Could Joseph have hidden other things in the woods, such as a cache of favorite books?

[_Kishkumen]

Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells me that he has "seen the engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.

[_Fence Sitter]

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.

Anyone have any idea what Twain meant by "be they grammatical or otherwise"?

[Guest]

I think he was making reference to the interesting use of grammar contained in the testimony of the eight to make the testimony sound more important. Earlier in his description of the Book of Mormon title page, Twain comments on unnecessarily using "wherefore" to make the book sound more biblical.

[_Lemmie]

Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells me that he has "seen the engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.

[_Dr Exiled]

DCP responds:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/11/dismissing-witness-testimony.html

Dr. P:

I think your use of a murder trial is misplaced. Seeing a murder is not an extra-ordinary claim that requires extra-ordinary evidence like supposedly seeing plates that no one else, conveniently, was allowed to see. The better example would be that of a fraud trial where a confidence man convinced some witnesses to testify to a supercomputer that he supposedly used to beat the stock market. The supposed computer is always behind a heavily guarded curtain that no one was allowed to see, except for his few witnesses. However, when one digs down on their testimony, one finds that the witnesses were required to "see" the computer with their "believing" eye and there was later testimony from one of the witnesses that the ones who supposedly saw the contraption didn't really "see" it and were very hesitant to sign the document that contained their testimony, as the document exaggerated what really happened. Further, and obviously, only allowing a select few to see the supercomputer was really telling of the fraud and what sealed the fraud conviction was the fact that the confidence man had to admit that the supercomputer had disappeared.

[_Symmachus]

DCP responds:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/11/dismissing-witness-testimony.html

Dr. P:

I think your use of a murder trial is misplaced. Seeing a murder is not an extra-ordinary claim that requires extra-ordinary evidence like supposedly seeing plates that no one else, conveniently, was allowed to see. The better example would be that of a fraud trial where a confidence man convinced some witnesses to testify to a supercomputer that he supposedly used to beat the stock market. The supposed computer is always behind a heavily guarded curtain that no one was allowed to see, except for his few witnesses. However, when one digs down on their testimony, one finds that the witnesses were required to "see" the computer with their "believing" eye and there was later testimony from one of the witnesses that the ones who supposedly saw the contraption didn't really "see" it and were very hesitant to sign the document that contained their testimony, as the document exaggerated what really happened. Further, and obviously, only allowing a select few to see the supercomputer was really telling of the fraud and what sealed the fraud conviction was the fact that the confidence man had to admit that the supercomputer had disappeared.

Yeah, I'm sure a witness who thinks god talks to him through deer would be a criminal defense lawyer's top choice.

[_Fence Sitter]

To be honest, Dr. Peterson's murder trial analogy is pretty good. He just needed a couple of more details to make it spot on. To be more accurate, his first paragraph should have been written this way:

Laying out the State’s case against Mr. Robert Jones on charges of capital homicide, prosecutor Richard Anderson called eleven eyewitnesses who were part of the same two families, of solid reputation, undisputed sanity, and good character, and who had just returned from a convention on Alien Abduction and Torture, who all testified under oath that they clearly saw the defendant, Mr. Jones, pump six revolver rounds into Mr. Chauncey Gardner who was from Kolob, while Mr. Gardner lay on the ground pleading for his life. They all also reporting hearing the defendant screaming “Die, Chauncey! Die!” Note that the witnesses were not available at trail time for individual questioning but that the state had a spiffy statement with all the witnesses names typed below it as proof.

[_Dr Exiled]

DCP responds:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/11/dismissing-witness-testimony.html

Dr. P:

I think your use of a murder trial is misplaced. Seeing a murder is not an extra-ordinary claim that requires extra-ordinary evidence like supposedly seeing plates that no one else, conveniently, was allowed to see. The better example would be that of a fraud trial where a confidence man convinced some witnesses to testify to a supercomputer that he supposedly used to beat the stock market. The supposed computer is always behind a heavily guarded curtain that no one was allowed to see, except for his few witnesses. However, when one digs down on their testimony, one finds that the witnesses were required to "see" the computer with their "believing" eye and there was later testimony from one of the witnesses that the ones who supposedly saw the contraption didn't really "see" it and were very hesitant to sign the document that contained their testimony, as the document exaggerated what really happened. Further, and obviously, only allowing a select few to see the supercomputer was really telling of the fraud and what sealed the fraud conviction was the fact that the confidence man had to admit that the supercomputer had disappeared.

Yeah, I'm sure a witness who thinks god talks to him through deer would be a criminal defense lawyer's top choice.

Yes, Martin had me until he started talking about the Jesus-deer. I wonder if the "Witnesses" movie will have that scene where the Jesus-deer expounds the mysteries of the kingdom to the incredibly sane Martin Harris or will it end up edited out?

[_Dr Exiled]

Joseph, my son, we have a work for you to do after we finish prancing in the woods .....

Suddenly, the magic mushroom angle has more weight.