california boy

But the plates were not used as the source. But the story of the witnesses does have some problems. If the purpose was to actually show the artifact, why the quick now you see it, now you don't. More like how a magician shows something than a sincere evaluation of a claim. Artifacts of this kind of importance are carefully studied and examined. Of course the argument is that the story has to be taken by faith. So it still always leads back to faith. Faith that the witnesses actually saw something authentic. Faith that the BoM is based on a real civilization. Faith that prophets received revelation from God. So having the plates doesn't significantly sway a person's faith in the BoM. Not sure what you mean here. The tablets Moses had remained with the Israelites for many years. Noah's ark was something physical, not hidden. Or are you talking symbolism??? Then. couldn't the BoM been represented by anything God chose including just a rock? Not sure what you mean here either. Tied to real history??? What real history? That history recorded in the BoM is only found in what Joseph Smith wrote, not a real historical record. If it was, then were is the Reformed Egyptian stellas, where are the Nephite coins? Where is the DNA? Where is any physical evidence of this once great civilization that the book tells about? I can't think of a great civilization that had the kind of presence talked about in the BoM that lasted for 1000 years where there is no evidence they ever existed. Doesn't any historical context only rely on faith? Doesn't the entire story of the gold plates, angels and historical record rely entirely on faith? Having the prop doesn't really change any of that. Isn't the idea of the plates functioning as an anchor just speculation on your part? Are you saying that God was incapable of Joseph not reading the rock without the plates? I do want to be clear here. I appreciate your answers. I am asking these questions not to cast doubt on your faith. I am genuinely interested in how a believing member sorts out these discrepancies. So thanks for your response.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasoning that makes it easy to speculate the plates were just a prop is that Joseph himself treated the plates as just a prop. the plates sat in a box or hidden somewhere for virtually the whole time while Joseph looked at a rock in a hat to actually produce the BoM. Those that believe the story of angels and a book made out of pure gold containing the writings of ancient prophets whose even whereabouts of this civilization that left no trace of its reformed Egyptian and DNA behind only have theories and speculation of why the prop was even needed. It makes a good tale, but doesn't make any sense. Can anyone explain why the plates were needed for producing the BoM other than relying on pure speculation? If not, then aren't the plates just a prop used to convince others of some "special" source of this book that should be considered of divine origin? Probably a better sale than what actually happened. The book came from a common rock in a hat. The truth of how the BoM was actually produced is far more difficult to believe than the angels and gold plates. We are arguing over whether the prop is good enough or of divine origin while completely ignoring whether it was of any value.

I am just saying it is certainly in the realm of possibilities. Certainly if this is actually what happened, I doubt very much that Joseph would tell anyone he is going to NYC to pick up some tin plates and gold leafing to make a fake BoM, do you? And why is it different than shopping in NYC if it is something he felt like he needed to do to make his prop that he never really used to translate? Gold leafing would definitely look and feel like the plates were made of gold. In the end, I think people believe the most likely conclusion is the one they want to believe. It is not like it is an open and shut case. So everyone is forced to speculate on what they think really happened.

I have no idea. both are in the realm of possibility. And it is totally doable. Of course that doesn't necessarily rule out some divine explanation. It is all just guesswork and speculation.

We do know that he traveled from Palmyra to Pennsylvania, so I don't really think going to NYC would have been all that hard for him to do. I don't really know about the bronzing or how well painting could be done. I am not really familiar with that. But gold leafing would be difficult to determine especially for the untrained eyes. They use gold leafing on picture frames all the time and have been for centuries. It totally has the appearance that it is pure gold.

Interesting points. I am not quite convinced how likely they would be as the main reason for the amount of physical and economical cost it would take to create all those gold plates. Seems like once you see God and Jesus Christ, you don't really need any more authority than that. And maybe a little Moroni time would have been good enough for Joseph to actually believe in a Nephite nation. But I do appreciate you thoughts. This whole thread is pretty much just guesswork including all of my posts.

Maybe not as easy as Amazon, but tin roofing plates were readily available in New York in 1830. According to AI: Doesn't seem that difficult to me. Did he change the plates to look more like gold? I certainly would have. Looks like bronze powers could pass probably as close of inspection Joseph Smith gave anyone. But gold leafing would definitely fool a lot of untrained people even today. It is a pretty easy process. As I mentioned earlier, I have done it a couple of times. Yes—gold-colored paint was definitely available in 1830, though, as with “tin roofing,” the details matter.

He did have 4 years to gather tin plates before he needed to show anyone anything. It certainly can't be dismissed as being undoable, just difficult.

I do agree that it is possible Joseph Smith or someone else could have made something out of metal because other people at the time also made metal plates. And in all likelihood he showed something to the witnesses. But that story really does not prove much concerning the authenticity of the Book of Mormon because it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the plates could have been created by someone at the time and not delivered by an angel. It is really very very difficult for the vast majority of people to believe the whole story of how the BoM came to be. Way too many flaws in the story in general that can lead to a different conclusion even by honest men seeking answers. If it is true, God made it pretty hard to determine its authenticity other then having just warm feelings about it. This plan, just by the very nature of how it is set up means that God really had little intention of a large number of people embracing his gospel in mortality. So I guess the plan all along was to do all that work, not here on earth, but after everyone dies??? It seems of little importance to God for people to find the gospel while mortal. So maybe all of this plan is working how it is supposed to work and the church will always be this small sect working hard for a few people to believe in. A more substantial investigation by more credible people who could actually subject the plates to a more scientific examination may have given way more people interest in finding out its truths. I think for most people it is a story easily dismissed.

I guess I was just referring to the record they were making that Joseph Smith claimed to receive. Why was that made out of gold and then really hardly used to be translated.

wow that is impressive.

But with effort we have two contemporary examples of people creating props out of metal to deceive others into believing they were of religious importance. I think most believe the plates were metal. There is no analysis of what the "gold-like" plates were actually made of. Like the witnesses, you are just guessing what metal they might be. One thing to keep in mind is that gold leafing had been practiced for centuries. It is not a difficult process. I actually recently did some gold leafing on our Victorian house in San Francisco. It is common throughout the city. Never took any classes in how to do it. And it was only the second time I ever tried doing it. My point is, there are many ways to make something appear to be "gold -like". Joseph Smith had 4 years to figure it out. Possibly the more troubling questioning to consider is that Joseph Smith treats the plates like a prop. He doesn't actually use it to translate the BoM. He uses a rock in a hat for that. So as the story goes, just why did all those Nephite prophets go to all that effort for something that would never actually be used for anything other than a prop? Making real solid gold plates in 600bc in the Americas wouldn't have been all that easy either. And why gold when the plates they stole were made of brass, a much more common material in 600bc. Yeah there are some problems with the whole story. I am not saying that it is impossible, or that a person like yourself could not believe in such a tale. But what I am saying is using the gold plates story to confirm your beliefs isn't rock solid physical proof of anything. So none of those people were actively involved or connected with Joseph Smith and participating in the coming forth of the church??? I was curious when people started using lead sheets for construction. Here is what Google came up with. Doesn't sound that hard to me to get some lead sheets and gold leaf them. I could put together a very convincing replica in less than a month. It doesn't require any special skills. Any 14 year old could do this without any special skills. I think you are relying on this whole idea of it being soooo difficult, when in fact it is all not that hard to do.

So basically you are saying that the plates Joseph Smith may have made were much better quality than the Voree Plates, so those must be a hoax and Joseph's plates must be real? And the only way Joseph's plates could have been made is if Joseph made them himself. You guys have a pretty low bar needed to convince you something must be true. Here are a few red flags for me. Don't show the gold plates to someone who is qualified to know something about metals. Only show them to close friends and relatives that want to believe your story Control the environment that you show them at Have a limited one time opportunity to make your evaluation. Then have them disappear forever. And finally, the gold plates end up being just a prop after all, since you do all your "translating" by looking at a rock in a hat. Anything suspicious about any of that??

Like I said to Pyreaux above, my intent is not to disprove or prove the gold plates were authentic. But I do push back when people state something is impossible to create, so the whole story must be true. Especially when there is a very similar example that we do know is a hoax and created during that exact same time period that did fool many people who could examine them as long as they wanted to and not just a brief fleeting viewing. I don't believe we really know whether Joseph thought they were genuine or not. What I do know is that he didn't immediately dismiss the Kinderhook plates as fake. The fact that he kept them also tells me he had the chance for a much more complete and careful examination of what was given him to authenticate. And to my knowledge, he never came right out and dismissed them as fake.

I am not arguing whether Joseph Smith thought the Kinderhook plates were authentic. There is some proof for both sides of that argument. And I certainly am not an authority on the subject. What I am pushing back on is your claim that it would be impossible for Joseph Smith to come up with a prop that was made out of metal that could pass as gold plates. I am pointing out that someone else managed to produce hoax metal plates during that exact time period and were good enough for many including possibly Joseph Smith according to some, to believe they were ancient plates as well. What is required to make metal plates look like gold depends on just how close of an examination of the plates is allowed. It is not like the gold plates were ever given to anyone who knew what to look for to test for their authenticity. And who said these plates would have had to be made by Joseph Smith in secret himself? The Kinderhook plates were more than just a single page and since no one had ever seen "Reformed Egyptian", then faking some kind of writing to look like it has Egyptain influenced would also not be difficult to do. We also don't know how many pages the witnesses were allowed to look at. We do know that most of the book was sealed so they definitely could not look at 3/4 of the prop. We also know that the Kinderhook plates were "good enough" that Joseph kept them with claims that he could translate them. He didn't just look at them for a few minutes and then have them taken away like those witnesses of the plates he showed them. And we don't know who made them as well. The fake Kinderhook plates does prove that it is entirely possible during that time period to produce a fake artifact that on the surface would be taken seriously. Is that what Joseph Smith did? You can't just dismiss that posZosibility because you think it would be too difficult to pull off. Facts do show it is possible to fabricate and pass off a similar hoax. My intent is not to disprove or prove the gold plates were authentic. But I do push back when people state something is impossible to create, so the whole story must be true. Especially when there is a very similar example that we do know is a hoax and created during that exact same time period that did fool many people who could examine them as long as they wanted to and not just a brief fleeting viewing. Zosimus brings up an even harder argument with the and the 4 witnesses of the Voree Plates to just dismiss the possibility that the plates couldn't possibly be a hoax even if witnesses are allowed to examine them. Only difference is the Strangites movement did not take off like the Mormon movement did. I think there is pretty strong evidence that creating a prop that would fool a small group of unprofessional men who want to believe what they are told and who only get a brief look is not out of the realm of possibilities.

But didn't someone else do the exact same thing you are dismissing as a possibility by creating the Kinderhook plates? Why couldn't Joseph Smith create a similar hoax? And didn't Joseph Smith's secretary record that Smith said the plates contained the history a a man defended from Ham? So it was a good enough hoax to fool Joseph Smith. In terms of testing the plates for authenticity, one of the original Kinderhook plates survived and was tested in 1980. Scientific analysis showed the engravings were made using 19th century acid etchings, not ancient techniques. This clearly shows the importance of physically testing something that claims to be of historical importance if the counterfeit plates to determine authenticity. If authenticity is not important, then yeah, showing them to a group of likely supporters then taking them away is perfectly understandable. It just requires faith to believe.

I totally agree. If you want to do something that God would never agree to, the best way to get others to go along with it is to say "the spirit commanded me to [fill in the blank]". History is full of men using that technique to do all kinds of heinous acts. And it still goes on today justifying wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing, bombing World Trade Center's, discrimination, and yes, more murders.

This makes the most sense to me. How could any scholar read a language that had never appeared anywhere during this time. And to my knowledge has never appeared in any stella or other stone carvings in the Americas while other languages during that time and even earlier are still preserved. I have seen such examples in the anthropology museum in Mexico City. People believe what they want to believe.

This sentence struck me as odd. Do you believe that Mitchill and Anthon were honestly authenticating the "reformed egyptian" they were shown as authentic Meso American writing???? It is now over 100 years later and to my knowledge nothing has ever been found that is written in "reformed egyptian" let alone any existing of it during their lifetime. So how could they possibly say it was authentic?? What did they base that statement of authenticity on??

As I grew older, I also realized that not everything my parents did was that wonderful. There are plenty of attitudes my parents had while raising me that I vowed to not repeat those same patterns. Hopefully my children are better off from me not just blindly following the example my parents gave me. And hopefully they will also evaluate the lessons and how they were raised to be better parents themselves. I used to be totally in to this concept of revelation and God teaching his children through his prophets. But the more I studied and the deeper I got into what the scriptures say as well as modern actions I am more and more convinced that it is words written down by men of their time whether thousands of years ago or recently, maybe not with any malice, but none the less, not dictated by God either. I haven't had much success from church leaders telling me the advice they gave me came from God. I have had greater success pondering and seeking out my own answers from God. I think it is perhaps the biggest reason why so many are leaving organized religion. Those organizations have failed man dramatically and don't really come out well on the opinions they have claimed came from God. Too many headlines in the papers of behavior that would be hard to claim came from God. The church is no different than the rest of them.

Doesn't this acknowledgment repudiate most of what you rationalized? There has been no "direct commandment from the Lord" about prohibiting gay marriage. It too is a policy based on social prejudices of their time. And this issues clearly is in the same category of prophets being products of their time. Without even any "direct commandment from the Lord" preventing gay marriage, there is absolutely no foundation to deny God's children who are gay from temple ordinances simply because they value marriage and companionship in their lives. Yes marriage is for men and women. No one is saying otherwise. But it doesn't justify banning marriage for gay couples without that direction coming from God. It is just an assumption to decide God has only that narrow definition of marriage. Kinda like the assumption that just because someone has a black skin, they are not worth of marriage in the temple.

I think Calm answered your post in a very pointed way that is far more based in reality than your insistence that sex in marriage is for having more children as its principle reason. I think you should study what she says and ponder your position. I highly doubt you only had sex when you wanted more children. At some point you and your wife made a conscious decision to not have more children. It does not mean your marriage no longer had any importance to both of you. Even if biologically you could not have children, (the same situation gay couples face), it doesn't mean you should never marry or they should never marry. There is an avalanche of reasons to marry. Having biological children isn't even the most important since other ways of having children brought into your life are available to all. (that would be adoption) While every other reason for a gay couple to marry is the same as a heterosexual couple, disqualifying and demeaning their marriages and their reasons for marrying as being without purpose and meaningless simply because they can not biologically have children is putting blinders on the most important reasons for finding someone you love and sharing that loving relationship with them throughout their lives together.

Principally about having children???? How many times do married couples have sex where children wasn't the outcome? Are all of those other times against the basic principle of marriage?? Should couples that are past the age of being able to bear children quit having sex? Sorry, this makes no sense. It is more a rationalization for your unproven and untested belief that sex is principally about having children. Do you not believe it is possible for a gay couple to have their relationship strengthened by getting married? If that is the plan, just what percentage of people in the world are married for time and eternity? I will ask you the same questions I asked Teddy So are you saying that a couple should not get married if they could have children but don't wish to? Is using contraceptives to prevent children in a marriage against the main purpose of celestial marriage and against the plan of God? You do realize that a gay couple can adopt children right? So are you saying that couples, gay or straight can not be parents if they can only adopt? Why not? You have chosen to put those boundaries there. It doesn't make that choice the only valid choice. It just makes it your personal choice. It is a bit interesting to me that you can compartmentalize so much in your head even though real life doesn't really work that way. The only thing you can grab on to is two men can not biologically have children at this point in time. But when you try to shoe horn that belief as a requirement for marriage, it falls completely apart because there are literally millions, perhaps billions of successful marriages throughout history that do not fit that paradigm of marrying just to reproduce. And there have been millions, perhaps billions of children born into this world that did not come from a marriage between a man and a woman.

So are you saying that a couple should not get married if they could have children but don't wish to? Is using contraceptives to prevent children in a marriage against the main purpose of celestial marriage and against the plan of God? Do you actually know how children are born in the eternities? Please share.

Just why do you always add "their having children." Is that a mandatory part of every marriage? Do people promise to anyone including God that if they get married they will absolutely have children?? Or is it simply that your rationalization for not allowing gay marriage kinda falls apart if it isn't a requirement to have children.