A Secular Theory of Where the BoM Came From

[webbles]

15 minutes ago, california boy said:

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.

Going to NYC when he is not an adult?  Where does he have the money for the trip?  Why do we have no evidence that he made that trip?  The trips to Pennsylvania were either as a job or as an adult with his wife going to stay with his in-laws.  A bit different from a shopping trip to NYC.

Can you tell that it is gold leafed if you touch it?  He didn't just fake it to the eye.  The men got to actually touch and feel the plates.  And he would have had to gild the plates after the engraving or else the tinplates would have shown through.  And I think that would add quite a bit of work.  And isn't gilding fairly fragile?  It is really thin layer and so I believe it is fairly easy to scratch off.  The plates are being moved around quite a bit, that would probably make the gild rub off and show the underlying metals.

[Zosimus]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

But Joseph's "playbook" involved quite a bit more than that.

I'll be honest, I'm not at all interested in defending the actions of James Strang or Joseph Smith. Not going to slide down this slope of putting taking on any of that burden.

For me, after studying it all out in my head for many decades, there is not enough difference in motive or execution between Smith, Strang and dozens if not hundreds of others that played the same pseudo-biblical-history-found-in-a-hole-and-then-miraculously-disappeared playbook. I believe Smith and Strang were both products of the conflict between the Enlightenment and Romanticism mixed into a nascent American history with a little bit of orientalism and freemasonry on the side. Strang basically admits it in his journals, and several scholars have reached similar conclusions with Smith. So I'd rather spend my time discussing something more interesting than whether the witnesses of Smith or Strang were more likeable.

I've already given my reasons for being skeptical of both Smith and Strang, so not interested in defending either

[Calm]

4 hours ago, california boy said:

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.

So do you see Joseph accomplishing this on his own or someone else?

[Ryan Dahle]

11 hours ago, Zosimus said:

I'll be honest, I'm not at all interested in defending the actions of James Strang or Joseph Smith. Not going to slide down this slope of putting taking on any of that burden.

Maybe I missed something, but I don't think anyone was asking you to engage in "defending" the actions of these individuals (as if you need to take some moral stance on their behavior). But it does seem like you have a burden to defend your claims when you make them. You seemed to be arguing that the Strangite witnesses are sufficiently analogous to the witnesses of the Book of Mormon to render the latter example fairly unremarkable (at least, that seemed to be the thrust of your talking points). But then when Smack started to push back on the specifics of your argument, it seemed like you couldn't back up your assertions (as you seemed to be overlooking or downplaying significant differences in these sets of witnesses). No one is forcing you to take on the burden of defending your own claims, and you are free to disengage with the conversation at any time. But don't imply that the conversation was about a perceived burden, on your part, to defend the actions of these individuals. 

[Zosimus]

57 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Maybe I missed something, but I don't think anyone was asking you to engage in "defending" the actions of these individuals (as if you need to take some moral stance on their behavior). But it does seem like you have a burden to defend your claims when you make them. You seemed to be arguing that the Strangite witnesses are sufficiently analogous to the witnesses of the Book of Mormon to render the latter example fairly unremarkable (at least, that seemed to be the thrust of your talking points). But then when Smack started to push back on the specifics of your argument, it seemed like you couldn't back up your assertions (as you seemed to be overlooking or downplaying significant differences in these sets of witnesses). No one is forcing you to take on the burden of defending your own claims, and you are free to disengage with the conversation at any time. But don't imply that the conversation was about a perceived burden, on your part, to defend the actions of these individuals. 

Nah that's not what's happening here.

I'd made it very clear in my previous post that if Smac took the conversation that way, I was not interested in continuing. Here:

22 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Both Smith and Strang had enemies, we don't have enough space here to go back and forth around the hearsay to determine who had the most detractors vs who had the most evidence, so please don't @ me with points. I'm not interested in discussing whether Smith or Strang was more hated by the villagers

And then a good deal of Smac's follow up response was exactly him piling up queries on the topics I'm not interested in discussing here. Because If I were to respond to those queries, then inevitably this conversation will veer off into a long miserable thread where I post links to evidence that the Joseph Smith and the gold plate witnesses had all these human flaws, and then Smac would post links to evidence about how James Strang and the Strangite witnesses had the same human flaws. By default it becomes a conversation where everyone is obligated to make moral judgements on people that are highly respected by the majority of members here.

I just don't want to go down that path, mostly because its already available ad nauseam on Youtube and Google and ChatGPT. And I'm just not interested in having that conversation in a public forum. If Smac wants to continue than he can DM me, I'm happy to proceed in private.

Edited March 22 by Zosimus

[champatsch]

22 hours ago, j.mason said:

On 3/21/2026 at 1:32 PM, Analytics said:

I'd also note that at least one of the constructions you identified as genuinely archaic in this thread appear in the Doctrine and Covenants: specifically D&C 18:15 (“if it so be") and D&C 27:2 ("if it so be"). The D&C isn't a translation of an ancient record; it's Joseph Smith's own directly dictated revelations. If these features appear there too, it seems to suggest these words were in fact available to Joseph Smith to use in a pseudo-archaic way.

I don't think JS was wording the revelations in the D & C, anymore than he was wording the text of the BOM. Witnesses all said that he "dictated" the revelations.

Yes, this is circular reasoning by Analytics. Joseph Smith's revelatory language, even derivative revelatory language, cannot be used as evidence for or against Joseph Smith's ability to produce a specific item of revelatory language in the Book of Mormon. Once again, Analytics shows a lack of insight and makes missteps.

D&C 67 suggests that Joseph Smith did not word Doctrine and Covenants revelations, otherwise others who were more literate would have been able to equal or surpass the expressive brilliance of the revelations, which are full of formal, literate, and archaic language.

Remember that the Book of Mormon is more British than American in its expression, on balance.

It is also more written than oral in its style in various ways, of which hath been spoken.

"If it so be" was still used, rarely, in the 19th century. It was used at a much, much higher rate earlier than later. The argument relative to "if it so be" is exactly how I presented it earlier in this thread. It is not what Analytics implies in what he just wrote, quoted above.

In a corpus of 25 pseudo-archaic authors, assembled without bias (with the help of two people who think Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon), four of the pseudo-archaic authors only used the biblical form, "if so be." Bunyan only used the biblical form. The Book of Mormon only used the nonbiblical form of rhetorical if, 42 times, six times with subjunctive, modal shall, marking the usage as archaic. The usage rate shifts at 3 Nephi 16 dramatically. Joseph Smith supposedly dictated the Book of Mormon based on familiarity with King James English. This is evidence against that. The position that Joseph Smith worded these is incoherent and weak. It is quite annoying having to spell this out time and time again to supposedly bright, analytical minds.

Edited March 22 by champatsch

[champatsch]

Let me clarify that the first ¶ above, on circular reasoning, is a general statement about internally comparing Joseph Smith's revelatory language.

The interesting points to be made from "if it so be" in the Book of Mormon are as stated in the last ¶ above.

Another relevant point is that Book of Mormon syntax is not necessarily a translation artifact; perhaps most of the time it is not. For example, the periphrastic did of the Book of Mormon is not the result of it being translated from another language, as the potential source languages of the Book of Mormon did not have such syntax. It is the result of that aspect of earlier English being used in the English-language translation that the Lord carried out.

Edited March 22 by champatsch

[california boy]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

So do you see Joseph accomplishing this on his own or someone else?

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.

[california boy]

17 hours ago, webbles said:

Going to NYC when he is not an adult?  Where does he have the money for the trip?  Why do we have no evidence that he made that trip?  The trips to Pennsylvania were either as a job or as an adult with his wife going to stay with his in-laws.  A bit different from a shopping trip to NYC.

Can you tell that it is gold leafed if you touch it?  He didn't just fake it to the eye.  The men got to actually touch and feel the plates.  And he would have had to gild the plates after the engraving or else the tinplates would have shown through.  And I think that would add quite a bit of work.  And isn't gilding fairly fragile?  It is really thin layer and so I believe it is fairly easy to scratch off.  The plates are being moved around quite a bit, that would probably make the gild rub off and show the underlying metals.

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.

[j.mason]

When I was a missionary, out only a few weeks, I went to a zone conf where my mission pres. used Sec. 3 as text for his talk. I remember him quoting Sec. 3:

Quote

 

“The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught.

“For God doth not walk in crooked paths, neither doth he turn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said, therefore his paths are straight, and his course is one eternal round.

“Remember, remember that it is not the work of God that is frustrated, but the work of men;

“For although a man may have many revelations, and have power to do many mighty works, yet if he boasts in his own strength, and sets at naught the counsels of God, and follows after the dictates of his own will and carnal desires, he must fall and incur the vengeance of a just God upon him.”

 

Later I read Sec. 3 on my own, and the words, even to my teenage mind — the words just seemed to me marvelous. It was not only that these words were marvelous and beautiful, they were also describing an attribute of God, something no writer outside of Bible had ever done before.

Later (2005) I recall reading Bushman’s RSR, and regarding Sec. 3, Bushman says, “Where did JS get the words?”

Then a couple of years ago someone on this this forum (I think it was Champatsch) said that JS was not wording the revelations in the D & C —— and it just seemed to make sense to me.

Can this be said of all the revelations? Can it even be said of Sec. 3? I don’t know. I don’t have any background in linguistics. But I definitely lean to the view that JS was not wording the revelations in the D & C, and I definitely believe he was not wording the BOM translation — he was, as witnesses to the translation said, dictating it (I assume from an existing translation).
 

[Ryan Dahle]

@Zosimus Let me get this straight. You wrote: 
 

20 hours ago, Zosimus said:

I'll be honest, I'm not at all interested in defending the actions of James Strang or Joseph Smith. Not going to slide down this slope of putting taking on any of that burden.

For me, after studying it all out in my head for many decades, there is not enough difference in motive or execution between Smith, Strang and dozens if not hundreds of others that played the same pseudo-biblical-history-found-in-a-hole-and-then-miraculously-disappeared playbook.

The second bolded statement implicitly characterizes Smith as something of a run-of-the-mill charlatan (just like the dozens of not hundreds of others who carried out similar activities). So it sounds like, in the first place, that you wouldn't be interested or have a need to "defend" either figure or the witnesses who supported their claims. And I went back through Smac's comments and he never once invited you to "defend" anyone's character.  So your explanation for why you made that statement (about you not being interested in defending actions) seems like a non-sequitur.

When I pressed you on this, you said: 

7 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Nah that's not what's happening here.

I'd made it very clear in my previous post that if Smac took the conversation that way, I was not interested in continuing. ...

And then a good deal of Smac's follow up response was exactly him piling up queries on the topics I'm not interested in discussing here. Because If I were to respond to those queries, then inevitably this conversation will veer off into a long miserable thread where I post links to evidence that the Joseph Smith and the gold plate witnesses had all these human flaws, and then Smac would post links to evidence about how James Strang and the Strangite witnesses had the same human flaws. By default it becomes a conversation where everyone is obligated to make moral judgements on people that are highly respected by the majority of members here.

To be honest, this is just bizarre. Most of your comments already hew a certain way and have implications on motives or character, even if you are somewhat more oblique that other commentators who are critical of core LDS beliefs. In any case, whether the thrust of your arguments lead to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was lying or deluded, that would still be threatening to the worldview of many people on this board. And it just seems obvious that this is the underlying rationale that attends many of your talking points. But then, when pressed about the comparative credibility of the witnesses--an issue that you brought up, in substance--you all of a sudden don't seem to want to talk about it anymore.

Which, in normal circumstances, would be fine. If you don't have the time for further conversation, then fine. If it is just a topic you are bored with or have become disinterested in, then fine. But the idea that you don't want to talk about it anymore because it involves moral judgements of people that are highly respected by board members, that just doesn't make any sense. If that were really a concern of yours, you probably shouldn't have made your claims in the first place. In fact, you should probably stop posting on these types of topics at all, since the points you make consistently have moral implications and involve "people that are highly respected by the majority of members here." 

I'm pretty sure we can handle whatever it is you have to say about the witnesses. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise. And, once again, no one is asking or expecting you to "defend" the actions of Smith or Strang or anyone else. You can be equally critical of Smith and Strang if you want. But don't be surprised when other people invite you to defend the specific claims that you freely make on this board. And, in the event that you do decline to support your claims, it would help your case if your reasons for disengaging were consistent with the nature of your original claim and the thrust of your other comments in this conversation. Otherwise, it will look more like it is just an excuse. 

Edited March 22 by Ryan Dahle

[Zosimus]

4 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

The second bolded statement implicitly characterizes Smith as something of a run-of-the-mill charlatan (just like the dozens of not hundreds of others who carried out similar activities).

Well, this entire comment from you is a good example of the kind of problem we often find ourselves in. "Run-of-the-mill charlatan" was not my choice of words. I view the projects of both Smith and Strang as pious frauds, but even then I don't like the word fraud because I don't think Smith was necessarily a fraud. I believe he was sincere. So I definitely don't consider Joseph Smith to be a run-of-the-mill charlatan and its frustrating to even have to respond to your comment, because it makes me feel combative and icky.

4 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

To be honest, this is just bizarre. Most of your comments already hew a certain way and have implications on motives or character, even if you are somewhat more oblique that other commentators who are critical of core LDS beliefs.

if I said anything previous to this comment that contributed to the discussion veering off to talk about the moral character of Smith and Strang or the witnesses, I apologize. I'm not going to slip down the slope of comparing all the garbage that the detractors of Joseph Smith said about him with the garbage that detractors of James Strang said about him. I don't want to get into the bog of some witnesses later said about Joseph and what nasty things some witnesses later said about Strang, and the nasty things defenders would later say about the Smith and Strang witnesses. I've read a lot of that mess, and its not something I want to start copy/pasting all over this forever online public forum with my profile attached to any of it

Besides, I feel I've already responded adequately to Smac's queries.

Firstly, I largely agree with Vogel's conclusions on the witnesses and the pious fraud projects. Secondly, I have already explained why I consider the gold plate witnesses as equivalent to the Strang witnesses. Recap, they were all members of the same two families (plus Harris) and its really really hard to recant testimonies that would completely wreck the reputation of their entire family and put themselves and their family members at risk. I know both Cowdery and David Whitmer even feared for their lives at different points after they were excommunicated. This alone explains it for me, and I don't feel the need to then veer off into all the different nasty things all these people later said about each other in a futile effort to defend (or whatever you want to call it) some of them

And yet I remain absolutely willing to defend my full statement. "After studying it all out in my head for many decades, there is not enough difference in motive or execution between Smith, Strang and dozens if not hundreds of others that played the same pseudo-biblical-history-found-in-a-hole-and-then-miraculously-disappeared playbook." 

If you'd like to discuss the long history of pseudo-biblical histories then, great I'd much rather talk about that.

4 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

But don't be surprised when other people invite you to defend the specific claims that you freely make on this board. And, in the event that you do decline to support your claims, it would help your case if your reasons for disengaging were consistent with the nature of your original claim and the thrust of your other comments in this conversation. Otherwise, it will look more like it is just an excuse. 

Which reminds me, you made the claim that several examples of metal plates in Asia provided evidence of lengthy documents written on metal plates. I took an hour to write up a response to that, providing evidence that they are not. But instead of responding to that (a topic I would much rather talk about) you wrote the above implicitly characterizing me as someone who is dodging a conversation. Meanwhile, I'm waiting for your response.

So let's reset. I consider the gold plates, the Record of Rajah Manchou and the Book of the Law of the Lord to be fine examples of the "pseudo-biblical-history-found-in-a-hole-and-then-miraculously-disappeared playbook"

Edited March 22 by Zosimus

[Ryan Dahle]

24 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

if I said anything previous to this comment that contributed to the discussion veering off to talk about the moral character of Smith and Strang or the witnesses, I apologize. I'm not going to slip down the slope of comparing all the garbage that the detractors of Joseph Smith said about him with the garbage that detractors of James Strang said about him. I don't want to get into the bog of some witnesses later said about Joseph and what nasty things some witnesses later said about Strang, and the nasty things defenders would later say about Smith and Strang.

This is so odd. I don't see how you could imagine having a conversation or debate about the credibility of the witnesses of these movements that wouldn't inevitably involve an assessment of their reliability and moral character. That is just a major factor that will always attend the evaluation of witness testimonies. Why did you bring it up if you weren't willing to talk about it? And how could you possibly defend your position if you aren't willing to talk about it? 

[Ryan Dahle]

38 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

Which reminds me, you made the claim that several examples of metal plates in Asia provided evidence of lengthy documents written on metal plates.

I didn't respond because I didn't think any of the points you made were very significant in the broader discussion. The article points to reports of gold documents as well as actual gold documents. One type of evidence is stronger than the other, but there are many examples of historical claims that are believed to be true (or plausibly true or possibly true) by historians even if they can't be verified. Your comments consistently made it seem like the article was being dishonest or was conflating reports of gold documents with attested gold documents. But anyone who knows how to read should be able to discern there is a difference between the two types of evidence. The article makes it clear in each instance, I believe. So I just didn't think most of your comments were very significant on that front. 

You also made a point about there being a difference in length, in at least one instance, as if the article was trying to argue that these texts are precisely analogous to the Book of Mormon in length and that they provide a sufficient precedent for that conclusion. But that isn't the point that the article was trying to make. So again, it seems you are charging at windmills. And, you'll notice, I already responded to your comment about the gold Quran and affirmed that you were correct to be cautious on that front. So it isn't like I completely ignored you on this general topic. 

[Zosimus]

6 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

This is so odd. I don't see how you could imagine having a conversation or debate about the credibility of the witnesses of these movements that wouldn't inevitably involve an assessment of their reliability and moral character. That is just a major factor that will always attend the evaluation of witness testimonies. Why did you bring it up if you weren't willing to talk about it? And how could you possibly defend your position if you aren't willing to talk about it? 

Kindly reread my response. My reasoning is explain very clearly in there. I don't want to copy/paste back and forth things that in a forum, for example, the things the Whitmers (including Cowdery) said about Smith and then the things that Smith said about Cowdery and the Whitmers and then the reasons why Brigham Young excommunicated Cowdery, Whitmer and Strang, and then the things the Cowdery, Whitmer and Strang  said about Young etc etc etc

Why is that so odd? Its becoming odd that you continue to push the point, even after I apologized for contributing to the conversation veering off to talk about the moral character of Smith, Strang and the witnesses.

Now if you'd like to talk about metal plates, or pseudo-biblical histories, or even the similarities between Smith's plates and Strang's plates, I'm down

[Zosimus]

9 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

You also made a point about there being a difference in length, in at least one instance, as if the article was trying to argue that these texts are precisely analogous to the Book of Mormon in length and that they provide a sufficient precedent for that conclusion. But that isn't the point that the article was trying to make.

Ryan, I was responding to this comment from you:

On 3/20/2026 at 9:04 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

First of all, these examples of metal plates do not say anything directly about the Book of Mormon's historicity. The examples of plates in this article are used more as a defensive apologetic response to critics (like Analytics) who say that the length of the Book of Mormon makes it categorically "impossible."

Now you are saying that the article is not trying to make that point? 

[Zosimus]

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

then the reasons why Brigham Young excommunicated Cowdery, Whitmer and Strang

Correction: this should say the reasons why Smith excommunicated Cowery and Whitmer and why Young excommunicated Strang

[Ryan Dahle]

4 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Ryan, I was responding to this comment from you:

On 3/20/2026 at 8:04 AM, Ryan Dahle said:

First of all, these examples of metal plates do not say anything directly about the Book of Mormon's historicity. The examples of plates in this article are used more as a defensive apologetic response to critics (like Analytics) who say that the length of the Book of Mormon makes it categorically "impossible."

Now you are saying that the article is not trying to make that point? 

You are confused. There were two separate evidence articles. One of them was on gold plates (which Smac mentioned). One was on lengthy metal documents (which I mentioned). If you go back through the threads, my comment in that context was actually on the lengthy metal plates document that I cited. Then your follow-up commentary was on the article from the gold plates article. And so then I think you mistakenly assumed that the gold plates article was being used by me to argue for lengthy metal documents. Instead, this is the one you should be critiquing for that purpose: 

https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-lengthy-indian-plates

Now, to be clear, even the longest set of plates in this cache are as long as the Book of Mormon. I just asked AI, and it gave me an estimate of 35,000 to 45,000 for The Tiruvindalur Plates. But the issue isn't about meeting the precise quota. It is about counteracting Analytics claims that the Book of Mormon is effectively impossible. That just isn't so. Pre-modern people actually did make lengthy metal records, contrary to Analytics claims. I'm guessing there are actually quite a few more examples like this from around the world that haven't yet been discovered, based on historical accounts of metal documents that once existed but are no longer extant, and also just based on the tendency for metal documents to get destroyed, lost, or reused over time. Again, for those who think the task was impossible, see here: 
 

You can read the actual article in the accompanying book if you get a copy. Also see the study by Josh Coates in the interpreter journal, once it gets back up and running (it is down right now). 

[Zosimus]

4 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

You are confused. There were two separate evidence articles. One of them was on gold plates (which Smac mentioned)

I am indeed sooo confused, but its largely because your comment here that links to the very article about the metal plates that I responded to:

On 3/20/2026 at 7:01 AM, Ryan Dahle said:

You also have to acknowledge that some ancient and medieval metal records are actually quite lengthy. For instance, there are very large caches of metal documents from pre-modern times from various locations in Asia. You might also consider that the entire Quran was inscribed onto gold plates in the late Middle Ages. The funny thing is, by your logic, this record is precisely what you would assume can never exist. It is just too long. It is an enormous outlier. It is too impractical and expensive. No one would ever make something like this. And yet there it is, the impossible thing that should never exist: 

When you said "You also have to acknowledge that some ancient and medieval metal records are actually quite lengthy" and then linked to the Gold Books article I assumed you were referring to the examples in the article you linked to there. As I still cannot find any mention of the Lengthy Plates article in that thread. 

That thread does say "Discoveries since that time have shown that many religious texts were indeed recorded on gold. Additionally, some examples of such artifacts were attached together to form what may properly be considered “books” analogous to the Book of Mormon."

So it is really baffling that you consider my follow up to the claim in the article that "some examples of such artifacts ... analogous to the Book of Mormon" to be me "charging at windmills" 

But nevermind, misundertanding is now clear. Thanks

[The Nehor]

13 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

You are confused. There were two separate evidence articles. One of them was on gold plates (which Smac mentioned). One was on lengthy metal documents (which I mentioned). If you go back through the threads, my comment in that context was actually on the lengthy metal plates document that I cited. Then your follow-up commentary was on the article from the gold plates article. And so then I think you mistakenly assumed that the gold plates article was being used by me to argue for lengthy metal documents. Instead, this is the one you should be critiquing for that purpose: 

https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-lengthy-indian-plates

Now, to be clear, even the longest set of plates in this cache are as long as the Book of Mormon. I just asked AI, and it gave me an estimate of 35,000 to 45,000 for The Tiruvindalur Plates. But the issue isn't about meeting the precise quota. It is about counteracting Analytics claims that the Book of Mormon is effectively impossible. That just isn't so. Pre-modern people actually did make lengthy metal records, contrary to Analytics claims. I'm guessing there are actually quite a few more examples like this from around the world that haven't yet been discovered, based on historical accounts of metal documents that once existed but are no longer extant, and also just based on the tendency for metal documents to get destroyed, lost, or reused over time. Again, for those who think the task was impossible, see here: 

So you are using one source that AI told you is as long as the Book of Mormon. Find a better source for that. 35,000 to 45,000 what? This is all very vague.

Also you suggest that many long metal records existed but were lost. That is arguing from a vacuum of evidence.

[Ryan Dahle]

5 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

I am indeed sooo confused

Let me help you out. I initially made that claim about lengthy plates and embedded the link to the gold books article (which Smack had earlier mentioned), which mentioned the gold Quran. But then you pushed back on that point and I conceded. But THEN I said this, and specifically cited the lengthy plates article as an alternative: 
 

Quote

Fair enough. It's good to be skeptical, and there are admittedly some red flags on this one. Even if it is a more modern forgery, it is actually a pretty impressive one. But thanks for adding a healthy dose of caution/reservation on this one.

Here are some more interesting documents: 

https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-lengthy-indian-plates

And then, in response, you said this: 

Quote

ikr, I have a stream of comments on here going back years about the cooper plates in India, and wider east Asia.

But then I discovered that all that was known and discussed in 1820s America. Its even discussed in the appendix of View of the Hebrews with source and citations to more detailed discussions provided.

So the evidence of historicity, for me, became evidence for a simpler explanation. I didn't want it to go that way, but I could no longer argue with the data. ...

Then I said: 

Quote

First of all, these examples of metal plates do not say anything directly about the Book of Mormon's historicity. The examples of plates in this article are used more as a defensive apologetic response to critics (like Analytics) who say that the length of the Book of Mormon makes it categorically "impossible."

By this point, I was indeed referring back to the sets of plates in the "lengthy plates" article, since that was the most immediate antecedent that I cited in our discussion. But then you started quoting from the "gold plates" evidence article, even though I had already moved on from that article as the basis of my claim. I think you just didn't notice that shift in the discussion. But if you go back, you will see it is clearly there. No worries about the confusion.  

[Ryan Dahle]

30 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

So you are using one source that AI told you is as long as the Book of Mormon. Find a better source for that. 35,000 to 45,000 what? This is all very vague.

Also you suggest that many long metal records existed but were lost. That is arguing from a vacuum of evidence.

I just wanted a ball park estimate, and AI is generally reliable for that. There are over 3,400 lines of text, and the 85 plates are 17x8 inches, written with text on both sides. You do the math for Sanskrit if you want. But they are obviously a substantial cache of metal documents that were all bound together by a large ring.

As for the "vacuum of evidence" issue, I'm arguing that there are ancient reports of long metal documents that we no longer have. In some cases, they seem reasonably credible. There is also evidence that thousands of known metal documents from antiquity are missing today, which gives us ample reason to believe that we only have a small fraction of what once existed in that medium. That seems to just be true, generally speaking, of ancient historical records. So there are valid reasons to believe there were likely other lengthy documents in the past which aren't available today. It's not just randomly filling a vacuum. It saying the vacuum could plausibly be filled with X based on factors Y and Z. 

Edited March 23 by Ryan Dahle

[The Nehor]

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I just wanted a ball park estimate, and AI is generally reliable for that.

No, it is not.

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

There are over 3,400 lines of text, and the 85 plates are 17x8 inches, written with text on both sides. You do the math for Sanskrit if you want. But they are obviously a substantial cache of metal documents that were all bound together by a large ring.

It is a neat find. It is not like the purported plates of the Book of Mormon though.

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

As for the "vacuum of evidence" issue, I'm arguing that there are ancient reports of long metal documents that we no longer have. In some cases, they seem reasonably credible. There is also evidence that thousands of known metal documents from antiquity are missing today, which gives us ample reason to believe that we only have a small fraction of what once existed in that medium. That seems to just be true, generally speaking, of ancient historical records. So there are valid reasons to believe there were likely other lengthy documents in the past which aren't available today. It's not just randomly filling a vacuum. It saying the vacuum could plausibly be filled with X based on factors Y and Z. 

What is the evidence that there are thousands of “known metal documents from antiquity” that are missing today? Do we have names for all these documents? Is that how we know there are thousands of them?

[smac97]

On 3/21/2026 at 7:58 PM, Zosimus said:

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But Joseph's "playbook" involved quite a bit more than that.

I'll be honest, I'm not at all interested in defending the actions of James Strang or Joseph Smith.

I am not asking you to do that, nor have I thought you were doing that previously.

Instead, you seemed to be critiquing Joseph by mitigating/disparaging his "playbook" (your term) along "Yeah, well, James Strang did the same thing, so the probative weight of the Three/Eight Witnesses doesn't amount to much" lines.  See, e.g., here:

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Their faith in Strang may have been actual feelings they interpreted as a spiritual witness, a trust based on reasons we are not aware of, a transfer of faith of Joseph Smith to Strang because they believed the letter, or something else. 

just seems more comparable to the 8 witnesses even if they didn’t see Joseph dig up the plates, but just heard his story and not that comparable to the 3 and Mary Whitmer, all who stated they saw an angel themselves, correct? 

 

That's how I see it. After closely rereading the testimonies of the 3 witnesses and 8 witnesses, I believe there was significant curated (as Analytics called it) transfer of faith from Joseph to the witnesses and then Strang followed a similar playbook to convince his own witnesses, and even Martin Harris and Hiram Page, that he was the spiritual successor to Joseph. The Record of Rajah Manchou pretty much says that's what was going on.  

There are things in the 3 witnesses testimony that are hard to reconcile with the timeline. Makes me think the three witnesses just allowed Joseph to put their name on the statement as he wrote it. That's fine, but curation of testimonies is also what Hurlbut did for the Spaulding witnesses, and everyone agrees that pretty much invalidates those affidavits. 

And here:

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Meanwhile, let's go back to what you said: "There statement is clear that they perceived it as a sort of miraculous event."

I don't see this in their statement.  Can you clarify?

Yes. In short, Strang runs the same Smith playbook, with two different sets of metal plates, and he succeeds both times. That’s a problem for any argument that treats the 8 gold plate witnesses as evidence against a “cheap hoax” model.

I think your "playbook" comparison is a prolonged false-equivalence fallacy, see here:

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One of the challenges with this topic {of comparing the Strang witnesses to the Three/Eight Witnesses} is that it’s really easy for people to fall into what is called the false-equivalence fallacy, which is “a logical fallacy that occurs when someone incorrectly asserts that two or more things are equivalent, simply because they share some characteristics, despite the fact that there are also notable differences between them. For example, a false equivalence is saying that cats and dogs are the same animal since they’re both mammals and have a tail.”

See, this is what I think you have done.  You are committing the false-equivalence fallacy by drawing a one-to-one correlation between the Strang witnesses and the Three/Eight Witnesses because they share some few similarities.  The problem is that they also have some very significant differences...

I then went on to itemize some of the more significant differences (as I see them).  See here:

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Distinction #1: Strang only ran half of "the Smith playbook." 

Distinction #2: The half of "the Smith playbook" which Strang did not run was the one involving witnesses attesting to a "miraculous event."  Of the two sorts of percipient events described by the Three and Eight Witnesses, the one Strang avoided was obviously the more difficult one.

Distinction #3: The "Smith playbook," if extended beyond the publication of the Three/Eight Witnesses' statements, includes the quite notable point that several of the Witnesses reaffirmed their testimony, many times strenuously so.  David Whitmer is the most notable of these.  Per the above video, there is no corollary evidence in the historical record of the Strang witnesses subsequently reaffirming their statements.: 

Distinction #4: The "Smith playbook," if extended beyond the publication of the Three/Eight Witnesses' statements, includes yet another quite notable point, namely, that none of the Witnesses recanted.  Even the most informed and ardent critics (Vogel, Analytics, etc.) seem to have resigned themselves to this point, and so formulate theories about the Witnesses that work around it.  In contrast, regarding the Strang witnesses, evidence exists that one of them, Samuel Bacon, "denied the work being done was the inspiration of God," and had called it "human invention.”  

These seem to be pretty significant differences between how well the "playbook" worked out to support Joseph's claims as compared to how well the "playbook" worked to support Strang's claims.

Both sets of claims are, I freely admit, remarkable and understandably difficult to accept at face value.  Hence two further distinctions:

Distinction #5: The "Smith playbook" has the Three/Eight Witnesses acting in secondary / subordinate / supplementary capacity to the primary means of confirming the veracity of The Book of Mormon, namely, the Holy Spirit.  Moroni 10:3-5.  In contrast, does Strang have within his "playbook" any mechanism comparable to Moroni 10?  I don't think so.  

Distinction #6: To the extent there was a "Smith playbook," the purpose of it would be to persuade people to accept The Book of Mormon as a divinely-inspired, divine-preserved, and divinely-translated book of scriptures.  Fast forward 200 years, the "playbook" as deployed by Joseph has resulted in many millions of faithful Latter-day Saints, in tens of thousands of congregations around the world, who accept The Book of Mormon for what it claims to be. In contrast, per Wikipedia there were, as of 2019, six (6) Strangite congregations with about 130 active members.  

Distinction #7: The "Smith playbook" can be reasonably extended to historical evidence attesting to the character and credibility of the Three/Eight Witnesses (and the unofficial witnesses like Emma and Mary Whitmer).  We have no such evidence as to the Strang witnesses, or at least nothing close to the quantum of evidence for the Three/Eight Witnesses.
...
Distinction #8: There is historical evidence that Strang fabricated his plates.  There is not, to my knowledge, any historical evidence that Smith fabricated the Gold Plates.  Speculation and conjecture, sure, but no evidence.
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Distinction #9: The size and composition of Joseph’s plates and Strang’s plates were very different.
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Distinction #10: The length, intricacy, and genre of the resulting translations are vastly different.

Having previously advanced arguments against the probative value of the Three/Eight Witnesses by comparing them to the Strang witnesses, you now seem to be retreating from those arguments via a non sequitur: "I'm not at all interested in defending the actions of James Strang or Joseph Smith."

Nobody asked you to do this.

On 3/21/2026 at 7:58 PM, Zosimus said:

Not going to slide down this slope of putting taking on any of that burden.

That's fine.  We are all voluntary participants here.

On 3/21/2026 at 7:58 PM, Zosimus said:

For me, after studying it all out in my head for many decades, there is not enough difference in motive or execution between Smith, Strang and dozens if not hundreds of others that played the same pseudo-biblical-history-found-in-a-hole-and-then-miraculously-disappeared playbook.

I just pointed out what I see to be ten substantial distinctions between the "motive or execution" of Smith versus that of Strang.  And as soon as I did, you abandoned your argument, except to reiterate its conclusion.

I have studied the Restored Gospel for many decades, and the cumulative experiences has greatly strengthened and advanced my faith in it.  There are, to be sure, some facially valid critiques and criticisms of Joseph Smith, the Church he organized, and even its truth claims and doctrines. 

In the main, though, I think critics are devolving in their ability to meaningfully and substantively argue against those truth claims.  I also think they are unwilling/unable to meaningfully and substantively maintain many of their own counter arguments.

@Analytics, despite his intellect and knowledge, has effectively ended his participation in this thread without having been able to articulate a positive, coherent explanation for The Book of Mormon that accounts for the key data points (physical plates, witness statements, text origins/translation process) without heavy speculation, while claiming empirical rigor.

And now here you seem to be abandoning the "Smith Playbook v. Strang Playbook" argument you yourself injected into this thread.

On 3/21/2026 at 7:58 PM, Zosimus said:

I believe Smith and Strang were both products of the conflict between the Enlightenment and Romanticism mixed into a nascent American history with a little bit of orientalism and freemasonry on the side.

To an extent, so do I.  A few thoughts:

1. Both the Enlightenment and Romanticism played significant, but indirect and culturally mediated, roles in Joseph Smith’s milieu.  The early 19th-century American context of upstate New York’s “burned-over district” was squarely within the Second Great Awakening (roughly 1790–1840).  That said, Joseph was not a systematic reader of Enlightenment or Romantic philosophers.  Indeed, his limited formal education and rural background meant influences came through popular culture, revivalism, folk traditions, family discussions, and the broader intellectual atmosphere rather than direct study of these concepts.

2. Romanticism's emphasis on emotion, intuition, and the individual resistance to fixed systems conflicted with the American Enlightenment's influences (the Revolution, republicanism, and Scottish “common sense” philosophy).  The Second Great Awakening that tension in that it reacted against Enlightenment-era deism and rational skepticism (e.g., Thomas Paine’s influence, which reached rural families, perhaps including Joseph's) with fervent revivals stressing personal conversion, visions, and supernatural experience. This created fertile ground for new religious movements.

3. Joseph, not being a particularized student of either philosophy, was nevertheless partially primed by them to become the conduit through which the Restoration would occur.  See, e.g., here:

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Joseph Smith ... received revelation exactly as Christians thought biblical prophets had done. In effect, he reenacted the writing of the Bible before the world’s eyes.51 Most put him aside as an obvious charlatan without bothering to evaluate his doctrine. After one incredulous visitor marveled that the Mormon prophet was “nothing but a man,” Smith remarked that “they look upon it as incredible that a man should have any intercourse with his Maker.”52 Smith’s historical role, as he understood it, was to give God a voice in a world that had stopped listening.53 Smith stood on the contested ground between the Enlightenment and Christianity. At a time when the foundations of Christianity were under assault by Enlightenment rationality, he turned Christian faith back toward its origins in revelation.

4. I think the Lord waited until circumstances could develop wherein the Gospel could be restored, and that those circumstances involved a variety of influences, including but not limited to the Enlightenment and Romanticism.  Other influences:

• The Renaissance and the Rise of Learning and Literacy: A “rebirth” of interest in education, classical knowledge, and inquiry swept Europe, inspired by the Holy Ghost. This laid groundwork for people to read, think critically, and question long-standing traditions.
• The Invention of the Printing Press and the Translation/Distribution of the Bible: Gutenberg’s printing press (mid-1400s) revolutionized the world by making books—especially the Bible—affordable and abundant. This was followed by heroic (and often deadly) efforts to translate scripture into everyday languages: John Wycliffe (late 1300s), William Tyndale (1520s, martyred for it), and others. The King James Version (1611) built directly on their work. Elder Hales called this “the first step to the Restoration of the gospel,” because ordinary people could now read the Bible for themselves, recognize discrepancies with prevailing creeds, and hunger for truth.
• The Protestant Reformation: Reformers such as Martin Luther (95 Theses), Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and John Knox shattered the monopoly of religious authority, promoted justification by faith and scripture as the standard.  President Joseph Fielding Smith declared: “In preparation for this restoration the Lord raised up noble men, such as Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others … and gave them power to break the shackles … The work of the reformers was of great importance, but it was a preparatory work.” It fostered religious pluralism and the idea that individuals could seek God directly—setting the stage for Joseph Smith’s prayer in the grove.
• The Discovery and Colonization of the Americas: Prophesied in detail in 1 Nephi 13, this was orchestrated by God. Christopher Columbus (the “man among the Gentiles”) was, as with many of the Lord's instruments, both a flawed man and an inspired one: “God gave me the faith, and afterwards the courage.” The subsequent arrival of the Pilgrims (1620) and other seekers fleeing persecution opened a “choice land” preserved for the Restoration. President Joseph Fielding Smith called America’s discovery “one of the most important factors in bringing to pass the purpose of the Almighty in the restoration of his Gospel in its fulness.”

The Second Great Awakening was one of several factors that facilitated the Restoration.

On 3/21/2026 at 7:58 PM, Zosimus said:

Strang basically admits it in his journals, and several scholars have reached similar conclusions with Smith.

I think scholarship can put Joseph into the milieu of the Second Great Awakening.  Kind of hard not to.  

On 3/21/2026 at 7:58 PM, Zosimus said:

So I'd rather spend my time discussing something more interesting than whether the witnesses of Smith or Strang were more likeable.

I don't think anyone has asked you to assess their likability, but rather their individualized and collective credibility as percipient witnesses.

That's what you seem to have started with, which is why I followed you down the trail you are now abandoning.

On 3/21/2026 at 7:58 PM, Zosimus said:

I've already given my reasons for being skeptical of both Smith and Strang, so not interested in defending either

I don't think anyone has asked that you "defend" them either.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited March 23 by smac97

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

No, it is not.

Anyone can check and clarify if they want. Feel free to prove the AI wrong. It was just the quickest way for me to get a rough estimate. It could be a lot lower or higher. But it doesn't really matter because my point wasn't to say there is another text precisely as long as the Book of Mormon. It is about showing that lengthy metal plates are not nearly as improbable as Analytics claimed. There are all sorts of variations in plate sizes and script densities and materials and so forth. This shows lots of large plates inscribed on both sides, bound together by a ring. 

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

It is a neat find. It is not like the purported plates of the Book of Mormon though.

It isn't exactly like the Book of Mormon. But it is a very long metal document. It is enough to demonstrate that the claims made by Analytics were premature and unwarranted on this front, since his claims were so absolutist. So you have to take my comments and points in the context they were given. 

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

What is the evidence that there are thousands of “known metal documents from antiquity” that are missing today? Do we have names for all these documents? Is that how we know there are thousands of them?

See, for example Neal Rappleye, "Written on Gold Plates," 83:

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The ancient Roman historian Suetonius described an archive of more than 3,000 bronze tablets that was destroyed by fire in the first century AD.134 Roman archival documents on bronze likely numbered in the hundreds of thousands, although only a small percentage of them have survived. For example, between 800–1,200 bronze military diplomas have been recovered, but scholars estimate that as many as 100,000 were issued by the Roman Empire between the 1st–3rd centuries AD.135 Duplicates of these diplomas were made and archived in Rome itself “for more than two hundred years.” Yet according to Werner Eck, “Of this enormous mass of bronze documents not a single small piece has been found in Rome—nothing at all.”136

Here are his sources: 

• 134- The Life of Vespasian, 8:5, in C. Suetonius Tranquillas, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, trans. J. C. Rolfe (1913–1914), online penelope.uchicago.edu (accessed 30 August 2023).
• 135 - See Leman Altuntas, “A 2000-year-old Bronze Military Diploma was Discovered in Turkey’s Perre Ancient City,” Arkeo News, 2 January 2022, online at arkeonews.net (accessed 30 August 2023); “Roman Military Diploma On-Line,” at romancoins.info (accessed 30 August 2023). 
• 136 - Werner Eck, “Documents on Bronze: A Phenomenon of the Roman West?” in Ancient Documents and their Contexts: First North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (2011), ed. John Bodel and Nora Dimitrova (Boston, MA: Brill, 2015), 130.

I think I was actually the one who pointed out one of these sources to Neal before he wrote his article, which I stumbled upon in my own research. But his article is probably the best current treatment of the Book of Mormon in comparison to ancient metal documents. This is just a very small portion of his analysis. He looks at parallels on all sorts of levels. That doesn't mean that there is any other document precisely like the Book of Mormon. It is still an outlier. But it is hardly "impossible" as Analytics claimed.