A Secular Theory of Where the BoM Came From

[Zosimus]

2 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Context: This research details the analysis of "bio-artifacts" (insect remains) found at Huaca de la Luna, a major Moche ceremonial site.

Key Excerpt (French)
"Parmi les coléoptères identifiés, la présence de Lasioderma serricorne (Fabricius) revêt un intérêt particulier. Ce petit anobiide, communément appelé « lasioderme du tabac », est un ravageur cosmopolite des denrées stockées. Sa présence au sein des dépôts funéraires mochicas, étroitement associée aux restes macrovégétaux (graines, piments, feuilles séchées), suggère qu'il a été introduit dans la tombe avec les offrandes végétales."

This is not in the linked article. If you are discussing all this with AI, you might be getting hallucinations. I’ve seen this quite a lot with ChatGPT. It will make up an authoritative quote and even cite a journal and a paper, but the paper might be completely hallucinated, and the quote is loosely based on words it finds in similar papers in the cited journal.

Can you find the actual quote in that journal? Or ask your AI to verify the quote, pointing out that it might be hallucinating. It will usually fess up if it has and you catch it. 

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Which evidences are not necessarily the ones needed for evidence of fraud…such as manuscripts of drafts, for example.  These could be easily destroyed.  As could any physical evidence of fraud, which is one reason critics often mention Joseph removes the plates completely.  The destruction of the plates could easily be achieved by cutting them up enough so they were unrecognizable and dumping them in a lake. ...

Again, none of this should be seen as suggesting the critics are right.  I am merely addressing opportunities to create a positive, coherent narrative of a short-term, local fraud involving a few people vs creating a positive narrative being able to shift through thousands of years, practically limitless locations and people looking for plausible connections.

I think the issue is that when you have multiple witnesses come forward and testify of a significant fact, that automatically meets a certain threshold of evidence, which then will usually shift the burden on the other party or theory to impeach the witnesses or disprove their claims.

Smith claimed he got gold plates from an angel. That is a truly remarkable claim. But then witnesses came forward and corroborated his claims, about both the angel and the plates. If this were a court case or a historical issue that had nothing to do with religion, the claims from the witnesses would likely have a fairly high evidentiary value, as their experience was immediate and sustained. It wasn't a passing glance at Loch Ness or Big Foot from a hundred meters away. The angel was right there flipping over the plates one by one. Likewise, for the eight witnesses, the plates were literally in their hands so they could feel, heft, and examine them. 

No analogy will be perfect here, but you can imagine a murder trial in which three people were directly present when a murder took place and saw the whole thing with no real possibility for visual error.  If they consistently and uniformly testified of the crucial details of the event, that would be enormously significant evidence at the trial. Likewise, if you had multiple people that could identify the murder weapon and tie it to the alleged murderer, that would also be significant. As soon as such testimonial evidence is established in a case, it seems that there would then be a burden on the other party to explain that same data. If the witnesses were lying, there would need to be good reason to doubt their testimonies. If they were merely mistaken, there would need to be some explanation for why they could have reasonably been mistaken, and so on. If there was collusion and fraud, it would need to be demonstrated, not simply assumed. The same is true of history in general. Immediate sources are privileged over secondary or tertiary sources. Sources closer to the event a privileged over later ones. And so on. In the story of the Restoration, we have an assembly of privileged sources that generally would outrank competing sources, at least when you look at standard historiographical criteria for evaluating sources. 

In other words, if this were a non-religious context that didn't involve miraculous claims, I think believers would generally have a decently sized evidentiary advantage. The defense attorney in a court setting can't simply say things like "people sometimes hallucinate" or "this was emotion elevation" or "some people take drugs" when dealing with the witnesses to a murder. You would have to provide a much stronger, more precise line of evidence showing that the witnesses were indeed mentally compromised at the time of the observed event. And so forth. Moreover, you can't just sit back on your laurels and argue that there simply isn't enough data or evidence available to support a counter theory. That would never work when confronting such strong testimonial data.

So, what I think is really happening here is that the normal burden to establish a compelling counter-explanation is simply viewed as unnecessary by those who have a very high a priori skepticism of Joseph Smith's religious claims. They admittedly don't have a good or detailed counter-explanation. But to them, that is okay. They don't feel they need one. Because they already have a very high confidence that farmers don't get plates from angels. So they will take any moderately limiting factors (such as the fact that the witnesses were related and all had a vested interest in Smith's claims, or that the evidence was "curated" to some extent) and use that to outright dismiss the whole thing. Maneuvers like that typically wouldn't work in secular contexts. You would have to have a much stronger, more detailed and thorough explanation for why the witnesses were lying or colluding in fraud or mistaken. But if you already have a very strong a priori skepticism, it will do the trick just fine. Even the slightest reason to doubt the testimonies of the witnesses will be viewed as sufficient to reject them. 

And I suppose that makes sense to me, on a certain level. We all have to prioritize what lines of evidence are most appealing to us. But I think it needs to be admitted that this is what is happening. Believers actually have the upper hand when you view this evidence on its own terms, without the a priori skepticism and other lines of evidence tipping the scales. We have remarkable supporting testimonial data. We have the better and more immediate sources. And we have the most parsimonious explanation. It's just that this line of evidence, as significant as it may be, isn't enough to overcome the other reasons that people have to reject Smith's claims. 


As for the comparison with finding parallels in ancient texts and cultures and so forth, I actually think the better analog is finding parallels with modern 19th century sources. It seems to me that there isn't a lot of symmetry with that type of evidence (ancient vs modern textual features) and the testimonial data from the witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

Edited March 31 by Ryan Dahle

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I think the issue is that when you have multiple witnesses come forward and testify of a significant fact, that automatically meets a certain threshold of evidence, which then will usually shift the burden on the other party or theory to impeach the witnesses or disprove their claims.

Smith claimed he got gold plates from an angel. That is a truly remarkable claim. But then witnesses came forward and corroborated his claims, about both the angel and the plates. If this were a court case or a historical issue that had nothing to do with religion, the claims from the witnesses would likely have a fairly high evidentiary value, as their experience was immediate and sustained. It wasn't a passing glance at Loch Ness or Big Foot from a hundred meters away. The angel was right there flipping over the plates one by one. Likewise, for the eight witnesses, the plates were literally in their hands so they could feel, heft, and examine them. 

No analogy will be perfect here, but you can imagine a murder trial in which three people were directly present when a murder took place and saw the whole thing with no real possibility for visual error.  If they consistently and uniformly testified of the crucial details of the event, that would be enormously significant evidence at the trial. Likewise, if you had multiple people that could identify the murder weapon and tie it to the alleged murderer, that would also be significant. As soon as such testimonial evidence is established in a case, it seems that there would then be a burden on the other party to explain that same data. If the witnesses were lying, there would need to be good reason to doubt their testimonies. If they were merely mistaken, there would need to be some explanation for why they could have reasonably been mistaken, and so on. If there was collusion and fraud, it would need to be demonstrated, not simply assumed. The same is true of history in general. Immediate sources are privileged over secondary or tertiary sources. Sources closer to the event a privileged over later ones. And so on. In the story of the Restoration, we have an assembly of privileged sources that generally would outrank competing sources, at least when you look at standard historiographical criteria for evaluating sources. 

In other words, if this were a non-religious context that didn't involve miraculous claims, I think believers would generally have a decently sized evidentiary advantage. The defense attorney in a court setting can't simply say things like "people sometimes hallucinate" or "this was emotion elevation" or "some people take drugs" when dealing with the witnesses to a murder. You would have to provide a much stronger, more precise line of evidence showing that the witnesses were indeed mentally compromised at the time of the observed event. And so forth. Moreover, you can't just sit back on your laurels and argue that there simply isn't enough data or evidence available to support a counter theory. That would never work when confronting such strong testimonial data.

So, what I think is really happening here is that the normal burden to establish a compelling counter-explanation is simply viewed as unnecessary by those who have a very high a priori skepticism of Joseph Smith's religious claims. They admittedly don't have a good or detailed counter-explanation. But to them, that is okay. They don't feel they need one. Because they already have a very high confidence that farmers don't get plates from angels. So they will take any moderately limiting factors (such as the fact that the witnesses were related and all had a vested interest in Smith's claims, or that the evidence was "curated" to some extent) and use that to outright dismiss the whole thing. Maneuvers like that typically wouldn't work in secular contexts. You would have to have a much stronger, more detailed and thorough explanation for why the witnesses were lying or colluding in fraud or mistaken. But if you already have a very strong a priori skepticism, it will do the trick just fine. Even the slightest reason to doubt the testimonies of the witnesses will be viewed as sufficient to reject them. 

And I suppose that makes sense to me, on a certain level. We all have to prioritize what lines of evidence are most appealing to us. But I think it needs to be admitted that this is what is happening. Believers actually have the upper hand when you view this evidence on its own terms, without the a priori skepticism and other lines of evidence tipping the scales. We have remarkable supporting testimonial data. We have the better and more immediate sources. And we have the most parsimonious explanation. It's just that this line of evidence, as significant as it may be, isn't enough to overcome the other reasons that people have to reject Smith's claims. 

I think you are ascribing higher evidentiary value than the facts allow.

A better analogous situation would be if Joseph Smith was in a dispute over land or something and there is a missing contract. The contract that spells out the original agreement was not in English. So Joseph Smith shows up in court and has family and friends as witnesses that say they saw the original contract though they couldn’t read it but it looked authentic to them. Then Joseph Smith produces a purported translation of the contract that he made despite not being familiar with the original language. Also Joseph Smith can’t produce the original contract for the court either. Do you think the translated contract would be accepted by the court as authentic? I don’t. If Joseph claimed the original was taken by an angel into heaven I think the evidentiary value would plummet even further.

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Quote

Our critics have access to the same evidences we do.

Which evidences are not necessarily the ones needed for evidence of fraud…

Again, the critics have the same evidences we do, the same access to the historical record.  Based on that evidence, their proffered alternative explanation for the Book of Mormon is . . . what?

2 hours ago, Calm said:

such as manuscripts of drafts, for example.  These could be easily destroyed.

Do we have any evidence of such manuscripts?  Or that they did exist but were destroyed?

2 hours ago, Calm said:

There is also the problem of documentation of activity.  If someone was engaged in fraud would they be likely to intentionally leave records of clandestine meetings, etc as someone not engaged in fraud?

A conniving person would indeed to all he could to hide his tracks, to make the fraud difficult or impossible to detect.

Joseph did not do this.  Instead, he showed the Plates to two different groups (of the Eight, there were five he hardly knew).  And he translated the text and had it published to the world.

He did not show the public the Plates, but he has a plausible explanation for that.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[Zosimus]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Instead, he showed the Plates to two different groups (of the Eight, there were five he hardly knew).  

You mean Christian, Jacob, Peter, and John Whitmer and Hiram Page, the husband of Catherine Whitmer?

Joseph Smith was invited by the Whitmers to live in their home. Joseph, Emma and Oliver lived with the Whitmers for 3-4 weeks while translating the gold plates in their home. Two of those Whitmers (Christian and John) acted as scribes. They were actively contributing to the translation project for weeks, and certainly were not strangers. 

Would a defense attorney be able to convince a jury that Joseph Smith "hardly knew" 5 people from a family he had been living with for 3-4 weeks? If two of those five had helped him translate the plates, can we say Joseph hardly knew them?

Also, you fail to mention that the other 3 witnesses were Joseph Smith's own family, his two brothers and his father.

Edited April 1 by Zosimus

[champatsch]

20 hours ago, Calm said:

If you want to say that “someone else” is likely confusing to people because most don’t think of God in that terms, I can see that, but to make a blanket statement that use of “someone else” can’t include God as an option…I see that as going too far.

The general point is that if you meant first, by someone else, the Lord; then, in order to communicate that, specification was needed.

Someone else is singular. People first think of someone who created an English-language translation while living on earth. People then might think of someone who did that in heaven, who had lived on earth. People then might think of God. What they will not think of is that many people might have been involved in creating the English-language translation, under the direction of the Lord. That is a viable speculation.

One of the strawmen used by those who do not accept that Joseph Smith did not word the Book of Mormon is to say that the alternative is a single early modern translator. Someone else's translation sounds like it might mean that, which might be confusing to some.

It is a strawman because the Book of Mormon does not just have Early Modern English in it. It is not a text of a particular decade or a particular author of the past.

I have a question: For people who think that Joseph Smith worded the Book of Mormon from revealed thoughts, what was the mechanism for Joseph Smith dictating all the nonbiblical, unfamiliar names of the text?

Edited April 1 by champatsch

[smac97]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

For people who think that Joseph Smith worded the Book of Mormon from revealed thoughts, what was the mechanism for Joseph Smith dictating all the nonbiblical, unfamiliar names of the text?

This?

Quote

Early Latter-day Saints’ Pronunciation of Book of Mormon Names

Variations must have existed between Mormon’s pronunciation of the proper names in his record and that of Joseph Smith. Joseph’s explanation of the method by which he translated the Book of Mormon in the spring of 1829 is limited. In the “Wentworth letter” the Prophet simply states, “Through the medium of the Urim and Thummin 1 translated the record by the gift and power of God.”¹

Joseph’s scribes give more detail about the gen­eral mode of translating. Specifically, witnesses of the translation process have told us that the Prophet spelled out unfamiliar proper names.² According to Hugh Nibley, scribes David Whitmer and Emma Hale Smith concurred that the Prophet “never pro­nounced the proper names he came upon in the plates during the translation but always spelled them out?³ It appears that by spelling out the proper names of people and places, the prophet was trying to be “as accurate and authentic as it is possible to render them in [the English| alphabet.”⁴

Church historian B. H. Roberts, preoccupied with how Joseph Smith translated, interviewed many of those who had known Joseph.’ On the basis of what he learned from them, as well as from his own experience with translating, Roberts was confi­dent that the overall rendering of the Book of Mormon was not a “word-for-word bringing over from one language into another.” He also concluded that Joseph dictated each letter of at least some proper names.⁶

BYU English professor Royal Skousen’s extensive research on the original Book of Mormon manu­script has found that at the first occurrence of an unfamiliar name, the scribe’s initial phonetic spelling was later crossed out and on the same line a corrected spelling was given. An example is found in Alma 33:15 where Oliver Cowdery originally wrote Zenock using the familiar English spelling for the k sound when preceded by a short vowel. It would appear that Joseph then corrected Cowdery and had him cross out the first spelling of this name and write Zenoch. (While it is not altogether clear how the name should be pronounced, at least we may be confident that it should end with a k sound.) Skousen also found that in some cases of repeated names, Joseph’s pronunciation as he dictated may have produced spelling errors on the part of the scribe. A case in point involves the name Amalickiah, which Cowdery often spelled Ameleckiah. It seems likely that Joseph stressed the first syllable in his pronunciation instead of the sec­ond thus producing Cowdery’s misspelling of the ambiguous second vowel/

A few differences in the spelling of proper names have also been found between the original and print­er’s manuscripts that Cowdery copied. We cannot be sure why “Mulek appears as Muloch in the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon and as Mulok in printed editions from 1830 to 1852, [which] then became Mulek?^s Such changes in spelling call into question whether uniformity of pronunciation ex­isted in the early days of the church.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Ryan Dahle]

13 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Joseph Smith was invited by the Whitmers to live in their home. Joseph, Emma and Oliver lived with the Whitmers for 3-4 weeks while translating the gold plates in their home. Two of those Whitmers (Christian and John) acted as scribes. They were actively contributing to the translation project for weeks, and certainly were not strangers. 

Would a defense attorney be able to convince a jury that Joseph Smith "hardly knew" 5 people from a family he had been living with for 3-4 weeks? If two of those five had helped him translate the plates, can we say Joseph hardly knew them?

First of all, I thought you weren't interested in discussing the veracity of the statements of the witnesses. Have you changed your mind?

Second of all, if you imagine that Joseph Smith was orchestrating a con job in which these individuals were colluding with him, then yes, he hardly knew most of them (when assessing the relationship in that type of context). Oliver Cowdery showed up at the door and almost immediately began translating. It's not like Smith knew these people for years and had time to vet them and anticipate how they would respond to different circumstances. Imagine trying to orchestrate a fraud and get so many people who you effectively just barely met to go along with a bogus translation of a bogus artifact. They hadn't established deep connections with Smith. They weren't his childhood buddies. They weren't his family. Their interest seems to have been entirely centered on their very newly developed and raw belief in his revelatory claims. He would have no way to be confident that the Three Witnesses (two of whom he just recently met) would affirm his story about the angel and other artifacts, especially if he were just relying on the power of suggestion or emotion elevation or whatever to induce their visionary experience. Likewise, if the plates weren't very impressive to look at, he couldn't have known how the Eight Witnesses (at least those from the Whitmer clan) would have responded. And he almost certainly wouldn't have known how their testimonies would fare throughout their lives. 

So, yes, when assessing Smith's associates on the basis of potential fraud or collusion, he really did barely know these people. His assumed con job was an extraordinary risk that seems very unlikely to have succeeded. 

Edited April 1 by Ryan Dahle

[champatsch]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

This?

The above really does not answer the question I posed. Indeed, notice the contradiction between Nibley, who incorrectly concluded that names were always spelled out, and evidence from the MS that the scribe sometimes incorrectly spelled what he heard, as in the case of Zenock|Zenoch and Coriantummer|Coriantumr. If they had been spelled out by Joseph Smith, the scribe would not have written the incorrect spelling.

Apparently it is not understood by many that revealed thoughts does not produce names, which are words inherently. So how do those who think that only thoughts were revealed to Joseph Smith account for the names, which are words?

Edited April 1 by champatsch

[Calm]

7 hours ago, champatsch said:

Someone else is singular

I love usage discussions, so will happily go down this rabbit hole with you.

You are correct “someone else” is singular.  I was thinking both of individuals, including God and a group of individuals…singular in purpose, multiple individuals involved.  I often view God in the same way, as in the God I am referring to might be the Father or might be the Godhead, or might be the Council, or might be the Father and Mother, the Father and Son, or another divine community formed around the Father and Mother.

I should have been clearer and stated “someone else or multiple someones “

Quote

What they will not think of is that many people might have been involved in creating the English-language translation, under the direction of the Lord. That is a viable speculation.

This is actually what I think of ever since I first heard about EModE in the text.  Dan Peterson as a FAIR conference iirc, it was yearsssss ago so may have been someone else (singular for sure here  ).  Given the range of time the various words were in use, it seems logical to me it was a collective effort of individuals from different centuries, whether together or building on each other; otherwise why bother with the variety?  I get the idea of trying to make it sound like scripture by using archaic wording, but it seems awkward and all over the place.  That’s committee work.  😛 

Edited April 1 by Calm

[Zosimus]

5 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

First of all, I thought you weren't interested in discussing the veracity of the statements of the witnesses. Have you changed your mind?

• I am interested in discussing Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon a
• I am interested in discussing James Strang and the Record of Rajah Manchou and the four witnesses and the Brass Plates of Laban and the seven witnesses
• I am interested in discussing the three witnesses: Martin Harris, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery and their written witness testimony
• I am interested in discussing the eight witnesses to the gold plates: the five Whitmers and the three Smiths
• I am interested in discussing how Smith's gold plates differ from Strang's brass plates
• I am interested in discussing how Smith's witnesses differ from Strang's witnesses

However, 

• I am not interested in a back and forth about the moral character of Joseph Smith, James Strang or any of the witnesses.
• I am not interested in what Joseph Smith would later say about the moral character of the witnesses, and the reasons why they were excommunicated
• I am not interested in what the witnesses would later say about Joseph Smith's moral character
• I am not interested in what some would later say about James Strang's moral character and the reasons why he was excommunicated
• I am not interested in what neighbors or villages who knew Joseph Smith and his witnesses or James Strang and his witnesses said about their moral character

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Imagine trying to orchestrate a fraud and get so many people who you effectively just barely met to go along with a bogus translation of a bogus artifact. They hadn't established deep connections with Smith. They weren't his childhood buddies. They weren't his family. Their interest seems to have been entirely centered on their very newly developed and raw belief in his revelatory claims.

I was just listening to a podcast about the Scarith of Scornello. A 19-year old boy staged an elaborate set of forged Etruscan texts (scarith) and buried them all over the city as evidence of their antiquity. State officials came to investigate, and ended up also convinced that the texts were authentically ancient, and they issued witness statements confirming.

"For the next two weeks, the two officials alternated days in the field with days spent examining witnesses, and there is no doubt which days they enjoyed more. Proud of their own Etruscan heritage, they found the dig at Scornello an intoxicating immersion in their ancient past. Thirteen new scarith emerged from the chalky soil during their seven days of on-site investigation, two of the capsules wrested from a gnarled tangle of oak tree roots by none other than Ottavio Capponi himself. Their direct experience of amateur archaeology had a forceful effect on the granducal agents: after a trip to view the oldest documents in Volterra's civic archive, they officially declared that the scarith of Scornello had been genuinely buried and were very, very old."

The forger then used all the witness testimonies to convince others, all the way to the Vatican. He said: 

"It is evident that when [the scarith] first began to be found, the Criminal Court intervened from the very beginning, and then the whole City of Volterra; many people have intervened from almost every place in Tuscany, and all the principal Cities, and places of Italy, and in effect all those who have fancied clar- ifying their ideas about the truth have been present at the finding of these memorials, and this has not happened on one single occasion, but in a lapse of time, bit by bit, so that from 25 November 1634 up until now these have always been found, and are still continually being found. In addition to this, they are reinforced by the authentic testimony of a public trial, held with the greatest diligence by Signor Tommaso Medici and Signor Ottaviano Capponi, delegated to this task by the Most Serene Grand Duke of Tuscany, in the presence of a nearly infinite number of eyewitnesses, and ratified thereafter by the order of His Highness, who sent the Signori Mario Guiducci and Niccolò Arrighetti, Gentlemen of Florence, to examine the place and watch the excavations, and this document is preserved in the Archive of the City of Volterra."

So my view is more nuanced than calling something like this a "con job". I think it just sort of starts small as a curiosity, and then spirals out of control due to more intense curiosity combined with social, familial and economic pressures, religious motives, and an "intoxicating immersion in the ancient past" and once it reaches a certain point, its easier to go along with the string of events that has everyone so excited.

[Ryan Dahle]

45 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

So my view is more nuanced than calling something like this a "con job". I think it just sort of starts small as a curiosity, and then spirals out of control due to more intense curiosity combined with social, familial and economic pressures, religious motives, and an "intoxicating immersion in the ancient past" and once it reaches a certain point, its easier to go along with the string of events that has everyone so excited.

You seem to be missing the point, though. The reason for emphasizing the familiar relationship between Smith and the witnesses would be to suggest some type of joint deception of collusion (under the assumption that people who are intimately familiar with one another are more likely to trust each other in the case of fraud). Your more "nuanced" view doesn't really make a difference at the end of the day. Smith only knew most of these people for a few weeks before they were invited to be witnesses. 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

I am not interested in a back and forth about the moral character of Joseph Smith, James Strang or any of the witnesses.

Could you elaborate?  Why isn't "character evidence" relevant to our inquiry as to the credibility and probative value of statements made by these folks?  Wouldn't a person of stellar reputation and character be presumptively more credible than someone with a long history of dishonest/dissolute behavior?

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

I was just listening to a podcast about the Scarith of Scornello. A 19-year old boy staged an elaborate set of forged Etruscan texts (scarith) and buried them all over the city as evidence of their antiquity. State officials came to investigate, and ended up also convinced that the texts were authentically ancient, and they issued witness statements confirming.

"For the next two weeks, the two officials alternated days in the field with days spent examining witnesses, and there is no doubt which days they enjoyed more. Proud of their own Etruscan heritage, they found the dig at Scornello an intoxicating immersion in their ancient past. Thirteen new scarith emerged from the chalky soil during their seven days of on-site investigation, two of the capsules wrested from a gnarled tangle of oak tree roots by none other than Ottavio Capponi himself. Their direct experience of amateur archaeology had a forceful effect on the granducal agents: after a trip to view the oldest documents in Volterra's civic archive, they officially declared that the scarith of Scornello had been genuinely buried and were very, very old."

The forger then used all the witness testimonies to convince others, all the way to the Vatican. He said: 

"It is evident that when [the scarith] first began to be found, the Criminal Court intervened from the very beginning, and then the whole City of Volterra; many people have intervened from almost every place in Tuscany, and all the principal Cities, and places of Italy, and in effect all those who have fancied clar- ifying their ideas about the truth have been present at the finding of these memorials, and this has not happened on one single occasion, but in a lapse of time, bit by bit, so that from 25 November 1634 up until now these have always been found, and are still continually being found. In addition to this, they are reinforced by the authentic testimony of a public trial, held with the greatest diligence by Signor Tommaso Medici and Signor Ottaviano Capponi, delegated to this task by the Most Serene Grand Duke of Tuscany, in the presence of a nearly infinite number of eyewitnesses, and ratified thereafter by the order of His Highness, who sent the Signori Mario Guiducci and Niccolò Arrighetti, Gentlemen of Florence, to examine the place and watch the excavations, and this document is preserved in the Archive of the City of Volterra."

I'm not sure I understand your point here.  There are dishonest people out there tricking people, including experts.  What does that have to do with Joseph Smith and the Witnesses?

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

So my view is more nuanced than calling something like this a "con job". I think it just sort of starts small as a curiosity, and then spirals out of control due to more intense curiosity combined with social, familial and economic pressures, religious motives, and an "intoxicating immersion in the ancient past" and once it reaches a certain point, its easier to go along with the string of events that has everyone so excited.

Okay.  This seems to presuppose, rather than demonstrate, that the Plates were "a 'con job.'"

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited April 1 by smac97

[Zosimus]

46 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Smith only knew most of these people for a few weeks before they were invited to be witnesses. 

3-4 weeks living in someone's home is more than enough time to invite them to be witnesses to whatever was in the trunk, with an appearance of gold. 

39 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Could you elaborate?  Why isn't "character evidence" relevant to our inquiry as to the credibility and probative value of statements made by these folks?  Wouldn't a person of stellar reputation and character be presumptively more credible than someone with a long history of dishonest/dissolute behavior?

See all my responses to this same question in out previous conversations

42 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I'm not sure I understand your point here.  There are dishonest people out there tricking people, including experts.  What does that have to do with Joseph Smith and the Witnesses?

What makes you say the 19 year old who found the Etruscan texts was tricking people? Read the whole story, its more complicated than that. Curzio Inghirami was, in part, providing a way for people to discuss topics that would normally get them burned at the stake. There are a couple other reasons why I consider the scarith controversy to be far more than a con job and Curzio and his family and witnesses more sincere than con artists

Same goes for Joseph Smith and his family and witnesses

46 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Okay.  This seems to presuppose, rather than demonstrate, that the Plates were "a 'con job.'"

No, it doesn't. See above

[Calm]

8 hours ago, champatsch said:

Apparently it is not understood by many that revealed thoughts does not produce names, which are words inherently.

I don’t understand why you believe revealed thoughts can’t involve words.  At least that is what I think you are saying here since names are words.

Edited April 2 by Calm

[Analytics]

On 3/31/2026 at 3:35 PM, smac97 said:

I'm okay with that.  I think the Church has, in 200 years, come up with an impressive array of reasons to accept the Book of Mormon for what it claims to be.  Our critics have not made nearly as much progress in those 200 years.

That simply isn't true. The more we learn about reality, the less plausible the Book of Mormon's claims are.

On 3/31/2026 at 3:28 PM, smac97 said:

I wonder why, then, Joseph and the Lord went to such efforts to clarify and establish historicity (in such a way as does not undermine individual agency).  What's the point of the Three Witnesses, for example? 

You have this exactly backwards. They went to extraordinary efforts to obfuscate the reality of what really happened. If Joseph Smith would have simply donated the plates to, say, the Lyceum of Natural History in New York City when he was done with them, the issue would be settled conclusively. Instead, they were "taken back by an angel". Trusting the curated experiences 11 witnesses is extraordinarily weak evidence that doesn't begin to make up for how the evidence was effectually and deliberately destroyed without being examined by somebody impartial, much less qualified.

On 3/31/2026 at 12:25 PM, smac97 said:

Anti-Mormons have had nearly 200 years to formulate 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, and have been overwhelmingly unable to do so, is interesting to me (not dispositive, just interesting).

I appreciate you saying it isn't dispositive. The fact remains that we don't know what the real nature of the plates were, because they were deliberately withheld from the scrutiny of anybody that was qualified to authenticate them.

On 3/31/2026 at 12:25 PM, smac97 said:

Critics and skeptics, meanwhile, have been unable to articulate a coherent, evidence-based alternative explanation.

That is because Joseph Smith deliberately chose to withhold the evidence from anybody who was qualified to evaluate it. We have a basket of evidence that is extraordinarily small, weak, and problematic, and was curated to be that way. Blaming it on an angel doesn't rectify the fish smell.

In any case, that's all I have to say about the plates.

If anybody would like me to comment on the alleged evidence of the Book of Mormon from the text itself, let me know and I'll start a new thread. I don't have time to get into arguments or debates with believers about the various points, but I will make a good-faith effort to systematically go through evidence that apologists claim make it plausible. 

[smac97]

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

I'm okay with that.  I think the Church has, in 200 years, come up with an impressive array of reasons to accept the Book of Mormon for what it claims to be.  Our critics have not made nearly as much progress in those 200 years.

That simply isn't true.

I think it's manifestly true.

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

The more we learn about reality, the less plausible the Book of Mormon's claims are.

I think the more we learn about the history of the Americas, the more plausible the book's claims are.

What's interesting about our utterly divergent claims is that I can review extensive scholarly literature that substantiates the point I make above, whereas you have been reduced to vague notions of supposed "Bayesian methodological empiricism" culminating in your declaration that "space aliens" and/or "Satan" and/or "demaons" are "more likely" explanations for the text as compared to Joseph's narrative, which is "just not possible." 

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

I wonder why, then, Joseph and the Lord went to such efforts to clarify and establish historicity (in such a way as does not undermine individual agency).  What's the point of the Three Witnesses, for example? 

You have this exactly backwards.

I don't think I do.

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

They went to extraordinary efforts to obfuscate the reality of what really happened.

Well, no.  Obfuscation would have involved not showing the Plates to anyone, and not publishing the purported translation to the world.  Joseph did both of these things.

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

If Joseph Smith would have simply donated the plates to, say, the Lyceum of Natural History in New York City when he was done with them, the issue would be settled conclusively.

Yes.  "If."  

But Joseph said he was commanded to give the Plates back to Moroni, and he did.

We deal with the evidence we have, not what we would like to have.

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Instead, they were "taken back by an angel".

Yes.  "{T}hey" were also shown to the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.

And Joseph then published the translated text to the world.

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Trusting the curated experiences 11 witnesses is extraordinarily weak evidence

Says the guy who thinks that "space aliens" are a "more likely" explanation for The Book of Mormon.

Says the guy who unequivocally accepts the late, biased, questionable historical sources describing the death of Caesar.

You have never accounted for the witness statements, you just dismiss them as having been "curated."  That conclusory stuff works for you, but not for me.  Your studied lack of curiosity about the witnesses is another point of interest for me.

Meanwhile, the "unofficial" witnesses are also here for us to examine, and they aren't "curated" in any sense, and you haven't addressed them either.

And then there's the text...

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

that doesn't begin to make up for

Says who?  What metric are you using here?

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

how the evidence was effectually and deliberately destroyed without being examined by somebody impartial, much less qualified.

You're just making this up.

You have "Special Pleading" poured all over your analysis.  You accept weak tea evidence for Caesar, but disregard far stronger evidence as to The Book of Mormon.

And your expectation of empirical analysis is just silly.  Do you go about tut-tutting belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ because His resurrected body was not "examined by somebody impartial" and "qualified"?  What sort of experts do you imagine were around Jerusalem 2,000 years ago?  And if Jesus Christ really is the Son of God, is it possible that the absence of empirical evidence is part of the plan?  That we are supposed to take these things on faith?  Why is that not extendable to The Book of Mormon?  Do you negate all religions' truth claims on this unreasonable expectation of empirical verification of miraculous events?  

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Anti-Mormons have had nearly 200 years to formulate 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, and have been overwhelmingly unable to do so, is interesting to me (not dispositive, just interesting).

I appreciate you saying it isn't dispositive. The fact remains that we don't know what the real nature of the plates were, because they were deliberately withheld from the scrutiny of anybody that was qualified to authenticate them.

"The fact remains that we don't know what the real nature of the {resurrected body of Jesus Christ was, because it was} He only showed himself to his Disciples, and not to CSI-Jerusalem, the only experts in Judea at the time who were qualified to authenticate {His resurrection}."

Do you find that statement reasonable?

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Critics and skeptics, meanwhile, have been unable to articulate a coherent, evidence-based alternative explanation.

That is because Joseph Smith deliberately chose to withhold the evidence from anybody who was qualified to evaluate it.

Well, no.  He was commanded to return the Plates to Moroni, and he did.

Meanwhile, Joseph sent Martin Harris to have some of the characters evaluated by experts.

Joseph also showed the Plates to the Three Witnesses.

Joseph also showed the Plates to the Eight Witnesses.

Joseph also published the translated work to the entire world.

Joseph left us lots to work with.  Not to your satisfaction, I get that.  But you are not the arbiter of such things.

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

We have a basket of evidence that is extraordinarily small, weak, and problematic, and was curated to be that way.

We have an extraordinary amount of evidence, given what is being examined.

58 minutes ago, Analytics said:

In any case, that's all I have to say about the plates.

Yes, we know.  200 years of anti-mormonism, and the most you have to offer is "tin" and "space aliens."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Zosimus]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

Given the range of time the various words were in use, it seems logical to me it was a collective effort of individuals from different centuries, whether together or building on each other; otherwise why bother with the variety?  I get the idea of trying to make it sound like scripture by using archaic wording, but it seems awkward and all over the place.

In 1768, an impoverished and under-educated 15 year old boy in Bristol named Thomas Chatterton claimed to have discovered a chest full of 15th century manuscripts written by a monk named Rowley. He produced transcripts in his own handwriting of the 15th century documents along with a few of the originals written in a pseudo-medieval script. The language of the transcripts was so unique and seemingly authentic that many well-known scholars believed Chatterton. It was only after Chatterton committed suicide at the age of 17 that the debate about their authenticity exploded in print literature.

Jacob Bryant, one of the most respected antiquarians at that time, wrote a full volume on the controversy, arguing that the Chatterton documents were authentic 15th century manuscripts. His arguments can be summarized as:

1. The "Ignorant Transcriber" argument. After interviewing Chatterton's mother, sister and friends, Bryant claimed that Chatterton was described as a dull boy incapable of instruction. He was fatherless and poor so his mother could only teach him to read from a music book and a Bible. Bryant's argument was that Chatterton was too ignorant and under-educated to have fabricated such sophisticated and apparently ancient material.
2. Lack of Historical and Geographical Knowledge The Rowley poems contained obscure historical references that Bryant believed a poorly educated charity-school boy could never have known. When writing in his own hand, Chatterton exhibited no familiarity with geography, believing for example that the Tiber River was in Arabia.
3. Unknowable dialects thought to be bad grammar. Rowley's poems were written in an older dialect that Chatterton couldn't have known. When critics complained about “bad grammar” Bryant pointed out that Chatterton had tried to fix up awkward 15th century language using his own 18th century language. Bryant also provided examples of grammar and syntax inaccessible to an under-educated teenager.
4. Chatterton was too poor and busy. "If a young lad of little or no principle should find a treasure of old poetry, and put it off for his own; I should not much wonder. But that such a person should compose to this amount, and then give the credit of it to another, is past my comprehension." The argument was that Chatterton was too busy trying to escape poverty that he wouldn't have time to do all of the above.
5. Witnesses to the process. Bryant interviewd neighbors who knew Chatterton intimately testified that they had seen him copying from ancient parchments and that he never hinted at being the author.
6. Too long and sophisticated to produce in so short a timeframe. 3,700 verses on various subjects and in very difficult language (see below) within the time frame of about eighteen months. His verses were admired by Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth etc. Not a single copy/paste job from the KJV and no "it came to pass" filler 

Example. This poem Keats called the "purest" English:

O! synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.

Blacke hys cryne as the wyntere nyghte,
Whyte hys rode as the sommer snowe,
Rodde hys face as the mornynge lyghte,
Cale he lyes ynne the grave belowe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.

Bryant was completely convinced, and other writers like William Blake would claim Chatterton to be a kind of visionary figure beyond explanation. But it is much more plausible (and is the scholarly consensus) that the boy was a precocious prodigy, and that he had mined old dictionaries and glossaries from his local lending libraries to stitch together a syntax and narrative with archaic vocabulary and pseudo‑medieval spellings to give his poems a fifteenth century feeling. He used candles and yellow ochre to artificially darken and age the manuscripts. Over time, scholars identified anachronisms such as the knitting of stockings before anyone knew how to knit stockings and Bristol being identified as a city before it was one. Analysts figured out that beneath the archaisms and props, the dialect (consisting of over 1,800 unique words now known as Rowleyese) was entirely invented by a 15 year old boy trying to make a name and a career for himself

Edited April 2 by Zosimus

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Zosimus said:

In 1768, an impoverished and under-educated 15 year old boy in Bristol named Thomas Chatterton claimed to have discovered a chest full of 15th century manuscripts written by a monk named Rowley. He produced transcripts in his own handwriting of the 15th century documents along with a few of the originals written in a pseudo-medieval script. The language of the transcripts was so unique and seemingly authentic that many well-known scholars believed Chatterton. It was only after Chatterton committed suicide at the age of 17 that the debate about their authenticity exploded in print literature.

Jacob Bryant, one of the most respected antiquarians at that time, wrote a full volume on the controversy, arguing that the Chatterton documents were authentic 15th century manuscripts. His arguments can be summarized as:

1. The "Ignorant Transcriber" argument. After interviewing Chatterton's mother, sister and friends, Bryant claimed that Chatterton was described as a dull boy incapable of instruction. He was fatherless and poor so his mother could only teach him to read from a music book and a Bible. Bryant's argument was that Chatterton was too ignorant and under-educated to have fabricated such sophisticated and apparently ancient material.
2. Lack of Historical and Geographical Knowledge The Rowley poems contained obscure historical references that Bryant believed a poorly educated charity-school boy could never have known. When writing in his own hand, Chatterton exhibited no familiarity with geography, believing for example that the Tiber River was in Arabia.
3. Unknowable dialects thought to be bad grammar. Rowley's poems were written in an older dialect that Chatterton couldn't have known. When critics complained about “bad grammar” Bryant pointed out that Chatterton had tried to fix up awkward 15th century language using his own 18th century language. Bryant also provided examples of grammar and syntax inaccessible to an under-educated teenager.
4. Chatterton was too poor and busy. "If a young lad of little or no principle should find a treasure of old poetry, and put it off for his own; I should not much wonder. But that such a person should compose to this amount, and then give the credit of it to another, is past my comprehension." The argument was that Chatterton was too busy trying to escape poverty that he wouldn't have time to do all of the above.
5. Witnesses to the process. Bryant interviewd neighbors who knew Chatterton intimately testified that they had seen him copying from ancient parchments and that he never hinted at being the author.
6. Too long and sophisticated to produce in so short a timeframe. 3,700 verses on various subjects and in very difficult language (see below) within the time frame of about eighteen months. His verses were admired by Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth etc. Not a single copy/paste job from the KJV and no "it came to pass" filler 

Example. This poem Keats called the "purest" English:

O! synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.

Blacke hys cryne as the wyntere nyghte,
Whyte hys rode as the sommer snowe,
Rodde hys face as the mornynge lyghte,
Cale he lyes ynne the grave belowe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.

Bryant was completely convinced, and other writers like William Blake would claim Chatterton to be a kind of visionary figure beyond explanation. But it is much more plausible (and is the scholarly consensus) that the boy was a precocious prodigy, and that he had mined old dictionaries and glossaries from his local lending libraries to stitch together a syntax and narrative with archaic vocabulary and pseudo‑medieval spellings to give his poems a fifteenth century feeling. He used candles and yellow ochre to artificially darken and age the manuscripts. Over time, scholars identified anachronisms such as the knitting of stockings before anyone knew how to knit stockings and Bristol being identified as a city before it was one. Analysts figured out that beneath the archaisms and props, the dialect (consisting of over 1,800 unique words now known as Rowleyese) was entirely invented by a 15 year old boy trying to make a name and a career for himself

An interesting case. 

Chat said he had access to authentic records through his local church as well as the charity school he went to.

But do the parallels survive the closest examination?  Was his pseudo archaic language used consistently correctly? 

As I understand the claims for the Book of Mormon, the archaic language that is present is used correctly for its alleged time period.

Were there these types of archaic documents available to Joseph? (Sincerely don’t know, makes sense for an old church in England to have documents from centuries before, less likely in the area Joseph was in, but still possible I am guessing).

[champatsch]

11 hours ago, Calm said:

I don’t understand why you believe revealed thoughts can’t involve words.  At least that is what I think you are saying here since names are words.

My position is that it is a revealed text, not a hybrid result from revealed words and revealed thoughts.

Names revealed as words; biblical passages revealed as words, since they are not paraphrastic and no Bible was used; syntax revealed as words, in many different syntactic structures, since they are not what Joseph Smith would have produced as a pseudo-archaic author; usage shifts show that many items were controlled throughout, or there would not be sharp changes in usage patterns; some substantives revealed as words, since he was not familiar with various contextual usage. Furthermore, because syntax is of minor importance compared to substantives and so much syntax was tightly controlled, this implies tight control of substantives (lexical items).

What then is left for revealed thoughts, and what exactly do those who believe in revealed thoughts actually believe?

The many exclusions to revealed thoughts means that if the Lord waited for Joseph Smith to word things in his mind from revealed thoughts, then the Lord continually overrode the way Joseph Smith had worded things. He would have come up with a way to word a clause, and the Lord would have changed many different aspects of his wording. In many cases, most of clauses and sentences would have been reworded by the Lord, with most of Joseph Smith's wordings not implemented. Because the process would have often approached a limit of complete override, one possible reaction by Joseph Smith would have been to wait for the Lord to present the wording, without any attempt to word the thoughts, since partial override was likely, and complete override was possible.

The above would have occurred in 1828.

By 1829, in dictating Mosiah 1, Joseph Smith probably excercised the faith necessary to receive revealed words, and then dictated them.

Edited April 2 by champatsch

[Zosimus]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

Chat said he had access to authentic records through his local church as well as the charity school he went to.

Chatterton was using dictionaries from his local library. He scanned the dictionary for any term labeled “Obsolete” and then worked that into his manuscripts.

5 hours ago, Calm said:

But do the parallels survive the closest examination?  Was his pseudo archaic language used consistently correctly? 

Consistently enough to convince experts like Jacob Bryant.

5 hours ago, Calm said:

As I understand the claims for the Book of Mormon, the archaic language that is present is used correctly for its alleged time period.

AFAIK there’s no one arguing that the language of the Book of Mormon is correct for 400 AD. Champatsch would know better than me, but seems the argument is that the language of the Book of Mormon is more aligned with 17th century. 

5 hours ago, Calm said:

Were there these types of archaic documents available to Joseph?

Idk, were the dictionaries and glossaries that Chatterton used to isolate archaisms also circulating in the Americas? The KJV certainly was.

For me, Chatterton demonstrates that a 15-17 year old from an impoverished background with minimal education was capable of producing a set of pseudo-archaic documents that impressed the likes of Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Bryant and Blake. He wrote them himself. In 1768, he invented his own 15th century “provincial dialect” using nothing but dictionaries and glossaries from his local library. He did all this without his family and friends suspecting any fraud

[Calm]

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

My position is that it is a revealed text, not a hybrid result from revealed words and revealed thoughts.

Names revealed as words; biblical passages revealed as words, since they are not paraphrastic and no Bible was used; syntax revealed as words, in many different syntactic structures, since they are not what Joseph Smith would have produced as a pseudo-archaic author; usage shifts show that many items were controlled throughout, or there would not be sharp changes in usage patterns; some substantives revealed as words, since he was not familiar with various contextual usage. Furthermore, because syntax is of minor importance compared to substantives and so much syntax was tightly controlled, this implies tight control of substantives (lexical items).

What then is left for revealed thoughts, and what exactly do those who believe in revealed thoughts actually believe?

The many exclusions to revealed thoughts means that if the Lord waited for Joseph Smith to word things in his mind from revealed thoughts, then the Lord continually overrode the way Joseph Smith had worded things. He would have come up with a way to word a clause, and the Lord would have changed many different aspects of his wording. In many cases, most of clauses and sentences would have been reworded by the Lord, with most of Joseph Smith's wordings not implemented. Because the process would have often approached a limit of complete override, one possible reaction by Joseph Smith would have been to wait for the Lord to present the wording, without any attempt to word the thoughts, since partial override was likely, and complete override was possible.

The above would have occurred in 1828.

By 1829, in dictating Mosiah 1, Joseph Smith probably excercised the faith necessary to receive revealed words, and then dictated them.

Have you looked at Brant Gardner’s view of what was going on?

I actually haven’t been able to read it, but he talked about his ideas on this board some iirc.  

His book was published in 2012, I think.  Was wondering how much info at the time was available onEModE, etc in the text and if Brant interacted with it, what your response is.

https://gregkofford.com/products/the-gift-and-power

I haven’t kept up on his work since he hasn’t posted much on the board.

Edited April 2 by Calm

[Calm]

40 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

Consistently enough to convince experts like Jacob Bryant.

Jacob Bryant was from the 1700s, correct?  If so, he lacked many of the tools they now used to examine texts.  I am more interested in a modern appraisal of consistency, etc.

Quote

AFAIK there’s no one arguing that the language of the Book of Mormon is correct for 400 AD.

The “its” applies to the archaic language, not the Book of Mormon, meaning was the EModE used as a person who spoke and wrote EModE as their own language would most likely use it.

Chatterton’s work is very impressive, but is it a close enough parallel to be used to show if Joseph was equally precious, Chatterton’s method could explain what Joseph did?  Did Joseph have access to such texts as he would need to find authentic examples?  Was his works much the same patchwork that I have read Chatterton’s work was or is there more consistency in its structure and use of the archaic language?  I am sure there are other aspects of the works that should be compared that champatsch and Ryan likely can come up with and hopefully can provide evaluations on.

[Ryan Dahle]

18 hours ago, Zosimus said:

3-4 weeks living in someone's home is more than enough time to invite them to be witnesses to whatever was in the trunk, with an appearance of gold. 

Well, yes, if Joseph Smith actually had a very convincing artifact in his possession, such as the plates described by the witnesses, then that time would be sufficient, since he wouldn't have to worry about them expressing doubt or skepticism about its authenticity. But it is not a lot of time if he had a fairly dubious artifact that he was hoping they would affirm and corroborate, despite any suspicious features. Imagine, for instance, if the artifact only had like 5-10 plates with fairly large writing and that was made from painted modern tin. Smith might very well have been uncertain if his bogus plates would convince these folks, and he would be right to question their loyalty and trust. He wouldn't be able to assume they would just overlook suspicious activity. 

I think the limited time would be especially problematic for the Three Witnesses (particularly Whitmer and Cowdery). It is hard to come up with a plausible theory for how he convinced them that they saw an angel and the other artifacts or, alternatively, trusted them so quickly to be a part of his fraudulent scheme, and that they would affirm their witnesses so adamantly even after falling out with him. 

Typically, when people express concern about the close relationships among the witnesses, it is because people assume close relationships may result in a greater likelihood of bias that would lead to lying and other forms of deception. But, as far as I can tell, it would have been very risky for Smith to trust that the Whitmers would be positively biased towards him in that way, as if they would just go along with his deceptions. They really had just barely met him, and a few weeks isn't a long time for him to test all of their character qualities and personalities, especially if most of his time was spent translating and other necessary activities rather than socializing. 

[Calm]

7 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

They really had just barely met him, and a few weeks isn't a long time for him to test all of their character qualities and personalities, especially if most of his time was spent translating and other necessary activities rather than socializing. 

We had a family of a professor colleague of my husband’s move in with us for several months due to a delay in their home being available.   I believe my husband’s only prior direct contact with the husband was during the hiring process.  My default position is that people are good, very good actually if I am being honest.  I wouldn’t let them move into our home if I wasn’t.  Still there is no way in hell I would have accepted financial advice or health advice and bought supplements or some unusual health device from him or even bought a vacuum after several weeks (in fact that would likely be the period I would be the least likely as it would be in the annoy me in every way stage 😛 ).  And change my faith?  I would need to see how someone operated over a long time, especially under pressure so I could see just how committed to their faith and what they actually taught they truly were.
 

And while initially I might be a bit too willing to go with the group consensus or rather too unwilling to speak out against it being terminally shy in awkward situations (flashing back to my teen years), it would not endure because resentment would quickly build over the sense of pressure and at the very least if anyone asked me I would share my misgivings and belief of being manipulated.  
 

I get our culture is very different than theirs, but I am in a very comfortable financial situation where mistakes and trusting the wrong person isn’t likely to destroy me financially.  Life was not as secure with safety nets back then, which makes me think they were likely prone to being less trusting.  They might not survive trusting the wrong person (many people died because of their trust in Joseph, he deserves to burn in hell if it was a con….which I don’t believe it was).  Certainly the criticisms that came out of that era shows gossip, destruction of reputation, and conspiracy thinking back then was deadly like the internet is now even if its was localized and slower to travel.  There were immediately challenges to the families that trusted Joseph, they weren’t in some sort of bubble where no conflicting info was presented to them.  There would be many reasons for them to reconsider over the years their commitment.  David Whitmer showed he was capable of breaking with Joseph, after all.  Others as well. Even if some kept their concerns about the Book of Mormon likely being a con quiet for whatever reason, all of them doing so seems highly unlikely given many distanced themselves from the Church and from any reinforcement of the need to stay ‘faithful’.  The majority of the Witnesses were out of the Church by the time Joseph died, been excommunicated even.  They were already questioning and making decisions to reject his claims, some of them being public about it.  Why would all go so far, but stop before getting to the conclusion of fraud when it came to the Book of Mormon?

Edited April 3 by Calm