Did John Whitmer actually see the plates?

[Jaybear]

DCP:

It seems that you've accepted a Vogel-style dismissal of all contrary evidence relating to the Witnesses. By the standards of normal historical inquiry, their abundantly attested testimonies are extremely sturdy. Vogel's attempt to explain the Witnesses away has always struck me as rather desperate.

Nice try. The only purported "evidence" I have examined and rejected as inadequate is the Statement itself.

I offered several cogent reasons why the Statement does meet even a minimum standard of evidence. All of which are unrebutted. Unless you consider calling me dogmatic a sound rebuttal.

Moreover, why would you assume that I would reject ALL evidence out of hand, when I expressly said that journal entires and letters commenting on the event would be relevant? Do you have such evidence?

[cdowis]

>Why not bring the plates to a judge, a professor, a doctor, the mayor, a priest. Was there not a local assay office to take the plates for examination?

For the same reason we can ask, after the resurrection of Christ, why did he not appear to Caesar, to the Sanhedrin, rise up in the air above Jerusalem to let everyone see him.

In fact, why does the Creator keep himself hidden from view.

Well, that is just the way He operates. He operates through the principle of witnesses -- Christ thru the Twelve apostles, for example, and we can either accept or reject those witnesses.

[DonBradley]

CD,

Pointing out that religion in general works on the "faith" principle only helps the Mormon cause if the audience accepts some other form of faith-based religion. To me, what you point out about Jesus' resurrection being made known only to a few witnesses just reinforces the dubiousness of believing in that too. Religion as a whole, at least theistic religion, is rooted in this kind of epistemelogical game because it has to be. Religions that didn't come up with a rationale for limiting access to the miraculous wouldn't be able to survive, because they wouldn't be able to produce the supernatural goods for all who cared to see them.

It is noteworthy that the major theistic faiths declare the "unaided" reason and learning of man to be foolishness, denigrate "sign-seeking," warn their adherents to not put the Deity to the test ("tempt" him), and declare something of low actual epistemelogical value (e.g., emotion, the beauty of the sacred texts) to be the "test" of their truths and of far greater epistemelogical value than those things which are regarded in all other contexts as of high epistemelogical value - the kinds of evidence that persuade us in everyday life, business, and science.

Don Bradley

[Daniel Peterson]

Funny... I looked up dogmatic at Dictionary.com and didn't see a picture of either Jaybear or Dan Vogel.

You need a better dictionary.

Hmmm... which side sounds more "dogmatic" - "eight related people's signatures on a prepared document, many of which claim the experience was "spiritual" does not convince me" vs. "I prayed about it, and the spirit told me the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the One True Church, and all other churches are of the devil"

Nice try, that, putting words in my mouth in order to create a manageable straw man.

Here's the real contrast: "The testimony of eleven sane, intelligent, and (clearly in several cases) highly respected people, borne repeatedly throughout their lifetimes to numerous others, well attested in literally scores of separate documents, in which several of them stress the literal, objective, and physically real character of their experience, counts as evidence for the Book of Mormon" versus "Nope! It means nothing! Absolutely nothing!"

The latter strikes me as no more impressive than the old "Neener neener! You missed me!" that I remember from childhood games of cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians.

And, yes, it does strike me as profoundly dogmatic.

Once again -- I never tire of this -- I call the attention of open-minded individuals to Richard Anderson's meticulously documented Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses and his article in the current issue of the FARMS Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, as well as to his numerous other essays on relevant topics, and to Lyndon Cook's David Whitmer Interviews. But I warn sensitive dogmatists that these items present actual historical evidence that may be disturbing to some readers.

[Jaybear]

DCP:

Here's the real contrast: "The testimony of eleven sane, intelligent, and (clearly in several cases) highly respected people, borne repeatedly throughout their lifetimes to numerous others, well attested in literally scores of separate documents, in which several of them stress the literal, objective, and physically real character of their experience, counts as evidence for the Book of Mormon" versus "Nope! It means nothing! Absolutely nothing!"

Who said it means nothing. Those are your words, not mine. I said it doesnt offer any "credibilty" to an otherwise incredible story.

At best, I see the inclusion of the Statement as a extremely clumsy attempt to offer proof of the existence of the Golden Plates. You have an unsigned, unnotarized, undated statement, drafted by an undisclosed person, recounting an event in the words chosen by that undisclosed draftsman, that took place at some undisclosed time, at some undisclosed place, and under undisclosed circumstances and presumably endorsed by these eight men, all of whom are all closely tied to the man with the incredible claim, of the existence of Golden Plates which don't exist because they have been removed from Earth by angels of God.

Does the Statement, with its warts add any credibilty to an incredible tale? My subjective opinion is no.

[DonBradley]

There was apparently some equivocation on the part of David Whitmer and, particularly, Martin Harris on the nature of their experience - or at least this can be strongly argued. So, it seems more defeasible to me to argue only that the Eight Witnesses consistently held out their experience as physical.

Even here, though, as Dan V. has pointed out, there is evidence that they may not have been consistent on this point. It's true that the statements calling this into question are not firsthand. But it's also true that the firsthand statements of the Eight Witnesses are uniform to the level of phrasing and lack further detail beyond their signed statement. Most of the extant recorded testimonies of these witnesses say nothing more than that they "saw and handled" the plates, and the remainder add no detail beyond that the plates were golden, "curiously" worked, and engraved - i.e., they add no detail not present in the published testimony. None of them report the physical location of the experience, how they prepared for the experience, how the plates were presented to their view, what was done with the plates afterward, what the plates looked like (beyond "having the appearance of gold," being "of curious workmanship," looking ancient, and having engravings), how much they weighed.... These are curious omissions given the number of witnesses and number of testimonies of this supposedly very concrete, temporal, natural experience.

The formulaic nature of the Eight's testimony raises questions that those studying their experience have yet to address. Neither apologists, such as Richard Anderson, nor debunkers, like Dan Vogel, have dealt with the issue.

Why would the Eight recite a consistent formula, apparently not even varying their wording, and never - at least in any of the numerous firsthand accounts we have - offer details beyond those in their simple formal testimony? What does such a pattern suggest?

Years ago, when I was first getting involved in studying the origins of the "Mormon fundamentalist" (schismatic polygamist) movement, Michael Quinn offered me some advice. He told me to look for formulaic wording from the witnesses of the supposed "Eight Hour Meeting" in which John Taylor gave the sealing keys to the later fundamentalist leaders. Such wording, he said, suggests a conspiracy. Drawing on his experience with the often messy data of history, Quinn offered a similar insight in his anonymous response to Jerald and Sandra Tanner:

"The selective requirement for inflexible standards of consistency is a stock weapon in debate and the practice of Law to invalidate the testimony of your opponent's witnesses. Yet perfect consistency is as often a trait of deception as of truth, and truth is often relayed by inconsistent witnesses. The record of human experience has rarely been free of ambiguity."

Though I was very much a believer at the time Quinn offered this advice, it troubled me. I recognized even then that the firsthand testimonies of the Eight Witnesses followed precisely the pattern Quinn suggested was indicative of conspiracy. I wondered if the Eight might have been part of a conspiracy.

Subsequent research satisfied me that the Eight Witnesses did not manufacture their experience as part of a conspiracy. But the issue of their formulaic wording was one I held in the back of mind as meaning something.

In the past few years, I have found the limited and formulaic nature of the testimonies of the Eight Witnesses most powerfully explained on the hypothesis that they, like Martin Harris in D&C 5, were instructed to limit their subsequent testimonies to the specifics included in their published statement.

This 1829 revelation to Martin Harris is the origin of the very idea of witnesses to the Book of Mormon - the first intimation that anyone besides Joseph Smith would be able to receive a visual "witness" of the existence of the plates. In the revelation, Harris was instructed what to say in testifying of the experience and explicitly commanded to limit his testimony to what he was told to say:

then he shall say unto the People of this Generation Behold I have seen the things & I know of a surety that they are true for I have seen them & they have been shone unto me by the Power of God and I command him that he shall say no more except I have seen them & they have been shone un[to] me by the Power of God & these are the words which he shall say

We have no comparable instructions to the Eight Witnesses. But, in point of fact, we have no revelation or instructions to the Eight Witnesses at all. No extant revelation tells Joseph Smith to show the plates to eight witnesses, tells who these witnesses should be, or tells how the plates should be shown. Yet there seems little doubt, especially given that revelation prohibits Joseph Smith from showing anyone the plates without express divine command (D&C 5:3), that Joseph claimed revelation with respect to the Eight Witnesses and their experience. Thus, we have no extant revelation regarding the Eight, but there was revelation. And given that the revelation introducing the idea of three witnesses expressly commanded and delimited what they were to say in bearing testimony, it seems reasonable to expect, or at least find it quite likely, that the revelation introducing the idea of eight witnesses did the same. So, here we have a likely hypothesis that would explain otherwise anomalous or conspiratorial-looking elements of the testimonies of the Eight Witnesses.

This hypothesis is not necessarily incompatible with belief in the experience of the Eight, any more than the presence of similar instruction to Martin Harris is incompatible with belief in the experience of the Three. And, in fact, if this explanation is rejected, one is left with the next most likely explanation for the uniformity being one that is incompatible with such belief - conspiracy.

While not necessarily incompatible with faith, the probability of such instruction (in the case of either the 3 or the raises fresh issues regarding their experiences. If the Eight were commanded to testify using certain words, and limiting what they said to certain specifics, then it is quite possible that the words employed in their testimonies may not have been the words they would otherwise have used to properly or best convey what they experienced, and that the additional detail they withheld would have qualified the impression offered in their extant testimonies that they saw and handled the plates uncovered and in a wholly natural, everyday sense. (In fact, if the Eight were commanded to use wording that would give a somewhat misleading impression as to the nature of their experience, this would also explain Martin Harris' reputed account that the Eight hesitated to sign the written statement.)

Whatever its ultimate explanation, the unnaturally restricted range of phrasing and detail in all of the many extant firsthand testimonies of the Eight Witnesses also limits and restricts their usefulness and power as historical evidence of what occurred immediately prior to the signing of their initial, formal Testimony. Since in form and content their individual testimonies appear to not be independent, but either agreed-upon between them or established by external fiat, they provide far weaker evidence than they otherwise might that Joseph Smith "ha[d] got the plates of which hath been spoken."

Don Bradley

Copyright January 3, 2006, Don Bradley

[Scott Lloyd]

DCP:

Here's the real contrast: "The testimony of eleven sane, intelligent, and (clearly in several cases) highly respected people, borne repeatedly throughout their lifetimes to numerous others, well attested in literally scores of separate documents, in which several of them stress the literal, objective, and physically real character of their experience, counts as evidence for the Book of Mormon" versus "Nope! It means nothing! Absolutely nothing!"

Who said it means nothing. Those are your words, not mine. I said it doesnt offer any "credibilty" to an otherwise incredible story.

And saying it "offers no credibility" (emphasis mine) differs materially from saying it means nothing, how exactly?

Dogmatic can apply just as aptly to rejection as it can to assertion.

Quick question, Jaybear: Have you read any of Richard Anderson's writings?

[Dan Vogel]

Cdowis,

>You should tell us why you question Burnett

[Dan Vogel]

Cougarfan,

Remember there is no such medical condition as group halucination. If eight men claim they saw something, they actually saw something.

What would the difference (proof wise) be between a literal spiritual manifestation and a literal physical manifestation.

You

[Dan Vogel]

Dr. Peterson,

It seems that you've accepted a Vogel-style dismissal of all contrary evidence relating to the Witnesses. By the standards of normal historical inquiry, their abundantly attested testimonies are extremely sturdy. Vogel's attempt to explain the Witnesses away has always struck me as rather desperate.

It might be my alleged dogmatism, but Anderson

[Daniel Peterson]

Even

[Daniel Peterson]

Who said it means nothing.  Those are your words, not mine.    I said it doesnt offer any "credibilty"  to an otherwise incredible story.

A distinction without a difference.

At best, I see the inclusion of the Statement as a extremely clumsy [!] attempt to offer proof of the existence of the Golden Plates.  You have an unsigned [?], unnotarized [!], undated [so what?] statement, drafted by an undisclosed person [an insignificant quibble, on balance], recounting an event in the words chosen by that undisclosed draftsman,  that took place at some undisclosed time [?], at some undisclosed place [??], and under undisclosed circumstances [??] and presumably [!] endorsed by these eight men, all of whom are all closely tied to the man with the incredible claim, of the existence of Golden Plates which don't exist [???] because they have been removed from Earth by angels of God.

Have you read Richard Anderson's Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses?

Does the Statement, with its warts add any credibilty to an incredible tale? My subjective opinion is no.

It seems that your position is an a priori ideological one. Having decided already that the "tale" is "incredible," you rule out of court anything that might seem to give it credibility. That is dogmatism.

[Tribunal]

Did any of the Eight later claim to have not seen the plates? It just seems odd to me that eight people would be able to maintain a conspiracy for so long with all that they went through.

[Daniel Peterson]

Did any of the Eight later claim to have not seen the plates?  It just seems odd to me that eight people would be able to maintain a conspiracy for so long with all that they went through.

The Vogel line, as I understand it, is not that the Eight were involved in a dishonest conspiracy -- that line of argument has now been surrendered by reputable critics, since we have such abundant evidence for the good character of the Witnesses -- but that these farmers, who spent their lives clearing fields of rocks, pulling up tree stumps, digging wells, and traveling by foot or with the help of animals, were disconnected from the world of empirical reality (while the modern critics, who work mostly under artificial light, in artificially air conditioned work spaces, staring for hours each day into television screens and computer screens, traveling in enclosed, artificially lit and air conditioned machines, have a firmer grip on the real, material world).

And no, none of the Witnesses ever denied having seen the plates. Hence, the urgent necessity for certain unbelievers to explain their testimony away, or devalue it as evidence.

[Tribunal]

So then to say that there is or can be some truth to the Book of Mormon because eight honest and noble men claim to have seen the plates doesn't count any more?

With that logic I can just say that there never existed a Jesus Christ because.

That's totally insane!

[DonBradley]

Dan V. is right about the occurrence of group hallucination. This phenomenon has been documented in both a religious context and that of "ghosts," specters, and the like. Some of the relevant literature on this phenomenon is footnoted in Dan's piece on the Book of Mormon witnesses in American Apocrypha. And examples of it are familiar to many of in the various group visions of Mary (who came bearing divine messages regarding Catholic doctrine, prophecy etc.) which -from any but a distinctly Catholic point of view - were hallucinatory.

BTW, Tribunal, your emotionally laden rhetoric - eight "honest and noble men," etc. suggests that you may not be weighing the issue even-handedly. I agree with you that the collective testimony of eight men saying they saw and handled an object weighs in favor of the object's existence. But it should be kept in mind that the object in question had a low probability of existing in the first place - a golden book unlike anything else ever found in the New World, located by a young treasure seer guided by night visions, an angel, and his seerstone, written in Egyptian and telling the story of an otherwise unattested but very large and civilized Hebrew-Native American nation who experienced numerous miraculous events unlike anything we see around us in the world today.... The existence of such an object is highly improbable to begin with. And its miraculous finding by a treasure seer who also saw such things as enchantments and treasures guarded by murdered Indians only (greatly) compounds the improbability. The evidentiary hurdle the evidence that evidence for the existence of the book must leap is quite high indeed. But the evidence given for its existence did not meet such high standards.

As pointed out earlier in the thread, the purported object was shown only to a select few who had already demonstrated faith in it; and the subsequent statements of those signing an affidavit that Joseph Smith had shown it to them merely echoed the affidavit from there on, reproducing its words and failing to add detail regarding the circumstances, the preparation, the location, the nature of their experience, the appearance of the plates, the composition of the testimony, etc., etc. This does not necessarily suggest conspiracy in the sense you describe - a collusion with the intention to deceive. But it does suggest an agreement on or instruction regarding what to say and what not to say. In this case, the witnesses - acting not to deceive, but to obey God's command - may have employed language regarding their experience that expressed poorly what actually occurred, and may have left out details that would qualify the impression that their experience was a purely natural seeing and handling of uncovered golden plates.

Don Bradley

[DonBradley]

BTW, it's my understanding also that none of the witnesses denied their testimony, though I don't think this is as certain or cut and dried as it is presented.

The Times and Seasons ran a piece that said something like "so what if Oliver now denies his testimony." Richard Anderson has tried to explain this as hypothetical, arguing that the other examples of wrongdoing in the piece were hypothetical as well. A careful examination of it will show to the contrary: Oliver's denial of his testimony ends a list of very real sins and betrayals by others. The others were not hypothetical. Why would the one about Oliver be hypothetical? This serves then as evidence that Oliver briefly denied his testimony. However, since it isn't clear what the author's basis for believing this was, it isn't clear how strong the evidence is that it provides.

If Martin Harris, as a Kirtland dissenter, said what Burnett attributes to him, then he apparently heard some of the Eight Witnesses talk of balking at signing their written testimony because it did not accurately reflect their experience. Burnett presents Harris's statements as having played a role in his own loss of belief. So, Burnett is either lying about the basis of his final disillusionment with Mormonism, or Harris said such things. I find the former unlikely and the latter to not be contradicted by firsthand testimony from the Eight Witnesses. Since the Eight said so little about their actual experience, echoing the affidavit instead, and said nothing (extant, at least) about who composed the testimony, its signing, etc., there is no data from them that contradicts the Burnett report. And, in fact, their echoing of the signed affidavit in their later accounts would appear to be best explained by the wording of the affidavit being wording they were commanded to subscribe to, which fits quite well with Burnett's report.

Don Bradley

[Hyrum Page]

The devaluation of spiritual or supernatural visions of the plates by faithful defenders of Mormonism is something I find intriguing. Are we to reject the testimonies of others when they claim they saw things by "supernatural" means? How about Moses?

11 But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence; but his glory was upon me; and I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him.

[DonBradley]

The devaluation of spiritual or supernatural visions of the plates by faithful defenders of Mormonism is something I find intriguing. Are we to reject the testimonies of others when they claim they saw things by "supernatural" means? How about Moses?

11 But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence; but his glory was upon me; and I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him.

Yes. The irony, Page, is that, as a group, Latter-day Saints maintain the superiority of revelatory "evidence" to physical evidence, and yet, here, are so eager to defend the experience of the Eight Witnesses as physical, rather than revelatory!

Do believers really mean it when they say they find the evidence of revelation more compelling than what normally counts as evidence in the mundane world?

Don Bradley

[Hyrum Page]

DB:

Do believers really mean it when they say they find the evidence of revelation more compelling than what normally counts as evidence in the mundane world?

HP:

Perhaps someone might say that with certain events, like the resurrection of Jesus, it is necessary to accept the physicality of the event in order for there to be any substance behind belief. I would note that Moses' experience of God falls within the range of these claims. Missionaries often use the reference to Moses speaking 'face-to-face' with God as evidence of his corporeality. Yet here we have Moses, still claiming to have spoken with God face-to-face, claimng to have seen him only with his "spiritual eyes." As I see it this is a good reason to interrogate the actual physicality of Moses' experience. Only by trying to harmonize this passage with later Joseph Smith revelations does the physicality involved in the event become necessary.

[Daniel Peterson]

Yet here we have Moses, still claiming to have spoken with God face-to-face, claimng to have seen him only with his "spiritual eyes."

I find that Vogelian "only" absolutely fascinating. Where in the text does it come from? Nowhere, as far as I can tell.

I read Moses 1 as describing an experience of heightened perception (of ordinary vision and then some), not of reduced capacity to see. I'm certainly aware of no compelling reason to read it -- or, for that matter, the experiences of the Witnesses -- otherwise.

[Hyrum Page]

DP:

I find that Vogelian "only" absolutely fascinating.

HP:

I find your preoccupation with creating neologisms that include the name Vogel fascinating.

DP:

I read Moses 1 as describing an experience of heightened perception (of ordinary vision and then some), not of reduced capacity to see. I'm certainly aware of no compelling reason to read it -- or, for that matter, the experiences of the Witnesses -- otherwise.

HP:

Let's see. The fact that he says "not my natural." I don't see anything like "my natural eyes having been accustomed to the the presence of God by the aid of spiritual eyes." "Not my natural" suggests the exclusion of the natural, and the reasons for the exclusion are given: "for my natural eyes could not have beheld."

I find no compelling reason to read the statement as you seem to be proposing. But, I will let you propose your own reading for yourself and then come up with compelling reasons why we should buy into it.

[Daniel Peterson]

DP:

I find that Vogelian "only" absolutely fascinating.

HP:

I find your preoccupation with creating neologisms that include the name Vogel fascinating.

Oooohh. Cutesy-poo belligerence! Right off the block!

I'm glad I'm shortly going to be away from my computer for a week and a half.

Let's see. The fact that he says "not my natural." I don't see anything like "my natural eyes having been accustomed to the the presence of God by the aid of spiritual eyes."

Nor do I. But, of course, that isn't what I was suggesting. I'm not even exactly sure what it would mean.

"Not my natural" suggests the exclusion of the natural, and the reasons for the exclusion are given: "for my natural eyes could not have beheld."

I disagree. When Doctrine and Covenants 29:35 says of God's commandments that they are "not natural nor temporal, neither carnal nor sensual," but "spiritual," it isn't announcing a Mormon antinomianism that somehow separates righteousness from the physical body and the empirical world. The commandments certainly have implications for the physical world, but they are more than that. Not less.

When Doctrine and Covenants 67:10-12 promises that those who are humble and virtuous will someday see God and know that he exists, "not with the carnal neither natural mind, but with the spiritual," this surely doesn't mean that a man's normal natural mind will have no thoughts on the subject. It merely means that the unaided natural mind cannot reach behind the veil alluded to previously in the verse. "For no man has seen God at any time in the flesh" -- never? -- "except quickened by the Spirit of God." When so quickened, the text seems to be clearly saying, men may indeed see God in the flesh. Just like Moses. Without that quickening, however, the natural man cannot endure the presence of God (verse 11, just as in Moses 1).

When Doctrine and Covenants 88:26-28 says of those who will inherit the celestial kingdom that, "notwithstanding they die, they shall also rise again, a spiritual body," it pointedly stresses that they "shall receive the same body which was a natural body" -- a body that will be "quickened" by "glory" (very likely as in Moses 1, which refers repeatedly to Moses' enhanced capacity to perceive and endure the presence of God -- which it calls a "transfiguration" -- because God's "glory" was upon him) and, most probably (on the analogy of the earth's "sanctification" and "quickening" in 88:26), by "power."

"Not my natural" suggests the transformation, the "transfiguration," of the "natural," not its "exclusion."

I find no compelling reason to read the statement as you seem to be proposing. But, I will let you propose your own reading for yourself and then come up with compelling reasons why we should buy into it.

There is nothing -- nothing -- in Moses 1 to suggest that Moses's perception of God is reduced, metaphorical, second-best, less real, or in any way inferior to ordinary physical sight. Rather, it is much, much more.

[Moksha]

So what is wrong with seeing the plates with "Spiritual Eyes"?

[grego]

yeah, don't you see? spiritual eyes mean that moses' spirit left his body the last 40 yards and meandered up to see God. which, of course, means that his spirit was hypnotized. wait--you need a brain to be hypnotized...um, what i mean is, he saw it with his brain ("spiritual") eyes, as he remote viewed God! Not with his physical eyes, but still having a brain so as to be able to be hypnotized--Beat that!!

so, since eight men didn't get a notary public (!) to "authenticate it all", it NEVER happened? and of course they were completely ignorant of that document, never sticking around after it, and never seeing it in the bom, etc., right?