The Testimony of the Eight Witnesses

[why me]

Sometimes people point out that of the witnesses, some were related. But I know I wouldn't falsely testify for my brother or uncle, or even my best friend (and friends are probably more likey to be pawns of conspiracy than family members, I think). You also have to find out what interests, if any, the witnesses might have had, financially or otherwise.

It's not a matter of just eight witnesses, or three. Joseph had witnesses to every major event. The restoration of the priesthood, the three degrees of glory, the restoration of various and sundry keys -- even the Kirtland temple dedication, where many recorded in their journals that they saw angels and other magnificent sights. None of which PROVE anything beyong question. But witnesses are something that true prophets seem to have, whether it be Moses, where 70 elders saw God and several million saw the fire and smoke on the mountain; Jesus, who was seen by Peter, James and John during the transfiguration on the mount, etc.

How many witnesses did Muhammad have? How many did Ellen G. White have? To think that entire religions would be based on just one witness is, to me, astounding. Even the revelation on priesthood in 1978 had the entire Qof12 as witnesses. President Kimball could have easily said he had a revelation and who in the heirarchy of the church would have opposed him? None. In other words, even when no witnesses are needed, there are many times witnesses because that's the way the Lord works. Critics may say they're not impressed, but I'm impressed, and that's all that matters to me. In this day and age when you can get that many people saying they heard an actual voice and felt powerfully the Spirit of God -- that's pretty remarkable.

Cold Steel

True, so true cold steel but you see the mormons who left the church cannot see this point...no they can't. By seeing your point, they need to do a rethink about why they left the church in the first place. And that is a HUGE reversal to make.

I can hear the naysayers...froggie says that she is searching for truth...no not really...froggie is searching for validation that she has made the correct decision and so have many others. But likewise so are we all.

For a mormon turned critic, ones needs to have an arsenal of contradictory 'evidence' and one must also attempt to block out all 'evidence' to the contrary.

If not, the whole perfect photo begins to burn in the fire and become common ash. We have eleven witnesses and more witnesses for the restoration of the priesthood. But this does not matter. For the critic needs to find imperfections in character...which by the way...is completely possible...for who after all, is perfect!

Do you believe in universal truth? It might appear by your statement, that all people search for validation rather than truth, that you do not feel universal truth is a thing that can be known - or is a thing that is typically not sought after.

Just curious.

Big green hugs,

Froggie

I think that it depends on the tone of the post. You do seem to make sweeping genealizations about the church. I haven't found those generalizations to be the case in my own situation. But perhaps they are your experiences.

But I do feel that in a way we are all searching for some sort of validation. But for an lds person, validation can be difficult to come by on the fair boards. Every conept is challenged and put through the ringer by a critic. But for the critic I have this feeling that the post is just that: a way to validate his or her belief system. And this is why the critique is so strong and at times very speculative as fact.

I can ask the question: what is truth? But that question was also put to Christ. I guess the answer to that question is that truth is found in faith, (in that something which makes us click as humans.)...whatever kind of faith that such truth is found in.

Thanks Hyrum for the clarification. Your points are well taken and I apologize for my comments.

You see, I sort of feel a little hemmed in at times and when I do I have such a reaction as I gave you previously. There is this intense desire in me that when someone posts something that is faith promoting, we all would gather around the post and say: Yea, that's right...wow...I feel good about that. The church is okay!'

I don't think that I am alone in this desire. On the fellowship thread Ekim posted a wonderful testimony and many read it and felt good inside about it. But of course it was on the fellowship thread. I would like to have more feel good posts but...such is life at times.

Thanks for your response!

[BigJ]

Martin Harris:

I never saw the golden plates, only in a visionary or entranced state. I wrote a great deal of the Book of Mormon myself, as Joseph Smith translated or spelled the words out in English. Sometimes the plates would be on a table in the room in which Smith did the translating, covered over with a cloth. I was told by Smith that God would strike him dead if he attempted to look at them, and I believed it. When the time came for the three witnesses to see the plates, Joseph Smith, myself, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery, went into the woods to pray. When they had engaged in prayer, they failed at the time to see the plates or the angel who should have been on hand to exhibit them. They all believed it was because I was not good enough, or in other words, not sufficiently sanctified. I withdrew. As soon as I had gone away, the three others saw the angel and the plates. In about three days I went into the woods to pray that I might see the plates. While praying I passed into a state of entrancement, and in that state I saw the angel and the plates. (Anthony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast, n.d., microfilm copy, p. 70-71.) [1]

Frog

Plates only see with spiritual eyes, covered with a cloth the majority of tihe time. These witnesses would be laughed out of any courtroom.

[BigJ]

Do you have any reason why I should suspect Metcalf is making the whole thing up?

"Metcalf is making the whole thing up" and "Metcalf is inerrant" aren't the only two alternatives.

It's very possible that Metcalf misheard or misunderstood something that Martin Harris actually said.

It's also very possible that Metcalf heard and recorded everything correctly. Do you consider this option?

[Analytics]

Thank you to everybody who has responded so far. In the interest of time and space, I

[Daniel Peterson]

Do you have any reason why I should suspect Metcalf is making the whole thing up?

"Metcalf is making the whole thing up" and "Metcalf is inerrant" aren't the only two alternatives.

It's very possible that Metcalf misheard or misunderstood something that Martin Harris actually said.

It's also very possible that Metcalf heard and recorded everything correctly. Do you consider this option?

Yes. In the light of the totality of the evidence, I consider it extremely unlikely.

Plates only see with spiritual eyes, covered with a cloth the majority of tihe time. These witnesses would be laughed out of any courtroom.

If that were all that their testimonies really amounted to, yes, they would. But that is precisely the point at issue.

Richard Anderson's article in the current FARMS Journal of Book of Mormon Studies critiques attempts to reduce the Witnesses' experiences to mere subjective hallucination.

[flavo]

There testimony probably wouldn't stand up in court especially when they denied the testimony they gave. Wait a minute, they didn't deny there testimony, even after a few were excommunicated (kicked out) of the church. They were not giving testimony as a witness to a crime, nor were they under the scrutinany of there testimony being comb over for coinside with one another.

I also don't think they signed at gunpoint. Even if Joseph Smith wrote the testimonies, they still didn't have to sign them. I've been asked to sign affidavits but wouldn't sign it because I didn't agree with it. Joseph Smith was following the pattern for witnesses:

Matt. 18: 16

16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

2 Cor. 13: 1

1 This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.

[Froggie]

Do you have any reason why I should suspect Metcalf is making the whole thing up?

"Metcalf is making the whole thing up" and "Metcalf is inerrant" aren't the only two alternatives.

It's very possible that Metcalf misheard or misunderstood something that Martin Harris actually said.

It's also very possible that Metcalf heard and recorded everything correctly. Do you consider this option?

Yes. In the light of the totality of the evidence, I consider it extremely unlikely.

Plates only see with spiritual eyes, covered with a cloth the majority of tihe time. These witnesses would be laughed out of any courtroom.

If that were all that their testimonies really amounted to, yes, they would. But that is precisely the point at issue.

Richard Anderson's article in the current FARMS Journal of Book of Mormon Studies critiques attempts to reduce the Witnesses' experiences to mere subjective hallucination.

I am afraid I'm more blonde today than normal. You tell me Professor Anderson, a historian and lawyer, is so impressed by the testimony of the BofM witnesses that he has reduced it to subjective hallucination?

What did I miss?

Big green hugs,

Froggie

[Bob Crockett]

Don Bradley wrote:  These thoughts that I posted on the 3rd seem relevant to the issue of the merit of the Testimony of Eight Witnesses as legal evidence:

...the firsthand statements of the Eight Witnesses are uniform to the level of phrasing and lack further detail beyond their signed statement.

Uniform as to phrasing? Uhh-- they all signed one document. But, when you look at their individual statements set forth elsewhere, they shed more light. Uniform phraseology is not a basis for excluding legal evidence.

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.

This is silly -- they signed one document. This is not "uniform phrasing." I guess the Declaration of Independence should be tossed in the garbage can because of "uniform phrasing." Do you think King George said: "Oh. More than one person signed a single document. I can thus disregard it because it is 'uniform.'"

[Daniel Peterson]

Richard Anderson's article in the current FARMS Journal of Book of Mormon Studies critiques attempts to reduce the Witnesses' experiences to mere subjective hallucination.

I am afraid I'm more blonde today than normal. You tell me Professor Anderson, a historian and lawyer, is so impressed by the testimony of the BofM witnesses that he has reduced it to subjective hallucination?

What did I miss?

You missed my statement that Richard Anderson's article in the current FARMS Journal of Book of Mormon Studies critiques attempts to reduce the Witnesses' experiences to mere subjective hallucination.

There is help available. Clairol, I think, is a reputable pharmaceutical brand name for conditions such as this. (For reasons that will be obvious to those who know me, I don't keep very current on hair care products.)

[DonBradley]

RC Rocket,

You claim that the individual firsthand statements of the Eight Witnesses add something to their collective published testimony, and you imply that they are not uniform in both content and phrasing. Could you produce even one firsthand statement by any of the Eight Witnesses that does not repeat the "seen and handled" formula and that provides any detail about their experience not included in the published Testimony?

Don Bradley

[Bob Crockett]

Mortimer: A reading of the compilation of David Whitmer's interviews shows an unshakable witness. That many of these witnesses left the Church, never recanting, is even greater evidence of the quality of their testimony. That many of these witnesses left the Church, never recanting, is even greater evidence of the quality of their testimony. The supportive testimony of an adversary is among the strongest classes of evidence.

A: Didn

[Bob Crockett]

RC Rocket,

You claim that the individual firsthand statements of the Eight Witnesses add something to their collective published testimony, and you imply that they are not uniform in both content and phrasing. Could you produce even one firsthand statement by any of the Eight Witnesses that does not repeat the "seen and handled" formula and that provides any detail about their experience not included in the published Testimony?

Don Bradley

I can easily do that with the Three Witnesses. When they spoke, their details were not formulaic.

As to the eight, there are several eyewitness accounts of the things the Eight said.

For example, Daniel Tyler reported in 1832 that Samuel Smith said that "he had handled them and seen the engravings thereon." Anderson reports these supplemental statements in Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Deseret Book 1981).

Do you, or do you not, concede the point that a statement is not formulaic (and thus, disbelievable) merely because it is contained in a jointly authored work? I think you are very confused. The Hurlburt/Howe affidavits against Joseph Smith are "formulaic" because they are separate documents containing all the same words.

[DonBradley]

Now, Bradley has condemned the "formulaic" statement of the witnesses, but this above statement is not formulaic.

If you can't read the statement by one of your contemporaries well enough to recognize that it refers explicitly and exclusively to uniform phrasing among the testimonies of the *Eight* Witnesses, how are you supposed to be able to understand the statements of the witnesses themselves?

Don Bradley

[DonBradley]

Do you, or do you not, concede the point that a statement is not formulaic (and thus, disbelievable) merely because it is contained in a jointly authored work?

Again, your reading comprehension skills leave much to be desired; but, then, I guess you didn't call yourself RCRocketScientist.

That they signed the same statement is not at all what I was referring to in saying that their *individual* statements are uniform to the level of phrasing.

Don Bradley

[Bob Crockett]

Do you, or do you not, concede the point that a statement is not formulaic (and thus, disbelievable) merely because it is contained in a jointly authored work?

Again, your reading comprehension skills leave much to be desired; but, then, I guess you didn't call yourself RCRocketScientist.

That they signed the same statement is not at all what I was referring to in saying that their *individual* statements are uniform to the level of phrasing.

Don Bradley

Thanks for the compliment.

So how does eight signing one document make it ipso facto suspect as "formulaic" [your words] and thus worthy of special investigation? But, I repeat myself.

rcrocket

[DonBradley]

To clear up confusion, I'll add...

When interviewed by Tiffany's Monthly in the 1850s, Martin Harris refused to offer detail about his experience as one of the Three Witnesses, citing D&C 5's prohibition on saying more than he had been told. However, Harris' perception that this was an absolute prohibition apparently waned with time, as he later did offer such detail. David Whitmer was similarly open in his interviews, most of which occurred about a half century after the revelatory prohibition was imposed.

But whether they stuck by the letter of D&C 5 or not, the fact is that this revelation told Martin Harris, as an anticipated member of the group of Three Witnesses, that he was to employ only specified words in describing his experience and not go beyond these words. If the same were the case with the Eight Witnesses, as seems likely given D&C 5, it would explain the uniformity of their individual testimonies.

Don Bradley

[DonBradley]

Do you, or do you not, concede the point that a statement is not formulaic (and thus, disbelievable) merely because it is contained in a jointly authored work?

Again, your reading comprehension skills leave much to be desired; but, then, I guess you didn't call yourself RCRocketScientist.

That they signed the same statement is not at all what I was referring to in saying that their *individual* statements are uniform to the level of phrasing.

Don Bradley

Thanks for the compliment.

So how does eight signing one document make it ipso facto suspect as "formulaic" [your words] and thus worthy of special investigation? But, I repeat myself.

rcrocket

You repeat yourself, indeed, and repeat your error.

What I've stated multiple times is that the individual statements of the Eight Witnesses - their statements besides the signed Testimony of Eight Witnesses - are uniform and merely echo the Testimony. [edited]

Don Bradley

[Analytics]

...You're too dismissive of Mort here.

Because David Whitmer says "I am sure that Joseph Smith apostacized," (a really subjective analysis) you can disregard any objective statement he has ever made ("I am sure I saw the plates").

The interview Whitmer gave a cynical reporter from the Kansas City Journal can't be discounted so easily....

As to the Gospel witnesses, the Gospels purport to be first-person accounts. Whether the first autograph of the Gospels was penned by the witness is a question nobody can answer. Nobody has a the first autograph. However, we have the first autograph of the Three and Eight Witnesses.

rcrocket

Thanks for quoting that Kansas City article; good reference.

And thank you for throwing more evidence into the ring rather than merely dismissing me as an anti who refuses to respond to Richard L. Anderson.

Regarding the gospels, I disagree that they claim to be first-person accounts of what happened in Jesus' life. For example, Matthew, Mark, and Luke each tell the story of Gethsemane where Jesus goes to Gethsemane with the disciples, then goes further with only Peter, James and John, and then goes even further alone. They each tell what Jesus said alone in that prayer.

John doesn

[Bob Crockett]

Regarding the gospels, I disagree that they claim to be first-person accounts of what happened in Jesus' life. 

The opening statements of Luke claims it to be a personal first hand account. Merely because at times he tells the story of events where he wasn't (such as the birth of Christ) does not make the entire work suspect.

Now, whether Luke is indeed the work of Luke is another matter which I am not prepared to answer nor feel is significant.

rcrocket

[Confidential Informant]

If you still can't "get" what I'm saying or follow the argument in my initial post, there's nothing else I can do to help you, except suggest schooling.

Don Bradley

So Don, who whizzed in your cherrios this morning? What's with all the rude behavior and snarky comments?

C.I.

[Jaybear]

Is there anything in this quote:

Joseph and Oliver and I were sitting on a log when we were overshadowed by a light more glorious than that of the sun. In the midst of this light, but a few feet from us, appeared a table upon which there were many golden plates, also the sword of Laban and the directors. I saw them as plain as I see you now, and distinctly heard the voice of the Lord declaiming that the records of the plates of the Book of Mormon were translated by the gift and power of God."

Which is inconsistent with this one:

When the time came for the three witnesses to see the plates, Joseph Smith, myself, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery, went into the woods to pray. When they had engaged in prayer, they failed at the time to see the plates or the angel who should have been on hand to exhibit them. They all believed it was because I was not good enough, or in other words, not sufficiently sanctified. I withdrew. As soon as I had gone away, the three others saw the angel and the plates. In about three days I went into the woods to pray that I might see the plates. While praying I passed into a state of entrancement, and in that state I saw the angel and the plates.

They do seem to dovetail nicely. The latter one, of course, suggest to the critic that Whitmer and oliver were in on the scam.

[Froggie]

Richard Anderson's article in the current FARMS Journal of Book of Mormon Studies critiques attempts to reduce the Witnesses' experiences to mere subjective hallucination.

I am afraid I'm more blonde today than normal. You tell me Professor Anderson, a historian and lawyer, is so impressed by the testimony of the BofM witnesses that he has reduced it to subjective hallucination?

What did I miss?

You missed my statement that Richard Anderson's article in the current FARMS Journal of Book of Mormon Studies critiques attempts to reduce the Witnesses' experiences to mere subjective hallucination.

There is help available. Clairol, I think, is a reputable pharmaceutical brand name for conditions such as this. (For reasons that will be obvious to those who know me, I don't keep very current on hair care products.)

ROTFL. And here I was thinking I was the victim of subjective hallucination.

Big green hugs,

Froggie

[Confidential Informant]

A scam the mechanics of which are never quite explained by the critics.

C.I.

[Jaybear]

A scam the mechanics of which are never quite explained by the critics.

C.I.

Your point?

[Confidential Informant]

That I'm not a big fan of implied conspiracies that incorporated dozens of peoples over a long period of time but without a single explanation of how the conspiracy worked, what mechanisms it employed, how extensive it was, and what the ultimate purpose of it was.

Such conspiracies are nearly impossible to start and completely impossible to maintain.

C.I.