Ann Taves: The "materialization" Of The Golden Plates

[Tacenda]

Bernard, you-know-who has already posited that JSJr, jack-of-all-trades that he was, saved up his money, bought scrap tin, melted the tin down at the local forge/foundry, and hammered out paper-thin plates, which he then, somehow, made to look like gold.

 

USU "I don't think he had the resources, either" 78

Shawn McCraney talked on a show once how he thought JS made the plates in a metal shop on his family's property.  But I know that some think he's off his rocker, now even his fellow non LDS Christians are mad at him for thinking the Saviour has already returned.   

[Jeanne]

Okay..okay..Please don't as for CFR as this is the reason I am asking!  In my studies years ago, I came across paragraphs that stated that Joseph would ask: "What do you see?"  The witnesses then repeated what others had seen.  It is definitely okay to tell me I am wrong.

[USU78]

Okay..okay..Please don't as for CFR as this is the reason I am asking!  In my studies years ago, I came across paragraphs that stated that Joseph would ask: "What do you see?"  The witnesses then repeated what others had seen.  It is definitely okay to tell me I am wrong.

 

That was concerning "The Vision," section 76 of the D&C . . . JSJr and poor old Elder Rigdon.

[why me]

Could you be more specific in how they handled them and did the majority not even see them, only feel or lift them? Also, why aren't the signatures of the 8 witnesses their own? They are all signed by one person.

John Whitmer testified that he turned the plates over while handling them. He was pretty clear about it.

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700218869/John-Whitmer-left-church-but-kept-testimony-of-Book-of-Mormon.html?pg=all

 

And Hiram Paige's testimony:

 

http://scottwoodward.org/churchhistory_page_hiram_testimony.html

 

And jacob whitmer:

 

"My father (Jacob Whitmer) was always faithful and true to his testimony in regard to the Book of Mormon, and confirmed it on his deathbed."

If I were about to die, and I was about to go meet God, the last thing I would want is to keep a lie going. I would want to clear my conscience as fast as I could. He had every opportunity and every reason to do it. He had nothing to gain by keeping the story going, and nothing to lose by going public with a recantation of his testimony. The fact is that he never recanted, even on his death bed, because he knew what he had witnessed and signed his name too was true. And here's the kicker, Jacob Whitmer has an image of an open Book of Mormon etched into his headstone. On the back is an inscription that reads "Jacob was one of the eight witnesses of the Book of Mormon". Jacob's testimony is literally etched in stone.

 

http://www.moroni10.com/witnesses/Jacob_Whitmer.html

 

I think that this is all pretty powerful stuff.

[Avatar4321]

Let's say this is accurate about the plates. What about the Sword of Laban? The Liahona? The Urim and Thumim.

 

It seems like we are completely ignoring the fact that the plates were not the only artifacts that Joseph found. Nor the only ones that the witnesses saw.

[MormonFreeThinker]

Interesting. I recall seeing where Jan Shipps, also non-LDS, suggested Joseph may have found an actual Indian artifact, even though Shipps doesn't appear to believe that there were ancient Nephites.

 

Don

 

There is another secular theory that some non-LDS believe, the theory that space aliens (not heavenly messengers) visited Joseph Smith. The theory is problematic because there is no evidence that space aliens have visited our planet. 

[MormonFreeThinker]

DonBradley, 

 

I think that the secular theories are problematic because 

 

1. No Book of Mormon witness had visions of angels or objects after leaving the church. Imagination happens all the time, but the plates and Moroni experience only happened once, in one period. 

 

2. No Book of Mormon witness was ever skeptical of the experience, John Whitmer was once skeptical about the Book of Mormon, but not about the existence of the Golden Plates. 

 

Can you please confirm my two points? Is there any evidence that Book of Mormon witnesses saw angels after they left the church? 

 

Thanks 

Edited September 16, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[Hillel2]

There is another secular theory that some non-LDS believe, the theory that space aliens (not heavenly messengers) visited Joseph Smith. The theory is problematic because there is no evidence that space aliens have visited our planet.

[Hillel2]

I have no desire to derail an interesting topic but per your comment on alien life you might google nano-spirals if the topic is unfamiliar. Could be (finally) evidence for alien visitations ... Or time travellers, or pre-human civilization.

[cinepro]

I think there may be some difficulties for Taves in the details. For instance, the stone box, as mentioned by Tacenda, could present real problems for Taves's theory. Or perhaps it only requires greater elaboration on Taves's part. An objection to a theory is only fatal if the theory can't find a good way to accommodate it. And I don't know exactly how Taves would account for the stone box in her theory. Perhaps she has already worked it into her understanding. Or perhaps it would require only tweaks to her model. Or perhaps  it would undermine her model. We'll only know if she further elaborates that model. (Taves's expertise, by the way, is in the study of religious experience, such as the experiences people had during the religious revivals in Joseph Smith's day.)

 

Don

 

Considering the current state of the stone box (and the breastplate, Urim and Thummim, Sword of Laban and Liahona, all of which seem to have been rumored to be in the box as well...), I'm not sure they present a problem for anyone's theory of the plates.

[Hillel2]

Shawn McCraney talked on a show once how he thought JS made the plates in a metal shop on his family's property. But I know that some think he's off his rocker, now even his fellow non LDS Christians are mad at him for thinking the Saviour has already returned.

[Tacenda]

I'm listening to Brent Metcalf on MS.  http://mormonstories.org/brent-metcalfe-hofmann-bombings-excommunication-book-of-mormon/ It's the last one #498 and they talk specifically about his book I linked below.  Has anyone read his book or his writings? 

 

http://www.lds-mormon.com/approach.shtml  Brent Metcalf  "New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Exploration in Critical Methodology".  I assume he was ex'd for having written this particular book. 

[cinepro]

I'm listening to Brent Metcalf on MS.  http://mormonstories.org/brent-metcalfe-hofmann-bombings-excommunication-book-of-mormon/ It's the last one #498 and they talk specifically about his book I linked below.  Has anyone read his book or his writings? 

 

http://www.lds-mormon.com/approach.shtml  Brent Metcalf  "New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Exploration in Critical Methodology".  I assume he was ex'd for having written this particular book. 

 

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/periodical/review-volume-6-issue-number-1/

 

Dan Petersen's review is a good summary of the book's reception in the early 1990's.

Edited September 16, 2014 by cinepro

[Hillel2]

I think it is in Givens work on the BOM that he quotes Harris as saying Joseph Smith had not sufficient funds to buy that much metal...at that time it would have been a considerable expense.

Also, if we are desling with a secular artifact ( vs. A miraculous one) that was found or, per Taves, manufactured, why the account that it was taken back by the Angel? Presumably one would want to continue to display it as further incentive to believe. Why create something and then dispose of it. Taves' theory leads inevitably raises that question.

[DonBradley]

DonBradley, 

 

I think that the secular theories are problematic because 

 

1. No Book of Mormon witness had visions of angels or objects after leaving the church. Imagination happens all the time, but the plates and Moroni experience only happened once, in one period. 

 

2. No Book of Mormon witness was ever skeptical of the experience, John Whitmer was once skeptical about the Book of Mormon, but not about the existence of the Golden Plates. 

 

Can you please confirm my two points? Is there any evidence that Book of Mormon witnesses saw angels after they left the church? 

 

Thanks 

 

I'm not actually sure how these points are relevant to whether Taves's theory is a good secular account of the golden plates. I'm uncertain whether most of the Book of Mormon witnesses had other visionary experiences. Oliver certainly did. But I'm uncertain about the rest. Also, yes, there's the account of John Whitmer equivocating on his faith but affirming he had seen the plates. There's also Stephen Burnett's account that Martin Harris said he had seen the plates in a visionary way and that Harris also said all the witnesses had seen them in this way. Harris appears here to have been appealing to D&C 17 to suggest that this is the only way anyone, including Joseph, could see the plates. But he purportedly also had inside information that the Eight Witnesses did not actually see the plates (meaning see them uncovered?) and thus hesitated to sign the statement.

 

There's a lot of debate about all of this, but help me understand better how you see it relating to Taves' model.

 

Don

[DonBradley]

Considering the current state of the stone box (and the breastplate, Urim and Thummim, Sword of Laban and Liahona, all of which seem to have been rumored to be in the box as well...), I'm not sure they present a problem for anyone's theory of the plates.

 

Cinepro,

 

The "problem" the stone box potentially presents is in Joseph Smith's account of unearthing and opening it. It is perhaps more difficult to imagine him opening a purely visionary stone box, per his account, than it is to account for him making and sacralizing plates. This is an example of a challenge for Taves's theory.

 

Don

[DonBradley]

Also, if we are desling with a secular artifact ( vs. A miraculous one) that was found or, per Taves, manufactured, why the account that it was taken back by the Angel? Presumably one would want to continue to display it as further incentive to believe. Why create something and then dispose of it. Taves' theory leads inevitably raises that question.

 

In her paper she suggests the witnesses may have encountered the plates only while the plates were covered. To they extent that they saw them, on this theory, it would have been either seeing the covered object or seeing the golden plates in vision.

 

She doesn't think Joseph actually had purchased gold and, apparently, thinks the object Joseph made was only temporarily, or in only a spiritual way, turned into the golden plates (much as the wafer blessed by the Catholic priest doesn't become actual human body cells). And in this case keeping it around would not be helpful.

[stemelbow]

Cinepro,

 

The "problem" the stone box potentially presents is in Joseph Smith's account of unearthing and opening it. It is perhaps more difficult to imagine him opening a purely visionary stone box, per his account, than it is to account for him making and sacralizing plates. This is an example of a challenge for Taves's theory.

 

Don

I don't see the difference. It was that he opened the box and found the plates. If so, it would have to be that he had a vision of the box and plates if this be the case.

The bigger problem seems to remain to be, at least to me, is that he had an object that he claimed was found in a hill, rather than something that he made.

[Kenngo1969]

In her paper she suggests the witnesses may have encountered the plates only while the plates were covered. To they extent that they saw them, on this theory, it would have been either seeing the covered object or seeing the golden plates in vision.

 

She doesn't think Joseph actually had purchased gold and, apparently, thinks the object Joseph made was only temporarily, or in only a spiritual way, turned into the golden plates (much as the wafer blessed by the Catholic priest doesn't become actual human body cells). And in this case keeping it around would not be helpful.

This theory doesn't account for the remarkably physical experience the witnesses report having with the plates.  Seeing and hefting and leafing through, and all that.

[Kenngo1969]

Let's say this is accurate about the plates. What about the Sword of Laban? The Liahona? The Urim and Thumim.

 

It seems like we are completely ignoring the fact that the plates were not the only artifacts that Joseph found. Nor the only ones that the witnesses saw.

 

Ahem!  Somebody might've already mentioned that.

 

Not only is the Book of Mormon obsessed with its own source material (purporting to be a record abridged partly from this set of plates, and partly from that set of plates, and so on), but Joseph somehow induced delusions in other people, as well, then, thus deluding them into having interactions with people who were purportedly from the world beyond this one, as well as physical interactions (such as seeing, touching, hefting, et cetera), not only with plates, but also with other purportedly-Nephite artifacts such as the sword of Laban, the Liahona, et cetera?

 

As many questions and doubts as people might have about Joseph Smith's story and the Restoration unfolding as he (and others) said it did, it isn't long into the effort to attribute naturalistic explanations for these things that questions quickly continue to mount, leaving one with far more questions than even the original account (however unlikely that account may be) spawned.  Joseph Smith violated the cardinal rule of fraud ("KISS"): "Keep it Simple, Simpleton!"

Just sayin'!  (No prob; it's OK; great minds think alike! )

[MormonFreeThinker]

There's a lot of debate about all of this, but help me understand better how you see it relating to Taves' model.

 

I think Taves model is the best secular theory, and it challenges anti-mormon thinking, but it is not the best theory.

Taves model assumes that Joseph Smith and the Witnesses imagined the golden plates and Moroni. Imagination happens all the time, imagination theory predicts that individuals see visions (imagination) many times, but Joseph Smith did not find other golden plates, the Book of Abraham Papyri did not become golden, and the Book of Mormon witnesses probably did not see angels and golden plates after they left the church. 

 

but it is still the best secular theory 

Edited September 17, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[Jeanne]

That was concerning "The Vision," section 76 of the D&C . . . JSJr and poor old Elder Rigdon.

Thank you.  I will look that up.  I just heard it somewhere and thought it applied to the plates too.

[Buzzard]

This is why there is so little non-LDS serious research on the beginnings of the church.  A middle ground seems to be harder to tread than a knife-edge ridge.  For the faithful, the reasons for coming down on the side of it's truth are many. For some, it's the witnesses. For others, it's JS sealing his testimony knowingly and willingly with his life. (See Holland, Jeffery R)  For me, every time I have read the BOM, or even passages thereof, I become more and more convinced, that it is a book of both divine and ancient and Semitic origin.  No way, no how could JS make that book up.  Neither, for any anti's lurking about, could have Solomon Spaulding, Sidney Rigdon, Ethan Smith, or any other person alive in the 19th century. 

[USU78]

Thank you.  I will look that up.  I just heard it somewhere and thought it applied to the plates too.

 

Try this:

 

https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual/section-69-80/section-76-the-vision-of-the-degrees-of-glory?lang=eng

[wenglund]

I think Taves model is the best secular theory, and it challenges anti-mormon thinking, but it is not the best theory.

Taves model assumes that Joseph Smith and the Witnesses imagined the golden plates and Moroni. Imagination happens all the time, imagination theory predicts that individuals see visions (imagination) many times, but Joseph Smith did not find other golden plates, the Book of Abraham Papyri did not become golden, and the Book of Mormon witnesses probably did not see angels and golden plats after the left the church. 

 

but it is still the best secular theory 

 

This is an excellent point. Models regarding the origins of the Book of Mormon ought to be tested within the general context of all divine translation by Joseph Smith.

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited September 17, 2014 by wenglund