"Inspired Fiction" v. The Plates & The Witnesses

[Benjamin Seeker]

4 minutes ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

 

Double post

Edited September 30, 2017 by Benjamin Seeker

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

Joseph clearly wants his reader to picture him looking through the Interpreters as "spectacles," not thinking of JS with the interpreter rock or seerstone he dug out of a well in a hat. He purposefully composes the text for that express purpose. It's also worth noting that his intended audience, the general public, is not going to make the connection between what he describes as the Urim and Thummim and glass-looking. I think you successfully argue that he leaves himself an out, particularly understood by 19th century Mormon readers, but it's clear to me that for the more general reader he is hiding behind the image of the spectacles while the real deal is a seer stone or interpreter stone in a hat.

Honestly I don't see the difference and I don't think he did either

Were I to describe the process, realizing that what I was doing was exactly the same as the spectacle version, I might well have described it this way myself.  People were biblically familiar with revelations coming through stones both in the book of Revelation and with the Urim and Thummim.  What's the difference?

[Benjamin Seeker]

15 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Honestly I don't see the difference and I don't think he did either

Were I to describe the process, realizing that what I was doing was exactly the same as the spectacle version, I might well have described it this way myself.  People were biblically familiar with revelations coming through stones both in the book of Revelation and with the Urim and Thummim.  What's the difference?

Considering glass-looking/seer stone/peep stone use was illegal and JS had been brought to court for it, I think he understood the difference, and the closer to glass-looking his translation process was the more suspect by the public. Also, the non-technical intuitive difference is still felt today when church members are surprised and sometimes disenchanted when they find out JS wasn't looking at the plates through the Urim and Thummim but instead was dictating from his hat with the plates sometimes not even in the room. 

[Glenn101]

4 hours ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

Considering glass-looking/seer stone/peep stone use was illegal and JS had been brought to court for it, I think he understood the difference

CFR please. Joseph was not arrested for using a peep stone or the like. He was arrested on the charge of being a disorderly person. According to the "A New Conductor Generalis"  of 1819 one could be arrested for being a disorderly person for any of several reasons. One of the was "All who pretend to have skill in physiognomy, palmistry, or like crafty science, or pretend to tell fortunes, or to discover where lost goods may be found ;" Josiah Stowell testified that "he positively knew that the prisoner could tell, and did possess the art of seeing those valuable treasures through the medium of said stone;" (From the Fraser’s Magazine (London), for February of 1873, (New Series, Vol. 7), p. 225)

It was not the actual use of any such stone, it was the use of it pretending to be able to do something was the illegal part.

Glenn

[Benjamin Seeker]

30 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

CFR please. Joseph was not arrested for using a peep stone or the like. He was arrested on the charge of being a disorderly person. According to the "A New Conductor Generalis"  of 1819 one could be arrested for being a disorderly person for any of several reasons. One of the was "All who pretend to have skill in physiognomy, palmistry, or like crafty science, or pretend to tell fortunes, or to discover where lost goods may be found ;" Josiah Stowell testified that "he positively knew that the prisoner could tell, and did possess the art of seeing those valuable treasures through the medium of said stone;" (From the Fraser’s Magazine (London), for February of 1873, (New Series, Vol. 7), p. 225)

It was not the actual use of any such stone, it was the use of it pretending to be able to do something was the illegal part.

Glenn

I of course am referring to this case. CFR that to "pretend" in this law doesn't represent all such activities.

[Glenn101]

6 minutes ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

I of course am referring to this case. CFR that to "pretend" in this law doesn't represent all such activities.

I was not clear on the CFR. I should have asked for a CFR that "glass-looking/seer stone/peep stone use was illegal." And I guess I answered my own CFR. Oh well.

Glenn

[clarkgoble]

4 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

I was not clear on the CFR. I should have asked for a CFR that "glass-looking/seer stone/peep stone use was illegal." And I guess I answered my own CFR. Oh well.

It's worth noting that dowsing and many related aspects of folk magic persisted, especially in rural areas, for the next century and a half. It's not hard to find dowsers even today. So the issue is largely whether one could do something. The charge was brought by Sowell's sons apparently which is why Stowell's testimony about examples of Joseph actually finding things was so important. It's like the dowser who sells his dowsing ability but can't find water. The assumption is that the sons were worried about Stowell becoming Mormon (which he did).

How significant this is tends to be difficult to ascertain since Stowell was convinced Joseph had the skills and apparently listed many examples of his success.

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

Considering glass-looking/seer stone/peep stone use was illegal and JS had been brought to court for it, I think he understood the difference, and the closer to glass-looking his translation process was the more suspect by the public. Also, the non-technical intuitive difference is still felt today when church members are surprised and sometimes disenchanted when they find out JS wasn't looking at the plates through the Urim and Thummim but instead was dictating from his hat with the plates sometimes not even in the room. 

I can't dispute that but on the other hand I am continually amazed and the Mormon insistence of distinguishing beliefs which have no difference in practical terms.   Humanism  seeks for the human race becoming Ideal, preaches the goodness of mankind and that man created god when, to me, that is true.  Just add a few capital letters and everything changes, yet Mormons do not see that the Father of the Man of Holiness created his son, Eloheim and Eloheim is God, who was the Ideal Human.  One would think that was compatible with a theistic humanism-- but no of course.  We do not like socialism, yet a Zion society is a goal.  The perfection of humans should be a goal as long as you don't call it "Humanism" but call it "Exaltation" instead.  We must follow authority as long as we each approve of it with our own testimony.

As a people we are awfully wedded- still - the sectarian logic.  We preach that now we see through a glass darkly and live by faith, while many insist on infallible prophets and what they think are clear and dogmatic pronouncements of unchangeable truth, all the while having an open Canon and insisting also, as in Elder Eyrings talk this evening, on very human and fallible prophets.

Eventually we will get consistent, I am certain.  We are finally on that road with the essays for example, but as you point out calling a stones a U&T and each person receiving one is fine as long as it is not called a seerstone or "glass-looking"

To me, it is a mass of confusion, if you catch my drift.   We are so busy insisting we are "Christians" that we still want secretly to be Protestants so we get to sit at the cool kids table.

It's wacko, to use a philosophical technical term

 

Edited October 1, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

41 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

It's worth noting that dowsing and many related aspects of folk magic persisted, especially in rural areas, for the next century and a half. It's not hard to find dowsers even today. So the issue is largely whether one could do something. The charge was brought by Sowell's sons apparently which is why Stowell's testimony about examples of Joseph actually finding things was so important. It's like the dowser who sells his dowsing ability but can't find water. The assumption is that the sons were worried about Stowell becoming Mormon (which he did).

How significant this is tends to be difficult to ascertain since Stowell was convinced Joseph had the skills and apparently listed many examples of his success.

I grew up in Western New York in the '50's and there were dowsers in the phone book- it had it's own category.   I saw one myself find a place for a well and the people marveled!  Of course the fact that the drilling site was within 200 feet of a river never occurred to anyone I guess.

[clarkgoble]

10 hours ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

Joseph clearly wants his reader to picture him looking through the Interpreters as "spectacles," not thinking of JS with the interpreter rock or seerstone he dug out of a well in a hat. 

I think Joseph wants to avoid the disrepute that his stones have by emphasizing more important sounding stones. In both cases they're just stones though. The hat is irrelevant since it was just to keep the light off the stone so he could see the writing. According to some accounts he had to do that with the Nephite spectacles as well. So I find emphasizing the hat to be a misleading element at best. But I fully agree, and have from the beginning of our discussion, that Joseph wants to deemphasize the elements that aren't as socially acceptable. 

But again even acknowledging that the shift to "urim and thummin" may be a PR move, the reality is that both objects are basically the same thing. Even in the text of the Book of Mormon we read of  many stones with magical properties. The stones of the brother of Jared that make light. Mosiah's translators are called stones (Mos 28:13) It's worth noting that a seer in that chapter is someone who can translate with special stones. No other terminology is used. It's almost as if the stones were seer stones. Admittedly in Mosiah 8 they are called interpreters. 

 

17 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

I think that skeptics can state for the record that they don't accept angels, but if they're going to go on discussing with Mormons after that, they ought to allow the possibility of angels for the sake of argument—because otherwise there is no point in arguing. By the same token I think that Mormons can testify to their belief that Smith was a prophet, but if they're going to keep trying to argue with skeptics, they should accept fraud as a possibility in principle.

This seems exactly right.

 

17 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

I see a lot of funny things about the golden plates story, and the fraud theory tells me that they would have to be pretty much like that, while the angel theory seems to say only that they could be like that. To me that's good grounds for preferring the fraud theory.

I wouldn't go quite that far. I think history could have gone quite differently. I personally think that Joseph was often the cause of his own problems. For all his strengths I think he had some glaring weaknesses that included a certain naivete about people - we saw that in Kirtland and in Nauvoo. It's hardly surprising we see it here when he is far less mature.

Again though to me the most interesting accounts are those that seem accidental to the aims of the person making them. That's why Stowell's comments among others are so interesting. Those who have clear aims with their statements and the statements line up with those aims are far less significant precisely because of those aims. If Joseph is a fraud we'd expect him to answer fraudulently. If many of his critics are acting fraudulently (as was common against disreputable types - the ends justify the means) then we expect them to act fraudulently. Since we're more or less battling between fraudulent accounts it makes those accounts far less valuable for the discussion at hand.

23 hours ago, Calm said:

"So you're arguing that witnesses would make cagey statements because they were afraid of being persecuted if they were too forthright?"

I got the impression Clark was focusing on "antagonistic witnesses" as being untrustworthy, willing to lie so just because they are in court that is not sufficient reason to accept their statements.  I may not have followed the conversation correctly though.

I certainly am saying we can't take them at face value - either those pro or anti Mormon. Precisely because of the antagonism. It's more disinterested people who are most valuable. Now that does undermine Stowell a bit, since clearly he believes Joseph. Yet he's also not the fervent believer some are nor does he have direct involvement in the "supernatural" events. What he sees, he appears to see incidentally. 

On 9/29/2017 at 10:37 PM, Physics Guy said:

Why did the witnesses know the plates would never be allowed in open court?

And if they knew they were to be the only witnesses of the plates' reality, surely that would be all the more reason to commit as many details as possible to paper. Everyone loves being the one person in the know, with everyone else hanging on their words. Imagine being one of the few people ever who could tell the world that the golden plates were cold to the touch and as thick as three layers of newsprint, with sharp edges and quarter-inch glyphs filling up each whole page—or whatever it was. That's glory! Who would slip quietly away from glory, with their hat pulled down over their eyes, the way all these witnesses seem to have done?

Which trial are we talking about? Presumably the witnesses knew the angel had control of the plates. If the trial was the 1826 one (although most historians note it wasn't really a trial given it was at best a misdemeanor and appears to just be a hearing) the translation hadn't even started yet.

If you're suggesting a different trial during the translation process - that would presumably be the two trials of 1830. He was rearrested and tried elsewhere when he was acquitted getting to my point about using the law as harrassment against ) That was June 30th for the first arrest. That's after the completion of the translation and after the angel showed the plates to the three witnesses. While there's some dispute over how the 8 witnesses saw the plates, overall it would appear than by the end of June everyone knew Joseph no longer hand the plates.

I looked up what I had available from Vogel (I don't have his original Witnesses article) and he doesn't mention anything indicating a link between the trial and the possibility of why Harris and Cowdery didn't see the physical plates. That's not to say no one has made such an argument but I couldn't find anything looking. The simplest explanation is just that everyone knew the plates were already gone by the time of the 1830 trials.

 

Edited October 1, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Honestly I don't see the difference and I don't think he did either

Were I to describe the process, realizing that what I was doing was exactly the same as the spectacle version, I might well have described it this way myself.  People were biblically familiar with revelations coming through stones both in the book of Revelation and with the Urim and Thummim.  What's the difference?

It's worth noting (and here I'll bring something up the critics typically haven't) that in Swedenborg's well known writings the Urim and Thummim communicated by flashing light. 

"The answers from the Lord given in the Urim and Thummim' were flashes of light according to the state of whatever was in question based in order. All the light of heaven varies according to the states of a thing, and these states vary according to the order of good and truth." (Arcana Coelestia 3862)

"'The Urim and Thummim on Aaron's ephod' mean the goods and truths of the Word in the sense of its letter. 'Urim and Thummim' signifies the brilliance of divine truth derived from divine good in the final or extremes. 'Urim' is shining fire and 'Thummim' is brilliance both in Hebrew and the angelic language." (Vera Christiana Religio 218)

"Responses were given by the changes of light, accompanied by unspoken perception or an audible voice." (Doctrina Nova Hierosolyma de Scriptura Sacra 41)

The origin of the spectacles isn't clear, but it's likely the stones are two of the stones touched by God and that is quite similar to the Swedenborg description of the Urim and Thummim. Swedenborg didn't use anything akin to scrying though - so the parallels for Joseph weren't exact. Of course this is purely speculative. Just interesting. (And of course Swedenborg isn't the only source for ideas about light and rocks)

[Rajah Manchou]

17 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

The origin of the spectacles isn't clear, but it's likely the stones are two of the stones touched by God and that is quite similar to the Swedenborg description of the Urim and Thummim. Swedenborg didn't use anything akin to scrying though - so the parallels for Joseph weren't exact. Of course this is purely speculative. Just interesting. (And of course Swedenborg isn't the only source for ideas about light and rocks)

The objects and oracles used hardly mattered to Swedenborg. Urim and Thummim was light and understanding direct to the rational mind:

"In olden times He answered by visions and signs and oracles, and this only occasionally. But now He answers directly to the rational mind, out of the Word, which is His constant presence with us. Let us ever go to Him, and if our desire in consulting His sacred pages, be good, He will answer with heavenly light in our understanding - our Urim and Thummim."
 

[smac97]

18 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

I'll let Clark clarify what he meant, but your interpretation is at least a point on which our discussion has touched, perhaps without enough emphasis. Both the Mormon and skeptical theories have coherent reasons for discounting some recorded statements. It's not reasonable for either side to ride a high horse over strict respect for documentary evidence, as if we were talking about some mundane historical issue instead of something that is either fraud or miracle.

I started this thread to address one of the key problems with the "Inspired Fiction" theory, namely, that its proponents are advancing the notion that the Book of Mormon is both a "fraud" and a "miracle."

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If one rules out either one of those theories in advance, then there's nothing to discuss; if either one of them is taken seriously, then there's good reason to leap beyond recorded evidence. 

I don't follow.  "Leap{ing} beyond" the evidence is justified . . . why, exactly?

The text of the Book of Mormon exists.  It should be accounted for.  This is where the critics and the believers diverge.  The believers can point to an audacious origin story that is quite understandably subject to skepticism.  I am all good with that.  

And if the critics simply discount the Book of Mormon and leave it there, I'm good with that, too.  I personally feel no obligation to research and provide an answer to phenomena about which I am skeptical (UFO sightings, for example).  I just decline to accept such things and carry on with life.  

However, it seems that some critics (and, weirdly, even some Latter-day Saints) feel compelled to go beyond merely non-acceptance of LDS claims about the Book of Mormon, and to present an alternative explanation for its origins.  That, in my view, is where the critics get into trouble.

Again, the text of The Book of Mormon exists.  The LDS Church has presented an explanation as to how that text came to exist.  Just ask any missionary. 

In contrast, critics and dissidents have presented alternative explanations as to the origins of the text.  That is certainly their prerogative.  But at that point they are the ones making a claim.  They are the ones asserting that the Church's teachings about the origins of the book are factually false.  They are the ones making assertions about naturalistic or quasi-religious-but-still-rejecting-the-Church's-position explanations for The Book of Mormon.  The "Inspired Fiction" theory is an example of such countervailing explanations for the existence and content of the text, as is the Spaulding-Rigdon Theory (and other "multiple author" theories), the "Joseph Smith as the sole author" theory, the "View of the Hebrews" theory, Grant Palmer's "The Golden Pot" theory,  "The Late War" theory, and so on.

So the problem arises when critics and dissidents A) reject the LDS Church's explanation for the Book of Mormon (their prerogative, but bear with me...), B) present an alternative naturalistic (or the oh-so-weird hybrid of fraudulent and inspired) explanation, C) fail to substantiate or provide evidence for such alternative explanations, and D) complain about being mistreated when they are called on their poor reasoning, lack of evidence, etc.

I have found these countervailing theories to be very flawed in, to the extent such things exist, their reasoning, their assessment of relevant evidence, and so on.  Conjecture and evidence-free speculation predominate.  For example, some of the "Inspired Fiction" folks positively twist themselves up in knots trying to explain how Joseph Smith was a "pious fraud" who was inspired by God to write the plates, but who also fabricated a fake set of plates, who lied to or colluded with the Witnesses about presenting false testimonies about these plates, who spent the rest of his life lying about the plates and the origins of The Book of Mormon, and also about how Joseph Smith was alternatively insane or profoundly mentally ill when he did all of these things (hence the "pious fraud" moniker), and also about how all the prophets and apostles from Joseph Smith to now have either been complicit in perpetuating this massive fraud or else have been collectively and uniformly duped and deceived by it, and that God is somehow the author and instigator of this massive web of lies and deceit.

So yes, when the Church presents claims about The Book of Mormon, then the Church has duty to substantiate its position on that issue.  In this I think the Church and its members have done a rather good job of A) focusing on having "the Spirit" be the primary means of conversion, while also B) marshaling some quantum of secondary, non-dispositive "evidence" (the Witness statements about the Plates, textual evidences, Skousen's work, etc.).

Likewise, when critics and dissidents present alternative claims about The Book of Mormon, then it is their duty to substantiate their positions on that issue.  In this I think they have . . . not done very well at all.

Again, the text of The Book of Mormon exists.  It should be accounted for.  In 2004 Daniel Peterson wrote an excellent article on this issue: "'In the Hope that Something Will Stick': Changing Explanations for The Book of Mormon".  Some excerpts:

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In the “Editors’ Introduction” to their 2002 anthology American Apocrypha, Dan Vogel and Brent Metcalfe declare, “Had the Book of Mormon been what Joseph Smith said—not an allegory with spiritual import but a literal history of Hebrew immigrants to America—this should have been verified by now.”

It is a strange statement. For example, one wonders when, exactly, the deadline for verification passed. Was it in 2000? 1990? 1950?  1880? How was the date chosen? Who set it? In what would “verification” consist? Would such verification still allow for the exercise of religious faith?

Perhaps more significantly, though, one wonders why the statement could not just as easily be turned on its head: “Were the Book of Mormon false, this should have been verified by now.” One could, with at least equal justification, announce that “Had the Book of Mormon been a fraud, its critics should by now have been able to agree on an explanation as to how, why, and by whom it was created.”

The Church's position is that The Book of Mormon is a translation, through divine means, of an ancient historical text.

The critics' position is that The Book of Mormon is a fraud, that it is not a translation of an ancient historical text.  Well critics, if that's your position, then defend it.  Explain why you think it's a fraud.  And yet they have done a very poor job of this so far, IMO.

DCP's article above goes on to summarize the various countervailing theories of The Book of Mormon: Joseph Smith wrote it because he was an unlearned fool and idiot, Joseph Smith wrote it because he was, as Fawn Brodie described him, "a mythmaker of prodigious talent," Joseph Smith wrote it because he was mentally ill, a cabal of unknown conspiricists wrote it, it was based on another text, and so on.  From DCP's article:

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“Thus,” summarized Kirkham, surveying the scene in the early 1940s, “Joseph Smith is first a money digger, then an ignoramus, then a deluded fanatic, then a vile deceiver, a fraud, then an epileptic, a paranoiac, then a myth maker of prodigious talents. Finally he is not an ignoramus, he is not a deceiver, rather a person with a dissociated personality.”

Having surveyed all of these varying and conflicting counter-explanations, DCP makes a cogent point:

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{M}utually contradictory accounts {regarding the origins of The Book of Mormon} are not mutually reinforcing. Quite the contrary. They weaken each other.

Imagine a murder case in which one witness for the prosecution definitively states that he clearly saw the defendant, Mr. John Jones, who was wearing his characteristic Stetson cowboy hat, empty a sixshooter into the head of the victim, Miss Roberta Smith, at point-blank range, as she stood by the hot dog stand on the beach. A second prosecution witness declares that he saw the defendant, Mrs. Joanna Jones, striding briskly out of the twenty-seventh floor restaurant where the murder took place, with a fashionable black beret on her head. The prosecution’s forensic pathologist, meanwhile, announces his expert verdict that, from the marks on Mr. Robert Smith’s throat, the victim died of strangulation.

No reasonable person would conclude from such testimony that, with three such witnesses for the state, the guilt of the defendant had been established beyond reasonable doubt. Indeed, equipped only with evidence of that character, the prosecution wouldn’t even bother to seek an indictment and could never in its remotest fantasies dream of conviction.

Sage words, methinks.

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So it's silly for either side to pretend that it counts as a telling argument, to point out that the other side is postulating mechanisms for which no evidence exists. I think people fail to notice how this principle cuts both ways, because the two sides tend to state it differently. Mormon apologists sneer at skeptics for offering unsupported conjectures about conceivable tricks, while skeptics are apt to express the same point by saying, "An angel? Ha ha!"

Except evidence does exist for the LDS position. 

Numerous witness statements about the Plates. 

Substantial character evidence about the Witnesses.  

Circumstantial evidence as to the veracity of the Witnesses re: the Plates.  Many of them became estranged from Joseph Smith and the Church, and therefore had plenty of time and opportunity and motive to recant their testimony.  None did.

The text of the Book of Mormon is evidence.  Somebody had to write it.  Who?

And what about the textual evidences within the book?  Chiasmus (Alma 36 is rather a humdinger, IMO)?  Olive culture in Jacob 5?

And so on and so forth.  

Now, I quite understand that critics and dissidents can look at these things and find them to be insufficiently probative.  I am fine with that.  But to say these things, these evidences, don't exist at all, well . . . that just ain't right.

Moreover, there is no corollary/comparable quantum of evidence favoring the naturalistic explanations.  That's my view, anyway.  It's largely, overwhelmingly guesswork and speculation up one side and down the other.

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I think that skeptics can state for the record that they don't accept angels, but if they're going to go on discussing with Mormons after that, they ought to allow the possibility of angels for the sake of argument—because otherwise there is no point in arguing.

A fair point.

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By the same token I think that Mormons can testify to their belief that Smith was a prophet, but if they're going to keep trying to argue with skeptics, they should accept fraud as a possibility in principle.

This too is a fair point.  But then . . . Mormons do "accept fraud as a possibility in principle."  From the October 2011 General Conference (Elder Callister) (emphases added):

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Years ago my great-great-grandfather picked up a copy of the Book of Mormon for the first time. He opened it to the center and read a few pages. He then declared, “That book was either written by God or the devil, and I am going to find out who wrote it.” He read it through twice in the next 10 days and then declared, “The devil could not have written it—it must be from God.”1

That is the genius of the Book of Mormon—there is no middle ground. It is either the word of God as professed, or it is a total fraud. This book does not merely claim to be a moral treatise or theological commentary or collection of insightful writings. It claims to be the word of God—every sentence, every verse, every page. Joseph Smith declared that an angel of God directed him to gold plates, which contained the writings of prophets in ancient America, and that he translated those plates by divine powers. If that story is true, then the Book of Mormon is holy scripture, just as it professes to be; if not, it is a sophisticated but, nonetheless, diabolical hoax.

I will again note here that this thread was started to discuss the weird hybrid of the the-Book-of-Mormon-is-fraudulent-but-still-inspired-by-God theory espoused by the "Inspired Fiction" folks.

Quote

And just as accepting angels as a possibility for the sake of argument means forgoing objections of principle to inexplicable angelic miracles, so I reckon that accepting fraud as a possibility in principle means acknowledging that fraud tends to cover its tracks.

And so people affirmatively asserting fraud as an explanation are excused from any obligation to substantiate their theories?  I don't think that's right.

In the law, "fraud" is perhaps the single most difficult civil claim to present and prove in court.  I have lost count of the number of times I have successfully defeated a fraud claim without ever having gone to trial.  My conservative estimate would be well over one hundred separate cases.  Not a one of them has made it to trial.  Not one.  The explanation for this is not that I am the best attorney in the world (would that I was), but that . . . fraud claims are just really, really hard to prove up.  There are nine elements of the claim, each of which must be proved by "clear and convincing" evidence (considerably more than the "preponderance" standard of evidence that pertains to most civil claims).  I was so struck by this pattern of failed fraud claims that I wrote an article about it and had it published in the Utah Bar Journal.

Now, that is not to say that fraud does not happen.  Sure it does.  But if someone wants to assert a fraud claim in court, they need to have evidence to back it up, otherwise the claim gets tossed out on its ear.

Similarly, there is certainly room for people of education and intellect to not accept the LDS Church's explanations for the Book of Mormon.  However, to the extent these folks want to both reject the Book of Mormon and present an alternative explanation for how it came to be, well, I just haven't seen much in the way of a viable theory.  So fraud claims as to the Book of Mormon end up being difficult to prove as well.

For me, the absence of a coherent, reasonable, countervailing explanation for The Book of Mormon is quite interesting.  This was a favorite theme of Hugh Nibley (see here for some quotes).  Try as they might, critics and dissidents simply cannot formulate a coherent alternative explanation for where the text came from.  Joseph Smith could not have done it.  Conspiracy theories about Joseph Smith collaborating with unknown others don't work, either.  It is very interesting to me that we are coming up on 200 years of critical scrutiny of The Book of Mormon, and yet nobody has been able to present a coherent explanation that accounts for the existence of the text, the complexity and internal consistency of the narrative, the extremely short time period in which it was "written," the textual evidences that were simply unknown/unknowable to Joseph Smith and his fellows (Nahom/Bountiful is an excellent example of this), the reality of the Gold Plates and the testimony of the witnesses, and so on. 

Daniel Peterson addresses this phenomenon here:

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The most serious contemporary criticisms of the Book of Mormon and of Mormonism more broadly tend to come not from self-proclaimed orthodox (i.e., usually Evangelical) Christians, but from self-identified atheistic materialists or naturalists. The Utah-based historian Dale Morgan, largely forgotten today but still much admired in certain small contemporary circles, wrote a 1945 letter to the believing Latter-day Saint historian Juanita Brooks. In it, he identifies the fundamental issue with unusual candor:

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With my point of view on God, I am incapable of accepting the claims of Joseph Smith and the Mormons, be they however so convincing. If God does not exist, how can Joseph Smith’s story have any possible validity? I will look everywhere for explanations except to the ONE explanation that is the position of the church.

 

I have seen this same attitude demonstrated by people who profess membership in the Church, but who reject some of its most important doctrines of the Restored Gospel (centering principally on The Book of Mormon), and who instead have settled on . . . well, anything as long as it is not "the ONE explanation that is the position of the church."   Personally, I don't think they have any coherent countervailing theory.  I don't think they have thought their position through.  I hope they have a change of heart at some point.

A few more salient remarks by Dr. P:

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In Risen Indeed, Stephen Davis remarks that

Quote

believers point to something of an embarrassment in the position of those who do not believe in the [Page xix]resurrection: their inability to offer an acceptable alternative explanation of the known facts surrounding the resurrection of Jesus. The old nineteenth-century rationalistic explanations (hallucination, swoon theory, stolen body, wrong tomb, etc.) all seem to collapse of their own weight once spelled out, and no strong new theory has emerged as the consensus of scholars who deny that the resurrection occurred.

A similar situation obtains, in my judgment, with regard to the Book of Mormon and certain other elements of the Restoration. While, for instance, this or that aspect of the Book of Mormon can, hypothetically, be accounted for by means of something within Joseph Smith’s early nineteenth-century information environment, a fully comprehensive counterexplanation for Joseph’s claims remains promised but manifestly unprovided. Critics have disagreed over the nearly two centuries since the First Vision about whether Joseph was brilliant or stupid, whether he was sincerely hallucinating or cunningly conscious of his fraud, whether he concocted the Book of Mormon alone or with co-conspirators (their own identity either hotly debated or completely unknown), whether he was a cynical atheist or a pious fraud defending Christianity, and so forth.

...

In an exchange with a vocal atheist ex-Mormon quite a few years ago, my friend and colleague William Hamblin asked what I regard as a basic and, in the end, unavoidable question: Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that Joseph Smith never had any golden plates pertaining to the Book of Mormon — which was that particular atheist’s position — did Joseph understand that he didn’t have any plates, or did he imagine that he did?

The two options seem to me to exhaust the possibilities. I cannot see, for example, how the approach of the non-Mormon historian Ann Taves to what she terms “the contentious issue of the materiality of the golden plates” can ultimately sustain itself. “The golden plates,” she correctly observes, “take us straight into one of the most interesting challenges: taking the whole range of evidence and views on contentious claims into account and making our way through them as scholars in as transparent a fashion as possible.” “I am setting up the ‘puzzle’ of the golden plates,” explains Professor Taves, “with a claim that each ‘side’ holds dear — that is, that Joseph Smith was not a deceiver or deluded and that there were no ancient golden plates. Setting it up that way provides an intellectual challenge, but one that reflects a religious studies approach at its best.”  Unfortunately for her enterprise, though, if I understand it correctly, it’s not even slightly likely that the two opposing claims can be coherently reconciled. Any truce on the matter is very unlikely to prove stable. Those who deny the existence of the plates will have to posit that he was either detached from reality or a fraud. And those disposed to deny that he was mad or a liar will feel obliged — as they should — to respond.

...

In Professor Hamblin’s case — assuming that Joseph Smith had no golden plates, was he or was he not aware that he didn’t? — his discussion partner responded rather indignantly that he refused to be imprisoned within such simplistic and juvenile thinking. But, offended dignity aside, the question does eventually need to be answered by anybody who purports to offer an alternative account of the rise of Mormonism.

...

Latter-day Saints, too, need to resist the transformation of the faith that moved their spiritual ancestors from New York to Ohio, from Ohio to Missouri, from Missouri to Illinois, from Illinois to the Great Basin West, and from the Great Basin West around the world into mere metaphor, analogy, or parable. The materiality of the golden plates, brute fact, was, I think, partly intended to defend against precisely that.

"{A} fully comprehensive counterexplanation for Joseph’s claims remains promised but manifestly unprovided."

I think that's a rather accurate assessment.

Quote

If we do move beyond pointless cheap shots about whether the other side has smoking gun evidence for either angels or fake golden plates, I do think it's worth trying to offer coherent explanations for the evidence that we do have.

I agree.

Quote

We all know that if push comes to shove a Mormon can say, "God can do anything!", just as a skeptic can say, "They were all crazy!"

True.  I would add, however, that LDS scholars have been doing quite a bit more than throwing up their hands and saying "God can do anything!"  Royal Skousen's textual analysis is a good example.  Jack Welch's research on chiasmus.  Nahom.  Richard Lloyd Anderson's work on the Witnesses.  And many, many more.  These are all secondary, subordinate things, to be sure.  Missionaries are not going out to the world and saying "Hey!  Join our Church because just look at what we've been theorizing about tumbaga!"  Moroni's Promise, the primacy of the witness of the Spirit, still carries the day.  Always will, I think.

Quote

Those are ways to win the battle by losing the war, however. If the Mormons have to be either utterly crazy or right, then that's admitting that they may well be right. If God does things for no conceivable reason, then there's no sense in trying to follow that God.

I see a lot of funny things about the golden plates story, and the fraud theory tells me that they would have to be pretty much like that,

I would really like to see "the fraud theory" that is telling you this.  Has it been written up by someone?

Quote

while the angel theory seems to say only that they could be like that.

Yes.  "Could."  The vexing issues of faith and choice could forever be set aside if God had provided "proof" of Jesus Christ's divine sonship, of Joseph Smith's prophetic mantle, and so on.  Every knee would bow and every tongue confess if that were to happen.  But that does not seem to be part of the Plan.

Quote

To me that's good grounds for preferring the fraud theory.

Again, what "fraud theory" do you have in mind?

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 1, 2017 by smac97

[Glenn101]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I grew up in Western New York in the '50's and there were dowsers in the phone book- it had it's own category.   I saw one myself find a place for a well and the people marveled!  Of course the fact that the drilling site was within 200 feet of a river never occurred to anyone I guess.

If you would check with SamueltheLamanite please. It's is just a coincidence.

Glenn

[clarkgoble]

8 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

The objects and oracles used hardly mattered to Swedenborg. Urim and Thummim was light and understanding direct to the rational mind:

"In olden times He answered by visions and signs and oracles, and this only occasionally. But now He answers directly to the rational mind, out of the Word, which is His constant presence with us. Let us ever go to Him, and if our desire in consulting His sacred pages, be good, He will answer with heavenly light in our understanding - our Urim and Thummim."
 

Fully agree. He didn't scry or anything like that. Just noting that in the environment of Joseph the meaning of Urim and Thummim was very wrapped up with how they used the term after 1832 or so.

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

(And of course Swedenborg isn't the only source for ideas about light and rocks)

I don't know if you have to live in LA to be aware of this stuff, but around here the seerstone articles actually give the church a little more credibility, not less.  No Swedenborg is not the only source.  And yes I was delighted to hear that the BOM was translated with the U&T when I was investigating.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-crystal-healing-20160711-snap-story.html

Great to know that using stones help you make more rational decisions.

But honestly I wish we could get back to the Restoration instead of being Protestants with strange doctrines.  Real Christianity IS strange to the carnal mind.

 

Edited October 1, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Benjamin Seeker]

Following is a list of evidence suggesting that the plates were something beside an historical artifact and the translation is not a historical account.

- Inexplicable dependence on the New Testament, such as Moroni's expansion of Paul's sermons on charity and the gifts of the spirit.

- The plates weren't allowed to be commonly viewed. Contrast that with the Egyptian scrolls, which were put on display with JS pointing out the original writing by Abraham and Moses to visitors. 

- The plates behaved strangely. Like money-digger's disappearing treasure they alluded JS' attempts to remove them.

- Similarly, in accounts of returning the plates, one viewer describes trying to handle some plates in a cave that the men had entered into, but the plates sank into the wall making it impossible for him to obtain them (You can read this account in an article by BYU that collected and addressed the known accounts of this experience).

- This same concept that appears to be rooted in money-digging culture found its way into the BOM as buried treasures slipped away...

- As far as viewing the plates, the D&C states that one must be enabled to view the plates by the power of God.

- There are possibly non-mundane elements regarding the eight witnesses' viewing of the plates, again raising potential questions about the nature of the plates. These are suggested by friendly and antagonistic sources. Lucy Mack Smith says that JS first gave the plates to an "ancient Nephite," who then brought the plates for the 8 to view who were gathered in the family's favorite secluded prayer spot in the nearby woods. An ancient Nephite (aka resurrected being or otherwise preserved) adds a heavy spiritual element absent from their witness statement.

- John Whitmer at one point said "the plates were shown to me by a supernatural power."

- Finally, the antagonistic sources, Burnett, also suggests that the 8's view wasn't an ordinary experience. Burnett claims Martin Harris said that the 8 saw the plates in vision and were hesitant to sign the witness statement for that very reason. He also said Harris said that JS had only seen them in vision and references the D&C scripture I alluded to earlier. It's hearsay but an interesting and obvious possibility.

- Josiah Stowell (I think I'm remembering the right name) sees the corner of the plates accidentally as they are passed in through the window and says it looked like a stone of greenish caste. There has been a lot of discussion on this in this thread. Despite the tumbaga idea this statement by Stowell should still raise an eyebrow since the witnesses consistently described the plates as pure gold. 

- The other artifacts with the plates were also under a strict no viewing policy, including the breastplate and interpreter stones.

- Strangely the plates and the Interpreters were handled under a cloth by various individuals. The can-touch but can't-view approach should be a red flag. Again, contrast all of this with the Egyptian artifacts which all put in display, including scrolls and mummies. The inconsistency is odd.

- As I mentioned earlier in this thread, all known translations of Egyptian by JS or produced in conjunction with other early saints, where we have the source text and the translation, have proven to be non-literal translations, or in other words not real translations, of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. These examples are the account of princess Katumin, facsimile 2, facsimile 3, the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language document, the counting document, and the copies of the BoA text with heiroglyphics in the margins showing apparent translation written by JS' scribes. Why do we expect JS to do any better with reformed Egyptian?

Edited October 2, 2017 by Benjamin Seeker

[Physics Guy]

On 10/1/2017 at 8:41 AM, smac97 said:

Again, what "fraud theory" do you have in mind?

The theory that the plates were a fraud. Of course I don't have any particular mechanism of fraud in mind. How could we know exactly how Smith did it, after all this time? This is not just a matter of dismissing Smith's story without bothering to dig into evidence, though. Simply the general concept that the plates were some kind of fraud has implications that can be compared to the evidence about how Smith behaved.

What can a con artist do with fake ancient plates, when he can only make crude fakes that won't stand close inspection? He can use the crude fakes to dupe some people into endorsing him, then get rid of the fakes and publish the endorsements in the front of his book. All he wants to do is to get those attestations that he had some plates; any details about the plates will be risks for slight gain.

The general concept of fraud thus implies that Smith would have to use his plates to elicit some minimally detailed endorsements, and then get rid of the plates themselves as soon as possible and publish the endorsements. Whatever he had for fake plates would be shown to just a few people, in limited ways, for a limited time. He wouldn't do anything else with the plates except garner endorsements. They'd have no other purpose and no other use.

Of course a genuine prophet could also show plates under wraps to a few people, then get some of them to sign a terse statement for publication, and then give the plates back to an angel without ever actually using them in any way. A genuine prophet could presumably also show the plates to the multitude openly, as Moses supposedly showed the stone tablets. Insofar as there is any expectation about how genuine prophets should behave, it's probably more city-set-on-a-hill than light-under-a-bushel. It's hard to say for sure exactly what a genuine prophet could or couldn't do, though.

A con artist would have to behave pretty much as Smith did with his plates, no matter how exactly the fraud worked in detail. That's my point.

 

Edited October 2, 2017 by Physics Guy

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

The theory that the plates were a fraud. 

Okay.  So your theory is that there were actual, physical plates, but that they were fabricated by Joseph Smith (either individually or with one or more co-conspirators).  Is that correct?

Is your theory that Joseph Smith was consciously, malevolently fraudulent in his representations about the Plates?  Or do you subscribe to the "pious fraud"-type explanations (that is, he was mentally deluded/insane)?

Who else was involved in this fraudulent scheme?  Or do you think Joseph Smith acted alone?

How do you account for the Three Witnesses?  Were they in on the fraud?  Or were they innocent dupes?  

How do you account for the miraculous element of the statement by the Three Witnesses?

Why did none of the Three retract his statement after becoming estranged from Joseph Smith?  Why did they instead maintain their testimonies for the rest of their lives?

The fraud theory only accounts for the existence of the Plates.  What about the translated text?  Who created it?  Was Joseph Smith the lone author?  Or was there a conspiracy?  If so, who was involved?

What are your thoughts about these points raised by Neal Rappleye regarding this fraud theory:

Quote

A great deal of creativity has been expended trying to account for all this in some other way. Some have argued,55 for example, that Joseph Smith manufactured a fake set of plates, even appealing to known forgeries such as the Voree and Kinderhook plates, as analogs. Such arguments suffer from a number of difficulties:

1. This is an ad hoc explanation, necessitated by the witnesses’ testimonies but not actually supported by them or any other historical evidence.
2. The Voree and Kinderhook plates are small and crude and were obviously made of easily available materials. The Book of Mormon plates, on the other hand, are a different story entirely. Reconstructions of them based on witness descriptions prove extremely difficult.56 These plates were a well-crafted artifact far beyond the skills of Joseph Smith.57
3. Lastly, witnesses attested to several other artifacts, such as the Liahona, Sword of Laban, the breastplate, and Interpreters.58 If the plates alone were beyond Joseph’s skill set to manufacture, then these added props certainly complicate the matter. It seems difficult to maintain that Joseph Smith created these artifacts himself (or with others). There is no evidence to support such an argument.

Others, then, turn to conspiracy theories, as already discussed. All the eyewitnesses to both the plates and the translation are from Joseph Smith’s “inner circle,” and thus they colluded with him on a major hoax. This theory breaks down quickly, however. Too many of these persons were later estranged from Joseph Smith and the Church, and yet not one backed away from his testimony nor exposed a conspiracy. Added [Page 35]to that is the fact that most of the eyewitness accounts are made after their estrangement from Joseph, independently and spontaneously upon questioning and cross-examination (sometimes from skeptical interviewers), during a time when these witnesses were scattered and isolated from each other, when no collusion was possible.59

...

55. See, for example, Dan Vogel, “The Validity of the Witnesses’ Testimony,” in American Apocrypha, ed. Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 108. Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation,” 182–207 more or less follows Vogel.
56. Kirk B. Henrichsen, “What Did the Golden Plates Look Like?” New Era (July 2007): 32 (insert “A Model of the Plates”); Shanna Butler, “A Golden Opportunity,” New Era (February 2006): 34–37
57. MacKay and Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light, 108. Even seemingly obvious and “common sense” aspects of the construction turn out to be beyond what Joseph Smith or someone from his day would have known to do. For example, the fact that the plates had three rings, which were D-shaped, makes it highly unlikely someone like Joseph Smith manufactured them. Three rings provide the most stability, and the D-shape provides the optimum utility, facts that were unrealized when ringed-binders were first developed in 1854. Whoever manufactured the plates had knowledge and experience in ring-binding technology, something no one in upstate New York had but which some ancient peoples were aware of, as confirmed by recent discoveries. See Warren P. Aston, “The Rings That Bound the Gold Plates Together,” Insights 26/3 (2006): 3–4.
58. Steven C. Harper, Makings Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants: A Guided Tour through Modern Revelations (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2008), 62–63; Brown, Plates of Gold, 47–53.
59. Other explanations which invoke drug-induced hallucinations, or hypnotism, etc., get even more ad hoc as they attempt to rationalize the eyewitness testimonies. For more detailed responses to attacks on the Book of Mormon witnesses, see Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, 151–179; Steven C. Harper, “Evaluating the Book of Mormon Witnesses,” Religious Educator 11/2 (2010): 37–49; Matthew Roper, “Comments on the Book of Mormon Witnesses: A Response to Jerald and Sandra Tanner,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2/2 (1993): 164–193; Larry E. Morris, “‘The Private Character of the Man who Bore That Testimony’: Oliver Cowdery and his Critics,” FARMS Review 15/1 (2003): 311–330; Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14/1 (2005): 18–31.

"Ad hoc explanation" seems to be an apt characterization of the fraud theory, as does "not actually supported by {any} historical evidence."

Quote

Of course I don't have any particular mechanism of fraud in mind.

Nor evidence, either.  Just speculation and guesswork that A) is manifestly ad hoc and B) fails to account (utterly ignores and fails to address) the extant evidence (the Witness statements, the text, etc.).

Quote

How could we know exactly how Smith did it, after all this time?

I'm not looking for "exactly how."  The broader contours of the "how" would do.  But fraud theorists cannot even coherently manage that without mangling (and/or utterly ignoring) the extant evidence and utterly abandoning the principles of histographical analysis.

Quote

This is not just a matter of dismissing Smith's story without bothering to dig into evidence, though. Simply the general concept that the plates were some kind of fraud has implications that can be compared to the evidence about how Smith behaved.

"Some kind of fraud."

That's it?

Quote

What can a con artist do with fake ancient plates, when he can only make crude fakes that won't stand close inspection? He can use the crude fakes to dupe some people into endorsing him, then get rid of the fakes and publish the endorsements in the front of his book. All he wants to do is to get those attestations that he had some plates; any details about the plates will be risks for slight gain.

Again, from Rappleye:

Quote

A great deal of creativity has been expended trying to account for all this in some other way. Some have argued, for example, that Joseph Smith manufactured a fake set of plates, even appealing to known forgeries such as the Voree and Kinderhook plates, as analogs. Such arguments suffer from a number of difficulties:

1. This is an ad hoc explanation, necessitated by the witnesses’ testimonies but not actually supported by them or any other historical evidence.
2. The Voree and Kinderhook plates are small and crude and were obviously made of easily available materials. The Book of Mormon plates, on the other hand, are a different story entirely. Reconstructions of them based on witness descriptions prove extremely difficult. These plates were a well-crafted artifact far beyond the skills of Joseph Smith.
3. Lastly, witnesses attested to several other artifacts, such as the Liahona, Sword of Laban, the breastplate, and Interpreters. If the plates alone were beyond Joseph’s skill set to manufacture, then these added props certainly complicate the matter. It seems difficult to maintain that Joseph Smith created these artifacts himself (or with others). There is no evidence to support such an argument.

Others, then, turn to conspiracy theories, as already discussed. All the eyewitnesses to both the plates and the translation are from Joseph Smith’s “inner circle,” and thus they colluded with him on a major hoax. This theory breaks down quickly, however. Too many of these persons were later estranged from Joseph Smith and the Church, and yet not one backed away from his testimony nor exposed a conspiracy. Added to that is the fact that most of the eyewitness accounts are made after their estrangement from Joseph, independently and spontaneously upon questioning and cross-examination (sometimes from skeptical interviewers), during a time when these witnesses were scattered and isolated from each other, when no collusion was possible.

These are, I think, rather valid criticisms of the fraud theory.  This is why, I think, proponents of the fraud theory prefer to keep their allegations nice and vague, as it allows some room to evade substantive scrutiny of the theory.

How do you account for the Witnesses' post-estrangement adherence to their statements?

And what about the other artifacts attested to?  Did Joseph fabricate them, too?  All by himself?  As part of a conspiracy?

Quote

The general concept of fraud thus implies that Smith would have to use his plates to elicit some minimally detailed endorsements, and then get rid of the plates themselves as soon as possible and publish the endorsements. Whatever he had for fake plates would be shown to just a few people, in limited ways, for a limited time. He wouldn't do anything else with the plates except garner endorsements. They'd have no other purpose and no other use.

But the witness statements about the plates (I'm referring here to more than just the ones published in the BoM) are not "minimally detailed."  There are quite a few details given by various persons about various attributes of the Plates, including the color, size/dimensions, weight, pliability, thickness, the engravings being small and located on both sides of each plate, the metallic sound made when the edges were moved, the "seal" as to a portion of the plates, the shape of the rings that bound the plates together, and so on.

Here are some resources as to physical descriptions of the plates:

• What Did the Golden Plates Look Like?  (July 2007 New Era article)
• The Book of Mormon and "Gold" Plates (FAIR article)
• Eyewitness Descriptions of the Gold Plates from which the Book of Mormon was Translated (FAIR article)

We actually have quite a few data points to work with.

Quote

Of course a genuine prophet could also show plates under wraps to a few people,

"Under wraps?"  What does that mean?

Quote

then get some of them to sign a terse statement for publication, and then give the plates back to an angel without ever actually using them in any way. 

"Terse statement?"  What does that mean?

Quote

A genuine prophet could presumably also show the plates to the multitude openly, as Moses supposedly showed the stone tablets.

"A genuine prophet" would obey God.  Hence we have JS-H 1:42 (emphases added):

Quote

Again, he {the Angel Moroni} told me, that when I got those plates of which he had spoken—for the time that they should be obtained was not yet fulfilled—I should not show them to any person; neither the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim; only to those to whom I should be commanded to show them; if I did I should be destroyed. While he was conversing with me about the plates, the vision was opened to my mind that I could see the place where the plates were deposited, and that so clearly and distinctly that I knew the place again when I visited it.

But that's not really a point that is susceptible to analysis, is it?  It's inscrutable.

Quote

Insofar as there is any expectation about how genuine prophets should behave, it's probably more city-set-on-a-hill than light-under-a-bushel. It's hard to say for sure exactly what a genuine prophet could or couldn't do, though.

Yep.  So not much analysis to be done.

Quote

A con artist would have to behave pretty much as Smith did with his plates, no matter how exactly the fraud worked in detail. That's my point.

But so would a genuine prophet relative to authentic plates.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 2, 2017 by smac97

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Okay.  So your theory is that there were actual, physical plates, but that they were fabricated by Joseph Smith (either individually or with one or more co-conspirators).  Is that correct?

Is your theory that Joseph Smith was consciously, malevolently fraudulent in his representations about the Plates?  Or do you subscribe to the "pious fraud"-type explanations (that is, he was mentally deluded/insane)?

Who else was involved in this fraudulent scheme?  Or do you think Joseph Smith acted alone?

How do you account for the Three Witnesses?  Were they in on the fraud?  Or were they innocent dupes?  

How do you account for the miraculous element of the statement by the Three Witnesses?

Why did none of the Three retract his statement after becoming estranged from Joseph Smith?  Why did they instead maintain their testimonies for the rest of their lives?

The fraud theory only accounts for the existence of the Plates.  What about the translated text?  Who created it?  Was Joseph Smith the lone author?  Or was there a conspiracy?  If so, who was involved?

What are your thoughts about these points raised by Neal Rappleye regarding this fraud theory:

"Ad hoc explanation" seems to be an apt characterization of the fraud theory, as does "not actually supported by {any} historical evidence."

Nor evidence, either.  Just speculation and guesswork that A) is manifestly ad hoc and B) fails to account (utterly ignores and fails to address) the extant evidence (the Witness statements, the text, etc.).

I'm not looking for "exactly how."  The broader contours of the "how" would do.  But fraud theorists cannot even coherently manage that without mangling (and/or utterly ignoring) the extant evidence and utterly abandoning the principles of histographical analysis.

"Some kind of fraud."

That's it?

Again, from Rappleye:

These are, I think, rather valid criticisms of the fraud theory.  This is why, I think, proponents of the fraud theory prefer to keep their allegations nice and vague, as it allows some room to evade substantive scrutiny of the theory.

How do you account for the Witnesses' post-estrangement adherence to their statements?

And what about the other artifacts attested to?  Did Joseph fabricate them, too?  All by himself?  As part of a conspiracy?

But the witness statements about the plates (I'm referring here to more than just the ones published in the BoM) are not "minimally detailed."  There are quite a few details given by various persons about various attributes of the Plates, including the color, size/dimensions, weight, pliability, thickness, the engravings being small and located on both sides of each plate, the metallic sound made when the edges were moved, the "seal" as to a portion of the plates, the shape of the rings that bound the plates together, and so on.

Here are some resources as to physical descriptions of the plates:

• What Did the Golden Plates Look Like?  (July 2007 New Era article)
• The Book of Mormon and "Gold" Plates (FAIR article)
• Eyewitness Descriptions of the Gold Plates from which the Book of Mormon was Translated (FAIR article)

We actually have quite a few data points to work with.

"Under wraps?"  What does that mean?

"Terse statement?"  What does that mean?

"A genuine prophet" would obey God.  Hence we have JS-H 1:42 (emphases added):

But that's not really a point that is susceptible to analysis, is it?  It's inscrutable.

Yep.  So not much analysis to be done.

But so would a genuine prophet relative to authentic plates.

Thanks,

-Smac

http://www.mormonapologies.com/book-of-mormon/october-2017-conference-tad-callisters-talk/ This guy had some answers to Tad Callister's talk from general conference yesterday. I wonder if it even causes a concern or not. Probably not. Just thought I'd share but maybe it's old news. I wonder though, how the witnesses could be as credible as those outside of JS's relations. Why not someone that isn't related to him? 

[smac97]

25 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

http://www.mormonapologies.com/book-of-mormon/october-2017-conference-tad-callisters-talk/ This guy had some answers to Tad Callister's talk from general conference yesterday. I wonder if it even causes a concern or not. Probably not. Just thought I'd share but maybe it's old news. I wonder though, how the witnesses could be as credible as those outside of JS's relations. Why not someone that isn't related to him? 

What are your thoughts about the credibility of the Witnesses after they became estranged from Joseph Smith?

If they were in on the purported scheme to defraud, why didn't they fess up then?  That way they "come clean" as to their involvement, distance themselves from Joseph Smith, and stick it Joseph Smith all at the same time.  And yet . . . none of them did.

As for the identify of the Witnesses, I think it is evident that participating in the events which precipitated their experiences with the Plates called for some measure of faith.  But if the Witnesses were biased in favor of Joseph Smith at the time of the publication of their statements, then what about their bias against Joseph after they became estranged from him? 

Thanks,

-Smac

[Tacenda]

48 minutes ago, smac97 said:

What are your thoughts about the credibility of the Witnesses after they became estranged from Joseph Smith?

If they were in on the purported scheme to defraud, why didn't they fess up then?  That way they "come clean" as to their involvement, distance themselves from Joseph Smith, and stick it Joseph Smith all at the same time.  And yet . . . none of them did.

As for the identify of the Witnesses, I think it is evident that participating in the events which precipitated their experiences with the Plates called for some measure of faith.  But if the Witnesses were biased in favor of Joseph Smith at the time of the publication of their statements, then what about their bias against Joseph after they became estranged from him? 

Thanks,

-Smac

Their reputations would be on the line, and credibility for lying. (bold mine)

Edited October 2, 2017 by Tacenda

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

There reputations would be on the line, and credibility for lying. (bold mine)

There were likely plenty of ways they could have presented it with themselves as victims...others did so then and now (it wasn't their fault they were true believers as they trusted the wrong people, they weren't true believers but were forced by the situation to act that way).

[smac97]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

There reputations would be on the line, and credibility for lying. 

"Their reputations?"  You mean their reputations as specific witnesses for the Book of Mormon?  Not exactly a rep worth keeping in the 19th-century, given how unpopular Mormons were.  While there were estranged from Joseph Smith and the Church, they had all sorts of motivation to distance themselves from Mormonism (many of them did), and to recant any misrepresentations they had made in the service of Mormonism.  They could have fallen on their proverbial swords, claimed to have been duped or coerced, whatever.  We actually see this phenomenon all the time in "exit narratives" written by people who have left the Church these days.  A very frequent, almost mandatory, component of these narratives is an explanation as to why these folks were active in the Church for so long.  Hence we have claims of being duped or "brainwashed" or having been ignorant of the teachings and/or history of the Church.  I don't meant to disparage folks who leave, or discount their concerns.  I acknowledge that people of good character can and do make informed and principled decisions to leave the Church.  However, my point is that folks who find themselves estranged from the Church, and who provide an explanation as to their departure/estrangement, will often disavow that they have previously believed about Mormonism, particularly its controversial issues (like the Book of Mormon).  

So I wonder why we did not see similar disavowal narratives from the Witnesses.  In other words, if they lied about seeing the Plates, then they had oodles of time and motive and opportunity to disavow what they had previously testified about.  They could have more fully distanced themselves from the unpopular Mormons and their strange beliefs.  They could have fessed up to being part of a scheme to defraud, and then mitigate their own involvement by claiming to have been tricked or coerced or deluded.  And yet . . . none of them did.

None of them did.

Thanks,

-Smac

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

Following is a list of evidence suggesting that the plates were something beside an historical artifact and the translation is not a historical account.

- Inexplicable dependence on the New Testament, such as Moroni's expansion of Paul's sermons on charity and the gifts of the spirit.

- The plates weren't allowed to be commonly viewed. Contrast that with the Egyptian scrolls, which were put on display with JS pointing out the original writing by Abraham and Moses to visitors. 

- The plates behaved strangely. Like money-digger's disappearing treasure they alluded JS' attempts to remove them.

- Similarly, in accounts of returning the plates, one viewer describes trying to handle some plates in a cave that the men had entered into, but the plates sank into the wall making it impossible for him to obtain them (You can read this account in an article by BYU that collected and addressed the known accounts of this experience).

- This same concept that appears to be rooted in money-digging culture found its way into the BOM as buried treasures slipped away...

- As far as viewing the plates, the D&C states that one must be enabled to view the plates by the power of God.

- There are possibly non-mundane elements regarding the eight witnesses' viewing of the plates, again raising potential questions about the nature of the plates. These are suggested by friendly and antagonistic sources. Lucy Mack Smith says that JS first gave the plates to an "ancient Nephite," who then brought the plates for the 8 to view who were gathered in the family's favorite secluded prayer spot in the nearby woods. An ancient Nephite (aka resurrected being or otherwise preserved) adds a heavy spiritual element absent from their witness statement.

- John Whitmer at one point said "the plates were shown to me by a supernatural power."

- Finally, the antagonistic sources, Burnett, also suggests that the 8's view wasn't an ordinary experience. Burnett claims Martin Harris said that the 8 saw the plates in vision and were hesitant to sign the witness statement for that very reason. He also said Harris said that JS had only seen them in vision and references the D&C scripture I alluded to earlier. It's hearsay but an interesting and obvious possibility.

- Josiah Stowell (I think I'm remembering the right name) sees the corner of the plates accidentally as they are passed in through the window and says it looked like a stone of greenish caste. There has been a lot of discussion on this in this thread. Despite the tumbaga idea this statement by Stowell should still raise an eyebrow since the witnesses consistently described the plates as pure gold. 

- The other artifacts with the plates were also under a strict no viewing policy, including the breastplate and interpreter stones.

- Strangely the plates and the Interpreters were handled under a cloth by various individuals. The can-touch but can't-view approach should be a red flag. Again, contrast all of this with the Egyptian artifacts which all put in display, including scrolls and mummies. The inconsistency is odd.

- As I mentioned earlier in this thread, all known translations of Egyptian by JS or produced in conjunction with other early saints, where we have the source text and the translation, have proven to be non-literal translations, or in other words not real translations, of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. These examples are the account of princess Katumin, facsimile 2, facsimile 3, the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language document, the counting document, and the copies of the BoA text with heiroglyphics in the margins showing apparent translation written by JS' scribes. Why do we expect JS to do any better with reformed Egyptian?

Remember also that in Mormon theology angels can be embodied beings and humans can sometimes act as Angels or even act as the Lord himself through Divine investiture of authority.

If you choose to make that a complication it is possible or you can see it as a clarification as well.

As in every single one of these alleged problems interpretation is always what is important.

Even biblically of course we have the story of Jacob wrestling a very tangible human who was an angel and could have been the Lord himself.

So were all of those angels tangible resurrected beings? How exactly could one differentiate between a resurrected being and an ordinary mortal human being?

If a Resurrected being delivered the plates how could one differentiate that type of angel from an ordinary human?

Remember the first witnesses to the resurrection thought that the Resurrected Lord himself was a gardener. Of course we also have many accounts of the three Nephites appearing as ordinary humans, rendering service and then disappearing.

On the other hand I suggest strongly that you read or listen to Elder Callisters talk at this conference.

Edited October 2, 2017 by mfbukowski