"Inspired Fiction" v. The Plates & The Witnesses

[clarkgoble]

37 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Maybe the Lord wanted him to always keep the plates hidden except in a couple of contrived situations with small groups of selected people, but that doesn't negate that this secrecy was a lot like the way a magician guards his tricks.

Magicians leave the instructions and parts for their tricks out in the open covered only by a light cloth allowing people to feel all the parts?

38 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Are you suggesting that two contemporaneous first-hand accounts have equal evidentiary value as a joint statement written by a third party? I don't believe it.

I certainly agree that independent accounts are best. But we have quite a few of those. Perhaps not as detailed or early as I'd like, but there are no shortage of witnesses to this. The main problem with witnesses is always how memory shifts with time and is biased by other accounts. So it's not like the witnesses are without problem. Yet they are not without value either - especially given how they stuck to the accounts. As I've mentioned a few times, the most valuable accounts are things said in passing incidental to their descriptions.

40 minutes ago, Analytics said:

The experience of the eight witnesses was contrived in the same way a magic show is contrived. People are invited to the show, the magician invites people to come on stage, tells them where to stand, hands them something in a particular way and asks them to examine it in a certain way, etc. That is what I mean by contrived.

Could you clarify in how you feel the 8 witnesses were limited? According to Whitmer at least they were free to look, flip the pages and so forth. What limits do you feel were imposed and what are your evidence for those limits?

I'm not saying there weren't limits. I'm sure there were some (like don't run off with all this gold). I'm just not clear what limits you think there were nor how they interfered.

43 minutes ago, Analytics said:

 The existence of the plates is troubling--there is no evidence that the ancient Olmec or any of their neighbors wrote records in reformed Egyptian on golden plates bounded with rings, much less then carried them 3,500 miles to be buried. The fact that they were almost always hidden and weren't even used for their purported purpose of being translated is suspicious. The claim that a part of them were "sealed" is suspicious. 

I certainly agree there's no evidence of writing in reformed Egyptian. Indeed we don't even know what is meant by that. But there is evidence that gold plates were used at Chichen Itza. Carrying records doesn't seem particularly problematic so I'm not sure what you find problematic there. The sealing part also doesn't seem particularly controversial. That's common in most cultures with writing. Sometimes it's a simple seal (such as with wax and paper). It seems like in this case it involved metal bands but that doesn't seem that odd.

I mean I get not believing in such plates. But I bet the main reason people don't believe them has to do with the content and manner of delivery not the idea of metal plates being carried around.

[Analytics]

53 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Magicians leave the instructions and parts for their tricks out in the open covered only by a light cloth allowing people to feel all the parts?

Magicians carefully decide what they will reveal and how.

Quote

Could you clarify in how you feel the 8 witnesses were limited? According to Whitmer at least they were free to look, flip the pages and so forth. What limits do you feel were imposed and what are your evidence for those limits?

I'm not saying there weren't limits. I'm sure there were some (like don't run off with all this gold). I'm just not clear what limits you think there were nor how they interfered.

I don't know the specifics of what actually happened there. Maybe they were somehow tricked. Maybe they were co-conspirators. Maybe the account is somehow based on half-truths. Or maybe a plain reading of their statement is precisely how the event happened. Regardless, attempting to establish the existence of something this way is contrived. That fact makes me suspicious of the whole thing.

Quote

I certainly agree there's no evidence of writing in reformed Egyptian. Indeed we don't even know what is meant by that. But there is evidence that gold plates were used at Chichen Itza. Carrying records doesn't seem particularly problematic so I'm not sure what you find problematic there. The sealing part also doesn't seem particularly controversial. That's common in most cultures with writing. Sometimes it's a simple seal (such as with wax and paper). It seems like in this case it involved metal bands but that doesn't seem that odd.

I mean I get not believing in such plates. But I bet the main reason people don't believe them has to do with the content and manner of delivery not the idea of metal plates being carried around.

Yea, the story is conceivable in a way. But the Chichen Itza disks are very different than a rectangular brick of bounded plates. Somebody theoretically could carry such a brick 3,500 miles to bury them in a hill convenient for the person who is going to dig them up to translate them without looking at them. If such books of metal plates actually existed, it's conceivable that they could be sealed. But if you can translate the unsealed parts without looking at the plates, how does a metal band prevent you from translating the sealed part in the same way?

A common belief is that God intervenes to prevent too much proof of the various truth claims, because that would subvert our ability to have faith. Thus, a basket of evidence was contrived that causes there to be evidence, but not too much evidence. Nobody seeing the plates would be too little evidence. The plates being donated to Harvard to be independently examined by scientists would result in too much evidence. Thus we are presented with a special showing by witnesses--it is the way God contrived the correct amount of evidence to be made manifest.

The entire exercise seems self-defeating to me. If we live in a materialistic world that is strictly governed by natural law, then the concepts of evidence and logical inference make sense. But if God is using his power to tamper with the evidence in order to establish the right amount of it so that we can believe by faith without being compelled to believe by the evidence, what does the concept of "evidence" even mean?

Edited October 4, 2017 by Analytics

[Analytics]

Fleshing out my thought process a little bit, back in the day I was part of a seminary lesson that backfired.

The teacher called 8 students in the class to go to the front of the room and be witnesses to an artifact the teacher had. Luckily I was one of the eight so I was able to participate fully in what was happening. Underneath a podium at the front of the class was a book, with ancient-looking inscriptions on them. The plates were of a gold color. The plates had three holes in them and were bound together with rings. Some of the plates were loose, and others were sealed. After the eight of us examined the plates to our satisfaction, we fielded questions from the other 15-or so members of the class. We described what we saw just as the eight witnesses described what they saw.

The teacher never showed the plates to the other members of the class, and they were furious. They didn't understand why some of us got to see the plates, and others didn't. They thought the whole thing was contrived and didn't make sense.

What was interesting is that we had been conditioned from our Mormon heritage to describe what we saw in the way we did. Golden plates. Ancient writing. Sealed portion. Bounded by rings. From our description, what we saw was indistinguishable from what the class imagined Joseph Smith and the witnesses saw. And I emphasize that we weren't prompted in any specific way to describe what we saw the way we did. We just followed the lead and described things using the language Mormonism taught us. And we were inarticulate teenagers.

So what was it, really? The plates were made out of thin pieces of plywood, spray painted gold. the plates had a few characters on them, written with a sharpie. There were 3 or 4 plates sitting on a solid wooden box, with a clumsy band around it. That is what we described as "sealed" plates. The rings were common 3" nickel-plated binder rings, like you would use to hold a stack of flash cards together.

So we did in fact see something. But the truth of it was different than what the people who heard our testimonies imagined.

 

Edited October 4, 2017 by Analytics

[Calm]

"Magicians carefully decide what they will reveal and how."

And how would Joseph know that one wouldn't be tempted to remove the cloth to take a closer look?

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

So what was it, really? The plates were made out of thin pieces of plywood, spray painted gold. the plates had a few characters on them, written with a sharpie. There were 3 or 4 plates sitting on a solid wooden box, with a clumsy band around it. That is what we described as "sealed" plates. The rings were common 3" nickel-plated binder rings, like you would use to hold a stack of flash cards together.

So we did in fact see something. But the truth of it was different than what the people who heard our testimonies imagined.

And yet now you describe it in a different way.

Why wouldn't the witnesses do the same?

Edited October 5, 2017 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

People who launch religious frauds are usually narcissists. 

And the conclusion?

He was therefore a fraud"

He was therefore a narcissist?

Because he was a fraud or a narcissist?  Is he supposed to be either or both?

And what of the weasel word "usually"?

What is one to take logically about this sentence?  What is its purpose but to poison the well? 

From this one can conclude that since he was not a fraud he was also not a narcissist.   Good point!

[cdowis]

5 hours ago, Analytics said:

So what was it, really? The plates were made out of thin pieces of plywood, spray painted gold. the plates had a few characters on them, written with a sharpie. There were 3 or 4 plates sitting on a solid wooden box, with a clumsy band around it. That is what we described as "sealed" plates. The rings were common 3" nickel-plated binder rings, like you would use to hold a stack of flash cards together.

So we did in fact see something. But the truth of it was different than what the people who heard our testimonies imagined.

 

Did you "heft the plates" and actually turn the pages and examine them carefully.  You are incapable of telling the difference between a thin metal plate "with the appearance of gold" and one of wood painted a gold color with a bush?   They did not have spray guns back them.  They also did not have sharpies so the letters are engraven on the wood??

 

[Analytics]

10 hours ago, cdowis said:

Did you "heft the plates" and actually turn the pages and examine them carefully.  You are incapable of telling the difference between a thin metal plate "with the appearance of gold" and one of wood painted a gold color with a bush?   They did not have spray guns back them.  They also did not have sharpies so the letters are engraven on the wood??

 

Yes, I hefted the plates and turned the pages. I knew exactly what it was that I was seeing. All of the witnesses did. However, the seminary teacher gave us a lead on how to describe them, and the witnesses followed that lead in how we answered the questions. The members of the class that didn't see the plates knew they we were looking at some kind of model, and in general they seemed to think the model was more impressive than it was. If a skilled cross-examiner would have been in the class, he would have been able to figure out how to ask follow-up questions to figure out that it was made out of wood, gold-colored spray paint, and binder rings. However, we were all inarticulate teenagers. The witnesses didn't offer more details about what we saw, and the others didn't ask better questions.

I'm not suggesting that Joseph Smith's artifact was made out of 20th century ply wood, spray paint, and binder rings. But I am suggesting that the testimony of the witnesses to Joseph Smith's contrived viewing shouldn't necessarily be taken at face value.

[smac97]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

"Magicians carefully decide what they will reveal and how."

And how would Joseph know that one wouldn't be tempted to remove the cloth to take a closer look?

Oh, hush.  Quit harshing on his unsubstantiated speculation/guesswork.

-Smac

[Analytics]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

"Magicians carefully decide what they will reveal and how."

And how would Joseph know that one wouldn't be tempted to remove the cloth to take a closer look?

I'm not claiming he did know that.

14 hours ago, Calm said:

And yet now you describe it in a different way.

Why wouldn't the witnesses do the same?

Why would they? When somebody swears an oath and knows that it might be misleading, why would he want to circle back and impugn his own integrity?

To be clear, I don't know what happened. However, the a priori unlikeliness of these plates being a bona fide ancient artifact is low. Joseph Smith claims he found them, and then always kept them hidden for no obvious reason, other than the claim that God wanted it that way. Those actions leave one very suspicious that they were what he claimed them to be, leaving his neighbors to dismiss the artifact as a box of sand. After behaving in a way that caused so much doubt, Joseph Smith tried to prove they were real with two contrived viewings. That just doesn't settle the issue for me. Just as I don't need to know specifically how David Copperfield pulled off his last illusion to be sure that it wasn't really magic, I don't need to know exactly what Joseph Smith did to be pretty sure that the plates weren't a real ancient artifact.

That's the way I see it. Your mileage may differ, of course.

[Analytics]

9 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Oh, hush.  Quit harshing on his unsubstantiated speculation/guesswork.

-Smac

LOL. They are great questions and I have no problem holding my views up to scrutiny. Keep them coming!

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Yes, I hefted the plates and turned the pages. I knew exactly what it was that I was seeing. All of the witnesses did. However, the seminary teacher gave us a lead on how to describe them, and the witnesses followed that lead in how we answered the questions. The members of the class that didn't see the plates knew they we were looking at some kind of model, and in general they seemed to think the model was more impressive than it was.

So the witnesses were aware of the deception, but played along just because Smith told them to do so.  Even after his death, decades later, the eleven tuck to their story.

And those who riffled the plates while under the cloth?    I must say that your story is slightly more credible than, for example, Alice in Wonderland.  

Edited October 5, 2017 by cdowis

[Analytics]

11 minutes ago, cdowis said:

So the witnesses were aware of the deception, but played along just because Smith told them to do so.  Even after his death, decades later, the eleven tuck to their story.

And those who riffled the plates while under the cloth?    I must say that your story is slightly more credible than, for example, Alice in Wonderland.  

Maybe the witnesses were co-conspirators. Maybe they were manipulated. Maybe they were duped. Or maybe their accounts are an accurate account of what they saw. It's hard to say though, because they didn't take detailed notes on what they saw the way a scientist would.  All we know for sure is that people had good reason to be skeptical of the provenance and exact nature of whatever artifact Joseph Smith kept hidden until it mysteriously disappeared. A contrived event to prove the existence of the artifact doesn't change that.

[smac97]

22 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Maybe the witnesses were co-conspirators.

And so they continued to maintain the scam well after they became estranged from Joseph Smith and/or Mormonism in general?  That seems . . . unlikely.  They had every opportunity and motive to distance themselves from such an unpopular movement.  And several of them did, but they did not retract their statements.

22 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Maybe they were manipulated. Maybe they were duped. Or maybe their accounts are an accurate account of what they saw. It's hard to say though, because they didn't take detailed notes on what they saw the way a scientist would.  

Historiographical analysis is seldom documented by "detailed notes on what they saw the way a scientist would."

22 minutes ago, Analytics said:

All we know for sure is that people had good reason to be skeptical of the provenance and exact nature of whatever artifact Joseph Smith kept hidden until it mysteriously disappeared.

But we could also say that we have good reason to trust the statement of the Witnesses.

22 minutes ago, Analytics said:

A contrived event to prove the existence of the artifact doesn't change that.

And contrived, evidence-free speculation ("Maybe {they} were con-conspirators . . . Maybe they were manipulated . . . Maybe they were duped . . .") doesn't constitute much of a rebuttal to the statements of the Witnesses.

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

I've never quite understood the importance of the witness statements. Assuming the witnesses were sincere, the statements tell us they saw something they took to be ancient plates. Fair enough. Does that mean they actually did see ancient plates? Or that the Book of Mormon is a translation of such plates? No, it just means they saw something that looked to them like ancient plates.

It's interesting that for some people, the idea that a man or group of people in the nineteenth century perpetrated a hoax requires proof or a credible theory, neither of which is required for the alternative.

[Analytics]

52 minutes ago, smac97 said:

And so they continued to maintain the scam well after they became estranged from Joseph Smith and/or Mormonism in general?  That seems . . . unlikely.  They had every opportunity and motive to distance themselves from such an unpopular movement.  And several of them did, but they did not retract their statements.

To reiterate, if it was a scam, I don't know if the witnesses were victims, coconspirators, or  something in-between. However, if they were somehow coconspirators, they would have had very little motivation to announce to the world that they had been less than honest about this particular event. Why would somebody want to incriminate himself like that? There aren't a lot of memoirs with titles like, My Lies Under Oath.

 

Quote

Historiographical analysis is seldom documented by "detailed notes on what they saw the way a scientist would."

Of course. But what was the artifact they allegedly examined in this contrived event to prove the existence of something that was being so intensely hidden from the world and from experts? Whether it was an ancient artifact or a modern creation is a scientific question, not a historiographic one.

 

Quote

But we could also say that we have good reason to trust the statement of the Witnesses.

And contrived, evidence-free speculation ("Maybe {they} were con-conspirators . . . Maybe they were manipulated . . . Maybe they were duped . . .") doesn't constitute much of a rebuttal to the statements of the Witnesses.

My comments aren't intended as a rebuttal so much as an effort to put the statements into their proper historical context.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Maybe the witnesses were co-conspirators. Maybe they were manipulated. Maybe they were duped. Or maybe their accounts are an accurate account of what they saw. It's hard to say though, because they didn't take detailed notes on what they saw the way a scientist would.  All we know for sure is that people had good reason to be skeptical of the provenance and exact nature of whatever artifact Joseph Smith kept hidden until it mysteriously disappeared. A contrived event to prove the existence of the artifact doesn't change that.

LOL

Or maybe they were what they said they were.  Keep digging!

When you resort to "oh maybes" to bolster your argument, that is not horribly convincing.

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I've never quite understood the importance of the witness statements. Assuming the witnesses were sincere, the statements tell us they saw something they took to be ancient plates. Fair enough. Does that mean they actually did see ancient plates? Or that the Book of Mormon is a translation of such plates? No, it just means they saw something that looked to them like ancient plates.

Uh... cough... there were TWO sets of witnesses == one group had physical contact with the plates, and the other a spiritual one where the voice of God aid it was translated correctly.

Don't know how you missed that, but there it is.

Edited October 5, 2017 by cdowis

[smac97]

7 minutes ago, Analytics said:

To reiterate, if it was a scam, I don't know if the witnesses were victims, coconspirators, or  something in-between.

If they were co-conspirators, they had a strong motive to "come clean" after becoming estranged from Joseph Smith.  And yet they didn't.

If they were "victims," they would also have had a strong motive to retract their prior statement after becoming estranged from Joseph Smith.  

7 minutes ago, Analytics said:

However, if they were somehow coconspirators, they would have had very little motivation to announce to the world that they had been less than honest about this particular event.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about that.  Keeping 11 co-conspirators in line would have been very, very difficult given their post-statement lives.

Moreover, Richard Lloyd Anderson's work militates in favor of the character of these men.  

7 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Why would somebody want to incriminate himself like that? There aren't a lot of memoirs with titles like, My Lies Under Oath.

Public sentiment against Mormonism was very, very strong.  These men faced all sorts of ridicule and scorn for their claims.  Some of them turned on Joseph Smith in pretty much every way, but not as to the Plates.  How do you account for that?

7 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Historiographical analysis is seldom documented by "detailed notes on what they saw the way a scientist would."

Of course. But what was the artifact they allegedly examined in this contrived event to prove the existence of something that was being so intensely hidden from the world and from experts?

"The artifact" was the Plates.

7 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Whether it was an ancient artifact or a modern creation is a scientific question, not a historiographic one.

I think the inquiry is both "scientific" and "historiographic," but leaning heavily toward the latter.

There cannot be much in the way of "scientific" inquiry/analysis of an artifact that is not available for examination.  No metallurgical analysis.  No way to ascertain the composition of the plates, or any patina that may have accumulated on the plates, and so on.

There is some derivative scientific inquiry that can be done based on witness testimony about the plates (appearance, color, size/dimensions, weight, etc.).  Hence we have all sorts of "scientific" analysis of in terms of tumbaga as a potential alloy, and so on.

However, in the main the secular analysis of the Book of Mormon is going to be historiographic.

7 minutes ago, Analytics said:

My comments aren't intended as a rebuttal so much as an effort to put the statements into their proper historical context.

Okay.

Thanks,

-Smac

[mfbukowski]

24 minutes ago, Analytics said:

My comments aren't intended as a rebuttal so much as an effort to put the statements into their proper historical context.

Which is what we all do

The problem is even what that means.  What makes one allegedly historical context more "proper" than another when all the evidence is out and has been evaluated by all?

It is anybody's guess, and is why it is not even productive to discuss it.  Nobody knows, nobody can know.

Time for lunch.

 

[Analytics]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think the inquiry is both "scientific" and "historiographic," but leaning heavily toward the latter.

There cannot be much in the way of "scientific" inquiry/analysis of an artifact that is not available for examination.  No metallurgical analysis.  No way to ascertain the composition of the plates, or any patina that may have accumulated on the plates, and so on.

That's my point. If the artifact isn't available for examination because over the eons it got lost in the natural course of events, that's one thing. If the artifact isn't available for examination because it has been taken away by an angel, that is something else. A witness statement of things that happen in the natural course of events is one thing. A witness statement of things that are presented in a small by-invitation-only magic show is something else. If the magician deliberately makes the props of his show unavailable for scientific examination, that needs to be taken into account when interpreting the statements about his show.

[Analytics]

13 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Which is what we all do

The problem is even what that means.  What makes one allegedly historical context more "proper" than another when all the evidence is out and has been evaluated by all?

It is anybody's guess, and is why it is not even productive to discuss it.  Nobody knows, nobody can know.

Time for lunch.

 

That's a pretty cynical view. Enjoy your lunch!

[smac97]

6 minutes ago, Analytics said:

That's my point. If the artifact isn't available for examination because over the eons it got lost in the natural course of events, that's one thing.

Well, no, it's not.  If the artifact isn't available, then . . . the artifact isn't available.

6 minutes ago, Analytics said:

If the artifact isn't available for examination because it has been taken away by an angel, that is something else.

Not really.  The general unavailability of scientific analysis is still there.  The general principles of historiography are still there.

6 minutes ago, Analytics said:

A witness statement of things that happen in the natural course of events is one thing.

Like the Eight Witnesses?  

6 minutes ago, Analytics said:

A witness statement of things that are presented in a small by-invitation-only magic show is something else.

Special pleading.  That's all you've got.  You want to discount the Witnesses, so you're coming up with ad hoc rationalizations for doing so.

That's you're prerogative, but it's not very persuasive, particularly when you stoop to using deliberately offensive and derogatory terms rather than maintaining some basic level of respect and decorum.

6 minutes ago, Analytics said:

If the magician deliberately makes the props of his show unavailable for scientific examination, that needs to be taken into account when interpreting the statements about his show.

Joseph Smith didn't do any such thing.  He returned them to the angel.  There is no cognizable standard of behavior that governs the situation Joseph Smith was in.  There was no protocol for the retention and securing of ancient artifacts given to him by an angel from God.  Your apparent insistence on such a thing is rather strange.

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

47 minutes ago, cdowis said:

Uh... cough... there were TWO sets of witnesses == one group had physical contact with the plates, and the other a spiritual one where the voice of God aid it was translated correctly.

Don't know how you missed that, but there it is.

Didn’t miss that at all. 

[clarkgoble]

22 hours ago, Analytics said:

Magicians carefully decide what they will reveal and how.

So too do scientists.

Quote

I don't know the specifics of what actually happened there. Maybe they were somehow tricked. Maybe they were co-conspirators. Maybe the account is somehow based on half-truths. Or maybe a plain reading of their statement is precisely how the event happened. Regardless, attempting to establish the existence of something this way is contrived. That fact makes me suspicious of the whole thing.

So basically you don't have any information but just object to it not being given to scholars. (If I'm following you correctly) Because it wasn't given open to everyone you just inherently distrust the witnesses because you don't know if they were critical enough. (Not criticizing, just trying to understand your position)

Quote

Yea, the story is conceivable in a way. But the Chichen Itza disks are very different than a rectangular brick of bounded plates. Somebody theoretically could carry such a brick 3,500 miles to bury them in a hill convenient for the person who is going to dig them up to translate them without looking at them. If such books of metal plates actually existed, it's conceivable that they could be sealed. But if you can translate the unsealed parts without looking at the plates, how does a metal band prevent you from translating the sealed part in the same way?

Presumably to protect it from casual viewers who could read it. I'm assuming it's originally a real set of plates. The Urim and Thummim then change things somewhat. The question is whether Mormon and Moroni when writing, knew the reader would be reading via the Urim and Thummim.

Quote

A common belief is that God intervenes to prevent too much proof of the various truth claims, because that would subvert our ability to have faith. Thus, a basket of evidence was contrived that causes there to be evidence, but not too much evidence. Nobody seeing the plates would be too little evidence. The plates being donated to Harvard to be independently examined by scientists would result in too much evidence. Thus we are presented with a special showing by witnesses--it is the way God contrived the correct amount of evidence to be made manifest.

That's certainly a popular view among believers.

Quote

The entire exercise seems self-defeating to me. If we live in a materialistic world that is strictly governed by natural law, then the concepts of evidence and logical inference make sense. But if God is using his power to tamper with the evidence in order to establish the right amount of it so that we can believe by faith without being compelled to believe by the evidence, what does the concept of "evidence" even mean?

I'm not following your logic here. How does not releasing all evidence entail the evidence that is released isn't evidence?

Let's put it this way. You do a FOI request for documents and the CIA redacts much of it. Does that mean what isn't redacted isn't evidence?