The Gold Plates

[smac97]

32 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Speaking for myself, I don't consider the testimony of 11 witnesses, written by the same, not-disinterested person, without cross-examination, to be particularly "formidable," as you put it.

First, I think you are bolstering your criticism a bit.  Lawyers regularly draft affidavits/declarations for their clients.  The specific author of the writing is not nearly as important as compared to the contents of the writing.  If the writing accurately reflects the statement/testimony of the affiant/declarant, then who precisely reduced the statement/testimony to written text doesn't really matter.

Second, "without cross-examination" is interesting.  We don't have any cross-examination of Cicero, Plutarch, etc., and you do not impose any such requirement as a precondition for legitimacy/credibility.  This seems like a bit of special pleading on your part.  And a pretty unreasonable bit at that.  Historians regularly work with documents where the authorship / provenance is in question.  And - AFAICS - none of them reject historical sources out-of-hand, as you do here, because we in 2022 are incapable of cross-examining a long-dead historical figure.

32 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

As an attorney, I doubt you would rely on such testimony.

In court?  No.  But then, the courts would never adjudicate this sort of dispute.  It's call the "Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine."

32 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I don't know if there were plates or not.

Do you likewise take the position of "I don't know if Julius Caesar was or was not stabbed to death on the floor of the Roman Senate"?

32 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Again, the witness testimony is of very little probative value.

I do.  But then, I guess that speaks more to our respective presuppositions than to the witnesses' testimonies.

I think it's hard to read Richard L. Anderson's Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses and other historical sources about the witnesses and remain ambivalent about their basic honesty and competency as percipient witnesses.

32 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

You have 3 possibilities: 1) they really did see an angel, 2) they were lying, 3) they were tricked by an experienced con man.

Yep.  That's the trilemma (though I'm not sure characterizing Joseph Smith as "an experienced con man" is accurate or fair).

If they were lying (and/or coerced), then many of them maintaining the lie long after falling out with Joseph Smith and the Church, and in the face of substantial public opprobrium and scorn, seems rather . . . farfetched.

32 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

The assertion that the evidence points to the first possibility is not warranted, IMO. 

I would like to see evidence pointing to the other options as more plausible/likely.

Stormin put it well:

Quote

Quote

 It's not like Joseph took 11 disinterested local farmers. I wonder why not.

Why would 11 disinterested farmers agree to put their reputations on the line for the local charlatan? 

Conversely, why would Joseph trust 11 disinterested farmers to stand firm in their defense of a man they barely knew?   

If I was trusting my reputation, future livelihood, and even my very life to 11 other people, I'm not sure I would have picked 11 randos over 11 close and trusted friends.  There may have been greater evidentiary value to using the disinterested farmers, but it's not like that choice wouldn't have been laden with its share of risks as well.

And Daniel Peterson:

Quote

But there are certain irreducible facts, and one of the irreducible facts is the Book of Mormon is real, that it exists, this early 19^th Century farm boy with very little education produced this amazing book, very complex book, which we’re still talking about today. And that there were people who claimed to see objects, and not just a few, a lot of them. It’s not just the 11 witnesses; it’s several more who claim to see and heft objects connected with it, objects which can have no other explanation, it seems to me, no plausible explanation other than they were delivered to Joseph in the way he said they were. And that’s really hard.

Then I close with a comment from a good friend of mine years ago who left the church, years ago. But he said to me at one point, well, Joseph didn’t even claim necessarily to translate when the plates were there. So what’s the purpose of the plates? And I said, well, they’re an absolutely indigestible lump in the throat of people like you. That’s what they’re there for. Because you can’t explain them away. And they should give you pause. You ought to think about this and what it implies. Whatever else you may think about Mormon theology or our stance on gay marriage or the families of gays or our views of patriarchy and so on, there were plates. Where did they come from?

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

34 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Don't you think it more likely that, rather than all 11 staying loyal to Joseph Smith, even those that broke with him over other issues, that all 11 really did see what they claimed to have seen?

How many of the 11 left the church?  (I don't have that at my fingertips at the moment).

Wouldn't you expect 1 of those, if nothing more than out of spite, to say that Joseph Smith was a bunco artist?  Never underestimate the human capacity to speak maliciously about those who they are angry with.

It’s an interesting question. These are people that for the most part shared Joseph’s magical world view. But if they were fraudulent, instead of deceived, I’m not sure how much there is to be gained by saying “I’m a liar!” 

[jkwilliams]

Just now, smac97 said:

First, I think you are bolstering your criticism a bit.  Lawyers regularly draft affidavits/declarations for their clients.  The specific author of the writing is not nearly as important as compared to the contents of the writing.  If the writing accurately reflects the statement/testimony of the affiant/declarant, then who precisely reduced the statement/testimony to written text doesn't really matter.

Second, "without cross-examination" is interesting.  We don't have any cross-examination of Cicero, Plutarch, etc., and you do not impose any such requirement as a precondition for legitimacy/credibility.  This seems like a bit of special pleading on your part.  And a pretty unreasonable bit at that.  Historians regularly work with documents where the authorship / provenance is in question.  And - AFAICS - none of them reject historical sources out-of-hand, as you do here, because we in 2022 are incapable of cross-examining a long-dead historical figure.

In court?  No.  But then, the courts would never adjudicate this sort of dispute.  It's call the "Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine."

Do you likewise take the position of "I don't know if Julius Caesar was or was not stabbed to death on the floor of the Roman Senate"?

I do.  But then, I guess that speaks more to our respective presuppositions than to the witnesses' testimonies.

I think it's hard to read Richard L. Anderson's Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses and other historical sources about the witnesses and remain ambivalent about their basic honesty and competency as percipient witnesses.

Yep.  That's the trilemma (though I'm not sure characterizing Joseph Smith as "an experienced con man" is accurate or fair).

If they were lying (and/or coerced), then many of them maintaining the lie long after falling out with Joseph Smith and the Church, and in the face of substantial public opprobrium and scorn, seems rather . . . farfetched.

I would like to see evidence pointing to the other options as more plausible/likely.

Stormin put it well:

And Daniel Peterson:

Thanks,

-Smac

Again, my position is that there isn't evidence for any of the three possibilities that is significantly more compelling than the other possibilities. I do not know what they saw or didn't see, what motivated them, and so on. As for Julius Caesar, I wasn't there, so obviously I cannot say with 100% certainty that he died that way. That said, there's certainly much more and more compelling evidence for his death than there is that Joseph Smith translated golden plates. Again, even if the witness testimony was 100% accurate, it adds very little of probative value to a discussion of the origins of the Book of Mormon. Why? Because there is no way to substantiate their testimony. If 11 people said they saw Hans Moleman ascend in a cloud of pink vapor in Times Square, it wouldn't matter how honest or upstanding the people were if you couldn't corroborate their testimony. 

Does a man with a history of treasure-seeking with a peepstone qualify as an experienced con man? I think so, but YMMV.

And yes, the Book of Mormon exists, and it is the best evidence I can think of that it is not a translation of an ancient record. 

[ksfisher]

5 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

It’s an interesting question. These are people that for the most part shared Joseph’s magical world view. But if they were fraudulent, instead of deceived, I’m not sure how much there is to be gained by saying “I’m a liar!” 

I agree in general.  If the 11 were willing participants in a hoax it would seem to their benefit to continue the deception.

However, three things about human nature lead me to not believe this is the case here.

First, the propensity for people to strike out at people who we've had a falling out with.  It seems rather natural to me that one of the witnesses, after falling out with Joseph Smith would recant his testimony of the plates, if for no other reason than to spite Joseph Smith.  I could see someone doing this even if it wasn't a hoax.

Second, people who've committed wrongs like to get things off their chest.  If it had been a hoax, not one of the witnesses is recorded as having admitted to this in a death bed confession.

Third, people have a hard time keeping secrets.  If it was a hoax I find it hard to believe that one of the 11 wouldn't say something to a wife or brother or someone, who in turn would tell someone else, etc.

Personally, I believe that testimony given by the witnesses is true.  I find it remarkable that none of the 11 ever recanted that testimony given disparate paths they trod following that event.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

22 minutes ago, smac97 said:

We don't have any cross-examination of Cicero, Plutarch, etc., and you do not impose any such requirement as a precondition for legitimacy/credibility. 

We don’t? I don’t think any ancient historian or writer is taken at face value with no skepticism. 

[Teancum]

Ha! hardly.  Your approach is whatever feels good is true.  And because what you feel good about is true to you it is the best truth.  You know. Men becoming Gods. Though nobody believes that other than Latter-day Saints.  But for you it is the best. Even when it contradicts others best truths.

[smac97]

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Again, my position is that there isn't evidence for any of the three possibilities that is significantly more compelling than the other possibilities.

Again, I think this speaks more to your presuppositions than to the evidence.

The evidence of the Witnesses lying (whether voluntarily via coercion)  is . . . what?

The evidence of the Witnesses being tricked/deluded is . . . what?

The evidence of conspiracy is . . . what?

The evidence of the Witnesses being basically decent, honest, salt-of-the-earth types is . . . strong.

The evidence of many of the Witnesses falling out with Joseph and the Church is . . . strong.

The evidence of none of the Witnesses denying/recanting their testimony, despite having many opportunities and much incentive to do so, is . . . strong.

And then there is the actual content of the Book of Mormon.  The text.  We know quite a bit about Joseph Smith.  The idea that he had the capacity to write it, and in an astonishingly short timeframe, is pretty farfetched.  There are also all sorts of textual evidences as well, many of which "fit," but which were unlikely to be known or knowable by Joseph Smith.

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I do not know what they saw or didn't see, what motivated them, and so on.

Well, you know what they said they saw.

As for "what motivated them," I think we can read historical sources about the Witnesses and draw reasonably informed conclusions about their character, general honesty, and perhaps even some things about their motives.

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

As for Julius Caesar, I wasn't there, so obviously I cannot say with 100% certainty that he died that way.

And yet you do not affirmatively deny the event, nor do you insist there is no evidence for it.

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

That said, there's certainly much more and more compelling evidence for his death than there is that Joseph Smith translated golden plates.

I'm not sure about that.  I sure would like to see a compilation of that evidence.  And an assessment of provenance / chain of custody, and also of the competency of the "evidence" in terms of percipient witnesses.

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Again, even if the witness testimony was 100% accurate, it adds very little of probative value to a discussion of the origins of the Book of Mormon. Why? Because there is no way to substantiate their testimony.

Yes, I think there is.  We can gauge their character and credibility and circumstances, and draw reasonable inferences as to their honesty and competency as witnesses.

Your reasoning doesn't make much sense to me.  First, I'm not sure what you mean by "substantiate."  Second, it is difficult or impossible to do such a thing as to most historical events, particularly ancient ones.

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

If 11 people said they saw Hans Moleman ascend in a cloud of pink vapor in Times Square, it wouldn't matter how honest or upstanding the people were if you couldn't corroborate their testimony. 

Appeal to ridicule.

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

And yes, the Book of Mormon exists, and it is the best evidence I can think of that it is not a translation of an ancient record. 

What it is not is constitutes not only "evidence," but "the best evidence?"

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

44 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

But if they were fraudulent, instead of deceived, I’m not sure how much there is to be gained by saying “I’m a liar!” 

But if they were fraudulent, they would have no problem most likely in pretending to be deceived, portraying themselves as clever by seeing through the ruse, etc and possibly profiting from the antimormon tour that was apparently popular back then.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

20 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Ha! hardly.  Your approach is whatever feels good is true.  And because what you feel good about is true to you it is the best truth.  You know. Men becoming Gods. Though nobody believes that other than Latter-day Saints.  But for you it is the best. Even when it contradicts others best truths.

You need to quote who you are responding to, please.

[jkwilliams]

9 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Again, I think this speaks more to your presuppositions than to the evidence.

The evidence of the Witnesses lying (whether voluntarily via coercion)  is . . . what?

The evidence of the Witnesses being tricked/deluded is . . . what?

The evidence of conspiracy is . . . what?

The evidence of the Witnesses being basically decent, honest, salt-of-the-earth types is . . . strong.

The evidence of many of the Witnesses falling out with Joseph and the Church is . . . strong.

The evidence of none of the Witnesses denying/recanting their testimony, despite having many opportunities and much incentive to do so, is . . . strong.

And then there is the actual content of the Book of Mormon.  The text.  We know quite a bit about Joseph Smith.  The idea that he had the capacity to write it, and in an astonishingly short timeframe, is pretty farfetched.  There are also all sorts of textual evidences as well, many of which "fit," but which were unlikely to be known or knowable by Joseph Smith.

Well, you know what they said they saw.

As for "what motivated them," I think we can read historical sources about the Witnesses and draw reasonably informed conclusions about their character, general honesty, and perhaps even some things about their motives.

And yet you do not affirmatively deny the event, nor do you insist there is no evidence for it.

I'm not sure about that.  I sure would like to see a compilation of that evidence.  And an assessment of provenance / chain of custody, and also of the competency of the "evidence" in terms of percipient witnesses.

Yes, I think there is.  We can gauge their character and credibility and circumstances, and draw reasonable inferences as to their honesty and competency as witnesses.

Your reasoning doesn't make much sense to me.  First, I'm not sure what you mean by "substantiate."  Second, it is difficult or impossible to do such a thing as to most historical events, particularly ancient ones.

Appeal to ridicule.

What it is not is constitutes not only "evidence," but "the best evidence?"

Thanks,

-Smac

My example was not an appeal to ridicule. my point was that an extraordinary assertion needs extraordinary evidence. 

And I have not denied any event or anything the witnesses said. Where are you getting that? I’ve repeatedly said I don’t find the evidence for any of the three possibilities any stronger than the others. The best you can come up with is that they were sincere, decent men. Again, that tells us nothing about what they saw or didn’t see. 

Once again, we agree that the text of the Book of Mormon is its best evidence. Clearly we are never going to agree what that evidence indicates. 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

But if they were fraudulent, they would have no problem most likely in pretending to be deceived, portraying themselves as clever by seeing through the ruse,

It all gets a little complicated. Appealing to human psychology is difficult at best. Would one of all dissent? What of the impact on next of kin? Cowdery married into the Whitney family. So the witnesses were all part of the Whitmer family or smith family plus Martin Harris? Or did I miss someone?

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

etc and possibly profiting from the antimormon tour that was apparently popular back then.

I am not sure I’m familiar with this. 

[jkwilliams]

21 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

It all gets a little complicated. Appealing to human psychology is difficult at best. Would one of all dissent? What of the impact on next of kin? Cowdery married into the Whitney family. So the witnesses were all part of the Whitmer family or smith family plus Martin Harris? Or did I miss someone?

I am not sure I’m familiar with this. 

I’m reminded of what Carl Sagan wrote:

”One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

 

[OGHoosier]

6 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I’m reminded of what Carl Sagan wrote:

”One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

 

Yeah, except that the majority of the Witnesses did throw off the "charlatan" in question during their lives. 

Kinda hard to depict them as deluded cultists in the thrall of Joseph Smith when they rebelled against the "cult" within their lifetimes.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, OGHoosier said:

Yeah, except that the majority of the Witnesses did throw off the "charlatan" in question during their lives. 

Kinda hard to depict them as deluded cultists in the thrall of Joseph Smith when they rebelled against the "cult" within their lifetimes.

Please don’t put words in my mouth. 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I am not sure I’m familiar with this. 

Back when I was researching sources on some quotes that seemed iffy to me, I came across a couple of antimormon authors who were listed as speakers as well. I am no doubt projecting back then to what goes on now (or used to) from what  I have seen among some who have left the Church and become writers and speakers at Evangelical antimormon events (we had two former members of the ward do this up in Canada; one had just gotten baptized and immediately started presenting as a former Mormon, another left after his wife died…got to wonder what alienated him as the Relief Society was there helping out practically 24/7 for months, maybe even years once she got too ill from the cancer to care for her kids and helped a lot before she got to that point, we went over and cleaned their house, cared for the kids after school, prepared meals, etc).

The last comment about the tour was a throwaway, I should avoid sarcasm unless that is all I am doing…

Edited October 13, 2022 by Calm

[smac97]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

I don't think it is fallacious to request a something-more-than-wholly-speculative-and-conclusory-and-evidence-free counter-explanation for the origins of the Book of Mormon.

Did you read Nevo’s posts?  Jarman’s?

Which ones?

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Have you read Dan Vogel’s book https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Origins-Book-Mormon-Religious/dp/0941214427

The online version, yes.  And Kevin Christensen's 1990 review, and Vogel's 2002 response to the foregoing, and Kevin's 2004 re-visit.

The 2002 response was . . . interesting:

Quote

Concessions

Christensen makes two important concessions, which happen to be the two major objectives of Indian Origins.

1. Christensen twice admits that "some defenders have claimed too much" with regard to what Joseph Smith could or could not have known about ancient American civilizations (218, 220).

2. Christensen twice allows that the Mound Builder myth may have had an influence on Joseph Smith's post-1830 descriptions of the Book of Mormon, especially in his 1842 letter to newspaper editor John Wentworth (226, 231).

These are "the two major objectives?"  To call out some "defenders" who have gone overboard in assessing what Joseph Smith knew?  And a concession that Joseph Smith's after-the-fact assessment of the Book of Mormon (that is, after it was translated) may have been influenced by 19th-century notions of moundbuilders?

As to the first, point taken.  We need to be circumspect about this.  But I don't think this is a systemic or pervasive problem (something Christensen himself confirms in his 2004 article).

As to the second, Christensen does a good job of juxtaposting the a satirical book (Abner Cole's 1830 "Book of Pukei") that incorporated broad notions about the Native Americans ("As Richard Bushman has pointed out, Cole added 'commonplace symbols of the Indians -- the bark canoes, the blankets and moccasins, decimation by smallpox -- {that} should have been in the {Book of Mormon} story but for some reason were not'") and the actual text of the Book of Mormon (which does not include such things).  Christensen quoting Bushman: "{In the absence of commonplace symbols associated with Indians in the BOM text,} Cole fabricated them himself.  He had the Nephites descend from the lost ten tribes ... Cole made the book comprehensible by adding all the elements Palmyra readers expected and were disappointed to find missing.'"

And this:

Quote

As stated at the outset of Indian Origins, my primary objective was not to discover possible "sources" for the Book of Mormon, but rather to reconstruct the early nineteenth-century debates about Indian origins and determine to what extent the Book of Mormon took part in that discussion.

So let's hash this out:

1. I ask for "a something-more-than-wholly-speculative-and-conclusory-and-evidence-free counter-explanation for the origins of the Book of Mormon."

2. You respond by pointing me to, inter alia, Dan Vogel's Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon.

3. Vogel states that his "primary objective was not to discovery possible 'sources' for the Book of Mormon."

4. This, then, constitutes a "counter-explanation for the origins of the Book of Mormon."

Do I have that right?

Also, did the fact that Vogel relied in part on Hofmann forgeries affect your assessment of him overall?

Anyway, rather than start from the ground up, I'll just echo what I find to be the more pertinent and persuasive points raised by Christensen:

Vogel's "nonempirical assumptions" are substantial and systemic.  Vogel's strict "environmental method" ends up requiring over-emphasis on superficial comparison points (between the text and Joseph's milieu) and the glossing over or altogether ignoring of substantial differences.  For example (as noted by Christensen), if the condemnation in the BOM of secret societies is, as Vogel proposes, an expression of anti-masonry sentiments during Joseph Smith's day, why on earth would Joseph thereafter join the Masons, and purportedly borrow Masonic symbolism for parts of the temple rites?  If Joseph was inspired by his day's talk of moundbuilders, how do you account for A) Abner Cole's satirical references to commonplace Indian artifacts, symbols, etc., and B) the absence of such things from the BOM text.

Christensen aptly quotes Bushman: "Only limited portions {of the Book of Mormon} were intelligible as expressions of American culture."

Christensen goes on to make very good points about Vogel's other assumptions (prioritizing 19th-century speculation about geographical location over the text itself, anachronisms, insisting that his (Vogel's) parallels are legit, but any contrary parallels tending to undergird historicity are not, etc.).

Vogel's arguments are a pastiche of some things that might fit here and there in terms of explaining the origins of the Book of Mormon, but overall it does not go very far as a "counter-explanation" for the Witnesses, the text, etc.

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Or listened to his Mormon stories? https://Mormon*******.***/podcast/book-of-mormon-dan-vogel/

I'm not a podcast kind of guy.  I'm willing to read text, but there really needs to be a good reason to endure the meanderings of John Dehlin's interview style.

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Now comes the part where you say these things aren’t “coherent”.

Poisoning the well.

I am looking for a "counter-explanation."  One that addresses the same things the Latter-day Saints have been pointing to: the Witness statements, the complexity and content of the text.  "Joseph wrote it" is improved by "Joseph wrote it because he had moundbuilders in mind," but not by much.

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Just like counter examples in the no true Scotsman fallacy weren’t “true” Scotsmen. 

Again, I don't think it is fallacious to request a something-more-than-wholly-speculative-and-conclusory-and-evidence-free counter-explanation for the origins of the Book of Mormon.

That said, Vogel probably has done one of the better jobs of trying to get beyond sheer conjecture (the "wholly speculative" part), but his assumptions really do make his thesis "conclusory" (as 19th-century origins are the only "lens" through which Vogel is willing to view the text, much of which therefore is left very fuzzy and unexplained.

As for "evidence," Christensen put it well here: "Vogel’s prodigious research on the pre-1830 environment sharply contrasts with the superficiality of his grasp of the Book of Mormon."

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

Back when I was researching sources on some quotes that seemed iffy to me, I came across a couple of antimormon authors who were listed as speakers as well. I am no doubt projecting back then to what goes on now (or used to) from what  I have seen among some who have left the Church and become writers and speakers at Evangelical antimormon events (we had two former members of the ward do this up in Canada; one had just gotten baptized and immediately started presenting, another left after his wife died…got to wonder what alienated him as the Relief Society was there helping out practically 24/7 for months, maybe even years once she got too ill from the cancer to care for her kids and helped a lot before she got to that point, we went over and cleaned their house, cared for the kids after school, prepared meals, etc).

There does seem to be an anti Mormon economy these days. Be interested to know if any early dissidents made money off their disaffection. 

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

The last comment about the tour was a throwaway, I should avoid sarcasm unless that is all I am doing…

Nah, don’t drain all the fun out of life!

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

First, I think you are bolstering your criticism a bit.  Lawyers regularly draft affidavits/declarations for their clients.  The specific author of the writing is not nearly as important as compared to the contents of the writing.  If the writing accurately reflects the statement/testimony of the affiant/declarant, then who precisely reduced the statement/testimony to written text doesn't really matter.

In this particular case, the "trial", if you will, is about whether or not Joseph Smith was a con man. If the alleged con man is the person who hand-picks eight witnesses of his innocence and is the person who drafts a joint statement for them to sign, that is suspicious.

My understanding is that the rules of evidence recognize the fact that if witnesses happen to be aligned with common values and goals, they could be prone to fabrication and collusion. That is one of the reasons witnesses are normally expected to give their own testimonies and not be present when other witnesses are questioned or cross examined. According to a legal encyclopedia, "The efficacy of excluding or sequestering witnesses has long been recognized as a means of discouraging and exposing fabrication, inaccuracy, and collusion." (see Rule 615. Excluding Witnesses | Federal Rules of Evidence | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu))

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Second, "without cross-examination" is interesting.  We don't have any cross-examination of Cicero, Plutarch, etc., and you do not impose any such requirement as a precondition for legitimacy/credibility....

My understanding is in court proceedings there are two different types of witnesses, fact witnesses and expert witnesses. Fact witnesses are people who are going about their normal lives and in the natural course of events, happen to witness something that turns out to be pertinent to the case. They are called in to testify about what they saw or heard.

The other type of witness is an expert witness. Expert witnesses can provide background information on things pertinent to the case, can examine the evidence, and can give their opinions about things. Their opinions count as evidence. Expert witnesses are carefully selected based upon having actual expertise in relevant subjects. 

If the Whitmer family happened to be in the woods at some sort of family gathering and happened to see a two-headed deer or a flying saucer or whatever, they would be fact witnesses to that event.

In contrast, if Charles Anthon or somebody else well-qualified in ancient manuscripts were called in to examine the gold plates and provide his expert testimony, that would be an expert witness.

One of the things I find problematic about the testimony of the eight witnesses is that they are neither expert witnesses nor proper fact witnesses. They were hand-picked to be witnesses as an expert witness would be, but they were hand-picked based upon their faithfulness and loyalty to Joseph Smith, not on their expertise in examining ancient documents. Red flag.

The nature of the circumstances surrounding their testimony needs to be taken into account here. They aren't talking about the existence of an artifact they happened to see before it was accidently stolen or destroyed in a fire. We are talking about witnesses that were hand-picked to prove the existence of something that were intended to be taken away by an angel. That is a huge red flag. It's like somebody who wants to prove to the world that he has magic powers, but does so by doing a magic demonstration in front of eight close friends, but then refuses to do it in front of James Randi (One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge - Wikipedia). 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

My example was not an appeal to ridicule.

Sure comes across that way when the topic under discussion is religious truth claims, which you compare to a magician's sleight-of-hand magic trick ("Hans Moleman ascend in a cloud of pink vapor in Times Square").

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

my point was that an extraordinary assertion needs extraordinary evidence. 

I have previously discussed my take on Sagan's aphorism here.  The money quote:

Quote

In 1979 astronomer Carl Sagan popularized the aphorism “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (ECREE). But Sagan never defined the term “extraordinary.” Ambiguity in what constitutes “extraordinary” has led to misuse of the aphorism. ECREE is commonly invoked to discredit research dealing with scientific anomalies, and has even been rhetorically employed in attempts to raise doubts concerning mainstream scientific hypotheses that have substantive empirical support. The origin of ECREE lies in eighteenth-century Enlightenment criticisms of miracles. The most important of these was Hume’s essay On Miracles. Hume precisely defined an extraordinary claim as one that is directly contradicted by a massive amount of existing evidence. For a claim to qualify as extraordinary there must exist overwhelming empirical data of the exact antithesis. Extraordinary evidence is not a separate category or type of evidence--it is an extraordinarily large number of observations. Claims that are merely novel or those which violate human consensus are not properly characterized as extraordinary. Science does not contemplate two types of evidence. The misuse of ECREE to suppress innovation and maintain orthodoxy should be avoided as it must inevitably retard the scientific goal of establishing reliable knowledge.

Yep.

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

And I have not denied any event or anything the witnesses said. Where are you getting that?

Here: "The simple explanation is that it looks exactly like a 19th-century American depiction of a mix of moundbuilder mythology with late Protestant/Restorationist religious teaching. Occam's Razor suggests it is what looks like. I'm not sure what there is that demands explanation."

You are espousing a naturalistic explanation ("exactly like a 19th-century American depiction"), which is at odds with the Three Witnesses (at least).

If you are open to the possibility that the Witnesses were A) telling the truth and B) not deluded, then I have misunderstood you and apologize.

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I’ve repeatedly said I don’t find the evidence for any of the three possibilities any stronger than the others. The best you can come up with is that they were sincere, decent men. Again, that tells us nothing about what they saw or didn’t see. 

It most certainly does.  The credibility of a witness has huge implications as to the probative weight of their testimony.

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

how do you account for

 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I am looking for a "counter-explanation."  One that addresses the same things the Latter-day Saints have been pointing to:

theWitness statements,  the complexity and content of the text.

And that’s how it goes. It’s a bit of a verbal game. You won’t find what you are looking for because in order for an account to be “coherent” it has to address each and every apologetic point that *you find convincing. So it’s an impossible standard to even try. Because you weren’t convinced by apologetic arguments. You were convinced by the witness of the spirit. You know it’s true and from God. So how could there possibly be a “coherent” counter argument. 
 

On the witnesses in particular, people in this thread have over and over explained why they don’t find the testimony compelling. That eye witness testimony is the least reliable form of evidence. That there is no “cross examination”. That they were all close to Joseph Smith. They essentially are from two families.  That they shared his spiritual/“magic” world view. Yet none of this is “coherent” for you. So why try? It doesn’t matter what is presented, it’s not “coherent”. 

Edited October 14, 2022 by SeekingUnderstanding

[smac97]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

We don't have any cross-examination of Cicero, Plutarch, etc., and you do not impose any such requirement as a precondition for legitimacy/credibility. 

We don’t?

No, we don't.

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I don’t think any ancient historian or writer is taken at face value with no skepticism. 

Evaluating the merits of an ancient source of information is fine.  I'm all for that.  But to reject the source altogether because it is not subject to cross-examination is not, in my view, a standard component of normative historiography.

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

31 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Which ones?

Try here for one. They aren’t hard to find. Nevo is an active believing church member, but does not believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. 
 

He gives brief counter points to many common apologetic responses. He’s a smart guy, but can’t put together a “coherent” response apparently?

 

 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

No, we don't.

So do we believe that Julius Caesar was God? It’s written about by ancient historians. So it must be true?

[jkwilliams]

7 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Sure comes across that way when the topic under discussion is religious truth claims, which you compare to a magician's sleight-of-hand magic trick ("Hans Moleman ascend in a cloud of pink vapor in Times Square").

I have previously discussed my take on Sagan's aphorism here.  The money quote:

Yep.

Here: "The simple explanation is that it looks exactly like a 19th-century American depiction of a mix of moundbuilder mythology with late Protestant/Restorationist religious teaching. Occam's Razor suggests it is what looks like. I'm not sure what there is that demands explanation."

You are espousing a naturalistic explanation ("exactly like a 19th-century American depiction"), which is at odds with the Three Witnesses (at least).

If you are open to the possibility that the Witnesses were A) telling the truth and B) not deluded, then I have misunderstood you and apologize.

It most certainly does.  The credibility of a witness has huge implications as to the probative weight of their testimony.

Thanks,

-Smac

Of course I favor a naturalistic explanation. What does that have to do with what the witnesses saw? I have never used the word “deluded” and have explicitly said I don’t think evidence they were “lying” is more compelling than that for the other two possibilities. 

Witness testimony must have a bearing on a substantive question in order to be probative. The 11 witnesses don’t tell us much of anything about the legitimacy of the Book of Mormon as a translation of an ancient American record. For the life of me, I don’t understand how you can’t see that. 

I’m reminded of a time when I desperately wanted to hold onto my belief. I went to my stake president (a biology professor). He said he understood my struggle because, if he didn’t have a testimony, he would find the evidence overwhelming against the Book of Mormon. He gave me the contact information for 3 BYU professors who he said had expertise in the issues I had. I met with two of them (you would know their names), and oddly enough, they both repeated what the stake president said, that the evidence was overwhelming against Mormon truth claims. I didn’t bother with the third guy, as I was familiar with his apologetic work, which I find wholly unimpressive. 

It surprised me because apologists have said for years that there is an evidentiary stalemate. 

[Analytics]

29 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I have previously discussed my take on Sagan's aphorism here.  The money quote:

Yep.

Nope.

To argue the other side of the debate, ECREE is an epigraph in Steven Pinker's book Rationality. Chapter 5 is titled "Beliefs and Evidence (Bayesian Reasoning" and leads with "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." This chapter specifies what is meant by "extraordinary claims" and "extraordinary evidence," and explains precisely why one requires the other.

ECREE repressing novel, unexpected results isn't a major problem in science right now. What is a major problem is the opposite; people do an investigation of something or another, find ordinary evidence for extraordinary results, and then publish it thinking they discovered something amazing. This is known as the replication crisis (Replication crisis - Wikipedia). With traditional statistics, something is generally considered "statistically significant" if there is something like a 5% chance of seeing the results of the experiment due merely to chance. That level of statistical significance could be considered "ordinary" evidence. The problem is that if 20 people do 20 different experiments on something that is in fact false, we would expect by chance that 19 of them to get the expected results, and one would get particularly unlucky and would have a false positive. That one who gets the false positive tends to be the one who gets published, and that is why journals tend to get filled with junk.

Quoting Pinker:

"A failure of Bayesian reasoning among scientists themselves is a contributor to the replicability crisis that we met in chapter 4. The issue hit the fan in 2011 when the eminent social psychologist Daryl Bem published the results of nine experiments in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which claimed to show that participants successfully predicted (at a rate above chance) random events before they took place, such as which of two curtains on a computer screen hid an erotic image before the computer had selected where to place it. Not surprisingly, the effects failed to replicate, but that was a foregone conclusion given the infinitesimal prior probability that a social psychologist had disproven the laws of physics by showing some undergraduates some porn. When I raised this point to a social psychologist colleague, he shot back, “Maybe Pinker doesn’t understand the laws of physics!” But actual physicists, like Sean Carroll in his book The Big Picture, have explained why the laws of physics really do rule out precognition and other forms of ESP." (Pinker, Steven. Rationality (pp. 159-160)).

Edited October 13, 2022 by Analytics