Assessing the Evidence: A Case Study

[smac97]

There is currently another thread discussing the concepts of "evidence" and "plausibility."  It came to mind earlier today when I encountered this article:

Conservative group finds ‘absolutely no evidence of widespread fraud’ in 2020 election

I will say right now that this article is "political," but I will insist that this thread not be so.  I think it can work because I wish to make a point about the Restored Gospel in terms of evidentiary analysis, and to do so by using the above article as a launching point.

The article, published by The Hill, is about a report about the 2020 election: Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election

From the article:

Quote

Eight prominent conservatives released a 72-page report Thursday refuting claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election in dozens of unsuccessful court cases brought forth by former President Trump and his allies.

The group — which includes former federal judges, Republican senators and Republican-appointed officials — said they reviewed all 64 court cases Trump and his allies initiated challenging the election outcome, saying they had reached an “unequivocal” conclusion that the claims were unsupported by evidence.

“We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case,” the group wrote.

The eight conservatives repeatedly condemned the election fraud claims, but said they have not switched their allegiance to the Democratic Party and have no “ill will” toward Trump nor his supporters.

The group consists of former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.); longtime Republican lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg; former federal Judge Thomas Griffith; David Hoppe, chief of staff to former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.); former federal judge J. Michael Luttig; former federal judge Michael McConnell; Theodore Olson, solicitor general under former President George W. Bush; and former Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.).
...
The group’s report includes an analysis of the claims in each court case challenging the election results in six swing states President Biden narrowly won in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
...
The eight conservatives acknowledged the election administration was not “perfect” Thursday, noting a relatively small number of cases where authorities found irregularities.

“But there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole,” they wrote. 

“In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct,” the report continued. “It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate.”

Beyond the court cases, the conservatives’ report also discussed post-election reviews conducted outside of the legal system by the six swing states, all of which the group said also “failed to support” Trump’s allegations.
...
“There is no principle of our republic more fundamental than the right of the people to elect our leaders and for their votes to be counted accurately,” the conservatives wrote. “Efforts to thwart the people’s choice are deeply undemocratic and unpatriotic.”

A few thoughts/observations:

1. Two of the eight authors of the report, Thomas Griffith and Gordon Smith, are Latter-day Saints.

2. The credentials and credibility of the authors is, in my view, very good, and lends substantial probative weight to the findings of the report:

• J. Michael Luttig is a former federal appellate court judge in the Fourth Circuit, and also former general counsel for Boeing. 
• Michael McConnell is "an American constitutional law scholar who served as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2002 to 2009. Since 2009, McConnell has been a professor and Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School."
• Thomas Griffith is the former chief legal officer of the United States Senate, former general counsel for BYU, and also spent 15 years as a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the prominence and prestige of which court is "is second only to the U.S. Supreme Court because its geographic jurisdiction contains the U.S. Capitol and the headquarters of many of the U.S. federal government's executive departments and government agencies, and therefore it is the main federal appellate court for many issues of American administrative law and constitutional law." 
• John Danforth is a former ambassador, U.S. Senator, Attorney General of Missouri, and special counsel in the DOJ. 
• Benjamin Ginsberg spent eight years as counsel to the Republican National Committee, as national counsel to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign in both election cycles, and otherwise has a lot legal track record. 
• Gordon Smith is a former U.S. Senator, former President of the Oregon Senate, and former attorney.
• Theodore Olson is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney General and former Solicitor General.

3. The report includes an excellent introduction.  An excerpt:

Quote

We are political conservatives who have spent most of our adult lives working to support the Constitution and the conservative principles upon which it is based: limited government, liberty, equality of opportunity, freedom of religion, a strong national defense, and the rule of law.

We have become deeply troubled by efforts to overturn or discredit the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. There is no principle of our Republic more fundamental than the right of the People to elect our leaders and for their votes to be counted accurately. Efforts to thwart the People’s choice are deeply undemocratic and unpatriotic. Claims that an election was stolen, or that the outcome resulted from fraud, are deadly serious and should be made only on the basis of real and powerful evidence. If the American people lose trust that our elections are free and fair, we will lose our democracy. As Jonathan Haidt observed, “We just don’t know what a democracy looks like when you drain all the trust out of the system.” Paul Kelly, “Very Good Chance” Democracy Is Doomed in America, Says Haidt, AUSTRALIAN (July 20, 2019).

We therefore have undertaken an examination of every claim of fraud and miscount put forward by former President Trump and his advocates, and now put the results of those investigations before the American people, and especially before fellow conservatives who may be uncertain about what and whom to believe. Our conclusion is unequivocal: Joe Biden was the choice of a majority of the Electors, who themselves were the choice of the majority of voters in their states.
...
Donald Trump and his supporters have failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. We do not claim that election administration is perfect. Election fraud is a real thing; there are prosecutions in almost every election year, and no doubt some election fraud goes undetected. Nor do we disparage attempts to reduce fraud. States should continue to do what they can do to eliminate opportunities for election fraud and to punish it when it occurs. But there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct. It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate.   

The "Executive Summary" is also very much worth a read.

4. As noted above, the report "includes an analysis of the claims in each court case challenging the election results in six swing states President Biden narrowly won in 2020."  It is 72 pages, and so quite a long read.  

5. During the foregoing legal challenges I was discussing this topic with my dad, and at the time I mentioned that I wanted to see what happened in those challenges.  The courts have complex, but important and necessary, rules designed to "vet" evidence in terms of provenance, admissibility, credibility, probative weight, and so on.  The federal versions of these "Rules of Evidence" have been crafted and revised over the course of many decades by the finest legal minds in the country.  These are judges, lawyers, law professors, etc. who regularly interact with questions about evidence.   Many (most?) states model their rules of evidence on the federal rules.

6. The report's methodology makes a lot of sense to me.  The authors (who, as noted above, are well-situated to examine evidence and legal proceedings) "reviewed all 64 court cases Trump and his allies initiated challenging the election outcome."  Obviously "Trump and his allies" would have had every incentive to produce all relative/probative evidence in these lawsuits, so the best evidence had already been compiled.  The authors then examined that compiled evidence and reached reasoned conclusions about the evidence, namely, that "there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole," and even that "there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct."

7. The authors are not functioning as percipient witnesses, but rather in a more adjudicative capacity.  They all have extensive legal training and experience, which was put to good use.

8. The competency of the authors to evaluate evidence is not the only factor in their favor.  These men are politically and ideologically, "conservative," such that it becomes difficult to accuse them of partisanship or bias in their assessment.  Moreover, these are men who I think are likely to be concerned about their names and reputations.  It seems unlikely that these men would sign on to a 72-page report unless they truly felt it was an accurate statement of their position and conclusions.

----

Having said these things, I would like to now pivot to my main point: The Gold Plates, the "Testimony of the Three Witnesses," and the "Testimony of the Eight Witnesses."

A few thoughts/observations:

1. I think the witness statements constitute "evidence" as to the existence of the Gold Plates, and the the Testimony of the Three Witnesses constitutes "evidence" of the provenance of the Gold Plates.

2. I think Richard Lloyd Anderson's Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses does a good job of establishing the character and overall integrity of these men.  Also, this FAIR article does a good job of addressing some of the ad hoc speculations about the Witnesses that come up.

3. In 2021, Daniel C. Peterson published an Interpreter article: Variety and Complexity in the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon

From the abstract:

Quote

This paper examines the testimonies of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon— not only the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, but many others who experienced and testified of the reality of the Book of Mormon plates. Together, these testimonies offer impressive support for the claims of Joseph Smith regarding the Book of Mormon and, thus, the Restoration. The variety and complexity of their collective testimony makes finding a single, alternative, non-divine explanation for the witness experiences challenging, indeed.

Dr. Peterson does a fairly "deep dive" into examining the witness statements.  This article is very much worth a read.

4. Dr. Peterson also published two briefer "Notes on Evidence" in 2021:

A Note on Evidence (Part One)

A Note on Evidence (Part Two)

And excerpt from the first one:

Quote

There is a zealous atheist who comments multiple times daily on my blog.  (He’s entirely welcome to do so, by the way.  He’s polite and — by social media standards, anyway — quite respectful.)  One of his recurring themes is that there is no evidence at all to support the claims of theism.

I find that assertion deeply problematic and difficult to take seriously.  As I’ve said here several times before, I can understand people who say that they find the evidence insufficient or unpersuasive.  To say that there is no evidence at all, however, is merely hyperbolic rhetoric.  It’s not true.  There’s evidence for all kinds of things.  Very often, in fact, there’s contradictory evidence.  The daily “rising” and “setting” of the sun, for example, was long reasonably thought to be evidence for a geocentric cosmos.  Giovanni Schiaparelli’s 1877 observations of Mars were plausible evidence, in their day, for what he called canali or “channels” (somewhat misleadingly rendered into English as canals).  There is evidence for the wave nature of light and for its particularity.  There is often evidence pointing to both the guilt and the innocence of a criminal suspect.  There is evidence for William Shakespeare’s authorship of the plays attributed to him, but there is also some intriguing evidence that Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, might have been the author.

One problem is that my blog’s resident atheist appears to conflate evidence with proof.  But they are quite distinct.  Or, perhaps more accurately, proof seems to me to be a subset of evidence — a smaller Venn diagram circle, if you will, within a much larger circle.
...

There can be valid evidence that points toward the truth of a proposition but that may nevertheless fall short, and perhaps even far short, of demonstrating that proposition to be true.  Examples are not at all difficult to find or to imagine:  For example, a witness comes upon Frank, who is bloody and kneeling beside the dead body of Bob and with the fatal knife within easy reach of his hand.  It may be that Frank is actually guilty of Bob’s murder, of course, and the scene witnessed by the observer would certainly count as evidence tending in that direction.  But other evidence might come forward to suggest, or even to prove, that Frank had in fact been trying to save Bob.  That’s why he was kneeling.  That’s why he was covered in blood.

The available evidence may or may not be sufficient to “coerce” a single conclusion.  Accordingly, juries are instructed to find a defendant “not guilty” — even in cases where most if not all of the jurors suspect that he did it — if the evidence doesn’t demonstrate his guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”  They’re told to find against a plaintiff in a civil suit if his complaint is unsupported by “the preponderance of the evidence.”  The standard is not “beyond any doubt at all,” or “decisively proven by every piece of evidence without exception.”

I added my two bits worth here:

Quote

And then there are different types of evidence.  Direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, forensic evidence, character evidence, hearsay, and so on.

A few additional thoughts:

1. The proposition to be established matters.  What is to be proved or disproved is a factor in evaluating the evidence.
2. The context and venue matter.  A scientific theory that can be empirically tested and replicated may therefore be reasonably expected to meet a very high evidentiary standard.  In contrast, a historian's theory about a historical event may be far less empirically testable, but may nevertheless be "proven" under a different evidentiary standard.
3. The type of evidence matters.  What kinds of evidence are available, how much, etc. can vary quite a bit.
4. The provenance and authentication of the evidence matters.  The "chain of custody" of evidence can matter quite a bit.  Evidence can be misconstrued or fabricated.
5. The probative weight of the evidence matters.  A drug-addled homeless guy with cataracts who was standing across the street from a shooting may claim he recognized the shooter.  But if the purported shooter has multiple credible witnesses and GPS data and hotel reservations and plane tickets that put him 1,000 miles away on the day of the shooting, then his cumulative evidence will likely carry more probative weight than the countervailing eyewitness evidence.
6. The requisite quantum of evidence matters.  Legal proceedings use various quanta (preponderance, clear and convincing, beyond reasonable doubt).  Historians use other quanta, and scientists use still other quanta.

5. Another important point raised by Dr. Peterson (same link as above) :

Quote

There’s much more to say about such matters, of course, but I would like to move on to another of my atheistic guest’s major and recurrent themes:  The only evidence that really counts, he declares, is “tangible evidence.”  The rest is just “stories.”

(He seems, frankly, by the use of that word, to be obscuring — for illicit rhetorical advantage — the crucially important difference between fictional yarns like those about Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe, and historical narratives like Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War and William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.  And, whether he intends to do so or not, his disdain for “stories” appears to entail the conclusion that, unlike (say) geophysics and plant physiology (which deal in tangible evidence), history and courtroom witness testimony and similar things are not and cannot be sources of genuine knowledge.
...
There is relatively little tangible, physical, material evidence, for instance, for details of the reign of Caesar Augustus or for the age of Justinian and Theodora.  Fortunately, we have such writers as Dio Cassius and Suetonius and Procopius.  Obviously, such sources have to be weighed and judiciously used (particularly in the case of Procopius!).  The memoirs of Albert Speer, a leading figure in Hitler’s Third Reich, are extremely valuable even if sometimes very self-serving.  They must be used with care — as must Flavius Josephus’s narrative of the first Jewish revolt against Rome, in which he was an important and (to my taste, anyway) a very problematic participant.  To dismiss them as worthless because they’re merely “stories” would be silly.  And if that rule were followed very widely, it would utterly destroy most of our understanding of ancient and medieval history.
...
My atheist commenter is, of course, taking particular aim at my claim that the testimonies of the Book of Mormon witnesses have strong evidentiary value.  He has never seriously considered them and knows little or nothing about them, but his response, sight essentially unseen, is that their testimonies have no evidentiary value whatever.  They’re just “stories,” he declares, rather oddly adding to that blithe dismissal the claim that they “can’t be examined.”  But,  of course, they can be examined, and they have been examined.

I think people who are genuinely interested in the origins of the Book of Mormon need to come to terms with these things.  Some folks are apparently ditching the entire notion of the examination of evidence (see, e.g., here).  However, I think there are plenty of people who, like the authors of the above report about the 2020 election, feel that the issue at hand (here, the origins of the Book of Mormon) is important.  Important enough to seriously and scrupulously and fairly examine the evidence.  As Dr. Peterson aptly notes, there is evidences that not only "can be examined" but "have been examined."

On the Latter-day Saint side, I think it is becoming increasingly incumbent upon us to fairly examine the evidence to see what it has to say.

On the skeptic/cynic side, I think there is no particular obligation or duty to formulate a cohesive alternative explanation for the Book of Mormon.  But if they do choose to present such an alternative explanation, I think at that point it does become incumbent upon them to lay out their arguments, evidences, reasoning, etc.  As Dr. Peterson noted here:

Quote

I remember my friend Bill Hamblin once being in communication with a one-time, fairly prominent, ex-member critic of the Church and of the Book of Mormon. And he said, “Look, let’s assume for a moment that you’re right and that Joseph Smith did not have plates. Did he know that he didn’t have plates or did he think that he had the plates? In other words, was he a conscious deceiver, or was he in some sense mad?”

To which this critic responded: “I don’t have to lower myself to your simplistic little dichotomies.”

Well, see, I think it’s intellectually incumbent upon people like that to, come on, give us an answer to this. Otherwise it’s like guerrilla warfare. You attack and attack and attack, you always withdraw, you never defend territory. You never have to stake out your own explanation, which then will be subject to criticism and attack.

Well to me, that simple-minded little dichotomy that this person refused to give an answer to. or refused to take part in, is still a really important question. If Joseph Smith didn’t have the plates, did he know that he didn’t have plates, or did he think that he did?

He is correct.  Whether the plates were real or not is "a really important question."  The credibility of the Witnesses is "a really important question."  I think this is so regardless of which "side" you are presently on.

Anyway, the above report about the 2020 election is a good example of evidentiary analysis.  The authors were fortunate to have treasure troves of previously-compiled and authenticated evidences to examine.  The authors then evaluated the evidence and reached reasoned and reasonable conclusions based thereon.

As regarding the Book of Mormon, I acknowledge that the evidences pertaining to it differ, in both kind and degree, from evidence examined in the above report.  However, I still think we have a lot of evidence that merits examination.  The witness statements, the various other statements about the Plates, the "plausible" explanations for how the Plates could be authentically ancient (tumbaga, etc.). 

I believe that the conclusions reached on this issue will, in the end, still come down to "faith" of one sort or another.  The "testable" secondary evidences neither prove nor disprove the origins of the Book of Mormon, but I think they nevertheless merit serious attention and scrutiny.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

This should be an interesting thread/honeypot.

[InCognitus]

4 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

This should be an interesting thread/honeypot.

Red, the same color as the banner that pops up once in a while at the top of the board's web page.  Focus on the message on the banner, and you'll be just fine.  

[Benjamin McGuire]

For the record, I do believe that the witness accounts, the claims of Joseph Smith, and so on, is all evidence. The one statement I take exception to in all of this is this one: "the "plausible" explanations for how the Plates could be authentically ancient (tumbaga, etc.)." Because, of course, this isn't evidence, and it isn't even an argument for plausibility.

The best example I can think of at the moment though for the way that this plays out is the Voree Plates. We actually know that there were plates. We know exactly what they were like, and what the characters on them were. We have the testimonies of people who saw them. We have a translation produced by Strang. I also know that they are a hoax - and I know this from the copies made of the artifacts themselves rather than from any analysis of the witnesses or the claims made by Strang (excluding his translation which is a very important part of this conclusion). In fact, even if the witnesses were absolutely reliable, and there were no questions about them, in general, the textual evidence would trump their testimony.

All of this aside, I think that there are two more things that should be considered: 1) the reliability of witnesses is distinct from the question of their competence. 2) Daniel Peterson noted this in one of the quotes above: "The variety and complexity of their collective testimony makes finding a single, alternative, non-divine explanation for the witness experiences challenging, indeed." This makes a really big assumption that should be recognized. Unless you have a belief and perhaps even an expectation of the validity of divine explanations, then a divine explanation may be even more challenging than "a single, alternative, non-divine explanation". And, as an attorney, you probably recognize that playing the God card in evidentiary claims in court doesn't get very far, does it.

What I can say with some certainty is that based on the example I provide is that some types of evidence have more probative weight than others. A reproduction of enough of the contents of the gold plates could allow us to come to some pretty substantial conclusions about the plates - completely independent of the testimonies of the witnesses.

 

[The Nehor]

12 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Red, the same color as the banner that pops up once in a while at the top of the board's web page.  Focus on the message on the banner, and you'll be just fine.  

I am not going to start the fire.

*whistles innocently while bringing in gasoline cans just in case a fire does start*

[tagriffy]

My approach is to bracket the plates. I agree with Ben that the witness accounts, the Prophet's testimony, and so forth are evidence. And for my part, I reject the contentions of Vogel et al. that Joseph somehow created the plates himself. Sure, it's possible, but there is no actual evidence of this.

My problem comes with Hamblin and Peterson's dichotomy. I can only agree with Peterson that it is "simple-minded." It's also false. Conscious fraud or insanity are not the only possibilities here. Other possibilities could be "both" or "neither." Joseph Smith revealed God--and that is what made him a prophet. In that sense, the plates do not matter.

Let's imagine for the moment that Joseph did somehow create the plates. If so, so what? We anoint the sick with oil. Physically speaking, this does nothing besides getting the person's hair or skin greasy. But if someone were to point out this stark fact and call the person doing the anointing a conscious fraud, we could properly counter the accuser was missing the point. What is important about anointing the sick is not what the oil physically does. What is important is the symbol--the sacrament. It is what the sacrament points to, not the oil itself. The same would be true if Joseph created the plates. The plates are a symbol, a way of speaking to us "in [our] weakness, after the manner of [our] language, that [we] might come to understanding" (D&C 1:24). The fact is that, as human beings, we physical in nature. We want to see, we want to heft and feel things in our hands. If Joseph was inspired to give his immediate followers something to see and pick up and feel, so be it. I can live with that. The plates are a symbol--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

Let's imagine for the moment it does go the other way. The plates are real, and they are authentically ancient. If so, so what? I think it sufficiently noncontroversial to bluntly point out that the Book of Mormon text was produced using a seer stone. The plates remained on the table under a sheet or in a box or whatever have you. They had nothing to do with the text as we have it. The plates are still a symbol in this case--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

Edited October 2, 2022 by tagriffy

[Calm]

2 hours ago, tagriffy said:

My approach is to bracket the plates. I agree with Ben that the witness accounts, the Prophet's testimony, and so forth are evidence. And for my part, I reject the contentions of Vogel et al. that Joseph somehow created the plates himself. Sure, it's possible, but there is no actual evidence of this.

My problem comes with Hamblin and Peterson's dichotomy. I can only agree with Peterson that it is "simple-minded." It's also false. Conscious fraud or insanity are not the only possibilities here. Other possibilities could be "both" or "neither." Joseph Smith revealed God--and that is what made him a prophet. In that sense, the plates do not matter.

Let's imagine for the moment that Joseph did somehow create the plates. If so, so what? We anoint the sick with oil. Physically speaking, this does nothing besides getting the person's hair or skin greasy. But if someone were to point out this stark fact and call the person doing the anointing a conscious fraud, we could properly counter the accuser was missing the point. What is important about anointing the sick is not what the oil physically does. What is important is the symbol--the sacrament. It is what the sacrament points to, not the oil itself. The same would be true if Joseph created the plates. The plates are a symbol, a way of speaking to us "in [our] weakness, after the manner of [our] language, that [we] might come to understanding" (D&C 1:24). The fact is that, as human beings, we physical in nature. We want to see, we want to heft and feel things in our hands. If Joseph was inspired to give his immediate followers something to see and pick up and feel, so be it. I can live with that. The plates are a symbol--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

Let's imagine for the moment it does go the other way. The plates are real, and they are authentically ancient. If so, so what? I think it sufficiently noncontroversial to bluntly point out that the Book of Mormon text was produced using a seer stone. The plates remained on the table under a sheet or in a box or whatever have you. They had nothing to do with the text as we have it. The plates are still a symbol in this case--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

I don’t see an issue with the above on its own. I can see the creation of the plates by Joseph as party of a process by which he opens himself up to revelation about the past much as a historical village might be reproduced in order to help anthropologists understand how life functioned for residents of the village in the past. 
 

The problem comes in for me with the narrative Joseph shared about the plates. I don’t see how his creation of them to open his mind can be reconciled with what he gave us about finding the plates and transmitting the Book of Mormon.   How do you see his narrative as truthful if he created the plates (asking tagriffy or anyone else who can see creation of the plates as part of the prophetic vision process)?

[Bernard Gui]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

I don’t see an issue with the above on its own. I can see the creation of the plates by Joseph as party of a process by which he opens himself up to revelation about the past much as a historical village might be reproduced in order to help anthropologists understand how life functioned for residents of the village in the past. 
 

The problem comes in for me with the narrative Joseph shared about the plates. I don’t see how his creation of them to open his mind can be reconciled with what he gave us about finding the plates and transmitting the Book of Mormon.   How do you see his narrative as truthful if he created the plates (asking tagriffy or anyone else who can see creation of the plates as part of the prophetic vision process)?

So many ways to avoid giving an inch to Joseph Smith.

[Calm]

24 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

So many ways to avoid giving an inch to Joseph Smith.

I don’t understand your comment, BG.  Could you clarify for me?

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

I don’t understand your comment, BG.  Could you clarify for me?

Joseph told his story, but so many people try to retell it and explain it away because giving  an inch to his version is too much to believe. 

[Calm]

It works for me, though I don’t assume he understood all the implications of his experience (what mortal could?) and his perspective changed as he got older and had different experiences that caused different aspects of his earlier experience to move into focus more and others to recede. Also I think there were likely parts he never publicly shared as too deeply personal, so it is possible Imo that some of the issues people have are caused by lack of enough information.  Iow, I have my doubts his communication of his experiences were completely fleshed out and precise. Our brains just don’t work that efficiently. Thus it doesn’t trouble me when others react differently to his narrative than I do, I don’t feel a need to question their honesty or reason.  I don’t need others to see things how I see them to be seen as reasonable and thoughtful by me.  I judge more by the effort at understanding others’ POV (in this case not only other members, but especially Joseph’s) I see.  If someone can describe another’s POV in a way that the other says “that is an decent description of my position” rather than get an “that’s not what I believe”, then I tend to be more impressed and think they are at the starting place of being able to fairly evaluate others’ ideas. 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Calm

[Dan Vogel]

On 10/1/2022 at 7:01 PM, tagriffy said:

My approach is to bracket the plates. I agree with Ben that the witness accounts, the Prophet's testimony, and so forth are evidence. And for my part, I reject the contentions of Vogel et al. that Joseph somehow created the plates himself. Sure, it's possible, but there is no actual evidence of this.

My problem comes with Hamblin and Peterson's dichotomy. I can only agree with Peterson that it is "simple-minded." It's also false. Conscious fraud or insanity are not the only possibilities here. Other possibilities could be "both" or "neither." Joseph Smith revealed God--and that is what made him a prophet. In that sense, the plates do not matter.

Let's imagine for the moment that Joseph did somehow create the plates. If so, so what? We anoint the sick with oil. Physically speaking, this does nothing besides getting the person's hair or skin greasy. But if someone were to point out this stark fact and call the person doing the anointing a conscious fraud, we could properly counter the accuser was missing the point. What is important about anointing the sick is not what the oil physically does. What is important is the symbol--the sacrament. It is what the sacrament points to, not the oil itself. The same would be true if Joseph created the plates. The plates are a symbol, a way of speaking to us "in [our] weakness, after the manner of [our] language, that [we] might come to understanding" (D&C 1:24). The fact is that, as human beings, we physical in nature. We want to see, we want to heft and feel things in our hands. If Joseph was inspired to give his immediate followers something to see and pick up and feel, so be it. I can live with that. The plates are a symbol--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

Let's imagine for the moment it does go the other way. The plates are real, and they are authentically ancient. If so, so what? I think it sufficiently noncontroversial to bluntly point out that the Book of Mormon text was produced using a seer stone. The plates remained on the table under a sheet or in a box or whatever have you. They had nothing to do with the text as we have it. The plates are still a symbol in this case--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

"there is no actual evidence" that the plates were made out of tin. In my view, there's no "actual evidence" for gold plates either.

"If Joseph was inspired to give his immediate followers something to see and pick up and feel, so be it. I can live with that. The plates are a symbol--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself." That's close to my view. JS created the plates to give his revelation more plausibility. 

Mike Ash laughed when I told him that I think one day the only difference between my position and the apologists' will be faith, that is, faith that the BofM is a revelation.

 

[mfbukowski]

On 10/1/2022 at 4:01 PM, tagriffy said:

My approach is to bracket the plates. I agree with Ben that the witness accounts, the Prophet's testimony, and so forth are evidence. And for my part, I reject the contentions of Vogel et al. that Joseph somehow created the plates himself. Sure, it's possible, but there is no actual evidence of this.

My problem comes with Hamblin and Peterson's dichotomy. I can only agree with Peterson that it is "simple-minded." It's also false. Conscious fraud or insanity are not the only possibilities here. Other possibilities could be "both" or "neither." Joseph Smith revealed God--and that is what made him a prophet. In that sense, the plates do not matter.

Let's imagine for the moment that Joseph did somehow create the plates. If so, so what? We anoint the sick with oil. Physically speaking, this does nothing besides getting the person's hair or skin greasy. But if someone were to point out this stark fact and call the person doing the anointing a conscious fraud, we could properly counter the accuser was missing the point. What is important about anointing the sick is not what the oil physically does. What is important is the symbol--the sacrament. It is what the sacrament points to, not the oil itself. The same would be true if Joseph created the plates. The plates are a symbol, a way of speaking to us "in [our] weakness, after the manner of [our] language, that [we] might come to understanding" (D&C 1:24). The fact is that, as human beings, we physical in nature. We want to see, we want to heft and feel things in our hands. If Joseph was inspired to give his immediate followers something to see and pick up and feel, so be it. I can live with that. The plates are a symbol--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

Let's imagine for the moment it does go the other way. The plates are real, and they are authentically ancient. If so, so what? I think it sufficiently noncontroversial to bluntly point out that the Book of Mormon text was produced using a seer stone. The plates remained on the table under a sheet or in a box or whatever have you. They had nothing to do with the text as we have it. The plates are still a symbol in this case--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

I agree, and if we demand a naturalistic explanation I would go along with some varient of Taves' view, with some modifications, my view is here:

https://www.churchistrue.com/blog/gold-plates-ann-taves-naturalistic-theory/

Don Bradley, LDS historian, introducing research from non-LDS scholar Ann Taves on Joseph Smith and the gold plates said:

Taves, a non-Mormon scholar, has taken up a challenge laid down by Richard Bushman and Terryl Givens. The argument by Bushman and Givens is that the nature of Joseph Smith’s claim to have the Nephite golden plates is such that one must either fully accept it or think that he was a fraud: i.e., there is no middle ground on which to reject Joseph Smith’s claim to have the Nephite plates while accepting his sincerity. This is an argument I’ve also made myself, in various discussions online, going back several years.

 

In this blog post, I will explain Ann Taves’ answer to this challenge, add some additional pieces to the theory, and then ask the same question Don asked.

When I posted this on Facebook I also had one LDS friend weigh in as accepting Taves’ hypothesis while also embracing the reality of the Nephites. Would such a combination of beliefs place an individual within or without the scope of Latter-day Saint faith?

 

Ann Taves published an article Joseph Smith and the materialization of the golden plates.  I will quote and borrow from Taves heavily in this post.  Ann previews the issue talking about the polarity in people’s opinions of Joseph Smith and especially the golden plates.

 

• Richard Bushman said “unbelieving historians … repress material [evidence] coming from eyewitnesses close to Joseph Smith [who] consistently wrote and acted as if he had the Book of Mormon plates.”
• Non-believers explain Smith’s claims regarding the plates in terms of deception, fantasy, or a prank that got out of hand.
• Materiality of the golden plates presents secular historians with a significant stumbling block.
• Dan Vogel believes Joseph made the plates out of tin and calls this “the most compelling evidence for conscious misdirection.”
• Vogel considers the materiality of the plates “the most compelling evidence” that Smith consciously misdirected his followers and compares the making of the plates with the practices of adepts who comingle trickery and sincere belief.

 

On the flip side, believers, even LDS scholars, are reticent to discuss the possibility of the golden plates being anything but the actual ancient Nephite recorded on metal plates.  There seems to be no middle ground.  Taves’ challenge is to provide a plausible explanation for the two seemingly opposite assumptions: 1) there were no actual ancient golden plates and also 2) Smith was neither fraudulent nor delusional.

 

The relationship between Materiality and Sacrality of the Golden Plates

Taves points out the complex relationship between materiality and sacrality using this quote from Jesse Smith, Joseph’s uncle who critically said the following of Joseph  “[He had] eyes to see things that are not, and then [had] the audacity to say they are.”

Taves concurs with Bushman, that is is right to point out that Smith consistently acted as if he possessed ancient plates.  But there was something different about the physicality of the plates.  They seemed to be not an ordinary material object, but something only the Angel Moroni operating in a spiritual realm could deliver, display, and take away.

• The three witnesses saw the plates only through a vision.
• According to Lucy Smith, even the 8 witness event, even though Joseph was the one who showed them the plates, they retired to the grove without the plates where they were delivered by “one of the ancient Nephites”
• Joseph monitored the safety of the plates from a distance using the seerstone.
• Martin Harris according to two separate witnesses said the three and eight witnesses did not physically see the plates only saw “the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination””
• Even in the LDS canon, it appears to reference the plates as something that could only be seen through faith.  D&C 17:5: “And ye shall testify that you have seen them, even as my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., has seen them; for it is by my power that he has seen them, and it is because he had faith.”

 

Examples of Materialization of Sacred Objects

Taves establishes a precedent for the materialization of sacred objects by discussing some examples of cases when something natural is believed to be transformed into something sacred.  I’m adding a couple more introduced by Mark Bukowski.

Catholic Eucharist

Transubstantiation is the belief in the Catholic church that by the authority and faith of the administering priest and the power of God, that the bread and wine is actually and literally changed to the physical flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.  If you were to ask a Catholic partaking of the sacrament, whether the bread they eat is bread symbolizing the body of Christ or the actual body of Christ, they would say the latter.  Joseph would be familiar with this belief and could have viewed this as a true principle of God that could be extended to the materialization and transformation of other sacred objects.

Brother of Jared and 16 stones

The 16 small stones that the Lord transformed through his power and the faith of the Brother of Jared into lights.  The Brother of Jared was commanded to do something but not given everything to complete the task.  The Brother of Jared created a natural solution which God blessed and transformed.

Ten Commandments

God gave Moses a stone tablet with the 10 commandments written on them by his finger.  The first set of tablets were destroyed, whereupon Moses made a second set of tablets himself by his own hand.  God made that second set of tablets sacred by writing again on them the 10 commandments.

Consescrated Oil

In the LDS faith, we take simple olive oil, and bless it and consecrate it for the healing of the sick.  At this point, we treat the oil as sacred and set it apart for its holy purpose, only for the involvement in blessings.  We believe God transforms the simple olive oil into consecrated oil.  If we were making a recipe that called for olive oil and checked the pantry and found we were out of EVOO, it would be unthinkable to use consecrated oil.  In our minds, it is no longer cooking oil, it is a sacred object.

Garments

LDS garments are considered to be sacred.  But, like the other examples they start as a material object that becomes sacred through the human modification of the object combined with God’s sanctification.

 

Transformation of a natural object into the Golden Plates

After a visit to the Hill Cumorah to obtain the plates, Joseph told his parents he had just received “the severest chastisement that [he] had ever had in his life … [from] the angel of the Lord.” The angel told him he had been “negligent [and] that the time ha[d] now come when the record should be brought forth.” But he also told them not to worry.  He now knew what to do.  “Father give yourself no uneasiness as to this reprimand I know what course I am to pursue an[d] all will be well.”

Taves hypothesizes that up until this time, Joseph assumed his role in receiving the plates was more of a passive one, but now he understood it to be an active, participatory role.  Joseph used the verb “obtain” to describe his journey in receiving the gold plates.  Obtaining implies an active effort.

Smith’s logic, however, may have been less like an adept deceiving his subjects and more like a Catholic priest making Christ present in the Eucharistic wafer. In the first case, the adept knowingly misleads his viewers, albeit for their own good. In the second, a priest calls upon the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.  Comparison of the golden plates and the Eucharist allows us to consider the possibility that Smith viewed something that he made – metal plates – as a vehicle through which something sacred — the ancient golden plates — could be made (really) present.

Taves believes at this point Joseph crafted some metal plates, and then approached God to make them sacred, to materialize them into the ancient gold plates.  This is very similar to the Moses precedent and the Brother of Jared example, of a prophet being expected by God to do something to get things started through a natural process and then having God finish the process through a sacred process.

An important, final step in the materialization process was for others to see the plates in vision and to be persuaded by the power of God to believe in them.  This explains why Joseph is so genuinely happy when the three witnesses obtained the same vision of the plates.

Father! — Mother! — … you do not know how happy I am[.] The Lord has caused the plates to be shown to 3 more besides me who have also seen an angel and will have to testify to the truth of what I have said for they know for themselves that I do not go about to deceive the people… I do feel as though I was relieved of a dreadful burden which was almost too much for me to endure … it does rejoice my soul that I am not any longer to be entirely alone in the world.

 

Mark Bukowski said

There are words, I think we can put together, which can be read and understood as “naturalistic” explanations and as traditional LDS explanations as well.  I think once we figure out those vocabularies, so we can speak as Taves does, yet even with more nuanced meanings, the church really could fill the earth as the “stone cut without hands”.  We are completely compatible with a theistic view of humanism, we are materialists, and there are atheist philosophers who describe a god they would believe in terms of solidarity with humanity, with their god being a “friend” to humanity (Rorty and others). We are so dang close it drives me crazy.  If we could just get past these sectarian linguistic blocks, and I think Taves work heads in that direction for us-  we could actually suddenly have a Mormon revolution.  If we can get the world to see it as Taves does, we are very close to being there.

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Dan Vogel said:

"there is no actual evidence" that the plates were made out of tin. In my view, there's no "actual evidence" for gold plates either.

"If Joseph was inspired to give his immediate followers something to see and pick up and feel, so be it. I can live with that. The plates are a symbol--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself." That's close to my view. JS created the plates to give his revelation more plausibility. 

Mike Ash laughed when I told him that I think one day the only difference between my position and the apologists' will be faith, that is, faith that the BofM is a revelation.

 

I have been thinking that for years.

History is irrelevant to the value of the literature and its spiritual content.

It's like arguing who wrote "Shakespeare".  Who cares?   Same argument with the Book of Abraham.   POOF!  Alleged problem disappears.

Catholics turn bread into the Body of Christ (and yes I can take that literally with a little Wittgenstein thrown in) all the time.

You gotta learn some philosophy

Edited October 3, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Dan Vogel said:

JS created the plates to give his revelation more plausibility. 

Nah I think it's even simpler than that.  He believed he was doing God's will, and I am not going to doubt his perceptions- how can I?

Ever heard of the placebo effect?  The healing is "real".   Not much difference.

Quote

 Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 10/1/2022 at 10:04 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

What I can say with some certainty is that based on the example I provide is that some types of evidence have more probative weight than others. A reproduction of enough of the contents of the gold plates could allow us to come to some pretty substantial conclusions about the plates - completely independent of the testimonies of the witnesses.

I personally agree, and I also can see this notion of how people create the sacred from matter unorganized is a large part of the answer.

Billions of Catholics have no problem with it.   But personally I have no need to actually believe such a theory; my testimony of the content is all I need.

But I suppose seeing it from a Catholic point of view comes "naturally" from the first 20 years of my life.   I am sure though that I will get a lot of flak from Catholics here for saying so. 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by mfbukowski

[tagriffy]

On 10/1/2022 at 6:32 PM, Calm said:

The problem comes in for me with the narrative Joseph shared about the plates. I don’t see how his creation of them to open his mind can be reconciled with what he gave us about finding the plates and transmitting the Book of Mormon.   How do you see his narrative as truthful if he created the plates (asking tagriffy or anyone else who can see creation of the plates as part of the prophetic vision process)?

I think mfbukowski's reply above, along with Taves' paper are well worth exploring. I would urge anyone to follow the link to Taves' essay and digest it.

I have other possibilities, but that come with the caveat that my thoughts are preliminary in nature. Notably, they fit well with Tave's thoughts, and could be integrated with her essay fairly easily. One possibility is that Joseph would have been in an altered state of consciousness while fabricating the plates. While this may strike some as the equivalent of being deluded, remember that in religious studies this is not the case. If Joseph created the plates while in an ASC, then there is no question of Joseph's honesty regarding the plates or the stories he told about them. If someone were concerned with Joseph being strictly honest, they could add the concept of ASC to Taves' theory easily enough.

A possibility I find attractive is to fully explore the concept of Joseph as a "pious fraud." First, note the scare quotes. I really don't like the term all that much. While it does convey a sense of complexity, for most people it is going to have a negative connotation. The term I would prefer most is mythmaker. This term also has the potential for being misunderstood, but remember that in religious studies, "myth" does not mean "false." Myth deals with things that are beyond our ordinary experience and deals with the sorts of questions that simply cannot be answered with empirical methodology, and those answers typically come in the form of stories.

So for our purposes, let us go to the extreme. Let's say Joseph not only created the plates, but made up the stories about them that he knew were not true. In real life, we need not actually go this far, especially if we combine this possibility with Taves' essay, or infer something like an ASC, or even suppose a bit of actual insanity. The point here is to grant the harshest critics these points at least for the sake of argument to see where this might plausibly (sorry Ben) take us.

In my previous post, I kind of made a big deal about the plates being a symbol. But now let's ask what makes a symbol a symbol. The stories. The Kaaba in Mecca would just be a big ole box housing a rock in the middle of the desert without the stories associated with them. With those stories, the Kaaba becomes the direction Muslims face during their daily prayers and to which they are obligated to make the Hajj at least once during their lifetimes if at all possible. The flag of one's country inspires pride because it is associated with the stories of sacrifice and triumph that makes a country what it is. People keep and preserve family heirlooms because there are stories attached to those objects; without the stories, it's just another desk or grandfather clock or family Bible or whatever have you.

So Joseph creates these plates. But by themselves, they are just scraps of metal that has some scratches on them. They are literally nothing that someone with an appropriate level of skill couldn't do (Kinderhook, anyone?)! At this point, they are just a thing among a hundred million things in the world. They need to have meaning infused into them. And that is where the stories come in.

This is where I would invite you to explore those stories using Dan's Early Mormon Documents series, which conveniently are available online. To greatly oversimplify things, you're going to find stories of guardian spirits, narrow escapes, Joseph being chastised for improper motivations, unexpected events that threw a monkey wrench in Joseph's attempts to obtain the plates. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These stories infuse the plates with mythological meaning that makes them an appropriate symbol for the "real" revelation--the Book of Mormon itself.

If Joseph made up the stories knowing they weren't true, so what? The stories were certainly True.

 

[tagriffy]

14 hours ago, Dan Vogel said:

"there is no actual evidence" that the plates were made out of tin. In my view, there's no "actual evidence" for gold plates either.

Personally, I'm not quite willing to go that far. I first encountered your theory when reading The Making of a Prophet. Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy, so I can't give page numbers or quote the appropriate text directly. I do distinctly remember asking myself, "Okay, so where is the evidence?" There were no receipts, as it were.

With regard to the plates, what do we have? All we have are stories. The plates--if they materially existed--are no longer extent. We can very broadly divide these stories into three categories. We have the story of the Three and Eight Witnesses, who say they saw and/or handled the plates, but probably the best evidence points to these stories being visionary experiences. Then we have the stories that are intimately wrapped up in the folk magic worldview of Joseph's time and place. So, for example, the plates could disappear when endangered and reappear miles away. The material reality of the plates can easily be dismissed in those cases. Then you have Emma Smith casually describing taking Joseph's dictation while the plates were sitting on the table wrapped in a cloth. That inclines me to think there was something.

But what was that something? As a historical matter, we do not know and we currently have no means of finding out. You may well be right that Joseph created them. They may well have been the actual Nephite plates. They may well have been something Joseph discovered without them being actual Nephite plates, but could be used as a springboard for revelation. They could have been any number of things. But all of that is necessarily speculation, and any finding we render about the possibilities is going to reflect theological rather than historical judgments.

To bring this back to the original post, Smac does recognize there are differences in both kind and degree between analyzing the 2020 election and the existence of the gold plates. But the difference in kind all by itself means the existence of the gold plates defies the sort of analysis we can apply to the 2020 election. The 2020 election was a real world event, and we can determine who really won it though more-or-less empirical means. This is something we simply can't do with the gold plates, surrounded as they are by tales of supernatural events and supernatural beings.

[smac97]

On 10/1/2022 at 5:01 PM, tagriffy said:

My approach is to bracket the plates. I agree with Ben that the witness accounts, the Prophet's testimony, and so forth are evidence. And for my part, I reject the contentions of Vogel et al. that Joseph somehow created the plates himself. Sure, it's possible, but there is no actual evidence of this.

Not only is there a lack of evidence for this naturalistic explanation, it also doesn't account for the other artifacts.  If Joseph Smith was a conscious fraud, I could see the motive to fabricate the Plates.  But then why proceed to also spin yarns still other ancient artifacts (Breastplate / Sword of Laban and U&T / Liahona)?  Why multiply his work?  Why feign a revelation (D&C 17) in which the Three Witnesses are promised that they "shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in the wilderness, on the borders of the Red Sea"?

On 10/1/2022 at 5:01 PM, tagriffy said:

My problem comes with Hamblin and Peterson's dichotomy. I can only agree with Peterson that it is "simple-minded." It's also false. Conscious fraud or insanity are not the only possibilities here. Other possibilities could be "both" or "neither."

I think we still end up with a trichotomy, though (the third option being that Joseph was telling the truth).  "Both" and "neither" are variations on these alternative themes.

On 10/1/2022 at 5:01 PM, tagriffy said:

Let's imagine for the moment that Joseph did somehow create the plates. If so, so what? We anoint the sick with oil. Physically speaking, this does nothing besides getting the person's hair or skin greasy. But if someone were to point out this stark fact and call the person doing the anointing a conscious fraud, we could properly counter the accuser was missing the point. What is important about anointing the sick is not what the oil physically does. What is important is the symbol--the sacrament. It is what the sacrament points to, not the oil itself. The same would be true if Joseph created the plates.

I think Joseph fabricating the plates creates far more questions than answers.  From some comments I made in 2017 about Ann Taves' theory:

Quote

I think Taves creates far more problems and questions than she solves.  In order for her hypothesis to work, there have to be quite a few lies.

• Joseph would seem to have been lying about Moroni altogether, since he was the principal means by which information about the location and the contents of the nonexistent plates.
• If the entirety of Joseph's Moroni narrative was not false, then big chunks of it were.  For example, Moroni (assuming he even existed and appeared to Joseph) lied about there being "a book deposited, written upon gold plates" (JS-H 1:34).
• Joseph would have lied about the vision in which he was shown the location of the plates (JS-H 1:42).
• Joseph would have lied about the physical location of the plates (on "a hill of considerable size," on its west side, under a "stone of considerable size" that was "thick and rounding in the middle on the upper side, and thinner toward the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all around was covered with earth," deposited in a stone box) (JS-H 1:51).
• Joseph would have lied about obtaining "a lever" which he "fixed under the stone" and "raised it up" to expose the stone box in which the plates were located (JS-H 1:52).
• Joseph would have lied about the composition of the stone box ("was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the plates") (JS-H 152).
• Joseph would have also needed to lie about, and fabricate "the other things" found with the plates (the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Liahona, the interpreters) (JS-H 1:52, 62; Lyndon W. Cook, ed., David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book, 1991), 63).
• Joseph would have lied about attempting to remove these plates to which he had been led (JS-H 1:53).
• Joseph would have lied about the event in which he returned to hill where the plates "were deposited" and the heavenly messenger "delivered them unto {him}" (JS-H 1:59).
• Joseph would have lied about returning the plates to Moroni (Smith, Lucy Mack (1853), Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations, p. 141).
• The Three Witnesses would have lied about an angel descending from heaven with the plates and showing the plates to them (The Testimony of Three Witnesses) (unless, I suppose, Taves proposes that an angel of God was in on the whole ruse).

We could go on forever like this.  Taves's theory utterly undermines the narrative about the plates.

Quote

Skeptics in my view have been too quick to jump from the assumption that there were no plates to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was either deluded or a fraud. In doing so, they sidestep the most interesting (and challenging) questions. For the sake of argument, I want to assume that there were no plates or at least no ancient golden plates and at the same time take seriously believers’ claim that Smith was not a fraud. If we start with those premises, then we have to explain how the plates might have become real for Smith as well as his followers. The challenge, however, is not just to explain how they might have become real for Smith, but how they might have become real for him in some non-delusory sense.

...

If we shift from viewing postulated created plates not as fake plates but as a simulation or enactment of ancient gold plates, we can compare Smith to a physician who prescribes a placebo...

So is she postulating that there were Nephites and Lamanites, etc.?  If so, then why resort to such a tortured, circuitous explanation that paints Joseph and the Witnesses as liars or deluded/insane?  Why formulate such a tortured theory about Joseph Smith fabricating "fake plates" as a stand-in for actual, real "ancient gold plates?"

And if not, then what is the point of theorizing about "fake plates" being a stand-in for "ancient gold plates?"  Are these postulated "ancient gold plates" totally unrelated to the translation Joseph presented?

I also note these comments by then-Elder Oaks:

Quote

"There is something strange about accepting the moral or religious content of a book while rejecting the truthfulness of its authors' declarations, predictions, and statements. This approach not only rejects the concepts of faith and revelation that the Book of Mormon explains and advocates, but it is also not even good scholarship. ... The argument that it makes no difference whether the Book of Mormon is fact or fable is surely a sibling to the argument that it makes no difference whether Jesus Christ ever lived." (Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, edited by Paul Y. Hoskisson, p. 244.)

 

On 10/1/2022 at 5:01 PM, tagriffy said:

The plates are a symbol, a way of speaking to us "in [our] weakness, after the manner of [our] language, that [we] might come to understanding" (D&C 1:24). The fact is that, as human beings, we physical in nature. We want to see, we want to heft and feel things in our hands. If Joseph was inspired to give his immediate followers something to see and pick up and feel, so be it. I can live with that. The plates are a symbol--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

Was Joseph also "inspired" to lie about the origins of the Book of Mormon?  

Absent historicity, there were no Lehites.  Absent the Lehites, the narrative is entirely fictional.  Absent the Lehites, there were no actual people descended from them, including Moroni.  So did Joseph lie about the Angel Moroni?  Or did the angel lie about who he was?

On 10/1/2022 at 5:01 PM, tagriffy said:

Let's imagine for the moment it does go the other way. The plates are real, and they are authentically ancient. If so, so what? I think it sufficiently noncontroversial to bluntly point out that the Book of Mormon text was produced using a seer stone. The plates remained on the table under a sheet or in a box or whatever have you. They had nothing to do with the text as we have it.

I think they had everything to do with "the text as we have it."  "He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants."  (JS-H 1:34.)

On 10/1/2022 at 5:01 PM, tagriffy said:

The plates are still a symbol in this case--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

I quite agree.  The text gives us light and knowledge, and the Spirit ratifies and verifies these things as true, as being from God.

That said, I don't think we can disregard the necessary connection between the text and the physical reality and antiquity of its source.  I have previously presented my thoughts on this subject here.

Quote

The Value of The Book of Mormon is Inextricably Linked to its Historicity

A popular refrain from the "Inspired Fiction" folks is that The Book of Mormon has value even if it is entirely fictional, just like the parables of Jesus need not be literally historical in order to have value.  However, I disagree with this comparison.   Parables have value irrespective of their historicity, I agree with that. However, Jesus Christ being the Son of God and Savior of the world only has value because of the historicity tied up with that declaration. Historicity matters when we consider various scriptural passages, such as this one: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Absent historicity, this passage has no salvific meaning or value. Without historicity, Jesus would be just another admirable fictional character, like Atticus Finch, or Samwise Gamgee, or Captain America. Jesus would be about as valuable to me as an imaginary life preserver would be to a drowning man.

In his article "Joseph Smith and the Historicity of the Book of Mormon" (published in the above volume), Kent P. Jackson asks, "what credibility could any of these sources have if the book is not historical?"  He goes on (emphasis added):

Quote

Can the Book of Mormon indeed be 'true,' in any sense, if it lies repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately regarding its own historicity? Can Joseph Smith be viewed with any level of credibility if he repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately lied concerning the historicity of the book? Can we have any degree of confidence in what are presented as the words of God in the Doctrine and Covenants if they repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately lie by asserting the historicity of the Book of Mormon? If the Book of Mormon is not what it claims to be, what possible cause would anyone have to accept anything of the work of Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints given the consistent assertions that the Book of Mormon is an ancient text that describes ancient events?" (Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, edited by Paul Y. Hoskisson, pp. 137-138.)

Can a person have faith in The Book of Mormon while simultaneously rejecting The Book of Mormon as to its historicity? I don't think so. Such a concept renders Joseph Smith a fraud and a liar, and the book itself a fraud and a lie. A fictional Book of Mormon has no real power, and renders it as nothing more than a quirky self-help book. It becomes no more relevant to the salvation of men than Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins or How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. These are useful books, to be sure. For some, they are even life changing. But The Book of Mormon declares itself to be the word of God through inspired prophets.

Can a person have faith in Christ while simultaneously rejecting Christ as an actual, historical figure? I don't think so. Rejecting the historicity of Christ renders Christ a fictional role model, like Atticus Finch or Gandalf. A fictional Christ has no power to atone, no power to forgive, no power to save.

I think the Inspired Fiction folks have not really thought through the ramifications of their proposal.   The "fake but accurate," "I can reject what The Book of Mormon claims to be and what Joseph Smith represented it to be, but still accept it as scripture" type of reasoning is a fundamentally flawed line of reasoning. Elder Oaks aptly described it as "not only reject(ing) the concepts of faith and revelation that The Book of Mormon explains and advocates, but it is also not even good scholarship." This is why I find advocacy of this approach problematic. Such advocates are steering others up a spiritual blind alley; a path, I think, which sooner or later will culminate in a crisis of faith and/or a rejection of The Book of Mormon. After all, one who rejects its historicity has already rejected a substantive, even vital, part of the book. Rejecting the rest of it would seem to be just a matter of time.  I think an affirmative denial of the book's historicity will, sooner or later, become fatal to a testimony of the book. Ambivalence about historicity is perhaps possible, but affirmative denial is, I think, not compatible with an enduring and efficacious testimony of The Book of Mormon.
...

I think those who seek salvation, but who reject the messengers who bring it, are in serious error.  Nevertheless, as deeply flawed as their position is, I welcome such persons who buy into the "inspired fiction" meme in fellowship in the Church.  We are all of us working to improve our understanding of God and His plans for us.  It is not for me to withdraw or withhold fellowship from those who differ from me on this issue.  I also won't speculate as to their standing in the Church generally, and will instead leave such things to those who are in authority and have proper stewardship.

The "inspired fiction" approach to The Book of Mormon requires a rejection of The Book of Mormon for what it claims to be. To accept it on those grounds would be like saying "Yes, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and my Lord and Savior, even though I reject the idea that he ever actually existed." A fictional Christ does not work, and neither does a fictional Book of Mormon.

Thanks,

-Smac

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, tagriffy said:

So for our purposes, let us go to the extreme. Let's say Joseph not only created the plates, but made up the stories about them that he knew were not true.

I get a lot of flak about simply referring people to philosophers supposedly with a wave of my hand, introducing a deus ex machina and then running away. I did that yesterday with @Dan Vogel and I apologize for it, but the truth here seems to be to avoid philosophy and ignore the meat of postmodernism and other movements like radical empiricism and relational truth.  There's still a lot of the 16th century in the thinking of this board; Cartesian Dualism and the correspondence theory of truth, and positivism reign supreme.

Does a Catholic priest "know it's not true" when he prepares what will become the Eucharist, that he cannot possibly actually turn bread into the "body, blood, soul and divinity" of Christ?

Of course not!

What makes our sacramental bread special? Can we not remember Christ and renew our Covenants without physically taking the sacrament ?

I once did a thread here about the sacredness of consecrated oil and asked if people were stuck in the desert and could not light a fire, would they use consecrated oil with tinder and a spark to start the fire.

Iirc, the clear majority said they would not do so.

All who have been endowed know how to treat our sacred garments, not to be left on the floor, when not to wear them etc., yet of course at some point they need to be thrown away.  We also have been trained to physically remove their "sacredness", when that time comes.  What is that about?

How is any of that different in kind to making plates and then making them sacred?

But as a good ex-Catholic  I can see it both ways!

I KNOW that the BOM is a true scripture by its content.

It COULD have been delivered by an angel, with the whole standard story.  I can believe that.

I can also see it the way Taves does and have no problem.

We have two linguistic descriptions either could be the case.

It doesn't matter to me because I go by the truth of of its content, and what it teaches about the savior in whom I believe as well.

I believe that these stories are the best paradigm for humanity, and I can and will back that up in the future.  A glorified Human God fits perfectly with humanism and postmodernism and could be the best tool the church ever had if you see the connections.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

Here it is from my buddies at CUNY.

https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/intro_text/chapter 4 metaphysics/Pragmatism.htm

" 

The pragmatists applied their theory of meaning and truth to language about reality to find that such language does not necessarily describe reality as it is or may be but that the word itself has whatever meaning is assigned to it by the group of speakers.  Thus different groups can have different realities and that are equally accurate and truthful if the language satisfies the expectations of the group concerning the use of that language.  The idea of reality is seen as a construct, which performs certain functions.  There is not an external something to which the language refers and against which the language can be evaluated for its accuracy.  Talk about reality is performing social functions. 

There is no one thing that is reality!"

Edited October 3, 2022 by mfbukowski

[tagriffy]

58 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Not only is there a lack of evidence for this naturalistic explanation, it also doesn't account for the other artifacts.  If Joseph Smith was a conscious fraud, I could see the motive to fabricate the Plates.  But then why proceed to also spin yarns still other ancient artifacts (Breastplate / Sword of Laban and U&T / Liahona)?  Why multiply his work?  Why feign a revelation (D&C 17) in which the Three Witnesses are promised that they "shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in the wilderness, on the borders of the Red Sea"?

Well, where are they? Produce them so we can subject them to rigorous scientific analysis. That ought to stop the mouths of skeptics! 🙄

Seriously, what can be said about the plates by and large can be applied to the other objects as well. Why multiply his work, assuming that is in fact what he did? Well, you obviously need them. No doubt, there were others in Joseph's time that needed them too.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I think we still end up with a trichotomy, though (the third option being that Joseph was telling the truth).  "Both" and "neither" are variations on these alternative themes.

Of course they are. But that misses the point. I can talk about altered states of consciousness or mythmaking or draw upon a number of concepts I was learning about as a Religious Studies major. Likewise, @mfbukowski can talk about philosophy and Catholicism. We could write learned essays and books chock full of documentation and talk about it until we are blue in the face and some people are still going to insist on this simplistic trichotomy. Human beings in general are not that simple, so why demand that our prophets be that simple?

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Was Joseph also "inspired" to lie about the origins of the Book of Mormon?  

Absent historicity, there were no Lehites.  Absent the Lehites, the narrative is entirely fictional.  Absent the Lehites, there were no actual people descended from them, including Moroni.  So did Joseph lie about the Angel Moroni?  Or did the angel lie about who he was?

I don't know. I wasn't there and even if I were, I couldn't read Joseph's mind. All I can do is examine the material that we have at hand using the tools that I have available to me. And from that perspective, the question "Did Joseph lie about the Angel Moroni" is the wrong question entirely.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I think they had everything to do with "the text as we have it."  "He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants."  (JS-H 1:34.)

But the fact remains that Joseph didn't produce our text by sitting at a desk, Nephite-English dictionaries scattered around but ready to consult, flipping back and forth among the leaves to making sure of the context and otherwise doing the things we would normally associate with translating a work from one language to another. Joseph read the words he saw in the seer stone to his scribes, who transcribed them. This short and sweet description comports both with what the witnesses said and the Book of Mormon itself (2 Ne. 27:20-22). We know from D&C 9 that Joseph had to put some effort into the work, and that he was otherwise disinclined to talk too much about the translation process. And the plates? When they were actually present, they were sitting on the table wrapped in a tablecloth.

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Can a person have faith in The Book of Mormon while simultaneously rejecting The Book of Mormon as to its historicity? I don't think so.

You know what? Here I am, direct proof that a person can have faith in the Book of Mormon while simultaneously rejecting its historicity. Make of that what you will.

[mfbukowski]

I would say that one must completely refute the ideas and philosophy which leads to postmodernism in order to successfully refute this position presented about the plates, that they exist(ed).   More clearly, postmodernism is the ultimate defense of such matters and makes the notion of "historical evidence" irrelevant in this context.

If you can figure out HOW we humans can get past sense experience to get BEYOND our senses, the smell of a flower, the color red, the taste of an orange, the beauty of music and how they can affect our emotions-  IF you can get passed all that to some REALITY beyond human sensation- and remember Science is a very precise construction of human perception- IF you can show how to get to some world BEYOND observation, THEN you have an argument against postmodernism and a good way to prove that the plates were NOT REAL.   Yes that totally reverses the idea that "no scientific evidence" is some kind of argument against the plates. 

I am saying that "no scientific evidence" for the plates in no way proves that they did not exist

And religious experience does not count against postmodernism because it IS ALSO human experience in a world in which we cannot get BEYOND human experience. 

We see through a glass darkly and speak in languages that have been "confounded"!

Remember one must get BEYOND what humans can experience AND say that that realm is "reality", THEN one has an argument against postmodernism.

All we have is human experience and accounts of that- of what it is like to be human.

We cannot speak of a world beyond human experience.  Period.   Unless perhaps one is a whale or a bat or an earthworm, but they don't do much philosophy as far as I know since here I am, stuck in a human body.   Dang.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

Edited October 3, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Here's a good summary of Pragmatism.

It's interesting that at one point it implies that it is somewhat dead view because it has been absorbed into the general culture. 

Everywhere but here apparently. 

https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/roark-textbook/Chapter-12.htm

"Unlike these three philosophies, pragmatism is no longer an active movement. Its views and feelings have become common place among common people."

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by mfbukowski

[The Nehor]

*glances at watch*

This is taking longer than usual.

*starts playing with fidget spinner*