I think it is actually more remarkable that most of the witnesses were related to each other. This means that Joseph didn't just hand pick a group of sycophants from his community who would say what they needed to say. In other words, it is harder to get an entire family to agree with each other. How often does that happen in our own lives. Me and my brothers have vastly different opinions on many subjects.
Honestly, the likely explanation why the plates were not allowed to be seen is that they were part of the Nephite Mesoamerican sacred bundle, which consists of items sacred to Mesoamerican tribes and must always be wrapped in cloth. Sacred bundles contain sacred weapons, sacred records and other items. That explains why Joseph was required to wrap the plates in cloth from the first moment he received the plates. The interpreters also were not supposed to be shown to others (probably the likely reason that one of the interpreter stones or both were placed in the hat). Moroni is the religious high priest who is responsible for all items in the sacred bundle of the Nephite tribe. Joseph Smith nor anyone else had any right to them. That is one of the main reasons that Moroni kept the plates after the translation was completed.
Or more likely, Joseph made fake ones, and knew if anyone laid eyes on them his whole story would disappear quicker than a SA complaint to a bishop. That's also why they destroyed the plates, oh I mean Moroni took them back to heaven. I'm not sure, why you think the plates matter anyway. Joesph made his "translation" while burying his face in a hat with a magic rock. The plates were never used for the "translation."
@@shinerking12 Yes, exactly right. History, logic and wisdom have destroyed the LDS faith. As mormons have more tools of education and access to the actual historic record, not just the revised, and approved LDS version, they are simply walking away from the LDS cult. American folk religion and con artistry are sticky; wisdom is the solvent. Joseph Smith was a con artist who fabricated a snake-oil folk religion into a self-serving, ego-feeding, lust filling cult. Smith fed his lust, greed, and ego and it continues to do so for the LDS leadership today.
@@shinerking12 No, actually Joseph did translate from the plates using the Nephite interpreters which came with the plates. Stone-in-the-hat accounts are late, secondhand or otherwise problematic or unreliable. See the new book "By Means of the Urim & Thummim."
@forzion1894 how very wrong you are. Rock first, his "glasses" were Joesph's retcon when he realized people besides Martin Harris weren't going to fall for the ol rock in the hat shtick. All I need are Joesph's and the Witnesses own description of events, not some book written 200 years later.
As prominent LDS historian Richard Bushman noted, "I think that for the Church to remain strong it has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained. The Church has to absorb all this new information or it will be on very shaky grounds and that’s what it is trying to do and it will be a strain for a lot of people, older people especially. But I think it has to change." President J. Reuben Clark: "If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.” Elder Jeffrey Holland: “...everything in the Church - everything - rises or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and, by implication, the Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of how it came forth...It sounds like a ‘sudden death’ proposition to me. Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is or this Church and its founder are false, fraudulent, a deception from the first instance onward.”
@@maxwellsilverhammer9233 Richard Bushman clarified his statement in a 2016 interview with "Mormon Stories." He explained that his comments were often misunderstood or taken out of context. Bushman emphasized that he did not mean the fundamental truth of the Church was "not true," but rather that the traditional narrative needs to be updated to reflect new historical research. He called for a more nuanced and honest approach to the Church’s history, without questioning its core truths.
@@NoteworthyAnalysis The truth need not be "updated" now does it? I recall the "rock in the hat" was anti-mormon drivel. Today it has been updated? How about the anti-mormon drivel that Smith rogered two 14 year olds?
@@NoteworthyAnalysis Did not see anything from 2016 MS that would lead to this conclusion. Are you sure of this source? Bushman is, and has ripped the LDS claims apart.
Excellent work in general. However, in his discussion of the letter reporting the John Whitmer interview starting at 1:19:20 Brother Smoot is not accurate in describing the translation. He reads his bias that the translation came from a scrying stone in a hat into John Whitmer's account when it is not there. In fact, John Whitmer testified that when he acted as a scribe Joseph used the Urim & Thummim interpreters in the breastplate to perform the translation. This does not conflict with Brother Smoot's overall conclusion based on what the source actually says (as opposed to Brother Smoot's extraneous addition to what John Whitmer actually said). In fact, it is more supportive of Joseph's claims because it accepts Joseph's testimony on translation as correct as compared to the scrying stone in the hat narrative which treats Joseph as lying about the translation.
The props made by Joe Smith are likely destroyed since they would give away the fraud. The claim that an angel took them back is just as lame as it sounds. The con has been exposed and Mormons have been panicked for decades.
Defending the data is letting the truth stand against scrutiny. Most critics use poor arguments, second and third hand accounts, out of context quotes or refuse to look at all the data as a whole.
Don Bradley (who left the church but came back largely from church history research), is working on a paper on evidence of Oliver successfully translating the plates. Jerry Grover (geologist, civil engineer, linguist) also translated the “Caractors” document, with the dates aligning with Book of Mormon timelines and even real-world astronomical events. He uses all scholarly sources, feel free to critique his work
@@rconger24 Of course. Their testimonies are critical. They saw with their eyes a living man who was just recently dead and could only now be living because he was resurrected. They saw him, they talked to him, they felt him. A corresponding testimony for the book of Mormon would be that they saw the plates and read the plates confirming the book of Mormon was on those plates. There are no such eyewitnesses.
1. All signatures were in Oliver Cowdrey’s handwriting. Convenient. Would that suffice in any courtroom today? 2. They saw the plates with “spiritual eyes” 👀 Hmm, fishy 🧐 3. The plates aren’t available for scrutiny. Convenient storytelling. Also, why would a pro-Mormon channel discuss this if it was solidly believable and not questionable and suspicious? Clearly it’s the latter of those two options.
Clearly, you haven't researched this topic in any kind of detail, other than reading the most common critics' theories and applying them indiscriminately as blanket statements. 1. The original document which all the men signed individually was lost along with 72% of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House due to water damage and mold. All we have now of that document is the copy that Oliver Cowdery made at the time that he also copied the printer's manuscript from the original manuscript. The reason why that entire document is in Oliver's handwriting is because it was made as a copy of the original. Unfortunately they didn't have carbon paper in those days. What is more powerful are the unequivocal statements made by each and every one of the witnesses throughout their lives. Personal testimonies would be even more powerful than written and signed statements in a courtroom because signed statements can always be forged. 2. The idea that they only saw the plates with 'spiritual eyes' has been soundly refuted by many Latter-day Saint scholars. It is an extremely weak critical argument in my opinion. In particular, both David Whitmer and Martin Harris unequivocally stated in response to such insinuations, many times, that they saw the plates in a very literal and physical manner. They lived long enough to answer many critics and skeptics that had made those kinds of insinuations. Quoting just the skeptics without giving the witnesses' unequivocal responses is disingenuous on the part of the critics who do that. 3. Why aren't the plates available for scrutiny? That has been a very common argument by critics over the years. It is closely related to the same argument atheists have made (and continue to make) regarding anything of a divine nature over the centuries, with statements like these: "Why doesn't God provide proof of His existence?" "Why isn't there actual proof of Jesus' resurrection?" "Without physical proof I will not believe". If we had physical proof of the Book of Mormon's existence, available to all who wanted to see it, regardless of their desire to follow or not follow God's laws and teachings, etc., what would that accomplish? What are the claims of the Book of Mormon? - It was revealed to Joseph Smith by an Angel of God - It was translated by the Gift and Power of God - It testifies of Jesus Christ, that He lives and was crucified and suffered for our sins and was resurrected. - It claims to contain an ancient record of a group of followers of God's teachings by immigrant groups from the Old World who passed on their beliefs and culture to their descendants and others, and eventually their culture died out. If we had the golden plates available for view, and if indeed it could be shown to be an authentic ancient record from over 1600 years ago, it would essentially prove ALL of the above statements. Is that how God has worked in the past? Is there a reason why God doesn't reveal these kinds of things without the requirement for faith? I believe there are very good reasons why God doesn't work that way. I'm glad for the requirement of faith because I want to follow God's teachings for the right reasons, not because I'm essentially forced to do so because of irrefutable physical evidence.
Regarding Spiritual eyes, you refer to three very questionable 2nd statements by critics of the church, some of which were written many years later. Anyone who regurgitates this nonsense proves that they have no idea. ruclips.net/video/mUv-NxTv3Tc/видео.htmlsi=yNokWgL4yNuRGY5f
The correct summary: Be cautious about believing a third-hand account from someone with an axe to grind over multiple first-hand accounts that directly contradict the third-hand account and then rely on that questionable third-hand account to discredit the witnesses to the Book of Mormon to justify yourself in not believing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because that would be intellectually dishonest and you are not doing yourself any favors.
@@tylerahlstrom4553 you want to be cautious? let’s start with definitions, the majority of the accounts are second hand (ie they asked directly and they reported what the witnesses said). A third hand account is someone repeating something they heard from someone else, so you are incorrect about Burnett, he heard it from Martin Harris and wrote it in the letter. But wait, he is not the only one who asked him, the printer in palmyra also asked as well as some newspapers, in those instances the experience is described with the wording that skeptics use repeatedly (spiritual eyes, eye of faith, through a mountain etc). Smoot, as well as you, give the the first hand account priority over all other accounts but let me ask you this, how come there are several people, independent of each other, coming up with these stories? Are they all making it up? How did they coordinate? Did the guy in palmyra get the newspaper of the guy in Missouri and repeated something he didn’t witness? If a witnesses of a car crash tells you 8/10 times one of the cars was white and 3 independent witnesses say it was black would you still say the first witness was reliable?
I think your reasoning is flawed. All the first-hand accounts, ie the BofM witnesses, stated multiple times throughout their lives that what they saw and touched was real and no illusion. The three witnesses did sometimes use the phrase “spiritual eyes” but that did not mean it was imaginary. The RUclips channel Keystone just did a video on the “spiritual eyes” meaning. Check it out. David Whitmer explained this saying by stating that a change had to happen to you in order to see things of the spirit, but what he saw was real and tangible. All the quotes stating that the witnesses just imagined things or didn’t really see anything are second and third-hand accounts from people trying to discredit the witnesses. And Burnett’s account was third-hand. 1. He stated he heard this from 2. Martin, 3. who heard it from the 8 witnesses. 1,2,3.
@@tylerahlstrom4553 “he said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or a handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain” doesn’t sound like third person account to me. Again, your argument is that they went to their grave always reaffirming their testimony, I don’t know why that should impress me especially since we have cults such as the branch davidians or heavens gate members that also died for their religion. Show me coordination between the “people trying to discredit the witnesses” and I’ll consider the witnesses testimony is the gospel. Are you familiar with how D&C 76 was received? A bunch of people were in the room and no one else saw the vision, only Rigdon and Smith. “By the power of the Spirit our eyes were opened and our understandings were enlightened, so as to see and understand the things of God” Would you say their actual eyes saw the three kingdoms of glory? I would say no since other people there didn’t see it either. How are we to read their testimony when they said basically the same? Their spiritual eyes were opened and “saw the plates”. To them it was real and I understand why they wouldn’t deny it but if a 4th person was sitting there with them they wouldn’t be able to see anything or heft the plates or see the angel.
5:55 "Hiram Page was a friend of the Whitmers..." If by "friend" you mean "in-law", then yes, he was a friend... with benefits. This is one of the major weaknesses of the witness testimonies, though. All were friendly to the proposition attested. I'm sure we'll discuss the schism with Joseph Smith later. 7:00 Solidly missing the point of the criticism the Murph presents here 8:30 *Ding-dong* 🎶Hello, my name is 1838...🎶 So, we're just going to ignore how the Whitmers jockeyed for power after their falling out with Joseph? Ignoring an entire branch of Mormonism that sees Joseph as a fallen prophet and the Whitmers as the rightful successors? I don't allege conspiracy in my claims about the witnesses, but the post-1838/post-Carthage actions of the Whitmers fail to disalign with the conspiracy model supposedly presented by this judge. 12:20 Hey, uh, who wrote this statement? I'll grant that all 8 signed a statement, but who wrote the words that they signed to? Could the author of that statement have had motives in the specific wording? 26:00 Remember the different interpretations of Jeffrey Holland's musket fire talk? Remember how certain details of that talk, with the benefit of modern tools to parse and analyze it, appeared among critical and believing audiences? Nah, it isn't at all surprising that different interpretations or emphases would appear when listening to esotericism of Martin Harris in the late 1830s. 33:00 Hope to see Dan Vogel in the comments here. That reminds me though, your entire point about others continuing to believe in the BoM after hearing Martin's speech referred to by Burnett is kind of undermined by one of the critics disparaged by the guests ealier: John Hamer. Ya know, the prolific Community of Christ minister who believes in the BoM as scripture (though not as a history). Seems possible to believe in the BoM without accepting claims about plates, angels, or witnesses. 35:00 Two of them were dead also undermines the "all stayed faithful to the BoM despite..." argument. Those two just as easily may have been the ones to blow the lid on the whole thing but were too dead to do it. We don't know. Now, given that I've heard Dan Vogel include the caveat about those two being too dead to offer input, may the apologetic side should start doing the same. 47:30 That statement didn't say there was no hesitancy in signing the statement. There is something else he is willing to testify of without hesitancy, and it is not the contents of the witness statement. 52:00 If any stated that the statement as written is true, it should be noted that that statement is not an independent affirmation of the facts under examination. Toeing the party line is not independent attestation. Just worth noting. 58:30 If they could "pass visual inspection" why are only friendly witnesses ever given the opportunity to attest to their visibility? If the plates could not pass visual inspection, the lack of hostile witnesses is well-accounted for and expected. 1:02:30 If there were 100 witnesses who claimed to see a unicorn in 1733, and there was a record of a reporter saying that he heard from a neighbor to the 100 witnesses that one of the witnesses claimed to have seen a horse, we would probably privilege the horse statement over the unicorn statement as what we know about reality makes the actual existence of a unicorn extremely unlikely. The witness statements to the plates are kinda like that, with the Burnett letter serving as a possible basis for a more parsimonious interpretive lens. The nature of the claim attested to by the witnesses matters. And, to be clear, in reading Vogel's own words on the subject, it is clear that his position is much more modest than the guests are making it out to be (see Early Mormon Documents: Volume 2 pg 288-293). 1:22:00 Peeping through a magic stone to channel divine power to translate a dead language is not exactly "mundane". But now I'm going to agree with you about something: the witnessee infused a supernatural element to what they saw and witnessed. Their interpretation stands in the historical record, but I do not find that the data is parsimonious with the implicit and explicit claims associated with their testimonies. Therefore, applying Hume's razor, it is more likely that they are lying or sincerely mistaken than that their interpretation of their experience is correct and accurate. All the rest of what Vogel or the LDS Discussions panel or any other critic has to say is just window dressing at that point. 1:33:00 I mean, Strang's lack of an angel, by using the Occam principle, makes his claim more likely to be true than Joseph's (fewer entities). Strang is an excellent demonstration of how the witness reports could be constructed without real plates, angels, or divine beings. And from the perspective of the historical methods that were lauded just a few minutes ago, Strang's witnesses are as good, if not better, than Joseph's. 1:35:45 "The devil is in the details." Proceeds to admit not knowing the details. The Miracle of the Sun is a good one, btw. Lots of witnesses, independent attestation, examples of what happens when hostile or antagonistic witnesses get involved... solid stuff. You should absolutely be skeptical of all extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. 1:39:15 The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great read for this discussion. Highly recommend. 1:40:00 It's not necessarily who the witness is but what the witness claims. "I was shown by a resurrected white, Hebrew American an ancient record of the white, Hebraic inhabitants of pre-Columbian America written in reformed Egyptian, who wielded steel weapons and armor and had Deutero-Isaiah in their possession since before the Babylonian Exile" is an absolutely extraordinary claim (all of which is implicit or explicit in the witness testimonies) on par with or exceeding UFO claims, the Miracle of the Sun, or take your pick of the Virgin Mary manifestations. Not to engage in a whataboutism or tu quoque fallacy, but wasn't the guest just suggesting that Vogel was engaging in behaviors inconsistent with appropriate historical criticality? 1:41:15 Yes, correct, Murph. Why is Jesus's resurrection, the single most important event in all of human history, witnessed only to illiterate residents of 1 century CE Judea? For more on this, please see the problem of divine hiddenness, a critical challenge to classical theism that extends from the problem of evil. I recommend Paulogia's work on the subject. While you're over there, check out Paulogia's minimal witnesses hypothesis (a solid example of a layperson giving historians and textual critics a hypothesis to chew on). The plates are much better attested to than Jesus's resurrection. 1:41:30 I do not give credence to Joseph's stated reasons. The work of translation was completed (inasmuch as the plates were even needed for that translation), and there was an angel with previous combat experience standing by to defend them. For any other similar claim, the most likely explanation would be fraud on the part of the person who benefits most from affirmation of the witnesses. Why privilege this claim? 1:47:15 I'm not convinced that there was a plate artifact. I do agree that the evidence suggests that Joseph had something that stood in for the plates, but I don't accept the position that there were actual plates of any material or age. I find it more probable that there are human cognition issues going on in those statements than that there was an actual plate-like artifact. 1:48:45 Oh, I think I would state this question differently, but I like where it's going. How about this: let's grant that the 3 and the 8 saw exactly what is claimed in their statements. Angel, plates, engravings, the works. Does it necessarily follow that the English translation we have today is accurate? The answer to that question is no. The angel could be a deceiving angel, appearing unto a being of light. Or we could just point out that witness statements have nothing to do with the quality of the translation. I like this line of questioning because it's a great follow-up to the "if the BoM is true, does it necessarily follow the CoJCoLdS is true?" The answer to that question is also no. 1:49:50 Yeah... the evidence from Arabia is not just unconvincing to me. It's disconfirming. 1:50:20 These comments in light of Stick of Joseph falling hook, line, and sinker for the recent forged plate out of Arabia, or Margaret Barker, yes, THAT Margaret Barker, falling for the Jordan Lead Codices is a helluva claim. People and experts are deceived all the time. Why would a bunch of early 19th century upstate New York/Pennsylvania countryside folks have even the slightest inkling of what an ancient set of metal plates would actually look like? Especially one with a "golden appearance"? 1:52:25 I understand how you could believe it, because I used to. What I don't understand is why you privilege these claims over comparable claims that you reject (such as the Miracle of the Sun or the Strang plates), unless this issue actually doesn't inform the conclusion that you've drawn and you're just backfilling the witness testimonies in to a claim you already accepted and believed independent of their testimonies. If that's the case, then this issue appears almost irrelevant for addressing the heart of the truth claims of the BoM/CoJCoLdS.
If you consider that most of the witnesses left the church or distanced themselves from it, yet still maintained their testimony about the Book of Mormon, it doesn’t quite fit the typical ‘cult loyalty’ pattern.
The Book of Mormon doesn't help us know which Mormon church is true. The FLDS and LDS churches were/are racist and practiced polygamy. The Community of Christ seems relatively humane and good.
I’m a member of the LDS church and I’m not racist. I hear our church leaders speaking out adamantly against racism. What’s your deal man? Furthermore, the majority of the twelve apostles passed the priesthood keys to Brigham young making him the next prophet/successor to Joseph. It’s really straight forward.
@@dennygreen322 you're being dishonest or ignorant if you don't know the difference between LDS and RLDS. The LDS Church was racist until 1978. RLDS was never racist or polygamist. Brigham Young claimed to be prophet, but he also committed genocide and owned slaves. Today, LDS leaders speak against racism while harassing LGBTQ people.
@@nathanbigler every prophet makes mistakes, but I know where the authority is and it’s definitely not in the RLDS church. Gay sex is sinful but being gay is not. Stop straw-manning us. Polygamy is biblical and Joseph was commanded to practice polygamy, there is really no denying it, polygamy deniers are avoiding/ignoring the evidence. We own our history but RLDS does not.
@@dennygreen322 the LDS Church is famous for racism and polygamy. You can pretend like those were mistakes. You don't care that black people were mistreated by Latter-Day Saints for 150 years. But that's adequate evidence for most people that there are no prophets. That's a childish, absurd belief by the shrinking number of Mormons in the world
@@nathanbigler polygamy was not a mistake, it was a commandment from God for a time. The priesthood ban should not have happened but it does not mean Brigham wasn’t a prophet he was still a man of his time, God does not force the weaknesses out of his prophets, you definitely don’t get to decide what God would or would not allow his Prophets to do.
![Megan Thee Stallion - Mamushi (Remix) [feat. TWICE] [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5c0_u9PsrsQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Great thorough well balanced arguments.
Thanks
I think it is actually more remarkable that most of the witnesses were related to each other. This means that Joseph didn't just hand pick a group of sycophants from his community who would say what they needed to say.
In other words, it is harder to get an entire family to agree with each other. How often does that happen in our own lives. Me and my brothers have vastly different opinions on many subjects.
Business (money) unified them.
Honestly, the likely explanation why the plates were not allowed to be seen is that they were part of the Nephite Mesoamerican sacred bundle, which consists of items sacred to Mesoamerican tribes and must always be wrapped in cloth. Sacred bundles contain sacred weapons, sacred records and other items. That explains why Joseph was required to wrap the plates in cloth from the first moment he received the plates. The interpreters also were not supposed to be shown to others (probably the likely reason that one of the interpreter stones or both were placed in the hat). Moroni is the religious high priest who is responsible for all items in the sacred bundle of the Nephite tribe. Joseph Smith nor anyone else had any right to them. That is one of the main reasons that Moroni kept the plates after the translation was completed.
Or more likely, Joseph made fake ones, and knew if anyone laid eyes on them his whole story would disappear quicker than a SA complaint to a bishop. That's also why they destroyed the plates, oh I mean Moroni took them back to heaven. I'm not sure, why you think the plates matter anyway. Joesph made his "translation" while burying his face in a hat with a magic rock. The plates were never used for the "translation."
@@shinerking12 Yes, exactly right. History, logic and wisdom have destroyed the LDS faith. As mormons have more tools of education and access to the actual historic record, not just the revised, and approved LDS version, they are simply walking away from the LDS cult. American folk religion and con artistry are sticky; wisdom is the solvent. Joseph Smith was a con artist who fabricated a snake-oil folk religion into a self-serving, ego-feeding, lust filling cult. Smith fed his lust, greed, and ego and it continues to do so for the LDS leadership today.
@@maxwellsilverhammer9233 yawn
@@shinerking12 No, actually Joseph did translate from the plates using the Nephite interpreters which came with the plates. Stone-in-the-hat accounts are late, secondhand or otherwise problematic or unreliable. See the new book "By Means of the Urim & Thummim."
@forzion1894 how very wrong you are. Rock first, his "glasses" were Joesph's retcon when he realized people besides Martin Harris weren't going to fall for the ol rock in the hat shtick. All I need are Joesph's and the Witnesses own description of events, not some book written 200 years later.
Was happy John Hamer was referenced. Why a pastor of a restoration church counters so many beliefs I cannot understand…
Yeh I don't get that tbh
As prominent LDS historian Richard Bushman noted, "I think that for the Church to remain strong it has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained. The Church has to absorb all this new information or it will be on very shaky grounds and that’s what it is trying to do and it will be a strain for a lot of people, older people especially. But I think it has to change."
President J. Reuben Clark: "If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.”
Elder Jeffrey Holland: “...everything in the Church - everything - rises or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and, by implication, the Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of how it came forth...It sounds like a ‘sudden death’ proposition to me. Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is or this Church and its founder are false, fraudulent, a deception from the first instance onward.”
Please note that Brother Bushman has clarified the statement you quote and indicated that it has been misinterpreted.
@@forzion1894 Source? Oh, you're LDS and require no source or facts?
@@maxwellsilverhammer9233 Richard Bushman clarified his statement in a 2016 interview with "Mormon Stories." He explained that his comments were often misunderstood or taken out of context. Bushman emphasized that he did not mean the fundamental truth of the Church was "not true," but rather that the traditional narrative needs to be updated to reflect new historical research. He called for a more nuanced and honest approach to the Church’s history, without questioning its core truths.
@@NoteworthyAnalysis The truth need not be "updated" now does it? I recall the "rock in the hat" was anti-mormon drivel. Today it has been updated? How about the anti-mormon drivel that Smith rogered two 14 year olds?
@@NoteworthyAnalysis Did not see anything from 2016 MS that would lead to this conclusion. Are you sure of this source? Bushman is, and has ripped the LDS claims apart.
Excellent work in general. However, in his discussion of the letter reporting the John Whitmer interview starting at 1:19:20 Brother Smoot is not accurate in describing the translation. He reads his bias that the translation came from a scrying stone in a hat into John Whitmer's account when it is not there. In fact, John Whitmer testified that when he acted as a scribe Joseph used the Urim & Thummim interpreters in the breastplate to perform the translation. This does not conflict with Brother Smoot's overall conclusion based on what the source actually says (as opposed to Brother Smoot's extraneous addition to what John Whitmer actually said). In fact, it is more supportive of Joseph's claims because it accepts Joseph's testimony on translation as correct as compared to the scrying stone in the hat narrative which treats Joseph as lying about the translation.
Where are the plates today?
The props made by Joe Smith are likely destroyed since they would give away the fraud. The claim that an angel took them back is just as lame as it sounds. The con has been exposed and Mormons have been panicked for decades.
In the imagination of every Mormon whoever lived. Including the inventor.
Truth doesn’t need defended. It should stand under scrutiny. Only falsehoods need defending.
Defending the data is letting the truth stand against scrutiny. Most critics use poor arguments, second and third hand accounts, out of context quotes or refuse to look at all the data as a whole.
What an L take bro… lol literally every truth ever is attacked…
Revelation 12: 10. "accuser"
Ok.
Who cares who saw what. What is of interest is corroborating testimony of what was on the plates. Who all read the plates?
Don Bradley (who left the church but came back largely from church history research), is working on a paper on evidence of Oliver successfully translating the plates. Jerry Grover (geologist, civil engineer, linguist) also translated the “Caractors” document, with the dates aligning with Book of Mormon timelines and even real-world astronomical events. He uses all scholarly sources, feel free to critique his work
"Who cares who saw what" ?
*_Were there witnesses who saw The Resurrected Jesus?_*
Were _their_ testimonies important?
@@rconger24 Of course. Their testimonies are critical. They saw with their eyes a living man who was just recently dead and could only now be living because he was resurrected. They saw him, they talked to him, they felt him. A corresponding testimony for the book of Mormon would be that they saw the plates and read the plates confirming the book of Mormon was on those plates. There are no such eyewitnesses.
1. All signatures were in Oliver Cowdrey’s handwriting. Convenient. Would that suffice in any courtroom today?
2. They saw the plates with “spiritual eyes” 👀 Hmm, fishy 🧐
3. The plates aren’t available for scrutiny. Convenient storytelling.
Also, why would a pro-Mormon channel discuss this if it was solidly believable and not questionable and suspicious? Clearly it’s the latter of those two options.
Clearly, you haven't researched this topic in any kind of detail, other than reading the most common critics' theories and applying them indiscriminately as blanket statements.
1. The original document which all the men signed individually was lost along with 72% of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House due to water damage and mold. All we have now of that document is the copy that Oliver Cowdery made at the time that he also copied the printer's manuscript from the original manuscript. The reason why that entire document is in Oliver's handwriting is because it was made as a copy of the original. Unfortunately they didn't have carbon paper in those days. What is more powerful are the unequivocal statements made by each and every one of the witnesses throughout their lives. Personal testimonies would be even more powerful than written and signed statements in a courtroom because signed statements can always be forged.
2. The idea that they only saw the plates with 'spiritual eyes' has been soundly refuted by many Latter-day Saint scholars. It is an extremely weak critical argument in my opinion. In particular, both David Whitmer and Martin Harris unequivocally stated in response to such insinuations, many times, that they saw the plates in a very literal and physical manner. They lived long enough to answer many critics and skeptics that had made those kinds of insinuations. Quoting just the skeptics without giving the witnesses' unequivocal responses is disingenuous on the part of the critics who do that.
3. Why aren't the plates available for scrutiny? That has been a very common argument by critics over the years. It is closely related to the same argument atheists have made (and continue to make) regarding anything of a divine nature over the centuries, with statements like these:
"Why doesn't God provide proof of His existence?"
"Why isn't there actual proof of Jesus' resurrection?"
"Without physical proof I will not believe".
If we had physical proof of the Book of Mormon's existence, available to all who wanted to see it, regardless of their desire to follow or not follow God's laws and teachings, etc., what would that accomplish? What are the claims of the Book of Mormon?
- It was revealed to Joseph Smith by an Angel of God
- It was translated by the Gift and Power of God
- It testifies of Jesus Christ, that He lives and was crucified and suffered for our sins and was resurrected.
- It claims to contain an ancient record of a group of followers of God's teachings by immigrant groups from the Old World who passed on their beliefs and culture to their descendants and others, and eventually their culture died out.
If we had the golden plates available for view, and if indeed it could be shown to be an authentic ancient record from over 1600 years ago, it would essentially prove ALL of the above statements. Is that how God has worked in the past? Is there a reason why God doesn't reveal these kinds of things without the requirement for faith?
I believe there are very good reasons why God doesn't work that way. I'm glad for the requirement of faith because I want to follow God's teachings for the right reasons, not because I'm essentially forced to do so because of irrefutable physical evidence.
@@philandrews2860 lots of convenient excuses 😂 😂
@@mikespage0123Korihor alert.
No different than using an electronic signature today. They didn't have the printing technology we take for granted.
Regarding Spiritual eyes, you refer to three very questionable 2nd statements by critics of the church, some of which were written many years later. Anyone who regurgitates this nonsense proves that they have no idea. ruclips.net/video/mUv-NxTv3Tc/видео.htmlsi=yNokWgL4yNuRGY5f
Summary: don’t believe butt hurt apostates believe OUR witnesses
The correct summary: Be cautious about believing a third-hand account from someone with an axe to grind over multiple first-hand accounts that directly contradict the third-hand account and then rely on that questionable third-hand account to discredit the witnesses to the Book of Mormon to justify yourself in not believing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because that would be intellectually dishonest and you are not doing yourself any favors.
@@tylerahlstrom4553 you want to be cautious? let’s start with definitions, the majority of the accounts are second hand (ie they asked directly and they reported what the witnesses said). A third hand account is someone repeating something they heard from someone else, so you are incorrect about Burnett, he heard it from Martin Harris and wrote it in the letter. But wait, he is not the only one who asked him, the printer in palmyra also asked as well as some newspapers, in those instances the experience is described with the wording that skeptics use repeatedly (spiritual eyes, eye of faith, through a mountain etc).
Smoot, as well as you, give the the first hand account priority over all other accounts but let me ask you this, how come there are several people, independent of each other, coming up with these stories? Are they all making it up? How did they coordinate? Did the guy in palmyra get the newspaper of the guy in Missouri and repeated something he didn’t witness? If a witnesses of a car crash tells you 8/10 times one of the cars was white and 3 independent witnesses say it was black would you still say the first witness was reliable?
I think your reasoning is flawed. All the first-hand accounts, ie the BofM witnesses, stated multiple times throughout their lives that what they saw and touched was real and no illusion. The three witnesses did sometimes use the phrase “spiritual eyes” but that did not mean it was imaginary. The RUclips channel Keystone just did a video on the “spiritual eyes” meaning. Check it out. David Whitmer explained this saying by stating that a change had to happen to you in order to see things of the spirit, but what he saw was real and tangible.
All the quotes stating that the witnesses just imagined things or didn’t really see anything are second and third-hand accounts from people trying to discredit the witnesses.
And Burnett’s account was third-hand. 1. He stated he heard this from 2. Martin, 3. who heard it from the 8 witnesses. 1,2,3.
@@tylerahlstrom4553 “he said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or a handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain” doesn’t sound like third person account to me.
Again, your argument is that they went to their grave always reaffirming their testimony, I don’t know why that should impress me especially since we have cults such as the branch davidians or heavens gate members that also died for their religion. Show me coordination between the “people trying to discredit the witnesses” and I’ll consider the witnesses testimony is the gospel.
Are you familiar with how D&C 76 was received? A bunch of people were in the room and no one else saw the vision, only Rigdon and Smith.
“By the power of the Spirit our eyes were opened and our understandings were enlightened, so as to see and understand the things of God”
Would you say their actual eyes saw the three kingdoms of glory? I would say no since other people there didn’t see it either. How are we to read their testimony when they said basically the same? Their spiritual eyes were opened and “saw the plates”. To them it was real and I understand why they wouldn’t deny it but if a 4th person was sitting there with them they wouldn’t be able to see anything or heft the plates or see the angel.
How’s the c
Cry us a river. 😭
@@alejandrojefferies1582 please never post a RUclips video ever again. Including your shorts.
5:55 "Hiram Page was a friend of the Whitmers..." If by "friend" you mean "in-law", then yes, he was a friend... with benefits. This is one of the major weaknesses of the witness testimonies, though. All were friendly to the proposition attested. I'm sure we'll discuss the schism with Joseph Smith later.
7:00 Solidly missing the point of the criticism the Murph presents here
8:30 *Ding-dong* 🎶Hello, my name is 1838...🎶 So, we're just going to ignore how the Whitmers jockeyed for power after their falling out with Joseph? Ignoring an entire branch of Mormonism that sees Joseph as a fallen prophet and the Whitmers as the rightful successors? I don't allege conspiracy in my claims about the witnesses, but the post-1838/post-Carthage actions of the Whitmers fail to disalign with the conspiracy model supposedly presented by this judge.
12:20 Hey, uh, who wrote this statement? I'll grant that all 8 signed a statement, but who wrote the words that they signed to? Could the author of that statement have had motives in the specific wording?
26:00 Remember the different interpretations of Jeffrey Holland's musket fire talk? Remember how certain details of that talk, with the benefit of modern tools to parse and analyze it, appeared among critical and believing audiences? Nah, it isn't at all surprising that different interpretations or emphases would appear when listening to esotericism of Martin Harris in the late 1830s.
33:00 Hope to see Dan Vogel in the comments here. That reminds me though, your entire point about others continuing to believe in the BoM after hearing Martin's speech referred to by Burnett is kind of undermined by one of the critics disparaged by the guests ealier: John Hamer. Ya know, the prolific Community of Christ minister who believes in the BoM as scripture (though not as a history). Seems possible to believe in the BoM without accepting claims about plates, angels, or witnesses.
35:00 Two of them were dead also undermines the "all stayed faithful to the BoM despite..." argument. Those two just as easily may have been the ones to blow the lid on the whole thing but were too dead to do it. We don't know. Now, given that I've heard Dan Vogel include the caveat about those two being too dead to offer input, may the apologetic side should start doing the same.
47:30 That statement didn't say there was no hesitancy in signing the statement. There is something else he is willing to testify of without hesitancy, and it is not the contents of the witness statement.
52:00 If any stated that the statement as written is true, it should be noted that that statement is not an independent affirmation of the facts under examination. Toeing the party line is not independent attestation. Just worth noting.
58:30 If they could "pass visual inspection" why are only friendly witnesses ever given the opportunity to attest to their visibility? If the plates could not pass visual inspection, the lack of hostile witnesses is well-accounted for and expected.
1:02:30 If there were 100 witnesses who claimed to see a unicorn in 1733, and there was a record of a reporter saying that he heard from a neighbor to the 100 witnesses that one of the witnesses claimed to have seen a horse, we would probably privilege the horse statement over the unicorn statement as what we know about reality makes the actual existence of a unicorn extremely unlikely. The witness statements to the plates are kinda like that, with the Burnett letter serving as a possible basis for a more parsimonious interpretive lens. The nature of the claim attested to by the witnesses matters. And, to be clear, in reading Vogel's own words on the subject, it is clear that his position is much more modest than the guests are making it out to be (see Early Mormon Documents: Volume 2 pg 288-293).
1:22:00 Peeping through a magic stone to channel divine power to translate a dead language is not exactly "mundane". But now I'm going to agree with you about something: the witnessee infused a supernatural element to what they saw and witnessed. Their interpretation stands in the historical record, but I do not find that the data is parsimonious with the implicit and explicit claims associated with their testimonies. Therefore, applying Hume's razor, it is more likely that they are lying or sincerely mistaken than that their interpretation of their experience is correct and accurate. All the rest of what Vogel or the LDS Discussions panel or any other critic has to say is just window dressing at that point.
1:33:00 I mean, Strang's lack of an angel, by using the Occam principle, makes his claim more likely to be true than Joseph's (fewer entities). Strang is an excellent demonstration of how the witness reports could be constructed without real plates, angels, or divine beings. And from the perspective of the historical methods that were lauded just a few minutes ago, Strang's witnesses are as good, if not better, than Joseph's.
1:35:45 "The devil is in the details." Proceeds to admit not knowing the details. The Miracle of the Sun is a good one, btw. Lots of witnesses, independent attestation, examples of what happens when hostile or antagonistic witnesses get involved... solid stuff. You should absolutely be skeptical of all extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
1:39:15 The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great read for this discussion. Highly recommend.
1:40:00 It's not necessarily who the witness is but what the witness claims. "I was shown by a resurrected white, Hebrew American an ancient record of the white, Hebraic inhabitants of pre-Columbian America written in reformed Egyptian, who wielded steel weapons and armor and had Deutero-Isaiah in their possession since before the Babylonian Exile" is an absolutely extraordinary claim (all of which is implicit or explicit in the witness testimonies) on par with or exceeding UFO claims, the Miracle of the Sun, or take your pick of the Virgin Mary manifestations. Not to engage in a whataboutism or tu quoque fallacy, but wasn't the guest just suggesting that Vogel was engaging in behaviors inconsistent with appropriate historical criticality?
1:41:15 Yes, correct, Murph. Why is Jesus's resurrection, the single most important event in all of human history, witnessed only to illiterate residents of 1 century CE Judea? For more on this, please see the problem of divine hiddenness, a critical challenge to classical theism that extends from the problem of evil. I recommend Paulogia's work on the subject. While you're over there, check out Paulogia's minimal witnesses hypothesis (a solid example of a layperson giving historians and textual critics a hypothesis to chew on). The plates are much better attested to than Jesus's resurrection.
1:41:30 I do not give credence to Joseph's stated reasons. The work of translation was completed (inasmuch as the plates were even needed for that translation), and there was an angel with previous combat experience standing by to defend them. For any other similar claim, the most likely explanation would be fraud on the part of the person who benefits most from affirmation of the witnesses. Why privilege this claim?
1:47:15 I'm not convinced that there was a plate artifact. I do agree that the evidence suggests that Joseph had something that stood in for the plates, but I don't accept the position that there were actual plates of any material or age. I find it more probable that there are human cognition issues going on in those statements than that there was an actual plate-like artifact.
1:48:45 Oh, I think I would state this question differently, but I like where it's going. How about this: let's grant that the 3 and the 8 saw exactly what is claimed in their statements. Angel, plates, engravings, the works. Does it necessarily follow that the English translation we have today is accurate? The answer to that question is no. The angel could be a deceiving angel, appearing unto a being of light. Or we could just point out that witness statements have nothing to do with the quality of the translation. I like this line of questioning because it's a great follow-up to the "if the BoM is true, does it necessarily follow the CoJCoLdS is true?" The answer to that question is also no.
1:49:50 Yeah... the evidence from Arabia is not just unconvincing to me. It's disconfirming.
1:50:20 These comments in light of Stick of Joseph falling hook, line, and sinker for the recent forged plate out of Arabia, or Margaret Barker, yes, THAT Margaret Barker, falling for the Jordan Lead Codices is a helluva claim. People and experts are deceived all the time. Why would a bunch of early 19th century upstate New York/Pennsylvania countryside folks have even the slightest inkling of what an ancient set of metal plates would actually look like? Especially one with a "golden appearance"?
1:52:25 I understand how you could believe it, because I used to. What I don't understand is why you privilege these claims over comparable claims that you reject (such as the Miracle of the Sun or the Strang plates), unless this issue actually doesn't inform the conclusion that you've drawn and you're just backfilling the witness testimonies in to a claim you already accepted and believed independent of their testimonies. If that's the case, then this issue appears almost irrelevant for addressing the heart of the truth claims of the BoM/CoJCoLdS.
All through our spiritual eyes....
Come back to church Marquita.
You people are really holding onto that one phrase by the skin of your teeth aren't you?
uh... which of the eight witnesses said that?
Harris saw a deer and thought it was Jesus. These dudes were high on shrooms from the woods.
@@jacobmayberry1126Did Any of the 8 witnesses tell people that they and Joseph Smith plagiarized the scriptures from the Bible
Cult members defending their cult faith!
Christianity was considered a cult also. Chew on that 😊
yawn
@@jacobmayberry1126 A sucker is born every minute. Mormons bought into one of the most used sales tactics used today.
This is true, but it is an all American con and perhaps the world's greatest criminal enterprise. Look at all of their filthy luker.
If you consider that most of the witnesses left the church or distanced themselves from it, yet still maintained their testimony about the Book of Mormon, it doesn’t quite fit the typical ‘cult loyalty’ pattern.
The Book of Mormon doesn't help us know which Mormon church is true. The FLDS and LDS churches were/are racist and practiced polygamy. The Community of Christ seems relatively humane and good.
I’m a member of the LDS church and I’m not racist. I hear our church leaders speaking out adamantly against racism. What’s your deal man?
Furthermore, the majority of the twelve apostles passed the priesthood keys to Brigham young making him the next prophet/successor to Joseph. It’s really straight forward.
@@dennygreen322 you're being dishonest or ignorant if you don't know the difference between LDS and RLDS. The LDS Church was racist until 1978. RLDS was never racist or polygamist. Brigham Young claimed to be prophet, but he also committed genocide and owned slaves.
Today, LDS leaders speak against racism while harassing LGBTQ people.
@@nathanbigler every prophet makes mistakes, but I know where the authority is and it’s definitely not in the RLDS church. Gay sex is sinful but being gay is not. Stop straw-manning us. Polygamy is biblical and Joseph was commanded to practice polygamy, there is really no denying it, polygamy deniers are avoiding/ignoring the evidence. We own our history but RLDS does not.
@@dennygreen322 the LDS Church is famous for racism and polygamy. You can pretend like those were mistakes. You don't care that black people were mistreated by Latter-Day Saints for 150 years. But that's adequate evidence for most people that there are no prophets. That's a childish, absurd belief by the shrinking number of Mormons in the world
@@nathanbigler polygamy was not a mistake, it was a commandment from God for a time. The priesthood ban should not have happened but it does not mean Brigham wasn’t a prophet he was still a man of his time, God does not force the weaknesses out of his prophets, you definitely don’t get to decide what God would or would not allow his Prophets to do.