DCP - your June 4 Mormon Times article on John Whitmer

[_Buffalo]

If you don't believe that sophisticated technologies could be and commonly were lost in the ancient world, you need to read more.

They were also commonly rediscovered or reinvented by later generations. Yet you seem to argue that later generations of Nephites remained aware of steel's properties but were unable to recreate it.

What does the Book of Mormon have to say about the disastrous loss of such a crucial technology?

Much like DCP, it's completely silent on it. :)

[_Fifth Columnist]

I mean why would 2/3 of the plates be sealed as they would never be translated?

For the sole purpose of fulfilling Isaiah 29:11-12.

In reality, it is unlikely that any of the plates were actually sealed (assuming they existed). The Eight Witnesses, despite their 'hefting' and handling with their hands say nothing about any of the leaves being sealed. Neither do the Three Witnesses say anything about a sealed portion. Neither did Emma, in thumbing the edge of the plates and listening to their "metallic sound when the edges were moved," seem to notice any pages stuck together.

Remember, the witnesses were clamoring for the privilege of fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy (see note [13]) as copied by Nephi from the Brass Plates.

That's interesting MM. I wonder if the story of the "sealed portion" is much like the "Urim & Thummim." In the latter story, the stones Joseph got from the box were referred to as "interpreters" during the Book of Mormon translation and for some time thereafter. At some later point, someone made the connection between the "Urim & Thummim" in the Old Testament and the interpreters. From that point forward, many people referred to the "interpreters" as the "Urim & Thummim," but that was not the original understanding.

With regard to the emergence of Isaiah 29 and the "sealed portion," I am highly dubious of the idea that Joseph was thinking about this from the get go (1823 or even 1827). We know he was thinking about it by the time he translated the relevant passages in the Book of Mormon, but I would be curious to know what evidence we have that he was thinking about it before Harris' trip to Anthon (the evidence you cite is kind of late).

I seem to recall that Rough Stone Rolling indicates that no one made the connection between Harris' meeting with Anthon and Isaiah 29 until a little while after Harris had returned and was telling everyone what happened. Eventually, someone suggested that Harris might have fulfilled Isaiah 29, which really got everyone excited (and stoked Harris' belief in the project). Eventually Joseph was so impressed with this connection that he set the story in stone in the Book of Mormon.

[_Corpsegrinder]

Much like DCP, it's completely silent on it. :)

Yep, that’s what I’m trying to get at. Though if the Book of Mormon does indeed discuss such an event I'd like to learn about it.

[_LDS truthseeker]

I haven’t been able to respond before as some of us have day jobs but here’s a few more comments to sum this up.

MAKING PLATES
Sure it can be done. Here’s 3 examples:
Kinderhook Plates: made in Joseph’s day. Good enough to be put in a museum and pass a detailed inspection. Thought to be genuine by LDS historians for 150 years. http://www.mormonthink.com/kinderhookwe ... platetoday

Voree Plates: made just after Joseph died. Thought to be genuine by many LDS. http://www.strangite.org/Plates.htm

Tanner’s Plates: made in modern times. Made of lead shingles. Weighs 200 lbs. I have hefted them myself. They look real enough although they were made as a prop and not made in an effort to fool people into thinking they were ancient. http://www.mormonthink.com/runningweb.htm

So obviously people can make fake plates.


MAKING PLATES THAT HAVE THE ‘APPEARANCE’ OF GOLD
You simply apply gold paint to the above plates. It’s not really that hard and gold paint has been around a long time. Take in mind , if the plates were faked, we aren’t talking about making actual gold plates but rather plates that have the “appearance” of gold – you know kind of shiny and yellow. And they likely would then have been purposely smudged with dirt and such to make them look old.


VERIFYING THE PLATES
DCP said that I could not fool him if I made tin plates and painted them gold. Well duh! That is totally different than fooling the Book of Mormon witnesses. You would know already that the plates were fake as you told me to make them and would be looking for signs of modern manufacture and composition.

But the Book of Mormon witnesses first of all already believed the plates were real and Joseph’s brothers, Joseph’s father and Joseph’s friends all wanted and fully expected the plates to be real. They were looking for confirmation of what they already believed, not evidence of fraud. None of the Book of Mormon witnesses were metallurgists. They could not verify that the plates were gold and did not even say that they were made of gold. They could not verify that the plates had real ancient characters on them from a real ancient language. They could not verify that the words came from God. All they could verify is that the plates had the appearance of gold and displayed curious workmanship.


THE PLATE INSPECTION
Like much of LDS history, it is sketchy and there are conflicting accounts. We don’t know how exactly the witnesses examined the plates. At least one source indicates that Joseph showed the plates to two groups of four on separate occasions in his house, while other accounts say that all eight were together out in a grove. http://www.exmormon.org/file9.htm

So if they were seen in Joseph’s house, who knows under what conditions. Did they really handle the plates or were they shown just a brief glimpse of them whether they saw them inside or outside. They signed a prepared statement that may not have been 100% accurate as some sources indicate.


MODERN WITNESSES VS 19TH CENTURY WITNESSES
Although DCP seems to think that the witnesses were just like us 21st century people. The fact is that they lived in different times when people believed in things like ‘second sight’, dreams, seer stones, divining rods, visions and magic. They were more gullible and more likely to believe in supernatural things than most of us today would and far easier to convince of just about anything. I mean look at all the women that married Joseph because HE said an angel threatened him with a sword if he didn’t!

Another example, Martin Harris was gullible enough to believe that God would strike him dead if he looked at the plates. Martin told amazing stories of how chipped off a chunk of a stone box that would mysteriously move beneath the ground to avoid capture, how he walked with Jesus who took the form of a deer, saw the Devil with his four feet and donkey head, he interpreted simple things like a flickering of a candle as a sign of the Devil, and had creatures appearing on his chest that no one else could see, etc. http://mormonthink.com/witnessesweb.htm#harris


THE SEALED PORTION
Since 2/3 of the plates were sealed, which seems very convenient, if it was a fraud, then only a handful of plates would have had to be fabricated and attached to a block of metal which would give it some weight. I mean why would 2/3 of the plates be sealed as they would never be translated? No one has yet provided a good reason for this.


WERE THE PLATES EVEN THERE
Some people believe that there never even were any plates because of the many strange accounts. If the plates were real then why would the following phrases also be used when describing seeing the plates; 'While praying I passed into a state of entrancement, and in that state I saw the angel and the plates', 'I never saw the gold plates, only in a visionary or entranced state', 'he only saw the plates with a spiritual eye', 'a visionary experience', 'seeing with the eyes of understanding', 'as shown in the vision', ' never saw the plates with his natural eyes but only in vision or imagination', 'I did not see them uncovered, but I handled them and hefted them while wrapped in a tow frock', 'they were shown to me by a supernatural power', 'No, I saw them with a spiritual eye', "I did not see them as I do that pencil case, yet I saw them with the eyes of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me - though at the time, they were covered with a cloth", 'he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain', etc.

There are just so many accounts from nonbiased sources like John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for the Book of Mormon, who did not really say anything disparaging about Mormons or the Book of Mormon, yet said the following: Martin was in the office when I finished setting up the testimony of the Three Witnesses-- ([Martin] Harris--[Oliver] Cowdery and [David] Whitmer). I said to him, "Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?" Martin looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, "No, I saw them with a spiritual eye." http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/JHGilbert.html

So why not simply say YES Martin? Why do people need a vision to see metal plates?

Perhaps like Governor Ford may have suggested, the witnesses, after being in fervent prayer and fasting were persuaded that they saw the plates in a box when they really didn't or they got a glimpse of a prop of the plates. But there was obviously something in the box or tow frock. Too many people claim to have seen a container (a box, tow frock, etc.) that they were told held the plates. When Joseph was being chased through the woods, he had to carry the plates. When people came looking for the plates, he had no choice but to hide them in the woods or in some other real, earthly place. He couldn't whisk them away into heaven or some other dimension so whatever he had was a real tangible object. Now the question is what was in the box he claimed held the plates?


COMPARE THIS TO THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM
Joseph claimed that he had in his possession a sacred manuscript written by Abraham and Joseph who was sold into Egypt. Did he hide the papyri and have a few of his followers sign a paper that they had seen it? No, he put it on display and charged 25 cents to see it. It was there for the world to see. So we see how Joseph Smith treats REAL ancient documents when he has them.


THE BOTTOM LINE
The point of this thread is that DCP said in his Mormon Times article; "Moreover where did Joseph Smith and his supposed co-conspirators get all that gold?" He implies that if the plates were faked, that the plates had to be made of gold. That is not true at all. The plates could have been made of anything that had the ‘appearance of gold’ like tin, iron or even lead plates painted to look golden. DCP wants his readers to believe that the plates had to be made of gold (even though he admits the Nephites couldn’t have made them out of pure gold either) in an effort to dismiss away arguments against the plates being faked as ‘conspirators’ could not have used real gold to make the plates. Perhaps DCP will correct this misleading statement in a future article.

[Guest]

That's interesting MM. I wonder if the story of the "sealed portion" is much like the "Urim & Thummim." In the latter story, the stones Joseph got from the box were referred to as "interpreters" during the Book of Mormon translation and for some time thereafter. At some later point, someone made the connection between the "Urim & Thummim" in the Old Testament and the interpreters. From that point forward, many people referred to the "interpreters" as the "Urim & Thummim," but that was not the original understanding.

With regard to the emergence of Isaiah 29 and the "sealed portion," I am highly dubious of the idea that Joseph was thinking about this from the get go (1823 or even 1827). We know he was thinking about it by the time he translated the relevant passages in the Book of Mormon, but I would be curious to know what evidence we have that he was thinking about it before Harris' trip to Anthon (the evidence you cite is kind of late).

I seem to recall that Rough Stone Rolling indicates that no one made the connection between Harris' meeting with Anthon and Isaiah 29 until a little while after Harris had returned and was telling everyone what happened. Eventually, someone suggested that Harris might have fulfilled Isaiah 29, which really got everyone excited (and stoked Harris' belief in the project). Eventually Joseph was so impressed with this connection that he set the story in stone in the Book of Mormon.

Bushman's account has problems:
http://www.mormondialoogue.org/topic/48 ... 1208833834
(Edit: I'm on a Blackberry and can't fix this link. It's in the misc section of the library. Title: The Anthon Affair, Subtitle: Why did Martin go? Perhaps someone can post the correct link.)

He has no explanation for why Martin went, what convinced him Joseph Smith was telling the truth, who made the Isaiah connection or when it was made. Furthermore, the RSR account requires that Joseph Smith lied to OC about the words of Moroni. Also, see David Bokovoy's and Chris Smith's comments in that thread.

OTOH, if you believe Emily Austin, that Joseph Smith was thinking about Isaiah 29 prior to Martin's trip, then everything falls into place. I agree that there's nothing to show he was thinking about it in 1823 (I should reword that part of my essay) but I think he was aware of Isaiah 29 when he sent Martin to NY.

[_Corpsegrinder]

MAKING PLATES
Sure it can be done. Here’s 3 examples:

Very informative. How difficult would it have been to create the appearance of gold with a plating solution like gold chloride? In Joseph Smith's day, jewelers and (later) daguerreotypists used to gold chloride to deposit a thin layer of gold on brass objects.

[_LDS truthseeker]

MAKING PLATES
Sure it can be done. Here’s 3 examples:

Very informative. How difficult would it have been to create the appearance of gold with a plating solution like gold chloride? In Joseph Smith's day, jewelers and (later) daguerreotypists used to gold chloride to deposit a thin layer of gold on brass objects.

Another possility. Or it could even have been polished materials like copper or some other metal made shiny. There are many possibilities other than using large quantities of gold as suggested by the article.

[_Bret Ripley]

(Edit: I'm on a Blackberry and can't fix this link. It's in the misc section of the library. Title: The Anthon Affair, Subtitle: Why did Martin go? Perhaps someone can post the correct link.)

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/48886-the-anthon-affair/

[_GlennThigpen]

MAKING PLATES
Sure it can be done. Here’s 3 examples:

Very informative. How difficult would it have been to create the appearance of gold with a plating solution like gold chloride? In Joseph Smith's day, jewelers and (later) daguerreotypists used to gold chloride to deposit a thin layer of gold on brass objects.

That would have introduced another layer of complexity into the process. Getting someone with the skills and chemicals to do the work for Joseph, then to keep quiet about it.

Glenn

[_Themis]

That would have introduced another layer of complexity into the process. Getting someone with the skills and chemicals to do the work for Joseph, then to keep quiet about it.

Glenn

Not that I think much of this hypothesis, but I am not sure why Joseph would need someone skilled. He or another co-conspirator could have learned the basics if needed.