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Back to the topic:
Exactly. No need to produce plates, its the story of magical things under cloth that allows imagination to kick in. Or, as far more eloquently said,IHAQ wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 4:01 pmThe other point here is that the Gold Plates weren't used to communicate the Book of Mormon. A rock found when digging was used.dastardly stem wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 2:33 pm
Let's consider the plight of the Book of Abraham as another example. If God was intent on preserving record on plates, because they are durable, then what happened with the Book of Abraham? Additionally once we consider the content of the papyrus from which the Book of Abraham was purportedly extracted from, we learn there was no Book of Abraham at all. It is most likely, it seems, Smith, if he's forwarding God's word, used the old relic of papyrus to divine thoughts given of God, transported to the poor man's brain. As it turns out, as well, the papyrus date to a couple of millennia after Abraham, making no mention of Abraham. Why should the plates be any different? Maybe they too do not mention anything about Nephi?
If as you say the plates were the best way for God to communicate the Book of Mormon, then why did God fail to follow the best way for the Book of Abraham? And to give back credence to a popular criticism of the whole Joseph translated the plates into English, why is it reported that the plates lay hidden away as he dictated the words that became the Book of Mormon? There doesn't seem to be much reason to think the story of the Book of Mormon is found on the plates anyway. That is plates could have been found and they may have stories etched on them that have no relation to the time and place of what the Book of Mormon claims, but like the ancient papyrus God simply needed them to magically enter the thoughts to Smith to write up the scripture.
And, as I recall from a previous conversation, you seemed intent to define faith as superstition and gullibility, and I had asked what is the great nobility of such a faith? It hardly seems like a virtue, but more of a vice. As I recall I got no response from you, but I remain curious.
[bolding added to 'alleged,' because the human imagination is boundless.]...At the very least the plates make the whole thing interesting. If there is something that ties the story of the Book of Mormon, as an object, to the past in a plausible way, it is the alleged existence of the plates. As a story, they are compelling stuff. As an artifact, they can only survive as lost plates. Once they are found in a mundane context, they become unremarkable again.