Roger,
It may be that Dan Vogel has left the building, but if you are still out there, Dan, here are a few observations.
I haven’t left … at least not yet. I didn’t have a large space of time until today.
Regarding your previous post, I was glad to see you reading about these fallacies. They are important in scholarly discourse. They help keep us on track and judge which evidence deserves greater respect.
Also, none of the quotes you gave supported your assertion that Whitmer (or anyone for that matter) said every word came through the stone. General statements about translating with stone do not preclude the use of a Bible. And Knight’s saying the “whole” was translated with the stone was according to his limited exposure to the translation; there was no intentional withholding of information on his part. As I said, the variant readings likely came from the stone. Whitmer’s description of translation pertains to Fayette, but others like Harris, Emma, Michael Morse saw the same head-in-hat translation in Harmony.
Joseph Smith’s not wanting to give details did not pertain to translating, but rather to its coming forth. In other words, the magic-money-digging aspects of its discovery and removal from the ground. His statement: “Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift, and power of God.” Is fine as it stands. No need for: "except for the parts I copied from the Bible." You do realize the statement isn’t true to begin with. Nevertheless, it’s intended as a general statement for general consumption. There is no expectation that a full statement is being given here—indeed, no mention of a hat and characters appearing on the stone with English underneath, etc.
Now to your present post.
First, I enjoyed the opportunity to better understand where you’re coming from so thanks for interacting with me. This conversation will certainly help to clarify what I read from you from this point forward.
I guess that’s all I can hope for.
On the argument from silence:
This seems to function primarily as a distraction from the larger question which I see as: why accept that a Bible was used but never acknowledged, yet reject that anything else could have been used?
My criticism of your argument from silence is no small matter. It is an obvious standard critique that any scholar would point out, not just me. There is no occasion on which an eyewitness would have been expected to divulge the information and did not. Therefore, no scholar can accept your argument from silence. There might be situations when a case might be made from deliberate silence, but this is not one of them. Rather, this is a textbook example of what is not permitted in scholarly discourse.
On ad hom:
Another distraction. I am not attacking you, your personal beliefs or biases.
I didn’t say you were “attacking” me—that would be ad hominem abusive. Ad hominem circumstantial is more subtle. Let me break it down. Since I believe the Bible was used and there was no mention of that, he can’t argue that the Spalding MS wasn’t used because it was also not mentioned. Rather than proving the Spalding MS was present (the same way the presence of the Bible is proved), you want me to accept your proposition based on what you see is an inconsistency in my position. Thus you are attempting to take advantage of my circumstances. It’s like saying: if you believe A, you have to also believe B in order to be consistent.
Dan believes the Spalding MS was not present during translation (based on eyewitness testimony)
But Dan also believes the Bible was present (which was not mentioned by eyewitnesses)
Therefore, Dan should reject the first proposition
Bottom line on this is that scholarly discourse should not include such argumentation, or any variation of it. The eyewitness testimony is as good as it gets for historians, and it shouldn’t be dismissed so easily.
On the Book of Mormon witnesses:
I find it interesting that you characterize the discrepancies in various Book of Mormon witness statements as “different readings” rather than simply inconsistent testimonies. That is perhaps the most revealing aspect of this conversation for me.
You are not following me here. I was talking about the published Testimony included in every Book of Mormon. That is a single document, which as I argue in my essay was ambiguously worded and therefore allowed for different readings by different readers. The Testimony described seeing an angel showing the plates, but later interviewers of the witnesses were surprised about how spiritual and subjective the vision was.
On the Spalding witnesses:
Like Brodie, you assume you know better than they do and apparently simply disregard the specific denial (by Aron Wright) of the charge (false memories) you level against them, choosing instead to believe other witnesses (David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery). Yet, like Brodie, you are hesitant to characterize them as outright liars, but instead choose to think of them as sincerely mistaken, even though the specificity of the claims they make does not fit that mold.
Since I also reject the two-MS theory, I believe their memories were proven false with the discovery of the MS. The false memory theory I mention is one way of explaining the disparity between their memories and the physical evidence we have. You are mistaken in the assumption that false memories can’t be specific.
Based on what I find to be a surprising acceptance of early Mormon testimony on your part and an equally surprising—and I would say unwarranted—rejection of non-Mormon testimony, it is much clearer to me now why you have chosen to edit references to Spalding out of the witness statements you cite in some of your publications.
I didn’t edit Spalding statements from Mormon witnesses’ statements, but I didn’t include anything by the Spalding witnesses since their statements have nothing to do with Mormon origins. Spalding witnesses only testified to similarities they thought existed between the Book of Mormon and Spalding’s MS, the rest of the story is merely inferred from that, nothing directly pertaining the Mormon origins.
For me, the key questions that remain are:
1. If Smith, Cowdery and Whitmer could simply forget to mention that a Bible was used in Book of Mormon production, what was to prevent them from forgetting to mention any other sources that may have been used? I think the answer is clearly: nothing.
You don’t know that they forgot to mention the Bible, only that the sources we have do not mention that subject.
2. Do you welcome and encourage further research into other possible sources that may have been used in Book of Mormon production?
Of course, but to find parallels does not necessarily mean plagiarism occurred, that is in the sense you seem to imply—that Joseph Smith read directly from the Westminster Confession while dictating the Book of Mormon, for instance. He may have read it, or knew its principles from discussions with his Presbyterian mother, and was influenced in its wording while dictating the Book of Mormon—that’s as far as I’m willing to take it. The Bible is a different matter.
Specifically addressing the question of your acceptance of Book of Mormon witnesses vs. your rejection of Spalding witnesses, here are some things you wrote in American Apocrypha: “Yet there are contradictions among the various accounts of Whitmer's testimony.” p 85-86
and
“Concerning what the angel said, Whitmer's interviews are perhaps irreconcilable.” p 86
On page 89 you show that in 1882 Whitmer claimed: "These hands handled the plates, these eyes saw the angel and these ears heard his voice; and I know it was of God." And then subsequently in 1885 Whitmer reported: "We did not touch nor handle the plates."
Of this apparent contradiction you conclude: "Of course, like Harris, Whitmer could have handled the plates while covered on an occasion separate from his vision." - p 89
I'm not a trained historian, but this appears to be an argument from silence. In any event, it appears you are simply giving Whitmer the benefit of the doubt. On what basis is unclear.
There’s a difference between saying Whitmer contradicted himself, and that various interviews have contradictory elements. Given the different interviewers and time span, these things are to be expected, and it is the historian’s job to try, as far as possible, to reconstruct the story. Some contradictions are only apparent. The part about Whitmer is not a contradiction. I was using his clear statement about not touching the plates in the vision to show how a witness could conflate his vision of seeing the plates with other occasions on which he handled the plates, undoubtedly when they were covered. This was in support of my thesis that the Eight Witnesses statement only sounds like the saw and handled the plates together, whereas it possibly could be separate experiences. This is not an argument from silence. I’m only suggesting that Whitmer had plenty of opportunity to handle the plates, which is exactly what he says without being specific.
On page 102 you talk about John Whitmer's testimony and that, as an apostate, he not only rejected Smith but also the Book of Mormon. Wanting to know how this was possible, Theodore Turley, you report, asked Whitmer who reaffirmed his testimony of the plates before his anti-Mormon friends. When asked about the apparent contradiction of rejecting the Book of Mormon while reaffirming his testimony of the plates, Whitmer responded that "he could not read the original script and therefore had no guarantee that Smith had translated it correctly."
So yes, I agree, when outsiders such as myself run into these kinds of discrepancies, it seems apparent that these are not the kind of people who have earned the benefit of the doubt. To an outsider like me, John is obviously trying to salvage whatever is left of his public image after losing faith in Smith. In effect, John is saying, my testimony is still true, even though Smith's is not. Smith, however, obviously had the upper hand, since Whitmer's previous testimony had affirmed Smith's claims. That was the paradox faced by all the Book of Mormon witnesses as they became disgruntled with Joseph Smith. If they turned on him, their own honor and word was at stake. To me, this dilemma is clearly illustrated in John Whitmer's words and explains the reluctance of the others to go so far as John Whitmer did in not only rejecting Smith, but the Book of Mormon as well. Such an action was ultimately contrary to Whitmer's own self-interest and the response he gives to solve the dilemma comes off as a desperate attempt to save face.
It’s equally possible that John did see the plates in vision, by a “supernatural power” as he said, but had come to reject Joseph Smith’s later teachings as he claimed. The problem your statement above doesn’t address is how does he get eleven men to lie in the first place?
You write more, such as Abner Cole's observation that: "there appears to be a great discrepancy, in the stories told by the famous three witnesses to the Gold Bible," (p107) but I think what I have posted here is enough to emphasize the point.... given all this ambiguity that leads to "different readings" what basis is there to accept the testimony of the early Book of Mormon witnesses at all?
Cole’s statement deals with their descriptions of the plates seem to differ from one another, not themselves. This I think is natural since their vision was subjective and individualistic, partly no doubt influenced by their exposure to the plates under the cloth and copy of the characters passed around.
When considering that you suggest Smith may have had the power to induce corporate hallucinations in the minds of these impressionable witnesses, such that whatever "they saw" was likely "visionary" --how is this entire scenario any more believable than that of the Spalding witnesses? How is Hurlbut allegedly coaching witnesses any more egregious?
Your argument here doesn’t work. You obviously don’t believe Hurlbut coached the witnesses or that Joseph Smith could induce visions in others, yet both are possible. However, I don’t believe Hurlbut manufactured the Spalding testimony since the witnesses were making these claims before he arrived to take their statements.
We can produce an actual example of a Spalding document that at least supports the claims that Spalding wrote fiction and that the witnesses were exposed to it. There is no such tangible support on the part of the Book of Mormon witnesses. All we have to go on is their word, and that appears problematic at best.
Oddly, it is this physical evidence that brings the Spalding witnesses’ statement into question. There has never been a question about Spalding’s writings, only one about its relationship to the Book of Mormon. As for the Book of Mormon witnesses, it depends on how you view it. I think you are wrong about the lack of physical evidence for the Book of Mormon witnesses’ testimonies, that is, those that observed the translation process. The dictated MS does support their descriptions that Joseph Smith dictated it sentence-by-sentence, and that Cowdery was the scribe who wrote most of it down as it was being dictated. The lack of physical evidence supporting Book of Mormon historicity, however, only casts doubt on the verity of the witnesses’ visions of the plates, not on their sincerity.
I suppose you may have too much invested in the Smith-alone premise to give any of this much of a second thought. In any case, the exchange has been enlightening.
There is also the possibility that I know the Spalding theory well and still reject it.
