Witnesses to
Book of Mormon Examined
To the suggestion,
“The affidavits collected by a Philastus Hurlbut and published by Eber D
Howe in Mormonism Unvailed prove that the
Golden Bible was a scam”, there are some weird and desperate Mormon answers.
The anti-Mormon
affidavits collected by Hurlbut which were published
in 1834 testify that the Smiths were a family who could not be trusted. The Smiths were into money digging and
pretended to find buried treasure that magically disappeared. Some would answer, “But that could be
understood as credulity. The Golden Plates
were different because they did not disappear and were touched and kept by
Joseph Smith. The affidavits say that
Joseph’s father-in-law, Isaac Hale forced Joseph to quit digging for money for
it was fraudulent but why then did he tolerate the Golden Plates? He even let Joseph translate while Joseph
lived under his roof. Was it because he
knew they were real?” The plates could
disappear all they liked for Smith never looked at them much and nobody else
saw them except for a little while.
Isaac Hale testified and signed an affidavit that he did not believe in
Smith or his plates or his new Bible.
Then some say,
“Joseph Smith’s father allegedly stated that he saw the plates and other times
he said he didn’t. That was before he
had the contact with them that is reported in the Testimony of the Eleven
Witnesses. Perhaps he had to lie for
some people were desperate to take the Plates from the Smiths. Joseph Smith had wanted a man to make him a
chest to lock the Golden Book up in.
According to an affidavit by Justice Jonathan Lapham,
Joseph said he saw an angel and saw a vision of an angel who told him he could
not have them until he wed and brought his wife to collect them. Though the Smiths told superstitious and
fabricated stories about the finding of the Plates, this is Joseph’s version
and it takes pre-eminence. The Smiths
planned to put the Plates on display in the house and make money in doing
so. This testifies to their certainty
that the Plates were real. Abigail
Harris said that Martin Harris once said that he did not care if it was a lie
about Mormonism for he would make money out of it. She did not say how he intended to make
money. Did Harris mean that he and Smith
were going to sell the Plates? He
probably did for he knew by then that there was little to be made from the
published Book of Mormon and a tiny Church.
He was reliable in business matters according to an affidavit signed by
fifty-one people in 1831. Smith said
once that his firstborn son would see the Plates which never happened and then
the revelation came that three friends would see the Plates. Harris was desperate to see the Plates and
Smith told him to follow his footprints in the snow into the forest to see if
he could find the Plates. Harris found
nothing. But Joseph probably thought
Harris would not do this for it was too strange and he seems to have been
having him on. But Joseph must have been
in the forest hiding the Plates. Smith
once said that eighteen months after Nathaniel Lewis asked to see the Plates
the whole world would see them. This
never happened and Smith admitted he was wrong.
It is said that the Golden Plates were invented because Joseph’s father
spoke of a golden book being found in
This argument is
believing the Smiths when it suits.
Also, Harris mortgaged his farm to pay for the publication of the Book
of Mormon and did not demand that the Plates be sold to pay for it. Harris would have been reliable in business
only if he knew what was going on which he often did but Smith fooled him with
promises of religious thrills. There
many frauds who promise you things you will never see.
The following is a
summary of Mormonism Unvailed: More Evidence That
It Is True by the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.
Fawn Brodie thought the testimonies were not real for Hurlbut had been excommunicated from the Church by Smith
and had an axe to grind. But there is no
evidence that Hurlbut was just out for revenge. If he was, he could still have worked to find
the truth about Smith and use it against him.
Another problem is that the testimonies use a lot of the same words a
lot which seems to indicate forgery or interference with the testimonies. But there are testimonies that say much the
same things about Smith that had nothing to do with Hurlbut
and they still use the same words. For
example, Jesse Townsend, the Presbyterian Minster at Joseph’s hometown, wrote a
letter about the Smiths saying similar things and using some of the same
words. So it is just a reflection on the
education of the people and the way they talked and not a hint of common
authorship. We must remember too that if
Hurlbut used the same questions on every person he
interviewed the similar wording would have been more or less inevitable. And how do you explain why the witnesses
never said they were manipulated or forced by Hurlbut
and never took back anything they declared about Joseph and the Smiths? Many of the things in the affidavits were
verified by other independent sources.
Howe himself ran spot checks on the witnesses before he published his
book, just in case. To disparage Hurlbut and then to think that that is the same as making
little of his research is illogical because it was not him but the people that
were saying these things. Distracting
people from the real critic who has the power to crush the lies is a common
trick used among fundamentalists.
The Mormons point
to two testimonies printed at the start of every Book of Mormon, one by three
witnesses and one by eight, as evidence for the existence of the golden plates
from which the Book of Mormon came. As Fawn
W Brodie observed, there is nothing to stop people
from wondering if the witnesses were all pressured into signing the
statement. All Smith needed was their
signatures. Funny God never thought of
eliminating the possibility of coercion.
When he didn’t, there was absolutely no point in him bothering letting
angels appear and letting them see the magic plates. Mormons suspect that Smith might have
blackmailed them which is why they are so keen these days to present him as a
very holy man. God choosing a scoundrel
would be a terrible embarrassment.
The testimony of
the three witnesses says that an angel showed the three the Plates which was strange if Joseph had them in his possession as he
claimed. They said they saw the plates
by the power of God and not of man meaning that the plates were seen in a
vision and for all we know might not have been material things. Even the Book of Mormon says that the plates
will be seen by the power of God and that this will prove that the Book of
Mormon is true (Ether 5:3,4) – if the plates were real there would be no need
for visions. There could be any number
of ways of being able to induce visions.
Mormons say that seeing the plates with your physical eyes would still
be seeing them by the power of God. This
explanation is implausible. By the power
of God must mean by miracle.
The testimony says
“we” saw the plates but that need not mean they saw them at the one time. In fact Harris did not see the plates until
after Cowdery and Whitmer
did and when the testimony is that vague how do we know that they all saw the
same things? If one witness saw large
gold plates and another saw tiny ones and another saw just three tablets of
gold what use would that be and would imply that they wanted to have visions so
badly that they kidded themselves that they had ones.
Harris testified
years later that he saw the plates like anybody would see a city through a
hill. Mormons say he was mentally
unstable when he said this. One wonders
why God could allow such a thing to happen to him when he needs his testimony. And it does not sound mental. The testimony of the three supports his
assertion for they say they saw the plates by divine power.
Martin Harris once
said that he nursed the plates one time for an hour and a half (The Myth
of the Manuscript Found, page 87).
But no proof is given that Harris gave this information. Harris could have meant that he saw the
Plates and that they were on his knee in a bag.
The bag could have contained something else. There are several testimonies that Smith kept
the plates on view but hidden under a cloth.
Harris was far from reliable when it came to visions. He was known to be extremely credulous in
religion even before he became associated with Mormonism. Smith had the Plates under a cloth on a table
when he was translating. Smith said he
could not look at the plates or he would be struck dead. Harris believed this incredibly bold
lie. He would have believed anything.
Harris said years
later that he saw the Plates with the eyes of faith and not his natural eyes
like one sees a city through a hill.
Some say that “Harris was mentally sick at the time he said this and
therefore that his earlier testimony about touching and holding solid plates
comes first. But perhaps there were
occasions when he did see the Plates without his natural eyes. The eyes of faith might not stand for
imagination for you only see real cities through a hill. It might stand for a form of supernatural revelation. Harris was a fanatic so he might have
believed that if he really saw the plates with his physical eyes that it was
some religious vision even though it was not.”
Nobody would have the imagination to be able to see a city through a
hill exactly as it would be. You just
pretend you see it. It’s
imagination. The sense of touch is the
easiest sense to draw into a hallucination.
When you are scared and think some ghost is going to touch the back of
your neck you will often feel that somebody has touched you on the neck.
“Three of us took some tools to go to the hill
and hunt for more boxes of gold or something, and indeed we found a stone
box. We got quite excited about it and
dug carefully around it, and by some unseen power it slipped back into the
hill. We stood there and looked at it
and one of us took a crow-bar and tried to drive it through the lid and hold
it, but the bar glanced off and broke off one of the corners of the box.
Sometime that box will be found and you will see the corner broken off, and
then you will know I have told you the truth (The Last Testimony of Martin
Harris, E. Cecil McGavin in The Instructor,
October 1930, Vol 65, No 10, pp 587-589). The Mormon Church officially published this
account and it relates to an event AFTER Smith found the plates. These few sentences stand forever as refutation
that Harris was a reliable witnesses to the Golden Plates. The Mormon Church quotes the parts of the
testimony that affirm that the angel really appeared and showed the plates and
ignores this bit hoping nobody will hear of it.
In fact, these few sentences are more convincing evidentially than the
angel because Harris stated that there was physical evidence that the box
really existed. But the box did not
really exist for stone boxes do not sink back into the ground to avoid their
contents be taken. So when Harris cannot
be trusted in that he can be trusted less with other things.
Harris was said to
be reliable in non-religious matters which leads some to trust him in the
matter of the existence of the Plates.
But he went through the
David Whitmer mentioned an old man carrying what seemed to be the
plates to Smith one day and later the man showed the plates to David’s
mother. But there is insufficient detail
so perhaps all she saw was a brass box in the darkness of a bag. Perhaps she only imagined she saw a book
shape in the bag later on. We all make
mistakes like that. Some say the lack of
the supernatural in the tale attests to there being some truth in it. But that is no comfort to Mormonism.
Smith’s mother wrote
that Joseph hid the plates three miles from the house. Gold Plates 6x8 inches and 6 inches thick
would be too hard to carry and would not have been put that far away. The plates would weigh at least 117 pounds if
they were 8 carat gold for gold is a very dense and heavy metal. But she says they were hidden three miles
away showing that Smith never had plates at all. It was something lighter he was carrying.
Smith’s mother
wrote a book about Joseph. She said that
the day he got the plates he jumped over a log and a man suddenly jumped up and
attacked him from behind and hit him hard with a gun and Smith ran home as fast
as he could after he pushed him to the ground (The Case Against Mormonism,
page 38). This suggests the Plates were
not heavy and were not gold but fakes for gold is too heavy.
Mormons say that
Smith had them under his arm and could have left them down before jumping. But he would have been in trouble if he had
to reach over the log again for them for that would have given the man with the
gun time to get to his feet again. He
must have had the plates the whole time.
A man with heavy plates could not fight so well and we are told that
Smith managed to fight two more attackers after that! These attacks were unexpected and if Smith
had anything valuable with him he would not have carried it after the second
attack in case he would have to fight again and risk his precious burden. But she says he went on to the house with the
plates. This tells us that if Smith was
carrying anything it was not gold plates.
It is objected
that the plates would have weighed one hundred and seventeen pounds which was
not too heavy for a strong man like Joseph to carry (page 38). This depends on the speculative notion that
the plates were not pure gold for pure gold would have been too soft to use as
a record. Pure gold would be the ominous
two-hundred pounds. It would be ominous
for the truth of the Mormon tale. Never
did Smith or anybody else who claimed to have seen the plates ever say that the
plates were not pure gold. Because the
idea that the plates were not pure gold is pure speculation arguments like
this, “When Joseph did not know that the Plates were not pure gold and gave
evidence that they were not pure gold it shows that he really had Plates”, are
unreasonable. Lies often do not add up
and Mormons are using some of Smith’s mistakes and turning them into evidence
for Mormonism. Such approaches could
only work with people who do not know how to think.
Howe’s affidavits
state that Smith said that he carried white sand home in his frock and jokingly
told his family that it was a golden book and they believed him. This was the start of the whole thing. Occam’s Razor says
that if Smith said he had gold plates and this was not likely to be true or if
there was just his word then it is not true that Smith had gold plates.
Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were
into forgery and theft according to a legal document from 1841 (page 12, The
Case Against Mormonism, Vol 2). Some say the evil murderous thieving Mormon
Church deserved this treatment and it is understandable that these men did
these things to harm it. Though they
were wrong, they understandably thought they were doing right. But nevertheless God was depending on them to
keep out of trouble for the sake of their testimony. He would not have chosen such unsavoury
characters. They would have found the
society they were in at the time they testified to the Book of Mormon to be
evil murderous and thieving and hypocritical so who is to say that they did not
lie to upset it?
Cowdery became a Methodist after leaving the Mormon
Church and he renounced Mormonism fully according to an affidavit that also
said he was a decent man (page 15, The Case Against
Mormonism, Vol 2). Cowdery never
disclosed anything about the origin of the Book of Mormon or the Mormon Church
during this time (page 16). When he
renounced his former faith fully he probably renounced the Book of Mormon as
well. He could not have been admitted into
the Methodist Church which insists on belief in the Bible alone if he had
believed in the Book of Mormon which contradicted the Bible and added to it and
to become a Methodist means you have to accept its list of dogmas and primarily
its only source of authority the Bible.
The Mormon Church says Cowdery joined the
Methodists to avoid persecution and that this was no worse than Smith becoming
a Mason and Paul going back to the Jewish practice of faith to get living. But Paul believed that the Jewish law was
still valid for Jews though it was optional.
Smith defected to a form of paganism.
Masonry is not for Christ so it is against him for the insane Jesus
illogically said that whoever was not for him was opposed to him. Cowdery could have
joined a less dogmatic Protestant group that might have tolerated his belief in
the Book of Mormon. He did not so his
conversion to Methodism constitutes a denial of the Book of Mormon. There were plenty of looser church
organisations that he could have joined that would not have required him to
take a statement of faith saying the Bible alone was God’s word. The Mormon Church says he had to join
Methodism to evade persecution. The
burden of proof then is on them to prove that he had no alternative which they
certainly cannot do and they have the nerve not to try well.
Cowdery later said that he was sure that he had seen
the angel
Cowdery died denying that the revelations Smith
received apart from the Book of Mormon were true (page 29) but the trouble with
this is that these revelations were necessary for the creation of the Book of
Mormon and they were God testifying to Joseph that the book was true and what
had to be done to bring it forth. Cowdery could not in all honesty do this so he died with a
lie on his lips. Being a former
Methodist and being accustomed to the idea that those who believe are
guaranteed salvation he would not have been afraid. When this very important witness to the Book
of Mormon says that Smith was capable of gross religious fraud and can’t prove
that Smith translated the Book of Mormon right while knowing that it was only
the word of a full-time rogue that it was done right it shows that Cowdery did not fulfil the prophecy of the Book of Mormon
that three witnesses would be divinely chosen by God to convince the world for
you would not call that a witness for he would be laughed out of court.
Mormons say, ”Some
of the witnesses had reputations for fraud and lying and did not worry about
it. And regardless of how much they
hated Smith they did not confess that the Plates never existed. They could have been famous for
confessing. The anti-Mormons would have
been forever grateful and delighted.
They would have saved themselves from much persecution and trouble. The witnesses claimed that they had knowingly
followed a fallen prophet who altered the revelations in Doctrine and Covenants
so why could none of them admit that there were no Plates if that were the
case? Even when Oliver Cowdery joined the Methodists after breaking with Smith he
was renowned for his honesty and reliability and never said there were no
Plates despite joining a Church that could not admit a person believing in the
Book of Mormon as the word of God.” The
Mormon Church lays stress on free agency and holds that man is freer than
conventional Christianity would admit.
This means that the strings God pulls in Catholicism and Protestantism
to manipulate the will of man are being denied.
The Mormon God could not simply afford to risk using these
witnesses. It is a strange argument that
says liars can be relied upon.
All the witnesses
wanted to help in the formation of a new religion and they had gone to a lot of
trouble and inconvenience even before they got any evidence from Heaven for
Smith and his work meaning they were unduly biased to start with. Their desire to go down in history like
apostles was why they could not say anything and they still wanted to create a
religion of their own even after they rejected Smith. If one witness went to the trouble of
considering denying his testimony the fact that there were several others to
contradict him would have put him off.
When the stone box
on the hill that Smith found the plates in was never found why should we
believe anything else Smith said about the plates? Smith once said that there were men on the
moon dressed like Quakers. The Mormon
apologists say that only one Mormon journal said this and they do not believe
it because there is nothing to support it.
But the Mormons take one man’s word for several things they believe so
they should in this one. They take just one
testimony as true in relation to some of the prophecies that Smith made that
came true. Of course Smith had to be
right sometime and many times you can see what is 50% or more likely to happen
and chances are your predictions will be right most of the time. But the moon men prophecy was recorded by top
Mormon Oliver Broadman Huntington who said that he
knew Smith said it and that Smith even described the clothes they wore (page
78, How to Answer a Mormon). The
Mormons are casting aside an eyewitness testimony just because they don’t like
it. They will say the prophecy was written
down too long after the time it was spoken to be reliable. But in this case there can’t be smoke without
fire. Memories are accurate with such
startling interesting revelations so time is irrelevant.
The Mormon Church
says that computer tests to determine the authorship of the Book of Mormon
detected in 1979 that Joseph Smith’s style does not match the Book of Mormon
and neither does it show the signs of the authorship of anyone else who
reputedly had a part in it. The tests
reportedly showed that at least 24 different authors were involved. This research was done at
It is disturbing
that the Book of Mormon makes it a law to give up one tenth of your property to
the Church. Jesus quoted Malachi which
commands tithing in the name of God (3 Nephi 24) which means that the law of
tithing was not done away by the resurrection and so is still in force. Few Churches are greedy enough to look for tithes which shows that the Book of Mormon was intended to
be foisted on biblebelievers and to lighten their
pockets.
The Book of Mormon
says that it was written in Reformed Egyptian though Hebrew would have been
better for it was clearer and smaller.
Egyptian picture writing takes up loads of space and is only taking up
time too. The inscriptions on the Plates
were as small as possible to make them fit which was a load of stupid
unnecessary work when Hebrew would have done.
It is mad to believe that the tale that there was a golden book that had
Reformed Egyptian instead of the more accurate,
advanced and suitable Hebrew. If the plates
were too small, then write in Hebrew and besides the Nephites
had plenty of gold and silver to make new plates.
There is evidence from
the Book of Mormon itself that the plates didn’t exist.
Thomas Ford a
former Governor of
It does no good to
say that Ford was an anti-Mormon. That doesn’t
make him automatically dishonest. You
can’t dismiss every non-Mormon critic as an anti-Mormon liar.
Mormons say the
witnesses would not admit that they initially saw an empty box. They think Ford made this detail up. The witnesses would admit if they had seen an
empty box. All they cared about was that
eventually their eyes were opened to see the Plates. And Ford’s writing does not refute the
occurrence of a vision so it can be tallied with the testimony of the eight.
Mormons say the testimony of the eight was
written before Ford wrote and so has greater authority. It does not for Ford’s version is more
believable. It explains the visions.
John Whitmer gave witness that the plates were seen by four
witnesses at one time and then the other four later (Deseret
Evening News, 6th August, 1878). That means that if the first four agreed to
say they saw the plates the other two groups would probably do the same
thinking that the others saw something.
John also said, according to History of the Church, that they
were shown to him by a supernatural power.
You don’t need power from Heaven to see physical plates.
According to a
letter by Stephen Burnett of 1838 Martin Harris stated in public that he never
saw the plates except with his imagination and that David Whitmer
and Cowdery were the same and that the eight
witnesses saw no plates either but were coerced to sign the testimony. This letter was corroborated by an
independent letter also from 1838, which records the same incident and was written
by George A Smith. William Smith one of
the eight witnesses stated that the plates were not seen bare but were covered
and felt through the cloth (Zion’s Ensign, p. 6, January 13th,
1894). John H Gilbert who helped to
print the Book of Mormon said that Harris said that God would kill all who did
not accept Mormonism in two years and that Harris said he saw the plates with
his spiritual eyes and not his natural eyes.
The fact that Harris could see a future that never existed tells us that
he must not be listened to.
The Book of Mormon
speaks of tangible plates so there is something wrong if the witnesses saw
visionary ones. Also when the witnesses
took Smith’s word for it that the Book of Mormon was a real translation that
shows they were unduly biased towards backing him up and that they did not mind
supporting a false word of God. God
would not want them trusted.
Hiram Page was one
of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon and he gave revelations using a stone
like Smith who condemned his revelations as false. Mormons say, “There is a load of difference
between Hiram Page seeing visions in a stone like a clairvoyant and him saying
he saw and touched real Golden Plates. Page
was inexperienced enough in religion to think that his visions were true.” It still shows that he was willing to
excessively support his illusions and that he believed what he wanted to
believe.
We must remember
that if a friend tells us he saw a vision we must not assume that that this
vision was supernatural if there was a possibility that he might have been
abusing drugs. There was a drug widely
available in Joseph Smith’s time and which all the housewives used as a miracle
cure all on themselves and their children which mixed with alcohol could
produce hallucinations. The drug was
called Laudanum. Joseph Smith might have
used this on his witnesses to manipulate them into seeing golden plates. Just like we can be very confused and
disoriented after waking up in the middle of a dream so he could have taken
advantage of the drug’s affects to make his victims falsely remember seeing the
plates when they actually saw everything but plates. Also, it might have had a lot to do with his
own visions. It could be that Smith
seemed so sincere that he chose the witnesses he perceived were so persuaded
that he was telling the truth about the plates that they felt it was only a
small lie to say they saw the plates and they were happy to tell it for they
believed there really were plates. There
is no evidence that if the witnesses were lying it would have affected their
consciences in a serious way. That would
explain why they never admitted to seeing the plates.
The fact that the
testimony of the three and the testimony of the eight is so short suggests that
there was nothing from Heaven going on.
What should have been done was for independent outsiders to interview
each witness in turn alone immediately after whatever happened and get each
witness to sign and approve the statement.
There should be a statement for each of the visionaries. The eight for example might not have seen the
same thing or perhaps one of them or more thought he saw the plates just for a
split second. These important things
would be lost in a short testimony such as the one we have in the Book of Mormon
and they are so important. The two
testimonies are actually of very little value.
The Mormon Church will no doubt point to short testimonies that have
been reliable but you can only tell that if there are other reasons for
trusting the testimonies.
The Mormon Church
tries to prove on psychological grounds that the witnesses to the Book of
Mormon must have been telling the truth.
It does this by eliminating the lust for money, the fear of notoriety,
the fear of the loss of power, the fear of embarrassment as motives for the
witnesses not retracting their testimony.
Christians perform the same conjuring trick with the facts in relation
to showing the apostles really believed Jesus rose from the dead. The truth of the matter is that religion
thrives on pipe-dreams. Humanism shows
that we all believe many things just because we want them to be true. Another disability regarding psychological
proofs is that they can be used to prove the story of anybody who claims to
have had supernatural experiences and every religion has its mystics who
contradict the mystics of every other cult.
The Book of Mormon gives the most explicit approval for the doctrine of
eternal damnation for unforgiven sinners which begins
at death that was ever in a Christian book.
It threatens anybody who rejects it as the word of God with this
everlasting punishing (Mormon 8:17/3 Nephi 29).
It says that anybody who believes in Christ and is open to the Holy
Spirit will see that the Book is from God.
It says that anybody who believes the Bible will believe the Book of
Mormon (Mormon 7:9). There was great
pressure put by the book itself on the witnesses to make themselves see visions
of the plates and the angel saying the book was true.
The Mormon Church
rejects the testimony of Harris seeing only with his spiritual eyes as
irrelevant for it says he could have seen real plates in a vision. It is adamant that spiritual vision does not
add up to seeing just in the imagination.
They cite the episode when Harris was accused of having imagined the
vision and when he said he saw the plates as sure as others could see his own
hand. But all visionaries say what they
have seen is as real as anything of this world.
Whitmer said that no man could see an angel except
in the spiritual state and that was the kind of vision he had when he saw the
angel with the plates. He said the
vision was seen in the body too. Whitmer was lying for he knew from his Bible that when Abraham
had a vision of three angels the angels looked so normal that he thought they
were just men. Whitmer
would have followed the thinking of the times that when Jesus appeared after
his resurrection nobody needed to be in a spiritual state to see him. What else did he lie about when he lied about
the reason for seeing the plates in the vision when there was no need to see
them that way?
The Book of Mormon
itself justifies a low standard for judging that a vision is from God when it
says that Lehi had a dream and accepts that that
dream was a revelation (1 Nephi 8:2).
When it does that how can you expect the witnesses not to believe that
imagination and dreams about gold plates are real?
Joseph Smith
claimed in his scripture The Pearl of Great Price
that Martin Harris was sent to Professor Charles Anthon with a copy of the
Reformed Egyptian characters from the Golden Plates and their translation. Anthon allegedly wrote a certificate that the
characters were real and translated properly.
But when he heard about the angel and the religious nature of the
enterprise he supposedly tore it up.
The Mormons say
the Anthon episode fulfils a prophecy in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 27) that
is much the same as Isaiah chapter 29.
The prophecy says the scholar will not be able to understand the script
which contradicts Smith and Harris’s claim that Anthon knew that the script was
genuine and the translation correct.
The prophecy in
the Book of Mormon says that words will be taken from the book to the learned
man who shall ask for the book so that he can read the whole book and when
informed that the book is sealed and cannot be brought he says he cannot read
it or the words.
Mormons say that
Anthon must have said to Harris at one point that he could not read the words
on the sheet and was lying for Harris said he did testify to the accuracy of the
translation. They say that his game was
to convince Harris to bring him the rest of the Book and that he would only
want it if the writing on the sheet was not a fake. But the prophecy gives no hint
that he understood the writing on the transcript. The prophecy never says Anthon lied. The prophecy says that Anthon wanted the
whole book so that he could get a better picture of how to maybe decipher the
writing on the sheet so Harris and Smith lied when they said he could make
sense of the sheet.
Mormons believe
Smith’s lie that Anthon tore up the certificate he used to authenticate the
translation when he heard about the angel bringing the gold plates. The prophecy says this cannot be true for he
wanted the whole book. He must have known
that the book was found under supernatural circumstances. It certainly means that Anthon was not turned
off by stories of gold books in the ground that were brought to light by angels
which makes a liar of Smith. If Anthon was not bothered by that then the
story of the torn certificate was a lie.
Why could Harris not get the certificate out of the bin or
something? It would have done even if it
had been in bits though there was no scotch tape in those days.
It is only one
testimony, Harris’, we have that this prophecy is fulfilled which contradicts
the biblical and Book of Mormon requirement that one is not good enough. Mormons will reply that we know from other
ways that Harris would not have lied for God chose him to have a vision of the
plates so it is good enough. But when
prophecy is given as evidence from Heaven that the word of God is true this
logic is appalling. Each prophecy has to
be verified as written before the event and well attested to have been
fulfilled after and it has to be treated separately from any other
considerations or prophecies for the divine law is that a prophet who gives
many fulfilled prophecies and gets one wrong is a fake and to be avoided for
God is not slack or stupid. The episode
refutes the Book of Mormon’s claim to be the word of God. Mormons will point at examples from the Bible
in which the word of one man was taken for the word of God. But that does not matter for the Bible is not
the word of God either! It cannot keep
up to its own standards. The Bible has had
a lot to answer in setting up the Mormon fraud.
When Mormons are reminded that the Book of Mormon characters have left
no evidence that they really existed, they point at the Bible which in the
cases of Adam, Enoch, Abraham and Jesus has not been complemented by any
evidence that they existed either. One rotten
apple corrupts the next.
Mormons say, “It
is plausible to believe that when Anthon heard that a religion was starting
over the Plates he knew that his recognition of them would bring him into
disrepute for scholars would see him as unorthodox and eccentric and so he tore
up the certificate. It was okay to say
such things to one or two men but to be quoted by a missionary religion would
ruin him.” It is anything but
plausible. Smith said that Anthon only
knew about the angel. But Anthon knew
that even if a man came in saying that an angel gave gold plates to Smith that
only meant that the angel was a lie if angels don’t appear anymore but that there really were gold plates
according to the piece of paper he had.
Anthon could have
verified the Book of Mormon even if he was a good orthodox Christian for
Christians have no problem verifying supernatural events that they believe are
devil-inspired. And all he had to say
was that he didn’t know how Smith got the characters and how Smith translated
them. And at that time there was no
reason to believe Smith could start a successful Church. Smith and Harris’ allegation that Anthon was
motivated by anti-Mormon prejudice is not believable. And Harris was unreliable in religious
matters. Anthon should be believed. Anthon himself said that he never saw the
translation but only a page with some strange letters on it and said that far
from writing a certificate of authenticity he told Harris that it was all a
hoax. There was no harm in him saying
that he saw the translation if he saw one so he did not see the
translation. He could have lied saying
it was wrong or he could not see if it was right. That would have been more suited to a man who
was lying about the miracle plates like Smith said for why tell a big lie when
a small one would do.
Mormons say, “Why
did Anthon who was an enemy of Mormonism not sue Smith if Smith was lying? The Mormon Church was an easy target in the
early years for it had few members.”
Not everybody
slandered like Anthon considers suing necessary. The Mormons were not that numerous anyway so
the slander was not that important.
Anthon’s colleagues believed Anthon’s side of the story and that was
enough. One might as well ask why the
Mormons did not sue Anthon.
Harris said that
he went to Dr Mitchell after he went to Anthon and Dr Mitchell agreed with
Anthon that the script was real and the translation correct. But Anthon always said that Harris went to Dr
Mitchell first. The records allow us to
believe that Harris saw Mitchell before and after he met with Anthon which
means there is no contradiction.
Another
contradiction was between Anthon saying he got no translation with the
transcript and Harris saying he did. If
there was no translation then it is a lie that Harris went to Dr Mitchell with
the translation and that Mitchell accepted the translation as correct like
Anthon. The Mormons said that Anthon was
lying about when Harris went to Mitchell just because he reasoned like
that. But there is no evidence that he
did reason thus so it is worthless speculation.
Dr Mitchell backed
up Anthon all along that the scrawl Harris had was a
hoax and Smith accepted the Bible and the Book of Mormon that two or more
witnesses was sufficient. This means
that the Anthon Mitchell affair cancelled out the evidence of Smith’s
witnesses. At best we don’t know if the
plates then were genuine or not. Smith’s
witnesses believed in the enterprise before they got any evidence for it which
shows that they were credulous in relation to Smith’s magic book. The thought of being a help in the production
of a lost section of the Bible and being famous forever was the big attraction.
No matter what
evidence Mormons can come up with to back up Smith’s account of how the Book of
Mormon appeared one thing is for sure.
He denied he believed in the Book of Mormon himself later on when he
started introducing doctrines like God the father having been an ordinary
sinful man and a temporary Hell which completely contradicted the Book. What Smith then told us by his actions shows
that there is no way he could have been a true prophet or his Book of Mormon
the word of God.
Mormons use the
Anthon Incident to lend credibility to the claims for the Book of Mormon. They give the impression a testimony came
from a scholar about the truth of the ancient gold plates story. But it was Martin Harris’ version of events
they go by! When God went to the bother of
predicting the event, it must have been a very important event. Needless to say the prophecy appeared after
the event too! So we have somebody’s
testimony about Anthon then not Anthon’s testimony.
This means we have
just Martin Harris’ word which is preserved by Joseph Smith so it is really
just Joseph’s word that Anthon verified the Book of Mormon. Remember that Smith said that he had a lot of
dirt on his witnesses including Harris. So he could have blackmailed them to
keep up their testimony to the Book of Mormon whatever they did. Smith certainly did use blackmail against
many people. So if Smith twisted what
Harris told him Harris would not have dared contradict him.
What use is
Anthon’s testimony when the only person, Smith, who wrote that he even made it was the very person who needed Anthon to back up the
claim that Smith really could translate?
That is like a man saying he needs another witness and him writing down
what he thinks the witness would say.
Nobody could translate Egyptian before the Rosetta Stone was discovered
and Smith and Harris definitely lied when they said Anthon said the translation
was correct. Neither were any good as
witnesses to the work of God so there was no work of God and if it was
supernatural the work was not supervised by God but by Satan.
Some Mormons say,
“Smith must have been sure that Anthon could not destroy his new religion. Smith knew Anthon would have to admit the
translation was right when he sent Harris to him for what was on the page was
really ancient script. Smith knew that even
if Anthon could not understand the Reformed Egyptian, he would have known if
the characters and the translation corresponded which would indicate that the
characters were a real language.” But
Smith would have had an excuse ready for Harris if Anthon said it was a
hoax. He had one in the allegation that
the characters were Reformed Egyptian an unknown language and script and that
you needed magical stones or the power of divination to tell you what the
characters meant. Smith may have
believed that Anthon would reject the story but had to give in to Martin Harris
who wanted to go to him.
Only Charles
Anthon could provide any evidence that the Book of Mormon was an ancient script
for none of the witnesses of the book were qualified. God then would have made sure the book was
written in Hebrew even though the Nephites altered
the Hebrew for at least then a scholar would have a chance to see if there was
a real language on the transcript.
Smith and Harris said
that Anthon knew the translation was right and that he said so. But the Book of Mormon itself claims to have
been written in a tongue that no outside nation knows. Smith and Harris then are backing up Anthon’s
claim that he did not verify the transcript as genuine when they endorsed their
Book of Mormon as the word of God. We
should believe Anthon that the Book of Mormon was a fraud.
Mormons say that Professor
Charles Anthon cannot be trusted for he waited four years before he said
anything to contradict Harris and Smith.
But there is no evidence that he said nothing. And if he waited that long it shows he did
not have much prejudice against the Mormons and certainly not enough to lie
about the characters he saw not being authentic.
Anthon wrote a
letter in 1834 in which he denied having verified that the inscription was
Egyptian Hieroglyphics for he said that it contained everything on it but
Egyptian. He said that the sheet he was
shown was copied out of a book on Mexican characters and contained a mixture of
Roman, Greek and Hebrew letters. In
1841, he wrote another letter saying much the same thing. Anthon stated that he
told Martin Harris that he was the victim of a fraud. Had Anthon really did what Smith and Harris
said he did he would have copied the characters and the translation behind
Harris’s back so that Anthon would be able to crack the code of how to
translate Egyptian. He could have
concealed the supernatural origin of the code and become the greatest and most
famous Egyptologist of all time. He
would not have written out the certificate for that presupposed that he was
going to let go of the documents Harris brought. He would have kept them and perhaps told
Harris that it was a fraud.
Mormons say,
“There are contradictions between Anthon’s two documents on the transcript and
the episode with Harris. Anthon in the
1834 document, gave no opinion on the transcript while
in the latter he condemns it totally as a fake.
In the first letter, he admitted he was writing to refute the Mormons
and he said that they were lying when they said he verified the transcript. He only said this and that he thought the transcript
was a hoax while in the 1841 document he goes into detail and states that he is
convinced it is a hoax and gives reasons and denies that the sheet had any
Egyptian on it. Anthon was a liar so we
should believe Joseph Smith and Martin Harris’ versions.”
This is the
strangest contradiction I have ever heard of!
Anthon thought in his first letter that he would just say that the
Mormons were lying about him and that would do for then. Years later he decides to tell the rest of
what he thought. There is no
contradiction.
Professor Charles
Anthon said, according to Joseph Smith, that the translation from the Egyptian
was correct. But at that time nobody
knew how to translate Egyptian and the Book of Mormon itself says that God had
to prepare a miraculous way of translating the plates it was on for it was in a
completely unknown tongue (Mormon 9:34).
Smith said that he said the characters he read were Assyrian, Chaldian, Arabian and Egyptian. But this mixture would make it impossible for
him to understand the translation! And
Assyrian and Egyptian do not have alphabets but the other two do which makes it
all the worse. Thus Anthon’s sworn
statement in the form of a letter from
Why did Smith let
the transcript of the characters be lost if it is part of the verification for the Book of Mormon? He published other things and why not
it? He knew what would happen – he would
be found out.
Mormons say,
“Anthon must have said that the text was a mixture for if Smith had been lying
we would expect him to say that Anthon said it was Egyptian. Smith never said there was Hebrew in it which
supports this statement for had he been lying he would have said Anthon
recognised Hebrew in the book. Why else
would Smith mention alphabets that his Book of Mormon never mentioned?” Since when did a liar’s mistakes prove that
he was telling the truth? If there had
been any Egyptian on the page Anthon would have said so and would have surmised
that it came from some book. Anthon was
not as deceptive as Smith who was famous for lying and stealing and adultery. Anthon is the one to be trusted.
Smith was telling
lies. He said that the letters were from different alphabets for he claimed the
plates were written upon in an unknown language and if they were from different
alphabets then there was something suspicious going on. Mormons never think of the possibility that
Smith himself was fooled by plates that were not from the time of the Nephites at all.
Mormons reply that
the Book of Mormon does not mention all the migrations to the
This is hopelessly
implausible. It would take a long long time for a language to alter so drastically. The Nephites were
only in
Anthon would not
have gone to much trouble to decipher the scrawl. What professor would if somebody came in with
a page to him and could not prove to him where the figures came from? Thirdly, Anthon would have needed days and
weeks to work out if the scrawl did make linguistic sense. But Harris had only a short meeting with him.
Smith’s mother and
Martin Harris and all the living witnesses to the Book of Mormon joined the Strangites after Smith’s demise. This was a sect that claimed that James Jesse
Strang was Joseph’s successor and it boasted a short
revelation written on tiny plates of brass that had four witnesses and another
revelation, The Book of the Law, which was written on the brass plates
of Laban mentioned in the Book of Mormon and like the
Book of Mormon it was miraculously translated.
It has been thought that they were unreliable when they followed a
Church that used fake plates and had a few witnesses for them.
The Mormons reply:
“But the witnesses to the fake plates were not from their number and they were
attracted to the Strangites because of a forged
letter from Smith appointing Strang as his successor
and an antipathy towards Brigham Young among other things. It was not their fault if the witnesses to
the plates of the Book of the Law led them astray. The Book of the Law is certainly not
scripture for the Church based on it is nearly dead and the kingdom and
prophecies it makes failed. Plus it was
written by a false prophet who lied and cheated in his effort to become Smith’s
successor. He forged a letter from
Joseph Smith appointing him as the new prophet.
The fact that they believed in Strang
highlights that they must have had real experiences of the golden plates.”
Despite the fact that
its witnesses never ever admitted that there were no plates and that Strang was a phoney the story is unbelievable though they
were ten times better than Smith’s visionaries.
That ought to be a warning to us.
Smith’s evidence is proven worthless all the same. Competing claims cancel each other out. Belief is to be based on evidence that is
credible.
Strang’s witnesses claimed they closely examined his
plates and saw that they were old and held them. If Smith’s witnesses believed that they saw
the plates by some kind of vision inside their heads which the evidence
indicates, they would have been very attracted to Strang
and his more solid plates for it would have been confirmation to them that
their own experiences were real and not just imagination. It is not evidence that they were wholly sure
of their own experience before that.
If the Smith
witnesses had really seen anything strange they should have been able to tell
by Strang’s if they were fakes. Smith’s witnesses believed that Strang’s forged letter from Joseph Smith was real. So they could not be trusted then as
witnesses to the plates.
Conclusion
The three and the
eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon give us no confidence as to the existence
of the golden plates or the truth of the Book of Mormon.
A GATHERING OF
SAINTS, Robert Lindsay, Corgi,
A MARVELLOUS WORK
AND A WONDER, LeGrand Richards, Deseret
Books,
AN ADDRESS TO ALL
BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, David Whitmer, Board of
Publications of The Church of Christ with the Elijah Message, Lacy Road,
Independence, Missouri
ARE THE MORMON
SCRIPTURES RELIABLE? Harry L Ropp, IVP,
ASK YOUR BISHOP,
Ira T Ransom, 317 W 7th South,
CHANGES IN JOSEPH
SMITH’S HISTORY, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1965
CHANGING OF THE
REVELATIONS, Apostle Daniel McGregor,
GOD’S WORD FINAL
INFALLIBLE AND FOREVER, Floyd C McElveen, Gospel
Truth Ministries, Grand Rapids, 1985
CONCISE GUIDE TO
TODAY’S RELIGIONS, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press, Bucks,
1983
HOW TO ANSWER A
MORMON, Robert A Morey, Bethany House Publishers,
JOSEPH SMITH AND
MONEY DIGGING, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1970
JOSEPH SMITH’S
BAINBRIDGE NY COURT TRIALS, Wesley P Walters, Utah
Lighthouse Ministry,
LARSON’S BOOK OF
CULTS, Bob Larson, Tyndale,
MORMONISM SHADOW
OR REALITY? Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah
Lighthouse Ministry, 1972
MORMONISM, AA Hoekema, Paternoster Press,
MORMONISM, MAGIC
AND MASONRY, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1988
MORMONISM, MAMA
AND ME, Thelma Geer, Calvary Missionary Press,
MORMONISM, THE
PROPHET, THE BOOK AND THE CULT, Peter Bartley, Veritas,
NEW LIGHT ON
MORMON ORIGINS, Rev Wesley P Walters,
NO MAN KNOWS MY HISTORY, Fawn M Brodie, Vintage, New York, 1995
SOME MODERN FAITHS,
Maurice C Burrell and J
THE BOOK OF
COMMANDMENTS,
THE BOOK OF
MORMON, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Deseret
Enterprises Ltd, Manchester, UK, 1972
THE CASE AGAINST
MORMONISM, VOL 2, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah
Lighthouse Ministry, 1968
THE FACTS OF
MORMONISM ARE STRANGER THAN FICTION, Charles Crane and J Edward Decker,
Christian Information Outreach,
THE HUMAN ORIGIN
OF THE BOOK OF MORMON, Wesley P Walters, Ex-Mormons for
WHY THE
THE WEB
FULFILLED
PROPHECIES OF JOSEPH SMITH
www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_prophecies.shtml
THE BOOK OF MORMON
WITNESSES
Excellent
refutation of the claims of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon
JOSEPH SMITH AS A
PROPHET by Richard Packham
Refutes the Mormon
claim that Smith was a real prophet of God.
The Mormons accept the validity of Ezekiel 12:21-28 which says that if a
prophecy is too long in being fulfilled then it is a false prophecy. A prophecy will come true by chance given
long enough. Smith made many prophecies
that have not come true yet so he was a false prophet. By the same criteria, the Old Testament
prophets failed and the Christian claim that they predicted Jesus and his life
by the power of God is false for even if the prophecies did come true it was
not God that was behind it. Doctrine and
Covenants 1:37 pledges that every word prophesised by Smith will come true for
God has spoken. On
JERALD AND SANDRA
TANNER’S DISTORTED VIEW OF MORMONISM: A RESPONSE TO MORMONISM, SHADOW OR REALITY?
www.xmission.com/~country/reason/ldshist1.htm
This page shows plainly the harm that the Christian Church in general is doing
with its rotten Bible for the evil commanded by God in the Bible is defended on
the basis that it has a purpose known to God and this is used to justify the
terrible doctrines such as polygamy that the Mormons used to live out. The page does what all apologists for religion
does, ignore the major problems and nitpicks on rather minor errors in the hope
of showing the critics to be not worth listening to. For example, the Tanners believed that Joseph
Smith copied his father’s story of a dream he had in 1811 into the Book of
Mormon as the dream of Lehi because Joseph’s mother
Lucy wrote about the dream in 1845 and the two were identical in all serious
points. The page says that Lucy Smith
simply filled in her memory of her husband’s dream subconsciously from the Book
of Mormon. But she had family and
friends to help her remember. The page
says that since the Book of Mormon was written first and she was writing 15
years later it is wrong to say that the author of the Book of Mormon was the
one doing the copying. But how do you
know? It is still most probable that the
Tanners are right. If it is not then we
still have no reason to take one side or the other. Anyway, what about the more serious
objections to the Book of Mormon that the Tanners made? He’s nitpicking. The page says that since the
BY HIS OWN HAND ON
PAPYRUS, Charles Larson
At Mormons in
Transition Website www.irr.org
MORE PROBLEMS WITH
THE FIRST VISION, ANSWERING DR CLANDESTINE, Jerald and Sandra Tanner
www.xmission.com/~country/reason/clndst10.htm
PHILOSOPHICAL
PROBLEMS WITH THE MORMON CONCEPT OF GOD, Francis J Beckwith,
Barry R Bickmore
www.geocities.com/Athens/parthenon/2671/EC.html
MORMON
SCHOLARSHIP, APOLOGETICS AND EVANGELICAL NEGLECT, Carl Mosser
and Paul Owen,
www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/cpoint10-2.html#mosserowen
BOOK OF MORMON
QUESTIONS
www.lds-mormon.com/bookofmormonquestions.shtml
MORMONISM UNVAILED: MORE EVIDENCE THAT IT IS TRUE. Christian Apologetics and Research
Ministry
www.carm.org/lds/unveiled_defended.htm
THE ABRIDGEMENT OF
D&C 137
www.saintsalive./com/mormonism/falseprophetjs/htm
THE BOOK OF
MORMON: ONE TOO MANY M’S Stephen Van Eck
www.infidels.org/library/modern/stephen_eck/toomany.html
EGYPTIAN
CHARACTERS
www.mormonstudies.com/seer2.htm
This shows that
when Smith translated the book of Abraham he invented hieroglyphics where there
was a piece missing from the papyri. The
characters Smith added make no sense to translators. Yet he translated these imaginary
hieroglyphics! His mother and close
associate David Whitmer spoke of Joseph copying
characters of the gold plates of the Book of Mormon before he translated and
that like the Book of Abraham Smith often produced two lines in the manuscript
with the translation of a single character which shows that the whole Book of
Mormon thing was a hoax.
MORMON FARMS
www.xmission.com~country/reason/farms_1.htm
by Jerald and
Sandra Tanner. Gathers evidence that
indicates that it was possible that Smith was insane and had manic
depression.
DR CHARLES ANTHON
RE AUTHENTICITY OF WRITING SAMPLES ALLEGEDLY COPIED FROM THE GOLDEN PLATES
www.mormonism-web.com/anthon.htm
INTERVIEW OF
MARTIN HARRIS
www.xmission.com/~research/about/docum4.htm
COMMENTS ON THE
BOOK OF MORMON WITNESSES: A RESPONSE TO JERALD AND SANDRA TANNER
www.mormons.org/response/bom/witnesses_Roper.htm
A ridiculous
rebuttal that has been taken into account for this book and refuted.
FACTS ON THE BOOK
OF MORMON WITNESSES, PART 1
Excellent refutation
of the reliability of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon
THE STOLEN
MANUSCRIPT
www.utlm.org/onlineresources/bom_early_problems/goldenbible_stolenmanuscript.htm
Wednesday, 23
January 2008