039 Are Criticisms of the Book of Mormon Witnesses Defensible?

Episode Transcript
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Scott Woodward (00:05):
How can we confidently discern the difference
between a reliable historical claimand one that's not so reliable?
This is what Casey and I discussed inour last episode, where we introduced
five source-critical questions wecan all ask to carefully assess the
reliability of a historical truth claim.
In today's episode of Church HistoryMatters, we're going to practice putting

(00:28):
these five questions to work by actuallyusing them to measure and evaluate
various historical truth claims aboutthe witnesses of the Book of Mormon, a
very high-stakes topic with conflictingclaims in the historical record.
I'm Scott Woodward, and my co-host isCasey Griffiths, and today we dive into
our fifth episode of this series dealingwith truth seeking and good thinking.

(00:51):
Now, let's get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths (00:56):
Howdy, Scott.

Hello, Casey.
How are you?

Good.
I'm good.

Well, good, man.

Yeah.
We're in the middle of it.
We're doing our series on epistemologyhere, on clear thinking, toolbox
of truth—we haven't settledon the title yet, have we?

No.
Seeking Truth.
Truth Seeking.
Sound Thinking.
I like Sound Thinking.

Casey Paul Griffiths: We're going to get there. (01:15):
undefined

We're going to get there.
What'd you call it?
The toolbox of truth?

The Toolbox of Truth is my suggestion, because epistemology
is an off-putting word, but epistemologyis how you know what you know.

How do you know what you know?
Yeah.

So.

And here's our guiding quote for the series that summarizes where
we're trying to get at, and this is thatElder Uchtdorf quote that we shared at
the beginning on episode one, where hesaid, “Latter-day Saints are not asked
to blindly accept everything they hear.
We are encouraged to think anddiscover truth for ourselves.
We are expected to ponder, to search,to evaluate, and thereby come to a

(01:54):
personal knowledge of the truth.” That'swhat we're trying to encourage here.
We've talked about how to evaluatedoctrine, and then last time, Casey, we
talked about how to evaluate history.
And you walked us through kind ofsome questions that historians will
ask when they come at a source, andit's questions that any of us can ask.

(02:15):
We don't have to be trained historians.
Do you want to walk usthrough those questions again?

Yeah, let's walk through those again.
So this is kind of a crashcourse in historical methodology.

Okay.

So if someone points us towards a source, you
don't just blindly accept it.

A couple questions you could ask: Number one, how close is the source? (02:30):
undefined
The gold standard is a primarysource, someone that actually
participated in the event, someonethat witnessed it themselves.

Are we okay with secondhand accounts?
Are we okay with thirdhand accounts?

Yeah, yeah.
I mean, secondhand and thirdhand couldboth be very accurate, too, but the
further you get from the primary source,the less accurate it tends to be.
And so we're going to take a primarysource over a secondary source.
We talked about playing telephone lasttime, when just a simple statement,
Benedict Cumberbatch, passes througha group of people, it can become

(03:11):
. . . Scott Woodward: Peppermint Scooby Snacks, I believe it was.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Peppermint Scooby Snacks. (03:13):
undefined
Jumbled and garbled along the way.
Number two, how much timepassed before it was recorded?
So, again, something that's written downa couple of years later isn't necessarily
inaccurate, but human memory is fallible.
Exaggerations, flaws tend to creep in,so we're going to take something that

(03:34):
is as close to the source as possible.
For instance, the Joseph SmithPapers site, which is a model of
responsible historical scholarship,usually takes the earliest version
of a revelation they can find.
So this is going to sound weird,but section 20 of the Doctrine
and Covenants, if you go and clickon that on the JSP site, you're

(03:54):
going to bring up a newspaper.

Yeah.

Earliest version of Section 20 they could find was a newspaper
that was hostile towards the church, butthat somehow got a copy, Section 20, and
printed it in their newspaper earlierthan almost any other source we can find.
So we're going to go with theearliest source as the most accurate.

Okay.
The earliest is most crediblebecause it has the least amount
of potential for memory creepor memory erosion or whatever.

Yeah.

Okay.
Okay, what's number three?

Number three, what is the motive of
the person telling the account?
So does it seem like theyhave an axe to grind?
What's the context inwhich it's happening?
Was this person mad at the church?
Is this person madly inlove with the church?
Is this person tryingto promote an agenda?

And we mentioned this (04:41):
All historians have an agenda.
Anybody that's being honestwill tell you that they do.
We try and take steps to mitigate ourown agenda to show that we're being as
neutral as possible, but it's there.
The question is, does the agendaoverwhelm what they're doing to the
point to where they're trying todo something here, and it's clear
that they might go to great lengths.

(05:02):
We talked about how John C.
Bennett, for instance, is not a reliablehistorical source because his life shows
that he always had an agenda, and he wasconstantly engaged in acts of deception.

Yeah.

Number four: How factual or opinionated is it?
So, does it rely on established historicalfacts that tie in with historical facts?
There's that William McClellanletter we mentioned last time
where he talks about Emma findingJoseph and Fanny Alger together.

In the barn.

Yeah.
In the same letter he says thatEmma Smith found out Eliza R.
Snow was pregnant and pushed herdown the stairs, and she miscarried.
Lach Mackay, who's the head sitedirector of Community of Christ,
went and looked at those stairsand found out that it's physically
impossible for that to have happened.
It couldn't have happenedwith those stairs.
So McClellan's either lying orgoing off some kind of rumor.

(05:53):
It doesn't fit the factsthat we know with it.

And that was in the very same letter as the barn incident?

Yeah, and that letter drives me crazy because
people quote it as fact all thetime, and it's just riddled with
all kinds of inconsistencies andproblems, and it's clear that
McClellan has something going on.
I think we mentioned this yesterday,but it's an 1872 letter supposedly
capturing an 1846 conversation aboutsomething that happened in 1836, and
even saying that Emma Smith would talkabout stuff like this doesn't fit her M.

(06:24):
O., what we know about her.

Too incredible to believe, yeah.
Yeah, he's clearly got an axe to grind.

Yeah.

And how do we tell the difference, again,
between fact and opinion?
It seems like a super basic question,but, like, I think we're trying to
be really specific with our termshere, and I find the specificity super
helpful to clarify my own thinking.
Can we review those real quick?

Yeah.
So a fact is based on verifiable evidence,no matter what your perspective is.
You can go and look at the stairs that arein the home Joseph Smith was living in.
An inference is a snap conclusionbased on our pre-existing assumptions.
We kind of arrange things.
Assumptions are beliefs we suppose tobe true and use to interpret the world.

Mm-hmm.

An opinion—and this is what you were getting at—is
an inferential conclusion that goesbeyond the facts of the matter.
So you might say something like, “It's afact that the Book of Mormon was published
in 1830, but it's my opinion that theBook of Mormon was totally made up by
Joseph Smith.” You can't dispute the factthat the Book of Mormon appeared and was

(07:27):
printed and was published in 1830, butwhere you think the Book of Mormon comes
from could be the matter of opinion.

And that opinion is based on underlying assumptions that
I have that 23-year-olds don't havedivine help in writing sacred books.

Yeah.

I might have an assumption like that.
If that's the case, then theopinion is understandable.
The inference is understandable,but it's not the only option
because it's not based on facts.

Correct.

Yeah, I think that's super important as we slow down and
think about our thinking, is what isfact, and what is the inference that I'm
bringing to the fact, and what assumptionsare those inferences based on, right?
And all of that will constitutemy opinions about things.

Yeah.

This is how different people will see the exact same fact and
come away with very different conclusions.
And you might scratch your headand think, how does that happen?
And I think what we're tryingto show under the hood here is
this is exactly how it happens.
It's always based on underlyingassumptions and the inferences that
then grow out of those assumptions asyou're confronted with those facts.
If you're ever troubled by something,it's a good idea to maybe just get a

(08:34):
piece of paper and just start slowingdown and just say, alright, what
are the facts of the matter here?
Okay, slowly, let me think through this.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, what are the inferences people are bringing to
the table about these facts, andwhat assumptions are those based on?
And are those assumptions testable?
Can we actually get at those assumptions?
Can we actually work on those?
Is there any evidence that wecould uncover or explore that might
help educate those assumptions tomake better sense of the facts?

(09:01):
Like—

Yeah.

If you slow down really carefully, I think this is so helpful.
And we're going to practice this infuture episodes, but I just think this
is so—but we're just going to keepcoming back to that again and again.
This is at the heart of slow,critical, sound, thinking.

Yeah.

Okay, keep going.
So, next question.

Last one, number five, is just really simply this
does it compare to other accounts?

Mm.

So if you have something that was witnessed by
multiple people, how do those compare?
How do those line up?
I think an example we keep goingback to, because it's fairly well
documented, is the death of Joseph Smith.
John Taylor and WillardRichards are there.
Their accounts, when compared toeach other, line up real well.
They tell the same basic story.
They don't agree on every particulardetail, but the same basic story is there,

(09:44):
where there's other accounts and thingsabout Joseph Smith's death that just seem

very wildly—that go either direction: either for Joseph Smith, he was amazing, (09:48):
undefined
God struck down anybody that tried toharm his body, or the other direction,
that they're making assumptions.
Like, a good example would beJoseph Smith was in the window, when
he was killed, of Carthage Jail.
Some people look at that and say he wasa coward and he was trying to escape.

(10:10):
Some people look at it and say hewas a hero and he was trying to throw
himself to the mob to sacrifice himself.
Those are all assumptions that we makebased on our background and our belief.
A good historical account—like, I thinkWillard Richards’ account of Carthage
Jail is a really good historical account.
He's a primary source participant.
He wrote it down within acouple weeks after the death.

(10:32):
He definitely has motives, buthe's transparent about them.
It seems like he's not superopinionated—opinionated in the sense
that he thought the murder of Josephand Hyrum was wrong—and when you
compare it to other accounts, like JohnTaylor, like all the things that were
brought up in the trial, it holds up.

Yeah.

It's very rare that you'll find something that's a
total slam dunk on all five questions.
You have to use your judgment.
But if you ask these questions, itdoes go a long way towards saying,
hey this seems like good historyor this seems like bad history.

Yeah.
And that's why five questionsis better than one, right?

Yeah.

That's why we need five questions to come at this, because,
yeah, there's not just one questionthat's just going to be a slam dunk to
be able to really get at the truth here.

Yeah.

And history is messy, and so it's not like these five
questions are going to automaticallybe a slam dunk either, like you said.
You're going to have to bringsome judgment to the table here.
As you use these five questions—andas you read good historians, skilled
historians, you'll start to see howthey use these kinds of questions
and this kind of thinking, and justwatching them do it over and over
again kind of helps you get into therhythm of thinking like a historian.

Yeah.

Again, we would highly recommend, if you're super interested
in history, that you go get a degree.
But if you're not that invested, atleast learning these basic skills,
I think, is super helpful and cango a long ways to helping us to kind
of evaluate things for ourselves,as President Uchtdorf was saying.
In fact, his phrase was, we're “expected”to evaluate, so that we can come to

(12:02):
a personal knowledge of the truth.
So, we've got to have some skill.
So, very helpful.
Great question.

And I think we mentioned this last time, but these skills
aren't just useful for church history.
They're useful when youread the news, right?

Yeah, that's right.

I've heard Steve Harper say we are in the middle of
an epistemological crisis because notenough people apply this kind of critical
thinking when they read and hear stuff,and people, especially online, tend
to jump to conclusions without takinginto account all the sources, or just
having the patience to, you know, wait.
Remember when that kid, like,got caught in a balloon in

(12:36):
Colorado or something like that?

What?

And everybody was freaking out online, and it just
took time, basically, for the storyto come out, for us to understand
everything that was happening.

I don't know that story.
Now I've got to Google it.

Oh, Google “Colorado Balloon Boy,” and you'll
find some interesting stuff.

Speaking of Steve Harper, I love him so much.
He's been on our podcastbefore for the First Vision.

Friend of the show.

Friend of the podcast, yes, absolutely.
If you go to his own personal website,which is stephencraigharper.com,
it has his name, Stephen C.
Harper, and right underneath hisname are these two questions:
number one, what do you know?
Number two, how do you know it?

Mm-hmm.

Love that guy.
He's such a great exampleof careful thinking.
I think that's what makes him sucha good historian, and he's such
a delight to read because he's socareful and so thoughtful, but that's
almost synonymous with Stephen C.
Harper's name is, what do youknow, and how do you know it?
Love it.

That's not a bad motto to live by, right?

Seriously.
I think the C in his name stands forepistemology, if I understand correctly.

If only there was a C somewhere in
epistemology, that would work.

Silent C.

Yeah, Steven Epistemology Harper.
So I think what we're going todo today is do what we did with
our doctrinal model, which let'stake this out for a test drive.

Okay.

Let's use some real-life examples and apply
the five questions and see howsome historical sources hold up.
And a couple of months ago, we dida series on the Book of Mormon.
We got to talk aboutthe witnesses briefly.

The three and eight, yeah.

The three and the eight witnesses that are in
every copy of the Book of Mormon.

Yeah.

But we didn't get to talk about it as
exhaustively as maybe we'd like to.
And this is always me andyou at the end of a series.
We just kind of say, “Hey, we could havedone five more hours,” which we can.

Yeah.
And maybe one day we'll do, like, awhole series on all the witnesses.
That'd be kind of cool.
Like, do an episode for an hour on MartinHarris, and then another one on David
Whitmer, and then another one on—you know?
That'd be super fun actually.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

If you're a nerd like us, then that's fun.

Yeah.
If you're a nerd, you'regoing to love this stuff.
I've had people come up and say, “Whenare you going to run out of stuff to
talk about?” And I'm like, “Never.”We'll never run out of stuff to talk
about because there's so much stuff.

There's so much to talk about.

Casey Paul Griffiths: It's a wonderful thing. (14:59):
undefined

Yeah.

But I think we're taking an assignment you give
to your classes, correct, Scott?

Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
I want to just kind of take thisout for a test drive with an
assignment I actually give to myreal-life students when I teach this.
And let me kind of frame why Ido this with the three witnesses.
In fact, I'll read my littleintroductory statement that's at the
top of this assignment for students.

I say this (15:20):
“When it comes to evaluating the reliability of the three witnesses of
the Book of Mormon, the stakes are high.
If they are lying, then this churchis based upon a deceptive conspiracy
in which they played a conspicuousrole right along with Joseph Smith.
If they are telling the truth, thenthe basic assumptions of atheism,
secularism, and naturalism aredemonstrably false, and the Book of

(15:42):
Mormon is true, and God and Christ live.
So the stakes in thisundertaking are high indeed.
Therefore,” I ask my students, “pleaseput forth your best thinking in
accomplishing this assignment.” So
. . . Casey Paul Griffiths: Walk us through what this assignment is.

So what I like to do in this is I say, all

right, let's see (16:00):
What's the case against the three witnesses?
What historical documentationis that case based upon?
And then let's look at the case forthe three witnesses and what historical
documentation that's based upon.

Okay.

So that's what we want to do here today, is just
kind of walk through some of that.
So let's start with the case against thethree witnesses, the case against the
existence of actual plates that were shownto these three men by an angel of God.
And let's start withPeter Ingersoll, alright?
So I'm going to read three statements.
These are all historical statements.

(16:37):
I'll tell you the name, I'll tellyou when it was written, and then
I'll read the statement, and thenwe'll just analyze how reliable this
is based on these five questions.

Run it through the five questions, see how it stacks up.

Yeah, the historical heuristic.

Okay.

Here we go.
So here's this guy named Peter Ingersoll,and he wrote this in, let's see, 1834,
pretty early, and this was published ina little book called Mormonism Unveiled.
Okay.
He's dropping cluesthis whole time, right?
So how are you going tothink about the date?
That should say something.
Where it was published,that should say something.

(17:13):
Now let's look at the content.
He said, “One day Joseph Smith came andgreeted me with a joyful countenance.
Upon asking the cause of this unusualhappiness, he replied in the following

language (17:24):
he said, as I was passing yesterday across the woods after
a heavy shower of rain, I found ina hollow some beautiful white sand
that had been washed up by the water.
I took off my frock, I tied up severalquarts of it and then went home.
On my entering the house, I found thefamily at the table eating dinner.
They were all anxious to knowthe contents of my frock.
At that moment, I happened to think ofwhat I had heard about a history found

(17:47):
in Canada called the Golden Bible.
So I very gravely told themit was the Golden Bible.
To my surprise, they were credulousenough to believe what I said.
Accordingly, I told them thatI had received a commandment
to let no one see it.
For, says I, no man can see itwith the naked eye and live.
However, I offered to take outthe book and show it to them,
but they refused to see it.

(18:08):
Now, said Joe, I've got the damn foolsfixed, and we'll carry out the fun.
Notwithstanding, he told me hehad no such book and believed
there never was any such book.
Yet he told me that he actually went toWillard Chase to get him to make a chest
in which he might deposit his GoldenBible, but as Chase would not do it, he
made a box himself of clapboards, andhe put it into a pillowcase and allowed

(18:29):
people only to lift it and feel it throughthe case.” Alright, so there you go.
There's Peter Ingersoll's testimonythat he heard firsthand from Joseph
Smith that this was really just a boxof white sand that he had gathered
after a storm into his frock coat.
That's how it all started.
So, Casey, what do you think?

Whew, okay.
So first question, howclose is this to the source?

It's pretty close.
This is 1834.

Well, yeah.

Like, that's only a few years after the plates apparently
were discovered, right, in, what?
1827 is when Joseph—

1827 is when Joseph Smith receives the plates,
and he talks about seeing the platesfor the first time and telling his
father about it as early as 1823.

1823.

So that would put that 11 years before.
So do we know anything abouthow close Peter Ingersoll's
relationship was to Joseph Smith?
I mean, I guess he's from Palmyra.

I don't know if they were buddies.
My inclination is to think they were not.

Okay.

But what do you know about Mormonism Unveiled?
What can you tell our audience ifanyone's like, what is that book?
What is Mormonism Unveiled?

Yeah, Mormonism Unveiled is the first
anti-Mormon book, basically.
And it's a golden oldie, if you will.
It gets used over and over andover again by people that are
antagonistic towards the church.
It's written by a guy named E.
D.
Howe, who was the newspaper editor inPainesville, which is near Kirtland.
And he paid another guy namedDoctor Philastus Hurlbut.

The best last name in church history, Hurlbut.

Well, I like his first name, because he's not a doctor.
His first name is Doctor.

His first name is Doctor.

And Doctor Philastus Hurlbut went to Palmyra and
supposedly interviewed a bunch of peoplethat knew the Smiths and comes back,
and about a year later they publishthis anti-Mormon book, so . . . I can't
verify Peter Ingersoll's relationshipwith Joseph Smith, but if we take him at
his word, it could be a primary source.
It could be.

He's saying he heard it directly from Joseph.

Yeah.
He's saying he heard itdirectly from Joseph.

Yeah.

How much time passed before it was recorded?
You already mentioned this, but 1834.
That's within a decade of whenJoseph said he found the plates.
It's four years after theBook of Mormon is published.

That's not too late.

Casey Paul Griffiths: So that's not too late. (20:43):
undefined
That's fairly contemporary, so
. . . Scott Woodward: Yeah.

On one and two, depending on how much you
trust the guy, it does fairly well.
What do you think about number three?
What's the motive of PeterIngersoll in telling this account?

According to my reading of this, when he says that Joseph, “told
me he had no such book and believed therenever was any such book” and that he said
that Joseph said that he's “got the damnfools fixed and he's going to carry out
the fun.” Like, the vibe I'm getting fromthat is that this is antagonistic and
he's trying to discredit Joseph Smith.

(21:16):
That's the vibe I get.
So this, the motive seems tobe to discredit Joseph Smith.

Yeah, I agree, too.
So, how factual or opinionateddo you think this is?

That one's hard to assess, isn't it?
How do you assess that, in this case?

Well, I mean none of this is in any other historical
account that I know of, you know?

Yeah, my brain just did that, too.
I went to number five.
I went to question number five.
How does it compare to other accounts?

Yeah.

Anyone else ever get anywhere close to this?

Yeah.

I can't think of anything like that, so
. . .Casey Paul Griffiths: And it doesn't seem like there's any sense of timeline.
He's basically saying that JosephSmith just kind of made this up on
a lark, like it was some kind of
. . . Scott Woodward: Joke.

Practical joke on his family that went way too far, which
goes against everything not only Josephsays, but everything his family says.

Yeah.

And everything the Whitmers and Oliver Cowdery and
Emma Smith and Emma's dad, and everybodyinvolved in the whole process says.

Yeah.

So, I mean, on number five, it's a hard fail here.

Yeah, number five's a hard fail, which then helps us
kind of get at number four, right?
How factual is this?
Well, he is contradicted by everyother person who ever talks about this.

Yeah.
Yeah.

There you go.
So
. . . Casey Paul Griffiths: It doesn't seem like anything he says lines up
with what anybody else said about thecoming forth of the Book of Mormon.
And then you got a 531-pagebook to account for, that this
practical joke turned into afairly robust scriptural work.
A pretty nice publication came out of that white sand.

Yeah, that sand in the frock.

We'll call it the sand-in-the-frock model.

Yeah.

This is the sand-in-the-frock model
of Book of Mormon origins.
Okay.

Yeah.

What grade do you give it?

I give this, like, a D-minus, maybe.

So we're starting out here with some slow balls.

Mm-hmm.

Let's do another easy one here.
We're just warming up, justcracking the knuckles, getting
ready to get into some harder stuff.
But number two, this is by afellow named Lorenzo Saunders.
Here's what he says.
This was published in a book calledThe True Origin of the Book of Mormon,
published in 1914, but he's quoting aletter that was written back in 1885.

Okay.

Alright?
So Lorenzo Saunders says, “JosephSmith had an old glass box.” Now,
that doesn't mean a box made out ofglass, it means a box that was used
for holding panes of glass, alright?
Before they're installed.
“Joseph Smith had an old glassbox with a tile in it about 7 by 8
inches, and that was the gold plates.

(23:57):
And Martin Harris didn't know a gold platefrom a brick at this time.” And that's it.
So that's in The True Origin ofthe Book of Mormon by Charles Cook.

Okay.

What do you want to do with this one?

So, okay, how close is this to the source?
What's Lorenzo Saunders’relationship to Joseph Smith?
Do we know?

I don't know.

So we don't know if this is a primary source, a
secondary source, a tertiary source.
We don't have any information like that.

He's not offering where he's getting his information.
He's just saying, here's how it is.
Not even making an attempttoward credibility in terms
of that first question.

Yeah.

Like, how do you know this, Lorenzo?
He's not giving us anyaccess to how he knows this.
Okay?

Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So that's a fail on question one.
He's not presenting anykind of relationship here.

We should have the buzzer sound

Number one (24:48):
ERR.

Number two
The book was published in 1914.
The letter was written in 1885.
That's a long gap.
That's a long gap.

Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths: It's not insurmountable. (25:00):
undefined

Yeah.

Especially 1885.
But that's a long time.

Yep.

Long time.

Okay.

What's the motive of the person telling the account?
Again, that's difficult to assess, butI'll say to discredit Joseph Smith.
I mean, it seems like that'swhat they're going for here.

And Martin Harris, right?
He says, “Martin Harris didn't know agold plate from a brick at this time.”

Yeah.

And making Martin Harris sound like an idiot, right?
Like, what a doofus.
He couldn't even tell the differencebetween a gold plate and a brick.
Like, a tile brick.

Yeah.
Okay.
How factual or opinionated is it?
He does have some facts in here.
7 by 8 inches.
A box used for holdingplates or panes of glass.
I know of at least one source thattalks about plates being held in some
kind of box intended for glass—that'sactually Emma's dad who says that—but

(25:50):
it seems fairly opinionated, especiallyin the derogatory way it kind of
talks about Martin Harris here.
It feels
. . . Scott Woodward: Yeah.
And then, I mean, number five.
How does this compare to other accounts?

ERR.

Yeah.
Oh, boy.
I mean, first of all, let's don'teven address the “there's a tile”
But to say Martin Harris, who's afairly wealthy and successful farmer,
couldn't tell the difference betweena set of gold plates and a brick
seems unfair and also doesn't match.

Yeah.

That strains credibility, just a little bit.

Yeah.

And so, gosh, I don't know if this one does well on any of
the five questions, to be honest with you.

Yeah.
I read that, and in, like, four secondsafter reading it, I'm like, ERR.
right?
I just move on.
Like, Lorenzo, whatever, dude.

Yeah.

Okay, let's do another one.

Okay.

Thomas Ford, alright?

Old Tom Ford.

The old governor of the state of Illinois.
He was governor when Joseph Smith died.

Yep.

This is hilarious how he starts this account out.

Listen to this (27:04):
“Oliver Cowdney, Martin Harris, and Daniel Whiteman solemnly
certify that they have seen plateswhich contain the records translated by
the gift and power of God.” So alreadyI'm, like, chuckling at this guy.
His credibility—Oliver Cowdney and DanielWhiteman, along with Martin Harris.
Okay, so he—

Casey Paul Griffiths: He got one out of three. (27:23):
undefined

He got one out of three right.

Give him some points there.

He says this
certificates,” meaning of their witnessthat the plates are real, and then
the eight witnesses who certify thatJoseph showed them the plates, he said,
“The most probable account of thesecertificates is that the witnesses
were in the conspiracy, aiding theimposture, but I have been informed by

(27:48):
men who were once in the confidence ofthe prophet that he privately gave a
different account of the matter.” Andby the way, this is written in 1854.

Okay, 1854.

So he has it from some insiders, he says here—

Yeah.

—that here's what really happened
who were anxious to see the plates, thatthey could not be seen by the carnal
eye but must be spiritually discerned.
The power to see them depended upon faith,which is the gift of God, to be obtained
by fasting and prayer and mortificationof the flesh and exercise of the spirit.
That so soon as he could see theevidence of a strong and lively faith

(28:23):
in any of his followers, they shouldbe gratified in their holy curiosity.
So he set them to continual prayer andspiritual exercises to acquire this lively
faith, by means of which the hidden thingsof God could be spiritually discerned.
And at last, when he could delaythem no longer, he assembled them in
a room and produced a box, which hesaid contained the precious treasure.

(28:45):
The lid was opened, the witnesses peepedinto it, but making no discovery, for the
box was empty, they said, ‘Brother Joseph,we do not see the plates.’ The prophet
answered them, ‘O ye of little faith.
How long will God bear with thiswicked and perverse generation?
Down on your knees, brethren, every oneof you, and pray God for the forgiveness
of your sins and for a holy and livingfaith which cometh down from heaven.’ So

(29:09):
the disciples dropped to their knees andbegan to pray in the fervency of their
spirit, supplicating God for more thantwo hours with fanatical earnestness, at
the end of which time, looking again intothe box, they were now persuaded that
they saw the plates.” And then he says,“I leave it to philosophers to determine
whether the fumes of an enthusiastic andfanatical imagination are thus capable

(29:33):
of blinding the mind and deceivingthe senses by so absurd a delusion.”

Okay.

Wow, huh?
Tom Ford.

Good old Tom Ford.
All right, so let's runthis through the model.
Number one, how closeis this to the source?
How close is Tom Ford?

Well, he says, I've been informed by men who were once
in the confidence of the prophet.

So this is the whole, I know a guy—

He knows some guys.

—kind of thing.

Yep.

He doesn't say who the—who this is, what
circumstances this took place.

Yeah, no.

And it kind of kills me that he says that Joseph privately
gave a different account of the matter.
So he's saying the source is JosephSmith, that Joseph Smith kind of took
aside several men that were in hisconfidence and was kind of like, “Let
me tell you what actually happened.
Let me tell you what I did to theserubes,” kind of thing, which, boy.

(30:25):
Boy.
Okay, how much time passedbefore this was recorded?
1854, that is 25 years after thewitnesses’ experience takes place.

Yep.

And Tom Ford wasn't there, and I guess he knows a
guy that was there who says—I mean,if you totally are trusting Tom Ford,
then Joseph Smith is the source.

Mm-hmm.

But that's a—eh.
Okay.

Yeah.


Well, I don't know for sure, but when I was reading this last
line, I feel like I started to see whyhe was telling the account when he said,
“I leave it to philosophers to determinewhether the fumes of an enthusiastic and
fanatical imagination are thus capableof blinding the mind and deceiving the
senses of so absurd a delusion.” I feellike I'm starting to get his vibe a little

(31:12):
bit, like what he's driving at there.

Yeah, yeah.
Oh, Tom Ford.
He's trying to prove Joseph Smith is sucha powerful Svengali that he can, through
force of will, just get—this is likeThe Emperor's New Clothes in reverse.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, that's a great comparison.

Yeah, Joseph Smith is so powerful he can be
like, no, there are plates, andall of a sudden they'll see plates.

Look with the eye of faith.
Down on your knees.
Look into the box.
Yeah.

Which, again, goes back to how factual or opinionated it is.
I would say this soundslike pure opinion to me.
I don't know if there'sa fact cited in here.
He even gets the names wrongof the three witnesses.

No, he got Martin Harris right.

He got Martin Harris right.

Yeah, so that's fact.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Credit where credit's due. (31:57):
undefined
Credit where credit's due.

But who is this Oliver Cowdeny and Daniel Whiteman?

Yeah, I wonder if—I wonder if Daniel Whiteman found
out about this and was ticked off.

He's like, “Hey!”

Because he could be quite cantankerous.
Oh, Tom Ford, buddy.
Come on.
You're better than this.

Yeah, this doesn't compare well to any other
account that I can think of.

No.

Yeah.

No.

Alright.
Those were the easy ones, alright?
Those—

Yeah, those were the softballs.

Those are just kind of for fun.
Like, are y'all warmed up?
Do you see how these tools are used?
Okay.
Stay tuned for a hard one.

Okay, I'm going to do a hard one.

Okay.

So this one's a little bit more challenging, and
this is the one that I hear quotedwith a little bit more regularity.
Now, I want to point out theplace we are drawing this from is
the Joseph Smith Papers website.
This is on the JosephSmith Papers website.

Okay.

We will post a link to this so you can
go look at it for yourself.
It is a letter from Stephen Burnett,who is mentioned in the Doctrine
and Covenants several times.
Section 75 verse 35.

Yeah.

Section 80 verses 1 and 2 are revelations to Stephen Burnett.

Yeah.

And Lyman Johnson is a member of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Date is 15th of April, 1838.

So this is a letter he's writing to Lyman Johnson.

Letter he's writing to Lyman Johnson, and
I'm not going to read the—well,should we read the whole letter?
What do you think, here?
Or part of it?

Let's read part of it.
Let's read the relevant parts.
Do we need any morebackground on Stephen Burnett?

We should give some context here.
1838 is right after theKirtland banking crisis.

Yeah.

And Stephen Burnett, who was a missionary in
the church, Stephen Burnett getsbaptized in 1831, but he's 18.

Yeah.

So by 1838, he would have been around 25 years old or so.
Apparently he gets really upset andbecomes disaffected during the Kirtland
banking crisis and becomes one of theringleaders of the opposition in Kirtland.
And that's shortly before, about ayear before, he writes this letter.

Yeah, didn't he become associated pretty strongly with
Warren Parrish, who was, like, theringleader of the Kirtland apostasy?

Yeah.
Warren Parrish is the guy who chargesinto the Kirtland Temple with a
Bowie knife and causes calamity andpanic and everything like that, too.

Yeah.

I should mention—I'm going to plug here our website, Doctrine
and Covenants Central, which has a prettygood little biography of Stephen Burnett.

Yeah.

That it seems like Joseph Smith wasn't fond of him either.

Especially after his apostasy.

Yeah.
From around the time that Stephen wrotethis letter, Joseph Smith writes the

following about Stephen Burnett (34:46):
“An ignorant little blockhead by the name
of Stephen Burnett, whose heart was soset on money that he would at any time
sell his soul for 50 dollars and thenthink he'd made an excellent bargain,
who had got wearied of the restraintsof religion and could not bear to have
his purse taxed, ran to Kirtland, gotinto the temple, and tried with all his
powers to bring forth something, nobodyknows what, nor did he know himself.

(35:09):
After some terrible gruntings and findingnothing coming up but an abortion,
rose in his anger, proclaimed allrevelations lies, and ran home to his
daddy with all his might, not leavingeven an egg behind, and there sat down
and rejoiced in the great victory heobtained over the great God and all
holy angels, how he had discoveredthem liars and imposters.” Whoo!

Joseph!
Joseph!
Take it easy!

There's some sick burns in the letter.

This was published in the Elder's Journal, like
. . . Casey Paul Griffiths: Yeah.
And, ooh, I think we need to do an entire series,
maybe, on the Kirtland apostasy.

Oh, yeah.

Because this is so rich, and we just dropped people
right in the middle of somethingthat was like, “Whoa, what was that?
Why is he being so aggressive?”Well, if you understand the history
of that time, like, it was nutso.
And so we're going to have to do awhole series just to do this right,
and I think there's actually somesuper important lessons to learn
from the Kirtland apostasy thatare super edifying, actually, so.

(36:05):
But anyway, yeah.

That's the context.

This is right in the middle of one of the worst periods
of Joseph Smith's life, when peopleright and left that he used to trust
and that were his right-hand peopleare now not only falling away, but
then turning against him, right?

Stephen Burnett is writing to Lyman Johnson, who is a
member of the Quorum of the Twelve that'sapostatized and been excommunicated.
Ex-apostle.

So in this letter that we're about to quote, this
is Stephen Burnett, who we justgot a little background on him.

Yeah.

Who's pretty ticked at Joseph already.
He ran into the Kirtland Temple tryingto prove there's no such thing as
revelation by trying to get a revelationthrough grunting and distortions
and finding nothing that came out.
No revelation.
He proved by that act there wasno such thing as revelation.
So that's kind of wherethis kid is at right now.

Yeah.

He's pretty angry, and he's trying to kind
of show that this is not true.

Yeah.

Okay.
So here's a letter.

And we're not going to read the whole letter, but we're
not trying to pull a fast one on you.
Go and read the whole letter.
We're going to read the parts that pertainto the witness of the Book of Mormon.
So, okay, here we go.
I'll read it.

Wait, what's the date?

The date is the 15th of April, 1838, about a year after
probably the severest moment of apostasy.

Okay.

Okay.
“Brother Lyman Johnson.
Dear Sir, I have with pleasure, justreceived your favor, postmarked the
26th, and now you see I take a largesheet that I have ample room to write.
My heart is sickened within me when Ireflect upon the manner in which we, with
many of this church, have been led andthe losses which we have sustained, all
by means of two men in whom we placedimplicit confidence, that Joseph Smith and

(37:34):
Sidney Rigdon, are notorious liars, I donot hesitate to affirm and can prove by
a cloud of witnesses, and this not all.
Joseph has prophesied in a publiccongregation lies in the name of the Lord.
An undue religious influence, he hasfilched the monies of the church from
their pockets and brought them nigh untodestruction, leaving helpless innocents
destitute of comfortable support whilehe has squandered the hard earnings

(37:57):
of those to whom it justly belonged.”

Oh, we better pause right there for a second.
So this does seem like he's stillsmarting from the Kirtland bank failure.

Yeah.

Like, a lot of people lost money when the Kirtland bank went
down, as did a lot of people in the U.
S.
at that time in the panic of 1837.
Like, tons of banks failed.
Kirtland was one of them, and a lot ofpeople lost a lot of money, super ticked
at Joseph, because if the prophet ofGod invites you to invest in a bank and
then you lose your money, like, whatdoes that say about him is kind of where
a lot of these people were at, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, continue.

Okay, so this is the part that pertains to what we're doing
have reflected long and deliberately uponthe history of this church and weighed
the evidence for and against it, loathe togive it up, but when I came to hear Martin
Harris state in public that he never sawthe plates with his natural eyes, only
in vision or imagination, neither OliverCowdery nor David Whitmer, and also

(38:51):
that the Eight Witnesses never saw them,and hesitated to sign that instrument
for that reason, but were persuadedto do it, the last pedestal gave way.
And in my view, our foundation wassapped, and the entire superstructure
fell in a heap of ruins.”

Oof.

So he is saying that Martin Harris publicly
said he never saw the plates, butonly in vision or imagination.
That's the way he’s stating it.

He never saw the plates with his natural eyes.

Yeah.

Only in vision or imagination.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then he's not saying that he saw them say this publicly,
but that Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmersaid the same thing, and he's saying
the eight witnesses never saw them andhesitated to sign that instrument for
that reason, but were persuaded to do so.
And this is what breaks this guy.
He just can't handle itonce he's heard that.

That's when the “foundation was sapped and the entire
superstructure fell into a heap of ruins.”

Yeah.

Man, it actually hurt for him, right here.
That's brutal.

Yeah.

Later on in the letter (39:54):
“I am well satisfied for myself that if the witnesses
whose names are attached to the Bookof Mormon never saw the plates, as
Martin admits, that there can be nothingbrought to prove that any such thing
ever existed, for it is said on 171page of the Book of Covenants that the
three should testify that they had seenthe plates, even as Joseph Smith, Jr.
If they only saw them spiritually orin vision with their eyes shut, Joseph

(40:17):
Smith never saw them in any other way.
And if the plates were only visionary,I am well satisfied that 29 and 37
chapters of Isaiah and Ezekiel togetherwith others in which we depended to prove
the truth of the Book of Mormon have nobearing, but are entirely irrelevant.
If any man differs from me, I canadopt the language of Josephus.
He is at liberty to enjoy hisopinions without blame from me.

(40:38):
We are well in usual health.
My respect to your family and friends.
I am, with respect to yours,Stephen Burnett.” Okay.
Let's run this through the model, becausethis is a little bit more serious, right?

Yeah.
I'd call this intermediate to hard.

Yeah.

Because this is pretty contemporary, right?
He's saying, you know, he wrotethis shortly after this supposed
admission of Martin Harris occurred.
It's firsthand.
He's saying, I heard Martin Harrissay this, and that's when the last
foundations gave way of my testimony.
If that's not true, thennothing's true, right?

Yeah.

Wow.
Yeah, what do we do with this?
He said that he heard Martin Harris state,in public, that he never saw the plates
with his natural eyes, only in vision orimagination, neither Oliver Cowdery or
David Whitmer, nor did the eight witnessesever see what they claimed to have seen.

Yeah.
One other excerpt from the letterthat we accidentally skipped over:

Mm-hmm.

“I was followed by Warren Parrish, Luke Johnson, and John F.
Boynton, all of who concurred with methat after they were done speaking with
Martin Harris, arose and said he wassorry for any men who rejected the Book
of Mormon, for he knew it was true.
He has said he had hefted the platesrepeatedly in a box with only a
tablecloth or handkerchief overthem, but he never saw them, only
as he saw a city through a mountain.

(41:55):
And he said that he never should have toldthe testimony of the eight was false, if
it had not been picked out of the air,but should have let it past as it was.
Now, Brother Johnson, if you haveanything to say in favor of the Book
of Mormon, I should be glad to hearit.” So he's adding that he heard
Martin Harris say that Martin Harrishad picked up the plates when they were
in a box and with a tablecloth overthem, but never saw the plates, only

(42:17):
as, here's the phrase he uses, “as hesaw a city through a mountain,” and
“said he never should have told thatthe testimony of the eight was false if
it had not been picked out of the air,”which I'm not sure what that one means.

Yeah.

But let's run this through the model.
Let's run this through the model here.

Okay.
Okay.

How close is this to the source?

He's claiming to be firsthand.
Yeah.

He's claiming he saw it, too, and he's claiming that
Warren Parrish, Luke Johnson, and John F.
Boynton were there.

Right there with him, yeah.

And spoke with Martin Harris.
So on the one point, Stephen Burnettis a primary source, but it's
secondary in some senses because he'ssaying, I heard Martin Harris say.

Yes, that's important.

Yeah.
How much time passedbefore it was recorded?
He doesn't really give a date here.

Oh, that's true.
Yeah, we don't have a date on when MartinHarris supposedly made that statement.
That's a good point.
We don't know.

I assume, since Stephen Burnett is active in the church
until around 1837, sometime 1837-38,but we'd be making an assumption there.

Yeah.


I think he feels a need.
To me it sounds like Stephen Burnettfeels a need to explain his own
reason for leaving the church.

Yeah.

And why he's reaching out to Lyman Johnson and what their
relationship is, I'm not sure, butit sounds like they have a level of
trust with each other, and so he'sexplaining to Lyman Johnson why he's out.
I'm trying to remember, isLyman Johnson out by this time?

Casey Paul Griffiths: Lyman Johnson is out. (43:44):
undefined
I believe he's beenexcommunicated by this time.
And Lyman Johnson does not come back tothe church, though you might remember
Lyman Johnson does come back and visitthe Quorum of the Twelve in Nauvoo.

Yeah.

Wilford Woodruff says Lyman Johnson told
him that, you know, air was sweeter.
Life was better.
I wish I could believe nowas I believed back then, but
I can't, and then he leaves.

Super sad account.

Yeah.
How factual or opinionated is it?

Yeah, how factual is this?
Because what we're trying to understandis what did Martin actually say
versus what did Stephen Burnettsay that Martin Harris said, right?
That's the hard thing here.

Yeah.
We're filtering everything throughStephen Burnett, and I'm still trying
to go through the whole, “he never sawthem, only as he saw a city through
a mountain,” and what that means.
He also says that Martin Harris saidthe eight witnesses never saw the plates
and that he only saw the plates throughhis spiritual eyes, or in a vision or

(44:43):
imagination, and I don't know if he'sclaiming that Oliver Cowdery and David
Whitmer said that or that Martin Harrisclaimed that they said that, too.
So I don't know how factualor opinionated this is.
It—to be honest, I lean towardssaying this is very opinionated.

Well, and if we go to question number five, right, we've
already shown today that sometimesquestion number five is a helpful way to
get at question number four, which is,how does it compare to other accounts?

Right.

Like, that's totally contradicted by the eight
witnesses themselves, that theydidn't actually see the plates.
And so already, I'm very suspiciousof this account, because it doesn't
seem like something that MartinHarris would actually say, right?
Because even that very year,even 1838, John Whitmer was
one of the eight witnesses.
He was out of the churchwhen this happened.

(45:30):
I think he was pressed on thisin Far West by Brother Turley,
who was still a church member.
They used to be buddies.
He pushes John Whitmer in frontof his now anti-Mormon friends.
He says, you're inconsistent.
John Whitmer says, what doyou mean I'm inconsistent?
And he says, you said that you saw theplates, and now you're out of the church.
That's inconsistent.
And John Whitmer said, listen, Inow say in front of everybody here,

(45:53):
I actually saw those plates, okay?
I saw them.
They were metallic.
They had some odd writing onthem, but I couldn't read it.
I couldn't read the writing, okay?
I don't know if they're true.
I saw the plates.
I wasn't lying.
And, uh, that's actually this sameyear, 1838, if I remember right.
That's remarkable counter evidence, right?
That, again, how factual is this?

(46:14):
Like, did Martin Harris reallysay that none of the eight
witnesses actually saw the plates?
That's contradicted on so many levels thatI'm already, like, suspicious of this.

Yeah.

I'm not so suspicious of Martin Harris as I am of Stephen Burnett's
telling of Martin Harris's words.

Yeah, and I've got to imagine that in the middle
of the Kirtland apostasy, if that'swhen this happened, one of the three
witnesses saying that he only saw theplates like you see a city through a
mountain, and that the eight witnessesdidn't see the plates at all, would
have been reported by somebody else.
Like, he said that he heardMartin say this in public.

(46:50):
He says that there were severalother people there, people he lists.

Let's see here (46:55):
Warren Parrish, Luke Johnson, and John F.
Boynton.
I don't know of any time whenthose guys made this claim, and
it seems like Warren Parrishespecially would have ran with this.

Yeah.
It's a damning claim.

Yeah.
It seems like it would have been inmore places than this letter between
Stephen Burnett and Lyman Johnson.

So here's an interesting take on it from Richard Lloyd Anderson.

Okay.

I think we might have plugged this book earlier.
We should plug it now, if we haven't.
Speaking of a great churchhistorian who really models sound
critical, historical thinking.

Yeah.

This book is called Investigating the
Book of Mormon Witnesses.
And this is where Richard LloydAnderson just goes through
all of this kind of stuff.
In fact, I just—I looked in the indexunder Stephen Burnett, and sure enough,
he totally, like, handles this wholeletter, and he says some really, I
think, thoughtful things about it.
Let me just read a little bit ofwhat he says, and just watch how

(47:50):
a trained historian is thinkingthrough this evidence here, okay?
After having quoted from that letter,he says, “We are, of course, seeing
Harris through the mind of a frustratedintermediary, one who thinks Mormonism
presents a, ‘whole scene of lying anddeception,’” something Burnett had said.
“He thinks that Martin Harrishas not really seen the plates.

(48:13):
If ‘only in vision,’ then Burnett,not Harris, says it was really
just imagination.” So he's beingreally careful with the words here.
“If the three witnesses ‘only sawthem spiritually,’ then Burnett, not
Harris, can explain it as essentially,in a vision with their eyes shut.
But notice that Martin Harris feltmisrepresented, or he would not have
stood up in the Kirtland Temple tochallenge the explanations of Burnett

(48:35):
and his disaffected associates.”That's Parrish and Johnson and Boynton.
“And note that there aretwo distinct experiences of
Harris that he's mentioning.
Number one, that he said that hehad hefted the plates repeatedly in
a box with only a tablecloth or ahandkerchief over them, but he never saw
them, only as he saw a city through amountain.” That's experience number one.

(48:57):
And then “Number two, he never sawthe plates with his natural eyes,
only in vision.” And so this wouldbe two very distinct times, right?
The first would be back when MartinHarris was scribing for Joseph Smith,
and during his scribing, he neversaw the plates, he only was able to
heft them while they were in a box.
Whereas later, when he became oneof the Three Witnesses, that's

(49:17):
when he saw the plates in vision.
And so Anderson continues here, hesays, “Getting at the real Martin Harris
requires subtracting Burnett's sarcasmthat seeps into the above wording.
Note the two italicized appearances ofonly used in the sense of “merely” to say
that besides lifting the box of plates,Martin had also seen them in vision,

(49:39):
the point restated at the end of thequotation, ‘only saw them spiritually
or in vision,’ or only visionary.
In other words, Burnett heard Martin saythat he had seen the plates in vision.
And when Burnett uses the word ‘only’four times to ridicule the experience,
that shows his disbelief, not Martin's.
Martin's candid denial of seeingthe plates while translating

(50:01):
was sometimes exaggerated into adenial of ever seeing the plates.
But even Burnett reports Martin claimingtwo types of contact with the plates.”
And then the most important point,I think, he says this: “So Burnett
paraphrased Martin Harris with the evidentrationalizations of a skeptic, but Martin
knew his own experience and remaineda convinced Book of Mormon believer.

(50:22):
Study of his subsequent interviews showshow strongly he insisted that the sight
of the angel and plates was as real as thesight of the physical objects around him.”
So that's important to consider, right?
Like, how does it compareto other accounts?
The question number five, it's like,well, Martin Harris actually had ample
opportunity to testify for the restof his life, decades and decades after

(50:44):
this, and he continued to consistentlysay that he actually saw the plates.
Just because it was in visiondidn't mean it wasn't real.
He would say to people, you know,you see that tree over there?
Or you see the sun shining in the sky?
Or you see my hand?
Or do you see me standing here right now?
Or, you know, he'd always pick an objectand he'd say, well, just as surely as
you see that thing, so surely did Isee the angel and the plates, right?

(51:07):
So how does Burnett's accounthere, this kind of garbled,
through Burnett's frustrated—howdid Richard Anderson say it?
“Through the mind of a frustratedintermediary.” How does that compare
to the subsequent repeated testimoniesof Martin Harris the rest of his life?
Not very well at all, right?

Yeah.
And I want to point out there's anexcellent article in Gospel Library under
Church History Topics on “Witnesses ofthe Book of Mormon.” I don't know who
wrote it, but they deal with this, too,and they maybe give Stephen Burnett a
little bit more credibility than I would,but this is them trying to explain why
Stephen Burnett said he heard this.

Okay.

They wrote, “Many Christians in Harris’ day believed it
was dangerous or impossible to witnessthe divine with physical senses.
This belief was rooted inthe stories from the Bible.
For example, in the Old Testament,Israelites who peered into the
Ark of the Covenant without properauthorization were destroyed.
God's presence was typically hiddenbehind a veil or a cloud of smoke
to shield the eyes of those whowere not spiritually prepared.

(52:04):
One of Joseph Smith's earlyrevelations affirmed similarly that
humans cannot see God with theirnatural eyes without being consumed.
They could, however, witness his glorywith spiritual eyes if they were changed
or quickened by the Spirit of God.”Then they go on to say, “Martin Harris
considered the witnesses’ experiencewith the angel and the ancient record
to be just such an encounter with thedivine, similar to Joseph Smith's visions.

(52:27):
Conscious of the stern warningsof scripture, he often spoke of
the inadequacy he felt at thetime he witnessed the plates.
Over the years he employed avariety of phrases to describe
his extraordinary encounter.
When pressed by various interviewersto clarify whether he actually saw the
plates, he spoke of seeing them with aspiritual eye, emphasizing the unusual
and sacred quality of the experience,but also with his physical senses.” For

(52:50):
instance, this is a quote from MartinHarris: “As sure as you are standing there
and see me,” he insists on one occasion,“just as sure did I see the angel with
the golden plates in his hand.” “DavidWhitmer, who similarly described both
the spiritual and physical dimensionsof the witnesses’ experience, said, ‘Of
course we were in the Spirit when we hadthe view, for no man can behold the face
of an angel except in a spiritual view,’he explained, but then added, ‘but we

(53:12):
were in the body also, and everythingwas as natural to us as it is at any
time.’” So question number five, howdoes this measure against other sources?
It's clear that on several occasions,Martin and the other witnesses, primary
sources here, address this questionof, well, wait, are you saying you
just saw them spiritually, or yousaw them spiritually and physically?

(53:33):
David Whitmer says both.
Martin Harris says both.
The big thing I struggle withhere is him saying the eight
witnesses didn't see it at all?
Because that just runs contrary toeverything the eight witnesses say, ever.
He's just saying they're lying, so.
I don't know, this is a tougherone, but, I mean, if we're going
back to our five questions, gosh,I just, I don't think it does well.

That's right.

When it all comes down to it.
And my heart goes out to StephenBurnett, you know, poor guy.

Yeah.
This one seems more damning at first.

Yeah.

Like, this one's hard.

Yeah.

But when we slow down and just kind of, like, okay,
let's think through this, walkthrough those five questions, it does
actually start to shake out and makesense, and you can see his motive.
You can see his anger, his frustration.
We are getting Martin Harris's wordssecondhand through a frustrated,
disaffected member of the church.
When you compare that to everythingthat we have from the witnesses both

(54:27):
before and after that in terms of theactual reality of their experience,
it doesn't hold up well at all.

No.

Right?
And so—in fact, let mejust share one example.

Okay.

I think this is historical gold.
This is Oliver Cowdery who wrote aletter, so this is in his own handwriting.
This is December 1829.
This is the very yearthey had their experience.
And as far as I know, this isthe earliest account of any of
the three witnesses that we have.
10th of December, 1829, a letter fromOliver to a guy named Cornelius Blatchley.

(54:59):
Looks like he's respondingto Cornelius’ letter.
He says, “You wish to know whetherthere could not possibly have been some
juggling or deception at the bottomof [the three witness experience].
A few words on that point may suffice?
It was a clear, open, beautiful day, farfrom any inhabitants, in a remote field,

(55:22):
at the time we saw the record of which ithas been spoken, brought and laid before
us by an angel, arrayed in glorious light,who descended out of the midst of heaven.”
And then he says, “Now, if this is humanjuggling, judge ye.” The word “juggling”
is a word for deception back then.
If that's deception, you judge, sir.

(55:43):
And that's the end of the quote.

So let's run this through the model.
How close is this to the source?

100%.

100%.
Okay.
How much time has passedbefore it was recorded?
The letter’s dated 29th November, 1829.
That's probably less than six monthsafter the witness experience, which was
sometime in the summer of 1829, so, boom,boom, those—looking good on the first two.

(56:11):
What's the motive of theperson telling the account?
It seems like Oliver's motivesare to convince people that
the Book of Mormon’s true.
How factual or opinionated is this?

He says at the beginning that Cornelius had asked him—he says,
“You wish to know whether there could notpossibly have been some juggling . . . at
the bottom of this.” Well, let me saya few words, and see what you think.
And then he just says it really plainly.

Yeah.
It doesn't seem likethere's a lot of opinion.
In fact, he goes out of his way tobasically say, here's what I saw.
A glorious light, a clear, open, beautifulday, far from any inhabitants in a
remote field at a time we saw the record.
So he's trying to strike a neutral tone,and how does it compare to other accounts?
Pretty good.

Booyah.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Pretty good, actually. (56:54):
undefined
Yeah, it lines up with whatthe other witnesses say.
It lines up with Oliver Cowderysays the rest of his life.
It lines up—I mean, when we talkabout this, it's funny, because we
always dance around, but there's thetestimony that's actually in the book.

Yeah.

Oliver's there when the book's published.
He has corrective power if hewants to change anything, but—

Yeah.

—he's willing to put it in there.
So I would say this one does pretty good.

Yeah.
And there's a ton of this kindof evidence, like you said,
throughout their whole life.

Yeah.

Any others we should read before we wrap this up?

Let's do one more, and it's partially because I feel like
Martin Harris took a beating today.
This is a letter of Martin Harristo a man named Walter Conrad.
The date is January 13th, 1873.

And here's the letter (57:48):
“I now solemnly state that as I was praying unto the Lord
that I might behold the ancient record,lo there appeared to view a holy angel,
and before him a table, and upon the tablethe holy spectacles, or Urim and Thummim,
and other ancient relics of the Nephites.
And lo, the angel did take up theplates and turn them over as we could

(58:11):
plainly see the engravings thereon.
And lo, there came a voice fromheaven, saying, ‘I am the Lord,’ and
the plates were translated by God andnot men, and also that we should bear
record of it to all the world, andthus the vision was taken from us.
And now, dear brother, I would that youmight look upon my countenance and know
that I lie not, neither was I deceived,but it pleases the Lord that I must

(58:32):
be content to write these few lines.”So how close is this to the source?

Primary.

Primary source.
Comes directly from Martin Harris.

Hmm.

How much time passed before it was recorded?
We're a little weak there.
1873.

But, again, I would say this isn't the
first time he's said it, right?
This is the hundredth time he's said it.
This is the—I don't know.
This is a consistent story he'sbeen telling ever since 1829.

Yeah.

Right?
And so I don't know that1873 is weak on that.
If the first time they'd ever said thiswas 1873, I would say that's a problem,
but I don't count this as a problem beinga consistent telling from 1829 to 1873.
In fact, that, in my mind, strengthens it.

Yeah.
You can investigate this, but wepulled this one account out of a
huge stack of similar accounts.

Yeah.

He signs it, “yours in the gospelof Christ.” He's trying to convince
people that the Book of Mormon is real.

“I lie not, neither was I deceived.”

Yep.

That's his goal here, right?

He's trying to convince people he's
telling the truth, and he feelslike he wasn't tricked on this.

When he says, “I would that ye might look upon my
countenance”—you know, I'm writing thisletter now, but I wish you could see
my face and know that I'm not lying.

Yeah.
How factual or opinionated?
I'm just contrasting his languagehere with the whole Stephen Burnett,
“I saw the plates like you see a citythrough a mountain,” which I'm still
trying to figure out what that means.

Yeah.

In contrast, Martin says, “The angel did take up the plates
and turn them over so we could plainlysee the engravings thereon, and there
came a voice from heaven saying, ‘I amthe Lord,’ and the plates were translated
by God and not men.” So that seemsmuch more factual, here's what I saw.
I'm describing what I saw.
And how does it compare to other accounts?
Pretty well.

Scott Woodward (01:00:15):
Bullseye.

Casey Paul Griffiths (01:00:16):
Seems to line up with what Martin said, with what David
said—and I'm sorry we're not probablygoing to have time to cover David, but
I'm going to recommend there is a bookcalled David Whitmer Interviews put
together by Lyndon Cook that just hasall the interviews David Whitmer did.
We were going to bring this up, butDavid Whitmer actually published an
article refuting an encyclopedia thathad said he had denied his testimony.

Yeah.
He was pretty feisty about this.
He wanted everyone to know that hehad never denied his testimony, and
even when he was, like, an old man,like, the one thing that could get
him going was if you insinuated thatmaybe it had been a hallucination
or maybe some sort of a trick.
That's when he would get all huffyand stand up even and point to his

(01:01:02):
eyes and say, these eyes saw theangel and the plates, and he'd point
to his ears and say, these ears heardthe voice of God bearing testimony.
He was pretty passionate.

He was.
Again, we're doing all this for a purpose.
If we go back to those tools ofhistoriography that we've been discussing,
the reliability of a historical account.
Like you said, some of these attackson the witnesses are just ludicrous.
They don't line up with anything.
Some of them are a five-pointfailure on the scale.
Some of them, like Stephen Burnett's,score a couple points for being

(01:01:33):
contemporary and supposedly being aprimary source, but they fail badly
when they're compared to other sources.

Yeah.

The witnesses, on the other hand, all paint a
fairly consistent picture, andif you're following the rule
of, is it a primary source?
When did they write it down?
What did they state as their motives?
How factual or opinionated was it?
And how does it compare towhat the other witnesses say?
It's pretty solid.

Yeah.

If you're being honest and open as a historian, you've
got to say that these counter accountsto the witnesses are pretty weak.

Yeah.

The accounts from the witnesses are pretty
strong just by using the objectivetools of reliable historicity
that we've kind of laid out here.

And we pointed out in a previous episode when we talked
about them a little bit, that, backto question number three, like, what's
their motive in telling their accounts?
Like, David Whitmer had beenout of the church for decades—

Yeah.

–when he bore most of his witness of the Book of Mormon.
Martin Harris was out ofthe church for decades.
Same with Oliver Cowdery for,what, about a decade, and they
didn't have skin in the game.
They didn't have a reputationto uphold within the church.
We feel like that actuallystrengthens their case.
Like, they didn't have ulteriormotive, if we could say that.

(01:02:42):
What their testimony does do is showus that they actually were consistent
with what they said the voice ofGod told them to do, which was to
stay true to their testimony of theBook of Mormon, and if they would
do that then they would be okay.
And how do they say it?
That their garments would beunspotted at the last day.
That's an important point to bring upalways with the three witnesses, is to

(01:03:06):
say, what motive would they have forcontinuing to testify of the reality of
their experience when they were out ofthe church, sometimes angry at Joseph
Smith, and they were in the best positionof anyone in the church to hurt Joseph
Smith and to compromise his mission andhis testimony, and yet they did not?

Yeah.

For me that weighs pretty heavily in the balance.

Yeah.

Here's their statement you hinted at (01:03:29):
“We know that if we are faithful in Christ
we shall rid our garments of the bloodof all men and be found spotless before
the judgment seat of Christ, and shalldwell with them eternally in the heavens.
And the honor be to the Father,and to the Son, and to the
Holy Ghost, which is one God.
Amen.
Oliver Cowdery, DavidWhitmer, Martin Harris.” Read
responsibly, I guess you'd say.

(01:03:50):
And you outlined another good skill thatI think we're going to spend a little
time on, which is approach this slowly.
Don't jump to conclusions.
If you read a letter like StephenBurnett's, you could basically
jump to the conclusion that,oh my gosh, it's all false.
But if you back up and you use thisprocess carefully and methodically,
you'll see that something like StephenBurnett's account has some serious

(01:04:13):
problems with it while the accountsof the witnesses, there's a lot there
that you don't have to account for, andso something like that actually can be
faith strengthening if it's approachedresponsibly, thoughtfully, and carefully
using observation, reason, and faith.

I love it.
This has been fun to do a little practice,Casey, to try to illustrate this skill
in action using some hard questions.

Right.
Take this out and use it.
After a while, it becomes secondnature where you start to hear
a source and immediately, beforeyou jump to conclusions, say,
let's back up a little bit.

Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Who's that coming from? (01:04:47):
undefined
When did they say it?
Why did they say it?
And what does everybodyelse say, basically?
So if you do this, you know, Ithink you'll find the truth claims
of the church hold up pretty well.
The Lord wanted us to be ableto use observation and reason
to understand these things, too,to strengthen and bolster faith.

This is what Elder Uchtdorf was saying, right?
We are expected to evaluateso that we too can come to a
personal knowledge of the truth.
And this is part of that process.

Wonderful.
Well done.
I hope your students don't find outabout this and just listen to the
podcast because this will give themall the answers to their assignment.

Oh, shoot.
I didn't think about that.
Man.
Now this is out there.
Dang it.

I'm not going to tell anybody if you don't.

Now I'm going to have to change the assignment.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Church History Matters.
Join us next time as we introduce the nextskill we believe to be vital in seeking

truth and preserving faith (01:05:47):
a skill we're calling mental flexibility, which is the
skill of humbly revising our assumptionsin light of better information.
Sounds simple, but it turns out thatproductively unlearning and rethinking
our assumptions about God, prophets,and the church isn't always easy.

(01:06:07):
We'll take a look at a crucial moment inour church's history that illustrates why
this skill is absolutely worth developing.
If you're enjoying Church HistoryMatters, we'd appreciate it if you
could take a moment to subscribe, rate,review, and comment on the podcast.
That makes us easier to find.
Today's episode was produced byScott Woodward and edited by Nick

(01:06:27):
Galieti and Scott Woodward, with shownotes and transcript by Gabe Davis.
Church History Matters is a podcastof Scripture Central, a nonprofit
which exists to help build enduringfaith in Jesus Christ by making
Latter-day Saint scripture and churchhistory accessible, comprehensible,
and defensible to people everywhere.
For more resources to enhance yourgospel study, go to scripturecentral.org,

(01:06:50):
where everything is availablefor free because of the generous
donations of people like you.
And while we try very hard to behistorically and doctrinally accurate
in what we say on this podcast, pleaseremember that all views expressed in
this and every episode are our viewsalone and do not necessarily reflect the
views of Scripture Central or The Churchof Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

(01:07:11):
Thank you so much for beinga part of this with us.

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