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An 1893 engraving of Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates and the Urim and Thummim from Moroni. The sword of Laban is shown nearby.

Vorlage:LDS

The Golden Plates, also called the Gold Plates or the Golden Bible,[1] were a set of engraved metallic plates, bound into the form of a book, which Joseph Smith, Jr. stated was the source of the Book of Mormon, a scripture of the Latter Day Saint movement. Smith, the founder of that movement, said he obtained the plates on September 22, 1827 in a hill in Manchester, New York, where they were protected by an angel. After dictating a translation and obtaining signed statements by eleven witnesses, he returned the plates to the angel in 1829.

Witnesses generally described the plates as a set of thin, bound, engraved metallic plates having a golden appearance. Part of the plates were said to have been sealed and thus could not be translated. Smith's translation of the Golden Plates stated they had been engraved by a pre-Columbian prophet-warrior named Mormon and his son Moroni in about the year 400 CE. These men were said to have abridged earlier historical records from other sets of metal plates in a language referred to as reformed Egyptian.[2] The Golden Plates are the most significant of a number of metallic plates important to Latter Day Saint history and theology.

Story of the plates

Background of Joseph Smith

As a youth, Joseph Smith, Jr. lived on his parents' farm near Palmyra, New York during both the Second Great Awakening and what has been described as a "craze for treasure hunting."[3] Beginning in the early 1820s, he was paid to act as a "seer", to use seer stones in (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure.[4] His contemporaries said he would place the stone in a white stovepipe hat, put his face over the hat to block the light, and then "see" the sought-for information in the stone's reflections.[5] His favored stone, chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg,[6] was found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors.[7]

Obtaining the plates

Smith said that he first learned about the Golden Plates on the eve of September 22[8] in 1823 (or possibly 1822),[9] when, in his bedroom late at night, an angel[10] named Moroni appeared to him three times.[11] Moroni told him that the plates could be found in a prominent hill near his home (which Smith later identified as Cumorah, a location in the Book of Mormon).[12]

According to Smith and others who heard his account, the angel said he would not allow him to take the plates until he was able to obey certain "commandments".[13] These commandments varied according to different accounts of Smith's experience but may have included the requirement that he tell his father about the vision immediately the next morning,[14] that he approach the location of the plates dressed in black[15] wearing a set of ancient clothes,[16] that he ride a "black horse with a switchtail",[17] that he call for the plates by a certain name,[18] that he have no thought of using the plates for monetary gain,[19] that he take the plates and immediately give thanks to God,[20], that he go directly away with the plates without looking back,[21] that the plates never touch the ground until safe at home in a locked chest,[22] and that he show the plates to no unauthorized person.[23]

An 1841 engraving of "Mormon Hill" (looking south), where Smith said he found the Golden Plates on the west side, near the peak.

In the morning, Smith did not immediately tell his father about the vision[24] because he did not think his father would believe him,[25] but he said the angel appeared a fourth time and told him to do so.[26] After telling his father, who believed him,[27] Smith said he visited the hill that morning and located the plates. [28]According to differing stories, either the angel showed him the exact location of the plates in the visions,[29] he located them himself using his seer stone,[30] or he followed a sequence of landmarks until he arrived at the correct location.[31]

Although an 1838 autobiography said he already knew while approaching the hill that he would not be successful in retrieving the plates that day,[32] Smith's 1835 published biography and other accounts said he "supposed his success certain"[33] At the proper location, Smith said he saw a large stone covering a stone box.[34] After moving the stone, he said he saw the plates inside, together with other artifacts.[35] Smith tried to remove the plates,[36] and reportedly put them on the ground while he looked at other items in the box that he thought might "be of some pecuniary advantage to him."[37] When he looked back, the plates had been returned to the covered box.[38] Three accounts say that when Smith raised the stone and attempted to retrieve the plates, he saw something like a toad in the stone box, which grew larger and struck him to the ground.[39] Several other accounts omit the toad, but state that a supernatural force hurled Smith to the ground as many as three times.[40]

Disconcerted, Smith said he briefly wondered whether his experience had been a "dreem of Vision" [sic]. Concluding that it was not, he prayed asking why he had been barred from taking the plates.[41] Smith said the angel answered that he could not receive the plates at that time, because he "had been tempted of the advisary (sic) and saught (sic) the Plates to obtain riches and kept not the commandments that I should have."[42] Smith had also, according to some accounts, broken the angel's commandment "not to lay the plates down, or put them for a moment out of his hands".[43]

The angel is said to have told Smith he might be able to get the plates if he returned the next year, on September 22 1824, with the "right person," whom the angel said was his brother Alvin.[44] However, Alvin died within a few months. When Smith returned to the hill in 1824, he did not return with the plates, to his family's disappointment.[45] Once again, Smith said the angel told him to return the next year with the "right person," but he did not tell Smith who that might be. [46] In 1825, Smith may have attempted unsuccessfully to satisfy the angel by bringing treasure-hunting associate Samuel T. Lawrence to the hill.[47]

Later, Smith is said to have determined by looking into his seer stone that the "right person" was Emma Hale Smith, his future wife.[48] There is no record of Smith seeing the angel in 1826; however, on January 18 1827, when Smith passed by the hill Cumorah on his way to Manchester with his new bride, he said he was chastised by the angel for not being "engaged enough in the work of the Lord".[49] Smith said that the next annual visit would be his last opportunity to receive the Golden Plates.[50]

By the eve of September 22 1827, when Smith was to obtain the plates, his treasure-seeking associates Josiah Stowell and Joseph Knight, Sr. had traveled to Palmyra.[51] Smith dispatched his father to spy on the house of Samuel T. Lawrence, where Smith's fellow treasure-seekers were plotting to get possession of the plates.[52] Meanwhile, late at night, Smith took a horse and carriage to the hill Cumorah with his wife Emma.[53] Leaving Emma in the wagon, where she knelt in prayer,[54] he walked to what he said was the site of the Golden Plates, retrieved them, and may have hidden them in a fallen tree-top on or near the hill.[55]

A 19th century painting by C.C.A. Christensen, showing Joseph Smith, Jr. kneeling while receiving the golden plates from a standing or floating Moroni.

Several of Smith's neighbors made attempts to find and seize the plates, and Smith claimed to have moved them from place to place to keep them from being discovered.[56] Smith said that he had at first kept the plates in a chest under the hearth in his parents' home, then under the floor boards of his parents' previous log home nearby, and finally in a barrel of flax shortly before the chest was discovered and the place ransacked.[57]

Transcription of the plates

With some financial assistance from a prominent, though superstitious, local landowner Martin Harris,[58] Smith and his wife Emma moved to Harmony, Pennsylvania, Emma's home town, in early October 1827, with the golden plates reportedly hidden for the trip in a barrel of beans. [59] In Harmony, Joseph and Emma stayed for a time in the home of Emma's father Isaac Hale, but when Smith refused to show Hale the plates, Hale banished the concealed object from his house.[60]

Smith claimed that he copied characters from the golden plates and translated them through the use of "Urim and Thummim" found with the plates.[61] Emma Smith later recalled that when she took dictation from her husband, she "frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.... The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates as they thus lay on the table tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book."[62]

Usually, however, the golden plates were not even in the same room. Michael Morse, Smith's brother-in-law, said that he watched Smith on several occasions:"The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face." David Whitmer said that "the plates were not before Joseph while he translated, but seem to have been removed by the custodian angel." Isaac Hale said that while Joseph was translating, the plates were "hid in the woods." Joseph Smith, Sr. said they were "hid in the moutains."[63] During the translation process a curtain or blanket was placed between Smith and his scribe or between the living area and the area where Smith and his scribe worked. [64] Sometimes Smith dictated to Martin Harris from upstairs or from a different room. [65]

Smith used a number of assistants during the process of transcribing The Book of Mormon, including Emma Smith, Martin Harris, and most notably, Oliver Cowdery. Nevertheless, Smith's "translation" process did not involve his understanding of an ancient script. As he looked into the seer stone, the words of the text appeared to him in English. When in mid-1828, Smith loaned the manuscript pages to Martin Harris, and Harris lost them, Smith said that opponents would try to see if he could "bring forth the same words again." Smith did not explain why he believed different translations of a text should not be different or why a fraudulent version with different handwriting would not be obvious.[66]

Shortly after baptizing each other in the Susquehanna River and experiencing a vision of John the Baptist, Smith and Cowdery moved on to the farm of the Whitmers, a family of supporters in Fayette, New York. Rather than hide the Golden Plates for this trip, Smith gave them over to an angel for safekeeping until they had completed their journey.[67]

Witnesses

As Smith finished the translation of the plates, he revealed that witnesses would be asked to testify to their existence. In June 1829, two sets of witnesses (the Three Witnesses[68]and a separate group of Eight Witnesses[69]) signed joint statements, written by Smith, which were subsequently published with the text of the Book of Mormon.[70] The Three Witnesses — Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris — affirmed that an angel had descended from heaven and presented the plates, which they saw but did not touch. Then they heard a voice from heaven declaring that the book was translated by the power of God and that they should bear record of it. The Eight Witnesses were members of the Joseph Smith and David Whitmer families. Like the Three Witnesses, the Eight signed a joint statement that they had seen and (in their case) hefted the plates.[71]

In March 1838, disillusioned church members said that Martin Harris, who had given many specific descriptions of the plates, had now publicly denied having seen them at all.[72]Near the end of his long life, Harris also said that he had seen the plates only in "a state of entrancement."[73] Nevertheless, in 1871 Harris testified that no one had "ever heard me in any way deny the truth of the Book of Mormon [or] the administration of the angel that showed me the plates."[74] Yet even after Smith had returned the plates to the angel, other early LDS Church members testified that an angel had also showed them the plates.[75]

Physical description of the Golden Plates

Format, binding, and dimensions

Full-scale model of the Golden Plates based on Joseph Smith's description.

The plates were said to be in the format of a book, bound at one edge by a set of rings. Martin Harris, one of Joseph Smith, Jr.'s early scribes, is reported to have said in 1828 that he understood the plates were "fastened together in the shape of a book by wires"[76] After saying that he saw the plates in 1829, Harris said in 1859 that the plates "were seven inches wide by eight inches in length, and were of the thickness of plates of tin; and when piled one above the other, they were altogether about four inches thick; and they were put together on the back by three silver rings, so that they would open like a book."[77] David Whitmer, another 1829 witness, was quoted in a 1831 Palmyra newspaper as saying the plates were "the thickness of tin plate; the back was secured with three small rings...passing through each leaf in succession".[78] Anomalously, Smith's father is quoted as saying the plates were only half an inch thick [79]

Hyrum Smith and John Whitmer, also witnesses in 1829, are reported to have stated that the rings holding the plates together were, in Hyrum's words, "in the shape of the letter D, which facilitated the opening and shutting of the book".[80] Joseph Smith's wife Emma, and his younger brother William said they examined the plates while they were wrapped in fabric. Emma said she "felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book".[81] William agreed that the plates could be rustled with one's thumb like the pages of a book.[82]

Joseph Smith did not provide his own published description of the plates until 1842, when he said in a letter that "each plate was six inches [150 mm] wide and eight inches [200 mm] long, and not quite so thick as common tin. They were...bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book, with three rings running through the whole. The volume was something near six inches [150 mm] in thickness." [83]

Composition and weight

The plates were first described as "gold." Beginning about 1827, the plates were widely called the "gold bible".[84] When the book was published in 1830 eight witnesses described the plates as having "the appearance of gold."[85] The Book of Mormon itself describes the plates as being made of "ore."[86] In 1831, a Palmyra newspaper quoted David Whitmer, another witness to the plates, as saying the plates were a "whitish yellow color," with "three small rings of the same metal."[87]

Joseph Smith, Jr.'s first published description of the plates agreed that the plates "had the appearance of gold."[88] but gave no further information about their composition. Late in life, Martin Harris stated that the rings holding the plates together were made of silver,[89] and he said the plates themselves, based on their heft of "forty or fifty pounds,"[90] "were lead or gold."[91] Joseph's brother William Smith, who said he felt the plates inside a pillow case in 1827, said in 1884 that he understood the plates to be "a mixture of gold and copper...much heavier than stone, and very much heavier than wood."[92]

Different people estimated the weight of the plates differently. According to Smith's one-time-friend Willard Chase, Smith told him in 1827 that the plates weighed between forty and sixty pounds, most likely the latter.[93] Smith's father Joseph Smith, Sr., who was one of the Eight Witnesses, reportedly weighed them and said in 1830 that they "weighed thirty pounds."[94] Joseph Smith's brother, William, said that he lifted them in a pillowcase and thought they "weighed about sixty pounds according to the best of my judgment."[95] Others who lifted the plates while they were wrapped in cloth or enclosed in a box thought that they weighed about sixty pounds. Martin Harris said that he had "hefted the plates many times, and should think they weighed forty or fifty pounds." [96] Joseph Smith's wife Emma never estimated the weight of the plates but said they were light enough for her to "move them from place to place on the table, as it was necessary in doing my work".[97] Had the plates been made of 24-karat gold (which Smith never claimed), they would have weighed about 140 pounds. [98]

The plates might have been made from tin or various gold alloys. They might have been made of a gold and copper Mesoamerican alloy, called tumbaga by the Spanish, which would have weighed between 50 and 70 pounds.[99] Plates of roughly similar dimensions and weight might also have been made of tin, which was readily available in the Palmyra area. [100]

"Sealed" portion

According to Joseph Smith and others, the book of Golden Plates contained a "sealed" portion [101] containing "a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof."[102] However, Smith never described whether the seal was supernatural, metaphorical, or physical. Neither did he indicate what proportion of the book was sealed.

The language of the Book of Mormon can be interpreted to imply that the "sealing" of the plates was metaphorical, that the book was "sealed" in the sense that its contents were hidden or kept from public knowledge. This view is supported by references in the Book of Mormon to other documents and plates being "sealed" by being buried, hidden to come forth at some future time. For example, the Book of Mormon says the entire set of plates was "sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord",[103] and that a separate record of John the Apostle was "sealed up to come forth in their purity" in the end times.[104] One set of plates referred to in the Book of Mormon was "sealed up" in the sense that "no one can interpret them," because they were written "in a language that they cannot be read."[105]

Smith may also have understood the sealing as a supernatural or magical seal placed on the plates "by the power of God" (2 Nephi 27:10), a view supported by period references to "magical seals" being placed on buried treasure.[106] This view is also supported by a reference in the Book of Mormon to the "interpreters" (Urim and Thummim) with which Smith said they were buried or "sealed." [107] Oliver Cowdery also stated that when Smith visited the hill, he was stricken by a supernatural force because the plates were "sealed by the prayer of faith".[108]

A third perspective, the most popular among modern Latter Day Saints, is that the book's "sealing" was a physical but non-supernatural binding placed on part of the plates by Mormon or Moroni. The main source for this view is David Whitmer, who said an angel showed him the plates in 1829.[109] Nevertheless, Whitmer's descriptions of the plates vary in their details. In 1831, Whitmer is quoted as saying that half of each individual plate (the half closest to the "back" or spine of the book) was part of a single solid mass, while the remainder of each plate was soldered to the other half and could swing open "as it were on a hinge."[110] Fifty years later, Whitmer said that one section of the book was "loose, in plates, the other solid."[111] The later description is more consistent with a statement by Eight Witnesses who said they saw the plates in 1829 and handled "as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated," implying that they might not have examined such un-translated parts of the book as the sealed portion.[112]

Although Whitmer's descriptions of the sealing are physical, the seal may also have had a supernatural component. According to Whitmer, the "sealed" part of the plates were held together as a solid mass that was "stationary and immovable"[113], it "appeared as solid to my view as wood",[114] and it had "perceptible marks where the plates appeared to be sealed".[115]. Whitmer also stated that the leaves "were so securely bound that it was impossible to separate them".[116]

Estimates of the size of the sealed portion differ. David Whitmer originally said that "about half" the book was sealed.[117] In 1881, however, Whitmer said that "about one-third" of the book was un-sealed, and the remainder sealed.[118] Whitmer's 1881 statement is consistent with a 1856 statement by Orson Pratt, an associate of Smith's who never saw the plates himself, but who said he had spoken with the witnesses.[119] According to Pratt, "about two-thirds" of the plates were "sealed up".[120]

The sealed portion of the plates is said to contain "a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof."[121] The Book of Mormon states that this vision was originally given to the Brother of Jared which he wrote on a set of 24 plates called the plates of Limhi and then "sealed up."[122] According to this account, Moroni copied the plates of Limhi onto the sealed portion of the Golden Plates.[123] Many Latter Day Saints expect that this prophecy will be eventually revealed, and some Latter Day Saints have published translations of the sealed portion of the plates, none of which has as yet received significant acceptance among Latter Day Saints.

Engravings

A transcription by Joseph Smith, Jr. of characters he said were engraved on the Golden Plates.

The Golden Plates were said to contain engravings in an ancient language that the Book of Mormon describes as Reformed Egyptian.[124] Smith later described them as "Egyptian characters...small, and beautifully engraved," exhibiting "much skill in the art of engraving."[125]

According to John Whitmer, one of the Eight Witnesses who said he saw the plates in 1829, the plates had "fine engravings on both sides".[126] Orson Pratt, who did not see the plates himself, who had spoken with the witnesses, understood that there were engravings on both sides of the plates, "stained with a black, hard stain, so as to make the letters more legible and easier to be read."[127]

Plates returned to Moroni

Once the translation was complete, about July 1829, Smith said that he returned the plates to the to the angel.[128] Many Latter Day Saints, including Brigham Young, have believed the plates were returned to Hill Cumorah and that other ancient records lie buried there, including the Sword of Laban and the special spectacles given to aid the translation process.[129]

Other metal plates mentioned in the Book of Mormon

In addition to the Golden Plates, the Book of Mormon refers to several other sets of books written on metal plates:

Other metal plates in the Latter Day Saint Tradition

  • In 1843, Smith acquired a set of six small bell-shaped plates, known as the Kinderhook Plates, found in Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois. Smith said that they contained information about a descendant of Ham "through the loins of Pharaoh," but he never produced a translation. After Smith's assassination, the Kinderhook Plates were presumed lost, but for decades The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published facsimiles of them in its official History of the Church as evidence that ancient Americans wrote on metal plates. In 1980 the Kinderhook Plates were proved to have been manufactured in the nineteenth century, probably in an attempt to catch Smith in a fraud. Today the LDS Church acknowledges the plates as a hoax and makes no attempt to defend their authenticity.[130]
  • James J. Strang, one of the rival claimants to succeed Smith, also claimed to have discovered and translated a set of plates known as the Voree Plates. Strang likewise produced witnesses to their authenticity. Although Strang's movement was short-lived, Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, and all living witnesses to the Book of Mormon, including the three Whitmers and Martin Harris (although perhaps excluding Oliver Cowdery), accepted "Strang's leadership, angelic call, metal plates, and his translation of these plates as authentic."[131]

Metal plates outside the Latter Day Saint tradition

Some ancient European and Mesopotamian cultures kept short records on metal plates. Those found to date have been extremely thin to facilitate being engraved with a pointed tool. In 500 BCE, Darius the Great of Persia inscribed a history on a gold plate and sealed it in a stone box in the temple at Persepolis. [132] A six-page gold book, written in Etruscan, was found in Bulgaria;[133]and in 2005, an eight-page golden codex, allegedly from the Achaemenid period, was recovered from smugglers by the Iranian police.[134] The Pyrgi Tablets (now at the National Etruscan Museum, Rome) are gold plates with a bilingual Phoenician-Etruscan text. Gold Laminae funerary texts similar to Books of the Dead have also been found in Italy. In the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found, archeologists later discovered the aptly-named Copper Scroll, two rolled sheets of copper that may describe locations where treasures of the Second Temple of Jerusalem may have been hidden.[135] Nevertheless, there is no known extant example of writing on metal plates longer than the eight-page Persian codex.

Notes

  1. ↑ Use of the terms Golden Bible and Gold Bible by believers and non-believers dates from the late 1820s. See, for instance, Vorlage:Harvnb (use of the term Gold Bible by Martin Harris in 1827); Vorlage:Harvnb (use of the term gold Bible in 1827–29 by believing Palmyra neighbors); Vorlage:Harvnb (stating that by 1829 the plates were "generally known and spoken of as the 'Golden Bible'"). Use of these terms has been rare, especially by believers, since the 1830s.
  2. ↑ Mormon 9:32
  3. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  4. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb (admitting that he was what he called a "money digger", but saying that it "was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it").
  5. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  6. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  7. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harv. The stone was found in either 1819 (Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb) or 1822 Vorlage:Harv in a well he was helping to dig.
  8. ↑ September 22 was listed in a local almanacs as the autumnal equinox, which has led to the suggestion that Smith considered the date to have astrological significance (Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb).
  9. ↑ Smith's first mention of the angel in later histories is an appearance on eve of September 22 1823 Vorlage:Harv; however, other accounts say or suggest the angel may have appeared a year earlier in 1822. Smith's first history in 1832 dates the first visit as 1822, although he also said he was seventeen years old Vorlage:Harv, which would have made it 1823 (he turned 17 in December 1822). In 1835, Smith told Oliver Cowdery the event took place in his 17th "year of [his] age", but Cowdery fixed the date as September 22 1823 Vorlage:Harv. Smith's father is quoted as saying the first visit by the angel took place in 1822, but that he did not learn about it until 1823 Vorlage:Harv.
  10. ↑ Some accounts describe this angel as a "spirit" (Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb) or "ghost" Vorlage:Harv. Smith later said the angel was "dead, and raised again therefrom" Vorlage:Harv leading many Latter Day Saints to assume the angel had been resurrected.
  11. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb. Contrary to his other statements, Smith's 1838 history stated that the angel was named Nephi Vorlage:Harv; nevertheless, modern historians and Latter Day Saints generally refer to the angel as Moroni.
  12. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  13. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  14. ↑ Vorlage:Harv. Smith's mother said he broke that commandment after the third vision, and then the angel appeared a fourth time and reiterated the commandment Vorlage:Harv.
  15. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  16. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  17. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  18. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  19. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  20. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  21. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  22. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  23. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  24. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  25. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  26. ↑ Vorlage:Harv; Vorlage:Harv.
  27. ↑ Vorlage:Harv; Vorlage:Harv.
  28. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  29. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  30. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb;Vorlage:Harvnb.
  31. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  32. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb (saying the angel told him from the beginning that retrieving the plates would require four yearly visits).
  33. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb (saying that Smith, after failing to obey the commandment to tell his father about the visions, would not be allowed to receive the plates until he was "not only willing, but able" to keep the commandments, but that he and his family "fully expected" that he would carry them home on September 22 1824).
  34. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb. One account said it was an iron box Vorlage:Harv.
  35. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  36. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  37. ↑ According to various accounts, these items may have included a breastplate Vorlage:Harv, a set of crystal spectacles Vorlage:Harv, the Liahona, the sword of Laban Vorlage:Harv, the vessel in which the gold was melted, a rolling machine for gold plates, and three balls of gold as large as a fist Vorlage:Harv.
  38. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb (stating that when Smith was looking in the box for other valuable artifacts, he hadn't yet removed the plates).
  39. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  40. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb (saying he made three unsuccessful attempts that day, but not mentioning being stricken); Vorlage:Harvnb (stating he was stricken, but not saying how many times); Vorlage:Harvnb (saying Smith was stricken at least twice); Vorlage:Harvnb (stating he was stricken three times with an ever increasing force, persisting after the second time because he thought the plates were held by the power of an "enchantment", like hidden-treasure stories he had heard, that could be overcome by physical exertion); Vorlage:Harvnb (stricken three times with ever increasing force); Vorlage:Harv.
  41. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb (saying that Smith's question "Why can I not obtain this book?" was an unpremeditated exclamation, rather than a prayer).
  42. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb (stating that although Smith "supposed his success certain", his failure to keep the "commandments" led to his inability to obtain them). In Smith's 1838 account, however, he said the angel had already told him he would not receive the plates for another four years Vorlage:Harv.
  43. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  44. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  45. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  46. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  47. ↑ Vorlage:Harv; Vorlage:Harvnb (saying Lawrence had been to the hill and knew what was there); Vorlage:Harvnb (identifying Samuel T. Lawrence as a practitioner of crystal gazing)
  48. ↑ Vorlage:Harv.
  49. ↑ Vorlage:Harv. One account states that Smith was late and missed the date for visiting the hill, and therefore was chastised by the angel Vorlage:Harv.
  50. ↑ Vorlage:Harv.
  51. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  52. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  53. ↑ Vorlage:Harv.
  54. ↑ Vorlage:Harv.
  55. ↑ Vorlage:Harv; Vorlage:Harv. Smith's mother Lucy Mack Smith said Smith also obtained a set of seer stones he called the "Interpreters", which he showed her the next morning Vorlage:Harv.
  56. ↑ Bushman, 61.
  57. ↑ Vorlage:Harv Vorlage:Harv
  58. ↑ The local Presbyterian minister, Jesse Townsend, described Harris as a "visonary fanatic." A acquaintance, Lorenzo Saunders, said "There can't anybody say word against Martin Harris...a man that would do just as he agreed with you. But he was a great man for seeing spooks." Quoted in "Ronald W. Walker, "Martin Harris: Mormonism's Early Convert," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 19 (Winter 1986): 34-35.
  59. ↑ Vorlage:HarvVorlage:Harv
  60. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnv; Vorlage:Harvnv
  61. ↑ Joseph Smith-History 1:62. Early followers of Smith seem to have called both the Urim and Thummim and the seer stone "interpreters." Smith's father-in-law, Isaac Hale, said that the "manner in which he pretended to read and interpret, was the same as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, and his hat over his face, while the Book of Plates were at the same time hid in the woods!" "Mormonism," Susquehanna Register, and Northern Pennsylvanian 9 (1 May 1834), 1 in EMD, 4: 287.Joseph Smith-History 1:62. Early followers of Smith seem to have called both the Urim and Thummim and the seer stone "interpreters."
  62. ↑ D&C 25:4; Joseph Smith III, Notes of Interview with Emma Smith Bidamon, February 1879, Micscellany, RLDS Church Library-Archives, Independence, Missouri, in EMD, 1: 536-40.
  63. ↑ Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 2-5. In March 1829, Martin Harris returned to Harmony and asked to see the plates. Smith reportedly told Harris that Smith "would go into the woods where the Book of Plates was, and that after he came back, Harris should follow his tracks in the snow, and find the Book, and examine it for himself"; after following these directions, however, Harris could not find the plates Vorlage:Harv.
  64. ↑ Lyndon W. Cook, David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Orem, UT: Grandin, 1991), 173.
  65. ↑ Vorlage:Harv
  66. ↑ D&C 10: 17-18, 31. Smith seems to have assumed that a second transcription of the missing 116 pages should be identical to the first rather than be filled with the natural variants that would occur if one was translating, and not merely transcribing, a text from one language into another.Palmer, 7.
  67. ↑ Bushman, 74-76; Vorlage:Harv.
  68. ↑ The Three Witnesses were selected soon after a visit by Martin Harris to the Whitmer home in Fayette, accompanied by Smith's parents Vorlage:Harv, to inquire about the translation Vorlage:Harv. According to Smith's mother, this trip was prompted by news that Smith had completed the translation of the platesVorlage:Harv. When Harris he arrived, he joined with Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer to request that the three be named as the Three Witnesses referred to in the much earlier revelation directed to Harris, and also referred to in a recently-translated portion of the plates called the Book of Ether (2:2–4) Vorlage:Harv. In response, Smith dictated a revelation that the three of them would see the Golden Plates Vorlage:Harv. Thus, Smith took the three of them to the woods near the Whitmer home and they had a shared vision in which they all claimed to see (with their "spiritual eyes", Harris reportedly said Vorlage:Harv) an angel holding the Golden Plates and turning its leaves (Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb). The four of them also said they heard "the voice of the Lord" telling them that the translation of the plates was correct, and commanding them to testify of what they saw and heard (Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb).David Whitmer later stated that the angel showed them "the breast plates, the Ball or Directors, the Sword of Laban and other plates" (Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; see also Vorlage:Harvnb).
  69. ↑ The Eight Witnesses were selected a few days later when Smith traveled to Palmyra with the males of the Whitmer home, including David Whitmer's father Peter, his brothers Christian, Jacob, and John, and his brother-in-law Hiram Page. Smith took this group, along with his father Joseph Smith, Sr. and his brothers Hyrum and Samuel to a location near Smith's parent's home in Palmyra Vorlage:Harv. Because of a foreclosure on their Manchester property, the Smith family was then living in a log cabin technically in Palmyra (Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb) where Smith said he showed them the Golden Plates Vorlage:Harv. Like the Three Witnesses, the Eight Witnesses later signed an affidavit for inclusion at the end of the Book of Mormon Vorlage:Harv. Though the Eight Witnesses did not refer, like the Three, to an angel or the voice of God, they said that they had hefted the plates and seen the engravings on them Vorlage:Harv.
  70. ↑ Bushman, 76-79. A comparison of "The Testimony of Three Witnesses" to Doctrine and Covenants 17, written in 1829, shows "the marks of common authorship." Grant Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 195-96.See Oliver Cowdery to Hyrum Smith dated June 14 1829, quoting the language of this revelation. Joseph Smith letterbook (22 Nov. 1835 to 4 Aug. 1835), 5-6. Commentators generally agree that this letter refers to the revelation. See Larry C. Porter, "Dating the Restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood," Ensign (June 1979), 5. A revelation by Smith commanded Cowdery and Whitmer to seek out twelve "disciples", who desired to serve, and who would "go into all the world to preach my gospel unto every creature", and who would be ordained to baptize and to ordain priests and teachers Vorlage:Harv. Soon thereafter in the second half of June 1829 Vorlage:Harv, a group of Three Witnesses and a separate group of Eight Witnesses were selected, in addition to Smith himself, to testify that Smith had the Golden Plates.
  71. ↑ "The translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship."
  72. ↑ Their accounts state that Harris publicly denied that either he or the other Witnesses to the Book of Mormon had ever seen or handled the golden plates—although he had not been present when Whitmer and Cowdery first claimed to have viewed them. Harris's recantation, made during a period of crisis in early Mormonism, induced five influential members, including three Apostles, to leave the Church. (Stephen Burnett to Luke S. Johnson, 15 April 1838, in Joseph Smith's Letterbook, Early Mormon Documents 2: 290-92. Warren Parrish also wrote in August 11, 1838: "Martin Harris, one of the subscribing witnesses, has come out at last, and says he never saw the plates, from which the book purports to have been translated, except in vision, and he further says that any man who says he has seen them in any other way is a liar, Joseph not excepted." EMD, 2: 289.)
  73. ↑ Metcalf in EMD, 2: 347.
  74. ↑ "No man heard me in any way deny the truth of the Book of Mormon, the administration of the angel that showed me the plates; nor the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under the administration of Joseph Smith, Jr." Letter of Martin Harris, Sr., to Hanna B. Emerson, January 1871, Smithfield, Utah Territory, Saints' Herald 22 (15 October 1875):630, in EMD 2: 338. See also Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1981), 118
  75. ↑ For instances of people testifying to having seen the Golden Plates after Smith returned them to the angel, see the affirmations of John Young and Harrison Burgess in Grant Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 201. In 1859, Brigham Young referred to one of these "post-return" testimonies: "Some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt....One of the Quorum of the Tweleve, a young man full of faith and good works, prayed, and the vision of his mind was opened, and the angel of God came and laid the plates before him, and he saw and handled them, and saw the angel." Journal of Discourses, June 5, 1859, 7: 164.
  76. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  77. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  78. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  79. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  80. ↑ Statement by Hyrum Smith as reported by William E. McLellin in the Huron Reflector, Oct. 31, 1831. See also Vorlage:Harvnb.
  81. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  82. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  83. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  84. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  85. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  86. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  87. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  88. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  89. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  90. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  91. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  92. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  93. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  94. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  95. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  96. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  97. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  98. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  99. ↑ Tumbaga was the name given by the Spanish to an Mesoamerican alloy of Gold and Copper.Vorlage:Harvnb.
  100. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  101. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  102. ↑ Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 27:7. The "sealing" of apocalyptic revelations in a book has precedents in the Bible. See, for example, Isaiah 29:11, Daniel 12:4, and Revelation 5:1–5.
  103. ↑ Vorlage:Harv
  104. ↑ Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 14:26
  105. ↑ Book of Mormon, Ether 3: 22.
  106. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  107. ↑ Book of Mormon, Ether 4:5. According to Martin Harris, anyone who looked into the "interpreters" "except by the command of God" would "perish" Vorlage:Harv.
  108. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  109. ↑ Vorlage:Harv
  110. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  111. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  112. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  113. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  114. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  115. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  116. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb. Orson Pratt, who said he had spoken with many witnesses of the plates,Vorlage:Harv, assumed that Joseph Smith could "break the seal" if only he had been "permitted" Vorlage:Harv.
  117. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb; Vorlage:Harvnb.
  118. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb
  119. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  120. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  121. ↑ Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 27:7.
  122. ↑ Book of Mormon, Ether 1:2.
  123. ↑ Book of Mormon, Ether 4:4.
  124. ↑ Vorlage:Harv.
  125. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  126. ↑ Vorlage:Harv.
  127. ↑ Vorlage:Harvnb.
  128. ↑ Vorlage:Harv;Vorlage:Harv
  129. ↑ Journal of Discourses 19: 38, July 17, 1877. According to Oliver Cowdery's account, when the angel instructed Smith to return the plates to the hill Cumorah, Oliver Cowdery accompanied him. The hill opened and they walked into a cave where there was a spacious room with wagon loads of metallic plates and the Sword of Laban, unsheathed on a large table. Joseph and Oliver placed the plates on this table.
  130. ↑ Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 489-90.
  131. ↑ Palmer, 208-13. Cowdery's father converted to Strang's movement in the summer of 1846, and a year later Oliver Cowdery was living in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, twelve miles from Strang's headquarters and may have been associated in some way with his church. Stanley R. Gunn, Oliver Cowdery: Second Elder and Scribe (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1962), 189.
  132. ↑ [1], [2]
  133. ↑ BBC news report
  134. ↑ Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies website
  135. ↑ A summary of information about the Copper Scroll from the West Semitic Research Project, University of Southern California.

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