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From an as-yet incomplete manuscript:<\/p>\n
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It is worthwhile examining the contrasting character of the experiences reported by the Three Witnesses and the Eight, since, I believe, their very difference reinforces them.[1]<\/a> First of all, the experience of the Three, as they report it, was suffused with the glory and power of God. In a brilliant light, an angel came down and showed them the plates. They heard the voice of God testifying that the translation had been accomplished \u201cby the gift and power of God.\u201d Their written testimony is characterized by a marked religious or spiritual tone. It might be termed a supernatural or miraculous testimony.<\/span><\/p>\n By contrast, the experience of the Eight involves no glory, nothing miraculous. It is as matter of fact as something can be. No angel shows the plates to them; Joseph Smith does. There is no miraculous light. Unlike the Three, who seem simply to have observed the plates in the hands of the angel, the Eight handle the plates and turn their pages. They \u201chefted\u201d them. The language of their official account is cool and even formal or legalistic to the point of emotional distance (\u201cthe said Smith\u201d). God figures in their testimony only as witness to their concluding oath. His voice does not testify to the correctness of the translation.[2]<\/a> The Eight Witnesses are manifestly in full possession of their senses and mental faculties. Theirs might be labeled an ordinary or natural testimony.<\/span><\/p>\n Why the differences? In order, I think, for the task of skeptics to be rendered more difficult. One might be tempted to dismiss the testimony of the Three, with its spectacular divine accompaniments, as hallucinatory (however untenable that dismissal would be). A devout naturalist might wave it aside as mere superstition. (Conspiracy or collusion between Joseph Smith and the Witnesses we have already seen to be extremely unlikely.) By contrast, there is absolutely nothing in the testimony of the Eight that points to superstition or hallucination. It is the most matter-of-fact kind of experience\u2014nine men in the woods in the early afternoon\u2014except for the object at the center of it. On the other hand, if one were to approach the Witnesses first by way of the Eight and one were inclined to skepticism, one might be tempted to write their experience off as deception by Joseph Smith and\/or some other conspirator or group of conspirators. There must really have been plates\u2014fabricated to deceive.[3]<\/a> But this doesn\u2019t account for the testimony of the Three, which goes beyond fabrication. In other words, a single explanation seems unable to account for the two very different kinds of experience. This means that skeptics who wish to explain the two testimonies away must resort to some unlikely combination of sincere hallucination, already unlikely in and of itself, and deliberate, insincere fabrication.\u00a0 As Richard Lloyd Anderson points out, \u201cThe supernatural power of the angel\u2019s visit to the Three Witnesses finds its physical foundation in the fact that eight ordinary men insisted all of their lives that they had carefully examined and handled the ancient plates of the Book of Mormon.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> My analysis here was inspired by that of B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/em>, 1:148-155.<\/span><\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Later, quite in keeping with the character of the testimony of the Eight Witnesses, which refuses to go beyond what it can see and touch, John Whitmer, who had left the Church, insisted that he could not certify that the plates had been translated correctly, because it was beyond his capacity to do so. (Source?) But he never denied seeing and handling them.<\/span><\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Forgery is the virtually certain explanation for the two sets of inscribed metal plates that James Jesse Strang said he had found in Wisconsin and Michigan (between 1845 and 1849) and translated.\u00a0 Strang, who claimed to have a letter of appointment from Joseph Smith, announced himself as Joseph Smith\u2019s successor and was clearly seeking to imitate the Prophet.\u00a0 That his plates really existed is beyond serious dispute.\u00a0 The first set, the three \u201cVoree\u201d or \u201cRajah Manchou\u201d plates, were dug up by four \u201cwitnesses\u201d whom Strang had brought to the appropriate site.\u00a0 Inscribed on both sides with illustrations and \u201cwriting,\u201d the Rajah Manchou plates were roughly 1.5 by 2.75 inches in size\u2014small enough to fit in the palm of a hand or to carry in a pocket.\u00a0 Among the many who saw them was Stephen Post, who reported that they were brass and, indeed, that they resembled the French brass used in familiar kitchen kettles.\u00a0 \u201cWith all the faith & confidence that I could exercise,\u201d he wrote, \u201call that I could realize was that Strang made the plates himself, or at least that it was possible that he made them.\u201d\u00a0 One source reports that most of the four witnesses to the Rajah Manchou plates ultimately repudiated their testimonies.\u00a0 (However, the credibility of this source is suspect, since it also asserts that the Book of Mormon witnesses repudiated their<\/em> testimonies, which is demonstrably false).\u00a0 The eighteen \u201cPlates of Laban,\u201d likewise of brass and each about 7 3\/8 by 9 inches, were first mentioned in 1849 and, in 1851, were seen by seven witnesses.\u00a0 Their testimony appeared at the front of The Book of the Law of the Lord<\/em>, which Strang said he translated from the \u201cPlates of Laban.\u201d\u00a0 (Work on the translation seems to have begun at least as early as April 1849.\u00a0 An 84-page version appeared in 1851; by 1856, it had reached 350 pages.)\u00a0 The statement of Strang\u2019s witnesses speaks of seeing the plates, but mentions nothing of any miraculous character, nor did Strang supply any second set of corroborating testimony comparable to that of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 One of the witnesses to the \u201cPlates of Laban,\u201d Samuel P. Bacon, eventually denied the inspiration of Strang\u2019s movement and denounced it as mere \u201chuman invention.\u201d\u00a0 Another, Samuel Graham, later claimed that he had assisted Strang in the fabrication of the \u201cPlates of Laban.\u201d\u00a0 The well-read Strang had been an editor and lawyer before his brief affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his subsequent career as a schismatic leader.\u00a0 See Roger Van Noord, King of Beaver Island: The Life and Assassination of James Jesse Strang<\/em> (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 33-35, 97, 102, 163, 219; Doyle C. Fitzpatrick, The King Strang Story: A Vindication of James J. Strang, the Beaver Island Mormon <\/em>[sic<\/em>] King<\/em> (Lansing, MI: National Heritage, 1970), 34-38; Milo M. Quaife, The Kingdom of Saint James: A Narrative of the Mormons<\/em> [sic<\/em>] (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), 2-8, 16-19, 92-93, 185-189.\u00a0 Thus, Strang\u2019s plates were much less numerous than those associated with Joseph Smith, his witnesses saw nothing supernatural, his translation required the better part of a decade rather than a little more than two months, and, unlike the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, Strang\u2019s witnesses did not remain faithful to their testimonies.\u00a0 Milo Quaife, in his early, standard biography of Strang, reflected that \u201cIt is quite conceivable that Strang\u2019s angelic visitations may have had only a subjective existence in the brain of the man who reported them.\u00a0 But the metallic plates possessed a very material objective reality.\u201d\u00a0 If we are unwilling to accept The Book of the Law of the Lord<\/em> as authentically divine, he says, \u201cwe can hardly escape the conclusion . . . that Strang knowingly fabricated and \u2018planted\u2019 them for the purpose of duping his credulous followers\u201d and, accordingly, that \u201cStrang\u2019s prophetic career was a false and impudent imposture.\u201d (Quaife, The Kingdom of Saint James<\/em>, 17-18.)\u00a0 Roger Van Noord, Strang\u2019s most recent biographer, concludes that, \u201cBased on the evidence, it is probable that Strang\u2014or someone under his direction\u2014manufactured the letter of appointment and the brass plates to support his claim to be a prophet and to sell land at Voree.\u00a0 If this scenario is correct, Strang\u2019s advocacy of himself as a prophet was more than suspect, but no psychological delusion.\u201d\u00a0 See Van Noord, King of Beaver Island<\/em>, 274.<\/span><\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses<\/em>, 147.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhy Are Lehi\u2019s First Visions So Similar to Much Later Apocalyptic Writings?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNephite History in Context 3: Vered Jericho Sword\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Well, it had to come someday, I suppose. \u00a0But it\u2019s the end of an era:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n https:\/\/byustudies.byu.edu\/content\/special-feature-121<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n