{"id":89383,"date":"2020-12-04T19:38:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-05T02:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=89383"},"modified":"2020-12-04T22:37:05","modified_gmt":"2020-12-05T05:37:05","slug":"the-point-of-the-plates-and-moroni-and-josephs-amazing-coat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/12\/the-point-of-the-plates-and-moroni-and-josephs-amazing-coat.html","title":{"rendered":"The Point of the Plates, and Moroni and Joseph’s Amazing Coat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>
The replica of the Book of Mormon plates used in the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s \u201cWitnesses\u201d film project
(still photograph by James Jordan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many years ago, a friend who was sympathetic to the Church but not a believer in the Book of Mormon asked me what the point of the golden plates was.\u00a0 After all, he said \u2014 he was quite well informed regarding Latter-day Saint beliefs \u2014 Joseph Smith apparently didn\u2019t need them in order to translate and dictate the text.\u00a0 Sometimes, in fact, they weren\u2019t even in the same room with him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I recall responding to his question by answering that the plates were, in my opinion, at a minimum, an absolutely indigestible lump in the throats of people like himself.\u00a0 (We had a really good relationship, and I could say things like that to him without giving offense.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why would I say such a thing, apart from being naturally cheeky?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

He wanted to believe that the Book of Mormon resulted from a purely subjective experience in the mind of Joseph Smith, that it was just a creation of Joseph\u2019s own fertile imagination.\u00a0 But it seems clear to me that the plates decisively remove the Book of Mormon story from the realm of purely subjective experience.\u00a0 If they existed at all \u2014 and the evidence that they did exist is, in my judgment, absolutely conclusive \u2014 the plates were entirely real.\u00a0 \u00a0Multiple witnesses saw them and even claimed to have \u201chefted\u201d them.\u00a0 In fact, several of those who reported encounters with them estimated their weight at a quite tangible forty pounds or more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joseph Smith\u2019s story dramatically differs, in this regard as in others, from that of\u00a0the early-seventh-century Muslim prophet Muhammad, who had no corroborating witnesses to his production of the Qur\u2019an.\u00a0 Indeed, strikingly, many if not most of Joseph\u2019s revelations were shared with others<\/a>..\u00a0\u00a0By contrast, Muhammad\u2019s claimed revelatory experiences were personal, individual, belonging to him and to him alone \u2014 and thus, in that sense at least, subjective.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To me, the plates force the question of the truth of the Book of Mormon in a much more direct and inescapable way than does the Qur\u2019an.\u00a0 Somebody made them (to say nothing of the other strange material objects reported by Joseph\u2019s contemporaries to have been in his possession, for at least a time).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moreover, for what it\u2019s worth, the palpable material reality of the plates probably served to reassure Joseph himself, in case he ever wondered about his sanity \u2014 as, accorded to the earliest Arabic sources, Muhammad definitely did.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t blame any one for not believing my history,\u201d Joseph once remarked. \u201cIf I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself.\u201d\u00a0 In contrast to Joseph Smith, the Prophet of Islam lacked any fellow witnesses or material objects to confirm him in times of doubt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ah, but \u2014 say certain critics of the Restoration \u2014 even if the plates existed, their sheer existence doesn\u2019t prove that they were ancient or that the Book of Mormon has any connection with the divine (if, indeed, the divine itself<\/em> exists!).\u00a0\u00a0The mere existence of a set of metallic plates, in and of itself, neither demonstrates the validity of the Restoration nor illustrates its deep roots in antiquity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

True.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

After all, we\u2019re using a recently manufactured set of plates as a prop in our Witnesses<\/em> film project.\u00a0 Why couldn\u2019t Joseph have manufactured or obtained a recently-created set of plates for use as a prop to accompany the creation of his fake new religious text?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

He could<\/em> have, I suppose.\u00a0 Though that would have been much harder than some seem to assume.\u00a0 The plates that we\u2019re using in our film project were created by an experienced professional metalworker, who (as he says in an interview that we filmed and that will likely figure in our documentary and accompanying materials) found the process quite demanding and difficult.\u00a0 Moreover, unlike our plates, Joseph\u2019s were made of either gold or, more likely a gold alloy \u2014 rather unexpectedly on the American frontier and connected with a family of subsistence farmers.\u00a0 And, unlike our plates, they disappeared.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The existence of both the Book of Mormon plates and our prop plates requires explanation.\u00a0 As I said above, somebody<\/em> made them.\u00a0 Thus, the sheer existence of the plates does make historical Nephites (slightly) more likely than the non<\/em>-existence of the plates would, especially given the absence of any evidence that any particular nineteenth-century frontier American made them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re not talking<\/em> about the mere existence of golden plates.\u00a0 Because we\u2019re not talking merely about the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 Here is where the Three<\/em> Witnesses come into play.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In their experience, they didn\u2019t just see the plates, or even (unlike the Eight) just the plates and a few other mute physical objects.\u00a0 They saw an angel<\/em>.\u00a0 And they heard the voice of God declaring\u00a0that \u201cthey have been translated by the gift and power of God.\u201d\u00a0 If accepted as authentic. their testimony argues very powerfully for divine involvement in the Book of Mormon and, accordingly, for the truth of the narrative and doctrine that it contains.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neither the Eight Witnesses nor the Three Witnesses nor the additional or informal witnesses to the Book of Mormon stand alone.\u00a0 Together, though, they represent powerful evidence, forming a potent element of a cumulative overall case.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Dedicated<\/a>
he Laie Hawaii Temple was first dedicated in 1919. The Hawaii campus of Brigham Young University, where Professor Matthew Bowen teaches, was founded more recently and now stands adjacent to the temple grounds.\u00a0 (LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The newest new article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em> is by Matthew L. Bowen<\/a>, of Brigham Young University\u2019s campus in Laie, Oahu, Hawaii, and bears the title,<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cWe Are a Remnant of the Seed of Joseph\u201d: Moroni\u2019s Interpretive Use of Joseph\u2019s Coat and the Martial n\u0113s-Imagery of Isaiah 11:11\u201312\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong>\u00a0Genesis\u00a030:23\u201324 offers a\u00a0double etiology for\u00a0<\/em>Joseph\u00a0in terms of \u201ctaking away\u201d\/\u201cgathering\u201d (<\/em>\u02be\u0101sap) and \u201cadding\u201d (<\/em>y\u0101sap). In addition to its later narratological use of the foregoing, the Joseph cycle (Genesis 37\u201350) evidences a\u00a0third dimension of onomastic wordplay involving Joseph\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>k\u0115t\u014dnet\u00a0<\/em>pass\u00eem, an uncertain phrase traditionally translated \u201ccoat of many colours\u201d (from LXX), but perhaps better translated, \u201ccoat of manifold pieces.\u201d Moroni1<\/sub>, quoting from a\u00a0longer version of the Joseph story from the brass plates, refers to \u201cJoseph, whose coat was rent by his brethren into\u00a0<\/em>many pieces\u201d (Alma\u00a046:23). As a\u00a0military and spiritual leader, Moroni1<\/sub>\u00a0twice uses Joseph\u2019s torn coat and the remnant doctrine from Jacob\u2019s prophecy regarding Joseph\u2019s coat as a\u00a0model for his covenant use of his own coat to \u201cgather\u201d (cf.\u00a0<\/em>\u02be\u0101sap) and rally faithful Nephites as \u201ca\u00a0remnant of the seed of Joseph\u201d (Alma\u00a046:12\u201328, 31; 62:4\u20136). In putting that coat on a\u00a0\u201cpole\u201d or \u201cstandard\u201d (Hebrew\u00a0<\/em>n\u0113s\u00a0\u2014 i.e., \u201censign\u201d) to \u201cgather\u201d a\u00a0\u201cremnant of the seed of Joseph\u201d appears to make use of the Isaianic\u00a0<\/em>n\u0113s-imagery of Isaiah\u00a011:11\u201312 (and elsewhere), where the Joseph-connected verbs\u00a0<\/em>y\u0101sap\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>\u02be\u0101sap\u00a0serve as key terms. Moroni\u2019s written-upon \u201cstandard\u201d or \u201censign\u201d for \u201cgathering\u201d the \u201cremnant of the seed of Joseph\u201d constituted an important prophetic antetype for how Mormon and his son, Moroni2<\/sub>, perceived the function of their written record in the latter-days (see, e.g., 3\u00a0Nephi\u00a05:23\u201326; Ether\u00a013:1\u201313).<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Many years ago, a friend who was sympathetic to the Church but not a believer in the Book of Mormon asked me what the point of the golden plates was.\u00a0 After all, he said \u2014 he was quite well informed regarding Latter-day Saint beliefs \u2014 Joseph Smith apparently didn\u2019t need them in order 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