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The testimonies of the 3 witnesses is something I looked pretty hard at when I was in the midst of my faith crisis. I see Ray’s point that his search for other denominations does not indicate that he renounced his experience. There is a lot of skepticism surrounding their testimonies, and I can understand that too. Martin and David seem to be the most wishy washy in that regard. Both indicated at some point that they had seen with their “spiritual eyes.” However, they also indicated (numerous times) that they had in fact, physically, seen the plates. So I accept them at their word. My biggest qualm with the testimony of the three witnesses goes back to the magical worldview and culture of the time. Since I think methods are important, I am skeptical of things built up on methods that don’t stand up to scrutiny. I tend to think the experience of the three witnesses was exaggerated either in actuality, or at least in its importance. If the three witnesses understood their experiences like we do today (carrying the weight they do) I find it difficult to understand why they would be so ready to jump on the next bandwagon of magical experiences. The fact that Martin Harris didn’t renounce his testimony is little consolation for me given that he willy nilly joined other groups and denominations which primarily leveraged the magical worldview. Again, I agree with Ray that this doesn’t mean he didn’t see what he said he saw, but to me it changes the amount of confidence I have in the experience itself as a strong witness to the truthfulness of the BoM or Joseph as a prophet.
Since I haven’t had any angels come to me and show me something, I can’t with any certainty what conditions might lead me to either act in disharmony with said experience, or to renounce it. But I do find stories like Laman and Lemuel and their angelic visitation to be a bit shallow. At least in today’s modern world, if an angel appeared to me I find it hard to believe that this would not be a sufficiently strong witness for me to remain stalwart to what I’d experienced. But I digress.
All I can say it to “keep an open mind (and heart).” You cannot find truth if you close the shutters of your mind. More will be known in the future. We just don’t have all of the facts yet. Curt, thanks for the reference. I found a wonderful online resource for Journal of Discourses at http://www.journalofdiscourses.org/volume-7/ I think the quote deserves to be in full here. Brigham does not name this person, and seems to be talking more about apostasy.
Quote:There is but a hair’s breadth between the depths of infidelity and the heights of the faiths of Gods. Man is like a feather trembling between the two, liable continually to be operated upon by the power of the enemy; and it is through that power that the children of men are made to doubt the evidences of their own senses when, at the same time, if they would reflect for a moment and listen to the intelligence that God has placed in them, they would know when they saw what is termed a miracle, the power by which it is wrought: they would know when they have seen with their eyes and felt with their hands, or when they have seen a heavenly vision.
Some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with angles of God, were afterwords left to doubt and disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel. One of the Quorum of the twelve – a young man full of faith and good works, prayed, and the vision of his mind was open, and the angel of God came and placed the plates before him, and he saw and handled them, and saw the angel and conversed with him as he would with one of his friends; but after all this, he was left to doubt, and plunged into apostacy and has continue to contend against this work. There are hundreds in a similar condition.
So, Brigham is saying this un-named witness felt the plates, saw an angel, but fell into apostasy. There were quite a few who followed James Strang for a time. Strang really tried to imitate Joseph–translating new scripture and instituting polygamy. I can understand that people looking for miracles would be attracted to Strang. But I’m not really seeing this as a full-blown indictment that a specific witness recanted. Perhaps some did doubt for a time, and fell into apostasy, but I’m not aware of anybody recanting. Even Oliver doubted in the D&C, “Did I not speak peace to your mind? What greater witness….?”
SamBee, yes there was a temple discovered at Nahom dating to the time of Lehi. And the Wadi that Potter found in Saudi Arabia is a year-round wadi.
Quote:The witnesses were certainly of questionable mental stability.
So, when it comes down to it are 25-60% of all human beings. Many (most?) people in this world have suffered from it at some point. If every court witness who had/would later suffer from mental illness was disqualified, then the legal system would freeze up. It’s a matter of degree.
I wish people would stop talking about this as some kind of crime. Skeptics are particularly bad for this. Mental illness is an illness, not something evil, just like angina, arthritis etc. Even if someone with mental illness has some kind of spiritual experience I do not believe that it necessarily invalidates it.
This is a prejudice our society badly needs to get over. A friend of mine has particularly bad schizophrenia, and you should see the nonsense and ignorance he frequently has to put up with.
I agree completely with what SamBee just posted. also, I think one should be wary of presentism. Comparing our social norms, expectations, etc to that time period is untenable intellectually. Our concept of the premise that “the Book of Mormon proves the church is true and the church proves the BoM is true” just did not persist at that time. Especially not in the black and white way in which this was pounded into our heads while growing up in the church. It’s not a coincidence that, as far as I can tell, the BoM played no role in the establishment of the church or the administration of the church during JS’s lifetime, which may explain why he almost never even mentions it from 1830 on.
And, the church was so young and there were religious movements of all sorts happening all over, especially in the new frontier parts of NY, Mass. and Penn. It was such a big part of that social structure to be finding “new” religious experiences, as a sort of backlash against traditional protestantism which many were viewing as falling into the same traps as the catholic church, which to protestants at that time was the “whore” of the earth.
As for the 3 witnesses, that is one reason I hold to the JS/Cowdery theory of dual authorship; the other two witnesses had a “spiritual” witness.
Also, at that time, one’s “character” was of utmost importance. I think it’s really telling when doing church history research that you come across so many statements by people that are filed in court, essentially declaring the dishonesty of someone else. This practice seems ludicrous today. But they all took it quite seriously back then, so recanting a previously sworn-by-affadavit witness would have been out of the question, in almost every circumstance. By recanting to harm someone else’s reputation, you were actually destroying your own reputation. And everyone knew this quite well.
Some years ago, I got very interested in psychology (purely as an interest – not a job option). I began to realise, as I read through more and more of the material, that dozens of people around me had one issue or another – they either didn’t know it in many cases, or weren’t telling. And it wasn’t just the people I was around either. I think pretty much everyone gets depression at some point in their life, and for that 25-60% (depending on who you read), it can get pretty serious. I don’t doubt that some of the people involved in early Mormonism may have had some form of “mental instability”. So too did many of the people who opposed or tried to undermine it too. And no doubt a large chunk of those who took no interest in it. If we’re going down that road, then we have to further break down the nature of their illness, and whether or not is a good thing. Epilepsy has been mentioned. Now I’m told, by people who have had epilepsy that they have incredibly transcendent phases as well as more unpleasant ones. Maybe they experience in these phases the things that most people normally are not seeing.
I find Jung’s idea about these things very interesting. He suggests that the symptoms of mental illness may actually be the mind trying to heal itself, and resolve things, rather than the actual illness itself. I once had an extremely bad time in my life, but it opened my eyes to many things. I started appreciating some forms of modern art, got into foreign films in a bigger way, and generally reappraised my life values – some of which I now realise were hollow. I’m now better in myself, but it took this jolt to open my eyes to new things, many of which I still enjoy.
Sometimes episodes actually move us on in life, instead of holding us back, as is often thought to be the case. In certain respects, the more unusual aspects of early Mormonism seem to prise it free from the old guard Yankee puritanism, and into a new direction.
Quote:Comparing our social norms, expectations, etc to that time period is untenable intellectually.
In many cultures visions and experiences of this sort are seen as learning processes. In our culture, the first reaction is to pack the person off for medication or other things. In some parts of the world, they’re labelled as crazy wisdom. That’s partly because in this culture only the waking conscious “sane” mind is seen as valid. It may be why so few of us get much out of our dreams. We aren’t machines, at least not like the machines we ourselves make, and never will be.
Take a look at the backgrounds of some of the greatest people that have ever lived – poets, composers, musicians, painters, writers, inventors (yes, scientists too), architects, filmmakers etc… You’ll often find that greatness is tied to a kind of “instability”, while their stable peers get forgotten.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_wisdom Check this out too
If anyone is interested, I wrote the following two posts about disabilities within a religious framework on my own blog: “Emotional & Spiritual Disabilities and the Fall” (
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/12/emotional-spiritual-disabilities-and.html “More on Disabilities and the Fall” (
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-on-disabilities-and-fall.html I thought the first link was very good (haven’t read the second). Emotional stuff is often less obvious than physical disabilities. curt wrote:
Two of the witnesses did claim that they saw the plates and the angel with their “spiritual eye.”…The witnesses were certainly of questionable mental stability. Or, if that seems to strong a charge, then at least gullibility …As mentioned in an earlier post, Harris changed his religious affiliation numerous times and went on a mission to England for the Strangites, followers of Josiah Strang, who also claimed to have translated ancient documents using the Urim and Thummim. This AFTER his association with JS and the BofM. Not exactly the kind of guy I would want to cite as proof that the BofM is true. Much is true of the other two witnesses (of the main three).
As to why the three did not renounce their testimony, this is not surprising. Having claimed as much, in writing no less, to deny that testimony, which, t cannot be denied, did give them a degree of notoriety, would be akin to admitting to being a liar and a cheat. Plenty of men have gone to their graves without admitting to falsehoods they have created.
The “spiritual eyes” vision and gullibility or mental stability claims don’t really explain the following matter-of-fact non-mystical description made by Emma Smith when answering the questions of her son Joseph Smith III about the plates:
Quote:The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen tablecloth, 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.
Another unusual piece of evidence is the Anthon Transcript which has several characters that actually do resemble specific Egyptian characters although some critics see vague similarities to some form of ancient Irish script as well. So if you don’t believe the Church’s official story then it seems like they would probably have had to copy these characters from somewhere and then allow Martin Harris to ask Charles Anthon and others about them.
Making up a huge story is one thing but in this case we have several other people saying that there were metal plates, weird hieroglyphic characters, etc. Without authentic plates, it seems like most of these witnesses would either have to be co-conspirators or deliberately tricked, possibly by seeing and/or touching some fabricated plates or some other prop.
If you really look at some of the details surrounding the Book of Mormon the only explanation I see other than the one given is that it would have to be a truly bold and ambitious hoax executed to perfection. Even the contents of the book are remarkable to think that anyone would go to all this trouble for the sake of spreading a myth or fraud. For example, there are many original names for people and places that are different from those in the Bible or anywhere else that we know about.
I put much time and energy into this important topic many years ago, but quite past it now…just not that important to me at this stage of my spiritual journey. Having said that, I am compelled by Criddle’s work. If you haven’t seen it, I think it is valuable learning as it is a well accepted modern theory of BoM authorship. Be aware that he presented this at the Exmormon Foundation’s conference, and might come across to some of you as snarky and mean towards the church. Quote:Another unusual piece of evidence is the Anthon Transcript which has several characters that actually do resemble specific Egyptian characters although some critics see vague similarities to some form of ancient Irish script as well. So if you don’t believe the Church’s official story then it seems like they would probably have had to copy these characters from somewhere and then allow Martin Harris to ask Charles Anthon and others about them.
Yeah, it’s called ogham. However, I don’t think it explains the characters.
Include a page from the Book of Ballymote showing some ogham, by way of comparison.
[img]http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/Images/RIA_MS_23_P_12_169V.jpg [/img] I think Emma’s testimony that she saw the plates on the table, covered in cloth, and that she felt them, is really troubling evidence for those who do not believe the plates were real. Since I fall into that category I must admit to being rather flummoxed by this evidence. For me there are enough other things that do not auger for the plates veracity that this evidence alone does not convince me otherwise, but I have no good explanation for her testimony. Maybe she made it up. It was testimony she offered way after the events, in the 1870s, I think. It was provided to her son. Perhaps, reason to make it up? I would love to hear others comment on this. I have no desire to comment it on, curt. All I would have is pure speculation, and anything I say other than, “I think she probably was telling the truth,” would be impugning her character. My own actual answer is, “I think she was telling the truth” – but I have no reason to give for it. My summary: I don’t know. Could have been truthful; could have been to support her husband. I don’t know.
SamBee wrote:Even if someone with mental illness has some kind of spiritual experience I do not believe that it necessarily invalidates it.
Agreed! Let us not forget dear prophet Isaiah, who walked around naked for 3 years. I’m sure he was looked at as a complete lunatic back in his time.
It seems pretty clear there was a physical artifact that could be taken for a set of plates. John Hamer calls it a plates prop. I would be okay accepting it as ancient plates or as a substitute prop. Neither of those possibilities would upset my understanding of Mormonism or the prophet Joseph Smith. I am pretty strongly agnostic on the matter of the origin of the Book of Mormon. I feel about the same regarding it as I do about the Koran or the Urantia Book. I look on it with reverence and awe, and I accept whatever transcendental wisdom is within its pages. I also feel in no way bound to take it wholesale as either the verbatim word of the Highest or a proof of the pre-eminence of a particular contemporary system of worship.
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