Book of Mormon witnesses: Difference between revisions
→Skeptical criticism of the Testimonies: looks better presented now, however it looks far more POV pushing than previously. |
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* Years later, Mormon leader [[Brigham Young]] said that some "witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and to disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel."<ref>Journal of Discourses 1860, 7:164 - as quoted in Facts On The Book Of Mormon Witnesses, Institute for Religious Research, retrieved from the Internet on 2/16/08 [http://www.irr.org/mit/bom-wit-pt1.html]</ref> |
* Years later, Mormon leader [[Brigham Young]] said that some "witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and to disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel."<ref>Journal of Discourses 1860, 7:164 - as quoted in Facts On The Book Of Mormon Witnesses, Institute for Religious Research, retrieved from the Internet on 2/16/08 [http://www.irr.org/mit/bom-wit-pt1.html]</ref> |
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==Apologetic response== |
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Apologists note that Harris and Cowdery later returned to the fellowship of the church.<ref>A list of articles is available in the [[Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research|FAIR]] Topical Guide, under [http://www.fairlds.org/apol/ai109.html ''Book of Mormon Witnesses'']. See also [[Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies|FARMS]] search results: [http://farms.byu.edu/search/?q=three+witnesses Three Witnesses] |
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LDS church leaders and student manuals also frequently mention that none of the witnesses ever denied his testimony as it was printed in the Book of Mormon or denied that Smith was a true prophet when he translated the book.<ref>See, for example, Dallin H. Oaks, [http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=2aaf84d4a0a0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 ''The Witness: Martin Harris''], ''Ensign'' 29:5; James E. Faust, [http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=1e31a1615ac0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 ''A Growing Testimony''], ''Ensign'' 30:11; Henry B. Eyring, [http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=715274536cf0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 ''An Enduring Testimony of the Witness of the Prophet Joseph''], ''Ensign'' 33:11:90; Doctrine and Covenants and Church History (Sunday School teacher’s manual), Lesson 4: [http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=32c41b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=a0119207f7c20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1 ''Remember the New Covenant, Even the Book of Mormon''].</ref> |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 20:39, 22 January 2010
The Book of Mormon witnesses are a group of contemporaries of Joseph Smith, Jr. who said they saw the golden plates from which Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon. The most significant witnesses are the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, all of whom allowed their names to be used on two separate statements included with the Book of Mormon.
Three Witnesses
The Three Witnesses were a group of three early leaders of the Latter Day Saint movement who claimed in a statement of 1830 that an angel had shown them the golden plates from which Joseph Smith, Jr. translated the Book of Mormon and that they had heard God's voice testifying that the book had been translated by the power of God.
The Three Witnesses were Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer, whose joint testimony, in conjunction with a separate statement by Eight Witnesses, has been printed with nearly every edition of the Book of Mormon since its first publication in 1830. All three witnesses eventually broke with Smith and were excommunicated from the church. In 1838, Joseph Smith called Cowdery, Harris, and Whitmer "too mean to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them."[1] In later years, all three testified to the divine origin of the Book of Mormon and, at least near the end of their lives, all were members of one denomination or another of the Latter Day Saint movement.[2]
Eight Witnesses
The Eight Witnesses were the second of the two groups of "special witnesses" to the Book of Mormon's golden plates. They were all members of the Whitmer or Smith families: Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith, Sr., Hyrum Smith, and Samuel Harrison Smith. Joseph Smith Sr. was Joseph's father, and Hyrum and Samuel H. Smith were his brothers. Christian, Jacob, Peter Jr. and John were David Whitmer's brothers, and Hiram Page was his brother-in-law.[3]
Unlike the Three Witnesses, the Eight testified that they both saw and handled the plates. Another difference is that the Eight testified they were shown the plates by Joseph Smith, Jr. rather than by an angel as had the Three Witnesses. Christian Whitmer died in 1835 and his brother Peter Whitmer, Jr. died the following year. In 1838, the surviving Whitmers became estranged from Joseph Smith Jr. during a leadership struggle in Far West, Missouri, and all were excommunicated with other dissenters and fled Caldwell County after receiving an ultimatum from the Danites.[4] None of the Whitmers ever rejoined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although none of the Eight Witnesses is known to have denied his testimony to the authenticity of Book of Mormon or the golden plates, in 1838 a former Mormon leader, Stephen Burnett, claimed Martin Harris had told him that "the eight witnesses never saw [the plates] & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it."[5]
Another Witness
 | It has been suggested that Mary Whitmer be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since September 2008. |
Mary Musselman Whitmer (1778-1856), the mother of five Witnesses who took care of the household in Fayette, New York, where much of the translation occurred, said that an angel (or a Nephite) showed her the plates and thus made her more content to continue her daily labors.[6] Joseph Smith made no mention of this visitation in his journal.
Skeptical criticism of the Testimonies
Critics of the Latter Day Saint movement—from late nineteenth-century clergymen to Mark Twain to modern agnostics, evangelical Christians, and Mormons who have been disciplined by the LDS Church—argue that the testimonies of the witnesses cannot be taken at face value.
- The Book of Mormon witnesses had a "nineteenth-century magical mindset" rather than "a rationalist perspective." They believed in what was called "second sight. Traditionally, this included the ability to see spirits and their dwelling places within the local hills and elsewhere."[7] A number of the witnesses possessed and used seer stones; Oliver Cowdery was a rodsman.[8] As Tufts University professor John L. Brooke has observed, many of the earliest Mormons were "very much attuned to the supernatural powers of witchcraft."[9] "Far removed from our own modern empiricism, the world view of the witnesses is difficult for us to grasp," and thus it is less impressive that "three signatories to the Book of Mormon saw and heard an angel."[10]
- Besides believing in "second sight," all the witnesses were family, close friends, or financial backers of Joseph Smith. Cowdery, Page, and the five Whitmers were related by marriage.[11] Mark Twain later joked, "I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified."[12]
- Martin Harris was said to have stated that the Eight Witnesses never saw the plates, and "hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it."[13] Although Harris continued to testify to the truth of the Book of Mormon even when he was estranged from the church, at least during the early years of the movement, he "seems to have repeatedly admitted the internal, subjective nature of his visionary experience."[14]
- In Doctrine and Covenants 5: 11-14, revealed to Joseph Smith in March 1829, the Three Witnesses are told that they will be given power to see the golden plates, "to behold and view these things...and to none else will I grant this power, to receive this same testimony among this generation." In 2 Nephi 27:13, a translation completed in the late spring or early summer of the same year, the Three are told that "none other...shall view it, save it be a few according to the will of God," thus allowing for the inclusion of the Eight Witnesses.[15]
- Years later, Mormon leader Brigham Young said that some "witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and to disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel."[16]
Apologetic response
LDS church leaders and student manuals also frequently mention that none of the witnesses ever denied his testimony as it was printed in the Book of Mormon or denied that Smith was a true prophet when he translated the book.[17]
References
- ^ B.H. Roberts, ed. History of the Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1905), 3: 232.
- ^ Harris and Cowdery rejoined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shortly before their deaths, and Whitmer founded the Church of Christ (Whitmerite).
- ^ Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 79: "Critics pointed out how many of the witnesses were members of the Smith and Whitmer families, implying that they signed out of loyalty or from a self-serving motive....The witnesses were no substitute for making the plates accessible to anyone for examination, but the testimonies showed Joseph—and God—answering doubters with concrete evidence, a concession to the needs of post-Enlightenment Christians."
- ^ Bushman, 337,339, 350-51. On June 17, Sidney Rigdon "preached a vitriolic sermon based on the theme of salt losing its savor and being cast out and trodden underfoot....Soon after the sermon, eighty-three prominent members in Far West, many of them probably Danites by then, signed an ultimatum demanding the departure of the offenders....Fearing for their property and perhaps their lives, the dissenters fled." (355-51) In 1847, David, John, and Jacob Whitmer and Hiram Page were baptized into the newly formed Church of Christ founded by William E. M'Lellin. In 1831, Joseph Smith received a revelation from God that John Whitmer should "write and keep a regular history" of the church (D&C 47). Whitmer did eventually write such a history, but one which concluded with a detailed description of what Whitmer considered the mistreatment that he and his family had received in Caldwell County. See Bruce N. Westerngren, From Historian to Dissident: The Book of John Whitmer (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995).
- ^ Stephen Burnett letter to Lyman E. Johnson dated April 15, 1838. Typed transcript from Joseph Smith Papers, Letter book, April 20, 1837 - February 9, 1843, microfilm reel 2, pp. 64-66, LDS archives; quoted in "Facts On The Book Of Mormon Witnesses," Institute for Religious Research, retrieved from the Internet on 2/16/08 [1].
- ^ "David Whitmer Interview with Edward Stevenson, 9 February 1888,"in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2003), 5: 160-61; John C. Whitmer Interview with Andrew Jenson and Edward Stevenson, 11 October 1888," in EMD 5: 260-62. John Whitmer said that his grandmother always referred to the supernatural visitor as "Brother Nephi."
- ^ Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 175. Palmer devotes an entire chapter to the magical mindset of the Book of Mormon Witnesses.
- ^ D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), rev. ed., 239-40.
- ^ John L. Brooke, The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 77.
- ^ Palmer, 194-95.
- ^ Martin Harris bankrolled the publication of the Book of Mormon (See Martin Harris), and Oliver Cowdery was at one point considered the "Second Elder in the Church" behind Joseph Smith (See Oliver Cowdery). Of the Eight Witnesses, IRR notes, "All eight had close personal ties to Joseph Smith's family—four were David Whitmer's brothers, a fifth was married to a Whitmer sister, and Joseph's father and two brothers made up the remaining three." Quoted in "Facts On The Book Of Mormon Witnesses," Institute for Religious Research, retrieved from the Internet on 2/16/08 [2]; Palmer, 179.
- ^ Quoted in Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), second ed., 79.
- ^ Stephen Burnett letter to Lyman E. Johnson dated April 15, 1838. Typed transcript from Joseph Smith Papers, Letter book, April 20, 1837 - February 9, 1843, microfilm reel 2, pp. 64-66, LDS archives - as quoted in Facts On The Book Of Mormon Witnesses, Institute for Religious Research, retrieved from the Internet on 2/16/08 [3]
- ^ Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 2: 255. The foreman in the Palmyra printing office that produced the first Book of Mormon said that Harris "used to practice a good deal of his characteristic jargon and 'seeing with the spiritual eye,' and the like." Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1867), 71 in EMD, 3: 122. John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for most of the book, said that he had asked Harris, "Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?" According to Gilbert, Harris "looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, 'No, I saw them with a spiritual eye." John H. Gilbert, "Memorandum," 8 September 1892, in EMD, 2: 548. Two other Palmyra residents said that Harris told them that he had seen the plates with "the eye of faith" or "spiritual eyes." Martin Harris interviews with John A. Clark, 1827 & 1828 in EMD, 2: 270; Jesse Townsend to Phineas Stiles, 24 December 1833, in EMD, 3: 22. In 1838, Harris is said to have told an Ohio congregation that "he never saw the plates with his natural eyes, only in vision or imagination." Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 15 April 1838 in EMD, 2: 291. A neighbor of Harris in Kirtland, Ohio, said that Harris "never claimed to have seen [the plates] with his natural eyes, only spiritual vision." Reuben P. Harmon statement, c. 1885, in EMD, 2: 385.
- ^ Utah Lighthouse Ministries website.: "II Nephi 27:12-13...had predicted, 'Wherefore, at that day when the book shall be delivered unto the man of whom I have spoken, the book shall be hid from the eyes of the world, that the eyes of none shall behold it save it be that the three witnesses shall behold it by the power of God, besides him to whom the book shall be delivered. And there is none other which shall view it, save it be a few according to the will of God.' Why does it say 'none shall behold it save it be the three witnesses' if there were going to be a 'few others' too!"
- ^ Journal of Discourses 1860, 7:164 - as quoted in Facts On The Book Of Mormon Witnesses, Institute for Religious Research, retrieved from the Internet on 2/16/08 [4]
- ^ See, for example, Dallin H. Oaks, The Witness: Martin Harris, Ensign 29:5; James E. Faust, A Growing Testimony, Ensign 30:11; Henry B. Eyring, An Enduring Testimony of the Witness of the Prophet Joseph, Ensign 33:11:90; Doctrine and Covenants and Church History (Sunday School teacher’s manual), Lesson 4: Remember the New Covenant, Even the Book of Mormon.
