{"id":103695,"date":"2024-02-05T12:05:53","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T19:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=103695"},"modified":"2024-02-08T06:21:35","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T13:21:35","slug":"richard-bushman-on-witnesses-to-the-book-of-mormon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/02\/richard-bushman-on-witnesses-to-the-book-of-mormon.html","title":{"rendered":"Richard Bushman on witnesses to the Book of Mormon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

"James<\/a>

Lincoln Hoppe as Martin Harris, in the 2021 Interpreter Foundation theatrical film, \u201cWitnesses\u201d
(Still photograph by James Jordan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here are some notes about certain of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon \u2014 both official and unofficial \u2014 that I\u2019ve drawn from the fourth chapter of Richard Lyman Bushman\u2019s book Joseph Smith\u2019s Gold Plates: A Cultural History<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023):<\/p>\n

\n

Emma viewed herself as one who had never left the faith. \u201cI know Mormonism<\/a> to be the truth; and believe the Church to have been established by divine direction.\u201d She knew she had \u201cbeen called apostate; but I have never apostatized, nor forsaken the faith I at first accepted.\u201d She felt she had good reasons for her belief. In the interview, she showed the rationalist bent of her mind. She said nothing about her love for her husband or her trust in his character. Hers was not a sentimental or spiritual faith. It was based on her observation of Joseph translating. Nothing she knew about him qualified him to dictate the book. \u201cIt is marvelous to me,\u201d she said, \u201cas much so as to any one else.\u201d\u00a0 (50)<\/p>\n

The immediate family was more concerned about where to conceal the plates than to establish the plates\u2019 reality. . . . The family seemed not to have been troubled by the question of the plates\u2019 existence.\u00a0 (51)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Martin Harris is commonly portrayed by critics of the Book of Mormon and of the Restoration as a credulous and unstable loon. \u00a0I\u2019ve argued that this caricature goes starkly against solid historical data and rests on unsubstantiated yarns and rumors \u2014 see my Meridian Magazine<\/em> column \u201cMartin Harris: Skeptic or Gullible Dupe?\u201d<\/a> \u2014 and I\u2019m pleased to see that Richard Bushman concurs with my verdict:<\/p>\n

"\n*
** Martin was the most skeptical of all the early believers.\u00a0 (51)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** The historical accounts are simply irreconcilable (unless they are flatly ignored) with the claim the no plates existed:<\/p>\n
** "\n
** William Smith \u201cthum[ b] ed them through the cloth and ascertained that they were thin sheets of some kind of metal.\u201d Martin Harris said he \u201chefted the plates many times\u201d and once held them on his knee for an hour and a half. William Smith lifted them in a pillowcase. People heard the leaves \u201crustle\u201d when thumbed and a \u201cjink\u201d when they were put in a box. Emma said the individual plates were \u201cpliable like thick paper.\u201d The accounts left little room to doubt that something heavy and plate-like existed in the boxes, the cloths, and the knapsacks they saw and felt. (53)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** Here\u2019s a passage from the reminiscences of Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of the Prophet Joseph:<\/p>\n
** "\n
** \u201cSoon after they came, all of the male part of the company, together with my husband, Samuel [Smith], and Hyrum [Smith], retired to a place where the family were in the habit of offering up their secret devotions to God. They went to this place because it had been revealed to Joseph that the plates would be carried thither by one of the ancient Nephites.\u201d\u00a0 (55)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** \u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s sometimes confidently asserted \u2014 I saw it again just a couple of days ago \u2014 that none of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon saw or touched the plates uncovered. \u00a0Again, one can only make such an assertion if one dismisses the primary source materials:<\/p>\n
** "\n
** When John Whitmer was later asked if he saw the plates \u201ccovered with a cloth,\u201d he answered no. Joseph \u201chanded them uncovered into our hands, and we turned the leaves sufficient to satisfy us.\u201d (56)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** One is still obviously free, of course, to reject the testimony of the witnesses. \u00a0But simply ignoring that testimony as if it didn\u2019t exist just won\u2019t do \u2014 let alone proceeding to create one\u2019s own evidence-free story as a substitute:<\/p>\n
** "\n
** That was the kind of testimony rationalists could understand. It assimilated the plates into the ordinary world of material objects. No guardian spirits, no angels, no magical rituals. If accurate, the testimony of the eight witnesses satisfied the requirements of the rational enlightenment for sensory evidence. The problem was that too much rested on the testimonies. Belief in what they said implied acceptance of too many fabulous items: an angel appearing in Manchester, a simple young man conversing with the heavens, another Bible from ancient America. The problem was posed by Cornelius Blatchly, a onetime Quaker who wrote Martin Harris in 1829 only a few months after the witnesses said they saw the plates. Blatchly wanted to know more about this \u201cwonderful record\u201d but only if it could be \u201csubstantiated by indisputable evidences and witnesses.\u201d In November 1829, Oliver Cowdery wrote back on Martin\u2019s behalf. Knowing his account was fabulous, he insisted the witnesses could not have been mistaken in what they saw. \u201cIt was a clear, open beautiful day, far from any inhabitants, in a remote field, at the time we saw the record.\u201d It was \u201cbrought and laid before us, by an angel, arrayed in glorious light.\u201d Blatchly thanked Cowdery for his account but concluded that \u201cso important a matter as a new bible\u201d required \u201cthe most incontrovertible facts, circumstances and proofs.\u201d Oliver\u2019s account, in Blatchly\u2019s judgment, failed to meet that high standard. (56)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** And, finally, just a reminder of one of the most unexpected testimonies of the Book of Mormon, from one of what I call the unofficial or informal witnesses:<\/p>\n
** "\n
** John\u2019s mother, Mary Whitmer, another plain-spoken witness, said she saw the plates when she went to do the milking. In 1878, years after the event, her son said that his mother had grown weary with the work of housing and feeding the translating contingent. In June 1829, Joseph, Oliver, and Emma squeezed into an already crowded household. Emma must have been pressed into service, but the two men were of no help. They spent their days in an upstairs room recording the translation. Mary Whitmer had reason to complain of the added burden. Mary\u2019s son David told Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith in 1878 that as his mother was going to milk the cows, an old man carrying a pack met her in the yard. He recognized that \u201cyou are tried because of the increase of your toil,\u201d and so \u201cit is proper therefore that you should receive a witness that your faith may be strengthened.\u201d Then he took the plates out of the knapsack and showed them to her. Whitmer said that seeing the plates \u201cnerved her up for her increased responsibilities.\u201d One of Mary\u2019s grandsons, John C. Whitmer, added that \u201cthis strange person turned the leaves of the book of plates over, leaf after leaf, and also showed her the engravings upon them.\u201d Then he vanished with the plates.<\/p>\n
** Mary Whitmer did not record the experience herself, but she told the story to her grandchildren \u201con several occasions.\u201d Her account was of a piece with other stories the Whitmers told. David Whitmer linked his mother\u2019s angel to the \u201cvery pleasant, nice-looking old man\u201d he had seen on the road while bringing Joseph and Oliver to Fayette. His nephew John also described the visitor as \u201ca stranger carrying something on his back that looked like a knapsack\u201d and \u201cspoke to her in a kind, friendly tone.\u201d (57)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** Posted from Honolulu, O\u2019ahu, Hawai\u2019i<\/p>\n
** \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
** \u00a0 Here are some notes about certain of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon \u2014 both official and unofficial \u2014 that I\u2019ve drawn from the fourth chapter of Richard Lyman Bushman\u2019s book Joseph Smith\u2019s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023): Emma viewed herself as one who had never left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":35174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56,9254,4579,1615,7917,921],"class_list":["post-103695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-bushman","tag-emma-smith","tag-plates","tag-whitmer","tag-witnesses"],"yoast_head":"\nRichard Bushman on witnesses to the Book of Mormon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"notes about certain of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon -- 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