> A series of archeological digs around Nauvoo might > be very interesting...:)
Palmyra area. I doubt he would have kept them while traveling. Too hard to hide something like that when friends are helping you load and unload a wagon.
Digging around the Palmyra area near the Joseph Smith house turns up plates matching the description of the witnesses, These plates are made of tin, and had been covered with a gold-colored patina. There is enough of the patina on them to see where figures similar to the "Anthon transcript" had been scratched. Careful study shows they were made with available sheet metal of the area in the 1820s.
Clearly these are the plates Joseph made to show to the witnesses.
Now, your job is to explain these things in a faith-promoting way.
It is thought that JS made a replica of the plates to show the witnesses of the BoM. As one remembers, JS himeself was shocked when first reaching for the plates when he first saw them and took several years for him to be prepared by an angel to see him.The witnesses had no such training and therefore were not as spiritually ready to handle the actual plates. The LORD prepared a way for JS to have witnesses of the plates and permitted Joseph to make a replica of the original. This way, the world could still have important second hand witnesses of this important ancient document.
Ole Sneaky-slimy Joe had to ditch them somewhere as they were one thing he would not dare sell. My bet is someplace dark and damp and deep as he was more than used to sneaking around at night doing his magic acts. I bet he got that ole shovel out, grabbed his bottle of wine, and off he went to do some of his own digging for a change.
He could have melted down anything he'd previously put together. I didn't know daddy had a Cooper's shop. That would make the whole plate making theory very likely.
Satan prompted someone at the time of JS to make a fake set for the very purpose of planting it in the ground and having someone find it a century and a half later. To test the faith of the saints. I mean if God can suck the real ones back into heaven, Satan can at least come up with fake ones.
We know we are in the final weeding out phase. That's why God allowed same sex, oops, I mean same gender marriage. To see which Latter Day Saints would side with the profit and the brethren to decry it. And which ones would sympathize with the evil gays and wish in their hearts that TSCC would not excommunicate any legally married couples just because they're the same gender. Even the Supreme Court justices didn't know they are a pawn in Satan's game to keep people out of the mormon church.
Just going on dim memory here. Wasn't there a story going around 30-something years ago about this? The angel picked up the plates. The next morning JS was driving his wagon somewhere and an old-timer with a sack over his shoulder came out of nowhere and greeted him. Somehow dots were connected and the old-timer was the angel with the plates in the sack. Like I say, dim memory. Or I have the story confused with another. Or I'm simply delusional.
I think it was Joe and Martin. They were riding in a wagon, passed the old man who said he was coming from "cumorah". After they had passed, quick-thinking Joe turned to Martin and claimed that the man was the angel Moroni...'cause all angels look like old hobos carrying packs over their shoulders.
Chump Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think it was Joe and Martin. They were riding > in a wagon, passed the old man who said he was > coming from "cumorah". After they had passed, > quick-thinking Joe turned to Martin and claimed > that the man was the angel Moroni...'cause all > angels look like old hobos carrying packs over > their shoulders.
He didn't have to be that quick-thinking. Martin was a fool.
My great great grandfather wrote about a belief in the 1840s that Joseph made the plates by melting some large brass candlesticks. The kind some churches have that are free standing.
He then engraved some and "sealed" the rest.
My question is what happened to the breast plate? We constantly hear about hiding the gold plates but the urim and thumin and breast plate seem to fade away.
No need to melt anything down. Smith Sr. had a cooper shop, so Joe would have had easy access to tin to make plates and a breastplate. Of course, just because some "witnesses" claimed to have seen this or that, they could have just made it all up. Lucy claimed she felt the plates and breastplate, but maybe she was in on the con.
I've always thought that the 4 years from the visit of the Angel Moroni to actually getting the plates was a long wait. However I think that's how long it took for Joseph Smith to actually come up with something semi-tangible to back up his story that was, up until then, pure talk.
You are all missing the point that the witness saw the plates with their "spiritual eyes", meaning they didn't see anything tangible. Or probably they just ate some mushrooms or smoke pot before their experience.