Hello all,
So, what’s the official position as to why the golden plates can’t be shown to people?
Is it because people will destroy them?
Is the mormon church going to destroy them?

In that case, why is the book of abraham, the original papyrus, available? Aren’t people going to destroy it?




~~~~iceman9090

Stop thinking so much. It's not faith promoting. ;-/

That is because they were acidentally dropped into my outhouse just before the backhoe filled it in

From Wikipedia, which account the church does not argue with:

"After translation was complete, Smith said he returned the plates to the angel, but he did not elaborate about this experience. According to accounts by several early Mormons, a group of Mormon leaders, including Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and possibly others accompanied Smith and returned the plates to a cave inside the Hill Cumorah. There, Smith is said to have placed the plates on a table near "many wagon loads" of other ancient records, and the Sword of Laban hanging on the cave wall. According to Brigham Young's understanding, which he said that he had gained from Cowdery, on a later visit to the cave, the Sword of Laban was said to be unsheathed and placed over the plates and inscribed with the words: "This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_plates#:~:text=Smith%20said%20that%20during%20this,completed%20at%20the%20Whitmer%20home.



When you're the one making up the story, you can say anything you want!

One can marvel at the thought that missionaries go out into the world and are able to baptize people into this nutty church... Given how silly, and even outrageous mormon doctrines, and the church's history, are, one wonders how that can be?

It's because nothing really controversial in presented to 'investigators' prior to being 'dunked', which is the shorthand for "entering the waters of baptism." As in, "...so how many did the Elders in Chilpancingo 'dunk' in May?"

I'm most impressed that about the table. Where can I buy something so long-lasting?

+elderolddog:
"the Sword of Laban was said to be unsheathed and placed over the plates and inscribed with the words: "This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ."

==What does unsheathed mean? Do you mean it isn't in the sword pocket? Also, is it important information that it is unsheathed and then it is going to be sheathed? Are you suggesting the sword will be used to commit a murder of lots of people?

You have to be careful with words. Even if you don't say that you are going to commit genocide, just saying it is not sheathed lands you in hot hotter since a sword is regarded as a lethal weapon. This isn't a my little pony or teddy roxbin toy.

So, anyone find this cave yet?

~~~~iceman9090

Either I am a prophet of ghawd or I am a liar liar, pants on fire. Even I'm not certain!

Not to mention that I just quote mormon malarkey; they make it up, not me.

I think it means Joseph didn’t believe in condoms.

I have been in some very fancy homes in my time and high end events and every time I am served a dinner on a gold plate I have to wonder its provenance.

The plates were made up, so to fix that he HAD to return them to the angel, who then took them away....heaven perhaps?

The papyrus was real and it was purchased from a fellow showing mummies for a price to the public. Joseph bought the mummies so he could charge the fee and make money. Along with them came the papyrus, so he leveraged that into mormon scriptures. A fire destroyed the mummies and some of the papyrus, but some pieces surfaced in a museum years later. Since then, the papyrus has been shown to be very ordinary funeral stuff, nothing about Abraham or Joseph's "translations".

The dog ate my homework

Hmmm...I do believe that you are ALL incorrect!!!

My understanding is that Moroni was so pissed off that Martin Harris lost the first 116 pages of the BOM that he retrieved the Golden Plates himself thus necessitating the usage of the "rock-in-the-hat" scenario that resulted in the BOM that we have this very day!!!

Anybody please correct me if I am incorrect!

Or so it seems to me...

According to an impeccable source, you are partially correct. El angel Moroni did come to retrieve the plates, and told JoJu that he'd been a baaaaad boy! But then ...

"Joseph repented. Soon Moroni returned the gold plates, and the Lord forgave Joseph and restored the gift to translate."


Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-stories/chapter-4-martin-harris-and-the-lost-pages-1827-1828?lang=eng


Would the church lie?

You are spiritually blind. Only those who hath eyes to see.

One time, while I was on my mission trying to pull the wool over the eyes over the Japanese people, we had a meeting with this guy about JS and the BoM. The guy listened intently, but at the end shook his head and asked why JS had to give the tooth back to the angel. We looked at each other and cracked up. Apparently, the whole time he thought we'd been saying "kimba" (golden tooth) instead of "kimban" (golden plates).

At least that's the way I remember it 43 years later. Can anyone with more recent Japanese experience confirm or deny this translation?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2020 06:50PM by fossilman.

+fossilman:
You had to learn and speak japanese?
Well, whatever the case may be, golden tooth or golden book, what did you tell the japanese guy?

43 y ago is 1977. Interesting :)

~~~~iceman9090

>You had to learn and speak japanese?

Not everyone in the world speaks English.
So missionaries who go Japan learn Japanese.
Missionaries who go to Germany learn German.
Missionaries who go to Latin America (except Brazil) learn Spanish.
Some missionaries going to the US learn other languages if they are going to be working with immigrants who speak other languages.

+[|]:
I am impressed. I can appreciate the love for momonism is so grand, that kids learn a language that they will probably not utilize later on.
Where do the kids learn the languages? At BYU? At other places? Self thought at home?

Imagine if that love was concentrated on something else. Sending humans to Mars? Finding new solutions for cancer and other nasty cases?

But if you are going to convert someone to mormonism and later on you quit mormonism and maybe the convert also quits.... we are heading nowhere.

~~~~iceman9090

>Where do the kids learn the languages?

At the MTC (missionary training center).
One is next to BYU, but they also have seceral others in other countries.

Being multilingual is not all that uncommon. Americans don't usually know a second language unless they are immigrants, or first generation removed from immigrants. Mormons differ from the "average American" in that knowing a second language is pretty common among those who have served missions,

I grew up in a heavily immigrant city, and most everyone had some fluency in a second language. My grandmother was passably fluent in six languages, five of them Slavic.

Kimba, the White Lion? Loved that show when I was a kid. 'The Lion King' ripped it off totally.

It sounds like it would be appropriate to add the poetic works of Cheech and Chong in the "Golden Plates are Not Available" episode:

Martin Harris: Who is it?

Its me Moroni. Open up I got the plates!

Martin Harris: Who?

It's Moroni man. Open up I think the mob saw me come in here.

Martin Harris: Moroni's not here man!

Would it be possible that the witnesses who bore testimony of seeing and handling the plates was forged and/or fabricated. Who confronted them? It is recorded that they never denied it, but that record could also be fabricated. Are there any independent records that show each witness interviewed by others outside the reaches of the church?

+EXON46:
"Would it be possible that the witnesses who bore testimony of seeing and handling the plates was forged and/or fabricated. Who confronted them? It is recorded that they never denied it, but that record could also be fabricated. Are there any independent records that show each witness interviewed by others outside the reaches of the church?"

==Good point. A mormon apologist told me that the enemies of Joseph Smith did not reject their faith in mormonism however, the questions we must ask:
1. Who says so?
2. Is it the mormon church?
3. Is there a video tape of the interview? (Don't make the excuse that video tapes did not exist in 1830. God has a lot of audio video equipment in his closet. We are talking about a omnipotent god, right?).
4. The enemies of Joseph Smith would probably leave mormonism and join some christian sect. The mormon church is not going to go and interview them.
5. So, we are in 2020. Many year have passed since those days. Mormoni or whoever can easily drop by and show us the golden plates. Don't be shy!

~~~~iceman9090

You are obviously someone not "faithful" The Lord could "confide" in. No angels visiting you on hillsides.

But Gold Records are.

Our mission - Central States - headquartered in Independence, Missouri just down from the Re-Orgs and the Temple Lot Mormons gave gold Records for mission achievements.

Mission Prez was in the Record business and if you performed you got a Gold Record - just like Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers and Beach Boys.

Just that ours were for pushing lies, not music.

I was always taught that after all of the translation was done that Moroni took the plates back again.

I've never been led to understand that the Church has them in their possession.

Of course, now I realize that they never existed in the first place anyway.

What is hilarious is that they have tied themselves to this monstrosity of celestial chloroform forever.

If they deny it, the church loses all its power.
If they keep it, the church loses all of its power.

They have said they still need to translate the sealed portion of the book of mormon which is about 1/2 to 2/3 are sealed. And you are going to bring the plates in a day with cameras, instant communication, forensic analysis, AI enabled language translators, etc. You can't just get rid of the Book or have the book without looking like a complete con.

+MormonMartinLuther:
"about 1/2 to 2/3 are sealed"

==How do you know? What is the source of this information?

~~~~iceman9090