Something I've not been able to sufficiently answer is the fact that Emma Smith said she saw a bundle of something, under a cloth on a table. She was not allowed to look under the cloth, but was allowed to touch it, and when she did, she said it felt like there were thin sheets of metal under the cloth.

I also remember reading something like, wafer thin, or foil, I can't remember. Anyway, I've searched the pdfs I have but I cannot find the exact text, but I did come across these:

"His wife and mother state that the plates were on the table wrapped in a cloth..."

"Reports assert that he and the other witnesses never literally saw the gold plates, but only an object said to be the plates, covered with a cloth"

I've a few questions and some musings.

(1) If there were no plates, what did Emma touch that felt like think sheets of metal?

(2) I found all this in anti-mormon literature, and not literature supporting the LDS

(3) Didn't Emma have an axe to grind with her husband? Why would she admit to this when she had no good reason to promote her husband's desires?

(4) If they were merely thin sheets of metal crafted to trick someone, where did they get those plates? Who crafted them?

(5) If you wanted to trick someone, isn't it a huge risk to just hope they don't take the cloth away?

None of the above makes sense unless there were thin sheets of metal under a cloth. It doesn't constitute evidence of anything other than there were thin sheets of metal under a cloth, but I can't explain it away, and to say, 'Smith made them/had them made to trick people is a bit of a stretch.

EDIT: I found this on the LDS website (but I include it only because I am very sure I read this elsewhere, in anti-mormon literature). When Emma was cleaning:

“She reports that the plates seemed to be pliable and would rustle with a metallic sound"

EDIT 2: And this taken from an article on the ex mormon website:

"Emma said she 'felt the plates as they lay on a table' wrapped in a linen tablecloth. She said the plates were pliable like thick paper and that they “would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb” (Bushman, 'Rough Stone Rolling,' p. 70)."

The site goes on to say: "If that is true, then it is certain that the plates were not made of gold since soft metal pages made of gold would not make such a sound."

I don't believe that explanation though. It seems a bit weak because wafer thin sheets of metal might make a sound something like what was described.

EDIT 3: Lucy admitted she never saw the plates, but she claimed to have handled what she was told were plates of 'pure gold.'

I'm not saying the above is evidence, but that I've never found a credible explanation for it all.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2022 09:41AM by seajay.

Emma and Lucy were a couple of cheerful liars who were in on the con.

And this was before Joseph Smith started wife-ing everybody, so I don’t think Emma had an ax to grind at that point.

And when Joe's philandering couldn't be hidden/excused/rationalized she was in too deep to come clean. Or, she found the benefits of being the prophet's wife worth the tradeoffs.

Couldn't have been more shocked by my super secret special name God picked just for me.

Curious that no one of a non-biased, non-interested reputation was involved like a judge or sheriff...

(3) Didn't Emma have an axe to grind with her husband? Why would she admit to this when she had no good reason to promote her husband's desires?

Oh please. It's called looking out for number one.

Anyone who's been married get's caught in this game where you are in the middle. She goes against him she can be cut off. Remember she didn't have her own brilliant career. And he was charismatic no matter what else he was. The followers were his. She had nothing to gain by going against him even if she was sick of him. What? You think Emma had integrity or something?

People often aid and abet a person they don't like because of what they will get out of it personally. I offer present day politics as example A. Well, and B and C.

Heavy petticoats rustle. Leaves rustle. Paper, yes. Gold plates do not. That is the wrong word for solid gold plates thick enough to write on and last for centuries. Perhaps they lightly clinked?

I have worked in the prop industry a long time. I can think of a dozen ways that Joseph made something to feel like the plates. This is a clever con man after all we are talking about. Talented even.

Some old tin roofing with leather binders? Tin was already around even from Thomas Jefferson's time.

Plates pounded out thin enough to make pages are maleable, and they are very dense, they don't vibrate with the same character like steel or iron or tin. I got to handle gold foil when I was a graduate student making coated targets for X-ray beams. The book would have been extremely hard to open inside a cloth due to it's heavy weight, let alone thumb through pages to hear them rustle. Plates of steel, iron, tin, pewter, copper, brass, bronze would all have been available in rural 1820s New york. Joe only needed to know a tinker or a blacksmith. A blacksmith provided the fake brass "Kinderhook" plates to the pranksters who got Joseph Smith to pontificate on their origins and meanings.

I'll pitch in another idea.

Emma knew from the get go her new husband was the kind of guy looking for gimmicks and quick scam money. Her dad and his dad apparently were not thrilled he managed to get out of working the fields or doing anything respectable.

A woman back then especially depended on support from a husband and she had kids on top of that, so she was trapped in that perspective.

What I don't understand is why she didn't rip the damn cloth away and demand to look. What kind of woman would let her husband get away with just feeling it? It's so dumb. She believed God didn't want her to see but touchy feely was OK? Why was she buying that? She knew he was a scammer.

"What I don't understand is why she didn't rip the damn cloth away and demand to look."

This. In spades. She would've. She was clearly no wall flower.

And highly likely that Emma knows what Joe is and she knows damn well he didn't get some plates from some angel. She probably helped make the faux plates and found the cloth to go over them. And then to finish the deal, claims to never have seen them and only felt them as part of the con. Duh. Why does everyone want to make Emma such a victim? Because that was her part of the con.

What? Emma actually thinks she is going to be killed by an angel with a flaming sword if she takes a peek? Yeah. Right.

JS also made it clear to Emma, his mother, and others that if they dared to look at the "plates", they would be immediately destroyed.

He also used his "revelation" (D&C 132) to let Emma know that she better accept polygamy or she would be destroyed for that also.

One way or the other, it seems like he sure wanted her out of the picture.

Strange thing though: it was Emma who lived a long life and a happier one with her 2nd husband.

valkyriequeen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> JS also made it clear to Emma, his mother, and
> others that if they dared to look at the "plates",
> they would be immediately destroyed.

Is there actual evidence Joseph Smith said this? Given the prevailing circumstances, I know if you told me not to look at something or I'll be immediately destroyed - I might think twice, or, a million times, before doing so.

Lewis Bidamon was no prize either - he cheated on Emma in their 17th year of marriage with Nancy Abercrombie, a widow who had recently moved to Nauvoo and fathered a child with her.

When Emma died in 1879 he married Abercrombie.

Emma seemed to have a 'type' :-D

Are you speakng of the dirty dinner plates that needed washing?

I find this whole premise to be misogynistic thinking. For what reason is Emma automatically believed and not held suspect as well as Joe? Is it just because she is the woman, the wife, the mother? So she would never lie? What is with the automatic credibility?


Oh, poor poor little Emma . . .

Emma was in on everything from the beginning.

The church whitewashes over the fact that Emma was with Joseph the night they stole a wagon and went to get the plates.

One of my family members that knew Joseph wrote in his diary of a claim that Joseph made some plates out of brass, engraved "chicken scratches" on them and sealed most of them with a band so he didn't have to write on all the plates.

I think there was something he had. But who knows? I've read sand, tin or brass sheets and an old bible.

I wouldn't put it past him to try and make a prop then decide against it.

In essence Emma did leave Mormonism but I think she propped up the plates to set her kids up as leaders of the reorganized church.

Must’ve been the Kinderhook plates.

What if the whole story is a scam and never happened at all?????

I actually think that Joseph Smith had plates. Not that the Book of Mormon is true, because its not. Natives did record things on metal plates. And I think he came across some and it is like the Book of Abraham, or the seer stone in a hat to find objects. He like to be holding something to make it more believable. So I think he found an artifact and thought he was talking to God. He in essence conned himself.

I don't think you can document the existence of Native American metal plates. If you can, please do.

Yes I misspoke. I should have said some "ancient people" recorded on plates. These were traded around the world. All the mattered to Joseph was that he thought they were of natives. Most metal historical records came from the middle East and Greece. So since these were traded in America like the Egyptian scrolls were, I think it is plausible that he did come across some. It is consistent with his style. It is also possible that they were fake plates created by other con men and Joseph came across those.

I'd posit the opposite: JS heard about engraved plates and adopted the idea with, or without, having ever seen such a thing. For there is no evidence that any plates, as distinct from something substantial under a cover, ever existed.

I simply don't see why any particular unevidenced claim by a serial liar should be taken seriously. It's a bit like saying that surely some of the D&C chapters must have been true because no one could have made them all up.

I loved that old gag that the BoM is true because "no one could have made that up."

Clearly, they never read Moby Dick.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2022 11:28PM by Kathleen.

Hey, I love reading about the specific qualities of oil produced variously by right whales, beaked whales, and narwhals!

More seriously, I had a very smart friend in college--a literature major, for her sins--who compiled a list of the worst classical literature. Top of the list?

Billy Budd. I believe, however, that her selection owed at least something to having not yet read Moby Dick.

I'm not enormously well-read, but yes, Billy Budd was terrible. I mention Moby Dick bc it was required reading in high school. TBMs should have noticed then that there was stuff at least better than the BoM.

My TBM friend (during his not-TBM phase) said the trouble with Mormons is that they don't read much.

I hope your friend put none of Joseph Conrad's on her "gawd-awful" list. Typhoon, in my estimation was brilliant in the end.

Okay, I'll confess. I have read MB twice and am glad I did. The structure of the thing is almost unique--the way that Melville discusses so many collateral topics, always with Ahab looming unspoken in the background so that when the tale returns to him he's an overwhelming and well-known presence; rarely, I suspect, has anyone described such a monumental character in so few words. I also love how Melville brings in Zoroastrianism in at the end as an alternative to Calvinistic determinism, thereby asking whether free agency exists or not. But I nonetheless empathize with people who feel like they are sinking into the abyss when they read the book.

Billy Budd is an easier call. It has the stilted irregular prose without the epic sweep and universal moral themes. I don't know why they make kids read that except except perhaps as a substitute for MD, in which case it's a lousy strategic decision. Literature is not supposed to hurt.

And no, Conrad did not make the list of overrated classics, thank heaven. Heart of Darkness, Outcast of the Islands, A Secret Agent--the world's first spy story--and Lord Jim: those are some very fun books. I think that, like Kafka and Nabokov later, Conrad was someone who got lost in the beauty and potential of his second language and hence wrote in a colorful stye that native speakers never even considered.

I sheepishly confess, however, to having not read Typhoon, a deficit that I should remedy!

I'm feeling exceptionally ignorant; I've never even heard of Billy Budd. But I never read Moby Dick either... I'd heard bad reviews.

Conrad's Heart of Darkness is one of my favorites, though. I had an English teacher, an old, weathered stark and dark woman, who made no apologies for her love of smoking. She wasn't the kind of smiley, bubbly, juvenile teacher that all the kids say are the good ones, and indeed, most of the kids hated her. I loved her, though. She had us read Camus' The Stranger, then Heart of Darkness. She also had us model their writing styles by assigning a paragraph, and creating our own using the exact grammer. I thought that was fun, but most every one else hated it. There is something about good literature that can quickly change your thinking for the better; it's far more effective in that way than learning about Boit numbers and Fourier transforms in engineering school. Toward the end of the year, she set aside three days wherein we watched Apocalypse Now. I'm not sure she'd get away with that these days.

English 101 and 102 were trivial efforts after going through her class, and I'll never forget how that gruff, cranky woman changed my life.

You like Conrad too?

There were metal plate books written anciently in the Middle East. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1371290/70-metal-books-Jordan-cave-change-view-Biblical-history.html. And artifact selling/stealing was very popular back then. Not much evidence in the Americas, but plenty by Islam and early Christians, such in that link 70 metal plate books found in a cave in Jordan. And people would force artifacts for money often

guy34 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There were metal plate books written anciently in
> the Middle East.
> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13
> 71290/70-metal-books-Jordan-cave-change-view-Bibli
> cal-history.html. And artifact selling/stealing
> was very popular back then. Not much evidence in
> the Americas, but plenty by Islam and early
> Christians, such in that link 70 metal plate books
> found in a cave in Jordan. And people would force
> artifacts for money often

It's been a while for me, so, who do they say, created/made/wrote the gold plates?

Two points.

First, you say there were plenty of these in the early Christian and Islamic centuries but your source describes 70 such sets of plates found in a single location. Are there other plates from other sites?

Second, the article says "academics are divided as to their authenticity" and likewise hedges a couple more times, saying things like "if their dates are verified." That underscores the need for caution in assuming they are genuine.

Posted by: Kathleen ( )

"Emma and Lucy were a couple of cheerful liars who were in on the con."


Joe, his part-time witch of a mother and Emma were a triple version of some Bonnie & Clyde gang.

Lucky the ladies escaped the shoot-out at Carthage jail.

Re 'not taking the cloth off of the (claimed) plates'

I don't think we should under-estimate the intimidation that joe held over people, whether by 'charm' or by straight-up snookering them;

It might be convenient to believe that Emma & Lucy were 'in on the con', but is there any evidence that they were?

I agree with this. It is a bit of a sore spot for me when people seem incredulous over the control and threat religion can exude...when I was under the impression we were all here needing to recover from a religion for just that reason. I wasn't stupid or weak to have believed and obeyed without question, as unbelievable as that may seem with the things I put on my shelf and the things I was asked to believe in. My first thought upon finding out the truth of these things while reading the CES letter was to get VERY anxious and scared that I was being prideful and tempted by Satan to trust in my own understanding.

So, Emma could have reasonably been terrified by the threat of anything, as extreme as instant annihilation or as small as it being a sin and disappointing her beloved god to not look under a cloth. However, her thumbing at pages reminds me of the same justifications young adult Mormons would use to make soaking okay and NOT consider it a part of the penetrative act of intercourse.

I kind of feel uncomfortable with those who are supposedly here for recovery from a cult and brainwashing, who simply couldn't believe in someone being compelled to believe in something ridiculous.

I can certainly agree with this point of view too.

Emma didn't seem too scared of her father who did NOT want her to marry Joseph. I got the impression she wasn't cowed easily from that.

However, to be threatened by the "revelations" JS hurled at her is another thing. I think she was trapped more than anything else. Her best option was to let JS have his way with everything.

"I think she was trapped more than anything else. Her best option was to let JS have his way with everything."

We'll never know what Emma really was or what she knew or thought, but, I would agree with the above. Her choices were most likely limited, and perhaps by herself, as much as any outside parameters she faced. Fun to speculate though as for us, that history is fascinating.

I like to see her as more complex than simply being controlled, but who knows?

I agree.

Many women through the centuries were trapped by lack of education and means to support children if they wanted to escape anything. There is a reason certain types of men want to keep women barefoot and pregnant. Just sayin'.

The fact that Emma divorced JS in the end makes me think she had had enough of his shenanigans. It had probably been building for a while and she wasn't in a position with many options until later. If she had been a true believer at first, she obviously wised up.

She divorced him ????

You sure, Dags, 'cause that wasn't mentioned in Gospel Doctrine Class ?

Ummmmm. Right. I mean they lived happily ever after for eternity in their monogamous righteous marriage, having family home evenings like the "family church" says.

GNPE Wrote:


> It might be convenient to believe that Emma & Lucy
> were 'in on the con', but is there any evidence
> that they were?

Evidences in the realms of serious conspiracies are seldom had.

As Mel Gibson summed it up in the film, if they offer any evidence of their shennanigans it's a lame conspiriecy.

It means they screwed up.

The Smith plot was a good one, they erased all traces.

No way to unravel a well-laid scheme like theirs.

I vowed to NEVER accept ANYTHING ChurchCo publishes as 'proof' of ANYTHING;

they have nearly a 100% track record of selecting & embellishing anything they consider 'faith promoting' / favorable to their paradigm and suppressing anything they consider (currently, subject to change) unfavorable


(If one accepts the premise of the linked information / propaganda) Emma was smitten by Joey's charms before his 'faith promoting experiences) started / developed.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2022 12:31PM by GNPE.

GNPE for you another link.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Smith

https://ensignpeakfoundation.org/mansion-house/

I think that Emma Smith was in on it. I think that Emma knew that it was all fraud. She stayed for the money and fame. If she would have said that she saw the plates people would have asked her how the writing looked like, how heavy the plates were. So by saying she saw the cloth she is a witness to her husband without having to take any real questions about the plates because she did not see them. On LDS.org it says that after Joseph Smiths dead Emma got the mansion house. Joseph Smith the 3rd became the prophet of the RLDS church. Maybe I am putting the pieces together the wrong way? But Emma was married to a prophet and Emma became the mother of a prophet. So Emma had money and fame. Yes, Jo cheated on her. But Emma was Relief Society president. My guess is that being the first Relief Society president had some kind of influence over the other women.

I think Emma was in on the con. She knew who she was marrying. There are female grifters. She was not unlike the wives of the rich megachurch pastors (i.e. Tammy Faye Baker,) pleading for even more donations to continue "the work." They know. She knew. She had a role to play, and she played it well.

Emma and Tammy Faye! You win! Hahaha

Before they were married (eloping as her father refused Joseph twice) Joseph had already been to court on charges relating to glass looking and scrying which he was well known for. He was already using the stone in the hat for this---the BOM translation was not the first use of the peepstone--- and she knew he was using his scrying techniques for the BoM. I mean, c'mon! Let's quit calling Emma stupid.

Even if she was in on the BOM con, that still would have been within the 1827-30 time frame. There was no way for her to know just how depraved it would all eventually become. Smith didn't get caught with Fanny Alger until 1831 (IIRC), and to my knowledge that was his first cheat, as she was enraged by it. But by then it was too late to back out.

Emma couldn't possibly have anticipated ending up neck-deep in a sex cult, or how everything would later spiral out of control. Had she somehow been made aware of the doctrine of polygamy and the arrival of pond scum like Brigham Young, I seriously doubt she would have ever gotten involved with Smith. YMMV.

Or the misogyny / Racism that LDS / Mormonism / ChurchCo would soon adapt.


methinks that if she was involved with ChurchCo, she could have traveled west with 'the saints' & probably been well taken care of....

Young really disliked her. If she'd gone west, she'd have been a non-entity. By staying in place she guaranteed herself and her family a significant place in her community and her church.

BY disliked Emma when she was in on the con?

at first glance, this doesn't seem to make sense...

Is there some / any evidence of this?

I guess that Emma might have threatened to blow the whistle, maybe 'blackmail'? But that too would require some evidence to support, merely conjecture doesn't cut it with me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2022 08:38PM by GNPE.

much of the material on this subject comes from the church (and should be considered in that light), but here are some references

https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume48_1980_number1/s/131376

http://www.truthandgrace.com/1872emma.htm

https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-13?lang=eng (this one from the church)

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V17N03_89.pdf

And from mopologists
https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Emma_Smith/Brigham_Young

Gee dissention within the ranks?

My o my!

U'd think the faithful can / would get their story straight...

You have to remember there was no single "story." Even before Joseph's death the various contenders were feuding. BY knew that Emma was a contender, or a kingmaker, and correctly viewed her as a threat.

Once Joseph had died, the knives came out. There was no clear succession plan and the struggle for preeminence was intense. It would therefore be a mistake to think they were engaged in the same effort.

sounds like an alternative rock band

Could have been "Emma and the Platters".

Ha ha...On the record label Mo-Town.

the Real Deal about mormonism is that they don't live up to (Ignore, make excuses, etc) their own sayings & claims.

Let's not get too far away from that, IMHO.

Mormonism itself is continuing presentation of silly rabbit trails without ever seeing much less catching a rabbit.

We often look at Emma Smith through the same lens of options women have, in the western world at least, when married to an abusive and narcissistic husband. But, in her time, Emma really had few, if any, good options. It wasn’t so much believing in a con as it was that she had no or limited options to do so otherwise, IMO.

Emma and Joseph Smith make me think of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.