...what LDS Inc claims how many "saw" them?

And i mean who actually physically "saw" them with their "own eyes"...and not simply imagined them in their "mind's eye"?

What is reality?

Am i wrong?

I keep telling TBM's that NOBODY EVER SAW THEM...and that they didn't exist.

I keep getting sidetracked by an oblique reference from somewhere that Emma actually claims that she did in fact see them...yes? / no?

Official Church answer... Pretty much no one.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1992/07/i-have-a-question?lang=eng

People saw them in dreams (See Lucy Harris, but it is telling that she kept snooping around the Smith house to try and sneak a peek isn't it?). Emma moved them around a lot because they got in the way of her house work, but they were always covered. The Three and the Eight "saw" them, but most later said that it was with their "spirit eyes" or some other nonsense (there are all kinds of records on the internet to support this), besides, it's telling that there was a pre-written statement that they all just signed instead of having each of them write their own statement (they couldn't do that of course, because they would have been different accounts since none of them really saw anything).

So, you're left with the Joseph Smith, a known and convicted con artist, who liked to tell women "If you don't sleep with me an angel with a flaming sword will kill you." Not exactly a great reference.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2013 05:01PM by Finally Free!.

Nt



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2013 07:59PM by homoerectus.

The whole story doesn't make any sense at all. No one at all can even glimpse at these precious plates that Nephites have lugged around and buried in the ground for centuries. But JS gets his hands on some bona fide ancient Egyptian papyri and he charges people to roll on up and view it. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2013 06:24PM by sherlock.

Great Point!

Then there's the story that JS has to go dig the plates out of the mountain and run through the woods, but Moroni can come and take them and then bring them back and then take them again. Why didn't Moroni just bring them in the first place.

Of course, since they weren't even in the room when JS translated them, why didn't he just see them with his spiritual eyes.

This whole story is so ridiculous that I can't believe I actually believed it.

Not me.

It never made any sense to me why they had to go into the woods to pray and see an angel and see the plates. Why didn't Joseph Smith just show them the frickin' plates?

Oh yeah, that's right-because they didn't exist.

I like it when they say someone saw them with their "spiritual eyes" or in a "vision." You can dismiss them right then and there, IMO.

Plus, I find it highly unlikely that Emma would have not taken a peek at those plates laying around the house and it would have slipped out from her mouth how shiny and wonderful they were and someone would have heard her words.....this would have been me if I had been walking in her shoes.

Could anyone keep this secret if that occurred? Or maybe she was so afraid or in awe of joe, her low-down, lazy husband that mum had to be the word. He had a quick quick temper.

Baffles me. I need an orange peep stone quick.

I am just plain untrusting and more nosey than Emma; more like Lucy Harris. If my husband did not think enough of me to show me those amazin' plates, well, hells-bells. golly gee, I'd just take a look for myself.

If you took that look, and you saw phony plates, who would you tell? Daddy isn't happy that you married the jerk in the first place, you're living in a little shack behind daddy's house and you're pregnant.

If you're Emma, you swear you never looked.

Didn't Martin Harris say that no one saw the plates?

I find it funny the Martin Harris had a hard time seeing them at first. It wasn't until after a lot of fasting (emphasis on fasting) and prayer that he could finally see them. He had to get in the hallucinogenic zone to be able to see them.

Releve, see your point.

Food and a roof over your head can be needed, and pregnant she would have been. I'll bet she was just hoping, if she had taken that peek, that joe's shananigan might work---Geez-Louise, it had to work so they could move out of poverty. The point about her Daddy rings true also.

Emma must have been pretty butch to pick 250 pounds of gold plates while doing her cleaning.

Link to a thread about no one seeing the plates with their natural eyes only their "spiritual" eyes, or the eyes of understanding, except for Joe.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,945513,945513#msg-945513

I was under the impression, as in a testimony forming impression, after reading the testimony of the witnesses and after being fed other lies, that a few folks really did see the plates that Joseph Smith translated by the power of God.

The reality pisses me off.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2013 03:57AM by lastofthewine.

Has anyone here ever been taught at church that the 3/8 witnesses didn't experience a physical viewing? I've sat through countless gospel doctrine lessons and it has always been taught that they really witnessed then with their own eyes. Yet more deceit and cover up.

Who among the witnesses do you think is most credible? Did you know that all of the witnesses except Martin Harris were related at least by marriage?

Most, if not all of the witnesses had some form of familial connections to Joe Smith. they could aptly be described as cohorts in the plot / scam.

No independent (objective) outsider ever saw the (phantom) gold plates.

even if they did have to go to heaven for storage, it would have been so easy to make a wax casting off of some of the plates to demonstrate the engraved characters....

IF the stupid things had ever really existed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxJ7gKIymVo

I think the Smiths and the Whitmers which account for all of the eight witnesses were in on the scam. Of the three witnesses, Oliver Cowdery was a cousin to Joseph and married a Whitmer, then you have David Whitmer and the way the account shakes out, I think Martin Harris was a victim of "Emperors New Clothes" syndrome. Emma and Mary were protecting their men.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2013 08:15PM by releve.

I just read the account of the three witnesses as recorded in Rough Stone Rolling on page 78. Where did the table come from?

Testimony of eight witnesses:

"and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken."

This doesn't sound like seeing with spiritual eyes. I understand that the three witnesses could say that, but not the eight. They would have to have all been agreeable to a scam.