Item Detail
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17817
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3
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0
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English
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The Kinderhook Plates : Examining a Nineteenth-Century Hoax
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Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
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2003
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96
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2
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Urbana, IL
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University of Illinois Press; Illinois State Historical Society
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130-145
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The Kinderhook Plates were created by three conspirators who lived in Kinderhook, Illinois, who wanted to expose Joseph Smith as a fraud. Peters notes that Joseph Smith "never officially commented on the authenticity" of the Kinderhook Plates. In 1981, Stanley Kimball employed scientific tests and research to conclude that the plates were simply a frontier hoax. Peters notes that Church leaders and Mormon historians accepted the plates as valid until Kimball's findings were reported. He contends that the Church needs to recognize, discuss, and resolve this matter of the hoax being accepted as valid by Church prophets, leaders, and historians for nearly 160 years.