Item Detail
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20159
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14
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21
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English
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Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses
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Journal of Book of Mormon Studies
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2005
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14
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1
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Provo, UT
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Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
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18-31
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An angel showed the Book of Mormon plates to the Three Witnesses, who heard God’s voice declare the translation correct.* But the Eight Witnesses report handling the plates under natural circumstances, describing color, substantial weight, individual leaves with engraved writings, and careful craftsmanship throughout. Critics have reacted variously to such physical language. Some see the Eight Witnesses as participants in a fraud. But their lives do not fit that mold, since all suffered in the severe persecutions of early Mormonism and not one reversed his written testimony. Other critics acknowledge sincerity and suppose Joseph Smith constructed an imitation. But the Eight Witnesses were tradesmen and farmers who worked with materials and would recognize a clumsy counterfeit. More recent skeptics advance a double theory: (1) that at various times Joseph Smith allowed the eight men to lift but not see a heavy covered object; (2) that these men testified of seeing plates because of a vision induced by enthusiasm or mind control. This theory is showcased by arbitrary interpretation of very few documents. This article discusses sources that have been misused in attempts to reverse the Eight Witnesses’ statement about their physical contact with the ancient record. [From the text]
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An Apologetically Important Nonapologetic Book
Editor's Introduction, Not So Easily Dismissed : Some Facts for acts for Which Counterexplanations of the Book of Mormon Will Need to Account
Eighth Witness : The Biography of John Whitmer
Et Incarnatus Est : The Imperative for Book of Mormon Historicity
Evaluating the Book of Mormon Witnesses
History and the Claims of Revelation : Joseph Smith and the Materialization of the Golden Plates
"Idle and Slothful Strange Stories" : Book of Mormon Origins and the Historical Record
Knowing Why: 137 Evidences that the Book of Mormon is True
Oliver Cowdery : Scribe, Elder, Witness : Essays from BYU Studies and FARMS
Probing the Lives of Christ and Joseph Smith
Review Of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989-2011
The Book of Mormon Witnesses and Their Challenge to Secularism
The Expanded Canon : Perspectives on Mormonism and Sacred Texts
"We Did Again Take Our Journey" -
An Insider's View of Mormon Origins
David Whitmer Interviews : A Restoration Witness
Early Mormon Documents : Volume I
Early Mormon Documents : Volume II
Early Mormon Documents : Volume III
Early Mormon Documents : Volume V
From Historian to Dissident : The Book of John Whitmer
History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Period I : History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, by Himself
History of the Scandinavian Mission
Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses
Joseph Smith : The Making of a Prophet
Lucy's Book : A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir
Mormonism Unvailed : Or, a Faithful Account of That Singular Imposition and Delusion From Its Rise to the Present Time
Personal Writings of the Book of Mormon Witnesses
The History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
The Journals of William E. McLellin 1831-1836
The Validity of the Witnesses' Testimonies
Wayward Saints : The Godbeites and Brigham Young
William E. McLellin's Testimony of the Book of Mormon
William Smith on Mormonism
Women's Voices : An Untold History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900