The Book of Mormon witnesses were a group of contemporaries of Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen the golden plates from which Smith translated the Book of Mormon. The most significant witnesses were the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, all of whom allowed their names to be used on two separate statements included with the Book of Mormon. Critics have challenged the nature and reliability of the accounts, but church leaders contend that none of the witnesses ever denied what they saw.
The Three Witnesses were a group of three early leaders of the Latter Day Saint movement who wrote in a statement of 1829 that an angel had shown them the golden plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and that they had heard God's voice testifying that the book had been translated by the power of God.
The Three Witnesses were Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer, whose joint testimony, in conjunction with a separate statement by Eight Witnesses, has been printed with every edition of the Book of Mormon since its first publication in 1830. All three witnesses eventually broke with Smith and were excommunicated from the church.[1] In 1838, Joseph Smith called Cowdery, Harris, and Whitmer "too mean to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them."[2] Oliver Cowdery temporarily became a member of the Methodist Church, while Martin Harris adopted some Shaker beliefs. After the death of Joseph Smith, Harris and Cowdery sought rebaptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints[3][4] and Whitmer founded the Church of Christ (Whitmerite).[5]
Unlike the Three Witnesses, the Eight testified that they both saw and handled the plates. Another difference is that the Eight testified they were shown the plates by Joseph Smith rather than by an angel as the Three had. Christian Whitmer died in 1835 and his brother Peter Whitmer, Jr. died the following year. In 1838, the surviving Whitmers became estranged from Joseph Smith during a leadership struggle in Far West, Missouri, and all three were excommunicated with other dissenters,[7] never to rejoin The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. None of the Eight Witnesses are known to have denied his testimony of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon or the golden plates.[8]
Mary Musselman Whitmer (1778–1856), the mother of five Witnesses, who took care of the household in Fayette, New York, where much of the translation occurred, said that an angel showed her the plates and thus made her more content to continue her daily labors.[9] Joseph Smith made no mention of this visitation in his journal.
Responsesedit
Criticismedit
Critics of the Latter Day Saint movement—from late nineteenth-century clergymen to Mark Twain to modern agnostics, evangelical Christians, and even some unorthodox ("Big Tent") Mormons—argue that the testimonies of the witnesses cannot be taken at face value.
According to Grant H. Palmer, the Book of Mormon witnesses had a "nineteenth-century magical mindset" rather than "a rationalist perspective." They believed in what was called "second sight. Traditionally, this included the ability to see spirits and their dwelling places within the local hills and elsewhere."[10] A number of the witnesses possessed and used seer stones; Oliver Cowdery was a rodsman.[11] As Tufts University professor John L. Brooke has observed, many of the earliest Mormons were "very much attuned to the supernatural powers of witchcraft."[12] "Far removed from our own modern empiricism, the world view of the witnesses is difficult for us to grasp," and thus it is less impressive that "three signatories to the Book of Mormon saw and heard an angel."[13]
All the witnesses were family, close friends, or financial backers of Joseph Smith. Cowdery, Page, and the five Whitmers were related by marriage.[14]Mark Twain later joked, "I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified."[15]
Although Harris continued to testify to the truth of the Book of Mormon even when he was estranged from the church, at least during the early years of the movement, he "seems to have repeatedly admitted the internal, subjective nature of his visionary experience."[16]
After Smith's death, James Strang, claiming to be Smith's chosen successor, also produced buried plates and the testimony of eleven witnesses to their authenticity. All living witnesses to the Book of Mormon (except possibly Cowdery)—three of the Whitmers, Martin Harris, and Hiram Page—accepted at least briefly Strang's "leadership, angelic call, metal plates, and his translation of these plates as authentic."[17]
Apologeticsedit
LDS church leaders and student manuals note that none of the witnesses ever denied his testimony as it was printed in the Book of Mormon nor denied that Smith was a true prophet at the time he translated the book.[18]
Apologists note that after being excommunicated, Harris and Cowdery later returned to the church.[19]
^Brodie, Fawn (1971). No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. Knopf. ISBN978-0-394-46967-6. All three witnesses eventually quarreled with Joseph and left his church. At their going he heaped abuse upon them, but none ever denied the reality of his vision, and Cowdery and Harris eventually were rebaptized. Joseph had no fear in vilifying them; he neither expected nor received reprisals. For he had conjured up a vision they would never forget.
^Whitmer, David. An Address to All Believers in Christ.
^Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 79: "Critics pointed out how many of the witnesses were members of the Smith and Whitmer families, implying that they signed out of loyalty or from a self-serving motive....The witnesses were no substitute for making the plates accessible to anyone for examination, but the testimonies showed Joseph—and God—answering doubters with concrete evidence, a concession to the needs of post-Enlightenment Christians."
^Bushman, 337,339, 350–51. On June 17, Sidney Rigdon "preached a vitriolic sermon based on the theme of salt losing its savor and being cast out and trodden underfoot....Soon after the sermon, eighty-three prominent members in Far West, many of them probably Danites by then, signed an ultimatum demanding the departure of the offenders....Fearing for their property and perhaps their lives, the dissenters fled." (355–51) In 1847, David, John, and Jacob Whitmer and Hiram Page were baptized into the newly formed Church of Christ founded by William E. M'Lellin. In 1831, Joseph Smith received a revelation from God that John Whitmer should "write and keep a regular history" of the church (D&C 47). Whitmer did eventually write such a history, but one which concluded with a detailed description of what Whitmer considered the mistreatment that he and his family had received in Caldwell County. See Bruce N. Westerngren, From Historian to Dissident: The Book of John Whitmer (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995).
^Anderson, Gale Yancey (Spring 2012), "Eleven Witnesses Behold the Plates", Journal of Mormon History, 38 (2): 155
^"David Whitmer Interview with Edward Stevenson, 9 February 1888,"in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2003), 5: 160–61; John C. Whitmer Interview with Andrew Jenson and Edward Stevenson, 11 October 1888," in EMD 5: 260–62. John Whitmer said that his grandmother always referred to the supernatural visitor as "Brother Nephi."
^Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 175. Palmer devotes an entire chapter to the magical mindset of the Book of Mormon Witnesses.
^D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), rev. ed., 239-40.
^John L. Brooke, The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 77.
^Quoted in Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), second ed., 79.
^Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 2: 255. The foreman in the Palmyra printing office that produced the first Book of Mormon said that Harris "used to practice a good deal of his characteristic jargon and 'seeing with the spiritual eye,' and the like." Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1867), 71 in EMD, 3: 122. John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for most of the book, said that he had asked Harris, "Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?" According to Gilbert, Harris "looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, 'No, I saw them with a spiritual eye." John H. Gilbert, "Memorandum," 8 September 1892, in EMD, 2: 548. Two other Palmyra residents said that Harris told them that he had seen the plates with "the eye of faith" or "spiritual eyes." Martin Harris interviews with John A. Clark, 1827 & 1828 in EMD, 2: 270; Jesse Townsend to Phineas Stiles, 24 December 1833, in EMD, 3: 22. In 1838, Harris is said to have told an Ohio congregation that "he never saw the plates with his natural eyes, only in vision or imagination." Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 15 April 1838 in EMD, 2: 291. A neighbor of Harris in Kirtland, Ohio, said that Harris "never claimed to have seen [the plates] with his natural eyes, only spiritual vision." Reuben P. Harmon statement, c. 1885, in EMD, 2: 385.
^See, e.g., Dallin H. Oaks, "The Witness: Martin Harris", Ensign, May 1999; James E. Faust, "A Growing Testimony", Ensign, November 2011; Henry B. Eyring, "An Enduring Testimony of the Witness of the Prophet Joseph", Liahona, November 2003;"Lesson 4: Remember the New Covenant, Even the Book of Mormon", Doctrine and Covenants and Church History: Gospel Doctrine Teacher's Manual (1999).
^A list of articles is available in the FAIR Topical Guide, under Book of Mormon Witnesses July 25, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. See also FARMS search results: Three Witnesses Richard Lloyd Anderson, Book of Mormon Witnesses
January 01, 1970
book, mormon, witnesses, were, group, contemporaries, joseph, smith, claimed, have, seen, golden, plates, from, which, smith, translated, book, mormon, most, significant, witnesses, were, three, witnesses, eight, witnesses, whom, allowed, their, names, used, s. The Book of Mormon witnesses were a group of contemporaries of Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen the golden plates from which Smith translated the Book of Mormon The most significant witnesses were the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses all of whom allowed their names to be used on two separate statements included with the Book of Mormon Critics have challenged the nature and reliability of the accounts but church leaders contend that none of the witnesses ever denied what they saw Contents 1 Three Witnesses 2 Eight Witnesses 3 Another witness 4 Responses 4 1 Criticism 4 2 Apologetics 5 See also 6 ReferencesThree Witnesses editMain article Three Witnesses The Three Witnesses were a group of three early leaders of the Latter Day Saint movement who wrote in a statement of 1829 that an angel had shown them the golden plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and that they had heard God s voice testifying that the book had been translated by the power of God The Three Witnesses were Oliver Cowdery Martin Harris and David Whitmer whose joint testimony in conjunction with a separate statement by Eight Witnesses has been printed with every edition of the Book of Mormon since its first publication in 1830 All three witnesses eventually broke with Smith and were excommunicated from the church 1 In 1838 Joseph Smith called Cowdery Harris and Whitmer too mean to mention and we had liked to have forgotten them 2 Oliver Cowdery temporarily became a member of the Methodist Church while Martin Harris adopted some Shaker beliefs After the death of Joseph Smith Harris and Cowdery sought rebaptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints 3 4 and Whitmer founded the Church of Christ Whitmerite 5 The Three Witnesses nbsp Oliver Cowdery nbsp Martin Harris nbsp David WhitmerEight Witnesses editMain article Eight Witnesses The Eight Witnesses were the second of the two groups of special witnesses to the Book of Mormon s golden plates They were all members of the Whitmer or Smith families Christian Whitmer Jacob Whitmer Peter Whitmer Jr John Whitmer Hiram Page Joseph Smith Sr Hyrum Smith and Samuel Harrison Smith Joseph Smith Sr was Joseph s father and Hyrum and Samuel H Smith were his brothers Christian Jacob Peter Jr and John were David Whitmer s brothers and Hiram Page was his brother in law 6 Unlike the Three Witnesses the Eight testified that they both saw and handled the plates Another difference is that the Eight testified they were shown the plates by Joseph Smith rather than by an angel as the Three had Christian Whitmer died in 1835 and his brother Peter Whitmer Jr died the following year In 1838 the surviving Whitmers became estranged from Joseph Smith during a leadership struggle in Far West Missouri and all three were excommunicated with other dissenters 7 never to rejoin The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints None of the Eight Witnesses are known to have denied his testimony of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon or the golden plates 8 Name Date of birth Place of birth Occupation Death Christian Whitmer 18 January 1798 Age 31 Harrisburg Pennsylvania Shoemaker law enforcement officer 27 November 1835 Clay County Missouri Jacob Whitmer nbsp 27 January 1800 Age 29 Harrisburg Pennsylvania Shoemaker 21 April 1856 Richmond Missouri Peter Whitmer Jr 27 September 1809 Age 19 Fayette New York Tailor 22 September 1836 Clay County Missouri John Whitmer nbsp 27 August 1809 Age 20 Harrisburg Pennsylvania Farmer 11 July 1878 Far West Missouri Hiram Page c 1800 Age 29 Vermont Physician 12 August 1852 Excelsior Springs Missouri Joseph Smith Sr nbsp 12 July 1771 Age 58 Topsfield Massachusetts Farmer schoolteacher 14 September 1840 Nauvoo Illinois Hyrum Smith nbsp 9 February 1800 Age 29 Tunbridge Vermont Farmer schoolteacher 27 June 1844 Carthage Illinois Samuel H Smith nbsp 13 March 1808 Age 21 Tunbridge Vermont Farmer 27 July 1844 Nauvoo Illinois Another witness editMain article Mary Whitmer Mary Musselman Whitmer 1778 1856 the mother of five Witnesses who took care of the household in Fayette New York where much of the translation occurred said that an angel showed her the plates and thus made her more content to continue her daily labors 9 Joseph Smith made no mention of this visitation in his journal Responses editCriticism edit Critics of the Latter Day Saint movement from late nineteenth century clergymen to Mark Twain to modern agnostics evangelical Christians and even some unorthodox Big Tent Mormons argue that the testimonies of the witnesses cannot be taken at face value According to Grant H Palmer the Book of Mormon witnesses had a nineteenth century magical mindset rather than a rationalist perspective They believed in what was called second sight Traditionally this included the ability to see spirits and their dwelling places within the local hills and elsewhere 10 A number of the witnesses possessed and used seer stones Oliver Cowdery was a rodsman 11 As Tufts University professor John L Brooke has observed many of the earliest Mormons were very much attuned to the supernatural powers of witchcraft 12 Far removed from our own modern empiricism the world view of the witnesses is difficult for us to grasp and thus it is less impressive that three signatories to the Book of Mormon saw and heard an angel 13 All the witnesses were family close friends or financial backers of Joseph Smith Cowdery Page and the five Whitmers were related by marriage 14 Mark Twain later joked I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified 15 Although Harris continued to testify to the truth of the Book of Mormon even when he was estranged from the church at least during the early years of the movement he seems to have repeatedly admitted the internal subjective nature of his visionary experience 16 After Smith s death James Strang claiming to be Smith s chosen successor also produced buried plates and the testimony of eleven witnesses to their authenticity All living witnesses to the Book of Mormon except possibly Cowdery three of the Whitmers Martin Harris and Hiram Page accepted at least briefly Strang s leadership angelic call metal plates and his translation of these plates as authentic 17 Apologetics edit LDS church leaders and student manuals note that none of the witnesses ever denied his testimony as it was printed in the Book of Mormon nor denied that Smith was a true prophet at the time he translated the book 18 Apologists note that after being excommunicated Harris and Cowdery later returned to the church 19 See also edit nbsp Latter Day Saint movement portal Reformed EgyptianReferences edit Brodie Fawn 1971 No Man Knows My History The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet Knopf ISBN 978 0 394 46967 6 All three witnesses eventually quarreled with Joseph and left his church At their going he heaped abuse upon them but none ever denied the reality of his vision and Cowdery and Harris eventually were rebaptized Joseph had no fear in vilifying them he neither expected nor received reprisals For he had conjured up a vision they would never forget B H Roberts ed History of the Church Salt Lake City Deseret News 1905 3 232 The Witness Martin Harris www churchofjesuschrist org Retrieved 2019 12 28 Oliver Cowdery Scribe Elder Witness BYU Studies byustudies byu edu Retrieved 2019 12 28 Whitmer David An Address to All Believers in Christ Richard Lyman Bushman Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling New York Alfred A Knopf 2005 79 Critics pointed out how many of the witnesses were members of the Smith and Whitmer families implying that they signed out of loyalty or from a self serving motive The witnesses were no substitute for making the plates accessible to anyone for examination but the testimonies showed Joseph and God answering doubters with concrete evidence a concession to the needs of post Enlightenment Christians Bushman 337 339 350 51 On June 17 Sidney Rigdon preached a vitriolic sermon based on the theme of salt losing its savor and being cast out and trodden underfoot Soon after the sermon eighty three prominent members in Far West many of them probably Danites by then signed an ultimatum demanding the departure of the offenders Fearing for their property and perhaps their lives the dissenters fled 355 51 In 1847 David John and Jacob Whitmer and Hiram Page were baptized into the newly formed Church of Christ founded by William E M Lellin In 1831 Joseph Smith received a revelation from God that John Whitmer should write and keep a regular history of the church D amp C 47 Whitmer did eventually write such a history but one which concluded with a detailed description of what Whitmer considered the mistreatment that he and his family had received in Caldwell County See Bruce N Westerngren From Historian to Dissident The Book of John Whitmer Salt Lake City Signature Books 1995 Anderson Gale Yancey Spring 2012 Eleven Witnesses Behold the Plates Journal of Mormon History 38 2 155 David Whitmer Interview with Edward Stevenson 9 February 1888 in Dan Vogel Early Mormon Documents Salt Lake City Signature Books 2003 5 160 61 John C Whitmer Interview with Andrew Jenson and Edward Stevenson 11 October 1888 in EMD 5 260 62 John Whitmer said that his grandmother always referred to the supernatural visitor as Brother Nephi Grant H Palmer An Insider s View of Mormon Origins Salt Lake City Signature Books 2002 175 Palmer devotes an entire chapter to the magical mindset of the Book of Mormon Witnesses D Michael Quinn Early Mormonism and the Magic World View Salt Lake City Signature Books 1998 rev ed 239 40 John L Brooke The Refiner s Fire The Making of Mormon Cosmology 1644 1844 New York Cambridge University Press 1994 77 Palmer 194 95 Palmer 179 Quoted in Fawn Brodie No Man Knows My History The Life of Joseph Smith New York Alfred A Knopf 1986 second ed 79 Vogel Early Mormon Documents 2 255 The foreman in the Palmyra printing office that produced the first Book of Mormon said that Harris used to practice a good deal of his characteristic jargon and seeing with the spiritual eye and the like Pomeroy Tucker Origin Rise and Progress of Mormonism New York D Appleton and Co 1867 71 in EMD 3 122 John H Gilbert the typesetter for most of the book said that he had asked Harris Martin did you see those plates with your naked eyes According to Gilbert Harris looked down for an instant raised his eyes up and said No I saw them with a spiritual eye John H Gilbert Memorandum 8 September 1892 in EMD 2 548 Two other Palmyra residents said that Harris told them that he had seen the plates with the eye of faith or spiritual eyes Martin Harris interviews with John A Clark 1827 amp 1828 in EMD 2 270 Jesse Townsend to Phineas Stiles 24 December 1833 in EMD 3 22 In 1838 Harris is said to have told an Ohio congregation that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination Stephen Burnett to Lyman E Johnson 15 April 1838 in EMD 2 291 A neighbor of Harris in Kirtland Ohio said that Harris never claimed to have seen the plates with his natural eyes only spiritual vision Reuben P Harmon statement c 1885 in EMD 2 385 Palmer 212 13 See e g Dallin H Oaks The Witness Martin Harris Ensign May 1999 James E Faust A Growing Testimony Ensign November 2011 Henry B Eyring An Enduring Testimony of the Witness of the Prophet Joseph Liahona November 2003 Lesson 4 Remember the New Covenant Even the Book of Mormon Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Gospel Doctrine Teacher s Manual 1999 A list of articles is available in the FAIR Topical Guide under Book of Mormon Witnesses Archived July 25 2008 at the Wayback Machine See also FARMS search results Three Witnesses Richard Lloyd Anderson Book of Mormon Witnesses Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Book of Mormon witnesses amp oldid 1224588546, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
