Joseph Smith as Translator Part 4

One teachings of the church of Jesus Christ facing viewpoint sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism. What were the tender bookplates welcome to this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism on your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRL, but we also have with us Sandra Tanner, the founder of Utah lighthouse ministry you want to check out their website. It's UT LM.org this week we have been looking at Joseph Smith as a translator and today we want to begin looking at the candor hook plates I would let you describe what this is all about. What are the candor hook plates. How did Joseph Smith come about getting a hold of these and what did he do with them when they claim about them well. In 1843. This is when the Mormons are in Nauvoo the year before Joseph dies some non-Mormon fellows evidently decided to pull a prank on the Mormons and they put together a set of these little brass small bell-shaped plates that they attached with wax on the plates and then etched in the characters and then poured acid on it to burn the characters into the plates and they made this set a phony plates that they dug a hole and hit him in and then the one fellow tells everyone that all it had a dream for three nights about some treasure out in the woods to go out and dig up any get some other guys and a Mormon guy to come along when they got to make this Dick and they dig down a number of feet and then come across these plates so everyone's impressed that these are authentic writings found in the ground and they bring them out and clean them off their full of covered with rust and everything and they take them to Joseph Smith to see what he has to say about them.

The Mormons immediately latch onto.

This is another proof of Joseph Smith's story that there were these people in the Americas different than the American Indian and that there was this whole other civilization and so when the plates are taken to Joseph.

He looks at them and according to the account in their documentary history of the church Joseph is reported as saying I have translated a portion of them and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendent of Ham to the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth. Now while it's put in the history of the church as those Joseph Smith speaking we know now that this is an extract from Joseph's Sec. William Clayton, who kept extensive accounts of Joseph's day-to-day life, one of several Mormons around Joseph Smith that kept diaries and the church utilizes William Clayton's diary in putting together the history of Joseph Smith's life and so Clayton's account of this was put into the history of the church as though Joseph Smith set it in the first person. Even so, although the Mormons will bring out that both Clayton was one the recorded that not Joseph Smith. You have to remember that Clayton was his personal secretary.

His bosom buddy and Clayton is used for all sorts of historical verification.

In looking at things he wrote in his journals at that's why they use this in the history of the church because he was accurately trying to represent what Joseph said from day-to-day. So the question comes up when Joseph Smith is looking at these plates and he gives this information that he can see on these plates that this is a record of the person that they were found with and that he is a descendent of Ham from Farrell from Egypt, then you have to ask where does the information come from because we know now that the plates are forgeries. There was no message on the plates. It's just chicken scratches and so there's no way for this kind information to come about, other than Joseph Smith's invention and his great imagination, in spite of the fact that Joseph didn't pen that he didn't write hardly anything, almost everything he did was written by subscribe and then put into his language as though he were the one that authored it up.

He did write the doctrine and covenants that subscribe sitting there taking his dictation he didn't write out the book of Mormon.

It was a scribe writing it down. Everything is done by scribes. So the fact that Clayton writes down to be as irrelevant. Clayton was not one to invent something a put words in Joseph's mouth. He says Joseph declared that these were from a descendent of Ham and Joseph has to come up with this by invention because there's no information on these plates to get from so then the question comes up were the plates authentic. Could he have really got this information from the plates or is he just doing a quick invention of a new suppose a translation, the statement word were just smooth claims is the history of the person with whom they were found. Apparently, this was an Indian burial mound.

The allegedly dig down and the police these plates there and they were near a skeleton. There were there's confusion as to how tall this person would've been based on the skeletal remains in that I don't know if that's a real argument against it because there was there was a chapter in a book titled producing ancient Scripture and it was edited by Michael Hubbard McKay Mark Ashurst McGee, which you know because he's a relative of yours and Brian M. Hoglund. There was a chapter or chapter 17 that dealt with the candor hook plates. It was titled president Joseph has translated a portion in them subtitled Joseph Smith in the mistranslation of the candor hook place this was written by Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst McGee.

I went through this chapter, Sandra M. It was kind of anticlimactic to tell you the truth, because there laying out all this evidence, I thought they did a lot of very excellent research and getting all the background and all the names and actually gets a little bit confusing with all the names and dates and so forth. They seem to admit is this title says that Pres. Joseph has translated a portion that we know that the candor hook plates were fabricated there, not ancient. Doesn't it seem like based on that statement that Joseph must've thought they were authentic to say that he could even translate a portion of them and give us that kind of information.

It sounds like Joseph Smith. His interest in Egyptology is now going to permeate this as well. Everything is all about Egypt. It seems with Joseph Smith which was unusual in the entire country at that time. But what does that tell us if if he can supposedly translate the dimmer using that with quotation marks as you said gibberish.

What does that say about him as a prophet. He can easily be fooled. Apparently, Jorge is a very clever imagination and takes advantage of any opportunity to promote his claim of having prophetic abilities, so he puts this to these people around him, as though this was something valid real information at that he's giving about these plates. Yet we know now that he couldn't retrieve information from those plates he could know nothing about that skeleton that was in the hill by the side of the plates. None of that checks out, which they can see today that none of the checks out. So then they have to do a smoothing over of the word translate obviously couldn't translate a portion of them. But what does that say about the man that he can so quickly on the spot come up with a story that impresses everyone with all my goodness wow what a discovery, but this is the story Joseph Smith's life. He can walk across the hill in Missouri and see a pile of rocks and determine its Adam Salter. He just comes up with stories on the spur of the moment, of whatever happens around him. He spends a great event out of it. I'm in the hill in his backyard is not just any hill of the hill where they had battles of millions of people fighting.

Let me read a portion from chapter 17 in this book, producing ancient Scripture and I got be quite honest I find the title to be intriguing, producing ancient Scripture which gives the impression he's he's inventing this he's making this up, this is what the authors Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst McGee say on page 453 of the book producing ancient Scripture they write. Decades later, one of the man who was present when the plates were disinterred revealed that the plates and their quote unquote discovery were a hoax will burn.

Fugate claimed that he and Robert Wiley had made the plates with some help from local blacksmith Ridge Whitten and then planted them in the burial mound the night before they were on earth in 1980 scientific testing confirmed the modern manufacture of the plates. It seems like a lot of Mormon scholars Mormon apologist Mormons in general felt that these plates were authentic and it wasn't until really 1980 when it was confirmed by modern testing that these were manufactured they were more of a modern invention, 1/19 century invention. Why would they want to insist that these plates were authentic for so long. Well, they felt it was another proof of the book of Mormon claim of outsiders coming to the New World and establishing a civilization here. So finding these plates if they truly were about someone, a descendent from Pam from Egypt that it would go to prove the book of Mormon can be an ancient record of a group of people that came here as well so they saw this all is vindication for it in four years. The Mormon church had maintained the plates were authentic even when it was revealed that the men claimed that it was a forgery, even after it came out that they admitted it was a forgery. The church maintained no there authentic and they do help through the book of Mormon and then end about the 70s as the subject started receiving more attention. The one surviving plate was tested without destroying any of the battle to see how it conformed to modern production or ancient production and when it was looked at. At that point they found that the thickness of the plates were of such a consistent depth all across the plate that it would have to be rolled metal.

Modern production because you couldn't have had that uniformity of thickness through the all of the plates.

Unless it was a modern production.

Then they also looked at the punch hole for the ring that went through it and the punch hole was determined to have been made by a modern metal punch because of the way it pushes through the metal that it would not be an ancient hole, but we still didn't have a test of the metal and so people could still maintain all know they really authentic that most measurements don't count so then you get up to 1980.

Then finally the Mormons were able to get approval from the Chicago museum that owns the plate to actually do a metal test and when they looked at the alloy of the metal. It was obvious it was a modern composition.

It could represent an ancient composition of the metal.

It was obviously a fraud and was firmly concluded that everyone admitted that it was a fraud. So, then the argument has to shift from all there authentic and they happen to help prove the book of Mormon, then shifts to all right they were frauds, but that has nothing to do with any detriment to Joseph Smith because he didn't really translate them. Let's talk about that tomorrow.

Shall we been talking to Sandra Tanner, the founder of Utah lighthouse ministry. Check out the website you TL M.Ward.

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