Joseph Smith as Translator Part 5

Viewpoint one is the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints viewpoint on Mormonism is 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 hoping you're having a very pleasant Friday. Welcome to this additional viewpoint on Mormonism on your host Bill McKeever Felder director Mormonism research ministry in with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM.

We also have with us this week Sandra Tanner she's with the Utah lighthouse ministry. Their website is UT LM.org and we been talking about Joseph Smith as a translator.

Yesterday we began looking at the topic of the kindred hook plates and we gave a little bit of background that the kindred bookplates were a set of bell-shaped brass plates with characters on them that Joseph Smith claimed he could translate but yet as we read yesterday.

They were actually the product of some men who wanted to I guess you could say prove that Joseph Smith was not a true prophet and they manufactured these plates with these characters on them in order to fool the prophet now and yesterday show Sandra. We were talking about the fact that Joseph Smith did look at the plates and came up with this idea that as it says according to this chapter in the book producing ancient Scripture.

This is a chapter title Pres. Joseph has translated a portion it was written by Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst McGee on page 452 it says according to William Clayton, who was Joseph Smith's secretary very trusted man, a man of what we understand to be pretty credible.

I've been lately. He's a faithful follower of Joseph Smith used Joseph Smith's private clerk of the book says Smith had quote translated a portion" of the plates and said that they contain. Quote the history of the person with whom they were found, a descendent of ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Now that's all we get from Joseph Smith. He doesn't end up translating the rest of these characters does that really help or hurt Joseph Smith. The plates are not authentic, which we know now they are not that Joseph Smith could not read tree any information from the plates. There was nothing that could tell them that this was a descendent of ham and a descendent of Pharaoh, so this has to all come from his own personal imagination, for whatever reason he has. He's spinning a story that can't be produced from that object in front of him and so this raises the question what is Joseph Smith doing at the different times when he claims to be for receiving revelation or doing a translation we know the other studies done have no historic foundation when he does the book of Abraham. We know that the translation of the papyri don't match what he said they were supposed to say with the book of Mormon.

We don't have any place to even look at because he gave him back to the angel when he does the book of Moses is just strictly him looking at the book of Genesis and getting a revelation of how it should have been written so this is typical of how he does his other writings, he just pontificates of what something is really about. But we have the chance to check on this one because the plates are not authentic. So where does he get the information.

Obviously he is a spinner of yarns easily comes up with stories anything that can't process path they can make it be important and spin a story from that in this chapter. As I mentioned yesterday show I was pretty impressed with the research of Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst McGee put into this. A lot of the background information was just amazing, but I was certainly disappointed with their conclusion. As I said it was kind of anticlimactic.

I would think that what you have just said would be enough information to hopefully convince an honest individual that we have a serious problem here with Joseph Smith's credibility or claim were of his ability to translate ancient texts. This seems to be in that area alone enough to sue slammed the lid on this subject but yet they give a conclusion that I thought was very disappointing. What they had set on the early part of the chapter page 453 show that they that they agree that Joseph Smith did translate a portion of the kindred hook plates which again were fraught.

It was a joke being played on Joseph Smith and then he dies before he has a chance to actually lay out his translation, but this is what they write sources strongly indicate that Smith did indeed attempt to translate a portion of their fraudulent inscriptions at the same time, these sources indicate that Smith attempted to translate the plates by ordinary methods of traditional translation not by revelation. Now that makes us different than what we've been talking about this past week.

I mean, he translates the book of Mormon, the book of Abraham, the book of Moses, all of those come through revelation.

Even the adjustment translation of the Bible, but this one supposedly he's going to take the characters that these men have inscribed on these on these brass plates and is going to say exactly what was said that would help prove the book of Mormon. I think as you both insane. If I'm a latter-day St. These kindred hook plates are the final nail in the coffin. Would you agree with that center because of the reason why asked. That is because I admit were outsiders.

We don't have any loyalty to Joseph Smith. But if you are a faithful member in the church. Should this be the convincing evidence when you add up everything else you add up the book of Mormon you at the Joseph Smith translation, the book of Abraham, the book of Moses and that we get to the kindred hook plates. This guy doesn't have the ability to translate. Yet many latter-day Saints have been led to believe he does. Would this be enough to finally say okay. I've had it with this guy. Well, I would think so. I would have thought that what would've arrived at that conclusion.

Studying all of his works in translation even before this, but at least at this point we see a clear case of Joseph presenting his understanding of these plates and that way that is authenticating the plates is if he had prophetic ability. Why wasn't he able to just immediately declare all way to make you guys, you just made these up to fool me. I can see these are forgeries that would've been impressive, but no. Instead he starts giving a series of statements giving information that he supposedly retrieving off of these plates there no information to retrieve, so it has to come from his imagination. So where is the prophetic ability in any of this. He just been stories so let's let's take all this into account. I just went through a number of things that we have covered just in the past few days.

Smith is giving the impression that he can do things that he cannot do right there.

Wouldn't seem to be enough that the man is lying to us.

He's lying to his people. He's lying to those who were close to him those who trust in him.

William Clayton being one of them. He's there with a group of men. I think this was on May 7, 1843 he speaking to not only members of his own church, but also some gentlemen as they are described who do not belong to the church and he's making this comment he makes that comment so we know he has the actual plates at that time, and as you mentioned will have one in existence now he's making these statements that now looking back, seems to show very clearly that is not an honest man and yet Joseph Smith is often portrayed as being this pillar of virtue. I don't know I just get frustrated with why is it that so many latter-day Saints continue to want to defend this man with all the evidence seems to point against and what are your thoughts on that. Well I would like to Mormon to explain to me what does it mean to be a true prophet of God and how would you know if he wasn't. How would you determine if Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God wouldn't be by looking at such things as this, because obviously just testimony isn't sufficient. Mormons had a testimony for decades that the kindred hook plates were authentic, the Mormon church published articles defending the candor plates as authentic. Let me stop you there because wouldn't be the reason that they thought they were authentic is because Joseph Smith gave a rendering of a portion of them. I would think that would all be connected.

Yes, they saw the issue if he said they were authentic. They have to be on and yet they find out in 1980.

Absolutely these are not authentic. This was clearly a joke even admitted to be in a joke by the people who perpetrated the fraud and now a 1980s but it's like oh well it's it's not real and we just move along.

There's nothing to see here. It's just mind-boggling to me.

Mormon scholars today want to dismiss this and say that there is no reason to expect Joseph Smith to be right on everything and that this was just a personal opinion, it's not like when he's doing his Scriptures by revelation and they want to dismiss it as just a sideline issue of his life. But if we can't trust them when he's daily. Talking about doing translation then how do we build the case for a man that's reliable they want me to trust my salvation to this man and to his word, but where we can check them he fails so why would I continue to trust in him. Bill, do you see the irony of the entire situation of fraudulent translator is fooled by a fraud himself.

I think that's just desserts. It does seem very ironic there's there's no tell him about that Joseph Smith got caught. He just flat out got caught in the way that a lot of members of the church make excuses for him.

Just it just like I said, it just boggles my mind that all this evidence seems to be set aside because they have a feeling than they want to trust in this guy and I can understand their whole life is built around this belief system but when you have your own scholars admitting that he did in fact translate a portion of them then becomes a question because the film is a fraud, he translated a portion of a fraud and as you stated, how do you do that you can't translate a bunch of gibberish. It means nothing whatsoever. Any final thoughts regarding Joseph Smith is a translator.

Well them at church today is trying very hard to move people away from using the word translation or translator literally because they realize they are on the horns of a dilemma.

Nothing. He touched nothing he claimed to translate can be seen as a true rendering in any normal sense of the word of translation so the only way they can save Joseph Smith's reputation is to switch to seeing it as inspiration and then you can believe anything when she moved to that room because it's non-verifiable. There's not any way to test it.

If you want to learn more about the kindred hook plates Utah lighthouse ministry has put together a track called Joseph Smith in the kindred hook plates and there's also a wonderful section in Mormonism's outer reality. I would recommend you look at that because there's but there are several pages talking more about this issue. I it's a fascinating issue and not one that I knew much about before I did a little bit of study these past couple weeks we've been talking with Sandra Taylor. He's a founder of Utah lighthouse ministry.

As I mentioned earlier, check out their website you TL M.org and Cinderella.

Thank you again for coming on because you always have a lot of good things to add to this discussion are I think thank you for listening you would like more information regarding this research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website www.mrm.org you can request a free newsletter Mormonism research. We hope you join us again as we look at another viewpoint is