Why don’t we have the original signed testimonies of the 11 Book of Mormon witnesses? Did they ever consent to signing such a document? In this episode of Faith & Beliefs, David explores these questions and more.
Video transcript: saintsunscript...
- Episode on David Whitmer: bit.ly/3h0IirB
- Episode on Martin Harris: bit.ly/3iTPbNh
- Episode on Oliver Cowdery: bit.ly/3lQHUzw
- Episode on the 8 witnesses: bit.ly/43aXg7W
- Episode on the “unofficial” witnesses: bit.ly/3zCkzK0
- Episode on claims that Joseph Smith “hypnotized” the witnesses: bit.ly/3GgAZLW
- Episode analyzing common criticisms against the witnesses: bit.ly/3m7NRx2
- “Evaluating the Book of Mormon Witnesses,” by Steven Harper (BYU Studies): bit.ly/2Qtz9wP
- “Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses,” by Richard Lloyd Anderson (Journal of Book of Mormon Studies): bit.ly/39uoxc6
- "The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon," Improvement Era 3/1 (Nov. 1899): 61-65 (report on interview with David Whitmer): bit.ly/3nME2VU
- “The Church Historian’s Press Releases Landmark Volume on the Original Book of Mormon Manuscript” via the Church’s newsroom: bit.ly/3Gkehmm
- “No Document of Actual Signatures” via The CES Letter: A Closer Look: bit.ly/3mio2ua
- “Question: Did the Three Witnesses each add their own signature to the original Book of Mormon manuscript?” via FAIR: bit.ly/3KdKWef
Notes:
- There are a few different accounts of the 1878 interview between Smith/Pratt and D. Whitmer. The most commonly quoted one comes from the Nov. 1899 Improvement Era (pg. 63). Another appears in Joseph F. Smith’s diary entry (see Early Mormon Documents 5:47). And another (the one in this video) appears in a letter to John Taylor and the Council of the Twelve, published in the Deseret Evening News, Nov. 16, 1878 (EMD 5:49). The later Improvement Era source only mentions original signatures for the 3 witnesses. The JSF diary source mentions signatures for “all the witnesses” (I’m assuming all 11). And the letter source attributes original signatures to “the eleven witnesses”.
- In an 1885 interview between Henry Moyle and David Whitmer (long after the interview with Smith and Pratt), Moyle reported that “The witnesses did not sign the original manuscript though [they] were present and ordered Oliver Cowdry to sign for them.” If David Whitmer still believed he had the original manuscript, then this statement would actually apply to the Printer’s Manuscript (which makes sense, since he elsewhere indicates that each of the witnesses signed his own name to the original). Moyle even noted in his diary: “The statement that the three witnesses did not sign the manuscript but that Oliver Cowdery signed for them and at their request is doubtless true as to the copy which David Whitmer had. The writing itself indicates that. Joseph Fielding Smith, church historian, says his father said that in his interview and that of Orson Pratt, David Whitmer admitted that the three witnesses signed the original manuscript.” See EMD 5:141-142.
The evidence is strong that all of the originals were signed by each witness, but even if this statement did apply to the original documents, that’d be fine. Whether they signed or consented for Oliver to sign, they agreed with and consented to uphold the printed testimonies.
- One more source on this subject: Joseph Smith’s history reports that the 3 witnesses “drew up and subscribed” the document published as their testimony. Source: bit.ly/3KiWfBN
- One quote may turn up in the comment section in which Martin Harris is reported as saying, “the eight witnesses never saw them [the plates] & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it….” Harris (who was not present when the 8 witnessed the plates) reportedly felt misrepresented by these comments and publicly defended himself. For a full treatment of this issue, see Richard Lloyd Anderson’s “Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses” in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. You can read it for free here: bit.ly/39uoxc6 (pgs. 23-27). In short, as Anderson said on another occasion: “I’ve got something like sixty times when those witnesses say essentially, ‘yes, what I wrote in the Book of Mormon was true.’ … So those men said they stood by their testimony and so the testimony said they saw and handled, and I’m supposed to believe on this secondhand statement of a very hostile and angry man in Kirtland that Martin Harris said the eight witnesses admitted that they didn’t see or they only saw in a vision?” Source: bit.ly/3KE2pxS
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5 сен 2024
