Yes, there were witnesses, who, as someone else said, never took back what they said. Even those who fell away from the church did not rescind their testimonies.
Testimony of the Three Witnesses:HTTP://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/thrwtnss
Testimony of the Eight Witnesses: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/eghtwtns
Article about Martin Harris, one of the witnesses who fell away from the church and then joined again. http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d 82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=2aaf84d4a0a0c010VgnVC M1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1
3 Witnesses - they were given a spiritual witness, this does not mean that they did not view physical objects, but that they also saw an angel. They were given the opportunity to touch the plates.
Oliver Cowdery: Left the Church, came back later - actually handled the plates.
David Whitmer: Left the Church, never returned - actually handled the plates.
Martin Harris: Left the Church, came back later - did not handle the plates.
8 Witnesses- They were given a physical witness, meaning they were not privileged to witness an angel. They were shown the plates, handled the leaves and reported what they saw, IE: the appearance of the plates, the appearance of the engraving upon the leaves of the plates.
Christian Whitmer: Remained faithful.
Jacob Whitmer: Left the Church, never returned.
Peter Whitmer, Jr: Remained faithful
John Whitmer: Left the Church, never returned.
Hiram Page: Left the Church, never returned.
Joseph Smith, Sr: Remained faithful.
Hyrum Smith: Remained faithful.
Samuel Smith: Remained faithful.
If the Church was not correct, you would think that the four men who never came back would have renounced their witness. But every one of these 11 men maintained that what they witnessed had happened and was true to their deaths.
That is a great question. The people who say there were no witnesses are sadly mistaken. Eleven men saw and handled the plates. Their names and testimonies are still printed in the front of every copy of the Book of Mormon.
The Three Witnesses:
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/thrwtnss
The Eight Witnesses:
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/eghtwtns
The three witnesses not only handled the plates, but saw an angel. The most compelling part of the history is the fact that all three left the church. Still, they never denied their witnessed! All three proclaimed to their deaths that they told the truth about what they saw. Two came back to the church and told their stories to the death. Oliver Cowdery even defended his testimony in a court of law (he pursued a career as a lawyer after he left the church).
David Whitmer never returned (probably because he led a full scale insurrection against Joseph Smith and never got over it). However, he too went so far as to have his statement be published with the support of his whole town behind him. No longer a member of the Church, he still stood by his statement that he witnessed the plates.
The other eight men have less compelling stories, yet their witnesses were just as powerful.
Joseph sounds like a good farmer who wanted to become the good shepherd seeing the opportunities the Bible offers with so many sheep around to follow blindly.
You should be more confused with the Bible because smart Joseph used the Bible as his base and if Rome used the Bible to outsmart the World with 2000 years of Religious Fraud, why pick on Lil' Joe who was able to use the same old Hoax of Jesus?
Joseph was no blacksmith nor carpenter but just another conman playing the role of the Good Shepherd.
Yes and No. Keep in mind that Joseph smith and his buddies were convicted criminals and drunks; this was well known. They could never be trusted even if they claimed to see it.
If the plates did exist (which they didn't) how hard would it be to fool a bunch of UN-educated jackasses?
Google Kinderhook Plates for a good laugh and example of how easy it would be to fool these idiots
?I have reflected long and deliberately upon the history of this church & weighed the evidence for & against it loath (sic) to give it up - but when I came to hear Martin Harris state in public that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver [Cowdery] nor David [Whitmer] & that the eight witnesses never saw them & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it, the last pedestal gave way, in my view our foundation was sapped & the entire superstructure fell in heap of ruins. "(Stephen Burnett letter to Lyman E. Johnson dated April 15, 1838. Typed transcript from Joseph Smith Papers, Letter book, April 20, 1837 - February 9, 1843, microfilm reel 2, pp. 64-66, LDS archives.)
The testimony of the witnesses are presented as objective, solid, and irrefutable; but the church fails to acknowledge that by 1847 all of the living witnesses who were not part of Joseph Smith?s family had left the church believing that he was, at best, a fallen prophet. All of the first three witnesses and eight of the others (all except the three Smiths) apostatized and most were excommunicated.
Apostle George A. Smith wrote that ?the spirit of apostasy became more general?One of the First Presidency, several of the Twelve Apostles, High Council, Presidents of Seventies, the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, Presidents of Far West, and a number of others standing high in the Church were all carried away in this apostasy?? (Journal of Discourses, 7:114-115).
It is also very significant that Joseph Smith himself called into question the moral integrity of at least five of the eleven witnesses. He wrote: ?Such characters as McLellin, John Whitmer, David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, are too mean to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them.? (History of the Church, vol. 3, p. 232). These men were later accused of being ?united with a gang of counterfeiters, thieves, liars and blacklegs of the deepest dye, to deceive and defraud.? (Senate Document 189, 1841, p. 9).
By 1847 not a single one of the surviving eleven witnesses (except those related to Joseph Smith) was part of the Mormon church. Five of these witnesses joined The Church of Christ started by William McLellin; Oliver Cowdery indicated he was supportive of this group though he never joined (BYU Professor D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy, 1994, p. 188). If these men were alive today, the LDS church would label them apostates. They would be cut off from the LDS church and condemned to outer darkness, regardless of whether or not they still believed in the Book of Mormon.
Several people claimed to have seen them. They were all family members or close associates of Smith. Many later said they had seen the plates with their "spiritual eyes," meaning in a vision.
(Thanks for respectfully approaching us about the matter. We greatly appreciate your civility and kindness.)
At first no...but the Lord prepared three others who eventually did see the original record by heavenly vision, and also several others who simply had them shown to them in a secluded grove by Joseph Smith, and who had the opportunity to handle and examine them.
Their testimony to this fact can be found in the first few pages of any copy of the Book of Mormon.
You can read it here
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/thrwtnss
and here
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/eghtwtns
and also read Joseph Smith's account of receiving them etc... here
The Three Witnesses' and Eight Witnesses' testimonies are a lot more solid than "Caedmon" is representing. Simple common sense does away with Stephen Burnett's allegations. If Joseph Smith had nothing to be witnessed, the last thing he would have done is seek eleven witnesses of it. He would just have said "The angel took the plates back" (which is indeed what the angel Moroni did once they were translated and properly attested to). You only seek witnesses to verify the existence of the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated if you realize they are actually going to see them!
As you read the testimonies of these witnesses, you find they examined the plates closely, even plate by plate, noting the engravings upon them, and "hefted," or lifted the full set to judge their weight. Throughout their lives, even though most of these men had failings-out with Joseph or the Church, none ever denied their testimonies as recorded in copies of the Book of Mormon. That is in fact one of the strengths of these witnesses' testimonies; had they not seen the angel (the Three Witnesses did, also hearing the voice of God bearing record of the plates' authenticity) and actually viewed the plates (both groups; these were two separate events at two different times), the truth would have come out as soon as a number of them were cut off from the Church.
Even some who lost their membership in the Church later returned; I haven't time to look up the histories of the Eight Witnesses, but can tell you Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris were both baptized back into the Church, and died in full fellowship. Therefore we would certainly not cut them off today, because their repentance was full and sincere. You can find some very powerful testimonies of the reality of their experiences with the plates recorded even during the time periods when these men were no longer members. David Whitmer did not rejoin the Church in his lifetime, but his testimony remained as firm as those of Oliver and Martin. Being public curiosities, these men appear to have shared their testimonies upon request many, many times even as non-members.
"I have heard my grandmother (Mary Musselman Whitmer) say on several occasions that she was shown the plates of the Book of Mormon by a holy angel, whom she always called Brother Nephi. (She undoubtedly refers to Moroni, the angel who had the plates in charge.) It was at the time, she said, when the translation was going on at the house of the elder Peter Whitmer, her husband. Joseph Smith with his wife and Oliver Cowdery, whom David Whitmer a short time previous had brought up from Harmony, Pennsylvania, were all boarding with the Whitmers, and my grandmother in having so many extra persons to care for, besides her own large household, was often overloaded with work to such an extent that she felt it to be quite a burden. One evening, when (after having done her usual day's work in the house) she went to the barn to milk the cows, she met a stranger carrying something on his back that looked like a knapsack. At first she was a little afraid of him, but when he spoke to her in a kind, friendly tone and began to explain to her the nature of the work which was going on in her house, she was filled with inexpressible joy and satisfaction. He then untied his knapsack and showed her a bundle of plates, which in size and appearance corresponded with the description subsequently given by the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. This strange person turned the leaves of the book of plates over, leaf after leaf, and also showed her the engravings upon them; after which he told her to be patient and faithful in bearing her burden a little longer, promising that if she would do so, she should be blessed; and her reward would be sure, if she proved faithful to the end. The personage then suddenly vanished with the plates, and where he went, she could not tell. From that moment my grandmother was enabled to perform her household duties with comparative ease, and she felt no more inclination to murmur because her lot was hard. I knew my grandmother to be a good, noble and truthful woman, and I have not the least doubt of her statement in regard to seeing the plates being strictly true. She was a strong believer in the Book of Mormon until the day of her death."
Mormon question: I am a little confused with the golden plates and Joseph Smith.?
