Book of Mormon Witnesses
Witnesses Needed Faith to See Plates
If the plates were real, why did the witnesses have to have faith to see them (D&C 17:2)?
It took faith for the Three Witnesses because it was an angel who appeared to show them the plates. But the Eight Witnesses had no such spiritual experience; they saw and handled the plates themselves. (Read More)
Witnesses Condemned by Joseph Smith
Why does the church now extol the witnesses when Joseph Smith condemned them?
They were not condemned for their witness, only for their sins. (Read More)
If they really saw the plates, why would most of the Book of Mormon witnesses leave the church?
Each had his own reasons, but the fact is that they continually reaffirmed their testimonies regarding having seen the plates and (in the case of the three witnesses) the angel. None of them left because he no longer believed in the Book of Mormon. Two of the ones who left later returned to the Church. Three of them never left.
Why did Brigham Young say that the 3 witnesses doubted and disbelieved in their experience? “Some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel.” (Journal of Discourses 7:164).
Brigham Young was not speaking of the three witnesses, but of one of the Twelve who had evidently later seen the angel and the plates. (Read More)
Witnesses Related to Smith, Whitmer
Why were all of the witnesses (except Martin Harris) related to Joseph Smith or David Whitmer?
Why Not? They were among the earliest believers and the Lord allowed Joseph to show the plates only to believers. But let’s note that, at the time he saw the plates, Oliver Cowdery was not connected to the Smiths or Whitmers, though he later married one of the Whitmer sisters (December 1832). Hiram Page had married another of the Whitmer sisters in 1825. Most of Jesus’ apostles had ties to each other. (Read More)