FAIR Answers Wiki Table of Contents
An analysis of Wikipedia article "Golden plates"
An analysis of claims made in Wikipedia article "Golden plates"
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Updated 9/21/2011
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- Response to claim: Richard Bushman: "For most modern readers, the plates are beyond belief, a phantasm, yet the Mormon sources accept them as fact"
- Response to claim: "Most Mormons believe in the golden plates as a matter of faith"
- Response to claim: "Only close associates of Joseph Smith were allowed to become official witnesses to the plates; he invited no strangers, or women, to view them"
- Response to claim: "Mormon apologists and Mormon critics can debate indirect evidence only"
- Response to claim: "Among these topics, the credibility of the plates has been, according to Bushman, a 'troublesome item'"
- Response to claim: "Their script, according to the book, was described as 'reformed Egyptian,' a language unknown to linguists or Egyptologists"
- Response to claim: "Historically, Latter Day Saint movement denominations have taught that the Book of Mormon's description of the plates' origin is accurate"
- Response to claim: "The Community of Christ, however, while accepting the Book of Mormon as scripture, no longer takes an official position on the historicity of the golden plates"
- Response to claim: "B. H. Roberts, historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), entertained the notion that Joseph Smith was capable of producing the Book of Mormon himself"
- Response to claim: "some liberal Mormons have advanced naturalistic explanations for the story of the plates"
- Response to claim: "that Joseph Smith had the ability to convince others of their existence through illusions or hypnosis"
- Response to claim: "the plates were mystical and should be understood in the context of Smith's historical era"
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- Response to claim: "According to Smith, he found the plates after he was directed to them by a heavenly messenger"
- Response to claim: "whom he later identified as the angel Moroni"
- Response to claim: "According to the story, the angel first visited Smith's bedroom late at night, on September 22"
- Response to claim: "Oliver Cowdery initially dated the angel's visit to the "15th year of our brother J. Smith Jr's, age", Cowdery changed the statement to read the 17th year of his age"
- Response to claim: "Moroni told Smith that the plates could be found buried in a prominent hill near his home, later called 'Cumorah'"
- Response to claim: "Before dawn, Moroni reappeared two more times and repeated the information"
- Response to claim: "But the angel would not allow Smith to take the plates until he obeyed certain 'commandments'"
- Response to claim: "Smith recorded some of these commandments, and contemporaries to whom he told the story said there were others"
- Response to claim: "that he have no thought of using the plates for monetary gain"
- Response to claim: "that he never show the plates to any unauthorized person"
- Response to claim: "Smith's contemporaries who heard the story—both sympathetic and unsympathetic—generally agreed that Smith mentioned the following additional commandments"
- Response to claim: "that the plates never directly touch the ground until safe at home in a locked chest"
- Response to claim: "Some unsympathetic listeners who heard the story from Smith or his father recalled that Smith had said the angel required him...to wear "black clothes" to the place where the plates were buried"
- Response to claim: "to ride a 'black horse with a switchtail'"
- Response to claim: "to call for the plates by a certain name"
- Response to claim: "to 'give thanks to God'"
- Response to claim: "In the morning, Smith began work as usual and did not mention the visions to his father"
- Response to claim: "because, he said, he did not think his father would believe him"
- Response to claim: "Smith said he then fainted because he had been awake all night"
- Response to claim: "When Smith then told all to his father, he believed his son and encouraged him to obey the angel's commands"
- Response to claim: "Smith then set off to visit the hill, later stating that he used his seer stone to locate the place where the plates were buried"
- Response to claim: Joseph "knew the place the instant that" he arrived there
- Response to claim: "Smith said he saw a large stone covering a box made of stone"
- Response to claim: "Using a stick to remove dirt from the edges of the stone cover, and prying it up with a lever"
- Response to claim: "Smith saw the plates inside the box, together with other artifacts"
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- Response to claim: "According to Joseph Smith and others, the book of Golden Plates contained a 'sealed" portion'"
- Response to claim: "containing 'a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof'"
- Response to claim: "the language of the Book of Mormon may be interpreted to describe a sealing that was spiritual, metaphorical"
- Response to claim: "physical, or a combination of these elements"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon refers to other documents and plates as being 'sealed'"
- Response to claim: "separate records of John the Apostle were 'sealed up'"
- Response to claim: "One set of plates to which the Book of Mormon refers was 'sealed up'"
- Response to claim: "Smith may have understood the sealing to be a supernatural or spiritual sealing"
- Response to claim: "the 'interpreters' (Urim and Thummim) with which Smith said they were buried or 'sealed'"
- Response to claim: "when Smith visited the hill, he was stricken by a supernatural force because the plates were 'sealed by the prayer of faith'"
- Response to claim: "Several witnesses described a physical sealing placed on part of the plates"
- Response to claim: "the "sealed" part of the plates were held together as a solid mass"
- Response to claim: "'as solid to my view as wood'"
- Response to claim: "there were 'perceptible marks where the plates appeared to be sealed'"
- Response to claim: "with leaves "so securely bound that it was impossible to separate them"
- Response to claim: "Lucy Mack Smith said that some of the plates were 'sealed together'"
- Response to claim: "The account of the Eight Witnesses says they saw the plates in 1829...implying that they did not examine untranslated parts, such as the sealed portion"
- Response to claim: "In one interview, David Whitmer said that "about half" the book was unsealed; in 1881, he said "about one-third" was unsealed"
- Response to claim: "Whitmer's 1881 statement is consistent with an 1856 statement by Orson Pratt"
- Response to claim: "Orson Pratt said:, 'about two-thirds were sealed up, and Joseph was commanded not to break the seal'"
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Further reading
Articles on this subject
- For an overview on this subject, see
- Mormonism and Wikipedia: The Church History That "Anyone Can Edit", Roger Nicholson, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, Vol. 1, 2012. 151-190
- "Wiki Wars: In battle to define beliefs, Mormons and foes wage battle on Wikipedia", Michael De Groote, Deseret News, January 30, 2011.
- "Something Wiki This Way Comes: How collaborative editing is changing the face of online LDS apologetics", R. Scott Lloyd, Church News, August 8, 2011.
- Something Wiki This Way Comes: How Collaborative Editing is Changing the Face of Online LDS Apologetics. A close look at the challenges and history of editing LDS topics in a Wikipedia. This is a 2011 FAIR conference presentation by Roger Nicholson, in PDF format.
FairMormon's Wikipedia Article Reviews
Summary: Current review is based upon Wikipedia revision dated 9/17/2011. This article has undergone moderate improvements in its use of sources since our last review. The article still contains a substantial amount of original research based upon primary sources, with the intent to disprove the vision and highlight perceived discrepancies between vision accounts. Believing scholars are labeled "apologists" in an attempt to diminish their credibility.
Summary: Current review is based upon Wikipedia revision dated 9/3/2011. This article has undergone substantial improvements in its use of sources since our initial review in 2009. Most of the citations are now accurately represented.
A FairMormon Analysis of Wikipedia article "Golden plates"
Summary: Current review is based upon Wikipedia revision dated 9/21/2011. This article has undergone only minor improvements in its use of sources since our last review. The article contains a large amount of original research on the part of the wiki editors.
Summary: Current review is based upon Wikipedia revision dated 9/28/2011. This article has been constructed in such a way as to discredit the witnesses by emphasizing any perceived contradictions in their various statements regarding their encounter with the gold plates.
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