Mormonism and Wikipedia/Golden plates/Background

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An analysis of claims made in the Wikipedia article "Golden plates" - Background

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A FAIR Analysis of: Wikipedia article "Golden plates", a work by author: Various

Finding the plates

An analysis of claims made in the Wikipedia article "Golden plates" - Background

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• Response to claim: "western New York became known as the 'burned-over district' because the fires of religious revivals had burned over it so often"
• Response to claim: "Western New York was also noted for its participation in a 'craze for treasure hunting'"
• Response to claim: "Smith was periodically hired, for about $14 per month, as a scryer, using what were termed'seer stones' in attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure"
• Response to claim: "Smith's contemporaries described his method for seeking treasure as putting the stone in a white stovepipe hat"
• Response to claim: "Smith did not consider himself to be a 'peeper' or 'glass-looker,' a practice he called 'nonsense'"
• Response to claim: "Smith and his family viewed their folk magical practices as spiritual gifts"
• Response to claim: "nor did he ever relinquish the magic culture in which he was raised"
• Response to claim: "He came to view seeing with a stone in religious terms as the work of a 'seer'"
• Response to claim: "and indeed, in his view a seer was even greater than a prophet"
• Response to claim: "Joseph Smith's first stone, apparently the same one he used at least part of the time to translate the golden plates, was chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg"
• Response to claim: "found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors"
• Response to claim: "The statement has been made that the Urim and Thummim was on the altar in the Manti Temple when that building was dedicated"

Response to claim: "western New York became known as the 'burned-over district' because the fires of religious revivals had burned over it so often"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

During the Second Great Awakening, Joseph Smith, Jr. lived on his parents' farm near Palmyra, New York. At the time churches in the region contended so vigorously for souls that western New York became known as the "burned-over district" because the fires of religious revivals had burned over it so often.

Author's sources:

1. Jan Shipps, "Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition," University of Illinois Press, pp. 7

Response to claim: "Western New York was also noted for its participation in a 'craze for treasure hunting'"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

Western New York was also noted for its participation in a "craze for treasure hunting."

Author's sources:

1. Bennett (1893) . The treasure-seeking culture in early 19th century New England is described in Quinn (1998) , pp. 25–26.

Response to claim: "Smith was periodically hired, for about $14 per month, as a scryer, using what were termed'seer stones' in attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

Beginning as a youth in the early 1820s, Smith was periodically hired, for about $14 per month, as a scryer, using what were termed "seer stones" in attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure.

Author's sources:

1. Smith (1838b) , pp. 42–43 (stating that he was what he called a "money digger", but saying that it "was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it").

Response to claim: "Smith's contemporaries described his method for seeking treasure as putting the stone in a white stovepipe hat"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

Smith's contemporaries described his method for seeking treasure as putting the stone in a white stovepipe hat, putting his face over the hat to block the light, and then "seeing" the information in the reflections of the stone.

Author's sources:

1. Harris (1833) , pp. 253–54; Hale (1834) , p. 265; Clark (1842) , p. 225; Turner (1851) , p. 216; Harris (1859) , p. 164; Tucker (1867) , pp. 20–21; Lapham (1870) , p. 305; Lewis (Lewis) , p. 1; Mather (1880) , p. 199; Bushman (2005) , pp. 50–51, 54–55.

Question: Did Joseph Smith place his seer stone in his hat while looking for lost objects?

Martin Harris recounted that Joseph could find lost objects with one of his seer stones

Martin Harris recounted that Joseph could find lost objects with the second, white stone:

I was at the house of his father in Manchester, two miles south of Palmyra village, and was picking my teeth with a pin while sitting on the bars. The pin caught in my teeth and dropped from my fingers into shavings and straw. I jumped from the bars and looked for it. Joseph and Northrop Sweet also did the same. We could not find it. I then took Joseph on surprise, and said to him--I said, "Take your stone." I had never seen it, and did not know that he had it with him. He had it in his pocket. He took it and placed it in his hat--the old white hat--and placed his face in his hat. I watched him closely to see that he did not look to one side; he reached out his hand beyond me on the right, and moved a little stick and there I saw the pin, which he picked up and gave to me. I know he did not look out of the hat until after he had picked up the pin.

Joseph's mother also indicated that Joseph was sought out by some, including Josiah Stoal, to use the stone to find hidden valuables. He

came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.

Joseph referred to this incident in JS-H 1:55-56.

Stoal eventually joined the Church; some of his family, however, charged Joseph in court for events related to this treasure seeking. Stoal testified in Joseph's defense.

Joseph Knight also said that, at the command of the angel Moroni, Joseph looked into his seer stone to learn who he should marry. He "looked in his glass and found it was Emma Hale."

For a detailed response, see: Joseph's 1826 glasslooking trial

Response to claim: "Smith did not consider himself to be a 'peeper' or 'glass-looker,' a practice he called 'nonsense'"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

Smith did not consider himself to be a "peeper" or "glass-looker," a practice he called "nonsense."

Author's sources:

1. Bushman (2005) , pp. 50–51,,

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

Note that Bushman is quoting a secondary source for Joseph's words (Alva Hale), and is demonstrating that Joseph no longer considered himself to be a "peeper" at all. From Bushman, p. 51:

Alva Hale, a son in the household where the Smiths stayed in Harmony while digging for Stowell, said Joseph Jr. told him that the "give in seeing with a stone" was "a gift from God" but that "' peeping ' was all d–d nonsense"; he had been deceived in his treasure seeking, but he did not intend to deceive anyone else....By this time, Joseph apparently felt that "seeing" with a stone was the work of a "seer," a religious term, while "peeping" or "glass-looking" was fraudulent.

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic

Response to claim: "Smith and his family viewed their folk magical practices as spiritual gifts"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

Rather, Smith and his family viewed their folk magical practices as spiritual gifts.

Author's sources:

1. Bushman (2005) , pp. 50–51. Lucy Mack Smith later remembered that the family did not abandon its labor "to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles, or sooth saying to the neglect of all kinds of business. We never during our lives suffered one important interest to swallow up every other obligation but whilst we worked with our hands we endeavored to remember the service of & the welfare of our souls."

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

Bushman, quoting Lucy Mack Smith (p. 51):

Lucy...showed her knowledge of formulas and rituals and associated them with "the welfare of our souls." Magic and religion melded in Smith family culture."

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic

Response to claim: "nor did he ever relinquish the magic culture in which he was raised"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

Although Smith later rejected his youthful treasure-hunting activities as frivolous and immaterial, he never repudiated the stones themselves nor denied their presumed power to find treasure; nor did he ever relinquish the magic culture in which he was raised.

Author's sources:

1. Bushman (2005) , pp. 50–51 Smith "never repudiated the stones or denied their power to find treasure. Remnants of the magical culture stayed with him to the end."; Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition, University of Illinois Press, 11.

FAIR's Response

•  Violates Wikipedia: Citing sources off-site— There is either no citation to support the statement or the citation given is incorrect.
  Violated by COgden —Diff: off-site
  

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

The wiki editor has taken "remnants of the magical culture" from the footnote and solidified them into the culture never having been "relinquished" in the main text.

• From Bushman, p. 51:

Joseph Jr. never repudiated the stones or denied their power to find treasure. Remnants of the magical culture stayed with him to then end. But after 1823, he began to orient himself away from treasure and toward translation.

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic, Joseph Smith/Money digging, and Joseph Smith/Seer stones

Response to claim: "He came to view seeing with a stone in religious terms as the work of a 'seer'"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

He came to view seeing with a stone in religious terms as the work of a "seer",

Author's sources:

1. Bushman (2005) , p. 51.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Seer stones

Response to claim: "and indeed, in his view a seer was even greater than a prophet"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

and indeed, in his view a seer was even greater than a prophet.

Author's sources:

1. Book of Mormon, Mosiah 8:15-17.

FAIR's Response

•  Violates Wikipedia: No Original Research off-site— Do not use unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position.
  Violated by COgden —Diff: off-site
  

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

The wiki editor is synthesizing a conclusion based upon a primary source (The Book of Mormon) regarding Joseph Smith's belief with respect to the relative importance of seers versus prophets.

• Mosiah 8:15-17:

15 And the king said that a seer is greater than a prophet.
16 And Ammon said that a seer is a revelator and a prophet also; and a gift which is greater can no man have, except he should possess the power of God, which no man can; yet a man may have great power given him from God.
17 But a seer can know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed, or, rather, shall secret things be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them, and also things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known.

Response to claim: "Joseph Smith's first stone, apparently the same one he used at least part of the time to translate the golden plates, was chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

Joseph Smith's first stone, apparently the same one he used at least part of the time to translate the golden plates, was chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg,

Author's sources:

1. Roberts (1930) , p. 129. Roberts was at the time the official historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his opinion has considerable weight, given that the LDS Church attempted to downplay any influence of magic in early Latter Day Saint history.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

Note the reference to the stone in the official Church children's magazine, the Friend:

"To help him with the translation, Joseph found with the gold plates “a curious instrument which the ancients called Urim and Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones set in a rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate.” Joseph also used an egg-shaped, brown rock for translating called a seer stone."
—“A Peaceful Heart,” Friend, Sep 1974, 7 off-site (emphasis added)

• For a detailed response, see: Hiding folk magic or stone in official Church publications?

Response to claim: "found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors.

Author's sources:

1. Harris (1859) , p. 163; Lapham (1870) , pp. 305–306. The stone was found in either 1819 (Tucker (1867) , pp. 19–20 Bennett (1893) ) or 1822 Chase (1833) , p. 240.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

For a detailed response, see: The Hurlbut affidavits—Willard Chase

Response to claim: "The statement has been made that the Urim and Thummim was on the altar in the Manti Temple when that building was dedicated"

The author(s) of Wikipedia article "Golden plates" make(s) the following claim:

This stone may still be in the possession of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Author's sources:

1. Joseph Fielding Smith (a former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): "The statement has been made that the Urim and Thummim was on the altar in the Manti Temple when that building was dedicated. The Urim and Thummim so spoken of, however, was the seer stone which was in the possession of the Prophet Joseph Smith in early days. This seer stone is currently in the possession of the Church." Doctrines of Salvation 3: 225.

References

Wikipedia references for "Golden Plates"

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Further reading

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