Source:Martin Harris:Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses:113:1:As many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated I handled with my hands

Martin Harris (1855): "As many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated I handled with my hands"

Parent page: Book of Mormon/Witnesses/Three witnesses

David Dille on Martin Harris (1855): "As many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated I handled with my hands"

Mr. Harris replied and said —"I was the right-hand man of Joseph Smith, and I know that he was a Prophet of God. I know the Book of Mormon is true." The smiting his fist on the table, he said—"And you know that I know that it is true." I know that the plates have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice declared it unto us; Therefore I know of a surety that the work is true. For," continued Mr. Harris, "did i not at one time hold the plates on my knee an hour-and-a-half, whilst in conversation with Joseph, when we went to bury them in the woods, that the enemy might not obtain them? Yes, I did. And as many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated I handled with my hands, plate after plate." Then describing their dimensions, he pointed with one of the fingers of his left hand to the back of his right hand and said, "I should think they were so long, or about eight inches, and about so thick, or about four inches; and each of the plates was thicker than the thickest tin."[1]

Notes

  1. Statement of David B. Dille, Sept. 15, 1853, deposited in Millennial Star Office, cited in Millennial Star 21 (1859):545. Cited in Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1981), 113. ISBN 0877478465. Cited in "Martin Harris Interview with David B. Dille, 1853," Early Mormon Documents 2:297.