Facts supporting the truth of the Book of Mormon

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The Things of My Soul

Boyd K. Packer, “The Things of My Soul,” Ensign, May 1986, 59,

boyd-k-packer

I speak to those who have never read the Book of Mormon. This includes many members who have started to read it several times, but, for one reason or another, have never finished it.

My message may help those as well who have read the Book of Mormon once but have not returned to it.

I have chosen as a title “The Things of My Soul.”

Perhaps no other book has been denounced so vigorously by those who have never read it as has the Book of Mormon.

Because of that, I hope to introduce the book in such a way that, in case you decide to read it, you will know beforehand what awaits you.

Except for the Bible, the Book of Mormon is different from any book you have read. It is not a novel. It is not fiction. For the most part, it is not difficult to read. However, like all books of profound value, it is not casual reading. But if you persist, I assure you that it will be the most rewarding book you have ever set your mind to read.

The Book of Mormon is not biographical, for not one character is fully drawn. Nor, in a strict sense, is it a history.

While it chronicles a people for 1,021 years and has the record of an earlier people, it is in fact not a history of those people. It is the saga of a message, a testament. As the influence of that message is traced from generation to generation, more than twenty writers record the fate of individuals and of civilizations who accepted or rejected that testament.

The saga began in Jerusalem six hundred years before Christ. King Zedekiah ruled the doomed kingdom of Judah.

The prophet Lehi was warned in a dream to take his family and leave Jerusalem before that destruction which soon was to be recorded by the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. (See Jer. 44:1–8.)

Lehi was commanded of the Lord to obtain and take with them a record of their people. It is with that record, the brass plates of Laban, that the saga of the Book of Mormon began.

Lehi’s son Nephi obtained the record for his father and said, “It is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers.” (1 Ne. 3:19; italics added.)

They found that the record contained:

• “The five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents.” (1 Ne. 5:11.)

• And “the words … of all the holy prophets, which have been delivered unto them by the Spirit and power of God.” (1 Ne. 3:20; italics added.)

• “And also a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah”;

• And “a genealogy of [Lehi’s] fathers.” (1 Ne. 5:12, 14.)

Lehi’s little band left Jerusalem with the record. In time, they were separated from their homeland by an ocean. But they had that precious spiritual record.

A later prophet, Benjamin, said of this record:

“Were it not for these things, which have been kept and preserved by the hand of God, that we might read and understand of his mysteries, and have his commandments, … [we] would have dwindled in unbelief.” (Mosiah 1:5; italics added.)

A second record joined this saga when Lehi began the chronicles of his little band of sojourners. He kept something of a secular account of their journeys, interspersed with his revelations and teachings and spiritual experiences.

Nephi succeeded his father, Lehi, as keeper of that record, which became known as the large plates of Nephi.

Nephi wrote that “upon [these] plates should be engraven an account of the reign of the kings, and the wars and contentions of my people.” (1 Ne. 9:4; italics added.)

Later, when they grew to be a numerous people, this account was kept by the kings.

No doubt this record contained a great resource of historical information. Generations later, as Mormon abridged this record, he repeated six times that he could not include “a hundredth part” of what was in that record. (Jacob 3:13; W of M 1:5; Hel. 3:14; 3 Ne. 5:8; 3 Ne. 26:6; Ether 15:33.)

But it was not the most valuable record, for Nephi was commanded to keep yet another account—not a secular account this time, but a record of the ministry. This record, the small plates of Nephi, was kept by the prophets rather than by the kings.

This account of their ministry became the foundation for what is now the Book of Mormon.

Perhaps the best insight into the purpose for keeping this record is from Jacob, who received the plates from his brother Nephi.

“And he gave me, Jacob, a commandment that I should write upon these [small] plates a few of the things which I considered to be most precious; that I should not touch, save it were lightly, concerning the history of this people. …  

“For he said that the history of his people should be engraven upon his other [large] plates, and that I should preserve these [small] plates and hand them down unto my seed, from generation to generation.

“And if there were preaching which was sacred, or revelation which was great, or prophesying, that I should engraven … them upon these [small] plates, and touch upon them as much as it were possible, for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of our people.” (Jacob 1:2–4; italics added.)

Did you notice that he was “not to touch (save it were lightly)” on the history of the people but he was to touch upon the sacred things “as much as it were possible”!

Nephi explained:

“It mattereth not to me that I am particular to give a full account of all the things of my father, … for I desire the room that I may write of the things of God.

“For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved.

“Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men.” (1 Ne. 6:3–4, 6; italics added.)

“This I do that the more sacred things may be kept for the knowledge of my people. … I do not write anything upon plates save it be that I think it be sacred.” (1 Ne. 19:5–6; italics added.)

Notice why he did as he did:

“I have received a commandment of the Lord that I should make these plates, for the special purpose that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of my people.” (1 Ne. 9:3; italics added.)

And then this verse from which I take my title:

“And upon these [small plates] I write the things of my soul, and many of the scriptures which are engraven upon the plates of brass. For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and the profit of my children.” (2 Ne. 4:15; italics added.)

Those preachings which were sacred, the revelations which were great, and the prophesying, all testified of the coming of the Messiah.

Prophecies concerning the Messiah appear in the Old Testament. But the Book of Mormon records a vision of that event which has no equal in the Old Testament.

After the people of Lehi had arrived in the Western Hemisphere, Lehi had a vision of the tree of life. His son Nephi prayed to know its meaning. In answer, he was given a remarkable vision of Christ.

In that vision he saw:

  • • A virgin bearing a child in her arms,
  • • One who should prepare the way—John the Baptist,
  • • The ministry of the Son of God,
  • • Twelve others following the Messiah,
  • • The heavens open and angels ministering to them,
  • • The multitudes blessed and healed,
  • • The crucifixion of the Christ,
  • • The wisdom and pride of the world opposing his work. (See 1 Ne. 11:14–36.)

That vision is the central message of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon is in truth another testament of Jesus Christ.

It is sometimes introduced as “a history of the ancient inhabitants of the American continent, the ancestors of the American Indians.”

That does not reveal the contents of this sacred book any better than an introduction of the Bible as “a history of the ancient inhabitants of the Near East, the ancestors of the modern Israelites” would reveal the contents of the Bible.

The history in the Book of Mormon is incidental. There are prophets and dissenters and genealogies to move them from one generation to another, but the central purpose is not historical.

As the saga of the message is traced, one writer (Alma) requires 160 pages to cover thirty-eight years, while seven others (Enos, Jarom, Omni, Amaron, Chemish, Abinadom, Amaleki) together use only 6 pages to cover over three hundred years. In either case, the testament survives.

The Book of Mormon is a book of scripture. It is another testament of Jesus Christ. It is written in biblical language, the language of the prophets.

For the most part, it is in easy-flowing New Testament language, with such words as spake for spoke, unto for to, with and it came to pass, with thus and thou and thine.

You will not read many pages into it until you catch the cadence of that language and the narrative will be easy to understand. As a matter of fact, most teenagers readily understand the narrative of the Book of Mormon.

Then, just as you settle in to move comfortably along, you will meet a barrier. The style of the language changes to Old Testament prophecy style. For, interspersed in the narrative, are chapters reciting the prophecies of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. They loom as a barrier, like a roadblock or a checkpoint beyond which the casual reader, one with idle curiosity, generally will not go.

You, too, may be tempted to stop there, but do not do it! Do not stop reading! Move forward through those difficult-to-understand chapters of Old Testament prophecy, even if you understand very little of it. Move on, if all you do is skim and merely glean an impression here and there. Move on, if all you do is look at the words.

Soon you will emerge from those difficult chapters to the easier New Testament style which is characteristic of the rest of the Book of Mormon.

Because you are forewarned about that barrier, you will be able to surmount it and finish reading the book.

You will follow the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah through the generations of Nephite people to that day when those prophecies are fulfilled and the Lord appears to them.

You will be present, through eyewitness accounts, at the ministry of the Lord among the “other sheep” of whom he spoke in the New Testament. (See John 10:16.)

Thereafter, you will be able to understand the Bible as never before. You will come to understand much in the Old Testament and to know why we, as a people, hold it in such esteem. You will come to revere the New Testament, to know that it is true. The account of the birth and the life and the death of the man Jesus as recorded in the New Testament is true. He is the Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, the Messiah, the Redeemer of mankind.

The Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ, will verify the Old and the New Testaments.

Perhaps only after you read the Book of Mormon and return to the Bible will you notice that the Lord quotes Isaiah seven times in the New Testament; in addition, the Apostles quote Isaiah forty more times. One day you may revere these prophetic words of Isaiah in both books. The Lord had a purpose in preserving the prophecies of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, notwithstanding they become a barrier to the casual reader.

Those who never move beyond the Isaiah chapters miss the personal treasures to be gathered along the way. They miss the knowledge of:

  • • The purpose of mortal life and death,
  • • The certainty of life after death,
  • • What happens when the spirit leaves the body,
  • • The description of the Resurrection,
  • • How to receive and retain a remission of your sins,
  • • What hold justice or mercy may have on you,
  • • What to pray for,
  • • Covenants and ordinances,
  • • And many other jewels that make up the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is beyond that barrier, near the end of the book, that you will find a promise addressed to you and to everyone who will read the book with intent and sincerity.

Let me read that promise to you, from the last chapter in the Book of Mormon:

“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

“And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” (Moro. 10:4–5.)

No missionary, no member can fulfill that promise—neither Apostle nor President can fulfill that promise. It is a promise of direct revelation to you on the conditions described in the book. After you have read the Book of Mormon, you become qualified to inquire of the Lord, in the way that He prescribes in the book, as to whether the book is true. You will be eligible, on the conditions He has established, to receive that personal revelation.

I bear witness that the Book of Mormon is true—that it is another testament of Jesus Christ. I have read the Book of Mormon with a sincere heart, with intent, as a humble serviceman, and thereafter pled with the Lord. I received that revelation. Accompanying that revelation is the revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Redeemer, and of Him I bear witness, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

The Great Things Which God Has Revealed

Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Great Things Which God Has Revealed,” Ensign, May 2005, 80,

On the solid foundation of the Prophet Joseph’s divine calling and the revelations of God, which came through him, we go forward. 

Gordon B. Hinckley

Gordon B. Hinckley

My brothers and sisters, as we have been reminded, we will commemorate next December the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. In the meantime, many things will occur in celebration of this significant occasion.

Books will be published, symposia participated in by various scholars, pageants, a new motion picture, and a great many other things.

In anticipation of this, I have felt, as 15th in succession from his great pinnacle of achievement, to offer my testimony of his divine calling.

I hold in my hand a precious little book. It was published in Liverpool, England, by Orson Pratt in 1853, 152 years ago. It is Lucy Mack Smith’s narrative of her son’s life.

It recounts in some detail Joseph’s various visits with the angel Moroni and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

The book tells that upon hearing of Joseph’s encounter with the angel, his brother Alvin suggested that the family get together and listen to him as he detailed “the great things which God has revealed to you” (Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors of Many Generations [1853], 84).

I take that statement as the subject of my talk—the great things which God has revealed through Joseph the Prophet. Permit me to name a few of many doctrines and practices which distinguish us from all other churches, and all of which have come of revelation to the youthful Prophet. They are familiar to you, but they are worth repeating and reflecting on.

The first of these, of course, is the manifestation of God Himself and His Beloved Son, the risen Lord Jesus Christ. This grand theophany is, in my judgment, the greatest such event since the birth, life, death, and Resurrection of our Lord in the meridian of time.

We have no record of any other event to equal it.

For centuries men gathered and argued concerning the nature of Deity. Constantine assembled scholars of various factions at Nicaea in the year 325. After two months of bitter debate, they compromised on a definition which for generations has been the doctrinal statement among Christians concerning the Godhead.

I invite you to read that definition and compare it with the statement of the boy Joseph. He simply says that God stood before him and spoke to him. Joseph could see Him and could hear Him. He was in form like a man, a being of substance. Beside Him was the resurrected Lord, a separate being, whom He introduced as His Beloved Son and with whom Joseph also spoke.

I submit that in the short time of that remarkable vision Joseph learned more concerning Deity than all of the scholars and clerics of the past.

In this divine revelation there was reaffirmed beyond doubt the reality of the literal Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This knowledge of Deity, hidden from the world for centuries, was the first and great thing which God revealed to His chosen servant.

And upon the reality and truth of this vision rests the validity of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I speak next of another very important thing which God revealed.

The Christian world accepts the Bible as the word of God. Most have no idea of how it came to us.

I have just completed reading a newly published book by a renowned scholar. It is apparent from information which he gives that the various books of the Bible were brought together in what appears to have been an unsystematic fashion. In some cases, the writings were not produced until long after the events they describe. One is led to ask, “Is the Bible true? Is it really the word of God?”

We reply that it is, insofar as it is translated correctly. The hand of the Lord was in its making. But it now does not stand alone. There is another witness of the significant and important truths found therein.

Scripture declares that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (2 Cor. 13:1).

The Book of Mormon has come forth by the gift and power of God. It speaks as a voice from the dust in testimony of the Son of God. It speaks of His birth, of His ministry, of His Crucifixion and Resurrection, and of His appearance to the righteous in the land Bountiful on the American continent.

It is a tangible thing that can be handled, that can be read, that can be tested. It carries within its covers a promise of its divine origin. Millions now have put it to the test and found it to be a true and sacred record.

It has been named by those not of our faith as one of 20 books ever published in America that have had the greatest influence upon those who have read them.

As the Bible is the testament of the Old World, the Book of Mormon is the testament of the New. They go hand in hand in declaration of Jesus as the Son of the Father.

In the past 10 years alone, 51 million copies have been distributed. It is now available in 106 languages.

This sacred book, which came forth as a revelation of the Almighty, is indeed another testament of the divinity of our Lord.

I would think that the whole Christian world would reach out and welcome it and embrace it as a vibrant testimony. It represents another great and basic contribution which came as a revelation to the Prophet.

Another is the restored priesthood. Priesthood is the authority to act in the name of God. That authority is the keystone of any religion. I have read another book recently. It deals with the Apostasy of the primitive Church. If the authority of that Church was lost, how was it to be replaced?

Priesthood authority came from the only place it could come, and that is from heaven. It was bestowed under the hands of those who held it when the Savior walked the earth.

First, there was John the Baptist, who conferred the Aaronic, or lesser priesthood. This was followed by a visitation of Peter, James, and John, Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, who conferred upon Joseph and Oliver Cowdery the Melchizedek Priesthood, which had been received by these Apostles under the hands of the Lord Himself when in life He said, “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).

How beautiful is the unfolding of the pattern of restoration which led to the organization of the Church in the year 1830, 175 years ago this week. The very name of the Church came of revelation. Whose Church was it? Was it Joseph Smith’s? Was it Oliver Cowdery’s? No, it was the Church of Jesus Christ restored to earth in these latter days.

Another great and singular revelation given to the Prophet was the plan for the eternal life of the family.

The family is a creation of the Almighty. It represents the most sacred of all relationships. It represents the most serious of all undertakings. It is the fundamental organization of society.

Through the revelations of God to His Prophet came the doctrine and authority under which families are sealed together not only for this life but for all eternity.

I think that if we had the capacity to teach effectively this one doctrine, it would capture the interest of millions of husbands and wives who love one another and who love their children, but whose marriage is in effect only “until death do you part.”

The innocence of little children is another revelation which God has given through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph. The general practice is the baptism of infants to take away the effects of what is described as the sin of Adam and Eve. Under the doctrine of the Restoration, baptism is for the remission of one’s individual and personal sins. It becomes a covenant between God and man. It is performed at the age of accountability, when people are old enough to recognize right from wrong. It is by immersion, in symbolism of the death and burial of Jesus Christ and His coming forth in the Resurrection.

I go on to mention another revealed truth.

We are told that God is no respecter of persons, and yet, in no other church of which I am aware, is provision made for those beyond the veil of death to receive every blessing which is afforded the living. The great doctrine of salvation for the dead is unique to this Church.

Men boast that they are “saved,” and in the same breath admit that their forebears have not been and cannot be saved.

Jesus’s Atonement in behalf of all represents a great vicarious sacrifice. He set the pattern under which He became a proxy for all mankind. This pattern under which one man can act in behalf of another is carried forward in the ordinances of the house of the Lord. Here we serve in behalf of those who have died without a knowledge of the gospel. Theirs is the option to accept or reject the ordinance which is performed. They are placed on an equal footing with those who walk the earth. The dead are given the same opportunity as the living. Again, what a glorious and wonderful provision the Almighty has made through His revelation to His Prophet.

The eternal nature of man has been revealed. We are sons and daughters of God. God is the Father of our spirits. We lived before we came here. We had personality. We were born into this life under a divine plan. We are here to test our worthiness, acting in the agency which God has given to us. When we die we shall go on living. Our eternal life is comprised of three phases: one, our premortal existence; two, our mortal existence; and three, our postmortal existence. In death we die to this world and step through the veil into the sphere we are worthy to enter. This, again, is a unique, singular, and precious doctrine of this Church which has come through revelation.

I offer this brief summary of the tremendous outpouring of knowledge and authority from God upon the head of His Prophet. Were there time I could speak of others. There is one more that I must mention. This is the principle of modern revelation. The article of faith which the Prophet wrote declares,

“We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (A of F 1:9).

A growing church, a church that is spreading across the earth in these complex times, needs constant revelation from the throne of heaven to guide it and move it forward.

With prayer and anxious seeking of the will of the Lord, we testify that direction is received, that revelation comes, and that the Lord blesses His Church as it moves on its path of destiny.

On the solid foundation of the Prophet Joseph’s divine calling and the revelations of God, which came through him, we go forward. Much has been accomplished in bringing us to this present day. But there is much more to be done in the process of taking this restored gospel to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6).

I rejoice in the opportunity of association with you as we go forward in faith. The burden is at times heavy, as you well know. But let us not complain. Let us walk in faith, each doing our part.

In this year of celebration, through our own performance, let us honor the Prophet, through whom God has revealed so much.

The sun rose on Joseph’s life on a cold day in Vermont in 1805. It set in Illinois on a sultry afternoon in 1844. During the brief 38 and one-half years of his life, there came through him an incomparable outpouring of knowledge, gifts, and doctrine. Looked at objectively, there is nothing to compare with it. Subjectively, it is the substance of the personal testimony of millions of Latter-day Saints across the earth. You and I are honored to be among these.

As a boy I loved to hear a man who, with a rich baritone voice, sang the words of John Taylor:

The Seer, the Seer, Joseph, the Seer! …
I love to dwell on his memory dear;
The chosen of God and the friend of man,
He brought the priesthood back again;
He gazed on the past and the future, too, …
And opened the heavenly world to view.
(“The Seer, Joseph, the Seer,” Hymns [1948], no. 296)

He was truly a seer. He was a revelator. He was a prophet of the living God who has spoken to his own and all future generations.

To this I add my solemn witness of the divinity of his calling, of the virtue of his life, and of the sealing of his testimony with his death, in the sacred name of our Redeemer, even the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Book of Mormon, Changes to

Excerpt from LDS.org

 Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. During the process of dictating, transcribing, copying, typesetting, and printing, some human errors were made. Soon after the first printing of the Book of Mormon, in 1830, readers began finding typographical, spelling, and other mistakes. The Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery made over 1,000 corrections for the second edition (1837). For the third edition (1840), Joseph Smith made further corrections after careful prophetic review, comparing the original manuscript with the printed text.

 
Additional Information

Joseph Smith declared that “the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, . . . and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than any other book” (History of the Church, 4:461). The appropriate sense of correct as used by Joseph Smith in this statement would be, “Set right, or made straight. Hence, right; conformable to truth” (Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language [1828]). Every edition of the Book of Mormon has been instrumental in bringing people to a knowledge of the truth by the power of the Holy Ghost (see Moroni 10:3–5).

Examples of the types of corrections or changes made in early editions of the Book of Mormon (excluding punctuation) are shown in the table below. In 1879, with the blessing of the First Presidency, Elder Orson Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles produced an edition with more chapter divisions and with versification that has continued in all subsequent editions. He also added footnotes and made some changes in spelling and grammar.

In 1920 President Heber J. Grant assigned a committee headed by Elder James E. Talmage of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to create a new edition that would correct a few errors made in previous editions. This new edition was formatted in double-column pages, with chapter headings, chronological data, revised footnote references, a pronouncing guide, and an index. Punctuation and capitalization were also revised.

The current edition (1981) includes extensive cross references, footnotes, and other study aids. References shown in the table below are from the current edition and are given for convenience in locating the passages referred to.

Examples of Corrections or Changes to the Book of Mormon

 

Type of correction or change, with an example Before After Comments
Transcription
(Alma 41:1)
1830 Edition
“Some have arrested the scriptures.”
1837 Edition
“Some have wrested the scriptures.”
Oliver Cowdery wrote what he heard, which resulted in some transcription errors.
Spelling
(1 Nephi 13:23)
Manuscript
“plaits”
1830 Edition
“plates”
Spelling was not as standardized in 1828 as it is today. Revisions helped make the manuscript more understandable.
Grammatical
(3 Nephi 13:9)
1830 Edition
“Our Father which art in heaven.”
1837 Edition
“Our Father who art in heaven.”
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery made over 1,000 corrections in the 1837 edition, most of them grammatical.
Typographical
(1 Nephi 22:2)
1830 Edition
“By the spirit are all things made known unto the prophet.
1837 Edition
“By the spirit are all things made known unto the prophets.”
Corrected from the printer’s manuscript. There were at least 75 corrections of this type.
Doctrinal Clarification
(1 Nephi 11:18)
1830 Edition
“Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God.”
1837 Edition
“Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of the Son of God.”
Joseph Smith added the phrase “the Son of” in this and other verses of the 1837 edition to clarify doctrine.
Restoration
(2 Nephi 30:6)
1837 Edition
“They shall be a white and delightsome people.”
1840 Edition
“They shall be a pure and delightsome people.”
To clarify meaning, Joseph Smith changed the word white to pure in the 1840 edition. Later American editions did not show this change because they had followed the first European and 1837 editions. The Prophet’s wording was restored in the 1981 edition.

 

Scripture References

Book of Mormon vs Spaulding Manuscript

LDS.org Excerpt

Spaulding Manuscript

In the early 1800s, a man named Solomon Spaulding wrote a fictional story about ancient Romans who came to North America. Some critics of the Church have claimed that Joseph Smith used the manuscript to write the Book of Mormon. This claim has been discredited many times by people inside and outside of the Church. The Book of Mormon was translated from ancient records by the gift and power of God. It has no connection with the Spaulding manuscript.

Additional Information

Those who do not accept the Book of Mormon as scripture offer many theories about its origin. One of the earliest theories was that the Book of Mormon was based on a manuscript by Solomon Spaulding (also spelled “Spalding”), a fictional story about early inhabitants of America.

Spaulding was born in 1761. He studied at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and was ordained a minister. Later, he left the ministry and lived in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania until his death in 1816. In his later years, he wrote a novel, which he never published. Spaulding’s manuscript is considerably shorter than the Book of Mormon.

Similarities between his manuscript and the Book of Mormon are general and superficial. Spaulding’s fiction is about a group of Romans blown off course on a journey to Britain who arrive instead in America. One of the Romans narrates the adventures of the group and the history and culture of the people they find in America. A major portion of the manuscript describes two nations near the Ohio River. After a long era of peace between the two nations, a prince of one nation elopes with a princess of the other nation. Because of political intrigue, the elopement results in a great war between the two nations and the loss of much life but the ultimate vindication of the prince and his princess.

In 1833, Philastus Hurlbut, who had been excommunicated from the Church, tried to collect derogatory information about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. As part of his efforts, Hurlbut spoke with several people from Ohio who were familiar with the Spaulding Manuscript. These people signed affidavits claiming that the Book of Mormon was based on Spaulding’s story. In spite of these claims, neither Hurlbut nor other critics of the Church published the Spaulding Manuscript at that time even though it was in their possession. Eventually, the manuscript was lost. In 1884, a man named L. L. Rice found the manuscript among some papers he had purchased, and he turned it over to Oberlin College in Ohio. Rice and James H. Fairchild, president of Oberlin College examined the manuscript and both certified that it could not have been the source of the Book of Mormon. The Church published the story in 1886.

Like other attempts to discredit the Book of Mormon, the theory of the Spaulding manuscript is based on the belief that an unlearned man such as Joseph Smith could not have created a book as detailed and rich as the Book of Mormon and that he therefore must have obtained the content from some other source. In fact, Joseph Smith did not create the Book of Mormon. He translated it from ancient records by the gift and power of God. Eleven witnesses saw the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. Though some of these people left the Church, they never denied their testimony that the Book of Mormon was the word of God.

Those who want to know if the Book of Mormon is true can gain this knowledge from the Holy Ghost, which is promised to all who sincerely seek: “When ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost” (Moroni 10:4).
Church Magazine Articles

Book of Mormon Witnesses

Richard L. Anderson,”Book of Mormon Witnesses”,Maxwell Institute

For over forty years, I have been a student of Joseph Smith’s life and teachings. I have a testimony of what those close to Joseph reported: They had full confidence that, as a prophet, Joseph Smith was in touch with God and powerfully brought those hearing him closer to Christ; they knew that Joseph translated the Book of Mormon, an ancient record of Christ’s American ministry, from metal plates; they felt God’s power as Joseph privately and publicly taught the gospel and gave full meaning to Bible verses ignored by traditional Christians. The Book of Mormon relies not only on the record of an ancient people, but also on the separate testimonies of Three and Eight Witnesses published in the back of the book’s original 1830 edition and in the front of its more recent editions.

I first encountered the concept of witnesses in law school as I learned that in property transactions and other legal documents, you need two or three witnesses to attest to the signature. Then while studying history in graduate school, I learned that all history is reconstructed by witnesses. I feel there is no religious leader whom I know about—in the contemporary scene or historically—outside of the Bible, who really deals with the issue of witnesses.

Perhaps God doesn’t need witnesses, but as humans we need a basis for our faith. Man does not usually understand the law of witnesses as a religious concept or as God’s law. God has never given a revelation from his courts to this earth without sending more than one witness. He sustains, or backs up, his servants. In Moses’ day, Aaron was to be a second witness to Pharaoh and to the Egyptian courts. He is also a witness to all of us in the book of Exodus today. In Christ’s day a second witness, John the Baptist, came; Christ said John “was a burning and a shining light” (John 5:35). Jesus relied upon John’s testimony of his own mission. Think, too, of the resurrection of Jesus. It didn’t happen in some out-of-the-way place with nobody seeing it. Eleven men witnessed Christ’s resurrection, and other witnesses are reported in the New Testament. So the concept of witnesses is critical as we examine God’s work.

Why doesn’t God make all people witnesses? Latter-day Saints have an insight into that. We know, through revelation, that we must prove ourselves in this life. We come to this earth to exercise our faith, growing and learning through searching and seeking. Peter commented on this subject as he explained his position as a Christian to Cornelius, a very well-to-do and high-placed Roman Centurion who had sent for him. Peter said: “Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly; Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead”‘ (Acts 10:40—41). just as God furnished witnesses of Christ’s resurrection in the Bible, God provided witnesses in the Book of Mormon for Christ’s appearance as a resurrected being on the American continent, and then he provided witnesses for the Book of Mormon in modern times.

I have spent a good deal of my life trying to identify the lives and the testimonies of those three men who said they saw the angel, and of those eleven men who said they saw the plates when the Book of Mormon was ready to be published. Their stories are remarkable. Their lives went in different directions, but all had a common denominator: All had seen a thing that changed their lives. In my life I have heard scores of questions about these witnesses, and I would like to address some of those questions here.

How did Joseph and his companions first learn that there would be witnesses? Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses, received a special revelation very early in 1829 at the outset of the translation of the Book of Mormon somewhat as a comfort for him because he no longer acted as scribe. In the revelation, recorded in Doctrine & Covenants 5:11—14, the Lord said: “The testimony of three of my servants . . . shall go forth with my words [unto this generation]. Yea, they shall know of a surety that these things are true, for . . . will give them power that they may behold and view these things as they are; And to none else will I grant this power, to receive this same testimony among this generation.” So right at the outset of the translation, the promise of Book of Mormon witnesses was given by revelation.

Also, Joseph later found that the Book of Mormon prophesies in two places of its modern witnesses.1 As the scribes of Joseph Smith sat and took dictation, they heard these words, addressed from the ancient writer to the modern translator:

And behold, ye may be privileged that ye may show the plates unto those who shall assist to bring forth this work;

And unto three shall they be shown by the power of God; wherefore they shall know of a surety that these things are true.

And in the mouth of three witnesses shall these things be established; and the testimony of three, and this work, in the which shall be shown forth the power of God and also his word, of which the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost bear record—and all this shall stand as a testimony against the world at the last day. (Ether 5:2—4)

Now, interestingly, that verse designates only three witnesses to assist in bringing forth the work, yet Joseph Smith showed the plates first to three individuals and then to eight individuals—a total of eleven. So why are there two sets of witnesses? Only the Three Witnesses had a supernatural vision by the power of God. In their testimony, located on the present flyleaf of the Book of Mormon—we transferred the testimonies from the back of the book to the front—the Three Witnesses say they saw the plates and an angel. The Eight Witnesses say they felt, handled, and lifted the plates but saw no angel.

There are those, especially in our day, who would account for the Three Witnesses’ supernatural vision by saying that Joseph Smith simply got people emotionally excited enough to think they were seeing visions. But how would these people account for the physical evidence of the plates? In response to the Eight Witnesses’ testimony, people might say, “Perhaps Joseph Smith made a set of plates so that people could examine something physical,” but that doesn’t explain that the angel came to the Three Witnesses with supernatural power and glory from God. So you know, by the testimony of the Three Witnesses, the supernatural reality of the book and God’s will in giving it. The physical nature of the Eight Witnesses’ testimony complements the spiritual nature of the Three Witnesses’.

Who were the Eight Witnesses? Of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon who signed that they had lifted the plates, five were from the Whitmer family and three were from the Smith family, including a brother-in-law, Hyrum Page. Since the process of translating the Book of Mormon took place under the surveillance of people in fairly compact households, it is understandable that some of them constituted the witnesses. In the nineteenth century, privacy was not really the same thing as it is today. People lived more closely together in smaller homes. The women and men, first in the Smith household and then in the Whitmer household, where the work was finally finished, watched the translation process, and everybody in those households was convinced of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. As we read earlier from the Book of Mormon, the translator was told by the ancient prophets that he could share the knowledge of these plates with those who would assist to bring forth the work. It was from this group of faithful people who had helped to bring forth the work that the Eight Witnesses were selected.

Some say that because the Eight Witnesses were closely related to Joseph and to each other, their testimony is invalid. That is simply not so. Consider the example of Christ’s resurrection: Of the eleven witnesses who saw Christ’s resurrected body, several were brothers, and some of those witnesses were even related to Christ.

Who were the Three Witnesses? Martin Harris was a very prominent farmer in Palmyra, New York, who originally contacted Joseph Smith after learning about the discovery of the plates. Martin gave Joseph fifty dollars to help him move away from Palmyra to escape persecution and to relocate in Pennsylvania, where Joseph began the first translation of the Book of Mormon. Then in the summer of 1828, Martin went to Pennsylvania and spent almost three months as a scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon. (Unfortunately, that work was lost.) Martin, because he was already a man of maturity, owned a farm, and he willingly financed the Book of Mormon by mortgaging his farm. So Martin Harris assisted from the beginning as the financier for the Book of Mormon.

Oliver Cowdery came onto the scene the next summer, in 1829, and he was the effective scribe for the present Book of Mormon. Oliver was the village school teacher, and he boarded in various houses in the communities of Manchester, where Joseph Smith’s parents lived, and Palmyra. (Joseph Smith was away at that time. He was married and living in Pennsylvania.) Oliver began to hear about the experiences of Joseph Smith. Of course, there was a good deal of ridicule in the community, but Oliver took these experiences very seriously and received some very deep manifestations. He went to Joseph Smith in the spring of 1829 and then wrote the entire original manuscript of the Book of Mormon.

The third person who was selected was David Whitmer. David, in a sense, represented a whole family, and his special contribution was as an investigator. David Whitmer was acquainted with Oliver Cowdery. When Oliver went to see Joseph, David asked him to send back information about the translation. After David received the information and a spiritual witness of the translation, he got a letter from Joseph and Oliver requesting help and a place to stay because persecution was increasing in the area. David brought the translators up to his home in Fayette, New York, thirty miles from Palmyra. Because he provided this refuge and assistance, David was a natural choice as one of the Three Witnesses.

How were they chosen? How did the Three Witnesses learn that they were ones selected for this privilege? As the Book of Mormon translation neared completion, those who were assisting directly with the translation process came upon one of the verses that made so vivid the promise that there would be Three Witnesses. Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer went to Joseph Smith and asked Joseph to ask the Lord if they could see this great vision and have this experience, that they might be the witnesses of the Book of Mormon to this generation. Joseph said they became persistent; in fact, he used the word “teased.” Joseph inquired of the Lord and was given a revelation, recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 17. Though it consists of only nine verses, it is a remarkable revelation because it is so specific about what the witnesses would see.

There are those, even today, who persist in saying that the Three Witnesses had a subjective experience, but the very first verse of this revelation says: “‘Behold, I say unto you, that you must rely upon my word, which if you do this with full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates”‘ (D&C 17:1). This scripture makes it clear that the Three Witnesses would have a physical view of the plates. Further on in the first verse, they are promised a view of the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim (the means of translating ancient records), and the miraculous directors that led Lehi and his colony to the New World. Some of these artifacts the prophet Moroni placed into the Hill Cumorah to be found in the latter days. So God promises that the Three Witnesses will see five ancient objects from the Book of Mormon. The Three Witnesses are told that they would see these plates by the power of God, just as the Book of Mormon says in 2 Nephi 27:12—14. The promise is very specific.

To illustrate how the promise of the revelation was carried out, I am going to paraphrase what Joseph Smith’s mother said. I love her history because she was a woman in the wings. Lucy Smith observed extremely carefully and gave so much color and detail of what was happening. She said that at the Whitmer home they had a family devotional of prayer and some hymns. She said that Joseph stood up in the midst of that family devotional and walked over to Martin Harris and told him that it was the will of the Lord that he should see the Book of Mormon plates if he humbled himself that day.2 Martin Harris really had a struggle with faith, more so than the other two witnesses, who were younger than Joseph (around twenty-three or twenty-four years old), but Martin was about forty-six years old. He was skeptical because he had seen a lot of people deceived. The men left the house that morning to go into the woods near the Whitmer home.

Lucy said that she waited in the house until late in the day. In the late afternoon, she said, these men burst into the house filled with joy and enthusiasm, and Joseph threw himself beside her on the bed and said: “Mother, you do not know how happy I am: the Lord has now caused the plates to be shown to three more besides myself. . . . For now they know for themselves, that I do not go about to deceive the people.”3 And they all told her what happened in those woods. More than anybody else, Joseph gave the details, the spontaneous little bits and pieces of that remarkable experience, when he dictated his history,4 and the Three Witnesses uphold him in interviews recorded later.

Joseph records that the four men prayed and nothing happened. Finally, Martin admitted that he was the problem, that he lacked faith and needed to separate himself from them. Martin left the group and went off by himself to pray. As soon as the prayers were reiterated (without Martin), Oliver, David, and Joseph saw a light materialize at midday that June in 1829. They said this light—David later called it a “soft light”—was brighter than the sun and more intense. In the midst of that light, the angel appeared with the plates. David later told that the angel showed them the plates and turned the leaves. The angel spoke to David, the one witness who did not come back to the Church, saying: “David, blessed is the Lord, and he that keeps His commandments.”5

Then they heard the voice of God, and. Joseph reported it exactly as the witnesses remembered it. The Lord said: “These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear record of what you now see and hear.”6 As the vision closed, Joseph went and found Martin. The two men knelt in prayer, and the same revelation was repeated for them. Then they all returned to the house, as Lucy described.

The Eight Witnesses not only saw the plates, as the Three Witnesses did, but they felt them too Lucy Smith said that a few days after the first witnessing, the Smiths, the Whitmers, and Oliver made the thirty-mile journey from Fayette to the Smith home in Manchester, which is south of Palmyra. She said that the male Whitmers, Joseph Sr., and her sons Hyrum and Samuel accompanied Joseph Jr. into the woods where an angel had deposited the plates on a tree stump. The Eight Witnesses testified that they saw these plates, picked them up, and examined the “curious” characters. (“Curious” did not mean “strange” in that day; it meant that the characters were very carefully crafted. These men were craftsmen and artisans, remember, so they recognized fine workmanship. The witnesses also used the word heft, which is archaic for our day; it means “‘to lift.”) They examined the plates and bore testimony in their formal statement that they had “lifted” the gold plates.

They described the physical plates as weighing between forty and sixty pounds and being approximately eight inches long, five or six inches wide, and five or six inches thick. Their descriptions varied, from seven by five by four to eight by six by five, but the descriptions are consistent because they are estimations. They didn’t take a measurement. Not only did the Eight Witnesses see the characters and turn over the leaves, but they reported seeing a sealed part. They described the plates as bound with “D”-shaped rings, saying a perpendicular center ran through the plates, like a loose-leaf notebook, and then the ring curved in a half circle across the spine. There is definitely a consistency in what the Eight Witnesses claim they saw.

I have often thought that Joseph Smith would have been in a terrible position if he was somehow putting people on. How could he produce a revelation? How could he produce five ancient objects? How could he satisfy people that a personage with the power of God was really there? You cannot counterfeit the power of God. You cannot counterfeit ancient objects.

Some people wonder if any of the Three Witnesses ever denied his testimony. The answer is, No, never. The Three Witnesses’ lives went in different directions, but none ever denied his testimony of the Book of Mormon and its coming forth. So what did each say he experienced, and how did each support his testimony?

Let’s examine each of these men individually to establish their characters. I will start with Martin Harris because he was older. Oliver Cowdery was a young school teacher; not too many people paid attention to him. David Whitmer was a young farmer; he was not really very visible. But Martin Harris was visible. He had a large farm of multiple acres (perhaps a total of around three or four hundred), and that farm was a matter of business through the whole community. The townspeople knew who he was. They knew his reputation. So what did the members of the community think of Martin Harris?

The townspeople said two things about Martin Harris. The people who talked to him accused him of being a fanatic because he believed in the Bible. That sounds like a strange fact, but I think we see that in our own culture as well. We tend to look at people who are secular as pleasing; they don’t really ruffle our feathers in any way. But religious people stir us up, challenging us to be better. Martin Harris had read the prophecies in the Bible that God would do a great work in the latter days, and he believed them. He was a believer, so sometimes he was accused of being religiously overdone.

Second, the townspeople said Martin Harris was honest. Every one of the individuals in Palmyra who commented on Martin’s character said he was an extremely honest individual. In fact, one of the people who set the type for the Book of Mormon, Pomeroy Tucker, later wrote a book about the early Mormons in the community and said that Martin’s usual honesty was a very puzzling thing to him. Tucker wondered, How could Martin Harris, who was such an honest man and an intelligent man, say that he had seen an angel and plates? Well, that’s simple. Martin was being honest; it really happened.

When Martin Harris moved out of the community quite a few months after the book was printed, E. B. Grandin, whom Harris paid three thousand dollars to print the Book of Mormon, published his opinion of Harris in the local newspaper for the community to read. The statement almost sounds like a funeral eulogy. Grandin wrote: “Mr. Harris was among the early settlers of this town, and has ever borne the character of an honorable and upright man, and an obliging and benevolent neighbor. He had secured to himself by honest industry a respectable fortune—and he is left a large circle of acquaintances and friends to pity his delusion.”7

Martin Harris was born in 1783, which means he was middle-aged when he became a Book of Mormon scribe and witness in 1828. He mortgaged his farm to pay for the first edition of the Book of Mormon. Then in early 1831 he moved with the faithful Latter-day Saints to upper Ohio, and there he continued to contribute to the success of the restoration of the gospel in Kirtland, Ohio. Harris was extremely faithful for a time, but all three witnesses became disenchanted with the policies of the church, and in 1837 and the beginning of 1838, they were each excommunicated from the church because they simply were not in harmony with church leadership.

The Three Witnesses left the church because they disagreed with Joseph’s policies, but they never once threw doubt upon their testimonies. (Even Peter and Paul, who had both seen visions, sharply disagreed on policy at times.) Had they not really seen the plates, when they were out of the church, the Three Witnesses would have disavowed their experience, and they would not have tried to keep ties with the church. All three witnesses left the church for a time, but two came back before their deaths to make peace with God, and they all continued to bear witness to the Book of Mormon and their vision of the plates to the end.

Let me give an example of Martin Harris’s testimony. Just before his rebaptism in 1870, a relative, William H. Homer, who was passing through Kirtland went to Martin’s house, and Martin Harris volunteered to take him, as he did many people, to the Kirtland Temple. In the temple Martin expressed some fairly bitter feelings toward some of the Latter-day Saints in Utah and even displayed a jealous spirit toward the leadership of the church, saying, “I should have been president of the Church.” Then Homer asked Martin Harris, “‘Do you still believe that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet?” Martin Harris, standing in the Kirtland Temple on a bright, winter day, pointed to one of the arched Gothic windows where the sun was streaming through it and said, “Do I see the sun shining? Just as surely as the sun is shining on us . . . I saw the plates; I saw the angel.”8

As a very old man, Martin went to Utah and spent the last five years of his life there in upper Cache Valley. When people in his community asked him about the plates of the Book of Mormon, he continued using physical objects like the sun to illustrate his testimony. One time he raised his hand and asked, “‘Do you see that hand? . . . Are your eyes playing you a trick or something? . . . Well, as sure as you see my hand so sure did I see the angel and the plates.”9 Martin Harris, like all the witnesses, was especially desirous at the end of his life to have people hear and repeat his testimony.

Now let’s turn to Oliver Cowdery’s life. Oliver was born in 1806 about a year after Joseph Smith. Later in his life, he said that the days he acted as scribe for Joseph were never to be forgotten. As he sat within the sound of the Prophet’s voice, he could feel the Spirit of the Lord. Oliver always remembered the spirituality of that experience. The first thing he did of real significance in New York after the Church was organized was lead a mission west to Kirtland, where he and four other missionaries converted about one hundred people within a few weeks. As with Martin Harris, those who knew Oliver may not have agreed with his testimony, but they agreed that he was of admirable character. A vigorous leader of a Shaker community gave a candid impression of Oliver coming into his community. He recorded that Oliver claimed that “he [Oliver] had been one who assisted in the translation of the golden Bible, and had seen the angel, and also had been commissioned by him [the angel] to go out and bear testimony that God would destroy this generation. . . . [We] gave liberty for him to bear his testimony in our meetings. . . . He appeared meek and mild.”10 That characteristic of Cowdery is reflected in other sources—he was a man of powerful witness, but he was also a man of great personal humility.

Another description of Oliver is given in a history of Seneca County written in about 1880 by P. W. Lang. After Oliver was excommunicated in Missouri, he returned to Ohio and became an attorney. And for ten years, when he was outside of the church, he was very active in all the community circles where an attorney would have circulated in those days. P. W. Lang, who apprenticed in Oliver’s law office and whom Oliver tutored in law for two years, wrote this candid description of Oliver:

Mr. Cowdery was an able lawyer and a great advocate. . . . [H]e was polite, dignified, yet courteous. . . . With all his kind and friendly disposition, there was a certain degree of sadness that seemed to pervade his whole being. His association with others was marked by the great amount of information his conversation conveyed and the beauty of his musical voice. His addresses to the court and jury were characterized by a high order of oratory, with brilliant and forensic force. He was modest and reserved, never spoke ill of any one.11

He continued by saying, in essence, “I read law with Mr. Cowdery in Tiffin [Ohio] and was intimately acquainted with him from the time he came here until the time he left, which afforded me every opportunity to study and love his ‘noble and true manhood.'”

So Oliver was a person respected by those inside and outside the church wherever he lived. Later in life Oliver returned to the church. As he came back in 1848, he stood in the church conference in Kanesville, Iowa—Winter Quarters, or Council Bluffs, as it was called at that time—and said that Sidney Rigdon did not write the Book of Mormon. He said, “I wrote . . . the entire Book of Mormon . . . as it fell from the lips of the Prophet [Joseph Smith].” He said, “I beheld with my eyes, and handled with my hands, the gold plates from which it was translated. I also beheld the Interpreters.”12

Now let’s turn to David Whitmer’s story. David Whitmer was born about a year before Joseph Smith, at the beginning of 1805. After becoming a witness, David joined with his family in selling their rather well-to-do farm holdings in Seneca County, New York. They moved for a short time to Ohio and then moved quickly to Jackson County, Missouri, a tragic experience for them and about three thousand other Latter-day Saints because they were forced out of Jackson County at gunpoint. David was a strong personality and was very visible in helping to defend and protect the Mormon community. He was appointed president of the church in Missouri, for Joseph Smith had a great deal of confidence in him. But in 1838 David exerted his will, disagreed with Joseph Smith, and was excommunicated.

David stayed in Richmond, Missouri, for fifty years and became the most interviewed of all eleven witnesses of the Book of Mormon because he lived longer than any of them. David summed up the testimonies of all the witnesses, and he had an irreproachably honest character. He parlayed an investment of a team and a wagon into a whole livery business and became a prominent business man, providing transportation and rentals and even funeral transportation in Richmond, Missouri.

One proof that David was a distinguished and respected individual was that he appeared in an 1877 historical atlas of Ray County, Missouri, as one of twenty prominent members of the community. (From one point of view, those pictured had to be prominent; from another point of view, they probably had to have enough money to pay for the picture.) David is pictured on a page of the atlas with his nephew David P. Whitmer underneath him. David P. Whitmer was the son of Jacob, one of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, and he was named after his uncle David. To the left of David Whitmer, on the top line, is Alexander Donaphen, who was a lawyer for Joseph Smith at one time and who actually saved Joseph’s life by refusing to execute an order of the court-martial. So David’s reputation in the community was appreciably strong. Everybody respected him. Time and again, Mormons and non-Mormons came into the community and interviewed David, and he insisted that he had seen the plates and the angel.

Let me give the flavor of two interviews with David Whitmer. First, Orson Pratt, who had known David as a fellow leader of the church before David left the church, visited David as an old man. Pratt was accompanied by Joseph F. Smith, who was then a young Apostle, but who later became president of the church from about 1900 to 1918. As these two men interviewed David, Joseph F. Smith wrote down what David said:

We not only saw the plates of the Book of Mormon but also the brass plates, the plates of the Book of Ether, the plates containing the records of the wickedness and secret combinations of the people of the world. . . . The fact is, it was just as though Joseph, Oliver and I were sitting just here on a log, when we were overshadowed by a light. It was not like the light of the sun . . . but more glorious and beautiful. It extended away round us . . . [We saw] many records or plates . . . besides the plates of the Book of Mormon, also the Sword of Laban, the Directors . . . and the Interpreters. I saw them just as plain as I see this bed (striking the bed beside him with his hand), and I heard the voice of the Lord, as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life, declaring that the records of the plates of the Book of Mormon were translated by the gift and power of God.13

My favorite interview of David was done by James Henry Moyle, whose son, Henry D. Moyle, served as one of President McKay’s counselors. On his way back to Utah after he completed his law school training in Michigan, James Henry Moyle stopped in Richmond to see David Whitmer. Henry was a young man, and he wanted to be certain that David had been telling the truth. He wanted to cross-examine him and see what kind of a man he was.

That Moyle was a man of great quality, is indicated by Gordon B. Hinckley’s biography of Moyle, written while Hinckley lived in the Cottonwood area in Salt Lake City and knew Moyle. Moyle became one of the very first Latter-day Saints to succeed in national politics. Although his candidacy for senator and governor was unsuccessful in Utah, his party rewarded him with the post of undersecretary of the treasury in the cabinet in Washington, D. C. Later he was appointed as collector of customs in New York City for eight years. He was a very close friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Furthermore, Moyle was a singularly candid, intelligent, and honest man all his life.

Later, when Moyle talked about the David Whitmer interview in an address given in Salt Lake City, he said he wondered if it was possible that David Whitmer might have been deceived. Moyle stated:

I induced him to relate to me, under such cross-examination as I was able to interpose, every detail of what took place. He described minutely the spot in the woods, the large log that separated him from the angel, and that he saw the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. . . . I asked him if there was any possibility for him to have been deceived, and that it was all a mistake, but he said, “No.” I asked him, then, why he had left the Church. [He answered by talking about the policies that differentiated him from Joseph Smith.] He said he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that through him had been restored the gospel of Jesus Christ in these latter days. To me this was a wonderful testimony.14

Did the Eight Witnesses also maintain their testimony to the end? Yes! David Whitmer quoted both the Three and the Eight Witnesses in a pamphlet published a year before his death in 1887. In this pamphlet, addressed to all believers in Christ, David tried to put his message and his own feelings about the Book of Mormon in such a way that they would be available to everybody. Toward the beginning of the pamphlet, Whitmer said the following in answer to articles in two encyclopedias that had reported him as having denied his testimony:

I will say once more to all mankind, that I have never at any time denied that testimony or any part thereof. I also testify to the world, that neither Oliver Cowdery or Martin Harris ever at any time denied their testimony. . . . I was present at the death bed of Oliver Cowdery, and his last words were, “Brother David, be true to your testimony to the Book of Mormon.”15 [David went on to talk about the Eight Witnesses also as having never denied their testimony.]

It is as important to believe the witnesses of the Book of Mormon as it is to believe the testimony of Peter and Paul that they had seen the resurrected Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15:15, Paul said people could set aside the Apostles’ testimonies and essentially call the witnesses liars, but God’s chosen witnesses were not liars. They were honest men telling the truth.

I have been in every county where the witnesses lived, read the newspapers of their time, and seen the court records, and I know they were honest men with a divine mission. When Jesus sent apostles out, he gave them instructions (see Matthew 10), and he sent seventies out on missions and gave them instructions (see Luke 10). In both cases, he said this to them: “He that receiveth whomever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me” (John 13:20).

God’s voice said the Book of Mormon was translated correctly. The eleven witnesses are God’s modern servants, supporting, with Joseph Smith, the truth of the Book of Mormon. This is the message of God’s law of witnesses for us today. I would appeal to everyone to read the Book of Mormon, gain a testimony of its divinity, understand its truth, and apply its principles. I also pray that we will understand the divinity of Joseph Smith’s mission to restore the gospel because the Book of Mormon is a part of that great process of restoring God’s kingdom in the latter days.

1.  See 2 Nephi 27:12—14 and Ether 5:2—4. (The latter is cited below.)

2. Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith, by His Mother, Lucy Mack Smith (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1979), 151—52.

3. Ibid.

4. Joseph Smith, History of the Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), 1:52—56.

5. Ibid., 1:54.

6. Ibid., 1:54—55.

7. Wayne Sentinel, 27 May 1831. See also Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 103.

8. Preston Nibley, comp., The Witnesses of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1973), 117—18.

9. Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, 116.

10. Ibid., 55.

11. Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, 41.

12. Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, 61.

13. Nibley, comp., Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, 68.

14. Gordon B. Hinckley, James Henry Moyle: The Story of a Distinguished American and an Honored Churchman (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1951), 367.

15. David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, Mo.: David Whitmer, 1887), 8.

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