Scholars Map

What did the Book of Mormon witnesses experience, and how should their testimonies be weighed?

Common ground

Eleven men subscribed to statements printed in the 1830 Book of Mormon: three described an angel showing them the plates and a divine voice affirming the translation; eight described seeing and handling plates shown by Joseph Smith. All three of the Three and several of the Eight left or were cut off from the Church in the late 1830s; Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris later returned. Later accounts record reaffirmations of their witness, and some contemporary reports, such as Stephen Burnett’s 1838 letter, describe Harris saying the witnesses saw the plates only in vision. The Three’s statement, Eight’s statement and Harper's documentary discussion give the starting evidence. The surviving printer's manuscript copies the statements and names in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting; it is not a surviving set of eleven handwritten signatures.

The dispute

Scholars dispute whether these accounts describe ordinary perception, visionary experience, contact with a manufactured object, or a sincere process of materializing a sacred object. They also disagree about how to weigh reaffirmations, religious expectations, family and social ties, and conflicting reports of what the witnesses later said. Seeing an object, identifying it as ancient, and accepting its religious significance are distinct judgments. Accounts by people outside the formal eleven, including women who reported handling covered plates, also enter the discussion.

Start here

  1. accessibleSteven C. Harper, “The Eleven Witnesses,” The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder (2015): 117–132.

    A short, free account of both groups, their later testimony, and the disputed meaning of spiritual sight.

  2. scholarlyRichard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Deseret Book, 1981).

    The sustained documentary study of the eleven, their lives, and their repeated affirmations that later debates address.

  3. criticalDan Vogel, “The Validity of the Witnesses' Testimonies,” American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon (2002): 79–121.

    A substantial critical treatment of visionary testimony and naturalistic explanations; read with Vogel’s 2012 follow-up.

Literal witness

The Three saw an angel and actual plates, and the Eight examined and handled physical plates.

Daniel C. Peterson

religious studies

Peterson argues that the varied testimony of the Three, the Eight, and additional people who saw or handled the plates supports Smith’s account. He holds that the combination of shared angelic experiences and separate encounters with a tangible object is difficult to explain through a single naturalistic alternative.

The variety and complexity of their collective testimony makes finding a single, alternative, non-divine explanation for the witness experiences challenging, indeed.

Matthew Roper

history · religious studies · Research Associate, Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies, Maxwell Institute

Roper argues that the witnesses’ later religious differences and other spiritual commitments do not establish that they withdrew their Book of Mormon testimony. He reads their repeated statements as affirming the reality of their encounters and argues that spiritual and bodily perception need not exclude each other.

Evidence for later disbelief in the Book of Mormon by the witnesses is unpersuasive.

Richard Lloyd Anderson

history · Professor emeritus of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University

Anderson argues that the witnesses’ repeated accounts, including statements made after estrangement from Smith or the Church, support their published testimony. He distinguishes the Three’s angelic encounter from the Eight’s ordinary inspection and handling, and argues that the Eight’s descriptions and practical experience weigh against visionary-only and counterfeit explanations.

But the Eight Witnesses report handling the plates under natural circumstances

Opening paragraph, first clause of second sentence · Original

Steven C. Harper

history · religious studies · Professor of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University

Harper argues that the witnesses understood their experiences as both spiritually enabled and encounters with real plates. He gives priority to their direct statements and sustained reaffirmations over conflicting hearsay, and holds that references to spiritual sight do not cancel the physical reality they described.

Some of them are on record expressing certainty in the reality of the plates and their divine translation.

Discussion following note 43 · Original

Visionary

The experiences were real to the witnesses but visionary in kind; proponents differ over whether this applies to the Eight as well as the Three.

Dan Vogel

history

Vogel argues that the Three’s experience was visionary and that the Eight’s statement is best explained naturalistically. He proposes reconstructions in which the witnesses handled a covered object Smith had made while perceiving its contents through spiritual sight, and reads their sincerity and close ties to Smith as consistent with testimony to something other than ancient plates.

Grant H. Palmer

history · Teacher, Church Educational System

Palmer interprets the witnesses’ accounts within a culture of second sight, religious enthusiasm, and treasure seeking. He argues that references to spiritual eyes and reports of later statements support a visionary reading, and concludes that both groups’ testimonies describe visionary rather than physical experiences.

Manufactured plates

Smith made a plate-like object and presented it as the ancient record; witnesses handled it, often covered.

Dan Vogel · see above

Materialization

Smith sincerely brought a physical stand-in into being for plates he understood as real, through interaction with objects and his close associates.

Ann Taves

religious studies · Distinguished Professor Emerita and Research Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

Taves explores how the plates could have become materially and religiously real for Smith and his associates without either ancient plates or conscious fraud. She proposes an interaction among Smith’s abilities as a seer, the expectations of close associates, and material objects, allowing a sincerely understood sacred object rather than treating physical contact as a verdict on antiquity.

Other positions

Larry E. Morris

history · Writer and editor, Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, Brigham Young University

Morris argues that accounts of ordinary seeing and handling, especially the Eight’s testimony and reports from Smith’s household, support the existence of a physical set of metal plates. He distinguishes that historical conclusion from the religious judgment that an angel delivered an ancient record, and argues that hearsay about visionary sight does not outweigh the Eight’s own accounts.

The documentary evidence indicates there was one set and one set only.

Richard Lyman Bushman

history · religious studies · Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University

Bushman argues that the eleven’s testimony and accounts of people who lifted and touched the plates show that the plates were a tactile reality to those around Smith. He rejects Vogel’s manufactured-tin explanation, and his cultural history examines how different audiences have understood the plates.

I don’t subscribe to Vogel’s tin-plate hypothesis, but I do think the plates were a tactile reality to the people around Smith.