Golden Plates

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The Golden Plates, also called the Gold Plates or the Golden Bible,^[1] were a set of engraved metallic plates, bound into the form of a book that Joseph Smith, Jr. stated was the source of the Book of Mormon, a scripture of the Latter Day Saint movement. Smith, the founder of that movement, said he obtained the plates on September 22, 1827 on Cumorah hill in Manchester, New York, where they were protected by an angel. After dictating a translation and obtaining signed statements by eleven witnesses, he returned the plates to the angel in 1829.

Witnesses generally described the plates as a set of thin, bound, engraved metallic plates having a golden appearance. Part of the plates were said to have been sealed and thus could not be translated. Smith's translation of the Golden Plates stated they had been engraved by a pre-Columbian prophet-warrior named Mormon and his son Moroni in about the year 400 AD. These men said they had abridged earlier historical records from other sets of metal plates in a language they called "reformed Egyptian."^[2] The Golden Plates are the most significant of a number of metallic plates important to Latter Day Saint history and theology.

Contents 1 Story of the plates 1.1 Background of Joseph Smith 1.2 Obtaining the plates 1.3 Translation of the plates 1.4 Witnesses 2 Physical description of the Golden Plates 2.1 Format, binding, and dimensions 2.2 Composition and weight 2.3 "Sealed" portion 2.4 Engravings 2.5 Plates returned to Moroni 3 Other metal plates mentioned in the Book of Mormon 4 Other metal plates in the Latter Day Saint Tradition 5 Metal plates outside the Latter Day Saint tradition 6 Further Reading 7 Notes 8 References

[edit] Story of the plates

[edit] Background of Joseph Smith

As a youth, Joseph Smith, Jr. lived on his parents' farm near Palmyra, New York a place and time noted for its participation in the Second Great Awakening and a "craze for treasure hunting."^[3] Beginning in the early 1820s, he was paid to act as a "seer", to use seer stones in (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure.^[4] His contemporaries said he would put the stone in a white stovepipe hat, put his face over the hat to block the light, and then "see" the information in the reflections of the stone.^[5] His favored stone, chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg,^[6] was found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors.^[7]

[edit] Obtaining the plates

Smith said that he first learned about the Golden Plates on the eve of September 22^[8] in 1823 (or possibly 1822),^[9] when, in his bedroom late at night, an angel^[10] named Moroni appeared to him three times.^[11] Moroni told him that the plates could be found buried in a prominent hill near his home later referred to as Cumorah (a name from the Book of Mormon).^[12]

According to Smith and contemporaries who heard his account, the angel said he would not allow Smith to take the plates until he was able to obey certain "commandments".^[13] Smith and his believing followers said the angel's requirements included the following: that Smith tell his father about the vision,^[14] that he have no thought of using the plates for monetary gain,^[15] that he take the plates and go directly away without looking back,^[16] that the plates never directly touch the ground until safe at home in a locked chest,^[17] and that he never show the plates to any unauthorized person.^[18] The last three of the angel's requirements were corroborated by non-believers who heard the story from Smith or his father, and who also add that Smith said the angel required him to wear "black clothes" to the site of the plates,^[19] to ride a "black horse with a switchtail",^[20] to call for the plates by a certain name,^[21] and to "give thanks to God".^[22]

In the morning, Smith began to work as usual and did not tell his father about the vision^[23] because he did not think his father would believe him.^[24] When he fainted because he had been awake all night, he said the angel appeared a fourth time and chastised him for failing to tell his father.^[25] Smith's father believed the vision and encouraged his son to obey the angel's commandments.^[26] Smith then set off to visit the hill. To locate the place where the plates were buried, both believing and non-believing witnesses say he used his seer stone^[27] and, according to one hearer of the account, he used the seer stone to follow a sequence of landmarks by horse and on foot until he arrived at the place the plates were buried.^[28] Smith said he "knew the place the instant that I arrived there" because the angel had shown him the location during the previous night's visions.^[29]

At the proper location, he saw a large stone covering a stone (or possibly iron) box.^[30] After moving the stone, he said he saw the plates inside, together with other artifacts.^[31] According to Smith's 1835 biography and other accounts, he "supposed his success certain" in obtaining the plates.^[32] According to Smith's trusted followers, Smith said he picked up the plates, but then put them on the ground while he covered the box with the stone to protect other valuable treasures in the box from being taken later by passers-by.^[33] Nevertheless, when Smith looked back at the plates on the ground after closing the box, the plates had once again disappeared into the box.^[34] According to two non-believing Palmyra residents, when Smith once again raised the stone and attempted to retrieve the plates, Smith saw in the box something like a toad that grew larger and struck him to the ground.^[35] Although Smith's contemporary followers do not mention a toad-like creature, they agree with several non-believers that Smith said he was stricken by a supernatural force that hurled him to the ground as many as three times.^[36]

Disconcerted by his inability to obtain the plates, Smith said he briefly wondered whether his experience had been a "dreem of Vision" [sic].^[37] Concluding that it was not, he prayed asking why he had been barred from taking the plates.^[38] In response to his question, Smith said the angel appeared and told him he could not receive the plates because he "had been tempted of the advisary (sic) and saught (sic) the Plates to obtain riches and kept not the commandments that I should have."^[39] According to Smith's followers, Smith had also broken the angel's commandment "not to lay the plates down, or put them for a moment out of his hands",^[40] and according to a non-believer, Smith said "I had forgotten to give thanks to God" as required by the angel.^[41]

Smith said the angel instructed him to return the next year, on September 22, 1824, with the "right person", who the angel said was his older brother Alvin.^[42] Alvin died in November 1823, and when Smith returned to the hill in 1824, to his family's disappointment, he did not return with the plates.^[43] Smith said he was told to return the next year with the "right person," but the angel did not tell Smith who that person might be.^[44] For the visit on September 22, 1825, Smith may have attempted unsuccessfully to bring his treasure-hunting associate Samuel T. Lawrence,^[45] but eventually, Smith determined after looking into his seer stone that the "right person" was Emma Hale, his future wife.^[46] Smith claimed that he visited the hill "at the end of each year" for four years after the first visit in 1823,^[47] but there is no specific record of him being in the Palmyra vicinity between January 1826 and January 1827 when he returned to Palmyra from Pennsylvania with his new wife.^[48] After his arrival in Palmyra in January 1827, Smith visited the hill and returned to tell his parents that the angel had severely chastised him for not being "engaged enough in the work of the Lord."^[49] The next annual visit on September 22, 1827 would be his last chance to receive the plates.^[50]

A few days prior to the September 22, 1827 visit to the hill, his treasure-hunting friends Josiah Stowell and Joseph Knight, Sr. traveled to Palmyra, in part, to be there during Smith's scheduled visit to the hill.^[51] Another former treasure-hunting associate, Samuel T. Lawrence, was also apparently aware of the approaching date to obtain the plates, and Smith was concerned he might cause trouble.^[52] Therefore, on the night of September 21, Smith dispatched his father to spy on Lawrence's house house until dark and to tell him if he attempted to leave that Joseph Smith, Jr. would "thrash the stumps with him" if he found him at the hill. Lawrence never left his home.^[53] Late at night, Smith took a horse and carriage to the hill Cumorah with his wife Emma.^[54] Leaving Emma in the wagon, where she knelt in prayer,^[55] he walked to what he said was the site of the Golden Plates, retrieved them, and may have hidden them in a fallen tree-top on or near the hill.^[56]

Shortly after he retrieved the plates from Cumorah, Smith claimed to have escaped from unknown assailants. Smith said he had wrapped the plates in his frock and started for home with them "under his arm," when he was chased through the woods by a man who gave him a "heavy blow with a gun." Knocking the man down with a single punch, Smith ran "at the top of his speed" for a half mile and was assaulted in the same manner two more times before arriving safely and suffering only a dislocated thumb.^[57]

Several of Smith's neighbors made attempts to find and seize the plates, and Smith claimed to have moved them from place to place to keep them from being discovered.^[58] Smith said that he first kept the plates in a chest under the hearth in his parents' home, then under the floor boards of his parents' previous log home nearby, and finally in a barrel of flax shortly before the chest was discovered and the place ransacked.^[59]

[edit] Translation of the plates

With some financial assistance from a prominent, though superstitious, local landowner Martin Harris,^[60] Smith and his wife Emma moved to Harmony, Pennsylvania, Emma's home town, in early October 1827, with the golden plates reportedly hidden for the trip in a barrel of beans. ^[61] In Harmony, Joseph and Emma stayed for a time in the home of Emma's father Isaac Hale, but when Smith refused to show Hale the plates, Hale banished the concealed object from his house.^[62]

Smith claimed that he copied characters from the golden plates and translated them through the use of "Urim and Thummim" found with the plates.^[63] Emma Smith later recalled that when she took dictation from her husband, she "frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.... The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates as they thus lay on the table tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book."^[64]

Usually, however, the golden plates were not even in the same room. Michael Morse, Smith's brother-in-law, said that he watched Smith on several occasions:"The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face." David Whitmer said that "the plates were not before Joseph while he translated, but seem to have been removed by the custodian angel." Isaac Hale said that while Joseph was translating, the plates were "hid in the woods." Joseph Smith, Sr. said they were "hid in the mountains."^[65] During the translation process a curtain or blanket was placed between Smith and his scribe or between the living area and the area where Smith and his scribe worked. ^[66] Sometimes Smith dictated to Martin Harris from upstairs or from a different room. ^[67]

Smith used a number of assistants during the process of transcribing The Book of Mormon, including Emma Smith, Martin Harris, and most notably, Oliver Cowdery. Nevertheless, Smith's "translation" process did not involve his understanding of an ancient script. As he looked into the seer stone, the words of the text appeared to him in English. When in mid-1828, Smith loaned the manuscript pages to Martin Harris, and Harris lost them, Smith said that opponents would try to see if he could "bring forth the same words again." Smith did not explain why he believed different translations of a text should not be different or why a fraudulent version with different handwriting would not be obvious.^[68]

Shortly after baptizing each other in the Susquehanna River and experiencing a vision of John the Baptist, Smith and Cowdery moved on to the farm of the Whitmers, a family of supporters in Fayette, New York. Rather than hide the Golden Plates for this trip, Smith gave them over to an angel for safekeeping until they had completed their journey.^[69]

[edit] Witnesses

Main articles: Three Witnesses and Eight Witnesses

As Smith finished the translation of the plates, he revealed that witnesses would be asked to testify to their existence. In June 1829, two sets of witnesses (the Three Witnesses^[70]and a separate group of Eight Witnesses^[71]) signed joint statements, written by Smith, which were subsequently published with the text of the Book of Mormon.^[72] The Three Witnesses — Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris — affirmed that an angel had descended from heaven and presented the plates, which they saw but did not touch. Then they heard a voice from heaven declaring that the book was translated by the power of God and that they should bear record of it. The Eight Witnesses were members of the Joseph Smith and David Whitmer families. Like the Three Witnesses, the Eight signed a joint statement that they had seen and (in their case) hefted the plates.^[73]

In March 1838, disillusioned church members said that Martin Harris, who had given many specific descriptions of the plates, had now publicly denied having seen them at all.^[74]Near the end of his long life, Harris also said that he had seen the plates only in "a state of entrancement."^[75] Nevertheless, in 1871 Harris testified that no one had "ever heard me in any way deny the truth of the Book of Mormon [or] the administration of the angel that showed me the plates."^[76] Yet even after Smith had returned the plates to the angel, other early LDS Church members testified that an angel had also showed them the plates.^[77]

[edit] Physical description of the Golden Plates

[edit] Format, binding, and dimensions

The plates were said to be in the format of a book, bound at one edge by a set of rings. Martin Harris, one of Joseph Smith, Jr.'s early scribes, is reported to have said in 1828 that he understood the plates were "fastened together in the shape of a book by wires"^[78] After saying that he saw the plates in 1829, Harris said in 1859 that the plates "were seven inches wide by eight inches in length, and were of the thickness of plates of tin; and when piled one above the other, they were altogether about four inches thick; and they were put together on the back by three silver rings, so that they would open like a book."^[79] David Whitmer, another 1829 witness, was quoted in a 1831 Palmyra newspaper as saying the plates were "the thickness of tin plate; the back was secured with three small rings...passing through each leaf in succession".^[80] Anomalously, Smith's father is quoted as saying the plates were only half an inch thick ^[81] Smith's mother, who said she had "seen and handled" the plates, is quoted as saying they were "eight inches long, and six wide,... all connected by a ring which passes through a hole at the end of each plate".^[82]

Hyrum Smith and John Whitmer, also witnesses in 1829, are reported to have stated that the rings holding the plates together were, in Hyrum's words, "in the shape of the letter D, which facilitated the opening and shutting of the book".^[83] Joseph Smith's wife Emma, and his younger brother William said they examined the plates while they were wrapped in fabric. Emma said she "felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book".^[84] William agreed that the plates could be rustled with one's thumb like the pages of a book.^[85]

Joseph Smith did not provide his own published description of the plates until 1842, when he said in a letter that "each plate was six inches [150 mm] wide and eight inches [200 mm] long, and not quite so thick as common tin. They were...bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book, with three rings running through the whole. The volume was something near six inches [150 mm] in thickness." ^[86]

[edit] Composition and weight

The plates were first described as "gold." Beginning about 1827, the plates were widely called the "gold bible".^[87] When the book was published in 1830 eight witnesses described the plates as having "the appearance of gold."^[88] The Book of Mormon itself describes the plates as being made of "ore."^[89] In 1831, a Palmyra newspaper quoted David Whitmer, another witness to the plates, as saying the plates were a "whitish yellow color," with "three small rings of the same metal."^[90]

Joseph Smith, Jr.'s first published description of the plates agreed that the plates "had the appearance of gold."^[91] but gave no further information about their composition. Late in life, Martin Harris stated that the rings holding the plates together were made of silver,^[92] and he said the plates themselves, based on their heft of "forty or fifty pounds,"^[93] "were lead or gold."^[94] Joseph's brother William Smith, who said he felt the plates inside a pillow case in 1827, said in 1884 that he understood the plates to be "a mixture of gold and copper...much heavier than stone, and very much heavier than wood."^[95]

Different people estimated the weight of the plates differently. According to Smith's one-time-friend Willard Chase, Smith told him in 1827 that the plates weighed between forty and sixty pounds, most likely the latter.^[96] Smith's father Joseph Smith, Sr., who was one of the Eight Witnesses, reportedly weighed them and said in 1830 that they "weighed thirty pounds."^[97] Joseph Smith's brother, William, said that he lifted them in a pillowcase and thought they "weighed about sixty pounds according to the best of my judgment."^[98] Others who lifted the plates while they were wrapped in cloth or enclosed in a box thought that they weighed about sixty pounds. Martin Harris said that he had "hefted the plates many times, and should think they weighed forty or fifty pounds." ^[99] Joseph Smith's wife Emma never estimated the weight of the plates but said they were light enough for her to "move them from place to place on the table, as it was necessary in doing my work".^[100] Had the plates been made of 24-karat gold (which Smith never claimed), they would have weighed about 140 pounds. ^[101]

The plates might have been made from tin or various gold alloys. They might have been made of a gold and copper Mesoamerican alloy, called tumbaga by the Spanish, which would have weighed between 50 and 70 pounds.^[102] Plates of roughly similar dimensions and weight might also have been made of tin, which was readily available in the Palmyra area. ^[103]

[edit] "Sealed" portion

According to Joseph Smith and others, the book of Golden Plates contained a "sealed" portion ^[104] containing "a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof."^[105] Although Smith never personally described the nature or extent of the seal, witnesses have offered several descriptions. The language of the Book of Mormon is interpreted by many to describe a sealing of the plates that was spiritual, metaphorical,^[106] physical, or any combination of these elements.

The Book of Mormon refers to other documents and plates being "sealed" by being buried to come forth at some future time. For example, the Book of Mormon says the entire set of plates was "sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord",^[107] and that a separate record of John the Apostle was "sealed up to come forth in their purity" in the end times.^[108] One set of plates referred to in the Book of Mormon was "sealed up" in the sense that "no one can interpret them," because they were written "in a language that they cannot be read."^[109]

Smith may also have understood the sealing as a supernatural or spiritual sealing of the plates "by the power of God" (2 Nephi 27:10).^[110] This idea is supported by a reference in the Book of Mormon to the "interpreters" (Urim and Thummim) with which Smith said they were buried or "sealed." ^[111] Oliver Cowdery also stated that when Smith visited the hill, he was stricken by a supernatural force because the plates were "sealed by the prayer of faith".^[112]

A physical "sealing" placed on part of the plates by Mormon or Moroni has been described by several witnesses. David Whitmer said that an angel showed him the plates in 1829, and that "a large portion of the leaves were so securely bound together that it was impossible to separate them."^[113] He also said that the "sealed" part of the plates were held together as a solid mass that was "stationary and immovable,"^[114] it "appeared as solid to my view as wood",^[115] and it had "perceptible marks where the plates appeared to be sealed".^[116]. Whitmer also stated that the leaves "were so securely bound that it was impossible to separate them".^[117] Lucy Mack Smith said in 1842 that "some of [the plates] are sealed together and are not to be opened, and some of them are loose".^[118] The testimony of the Eight Witnesses states that they saw the plates in 1829 and handled "as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated," implying that they did not examine un-translated parts of the book such as the sealed portion.^[119]

David Whitmer said that "about half" the book was sealed in one interview,^[120] and in 1881 said that "about one-third" of the book was un-sealed, and the remainder sealed.^[121] Whitmer's 1881 statement is consistent with a 1856 statement by Orson Pratt, an associate of Smith's who never saw the plates himself, but who said he had spoken with the witnesses.^[122] According to Pratt, "about two-thirds" of the plates were "sealed up".^[123]

The sealed portion of the plates is said to contain "a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof."^[124] The Book of Mormon states that this vision was originally given to the Brother of Jared, recorded by Ether on a set of 24 plates later found by Limhi and then "sealed up."^[125] According to this account, Moroni copied the plates of Limhi onto the sealed portion of the Golden Plates.^[126]

[edit] Engravings

Main article: Reformed Egyptian

The Golden Plates were said to contain engravings in an ancient language that the Book of Mormon describes as Reformed Egyptian.^[127] Smith later described them as "Egyptian characters...small, and beautifully engraved," exhibiting "much skill in the art of engraving."^[128]

According to John Whitmer, one of the Eight Witnesses who said he saw the plates in 1829, the plates had "fine engravings on both sides".^[129] Orson Pratt, who did not see the plates himself, who had spoken with the witnesses, understood that there were engravings on both sides of the plates, "stained with a black, hard stain, so as to make the letters more legible and easier to be read."^[130]

[edit] Plates returned to Moroni

Once the translation was complete, about July 1829, Smith said that he returned the plates to the angel.^[131] Many Latter Day Saints, including Brigham Young, have believed the plates were returned to Hill Cumorah and that other ancient records lie buried there, including the Sword of Laban and the special spectacles given to aid the translation process.^[132]

[edit] Other metal plates mentioned in the Book of Mormon

In addition to the Golden Plates, the Book of Mormon refers to several other sets of books written on metal plates:

• The brass plates originally in the custody of Laban, containing the writings of Old Testament prophets before the Babylonian Exile, as well as the otherwise unknown prophets Zenos and Zenoch, and possibly others.
• The large plates of Nephi, the source of the text abridged by Mormon and engraved on the Golden Plates.
• The small plates of Nephi, the source of the first and second books of Nephi, and the books of Jacob, Enos, Jarom and Omni, which replaced the lost 116 pages.
• A set of twenty-four plates found by the people of Limhi containing the record of the Jaredites, translated by King Mosiah, and abridged by Moroni as the Book of Ether.

[edit] Other metal plates in the Latter Day Saint Tradition

• In 1843, Smith acquired a set of six small bell-shaped plates, known as the Kinderhook Plates, found in Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois. Smith said that they contained information about a descendant of Ham "through the loins of Pharaoh," but he never produced a translation. After Smith's assassination, the Kinderhook Plates were presumed lost, but for decades The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published facsimiles of them in its official History of the Church as evidence that ancient Americans wrote on metal plates. In 1980 the Kinderhook Plates were proved to have been manufactured in the nineteenth century, probably in an attempt to catch Smith in a fraud. Today the LDS Church acknowledges the plates as a hoax and makes no attempt to defend their authenticity.^[133]

• James J. Strang, one of the rival claimants to succeed Smith, also claimed to have discovered and translated a set of plates known as the Voree Plates. Strang likewise produced witnesses to their authenticity. Although Strang's movement was short-lived, Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, and all living witnesses to the Book of Mormon, including the three Whitmers and Martin Harris (although perhaps excluding Oliver Cowdery), accepted "Strang's leadership, angelic call, metal plates, and his translation of these plates as authentic."^[134]

[edit] Metal plates outside the Latter Day Saint tradition

Some ancient European and Mesopotamian cultures kept short records on metal plates. Those found to date have been extremely thin to facilitate being engraved with a pointed tool. In 500 BCE, Darius the Great of Persia inscribed a history on a gold plate and sealed it in a stone box in the temple at Persepolis. ^[135] A six-page, 24-caret gold book, written in Etruscan, was found in Bulgaria;^[136]and in 2005, an eight-page golden codex, allegedly from the Achaemenid period, was recovered from smugglers by the Iranian police.^[137] The Pyrgi Tablets (now at the National Etruscan Museum, Rome) are gold plates with a bilingual Phoenician-Etruscan text. Gold Laminae funerary texts similar to Books of the Dead have also been found in Italy. In the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found, archeologists later discovered the aptly-named Copper Scroll, two rolled sheets of copper that may describe locations where treasures of the Second Temple of Jerusalem may have been hidden.^[138] Nevertheless, there is no known extant example of writing on metal plates longer than the eight-page Persian codex.

[edit] Further Reading

• Skeptical comments about the Golden Plates and their history from Utah Lighthouse Ministry.
• LDS apologetic discussion of other ancient metal records from jefflindsay.com.
• Apologetics about the Golden Plates from the LDS magazine Ensign.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References