Introduction to the Book of Mormon Plates Project

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is January 24, 2021, and we have a special little short, very interesting Mormon Stories podcast episode for you today. Today I have in studio a gentleman named Trent Told. Hey, Trent, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Trent Told [00:00:19] Nice to meet you. Good to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:22] And we're going to do something really simple. Once upon a time, noted author and historian and former multiple time guest on Mormon Stories podcast, Dan Vogel put out a proof of concept on tin plates and the Book of Mormon. He sort of put a theory together about 10 plates in the Book of Mormon that he thought would be really interesting. And this gentleman that I have today in Mormon Stories Podcast studios, Trent told, actually executed and completed the proof of concept, actually generating tin plates for the Book of Mormon or as a prototype or as a proof of concept for the Book of Mormon. Again, made out of tin instead of being made out of gold, just to kind of help illustrate the complexity and the weight and honestly the credibility or the probability that Joseph in fact could have possessed actual gold plates and, and how workable and realistic that theory actually might be. So Trent has in studio these tin plates that he created and some of the tools that he used to create them. And we're going to be talking about, you know, a tiny bit about his background, why he created these plates, what the whole proof of concept is about, how he did it, and then what in his view it all means. We're going to try and do this in like 30 to 45 minutes. All right, so Trent told. Welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Trent Told [00:01:48] Thank you.

Trent's Background and Motivation for the Project

John Dehlin [00:01:49] All right, so go ahead and begin. Why, you know, what's what a little bit about your background and why you did this project.

Trent Told [00:01:57] I've been a Mormon all my life and everything else, so I was kind of interested in it. But listening to your podcast, just recently, last year, and listening to Dan Vogel on it, he had mentioned that he believed that Joseph Smith had created an actual prop for showing people, you know, and he believes that he created out of tin and tin plates. And I, I'm.

John Dehlin [00:02:21] The idea is there, there's enough history. Tell me if I'm wrong. There's enough history, records, witnesses that there were plates, that they were hefted at some point, that they were felt by people, that people saw him with them. Even the translating with the, with the sheet or with the towel or fabric covering, there's enough evidence that there were likely plates. But if you have a secular worldview or like Dan Vogel, kind of a A pious fraud worldview. Then you have to say, how were their plates if they weren't delivered, if they weren't gold plates, delivered by an angel, Maybe he manufactured plates himself. Is that right?

Trent Told [00:03:01] That's correct.

John Dehlin [00:03:01] Okay.

Trent Told [00:03:01] That's correct. So what I did is I took his theory, and I'm an H VAC contractor. I have a business. The business I own actually was created in 1924. And I have a lot of tools that were available to Joseph Smith or tin smiths at the time of Nauvoo and before. And so I said, you know what? I could do this. And so I sat down, read up on what Dan believed and everything, and then some of the testimonies of the witnesses that had actually lifted them and held them and looked at them and kind of got a size from that and just set out to bake it.

John Dehlin [00:03:45] So what were. What are some of the accounts? Now, I'm kind of putting you on the spot. What are some of the accounts of who might have handled actual plates, who might have actually saw him holding plates or plates covered or plates in the room? What do you remember about some of those accounts? Just to refresh our memory?

Trent Told [00:04:05] Some of them. Joseph Smith had a good description of them. Emma has a. Emma Smith has a description of them that she carried him around the room covered up. Martin Harris also had a description of them while they were translating or something. And let's see, David Whitmer, I believe, would be another one that had a description of it. So just all of those.

John Dehlin [00:04:30] And then there's the accounts of Joseph running through the forest, fighting off enemies while carrying the plates, right?

Trent Told [00:04:39] Yes, that's correct.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] Yeah. Not to mention the Book of Mormon account of Mormon or Moroni having to haul these plates.

Trent Told [00:04:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] What super long distance.

Trent Told [00:04:48] Long distances from Manti or. And other places to end up in Camorra.

John Dehlin [00:04:54] And it might, you know, could have been thousands of miles, potentially, depending on whether you believe the Book of Mormon only happened in Mesoamerica or whether you believe that, you know, somehow it happened in Mesoamerica. But then Moreau and I walked all the way up to New York, what is today New York State, to bury them in the hill, Cumorah, that Joseph Smith uncovered them. Yeah. That's a long way to be carrying super heavy plates. Yeah. Tell us really quickly, did Dan Vogel give sort of, you know, specs for what, based on the history, what the how. How. How tall, how wide, you know, how heavy, how thick, how thin the plates needed to be?

Trent Told [00:05:33] He didn't give any specs. On that. Basically he believed that you could do this with a hammer, a nail, scrap tin that was available to Joseph at the time and that. So basically what I based these off of was an account by Joseph's description would probably be the most accurate. So six by eight.

John Dehlin [00:05:54] Six inches by eight inches.

Trent Told [00:05:56] Six inches by eight inches by eight.

John Dehlin [00:05:57] Who said that? That?

Trent Told [00:05:58] Joseph actually had said that. So. And then about 4 inches tall.

John Dehlin [00:06:02] Okay, so this is 6 inches by 8 inches by 4 inches.

Trent Told [00:06:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:06:06] Okay. All right.

Trent Told [00:06:07] And then Dan believed that as he was building the rings, that as he was bending it through, he injured his thumb on. By bending the rings hand by hand as well.

John Dehlin [00:06:18] Because at some point he does injure his thumb.

Trent Told [00:06:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:21] And he disappears for kind of long periods of time. And people are wondering, looking back, what he was doing, and maybe he was secretly creating these plates.

Trent Told [00:06:30] That's correct. Okay. Yeah.

Recreating the Plates with Period-Accurate Materials

John Dehlin [00:06:31] All right, so tell us about the process.

Trent Told [00:06:33] Well, the process, I set out some ground rules that I was going to use only hand tools that would have been available at the time. So it'd be a hammer, a punch, some tin snips, and I was only going to use scrap metal. So being a H vac tech, I build ductwork for a living. I have a ton of scrap metal around. I got looking back through my tables on how thickens the thickness of it, and I have a good analog of tin. It's not exactly tin, it's galvanized, but it's roughly the same thickness and weight as what tin would have been available at the time.

John Dehlin [00:07:07] Okay.

Trent Told [00:07:08] So the hardest part of the process was actually getting enough usable material to cut into those that six by eight size.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] Where'd you get them sheets?

Trent Told [00:07:18] I actually have hundreds and thousands of pounds of sheet metal.

John Dehlin [00:07:22] Really?

Trent Told [00:07:22] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:07:23] Just lying around.

Trent Told [00:07:23] Just lying around. I build ductwork and transition 90s and everything else. And like I say, my shop was built in 26, so I still have all those hand tools to lay that all out by hand and everything. So.

John Dehlin [00:07:35] Okay, so you literally have these sheets of tin.

Trent Told [00:07:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:37] That you're just basically cutting.

Trent Told [00:07:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:40] Into the right size.

Trent Told [00:07:41] Yeah, they're three by eight. What was available at the time was about a two by three piece of tin. So. But if. If they're not sure if he would have purchased anything or. Or if he was just taking scraps that was available at the time.

John Dehlin [00:07:56] Okay.

Trent Told [00:07:57] So. But other than that, it's just laying out squares. It's actually a really simple project. If you can cut straight with a pair of scissors, you can. You can produce these plates and and you use scissors.

John Dehlin [00:08:08] That would be comparable to what would have been.

Trent Told [00:08:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:11] Do you want to show us the.

Trent Told [00:08:12] Yeah, I have. I have a modern set of shears right here.

John Dehlin [00:08:15] Yeah, go ahead and them out.

Trent Told [00:08:18] I mean, this is a modern set. I've left all my old stuff at. At my shop. I don't know if you can hold

John Dehlin [00:08:24] it up a little bit higher there. Okay, Those are shears. Those are shears. Now, obviously, a couple hundred years ago,

Trent Told [00:08:29] they would have been solid. They wouldn't have been made of aluminum.

John Dehlin [00:08:33] But they just open and close them.

Trent Told [00:08:34] Yeah, they just. They just work like scissors. Yeah, they just work like scissors.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] And you can cut sheets of tin with that. Okay.

Trent Told [00:08:40] Yeah, it would have been available on the farms. They used the tin for sheeting roofs and, and, and flashing and things like that. So it would have been available.

John Dehlin [00:08:49] Okay.

Trent Told [00:08:50] And then they would have had a hammer. This is a ball peen, probably from the 50s. But it would been comparable, you know, to available just a hammer, something to heat hit something with, and then a punch.

John Dehlin [00:09:02] How did you use that?

Trent Told [00:09:03] Basically, you. This makes the holes through that. So you just.

John Dehlin [00:09:07] The holes for the rings.

Trent Told [00:09:08] The rings, yes.

John Dehlin [00:09:09] Okay. Hammer and punch.

Trent Told [00:09:10] Hammer and punch. And then you just have a block of wood to just a punch the

John Dehlin [00:09:15] block of wood and then show them the tin, the sheets.

Trent Told [00:09:17] All right, so we have block. We have a block of wood here. This is basically what the sheets would be.

John Dehlin [00:09:25] Okay. And that's the. That's the. The template from which you created the smaller sheets.

Trent Told [00:09:29] Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:30] Okay. Okay. And then. And to do the punching. Go ahead and like, get the block and put a sheet on it and show us just like. So you're punching a hole right now. Piece of tiny. You just did it. Show us the hole. Just like, not super hard.

Trent Told [00:09:44] No.

John Dehlin [00:09:44] Okay. All right. So it's literally just. I mean, it's. It's. Get the, get the tin. Get some shears. Cut. Cut the tin into squares. Use a hammer and a puncher to punch the holes.

Trent Told [00:10:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:01] What about that last step of the ring?

Trent Told [00:10:03] It's. It's edging wire that would have gone around the rim of a bucket. And it's just basically uncoil it. Coil. Cut enough that you need and, and bend it around.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] Okay.

Trent Told [00:10:14] On that.

John Dehlin [00:10:15] How do you bend it?

Trent Told [00:10:16] Just by hand?

John Dehlin [00:10:17] You can bend it by.

Trent Told [00:10:18] Yeah, it's. It's pretty malleable that way.

John Dehlin [00:10:20] All right, so. So do you want to show us the final product?

Trent Told [00:10:23] Sure. All right, so there we go.

John Dehlin [00:10:26] Okay, now go ahead and page through it and you have to. Why do you have to keep it on your knee? Why can't you just keep it up? No, seriously.

Trent Told [00:10:35] No, it's, it's. It weighs about 37 pounds. And a lot of the, A lot of the.

John Dehlin [00:10:41] Just 10.

Trent Told [00:10:42] Just 10. Okay. And. And there is a little bit of a. Optical or illusion that with it, it makes it feel like it's considerably heavier than 30 pounds. So.

John Dehlin [00:10:54] Okay, so what are you showing us? On your knee.

Trent Told [00:10:57] All right, so this, the. The pages. I have not put any writing on it. We didn't. Don't even know how to even scratch this. It's. It's very difficult to scratch.

John Dehlin [00:11:10] It's difficult to scratch.

Trent Told [00:11:12] It is difficult to actually do characters on it without a hammer and an engraving tool as well. So. But basically it's roughly that thick.

John Dehlin [00:11:24] Gold would be softer than tin. Is that.

Trent Told [00:11:26] Gold would be softer than tin. I have a sheet of copper here that is a possibility that could have been used as well. This is almost priced like gold nowadays, so.

John Dehlin [00:11:38] Oh, really?

Trent Told [00:11:39] Yeah. Well, it's. It's very expensive right now.

John Dehlin [00:11:42] Copper is.

Trent Told [00:11:42] Yeah. Okay, so. But that, that would have been available and cheap at the time as well.

Weight, Feasibility, and Final Impressions

John Dehlin [00:11:47] Okay. Okay, so go ahead and lift up that. Just tell us, Give us an idea, like, if you want to stand up or do bench press with it. Like, how heavy is it?

Trent Told [00:11:56] Well, on my scale, it weighs out at about 37 pounds. But everybody that I've handed it to.

John Dehlin [00:12:03] Including me.

Trent Told [00:12:04] Yeah, including you. I mean, what would you have guessed it to be?

John Dehlin [00:12:07] Yeah, £50.

Trent Told [00:12:09] £50? Yeah. I've gotten anywhere between 70. £50, £70 for it.

John Dehlin [00:12:15] Yeah. So, like. So, like, if you try and like, like bench press it, just. Just like lift it up, how hard is it to bench press?

Trent Told [00:12:23] It's. It's really not that difficult. It's. It's. But it's just awkward. The pages move. They want to cut. You cut your hand.

John Dehlin [00:12:30] Yeah. And I, I actually. I actually cut myself just holding. Holding the sheets because the. It's so thin. You know, they're. They're thin and they're sharp and. And I'm bleeding. So.

Trent Told [00:12:41] Yeah, so.

John Dehlin [00:12:43] So what. What does this tell us? What did you learn? Well, how much heavier is gold than tin?

Trent Told [00:12:50] Gold is considerably heavier than tin.

John Dehlin [00:12:51] Twice. Three times that.

Trent Told [00:12:53] I. I'm not sure. I. I couldn't tell you off again, but quite a bit. I mean, even the copper is heavier than this tin. And that. What I learned as far as the plates are concerned, just looking at the sheer number of them, I believe that if. If they were created at some point the sealed portion would have been needed just, just to be able to not have to engrave so much on it.

John Dehlin [00:13:26] Okay, so one of the, one of the questions is now that you were able to put this thing together, how did you know how many sheets? Just by just what would lead to

Trent Told [00:13:36] the height, the thickness of it, Just the height. So I just started stacking up sheets to, to get the height of 4 inches.

John Dehlin [00:13:43] Okay. And so, so the total weight again of this entire thing is the, the

Trent Told [00:13:49] galvanized tin plates are, are 37 pounds.

John Dehlin [00:13:53] And I'm just going to say it's heavy and just go try, go lift a 40 pound weight. It's super, it's super heavy to try and run around with, let alone fight off people.

Trent Told [00:14:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:05] But then if you, if you think about what gold would have weighed, tell us what we think about that.

Trent Told [00:14:11] Well, scholars speculated if it would have been 24 karat gold, it would have weighed around 140 pounds.

John Dehlin [00:14:17] Okay, so, so basically what is it? Three and a half times? Three, three and a half times?

Trent Told [00:14:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:24] How, what, what do you think?

Trent Told [00:14:27] It'd be not very fun to run around with those and that there's a lot of people that. Joseph Smith Nether said that they were gold, they were golden. And, and that's what I'm planning on doing, working with next is trying to figure out how to make tin plates look golden and, and that. So I don't know the process or what we can do, but that's what I'm trying to figure out now.

John Dehlin [00:14:50] Okay, so. But if he's covering him all the time, they don't need to actually.

Trent Told [00:14:54] No, they don't.

John Dehlin [00:14:55] Golden if he's always got them covered.

Trent Told [00:14:57] No, they don't need to be gold or they don't even need to have characters on them at the time if they're covered and if he's just letting people feel them underneath a sheet or, or something like that.

John Dehlin [00:15:07] Right, yeah. So what did you conclude from this exercise? What did you learn and what concluded conclusions can you draw from it?

Trent Told [00:15:14] Well, basically what I believe is that it can, it is possible, it's entirely plausible that it could be done.

John Dehlin [00:15:23] He could have created the plates.

Trent Told [00:15:24] He could have. It's very easy.

John Dehlin [00:15:26] It's not hard.

Trent Told [00:15:27] It's well within the skill.

John Dehlin [00:15:28] How many days, how many days do you think it took you, how many work hours did it take you to complete the plates?

Trent Told [00:15:35] To work hours on? This only took me about two hours.

John Dehlin [00:15:38] Two hours?

Trent Told [00:15:38] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:15:39] And you're doing this with tools that were comparable to what he would have had. Not.

Trent Told [00:15:43] Not high tech. Not high tech. If I.

John Dehlin [00:15:46] No electricity. No.

Trent Told [00:15:47] If I would have put it on my plasma table or something, I could have created the whole thing in about 45 minutes.

John Dehlin [00:15:52] You could have done it in 45 minutes?

Trent Told [00:15:53] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:15:54] But as it was. It is.

Trent Told [00:15:55] It took you about two hours.

John Dehlin [00:15:57] Two hours?

Trent Told [00:15:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:58] Okay, so you. It. You can do it.

Trent Told [00:16:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:00] In a short amount of time, yes. What else did you.

Trent Told [00:16:04] They are. They. They fit within the weight descriptions. The. The tin plate fits within the weight descriptions of what everybody said they would be, you know, about 40 to 50 pounds. 40 to 70, I think, is what they were saying. So it is plausible that way because

John Dehlin [00:16:22] of Emma's, like, picking them up and dusting under them.

Trent Told [00:16:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:25] They're going to have to be heavy enough so that she believes that they're metal.

Trent Told [00:16:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:29] But not so heavy she could have never actually lifted them.

Trent Told [00:16:33] Yeah. And she describes at some point where she would pick them up and they would rattle. She could hear the. The rattle of the plates. So.

John Dehlin [00:16:41] Okay.

Trent Told [00:16:42] Yeah. So other than that, it's. It's. It's entirely plausible that it was created. It's. You know, whether or not it is, I. I have no idea. And I. I haven't formed an opinion on that yet. As far as Joseph creating the plates or not. I think there's enough evidence out there that you can form your own opinion of what Joseph was doing at the time and. And everything, so.

John Dehlin [00:17:08] Okay.

Trent Told [00:17:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:09] Any other conclusions?

Trent Told [00:17:11] No, that's just. In all honesty, it was just. I'm kind of embarrassed at how simple it is, you know, because it's. It's such basic skills. I don't even give this to people that I apprentice. You know, I'm starting them out on more advanced items on it. So it's pretty simple.

John Dehlin [00:17:28] So, and you're. You're leaving these at Mormon Stories studios so that people can come by and heft them.

Trent Told [00:17:34] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:17:34] And I think Sandra Tanner has a similar copy as well.

Trent Told [00:17:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:38] The Utah Lighthouse Ministries.

Trent Told [00:17:39] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:40] They're.

Trent Told [00:17:41] It's kind of interesting, but. Yeah, I'd like everybody to have it and. And enjoy playing around with them.

John Dehlin [00:17:47] But it is a bleeding hazard. Yes, it's a bleeding hazard. So if you heft them. Be careful.

Trent Told [00:17:52] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:17:53] Yeah. And just the idea, if you multiply that times, let's just say four and a half, and imagine Emma trying to lift them or running with them through the forest or fighting off enemies or trying to carry them unassisted from Mesoamerica to New York, what's your conclusion there?

Trent Told [00:18:16] You'd have to be very strong to do that.

John Dehlin [00:18:19] It.

Trent Told [00:18:20] It's. It's hard enough. There is a. There's kind of an illusion that creates. That you feel like these are heavier. They're like. Say they're awkward and that. But if you were £140, you wouldn't be running through trying to fight off people with it. It'd be like having a sack of

John Dehlin [00:18:32] grain on your back, you know, or carrying them from. From Mesoamerica.

Trent Told [00:18:36] Carrying them from wherever. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:38] Along with all the other things you would need to carry.

Trent Told [00:18:40] Yeah. And fighting off people along the way and. And staying hidden as well.

John Dehlin [00:18:45] Yeah. So, okay.

Trent Told [00:18:46] Yeah. Other. Other thoughts about it. If he did create them and got rid of them, I mean, there's no. There's people that are commenting on Reddit that. That maybe they're buried in the ground somewhere and just get your metal detectors out and find them. But they do rust really easy, so any scratch on them, if they were buried in the ground or thrown in a lake, there would just be a pile of iron oxide and some tin flakes over time. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:17] They wouldn't survive.

Trent Told [00:19:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:19] About gold. Would gold be anything?

Trent Told [00:19:20] Gold would be perfectly preserved, I think, if. If they did take it back.

John Dehlin [00:19:25] Okay, so.

Trent Told [00:19:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:27] Any final words you want to share with our audience?

Trent Told [00:19:29] No, I'm. I'm good.

John Dehlin [00:19:31] All right, thank you. Trent Told, right?

Trent Told [00:19:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:19:34] All right, everyone, that's Trent Told. And if you ever want to check out this proof of concept, come by Mormon Stories Podcast Studios and we'll let you heft them. You just have to sign a waiver so that if you bleed out, it's not our. Our liability. All right, Trent, thanks for joining us on Mormon Stories Podcast.

Trent Told [00:19:50] Thank you.

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