Introduction and Episode Overview

Kolby Reddish [00:00:00] Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's episode on Mormon Stories podcast. This episode is an entry in our LDS discussion series, which is an attempt to discuss Mormon truth claims based on an objective evaluation of the evidence and to look at those things with as little bias as possible. This series began with the work of a man named Mike who has since retired, and his website, LDS discussions.com where he did a lot of work on Mormon Church truth claims. This series is a series and is best consumed that way. I'll ask Nemo here in just a moment which number we're up to in this series, but I know there are over 60 episodes that kind of build on each other, and so these episodes are best consumed sequentially. I know that John Dehlin constantly says that this series is one of the most important things he's done on Mormon Stories podcast, and I'm happy to be a part of it. I'll be your host today, and my name is Colby Reddish. Let me welcome my two other panelists that will be joining me for today's episode, Julia and Nemo.

Nemo [00:01:00] Hey. Hey.

Kolby Reddish [00:01:01] Do you want to introduce yourself?

Julia Sanders [00:01:03] Yeah, I'm Julia Sanders. I've been on LDS discussions for a few episodes now. I run the TikTok and Instagram and YouTube analyzing Mormonism. I'm getting my degree in history, so I'm trying to go the Mormon history angle. So. Yeah. And then I guess, Nemo, do you want to introduce yourself?

Nemo [00:01:20] Sure. I'm Nemo. I run the Nemo the Mormon YouTube channel and every other social media platform conceivable, although not my space, because I think my space is too old school even for me. Yeah, you can find me anywhere. Under the handle Nemo the Mormon. I talk about mainly the behavior of the current institutional church and its leaders. Yeah. And I've been around on this for a long time now, I think since episode two.

Julia Sanders [00:01:46] Yeah. And this is the 71st episode.

Nemo [00:01:49] Wow.

Julia Sanders [00:01:50] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [00:01:51] 71 episodes. That's pretty impressive. Well, today, Julia, why don't we introduce folks to what we'll be talking about on today's episode of LDS Discussions, which is what happened to the stone box and what was inside it. So I think one of the reasons we wanted to discuss the stone box is we've been really going through a few different episodes here the last little bit since I joined you all and have been talking about, like, ways we can think about falsifying the Book of Mormon's claims. So the Book of Mormon makes very particular claims about its world, about the way it was created. And when I use the term falsify, I don't mean like we're looking to find it false. We're just thinking of ways that we can test it in kind of an objective way, the way that scientists think about testing things. So this idea of falsifiability really comes from the hard sciences. And so one of the reasons we wanted to discuss the stone box is so many of the different pieces of evidence that are discussed about Book of Mormon historicity are very subjective or they no longer exist. The like. We don't have access to the plates, for example, but the stone box actually gives us a really interesting opportunity to look at whether at least the box that the plates supposedly were contained in existed in the real world. When we look at these early church history accounts about the box, that's kind of the reason that we started on this idea and put these slides together.

What Was in the Stone Box?

Julia Sanders [00:03:14] Yeah. And then we'll. The first slide. I don't know if you've gone over some of these already, Colby.

Kolby Reddish [00:03:21] Yeah. So similar to our episode on the Golden Plates when we talked about where Joseph Smith may have gotten that idea, it's important to explore where Joseph Smith may have encountered other contemporary ideas about ancient records in a stone box in his neighborhood. It also forms kind of, as I just said, an important piece of archaeological evidence that if existed, if it existed, would help bolster Smith claims. And of course there's. As far as is recorded in the Book of Mormon's text, there's nothing special about the stone box that the plates were, you know, kept in for that thousand year period. And so it is something that would make sense that it would still exist today if it had. If it had truly existed the way that Joseph Smith claimed it did.

Julia Sanders [00:04:06] Yeah. So the first question I wanted to talk about was what was in the stone box? Now I know that we've already gone through these slides before, but. But previous to that, how would you guys have answered that question?

Kolby Reddish [00:04:18] I would have answered the Liahona, the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the plates themselves, the Urim and Thummim. And I think that's it.

Julia Sanders [00:04:30] Yeah, that's how I feel like that's a very common answer.

Nemo [00:04:32] I would have said everything except for the Liahona. I wouldn't have included the Liahona in my answer.

Julia Sanders [00:04:37] Oh, okay. So there's a reason people have these thoughts and there were some clips shared. So yeah, so this common answer, but it is incorrect. But there is a reason why people have this incorrect idea that all these items, the Sword, the Liahona and all these other things were included. And that's because, you know, generally the Church has. When they depict this scene with Moroni bearing the plates, they also often depict him bearing other items. And so we're going to show some of these clips of the Church doing that or church affiliated media. And so this first one comes from this old film called How Rare Possession. It was filmed in 1987. And we're just gonna go ahead and play this clip.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:05:23] And now I bid unto all farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God until my spirit and body shall again reunite. And I am brought forth triumphant through

Video Clip 1 [00:05:36] the air to meet before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the eternal

Video Clip 1 [00:05:44] judge of both quick and dead.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:46] Amen.

Nemo [00:06:06] It's sam.

Artistic Depictions of the Stone Box and Plates

Julia Sanders [00:07:04] Okay, did you guys have any thoughts watching that? Oh, are you muted?

Nemo [00:07:08] I have so many thoughts.

Kolby Reddish [00:07:11] Go ahead, Nima.

Nemo [00:07:12] Well, the music for a start, incredible 80s slightly modulated music, which is always lovely to hear. Just the way he tries to make the plates seem so heavy. And then the idea that Joseph Smith ran for several miles, at least three with them, while being attacked by people who chose not to use their weapons in the manner in which those weapons were designed, but instead hit him with them. They took guns and hit him with them and then managed to somehow fend them off and get back while having a famously bad limp.

Julia Sanders [00:07:45] Yeah.

Nemo [00:07:45] And yet you've got muscular Moroni there struggling to pick them up because they would have been just so heavy. And then, yeah, very clearly wrapping up something that is the Leona in a cloth and putting it down in the hole.

Julia Sanders [00:08:01] Yeah. You could see the sword a couple of times. And there were some other items that looked kind of like a slingshot. I don't even know what he was wrapping up.

Nemo [00:08:08] But I wonder where possibly people might have got the idea that those things were in the box.

Julia Sanders [00:08:13] Right.

Kolby Reddish [00:08:14] So I also was just super impressed by his ancient American mullet. I like to see that those date back to 400 AD, apparently.

Nemo [00:08:24] I think also what's really important here on this point is that similar to depictions of Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon, the Church produces artwork and films to tell a narrative, to inform, to teach, to instruct. So the decisions that are made in producing a film like this are very important and are worthy of scrutiny. Some people might roll their eyes and say, you know, oh, you're just nitpicking an old church film. But why would they put those details in if they didn't want people to walk away? With the impression that that is what was present. Those are the objects that were there. So there's a problem in that, in the church producing a film like this with these sorts of inaccuracies.

Julia Sanders [00:09:03] And that's the question that doesn't really make sense to me. We can ask that throughout these next few clips, too, where we can see by church history that this is not what was in the stone box. But this is an officially approved. You know, this film is made by the church. Why would they perpetuate this false narrative? Which I guess we've seen that in a lot of church history. But if the church can commission a film to be done or pay for it or whatever, and they can commission artists to do things, why commission them to do it? Wrong. Which doesn't really make sense to me.

Kolby Reddish [00:09:29] Yeah, right. Because after that decision is made, like, how are we going to tell this story? It is just. It's odd to choose to tell the story incorrectly. Like you said, Julia, at least with, like, the seer stone and the hat, the rock and the hat, you can kind of understand why they wanted to walk away from that, because it's weirder. But, like, including or not including the Liahona, for example, there's really no reason to include it except for just, like, making a mistake. I don't know. It's very confusing on how that decision would have been made.

Nemo [00:10:02] Yeah. The idea to try and bolster the legitimacy by including. I don't know. Yeah. Including more artifacts. Or is it the idea that, frankly, that idea that those things were in the box has perpetuated for so long that someone put it in because that's just what they believed and no one thought to fact check it.

Kolby Reddish [00:10:26] That's probably what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's probably exactly what it is, is that they. They just, you know, heard it growing up and just recycled what they had heard.

Nemo [00:10:38] And so we're not saying. Oh, sorry. Go on, Julia.

Julia Sanders [00:10:40] Oh, I was gonna say, I think, how rare. Possession. I remember viewing it in seminary. Have you guys seen that? Okay, so it's not necessarily like. I guess they're doing it for students, so it's not necessarily historical. I'm just trying to figure out why they would do that. But we all watched it in our church.

Nemo [00:10:56] Well, yeah, I think, like I said, it's not. I was going to say it's not malicious. This isn't the church. I don't think they're deliberately trying to deceive anyone. But I think it does raise an important point about the importance of the accuracy of artwork and film productions etc that the Church produces because they do send a message and they do perpetuate potentially false narratives like this.

Kolby Reddish [00:11:15] Well, at the very least, yeah. So I agree with you. It's about accuracy. But at the very least, so often when people like us are in the post Mormon space and we might get something slightly inaccurately wrong, I think it's important to point out that a lot of times those inaccuracies result directly from the Church's decisions and how it's told its history and taught members about these things. That's number one. And then number two is moron. Church history is like such a mess. Like, it is such a hot mess that I can understand. If they were looking at like different accounts, they might have gotten confused on exactly what was in the stone box. So people need to give each other a little bit of grace, I guess, when they're kind of recapping that history because it's so expansive, it's so broad, there's so many different accounts. Those are two takeaways I have.

Julia Sanders [00:12:01] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So moving on with these, with these depictions. This one is from the animated stories, the living scriptures. And this is done in 1992. And these are copyrighted, so I couldn't show you guys the clip, but these are images and you can see just

Kolby Reddish [00:12:21] looking at these, it seems to me like Moroni's mullet is canon.

Julia Sanders [00:12:24] That's what it seems like. Yeah. Yeah.

Nemo [00:12:28] Well, because even in the officially published church artwork that's within the, you know, the quad, he's a Ric Flair look alike, I think.

Kolby Reddish [00:12:40] Yeah, we can clearly see here he's got the plates, he's got the sword. I see something that looks like the Liahona next to the sword. So yeah, we can see. Ideas were very.

Nemo [00:12:52] Is it a sword or is it an umbrella? Because it kind of, kind of looks like a brolly to me.

Julia Sanders [00:12:59] It kind of does.

Nemo [00:13:00] But that's pretty sword. Right? Let's move on.

Julia Sanders [00:13:04] Yeah, so another, this is not officially produced by the Church, but yeah, another depiction, this one is scripture central and it's called the Story of the Book of Mormon and it was filmed in 2019. And I think we've discussed before that Scripture central is in part funded by the Church. Is that correct when I say that

Kolby Reddish [00:13:24] I don't know if they're directly funded by the church, but they are definitely churches adjacent. So if they're funded by a third party non profit, it's going to be

Nemo [00:13:33] a couple of steps of separation.

Julia Sanders [00:13:35] Okay. Okay, so this one, we're going to watch a little bit of that and see their depiction.

Nemo [00:13:39] Wherefore condemn not the things of God, that you may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ. And when you shall receive these things, I would exhort you that you would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true.

Julia Sanders [00:14:01] So, yeah, it showed a depiction of. You could see the plates and it would look like the sword handle wrapped up. And then the Leohona again, I think, is what. What I was seeing.

Kolby Reddish [00:14:10] So.

Julia Sanders [00:14:11] And that was more recent. That was 2019, where we're still getting to these incorrect, even though not malicious, these incorrect views of what was buried in the storm box.

Nemo [00:14:22] It's just basic facts at this point and kind of to the point Colby was making earlier. Yes, we should give each other grace. I think it's also hard to stomach sometimes when something like Scripture central that also employs people who come across as quite smug at times when they're condescending at times when they feel like they're setting the record straight. The irony that they're producing material that's just so sort of basically incorrect, not necessarily even particularly important way, but in a way that, you know, they are claiming to be authorities and defenders of the church and people that can, you know, they can set the record straight and correct all our misinformation that we're apparently peddling and they're producing videos that just aren't correct.

Julia Sanders [00:15:03] Yeah, it seems like anymore with the depictions that I was looking up when I was trying to find these clips, most of people depict anymore just the plates, they don't even depict the breastplate and the Urim and Thummim. They. It's just the plates inside the stone box, which I. You know, it seems like a safer thing than. Than adding everything, but.

Kolby Reddish [00:15:21] Yeah, it is also one thing I'm just struck by, I guess thinking back on that first film and the other depictions where you've got multiple different artifacts in the stone box. I guess one of the things I'm struck by is we very much know that this was Joseph Smith's worldview, right from his time as a treasure digger and then from his time after the Book of Mormon's production where it seemed like Joseph Smith couldn't, you know, like walk 10ft without tripping over some magical artifact. Right. So he finds, like, different versions of plates. Some of them end up being fraudulent, like the Kinderhook plates. He's involved in finding those, or at least, you know, purporting to translate one line from them, the Book of Abraham materials. Like, not only does he find a scroll that he attributes to Abraham and translates, he finds another scroll that he attributes to Joseph out of Egypt. I guess I'm just struck by. It's so interesting that Joseph Smith seemed to have this worldview where you find these magical artifacts. And that's kind of what we see echoed in these incorrect depictions of what's in the stone box is this collection, like this treasure trove of artifacts from the Book of Mormon's narrative. So I can understand why, if people have grown up with that conception, it's going to make the Book of Mormon more real to you. Right. Like, not only did the plates exist, but also the Liahona existed, and also the sword existed, and also these other materials existed. It just makes it more grounded in reality. All right, so now that we've talked about those depictions, let's talk about the next one you pulled, Julia.

Julia Sanders [00:16:54] Yeah. So this one is from the visitor center on Temple Square. I'm pretty sure it's still there. This is a painting of Moroni, and he's got. He's got the sword, he's got the Liahona, he's got the plates, and then I guess a bundle of parchment or something. I'm not exactly sure what that is. I mean, I guess he might not be burying the sword, but anyway, it's just these. This certainly the Liliahona is there. That box looks really small, though, for. Anyway, just more depictions of maybe an incorrect view of history.

Nemo [00:17:31] And again, this is where the church is. Like, the visitor center is where the church is saying to people who are not members of the faith, who are going to learn about the faith, come and see about our church. And they've got this painting up which clearly depicts things. So people are going to leave with an impression, however small, that those were the objects involved in that act. And they weren't necessarily.

Kolby Reddish [00:17:55] Yeah, right.

Julia Sanders [00:17:57] Yeah. So if we go further into the historical. The Joseph Smith history, the historical record. So those things were not in the stone box. And so he records, he says, having removed the earth, I obtained a lever or lever which I got fixed under the edge of the stone and with a little exertion, raised it up. I looked in, and there indeed did I behold the plates. The Urim and Thummim and the breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the Box. And on these stones laid the plates, other things with them. And so I'm kind of having a hard time. Crossways of the box. Does that mean, like, they have the stone box and then there's, like, stones sitting on the bottom, or how do you guys picture that?

Nemo [00:18:51] I picture, like, two stones at the bottom, like railway tracks sort of parallel to each other, running across the bottom of the box. On which.

Kolby Reddish [00:18:58] Yeah, it depends on if it means. I think what it comes down to is, does it mean crossways with each other or crossways with the box? Because you could kind of read it either way. So railroad tracks would be crossways with the box, crossways with each other. You would have, like, an X at the bottom formed by these two.

Julia Sanders [00:19:14] And that would be kind of. Right. I feel like that railroad tracks makes a lot more sense in my head.

Kolby Reddish [00:19:19] Me, too, for that.

Julia Sanders [00:19:22] Yeah.

Nemo [00:19:22] And the purpose of them, I would assume, is to kind of keep the plates from the bottom to allow them to be lifted out. Perhaps the D rings on the other. Bind the plates together, aren't sufficiently strong to carry the plates by. And so you need to be able to get purchase underneath. If they're as heavy as our man Ric Flair made them look, then if they're. If they're that heavy, then you wouldn't want to put them right into the bottom of the box. They'd crush your fingers.

Kolby Reddish [00:19:49] Yes. He may also be worried about the elements. Like, if a little bit of water gets into the bottom of the box from time to time, he may be worried about Cor version.

Nemo [00:19:58] Yeah. Gold. That famously corroding, would.

Julia Sanders [00:20:01] Gold. I still. I still feel like gold. And of course, people argue that it's tumbaga. It's not an actual. Just gold. But, like, I feel like if it's sitting on something for a thousand years, whatever, wouldn't it. Wouldn't the. The softness of the metal kind of form around that? I feel like that could make indents. But I'm not. I don't really know much about metal.

Nemo [00:20:22] I wouldn't be surprised if the bottom of the plates on sort of each edge had a ridge in them from sitting on those plates on those stones for a thousand years. Or perhaps even that the leaves had sagged because over a thousand years of gravity, you get a little bit of that.

Julia Sanders [00:20:36] Well, and especially if they ruffle, like paper or whatever Emma described it as. Anyway, I'm getting distracted, but here it's listing the three items. Plates, Urim and Thummim and the breastplate.

Nemo [00:20:46] Well, and that's the way in which the bottom portion. Because we always assume it's the bottom portion that's sealed, right?

Julia Sanders [00:20:52] Oh, yeah.

Nemo [00:20:53] So unless the way in which that sealed provides structural integrity.

Julia Sanders [00:20:56] They do. The witnesses do say it's hard. It was hard like wood. So, like, maybe there was something stronger there than the plates themselves, that sitting on those rocks wouldn't have made a huge difference. But anyway, so this next part is. This is where I think that maybe some of this people got these. These artists or these movie makers got the wrong idea.

The Three Witnesses and Their Testimonies

Kolby Reddish [00:21:18] Do you want me to read this one, Julia?

Julia Sanders [00:21:19] Yes, that'd be great.

Kolby Reddish [00:21:20] Yeah. So this comes from a revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1829, June 1829. And it's recorded today at Doctrine and Covenants 17. So this is where it's talking about the three witnesses, or the revelation about the three witnesses. It says, a revelation to Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, given Fayette, Seneca County, New York, given previous to them having a view of the plates, etc. Behold, I say unto you that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plate and also the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which was given to the brother of Jared upon the mount when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the marvelous directors, which was given to Lehi while in the wilderness on the borders of the Red Sea. And it is by your faith that you shall obtain a view of them, even by that faith which we, which was had by the prophets of old. And after that you had obtained faith and have seen them with your eyes, you shall testify of them by the power of God. And this you shall do that my servant Joseph Smith Jr. May not be destroyed, that I may bring about my righteous purposes unto the children of men in this work. And ye shall testify that you have seen them even as my servant Joseph Smith Jr. Has seen them. For it is by my power that he has seen them, and it is because he had faith.

Julia Sanders [00:22:42] Yeah. Okay. So this one. This is why, I think, because the witnesses said that they were going to be able to see these things. A view of the plates, the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, and the directors, or the Liahona. And so like, this is where I thinking. And we can see this with the first vision, too, where people were getting. Like you see later in the. In the journal Discourses where Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young were talking about the first vision, but they were getting the first vision mixed up with this encounter with Moroni in his bedroom, where the. These stories aren't totally clear. And this might be one of those same stories, but even this is like 2019, where we're still getting these incorrect ideas. Also, I highlighted the part where it says they obtained a view, even by faith, because we've gone over this on LDS discussions before, is that the witnesses said that they viewed the plates and all these items based on a vision that they were having or based on just like, not. Not a physical experience, but just more of a spiritual one. So I thought that was an interesting section.

Nemo [00:23:45] I think it's also very interesting that this adds further to the idea that the plates and the witnesses saw the plates with a sort of spiritual view and a spiritual eye. You know, that language is very clear here.

Julia Sanders [00:23:58] Yeah. So there's another source from David Whitmer in an interview with Orson Pratt. Nemo, do you want to read this one?

Nemo [00:24:08] Yeah, sure. Hang on. There we go. Elder awesome. Pratt, do you remember what time you saw the place? David Whitmer said It was in June, 1829, the latter part of the month. And the eight witnesses saw them, I think the next day or the day after, I. E. One or two days after Joseph showed them the plates himself. But the angel showed us the three witnesses, the plates, as I suppose to fulfill the words of the book itself. Martin Harris was not with us at the time. He obtained a view of them afterwards, the same day, Joseph, Oliver and myself were together when I saw them. We not only saw the plates of the Book of Mormon, but also the brass plates, the. The plates of the Book of Ether, the plates containing the records of the wickedness and secret combinations of the people of the world down to the time of their being engraved, and many other plates. 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, nor like that of a fire, but more glorious and beautiful. It extended away around us. I cannot tell how far, but in the midst of this light, about as far as he sits. Pointing to John C. Whitmer, sitting a few feet from him, there appeared, as it were, a table with many records or plates upon it. Besides the plates, the Book of Mormon, also the sword of Laban, the directors, that is the ball which Lehi had, 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 in the Book of Mormon were translated by the gift and power of God, Elder Rawson Pratt asks, did you see the angel at this time? David Whitman says, yes, he stood before us. Our testimony as recorded in the Book of Mormon is strictly and absolutely true, as it is there written. Now, really quickly here, it says, we saw the plates just as though Joseph and Olivia were sitting here on a log. He says it's as real as. But saying just as though is implying. But it wasn't. So it is as though it were like this. But it actually wasn't, because I'm accepting that this was a miraculous visitation of some kind or it was, you know, a visionary experience or whatever. In this, a lot of the times apologists will point to this and say, well, he. No, he was very clear. It was just as though it was in front of his eyes. Yes, just as though, but in fact, not so. It was something else. It was a different kind of experience. Now, if you believe in miraculous appearances, which I assume you would, if you believe in the first vision, you know, then these angelic or deific visitations are possible. But I think we do need to accept at least that that's what they were or that's what the witnesses believe them to be, either visionary or miraculous in some way. We don't get to look at them as some sort of naturalistic evidence for the Book of Mormon by saying, oh, yeah, no, we just picked up a genuine historical artifact, the gold plates, just like any other thing that we would pick up. No, you don't get to say that because it's very clear that that isn't what's going on here. Does that make sense?

Kolby Reddish [00:27:28] Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's very supported by like, even the way Paul in the New Testament describes his vision. Right. Like, whether it was in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell. But I think if you just look at everything he records happening. To bolster your point, look at what he says they saw not only the plates of the Book of Mormon, but also the brass plates and the plates of the Book of Ether, which are supposed to have contained a vision that the brother of Jared had of everything that happens in the history of the world, plus the plates containing the records of the wickedness and secret combinations, plus many other types of plates. How could this have even happened in a naturalistic model? How many plates were, like, set down in front of them? That's like five different compilations of records. Right. Plates of the Book of Mormon, plates of Brass, plates of Book of Ether, records of the Wickedness and Secret Combinations, and then many other plates. There's five types of records there. Like, how exactly naturalistically is this even working? This is where when you start looking at what these individuals said, you can start to see like, it can't have been a naturalistic historical experience because that. That just doesn't make any sense. That, like, what the angel came and set down, like five different stacks of plates on a table. Like, how exactly was this working?

Julia Sanders [00:28:46] Yeah, yeah. As you were reading Nemo, that's all I could think about was like, this really. It really just does sound like a spiritual experience. And if you guys haven't seen the episodes that we've done on the three and eight witnesses and the other witnesses of the golden plates, I recommend that you go back and I can add those into the show notes, because I think we picked out 13 different accounts of them saying, of the three and eight, saying that this is a spiritual experience. And so that's just what this sounds like to me.

Nemo [00:29:09] And I think what apologists then take from that and what they are trying to fight against often is, well, if it's a spiritual experience, you're trying to say it's not true. No, I'm just trying to put it in the correct category of evidence. I don't mind if that is what you want to base your belief on, a spiritual experience. Because people claim spiritual experiences all the time. Like you said, Christianity has some very strong spiritual experiences. The vision of Paul on the road to Damascus.

Kolby Reddish [00:29:33] Right.

Nemo [00:29:34] So these are. They're just as important to people of faith. That's not what we're saying here. We just want them put in the correct category of evidence. Right.

Kolby Reddish [00:29:44] And understood in their proper context.

Nemo [00:29:46] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [00:29:47] Which I think links back to that. I know, like Brent Metcalf is a big proponent of There were no plates at all. I kind of am agnostic on whether there were some rudimentary plates that Joseph Smith fashioned together or if there weren't. But to bolster his point, that revelation recorded as doctrine and Covenant 17 that we looked at just a moment ago does make really clear, like repeatedly, that this is going to be seen through the eye of faith or because of these individuals, faith, which does kind of prompt the question, then if that's the case, is this really a naturalistic experience? Like, is this a historical experience or is it more of a visionary experience? If it is, then why the need to repeatedly appeal to Faith to be able to see things if these are just actual normal, everyday, like historical artifacts.

Julia Sanders [00:30:34] Right. I will say I think it's Stan Vogel's theory, and I apologize if I'm getting this incorrect, that he thinks that to my understanding that there were a set of plates of some fashion. And Joseph, when he comes back from retrieving the plates, he says he has a dislocated thumb and I think his father asked to have him reset it. But I think Dan Vogel was of the mindset that maybe while he was bending the D shaped rings, which would have been maybe the last step in creating these tin or whatever plates, like maybe he dislocated his thumb while he was trying to push it together. So I just kind of like that theory that there were plates, but not the way Joseph was saying.

Kolby Reddish [00:31:06] Yeah.

Julia Sanders [00:31:07] Yeah. Okay. So the next section is the sources on the stone box, meaning the box that Joseph Smith said he found the golden plates in. So this was.

Kolby Reddish [00:31:18] And actually, can you go back to the last slide really quickly, Julia? I'm sorry. So one thing we didn't mention is there is this table that has all of these records. But here, David Whitmer does mention the sword of Laban, the directors, which means the Liahona, and then the interpreters, the Urim and Thummim. So it is interesting that. It is interesting, I guess, that you can say, at least for the Liahona and the sword. Like, why is this traced back or included in some of these accounts? Well, because David Whitmer indicated in this account that the Liahona was included. Right. That's probably where it's coming from.

Julia Sanders [00:31:55] Yeah.

Nemo [00:31:56] Something I just wanted to add, I just went, because there's an episode I'm working on currently myself, and I've looked at something Emerson Ballard said when he was at a meeting of religious leaders, I think, in Canada, perhaps. He essentially said, well, even if you saw the place, you wouldn't believe. So I think it's also understood by, I mean, he's dead now, but very recent church leaders that seeing the physical plates isn't enough to make someone believe. Actually, there has to be a spiritual component here. So again, even the monoliths, they're not relying on naturalistic evidences for the Book of Mormon when it comes to things like the gold plates and the witnesses. The witnesses aren't a naturalistic explanation for the Book of Mormon because they will say, well, even if we could produce the plates, you still wouldn't believe. There's clearly got to be something else there.

Julia Sanders [00:32:42] Colby can you speak on that. Like, that's super interesting, this idea of like. Because you're talking about falsifying. That's how we started this episode, falsifiable evidence or whatever. Like, if people are basing off of faith where it's like, oh, if you even saw them, if they were really in front of you, you wouldn't believe. So you have to have faith that they're.

Nemo [00:32:58] It's unfalsifiable.

Julia Sanders [00:32:59] Right, right.

Kolby Reddish [00:33:00] Well, this, I mean, this connects back to the New Testament. Whether it's the story of doubting Thomas or the story recorded in Luke 24, the Road to Emmaus. This is the exact point that's made at multiple places in the New Testament. Which is more blessed are you if you believe without having seen. Right. And that is captured also in the Book of Mormon. I'll just say, like epist chronologically. The problem with that, from my point of view is the special pleading problem that Nima was talking about earlier when he talked about people in other faith traditions also have very powerful spiritual experiences and miraculous claims. How do you preference the one or the other? I've never really found any compelling or consistent way to do that. You basically have to preference, you know, whether it's Catholic claims about the miracle at Fatima or, or the claims here that we're talking about, which are miraculous claims about the Book of Mormon's origins. You kind of have to pick or choose which of those you're going to preference. Or if I think you understand a little bit more about the cognitive science of religion and the expectation that goes into creating spiritual experiences. I can't remember if we talked about this already in the course of the series, but there's this Great TED Talk, TEDx Talk from like 10, maybe 12 years ago called this is your brain on God that was filmed at University of Utah's like Medical Center. And the person who's presenting his name is Michael Ferguson. One of the things that he shares is they asked people, and specifically they asked people in the Mormon population because this happened in Salt Lake, this study, they asked people to rate how powerful a spiritual experience they were feeling when they were having experiences with in group spiritual quotes and out group spiritual quotes. And the thing that's probably unsurprising to people is that people who are in the in group Mormon group, they resonated or reported feeling the spirit at a higher level when they were experiencing in group, like Mormon leaders. I believe it was Dieter Uchtdorf, Jeffrey Holland, and I can't remember who the third one was. All of A sudden, oh, it was President Monson. It happened when President Monson was the prophet. And all of them reported having higher spiritual experiences or high level of spirituality with those in group quotes versus out group quotes. The trick of the study was that all of the quotes, including the ones from the in group and the out group leaders, were actually from CS Lewis. So this higher level of spirituality that people were reporting experiencing was based entirely upon the fact that they thought the origin of that quote was an in group spiritual leader, even though it wasn't. And I think that when you understand some of this psychology behind these things, you can start to see that exactly to what Nemo said. I don't look at the witnesses accounts or accounts of early church history like this and say, David Whitmer, for example, the one we just looked at is lying. I think David Whitmer is doing his best to describe a really ethereal, hard to grasp experience. And for people who've had spiritual experiences, whether in or out of the church, you recognize that you really can't capture something that's like, ineffable and describe it in a way like it's something that naturalistically happened. You're describing an experience that's much harder to capture than that. And then people can decide, like, am I going to base my decisions for my life and those stakes on other people's spiritual experiences, or can I validate their spiritual experiences and recognize maybe there's some expectation fulfillment going on? Maybe there's inherently subjectivity in all of these experiences. I guess what I'm saying is you don't have to believe someone's account simply because you understand and accept that they're probably trying to accurately report that account to you. You can still say, I can accept the validity of them reporting this account to me, but it doesn't mean that all their claims about objective reality, the way reality works, follow on from accepting that they're trying to accurately state back some spiritual experience. To me, at least that's the way I make sense of this.

The Stone Box as a Theological Tension

Nemo [00:37:03] And drawing us back to the stone box. I think the stone box represents a part of the tension within Mormonism between the need to rely on spiritual experience to make it work and the idea that there is also a need to ground it in archaeological history, in real physical history, because it claims to be a real physical record of things that happened in that time and space. That is what it claims in and of itself. And so you can't just retreat entirely into, well, it's just a realm of spirituality. If Joseph Smith's Claims have been God has revealed to me, this new book of scripture doesn't relate to any specific ancient people or persons. It's just a new book of revealed scripture. Then you can completely fall back into these sort of spiritualistic arguments. But he claimed that God revealed him ancient book of scripture, perhaps because he felt that gave it more authenticity. Not sure. Can't really speak to that. But when the claims around the book are grounded in physical reality, then they become testable by physical reality. And that's, I think, a tension that really is at the core of Mormonism.

Kolby Reddish [00:38:10] Yeah. And that tension. The reason I had the idea of doing this episode in the first place is as I was experiencing my faith crisis, I was kind of shocked to realize I had never actually asked the question of, like, does that stone box actually exist? Like, has it ever been found? Has it been archaeologically studied? I'd never even asked that question because. And that's such an interesting epistemological problem to me, because it is a very easy way for us to say, okay, let's accept the narrative that the plates had to be taken back to heaven. Right. Let's accept the idea that we don't know exactly what was in that stone box. Regardless, the stone box existed for over a thousand years. It should exist today, or we should have some account of what happened to it, because we know that people remained in that area around where Cumorah was for a long time in the early church. And so it just is. And then when we look at patterns of how many things from early church history have been retained and held in, like, vaults, like the seer stones or. I know, Julio, you've got a fun find that you wanted to add at the end of the episode. It is a little hard to believe the inconsistency of. No one kept track of what happened to the stone box, but everybody hung on to, like, these, you know, rocks that Joseph Smith had at various times in his life. That inconsistency, I think, is really hard to square.

Julia Sanders [00:39:29] Right. Nemo. I wanted to ask him, when Ballard. Would you say it was Ballard that said that you. If you saw. Did he explain why people wouldn't believe if they saw?

Nemo [00:39:38] No, no. He's. He. He essentially made arguments around how it's all about faith. You've just got to have faith.

Julia Sanders [00:39:44] Okay, Well, I feel like that's sort of a fallacy of some sort, where it's like. Yeah, anyway, it's almost.

Nemo [00:39:51] It's almost like it's feels like it's slightly like a. No, true Scotsman fallacy in that there are no conditions under which you would actually be satisfied. Kind of making assumptions about that.

Kolby Reddish [00:40:04] Yeah. It's giving strong. My girlfriend goes to another school energy. Right?

Nemo [00:40:09] Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

Historical Sources Describing the Stone Box

Julia Sanders [00:40:13] Okay, so going back. This next section is the sources on the stone box that Joseph Smith said he found in Palmyra. This first one, I think is. I think we said it's a geo. Oh, I can't remember how to pronounce this. Geaga.

Nemo [00:40:25] Geaga.

Kolby Reddish [00:40:26] Yeah.

Julia Sanders [00:40:27] Nemo. Do you mind reading this account?

Nemo [00:40:29] That's absolutely fine. I've noticed that whenever you ask me if I mind do something, I say yes as though it's the affirmative, when that would be incorrect. So I'm working on that. Okay.

Kolby Reddish [00:40:41] So.

Nemo [00:40:42] Geaga Gazette, 16 November, 1830. Delusion. The account which they give is substantially as follows. At a recent period, an angel appeared to a poor ignorant man residing in or near Palmyra in Ontario County. The state of New York directed him to open the earth at a place designated where he would find the new revelation. Engraved on plates of metal in obedience to the celestial messenger Smith repair to the spot and on opening the ground, discovered an oblong stone box tightly closed with cement. He opened the sacred depository and found enclosed a bundle of plates resembling gold, carefully united at one edge with three silver wires so that they opened like a book. The plates were about 7 inches long and 6 broad, and the whole pile was about 6 inches deep, each plate about the thickness of tin. They were engraved in a character unintelligible to the learned men of the United States, to many of whom it is said to have been presented.

Julia Sanders [00:41:46] Yes, we have the account. And he's just talking about the cement. This is also. I was just thinking this also predates the first vision accounts. So they're talking about the. The only messenger that Joseph encountered as far as the historical record is just the angel who was called Nephi and Moroni. So, yeah, that's just one of the first accounts. And then Oliver Cowdery has one. This is from 1834.

Nemo [00:42:08] Hang on. Just before you jump on that. Sorry. I think. Yeah, it's really important to mention that, actually. Why? Why have they not mentioned the first vision? Because the first vision story is going to be told yet. That would absolutely be part of this narrative. They would start there, they would say God told him to do this, then an angel took him to get the place. Right. So, yeah, that's a really good point, Julia.

Julia Sanders [00:42:27] Yeah. And there's complete absence. Like there's nothing in the historical record that I can find until way later that he ever saw God or Jesus. Yeah. Okay, so with this next one is Oliver Cowdery. Colby, do you mind reading these? These slides?

Kolby Reddish [00:42:39] Not at all. So this comes from Oliver Cowdery in 1834. 1836, probably is 1840, 1834-1836 journal. Is that right, Julia? Okay, so he says, first, a hole of sufficient depth, how deep I know not, was dug. At the bottom of this was laid a stone of suitable size, the upper surface being smooth. At each edge was placed a large quantity of cement. And into this cement, at the four edges of this stone were placed erect. Four others, their bottom edges resting in the cement at the outer edges as the first stone, the four last named, when placed erect, formed a box. The corners, or where the edges of the four came in contact, were also cemented so firmly that the moisture from without was prevented from entering. Well, there goes my concern. Right. It is to be observed also that the inner surface of the four erect or side stones was smooth. This box was sufficiently large to admit a breastplate such as was used by the ancients to defend the chest, etc. From the arrows and weapons of their enemy. Then it continues. From the bottom of the box or from the breastplate arose three small pillars composed of the same description of cement used on the edges. And upon these three pillars was placed the record of the children of Joseph and of a people who left the tower far, far before the days of Joseph, or a sketch of each, which, had it not been for this and the never failing goodness of God, we might have perished in our sins, having been left to bow down before the altars of the Gentiles and to have paid homage to the priests of baal. I must not forget to say that this box containing the record was covered with another stone, the bottom surface being flat and the upper crowning. But those three pillars were not so lengthy as to cause the plates and the crowning stone to come in contact. I have now given you, according to my promise, the manner in which the record was deposited.

Nemo [00:44:31] When would Oliver Cowdery ever have seen this box?

Kolby Reddish [00:44:35] He would not have. Which is one of the. Yeah. One of the ironic things about this account is all of this he's receiving secondhand, which, if you go back for a second, Julia, sure is interesting that he starts and says, first, a hole of sufficient depth. How deep? I know not. He doesn't know any of this for himself. He's hearing it all through Joseph Smith

Nemo [00:44:55] at best, and then he's saying it is to be Observed. Yeah, but not by you, Oliver. You never observed it firsthand. Right? I'm kind of making a joke there, but he is recounting this incredible detail almost as though when people aren't telling the truth, they sometimes feel as though if they add more detail, it will be more believable and more credible because there's stuff in here about creating. Why does he need to say that these pillars were tall enough to hold the plates, but not so tall as to call the cause the plates to hit the lid of the box? That seems just self evident. Who was looking at that going, oh, well, there's these little pillars, but I guess I assume the plates got squished by the lid, then no one's thinking that. There's just these unnecessary little details that I think is just him sort of riffing perhaps, or just trying to add more credibility to an account that of something he never saw.

Kolby Reddish [00:45:52] It's also interesting that he builds in like the significance of the record in what he's reporting as just like the history around where the plates were found. So he has this whole thing in the middle about the sketch of these different civilizations, which had it not been for this and the never failing goodness of God, we might have perished in our sins and been left to bow down before the altars of the Gentiles. This is just very aligned with like Joseph Smith's first vision account, the 18. 1838. Is that what it is? 1838 account is the, the one that's in the Scriptures, right? Yeah. Where you know, Joseph Smith is told, purportedly by Jesus Christ, that all the professors are corrupt, that all the creeds are an abomination in his sight. This looks very akin to what Joseph Smith was thinking then, which we know, like his universalism or his ecumenicalism kind of waxed and waned over the course of his life, depending on how he felt about other denominations. So it's interesting to see that at least now Oliver Cowdery is building this same like, but for Mormonism, but for the Book of Mormon, we would have perished in our sins. That's a very interesting kind of insight, I guess, into what's going on in his mind.

Nemo [00:47:08] And also the way he says that we would be left to bow down before the olds of the Gentiles. Does this show that at this early point there was a belief that Mormonism represented a branch of the House of Israel that, you know, Mormons essentially aren't Gentiles in some way? Because, you know, that is implicit in Mormon belief, is that Mormons aren't Gentiles. That's what your patriarchal blessing tells you. That's what kind of the concepts of Mormonism teach you. You're no longer a Gentile. You're part of the House of Israel, adopted it.

Kolby Reddish [00:47:35] Yeah. That's not all that surprising to me because this comes from the 1834, 1836 history. So that is a message that's like replete throughout the Book of Mormon. So that's probably where he's picking it up.

Nemo [00:47:48] But it's already. My point is at this point, already it's making its way into the narrative that is being formed about the religion itself, not just about the book, but about the Mormon Church.

Kolby Reddish [00:48:00] Right. Did you have anything else on this one, Julia, that was interesting to you?

Julia Sanders [00:48:04] Yes, I just wanted to remind the audience that so far in the record. And then we'll talk about these other ones later. But Emma, Emma was the only one that went with him to retrieve the plates, and even she didn't go all the way with him. So only Joseph has seen this stone box as far as this record so far. And then we're going to go chronologically. But also one thing that I wanted to point out is he alludes to the Book of Ether, where he says that the. The tower, the people who left the tower. Recently, John Dehlin had Bart Ehrman on Mormon stories, and he talks about how the Tower of Babel is just the first 12 chapters of Genesis are just like more myth than it. Than actual history. And how this was just somebody came up with this, how people have different languages and it's not actually history. And so, like, that's a. That's another one of those things about the Book of Mormon that make it not historical to me. But it's interesting that Oliver is talking about it here.

Kolby Reddish [00:48:56] Yeah. And having been part of that episode, which I tried not to fangirl about talking to Bart Ehrman too much, but one of the things he talked about is that primeval history that is. Is Genesis 1 through 11 was not written until the Jews were in exile in 587, which is the exact destruction that they were in First Nephi that they're talking about leaving to avoid. So you've got a real chicken and egg problem when you start to understand critical scholarship about how the Bible came to be. And, you know, one of the things I really liked about that episode with Dr. Ehrman is he talked about his intention for doing these things. I think his intention is very aligned with what we try and do in this series, which is we're not trying to take away from faith or take away people's belief in these things. I think you really can't have faith in something unless you actually understand what you're believing based on faith and what you're believing based on evidence. And the evidence says that that early history, that Genesis 1:11 wasn't written until the exile because it was serving a certain rhetorical purpose of helping tell the etiological stories of for the children of Israel and where they came from. And so that's how scholars have made sense of this. That poses a huge problem for Book of Mormon historicity in the story of the brass plates. But people can still have faith and find meaning and value in the narrative of the Book of Mormon or in what the Book of Mormon has done for their lives. I think you can't have faith unless you adequately understand, again, what you're believing based on evidence, what most people are going to believe about history versus what you are believing based on faith.

Julia Sanders [00:50:35] Yeah. Yeah, I really like that. So these next two slides are just images from the Book of Mormon evidence website. And I just never really seen this idea of the three pillars. And then. And then I never really understood the crossways stone. So it seems like most of these accounts, they talk about the plates sitting on something. So here's a depiction of the three pillars of sitting, the plates sitting on those. And then there's another one here where again, you see the three little pillars made of the same cement. I just thought that was really interesting. I wanted to share that because I just. That's never been a part of my experience.

Kolby Reddish [00:51:09] Yeah. Going back to the pillars or the crosswise stones like we talked about, since we do have from Oliver Cowdery, this idea that the stone box kept out all moisture. It does to me suggest, especially when we think of that 1987 film when the plates, like, had that loud thud. It does make me think the reason for these pillars or for the. The plates being raised off the. The bottom of the box in some way. It has to be because of the weight like that. You need to be able to get underneath the plates to lift them. It seems very clear to me, like going through these slides.

Nemo [00:51:46] Yeah, I would agree.

Julia Sanders [00:51:48] I still struggle with the idea if they were 30. Between 30 and £50, depending on who. Which witness, that's still a lot of weight. But, yeah, yeah, the idea that.

Nemo [00:52:00] Yeah, you think about the ergonomics of that for a moment, reaching down into a box to pick them out, like, I'm. I'm surprised the Story isn't that Joseph stepped into the box and kind of hefted them out or something because just mechanically getting them out from a physiological perspective. So from an ergonomic perspective, it sounds quite difficult actually.

Julia Sanders [00:52:22] But I guess the D shape, rings,

Nemo [00:52:23] pulling strength, like he was deadlifting a lot or something.

Kolby Reddish [00:52:26] Oh yeah, that's where he got his stick pull ability.

Nemo [00:52:30] Well, yeah, the stick pull ability. That's what it is, right? It's all those years of stick pull, everything raised up.

Kolby Reddish [00:52:37] He was prepared for a time such as this.

Nemo [00:52:39] Yeah, indeed.

Julia Sanders [00:52:41] Okay, so this next there's some more slides from Josephson's history. I'll read this one. This is from 1838. Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario County, New York, stands a hill of considerable size and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. I wonder if that's actually accurate. On the west side of the hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates deposited in a stone box. This stone was thick and rounding in the middle on the upper side and thinner towards the edges so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground. But the edge all around was covered with earth. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. And the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box. And on these stones lay the plates and the other things with them. So again, I guess I'm just also getting this image of. So originally I was thinking it was all cement, but it seems like it's stone. Like maybe square shaped stones. But also if water were to get in like we were talking about here, wouldn't it still be in it? Or like. Yeah, I don't know, some kind of debris out again. Right.

Nemo [00:53:51] I'm looking at the Wikipedia entry for the hill Cumorah and it very much seems to be prominent, but not the tallest around.

Julia Sanders [00:53:59] I just, I guess I was thinking, because I've been there and I don't remember, I don't. I didn't think to like measure in accordance with the other ones around it. But this just also sounds like Joseph where he's sort of like, oh, this is the biggest one that you can see. It just. He just sort of has this like. I don't know how to word that, but like this error.

Kolby Reddish [00:54:18] I think in the business we call that delusions of grandeur. Yeah, always trying to. Yeah, always trying to make it bigger, better. Right. The. The New Testament has one apostle that lives forever. The Book of Mormon has three, for example.

Julia Sanders [00:54:32] And then this guy Brings these two random mummies and he's like, oh, my gosh, these are. This is like this princess. And then I can't remember who the other character was, but was it Joseph? I can't remember who the other character was, but, like, these are prominent people in history and he just always makes. Yeah. Delusions of grandeur. However you said it.

Kolby Reddish [00:54:48] Yeah. One of the things I'm struck by here is here again, we see this reference to the two stones laid crosswise where Oliver Cowdery, who's getting his information, presumably secondhand from Joseph Smith, talks about these pill. These three pillars. So it's interesting that we've got the same purpose being served of lifting the plates off the ground. But even there, like, at a fundamental level, Oliver Cowdery would only be able to get this information from Joseph Smith. He was the only one who had a firsthand account or encounter with this box. And yet there's disagreement between them on, like, some basic stuff about how this was put together. It's just interesting. I don't know exactly what to make of that.

Julia Sanders [00:55:27] Well, and quickly, too. So his is from 34 to 36, and this is 38. So you could say even within like a four year or so. I don't know. Just the stories are just not quite aligning. Yeah. So there's another account by William Appleby from 1848.

Kolby Reddish [00:55:47] Want me to read this one? Okay. So William Appleby in 1848 said a hole of sufficient depth had been dug and a flat stone laid at the bottom. Then there were four set erect at the outer edges of the bottom stone, joined together with some form of cement so as to form a box. On the bottom stone was laid a shield or breastplate that from that arose three pillars formed of cement. On the top of these pillars laid the record. So I'll just pause for a second and say this sounds very similar to the Oliver Cowdery account, including the pillars arising from the breastplate, which I'm not even sure how that makes, like, sense. Yeah, like any type of sense. But it. The text is close enough. Even the. A hole of sufficient depth had been dug. I would guess that Applebee's account is textually dependent on Oliver Cowdery's that we read earlier. But I'll go ahead and say the

Nemo [00:56:43] same thing just before you jump. Jump back in. I think it's very interesting that I believe some accounts seem to indicate that the stone for the top of the box just sits proud above the ground. And other accounts are indicating that had to be dug down for.

Kolby Reddish [00:56:55] Right, right.

Nemo [00:56:56] That's just an important thing to note.

Kolby Reddish [00:56:58] And Joseph's, the one we just read, talked about how the bottom. I'm sorry, the. The edges of the top stone were basically buried with a little bit of earth and he had to uncover them. This one has the same thing. So I'll continue. So it says from that arose the three pillars formed of cement. On top of these pillars laid the record together with the Urim and Thummim, the whole not extending quite even with the top of the side stones. Over the hole was placed a crowning stone, a small part of which was visible when he first visited the spot. Each plate was about 6 by 8 inches and as thick as common tin. And in each side, beautiful, engraved and filled with black cement. The whole being about six inches in thickness and put together with three rings running through. The whole part of which was sealed. The unsealed parts has been translated and contains the Book of Mormon. And living witnesses who have seen the plates and hefted them have borne testimony to the same.

Nemo [00:57:57] So when you say a hole of sufficient depth have been dug, I think then maybe I'm misunderstanding that. And what they're saying is they're describing the way in which the box was brought about in the first place, that a hole had to be dug and then into it stones, etc.

Julia Sanders [00:58:09] Right.

Kolby Reddish [00:58:10] Which is the way Oliver Cowder counts it. Basically, they dig a hole, they put stones all along the edges and on the bottom, and then you've got the top and the pillars.

Julia Sanders [00:58:21] It is interesting right here where he says that the engravings were filled with black cement. Like, I think I had heard that there was like some kind of black whatever, but I hadn't heard the word cement.

Nemo [00:58:31] That's really interesting what black cement is.

Kolby Reddish [00:58:34] It's so interesting that, you know, we saw this a little bit when we did the gold plates episode. There were so many disparate accounts of, like, the dimensions, the weight, the appearance of the gold plates. For example, I remember Josiah Stoll records them being of like a greenish hue and like a greenish rock. Maybe if. If I'm remembering correctly, and it just makes me wonder, like if you sketched all of these accounts together, there's no way to completely reconcile them. Right. Like, there's. There's no consistent description. This is the only description I've ever seen that says the engravings on the plates were filled with some type of cement.

Nemo [00:59:17] But that's the idea of the sort of black cement, is the idea that in order to make the engravings stand out, they were Filled in. Right. I think that's, that's what's described, which, yeah, like I said, is there's a novel piece of information.

Julia Sanders [00:59:36] So right here it says, like you had mentioned this earlier, Colby, at the bottom, the bottom stone was laid. On the bottom stone was laid a shield or breastplate, and from that arose the three pillars and then the plate. So like, that's just a weird like sandwich.

Nemo [00:59:52] I mean, of course it's laying on the bottom of the box and the breastplate has cement pillars on it, which, why not just put it on hold the plates? It's odd. It's an odd arrangement.

Julia Sanders [01:00:07] And this is from William Appleby's journal. And this is from 1848. So just a few years after Joseph died, he, of course, he's not there when he, he's either getting this from Oliver and this is what it sounds like, or from Joseph himself, which sure things cannot agree or stack up differently. But it's just really interesting.

Nemo [01:00:25] I would just like to say I want to be buried in such a way that causes this kind of archaeological confusion. I want to be buried in a. People go, why? Why did they do that? They're going to find my skeleton like, you know, sort of in a weird press up position or something or, you know what I mean, held up by weird cement pillars. Yeah, that's how I want to go.

Kolby Reddish [01:00:46] That's great. So these were, these were a few accounts, I believe. This is the section I found. Right, Julia? Yeah. Where we kind of asked the question, did early Mormons believe there was more than one stone box? I think one of the reasons this question is interesting to me is because it helps kind of show the context. Earlier when we were talking about, you know, whether they saw these things with the eye of faith, it was more a spiritual, subjective experience versus like a literal kind of naturalistic experience. To me, the reason that discussion is interesting and important is because it, it helps tell you about the context that these people lived in, the time that they lived in, the place that they lived in, and kind of the worldview that was prevalent there. For people who don't know, in early America, like today, we're so used to the separation of state and church that it would be very odd for us to have, I guess unless you're in certain states that are pushing the other direction, to have like, you know, school children in a public school, learning to read from the Bible is so weird to us because of the separation of church and state that's evolved. But it wasn't that way back in this Day and age, the, the First Amendments protection for religious freedom and for religious liberty didn't extend to the states until much later through the 14th Amendment and a doctrine known in legal circles as the incorporation doctrine. My point here is just that people like Joseph Smith, the people that we're talking about from this worldview, they were taught to read very often from the Bible itself. Like religion was incorporated much more fully into people's everyday lives, as was this kind of folk magic. Folk magic and treasure digging practices, at least for the people that were really involved in the early church's formation, like the Whitmers, the Cowderys and the Smith family. And so to me, that context is very important to understand the context in which these claims are being made so that you can understand. Well, these people saw, you know, they claimed that they saw the Book of Mormon plates and this one stone box. What else did they believe in? Because then it kind of allows us to gauge whether we accept kind of these people's worldview or we don't.

Early Accounts of Hidden Treasures and Buried Gold

Julia Sanders [01:02:59] Yeah, I'm taking a class right now in the history of education. And they would use the King James specific version of the Bible as their, if I'm saying this correctly, primer, where these young kids would just recite and they would just have all of these chapters memorized, which is another thing we talked about in the Could Joseph Smith writer dictate a well worded letter? Which is, this is the, this is history that Joseph Smith was in. He would go to school and this is what he would hear. And so him trying to mimic the King James Bible or to know that so well, makes complete sense looking at it historically.

Kolby Reddish [01:03:33] Absolutely. So I pulled together a few accounts where we do have evidence that Martin Harris and some other peoples connected to early church history did believe in more than one stone box on Hill Cumorah. So this account has three different witnesses. Oli Jensen, James Keep and John Godfrey from 1875. They were together in Salt Lake with Martin Harris and receiving one of Martin Harris's final testimonies. So Martin Harris reiterated that he had seen the angel turn the leaves of the plates. And then he added this additional detail after that fact. This is why I think this is a different stone box than the one we've been talking about that held the Book of Mormon plates. So Harris says, I will tell you of the most wonderful thing that happened after Joseph received the plates. Three of us, myself and two more took some tools and went to the hill to dig for more plates of gold or something. And indeed we found a stone box. We got quite excited and dug around it very carefully. And just when we were ready to lift it up out of the hole, some unseen power slid it back into the hill. We stood and looked at it, and one of us tried to drive a crowbar through the lid to hold it. But the crowbar glanced off and the corner of the lid was chipped off. Sometime that box will be found and you will find one corner of the lid broken, and you will know that I have spoken the truth. So your thoughts on that account?

Julia Sanders [01:04:59] It's. It just reminds me of all the. The treasure hunting that D. Michael Quinn wrote a book early. What is it called?

Kolby Reddish [01:05:07] Early Mormonism in the Magic Worldview.

Julia Sanders [01:05:08] Yes. Where he talks about this. So Joseph, I think, started treasured again, 1820. And here you've got it sinking into the earth, which is a very Book of Mormon thing as well. I don't think the Bible references that part at all. Anyway, this is just very, you know, Martin Harris. And Martin Harris believed that he was talking to Christ. He had this very magical worldview, and so did the Whitmers. Anyway, this is just.

Kolby Reddish [01:05:30] When you. When you say Martin Harris believed he was talking to Christ. He believed he was talking to Christ in the form of what, Julia? Because that.

Julia Sanders [01:05:37] A deer.

Kolby Reddish [01:05:38] A deer. That distinguishing factor is what?

Julia Sanders [01:05:41] Yeah, I should have mentioned that.

Kolby Reddish [01:05:42] More difficult to believe. But yeah, I have the same thought of this stone box that they purport to find, you know, through some unseen power, slid back into the hill. There are obvious reference to that in the Book of Mormon, which we'll get to in just a minute. I don't believe there's any such account in the Bible. You're right, Julia. I think regardless of. Of where exactly it comes from, what it helps inform you of is the context of these people's worldview when they're making these claims. It helps you understand this is the kind of guy that Martin Harris was. We know that he was a religious seeker, that he pivoted between different sects, that after his time in Mormonism, he was also involved with the Strangites and strings plates. Right. And so he just is someone who kind of saw miracles everywhere he went. Which isn't to say that he didn't see the miraculous Mormon things he claimed. It just helps you understand the context in which he's making those claims.

Nemo [01:06:36] I think it goes back to something you said, Colby, about how Joseph Smith's tripping over ancient artifacts left, right and center. Similarly, I think Martin Harris bought into that idea that. Okay, well, if Joseph found Some gold plates in this hill. There's probably some more around. Let's go look for them. But he gives the excuses, and I'll use the term excuses there, that Joseph used in his treasure digging, which was he would go out on a dig, he was the glass looker. He would say, oh, yeah, it's here, it's here. Oh, no, the spirits took it away, but that'll be however many dollars, please, and he would still get paid. And this idea that unseen spirits can withdraw treasure back into a hill is a concept that those around Joseph Smith were very familiar with. And so that would be the reason they would give as to why we couldn't get our stone box. But that's not the reason being given for why the original stone box isn't there. We don't yet have a good reason for why that's not in the hill. Cumorah still. Yeah, this other box has been taken away by an unseen power. But I've not yet seen an explanation as to why the original cement box that lasted over a thousand years is. Is no longer around.

Kolby Reddish [01:07:38] Yeah, right. And one thing I wanted to note as we look at this next account is you can see the Martin Harris is talking about. There were three people involved in finding that account or in finding that box. So there's actually basically a second witness that we'll talk about here in just a moment. But yeah, I did have this kind of sarcastic, kind of sarcastic slide here just to say, you know, sometime that box will be found and you will find one corner of the lid broken and know that I have spoken the truth as far as I know, even though archaeologists have looked over the hill, Cumorah, it is an archaeologically clean site. And this, you know, this magic disappearing box has never been found. So, you know, Martin Harris is. I mean, Martin Harris is bearing testimony that you will know what he's talking about is true based on this fact that he puts an issue. And this fact has never been revealed in a way that vindicates Martin Harris. Instead, it's the exact opposite.

Nemo [01:08:34] People will say, you know, this isn't a prophecy. He's not authorized to prophesy. He's just Martin Harris. But he is making a prediction about what will happen in the future. And he is a man of significant spiritual standing within the church. So, you know, it still matters that he got this wrong.

Kolby Reddish [01:08:50] And all of this stuff is contextual information. It helps you analyze how to think about these claims that are being made.

Julia Sanders [01:08:57] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:08:57] So let's go to our next account. So this one Comes straight from Brigham Young, but the person involved is Porter Rockwell. So this comes from the Journal of Discourses, Volume 19, 1878. He's talking about these miraculous claims and how you can find evidence for the Nephites all over the place. So he says, sometimes I take the liberty of talking a little further with regard to such things. Oren Porter Rockwell is an eyewitness to some powers of removing the treasures of the earth. He was with certain parties that lived nearby where the plates were found that contained the records of the Book of Mormon. There were a great many treasures hid up by the Nephites. Porter was with them one night where there were treasures, and they could find them easy enough, but they could not obtain them. I will tell you a story which will be marvelous to most of you. It was told me by Porter, whom I would believe just as quickly as any man that lives. When he tells a thing, he understands, he will tell it just as he knows it. He is a man that does not lie. He said that on this night, when they were engaged hunting for this old treasure, they dug around the end of a chest for some 20 inches. The chest was about 3ft square. One man who was determined to have the contents of that chest took his pick and struck into the lid of it and split through the chest. The blow took off a piece of the lid which a certain lady kept in her possession until she died. That chest of money went into the bank. And by bank here it means like the. The ditch bank or the. The bank of earth. Porter describes it so, making a rumbling sound. He says this is just as true as the heavens are. I have heard others tell the same story. I relate this because it is marvelous to you, but to those who understand these things, it is not marvelous. And so the significance to me here is we know that Martin Harris says in his account that there were other people involved in the same treasure dig. We're talking about the same area

Nemo [01:10:51] where

Kolby Reddish [01:10:52] the accounts are very similar. Right. They. They glance off of this, the top of the box, they chip it away, and there's some piece that's broken off. Porter's account then, or I guess Brigham's account through Porter makes it even more interesting because there's a certain lady that keeps this, like, broken stone, I guess, in her possession. It says, until she died. Your thoughts about this one? Does it seem like a second account of the same events? Because to me it does.

Nemo [01:11:22] Yeah.

Julia Sanders [01:11:23] Like it. Like a reiterating of this one?

Kolby Reddish [01:11:25] Yes.

Julia Sanders [01:11:25] Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me. Yeah. Again, the Old lady keeping it. Like, again, we were talking about, like, the church, they like to hold on to things or people back in that time, they would hold on to these artifacts. And just like this woman is doing. Why did no one keep any part or why. Why do we not know where the stone box is?

Nemo [01:11:43] Yeah, there are certain things that the church has kept and denied having kept, but we knew kept all along, like one of Joseph Smith's seer stones that they said they didn't have and then they did. So certain artifacts have been kept from this time and they've kept. Apparently some old lady has kept a part of this miraculous box that just disappears. The question is then if these sorts of artifacts can be kept and are important, because here it's being pointed to as, you know, evidence that this thing existed. I guess what I'm kind of trying to get at is evidence sort of matters or it doesn't. Not to create a false binary, but if you're going to say that physical, tangible evidence of the Book of Mormon matters, then why don't we have the gold plates, then? Why don't we have these other things?

Julia Sanders [01:12:33] Yeah, yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:12:35] Well, I mean, literally, why don't we have anything? There is no archeological evidence in the New World for the Book of Mormon period. There is.

Nemo [01:12:42] Even if you try and go to Camorra theory, there's still nothing.

Kolby Reddish [01:12:46] Exactly. And I think the other thing that's really interesting is again, just like the context of these statements, like, these guys believed in treasured treasure trunks that sink down into the earth. That is not in my worldview. That is not the way that the world works. And I think that's, again, to your point, Nemo, like, evidence either matters or it doesn't. I think it also goes to this question of, like, were these naturalistic artifacts or are these, like, spiritual artifacts that have some magic subjective experience inherently linked to encountering them? It's like mixed on that, right? Like, it's a literal chest of treasure that they say that they find and they literally try and strike it and break off this piece that this woman keeps for the rest of her life. And yet it operates like a magical artifact sinking down into the earth that doesn't really reflect the world I think that we see. But what it does reflect to me is the world of the Book of Mormon, because the Book of Mormon very specifically talks about this. And thus, in my view, when we go back to this idea of the expectation of religious experience, how expectation can help create those spiritual experiences these people already had primed in them because of their encounter with the Book of Mormon to believe in these sinking treasures. Now, we know for like Joseph Smith and some of the treasure digging folks, they would have had this before their encounter with the Book of Mormon. But then it can operate exactly reverse too. Right. They found the Book of Mormon's claims more believable because it talked about a reality that they already believed in. They believed in sinking treasure. And so they would have found the Book of Mormon more believable because it also incorporate sinking treasure into its narrative.

Nemo [01:14:34] It offers a plausible explanation as to where Joseph may have got the idea that he then put into the Book of Mormon, if that's the way you want to read it. But like you said, also for readers of the Book of Mormon in that time, that's more plausible to them because of what was going on around them. And then if they're presented with stories, it makes those stories more plausible also.

Kolby Reddish [01:14:52] Right.

Julia Sanders [01:14:52] I wanted to say, like, when the church. This reminds me of when the church first published the images of Joseph Smith. Brown seer stone. I think it was. It was when I was newly married. I think it was 14 or 15. 20. 14. 15. I remember. Okay. I just remember feeling kind of shocked. I was like, oh, they have this stone and you know, there's 15 prophet seers and revelators and they haven't used it. But Joseph Smith says that he. That this stone has power, or that through him as a prophet, as power. But it's not functioning that way now, even though it's still in the hands of prophets. It was just like, because I don't have that worldview at all, that these rocks can show things. But Joseph Smith and Martin and David Whitmer, they did. And so this wasn't shocking at all to them. Whereas, like us learning about that later can feel very differently because it's not.

Samuel the Lamanite and Book of Mormon Prophecy

Kolby Reddish [01:15:43] Yep, absolutely. But it is the worldview of the Book of Mormon. So here I've got directly from the Book of helaman, chapter 13, Nemo. Who does that adorable claymation figure look like to you from your time inside of Mormonism?

Nemo [01:16:02] It looks like Samuel the Lamanite.

Kolby Reddish [01:16:04] That's because it is. So Samuel the Lamanite prophesies shortly before Christ enters the narrative or is born in Jerusalem during the Book of Mormon's narrative. And he's prophesying about this great curse that is going to come on the land. Julia, would you read this before Julia reads it?

Nemo [01:16:21] You could argue that he prophesies before Christ. Sorry. Shortly after Christ enters the narrative because of the way the Book was written. I think this is an opportunity to again, just remind people of the way the Book of Mormon was written, that this is around the time we're actually starting to get some more specific ideas of when Christ is going to turn up. Before this point, everyone's going, yeah, I don't know when he's going to turn up. Just some point soon. And then, yeah, Christ enters the Book of Mormon narrative here with a bit of a bang and with some incredible specificity.

Kolby Reddish [01:16:53] Yeah, if I can speak to that a little bit more, just for people who might not be aware. So you covered the loss of the 116 pages earlier in the LDS discussion series with Mike, and when those lost 116 pages, which began at the beginning of the Book of Mormon's narrative, the Book of Lehi are lost. Joseph Smith and Oliver don't continue from or, I'm sorry, they do. They don't restart. They begin basically with the Book of Messiah. This is building off the work of Brent Metcalfe and it's called Messiah Priority because it means that they started with Messiah and then they wrap back around to the beginning of the book. So that's why the Book of Mormon has prophecies that are like pinpointed to when Christ is going to appear in the narrative. Like Nephi and Lehi know that he's going to come about 600 years after that. But if you actually look from Messiah tell about Helaman, you're right, Nemo. No one knows when Christ is going to come, just that he will come someday. So specifically, like King Benjamin has a prophecy about Christ receives his name that's he has no idea when he's going to enter the narrative. It's only basically right before third Nephi that we see that.

Julia Sanders [01:18:04] Yeah, yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:18:06] Okay, so with that context, that's okay.

Julia Sanders [01:18:10] Yeah. So this is from Helaman 13. And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that you cannot hold them, and in the days of your poverty you cannot retain them. Yea, in that day you shall say, oh, that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches. And then they would not have become slippery that we should lose them. For, behold, our riches are gone from us. Behold, we lay a tool here, and on the morrow it is gone. And behold, our swords are taken from us in the day that we have sought them for battle. Yea, we have hid up our. We have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us because of the curse of the land oh, that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us. For behold, the land is cursed and all things are become slippery and we cannot hold them. Yeah.

Nemo [01:19:00] Sounds a lot like some of Joseph Smith's early excursions. There's a curse upon this treasure that we're trying to find and so it's been taken away by the spirits that guard it. Yeah.

Julia Sanders [01:19:11] It's also very repetitive. I feel like he says kind of the same things just again and again,

Nemo [01:19:16] which is a hallmark of the Book of Mormon. And as we've spoken about in earlier, this discussions episode seems to point to its origins as an orally dictated text.

Kolby Reddish [01:19:26] Right.

Nemo [01:19:27] That's being kind of created as it goes. Because if this were being certainly abridged to be engraved on, very difficult to engrave metal plates that have to be made very thin. A very resource intensive process. No matter what way you think it might have happened, it takes time to engrave those sorts of things. You would not be using this kind of redundant language. Or even if this kind of redundant language was written by the first people that wrote it, you wouldn't allow it to continue in an abridgment. You would condense, you would simplify.

Kolby Reddish [01:19:59] Yeah. Particularly that abridgment piece, I think is where this repetitiveness is really difficult to buy in the narrative because Mormon or Moroni, whichever is handling this particular section is supposed to be focusing this narrative. And yet there's so many times where you can see clear evidence of the oral dictation just in the way it reads. It doesn't make any sense for like corrections.

Nemo [01:20:24] Which is to say that go back and change what was said. Yeah, yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:20:28] Corrections or changes in the stream of consciousness that seem to indicate someone's orally dictating them versus like sitting down, abridging and thinking. Okay, now how do I want to summarize this? Right. A summary is going to look different than stream of consciousness. The Book of Mormon tends to look almost exclusively like stream of consciousness, not as an actual summary.

Nemo [01:20:49] Even unto the third, and then unto the fourth, and then unto the fifth. You would just say several generations passed away anyway.

Kolby Reddish [01:20:57] And this isn't the only reference to this kind of worldview in the Book of Mormon. I'll go ahead and read this one. In Mormon chapter one, this is where the curse then continues. Mormon says, but I did remain among them, but I was forbidden to preach unto them because of the hardness of their hearts. And because of the hardness of the hearts. Because of the hardness of their hearts, the land was cursed. For their sake. And these gadiant robbers who were among the Lamanites, did infest the land in so much that the inhabitants thereof began to hide up their treasures in the earth. And they became slippery because the Lord had cursed the land that they could not hold them nor retain them again. And it came to pass that there were sorceries and witchcrafts and magic and the power of the evil one was wrought upon all the face of the land, even unto the fulfilling of all the words of Abinadi and also Samuel the Lamanite which we just read. I think not only does this help tell us about the worldview that these early church history figures would have had right believing in this like, literal slippery treasure idea, but it also helps tell us why they were looking for lost Nephite treasure, which Brigham Young's account says. Right. Like there were buried Nephite treasures all over the place. Well, this is why they believed that, because it says it right in the Book of Mormon.

Julia Sanders [01:22:09] This also reminds me of Joseph. I don't want his connection with the Captain Kidd treasure and that they were trying to look for that as well, and then it was slipping away or

Nemo [01:22:18] they couldn't find it for buried Spanish silver and the treasure of people like Captain Kidd. It also, if you take a really cynical view, so I'll caveat it with that and say, you know, this is a particularly cynical take. You could view this as almost Joseph starting to excuse the lack of physical evidence for what he was claiming already by saying, ah, you know, things like treasures like the gold plates tend to go missing. You know, God can say that they're gone or that they're taken away or these sorts of things. Yeah, a cynical view.

Kolby Reddish [01:22:51] Particularly that. Particularly this phrase that the power of the evil One was wrought upon all of the face of the land. That basically gives you a pre. Pre built apologetic for literally any. Any naturalistic thing that should exist if the Book of Mormon were true and historical, not existing today. Well, why? It's because this power of the Evil One, it was brought upon the face of the whole land. Right. It can basically excuse anything not being there. It's a good point.

Nemo [01:23:19] Yeah.

Julia Sanders [01:23:20] Is he saying the Evil One is the one bearing the treasure or.

Kolby Reddish [01:23:24] I think more just like the power of the Evil One is unleashed because of this curse. And so it can do whatever it wants, really. Now we know why there's no. Yeah, now we know why there's. If only it had mentioned the power of the Evil One was wrought upon the people's DNA, then we would have a clear exposure explanation for why we see no DNA evidence for the Book of Mormon.

Nemo [01:23:44] And he did curse. He did place a curse upon their chromosomes.

Kolby Reddish [01:23:49] Yeah. Even until the 22nd and 23rd.

Julia Sanders [01:23:54] Okay, so this.

Nemo [01:23:55] That would have been. That would be great historical evidence for the Book of Mormon. If Joseph Smith had talked about chromosomes, I would have been like, okay, the man's a prophet for sure. Definitely. No question. If he beat them to the discovery of DNA. Incredible.

Julia Sanders [01:24:12] He does talk about the skin of blackness, which, I mean, it's not quite the same, but based on wickedness and then righteousness, you turn white anyway. So that's a foolproof test.

Kolby Reddish [01:24:22] I was gonna say God's foreknowledge in the Book of Mormon, as you both know, basically extends right up until about the time it was written for some reason. And then it doesn't go any further than that.

Julia Sanders [01:24:32] That tends to happen, I think, with a lot of scriptures. Yeah,

Nemo [01:24:38] sorry, sorry, let's carry on.

Where Did Joseph Smith Get His Ideas About the Plates?

Julia Sanders [01:24:41] So this next section is. So in this last episode, we talked about where did Joseph's gonna get his ideas of the golden plates. And then we have a timeline talking about these different sources where he could have gotten the idea. Or we just are aware that other people around him are talking about this. So this is this.

Kolby Reddish [01:24:56] Yeah, If I can. If I can pause you right there, because I think this is one where apologists often confuse what we're saying here. So I want to be really clear. We are not directly saying Joseph Smith got these ideas or plagiarized these ideas directly from any of these sources. What we are saying is that if you look at contemporary sources to Joseph Smith, in many of these instances, apologists claim these things could have only come to Joseph Smith through God, through divine revelation. And if that is true, this comes back to the special pleading problem we talked about, you know, half an hour ago. If that is true, you then have to apply that same logic to these other individuals who are not claiming any type of divine revelation, but are purporting these same ideas. Right. They're offering these same ideas and talking about this similar idea of ancient records being held in a stone box. So again, it's not a direct, like, causation claim. Here's exactly where Joseph Smith got the idea, and we know it. It's just showing the context of how regular some of these claims were in Joseph Smith's milieu.

Nemo [01:26:03] Yeah, it's not novel.

Kolby Reddish [01:26:05] Yeah, exactly.

Julia Sanders [01:26:06] Yeah, yeah. So going back, there's one source that was given by. So a lot of this camp comes from Dan Vogel's book, Indian Origins in the Book of Mormon, I think is what it's called. So he pulled out Spalding and then I've cited Spalding here, where this is one of the sources where Joseph Smith could have found this idea. Or it was around Joseph Smith at the time of talking about the stone box. Do you do one of you. Nemo. Do you want to read this one?

Nemo [01:26:32] Sure. Written before his death in 1816, Solomon Spaulding wrote a book called Manuscript Found, which was a fanciful romance of ancient America in which it is pretended to be a translation of an ancient record. As I was walking and forming various conjectures respecting the character, situation and numbers of those people who far exceeded the present Indians in works of art and ingenuity, I happened to tread on a flat stone. This was at a small distance from the fort and it lay on top of a great small mound of earth, exactly horizontal. The face of it had singular appearance. I discovered a number of characters which appeared to me to be letters, but so much effaced by the ravages of time that I could not read the inscription. With the assistance of a lever, I raised the stone. The man finds a man made cave with an earthen box with a cover. The box was two feet in length and one and a half in breadth and one and three inches in diameter. My mind, filled with the awful sensations which crowded fast upon me, would hardly permit my hands to remove this venerable deposit. But curiosity soon gained the ascendancy and the box was taken and raised to open it. When I had removed the COVID I found that it contained 28 rolls of parchment and that when appeared to be manuscripts written in elegant hand with Roman letters and in the Latin language. They were written on a variety of subjects, but the roll which principally attracted my attention contained a history of the author's life and that part of America which extends along the Great Lakes and the waters of the Mississippi.

Julia Sanders [01:28:16] Thank you. So in manuscript found, he's discussing the. He's the people that exceed the present Indians. There's a flat stone mound. He uses a lever to get it open. Here, though it says, it talks about. He finds parchments, not any kind of metal plate which we've discussed before. These codices are anachronistic. They would not have been around during the gold plates creation or the brass plates Creation. Yeah. It's very similar to the Book of Mormon. While I have read Manuscript Found, I don't think it's any kind of plagiarism at all. It is very similar in a lot of Ways. But that's also like Colby was saying, these are just things that people were talking about in general. Not that Joseph Smith had to have read this book. It was just what was being talked about.

Kolby Reddish [01:29:07] Right. It's definitely an interesting one.

Julia Sanders [01:29:11] Yeah.

Nemo [01:29:11] Well, I think it's just. It contains loads of parallels, again, to the description of the box.

Julia Sanders [01:29:16] Yeah.

Nemo [01:29:16] As. As purported by Joseph Smith.

Julia Sanders [01:29:19] Yeah. The flat stone.

Nemo [01:29:21] The flat stone. The. The way it's on top of a small mound of earth. He used a lever to raise the stone, you know, and then, yes, it was parchment inside, but it was still an ancient record.

Julia Sanders [01:29:35] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:29:35] Right.

Nemo [01:29:36] And of a specific part of America, which, unless you're desperately clinging to try and find some sort of archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon, is what Joseph Smith believed to be the extent of the realms of the Book of Mormon.

Julia Sanders [01:29:50] Yeah. And so from the book, the Indian Origins in the Book of Mormon, Dan Vogel has this great quote where he says, Joseph Smith was certainly not the first to claim the discovery of a stone box, metal plates, or an Indian book. According to various accounts, some of the North American mounds also contained metal plates. Plates constructed by the Indians were usually made of hammered copper or silver and were sometimes etched. Given the currency of such stories, Joseph Smith's own claim that he found a stone box, meadow plates, and an Indian record in the hill near his father's farm certainly would have seemed credible to his money digging friends as well as to others of his contemporaries. And another thing I was thinking is, you know, Danville was very specific on the types of materials they use, copper and silver. And we've talked about this before when we laid out the timeline, I don't think if my memory is correct, I don't think any of those plates were made out of gold. So again, this is like this grandeur that Joseph Smith is coming up with where he's like, oh, this is one of the first, if not the only record that I've seen of gold plates being found, which I just think that's interesting. But again, these are credible to those that were around him and. Yeah, very believable to them.

Kolby Reddish [01:31:04] Right.

Nemo [01:31:04] And that is, you know, we often get accused of presentism. It's again, worth hammering home that at the time of Joseph Smith, a lot of this stuff that the apologists are now having to defend because people roll their eyes now. People wouldn't have rolled their eyes then.

Julia Sanders [01:31:20] Yeah. Okay. So this is the question we've been talking about this whole time is what happened to the stone box? And so there are a few sources that Talk about the. The outcome or what happened to it. Some of these come from David Whitmer, and one of them was from August of 1875. Colby, do you mind talking about this one?

What Happened to the Stone Box?

Kolby Reddish [01:31:39] Not at all. In the Chicago Times, published In August of 1875, David Whitmer was interviewed. In it, he explained what happened to the stone box in which the plates were kept for over a thousand years. Three times has he, David, been at the hill Cumorah and seen the casket that contained the tablets and the seer stone. Eventually the casket had been washed down to the foot of the hill, but it was to be seen when he last visited the historic place.

Nemo [01:32:04] Don't you just hate it when your ancient stone box just gets washed down to the bottom of the hill?

Kolby Reddish [01:32:09] The thing that's interesting, though, is it says it's washed down to the bottom of the hill, but he could. Could still tell that it was that stone box because he says, but it was to be seen when he last visited that historic place, which to me suggests he was able to say, like, oh, yeah, there's the stone box right there. At least that's the way it's phrased to me. He's not saying it was destroyed or to your point, Nemo, that it sunk down into the earth. He's saying it was still to be seen when he last visited that site. Which is interesting me, don't you think,

Nemo [01:32:40] if there were these, you know, because we've talked about. It's these four upright stones with a stone at the bottom and a stone lid, and they've been washed down this hill. So cool. They've crumbled apart. But the stones won't have disappeared. The box has lost its integrity. It's been around for a thousand years. It's getting tired and it's washed down to the bottom of this hill. Do you not think the church wouldn't have around it a fence? A plaque? Spotlights even saying, look, here's the remnants of the stone box in which the prophet Joseph Smith found the gold plates. Come and look at it. Come take a peek. Here it is washed at the bottom of the hill, all jaggedy and angles. Yes, it looks like just some large stones stuck up out of the ground. But this once formed the box further up the hill. It was. Where's that? Where is that even? That would be something, but it's that. Not even that. It's not even there.

Kolby Reddish [01:33:33] I just don't even understand how that would happen physically.

Julia Sanders [01:33:35] That's what I was just saying.

Kolby Reddish [01:33:38] Yeah. How would it have even Washed down the hill.

Julia Sanders [01:33:41] The only thing that makes sense is that they unearth the whole thing. Right. And it was like a boat or

Nemo [01:33:45] the erosion of the. Of the earth around it, because it would just. Around it eroded, so that then it. You know, because the earth on the front side of it is on the side of a hill, so that earth would have to disappear, and then they would have. It was essentially some sort of landslip. Right, right.

Kolby Reddish [01:34:04] But then, you know, set the rocks aside for a second. Why did nobody hang on to a piece of this cement or one of these pillars? Like just something. Just the idea that there would have been something tangible. Like there was something tangible, supposedly, according to Martin Harrison and Port of Rockwell, of this completely separate stone box that they found. Right. That they chipped off. And Martin promised that one day it would be found that that box, and you'd have that piece missing and everyone would know he was telling the truth. Well, that never happened. But why were they so concerned with having this little old lady hang on to that rock for the rest of her life? That's literally what it says. But no one thought to, like, hey, I'm gonna grab one of those stones from Joseph Smith's stone box and use it to build the mantle over my fireplace, or I'm gonna hang on to it, or we're gonna put it at the foot of city hall. Just something important that would have warranted hanging on to that. It just is so odd that these early saints did that for basically every other thing that Joseph Smith touched. Like, there are accounts that someone held on to the arrowhead that Joseph Smith found at the Zelf Mound. And yet we don't have anything tangible that would help vindicate Joseph Smith's claims of existing in reality.

Nemo [01:35:24] And the tangible things we do have, like the Kinderhook plates, for example, that were then found, once tested, discovered to be a fraud. And the papyri, similarly, we still have them. I mean, this is often. We're just really quickly. The Book of Abraham papyri. This is often a sort of straw man that's then attacked the idea that, you know, we don't have all the papyri, whatever. It ultimately comes down to what Joseph Smith printed as vignettes. Just don't say what he says that they say. It really is as simple as that. But even then, we have the original papyrus that we can look at. We have what it should have looked like. We know what it ought to have been, and it isn't what Joseph claimed it was. Kinderhook Plates. We have them, We've tested them. We know they're not what Joseph Smith thought they were. The Mark Hoffman forgeries. Yeah, we realize they're forgeries. Right. So whenever we do get hold of the originals, ancient item or even non ancient item sometimes, but historical item, it doesn't always help.

Kolby Reddish [01:36:26] Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Julia.

Julia Sanders [01:36:29] I was gonna say, like he says that. Hang on, where was the part the last time he visited the place? Because Joseph Smith I guess got the plates in 28 and this is 75. So it's like almost 50ish years later or so. It'd just be interesting to see when the last time he was in Cumorah. I don't know. That probably wouldn't change very much because it's now 2026.

Kolby Reddish [01:36:52] But yeah. The other thing I was struck by Nemo when you were talking about the Book of Abraham is even set aside the vignettes set aside questions about the papyrus. At a fundamental level, Joseph Smith does not understand how Egyptian functioned as a language. And we'll talk about that in our next LDS discussions episode when we talk about the information density claims that are being made in the Book of Mormon. But my point is, and this comes back to something you said earlier, like about these apologetic resources that are pointing to what was actually in the stone box. And they're incorrect on a very basic level. Joseph Smith was like incorrect on every level about the way that Egyptian worked. Like it's. It really is as simple as that. He thought it worked completely different from the way that it does. And maybe brief spoiler for that next episode, the conclusion of that next episode. But that misunderstanding that Joseph Smith is demonstrated to have through his work, work on the Kirtland Egyptian material involving those papyrus is the exact misunderstanding of the way that Egyptian worked that we find in the text of the Book of Mormon itself when it's talking about the information density of Egyptian relative to Hebrew.

Julia Sanders [01:38:05] Yeah, I'm excited for that episode. So this next one is. Is also David Wimmer. This is from August 16th of 1878. So this one 75. So just three years later. Right. So yeah, just one of you. I can't remember who read the last one.

Kolby Reddish [01:38:21] I'll read this one. Okay, so this comes from August 16, 1878 from the Deseret Evening News. And he's interviewed. So it's kind of question and answer format. So he's asked, where is that cave? And he answers in the state of New York. And the person says, in the Hill Cumorah. And then David Whitmer replies, no, but not fair. Far away from that place, I saw the place where the plates were found, and a great many did so. And it awakened an excitement at that time because the worst enemies of Mormonism stirred up the confusion by telling about the plates which Joseph found and the gold Bible which he was in possession of. So he was in constant danger of being robbed and killed. He's then asked, how did the place look? And he answers, it was a stone box. And the stones looked to me as if they were cemented together. That that was on the side of the hill and a little down from the top.

Julia Sanders [01:39:12] So again, what I'm getting from this is he's saying there's a lot of excitement because the worst enemies of Mormonism were stirring up against Joseph. Like, he didn't find the plates. The plates aren't real. I feel like that would be the best time to be like, oh, look, here's a stone box. Like, here, look, I've took a piece of it. Or I. I don't know. I feel like that's what encouraged them to preserve that in some way, because it is. It is a type of evidence.

Nemo [01:39:36] Yeah. I want to say something that's just come to mind is the idea of when the Berlin Wall came down, they had these people that they called the woodpeckers who would go and take pieces of it. And I think you can buy more and less legitimate pieces of the Berlin Wall as souvenirs. Right. In Berlin now. So the idea that, yeah, this woman took a little piece with her of a different stone box, but no one took any of the original, even when it washed down the hill and was broken into bits, apparently. And if a great many people saw the place, maybe there's reverence for it as a sacred site, perhaps. But people, by and large do like to try and take souvenirs. So it's just again, curious, like you said that no one took any.

Kolby Reddish [01:40:19] Yeah, very. Similarly, when I traveled to China shortly after high school, we went and climbed the Great Wall. And like, there's signs everywhere and you're told going into it that you cannot take any piece of the Great Wall because obviously people are going to want to. Right. It's millennia is old. It can be seen from outer space. Like just this amazing accomplishment of human ingenuity and barbarity. I would say, if you know a little bit about how it was built, but yeah, same type of thing. Because people, when you're connected to a physical artifact that has that level of significance, like human. Human brains immediately want to be like I want a piece of this. That's what we do. Right. And the other thing that's very interesting to me about this quote in particular is we get an additional account this time about the box involving this cement and the cement being at the corners. So it lines up with these other accounts. But the other thing that's interesting is it talks about how many people went and visited this. Right. I saw the place where the plates were found and a great many did. So as far as we know, I've never seen anyone like in journal accounts or whatever talk about going up to this place and seeing this place, aside from this account right here.

Julia Sanders [01:41:34] Mm. Yeah. This also reminds me of. And I don't have the sources in front of me, but this is what I've heard that there's up. And here in Missouri, in Adam on Diamond, Joseph Smith claims, I think, and I don't have the sources again, but I'll. And I'll be happy to be wrong, but that Joseph Smith says that he found this, the altar of Adam and Eve, because he says that they originated from Jackson County, Missouri. And I think he even. He told that to the people. And I think he may have even encouraged people to take some of this altar. I don't know if that's correct, but that's what we'd heard whenever we went and visited on a youth trip, which is again, this is like supposedly ancient things. And then people are trying to.

Nemo [01:42:11] Can you go see the altar?

Julia Sanders [01:42:13] I think there's just a pile of rocks there. But I'd also heard a joke where people would come and they would just dump rocks for the youth to take. So I don't know exactly, but I'll have to find the sources to see if Joseph. Because I know that he says that he. That Adam and Eve were originally from there, but I thought he said that he found the altar of Adam.

Kolby Reddish [01:42:30] Right, that's what I remember also.

Nemo [01:42:32] Yeah.

Julia Sanders [01:42:33] Okay.

Nemo [01:42:34] That's what draws. Yeah. Rings true to me.

Julia Sanders [01:42:37] Okay. Anyway.

Nemo [01:42:38] And I'm from the land of Stonehenge, so I'm thinking, well, we have 5,000 year old religious structures here that are very well seen and kept, preserved and we can date. So it's always been a little bit suspicious to me when Joseph Smith claimed to find these ancient structures.

Julia Sanders [01:42:53] Yeah. Okay. So this one was. So the first one was 75, 78. And then this next one is also from David Widmer, but it's from 1881. And I'll read this one.

Nemo [01:43:01] David Whitmer's saying a lot.

Julia Sanders [01:43:03] He is so he says those two things. But he said, however, in an interview with the Chicago Times again a few Years later, on October 14th of 1881, David Whitmer implies that he was told where Joseph Smith found the plates on Mr. Whitmer's part with Joseph Smith. Smith. And he was loathe, loath to believe in their actuality, notwithstanding the community in which he lived, Ontario County, New York, was alive with excitement in regard to Smith's finding a great treasure. And they informed him that they knew that Smith had the plates as they had seen the place that he had taken from them from on the hill, Cumorah, about two miles from Palmyra. So to me, the wording here kind of distances himself from these events where they said that they saw it, they said that they saw the place where it was, whereas in the hill. And I don't know why David Whitmer wouldn't just say that he saw it, but I guess this is third person from the interviewer from the Chicago Times, the Mr. Whitmer's part, it does seem

Kolby Reddish [01:44:04] like an odd inconsistency to three, just three years before this say I have seen that place and many other people have too. And then to make no mention of that. I'm sure you could probably reconcile these together because it's not like he explicitly says he didn't see it. But you're right that the way it's phrased is very odd if just three years before he's claiming I've been up there and many other people have too.

Julia Sanders [01:44:28] Yeah, it just like the community is. That's. That's what I feel like those pronouns mean is when they say they. Anyway, it's just it just sort of sounds. And I think Dan Vogel had the same, the same opinion from this source from Mormon Documents, Volume 5. It just seems like he's distancing himself from he. Maybe he didn't actually see. Anyway, I just thought those were interesting. So this next one is I think, probably one of the most interesting sources that we have. This is from Lorenzo Sanders Colby. Do you want to read this one?

Eyewitness Accounts of the Hill and Excavation Site

Kolby Reddish [01:44:59] I do. In an interview with Thomas Gregg and Lorenzo Sanders In 1885, we read the time he claimed to have taken the plates from the hill was on the 22nd day of September in 1827. And I went on the next Sunday following with five or six other ones. And we hunted the side hill by course and we could find no place for the ground had been broke. There was a large hole where the money diggers had dug a year or Two before, but no fresh dirt. There never was such a hole. There never was any plates taken out of that hill nor any other hill in that county. Was in Wayne County. It's. It is all a lie. No sir, I never saw the plates nor no one else.

Julia Sanders [01:45:42] Yeah, so I do. What are your guys thoughts on that one?

Kolby Reddish [01:45:45] I mean my immediate thought is that we know that Joseph Smith and his father were part of this money digging company. So they would form these mining companies that would, you know, kind of band together and need some finance here to then allow them to do this dig. So we know that this aligns with this other story that the money diggers that Joe Smith was involved in before his involvement with the plates thought that they were entitled to a share of the money value of the plates because they were viewing it as we're in this mining company with you and you found this treasure and so we're entitled to part of it. That part then hooks into this account talking about the five or six other ones going and hunting on the hill for these additional treasures. So it makes sense to me from that point of view. It also makes sense that I, I mean the, the day lines up. But of course people would have probably known the day in 1885 when he's talking about. And by day I mean the 22nd of September, right, that autumnal. Autumnal. Is that how you say autumnal equinox?

Julia Sanders [01:46:49] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:46:50] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So it's interesting that they go there and at least their account is that there is no fresh dirt. I don't really know what purpose they would have to like lie about this because that's going to be. The natural apologetic response is like, well these are just anti Mormons that were mad and so they're lying about Joseph Smith. But what reason would they have to lie about him not finding what he said he had found? Their interest is in him, him finding what he said he had found so that they have some claim against him for money. So it doesn't really.

Nemo [01:47:23] What's that I was gonna say, in fact, so much of what motivated Joseph Smith's sneakiness around these gold plates was justified by the idea that these men might try and come and take it from him.

Kolby Reddish [01:47:33] Exactly. And that's exactly what their interest is too. So if they're going to exaggerate, my mind is they would exaggerate on the side of Joseph Smith having actually found something so that they have some claim against him. Because that's what they're interested in is it doesn't make any sense that they would lie and say that he never found anything and that there was no disturbed dirt.

Nemo [01:47:53] So, yeah, they'd be saying sneaky little so and so who owes me money, essentially.

Julia Sanders [01:47:59] Yeah, yeah. So it is a late source, but it is interesting that he also says, you know, he's talking about the day I went on the next Sunday following the five or six others, and he says we couldn't find anything.

Nemo [01:48:10] I mean, what, what you could say, what you can always say is that, well, the hole was filled back in or the box had already disappeared. It was already gone by that point and the hill was made clean. And at that point, if you believe in a trickster God who is just hiding these things and is able to manipulate this stuff, then that kind of special pleading can't really be argued with.

Julia Sanders [01:48:27] Well, that this just is, this is an opposition of these other accounts from David Wimmer. Right. Where many others saw it, where he says, we will. We went up the next Sunday.

Nemo [01:48:38] So I don't know David. So David Whitmer's not telling the truth when he says the box is still around. If the way to get around what Lorenzo Sanders is saying is that the box was taken away already.

Julia Sanders [01:48:47] Yeah. So one. Yeah. So this, another slide that I wanted to show was there's this image from the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at byu. And all it says is description. A man is standing profile on a hillside. But on the image itself, it says it's in pen where plates were found, Hill Cumorah. And so like there's a man standing there. It's black, white image. And you can see this little indent in the earth. It kind of looks like a little dimple. And he's just standing there. There's. There's obviously no stone box that I can see or stones of any kind,

Nemo [01:49:25] but there's also no trees, which is interesting because I believe in all the depictions we've seen so far, it's a wooded area. And my understanding has always been that the, the plates were buried inside of a hill in a wooded area. And this is not just an archaeologically clean hill, it's a hill clean of any sort of foliage.

Julia Sanders [01:49:43] It would be interesting to go to the hill cumor and kind of see where that picture was taken. And also, are they just taking it because of the indent in the earth? And they're like, oh, this must be where this hole, because it's the only place where a hole even was. It would just be interesting to search.

Nemo [01:49:58] I mean, that's not a gotcha by any Means it's just struck me that for the first time that actually what we're seeing there is a very bare hillside or a grassy hillside, whereas I always thought it was wooded.

Kolby Reddish [01:50:08] Yeah. The story of Joseph Smith going to obtain the plates when he goes and he's riding the dark horse with Emma in the middle of the night. To me, if this is the way the hill looked when Joseph Smith did that, it kind of prompts the question, how did Joseph keep Emma from seeing this box? Or. You know what I'm saying? It's just how exactly mechanically did that work?

Nemo [01:50:34] Some sort of false. Like, false summit.

Kolby Reddish [01:50:38] Yeah.

Nemo [01:50:38] Possibly that he's hidden behind. If she's at the bottom of the hill.

Kolby Reddish [01:50:41] Yeah. It's a lot easier to understand, like, if he goes into a grove of trees to find wherever the box is that she's just outside that grove of trees. Why she couldn't go also doesn't make any sense to me. But then two.

Nemo [01:50:54] Two interesting points there is that one, all the important things in Mormonism happen in groves of trees. You know, so maybe that again, maybe the hill Cumorah is plain like this, but the church depicts it as happening in woods because the first vision happened in some woods. And again, you're kind of building up that sort of sacred imagery around that idea.

Julia Sanders [01:51:15] But he hides it. He's running from all those characters and he's. He's like, dodging them. And then he hides it in the. A tree.

Nemo [01:51:23] Well, yeah. Where's the log?

Julia Sanders [01:51:25] I'm just confused because, like, I've been to the hill, Cumorah, and they have cleared out a spot, which I thought they did on purpose for the Camorra pageants. But, like, there are trees there. I'm just curious about this image of why they think this is why they think this is where the place where the plates were found.

Kolby Reddish [01:51:42] Yeah. I mean, and granted, maybe the opposites might be the opposite field of view. There are a lot of trees, and we just don't know. But, like, at least from what we're seeing, you can, like that. That other hill that's off in the distance, that's like miles away. And you could see anybody from miles away. I mean, you can see this little cops of trees or something, like right here to the left, like, basically directly from the man's field of view. He's, like, looking at that little set of trees. But aside from that, where exactly is this, like, you know, flying flight that Joseph Smith has from these bad guys? Where is this even happening? This is like, there's, like You. You can see someone from where that guy's standing for, like, miles from, at least from what we can see in this picture.

Julia Sanders [01:52:31] Yeah, so we've talked about before with a clean hill, and I just wanted to put this in there just to really emphasize the hill. Cumorah being a clean hill. Nemo. Would you like to read this one?

Nemo [01:52:41] Yes. So, John E. Clark earned his B.S. and M.A. in Archaeology from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1994. He is currently a professor in the Department of anthropology at BYU, where for many years he directed BYU's New World Archaeological Foundation. So this guy, as we talk about bias in academic studies and things like that, the university that this guy works for and that he received all of his training from, is probably, you could say, institutionally invested in the results of whatever study he does around the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, showing that the Book of Mormon is authentic. There is certainly an interest in the institution he works for for that to be the case. So here's what he had to say. In accord with these general observations about New York and Pennsylvania, we come to our principal object, the hill Cumorah. Archaeologically speaking, it is a clean hill. No artifacts, no walls, no trenches, no arrowheads. The area immediately surrounding the hill is similarly clean. Pre Columbian people did not settle or build here. This is not the place of Mormon's last stand. We must look elsewhere for that hill. Now, the problem in looking elsewhere is Joseph Smith and his contemporaries very much believe that that hill was the place of that last stand. And so you can't just go looking elsewhere for it, because the narrative of the founder of the religion and all his contemporaries was that that is the place. So you can't just look elsewhere for it. You actually have to address the fact that it's archaeologically clean to my mind. Your thoughts, Ryan?

Julia Sanders [01:54:20] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:54:22] Well, yeah. Then it just becomes a question of consistency because Joseph Smith very much, as you just said, Joseph Smith and his contemporaries very much believed that this was the hill Cumorah, where both the final battle for the Jaredites and the Nephites happened. So if the numbers in the Book of Mormon are to be believed, we are talking about millions of dead people in this valley, which, number one, doesn't make any sense. There just isn't enough space or resources there, as far as I know, to even support a battle of that size. The numbers recorded in the Book of Ethers battle, like the Jaredites battle would literally be like the largest battle in the ancient world by significant magnitudes. When I've looked at this before, there are so many logistics that go into, like, these historicity questions that may be a fun thing to do in a future episode to talk about the actual logistics of, like, supporting a fighting force of two and a half million people or whatever amount of of dead is recorded in the book of either. But my point is that they want to basically say, we must look elsewhere for that hill. Like why Joseph Smith thought that it was here. Joseph Smith said that it was here. Why would we look elsewhere? Why would we not just take Joseph Smith's word and then test whether Joseph Smith's claims about what he said align with what we see? What this professor saying, Professor Clark, is very clearly it doesn't. But because of his faith commitment, he needs to then find somewhere else to find Hill Cumorah, which is just an interesting epistemological problem.

Nemo [01:56:04] I think that last line could very well read, we must therefore shift the goalposts so that we can then find something to match up with our need for this to be religiously viable. If we're looking at the amount of casualties or dead at the battle that should have taken place here in upstate New York, we're looking at the same amounts roughly as the battle of Stalingrad, which is one of the largest battles

Kolby Reddish [01:56:28] ever fought with modern weaponry, not with ancient weaponry. Right.

Nemo [01:56:33] Put that into context for you.

Kolby Reddish [01:56:35] Right. The other thing I'm just struck by is it's just so odd that apologists are willing to believe Joseph Smith's claims about things that can never be demonstrated. So things like claims about the afterlife, about the nature of God, things that we really can't determine fully. Right. There's never going to be conclusive evidence of Joseph Smith was right. That God and Jesus are separate people, just as an example. So they are willing to take Joe Smith's word for claims that can never be falsified or even tested. But when we do have a claim that Joseph Smith made, presumably using the same revelatory process and it's proven false, they don't follow that conclusion through. Right. Instead he says, we must look elsewhere for that hill. Well, why? Why not just take Joseph Smith' word at what he said?

Nemo [01:57:24] They shift the goalposts. They have to move the goal.

Julia Sanders [01:57:28] Yeah.

Nemo [01:57:29] Because otherwise you have to confront the direct implication that that has on the foundations of your religious belief.

Julia Sanders [01:57:35] Yeah, exactly.

Nemo [01:57:36] And that's a difficult thing to do for anyone.

Julia Sanders [01:57:39] Is it Carrie Meelstein who said that he begins with yes, it is.

Nemo [01:57:43] Yeah. I start with the conclusion that everything that comes from the Book of Mormon or divine scripture is true. I then try and fit any evidence of I find into that conclusion.

Kolby Reddish [01:57:50] Paradigm. Yeah, that paradigm.

Julia Sanders [01:57:52] Yeah. Yeah. So the last slide, if we're ready for it, I just. I was looking, I was doing some history, and I saw this little piece. I had no idea that this was even a thing, but somebody. This is from the church's website. Somebody had taken a piece of the well from the Carthage jail. Joseph Smith is killed because they wanted to keep hold of that. And I just. I didn't know that. I knew when I went to Nauvoo this last time, I had heard that one of the reasons why they were moving Joseph and Oliver so much and they were unsure for a long time where their bodies were or were buried, is because people wanted to. To take pieces of them, like their bones or their hair or whatever, which we see reflected with Alvin. And when their dad, when his. Joseph Smith Sr. Posted in the newspaper about. He's. He was worried that people were going to exhume his son anyway, people were wanting to take pieces of that because that's what they did back then. And here somebody's taken a piece of the well. And I just thought that was interesting that we have these things, but nobody once even thought to take pieces of the. Of the stone box. I just think that's interesting.

Physical Evidence and Its Absence

Kolby Reddish [01:59:01] Yeah, yeah. And to your point, Julia, I mean, it literally says this was collected with an envelope containing a lock of Joseph Smith's hair. So that's how attached they are to this idea of, like, finding these relics or these artifacts is they literally take a piece of Joseph Smith's hair along with this wood chip. It says, obtained by Orson K. Whitney. So Orson K. Whitney holds onto these things, but nobody thinks to hold on to a piece of the cement from the stone box. A stone from the stone box. The only account we have after the plates are recovered from it comes from David Whitmer. And they're very mixed on exactly what happens. But even according to that last account from David Wimmer, he says the box was rolled or washed down to the bottom of the hill. And then, at least in that 1875 account, he says that he still knew where it was. So it was still identifiable, I guess, as the stone box.

Nemo [01:59:54] Yeah, it was still there to be seen.

Kolby Reddish [01:59:56] Right. And nobody hangs on to that, but people hang on to an envelope full of Joseph Smith's hair and a piece of this. Well, that inconsistency I see, is just a huge problem.

Nemo [02:00:06] Well, not even hangs onto it, but just marks off the area or identifies where it is or just in some way preserves it.

Kolby Reddish [02:00:13] Right.

Nemo [02:00:13] Not expecting people to go in and take it away, but I would expect the church absolutely, to put a little plaque up.

Julia Sanders [02:00:20] This reminds me of also the. There is another stone box. I don't know how to show screens, but there is a stone box where they kept the original manuscript, and they put it in this encasing in the building. And the temple right in the corner, I think.

Kolby Reddish [02:00:34] I think it was the Nauvoo house, wasn't it?

Julia Sanders [02:00:36] Oh, the Nauvoo house. But that stone box is still there. You can Google that. It's still. People still have that. So, like. But again, this was in the 1820s, but it's just interesting to me that there's really no evidence for the stone box at all. No, but, yeah,

Nemo [02:00:55] yeah. The church's relationship to historical artifacts and historical sites is just almost an episode of its own. The way in which, you know, at some places they'll absolutely set up shop with taco stands in the works, you know, to try and entice people to come and see these places. And then other things that aren't there that ought to be there, they just quietly ignore the hill. Cumorah must be such a difficult site for them to manage, knowing that it's not the site of a battle, archaeologically speaking, knowing that none of the physical artifacts that ought to be there to prove the things that Joseph Smith undertook there are actually present. I don't know how they manage it. I would. I would be curious to visit and see how they manage it as a site.

Kolby Reddish [02:01:42] Yeah, yeah, it would be interesting. Yeah. I think. I think that kind of leads to my concluding thoughts on this episode, which is, you know, I was surprised, like I said at the beginning of the episode, that during my faith crisis, I had never actually asked the question, like, well, what about the stone box? Yeah, the plates had to be taken. Yeah. These other artifacts had to be taken by the angel. But what about the stone box? By all accounts, it's just a normal stone box, like a physical stone box that would have existed. And it's interesting that all these accounts that we looked at through the course of this episode seem to vindicate that, that it was a literal stone box that people saw. It relates to this claim of other stone boxes, and yet it is nowhere to be found. The site, even where the stone box would have existed, is unknown to the church today, which itself is kind of interesting to me based on the dimensions that we were reading about the other stone boxes it would seem like at least that to what you were saying, Nemo would have been flagged or some record would have been kept of at least that. But we don't have either of those. We don't have a piece of the stone box, any record, aside from David Whitmer saying that it was washed down to the bottom of the hill, yet still identifiable as the stone box in some way. That's all we have. And so, again, where this comes back to is kind of the purpose of the Celia discussion series in Toto is to look at these things as objectively as we can, set aside bias and really test, like, do we see these things showing up in reality the way that they purport to. And I think here, my conclusion from this episode is we just don't. We don't have any record of this stone box actually existing in a way that could be demonstrated the way that we demonstrate normal archaeological finds.

Closing Reflections on the Stone Box Mystery

Julia Sanders [02:03:26] Yeah. And so I think that, for me, the lack of the stone box, now, you can't. That's not evidence. But also that Joseph Smith said that there was a stone box. Others of those around him, and counting Solomon's falling, talked about stone boxes. So it wasn't unique to Joseph. I think if it was unique to Joseph, and we found more of that in History of Plates being in stone boxes, which it did happen, but, like, it's not unique to Joseph. People around him were talking about it. And so it doesn't feel like an evidence either that. That he. Because a lot of apologists say, oh, there's a stone box, therefore this is another bullseye, that there's an evidence of the church is true or that the Book of Mormon is true. And that's not how that is.

Kolby Reddish [02:04:05] Yeah. The other difference I would point out there is claims of stone boxes and the actual stone boxes are very different things. There were so many claims in early America about these ridiculous archaeological sites which may or may not have existed. Right. And so that's the other thing that's interesting to me about this episode is thinking about the difference between taking someone's claim itself as evidence versus taking the evidence that supports the claim. Both of the things are important to look at together.

Nemo [02:04:37] Yeah, agreed.

Kolby Reddish [02:04:39] Nemo, any closing thoughts from you?

Nemo [02:04:41] Not. Not really. I think it just really does boil down to, where is it? There's no reason for it to be gone. There's no reason for it not to still be there. It survived a thousand years. Where is it? Now? Apologists tell me, where is it? You know, you seem to be the only ones authorized at the moment to actually answer these sorts of questions that people might have have. And you're indirectly authorized. You can take the fall if you're wrong, I suppose. But just give me an answer. Where? Where is it? Why should I not be able to walk up to the hill Cumorah now and find a box in the hillside or a box washed down to the bottom of the hill?

Kolby Reddish [02:05:15] Yeah, it's awful convenient that it existed for like 1400 years after Moroni, and then within basically 50 years, well, maybe 60 years, it's supposedly destroyed and cannot be recognized in any way. But we don't even have an account saying that it just kind of disappears from history, which is kind of an interesting point here. Well, I'll go ahead and close us on this episode of LDS Discussions. Like I talked about at the beginning of this episode, the LDS discussion series is one of the most important projects to John Dehlint here on Mormon Stories, where we look at Mormon Church truth claims as objectively and with as little bias as we can. It began with the work of a man who's called Mike and his website ldsdiscussions.com and builds upon itself so these episodes are best consumed sequentially. Especially if you're a big fan of Nemo's accent. You'll get to listen to a lot of Nemo's accent. Please donate to Keep this series alive through Mormon Stories podcast, and please send John your feedback at Mormonstories and let him know what you think about this new approach to LDS discussions. Julia and Nemo, thank you very much for being part of today's discussion. I always enjoy talking to you guys about these things. Until next time, everybody be good to each other, be kind to each other, and see you on the next episode of Mormon Stories Podcast and LDS Discussions.

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