Book of Mormon Witnesses
Why were the witnesses only allowed to see the plates with "spiritual eyes"?
If the plates were real, why would it take faith to see them? (D&C17:2) (How could he have translated without the plates, as his scribes said, if he was doing a literal translation of a physical object?)
Why does the church now extol the witnesses when Joseph Smith condemned them?
Why would most of them leave the church?
Why did Brigham Young say that the 3 witnesses doubted and disbelieved in their experience? "Some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel." (JOD 7:164 1859).
Why were all of the witnesses (except Martin Harris) related to Joseph Smith or David Whitmer?
Difficult Questions for Mormons to answer
THE WITNESSES OF THE BOOK OF MORMON©
What did they really see?
by Janis Hutchinson
The printed statement of the three witnesses, as contained in the front of the Book of Mormon, states that they saw the plates and the engravings. Another statement of eight witnesses adds that they “hefted” the plates.
Many ask, “Certainly, they wouldn’t testify to something unless it was true! Or, would they?”
WHO WROTE THE TESTIMONY IN FRONT OF THE BOOK OF MORMON?
Where did the printed statement of the three witnesses, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer come from? Did they actually write the testimony themselves? No!
It is believed that Joseph Smith wrote the statement for them to sign. This appears to be evident since, at that time, he knew none of the witnesses had ever seen the plates with their natural eyes, as they themselves later admitted. Yet, when he worded it, he deliberately gave the impression they had.
Stretching or misrepresenting the truth was no problem for Smith, for he had altered other revelations. According to Apostle William E. McLellin, the testimony of the Twelve Apostles contained in the Introduction to the Doctrine and Covenants, was a “base forgery” and Smith had seriously altered other revelations. David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses, accused Joseph of the same thing.
WHAT DID THE WITNESSES SEE?
Whatever they saw and by whatever means, it was not in the dimension of physical reality.
Martin Harris admitted he never saw anything with his natural eyes. He stated: “I never saw the golden plates, only in a visionary or entranced state.”
Further, he admitted the same to the printer who was working on the first edition of the Book of Mormon:
During the printing of the first edition of the Book of Mormon, he (Harris) was in the print shop while the type was being set for the testimony of the three witnesses. The printer, John Gilbert, asked him if he had seen the plates with his naked eye. “Martin looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, ‘No, I saw them with a spiritual eye.”
He further told a Palmyra lawyer, who asked him: “Did you see the plates and the engravings upon them with your bodily eyes?” He responded:
I did not see them as I do that pencil-case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me - though at the time they were covered with a cloth.
Harris further let the cat out of the bag when he revealed that the other eight witnesses saw no plates either. On April 15, 1838, Stephen Burnett gave the following report:
I have reflected long and deliberately upon the history of this church & weighed the evidence for & against it - loth to give it up - but when I came to hear Martin Harris state in public that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver nor David & also that the eight witnesses never saw them & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it, the last pedestal gave away . . . . I therefore three weeks since in the Stone Chapel gave . . . the reasons why I took the course which I was resolved to do, and renounced the Book of Mormon. . . .
I was followed by W. Parrish, Luke Johnson & John Boynton, all of who concurred with me, (sic) after we were done speaking M. Harris arose & said he was sorry for any man who rejected the Book of Mormon for he knew it was true, he said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or a handkerchief over them, but he never saw them, only as he saw a city through a mountain. And said that he never should have told that the testimony of the eight was false, if it had not been picked out of (him) but should have let it passed as it was.
So, in reality, the witnesses saw nothing!
http://www.janishutchinson.com/threewit.html
