the book of Mormon is complete fiction, it's far too much like the king James version of the bible to be anything else.
no matter what Mormons claims no one ever saw the plates with their own eyes (spiritual eye does not count)
15 eyewitnesses would disagree with you. As would I.
there were no eyewitnesses the 15 you're talking about saw it with their spiritual eye.
SUMMARY
· It is believed that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon Statement for the witnesses and induced them to sign.
· Smith knew that none of the witnesses had ever seen the plates with their natural eyes, yet worded the statement as if they had.
· Historical accounts reveal that the three witnesses never saw the gold plates with their natural eyes. They were always covered with a cloth.
· The witnesses were pressured to conjure up their own personal vision after Smith intimidated and hounded them over their lack of faith. They finally envisioned the plates in an “empty” box.
· All of the witnesses were manipulated and pressured by Smith into seeing something that didn’t physically exist, because they believed he was a Prophet of God.
· The gold plates the eight witnesses later claimed to heft in such a casual manner, would have been impossible because of the weight. This suggests that some other kind of plates were provided by Smith.
· That Smith forged false plates with inscriptions, was stated by John C. Bennett and Sarah Pratt, wife of Apostle Orson Pratt.
· All three witnesses, plus many of the eight, left the church and embraced another faith.
· The testimony of the witnesses in their old age, proved to be embellished and exaggerated.
*Copyright 2003 - 2009. This article cannot be copied and used in a professional publication without express permission of the author.
The Three Witnesses to the Gold Plates: www.janishutchinson.com
