Posted by: Jersey Girl! ®
01/02/2003, 08:50:38
Author Profile Mail author
|
Hi Nigel, I found this link. If it isn't entirely accurate I'm sure someone will point that out! http://members.tripod.com/hismin/gold_plates.htm Love too,
Vicki
|
Posted by: Nigel ®
01/02/2003, 09:20:17
Author Profile Mail author
|
Thanks so much Vicki,
I'll go right now and look at this...it is information I need quite urgently...thank again Love Nigel U.K
|
Posted by: nofaith ®
01/02/2003, 10:37:38
Author Profile Mail author
|
This might be a repeat; I didn't look at the other posts.History of the Church, Vol. 4, 547:
A.D. 1827, the angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands.
These records were engraven on plates which had the appearance of gold, each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long, and not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled with engravings, in Egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume as the leaves of a book, with three rings running through the whole. The volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction, and much skill in the art of engraving. With the records was found a curious instrument, which the ancients called "Urim and Thummim," which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rim of a bow fastened to a breast plate. Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift and power of God. Joseph Smith, The Prophet And His Progenitors For Many Generations, Chapter 23 (see here):
The plates were secreted about three miles from home, in the following manner. Finding an old birch log much decayed, excepting the bark, which was in a measure sound, he took his pocket-knife and cut the bark with some care, then turned it back, and make a hole of sufficient size to receive the plates, and laying them in the cavity thus formed, he replaced the bark; after which he laid across the log, in several places, some old stuff that happened to lay near, in order to conceal, as much as possible, the place in which they were deposited.
Joseph, on coming to them, took them from their secret place, and, wrapping them in his linen frock, placed them under his arm and started for home.
After proceeding a short distance, he thought it would be more safe to leave the road and go through the woods. Traveling some distance after he left the road, he came to a large windfall, and as he was jumping over a log, a man sprang up from behind it, and gave him a heavy blow with a gun. Joseph turned around and knocked him down, then ran at the top of his speed. About half a mile further he was attacked again in the same manner as before; he knocked this man down in like manner as the former, then ran on again; and before he reached home he was assaulted the third time. In striking the last one he dislocated his thumb, which, however, he did not notice until he came within sight of the house, when he threw himself down in the corner of the fence in order to recover his breath. As soon as he was able, he arose and came to the house. He was still altogether speechless from fright and the fatigue of running.
|
Posted by: Alf Omega ®
01/02/2003, 12:39:39
Author Profile Mail author
|
By happy coincidence, I happened to read this today in one of my favorite new books:William Smith said the plates "weighed about sixty pounds according to the best of my judgment" (William Smith, William Smith on Mormonism [Lamoni, IA: Herald Steam Book and Job Office, 1883], 12 [Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996-], 1:497; hereafter EMD]; see also "W[illia]m. B. Smith's Last Statement," [John W. Peterson to Editor], Zion's Ensign [Independence, MO] 5 [13 Jan. 1894]: 6 [EMD 1:511]). Martin Harris said he hefted the plates many times and estimated that they "weighed forty or fifty pounds" ("Mormonism--No. II," Tiffany's Monthly 5 (Aug. 1859): 166 [EMD 2:306]). A block of solid tin measuring 6 x 8 x 6 inches, the measurements Smith gave for the plates, or 288 cubic inches, would weigh 74.67 pounds. If one allows for a 30 percent reduction due to the unevenness and space between the plates, the package would then weigh about fifty pounds. Using the same calculations, plates of gold would weigh 140.5 pounds. Reed Putnam has suggested that the plates were made of copper with a 23-carat gilded surface--much like the ancient Mesoamerican alloy tumbaga. Reducing the weight of the plates by 50 percent, Putnam estimates that tumbaga plates would have weighed between 53 and 86 pounds (see Reed H. Putnam, "Were the Plates of Mormon of Tumbaga?" Papers, 15th Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures [Provo, UT: BYU Extension Publications, 1964]; and "Were the Golden Plates Made of Tumbaga?" Improvement Era [Sept. 1966]: 788-89, 828-31). Following my own calculations, plates of copper would weigh sixty-five pounds, even without the gilding. The earliest tumbaga specimen--found in British Honduras and dating to the early classic period--has little to do with Nephi's supposed construction of plates a thousand years earlier. Metallurgy as such was not known in Central America until circa A.D. 900. Besides, with such a high copper content, the plates would have certainly corroded during their 1,400-year deposit in the moist soil of western New York, a fact that Putnam's theory cannot explain (Dan Vogel, "The Validity of the Witnesses' Testimony," in Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe, eds., American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002], 120-121 [abbreviated citations expanded]). Both William Smith and Martin Harris were able to make these estimates because they had been allowed to lift and feel the plates without seeing them.The claim that Harris handled the plates in vision or handled them uncovered on a subsequent occasion seems incorrect. In addition to seeing the plates in vision, Harris frequently testified that he had more than once held or lifted the plates when they were in a box or covered with a cloth. Thus, he apparently sometimes later shortened his narrative to the simple statement that he had both seen and handled the plates. This evidently confused some interviewers who may have assumed that Harris had handled the plates in his famous vision or that he had handled them uncovered on another occasion (ibid., 88).
Modified by Alf Omega at Thu, Jan 02, 2003, 12:46:46
|
Posted by: Nigel ®
01/03/2003, 08:51:07
Author Profile Mail author
|
Did any of the witness withdraw their testimony about seeing the 'Gold Plates'...? I think I read somewhere that several did but later in life changed their minds again and rejoined the church..! Did any maintain the denial that the 'Plates' existed? Thanks again for all your help Love Nigel U.K
|
|
