Learning a bit more about the Kinderhook plates. Reading "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins," and referring this morning to this FAIR article.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Forgeries_related_to_Mormonism/Joseph_Smith_and_the_Kinderhook_Plates

I'm trying to wrap my head around this FAIR article, cause it seems to be riddled with contradictions.

1) It states that Joe used "non-revelatory" means of translating what little he did translate of the plates, and that what he came up with is consistent when compared to the GAEL.

2) It relates how Mormon sources Clayton and Pratt talk about a skeleton being with the plates when they were found, but that none of the shysters or people who were there when the plates were unearthed ever mentioned a skeleton. They assume that Joe most likely had direct contact with the original excavators. They use this to conclude that Clayton's journal entry of Joe's translation of a "portion" of the plates ("they contain the history of the person with whom they were found") wasn't made with Joe's authorization. (Essentially, Clayton was...lying?)

However, "An Insider's View" reprinted a broadside that was published in June 1843 that included a statement by the people who dug it up that said they gave the plates to Sharp (a Mormon) to give to Joe. Sharp was there when they dug the plates up, but he seems to have been a pawn in the scheme - invited to dig with them so that he would do exactly as he did - jump for joy and bring them to Joe.

Also confusing is that in this same broadside, the author of the "account" of these brass plates DOES talk about human remains being found with the plates.

So it seems to me that it was common "knowledge" at the time that there was a skeleton with the plates. Rumor or not, it was understood by everyone that there was. Including Joe. Which is how he came up with the little bit about it being the history of the person they were found with.

Also seems that the person that wrote the FAIR article is either a liar, an idiot, or didn't have access to this broadside/all the information. Or this broadside is totally fictional or doctored by Palmer himself or someone before him, which he took for fact and put in his book (which is what my mom would say.)


Why didn't the shysters come forward with their fraud until over 10 years later?

My own thoughts: Joe got the plates in the spring of 1843. That was a year full of marrying extra wives, dealing with the first polygamy-hating wife, and if I remember correctly, running from the law a lot. Not to mention all his other prophety duties. I'm thinking he was 1) starting to get a little weary of people bringing in these outside documents for him to translate and 2) didn't have sufficient time to come up with a good story for them, seeing as how he needed to consult (or plagiarize, whichever you prefer) other books to come up with good stories. He just didn't have the time, so he never did much with them.

Maybe the shysters were just waiting on him to come up with a no-take-backs "translation" of them. Then he was killed. There was a lot of tension between the the Mormons and non Mormons around this time, and they might have not wanted to incur any Mormon wrath - or be considered part of the anti-Mormon club, some of whom were being tried for killing the Smiths. Also, Joe is dead - so where's the fun in it now? And maybe they waited to see if the next Mormon prophet would take a shot at them. Then most of the Mormons left and the area was quiet and dull again, they lost interest in their game cause it wasn't going to go anywhere then, and spoke up.

Thoughts? Extra insights I've missed?

It was either 'dumb luck' or strategy that Joe... up until his death... didn't let any of these schemes land on his door-step.


Like we say, the Devil is in the details; thanks for your research. Too bad none of the TBMs pay attention (unless ChurchCo PAYS THEM, of course).

And they know this how ?

I love the way they just pull things out of their asses.

sdee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> 1) It states that Joe used "non-revelatory" means
> of translating what little he did translate of the
> plates, and that what he came up with is
> consistent when compared to the GAEL.

I love the word "consistent." If you give me the Gettysburg Address and I translate it to a recipe for cooking paella someone could find SOME reason why there were similarities and say "it's a consistent translation."

> 2) It relates how Mormon sources Clayton and Pratt
> talk about a skeleton being with the plates when
> they were found, but that none of the shysters or
> people who were there when the plates were
> unearthed ever mentioned a skeleton. They assume
> that Joe most likely had direct contact with the
> original excavators. They use this to conclude
> that Clayton's journal entry of Joe's translation
> of a "portion" of the plates ("they contain the
> history of the person with whom they were found")
> wasn't made with Joe's authorization.
> (Essentially, Clayton was...lying?)

The OLD explanation was that Clayton was just repeating rumors he'd heard and that Joe never really claimed to have translated anything. However if you read the ENTIRE Clayton entry it is clear that he was with Joseph Smith at Joseph Smith's house where Joseph Smith personally showed him the plates. Obviously Clayton's source is Joseph Smith. Pratt, on the other hand, whose story is different than Clayton's was not Smith's constant companion and "right-hand man". Mormon apologists make a big deal in the differences between Clayton's and Pratt's statements and claim that they were BOTH just repeating gossip. If Clayton was repeating gossip he got it from Joseph Smith. What is missing is ANY statement by Joseph Smith that the plates are bogus. Or any statement that false rumors were going around about the plates.

> However, "An Insider's View" reprinted a broadside
> that was published in June 1843 that included a
> statement by the people who dug it up that said
> they gave the plates to Sharp (a Mormon) to give
> to Joe. Sharp was there when they dug the plates
> up, but he seems to have been a pawn in the scheme
> - invited to dig with them so that he would do
> exactly as he did - jump for joy and bring them to
> Joe.
>
> Also confusing is that in this same broadside, the
> author of the "account" of these brass plates DOES
> talk about human remains being found with the
> plates.
>
> So it seems to me that it was common "knowledge"
> at the time that there was a skeleton with the
> plates. Rumor or not, it was understood by
> everyone that there was. Including Joe. Which is
> how he came up with the little bit about it being
> the history of the person they were found with.

What difference does it make whether there were human remains or not? JS "translates" bogus plates to be some Egyptian stuff about a decendent of Pharaoh. Whether there were or were not human remains is a red herring.

> Also seems that the person that wrote the FAIR
> article is either a liar, an idiot,

Liar.

> or didn't have
> access to this broadside/all the information. Or
> this broadside is totally fictional or doctored by
> Palmer himself or someone before him, which he
> took for fact and put in his book (which is what
> my mom would say.)

The broadside has been around long before Palmer. It's real. Before the plates were PROVEN to be fake in 1981, the apologist's line of attack were that the plates were genuine and that the shysters were lying about faking them. If your Mom's approach (faked broadside) had any merit, then FAIR and the Maxwell-Institute boys would have been all over it. FAIR and Maxwell Institute do critics a great favor by vetting our information to Mormons.

> Why didn't the shysters come forward with their
> fraud until over 10 years later?
>
> My own thoughts: Joe got the plates in the spring
> of 1843. That was a year full of marrying extra
> wives, dealing with the first polygamy-hating
> wife, and if I remember correctly, running from
> the law a lot. Not to mention all his other
> prophety duties. I'm thinking he was 1) starting
> to get a little weary of people bringing in these
> outside documents for him to translate and 2)
> didn't have sufficient time to come up with a good
> story for them, seeing as how he needed to consult
> (or plagiarize, whichever you prefer) other books
> to come up with good stories. He just didn't have
> the time, so he never did much with them.

He got the papyri in 1835. He published the Book of Abraham in 1842. He got the Kinderhook plates in 1843. In just over a year he was dead. Maybe had he lived a "translation" of them would have been published and then the conspirators would have pounced on it. After JS was killed without issuing a translation there was no reason to come forth. They did not know about the Clayton Journal entry. For them the "spoof" was no longer in effect.

> Maybe the shysters were just waiting on him to
> come up with a no-take-backs "translation" of
> them. Then he was killed. There was a lot of
> tension between the the Mormons and non Mormons
> around this time, and they might have not wanted
> to incur any Mormon wrath - or be considered part
> of the anti-Mormon club, some of whom were being
> tried for killing the Smiths. Also, Joe is dead -
> so where's the fun in it now? And maybe they
> waited to see if the next Mormon prophet would
> take a shot at them. Then most of the Mormons left
> and the area was quiet and dull again, they lost
> interest in their game cause it wasn't going to go
> anywhere then, and spoke up.
>
> Thoughts? Extra insights I've missed?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2012 12:25PM by baura.

Thanks. Nice to have perspectives from earlier times.

One thing - you transposed your numbers on when Joe got the Kinderhook plates; "1934." (which I wouldn't be so petty to mention except for the sake of new board members who are interested in history, and don't want them to have reason to be confused.)

Oops. Typo corrected. Thanx.

The biggest problem IMO with the apologists' answers on the Kinderhook Plates matter is that it puts the credibility of the HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 7 volume series at risk. Anyone who has read the prefaces to the sections of the D&C knows that its devastating to consider the idea that this HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 7 volume series could be so flawed and get something like this so wrong. That could only lead them to conclude that the Doctrine & Covenants itself could be full of flaws. The apologists' approach neglects to mention this problem. And in fact it was specifically their neglect on this very specific issue of the Kinderhook Plates that caused me to first start really questioning the church.

on a recent Mormon Expression podcast - # 189

http://mormonexpression.com/2012/02/28/189-the-kinderhook-plates-for-dummies/

SKELETON
Basically there were deinitely bones there so Clayton may have connected the dots that there was a skeleton - I mean where did the bones come from originally - a skeleton of course. So that was probably something misunderstood by both Clayton and Joseph.

Why didn't the shysters come forward with their fraud until over 10 years later?

Very little was said publicly about it at the time so the hoaxers probably didn't know exactly what Smith said until many years later.

From the August 1981 Ensign:

"The statement taken from William Clayton's journal didn't appear until September 1856 in Salt Lake City's "Deseret News". At that point, time itself had eroded away the opportunity for a hearty joke, if that were the hoaxers' intent; and the absence of an actual translation in spite of the Clayton entry in the "History of Joseph Smith" could only have added to frustrations - assuming that the hoaxers even knew of the "Deseret News" account which appeared thirteen years later and a thousand miles away."



The people that made the plates were undoubtedly hoping Joseph would say more about the plates than he did. They were probably waiting for him to write a sequel to the Book of Mormon from the KP, like was rumored at the time. Imagine how much more amazing the hoax would have been had Joseph actually written an entire book instead of just a simple paragraph like he did. The prospect of a much longer, detailed translation would likely be enough for the hoaxers to hold their tongues until this thing played out. Perhaps they hoped a future prophet would make more of them. More than likely, they had their fun and let it be.

Joseph didn’t give them the “big bang” they had hoped for but anything other than Joseph denouncing them as a fraud, or simply saying he didn’t know what they were, is still evidence Joseph lied about the KP even if he didn’t say more than a paragraph about them.

There's also the possibility that Wiley or Fugate sold the plates. On November 15, Robert Wiley wrote a letter to one J. J. Harding suggesting that he was interested in selling the plates to "the National Institute". If they had sold the plates, they could hardly then proclaim that they were a hoax and have to give the money back.



Did he say the following or didn’t he? “"I insert fac-similes of the six brass plates found near Kinderhook... I have translated a portion of them, and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and that he received his Kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth." Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, v. 5, p. 372

If Joseph said the above, as all reports indicate, then Joseph made that up which calls into question the credibility of his other claims. If he never said that then there must be a credible explanation as to why everything and everybody said he did, including the official church scribe William Clayton who was with him on that very day!

http://mormonthink.com/kinderhookweb.htm



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2012 12:39PM by SpongeBob SquareGarments.

Thanks SpongeBob. Good stuff.

I get tired of trying to wrap my head around all of this crap.

Three points:

1. As SpongeBob points out, Clayton was not just a guy, but was serving in an official capacity as Joseph Smith's personal secretary.

2. Joseph Smith had the Egyptian papyri in his possession for 7 years before he finally published a translation, and even then it was nowhere near complete, and he never even started on the Book of Joseph (i.e. Book of the Dead) scroll. The Kinderhook facsimiles were in Smith's possession for only about 1 year before he was killed.

3. There is actually nothing contradictory between the Clayton and Pratt renditions. Pratt is merely more specific when he mentions the Jaredites. Given the content of the Book of Mormon, we would not expect to find any other people's in ancient America besides Jaredites and then Mulekites/Lehites. Meanwhile, according to the Book of Abraham, Pharaoh was the son of Egyptus who settled in Egypt immediately following Noah's flood. The Tower of Babel event occurred after the flood and with all people's at the tower, so the obvious explanation is that some (maybe all) of the Jaredite party were descended from Pharaoh.

The same day he recorded Joseph's little bit of "translation," he also married Joseph to Lucy Walker.

Do they ever try to say that Clayton's recordings of sealings were made up/misrepresented/not authorized, as well?