One of the key conundrums of Mormon historiography is the issue of how to handle (no pun intended) the “plates of gold upon which there was engravings which was engraven by Maroni & his fathers.” Whether or not the experience of the eight was empirical—that is, accessible at least in theory to any competent observer—has become a matter of controversy. Given this circumstance, the best we can do is dispassionately account for the relevant statements from (or attributed to) the four Whitmers, one Page, and three Smiths and apply sound source criticism to evaluating those statements.
Such a quest yields a number of intriguing conclusions, including the following:
· The testimony of the weight fails to provide details on the historical context of this event.
· While statements about seeing the plates from the Three Witnesses (and Mary Whitmer) involve miraculous events and are therefore religious (and not empirical), accounts from Emma Smith, William Smith, Martin Harris and others about handling the plates are clearly empirical. The assertions of the eight, however, do not fall clearly into either category because several of the eight sometimes conflated their experience as a witness with the experience as a devoted believer.
· Because the eight may have examined the counterfeit plates, their affirmations must be rigorously critiqued and not prematurely dismissed on the assumption that they must have simply imaged seeing and hefting the plates.
· Crucial questions about the nature of the experience of the eight arise from remarks reportedly made by Martin Harris in 1838 and John Whitmer in 1839.
Answering the question of what kind of event the eight reported is thus considerably nuanced. Nonetheless, persistent and throughout source criticism demonstrates that the weight of the evidence supports the argument that the experience was indeed empirical and thus subject to full historical explication.
As for the deficiencies of the original statement, Dan Vogel Writes:
“As a historical document, the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses is disappointing. It fails to give historical details such as time, place, and date. Neither does it describe the historical event or events, but simply states that the eight signatories, collectively have seen and handled the plates.” Not only that, but “Joseph Smith’s History is vague about events behind the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses” and fails to “describe the historical setting in which the eight men saw the plates.” Finally, “subsequent statements by the eight witnesses shed very little light on the historical event behind their Testimony” (Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 3:464. David Whitmer, by contrast, offers extensive details about his experience of seeing the angel and the plates with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and the historical setting of the event. Vogel does point out, however, that David Whitmer and Lucy Mack Smith indicate that the experience of the eight took place in a small grove on the Smith farm in Manchester, New York, likely on Thursday, June 25, or a week later on July 2, 1829)
At the same time, the historical value of the eight’s testimony can hardly [be] overstated.
· The testimony meets three of the most important standards of source criticism by being a first-hand document produced close to the time of the event itself and signed by multiple witnesses.
· The statement itself is strictly empirical, “reads like a legal document,” and “describes a sensory experience that involved both sight and touch as the witnesses handled and lifted the plates” (Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 1: July 1828-June 1831, 387)
· Although a host of crucial Book of Mormon events occurred between September 1823 and June 1828, not a single document mentioning the Book of Mormon has survived. Furthermore, the sole extant sources from July 1828 to May 1829 are the Book of Mormon text itself and revelations dictated by Joseph. The testimonies of the three and eight witnesses are thus among the first documents produced by anyone else.
(A Documentary History of the Book of Mormon, comp. Larry E. Morris [New York: Oxford University Press, 2019], 415-17, emphasis added)