In his book,
Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions:
Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism (Tampa, Fla.:
DeWard Publishing Company, 2020), Robert Bowman discusses the Three and Eight
Witnesses to the Book of Mormon on pp. 206-20. Notwithstanding the number of
pages he dedicates to these issues, the discussion, frankly, is pathetic. There
is no interaction with the best work on the witnesses (e.g., the work of Richard
Lloyd Anderson). Instead, Vogel’s essay in the 2002 book, American Apocrypha, “The Validity of the Witnesses’ Testimonies”
(pp. 79-121), a work that is largely reliant, not upon primary sources or even second-hand sources, but often hearsay from anti-Mormon sources.
For those who actually want to study the case for the Three and Eight
Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, their reliability, and other issues (something
you will not get if you rely upon Bowman’s screed), one should start with the
following:
Richard
Lloyd Anderson, Investing
the Book of Mormon Witnesses (the
book on the issue)
Matthew P.
Roper, Review
of Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? (pp. 170-76)
Notwithstanding
his (desperate) attempt to answer the Book of Mormon Witnesses, Bowman, like
Vogel and others, is forced to admit that many, if not all, the witnesses were
honest/sincere. For example, commenting on the Three Witnesses:
The assumption being made in the analysis so
far is that the witnesses ought to be granted at least a provisional assumption
of their sincerity. On the basis of that assumption it may be reasonable to
conclude that the Three likely had some sort of religious, spiritual experience
that they interpreted to be a vision of the angel and the gold plates. On the
other hand, the possibility should at least be entertained that one of the
Three was a willing party to a deception orchestrated by Joseph Smith. The most
likely candidate for such an accomplice would be Oliver Cowdery. By all accounts
of persons both friendly and hostile to Mormonism, Harris and Whitmer were
probably sincere if spiritually gullible. (Bowman, Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions, 216)
Funnily, as
with some critics such as Brodie and Vogel, Bowman is open to Smith, somehow,
having forged metallic plates. Consider the following comments about the Eight
Witnesses:
In the end, the T[estimony of
the]E[ight]W[itnesses], even assuming it referred to a literal inspection by
human eyes and hands of the gold plates, is of marginal significance. At most it
might be thought to establish that Joseph at the time had in his possession
something that looked like a bound stack of gold-colored metal plates. None of
the witnesses described the engravings on the plates beyond affirming the
presence of such engravings. Although the TEW states that the plates had “the
appearance of ancient work,” none of the witnesses could have had any way to
know or verify that the plates were many hundreds of years old. And none of the
Eight saw an angel when they allegedly saw the plates. (Ibid., 219-20)
In other
words, Joseph should have invited experts on ancient metallurgy and ancient
scripts to have been witnesses to the golden plates instead. This is like a
critic of the resurrection saying that, no matter the evidence Bowman and
others will present for it, they are right in rejecting it as God did not “video
record” the event for others to witness the event or, like Richard Carrier and
other atheists, if God truly existed, he should visit each person “proving” His
existence to everyone. Does that sound stupid? Good. So are Bowman’s comments
above. Using Bowman's "logic," the resurrected Christ should have presented Himself to medical experts, otherwise, His physical resurrection would not be credible.
Elsewhere, Bowman, while desperately trying to downplay the significance of the witnesses and the significance of their later disputes with Joseph (e.g., Hiram Page and his seer stone [D&C 28]), wrote the following, admitting to their sincerity and honesty in seeing an angel:
Elsewhere, Bowman, while desperately trying to downplay the significance of the witnesses and the significance of their later disputes with Joseph (e.g., Hiram Page and his seer stone [D&C 28]), wrote the following, admitting to their sincerity and honesty in seeing an angel:
Mormons routinely
argue that the checkered history of the witnesses all the more underscores the
fact that they never disavowed their testimony that Joseph did have the plates.
The evidence does support the conclusion that at least most of the witnesses
were sincere, but it does not prove that they were right. It is possible that
they sincerely believed that they had seen the plates (and even the angel, in
the case of the Three) and yet had been deceived. (Bowman, Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions, 303)
On the issue
of the plates themselves, an excellent book on the use of metal plates and
related issues in antiquity, see:
John A.
Tvedtnes, The
Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books: “Out of Darkness Unto Light” (Provo,
Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2000)