In this post, Dan revisits Richard Bushman's book Joseph Smith's Gold Plates.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2025/06/some-notes-on-the-gold-plates.html
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Naturally, Dan didn't quote the parts of the book that discuss ideas that are anathema to the Interpreter. See, e.g., https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2023/09/the-golden-plates-part-2.html and https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2023/12/2023-year-end-review-narratives.html
But still, Dan made some useful observations. Good for him. Next it would be even better if he provided his readers some context, even if the context contradicts his M2C narrative...
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Original in blue, quotations in green, my comments in red.
Some notes on the Gold Plates
I want to share some passages that I marked a while back from Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).
The account of the golden plates as we know it is documented very early:
The first known mention of the gold plates in writing occurred in the fall of 1828 in letters to Asael Smith, Joseph Smith Jr.’ s grandfather. Joseph Smith Sr. had not seen his father for twelve years.
Their letters are lost, but a reply from Joseph Sr.’ s brother Jesse dated June 17, 1829, refers to letters from Joseph Smith Sr. and two sons Hyrum and Joseph Jr. Jesse quotes Joseph Jr. as saying that “the Angel of the Lord has revealed to him the hidden treasures of wisdom & knowledge, even divine revelation, which has lain in the bowels of the earth for thousands of years.” Jesse also refers to spectacles and hieroglyphics as if one of the letters had talked about translation. The family apparently was told the whole story. (40)
When read in context, Jesse condemned the idea of discovering a book by "necromancy." To describe this letter as documenting "the account of the golden plates as we know it" is a stretch because the reference doesn't mention plates. It's impossible to tell how much of the letter is a direct quotation vs assumptions, inferences, and paraphrasing. The "fall of 1828" is also not exactly "very early."
alas what is man when left to his own way, he makes his own gods, if a golden calf, he falls down and worship’s before it, and says this is my god which brought me out of the land of Vermont— if it be a gold book discovered by the necromancy of infidelity, & dug from the mines of atheism, he writes that the Angel of the Lord has revealed to him the hidden treasures of wisdom & knowledge, even divine revelation, which has lain in the bowels of the earth for thousands of years is at last made known to him, he says he has eyes to see things that are not, and then has the audacity to say they are; And this Angel of the Lord (Devil it should be) has put me in possession of great wealth, gold and silver and precious stones so that I shall have the dominion in all the land of Palmyra.—
In a subsequent letter you write that you learn from your Grandfather’s letter that uncle Jesse [Smith] thinks you are carrying on a work of deception, in this he and you are right, Uncle Jesse did, and still does think the whole pretended discovery, not a very deep, but a very clear and foolish deception, a very great wickedness, unpardonable, unless you are shielded by your ignorance. Again you say, if you are decieved God is your deciever, Blasphemous wretch— how dare you utter such a sentence, how dare you harbor such a thot— aye, you never did think so, but being hardened in iniquity, you made use of the holy name of Jehovah! for what, why to cover your nefarious designs & impose on the credulity of your Grandfather, one of the oldest men on the earth,
Blackness of darkness!
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letterbook-2/64
Some critics of the Restoration have sought to make much of the fact that Emma Smith, Joseph’s wife, didn’t go west with the body of the Saints. But
Emma viewed herself as one who had never left the faith. “I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the Church to have been established by divine direction.” She knew she had “been called apostate; but I have never apostatized, nor forsaken the faith I at first accepted.” She felt she had good reasons for her belief. In the interview, she showed the rationalist bent of her mind. She said nothing about her love for her husband or her trust in his character. Hers was not a sentimental or spiritual faith. It was based on her observation of Joseph translating. Nothing she knew about him qualified him to dictate the book. “It is marvelous to me,” she said, “as much so as to any one else.” (50)
This point seems to me of particular importance:
The immediate family was more concerned about where to conceal the plates than to establish the plates’ reality. . . . The family seemed not to have been troubled by the question of the plates’ existence. (51)
That is a good point, although it is Bushman's inference, not a documented historical fact.
In the next passage that I’ll cite, Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, recalls the day of the showing of the plates to the Eight Witnesses:
“Soon after they came, all of the male part of the company, together with my husband, Samuel [Smith], and Hyrum [Smith], retired to a place where the family were in the habit of offering up their secret devotions to God. They went to this place because it had been revealed to Joseph that the plates would be carried thither by one of the ancient Nephites.” (55)
This, presumably, is the same Nephite who took the plates of Nephi to Fayette for Joseph to translate, based on David Whitmer's account (discussed below). John Whitmer says the witnesses saw the plates in two separate groups of four.
That experience of the Eight Witnesses is, obviously, a very significant one:
When John Whitmer was later asked if he saw the plates “covered with a cloth,” he answered no. Joseph “handed them uncovered into our hands, and we turned the leaves sufficient to satisfy us.”
That was the kind of testimony rationalists could understand. It assimilated the plates into the ordinary world of material objects. No guardian spirits, no angels, no magical rituals. If accurate, the testimony of the eight witnesses satisfied the requirements of the rational enlightenment for sensory evidence. The problem was that too much rested on the testimonies. Belief in what they said implied acceptance of too many fabulous items: an angel appearing in Manchester, a simple young man conversing with the heavens, another Bible from ancient America. The problem was posed by Cornelius Blatchly, a onetime Quaker who wrote Martin Harris in 1829 only a few months after the witnesses said they saw the plates. Blatchly wanted to know more about this “wonderful record” but only if it could be “substantiated by indisputable evidences and witnesses.” In November 1829, Oliver Cowdery wrote back on Martin’s behalf. Knowing his account was fabulous, he insisted the witnesses could not have been mistaken in what they saw. “It was a clear, open beautiful day, far from any inhabitants, in a remote field, at the time we saw the record.” It was “brought and laid before us, by an angel, arrayed in glorious light.” Blatchly thanked Cowdery for his account but concluded that “so important a matter as a new bible” required “the most incontrovertible facts, circumstances and proofs.” Oliver’s account, in Blatchly’s judgment, failed to meet that high standard. (56)
This is a good example of how evidence can satisfy some people but not others. This usually depends on whether or not the evidence confirms one's bias.
And here is one of the accounts that I myself have found most interesting:
John’s mother, Mary Whitmer, another plain-spoken witness, said she saw the plates when she went to do the milking. In 1878, years after the event, her son said that his mother had grown weary with the work of housing and feeding the translating contingent. In June 1829, Joseph, Oliver, and Emma squeezed into an already crowded household. Emma must have been pressed into service, but the two men were of no help. They spent their days in an upstairs room recording the translation. Mary Whitmer had reason to complain of the added burden. Mary’s son David told Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith in 1878 that as his mother was going to milk the cows, an old man carrying a pack met her in the yard. He recognized that “you are tried because of the increase of your toil,” and so “it is proper therefore that you should receive a witness that your faith may be strengthened.” Then he took the plates out of the knapsack and showed them to her. Whitmer said that seeing the plates “nerved her up for her increased responsibilities.” One of Mary’s grandsons, John C. Whitmer, added that “this strange person turned the leaves of the book of plates over, leaf after leaf, and also showed her the engravings upon them.” Then he vanished with the plates.
Mary Whitmer did not record the experience herself, but she told the story to her grandchildren “on several occasions.” Her account was of a piece with other stories the Whitmers told. David Whitmer linked his mother’s angel to the “very pleasant, nice-looking old man” he had seen on the road while bringing Joseph and Oliver to Fayette. His nephew John also described the visitor as “a stranger carrying something on his back that looked like a knapsack” and “spoke to her in a kind, friendly tone.” (57)
It is also interesting that Dan has famously promoted the narrative that it was Moroni who showed the plates to Mary Whitmer, but at least he did not repeat that narrative here.
What is even more interesting is how Dan did not tell readers the context of this event, which Bushman explained in a later section of his book.
In the 1878 account Bushman (and Dan) quoted from Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith, David explained that
by a sign from Joseph, I invited him to ride if he was going our way. But he said very pleasantly, "No, I am going to Cumorah." This name was something new to me, I did not know what Cumorah meant.... I also remember that he had on his back a sort of knapsack with something in, shaped like a book. It was the messenger who had the plates, who had taken them from Joseph just prior to our starting from Harmony.
This is significant because it was the first time David heard the word Cumorah, and he heard it directly from a divine messenger, not from Joseph or Oliver. The encounter also raises the question, why would this messenger go to Cumorah with the abridged plates before bringing the plates of Nephi to Fayette?
A year earlier, Edward Stevenson had interviewed David Whitmer. Stevenson promptly recorded in his journal that
Smileing very Pleasant David asked him to ride and he replied I am going across to the hill Cumorah... He Said that the Prophet Looked as White as a Sheet & Said that it was one of the Nephites & that he had the plates.... the next morning David's mother saw the person at the shed and he took the plates from the box & showed them to her She said that they were fastened with rings thus D he turned the leaves over this was a satisfaction to her.
See references here: https://www.mobom.org/trip-to-fayette-references
From this account, we see that the messenger who showed the plates to Mary Whitmer was one of the Three Nephites, which makes sense.
But Dan doesn't tell people about that because it contradicts the M2C narrative.
Sigh...
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