Did Martin Harris actually see the golden plates? Ep. 64

Hey guys, so at the beginning of every Book of Mormon is the testimony of the three witnesses who claimed that "an angel came down from heaven and he brought and laid before our eyes that we beheld and saw the plates and the engravings thereon." This is a big deal. Previously Joseph had been commanded not to show the ancient Book of Mormon record to anyone. "Not even Squidward's house." But suddenly all these people are saying, yeah they're real, we've seen them. What do we do with that? Were they crazy? Were they tricked or lying or were they just telling the truth? You can't handle the truth! In this episode we're gonna take a closer look at the witness of a man named Martin Harris. Martin Harris was born in 1783 when the Smith family moved to Palmyra, New York. In 1816, Martin and his family were living on their farm about three and a half miles away. He was initially skeptical of Joseph's story of having discovered the Book of Mormon plates. For example, he separately interviewed Joseph's wife and siblings about the plates comparing details from their stories. When it came down to funding the project, he told Joseph, "If it is the devil's work I will have nothing to do with it but if it is the Lord's, you can have all the money necessary to bring it before the world. Now you must not blame me for not taking your word. If the Lord will show me that it is his work, you can have all the money you want." He was soon convinced of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and donated what today would be between 70 and 80 thousand dollars for the publication. On another occasion he swapped out the seer stone Joseph used to translate the Book of Mormon with a similar looking rock. When Joseph tried to use it he said, "Martin, what is the matter? All is as dark as Egypt!" Martin came clean and said he'd swapped the stone "To stop the mouths of fools who had told him that the Prophet had learned those sentences and was merely repeating them." Martin will sometimes described as superstitious but he was also described as "shrewd in his business calculations and frugal in his habits." Very wary of the lingering possibility of being conned, you can sense the relief he felt after he saw the plates as he cried out "Tis enough! Mine eyes have beheld." Lucy Smith remembered, "Martin seemed almost overcome with joy, and testified boldly to what he had both seen and heard." And Martin gave that same bold testimony throughout the rest of his life, even after being separated from the church for many decades. Before returning to the church in 1870, Martin affiliated himself with a few different Latter-day Saint splinter groups, the common factor in them all clearly being the Book of Mormon. Even through a quasi-committed stint with the Shakers, he stuck to his testimony . Out of all the witnesses, though Martin clearly gets the most flak from critics. Oliver Cowdery became a well-respected lawyer, David Whitmer was a mayor for a time, but Martin was just a farmer- a very successful farmer but a farmer. He wasn't exceptionally educated and he didn't leave behind much first-hand information for anyone. But people both inside and outside the church considered Martin to be honest and upright so instead of contesting his honesty, most skeptics today contest his sanity or his grip on reality in order to cast doubt on his credibility. For example, you might come across vaguely sourced quotes about Martin supposedly talking with Christ who was in the form of a deer. Or him seeing Christ on a roof beam. What critics probably won't highlight is that both of those claims at least come from late third hand hostile sources which means we have to approach them with extreme caution. Historians don't exactly consider late third hand hostile sources to be the pinnacle of reliability. "That is a lot of fake news back there." A couple of sources second and third hand sources suggest Martin only saw the plates with a spiritual eye suggesting he really only imagined seeing the plates. I'll let David Whitmer answer that claim. He said, "Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel except in a spiritual view. But we were in the body also and everything around us was as natural to us as it is at any time. Martin Harris, you say, called it being in vision. We read in the scriptures Cornelius saw, in a vision, an angel of God. Daniel saw an angel in a vision. Also in other places it states, "they saw an angel in the spirit." A bright light enveloped us where we were that filled the woods as at noonday and there in a vision or in the spirit we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon. And we'd also be remiss to ignore the countless other sources that make it very clear that Martin saw the plates and the angel with his real physical eyes. So did Martin actually see the plates or was he crazy? Were all the other corroborating witnesses crazy too or were they lying or can we shrug it all off as a product of mass hallucination or hypnosis as some critics believe, and they're certainly not shy? Or could it be possible that Martin was just telling the truth? If you've heard something about Martin that I haven't addressed here, please check out the article on our website where I more specifically address several other interesting quotes. Also check out our episodes on the other two of the three witnesses and enjoy this little montage of statements about Martin's witness. Feel free to pause and read as many as you'd like.

Channel: Saints Unscripted

Views: 6,954

Keywords: 3 Mormons, LDS, latter-day saints, mormon, mormons, 3 mormon, mormonism, 3mormons, mormon church, mormon lds, lds church, martin harris, mormon leaders, lds leaders, mormon history, lds history, book of mormon, lds bible, joseph smith, mormon stories, church of jesus christ, gold plates, golden plates, church of jesus christ of latter day saints, ex mormon, ex mormon testimony, mormon myths, mormon facts, what is the mormon church, what is mormonism, ces letter

Id: rLfD9hqxMMg

Length: 6min 15sec (375 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020