This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
No Translation Attempted
In 1843, six metal plates were discovered in Illinois and brought to Joseph Smith. Skeptics claim Joseph Smith was fooled into giving a phony translation from the forged Kinderhook Plates. Did Joseph Smith really attempt to translate the hoax plates and thus invalidate his claim of having a spiritual gift?
No. Joseph Smith never attempted a translation. Allegations hinge on a single quote: “I have translated a portion of them, and they contain the history of the person with whom they were found.”(History of the Church 5:372–79)
But this is not Joseph Smith’s account.
It was taken from the May 1, 1843 entry of the journal of William Clayton, Joseph Smith’s scribe. It was first published in 1856, more than a decade after Joseph Smith’s death. The text originally read, “Prest. J. has translated a portion…” This was altered in the Millenial Star periodical to: “I have translated a portion…”, though the paper never actually claimed Joseph Smith to be the author of this statement. This altered version of the journal made its way to later editions of the History of the Church and on to Anti-Mormon websites.
According to witnesses, the “translation” was nothing more than Joseph Smith remarking on the similarity of characters on the plate to a character from his Egyptian Alphabet book. Wilbur Fugate, the same man who claimed the Kinderhook Plates were forged, admitted that Joseph Smith did not attempt to translate them: “We understood Jo Smith said [the plates] would make a book of 1200 pages but he would not agree to translate them until they were sent to the Antiquarian society at Philadelphia, France, and England.”(Wilbur Fugate)
Witnesses said no translation took place, but a comparison with Joseph Smith’s Egyptian papyri did happen. Many years before Clay’s journal entry became public, Parley P. Pratt wrote a very similar statement to what we find in the rest of Clay’s journal entry: “Six plates having the appearance of Brass have lately been dug out of a mound by a gentleman in Pike Co. Illinois. They are small and filled with engravings in Egyptian language and contain the genealogy of one of the ancient Jaredites back to Ham the son of Noah. His bones were found in the same vase (made of Cement). Part of the bones were 15 ft. underground…. A large number of Citizens have seen them and compared the characters with those on the Egyptian papyrus which is now in this city.”(Parley P. Pratt)
Joseph Smith, along with others, compared the plate with characters on the Egyptian papyrus in Joseph Smith’s possession. Parley P. Pratt also states Joseph Smith “sent by William Smith to the office for his Hebrew Bible and Lexicon” during this visit. The “translation” was simply “a large number of citizens” comparing the plates with characters on an Egyptian papyrus and using Joseph Smith’s notes, known as the Egyptian Alphabet.
James Gordon Bennett, a reporter for the Herald, confirmed in a 1843 letter that the plates were compared to the Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Alphabet notes: “They were brought up and shown to Joseph Smith. He compared, in my presence, with his Egyptian Alphabet… and they’re evidently the same characters. He therefore will be able to decipher them.”(Grammar & Alphabet)
He will decipher them. Not he has deciphered them! But Joseph Smith was jailed soon after the plates were shown to him in early May. The plates returned to Robert Wiley, who “discovered” them, and were never shown them to Smith again until his death.
Similarity To Egyptian Alphabet
Looking through Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Alphabet notes, we can easily see what comparison they made. The very beginning of his notes explain that definitions can be determined with the “character dissected.” For example, it takes a character called Beth and dissects it parts that make up the character, lines and dots. Then, he gives the definitions for each part, which he calls Iata, Zubzooloan, Ki, and Hi. The purpose of the Egyptian Alphabet notes were to dissect characters and interpret each part.
The Saints would have logically assumed that the most prominent part of this character, the upside down half-dome, would be the most important part. It’s definition is almost exactly the same as Joseph Smith’s “translation”: “Honor by birth, kingly power by the line of Pharaoh, possession by birth, one who reigns upon his throne universally. Possession of heaven and earth, and of the blessings of the earth.”
Are The Plates Actually Genuine? The scientist who determined that one of the plates was manufactured in modern times was working on behalf of the church. “I had the good fortune to secure permission from the Chicago Historical Society for the recommended destructive tests,” wrote Stanley B. Kimball. But how do we know that the plate they tested was actually one of the plates that were dug up in Illinois?
The plates were sold by Robert Wiley to Joseph Nash McDowell for his museum of natural history some time in the 1800’s. But then the whereabouts of the plates were unknown for many years as Union soldiers ransacked the museum during the Civil War. According to reports, a soldier from the 2nd Iowa Reserve Regiment gave what he said was one of the plates to a J. W. McDowell, who gave it to F.C.A Richardson, who gave it to Charles F. Gunther, who gave it to the Chicago Historical Society, who loaned it to BYU to be tested. The plate passed through no less than 6 people before being tested and there is no way of knowing if it was actually one of the Kinderhook plates. How do we know we got one of the original plates and not a copy someone made?
Stanley Kimball points out a small dent in the plate, which shows up on original facsimiles as part of the etching. If it were a later forgery, he reasons, why would a forger make part of the letters into a dent rather than an etching? Well, actually, there are lots of reasons. Maybe they did. A forger, or somebody just making a reproduction for keeps-sake, could have used acid to render the characters and then used an etching tool to dent in parts of letters that didn’t show up from the acid. A very plausible story. There are many other scenarios that could explain why this wouldn’t be one of the original plates.
The plate tested by scientists was certainly made in modern times, there is no disputing that, but maybe it isn’t one of the original plates that the early Mormons looked at. Only one of the people involved in the discovery of the Kinderhook Plates ever claimed they were forgeries. This man, Wilbur Fugate, was not the original discoverer, however, but one of the persons involved in their excavation. Only he claimed to be in on the forgery plot. Nobody else came forward.
Fugate said he forged the plates “to prove the prophecy by way of a joke,” the prophesy in question being Parley P. Pratt’s “prophecy that ‘Truth is yet to spring out of the earth’”, not Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon. It wasn’t even about Joseph Smith!
William Fugate never tried to trick “Joseph into ‘translating’ forged items” as Anti-Mormons suggest. In fact, the Kinderhook Plates were not immediately taken to Joseph Smith after being dug up. The owner refused to let them go. The plates had to be secretly smuggled into Nauvoo and shone to the prophet. Fugate and the other excavators didn’t even want him to look at them. So the entire narrative of it being a forgery to trick Joseph Smith doesn’t really make sense. But in any case, Joseph Smith refused to interpret them, and we can clearly see how he simply compared them to some characters in the Egyptian Alphabet book.
CES Letter Logical Fallacies
| Falsehood | Joseph Smith did not “translate” the Kinderhook plates. The quote that they attribute to Joseph Smith is really by William Clayton. According to witnesses, Joseph Smith and others remarked on the similarity of one of the plates to characters from the Egyptian Alphabet notes. The plates were discovered by a “respected merchant,” not by a “farmer” as CES Letter claims. This lie appears to be random until you consider that Joseph Smith was a farmer when he discovered the gold plates and translated the Book of Mormon. This lie therefore builds false association between the gold plates and these Kinderhook plates, subtly making us thing Joseph Smith was fooled about the gold plates as well. The person behind the Kinderhook plates did not bring them to Joseph Smith as CES Letter claims and did not even want him to look at them. They were taken without his knowledge or permission. Only one of the plates have been found and tested, so it is incorrect for CES Letter to claim the “plates” underwent metallurgic tests–and in fact, the Chicago Historical Society’s examination concluded the plate was authentic. Only a later destructive test by the Mormon church concluded it was fake. |
| Strawman Fallacy | Church historians have always doubted that the plates were authentic. CES Letter‘s quote by Anti-Mormon Richard Bushman is without merit and is false: “Church historians continued to insist on the authenticity of the Kinderhook plates until 1980.” CES Letter incorrectly calls the church’s drawings of the plates “facsimiles.” The church did not use this term. CES Letter uses this term to build false association between the Book of Abraham and the Kinderhook Plates. |
| Argument From Ignorance | Scientists (with the Mormon church) assume the plate they tested was the original and not a reproduction. Even if it is the original, they still have not tested the other five plates, including the one that Joseph Smith made his remarks on. |
| Argument From Repetition | CES Letter brings up the Kinderhook several times in their PDF. |
| False Equivelance | CES Letter reason that Joseph Smith’s entire “credibility of translating ancient records” like the Book of Mormon are crushed because “the Kinderhook Plates destroy this claim.” They are totally different cases. |
| False Dilemma | CES Letter says either Joseph Smith “could translate ancient documents” or he couldn’t. They don’t allow for the possibility that he could only translate some, or that he didn’t receive inspiration for all alleged ancient writing. Why did Joseph Smith study Hebrew if he could just translate everything with magic? |
Big Lie Tactic – The big lie that CES Letter told about the Book of Mormon makes it easier to believe this obviously false narrative about the Kinderhook Plates. This lie is easier for the CES Letter reader to believe after all those earlier arguments that attached the same narrative about the Book of Mormon. If Joseph Smith used the same “peep stone” that he used to look for buried treasure to translate the Book of Mormon, doesn’t that make it easier to believe Joseph made up stuff about these metal plates too?
“This is a testable claim. Joseph failed the test with the Book of Abraham. He failed the test with the Kinderhook Plates. With this modus operandi and track record, I’m now supposed to believe that Joseph has the credibility of translating the keystone Book of Mormon? With a rock in a hat?”
(CES Letter)
Clearly, the claim that Joseph Smith was duped into translating the Kinderhook plates is untrue. It doesn’t even make sense. Why would he do this? Metal plates of ancient record had never even been talked about before Joseph Smith. So some local guy shows up with some metal plates, and what, Joseph Smith just goes along with it? If Joseph Smith had faked the gold plates, why would he think some local metal plates would be authentic? Why would he pretend to translate them?
Why Didn’t Joseph Smith Call Out Fakes? – But we are still left with the question, why didn’t Joseph Smith just call out the plates as phony if he was prophet? Well, apparently he wasn’t inspired to know they were false. Either that or they really were authentic and the plate that was tested in modern times was not one of the original plates. Joseph Smith did not have the magic ability to determine if a piece of metal was an authentic ancient object. Why would he?
The problem with this argument is that it is the kind of argument that a bully uses on someone he beats up. “If you are so smart, nerd, why can’t you do anything about it?” Some guy supposedly made some plates to expose Joseph Smith as a liar (though that’s not what happened.) CES Letter builds a narrative where Mormons are supposed to magically read minds and know if metal plates are forgeries or authentic.
Creating Superstition – CES Letter reinforces their narrative that Mormons need science to validate every single detail of their faith.We must be able to magically tell if a piece of metal is ancient or not. Anti-Mormons frame the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham as a “model” that has no evidence for it–an easy trick for them to play when it comes to ancient history–and they discount every piece of evidence as coincidence, forged, or unfounded.
This kind of narrative led the crusaders to seek out physical objects from the holy land to validate the bible, pieces of the cross or the cup of Jesus Christ. It always leads to superstition, because no amount of science can prove without reasonable doubt that a historical object is what it purports to be. The Shroud of Turin? I mean, there is a mountain of evidence that correlates the Book of Abraham. Since the day of Joseph Smith, ancient book after ancient book has been discovered and translated into English that says the same thing as the Book of Abraham. No amount of scientific testing would convince the Anti-Mormons. Even if the legitimacy of the claim were proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, they would pass it off as coincidence. So there is really no point to discerning if metal plates are ancient or not because this doesn’t really build faith. Priesthood power builds faith, it’s not a magic trick. Joseph Smith’s quick comparison to the Egyptian Alphabet was just a quick comparison.
Actually, I think it would be detrimental to Mormonism if undeniable evidence were found, because it would shift our narrative away from matters of faith toward unspiritual confirmation of a historical event from physical evidence. And that’s what CES Letter is trying to do. The shift away from faith serves Satan’s intentions because a person who relies on superstition is not practicing personal agency, but being total reliant on others for his beliefs and actions.
Joseph Smith explained: “Mormonism is truth; and every man who embraces it feels himself at liberty to embrace every truth: consequently the shackles of superstition, bigotry, ignorance, and priestcraft, fall at once from his neck; and his eyes are opened to see the truth, and truth greatly prevails over priestcraft. …Mormonism is truth, in other words the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, is truth. … The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.”(Teachings of Joseph Smith)
| See also: | CES Letter Contradiction Strategy |
Contradiction Strategy – Anti-Mormons use fake science–or in this case ridiculous logic–to point out an inconsistency regarding LDS belief, and then presents science as the superior alternative source for truth. <Anti-Mormons use the contradiction strategy by narrowing a physical issue down to a binary context: either Joseph Smith should have called out these Kinderhook Plates as phony or he was not a prophet. No other choices. They then appeal to “science” and deconstruct the outdated Mormon belief.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with exploring and critically investigating physical evidence, such as the alleged recovered Kinderhook plate. It is an exciting opportunity. The danger is when minds use faulty logic and leap to wild, simplistic conclusions.There is a smart and vibrant group of LDS scholars investigating the evidence and making great discoveries. They are careful not to become superstitious and search for holy grails to confirm their faith. They do not replace faith with a dependence on only what we can see.
CES Letter‘s Kinderhook Plate narrative invalidates all ancient writing, which is quite convenient for Anti-Mormons. If these Kinderhook Plates could have very easily become the basis of a new “bible,” who’s to say the bible wasn’t created in a similar fashion? After all, they didn’t have carbon dating in old times, so couldn’t somebody have passed off some forged writing as the basis for the bible? For Anti-Mormons, archaeology and historical science is only as useful as it can invalidate faith and can be twisted to support Marxist ideas. They hold religions to the highest standards of skepticism, yet place blind faith in Marxism. The Satanic substitute for religious scripture is the international science textbook that jumps to wild politically correct conclusions and requires revising every year. It is the science show that one day teaches kids that chromosomes determine your sex identity, rather than eternal spirit nature, and then the next day erases that segment and teaches kids that sex identity is totally fluid. For followers of Satan, truth is only the narrative, and the narrative changes however it needs to in order to support the ideology in new circumstances.Complete answers to CES Letter questions about Mormons: