The Official "Ask A Mormon" Thread

[babe]

How come only 4 people ever saw the plates (3 witnesses + Smith)?

If I were to find something as important as that I'd want to show it to the World.

that's just it. If we had the plates, say under glass in the Smithsonian, there would be plenty of hot hot debate about who made them, when, where, and how, even if the inscribed marks could be plainly read in "Reformed Egyptian" and actually did translate to the word with the translation of Joseph Smith. Some clever fellow who knew Egyptian and gave Smith the translation.

At the end of the day, God wants us to come to Him asking questions, not telling Him what's what, or at least I would suppose. Faith is just something quite apart from any proof we or God could give, and I consider it axiomatic that if there is a God, it seems He has given us enough wiggle room to choose whether to believe this or not.

 

[The Midnight]

that's just it. If we had the plates, say under glass in the Smithsonian, there would be plenty of hot hot debate about who made them, when, where, and how, even if the inscribed marks could be plainly read in "Reformed Egyptian" and actually did translate to the word with the translation of Joseph Smith. Some clever fellow who knew Egyptian and gave Smith the translation.

At the end of the day, God wants us to come to Him asking questions, not telling Him what's what, or at least I would suppose. Faith is just something quite apart from any proof we or God could give, and I consider it axiomatic that if there is a God, it seems He has given us enough wiggle room to choose whether to believe this or not.

Then why the plates and why now? Isn't the fact that Jesus came to us enough?

 

[babe]

Then why the plates and why now? Isn't the fact that Jesus came to us enough?

I listen quite a lot to some pretty smart and pretty decent preachers, like Dr. Irwin Lutzer of the Moody Church in Chicago on his "Running To Win" progam, or the late J. Vernon McGee of The Church of the Open Door in LA,and I hear some beautiful hymns on the themes "On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all else is sinking sand", and "Victory in Jesus". . . . lot more. . ...

I dealt with some related issues this morning over in https://jazzfanz.com/showthread.php?1...d-Ever/page165. So I think this is in fact a profound question.

At the time of the printing of the Book of Mormon, I'd say it was the dissatisfaction in some quarters with the established Christian Churches, the whole frontier atmosphere of wide open questions on every formerly settled dogma, and the idea of "restoration" of an ideal Gospel in it's purity at the time of Jesus, before the whole corrupt statist Church monopoly business set Europe ablaze as people emerged into having direct personal beliefs, as opposed to living lives defined by church and/or state dogma.

The palpable central idea of Mormonism is authoritarian, but the specific claim is that it is not "Man" who is the guiding authority, but our Lord Jesus. People who believe that are the heart and soul of the peasant masses of Mormondom. People like me, who see, say, a reasonable question as to whether the Man is listening, are troubled Mormons perhaps, but I prefer my sort of troubles over those entailed in being a less questioning follower.

Sorry Colton.

Colton's got this thread, and he is pretty generous and long-suffering with you folks hanging out there on the line, blowing in the gales of controversies, because if good Mormons can't be there for you, who will be?

I thought about following up every irreverent little tidbit here with something just to be funny and break the ice, but Colton's doing a great job. If you just want to have fun, come see me at The Longest Thread.

 

[bigb]

How come only 4 people ever saw the plates (3 witnesses + Smith)?

If I were to find something as important as that I'd want to show it to the World.

As Motown said, there were 8 others as well. In the pages of the introduction of The Book of Mormon, the accounts that were written by these witnesses can be found.
I can certainly understand your line of thinking here. Basically, Joseph was commanded not to show them to the general public because the people would use it against him m

 

[bigb]

Then why the plates and why now? Isn't the fact that Jesus came to us enough?

The plates contain the story of a group of people that left Jerusalem around 600 BC. They came here to the Americas and set up shop. The plates are basically their journal for roughly a thousand years. As to the why now part, we believe this is part of the "last dispensation", when God has brought the Gospel and priesthood back to the earth in its fullness.
The fact that Jesus came to us is enough for me. But if there is something out there that helps me understand Him and His gospel better and fuller, I want to know about it, study it, and use it. The Book of Mormon is that for us Mormons.

 

[bigb]

It is hotly hotly contested whether the Three Witnesses actually stated that they saw the physical plates. All were excommunicated from the church at some point in time.

As far as I know (admittedly my knowledge is far from great in this area), none of them ever denied their testimony of having seen the plates. They left the church or were excommunicated for personal reasons other than this.
Even if they did deny having seen the plates, it wouldn't change my testimony of The Book of Mormon, as it is not based on what those three men said.

 

[Harambe]

More like, Mormons avoid trolls.

I feel as if Colton summed up everything I was trying to get across quite well, so I'm not convinced this is true.

 

[Harambe]

How come only 4 people ever saw the plates (3 witnesses + Smith)?

If I were to find something as important as that I'd want to show it to the World.

*ahem*

If you had ~200lbs of gold and no "posse", would you want to show that to everyone in the 1800's?

You should be asking, how the heck did he carry 200lbs home.

 

[Hartsock]

But what's the REAL number?

How many of those 1 million are active?

A friend who went to Brazil told me it was probably around 20-30% that were active. I imagine he wasn't being very strict with his "activity" definition also.

 

[colton]

A true and honest question: Why are mormons locked into ward/stake boundaries that geographically determine where they must worship when essentially all other religions allow parishoners to freely choose their pastor?

I suspect bad bishops would have a lot more accountability if people more frequently voted with their feet.

Interesting question. I suspect part of the reason is simply tradition... that's how Joseph Smith set things up, so that's still the way it is. I can't think of anywhere it's in the Doctrine & Covenants, although it's possible there's something there along those lines.

Here's what Wikipedia says:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_(LDS_Church)

The term ward originally referred to the political subdivision of some of the municipalities in the Mid-western United States where members of the LDS Church resided, and in particular the political organization of Nauvoo, Illinois in the 1840s. Bishops were assigned duties and responsibility over specific ward boundaries in these cities, and over time individual congregations were defined by these boundaries. After the Mormon Exodus to Utah, this same terminology was preserved in the establishment of communities throughout the western USA.

Personally I think it works well, especially considering the LDS practice of choosing bishops from the congregation and only having them serve for about 5 years.

 

[Hartsock]

It is hotly hotly contested whether the Three Witnesses actually stated that they saw the physical plates. All were excommunicated from the church at some point in time.

I do find it interesting that supposedly none of the witnesses changed their stance on the golden plates after being excommunicated.

 

[colton]

My former coworker was a mormon. Very hypocritical one I must say, had no problems smoking, doing drugs, alcohol and group sex, but did not drink cofee or tea because of religion. So I have a question - cofee and tea are forbiden because they are hot drinks I was told.... so can you drink cold tea?

No, cold coffee and tea are also prohibited. (As are smoking, drugs, alcohol and group sex, of course.)