peanutaxis

The book of Mormon has 11 witnesses to seeing the Golden Plates. Being far more modern, surely this is infinitely more reliable than the supposed eyewitnesses to the (contradictory and shamelessly copied) life of Jesus.

?

Duvduv

That was way back in 1830 wasn't it? When they were asked about the plates didn't they say that Smith gave them back to Moroni after he copied them??!

sotto voce

Of course it's infinitely more reliable. Joseph Smith himself said so. Ferchrissakes.

And yet, he also said that nothing that he taught was contrary to the Bible.

Juststeve

Actually Sotto we don't just have Joseph Smith's word for the proposition that there were 12 not 11 witnesses. A group of three, a group of eight and one more. Each of these named people gave their testimony and held to it even after they had left Smith's church, voluntarily or through excommunication. In the historical sense where dead people count as witnesses, this is eyewitness testimony.

Kind of brings us back to David Hume who wrote that the occurrence of a miracle can never be established from eyewitness testimony because it is always more likely that a witness is mistaken lying or deluded than that there was a miraculous deviation from the established order of nature.

Steve

sotto voce

Are all your facts as accurate?

What does that have to do with Smith's two-faced attitude to the Bible? We surely don't want to occlude that aspect, do we? Surely we need to recognise the possibility that Smith used the solid credibility of the Bible in order to build his own religion that contradicted it? Surely we do.

peanutaxis

I probably should have divulged my motivations in the OP. I was thinking along the lines of using the fact that the eyewitness evidence for the golden plates is much, much more reliable than the eyewitness evidence for the historicity of the gospels that the likes of William Lame Craig uses.

Juststeve

I agree that the evidence for the golden plates is better than the evidence for the Gospel miracles. My point is that eye witness testimony that the impossible occurred, even if there is eyewitness testimony, isn't good enough. Again, Hume explained it much better than I can in this format.

Steve

sotto voce

So is your point that the golden plates were not impossible? Surely, the impossible cannot be made possible by eyewitnesses, however many there may be.

peanutaxis

I agree. But this is good stuff to be able to throw at the jesus-is-eyewitnessed people.

Tubby Lardmore

I have wondered if the Mormon witnesses were given land or fresh wives in exchange for their testimony.