Is the Evidence for Gold Plates STRONGER Than the Resurrection?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Those who claim that there are no credible witnesses to the gold plates or the Book of Mormon because all the witnesses were believers, are completely forgetting the witnesses to the stone box, which is essentially the empty tomb of the Resurrection for the Book of Mormon. So today we're going to be talking about this book, Witnessing Miracles, Historical Evidence for the Resurrection and Book of Mormon. And we have with us Josh Gailey. So welcome. [00:00:22] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what we're discussing today? [00:00:28] Speaker B: So I'm Josh Gailey. I'm an ordained evangelist in the Church of Jesus Christ. Our headquarters is in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. So that that role, I'm part of the quorum of 70 evangelists in our church. So it's a missionary role, not necessarily like a patriarchal role. [00:00:43] Speaker A: And this is not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but Church of Jesus Christ. Is that correct? [00:00:47] Speaker B: Correct. Hi, cousin. [00:00:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I was gonna say you're our first non member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Informed Saints. [00:00:54] Speaker B: That's cool. [00:00:55] Speaker C: Our restoration cousin from back east, from back in Pennsylvania. But we all share a love for the Book of, and so that's why we're happy to have you here. [00:01:01] Speaker D: All right, so in your book, what actually intrigued me about the book when I first heard about it, was this pairing of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the historicity or the historical reality of the gold plates. And the reason that's interesting to me, and I think Stephen and Jasmine are probably familiar with this too, is if you watch debates with Christian apologists where they're debating the resurrection, their opponent almost always brings up, what about the gold plates? Almost unilaterally, the Christian apologist completely fumbles that question, as far as I'm concerned. And when I say they fumble, I don't just mean they fumble in the sense that, you know, they disagree with us, but they just misrepresent what the historical record actually shows. [00:01:52] Speaker C: They get basic facts wrong about the story of the coming forth of the [00:01:55] Speaker D: Book of Mormon, about the history of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. And so what you have done is you have actually taken the method that Christian apologists and scholars have used to argue for the historical reality of the resurrection. And you have applied it to the gold plates and the stone box and shown that, hey, this argument actually works for both. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:20] Speaker D: Would you say that's fair? [00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So over a decade ago, I was actually watching YouTube and I had a light bulb moment. I was watching Gary Habermas from Liberty University give a presentation on the Resurrection and apologetically defend Christ's resurrection. And he gave the points, he gave his minimal facts argument. And I like him in the chair just going, oh, my goodness, this applies so well. In fact, so much so that I went through. I basically said, well, somebody's done this. Somebody has done this. So I went through all the records, all, you know, BYU studies, you know, any different type of research that had been done in the Book of Mormon before to pour into. Well, had anybody crossed the bridge of just talking about the witnesses and how incredible they are to crossing the threshold to say, no, this, this is actually evidence for a living miracle in the same way as the Resurrection was. And actually it was open space. So I stepped in, I had done a presentation, and then from there it's eventually grown and blossomed into a book. Awesome. [00:03:24] Speaker C: A book and an article in the new, we should mention in the new fair volume defending the Book of Mormon. Neil and I have articles in there. And you've got an article in there, Josh, basically an article version of the book, Right? Like sort of summarizing your approach there. [00:03:38] Speaker B: Because any of us should want to do this search, right? Here's the reality, Stephen. The pro of this, the reason why any Christian, anybody that's a theist, would want to even take a look and say maybe, maybe, maybe I should look at this and investigate it, is if the Book of Mormon is authentic, if it's true, if the golden plates are real, if we're talking about a living miracle, then what that means is we have a cross continental, independent attestation of the risen Christ that spans thousands of miles and yet testifies with 2500 people reaching, touching his side, feeling his handprints and knowing for certain. And then we have the record of that. So if you are a believer in the Resurrection, this podcast is for you, this research is for you. It should matter. [00:04:30] Speaker C: Well, and, you know, it's funny you bring that up, Josh, because, you know, I obviously want to give due respect to our especially Protestant friends who put a real big emphasis on Sola scriptura and the importance of the Bible and all that. I understand that. Right. And so I understand why from that paradigm, why something like the Book of Mormon may be a little sus, you know, in their, in their worldview, in their paradigm. But I, I feel the same way as you, I think, like, wouldn't you want this independent, cross continental attestation of the Resurrection? We Latter Day Saints believe in the Resurrection so much that we believe that Jesus came to other people. Yeah, he came twice other people, both anciently in America and today to people. Today he showed up and showed his body to them. So I am. Yeah, you know what I mean? So I'm totally with you there. I think that hopefully at least Christians who take the Resurrection seriously, belief in the Resurrection, as you're saying, will want to at least, like, maybe there's something to this Book of Mormon. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:19] Speaker C: It's not all just crazy. [00:05:20] Speaker D: Well, and not only do we take seriously the idea that he was resurrected so seriously that we believe in a book like this, but we take the idea that he actually was sent to the world. [00:05:31] Speaker B: Amen. [00:05:31] Speaker D: Right. Not merely a single group of people in a single place, but that he was sent to the world, that he was the savior of the world, that he is the God of the entire world. Right. And so people all over the world needed to know. Right. People all over the world needed to know about what had happened and what he had done and that he was risen from the dead. And so you don't do that. You don't achieve that by purely showing yourself to one group that doesn't even know there's this other group across an ocean. Right. So let's back up a little bit and let's help people understand a bit more about how this argument works. You mentioned Gary Habermas and you mentioned the minimal facts argument. Could you just give people a quick rundown of, like, what is the minimal facts argument? [00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, so first you have to kind of establish yourself in the world of history. So you need to look at your sources, quality of sources, and evaluate what that is. Then you need to take the. And you're looking for early sources. Right? [00:06:27] Speaker D: Right. [00:06:28] Speaker B: Direct sources. You want sources that are unsympathetic people that don't necessarily agree with your conclusion or aren't necessarily believers speaking up and applying themselves. So you want unsympathetic sources and you want your conclusions. Then you're taking all of this data, the early sources, independent attestation, you want it from a diverse array of people, and you want to boil that down and say, well, based on all these data, what are the actual core facts that a critical scholar and Josh Gailey or a critical scholar and somebody else would agree with? And then based off of that, look at the probability analysis to conclude what would happen, what actually took place. And so when you're evaluating what actually took place, you're breaking down the core arguments, you're laying out the minimal facts, and we're saying, okay, critical scholar X yes, they agree the Book of Mormon exists, and I know we'll get into what they are, but that's just an example. So with that as the backdrop, you boil it down. Then you want to do a. You want to draw your conclusion, and it's a probability analysis to say what is the most likely, the most probable conclusion we can make based upon these core facts and the surrounding data. You want that to provide the best explanatory scope, covering the most data. You want it to have the most explanatory power. It's not just covering all the puzzle pieces, it's fitting them together in the right way. And then after you do that, you want to make sure that in history everything has a little bit ad hoc, everything has a little bit of contrived in it, but you want the least made up, the least contrived conclusion that you can make to say, well, based upon all this research and all this data and these core facts that we agree on, the most likely probable outcome is. Oh, my goodness, there were really. You've got to be kidding me. There were really golden plates. And so with that, it's not Josh's rule book, right? [00:08:27] Speaker D: Right. [00:08:28] Speaker B: This is like looking at the logic of history from historians of logic like Behan McCullough. So you take that they've boiled down some of this probability analysis. We're just applying it within that method that's already been established so that I [00:08:41] Speaker A: understand how this argument works. So how does this apply to the Resurrection? What are like the basic facts that everyone can agree on when it comes to the Resurrection? [00:08:52] Speaker B: Things like, people sincerely believed that they saw the Lord. There was a sincerity of belief. And you're making the argument based on their willingness to be persecuted, willingness to even die for the cause, at least the reports of their death and the different ways that the apostles suffered, the witnesses suffered. You have things like, there's a prox. You have what I call the pet analysis, which is proximity, enemies, and unlikely testimonies, all supporting a conclusion of the empty. The fact of the empty tomb, that the tomb was in fact empty. So proximity would be, guess what? Jesus wasn't buried very far away. Joseph of Arimathea was a known person in history. So if you wanted to know if Jesus really did resurrect, go to Joseph's property, family's property, and see for yourself. So locals, the pro. The movement doesn't start in Rome, right? [00:09:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:55] Speaker B: The movement doesn't start in Asia. The movement starts right at ground zero of the activating event, with something that you could Go. And so proximity matters also. Then enemies. Matthew 20:8. The explanation of the empty tomb. Well, the disciples stole the body. Well, that's an admission from enemies of the movement that the body's gone. We have a problem. Missing body. [00:10:25] Speaker C: Right. [00:10:26] Speaker B: It's an admission of the empty tomb. Unlikely testimonies. Mary and Martha, the women. [00:10:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:32] Speaker B: Going to the tomb. And if you were. I mean, Paul excludes them in 1 Corinthians 15, when he starts giving the resurrection accounts. And he starts and he says, I'm the last one born out of due time. He lists the list, and he's actually using an early Christian recital there. That's part of the. [00:10:51] Speaker C: Why would they be unlikely witnesses? Do you want to explain for our audience? [00:10:55] Speaker B: All women watching this? Jasmine, I want to be your friend. I come in peace. But people like Josephus and the Talmud did not write very favorably about women's ability to give testimony of an event [00:11:12] Speaker A: in a legal setting. Yeah. [00:11:14] Speaker B: In fact, saying things like, it would be more appropriate for a robber to be used in testimony than a woman. [00:11:21] Speaker D: Oh, wow. [00:11:22] Speaker B: Obviously, thankfully, we've matured a lot since then. But the fact that they would be the first recorded witnesses in the Gospels makes it even the more likely that that's a true account. [00:11:35] Speaker C: Because it would be unlikely that somebody fabricating a story in the first century in that cultural conte would make up women being the chief witnesses for this miracle. Yeah. If you want respectability for your witnesses, you would make up some other reputable character or figure. [00:11:51] Speaker D: Not Joseph of Arimathea himself would be a good candidate. [00:11:55] Speaker B: A Samaritan would have been better to even pick somebody out of the New Testament that might not have been positively looked upon, but even a Samaritan would have been more. A Samaritan male would have been much more favorable than the women. Yeah. [00:12:09] Speaker A: So I can see how this is kind of coming together. I mean, when it comes to the resurrection, at least you can. If you are skeptic of the resurrection, you can argue, well, they were deceived, someone pulled the wool over their eyes. But at least the people seem to be very sincere that they believed what they were seeing. And clearly they could see the empty tomb. They were like physical objects they could point to to say, yeah, there's something here that wasn't there before. Or in this case, there's something not there that was there before. And when it comes to the witnesses, they are. You wouldn't pick them if you were trying to fabricate this narrative out of thin air. So that's kind of. It sounds like what builds a solid case for the resurrection? Like, okay, we can all agree on these facts. So let's now apply this to the Book of Mormon. God, miracles, angels aside, what are the facts that any reasonable person should be able to agree on when it comes to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon? [00:12:54] Speaker B: I think there's some core, very simple facts that any reasonable scholar or investigator should agree upon. Now, obviously this is a little bit of new territory. This book didn't exist before. [00:13:07] Speaker C: Take our word for it to a little bit. But you bring the receipts, you have sources, you got footnotes, you're not just making it up. [00:13:13] Speaker B: We'll cover the data as we go along here. And that opens up. Nobody's going to say the Book of Mormon doesn't exist. Here we have, okay, 239 chapters of purported revelation. Was it 608 pages in the original manuscript? That need some explanation. [00:13:32] Speaker C: Books don't just poof into existence ex nihilo. As I like to teach my students, it came from somewhere, somebody wrote it. [00:13:38] Speaker B: So the question is, yeah, don't go knocking ex nihilo. Exactly. So there's a fact, okay, you have the fact that many people sincerely believe that they saw the golden plates. The sincerity of eyewitnesses surrounding the golden plates is another fact that we could break down and talk through together. You have the reality, and this might be surprising to some, but another fact that I have is the reality of the fact that there was likely a stone box at a particular place in a hill in New York that was empty. It was an empty stone box that people could look at. [00:14:20] Speaker A: It had to come from somewhere. [00:14:21] Speaker B: Astonishingly, people did. And so with all the different facts that you can derive, there's also a full surrounding of evidence in support of a groundswell of evidence that is abundant. I mean, we have a few documents of Christendom, of the Resurrection, a handful. [00:14:45] Speaker C: So these are the accounts, the witness accounts of the resurrection we're talking about. And we're talking like maybe firsthand, early contemporary. Right. So we got Paul, Right. He's an early witness, the Gospels. But the authorship of the Gospels is in question. Right. [00:15:02] Speaker D: Eyewitness testimony is debated. [00:15:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:04] Speaker B: So but in comparison, now we have 200 sources from the three witnesses that are extant today. You have over 60 from the eight witnesses. Plus we have 21 different people interacting with the golden plates or the golden plates covered in a frock or the golden plates in a box. So this is a tangible artifact that people are moving, hefting. So the source material that we have and it's in their own handwriting. It's early, it's dating to the time period. This isn't decades later. [00:15:41] Speaker D: Right, right, right. It's like with the official statement of the three and eight witnesses, we have the PR or manuscript copy, which is literally in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting, who's one of the participants. Right. And you mentioned in. I don't know, I can't remember if you mentioned it in your book. It's in the article for fair, because that's the one. I just. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I know where you're going. [00:16:00] Speaker D: Yeah, but you mentioned that like if we had a document like that for Christianity and we've actually talked about this with some friends before. If Christians had a document that was in the handwriting like, that was indisputably, like everyone accepted it was a first century document. It was in the handwriting of say Peter. Say Peter or even John. One of the. John. Yeah, John. Or even like one of the lesser like Matthew or whatever. Like, I don't mean to say lesser, but less historically notable apostles, ones that don't get talked about as much. Thomas. Right. If you had it in the handwriting of one of the apostles and everyone. The minimal facts. It was a minimal fact that that document existed in the handwriting of an apostle and it listed the names of all the apostles who affirmed the reality of the experience. They said in seeing Jesus that would be revolutionary for early Christian history. Christians today would hold that up as one of the most, probably the single most important. [00:16:59] Speaker B: I would argue it would have to be the single most important document that you could offer. [00:17:05] Speaker D: And I think it would really force historians of any persuasion to take the reality of the event very seriously. Well, that's what we have. Right. That's what we have in terms of the gold plates. And let's not omit the fact that the appearance of the angel too. Right. Sometimes I see in these debates, Christians be like, oh, gold plates themselves aren't a miracle. And you don't have multiple witnesses of something supernatural or divine. So let's not forget that the three witnesses do collectively like testify to seeing an angel. Show them the plates and a heavenly voice bear testimony. Right. [00:17:47] Speaker B: And independently attested. Right. Because you have Joseph and David and Oliver independently seeing this vision. And in that the tables laid before them, they see the plates, they see some artifacts. An incredible moment in history. Where's Martin? He's off in the woods. He's off in the woods somewhere else. Which normally we're like, oh, poor Martin. And I'm over there here going like, yeah, thank You, Martin. Thank you. Because now I have another independent attestation of this miracle. Because Martin sees the angel, sees the plates and cries out, tis enough. He's overwhelmed. Tis enough. And so you have. While they sign a document that bears their witness and they testify to it to their death, at the same time, they actually have it independently, which further supports the claim. [00:18:37] Speaker C: Speaking of independence, it's also significant, I think, that they are independently retelling and affirming this experience when they are apart from each other and after some of them are dead. Right. David Whitmer is going to outlive both Oliver and Martin, and he will continue to affirm it. This. You talked about sincerity being one of these minimal facts, that these individuals appear to sincerely believe their experience. Meaning, for example, because I get this, too. Christian apologists, including some very notable ones, William Lane Craig and others, will just assert that, well, they were just colluding. It was just a conspiracy. It was all fraud. They were all in on it with each other. Well, hold on. Wait a second. Right. Even after they're estranged with each other or with Joseph Smith and they're independent, they are still independently telling their accounts that in broad and specific detail, converge with each other. Right. So that seems to be, I think, significant as well. [00:19:26] Speaker B: So when you go into this, it's amazing. You have. You can break down each and every testimony they give over time. And while they are states apart, churches apart, Martin, at one point, is a shaker. I mean, you know, they're. They're in all these different arenas because they get estranged. Martin never recovers his finances. All these. So if you entered into this arena. [00:19:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:50] Speaker B: And you were somehow a conspirator in this. What. What are you trying to do? You're trying to profit nobody. [00:19:57] Speaker C: No. Profit nobody. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Martin loses the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars in the enterprise. Enterprise, okay. Never recovers. [00:20:03] Speaker A: That. [00:20:03] Speaker B: Never recoups that money. And at the same time, you know, they get disenfranchised. Here they are founders of a church, founders of a movement. And you might say, well, that's the reason. They're. They're being lifted up. They're being honored. Nope, not. In fact, the exact opposite. Right. They get excommunicated from the very church that they founded. It's embarrassing. In fact, I think all of us in whatever branch of the restoration you're in, look at that and go, ooh, I wish that wouldn't have happened. But that, in standing on its own, is an incredible testimony to the truth of what they sincerely, for one of the facts. What they sincerely believed that they saw. And the sincerity is true. Because even after excommunication, not to mention their own persecutions, not to mention the persecutions in Kirtland, not to mention getting dragged, tarred and feathered, or in David Whitmer's taken out in Independence and having somebody with a bayonet point their guns at all the people and say, denounce the Book of Mormon or you're making widows of everybody here. Okay? And his reaction is to preach. The recorded account says he began to preach the truth of what he saw. So in the face of persecutions, in the face of estrangement and excommunication from the very church you found, from states apart from miles away, still testifying of the same artifact in ways that we can document that artifact of being a certain size, a certain color, having a black patina on the engravings, the minute details that come out, even after some of these persecutions befall them, even after all the burdens and the weights and the spiritual burdens are upon them, and the doubts and discouragements from the world, they stand true. And say, Joseph, some of them, maybe he fell away as some of the opinions of psalms. Whatever they might have. Maybe whatever they might have felt, okay, no matter what they might have felt, the one thing they held on is, I know the Book of Mormon is true. I saw the angel. Or in the case of the eight witnesses, I held the plates. [00:22:20] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think that's where I think to extend some grace to our Christian brothers and sisters. I think that is often where a lot of these Christian apologists get confused. They know that there's this estrangement that happens, and they know that some of them maybe come to view Joseph Smith as a fallen prophet and reject a lot of the other things Joseph did. And they confuse that with rejecting the Book of Mormon and denying their testimony of the Book of Mormon altogether. But that second part never happened. They all stuck to their guns on the Book of Mormon. And you want to talk about honor or whatever, most of them. Martin Harris kind of languishes in Kirtland for years and is kind of pitied by his neighbors. [00:23:05] Speaker B: He's like this old gatekeeper of the temple where he'll give. He has the keys, he'll give tours, you know, don't we also something that [00:23:13] Speaker D: gives them any honor. And the Whitmers, they kind of. They go through bouts where they try to, like, start their own church, and they. Well, they do start their own church, but it's never. It's never like a big thriving Church. And I think it's basically their family. And so they did not even, like, it's not like they basked in glory, like, even after being separated from Joseph Smith, because people, like, loved to hear their testimony. Like, yeah, every now and then, like, a missionary passing through or whatever might come and talk to them and, like, make them feel good about bearing their testimony. But most of the time, they're languishing in these. In small areas where they're often. They're revered as good people and honest men in every respect, except they're a little cray cray when they start talking about the Book of Mormon. [00:24:02] Speaker B: Well, and they were offered money. Martin reported accounts of him being offered large sums to recant his testimony. And you even have David Whitmer, who hangs on to the printer's manuscript. Right. For decades, he holds onto the printer's manuscript. He says, well, I would never part with this for money. This is too valuable. It's spiritual to me. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Clearly, the believers and the witnesses who saw these plates or who hefted them or held them were sincere in their belief that Joseph Smith had an object or had gold plates. Tell us about the stone box. Why is that a significant historical fact? [00:24:34] Speaker B: So let's circle back to the empty tomb. Proximity, enemies, unlikely testimonies. Right. That's the criteria used, especially by Gary Habermas, others. William Lane Craig's done it a few times in regards to the resurrection. Where does our church start, guys? When we were one in the same. [00:24:57] Speaker D: Well, where do you want to start? [00:24:59] Speaker C: We could say Palmyra, but we also could say Fayette, you know, but I mean. [00:25:03] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Or within a 10 mile. Yeah. [00:25:09] Speaker C: Manchester, Palmyra, Fayette, that little lady in the. [00:25:11] Speaker B: In the restored Gospel era. Okay. We are within miles of the hill. [00:25:17] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Okay. We are within walking distance. Proximity. The movement starts right there. And so if somebody wanted to know if Joseph really did have an artifact, they could go to the hill and see whether or not there was a hole in the hill for themselves. Okay. They could see whether or not there was a stone box in the hill for themselves. And many did. [00:25:44] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, there are. There are stories. Let's maybe, let's actually talk a little bit about that because I think for a lot of people, we just, we went off about the witnesses for a while. A lot of people are familiar with those accounts and those stories. I don't think a lot of people know that. We actually do have some stories about seeing the stone box. [00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's 16 sources that talk about the hill and the fact that there Was some kind of. Nine of them just describe a hole. They don't mention anything specifically about a stone box. Five of them reference specifically a stone box. One of them that is generations late talks about an iron box. It's dramatized, it's on the wrong side of the hill. And it's just clearly a third hand account that's not caring for accuracy at all. It would be the equivalent of the Gnostic gospel of Peter. Jesus resurrects and a giant cross comes out and two angels and the cross speaks in this account. And it's legendary. That account with the iron box, it's very legendary. There's lightning, there's groups involved. It's not very accurate, but we have very close to the activating event here. We have firsthand sources, we have independent sources. Joseph and Oliver both give almost an identical description of the stone box. [00:27:01] Speaker D: And something that I had personally missed until I read your book is in that Times and Seasons article where Oliver describes the box just a few paragraphs before he talks about going to the hill and going to the scope. I had never noticed that before and so I had not realized that he's actually. He's providing an eyewitness description. [00:27:21] Speaker B: He does, right? Yeah, he provides an eyewitness description. Joseph does as well. That falls into the times and Seasons later. Okay, so Joseph does as well. Martin went to the hill and recorded his event to the hill very dramatically. He does that. And you also have things like David Whitmer when this early movement was getting started and he wasn't sure what was going on. He records an account of being on a train. And this is the scuttlebutt of the town. And he's on the train, he says there's this discussion going on. And David kind of sits himself in the middle of and says, well does he have anything? What do you think? And these unsympathetic enemies to the movement say, well, we know he has something. We've been to the hill, we've seen. Here's one of our three witness guys and gal. That is in an early testimony that sparks David to be so excited about what the probability or possibility of this might be. He first hears about it from a non believer giving a witness of what's going on. And there's lots of accounts like that. They're describing minute details. [00:28:34] Speaker C: Well, I was going to say to the point of skeptics or non believers being a source of historical data for the likelihood of this being a thing unsympathetic witnesses or unlikely witnesses, it may be Worth just mentioning how many Palmyra neighbors take Joseph Smith seriously enough. They don't believe he's a prophet or the God came to him, but they think that this guy must have something because they try stealing it. That I think says something to at least the credibility, the baseline credibility of the claim of him having an object, a golden object, that other somewhat poor rural farmers in Palmyra think we want in on this action. If he found a gold Bible in a hill, we deserve to be a part of it. So they take him seriously enough on that minimum fact of having an artifact of some sort of physical nature that they try to steal it from him. [00:29:19] Speaker B: Shockingly, something, again, that is used to critically go after Joseph in these early years. Treasure hunting, treasure digging is actually a strength of the artifact, of the actual truth of what's going on here. We would say, oh, maybe that's something we don't want to talk about. But here, what happens to your point, Stephen, is the fact that people that he used to look for the silver mine with, or, you know, he was down in Pennsylvania in Harmony doing some. Some treasure hunting with, they catch wind of what's going on. They go to the hill for themselves. They. They see the fact that there's a hole in the ground, an empty stone box, and that drives them into direct action. Now they know, oh, my goodness, here's somebody that we're supposed to get a part of the cut with. [00:30:04] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:05] Speaker B: He has found something of great value, and we believe that. And it's time for us to go get our share. [00:30:12] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:12] Speaker B: Not recognizing the spiritual aspect of what's going on. [00:30:14] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah. But that ties in nicely with David Whitmer then to come back. [00:30:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. No, it's for a minute, but it [00:30:20] Speaker C: does tie in nicely. [00:30:20] Speaker B: This is the enemies. Like their admission of Joseph having something is an admission. Like the enemies and the Sanhedrin to the empty tomb. Their action is an admission of the stone box and the hole in the ground on the summit of the west side of the hill, like everybody continues to talk about in all their accounts. And so they tear up the Cooper. They're trying to find it. They go to the hearth, they're sending divine people with divine. They're hiring people to go in and try and divine where it is. They're tearing up the Cooper's shop across the street. The whole reason why they move back down into Pennsylvania is because of the persecutions that are going on in the area, which means the people that are persecuting them aren't saying, oh, Joseph, what a silly Guy. [00:31:08] Speaker D: But yeah, speaking of which, even though they move in with the Hales, Emma's parents, and even though Isaac Hale is like really kind of sus. Or sees Joseph as kind of Susan, he's a witness to the plates. Right. [00:31:20] Speaker B: For the unlikely testimonies of the plates. It's incredible. You have people like Isaac, who never believes, never goes west, never follows the church, never renders obedience unto the gospel. Feels like Joseph has stolen his daughter away. He testifies that when Joseph first. Joseph has to. This is when Martin was actually holding the plates. Martin did hold the plates. Okay. Martin held the plates when they were getting ready to leave from New York and go down into Pennsylvania. Sometimes people get confused. He's like, well, he saw them as one of the three witnesses. Yes. He also held them on his lap as they're getting ready to hide them. So he had a lot of interaction with this artifact. They hide him in a barrel of beans before they leave Pennsylvania because they're afraid of the cart getting searched. It does get searched. And because it's buried in the bottom of the barrel of beans, they're able to make it through. And then Isaac Hale says, you're not coming into this house without me seeing these plates. Because he had promised his father in law to stop. [00:32:18] Speaker C: Yeah. The money digging, the treasure seeking. [00:32:20] Speaker B: And here he comes, he says, you know that promise I just made to you? Sorry, Dad, I found something. And he says, you can't come in here unless you show me. I can't show you, but here, hold the box. Shake it. And he has an interaction that he records, where we get a weight, we get an understanding of size, of hefting a real artifact. Like so many of the women that do the same thing for unlikely testimonies. Catherine, you know, and so there's a lot of testimonies of people, Emma, when they're doing that translation process, she's in the house, she's moving the plates, when she's cleaning rooms. Unlikely testimonies to this artifact. [00:33:05] Speaker D: Right. [00:33:06] Speaker B: And even then, ultimately, I know we're getting away from the stone box here. We're on the golden plates of unlikely testimonies here for this moment. But Josiah stole. If Joseph Smith ever swindled anybody, it was Josiah who was paying him, I think, $14 a month or something in that range to treasure hunt for him. So he was the financier of the project. So if Joseph ever swindled anybody, it was Josiah. So if there was ever an unlikely testimony as Josiah, it's him. So they have a court case. The family Thinks Joseph has swindled him. And so in that moment, Josiah gets put on trial on the stand and he testifies. And this wasn't found for over a century afterwards. [00:33:55] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't know that. [00:33:56] Speaker D: Yeah, this is fairly recent that this source has come into the conversation in a significant way. [00:34:02] Speaker B: And he testifies that when Joseph came home he had him buried in the log at first. When he finally brings the plates home, he passes them through and Josiah's testimony was the frock lifted a little bit and he became one of the most unsuspecting witnesses to a real tangible artifact and was willing to testify under court of law that he's not guilty of fraud if he actually has an artifact. So he was acquitted. [00:34:27] Speaker D: So one of the things I particularly like about that under the rubric of unlikely testimony, is that Josiah says he saw a corner of it and then he describes it as being looking like a greenish stone. [00:34:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:41] Speaker D: And if you were going to fabricate testimony of gold plates, you probably would not describe them as looking like greenish stone. And so he seems to be describing something that he really saw. And of course, as you're familiar with. Right. The idea that how do we account for greenish stone. Right. Well, if their tumbaga and there's some kind of oxidation of the copper element [00:35:04] Speaker B: in there in flickering firelight as they're [00:35:07] Speaker D: lifted for just a moment, you're not necessarily seeing it in broad daylight or in well lit rooms or whatever. So yeah, there's very reasonable ways to account for that detail from a, there's real plates sort of perspective. It's very hard for me to imagine how you account for that detail if there is no real plates and there is no real object and that this isn't a real experience that Josiah is recounting. But let's do circle back to the box here. For one thing. I don't want to give David Whitmer short shrift. He, he hears the, the testimony from others. But he does say that he, he went to the Hill himself and he says that he saw the box. And I actually think something that's kind of interesting as far as like independently corroborating testimony. I, I actually after reading your book, I decided to look up the sources on this because I got curious. [00:35:57] Speaker B: I. [00:35:59] Speaker D: We know that he gives an account in one of the Chicago newspapers. I can't remember which because he, a million of them, the Chicago Times and the Chicago Democrat or whatever. But in one of the Chicago newspapers he gives an interview in 1875 where he mentions the box having washed down the hill and the stones having fallen apart, and that's in 1875. And then we also have Edward Stevenson saying he went back to Palmyra and he talked to a local there who. Who could. Who could show him where the box was, where it had been on the hill. But who then tells him, yeah, it's. It's since washed down and all the stones have been taken away. [00:36:40] Speaker B: And I thought because of plowing and farming. And it was. Yeah. [00:36:44] Speaker D: And I thought, okay, well, I know that Edward Stevenson talks to David Whitmer because he interviews, like, all the living witnesses while he's traveling and stuff and records those. Could someone hypothetically argue that Edward Stevenson relayed that to David Whitmer to see, and then that became a story that David Whitmer then repeats? And the answer is no, because Edward Stevenson's first interview with David Whitmer is in 1877. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:37:16] Speaker D: So they are actually independent witnesses of what happened to the. [00:37:21] Speaker B: Of a very obscure fact. [00:37:23] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:37:23] Speaker B: That only locals would know. [00:37:25] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:37:25] Speaker B: Only locals would know. [00:37:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:27] Speaker D: Yeah, right. No, absolutely. So I thought that was. That was a little interesting thing. I can add. I helped add to the argument here. I love it. [00:37:34] Speaker B: I love it. [00:37:35] Speaker A: So these are the facts that most people, I think, should reasonably be able to agree upon. What does that say, say for the strength of the case of the Book of Mormon, and how does that case compare to the resurrection of Jesus Christ? [00:37:47] Speaker B: Can I give one more. Can we back? Oh, yeah, one more, Jasmine. [00:37:52] Speaker C: There's more. That's it. [00:37:53] Speaker B: That's it. I'm so sorry. So let's. Let's put a pin right there, and then we'll. We'll circle back to that because we have to talk about Lorenzo Saunders. [00:38:01] Speaker D: Oh, yes. I meant to ask. [00:38:03] Speaker B: This is probably one of my favorite examples, and from a critical standpoint for a critic, probably one of the hardest to counter. Lorenzo Saunders dedicated chunks of his life to disparage the Smiths. He used to be a treasure hunter with Joseph. He was clearly upset. He felt that Joseph was frauding everybody. Okay. And so Lorenzo Saunders gives a lot of interviews. They are entertaining to read. Okay. He has a personality. It comes out all right. When he does, he is meaning to discredit everything. He is a very unlikely testimony of the hole in the hill on the west side. But he does. As he's talking, he drops in one of his notes that the hole was on the summit on the west side. Exactly. Corroborating Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and others. That is only something he would know. If he had either followed the saints west and watched the published reports, or if he had been there himself. He did not go west. He had been there himself. Then he gives one of the most incredible facts and lays it in very cautiously in his critique. He gives a critique that says, I was there only weeks after Joseph took the golden plates out of the hill. I was there right away. And he says, I examined. And he now verifies the hole. He confirms that there was a hole there, that there had been an excavation, but he says it had been done years before. No fresh dirt. And I got so excited. I got so excited when I saw that, because Joseph Smith excavates the stone box when 1823. 1823 is the first time he opens up the stone box and sees the plates. That is when there would have been fresh dirt. After that, he's just going back annually and probably clearing. Which Lorenzo Saunders confirms that it had been cleared out. He confirmed that it had been freshly cleared, but he says, no fresh dirt. And I look at that and I go, exactly right. You just unintentionally corroborated Joseph Smith's testimony of going every year and starting in 1823, doing the Ex. The stone was exposed, okay. But he had to excavate around and clear it out to be able to see it. And, and obviously we know that those that are familiar, it wasn't time yet. Okay. He had to go back for five years. And on the fifth year, there was strict warning like, you got to make yourself right, you know, now or never in the last meeting, you know, and then. But look at that. Look at that. [00:40:55] Speaker D: Yeah. What I actually find really interesting about the Lorenzo Saunders testimony is he gives multiple accounts, and in most of them, he says there was no hole. There was no hole. He's trying to deny it, right? And then it's finally in one that he admits, okay, there was a hole, but it didn't have fresh dirt. [00:41:15] Speaker A: And he thinks that that's a point against Joseph Smith, but it actually is. Okay. [00:41:20] Speaker D: And to try and account for this, I know some people have said, oh, well, there was a money digger hole on the hill. And that's what he's talking about. There's a problem with that theory, though. Multiple problems. Maybe Josh can go ahead, give your [00:41:33] Speaker B: thought, and then I can. [00:41:34] Speaker D: I have two problems. It sounds like you might have a 16 point rebuttal to it. But the two problems I have with it is one, from what I understand, the money digger hole was on the north northeast side of the hill or something. Like that. [00:41:45] Speaker B: Bingo. [00:41:46] Speaker D: It's in the wrong place. And we know from both faithful and hostile sources everyone knew where the hole should be. They all knew it should be on the west side near the top. Okay, so no one would have confused a hole in the wrong place for the hole where the plates had come out of. But the other problem with it is it's the money diggers themselves who go to the hill first and are convinced that there must have been something that was taken out, that Joseph must have found something. And that makes no sense if the only hole in the hill is their own hole. [00:42:20] Speaker B: The fact that there are multiple holes that they're digging up the hill afterwards, and there's multiple reports of that verify that other people are trying to get in on this and trying to find something because they believe Joseph found something thing, once again, it's there. [00:42:36] Speaker A: If these are the facts that a reasonable person should be able to agree upon, what does this say for the case of the Book of Mormon and how that even compares to the resurrection of Jesus Christ? [00:42:45] Speaker B: It honestly says that I have not read and I've read every critique that's published. An alternative hypothesis that takes the facts together, break them down, and gives any sense of a reasonable hypothesis that that can be measured up against the historical facts and the data that we've outlined today. Which leaves us with the most reasonable explanation of the facts we've talked about the facts we've talked about the sources. And the most reasonable explanation, the most plausible, the most probable explanation, is that there really was a hole in the ground on the west side of the hill in New York, excavated in 1823 and exposed all the way through 1827 and for years beyond. And that there was actually an artifact of golden plates therein that was taken up and translated by the gift and power of God. The only assumptions you have to make is that God exists and that Jesus is resurrected. Those are my only assumptions in the book. With those two assumptions, everything lines up as the strongest explanation. And I have yet to see somebody take this evidence and counter it in a critical way that would purport any other alternative explanation. Look, some of the explanations that are out there, for example, there's an explanation out there that seems to be the most prominent 10 plates, the very definition of ad hoc. There's not one source, there's not one historical source that says, hey, Joseph spent a lot of time in the Cooper Shop, right? There's not one source that says that. There's not one source that says he had lots of access, he had lots of access. There's not one. He doesn't have enough money for paper. [00:44:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:28] Speaker B: When the project begins. So there's no. The current explanation is literally contrived and ad hoc. That's the best thing the critics have is a made up story of something with no manuscript evidence. [00:44:42] Speaker C: Don't count out printing plates. That's the new fun one that just came out a couple years ago that he found stereotype printing plates by the Hill. [00:44:48] Speaker B: Bring it on. Bring it on. It's great. [00:44:50] Speaker C: This is all well said, Josh. I, I think your analysis is very interesting both in your book, in the article and in this conversation. What I want to say is by no means trying to disrespect or disbelieve or cast aspersion on the, I think the strength of belief in the resurrection of Jesus on a historical ground. But I, I am bold enough to say, and I will go on the record on this episode to say that by sheer bare bones historical evidence and sources that we have, I think a much better case can be made for the existence of golden plates that Joseph Smith had and showed people than could be made for the resurrection of Jesus. And again, I say that as somebody who believes in the resurrection so much that I believe Jesus showed up to ancient people in America after he resurrected. Right. But when I see Christian apologists, both really great ones like William Lane Craig, but also ones just on random Internet comments saying things like, well, we have no evidence for gold plates, we just have to take Joseph's word for it. I just kind of shake my head because guys, that's, that's just not the case. So like you, Josh, I hope that our Christian friends will at least give us some consideration on this. We're not saying you necessarily have to come to all the same conclusions that we do, but at least give us a fair shake. And I think that they'll be impressed with the way the evidence that we do have. [00:46:03] Speaker B: Let's highlight that, let's underline it. If the premise is true that there's strong historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, then on the same historical grounds we can verifiably and confidently predict that there were golden plates and that the Book of Mormon is a gift for these the latter days. Yeah, I stand by that. [00:46:22] Speaker C: Amen. Well said. [00:46:23] Speaker B: Amen. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Josh, for sharing some of your insights. If the premise is true, I think it is very compelling that Joseph had an object. They were probably gold plates and the Book of Mormon's true. If you want to learn more, you can read his book Witnessing Historical Evidence for the Resurrection and the Book of Mormon. Remember, you can study deeply and believe boldly. We'll see you next time.