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Golden plates
According to Latter Day Saint belief, the golden plates (also called the gold plates or in some 19th-century literature, the golden bible)〔Use of the terms ''golden bible'' and ''gold bible'' by both believers and non-believers dates from the late 1820s. See, for instance, (use of the term ''gold bible'' by Martin Harris in 1827); (use of the term ''gold Bible'' in 1827–29 by believing Palmyra neighbors); (stating that by 1829 the plates were "generally known and spoken of as the 'Golden Bible'"). Use of these terms has been rare, especially by believers, since the 1830s.〕 are the source from which Joseph Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the faith. Some witnesses described the plates as weighing from ,〔; . Vogel estimates that solid gold plates of the same dimensions would weigh about .〕 being golden in color, and being composed of thin metallic pages engraved on both sides and bound with three D-shaped rings.
Smith said he found the plates on September 22, 1823, at a hill near his home in Manchester, New York, after the angel Moroni directed him to a buried stone box. Smith said the angel at first prevented him from taking the plates, but instructed him to return to the same location in a year. In September 1827, on his fourth annual attempt to retrieve the plates, Smith returned home with a heavy object wrapped in a frock, which he then put in a box. Though he allowed others to heft the box, he said that the angel had forbidden him to show the plates to anyone until they had been translated from their original "reformed Egyptian" language. Smith dictated the text of the Book of Mormon over the next several years, claiming that it was a translation of the plates. He did this by using a seer stone, which he placed in the bottom of a hat and then placed the hat over his face to view the words written within the stone.〔; ; (citing numerous witnesses of the translation process); (describing similar methods for both the two-stone Urim and Thummim and the chocolate-colored seer stone). Although Smith's use of a single stone is well documented , Smith said that his earliest translation used a set of stone spectacles called the Urim and Thummim, which he found with the plates . Other than Smith himself, his mother was the sole known witness of the Urim and Thummim, which she said she had observed them when covered by a thin cloth .〕 Smith published the translation in 1830 as the Book of Mormon.
Smith eventually obtained testimonies from eleven men, known as the Book of Mormon witnesses, who said they had seen the plates.〔Critics question whether one of these witnesses, Martin Harris, physically saw the plates. Although Harris continued to testify to the truth of the Book of Mormon even when he was estranged from the church, at least during the early years of the movement, he "seems to have repeatedly admitted the internal, subjective nature of his visionary experience." Vogel, ''Early Mormon Documents'', 2: 255. The foreman in the Palmyra printing office that produced the first Book of Mormon said that Harris "used to practice a good deal of his characteristic jargon and 'seeing with the spiritual eye,' and the like." Pomeroy Tucker, ''Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism'' (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1867) p. 71 in ''EMD'', 3: 122. John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for most of the book, said that he had asked Harris, "Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?" According to Gilbert, Harris "looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, 'No, I saw them with a spiritual eye.'" John H. Gilbert, "Memorandum," 8 September 1892, in ''EMD'', 2: 548. Two other Palmyra residents said that Harris told them that he had seen the plates with "the eye of faith" or "spiritual eyes." Martin Harris interviews with John A. Clark, 1827 & 1828 in ''EMD'', 2: 270; Jesse Townsend to Phineas Stiles, 24 December 1833, in ''EMD'', 3: 22. In 1838, Harris is said to have told an Ohio congregation that "he never saw the plates with his natural eyes, only in vision or imagination." Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 15 April 1838 in ''EMD'', 2: 291. A neighbor of Harris in Kirtland, Ohio, said that Harris "never claimed to have seen (plates ) with his natural eyes, only spiritual vision." Reuben P. Harmon statement, c. 1885, in ''EMD'', 2: 385.〕 After the translation was complete, Smith said he returned the plates to the angel Moroni. Therefore the plates cannot now be examined. Latter Day Saints believe the account of the golden plates as a matter of faith, while critics often assert that either Smith manufactured the plates himself〔Vogel, 98: "His remark that a plate was not quite as thick as common tin may have been meant to divert attention from the possibility that they were actually made from some material otherwise readily available to him. Indeed, his prohibition against visual inspection seems contrived to the skeptic who might explain that the would-be prophet constructed a set of plates to be felt through a cloth."〕 or that the Book of Mormon witnesses based their testimony on visions rather than physical experience.
==Origin and historicity==
In the words of Mormon historian Richard Bushman, "For most modern readers, the () plates are beyond belief, a phantasm, yet the Mormon sources accept them as fact."〔.〕 Because Smith said he returned the plates to an angel after he finished translating them, their authenticity cannot be determined by physical examination.
The golden plates were reportedly shown to several close associates of Smith.〔Only close associates of Smith were allowed to become official witnesses to the plates; he invited no strangers, or women, to view them. These witnesses, first a group of three, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, and then a group of eight—five members of the Whitmer family, Smith's father, and two of his brothers, Hyrum and Samuel—all said they "saw and hefted" the plates. See Jan Shipps, "Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition," University of Illinois Press, p. 23.〕 Mormon scholars have formed collaborations such as Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies to provide apologetic answers to critical research about the golden plates and topics in the field of Mormon studies. Among these topics, the credibility of the plates has been, according to Bushman, a "troublesome item."〔"The Mormon sources constantly refer to the single most troublesome item in Joseph Smith's history, the gold plates on which the Book of Mormon was said to be written. For most modern readers, the plates are beyond belief, a phantasm, yet the Mormon sources accept them as fact." . Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, ''Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (HarperSanFrancisco, 1999)'' begin a chapter called "The Gold Bible" (pp. 259–77) with a question posed by liberal Mormon Brigham D. Madsen: "'Were there really gold plates and ministering angels, or was there just Joseph Smith seated at a table with his face in a hat dictating to a scribe a fictional account of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas?' Resolving that problem haunts loyal Mormons." (at p. 259).〕
The Book of Mormon itself portrays the golden plates as a historical record, engraved by two pre-Columbian prophet-historians from around the year AD 400: Mormon and his son Moroni.〔See generally , which outlines the main arguments for and against Book of Mormon authenticity.〕 Mormon and Moroni, the book says, had abridged earlier historical records from other sets of metal plates. Their script, according to the book, was described as "reformed Egyptian," a language unknown to linguists or Egyptologists.〔. Standard language references such as ; ; and contain no reference to "reformed Egyptian". "Reformed Egyptian" is also not discussed in , although it is mentioned in .〕 Historically, Latter Day Saint movement denominations have taught that the Book of Mormon's description of the plates' origin is accurate, and that the Book of Mormon is a translation of the plates.〔Book of Mormon (LDS edition), Introduction (expressing the LDS view that the Book of Mormon "is a record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas", and that the book is a translation of the golden plates "into the English language".)〕 The Community of Christ, however, while accepting the Book of Mormon as scripture, no longer takes an official position on the historicity of the golden plates.〔McMurray, W. Grant, ("They 'Shall Blossom as the Rose': Native Americans and the Dream of Zion," ) an address delivered February 17, 2001, accessed September 1, 2006 ("The proper use of the Book of Mormon as sacred scripture has been under wide discussion in the 1970s and beyond, in part because of long-standing questions about its historicity and in part because of perceived theological inadequacies, including matters of race and ethnicity."). At the 2007 Community of Christ World Conference, church president Stephen M. Veazey ruled a resolution to "reaffirm the Book of Mormon as a divinely inspired record" as being out of order. In so doing he stated that "while the Church affirms the Book of Mormon as scripture, and makes it available for study and use in various languages, we do not attempt to mandate the degree of belief or use. This position is in keeping with our longstanding tradition that belief in the Book of Mormon is not to be used as a test of fellowship or membership in the church." Andrew M. Shields, "Official Minutes of Business Session, Wednesday March 28, 2007," in ''2007 World Conference Thursday Bulletin'', March 29, 2007. Community of Christ, 2007.〕 Moreover, even in the more theologically conservative Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), some adherents who accept the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture do not believe it is a literal translation of a physical historical record.〔"In the early 20th century, B. H. Roberts, general authority and historian for the LDS Church, entertained the notion that Smith was capable of producing the Book of Mormon himself. In 1999, Richard N. Ostling, a religion journalist, wrote that within "the loyal Mormon community, there is a moderate intellectual group that believes the Book of Mormon does have ancient roots but, as part of the process of revelation properly understood, is expressed through nineteenth-century thought processes ... an ancient text mediated through the mind of Joseph Smith" (Osling 1999, 264).〕
Non-believers and some liberal Mormons have advanced naturalistic explanations for the story of the plates. For example, it has been theorized that the plates were fashioned by Smith or one of his associates,
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