Scott Woodward:
Aside from the text of the Book of Mormon itself, and a personal witness from God’s Spirit, what is the best evidence for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon? Different people might answer this question in different ways, but in today’s episode of Church History Matters, Casey and I propose that the very best external evidence for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is the collective testimony of the three and eight witnesses. Their experiences appear to have been premeditated, anticipated, and orchestrated by God in order to help the rest of us have reason to pause and take seriously both Joseph Smith’s testimony and, most importantly, the primary evidence of the text of the Book of Mormon itself. In every copy of the Book of Mormon every published, the written witnesses of these three and eight men have been printed for all to consider. Now, it’s true that several of these eleven men either left the church because of difficulties with Joseph Smith or were excommunicated from it. Yet none of them ever denied the reality of their experience as a Book of Mormon witness. Today we discuss why this matters. I’m Scott Woodward, a managing director at Scripture Central, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a managing director at Scripture Central, and today Casey and I dive into our fifth episode in this series dealing with the marvelous, shocking, and utterly unique story of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Now let’s get into it. Hi, Casey.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hi. How you doing?

Scott Woodward:
So good.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Always good to see you, Scott. We’re wrapping up our series on the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and we thought we’d take some time and talk about the witnesses of the Book of Mormon. But before we get to that, let’s just recap really briefly: So Scott, give us a feel for what we’ve already gone over.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, so last time we talked about the timeline of the translation, that according to the most careful research that has been done on the topic, we know that the Book of Mormon as we have it today took approximately 60 working days to translate, from April 7th until the end of June, and this is all 1829.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
With several days in there that weren’t translation days. And we talked about how this is just a blistering pace of eight to ten pages per day, which is wild, especially when you start thinking about what the Book of Mormon itself actually is.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
We discussed the complexity of the text of the Book of Mormon. We talked, for instance, about three internally consistent, detailed calendar systems, over 150 geographical anchor points, spatially consistent and referenced over 500 times, literary foreshadowings, parallel narratives, intertextuality stuff that’s pretty interesting and awesome, Hebraisms, such as, like, elaborate chiasms, and on and on. And so when you put the pieces together, the incredible speed at which this book was written down, and then its incredible complexity, we start to suspect a miracle, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
You got a 23-year-old boy, 60 working days, produces a book like that, in one pass, mind you, while looking at rocks in the bottom of his hat. You know, there’s that Isaiah phrase that’s used to describe the Book of Mormon as “a marvelous work and a wonder,” which can also be translated as a miraculous work and a miracle. That’s what the Book of Mormon purports to be. But we talked about last time how not everybody believes in miracles.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
And so there have been alternate, naturalistic explanations that have been put forth over the years to try to explain the Book of Mormon. And we talked about, for instance, plagiarism theories, that he plagiarized the Spalding manuscript, View of the Hebrews, The Late War. We talked about a collaboration theory, a mental illness theory, automatic writing theory, Joseph Smith the genius theory. So if you missed the last episode, you’ll definitely want to go back and listen to the details about these naturalistic explanations that have been put forth. Like, when you examine carefully, at least where we came down in this, Casey, was when you examine all this evidence carefully, each of those naturalistic explanations has such enormous plausibility problems as to just render them far less believable than Joseph’s original story of receiving divine aid through the Urim and Thummim.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And, of course, if you do not allow for the miraculous, if you don’t think that’s a possibility, then you have to search for some other explanation. But, boy, the evidence, as far as I’m concerned, and as far as those who handle evidence respectfully and well and deftly, the conclusion is, boy, those naturalistic explanations just don’t hold up as well as the divine aid explanation that Joseph gave to begin with.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Absolutely. We’re talking about miracles here, but like you said, there are some people that don’t believe in miracles, and they would often say things like “What empirical evidence is there that this took place the way Joseph Smith described it?” Most common question is, “Where are the plates? Why didn’t God just leave the plates? Then Joseph Smith could prove his whole story.” Well, God didn’t leave the plates. I’m not quite sure why. But the next best thing when it comes to empirical evidence is to have people see the plates and have those people bear witness. I mean, if we were going to court to prove that the Book of Mormon’s true, we’ve got three people and eight people. Let’s add Joseph Smith. That makes 12. That’s a nice round number. We could add Mary Whitmer. That’s a baker’s dozen of people that saw the plates and testified that they were the real deal for the rest of their life when they really didn’t have a good reason to do so. So that becomes a pretty strong, almost insurmountable witness that this really did happen. There were plates and an angel and a divine translation.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, so we are squarely into talking about evidence, and the primary evidence for the Book of Mormon is unequivocally the book itself.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
And so now we’re segueing into the secondary evidences, which are these witnesses? And this—this was not an afterthought, to have witnesses of the Book of Mormon. We find this prophesied of in the Book of Mormon itself: 2 Nephi 27, there’s Ether 5. This was prophesied of centuries ago, according to the Book of Mormon itself, that there would be witnesses of the plates and they would witness by the power of God.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
D&C 5 is actually chronologically the very first time that this was mentioned, when Martin Harris came to Joseph Smith and asked for some sort of evidence, as his wife was wanting to take him to court and to try to just blow up the whole Joseph Smith fraud thing, and he came desperately to Joseph Smith asking, “Is there any way I could actually see the plates,” and when Joseph inquired about that D&C 5 was given, and the Lord actually says in D&C 5, “Yes, I actually want three witnesses who will know by the power of God that these things are true. They will have a sure witness. So this is not, like, an afterthought to have witnesses. The primary evidence is the Book of Mormon text itself. Secondary witnesses, divinely designed, is to have eyewitnesses of the plates.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So, I mean, what do you think about this idea of evidence to help support faith? Is that contradictory, or is this—is evidence a crucial part of faith? This is something people got to wrestle with, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It is something people have to wrestle with. And I think about those statements in the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants in particular, where they talk about how faith doesn’t come from seeing miracles, miracles come from having faith.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
At the same time, too, there’s evidence out there. The Savior uses all of our faculties to teach us what he wants to teach us. Yeah, there are times when we have to operate on faith, but the Savior also provides us with hints and clues and sometimes just flat-out evidence—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—that there is a divine power at work in our lives. We’ve all seen that, but it seems like he really likes to walk this line where he—he doesn’t prove anything absolutely and thus remove the necessity of faith, but there are some instances where he gives us some pretty strong evidence, and I can’t think of a better instance than that than the case of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I was thinking of the very first time faith was ever defined in scripture, and it just—it’s Hebrews 11:1, where the author of Hebrews says that faith is “the evidence of things not seen.” Evidence is actually part of the definition of faith. Not that you can’t see the evidence, but the evidence points to something that you can’t see. Right? I like the analogy of, like, let’s say you’re—you’re out hiking, and you see a hill, and above yonder hill, there is smoke that’s billowing up, and you can smell burning wood, and someone comes zipping over the top of the hill, kind of frantic look on their face, saying, “Hey, there’s fire over there,” like, “Turn around! Go the other way! Fire! Fire!” You haven’t seen the fire, but you’ve seen the smoke. You could smell it, and you’ve got a witness that was just on the other side of the hill, so you’re not some gullible idiot for believing that there’s fire on the other side of the hill, right? Faith is the evidence of things not seen. You can see the evidence, but you just can’t see the thing that the evidence points to. But the greater the evidence, the greater case you have for having faith in the unseen thing, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
And so in this case, we have the reality of the divine translation of the Book of Mormon, that it really was inspired by God, that it was translated by the gift and power of God. Those are—those are faith statements. Is there any evidence that points to the truthfulness of that? We can’t see God, and we can’t see the plates. We can’t see the angel Moroni. We can’t watch the process of translation unfold in front of our eyes, watch the divine happen. We can’t see that, but what evidence has God given for us? What’s the smoke here, right, of the evidence of things not seen that we do have?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
I think that the three witnesses and the eight witnesses are some of the strongest external evidences for the truthfulness, not just of the Book of Mormon, but of the existence of the divine, that there is a world of angels and God and—I mean, this is some powerful secular, naturalistic evidence—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
—that has been dropped here, wouldn’t you say?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, I got to admit that sometimes when I’m having a bad day—and we all know that faith has its ups and downs, right? Mentally, as an empiricist, I go back to, “How do you explain this? I don’t know how to explain it based on what’s there.” Let’s dive into the story itself, shall we? And I’m going to do a book endorsement if that’s OK.

Scott Woodward:
Excellent.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is a book that just barely came out. It’s called the Documentary History of the Book of Mormon. It’s by a guy named Larry Morris who is a Latter-day Saint but is also a crackerjack historian. This book is just everybody that was involved in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, whether it’s people that are very faithful, like Joseph Smith, or people that are antagonistic like Emma’s father, Isaac Hale. Here’s what they said, and he just arranges it kind of sequence by sequence. Here’s what everybody that was there that had anything to say about it say.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And it’s published by Oxford University Press, a secular press, and boy, did it give me a good feel for what everybody had said about the—the Book of Mormon, especially the witnesses. What the witnesses had to say is really, really powerful. So let’s talk about what’s happening. Like you mentioned, in the Book of Mormon, in Ether 5 and other places, it calls specifically for witnesses. Ether 5:2-4 says, “Behold, ye may be privileged,” so this must have been strange, because the book starts speaking to its translator, “that ye may show the plates unto those who shall assist in bringing forth the work, and unto three shall they be shown by the power of God, wherefore they shall know of a surety that these things are true, and in the mouth of three witnesses shall these things be established.” So the book itself instructs its translator to gather together three witnesses, which Joseph Smith does. The three people selected are Oliver Cowdery (makes sense. He’s Joseph’s faithful scribe, the person who writes most of the Book of Mormon, as Joseph Smith translates it); David Whitmer, who is the Whitmer boy (remember, in our sequence of translation, they start out at Harmony, Pennsylvania, that’s Emma Smith’s hometown. The last month they move up to Fayette, New York, which is where the Whitmer family is, and David is the Whitmer son who’s closest in age to Joseph and Oliver and the one who’s closest friends with Oliver, so he’s logical); and then there’s our wild card, Martin Harris, who’s been involved in the story earlier and isn’t always spoken of in positive terms, but whatever happened with the manuscript, has been a stalwart supporter of Joseph Smith through the entire translation process. So this is sort of a comeback story for Martin after he’s had that terrible episode with losing the manuscript and all the conflict within his family over the work. He is also selected to be one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, and that context, I think is important.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Excellent.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So Joseph Smith writes his own story. We’ll go through that, and then let’s go through what each of the witnesses said or maintained throughout the rest of their life. Does that sound good?

Scott Woodward:
Perfect.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK. All right. So the way Joseph Smith describes it, he talks about section 17 of the Doctrine and Covenants. In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord describes the three witnesses, describes exactly what they’re gonna see when he shows up. And it’s, again, like you said, sort of empirical. He talks about physical objects, that they will see the plates, that they will see the interpreters, that they’ll see the sword of Laban, that they’ll see the miraculous director, or the liahona. And they all assemble together on the Whitmer farm, which has been translation headquarters, to have this experience. The way Joseph Smith describes it, he says, “Not many days after the above commandment,” that’s section 17, “was given, we four, Martin Harris, David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery, and myself, agreed to retire into the woods and try to obtain by fervent and humble prayer the fulfillment of the promises given in this revelation, that they should have a view of the plates. We accordingly made choice of a piece of woods convenient to Mr. Whitmer’s house to which we retired, and having knelt down, we began to pray in faith to Almighty God to bestow upon us a realization of those promises.” Now most people are familiar with this part of the story, so I’m going to hurry through it a little bit, but they all attempt to pray. There is no answer given after they attempt.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And finally, Martin Harris tells the others, “I think I’m the problem. I’m going to withdraw.” And he gets up and leaves, after which the three, Joseph and Oliver and David, kneel down to pray again. When they kneel down to pray, this is how Joseph Smith describes the experience, he said, “We beheld the light above us in the air of exceeding brightness, and behold, an angel stood before us. In his hands he held the plates, which we had been praying for these to have a view of. He turned over the leaves one by one so that we could see them and discern the engravings thereon distinctly. He addressed himself to David Whitmer and said, ‘David, blessed is the Lord, and he that keeps his commandments,’ when immediately afterwards we heard a voice from out of the bright light above us, saying, ‘These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God, and the translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear record of what you now see and hear.” Now that little tweak about David Whitmer in there—interesting timing, because Joseph Smith is writing this history in 1838—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—around the time that David Whitmer is excommunicated from the church. And so that part might have jumped out in Joseph’s memory. It’s interesting, because Oliver Cowdery’s excommunicated around the same time, but he [Joseph] doesn’t remember anything like that being said to Oliver Cowdery. So I’ll take it as Joseph Smith going, “Oh, I remember when that happened,” and, you know, eight or nine years later saying, “Gosh, that seems to have been fulfilled.”

Scott Woodward:
And it’s interesting that David Whitmer will be the only one of the three witnesses that does not come back to the church. We’ll talk about them leaving the church for a time, but he doesn’t come back. The other two will. Interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, and he gets this warning from the angel. Then, after it’s over, he and Oliver take off, go back. Joseph goes to find Martin. Here’s what he writes. He said, “I found Martin at considerable distance, fervently engaged in prayer. He soon told me, however, that he had not prevailed with the Lord and earnestly requested me to join him in prayer, that he also might realize the same blessings which we had just received. We accordingly joined in prayer and ultimately obtained our desires, for before we had yet finished, the same vision was open to our view. At least it was again with me. And I once more beheld and seen and heard the same things whilst at the same moment Martin Harris cried out, apparently in ecstasy of joy, ‘‘tis enough. ‘tis enough. Mine eyes have beheld. Mine eyes have beheld.’ And jumping up, he shouted, ‘Hosanna,’ blessing God and otherwise rejoiced exceedingly.” So Martin gets to have the same experience, too. But just so we’re clear, there’s two experiences, one with the three, and then one with Joseph Smith and Martin Harris separately on their own.

Scott Woodward:
The three, meaning Joseph, Oliver, and David.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And then another time with two, Joseph and Martin. Gotcha.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Two independent experiences. So even when we’re talking about the witnesses, we’re talking about two things that happen. It says that the experience was the same for all three, but they do happen at different times.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And in different approximate locations on the Whitmer Farm, which is in Fayette, New York.

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, another interesting thing is that it sounds like this was kind of an occasion because Joseph Smith’s mother says that she was there at the Whitmer Farm. The Whitmer Farm is about 30 miles away from the Smith Farm, so this may have been, like, a big planned event, basically. “We’re going to do the witnesses this day, so everybody come to the farm and be there when this burden is finally lifted.” Because this is what Lucy describes: She says she was at the Whitmer farm, and she says, “On coming in, Joseph threw himself down beside me and exclaimed, ‘Father, mother, you do not know how happy I am. The Lord has now caused the plates to be shown to three more besides myself. They have seen an angel who’s testified to them, and they will have to bear witness to the truth of what I have said. For now they know for themselves that I do not go about to deceive the people. And I feel as if I was relieved of a burden which was almost too heavy for me to bear. And it rejoices my heart that I am no longer to be entirely alone in the world.’” Academy Awards all-around if this is a made-up fiction. She talks about Joseph Smith just collapsing in exhaustion because it had been such a burden to be the only one that could see the plates. Now he has other people with him, and he talks about what a joy that is to have them with him.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, remarkable. The consistency in the stories of what the witnesses say happened on those two separate occasions. Joseph is pulling off an Oscar performance if that’s not really what just happened in his soul, and he didn’t really feel that relief and that burden, but.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Lucy talks about Martin Harris coming in right after that, right? She says, “Martin came in, and he seemed almost overcome with joy, and he testified boldly to what he’d both seen and heard,” and then so does David and Oliver, “they adding that no tongue could express the joy of their hearts, neither the greatness of the things which they had both seen and heard.” So let’s give the whole cast a[n] Academy Award for that performance—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
—if nothing actually just happened, right? And let’s talk about for the rest of their lives, as they will continue to bear witness, oftentimes at the cost of their reputation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, and one thing that strikes me just now is that Joseph Smith is writing the history we’re reading from in 1838, after these people have left or been excommunicated from the church. So in putting this out there in his history, at a time when they have left, it’s almost like he’s daring them. This would be the time when he would be trying to distance himself from David and Oliver especially, but instead Joseph Smith is saying, “No, this is what they said, and they’re going to be held accountable for what they said,” and surprisingly, at the most opportune moment to discredit Joseph Smith, David and Oliver don’t. They maintain their witness to the day that they die. So let’s walk through each one of them and see what happens in the rest of their life.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and could I say, just on that note, that that used to bother me, that the three witnesses left the church. Like, how the heck do you leave the church after you have seen an angel. You know more than anyone else that the Book of Mormon is true, and if the Book of Mormon is true then Joseph Smith’s a prophet and the church is true—you know, that whole chain. And then, over time I actually came to see the wisdom of God in choosing these three. President Eyring, he once said, “In times of trial these three wavered in their faith that Joseph was still God’s prophet and that the only way to come unto the Savior was through his restored church. That they continued to affirm what they saw and heard in that marvelous experience, during long periods of estrangement from the church and from Joseph makes their testimony more powerful.” And I totally agree with that, that the fact that they were outside the church, still bearing witness of the truthfulness of their experience totally adds validity and strength to their witness, right? If Joseph Smith was a fraud, then they know it, because they’re definitely in on this, right, having claimed what they claim to know and having claimed to experience what they have experienced. They either know that it’s true, or they know that Joseph’s lying.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
You know, Joseph Smith was not in their excommunication trials. He’s not the one that called the trials. He’s not the one that initiated that, but he was certainly OK with what occurred, and if this was a fraud, that would be the very last thing you’d want to let happen, right? Joseph’s got to protect those three because if they’re out if they’re out of the church, then they’re gonna pull the carpet right out from under Joseph right? They’re going to expose the whole thing as—for the fraud that it is, and yet what happens is the exact opposite: People start to come to them and say, “Tell us what really happened. Tell us what really happened, now that you’re outside the church.” In fact, there’s a—a true story. Could I share this real quick? Thomas B. Marsh, former president of the Quorum of the Twelve, when he falls out in Missouri around the same time that the three witnesses were out, he came to David and then Oliver, and he said, “I inquired seriously at David if it was true that he had seen the angel according to his testimony as one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon.” And you’ve got to know that Thomas B. Marsh actually comes into the church largely because of the three witnesses. And so, like, he hung a lot on that. Now they’re out of the church, he’s out of the church, so he says, “Tell me seriously, David.” And David replied, “As surely as there is a God in heaven he saw the angel, according to his testimony in that book.” Thomas asked him, “Well then, why don’t you now stand by Joseph?” To which David answered, “‘Well, in the days when Joseph received the Book of Mormon and brought it forth, he was a good man, filled with the Holy Ghost.’ But David considered that he had now fallen. I interrogated Oliver Cowdery,” Thomas B. Marsh says, “in the same manner, who answered me similarly.” So they never said anything about Joseph never having been a true prophet, but they believed that he had fallen is the answer. And so David, looking Thomas B. Marsh right in the face and saying, “No, what I said about the angel and the plates is true,” is remarkable evidence.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s kind of a best-case scenario if you’re a believer in the Book of Mormon, isn’t it?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I mean, to have all three of them lose their motive for upholding the story if it’s untrue, they don’t have any reason to do so.

Scott Woodward:
No.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And Joseph is, like I said, practically daring them to go back on their testimony, and none of them ever do, which is really remarkable.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Let’s talk about each one.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So let’s start with Oliver. He’s probably the best-known of the witnesses. Oliver is assistant president of the church. That’s the title that’s sometimes affixed to him. He’s there when John the Baptist appears, when Peter, James, and John appear. He’s there in the Kirtland Temple when Jesus Christ, Moses, Elias, and Elijah appear, and yet he’s excommunicated from the church. We should specify with David and Oliver, they’re both excommunicated, simultaneous to resigning from the church. So it’s kind of a, “You can’t fire me: I quit,” kind of situation. Oliver spends about 10 years just kind of bumping around. He goes to Tiffin, Ohio, where he’s a lawyer, a pretty good one from what we hear. And he’s also married to a Whitmer sister. He’s married to Elizabeth Whitmer. So Oliver really could be counted as part of the Whitmer clan. He stays really close to them and remains connected to them through the rest of his life.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Oliver does come back into the church in 1848 after ten years of leaving, but it’s only two years after that before he passes away. And when he comes back, at a testimony meeting, a guy named Reuben Miller writes down Oliver’s testimony. He—he records Oliver as standing on the stand and saying, “I beheld with my eyes and handled with my hands the gold plates. I was present with Joseph when the Holy Angel conferred or restored the Aaronic Priesthood. I was also present with Joseph when the Melchizedek Priesthood was restored by the Holy Angels of God.” Now, this discussion features a lot of men, so I want to interject a woman’s voice here, too. This is his widow, Elizabeth Whitmer Cowdery, who lives several decades after Oliver passes. She also says Oliver never, ever, ever denied his witness. She is quoted as saying, “From the hour when the glorious vision of the holy messenger revealed to mortal eyes the hidden prophecies which God had promised his faithful followers should come forth in due time, until the moment when he passed away from the earth, he always, without one doubt or shudder of turning, affirmed the divinity and truth of the Book of Mormon.” It’s the person that knows Oliver best, that would have been there in his private, vulnerable moments, says there was never any—the phrase she uses, “Without one doubt or shudder of turning.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There was never a moment when she saw Oliver even express doubt that what he had seen was real. That’s pretty powerful. And the fact that Oliver winds up in the church again seems to signify that he—he believed strongly in what he’d seen and upholding the witness of what he’d seen.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, awesome. So what happens with David? Tell us the David story.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
David is a tougher one.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
David is excommunicated and resigns, like Oliver Cowdery, in 1838. He never comes back to the church. David lives longer than any of the other witnesses. In fact, can I do one more book endorsement? This is a little harder book to find. This is compiled by a guy named Lyndon Cook, who just basically took every single time a person talked to David Whitmer about the Book of Mormon and put it together in this book called David Whitmer Interviews. This book has a lot of material in it, and it’s interesting reading, because David Whitmer seems to remain bitter throughout the rest of his life towards Joseph Smith. That quote that you shared, “Joseph Smith was once a good man, but I consider him fallen.” And yet, in spite of that, he never wavers on his testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In fact, a couple of years ago, I went to Missouri. You can find David Whitmer’s grave in Richmond, Missouri. And it’s not hard to find: It’s clearly marked in this cemetery on the edge of town. By the way, a fun thing to do is to visit the grave of all the three witnesses. Oliver is somewhere in Richmond. The cemetery he was buried in was hit by a flood, and so the three witnesses monument is actually near where Oliver was buried, but we don’t know the precise location. David Whitmer’s headstone actually has chiseled into it the phrase, “The record of the Jews and the record of the Nephites are one. Truth is eternal,” chiseled right under it. I mean, that’s pretty serious. Even though he had a lot of complex issues with the church.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He believes. In fact, here’s one excerpt: He gets interviewed by a newspaper reporter, a secular newspaper reporter, someone that doesn’t have a stake in the fight. David says, “We not only saw the plates of Mormon, but also the brass plates, the plates of the Book of Ether, the plates containing the record of wickedness and secret combination of the people of the world, and many other plates. The fact is, it was just as though Oliver and I were sitting just here on the log when we were overshadowed by a light. It was not the light of the sun, not like that of a fire, but more glorious and beautiful. It extended away around us. I cannot tell how far, but in the midst of this light, about afar off as he sits,” and he points to John C. Whitmer, who’s a Whitmer grandson, who’s sitting a few feet away, and says, “there appeared, as it were, a table with many records or plates upon it, besides the plates of the Book of Mormon.” So he never denies his witness, never rejoins the church. Tries to start his own church, and a wrinkle to the story that we sometimes miss is that Oliver rejoins the church, then dies in Richmond, trying to get the Whitmer family to come back. After he rejoins, doesn’t go west, he goes to Richmond and is there with the Whitmers when he passes away in 1850.

Scott Woodward:
So one of the major, I want to say “attacks” on the three witnesses, or trying to throw shade on what they’re saying, is that they saw the plates of God and not of man.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They had a vision, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. They saw the plates in a vision, not in real life, right? That somehow this was some hallucination, some mental disturbance of some kind. And David Whitmer’s got some of my favorite testimonies contradicting that. What I love about that attack, by the way, and I think it’s the only real attack out there that I see on the three witnesses, is that they didn’t actually see the plates. They saw it with the eye of faith, and it was in vision. It wasn’t a real thing.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
What I love about that attack is that it was alive and well while the witnesses were still alive. So they actually got to respond to that particular critique. One case was David Whitmer, when he was he’s in Richmond and someone suggested to him in a nice, friendly manner that, “Are you sure it’s not possible you were mistaken? Are you sure it wasn’t a mental disturbance? Are you sure it wasn’t a hallucination that got you to think that you saw the plates and the Urim and Thummim and the sword of Laban?” And David Whitmer, he arises and he says, “in solemn and impressive tones,” the record says, “No, sir. I was not under any hallucination. Nor was I deceived.” He said, ”I saw with these eyes,” points to his eyes, “and I heard with these ears. I know whereof I speak.” And I love the passion there. There was an auditory element, speaking of his ears, right? There was that auditory element where the voice—they actually heard the voice of God say that the record had been translated by the gift and power of God and that it was true. I think that’s oftentimes an overlooked part of their witness. They saw an angel, they saw the plates, but they also had an auditory—they actually heard God’s voice tell them and bear witness that it was true.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Another time David Whitmer says, “I saw them just as plain as I see this bed.” He strikes the bed with his hand. “I heard the voice of the Lord as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life, declaring that the records of the plates of the Book of Mormon were translated by the gift and power of God.” He said, “Our testimony as recorded in the Book of Mormon is strictly and absolutely true, just as it is there written.” He’s just got some of my favorite just passionate witnesses in rebuttal to that to that critique that, “Oh, you just saw it in a vision, not in real life.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, I mean, the other thing to note about David is he’s not some kind of crazy, wild-eyed madman either. This is a guy who becomes the mayor of Richmond, Missouri, who’s a respected citizen. When a British encyclopedia questions the witnesses, says all three of them denied their witness, David secured an affidavit from 12 men in his town to basically say, “No, David didn’t lie, he’s never denied his witness, and we uphold his integrity as a person.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I always imagine David with, you know, that clipped German accent. The Whitmers are German immigrants. Because the way he talks is, like, severe. I mean, you’ve read a couple excerpts. My favorite one from David, and by the way, there’s dozens of these, is him saying, “Our testimony is true. If these things are not true, then there’s no truth. And if there’s no truth, there’s no God. And if there’s no God, there’s no existence. But I know there is a God, for I have heard his voice and witnessed a manifestation of his power.” I mean, this guy meant business.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the fact that he didn’t come back to the church works in our favor as well.

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He doesn’t have motive to be that severe in defending his testimony.

Scott Woodward:
No.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In fact, he has motive to go the opposite direction.

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Martin, if you’re a Utahn, you can actually visit his grave. It’s in Richmond [correction: Clarkston], Utah. They used to do a pageant right next to the cemetery where Martin was buried. I don’t know if you ever saw it or not.

Scott Woodward:
Yes, I was just there last year, actually spoke at the Martin Harris monument there, and did a whole fireside on Martin Harris for an hour, with his monument right there in the background and this nice amphitheater. It’s actually in Clarkston, Utah, where many people whose families knew Martin Harris, like some of those people are still there today. Wonderful people. I got to meet many of them. In fact, afterwards, it was amazing. This sparkling, old, wonderful woman comes to me. I’ll never forget. My little daughter was next to me, Lucy, and this woman, she said, “I just want to tell you that when I was a young girl, I sat on my grandmother’s lap, and she told me to look into her eyes. And she said, ‘These eyes looked into the eyes of Martin Harris, who bore witness to me that the Book of Mormon was true and that his witness of the Book of Mormon was true.’”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Wow.

Scott Woodward:
So I grabbed my daughter, I was like, “Lucy, look into her eyes. You’re looking into the eyes of a woman who looked into the eyes of [a woman who looked into the eyes] of Martin Harris as he bore witness, which is amazing.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I tried to do a similar thing. I took my family to Clarkston, and we stood on Martin Harris’s grave, and I basically turned to my kids and kind of in a grandiose way said, “You are standing on the grave of a man who saw an angel.” And I remember one of my kids going, “Are we going to get dinner?” You know, “I’m hungry.“ And I remember thinking, “I’m wasted on you people. Like,”

Scott Woodward:
Dang.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“Why isn’t this a bigger deal to you?” And it was—it was cool. It’s just neat to think that that little piece of history isn’t that far away from where we live.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s a person that saw an angel. And like we said, not on one or two occasions, but on numerous occasions, would bear witness to the people in the town.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, man.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, we should back up a little bit. Martin—we don’t think Martin’s excommunicated.

Scott Woodward:
He says, “I didn’t leave the church. The church left me.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
You know, when the church goes to Missouri, he stays back in Kirtland, self-appointed caretaker of the Kirtland temple.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, and he actually affiliates with some other groups like James Strang’s movement. He’s a missionary for them for a little while. But when when that movement falls apart, he kind of winds up in Kirtland. In fact, I’ve been into a part of the Kirtland Temple, and this is going to sound shocking, where people have carved their initials into the rafters.

Scott Woodward:
Jeez.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There is a giant “M.H.” that we think is Martin Harris, because he was there, taking care of the Kirtland Temple, and the story goes that he’s kind of this sort of ghostly figure, sad caretaker. A pair of missionaries from Utah come through town and speak to him, and that’s where the whole, “I never left the church, the church left me” line.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They contact Brigham Young, who agrees to wire the money. Martin has family members. His brother, Emer, for instance, is in Utah. And Martin retires here, yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And his—yeah, his wife had gone to Utah to be with family there, and he was kind of stubborn, didn’t want to be with the Saints quite yet. But yeah, he—he softened over time.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He softens, and he comes. And he bears witness on several occasions. The person that I’m gonna quote right now is William Pilkington. If you’ve ever seen that old seminary video—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
William’s the young man who goes to take care of Martin Harris.

Scott Woodward:
“I shall call you Willy.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, ”I’ll call you Willy.” He said that he heard Martin share his testimony, this is the phrase he uses, “Scores of times.” And then he says one of the occasions was a deathbed testimony given on the day before Martin died. He said, during his last testimony, Martin asked William to hold up his right arm while he spoke. On another occasion, William said, “Martin’s whole being became electrified, and there seemed a changed man stood before me. He said, ‘Just as sure as you see the sun shining, just as sure am I that I stood in the presence of an angel of God with Joseph Smith and saw him hold the gold plates in his hands. I also saw the Urim and Thummim, the breastplate. I saw the angel descend from heaven. The heavens were then opened. I heard the voice of God declare that everything the angel had told us was true and that the Book of Mormon was translated correctly. I was commanded by God’s voice to testify to the whole world what I had seen and heard.’”

Scott Woodward:
My favorite technique, if I could call it a—that Martin Harris would do as he bore witness, he would pick an object nearby, and then he would ask the person if they saw it, and then he would bear witness that just in that way did he see the plates. So here’s a few examples. This guy, he’s in Smithfield, Utah, which is right by Clarkston. A guy named Edward Thurman follows Martin Harris into a blacksmith shop in town. He asks him right there in the blacksmith shop. He says, “Is your testimony about the gold plates and the angel true?” And Martin points out the door. He says, “You see that apple tree over there?” And he nods. He says, “Well, as surely as you see that tree I saw a bright light above us in the air, and in that light I saw the angel holding the golden plates in his hands. He turned the pages one by one, showing the writing on each page, and as surely as you hear my voice now, I heard the voice declare that the translation was given by the power of God and was true.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Wow.

Scott Woodward:
Another time a group of young men are gathered on the side of the street, and one of them says, “Are you sure you saw the angel and the records of the Book of Mormon in the form of gold plates?” And he holds out his hand and he says, “Gentlemen, do you see that hand? Are you sure you see it? Are your eyes playing you a trick or something? No? Well, as sure as you see my hand, so sure did I see the angel and the plates. Brethren, I know. I saw. I heard these things, and the Lord knows I know these things which I have spoken are true.” That’s—OK. There’s these boys in town, in Clarkston, Utah, talking about the testimony of Martin Harris. They’re just chatting about it, like, “Do you think it’s real?” And it just so happened that Martin was seen approaching by them, and so one of the boys was nudged to ask the question. “Martin, did you really see the plates?” And Martin stops, and he points to a chopping block on the side of the road, and he says, do you see that chopping block there? And they said, “Yes.” And he says, “Well, just as plain as you see that chopping block, I saw the plates. And sooner than I would deny it, I would lay my head on that chopping block and let you chop it off.” A little graphic for a little group of boys, but you get the point he’s trying to make. And you know, in his last moments, as he was about to die, there was one—one of his caretakers, George Godfrey, he sat up during the nights with Martin to take care of him in his last hours. And one night Martin suddenly he says to George, he points to an axe over by the fireplace, and he says, “Do you see that log and that axe?” And George says, “Yes,” and he says, “Just as surely as you see that axe and that log, I saw the angel and the plates.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Wow.

Scott Woodward:
So it’s just this motif that’s so awesome. I love that about Martin, and I love that he’s just there as this, like, old, decrepit man who can hardly move, and he just says, “Do you see that axe?” You know, just takes the opportunity to bear witness. It’s so great.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He’s got a consistent pattern, I’ll give him that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We spend a lot of time on the three witnesses. I wanna talk about the eight witnesses.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And if I can give you a reason why: You pointed out earlier that sometimes a line of attack on the three witnesses is they didn’t touch anything, that they all said they saw, but they didn’t touch.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
An old argument that B. H. Roberts used was that the eight witnesses and the three witnesses were intended to kind of interlock with each other.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The three witnesses see something spiritual, a vision where they hear the voice of God, see an angel of light, see all the objects. On the other hand, there’s nothing really supernatural about what the eight witnesses describe.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They just see the plates and handle the plates and say they turn the pages on the plates. The two are meant to work together. If you’re trying to discredit the eight witnesses, you’d say “Joseph Smith made a set of plates and fooled these rubes into believing they were real.” Well, that doesn’t work if the three witnesses are there. The three witnesses saw something supernatural. If you’re saying the three witnesses had some sort of shared hallucination, the eight witnesses are there to basically say, “No, we saw the plates.” There’s a natural witness and a supernatural witness that overlap with each other and run into each other. So let’s talk about the eight witnesses. First thing first, if you just do a quick scan of their names, you’re going to notice that almost every last name is Whitmer or Smith. The notable exception is Hiram Page, who’s a Whitmer brother-in-law. He’s married to Catherine Whitmer, so he’s technically part of the Whitmer family, too. And if you piece together here and there their experience, which Joseph Smith doesn’t write as extensively about, but Lucy Mack Smith does.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
She says they come back from the Whitmer farm. This is the way she writes it: “The following day we returned,” after the three witnesses experience, they go back to their farm in Palmyra, “a cheerful, happy company, and in a few days we were followed by Joseph, Oliver, and the Whitmers, who came to make us visit and made some arrangements about getting the book printed. Soon after they came, all the male part of the company, together with my husband, Samuel,” her son, “and Hiram, retired to a place where the family were in the habit of offering up their secret devotions to God. They went to this place because it had been revealed to Joseph that the plates would be carried thither by one of the ancient Nephites. Here it was that those eight witnesses, whose names are recorded in the Book of Mormon looked upon them and handled them.” So again, this isn’t anything that’s supernatural.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They just hand them the plates. They pass the plates around. Every one of them turns the leaves and says “They were of curious workmanship. We didn’t know how they were made.” And the eight witnesses have interesting life histories, too. There is Christian Whitmer and Peter Whitmer, who both die relatively soon after this, about four years later. There’s Hiram Page, who lives several decades after. There’s John Whitmer, who lives a long time after. There’s Joseph Smith, Sr. who dies in 1840; Hyrum Smith, who’s killed in Carthage Jail; Samuel Smith, who dies about a month after Joseph and Hyrum. None of them ever denies their witness of seeing the plates.

Scott Woodward:
No.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The one I find most interesting is John Whitmer.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He’s the one who’s in the same boat as David Whitmer, never rejoins the church, but never denies his witness. There is an interview that he did with a guy named P. Wilhelm Poulson, who’s a reporter from the Deseret News. He goes to John Whitmer’s home in Far West because that’s where John Whitmer is excommunicated from the church, in Far West, and he just stays there for the rest of his life. His grave is in Kingston, Missouri, if anybody’s interested. And here’s how the sequence goes: So it sounds a lot like the way David Whitmer would say it. “Question: I am aware that your name is affixed to the testimony in the Book of Mormon, that you saw the plates?” John Whitmer replied, “It is so, [and] that testimony is true.” The reporter asks, “Did you handle the plates with your hands?” “I did so!” “Were they material substance?” “Yes,” they were “as material as anything could be.” Were they heavy? “Yes, [and] you know gold is a heavy metal, they were very heavy.” “How big were the leaves?” About “eight by six or seven inches.” “Were the leaves thick?” “Yes, just so thick, [that] characters could be engraven on both sides.” “How were the leaves joined together?” “In three rings, each one in the shape of a D, with the straight line towards the centre.” “In which place did you see the plates.” “In Joseph Smith’s house.” That means if this happened in the summer of 1829, around the same time as the three witnesses, it was in the Smith cabin. It was in the cabin that Joseph Smith was in when Moroni appeared to him because the Smiths move down the road to their frame house and then get evicted and have to move back into the—the log cabin. Then he says, “Did you see them covered with a cloth?” “No. He handed them uncovered into our hands, and we turned the leaves sufficient to satisfy us.” So he’s talking about concrete things. “I saw.” “I handled.” “I touched.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So if you’re going to attack the three witnesses by saying they didn’t touch anything, how do you deal with the eight witnesses, who did handle the plates, turn the leaves, look and observe closely at all this?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
All of them, all of them stayed faithful to their testimony. In fact, here’s another dramatic story. Hiram Page, in 1833, during persecutions in Missouri. “Some young men ran down Hiram Page in the woods, one of the eight witnesses, and commenced beating and pounding him with whips and clubs. He begged, but there was no mercy. They said he was a damned Mormon and that they meant to beat him to death. But finally, one of them said to him, ‘If you will deny the book, we will let you go.’ Said he, ‘How can I deny what I know to be true?’ Then they pounded him again. When they thought he was about to breathe his last, they said to him, ‘Now what do you think of your God who won’t save you?’” None of the eight witnesses ever denied their testimony of seeing the plates, though their lives were difficult because of it. I mean, there’s Hiram Page, being beaten to deny his testimony, refuses to deny it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The general rule of thumb with the eight witnesses is if their last name was Smith, they stayed in the church. If their last name was Whitmer, they left the church, the notable exceptions being Christian and Peter Whitmer, who never left the church. But none of these, none of these people ever denied their testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Scott Woodward:
One of my favorite John Whitmer stories is shortly after he left the church in Far West, 1839. His former friend that’s still a member of the church, Theodore Turley, openly accuses John Whitmer of being inconsistent. He says, “You’re inconsistent.” And this was in the presence of John Whitmer’s now new anti-Mormon friends. And Turley’s like, “You’re inconsistent, man.” He said, “You testified that the Book of Mormon was true, that you saw the plates. And now here you are outside the church. What the heck?” And in front of his anti-Mormon friends, John Whitmer said, “I now say I handled those plates. There were fine engravings on both sides. I handled them.” And then Turley bluntly asked him, well, how do you now doubt the work?” To which Whitmer replied, “Well, I couldn’t read it. I don’t—I don’t know whether the translation’s true.” That is amazing evidence that he actually handled plates, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It wasn’t a requirement of the eight to know that the translation was true by the gift and power of God. Their whole job was the naturalistic witness that there really were plates, and that’s the witness that he continued to bear to his dying day was, “I actually saw plates. Like, I’m not lying about that.” For me, again, that’s one of those powerful counter-evidences, right, that he had no skin in the game. There’s no reason—that would have been a perfect time to just blast Joseph Smith, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But he just says, no, I’m telling the truth about that. I just couldn’t read the engravings.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They all stayed consistent. In fact, let me quote one more line from Hiram Page. This is 1847. This is about 10 years after he’s left the church. He said, “As to the Book of Mormon, it would be doing injustice to myself and to the work of God of the last days to say I know a thing to be true in 1830 and know the same thing to be false in 1847.” He just basically says, “I haven’t changed. I’m not going to do injustice to myself by changing what I said just to make people happy, because what I said was true.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so, I mean, you could make the case, Scott, that we could add Mary Whitmer to this list because all the Whitmer boys say that she saw the plates as well. Apparently, during the translation process—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—she’s exhausted. She goes out on the back porch, just kind of breaks down, and a man approaches her, an older man, and shows her the plates. Now, that’s filtered through a couple Whitmer descendants. John C. Whitmer, who’s a grandson, is the most prominent one to share that story. But like I said, you add the three, you add the eight, you add Joseph Smith, that’s 12 witnesses. You add in Mary Whitmer, that’s 13 witnesses that saw the plates, and in some cases saw the angel and heard the voice of God.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They have every reason to deny that the Book of Mormon is true to discredit Joseph Smith, especially after they leave the church. But none of them ever do. And I think if you walked into any courtroom and had the 13 witnesses, all saying the same thing and being consistent under the most adverse circumstances, even if you didn’t have the plates yourself, you’ve got a pretty solid body of evidence to say that this happened,

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This was real. There are miracles.

Scott Woodward:
Let me just say amen to that and share this maybe as a closing thought. Austin Farrar, who wrote on C. S. Lewis, C. S. Lewis was a great defender of the Christian faith, and Austin Farrar was reflecting on C. S. Lewis when he said, “Though argument does not create conviction, lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced, but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned.” Then he says, “Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.” And if I might just modify this a little bit and use it to describe the three and the eight witnesses, maybe we could say it like this: “Though external evidence does not create conviction, lack of it could destroy belief, but the sure witness of 11 men—add Joseph Smith for 12 here—may not create belief, but it certainly maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Now, that’s what it does for me. It helps keep the wolves at bay, and it’s meant to, I think, as a secondary witness, create a space for us to take the primary witness seriously, the Book of Mormon itself, until we have our own witness from God. That’s what the witnesses do for my soul.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Agreed. Agreed. Well said, Scott. That’s a great place for us to end. I’ll just add my witness that I believe the Book of Mormon’s true. Faith and reason lead me to that conclusion.

Scott Woodward:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we wrap up this series by responding to your questions about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. We will be honored to have with us a special guest to help us respond to your questions, Dr. Michael Mackay, a church historian and scholar of all things related to the Book of Mormon’s translation and coming forth. Today’s episode was produced by Zander Sturgill and Scott Woodward, edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.