NOM

The Interpreter Foundation has a new entry into mainstream movie apologetics: Witnesses.

For nearly 200 years, skeptics and critics have attempted to explain away what David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris claimed—that they had seen angels and hefted golden metal plates containing ancient inscriptions. Now, for the first time, their amazing untold true story comes to the big screen in the family film event of the year – WITNESSES. Featuring a world-class cast, WITNESSES has been hailed as the most significant and ambitious film dealing with the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the translation of the Book of Mormon ever made. Directed by Mark Goodman, the film explores how Harris, Cowdery and Whitmer became known as the Three Witnesses and how, to their dying days, they defended their testimonies even when faced with threatening mobs, ridicule, and betrayal by friends and family.

The production values look pretty good in the trailer. I'm sure this will be a staple of seminary, institute classes, youth firesides, and family home evenings for many years to come.

This makes me want so badly to find a way to get a team to develop a TV series on Joseph Smith... it would be beyond entertaining even if you stick to verifiable events/history/etc.

The burning question: Will they mention the Magick Rock™?

(Or was it the Hat that was Magick?)

I just watched the trailer. I wonder if it will skip the part where Martin Harris spoke to God in the form of a deer. I also wonder if the Anthon incident is mentioned whether it will tell the story that Harris told or include how Anthon reported it. It looks like it covers the conflict between JS and the witnesses, but I will be curious to see if Fanny Alger has a scene or two. I hope they include a depiction of the Salt Sermon and JS's endorsement of the sentiments.

blazerb wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 1:35 pm

I just watched the trailer. I wonder if it will skip the part where Martin Harris spoke to God in the form of a deer. I also wonder if the Anthon incident is mentioned whether it will tell the story that Harris told or include how Anthon reported it. It looks like it covers the conflict between JS and the witnesses, but I will be curious to see if Fanny Alger has a scene or two. I hope they include a depiction of the Salt Sermon and JS's endorsement of the sentiments.

How about Oliver Cowdery and his Magick Wands? Um... I mean: Divining Rods. (I'm just guessing he had more than one, maybe he had a singular Magick Wand...)

The witnesses are certainly a problem for the Church, and not just the three, but also the eight.

We have no signed document even.

But they're pretty far down my list of problems. Seems an odd choice to focus on actually. I guess the rest of the problems are just so unaddressable.

wtfluff wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 2:23 pm

How about Oliver Cowdery and his Magick Wands? Um... I mean: Divining Rods. (I'm just guessing he had more than one, maybe he had a singular Magick Wand...)

When you have the "gift of the rod," you better use it or lose it.

dogbite wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 2:34 pm

The witnesses are certainly a problem for the Church, and not just the three, but also the eight.

We have no signed document even.

But they're pretty far down my list of problems. Seems an odd choice to focus on actually. I guess the rest of the problems are just so unaddressable.

The witnesses are absolute gold for the church because the evidence is so much flimsier than most of the truth claim problems (DNA, Book of Abraham, anachronisms, etc).

I can't tell you how many times people have thrown the witnesses back at me on the website as proof that it's all true. "They never lost their testimony in the BoM even after leaving the church, which tells you that they really saw the plates."

And since the evidence is so flimsy for for and against, you can kind of do a 'choose your own adventure' on the witnesses.

jfro18 wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 8:04 pm

I can't tell you how many times people have thrown the witnesses back at me on the website as proof that it's all true. "They never lost their testimony in the BoM even after leaving the church, which tells you that they really saw the plates."

How many of the "witnesses" never "lost their "testimony" of the Voree Plates?

wtfluff wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 9:02 pm

How many of the "witnesses" never "lost their "testimony" of the Voree Plates?

I confess I don’t know my Strangite doctrine like I used to. Can someone please translate for me?

There is a scene in the movie in which Joseph Smith has the golden plates wrapped up in a sack and he clubs one of his pursuers with it. No one was actually hurt because they were using the plastic replica to run through the woods. The weight of real gold would make that stunt impossible.

Red Ryder wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 9:38 pm

I confess I don’t know my Strangite doctrine like I used to. Can someone please translate for me?

A -------, a ------, and a con artist walk into a bar.
The bartender asks:
-What will it be Mr. Trump?

wtfluff wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 9:02 pm

How many of the "witnesses" never "lost their "testimony" of the Voree Plates?

They've already checked out of the conversation at this point.

It's like when someone says "Oh David Koresh having sex with his followers was evil, but when Joseph Smith did it you know *that* was really from God."

blazerb wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 1:35 pm

I wonder if it will skip the part where Martin Harris spoke to God in the form of a deer.

Or that he was also one of Gladden Bishop's three witnesses who bore testimony that he also had the gold plates and Urim & Thummim. Or about the angel he saw when he followed the shakers, or the time he spent in spiritualism attending seances, or the time Satan attacked him in the form of a blackberry bush...

Hagoth wrote: ↑

Fri May 07, 2021 6:11 am

blazerb wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 1:35 pm

I wonder if it will skip the part where Martin Harris spoke to God in the form of a deer.

Or that he was also one of Gladden Bishop's three witnesses who bore testimony that he also had the gold plates and Urim & Thummim. Or about the angel he saw when he followed the shakers, or the time he spent in spiritualism attending seances, or the time Satan attacked him in the form of a blackberry bush...

I feel like a really good movie about Martin Harris would be chock full of crazy.

I suspect that this interest in the Three Witnesses has been fomenting in LDS apologetic circles for some time. They are convinced by the strength of this testimony and are assuming that this will be convincing to others also.

Dan Peterson at the Lethbridge YSA Stake FHE: The Witnesses

What Do the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon Prove?

For me, the witnesses simply demonstrate that Joseph Smith was a compelling religious figure.

blazerb wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 5:32 pm

wtfluff wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 2:23 pm

How about Oliver Cowdery and his Magick Wands? Um... I mean: Divining Rods. (I'm just guessing he had more than one, maybe he had a singular Magick Wand...)

When you have the "gift of the rod," you better use it or lose it.

Didn't Boyd K. Packer say that we could idle the "gift of the rod" and it would start back up just fine when we needed it?

jfro18 wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 8:04 pm

I can't tell you how many times people have thrown the witnesses back at me on the website as proof that it's all true. "They never lost their testimony in the BoM even after leaving the church, which tells you that they really saw the plates."

And since the evidence is so flimsy for for and against, you can kind of do a 'choose your own adventure' on the witnesses.

Emphasis added.

I think that this is why they are focusing on the witnesses of the BoM. It's easy to grab onto for a testimony, so lots of people do. I also think it is a backstop for many people's testimony of the BoM; when a believer realizes the DNA evidence strongly suggests the BoM is fake, and that the archaeological evidence strongly suggests the BoM is fake they can lean on the witnesses. As long as they don't dig at all. At first glance it appears to be a strong piece of evidence in favor of the truthfulness of the BoM. Until you learn about spiritual eyes and the actual accounts of the witnesses and that the witnesses didn't actually sign and that many similar books have similar witnesses which are not taken seriously.

So anything apologists can do to strengthen the witnesses and convince people they don't need to dig helps keep those people from losing their testimony of the BoM. I don't think it will be particularly effective though. The game has really changed with the internet.

Edited for clarity

I think the witnesses are the best thing the church has in a sea of evidence against its claims. There isn't any evidence in the americas that the Nephites ever existed. The church with all its billions doesn't even bother to look (because they know they won't find anything). Joseph Smith is turning out to be a serial plagiarizer (Adam Clarke, the bible writers, and others should get a lot of the credit for the supposed scriptures JS created). Yet, these witnesses saw something, supposedly, and it gives the member something to hang his/her hat on when faced with the mountains of evidence against.

The trouble I see with the witnesses is that eye witness testimony is unreliable. People can be duped by magicians into believing they saw something when they really didn't. Martin Harris claimed to have spoken to Jesus in the form of a deer. He was a witness to the vorhee plates, too. Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer wanted to be leaders in the church and were running things in Missouri for a time. They weren't going to say all of a sudden that it was a hoax when their power depended on it. Also, recanting has a cost associated with it. People duped based on false witness testimony tend to get mad and reputations suffer as a result. The safe route is to remain true to the false nonsense because admitting to the lie would be a lot worse.

jfro18 wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 11:24 am

This makes me want so badly to find a way to get a team to develop a TV series on Joseph Smith... it would be beyond entertaining even if you stick to verifiable events/history/etc.

If there were a TV series in Joseph it would be somewhere between Sex in the City (prairie) and Dallas.