Hey guys, so at the beginning of every
Book of Mormon is the testimony of the
three witnesses who claimed that "an
angel came down from heaven and he
brought and laid before our eyes that we
beheld and saw the plates and the
engravings thereon." This is a big deal.
Previously Joseph had been commanded not
to show the ancient Book of Mormon
record to anyone. "Not even Squidward's house."
But suddenly all these people are saying,
yeah they're real, we've seen them. What
do we do with that? Were they crazy? Were
they tricked or lying or were they
just telling the truth? You can't handle
the truth! In this episode we're gonna
take a closer look at the witness of a
man named Martin Harris.
Martin Harris was born in 1783 when the
Smith family moved to Palmyra, New York.
In 1816, Martin and his family were
living on their farm about three and a
half miles away. He was initially
skeptical of Joseph's story of having
discovered the Book of Mormon plates. For
example, he separately interviewed
Joseph's wife and siblings about the
plates comparing details from their
stories. When it came down to funding the
project, he told Joseph, "If it is the
devil's work I will have nothing to do
with it but if it is the Lord's, you can
have all the money necessary to bring it
before the world. Now you must not blame
me for not taking your word. If the Lord
will show me that it is his work, you can
have all the money you want." He was soon
convinced of the authenticity of the
Book of Mormon and donated what today
would be between 70 and 80 thousand
dollars for the publication. On another
occasion he swapped out the seer stone
Joseph used to translate the Book of
Mormon with a similar looking rock. When
Joseph tried to use it he said, "Martin,
what is the matter? All is as dark as
Egypt!" Martin came clean and said he'd
swapped the stone "To stop the mouths of
fools who had told him that the Prophet
had learned those sentences and was
merely repeating them."
Martin will sometimes described as
superstitious but he was also described
as "shrewd in his business calculations
and frugal in his habits." Very wary of
the lingering possibility of being
conned, you can sense the relief he felt
after he saw the plates as he cried out
"Tis enough! Mine eyes have beheld." Lucy
Smith remembered, "Martin seemed almost
overcome with joy, and testified boldly
to what he had both seen and heard." And
Martin gave that same bold testimony
throughout the rest of his life, even
after being separated from the church
for many decades. Before returning to the
church in 1870, Martin affiliated himself
with a few different Latter-day Saint
splinter groups, the common factor in
them all clearly being the Book of
Mormon. Even through a quasi-committed
stint with the Shakers, he stuck to his
testimony . Out of all the witnesses,
though Martin clearly gets the most flak
from critics. Oliver Cowdery became a
well-respected lawyer, David Whitmer was
a mayor for a time, but Martin was just a
farmer-
a very successful farmer but a farmer. He
wasn't exceptionally educated and he
didn't leave behind much first-hand
information for anyone. But people both
inside and outside the church considered
Martin to be honest and upright so
instead of contesting his honesty, most
skeptics today contest his sanity or his
grip on reality in order to cast doubt
on his credibility. For example, you might
come across vaguely sourced quotes about
Martin supposedly talking with Christ
who was in the form of a deer. Or him
seeing Christ on a roof beam. What
critics probably won't highlight is that
both of those claims at least come from
late third hand hostile sources which
means we have to approach them with
extreme caution.
Historians don't exactly consider late
third hand hostile sources to be the
pinnacle of reliability. "That is a lot of
fake news back there." A couple of
sources second and third hand sources
suggest Martin only saw the plates with
a spiritual eye suggesting he really
only imagined seeing the plates.
I'll let David Whitmer answer that claim. He said, "Of course we were in the spirit
when we had the view, for no man can
behold the face of an angel except in a
spiritual view. But we were in the body
also and everything around us was as
natural to us as it is at any time.
Martin Harris, you say, called it being in
vision. We read in the scriptures
Cornelius saw, in a vision, an angel of
God. Daniel saw an angel in a vision. Also
in other places it states, "they saw an
angel in the spirit." A bright light
enveloped us where we were that filled
the woods as at noonday and there in a
vision or in the spirit we saw and heard
just as it is stated in my testimony in
the Book of Mormon. And we'd also be
remiss to ignore the countless other
sources that make it very clear that
Martin saw the plates and the angel with
his real physical eyes. So did Martin
actually see the plates or was he crazy?
Were all the other corroborating
witnesses crazy too or were they lying
or can we shrug it all off as a product
of mass hallucination or hypnosis as
some
critics believe, and they're certainly
not shy?
Or could it be possible that Martin was
just telling the truth? If you've heard
something about Martin that I haven't
addressed here, please check out the
article on our website where I more
specifically address several other
interesting quotes. Also check out our
episodes on the other two of the three
witnesses and enjoy this little
montage of statements about Martin's
witness. Feel free to pause and read as
many as you'd like.
