The Eleven Witnesses Seeing Things - Your Kidding Right?

Detractors of the LDS faith in their quest to attempt to prove Mormonism false have sought creative ways to attack the Church and its doctrine. One such area that these detractors attempt to attack is the eleven witnesses of the Gold plates. They question the testimony of the witnesses because the record was shown unto us by the power of God and angle came down from Heaven and laid before our eyes the plates. These detractors stated the following: It is clear that the witnesses were not bearing witness to an actual physical seeing and handling of the gold plates, but to a mythical event of the same kind as visions of angelic beings and visits from god-men. [1]

The first problem I see is that the person who is making the claim either does not understand or does not want to understand that there are two kinds of experiences that the witnesses had. 1st the three special witnesses had what was described as a mythical experience, Mythical being described by the dictionary as fictitious. The problem comes in that if the experience is false because of angelic beings it doesn't cover the entire eleven witnesses that they are claiming to invalidate.

For those that bother to read the Book of Mormon know that in the front of every Book of Mormon is the testimony of the 3 Witnesses and the testimony of the 8 witnesses. It is clear to even the most discriminating mind that the eight witnesses did not see any angels or god-men.

THE TESTIMONY OF EIGHT WITNESSES
Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen. And we lie not, God bearing witness of it.

Christian Whitmer; Jacob Whitmer; Peter Whitmer, Jun; John Whitmer; Hiram Page; Joseph Smith, Sen; Hyrum Smith; Samuel H. Smith

These witnesses simply saw the plates. One has to ask how the statement above about visions of angelic beings invalidates these witnesses statement. It is clear that in their account that they physically saw the plates. In fact to quote it; Joseph Smith, Jun the translator of this work has shown us the plates of which he has spoken. This clearly shows a physical action by people and has to contain a solid artifact to show. These witnesses even handled the plates by their testimony.

The detractors however by their statement attempt to invalidate the three witnesses instead of all eleven. That stated one has to ask if these same detractors are willing to invalidate all Biblical scripture based on the same type of claim the this is a "mythical" experiance. One has to ask do these detractors have "first hand knowledge" of the events? If not then they can only go by thier feelings in this matter. We as LDS do understand the difference in the witnesses statements, meaning the difference in the three special witnesses and the eight other witnesses. I believe the Lord did this by design so that detractors that bring up these types of arguments against his church have to deal with both.

Wer62