hello welcome back to scripture Central where we build enduring faith in Christ by Illuminating the restored scriptures and making them more accessible and defensible and comprehensible I am so happy to have Jack Welch back with me today welcome Jack well thank you Lynn it's wonderful to be back with you today we get to talk about the witnesses and I think your work on these has been so fabulous I'm just thrilled to have you here in the middle of the translation process where you've put in so much research we're back a little bit Jack in The
Book of Mormon just like last year well that's right but the Book of Mormon is such an incredible part of the uh coming forth of the church uh they don't have a Doctrine in covenants yet they won't have that for another six years so the Book of Mormon was the uh the scripture to go with the Bible that was then adopted in 1830 when the church was organized let's look at a few of our hard questions why did the three Witnesses leave the church and was nepotism at play in the eight Witnesses and why are
we only counting the 11 male Witnesses they began the translation of the book of that we know I hope you all have memorized by now on April 7th 1829 but there was so much persecution that on June 1st they had to be transported up to fayet about over a 100 miles north now Google Maps will show you one time but remember they're using these small little postal roads and it took so much longer in a wagon um to make this journey but on June 1st they are there they're beginning the process and by between this
month of June we've got the Whitmer also acting as scribes at least the Whitmer sons are picking up the quill and helping Oliver a little bit in early June Angel Moroni first visits Mary Whitmer the mother of this large family and shows her the plates but on June 20th when they are translating second Nephi 27:12 we have this reference again to the need for three Witnesses and we'll talk more about that as soon as we get through the timeline Angel Moroni then shows the plates to the three Witnesses and as well as the breastplates and
The Sword and the yman Thum and the interpreters that we refer to as the Leona and by June 30th they have completely finished the translation and some people think it's the 29th and then within a few days after the three Witnesses we have the eight Witnesses when they're up and fad so there's an overview if you'd like more information than what we can give you here today I would really encourage you to open up Jack's book again on opening the heavens I have mentioned this many times and I just think it's a fabulous resource that
you've compiled for us of these people who saw the translation who witnessed the translation and it's really well done Jack thank you very much going through that little timeline that you just went through Lynn uh did people recognize what we're really talking about here from the the first part of April to the end of June it can't be more than a total of 90 days and there were several days that were they were out traveling they have to go from uh from Harmony to Colville to get paper because they run out of paper at one
point and then they have to move they have to get in the wagon and go over 100 miles and not just get in the wagon but they have to pack up they leave they moveed to F fet from Harmony at that point so it's not like they have all of those days I figure at most there are maybe 80 Days of actual translation capability uh I I think it was more like 65 actual days but then there's a fixed number of words there are 269,000 words in the Book of Mormon so we know how many
many words and we know how many days and so you figure how many words per day they would have to be doing in order to get it done and and what did you find Jack well if you assume that they can do 10 words per minute okay is that about right uh with a quill that's pretty hard that's pretty hard but uh if you do that it it takes them uh 7 hours a day to get it done in the uh in 64 days but what I'm saying is first of all this is absolutely amazing
no book that I know of has ever been written under this kind of time constraint uh they they got it done they needed to get it done they knew they were under a lot of pressure and even as you've mentioned already before persecution and there was urgency to it and uh but I can't think of another book I can't think of even a short book that was WR You' written many under this kind of uh time constraint so it's uh it's one more evidence I think and a real great indication where we just have to
say we don't know how this all happened but it did not happen in any ordinary way well the other thing that's fascinating to me Jack is that you have taken the time to say it could have happened we don't need to dismiss it by saying there's no way a uneducated young man could have done this with a turkey quill and a kid helping him out you said actually it can be we have enough information that I delineated it and the evidence is clear it could have happened it says it can be done I love it
uh but uh wow yeah this is assuming you know if you're working six hours you got to stop for lunch in there sometime and and just to stretch and work uh you know well and they describe sometimes when Oliver's hand would get cramped and Joseph's eyes would be sore from looking into the hat to darken out any light um that they'd go and Skip rock you know and he did that both in Harmony and in fayet just to give him a little break yeah as you said but I guess the persecution really did Mount this
second month of translation I think April was a little bit more protected by the hail family but by May the antagonism was growing so much that I think the accounts says Joseph looked in the yman thumb and asked what should we do and the Lord said you need to ask the whiters if you can go and stay there and so Oliver writes David and they get another miracle happens now Joseph didn't know the Whitmer no but Oliver did which is so part of the miracle of having the Lord answer the question that way David Whitmer
knew Oliver and it was aware of the work but his family wasn't and so when he told his parents I've got to leave here in end of May early June and they're saying wait a minute it's it's time to plant the frost is finally over we've got to get this field done and there's some beautiful Miracles there because it's 100 Acre Farm and I guess each of the sons had a section that they were in charge of and so David's 20 acres and he his parents said you better pray about the timing this is a
very important part of this season you know the whole year is waiting for this planting and he prays and Fields in urgency and wakes up the next morning and his plow is at the end of the sixth acre six acres have been done so he only has to do he there's enough to be done in one day and then the next day as um he goes out the fields have already been covered with the plaster Paris and I looked into this I guess it's some sort of a calcium sulfate that provided more nutrients to the
soil and people who were eyewitnesses have recorded that they saw three men working faster than they had ever seen anyone else yeah there was some urgency and it was not only uh needing to get down to protect or help Joseph move so that uh with the persecution and the problems wouldn't interfere too much but they also wanted to get finished with the last part of the Book of Mormon people don't realize that before they leave Harmony down in Pennsylvania they have done the book of ether the book of Moroni and the title page of the
Book of Mormon and they kind of think they're done but no they will do the small plates in fet and so when they get there they now have the luxury of being able to do first Nephi second Nephi and up through the words of Mormon and Jo Joseph knows those stories but he thought they were all lost in the 116 pages I just cannot imagine how excited he was to f find first Nephi after slugging through so much of the other David Whitmer comes down and takes just Joseph and Oliver Emma stays back and finishes
up um preparing the house and her cows and things like that with her parents and takes care of those responsibilities and as they are going they do not have to take the plates this time this time Angel Mor and I took the plates but it's interesting we have a story that was published in a couple of different newspapers and I have a quote here from the millennial Star of David whitmer's account of what happens as he's driving this wagon listening to the stories of Joseph and Oliver and the translation and hearing all this they see
an old man walking along the road with a napsack and um David slows down the horse and he asks him do you need a ride and the stranger says no I'm going over to Kora and he disappears now this recording is done later when they're actually calling the hill kamora but Joseph um and David and Oliver all recognized that this old man becomes significant to what he's wearing and how he's described to one of our Witnesses later but I'm fascinated that this idea that Moroni is not always in his shining GARP that's right it's a
sense of humor it's it's I don't what do you make of this story Jack well I think it tells us that uh the Lord can accomplish his purposes in unexpected ways uh they hadn't said well you know why doesn't Moroni help us on this trip or anything that they had somehow entrusted those plates to Moroni in harmony before they left right yes and so they're expecting Moroni to somehow get them there but Joseph knew what Moroni looked like he was a glorious person and off they go and then this man appears in ordinary clothing and
maybe it gave them even more confidence that the Lord was really watching and aware of where they were and what they were doing his angels are all around us whether we recognize them as Angels or not yeah yeah that's a good way to say that when they arrive up in fet and enter into father whitmer's home and the work by Mark Staker shows that the building was 20 by 30 ft and they take an entire room and dedicate upstairs upstairs to a translating room yeah and here you've got a picture here of the the room
where they translated and slept and Emma arrives later and before she had her own home she had her own cows she had her own autonomy and now she is one more in this over two dozen people and there was a little contention or squabble one morning morning as Joseph was heading upstairs and it is so touching to me to read this account where Joseph couldn't translate until he went outside and prayed and repented and apologized and made harmony with his wife and you know the scriptures in The Sermon on the Mount even say settle quickly
and I like that uh and Joseph sensed this is okay this isn't the way it needs to be we need to settle and now settle quickly and go and repent re repentance doesn't always mean you that you have committed a serious sin and now need to go through a very difficult repentance process even the small things where we offend those also need to be recognized and and taken care of so act quickly I think there's a great lesson in that for us and Joseph knew knew that and did it I mentioned earlier that they used
to go outside and Skip Rock in order to refresh themselves that happened in fet one time and Mary Whitmer saw it because not only has she given away a room and has more people to feed and clothe and everything else but she has the problem with her sons are now more interested in the translation than they are the work on the farm so she decides that she's going to kick them out we have two accounts of this David Whitmer and then her granddaughter according to these two accounts Mary gets up early she's milking the cows
um usually what four or five shortly before sunrise in the early summer and as she comes out of the barn there is an old man with a napsack and initially she's a little startled but he speaks very kindly to her and in David whitmer's account it says it was the same she described the same old man that we had seen on the road and he introduced himself to his mother as Moroni and in his account we get the opinion that because she'd been wor working so hard then she was able to receive this Angelic Vision
but in alvara Mill's account which is a relation that we now have recorded by Roy scallon's research and The Interpreter in that account it's a different story slightly different she Mary thought that they might just as well carry her bucket of water or chop a bit of wood as to skate rocks on a pond so she was about to order them out of her house and one morning just at Daybreak she came out of the house to me this is very interesting because the angel had to turn her around just like with Elma the younger
and with um Paul and Saul and with many many Angelic accounts even balum and BAC the angel comes to reorient the person and she was on board well and she was greatly blessed uh to have that privilege to see that much uh I think Moroni knew how important it was for the whiters all of them to stay with the project and uh you know they of course had been asked as you say to sacrifice a lot at this moment why can't this wait no this could not wait it needed to be done the timing is
part of the miracle and by having the whiters all involved they can go up and down the stairs and they tell us when Joseph would come down the stairs from Translating that he and um Oliver had faces that were exceedingly White Moving ahead to June 11th we have records that this is when they applied for the copyright Jack tell me about the copyright you're an attorney we don't know exactly uh how much time you remember I was trying to figure out all the things that needed to be done in the time available how much time
do you allow for the application to receive the copyright uh but we do know that on June 11th Joseph Smith filed the application he signed it it was executed by the clerk of the court it's filed in federal court because Federal copyright law covered all of the copyright law in the United States by virtue of a provision in the Federal Constitution so this became one of the First Federal functions kind of uh uh because it's a an interstate kind of uh uh purpose and Publishing was uh important in those days as it is today so
the federal court was the place where this had to be done now what Joseph Smith and what we've had for a long time there were two copies of it that were made and Joseph kept one copy but the filed copy uh was not seen until 2005 really when we finally had a conference in Washington DC for Joseph Smith's Bicentennial and they brought out several things including an 1833 first edition of the book of Commandments which they had but they had wrongly classified it because the title page was partly torn and they didn't know the title
of the book I helped them find out what they had but I also said as we were working with them do you think there's any way the Fed Federal Western District of New York documents from 1829 where would they be are they in New York it's federal court and they said well after the Civil War all of the state court records were Consolidated in Washington DC oh nice so they may be here and they looked I said well they're not in the Library of Congress maybe they're in the archive and they sent somebody over to
the archive uh the federal archive and there they found a big bound volume of 1829 records from the Western District of New York they turned the pages and there was the original signed copy and the uh important thing that we'll talk about uh in the next class is that uh uh the description of the book that was given on the the copyright application is the wording of the title p page of the Book of Mormon now what does that tell us that tells us that the title page had already been translated before June 11th we
have this is like archaeological evidence to our history Jack that's a great way of putting it's powerful by mid June they're translating second Nephi chapter 11 where they start talking about the need for three Witnesses but Jack the three Witnesses were also mentioned back in ether that's right ether chapter 5 verses uh uh 3 and four uh there Moroni is writing some comments as he's producing the jedite record and he's talking about the records coming forth and he said there it will be shown to three there will be three Witnesses who will then be allowed
to U uh to see the plates why three Witnesses I think Moroni knows Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy says that for things to be done under witness all things must be established in the mouth of two or three Witnesses and I think Moroni says this will be so important it should be established in the mouth of three Witnesses two might have done but three is better the whole point of the witnesses is that they will stand as legal Witnesses authenticating the title page and the publication of the Book of Mormon so the difference between the three and
the eight uh the eight Witnesses are shown the plates by Joseph Smith and they touch and handle the plates and heft the plates but the three Witnesses they are shown this by the angel Moroni and as far as we know they don't touch the plates but they see the Angelic visitation and they o get to see the breastplate the yman Thum the interpreters or the instruments that were involved the sword of laan yeah and uh Martin Harris and David Whitmer and Oliver cowry the three witnesses to some of those Martin Harris the breastplate wouldn't have
been unusual he would have seen that in 1828 and also I believe Joseph shows his mother when he first comes back from the hill with the plates he puts the yman thumb in her hand and so there were others that got to see and handle these as well and this three witness theme is one that Nephi was well aware of at the beginning of second Nephi 11 he says there are three Witnesses Nephi myself and Isaiah and Isaiah and in second Nephi 27 there there it says that there will be three Witnesses and it will
not be shown to anyone else save it be a few and I assume that means the eight Witnesses that's where the eight come from now you have to look at First Peter chapter 3 when we learn that in the ancient world at least in the Christian world that the word few was connected with the number eight and so eight then uh when it says you can show them to a few others they use the number eight to interpret all sense it's an ancient text too we're using the still the same ancient vocabulary amazing Jack that's
just fabulous so by the time they're up in fyed and learning that they're going to be more witnesses they let Martin Harris know he has been asking to be a witness from almost day one you know he's the one who has been giving the money and taking the the characters to New York to talk to the professors at Columbia and now they send for Martin and both Joseph and Lucy his parents come down Martin comes down to fet so this poor little Log Cabin of 20 by 30 now is bursting at the seams with people
and the day arrives when the angel Moroni agrees to show the plates to these three who have enough faith and notice that these three Martin Harris David Whitmer Oliver cowry none of those three are related to each other they are independent Witnesses they are uh people who have sacrificed and have worked on it uh in the eight Witnesses it's true that uh uh all of them have done something to help to some extent but none had done as much as Martin and Oliver and David Whitmer had done a lot too at least in coming down
and participating and then providing uh the the access to the Whitmer home to make it all possible so they were compensated you might say but the Lord wanted to thank them and you know the more you serve the Lord you can never get ahead with the Lord he will always bless you with more than you deserve amen and I think these three Witnesses they saw the most amazing manifestation and they would have to endure a lot of persecution in the future too all three of them absolutely I'm very grateful to have Lucy there and Rec
recording her memories and she says the night before the three Witnesses saw them everyone gathered around the Hearth the evening was spent reading the manuscript so they got out Oliver's quill on the parchment and it said it was the next morning after breakfast in the Whitmer parlor that they had their morning service which I assume was just like they always did where they read the scriptures and they had family prayer I love this family tradition and by the time Jo Joseph and Oliver are at a point where they're ready to stop and go when they
feel prompted go outside David's already out in the field so they go out to the field to get him so we have now all four men heading out to a Grove to pray and requesting a Angelic visitation but it doesn't come and they're baffled and they keep pouring out their heart in prayer until Martin says I know I'm the problem I do not have enough faith and so Martin leaves and Angel morona almost immediately descends after another prayer and shows them the plates I appreciate um second Nephi 27 has already told us that the book
shall be hid from the eyes of the world that the eyes of None Shall Behold it save it be the three Witnesses but in section 17 they're told it is by your faith that you shall OB a view of them and that's exactly what happened now um with Martin having to leave his faith was not ready but he went away on his own and he repented in the history of the church it describes what Angel Moroni looked like it said when presently we beheld A Light Above Us in the air of exceeding brightness and behold
an angel stood before us and in his hands he held the plates and this is where it says he turned over the leaves one by one so that we could see them and discern the Engravings distinctly and this is Joseph Smith telling us this firsthand first person absolutely but Joseph leaves these two men and goes and finds Martin and prays with Martin and when Martin's heart is right the same vision appears to Martin and Martin recorded in an ecstasy of Joy TI enough TI enough mine eyes have beheld mine eyes have beheld and jumping up
he shouted hosana blessings God Lucy records what happened and it was between 3: and 4:00 in the afternoon now and Joseph explained to his waiting parents father mother you do not know how happy I am the Lord has caused the plates to be shown to three more besides me he said they have seen an angel who has testified of 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 soul that I am not any longer to be entirely alone in the world the burden of being a witness is something that I can't even imagine but I certainly appreciate his record so this was a very serious obligation and if you bear false witness Thou shalt not bear false witness right that's right in the Commandments and testifying falsely in court was a very serious offense they knew what they were getting into when they were shown these things and
were then told you must be Witnesses for Life Jack they all fell away why well did they really Fall Away none of them denied their testimony of the Book of Mormon right uh at the time they are shown this the church hasn't even been organized yet of course so it's not like they are even members of the church what they are are witnesses for the Book of Mormon and for the coming restoration but they never denied their witness they may have had periods of time where they were confused about who's in charge but they never
were confused about the validity of the Book of Mormon I I do want want to encourage people everywhere uh to do a little research on these 11 men uh we have the three and the eight Witnesses even though things became complicated and several people had difficulty figuring out what was going to happen next with the church when they left Kirtland Martin Harris wanted to go back to his farm in New York where he had responsibilities but he doesn't leave he doesn't abandon the book of Mormon and he doesn't apostatize from the church he will then
form another group and he will actually go and be a missionary in England preaching the Book of Mormon and he will finally at the end of his life come to Salt Lake City and he Bears testimony over and over again did he leave the church no he certainly not in not in a sense of actually walking away from anything he he just wasn't where the church was and wanted to continue his testimony as an independent witness in addition to the fact that all 11 of these Witnesses stand by their testimony of the Book of Mormon
throughout their lives I think is even strengthened by the fact that they are independent that they have gone off on their own path a little bit but they do not deny the Book of Mormon uh they for various personal reasons have chosen to be separate for a while but Oliver cry even during his short period of Separation remains faithful as a witness of the Book of Mormon and he will go uh to Winter quarters where he is re-baptized he will go back to Missouri Planning to pack up and come with Brigham Young to the West
he dies before he can do that David Whitmer stays in uh in Independence Missouri hoping to reestablish Zion there so they're all with the restoration absolutely and I just want to reiterate one more time the reason why we have these 11 Witnesses who are all male is because at that time in the United States a male was the only voice that was a legal witness there were others we have other accounts of people who are women who held and saw or or were told about or hefted or felt so I I really appreciate the fact
that we have their records now available not just on the Joseph Smith papers projects but also here on scripture Central and let me say about Emma uh she of course was uh a scribe at some point doing the uh 116 Pages part of those that get lost early once Oliver cowry is there Emma isn't needed as a scribe but before then she had witnessed the way in which the book was coming forth and before she died she was interviewed by her son Joseph Smith III and let me read what she said when he asked her
some questions about this process uh uh he asked her mom I don't know what he called her mother dear what is the truth of Mormonism and she answered I know Mormonism to be the truth and believe the church to have been a established by Divine Direction and so on now she had stayed in navoo for various reasons but she also remains absolutely a firm witness of the Book of Mormon and what she had seen happen in writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day often sitting at the table close by him he sitting
with his face buried in his hat with the stone in it and dictating hours and hours nothing be between us there's no curtain like there was with Martin when Emma had the quill there's nothing between them and then Joseph Smith I third asked had he not a book or manuscript which he read or dictated to you in other words had he been working on this and now he's just dictating it he had neither manuscript nor book to read from she was there and she would have known there was no book where this came from again
we don't know except the answer that Joseph Smith came gave it came by the gift and power of God through a translation process that allowed him to actually see in some way on the instruments text that he would then translate read and it was dictated and then it would vanish and the next line would appear it's a one-of a kind but that doesn't bother me how many one of a kinds are there in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what about the nepotism in the eight Witnesses in in looking at the eight Witnesses the nepotism
question obviously jumps off the page because we have wimers and we have Smiths and we have a son-in-law of the whiters hyram page so it's really just the Smiths and the whiters now the question is was nepotism involved in selecting those Witnesses now nepotism usually means that a father is stepping in to give his children a privilege over other people but did Joseph Smith Senior pick the eight Witnesses no no he didn't and uh and Peter Whitmer senior wasn't even there well and Jack we're so early it's 1829 we only have two or three families
who even know about this stuff let alone believe in it and all of the witnesses not just the three but the eight as well have had a lot of closeup experience seeing this going on in process they had spent uh at least the the Whitmer had spent a good month getting to know Joseph and Emma and living close with them and watching the process it's not like they were just randomly pulled off the street and said here why don't you touch the plates they had probably wanted to they'd heard they' talked about it they had
read together out loud the manuscript uh and so they're they're involved and they have bought into this as well uh they know what they're talking about and uh and are qualified as Witnesses I think it's also significant that they have all really sacrificed their reputation their Community standing they have made emotional physical and financial sacrifices that have then been blessed by the Lord yeah so I don't think the nepotism problem really is worth uh worrying about uh when you look at the facts uh and particularly like you say we needed to have witnesses and those
statements by the witnesses they are still published in the front matter of the Book of Mormon but in the first edition the statements by the three Witnesses and the eight Witnesses was the last page of the 1830 edition of The Book of Mormon so when you finish the book of ether and the Book of Moroni and you get to the last page and you turn there what do you see you see the attestation the testimony of the three and the eight Witnesses on that final page I like it there I think that reading it there
you you need to know that it's there when you start but most people who pick up a book They're going to flip to the end and see oh how does it end you know you want to know how the story is going to end before you read the whole book uh and and so having it there even if it's at the front of your Book of Mormon I think you need to go and read the witness's statement after you've read all the book because now you are asking is it true and morona is telling you
you have received these things you should ask God the Eternal Father if they are not true and you have then the witnesses statement to encourage you going forward and Moroni was the one who appeared to the three Witnesses and he's the one who wrote the title page and he's the one who completed the book so Moroni is as close to the three witnesses as as you would want this as a testament of Jesus Christ is as singular as the ministry of Jesus Christ as the resurrection of Jesus Christ as his death and atonement and why
not he is the one and only way and we have also been called to be Witnesses of this great book and we Jack and I have carefully read and studied the book and we testify that it is a testimony of Jesus Christ and that it is his great and marvelous work that has brought to pass this great book of scripture and I'm so grateful to have been able to spend this time with you Jack and we leave these things with you in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ amen amen [Music]
