Mormonism and Wikipedia/Golden plates/Significance

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A FairMormon Analysis of Wikipedia: Mormonism and Wikipedia/Golden plates
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An analysis of the Wikipedia article "Golden plates" (Version December 10, 2009)

The significance of the golden plates in the Latter Day Saint tradition

Main article: Mormonism and engraved metal plates
- Wikipedia Main Article: Golden plates– Wikipedia Footnotes: Golden plates–Notes A FAIR Opinion

The golden plates are significant within the Latter Day Saint movement because they are the reputed source for the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith, Jr. called the "most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion."[1]

  • However, the golden plates are just one of many known and reputed metal plates with significance in the Latter Day Saint movement. The Book of Mormon itself refers to a long tradition of writing historical records on plates, of which the golden plates are a culmination. See List of plates (Latter Day Saint movement).
  • In addition, Joseph Smith once believed in the authenticity of a set of engraved metal plates called the Kinderhook Plates,

[2]

  • although these plates turned out to be a hoax by non-Mormons who sought to entice Smith to translate them in order to discredit his reputation.

For many Latter Day Saints, however, particularly within the Community of Christ, the significance of these plates, including the golden plates, has waned as increasing numbers of adherents have doubted their historicity.

  • For many other Latter Day Saints, however, the physical existence and authenticity of these plates, and especially the golden plates, are essential elements of their faith. For them, the message of the Book of Mormon is inseparable from the story of its origins.
  1. ↑
    • Roberts (1908) , p. 461.
  2. ↑ Bushman (2005) , p. 490 The original source is William Clayton's Journal, May 1, 1843 (See also, Trials of Discipleship — The Story of William Clayton, a Mormon, 117): "I have seen 6 brass plates... covered with ancient characters of language containing from 30 to 40 on each side of the plates. Prest J. has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth." The information was deemed important enough to be republished in the first person (as if Smith had said it) in the History of The Church: "I insert facsimiles of the six brass plates found near Kinderhook...I have translated a portion of them, and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth." More than six pages in Volume Five of History of the Church discuss the Kinderhook plates.
  3. ↑ Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 489-90.
  4. ↑ McMurray, W. Grant, "They "Shall Blossom as the Rose": Native Americans and the Dream of Zion," an address delivered February 17, 2001, accessed on Community of Christ website, September 1, 2006 at http://web.archive.org/web/20070817021355/http://cofchrist.org/docs/NativeAmericanConference/keynote.asp (referring to "long-standing questions about [the Book of Mormon's] historicity" which has provoked "discussion in the 1970s and beyond" about the proper use of the book in the religion).
  5. ↑ Givens (2003) , p. 37.
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