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Wikipedia Main Article: Golden plates–
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Wikipedia Footnotes: Golden plates–Notes
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A FAIR Opinion
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- According to Joseph Smith and others, the book of Golden Plates contained a "sealed" portion
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- containing "a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof."
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- Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 27:7. The "sealing" of apocalyptic revelations in a book has precedents in the Bible. See, for example, Isaiah 29:11, Daniel 12:4, and Revelation 5:1–5. The Book of Mormon states that this vision was originally given to the Brother of Jared, recorded by Ether on a set of 24 plates later found by Limhi, and then "sealed up". Book of Mormon, Ether 1:2. According to this account, Moroni copied the plates of Limhi onto the sealed portion of the Golden Plates.
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- Smith never described the nature of the seal, and the language of the Book of Mormon may be interpreted to describe a sealing that was spiritual, metaphorical,
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- i.e. that the book was "sealed" in the sense that its contents were hidden or kept from public knowledge
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Violates Wikipedia: No Original Research off-site— Do not use unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position.
All eyewitnesses describe the sealed portion as physical. The wiki editor is conflating different meanings of the word "sealed" as used in the scriptures.
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- physical, or a combination of these elements.
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- The Book of Mormon refers to other documents and plates as being "sealed" by being buried in order to be revealed at some future time. For example, the Book of Mormon says the entire set of plates was "sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord"
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- Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 14:26
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- One set of plates to which the Book of Mormon refers was "sealed up" in the sense that they were written in a language that could not be read.
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- Book of Mormon, Ether 3:22.
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- Smith may have understood the sealing to be a supernatural or spiritual sealing "by the power of God" (2 Nephi 27:10),
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- Quinn (1998) , pp. 195–196.
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- Quinn's interpretation is given precedence in the wiki article over statements of multiple eyewitnesses who simply stated that a portion of the plates were physically sealed.
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- an idea supported by a reference in the Book of Mormon to the "interpreters" (Urim and Thummim) with which Smith said they were buried or "sealed."
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- Book of Mormon, Ether 4:5. According to Martin Harris, anyone who looked into the "interpreters", "except by the command of God", would "perish" Harris (1859) , p. 166.
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- Oliver Cowdery also stated that when Smith visited the hill, he was stricken by a supernatural force because the plates were "sealed by the prayer of faith."
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- Cowdery (1835b) , p. 198.
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- Several witnesses described a physical sealing placed on part of the plates by Mormon or Moroni. David Whitmer said that when an angel showed him the plates in 1829, "a large portion of the leaves were so securely bound together that it was impossible to separate them,"
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- David Whitmer interview, Chicago Tribune, 24 January 1888, in David Whitmer Interviews, ed. Cook, 221. Near the end of his life, Whitmer said that one section of the book was "loose, in plates, the other solid". Storey (1881) .
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- that the "sealed" part of the plates were held together as a solid mass "stationary and immovable,"
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- "as solid to my view as wood,"
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- and that there were "perceptible marks where the plates appeared to be sealed"<ref name="Harvtxt|Storey|1881">Storey (1881)
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- with leaves "so securely bound that it was impossible to separate them."
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- Orson Pratt, who said he had spoken with many witnesses of the plates,Pratt (1859) , p. 30,
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- assumed that Joseph Smith could "break the seal" if only he had been "permitted" Pratt (1877) , pp. 211–12.
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- In 1842, Lucy Mack Smith said that some of the plates were "sealed together" while others were "loose."
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- The account of the Eight Witnesses says they saw the plates in 1829 and handled "as many of the leaves as [Joseph] Smith has translated," implying that they did not examine untranslated parts, such as the sealed portion.
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- In one interview, David Whitmer said that "about half" the book was unsealed;
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- Cole (1831) ; Poulson (1878) .
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- in 1881, he said "about one-third" was unsealed.
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- Whitmer's 1881 statement is consistent with an 1856 statement by Orson Pratt, an associate of Smith's who never saw the plates himself but who had spoken with witnesses,
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- that "about two-thirds" of the plates were "sealed up".
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