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Mormonism and Wikipedia/Golden plates/Introduction
File:Joseph Smith receiving golden plates.jpg
An 1893 engraving depicting Joseph Smith's description of receiving artifacts from the angel Moroni. The artifacts include the golden plates and a set of spectacles made of seer stones, which Smith called the Urim and Thummim. The sword of Laban and an ancient breastplate are shown nearby.
According to the theology of Latter Day Saint movement churches, the golden plates (also called the gold plates or in some 19th century literature, the golden Bible)[1] are a book of bound and engraved metal plates that Joseph Smith, Jr. said was his source for the Book of Mormon. Some followers and relatives of Smith testified that they saw the plates, and Smith said he returned them to an angel after translating them. Therefore, if they existed, they are not available for researchers to examine. Although most outside of the Latter Day Saint movement dismiss Joseph Smith's story of the golden plates as "beyond belief,"[2] to Latter Day Saints their existence is a matter of faith.
Joseph Smith said he was guided to the plates on September 22, 1823 on Cumorah Hill, Manchester, New York, in a buried box. Smith said they had been protected there for centuries by the angel Moroni, once a mortal prophet and the book's final author, and the one who guided him to the plates. According to Smith, the angel told him he could not take possession of the plates until he obeyed certain commandments, which included making four annual visits to the spot.
Smith's 1827 announcement that he had uncovered an ancient golden book brought him local notoriety. The curious came to see the wooden chest where they were told the plates were stored; but Smith said that the angel had commanded him not to show the plates to anyone else until a later date. After moving near his wife's parents in northern Pennsylvania, Smith dictated to scribes what he said was an English translation of the inscribed characters on the plates, a language he described as reformed Egyptian. This reputed translating took place sporadically between 1827 and 1829 and consisted, according to most accounts, of Smith's looking into a hat containing a "seer stone" in which he said he could see the translated words and characters.[3]
During this period, Smith also began dictating written commandments in the voice of God, including a commandment to form a new church and to choose eleven men who would join Smith as witnesses. These men declared, in two statements attached to the 1830 published Book of Mormon, that they had seen the plates.[4] Some of these witnesses gave descriptions of the plates, not entirely consistent with one another. According to Smith, he then returned the plates to the angel Moroni. Many adherents of the faith believe that Moroni retains them or that they are hidden in the hill Cumorah.
The golden plates are the most significant of a number of metallic plates important in Latter Day Saint history and theology, many of which are mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Although the Book of Mormon is generally accepted by adherents as a sacred text, not all Latter Day Saints view the plates as an ancient, physical artifact engraved by ancient prophets.- ↑ Use of the terms golden bible and gold Bible by both believers and non-believers dates from the late 1820s. See, for instance, Harris (1859) , p. 167 (use of the term gold Bible by Martin Harris in 1827); Smith (1853) , pp. 102, 109, 113, 145 (use of the term gold Bible in 1827–29 by believing Palmyra neighbors); Grandin (1829) (stating that by 1829 the plates were "generally known and spoken of as the 'Golden Bible'"). Use of these terms has been rare, especially by believers, since the 1830s.
- ↑ Bushman (2005) , p. 58.
- ↑ Although Smith's use of a single stone is well documented Wagoner (1982) , pp. 59–62, one of his own accounts states that with the plates he found a set of stone spectacles called the Urim and Thummim, which he used to make the translation Smith (Mulholland) , p. 5. He said the angel also commanded him not to show the Urim and Thummim to others (id.). Other than Smith himself, his mother was the sole known witness of the Urim and Thummim, which she said she had observed them when covered by a thin cloth Smith (1853) , p. 101.
- ↑ Two separate statements were later incorporated into printed editions of the Book of Mormon.