Book of Mormon/Witnesses/All related

1. REDIRECTTemplate:Test3

Answers portal
Book of Mormon Witnesses
RESOURCES
Overview: Summary Three Witnesses: Character/stability Faithful? Real gold plates? Hypnosis? Strangite parallels? God told David Whitmer to leave? View of the plates: Literal? "Eye of faith"? "Spiritual eye"? Result in death? Eight Witnesses: Eight witnesses Supernatural power? Other Witnesses: Other witnesses
PERSPECTIVES
MEDIA
OTHER PORTALS
Joseph Smith, Jr. Book of Mormon

This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

==

Questions

==

Critics claim that because most of the witnesses are related to teach other, their witness is not to be trusted.

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

==

==

Relationships amongthe Three and Eight Witnesses

Three of the witnesses were related to Joseph Smith:

• Joseph Smith, Sr. [father]
• Hyrum Smith [brother]
• Samuel H. Smith [brother]

Five of the eleven witnesses were sons of Peter Whitmer, Sr., who had provided Joseph and Oliver a place to translate:

• David Whitmer
• Christian Whitmer
• Jacob Whitmer
• Peter Whitmer, Jr.
• John Whitmer

Two of the witnesses married into the Whitmer family:

• Oliver Cowdery would marry Elizabeth Ann Whitmer in 1832.^[1]
• Hiram Page married the oldest Whitmer daughter, Catherine, on 10 November 1825.^[2]

The final witness was Martin Harris, who had funded the Book of Mormon's publication, and acted as the first scribe prior to the loss of the 116 pages.

Thus, the critics were certainly correct when they pointed out that most of the witnesses were related to one another.

Sectarian double-standard

Sectarian critics are often guilty of a double standard on this score, since many of Jesus' apostles were likewise closely related:

 ^{[needs work]}

An invalid standard

 ^{[needs work]}

==

Answer

==

== Notes ==

1. [note]  Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Oliver Cowdery," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 3:338.
2. [note]  Susan Easton Black, Who’s Who in the Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997), 208.