Quote:
Originally Posted by Archaea
Because Kinderhook plates are cheesey, I dpn't put much stalk in them. I understand the argument but as soon as you invoke KH, you lose credibility. Have you ever really looked at them?
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The problem with the Kinderhook plates is that the church stood by them and Josephs claims that
"...I have translated a portion of them, and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He ws 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"
After this declaration Wilber Fugate, Robert Wiley and others came forward declaring that they had fabricated the plates to make them look old in an attempt to out Joseph as a tranlating fraud.
This did not stop the church from standing by Joseph's statements. Even into modern times articles appeared in the Improvement Era supporting Joseph's claims and poo pooing Fugate and Wiley as anti-mormon liars.
It wasn't until the 60's that the plates were re-discovered and were carbon dated that the hoax was proven. Still the LDS refused to believe the tests because they weren't performed by a Mormon scientist. This was finally done in 1981 and the church admited that it proved them to be the hoax that they were.
The church quickly moved to the unreliable third person account card because it was recorded in William Clayton's journal. In other words Joseph never said it, move along, nothing to see here. This sets up William Clayton as either a unreliable source of historical information or a flat out liar. However, the church still believes in other things only found recorded in William Clayton's journal as it was one of the major source materials for writing the History of the Church.
Joseph got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and its obvious to anyone not devoted to defending him.