Quote:
Originally Posted by All-American
You know what, let's go for broke and assume the worst. Just for fun, let's ignore any of the historical issues regarding the legitimacy of the quote and assume that Joseph Smith actually said that he had translated a portion of the plates, as Clayton put in his journal and in HC. Why, then, did we not get that translation? At least with the book of Abraham, he gave us a little rope with which we could hang him.
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So if JS claimed to have translated gibberish, but didn't. What does that mean?
He lied about that.
So if he lied about that do we necessarily conclude he lied about everything else. That is the logic anti's wish us to follow. It's not wholly without merit.
However, one would need to know more about the lie and although it would bear upon his credibility, it's not categorically damning.
For example, what if he's embarrassed that he can't read it, so he says something like, yeah I looked at it and I'll get back at it later. [He's never looked at it, but he doesn't wish to look bad].
There are so many permutations, but a reasonable conclusion is that JS at some point realized he couldn't read it, and hence issued no "translation".
If he simply wanted to perpetrate a fraud, he would have issued a "translation" no matter what.