Great analysis. Arguments that the plates were too small or too heavy are not the best arguments against the Book of Mormon because of all the assumption you have to make. It confuses me why critics use this argument as if it’s a winning and convincing argument.
Did he analyze the Gold Plates? No! Did he analyze Reformed Egyptian? No, no one knows what reformed Egyptian is. Speculates on substraight (metalergy), # of pages, size of plates, size of the characters. There is no science involved. All he did was give a different opinion about what could have or have not fit on fictious Gold Plates.
The gold plates are the least of your problems. The content is more problematic. For example, how does the word Christ, not coined from the Greek until the first century, end up in the BOM?
@@DKMELT At least the BOM got it correct that God is the Great Spirit! Oh, wait, Joseph Smith contradicted the BOM and the Lectures on Faith when he later claimed/taught that God has a physical body.
You don’t really understand it if that’s what you think. The great spirit would have been Jehovah who is considered Christ in the LDS faith, who was described as “the great spirit” by Ammon before Christ came and received his physical body. Your understanding of the doctrine is tenuous at best is this is your actual argument
Two things. 1. The entire history of the Jaredites was contained on 24 gold plates (Mosiah 8: 8 - 9) 2. Synthetic Languages. Brother Hugh Nibley, in his lecture on critical opinions of the Pearl of Great Price, talks about synthetic languages, in which single symbols can represent entire sentences or complex ideas that are unable to be translated into a single English word. He did so in response to the claim that “one of these symbols couldn’t possibly mean as much as Joseph Smith says it does”. He takes Arabic as an example, “there is hardly a root in the entire dictionary that does not require a whole english sentence to explain it… Take the first root, - ab - it means, to make a special effort to prepare one’s self to do a particular thing … it doesn’t mean ‘to prepare yourself’, it doesn’t mean ‘to do’, it has to be all that in the single syllable ’ab’… that’s the basic idea…”. If the Book of Mormon was written in a synthetic language, as I assume the Jaredites did, then it should not have been a problem to write an abridged record of the Nephites on 40 plates, though it is likely that there were many more.
Good point. I've often wondered if "And it came to pass" was a single, small symbol in reformed Egyptian. That would explain its frequent use. The Book of Mormon tells us Reformed Egyptian is a constructed language. Is it so crazy it was constructed for the express purpose of fitting larger quantities of information in a more confined space?
I have a memory from the 1960s, when computer memory was at a premium, of a couple of programming languages that used special symbols as substitutes for function names.
@@IJN-33 Just taking examples from modern english - etc and Ibid. To translate them you would need a pretty full sentence (something like quoted from the same place as last time for the latter, and carrying on in the same way for the former). But a very compact set of letters are used. So a single symbol being used for phrases that are repeatedly used such as "it came to pass" or "in the thirteenth year of" would be expected. Heck in translation "2024 AD" would be "in the two thousand and twenty fourth year of the Lord". So take a typical BOM sentence like "and it came to pass, in the sixtieth year of the reign of the judges". 13 words in English. But if there were a single symbol each for the chunks "it came to pass", "reign of the judges" and "60th year" we would get down to 3 symbols. And phrases like each of those occur so often I would expect a shorthand term to be used in a written source. But in translation you would need to include the full word to get the meaning across. 13 words becomes 3 symbols.
I'm thankful we have guys who can geek out on alloys and page thicknesses. I wonder if Trent will go out and get a degree in ancient metallurgy to make his response. Good luck, Trent!
Mormon ch 9, V32-33 - Moroni says they used Reformed Egyptian because they did not have enough room on the plates to write in Hebrew. So the Egyptian characters had a significantly greater word density than Hebrew. And Hebrew has a greater word density than English. There are also the assumptions that are made about the size of the characters, since we don't have any physical evidence of how the plates and the engravings actually looked.
@@letusreasontogether1168 there's a little bit in terms of size estimates and Joseph mentioned the characters were small and beautifully engraved, but yeah we don't know a lot.
Can’t wait to see Trent’s response 😂 Why he cannot see through his assumptions is concerning. Several Native American languages (Cherokee, in particular) have orthography using sentences and syntax rather than letters. Short hand Hebrew could very well be what reformed Egyptian is, considering that Mormon said “had the plates been sufficiently large” they could have written in Hebrew. Mormon 9:33. But Trent won’t know that because he won’t even read the Book of Mormon seriously.
When I was younger, like in my early teens, I new the gold plates were not pure gold. Gold is to malleable, soft, and heavy. I figured it had to be some sort of alloy when I was probably around 13 or 14.
It’s my understanding, and I’m no scholar, that 1 reformed Egyptian character could represent multiple English words. Which would also account for the relative size of the plates if true.
I agree 100%! I made a separate post on this concept before I saw your comment. A quick Google search shows that both demotic and hieratic Egyptian are more concise languages than English. But anan analysis of that conciseness ratio would be important to see to make a good analysis of page count.
The text of the Book of Mormon doesn't even _need_ to fit on the plates. To start with, the translation of the characters on the plates did not occur using intellectual activity. Joseph Smith did not possess the knowledge to translate _anything,_ let alone something in a Hebraic language written using a Egyptic writing system, which is what the Book of Mormon claims for itself. The generation of the text of the Book of Mormon was not a translation, as such. The text was given using divine revelation, and did not need to correspond word-for-word what was engraved on the plates. Is it a word-for-word translation? I believe so, but so what?
Sorry Trent Horn, your reaching allegations towards The Church of Jesus Christ keep losing credibility. The pile of misses keep growing. Please save your nice reputation and stick with what this guy says you're good at.
Were all the plates of similar composition? Or would they have compositional differences because of the passing of time and various locations the records were made in?
The final version was an edit compiled of all the various records by the hand of Mormon, probably on the same material, ...unless his son Moroni used a different material to add and finish them after Mormon's death?
All the plates from 1 Nephi to Omni would have been made by Nephi. All the plates from Words of Mormon to the end of the book would have been made by Mormon. I imagine Nephi would have made Lehi’s plates for the lost 116 pages of the Book of Lehi. Nephi seems to appreciate metallurgy as he describes the sword of Laban. That’s probably why Nephi was able to make a boat that floated on top of water as opposed to the brother of Jared who had a weird dish-submarine boat.
The Jaredites only had 24 plates to cover thousands of years, which is one reason Moroni doubted his own writing ability. Even 40 plates is more than enough when you write like Nas
When the Book of Mormon text mentions 24 Jaredite plates, are we assuming 24 individual sheets of metal (of unspecified size), or 24 separate books (also of unspecified size) made of metal plates? The Book of Ether that we have (31 printed pages in English) is only Moroni's abridgement of those plates, and he mentions that he wrote less than a hundredth part of the Jaredite history. I think 24 separate sets of plates is a much safer assumption than 24 individual plates.
At 9:55, Rappleye states demotic might have been the script Nephi used. Rappleye own articles speak of Nephi using a scribal tradition using hieratic ("Nephi the Good", 2014; "Learning Nephi's Language", 2015). Why does he use an example in demotic?
One thing that could also need to be considered is the small plates may not have been bound with the abridgment so we would need to you 116 pages plus Josiah to morroni. The record only says that the small plates were put with the abridgement but not necessarily re bound with it. Either way Trent needs to be a better learner and not keep using these arguments.
Good video. However, I would like to also see a discussion of how many English words it takes to say something that was written in various different Egyptian scripts. I think that analysis needs to be done to be thorough. I am fluent in both the French and English languages. In general, it takes more words to express a concept in French than it does in English. Certainly there is some sort of ratio between English and the various Egyptian scripts. A very brief Google search indicates that both demotic and hieratic are more concise than English. Specific analysis of that would be really good to see, and is an important part of calculating page count
For character density, Rappleye first cites the "most dense" example he has found, which he admittedly calls an "outliner"; An "outliner" in Aramaic (dated to?) is of little use. The second example is in demotic (dated to?). Again, it's of little use when Rappleye think hieratic was used and we know demotic was the most compact form of Egyptian writing. Why no examples of Mesoamerican writing on metal plates dating before 400 AD or hieratic writing on metal plates dating before 600 BC?
Joseph stated the angel said GOLD plates ("plates of gold" in Smith's 1832 history [see JS Papers or EMD 1:29]; "plates of gold" in JS diary, 9 Nov 1835 [see JS Papers or EMD 1:44]). The plates are unlikely tumbaga because (1) there was no metallurgy in Mesoamerica before about 800 AD and (2) tumbaga was used for religious items and jewelry.
Also, I believe we’re probably two sets of plates. The small translated in Harmony, Pennsylvania, and the other plates translated in New York. Joseph, David, and Oliver did not have the plates with them when Joseph moved to Harmony. Play when he arrived harmony. The same plates that Mary Whitmer saw.
OK let's be a little more realistic here. In order to have a set of plates that is durable and can reliably support double-sided engravings, the thinnest you could reasonably get a way with is something like .01 inch thick plates. If we are going to assume a material like tumbaga then the total number of plates couldn't be much more than about 300, which would weigh around 60 lbs. This gives us somewhere around 100 plates on which to contain over 330,000 words of content. That would require the equivalent of 6-pt font (2.12mm) single spaced and engraved by hand with ancient tools on the front and back of every single plate - over 1600 words per side. No way. This is so incredibly implausible. There is nothing even remotely close to this anywhere in the historical record. When you combine this with the utter lack of archeological evidence for the major BoM claims, its obvious reliance on 19th century mound builder mythology and contemporary protestant theology, it just becomes clear very quickly that the BoM is not historical, but instead is an impressive 19th century creation.
Where's your degree in geology again? Did you read Grover's study? Grover's got the expertise. You don't. He and Neal provided precedent from other artifacts as well to show that it is physically possible to fit all the words onto the plates. You're also thinking in terms of English words and not the semitic languages that Neal and Grover reference which were more compact.
@ It doesn’t take a geology degree to recognize the fact that there is nothing even remotely close to anything resembling the BoM in the historical record - a narrative history recorded on a codex of hundreds of metal plates that contained well over 2000 words per plate. Neal and Jerry may have shown how such a record could in theory be possible, but a lot of things are conceptually possible yet just aren’t realistically plausible. Again, the fact that there is nothing even remotely close to the BoM anywhere in the historical record is pretty decent evidence for the latter.
@@clinthilton1348 people used to say that writing on metal in the ancient world at all wasn't thing. They were wrong. I don't really care about "absence of evidence" arguments because we know pathetically little about the ancient world and even less about ancient america and the list of anachronisms is getting smaller by the decade. I'm not going to be stopped by the fact that writing on plates in the fashion Joseph had hasn't been found yet. By the way. Where did Joseph get the idea of writing on metal plates with D-rings? D-rings weren't invented until a few decades after he was alive. So while you correctly point out there's no evidence for those plates in the ancient world, there's no evidence for them in Joseph's world either. So where did he get the idea?
@@jacobmayberry1126 That's fine, I'm not here to stop you from believing in things that aren't supported by the empirical evidence. I'm just challenging what I feel are relatively weak arguments presented publicly. It is important to note that absence of evidence actually is evidence of absence, and it is a form of evidence that gets stronger over time when the absence of evidence persists despite increased efforts of discovery. We have literally been doing archeological work in the Americas for well over 100 years and have discovered many fascinating ancient civilizations and people groups all throughout the Americas. Yet conveniently we still have zero identifiable evidence for the two major advanced civilizations highlighted in the BoM (Jaredites and Lehites). Apologists can't even agree on where those major civilizations flourished or who the promised Lamanites actually are. And scientific consensus agrees that the evidence opposes the idea that such civilizations ever existed. That's a major problem for anyone claiming a historical BoM. Where did Joseph get D-rings? I imagine common sense combined with reasonable problem solving skills. When you attempt to bind a stack of metal plates with rings you quickly realize that the plates don't line up nicely unless you flatten one side of the ring. It's not rocket science, and if you believe that Mormon could have figured this out 1600 years ago, why couldn't Joseph?
I have NO respect for Trent Horn. My first exposure to him was him accusing Brother Joseph of being an outlaw who died in a shootout with the law during a jailbreak. If there is one thing Trent does not have, it’s my respect
Trent may have gotten the 40 plates idea from the Brazil gold plates folks, who have a picture diagram online showing the Book of Mormon took 42 plates. If that's his source, its shoddy surface level googling on Trent's part.
I assume that a conservative Oh.D. student might want to prove the gold plates are real. But I would think that students at conservative Liberty would want to disprove the plates as they believe that Mormonism is a false religion.
Arguing about the amount of informatoin on a gold plate is idiotic. Mormon Apologists had to come up with an excuse as to why there were so few characters on the funerary text that was used for the Pearl of Great price. Mormon apologists excuse was that one character actually states whole paragraphs... more Mormon idiocy!
The 'gold' plates, if they ever actually existed given the size, would have weighed about 200 lbs. and someone finally asked; how it was possible when Smith finally retrieved the plates, to run 3 miles, through the woods, at night, while simultaneously fighting off 3 attackers who were trying to steal the valuable 'gold' plates, while carrying 200 lbs.? Then the plates were changed from 'gold' to 'gold in color' weighing about 47 lbs., possibly copper or tin, which was a common material available in Smith’s day used for plates, cups, stove pipes, etc. Yet, it’s hard to believe men of Hebrew descent like Mormon and Moroni couldn’t tell the difference between real gold and tin.
@@GwPoKo Apparently 'fools gold' also known a pyrite is far less dense than actual gold and would have weighed less. Pyrite remains in commercial use for the production of sulfur dioxide, for use in such applications as the paper industry, and in the manufacture of sulfuric acid.
You didn’t listen. William Smith, one of Joseph’s brothers, said they were made of copper and gold. Right from the start they were said to be an alloy.
It is amazing that they know exactly what the "gold plates" were made of and easily gloss over the known Kinderhook Plates that Joseph Smith was fooled with!
Read Jerry Grover's translation of the Caractors doc and do napkin math. We're kept from coming to a greater knowledge because of our sins. Trent, me, all of us, except those who aren't...
Ughhh here we go again. Are you referring to John Witmer? Because later in life he definitely clarified that he actually indeed did physically touch the plates even saying "I handled those plates; there were fine engravings on both sides. I handled them."
What would that matter. If they just put a couple of stones in display and said those were the interpreters, would you have a way to test them and tell them they are wrong?
Why doesn't the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church put the Ark of the Covenant on display that they claim is in Aksum at the Church of St. Mary of Zion?
It would be awesome. But some things the Lord commands not to be shown publicly, because it would increase culpability prior to the appropriate level of spiritual readiness & worthiness. And He is merciful. "John 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
You don't have the gold plates. Any discussion about them is worthless. The whole Book of Mormon is nothing but short KJ passages strung together and repeated over and over. Joseph was lazy pulling off his con. Any True truth seeker would recognize him as the con he was.
Gold plates thinner than the aluminum foil in your house? Copper thinner than the aluminum foil in your house. Didn't it rattle by one witness account. That is advanced milling operations. And how could that not have been mentioned. Plates as soft as human hair? And with metal thinner than foil he ran and fought and never damaged a plate. Maybe a replica should be made.
You make some good points. We don't know any specifics because we don't have physical or photographic evidence. We have verbal and written descriptions and many people have done as you have done and made assumptions to make it sound either plausible or unrealistic. Space was definitely a concern on the plates. Enough that it was even mentioned within the record that there are errors because of the language. However, reformed Egyptian was used instead of Hebrew because it was more condensed. They also reformed it for their own purpose and since one of their main purposes was to fit more words onto metal plates, it is hard to know what to compare it to. If you did have physical and photographic evidence would that change your mind about whether the record was written by prophets or translated by the power of God? I believe the Book of Mormon is true because of the words contained within the book and the witness I receive from God as I read it. Any additional witnesses are nice, but not convincing. Also, the fact that the book is true isn't that important. The important part is that the book can help you, me, and everyone draw closer to Christ and it can improve our lives. I challenge anyone to put it to the test. Read it daily for 30 days while trying to follow its teachings and analyze whether your life has improved. A book can be true, but not helpful. The Book of Mormon is true AND helpful.
I agree. This 0.005 inch thickness idea is ridiculous. If we are going to make counterarguments, you don’t have to take it to a crazy extreme. If Trent is willing to concede 80 plates, that’s a reasonable 0.025 inch thickness. That’s 160 pages.
The argument should be about engraving vs stamping. Trent’s argument implied that he thinks the markings on the plates were stamped rather than engraved. Engraving on both sides of a plate as thin as tin foil is a little unreasonable. It would rip. You at least need a reasonable page thickness to tolerate engraving. Engraving allows for much finer characters than stamping which is necessary to account for word/character density which would have been required for the gold plates.
@@johndavidanderson4382 I agree. She described the pages were like thick paper and made a rustling metallic sound when they were turned. If there were only 40 plates, then the thickness would have been 0.05 inches. That’s a little thicker than a credit card which I think is too thick for what Emma is describing. You wouldn’t get that rustling metallic sound with something that thick.
A couple things to note. 1. Grover (and no one) can prove the metallurgy of the plates because there is no test sample. 2. It’s mentioned that the smiths were not metallurgists but then later states that one of the smiths claimed the plates to be a mixture of gold and copper.
That's right we don't know the metallurgy of the plates, it's just speculation. That's why he went from 40-400 as possible numbers obviously a wide range but both could have worked. The Smiths weren't metallurgists, but that doesn't mean they couldn't say the plates looked like gold and it doesn't mean William Smith couldn't have guessed it was a mixture of gold and copper. The point of this video is that Trent Horns claims against The Book of Mormon are totally wrong.
Look up tumbaga. They use an acid to remove all of the copper from the surface so you only see gold. The Spanish thought it was mostly gold and were really disappointed when they shipped tons of it back to Spain and melted it down.
The size of writing to plates is an easy one to explain. It depends on what meaning is given to every symbol. Chief migegah recently shared that one of their symbols took 27 hours to tell its story.
I think you could do a better counterargument to Trent. This idea of tumbaga with a thickness of 0.005 inches is a little crazy and impractical. Printer paper is about 0.004 inches thick. Thicker cardstock paper is about 0.02 inches thick. For him to say the “upper thickness” for tumbaga is 0.01 inches is strange. The upper thickness is whatever you want it to be. The math here is also overly generous. If there were 600 pages with 0.005 inches of thickness, then the entire Book of Mormon would have been three inches thick. If the entire thing was six inches thick, and the unsealed portion was a third of the thickness, then 600 pages is probably too generous. Although I think one person said the unsealed portion was half of the thickness. Most people said it was about a third.
@ Yeah that makes sense. I think he could have gone with a much more generous upper thickness though, but I assume he is recognizing character spacing as the limiting factor on the upper range. I think the Book of Mormon could have fit on 100 plates.
@@natedawg2020if you think the BofM could have fit on 100 plates (including the 116 pages), and we assume that the sealed portion made up two thirds of the stack, then you're agreeing with Grover's lower estimate of 300 plates total.
@@jacobmayberry1126 If he is including the sealed portion in those numbers, then I don’t see how that is consistent with the witnesses testimonies. I don’t think he is referring to the sealed portion because he said there could be 600 plates at 0.005 inches. 600 x 0.005 = 3 That would mean the entire book, including the sealed portion was only three inches thick. That would leave only one inch of thickness for the unsealed portion. This would not be consistent with any of the witness testimonies who said the entire book including the sealed portion was about six inches thick. They said the unsealed portion was roughly one third to one half of the total thickness. Most witnesses said one third.
@@jacobmayberry1126 If Grover thinks each plate could have been 0.005 inches thick, then in order to get a book that is six inches thick, you’d need 1200 plates.
This is great and all...but why do you all think that they're only sharing examples of single sheets or singular artifacts? Like, in the Book of Mormon, people in multiple places were writing on multi-sheet artifacts all the time (Brass Plates, Jaredites, etc....). So, why are there no other examples of multi-sheet volumes/records available? Sure, we can talk about whether or not it's possible to fit the entire Book of Mormon (plus the lost pages) onto plates that a single dude could run with (according to Joseph Smith he was chased while having the plates). I'm just saying that it seems highly unlikely and there is no known historical precedent for it. If there were, don't you think these dudes would be using those examples???
Exactly, imagine losing the entire technology of milling metal into thin sheets and inventing the codex hundreds of years before any other civilization came up with it. It’s completely ridiculous
@@dr33776 I see your point, but if you're writing an extensive record on plates codex seems to me to be the most practical option and not terribly difficult to identify as a solution.
There are other examples of metal plate writings, but those were few and far between, reserved for the most important things and not all of the plate writings were made to last as long. Other metals end up rusting or oxidizing before other people find them. Technologies change all the time and old ones are lost. Like Greek fire, or Roman concrete.
Translation is not direct word for word... case in point, crocodile dundee.. meets the aborigines.. eating a wombat. Who says.. Ja Balla Balla.. which means, needs garlic.. so it's clear, translation is not word for word. Duh
This is an example of how one should stay in their lane. Trent is a catholic so he should stay in the Catholic lane. Let the Latter day saints or Mormons explain their lane. Lots of problems can be avoided this way.
The only real tangible aspect of the translation of the claims about the translatioin is the ROCK at church headquarters. Everything else is speculation.
@@bradensorensen966 While I actually disagree with the original post to a degree, missionaries aren't representing themselves as experts on other religions.
How can you make such a statement? The facts are plain as day. Please refute them if you can. 1. The plates are not available. If they were real we would have them. Full stop. 2. The witnesses have varied and inconsistent testimonials. (Some saw the plates some did not. None read the plates.) 3. There is no historical precedent for such plates. 4. The so called prose contained in the plates has been proven to be a false narrative. 5. There are still significant questions around the viability of such plates in an ancient culture. These are not “pathetic” arguments. They are valid and in many ways fatal to the LDS narrative. Please be honest with the data. You are making a huge claim, why should I accept such a claim when provided with such flawed evidence?
Has anyone produced even a single gold/tumbaga page of text in any language that is anywhere near the density this video is claiming? I see a lot of claims about what would be super easy for pre-Columbian Americans to produce accompanied by a lot of handwaving but never with any physical examples. I wonder why....
Scientists are STILL finding massive cities buried under trees in the middle of the jungle in Mexico and central America. Is it surprising that there may still be tomes of physical artifacts either lost to time or yet to be discovered?
@@dbwoolston Yeah, they're finding new cities that belong to already known civilizations. But you know what they aren't finding? Entire new civilizations with metal working sites and universities teaching some magic written language that fits long stories onto thin sheets of metal.
We do have a chocolate colored,egg shaped ROCK in SLC that was used in the "translation". Coupled with the non existance of "tumbaga" and "Reformed Egyptian" that should tell you all you need to know.
You forgot, part of the gold plates were sealed. Joseph never translated those. The tumbaga theory had been debunked, heavily. 600 plates would be absurdly heavy. Tumbaga is extremely brittle. It is just not feasible. It could not be preserved without corrosion. You are working on a phd, seriously???
300 to 600 pages?!! What world do you live in where the plates were made that thin?!! Also, you account for the 116 pages but not the two-thirds of the plates that were sealed!!! So take your nonsensical number of words per inch and multiply them by at least THREE!!! This defense is remarkably bad.
@@bradensorensen966 Huh? Jerry Grover actually made the plates he was talking about, he wasn't guessing. If all you have is mockery of actual experiments, then this is conversation is outside your knowledge.
That’s not true, but it was probably worth several English characters. For example a word like “English” would only be one or two characters instead of 7. English also has a lot of words required to make it make sense that aren’t required with in other scripts they were using. The spanish Book of Mormon is even longer than English and they use the same characters. “And it came to pass” for example was likely only one character while in English it’s 4 words and 15 characters. In Spanish it’s shorter “y sucedió” only 2 words and 8 characters. Both have the same meaning but are different lengths when written out. Mormon and Moroni also mention multiple times that they were trying to save space on the plates so they were probably leaving out little bits so they could get their point across. For all we know they could have been using their own version of “shorthand”.
@@ThoseOneGuysIncThis seems likely to me. It's a constructed language and was probably made for the purpose of being short as I think Mormon 9:33-34 seems to indicate.
@@ThoseOneGuysInc In Hebrew "And it came to pass" is two words and only 4 characters. there also isn't a space between the words. so it only takes up for character spaces instead of the 19 needed in English It could get even smaller if they decided to use a single character similar to how we use &.
The ever-changing Mormon story. No longer gold plates. Where are the plates now? Why were plates even needed if Joseph Smith just threw a rock in a hat?🤔 It's not even a translation anymore.
You bring up the word “science” to argue for the gold plates? Talk about ignorance. Quick question: where are the gold plates now? What? Taken back to heaven by an angel you say? Case closed
@ science has no bearing on any of this. If you believe it, that’s fine. Faith is fine. Don’t try to varnish it with talk about “science”. Science is about things that are observable and testable. The gold plates, alas, are not
@@grantbeck9228 Just because you can't see or test it doesn't mean others haven't. That is why there are witnesses and records. At least a dozen people have seen and/or held them. What about Greek fire? People saw it and recorded it but now one knows how to make it and it doesn't exist any more. Does that mean it never existed? Also the whole point is to have faith, not a perfect knowledge. That is literally what history is all about, taking other peoples word on what happened before we were alive.
“Trent is a sharp guy and he knows his stuff, however his content criticizing the Book of Mormon is not nearly the same caliber…” Dude, you only praise his knowledge when you agree with it. I’d say the arguments against abortion are bad and the criticism of the Book of Mormon is extremely valid. But I know I’m biased. You’re wrong to say “when agree with me = smart and right”
@@MusicBlik"fallacious" there can be no fallacy because I made no argument. I simply expressed agreement in one area and disagreement in another area as an extension of goodwill.
"You only praise his knowledge when you agree with it" Correct. That's because his arguments are good when it comes to abortion and they aren't good when it comes to attacking Mormonism. This isn't that hard to follow.
It seems to me that to end all of this back and forth, why doesn't the LDS church share with the world the Smithsonian Institutes papers regarding the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. The Smithsonian Insititute is a reputable organization. This would end any questions in any one's mind if this book were authentic, which it is not. Not one historian or archeologist has validated the Book of Mormon, not one artifact has been found.
@@hollayevladimiroff131 This relies on two fallacies though. Appeal to authority and absence of evidence fallacy. Those don't support it, but they're a long way from disproving it.
He took from the Bible and books of the time to write the book. Reformed Egyptian is not a real language. Some of the witnesses even admitted to only seeing the plates with there Spiritual eyes. Also the witnesses were all family members or close friends who had an interest for the book to be successful financially and to make Joseph a Prophet. Even the errors in the text of the Bible are replicated in Joseph's ""translation "". He didn't report his first vision until nearly ten years later.He was arrested many times and was thought to be quite a nuisance to society. It's often referred to as the perfect book but has been revised several times and doctrine changing over the years has only been done to fit into more of a socially accepted practice like paligmy and race relations. When I hear why would he make this stuff up. Well fame, fortune,all the women he wanted,all the sex he wanted and to be labeled a Prophet I think would make a man say or do just about anything.
Also don't forget about the embarrassing translating from a hat up to his face using seer stones. This part of the story is not near as publicized as the Grand gold plates story. Even the current Prophet couldn't put his face in the hat when asked to demonstrate it because he knows it's ridiculous nonsense.
Regurgitating lies, slander, and half-truths doesn’t help disprove the BOM. Come on, you can do better. Doesn’t your integrity matter to you? Do you think the Lord will give you a pass on lying and slandering? Sometimes, I think one of the primary reasons people refuse to honestly listen, ponder, and pray about the restored church’s truth claims & evidence (e.g. BOM, etc) is because they are too cowardly to truly believe in and follow Jesus Christ and his authorized servants-the prophets. It’s way easier and less risky socially to take the path most traveled and only believe in dead prophets, a closed canon, and a triune idol that not longer speaks. On the other hand, it takes real faith and true grit to follow the way, the truth, and the light.
@@BethMcgaughy that’s a debunked lie. You are doing a great job following the bigoted anti-Mormon playbook. I can’t wait to see which recycled lie from the past 200 years you’re going to use next!
How about the disastrous translation of the Book of Abraham? They even had to acknowledge the fact it was incorrect just as the ancestry thing about Native Americans being from people of Middle Eastern descent. How about all of the prophecies he had that never came to pass such as the Great Temple in Missouri that was going to be the center of the new Zion. The lot is still empty today. All of the references of objects and animals in the Book of Mormon that are historically very inaccurate. I could go on and on.
Mormons really need to come up with a more compelling story if they want people to take them seriously. Even their scholarly attempts to demonstrate the plausibility of Joseph's story is laughably unconvincing.
@jacobmayberry1126 yup, that's what the rest of the world thinks. Is this really the best you can do? I would expect a church with Jesus at the head to provide something that at least sounds plausible.
@Brutici plausibility isn't really the issue I'm raising. It's the fact that this story is unconvincing to the vast majority of people. Even if it were true, most people find the narrative ridiculous and disregard it as the lies of a con man.
Can ANY Mormon PLEASE answer my genuinely sincere and **specific** question? The Mormon 8th Article of Faith says: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly” Brief side-note to bear in mind: when Joseph Smith wrote the *JOSEPH* *SMITH* *TRANSLATION* of the Bible (which is also known as the *INSPIRED* *VERSION* ) he rejected and excluded the book of the Song of Solomon and said it wasn’t the Word of God, but he accepted **ALL** of the books of the New Testament, including **ALL** of the Apostle Paul’s epistles, saying they were **ALL** the Word of God. Bruce R. McConkie (1915-1985) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: "The Joseph Smith Translation, or Inspired Version, is a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth". The following verses are *ALL* from the *JOSEPH* *SMITH* *TRANSLATION* ( **JST** ). *MY* *VERY* *SPECIFIC* *QUESTION* *IS* : How do Mormons interpret the following verses so that they mean the direct opposite of what they plainly say? I want to know how you handle the actual text and words in these verses. Please show me your actual **EXEGESIS** . I am not asking you to give Mormon CLAIMS - I’m asking for the actual ARGUMENT to support/substantiate those claims. (As an example of the type of answer I’m looking for, I will post a comment below which explains how to interpret James 2.) “Therefore, we conclude that a man is **JUSTIFIED** by **FAITH** **ALONE** “ Romans 3:28 **JST** “And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace” Romans 11:6 **JST** “ **NOT** **BY** **WORKS** **OF** **RIGHTEOUSNESS** **WHICH** **WE** **HAVE** **DONE**, but according to his mercy HE **SAVED** US” Titus 3:5 **JST** “For **BY** **GRACE** are ye **SAVED** **THROUGH** **FAITH** - and that **NOT** **OF** **YOURSELVES** ; but it is the **GIFT** of God - **NOT** **OF** **WORKS** “ Ephesians 2:8-9 **JST** “Who hath **SAVED** us and called us with a holy calling, **NOT** **ACCORDING** **TO** **OUR** **WORKS** , but according to his own purpose and **GRACE** , which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” 2 Timothy 1:9 **JST** ?????
The simple one line answer is that we don't believe our works save us. I would recommend checking out Pastor Jeff over at Hello Saints and his work. He has great videos that he engages with latter-day saints on our view and while not agreeing with us, he probably explains our nuanced view on this better then most latter-day saints
Mosiah 3:17 says only thru Christ can we be saved.. also Helaman 5:9 Also 2 Nephi 10:24 Works are necessary but it's the grace of Christ that saves us. Making an issue about words like "all" is bit juvinile.. Not all scriptures are to be taken literally. There is figuative, there is hyperbole,.. Pray without ceasing" not literally. "Preach the gospel to every creature" not including creatures like cats & dogs.
I don't understand why anyone would care how many words or letters the gold plates could have contained. What is crucial is that there are no eyewitness verifying the gold plates contained the Book of Mormon. That is, there are no eyewitness who read the translated Book of Mormon in English and then read the gold plates and testified, yes, they are one and the same. No one. Not any. That the gold plates contained the Book of Mormon can only be taken on faith. But why do the gold plates matter at all? The current narrative is a rock and a hat. Of what value are the gold plates in the rock and the hat narrative.
Why do the gold plates matter? My guy, Martin Harris was incredulous that Joseph could have enough credit to afford lead that weighed that much, much less gold. If he truly did have gold plates then how did he get them? Did he just find actual gold in the ground and make them himself? If that's the case then why is there no record of this? How did he find the expertise to make plates with D-rings like that? If he made them out of tin, as Dan Vogel claims, then how did he convince the witnesses that they had "the appearance of the Gold"? If gold plates didn't matter then critics wouldn't try their hardest to argue that they never existed. Their mere existence creates all sorts of problems.
@@jacobmayberry3566Easy, he went to home Depot and watched UA-cam videos. I find that about as compelling as theories put forth by antis. Love your work bro.
@@jacobmayberry3566 Yea, I don't care about any of that stuff. Give me an eyewitness who said they read the golden plates and the English translation of the Book of Mormon and said they were one and the same.
@alanbrooksby4381 "show me someone who can read a long dead language and verify that's what the Book of Mormon says otherwise it is all fake". Sounds kind is silly to write down what you are really saying. Yet you don't deal with the actual issue at hand. If they were a fake, where did they come from?
The angel Moroni took the plates from Joseph Smith after the translation was complete. I don't believe he said why. Here's my guess why: If we had the plates, they would show that the Book of Mormon is exactly what Joseph Smith, The Three Witnesses, and the Eight Witnesses claim it to be: scripture from ancient America of Jesus Christ's dealings with men in the new world. Since this would be physical proof that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's only true church on the earth, everyone who did not join the Church would be under extreme condemnation: "You have proof it's true, and you didn't get baptized?" This would take away free agency based on faith, and injure everyone's ability to act on faith in Christ alone. We would nearly be worshipping the gold plates. With them taken from the earth, we are left to act on faith.
This answer has already been given many times, in many ways--people just don't like it. This is not strange to people who observe the pattern of God's communication--he tries our faith in everything. Hence poor destitute, homeless messengers, miracles, the Savior's arrival in truly unexpected circumstances that no one would believe: "I soon found out the reason why I had received such strict charges to keep them safe, and why it was that the messenger had said that when I had done what was required at my hand, he would call for them. For no sooner was it known that I had them, than the most strenuous exertions were used to get them from me. Every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to for that purpose. The persecution became more bitter and severe than before, and multitudes were on the alert continually to get them from me if possible. But by the wisdom of God, they remained safe in my hands, until I had accomplished by them what was required at my hand. When, according to arrangements, the messenger called for them, I delivered them up to him; and he has them in his charge until this day, being the second day of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight." - Joseph Smith History - 1:60 "if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them. And if it so be that they will not believe these things, then shall the greater things be withheld from them, unto their condemnation. Behold, I was about to write them, all which were engraven upon the plates of Nephi, but the Lord forbade it, saying: I will try the faith of my people. Therefore I, Mormon, do write the things which have been commanded me of the Lord." - 3 Nephi 26:9-12 "And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." - Ether 12:6 "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." - 1 Corinthians 13:12
@@brucenorth5337what about the Egyptian papyri? Is god also testing us by showing us indisputable proof that Joseph Smith was not an inspired translator?
@@dr33776 are you referring to the 22 ft long scroll that was lost in the Great Chicago fire of 1871, or the small fragments that remain today? If we still had the burned papyri that was actually used for the Book of Abraham we would not have that problem I described because it was found by natural means, not delivered by an angel. This is not unlike other apocryphal books that Joseph had no knowledge of, or access to.
@@brucenorth5337 no surprise that you are a long scroll theorist, your pet theory is irrelevant, the “small fragment” we do have along with the GAEL and the boa text proves without a doubt that Joseph smith was making it up. How convenient that whenever god had the chance to prove Joseph was a true prophet such as the 116 pages or the papyri you apologists have to come up with small plates, lost long scrolls, or some other nonsense to excuse Joseph smith.
Great analysis. Arguments that the plates were too small or too heavy are not the best arguments against the Book of Mormon because of all the assumption you have to make. It confuses me why critics use this argument as if it’s a winning and convincing argument.
Did he analyze the Gold Plates? No! Did he analyze Reformed Egyptian? No, no one knows what reformed Egyptian is.
Speculates on substraight (metalergy), # of pages, size of plates, size of the characters. There is no science involved.
All he did was give a different opinion about what could have or have not fit on fictious Gold Plates.
The gold plates are the least of your problems. The content is more problematic. For example, how does the word Christ, not coined from the Greek until the first century, end up in the BOM?
@@DKMELT At least the BOM got it correct that God is the Great Spirit! Oh, wait, Joseph Smith contradicted the BOM and the Lectures on Faith when he later claimed/taught that God has a physical body.
@@ericredd4544hard to analyze something that may never have existed…
You don’t really understand it if that’s what you think. The great spirit would have been Jehovah who is considered Christ in the LDS faith, who was described as “the great spirit” by Ammon before Christ came and received his physical body. Your understanding of the doctrine is tenuous at best is this is your actual argument
That's my cousin! Good work Jacob! Woot!
Nice! But I'm going to pay him to be my cousin instead of yours.
@@andrewh7868 I'll double whatever you're paying
He's my Elder's quorum president!
Can we find his work online?? I’m very interested
Two things.
1. The entire history of the Jaredites was contained on 24 gold plates (Mosiah 8: 8 - 9)
2. Synthetic Languages. Brother Hugh Nibley, in his lecture on critical opinions of the Pearl of Great Price, talks about synthetic languages, in which single symbols can represent entire sentences or complex ideas that are unable to be translated into a single English word. He did so in response to the claim that “one of these symbols couldn’t possibly mean as much as Joseph Smith says it does”. He takes Arabic as an example, “there is hardly a root in the entire dictionary that does not require a whole english sentence to explain it… Take the first root, - ab - it means, to make a special effort to prepare one’s self to do a particular thing … it doesn’t mean ‘to prepare yourself’, it doesn’t mean ‘to do’, it has to be all that in the single syllable ’ab’… that’s the basic idea…”.
If the Book of Mormon was written in a synthetic language, as I assume the Jaredites did, then it should not have been a problem to write an abridged record of the Nephites on 40 plates, though it is likely that there were many more.
Good point. I've often wondered if "And it came to pass" was a single, small symbol in reformed Egyptian. That would explain its frequent use. The Book of Mormon tells us Reformed Egyptian is a constructed language. Is it so crazy it was constructed for the express purpose of fitting larger quantities of information in a more confined space?
I have a memory from the 1960s, when computer memory was at a premium, of a couple of programming languages that used special symbols as substitutes for function names.
On the Jared plates, to be fair, we have no idea (right?) what the dimensions of those plates were.
But ultimately, ya, all of this stands.
@@IJN-33 Just taking examples from modern english - etc and Ibid. To translate them you would need a pretty full sentence (something like quoted from the same place as last time for the latter, and carrying on in the same way for the former). But a very compact set of letters are used. So a single symbol being used for phrases that are repeatedly used such as "it came to pass" or "in the thirteenth year of" would be expected. Heck in translation "2024 AD" would be "in the two thousand and twenty fourth year of the Lord".
So take a typical BOM sentence like "and it came to pass, in the sixtieth year of the reign of the judges". 13 words in English. But if there were a single symbol each for the chunks "it came to pass", "reign of the judges" and "60th year" we would get down to 3 symbols. And phrases like each of those occur so often I would expect a shorthand term to be used in a written source. But in translation you would need to include the full word to get the meaning across. 13 words becomes 3 symbols.
@@neodigremo Beautifully explained.
I'm thankful we have guys who can geek out on alloys and page thicknesses. I wonder if Trent will go out and get a degree in ancient metallurgy to make his response. Good luck, Trent!
I like the Catholic faith, I think Trent’s time would be better spent handling other topics. He’s clearly out of his depth here
What’s great about this is that it shows, without ambiguity, that even steel manning Trent’s argument, it doesn’t hold a single drop of water
Mormon ch 9, V32-33 - Moroni says they used Reformed Egyptian because they did not have enough room on the plates to write in Hebrew. So the Egyptian characters had a significantly greater word density than Hebrew. And Hebrew has a greater word density than English.
There are also the assumptions that are made about the size of the characters, since we don't have any physical evidence of how the plates and the engravings actually looked.
@@letusreasontogether1168 there's a little bit in terms of size estimates and Joseph mentioned the characters were small and beautifully engraved, but yeah we don't know a lot.
Can’t wait to see Trent’s response 😂 Why he cannot see through his assumptions is concerning. Several Native American languages (Cherokee, in particular) have orthography using sentences and syntax rather than letters. Short hand Hebrew could very well be what reformed Egyptian is, considering that Mormon said “had the plates been sufficiently large” they could have written in Hebrew. Mormon 9:33. But Trent won’t know that because he won’t even read the Book of Mormon seriously.
40 60 80 whatever, it doesn’t matter, the Book of Mormon is as true as the sun we see every morning rising from the east !
The Book of Mormon is pure fiction
@ , your opinion against a testimony given by the power of the Holy Ghost himself , uhmmm interesting
@@richarner3856
Where’s the proof?
I’ll wait.
@@richarner3856 You sure showed us! We have shut down the church. What will paid evangelical pastors talk about now since the Mormons are gone now?
When I was younger, like in my early teens, I new the gold plates were not pure gold. Gold is to malleable, soft, and heavy. I figured it had to be some sort of alloy when I was probably around 13 or 14.
Yeah same, Golden always made sense.
It’s my understanding, and I’m no scholar, that 1 reformed Egyptian character could represent multiple English words. Which would also account for the relative size of the plates if true.
I agree 100%! I made a separate post on this concept before I saw your comment. A quick Google search shows that both demotic and hieratic Egyptian are more concise languages than English. But anan analysis of that conciseness ratio would be important to see to make a good analysis of page count.
The text of the Book of Mormon doesn't even _need_ to fit on the plates. To start with, the translation of the characters on the plates did not occur using intellectual activity. Joseph Smith did not possess the knowledge to translate _anything,_ let alone something in a Hebraic language written using a Egyptic writing system, which is what the Book of Mormon claims for itself. The generation of the text of the Book of Mormon was not a translation, as such. The text was given using divine revelation, and did not need to correspond word-for-word what was engraved on the plates. Is it a word-for-word translation? I believe so, but so what?
Great video, Jacob and Jacob!
Sorry Trent Horn, your reaching allegations towards The Church of Jesus Christ keep losing credibility. The pile of misses keep growing. Please save your nice reputation and stick with what this guy says you're good at.
Were all the plates of similar composition? Or would they have compositional differences because of the passing of time and various locations the records were made in?
The final version was an edit compiled of all the various records by the hand of Mormon, probably on the same material, ...unless his son Moroni used a different material to add and finish them after Mormon's death?
Mined where, to be the same you either need one mine location or advanced metallurgy
All the plates from 1 Nephi to Omni would have been made by Nephi. All the plates from Words of Mormon to the end of the book would have been made by Mormon.
I imagine Nephi would have made Lehi’s plates for the lost 116 pages of the Book of Lehi. Nephi seems to appreciate metallurgy as he describes the sword of Laban. That’s probably why Nephi was able to make a boat that floated on top of water as opposed to the brother of Jared who had a weird dish-submarine boat.
The Jaredites only had 24 plates to cover thousands of years, which is one reason Moroni doubted his own writing ability. Even 40 plates is more than enough when you write like Nas
When the Book of Mormon text mentions 24 Jaredite plates, are we assuming 24 individual sheets of metal (of unspecified size), or 24 separate books (also of unspecified size) made of metal plates? The Book of Ether that we have (31 printed pages in English) is only Moroni's abridgement of those plates, and he mentions that he wrote less than a hundredth part of the Jaredite history. I think 24 separate sets of plates is a much safer assumption than 24 individual plates.
The Carater's Document shows that it wasn't Demotic or Hieratic, but a mixture of both with Yukatecan Mayan, depending on which took the least space.
I love how fantasy and folklore come together and make a baby.
At 9:55, Rappleye states demotic might have been the script Nephi used. Rappleye own articles speak of Nephi using a scribal tradition using hieratic ("Nephi the Good", 2014; "Learning Nephi's Language", 2015). Why does he use an example in demotic?
One thing that could also need to be considered is the small plates may not have been bound with the abridgment so we would need to you 116 pages plus Josiah to morroni.
The record only says that the small plates were put with the abridgement but not necessarily re bound with it.
Either way Trent needs to be a better learner and not keep using these arguments.
Good video. However, I would like to also see a discussion of how many English words it takes to say something that was written in various different Egyptian scripts. I think that analysis needs to be done to be thorough. I am fluent in both the French and English languages. In general, it takes more words to express a concept in French than it does in English. Certainly there is some sort of ratio between English and the various Egyptian scripts. A very brief Google search indicates that both demotic and hieratic are more concise than English. Specific analysis of that would be really good to see, and is an important part of calculating page count
I have an example of millions of words per square inch…. a thumb drive.
For character density, Rappleye first cites the "most dense" example he has found, which he admittedly calls an "outliner"; An "outliner" in Aramaic (dated to?) is of little use. The second example is in demotic (dated to?). Again, it's of little use when Rappleye think hieratic was used and we know demotic was the most compact form of Egyptian writing. Why no examples of Mesoamerican writing on metal plates dating before 400 AD or hieratic writing on metal plates dating before 600 BC?
Jerry Grover wishes he had an accent like that
Joseph stated the angel said GOLD plates ("plates of gold" in Smith's 1832 history [see JS Papers or EMD 1:29]; "plates of gold" in JS diary, 9 Nov 1835 [see JS Papers or EMD 1:44]).
The plates are unlikely tumbaga because (1) there was no metallurgy in Mesoamerica before about 800 AD and (2) tumbaga was used for religious items and jewelry.
Trent Horn, a perfect example of how a PHD doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart.
Amen!!!
He doesn't have a PhD but he does have a few Masters degrees
@@jacobmayberry1126 Well, he is still ignorant.
@@jacobmayberry1126 Well, he is still ignorant.
Also, I believe we’re probably two sets of plates. The small translated in Harmony, Pennsylvania, and the other plates translated in New York. Joseph, David, and Oliver did not have the plates with them when Joseph moved to Harmony. Play when he arrived harmony. The same plates that Mary Whitmer saw.
They can't be honest because then they'll have to deal with the consequences. What Trent did here was meant for the echo chamber.
OK let's be a little more realistic here. In order to have a set of plates that is durable and can reliably support double-sided engravings, the thinnest you could reasonably get a way with is something like .01 inch thick plates. If we are going to assume a material like tumbaga then the total number of plates couldn't be much more than about 300, which would weigh around 60 lbs. This gives us somewhere around 100 plates on which to contain over 330,000 words of content. That would require the equivalent of 6-pt font (2.12mm) single spaced and engraved by hand with ancient tools on the front and back of every single plate - over 1600 words per side. No way. This is so incredibly implausible. There is nothing even remotely close to this anywhere in the historical record. When you combine this with the utter lack of archeological evidence for the major BoM claims, its obvious reliance on 19th century mound builder mythology and contemporary protestant theology, it just becomes clear very quickly that the BoM is not historical, but instead is an impressive 19th century creation.
Where's your degree in geology again? Did you read Grover's study? Grover's got the expertise. You don't. He and Neal provided precedent from other artifacts as well to show that it is physically possible to fit all the words onto the plates. You're also thinking in terms of English words and not the semitic languages that Neal and Grover reference which were more compact.
@ It doesn’t take a geology degree to recognize the fact that there is nothing even remotely close to anything resembling the BoM in the historical record - a narrative history recorded on a codex of hundreds of metal plates that contained well over 2000 words per plate. Neal and Jerry may have shown how such a record could in theory be possible, but a lot of things are conceptually possible yet just aren’t realistically plausible. Again, the fact that there is nothing even remotely close to the BoM anywhere in the historical record is pretty decent evidence for the latter.
@@clinthilton1348 people used to say that writing on metal in the ancient world at all wasn't thing. They were wrong. I don't really care about "absence of evidence" arguments because we know pathetically little about the ancient world and even less about ancient america and the list of anachronisms is getting smaller by the decade. I'm not going to be stopped by the fact that writing on plates in the fashion Joseph had hasn't been found yet.
By the way. Where did Joseph get the idea of writing on metal plates with D-rings? D-rings weren't invented until a few decades after he was alive. So while you correctly point out there's no evidence for those plates in the ancient world, there's no evidence for them in Joseph's world either. So where did he get the idea?
@@jacobmayberry1126 That's fine, I'm not here to stop you from believing in things that aren't supported by the empirical evidence. I'm just challenging what I feel are relatively weak arguments presented publicly. It is important to note that absence of evidence actually is evidence of absence, and it is a form of evidence that gets stronger over time when the absence of evidence persists despite increased efforts of discovery. We have literally been doing archeological work in the Americas for well over 100 years and have discovered many fascinating ancient civilizations and people groups all throughout the Americas. Yet conveniently we still have zero identifiable evidence for the two major advanced civilizations highlighted in the BoM (Jaredites and Lehites). Apologists can't even agree on where those major civilizations flourished or who the promised Lamanites actually are. And scientific consensus agrees that the evidence opposes the idea that such civilizations ever existed. That's a major problem for anyone claiming a historical BoM.
Where did Joseph get D-rings? I imagine common sense combined with reasonable problem solving skills. When you attempt to bind a stack of metal plates with rings you quickly realize that the plates don't line up nicely unless you flatten one side of the ring. It's not rocket science, and if you believe that Mormon could have figured this out 1600 years ago, why couldn't Joseph?
The Book of Mormon is true regardless of what some Catholic guy says.
I have NO respect for Trent Horn. My first exposure to him was him accusing Brother Joseph of being an outlaw who died in a shootout with the law during a jailbreak. If there is one thing Trent does not have, it’s my respect
is this not true?
@@Golfinthefamilyno
@@ulelal what is the real story?
@@Golfinthefamily he was martyred.
@@jacobmayberry1126 do you believe he had a gun at the time and had shot it at attackers?
Trent may have gotten the 40 plates idea from the Brazil gold plates folks, who have a picture diagram online showing the Book of Mormon took 42 plates. If that's his source, its shoddy surface level googling on Trent's part.
Where is this guy a Ph.D. student? Brigham Young?
Nope. Liberty University
That figures.
@@stevekohl5351 Oh? Why is that?
I assume that a conservative Oh.D. student might want to prove the gold plates are real. But I would think that students at conservative Liberty would want to disprove the plates as they believe that Mormonism is a false religion.
Good show!
Arguing about the amount of informatoin on a gold plate is idiotic. Mormon Apologists had to come up with an excuse as to why there were so few characters on the funerary text that was used for the Pearl of Great price. Mormon apologists excuse was that one character actually states whole paragraphs... more Mormon idiocy!
The 'gold' plates, if they ever actually existed given the size, would have weighed about 200 lbs. and someone finally asked; how it was possible when Smith finally retrieved the plates, to run 3 miles, through the woods, at night, while simultaneously fighting off 3 attackers who were trying to steal the valuable 'gold' plates, while carrying 200 lbs.?
Then the plates were changed from 'gold' to 'gold in color' weighing about 47 lbs., possibly copper or tin, which was a common material available in Smith’s day used for plates, cups, stove pipes, etc.
Yet, it’s hard to believe men of Hebrew descent like Mormon and Moroni couldn’t tell the difference between real gold and tin.
Nope they would have weighed 40 to 60 pounds if they were an alloy.
@@jacobmayberry1126 Very true and alloys such as tin and copper weigh far less than gold, lead, and other metals.
Most people can't tell fools gold from real gold but it does have the appearance of gold
@@GwPoKo Apparently 'fools gold' also known a pyrite is far less dense than actual gold and would have weighed less. Pyrite remains in commercial use for the production of sulfur dioxide, for use in such applications as the paper industry, and in the manufacture of sulfuric acid.
You didn’t listen. William Smith, one of Joseph’s brothers, said they were made of copper and gold. Right from the start they were said to be an alloy.
But the BOM was dictated from a seer stone in a hat not translated from imaginary gold plates!
It is amazing that they know exactly what the "gold plates" were made of and easily gloss over the known Kinderhook Plates that Joseph Smith was fooled with!
Response to a response to a response to a response…🤪
@@spencerbuchanan95 and here's my response to your response to the response to a response to a response to a response. Feel free to respond.
Read Jerry Grover's translation of the Caractors doc and do napkin math.
We're kept from coming to a greater knowledge because of our sins. Trent, me, all of us, except those who aren't...
#AlmostAsAwesomeAsSouthpawMedia
Thank you
the witnesses readily admin that they never saw the physical plates. They only saw them with their "spiritual" eyes!
The eight witnesses say they "hefted" the plates. Plates don't get hefted with spiritual eyes.
Ughhh here we go again. Are you referring to John Witmer? Because later in life he definitely clarified that he actually indeed did physically touch the plates even saying "I handled those plates; there were fine engravings on both sides. I handled them."
Trent should repent.
Of what?
You all worship a counterfeit Godhead and have a false Gospel.
You all need to become Christians ✝️
Why? Mormonism is a man-made-up 200 year old religion. There's nothing to repent for.
Why doesn’t the church put the seer stones on display?
Why should they?
What would that matter. If they just put a couple of stones in display and said those were the interpreters, would you have a way to test them and tell them they are wrong?
Why doesn't the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church put the Ark of the Covenant on display that they claim is in Aksum at the Church of St. Mary of Zion?
It would be awesome. But some things the Lord commands not to be shown publicly, because it would increase culpability prior to the appropriate level of spiritual readiness & worthiness. And He is merciful.
"John 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
@ they should.
You don't have the gold plates. Any discussion about them is worthless. The whole Book of Mormon is nothing but short KJ passages strung together and repeated over and over. Joseph was lazy pulling off his con. Any True truth seeker would recognize him as the con he was.
Gold plates thinner than the aluminum foil in your house? Copper thinner than the aluminum foil in your house. Didn't it rattle by one witness account. That is advanced milling operations. And how could that not have been mentioned. Plates as soft as human hair? And with metal thinner than foil he ran and fought and never damaged a plate. Maybe a replica should be made.
You make some good points. We don't know any specifics because we don't have physical or photographic evidence. We have verbal and written descriptions and many people have done as you have done and made assumptions to make it sound either plausible or unrealistic. Space was definitely a concern on the plates. Enough that it was even mentioned within the record that there are errors because of the language. However, reformed Egyptian was used instead of Hebrew because it was more condensed. They also reformed it for their own purpose and since one of their main purposes was to fit more words onto metal plates, it is hard to know what to compare it to.
If you did have physical and photographic evidence would that change your mind about whether the record was written by prophets or translated by the power of God?
I believe the Book of Mormon is true because of the words contained within the book and the witness I receive from God as I read it. Any additional witnesses are nice, but not convincing. Also, the fact that the book is true isn't that important. The important part is that the book can help you, me, and everyone draw closer to Christ and it can improve our lives. I challenge anyone to put it to the test. Read it daily for 30 days while trying to follow its teachings and analyze whether your life has improved.
A book can be true, but not helpful. The Book of Mormon is true AND helpful.
I agree. This 0.005 inch thickness idea is ridiculous. If we are going to make counterarguments, you don’t have to take it to a crazy extreme. If Trent is willing to concede 80 plates, that’s a reasonable 0.025 inch thickness. That’s 160 pages.
The argument should be about engraving vs stamping. Trent’s argument implied that he thinks the markings on the plates were stamped rather than engraved. Engraving on both sides of a plate as thin as tin foil is a little unreasonable. It would rip. You at least need a reasonable page thickness to tolerate engraving. Engraving allows for much finer characters than stamping which is necessary to account for word/character density which would have been required for the gold plates.
Emma did describe it as like metallic paper when she felt it, whatever that means.
@@johndavidanderson4382 I agree. She described the pages were like thick paper and made a rustling metallic sound when they were turned. If there were only 40 plates, then the thickness would have been 0.05 inches. That’s a little thicker than a credit card which I think is too thick for what Emma is describing. You wouldn’t get that rustling metallic sound with something that thick.
A couple things to note. 1. Grover (and no one) can prove the metallurgy of the plates because there is no test sample. 2. It’s mentioned that the smiths were not metallurgists but then later states that one of the smiths claimed the plates to be a mixture of gold and copper.
That's right we don't know the metallurgy of the plates, it's just speculation. That's why he went from 40-400 as possible numbers obviously a wide range but both could have worked. The Smiths weren't metallurgists, but that doesn't mean they couldn't say the plates looked like gold and it doesn't mean William Smith couldn't have guessed it was a mixture of gold and copper. The point of this video is that Trent Horns claims against The Book of Mormon are totally wrong.
90% copper and the people who know copper called it gold? At 90% copper it would be easily recognizable as copper.
Maybe a replica should be made.
I've seen Tumbaga in real-life. It's known to be majority copper. I can tell you, it looks like gold.
Look up tumbaga. They use an acid to remove all of the copper from the surface so you only see gold.
The Spanish thought it was mostly gold and were really disappointed when they shipped tons of it back to Spain and melted it down.
@@M_Rytting If the Tumbaga was 90% gold it would be gold, if it is 90% copper it is really copper.
@@ThoseOneGuysInc If it was 90% copper and you remove the copper surface it won't be 90% copper any longer.
As an outsider, these people debating this topic is extremely hilarious
The size of writing to plates is an easy one to explain. It depends on what meaning is given to every symbol. Chief migegah recently shared that one of their symbols took 27 hours to tell its story.
That’s not a language at that point. It would be illegible.
I think you could do a better counterargument to Trent. This idea of tumbaga with a thickness of 0.005 inches is a little crazy and impractical. Printer paper is about 0.004 inches thick. Thicker cardstock paper is about 0.02 inches thick. For him to say the “upper thickness” for tumbaga is 0.01 inches is strange. The upper thickness is whatever you want it to be.
The math here is also overly generous. If there were 600 pages with 0.005 inches of thickness, then the entire Book of Mormon would have been three inches thick. If the entire thing was six inches thick, and the unsealed portion was a third of the thickness, then 600 pages is probably too generous. Although I think one person said the unsealed portion was half of the thickness. Most people said it was about a third.
If you watch the entire original video quoted in this one he goes into a lot of detail on the various assumptions and ranges of sheet thickness etc.
@ Yeah that makes sense. I think he could have gone with a much more generous upper thickness though, but I assume he is recognizing character spacing as the limiting factor on the upper range. I think the Book of Mormon could have fit on 100 plates.
@@natedawg2020if you think the BofM could have fit on 100 plates (including the 116 pages), and we assume that the sealed portion made up two thirds of the stack, then you're agreeing with Grover's lower estimate of 300 plates total.
@@jacobmayberry1126 If he is including the sealed portion in those numbers, then I don’t see how that is consistent with the witnesses testimonies. I don’t think he is referring to the sealed portion because he said there could be 600 plates at 0.005 inches.
600 x 0.005 = 3
That would mean the entire book, including the sealed portion was only three inches thick. That would leave only one inch of thickness for the unsealed portion. This would not be consistent with any of the witness testimonies who said the entire book including the sealed portion was about six inches thick. They said the unsealed portion was roughly one third to one half of the total thickness. Most witnesses said one third.
@@jacobmayberry1126 If Grover thinks each plate could have been 0.005 inches thick, then in order to get a book that is six inches thick, you’d need 1200 plates.
This is great and all...but why do you all think that they're only sharing examples of single sheets or singular artifacts? Like, in the Book of Mormon, people in multiple places were writing on multi-sheet artifacts all the time (Brass Plates, Jaredites, etc....). So, why are there no other examples of multi-sheet volumes/records available?
Sure, we can talk about whether or not it's possible to fit the entire Book of Mormon (plus the lost pages) onto plates that a single dude could run with (according to Joseph Smith he was chased while having the plates). I'm just saying that it seems highly unlikely and there is no known historical precedent for it. If there were, don't you think these dudes would be using those examples???
Exactly, imagine losing the entire technology of milling metal into thin sheets and inventing the codex hundreds of years before any other civilization came up with it. It’s completely ridiculous
@@dr33776 I see your point, but if you're writing an extensive record on plates codex seems to me to be the most practical option and not terribly difficult to identify as a solution.
@@IJN-33 and yet no other contemporary civilization thought of it?
@dr33776 Just a thought. No other contemporary civilization may have needed it.
There are other examples of metal plate writings, but those were few and far between, reserved for the most important things and not all of the plate writings were made to last as long. Other metals end up rusting or oxidizing before other people find them. Technologies change all the time and old ones are lost. Like Greek fire, or Roman concrete.
Grasping. Always grasping.
yawn
@jacobmayberry3566 you must be dreaming like Joseph Smith when he walked on water. 😂
@@davidjanbaz7728 That story isn't true. Even Fawn Brodie referred to it as "baseless".
How is doing a study "grasping?" If I am a young earth creationist, can I call carbon dating "grasping"?
Translation is not direct word for word... case in point, crocodile dundee.. meets the aborigines.. eating a wombat. Who says.. Ja Balla Balla.. which means, needs garlic.. so it's clear, translation is not word for word. Duh
Yup. Too many of our haters don't seem to know what the word "translation" even means. It's sad, and it's just getting old.
@@harmonillustration ya it's an overrated battle.. time to claim victory and move on..
Jacob in his own words: *shows mostly clip from interview not featuring Jacob or his own words*
This is an example of how one should stay in their lane. Trent is a catholic so he should stay in the Catholic lane. Let the Latter day saints or Mormons explain their lane. Lots of problems can be avoided this way.
The only real tangible aspect of the translation of the claims about the translatioin is the ROCK at church headquarters. Everything else is speculation.
Then Mormons should stay in their lane : and NOT distort authentic church history and make up your incoherent Total Apostasy garbage.
So Mormon missionaries should stay in their lane? Nice logic, dude!
@@bradensorensen966 While I actually disagree with the original post to a degree, missionaries aren't representing themselves as experts on other religions.
As always, the arguments against the Book of Mormon are pathetic!!
The Book of Mormon is pathetic..complete fiction
How can you make such a statement? The facts are plain as day. Please refute them if you can.
1. The plates are not available. If they were real we would have them. Full stop.
2. The witnesses have varied and inconsistent testimonials. (Some saw the plates some did not. None read the plates.)
3. There is no historical precedent for such plates.
4. The so called prose contained in the plates has been proven to be a false narrative.
5. There are still significant questions around the viability of such plates in an ancient culture.
These are not “pathetic” arguments. They are valid and in many ways fatal to the LDS narrative. Please be honest with the data. You are making a huge claim, why should I accept such a claim when provided with such flawed evidence?
“Joseph do not seek the plates for the purpose of getting rich, they are almost 8% gold!” - Angel Moron
Has anyone produced even a single gold/tumbaga page of text in any language that is anywhere near the density this video is claiming? I see a lot of claims about what would be super easy for pre-Columbian Americans to produce accompanied by a lot of handwaving but never with any physical examples. I wonder why....
Scientists are STILL finding massive cities buried under trees in the middle of the jungle in Mexico and central America. Is it surprising that there may still be tomes of physical artifacts either lost to time or yet to be discovered?
@@dbwoolston Yeah, they're finding new cities that belong to already known civilizations.
But you know what they aren't finding? Entire new civilizations with metal working sites and universities teaching some magic written language that fits long stories onto thin sheets of metal.
He gives a real-world example of an artifact found in the video itself. Did you actually listen?
We do have a chocolate colored,egg shaped ROCK in SLC that was used in the "translation". Coupled with the non existance of "tumbaga" and "Reformed Egyptian" that should tell you all you need to know.
@@ericredd4544 Dude, millions of people have seen tumbaga, including me.
You forgot, part of the gold plates were sealed. Joseph never translated those. The tumbaga theory had been debunked, heavily. 600 plates would be absurdly heavy. Tumbaga is extremely brittle. It is just not feasible. It could not be preserved without corrosion. You are working on a phd, seriously???
300 to 600 pages?!! What world do you live in where the plates were made that thin?!!
Also, you account for the 116 pages but not the two-thirds of the plates that were sealed!!! So take your nonsensical number of words per inch and multiply them by at least THREE!!!
This defense is remarkably bad.
Nope it accounts for all of it. Read Grover's study.
@ “study”
Watch the whole interview
@@jGeothro I don’t need to watch an interview to know the dimensions don’t line up with 300 to 600 plates!
@@bradensorensen966 Huh? Jerry Grover actually made the plates he was talking about, he wasn't guessing. If all you have is mockery of actual experiments, then this is conversation is outside your knowledge.
It's very simple everybody. One Egyptian(reformed) glyph can be worth a thousand words. No mystery there. :>)
That’s not true, but it was probably worth several English characters. For example a word like “English” would only be one or two characters instead of 7. English also has a lot of words required to make it make sense that aren’t required with in other scripts they were using. The spanish Book of Mormon is even longer than English and they use the same characters. “And it came to pass” for example was likely only one character while in English it’s 4 words and 15 characters. In Spanish it’s shorter “y sucedió” only 2 words and 8 characters. Both have the same meaning but are different lengths when written out. Mormon and Moroni also mention multiple times that they were trying to save space on the plates so they were probably leaving out little bits so they could get their point across. For all we know they could have been using their own version of “shorthand”.
@@ThoseOneGuysIncThis seems likely to me. It's a constructed language and was probably made for the purpose of being short as I think Mormon 9:33-34 seems to indicate.
@@ThoseOneGuysInc In Hebrew "And it came to pass" is two words and only 4 characters. there also isn't a space between the words. so it only takes up for character spaces instead of the 19 needed in English It could get even smaller if they decided to use a single character similar to how we use &.
made me giggle
Only One problem there is NO reformed Egyptian!!!
The ever-changing Mormon story. No longer gold plates. Where are the plates now? Why were plates even needed if Joseph Smith just threw a rock in a hat?🤔 It's not even a translation anymore.
Who said it wasn't a translation?
@@jacobmayberry1126you have to have a working text to translate, he didn’t even look at the plates. He was looking at a rock
@jacobmayberry1126 Prophet Nelson in that interview that the whole world saw.
You bring up the word “science” to argue for the gold plates? Talk about ignorance. Quick question: where are the gold plates now? What? Taken back to heaven by an angel you say? Case closed
You could say the same about the Resurrected Jesus Christ
@ science has no bearing on any of this. If you believe it, that’s fine. Faith is fine. Don’t try to varnish it with talk about “science”. Science is about things that are observable and testable. The gold plates, alas, are not
@@grantbeck9228 Just because you can't see or test it doesn't mean others haven't. That is why there are witnesses and records. At least a dozen people have seen and/or held them. What about Greek fire? People saw it and recorded it but now one knows how to make it and it doesn't exist any more. Does that mean it never existed? Also the whole point is to have faith, not a perfect knowledge. That is literally what history is all about, taking other peoples word on what happened before we were alive.
Y'all are coping so hard
yawn
“Trent is a sharp guy and he knows his stuff, however his content criticizing the Book of Mormon is not nearly the same caliber…”
Dude, you only praise his knowledge when you agree with it. I’d say the arguments against abortion are bad and the criticism of the Book of Mormon is extremely valid. But I know I’m biased.
You’re wrong to say “when agree with me = smart and right”
I disagree with Trent's arguments, but Jacob saying this also struck me as somewhat fallacious.
@@MusicBlik"fallacious" there can be no fallacy because I made no argument. I simply expressed agreement in one area and disagreement in another area as an extension of goodwill.
"You only praise his knowledge when you agree with it"
Correct. That's because his arguments are good when it comes to abortion and they aren't good when it comes to attacking Mormonism. This isn't that hard to follow.
@ that’s confirmation bias!
@@bradensorensen966 cool
It seems to me that to end all of this back and forth, why doesn't the LDS church share with the world the Smithsonian Institutes papers regarding the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. The Smithsonian Insititute is a reputable organization. This would end any questions in any one's mind if this book were authentic, which it is not.
Not one historian or archeologist has validated the Book of Mormon, not one artifact has been found.
@@hollayevladimiroff131 This relies on two fallacies though. Appeal to authority and absence of evidence fallacy. Those don't support it, but they're a long way from disproving it.
He took from the Bible and books of the time to write the book. Reformed Egyptian is not a real language. Some of the witnesses even admitted to only seeing the plates with there Spiritual eyes. Also the witnesses were all family members or close friends who had an interest for the book to be successful financially and to make Joseph a Prophet. Even the errors in the text of the Bible are replicated in Joseph's ""translation "". He didn't report his first vision until nearly ten years later.He was arrested many times and was thought to be quite a nuisance to society. It's often referred to as the perfect book but has been revised several times and doctrine changing over the years has only been done to fit into more of a socially accepted practice like paligmy and race relations. When I hear why would he make this stuff up. Well fame, fortune,all the women he wanted,all the sex he wanted and to be labeled a Prophet I think would make a man say or do just about anything.
Also don't forget about the embarrassing translating from a hat up to his face using seer stones. This part of the story is not near as publicized as the Grand gold plates story. Even the current Prophet couldn't put his face in the hat when asked to demonstrate it because he knows it's ridiculous nonsense.
Regurgitating lies, slander, and half-truths doesn’t help disprove the BOM. Come on, you can do better. Doesn’t your integrity matter to you? Do you think the Lord will give you a pass on lying and slandering?
Sometimes, I think one of the primary reasons people refuse to honestly listen, ponder, and pray about the restored church’s truth claims & evidence (e.g. BOM, etc) is because they are too cowardly to truly believe in and follow Jesus Christ and his authorized servants-the prophets.
It’s way easier and less risky socially to take the path most traveled and only believe in dead prophets, a closed canon, and a triune idol that not longer speaks. On the other hand, it takes real faith and true grit to follow the way, the truth, and the light.
How about Joseph Smith's 14 year Wife. Terrible
@@BethMcgaughy that’s a debunked lie. You are doing a great job following the bigoted anti-Mormon playbook. I can’t wait to see which recycled lie from the past 200 years you’re going to use next!
How about the disastrous translation of the Book of Abraham? They even had to acknowledge the fact it was incorrect just as the ancestry thing about Native Americans being from people of Middle Eastern descent. How about all of the prophecies he had that never came to pass such as the Great Temple in Missouri that was going to be the center of the new Zion. The lot is still empty today. All of the references of objects and animals in the Book of Mormon that are historically very inaccurate. I could go on and on.
Joseph smith did not use the plates to create the Book of Mormon. Pointless video.
Mormons really need to come up with a more compelling story if they want people to take them seriously. Even their scholarly attempts to demonstrate the plausibility of Joseph's story is laughably unconvincing.
Yawn
@jacobmayberry1126 yup, that's what the rest of the world thinks. Is this really the best you can do? I would expect a church with Jesus at the head to provide something that at least sounds plausible.
It literally is plausible
@Brutici plausibility isn't really the issue I'm raising. It's the fact that this story is unconvincing to the vast majority of people. Even if it were true, most people find the narrative ridiculous and disregard it as the lies of a con man.
@@kraniodesign4555 Popularity isn't a good measure of truth. The popular opinion also tends to be pretty misinformed about us.
Can ANY Mormon PLEASE answer my genuinely sincere and **specific** question?
The Mormon 8th Article of Faith says:
“We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly”
Brief side-note to bear in mind: when Joseph Smith wrote the *JOSEPH* *SMITH* *TRANSLATION* of the Bible (which is also known as the *INSPIRED* *VERSION* ) he rejected and excluded the book of the Song of Solomon and said it wasn’t the Word of God, but he accepted **ALL** of the books of the New Testament, including **ALL** of the Apostle Paul’s epistles, saying they were **ALL** the Word of God.
Bruce R. McConkie (1915-1985) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said:
"The Joseph Smith Translation, or Inspired Version, is a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth".
The following verses are *ALL* from the *JOSEPH* *SMITH* *TRANSLATION* ( **JST** ).
*MY* *VERY* *SPECIFIC* *QUESTION* *IS* :
How do Mormons interpret the following verses so that they mean the direct opposite of what they plainly say? I want to know how you handle the actual text and words in these verses. Please show me your actual **EXEGESIS** .
I am not asking you to give Mormon CLAIMS - I’m asking for the actual ARGUMENT to support/substantiate those claims.
(As an example of the type of answer I’m looking for, I will post a comment below which explains how to interpret James 2.)
“Therefore, we conclude that a man is **JUSTIFIED** by **FAITH** **ALONE** “
Romans 3:28 **JST**
“And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise, grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then is it no more grace”
Romans 11:6 **JST**
“ **NOT** **BY** **WORKS** **OF** **RIGHTEOUSNESS** **WHICH** **WE** **HAVE** **DONE**, but according to his mercy HE **SAVED** US”
Titus 3:5 **JST**
“For **BY** **GRACE** are ye **SAVED** **THROUGH** **FAITH** - and that **NOT** **OF** **YOURSELVES** ; but it is the **GIFT** of God - **NOT** **OF** **WORKS** “
Ephesians 2:8-9 **JST**
“Who hath **SAVED** us and called us with a holy calling, **NOT** **ACCORDING** **TO** **OUR** **WORKS** , but according to his own purpose and **GRACE** , which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began”
2 Timothy 1:9 **JST**
?????
No because you're not looking for an answer, you're looking to bash.
The simple one line answer is that we don't believe our works save us.
I would recommend checking out Pastor Jeff over at Hello Saints and his work. He has great videos that he engages with latter-day saints on our view and while not agreeing with us, he probably explains our nuanced view on this better then most latter-day saints
Works are a manifestation of our faith. Faith saves us, works manifest our faith. It's honestly not a complicated answer.
Mosiah 3:17 says only thru Christ can we be saved.. also Helaman 5:9 Also 2 Nephi 10:24 Works are necessary but it's the grace of Christ that saves us. Making an issue about words like "all" is bit juvinile.. Not all scriptures are to be taken literally. There is figuative, there is hyperbole,.. Pray without ceasing" not literally. "Preach the gospel to every creature" not including creatures like cats & dogs.
I've seen this post on like 4 videos now.
I don't understand why anyone would care how many words or letters the gold plates could have contained. What is crucial is that there are no eyewitness verifying the gold plates contained the Book of Mormon. That is, there are no eyewitness who read the translated Book of Mormon in English and then read the gold plates and testified, yes, they are one and the same. No one. Not any. That the gold plates contained the Book of Mormon can only be taken on faith. But why do the gold plates matter at all? The current narrative is a rock and a hat. Of what value are the gold plates in the rock and the hat narrative.
Why do the gold plates matter? My guy, Martin Harris was incredulous that Joseph could have enough credit to afford lead that weighed that much, much less gold. If he truly did have gold plates then how did he get them? Did he just find actual gold in the ground and make them himself? If that's the case then why is there no record of this? How did he find the expertise to make plates with D-rings like that? If he made them out of tin, as Dan Vogel claims, then how did he convince the witnesses that they had "the appearance of the Gold"? If gold plates didn't matter then critics wouldn't try their hardest to argue that they never existed. Their mere existence creates all sorts of problems.
@@jacobmayberry3566Easy, he went to home Depot and watched UA-cam videos. I find that about as compelling as theories put forth by antis. Love your work bro.
@@jacobmayberry3566 Yea, I don't care about any of that stuff. Give me an eyewitness who said they read the golden plates and the English translation of the Book of Mormon and said they were one and the same.
@@alanbrooksby4381 What you care about and what's relevant are two different things. I refuse to stay within the standards you created.
@alanbrooksby4381 "show me someone who can read a long dead language and verify that's what the Book of Mormon says otherwise it is all fake". Sounds kind is silly to write down what you are really saying. Yet you don't deal with the actual issue at hand. If they were a fake, where did they come from?
I mean if the church could produce the plates we wouldn’t have to argue about it.. why don’t they produce the plates ?
The angel Moroni took the plates from Joseph Smith after the translation was complete. I don't believe he said why.
Here's my guess why: If we had the plates, they would show that the Book of Mormon is exactly what Joseph Smith, The Three Witnesses, and the Eight Witnesses claim it to be: scripture from ancient America of Jesus Christ's dealings with men in the new world. Since this would be physical proof that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's only true church on the earth, everyone who did not join the Church would be under extreme condemnation: "You have proof it's true, and you didn't get baptized?" This would take away free agency based on faith, and injure everyone's ability to act on faith in Christ alone. We would nearly be worshipping the gold plates. With them taken from the earth, we are left to act on faith.
This answer has already been given many times, in many ways--people just don't like it.
This is not strange to people who observe the pattern of God's communication--he tries our faith in everything. Hence poor destitute, homeless messengers, miracles, the Savior's arrival in truly unexpected circumstances that no one would believe:
"I soon found out the reason why I had received such strict charges to keep them safe, and why it was that the messenger had said that when I had done what was required at my hand, he would call for them. For no sooner was it known that I had them, than the most strenuous exertions were used to get them from me. Every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to for that purpose. The persecution became more bitter and severe than before, and multitudes were on the alert continually to get them from me if possible. But by the wisdom of God, they remained safe in my hands, until I had accomplished by them what was required at my hand. When, according to arrangements, the messenger called for them, I delivered them up to him; and he has them in his charge until this day, being the second day of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight." - Joseph Smith History - 1:60
"if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them. And if it so be that they will not believe these things, then shall the greater things be withheld from them, unto their condemnation. Behold, I was about to write them, all which were engraven upon the plates of Nephi, but the Lord forbade it, saying: I will try the faith of my people. Therefore I, Mormon, do write the things which have been commanded me of the Lord." - 3 Nephi 26:9-12
"And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." - Ether 12:6
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." - 1 Corinthians 13:12
@@brucenorth5337what about the Egyptian papyri? Is god also testing us by showing us indisputable proof that Joseph Smith was not an inspired translator?
@@dr33776 are you referring to the 22 ft long scroll that was lost in the Great Chicago fire of 1871, or the small fragments that remain today? If we still had the burned papyri that was actually used for the Book of Abraham we would not have that problem I described because it was found by natural means, not delivered by an angel. This is not unlike other apocryphal books that Joseph had no knowledge of, or access to.
@@brucenorth5337 no surprise that you are a long scroll theorist, your pet theory is irrelevant, the “small fragment” we do have along with the GAEL and the boa text proves without a doubt that Joseph smith was making it up.
How convenient that whenever god had the chance to prove Joseph was a true prophet such as the 116 pages or the papyri you apologists have to come up with small plates, lost long scrolls, or some other nonsense to excuse Joseph smith.
y’all are super fearful of ol’ Trent Horn with all these videos - he must be on the right track if he’s under your skin
@@savedbygracethrufaith Why would that make him right? Defensiveness doesn't imply he's right.
Or maybe Trent is mad he lost the debate and was trying to do damage control with his last video.
I don't see any fear in this video, just the usual calling out bogus.
Terrible logical argument here. Straw man of epic proportion.
@@jacobmayberry3566😂 Jacob was pathetic aa always.
Data > Trent🫡