Unreliable Witnesses

    Much has been made of the fact that the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery, and Martin Harris, never once denied their testimonies as written in the official statement included at the beginning of the Book of Mormon. It is true that history offers no proof that they ever directly betrayed their collective, solemn witness, but if one examines their many sensational statements and suspicious activities, especially those in the years following their experience with the angel, a compelling case can be made that these witnesses have some serious credibility issues.

   It is not my intent to describe each witness in detail; there are plenty of books and articles that provide thorough overviews. I will, however, offer a brief list of some of their questionable traits, strange words, and inexplicable actions that serve to illuminate their superstitious, “magic world view,” and challenge the veracity of their statements regarding the Book of Mormon:¹

  Oliver Cowdery: 

• Oliver was skilled in working with magical divining rods, which were used to “divine” information about buried treasure, among other things. In the Book of Commandments, chapter 7, the Lord acknowledges his use of “the rod” and how it “has told (him) many things.” This reference to a divining rod was deleted when the D&C was introduced in 1835.
  

• He reported that he had “seen the plates” in vision before he met Joseph Smith.
  

• According to David Whitmer, with whom Oliver lived during the last year of his life, Oliver rejected the Doctrine and Covenants and considered the church to be in error.

  David Whitmer:

• Whitmer testified that God had spoken to him from heaven in June, 1838, and told him to separate from the church.
  

• Along with Oliver and others, he accepted the revelations that one of the eight witnesses, Hiram Page, received through his seer stone. Joseph later received a revelation that rejected Hiram’s contributions and helped to consolidate his own authority as the sole revelator for the church.
  

• David reported in June, 1829, that he, Joseph, and Oliver had seen a Nephite carrying the plates in a knapsack on his way to the Hill Cumorah and had later perceived this same Nephite secreting himself under the Whitmer’s shed.
  

• David was ordained as a prophet, seer, revelator, and translator for the offshoot Church of Christ, continued to keep a seer stone, and later authorized his grandson to use one to translate undiscovered records. His brothers, also witnesses to the Book of Mormon, continued to possess seer stones.
  

• After Joseph Smith’s death, he accepted James J. Strang as the Lord’s ordained successor to Joseph and believed Strang’s claims to have translated additional, sacred records.
  

• Whitmer told a faithful Mormon interviewer that he saw an angel and handled the plates “in vision,” but did not handle them in a physical manner.

  Martin Harris:

• Martin was described by many in his neighborhood as a good, but highly superstitious man.
  

• He described an incident in 1827 in which he was digging for treasures in the Hill Cumorah. After he discovered a hidden chest, it suddenly sunk into the earth.
  

• Before his visionary experience with the other witnesses, Harris told Joseph that the Lord had revealed to him much more about the plates than Joseph realized, and that he had already seen the plates in vision.
  

• Harris served on James J. Strang’s high council and went to England to serve a mission for his new church.
  

• Altogether, Martin joined eight different religious groups. One of them was Anne Lee’s Shakers, and his recorded testimony of Shakerism is perhaps as convincing as anything he had written about the Book of Mormon.
  

• On multiple occasions, he told others that he had seen the plates and the angel in vision only, or with his spiritual eyes, as one sees a “city through a mountain.”

¹ For verification of the facts, see the page entitled “suggested readings”