Three Witnesses

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The Three Witnesses were one of two sets of "special witnesses" to the Book of Mormon's Golden Plates of which the other was the Eight Witnesses.

The Three Witnesses were Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer, whose joint testimony has been printed with nearly every edition of the Book of Mormon since its first publication in 1830. All three witnesses eventually broke with Smith and were excommunicated from his church, but they also all testified to their belief in the supernatural origin of the Book of Mormon at least during some periods of their later lives.

Contents

[edit] Testimony of the Three Witnesses

According to the canonical story, on an unspecified day in an unspecified place, Joseph Smith Jr., Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris retired to the woods, praying to receive a vision of the Golden Plates. After some time, Harris left the other three men, believing that his presence had prevented the vision from occurring. The remaining three knelt again and soon saw a light in the air over their heads and an angel holding the plates in his hands. Smith retrieved Harris, and after praying at some length with him, Harris too said he saw the vision, shouting, "'Tis enough; 'tis enough; mine eyes have beheld."[1]

A statement of 1830—one statement signed by three men rather than three separate statements—was published at the end of the first edition of the Book of Mormon:

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, his [sic] brethren, and also of the people of Jared, which came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seeen [sic] the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shewn [sic] unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvellous [sic] in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.

In subsequent editions of the Book of Mormon, the testimony was moved to the beginning of the book and spelling errors were corrected.

[edit] The Three Witnesses

A monument to the Three Witnesses at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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A monument to the Three Witnesses at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.

All three Witnesses had a magical mindset and believed in "second sight," form of extra-sensory perception in which a person could receive important information about future events and the unseen world of spirits.[2]

[edit] Oliver Cowdery

Like Smith, who was a distant relative, Oliver Cowdery was a treasure hunter who had used a divining rod in his youth. Cowdery asked questions of the rod; if it moved, the answer was yes, if not, no.[3] Cowdery also told Smith that he had seen the Golden Plates in a vision before the two ever met.

Before Cowdery served as one of the Three Witnesses, he had already claimed two other important visions. As Smith told the story in 1838, Cowdery and Smith said that John the Baptist had appeared to them in May 1829 and had conferred on them the Aaronic Priesthood, after which they had baptized each other in the Susquehanna River.[4] Later, Cowdery said that he and Smith had gone into the forest and prayed "until a glorious light encircled us, and as we arose on account of the light, three persons stood before us dressed in white, their faces beaming with glory." One of the three announced that he was the Apostle Peter and named the others as James and John.[5]

Cowdery's falling out with Smith began after Cowdery called Smith's liaison with Fanny Alger a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair." But Cowdery was excommunicated only after he refused to obey Smith's command not to sell lands on which Cowdery hoped to make a profit ("declaring that he would not be governed by any ecclesiastical authority nor Revelation whatever in his temporal affairs").[6]

After Cowdery's excommunication on April 12, 1838, he taught school, practiced law, and was involved in Ohio political and civic affairs. Following his relocation to Tiffin, Ohio in 1840, Cowdery reaffirmed his role in the establishment of the Mormonism even though the confession cost him the editorship of a paper he had been editing. In 1848, after Joseph Smith's assassination, Cowdery reaffirmed his witness to the Golden Plates and asked to be readmitted to the church. He never held another high office in the church and died shortly thereafter.

[edit] Martin Harris

Martin Harris was a respected farmer in the Palmyra area, but he had changed his religion at least five times even before he became a Mormon.[7] Like the other Witnesses, he had a magical world view. A biographer wrote that his "imagination was excitable and fecund." He once thought that a candle sputtering was the work of the devil. He told a friend that he had met Jesus in the shape of a deer and walked and talked with him for two or three miles.[8]The local Presbyterian pastor called Harris "a visionary fanatic."[9] A friend, who praised Harris as a "universally esteemed as an honest man," also declared that Harris's mind "was overbalanced by 'marvellousness'" and that his belief in earthly visitations of angels and ghosts gave him a local reputation of being crazy.[10] Another friend said, "Martin was a man that would do just as he agreed with you. But, he was a great man for seeing spooks."[11]

Harris had his own problems with Joseph Smith's relationship to Fanny Alger, and he called Smith's Kirtland Safety Society scheme "a swindle."[12] In March 1838, Martin Harris publicly denied that either he or the other Witnesses to the Book of Mormon had ever seen or handled the golden plates—although, of course, he had not been present when Whitmer and Cowdery first claimed to have viewed them. Harris's recantation, made during a period of crisis in early Mormonism, induced five influential members, including three Apostles, to leave the Church.[13] Even near the end of his long life, Harris once said that he had seen the plates in "a state of entrancement."[14]

Nevertheless, in 1853, Harris told one David Dille that Joseph Smith had been a "Prophet of God" and that the Book of Mormon was translated "by the gift and power of God." Harris even told Dille that he had held the forty- to sixty-pound plates on his knee for "an hour-and-a-half" and handled the plates with his hands, "plate after plate."[15] Even later, Harris affirmed that he had seen the plates and the angel with his natural eyes: "Gentlemen," holding out his hand, "do you see that hand? Are you sure you see it? Or are your eyes playing you a trick or something? No. Well, as sure as you see my hand so sure did I see the Angel and the plates." [16]

In 1837, Harris joined with dissenters, led by Warren Parrish, in an attempt to reform the Mormon church. But Parrish rejected the Book of Mormon, and Harris continued to believe in it. By 1840, Harris returned to Smith's church, but following Smith's assassination, Harris accepted James J. Strang as a new prophet with his own set of supernatural plates. By 1847, Harris had broken with Strang and had accepted the leadership of fellow Book of Mormon witness, David Whitmer. Then he left Whitmer for another Mormon factional leader, Gladden Bishop. In 1855, Harris joined with the last surviving brother of Joseph Smith Jr., William Smith and affirmed that William was Joseph's true successor. Finally, in extreme old age, Harris accepted the charity of the Utah church and spent his remaining years with relatives in the west.

[edit] David Whitmer

David Whitmer had his testimony engraved on his tombstone.

The testimony of the Three Witnesses has encouraged the practice within Latter Day Saint churches of bearing one's testimony.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 78.
  2. ^ Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 175-76.
  3. ^ Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 73; Palmer, 179.
  4. ^ Bushman, 74-75.
  5. ^ Charles M. Nielsen to Heber Grant, February 10, 1898, in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 2: 476.
  6. ^ Bushman, 323, 347-48.
  7. ^ Harris had been a Quaker, a Universalist, a Restorationist, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, and perhaps a Methodist. Ronald W. Walker, "Martin Harris: Mormonism's Early Concert," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19 (Winter 1986):30-33).
  8. ^ John A. Clark letter, August 31, 1840 in EMD, 2: 271.
  9. ^ Walker, 34-35.
  10. ^ Pomroy Tucker Reminiscence, 1858 in Early Mormon Documents 3: 71.
  11. ^ Lorenzo Saunders Interview, November 12, 1884, Early Mormon Documents 2: 149.
  12. ^ Antony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast ([Malad City, Idaho]: n.p. [1888], 70-73 in EMD, 2: 348.
  13. ^ Stephen Burnett to Luke S. Johnson, 15 April 1838, in Joseph Smith's Letterbook, Early Mormon Documents 2: 290-92.
  14. ^ Metcalf in EMD, 2: 347.
  15. ^ Martin Harris interview with David B. Dille, 15 September 1853 in EMD 2: 296-97.
  16. ^ Martin Harris interview with Robert Barter, c. 1870 in EMD, 2: 390.

[edit] See also

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