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Kinderhook plates

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File:Kinderhook plates.gif
Front and back of four of the six Kinderhook plates are shown in these facsimiles, which appeared in 1909 in History of the Church, vol. 5, pp. 374–75.

The Kinderhook plates were a set of 6 small, bell-shaped pieces of brass with strange engravings discovered in 1843 in an Indian mound near Kinderhook, Illinois.

Designed to appear ancient, the plates were in fact a forgery created by three men (Bridge Whitten, Robert Wiley, and Wilburn Fugate) in Kinderhook who were hoping to trick Latter Day Saints (Mormons), whose headquarters at the time were in nearby Nauvoo. According to Latter Day Saint belief, the Book of Mormon was originally translated from a record engraved on Golden Plates by the ancient inhabitants of the Americas.

The "discovery" of the plates

The forgers intentionally "discovered" the plates in the presence of a Latter-day Saint neighbor, who took them to the prophet and church founder, Joseph Smith, Jr. According to William Clayton's journal (Clayton was the personal secretary to Joseph Smith), Smith had begun to "translate" the writing on the plates.[citation needed] Upon learning of the plates, Smith sent for his "Hebrew Bible & Lexicon,"[1] suggesting that he was going to attempt to translate the plates by normal means, rather than by use of a seerstone or direct revelation.[2]

LDS response to the plates

In what is presumed to have been a statement made directly by Joseph Smith, page 372 of the History of the Church (DHC) reads: "I [Joseph Smith] have translated a portion of them, and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth" (DHC 5:372).

However some authors differ on the validity of the statement in the History of the Church, Diane Wirth, writing in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon (4: 210), discredits the DHC account by writing: “Joseph Smith’s supposed statement that the Kinderhook plates were authentic and that they were the ‘records of the descendants of Ham,’ came from the journal of William Clayton, who wrote in the first person, as though from the mouth of Joseph Smith. A first-person narrative was apparently a common practice of this time period when a biographical work was being compiled. Since such words were never penned by the Prophet, they cannot be uncritically accepted as his words or his opinion.” However, William Clayton's writings are liberally quoted without this caveat when they support pro-LDS historical interpretations.

Sources other than the section from the History of the Church contain reference to the Kinderhook plates. Articles in Times and Seasons, The Nauvoo Neighbor, and Warsaw Signal from 1843 and 1844 document the discovery's importance to the Saints and the excitement it created. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Most Mormons look at the events surrounding the plates as little more than historical trivia, [citation needed] though often the story is used by historians to cast doubt on Joseph Smith's ability to recognize or translate authentic ancient records because he could not provide evidence that he had such ability.

Exposure of the plates as a hoax

In 1920, one of the plates came into the possession of the Chicago Historical Society (now the Chicago History Museum). [citation needed] Some determined the engravings were etched, whereas others concluded they were acid etched as the historical record attests. In 1980 Professor D. Lynn Johnson of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University used various scanning devices and concluded the “the plate owned by the Chicago Historical Society is not of ancient origin” and that the plates were in fact etched with acid.[3]

In 1966, one of the Kinderhook Plates was recovered and tested at Brigham Young University and Northwestern University. The inscriptions matched facsimiles of the plate published contemporaneously, and the presence of a dent that had been interpreted in the facsimilie as part of a character indicated that the plate was one of the Kinderhook Plates. The tolerances and composition of its metal proved entirely consistent with the facilities available in an 19th century blacksmith shop, and, more importantly, traces of nitrogen were found in what were clearly acid-etched grooves. The tests were deemed conclusive and today there is general agreement that the plates are a hoax.

Notes

  1. ^ Smith & 7 May 1843
  2. ^ Ashurst-McGee 2003, p. 320
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kimball66 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

References

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