God had Joseph Smith translate gold plates, then took them back. Why?

Question

If the gold plates were here, they could be analyzed by experts who would simply agree that they were as claimed, a history of a pre-Columbian people in the Americas...OR a fraud, and would state the reasons for this conclusion.

If the Book of Mormon is the most correct book, why did the LDS church choose to change "WHITE and DELIGHTSOME" to "FAIR and delightsome"?

Which word did Joseph see as he used the Urim and Thummin, or the peepstones in the hat?

It seems to me that if the plates were here, it would settle the whole issue.
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Answer 1

Well, the good news is we so have the Kinderhook plates and the Book of Abraham papyrus that Joseph 'translated' . The former was proved to be a hoax by some farmers, and the latter has been identified as a common Egyptian funerary text.

Let's not forget Zelph, the Nephite Warrior. Those bones are conveniently missing too.

Answer 2

It's the same reason we don't have items like the tablets containing the Ten Commandments or the Ark or the Covenant. After all, wouldn't it be so much easier for everyone to believe in the Bible (or to completely dismiss the Bible as a fraud) if those items were avaliable for scientific study? Of course it would! But sometimes it takes faith to believe. As someone else noted, even those who walked with Christ and saw the miracles He performed didn't believe, so sometimes I wonder if having the Gold Plates still avaliable would really make all that much a difference with the naysayers, or if they'd just try to come up with a different tactic to dismiss them if the scientists agreed with the Mormon Church as to the plates' origin.

Answer 3

Maybe if the plates were here, the world would accept them or maybe not. I just trust that the Lord knows what he is doing, and he always allows us to ask for ourselves what is true and what isn't. Think about when Christ walked the earth, many many saw his miracles and many of those people didn't believe...just because the "proof" is right before your eyes doesn't necessarily mean you will accept it. The Jewish rabbis were constantly asking for more more more from Christ, like "well if you do this, then we might believe"... that is just seeking for a sign and the Lord wants us to use faith first, then come the miracles.
As far as "white" it could have been translated in more meaning "pure". Not "white" the Caucasian race. Because really, was there a "racial" issue back then like there is today? I don't think so, it's like "gay" used to be more known as "happy" rather than "homosexual".
Ask your Heavenly Father, He is the only one with ALL the answers.

Answer 4

Get real! If the Gold Plates were here, you STILL wouldn't believe...just like the Isrealites rejected Jeremiah and said "man if we had prophets like Moses...oy! Now THERE was a prophet". (My apologies to my Jewish friends...this is supposed to be an anti-born-again rant...)

White, fair, tomato, tomahto...if they changed it to FAIR and delightsome, or PURE and delightsom, then you born agains would gripe "Oh look, the Mormons can't decide what to say in their fake book. Oh, look! The Mormons, the Mormons, the Mormons...blah blah blah!"

What makes you think that he saw actual words at all? What do YOU see when YOU look into a hat? Nothing. That's what I thought. Stand for nothing, believe in nothing, see nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Answer 5

exactly. it's a farce. on the LDS site, it shows smith looking at God and Jesus, like Moses did- how original. Except he looked Them both right in the face. If this happened, he would be dead.
How can the BoM be the correct book ?
Isn't the Bible the most correct book ?
It certainly needs to be.
Let's see...
Mormons teach/ believe :

-The Holy Ghost is one in purpose with the Father and the Son, but is a separate being.
: incorrect, the Holy Ghost is God's power, literally.

Family relationships can last forever—not just for this life
- incorrect, when we are resurrected, we are 'made new' in a new body, without pain and suffering. therefore, if a relative was not saved, we would NOT know them, otherwise it would lead to our suffering. we will not know others after we've died.

hell is spoken of in at least three senses: (1) That condition of misery which results from disobedience to divine law, whether the individual acknowledges the consequences of their actions or not. (2) The condition of misery experienced by those individuals who did not repent while on earth and who will live in a world of spirits after their demise on earth. It is a temporary state of existence until they have repented and are resurrected and stand at the final judgment. (3) The permanent habitation of Satan and those who follow him and who have knowingly rejected and denied the influence of righteousness, goodness, and God their Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.
- incorrect, in the Bible, Hell, asmost reference the word, means Sheol- in Hebrew, meaning, without/ shut up from/ covered from God, - literally the grave. It is NOT a place of eternal torment. The lake of fire, hell as most people know it, referenced by the hebrew word gehenna, in the bible; ALSO is not a place of eternal torment, 'the people will burn up like chaff' = poof, they're obliterated, not an eternal torment.
God is not cruel, he doesn't want to torture us.

In 1995, God’s living prophet and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles emphasized the importance of marriage and family
- incorrect - the yhave a council of 12 current apostles and a leader - i.e. - a current day Jesus, that leads. We know that we are not to put one person above another, religions that do so are showing themselves to be false doctrine/ religions.

Answer 6

1. No, the plates here would cause nothing but problems. There would be "experts" coming out of the woodwork, all claiming to know how to translate the plates, and each coming up with a different translation.

2. They changed "white" to "pure" because that's what it meant. There were anti's who were saying that white means caucasian, and that wasn't correct.

Answer 7

Because otherwise, the Mormons would be 'proven true' and we'd all have to be Mormon. They'd rule the universe and that wouldn't be any fun for anyone. Budweiser and Phillip Morris employees would all be out of jobs...

Although Fruit of the Loom could probably license the rights to exclusive production and distribution of Holy Mormon Underwear and would become the world's second-largest superpower (after the Church of course), so maybe the Bud and Phil Mor employees would have somewhere else to go.

Answer 8

If we still lived with God, we would have any of these questions. Luckily, God doesn't have it in his plan for us to know everything. We are here to be tested and to learn for ourselves. Having the plates would eliminate the need for faith which is a key element in God's plan. We also have some original manuscripts, not all but some to clarify things, plus why would it even matter if whether it said "fair" or "white"?

Answer 9

Perhaps so that the Mormons would need to have faith just like other religions.

I sometimes wish I were an atheist so that I could make fun of the Christians who make fun of the Mormons.

Answer 10

Joseph Smith is a fraud, and all tangible mormon evidence is gone, so that people can only believe by "faith". Tangible evidence against Mormonism is the DNA testing of the Indians proving that they really don't have Israelite genes, and the Book of Abraham fraud where the actual papyrus was found, tested and turned out to be a funerary document of a man named Hor. The church even had these papyrus tested, and when the evidence was found against the church, it was covered up....these issues are all tested and proved....and you can find these things in libraries, book stores, and on the internet for your study.