Were Golden Plates Real? (John Turner 3 of 6)

Jun 21, 2025

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What does John Turner believe about the Golden Plates? Were they made of tin as Dan Vogel asserts? What about the First Vision controversy? Does John think Joseph was a pious fraud? Did Joseph take advantage of Martin Harris? John answers these and other question. Check out our conversation…

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What Did Joseph Smith Really Have in that Box?

Historian John Turner, author of Joseph Smith, The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, delves into the enduring mystery surrounding Joseph Smith’s golden plates and the origins of the Book of Mormon. His insights offer a nuanced perspective, moving beyond simple pronouncements to a historian’s critical examination.

The Golden Plates: A Historian’s Best Judgment

When it comes to the golden plates, Turner makes a clear distinction between visionary experiences and material objects. While he acknowledges that understanding Joseph Smith’s visions is difficult as a historian, dealing with a physical claim like the golden plates is different.

Turner’s “best judgment” as a historian is that Joseph Smith did not have actual golden plates. However, he strongly believes Joseph did engage in a “certain amount of subterfuge”. Joseph clearly possessed some sort of physical object which he would place in a box, heft around, and at times cover with a linen cloth. Others, including Emma Smith, witnessed an object that seemed like “thin sheets of metal under a linen cloth,” suggesting some form of metallic object.

For Turner, the simplest explanation for a young man claiming to have a valuable object he can’t show to anyone else is that he doesn’t have it. This conclusion is also reinforced by his reading of the Book of Mormon as a 19^th-century text, rather than an ancient record. If it’s a 19^th-century text, golden plates aren’t necessary, making it “more likely” that the text “flows out of Joseph’s literary imagination”.

Turner emphasizes that this critical examination is not meant to be disrespectful to faithful Latter-day Saints, but rather a serious approach to studying the tradition.

The Search for Alternatives: Not Enough Evidence

The question of what Joseph might have had in the box has led to various theories:

Dan Vogelhas suggested the object might have been made of tin.
Sonia Hazard, another scholar, theorizes that Joseph could have encountered printing plates, which served as an inspiration for the project and could have been the object in the box.

However, Turner states that there is not enough evidence to support any of these alternative theories. While these are “suggestive possibilities,” he concludes, “we can’t know. So, I think we have to leave it as a bit of a mystery”. He also clarifies that for him, the “absence of evidence for any alternative explanation is [not] evidence for the faithful account”.

Audacity Over Deception: The Book of Mormon Project

Despite his view on the golden plates, Turner doesn’t primarily see Joseph Smith as a “fraud,” “deceiver,” or “impostor”. While he acknowledges an “element of deception that gets it off the ground,” his main takeaway from the Book of Mormon project is its utter improbability and audacity.

Turner describes it as a “hairbrained scheme” that Joseph “pulls off”. He points out that it was “utterly unlikely” for a 21-year-old Joseph Smith, without formal education, to embark on such a project and publish a 600-page book. This remarkable literary success, while not a bestseller at the time, certainly had “serious legs”. Turner sees this as “an act of audacity” rather than primarily an “act of deception,” crediting Joseph Smith with this incredible literary production.

Assessing Joseph’s Sincerity

The question of Joseph Smith’s sincerity is complex. Turner generally tries to avoid weighing in on Joseph’s sincerity at any given moment, noting that it’s difficult to assess even for people we interact with daily.

He does, however, believe that Joseph was a “sincere Christian” in the sense that his family had been seeking a context to “encounter to know and be saved by Jesus Christ”. Joseph was familiar with the Bible and prayed sincerely. Ultimately, Turner concludes that “Joseph believes in the vision that the Book of Mormon and his other texts articulate”.

The Complicated Relationship with Martin Harris

Martin Harris was instrumental in the Book of Mormon’s publication, even mortgaging his farm to bankroll it. Turner notes that Harris was “desperate to believe” in the golden plates and Joseph, being “very primed to believe” and looking for a new direction in his life. In the end, Harris reportedly felt he “gotten what he was looking for” and did not think Joseph had deceived or swindled him.

However, Turner finds Joseph’s treatment of Martin “troubling” in certain ways. He believes Joseph applied “ecclesiastical pressure to get a wavering Martin Harris over the line to bankroll or guarantee the book publication”. Furthermore, in early 1830, Joseph appeared “a little bit callous toward Harris,” being “reluctant to split profits from the book sales with him” and seeming to “cut him out of the potential Canadian copyright sale”. Turner describes Joseph’s treatment of Harris as “a little bit on the shabby side”.

The Early Polygamy Question

The discussion also briefly touched upon a possible 1831 polygamy revelation related to elders marrying Native Americans on the Missouri border, as suggested by a later account from William Phelps. Turner, however, states he does “not put too much stock in that” and does not believe there is “solid evidence for Joseph having had a revelation on plural marriage in the 1830s“. He notes that a critic from that period, Ezra Booth, who wrote scathing letters after becoming disillusioned with Joseph, made no mention of polygamy, which Turner believes would have been “good fuel for Booth’s criticism” had it existed.

John Turner’s approach invites a deeper, more analytical engagement with the history of Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saint tradition, encouraging readers to consider the complexities and human elements behind the narratives.

Gospel Tangents

Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission