If there is no dictated text, no manuscript, no firsthand claim, and no documented translation event, how much blind faith is required to insist that Joseph Smith translated the Kinderhook Plates? There is no record of Joseph Smith dictating a translation of the Kinderhook Plates. There is no manuscript. There are no scribes assigned to…
When the Forgery Was Finally Admitted The Kinderhook Plates did not remain a mystery forever. Decades after the brief episode in Nauvoo faded from memory, the truth about their origin finally surfaced. And it did not surface through Latter-day Saint apologetics. It surfaced through the men who created the plates themselves. In 1879, Wilbur Fugate…
Why “I Translated a Portion” Became a First-Person Quote The Kinderhook Plates argument in the CES Letter depends on one sentence doing an extraordinary amount of work. Without it, the entire claim that Joseph Smith was caught translating a hoax loses its force. That sentence is presented to readers as if Joseph Smith himself said…
The Quote the CES Letter Needs To Be True If the Kinderhook Plates are meant to function as a strong “gotcha” in the CES Letter, the keystone they are made to be, that strong piece of evidence, everything rests on one central claim: that Joseph Smith actually translated the plates. Not examined them. Not compared…
Dear CES Letter, Your letter treats the Kinderhook Plates as a critical test of Joseph Smith’s prophetic claims. The episode is brief, but it is positioned in a way that suggests it carries disproportionate weight. That choice alone invites a closer look at how the argument is constructed. The Kinderhook Plates appear only briefly in…