Gold Plates as burglar protection

[Hagoth]

I saw a quote on another forum from Fawn Brodie's book, in which she observes the irony that the gold plates were too deadly to be viewed yet were always in danger of being stolen. I was shocked that this contradiction had never occurred to me.

Joseph Smith told his friends and family that they couldn't look upon the gold plates because it would be instant death. That was his excuse for why this heavy object was always in a bag, a box, or wrapped in a table cloth. BUT that apparently didn't apply to his enemies, because he was always hiding the plates in hollow logs, in barrels of beans, buried under the hearth, in the loft of the shed, etc. to keep thieves from getting their hands on them for monetary gain.

Wouldn't the plates' insta-destruct protection mechanism make them completely theft-proof?

[Just This Guy]

There you go applying logic to this Mormon thing again.

Bad Hagoth! For that you get another time out on your island in the southern Pacific.

[Palerider]

I can see the look on a Gospel Doctrine teacher's face now as you bring this up in Sunday School. It would be that painful half smile, half frown that says all at the same time, "Are you some kind of a Smart Alek? Don't you realize you're disturbing the "flow" right now? I can't answer that! There just has to be one in every class...."

[Not Buying It]

Ever see the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? That's what would have happened had Joseph's enemies stolen the plates and looked upon them. Faces melting and heads exploding galore.

[moksha]

Probably a successful act of burglary would cause the Lord to disguise the plates as something else.

[Hagoth]

Probably a successful act of burglary would cause the Lord to disguise the plates as something else.

Or, since they weren't actually used for the translation or viewed directly by anyone, plates made of spiritual gold would have sufficed.

[deacon blues]

Here is one point of view.
https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Ques ... n_death%3F

[Hagoth]

Here is one point of view.
https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Ques ... n_death%3F

So it's like the angel with the sword. "You don't want to be responsible for my death do you?"

[Emower]

I never thought of that either. Good catch. The more you think about it, the more you realize that Joseph was fairly immature about the whole thing.

[deacon blues]

I have often thought that being a money digger and a peeper would have given Joseph opportunity to practice his deceptive skills.

[Red Ryder]

Here is one point of view.
https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Ques ... n_death%3F

So it's like the angel with the sword. "You don't want to be responsible for my death do you?"

I love how they use Joseph Smith's first person account here when it's beneficial and disregard it when it's not (first vision account).

The only first-person account—that made by Joseph Smith himself—says that it was Joseph who would be destroyed if he showed the plates to any other person unless commanded to do so by the Lord