Martin Harris and Neville’s false dilemma

A false dilemma is a logical fallacy “in which something is falsely claimed to be an ‘either/or’ situation, when in fact there is at least one additional option.” Jonathan Neville’s writings are littered with false dilemmas. Most of them basically boil down to either you unquestioningly accept everything the early Brethren said about Book of Mormon geography, the Hill Cumorah, and related matters, or you write them off as fraudulent liars and deceivers.

Sometimes Neville creates false dilemmas from the way he reads historical sources.

In his February 20, 2019, blog post “Martin Harris—no on else saw the plates,” Neville creates another false dilemma in how we should understand a statement Martin Harris made in 1859. Harris was quoted as saying:

These plates were usually kept in a cherry box made for that purpose, in the possession of Joseph and myself. The plates were kept from the sight of the world, and no one, save Oliver Cowdrey, myself, Joseph Smith, jr., and David Whitmer, ever saw them.

The way Neville reads this quote, either Martin Harris was lying because the Eight Witnesses also saw the plates, or Martin was telling the truth and the Three and Eight Witnesses saw different sets of plates, which disproves the “traditional narrative” and proves Neville’s own theory that there were two sets of plates.

So, based on the scenario Neville sets up, either you accept Jonathan Neville’s theory or you dismiss Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and other early eyewitnesses as flagrant liars.

Martin Harris, photographed in 1870 by Charles R. Savage

Of course, Neville uses this false dilemma to play into his larger narrative that “M2C* intellectuals” are conspiring and evil because they are trying to get Church members to throw the prophets under the bus. It’s an entirely self-serving tactic to get a knee-jerk, emotional reaction out of his readers: “I certainly don’t want to think of Martin Harris as a liar, so I’m going to have to agree with Neville and reject ‘M2C.’”"

All of this is completely erroneous. There’s a much simpler and more plausible way to interpret Martin’s statement without rejecting the Witnesses or accepting Neville’s bizarre, ad hoc theory about two sets of plates.

Reading more of the quote by Harris reveals important context:

“These plates were usually kept in a cherry box made for that purpose, in the possession of Joseph and myself. The plates were kept from the sight of the world, and no one, save Oliver Cowdrey, myself, Joseph Smith, jr., and David Whitmer, ever saw them. Before the Lord showed the plates to me, Joseph wished me to see them. But I refused, unless the Lord should do it. At one time, before the Lord showed them to me, Joseph said I should see them. I asked him, why he would break the commands of the Lord! He said, you have done so much I am afraid you will not believe unless you see them. I replied, ”Joseph, I know all about it. The Lord has showed to me ten times more about it than you know.’”—Here we inquired of Mr. Harris—How did the Lord show you these things! He replied, “I am forbidden to say anything how the Lord showed them to me, except that by the power of God I have seen them.”

Neville only quotes the italicized portion. He does not quote the rest of Harris’s comment, which provides much-needed context. Martin, it turns out, was very concerned about not glimpsing the plates in any sort of unauthorized manner. Even when Joseph at one point offered to show him the plates, Martin refused “unless the Lord should do it” [i.e., reveal the plates].

The language here is striking since it’s reminiscent of the language in the revelation given to Joseph in March 1829 on the calling of the Three Witnesses:

And then he shall say unto the people of this generation: Behold, I have seen the things which the Lord hath shown unto Joseph Smith, Jun., and I know of a surety that they are true, for I have seen them, for they have been shown unto me by the power of God and not of man. And I the Lord command him, my servant Martin Harris, that he shall say no more unto them concerning these things, except he shall say: I have seen them, and they have been shown unto me by the power of God; and these are the words which he shall say. (D&C 5:25–26)

This revelation clearly sets forth what Martin himself was specifically to testify of after seeing the plates, namely that they were shown by the Lord through the power of God. This is the same thing Martin told Joel Tiffany in his 1859 interview. In other words, Martin was distinguishing that only he, David Whitmer, and Oliver Cowdery, besides Joseph Smith, had seen the plates by the power of God. This is reinforced by the revelation given to Joseph in June 1829 which says that Oliver and David likewise would be obliged to “testify of them [i.e., ‘the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim’ in v. 1], by the power of God” (D&C 17:4).

The Eight Witnesses, on the other hand, were not shown the plates in a glorious vision. They only reported handling the plates and seeing the engravings on them. There was nothing miraculous in their experience, nary a hint of what some today would call the “supernatural.” (Which was sort of the point: The testimonies of the Three and Eight Witnesses work together to confirm both the miraculous nature of the translation of the Book of Mormon and the matter-of-fact material existence of the plates.)

This reading of Martin Harris’s statement is thoroughly plausible and doesn’t require us to accept Neville’s fallacious false dilemma.

Apparently anticipating this argument, Neville counters:

Some might say [Martin] was referring only to the experience of the Three Witnesses, but that’s changing his unambiguous statement. His words speak for themselves.

Actually, no. Martin’s words don’t speak for themselves—no historical figure “speaks for himself” in the absolute sense. We, living a century and a half later, need to interpret what his words meant, especially—as even Neville acknowledges—when those words appear to contradict other historical evidence. If Martin’s words “spoke for themselves,” then there would be no controversy. Everyone would uniformly agree with what Martin meant.

Neville can argue for his two-sets-of-plates theory if he chooses. He is perfectly free to insist that his interpretation of Martin’s words is the strongest possible interpretation. But Neville’s bald assertions are just that—bald assertions. There’s a perfectly satisfactory way to interpret what Martin Harris meant without resorting to Neville’s fallacious false dilemma.

—Captain Hook

* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.