LDS Freedom Forum

The instructor taught the kids this morning that JS saw the plates "spiritually." Is this instructor suggesting the plates weren't even tangible at all?
Thoughts?

It would help to know the context. Perhaps the teacher was explaining how the translation was not a process of Joseph looking at the characters in the plates, but a spiritual experience (and Joseph mainly looking at the seer stone).
Or are you sure he was talking about Joseph? Many of the accounts of 3 and 8 witnesses sound like their experience was a spiritual and it is unclear what they actually saw with their biological eyes.
There is a number of stories that make it clear that the plates were a tangible object. If the teacher denies that, then the teacher does not know what he/she is talking about.

The context of this is: the instructor said Joseph Smith's scribes wanted to see the plates and on numerous occasions he told them they couldn't see them and that some of them started to believe they weren't even real. That's when this teaching comes in. That even Joseph Smith saw them spiritually.

FreedomFighterUSA wrote: ↑January 21st, 2021, 9:38 am The instructor taught the kids this morning that JS saw the plates "spiritually." Is this instructor suggesting the plates weren't even tangible at all?
Thoughts?

I'm not surprised. The RLDS came up with that one many years ago, and as I've often said, we tend to follow their lead.
Pretty soon the first vision will be a teenager's "foundational experience", the Book of Mormon will "contain" a testimony of Jesus (though not on a par with the Bible of course), the priesthood will no longer be the preserve of the oppressive patriarchy, and "love is love" will affirm all practicing LGBTQ's.

I'd say you need to have a talk with this seminary teacher. This is my favorite story about joseph smith, this was as he was returning the plates to his home for the first time, he wouldn't have done all of this if he didn't physically have the plates. "he was jumping over a log, a man sprang up from behind and gave him a heavy blow with a gun. Joseph turned around and knocked him to the ground, and then ran at the top of his speed. About half a mile further, he was attacked again in precisely the same way. He soon brought this one down also and ran on again, but before he got home, he was accosted the third time with a severe stroke with a gun." Joseph struck this third and final attacker with such force that he dislocated his own thumb. He continued running, "being closely pursued until he came near his father's house," at which time his assailants, "for fear of being detected," broke off the chase. Reaching a fence corner, he "threw himself down … to recover his breath," then rose and continued running until he reached the house."