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South
Park’s portrayal of Joseph Smith finding the Golden
Plates is play on history but is pretty close to how it
happened.
In the South Park episode, Joseph Smith runs into town to
tell everyone that he’s found “another New Testament
of Jesus Christ.” Joseph Smith tells everyone in town
that after being visited by the Angel Moroni the night before,
he “dug around all morning” and almost gave
up until he stumbled upon a stone box. Inside, Joseph Smith
finds two “magical seer stones” and “four
gold plates.”
When the townspeople ask to see the plates and the seer
stones, Joseph hesitates and explains that the Angel Moroni
told him not to show them to anyone. The lyrical song ends
the segment singing: “nobody else ever saw the plates.”
In fact,
there are several different accounts of how Joseph Smith
obtained the golden plates, but all of them indicate that
the Angel Moroni showed Joseph Smith the exact spot in a
hill, which Moroni called the “Hill Camorah.”
(Not to be confused with the Island
of Camora off the coast of Africa with its capital city
Moroni.)
Furthermore,
South Park gives the impression that Joseph Smith found
his seer stones buried with the golden plates. In fact,
Joseph Smith had been using seer stones for many years prior
to his claims about obtaining golden plates. According to
the Official History of the Church, as early as 1822 Joseph
Smith had a seer stone, which:
"was a chocolate-colored, somewhat egg-shaped stone
which the Prophet found while digging a well in company
with his brother Hyrum, for a Mr. Clark Chase, near Palmyra,
NY. It possessed the qualities of a Urim and Thummim,
since by means of it, as well as by means of the Interpreters
found with the Nephite record, Joseph was able to translate
the characters - engraven on the [golden] plates."
Official History of the Church, Volume 1, Page 128
Joseph
Smith did not find any of his seer stones with the golden
plates, although that is what South Park depicts.
In
a letter he wrote to a Chicago newspaper, Joseph Smith describes
the ancient records and “interpreters” he found
at the hill:
“These
records were engraven on plates which had the appearance
of gold, each plate was six inches wide and eight inches
long and not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled
with engravings, in Egyptian characters and bound together
in a volume, as the leaves of a book with three rings
running through the whole. The volume was something near
six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. The
characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully
engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity
in its construction and much skill in the art of engraving.
With the records was found a curious instrument
which the ancients called "Urim and Thummim,"
which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rim
of a bow fastened to a breastplate.”
- Joseph
Smith, March, 1842 letter to the editor of the Chicago
Democrat, also published in The Times and Seasons,
Vol. III (No. 9)
The
fact that Smith’s “interpreters” and his
seer stones looked different is confirmed by special Book
of Mormon Witness Martin Harris, who said Joseph Smith's
seer stones "differed in appearance entirely from the
Urim and Thummim that was obtained with the [golden] plates,
which were two clear stones set in two rims, very much resembling
spectacles, only they were larger.”
- Official History of the Church, Volume 1, Page 128
What
South Park shows buried with the golden plates are two of
Joseph Smith's seer stones.
According
to official LDS Church history, Joseph Smith possessed at
least three seer stones. He had a white opaque stone, a
greenish-colored seer stone (shown in South Park) and a
brown seer stone that remains in the possession of the First
Presidency of the LDS Church.
For
more information and photos of Joseph Smith's seer stones,
see:
Real
Mormon History - All About Seer Stones
Smith's Three Seer Stones
As
far as nobody seeing the plates of gold but Joseph Smith,
the beginning of the Book of Mormon contains a statement
that the plates were real, with the names of several of
Joseph Smith's close associates below it. No original copy
of this statement with their signatures exists, but the
Church demonstrates this as evidence that others saw the
gold plates.
Years
after the Book of Mormon was published, special Book of
Mormon witness Martin Harris testifed that "I
never saw the gold plates, only in a visionary or entranced
state. ...In about three days I went into the woods
to pray that I might see the plates. While praying I passed
into a state of entrancement, and in that state I saw the
angel [Moroni] and the plates."
- Martin Harris Interview, Anthony Metcalf,
Ten Years Before the Mast, n.d., microfilm copy, p. 70-71
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- Translating the Plates >>
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