Across the library

The witnesses of the Book of Mormon

Three men said an angel showed them the plates. Within ten years, all three were out of the church. Not one of them ever denied what he signed — and the last of them spent his final year in print saying so. The record, every quote linked.

Eleven men put their names to the Book of Mormon in 1830, in two written testimonies that have been printed in every copy since. The three who claimed the most — an angel, a voice from heaven — all broke with Joseph Smith within ten years. None of them ever took it back. This page follows that record, and every quote links to its source.

The testimony of three

In June 1829, near the end of the translation, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris signed a joint statement. Notice what it actually claims — not a feeling or a conviction, but a specific event:

And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon.

The Testimony of Three Witnesses, printed in every edition of the Book of Mormon since 1830

And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.

The Testimony of Three Witnesses, printed in every edition of the Book of Mormon since 1830

The testimony of eight

Days later, eight more men — four Whitmers, three Smiths, and Hiram Page — signed a second statement. This one is plainer. No angel and no voice: they say Joseph Smith handed them the plates and they have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates, and that as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands. One claim is miraculous and one is physical, and both have been printed in the book for nearly two hundred years.

1838: all three out

By 1838 all three of the special witnesses had broken with the church. Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were excommunicated at Far West that spring, after bitter disputes with Joseph Smith, and Martin Harris had fallen away in Kirtland. This is the fact that makes everything below matter. Each of these men spent years outside the church — Whitmer spent fifty — and any one of them could have made a name for himself by exposing the whole thing. There was always an audience ready for it. None of them ever did.

Never denied

In 1887, months before his death, David Whitmer published a pamphlet in Richmond, Missouri. He had been out of the church for forty-nine years and was not coming back — the same pamphlet argues at length against polygamy and against the church's name and structure. This is not a friendly source, and that is exactly why it matters:

I will say once more to all mankind, that I have never at any time denied that testimony or any part thereof. I also testify to the world, that neither Oliver Cowdery or Martin Harris ever at any time denied their testimony. They both died reaffirming the truth of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (1887)

The pamphlet also reprints a proclamation he first published in 1881, after a neighbor claimed he had privately recanted:

That I have never at any time denied that testimony or any part thereof, which has so long since been published with that Book, as one of the three witnesses. Those who know me best, well know that I have always adhered to that testimony. And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do again affirm the truth of all of my statements, as then made and published.

David Whitmer, proclamation of March 1881, reprinted in An Address to All Believers in Christ (1887)

And he recorded the last words of Oliver Cowdery, who had returned to the church in 1848 and died at Whitmer's home in Richmond in 1850:

Brother David, be true to your testimony to the Book of Mormon.

Oliver Cowdery's last words, as recorded by David Whitmer in An Address to All Believers in Christ (1887)

How the three ended

Oliver Cowdery came back — rebaptized in 1848 after ten years out, dead two years later. Martin Harris stayed away for thirty-two years, then crossed the plains to Utah in 1870 at age eighty-seven, was rebaptized, and died in Clarkston in 1875. David Whitmer never returned and never budged. He spent his last year putting his reaffirmation in print while still disagreeing with the church on almost everything else. Every copy of the Book of Mormon still opens with their names.