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Podcast: Mormon Discussion Podcast: Leading With Faith
Episode: The Kinderhook Plates: A Joseph Smith Translation?
Description: In this episode, we examine one of the lesser-known but revealing moments in Mormon history: the Kinderhook Plates. In 1843, a set of small brass plates covered with strange engravings were discovered in Kinderhook, Illinois and brought to Joseph Smith. Contemporary accounts record that Joseph examined the plates and began offering an interpretation of the characters, identifying them as an ancient record connected to a descendant of Ham. But decades later, the truth emerged. The Kinderhook Plates were a 19th-century hoax, created by local men to test whether Joseph Smith could truly translate ancient records. Modern metallurgical testing confirmed what...