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So in your mind was Oliver a true believer that the Book of Mormon was of divine origin even as

he was acting as the scribe in the translator? I know at some point he became involved,

especially with the angelic ordinations in the mid 1830s. He's willing to lie at a very early

time. In 1830, Joseph Smith was tried on the same charges as the 1826 trial. They saw that

he had resumed his treasure-seeing activities. They tried to retry him again in South

Bainbridge and he beat that charge on the setutes of limitations. It was more than three years.

Then they took him to Colesville and tried to say that he was still continuing his practices

through his Book of Mormon activity. They said, well you were using the same stone that you dug

treasure with to translate the Book of Mormon. So it's basically the same thing you're breaking

the law. Oliver Cowdry, according to this guy named Benton who was there and who

testified about it in the newspaper, only a year later said that Oliver Cowdry said, no, it

wasn't the stone. It was the Yermen Thummum. It was the spectacles. It was the instrument that came

with the plates, which is not true because every witness, even when Cowdry was scribe, says that

stone was in the hat. David Whitmer, in Fayette, and his sister, Amart Harris,

Emma Smith, says the stone was in the hat. Emma Smith said it was never used. The

the Yermen Thummum, the spectacles were never used

...