Not according to their individual testimonies John - they only saw with 'spiritual' eyes, and handled something in a box covered up.
AFA the leaves smith 'translated', interesting since the scribes testimonies indicate that when smith was dictatating the 'translation' with his head in the hat the 'plates' were not even in the house.
The plates are real and were really examined by eight men who never denied their printed testimony.
Others testify to the contrary -
I have reflected long and deliberately upon the history of this church & weighed the evidence for & against it loth (sic) to give it up - but when I came to hear Martin Harris state in public that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver [Cowdery] nor David [Whitmer] & that the eight witnesses never saw them & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it, the last pedestal gave way, in my view our foundation was sapped & the entire superstructure fell in heap of ruins.
I was followed by W Parrish, Luke Johnson & John Boynton [Boyington] all of who concurred with me, after we were done speaking M Harris arose & said he was sorry for any man who rejected the Book of Mormon for he knew it was true, he said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain. And said that he never should have told that the testimony of the eight was false, if it had not been picked out of [him/me?] but should have let it passed as it was... (Stephen Burnett letter to Lyman E. Johnson dated April 15, 1838. Typed transcript from Joseph Smith Papers, Letter book, April 20, 1837 - February 9, 1843, microfilm reel 2, pp. 64-66, LDS archives.)
Sorry John, the testimonies of the 'witnesses' say otherwise.
Those who say that someone other than Joseph Smith produced the words that he read to the scribes of the dictated manuscript are not at all agreed on who the "real" author or authors was or were.
Fact of the matter is the stories of these 'witnesses' are not credable given that many were excommunicated or left the church later under the most hostile conditions. Further, the mythology of how the bom was written is unbelieveable in the context of how it is presented. Smith had YEARS to produce this book with a limited number of 'scribes' all within his inner circle of confidence. Facts were produced in my previous post John showing that other writings preceeding the 'translation' contained the same themes, descriptions and in fact THE EXACT SAME WORDING as found in the BOM.
Until they get their act together and agree on a deception that can be explained as fitting somewhere in the sequence from real plates, to speaking words read from the plates, to the dictated manuscript, to the printer's manuscript, to the first printing of the Book of Mormon, they will be seen for what they are, persons EMOTIONALLY WANTING the Book of Mormon to be false, without being able to explain exactly what the deception was and where it occurred in the sequence.
This is only acceptable if the process is TRUE. It is fictional or highly modifed. Smith never used the plates to create the bom John - it is documented that he used folk magic method of sticking his face into a hat and 'viewing' through the seer stone.
As a convicted huckster and divinator - smith used the method common to him.
Smith could never keep his story line on translating the bom straight either -
1822 - Joseph Smith finds a seer stone while digging a well by his farmhouse
March 1826 - Joseph is arrested for "glass looking" with the seer stone to find buried treasure
Sept 1827 - Joseph finally takes possession of the plates April 1828 - Joseph begins translation of Book of Lehi with Martin Harris as scribe
June 1828 - Manuscripts for Book of Lehi are lost
July 1828 - Joseph receives revelation telling him his gift of translating is taken away for a season
Sept 1828 - Joseph starts re-translation of Book of Mormon without any instructions from God or any kind of revelation. He just does it on his own, the really odd thing is he doesn't attempt to re-translate the Book of Lehi, and skips 1Nephi, 2Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni and Words of Mormon. He continues where he left off chronologically at the end of the Book of Lehi, or the beginning of Mosiah. His wife Emma served as scribe.
April 1829 - Joseph begins the "rapid-fire" translation now with Oliver Cowdery as scribe
May 1829 - Joseph receives revelation not to re-translate Book of Lehi and to replace it with Books of Nephi. The Lord also tells Joseph that "NOW" his gift of translating is "restored". So it was RESTORED even though smith had been TRANSLATING for the previous EIGHT MONTHS.
June 1829 - Transcript is finished, witnesses "see" the plates and Joseph gives them back to Moroni.
Of course, the historical records show us that Joseph began the re-translation process in September 1828, but he didn't receive the revelation with instructions on what to do about the Book of Lehi until May 1829. So true to form, mormonism CHANGES the date of the REVELATION in their scripture (D&C 10) to FIT the timeline. John - that is nothing less than outright FRAUD - literally lying about the date of this revelation to cover up the flawed story line. You can also look at the periods where 'translation' ceased - plenty of time to research existing books (like those cited earlier) to concoct and improve the 'story'.
No actually those who are emotional are those WANTING the bom to be true - since it is an EMOTIONAL test used to 'confirm' it - subjectively. Closer examination of the 'translation' timeline shows that the myth you've presented is not founded in FACT but in FICTION and doesn't even agree with the historical documentation - even that in mormon 'scriptures' (D&C).
Does it not concern you John that the mormon church had to alter its 'revelation' in such a manner to lie about the events? Here is another instance where Smith got caught in his lie and had to cover it up. Look at the history John and explain that.