Book of Mormon witnesses
The Book of Mormon witnesses were a group of contemporaries of Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen the golden plates from which Smith translated the Book of Mormon. The most significant witnesses were the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, all of whom allowed their names to be used on two separate statements included with the Book of Mormon. None of the witnesses ever denied what they saw. Three Witnesses. The Three Witnesses were a group of three early leaders of the Latter Day Saint movement who wrote in a statement of 1829 that an  angel had shown them the golden plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and that they had heard God's voice testifying that the book had been translated by the power of God. The Three Witnesses were Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer, whose joint testimony, in conjunction with a separate statement by Eight Witnesses, has been printed with every edition of the Book of Mormon since its first publication in 1830. All three witnesses eventually broke with Smith and were excommunicated from the church. In 1838, Joseph Smith called Cowdery, Harris, and Whitmer "too mean  to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them." Oliver Cowdery temporarily became a member of the Methodist Church, while Martin Harris adopted some Shaker beliefs. After the death of Joseph Smith, Harris and Cowdery sought rebaptism in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Whitmer founded the Church of Christ (Whitmerite). Eight Witnesses. The Eight Witnesses were the second of the two groups of "special witnesses" to the Book of Mormon's golden plates. They were all members of the Whitmer or Smith families: Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page , Joseph Smith, Sr., Hyrum Smith, and Samuel Harrison Smith. Joseph Smith Sr. was Joseph's father, and Hyrum and Samuel H. Smith were his brothers. Christian, Jacob, Peter Jr. and John were David Whitmer's brothers, and Hiram Page was his brother-in-law. Unlike the Three Witnesses, the Eight testified that they both saw and handled the plates. Another difference is that the Eight testified they were shown the plates by Joseph Smith rather than by an angel as had the Three. Christian Whitmer died in 1835 and his brother Peter Whitmer, Jr. died the following year. In 1838 , the surviving Whitmers became estranged from Joseph Smith during a leadership struggle in Far West, Missouri, and all three were excommunicated with other dissenters, never to rejoin The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. None of the Eight Witnesses is known to have denied his testimony of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon or the golden plates. Another witness. Mary Musselman Whitmer (1778–1856), the mother of five Witnesses who took care of the household in Fayette, New York, where much of the translation occurred, said that an angel showed her the plates and thus made her more  content to continue her daily labors. Joseph Smith made no mention of this visitation in his journal. Responses. Criticism. Critics of the Latter Day Saint movement—from late nineteenth-century clergymen to Mark Twain to modern agnostics, evangelical Christians, and even some unorthodox ("Big Tent") Mormons—argue that the testimonies of the witnesses cannot be taken at face value.