View source for Question: Did Martin Harris tell people that he did not see the plates with his natural eyes, but rather the "eye of faith"?

{{FairMormon}}
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==Question: Did Martin Harris tell people that he did not see the plates with his natural eyes, but rather the "eye of faith"?==
===A former pastor, John A. Clark, said that a "gentleman in Palmyra" told him that Harris said that he saw the plates with the "eye of faith"===

John A. Clark, a former pastor who considered Joseph Smith a fraud and the Book of Mormon “an imposture,” states,
<blockquote>
To know how much this testimony [of three witnesses] is worth I will state one fact. A gentleman in Palmyra, bred to the law, a professor of religion, and of undoubted veracity told me that on one occasion, he appealed to Harris and asked him directly,-”Did you see those plates?” Harris replied, he did. “Did you see the plates, and the engraving on them with your bodily eyes?” Harris replied, “Yes, I saw them with my eyes,-they were shown unto me by the power of God and not of man.” “But did you see them with your natural,-your bodily eyes, just as you see this pencil-case in my hand? Now say no or yes to this.” Harris replied,-”Why I did not see them as I do that pencil-case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as I see any thing around me,-though at the time they were covered over with a cloth.<ref>“Martin Harris interviews with John A. Clark, 1827 & 1828,” ''Early Mormon Documents'' 2:270.</ref>
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===John A. Clark did not interview Martin Harris - he was repeating what someone else told him===

The source cited is “Martin Harris interviews with John A. Clark, 1827 & 1828,” ''Early Mormon Documents'' 2:270. However, rather than being an interview between Clark and Harris, as implied by the title of reference work using in the citation, Clark’s actual statement clearly says that he received his information from a “gentleman in Palmyra…a professor of religion,” who said that he had talked with Harris. This is not an interview between Clark and Harris. 

Larry E. Morris notes that the “claim that ‘Harris told John A. Clark’ is not accurate. This is not secondhand testimony but thirdhand—’he said that he said that he said.’….As if that weren’t enough, Clark does not name his source—making it impossible to judge that person’s honesty or reliability. What we have is a thirdhand, anonymous account of what Martin Harris supposedly said.” (Larry E. Morris, ''FARMS Review,'' Vol. 15, Issue 1.)

===Clark's account mixes elements from both before and after Harris viewed the plates as one of the Three Witnesses and portrays Harris as contradicting himself===

The two elements that are mixed together in Clark's account are the following:

#'''Martin Harris said that he only saw the plates through the "eye of faith" when they were covered with a cloth prior to his experience as a witness.'''
#'''Martin Harris saw the plates uncovered as one of the three witnesses.'''

Note also that the date assigned to these comments places them ''prior'' to the publication of the Book of Mormon, yet Clark’s statement appears to include elements from both before and after Harris viewed the plates as a witness. Harris “saw them” with his eyes when he acted as one of the Three Witnesses, but he only saw them through the “eye of faith” when they were covered with a cloth prior to his being a witness. Clark’s third-hand hostile relation of another hostile source, makes no distinction between these events, and instead portrays Harris as contradicting himself.

When Martin Harris said that he had seen the angel and the plates with his "spiritual eyes" or with an "eye of faith" he may have simply been employing some scriptural language that he was familiar with. Such statements do not mean that the angel and the plates were imaginary, hallucinatory, or just an inner mental image&mdash;the earliest accounts of Martin Harris' testimony makes the literal nature of the experience unmistakable. 

Rather than being hallucinatory or "merely" spiritual, Martin claimed that the plates and angel were seen by physical eyes that had been ''enhanced'' by the power of God to view more objects than a mortal could normally see (cf. {{s||DC|76|12}}; {{s||DC|67|10-13}}).
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿Acaso Martin Harris decirle a la gente que él no vio las planchas con sus ojos naturales, sino más bien el "ojo de la fe"?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: Será que Martin Harris dizer às pessoas que ele não viu as placas com os olhos naturais, mas sim o "olho da fé"?]]