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Question: Did the Witnesses who left the Church continue to maintain their witness of the Book of Mormon?
Did witnesses who left the Church continue to affirm their witness?
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All of the Three Witnesses and four of the Eight witnesses left the Church and were hostile, at least for a time, against Joseph Smith. Yet, they clung to their witness and continued to affirm it.
Three Witnesses
Oliver Cowdery
Oliver would later return to the Church and seek rebaptism.
During his estrangement from the Church, he insisted upon his witness as true.
Martin Harris
Martin Harris would later return to the Church and seek rebaptism.
During his estrangement from the Church, he insisted upon his witness as true, and sought to bear his witness often.
David Whitmer
David Whitmer never returned to the Church, but left an extensive record validating his testimony.
Eight Witnesses
Hiram Page
Hiram Page never returned to the Church, but continued to bear his witness. Even when approached by the excommunicated William McLellin, Page replied:
As to the Book of Mormon, it would be doing injustice to myself, and to the work of God of the last days, to say that I could know a thing to be true in 1830, and know the same thing to be false in 1847.[1]
Jacob Whitmer
Hiram Page never returned to the Church, but bore his testimony on his deathbed, with no record of denial.
Notes
- ↑ Letter of Hiram Page to William E. McLellin (30 May 1847), Ray County, Mo.; cited in Ensign of Liberty 1 (1848): 63.
To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, [[../CriticalSources|click here]]