What the Three Witnesses Saw

 In Come Follow Me this week we read about the calling of the three and eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon. When we think of these special witnesses we think about them seeing the Gold Plates, but if you read Section 17 carefully you see that they saw more than that.  The three witnesses saw

1. the gold plates, 

2. the breast plate, 

3. the sword of Laban,

4. the Jaredite Urim and Thummim, 

5.  the Liahona.  

Bryce Dunford from Talking Scripture, who is a bit obsessed with finding temple imagery in every scripture text, put forth the idea that the things they saw were probably the holy temple relics from the Nephite nation. The original Hebrew temple contained certain relics in the alter in the Holy of Holies. Those included 

1. The tablets Moses made with the Law written by the finger of God

2. Aaron's rod which budded.

3. a gold jar of manna. (Hebrews 9:4)

Bryce tried to show that the items in the stone box that Joseph Smith found corresponded to the items in the temple arc. 

The stone tablets = the Gold Plates because both contained the religious law of the culture. 

Aaron's rod that budded = the Urim and Thummim, because both provided revelation, and the sword of Laban because that was a symbol of political supremacy. i.e. As the priests of Aaron were the religious leaders, the one possessing the sword of Laban was the political leader. 

The Jar of manna=the Liahona, since the Liahona lead the Nephites through the more fertile parts of land where they could find food.  i.e. both represented temporal salvation. 

The one to one symbolism is a little sketchy, but I think he could be correct on the more general point. The ark of the covenant held the most sacred relics of the old world church.  Lehi and his family didn't bring those items with them, and they were lost soon after Lehi left Jerusalem. When the Nephites built their own temple in the new world they naturally would have put in to its altar the most holy relics of their own culture--things that represented the power of their God and his willingness to save and protect them. Mike even suggested that stone box in which the relics were found may have actually been the buried altar of the temple.  I think that is a stretch because I couldn't see Mormon, on the run and in constant danger, hauling around a large stone box everywhere he went.  Still, it doesn't seem strange to me that at some point, when Mormon saw that the temple was going to fall into the hands of sinful men, he might have taken the temple relics, or that maybe the temple relics were already with the religious records he was given when he was a young man, and that he cared for and protected them the rest of his life. 

This brings up an obvious question:  Does the church have holy relics in its modern temples, or perhaps just in a single central temple?  If it does, what might they be? I think (and this is pure speculation) that is wouldn't be ridiculous to suppose that the items seen by the special witnesses may still exist on this earth, and that the Church keeps them somewhere in the Salt Lake Temple. They are kept secret for fear of theft or defilement. Another idea is that the church may have other relics from the modern church, like the seer stone, Joseph Smith's temple robes or something of the like, that they keep in the temple. Of course, the most likely thing is that there are not "sacred relics" that the church keeps in the temples, because temples don't need relics to be holy. 

I am sure I will never know, but I think the idea that the 11 witness saw temple relics supports my earlier idea that the restoration of the gospel was primarily the restoration of the temple and temple blessings and that the church that Joseph Smith restored was primarily an Old Testament based church rather than a New Testament style church.