Spiritual Eyes Don't Count

The Three Book of Mormon witnesses offer a window into the authenticity of Joseph Smith’s claims about the gold plates. The official account of the witnesses states they saw and handles the plates, saw an angel and heard the voice of God. Was the experience as described? Their other statements sound very different when they say things like they only saw the plates with their "spiritual eyes".

Several of the witnesses later clarified—or seemingly contradicted—the nature of their experiences. They described their v witness of the plates as being spiritual rather than physical. The witnesses’ accounts leave significant ambiguity about whether the plates were seen and handled physically or only spiritually. The contradictions and the reliance on “spiritual eyes” suggest a lack of concrete evidence for the plates’ existence.

The church promotes the idea that the witnesses never denied their experience, even though each of the three witnesses had a falling out with Joseph Smith. Within eight years of printing of the Book of Mormon, all of the Three Witnesses were excommunicated from the church. They all disbelieved Joseph Smith at some point, and some thought he was a fallen prophet. The falling out was no secret and Joseph Smith struggled to maintain authority over each of them, eventually being forced to excommunicate them and slander their character. How then does the church still take them at their word? Joseph said specifically of these three that he’d "liked to have forgotten them."

https://wasmormon.org/witnesses-saw-gold-plates-with-spiritual-eyes/