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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 and church leaders contend that the witnesses never denied their accounts. Critics have challenged the nature and reliability of the accounts, as eyewitness testimony is increasingly known to be unreliable.