Beyond that, the descriptions of the translation as involving the seer stone in a hat and no direct use of the plates come from Oliver Cowdrey, Martin Harris, Peter Whitmer, David Whitmer, Emma Hale Smith, and Emma’s family. Nearly everyone involved in the translation project has given us at least one statement of description of the mode of translation and the earliest statements are essentially unanimous about the mode of translation and about the fact that the plates weren’t directly used in the translation project.

The question of how the Book of Mormon was produced isn’t really pending. Joseph Smith translated it by putting a seer stone or Urim and Thummim in a hat and burying his face in the hat. The people who did the translation work with Joseph have told us that this is the only way it was done. The pending question is why the plates had to be preserved in light of the historical fact–from the people closest to the translation project–that they weren’t used in the translation. Denying this fact doesn’t solve the problem. It just makes the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon and others close to Joseph Smith into liars.

It’s possible. It’s just odd that we reportedly have several accounts of him translating without them and not a single one of him translating with them.

Rick, in #10 you’re misinterpreting the word “spiritual” in the term “spiritual eyes.” A man can’t be in the presence of some holy things without being transformed—becoming “spiritual” in a very specific sense. When the Three Witnesses saw the plates, they did so by the power of God. In other words, they did so “spritually.” The Eight Witnesses, on the other hand, saw the plates in a very ordinary way, with their everyday eyesight.

The descriptions of the translation cited in these comments come from Emma Smith and from at least one other witness, who saw some of what he did, but certainly not all of it. He used more than one method for translating. We know, at the very least, that he used two separate instruments—the Urim & Thummim and the Seerstone—and that he also translated without the use any such instruments. Since we know the methods varied, it isn’t unreasonable to think that he used the plates at some times and not at others.

I’ve always assumed that he had them open.

…even if they only saw the plates with ‘spiritual eyes’?

It’s odd to me that the word spiritual would be used if they indeed required some physical proof.

It’s seems the golden plates are largely irrelevant to the translation process, as well as not really being required by any of the participants to bolster any sort of belief in the process.

Which begs the question, I suppose, what was the actual purpose of the plates, and why did Joseph have to retrieve them at all?

Your questions about why the plates would have been written and preserved, at great risk and effort, when they were not used in the translation are valid and deserve a satisfactory answer. Van Wagoner and Walker propose that the plates were intended only as an aid to belief for the 11 witnesses. If that isn’t a satisfactory answer, then this may be something we’d best treat as a pending question.