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Difference between revisions of "Criticism of Mormonism/Books/An Insider's View of Mormon Origins/Chapter 5"
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Revision as of 20:36, 15 November 2014
- REDIRECTTemplate:Test3
Response to claims made in "Chapter 5: Moroni and 'The Golden Pot'"
| Claims made in "Chapter 4: Evangelical Protestantism in the Book of Mormon" | A FAIR Analysis of: An Insider's View of Mormon Origins A work by author: Grant Palmer
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Claims made in "Chapter 6: Witnesses to the Golden Plates" |
What I believe from this is that the European beliefs about spirit guardians of wealth and wisdom influenced the early accounts of how the Book of Mormon came to be.
—An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, p. 173
138 - The author claims that the story of "The Golden Pot" involves the copying and translation of ancestral records
The author(s) of An Insider's View of Mormon Origins make(s) the following claim:
The author claims that the story of "The Golden Pot" involves the copying and translation of ancestral recordsAuthor's sources: *Author's speculation
FAIR's Response
- The author's claim is false
Citation abuse in An Insider's View of Mormon Origins: "Copying" becomes "translation"
An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, page 148-149
- The book makes the following claim in an attempt to prove that the story of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon was derived from The Golden Pot:
Later in the evening, Anselmus receives a second vision. This time he learns that Archivarius Lindhorst, whom he encountered earlier (pp. 5, 19,35), is the archivist of a vast library containing Atlantean books and treasures. He also possesses "a number of manuscripts, partly Arabic, Coptic, and some of them in strange characters, which do not belong to any known tongue. These he [Lindhorst] wishes to have copied [and translated] properly, and for this purpose he requires a man who can draw with the pen, and to transfer these marks to parchment, in Indian ink, with the highest exactness and fidelity. This work is to be carried out in a separate chamber of his house, under his own supervision ... he will pay his copyist a speziesthaler, or specie-dollar daily, and promises a handsome present" (pp. 10-11). (emphasis added)
The References
- The Golden Pot
The Problems
Here's what the author uses as a comparison from Joseph's 1838 account:
The being "said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do ... He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates ... Also that there were two stones ... deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were ... for the purpose of translating the book" (1838, vv. 33-35). (emphasis added)
In his attempt to show a correlation between a passage from The Golden Pot and the story of the translation of the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith, the author actually adds the words "and translated" to a phrase about copying manuscripts. The story related in The Golden Pot does not talk about translation at all.[1]
139-142
Claim
- Luman Walters likely informed Joseph Smith about story of "The Golden Pot"
Author's source(s) - Author's speculation
- The author's claim is false
- This is pure conjecture on the part of the author—there is no evidence to support this assertion.
- Book of Mormon/Authorship theories/Golden Pot
157 - Joseph was told to bring Emma to the hill Cumorah on "the next fall equinox"
The author(s) of An Insider's View of Mormon Origins make(s) the following claim:
It is claimed that Joseph was told to bring Emma to the hill Cumorah on "the next fall equinox."Author's sources: Joseph Knight Sr.
FAIR's Response
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157 - Joseph's father said that Joseph married Emma in order to ensure success in obtaining the plates
The author(s) of An Insider's View of Mormon Origins make(s) the following claim:
Joseph's father said that Joseph married Emma in order to ensure success in obtaining the plates.Author's sources: *Lapham
FAIR's Response
- The claim that Joseph's father said that Joseph married Emma in order to successfully obtain the plates came from Henry Harris.
<onlyinclude>
- REDIRECTThe Hurlbut affidavits
163 - Joseph regarded the autumnal equinox as a special day
The author(s) of An Insider's View of Mormon Origins make(s) the following claim:
Joseph regarded the autumnal equinox as a special day.Author's sources:
- 1838, vv. 29, 48-54, 59
- L. Smith, 133-34
FAIR's Response
Question: Was Joseph Smith aware that the date of the autumnal equinox was somehow significant?
Joseph and other members made no claims about 21-22 September being significant for any reason
Joseph and other members made no claims about 21-22 September being significant for any reason. He may not have known its significance, in either an astrological or religious context. Critics often assume that Joseph was fabricating his story, and so they must ascribe a significance to this date which Joseph was likely to know—they seize, therefore, on the astrological connection while severing it from its deep religious roots. This is again question begging, since it presumes at the outset that Joseph's tale was fraudulent, and that the Book of Mormon had nothing to do with ancient Judaism.
172 - The author claims that Joseph's later narratives talk about a more biblical-type angel and that many of the "magical elements" of the Moroni story began disappearing around 1830
The author(s) of An Insider's View of Mormon Origins make(s) the following claim:
- It is claimed that variants of the Moroni story were told and then standardized after 1830.
- The author claims that Joseph's later narratives talk about a more biblical-type angel and that many of the "magical elements" of the Moroni story began disappearing around 1830.
Author's sources: Author's opinion.
FAIR's Response
Question: Did the story of Moroni's visit to Joseph Smith evolve from that of a magical spiritual treasure guardian to an "angel"?
The earliest letter and newspaper accounts describe Joseph's claims in religious terms
Some are anxious to paint Joseph's early experiences as linked to "magick" or treasure seeking. They thus argue that Joseph Smith described his first angelic visitor as "a dream" in which "a spirit" visited him three times in one night.
However, the earliest letters and newspapers accounts describe Joseph's claims in religious terms. Gradually, over time, hostile versions of Joseph's claims appear, which introduce "magic" or treasure-seeking elements to the tale.[2] Modern critics have simply followed where Joseph's early critics led them—while ignoring the earliest documents and witness of both friendly and hostile sources.
Newspapers were hostile sources, and tended to focus on polemics and sensationalism
Critics generally gloss over the fact that these newspapers were unremittingly hostile to Joseph and his claims. They were not disinterested, neutral reporters of "both sides of the story." They tended to polemics and sensationalism. Thus, the Palmyra Freeman would write a few weeks earlier that the Book of Mormon was "the greatest piece of superstition that has ever come within our knowledge," and "It is certainly a "new thing" in the history of superstition, bigotry, inconsistency, and foolishness.—It should, and it doubtless will, be treated with the neglect it merits."[3] It was, continued the Freeman (reprinted in the Rochester Advertiser and Telegraph) "almost invariably treated as it should have been—with contempt".[4]
Other papers followed in this vein, describing the Book of Mormon as "an evidence of fraud, blasphemy and credulity," cooked up by Joseph Smith, "who, by some hocus pocus, acquired such an influence over a wealthy farmer of Wayne county, that the latter mortgaged his farm for $3000, which he paid for printing and binding 5000 copies of the blasphemous work."[5]
Critics wish to invoke the term "spirit" to associate the Book of Mormon predominantly with treasure magic
Critics wish to invoke the term "spirit" to associate the Book of Mormon predominantly with treasure magic. However, a consideration of the complete statements makes it clear that the evidence does not support this interpretation—the religious elements predominate.
For example, a second-hand account from Martin Harris reads, in part:
In the autumn of 1827...Joseph Smith...said that he had been visited by the spirit of the Almighty in a dream...[regarding a hill] containing an ancient record of divine origin....He states that after a third visit from the same spirit in a dream, he proceeded to the spot, removed earth, and there found the bible, together with a large pair of spectacles....[6]
The author obviously does not believe Joseph's story, and so characterizes his experience as "a dream," rather than a vision. But, we note that even at this very early date (1827, reported in 1829), the visit is divine: "the spirit of the Almighty," and Joseph is directed to a "bible" that is "of divine origin."
Other early accounts[7]
The Palmyra (NY) Wayne Sentinel (26 June 1829):
...much speculation has existed, concerning a pretended discovery, through superhuman means, of an ancient record, of a religious and a divine nature and origin, written in ancient characters, impossible to be interpreted by any to whom the special gift has not been imparted by inspiration. It is generally known and spoken of as the "Golden Bible."(emphasis added)
Here again, the religious character of the Book of Mormon is emphasized (even labeled a Bible), with the need for divine inspiration.
A letter from a skeptical member of Joseph's extended family shows a similar pattern—Jesse Smith to Hyrum Smith, 17 June 1829:
Once as I thot my promising Nephew, You wrote to my Father long ago, that after struggling thro various scenes of adversity, you and your family, you had at last taught the very solutary lesson that the God that made the heavens and the earth w[o]uld at onc[e] give success to your endeavours, this if true, is very well, exactly as it should be—but alas what is man when left to his own way, he makes his own gods, if a golden calf, he falls down and worships before it, and says this is my god which brought me out of the land of Vermont—if it be a gold book discovered by the necromancy of infidelity, & dug from the mines of atheism, he writes that the angel of the Lord has revealed to him the hidden treasures of wisdom & knowledge, even divine revelation, which has lain in the bowels of the earth for thousands of years [and] is at last made known to him, he says he has eyes to see things that art not, and then has the audacity to say they are; and the angel of the Lord (Devil it should be) has put me in possession of great wealth, gold & silver and precious stones so that I shall have the dominion in all the land of Palmyra.(emphasis added)
Here, Jesse Smith is obviously scornful of the claims being made by Joseph. But, he clearly sees the Book of Mormon in making religious claims: even in hostility, it sees it springing from atheism and infidelity. Treasures are mentioned, but they are "hidden treasures of wisdom & knowledge." Moroni is clearly seen as an "angel of the Lord," and that the finding of the plates was "revealed" by "divine revelation."
Notes
- ↑ Louis Midgley, "Prying into Palmer (Review of: An Insider's View of Mormon Origins)," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 365–410. off-site
- ↑ For an analysis of all these early accounts in tabular form, see Larry E. Morris, "'I Should Have an Eye Single to the Glory of God’: Joseph Smith’s Account of the Angel and the Plates (Review of 'From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism')," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005). [11–82] link See also Mark Ashurst-McGee, "Moroni as Angel and as Treasure Guardian," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006). [34–100] link
- ↑ [J. A. Hadley], Palmyra Freeman (11August 1829); cited in part on p. 6 of John S. Welch, "Straight (Not Strait) and Narrow," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 16/1 (2007). [18–25] link
- ↑ “Golden Bible,” Rochester Advertiser and Daily Telegraph (New York) (31 August 1829). Reprinted from Palmyra Freeman, 11 August 1829. off-site
- ↑ “Blasphemy–‘Book of Mormon,’ alias The Golden Bible,” Rochester Daily Advertiser (New York) (2 April 1830). off-site
- ↑ "Golden Bible," Rochester (NY) Gem 1 (5 September 1829): 70; cited in Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City, Signature Books, 1996–2003), 5 vols, 2:272.
- ↑ From Appendix A and B of Larry E. Morris, "'I Should Have an Eye Single to the Glory of God’: Joseph Smith’s Account of the Angel and the Plates (Review of: "From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism")," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 11–82. off-site