Joseph Smith/Walking on water

  1. REDIRECTTemplate:Test3
Answers portal
Joseph Smith, Jr.
Joseph smith1.jpg
Resources.icon.tiny.1.png    RESOURCES



Perspectives.icon.tiny.1.png    PERSPECTIVES
Media.icon.tiny.1.png    MEDIA
Resources.icon.tiny.1.png    OTHER PORTALS

This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

==

Questions

== Critics claim that Joseph attempted to prove he was a prophet by walking on water; he sought to do so by hiding planks of wood under the water's surface.

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

==

Detailed Analysis

==

The story about Joseph walking on water is recognized even by the Church's antagonists as a fake. It never happened. Fawn Brodie included it in her biography of the Prophet and wrote: "Baseless though this story may be, it is none the less symbolic."[1] So, this story is baseless, worthless, without truth. But it fit well with what Brodie thought about the prophet, and so she passed it on.

The application of this folk tale to Joseph is one example of a broader pattern of using such a tale to discredit unpopular religious claims:

  • Stanley J. Thayne, "Walking on Water: Nineteenth Century Prophets and a Legend of Religious Imposture," Journal of Mormon History 36:2 (Spring 2010): {{{start}}}.

== Notes ==

  1. [note]  Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 84. ( Index of claims )

Further reading

FairMormon Answers articles

Template:JosephSmithWiki

FairMormon web site

Template:JosephSmithFAIR

External links

Template:JosephSmithLinks

Printed material

Template:JosephSmithPrint