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Early years | A FairMormon Analysis of Wikipedia: Mormonism and Wikipedia/Joseph Smith, Jr. A work by a collaboration of authors (Link to Wikipedia article here)
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1831 to 1838 |
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Every witness to Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon said that he looked at a stone in his hat. Arguing that Smith never said how he translated is arguing from silence. There is no evidence for anything else but the hat and just Mormon embarrassment at how silly this method must seem to most prospective converts today.....The burden of proof is on you. There are no accounts of Smith translating that indicate he used any other method but the hat. You can't argue from silence. Where are the references to any other method? Even the father of lies himself didn't spell one out.....Baloney. No other eyewitness said there was any other method. No scholarship argues for any other method. You're just pushing this POV because there's no reason to preserve golden plates for generations if Smith made no use of them. But according to all eyewitnesses that's exactly what happened. Embarrassing, isn't it?
—Hi540 insisting that the stone-in-hat was the only Book of Mormon translation method ever documented, 23 October 2009 off-site
- | Wikipedia Main Article: Joseph Smith, Jr.– | Wikipedia Footnotes: Joseph Smith, Jr.–Notes | A FAIR Opinion |
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In October 1827, Smith and his now-pregnant |
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wife moved from Palmyra to Harmony (now Oakland),Pennsylvania, |
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aided by money from their well-to-do neighbor Martin Harris. |
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Living near his disapproving in-laws, |
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Smith transcribed some of the strange "reformed Egyptian" characters he said were engraved on the plates and dictated their translations to his wife. |
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Smith said that he used the "Urim and Thummim" for this early translation, |
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a term he used to refer to the silver spectacles found with the golden plates, |
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but no witnesses said they saw Smith using such spectacles. |
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Many witnesses did observe Smith translating using the same or similar method that he had previously used to find buried treasure: he would gaze at a seer stone in the bottom of his hat, excluding all light so that he could reportedly see the translation reflecting off the stone. |
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The plates themselves were not directly consulted. |
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Smith usually translated in full view of witnesses, but sometimes concealed the process by raising a curtain or dictating from another room. |
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Smith considered giving up the translation because of opposition from his in-laws, |
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but in February 1828, Martin Harris arrived to spur him on |
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by taking the characters and their translations to a few prominent scholars. |
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Harris claimed that one of the scholars he visited, Charles Anthon, initially authenticated the characters and their translation, then recanted upon hearing that Smith had received the plates from an angel. |
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Although Anthon denied this, |
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Harris returned to Harmony in April 1828 motivated to act as Smith's scribe. |
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Translation continued until mid-June 1828, until Harris began having doubts about the existence of the golden plates. |
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Harris importuned Smith to let him take the existing 116 pages of manuscript to Palmyra to show a few family members. |
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Harris then lost the manuscript—of which there was no copy—at about the same time as Smith's wife Emma gave birth to a stillborn son. |
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Smith said the angel had taken away the plates and he had lost his ability to translate |
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until September 22, 1828, when they were restored. |
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Smith did not begin translating again in earnest until April 1829, when he met Oliver Cowdery, a teacher and dowser, |
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who now became Smith's scribe. |
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The two of them translated full time between April and early June 1829, |
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and then moved to Fayette, New York where they continued to work at the home of Cowdery's friend Peter Whitmer. When the translation spoke of an institutional church and a requirement for baptism, Smith and Cowdery had baptized each other, |
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Smith and Cowdery had baptized each other, both of them later claiming that John the Baptist had appeared and given them the necessary authority. Knowing that potential converts might find Smith's story of the plates incredible, |
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years later claiming that John the Baptist had appeared and ordained them to a priesthood. |
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Translation was completed around July 1, 1829. |
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Knowing that potential converts to the planned church might find Smith's story of the plates incredible, |
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Smith asked a group of eleven witnesses, including Martin Harris and male members of the Whitmer and Smith families, to sign a statement testifying that they had seen the golden plates. |
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Secular scholars argue that the witnesses thought they saw the plates with their "spiritual eyes", or that Smith showed them something physical like fabricated tin plates, or that they signed the statement out of loyalty or under pressure from Smith. |
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According to Smith, the angel Moroni took back the plates after Smith was finished using them. |
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The translation, known as the Book of Mormon, was published in Palmyra on March 26, 1830 by printer E. B. Grandin. |
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Martin Harris financed the publication by mortgaging his farm. |
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Soon thereafter on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ, |
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and small branches were established in Palmyra, Fayette, and Colesville, New York (near where Smith had been tried in 1826 as a treasure seeker). The Book of Mormon brought Smith regional notoriety in the press even before it was published, and the church faced strong opposition, particularly in Colesville. Soon after Smith reportedly performed an exorcism in Colesville, he was again tried as a disorderly person but was acquitted. |
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Even so, Smith and Cowdery had to flee Colesville to escape a gathering mob. Probably referring to this period of flight, Smith told years later of hearing the voices of Peter, James, and John who he said gave Smith and Cowdery an apostolic authority. |
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After founding the church, Smith dictated and compiled revelations defining his role within the church. Smith was to to be supported by church funds, |
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and his wife Emma was to be similarly supported. |
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After one of the Eight Witnesses began producing his own well-received revelations about the location of the American New Jerusalem prophesied in the Book of Mormon, Smith dictated a revelation indicating that he alone could receive binding revelations for the church. |
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He also dictated a revelation about the "New Jerusalem": although its precise location was not yet known, it was to be somewhere in the Indian Territory, near Missouri. |
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n anticipation, Smith dispatched missionaries, led by Oliver Cowdery, to the area. On their way, they converted a group of Disciples of Christ adherents in Kirtland, Ohio led by Sidney Rigdon. Then, to avoid growing opposition in New York, Smith moved the headquarters of the church to Kirtland. |
Wikipedia references for "Joseph Smith, Jr." |
Contents
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FairMormon regularly receives queries about specific LDS-themed Wikipedia articles with requests that we somehow "fix" them. Although some individual members of FAIR may choose to edit Wikipedia articles, FairMormon as an organization does not. Controversial Wikipedia articles require constant maintenance and a significant amount of time. We prefer instead to respond to claims in the FAIR Wiki rather than fight the ongoing battle that LDS Wikipedia articles sometimes invite. From FAIR’s perspective, assertions made in LDS-themed Wikipedia articles are therefore treated just like any other critical (or, if one prefers, "anti-Mormon") work. As those articles are revised and updated, we will periodically update our reviews to match.
Editors who wish to participate in editing LDS-themed Wikipedia articles can access the project page here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement. You are not required to be LDS in order to participate—there are a number of good non-LDS editors who have made valuable contributions to these articles.
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Although there exist editors on Wikipedia who openly declare their affiliation with the Church, they do not control Wikipedia. Ironically, some critics of the Church periodically falsely accuse Wikipedia editors of being LDS simply because they do not accept the critics' desired spin on a particular article.
Again, the answer is no. The truth is that Wikipedia is generally self-policing. Highly contentious articles do tend to draw the most passionate supporters and critics.
Although some LDS-related Wikipedia articles may appear to have a negative tone, they are in reality quite a bit more balanced than certain critical works such as One Nation Under Gods. Although many critical editors often accuse LDS-related Wikipedia articles of being "faith promoting" or claim that they are just an extension of the Sunday School manual, this is rarely the case. Few, if any, Latter-day Saints would find Wikipedia articles to be "faith promoting." Generally, the believers think that the articles are too negative and the critics believe that the articles are too positive. LDS Wikipedia articles should be informative without being overtly faith promoting. However, most of the primary sources, including the words of Joseph Smith himself, are "faith promoting." This presents a dilemma for Wikipedia editors who want to remain neutral. The unfortunate consequence is that Joseph's words are rewritten and intermixed with contradictory sources, resulting in boring and confusing prose.
We examine selected Wikipedia articles and examine them on a "claim-by-claim" basis, with links to responses in the FairMormon Answers Wiki. Wikipedia articles are constantly evolving. As a result, the analysis of each article will be updated periodically in order to bring it more into line with the current version of the article. The latest revision date may be viewed at the top of each individual section. The process by which Wikipedia articles are reviewed is the following:
The ability to quickly and easily access literature critical of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been made significantly easier through the advent of the Internet. One of the primary sites that dominates search engine results is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit.” Wikipedia contains a large number of articles related to Mormonism that are edited by believers, critics, and neutral parties. The reliability of information regarding the Church and its history is subject to the biases of the editors who choose to modify those articles. Even if a wiki article is thoroughly sourced, editors sometimes employ source material in a manner that supports their bias. This essay explores the dynamics behind the creation of Wikipedia articles about the Church, the role that believers and critics play in that process, and the reliability of the information produced in the resulting wiki articles.
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