User:InProgress/SWDN/Swedish questions/11

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A FairMormon Response to Questions Asked in Swedish Fireside with Elder's Jensen and Turley

1: BoM translation—2: Polygamy and Polyandry—3: Polygamy forced?—4: Book of Abraham—5: "Lying for Lord"—6: Mark Hofmann—7: Blood atonement—8: First Vision—9: Sanitized history—10: "Not all truth is useful"—11: Angelic affidavits—12: Blacks and priesthood—13: Temple concerns—14: Evidence of Vikings—15: Adam-God—16: Kinderhook

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Question:
One thing that really bothers me is the lack of contemporary sources for the angelic visitations.

• There are sources from 1820-1830— affidavits, letters, minutes— but none of them ever mentions any angelic visitations or a priesthood
• Why are there not any contemporary testimonies. Or are there?

Short Answer:
 ^{[needs work]}Need Turley answers?

• Question: Do contemporary accounts mention angelic visitors?
  Answer: Yes.
  Some of the earliest documents explicitly discuss angelic visitors to Joseph Smith:

* 1829:The Three Witnesses testified to an angelic vision of the Book of Mormon plates and other artifacts.

• 17 June 1829: A disbelieving member of Joseph Smith, Sr.'s family writes of Joseph:

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 are 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 and silver and precious stones so that I shall have the dominion in all the land of Palmyra. [Jesse Smith, Stockholm, New York, to Hyrum Smith, Palmyra, New York, 17 June 1829; transcribed in Joseph Smith Letterbook, 1837-43, Joseph Smith Papers, Church Archives, 59.]

• 5 September 1829: Skeptical newspaper reports that Martin Harris was told by Joseph that he was "visited by the spirit of the Almighty in a dream, and informed that in a certain hill . . . was deposited a Golden Bible" ["Golden Bible," Rochester (NY) Gem, 5 September 1829, 70].
• 9 June 1830: "God visited him [Joseph Smith] by an holy angel, whose countenance was as lightning, and whose garments were pure and white above all whiteness, and gave unto him commandments which inspired him from on high." [Published "The Mormon Creed," Painesville Telegraph, 19 April 1831, 4.]

Question: Is priesthood ordination by angels mentioned?
Answer: Yes.
 ^{[needs work]}

Question: Why are there not any contemporary testimonies. Or are there?
Answer: Yes, there are. See above.