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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mormonism Unmasked/Chapter 3
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Contents
- 1 Response to claims made in "Chapter 3: The Making of a Religion"
- 1.1 27
- 1.2 Claim A quote from Joseph Smith is provided: I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.
- 1.3 Claim The author states, “During this time, Joseph and his father became increasingly engaged in folk magic, using magical seer stones and divining rods to look for buried treasure and lost items.”
- 1.4 Claim The author states, “Due to a tremendous revival in his neighborhood in 1820, Joseph Smith became concerned about which church he should join…”
- 1.5 Claim The author claims that Joseph “did not publish his accont of his first vision until 1842…”
- 1.6 Claim The author claims that “the revival that Smith described…did not happen until 1824-25, not in the year 1820…”
- 1.7 Claim The author states that “as of 1820, Joseph Smith was teaching that the Father and the Son both had physical bodies...”
- 1.8 Claim The author states that the “early documents of Mormonism show that during the 1820s and early 1830s, Smith was teaching there was only one God.”
- 1.9 Claim The author claims that Joseph Smith’s “plural god doctrine was not put forward until the 1840s in Nauvoo, Illinois.”
- 1.10 Claim In Joseph’s 1832 First Vision account, he said he was fifteen when “the Lord” appeared to him. Not only is his age different, but he described only one being, as opposed to the ‘two personages’ he had previously accounted for, in the vision.”
- 1.11 Claim In his 1835 First Vision account, Joseph stated the he saw “many angels.”
- 1.12 Claim The author states that in the 1832 account, Joseph “mentioned that he had already concluded that all churches were in apostasy before he went into the woods to pray, while the official account of 1842 states that he had not concluded this until God so informed him in the vision.”
- 1.13 Claim The author states that the “earliest publication to print a ‘full history’ of the rise of Mormonism, the ‘’Messenger and Advocate’’, failed to mention Smith’s vision in 1820, starting instead with the angel appearing in Smith’s bedroom in 1823.”
- 1.14 Claim The author states that Joseph Smith “engaged in folk magic and was occasionally hired to use his magical stone-found in a neighbor’s (Mr. Chase) well-to find buried treasures and lost objects. Since the Lord had so specifically instructed the nation of Israel not to engage in any magical practice, it is hard to believe that God would choose a magician to restore his church.
- 1.15 Claim The author notes that in 1826 Joseph was charged with being a “disorderly person” and “glass looker.” The author states that “glass looker” means “crystal ball user.”
- 1.16 Claim Regarding the Book of Mormon translation, the author asks, “Did he use the Urim and Thummim, prepared by God and stored with the plates, to translate the record, or did he use the chocolate-colored stone found in Mr. Chase’s well?”
- 1.17 Claim The author claims that Joseph attempted to “join the Methodist Church in 1828, eight years after the Father and Son allegedly told him that all the churches were apostate….Why did he ignore God’s command to ‘join none of them’?”
- 1.18 Claim The author states that “Mormons claim that the early Christian church contained all the same teachings the LDS embrace today.”
- 1.19 Claim The author states that the Book of Hebrews “explains that the Aaronic priesthood was brought to an end with the death of Christ and that Christ is our only eternal High Priest ‘after the order of Mechizedek.’”
- 1.20 Claim The author notes that the Church was originally named “The Church of Christ,” followed by “The Church of the Latter Day Saints,” and then ultimately changed by revelation to “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
- 1.21 Claim The author states that Joseph received the promise that a temple in Independence, Missouri would be “reared in this generation,” yet “the LDS Church has not built the temple in Independence.”
- 1.22 Claim The author states that Joseph Smith predicted that the Lord would come within “fifty-six years” and that this “prophecy never came true either.”
- 1.23 Claim The 1835 edition of the Doctrines and Covenants contained “major revisions to already published revelations, [and] added revelations given since the last printing.”
- 1.24
- 1.25 Claim The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants included a declaration that “one man should have one wife” in response to accusations of “the crime of fornication, and polygamy.” This was after Joseph began practicing plural marriage in secret.
- 1.26 Claim Fanny Alger was one of Joseph’s “earliest plural wives,” but Oliver Cowdery referred to this relationship as a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger’s.”
- 1.27 Claim Joseph secretly practiced polygamy “through the rest of his life, always with denials.”
- 1.28 Claim Regarding the Book of Abraham, the author states that “Egyptologist have shown that the papyri Smith supposedly translated date to about the time of Chirst and are standard Egyptian funeral documents, depicting various Egyptian gods and goddesses. Obviously, these papyri do not relate to the Abraham of the Old Testament, as Joseph Smith claimed.”
- 1.29 Claim The author states that in 1836, “Smith turned once again to treasure hunting to solve the church’s financial problems” by going to Salem, Massachusetts to look for treasure in the basement of a house there.
- 1.30 Claim The author claims that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon created the impression that the Kirtland Safety Society was “created by God, that it had a sacred mission, and thus was invincible.”
- 1.31 Claim The author notes that Joseph incorporated many elements of Masonry into the temple endowment ceremony.
- 1.32 Claim The author discusses the Council of Fifty.
- 1.33 Claim Joseph Smith talks of the “plurality of Gods.”
- 1.34 Claim The author notes that “two guns were smuggled” into Carthage Jail and that Joseph and Hyrum “using the guns that had been smuggled in to them….tried to defend themselves against the assailants.’’
- 1.35 Claim The author states that “nine of the LDS apostles were charged with counterfeiting, and to avoid arrest, the fled in the night.”
Response to claims made in "Chapter 3: The Making of a Religion"
| Chapter 2: The Marketing of an Image | A FAIR Analysis of: Mormonism Unmasked A work by author: R. Philip Roberts
|
Chapter 4: Polytheism Reborn |
27
Claim
A quote from Joseph Smith is provided:
I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.
I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.
Author's source(s)
History of the Church
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
28
Claim
The author states, “During this time, Joseph and his father became increasingly engaged in folk magic, using magical seer stones and divining rods to look for buried treasure and lost items.”
Author's source(s)
Fawn M. Brodie, ‘’No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet’’ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), 6-33. See also Jerald and Sandra Tanner, ‘’Mormonism-Shadow and Reality?’’ (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1987) 32-49.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
28
Claim
The author states, “Due to a tremendous revival in his neighborhood in 1820, Joseph Smith became concerned about which church he should join…”
Author's source(s)
Not provided
Response
- Joseph said that there was an excitement on the subject of religion. He never mentioned the word “revival.”
29
Claim
The author claims that Joseph “did not publish his accont of his first vision until 1842…”
Author's source(s)
Not provided
Response
- Joseph wrote the first known account of his vision in his own hand in 1832.
- Joseph’s journal indicates that he was sharing details of his first vision with non-Mormon visitors by late 1835.
30
Claim
The author claims that “the revival that Smith described…did not happen until 1824-25, not in the year 1820…”
Author's source(s)
Not provided.
Response
- Joseph never claimed that the “excitement” on the subject of religion was a revival.
30
Claim
The author states that “as of 1820, Joseph Smith was teaching that the Father and the Son both had physical bodies...”
Author's source(s)
Not provided.
Response
- Joseph Smith wasn’t teaching anything in 1820. He wasn’t teaching anything until the Book of Mormon was translated and published in 1830, ten years later.
30
Claim
The author states that the “early documents of Mormonism show that during the 1820s and early 1830s, Smith was teaching there was only one God.”
Author's source(s)
Not provided.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
30
Claim
The author claims that Joseph Smith’s “plural god doctrine was not put forward until the 1840s in Nauvoo, Illinois.”
Author's source(s)
Doctrine and Covenants (Kirtland, Ohio: F.G. Williams & Co., 1835), 52-58. See also Tanner, ‘’Mormonism-Shadow or Reality?’’ 143-62.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
30
Claim
In Joseph’s 1832 First Vision account, he said he was fifteen when “the Lord” appeared to him. Not only is his age different, but he described only one being, as opposed to the ‘two personages’ he had previously accounted for, in the vision.”
Author's source(s)
Joseph Smith’s 1832 history
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
30
Claim
In his 1835 First Vision account, Joseph stated the he saw “many angels.”
Author's source(s)
Assumed to be one of Joseph’s 1835 journal entries. This would correlate with the 9 November 1835 journal entry.
Response
30
Claim
The author states that in the 1832 account, Joseph “mentioned that he had already concluded that all churches were in apostasy before he went into the woods to pray, while the official account of 1842 states that he had not concluded this until God so informed him in the vision.”
Author's source(s)
Joseph Smith’s 1832 history and Joseph Smith-History in the Pearl of Great Price.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
30
Claim
The author states that the “earliest publication to print a ‘full history’ of the rise of Mormonism, the ‘’Messenger and Advocate’’, failed to mention Smith’s vision in 1820, starting instead with the angel appearing in Smith’s bedroom in 1823.”
Author's source(s)
Tanner, ‘’Mormonism-Shadow or Reality?’’ 151-52.
Response
- This refers to Oliver Cowdery’s history published in the ‘’Messenger and Advocate” in 1834 and 1835. Oliver begins describing the religious excitement leading up to the First Vision when Joseph was 14 years old. Eight weeks later in the next installment, Oliver states that he made a mistake, changes Joseph’s age to 17, then describes Moroni’s visit without mentioning the First Vision.
31
Claim
The author states that Joseph Smith “engaged in folk magic and was occasionally hired to use his magical stone-found in a neighbor’s (Mr. Chase) well-to find buried treasures and lost objects. Since the Lord had so specifically instructed the nation of Israel not to engage in any magical practice, it is hard to believe that God would choose a magician to restore his church.
Author's source(s)
Leviticus 19:26; 20:6, 27; Deuteronomy 18:10; Isaiah 19:3.
Response
- Joseph Smith was not a “magician.”
31
Claim
The author notes that in 1826 Joseph was charged with being a “disorderly person” and “glass looker.” The author states that “glass looker” means “crystal ball user.”
Author's source(s)
Tanner, ‘’Mormonism-Shadow or Reality?’’ 32-49.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
31
Claim
Regarding the Book of Mormon translation, the author asks, “Did he use the Urim and Thummim, prepared by God and stored with the plates, to translate the record, or did he use the chocolate-colored stone found in Mr. Chase’s well?”
Response
Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, ‘’Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, Prophet’s Wife, “Elect Lady,” Polygamy’s Foe 1804-1879’’(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984); David Whitmer, ‘’An Address to All Belivers in Christ’’ (Richmond, Mo.: David Whitmer, 1887), 12.
- Joseph used both instruments during the translation.
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints responds to these questions:
{{{publication}}} - Template:Interpreter response
32
Claim
The author claims that Joseph attempted to “join the Methodist Church in 1828, eight years after the Father and Son allegedly told him that all the churches were apostate….Why did he ignore God’s command to ‘join none of them’?”
Author's source(s)
Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters, ‘’Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record’’ (Salt Lake City: Smith Research Associates, 1994), 55, 61, n. 49
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
32
Claim
The author states that “Mormons claim that the early Christian church contained all the same teachings the LDS embrace today.”
Author's source(s)
Not provided.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
33
{{IndexClaim |claim=The author states that “the LDS concept of a total apostasy contradicts Christ’s promise that ‘I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” |authorsources=Matthew 16:18 |response= }]
33
Claim
The author states that the Book of Hebrews “explains that the Aaronic priesthood was brought to an end with the death of Christ and that Christ is our only eternal High Priest ‘after the order of Mechizedek.’”
Author's source(s)
Hebrews 3:1; 4:14-16; 5:1-9; 6:20; 7:11-28.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
33
Claim
The author notes that the Church was originally named “The Church of Christ,” followed by “The Church of the Latter Day Saints,” and then ultimately changed by revelation to “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Author's source(s)
Doctrine and Covenants 115:4.
Response
- The author got one fact correct:
The original name of the Church, and the subsequent name “Church of the Latter Day Saints” were not received by revelation. The name of the Church was ultimately given by revelation to be “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
34
Claim
The author states that Joseph received the promise that a temple in Independence, Missouri would be “reared in this generation,” yet “the LDS Church has not built the temple in Independence.”
Author's source(s)
Doctrine and Covenants 84:3-5
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
35
Claim
The author states that Joseph Smith predicted that the Lord would come within “fifty-six years” and that this “prophecy never came true either.”
Author's source(s)
Joseph Smith, ‘’History of the Church’’, vol. 2 (Salt Lake Cithy: Deseret Book Co., 1978), 182.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
35
Claim
The 1835 edition of the Doctrines and Covenants contained “major revisions to already published revelations, [and] added revelations given since the last printing.”
Author's source(s)
Not provided.
Response
{{{publication}}}
36
Claim
The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants included a declaration that “one man should have one wife” in response to accusations of “the crime of fornication, and polygamy.” This was after Joseph began practicing plural marriage in secret.
Author's source(s)
Doctrine and Covenants (Kirtland, Ohio: F.G. Williams & Co., 1835), 251.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
36
Claim
Fanny Alger was one of Joseph’s “earliest plural wives,” but Oliver Cowdery referred to this relationship as a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger’s.”
Author's source(s)
Tanner, ‘’Mormonism-Shadow or Reality?’’ 203; see also Brodie, ‘’No Man Knows’’, 181-85; Newell and Avery, ‘’Mormon Enigma’’, 66.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
36-37
Claim
Joseph secretly practiced polygamy “through the rest of his life, always with denials.”
Author's source(s)
Tanner, ‘’Mormonism-Shadow or Reality?’’ 245-48.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
37
Claim
Regarding the Book of Abraham, the author states that “Egyptologist have shown that the papyri Smith supposedly translated date to about the time of Chirst and are standard Egyptian funeral documents, depicting various Egyptian gods and goddesses. Obviously, these papyri do not relate to the Abraham of the Old Testament, as Joseph Smith claimed.”
Author's source(s)
’’Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Though,’’ summer 1968, 68, 98; and autumn 1968, 119-20, 133; Charles M. Larson, ‘’By His Own Hand Upon Papyrs: A New Look At The Joseph Smith Papyri (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Institute for Religious Studies, 1992), 61-111.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
37
Claim
The author states that in 1836, “Smith turned once again to treasure hunting to solve the church’s financial problems” by going to Salem, Massachusetts to look for treasure in the basement of a house there.
Author's source(s)
Doctrine and Covenants 132:19, 20, 52, 61, 62.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
38
Claim
The author claims that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon created the impression that the Kirtland Safety Society was “created by God, that it had a sacred mission, and thus was invincible.”
Author's source(s)
Van Wagoner, ‘’Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994)’’, 184.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
38
{{IndexClaim |claim=The author states that “Mormon leaders organized a sort of secret chrch police called the ‘Danites.’” |authorsources=Not provided. |response= }]
40
Claim
The author notes that Joseph incorporated many elements of Masonry into the temple endowment ceremony.
Author's source(s)
Not provided.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
41-42
Claim
The author discusses the Council of Fifty.
Author's source(s)
Fawn Brodie, ‘’Now Man Knows My History’’, 356.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
42
Claim
Joseph Smith talks of the “plurality of Gods.”
Author's source(s)
Smith, ‘’History of the Church’’, vol. 6: 303-5.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
43
Claim
The author notes that “two guns were smuggled” into Carthage Jail and that Joseph and Hyrum “using the guns that had been smuggled in to them….tried to defend themselves against the assailants.’’
Author's source(s)
Smith, ‘’History of the Church’’, vol. 6: 607-621; vol. 7: 102-105.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
44
Claim
The author states that “nine of the LDS apostles were charged with counterfeiting, and to avoid arrest, the fled in the night.”
Author's source(s)
Tanner, ‘’Mormonism-Shadow or Reality?’’ 537-41.
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources