Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Passing the Heavenly Gift

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Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift

A FAIR Analysis of: Passing the Heavenly Gift, a work by author: Denver C. Snuffer

Introduction

Response to claims made in Passing the Heavenly Gift by Denver C. Snuffer

Summary: This account of Church history contains numerous inaccuracies, distortions, and misrepresentations of the data.

Jump to details:

• Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Introduction to the volume's claims
• Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims about priesthood ordination
• Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims about Brigham Young and apostles not being witnesses of Christ
• Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims regarding source of Brigham Young and apostles' authority after Joseph Smith's death
• Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims regarding when Joseph Smith received priesthood authority

Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Introduction to the volume's claims

Jump to details:

• The central thesis
• Prophecy and historical claims
• Summary of Snuffer’s historical reconstruction
• Snuffer’s Conclusion
• Snuffer's visionary claims
• Lawyer, not historian

Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims about priesthood ordination

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: Priesthood conferred by ordination is just a potential and not actual bestowal of power
• Response to claim: Power versus authority of the priesthood
• Response to claim: Authority not vital for ordinances
• Response to claim: Legal Administrators
• Response to claim: To truly receive priesthood power, a type of divine theophany is necessary
• Response to claim: Could Brigham Young Qualify to Claim Sealing Power?

Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims about Brigham Young and apostles not being witnesses of Christ

Jump to details:

• Apostles as personal witnesses of Christ
• Question: Did any nineteenth century leader after Joseph Smith report divine visions?
• Question: Did any twentieth century leader after Joseph Smith report divine visions?

Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims regarding source of Brigham Young and apostles' authority after Joseph Smith's death

Jump to details:

• Snuffer's views on the source of the authority of Brigham Young and the apostles after Joseph’s death
• An incomplete and misleading citation
• Earlier claims made by Brigham Young and the Twelve

Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims regarding when Joseph Smith received priesthood authority

Jump to details:

• Is it true that Joseph received sealing authority in 1829?
• Date of plural marriage revelation(s) and implementation
• Elijah and the sealing keys
• Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo era teachings about Elijah

Response to Passing the Heavenly Gift: Claims that authority could only be transmitted in a completed temple

Jump to details:

• Is it true that necessary authority could only be transmitted in a completed temple?

Is it true that the Nauvoo temple was not built with enough speed?

Jump to Subtopic:

• Joseph’s discourses in the relevant period
• How much time were the Saints given to build the temple?

Were the Saints at Nauvoo were punished for slothfulness in building the temple?

Jump to Subtopic:

• The spot was not consecrated by the Lord, or made holy by His or the angels’ presence
• The church was moved out of the spot
• The temple was utterly destroyed
• Suffering during the exodus from Nauvoo
• No Pentecost-type experiences in the Nauvoo temple?

Conclusion

Jump to Subtopic:

• High road to apostasy
• "Proud descendants of Nauvoo"
• Snuffer announces his excommunication for apostasy
• Disdain for rank-and-file members
• Disdain for modern apostles
• Snuffer and D. Michael Quinn on David O. McKay
• A closed mental system

Comparing the size of the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples

Jump to Subtopic:

• Square footage
• Costs by population

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Passing Up The Heavenly Gift (Part One of Two)"

Gregory L. Smith,  Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (2013)

Denver C. Snuffer, Jr. claims to have had a vision of the resurrected Jesus Christ.2 A convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he is the author of eight books (509). The thesis of the most recent—Passing the Heavenly Gift—is summarized by his book’s cover photo: a snuffed out candle, smoke curling upward, with a dim ember persisting at the tip of the wick.

Snuffer claims that Joseph Smith was an inspired prophet, but Joseph’s commands and revelations were not heeded adequately. As a result, Joseph was betrayed by Church members and murdered prior to the completion of the Nauvoo Temple (104). This made it impossible, in Snuffer’s view, for Joseph to pass on all the necessary ordinances and doctrines, notwithstanding the endowment and other ordinances given to the Twelve prior to Joseph’s death (105–110). Brigham Young, the Twelve, and their ecclesiastical heirs did not, therefore, perpetuate the fullness of Joseph’s mission (87–89, 268, 272–276, 283). Some of their acts, and the changes that Snuffer believes they have made to Church doctrine, practice, or administration, were not sanctioned by God, and constitute the “passing of the heavenly gift” (287, 400). This loss was, in Snuffer’s telling, predicted by Joseph Smith, and the time is now ripe for members of the Church to reclaim these blessings (315–317, 400–402, 447–499).

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Passing Up The Heavenly Gift (Part Two of Two)"

Gregory L. Smith,  Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (2013)

Snuffer writes of the apostolic succession:

In 1847, Brigham Young publicly explained his understanding of the keys he obtained in these words: “an apostle is the Highest office and authority that there is in the Church and Kingdom [of] God on the earth. From whom did Joseph receive his authority? From just such men as sit around me here (pointing to the Twelve Apostles that sat with him.) Peter, James and John were Apostles, and there was no noise about their being seers and revelators though those gifts were among them. Joseph Smith gave unto me and my brethren (the Twelve) all the Priesthood keys, power and authority which he had and those are the powers which belong to the Apostleship” (87).

Snuffer then delivers his killing stroke: “This explanation is misleading because Brigham Young was not ordained an Apostle by Joseph Smith” (87). A few pages later, he writes that “Brigham Young’s claim to have received the sealing power when he was ordained an Apostle is completely dependent on the Three Witnesses’ ordination in 1835. That ordination came a year prior to the 1836 visit of Elijah” (91).

Reviews of this work

• Gregory L. Smith, "Passing Up The Heavenly Gift (Part One of Two)," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship7(2013): 181–243.
• Gregory L. Smith, "Passing Up The Heavenly Gift (Part Two of Two)," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship7(2013): 245–341.

Notes