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FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It is claimed that when Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith in his room on September 21, 1823, his siblings who were sleeping in the same room should have woken up. One critical website states,
"Now the big question is when Moroni came and spoke with Joseph in the night of September 21, 1823, why didn't this wake up Joseph's brothers who were sleeping in the very same room with him?"
Let's start with the basics. Genesis 2:21 tells us,
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
What if we were to state,
"Now the big question is that when the Lord God removed one of Adam's ribs, why didn't he wake up?"
For anyone who believes that for God nothing is impossible, the question is simple to answer. Why, then, must we insist that Joseph's brother's should have been awakened? Why is it unreasonable to assume that God simply kept them asleep? Recall that Joseph was useless the next day on the farm. He was exhausted and totally drained from the experience. The family was very very poor, and they could not afford to take a day off of work. Had the other boys woken up with Joseph every time, they too would have been useless, and the farm would have suffered as a result. The animals wouldn't be fed, the cows wouldn't be milked, the crops wouldn't have been tended too. That would have created some severe problems for an already poverty stricken family.
Van Wagoner and Walker argue that it is possible Joseph saw Moroni in vision through his seer stone. In response, Mark Ashurst-McGee noted:
"This argument falls short theoretically. For those who do not believe in Joseph's visions, there was nothing to wake anyone anyway. For those who do believe in Joseph's visions, the argument sounds theologically naive. Could not Moroni manifest himself to Joseph only? None of Paul's companions on the road to Damascus saw the resurrected Christ. A vision needs only to hold the attention of the visionary. Joseph's brothers can sleep in peace." [1]
The entire argument that Joseph's siblings should have awoken seems to strain to find fault, and it is clearly refuted by the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and artwork presented by the Church itself.
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