Perhaps they have admitted it before, but this is the first that I saw them admitting it.

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=13955898

"The 19-year-old Joseph Smith came to the area with his father, members of a digging crew hired by Josiah Stowell, who claimed to have a map for a reported silver mine in the region. After digging for a short time in November 1825, the Smiths helped convince Stowell of the futility of further digging."

See, the twist that they give to it is that he was just helping someone else, then rather than ripping them off, he was gallantly rescuing them from their own delusions and talking them out of wasting more of their money on their misconceived ventures.

See, he wasn't ripping them off, he was rescuing them and saving them money.

My mom has a book about the history of the church from 1952 that says the same thing. I laughed when I read it.

I got this one from church, not my family and I had heard it a few times since my youth. The twist I learned was that Jo had a "gift"...his gift was being able to see and know things that others couldn't see or know for themselves--a medium of sorts.

So, while he was convicted of fraud/treasure-digging, the reality was that he was being paid to use his gift by others. And because these OTHER people were greedy, god prevented Jo from finding anything of value on his digs. The treasure was precisely where Jo claimed it was, but god wouldn't let him find it to reward greed.

BUUUUUUUT the fact that Jo profited from such digging excursions was perfectly acceptable to god because, "afterall, he did need to earn money for his family." And supporting a family is an honorable thing. Oy!

Hence, Jo was already a prime candidate for finding and translating the BOM because of his gift.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2011 06:17PM by benben.

Wow, I never heard that. I was about 36-years-old before I ever heard a single thing about him being a treasure hunter con. I had to go out of my way to find that.

If I hadn't gone out of my way to find out, I still would have never heard a word about it at church, or from TMB's. Not a word.

How do they explain the criminal conviction??

That and the peepstone was the same one he used to "translate" the golden plates. Seems he struck gold after all.

I think the explanation is that there was no trial, so there couldn't be a criminal conviction; it was simply a "hearing" and the reason JS had to pay was to cover "court costs", basically the judge's time. Apologists state that Stowell really believed in JS and supported him at the "hearing" IIRC.
Sorry, don't have a link handy.