It seems the link in the RfM sticky about the "Gospel Essays" for the First Vision accounts doesn't work. I've been trying for half an hour to access that essay, and it just keeps saying "see the article in Gospel TopicsEssays," but the link just returns to the same page.

Any suggestions?

Here's the link that keeps circling back:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2021 02:45PM by RPackham.

Interesting. These are the circular html referencing documents.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/peace-and-violence-among-19th-century-latter-day-saints?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng

They are all gone.

Interesting. FWIW, they're archived at archive.org as recently as last month. Here are the same four links in the archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210731225016/https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

https://web.archive.org/web/20210816050618/https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng

https://web.archive.org/web/20210816050502/https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/peace-and-violence-among-19th-century-latter-day-saints?lang=eng

https://web.archive.org/web/20210817083242/https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng

Thanks for the links to the archived versions. It had not occurred to me to try the WayBackMachine.

Glad I could be of assistance! And glad they deem them worthy of tracking. I suspect that non-repudiation is one reason why it exists!

Anyone surprised? Of course they had to remove them. Remember... hemorrhaging memberships = Zero tithing.
Dropping bank account balances must have triggered the "error."

I wonder how much the cult has lost in tithing revenue so far due to the essays, CES letter, and Dehlin?

HH =)

It is back up.

HH =)

Interesting

    Thank goodness the link to how to watch Conference is still working!!  Tender mercy!

This has been a big issue on FB and other places. Clearly, someone at the Big House decided that it was doing too much damage. Best go back to the original, fabricated stories: Smith translated with magical spectacles containing stones instead of lenses; Smith had the same "first vision" as contained in the holy canon, which was put there in 1856, 12 years after his death; the BoA is a literal translation of funeral documents found by Smith. Etc.

I think that when the essays were published, many here on the board were predicting that the church would eventually turn chicken and take them down. Several here suggested archiving way back then. Thanks to whomever did it.

The horse already left the barn. There is so much on the gospel topic essays online. Many speculate the essays were put out for legal reasons so the church could cover itself when accused of being deceptive about it’s history.

I have learned the church is compartmentalized and ran by several committees. Even if a department ok’s something the correlation committee may squash it. The church is a big kitchen with too many cooks. There’s a head chef but nobody that works in the kitchen hardly see’s him.

Rubicon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I have learned the church is compartmentalized and
> ran by several committees. Even if a department
> ok’s something the correlation committee may
> squash it. The church is a big kitchen with too
> many cooks. There’s a head chef but nobody that
> works in the kitchen hardly see’s him.


I think his pen is out of ink.

I'm putting Happy Heretic's post at the end of the thread where people will actually see it.

The essays are back up.

I think they were just doing housekeeping on their links, rearranging some stuff, and screwed up the links. I've done that myself, to my embarrassment.

"Never attribute to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence."

But incompetence doesn't preclude malevolence! ;)

essays

LYING, HIDING, COVERING UP
In the first place

Is the (a) problem]