Note how Maxwell carefully edits any quotes to eliminate the "stone in the hat" part. From a reading of this one might think "stone" refers to a stone in the Urim and Thummim rather than in a hat.
GAs are very adept at using weasel words to say one thing while appearing to say another.
By the way. The peep stone that Joseph Smith used was found while digging a well for a neighbor, Willard Chase. It belonged to the Chase family and Joseph borrowed it with the promise to return it.
The Urim and Thummim was used on the 116 pages that were lost and, according to Emma Smith, the angel then took the U&T back as punishment for losing the 116 pages. When translation started up again it was with the peep stone in the hat and not with the Urim and Thummim.
Chase asked for his stone back as it was unique looking and a "curiosity." Hyrum informed Chase that Joseph had no intention of giving it back and was going to keep it.
Thus the entire Book of Mormon was translated with a stolen peep stone.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2011 11:57PM by baura.
>Thus the entire Book of Mormon was translated with a stolen peep stone.
That explains why it says horse instead of tapir, or barley instead of maize, or white instead of pure, and why Joe couldn't get the translation for curelom and cumom.
It's hard to get an accurate translation from a purloined seerstone because the spirit of God cannot abide evil.
He also used that same stone for almost all of the revelations prior to 1830, including the revelation of the Melchizedek Priesthood at John Whitmers home (No Peter James or John). Also the revelation to be baptized and then ordain Oliver and himself...years later this event would be said to include an angel, and later still, John the Baptist.
Even more curious is that once Joseph decided to be the mounthpeice for God and stop using the stone, he started leading the church astray, according to David Whitmer.
So a stolen stone which could not find treasure was used to translate a false scripture, and to invent an imaginary Priesthood, and to give revelations in the Book of Commandments which were changed later.
Wow. Maxwell was really bending his head around that--he comes off being extremely dishonest.
He says, "More than 50 able English scholars labored for seven years, using previous translations, to produce the King James Version of the Bible, averaging about one precious page per day. The Prophet Joseph Smith would sometimes produce 10 pages per day!"
Neal, that doesn't throw up any red flags? JS was pulling this stuff out of his butt, er, hat.
what an apt metaphor, and an ancient observation of human nature.
So, are we to expect that the deal-breaker for your friend is going be that Smith used a stone and a hat and NOT the urim and thumim? Honestly, it's not a big leap from one to the other. Barely a step actually.
Gnats.
Meanwile camels are parading by IN THE BOOK. I'm honestly dumbfounded that you'd even need to argue the method of translation or Joseph Smith's character, when the evidence of the book's bogusness is written right in it.
The cursed-with-a-skin-of-blackness theme is so naked, so explicit, so unequivocal...I LOVE to read apologetics just on that because they're such frontal travesties in themselves. You don't need to do any work. Just ask a mormon why the Book of Mormon has the black skin thing in it, and they'll dig their own hole.
It might be hard to find, but a YouTuber called MormonAnswerGuy did a spectacular smoking-crater bomb with this one...the ol' Jesus-did-it-in-the-New-Testament fallacy. The dude ADMITS that it's intentional...I actually wonder if the church called him up and said dude shut the hell up you're not helping us.
Nevermind the rationalization of Christopher Columbus and the genocide of Native Americans.
Nevermind the rationalization of the worldwide persecution of the Jews, a la "none other nation on earth would crucify their God". Hell, the KKK would have coveted such an explicit verse.
Peep stone? Sidedish. The Book of Mormon is dripping in its own juice.
don't look all that different in terms of credibility.
But ordinary Mormons grow up hearing about the breastplate and Urim & Thummim story, so it seems somehow more respectable. They are conditioned to believe in it and it's associated with the Bible. Plus, it seems to add evidence. Like, wow, where would a guy like Joe have gotten his hands on an ancient breastplate and Urim & Thummim crystals?
(The evidence that any such breastplate really existed is of course very thin.)
On the other hand, most Mormons have never heard about the peepstone in the hat, since that aspect of the historical accounts was highly suppressed throughout most of the 20th century. Accordingly, they have no preconceived notions or conditioning associated with that story and, when they confront it for the first time, the absurdity of it can hit them like a ton of bricks.
While the statement has been made by some writers that the Propher JS used a seerstone part of the time in his translating of the record, and information points to the fact that he did have in his possession such a stone, yet there is no authentic statement in the history of the church which states that the use of such a stone was made in that translation. The information is all hearsay, and personally, I do not believe that the stone was used for this purpose. ... It hardly seems reasonable to suppose that the prophet would substitute something evidently inferior [to the U&T] under these circumstances. It may have been so, but it is so easy for a story of this kind to be circulated due to the fact that the prophet did possess a seerstone, which he may have used for some other purposes.
Doctrines of Salvation vol.3 pg 225-226
----------------
“Joseph himself never denied that he had been a seer in peepstones before establishing himself as a prophet of God... It has remained for a later generation of believers to deny the stories altogether.”
- Dale L. Morgan, Dale Morgan on Early Mormonism, by Walker, 370n26, see Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, by D. Michael Quinn, p. 63
JoD3:360 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Joseph Fielding Smith- > > While the statement has been made by some writers > that the Propher JS used a seerstone part of the > time in his translating of the record, and > information points to the fact that he did have in > his possession such a stone, yet there is no > authentic statement in the history of the church > which states that the use of such a stone was made > in that translation. The information is all > hearsay, and personally, I do not believe that the > stone was used for this purpose. [Snip!] > > Doctrines of Salvation vol.3 pg 225-226
Joseph Fielding Smith never worried about telling lies if he thought it advanced testimonies. The beauty of it is that while he was telling these lies (and lies about Brigham Young's Adam-God doctrine) he was Church Historian and was sitting on the very documents that proved he was lying.
more unbelievable than if he had put a cell phone in a hat. It glowed, it was easier to read with the light blocked out. Technology is just catching up with God.
Many also claim that the seer stone and the Urim and Thumim are the same thing, just different words. The 'stone' refers to the wondrous crystals in the U&T.
Heresy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Many also claim that the seer stone and the Urim > and Thumim are the same thing, just different > words. The 'stone' refers to the wondrous crystals > in the U&T. > > Whoa.
Yes, and "wine" in the New Testament refers to unfermented grape juice.
Maxwell is quoting the experiences of the scribes. He's not telling us that their testimonies are suspect at all. The sources that he is quoting are the ones that discuss the stone in the hat. So he is accepting the validity of the hat trick sources, no questions asked.
If the use of "divine instruments" is true, and a valid way to receive revelation from God, then why does the church try to hide and dismiss its use? Why do they publish and display paintings that show Joseph running his finger across the plates, which are laying out in the open on a table, dictating the "translation" of the characters to Oliver who is sitting right next to him?
IMO they know how silly the use of magic rocks in a hat is. Like most of church history, they want to reform what actually happened into what they wished would have happened.
“Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.” (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887, p. 12.)”
The thing that kills me is that here Nelson quotes from a document written by David Whitmer, a document that in its entirety would never ever be used in Sunday School!
Reading David’s ENTIRE address damaged my belief in Mormonism. “Masters of Omission” is what the GA’s are.
When one reads David’s account of how the Rock in The Hat was used, added to all the other witnesses who described the same process of how the rock was used, it verified for me that the pictures that I was shown my whole life was a blatant and deliberate lie.
I literally went straight to the church library and got out the pictures that showed Joseph with the plates in front of him, the ones that are shown in primary and the kids in Sunday school.
The pictures did NOT match what Nelsen called “A Treasured Testament”. Of course it’s my fault don’t ya know because “I NEVER CHECKED ANYTHING MY OWN DAMN SELF, I TRUSTED THEM!”
After Three years of checking everything the ONLY thing that has stood is the continued institutional lying and the belief of the ignorant in the fraud.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2011 02:58PM by AmIDarkNow?.