In An Insiders View of Mormon Origins, Grant H. Palmer writes, " two of the church's most visible critics never accepted their validity" concerning the Hofmann forgeries. This is in the preface. Is he talking about critics of the church, like the Tanners, or members? Was there anyone in the hierarchy of the church who never believed they were right? If so, who were they?

I'm guessing that the "two" critics were Jerald & Sandra Tanner. Although they were probably the church's most famous (and credible) "anti-Mormons" they remained skeptical of Hoffman and his documents, even though they could have been used to make the church look bad. In fact they did an analysis of his documents and came to the conclusion that they might be forgeries. This was all while the church was buying up them up and the mopologists were doing their best to spin the embarrassing info they contained.

If the Tanners had already figured out that the Church was as phony as a $3 Bill, any historical documents that came to light had to be fraudulent as well.

There is a difference between an actual letter written by JS saying crazy things and a fake letter claiming to have been written by JS saying crazy things. The Tanners demonstrated their integrity by not using the letters to criticize the church even though they contained some crazy stuff. I do agree that the fact that they had critically examined the church history helped them to identify the fraudulant letter more easily than those who do not critically examine the history of the church.

for having been critical of Hofmann and his "work," so I would bet that it is the Tanners that Palmer is referring to.

I read it in his book and it is recounted somewhere on the Tanner's website. I think it was Jerald that recognized some of the verbiage in the forgery from other legitimate sources and was able to detect it that way. It is an interesting story and increased my respect for the Tanners. I think they publicly called it out as a forgery at the time. You know, actual inspiration at work.

Jerald Tanner recognized the salamander references from Eber Howe's expose' of Mormonism published in 1832.

The following is the link to the Tanner website and the majority of their information about Hofmann. Jerald Tanner was suspicious from the very beginning. Fascinating story.

http://www.utlm.org/topicalindexb.htm#Hofmann

IIRC, Hofmann showed the Salamander Letter to the Tanners before offering it to the church, and the Tanners were not interested in buying it.

Misfit Wrote:
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> IIRC, Hofmann showed the Salamander Letter to the
> Tanners before offering it to the church, and the
> Tanners were not interested in buying it.


Shows the Tanners had a better spirit of discernment than the church leaders. If the tanners had bought into hoffman's forgeries, then they and many "anti's" would've looked bad. TBM's would've said "look at what extremes anti-mormons will go through to make the church look bad."

that G B Hinckley had about as much "discernment" as a doorknob.

Maybe less. At least a doorknob opens if you have the right key.

in a Somewhat related note

I just heard that Hoffman is about to be pardoned for his crimes from the Utah State Pen.
He has a signed Pardon by the Governor ....
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Brigham Young

Or would they have been future targets had he not blown himself up?

The Tanners weren't a problem for him. They had already given their views on the forgeries and had been ignored by the "Men of Discernment" who fancy themselves to be General Authorities.

I can't remember all of the details, but Hofmann had gotten himself into an insane mess with his document transactions and promises to deliver documents to other parties against payment advances already received. The bombs were apparently meant to buy him time to come up with a new angle to get out of a big mess he had gotten himself into by making too many fraudulent promises to too many parties.

He is probably the reincarnated Joseph Smith. He just wasn't as lucky with the counterfeit document gimmick in this life as he was with the counterfeit revelation gimmick in his past life. ;o)

The Tanners would never have been targets. If I am remembering correctly, Steve Christensen was bombed because a deadline was coming up for a large payment that Hoffman was to make to him. Failure to make the payment would expose the fact that Hoffman did not have the document he sold to Steve.

Christensen's death and the other bombs would create a diversion and buy Hoffman more time.

If I am remembering correctly.

Anagrammy

PS. Related to this--my son was in prison at the Point and met Mark Hofmann. He had also pulled off a charity scam on the church, so they had that in common. He told me that Hofmann said he had to be careful what he said "because of my family." My son got the sinister implication there and did not bring it up again.

...an Utah State university archivist and a personal friend of Mark Hofmann, believed the documents that Mark had "found" were forgeries.

I knew Simmonds and worked where he worked.

I'm curious.

I do notice a difference between the Tanners, who probably used their own money to purchase documents, and the 'men of discernment' who use other peoples money to finance the purchase of documents potentially hazardous to their con.

I was living in the EAst when all that stuff came out. It wasn't until over 20 yers later that I learned the actual truth of what was rally going on. Like hell those GAs are "inspired." Just another chink in the armor.

From what I've read Hoffman's forgeries were not even that good, particuarly the process he used to age the papers. He jsut had an target buyer that would pay big money and they not subject it to critical review.

a HUGE WTF!

they put other Utah murderers to DEATH (Gary Gilmore);

WHY WOULD MH get a PASS?


STINKS if u ask me.

Maybe he said sorry.

Yeah, it sucks. This is similar to the trial of Brian David Mitchell. The defense planned to put on the argument that Mitchell could not be considered insane because the Utah culture (Mormon religion) endorses and believes that God speaks to people in modern times.

The church (wisely) concluded this would bring ridicule upon the Utah culture and put pressure on the family and their counsel not to use the insanity defense.

In the case of Mark Hofmann, are you kidding me? Have the GAs under oath when we all know their whole construct is a pack of lies. The modus operandi of the church in hiding unflattering evidence would be revealed. A very good use of tithing money, although they always claim their bribes or settlements are "business" money.

Money that smells like clothes out of the dryer.

Anagrammy

Variations are that he has a signed pardon from [fill-in-the-blank]; I'll add my embellishment and suggest I heard a rumor that there's a written prophecy from Brigham Young hidden deep within the church vaults in Little Cottonwood Canyon that foretold Hofmann's coming and that he should be forgiven and released because it was God's way of testing the faithful...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2011 05:09PM by SL Cabbie.

famous Hoffman "Salamander letter" in the Church News (April 1985) where he said,

"No one, of course, can be certain that Martin Harris wrote the document. However, at this point we accept the judgment of the examiner that there is no indication that it is a forgery. This does not preclude the possibility that it may have been forged at a time when the Church had many enemies."

Sounds like even he had some doubts about it.

murderer and whatever else you want to call him, For ME!....Hoffman was the person and events that followed helped me pull my head outa the sand and see the big picture, I would high five him for that.

When is Hollywood gonna make this movie?

While the Mark Hofmann saga is certainly fascinating, I'm not sure how Hollywood could condense everything and present it in less than three hours.

Screenplay:
Starts with Mark in the BYU secured library section, carefully removing blank forward pages from books dated to the JS period. In his basement concocting an ink with just enough iron in it to fool the experts (they did hire experts), and then forging handwriting. He presented the forged documents (wasn't one a letter from Joe's sister?). He knew what would be damning to the TSCC but also convincing. He even got to see the SLC vaults.

He built bombs, using mercury switches that use changes in weight and levels to detonate. The brilliant dumbass nearly blew off his own leg forgetting about the gravity factor (parked at an angle on a hill with one of his bombs in the passenger seat). I so wish I still have that book! It had a lot of info. This would be a terrific movie. The clincher? "Based on a true story."

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni15728159/

Here is some info regarding, "The Mormon Murders".