Here's a rock-your-wacky-religion-world fact for the TBM faithful:

The Book of Mormon was so problematic for Joseph Smith that he wanted to dump it early on and, in fact, did--literally.

Smith, when helping to lay a cornerstone for the Nauvoo House on 2 October 1841, approved the placement of an original Book of Mormon manuscript (composed mostly in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery and appropriately written on foolscap paper) into the Nauvoo House cornerstone with the following send-off comment (made a short time earlier by Smith to another prominent Mormon leader):

"I have had trouble enough with this thing."

Amen, brother.

(see Ernest H. Taves, "Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon" [Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1984], p. 160)


Indeed, William Alexander Linn, in his book, "The Story of the Mormons: From the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901" , sets the stage for Smith's deep-sixing of this supposed "sacred scripture":

"[P]roof [that] . . . a second [manuscript] copy [of the Book of Mormon] did exist [is found in the account of Ebenezer Robinson]. . . . Robinson, who was a leading man in the [Mormon] church from the time of its establishment in Ohio until Smith's death, says in his recollections that, when the people assembled on October 2, 1841, to lay the cornerstone of [the] Nauvoo House, Smith said he had a document to put into the cornerstone, and Robinson went with him to his house to procure it. Robinson's tory proceeds as follows:

"'He got a manuscript copy of the Book of Mormon and brought it into the room where we were standing and said, "I will examine to see if it is all here;" and as he did so I stood near him, at his left side, and saw distinctly the writing as he turned up the pages until he hastily went through the book and satisfied himself that it was all there, when he said, "I have had trouble enough with this thing;" which remark struck me with amazement, as I looked upon it as a sacred treasure."

(William Alexander Linn, "The Story of the Mormons: From the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901" [New York, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1902], p. 44; original text at: "Google Books" link to the page at: http://books.google.com/books?id=QDdAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=ebenezer+robinson+book+of+mormon+trouble+enough&source=bl&ots=H_Lur4vQE7&sig=NDY_hZzw7NSVqNMzIECTct11R-w&hl=en&ei=Sd1STvPVNOSDsgKbwtzwBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ebenezer%20robinson%20book%20of%20mormon%20trouble%20enough&f=false)


One shouldn't be surprised by Smith's abandonment of the so-called "keystone" of the Mormon religion; nor should one be surprised by Smith's utter disdain for what he regarded as the simple-minded stupidity of those who actually bought into his lies.

To be sure, Smith had a habit (about which he privately boasted to his friends) of making up stories about imaginary "golden Bibles," then playing it out even further for his incredulous associates when Smith discovered that they actually swallowed his tall tales hook, line and sinker.

Case in point, as one of Smith's close acquaintances, Peter Ingersoll, testified in an affidavit certified by a local judge:

"One day he [Joseph Smith] came and greeted me with a joyful countenance. Upon asking the cause of his unusual happiness, he replied in the following language, 'As I was passing, yesterday, across the woods, after a heavy shower of rain, I found, in a hollow, some beautiful white sand, that had been washed up by the water. I took off my frock, and tied up several quarts of it, and then went home.

"'On my entering the house, I found the family at the table eating dinner. They were all anxious to know the contents of my frock. At that moment, I happened to think of what I had heard about a history found in Canada, called the golden Bible; so I very gravely told them it was the golden Bible.

"'To my surprise, they were credulous enough to believe what I said. Accordingly I told them that I had received a commandment to let no one see it, for, says I, no man can see it with the naked eye and live. However, I offered to take out the book and show it to them, but they refuse to see it, and left the room.'

"Now, said Joe, 'I have got the damned fools fixed, and will carry out the fun.' Notwithstanding, he told me he had no such book and believed there never was any such book, yet, he told me that he actually went to Willard Chase, to get him to make a chest, in which he might deposit his golden Bible. But, as Chase would not do it, he made a box himself, of clapboards, and put it into a pillow case, and allowed people only to lift it, and feel of it through the case."

("Peter Ingersoll Statement on Joseph Smith, Jr.," sworn affidavit, Palymra, Wayne County, New York, 2 December 1833, affirmed as being truthful by Ingersoll under oath and in a personal appearance before Thomas P. Baldwin, Judge of Wayne County Court, 9 December 1833; for Ingersoll's entire affidavit, see: http://www.truthandgrace.com/StatementIngersoll1.htm)

*****


Joseph Smith was not a believer in the Book of Mormon that he peddled as being divine. Pure and simple, he was a fraud and a conman. In his quieter moments, out of earshot of the blindly faithful, he admitted that faithless fact.