Posted on 05/07/2009 8:02:59 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
THE GOLDEN PLATES
Although the great revival was a significant result of the reaction that swept over America in the early part of the nineteenth century (and it was noteworthy that in the contemporary literature of the first forty years of this century, no subject so engrossed the interest of the Christian public as did these revivals,")1 its "most brilliant decade, between 1830 and 1840"2 was marked by several remarkable events; for this re-awakening, as had been the case in no previous intellectual revival, spread into practical, utilitarian, and commercial channels. This decade saw the establishment of the railroad, the electric telegraph, and the ocean steamship.
On the 6th day of April, in the first year of this "most brilliant" decade of American history (1830) the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was organized at Fayette, New York, just seven months before the first American railroad train, the diminutive and experimental forerunner of modern methods of transpiration, made a trial trip from Schenectady to Albany in the state of New York, a distance of seventeen miles (November 2, 1830).
The organization of the church was the result of a series of most unusual happenings in western New York, then a pioneer state. The revivals started in the South had spread northward through the trans-Allegheny region, and had reached their peak in New York in the early twenties. In and near the post-township of Palmyra, in what was then Ontario (later Wayne) County, a series of revivals had been held by the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist Churches uniting, as was then the custom, in a non-proselyting attack upon the emotions of the community, a part of the general movement of that period, for "it spread from town to town, from county to county, and from state to state."3
Says William Smith, "The people in our neighborhood were very much stirred up with regard to religious matters by the preaching of a Mr. Lane,4 an elder of the Methodist Church and celebrated throughout the country as a great 'revivalist preacher.'"5
Attending these revivals with most of his father's family was a country lad of about fourteen years by the name of Joseph Smith. The family had but one year before, after a few years' residence in the village of Palmyra, taken up some "new land on Stafford Street near the line of Palmyra."6 "During the time of great excitement," he later wrote, "my feelings were deep," but after the height of the revival began to subside "notwithstanding the great love which the converts for these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy, who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling, in order to have everybody 'converted' as they pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased; yet, when the converts began to file off, some to one party, and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts were more pretended than real, for a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued; priest contending against priest, and convert against convert, so that all the good feelings, one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words, and a contest about opinions."7
This young man's mother, his sister, and two of his brothers were soon won by the Presbyterian faith, and joined that church, but he himself "became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect,"8 and, "felt some desire to be united with them,"9 and yet "found the confusion and strife among the different denominations" so great that "it was impossible for a person young as I was and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong. My mind at different times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult was so great and incessant. The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists, and used all their powers of 'either reason, or sophistry to prove their errors, or at least to make the people think they were in error; on the other hand the Baptists and Methodists in their turn were equally zealous to establish their own tenets and disprove all others."10
"Considering that all could not be right, and that God could not be the author of so much confusion, I determined to investigate the subject more fully, believing that if God had a church, it would not be split up into factions, and that if he taught one society to worship one way, and administer in one set of ordinances, he would not teach another principles which were diametrically opposed. Believing the word of God, I had confidence in the declaration of James: 'If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him,'11 I retired to a secret place in a grove and began to call upon the Lord; while fervently engaged in supplication, my mind was taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features and likeness, surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noonday. They told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and that none of them were acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom. And I was expressly commanded to 'go not after them,' at the same time receiving a promise that the fullness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me."12
Several days after, the boy was talking with one of the ministers who had been active during the revival, and told him all about the wonderful vision he had seen. To his surprise, the man, to whom he had looked as a spiritual adviser treated his communication not only lightly, but with contempt. For then, as now, "Pretensions to miraculous powers.... excited not only in persons of intelligence but in most men of sober thought, indignation or contempt."13 The story spread among his friends, and the boy was subjected to all kinds of ridicule, and the cruelest kind of torment.
"Until after the angel appeared ... it was never said that my father's family were lazy, shiftless, or poor,"14 said his brother many years later. "The hand of fellowship was extended to us upon all sides,"15 his mother tells us, and a contemporary of his grudgingly admits, "Joseph had a little ambition and some very laudable aspirations, and his mother's intellect occasionally shone out in him . . . especially when he used to help us solve some portentous question of moral and political ethics, in our juvenile debating club, which we moved down to the old red schoolhouse on Durfee Street, to get rid of the annoyance of critics who used to drop in upon us in the village; and subsequently after catching a spark of Methodism in the camp meeting down in the woods on the Vienna Road, he was a very passable exhorter in evening meetings."16
But now these days were over. No one could forget that young Joseph claimed to have seen a vision. "But strange or not, so it was, and was often cause of great sorrow to myself. However, it was nevertheless a fact that I had had a vision. I have thought since that I felt much like Paul when he made his defense before King Agrippa, and related the account of the vision he had when he 'saw a light and heard a voice.' . . . He had seen a vision, he knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise; and though they should persecute him unto death, yet he knew and would know unto his latest breath, that he had both seen a light, and heard a voice speaking to him, and all the world could not make him think or believe otherwise. So it was with me, I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two personages, and they did in reality speak unto me, or one of them did."17
He could not forget it. The things he had heard while alone that day in the woods would not down. Though he no longer mingled with the religious activities of the community, he pondered in his own heart over what had happened. It was, he said, a great sorrow" to him, and yet he dare not disobey. Moments of temptation and rebellion were followed by hours of contrition, and at length on the evening of September 21, 1823, upon retiring to bed, he prayed for forgiveness for his rebellion and folly and also asked for a further manifestation of his standing before the Lord. He tells us that he had full confidence that he would receive an answer to his petitions, and he was not disappointed. His prayers were answered while he was still on his knees. Years after in answer to a letter of inquiry from John Wentworth of the Chicago Democrat he retold the story:
"On the evening of the 21st of September, A. D., 1823, while I was praying unto God, and endeavoring to exercise faith in the precious promises of Scripture on a sudden a light like that of day, only of a far purer and more glorious appearance, and brightness burst into the room, indeed the first sight was as though the house was filled with consuming fire; the appearance produced a shock that affected the whole body; in a moment a personage stood before me surrounded with a glory yet greater than that with which I was already surrounded. This messenger proclaimed himself to be an angel of God sent to bring the joyful tidings, that the covenant which God made with ancient Israel was at hand to be fulfilled, that the preparatory work for the second coming of the Messiah was speedily to commence; that the time was at hand for the gospel in all its fullness to be preached in power unto all nations that a people might be prepared for the millennial reign.
"I was informed that I was chosen to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring about some of his purposes in this glorious dispensation.
"I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country, and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people was made known unto me: I was also told where there were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient prophets that had existed on this continent. The angel appeared to me three times the same night and unfolded the same things."18
The next morning in the field Joseph told his father what he had seen. His father believed him, as did the rest of the family, and he was advised to follow the directions of the angel and find the plates. Accordingly he left the field and says he went immediately to the place pointed out in the vision. "Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario County, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood; on the west side of this hill not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates deposited in a stone box: this stone was thick and rounding in the middle on the upper side, and thinner towards the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all around was covered with earth. Having removed the earth," he says, "and having obtained a lever which I got fixed under the edge of the stone and with a little exertion raised it up, I looked in and there indeed did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim and the Breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement; in the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the plates and the other things with them."19 He tells us he made an attempt to take them out, but was forbidden to touch them, We are elsewhere told that he had already laid some of the plates by his side upon the ground, when the idea, natural to a lad of less than eighteen, came to him that there might be treasure buried with them. He stooped to look in the box when the plates were returned to the box, and he was forbidden to take them again. The plates could not be had for the purpose of making money.
"I remember how the family wept when they found Joseph could not get the plates at that time,"20 said his brother, William as an old man. "The circumstances that occurred and the impressions made upon my mind at that time I can remember better than that which occurred two years ago. We were all looking forward for the time to come, father, mother, brothers, and sisters."21 William was twelve years old at the time.
Joseph was no longer in doubt as to his mission, nor unsatisfied with what he considered his destiny. Annually on the anniversary of this event he visited the spot on the hill, and reported to the assembled family all that had occurred. Never during the next four years, he told them, had the angel failed to meet and instruct him there.
Work on the homestead continued from day to day, much as it did with many of their neighbors. "After my father's family moved to New York State, in about five years they cleared sixty acres of land and fenced it. The timber on the land was very heavy. Some of the elms were so large that we had to 'nigger' them off. They were too large to be cut with a crosscut saw." The three elder boys of the family, Alvin, Hyrum, and Joseph, bore the burden of the work. When there was extra expense or the family income was low, one of the younger boys "worked out" as most farm boys of their time did to help with the common expenses.
"Yes, sir: I knew all of the Smith family, well," said an old neighbor, Orlando Saunders, "there were six boys, Alvin, Hyrum, Joseph, Harrison, William, and Carlos, and there were two girls; the old man was a cooper, they have all worked for me many a day; they were very good people. Young Joe (as we called him then) has worked for me, and he was a good worker; they all were. I did not consider them good managers about business, but they were poor people, the old man had a large family." So far as young Joseph was concerned, Saunders went on to insist he knew him "just as well as one could very well; he has worked for me many a time, and been about my place a great deal. He stopped with me many a time, when through here, after they went west to Kirtland; he was always a gentleman when about my place."22
In the summer of 1823,23 the boys with Alvin in charge began to replace the family log cabin with a "frame dwelling house," that badge of prosperity of the pioneer. It was a proud moment for them all. But Alvin died before the new house was finished, a never-forgotten sorrow to the entire family. His last request to his brothers was that they finish the new home for their mother. This they did but much of the joy of moving into it had vanished.
Pioneer life, except for the promise of the "golden plates," continued much the same after Alvin was gone. The Smiths dispensed hospitality in the new house as they had in the log cabin.24 One of the regular visitors was a prosperous miller, Joseph Knight, from Colesville, Broome County, where he owned a gristmill on the Susquehanna River. Although blessed with three sons of his own and four daughters, there were times that farm and millwork required an extra hand, and Knight had several times hired young Joseph Smith. The young people in the Knight home were pleasant, and he enjoyed going there. They liked him, too. Mrs. Knight treated him as her own son. Mr. Knight was not a church member though he favored the "Universalist doctrine."25 "Faithful and true, evenhanded and exemplary, virtuous and kind, never deviating to the right hand or the left,"26 the erstwhile young millhand characterized him in later years. And the Knight boys with whom he wrestled and played in his young days, were his tried and trusty companions down the tempestuous years to the end of his life. "I record their names," he once said, when he was tortured and hunted far from those peaceful Susquehanna hills, "with unspeakable delight, for they are my friends."27
Once a year it was the custom of Joseph Knight to visit the farmers in neighboring counties and contract for wheat to be delivered at his mill in the fall. Upon some of these visits he was accompanied by an old friend, Josiah Stoal, from Bainbridge, New York. The old gentleman had conceived the idea of searching for an ancient silver mine, supposed by neighborhood tradition to have been opened by the Spaniards somewhere in the hills, near Harmony,28 in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. Spanish treasure was in those days the popular myth with all classes of society. Upon recommendation of his friend Knight, Stoal secured the services of young Smith, and took him to Pennsylvania and put him to board with other "hands" at the prosperous farm home of Isaac Hale in Harmony.
The Spanish treasure never materialized, and the disappointed treasure seeker was finally persuaded to abandon the quest, but not before young Joseph Smith had found time during moonlit nights on the Susquehanna to embark on a more successful treasure hunt of his own. Emma, dark-eyed daughter of the Hales, found it easy to like the young stranger from New York, but the story of Joseph's visions had followed him, and canny old Isaac Hale was doubtful of the sort of farmer that could be made from a young man who saw and heard such unusual sights and sounds. Having once determined what he wanted, it was never easy for Joseph Smith to give up because of obstacles, and he records in this case he was "under the necessity of taking her elsewhere, so we went and were married at the house of Squire Tarbell in South Bainbridge [now Afton], Chenango County, New York." The marriage occurred on January 18, 1827, and the young couple went immediately to Manchester where they lived with the elder Smiths for a year.
Later in the year on the historical date of September 22, when Joseph Smith made his annual visit to the hill of promise, he took his wife, and borrowed a horse and carriage from a miller from Colesville, Joseph Knight, who happened to be there that evening. The trip was taken secretly, but Joseph knew he was welcome to the horse and traveling equipage of this old friend. Joseph and Emma left sometime after midnight, and that morning29 he brought back the cherished plates.
But the longed-for adventure had only begun. The story of the golden plates spread abroad in the neighborhood; they must be protected from theft and danger. There was a book to be translated and published, and Joseph was uneducated and poor. 1 The Frontier Spirit in American Christianity, by Peter G. Mode, Macmillan, 923.
2 The Brie Canal Proceedings of New York State History Society for 1926, by Noble Whitford, A.B., page 214.
3 From a sermon by William Smith at Deloit, Iowa, June 8, 1884, Saints' Herald, Volume 31, page 643.
4 Reverend George Lane, who since 1808 had been in charge of a circuit embracing all of the State of New York west of the Genesee River. Mr. Lane did the first Methodist preaching in the counties comprising the "Holland purchase." The courage, faith, zeal, and capacity for self-denial of these old-time circuitriders can hardly be overestimated. For incidents in Reverend Lane's ministry, see Gregg's history of Methodism as within the bounds of the Erie Annual Conference as quoted in History of Chautauqua County, New York. Andrew W. Young, Buffalo, New York, Matthews and Warren, 1875, page 107.
5 From William Smith on Mormonism, pages 6, 7, by William Smith, Herald Press, Lamoni, 1883.
6 History of the Pioneer Settlements of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, etc., by O. Turner, Rochester, 1851.
7 Times and Seasons, Volume 3, page 727.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Times and Seasons, Volume 3, page 727.
11 James 1:5.
12 Letter of Joseph Smith to John Wentworth, Times and Seasons, Volume 3, pages 706, 707.
13 Theology Explained and Defended, by Theodore Dwight, President of Yale College, page 153.
14 William Smith in sermon preached at Deloit, Iowa, June 8, 1884, Saints' Herald, Volume 31, pages 643, 644.
15 Joseph Smith and His Progenitors, by Lucy Smith, page 73.
16 History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, etc., by O. Turner, Rochester, 1851.
17 Times and Seasons, Volume 3, page 749.
18 Times and Seasons, Volume 3, page 707. See Volume 3, pages 727, 728, 748, 749.
19 Times and Seasons, Volume 3, page 771.
20 Sermon of William Smith at Deloit, Iowa, June 8, 1884, Saints' Herald, Volume 31, pages 643, 644.
21 Ibid.
22 From a series of interviews made by Wm. H. and Edmund L. Kelley with old settlers in and around Palmyra, N. Y. For all this interesting series, see Saints' Herald for 1881; or From Palmyra to Independence, pages 341 to 378. The quotation from Saunders appears on pages 360, 361. Saunders was not a Latter Day Saint, had seen the Book of Mormon but never read it; "cared nothing about it."
23 Earlier editions of this book gave the date 1824. This date was used since it agreed with the date of Alvin's death (November 19, 1824) as recorded in Joseph Smith Jr.'s autobiography in Times and Seasons, Volume 3, page 772, and with Lucy Smith's Joseph Smith and His Progenitors. Recent research, however, indicates this is in error. The Wayne County Sentinel of Palmyra, New York, on September 25, 1824. carried a notice signed by Joseph Smith, Sr., to the effect that there being a rumor that Alvin's body had been disinterred, he, with friends, had opened the grave and found the body undisturbed. This proves conclusively that Alvin died prior to that date. On the tombstone at Alvin's grave in the old cemetery across from the Catholic Church in Palmyra is an inscription showing date of death as November 19, 1823.
24 Since the entire Smith family agrees that the frame house was not finished at the time of Alvin Smith's death, and that almost the last words he uttered admonished his younger brothers to finish the new house for which the logs were hauled, we must conclude that any spiritual manifestations given before November 19, 1823, to Joseph Smith must have been received in the old log house. This includes the vision of September 21, 1823.
25 Millennial Star, Volume 19, page 756.
26 Ibid.
27 Millennial Star, Volume 19, page 756.
28 Now called Oakland. This is not the Harmony where the Rappite colony existed, as is popularly supposed. There were two Harmonys in Pennsylvania. The other famed for the Rappite community was in Butler County, across the State from Susquehanna County.
29 Letter to the Saints' Herald from Catherine Salisbury, sister to Joseph Smith. She wrote from Fountain Green, Illinois, March 10, 1886. Saints' Herald, Lamoni, Volume 33, page 260. Catherine says, "He was commanded to go on the 22d day of September, 1827, at 2 o'clock." See also Joseph Smith and His Progenitors by Lucy Smith, Chapter XXIII, and Andrew Jensen's Biographical Encyclopedia, Volume II, pages 772-73.
Well, the bom is not good for young people...
“Mental health issues ar a reality for BYU.” The story discusses the rising numbers of students seeking counseling for depression and anxiety issues related to “the pressures of grades, marriage, and RELIGION.”
“One out of every six BYU students has visited the BYU
Health Center in search of a solution to mental health issues.
“In 2008, the Health Center saw 5,287 first-time mental
health patient visits alone” (BYU Newspaper, “The Daily Universe” Page 5)
http://newnewsnet.byu.edu/pdf/du20090506.pdf
You will not find a LDS bishop who receives so much as a dime for his efforts. He drives his own car, he buys his own meals, he works a full time job to support his family and lives in his own house. He does his ecleastical duties gladly and free of charge, and will NEVER accept more than a heartfelt ‘thank you’ for his services.
___________________________________________
They dont follow the example set by the “prophet” Joey Smith eh ???
“Conflict also increased at church headquarters in Kirtland. In seeking to establish a sacral society directed by prophetic leadership, JS crossed conventional boundaries between religious and secular affairs. For him, God’s commandments made no distinction between the spiritual and the temporal. Subjecting oneself to a religious leader’s direction in temporal matters clashed with American ideals of unfettered individual freedom. As the Mormon population of Kirtland continued to grow, JS and his associates conceived expansive plans for that community. A pivotal element was a bank, which could help provide capital for development. Though they were unable to obtain a state charter—an ultimately fatal flaw—they nevertheless established a financial institution in January 1837. The ‘Kirtland Safety Society’ faltered early, due in part to negative publicity, the refusal of many area banks to accept Safety Society notes, and the predatory actions of outsiders who systematically acquired it notes and quickly demanded payment in specie, thus depleting its reserves. The Safety Society suspended such payments in late January, then failed several months later during the recession that gripped the United States. Stresses related to the bank failure, mounting personal debt of Kirtland Mormons, and church indebtedness due to construction of the House of the Lord caused some to question the scope and legitimacy of JS’s prophetic leadership. Some of JS’s closest associates became disaffected. Prominent among the defections were JS’s former secretary Warren Parrish, several apostles, a number of the members of the Quorom of the Seventy, and the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon plates. Their discontent escalated from dismay with JS’s financial leadership to rejection of his religious leadership.
“Such views eventually spread to nearly one-third of the church’s general leadership...Declaring JS a fallen prophet, Parrish and others attempted to establish a church of their own and to take control of the House of the Lord. Oliver Cowdery, saddled with crushing personal financial losses, privately disparaged JS. Some dissidents sought to replace JS with David Whitmer as church president. Frederick G. Williams clashed with JS over the Safety Society. Compounding JS’s problem was the antipathy of numerous non-Mormon residents of Kirtland and vicinity, many of whom used both the legal system and threats of violence to harass him and the Latter-day Saints.”
(The Joseph Smith Papers, Church Historian’s Press, p. 227)
“Smith knew a good thing when he saw it, and in 1836, the best thing by far was land speculation. With the westward drive, land values were shooting up at such a frenzied rate that fortunes could be made virtually overnight. By the mid-thirties Smith had already spent every dollar he had buying up land around the Mormon community in Kirtland, hoping that a railroad would run a line somewhere across his property and make him a rich man. When he ran out of his own money, he started looking for other people’s money to use. The best way to attract money, of course, was to open a bank, and in 1836, coincidentally, the Lord commanded him to do just that.
“There was just one problem: you had to HAVE money to open a bank. Never a stickler for details, Smith went out and borrowed the money to open the Kirtland Safety Society Bank and have plates made up for printing the currency the bank would issue. To assure depositors that their money would be secure, he filled several strong boxes with sand, lead, old iron, and stones, then covered them with a single layer of bright fifty-cent silver coins. Prospective customers were brought into the vault and shown the heaping chests of silver. ‘The effect of those boxes was like magic,’ claimed one witness. ‘They created general confidence in the solidity of the bank, and that beautiful paper money went like hot cakes. For about a month it was the best money in the country.’
“Smith wasn’t fazed a bit when the state legislature refused to grant his bank a charter. With only a few additions to the printing plates (why waste money to have new ones made up?), the Kirtland Safety Society Bank became the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Co. As far as Smith was concerned, a company, unlike a bank, didn’t need a charter.
“The faithful, of course, didn’t care what it was called. It was enough for them that the bank was run by Joseph Smith. What safer place could they put their money than in the hands of the Prophet? Lest they miss the message, Smith wrote an article for the Mormon newspaper inviting his flock to ‘take stock in our safety society.... We would remind them also of the sayings of the prophet Isaiah,...which are as follows: ‘Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish...to bring...their silver and their gold (not their bank notes) with them, unto the name of the Lord they God...’ Smith added the parenthetical to the biblical text as a discreet reminder that his bank wanted deposits in hard coin, not in notes drawn on other banks.
“After only a few months of operation, the Anti-Banking Co. collapsed. The single layer of silver coins didn’t last long once the notes started coming in. Meanwhile, the Ohio state legislature, unamused by Smith’s semantic games, charged him with operating an unchartered bank and fined him $1,000. To collect, however, they had to get in line with the other investors who were suing Smith (thirteen suits were filed against him between June 1837 and April 1837). On the night of January 12, 1838, Smith, like many other speculators, declared bankruptcy with his feet, fleeing Kirtland and his followers under cover of darkness. In his imaginative account of the event, Smith later claimed he left Kirtland ‘to escape mob violence, which was about to burst upon us under the color of legal process to cover the hellish designs of our enemies.’
“To prevent his creditors from hounding him to his new home in Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith declared legal bankruptcy, but not before transferring many of his assets to his wives, children, friends, and associates—some 105 people in all. (In 1844, the year of Smith’s death, these transfers were declared fraudulent and illegal.)”
(The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Green, Forgery, Deceit, and Death, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, 1988, pp. 25-26, Chapter 6)
The Golden Plates..
ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF MORMON = 1857
2. In this book there are mentioned certain other plates and curiosities, and most of which, if the book be correct, must still be in the hill “Cumorah,” between Palmyra and Manchester, N. Y. A list of these curiosities is subjoined, to aid us in further remarks; the pages of the Book of Mormon (3d European ed.) on which they are described, are also stated:
1. Plates of Laban, B. M., pp. 9, 11, 144, 145.
2. Brass genealogical plates of Lehi, B. M., p. 11.
3. Brass plates of Lehi, afterward abridged by Nephi, B. M., pp.3, 44, 62.
4. Brass plates of Nephi, containing “more history part,” B. M., pp. 16, 138.
5. Brass plates of Nephi, containing “more ministry part,” B. M., pp. 16, 144.
6. Ore plates of Nephi, containing “mine own prophecies,” B. M., p. 44.
7. Plates of Zarahemla, containing “genealogy,” B. M., 140.
8. Plates of Mormon, containing abridgment of Nephi’s “more ministry part,” B. M., p. 141.
9. Plates containing record from “Jacob to King Ben jamin,” B. M., p. 141.
10. Plates containing record of Zeniff, B. M., p. 161.
11. Plates (golden) of Ether, B. M., pp. 161, 189, 312, 516.
12. Plates of Alma’s “account of his afflictions,” B. M., p. 196.
13. Plates, Jared “brought across great deep,” B. M., p. 530.
14. Copies of “Scirptures,” out of which sons of Mosiah “studied 14 years,” B. M., pp. 255, 271.
15. Many records “kept by people who went north ward,” B. M., pp. 894, 395.
16. Twelve epistles from different prophets at various times, (B. M., in loci).
17. The round ball, or “Compass of Lehi,” B. M., pp. 33, 145, 314.
18. The sword of Laban, B. M., pp. 8, 143, 145.
19. The engraved stone of Coriantumr, B. M., p. 140.
20. The sixteen stones that “ God touched with his finger,” B. M., p. 520.
21. The two-stone interpreters of Mosiah, B. M., pp. 162, 204.
22. The two-stone interpreters of Jared’s brother, B. M., pp. 522, 523.
23. A white stone, “Gazelem,” B. M., p. 212.
24. A brass breast-plate, found with Ether’s plates (No. 11), B. M., p. 161.
Besides these, there were the plates containing Mormon’s abridgment of the whole history (B. M., pp. 142, 443, 444, 507), and Moroni’s “few plates,” B. M., p. 507, the professed translation of which constitutes the present Book of Mormon. These plates, Smith says, were bound into a volume by three rings passing through the back edge.
3. There is one oversighted contradiction that stares us in the face, about the plates themselves.
On p. 507 we are told that Mormon buries all these curiosities, “except these few plates” (his abridgment of the history) which he gives to his son Moroni.
On p. 509, we are told Moroni fills up his father’s plates, and says, “I have no more room on the plates, and ore I have none, for I am alone.” The plates of his father, the book with rings, are all full. Hie has no more plates nor ore to make any of; and yet, the matter of “fortyseven closely-printed pages of pretended translation follows directly after”. Where does Smith pretend to have got the originals of the “forty-seven pages” of printed translation? He only professed to find “one set of ring-bound plates”, Mormon’s abridgment. They were not in that, for Moroni “filled them up;” he did not make any more plates, “for he had no ore, and was alone.” Then where were the originals of this subsequent matter?
4. Another and a graver difficulty presents itself next. Mormon, it is said, buries all the curiosities, giving Moroni only “these few plates.” Moroni fills “these few plates,” and then buries them up. Joseph Smith says he found, with these plates, the two-stone interpreters of Jared’s brother (No. 22 in list), the breast-plate (No. 24), and the sword of Laban (No. 18). How could these few plates, which Moroni pretends to have buried, be with these other curiosities, Which Moroni did not have? They were buried apart, and yet they were found together!
(John Hyde, Mormonism: its leaders and designs, 1857, Pp 213-215)
“The fact that Baptism for the Dead took place, and Pauls letter to the Corinthians briefly touches upon this point, tells us that this was an accepted practice at that point in time. Yet, for some reason this practice has been abandoned. Why?
paul never supports this practice. He simply uses it to illustrate the importance of the resurrection. Nor is that practice explained in scripture anywhere.
upma
A certain superstitious feeling concerning them also existed in the minds of their more ignorant neighbors on account of the reputation Mrs. Smith had for “telling fortunes” (see Appendix No. 9).
Very early Mrs. Smith instructed her son Joseph to set up a claim for miraculous powers, which he willingly adopted.
While he was watching the digging of a well, or himself digging it, he found, or pretended to find, a peculiarly shaped stone that resembled a child’s foot in its outlines. It has been said that this little stone, afterward known as the “peek stone” and the “Palmyra seer stone,” had been in the possession of Mrs. Smith’s family for generations, and that she merely presented it to Joseph when he was old enough to work miracles with it; and that he hid it in the earth to find it again when it was convenient. As has been written, this “seer stone” was “the acorn of the Mormon oak.”
From that time on Joseph Smith fooled the credulous residents of the sparsely settled vicinity with the “peeker” in his white stove-pipe hat, which he held close to his face; he saw very remarkable sights — buried treasures of gold and silver, etc.; he could trace stolen property, tell where herds of cattle had strayed, and where water was to be found. With the “peek stone” he carried a rod of witch-hazel, to assist in the discovery of water; and between the stone and the rod he eked out a precarious subsistence.
A personage of this peculiar type was sure to find followers; and “Joe Smith,” as he was called, soon became the head of a band that slept during the day and wandered in the night-time to such places as they were directed to by their leader to dig for hidden treasures. Joe laid down certain laws to his “phalanx” in their operations; and if they disobeyed his rules, the charm of the proceeding was broken. So it frequently happened, when he assured his friends that they were close to the coveted prize, if the commanded silence, which may have lasted for hours, was broken by the slightest manifestation
of gratified pleasure, he declared the gold, or sliver, had been “spirited away,” and he must again “follow the lead of the witch-hazel and ‘peek stone’ to see where it had ‘located.’”
When Joe wanted fresh meat for his family, he gave out that it would be necessary to insure the success of the “diggers,” as these worthies were called, by having a black sheep killed, as a sacrificial offering, before going to work.
This state of affairs continued for some time, and his reputation extended to the adjacent counties, which he often visited. He disappeared for four years, which are involved in mystery; but he is known to have been during that time in both Onondaga and Chenango counties, as his name appears in the criminal records of both as a vagabond.
At that time there was a peddler named Parley P. Pratt, afterward distinguished for his connection with Mormonism, who was familiar with the affairs of the day, and knew everybody of the slightest note in western New York and northern Ohio. He frequently extended his trips into northern Pennsylvania. His family resided at Mentor, Ohio. Sidney Rigdon made mysterious journeys to Pennsylvania; but exactly when and where Smith, Rigdon, and Pratt met, it is now impossible to determine. There is conclusive evidence, however, that
they did meet, Pratt being, it is supposed, the medium of Rigdon’s and Smith’s knowledge of each other, the first having copied the Spaulding romance at Pittsburg, and soon after retiring from his trade “to study the Scriptures” as he said, and avowing his intention to become a preacher. His ostensible residence was also at Mentor, Ohio, and it is an established fact that he visited Pittsburg and the interior of Pennsylvania.
Smith is known to have had a copy of the Spaulding manuscript in his possession about the year 1820, or at the time these three worthies met, as it is certain that the scheme of the great Mormon fraud was determined about this period between Smith, and Rigdon, and arrangements made to develop it as quickly as circumstances would permit and money could be procured for the purpose.
Smith was wandering through the country during these years of mystery a portion of the time, and was occasionally seen at Palmyra. He heard the theories (as it was a common topic of conversation at the time) that were afloat to account for the peopling of America; the traditions collected from the Indians; the Hebrew traditions among them; the discovery of ruined cities and temples in Central America; the relics of pottery, bricks, and stumps of axe-cut trees, buried far beneath the surface of the Mississippi Valley. He had the wit to understand when Rigdon said a book elucidating such theories would pay, especially with the addition of the biblical language of the Spaulding manuscript and its quaint romance.
Either there, or elsewhere, he pretended to be interested in the great revivals that were common at the time in the churches of the different religious denominations. In 1821 there was a revival in the Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches at Palmyra, and some of the Smith family declared they were “converted.” The mother, three of the brothers, and a sister joined the Presbyterian communion. Joe asserted his partiality for the Methodists, but ultimately declared he could not decide which was right. He said that his mind was greatly exercised by what he heard first in one church and then in another, and that he gave himself up to prayer for days, “agonizing:” that the truth might be made known to him among all the conflicting opinions that he heard among these different sects; that suddenly his chamber became illuminated, an angel appeared and conversed with him, instructed him in the ways of righteousness, and informed him there was no true Church on earth.
He was further told that his prayers were heard, that he was “dearly beloved of the Lord, and should be commissioned a priest after the order of Melchisedec — organising a church of faithful persons in that line to receive the Lord, in the Millennium.”
In a second visit the angel informed him “that the truth should SPRING OUT OF THE EARTH ;” that he would be led to the Hill Cummorah, near Palmyra, and receive from out of the ground holy and prophetic records concerning a family of Jews that emigrated from Jerusalem in the time of Zedekiah, and were miraculously led across the Eastern Ocean.
Beyond question his mind was strangely exercised by the popular religious movement that swept through the country at the time, and his naturally imaginative and superstitious nature was briefly impressed by the eloquence of the revivalists. He became familiar with scriptural expression, and followed the inclination of those about him to listen to any new-fangled doctrine.
(Anna Dickinson, New Light on mormonism, 1885 Pp 29-33)
While at Harpersville, Penn., in 1826, he married Emma, the daughter of Isaac Hale, a well-to-do farmer of the vicinity, who was greatly opposed to the “peeker,” as he called Joe Smith, who was making himself notorious by his strange talk on religious topics and his pretensions to be able to work miracles, as well as to locate gold and silver. Numerous tricks were played on Smith by the unbelieving, and his father-in-law threatened to shoot him if he returned to his house after clandestinely marrying his daughter.
The Smith family were still very poor and still given to disreputable methods for a living.
In 1826 Joe Smith returned to Palmyra, and began to act his role in bringing before the public, with very great caution, the well-contrived Mormon scheme to delude the ignorant and superstitious. At dinner-time one day, he told his family that in crossing through a grove he found a book in some white sand. They asked to see it, appearing to believe him; but he said that the angel who told him of its locality had forbidden him to show it without authority, and that any person thus looking on it would surely die.
Having a certain amount of magnetic influence, Smith gathered a few dissolute followers about him. He began to talk to them of some golden plates he had been directed in a vision to dig for in the vicinity, and went about with them to “locate” the treasure. He had a reputation among his admirers of also “casting out devils” and healing the sick.
Mrs. Smith, Joe’s wife, owned a six-acre lot* near the hill that was soon to become famous, four miles from
__________
* This was probably not Joseph’s wife’s house, but the home already described, now belonging to Mr. Seth Chapman. 34
Palmyra, on which there was a small log house, partly finished, having a stove-pipe running through the roof to answer for a chimney. This hill is at present known as “Gold Bible Hill.” It is conical in shape, smooth and green to the very top, from which there is a picturesque view of hills and dales in all directions. From its peculiar form and isolation it is somewhat suggestive of an extinct volcano. It is owned by William T. Sampson, Commander in the United States Navy. In 1826 Joe and his wife were established in the primitive log house, which was visited by Sidney Rigdon, who spent three or four months there; and a number of other men came, and, after lingering a while, left with an air of mystery.
The neighbors became suspicious, and thought a band of counterfeiters were at work under Smith’s direction; while he talked of wonders about to be performed “at the hill.” There is a tradition that the boys of the vicinity believed a giant would come out of the hill and crush Palmyra and all those who ridiculed the talk of Joe Smith and his revelations. To his adherents Smith said he had been shown the box in which “the golden plates” were concealed, and had tried many times to open it, but was struck back by an invisible, blow coming from Satan, who had been at his elbow, and accused him of avarice and ambition, and that he was obliged to repent and humiliate himself for the great event. He said that angels visited him frequently, and while he boldly confessed himself a great sinner, and owned that he had led an unworthy life, “the Lord had chosen him and forgiven all his sins; and for his own inscrutable purpose made him, weak and erring as he might have been, the instrument of his glory.” 35
daybreak, in going home, he was so exhausted that, in attempting to climb a fence he fell over it, and for a long time was unconscious. He beheld the angel standing over him when his senses returned, and he was directed to tell his father all that had been communicated, and his father said, “Follow the angel’s directions, as he is a messenger from God.”
Smith related that, after hearing a sermon from the text, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth unto all men and upbraideth none, and it shall be given him;” that he went into the woods, knelt down and began to pray. A thick darkness covered him, and he thought he was about to be destroyed; but suddenly a pillar of light arose just over his head, and he saw two personages bright and full of glory beyond description. One of them called him by name and, pointing to the other, said, “This is my beloved son.”
His neighbors have testified that he made contradictory statements as to the locality where “the golden plates” were to be found; but at last, on the night of September 22, 1827, amid thunder and lightning and a grand display of celestial pyrotechnics, while Smith and the chosen were fervently praying, an angel came out of a chasm in Cummorah Hill, opened for this particular occasion, and delivered a box to Smith’s care, who said he saw legions of devils struggling with the angel, to keep back the prize. The name of the angel who delivered the box was Moroni, and he informed Smith that the fate of the early inhabitants of America was written on golden tablets within the box, which could only be read by the aid of some wonderful stone spectacles called “Urim and Thummim,” delivered with the plates.
Smith’s story of his first view of the plates, several years previous, is that, following the direction of the
36
angel, he went to the Hill Cummorah and on the west side, near the top, he found a box, that was only partly concealed by loose bits of rock and earth. He removed the obstructions with a lever. The box was made of stones held together with cement. On partly opening it he saw the plates and the Urim and Thummim. *
He attempted to take them out, and was forbidden by the “Voice,” and told that four years from that time was the period fixed to receive them; but he must visit the place each year, on the anniversary of that occasion. He followed this advice, and the angel met him, giving him instructions touching “the Lord’s purpose in the last days, and what manner His kingdom was to be constituted.”
This precious box was carried to Smith’s cabin. He opened it in secret, but said it contained not only the six golden tablets, eighteen inches square, held together by rings at the back, and the stone spectacles, but the sword of Laban and a “breastplate,” which had been brought from Jerusalem.
The tablets, he announced, were covered with hieroglyphics, which he alone had the power to read with the spectacles; and a little low chamber of his house was made a translating room, Smith standing in one corner behind a blanket which screened him from the curiosity of his scribe, Oliver Cowdery, who had been a school-master, and Reuben Hale, his brother-in-law, and admirer of the “Peeker,” Smith said the inspections were in a new language, which he called “reformed Egyptian,” While the translation was going on, he came to a part of the narrative that informed him that baptism by immersion
__________
* Urim and Thummim mean “light” and “perfection” or the “shining and the perfect,” according to an accepted Biblical lexograph. 37
for the remission of sins had been taught and commanded by the ancient inhabitants of America, and, anxious to learn his “privileges,” the translator, with Cowdery, retired to the woods “to inquire further of the Lord.”
While they were praying John the Baptist appeared in a cloud of light,” and laying hands on them, ordained them. The neighbors heard Smith was writing a book which he called at the time “The Golden Bible,” this idea being suggested by the report that a gold Bible had about this time been dug up somewhere in Canada.
As the work progressed the people sometimes called to see how it was getting along, and they were allowed to feel the manuscript as it reposed in a pillow-case, but no one was allowed to see it.
The translating process, it was reported was simple, as a copy of the hieroglyphics was taken down from the plates, and then Smith dictated to those who copied on paper.
(Anna Dickinson, New Light on mormonism, 1885 Pp 34-38)
So much was said at Palmyra of the golden plates, that certain persons contrived a plan to capture them, and a writ for debt was served on Smith as a pretence. To avoid this, he placed the plates, long before prepared by himself and Rigdon, when they met in Pennsylvania, in a bag of beans, and tried to escape, but was overtaken and searched by the sheriff, who was not bright enough to look in the bean bag. “If he had looked” (says the narrator of this incident), “he would doubtless have found not only the plates, but a copy of Spaulding’s manuscript.”
After this failure of Smith’s enemies to capture the golden plates, he and Cowdery returned to their work, which was slowly accomplished. Meanwhile Smith added to his reputation by his first great miracle, performed on
one Newell Knight, who was besieged by devils, his limbs and visage being distorted by pain. Smith commanded the evil spirits to leave him in the name of Christ, and Knight said, “I see them going right through the roof.”
This established the fact, in the minds of certain people, that Smith had indeed a divine mission to perform, and that he had, as he affirmed, visits from angels and communications with them. But he was very poor, and so was Rigdon, or the world would have been stirred with Mormonism sooner.
Martin Harris, a farmer of the vicinity, a man of some considerable means, became acquainted with Smith, and being told by him that the Lord commanded him to assist in bringing out the book, yielded, as he afterward acknowledged, in the hope of making money. He made trouble afterward by telling what he had heard of the Spaulding manuscript in connection with Mormonism, and, on that account, was denied certain honors which he coveted.
In 1828 (as Abigail Harris, the sister-in-law of Martin Harris, testified in 1833), while Martin and his wife Lucy were at her house on a visit, during a conversation about the new faith’s being devised by Smith, Lucy said it was “all a delusion;” to which her husband answered, “What if it is all a lie? Let me alone, and I’ll make some money out of it.”
The translation was suspended ten months by the abstraction of several sheets by Mrs. Harris, who could not be induced, by threat or cajolement, to give them up. In this way one hundred and sixteen pages of Smith’s and Rigdon’s work were lost, and the problem was how to replace them. Smith said he was denied the gift of translation, and eighteen months’ labor was thus lost. Joseph had a “revelation.” He was told that Satan had inspired Harris and his wife to get possession of the manuscript.
Mr. and Mrs. Harris separated, and divided their property, on her refusal to join the Mormons. She remained at Palmyra until her death; he followed Smith, and, after various misfortunes, died in want.
Professor Anthon, in a letter dated New York, February 17, 1834, relates that a paper presented to him as a transcript of the characters “on the golden plates” was in fact, a singular scroll, having crooked characters in columns, which had evidently been arranged by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets, Greek, Hebrew, and Roman letters being inverted or placed sideways and placed in perpendicular columns. The whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with strange marks copied “after the Mexican calendar given by Humboldt.” During the period between September, 1829, and March of 1830, the “Book of Mormon” was published in the third story of a building in the main street of Palmyra, now known as Exchange Row,
Martin Harris contributed $3000 for this purpose. The foreman in the office at the time was Mr. Pomeroy Tucker, who has since written an interesting work on Mormonism. Major J. H. Gilbert (who is still living, and has contributed a valuable paper, No, 10, to be found in the Appendix) was a compositor in this office at the same time. This was at the printing establishment of E, B. Grandin, editor of the Wayne Sentinel.
Mr. Thurlow Weed, then editor of the Anti-Masonic Inquirer in Rochester had already refused to do Smith’s printing in 1829. The “copy” was on ruled paper and in Cowdery’s handwriting. Hyrum Smith brought it to the printing-office, producing it from a tightly buttoned overcoat. One day’s supply was given at a time.
One David Whitmer of Richmond, Mo., it is said, has this manuscript copy. He is the sole survivor of the original “three witnesses,” as they were called, who testified to the genuineness of the “Book of Mormon,” and he may, it is believed, awaken “the saints” some time by publishing a fac-simile edition of the original translation.
Major Gilbert, mentioned above (as will be seen in the Appendix, No. 9), has an unbound copy of the “Book of Mormon,” which he kept, sheet by sheet, as it came from the press. The venerable owner and printer relates how the manuscript was brought to him little by little, badly spelled, grammatically imperfect, and without punctuation. He asked to be allowed to alter it. At first, he says, Smith was unwilling, but afterward permitted him to correct the proof, in the evening, as fast as it was printed, to facilitate its completion. In these corrections of proof Major Gilbert used some private marks, which he made with a blue pencil, which he says he could recognize at a glance.
The book was sold at first for $1.50 a copy, and soon the Smiths had money enough to buy a horse and other luxuries. Before Harris responded to Smith’s proposal to raise funds to publish his “translation,” two or three printing-houses in other towns had been visited for such purpose by Smith or his agents.
Mr. Thurlow Weed has testified to this circumstance, but said later that he was mistaken as to the year 1825; that it must have been two or three years later.
The publication of the book created an intense excitement in central and western New York. Certain questions of a religious nature were being agitated at the time, and the public mind was prepared for a new religious sensation. Smith’s father and three brothers were his first converts. The first edition of the “Book of Mormon” was of several hundred pages, with an appendix, in which there was a statement signed by “three witnesses” — Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris — who were at the time professed believers, and said, “We declare with words of soberness that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid down before our eyes, that we beheld and saw, the plates and the engravings thereon.” Several years after these “three witnesses” quarrelled with Smith, renounced Mormonism, and avowed the falsity of the above statement.
Soon after the book appeared, the church was organized at the house of Peter Whitmer in Fayette, Seneca Co., N. Y., with six members — Joseph Smith, Jr., Oliver Cowdery, Hyrum Smith, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Samuel H. Smith, and David Whitmer.
Immediately the Holy Ghost fell on Cowdery, and he “prophesied,” and Smith “stood up and prophesied.”
They had a happy time together, but, owing to the “unbelievers” about them, kept their baptism, ordination, and rejoicings a secret for a time.
These members were called “elders,” Cowdery baptizing Joseph Smith, and Smith baptizing the rest. They said it was eighteen hundred years to the day since the resurrection of Christ. They professed to believe it was the “Church of Christ” once more restored to the earth, holding the keys of authority, and power to bind, and loose, and to seal, on earth and in heaven.
The following Sunday Cowdery preached his first sermon on this “dispensation,” and “the principles of the gospel as revealed to Joseph.” Mrs. Joe Smith was baptized, and given the new name of “Electra Cyria,” or “Daughter of God.”
The following June (1830) the first Mormon conference was held at Fayette, and there were thirty professed Mormons present, showing that converts to the new faith were not rapidly made; but “the gifts” began to manifest themselves. Smith was heard to say about this time, that he had “got everything ready to fix the fools.”
The religious teachings of the “Book of Mormon” show the influence of the doctrinal questions that were being agitated in central New York in 1830 — Calvinism, Universalism, Methodism, Millerism, Romanism and other forms of belief. Smith and Rigdon were inclined to be Millerites. They had at first vague ideas of a church they were about to establish. Millerism was attracting great attention at the time, so they settled on that doctrine, and that the Millennium was close at hand; that the Indians were to be converted; and that America was to be the final gathering-place of the saints, who were to assemble at the New Jerusalem, somewhere in the interior of the Continent. With the “Book of Mormon” as their text, they began to exhort.
Sidney Rigdon preached the first Mormon sermon in what is at present the Hall of the Young Men’s Christian Association, at Palmyra, taking a text from “the First Book of Nephi” — part of the “Book of Mormon” — “And the angel spake unto me, saying, These last records which thou hast seen among the Gentiles shall establish the truth of the first, which is of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb; and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them, and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and peoples that the Lamb of God is the eternal father and Saviour of the world, and that all men must come to Him, or they cannot be saved.” The preacher ventured to try establish the theory that the Bible and the “Book of Mormon” are one in importance and inspiration. He said that he was “God’s Messenger,” to proclaim this truth, etc.
This sermon made so much disturbance, that no “regular preaching” was afterward attempted by the Mormons in the immediate vicinity
(Anna Dickinson, New Light on mormonism, 1885 Pp 38-44)
A full day’s supply...
Source?
LOL...How do you source a negative? I believe YOU need a source to show Paul’s support of the practice. Got one?
I never said Paul was crazy wild about it, or that he was sour on it. I merely quoted 1 Corinthians where the question is asked.
You said Paul didn’t support it. The question remains, if it was done in the early church - when was it dropped and why? If it was done before Paul’s time, then it was done when Christ was on the earth - therefore one would claim that this was a sacriment instituted by the Son of God. What happened to this practice?
Well, first off, Paul said "If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?"
Paul did NOT say, "Why are we baptized...."
Just north of Corinth was a city named Eleusis. This was the location of a pagan religion where baptism in the sea was practiced to guarantee a good afterlife. This religion was mention by Homer in Hymn to Demeter 478-79.1 The Corinthians were known to be heavily influenced by other customs. After all, they were in a large economic area where a great many different people frequented. It is probable that the Corinthians were being influenced by the religious practices found at Eleusis where baptism for the dead was practiced.
Paul used this example from the pagans in 1 Cor. 15:29, when he said, "...if the dead are not raised, then why are they baptized for the dead?" Paul did not say we.
This is significant because the Christian church was not practicing baptism for the dead, but the pagans were.
Paul's point was simple. The resurrection is a reality. It is going to happen when Jesus returns. Even the pagans believe in the resurrection, otherwise, why would they baptize for the dead?
Then Paul says that God will put all other things under his feet. IMHO, this is to say that God assumes control over everything, including his Son. I think we agree at this point, too.
We know that we are baptized into the family of God. Then Paul asks if there is no resurrection, then what is the point of baptizing the dead? And then goes on to ask why we stand in jeopardy every hour. This is where we likely diverge.
My faith is that you MUST be baptized to enter the kingdom of heaven. Maybe we agree, maybe we don't. I believe, that for someone who was born in Africa, who was never given the chance to accept Jesus Christ, a mechanism exists for him to decide to accept Jesus Christ after death.
Consider, when Jesus was crucified, "By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; " (1 Peter 3:19). So, Jesus went and taught spirits in 'prison'. What's the point in that? If spirits of the dead know nothing, what's the point in teaching them?
We believe that life is a test, where we are given 'freedom to chose'. Some of us will accept Jesus, some will not. We believe that after we die, some of us may accept Jesus at that time. Because Baptism is a REQUIREMENT to enter the kingdom of heaven, this practice is something that only the living can perform.
If you lived in Africa in the 1200's; the odds of you hearing about Christianity are remote. Are you therefore damned to Hell? You could have been an outstanding, generous, kind and loving person - but because you were not Baptized, you are 'stuck'. Now, Baptismism does not spring you from 'prison'. But, if you accept Jesus after death, you can progress. After all, isn't the whole point accepting Jesus?
You can save your breath. I was baptized into membership in the LDS Church when I was eight. I was baptized by the Holy Spirit into Christ when I was 45.
Your exegesis of the scripture is incorrect. Haven’t you ever asked yourself WHY the LDS is the only group that reads into Paul’s scripture concerning the resurrection the admonition to necro-dunk? You should.
“paul never supports this practice. (Baptism of the Dead)
“Source?
The entire writings of Paul in the New Testament! Pick a translation you like.
The question remains, if it was done in the early church - when was it dropped and why? If it was done before Paul’s time, then it was done when Christ was on the earth - therefore one would claim that this was a sacriment instituted by the Son of God. What happened to this practice?
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Baptism for the dead (which Paul only mentions in passing in a passage devoted to the RESURRECTION) has its roots in Roman Paganism. It was probably only practiced by gnostic groups. Due to the development of a more systematic theology and purging of early heresies the practice was discontinued at a fairly early date (by the early 2nd century).
There is absolutely NO evidence that Christ practiced it or that Paul condoned it.
There are a couple of books on it, an excellent one being Jeffrey A. Trumbower’s “Rescue for the Dead”.
(Oh, I get it. Jesus shed proxy blood on behalf of spirits in prison. But Mormons conclude, "His blood wasn't enough." So instead, Mormon proxies need to be the real saviors of mankind via proxy water & proxy Mormons).
Example #1 -- From 1974 LDS copyrighted book: "When living persons are baptized for the dead, they literally become saviors to others..."
(Don't you see? The problem we're dealing with here is that Mormons place themselves on par with Jesus re: godhood & saviorhood, calling themselves "literal...saviors")
Example #2 -- an LDS "prophet" speaking who was one of Joseph Smith's right hand men, John Taylor: ...we are the only people that know how to save our progenitors, how to save ourselves, and how to save our posterity in the celestial kingdom of God;...we in fact are the saviours of the world..." (Journal of Discourses, vol.6, p.163).
Sorry, Hodar, but "saviors of the world" are not plentiful (1 John 4:14; John 4:42)
Example #3 -- another LDS "prophet" -- this one a nephew of Joseph Smith who was talking about what LDS do with the genealogical research uncovered: "... mortals have to be saviors on Mount Zion, acting by proxy for the dead." (LDS "prophet" Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, p. 325)
Example #4 -- Taylor again: "We know something about our progenitors, and God has taught us how to be saviors for them by being baptized for them in the flesh, that they may live according to God in the Spirit." (LDS "prophet" John Taylor, March 20,1870, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 14, 3/20/1870)
Example #5 -- the Mormon "why" of genealogy: "We have a great work before us in the redemption of our dead....There are fifty thousand millions of people in the spirit world...Those persons may receive their testimony, but they cannot be baptized in the spirit world, for somebody on earth must perform this ordinance for them in the flesh before they can receive part in the first resurrection and be worthy of eternal life." (LDS "prophet" Wilford Woodruff, JoD, Vol. 22, p. 234)
So you get to heaven based upon your own "Boy Scout merit badges?" -- your own "outstandingness..?"
...your own generosity..?
...your own kindness..?
...your own lovingness..?
What do you do then with Biblical passages like Eph. 2:8-9?
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and THIS IS NOT FROM YOURSELVES, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
So, repeat 1,000 times over the next week: "Salvation is not from myself or my works -- or else I could boast in me."
If you lived in Africa in the 1200's; the odds of you hearing about Christianity are remote.
However "remote" that is...times it by about a 999 trillion to 1 that lds are going to "stumble" across any significant # of genealogical records in Africa from the 1200s. What? Do you think there's some dormant computer records lying somewhere around that continent?
That so-called "mechanism" you place a false faith in -- in reality doesn't exist for 99% of Africans who lived before a certain modern-day date. Now while that exact "modern-day date" might be a bit debateable -- it's not debateable that there's nowhere to find birthdate/ death date info on just about all of those Africans.
You've bitten into the deceptive lie of "fairness." (If this is your standard of fairness, please tell us what exactly is "fair" about automatically excluding almost 100% of anybody born in the primitive era -- "primitive" being a little relative year-wise depending upon which isolated parts of the world we're discussing.)
Listen, if you're dead and if you're in the Mormon spirit prison, & you hear the "rumors" on spirit death row that outer darkness awaits you, what you think? They know nothing? I'll tell you one they know if the Mormon version of this is true, they would know that if ANYBODY showed up offering an alternative to outer darkness & spirit prison, they'd take this "get out of jail" card quite readily -- probably 100% of them would.
Yet you talk as if they wouldn't readily take this "spring" from spirit prison. (Yeah, right) So tell, me, if you were in spirit prison & couldn't get out -- and you knew outer darkness might await you, would that really be faith to say "yes" when you knew the release man arrived? (No)
So, instead, let's look @ what Jesus had to say about this re: the rich man in hell:
In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'
"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you CANNOT, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house,
for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
"'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'" (Luke 16:23-31)
Listen, the Book of Mormon was said by Smith to be the "fulness of the everlasting gospel" (D&C 20:8-9; 27:5; 35:12,17). Yet there's nothing in there about baptizing dead folks, proxy baptisms, etc.
Therefore, either Smith lied about it being the fulness of the everlasting gospel," or it's NOT part of the gospel to begin with!
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