To: Californiajones

C'mon. Get real. I read it once when I was 18 years old in the Book of Mormon and my memory can't be that bad. So let's go -- what does it say?

I hate to break it to you, but your memory seems to be that bad. I know of no passage of the Book of Mormon that says he appeared to his disciples after the Resurrection only "in the spirit," as you alleged. Can you find such a statement?

As for your opinion that Jesus did not come to this hemisphere—we are going to have to agree to disagree.

41 posted on 01/10/2006 5:24:20 PM PST by Logophile

John D. Lee turned his diaries that covered the year 1854 over to Brigham Young at Brigham Young's request. That diary has conveniently disappeared. However, his other diaries have been published.

The Church has a habit of hiding embarrassing documents. Remember Mark Hoffman and the Salamander letters. It was always curious to me that if the present day apostles get revelation, why they were fooled by Hoffman and his documents. If the Church hadn't tried to hide and make the embarrassing letters go away, perhaps the truth would have come out and Kathy Sheets would not have had to die.

42 posted on 01/10/2006 5:24:42 PM PST by colorcountry (I have a BS in B.S.)

We follow the example of Jesus when preaching the Gospel. At no point in time did He ever spread his word by focusing on why everyone else was wrong. He said on many occasions, "it is said...but I say...". Of the Law of Moses He said:
17 ¶ Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. - Matthew 5:17-18
Now the Pharisees and the Sadducees chose to see this as an attack but was it? No. He was teaching His word. In the same spirit, we do not attack anyone. It is only those who do not like or understand our message that perceive an attack.

Are the following attacks ?
Matthew 22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Matthew 23:24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Is there anything more than this going on in this thread ?

43 posted on 01/10/2006 5:41:45 PM PST by Quester (If you can't trust Jesus, ... who can you trust ?)

Maybe in the pearl of great price. Something that a Mormon was reading to me.

Must be a Mormon concordance out there?

44 posted on 01/10/2006 7:11:47 PM PST by Californiajones ("The apprehension of beauty is the cure for apathy" - Thomas Aquinas)

To: Unfrozen Caveman Engineer

I studied with two Mormans. They suggested that I pray about it. I did and the Bible came out on top, hands down. Guess what, after further study both of them begain to question their own teaching. As soon as the Morman church got wind of this the two were separated, assigned to different cities and told never to return to my house again.

45 posted on 01/10/2006 7:24:15 PM PST by tenn2005 (Birth is merly an event; it is the path walked that becomes one's life.)

46 posted on 01/10/2006 8:15:41 PM PST by Bernard Marx (Don't make the mistake of interpreting my Civility as Servility)

To: colorcountry

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales's personal appeal for donations

Mark Hofmann

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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Mark Hofmann (born December 7, 1954), a disaffected member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was a prolific counterfeiter who murdered two people in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is currently serving a prison sentence at the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah. Hofmann is widely regarded as one of the most skilled forgers in history. Hoffman is an Eagle Scout.

1 Early life
2 Hofmann's forgeries
3 Hofmann's murders
4 Legacy in document collecting
5 Reference
6 External links

[edit]

Early life

Although Hofmann claims to have embraced atheism while in his teen years, he was raised in a devout LDS family. His grandmother, Athelia Call, had been the wife of a Mormon polygamist. His family's reluctance to discuss its involvement with plural marriage became an early source of Hofmann's resentment toward Mormonism. Like many young LDS individuals, Hofmann spent two years as Mormon missionary and appeared outwardly devout, but his explorations of Mormon history led him to doubt many of the church's official claims regarding its origins.

Hofmann married Doralee Olds in the Salt Lake Temple in 1979. They divorced in 1988. They have four children.

[edit]

Hofmann's forgeries

After his mission, Hofmann became a dealer in antique items. Forging and altering coins, books, and historical banknotes to make them more valuable (often by adding signatures), Hofmann worked up to fabricating historically significant documents. He became famous for his "discoveries" of previously unknown documents pertaining to the Latter Day Saint movement and the LDS church.

The first forgery Hofmann sold to the LDS church was the so-called Anthon Transcript. Hofmann claimed he found this document April 1980 pasted between the pages of a 1668 Bible with the apparent signatures of Joseph Smith's great and great-great grandfathers inside. The document seemed especially significant as the transcript that Smith's scribe Martin Harris presented to Charles Anthon, a Columbia University classics professor, in 1828. According to the Joseph Smith-History, the transcript and its bizarre "reformed Egyptian" characters were copied by Smith from the Golden Plates from which he translated the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith-History reports that Anthon thought the esoteric-looking characters were genuinely Egyptian, but wanted access to the original plates. Anthon's recollection of the transcript differed greatly from a purported copy of the transcript possessed by the Community of Christ. Hofmann's version of the transcript seemed like it could be the original because it matched Anthon's description of the paper Martin Harris showed him. A Joseph Smith expert, Dean Jesse, opined that the document's handwriting and signature of Smith appeared genuine. Appraised by the LDS church for USD$25,000, it was purchased on October 13 in exchange for several artifacts the church owned in duplicate including a $5 gold Mormon coin, Deseret banknotes, and a first edition of the Book of Mormon.

On September 4, 1981, Hofmann gave Elder Gordon B. Hinckley another forgery. Supposedly written by Thomas Bullock, Hofmann claimed to have acquired the letter along with the Joseph III blessing, which presented Smith's young son, Joseph Smith III as the most legitimate leader for the LDS church, not Brigham Young . In the forged letter, dated January 27, 1865 and marked "private" and "not sent," Bullock chastises Brigham Young for having all copies of the blessing destroyed. Bullock writes that although he believes Young to be legitimate leader of the LDS church, that he would keep his copy of the blessing. Such a letter would unflatteringly portray Young and by extension the LDS church. Hofmann gave it to Hinckley as a "faithful Mormon," supposedly doing the church a favor. According to Hofmann, Hinckley filed the letter away in a safe in the First Presidency's offices.

The sale of these and other forgeries emboldened Hofmann, and confirmed his earlier conclusions about the LDS church. He thought that when LDS officials "covered up" what might be seen as embarrassing or contradictory documents which they apparently thought were genuine, they were lending credence to the stories. Hofmann also concluded that since LDS officials were apparently fooled by his forgeries, they had no divine prophetic powers.

In this period, Hofmann was continually selling and trading fraudulent documents to the LDS church and many other collectors and historians.

One significant Hofmann forgery arrived at the church via Brent F. Ashworth, an attorney and rare documents collector. The forgery was a letter complete with 1828 Palmyra, New York postmark from Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith's mother. She describes her son's revelations and finding the Gold Plates. However, the interesting part of the letter is a brief description of the Book of Lehi, also known as the lost 116 hand-written pages of the Book of Mormon. Hofmann sold it to Ashworth, and it was announced to the world in a August 23, 1982 joint press conference. In the conference Dean Jesse again asserted that a Hofmann forgery looked authentic, not only for Lucy Smith's handwriting, but also for the period postmark and correct postage.

On October 5, 1982, the LDS church and Ashworth announced another Hofmann forgery, which they thought was genuine: A supposed letter from Martin Harris to Walter Conrad, brother-in-law of Brigham Young. Ashworth felt that this letter, bought nine months earlier, bolstered the Church's move to subtitle the Book of Mormon "Another Testament of Jesus Christ." Hofmann sold the church another similar letter supposedly from David Whitmer, another of the three witnesses, for $10,000 shortly thereafter. Other purported letters sold in excess of $10,000 include a holograph referring to Joseph Smith treasure-seeking for silver (embarrassing to the church) and the supposed 1830 contract between Smith and Egbert B. Grandin for the first print of the Book of Mormon.

Hofmann's most famous Mormon history forgery emerged in 1984. An LDS Bishop, Steven F. Christensen, purchased the so-called Salamander Letter for $40,000 on January 6 after the LDS church and Brent Ashworth turned down more extravagant offers. News of the document was contagious and soon Peggy Fletcher of Sunstone Magazine, and then Richard N. Ostling, the religion editor of Time Magazine, were calling about the letter. The Salamander Letter depicted Joseph Smith as a practitioner of folk magic, and related an account of Smith's obtaining the Golden Plates that was completely different from the commonly accepted version.

In addition to documents from Mormon history, Hofmann also forged a number of other items, including works by Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln. His last announcement was his discovery of a copy of the long-vanished 17th century printed broadside Oath of a Freeman. The Oath, allegedly a printing from the press that traveled to America on the Mayflower, was a Pilgrim constitution, and would have been the oldest document printed in America. To be sold at over $1 million, the Oath was manufactured by Hofmann as an act of desperation. He even produced a second copy of the document of lesser technical quality. Authentication of these prints was underway as Hofmann committed his murders. They would contribute to his eventual discrediting.

[edit]

Hofmann's murders

Despite the often considerable amounts of money he was making from document sales, Hofmann became embroiled in financial difficulties. In an effort to clear his debts, he attempted to put together a deal involving the sale of "the McLellin collection": an extensive and previously unknown collection of documents purportedly written by William McLellin, an early Mormon apostle who became disaffected with the LDS church. Hofmann was unable to forge the entire collection quickly enough to meet his promises to his intended buyers. In a desperate effort to buy time he began planting bombs in Salt Lake City. On October 15, 1985, the first bomb killed document collector Steven Christensen. Christensen was known as the son of Mac Christiansen who founded the Utah-area Mr Mac clothing stores. Later that same day a second bomb killed Kathy Sheets, the wife of Christensen's employer.

The following day Hofmann became the victim of one of his own bombs. He was severely wounded when it exploded in his car. During the bombing investigation the police discovered incriminating evidence of the forgeries in the basement studio where Hofmann had created them.

Hofmann was arrested for the murders and forgery the following February. He later pled guilty to lesser charges to avoid the death penalty, and was sentenced to life in prison. He has twice attempted suicide in prison.

There has been speculation about the intended target of the third bomb that injured Hofmann, but he has never revealed who it was.

[edit]

Legacy in document collecting

During his career, Mark Hofmann fooled some very renowned people. Among them was Daniel Lombardo, a curator for a library of material written by Emily Dickinson. Hofmann sold him a "newly discovered" manuscript copy of an unpublished Dickinson poem for $24,000. The document was later determined to be a fake. Lombardo then remarked, "Hofmann was one of the most skilled forgers in this century. The lengths he went to fool all the experts were extraordinary."

Before Hofmann's criminal career was exposed, some of his "discoveries" were also presented to Kenneth Rendell, one of the top document experts in the United States and one of the men responsible for debunking the forged "Hitler Diaries". Like others duped by Hofmann, Rendell, after initially dismissing the documents as forgeries, later pronounced them consistent with their claimed origin.

Nearly all of Hofmann's documents have been determined to be forgeries. Indeed, there is now debate about whether any of them are legitimate, even those widely regarded as genuine.

Among Hofmann's earliest critics were former LDS members Jerald and Sandra Tanner. Though Hofmann's "discoveries" often appeared to bolster the Tanner's own arguments against the church, Jerald had by early 1984 concluded there was significant doubt as to the Salamander Letter's authenticity. By late 1984, Jerald Tanner questioned the authenticity of most, if not all, of Hofmann's "discoveries" based in part on their unproven provenance.

Ironically, Hofmann forgeries are now collector's items themselves.

[edit]

Reference

Sillitoe, Linda & Roberts, Allen (1989). Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders, 2nd. ed., Salt Lake City: Signature Books. ISBN 0941214877.

Turley, Richard E.. Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case, University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252018850.

Lindsey, Robert (1988). A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of Money, Murder, and Deceit, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0671651129.

Dallin H. Oaks (October 1987). Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents. Ensign: p. 63.

[edit]

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hofmann"

47 posted on 01/10/2006 9:03:33 PM PST by Reaganesque

I appreciate the fact that you studied it and made a decision based on prayer. I came to a different conclusion. I dont see the fact that they separated the missionaries who obviously lost the faith as any real evidence of anything. They wouldnt be very effective at teaching the gospel if they had no testimony of it.

I guess what kills me about this whole thread is that here we are in the middle of a war with Islamic extremists and we are arguing about Mormons? I mean, the church teaches to marry someone of the opposite sex and remain faithful for your entire life (and beyond), get a job and do it well, serve your country and others, be a productive member of society and lovingly raise your kids to do the same all the while praying and worshiping Christ and our Father.

I guess I am having a hard time seeing where the "danger" is in this religion. I guess I must have missed the "extra special - lets all go ram a plane into a building" Sunday service.

I dont really even enjoy these kinds of arguments, apparently I dont have the stomach for it because it deals with something I hold very dear and therefore I dont wish to discuss it in this manner. If someone wanted to talk with me about the differences in an open way, I will and I have (such as with several very good Catholic and Protestant friends I have) but this just isnt my style.

48 posted on 01/11/2006 2:43:04 AM PST by Unfrozen Caveman Engineer

To: Unfrozen Caveman Engineer

I guess what kills me about this whole thread is that here we are in the middle of a war with Islamic extremists and we are arguing about Mormons? I mean, the church teaches to marry someone of the opposite sex and remain faithful for your entire life (and beyond), get a job and do it well, serve your country and others, be a productive member of society and lovingly raise your kids to do the same all the while praying and worshiping Christ and our Father.

So ... Mormon missionaries don't continue to press the rightness of Mormon belief ... upon those who already identify themselves as christian ?

49 posted on 01/11/2006 4:41:08 AM PST by Quester (If you can't trust Jesus, ... who can you trust ?)

Wow...you are way off base here. All I said was John D. Lee's diary from that year are missing. There is plenty of evidence that those higher than he, ordered the murder. Perhaps you've never read anything about it except what your church tell you you may.

The confession you speak of was not in a fort. It was planted at the ferry Lee ran at Glen Canyon, under the protection of the Mormons. Man, you need to open your eyes and get out of your Church regulated cocoon occasionally.

And you say it is the non-Mormons that spread untruths.

50 posted on 01/11/2006 4:45:30 AM PST by colorcountry (I have a BS in B.S.)

To: colorcountry

All I said was John D. Lee's diary from that year are missing.

No, actually you said:

John D. Lee turned his diaries that covered the year 1854 over to Brigham Young at Brigham Young's request. That diary has conveniently disappeared.

The inescapable implication in your post is that the Church demanded the diary and then disposed of it to conceal it's alledged contents. You then go on to claim:

The confession you speak of was not in a fort. It was planted at the ferry Lee ran at Glen Canyon, under the protection of the Mormons.

You fail to mention that it was proven to be a forgery. A phony document. A work of fiction. And then, to bolster your case, you insist that the confession was found on "Mormon controlled land" as if the forger couldn't possibly have snuck onto the land to plant his phony evidence. Bottom line is, you have no evidence whatsoever that Brigham Young ordered the attacks beyond the rantings of a mass murderer and his cohorts and the efforts of modern day forgers.

You said in a previous post:

If the Church hadn't tried to hide and make the embarrassing letters go away, perhaps the truth would have come out and Kathy Sheets would not have had to die.

The truth did come out, as the Wikipedia article outlines. A disaffected member of the church tries to steal money from the church through fraud and deceit and then tries to cover up his crime by killing people to intimidate the church into silence and yet in your mind, this is evidence that the church is to blame for this woman's death. Your interpretation of the facts is, at best, self-serving and yet, I am the one who is way off base. Apparently, you believe, as Dan Rather did about the forged Texas Air National Guard document, that Mr. Lee's Confession and Mr. Hofmann's Salamander Letters are "fake but accurate." Why else would you continue to reference them when they are known frauds? May I suggest that it is you, who need to take the blinders off?

Devotion to one's ancestor can be a commendable thing. It is a rare thing these days. But such devotion can blind and nurturing the belief that your ancestor was wronged even though the evidence strongly suggests otherwise and feeding the bad feelings that that generates, corrupts the soul. If you consider nothing else I have said, please, at least consider this. Until then, this "conversation" is over.

51 posted on 01/11/2006 6:22:40 AM PST by Reaganesque

Most of these differences are no greater than those among indubitably Christian sects.

52 posted on 01/11/2006 6:52:15 AM PST by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)

1. Of course the Hoffman documents were forged - nobody is suggesting otherwise. It is the fact that the Church bought them and tried to hide them that is inexplicable. Had the Church not tried to buy and hide the embarrassing documents, Hoffman would not even had a market to sell them in. It was after a murder occurred that the investigation began and the forgeries came to light. Up until that time the Church was knee-deep in the cover-up.

I raised the point about the Mormon tendency to suppress inconvenient documents. That's what Hoffman took advantage of: the need for church authorities to find and suppress certain embarrassing writings before they fell into hostile hands

2. The supposed Lee confession you speak of was deemed a forgery right off the bat. It was written on a lead scroll in a language style that seemed similar to Lee's. Even Mormon detractors assumed it was a forgery...which it was proven to be. There are other published confessions of Lee however, so this news was hardly earthshaking, in fact it was hardly a blip on the radar screen.

There are court transcripts that outline the series of events of the Massacre. The court implicated others in the Church hierarchy. There are extensive writings, publications and documentaries that indicate Church involvement. That YOU choose to ignore evidence and believe only the Church rendition of events, shows your closed-mindedness in this matter.

3. The facts is...his diary from that time period ALONE is missing. All other diaries BEFORE AND AFTER are published. In his later diaries, he told of turning the 1854 diaries over to the Brigham Young at Young's request. WHERE ARE THEY??

4. The Church was active in hiding Lee from the law, and active in the support of his ferry and other commercial enterprises...I never suggested it is Church property. I don't know that it is. Lee's Ferry is under the ownership of the United States Government, I believe. I never suggested otherwise. Also Lee was reinstated as a member in good standing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1960's when evidence came to light that showed he was not the only instrument of death involved in the Massacre.

4. I never suggested or implicated Brigham Young in the Mountain Meadow Massacre. The Mormons considered themselves at war during this period (see Utah War), and most of the men in the region held military ranks in local militias. On Thursday night at a Mormon camp at Mountain Meadows, Major John M. Higbee handed John D. Lee orders from Colonel Isaac C. Haight in Cedar City to "decoy the emigrants from their position, and kill all of them that could talk. This order was in writing." (Last Confession of John D. Lee, p. 234) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre

53 posted on 01/11/2006 7:11:39 AM PST by colorcountry (I have a BS in B.S.)

To: All; Reaganesque

Correction to my previous posts.

The year of the Massacre at Mountain Meadows was 1857 not 1854 as I previously stated.

54 posted on 01/11/2006 7:17:10 AM PST by colorcountry (I have a BS in B.S.)

Most of these differences are no greater than those among indubitably Christian sects.

Perhaps some, ... but, definitely not all.

Whatever happened with the whole white skin vs. dark skin thing ?

55 posted on 01/11/2006 8:10:25 AM PST by Quester (If you can't trust Jesus, ... who can you trust ?)

To: Quester; RobbyS

The main difference here is that Mormons, unlike other Christian sects, believe they are the only true church. They believe that they, and they alone, hold the fullness of the gospel...I guess this is similar to Catholics, but I don't know that much about Catholics.

Catholics maintain that their authority has been passed down continuously since the day that the Church was founded upon Peter, the rock.

Mormon's believe that the Church was taken from the earth...that a "Great Apostasy" cured and that there is no other Church, even the Catholics that have authority. They believe that the Church was brought back to earth and given to a fourteen year old boy in a vision. This is a belief that is more in line with Islam than Christian Beliefs.

So while most Christians believe that it is through Christ's atonement that we are saved, and that even members of other sects will be saved; Mormons believe that all, even non-Christians will be saved through the atonement alone, but that EXHALTATION comes from ordinances that only they can perform.

DISCLAIMER: The differences, as viewed through the eyes of colorcounty.

56 posted on 01/11/2006 8:33:43 AM PST by colorcountry (I have a BS in B.S.)

To: colorcountry

I agree with what you say. I was talking about the arguments presented. It is true that We Catholics think of the Church as the guarantor of the Scriptures. This is why we get such fiction as "The DaVinci Code"; such media circuses of the Jesus Seminar (which includes a traitorous priest named Crossan who books are included in every Barnes and Noble collection)' and the spat of Gnostic books. The idea is to discredit the Catholic Church (and the Orthodox Church, which however is a minor presence in the USA). If the universal Church(and I include here the Eastern Churches) is a conspiracy, then the Biblical canon is a lie.

57 posted on 01/11/2006 10:29:47 AM PST by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)

Hmmm, I see your point. Either the Catholic Church is/was an instrument of God in compiling and promoting His Word (the Bible) or it is not. If it is not, then we should be suspect of even the very origin of the Bible.

So therefore, if we choose to believe the Catholic Church is corrupt, then we would have reason to suspect the Bible is also corrupt.

Or we believe in the Bible as the Word, and we must believe that Catholics are the very instrument of God in its compilation and promotion.

Perhaps I'd better do some investigating of the Catholics. I was taught in the Mormon Church, that Catholics are the Great Whore, abomination spoken of in the Book of Revelation. They are the reason the Church of Jesus Christ was taken from the Earth...and thus the reason the Church, its priesthood and authority had to be restored through Joseph Smith.

58 posted on 01/11/2006 10:51:49 AM PST by colorcountry (I have a BS in B.S.)

To: colorcountry

You have demonstrated an acquaintance with the history and doctrines of the LDS Church. However, you missed the point of my question regarding the claim that it is the one "true" church.

You seem to be bothered by that claim; I am not sure exactly why. The LDS Church is certainly not the only church that has claimed to have a better, more complete, or more accurate knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If that were not so, Christendom would not be fractured into numerous sects.

59 posted on 01/11/2006 10:52:42 AM PST by Logophile

Oh, I don't have a problem with the Church's assertion that it is the only TRUE Church. I just don't believe it.

I was simply pointing out the difference between that belief and the belief of other Christians. (which is what this thread is about.)

Go to any denomination, except LDS, and you'll find very similar teachings. In fact, quite often pastors and ministers from one congregation and Church faction will preach to a totally different Church. Their teachings are that similar. Mormon teachings are entirely different.

60 posted on 01/11/2006 10:57:46 AM PST by colorcountry (I have a BS in B.S.)

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Mark Hofmann

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Contents

Early life

Hofmann's forgeries

Hofmann's murders

Legacy in document collecting

Reference

External links

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