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To: Colofornian

The presupposition is that Smith was actually receiving direct revelations from God. Anyone can claim that God is speaking to them. The insane asylums of full of such people. I have heard of a cat in a hat, but a rock in the hat has that beat. It seems that the sillier a cult becomes the more nuts it attracts. How any sane person could believe this manure is beyond me. It makes about as much sense as Scientology.


19 posted on 12/04/2009 5:06:28 PM PST by Nosterrex
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To: Nosterrex
 

The presupposition is that Smith was actually receiving direct revelations from God. Anyone can claim that God is speaking to them. The insane asylums of full of such people. I have heard of a cat in a hat, but a rock in the hat has that beat. It seems that the sillier a cult becomes the more nuts it attracts. How any sane person could believe this manure is beyond me. It makes about as much sense as Scientology.




"Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes than he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on. But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated."
---Joseph Knight's journal.


"In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."
(History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols.
(Independence, Missouri: Herald House,1951),
"Last Testimony of Sister Emma [Smith Bidamon]," 3:356.

"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation."
---(David Whitmer,
as published in the "Kansas City Journal," June 5, 1881,
and reprinted in the RLDS "Journal of History", vol. 8, (1910), pp. 299-300.

In an 1885 interview, Zenas H. Gurley, then the editor of the RLDS Saints Herald, asked Whitmer if Joseph had used his "Peep stone" to do the translation. Whitmer replied:

"... he used a stone called a "Seers stone," the "Interpreters" having been taken away from him because of transgression. The "Interpreters" were taken from Joseph after he allowed Martin Harris to carry away the 116 pages of Ms [manuscript] of the Book of Mormon as a punishment, but he was allowed to go on and translate by use of a "Seers stone" which he had, and which he placed in a hat into which he buried his face, stating to me and others that the original character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in English."


"Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say 'Written,' and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used."
(Edward Stevenson, "One of the Three Witnesses,"
reprinted from Deseret News, 30 Nov. 1881
in Millennial Star, 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.)

In 1879, Michael Morse, Emma Smith's brother-in-law, stated:
 
 "When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon [I] had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while the scribes Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down."
(W.W. Blair interview with Michael Morse,
Saints Herald, vol. 26, no. 12
June 15, 1879,  pp. 190-91.)


Joseph Smith's brother William also testified to the "face in the hat" version:
 
"The manner in which this was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light, (the plates lying near by covered up), and reading off the translation, which appeared in the stone by the power of God"
("A New Witness for Christ in America,"
Francis W. Kirkham, 2:417.)


"The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret was the same manner as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, while the book of plates were at the same time hid in the woods."
---Isaac Hale (Emma Smith's father's) affidavit, 1834.




 

AUTHORITY TO TRANSLATE.

 
The Prophet Joseph Smith claimed a divine appointment to make an inspired rendition or, as he termed it, a "new translation" of the Bible. This appointment can be illustrated by excerpts from his writings. After laboring off and on for ten months on the early chapters of Genesis, Joseph Smith received a revelation from the Lord on March 7, 1831, directing him to begin work on the New Testament: "It shall not be given unto you to know any further concerning this chapter, until the New Testament be translated, and in it all these things shall be made known; wherefore I give unto you that ye may now translate it" (D&C 45:60-61).
 
The manuscript of the JST shows that Joseph Smith began the translation of Matthew the next day. On December 1, 1831, the Prophet entered the following in his journal: "I resumed the translation of the Scriptures, and continued to labor in this branch of my calling with Elder Sidney Rigdon as my scribe" (HC 1:238-39). On February 16, 1832, he reported a revelation concerning the resurrection of the dead that includes the following reference to his divine commission to translate: "For while we [Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon] were doing the work of translation, which the Lord had appointed unto us, we came to the twenty-ninth verse of the fifth chapter of John" (D&C 76:15). On March 8, 1833, he reported the word of the Lord to him as follows: "And when you have finished the translation of the [Old Testament] prophets, you shall from thenceforth preside over the affairs of the church" (D&C 90:13). On May 6, 1833, Joseph Smith reported the following revelation: "It is my will that you should hasten to translate my scriptures" (D&C 93:53). Although not a complete list, the foregoing items illustrate Joseph Smith's claim to a divine appointment to translate the Old and New Testaments.

63 posted on 12/05/2009 3:02:59 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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