The Christmas Story and Joseph Smith, Restorer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (OPEN)

greaterthings.com ^ | Lynn Ridenhour

[Cronos]

the great Whore of Babylon is this

5. John describes this whore as the mother of harlots. (little whores). The whore, the original cult formed by J Smith gave birth to a number of harlots

5. John describes the devil as the giving power this "whore". Therefore I can conclude that this "whore", the LDS cult teaches the devils doctrine.

6. 1 Tim 3:12 reads

12A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well.

And yet Mormon cult leaders have quite a few wifes, eh?

[Cronos]

Stourme gets stumped and say John describes this whore as the mother of harlots. (little whores). The reformation spawned thousands of different churches....

So, let me get this straight -- you're saying that the Baptists of Wmfights, the Pentecostals of QUix, the Presbyterians of Dr. E and the various groups of Iscool and Uri'el are all little whores according to you?

[Cronos]

Say, why do you Mormons believe that Almighty Lord was once born of human parents in some other universe. He lived a Mormon way of life, repented of his sins, died, and was eventually raised by his God and installed as God of this world?

[Cronos]

Say, and what happened to those strange golden plates that Joe Smith found and they conveniently disappeared?

As Mormon historian Ivan J. Barrett recounts it, the first 116 pages of English transcript, taken down by the scribe Martin Harris at Smith’s dictation, were lost irretrievably after Harris took them home to show to his skeptical wife. Mrs. Harris apparently lost, destroyed, or concealed the manuscript. She refused to disclose what had happened to it, and Harris returned empty-handed to the furious prophet. Smith’s behavior in the face of this setback is exactly what we should expect from a none-too-subtle hoaxer who has claimed loudly to possess an infallible, supernatural translating technique and now sees that he risks exposure by being unable to reproduce the original translation.

Does he start all over again, humbly trusting in the power of God to vindicate the truth of his claims? Not at all. He receives yet another "revelation" from God commanding him not to retranslate the first part, because "Satan" has inspired "thieves" to alter the stolen manuscript. If he produces another true and identical version of the first l 16 pages, they will publish their "altered" version as the original in order to discredit him.

Fortunately, it turns out that the missing portion can be dispensed with anyway: The Lord "reveals" that it is only an "abridgement" by the ancient historian Mormon of a fuller narrative written by the still-earlier patriarch Nephi. Nephi’s plates are also conveniently there in Joseph’s collection, so he translates them instead (Barrett, Joseph Smith and the Restoration: A History of the Church to 1846, pp.84–87).

[Cronos]

Perhaps the most irrefutable evidence for the fraudulent character of the Book of Mormon came to light in the mid-1970s through the research of three young Americans, Wayne Cowdrey, Howard Davis, and Donald Scales.

From a very early date, the relatives and acquaintances of a retired Congregationalist minister, Rev. Solomon Spalding, who died in 1816, had complained against the Latter-Day Saints that the Book of Mormon was really a plagiarized version of an unpublished novel, Manuscript Found, which the deceased clergyman had written and circulated among his friends. A number of affidavits were sworn to this effect, but their publication and propagation was sporadic and poorly organized. The LDS church launched a massive counterattack that capitalized on the fact that the original draft of Manuscript Found could not be produced to verify the affidavits.

Naturally, the Mormons claimed that these were malicious, satanically inspired falsehoods. All that remained was an earlier Spalding novel, Manuscript Story, which shows some definite stylistic similarities to the Book of Mormon but also some marked differences. Eventually, most anti-Mormon writers stopped appealing to the Spalding theory as an explanation for the Book of Mormon because the available evidence seemed incapable of being substantiated.

But Cowdrey, Davis, and Scales pieced together a long chain of events connecting Smith and Spalding. The chief link in the chain was an itinerant evangelist named Sidney Rigdon, who had a close friend who worked at the print shop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from which Spalding’s second manuscript disappeared. A Dr. Winter later claimed to have been shown the manuscript by Rigdon in 1822.

Rigdon was eventually baptized into the Mormon Church in November 1830 and always claimed that he had known nothing of Smith or Mormonism until late that year. Cowdrey et al found at least ten people who testified that they had seen Smith and Rigdon together a number of times from 1827 onwards—the very period when Smith was preparing the Book of Mormon.

The climax came in 1976 when Cowdrey and his friends were examining some old manuscripts in an LDS church library. They came across a few pages from the Book of Mormon in handwriting no one had been able to identify. But before this the researchers had managed to track down some undisputed samples of Spalding’s handwriting at Oberlin College in Ohio, including a deed from January 1811 bearing his signature.

There, amid the quiet and rather dull surroundings of paper and bookshelves, the awesome truth dawned on them: These harmless-looking scraps of aging paper had the potential to shatter once and for all the myth of Joseph Smith the saint and prophet—a great, historic, American myth for which men and women had lived and died and suffered and killed; a myth that had pioneered part of the Wild West, built the state of Utah, and now ruled the hearts and lives and fortunes of millions round the world.

This extract from the Book of Mormon ("translated" from "golden plates" in 1828) was in the handwriting of Solomon Spalding (died 1816)! What the young men had stumbled on was part of the long-lost manuscript of Spalding’s second novel—crushing evidence of Smith’s plagiarism and deceit that had been preserved by the unsuspecting Mormons themselves.

The three men proceeded to write a book detailing the results of their research (Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? Vision House Publishers, 1977). The LDS Church issued denials of the identification and prohibited any further examination of the relevant manuscript. But the detailed testimonies of two independent handwriting experts, William Kaye and Henry Silver, are photographically reproduced for all to see: the unquestioned Spalding documents and the supposed Book of Mormon extract are judged professionally to be definitely in the same hand (Walter Martin, The Maze of Mormonism, pp.62–64).

[Cronos]

The "Book of Abraham"
As if this were not sufficient indication of the true character of Joseph Smith, in subsequent years further evidence has come to light in connection with the so-called Book of Abraham. This is another "translation" produced by Smith and included in the volume Pearl of Great Price as inspired Mormon scripture.

In 1835, Smith acquired some ancient Egyptian papyri, and, with the help of Oliver Cowdery and (supposedly) the miraculous "Urim and Thummim," he "translated" the documents, making the astounding announcement that they were none other than the story of the patriarch Abraham, written the best part of 4,000 years ago.

The papyri were lost for well over a century but came to light again in 1967 at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Identified beyond dispute as those actually used by Smith, they were accepted enthusiastically by the LDS church in Utah as a golden opportunity to vindicate the divine inspiration of their prophet. The Church’s only well-qualified Egyptologist, Dee Jay Nelson, was asked to translate the papyri into English. He did so, and, within the next few years, several of the world’s leading Egyptologists verified that his translation was an accurate one.

He and the other experts verified conclusively that the so-called Book of Abraham is an ordinary pagan Egyptian funeral text, dating from between B.C. 200 and A.D. 100, at least 1,500 years after the time of Abraham. Its contents have nothing to do with the biblical patriarch and bear no relation to Smith’s English "translation," published as the "Word of God" in the Pearl of Great Price.

Nelson and his family resigned from the Mormon Church in 1975, a decision that must have been painful indeed for former devout followers of Joseph Smith. Since then, LDS Church leaders have kept as quiet as possible about the whole issue, no doubt hoping that some miracle will occur eventually to vindicate in some unimaginable way the veracity of their founder. (Detailed documentation on this affair, including reproductions of relevant correspondence, can be found in Barrett, pp.150–170).

[Cronos]

The Book of Mormons’ Message
Smith’s new "Bible" tells how ancient peoples from the Near East migrated to America and were visited by Jesus Christ after his Resurrection. They are believed to be God’s true people. But the civilization, great cities, advanced metallurgical technology, and agricultural resources that it attributes to the "Nephites," "Jaredites," and other alleged ancient Americans are incompatible with what archaeologists have discovered. By sharp contrast, excavations in the Near East are found frequently to corroborate the genuine antiquity and authenticity of the historical narratives in the Bible.

Also we cannot help wondering why a book that was supposed to have been miraculously translated word for word should have undergone more than 2,000 textual changes between the original edition and the ones in use today (William Whalen, The Latter Saints in the Modern World, p. 49). In 1 Nephi 11:21, for instance, the original edition says that the "Lamb of God" is "the eternal Father," while the same verse in today’s version equates the "Lamb of God" with "the Son of the Eternal Father."

There are many anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, large slabs of which (about 27,000 words in all) are direct quotations from the King James Bible of 1611. It perpetuates some of the errors of that translation, such as the word torn instead of refuse or offal as a translation of the Hebrew suchah in Isaiah 5:25. In some places we find really astonishing reports: In Ether 15:31 we read of a gentleman named Shiz who "struggles for breath" after his head has been cut off and then finally dies. (For more extensive criticism of the Book of Mormon, see Isaiah Bennett, Inside Mormonism pp. 432–449.)

[Cronos]

Marriage Polygamous and Eternal
Orthodox Christians believe that the union of one man and one woman, for the duration of this earthly life, is God’s true and original plan for the family (although polygamy, having more than one wife, was tolerated for a time among the ancient Hebrews). The Book of Mormon itself is severely opposed to polygamy, stating that David’s and Solomon’s plural marriages were "abominable" before the Lord, who explicitly commands his people to practice monogamy (Jacob 2:24, 27).

This did not prevent Smith from taking a keen interest in women other than his wife, Emma, who was most unhappy about her husband’s behavior. Eventually, on July 12,1843, Smith received the divine seal of approval in the form of a new revelation to the effect that polygamy was now commanded by the Lord: "And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me." This "new and everlasting covenant" had to be practiced by all Mormons, as far as possible, on pain of eternal damnation (DC 52:132).

The "covenant" was certainly "new" but not quite "everlasting." During the next few decades, leaders such as Smith, Young, and Heber C. Kimball took dozens of wives each, but there were not enough women available for most LDS men to take more than one wife, two or three at the most. At length, when the U.S. government threatened to confiscate Mormon property and deny statehood to Utah, the danger of eternal damnation for refusing to practice polygamy faded away. In a Manifesto issued September 1890, president Wilford Woodruff instructed Mormons to "refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land."

Monogamy is regarded still as an evil to be tolerated only because of unjust civil laws. Polygamy is still seen as the theoretical norm, and Mormons believe it will be practiced in the next life. (LDS "fundamentalists" still practice it quietly in pockets of Utah.)

Respected LDS theological opinion surmises that Jesus himself married Mary Magdalene, Martha, and possibly others and naturally appeared first to "his own dear wives" after the Resurrection (Whalen, p. 123).

Jesus taught that there is no marriage in heaven (Matt. 22:30), but Mormons "seal" their marriages for eternity, where they believe they will go on procreating more and more spirit children forever in order to populate more and more worlds. Indeed, they believe that this "celestial marriage" is essential in order to reach the "celestial kingdom"—the supreme level of heavenly glory. Women can enter there only by virtue of the priesthood of their husbands.

[Cronos]

Why exactly does the Book of Mormon say

"I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity" (Moroni 8:18).

"For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and in him there is no variableness, neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles" (Mormon 9:9-10).

and Smith maintained the inspiration and truth of the Book of Mormon at the same time he believed the following: "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another" (King Follett Discourse).

This is one of Smith’s more spectacular displays of doublethink. Fourteen years after penning the Book of Mormon, he contradicts his earlier writings with this sermon—but he doesn’t throw aside his earlier teaching. Both are to be accepted.

[Cronos]

Why exactly does the Book of Mormon say

"I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity" (Moroni 8:18).

"For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and in him there is no variableness, neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles" (Mormon 9:9-10).

and Smith maintained the inspiration and truth of the Book of Mormon at the same time he believed the following: "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another" (King Follett Discourse).

This is one of Smith’s more spectacular displays of doublethink. Fourteen years after penning the Book of Mormon, he contradicts his earlier writings with this sermon—but he doesn’t throw aside his earlier teaching. Both are to be accepted.

>Which one is it? Eternally unchanging or was once just a mortal?

[Cronos]

Oh and the LDS cults teach that all men must pass through mortality in human bodies before they can reach godhood. Yet their third, separate god, called the Holy Ghost, has not yet received a mortal body, even though he is considered to be another god. Mormon theology typically does not address this contradiction.

[aruanan]

This is one of Smith’s more spectacular displays of doublethink. Fourteen years after penning the Book of Mormon, he contradicts his earlier writings with this sermon—but he doesn’t throw aside his earlier teaching. Both are to be accepted.

Nooooo, you don't get it. God doesn't change. When he was like one of us, he wasn't yet God. Once he changed into God, then he never changed. Of course, he had the pesky problem of extending his unchangeableness outward from that moment after the change into unchangeableness to encompass "from all eternity to all eternity." But, of course, by then he was God so he could just say it was so and it would be so.

[Iscool]

1 Tim 3:12 reads

12A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well.

And yet Mormon cult leaders have quite a few wifes, eh?

And with Catholic clergy, even one wife is prohibited...

So tell me, who's winning the race to the bottom???

[Cronos]

So do you support the Mormons, since they are sola scriptura?

[Cronos]

7. In 1 Timothy 4, Paul is speaking about those who have veered away from the Christian understanding of the goodness of marriage, opting for a false asceticism that denounces it. This heresy would later raise its head against the Church in the form of the Cathari, who condemned marriage and procreation as great evils. Such an unbalanced idea of marriage is the opposite of the celibacy chosen by Catholic priests. Those who "renounce marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19:12 NAB) do so not because marriage is bad, but precisely because its goodness makes its renunciation a valuable and generous gift to offer to God. After all, the goodness of a gift determines the value of the sacrifice. This is why the Israelites offered God their first-fruits, not their leftovers. The theory that Church leaders must be married also contradicts the obvious fact that Paul himself, an eminent Church leader, was single, unless you say that +Paul was a hypocrite he could hardly have imposed a requirement on bishops which he did not himself meet. Consider, too, the implications regarding Paul’s positive attitude toward celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7: the married have worldly anxieties and divided interests, yet only they are qualified to be bishops; whereas the unmarried have single-minded devotion to the Lord, yet are barred from ministry!

The suggestion that the unmarried man is somehow untried or unproven is equally absurd. Each vocation has its own proper challenges: the celibate man must exercise "self-control" (1 Cor. 7:9); the husband must love and care for his wife selflessly (Eph. 5:25); and the father must raise his children well (1 Tim. 3:4). Every man must meet Paul’s standard of "managing his household well," even if his "household" is only himself. If anything, the chaste celibate man meets a higher standard than the respectable family man.

[Cronos]

'The verse goes on to say "he "must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s Church?" (1 Tim. 3:2, 4–5).

---> if "the husband of one wife" really meant that a bishop had to be married, then by the same logic "keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way" would mean that he had to have children. Childless husbands (or even fathers of only one child, since Paul uses the plural) would not qualify. --> is that what you believe?

And, since Paul speaks of bishops meeting these requirements (not of their having met them, or of candidates for bishop meeting them), do you interpret this to mean that an ordained bishop whose wife or children died would become unqualified -- is that what you interpret?

The theory that Church leaders must be married also contradicts the obvious fact that Paul himself, an eminent Church leader, was single. Unless you say that +Paul was a hypocrite he could hardly have imposed a requirement on bishops which he did not himself meet. Consider, too, the implications regarding Paul’s positive attitude toward celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7: the married have worldly anxieties and divided interests, yet only they are qualified to be bishops; whereas the unmarried have single-minded devotion to the Lord, yet are barred from ministry! What exactly would you mean by this?

Clearly, the point of Paul’s requirement that a bishop be "the husband of one wife" is not that he must have one wife, but that he must have only one wife. Expressed conversely, Paul is saying that a bishop must not have unruly or undisciplined children (not that he must have children who are well behaved), and must not be married more than once (not that he must be married).

[MHGinTN]

I could use the Internet link for where you found that on the Cowdery research. Thanks

[Quix]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Quix]

Fascinating.

I remember vaguely their story but had not read that many details about it.

Walter Martin was a top flight researcher as well as a brilliant mind.

BTW, his throat Doctor—whom he visited frequently because of his heavy speaking tasks—spoke in tongues. And, IIRC, learned through an interpretation of tongues given in his presence that he was going to get to be a missionary—I think to Iran—a desire he’d long held but I think he’d not shared his dream widely at all.

I think Walter was somewhat wary of such until then because he knew his throat Doc to be very high in integrity as well as wisdom and intellect.

Thx.

[Quix]

There have been so many such embarrassments.

Some were swept under the rug by intimidation.

Some were bought out.

Some opponents were shot.

One of my favorite stories is still that of my best man’s father who’s grand father had owned the farm across the fence from Joseph Smith in Palmyra NY.

One day some of Joseph’s cronies persuaded him that they could make it look like he was walking on water for a scheduled large gathering at a lake.

Trouble is mid-way during the water walk, some bloke(s) detached the chicken wire suspended just below the surface and Joseph ingloriously sank.