Kinderhook And Critics

[wenglund]

Wade's argument was weak; while it is possible he is passing on something he didn't hear first hand, there is no evidence for that; there is no real reason to believe that by "merely" stating something as fact means he probably didn't see the event he describes.

Whether weak or not, since the text of Clayton's journal lack sufficient clarity to make a determination one way or another, I see my (and others) use of textual critical and historical analysis as somewhat tipping the balance of persuasion in favor of it being second hand. All that you and others have presented to the contrary is bald-faced assertions--which to me is the weakest form of argumentation. So my supposedly weak argument is far stronger than yours. ;-)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[oceanblue]

Whether weak or not, since the text of Clayton's journal lack sufficient clarity to make a determination one way or another, I see my (and others) use of textual critical and historical analysis as somewhat tipping the balance of persuasion in favor of it being second hand. All that you and others have presented to the contrary is bald-faced assertions--which to me is the weakest form of argumentation. So my supposedly weak argument is far stronger than yours. ;-)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Last time I mentioned a source I didn't have available to me Mormons on this list soundly and pretty much unanimously criticized me. Interesting how it works the other way when it's something you believe might support your views as opposed to weaken them.

"Same as it ever was", sayeth the Talking Heads.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Last time I mentioned a source I didn't have available to me Mormons on this list soundly and pretty much unanimously criticized me. Interesting how it works the other way when it's something you believe might support your views as opposed to weaken them.

"Same as it ever was", sayeth the Talking Heads.

What source isn't available?

[oceanblue]

What source isn't available?

"The letter I had read that was written by the lead hoaxster stated that Joseph Smith did not take them. Hmmm.

Guess that is something else I need to dig out from locations unknown in the old, buried-in-the-basement boxes. I thought I'd never see the day when I would need that stuff again.... "

Sorry. I replied to the wrong post.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Analytics wrote:

There is no reason to think that he didnâ??t get it directly from Joseph Smith. But if he didnâ??t, he still got it from a source that he thought was reliable.

Not having had time to get to this thread until now, I find this debate all rather humorous.

After all, it is obvious to everyone that whether or not Clayton thought his source was accurate, the source wasn't accurate. We know this is the case, because Clayton's account describes a number of things which are not factually accurate. Now perhaps Joseph Smith was the source of this erroneous information, or perhaps he wasn't. But when we take the Clayton and Pratt accounts, while they share similarities, there are enough differences so assume that they do not have the same source - and so we can reasonably conclude that there were rumors going around ...

Analytics also writes:

You might want to read Don Bradley's posts on the thread to which cinepro linked. Clayton was at Joseph Smith's house and traced one of the plates into his journal while there. This proves that he was with Joseph Smith that day, proves they talked about the Kinderhook Plates, and proves that his account is based on what Joseph Smith told him first hand.

Actually, it doesn't prove this at all. Joseph Smith was married to one of his polygamous wives that day by Clayton. But there were others with Joseph that day, and there is nothing that suggests (apart from Clayton's 3rd person account) that Joseph actually spoke with Clayton about this subject. So putting Joseph in the same place for a part of the day doesn't actually help us assume that they spoke, or that Joseph was even present when Clayton looked at the Kinderhook plates. Clayton does not make such an assertion in his journal (beyond, of course, the ambigous part that has been repeated here several times).

And the suggestion about which version we should trust - well, the moment we have to start talking about what is more probable is the moment that the argument has effectively ended in a stalemate. Clayton can both be viewed as reliable, and as wrong in this specific instance. So the reliability of Clayton really isn't a useful consideration for trying to prove that he actually got all this directly from the mouth of Joseph Smith.

And of course, there is, finally, the version put out by the hoaxster - which seems to be clearly reliant on the account in the DHC. Which suggests that at least for those perpetrating the fraud, they did not believe that Joseph had been taken in by it until they came across the published version (which was a redacted copy of Clayton's journal) many years after the fact.

There is no basis, Analytics, to accepting the Clayton account as a personal encounter with Joseph Smith. The evidence that is fronted is entirely circumstantial - and it is obviously (at least to me) offset by the errors which Clayton includes in the account. Who was it, who told Joseph Smith of the details of the discovery, such that they got the location wrong, and the nature of what was discovered so completely wrong. Where did the skeleton come from? Unless we assume that Joseph Smith himself was only getting his information about the discovery from second and third hand sources, this is pretty hard to maintain, don't you think? The fact that we have a significantly different (but obviously related) account in Pratt, with no attribution to Joseph Smith also leads us to conclude that there was likely a great many rumors in circulation. So, it isn't all that unreasonable to assume that Clayton got some or all of the details which he noted in his journal from some source other than Joseph Smith.

There is no unambiguous account suggesting that Clayton is in fact a first hand witness to the translation. So while we can argue the likelihood that this was the case, all we can talk about is whether or not it was likely. You cannot assert (as some have tried to do) that the evidence proves it to be the case. Unfortunately, we can't ask any of the participants ...

[Analytics]

Whether weak or not, since the text of Clayton's journal lack sufficient clarity to make a determination one way or another, I see my (and others) use of textual critical and historical analysis as somewhat tipping the balance of persuasion in favor of it being second hand. All that you and others have presented to the contrary is bald-faced assertions--which to me is the weakest form of argumentation. So my supposedly weak argument is far stronger than yours. ;-)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Hi Wade,

Bald-faced assertions? What we know is that Clayton had dinner at Joseph Smith's house the night he made this journal entry. We know he traced one of the plates in his journal immediately below the journal entry itself. We know he must have traced the plate while at Joseph's residence, and probably wrote the journal entry there too.

Isn't that a strong reason to believe that Clayton got the information he recorded from the same source he got the plate he traced--Joseph Smith himself?

[Analytics]

Analytics wrote:Not having had time to get to this thread until now, I find this debate all rather humorous.

After all, it is obvious to everyone that whether or not Clayton thought his source was accurate, the source wasn't accurate. We know this is the case, because Clayton's account describes a number of things which are not factually accurate.....

Benjamin,

Don Bradley soundly refuted these arguments from you in the previous thread. There is no reason to rehash them. For the record, here is what Don said to convincingly prove he got his info directly from Joseph Smith.

Mormons who knew of the Kinderhook plates believed them to be genuine before Stanley Kimball had the surviving plate tested and it was shown to be a 19th-century production. Indeed, one can find LDS writers, I believe including Orson Pratt and B. H. Roberts, who defended the authenticity of the plates on the grounds that Joseph Smith translated from them. It was only when they appeared to be fraudulent that Latter-day Saints began propounding the view that Joseph Smith must not have translated from them. However, the evidence from the Nauvoo period uniformly indicates that Joseph Smith began translating the Kinderhook plates. Those writing that Joseph had begun such a translation include nobodies with very distant connections with Joseph Smith--you know, like Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor. Taylor even promised readers of the Times and Seasons, in a specially published broadside including facsimiles of the plates, that the translation would be published as soon as it was complete. As both an apostle and the publisher of the T&S broadside on the Kinderhook plates, Taylor was in a particularly privileged position to have the "inside scoop" on the plates and their reception by the prophet. If Joseph rejected the plates and had not begun translating, then his closest associates and those who should have been most in the know were badly misinformed. Not only that, but Joseph Smith was apparently content to have people believe he was translating this fake, since, despite his close involvement with the Times and Seasons, he didn't have them print any correction or retraction.

And this doesn't even take into account the evidence provided by Joseph Smith's personal secretary William Clayton. Clayton's diary reveals that he was privy to even shockingly intimate details about Joseph and Emma's 1843 troubles over plural marriage, and Clayton's biographer James B. Allen has opined that Clayton was as much in Joseph's confidence as anyone during the relevant period. Clayton not only records that Joseph had translated a portion of them, but states specifically what information he had received through the translation, reports it casually as "Brother Joseph says"--just as he reports the other things Joseph Smith told him directly, and does so on the same evening that he spends time at the Mansion House dining with Joseph, examining the plates, and tracing one of the plates onto this same journal page where he reports what "Brother Joseph said" the plates contained. In light of the intimacy of Clayton's relationship to Joseph, and of Joseph's presence with Clayton while he examined and traced the plates, shouldn't the presumption be that Clayton's journal entry that night more likely reflects firsthand information than absolutely false street rumor? If William Clayton wasn't in a position to know Joseph Smith's views on the Kinderhook plates, who was? Clayton surely had a more direct pipeline to the source than do apologists of over a century and a half later. And so did Taylor and Pratt. And we know they are wrong because...?

Ah, yes, we should also examine the testimonies that Joseph rejected the Kinderhook plates or did not translate from them. Here they are:

Pretty impressive, huh?

The evidence so decidedly favors Joseph Smith having translated from the Kinderhook plates that is laughable how many have deceived themselves, or allowed others to deceive them, into believing he did not.

Recognizing the weight of the evidence for translation, my friend Mark Ashurst-McGee, who now works for the church on the Joseph Smith Papers project, developed the hypothesis that Joseph Smith attempted, not a revelatory translation, but a secular one. Mark identified evidence that Joseph Smith looked for Hebrew characters on the plates. Frankly, I doubted Mark's hypothesis. But I later independently identified the source Joseph Smith employed in performing his translation of the Kinderhook plates.

Even without this source, I find the evidence for Joseph Smith's attempt to translate the Kinderhook plates overwhelming. But I think the source nails it down with certainty, and also gets Joseph Smith off the hook of having received false revelation on the contents of fake plates.

To that, you replied with essentially the same arguments you replied to me. Don said,

Ben,

I am honestly puzzled at your insistence that Clayton's 1) day-to-day intimate contact with Joseph Smith, 2) examining and tracing the plate into his journal while visiting Joseph for dinner, and 3) reporting that "Prest. Joseph has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found," and 4) providing other specific content that "Prest. Joseph...says" was on the plates suggests nothing more than his reporting of "rumor."

The specific way you disqualify Clayton's translation report is also puzzling. You use Clayton's error on details to disqualify his accuracy on central points. At what depth the plates were buried, in which county, and the like, are hardly issues of the same magnitude as whether plates were found, brought to Joseph, and translated from by him.

More significantly, the inaccuracies you use have to do only with the finding of the plates. No one has claimed that William Clayton was intimate with Wilbur Fugate or present at the mound where the plates were found, so his knowledge on the finding of the plates would necessarily be obtained through intermediaries. This has no bearing on Clayton's direct access to Joseph Smith and opportunity to learn the latter's own actions, views, and claims relative to the plates. William Clayton was in as good a position as anyone in Nauvoo to know Joseph Smith's views on the plates and whether he had attempted to translate from them--particularly in light of Clayton's examination of them in the context of a social visit with Joseph.

BTW, I was mistaken about Clayton's plate tracing appearing on the reverse side of the page from his journal entry. It appears in the middle of the entry. Clayton either wrote the entry during his social call at Joseph's, or he traced the plate there in anticipation of recording the entry, including what "Prest. Smith...says they contain."

I'm not sure what lies behind your insistence that the Clayton entry individually, and even the Clayton entry, the Pratt letter, and John Taylor's broadside collectively provide no evidence that Joseph attempted to translate from the Kinderhook plates, but this insistence is simply wrong. Such an insistence is not necessary to defend Joseph Smith's prophethood. The anti-Mormon argument "Only a false prophet translates fake plates" assumes a prophetic translation, not a secular one. If "a prophet is only a prophet when acting as such," then Joseph Smith's prophethood is in no way threatened by attempts to translate by more traditional linguistic means.

[wenglund]

You might want to read Don Bradley's posts on the thread to which cinepro linked. Clayton was at Joseph Smith's house and traced one of the plates into his journal while there. This proves that he was with Joseph Smith that day, proves they talked about the Kinderhook Plates, and proves that his account is based on what Joseph Smith told him first hand.

It evinces that Smith and Clayton were together in the morning during the wedding, and may have been together in the evening at supper. However, it is silent about whether they personally talked about the Kinderhook Plates, and is silent as to whether his account is first or second or whatever hand.

Also, John Taylor published a facilime of the plates and promised that the full translation would be published in Times and Seasons when Joseph finished it. Read Don's posts for the details--it turns out that my position is even stronger than I thought it was.

How so? How is a promise from Taylor about Joseph allegedly finishing a translation in the unspecified future, give any indication that the Clayton account was firsthand? For all we can tell, Taylor had no knowledge at the time of what Clayton may have written in his journal, and could very well have been conjecturing based on what he heard rumored of the translation from his fellow apostle, Parley Pratt.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Hi Wade,

Bald-faced assertions? What we know is that Clayton had dinner at Joseph Smith's house the night he made this journal entry. We know he traced one of the plates in his journal immediately below the journal entry itself. We know he must have traced the plate while at Joseph's residence, and probably wrote the journal entry there too.

Isn't that a strong reason to believe that Clayton got the information he recorded from the same source he got the plate he traced--Joseph Smith himself?

No. It places Clayton in company with Joseph for but a portion of the day (in the morning during the weddings, and possibly that evening for supper). It is not evidence of what was personally spoken between them during the time they were together. Nor is it evidence that Joseph gave the plates to Clayton, only that the plate were at Joseph's residence. Clayton could very well have traced the plates while Joseph was out riding with Woodworth.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Last time I mentioned a source I didn't have available to me Mormons on this list soundly and pretty much unanimously criticized me. Interesting how it works the other way when it's something you believe might support your views as opposed to weaken them.

"Same as it ever was", sayeth the Talking Heads.

I have no idea why you are mentioning this to me. I made no comment about sources not being available, whether on my part or your's or anyone elses.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[T-Shirt]

Benjamin,

Don Bradley soundly refuted these arguments from you in the previous thread. There is no reason to rehash them. For the record, here is what Don said to convincingly prove he got his info directly from Joseph Smith.

Wait a minute, if you recall, Don never produced his source for his claim. He may be right, but at this point, you are basing your conclusion on his memory of something he seemed to remember. In addition, even if Don's memory is correct, that still does not tell us where Clayton got his information.

T-Shirt

[why me]

He did role the dice. He took the plates. There's confusions as to what he did after that. Hard to tell. But he did take the plates.

I know prophets are supposed to be very human. But one way or another, I think we can all agree that when he was given the plates there was no revelation from God saying "Don't take these plates....they're fake!", right? There was no angelic visit letting him know that he needs to publically disavow these plates as fake, thereby protecting him and the church from this scam.

While it's not in Joseph's journals that he translated anything...there is also no mention that he knew they were fakes.

Of course he took the plates. Why not? They looked interesting to him and most likely he hoped that they would verify the book of mormon. He had no reason to assume otherwise. I am sure that he wished for such evidence to be discovered. If JS were a conman, he would have been extra cautious about such plates. We tend to forget that JS had a lot of enemies and there would be no reason to assume that he didn't consider this to be a trick regardless if he were a conman or a prophet.

[why me]

Wait a minute, if you recall, Don never produced his source for his claim. He may be right, but at this point, you are basing your conclusion on his memory of something he seemed to remember. In addition, even if Don's memory is correct, that still does not tell us where Clayton got his information.

T-Shirt

I am afraid that the kinderhook debate will continue for years and years to come. And both sides would take what they can to bolster their own faith or lack of faith in JS. The kinderhook plates could have been easily verified by learned experts.

No one knows where clayton got his information. And that makes for an endless debate based on heresay and innuendos.

[why me]

Like I said in my last post - I agree what this. You can't expect Joseph to have mentioned in his own journal everything that was considered worthy to be mentioned in others. There are things said to me in passing that greatly affect my life, that likely have absolutely no importance to those who said them.

Joseph was to blame for his own journal writing or should I say lack of journal writing. He should have kept better records but it seems that he hated journal writing. I am sure that he found it a waste of time since he had so much more to do than to keep his own thoughts on paper. If he would have been his own scribe, it would have saved much harm in the future. No one should depend on another human being to keep their journal regardless of a busy life.

[Calm]

"The letter I had read that was written by the lead hoaxster stated that Joseph Smith did not take them. Hmmm.

Guess that is something else I need to dig out from locations unknown in the old, buried-in-the-basement boxes. I thought I'd never see the day when I would need that stuff again.... "

Sorry. I replied to the wrong post.

Mormon Mason is prolific with his sources so I suspect that most of us who know him don't believe he's being lazy. And Mormon Mason comes up with the sources that he says he has, even if he has mistakenly remembered something about them from what I recall so I don't believe he's trying to pull a fast one. I am just waiting until he does put it up myself. He might not be able to put it up this thread, but that is just life, this board is not the end all.

I'll demand things from posters that haven't established such credibility yet that I won't from those who have. Posters who depend on opinion mostly will get CFRs from me much more than those I've seen evidence from that they actually read and reference the relevant material.

[oceanblue]

I have no idea why you are mentioning this to me. I made no comment about sources not being available, whether on my part or your's or anyone elses.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Yeah - sorry. In my last post I pointed out I replied to the wrong person.

[Calm]

Unless we assume that Joseph Smith himself was only getting his information about the discovery from second and third hand sources, this is pretty hard to maintain, don't you think?

And since we have the owners of the plates giving them directly to JS, it seems highly unlikely that he wouldn't have asked them for the details or they wouldn't have told him the details in their attempt to make the plates credible. Handing them over without saying anything or telling a different story than what could be related by others who had been at the 'dig' site is unlikely.

[oceanblue]

Of course he took the plates. Why not? They looked interesting to him and most likely he hoped that they would verify the book of mormon. He had no reason to assume otherwise. I am sure that he wished for such evidence to be discovered. If JS were a conman, he would have been extra cautious about such plates. We tend to forget that JS had a lot of enemies and there would be no reason to assume that he didn't consider this to be a trick regardless if he were a conman or a prophet.

I agree. Which is why I say that his actions say nothing, either way, about whether he is or is not a prophet.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Analytics writes:

Don Bradley soundly refuted these arguments from you in the previous thread. There is no reason to rehash them. For the record, here is what Don said to convincingly prove he got his info directly from Joseph Smith.

No, he didn't refute this at all. It may seem convincing to you, but it isn't evidence. Do you even see the problem with Bradley's comments? He wrote (emphasis added):

In light of the intimacy of Clayton's relationship to Joseph, and of Joseph's presence with Clayton while he examined and traced the plates, shouldn't the presumption be that Clayton's journal entry that night more likely reflects firsthand information than absolutely false street rumor?

Presumption? That's a synomym for assumption right? That is, we should read the text with a predisposition for a specific interpretation, right? But this isn't the case, and Bradley only deals with a certain part of the statement. Was Joseph the source of all of the comments which Clayton provides, and should we then assume that Joseph believed that they were found in a different county from where they were actually found, that there was really a skeleton there, and that they had been dug down to a depth of 15 feet? Did Joseph only get his information from the rumor mill? Or did Joseph talk to a person (or persons) who was actually at the site when they were digging? You see, no matter how we look at this, we have evidence that there were rumors going around which had no basis in reality. You want to assert that Clayton had these rumors from Joseph Smith, and to follow Bradley (who isn't an unbiased individual here) with his suggestion that we shouldn't be critical of Clayton's account, but that we should presume to read it in a certain way ... I don't think this is an acceptable argument. As I noted, once we have to start talking about the likelihood that a particular interpretation is accurate, the argument has already stalemated.

Ben

[Calm]

I am afraid that the kinderhook debate will continue for years and years to come. And both sides would take what they can to bolster their own faith or lack of faith in JS.

Or just ignore them completely...at least until someone else brings them up.

[Analytics]

Analytics writes:No, he didn't refute this at all. It may seem convincing to you, but it isn't evidence.

He soundly refuted it. I can't make you accept the truth of the matter, but his analysis is sound.

Do you even see the problem with Bradley's comments? He wrote (emphasis added):Presumption? That's a synomym for assumption right? That is, we should read the text with a predisposition for a specific interpretation, right?

Wrong! What Bradley is saying is that based on the historical context, (e.g. his relationship and proximity to Joseph Smith, where he got the plate that he traced in the journal), Clayton should be considered a reliable source of what Joseph Smith said; if Clayton said Joseph Smith said something, he probably did in fact say it.

But this isn't the case, and Bradley only deals with a certain part of the statement. Was Joseph the source of all of the comments which Clayton provides, and should we then assume that Joseph believed that they were found in a different county from where they were actually found, that there was really a skeleton there, and that they had been dug down to a depth of 15 feet?...

Bradley only deals with the relevant part of the statement. Just because Clayton tells a different variation of the details of where they were found doesn't mean he was spreading a baseless rumor about what Joseph Smith said.

[LifeOnaPlate]

He soundly refuted it. I can't make you accept the truth of the matter, but his analysis is sound.

Wrong! What Bradley is saying is that based on the historical context, (e.g. his relationship and proximity to Joseph Smith, where he got the plate that he traced in the journal), Clayton should be considered a reliable source of what Joseph Smith said; if Clayton said Joseph Smith said something, he probably did in fact say it.

Bradley only deals with the relevant part of the statement. Just because Clayton tells a different variation of the details of where they were found doesn't mean he was spreading a baseless rumor about what Joseph Smith said.

Bradley admits to the conjectural nature of the information, however.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Analytics writes:

Wrong! What Bradley is saying is that based on the historical context, (e.g. his relationship and proximity to Joseph Smith, where he got the plate that he traced in the journal), Clayton should be considered a reliable source of what Joseph Smith said; if Clayton said Joseph Smith said something, he probably did in fact say it.

This isn't even close to accurate. I am sorry that you don't see it this way, but, Clayton's statement is ambiguous. And all of the questions about Clayton's reliability don't play a role in deciding the ambiguity. That is the issue. We can say that Clayton is completely reliable, and yet that Clayton did not hear Joseph Smith tell him any of this. It is that simple, and Bradley and yourself cannot change this simple fact.

Bradley only deals with the relevant part of the statement. Just because Clayton tells a different variation of the details of where they were found doesn't mean he was spreading a baseless rumor about what Joseph Smith said.

It is all relevant. You can't simply isolate the one comment from the context. Are you suggesting that Joseph Smith is the source of all of the material that Clayton provides or just some of it? And if all of it, then where did Joseph get his information from? You see, it is not the simple clear cut argumet that Bradley wants to make it, and both of you are trying to make the claim that because of what we know about Clayton that we should interpret what he wrote in a certain way (and this, by the way, is the intentional fallacy ...). But, I am saying that you cannot simply interpret Clayton in this way, and that there are other instances in Clayton's journal which he makes third person remarks which seem, in fact, to be third person, and first person remarks which are actually first person. That Clayton believes that the comments he is writing are true doesn't actually make them true. And the argument will continue, because clearly you haven't resolved it, Bradley hasn't resolved it, and neither of you have actually contributed anything new to the discussion ....

Ben

[Alf O'Mega]

I am sorry that you don't see it this way, but, Clayton's statement is ambiguous.

Only in the trivial sense that all language is inherently ambiguous. Clayton's report of what "Prest. J . . . says" is no more ambiguous than his report later that month:

After dinner I took a pleasure ride with Lorain and the children. P.M. President Joseph attended the City council and afterwards rode out with B. F. Johnsons family. In the evening we went to hear a Methodist preacher lecture. After he got through President Joseph offered some corrections as follows. The 7th verse of C[hapter] 2 of Genesis ought to read God breathed into Adam his spirit or breath of life, but when the word "ruach" applies to Eve it should be translated lives. Speaking of eternal duration of matter he said There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter but is more fine or pure and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cant see it but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter. The gentleman seemed pleased and said he should visit Nauvoo immediately (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton [salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995], 103â??104).

This became D&C 131:7. It is obvious that Clayton is reporting something he heard Joseph say, even though there is no corroborating account. I know, in fact, of no other account from any source at any time saying that Joseph Smith claimed that "spirit is matter". You'd think something that radical would have better evidence than a single, uncorroborated journal account by somebody who (as if this matters) was not officially designated as Joseph's record-keeper at the time.

If this doctrine were uncomfortable for modern Mormons, it would be a relatively simple matter to dismiss Clayton's account or claim that his attribution of the doctrine was "ambiguous." But it isn't, and neither is Clayton's Kinderhook entry. He was with Joseph, he quotes Joseph, and the content of his account is imprecisely but obviously echoed by Pratt's letter.

The statements are equally ambiguous, which is to say, not.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Only in the trivial sense that all language is inherently ambiguous. Clayton's report of what "Prest. J . . . says" is no more ambiguous than his report later that month:

This became D&C 131:7. It is obvious that Clayton is reporting something he heard Joseph say, even though there is no corroborating account. I know, in fact, of no other account from any source at any time saying that Joseph Smith claimed that "spirit is matter". You'd think something that radical would have better evidence than a single, uncorroborated journal account by somebody who (as if this matters) was not officially designated as Joseph's record-keeper at the time.

If this doctrine were uncomfortable for modern Mormons, it would be a relatively simple matter to dismiss Clayton's account or claim that his attribution of the doctrine was "ambiguous." But it isn't, and neither is Clayton's Kinderhook entry. He was with Joseph, he quotes Joseph, and the content of his account is imprecisely but obviously echoed by Pratt's letter.

The statements are equally ambiguous, which is to say, not.

Are you arguing that all Clayton's writings regarding things Joseph Smith said ought to be looked upon as canonical based on the inclusion in the canon of certain excerpts, otherwise we ought to have no faith in the selections that have been included?