Let Me Ask a Few Questions

[Rommelator]

Let me preface my words by repeating something Joseph Smith once said:

"A prophet is only a prophet when he is acting as one."

I have encountered several people on this board and elsewhere who, when discussing Book of Mormon geography, will generally say something like this:

"Well, Joseph Smith thought such and such about Book of Mormon geography. You are contradicting your Prophet!"

Now, let me ask a few questions:

1. Why am I under obligation to accept Joseph Smith's views (or Brigham Young's or Orson Pratt's, etc) on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

2. Why am I under obligation to think that somehow Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography are somehow more authoritative than anyone else's if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

3. Why does it matter if my views are different from Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present his views as revealed doctrine?

(Feel free to substitute Joseph Smith's name with any other name of any General Authority, Church President, etc.)

To me it seems that this ploy is nothing more than a pharisaic trap to try and catch me in a contradiction.

So, what do you all think?

[Anijen]

I thought JS views were close to the same as Sorenson's (in a way). Did not the Times and Seasons say the placeof the BoM was in or around mesoamerica? Was JS not the editor of it at this time. It would be a logical assumption to connect that JS thought the BoM was in mesoamerica. But sometimes I think too much and all I get for my effort is the smell of saw dust, hmm...

[Whiskeypete]

Re: Geography

It is important to accept any statement on Book of Mormon Geography as relevant when it agrees with my preconcieved notions (imparted by a sunday school teacher when I was 6)

It is important to recognize that the statements by the bretheren are merely their opinions when they contradict my preconcieved notions.

[Rommelator]

Re: Geography

It is important to accept any statement on Book of Mormon Geography as relevant when it agrees with my preconcieved notions (imparted by a sunday school teacher when I was 6)

It is important to recognize that the statements by the bretheren are merely their opinions when they contradict my preconcieved notions.

Considering that I think that these statements are directed towards me, I guess I'll chime in.

It is important to accept any statement on Book of Mormon Geography as relevant when it agrees with my preconcieved notions (imparted by a sunday school teacher when I was 6)

Actually, my views on Book of Mormon geography come from reading the material of John Sorenson and Brant Gardner. If anything, my preconceived notions of Book of Mormon geography imparted to me when I was young (i.e. a HGT) were replaced by the theses of Sorenson and Gardner.

It is important to recognize that the statements by the bretheren are merely their opinions when they contradict my preconcieved notions.

Can you demonstrate that the statements by the brethren are not opinion? What claims to revelation do these men make for their views on Book of Mormon geography?

Which brings us back to my original questions:

1. Why am I under obligation to accept Joseph Smith's views (or Brigham Young's or Orson Pratt's, etc) on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

2. Why am I under obligation to think that somehow Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography are somehow more authoritative than anyone else's if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

3. Why does it matter if my views are different from Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present his views as revealed doctrine?

[The Dude]

Let me preface my words by repeating something Joseph Smith once said:

"A prophet is only a prophet when he is acting as one."

I have encountered several people on this board and elsewhere who, when discussing Book of Mormon geography, will generally say something like this:

"Well, Joseph Smith thought such and such about Book of Mormon geography. You are contradicting your Prophet!"

Now, let me ask a few questions:

1. Why am I under obligation to accept Joseph Smith's views (or Brigham Young's or Orson Pratt's, etc) on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

2. Why am I under obligation to think that somehow Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography are somehow more authoritative than anyone else's if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

3. Why does it matter if my views are different from Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present his views as revealed doctrine?

(Feel free to substitute Joseph Smith's name with any other name of any General Authority, Church President, etc.)

To me it seems that this ploy is nothing more than a pharisaic trap to try and catch me in a contradiction.

So, what do you all think?

I think critics know, when they start their arguments, that they are tailored to knock Joseph Smith and a commonly accepted view of what JS was as a prophet and principal expert on Nephite civilization. It's hard for them to just drop everything when they discover someone like yourself who is an more modern Mormon of vast and independent intellect.

If it were me, I would say to you, "OK, you have different ideas than Joseph Smith. That's very understandable, given everything we have learned since 1830. Congratulations on your doctrinal update (Mormonism 3.0.1) and I hope it serves you well. How is the technical support, BTW?"

[charity]

The quick answer. You aren't under any obligation.

You aren't under any obligation to to believe the Word of Wisdom prohibition of "strong drink" should be followed strictly. You can think that a glass of wine a day may be healthy. You are, however, under obligation to foreswear that glass of wine if you want to hold priewthood callings or attend the temple. About Book of Mormon geography, there isn't any official church position on location of Book of Mormon sites, so there isn't any limitation on what you can or can't do depending on you own opinion.

[phaedrus ut]

According to Joseph he

• received his instruction from Moroni, Nephi, Alma, and Mormon directly. Joseph would tell his family very detailed stories about the ancient inhabitants of this continent. He did so according to his mother "as if he had spent his whole life among them".
  
• After all these years of angelic tutelage he translates their story from the Plates of Lehi, then the same story again from the Plates of Nephi.
  
• He discovers the bones of Zelph and not only knew he was a white lamanite but also knew that Zelph was "a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains."
  
• He discovers a Nephite altar or Tower at tower hill near adam-ondi-ahman.
  

Based on the what he knew and what he was taught trying to steal the location of the BOM from him see's a bit disrespectful.

Phaedrus

[charity]

We just have to be careful we really know what Joseph Smith thought. Most of the statements which are quoted by NA theorists are third or fourth hand.

[phaedrus ut]

We just have to be careful we really know what Joseph Smith thought. Most of the statements which are quoted by NA theorists are third or fourth hand.

That's not correct at all. Most quotes are independently confirmed by two or three sympathetic sources with minor variations in each. It's only the present desire to distance Joseph from his statements that people, like yourself, try to diminish his words.

But here is a first hand one for you. It's a letter from Joseph to Emma dated June 4, 1834 (the day after the Zelph find).

The whole of our journey, in the midst of so large a company of social honest and sincere men, wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionally the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls & their bones, as a proof of its divine authenticity, and gazing upon a country the fertility, the splendour and the goodness so indescribable, all serves to pass away time unnoticed

Seems pretty plain to me.

Phaedrus

[Anijen]

According to Joseph he

• received his instruction from Moroni, Nephi, Alma, and Mormon directly. Joseph would tell his family very detailed stories about the ancient inhabitants of this continent. He did so according to his mother "as if he had spent his whole life among them".
  
• After all these years of angelic tutelage he translates their story from the Plates of Lehi, then the same story again from the Plates of Nephi.
  
• He discovers the bones of Zelph and not only knew he was a white lamanite but also knew that Zelph was "a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains."
  
• He discovers a Nephite altar or Tower at tower hill near adam-ondi-ahman.
  

Based on the what he knew and what he was taught trying to steal the location of the BOM from him see's a bit disrespectful.

Phaedrus

Phaedrus,

I wish you would post more. I have always found them insightful and usually strait to the point. I agree we should not disregard the accounts of Zelph. I am presently under the opinion that Zelph wandered as probably many Lamanites did in nomadic fashion long after the the last Nephite/Lamanite battle (which I hold to be in mesoamerica). I also think Moroni in a nomadic period of 40 years ended up in Palmyra and buried the plates. Again I could be up in the night rattling marbles in my head so consider that. Much thanks to you and happy holidays

Anijen ~ Anijen wants to quote Grothar but is too lazy to look his post up...

Edited to add; Phaedrus is correct in there are many journal accounts all very similar to what JS said about Zelph.

[The Dude]

I agree we should not disregard the accounts of Zelph.

I disagree. If Rommelator and Charity want to discount what JS said about Zelph then I say more power to them. We have to start discounting JS somewhere or we would be stuck in the backward past. So start with Zelph, move on to the Garden of Eden, then the rock-in-hat story about translating the BoM, then the "first" vision, then the whole BoM historicity fable, and then before you know it you quit believing anything JS said. This is not such a bad place to be, I assure you.

[Ipso Facto]

Rommelator:

Let me preface my words by repeating something Joseph Smith once said:

"A prophet is only a prophet when he is acting as one."

I have encountered several people on this board and elsewhere who, when discussing Book of Mormon geography, will generally say something like this:

"Well, Joseph Smith thought such and such about Book of Mormon geography. You are contradicting your Prophet!"

Now, let me ask a few questions:

1. Why am I under obligation to accept Joseph Smith's views (or Brigham Young's or Orson Pratt's, etc) on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

2. Why am I under obligation to think that somehow Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography are somehow more authoritative than anyone else's if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

3. Why does it matter if my views are different from Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present his views as revealed doctrine?

(Feel free to substitute Joseph Smith's name with any other name of any General Authority, Church President, etc.)

To me it seems that this ploy is nothing more than a pharisaic trap to try and catch me in a contradiction.

So, what do you all think?

My first reaction to your question is that, despite a years-long search, I have yet to identify anything that can, without considerable interpretation and/or interpolation, be construed to formulate any definitive â??Joseph Smith View of Book of Mormon Geography.â? Simply put, there is no such thing. What were Joseph Smithâ??s views on BoM geography? That is almost impossible to say. In the first place, it is quite apparent that, if he thought about the issue at all, he thought about it very little. A collection of his entire production of commentary on Book of Mormon geography would probably not fill a single type-written page â?? double-spaced!

What we have mostly are assumptions, by people on all sides of the argument. People such as Rod Meldrum use their assumptions to advance one ideology; apostates like Murphy and Southerton (and their growing chorus of apostate supporters) use similar assumptions to advance theirs.

The Dude:

â?¦ commonly accepted view of what JS was as a prophet and principal expert on Nephite civilization.

Here is a prime example of the phenomenon.

The â??commonly accepted view â?¦â?????? By whose account? Where is this â??commonly accepted viewâ? articulated? By whom? And upon what basis? How could one possibly justify, on the basis of Joseph Smithâ??s actual words, an argument that he was any kind of â??expertâ? on the Nephite civilization? And what would that mean? For example, if I were able to go back in time and spend a month living with a Nephite family in Zarahemla circa 100 B.C., what would I know, at the end of that month, about the geography of the Nephite civilization?

There are so many ludicrous assumptions made about these things, it simply boggles the mind! We who live in the age of Google Earth and Wikipedia have, quite simply, lost our capacity to understand how things looked through the eyes of people who lived before us. Unless we think long and hard about how things have changed in the meantime, we cannot help but look at the past through eyes forever corrupted by the marvels of the 21st century that have shrunk our world such that it now fits, literally, in the palm of our hand.

Again, I challenge one and all to produce the definitive list of Joseph Smithâ??s views on the geography of the Book of Mormon, and to then demonstrate how anything he ever said is inconsistent with the understanding of the Book of Mormon as currently promoted by modern (faithful) students of the book.

[Anijen]

I disagree. If Rommelator and Charity want to discount what JS said about Zelph then I say more power to them. We have to start discounting JS somewhere or we would be stuck in the backward past. So start with Zelph, move on to the Garden of Eden, then the rock-in-hat story about translating the BoM, then the "first" vision, then the whole BoM historicity fable, and then before you know it you quit believing anything JS said. This is not such a bad place to be, I assure you.

Welcome back Dude I missed your posts you have a knack for making the best of critics scurrying to the books. Though I believe we disagree on churchy things I find you needful like the knife needs a stone to stay sharp. Hope your holidays were and are great!

R. McBride, Emma, M. Martin, W Woodruff and L. Hancock all wrote about JS talking about Zelph that is why I said we should not discount it.

[The Dude]

Welcome back Dude I missed your posts you have a knack for making the best of critics scurrying to the books. Though I believe we disagree on churchy things I find you needful like the knife needs a stone to stay sharp. Hope your holidays were and are great!

Thanks Anijen. I'm having a good holiday and it's nice to be back.

R. McBride, Emma, M. Martin, W Woodruff and L. Hancock all wrote about JS talking about Zelph that is why I said we should not discount it.

Of course I didn't mean Joseph Smith never said it. I just mean that Joseph Smith was probably wrong about the true history of those bones. To paraphrase the quote in the OP, a prophet is only right as often as the average person.

[Anijen]

Thanks Anijen. I'm having a good holiday and it's nice to be back.

Of course I didn't mean Joseph Smith never said it. I just mean that Joseph Smith was probably wrong about the true history of those bones. To paraphrase the quote in the OP, a prophet is only right as often as the average person.

I want to say I agree. If it was anyone else other than JS I would say your absolutely right. But its a double edge sword if I agree I am discounting what journal entries record as revelation to JS if I don't my own theories of a limited geography seems weak. So in trying to logically view this from the very small amount of info I have to think that Zelph was someone way after the time of the last Nephite battle and wandered probably with many others, or perhaps he was indigenous and was assimilated into the "Lamanite" tribe when some of them came up. I think the last one has more plausibility because the so called skeleton of Zelph was large by some accounts and JS said he was a "white" Lamanite. But anyway it comes out, it matters not.

[poulsenll]

Joseph wrote very litle about Book of Mormon geography. Most of what he said or that is attreibuted to him is about Book of Mormon culture. In the case of his letter to Emma, he speaks of the "plains of the Nephites". There is no geographic feature described in the text with this name. Maybe it is not a named feature and Joseph was just describing an area where Nephites had once lived. In Helaman we are told that many Nephites and Lamanites migrated to the land northward. This occurred several hundred years before Christ's birth and there is no reason to assume that none of these "Nephites" ever reached the midwest. However, in that same text, we are informed that no records of this people will be included in Mormon's abridgement of the Nephite records even though as Mormon says, such records were available. The articles published in the Times and Seasons under Joseph's editorial supervision clearly indicate that he was in agreement with a geography centered somewhere in Mesoamerica. We have no way to know how limited an area he concidered to be occupied by the Book of Mormon culture.

The only revealed word we have about Book of Mormon geography is found in the text of the book itself. A book that comes to us by the gift and power of God. If that is not revelation then What is? Careful study of the text suggests, as proposed by Sorenson and others, that Mormon limited his description of Book of Mormon events to a relatively limited area centered in the Valley of Zarahemla and only included events that occurred relative to this segment of the total Nephite population as he clearly states in Helaman.

One of the problems of both North American and Mesoamerica LGT theories is that they tend to give the impression that the peoples that Mormon wrote about were the sole inhabitants of the land and that no others existed whether they were nephites or not. Archeological studies make it clear that there were cultures all over the American continents. This fact can not be ignored although some do so implicitly while others just dont bring up this issue.

One of my favorite passages in the Book of Mormon is where the search party sent out by King Limhi comes back with a record of a peeple that existed before the Nephites came to America. When Limhi first gets the plates, he has no idea of who wrote them or whose history they contained. He asks if they can be translated so that hey might find out about the people that wrote them and suggests that it is a record of the people who built the ruins found by the search party.

Mosiah 8:

12 And I say unto thee again: Knowest thou of any one that can translate? For I am desirous that these records should be translated into our language; for, perhaps, they will give us a knowledge of a remnant of the people who have been destroyed, from whence these records came; or, perhaps, they will give us a knowledge of this very people who have been destroyed; and I am desirous to know the cause of their destruction. By the time that Mormon writes his abridgement, it has become a foregone conclusion that this is true.

However, if one looks closely at the jouney of the search party one must consider the following.

!. They were looking for Zarahemla

2. Zarahemla was on the left bank of a major river.

3. They missed the land of Zarahemla, most likely as a result of following the wrong river.

4. They assumed the ruins were the city of Zarahemla. In order for this to be true they must have found the ruins on the left bank of one or the other of these two rivers.

If we look at the geography of Mesoamerica we find two majore rivers both of which emty into the Gulf of Mexico on its southern shore. The ruins had to be on the left bank of one of these rivers.

Were they the Ruins of the Jaredites?

Reading the description of Jaredite lands found in the Book of Ether we find that these lands were described as being westward from an eastern seashore.

Ether 9: 3

3 And the Lord warned Omer in a dream that he should depart out of the land; wherefore Omer departed out of the land with his family, and traveled many days, and came over and passed by the hill of Shim, and came over by the place where the Nephites were destroyed, and from thence eastward, and came to a place which was called Ablom, by the seashore, and there he pitched his tent, and also his sons and his daughters, and all his household, save it were Jared and his family.

The descriptions of these two locations do not agree and therefore the Ruins were not likely to be those left by the Jaredites.

However if we look at the archeological record we find a city called "La Venta" located just west of the Grijalva river channel as it existed in Book of Mormon times, it is now called Reo Seco" and is the result of a change in channel caused by a major hurricane about 1000 years ago. La venta was abandoned in about 400 BC. This would have left ruins that would have appeared to be sufficiently recent to be mistaken for the City of Zarahemla.

This convergence of location, archeological record and the description of the journey taken by the search party strongly suggests that this Book of Mormon event took place in Mesoamerica and is just one of such convergences that support a Mesoamerican location for the events described in the text of the Book of Mormon.

This does not imply nor require that events related to both Nephites and Lamanites did not occur in lands farther north in the land northward. We just dont have any record of them in the text as written by Mormon.

Larry P

[charity]

It is a huge situation of assumptions. Joseph Smith said "X" about Zelph. And that means the narrow neck of land is between two of the Great Lakes, and it means that Zarahemla was near present day Chicago, and that means that. . . . give me a break.

Anyone who gets their knickers in a knot about Book of Mormon geography--no matter which theory--is going off on a gospel hobby. Everybody should remember: The Church has no official policy on where Book of Mormon geography is! That is it. And the big danger of the "remember what Joseph said" and then going off half-cocked is that it is the first step to apostascy. I resent the attitude that if I don't run out and plant a "This way to Zarahemla" sign based on anyone's, repeat anyone's theory that I am discounting everything Joseph Smith ever said.

[cinepro]

1. Why am I under obligation to accept Joseph Smith's views (or Brigham Young's or Orson Pratt's, etc) on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

2. Why am I under obligation to think that somehow Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography are somehow more authoritative than anyone else's if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

3. Why does it matter if my views are different from Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present his views as revealed doctrine?

Truth of the matter is, you aren't obligated to accept Joseph Smith's (or anyone else's views) even if they do present them as doctrine. You just have to say that "even though they presented them as doctrine, they aren't really doctrine", and then it's not doctrine anymore, and you don't have to believe it.

The problem isn't that Joseph Smith might have said something as "doctrine". The problem is that Joseph Smith claimed that Moroni, Nephi and other angelic prophets were his sources of information. So if you choose not to believe him, you must either conclude that these angels weren't a reliable source of info, Joseph misunderstood them, or Joseph was lying about the tutoring. I'm not sure which one of those options is the good one.

So let's look at exhibit A. Here we have an excerpt letter written by the Prophet Joseph Smith called "The Wentworth Letter". I'll bolden the most interesting parts:

I was also informed [by Moroni] 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 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. After having received many visits from the angels of God unfolding the majesty and glory of the events that should transpire in the last days, on the morning of the 22nd of September, A.D. 1827, the angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands.

These records were engraven on plates which had the appearance of gold, each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long, and not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled with engravings, in Egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume as the leaves of a book, with three rings running through the whole. The volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction, and much skill in the art of engraving. With the records was found a curious instrument, which the ancients called "Urim and Thummim," which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rims of a bow fastened to a breast plate. Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift and power of God. (Note: not related to geography, but probably not true; he used the seer stone.)

In this important and interesting book the history of ancient America is unfolded, from its first settlement by a colony that came from the Tower of Babel, at the confusion of languages to the beginning of the fifth century of the Christian Era. We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites, and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem, about six hundred years before Christ. They were principally Israelites, of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritance of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle towards the close of the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country.

The Wentworth Letter

So that's what Joseph believed Moroni had told him, as recounted in 1842.

If I were determined to believe the Jaredites and Lehites arrived to a land already populated by indigineous others and then mixed with and lived as a subset of existing populations in a small area of Central America, I'd be under my desk in the fetal position right now, rocking back and forth.

[Ipso Facto]

Truth of the matter is, you aren't obligated to accept Joseph Smith's (or anyone else's views) even if they do present them as doctrine. You just have to say that "even though they presented them as doctrine, they aren't really doctrine", and then it's not doctrine anymore, and you don't have to believe it.

The problem isn't that Joseph Smith might have said something as "doctrine". The problem is that Joseph Smith claimed that Moroni, Nephi and other angelic prophets were his sources of information. So if you choose not to believe him, you must either conclude that these angels weren't a reliable source of info, Joseph misunderstood them, or Joseph was lying about the tutoring. I'm not sure which one of those options is the good one.

So let's look at exhibit A. Here we have an excerpt letter written by the Prophet Joseph Smith called "The Wentworth Letter". I'll bolden the most interesting parts:

So that's what Joseph believed Moroni had told him, as recounted in 1842.

If I were determined to believe the Jaredites and Lehites arrived to a land already populated by indigineous others and then mixed with and lived as a subset of existing populations in a small area of Central America, I'd be under my desk in the fetal position right now, rocking back and forth.

There could be no more definitive example of flawed interpretation than is exhibited by this post. One must be activated by a desire to disbelieve in order to misinterpret the Prophet's words to the extent we see here.

I honestly feel sorry for those people who have succumbed to the spirit that moves them to such blindness.

One must assemble ALL the things said by Joseph Smith together, and then draw conclusions that satisfy the logic of the WHOLE. When one draws upon only those things that reinforce his/her preconceived notions, one is likely to be deceived. And in the case of cinepro and others like him, subject to losing their souls.

[Tarski]

Let me preface my words by repeating something Joseph Smith once said:

"A prophet is only a prophet when he is acting as one."

I have encountered several people on this board and elsewhere who, when discussing Book of Mormon geography, will generally say something like this:

"Well, Joseph Smith thought such and such about Book of Mormon geography. You are contradicting your Prophet!"

Now, let me ask a few questions:

1. Why am I under obligation to accept Joseph Smith's views (or Brigham Young's or Orson Pratt's, etc) on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

2. Why am I under obligation to think that somehow Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography are somehow more authoritative than anyone else's if he did not present it as revealed doctrine?

3. Why does it matter if my views are different from Joseph Smith's views on Book of Mormon geography if he did not present his views as revealed doctrine?

(Feel free to substitute Joseph Smith's name with any other name of any General Authority, Church President, etc.)

To me it seems that this ploy is nothing more than a pharisaic trap to try and catch me in a contradiction.

So, what do you all think?

First, if a prophet of God who routinely gazes into the heavens even to the point of knowing the name of God's home star tells you something about the history he translated by the power of God and doesn't preface it with "I don't know but maybe..." then he wants his listener to think he is speaking of what he knows by the power of God.

Read Joseph's words and you can tell which it is in most cases.

Second, you are under no obligation to accept Joseph Smith's views even when (and in my opinion, especially when) he presents them as revealed doctrine.

[LifeOnaPlate]

First, if a prophet of God who routinely gazes into the heavens even to the point of knowing the name of God's home star tells you something about the history he translated by the power of God and doesn't preface it with "I don't know but maybe..." then he wants his listener to think he is speaking of what he knows by the power of God.

Read Joseph's words and you can tell which it is in most cases.

Second, you are under no obligation to accept Joseph Smith's views even when (and in my opinion, especially when) he presents them as revealed doctrine.

It's moments like this that remind me how rarely critics think through their arguments. Should all prophets know all the same things all the time?

[LifeOnaPlate]

btw, just saw this on another board. hilarious, imo:

[Tarski]

It's moments like this that remind me how rarely critics think through their arguments. Should all prophets know all the same things all the time?

A true prophet (if there were such a thing) as opposed to a religious confidence man would feel obliged to never state anything with an air authority about what could only be known by revelation if in fact it was not received by revelation.

[LifeOnaPlate]

A true prophet (if there were such a thing) as opposed to a religious confidence man would feel obliged to never state anything with an air authority about what could only be known by revelation if in fact it was not received by revelation.

That's odd. Joseph said pretty much the opposite. To one friend he confided his sorrow over not enjoying the freedom to speak his own mind without people running off and proclaiming he had uttered prophecy.

[Tarski]

That's odd. Joseph said pretty much the opposite. To one friend he confided his sorrow over not enjoying the freedom to speak his own mind without people running off and proclaiming he had uttered prophecy.

Since he had the ear of the church and future generations as well as access to a pen and paper, he could have easily disabused people of the idea that he knew all about the Lamanites. By Zelph LOP!