Multiple attestation lacking for the core LDS events

[Tsjoeva]

Most of your quotes are speaking of the furture restoration.

You also forgot. The Jews finally turned their back.

Acts 13: 46

46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.

No I am not forget something. It is you that quote a Bible text not complete out of the context. And that's why you have to read Rom 11 complete to understand this.

Rom 11:13 is written: Paul is the apostle of the gentils, and in Gal 2:7 is this confirm.But is written to, Peter is the apostle of the Jews.

[Zakuska]

No I am not forget something. It is you that quote a Bible text not complete out of the context. And that's why you have to read Rom 11 complete to understand this.

Rom 11:13 is written: Paul is the apostle of the gentils, and in Gal 2:7 is this confirm.But is written to, Peter is the apostle of the Jews.

Yes Peter is the Apostle of the Jews. What happend to the Jews in 70AD?

They turned their back and God wiped them out. It wasn't until 1944 that they were restored as a country. They won't recieve the Kingdom back until the second coming.

Matt. 25: 31

31

[Lightbearer]

Lightbearer,

Not only did you not read the entire thread, you did not read the entire opening post. I addressed the matter of the witness of the Holy Ghost in my opening post.

More like brushed it aside. You claim that the witness of men is greater than the witness that comes from God? Are you an atheist? Or do you claim to really believe the Biblical record? How do you know that the multiple witnesses in the Bible are from God? Was it not the Holy Ghost that converted Cornelius? Or was it the multiple witnesses of Peter and the Angel? Or for that matter the witness of the Holy Ghost?:

(Acts 5:32) "And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him."

Does this not say the Holy Ghost as well as the Apostles are witnesses? It seems Lucifer has made this accusation before:

(John 8:13-18) "The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me."

That is the reason the Father introduced the Son in the sacred grove to Joseph Smith. The divine law of witnesses, and the Holy Ghost is just as valid a witness, if not more so than any human witness:

(John 15:26-27) "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning."

Also the following:

(John 16:13-14) "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you."

And again:

(John 14:26) "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."

I think it is safe to say that if there is any truth then the Holy Ghost will reveal it to those who love Christ and obey Him. In addition any spirit that teaches a man not to pray is not of God.

[Ahab]

If I understand Rob's OP correctly, the point he is trying to make is that there is only one first-hand witness to the first-level foundational events of Mormonism, and that one witness is Joseph Smith.

At this point my mind recognizes the fact that Rob isn't mentioning whether or not God is also a witness, which of course he would be if he/they actually did appear to Joseph Smith.

Rob then goes on to define the first level foundational events of Mormonism as those events in which only Joseph Smith was present, whether or not there ever were or are any second-hand witnesses who can corroborate the first-hand testimony of Joseph Smith.

At this point my mind recognizes the truth of Rob's statement, even though I think Rob is missing the big picture, because of course Joseph Smith was the only person (other than God) who was the witness of first-hand foundational events of Mormonism as long as first-hand foundational events of Mormonism are defined as only those events in which Joseph Smith was present and you are not counting God as a witness.

I'd also like to point out the fact that God himself said that those receiving the gospel in this dispensation would have his word through Joseph, and I don't have any problem with acknowledging that fact as long as that statement isn't twisted to mean that we have only Joseph's word to rely on.

I, for one, also have the testimony of God to me, personally, and I know many other people do too.

In Rob's mind, however, that only makes us second-hand witnesses who are relying on what Joseph Smith said because Rob doesn't accept the idea that we have received our own witnesses from God to corroborate what God has revealed to Joseph.

[Tsjoeva]

Yes Peter is the Apostle of the Jews. What happend to the Jews in 70AD?

They turned their back and God wiped them out. It wasn't until 1944 that they were restored as a country. They won't recieve the Kingdom back until the second coming.

Matt. 25: 31

31

[Tsjoeva]

I'm not saying they didn't know for sure he died. I'm saying they did. I'm also saying a person today who sees the resurrected Jesus can know with equal surety that he has not simply lived for 2000 years, but that he did in fact die.

Well I understand your quote, but.. I really missed the point.

[Rob Bowman]

Dan,

You wrote:

I think two kinds of revelations can be distinguished in relation to the question. A new revelation is either going to simply add something new to Church administration without changing anything, or it's going to alter something that's already there. Revelations that don't change anything are pretty much just prophesies, although more full revelations about God's nature can also occur (Moses' revelation at Mt. Sinai, for instance). The majority of revelations from the Bible change things (St. Peter's revelation to end Jewish dietary restrictions), and many times things change without revelations (the abolishing of circumcision). (You'll notice the two revelations mentioned were private revelations with no real cogent evidence.)

There

[Tsjoeva]

I simply can't fathom why you keep saying this.

Nice points.

I think we need to distinguish between visions, which anyone can lay claim to, and real observable events. If a group of people had kept watch over Jesus' body, presumably they all would have seen the same thing. No special qualifications were required to view the empty tomb, except going and looking at it. Thus, the events that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the resurrection are in a special class, and the first written account of those events (before the story got passed around and improved) is the most important.

So let's look at the first account of the resurrection story.

5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.

6 And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

7 But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.

8 And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.

That's it; there's no more to the original account. The whole tale comes down to the testimony of an unknown young man (probably a teenager) who may have just stolen the burial garments. Note that he is eager for them to go away and that the women are afraid of him (perhaps due to his criminal activity). The whole thing ends in a paradox; i.e., if neither said anything to anyone, then how did Mark find out about it?

All subsequent accounts of the resurrection, including the tacked-on verses to Mark, are simply embellishments to the oral tradition.

I don't think this is a really strong argue.

1. How do you know he is a teenager?

2. How do you know had just stolen the burial garments.

3. Where are the soldiers?

4. How did he moved the huge stone in his own?

There are a couple of witnesses for what is happening in the grave. If you wanted to know what is happen for your self. I think you have to invite all the witnesses and start a hearing.

That is the only possibility that can gave you an answer on your questions. But because we know this is impossible. We have to do it with the 4 Gospels. And what they said about it. Did Peter tell a lie when he said those words: and killed the Prince of Life whom God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.

No, he didn't. Where there witnesses, yes there was. That where angels, the Holy Spirit, and God.

[Droopy]

First, before I discuss Moses, a reminder about what my argument claims and does not claim. My argument does not claim that two or more human witnesses observed every important event in the Bible. My argument does not claim that every incident of a divine revelation requires a plurality of witnesses physically present to be acceptable or credible. For example, it is not a problem that Peter was apparently alone when he first saw the risen Jesus (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor. 15:5). The reason this is not a problem is that multiple witnesses corroborated the truth to which Peter testified, namely, that Jesus had risen from the dead.

This state of affairs is precisely applicable to the case of Joseph Smith and his own claims.

What my argument claims is that we should expect multiple attestation for stupendous historical claims like the Resurrection or the First Vision if those historical claims are themselves essential objects of faith. It is not essential to my faith to confess that Mary Magdalene saw the risen Jesus, although it supports something essential to my faith (the belief in Jesus

[Zakuska]

Hoi Zakusa,

What is happen in 1948?

And what are the promise of the Lord in the OT, about it?

But again it is good to quote Mt 19 in the context:

25 When His disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, "Who then can be saved?"

26 But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

27 Then Peter answered and said unto Him, "Behold, we have forsaken all and followed Thee. What shall we have therefore?"

28 And Jesus said unto them, "Verily I say unto you, that ye that have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

29 And everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name

[Droopy]

but according to LDS leaders, no one else has ever seen with their physical eyes these two divine persons as two separate, embodied beings.

Is this settled LDS doctrine that no one has ever seen the Father and Son together, simultaneously, as separate embodied beings?

A witness to precisely this state of affairs exists in the Ascension of Isaiah, during its rather startling Celstial assent narrative. Indeed, Isaiah here appears to meet the entire Godhead and experiences them each as separate, embodied beings:

27. And I saw a certain One standing, whose glory surpassed that of all, and His glory was great and wonderful.

28. And after I had seen Him, all the righteous whom I had seen and also the angels whom I had seen came to Him. And Adam and Abel and Seth and all the righteous first drew near and worshipped Him, and they all praised Him with one voice, and I myself also gave praise with them, and my giving of praise was as theirs.

29. And then all the angels drew nigh and worshipped and gave praise.

30. And I was (again) transformed and became like an angel.

31. And thereupon the angel who conducted me said to me: "Worship this One," and I worshipped and praised.

32. And the angel said unto me: "This is the Lord of all the praise-givings which thou hast seen."

33. And whilst he was still speaking, I saw another Glorious One who was like Him, and the righteous drew nigh and worshipped and praised, and I praised together with them. But my glory was not transformed into accordance with their form.

34. And thereupon the angels drew near and worshipped Him.

35. And I saw the Lord and the second angel, and they were standing.

36. And the second whom I saw was on he left of my Lord. And I asked: "Who is this?" and he said unto me: "Worship Him, for He is the angel of the Holy Spirit, who speaketh in thee and the rest of the righteous."

40. And I saw how my Lord and the angel of the Spirit worshipped, and they both together praised God.

[Obiwan]

Multiple attestation lacking for the core LDS events LDS religion depends entirely on the testimony of one man, Joseph Smith.

Are you kidding me??? The LDS Church is the only religion on the planet that has "Multiple Attestation" to the vast majority of many key events, and non-key ones. It's one of the many reasons that showed me that this WAS NOT another man-made religion.

And your attempts to discount some of them are absolutely incomplete of all the facts, taking only the anti-mormon version of the events, rather than the whole truth.

tisk tisk

Oh, and one other thing. Your slander and sloppy yellow journalism of the Church by taking one example from Dallin H. Oaks as to his comment that one person can be a witness is just shameful. Both the Bible AND the Church has many examples of both individual AND group experiences, as well as LDS leaders teaching that out of two or more witnesses all truth shall be established. You clearly don't attend LDS services, because that idea is constant in our teachings and services. So, to try and take one statement from Dallin H. Oaks as if this is the "common" LDS teaching or belief is classic anti-mormon bearing false witness.

Shame on you!

[Obiwan]

In order to accept your premsie, we have to ignore the witnesses of those who were with Joseph when:

The Witnesses of the Book of Mormon saw the plates and Angel

The Aaronic Priesthood was restored

The Melchesidek Priesthood was restored

The Appearance of Moses, Elias, and Elijah to restore the keys to the Priesthood Orders

The Vision of the Three Degrees of Glory

The Appearance of the Father and the Son to the School of the Prophets

The visions at the Kirtland Temple dedication

The day of healing in Nauvoo

You are seriously going to argue that there were no witnesses? good luck

Not only that, but there are many many more large and lesser ones.

For example, many journals tell various events of things Joseph did, teachings, healings, etc. All of which are not "paraded" around by the Church, but were in fact "witnessed".

I'm simply amazed that an anti-mormon would go so far as to write such an article..... It never seeses to amaze me the "depths" of deception and ignoring of facts that they delve to create their hit pieces. There are witnesses GALOR to the restoration of the Church, and this is the ONLY RELIGION (save the Church in different dispensations) to have such..... Yet somehow, we have no actual witnesses.... My word.....

[Obiwan]

handys,

You wrote:

Why should I bother responding to such arguments, assuming that as a former atheist you no longer accept these arguments yourself?

As I have already noted, I am constantly amazed that Mormons are willing to use atheistic, skeptical arguments--bogus criticisms--against the Bible in order to salvage the credibility of the LDS scriptures. I just got through saying this, and look, you are even admitting that you are using arguments from that perspective.

Start over, please, and present arguments you really think are sound.

WRONG.... It's to show your hypocrisy and how "invalid" your arguments actually are. That you have "selective" condemnation. That if you applied the same standards to your faith foundations, that you willingly apply to our faith, your faith would fail. It is not to show that the scriptures are false, it's to show that your logic and argumentation is FALSE. Of the devil, of the deceiver.... using a little truth to tell great lies. It's to show that you are a HYPOCRITE!

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Is this settled LDS doctrine that no one has ever seen the Father and Son together, simultaneously, as separate embodied beings?

A witness to precisely this state of affairs exists in the Ascension of Isaiah, during its rather startling Celstial assent narrative. Indeed, Isaiah here appears to meet the entire Godhead and experiences them each as separate, embodied beings:

27. And I saw a certain One standing, whose glory surpassed that of all, and His glory was great and wonderful.

28. And after I had seen Him, all the righteous whom I had seen and also the angels whom I had seen came to Him. And Adam and Abel and Seth and all the righteous first drew near and worshipped Him, and they all praised Him with one voice, and I myself also gave praise with them, and my giving of praise was as theirs.

29. And then all the angels drew nigh and worshipped and gave praise.

30. And I was (again) transformed and became like an angel.

31. And thereupon the angel who conducted me said to me: "Worship this One," and I worshipped and praised.

32. And the angel said unto me: "This is the Lord of all the praise-givings which thou hast seen."

33. And whilst he was still speaking, I saw another Glorious One who was like Him, and the righteous drew nigh and worshipped and praised, and I praised together with them. But my glory was not transformed into accordance with their form.

34. And thereupon the angels drew near and worshipped Him.

35. And I saw the Lord and the second angel, and they were standing.

36. And the second whom I saw was on he left of my Lord. And I asked: "Who is this?" and he said unto me: "Worship Him, for He is the angel of the Holy Spirit, who speaketh in thee and the rest of the righteous."

40. And I saw how my Lord and the angel of the Spirit worshipped, and they both together praised God.

I have never looked at this like that. This is awesome. If only God is to be worshipped why did Isaiah worship this other "glorious One"? God did not rebuke Isaiah and the angles even joined in. So much for the "there is only One God in all of exsistance". Why would God command him to worship and angel? I think this open up a whole can of worms. This should be started in a new thread.

[Zakuska]

Not so fast Rob:

As for Peter

[cksalmon]

But is not the terminus ante quem of a "proper witness" an ad hoc and subjectively defined point?

I don't believe so, not in the sense I intended (and this is, of course, where we disagree).

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven (Luke 24:50-51, ESV)

I wouldn't want to say that after the ascension no one has seen Jesus' physical body (which I believe he still possesses), but I believe what Rob Bowman has in mind are contemporary witnesses to the fact of the resurrection in ~33 AD.

(As an aside, I'm not quite convinced that Paul's conversion story is necessarily material (pun intended), in that sense. In the narrative of Acts 9, the event has marks of visionary experience. We're told that Paul alone saw a blinding light, but that all heard the voice of Jesus. The men traveling with Paul saw no one. Here, we're not told that Paul saw Jesus. I don't want to press that too hard, however, as Paul himself uses the term ???? in 1 Cor. 15.8 to describe his experience. The account in Acts 26 further complicates the matter. But, I readily concede that one is well within one's rights, I believe, to assume truly physical "seeing" at that point.

But, in Bowman's taxonomy, Paul's experience is a second-level event, the principle of multiple attestation having already been fulfilled.)

Why is one person who sees the resurrected Christ a "proper witness" whereas another person who sees the resurrected Christ not a "proper witness"? What makes a witness a proper one in your opinion?

I adopted your term, but meant "proper" only in the sense of that which was intended in Bowman's example.

But, again, they're not witnessing an event. They're simply witnessing a living Christ. That he used to be dead is not something that a modern individual cannot know with the same degree of certainty.

That's fine. Witnesses to the fact of the resurrection is more precise.

And why the "spiritual" qualification? A person who today sees the resurrected Christ is witnessing a living Christ in the exact same historical sense that Paul or Peter did. Paul never knew Jesus while he was alive. What's the difference?

First, Mak, I'm not at all convinced that Jesus appeared bodily to anyone following the close of the apostolic age. I was attempting to draw out a distinction at this point. (BTW, I don't recall any uncontested scripture that tells us Peter experienced a post-ascension physical manifestation of Jesus, but could be mistaken. If so, remind me.)

You hold that Jesus has indeed appeared bodily to post-apostolic witnesses. I'm aware that there are hundreds of such claims. The most pertinent to this discussion, of course, is the claim made by Joseph Smith in FV. Since the legitimacy of FV is itself one of the central issues in dispute, FV can't be assumed evidence of the difference between the two events that you appear to be driving at. That is, it won't do to say, which you haven't, Joseph Smith was a witness to the resurrected Christ per FV; thus, "the window of time for people to become proper witnesses [of the fact of Christ's resurrection extends at least until 1820]."

That's what was in the back of my mind. Perhaps you can clear up any muddle I've made.

Best.

cks

EDIT: "face" changed to "fact" in para 3.

[Tsjoeva]

I didn't change the subject. We are talking about 2 points in time. When the "Church age" (as you called) it started and when it ended.

When the Christian dispensation started. That was what I thought about the subject.

The 2 different points were:

1. for the death of Christ

2. after the death of Christ.

But If I am not correct. My excuse for that

[Vance]

I read this, ( http://mormanity.blogspot.com/ ) this morning (Jan 28, 2010) and thought of this thread.

[Rob Bowman]

Droopy,

You wrote:

How the similarities of the First Vision (the opening of a new dispensation) and Moses' experience on Sinai (the opening of a new dispensation) escapes you here, I'm not sure I grasp. Both involve personal, direct visitations of God to a mortal man, both involve the reception of new or expanded teachings/principles/commandments, both involve the inauguration of a new gospel dispensation, and both are salient, watershed events in the spiritual/cultural life of a people. Both events, those at Sinai and those in the Grove, require the testimony of the Holy Spirit received through direct, personal revelation, to confirm their reality and historical substance. Without these, one is utterly dependent upon the scriptural record, which itself cannot provide such confirmation (one would, at the very least, have to have a personal spiritual witness of the divine authenticity of the scriptures themselves, for these to carry the authoritativeness they claim for themselves as a recorded witness of such events).

How the differences between the First Vision and Mount Sinai escape you is likewise beyond me. in what follows, I state matters as though both events occurred for the sake of comparison:

* No one beside Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in the Spring of 1820. But 73 men besides Moses saw God on Mount Sinai.

* No one knew exactly where Joseph Smith was when he saw God and Christ. But all of the Israelites waiting at the foot of Mount Sinai knew exactly where Moses was.

* No one was close by Joseph Smith or had any way of knowing what he was doing when he saw God. But Joshua was close by Moses when he was on Mount Sinai receiving the stone tablets.

* Prior to the First Vision, no one had any reason to think that Joseph Smith was a prophet. But prior to Moses going up Mount Sinai, he had been God's instrument in bringing the ten plagues on Egypt, forcing Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, and then miraculously leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. By the time the Israelites reached Sinai, they knew Moses was a prophet.

* After the First Vision, no one knew about it for well over ten years. In fact, other than a couple of scribes, no one knew about it until the early 1840s, twenty years afterwards--despite hundreds of pages of revelations and teachings and sermons that Smith produced by that time. But all of the Israelites knew about Moses on Sinai while it was happening and immediately after he came down.

* Very little of Smith's teachings actually seem to derive from the First Vision. The official account informs us that Joseph learned at the time that all the churches were wrong. That is about the extent of the actual teaching that the account tells us Joseph derived from that encounter. But Moses came down from Mount Sinai with a substantial body of torah (law, instructions) from God, forming the core of God's covenant with Israel.

* The entirety of the First Vision was a purely private experience. But God enacted the Mosaic covenant through manifestations and revelations to which all of the Israelites were witnesses. The revelations that God gave to Moses alone (assuming Joshua wasn't immediately present) came after God had spoken to all the Israelites and they had specifically begged Moses to go talk to God without them (because it was terrifying!).

* For about the first seventy or more years of the history of the LDS Church, no one seems to have regarded the First Vision as the pivotal, foundational event that Mormons today regard it as being. But the Israelites knew right away that what God had done on Mount Sinai was enact a covenant with them.

* Not only do we have no other witnesses to corroborate the First Vision story, what other events that multiple witnesses corroborate are at most peculiar or mysterious, not clear proofs of divine action (e.g., three guys claiming they saw an angel). But although we have no direct independent evidence outside the Bible confirming the specific events on Mount Sinai, we have significant corroboration of the dramatic miracles of the Exodus in Egypt and the Red Sea. These events, which archaeology and Egyptian records do confirm, are clear proof of divine action.

* Mormons routinely confess that their faith in the First Vision and the divine beings who appeared to Joseph Smith rests on a special supernatural witness from God to their hearts. But Orthodox Jews and conservative Christians for thousands of years have believed in the God of Moses without requiring any special supernatural witness that the Exodus or Mount Sinai revelations occurred. I am unaware of any statement in the Bible referring to such "spiritual witnesses" concerning the Exodus or Sinai.

* Although Mormonism now regards the First Vision as foundational, LDS religion existed for several years, and could just as easily exist now, without any First Vision story, though not without some understanding of Joseph Smith as a prophet. (The visitations by Moroni and other celestial beings were understood to be the basis for that office during the first years of the LDS Church.) But Old Testament religion and Orthodox Judaism presuppose that God spoke to Moses; remove this idea and the Israelite/Jewish religious system completely falls apart.

You wrote:

You have already been apprised of the multiple witnesses of Joseph's own initial claims, as well as the countless witnesses of spiritual manifestations experienced during the Church's pentecostal period. At the very least, I see no substantive, core difference between Moses' experience and Joseph's By your own admission, no one actually observed or witnessed Moses' personal visit with God, nor his reception of the Ten Commandments, or any other phenomena associated with that primary event. By your own admission, the Israelites were witnesses to secondary events, just as the numerous miraculous events attending the Church's pentecostal period were themselves dependent upon the gospel having been restored, the First Vision being the opening or inaugurating event in that process, the reality of which could only be known and accepted through a personal, internal witness obtained from the same source as gave to Joseph his own revelation and knowledge.

As I have already pointed out, 73 other men in addition to Moses saw God on Mount Sinai. This point alone completely refutes your attempt to draw an equivalency between the First Vision and Mount Sinai.

You wrote:

Further, you have not attended to the salient criticism I posed in my first post on this thread, which to reiterate, comes down simply to: how can you trust the written records of the events you claim were witnessed and therefore legitimate? In other words, when you point out that x number of Israelites witnessed such and such, you source for this is...Moses. Upon what do you base the credibility of this individual, since it is only through him that we have the claims of what happened to him on Sinai, and only though him do we have the claimed support for his experience through independent witnesses?

As noted above, we have independent evidence outside the Bible to support the basic storyline of the Exodus. Furthermore, as a Christian, I can accept the witness of Moses on the basis of the witness of Jesus Christ, whose authority was demonstrated by his well-attested resurrection from the dead.

You wrote:

Its rather astounding, that after all the years you have invested in studying the Church, you can actually come there and pretend to be unaware of the doctrinal importance of witnesses and the clear importance of independent witnesses to all the claimed events incident to the Restoration.

If you will review my opening post and subsequent comments, you will see that I made no such pretense.

You wrote:

What's even more intriguing is that you come here, although ostensibly as a Christian, with the overall approach of secularist.... The kind of "witness" you appear to require of the salient events of the Restoration are those that would be required by an unbelieving secular humanist historian, not one seeking the truth of revealed religion through personal communion with God.

If you can obtain "the truth of revealed religion through personal communion with God," then there is no need at all for a "Law of Witnesses"; it can be just you and the witness of the Holy Ghost. My position is that personal communion with God is essential in that it is the goal of revealed religion, not its precondition. We do not have personal communion with God in order to know what the true religion is; rather, the true religion has as its purpose to point the way for us to have personal communion with God.

It is ironic that you claim I approach this subject as a secularist. Read through the responses from some of your LDS brethren. Some of them overtly put on their secularist and even atheist hats in order to argue that the evidence for the Resurrection is just as bad if not worse than the evidence for the First Vision.

You wrote:

Jesus didn't ask Peter to list the empirical witnesses of his miracles or any other "supernatural' events. He asked him who he (Jesus) was and, by implication, how he knew it. Jesus was very clear that it was his Father in Heaven who had given Peter the knowledge he had. Why then are have you moved away from this paradigm?

This is an important enough topic that I may start a separate thread on it.

[Glenn101]

* Prior to the First Vision, no one had any reason to think that Joseph Smith was a prophet. But prior to Moses going up Mount Sinai, he had been God's instrument in bringing the ten plagues on Egypt, forcing Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, and then miraculously leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. By the time the Israelites reached Sinai, they knew Moses was a prophet.

Prior to the burning bush experience, no one had any reason to believe that Moses was a prophet called of God. There were no other witnesses to that event. None of Moses's subsequent teachings seem to have developed from that seminal event.

There also were no other witnesses when God told Moses to call Aaron as his spokesperson.

This is much more analogous to Joseph's first vision experience.no one else knew exactly where Moses was when he had that burning bush experience.

Also there were no other witnesses to Samuel the prophet's first vision.

There were no other witnesses to Jacob's wrestling with an angel.

There were no other witnesses to Noah being told to build an ark.

There were no other witnesses when God called most of the other Old Testament prophets.

In other words, there is no problem.

Glenn

[Benjamin McGuire]

Rob Bowman writes:

You're quite correct. However, since the early 1900s, LDS Church presidents, apostles, and other teachers have routinely claimed that the First Vision was the most important event in the history of the world since the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that the First Vision inaugurated a new dispensation, the era of the Restoration. My argument simply takes that claim seriously. If you are repudiating it, fine.

It seems to me that when you are talking about contemporary evidence for the event, then you ought to use contemporary standards. Its one thing to say that later LDS saw this as a foundational event. But if you are concerned about early discussions and evidence for an event which wasn't considered foundational at the time, your evidence is clearly going to suffer because of this fact.

So, yes, I am disputing your claim - and I am pointing out that you are really merely taking a polemical position which has clear overtones of presentism. And this is a problem for your argument.

Ben McGuire

[Mortal Man]

73 men besides Moses saw God on Mount Sinai.

According to the guy who wrote those verses centuries later.

all of the Israelites waiting at the foot of Mount Sinai knew exactly where Moses was.

See above.

Joshua was close by Moses when he was on Mount Sinai receiving the stone tablets.

Ditto.

prior to Moses going up Mount Sinai, he had been God's instrument in bringing the ten plagues on Egypt, forcing Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, and then miraculously leading the Israelites across the Red Sea.

Ditto.

But all of the Israelites knew about Moses on Sinai while it was happening and immediately after he came down.

See above.

* Very little of Smith's teachings actually seem to derive from the First Vision. The official account informs us that Joseph learned at the time that all the churches were wrong. That is about the extent of the actual teaching that the account tells us Joseph derived from that encounter. But Moses came down from Mount Sinai with a substantial body of torah (law, instructions) from God, forming the core of God's covenant with Israel.

As Richard Bushman says, Mormonism just needs to age awhile. A millennium from now, Joseph Smith will have come out of the Sacred Grove with the BoM on one tablet and the D&C on the other.

(assuming Joshua wasn't immediately present)

You still haven't explained the visions where Oliver Cowdery was present.

For about the first seventy or more years of the history of the LDS Church, no one seems to have regarded the First Vision as the pivotal, foundational event that Mormons today regard it as being.

Let's just toss it out then so the debate can move forward.

we have significant corroboration of the dramatic miracles of the Exodus in Egypt and the Red Sea. These events, which archaeology and Egyptian records do confirm, are clear proof of divine action.

And now for a courtesy cut and paste.

More than a century of archaeological research has discovered nothing which could support the narrative elements of the book of Exodus - the four centuries sojourn in Egypt, the escape of well over a million Israelites from the Delta, or the three months journey through the wilderness to Sinai. The Egyptian records themselves have no mention of anything recorded in Exodus, the wilderness of the southern Sinai peninsula shows no traces of a mass-migration such as Exodus describes, and virtually all the place-names mentioned, including Goshen (the area within Egypt where the Israelites supposedly lived), the store-cities of Pithom and Rameses, the site of the crossing of the Red Sea, and even Mt Sinai itself, have resisted identification. The archaeology of Palestine has equally failed to substantiate the Bible's account of the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites arriving from Egypt some forty years later - of the 31 cities supposedly conquered by Joshua, only one (Bethel) shows a destruction level that equates to the Biblical narrative, and there is general agreement that the origins of Israel lie within Canaan itself.

* Mormons routinely confess that their faith in the First Vision and the divine beings who appeared to Joseph Smith rests on a special supernatural witness from God to their hearts. But Orthodox Jews and conservative Christians for thousands of years have believed in the God of Moses without requiring any special supernatural witness that the Exodus or Mount Sinai revelations occurred. I am unaware of any statement in the Bible referring to such "spiritual witnesses" concerning the Exodus or Sinai.

People back then responded better to smitings, burnings, plagues etc. People nowadays are more inclined toward a touchy-feely God.

Joseph Smith was just as good a prophet as Moses; in fact, he was even better at making stuff up.

[Zakuska]

You're quite correct. However, since the early 1900s, LDS Church presidents, apostles, and other teachers have routinely claimed that the First Vision was the most important event in the history of the world since the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that the First Vision inaugurated a new dispensation, the era of the Restoration. My argument simply takes that claim seriously. If you are repudiating it, fine.

Technically not true. The new Dispenations would have had to begin in 1830 when the Church was officialy organized. This would be the beginning event of a new dispensation. Many witnessed that.

But 73 men besides Moses saw God on Mount Sinai.

You're trying to have your cake and eat it too Rob. Doesn't John tell us no one has saw God but Jesus? And he has seen Jesus... Jesus has revealed the Father to.

[Vance]

How the differences between the First Vision and Mount Sinai escape you is likewise beyond me. in what follows, I state matters as though both events occurred for the sake of comparison:

And this was some time AFTER Moses first theophany on Mount Horeb. (see Exodus 3) So why aren't you comparing the Mount Horeb event with JS? You are comparing apples to oranges.

* No one beside Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in the Spring of 1820. But 73 men besides Moses saw God on Mount Sinai.

But not on Mount Horeb, the site of Moses' original theophany.

* No one knew exactly where Joseph Smith was when he saw God and Christ. But all of the Israelites waiting at the foot of Mount Sinai knew exactly where Moses was.

But not on Mount Horeb, the site of Moses' original theophany.

* No one was close by Joseph Smith or had any way of knowing what he was doing when he saw God. But Joshua was close by Moses when he was on Mount Sinai receiving the stone tablets.

But not on Mount Horeb, the site of Moses' original theophany.

* Prior to the First Vision, no one had any reason to think that Joseph Smith was a prophet. But prior to Moses going up Mount Sinai, he had been God's instrument in bringing the ten plagues on Egypt, forcing Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, and then miraculously leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. By the time the Israelites reached Sinai, they knew Moses was a prophet.

But not on Mount Horeb, the site of Moses' original theophany.

* After the First Vision, no one knew about it for well over ten years. In fact, other than a couple of scribes, no one knew about it until the early 1840s, twenty years afterwards--despite hundreds of pages of revelations and teachings and sermons that Smith produced by that time. But all of the Israelites knew about Moses on Sinai while it was happening and immediately after he came down.

And what about the Mount Horeb event. How long AFTER the fact before Moses told anyone? It certainly wasn't "while it was happening and immediately after he came down."

* Very little of Smith's teachings actually seem to derive from the First Vision. The official account informs us that Joseph learned at the time that all the churches were wrong. That is about the extent of the actual teaching that the account tells us Joseph derived from that encounter. But Moses came down from Mount Sinai with a substantial body of torah (law, instructions) from God, forming the core of God's covenant with Israel.

And what about Moses' Mount Horeb experience. What doctrine was reveal then?

* The entirety of the First Vision was a purely private experience.

As was the Mount Horeb experience.

* For about the first seventy or more years of the history of the LDS Church, no one seems to have regarded the First Vision as the pivotal, foundational event that Mormons today regard it as being.

And what about the Mount Horeb experience?

Rather than continue, I think my point should be clear by now. You are comparing apples and oranges.