Vote On The First Vision At Sunstone

[Dan Vogel]

Please clarify: Are you questioning that a religious revival occurred in 1820, as Joseph Smith reported?

If so, here is a selection from an article I wrote in 2007:

The revival JS described occurred when he was 14 and included the conversion of his mother and sibling to the Presbyterian Church, which was after Alvin's death in 1823. The 1824-25 revivial matches JS's description.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

There are differences but real contradictions only exist where people read far too much into the different tellings.

Anytime men are involved, contradictions can and will exist. The error if any comes from the BoM being sure without the aid of computer models and fact check.

[noel00]

How can you be a " Methodist exhorter" and be confused about which church was true?

"The office of lay speaker in The United Methodist

Church, originally known as exhorter, has existed in the

church almost from the beginning of Methodism"

http://www.layspeakingmission.org/id4.html

[volgadon]

How can you be a " Methodist exhorter" and be confused about which church was true?

"The office of lay speaker in The United Methodist

Church, originally known as exhorter, has existed in the

church almost from the beginning of Methodism"

http://www.layspeaki...on.org/id4.html

The same way that a Sunday School or elder's quorum teacher in the church might not be convinced of the church's truth claims.

[Robert F. Smith]

In what, precisely?

You know as well as I do that he is a firm believer in the Book of Mormon, and I have never heard him deny the spiritual confirmation of the truthfulness of the Gospel which he received as a teenager. I expect him to return to the Church someday. We can do lunch at FAIR and discuss the matter in greater detail then. I always enjoy lunch with you. I fondly recall the time we did lunch with Olive Wilcox.

[Robert F. Smith]

Quinn will be discussed in a very serious way, but there isn't enough time in a session to do all you suggest.

Good. All I ask is that responsible attention be given to high standards of historiography. We get too little of that in most venues.

[Robert F. Smith]

The revival JS described occurred when he was 14 and included the conversion of his mother and sibling to the Presbyterian Church, which was after Alvin's death in 1823. The 1824-25 revivial matches JS's description.

The problem with that is Joseph was born in 1805 and was not 14 in 1824-25.

Anyone doing serious historiography knows that people forget the correct sequence of events on a regular basis. Joseph's mother could not even recall the correct year of the birth of her son Alvin. Together with the common human tendency to telescope and combine separate events, it is quite normal to have to employ documentary evidence to separate out the constituent events in order to create a coherent account. In so doing, some historians can neglect parts of the evidence which does not fit their preconceived notions, as happened when Wesley Walters conveniently ignored the evidence that there was a revival nearby in 1820 -- as Mike Quinn points out. You and noe100 need to grapple more seriously with this matter.

[ShawFanX]

The same as any claimed event. We are discussing the historicity not the reality of the vision.

Is it the case then that the historicity of something is not directly relevant to its actual existence in phenomenal reality? Is the term "historicity" related to an actual phenomena or event, or only to lingusitic, methdological concerns?

[KevinG]

Is it the case then that the historicity of something is not directly relevant to its actual existence in phenomenal reality? Is the term "historicity" related to an actual phenomena or event, or only to lingusitic, methdological concerns?

I am hesitant to jump in and show my ignorance but I was thinking something similar. How do you prove the historicity of an event witnessed by a single person and where no tangible physical evidence is left to investigate?

[ShawFanX]

You know as well as I do that he is a firm believer in the Book of Mormon, and I have never heard him deny the spiritual confirmation of the truthfulness of the Gospel which he received as a teenager. I expect him to return to the Church someday. We can do lunch at FAIR and discuss the matter in greater detail then. I always enjoy lunch with you. I fondly recall the time we did lunch with Olive Wilcox.

With me? I think that perhaps you have me mixed up with someone else. In any case, Mr. Quinn's behavior and his attitudes and beliefs regarding the Church, along a number of dimensions, do not seem to comport well with what it ultimately means to be a "believer" in the restored gospel. I understand such belief to be systemic; one cannot determine to accept one aspect of it, and reject other aspects, fragmenting its holistic nature as a logically and conceptually interconected system, and especially core aspects such as central elements of the Lord's law of human sexual relations, nor of making a literary career attacking and impuging the Lord's servents in our particular age, without fragmenting one's own connection to it.

[ShawFanX]

Chris isn't LDS, and it is a shame if he stops posting, as he always brings something to the table.

I know who Chris Smith is. l've tangled with him, off and on, for a number of years, and closely observed his detailed debates with other apologists, particularly upon the KEP dependency theory issue.

Loran

[ShawFanX]

I am hesitant to jump in and show my ignorance but I was thinking something similar. How do you prove the historicity of an event witnessed by a single person and where no tangible physical evidence is left to investigate?

I would think that some overriding theoretical template would have to be in play; some fundamental axioms by which one might try to ascertain whether or not things like first visions even make sense. From there, one might look around for 19th century sociological explanations for Joseph's varied accounts and for doctrinal developments that can be conjecturally connected to sundry aspects of the personal conditions of his life at various points.

Something alone those lines.

[ShawFanX]

And sorry, I would be using the spell checker, but it doesn't seem to be working, and I'm too new here to be able to edit. Some typos may get through.

Loran

[Pahoran]

You have mentioned this a few times now. But what is it's significance? I really don't see why this matters.

Noel just loves to twang away on this one-string fiddle. Nothing he posts matters

[Pahoran]

" As to Backman's revised footnote, it presents to me clear evidence that he is basically a dishonest man. Mark Twain once spoke of lies, damn lies and statistics, with statistics being the biggest lie of all. Backman certainly confirms this judgement. In the first place, even through I wrote him and pointed out to him that the statistics are for the conference years and not the calendar years, he is still putting forth the same old misinformation, The Methodist Conference met July 1, 19819, July 20, 1820 and July, 19, 1821, and the statistics reported under the date of 1819 are for the year beginning in July, 1818 and ending July1st 1819. The same is the case for 1820and 1821. What his figures show is that in the spring of 1820, as reflected in the 1820 report the whole district was having a poor year." letter WPW 25/9/1974

Noel-eeew,

If you're going to call Milton Backman a liar, then please be honest enough to do so in your own right, instead of palming off your false accusation on a dead anti-Mormon.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Robert F. Smith]

With me? I think that perhaps you have me mixed up with someone else. In any case, Mr. Quinn's behavior and his attitudes and beliefs regarding the Church, along a number of dimensions, do not seem to comport well with what it ultimately means to be a "believer" in the restored gospel. I understand such belief to be systemic; one cannot determine to accept one aspect of it, and reject other aspects, fragmenting its holistic nature as a logically and conceptually interconected system, and especially core aspects such as central elements of the Lord's law of human sexual relations, nor of making a literary career attacking and impuging the Lord's servents in our particular age, without fragmenting one's own connection to it.

Sorry, Loran,

I did have you confused with someone else. However, we can still do lunch together at FAIR. I'll look for your name-tag.

Meantime, it might be well to exercise caution in assaying who is and is not a believer, and to what degree. Both Martin,Harris and Oliver Cowdery came back, even if David Whitmer did not (at least he never denied his testimony). I always appreciated the more broad-minded view of my old philosophy teacher, David Yarn, who typically referred to a variety of non-Mormons as "brother," e.g., Brother Leibniz. What you have said is true, but not very kind.

[Kerry A. Shirts]

I am hesitant to jump in and show my ignorance but I was thinking something similar. How do you prove the historicity of an event witnessed by a single person and where no tangible physical evidence is left to investigate?

You can't. It is left up to faith, in other words, believe but not because of evidence.

[volgadon]

Sorry, Loran,

I did have you confused with someone else. However, we can still do lunch together at FAIR. I'll look for your name-tag.

Meantime, it might be well to exercise caution in assaying who is and is not a believer, and to what degree. Both Martin,Harris and Oliver Cowdery came back, even if David Whitmer did not (at least he never denied his testimony). I always appreciated the more broad-minded view of my old philosophy teacher, David Yarn, who typically referred to a variety of non-Mormons as "brother," e.g., Brother Leibniz. What you have said is true, but not very kind.

It seems that this is Loran Blood, so that would explain it.

[ShawFanX]

You can't. It is left up to faith, in other words, believe but not because of evidence.

Faith, correctly understood, is evidence. You have just made a massive reverse catagory error. There is no necessary reason to think that "faith," in the much more nuanced gospel sense, is opposed to or different than "evidence," depending upon what counts as evidence for what kind of phenomena.

[ShawFanX]

What you have said is true, but not very kind.

Sometimes, truth has to be spoken regardless.

Nor has Quinn's hostile revisionsist history, almost soley dedicated to impuging present day General Authorities and calling the institutional Church into continual ethical question, been "kind."

Nor have other far more tightly wound forays into self interested and ideologically motivated revisionist history, such as Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example been particularly "kind" in their claims and insinuations.

[Hamba Tuhan]

You can't. It is left up to faith, in other words, believe but not because of evidence.

I personally find it helpful that, from the beginning of the Restoration, the invitation has been not simply to believe because of someone's claims but to replicate the experience: 'I don't blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself' (Joseph Smith, Jnr).

[CASteinman]

deleted by moderator

I feel sad that there are such shallow and bitter views as those expressed here. Were you a Mormon once?

[Robert F. Smith]

deleted by moderator

Fawn Brodie began with the same set of bitter, a priori assumptions, and proceeded to find evidence to fit them. Hugh Nibley called her on her lack of good history writing, which is understandable given her lack of any training in that area. Later, professional non-Mormon historians criticized her biography of Thomas Jefferson for the very same failures which Nibley had pointed out in her bio of Joseph Smith.

There is nothing new under the sun, Noel, and sexual obsession is not the only failing possessed by humans -- Nixon, for example, preferred money and power.

As for the Book of Abraham, I know of no evidence that it is spurious, although plenty of polemicists want it to be ("If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry"), and the same is true of the Book of Mormon -- it fits very well into an ancient Mesoamerican environment. Just wishing for something doesn't make it so.

[Scott Lloyd]

You don't know of any contradictions? Perhaps you should come and hear the answer to that.

Chris, and now you, speak of such contradictions as though the matter of their presence is axiomatic. I say it's not self-evident to me, and I've done a fair amount of reading on the subject.

So if there's something I'm missing, let's hear it. No point in being coy.

[noel00]

Brodie ended up (thanks to Wes Walters) being correct that the 1826 trial did occur. Attempting to discredit her over the Jefferson bio fails because it seems the consenus is that Sally Hemmings was Jefferson's concubine.(DNA, circumstantial evidence). At Monticello I understand they now accept the Sally Hemmings/Jefferson relationship. See the books by Annette Gordon-Reed.

Did Brigham Young take Zina Huntington off Brother Jacobs. How would u feel if Monson came and took your wife off you and said she was sealed to him for eternity. Go and find another for yourself and also go on a mission. The stretcher is available if this is all too much for you.

Baer showed that Nibley was not using sources correctly (see Chris Smith's site) in defending the BOA.

I can be certain that in ten or twenty years no evidence will be found for the cities of Nephi and Zarahelma.