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First Of A Series Of Tough Issues Tackled By Lds.org


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Yes. This should hardly be surprising. Circumstances change over time to the effect that while it might be appropriate to keep something undisclosed at one time, there may be propriety in disclosing it later. The events on the Mount of Transfiguration are an example of this, where the Savior enjoined his apostles to tell no one of it at the time, yet it was later included as part of the scriptural record.

 

Maybe because he had told them not to, and they were under the impression it was best left to Joseph to discuss it.

 

 

As I said, a garbled rumor regarding angelic visitation but not mentioning a visit from Deity might well have been enough to excite persecution -- and to discourage Joseph from saying much more about the experience.

 

And, like I said, your resistance to it does not make it irreconcilable.

 

Whatever you think, I don't appreciate being told I'm "resisting" something intentionally. That's not fair, and it's not true.

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Whatever you think, I don't appreciate being told I'm "resisting" something intentionally. That's not fair, and it's not true.

You were saying you can't figure out why some people didn't write more about it.  I saw some explanations given but I can see how you still might not be able get it without necessarily resisting those explanations.  They just don't make any sense to you, or just don't feel like the right explanation.

 

For some people it just takes some more time and some more thought for the right idea to stand out as the right explanation.

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That is almost always the case, in my observation. It's called slanting. Or taking material out of context. Or sophistry.

 

It's called painting a story.  Everyone does it.  The church as much as "the critics."  I prefer not to beat critics with a stick that would inevitable apply just as well to church historians. 

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Which would be consistent with the fact that the missionaries are not sent out to argue or debate people into the Church.

Well that would surely cause a debate if they didn't have facts. They would be disagreeing atleast. Then find out later they were incorrect and the investigater knew more then the representative of the church, themselves. Pretty awkward position to be in. The church needs to arm them with true church history not to teach with but to be able to handle questions if there be any.
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Nah, I'll just bow out, as I don't need it to get any more personal than you are making it.

Didn't mean to offend nor to make it personal.

 

Part of the problem is I was trying to dash off a post right at the time when I had to rush off to a meeting, so I didn't have time to choose my words more carefully and have not had opportunity until now to explain.

 

Maybe I shouldn't have posted at all just then. But in that event, everyone would have been left hanging with your objection to my use of the word "resistance," and it would have looked like I was deliberately ignoring you.

 

I'm not certain it will help matters at this point, but I'll go back into my post and substitute the phrase "lack of acceptance" for the word "resistance."

Edited by Scott Lloyd
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It's called painting a story.  Everyone does it.  The church as much as "the critics."  I prefer not to beat critics with a stick that would inevitable apply just as well to church historians. 

I reject this categorically.

 

Whatever Church historians may have been accused of in the past, their behavior is not even in the same league with that of the Church's hostile critics.

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Well that would surely cause a debate if they didn't have facts. They would be disagreeing atleast. Then find out later they were incorrect and the investigater knew more then the representative of the church, themselves. Pretty awkward position to be in. The church needs to arm them with true church history not to teach with but to be able to handle questions if there be any.

If they don't know something then they should just say that they don't know about that. 

 

What they're there to testify about is what they do know.

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I believe the argument is more that he is using the term "Lord" as a noun applied to the two different individuals....as consig points out in the same way he later uses "personages".

I still don't see a problem here. Maybe I need to have the dots connected for me.

 

I myself am apt to use the expression "Lord" to apply to either the Father or the Son -- or to both collectively in the sense that They are both "one God."

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I still don't see a problem here. Maybe I need to have the dots connected for me.

 

I myself am apt to use the expression "Lord" to apply to either the Father or the Son -- or to both collectively in the sense that They are both "one God."

I don't see a problem either...I assume people who have a problem think he is just talking about one person though and using the title for the same person in both cases.

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Weren't their examples where Joseph said the first vision was either Moroni or Nephi? Were those covered? I don't currently have them in front of me, and I could be completely mistaken. I'm remembering bits and pieces of that and also one involving a frog, and one involving masonic clothes, and one with a moroni with his throat slit.

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Some will claim -- falsely -- that Joseph's accounts of the First Vision contradict each other. They don't, of course.

 

When someone makes this claim, it's a possible indication to me that he/she hasn't really considered or studied the matter very carefully.

Talk about writing off someone who disagrees with you.  They don't see things the way I do, so they must not be informed.

I think the 1832 account only mentions him conversing with the Lord.  That could bother people and can be seen as a contradiction.  Also many of the acounts vary on age which is also a contradiction.  While I in no way see these as deal breakers I can understand why some might.  I feel there are good explanations for this idea of a narrative that is not told the exact same way each time.  But to say there are no contradictions and anyone who sees one is ill informed is nonsense

Edited by DBMormon
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I'm glad that FairMormon  has this testimonials page. I would like to see it made more prominent, as there are critics, such as Dehlin, who are constantly claiming that apologists for the Church do more  harm than good and that they "drive people away."

 

We have always had testimonials. We have simply never posted any of them for anyone to see until now.

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Talk about writing off someone who disagrees with you.  They don't see things the way I do, so they must not be informed.

I think the 1832 account only mentions him conversing with the Lord.  That could bother people and can be seen as a contradiction.  Also many of the acounts vary on age which is also a contradiction.  While I in no way see these as deal breakers I can understand why some might.  I feel there are good explanations for this idea of a narrative that is not told the exact same way each time.  But to say there are no contradictions and anyone who sees one is ill informed is nonsense

 

Actually, only one account varies on age: the 1832 account. Frederick G. Williams inserted the phrase "in the 16th year of my age" between the lines of Joseph's handwriting in the 1832 account. The rest of the accounts state age 14.

 

There is one unique account written by Oliver Cowdery that starts describing the build up to the First Vision at age 14, then in the second installment 8 weeks later he switches the age to 17 and describes Moroni's visit instead. There is much more to be said about that account, but not right now...

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Weren't their examples where Joseph said the first vision was either Moroni or Nephi? Were those covered? I don't currently have them in front of me, and I could be completely mistaken. I'm remembering bits and pieces of that and also one involving a frog, and one involving masonic clothes, and one with a moroni with his throat slit.

 

The "Nephi/Moroni" thing refers to Moroni's visit, not the First Vision.

 

http://en.fairmormon.org/Moroni%27s_visit/Nephi_or_Moroni

Edited by Wiki Wonka
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If Joseph had what Barney called this "sacred sensibility" about divine matters, It is perfectly reasonable to believe that he might elect to be very guarded about disclosing it -- even to family members -- while at the same time, choosing to discuss it with a minister, one whom he regarded as a man of God and one whom Joseph, in his teenage naivete, had reason to believe would be, at the very least, respectful.

 

Did Joseph tell others in addition to the minister, or was the news spread because of the minister's own rumor-mongering?

 

By the way, I have added a link in my post above to the transcript of Barney's presentation. I invite you to read and consider it.

 

I don't think that the news spread at all. I think that Joseph told one or two ministers and was strongly rebuffed. I don't think he told his family about it.

 

I have five kids. It doesn't take much for a 14-year-old to feel persecuted.

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Talk about writing off someone who disagrees with you.  They don't see things the way I do, so they must not be informed.

 

He was speaking of possibilities while you responded in absolutes including your conclusion about nonsense.

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He was speaking of possibilities while you responded in absolutes including your conclusion about nonsense.

 

 

It is frustrating that in our desire to hold our truth we sometimes shut out the possibility that one can be informed and come to a different conclusion then oneself.  While I hold the gospel as true, I don't consider those who disagree as possibly uninformed simply because they disagree.  I truly believe more then one conclusion on the Church's truth claims are valid in that it is reasonable for two people, just as smart, just as knowledgeable, and just as spiritual to disagree on the truth claims of the Church... and too often it seems people on both sides see anyone who is on the opposite side of the discussion as ill-informed and not truth seeking.

 

Scott, I am sorry If I misread your comment.  I assumed you were insinuating that anyone who saw contradictions likely had not read the historical record.  If that is not what your saying, I would love for you to clarify

Edited by DBMormon
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All of which is easily explained in terms of Joseph's "sacred sensibility" as discussed by Ron Barney in his FairMormon Conference presentation.

jkwilliams has not said whether he has bothered to read that yet. Have you?

Here, once again, is the link.

I got about half way through the link before I had to take off for the evening so forgive me if it discusses these two questions. Where was his "sacred sensibility" in regards to Moroni's visit which he didn't seem to have a problem disclosing to others? Why did he lose this sensibility just a few years later when he published the First Vision account for all to see in The Times and Seasons?

Edit: I see he later discusses his reasonings for Times and Seasons publication.

Edited by omni
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Actually, the First Vision was mentioned—albeit obliquely—in the Book of Commandments (and subsequent editions of the Doctrine and Covenants). See verse 6 on page 48 (= D&C 20:5).

Just checked your link, I think you might need to italicizes, bold, and triple underline the word "obliquely" in your post. ;)

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Joseph's mother recalled:

 

From this time [the First Vision] until the twenty-first of September, 1823 [when he saw the angel Moroni] Joseph continued, as usual, to labour with his father, and nothing during this interval occurred of very great importance—though he suffered, as one would naturally suppose, every kind of opposition and persecution from the different orders of religionists.  Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool, S.W. Richards, 1853), 78

 

That was not in the original version of Lucy's history but in the Coray/Pratt version later.

 

So your claim is that she's lying?

 

In addition, Lucy's 1831 letter contains the FV theme.  Not only that, but two months earlier, Oliver Cowdery, Orson Pratt, Peter Whitmer Jr. and Ziba Peterson taught publicly that Joseph Smith had seen God. In the newspaper article where this information is found (The Palmyra Reflector, vol. 2, no. 13 (14 February 1831) the notion, not vague as some critics have claimed before their unsuspecting and gullible audiences, that JS "had seen God frequently and personally.

Edited by BCSpace
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