John C Bennett - Assistant to the Prophet Joseph Smith - Scheme to Murder?

[Bob Crockett]

Again, the exception does not make the rule for what constitutes academic rigor. 

Please don't personalize it.  I don't look down on people with websites and without degrees.  Except -- when they claim to be an authority and make authoritative conclusions, you must check credentials.  Are we to respect Dr. James White and his anti Mormon ministry where his doctorate came from a correspondence course, or should we make him equal with Dr. Armand Mauss?  Michael Quinn?  Bernard De Voto?  Kathleen Flake?

I know it is all too easy to say that we should ignore degrees and look at what people are saying, but as a general rule website promoters without degrees aren't visiting professors at Yale, editors of prestigious journals, head societies or serve as peer reviewers.  There may be exceptions, but just because my Pinto ran flawlessly for 20 years does not make the car reliable as a class. 

Edited November 13, 2017 by Bob Crockett

[Anijen]

52 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

I don't look down on people... without degrees.  Except -- when they claim to be an authority and make authoritative conclusions, you must check credentials. 

By what you wrote (above), it does appear you do look down on people without degrees. IMO There are many people without doctorates who still can be a qualified authority and as such can and do make authoritative conclusions.

 

Quote

Are we to respect Dr. James White and his anti Mormon ministry where his doctorate came from a correspondence course, or should we make him equal with Dr. Armand Mauss?  Michael Quinn?  Bernard De Voto?  Kathleen Flake?

I agree we should not respect pseudo claims of doctorates or of a doctorate from a diploma mill. Having said that, one still can be considered an authority and make authoritative conclusions without the credentials. Recall the Honorable Robert H. Jackson; the only person who has ever held an office as U.S. Solicitor General, United States Attorney General, and a Supreme Court Justice. He was also the Chief Prosecutor in the Nuremburg Trials, yet he had never attended law school or received a J.D. (credentials).

I once defended a dissertation I wrote when presenting at the Missouri Valley History Conference. At the time I had neither PhD., MA., nor my B.S. Because I was a non-traditional student with the well aged look, I was assumed to be in a graduate course in History. I was presenting at the conference seeking professional qualification (another reason for a dissertation). I was peer reviewed then and have been since with other papers I have written.

In my opinion, people may be qualified as an "authority and make authoritative conclusions" in the areas they study. I have since gone on to receive graduate degrees and graduate level certificates however, I do not (yet) possess a PhD. (I do, now, have a J.D. and will be working on more in the future).

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by Anijen

[Bob Crockett]

Yet another who argues the exception is the rule. 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Bob Crockett

[Anijen]

11 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

There you go.  Yet another who argues the exception is the rule.  It is like saying that because some rare persons who suffer from autism have extraordinary arithmetic skills, all persons with autism are geniuses.  I give up. 

I have a son with autism and he has as near a photographic memory as one can have. One day, he was reciting Lord of the Rings and it started getting annoying, I told him to be quiet, then I felt bad and said "recite it backwards." He started from the end and began reciting it backwards.

Edited to say, my point was not that there are exceptions, but that one absolutely can be authoritative without the alphabet soup following his name.

 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Anijen

[Bob Crockett]

Well, then, why don't you go right ahead and trust all the "Backyard Professors" out there who claim to be experts in Mormon history.  I think it foolish.  But I could be wrong.

[Web Of Slime]

Bennett shows up out of nowhere, becomes part of church leadership, performs abortions and maybe other types of birth control for the purpose of facilitating adultery (some claim not just his own adultery, but the adultery of others in church leadership), then after revealing "spiritual wifery" and that Joseph Smith Jr practices it, is excommunicated, but supposedly parts ways amicably after signing something to the effect that Bennett was practicing spiritual wifery, but Joseph Smith Jr was not. Bennett later claims the Danites tried to kill him.

Though the church and Bennett seemingly parted ways amicably, the lie he told was made obvious by the Nauvoo Expositor, who made further accusations of spiritual wifery and named names. In the meantime, Bennett did turn a bit vitriolic against the church.

Quote

"I have been induced to prepare and publish the following work by a desire to expose the enormous iniquities which have perpetrated by one of the grosses and most infamous impostors that ever appeared upon the face of the earth, and by many of his minions, under the name and garb of Religion, and professedly by the direct will and command of Almighty God."

Later, Bennett joined with the Strangites and embraced multiple wives before being excommunicated AGAIN.

He is a very curious character in LDS history. He joined, left, joined another faction and, ultimately, seemed more interested in "free love" than anything else and his penchant for it repeatedly got him in trouble.

[kiwi57]

On 11/9/2017 at 5:24 AM, stemelbow said:

Even humbugs have something in them that is noble and worthy. 

He was, perhaps, ahead of his time--a shameless promoted. 

No one knows if he conspired to kill joseph or have him killed.  There were a lot of rumors, in secret society type fashion of murder in Nauvoo.  A really difficult time in church history.  In some ways, some may wonder if Bennett, among others, became the fall men for the secret schemes left, perhaps, many schemers covered up.  His bravado was likely the reason he was an easy target. 

I wouldn't quote Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning for anything relevant to LDS history, of which she frankly knew little.

Bennett does not appear to have been anyone that Joseph trusted with Plural Marriage. He merely used the rumours about it for his own advantage.

[JLHPROF]

9 minutes ago, kiwi57 said:

I wouldn't quote Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning for anything relevant to LDS history, of which she frankly knew little.

Bennett does not appear to have been anyone that Joseph trusted with Plural Marriage. He merely used the rumours about it for his own advantage.

Not sure I can fully agree with either of these statements.

Ann Eliza is not a reliable source to be sure.  But I think that's due more to her personal history, not due to a lack of knowledge of Church history.  She was raised in a time when history wasn't so historical, and she was married to Brigham.  I doubt she was completely ignorant of Church history given her environment.

Bennett was certainly trusted by Joseph in the beginning, and given Joseph's many plural marriages and Bennett's position I doubt he operated on rumor alone.
But I do think Joseph was wise enough to never permit Bennett to enter plural marriage, receive endowments, or give him apostolic keys.  Sometimes I think Joseph used Bennett for political expediency as much as Bennett tried to use Joseph.

[kiwi57]

29 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Not sure I can fully agree with either of these statements.

Ann Eliza is not a reliable source to be sure.  But I think that's due more to her personal history, not due to a lack of knowledge of Church history.  She was raised in a time when history wasn't so historical, and she was married to Brigham.  I doubt she was completely ignorant of Church history given her environment.

And most of her book was ghost-written by an established anti-Mormon hack writer named J. H. Beadle.

Ann Eliza was never particularly close to Brigham, and wasn't particularly interested in religion. That doesn't add up to boosting her credibility very much.

29 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Bennett was certainly trusted by Joseph in the beginning, and given Joseph's many plural marriages and Bennett's position I doubt he operated on rumor alone.
But I do think Joseph was wise enough to never permit Bennett to enter plural marriage, receive endowments, or give him apostolic keys.

In which case it seems unlikely that he would have told him any details about those things.

It is clear that Bennett used the lack of knowledge about a practice that was being carefully guarded to facilitate his own misbehaviours.

29 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

 Sometimes I think Joseph used Bennett for political expediency as much as Bennett tried to use Joseph.

It's not clear to me how Joseph saw Bennett. Certainly he liked him and was impressed with his talents at first. Perhaps he even trusted him for a time; Joseph was a remarkably trusting person, despite everything that happened to him.