Mormons hold up the fact that many of these guys never recanted their witness even after leaving the church, but to me that always seemed like a non-argument because they would be implicating themselves as fools, liars, con men, etc. Why would they admit to it?
I have heard others say that, but I don't agree. They have to wear the implication of being fools anyway because they followed Joseph Smith and sacrificed for the church, and then were badly let down by it. They expected great things but were badly disappointed. I think it would have been much easier for them to say they were mistaken and deceived/fooled by all of it than to maintain their testimony in what all their associates would always believe was impossible and ridiculous. I think it cost them much to not recant.
@@MichelleBStone The skeptic in me also believes they probably did recant privately. If the LDS church had proof it would be sealed up in their vault for time and all eternity.
@@thelastgoonie6555 I thought there were statements from them much later in life still affirming their experiences. Why do you think they recanted? I don't think there is any evidence to support that, and much to contradict it. (BYW I'm not operating on motivated reasoning. I have no idea what to think. I'm just trying to look for the best evidence.)
@@MichelleBStone Have you seen the list of names that Joseph Smith called the witnesses? LoL Liars, Scoundrels, Horse Thieves, Fornicators, Counterfeiters...just to name a few. Is that a trustworthy bunch to promote? The whole thing is nuts.
@@MichelleBStone The other issue that gets glossed over is that of "Second Sight" or "Spiritual Sight" which was common understanding back then. Martin Harris in particular has several statements on the topic. CES Curriculum must have had another "oversight" when they neglected to describe this practice as well.
Oliver is totally in on it. In 1832-1834, he made up the priesthood restoration story. He was scribe for 80% of the book of Mormon and knew that it was done with the hat and stone, yet he repeatedly stated that the Nephite interpreters - the "Urim and Thummim" were used after 1834. His story changed over time and he was clearly comfortable with lying. Harris and Whitmer were probably sincere, but Oliver was definitely willing to tell lies in order to build a plausible narrative. While I don't believe that Oliver wrote parts of the BOM, the conversations which he had with Joseph during the writing process seem to have influenced the text.
@@henochparks Best to tell the truth indeed. See footnote 32 in the gospel topics essay on BOM translation. Look up the source: "There is said to have been in the box with the plates two transparent stones in the form of spectacles thro which the translator looked on the engraving & afterwards put his face into a hat & the interpretation then flowed into his mind." Note that Joseph was putting his head in the hat for the translation. This contradicts Oliver's other accounts. In other words, Oliver's account is highly suspect because he changed it over time. Whitmer and Harris were consistent and more honest. They also descripted the spectacles as being white or greyish and translucent to all except Joseph. In all cases, Oliver's account is different and he looks like the fibber. I'm not the one making things up, it's Oliver. Even Royal Skousen from BYU comes to this conclusion. He recently wrote "Thus Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."
@@henochparks Mormon Scholars, believing and non have concluded that Joseph stopped using the magical spectacles, later called Urim and Thummim (1832) prior to loosing the 116 pages. All of the current Book of Mormon was translated with the brown rock in the hat. Royal Skousen has written about this, as have others working for the church. This isn't controversial - it's simply history. Happy to provide additional references if you need them.
@@henochparks I've added links, but they are removed by TH-cam. From Royal Skousen (interpreter foundation, totally faithful, BYU): "The Book of Mormon, as we have it today (the result of losing the 116 manuscript pages), was most probably all translated by means of a seer stone that Joseph Smith had." and "Thus Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."
The Book of Mormon is not that well-written of a book. It's full of anachronisms, a jumping around of the timeline, repeated use of common phrases, and impossibilities in terms of nature and geography. Methodist Exhorter patterns are also found in the book. Joseph did not need to be a genius to write it. I think Joseph likely thought he could do better and the lost 116 pages forced his hand to complete it sooner. I think if he lived longer, he would have added to it or come out with a second book. Also, the scribes likely did not tell the full story of their experience with the dictation - the likelihood of them telling a partial version of what happened is pretty high IMO.
I don't know about it being as simple as claimed. When I read the original printers manuscript it is actually very fascinating. I do like the theory of some kind of DMT drug or something that was most likely used for most spiritual events.
JS was pretty creative but he was no Shakespeare or Dickens or Balzac or even Stephen King. He claimed 2/3 of the plates were sealed and at some point he would’ve “gotten the plates back” and written BoM.2. On the other hand, the growth of the church and the amazing availability of women and girls kept him awfully busy just keeping the Council of 50 moving along, the Danites targeting the right apostates and especially preventing Emma from finding out about his other “wives.” (Annoys me the women he had affairs with and the girls he sexually and emotionally abused are referred to as wives.)
It would be interesting to see Bill revisit these subjects from where he is in his faith journey now without the apologist spin. Are his thoughts and feelings about the ‘witnesses’ still along the same lines, has further study in the subject and the loss of faith changed these?
Joseph Smith as author of the Book of Mormon… 1. Joseph Smith was immersed in the Bible and the Christian myth and Biblical story and language since childhood. 2. By 14-y.o., Smith was already a precocious reader of the Bible plus an astute observer and critic of sectarian Christian creeds and controversy and contention. 3. Smith had been both a debater and exhorter as a youth in his Christian community. 4. Smith had been working on the story in his mind for at least 6 years, since at least 1823. 5. Smith was recognized as a talented verbal story teller. 6. Smith had already embraced the popular Mound-builder myth, including the destruction in the Americas of an ancient and more advanced light-skinned people by a savage dark-skinned people. 7. Smith had also embraced the popular myth concerning the origins of the Native Americans as Hebrews or Israelites. 8. In agreement with B.H.Roberts, Joseph Smith was familiar with Ethan Smith’s ‘View of the Hebrews,’ either personally from a copy within his own home, or hearing or knowing of it, or from just the common cultural ‘knowledge’ reflected in Ethan Smith’s book. 9. Harold Bloom recognized Smith as an authentic religious genius, while B.H.Roberts compared his vivid and creative imagination favorably with Shakespeare. 10. Still in agreement with B.H.Roberts, the Book of Mormon nevertheless is the product of an immature and undeveloped mind. 11. Smith had 116 pages of huge and invaluable practice. 12. Following the loss of the 116 pages, Smith had months of downtime to further revise and develop the story in his mind. 13. Resuming dictation before Cowdery showed up, we don’t know how many pages Smith dictated, nor how many that left still to be dictated. 14. Regardless, during his final creative spurt with Oliver Cowdery, Smith at most needed to dictate only 7-9 pages of per day, including what came from the KJV. 15. At the end of each day’s dictation, Smith still had hours into the evening and night to work in his mind on only the next days’ 7-9 pages. 16. Although superficially complex, the Book of Mormon is really quite a simplistic narrative of flat 1- and 2-dimensional characters in a simple moving time-slice, without any great literary merit nor complexity of story or plot, logic or nuance, nor any complex interaction or dependencies of past to present or future. 17. The Book of Mormon is excessively padded with a large amount of unnecessary and pretentious verbiage that adds nothing, and does not reflect any economy of speech or narrative demanded by limited space on metal plates that were difficult to inscribe. 18. The Book of Mormon is extremely repetitive. 19. The Christianity and theology that Smith poured into the Book of Mormon was common and familiar and right out of his own Christian world, including the specific sectarian controversies that he gave a solution (or failed miserably, as with Mosiah 15:1-5). 20. To a very large degree, the Book of Mormon is just a highly contrived “second witness” to: 1) Smith’s own 19th-century highly orthodox sectarian Protestant Christianity; 2) the KJV; 3) Ethan Smith’s ‘View of the Hebrews’ in a very clever quasi-historical narrative solution to Ethan’s quasi-data for both the Mound-builders and the Native Americans as Hebrews. . The fine-grained details of Smith’s invention are lost to history but are not needed to recognize the Book of Mormon as a massively self-falsifying modern invention by a 19th-century sectarian Protestant Christian with the KJV. Long before anybody even went looking, the Book of Mormon internally predicted the bust in archeology with 100% certainty. And, of course, it came to pass. If a person is convinced by word-print studies that the Book of Mormon is multi-author work that doesn’t include Smith, then it’s their task to propose who those 19th-century Christian authors are. And they need to publish their word-print studies and conclusions in the legitimate peer-reviewed academic professional and scholarly literature. For TBM’s who still assert word-print studies; or assert an inexplicable literary and Semitic complexity in the Book of Mormon - including Hebraicisms or EModE in the Book of Mormon, for instance - or assert Egyptian & Semitic influence in Native American languages; or assert maybe the archeology or other evidence in John Sorenson’s ‘Mormon’s Codex,’ those are scholarly arguments that need to be published and argued in the more rigorous and independent academic upper-tier peer-reviewed literature, not within the Mormon bubble at FAIR or BYU-NMI or Deseret Book or Dan Peterson’s ‘Interpreter,’ or on a Mormon blog.
We should not assume that older people always reveal what they have done wrong. All of them had families that could have been harmed by people learning the truth about such a demanding religion. And since the Church required its members to tithe, there was also the possibility that they could be charged with fraud.
RFM pointed out that the hat was white, not black. He's pretending that it's dark, but it's likely that he could, in fact, see, and that there might have been a false bottom.
The content, conclusions, and general theme of this discussion differs so markedly from Reel's other discussions, both prior and after, that one must conclude he took a sip from the well again and had a momentary lapse of sanity. That said, why not start with the BofM as is and work backward? There is absolutely no scholarship to support the veracity or even possibility of the BofM. There is no academician in the fields of archeology, anthropology, history, linguistics, Egyptology, or DNA science that would give the slightest credence to the BM being anything but fiction. No academician not on BYU's payroll that is. It is virtually impossible for these vast and complex societies to have existed without leaving an archeological trace for example. The city of Zarahemla alone would rise to that if it had been a real place. Mormons can't even agree within two continents where it all was. I for one can attest to what historians consider a legitimate document. If it contains even one anachronism, no matter how trivial, the document is deemed phony. Need we discuss the anachronisms, some laughable, in the BM that are too numerous to describe here? Apologists like Tapir Dan may be able to please a receptive and non critical mormon audience, but I can guarantee he would be laughed out of the room if he presented his "research" to a symposium of credentialed historians. By any standard measure of reason, the BM is phony, fiction to use a more charitable description. From this starting point, it is not difficult to research the origins of the BM and derive any number of highly plausible scenarios in which Smith, along with various collaborators, including family members and well known figures, had at least two years to develop the BofM. My recommendation, start with Dan Vogel's work. Well researched, well documented and footnoted, and very resourceful.
@@MormonDiscussion why not clear up the confusion and add a "recorded on date" to the title, or simply a dash and then the date? I know it would take work, but it wouldn't require a reupload. It would add context and understanding of what the content is. From looking at your channel directly, maybe it is apparent that these are uploads of old content. But that isn't how people find the video. It's suggested in their feed and they assume the upload date is the date of the discussion. And the assumption is fair because there is no indication otherwise. It's great that this older content is available now on TH-cam. It's cool to see how views have changed over the years. Thanks for uploading! I primarily use TH-cam for content, and now I can listen to this and have the algorithm suggest other Mormon discussion content.
Plus, the very premise of the Book of Mormon is preposterous. Which is exposed before Smith’s totally phony Israelites - supposedly _”with the learning of the Jews”_ - are hardly even out of Jerusalem, and easily abandon both Yahweh and his name and go chasing after foreign gods and a false messiah.
@@MormonDiscussion The book of Mormon is A fraud , let's Take Nephi Shall we, Nephi Copied Of 20 chapters From the Book of Isaiah the Question is Why if Nephi was such a prophet or what ever he was
Right. Why this dude thinks it's proof to clear Harris is silly. It's the kind of inductive reasoning church apologists would use. How can we believe anything these so called witnesses say? Leaving the church doesn't change that they would admit to being liars in claiming the Book of Mormon was legit. Also, saying Oliver Cowdery being so called successful relative to jobs and finances proves what? It's long been obvious to me that all three were part of the deception.
@@roburry What's silly is that it's obvious that it has got history completely wrong, and you know it. You're not that dumb. How about the fact that the Native Americans did NOT come from Israel? They have Asian DNA. That has been proven as a fact. And how about the steel, horses, barley, etc. that never existed? The list goes on and on, but watch--You'll come right back with some sort of smug idiotic response.
These men, especially the scribes, were pious. They likely felt they were in a "grand cause" with Joseph Smith and at no point felt they were engaging in a "fraud" or deception. This was Joseph's version of the Christian story and they were proud to be part of it, as it was new, exciting, and revelatory and religion was a major part of their lives. The key here is the facts and the mechanics of the writing. I think with the tools he learned as a Methodist exhorter, the understanding he had from what he had read and heard read in his home from the KJV Bible, along with his imaginary mind and his natural storytelling ability he "riffed" from memory and a creative mind as he went to dictate the Book of Mormon. He likely carefully thought through the day prior to what he was going to dictate the next day and possibly had had some texts hidden in the room with him. I think the hat allowed him to focus and he could have had pre-written notes in there.
How old is this content? Was it reposted by Bill or someone else? This doesn’t sound like the current Bill. I wondered why he would allude to “our church”.
One of the videos I listened to today said “I’m bill reel, I’m 38 and have 2 callings in the church” lol and I’m like wait you were exed from the church this is old haha
I have been fascinated with wondering if the people who were around Joseph Smith and saw firsthand the formation of the church and what they believed or not. My Great-great-great grandfather was Martin Horton Peck, married to Polly Peck. Oliver Cowdery babptised them on the same day as Lucy Mack Smith and they were in the first branch of the church. I always wonder how much he believed???? I got this a little wrong. Polly was Martins aunt. She was Joseph Knight Sr. first wife
Now that I’ve found Bill Reel, I’m listening to all his podcasts. Thanks for sharing your studies and thoughts, Bill. I like your honest approach. Thanks to the other commentators as well.
Whatever the fine-grained details of it’s creation and regardless by whom - and regardless that some people find the Book of Mormon deep & spiritual & inspiring - it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Book of Mormon is a modern invention by a highly orthodox 19th-century sectarian Christian with the KJV, and who’d never seen the famous “first vision” of Jesus and God as two totally separate and distinct bodily beings and literal father and son, in a story that only pops up in Mormonism in 1838. A person can reasonably wonder whether the modern author was more Modalist than Trinitarian, for instance, or whether he was just confused or undecided in his theology & Christology. But whomever did Mosiah 15:1-5, for instance, or the Trinitarian formula that’s repeated 2 or 3 times in the BoM, never saw that vision nor it’s famous Mormon doctrine that Russell Nelson now gives a Hosanna Shout. And that’s doubly true when considering the 1830 BoM, where the author explicitly made Jesus and God - the Father and Son - one and the same in a highly orthodox and unitarian sense. And on another level entirely, even an atheist studying the Bible carefully can easily see that Judaism if nothing else has at least been right all along about Jesus and the NT and Christianity and the Christian myth. And can easily see that the Book of Mormon Israelites - if they’d ever existed as real people - would have been devout and loyal and pious Yahweh-worshiping and Torah- and Temple-observant Israelites who never would have abandoned either Yahweh or his name and gone chasing after foreign gods and a false messiah. But the Book of Mormon principals, instead, are highly orthodox 19th-century sectarian Protestant Christians with the KJV who are actually dumb as rocks about Yahweh and Torah and Temple, and dumb as rocks about sin and the altar and sacrifice, atonement and forgiveness. And dumb as a sack of hammers about Moshiach. And who unequivocally do not have “the learning of the Jews.” They’re just as profoundly ignorant of Judaism and Torah and Tanakh as Christians and Mormons are today. And the plates of Laban - if they’d ever existed as real things - would have had the name of Yahweh 1000s of times, where the name, itself, was important and boldly declared. The plates of Laban, themselves, would have falsified the Book of Mormon many times over. And the Book of Mormon Christians are totally blind to the reality of Hebrew scripture, that Yahweh is always ready and willing and anxious and wanting to forgive sin with just repentance, with no blood sacrifice sacrifice, and especially without blood sacrifice. And that non-priestly and non-blood atonement and forgiveness is all over Hebrew scripture, and screams unmistakably as a main message, for both Israelites and Jews and Gentiles. And that would have been all over the plates of Laban, too. Lehi and Nephi - if they’d ever existed as real people - would have been just as loyal and faithful to Yahweh as Daniel was in Babylon. And whether in dreams, or whether some angel came around preaching Christianity and Jesus and bloody human Jesus sacrifice, they would have recognized it as manifestly false and remained observant to Yahweh and Torah. And since Joseph Smith also gave them Deutero-Isaiah, they would have known that Yahweh was Elohim and Elohim was Yahweh - Yahweh Elohim - and besides him there are no other gods and no other saviors. They would known that Joseph Smith’s Christianity was false, and that Smith’s later polytheistic or henotheistic innovations were false. And they would have known that the poetic and highly figurative and personified Isaiah 53 - if it was messianic at all - was not and could not be messianic for Jesus. Etc, etc, etc. And even an atheist can see that a virgin-born messiah in the Book of Mormon in 600 BCE - or at all, at any time - and rooted in Isaiah 7 all by itself renders the Book of Mormon a fraud and massively self-falsifying. As does 2 Nephi 10:3. Etc, etc, etc, etc. So regardless of who and how created the Book of Mormon - and I personally believe it was Joseph Smith, himself, and gladly go beyond B.H. Roberts and conclude not only that Smith was capable, but that he did, in fact, create the BoM - it’s easy to rule-out the BoM and judge it a 19th-century Christian fraud, regardless. And which guarantees that no knowledgeable and educated, Hebrew-speaking religious Jew would ever accept it, any more than they accept the New Testament or Jesus. Or any other failed and false messiah. For TBM’s persuaded by word-print studies, or believe Smith incapable, let them propose their alternative 19th-Center Christian author(s). To me, rather than the BoM being an independent 2nd witness to Jesus, it’s a dependent and derivative 2nd witness to the KJV and to Smith’s own highly orthodox 19th-century sectarian Protestant Christianity. And a clever and adapted quasi-history narrative solution and “second witness” to the quasi-data in Ethan Smith’s ‘View of the Hebrews.’
Why do I feel like Bill is being the devils advocate on this one. Really? If anyone with some storytelling talent such as we know Joseph Smith had, could dictate a long narrative from his "spiritual imagination" you don't think that a small handful of the stories and anecdotes wouldn't seem spiritually/socially redeeming? Like any good fictional movie script or book, if the author is so inclined and worth anything as a storyteller, he/she will come up with some good ones and possibly even great ones.
Question: What did Oliver Cowdery's associates say about his character? William Lang, who apprenticed in Cowdery's law office long after he left the Church, knew him for many years William Lang, who apprenticed in Cowdery's law office, knew him for many years. Lang was a member of the Ohio bar, and served as "prosecuting attorney, probate judge, mayor of Tiffin, county treasurer, and two terms in the Ohio senate. He was nominated by his party for major state offices twice." [1] Lang wrote of Cowdery: Mr. Cowdery was an able lawyer and a great advocate. His manners were easy and gentlemanly; he was polite, dignified, yet courteous...With all his kind and friendly disposition, there was a certain degree of sadness that seemed to pervade his whole being. His association with others was marked by the great amount of information his conversation conveyed and the beauty of his musical voice. His addresses to the court and jury were characterized by a high order of oratory, with brilliant and forensic force. He was modest and reserved, never spoke ill of any one, never complained. [2] 1843 announcement in the Seneca Advertiser, Tiffin, Ohio, with Oliver Cowdery and his partner's law practice. Harvey Gibson, a political opponent of Oliver's, and another lawyer, said that Cowdery was an "irreproachable gentleman" Harvey Gibson, a political opponent of Oliver's, and another lawyer (whose statue now stands in front of the Seneca County courthouse) wrote: Cowdery was an able lawyer and [an] agreeable, irreproachable gentleman. [3] Incidents that some have claimed bring Cowdery's character into question DOCUMENT CONTAINING THE CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, &C. IN RELATION TO THE DISTURBANCES WITH THE MORMONS; AND THE EVIDENCE GIVEN BEFORE THE HON. AUSTIN A. KING, JUDGE OF THE FIFTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI, AT THE COURT-HOUSE IN RICHMOND, IN A CRIMINAL COURT OF INQUIRY, BEGUN NOVEMBER 12, 1838, ON THE TRIAL OF JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AND OTHERS, FOR HIGH TREASON AND OTHER CRIMES AGAINST THE STATE Some have used other ways to try and impugn Cowdery's character and bring it into question. One such way is bringing up an 1838 petition signed by 83 Latter-day Saint men accusing Oliver of various crimes[4]. Such incidents have been thoroughly addressed. Balanced context can be found in Latter-day Saint historian Alexander Baugh's PhD dissertation "A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri. Neither Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, nor Hyrum Smith of the First Presidency signed the petition.[5] The document was written by then-apostate Sampson Avard. Furthermore, the allegations in the document are baseless. For example, it was feared that Oliver's desire to become a lawyer would lead to him to defending unsavory criminals or participating in vexatious lawsuits against the Church. When David and Oliver were earlier excommunicated they didn't defend themselves as they thought that church courts didn't have jurisdiction. Some of the Danites inferred guilt from their silence or by association. Historian Jeffrey Walker writes: In April 1838, Oliver Cowdery was tried before a high council court and excommunicated. He did not attend the hearing, claiming that in his role as Assistant President of the Church the high council lacked jurisdiction over him.[6] Nine charges were brought against him. Counts one and seven dealt directly with Cowdery’s interest in or participation as a lawyer: “1st, For stirring up the enemy to persecute the brethren by urging on vexatious lawsuits[7]and thus distressing the innocent,” and “7th, For leaving the calling, in which God had appointed him, by Revelation, for the sake of filthy lucre, and turning to the practice of Law.”[8] While Cowdery did not substantively defend all the charges, he did submit a letter addressed to Bishop Partridge requesting that the council “take no view of the foregoing remarks, other than my belief in the outward governments of the Church.”[9][10] Scott Faulring describes Oliver's exit from the Church and eventual return including these episodes. Cowdery longed to put the strife associated with his June 1838 departure from Far West behind him. The situation, he explained, was "painful to reflect on." In a genuine spirit of reconciliation, Oliver offered his personal interpretation of the circumstances leading to his dismissal. He observed candidly: I believed at the time, and still believe, that ambitious and wicked men, envying the harmony existing between myself and the first elders of the church, and hoping to get into some other men’s birth right, by falsehoods the most foul and wicked, caused all this difficulty from beginning to end. They succeeded in getting myself out of the church; but since they them selves have gone to perdition, ought not old friends-long tried in the furnace of affliction, to be friends still. [11] Oliver also told Brigham and the other members of the Twelve that he did not believe any of them had contributed to his removal and thus he could speak freely with them about returning.[12] In his reply to the Twelve’s invitation, Oliver mentioned a "certain publication," signed by some eighty-three church members then living in Missouri, charging him and others with conspiring with outlaws. [13] Cowdery emphatically denied such an vile indictment. He conceded that he had not seen the offending declaration, but had heard of its existence and the accusations made in it.[14] "SUCH CHARACTERS AS MCLELLIN, JOHN WHITMER, DAVID WHITMER, OLIVER COWDERY, AND MARTIN HARRIS, ARE TOO MEAN TO MENTION; AND WE HAD LIKED TO HAVE FORGOTTEN THEM." Some critics have used a December 1838 quote from the Prophet Joseph Smith to impugn Oliver's character. The above is the standard representation of this quote. Joseph Smith wrote to the Saints on 16 December 1838 to provide comfort to the Saints and update them on his current condition in Liberty Jail: To the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Caldwell county, and all the Saints who are scattered abroad, who are persecuted, and made desolate, and who are afflicted in divers manners for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, by the hands of a cruel mob and the tyrannical disposition of the authorities of this state; and whose perils are greatly augmented by the wickedness and corruption of false brethren, greeting: May grace, mercy, and the peace of God be and abide with you; and notwithstanding all your sufferings, we assure you that you have our prayers and fervent desires for your welfare, day and night. We believe that that God who seeth us in this solitary place, will hear our prayers, and reward you openly. Know assuredly, dear brethren, that it is for the testimony of Jesus that we are in bonds and in prison. But we say unto you, that we consider that our condition is better (notwithstanding our sufferings) than that of those who have persecuted us, and smitten us, and borne false witness against us; and we most assuredly believe that those who do bear false witness against us, do seem to have a great triumph over us for the present. [15] By this time, all of the three witnesses had fallen away from the Church after severe disagreements with Joseph Smith. This is why Joseph Smith published the comment in the letter-Joseph was angry with them: Was it for committing adultery that we were assailed? We are aware that that false slander has gone abroad, for it has been reiterated in our ears. These are falsehoods also. Renegade "Mormon" dissenters are running through the world and spreading various foul and libelous reports against us, thinking thereby to gain the friendship of the world, because they know that we are not of the world, and that the world hates us; therefore they [the world] make a tool of these fellows [the dissenters]; and by them try to do all the injury they can, and after that they hate them worse than they do us, because they find them to be base traitors and sycophants. Such characters God hates; we cannot love them. The world hates them, and we sometimes think that the devil ought to be ashamed of them. We have heard that it is reported by some, that some of us should have said, that we not only dedicated our property, but our families also to the Lord; and Satan, taking advantage of this, has perverted it into licentiousness, such as a community of wives, which is an abomination in the sight of God. When we consecrate our property to the Lord it is to administer to the wants of the poor and needy, for this is the law of God; it is not for the benefit of the rich, those who have no need; and when a man consecrates or dedicates his wife and children, he does not give them to his brother, or to his neighbor, for there is no such law: for the law of God is, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already in his heart. Now for a man to consecrate his property, wife and children, to the Lord, is nothing more nor less than to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the widow and fatherless, the sick and afflicted, and do all he can to administer to their relief in their afflictions, and for him and his house to serve the Lord. In order to do this, he and all his house must be virtuous, and must shun the very appearance of evil. [Page 231] Now if any person has represented anything otherwise than what we now write, he or she is a liar, and has represented us falsely-and this is another manner of evil which is spoken against us falsely.[16]
The fact that none of the witnesses recanted means a lot less than people think it does (IMHO). Nobody is going to come out and say that they have been lying to everyone for years. Also, just think about how difficult it is for people today to come out and say the church isn't true. If you were one of the 'founders' it seems life it would be much more difficult than for a church member today. Finally, these guys knew where their bread was buttered. Their value/livelihood is based on being in the church (or at least church adjacent). To 'worldly people' these guys were just gullible losers. To the LDS church they are heros sent by God.
Plus, if Smith staged something for his witnesses - including some metal plates of his own manufacture, at least for the 8 - and they actually believed it, why would they ever recant, anyway? The reality is, these so-called “witnesses” are totally worthless as either evidence or argument for the actual truth claims made by the Mormon church, of *_ancient_* metal plates and script, and of actual *_translation_* and *_the gift and power of God._*
I don't think Joseph wrote this book, if he were to write a book to start a religion, the stories, events, names, other books included in the book like the Book of Ether, would not make sense at all, it would be hard for him to convince anyone the book was revealed by God or Angels. It is understandable why so many don't believe in the Book Of Mormon and historians have done a good job in explaining their point as to the problems found in it. The book for me has inspirational stories, beautiful teachings, gives a plausible explanation to Christ's ministry outside Jerusalem, explains prophecies about the new World and the Gentiles and especially about the remnant of Israel and the events unfolding in our day. It is still worth reading and pondering the contents regardless of the origin or the people involved in translating or creating it as some may believe it. Good discussion and as always Bill Reel is great. Thank you
You guys talk as if the hat Joseph uses is black and nothing can be seen in it unless the rock lights up, but everything I've read says the hat is white and of see-through fabric which means he could read notes if he also put handwritten notes in the hat. And I don't understand why no credence is given to Lucy's journal about the years in which Joseph entertained the family at night time (bored, no tv I guess!), and they all listened intently to his creativity in coming up with this story that went on for so long.
That Lucy said he told very detailed stories of the native Americans long before the Book of Mormon suggests to me that the whole family was in on the con. If not, Surety they would have recognized the stories in the BoM as Joseph’s own. The Lucy Code project seems to have stalled, but the presentation here on TH-cam is a fantastic angle on the BoM as a Smith family project.
I'm not sure that I agree about Oliver and the Fanny Alger story implying that he was not aware of the artifice behind the book. After all, Oliver did ask to, and got permission to 'translate' the book. He just wasn't very good at it and Joseph took the reins back within the month.. So he knew how the process worked. I think people are complex, with different values. It is quite possible that he valued honesty in relationships but had a very, lets say, flexible view of honesty in spiritual matters.
How could Oliver not be in on it when he was the other person who was with Joseph when they received the priesthood from John the Baptist and Peter, James and John? Maybe he wasn’t in on it at the beginning but I don’t see how he could have been manipulated into believing he was visited by them and was given the priesthood.
I don’t see why Smith would need an accomplice. He was clearly a forceful personality, a good exhorter and storyteller, and quite capable of producing material with a biblical ring to it. The D&C is proof of his ability to make stuff up on the fly. All he needs is an audience open to his story and mission. I also wouldn’t eliminate the possibility of a culture quite open to visions. There’s a good video by a CoC official that does a nice job of taking apart the “How could an uneducated…?” argument. BTW the real problem with the BoM is the gigantic anachronism of a fully formed Christian Church long before Jesus.
B. H. Roberts, a faithful member, wrote a book titled "Studies on the Book of Mormon", where he stated that Joseph had a "creative imagination" and was quite capable of writing the story of the BoM.
Susan Easton Black taught in her lectures that Joseph had an amazing memory-perhaps photographic and that's how he rose so quickly among the local Masons in Ohio. If that's true, it doesn't seem like a stretch that he had Bible passages memorized for use.
Ocham's razor. I could see joseph saying to Oliver, "in this part it's quoting bible verses... so to speed things up let me just grab my trusty KJV bible and quote these chapters....". Not only did joseph NOT have to memorize the bible but he got to take a bathroom break, AND it also explains why the translation is word for word KJB with the errors and all." It's really not hard at all to explain how the BoM was made.
I think it is possible that Joseph Smith had Dyslexia. That would force him to use his memory and be a great story teller and great at memorizing in order to remember things. Some Dyslexic people are very social and yet have great difficulty with reading, writing and spelling.
What do we know about the other religions that were present at this time.? Could they have been just so awful that even though Joseph’s was absurd, it was still a better alternative than where anyone could go.?
Fun analysis to follow and learn. I had not heard about the stone in the hat switch to test Joseph Smith. That’s a story that should be added to the manuals.
Seriously. You guys owe it to yourselves to read Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon. It's a more credible reconstruction than you guys seem aware of. Stay cool!
I think it's very difficult to judge whether people are 'in on it' or not, because I think that line itself is very blurry. The word 'inspiration' originally had divine meaning, so if you had a great idea. It was given to you by God. So, if you buy into that definition, then I guess it could be argued that the book DID come from god. However. Taking steps to actively fool people with tricks, is harder to justify.. I think a lot of folk around JS lived in the grey area between the two.
When Martin tested with the rock, Jo would have been able to smell the rock. It took a few seconds, he double checks, thinks (Martin moron), then something smart about darkness and heathens = 15 seconds. No one should think this test was passed because Jo wasn't able to seer. Harris is my Grandmother's maiden name. She had a picture of him displayed. He looks like he was kicked by a mule as a kid. I've never heard this story, but from what you say, he definitely thinks like he looks. Perfect victim of Sociopaths who wanted to start a church and all that other stuff.
I find it interesting to listen to Bill and the gang completely discount the accounts of Sidney Rigdon's family that tell the story of how Sidney and Joseph certainly spent time together well before the publishing of the Book of Mormon and yet, the 12 year delay of the visitation of Peter James and John is absolutely solid. When it supports the faith story, time is on our side...when it destroys the faith story time is the enemy. You don't get to have it both ways. Why no discussion on the simple fact that not a single historical relic has been discovered to support the Book of Mormon...not a bone, not a coin and certainly not the massive city of "Zarahemla"?? These men were all part of the fraud. They simply got in and couldn't get out and feared for their lives should they ever recant their story. Simple as that. Even Emma on her death bed swore full heartedly that her Joseph was never a polygamist...despite the 40+ known wives.
60 something pages that aren't from other books? There is sooooo much evidence just in what you talked about that it's a comprised book. 4 years to practice before he even "got" the book. There are sheep and wolves here.
I’ve recently started following the channel as I find the topics interesting however, I find a lot of the content to be misleading. My husband has been a bishop for over 6 years and I have never heard of this stuff.
Have you considered why you haven’t heard this stuff? And does not having heard it make it untrue? My two cents is to start looking at the sources and to start challenging the things you thought.
If there's something specific which you think is misleading, it would be great if you could list it so that we could address your specific concern. While I disagree with some of the conclusions, the actual events that they talk about are generally accurate. The only "co-conspirators" that I think exist (i.e. people willing to lie) are Oliver & the Smiths (entire family). I make this conclusion based on how they describe certain things such as seer stones and how this compares with other descriptions from non-family members. I do not think that they were involved in writing the BOM, but I do believe that they were comfortable lying and did not necessarily believe in the divinity of the movement per se.
"... and I have never heard of this stuff" Yup. And that is exactly the reason I left. When I discovered how much the Church lied to me, I was out. I could have probably handled any of it and still believed, but lying to me - Nope, I'm out. Just read the Church's gospel topics essays. When you realize all the things they talk about in those esseys that you have never heard before, you start to get a sense of the depth of the deception.
You have never heard of this stuff because you have been taught to not look at or listen to any information beyond the correlated material the Church prints and provides to the membership.
14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
Have any of you ever come across Rod Meldrum's presentation on The Book of Mormon and DNA Evidence. Far more convincing evidence for the historicity of than the best apologists the church can afford
Ah yes, Rod Meldrum, expert in all things. Dude, his DNA expertise, like everything else he speaks of, is entirely self-proclaimed. He has no formal credentials or education in DNA science. DNA science, like Egyptology, is quite esoteric, and if one uses the right buzz words they can sound convincing to most people. I use the example of Egyptology because BYU Egyptologists John Gee and Kerry Muhlestein have gone to some length as apologists for Smith's "translation" of the BofA. Again, Egyptology is such a narrow and esoteric field that anyone with a background in it can sound authoritative to almost anyone else. In fact, Gee and Muhlestein have become pariahs in their field for their almost scandalously poor and indeed unethical scholarship in defending the legitimacy of the BofA. At least they have a background in Egyptology. Meldrum has done enough homework in DNA science to sound convincing to a receptive and non-critical mormon audience. However, his presentations on the topic have been virtually lampooned by people who know what they are talking about. I in fact watched a couple of his presentations here on TH-cam. Right off the bat, in both of them, he proclaims his absolute belief in the Smith narrative and the BofM. That should immediately be a big red flag, it is intellectually and epistemologically ass backward. In legitimate science and research, one doesn't start with the conclusion and then back the research in to support it.
If anyone's interested, Rod Meldrums DNA claims are examined in a Mormon Stoies podcast with an actual geneticist, Simon Southerton. Spoiler alert, there still isn't any actual DNA evidence that direct supports any BOM claims. The section discussing Kennewick Man exposes many troubling issues with Meldrums claims. th-cam.com/video/XSPyPjLMrbU/w-d-xo.html
Meldrum's opinions have been debunked. A statement by FAIR sums it up: "Meldrum..., like so many others, shows little understanding of the underlying principles of the science he attempts to rally to his cause. While he is likely sincere in his attempt to bolster the Book of Mormon, his incorrect assumptions cause both him and his audience to draw conclusions that are false and contrary to the science he purports to present. A review of the research cited by Meldrum cannot recommend his theories. While DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography may tickle the ears of an audience that only sees the evidence through the lens Meldrum provides them, it doesn’t stand up to a full examination in the light of day." -Fair Mormon th-cam.com/video/FUBQeAf6Lbc/w-d-xo.html
Only if divine means lying, because it's been called a translation for many decades, all the way up until the facts made that impossible to sustain. Now all of a sudden everyone's diving headlong into postmodern fudging of what translation means.
Mormons hold up the fact that many of these guys never recanted their witness even after leaving the church, but to me that always seemed like a non-argument because they would be implicating themselves as fools, liars, con men, etc. Why would they admit to it?
I have heard others say that, but I don't agree. They have to wear the implication of being fools anyway because they followed Joseph Smith and sacrificed for the church, and then were badly let down by it. They expected great things but were badly disappointed. I think it would have been much easier for them to say they were mistaken and deceived/fooled by all of it than to maintain their testimony in what all their associates would always believe was impossible and ridiculous. I think it cost them much to not recant.
@@MichelleBStone The skeptic in me also believes they probably did recant privately. If the LDS church had proof it would be sealed up in their vault for time and all eternity.
@@thelastgoonie6555 I thought there were statements from them much later in life still affirming their experiences. Why do you think they recanted? I don't think there is any evidence to support that, and much to contradict it. (BYW I'm not operating on motivated reasoning. I have no idea what to think. I'm just trying to look for the best evidence.)
@@MichelleBStone Have you seen the list of names that Joseph Smith called the witnesses? LoL
Liars, Scoundrels, Horse Thieves, Fornicators, Counterfeiters...just to name a few. Is that a trustworthy bunch to promote? The whole thing is nuts.
@@MichelleBStone The other issue that gets glossed over is that of "Second Sight" or "Spiritual Sight" which was common understanding back then. Martin Harris in particular has several statements on the topic. CES Curriculum must have had another "oversight" when they neglected to describe this practice as well.
Oliver is totally in on it. In 1832-1834, he made up the priesthood restoration story. He was scribe for 80% of the book of Mormon and knew that it was done with the hat and stone, yet he repeatedly stated that the Nephite interpreters - the "Urim and Thummim" were used after 1834. His story changed over time and he was clearly comfortable with lying. Harris and Whitmer were probably sincere, but Oliver was definitely willing to tell lies in order to build a plausible narrative. While I don't believe that Oliver wrote parts of the BOM, the conversations which he had with Joseph during the writing process seem to have influenced the text.
@@henochparks Best to tell the truth indeed. See footnote 32 in the gospel topics essay on BOM translation. Look up the source: "There is said to have been in the box with the plates two transparent stones in the form of spectacles thro which the translator looked on the engraving & afterwards put his face into a hat & the interpretation then flowed into his mind." Note that Joseph was putting his head in the hat for the translation. This contradicts Oliver's other accounts. In other words, Oliver's account is highly suspect because he changed it over time. Whitmer and Harris were consistent and more honest. They also descripted the spectacles as being white or greyish and translucent to all except Joseph. In all cases, Oliver's account is different and he looks like the fibber. I'm not the one making things up, it's Oliver. Even Royal Skousen from BYU comes to this conclusion. He recently wrote "Thus Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."
@@henochparks Mormon Scholars, believing and non have concluded that Joseph stopped using the magical spectacles, later called Urim and Thummim (1832) prior to loosing the 116 pages. All of the current Book of Mormon was translated with the brown rock in the hat. Royal Skousen has written about this, as have others working for the church. This isn't controversial - it's simply history. Happy to provide additional references if you need them.
@@henochparks I've added links, but they are removed by TH-cam. From Royal Skousen (interpreter foundation, totally faithful, BYU): "The Book of Mormon, as we have it today (the result of losing the 116 manuscript pages), was most probably all translated by means of a seer stone that Joseph Smith had." and "Thus Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."
27:46 Bill you mention Hyrum not being involved much, now after seeing Randy’s Dartmouth presentation I wonder what your thoughts are?
This is totally it!
The Book of Mormon is not that well-written of a book. It's full of anachronisms, a jumping around of the timeline, repeated use of common phrases, and impossibilities in terms of nature and geography. Methodist Exhorter patterns are also found in the book. Joseph did not need to be a genius to write it. I think Joseph likely thought he could do better and the lost 116 pages forced his hand to complete it sooner. I think if he lived longer, he would have added to it or come out with a second book. Also, the scribes likely did not tell the full story of their experience with the dictation - the likelihood of them telling a partial version of what happened is pretty high IMO.
"And if he left out the phrase 'And so it came to pass', it would just be a pamphlet." -Samuel Clemens.
I don't know about it being as simple as claimed. When I read the original printers manuscript it is actually very fascinating. I do like the theory of some kind of DMT drug or something that was most likely used for most spiritual events.
So which impossibilities? You used the plural, so give me two.
JS was pretty creative but he was no Shakespeare or Dickens or Balzac or even Stephen King. He claimed 2/3 of the plates were sealed and at some point he would’ve “gotten the plates back” and written BoM.2.
On the other hand, the growth of the church and the amazing availability of women and girls kept him awfully busy just keeping the Council of 50 moving along, the Danites targeting the right apostates and especially preventing Emma from finding out about his other “wives.” (Annoys me the women he had affairs with and the girls he sexually and emotionally abused are referred to as wives.)
It would be interesting to see Bill revisit these subjects from where he is in his faith journey now without the apologist spin. Are his thoughts and feelings about the ‘witnesses’ still along the same lines, has further study in the subject and the loss of faith changed these?
I agree...would like to know too. This is the first time I disagree with his assessment.
Joseph Smith as author of the Book of Mormon…
1. Joseph Smith was immersed in the Bible and the Christian myth and Biblical story and language since childhood.
2. By 14-y.o., Smith was already a precocious reader of the Bible plus an astute observer and critic of sectarian Christian creeds and controversy and contention.
3. Smith had been both a debater and exhorter as a youth in his Christian community.
4. Smith had been working on the story in his mind for at least 6 years, since at least 1823.
5. Smith was recognized as a talented verbal story teller.
6. Smith had already embraced the popular Mound-builder myth, including the destruction in the Americas of an ancient and more advanced light-skinned people by a savage dark-skinned people.
7. Smith had also embraced the popular myth concerning the origins of the Native Americans as Hebrews or Israelites.
8. In agreement with B.H.Roberts, Joseph Smith was familiar with Ethan Smith’s ‘View of the Hebrews,’ either personally from a copy within his own home, or hearing or knowing of it, or from just the common cultural ‘knowledge’ reflected in Ethan Smith’s book.
9. Harold Bloom recognized Smith as an authentic religious genius, while B.H.Roberts compared his vivid and creative imagination favorably with Shakespeare.
10. Still in agreement with B.H.Roberts, the Book of Mormon nevertheless is the product of an immature and undeveloped mind.
11. Smith had 116 pages of huge and invaluable practice.
12. Following the loss of the 116 pages, Smith had months of downtime to further revise and develop the story in his mind.
13. Resuming dictation before Cowdery showed up, we don’t know how many pages Smith dictated, nor how many that left still to be dictated.
14. Regardless, during his final creative spurt with Oliver Cowdery, Smith at most needed to dictate only 7-9 pages of per day, including what came from the KJV.
15. At the end of each day’s dictation, Smith still had hours into the evening and night to work in his mind on only the next days’ 7-9 pages.
16. Although superficially complex, the Book of Mormon is really quite a simplistic narrative of flat 1- and 2-dimensional characters in a simple moving time-slice, without any great literary merit nor complexity of story or plot, logic or nuance, nor any complex interaction or dependencies of past to present or future.
17. The Book of Mormon is excessively padded with a large amount of unnecessary and pretentious verbiage that adds nothing, and does not reflect any economy of speech or narrative demanded by limited space on metal plates that were difficult to inscribe.
18. The Book of Mormon is extremely repetitive.
19. The Christianity and theology that Smith poured into the Book of Mormon was common and familiar and right out of his own Christian world, including the specific sectarian controversies that he gave a solution (or failed miserably, as with Mosiah 15:1-5).
20. To a very large degree, the Book of Mormon is just a highly contrived “second witness” to: 1) Smith’s own 19th-century highly orthodox sectarian Protestant Christianity; 2) the KJV; 3) Ethan Smith’s ‘View of the Hebrews’ in a very clever quasi-historical narrative solution to Ethan’s quasi-data for both the Mound-builders and the Native Americans as Hebrews.
.
The fine-grained details of Smith’s invention are lost to history but are not needed to recognize the Book of Mormon as a massively self-falsifying modern invention by a 19th-century sectarian Protestant Christian with the KJV. Long before anybody even went looking, the Book of Mormon internally predicted the bust in archeology with 100% certainty. And, of course, it came to pass.
If a person is convinced by word-print studies that the Book of Mormon is multi-author work that doesn’t include Smith, then it’s their task to propose who those 19th-century Christian authors are. And they need to publish their word-print studies and conclusions in the legitimate peer-reviewed academic professional and scholarly literature.
For TBM’s who still assert word-print studies; or assert an inexplicable literary and Semitic complexity in the Book of Mormon - including Hebraicisms or EModE in the Book of Mormon, for instance - or assert Egyptian & Semitic influence in Native American languages; or assert maybe the archeology or other evidence in John Sorenson’s ‘Mormon’s Codex,’ those are scholarly arguments that need to be published and argued in the more rigorous and independent academic upper-tier peer-reviewed literature, not within the Mormon bubble at FAIR or BYU-NMI or Deseret Book or Dan Peterson’s ‘Interpreter,’ or on a Mormon blog.
HAHAHA YOU ARE A LIAR. YOU MADE UP THINGS NOT OLIVER.
We should not assume that older people always reveal what they have done wrong. All of them had families that could have been harmed by people learning the truth about such a demanding religion. And since the Church required its members to tithe, there was also the possibility that they could be charged with fraud.
RFM pointed out that the hat was white, not black. He's pretending that it's dark, but it's likely that he could, in fact, see, and that there might have been a false bottom.
Joseph had 4 years to write it. The hat was white so you could see a script inside it. No real magic there.
The content, conclusions, and general theme of this discussion differs so markedly from Reel's other discussions, both prior and after, that one must conclude he took a sip from the well again and had a momentary lapse of sanity. That said, why not start with the BofM as is and work backward? There is absolutely no scholarship to support the veracity or even possibility of the BofM. There is no academician in the fields of archeology, anthropology, history, linguistics, Egyptology, or DNA science that would give the slightest credence to the BM being anything but fiction. No academician not on BYU's payroll that is. It is virtually impossible for these vast and complex societies to have existed without leaving an archeological trace for example. The city of Zarahemla alone would rise to that if it had been a real place. Mormons can't even agree within two continents where it all was. I for one can attest to what historians consider a legitimate document. If it contains even one anachronism, no matter how trivial, the document is deemed phony. Need we discuss the anachronisms, some laughable, in the BM that are too numerous to describe here? Apologists like Tapir Dan may be able to please a receptive and non critical mormon audience, but I can guarantee he would be laughed out of the room if he presented his "research" to a symposium of credentialed historians. By any standard measure of reason, the BM is phony, fiction to use a more charitable description. From this starting point, it is not difficult to research the origins of the BM and derive any number of highly plausible scenarios in which Smith, along with various collaborators, including family members and well known figures, had at least two years to develop the BofM. My recommendation, start with Dan Vogel's work. Well researched, well documented and footnoted, and very resourceful.
This is earlier material. We have been uploading pass content to our TH-cam channel
@@MormonDiscussion why not clear up the confusion and add a "recorded on date" to the title, or simply a dash and then the date? I know it would take work, but it wouldn't require a reupload. It would add context and understanding of what the content is.
From looking at your channel directly, maybe it is apparent that these are uploads of old content. But that isn't how people find the video. It's suggested in their feed and they assume the upload date is the date of the discussion. And the assumption is fair because there is no indication otherwise.
It's great that this older content is available now on TH-cam. It's cool to see how views have changed over the years. Thanks for uploading! I primarily use TH-cam for content, and now I can listen to this and have the algorithm suggest other Mormon discussion content.
A recorded date would be very helpful, but apparently Bill’s too busy. I make estimates based on dates of comments.
Plus, the very premise of the Book of Mormon is preposterous. Which is exposed before Smith’s totally phony Israelites - supposedly _”with the learning of the Jews”_ - are hardly even out of Jerusalem, and easily abandon both Yahweh and his name and go chasing after foreign gods and a false messiah.
@@MormonDiscussion The book of Mormon is A fraud , let's Take Nephi Shall we, Nephi Copied Of 20 chapters From the Book of Isaiah the Question is Why if Nephi was such a prophet or what ever he was
Martin Harris's stone switch story could be that of a conspirator. He's basically saying "I doubted, but here's proof this guy is legit"
Right. Why this dude thinks it's proof to clear Harris is silly. It's the kind of inductive reasoning church apologists would use. How can we believe anything these so called witnesses say? Leaving the church doesn't change that they would admit to being liars in claiming the Book of Mormon was legit.
Also, saying Oliver Cowdery being so called successful relative to jobs and finances proves what? It's long been obvious to me that all three were part of the deception.
It also could just as easily be that Joe was familiar enough with his stone that he immediately recognized the switch and played along.
Right, cash grab all around
If it was divinely inspired why would it be so wrong about history? Did God write a novel?
Well, Ya! Sky Daddy Loves good fan fiction. I thought everyone knew that!
Please tell me some historical specifics that were so wrong.
@@roburry Please tell me some historical specifics that WEREN'T so wrong.
@@roburry What's silly is that it's obvious that it has got history completely wrong, and you know it. You're not that dumb. How about the fact that the Native Americans did NOT come from Israel? They have Asian DNA. That has been proven as a fact. And how about the steel, horses, barley, etc. that never existed? The list goes on and on, but watch--You'll come right back with some sort of smug idiotic response.
These men, especially the scribes, were pious. They likely felt they were in a "grand cause" with Joseph Smith and at no point felt they were engaging in a "fraud" or deception. This was Joseph's version of the Christian story and they were proud to be part of it, as it was new, exciting, and revelatory and religion was a major part of their lives. The key here is the facts and the mechanics of the writing. I think with the tools he learned as a Methodist exhorter, the understanding he had from what he had read and heard read in his home from the KJV Bible, along with his imaginary mind and his natural storytelling ability he "riffed" from memory and a creative mind as he went to dictate the Book of Mormon. He likely carefully thought through the day prior to what he was going to dictate the next day and possibly had had some texts hidden in the room with him. I think the hat allowed him to focus and he could have had pre-written notes in there.
How old is this content? Was it reposted by Bill or someone else? This doesn’t sound like the current Bill. I wondered why he would allude to “our church”.
One of the videos I listened to today said “I’m bill reel, I’m 38 and have 2 callings in the church” lol and I’m like wait you were exed from the church this is old haha
I have been fascinated with wondering if the people who were around Joseph Smith and saw firsthand the formation of the church and what they believed or not. My Great-great-great grandfather was Martin Horton Peck, married to Polly Peck. Oliver Cowdery babptised them on the same day as Lucy Mack Smith and they were in the first branch of the church. I always wonder how much he believed????
I got this a little wrong. Polly was Martins aunt. She was Joseph Knight Sr. first wife
Now that I’ve found Bill Reel, I’m listening to all his podcasts. Thanks for sharing your studies and thoughts, Bill. I like your honest approach. Thanks to the other commentators as well.
Whatever the fine-grained details of it’s creation and regardless by whom - and regardless that some people find the Book of Mormon deep & spiritual & inspiring - it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Book of Mormon is a modern invention by a highly orthodox 19th-century sectarian Christian with the KJV, and who’d never seen the famous “first vision” of Jesus and God as two totally separate and distinct bodily beings and literal father and son, in a story that only pops up in Mormonism in 1838.
A person can reasonably wonder whether the modern author was more Modalist than Trinitarian, for instance, or whether he was just confused or undecided in his theology & Christology. But whomever did Mosiah 15:1-5, for instance, or the Trinitarian formula that’s repeated 2 or 3 times in the BoM, never saw that vision nor it’s famous Mormon doctrine that Russell Nelson now gives a Hosanna Shout.
And that’s doubly true when considering the 1830 BoM, where the author explicitly made Jesus and God - the Father and Son - one and the same in a highly orthodox and unitarian sense.
And on another level entirely, even an atheist studying the Bible carefully can easily see that Judaism if nothing else has at least been right all along about Jesus and the NT and Christianity and the Christian myth.
And can easily see that the Book of Mormon Israelites - if they’d ever existed as real people - would have been devout and loyal and pious Yahweh-worshiping and Torah- and Temple-observant Israelites who never would have abandoned either Yahweh or his name and gone chasing after foreign gods and a false messiah. But the Book of Mormon principals, instead, are highly orthodox 19th-century sectarian Protestant Christians with the KJV who are actually dumb as rocks about Yahweh and Torah and Temple, and dumb as rocks about sin and the altar and sacrifice, atonement and forgiveness. And dumb as a sack of hammers about Moshiach. And who unequivocally do not have “the learning of the Jews.” They’re just as profoundly ignorant of Judaism and Torah and Tanakh as Christians and Mormons are today.
And the plates of Laban - if they’d ever existed as real things - would have had the name of Yahweh 1000s of times, where the name, itself, was important and boldly declared. The plates of Laban, themselves, would have falsified the Book of Mormon many times over.
And the Book of Mormon Christians are totally blind to the reality of Hebrew scripture, that Yahweh is always ready and willing and anxious and wanting to forgive sin with just repentance, with no blood sacrifice sacrifice, and especially without blood sacrifice. And that non-priestly and non-blood atonement and forgiveness is all over Hebrew scripture, and screams unmistakably as a main message, for both Israelites and Jews and Gentiles.
And that would have been all over the plates of Laban, too. Lehi and Nephi - if they’d ever existed as real people - would have been just as loyal and faithful to Yahweh as Daniel was in Babylon. And whether in dreams, or whether some angel came around preaching Christianity and Jesus and bloody human Jesus sacrifice, they would have recognized it as manifestly false and remained observant to Yahweh and Torah.
And since Joseph Smith also gave them Deutero-Isaiah, they would have known that Yahweh was Elohim and Elohim was Yahweh - Yahweh Elohim - and besides him there are no other gods and no other saviors. They would known that Joseph Smith’s Christianity was false, and that Smith’s later polytheistic or henotheistic innovations were false. And they would have known that the poetic and highly figurative and personified Isaiah 53 - if it was messianic at all - was not and could not be messianic for Jesus. Etc, etc, etc.
And even an atheist can see that a virgin-born messiah in the Book of Mormon in 600 BCE - or at all, at any time - and rooted in Isaiah 7 all by itself renders the Book of Mormon a fraud and massively self-falsifying.
As does 2 Nephi 10:3.
Etc, etc, etc, etc.
So regardless of who and how created the Book of Mormon - and I personally believe it was Joseph Smith, himself, and gladly go beyond B.H. Roberts and conclude not only that Smith was capable, but that he did, in fact, create the BoM - it’s easy to rule-out the BoM and judge it a 19th-century Christian fraud, regardless. And which guarantees that no knowledgeable and educated, Hebrew-speaking religious Jew would ever accept it, any more than they accept the New Testament or Jesus. Or any other failed and false messiah.
For TBM’s persuaded by word-print studies, or believe Smith incapable, let them propose their alternative 19th-Center Christian author(s).
To me, rather than the BoM being an independent 2nd witness to Jesus, it’s a dependent and derivative 2nd witness to the KJV and to Smith’s own highly orthodox 19th-century sectarian Protestant Christianity. And a clever and adapted quasi-history narrative solution and “second witness” to the quasi-data in Ethan Smith’s ‘View of the Hebrews.’
This episode sounded like what apologists would say. Was this Bill before his faith transition? I’m confused.
Why do I feel like Bill is being the devils advocate on this one. Really? If anyone with some storytelling talent such as we know Joseph Smith had, could dictate a long narrative from his "spiritual imagination" you don't think that a small handful of the stories and anecdotes wouldn't seem spiritually/socially redeeming? Like any good fictional movie script or book, if the author is so inclined and worth anything as a storyteller, he/she will come up with some good ones and possibly even great ones.
Question: What did Oliver Cowdery's associates say about his character?
William Lang, who apprenticed in Cowdery's law office long after he left the Church, knew him for many years
William Lang, who apprenticed in Cowdery's law office, knew him for many years. Lang was a member of the Ohio bar, and served as "prosecuting attorney, probate judge, mayor of Tiffin, county treasurer, and two terms in the Ohio senate. He was nominated by his party for major state offices twice." [1]
Lang wrote of Cowdery:
Mr. Cowdery was an able lawyer and a great advocate. His manners were easy and gentlemanly; he was polite, dignified, yet courteous...With all his kind and friendly disposition, there was a certain degree of sadness that seemed to pervade his whole being. His association with others was marked by the great amount of information his conversation conveyed and the beauty of his musical voice. His addresses to the court and jury were characterized by a high order of oratory, with brilliant and forensic force. He was modest and reserved, never spoke ill of any one, never complained. [2]
1843 announcement in the Seneca Advertiser, Tiffin, Ohio, with Oliver Cowdery and his partner's law practice.
Harvey Gibson, a political opponent of Oliver's, and another lawyer, said that Cowdery was an "irreproachable gentleman"
Harvey Gibson, a political opponent of Oliver's, and another lawyer (whose statue now stands in front of the Seneca County courthouse) wrote:
Cowdery was an able lawyer and [an] agreeable, irreproachable gentleman. [3]
Incidents that some have claimed bring Cowdery's character into question
DOCUMENT CONTAINING THE CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, &C. IN RELATION TO THE DISTURBANCES WITH THE MORMONS; AND THE EVIDENCE GIVEN BEFORE THE HON. AUSTIN A. KING, JUDGE OF THE FIFTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI, AT THE COURT-HOUSE IN RICHMOND, IN A CRIMINAL COURT OF INQUIRY, BEGUN NOVEMBER 12, 1838, ON THE TRIAL OF JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AND OTHERS, FOR HIGH TREASON AND OTHER CRIMES AGAINST THE STATE
Some have used other ways to try and impugn Cowdery's character and bring it into question. One such way is bringing up an 1838 petition signed by 83 Latter-day Saint men accusing Oliver of various crimes[4]. Such incidents have been thoroughly addressed. Balanced context can be found in Latter-day Saint historian Alexander Baugh's PhD dissertation "A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri. Neither Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, nor Hyrum Smith of the First Presidency signed the petition.[5] The document was written by then-apostate Sampson Avard. Furthermore, the allegations in the document are baseless. For example, it was feared that Oliver's desire to become a lawyer would lead to him to defending unsavory criminals or participating in vexatious lawsuits against the Church. When David and Oliver were earlier excommunicated they didn't defend themselves as they thought that church courts didn't have jurisdiction. Some of the Danites inferred guilt from their silence or by association. Historian Jeffrey Walker writes:
In April 1838, Oliver Cowdery was tried before a high council court and excommunicated. He did not attend the hearing, claiming that in his role as Assistant President of the Church the high council lacked jurisdiction over him.[6] Nine charges were brought against him. Counts one and seven dealt directly with Cowdery’s interest in or participation as a lawyer: “1st, For stirring up the enemy to persecute the brethren by urging on vexatious lawsuits[7]and thus distressing the innocent,” and “7th, For leaving the calling, in which God had appointed him, by Revelation, for the sake of filthy lucre, and turning to the practice of Law.”[8] While Cowdery did not substantively defend all the charges, he did submit a letter addressed to Bishop Partridge requesting that the council “take no view of the foregoing remarks, other than my belief in the outward governments of the Church.”[9][10]
Scott Faulring describes Oliver's exit from the Church and eventual return including these episodes.
Cowdery longed to put the strife associated with his June 1838 departure from Far West behind him. The situation, he explained, was "painful to reflect on." In a genuine spirit of reconciliation, Oliver offered his personal interpretation of the circumstances leading to his dismissal. He observed candidly: I believed at the time, and still believe, that ambitious and wicked men, envying the harmony existing between myself and the first elders of the church, and hoping to get into some other men’s birth right, by falsehoods the most foul and wicked, caused all this difficulty from beginning to end. They succeeded in getting myself out of the church; but since they them selves have gone to perdition, ought not old friends-long tried in the furnace of affliction, to be friends still. [11]
Oliver also told Brigham and the other members of the Twelve that he did not believe any of them had contributed to his removal and thus he could speak freely with them about returning.[12] In his reply to the Twelve’s invitation, Oliver mentioned a "certain publication," signed by some eighty-three church members then living in Missouri, charging him and others with conspiring with outlaws. [13] Cowdery emphatically denied such an vile indictment. He conceded that he had not seen the offending declaration, but had heard of its existence and the accusations made in it.[14]
"SUCH CHARACTERS AS MCLELLIN, JOHN WHITMER, DAVID WHITMER, OLIVER COWDERY, AND MARTIN HARRIS, ARE TOO MEAN TO MENTION; AND WE HAD LIKED TO HAVE FORGOTTEN THEM."
Some critics have used a December 1838 quote from the Prophet Joseph Smith to impugn Oliver's character. The above is the standard representation of this quote. Joseph Smith wrote to the Saints on 16 December 1838 to provide comfort to the Saints and update them on his current condition in Liberty Jail:
To the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Caldwell county, and all the Saints who are scattered abroad, who are persecuted, and made desolate, and who are afflicted in divers manners for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, by the hands of a cruel mob and the tyrannical disposition of the authorities of this state; and whose perils are greatly augmented by the wickedness and corruption of false brethren, greeting: May grace, mercy, and the peace of God be and abide with you; and notwithstanding all your sufferings, we assure you that you have our prayers and fervent desires for your welfare, day and night. We believe that that God who seeth us in this solitary place, will hear our prayers, and reward you openly.
Know assuredly, dear brethren, that it is for the testimony of Jesus that we are in bonds and in prison. But we say unto you, that we consider that our condition is better (notwithstanding our sufferings) than that of those who have persecuted us, and smitten us, and borne false witness against us; and we most assuredly believe that those who do bear false witness against us, do seem to have a great triumph over us for the present. [15]
By this time, all of the three witnesses had fallen away from the Church after severe disagreements with Joseph Smith. This is why Joseph Smith published the comment in the letter-Joseph was angry with them:
Was it for committing adultery that we were assailed? We are aware that that false slander has gone abroad, for it has been reiterated in our ears. These are falsehoods also. Renegade "Mormon" dissenters are running through the world and spreading various foul and libelous reports against us, thinking thereby to gain the friendship of the world, because they know that we are not of the world, and that the world hates us; therefore they [the world] make a tool of these fellows [the dissenters]; and by them try to do all the injury they can, and after that they hate them worse than they do us, because they find them to be base traitors and sycophants.
Such characters God hates; we cannot love them. The world hates them, and we sometimes think that the devil ought to be ashamed of them.
We have heard that it is reported by some, that some of us should have said, that we not only dedicated our property, but our families also to the Lord; and Satan, taking advantage of this, has perverted it into licentiousness, such as a community of wives, which is an abomination in the sight of God.
When we consecrate our property to the Lord it is to administer to the wants of the poor and needy, for this is the law of God; it is not for the benefit of the rich, those who have no need; and when a man consecrates or dedicates his wife and children, he does not give them to his brother, or to his neighbor, for there is no such law: for the law of God is, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already in his heart. Now for a man to consecrate his property, wife and children, to the Lord, is nothing more nor less than to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the widow and fatherless, the sick and afflicted, and do all he can to administer to their relief in their afflictions, and for him and his house to serve the Lord. In order to do this, he and all his house must be virtuous, and must shun the very appearance of evil.
[Page 231]
Now if any person has represented anything otherwise than what we now write, he or she is a liar, and has represented us falsely-and this is another manner of evil which is spoken against us falsely.[16]
The fact that none of the witnesses recanted means a lot less than people think it does (IMHO). Nobody is going to come out and say that they have been lying to everyone for years. Also, just think about how difficult it is for people today to come out and say the church isn't true. If you were one of the 'founders' it seems life it would be much more difficult than for a church member today. Finally, these guys knew where their bread was buttered. Their value/livelihood is based on being in the church (or at least church adjacent). To 'worldly people' these guys were just gullible losers. To the LDS church they are heros sent by God.
Plus, if Smith staged something for his witnesses - including some metal plates of his own manufacture, at least for the 8 - and they actually believed it, why would they ever recant, anyway?
The reality is, these so-called “witnesses” are totally worthless as either evidence or argument for the actual truth claims made by the Mormon church, of *_ancient_* metal plates and script, and of actual *_translation_* and *_the gift and power of God._*
Saying Oliver was upset about an affair Joseph had with a 14 year old girl shows he wasn’t involved in a fraud with Joseph is childish thinking.
I don't think Joseph wrote this book, if he were to write a book to start a religion, the stories, events, names, other books included in the book like the Book of Ether, would not make sense at all, it would be hard for him to convince anyone the book was revealed by God or Angels. It is understandable why so many don't believe in the Book Of Mormon and historians have done a good job in explaining their point as to the problems found in it. The book for me has inspirational stories, beautiful teachings, gives a plausible explanation to Christ's ministry outside Jerusalem, explains prophecies about the new World and the Gentiles and especially about the remnant of Israel and the events unfolding in our day. It is still worth reading and pondering the contents regardless of the origin or the people involved in translating or creating it as some may believe it. Good discussion and as always Bill Reel is great. Thank you
You guys talk as if the hat Joseph uses is black and nothing can be seen in it unless the rock lights up, but everything I've read says the hat is white and of see-through fabric which means he could read notes if he also put handwritten notes in the hat. And I don't understand why no credence is given to Lucy's journal about the years in which Joseph entertained the family at night time (bored, no tv I guess!), and they all listened intently to his creativity in coming up with this story that went on for so long.
I've given credence to Joseph Smith''s years of practicing making up stories extemporaneously for a long time now, if that makes you feel any better.
That Lucy said he told very detailed stories of the native Americans long before the Book of Mormon suggests to me that the whole family was in on the con. If not, Surety they would have recognized the stories in the BoM as Joseph’s own. The Lucy Code project seems to have stalled, but the presentation here on TH-cam is a fantastic angle on the BoM as a Smith family project.
I'm not sure that I agree about Oliver and the Fanny Alger story implying that he was not aware of the artifice behind the book. After all, Oliver did ask to, and got permission to 'translate' the book. He just wasn't very good at it and Joseph took the reins back within the month.. So he knew how the process worked.
I think people are complex, with different values. It is quite possible that he valued honesty in relationships but had a very, lets say, flexible view of honesty in spiritual matters.
How could Oliver not be in on it when he was the other person who was with Joseph when they received the priesthood from John the Baptist and Peter, James and John? Maybe he wasn’t in on it at the beginning but I don’t see how he could have been manipulated into believing he was visited by them and was given the priesthood.
I don’t see why Smith would need an accomplice. He was clearly a forceful personality, a good exhorter and storyteller, and quite capable of producing material with a biblical ring to it. The D&C is proof of his ability to make stuff up on the fly. All he needs is an audience open to his story and mission. I also wouldn’t eliminate the possibility of a culture quite open to visions. There’s a good video by a CoC official that does a nice job of taking apart the “How could an uneducated…?” argument. BTW the real problem with the BoM is the gigantic anachronism of a fully formed Christian Church long before Jesus.
B. H. Roberts, a faithful member, wrote a book titled "Studies on the Book of Mormon", where he stated that Joseph had a "creative imagination" and was quite capable of writing the story of the BoM.
Lying for their truth.
Susan Easton Black taught in her lectures that Joseph had an amazing memory-perhaps photographic and that's how he rose so quickly among the local Masons in Ohio. If that's true, it doesn't seem like a stretch that he had Bible passages memorized for use.
Ocham's razor. I could see joseph saying to Oliver, "in this part it's quoting bible verses... so to speed things up let me just grab my trusty KJV bible and quote these chapters....". Not only did joseph NOT have to memorize the bible but he got to take a bathroom break, AND it also explains why the translation is word for word KJB with the errors and all." It's really not hard at all to explain how the BoM was made.
“No-one will tell you. Joseph Smith HORROR mansion: TH-cam”
WHY ARE YOU GUYS DELETING MY POSTS?
I think it is possible that Joseph Smith had Dyslexia. That would force him to use his memory and be a great story teller and great at memorizing in order to remember things. Some Dyslexic people are very social and yet have great difficulty with reading, writing and spelling.
What do we know about the other religions that were present at this time.? Could they have been just so awful that even though Joseph’s was absurd, it was still a better alternative than where anyone could go.?
Fun analysis to follow and learn. I had not heard about the stone in the hat switch to test Joseph Smith. That’s a story that should be added to the manuals.
Because what the manuals really need are more faith promoting anecdotes, right?
Seriously. You guys owe it to yourselves to read Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon. It's a more credible reconstruction than you guys seem aware of. Stay cool!
Oliver was the scribe when JS copied whole chapters of Isaiah. How could he not have known what was going on?
I think it's very difficult to judge whether people are 'in on it' or not, because I think that line itself is very blurry. The word 'inspiration' originally had divine meaning, so if you had a great idea. It was given to you by God.
So, if you buy into that definition, then I guess it could be argued that the book DID come from god. However. Taking steps to actively fool people with tricks, is harder to justify.. I think a lot of folk around JS lived in the grey area between the two.
When Martin tested with the rock, Jo would have been able to smell the rock.
It took a few seconds, he double checks, thinks (Martin moron), then something smart about darkness and heathens = 15 seconds.
No one should think this test was passed because Jo wasn't able to seer.
Harris is my Grandmother's maiden name. She had a picture of him displayed. He looks like he was kicked by a mule as a kid.
I've never heard this story, but from what you say, he definitely thinks like he looks.
Perfect victim of Sociopaths who wanted to start a church and all that other stuff.
Great discussion ! What if some evil entities were working with Joseph smith 🤔
Satan is known as the angel of light
I’m so confused… this makes Bill sound like he believes the BOM is true. I thought Bill new it is all made up??!
The podcast was recorded earlier in bill’s journey
I find it interesting to listen to Bill and the gang completely discount the accounts of Sidney Rigdon's family that tell the story of how Sidney and Joseph certainly spent time together well before the publishing of the Book of Mormon and yet, the 12 year delay of the visitation of Peter James and John is absolutely solid. When it supports the faith story, time is on our side...when it destroys the faith story time is the enemy. You don't get to have it both ways. Why no discussion on the simple fact that not a single historical relic has been discovered to support the Book of Mormon...not a bone, not a coin and certainly not the massive city of "Zarahemla"?? These men were all part of the fraud. They simply got in and couldn't get out and feared for their lives should they ever recant their story. Simple as that. Even Emma on her death bed swore full heartedly that her Joseph was never a polygamist...despite the 40+ known wives.
You don’t get to have it both ways… Exactly which is why bill is out of the church now
This pod cast with Bill has me soooo confused.
This was recorded years ago when I was trying to hold a more faithful approach
No such thing as photogenic memoirs. There is something called eidetic imagery sting after image usually fades by puberty.
60 something pages that aren't from other books?
There is sooooo much evidence just in what you talked about that it's a comprised book.
4 years to practice before he even "got" the book.
There are sheep and wolves here.
The Book of Mormon is very useful for insomniacs.
I’ve recently started following the channel as I find the topics interesting however, I find a lot of the content to be misleading. My husband has been a bishop for over 6 years and I have never heard of this stuff.
Have you considered why you haven’t heard this stuff? And does not having heard it make it untrue? My two cents is to start looking at the sources and to start challenging the things you thought.
If there's something specific which you think is misleading, it would be great if you could list it so that we could address your specific concern. While I disagree with some of the conclusions, the actual events that they talk about are generally accurate. The only "co-conspirators" that I think exist (i.e. people willing to lie) are Oliver & the Smiths (entire family). I make this conclusion based on how they describe certain things such as seer stones and how this compares with other descriptions from non-family members. I do not think that they were involved in writing the BOM, but I do believe that they were comfortable lying and did not necessarily believe in the divinity of the movement per se.
"... and I have never heard of this stuff" Yup. And that is exactly the reason I left. When I discovered how much the Church lied to me, I was out. I could have probably handled any of it and still believed, but lying to me - Nope, I'm out. Just read the Church's gospel topics essays. When you realize all the things they talk about in those esseys that you have never heard before, you start to get a sense of the depth of the deception.
@LDS Wife I've never found any of Bill's work to be false. All the best on ur journey.
You have never heard of this stuff because you have been taught to not look at or listen to any information beyond the correlated material the Church prints and provides to the membership.
Not necessarily the naive believer ? Interesting
Hyrum at Dartmouth college. This explains it all!
14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
Why so many damn commercial?? I can handle some.but every 5 min?..
Congratulations on your re-testimony.
Not impressed. Poor analysis.
Yeah, there is absolutely nothing divine about a book that routinely "comes to pass gas"!
Really.
scholars = priestcraft
scrojamis.......hehehe
Have any of you ever come across Rod Meldrum's presentation on The Book of Mormon and DNA Evidence. Far more convincing evidence for the historicity of than the best apologists the church can afford
Ah yes, Rod Meldrum, expert in all things. Dude, his DNA expertise, like everything else he speaks of, is entirely self-proclaimed. He has no formal credentials or education in DNA science. DNA science, like Egyptology, is quite esoteric, and if one uses the right buzz words they can sound convincing to most people. I use the example of Egyptology because BYU Egyptologists John Gee and Kerry Muhlestein have gone to some length as apologists for Smith's "translation" of the BofA. Again, Egyptology is such a narrow and esoteric field that anyone with a background in it can sound authoritative to almost anyone else. In fact, Gee and Muhlestein have become pariahs in their field for their almost scandalously poor and indeed unethical scholarship in defending the legitimacy of the BofA. At least they have a background in Egyptology. Meldrum has done enough homework in DNA science to sound convincing to a receptive and non-critical mormon audience. However, his presentations on the topic have been virtually lampooned by people who know what they are talking about. I in fact watched a couple of his presentations here on TH-cam. Right off the bat, in both of them, he proclaims his absolute belief in the Smith narrative and the BofM. That should immediately be a big red flag, it is intellectually and epistemologically ass backward. In legitimate science and research, one doesn't start with the conclusion and then back the research in to support it.
If anyone's interested, Rod Meldrums DNA claims are examined in a Mormon Stoies podcast with an actual geneticist, Simon Southerton. Spoiler alert, there still isn't any actual DNA evidence that direct supports any BOM claims. The section discussing Kennewick Man exposes many troubling issues with Meldrums claims.
th-cam.com/video/XSPyPjLMrbU/w-d-xo.html
Meldrum's opinions have been debunked. A statement by FAIR sums it up: "Meldrum..., like so many others, shows little understanding of the underlying principles of the science he attempts to rally to his cause. While he is likely sincere in his attempt to bolster the Book of Mormon, his incorrect assumptions cause both him and his audience to draw conclusions that are false and contrary to the science he purports to present. A review of the research cited by Meldrum cannot recommend his theories. While DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography may tickle the ears of an audience that only sees the evidence through the lens Meldrum provides them, it doesn’t stand up to a full examination in the light of day." -Fair Mormon
th-cam.com/video/FUBQeAf6Lbc/w-d-xo.html
Joseph Smith may have been a power hungry pervert but he had a solid understanding of spirituality, and he was a really interesting dude
and a prolific criminal who liked to flee justice
The Book of Mormon can be divine but. It is not a translation recor
Divinity has nothing to do with lies.
Only if divine means lying, because it's been called a translation for many decades, all the way up until the facts made that impossible to sustain. Now all of a sudden everyone's diving headlong into postmodern fudging of what translation means.