The first vision is a whole other discussion that I think I would like to cover in a blog post sometime so when I do lets go from there, also I think there is much more to be said on these changes in the Book of Mormon, please watch for a full series on the Book of Mormon next year.

Out of interest where are you from? Are you a brit? Please email me on [email protected] if you would rather not say on here.

I am sure you will agree the most important topic we can discuss is Jesus, I wrote this post a while ago

http://mormonisminvestigated.co.uk/2012/06/09/a-different-jesus/

And I am still waiting to have a decent discussion with an LDS person on the back of this, please take a look and please hang around my blog and comment all you like.

It does not prove an evolution in his thinking it only represents the principle of continuing
revelation as the restored church grew in the begining.
In regards to the differences between versions of the Doctrine and covenants, there were
corrections made along the way to better clarify certain important doctrines. Jesus can be
called the eternal father of this earth because He created it, but to better clarify who the
scripture was talking about, changes were made in those scriptures to prevent confusion.
You are right that the Book of Mormon says nothing about the Father having a body of flesh and bone. We have never claimed that it does say that.

2. “however the smoking gun of Joseph Smith and the LDS Churches changing views rather than God really being involved with this is very evident.”

Your opinion; not ours.

3.1 “Isn’t the first vision the time when Joseph found out that God had a body of flesh and bone”

At the first vision We only know for sure that Joseph Smith discovered that God the Father and
Jesus Christ were two separate personages that he could see and distinguish as both having
human form. At that moment he had no proof that the Father he saw had a tangible body of flesh and bone (although he may have suspected such). The issue of the different versions of the first vision have been discussed by many LDS apologists.
The several variations in the first vision accounts suggest that, in relating his story to
various individuals at various times, Joseph Smith emphasized different aspects of it and that
his listeners were each impressed with different things. This, of course, is to be expected,
for the same thing happens in the re-telling of any story. The only way to keep it from
changing is to write it only once and then insist that it be read exactly that way each time it
is to be repeated. Such an effort at censorship would obviously be unrealistic. Joseph
apparently told his story several times before he released it for publication. People who heard
it were obviously impressed with different details and perhaps even embellished it a little
with their own literary devices as they retold or recorded it.
There is no more “contradiction” among the accounts than one will find in comparing the four
descriptions of the life of Jesus found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In each case,
different aspects of the events were emphasized or highlighted according to the needs of the
intended audience at the time of the writing. Similarly in Acts 9,22,&26 we find three
different accounts of Saul’s “first vision”, with discrepancies as to who fell down and whether
those with Saul saw the light or heard the voice, etc. Yet both Saul’s and Joseph’s visions did
take place.

3.2 “If the Father is also a personage of Spirit as well as flesh and bone where is the
teaching about Him being a personage of Spirit to be found in modern Mormonism?”

This has been a teaching of the church since Joseph Smith taught about the physical and
spiritual makeup of the Father. LDS doctrine teaches that all human beings (including the
Father and Jesus) are souls made of both body and spirit and that our spirits look identical to
our bodies. This doctrine was taught in the Book of Mormon in Ether 3:6-17
(http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/3.6-17?lang=eng#5) where the brother of Jared saw the spirit of Jesus Christ and learned that his spirit looks the same as his body would look during his ministry on earth.
I have been taught this in Sunday School my entire life.
Our President Gordon B. Hinckley recently said:
“Of course God is a spirit, and so are you, in the combination of spirit and body that makes of
you a living being, and so am I. Each of us is a dual being of spiritual entity and physical entity. All know of the reality of death when the body dies, and each of us also knows that the spirit lives on as an individual entity and that at some time, under the divine plan made possible by the sacrifice of the Son of God, there will be a reunion of spirit and body. Jesus’ declaration that God is a spirit no more denies that he has a body than does the statement that I am a spirit while also having a body.” (Ensign March, 1998, http://www.lds.org/liahona/1998/03/the-father-son-and-holy-ghost?lang=eng)

From the Encyclopedia of Mormonism:
“God the Father and God the Son are spirits with physical, resurrected bodies. Latter-day Saints deny the abstract nature of God the Father and affirm that he is a concrete being, that he possesses a physical body, and that he is in space and time.”

From our Gospel Principles Sunday School manual:
“Because we are made in His image (see Moses 2:26; 6:9), we know that our bodies are like His body. His eternal spirit is housed in a tangible body of flesh and bones (see D&C 130:22). God’s body, however, is perfected and glorified, with a glory beyond all description.”

1, Interesting, I think this is where the Book of Mormons messiness on the Godhead comes in and thus possibly your misunderstanding of the Trinity in your point 3. (Trinitarians do not believe that the Godhead is one individual, this is a typical Mormon misunderstanding) yet in some places the Book of Mormon seems to say that they are one individual, at least in its earlier version, remember my point here is what was Joseph Smiths thoughts and does early Mormonism prove an evolution in his thinking.

The original 1830 Book of Mormon says:

And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, even the Eternal Father! (1830)

Since being altered.

And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, even the Son of the Eternal Father! (1 Nephi 11:21)

Also

These last records…shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world. (1830)

These last records…shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world. (1 Nephi 13:40) (Current altered text)

Finally

And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.(1830)

And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God. (1 Nephi 11:18) (Current altered text)

The Book of Mormon is a messy place to go for anything on the nature of God even today, and it says NOTHING about God having this body of flesh and bone,

3 Nephi 1:13 says nothing to suggest anything to do with getting a body of flesh and bone.

13 Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.

To read the passage literally and on its own merits my argument stands, but lets move on.

2, That depends on which version of the Book of Mormon you are reading, in Smiths day it appears to me that He was talking about the Father as stated above, whereas today since the alteration I will accept you are talking about the Son of the Eternal Father, however the smoking gun of Joseph Smith and the LDS Churches changing views rather than God really being involved with this is very evident.

3, So two questions here:

1, Isn’t the first vision the time when Joseph found out that God had a body of flesh and bone as he appeared before Him with Christ? With this happening in 1820 this was long before the lectures on faith and so Smith should have known that this was not the full case. However I imagine you may know that the 1832 account of the first vision mentions nothing of the Father appearing and so again my view of Smith making it up as he went is safe because at the point of the printing of the lectures on faith he had not come up with this yet so there was no problem. It wasn’t until 1838 that the version you use today as the first vision came into being, 18 years after the supposed event.

2, If the Father is also a personage of Spirit as well as flesh and bone where is the teachign about Him being a personage of Spirit to be found in modern Mormonism?

2. There was no need for correction about that because as I said Jesus is the God they worshipped and was a spirit through most of the Book of Mormon until he was born in Bethlehem. Obviously they knew he had obtaind a body after he appeared to them after his resurrection. Where it gets a little confusing is that sometimes Jesus is refered to as the Father of this earth (Alma 11:38-40), because he created it. But that does not mean that Jesus is God the Father; the father of our spirits.

3. That D&C scripture is definitely talking about God the Father; the father of our spirits. The Father was and always has been a personage of spirit as noted in that scripture. What Joseph smith may have not known until later(when he preached the King Follet discourse) is that God the Father is also a personage of flesh and bone. He always knew that God the father and jesus were two separate individuals (not a trinitarian concept) as evidenced by other things he said in the Lectures. We believe that God imparts knowledge to us and his prophets line upon line over time as he thinks we are ready to receive it (Isaiah 28:10, John 16:12). Even though Joseph Smith saw both God the Father and Jesus he may have assumed that the Father was only a personage of spirit until he learned later that He also had a tangible body.

So while I can accept that this is not in and of itself a reliable statement in that it is a group in error that said it, I still have some observations.

1, In v9 we see that these Zoramites are in error as you say. 9 But they had fallen into great errors, for they would not observe to keep the commandments of God, and his statutes, according to the law of Moses.

This seems to say that their errors are according to their understanding of the Laws, not their observation of the Nature of God.

2, NOWHERE does the Book of Mormon or anyone in it correct them on this point of God being a Spirit, am I right?

3, This actually reflects Mormon belief of the time very well, in The Lectures on Faith which were in the Doctrine and Covenants from 1835 until 1921 it says:

“… the Father being a personage of spirit, glory and power, possessing all perfection and fulness, the Son, … a personage of tabernacle …” (Doctrine and Covenants, 1835 Edition, page 53)

Are you then saying that the Mormon Church of this day was more akin to the Zoramites? In my view when the Book of Mormon was created by Joseph Smith this is what he thought, as reflected in the Lectures on faith. It was not until 1844 when Joseph Smith preached His king Follett Discourse that the idea that God has a body was brought in, hence why we see NOTHING of it in the book of Mormon.

thanks, talk soon