Book of Mormon Influences, Smithism’s

While there is no doubt the biggest influence Joseph Smith used for the Book of Mormon is the bible, research has shown that this was by no means the only source that Joseph Smith used in crafting the book of Mormon.

As I have said before the Mormon church portrays Joseph Smith as an unlearned, uneducated young boy incapable of producing something like the book of Mormon. What I want to look at here is one main response to that.

While Joseph Smith was growing up it became evident that he was particularly gifted as a storyteller full of imagination. His Mother Lucy Smith said this.

“During our evening coversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of the continent, their dress, mode of travelling, and the animals upon which they ride; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them.” (Lucy Smith: Biogpraphical sketches, p. 85. Occuring before Alvins death in November 1823)

So if Joseph Smith really was someone capable of at least in part making up much of the storylines going on in the book of Mormon how could that be proved?

Well like the bible the book of Mormon is believed to have been wrote by many different people with different personalities and writing styles you would have thought. One problem we see with that is recurring sentences or Smithism’s as they have been called going through the book of Mormon and indeed other Scriptures. By this I mean common phrases or terms that were used by Joseph Smith that we see repeated in the Mormon Scriptures, particularly the book of Mormon.

Smithism’s

So by Smithism’s I mean traits or phrases that Joseph Smith used in various places that would show or at least support the view that he authored each of them.

Here are some basic examples.

Lets look at the phrase “Would that ye should”

Alma 38: 5

5And now my son, Shiblon, I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your atrust in God even so much ye shall be bdelivered out of your trials, and your ctroubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day

Mosiah 1:3

3And he also taught them concerning the records which were engraven on the aplates of brass, saying: My sons, I would that ye should remember that were it not for these bplates, which contain these records and these commandments, we must have suffered incignorance, even at this present time, not knowing the mysteries of God.

omni 1:2

2Wherefore, in my days, I would that ye should know that I fought much with the sword to preserve my people, the Nephites, from falling into the hands of their enemies, the Lamanites. But behold, I of myself aam a wicked man, and I have not kept the statutes and the commandments of the Lord as I ought to have done.

And finally from another book of Mormon Scripture

Doctrine and Covenants 46:7

7But ye are commanded in all things to aask of God, who giveth liberally; and that which the Spirit testifies unto you even so I would that ye should do in all bholiness of heart, walking uprightly before me, cconsidering the end of your salvation, doing all things with prayer and dthanksgiving, that ye may not be eseduced by evil fspirits, or doctrines of devils, or the gcommandments of men; for some are of men, and others of devils.

We see this with some other short phrases too which I will briefly list here for you to look at as you want.

“It must needs be”

1 Nephi 15:33; Alma 32:28; 3 Nephi 5:1; D&C 48:3

Dwindled in unbelief

2 Nephi 26:15; Heleman 15:11; Ether 4:3; D&C 9:3

Expedient that

2 Nephi 9:15; Alma 34:9; Mosiah 13:27; D&C 9:3

So there are some basic examples which I admit could be put down to coincidence or whatever, however this very much carries on to more clear sentences in many places.

The main two I know of are, Or in other words and Exceedingly great

So starting with Or in other words.

Preface to 1830 Book of Mormon

And if I should bring forth the same words again, or, in other words, if i should translate the same over again…..

1 Nephi 8:2

2And it came to pass that while my father tarried in the wilderness he spake unto us, saying: Behold, I have adreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have bseencvision. (see also 1 Nephi 10:4)

Mosiah 7:27

27And because he said unto them that Christ was the aGod, the Father of all things, and said that he should take upon him thebimage of man, and it should be the cimage after which man was created in the beginning; or in other words, he said that man was created after the image of dGod, and that God should come down among the children of men, and take upon him flesh and blood, and go forth upon the face of the earth—

Alma 32:16

16Therefore, blessed are they who ahumble themselves without being bcompelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized withoutcstubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe.

3 Nephi 6:20

20And there began to be men ainspired from heaven and sent forth, standing among the people in all the land, preaching and testifying boldly of the sins and iniquities of the people, and testifying unto them concerning the redemption which the Lord would make for his people, or in other words, the resurrection of Christ; and they did testify boldly of his bdeath and sufferings.

Doctrine and Covenants 10:17

17And if God giveth him power again, or if he translates again, or, in other words, if he bringeth forth the same words, behold, we have the same with us, and we have altered them;

Doctrine and Covenants 61:23

23And now, concerning my servants, Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith, Jun., and Oliver Cowdery, let them come not again upon the waters, save it be upon the canal, while journeying unto their homes; or in other words they shall not come upon the waters to journey, save upon the canal. (See also D&C 95:17)

Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible, Luke 6:29

29And unto him who smiteth thee on the cheek, offer also the other; or, in other words, it is better to offer the other, than to revile again. And him who taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. (see also Luke 17:37)

Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, Mark 9:3

And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses or in other words, John the Baptist and Moses: and they were talking with Jesus.

Then we move onto Joseph Smiths personal Diary

Joseph Smith’s 1835 Diary, An American Prophets Record, p.51

Information was what I most desired at this time and with a fixed determination to obtain it, I called upon the Lord for the first time in the place above stated. Or in other words, I made a fruitless attempt to p[r]ay.

Joseph  Smiths 1838 Liberty jail letter, Times and Seasons, vol. 1. no.6.p.83

I say unto you that those, who have thus vilely treated us, shall like Haman be hanged on their own gallows, or in other words, shall fall into their own gin and ditch, which they have prepared for us.

For Exceedingly great, please look at these references.

1 Nephi 8:12, 23; Mosiah 4:11; Ether 11:4; Moroni 10:11; D&C 108:3; D&C 109:23; D&C 127:10; Joseph Smiths diary, An American prophets record p.5

Thank you to UTLM.ORG for putting in the research work for this article, that is a website absolutely packed with more information like this.

When you think about it we all have our own little phrases and words that we use on a regular basis and anything we write if you maybe look at past school assignments or job applications etc you will see a pattern of terms and phrases you use. Joseph Smith was no different like this and it comes out all through the scriptures he wrote.  There are many more like this and I would encourage as ever anyone reading this to look into it for yourself. As I have not listed many other examples like this for the sake of space.

Your eternal life is way too important to just carry on trusting in the Prophet or your feelings when they are multiple sources showing that in the very least Joseph Smith made up some of what he wrote, or at the most he made up it all.

 

 

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38 Responses »

  1. Very well done. I just pray that those with questions can realize how he tried to undermined the reality of Gods grace.

  2. Bobby,
    You are forgetting something very important. Joseph Smith was the translator of the Book of Mormon. As such he had a role in choosing the words that would be used in the translation. It is only natural, and expected, that “Smithisms” are going to show up. You will find that with any text that is translated. It is going to bear the mark of its translator. If Joseph Smith had actually authored the text we should expect to find WAY MORE “Smithisms” than the paltry few you have cited.

    And, by the way, there are far more sophisticated ways than this for determining if Joseph Smith was the sole author of the book. It is called “Word Print Analysis”. You should check it out: http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Wordprint_studies

    The scientific studies have shown that multiple authors contributed to the text of the Book of Mormon, and they were not Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, or Solomon Spalding.

    • Hi James been a little while hope all is well, I think this post is basically another piece of a puzzle, I wouldnt really expect anyone to seriously question mormonism on the basis of this post unless they were questioning it anyway. As well I think many Mormons still do believe Smith read these straight from the plates in which case I wouldnt be surprised if many Mormons think it is a 100% correct bearing in mind the statement most true book on earth etc. As well many Mormons do not know about the 3913 changes which is another piece of this puzzle, on their own maybe not that big a deal added up they may mean something.

      Regarding the computer study you mentioned which I believe was done at BYU, I have looked into it and found that not even all BYUapologists accepted this study one John A. Tvedtnes vocally not accepting it.

      Other studies have been done here is a quote from UTLM on the subject

      Recently another computer study of the Book of Mormon has come to our attention. It is entitled, “A Multivariate Technique for Authorship Attribution and its Application to the Analysis of Mormon Scripture and Related Texts.” The research was done by David I. Holmes, a Senior Lecturer in Statistics at Bristol Polytechnic, and was published by Oxford University Press for the Association for History and Computing. In this article David Holmes explained that he used fourteen large blocks of text from the Book of Mormon (amounting to over 120,000 words), documents written or dictated by Joseph Smith between 1828 and 1833, three samples of approximately 10,000 words from the early revelations printed in the Doctrine and Covenants, text from the book of Isaiah and Joseph Smith’s Book of Abraham. After Holmes finished his study, he was convinced that the claim of multiple authorship in the Book of Mormon was fallacious:

      Full quote here http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no84.htm#New%20Computer%20Study

      It seems the argument you present is not a 100% and not even accepted by all faithful LDS, it is a theory put together believed to support what you are saying, other studies have shown otherwise, I would simply say this means all sides need to be considered and that this BYU computer study should not be accepted lightly.

      However Ill be honest and say I dont really know on that one I think its possibly out of my depth at this stage, doing this ministry is weird, the more I learn the more I feel I need to learn :)

  3. Bobby,

    3913 changes? I always hear a number somewhere between 2000 and 4000, so that sounds about right. What I’ve never seen, though, is actual documentation of every single one of those changes. And those who love to bandy about such numbers almost *never* mention that 99.9% of those changes were simple corrections of spelling and punctuation. This is only problematic if you believe in an Evangelical view of inerrancy. Since Mormons don’t, there is nothing to worry about. I firmly believe that the Book of Mormon is the “most correct book” but that has got nothing to do with whether the text has ever been changed or not.

    Regarding the controversies surrounding Word Print Analysis here are some notes:

    (1) There was a study done at BYU in 1980 that concluded that the BoM was not written by Smith, Cowdery, or Spalding. It was received somewhat cautiously, with even some LDS pointing out that it had some flaws and needed to be improved upon.

    (2) There was another study done by John Hilton (a Mormon) along with non-Mormon colleagues in Berkley, California. That study was a major improvement on the earlier one, and it concluded that there is no way Joseph Smith was the author of the Book of Mormon.

    (3) In 2008 a paper was published by Jockers and Criddle at Stanford University which argued for the Spalding-Rigdon theory.

    (4) Regarding the paper you mentioned by Holmes, it has been reviewed by LDS mathematicians: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=6&num=1&id=136

    (5) Many LDS, including Tvetdnes, have issues with using word print analysis. Tvetdnes is a Hebraist however, not a mathematician. Tvetdnes also did not explain what exactly his objections were, so we can’t know what he meant. Nonetheless, word print analysis is still somewhat of a new science and it has provided ambiguous results.

    (6) I suggested you check out word print analysis not because I think it is a sure-fire way to get at the truth of the matter, but because it is a much more sophisticated approach than the silliness that you are copying and pasting from the Tanners.

  4. http://www.mazeministry.com/machine/index.htm

    From a previous conversation with James, the above link will take you to Jim Spencer’s “1830 Book of Mormon Comparison Machine”. It shows side by side the changes made. Check it out and you will see that there are many major changes.

    James said “What I’ve never seen, though, is actual documentation of every single one of those changes.” HERE IS THE DOCUMENTATION JAMES

    • Excellent! Thank you Jerry. I figured there was something like this out there, but critics never bother to show it. Of course, the obvious reason is because out of the thousands of changes only a very small handful are considered “significant”, even by the count of this website you linked to (they count only 22, which is 0.5% of 3913.)

  5. If Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from the golden plates by the give and power of God there is no room for any mistakes. O.

  6. Jerry,
    Two things:

    (1) It is debatable that any of the textual changes were corrections of “mistakes”. I haven’t looked at them all in a while, but I think most of them are merely changes made for the sake of clarification, not correction.

    (2) Even if there *were* corrections made, this would not be problematic. Mormons don’t believe in inerrant scripture, and we don’t believe that a prophet’s free agency is stripped from him when he co-authors scripture (with God). Remember, the BoM was translated “by the gift and power of God”, which is not the same thing as being translated “by God.”

  7. I just searched on my own blog for the phrase “in other words”. I came up with 12 hits on my blog. Maybe I wrote the Book of Mormon!

    • Thats interesting James, have you used some funeral texts and made them into scripture? Or have you told young girls if they marry you then their parents will go to heaven? If so you might find your also Joseph Smith :)

  8. Guys,

    (1) Jerry, I hope I don’t need to repeat myself again. Mormons do not believe that God is errant. Prophets are errant, and prophets are the ones who write scripture. Do you believe that God strips prophets of their free agency when they communicate God’s word? That is the only way to ensure an inerrant text.

    (2) Bobby, your cheap shots are a little too “CARM-like” for my taste. Let’s stay professional.

    • I was simply playing on what you said James, just a little humour no offense intended!

      And I certainly never claim to be professional, I certainly seek to be fair and respectful but these issues we are dealing with are eternal life for humanity, the nature of God who is over all, these are emotional life shaping issues. I certainly wouldn’t claim professionalism is my priority when dealing with those.

      Never the less point taken :)

  9. Maybe I need to repeat my self James. Joseph Smith’s God is errant. Joseph Smith, by the give and power of God translated the Book of Mormon, not by looking at the golden plates, but by putting his seer stone in a hat, then putting his face into the hat where the words would appear and would not change until the scribe wrote the word down correctly. So did God start changing words for the scribe to write down knowing that he had written the wrong word down? Sounds like an errant god to me. Or the other possibility: Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God.

  10. Again there is no room for one single error in the Book of Mormon.

  11. Jerry,

    You simply aren’t considering the possibilities (I suspect you know that you aren’t).

    Recall that the English language translation produced by Joseph Smith is a translation of an ancient text. That ancient text was originally authored by ancient prophets…men. So, for example, if Nephi wrote “green” in reformed Egyptian than Joseph said “green” in English to his scribe. If Nephi wrote “house” than Joseph said “house” in English. If Nephi wrote “God” than Joseph said “God”.

    But the distinct possibility exists, and it is a fact, that Nephi (or any other BoM prophet) could have written something incorrect, or maybe unclear, on the plates. Consider this simple example:

    1. Nephi writes “green” on the plates.
    2. Joseph is given the translation, from God, and he says the word “green”.
    3. It is later discovered that Nephi said the wrong word. He should have said “red.”
    4. Joseph changes the text from “green” to “red”.

    In this scenario God is not responsible in the least for the error. The error was Nephi’s. God translated exactly what Nephi wrote, mistakes and all. That would be a perfect translation.

    Now I’ve given you one possible scenario. There is another that I find more likely. That is that God himself did not provide Joseph with the translation. In other words, God is not the translator of the Book of Mormon. You are correct in your retelling of the eye witness accounts that Joseph would receive the words in the seerstone and that they would only be replaced by the next set of words if the scribe got it right. But I believe you are incorrect in assuming that God himself is responsible for the words that appeared on that stone. Remember, Joseph said that it was by the “power of God”. That is very different than it being by “God himself”.

    One thing is incredibly clear, Joseph played a role in the translation. The text smacks of “Smithisms” to a degree that Bobby didn’t even touch on here. Another thing is also clear, some divine influence also played a role in the translation. It was a a multi-person effort. I hypothesize that Moroni himself helped prepare the translation into English that was given to Joseph. I simply don’t think that God the Father translated the text into English. He usually lets his servants (ex Moroni, Joseph, Mormon, etc) participate in his work.

    James

  12. 1. Nephi writes “green” on the plates.
    2. Joseph is given the translation, from God, and he says the word “green”.
    3. It is later discovered that Nephi said the wrong word. He should have said “red.”
    4. Joseph changes the text from “green” to “red”.

    James, you don’t think that God is smart enough to know that Nephi should have said red? Your example just shows that you think Joseph Smith is smarter that God.

  13. Jerry,

    Let’s just take a deep breath and invite a little Christian civility into this discussion.

    You said, “…you think Joseph Smith is smarter that God.”

    C’mon Jerry! Why do you have to make accusations like that? Of course I don’t believe that Joseph Smith is smarter than God. Before leaping to such absurd conclusions, why don’t you take it a bit slower and simply ask me to clarify what I mean? This is a serious problem for inter-faith dialogue. We sometimes want to accuse each other of the worst possible intentions (like believing a man is smarter than God), without trying to really understand the other person’s view.

    Of course Joseph Smith isn’t smarter than God. In the example I gave (which you quoted), God simply translates what Nephi wrote even if Nephi got something wrong. This isn’t because God didn’t realize it, but simply because God doesn’t mind. It isn’t a horrible error that needs to be fixed immediately. I believe that God has a policy of letting humans participate in his work, and that means allowing room for error. If God had fixed the error himself he would have deprived Joseph Smith of the opportunity to participate in the writing (editing) of scripture.

    So let’s cool down and use a bit of Christian charity from here on out. I recommend we try to follow Stendahl’s three rules of religious dialogue:

    (1) When you are trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies.

    (2) Don’t compare your best to their worst.

    (3) Leave room for “holy envy.” (By this Stendahl meant that you should be willing to recognize elements in other religious traditions that you admire and wish could, in some way, be reflected in your own religious tradition or faith.)

  14. James you are the spin-master.

  15. Jerry,

    One of the things that severely hampers discussions like these is when the participants aren’t willing to learn about and keep in mind the doctrinal framework of others. This problem is highlighted by your apparent inability understand my comments about scripture writing.

    When I say “Joseph Smith corrected the scripture” you immediately take that as an offense on God. From within your conservative Evangelical doctrinal framework, “scripture” = “God’s inerrant words” and so it is unthinkable that a man could make any improvements or corrections to it. And so, approaching my comments from that angle, you denounce me as a “spin-master” and as believing that a man is smarter than God.

    But if you take a step back and try to understand this from within the Mormon doctrinal framework (which you should do, because this is a Mormon issue after all) you would understand that I’m not a “spin-master”. I’m simply telling you what Mormons believe about the nature of scripture. We don’t believe that scripture is the inerrant word of God. We believe it is inspired, but it is co-authored by human beings. Therefore, when Joseph Smith (or any other prophet) makes a change to scripture they are not fixing something that God screwed up on, but they are fixing something that God’s prophet, a mortal man, screwed up on.

  16. You use circular reasoning where you end up at the same place you started. My reasoning is that God knows everything and He doesn’t make mistakes (saying green when what was meant was red). It is also UNREASONABLE that God would have allowed Joseph Smith’s occult tool called a seer-stone to translate scripture that came from Him.

    • Jerry,

      You continue to miss the point brother.

      (1) Please identify *exactly* where I used circular reasoning.

      (2) I agree that God doesn’t make mistakes. In the hypothetical I provided, God didn’t make any mistakes. Nephi did.

      (3) You’ve drastically changed the subject to the issue of Joseph’s use of a seerstone. You did this in our private email exchange too, when you didn’t know what else to say. There is nothing unusual in the least about God’s prophets using physical objects to carry out God’s work (ie. Moses’ staff, Jacob’s rod, Aaron’s arms, the Nehushtan, the Urim & Thummim, Jesus use of dirt to heal a blind man, the apostle’s casting of lots, the wise men’s employment of astronomy, etc.)

      • Right there is your circular reasoning:
        “I agree that God doesn’t make mistakes. In the hypothetical I provided, God didn’t make any mistakes. Nephi did.”
        James, you say God does make mistake. You then try to put the mistake on Nephi. The fact is that God in your example did make a mistake.

      • James we have been talking about Joseph Smith’s occult tool called a seer-stone way back. Don’t accuse me of changing the subject.

        Jerry says:
        December 20, 2010 at 4:59 am
        Maybe I need to repeat my self James. Joseph Smith’s God is errant. Joseph Smith, by the give and power of God translated the Book of Mormon, not by looking at the golden plates, but by putting his seer stone in a hat, then putting his face into the hat where the words would appear and would not change until the scribe wrote the word down correctly. So did God start changing words for the scribe to write down knowing that he had written the wrong word down? Sounds like an errant god to me. Or the other possibility: Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God.
        Reply

      • (ie. Moses’ staff, Jacob’s rod, Aaron’s arms, the Nehushtan, the Urim & Thummim, Jesus use of dirt to heal a blind man, the apostle’s casting of lots, the wise men’s employment of astronomy, etc.)

        None of these involve the occult.

  17. A biblical example of a prophet editing the words of another prophet is Matthew 2:6, which is quoting Micah 5:2

    Matthew 2:6 (KJV) says: “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.”

    Micah 5:2 (KJV) says: “But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

    Now, it is important to point out that the KJV Micah is a translation from the Masoretic Text (MT), while Matthew would have been quoting the Septuagint text (LXX). But that doesn’t help much here because the changes Matthew makes are not the same as the differences between the MT and LXX.

    Micah describes Bethlehem as being “little among the thousands”, a description which makes Bethlehem seem pretty insignificant except for the fact that the Messiah will come from there. But, when Matthew quotes it, Matthew changes the wording to make Bethlehem not seem so insignificant. He changes it to “…art not the least…”. That is a pretty different description, providing a very different feel to the passage.

    I’m sure there are other examples, but this was just off the top of my head. It is a biblical practice for prophets to edit the words of other prophets, and it doesn’t mean that the prophet is smarter than God.

    James

  18. 1830 version BOM:
    1 Nephi 11:18 And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.
    Changed to:
    1Nephi 11:1818 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.

    “God” is changed “Son of God.”

    Go ahead James please spin this one for us.

  19. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,

    (1) In the context of the broad conversation we are having, you did not change the subject. But in the context of where our conversation had led (our respective understandings of the nature of scripture) you most certainly did change the subject.

    (2) I’ll repeat what I’ve repeated before. In my hypothetical situation GOD DOESN’T MAKE ANY MISTAKES. Usually, in online discussion, all caps is meant to symbolize shouting. That is exactly why I put it in all caps. I want to shout to you that I don’t believe in a God who makes mistakes. In my hypothetical situation God did not make a single mistake. If God was the translator of the text (in this hypothetical) than a perfect translation would not have tried to correct Nephi’s mistakes. A perfect translation would have kept Nephi’s mistakes. If Nephi incorrectly said “green”, than a perfect translation would say “green” also. An imperfect, and incorrect, translation would change “green” to “red”. God perfectly translated “green” to “green”. He allowed Joseph Smith to later make the appropriate textual change so as to improve the meaning of the text. But the actual translation would have been without error.

    (3) So, let’s look at the example 1 Nephi 11:18. You have already designated my response (which I haven’t give yet) as “spin”. Jerry, that is very unprofessional of you. It is very immature of you. It is childish bickering, not serious conversation. You don’t even know what I’m going to say, yet you’ve already decided that it is “spin”.
    If Nephi wrote down the phrase”mother of god”, then a perfect translation into English would read “mother of god”. That is exactly what happened. The text was perfectly translated.
    But, the text can be improved upon. Nephi wrote “mother of God” and it made perfect sense to him, he lived long before the Catholic Church began venerate Mary. When the text was finally translated into English, thousands of years later, the phrase “mother of God” had a different meaning than it did to Nephi. Today, as in Joseph’s day, the phrase “mother of God” carries a lot of baggage brought on by Mary worship. So, in order to prevent confusion by readers of the Book of Mormon, a very appropriate change was made to the text. It was changed to “mother of the Son of God.” Both versions of the passage are accurate, and both contain truth. One of them, however, is subject to misunderstanding, while the other is not. That is why changes like that are made.

    This isn’t rocket science Jerry. I’ve already illustrated the same thing happening in the Bible, but you only seem to have a problem with it when a Mormon does it. That is very irresponsible and inconsistent.

    (4) You have described Joseph’s use of a seerstone as “occult”. I’d like to know how exactly you are defining the word “occult”. I challenge you to provide a definition of “occult” and then have the integrity to use it consistently. My guess is that you can’t find a definition of “occult” that condemns Joseph Smith but which does not condemn certain biblical prophets.

  20. Jerry,
    Don’t you work for Sourceflix? Is that your primary source of income? Is that your day job? If so, I’m disappointed that someone who works for an organization like that isn’t better informed on LDS scholarship.

  21. Kate said: “Funny, I was always taught that the Book of Mormon was without error! James and I must not have belonged to the same Mormon religion…”

    Perhaps we didn’t belong to the same LDS Church. I have NEVER been taught that the BoM is without error. I know of no statement anywhere in any LDS manual or by any LDS leader suggesting such a thing. In fact, the title page of The Book of Mormon itself says:

    “And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.”

  22. Friends,

    We disagree on many things. But at this season we can find much to agree on. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and I hope you get to spend time with loved ones as we remember the birth of our Savior.

    Perhaps you will enjoy this short Christmas message from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

    http://lds.org/pages/look-to-the-light?lang=eng

    Sincerely,
    James

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