On the Journal of Discourses (pic seen on Facebook)

[_Chap]

It is kind of a 3rd party confirmation, if you look at it. It is signed by the manager of Deseret Book. They are saying that they won't distribute anything that isn't approved by the Church.

Also, a couple of things:

1. Approval by the Church for distribution does not necessarily mean doctrine. Now, all official doctrinal materials, such as lesson manuals, etc. are distributed exclusively through the Church Distribution Center. That is different than Deseret Book, which sells fiction, non-fiction, etc.

2. Since this letter was written in 1963, rules and policies have changed.

3. This letter is not signed by a prophet or a member of the Quorum of the 12.

Effectively, I think this amounts to saying that in those pre-internet days the CoJCoLDS had not yet constructed the defensive barrier known as 'correlation', one of whose main purposes seems to be to allow deniability of anything embarrassing that was at some past time common belief or practice in the church. (I am not talking here about 'folk beliefs' like the Three Nephites finding your keys, but about things believed by most normal educated LDS and taught regularly by leaders of the church).

The church as it is today, in this respect as in others, is not one that would have been easily recognized by most LDS of the past, and certainly not by Joseph Smith and his early successors in the role of prophet. But hey - who cares so long as tithing keeps coming in?

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Wasn't signed by the Prophet, and even if it were, he would have obviously been signing as a man.

And even if the Prophet back then (McKay) had signed it, he's dead so it means nothing now.

[_Aristotle Smith]

Mr. Combes was obviously just lazy. The Deseret Book executive clearly told him he could write to Joseph Fielding Smith for confirmation. We know he didn't because Mr. Combes would have shown us that letter too, not just the one from Deseret Book. Since he clearly didn't write, we know Mr. Combes is lazy and we can simply ignore whatever he shows us.

All apostates are lazy. When they say they didn't know the facts about the church and thus feel deceived by the church, it was because they are lazy. The church doesn't hide anything. I remember fondly the trips my mother and father made with me from San Diego, CA to Salt Lake City the summer before I turned 8 years old. We would go to the archives in Salt Lake, the special collections at the UofU, and BYU's library to research post-manifesto polygamy. I just knew that post-manifesto polygamy happened and I wanted to know all about it.

The clue for me that it was happening was in my CTR primary class. One day the teacher had us gluing macaroni on a picture of Jesus to make his beard. Then it hit me, bearded polygamists must have been practicing post-manifesto polygamy. I told my mom and dad, they agreed that was a pretty good reason to doubt the official church story of polygamy ceasing with the Manifesto, and off we went to read the original documents in Utah.

[_bcspace]

Bcspace has just fainted...

Why would I do that?

http://www.LDS.org/topics/journal-of-discourses?lang=eng

[_ludwigm]

Bcspace has just fainted...

Why would I do that?

http://www.LDS.org/topics/journal-of-discourses?lang=eng

Something is missing from that entry.
The date - when was it created?
The author - who wrote it (or which committee) ?

Last but not least: is the Gospel Topics official? Some disclaimer around?
What does say President Newsroom about Gospel Topics?

Not too long ago, there was on the main page of Bible Dictionary a disclaimer:

It is not intended as an official or revealed endorsement by the Church of the doctrinal, historical, cultural, and other matters set forth.

... as yet can be found today, on http://www.classic.scriptures.LDS.org.

Starting today from the LDS.org main page, there is no such disclaimer.
Apparently the BD or some policy or both were changed.

by the way in the 70s and 80s in the Ensign and in other official sources there were quotes from JoD.
For example, in the first edition of the Hungarian D&C...