Do modern apostles no longer get visits from The Savior?

[Morley]

I must be missing something. Where in that paragraph does he say that he actually saw Christ?

It doesn’t. We just have this witness along with many others he delivered throughout his life.

As I said, he knew he would be dead within days. He had nothing to hide. He knew he was going to meet his maker.

So yeah, that’s what we have to go on.

We might safely assume that whatever he experienced would be unique to his calling as a special witness of Christ. An apostle. If we take BRM seriously I don’t think it unreasonable to think that other apostles have had a similar witness.

You are correct. He doesn’t explicitly say he saw the risen Lord.

He could have stayed home. He didn’t. He was under a great degree of personal distress physically. But he went. He testified of that risen Lord he had testified of and knew.

If McConkie knew he was going to die, why the hell would he stay home? It seems he would want to stand tall, speak eloquently, and burnish his reputation for all of those who would remember him after he was gone.

[malkie]

You know how easy it is to forget names when first meeting, how many angels have we seen appear in our rooms brighter than the sun just to awkwardly ask them to repeat their name next time we meet

Probably as easy as it is to mistake God as a mere angel, or two Gods as just one. YMMV.

Sorry to be pedantic, sock, but if you're referring to the canonized version of the First Vision in JSH, you can only say that JSJr claimed to see two personages - zero gods mentioned.

As far as I can tell, at no time did he clarify that statement in any non-ambiguous statement that is accepted by the church as scripture. I could be wrong, of course, having forgotten a lot of what I once knew, but last time I looked (more than a year ago, I think), I and several others were unable to come up with anything more definitive.

[MG 2.0]

I must be missing something. Where in that paragraph does he say that he actually saw Christ?

It doesn’t. We just have this witness along with many others he delivered throughout his life.

As I said, he knew he would be dead within days. He had nothing to hide. He knew he was going to meet his maker.

So yeah, that’s what we have to go on.

We might safely assume that whatever he experienced would be unique to his calling as a special witness of Christ. An apostle. If we take BRM seriously I don’t think it unreasonable to think that other apostles have had a similar witness.

You are correct. He doesn’t explicitly say he saw the risen Lord.

He could have stayed home. He didn’t. He was under a great degree of personal distress physically. But he went. He testified of that risen Lord he had testified of and knew.

If McConkie knew he was going to die, why the hell would he stay home? It seems he would want to stand tall, speak eloquently, and burnish his reputation for all of those who would remember him after he was gone.

That is one way of looking at it.

Regards,
MG

[malkie]

Elder Bruce R. McConkie said this in his last conference address:

One of the most powerful witnesses of the resurrected Christ ever shared with mankind.

From an Apostle.

I don’t think his experience with the Savior and his depth in understanding/appreciation for Christ’s atonement is unique among the Apostles.

He stood up at the podium knowing he would be dead within days and go to meet his maker.

If he had a personal and undeniable witness of Christ one might assume that others have too.

Regards,
MG

I admire the oratory, particularly under the circumstances. But is the message nevertheless problematic? Yes. BRM was a law school grad. He makes a statement in there, "This I know of myself independent of any other person," is an attempt to defy a hearsay objection. If BRM was not at Gethsemane and Golgotha at the time Jesus' atonement, shedding of blood is reported in the Gospels to have occurred, then BRM has no foundation for then claiming to know "of myself independent of any other person" that Jesus is "our Lord, our God, and our King." BRM wanted to imbue the impact of his speech with such bold rhetoric, to move listeners. It is great oratory, as flawed as it is.

May I say that, after I die, I shall not know BRM any better then than I know him now. This is my solemn testimony.

(it may be worth noting that, although I have met probably about 10 or 12 GAs, I have never met BRH.)

Fun fact about malkie: during a Saturday morning breakfast meeting with a GA, I told him a joke about Scottish weather. The next day he misquoted me in his conference talk, totally mangling the joke

[Res Ipsa]

I admire the oratory, particularly under the circumstances. But is the message nevertheless problematic? Yes. BRM was a law school grad. He makes a statement in there, "This I know of myself independent of any other person," is an attempt to defy a hearsay objection. If BRM was not at Gethsemane and Golgotha at the time Jesus' atonement, shedding of blood is reported in the Gospels to have occurred, then BRM has no foundation for then claiming to know "of myself independent of any other person" that Jesus is "our Lord, our God, and our King." BRM wanted to imbue the impact of his speech with such bold rhetoric, to move listeners. It is great oratory, as flawed as it is.

May I say that, after I die, I shall not know BRM any better then than I know him now. This is my solemn testimony.

(it may be worth noting that, although I have met probably about 10 or 12 GAs, I have never met BRH.)

Fun fact about malkie: during a Saturday morning breakfast meeting with a GA, I told him a joke about Scottish weather. The next day he misquoted me in his conference talk, totally mangling the joke

The penalty for ruining a perfectly good joke should be Outer Darkness.

[malkie]

May I say that, after I die, I shall not know BRM any better then than I know him now. This is my solemn testimony.

(it may be worth noting that, although I have met probably about 10 or 12 GAs, I have never met BRH.)

Fun fact about malkie: during a Saturday morning breakfast meeting with a GA, I told him a joke about Scottish weather. The next day he misquoted me in his conference talk, totally mangling the joke

The penalty for ruining a perfectly good joke should be Outer Darkness.

It's very kind of you to imply that the joke as I told it to him was "perfectly good"

It was at least coherent.

[Gadianton]

So what if Bruce R. didn't give that talk that implied maybe he had seen Jesus? What would MG say then?

MG just works backwards from whatever he's got. If nobody claimed to see Jesus, they'd still be proof of Jesus. If one person claimed to see Jesus, we can assume the rest did also. If all of them claimed to see Jesus, that would prove that they did, but no more so than if none of them claimed it or only one did.

[bill4long]

McConkie criticized any notion of people being "special friends with Jesus" and that special feelings along these lines were dubious and not to be trusted, all the while making innuendo that he was special friends with the Mormon Jesus, and that, of course, special feelings are how you are suppose "know" if the Book of Mormon is "true", etc. etc. Well, nobody ever accused ole Bruce of consistency.

Hehe. Hehehe.

A special hats off to Glenn Pace. (RIP.)

[Gadianton]

McConkie criticized any notion of people being "special friends with Jesus" and that special feelings along these lines were dubious and not to be trusted, all the while making innuendo that he was special friends with the Mormon Jesus, and that, of course, special feelings are how you are suppose "know" if the Book of Mormon is "true", etc. etc. Well, nobody ever accused ole Bruce of consistency.

That's a great point. I remember Bruce R. being critical of his southern neighbors for all the airy "personal relationship" stuff. If that's all his final testimony was, then he's a raging hypocrite. However, if he meant that he'd been visited by the real Jesus, felt the nail marks in his hands, then he's not a hypocrite, however, he's also not a very good apostle. The original twelve apostles didn't prevaricate over what they saw. Imagine if the New Testament read like Bruce R's testimony, where you couldn't quite tell if they were saying they really "saw him" or not.

[malkie]

McConkie criticized any notion of people being "special friends with Jesus" and that special feelings along these lines were dubious and not to be trusted, all the while making innuendo that he was special friends with the Mormon Jesus, and that, of course, special feelings are how you are suppose "know" if the Book of Mormon is "true", etc. etc. Well, nobody ever accused ole Bruce of consistency.

That's a great point. I remember Bruce R. being critical of his southern neighbors for all the airy "personal relationship" stuff. If that's all his final testimony was, then he's a raging hypocrite. However, if he meant that he'd been visited by the real Jesus, felt the nail marks in his hands, then he's not a hypocrite, however, he's also not a very good apostle. The original twelve apostles didn't prevaricate over what they saw. Imagine if the New Testament read like Bruce R's testimony, where you couldn't quite tell if they were saying they really "saw him" or not.

Might one call that plausible affirmativity?