DiscussMormonism.com

The new Joseph Smith manual for next year contains almost the entire text of the Wentworth letter word for word. The only part they deleted shows up like this in the manual:

"...This book... tells us that our savior made..."

The only part they deleted from the letter reads as follows:

"In this important and interesting book the history of ancient America is unfolded, from its first settlement by a colony that came from the Tower of Babel, at the confusion of languages to the beginning of the fifth century of the Christian Era. We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites, and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem, about six hundred years before Christ. They were principally Israelites, of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritance of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle towards the close of the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country. This book also tells us that..."

Just something I noticed tonight while eating dinner browsing the new Joseph Smith manual that my wife brought home from church.

HOLY CRAP. Who Knows, this is a significant find on your part. For all those curious, you can read the Wentworth letter here:

http://www.lightplanet.com/Mormons/peop ... etter.html

Will the church stop at nothing? Do they not realize that the Internet will do to the Mormon Church what the printing press did to the Catholic Church?

There is another subtle move in play. This part, "This book ... tells us". Yes, they don't want us to know that the book first tells us about the fascinating history of warring civilizations and also tells us about Jesus. They want us to falsely emphasize that the book is above anything else, a testament of Jesus.

Very interesting. 'White Out' brand text remover seems to have found a home in SLC.

I remember a lecture Dr. Laura gave about hope - saying that you were basically just delaying disappointment. To have hope that the church will start being truthful about it's history, in all matters, is really just delaying diappointment.


p.s. This last couple weeks I learned about spoilation of evidence in my paralegal classes. We were studying about cases where email was destroyed. Another type of legal spoilation is suppression of evidence - to withhold information; and it can be big sanctions, even an inference of guilt if one is caught doing this.

Of course, part of what makes this delicious is that apologists constantly scream that critics ellipse out important information.

beastie wrote:Of course, part of what makes this delicious is that apologists constantly scream that critics ellipse out important information.

Exactly!

Here is the link to it at LDS.org.

We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

this was in the manual - they should change it to - We believe in being subjects to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates when they obey, honor and sustain our law.

beastie wrote:Of course, part of what makes this delicious is that apologists constantly scream that critics ellipse out important information.

Exactly. We're the ones accused of taking quotes out of context, but usually we're the ones trying to put the whitewashed quotes IN context.

That's too funny. Here's what the CES Church History manual says about the Wentworth Letter:

Wentworth did not publish this document in the Chicago Democrat, nor
did it ever appear in any history of New Hampshire. But the Church’s
newspaper, Times and Seasons, published it in March 1842, and it has become
one of the most important statements of inspiration, history, and doctrine for
the Church.

It's so important they had to excise Joseph's statements about the Book of Mormon because they're no longer consistent with Mormon apologetics.

Hilarious.

beastie wrote:Of course, part of what makes this delicious is that apologists constantly scream that critics ellipse out important information.

I have already documented, on my blog, a very grievous use of ellipses by Bob Crockett. It is very interesting, in any case, to watch the little jigsaw-piece removals of critical evidence damning the Church on these grounds. I agree wholeheartedly with Gad: this is a big-league find, WK.