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So I stumbled across this talk by Dallin H Oaks - "Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents" (6 Aug 1987) regarding the Hofmann documents (like the Salamander Letter, which was only 1 of 40 acquired by the church).

Oaks says in several places that these documents were not suppressed at all. Read his reasons/excuses for WHY the documents hadn't been made public yet (6 Aug 1987). Here's a great nugget from the talk:

During this same month of January 1986, the Church turned all of its Hofmann-acquired documents over to the prosecutors, at their request. As a result, the Church could not make its Hofmann documents public to answer these innuendos of suppression without seeming to try to influence or impede the criminal investigation.

On 11 April 1986, after months of searching through its records and collections, the Church published a complete list of the forty-eight documents and groups of court records then known to have been acquired from Mark Hofmann. That list spoke for itself: It was a mixture of the already-published, the intriguing, the routine, and the trivial. Now, over a year later, we know that some of the forty-eight are forgeries, because they were named in the criminal charges and confessed by Hofmann during his questioning by prosecutors.

But Hofmann handled many documents that were not specifically listed in the criminal charges and covered in the subsequent questioning. So, like most owners of Hofmann-handled documents, the Church is still unsure how many of such documents are forgeries and which are genuine. As of this date, the Church does not even have possession of all of the forty-eight it acquired. The prosecution has not yet returned the last thirteen, which include the documents of greatest interest to the public.

Despite the Church’s publication of a complete list of its acquisitions from Hofmann, the allegations of suppression continued.

I am wondering why we STILL don't have access to those documents if they're not actually being "suppressed". He made it sound like the church has nothing to hide and would be more than happy to publicize them all if they were in their possession, but unfortunately the prosecution had them so it was currently out of their hands until they finally get them back. It's been over 20 years since this talk...why have they STILL not been released I wonder. Let me guess...the prosecution still has them and the church is still afraid of swaying the investigation?

Not that I think the forgeries are actually all that damning to the church...I just want to read them out of sheer curiosity...besides, Oaks said that it's possible some of those documents are actually REAL ones as they've never been proven either way. I'd REALLY like to read some of them, and Oaks makes it sound like he's not opposed to them being made public...so why on Earth are they still being suppressed 20 years later when he just said here that there was no suppression going on and that such accusations were false?

I see Hofmann's sister every few weeks or so when I visit my in-laws for the weekend (she doesn't like people finding out the relation, and is glad her maiden name changed now. lol So it's an interesting topic to me anyway.

Because forgeries are garbage.

Because forgeries are garbage + lack of discernment = embarassment

Pokatator wrote:Because forgeries are garbage + lack of discernment = embarassment

While it's true that there was no discernment used to know they were forgeries, they weren't necessarily blindly fooled into believing them either. As mentioned in Oak's talk:

For example, President Gordon B. Hinckley said this about the Martin Harris letter (Salamander letter):

“No one, of course, can be certain that Martin Harris wrote the document. However, at this point we accept the judgment of the examiner that there is no indication that it is a forgery. This does not preclude the possibility that it may have been forged at a time when the Church had many enemies.” (News Release, 28 Apr. 1985.)

Also, keep in mind that Hinckley actually refused to purchase the Salamander letters based on Hofmann's outrageous selling price. He didn't think they were worth the money, especially since they were unverified. It was actually Steven F. Christensen who bought them ($40K) and donated them to the church. I think the Salamander Letters issues are exaggerated. I don't think anyone high up was necessarily DUPED by any means (as can be shown by many statements made before they were even known to be forgeries...however, it's true that they weren't specifically told that either. Though technically I suppose some TBM apologist could try to argue that maybe they were inspired and were simply taking the forgeries away from the public so that they couldn't use forgeries against the church, since the forgeries even passed carbon dating tests, etc. Who knows. LDS apologists come up with weird theories sometimes. But it is clear they suspected them to be possible forgeries even after the carbon dating tests passed. So maybe there was some discernment involved after all.

charity wrote:Because forgeries are garbage.

"The Church is still unsure how many of such documents are forgeries."

As soon as the PR department can re-write them to be more faith promoting, expect them to be available. If not, they will go into the infamous vault F where they will collect dust for all eternity.

It always makes me laugh when the LDS Corporation states they are opening a LDS Library. I can imagine floor after floor of paintings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and Gordy Hinkster - with one 10x10 section of books all written by GA's over the last decade. There isn't going to be much else that is faith promoting and doesn't show the Corp. in a bad light.

As infymus has quipped "What has been seen can't be unseen." Why release anything which might be false? You can't go back and undo it.

charity wrote: Why release anything which might be false? You can't go back and undo it.

charity wrote:As infymus has quipped "What has been seen can't be unseen." Why release anything which might be false? You can't go back and undo it.

Because Oaks more than implied that they would. Why say what he did in that talk if they never had such an intention? It wasn't really completely honest...he implied that if the church still had the documents in their possession that they would publicly release them. 20 years later, it's still never been done.

All of the discern-o-meters were out of service at that time. Moroni had them up in his shop recalibrating them.

Lucifer being a crafty son knew he could palm anything against these undiscerning men and sent in his spawn Hoffman.

Only ignorant fools believe that any of these Mormon cult leaders have magical powers of discernment.

Their discernment abilities are as useful as trying to figure out who farted in a crowded elevator.