Peterson the historical skeptic

[MG 2.0]

Joseph starting out the long game by false witnessing to the woman he loved? That’s a stretch.

No, it's not.

OK. Get in Joseph’s mind. What was he REALLY doing? You’re imputing a whole lot of evil into this guy by making this statement.

Stand up. Prove that young Joseph had ulterior motives as he brought Emma into his ‘translation scheme’.

She absolutely fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Up to her dying day.

Critics are forced into making Joseph into a victim of Split Personality Disorder. Joseph the kind and loving husband. Joseph the malevolent deceiver. The thing is, if you read HIS writings he IS the kind and loving husband/leader.

Have you read Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith lately? His words would give him away if he was doing the long con. And yet they don’t. He truly believed he was accountable to God for the work he was doing. And his teachings in that book support that premise.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

So, Joseph was able to discipline himself to not give up the plates for worldly wealth and yet he decides to go to an extreme amount of work to create the Book of Mormon and bring others into his devious schemes, including Emma, so he can then cash in?

He should have gone with unloading the plates for a small fortune...

[MG 2.0]

Why are you determined to label Smith as an idiot?

Check out the JSP. Tell me how what you see there squares with your determination to cast Smith as an idiot.

We’re talking about Joseph’s early years leading up to and including the Book of Mormon translation period. He wasn’t an idiot. You know that I don’t think that. But Emma verifies that he was in no wise a savant either.

So you’re left back at square one. How did Joseph do what he did at such a young age and under the circumstances he was living in?

https://interpreterfoundation.org/estim ... vidence-1/

I think we may be moving into the ‘talking in circles’ phase of this discussion.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

So, Joseph was able to discipline himself to not give up the plates for worldly wealth and yet he decides to go to an extreme amount of work to create the Book of Mormon and bring others into his devious schemes, including Emma, so he can then cash in?

He should have gone with unloading the plates for a small fortune...

Assuming there were plates, right?

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

Joseph starting out the long game by false witnessing to the woman he loved? That’s a stretch.

No, it's not.

OK. Get in Joseph’s mind. What was he REALLY doing? You’re imputing a whole lot of evil into this guy by making this statement.

by making that statement I am saying it is not a stretch that Smith lied to Emma. And the rest of my post already did comment on what he was doing:

Emma (read Joseph’s letters to her) was the love of Joseph’s life.

And then he married many, MANY other women, including teenagers, behind her back, and in defiance of the law. No, that's not how a man shows a woman that she is the love of his life. Your argument that fancy words outweigh his actions is gross and offensive and betrays a naïvété that is pretty silly.

[MG 2.0]

Your argument that fancy words outweigh his actions is gross and offensive and betrays a naïvété that is pretty silly.

We have his “fancy words” in his own words. All of the “actions” you allude to are conjecture and whispers out of history. Those whispers may be either inconclusive or downright fabrications.

And you know that.

Regards,
MG

[canpakes]

So, Joseph was able to discipline himself to not give up the plates for worldly wealth and yet he decides to go to an extreme amount of work to create the Book of Mormon and bring others into his devious schemes, including Emma, so he can then cash in?

He should have gone with unloading the plates for a small fortune. Could have saved a heck of a lot of grief.

Actual gold plates may have fetched a fine, small fortune, for their value by weight. Assuming that he ever had any actual gold plates to begin with. That’s the sticky wicket, right?

The route he took is much easier. Create the story, then find one or more folks willing to believe that story. About God. And Life, and Death. And about a history that at the time was sweeping, and incredible, and tragic, and forceful … to a population that would and could not have known anything else to be true.

No need to find plates. No need to have used them, even as props. Even Smith couldn’t make those work, because of the impracticality of physically including such a prop into the translation process. His masterful opening pitch of mysterious, golden plates needed to be set aside nearly as soon as it was concocted and once a story began to coalesce.

Wait, let’s think about this. Maybe that wouldn’t have been such a great idea. No plates? No God? Which one are you going to choose this go around?

No plates, for sure. You can put me down for that, for starters.

Layers upon layers of imaginative mental gymnastics for critics to get around the plain/hard truth.

Example: every religion in the world, when comparing the differences within their beliefs.

The creation and bringing forth of the Book of Mormon wasn’t WORTH it.

To Smith, it was.

THAT’S why no one else ever attempted a feat such as this at Joseph’s age and within the constraints/limitations that he lived with/under.

In a sense you could say that Joseph was a silly goose/dumb for even thinking up such an elaborate/wild scheme with so many moving parts. He was one in a ________________. (fill in large number)

He crafted a story.

What came next was aided and abetted by dozens, then hundreds of folks willing to believe the story, and then pledge their allegiance, time, resources - and sometimes, even wives and children - to Smith.

Smith had a sales force.

[MG 2.0]

I am saying it is not a stretch that Smith lied to Emma.

At what point in Joseph’s life did he go to the ‘dark side’? It must have been at a fairly young age for him to be lying to Emma BIG TIME as the time approached for the BIG CON of the Book of Mormon.

Can you point, let’s say, to a particular experience/time in his youth that ‘turned him’ so that by the time he was between 14-15 years old he had gone dark?

Surely it wasn’t reading James 1:5?

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

...And you know that.

Your passive aggressive techniques are pretty amateur. Still entertaining, though, so please don't stop. Everyone needs a laugh now and then.

We have his “fancy words” in his own words.

Well yes, that's the point. Lying through words is indeed, done 'in his own words.'

All of the “actions” you allude to are conjecture and whispers out of history. Those whispers may be either inconclusive or downright fabrications.

No, I'm referring to the facts. His multiple marriages are a matter of record.

[malkie]

Assuming there were plates, right?

Regards,
MG

Simply plates - OK, witnesses who did not actually see the "plates" said that what they felt through a cloth seemed like metal plates to them.

Of course, Joseph's story requires more than just something with the feel of metal plates.

Specifically, we cannot assume he had gold plates, or plates of any sort with "Reformed Egyptian" inscribed on them.

As far as I'm aware:

• nobody tested whatever Joseph had to be able to confirm that it consisted of gold plates
• nobody was able or competent to declare any inscriptions to be Reformed Egyptian, or any particular language

So, no, talking about gold plates, or any kind of plates with Reformed Egyptian inscriptions, assumes facts not in evidence.

And talking only about something that felt like "plates" doesn't get you far.