Transfiguration of Brigham Young

[Kishkumen]

So, there are some 1844 references to the mantle of Prophet or Joseph that are fascinating. The first is Rigdon saying in early July that he was prepared to assume "the Prophetic mantle." The next reference is to "Elijah's mantle" having fallen upon the Twelve in a 2 September 1844 report of an interview with Brigham in the Times and Seasons, if I am reading Van Wagoner correctly. An anonymous, ahem, letter in the 15 October 1844 Times and Seasons said that "the mantle of the prophet has fallen on Pres. Young and the Twelve, " and "The same spirit which inspired our beloved bro. Joseph Smith, now inspires Pres. Young."

You can really see this thing coming together, this idea that Joseph's "spirit" rested on Brigham Young somehow, but it clearly starts, on the apostolic side of thing, with the Twelve being the guardian of the Church, with no signal being given that Brigham was the successor of Joseph.

Thus when we see this 1855 letter in a Strangite publication, it looks like it is specifically in response to Strangite claims that Strang was designated Smith's successor and was emulating or imitating Smith's career in so many particulars that a letter is written stressing how Brigham *looked* like Joseph Smith on 8 August 1844. The response is predictable--that Brigham had merely been playacting and impersonating Smith consciously and fraudulently.

It may be that Strangite claims nudged the process of creating this miracle along. That is extremely interesting to me.

[Kishkumen]

The other part of this that has me feeling utterly vindicated and more convinced than ever that the LDS Church’s claims to succession are bogus is that, after Joseph was assassinated, everyone continued to view him as the one who held and exercised all the keys. Rigdon stressed this, and so did the Twelve. The best current Mormon theology would recognize this as still being the case. The D&C 132 revelation about there being only one who holds the keys is decidedly NOT about the president of the LDS Church but Joseph Smith. President Nelson is not Joseph Smith’s successor because Joseph Smith needed no successor. It is very nice to find my views on this confirmed so strongly by the history and the best scholarship on it. Consiglieri is right that there is an apostolic coup, but I think it is more gradual. It is the slow process whereby Brigham becomes comfortable falsely asserting his role as Joseph’s successor, when in the early months after the assassination he knew full well that he was not Joseph’s successor.

John D. Lee’s witness about the mantle also includes reference to Joseph Smith’s son taking his rightful place among the Saints when he grows up. That was the only real hope of actual succession, and it occurred in the RLDS Church when Joseph Smith III was ordained by prophet by one who had received his second anointing, William Marks. As long as the RLDS Church had a Smith president, they had a more valid succession than the LDS Church ever had. Their problem was that they discontinued the ordinances of the temple, which made their succession somewhat pointless. So you essentially have two organizations lacking crucial aspects of Joseph Smith’s restoration, each claiming to be the true church. Obviously, both were, in their own way, wrong.

[Moksha]

Obviously, both were, in their own way, wrong.

That would leave us with the mantle of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Did you see some of the transformations of Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter movies?