John Larsen wrote:According to Wilford Woodruff, they also collected bone fragments from Zelph. I don't recall if it was Wilford or not, I will look it up when I get home tonight. These are very likely in the possession of the Church. We can thus establish Lamanite DNA structure for sure! The Church should jump at the chance since this will prove once and for all that they are right and all of those nasty scientists are just full of dirty lies.
Thanks for the post. Many moons ago I remember seeing a reference in an online forum about a statement by Joseph Smith saying that some "mummies" recently discovered in Kentucky (?) or somewhere in the Southeast of the US were physical evidence of Book of Mormon peoples. Have you heard about this and do you have any online or other cite or reference to it?
Anyone else heard or know about such a reference? Perhaps I'm mis-remembering.
Also, does anyone know of any statement by Joseph Smith or any other LDS contemporary (or even any LDS before 1950) that asserts that some ancient ruins site or artifact was not created by or is not evidence of Book of Mormon peoples? Maybe something like: "This site/artifact was -- or probably was -- created by ancient inhabitants of the Americas who were NOT Book of Mormon peoples or their later descendants"?
Note to beastie: Hope you and yours are well.
By the way: Mike Huckabee and his entire campaign staff wish you a merry, yet deeply peaceful, Christmas. And they daily thank and praise the Lord that you have rejected the Mormon cult that once ensnared you.
Addictio wrote:Many moons ago I remember seeing a reference in an online forum about a statement by Joseph Smith saying that some "mummies" recently discovered in Kentucky (?) or somewhere in the Southeast of the US were physical evidence of Book of Mormon peoples. Have you heard about this and do you have any online or other cite or reference to it?
Her Amun, my esteemed colleague at MAD, shared the reference in a fantastic thread titled: Joseph Displays His Ignorance On The Ancient World, ...could the Book of Mormon be written by a guy that thought these things?
Her Amun wrote:In another thread, I had earlier made the point that Joseph alaways seemd to bring attention to WHAT HE BELIEVED to be supporting evidence for his prophetic claims. My main source is Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith , a compilation by Joseph Fielding SMith. Since most of the anti's seem to have Mormon roots, it wont be difficult to find a copy; who might even humor your tbm relatives Here are the examples:
...
Pg 239 catacomb of mummuies found in kentuky Joseph Smith cites some report about "mummies" being discovered in Kentuky and claims that they are "another strong evidence of the Book of Mormon."
The old thread is worth reading. Her Amun's way to help the Church is to show how lame Joseph Smith was as an apologist... quite amusing.
Addictio wrote:Also, does anyone know of any statement by Joseph Smith or any other LDS contemporary (or even any LDS before 1950) that asserts that some ancient ruins site or artifact was not created by or is not evidence of Book of Mormon peoples? Maybe something like: "This site/artifact was -- or probably was -- created by ancient inhabitants of the Americas who were NOT Book of Mormon peoples or their later descendants"?
Never heard of this kind of statement. I got my hopes up the other day when LOP and Selek promised to show such quotes from Joseph Smith, but alas they were mistaken.
Addictio wrote:By the way: Mike Huckabee and his entire campaign staff wish you a merry, yet deeply peaceful, Christmas. And they daily thank and praise the Lord that you have rejected the Mormon cult that once ensnared you.
Awesome!
"And yet another little spot is smoothed out of the echo chamber wall..." Bond
So good to see you, addict. Good thing dude popped up with a reference, because I hadn't heard of the mummy reference before, as far as I could remember.
What always strikes me about this "Joseph Smith didn't understand the Book of Mormon, and this is evidence that the Book of Mormon is true!" argument is this:
Under the loose translation theory, which most of these folks adhere to at least a form of, the content of the text was formed by Joseph Smith's understanding of the story. Admittedly we don't know how he obtained that understanding of the story (vision? dream?), but his understanding of the Book of Mormon is the Book of Mormon. According to loose translation, if we actually had the gold plates, then perhaps we could see what the text actually says versus what Joseph Smith understood it to say, but the content of the Book of Mormon was formed by Joseph Smith' understanding of the story.
So whatever Joseph Smith understood about the Book of Mormon is actually what the Book of Mormon really says - because it is his understanding that formed it in the first place. in my opinion - what these apologists are doing when they insist that Joseph Smith didn't really understand the Book of Mormon is demonstrate how willing they are to change what the text actually says to suit their purposes.
Anyway, unless my internet service straightens up, I may not be able to do much more searching today on the authorship of the Wisconsin article. At this point, I am somewhat pessimistic about finding out who, exactly, wrote it. Perhaps I'll contact the owners of the website above and ask how they know Joseph Smith wrote the article.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.