Taught hat-looking and seer stones today. So......?

[_evolving]

...no one batted an eye. Am I supposed to fear this?

Congratulations.. I don't think you have anything to fear.... but I expect you will get a call from the executive secretary to schedule a quick meeting, or at least a "hows your testimony" handshake from one of his councilors within the next three of four weeks -- unless the rumor mill works extremely well in your ward.. if that is the case, expect an email in the morning from your very concerned Bishop..

[_Jason Bourne]

“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.” (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887, p. 12.)
Russell M. Nelson, “A Treasured Testament,” Ensign, Jul 1993, 61

...no one batted an eye. Am I supposed to fear this?

Great.

I know when Bushman was in our area and did a fireside to the stake on the translation that Stake presidency wondered what they should do for damage control.

[_Gadianton]

(a) Nobody was really listening

I think this is an important point. Church is so boring, most of us never really got the full visual on a lot of things. I knew about the seer stone and hat before mission as well, obviously, as the urim and thummim. But I didn't quite get the picture. On my mission, I ran into an anti pamphlet that talked about the urim and thummim as a gigantic awkward pair of glasses. The "silver bows" passage I'd read many times all of a sudden sinked in. It's not like you've ever seen a picture representing it in Sunday School. It was kind of horrifying actually, beholding how totally lame the urim and thummim were in that moment, my comp was equally taken back as he put two and two together like I did for the first time.

Then there is the rock in the hat. I think I had always kind of just visualized it as the hat sitting on a desk or something, and the stone inside and looking at it from an upright position. It wasn't until I had already began my apostasy that I realized Joseph Smith had his faced burried in it like a fool.

[_Daniel Peterson]

To me, if you once grant the possibility of rocks playing a role in a revelation or translation, whether the rocks are set in a bow or placed in the bottom of a hat (presumably a fool's method of excluding ambient light) doesn't seem to matter much.

If you deny the possibility, neither method makes any sense.

Gadianton's objection seems to be more or less aesthetic. Does he believe that Joseph really dictated with his face in a hat? If so, I suggest that that scenario actually argues for the authenticity of the revelation:

http://farms.BYU.edu/publications/revie ... m=2&id=582

[_bcspace]

...no one batted an eye. Am I supposed to fear this?

Congratulations.. I don't think you have anything to fear.... but I expect you will get a call from the executive secretary to schedule a quick meeting, or at least a "hows your testimony" handshake from one of his councilors within the next three of four weeks -- unless the rumor mill works extremely well in your ward.. if that is the case, expect an email in the morning from your very concerned Bishop..

Why should I expect such when the notion is freely available in an issue of the Ensign?

I think this is an important point. Church is so boring, most of us never really got the full visual on a lot of things.

I had called for volunteers to come up to the mike to read the quotes. No takers. Someone said it was because of the mike issue so I asked for volunteers to read in their seats and that got plenty of response. We made some jokes about it and the class was laughing uproariously. This was the second quote read. I don't think boredom was a factor here.

[_Inconceivable]

I've been speaking and teaching and writing about the seer stone and the hat for many years now.

And that turns the bald face lie of the hierarchy into acceptable behavior?

What is wrong with this picture?

My grandfather was taught exactly what I was taught and he was born over a hundred years ago.

The duped painters inspired us with their renderings of Smith's finger running over the chicken scratch on the 24 karat gold (and even the fanciful one of the Urim & Thummim). So inspiring it was that hundreds of thousands of missionaries bore witness to millions of people that Smith translated the gold Bible by the gift and power of the Mormon God - in the manner demonstrated in that very picture - The visage approved by the Corporation of the President for over 100 years. I showed every investigator that picture. I showed my children that picture. I taught it in Gospel Essentials, Doctrine and priesthood meetings all of my life.

It's amazing what one episode of South Park can do to a little piece of fabricated history.

[_Daniel Peterson]

And that turns the bald face lie of the hierarchy into acceptable behavior?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_many_questions

[_Inconceivable]

I think both BC and Dan would agree with me on this point:

Who cares how it showed up when, in fact, the message of the book remains?

However, the more damning question yet remains as well:

Then why was it so important for the "prophets, seers and revelators" to LIE about such an insignificant piece of trivia? What was their motive to lie? Maybe the truth wasn't particularly believeable to them either.

I think the one thing the prophets never saw in their seer stone was the internet.

[_Inconceivable]

And that turns the bald face lie of the hierarchy into acceptable behavior?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_many_questions

A lie is a lie. A Deception.

What you are attempting is damage control by any other name. Contrary to your upbringing, an honest person doesn't engage in such things. This is the tarnish on your credibility as an objective scholar.

[_Chap]

Hmm. So far we have this:

“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.” (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887, p. 12.)
Russell M. Nelson, “A Treasured Testament,” Ensign, Jul 1993, 61

I asked:

I wonder what you will say if one of your audience comes up to you next week and asks:

"Y'know <bcspace>, I've been thinking: seeing as the Lord gave Joseph the exact words of the right translation through the seer-stone, and he just had to read them off, and they couldn't get to the next bit until the Lord had checked they had written it down just right - seeing all that, how come the Book of Mormon as we have it today isn't exactly the same as when it was first published?"

bcspace responded:

Any significant changes made (if any) were made by Joseph Smith himself to clarify, not alter the meaning.

Wait a minute - the Lord himself causes to appear on the stone an English text, which is read off by Joseph from the stone, and written down by Oliver at his dictation. Oliver then reads what he has written back to Joseph - and if and only if what Oliver has written is correct, then the Lord makes the text disappear, and shows the next portion. The process is then presumably repeated until the book is completely translated. That is what David Whitmer is telling us, is he not?

Now if that account is right:

(a) The text of the Book of Mormon translation written down by Oliver was the Lord's own translation, word for word. The idea that this could ever need 'clarifying' seems simply blasphemous, since it would suggest that Joseph Smith was claiming to know what the Lord meant better than the Lord did himself. Do no LDS find this idea disturbing?

(b) A subsidiary point arises: if the translation comes from the stone, why does Joseph need the plates at all? Clearly many features of the early stories about the Book of Mormon suggest that the plates were essential, and that Joseph looked at them, either directly or with the aid of special spectacles while translating. It appears that generations of LDS have been raised on stories and pictures based on such accounts. But the seer-stone makes the plates unnecessary, does it not?

Does question (a) never get raised at DCP's "firesides" when he tells the story of the seer stone? If so, I wonder how he responds, or how he or other LDS intellectuals would respond if the questions were to be put.

Please note that I just want to hear how one would respond in the context of an informal conversation, when only a few sentences of answer are possible, and one cannot argue at length, with footnotes and learned citations. That should make it possible for the response to be posted on this board. (Of course if someone wants to post a link to a 20,000 word article as well as giving a "fireside" style answer, why not?)

(Obviously one way of avoiding the difficulties of (a) and (b) is simply to say that Whitmer's account is unreliable in crucial respects. In that case someone, somewhere (Whitmer?) was very careless with the truth in relation to an important matter, and it does seem odd that his story was given so much publicity amongst modern LDS by an Apostle without very strong caveats being entered.)