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

[_Inconceivable]

So my conclusion after bringing this up in class is that there is no sign of a differentiation between chapel and internet Mormons in our ward. Probably not even in the whole Church.

You quote from an old ensign article and you come to the conclusion that there's no difference between internet and chapel Mormons?

I disagree with your junk science..

Just because it's Koolaid doesn't mean you're drinking the same two flavors - sour milk and liver.

[Anonymous]

So my conclusion after bringing this up in class is that there is no sign of a differentiation between chapel and internet Mormons in our ward. Probably not even in the whole Church.

So then, it looks like inoculation won't be necessary for the church?

What you may have done was plant a seed. Unless you can read minds, you have no idea if this new information is troubling to some in the class or will cause them to do a little more study on the topic. (assuming they were even able to visualize the quote you read about the seer stone translation method) They could still be processing it.
Had you used a visual aid with the quote, and nobody had questions or comments, that would be a little more surprising to me.

If I had been in your class as my former Chapel Mormon self, I would have remained silent in the class if the information made me uncomfortable or was shocking. I would have discussed the class with my spouse at home. I haven't been in a GD class where people openly admitted to having their testimonies shaken by something a teacher mentions before.

It's not that Joseph using a seer stone is much of a stretch from the other method but seeing an image is very startling. The image pounded into us from Primary on about how he translated the plates is very misleading. Had I been taught that the Golden Plates were more of a prop and not necessary (like the Book of Abraham) for Joseph to receive the inspired scripture, along with accurate visual aids, that would have inoculated me from any testimony crisis over the translation methods.

But even with that inoculation, learning the history of how he found and used a seer stone for treasure hunting prior to translating the golden plates is what hurt my testimony, and I'm guessing you didn't share that with the class.

[_karl61]

I think you are teaching it to the wrong class: it needs to be taught in priestood meeting to the youth because they are the ones who will be doing the missionary work. Some may say that those in the class (stake leadership) likely have been brought up in the church, served mission and are payingtithing. There is not much you could say where they wouldn't give you the stepford wives look. Give that information at a youth fireside and break them into groups to discuss the issue and then bring them back for a question and answer. I bet some will say it sounds sort of like a Ouija Board their parents warned them about.

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

read the part about the history and the middle 19th century.


at the same time don't forget to explain that Oliver Cowdrey had a special gift which is written about in the D&C. Explain that at the same time you do about letters appearing in a hat to Joseph Smith.

[_Seven]

For those who are blocked from reading MAD, one of my favorite Mormon posters "Consiglieri" started a thread on his experience teaching the seer stone in the hat for GD. I loved his inoculation teaching method.
The responses from the class were what I would have expected using visual aids.
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... opic=41150

Here is the OP: (bolding mine)

Okay, I am coming back to return and report on my Sunday school class yesterday.

I took my hat to church with me, and did pretty much what I said I was going to do. My only dilemma was whether I should bring up the Martin Harris quote first. I decided that would not be as effective.

So, after announcing that we would be discussing the translation of the Book of Mormon, I presented my hat and asked for a watch with a luminous face from a member of the audience.

I told everybody that, when I was a kid, I was fascinated by things that glow in the dark.

(Lots of smiles and nods of agreement.)

I then cupped my hands and held the watch up to my eye and said that this is what I would do to see the glowing watch face.

(Again lots of nods, as this appears to have been a common experience.)

I then said that, although I could see the glow this way, I couldn't read the face or tell the time, because it was too close to my eye.

So I brought out the hat, dropped the watch inside of it, and held the hat to my face, using my hands to exclude the light, explaining that this way I could put a little distance between the watch and my face, and I could use both eyes, and still exclude the light, so that I could read the face of the watch.

At this point, something completely unexpected happened.

A middle-aged single sister was laughing so hard, she was making noise although she was obviously trying to suppress her laughter. I brought my head out of the hat and looked around to see what the problem was, and I looked over and saw her sitting there, her face beet-red, gasping for air, waving at me to continue.

I thought at this moment that this sister was in for an unpleasant surprise. Here she was laughing her guts out at a scene that she considered hysterical, and she was only moments away from finding out this is how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon.

As fate would have it, this is a sister I have locked horns with in the past over my teaching methods, so I will have to confess a grim satisfaction over the predicament headed her way unbeknownst to her as she laughed and gasped and turned red.

When I was done with my demonstration, I held the hat in one hand and the watch in the other and asked the class if anybody knew why on earth I was taking up class time doing something like this.

Nothing. Nobody raised their hand.

I asked again if there wasn't anybody who knew. I looked at a couple of people whom I felt probably would know, but they weren't willing to say anything.

So into this void, I finally said, "Because that's how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon!"

At this point, it was as quiet as if everybody had stopped breathing.
I thought I had killed my class.


Then a class member with hands folded over chest asked what the source was for my information.

I said I was glad they asked that, and whipped out my Ensign article from 1993 by Elder Russel M. Nelson and read the quote from David Whitmer, nice and slow so everybody could get the full impact.


______________________


After reading the Martin Harris quote about how in the dark (of the hat) the spiritual light would shine, I said that this gives us insight into some Book of Mormon scriptures, and had the class turn to Alma 37, where Alma is giving the plates and the interpreters and the Liahona to his son Helaman, and had a class member read the scripture where the Lord says, "And I will give unto my servant Gazelem a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light . . ."

I said that this is in the context of speaking about the interpreters; that this is what these stones "do," they shine.

I mentioned the 16-stones that the brother of Jared had the Lord touch with his finger so that they would shine in the dark and give them light in their vessels as they crossed the great waters.

At this point, I was on the verge of going into the Book of Raziel, and the Jewish legend that sounds so remarkably like the translation process of the Book of Mormon.

But right then, another class member's hand shot up, and the question was raised, "If Joseph Smith didn't look use the plates in the translation, why did he even need them? Why all the trouble and fuss to get them and preserve them?"

I observed that that is a question that frequently gets brought up at this point, and it is a bit of a mystery. We simply don't know, although others have speculated in response.

I then whipped out my copy of Nibley's "The Egyptian Endowment" and read two paragraphs I had previously marked, dealing with why it was that Nibley thought this was the case. This ended up taking the rest of my class period, as the sacrament meeting had gone long, and we had only 30-minutes for Sunday school.

But I had also mentioned at the outset that the idea that Joseph Smith had a blanket between him and the scribe was an incorrect idea; but one that had gained acceptance in the Church through repeated usage.

I read from the Deseret Times article on Daniel C. Peterson's address regarding this, where he states that this is not correct, but that a blanket may have been used in the latter stages of the translation at the Whitmer home; but it was not placed between Joseph and the scribe, but over the door or the window in order to keep curious passers-by from looking in.

I read from Emma Smith that Joseph sat in the middle of the room with his face buried in the hat while the plates lay nearby on a table wrapped in a napkin. I also read the part about where Emma said that Joseph did not have any manuscript or anything else that he could have been reading from, and emphasized that the reason Emma could know this is because she was present working in the very room while the translation was occurring, and because Joseph Smith was not behind a curtain, but was right out there in the middle of the room with his face in the hat.

I then asked the class if I were the only one who would find it somewhat suspicious if Joseph Smith had concealed what he was doing by sitting behind a blanket. The class seemed to be astonished that I would find that at all suspect. One asked why that would be suspicious. I said, "Because who knows what he would have been doing behind the curtain, or what he had with him?"

Somebody identified that as a lack of faith on my part. Another member (who is a friend that I home teach), said that was because I was a lawyer.

"And a magician," I added.

I said that I was much more comfortable with Joseph Smith translating with his face in a hat in plain view than I was with the idea of Joseph Smith hidden behind a curtain and dictating from who knows what.

I mentioned that almost the entirety of the Book of Mormon was translated between April 7, 1829 (when Oliver Cowdery showed up in Harmony, Pennsylvania) and June 30, 1829 (when the translation was completed); and how what with other things that were being done during the time, the total time for translation has been estimated at 63-days.

That means that Joseph Smith dictated about 5,000 words per day.

I then said that there are only three explanations that take this into account.

The first is that Joseph Smith was translating by supernatural means.

There are only two other possibilities for what happened, in order to explain this by naturalistic methods.

The first naturalistic explanation is that Joseph Smith simply made up the Book of Mormon on the fly, but that anybody who has seriously studied the Book of Mormon recognizes this to be an impossibility.

The second naturalistic explanation is that Joseph Smith had a manuscript somewhere that he kept hidden on which was written the Book of Mormon, and that he memorized and regurgitated 5,000 words a day; and that he did this day . . . after day . . . after day . . . after day . . . after day.

One young lady audibly exclaimed "Wow!" at this point.

I said this second naturalistic explanation is just about as impossible as the first.

That God had arranged for the production of the Book of Mormon to take place in such a manner as to be utterly inexplicable by any method other than supernatural intervention.

I closed by saying the Book of Mormon is a miracle, and it is a miracle that forms the foundation of our religion; that it is the "keystone of our religion," as Joseph Smith said; and that through understanding the manner in which it was brought forth, we are better able to understand the miracle that it really is.




All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_cinepro]

So my conclusion after bringing this up in class is that there is no sign of a differentiation between chapel and internet Mormons in our ward. Probably not even in the whole Church.

If your theory is correct, then who the heck painted this picture of the Book of Mormon translation process, and who keeps putting into Church manuals and magazines?



Even just after reading your quote, if you had polled the class members and asked them to describe the translation process, I wonder how many of their descriptions would have involved the words "stone" or "hat"? That would have been an interesting follow up exercise.

Consig's lesson seems to have been a totally different level. I'm amazed at what he did, and I'll bet his class has a new understanding of the process. I can only imagine that there is a note getting passed across a desk at the CoB that says "Yesterday the face-in-a-hat story was taught in a Gospel Doctrine class", and a bureaucrat is having chest pains. I hope Consigleiri enjoys his new calling, which I'm sure won't involve standing in front of a group of people.

[_bcspace]

Even just after reading your quote, if you had polled the class members and asked them to describe the translation process, I wonder how many of their descriptions would have involved the words "stone" or "hat"? That would have been an interesting follow up exercise.

They certainly weren't sleeping.

Consig's lesson seems to have been a totally different level. I'm amazed at what he did, and I'll bet his class has a new understanding of the process. I can only imagine that there is a note getting passed across a desk at the CoB that says "Yesterday the face-in-a-hat story was taught in a Gospel Doctrine class", and a bureaucrat is having chest pains. I hope Consigleiri enjoys his new calling, which I'm sure won't involve standing in front of a group of people.

He's strayed so far from the lesson that frankly, I think he's exaggerating and telling us how he wished the lesson went.

[_Amaterasu]

For those who are blocked from reading MAD, one of my favorite Mormon posters "Consiglieri" started a thread on his experience teaching the seer stone in the hat for GD. I loved his inoculation teaching method.

He's one of my favorite Mormon posters, too. I'm so pleased he seems to understand there are issues that the Church faces where the members are unaware and he's attempting to allow them to hear it from those they trust in the Church. Bravo!

[_moksha]

I am amazed and impressed by Consiglieri's lesson. Hope he did not suffer any repercussions as a result of presenting this hitherto unknown information to his class.

[_moksha]

Wonder if there is any way one some Mormon artist could create a heroic looking painting/print of this stone-in-the-hat-translation. The other ones lacked a dramatic or compelling presentation. I would like to see at least a hint of an aura peaking out from between the face and hat.

That quote of Dr. Peterson's about rocks in the revelatory process would be excellent, to boldly highlight, in an accompanying story in the Ensign.

[_Black Moclips]

BCSpace - I haven't checked the other thread yet, but have you posted your thoughts that Consig is basically lying and being deceptive about his account over there? Put your money where your mouth is, and go post it if you haven't.

Consig is a stand-up guy, who recognizes the problems with the church and doesn't put his head in the sand. Yet he still truly believes. I would think he is the standard to which you would hope all memebers attain - aware of the issues and problems, not afraid to call it like it is, yet holding strong and believing. You show your true nature by your accusation.

I think he approached the lesson wonderfully, and people probably learned something new (which is very rare in GD class).