possible reason the Council of 50 minutes are withheld

[_Fence Sitter]

Well I don't think most people would take kindly to seeing that Joseph had himself anointed as king of the world. Sounds just a tad arrogant.

Wait till they find out the BY and John Taylor were also so anointed.

[_MCB]

Is this a trick question?

No. Meaning is inferred by the reader.

I would rather present facts, and allow the reader to make their own conclusions, than be called a nutcase. In my pre- awakening days a lack of facts prevented me from coming to any conclusions, other than that SOMETHING was very wrong. And a good share of the time, it was me, just like any other person.

[_MCB]

Wait till they find out the BY and John Taylor were also so anointed.

I was raised 10 miles from the Missouri border. Show me.

[_Uncle Dale]

I will believe it when I see it. Show me a scanned copy.

Well -- er -- uh --

You see, it's this way, sister...

I wipe some lemon juice on the old parchment page --
but just when I get the thing over to the scanner,
President Heber's handwriting starts to fade away again.

Durn it -- them thar Danites were good at this secrecy stuff.

I. K. Idunaught

[_Uncle Dale]

Well I don't think most people would take kindly to seeing that Joseph had himself annointed as king of the world. Sounds just a tad arrogant.

Actually -- "King of Israel."

It's BeBe Netanyahu who wouldn't take kindly to such a disclosure.

UD

[_MCB]

So, how about this book?
http://books.google.com/books?id=Pa1mMc ... CDAQ6AEwAA

I can pretty well dismiss it as virulently anti-Mormon. Anybody read it?

[_beefcalf]

Well I don't think most people would take kindly to seeing that Joseph had himself annointed as king of the world. Sounds just a tad arrogant.

Actually -- "King of Israel."

It's BeBe Netanyahu who wouldn't take kindly to such a disclosure.

UD

Yeah. Anyways... If I recall correctly, the King of the World died on the HMS Titanic.

[_sock puppet]

While reading a thread about Council of 50 minutes being locked up tight in the infamous vault, it occurred to me there may well be a very mundane reason for this.

We've all (except BCSpace) noticed that the church has been repudiating its past teachings with alarming regularity in recent years, calling the words of past Prophets, Seers, and Revelators the speculative teachings unsupported by scriptural doctrine.

In the Council of 50 minutes are purported to be dozens if not hundreds of pages of the teachings of Joseph Smith. I'd really love to know what Smith had to say to these men, but it's possible that this is exactly what the church wants to prevent, because what Smith had to say back then doesn't mesh well with the new and improved version of Mormonism that the PR department has been churning out for the last 30 years or so, and they simply don't want the headache of having to repudiate it.

My dad and I used to talk about gospel and church things a fair bit when I was younger, and I remember him so often prefacing a remark with "the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that...." and he would proceed to mention something contained in the JoD, or some other writing, or transcribed sermon, or article from the Times and Seasons or whatever. Imagine the absolute gold mine of new quotable teachings of Joseph Smith contained in the Council of 50 minutes. Imagine the bonanza of sacrament meeting talks generated by faithful readers of these minutes, based on all the stuff Joseph Smith taught that we've never heard or seen before.

And the church leadership simply doesn't want to deal with that. They've got their message, they've got their correlated version of the Gospel, the church history, and all that, and they simply don't want to deal with more Joseph Smith.

"A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible."

Who knows. Maybe someday we'll find out what these minutes contain. I wonder then whether the feeling will be more disappointment at how mundane it all is, or excited by how scandalous it all is, or just plain amused at how quaint it all is viewing it from our more scientifically-informed position, or some other feeling altogether.

Interesting take on what the reasons, at least modern ones, might be for "the Church" wanting to keep the 50's minutes under wraps.

For me, whatever the reason "the Church" is hiding information. It is one of the damning indicia that "the Church" is one of those secret combinations condemned in JSJr's opus, the Book of Mormon. Interesting, when JSJr was not in any 'club', his wrote in condemnation of secret clubs. Then he formed Mormonism, and he was king tut of the club--and even joined the Masonic order and then the 50, which "the Church" keeps hidden to this day. Maybe the glory of the Mormon god is not intelligence, but hypocrisy.

[_Uncle Dale]

...random interesting observations
...

Well, in the summer of 1834 my family found out that our
inheritance in Zion was preempted by "border ruffians" and
that henceforth the "Missouri Pukes" would be lording it
over Jackson County.

Wally B. Smith and W. Grant McMurray eventually built
our Millennial Temple -- but without Moroni's trumpet call,
and without my family's 40 acres, "fronting on the south
side of the square, with Levi, Manasseh and Dan..."

"As it was in the beginning; is now, and ever shall be;
when every Saint may sit under his own vine and fig tree;
and the Saints' salvation cometh out of Zion."

Uncle "don't get me started on the Temple Lot" Dale

[_Drifting]

I can but proffer two theories on the subject of the OP...

1. They're not secret they're sacred...

Or

2. They're not considered faith promoting...