Drifting wrote:Did Joseph write the HC?
I believe the Tanners proved that he didn't:
Written by Joseph Smith?
In 1965 we published a book entitled Changes in Joseph Smith's History. In this book we showed that thousands of words were added, deleted, or changed since Joseph Smith's History of the Church was first published.
New Discoveries
Since we published our book, Changes in Joseph Smith's History, a great deal of information has come to light that supports our conclusions concerning the falsification of Joseph Smith's history. For instance, a microfilm copy of the original handwritten manuscript of Joseph Smith's History, Book A-1 and part of B-1, was given to us. This manuscript is the basis for the History of the Church up to the year 1835. Mormon leaders were very upset about this matter because this film provided devastating evidence against Joseph Smith's history. Recently, we became aware of the fact that the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had traded microfilm copies of documents with the Mormon church and that they had films of all of the original handwritten manuscripts of Joseph Smith's history. We had only a few days to examine the documents, but a preliminary examination clearly reveals the duplicity of the early Mormon historians. Now that we have had a brief look at the entire manuscript of Joseph Smith's History—i.e., books A-1 through F-1—we must conclude that the history is in a deplorable state. Thousands of words—sometimes entire pages—have been crossed out so that they could be deleted from the printed version. On the other hand, the films show that many pages of material were interpolated after Joseph Smith's death.
And....
Over Sixty Percent Written After Joseph Smith's Death
For a number of years there was complete silence, but in 1971 Dean C. Jessee, of the LDS church historian's office, published an article that contained some very startling admissions. We were very pleased that this article verified our contention that Joseph Smith did not finish his History of the Church and that it was actually completed after his death. Mr. Jessee stated:
Not until Willard Richards was appointed secretary to Joseph Smith in December 1842 was any significant progress made on the History. At the time he began writing, not more than 157 pages had been completed, covering events up to November 1, 1831. By May 8, 1843, he had written 114 pages beyond W. W. Phelps' last entry. At the time of Joseph Smith's death, the narrative was written to August 5, 1838....
By February 4, 1846, the day the books were packed for the journey west, the History had been completed to March 1, 1843.... resumption of work on the History occurred on "Dec. 1, 1853 [when] Dr. Willard Richards wrote one line of History being sick at the time—and was never able to do any more." ...
The remainder of Joseph Smith's History of the Church from March 1, 1843 to August 8, 1844, was completed under the direction of George A. Smith....
The Joseph Smith History was finished in August 1856, seventeen years after it was begun (Brigham Young University Studies, Summer 1971, pp. 466, 469, 470, 472).
Dean C. Jessee frankly admits that the manuscript was only completed to page 812 at the time of Joseph Smith's death (Ibid., p. 457). Since there were almost 2,200 pages, this would mean that over sixty percent of Joseph Smith's history was not compiled during his lifetime!
As we had suspected, Willard Richards played a prominent part in making up this bogus history after Joseph Smith's death in June, 1844. Dean C. Jessee said that "Bullock became the chief scribe under Willard Richards when work resumed on the Joseph Smith History in 1845" (Ibid., p. 456).
In his diary Thomas Bullock admitted that he helped Willard Richards in "preparing Church History."