I've posted this before, on Charlotte Haven
It sounded very much like passages from the Old Testament -- and it might have been for anything we knew -- but she said she read it through the inspiration of her son Joseph, in whom she seemed to have perfect confidence. Then in the same way she interpreted to us hieroglyphics from another roll. One was Mother Eve being tempted by the serpent, who -- the serpent, I mean -- was standing on the tip of his tail, with which his two legs formed a tripod, and had his head in Eve's ear. I said, "But serpents don't have legs."
She is claiming that Lucy read what she did by way of Joseph’s inspiration on the subject. Basically, that she was quoting Joseph. Take Henry Caswell,
One she said was a king of Egypt whom she named, two were his wives, and the remaining one was the daughter of another king. I asked her by what means she became acquainted with the names and histories of these mummies. She replied that her son had obtained this knowledge through the mighty power of God.
News Report, (Buffalo Daily Courier and Economist)
At all events, his venerable old mother – poor woman – exhibits half a dozen sheets of papyri, and from a large octavo, of which her [prophet] son is author, READS AN INTERPRETATION, so called, of the mysterious hieroglyphics, which those ancient records are declared to contain!
DonBradley wrote:I don't suppose that on Haven's word you're going to conclude that there were six mummies, six inch plates, and a long scroll?
This is nitpicking in my opinion. These are minor mistakes. There were mummies, scrolls and plates. So someone wasn’t good at estimating size. It is irrelevant, since these are objects, while the content (King Onitus, her recitation, the snake with legs, etc.) she got correct.
And what is a long scroll to Charlotte Haven? If you were looking at the other pieces under glass which are small, then yes, the red and black scroll (before it was broken up) might have looked long, especially depending on how Lucy showed it. We know what scroll she was looking at, because she describes it.:
One was Mother Eve being tempted by the serpent, who -- the serpent, I mean -- was standing on the tip of his tail, with which his two legs formed a tripod, and had his head in Eve's ear. I said, "But serpents don't have legs." They did before the fall," she asserted with perfect confidence.
I’m less concerned with the size of the objects in this instance (Haven’s eyewitness descriptions), than what she claimed that Moore SAID. She gets that all right with Lucy Smith.
For mistakes, we look at what they are, why they were made, and how they are relevant to what we are trying to interpret/prove. I don’t think many people are going to quibble much about making a mistake in numbers or in size, unless that is relevant to what you are trying to prove, like the length of the scroll debate. Her observation is ambiguous,
because we don’t know what she meant by “long”. Long in relation to what? Other scrolls?
For example, if you are trying to verify if Lucy Smith said something like Joseph told me this mummy is Abraham, and the source says I went into a room with half a dozen mummies and Lucy Smith pointed to one and said that’s Abraham, and another person said there were four mummies, and she pointed to one and said that is Abraham, are we going to throw out the first source over a discrepancy of two mummies when one can be taken as an approximation?
You have to prove that Haven was unreliable in that instance. DonBradley wrote:But it's precisely by comparing her with other sources, also, that we discover that she tends to exaggerate. On points where Haven stands alone in her assertions, she has a strong tendency to be wrong, and in the direction of overstatement.
I disagree. What points? Of course we know that Haven was biased. She really didn’t like the Mormons. She didn’t like Joseph Smith. How is Haven exaggerating when she claimed that Moore told her that Joseph thought he could translate the plates by “revelation”? It’s not like she said this after he did the translation, it was claimed before he did one.
Exaggeration implies that it is being done on purpose. I don’t see that with Haven at all. Here is her report of Baptism for the dead,
Last Sunday morning the Judge came in and soon proposed a walk, for it was a balmy spring day, so we took a bee-line for the river, down the street north of our house. Arriving there we rested a while on a log, watching the thin sheets of ice as they slowly came down and floated by. Then we followed the bank toward town, and rounding a little point covered with willows and cottonwoods, we spied quite a crowd of people, and soon perceived there was a baptism. Two elders stood knee-deep in the icy cold water, and immersed one after another as fast as they could come down the bank. We soon observed that someo f them went in and were plunged several times. We were told that they were baptized for the dead who had not had an opportunity of adopting the doctrines of the Latter Day Saints. So these poor mortals in ice-cold water were releasing their ancestors and relatives from purgatory! We drew a little nearer and heard several names repeated by the elders as the victims were douched, and you can imagine our surprise when the name George Washington was called. So after these fifty years he is out of purgatory and on his way to the "celestial" heaven! It was enough, and we continued our walk homeward.
Any exaggeration here? We know they baptized G. Washington in Nauvoo. On polygamy,
A few Sabbaths ago Joseph announced to his people that the gift of prophecy was taken away from him until the Temple and Nauvoo House should be finished, but that his mantle had fallen on his brother Hyrum, to whom it belonged by birthright, and he charged his people to obey implicitly all the commands revealed to Hyrum. We hear that he has already had some wonderful revelations not yet made public; but that a few of the elders put their heads together and whisper what they dare not speak aloud. What it is we can only surmise by faint rumors. A month ago or more one of the Apostles, Adams by name, returned from a two years' mission in England, bringing with him a wife and child, although he had left a wife and family here when he went away, and I am told that his first wife is reconciled to this certainly at first unwelcome guest to her home, for her husband and some others have reasoned with her that plurality of wives is taught in the Bible, that Abraham, Jacob, Solomon, David, and indeed all the old prophets and good men, had several wives, and if right for them, it is right for the Latter Day Saints. Furthermore, the first wife will always be first in her husband's affection and the head of the household, where she will have a larger influence. Poor, weak woman!
I cannot believe that Joseph will ever sanction such a doctrine, and should the Mormons in any way engraft such an article on their religion, the sect would surely fall to pieces, for what community or State could harbor such outrageous immorality? I cannot think so meanly of my sex as that they could submit to any such degradation.
History of the Church,
Said I would not prophesy any more, and proposed Hyrum to hold the office of prophet to the Church, as it was his birthright. "I am going to have a reformation, and the Saints must regard Hyrum, for he has the authority, that I might be a Priest of the Most High God; and slightly touched upon the subject of the everlasting covenant, showing that a man and his wife must enter into that covenant in the world, or he will have no claim on her in the next world. But on account of the unbelief of the people, I cannot reveal the fullness of these things at present." Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 5, p.510
Here is a perfect place to exaggerate and claim that Smith was involved, as many in Nauvoo were accusing him of it. She doesn’t, but claims that she can’t believe Joseph would ever sanction it. So she did not believe Joseph was immoral.
Are there places where she is inaccurate? Yes. But we see here that she is accurate and does not exaggerate in these instances. So, why should we believe that she made [things] up?[/quote]
