Heart of the Matter

Book of Mormon Part I

I’m Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion., your host.

Discussions and Interpretations

Complaints from last week: From the Christians about my comment that even the Bible has problems.

From the LDS side of the fence, last week's discussion of James 1:5 brought out some ire. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.”

When you say Bible, what do we mean? Original mss? Codex Vaticanus? Codex Sinaiticus? Vulgate? Wycliffe? Geneva? King James? Revised Version? New American Standard? How about the paraphrased Bible? The NIV?

When we say translation, which language are we speaking of? Greek? English? Italian? Spanish? Tagalo? Mandarin?

To say that “all Bibles” are without problems is pure foolishness. Inerrancy only pertains to the original mss. But INFALLIBILITY is another matter.

2nd Timothy 3:15: And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

So take a copy of every Bible translation that is out there and then get a copy of it in every language on earth and hand them out to seeking people. And then get everyone of the seekers, with their different translations and their different languages, and have them sit in a giant auditorium. And have all of them look up and read Romans 10:10.

KING JAMES VERION READS: Romans 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Romans 10:10 (ModernKJV): For with [the] heart [one] believes unto righteousness, and with [the] mouth [one] confesses unto salvation.

Romans 10:10 (Montgomery NT): For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Ro 10:10 (New KJV): For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Ro 10:10 (World English Bible): For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Ro 10:10 (Revised Standard Version): For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.

Ro 10:10 (20th Century NT): For with their hearts men believe and so attain to righteousness, while with their lips they make their Profession of Faith and so find Salvation.

Ro 10:10 (Weymouth NT): For with the heart men believe and obtain righteousness, and with the mouth they make confession and obtain salvation.

Ro 10:10 (Young’s Literal Translation): for with the heart doth [one] believe to righteousness, and with the mouth is confession made to salvation;

Ro 10:10 (American Standard Version): for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Ro 10:10 (Bible Basic English): For with the heart man has faith to get righteousness, and with the mouth he says that Jesus is Lord to get salvation.

Ro 10:10 (Darby Trans): For with [the] heart is believed to righteousness; and with [the] mouth confession made to salvation.

In the end, any reputable version of the Bible, in whatever reputable form it comes, is infallible – meaning it will not fail anyone in leading them to salvation and the essential ways of the Lord. Black and white dogmatism is such an ugly creature, no matter whose backyard it lives in.

Michael, an LDS caller originally from India, called and defined “wisdom as knowledge applied” in an attempt to justify the LDS use of the verse to discover the truth of the Book of Mormon. The LDS say that people should pray about the Book of Mormon to find out if it is true and use James 1:5 as a biblical justification of this practice.

My response is that James 1:5 is about wisdom NOT knowledge, and that they are, relative to God, very different things. If “wisdom is knowledge applied,” then let’s go back and review what we can call knowledge and what we can’t. We cannot say we have knowledge of something that.

Understanding Knowledge and Belief

Proves to be false. It would not be knowledge – it would be belief. If I say, “I know the car won’t run out of gas” and it does, we did not know it wouldn’t – we merely believed. We can ONLY know what is 100% sure. Even if we say, “I know the sun will rise tomorrow,” we could be wrong. It may not. So we cannot use know in its truest sense this way.

A few weeks ago I stated that the only thing we can truly know is that which is 100% true and that Jesus is the only Truth being He Himself said He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Tie this into James 1:5 now.

The Visits of Moroni

PRAYER

So we left off with Moroni in Joseph Smith’s bedroom on the night of the Autumnal Equinox, September 21-22 1823. Before we dive into an examination of the Book of Mormon itself, let me give you a quick summary of some things the LDS rarely teach regarding Moroni.

From September 1823 to June of 1829, Moroni would make repeated visits to Joseph Smith as his special “tutor.” In January of 1992, an article ran in the Ensign (and LDS magazine) titled “Joseph Smith’s Tutor.” It reads: “It is impossible to determine the number of “interviews” Joseph had with Moroni, but twenty-two visits are often identified. Working through Joseph Smith, the Lord “brought about the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon in a remarkably short time. This was possible because the Lord prepared Joseph in his formative years for his role as the prophet of the Most High. To that end, the Lord had assigned Joseph a personal tutor named Moroni. Officially, the Church supports Joseph Smith’s claims that Moroni visited him repeatedly.

Let’s examine these visits.

The Lot of Visits

3 VISITS 21–22 Sept. 1823 Joseph’s bedroom—Message repeated three times. (Palmyra Township, N.Y.) Three visits is important to culture of magic because visiting spirits always came in “threes” as proof of their being real. “He” (meaning Moroni) told Joseph of the Urim and Thummim, which had been prepared to help in translating the record. (JS—H 1:34–35.) Moroni also warned Joseph that when the time came to obtain the plates, if he showed them to anyone not approved of the Lord, he would be destroyed. ALWAYS WONDERED why the angel didn’t tell JS to NOT tell anyone about the plates ???? Wouldn’t that have made everything easier? Later . . .

4th VISIT 22 Sept. 1823 (Manchester Township, N.Y.) Exhausted from being up all night, JS was told to go home. Climbing a fence, JS lost all strength and fell to the ground. Moroni appeared again, reciting the same things as the night before and telling him to go tell his father about it. He did, his father believed the tale and told Joseph to do as he was instructed. Joseph goes to the Hill Cumorah. Now I have a question: Was the Hill Cumorah called the Hill Cumorah by the State of New York or Manchester Township or was this the name Joseph gave it? Call in if you know the answer to this.

5th VISIT 22 Sept. 1823 On the west side of the Hill Cumorah, near the top, Joseph located the large stone he was seeking. When he pried this stone lid away, he saw, inside a box, the sacred items spoken of by Moroni. Okay, where is the box today? The stone box? Wouldn’t that be a find? Stone doesn’t just crumble away – especially if it was around in 1823 and had lasted since 500 C.E. He tried three times to take them out of the box, but suffered progressively stronger shocks that deprived him of much of his natural strength, until he exclaimed in frustration, “Why can I not obtain this book?” Being shocked by unseen forces from the earth was also a dimension of folklore magic. “Because you have not kept the commandments of the Lord,” was the answer. For a fifth time within twenty-four hours, Moroni stood before him. Joseph was told to return to the hill one year later, when Moroni would again meet him and teach him more. Now why did it have to be one year later to the day? Why? Does this sound like something God would arrange or a rule of folk magic? Think about this stuff.

Joseph Smith's Encounters and Experiences

Attending “guardian spirits” played tricks on seekers who pursued treasures. The shocks, disappearing plates, and repetitive visits were all a response to this drivel. Several secondhand accounts say that Joseph Smith told people that the Angel Moroni informed him to obtain the plates by returning to the same place with his brother Alvin. I am unsure if this is true but offer it as information only.

The Sixth Visit

VISIT #6
22 Sept. 1824, 1825, and 1826

Every year at Cumorah, instructions were given to help Joseph prepare for the Restoration. (Hill Cumorah, N.Y.) In 1824, when Joseph returned to Cumorah on 22 September, he dislodged the stone lid on the box containing the plates. He laid the plates on the ground to check if anything else was in the box. Finding nothing, he replaced the stone lid and concealed evidence of the disturbed ground. When he reached for the plates, they were gone. In alarm, he knelt and asked the Lord why the Record had been taken.

Moroni appeared and reminded him he had not followed the command to not lay the plates down until securing them in a lockable chest or trunk. Contrary to this, he had laid them down in search of other treasures. (Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, Liverpool, England: S. W. Richards, 1853, pp. 85–86.) Treasure from the earth in folklore magic always maintained an ability to “move” or “slip” back into its earthly home, hence drawing circles in the earth when treasure seeking.

Moroni instructed Joseph to dislodge the stone cover again, and the Prophet saw the plates once more. However, when Joseph attempted to retrieve them, “he was hurled back upon the ground with great violence.” When he recovered, he was alone. Mother Smith reported Joseph returned home “weeping for grief and disappointment.” His expectations shattered, he feared his family's skepticism since all hoped he'd return with the plates.

Family and Faith

Joseph informed his family of the Cumorah incidents. His family believed him, and Mother Smith wrote, “We, therefore, doubled our diligence in prayer and supplication to God, in order that he might be more fully instructed in his duty, and be preserved from all the wiles and machinations of him ‘who lieth in wait to deceive.’” (Ibid., p. 86.)

In 1825 and 1826, each year Joseph returned for further instruction. During his four-year wait, he developed ideas and plot points for his book. Lucy Mack Smith retrospectively wrote that Joseph would share amusing recitals, describing the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their attire, traveling modes, the animals they rode, their cities and buildings, modes of warfare, and religious worship, with apparent ease. (Biographical Sketches, p. 85.) History of the Church records (4:537) that Joseph saw other celestial beings besides Moroni between 1823 and 1827.

Ivan J. Barratt, a BYU religion professor, stated according to his research, “Joseph was visited by a host of people from the Book of Mormon while translating the plates, including Nephi, Alma, Mormon and twelve disciples Jesus had chosen during His visit to the Americas.” (Ivan J. Barratt, Young Joseph, RIC Publishing, 1981, p 71.) Now, what would you think?

Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon: A Journey of Faith and Challenges

If I told you that while JK Rowling was writing the Harry Potter series her characters showed up and taught her all about their world? You know what you’d think. In the 1832, 35-35, and 38, there seems to be a calculated effort to downplay the folk-magic aspects of Joseph obtaining the plates.

An Overview of Joseph's Encounters with Moroni

VISIT #9 – Winter 1827
Moroni meets Joseph by the Hill Cumorah and says that the time is approaching for the record to be brought forth. He tells Joseph to “be up and doing the things he has been commanded.” (Hill Cumorah, N.Y.)

VISIT #10 – 22 Sept. 1827
Joseph receives the plates. (Hill Cumorah, N.Y.) It had been four years. Joseph is now almost twenty-two years old. What was Joseph Smith and his father, who was once an English teacher, doing over these four full years? We know he got married. We know he lost a brother to an unexpected deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God.. I propose – and I admit I may be wrong about this – but I think that Joseph at least had a working outline for the Book of Mormon at this point and a set of mock plates made up and in his possession.

Additional visitations of Moroni occurred after Joseph said he received the plates.

VISIT #11 – June–July 1828
Martin Harris served as Joseph’s scribe during the translation of the Book of Mormon in early 1828. By June 14, Martin had written 116 pages of manuscript, which Joseph had dictated to him. Martin begged to take the manuscript home to show scoffers in his family. The Lord twice refused Joseph’s requests on Martin’s behalf, but the third time granted permission, under some exacting conditions. Martin agreed, but soon broke his solemn trust, and somehow the manuscript was taken from him. Now what is all this about: The Lord said no, no, well, okay, go ahead? We have Moroni giving explicit instructions to Joseph on getting a lock and key, and returning every year on the same day with exactness, and then Martin Harris wants to impress his wife and the Lord gives into it? What is the deal?

Well, Martin loses the mss (which we’ll cover in more depth later) and JS is thrown in despair. In consequence of the incident, Joseph lost the privilege of translating for a time. The angel Moroni took the Urim and Thummim from him and he was told that it was because he had “suffered the counsel of [his] director to be trampled upon from the beginning.” (D&C 3:14–15.) The plates and the Urim and Thummim were returned to Joseph within a short time so the work could continue. Sooooooo . . .

VISIT #12 – July 1828
This happens when Moroni returns the Urim and Thummim.

VISIT #13 – June 1829
This next appearance of Moroni is classic and it is often not taught or known by the membership at large: Joseph is invited to move over to David Whitmer’s from Harmony Pennsylvania to an area in New York and Joseph is afraid to carry the plates with him for fear they will be seen. So the Angel Moroni shows up and acts as a transporting agent for him, taking the plates from one place and moving them to another. When I first read this a few years ago, I imagined that the Angel Moroni did this by dissolving them into particulates, transferring them, and then reforming them in another place. Not so. According to witnesses, the poor guy had to haul them cross country by hand.

Moroni's Journey with the Plates

According to something called The Historical Record (edited by one Andrew Jenson, vol. 6, May 1887, pp. 207–9), David Whitmer told Elder Joseph F. Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve about his wagon trip to Fayette with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. As they traveled across a section of prairie, they came upon a man walking along the road, carrying something that was obviously heavy in a knapsack on his back. Invited to ride, the man replied, “No, I am going to Cumorah.” Puzzled, David looked around inquiringly, but when he turned again, the man was gone. David demanded of Joseph: “ ‘What does it mean?’ Joseph informed him that the man was Moroni, and that the bundle on his back contained plates which Joseph had delivered to him before they departed from Harmony, Susquehanna County, and that he was taking them for safety, and would return them when he (Joseph) reached father Whitmer’s home.”

Aside from the myriad of questions this story produces, I would like to point out something you may not have considered: The

Criticism of LDS Quoting Practices

LDS – especially FARMS and FAIRS and self-appointed defenders of the faith – tend to mock sources that are quotes that are critical of the Church but they have no problem using and quoting from any resource around that is complimentary. If Joseph Stalin himself ever said anything complimentary of the Church, the quote would be used and defended, but if even a competent LDS scholar like BH Roberts, Southerton, or Grant Palmer critique anything, they are castigated and hung out to dry.

Angel Moroni's Visits in June 1829

VISIT #14
June 1829
Joseph has the plates once again in his possession in Fayette Township. Moroni meets Joseph in the garden and gives the plates to him. (Fayette Township, N.Y.)

VISIT #15
June 1829
Joseph finishes the translation; Moroni takes the record. (Fayette Township, N.Y.)

VISIT #16
June 1829
Oliver, David Whitmer, and Joseph Smith (witnesses) see Moroni, who shows them the plates. (Fayette Township)

VISIT #17
June 1829
Martin Harris and Joseph Smith (witnesses) see Moroni and the plates. (Fayette Township, N.Y.)

VISIT #18
June 1829
Moroni gives the plates to Joseph, and Joseph shows them to the Eight Witnesses. Moroni then calls for the plates and keeps them. (Manchester, N.Y.) Which we will be speaking of later.

This concludes a brief examination of the role Joseph Smith said “the Angel Moroni” who now tops the steeple of the LDS temples across the world, played in writing the Book of Mormon.

Reflecting on the Life of Jesus

Now, after hearing all this, this mystical, magic-filled rehearsal, let me ask you to close your eyes and allow yourself to think:

Think about Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Dusty roads, a cool spring day, bright sunlight. You hear the LORD speaking to Nicodemus in the night:

Biblical Passage

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

A trial is going on. And standing before a crowd of roaring angry people is Jesus Christ. Head bowed. He is taken out and scourged. A heavy cross is loaded on His back. The streets are teeming with indifferent and attacking scoffers. He lays Himself out upon the cross and thick rusty nails are pounded through his hands and feet. We hear His suffering. He says, it is finished. The sky is dark and the earth shakes. Watch the temple veil tear in two. He had given His life for us. See the empty tomb. See the road to Emmaus. See the final ascension.

Finally, recall the Words of Paul to those who have lost sight of Jesus and His Gospel, when he wrote:

Galatians 1:6-9
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ (and) unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another (Gospel); (except) there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”

Let’s go to the phones:

(801) 973-TV20
(801) 973-8820

Emails?

Conclusion

www.bornagainmormon.com

The urim and thummum are mentioned in the Old Testament (Exodus 28:30, Leviticus 8:8, Deuteronomy 33:8, Ezra 2:63, and Nehemiah 7:65). But the urim and thummim of the Old Testament should not be confused with tools Joseph Smith claimed to use as interpreters. Most authorities on the subject believe Joseph used magic stones, a hat, and possibly other spiritual relics to translate or receive revelation. These are facts presented plainly.

Again, the autumnal equinox, and each visit thereafter. Was one year to the day really necessary to the Lord since the ascension of Jesus Christ? What is the Lord’s view of observed days today?