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*{{WikipediaCITE}}Ezra Booth, a hostile source, is the only one of the three sources used to claim that Harris arrived in order to convince Joseph to continue translating. The other two sources simply confirm that "Martin Harris arrived" in order assist Joseph. According to Booth: | *{{WikipediaCITE}}Ezra Booth, a hostile source, is the only one of the three sources used to claim that Harris arrived in order to convince Joseph to continue translating. The other two sources simply confirm that "Martin Harris arrived" in order assist Joseph. According to Booth: | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
− | Joseph Smith, Jun., Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, and Martin Harris, may be considered as the principals in this work; and let Martin Harris tell the story, and he is the most conspicuous of the four. | + | Joseph Smith, Jun., Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, and Martin Harris, may be considered as the principals in this work; and let Martin Harris tell the story, and he is the most conspicuous of the four.—He informed me, that he went to the place where Joseph resided, and Joseph had given it up, on account of the opposition of his wife and others: but he told Joseph. "I have not come down here for nothing, and we will go on with it." Martin Harris is what may be called a great talker, and an extravagant boaster; so much so, that he renders himself disagreeable to many of his own society. |
</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
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Early years | A FairMormon Analysis of Wikipedia: "Joseph Smith" A work by a collaboration of authors (Link to Wikipedia article here)
|
1831 to 1838 |
The name Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. Wikipedia content is copied and made available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
Every witness to Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon said that he looked at a stone in his hat. Arguing that Smith never said how he translated is arguing from silence. There is no evidence for anything else but the hat and just Mormon embarrassment at how silly this method must seem to most prospective converts today.....The burden of proof is on you. There are no accounts of Smith translating that indicate he used any other method but the hat. You can't argue from silence. Where are the references to any other method? Even the father of lies himself didn't spell one out.....Baloney. No other eyewitness said there was any other method. No scholarship argues for any other method. You're just pushing this POV because there's no reason to preserve golden plates for generations if Smith made no use of them. But according to all eyewitnesses that's exactly what happened. Embarrassing, isn't it?
—Editor "John Foxe," posting using his banned sockpuppet "Hi540," insisting that the stone-in-hat was the only Book of Mormon translation method ever documented, 23 October 2009 off-site
In October 1827, Smith and his pregnantAuthor's sources:
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wife moved from Palmyra to Harmony (now Oakland), Pennsylvania,Author's sources:
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aided by money from a comparatively prosperous neighbor Martin Harris.Author's sources:
Because of mounting pressure in Manchester to see and examine the plates, Joseph realized he could never translate them in peace and safety if he stayed in town. He would have to leave Palmyra to do it; but that created a problem. He was debt-ridden, and any sudden departure would bring his creditors chasing after him with subpoenas for his arrest. Fortunately the angel had revealed to Joseph that Martin Harris, a prosperous farmer, had been chosen to help in the translation of the plates.
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Living near his disapproving in-laws,Author's sources:
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Smith transcribed some of the characters (what he called "reformed Egyptian") engraved on the plates and then dictated a translation to his wife.Author's sources:
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For at least some of the earliest translation, Smith said he used "Urim and Thummim",Author's sources:
Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes than he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. (MANUSCRIPT OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF JOSEPH SMITH, 22 Sept. 1827)
For two months, form about April 12 to June 14, 1828, Joseph and Harris were hard at work. Joseph translated using the interpreters (also called the Urim and Thummim, crystals mounted on a breast plate), and Harris wrote down the text as it was dictated. A curtain divided the men to prevent Harris from seeing the plates.
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a pair of seer stones he said were buried with the golden plates.Author's sources:
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Later, however, he used the single chocolate-colored stone he had found in 1822 and used for treasure hunting.Author's sources:
"To help him with the translation, Joseph found with the gold plates “a curious instrument which the ancients called Urim and Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones set in a rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate.” Joseph also used an egg-shaped, brown rock for translating called a seer stone."
—“A Peaceful Heart,” Friend, Sep 1974, 7 off-site (emphasis added)
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As when divining the location of treasure,Author's sources:
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Smith said he saw the words of the translation while he gazed at the stone or stones in the bottom of his hat, excluding all light.Author's sources:
[A]s work on the Book of Mormon proceeded, a seerstone took the place of the Urim and Thummim as an aid in the work, blending magic with inspired translation." (Bushman, p. 131) "There is evidence that the translation stone was given him after he lost the Urim and Thummim when the 116 pages disappeared. (Bushman, p. 590, note 24 citing Van Wagoner and Walker, "'The Gift of Seeing,'" 54)
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The plates themselves were not directly consulted.Author's sources:
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Smith did this in full view of witnesses, but sometimes concealed the process by raising a curtain or dictating from another room.Author's sources:
[Martin Harris] says he wrote a considerable part of the book, as Smith dictated, and at one time the presence of the Lord was so great, that a screen was hung up between him and the Prophet; at other times the Prophet would sit in a different room, or up stairs, while the Lord was communicating to him the contents of the plates.
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Smith may have considered giving up the translation because of opposition from his in-laws,Author's sources:
From my standing in the Methodist Episcopal Church, I suppose he was careful how he conducted or expressed himself before me. At one time, however, he came to my house, and asked my advice, whether he should proceed to translate the Book of Plates (referred to by Mr. Hale) or not. He said that God had commanded him to translate it, but he was afraid of the people: he remarked, that he was to exhibit the plates to the world, at a certain time, which was then about eighteen months distant. I told him I was not qualified to give advice in such cases. Smith frequently said to me that I should see the plates at the time appointed.
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but in February 1828, Martin Harris arrived to spur him onAuthor's sources:
Joseph Smith, Jun., Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, and Martin Harris, may be considered as the principals in this work; and let Martin Harris tell the story, and he is the most conspicuous of the four.—He informed me, that he went to the place where Joseph resided, and Joseph had given it up, on account of the opposition of his wife and others: but he told Joseph. "I have not come down here for nothing, and we will go on with it." Martin Harris is what may be called a great talker, and an extravagant boaster; so much so, that he renders himself disagreeable to many of his own society.
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by taking the characters and their translations to a few prominent scholars.Author's sources:
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Harris claimed that one of the scholars he visited, Charles Anthon, initially authenticated the characters and their translation, then recanted upon hearing that Smith had received the plates from an angel.Author's sources:
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Anthon denied this claimAuthor's sources:
In the first letter Anthon said he refused to give Harris a written opinion; according to the second, the opinion was written "without any hesitation," in an attempt to expose the fraud.
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and Harris returned to Harmony in April 1828 motivated to act as Smith's scribe.Author's sources:
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Translation continued until mid-June 1828, until Harris began having doubts about the existence of the golden plates.Author's sources:
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Harris importuned Smith to let him take the existing 116 pages of manuscript to Palmyra to show a few family members.Author's sources:
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Harris then lost the manuscript—of which there was no copy—at about the same time as Smith's wife Emma gave birth to a stillborn son.Author's sources:
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Smith said the angel had taken away the plates and he had lost his ability to translateAuthor's sources:
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until September 22, 1828, when they were restored.Author's sources:
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Smith did not earnestly resume the translation again until April 1829, when he met Oliver Cowdery, a teacher and dowser,Author's sources:
...remember this is thy gift now this is not all for thou hast another gift which is the gift of working with the sprout Behold it hath told you things Behold there is no other power save God that can cause this thing of Nature to work in your hands. (Revelation, April 1829–B [D&C 8], in Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Stephen C. Harper, eds., Manuscript Revelation Books, vol. 1 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2009), 17. )
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who now became Smith's scribe.Author's sources:
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They worked full time on the translation between April and early June 1829,Author's sources:
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and then moved to Fayette, New York where they continued to work at the home of Cowdery's friend Peter Whitmer. When the translation spoke of an institutional church and a requirement for baptism, Smith and Cowdery baptized each other,Author's sources:
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with written documents five years later stating that John the Baptist had appeared and ordained them to a priesthood.Author's sources:
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Translation was completed around July 1, 1829.Author's sources:
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Knowing that potential converts to the planned church might find Smith's story of the plates incredible,Author's sources:
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Smith asked a group of eleven witnesses, including Martin Harris and male members of the Whitmer and Smith families, to sign a statement testifying that they had seen the golden plates, and in the case of the latter eight witnesses, had actually hefted the plates.Author's sources:
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According to Smith, the angel Moroni took back the plates after Smith was finished using them.Author's sources:
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The translation, known as the Book of Mormon, was published in Palmyra on March 26, 1830, by printer E. B. Grandin.Author's sources:
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Martin Harris financed the publication by mortgaging his farm.Author's sources:
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Soon thereafter on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ,Author's sources:
"The manuscript may have the effect, [Steven C. Harper] said, of resolving a controversy that has arisen over whether the Church was organized at Fayette, N.Y., as has traditionally been understood, or at Manchester, N.Y. It does so by affirming that a revelation given on April 6, 1830, was given at Fayette, not at Manchester. 'The 1833 Book of Commandments, heretofore the earliest source available, located this revelation in Manchester,' he explained. Some authors thus argued that the traditional story of the Church's founding in Fayette lacked foundation in the historical record, 'but we can now see that in this case, tradition and the historical record match up,' he said."
(R. Scott Lloyd, "'Major Discovery' Discussed at Mormon History Association Conference," Church News, 22 May 2009.)
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and small branches were established in Palmyra, Fayette, and Colesville, New York.Author's sources:
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The Book of Mormon brought Smith regional notoriety,Author's sources:
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but also strong opposition by those who remembered Smith's money-digging and his 1826 trial near Colesville.Author's sources:
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Soon after Smith reportedly performed an exorcism in Colesville,Author's sources:
"Almost immediately [Newel Knight] spoke to me," Joseph wrote in his autobiography, "and with great earnestness requested me to cast the devil out of him, saying the he knew he was in him, and that he also knew that I could cast him out." "If you know that I can, it shall be done," Joseph replied, and in the conventional exorcist's fashion commanded the devil in the name of Christ to release the man's soul. Immediately Knight cried out that he saw the devil leave him and vanish from sight. His convulsions ceased and he fell upon the bed unconscious, awakening later to testify that he had glimpsed eternity.
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he was again tried as a disorderly person but was acquitted.Author's sources:
When village toughs failed to stop the baptisms, the law stepped in. Before the newly baptized members could be confirmed, a constable from South Bainbridge delivered a warrant for Joseph's arrest. Doctor A. W. Benton of Chenago County, whom Joseph Knight called a "catspaw" of a group of vagabonds, brought charges against Joseph as a disorderly person. (Bushman, p. 116).
}}
Even so, Smith and Cowdery had to flee Colesville to escape a gathering mob. Probably referring to this period of flight, Smith told years later of hearing the voices of Peter, James, and John who he said gave Smith and Cowdery an apostolic authority.Author's sources:
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When Oliver Cowdery and other church members attempted to exercise independent authorityAuthor's sources:
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—as when Book of Mormon witness Hiram Page used his seer stone to locate the American New Jerusalem prophesied by the Book of MormonAuthor's sources:
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This event is discussed in the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Seminary Teacher Manual (2013):
In 1830, the Prophet Joseph Smith encountered a challenge because Church members did not understand the order of revelation in the Church. Hiram Page claimed to receive revelations for the Church through the medium of a special stone, and some Church members, including Oliver Cowdery, believed him. Shortly before a Church conference that was held on September 26, 1830, the Lord revealed truths that helped Oliver Cowdery and others understand the order of revelation in the Church.[1]
Oliver was actually directed by the Lord to correct Hiram Page in this matter. It was a "teaching moment" for Oliver:
11 And again, thou shalt take thy brother, Hiram Page, between him and thee alone, and tell him that those things which he hath written from that stone are not of me and that Satan deceiveth him;
12 For, behold, these things have not been appointed unto him, neither shall anything be appointed unto any of this church contrary to the church covenants.
13 For all things must be done in order, and by common consent in the church, by the prayer of faith.
14 And thou shalt assist to settle all these things, according to the covenants of the church, before thou shalt take thy journey among the Lamanites. (D&C 28꞉11-14).
—Smith responded by establishing himself as the sole prophet.Author's sources:
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Smith disputed Page's location for the New Jerusalem,Author's sources:
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but dispatched Cowdery to lead a mission to Missouri to find its true locationAuthor's sources:
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and to proselytize the Native Americans.Author's sources:
- Phelps (1833) , pp. 67–68 (Cowdery "shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them".).
Smith also dictated a lost "Book of Enoch," telling how the biblical Enoch had established a city of Zion of such civic goodness that God had taken it to heaven.Author's sources:
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On their way to Missouri, Cowdery's party passed through the Kirtland, Ohio area and converted Sidney Rigdon and over a hundred members of his Disciples of Christ congregation,Author's sources:
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more than doubling the size of the church.Author's sources:
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Rigdon visited New York and quickly became second in command of the church,Author's sources:
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to the discomfort of Smith's earlier followers.Author's sources:
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In the face of acute and growing opposition in New York, Smith announced that Kirtland was the "eastern boundary" of the New Jerusalem,Author's sources:
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and that the Saints must gather there.Author's sources:
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Wikipedia references for "Joseph Smith, Jr." |
FairMormon regularly receives queries about specific LDS-themed Wikipedia articles with requests that we somehow "fix" them. Although some individual members of FAIR may choose to edit Wikipedia articles, FairMormon as an organization does not. Controversial Wikipedia articles require constant maintenance and a significant amount of time. We prefer instead to respond to claims in the FAIR Wiki rather than fight the ongoing battle that LDS Wikipedia articles sometimes invite. From FAIR’s perspective, assertions made in LDS-themed Wikipedia articles are therefore treated just like any other critical (or, if one prefers, "anti-Mormon") work. As those articles are revised and updated, we will periodically update our reviews to match.
Editors who wish to participate in editing LDS-themed Wikipedia articles can access the project page here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement. You are not required to be LDS in order to participate—there are a number of good non-LDS editors who have made valuable contributions to these articles.
FAIR does not advocate removing any references from Wikipedia articles. The best approach to editing Wikipedia is to locate solid references to back up your position and add them rather than attempting to remove information. Individuals who intend to edit should be aware that posting information related to the real-world identities of Wikipedia editors will result in their being banned from editing Wikipedia. Attacking editors and attempting to "out" them on Wikipedia is considered very bad form. The best approach is to treat all Wikipedia editors, whether or not you agree or disagree with their approach, with respect and civility. An argumentative approach is not constructive to achieving a positive result, and will simply result in what is called an "edit war." Unfortunately, not all Wikipedia editors exhibit good faith toward other editors (see, for example, the comment above from "Duke53" or comments within these reviews made by John Foxe's sockpuppet "Hi540," both of whom repeatedly mocked LDS beliefs and LDS editors prior to their being banned.)
Although there exist editors on Wikipedia who openly declare their affiliation with the Church, they do not control Wikipedia. Ironically, some critics of the Church periodically falsely accuse Wikipedia editors of being LDS simply because they do not accept the critics' desired spin on a particular article.
Again, the answer is no. The truth is that Wikipedia is generally self-policing. Highly contentious articles do tend to draw the most passionate supporters and critics.
Although some LDS-related Wikipedia articles may appear to have a negative tone, they are in reality quite a bit more balanced than certain critical works such as One Nation Under Gods. Although many critical editors often accuse LDS-related Wikipedia articles of being "faith promoting" or claim that they are just an extension of the Sunday School manual, this is rarely the case. Few, if any, Latter-day Saints would find Wikipedia articles to be "faith promoting." Generally, the believers think that the articles are too negative and the critics believe that the articles are too positive. LDS Wikipedia articles should be informative without being overtly faith promoting. However, most of the primary sources, including the words of Joseph Smith himself, are "faith promoting." This presents a dilemma for Wikipedia editors who want to remain neutral. The unfortunate consequence is that Joseph's words are rewritten and intermixed with contradictory sources, resulting in boring and confusing prose.
We examine selected Wikipedia articles and examine them on a "claim-by-claim" basis, with links to responses in the FairMormon Answers Wiki. Wikipedia articles are constantly evolving. As a result, the analysis of each article will be updated periodically in order to bring it more into line with the current version of the article. The latest revision date may be viewed at the top of each individual section. The process by which Wikipedia articles are reviewed is the following:
The ability to quickly and easily access literature critical of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been made significantly easier through the advent of the Internet. One of the primary sites that dominates search engine results is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit.” Wikipedia contains a large number of articles related to Mormonism that are edited by believers, critics, and neutral parties. The reliability of information regarding the Church and its history is subject to the biases of the editors who choose to modify those articles. Even if a wiki article is thoroughly sourced, editors sometimes employ source material in a manner that supports their bias. This essay explores the dynamics behind the creation of Wikipedia articles about the Church, the role that believers and critics play in that process, and the reliability of the information produced in the resulting wiki articles.
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