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Faith and Reason 8: Translation Time of the Book of Mormon

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith

By Michael R. Ash

By examining timelines, scholars estimate that the entire Book of Mormon — over a quarter million words and nearly six hundred pages in the 1830 edition — was translated in a span of sixty-five to seventy-five days. That’s an average of about seven to eight pages a day or over three thousands words a day. This is a miraculous achievement when we look at the complexity, depth, and profundity of what we find within the pages of this amazing book.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Book Review: “Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith’s Legal Encounters”

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Book Review: Gordon A. Madsen, Jeffrey N. Walker, and John W. Welch (eds.), Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith’s Legal Encounters (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2014.)

By James W. McConkie II

Even seasoned Mormon history buffs may be surprised by the kinds of details about Joseph Smith’s encounters with the legal system of his day that are now available in this useful one-volume collection of essays on Joseph Smith and the law edited by Gordon Madsen, Jeffrey Walker and John Welch. For example, the total number of suits – from simple collection matters to more sophisticated civil and criminal cases – is about 220. Or this: We would expect that Joseph Smith was most often the defendant in these suits; but he was also occasionally the plaintiff, or a witness, and even a judge. And this: As far as historians know, despite the number, he was never convicted of any criminal offense. His attorneys used the Writ of Habeas Corpus artfully to keep Joseph out of jail and in the company of the Saints. And finally: Most would agree that his and the Nauvoo City Council’s involvement with the decision in 1844 to order the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor – a newspaper critical of Joseph – led to his death. However, one of the essays argues that although the order and the act may have been ill advised, in the context of his times, it was defensible.

In Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith’s Legal Encounters, the editors have pulled together 18 articles, all but four of which have been published elsewhere. They have simplified and shortened the works to make the book more accessible to the general reading public. Nevertheless, in many places, it often reads more like material from a legal textbook rather than a group of historical essays. Still, for those interested in Joseph Smith and Mormon history, the book is worth purchasing for the Appendix alone. In it the editors have organized a “Legal Chronology of Joseph Smith” that lists and briefly summarizes all of the known cases he was involved in. It also includes sections entitled “Lawyers and Judges in the Legal Cases of Joseph Smith” and a “Glossary of Early Nineteenth-Century Legal Terms” that explain some of the unique aspects of American law in the 19th Century. The book’s index is, however, curiously scant and not very helpful. In my judgment, the book’s value comes from its function as a starting point for amateur and professional historians who wish to explore the legal context of Joseph Smith’s trials and tribulations.

The book considers questions such as, was he really found guilty of being a disorderly person in New York? And, did he act financially irresponsibly when the Kirtland Bank failed? It takes up the legal implications of the Nauvoo Charter, what it means to be charged with treason in Missouri and Illinois in the early 19th Century, and whether or not Joseph and his brethren violated the U. S. Constitution when he ordered the Nauvoo Expositor press destroyed. No doubt the legal materials gathered together in this book and the ever-expanding Joseph Smith Papers project will add insights to the work of historians as well as give them and the more casual reader a more accurate understanding of Joseph’s legal problems.

The book’s weakness is suggested in the first part of its title, Sustaining the Law. That phrase announces the tone generally as well as the content of several arguments specifically that oversimplify Joseph Smith’s attitudes on “honoring, sustaining, and obeying the law.” I think the book would have been enhanced if someone the likes of Richard Bushman had been asked to write an essay on evidence that suggests how Joseph Smith resolved conflicts when the laws of God disagreed with the laws of the land. In a church with a long history of civil disobedience – issues swirling around Joseph Smith and the practice of plural marriage, for example – so many conflicts are at their roots based on that complicated relationship between civil and religious authority.

While no one would suggest that Joseph Smith did not have a strong commitment to obeying the laws of the land, that obligation was not an absolute one. In Section 98, one concerning the “laws of the land”, the Lord commanded that the Saints “should observe to do all things whatsoever I command them” and that only laws that are “constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges … [are] justifiable before [God]. (D&C 98:3-4) Lest there be any misunderstanding, the Section says that any law that is “more or less than this cometh of evil.” (D&C 98:11) Therefore, it continues, “I [God] give you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God.” (D&C 98:11) In other words, there were justifiable limits to obedience when it came to supporting the laws of civil governments, especially in a situation where religious liberty was at stake.

Without question then, in situations where an important conflict arose on a question of man’s law or God’s law, Joseph would not have hesitated to choose obedience to God’s law. Nevertheless, the editors and contributors of Sustaining the Law turn to two other Church-approved statements to suggest otherwise: Doctrine and Covenants 134:5and Article of Faith 12. Section 134 states that “… all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective government in which they reside”. Article of Faith 12 states that the Church believes in “honoring, and sustaining the law.” While these verses come from books in the LDS canon that described well the general and accepted rule for the membership, it must be remembered that both of these proclamations were written in the early life of the church in order to re-assure outsiders that the Mormons were no threat to their neighbors in fledgling Mormon gathering places in Ohio and Missouri. They, the members of the new church, would submit to the laws of the land and live peaceably in the community. However, a more careful consideration of this issue leads to the conclusion that Joseph Smith’s thinking was more in line with the Apostle Peter’s: “We ought to obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)

The tendency of this book and some of its authors is that it/they go several steps too far in one direction in order to show that Joseph Smith was a “law abiding citizen”. Perhaps the best illustration of this claim is in M. Scott Bradshaw’s article, “Performing Legal Marriages in Ohio in 1835.” The word “legal” in the title is the give-away. In the paper, Bradshaw argues that Joseph and his associates were not in contravention of the 1824 Ohio Statute on Marriage when they performed marriages without the required valid license.

Bradshaw makes his case by relying on two sections of 1824 Ohio Statute on Marriage. He claims that Joseph Smith fit under an exception to the general rule articulated in Section 3 of the statute. The general rule stated that a “regularly ordained minister” was entitled to obtain a license to marry from a local court. Mormons had previously been turned down under that Section 3 rule. But Bradshaw’s argument, that Joseph lawfully performed marriages, relies on Section 2 of the statute, one that carved out an exception. It provided that it “shall be lawful” for an “ordained minister” of “any religion” to marry without having obtained a state license if the “rules and regulations of their respective churches” authorized it.

In my opinion, the courts would not have applied the Section 2 exception to the general rule. Here’s why: Bradshaw leaves out the critical fact that in 1803, when the statute was first enacted, this so-called Section 2 exception granting permission for some “ministers” to marry without a license was meant specifically and only for Quakers (“The Society of Friends”) and Mennonites, two faiths without regularly ordained clergy. The Ohio Legislature’s unstated reason for the exception was that officiators for Quaker and Mennonite marriages were not the same as ministers and/or priests in other denominations that had regularly ordained clergy. Therefore, without providing an exemption for those faiths, the statute would have made all the children born to devout Quakers and Mennonites illegitimate.

Although the language of the 1803 statute explaining the need for an exemption had been redacted by 1824, some eleven years before Joseph supposedly relied on the exemption in his situation, given the history of the statute and the intended exempted denominations, it is doubtful that it would have been interpreted broadly to apply to the laying-on-of-hands type of ordained (with certificates) Mormon priesthood bearers. That is to say, since a strict reading of the language granting the exception eviscerates the part of the statute prohibiting a minister from marrying without a license, the court would likely have read the exception to apply very narrowly to those originally intended as meriting special attention in light its legislative history. Mormon Priesthood simply did not qualify. Thus, I think Bradshaw mistakenly claims that Ohio’s marriage laws allowed Mormons to ignore the statute’s clearly stated requirement for regularly ordained ministers to obtain licenses to marry, when in actuality Ohio’s laws made such exemption for only those “religious societies” (like Quakers and Mennonites) that did not have regularly ordained ministers.

A second problem with Bradshaw’s argument involves another omission of the history. When Joseph Smith married Newel Knight and Lydia Bailey in November 1835, he (Joseph) admitted that he was not relying on the authority of the Marriage Statute when he told the couple, “The Lord God of Israel has given me authority to unite the people in the holy bonds of matrimony … and the enemies of the Church shall never have power of the law against me.” Bradshaw acknowledges this diary entry; but he argues that Joseph did not mean to say he married this couple contrary to law because he was relying on the Quaker/Mennonite exception.

Again, I think the interpretation of Joseph’s language is doubtful. Joseph made this bold and provocative declaration on his source of authority just nine months after Sidney Rigdon’s application for a license to perform marriages had been turned down in March 1835. And, just one month prior to the Knight/Bailey marriage, Rigdon had been prosecuted for marring a couple without a license. The only reason Rigdon had escaped conviction was that he had produced a license of the Court granted him several years earlier when he was a minister for the Campbellites. Under these circumstances, Joseph surely would have known that if he had applied for a license he would also have been turned down. Hence, Joseph’s statement on the source of his authority is more a statement of insubordination to state law.

Ultimately, Joseph Smith’s willingness to defy Ohio’s marriage license laws is evident in light of the fact he was secretly practicing polygamy at this time. Todd D. Compton and other well-known Mormon historians believe that in early 1833 Joseph married his first plural wife, Fanny Alger. In support, Compton cites Mosiah Hancock’s handwritten report of his father Levi’s account of the marriage ceremony of Smith and Alger. When Joseph Smith said, “The Lord God of Israel has given me authority … and the enemies of the Church shall never have power of the law against me,” he meant it.

It is for these reasons that Bradshaw is, in my mind, more a good defense lawyer – a better apologist for Joseph – than a careful historian evaluating all of the evidence. Nevertheless, Bradshaw’s brief is a valuable contribution because it made me, and undoubtedly others, wonder what might have happened had these matters been appealed or more fully adjudicated by an impartial court. Surely the Mormons qualified as “regularly ordained ministers” and should have been granted licenses to marry under Section 3 of the Ohio statute. Simple prejudice is the only plausible explanation for why the court did not issue a license for Sidney Rigdon to marry others.

This book’s look at the legal encounters of Joseph Smith demonstrates how the courts and legal system significantly impacted his life and the life of the Church. The law and court battles influenced everything from how the Saints were allowed to practice their communal living orders in Kirtland to where the Mormons lived. Ultimately the law played a pivotal role in the events leading up to the Prophet’s martyrdom. One cannot fully appreciate Joseph Smith without considering how he dealt with the unremitting legal barrage that complicated his life and the life of the Church. This book not only opens the door to a better understanding of our history but also gives us a better appreciation for how the Prophet dealt with and endured the travails of the legal system.

Faith and Reason 7: Book of Mormon Witnesses

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

In the front of every copy of the Book of Mormon are the testimonies of the Book of Mormon Witnesses. Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris signed a statement testifying that an angel of God showed them the plates and that they heard the voice of the Lord telling them that the record which Joseph translated is true. Eight other witnesses signed a statement testifying that Joseph had shown them the physical plates and that the plates were engraved with curious characters. None of these witnesses ever denied their testimonies. The very fact that eleven honest men testified as to having seen or handled the golden plates is considerable evidence for the truthfulness of the story as told by Joseph Smith.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 6: Artifacts Retrieved from Moroni’s Stone Box

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith 

by Michael R. Ash

Before Joseph Smith showed the plates to the Book of Mormon witnesses, other family members were able to heft and feel the plates, although they were not able to see them. Witnesses estimated that they weighed about sixty pounds, and were fastened together by rings running through the back. They also said that they could feel and raise the individual leaves.

It is nearly beyond dispute that Joseph had some sort of metal plates in his possession. Logically, it makes more sense that Joseph had metal plates than it is to believe that all those who handled the plates were liars or deluded. After all, eleven other witnesses actually saw the uncovered golden plates. But what if the plates were forged from tin or lead –or some other lesser metal and painted to look like gold?

Martin Harris hefted the box with the plates inside and confirmed that there was something heavy and dense within the box. It was either gold or lead and, he added, “I knew that Joseph had not credit enough to buy so much lead”. The Smith’s were too poor to even afford that much tin. Even if Joseph had the money, someone would have had to purchase, fashion, paint, and even engrave the tin plates –without ever being noticed.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 5: Joseph Smith’s Name Known Worldwide

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

On the twenty-first of September, 1823, after retiring to bed, Joseph Smith prayed that he might know his standing before God. While praying, a light appeared in his room, followed by a personage clothed in white. The messenger identified himself as Moroni and said that God had a work for Joseph, that his name would be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, and that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people (Joseph Smith History 1:32-33).

This prophecy was delivered seven years before the Book of Mormon was published and the Church was organized. Since that time, church membership has doubled every fifteen years and now has over fifteen million members. It is the fourth largest Christian religion in the United States, with over 80,000 missionaries. This is quite an achievement for a religion which the critics of Joseph Smith’s day predicted would fizzle out after the Prophet’s death.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 4: A Miracle Operation

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

Most Latter-day Saints are familiar with the basic story of Joseph’s childhood leg operation, but they may not know how blessed he was to have the right doctor at the right time. The surgery performed on young Joseph was not widely known or even extensively suggested until the late 1800’s, and wasn’t standardized until after World War I.

According to the research of Dr. LeRoy Wirthlin, a Dr. Nathan Smith (no relation to Joseph) was the surgeon who performed Joseph’s operation. Dr. Smith was the only physician in the United States in 1813 who had the expertise to successfully deal with osteomyelitis, a disorder that causes long segments of the bony shaft to die and then become encased by new bone growing over the dead layer. If Joseph Smith had lived anywhere else or perhaps a few decades earlier or later, he would have lost his leg and possibly his life.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 3: A Prophet’s Birth from Noble Heritage

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

In this episode, Michael Ash discusses: A Prophet’s Birth from Noble Heritage. Both Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith came from a line of worthy ancestors. Some of their progenitors were patriots, pioneers, and ministers. Seven were pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower, and three of the seven signed the Mayflower Compact.

One of Lucy’s ancestors was John Lathrop, a former minister of the Church of England who allied himself with an independent religious body when he no longer approved of the church government. For eight years Lathrop and his congregation met secretly in London until they were arrested. During his imprisonment, Lathrop’s wife became fatally ill and he was allowed to visit her in her dying moments before returning to jail. He was finally released after pleading with the bishop for the sake of his motherless children. Lathrop and his children then sailed to America, where he became a leader in church affairs.

Joseph Sr. and Lucy wed in 1796. The following year they delivered their first child, an unnamed daughter who died shortly after birth. Alvin, Hyrum, and Sophronia followed. The Smiths moved several times as they struggled to support their growing family. They finally settled in Sharon, Vermont after purchasing a farm from Lucy’s father, Solomon Mack. Joseph Sr. cultivated the farm and taught school during the winter. Gradually, their financial circumstances became more comfortable.

Joseph Smith Jr. was born on December 23, 1805. He was the fifth child of an eventual eleven to be born to the Smiths. Twenty-nine years had passed since America had declared her independence from England, and only twenty-two years had lapsed since the Revolutionary War had formally ended. The Bill of Rights had been in force for only fourteen years, and George Washington had died just six years earlier. Thomas Jefferson was serving as president of the United States –which consisted of only seventeen of our current fifty states.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 2: Primer on Ancient Documents

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From the book: Of Faith And Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims to be the restored church, therefore, many of its supposedly “unique” doctrines are actually restored doctrines which had previously been taught in the Lord’s church.

With the exception of the letters of the Apostolic Fathers and the writings of the early Christians and historians, most of these recently discovered or rediscovered manuscripts fall into one of three categories of ancient writ. These categories are 1) Gnostic, 2) Pseudepigrapha, and 3) Apocrypha.

All three categories embody works which are considered by many scholars to be equal in importance to the scriptures included in our Bibles today. Likewise all of the above categories contain works which the Primitive Church (either Jewish or Christian) embraced as scripture.

When comparing the teachings of the Lord’s church to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints –organized in 1830, there are certain similarities. Yet most of these ancient texts lay unnoticed, unstudied, or unknown until the last seventy-five years. In episode two of Faith and Reason, Michael R. Ash discusses the ancient writings that continue to influence Christ’s church today.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 1: Introduction

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From the book: Of Faith And Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith
by Michael R. Ash

In the first episode of Faith and Reason, author Michael R. Ash discusses the importance of using one’s heart and mind in search of truth. Ash places value in secular evidence and the Lord’s counsel to “seek…diligently…words of wisdom” from the “best books” –and “seek learning even by study and also by faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118). Ash assures listeners that questioning one’s faith is not a sin, and can lead to greater faith.

Latter-day Saint scholarship has been amassing evidence supporting the Restoration for over a half a century, yet most people are completely unaware of these exciting discoveries. The purpose of this podcast is to present evidence of the prophetic abilities of Joseph Smith, the antiquity of unique LDS doctrines and practices, and tangible support for the authenticity of LDS scriptures in a friendly, conversational format.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FairMormon.org). He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Reverend Spalding Strikes Again: A Response to Internet Criticism of Kerry Muhlestein’s Book of Abraham Videos

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Administrator’s note: The following is the result of a combined effort by many FAIR volunteers, all of whom made substantive contributions, and so is posted here under the group authorship “FAIR Staff.” Also, some of the individuals discussed below are either anonymous or pseudonymous; because we do not even know their genders in some cases, all references to these individuals will use masculine pronouns (“he,” “his,” “him) for the sake of brevity.

Critics on a particularly hostile Internet message board have been celebrating over e-mail responses to some YouTube videos of LDS Egyptologist Kerry Muhlestein. In the videos Dr. Muhlestein commented on some matters related to the Book of Abraham. The e-mails are from Egyptologists at UCLA (where Muhlestein earned his PhD). These scholars were solicited for their views by being sent the following e-mail from a critic on the message board:

Dr. Muhlenstein [sic] has recently been in a series of videos where he discusses his recent research on these papyrus fragments. His conclusions about the veracity of [Joseph] Smith’s translation of these papyri, their related facsimiles, and the explicit connection between the ancient biblical figure Abraham, and the ancient Egyptian book of the Dead, are contrary to what I thought the scholarly consensus was.[1]

Unfortunately, the e-mailer set up a straw man from the beginning: The videos are said to be “on these papyrus fragments,” meaning the Joseph Smith Papyri. He then goes on to speak about “[Muhlestein’s] conclusions about the veracity of Smith’s translations of these papyri.” Actually, Muhlestein says the papyri are not the source of the Book of Abraham (see note 13). Much of what Muhlestein talks about in the videos—such as various traditions about Abraham, the so-called Kirtland Egyptian Papers, and so forth—are not really related to the Joseph Smith Papyri at all, or even Egyptology proper. Two videos do focus on the facsimiles, of which only Facsimile 1 could be said to be related to the papyri that we have in our possession.

The e-mailer then asks if the Egyptologists“could help [him] understand how non-LDS Egyptologists view the Joseph Smith papyri, his translation of the accompanying facsimiles, and how valid the claims that Muhlenstein [sic] has been making in his recent videos are.”

The three responses from the solicited Egyptologists are reproduced below. [Read more…] about Reverend Spalding Strikes Again: A Response to Internet Criticism of Kerry Muhlestein’s Book of Abraham Videos