Why I Left

As a Mormon, this explanation made perfect sense, because to me “spreading the gospel” was one of the purposes for the restored gospel²⁷. So when children are born in the covenant (into a Mormon family), they don’t have to go searching for the one true gospel — they inherit it.

This is also the reason why Mormon families end up having so many kids²⁸.

But there are at least two problems with this explanation:

1. Mormon polygamy produced fewer children, not more²⁹
2. As far as we can tell, no children came from Joseph’s plural relationships³⁰

So, if the one reason for God to institute polygamy is to make more Mormon babies, but Mormon polygamy actually makes fewer Mormon babies, and the founder of Mormon polygamy didn’t make any babies with his plural wives…

Why the need for polygamy again?

 

Maybe God’s purpose wasn’t to bring more souls into the Mormon Church but to ensure that more souls were brought up in the right Mormon families — the ones that practiced polygamy early on. So, while polygamy didn’t produce more Mormons than monogamy would have, it almost definitely produced more of the right kind of Mormon³¹.

That’s a possibility I guess, but it’s no less weird. It’s also not the explanation the LDS Church is giving (i.e. the “to increase the number of children born in the gospel covenant” explanation).

I’m guessing that the Mormon Church says “probably” because, while there are a lot of first-hand and second-hand accounts of Joseph’s sexuality with his plural wives, DNA tests can’t find any children that would have come from these relationships.

But if none of Joseph’s “poly” relationships were sexual in nature, then a lot of people who were friendly to Joseph are lying. Here are just a few of their many statements:

• Many years after Joseph’s death, there was a legal dispute between the two most prominent Mormon religions over some property in Nauvoo. As part of the court case, Brigham Young’s church³² argued that the Mormon religion run by Joseph Smith’s son³³ couldn’t be the same as the original because their doctrine was different (namely, they didn’t believe in or practice polygamy, but Brigham’s church did). Several of Joseph’s wives were called to testify and asked very explicit questions about their relationship with Joseph. Some of them refused to answer. Others confirmed that sex was indeed a part of their relationship³⁴.
• There are journal entries recording Joseph’s Wedding night with Louisa Beaman where she was dressed like a man to avoid suspicion. Joseph Bates Noble recorded that their wedding night was spent, “Right straight across the river at my house”. Noble said he encouraged them to, “Blow out the lights and get into bed³⁵, and you will be safer there”³⁶.
• We have five statements from Benjamin F. Johnson recording the intimate nature of Joseph Smith’s relationship with his sister, Almera. Here’s one such event, “He [Joseph Smith] remained two days, lodging at my house with my sister as man and wife (and to my certain knowledge he occupied the same bed with her).”³⁷
• Sylvia Sessions Lyon, believed that her daughter, Josephine, was the daughter of the prophet, but as it turns out, she was not³⁸. Unless Sylvia was lying, this means that she was sexually active with both her first husband, Windsor Lyon, and Joseph Smith at about the same time.

There are other accounts like that, but that’ll do for my purposes³⁹.

Officially, the Mormon Church acknowledges that at least some of Joseph Smith’s marriages were consummated⁴⁰. Mormon apologists also usually concede that sex was a part of Joseph’s polygamy. But every once in a while, I find a Mormon who sticks to his guns that Joseph didn’t have sex with his plural wives⁴¹. They are either unaware of the evidence or they are willing to discard it simply because they can’t conceive of a situation where a man could be sexually active with so many women and yet produce no children⁴².

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Joseph never had sex with anyone except for Emma. Even then you’d have to explain Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, Wilford Woodruff, etc. who certainly did have lots of sex, with lots of different women (because there are children to prove it).

Those who claim that sex had nothing to do with polygamy in the early Mormon Church are not well informed.

It’s a big deal to me that Joseph Smith was secretly sleeping with lots of women⁴³, and I know that it’s a big deal to a lot of other people. I have a hard time imagining that a man of God would do that. It’s simply not the image of Joseph that I was given my entire life.

Did God really condone Joseph tricking his young and beautiful housemaid to meet with him secretly and convince her to marry him on the spot, even though she had asked him to drop the subject?

Did God really command Joseph to lie to Emma and hide his plural relationships from her?

Did an angel really appear to Joseph and threaten him with destruction unless he started messing around with the cute sixteen-year-old living with him? In a barn? In the middle of the night? Behind his wife’s back?

Would God really sustain a man who would use his position to corner young and impressionable women, and then coerce them into marrying him?

I guess that’s possible. But is it likely?

Mormon apologists say that Joseph was a “reluctant polygamist”. That’s possible, too, I guess, but I think that the evidence points clearly in another direction.

If Joseph’s purposes were eternal in nature, and were devoid of sexual attraction, why did he pursue the young and attractive, girls? If his purposes were simply to fulfill the commands of God, why didn’t he marry only those women who had little prospects (widows and spinsters)⁵⁴?

If polygamy was a revelation from God and such a super-important part of the restored gospel, wouldn’t it also be important to inform Oliver about it? He was an integral part of every other “revelation” from God. He supposedly helped translate the Golden Plates. He was reportedly present when John the Baptist restored the priesthood⁵⁵. He was involved in pretty much every other detail in founding the Mormon Church. Why was he not informed about an angel of God standing before Joseph with a drawn sword, threatening to kill him unless he did it? Seems like a pretty important detail to confide in your #2.

I encourage you to get to know each of the stories of these faithful, but forgotten women⁵⁶. Then decide for yourself if you think Joseph was a “reluctant polygamist”.

I can understand why a believing Mormon would choose to put this one on their shelf and say I don’t understand but I choose to have faith anyway. My concern is that most Mormons aren’t even given the opportunity to do that because this information isn’t available to them through Church-approved sources. How can new converts or even long-time members truly exercise “agency” if they aren’t given all of the information?

I don’t think that’s fair.

The implication that Helen Mar Kimball questioned Joseph’s promise of salvation is simply not true. Helen was talking about a completely different topic, when she said that she might not have comprehended everything she heard from Joseph. It is either dishonest or lazy to apply one quote to the context of the other, in this case.

Here’s the more complete quote: (Context is everything.)

The Prophet’s son can never make many proselytes [converts] among the Nauvoo ‘Mormons,’ for they have too much knowledge, and are so familiar with his parents’ history that they cannot be duped. I was not so young nor so small as Joseph Smith the younger, but I confess that I was too young or too ‘foolish’ to comprehend and appreciate all that I heard his father teach, and if my parents at that early day had disagreed and my father been taken away by death, I am not able to decide what the consequences would have been to me; but my mother, though quick and plain to speak her mind, learned to respect the authority of the Priesthood, and she understood it too well to stand in opposition to it. She never deceived nor taught her children an untruth⁵⁹.

First of all, it’s important to note two things: 1) this was written 39 years after-the-fact, and 2) it has nothing to do with Joseph’s promise of salvation to her family.

Helen was addressing an ownership dispute over some land in Nauvoo between the RLDS Church⁶¹ and the LDS church. Each laid claim to being the “true” church that Joseph founded. Joseph Smith III, son of the Mormon Founder and leader of the RLDS Church, argued that polygamy was not practiced or taught by his father, so the LDS church (which did practice polygamy) must be a different religion altogether. Joseph Smith III was wrong; Helen had first-hand knowledge of that fact. She knew that Joseph practiced polygamy and she knew that many people in Nauvoo were aware of it too. She excuses JS III a bit by essentially saying, he can be forgiven for not noticing what was going on — he was young when all that went down — I was too — but the people who were close to the prophet won’t be convinced — they know his dad was practicing polygamy.

Helen was not talking about Joseph’s promise of salvation to her and her family. In fact, the evidence indicates that Helen believed Joseph’s promise her entire life.

Read Helen’s quote once again: “This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.” She wrote that in 1881. This means that 39 years after the fact, she still deeply believed Joseph’s promise! She wrote the “too young or too ‘foolish’” quote a year later (1882).

So, Mr. Hales wants us to believe that for 39 years Helen believed Joseph’s promise, but then changed her mind only a year later? And because she wrote I might not have comprehended everything about a topic that was completely unrelated to Joseph’s promise?

Either Mr. Hales doesn’t know the source and context of the 2nd quote, or he isn’t being very honest in this situation.

Also, apologists have to get around the fact that Catherine Lewis, a girl who lived with the Kimball family, later confirmed Joseph’s promise to Helen. She wrote that Helen once said, “I would never have been sealed (married) to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it”⁶².

Apologists discredit Catherine’s quote, simply by saying that she left the Mormon Church⁶³. She was an apostate, so she can’t be trusted. This is another tactic that implies that only faithful Mormon sources are free from bias and can be trustworthy⁶⁴. But if this woman made up the story, it’s a pretty interesting coincidence that it matches what Helen herself wrote about the situation.

I’m not buying the apologetic explanation at all. Joseph’s treatment of this little girl is abominable — even in the very unlikely chance that she did misunderstand.

Yikes! I’m surprised this made it past their review.

First of all, calling Lucy “one woman” doesn’t give proper respect to her or to the situation that she was placed in. Lucy was only fifteen when Joseph first approached her about marriage (hardly what most people would refer to as a “woman”). And she was left completely alone — no parent figure to give her counsel, or discerning advice, or to protect her from a potentially predatory situation⁶⁵.

Secondly, do they really believe that Joseph wasn’t being coercive when the man she revered as a prophet told her that God was commanding her to marry him? What choice did she really have? Helen lived on the Western Frontier in the 1840s. Where could she go if she wanted to escape this situation?

Would there have to be evidence that Joseph chained her up, or beat her, or threaten damnation before apologists admitted that he abused his influence?

And do they really believe that Lucy couldn’t possibly interpret this statement as a threat of damnation: “If you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you”?

Do they really believe that Joseph was just saying all of this out of his kindness and concern for Lucy? Is this the proper way to show concern for a parentless child: “…you will be acknowledged and honored as my wife… I have no flattering words to offer. [Marrying me] is a command of God to you”?

What kind of person would I become if I excused this kind of behavior in the slightest degree? What other disgusting things could I justify, or turn a blind eye to, with my “faith” if I were to let something this despicable slide?

Mormons condemn Warren Jeffs. Why don’t they also condemn Joseph Smith for the same type of behavior? I think it’s partly because they’ve never heard it before.

Apologists frequently imply that Joseph’s wives couldn’t have been manipulated since so many of them staunchly defended Joseph and the practice of polygamy. In other words: the abused don’t defend their abusers. This is simply not true⁶⁶. Polygamy’s most ardent supporters today are the women who are currently practicing it (like this teenager). Even though many of today’s polygamist relationships are clearly demeaning and abusive, most of the women defend it.

Just because many of Joseph’s wives ended up defending polygamy doesn’t mean that he didn’t abuse his influence in convincing them.

I don’t know how anyone could write that and feel good about it.

I feel dirty reading it.

First of all, I find it incredible that the Mormon Church itself doesn’t know why Joseph had relationships with married women. If he were inspired to do it how could the Church possibly not know the reason for it⁶⁸?

Also, the Mormon scripture that details polygamy, does not allow for the practice of marrying women that are already married.⁶⁹

As to the theory that Joseph was marrying married women so that lots of families could be sealed together: remember that the LDS Church says that there is only one purpose for polygamy⁷⁰ — sealing multiple families together is not it.

Also, remember that Zina Huntington was one of Joseph’s polyandrous relationships⁷¹. After Joseph died, you would think that she would go back to being married to Henry and only to Henry. (Hadn’t he suffered enough?!) That didn’t happen. Instead, Brigham Young took Zina as his wife⁷². (Brigham also took all of the children.) She lived in Brigham’s home and raised his children while Henry served missions for the Church far away.

This makes no sense. It’s maddening.

Polygamy’s “one purpose” is to raise up seed. But Brigham wasn’t needed for that since Henry fathered children with Zina. And Zina couldn’t have been sealed to Brigham since she was already sealed to Joseph⁷³. This means that Brigham’s marriage to Zina didn’t even follow the Holy Order of Marriage. There was no doctrinal basis for it.

The comment about complaints from husbands being virtually absent makes me ill. The word virtually acknowledges but minimizes experiences like Henry’s who wrote to Zina in anguish, “…the same affection is there…But I feel alone…I do not Blame Eny (sic) person…may the Lord our Father bless Brother Brigham…all is right according to the Law of the Celestial Kingdom of our God Joseph.”⁷⁴

Technically, that’s not a complaint, but does that matter? Does it lessen his pain? Does it legitimize his suffering somehow?

I don’t have words for how awful the Zina + Henry + Joseph + Brigham saga is.

The second theory is no less disgusting to me. So, it’s okay to get an extra husband if the wife isn’t happy with the first? Or if the first husband isn’t a Mormon?

And is the LDS Church’s actually suggesting that any of these married women wanted a plural relationship with Joseph? I have found no evidence of that in all of my research. The accounts I’ve read are of women who were anguished by his proposals and his pressure.

And then there’s the idea that his marriages to married women weren’t sexual in any way — they were “eternity only” marriages. I see three major problems with this argument:

• At least some of his polyandrous relationships almost certainly did include sexual relations⁷⁵.
• The LDS Church says that the only purpose for polygamy is to make lots of Mormon babies⁷⁶. If so, then why marry women who already had an active, Mormon husband to make babies with?
• The very concept of eternity-only marriages is disgusting. (If it’s not okay to take a man’s wife and children from him in this life, why would that be okay in the next life?)

More about that last part: The meaning of eternity-only sealings is that after this life, a man’s wife would no longer be married to him, but to Joseph. The first couple would get to spend this life together… but as soon as one of them died, the marriage would be dissolved for the rest of eternity and the wife would become Joseph’s.

Worse yet: the children born by that couple would be Joseph’s in the next life too!⁷⁷

I thought the “one and only true” gospel was about bringing families together. This is kind of the opposite. Tough luck for the first guy, I guess.

It probably doesn’t need to be said, but I don’t believe that the doctrine of eternity-only sealings comes from God.

In other words:

If a Mormon man wants another wife, he needs permission from the first wife. But if the first wife says “no” then the husband’s in luck! He doesn’t need her permission anymore… he’s free to “marry” whoever he wants to behind her back. It’s right there in the D&C, so it was fine for Joseph to hide it from Emma.

Even without that horrible explanation, you’d have to be okay with a God who would write disgusting “scripture” like D&C 132:61, 63.⁷⁹

The Official LDS essay also completely ignores issues with the other three supposed requirements for polygamy. This is very common with Mormon apologetics — they give one terrible explanation for a tiny piece of a problem (while ignoring 3 others) and then act like the problem is solved. It’s misdirection. Sleight of hand. Nothing to see here.

I’ve heard a few people say, “well, Joseph wasn’t perfect” or “King David messed up too”. Some people might feel comfortable going there⁸⁰. I don’t. It’s so much easier for me to accept that Joseph wasn’t a prophet than to believe that God would choose someone who makes this type of “mistake” to be the most important prophet in history (except for Jesus⁸¹, of course).

Let’s follow FAIR Mormon’s line of thinking to explain why it was okay for him to lie be “secretive”:

1. Joseph couldn’t be up-front about it because that would have put him in danger.
2. Joseph wasn’t breaking any laws anyway because the law prohibited “open” polygamy. And since Joseph denied his polygamy, it definitely wasn’t open, and so also wasn’t technically illegal.

Frankly, I think that this is silly enough without my help — so I’ll leave it alone.

But there’s something else that FAIR Mormon is referring to that’s very interesting — how Joseph played with the definition of the word polygamy to justify his denials. He told followers that polygamy was a doctrine of the devil but that what they were doing wasn’t polygamy⁸⁶. He gave it other names: “celestial marriage” or “the new and everlasting covenant” or “the holy order of marriage”. When it was ordained of God, it wasn’t polygamy. That way, they could confidently deny it — because, once again, what Mormons were doing wasn’t actually polygamy.

This quote from the Deseret News in 1886 describes this game of semantics, and explains how early Mormons convinced themselves that Joseph never really lied about polygamy.

But examination of the history and the facts will disclose that there is no real contradiction between the alleged conflicting statements, nor between the action of Joseph and Hyrum in regard to polygamy… Polygamy, in the ordinary and Asiatic sense of the term, never was and is not now a tenet of the Latter-Day Saints… was altogether different to the order of celestial marriage…

 

In other words, early Mormons told themselves that they never practiced polygamy. In their minds, polygamy is vile and carnal; but the order of celestial marriage is a sacred calling. What’s the difference in practice? Nothing. Celestial marriage is ordained of God. That’s the difference⁸⁸.

To simply say that Joseph lied about his intimate relationships is a huge understatement. He verbally attacked and vilified anyone who brought out the truth about polygamy, even though they were the truth tellers and he was not.

He was militant about defending his lies. In fact, his attempts to silence the truth in this regard are what ultimately led to his murder. (See story about the Nauvoo Expositor below.)

 

Yuck.

What they’re saying is that William Clayton wrote this — not Joseph. Brother Clayton could have been wrong or even made it up.

The first part is definitely true. Joseph didn’t write this. And yes, it’s possible that William made it up or got it wrong, but that’s really unlikely.

First of all, there were other eyewitnesses⁹⁰ who said they saw Joseph “translate” the writings on the Kinderhook plates.

Also, William got pretty specific: “…they contain the history of the person with whom they were found & he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven & earth…” That doesn’t sound to me like something that you would just misunderstand⁹¹.

Another thing going against this theory is that Brother Clayton was “called of God” to be the prophet’s personal secretary. It was his sacred duty to record what Joseph said and did. It doesn’t seem likely to me that he would just make it up.

Finally, Joseph had ample opportunity to correct this statement if he didn’t agree with it. But Joseph didn’t correct it. Quite the contrary, this entry was important enough to be included in the Mormon Church’s own official publication The Times And Seasons. It was even modified and written as a first-person statement from the prophet’s perspective: “I [Joseph] have translated a portion [of the plates]…”. If that wasn’t enough, it was even later added to the Official History of the Church (see page 372) and touted for more than a century as authentic proof that ancient Native Americans wrote stuff on metal plates.

Mormon apologists use the “Joseph didn’t actually write that.” tactic a lot. The problem with that argument is that he did very little writing himself — scribes did almost all of it for him⁹². Apologists conveniently use this fact selectively. They call into question anything that bothers them (because Joseph didn’t write it). But they don’t apply the same skepticism to the stuff that happens to confirm their beliefs, even though it’s written by the same scribes.

Was Joseph caught red-handed? Was his claimed ability to translate ancient languages exposed as a fraud?

Or did both William Clayton and the author of the New York Herald article make this story up? And then, did Joseph somehow miss the excitement that the Kinderhook plates caused in Nauvoo and not get to examine them and denounce them as a hoax, and then somehow miss the article published in his own magazine, and so wasn’t able to correct it?

That seems highly unlikely to me.

Who said that the papyrus was written by Abraham? Well, Joseph Smith did: “some of the Saints at Kirtland purchased the mummies and papyrus… I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph of Egypt”⁹⁵.

Also the heading of the Book of Abraham says “A Translation of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.”

But, I guess Mr. Muhlestein is saying that maybe Abraham did write this but just did it on other, earlier papyrus and then it was copied down on other papyrus and passed down through time until it was written again on the papyrus that ended up on Joseph Smith’s hands. Okay, I guess that’s possible but that’s a really big stretch⁹⁶.

More importantly, notice that Mr. Muhlestein concedes that the papyrus contains the writings of Abraham (even if he won’t say that it was literally written by Abraham). Remember this. It’s an important contradiction to apologists’ catalyst theory⁹⁷.

Now a little bit about Kerry Muhlestein, since apologists so frequently represent him as an expert on Egyptian stuff:

He’s an Egyptologist and a Mormon, employed by the Mormon Church as a professor at BYU. Also, I think it’s important to understand a little bit about his approach when it comes to the Book of Abraham (and to finding truth in general):

In other words, Mr. Muhlestein is not impartial and not a seeker of truth. He has already found the truth he’s looking for and will not be moved from it. He acts as the defense attorney, not the jury. He is an apologist⁹⁸, not a scholar.

How far can we trust the “expert” opinion of someone who admits he makes conclusions before any evidence is provided? Personally, I think experts are more trustworthy when they can commit to being free from bias⁹⁹.

I’m bothered by the phrase that Egyptologists are using “faulty comparisons”. Of course language changes over time¹⁰⁰, but what is the likelihood that the meaning of the same Egyptian characters changed from a common funerary text into a story about Abraham and a vision of the pre-existence, a star called Kolob, Jesus becoming the Chosen One, the creation of Earth, etc?

That stretches far past the limits of my imagination.

What are the odds that the characters would change so little over time and yet their meaning would change completely?

This is what I mean:

 

 

 

 

 

Also, check this out and compare Joseph’s interpretation to that of modern Egyptologists:

 

The Mormon Church itself concedes that Joseph’s “translation” might not have been “a literal rendering of the papyri as a conventional translation would be” (Official LDS Essay — cited 3/17/2018) but that the scrolls might have served as a catalyst for revelation.

But this contradicts Joseph’s own accounts of the “translation” process. He said “I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics”¹⁰¹. The scrolls weren’t inspiring him to write something totally different than their true translation — he was translating characters.

Joseph then records in the History of the Church “much to our joy [we] found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham.”¹⁰² The scrolls didn’t inspire him to understand the story of Abraham. Joseph wrote that the scrolls “contained” it.

Also, if the scrolls were nothing more than a catalyst, then this catalyst is disturbing to me:

 

Finally, let’s call in the experts and see what they say about Joseph’s interpretation of the scrolls. Here are just two: (Lanny Bell, Brown University. Robert K. Ritner, University of Chicago).

This just scratches the surface. Do your own research on both sides. Which side is more convincing? What are the odds that the apologists got it right?

Mr. Muhlestein is a Mormon “Egyptologist”¹⁰⁴ who admits he is not unbiased. He is the only “expert” I can find who believes that there is any possibility that Joseph’s translation is anything close to the true meaning found in the scrolls. Also, the Mormon Church’s “catalyst” claims are silly and don’t match with Joseph’s own statements about the “translation”.

In Mr. Muhlestein’s video (referenced above) he says that Joseph might have received the Book of Abraham directly from God (rather than from the scrolls) before ever attempting to translate the hieroglyphs found on the scrolls¹⁰⁷. (Sounds like the “catalyst” theory.) Then, he supposes that the Egyptian Grammar book might have been Joseph’s attempt to reverse engineer an alphabet from the translation that already existed.

But that doesn’t make sense. Joseph not only tells us what Egyptian hieroglyphics mean (incorrectly), he also provides a pronunciation of the words. As I said before, why would he provide a pronunciation guide adjacent to actual Egyptian characters if he’s just reverse engineering the Book of Abraham? Why would he attempt to teach us how to pronounce Egyptian characters if he wasn’t making an attempt to actually translate those characters? It makes no sense.

That’s why Mormon apologists are left without any explanation on this one — because there isn’t anything other than what’s staring us in the face — Joseph made it all up. He was simply trying to fake his way through things and continue his ruse of being a translator. That might contradict your faith, but it’s the only thing that fits all of the evidence. (And it fits perfectly.)

FAIR Mormon tells us that there’s some research currently being done on the GAEL so we should withhold our verdict. Sure, there’s a chance that BYU scholars could find something that brings it all together to make rational sense. But what could that possibly be? Short of the GAEL being another of Mark Hoffman’s forgeries¹⁰⁸, I can’t think of anything reasonable.

There’s real research being done on Bigfoot too. Should I withhold my verdict on that one as well?

Update (12/19/2018): We no longer need to wait for the results of Professor Hauglid’s research. About five weeks ago we got more than a hint as to where he currently stands on this topic:

For the record, I no longer hold the views that have been quoted from my 2010 book in these videos¹⁰⁹. I have moved from my days as an “outrageous” apologist. In fact, I’m no longer interested or involved in apologetics in any way. I wholeheartedly agree with Dan’s excellent assessment of the Abraham/Egyptian documents in these videos. I now reject a missing Abraham manuscript. I agree that the two of the Abraham manuscripts were simulateously (sic) dictated. I agree that the Egyptian papers were used to produce the BoA. I agree that only Abr. 1:1-2:18 were produced in 1935 and that Abr. 2:19-5:21 were produced in Nauvoo. And on and on. I no longer agree with Gee and Mulhestein. I find their apologetic “scholarship” on the BoA abhorrent. One can find that I’ve changed my mind in my recent and forthcoming publications. The most recent JSP Revelations and Translation vol. 4, The Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts (now on shelves) is much more open to Dan’s thinking on the origin of the Book of Abraham. My friend Brent Metcalfe can attest to my transformative journey.

Wow. That takes some courage¹¹¹. Brian Hauglid is a professor at the center of Mormon apologetics, the Maxwell Institute. This comment publicly acknowledges that he was wrong in his previous apologetic books and that his critics were right. He has thrown his colleagues under the bus by placing quotes around “scholarship” and calling their ideas “abhorrent”.

This is a very big deal. There aren’t too many Mormons with credentials who dare to support the faith perspective of the Book of Abraham. Losing Hauglid is devastating.

I’ve also heard apologists say that the Grammar book couldn’t have possibly been Joseph’s attempt to translate Egyptian because his “translations” of a single character are sometimes many sentences long.

Sure. Here’s an example:

[transcription of Egyptian character] Iota toues Zip Zis: The land of Egypt which was first discovered by a woman wh[i]le underwater, and afterwards settled by her Sons she being a daughter of Ham— any land over flown with water— a land seen when overflown by water:— land overflown by the seasons, land by enriched by being overflown low marshy ground.

But I’m not sure I follow their line of thinking. How else could Joseph get the entire Book of Abraham out of the tiny scrolls?

Which is more likely, the apologetic shrugs and their pleas to wait to draw final conclusions, or quite simply, that the GAEL is evidence that Joseph Smith pretended to know how to translate stuff… but couldn’t?

In my opinion, this one looks really bad for Mormonism because if Joseph ever faked translations, then he probably faked the other thing he claimed to “translate” — the keystone of the Mormon religion — the Book of Mormon. Personally, I think that the GAEL is one of the more damning things against Mormonism’s Truth claims.

I think these quotes are incredible.

The Mormon Church is actually conceding that the text found in the Book of Abraham might not have actually been found anywhere on the scrolls that Joseph purchased. My guess is that few Mormons have any idea that their own Church has now taken this position.

At the same time, the LDS Church affirms that the text in the Book of Abraham is still sacred and inspired. They then encourage readers to seek to determine if the text is true by following their emotions, not by examining the facts about the book’s origins at all.

In other words:

1. Joseph might not have technically translated anything from the scrolls, but the Book of Abraham is still revelation from God. It just is. We don’t know how it got there, or where it came from… but it’s definitely the word of God.
2. Don’t look at the origin of the Book of Abraham to tell if it’s true.
3. Read it. Does it make you feel good? Then it’s true!

The Book of Abraham is so far beyond the limits of reason for me. It’s actually difficult for me to imagine anything that would be more damning against it than what we already know. So, it would be next-to-impossible for me to believe that the scrolls had anything to do with Abraham. Or to believe that when Joseph said I translated he actually meant it was revealed to me completely separate from the scrolls, and that the scrolls were just a catalyst (whatever that means).

The Mormon Church was content to teach that everything about the Book of Abraham was literal for more than 160 years. But now that the evidence is available to non-experts, the Mormon Church has attempted to change their version so that it fits the evidence. But it still doesn’t fit. Not even close.

They realize this, which is why the official LDS essay applies a different strategy to essentially ask, How do you find truth anyway? Do you use your eyes and mind, or do you use your heart?

They are firmly favoring heart over mind on this one. I think that is a dangerous place to be. Where else might your faith take you if it obliterates reason? What else might you justify to continue your belief? What other logical reasoning would you override to preserve your faith?

I think the Book of Abraham is completely absurd. Even so, there’s always a chance I’ve completely missed the boat. I don’t know… maybe I’m crazy.

It certainly is possible that when the Book of Mormon says “horses”, or “oxen”, or “donkeys”, or “goats”, or “sheep”, or “swine”, that it’s really referring to other animals that Joseph Smith didn’t have words for in the 1830s. Maybe the Nephites figured out a way to domesticate tapirs (horses), and javelina (pigs), and bighorn sheep (sheep), red brocket deer (goats) and bison (cattle).

That’s called loan shifting.

Maybe the word “horse” was used for some other critter that we don’t yet have archeological evidence of. That’s possible too.

But then, if loan shifting was the standard translation technique for animals unknown to Joseph Smith, why does Ether 9:19 depart from this method and give unknown animals strange names like “cureloms and cumoms”? If that’s how translation worked in the Book of Mormon, wouldn’t it say something like, …they should prepare his derbops and thudlors… instead of “prepare his horses and chariots”?

Also, if the people of the ancient Americas were domesticating tapirs, and llamas, and javelina, etc. we would expect to see evidence of that today in at least three places:

• The Ground: Raising animals leaves traces in the ground (pens, tools, droppings, bones) and in the artifacts (like their art). There is no such evidence.
• Behavior of Native Americans: Advances in society (like domestication) tend to get passed from generation to generation. Yet while native American cultures certainly domesticated dogs, turkeys, ducks, and maybe even tapirs (as pets) there is no evidence that anything like what is described in the Book of Mormon ever happened.
• The Animals Themselves: Domestication changes animals genetically (because humans breed only the docile animals). You would expect to see evidence of that in the animals today. Apologists can point to no such evidence.

Finally, read this reference to horses in the Book of Mormon:

…Now the king had commanded his servants… that they should prepare his horses and chariots, and conduct him forth to the land of Nephi…

That sure sounds to me like the “horses” are pulling chariots that carry people. How likely is it that those chariots were actually pulled by tapirs, or llamas (live in the Andes, not Central America), or deer (which are tiny animals in Central America)? And that the chariots were dragging on the ground rather than rolling on wheels (see next section)?

Maybe all of these technologies did exist, just as the Book of Mormon describes them, but they all just disappeared without a trace.

That is definitely possible.

But it’s highly unlikely.

How could a civilization of millions have such advancements like steel, and horses, and the wheel… the wheel… and yet keep them from the Aztecs, and the Incas, and Mayas. (Even more improbable if you believe that the Nephites were one of those cultures.) How could these things have existed and yet disappeared without a trace — no trace in the ground, no trace in the artifacts, and no trace in the surviving cultures?

That first part is right. The lack of evidence of the Lamanites, and Jaredites, and Anti-Nephi-Lehites, and Gadianton Robbers doesn’t equal proof that they never existed.

Yes. Of course.

But no reasonable person is saying they have proof that those people never existed. What they’re saying is that it’s very unlikely they ever existed.

If an exterminator searches your attic for rodents but finds no droppings, no nests, no pathways, no crumbs, no rodent hairs, etc. he will tell you that there are also no rodents. He doesn’t have proof, but he has good reason to feel confident. (Afterall, they’d have to be some pretty funny rodents to live in your attic and leave no signs of ever having been there.)

Also, I can’t let Elder Christopherson’s example pass without comment. He’s talking about steel in ancient Israel. Israel. Not the Americas. And his comparison is from 1884. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve gathered a lot of archaeological knowledge in the 134 years since. We’ve combed the attic pretty thoroughly. No rodents yet.

That reminds me of these charts produced by FAIR Mormon:

 

 

In other words, look how much the Book of Mormon got right — and how much we thought didn’t exist but then discovered that it did! Only a few more to go! It’s not such a leap to think that we’ll find those things too.

These charts are irresponsible at best, intentionally deceptive and dishonest at worst.

So many items on that list would be found in just about any ancient culture (e.g. stone monuments, thrones, palaces, wild beasts, large cities, javelins, bows and arrows, highland lake, N-S large river, southern highlands). Really? It’s almost as bad as putting wars with other cultures, or written language on the list.

Also, the second chart adds a new “Indeterminate” category. This is a common charting trick called biased labeling. Adding a new label distorts the results. And the word indeterminate itself introduces bias. What does indeterminate even mean in this context? Kind of confirmed? Almost confirmed? About to be confirmed? Maybe confirmed? Aren’t all of those the same as unconfirmed? The word indeterminate gives the impression that there’s some intermediate state between confirmed and unconfirmed. There isn’t. It’s a way of giving partial credit when there’s no such thing as partial credit here.

And look at the list of yellow items. Horses. Really? Saying they’re anything but “unconfirmed” is not accurate¹¹². And Reformed Egyptian is “indeterminate” too? What does that mean? They’ve kind of, almost, maybe found evidence of Reformed Egyptian?

 

Also, I’m seriously bothered that some items they marked green have certainly not been confirmed. It’s difficult for me to believe that marking “Steel sword” and “Hebrew language” green is anything but dishonest.

These charts are terrible. They are an attempt to make it look like finding solid evidence of a Book of Mormon culture isn’t that far-fetched. But in my opinion, that is very far-fetched.

Try and think of a scenario where the Nephites and Lamanites existed. There would have been millions of them, and yet the defining parts of the culture: their language, their tools, their methods of travel, the animals they interacted with, were completely lost — not passed along to surviving cultures and not frozen in time in any way.

Mormon apologists tell us that sure there’s not a lot of evidence for a lot of stuff in the Book of Mormon but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. Just hang on. We’ve found a lot, they’re still finding more today and will yet find more stuff in the future. If we were still in the 1840s — when little was known about ancient American cultures — this wouldn’t be such an enormous leap.

But it’s 2018. It is an enormous leap. Our proverbial exterminator has searched the attic pretty thoroughly.

The claims that the Book of Mormon is an actual history of an actual civilization are extremely difficult for me to believe.

The Mormon Church is doubling down in this regard. Rather than coming clean, they claim that they are being honest and transparent and that people like me aren’t (or that we’ve been deceived somehow).

But, how transparent is the Mormon Church really, when even highly-educated Mormons are uninformed; when they are shocked that you would mention such “lies”? Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

First experience: A few months ago I had a discussion with a Mormon friend who has a master’s degree from a prestigious university. He asked why I decided to leave Mormonism (one of only a few who has dared). When he persisted, I mentioned a few of the issues that I’ve addressed in this article. His response was, “I seriously doubt your sources”.

Second experience: Another friend of mine, who was a Mormon Bishop at the time (and has two master’s degrees from one of the best schools in the world), decided to write and send me a 20-page apologetic thesis on Joseph Smith’s polygamy after discovering that it was a major point of departure for me and Mormonism. His article was very high-level and missing most of the gruesome details. Yet, I don’t think he purposely omitted unflattering information because he’s such a sincere and honest person. I think he got his information only from apologetic/whitewashed sources and believes that he is informed.

Third experience: A few years ago I had a discussion with a family member who is a successful business owner and member of a Mormon bishopric. I told him (unwisely) that I decided to leave Mormonism when I discovered a few things that led me to believe that Joseph Smith was a sexual predator. He was shocked and exclaimed, “I don’t know what you think you know but…”

Fourth experience: Another friend holds a Ph.D., and is a very successful business leader. He has been a Mormon bishop and is highly regarded in his community. I recently shared some of my issues over Mormon history with him. He confessed that he had never heard of the Kinderhook Plates or the GAEL. He didn’t know that many of Joseph Smith’s wives testified before a court that they had sexual relations with him. He had never heard of Lucy Walker, or Helen Mar Kimball, or most of Joseph Smith’s other wives. He didn’t know that Joseph Smith never actually even looked at the golden plates when he “translated” them but that they were often covered by a cloth or in another room and that he looked at a chocolate-colored rock in his hat on which would appear English translations.

Even highly educated Mormons don’t know the history of their own religion. They consider verified historical facts to be dirty lies.

I don’t blame these friends and family at all. They trust their religion (as they’ve been taught to do) and so they don’t see any possibility that their religion would hide such information from them.

Is the LDS Church really being transparent when so many of its followers are in the dark? Sure, the Mormon Church brings up some of it in their official essays, but Mormons don’t read those essays. Few Mormons even know they exist¹¹⁴ and most importantly, they are far from honest or transparent¹¹⁵.

Elder Cook mentions critics who misrepresent Mormon history, but is the LDS Church really on the moral high-ground with regard to “representing the stories of the past” when…

• They are content to allow people to continue to believe that the Book of Abraham came from the Egyptian scrolls that actually contain the Breathing Permit of Hôr¹¹⁶?
• Or when they fail to mention that Joseph Smith used a “chocolate-colored” rock in a hat to “translate” the Book of Mormon — the very same method he used to con people out of their money by telling them that he could find burried treasure in their fields¹¹⁷?
• Or when they teach eighteen-year-old missionaries to tell prospective Mormons that three “witnesses” of the Book of Mormon saw an angel and the golden plates when two of those witnesses later said that it was more like a spiritual impression^{118 119}?
• Are they representing history accurately when they say that Joseph Smith was sent to Carthage Jail on “trumped-up” charges even though it was really because of his involvement in the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor’s printing press¹²⁰?
• How transparent are they when it is not well-known among Mormons that Joseph Smith copied much of his JST directly from another source¹²¹?

I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys… Historians should tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting.

Who is misrepresenting Mormon history? I’ll let you be the judge.