FAIR - User contributions [en]

Mormonism and Christianity/Strength of the Mormon position quotation and source

2011-06-29T05:41:24Z

DavidKeller: /* {{Response label}} */

<metadesc>What catholic theologian was behind "The Strength of the Mormon Position," cited by LeGrande Richards from Orson F. Whitney?</metadesc>
{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
{{Question}}
=={{Question label}}==

What can you tell me about Orson F. Whitney's "Strength of the Mormon Position" claim regarding a Catholic theologian.

=={{Response label}}==

The article derives from a blog post made by FAIR member Kevin Barney.{{ref|barney.1}}

Many members know this quote from LeGrande Richard's book, ''A Marvelous Work and a Wonder''.

Elder Richards quoted from a pamphlet written by Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>A Catholic Opinion.–Many years ago there came to Salt Lake City a learned doctor of divinity, a member of the Roman Catholic Church. I became well acquainted with him, and we conversed freely and frankly. A great scholar, with perhaps a dozen, languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science and philosophy, and was never weary of displaying his vast erudition. One day he said to me: “You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church. The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it. The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on. If we are wrong, they are wrong with us, for they were a part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago. If we really have, as we claim, the apostolic succession from St. Peter, there was no need for Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the Gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the Gospel in latter days.”{{ref|whitney.1}}</blockquote>

No name is given in this source, but it has been located in Elder Whitney's authobiography:

The source is Orson F. Whitney’s autobiography, ''Through Memory’s Halls: The Life Story of Orson F. Whitney, as Told by Himself'' (Independence, MO: Zion’s Printing and Publishing Company, 1930), 222-23.

The Catholic theologian’s name is John M. Reiner.

This stance predates the Vatican II counter-reformation and may not reflect general Catholic sentiment.

=={{Endnotes label}}==
#{{note|barney.1}} Kevin Barney, "[http://bycommonconsent.com/2008/01/16/a-footnote-to-the-strength-of-the-mormon-position/ A Footnote to 'The Strength of the Mormon Position']," bycommonconsent blog (16 January 2008).
#{{note|whitney.1}} Orson F. Whitney, ''Saturday Night Thoughts, Part 3,'' (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1921), 63-64.

=={{Further reading label}}==


==={{External links label}}===
* Kevin Barney, "[http://bycommonconsent.com/2008/01/16/a-footnote-to-the-strength-of-the-mormon-position/ A Footnote to 'The Strength of the Mormon Position']," bycommonconsent blog (16 January 2008).


[[fr:Jesus Christ/Latter-day Saints aren't Christians]]

Mormonism and Christianity/Strength of the Mormon position quotation and source

2011-06-29T05:08:53Z

DavidKeller: /* {{Response label}} */

<metadesc>What catholic theologian was behind "The Strength of the Mormon Position," cited by LeGrande Richards from Orson F. Whitney?</metadesc>
{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
{{Question}}
=={{Question label}}==

What can you tell me about Orson F. Whitney's "Strength of the Mormon Position" claim regarding a Catholic theologian.

=={{Response label}}==

The article derives from a blog post made by FAIR member Kevin Barney.{{ref|barney.1}}

Many members know this quote from LeGrande Richard's book, ''A Marvelous Work and a Wonder''.

Elder Richards quoted from a pamphlet written by Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>A Catholic Opinion.–Many years ago there came to Salt Lake City a learned doctor of divinity, a member of the Roman Catholic Church. I became well acquainted with him, and we conversed freely and frankly. A great scholar, with perhaps a dozen, languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science and philosophy, and was never weary of displaying his vast erudition. One day he said to me: “You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church. The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it. The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on. If we are wrong, they are wrong with us, for they were a part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago. If we really have, as we claim, the apostolic succession from St. Peter, there was no need for Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the Gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the Gospel in latter days.”{{ref|whitney.1}}</blockquote>

No name is given in this source, but it has been located in Elder Whitney's authobiography:

The source is Orson F. Whitney’s autobiography, ''Through Memory’s Halls: The Life Story of Orson F. Whitney, as Told by Himself'' (Independence, MO: Zion’s Printing and Publishing Company, 1930), 222-23.

The Catholic theologian’s name is John M. Reiner.

=={{Endnotes label}}==
#{{note|barney.1}} Kevin Barney, "[http://bycommonconsent.com/2008/01/16/a-footnote-to-the-strength-of-the-mormon-position/ A Footnote to 'The Strength of the Mormon Position']," bycommonconsent blog (16 January 2008).
#{{note|whitney.1}} Orson F. Whitney, ''Saturday Night Thoughts, Part 3,'' (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1921), 63-64.

=={{Further reading label}}==


==={{External links label}}===
* Kevin Barney, "[http://bycommonconsent.com/2008/01/16/a-footnote-to-the-strength-of-the-mormon-position/ A Footnote to 'The Strength of the Mormon Position']," bycommonconsent blog (16 January 2008).


[[fr:Jesus Christ/Latter-day Saints aren't Christians]]

FAIR Study Aids/Seminary/Old Testament/Week 2

2011-06-05T02:27:43Z

DavidKeller: /* Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5 */

{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
__NOTOC__
{{FAIRAnalysisHeader
|title=Seminary: Old Testament Teacher Resource Manual
|author=
|noauthor=
|section=Day 1: Abraham 3; Day 2: Moses 1; Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5; Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4
|previous=[[../Week 1|Week 1]]
|next=[[../Week 3|Week 3]]
|notes={{ChurchTeachingDisclaimer}}
}}

=Day 1: Abraham 3=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=Abraham 3:22–28 (Scripture Mastery, Abraham 3:22–23 ). Knowing who we are and why we are here can give us greater strength to meet challenges and find joy in life.
|response= The 1978 revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy males corrected a previous tendency to use this passage as a justification for a racially based priesthood ban.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_racial_issues/Blacks_and_the_priesthood/LDS_scriptures|Blacks and the Priesthood in LDS Scriptures]]
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics have attempted to raise doubts about Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Abraham based on partial recovery of the Egyptian papyri collection and analysis of documents formerly associated with their translation.
|response= Faithful Mormon scholars have offered several ways to account for the failure to match the translation to the surviving papyri and demonstrated a different purpose for associated documents. Impressive parallels have been found in ancient traditions about Abraham.
|link=
*[[Book_of_Abraham | Book of Abraham]]
*[[Book_of_Abraham/Joseph_Smith_Papyri | Joseph Smith Papyri]]
*[[Book of Abraham/Joseph_Smith_Papyri/Kirtland_Egyptian_Papers|Kirtland Egyptian Papers]]
}}

=Day 2: Moses 1=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=It is comforting to know that God’s work and glory is to help us become like Him.
|response=The idea that we are to "become like Him" is a concept that is often misrepresented by our critics. Critics claim that the doctrine of human deification is unbiblical, false, and arrogant, with the suggestion that Latter-day Saints believe that they will somehow 'supplant God'. This, of course, is entirely incorrect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man]]
}}

=Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5=

{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=The purpose of the scriptural accounts of the Creation is not to answer such questions as how the earth was created, how long ago the Creation occurred, or how long the process of creation took. Their purpose is to answer the more important questions of why the earth was created and who created it.
|response= Sometimes Latter-day Saints are criticized for rejecting a tradition, but post-biblical, belief that God created the universe out of nothing. Passages in Genesis and elsewhere support the LDS view.
|link=
*[[Mormon_view_of_the_creation/Creatio_ex_nihilo| Mormon View of Creation/Creatio ex nihilo]]
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics insist that LDS doctrine requires belief in an earth created in only 7,000 years and a rejection of evolution. They then use scientific evidence to raise doubts.
|response=The Church has no official position on the age of the earth and official statements on evolution allow members considerable room to come to their own conclusions. Church leaders have been of more than one view about these matters.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Age_of_the_Earth|Age of the earth]]
*[[Mormonism and science/Evolution/Official_stance|Official statements regarding organic evolution]]
}}

=Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4=

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Was there physical death for other creatures before Adam and Eve's fall?
|response=The Church has no official position on whether creatures outside the Garden of Eden were subject to physical death prior to Adam and Eve's fall. Church leaders have been of more than one view on the matter.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Death_before_the_Fall|Death before the Fall of Adam]]
}}

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Church leaders do not all agree on many questions.
|response=Church leaders have been of different view on matters that are peripheral to our salvation, such as the age of the earth, whether there was physical death before the Fall of Adam, or what to make of some of Brigham Young's teachings about Adam.
* The Lord allows his prophets and his children to have and express their own views on issues not directly related to the gospel and salvation. "A prophet is only a prophet," taught Joseph Smith, "when he is acting as such." Prophets are not inerrant, and we weaken our ability to follow and sustain them if we act as if they are. Only Jesus was perfect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_doctrine/Changing|Is everything said by a Church leader doctrine?]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Prophets are not infallible|Prophets are not infallible]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God theory|Adam-God theory]]
}}

=={{Further reading label}}==
''None''

{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}

FAIR Study Aids/Seminary/Old Testament/Week 2

2011-06-05T02:25:48Z

DavidKeller: /* Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5 */

{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
__NOTOC__
{{FAIRAnalysisHeader
|title=Seminary: Old Testament Teacher Resource Manual
|author=
|noauthor=
|section=Day 1: Abraham 3; Day 2: Moses 1; Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5; Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4
|previous=[[../Week 1|Week 1]]
|next=[[../Week 3|Week 3]]
|notes={{ChurchTeachingDisclaimer}}
}}

=Day 1: Abraham 3=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=Abraham 3:22–28 (Scripture Mastery, Abraham 3:22–23 ). Knowing who we are and why we are here can give us greater strength to meet challenges and find joy in life.
|response= The 1978 revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy males corrected a previous tendency to use this passage as a justification for a racially based priesthood ban.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_racial_issues/Blacks_and_the_priesthood/LDS_scriptures|Blacks and the Priesthood in LDS Scriptures]]
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics have attempted to raise doubts about Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Abraham based on partial recovery of the Egyptian papyri collection and analysis of documents formerly associated with their translation.
|response= Faithful Mormon scholars have offered several ways to account for the failure to match the translation to the surviving papyri and demonstrated a different purpose for associated documents. Impressive parallels have been found in ancient traditions about Abraham.
|link=
*[[Book_of_Abraham | Book of Abraham]]
*[[Book_of_Abraham/Joseph_Smith_Papyri | Joseph Smith Papyri]]
*[[Book of Abraham/Joseph_Smith_Papyri/Kirtland_Egyptian_Papers|Kirtland Egyptian Papers]]
}}

=Day 2: Moses 1=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=It is comforting to know that God’s work and glory is to help us become like Him.
|response=The idea that we are to "become like Him" is a concept that is often misrepresented by our critics. Critics claim that the doctrine of human deification is unbiblical, false, and arrogant, with the suggestion that Latter-day Saints believe that they will somehow 'supplant God'. This, of course, is entirely incorrect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man]]
}}

=Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5=

{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=The purpose of the scriptural accounts of the Creation is not to answer such questions as how the earth was created, how long ago the Creation occurred, or how long the process of creation took. Their purpose is to answer the more important questions of why the earth was created and who created it.
|response= Sometimes Latter-day Saints are criticized for rejecting a tradition, but post-biblical, belief that God created the universe out of nothing. Passages in Genesis and elsewhere support the LDS view.
|link=[[Mormon_view_of_the_creation/Creatio_ex_nihilo| Mormon View of Creation]]
*
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics insist that LDS doctrine requires belief in an earth created in only 7,000 years and a rejection of evolution. They then use scientific evidence to raise doubts.
|response=The Church has no official position on the age of the earth and official statements on evolution allow members considerable room to come to their own conclusions. Church leaders have been of more than one view about these matters.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Age_of_the_Earth|Age of the earth]]
*[[Mormonism and science/Evolution/Official_stance|Official statements regarding organic evolution]]
}}

=Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4=

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Was there physical death for other creatures before Adam and Eve's fall?
|response=The Church has no official position on whether creatures outside the Garden of Eden were subject to physical death prior to Adam and Eve's fall. Church leaders have been of more than one view on the matter.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Death_before_the_Fall|Death before the Fall of Adam]]
}}

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Church leaders do not all agree on many questions.
|response=Church leaders have been of different view on matters that are peripheral to our salvation, such as the age of the earth, whether there was physical death before the Fall of Adam, or what to make of some of Brigham Young's teachings about Adam.
* The Lord allows his prophets and his children to have and express their own views on issues not directly related to the gospel and salvation. "A prophet is only a prophet," taught Joseph Smith, "when he is acting as such." Prophets are not inerrant, and we weaken our ability to follow and sustain them if we act as if they are. Only Jesus was perfect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_doctrine/Changing|Is everything said by a Church leader doctrine?]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Prophets are not infallible|Prophets are not infallible]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God theory|Adam-God theory]]
}}

=={{Further reading label}}==
''None''

{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}

FAIR Study Aids/Seminary/Old Testament/Week 2

2011-06-05T02:12:46Z

DavidKeller: /* Day 1: Abraham 3 */

{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
__NOTOC__
{{FAIRAnalysisHeader
|title=Seminary: Old Testament Teacher Resource Manual
|author=
|noauthor=
|section=Day 1: Abraham 3; Day 2: Moses 1; Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5; Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4
|previous=[[../Week 1|Week 1]]
|next=[[../Week 3|Week 3]]
|notes={{ChurchTeachingDisclaimer}}
}}

=Day 1: Abraham 3=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=Abraham 3:22–28 (Scripture Mastery, Abraham 3:22–23 ). Knowing who we are and why we are here can give us greater strength to meet challenges and find joy in life.
|response= The 1978 revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy males corrected a previous tendency to use this passage as a justification for a racially based priesthood ban.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_racial_issues/Blacks_and_the_priesthood/LDS_scriptures|Blacks and the Priesthood in LDS Scriptures]]
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics have attempted to raise doubts about Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Abraham based on partial recovery of the Egyptian papyri collection and analysis of documents formerly associated with their translation.
|response= Faithful Mormon scholars have offered several ways to account for the failure to match the translation to the surviving papyri and demonstrated a different purpose for associated documents. Impressive parallels have been found in ancient traditions about Abraham.
|link=
*[[Book_of_Abraham | Book of Abraham]]
*[[Book_of_Abraham/Joseph_Smith_Papyri | Joseph Smith Papyri]]
*[[Book of Abraham/Joseph_Smith_Papyri/Kirtland_Egyptian_Papers|Kirtland Egyptian Papers]]
}}

=Day 2: Moses 1=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=It is comforting to know that God’s work and glory is to help us become like Him.
|response=The idea that we are to "become like Him" is a concept that is often misrepresented by our critics. Critics claim that the doctrine of human deification is unbiblical, false, and arrogant, with the suggestion that Latter-day Saints believe that they will somehow 'supplant God'. This, of course, is entirely incorrect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man]]
}}

=Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5=

{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=The purpose of the scriptural accounts of the Creation is not to answer such questions as how the earth was created, how long ago the Creation occurred, or how long the process of creation took. Their purpose is to answer the more important questions of why the earth was created and who created it.
|response=
|link=
*
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics insist that LDS doctrine requires belief in an earth created in only 7,000 years and a rejection of evolution. They then use scientific evidence to raise doubts.
|response=The Church has no official position on the age of the earth and official statements on evolution allow members considerable room to come to their own conclusions. Church leaders have been of more than one view about these matters.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Age_of_the_Earth|Age of the earth]]
*[[Mormonism and science/Evolution/Official_stance|Official statements regarding organic evolution]]
}}

=Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4=

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Was there physical death for other creatures before Adam and Eve's fall?
|response=The Church has no official position on whether creatures outside the Garden of Eden were subject to physical death prior to Adam and Eve's fall. Church leaders have been of more than one view on the matter.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Death_before_the_Fall|Death before the Fall of Adam]]
}}

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Church leaders do not all agree on many questions.
|response=Church leaders have been of different view on matters that are peripheral to our salvation, such as the age of the earth, whether there was physical death before the Fall of Adam, or what to make of some of Brigham Young's teachings about Adam.
* The Lord allows his prophets and his children to have and express their own views on issues not directly related to the gospel and salvation. "A prophet is only a prophet," taught Joseph Smith, "when he is acting as such." Prophets are not inerrant, and we weaken our ability to follow and sustain them if we act as if they are. Only Jesus was perfect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_doctrine/Changing|Is everything said by a Church leader doctrine?]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Prophets are not infallible|Prophets are not infallible]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God theory|Adam-God theory]]
}}

=={{Further reading label}}==
''None''

{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}

FAIR Study Aids/Seminary/Old Testament/Week 2

2011-06-05T01:41:59Z

DavidKeller: /* Day 1: Abraham 3 */

{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
__NOTOC__
{{FAIRAnalysisHeader
|title=Seminary: Old Testament Teacher Resource Manual
|author=
|noauthor=
|section=Day 1: Abraham 3; Day 2: Moses 1; Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5; Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4
|previous=[[../Week 1|Week 1]]
|next=[[../Week 3|Week 3]]
|notes={{ChurchTeachingDisclaimer}}
}}

=Day 1: Abraham 3=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=Abraham 3:22–28 (Scripture Mastery, Abraham 3:22–23 ). Knowing who we are and why we are here can give us greater strength to meet challenges and find joy in life.
|response= The 1978 revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy males corrected a previous tendency to use this passage as a justification for a racially based priesthood ban.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_racial_issues/Blacks_and_the_priesthood/LDS_scriptures|Blacks and the Priesthood in LDS Scriptures]]
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics have attempted to raise doubts about Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Abraham.
|link=
*[[Book_of_Abraham | Book of Abraham]]
}}

=Day 2: Moses 1=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=It is comforting to know that God’s work and glory is to help us become like Him.
|response=The idea that we are to "become like Him" is a concept that is often misrepresented by our critics. Critics claim that the doctrine of human deification is unbiblical, false, and arrogant, with the suggestion that Latter-day Saints believe that they will somehow 'supplant God'. This, of course, is entirely incorrect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man]]
}}

=Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5=

{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=The purpose of the scriptural accounts of the Creation is not to answer such questions as how the earth was created, how long ago the Creation occurred, or how long the process of creation took. Their purpose is to answer the more important questions of why the earth was created and who created it.
|response=
|link=
*
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics insist that LDS doctrine requires belief in an earth created in only 7,000 years and a rejection of evolution. They then use scientific evidence to raise doubts.
|response=The Church has no official position on the age of the earth and official statements on evolution allow members considerable room to come to their own conclusions. Church leaders have been of more than one view about these matters.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Age_of_the_Earth|Age of the earth]]
*[[Mormonism and science/Evolution/Official_stance|Official statements regarding organic evolution]]
}}

=Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4=

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Was there physical death for other creatures before Adam and Eve's fall?
|response=The Church has no official position on whether creatures outside the Garden of Eden were subject to physical death prior to Adam and Eve's fall. Church leaders have been of more than one view on the matter.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Death_before_the_Fall|Death before the Fall of Adam]]
}}

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Church leaders do not all agree on many questions.
|response=Church leaders have been of different view on matters that are peripheral to our salvation, such as the age of the earth, whether there was physical death before the Fall of Adam, or what to make of some of Brigham Young's teachings about Adam.
* The Lord allows his prophets and his children to have and express their own views on issues not directly related to the gospel and salvation. "A prophet is only a prophet," taught Joseph Smith, "when he is acting as such." Prophets are not inerrant, and we weaken our ability to follow and sustain them if we act as if they are. Only Jesus was perfect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_doctrine/Changing|Is everything said by a Church leader doctrine?]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Prophets are not infallible|Prophets are not infallible]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God theory|Adam-God theory]]
}}

=={{Further reading label}}==
''None''

{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}

FAIR Study Aids/Seminary/Old Testament/Week 2

2011-06-05T01:09:56Z

DavidKeller: /* Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5 */

{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
__NOTOC__
{{FAIRAnalysisHeader
|title=Seminary: Old Testament Teacher Resource Manual
|author=
|noauthor=
|section=Day 1: Abraham 3; Day 2: Moses 1; Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5; Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4
|previous=[[../Week 1|Week 1]]
|next=[[../Week 3|Week 3]]
|notes={{ChurchTeachingDisclaimer}}
}}

=Day 1: Abraham 3=
=Day 2: Moses 1=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=It is comforting to know that God’s work and glory is to help us become like Him.
|response=The idea that we are to "become like Him" is a concept that is often misrepresented by our critics. Critics claim that the doctrine of human deification is unbiblical, false, and arrogant, with the suggestion that Latter-day Saints believe that they will somehow 'supplant God'. This, of course, is entirely incorrect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man]]
}}

=Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5=

{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=The purpose of the scriptural accounts of the Creation is not to answer such questions as how the earth was created, how long ago the Creation occurred, or how long the process of creation took. Their purpose is to answer the more important questions of why the earth was created and who created it.
|response=
|link=
*
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics insist that LDS doctrine requires belief in an earth created in only 7,000 years and a rejection of evolution. They then use scientific evidence to raise doubts.
|response=The Church has no official position on the age of the earth and official statements on evolution allow members considerable room to come to their own conclusions. Church leaders have been of more than one view about these matters.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Age_of_the_Earth|Age of the earth]]
*[[Mormonism and science/Evolution/Official_stance|Official statements regarding organic evolution]]
}}

=Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4=

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Was there physical death for other creatures before Adam and Eve's fall?
|response=The Church has no official position on whether creatures outside the Garden of Eden were subject to physical death prior to Adam and Eve's fall. Church leaders have been of more than one view on the matter.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Death_before_the_Fall|Death before the Fall of Adam]]
}}

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Church leaders do not all agree on many questions.
|response=Church leaders have been of different view on matters that are peripheral to our salvation, such as the age of the earth, whether there was physical death before the Fall of Adam, or what to make of some of Brigham Young's teachings about Adam.
* The Lord allows his prophets and his children to have and express their own views on issues not directly related to the gospel and salvation. "A prophet is only a prophet," taught Joseph Smith, "when he is acting as such." Prophets are not inerrant, and we weaken our ability to follow and sustain them if we act as if they are. Only Jesus was perfect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_doctrine/Changing|Is everything said by a Church leader doctrine?]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Prophets are not infallible|Prophets are not infallible]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God theory|Adam-God theory]]
}}

=={{Further reading label}}==
''None''

{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}

FAIR Study Aids/Seminary/Old Testament/Week 2

2011-06-05T01:07:56Z

DavidKeller: /* Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5 */

{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
__NOTOC__
{{FAIRAnalysisHeader
|title=Seminary: Old Testament Teacher Resource Manual
|author=
|noauthor=
|section=Day 1: Abraham 3; Day 2: Moses 1; Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5; Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4
|previous=[[../Week 1|Week 1]]
|next=[[../Week 3|Week 3]]
|notes={{ChurchTeachingDisclaimer}}
}}

=Day 1: Abraham 3=
=Day 2: Moses 1=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=It is comforting to know that God’s work and glory is to help us become like Him.
|response=The idea that we are to "become like Him" is a concept that is often misrepresented by our critics. Critics claim that the doctrine of human deification is unbiblical, false, and arrogant, with the suggestion that Latter-day Saints believe that they will somehow 'supplant God'. This, of course, is entirely incorrect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man]]
}}

=Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5=

{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=The purpose of the scriptural accounts of the Creation is not to answer such questions as how the earth was created, how long ago the Creation occurred, or how long the process of creation took. Their purpose is to answer the more important questions of why the earth was created and who created it.
|response=
|link=
*
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics insist that LDS doctrine requires belief in an earth created in only 7,000 years and a rejection of evolution. They then use scientific evidence to raise doubts.
|response=The Church has no official position on the age of the earth and official statements on evolution allow members considerable room to come to their own conclusions. Church leaders have been of more than one view about these matters.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Age_of_the_Earth|Age of the earth]]
}}
*[[Mormonism and science/Evolution/Official_stance|Official statements regarding organic evolution]]
}}

=Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4=

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Was there physical death for other creatures before Adam and Eve's fall?
|response=The Church has no official position on whether creatures outside the Garden of Eden were subject to physical death prior to Adam and Eve's fall. Church leaders have been of more than one view on the matter.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Death_before_the_Fall|Death before the Fall of Adam]]
}}

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Church leaders do not all agree on many questions.
|response=Church leaders have been of different view on matters that are peripheral to our salvation, such as the age of the earth, whether there was physical death before the Fall of Adam, or what to make of some of Brigham Young's teachings about Adam.
* The Lord allows his prophets and his children to have and express their own views on issues not directly related to the gospel and salvation. "A prophet is only a prophet," taught Joseph Smith, "when he is acting as such." Prophets are not inerrant, and we weaken our ability to follow and sustain them if we act as if they are. Only Jesus was perfect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_doctrine/Changing|Is everything said by a Church leader doctrine?]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Prophets are not infallible|Prophets are not infallible]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God theory|Adam-God theory]]
}}

=={{Further reading label}}==
''None''

{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}

FAIR Study Aids/Seminary/Old Testament/Week 2

2011-06-05T01:05:54Z

DavidKeller: /* Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5 */ evolution link

{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
__NOTOC__
{{FAIRAnalysisHeader
|title=Seminary: Old Testament Teacher Resource Manual
|author=
|noauthor=
|section=Day 1: Abraham 3; Day 2: Moses 1; Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5; Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4
|previous=[[../Week 1|Week 1]]
|next=[[../Week 3|Week 3]]
|notes={{ChurchTeachingDisclaimer}}
}}

=Day 1: Abraham 3=
=Day 2: Moses 1=
{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=It is comforting to know that God’s work and glory is to help us become like Him.
|response=The idea that we are to "become like Him" is a concept that is often misrepresented by our critics. Critics claim that the doctrine of human deification is unbiblical, false, and arrogant, with the suggestion that Latter-day Saints believe that they will somehow 'supplant God'. This, of course, is entirely incorrect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man]]
}}

=Day 3: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5=

{{ChurchManualTeaching
|section=Suggestions for Teaching
|teaching=The purpose of the scriptural accounts of the Creation is not to answer such questions as how the earth was created, how long ago the Creation occurred, or how long the process of creation took. Their purpose is to answer the more important questions of why the earth was created and who created it.
|response=
|link=
*
}}
{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Critics insist that LDS doctrine requires belief in an earth created in only 7,000 years and a rejection of evolution. They then use scientific evidence to raise doubts.
|response=The Church has no official position on the age of the earth and official statements on evolution allow members considerable room to come to their own conclusions. Church leaders have been of more than one view about these matters.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Age_of_the_Earth|Age of the earth]]
}}
*[[*[[Mormonism and science/Evolution/Official stance]]
}}|Official statements regarding organic evolution]]
}}
http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_science/Evolution/Official_stance

=Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4=

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Was there physical death for other creatures before Adam and Eve's fall?
|response=The Church has no official position on whether creatures outside the Garden of Eden were subject to physical death prior to Adam and Eve's fall. Church leaders have been of more than one view on the matter.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_science/Death_before_the_Fall|Death before the Fall of Adam]]
}}

{{ChurchManualCritical
|criticism=Church leaders do not all agree on many questions.
|response=Church leaders have been of different view on matters that are peripheral to our salvation, such as the age of the earth, whether there was physical death before the Fall of Adam, or what to make of some of Brigham Young's teachings about Adam.
* The Lord allows his prophets and his children to have and express their own views on issues not directly related to the gospel and salvation. "A prophet is only a prophet," taught Joseph Smith, "when he is acting as such." Prophets are not inerrant, and we weaken our ability to follow and sustain them if we act as if they are. Only Jesus was perfect.
|link=
*[[Mormonism_and_doctrine/Changing|Is everything said by a Church leader doctrine?]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Prophets are not infallible|Prophets are not infallible]]
*[[Mormonism and doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God theory|Adam-God theory]]
}}

=={{Further reading label}}==
''None''

{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}

FAIR Study Aids/Seminary/Old Testament/Week 2

2011-06-05T00:32:09Z

DavidKeller: /* Day 4: Genesis 3; Moses 4 */ Adam-God criticism

Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

2010-02-16T08:58:14Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

{{FAIRCopyright}}
==Criticism==

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account {{ref|Aird.1}} to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. {{ref|Aird.2}} Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

===Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process===

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. {{ref|parshall.1}} The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. {{ref|young.1}} Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had presented his [[19th_century_crimes_alleged_to_be_%22worthy_of_death%22#Stealing | views]] on deterring theft in 1853.

William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.

:Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship. {{ref|MacKinnon.1}}

In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:

:“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.” {{ref|Peterson.1}}

===Tensions with apostates in the 1850s===

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered [[One_Nation_Under_Gods/Use_of_sources/Brigham_and_bowie_knife | sermon]] that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. {{ref|saunders}}“Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” {{ref|jod.1}}In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect, "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to." {{ref|Aird.3}}

Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. {{ref|Aird.4}} When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography {{ref|lms}}) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:

:The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents. {{ref|jaques.1}}

===The Springville Murders===

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

:Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."{{ref|lyman.1}}

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in ''Blood of the Prophets''] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."{{ref|grand.jury}}

==Conclusion==

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed [[Crime_and_violence_in_Utah|here]], violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much ''less'' frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only ''suggest'' that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. {{ref|denton.1}} And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

==Endnotes==
#{{note|Aird.1}} Polly Aird, "'You Nasty Apostates, Clear Out': Reasons for Disaffection in the Late 1850s," ''Journal of Mormon History'' 30 (Fall 2004): 129–207 {{link|url=http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/jmh&CISOPTR=18820&REC=3}}
#{{note|Aird.2}} Aird p. 191
#{{note|parshall.1}} Ardis Parshall, ˜'Pursue, Retake & Punish': The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush," ''Utah Historical Quarterly'' 73 (1): 64-86 {{link|url=http://utah.ptfs.com/awweb/guest.jsp?smd=1&cl=all_lib&lb_document_id=11947}}
#{{note|young.1}} Brigham Young to Aaron Johnson, Feb. 3, 1857, CR 1234 1, Box 3, Letterpress Copybook Volume 3, Pages 345-363in ''Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'', 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, [Dec. 2002],
#{{note|MacKinnon.1}} William MacKinnon, “‘Lonely Bones’: Leadership and Utah War Violence.” ''Journal of Mormon History'' 33 (Spring 2007): 121–78 {{link|url=http://hickmanmuseum.homestead.com/Lonely_Bones.pdf}}
#{{note|Peterson.1}}Paul H. Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation," PhD Dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1980, 176–199 citing Aaron Johnson Autobiography p. 95-96
#{{note|saunders}}Richard Saunders, ''Francis Gladden Bishop And Gladdenism: A Study in the Culture of a Mormon Dissenter and his Movement'', USU Thesis (1989): p. 143-146 {{link|url=http://scholarship.utm.edu/9/1/Saunders_thesis.pdf}}
#{{note|jod.1}}http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/2/24
#{{note|Aird.3}}Aird, p. 147 citing Brigham Young, Sermon, June 6, 1858, Deseret News, July 28, 1858, 94.
#{{note|Aird.4}} Aird, p. 146-152
#{{note|jaques.1}} John Jacques, ''Millennial Star,'' July 1859
#{{note|lyman.1}} Edward Leo Lyman, ''San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
#{{note|grand.jury}} {{FR-15-2-11}}
#{{note|denton.1}} {{CriticalWork:Denton:American Massacre|pages=190}} quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," ''Nevada Historical Society Quarterly'' 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BloodAtonementWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BloodAtonementFAIR}}

===External links===
* Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=99}}
*{{FR-16-1-8}} 
*Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), ''Mormon Wasp'' blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).{{link|url=http://mormonwasp.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-book-of-past-be-reopened-latest-on.html}}
* Lawrence Coates, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=95}}
*{{FR-16-1-9}} 
*{{FR-15-2-11}} 
*{{FR-12-1-9}} 
* Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 {{pdflink|url=http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/studies_fall2001/Mhs2.2FosterFall2001.pdf}}
{{BloodAtonementLinks}}

===Printed material===
* Dale L. Morgan, ''The State of Deseret'' (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
*W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows'', by Will Bagley, ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 4/1 (2003): 149—57.
{{BloodAtonementPrint}}
[[Category:Mormon Reformation]]

Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

2010-02-16T08:54:50Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

{{FAIRCopyright}}
==Criticism==

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account {{ref|Aird.1}} to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. {{ref|Aird.2}} Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

===Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process===

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. {{ref|parshall.1}} The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. {{ref|young.1}} Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had presented his [[19th_century_crimes_alleged_to_be_%22worthy_of_death%22#Stealing | views]] on deterring theft in 1853.

William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.

:Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship. {{ref|MacKinnon.1}}

In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:

:“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.” {{ref|Peterson.1}}

===Tensions with apostates in the 1850s===

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered [[One_Nation_Under_Gods/Use_of_sources/Brigham_and_bowie_knife | sermon]] that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. {{ref|saunders}}“Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” {{ref|jod.1}}In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect, "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to." {{ref|Aird.3}}

Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. {{ref|Aird.4}} When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography {{ref|lms}}) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:

:The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents. {{ref|jaques.1}}

===The Springville Murders===

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

:Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."{{ref|lyman.1}}

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in ''Blood of the Prophets''] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."{{ref|grand.jury}}

==Conclusion==

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed [[Crime_and_violence_in_Utah|here]], violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much ''less'' frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only ''suggest'' that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. {{ref|denton.1}} And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

==Endnotes==
#{{note|Aird.1}} Polly Aird, "'You Nasty Apostates, Clear Out': Reasons for Disaffection in the Late 1850s," ''Journal of Mormon History'' 30 (Fall 2004): 129–207 {{link|url=http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/jmh&CISOPTR=18820&REC=3}}
#{{note|Aird.2}} Aird p. 191
#{{note|parshall.1}} Ardis Parshall, ˜'Pursue, Retake & Punish': The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush," ''Utah Historical Quarterly'' 73 (1): 64-86 {{link|url=http://utah.ptfs.com/awweb/guest.jsp?smd=1&cl=all_lib&lb_document_id=11947}}
#{{note|young.1}} Brigham Young to Aaron Johnson, Feb. 3, 1857, CR 1234 1, Box 3, Letterpress Copybook Volume 3, Pages 345-363in ''Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'', 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, [Dec. 2002],
#{{note|MacKinnon.1}} William MacKinnon, “‘Lonely Bones’: Leadership and Utah War Violence.” ''Journal of Mormon History'' 33 (Spring 2007): 121–78 {{link|url=http://hickmanmuseum.homestead.com/Lonely_Bones.pdf}}
#{{note|Peterson.1}}Paul H. Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation," PhD Dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1980, 176–199 citing Aaron Johnson Autobiography p. 95-96
#{{note|saunders}}Richard Saunders, ''Francis Gladden Bishop And Gladdenism: A Study in the Culture of a Mormon Dissenter and his Movement'', USU Thesis (1989): p. 143-146 {{link|url=http://scholarship.utm.edu/9/1/Saunders_thesis.pdf}}
#{{note|jod.1}}http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/2/24
#{{note|Aird.3}}Aird, p.
#{{note|Aird.4}} Aird, p. 146-152
#{{note|jaques.1}} John Jacques, ''Millennial Star,'' July 1859
#{{note|lyman.1}} Edward Leo Lyman, ''San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
#{{note|grand.jury}} {{FR-15-2-11}}
#{{note|denton.1}} {{CriticalWork:Denton:American Massacre|pages=190}} quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," ''Nevada Historical Society Quarterly'' 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BloodAtonementWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BloodAtonementFAIR}}

===External links===
* Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=99}}
*{{FR-16-1-8}} 
*Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), ''Mormon Wasp'' blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).{{link|url=http://mormonwasp.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-book-of-past-be-reopened-latest-on.html}}
* Lawrence Coates, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=95}}
*{{FR-16-1-9}} 
*{{FR-15-2-11}} 
*{{FR-12-1-9}} 
* Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 {{pdflink|url=http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/studies_fall2001/Mhs2.2FosterFall2001.pdf}}
{{BloodAtonementLinks}}

===Printed material===
* Dale L. Morgan, ''The State of Deseret'' (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
*W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows'', by Will Bagley, ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 4/1 (2003): 149—57.
{{BloodAtonementPrint}}
[[Category:Mormon Reformation]]

Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

2010-02-16T08:52:14Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

{{FAIRCopyright}}
==Criticism==

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account {{ref|Aird.1}} to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. {{ref|Aird.2}} Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

===Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process===

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. {{ref|parshall.1}} The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. {{ref|young.1}} Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had presented his [[19th_century_crimes_alleged_to_be_%22worthy_of_death%22#Stealing | views]] on deterring theft in 1853.

William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.

:Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship. {{ref|MacKinnon.1}}

In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:

:“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.” {{ref|Peterson.1}}

===Tensions with apostates in the 1850s===

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered [[One_Nation_Under_Gods/Use_of_sources/Brigham_and_bowie_knife | sermon]] that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. {{ref|saunders}}“Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” {{ref|jod.1}}In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect, "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to." {{ref|Aird.3}}

Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. {{ref|Aird.4}} When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography {{ref|lms}}) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:

:The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents. {{ref|jaques.1}}

===The Springville Murders===

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

:Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."{{ref|lyman.1}}

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in ''Blood of the Prophets''] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."{{ref|grand.jury}}

==Conclusion==

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed [[Crime_and_violence_in_Utah|here]], violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much ''less'' frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only ''suggest'' that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. {{ref|denton.1}} And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

==Endnotes==
#{{note|Aird.1}} Polly Aird, "'You Nasty Apostates, Clear Out': Reasons for Disaffection in the Late 1850s," ''Journal of Mormon History'' 30 (Fall 2004): 129–207 {{link|url=http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/jmh&CISOPTR=18820&REC=3}}
#{{note|Aird.2}} Aird p. 191
#{{note|parshall.1}} Ardis Parshall, ˜'Pursue, Retake & Punish': The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush," ''Utah Historical Quarterly'' 73 (1): 64-86 {{link|url=http://utah.ptfs.com/awweb/guest.jsp?smd=1&cl=all_lib&lb_document_id=11947}}
#{{note|young.1}} Brigham Young to Aaron Johnson, Feb. 3, 1857, CR 1234 1, Box 3, Letterpress Copybook Volume 3, Pages 345-363in ''Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'', 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, [Dec. 2002],
#{{note|MacKinnon.1}} William MacKinnon, “‘Lonely Bones’: Leadership and Utah War Violence.” ''Journal of Mormon History'' 33 (Spring 2007): 121–78 {{link|url=http://hickmanmuseum.homestead.com/Lonely_Bones.pdf}}
#{{note|Peterson.1}}Paul H. Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation," PhD Dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1980, 176–199 citing Aaron Johnson Autobiography p. 95-96
#{{note|saunders}}Richard Saunders, ''Francis Gladden Bishop And Gladdenism: A Study in the Culture of a Mormon Dissenter and his Movement'', USU Thesis (1989): p. 143-146 {{link|url=http://scholarship.utm.edu/9/1/Saunders_thesis.pdf}}
#{{note|jod.1}}http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/2/24
#{{note|Aird.3}}Aird, p.
#{{note|Aird.4}} Aird, p.
#{{note|jaques.1}} John Jacques, ''Millennial Star,'' July 1859
#{{note|lyman.1}} Edward Leo Lyman, ''San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
#{{note|grand.jury}} {{FR-15-2-11}}
#{{note|denton.1}} {{CriticalWork:Denton:American Massacre|pages=190}} quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," ''Nevada Historical Society Quarterly'' 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BloodAtonementWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BloodAtonementFAIR}}

===External links===
* Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=99}}
*{{FR-16-1-8}} 
*Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), ''Mormon Wasp'' blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).{{link|url=http://mormonwasp.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-book-of-past-be-reopened-latest-on.html}}
* Lawrence Coates, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=95}}
*{{FR-16-1-9}} 
*{{FR-15-2-11}} 
*{{FR-12-1-9}} 
* Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 {{pdflink|url=http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/studies_fall2001/Mhs2.2FosterFall2001.pdf}}
{{BloodAtonementLinks}}

===Printed material===
* Dale L. Morgan, ''The State of Deseret'' (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
*W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows'', by Will Bagley, ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 4/1 (2003): 149—57.
{{BloodAtonementPrint}}
[[Category:Mormon Reformation]]

Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

2010-02-15T07:38:32Z

DavidKeller: /* Response */

==Criticism==

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account {{ref|Aird.1}} to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. {{ref|Aird.2}} Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

===Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process===

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. {{ref|parshall.1}} The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. {{ref|young.1}} Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had presented his [[19th_century_crimes_alleged_to_be_%22worthy_of_death%22#Stealing | views]] on deterring theft in 1853.

William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.

:Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship. {{ref|MacKinnon.1}}

In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:

:“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.” {{ref|Peterson.1}}

===Tensions with apostates in the 1850s===

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered [[One_Nation_Under_Gods/Use_of_sources/Brigham_and_bowie_knife | sermon]] that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. {{ref|saunders}}“Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” {{ref|jod.1}}In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect, "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to." {{ref|Aird.3}}

Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. {{ref|Aird.4}} When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography {{ref|lms}}) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:

:The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents. {{ref|jaques.1}}

===The Springville Murders===

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

:Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."{{ref|lyman.1}}

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in ''Blood of the Prophets''] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."{{ref|grand.jury}}

==Conclusion==

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed [[Crime_and_violence_in_Utah|here]], violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much ''less'' frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only ''suggest'' that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. {{ref|denton.1}} And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

==Endnotes==
#{{note|lyman.1}} Edward Leo Lyman, ''San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
#{{note|grand.jury}} {{FR-15-2-11}}
#{{note|denton.1}} {{CriticalWork:Denton:American Massacre|pages=190}} quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," ''Nevada Historical Society Quarterly'' 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BloodAtonementWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BloodAtonementFAIR}}

===External links===
* Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=99}}
*{{FR-16-1-8}} 
*Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), ''Mormon Wasp'' blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).{{link|url=http://mormonwasp.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-book-of-past-be-reopened-latest-on.html}}
* Lawrence Coates, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=95}}
*{{FR-16-1-9}} 
*{{FR-15-2-11}} 
*{{FR-12-1-9}} 
* Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 {{pdflink|url=http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/studies_fall2001/Mhs2.2FosterFall2001.pdf}}
{{BloodAtonementLinks}}

===Printed material===
* Dale L. Morgan, ''The State of Deseret'' (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
*W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows'', by Will Bagley, ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 4/1 (2003): 149—57.
{{BloodAtonementPrint}}
[[Category:Mormon Reformation]]

Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

2010-02-15T07:08:31Z

DavidKeller: /* Tensions with apostates in the 1850s */

==Criticism==

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

===Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process===

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had discussed his views on deterring theft in 1853.

William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.

Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship.

In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:

“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.”

===Tensions with apostates in the 1850s===

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered sermon that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. “Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect, "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to."

Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:

:The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents.

===The Springville Murders===

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

:Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."{{ref|lyman.1}}

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in ''Blood of the Prophets''] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."{{ref|grand.jury}}

==Conclusion==

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed [[Crime_and_violence_in_Utah|here]], violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much ''less'' frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only ''suggest'' that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. {{ref|denton.1}} And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

==Endnotes==
#{{note|lyman.1}} Edward Leo Lyman, ''San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
#{{note|grand.jury}} {{FR-15-2-11}}
#{{note|denton.1}} {{CriticalWork:Denton:American Massacre|pages=190}} quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," ''Nevada Historical Society Quarterly'' 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BloodAtonementWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BloodAtonementFAIR}}

===External links===
* Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=99}}
*{{FR-16-1-8}} 
*Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), ''Mormon Wasp'' blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).{{link|url=http://mormonwasp.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-book-of-past-be-reopened-latest-on.html}}
* Lawrence Coates, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=95}}
*{{FR-16-1-9}} 
*{{FR-15-2-11}} 
*{{FR-12-1-9}} 
* Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 {{pdflink|url=http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/studies_fall2001/Mhs2.2FosterFall2001.pdf}}
{{BloodAtonementLinks}}

===Printed material===
* Dale L. Morgan, ''The State of Deseret'' (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
*W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows'', by Will Bagley, ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 4/1 (2003): 149—57.
{{BloodAtonementPrint}}
[[Category:Mormon Reformation]]

Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

2010-02-15T07:02:53Z

DavidKeller: /* Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process */

==Criticism==

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

===Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process===

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had discussed his views on deterring theft in 1853.

William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.

Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship.

In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:

“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.”

===Tensions with apostates in the 1850s===

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered sermon that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. “Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to."
Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:
The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents.

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

:Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."{{ref|lyman.1}}

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in ''Blood of the Prophets''] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."{{ref|grand.jury}}

==Conclusion==

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed [[Crime_and_violence_in_Utah|here]], violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much ''less'' frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only ''suggest'' that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. {{ref|denton.1}} And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

==Endnotes==
#{{note|lyman.1}} Edward Leo Lyman, ''San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
#{{note|grand.jury}} {{FR-15-2-11}}
#{{note|denton.1}} {{CriticalWork:Denton:American Massacre|pages=190}} quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," ''Nevada Historical Society Quarterly'' 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BloodAtonementWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BloodAtonementFAIR}}

===External links===
* Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=99}}
*{{FR-16-1-8}} 
*Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), ''Mormon Wasp'' blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).{{link|url=http://mormonwasp.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-book-of-past-be-reopened-latest-on.html}}
* Lawrence Coates, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=95}}
*{{FR-16-1-9}} 
*{{FR-15-2-11}} 
*{{FR-12-1-9}} 
* Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 {{pdflink|url=http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/studies_fall2001/Mhs2.2FosterFall2001.pdf}}
{{BloodAtonementLinks}}

===Printed material===
* Dale L. Morgan, ''The State of Deseret'' (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
*W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows'', by Will Bagley, ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 4/1 (2003): 149—57.
{{BloodAtonementPrint}}
[[Category:Mormon Reformation]]

Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

2010-02-15T07:00:28Z

DavidKeller: /* Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process */

==Criticism==

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

===Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process===

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had discussed his views on deterring theft in 1853.
William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.
Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship.
In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:
“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.”

===Tensions with apostates in the 1850s===

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered sermon that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. “Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to."
Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:
The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents.

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

:Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."{{ref|lyman.1}}

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in ''Blood of the Prophets''] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."{{ref|grand.jury}}

==Conclusion==

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed [[Crime_and_violence_in_Utah|here]], violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much ''less'' frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only ''suggest'' that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. {{ref|denton.1}} And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

==Endnotes==
#{{note|lyman.1}} Edward Leo Lyman, ''San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
#{{note|grand.jury}} {{FR-15-2-11}}
#{{note|denton.1}} {{CriticalWork:Denton:American Massacre|pages=190}} quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," ''Nevada Historical Society Quarterly'' 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BloodAtonementWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BloodAtonementFAIR}}

===External links===
* Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=99}}
*{{FR-16-1-8}} 
*Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), ''Mormon Wasp'' blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).{{link|url=http://mormonwasp.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-book-of-past-be-reopened-latest-on.html}}
* Lawrence Coates, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=95}}
*{{FR-16-1-9}} 
*{{FR-15-2-11}} 
*{{FR-12-1-9}} 
* Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 {{pdflink|url=http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/studies_fall2001/Mhs2.2FosterFall2001.pdf}}
{{BloodAtonementLinks}}

===Printed material===
* Dale L. Morgan, ''The State of Deseret'' (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
*W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows'', by Will Bagley, ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 4/1 (2003): 149—57.
{{BloodAtonementPrint}}
[[Category:Mormon Reformation]]

Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

2010-02-15T06:59:02Z

DavidKeller: /* Response */

==Criticism==

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

===Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process===

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had discussed his views on deterring theft in 1853.
William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.
Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship.
In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:
“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.”

===Tensions with apostates in the 1850s===

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered sermon that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. “Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to."
Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:
The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents.

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

:Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."{{ref|lyman.1}}

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in ''Blood of the Prophets''] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."{{ref|grand.jury}}

==Conclusion==

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed [[Crime_and_violence_in_Utah|here]], violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much ''less'' frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only ''suggest'' that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. {{ref|denton.1}} And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

==Endnotes==
#{{note|lyman.1}} Edward Leo Lyman, ''San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
#{{note|grand.jury}} {{FR-15-2-11}}
#{{note|denton.1}} {{CriticalWork:Denton:American Massacre|pages=190}} quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," ''Nevada Historical Society Quarterly'' 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BloodAtonementWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BloodAtonementFAIR}}

===External links===
* Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=99}}
*{{FR-16-1-8}} 
*Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), ''Mormon Wasp'' blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).{{link|url=http://mormonwasp.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-book-of-past-be-reopened-latest-on.html}}
* Lawrence Coates, "Review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows''," ''BYU Studies'' (1 January 2003) {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Reviews/Pages/reviewdetail.aspx?reviewID=95}}
*{{FR-16-1-9}} 
*{{FR-15-2-11}} 
*{{FR-12-1-9}} 
* Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 {{pdflink|url=http://www.mormonhistoricsitesfoundation.org/publications/studies_fall2001/Mhs2.2FosterFall2001.pdf}}
{{BloodAtonementLinks}}

===Printed material===
* Dale L. Morgan, ''The State of Deseret'' (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
*W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of ''Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows'', by Will Bagley, ''Mormon Historical Studies'' 4/1 (2003): 149—57.
{{BloodAtonementPrint}}
[[Category:Mormon Reformation]]

Alleged hiding of facts in Church history

2010-01-23T19:18:14Z

DavidKeller: /* Ensign */

__NOTOC__
=Hiding the facts in Church history=

==Folk Magic==
===Joseph and "folk magic"===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Some have seen "folk magic" elements in early Church history|location=General Conference, the ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*From the day that Joseph Smith walked out of the grove in the year 1820, critics and enemies—generation after generation of them—have worked and reworked the same old materials. They have minutely explored the environment in which Joseph Smith lived ''in an effort to rationalize—some on the basis of folk magic and the occult—the remarkable things which he did''. Early in this fishing expedition, one of them gathered affidavits from neighbors and associates in an effort to undermine the character of Joseph Smith. This old bale of straw has been dished up again and again as if it were something new. They have raked over every available word that he spoke or wrote, and they then in turn have written long tomes and delivered long lectures trying to explain the mystery of his character and his work....

:As I have already mentioned, from the beginning of this work there has been opposition. There have been apostates. There have been scholars, ''some with balance and others with an axe to grind'', who have raked over every bit of evidence available concerning Joseph Smith, the prophet of this dispensation. I plead with you, do not let yourselves be numbered among the critics, among the dissidents, among the apostates. That does not mean that you cannot read widely. As a Church, we encourage gospel scholarship and the search to understand all truth. Fundamental to our theology is belief in individual freedom of inquiry, thought, and expression. Constructive discussion is a privilege of every Latter-day Saint....

:Of course, there are items in our history which, ''when pulled out of context and highlighted, separated from the time and the circumstances in which the events took place, may raise some questions''. Remember, however, that no Church leader of whom I am aware, past or present, has ever claimed perfection. They have been and are human, including those who have served as Presidents of the Church. The Lord has always used those he has found most suitable for His purposes. Notwithstanding some human weaknesses, they have accomplished great and remarkable things, and this even while enemies have been snapping at their heels. The work has moved steadily and consistently forward, and the only losers have been those who, in a spirit of criticism, which usually has begun in a very mild and innocuous way, have in some instances literally read, talked, and written themselves out of the Church because they looked only for the negative, read only the negative, and discussed only the negative.

:To all Latter-day Saints, I say, keep the faith. When you study, do so with balance.

::—{{Ensign1|author=Gordon B. Hinckley|article=First Presidency Message: Keep the Faith [from Young Adult Fireside 23 June 1985]|date=Sep 1985|start=3, italics added}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=cd908949f2f6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

*As most of you know, in the last four or five years we have passed through an interesting episode in the history of the Church. There came into our hands two letters that were seized upon by the media when we announced them. They were trumpeted across much of the world as documents that would challenge the authenticity of the Church. In announcing them we stated that they really had nothing to do with the essentials of our history. But some few of little faith, who seemingly are always quick to believe the negative, accepted as fact the pronouncements and predictions of the media. I recall a letter from an individual who asked that his name be taken from the records of the Church because he could no longer believe in a church that had to do with an experience with a salamander.

:Now, as you know, these letters, together with other documents, have been acknowledged by their forger to be total frauds and part of an evil and devious design which culminated in the murder of two individuals.

:I have wondered what those whose faith was shaken have thought since the forger confessed to his evil work....

:Out of this earlier episode has now arisen another phenomenon. It is described as the writing of a “new history” of the Church as distinguished from the “old history.” It represents, among other things, ''an effort to ferret out every element of folk magic and the occult in the environment in which Joseph Smith lived to explain what he did and why''.

:''I have no doubt there was folk magic practiced in those days. Without question there were superstitions and the superstitious.'' I suppose there was some of this in the days when the Savior walked the earth. There is even some in this age of so-called enlightenment. For instance, some hotels and business buildings skip the numbering of floor thirteen. Does this mean there is something wrong with the building? Of course not. Or with the builders? No.

:Similarly, the fact that there were superstitions among the people in the days of Joseph Smith is no evidence whatever that the Church came of such superstition.
::—{{Ensign1|author=Gordon B. Hinckley|article=‘Lord, Increase Our Faith’ [General conference address]|date=Nov 1987|start=51, emphasis added}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a95f79356427b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

==Treasure seeking and seer stones==
===Joseph the "money digger"===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph was involved with "money digging"|location=''History of the Church'', the ''Ensign''}}
See if you can determine exactly at which point in history this fact became "hidden" by the Church.
====2001====
=====''Ensign''=====
* An enterprising farmer by the name of Josiah Stowell came 30 miles from his farm in Bainbridge Township, Chenango County, New York, carrying a purported treasure map and accompanied by a digging crew. The company took their room and board with the Hale family. On the crew were Joseph Smith Jr. and his father. Lucy Mack Smith records that Josiah “came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys, by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.” The Smiths had initially refused Josiah’s invitation in October 1825. However, the reality of the family’s difficulty in meeting the $100 annual mortgage payment on their farm and Stowell’s promise of “high wages to those who would dig for him” finally persuaded them both to join in the venture.
: — {{Ensign1|author=Larry C. Porter|article=Joseph Smith’s Susquehanna Years|date=Feb 2001|start=42}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a2f6a1615ac0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

::[Note that this article cites such anti-Mormon or hostile sources as
::*{{CriticalWork:Tucker:Origin Rise and Progress|pages=41-42}} (describes Martin Harris' trip to Charles Anthon)
::* ''Baptist Register'', Utica, New York, 13 June 1834, 68. (reprint of ''Susquehanna Register'' material, below)
::* ''Susquehanna Register'', Montrose, Pennsylvania, 1 May 1834. (the [[The_Hurlbut_affidavits|Hurlbut-Howe]] affidavits, with focus on money-digging)]

====1987====
=====''Ensign''=====
* Treasure-seeking was a cultural phenomenon of that day. It was indulged in by upright and religious men such as Josiah Stowel. Young Joseph Smith accepted employment with Stowel at fourteen dollars a month, in part because of the crushing poverty of the Smith family. Joseph and his older brothers had to scour the countryside for work in order to construct their home and make the annual payment on the farm, which they were in imminent danger of losing and finally lost for nonpayment shortly after this period.
: —{{Ensign1|author=Dallin H. Oaks|article=Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents|date=October 1987|start=63}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=309b71ec9b17b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

* It is unfortunate that the writers who did the earliest work of gathering information about the Smith family were more concerned with blackening their reputation than with finding the facts. Interviewers not only ignored the positive things about the Smiths, but distorted many answers to mean what the interviewer wanted them to mean. For instance, Mormon apostate Philastus Hurlburt collected affidavits in 1833 that contain repetitious variations on the theme that “digging for money was their principal employment.” Though evidence involves the Smiths and their neighbors in treasure searching—a common practice in many American communities at the time—this was not their main occupation. Their true “principal employment” was conversion of one hundred acres of timbered wilderness into a cleared farm with dwellings, fences, and wheat and maple-sugar production....

: Alvin is notably absent in most of these reports, except when listed as a member of the family or mentioned as in demand as a hard worker. He made no lasting impact on community memory as a religious leader, though he was included in one detailed money-digging tale evidently intended to suggest that magical activities were involved somehow in finding the Book of Mormon.
: —{{Ensign1|author=Richard Lloyd Anderson|article=The Alvin Smith Story: Fact and Fiction|date=Aug 1987|start=58}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=1e9971ec9b17b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD#footnote5}}

====1902====
=====''History of the Church''=====
*"Was not Joseph Smith a money digger?" Yes, but it was never a very profitable job for him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it. —Joseph Smith's own answer to the question, ''History of the Church'' Volume 3, p. 29

====1864====
=====''Millennial Star''=====
<blockquote>
Editorial [editor was George Q. Cannon], “The Truth Vindicated by the Conduct of its Enemies”
“The most serious charge that was brought against the Prophet Joseph, by the enemies of the Church in its early days, was that he had been a ‘money digger’—had been engaged with some person or persons in searching in the earth for the precious metals. This was considered by them so disreputable an avocation, that the mere report that he had been engaged in it was deemed sufficient to forever debar him from the society of those who prided themselves upon their respectability and social standing. The idea that the Lord would communicate his will to, or in any way have anything to do with, a ‘money digger,’ was deemed preposterous and blasphemous” (264) — ''Millennial Star'' 26 (1864): 264-6.
</blockquote>

====1853====
=====''Journal of Discourses''=====
*I can sum up all the arguments used against Joseph Smith and "Mormonism” in a very few words, the merits of which will be found in OLD JOE SMITH. IMPOSTOR, MONEY DIGGER. OLD JOE SMITH. SPIRITUAL WIFE DOCTRINE. IMPOSTURE. THE DOCTRINE IS FALSE. MONEY DIGGER. FALSE PROPHET. DELUSION. SPIRITUAL WIFE DOCTRINE. Oh, my dear brethren and sisters, keep away from them, for the sake of your never dying souls. FALSE PROPHETS THAT SHOULD COME IN THE LAST DAYS. OLD JOE SMITH. ANTI-CHRIST. MONEY DIGGER, MONEY DIGGER, MONEY DIGGER. And the whole is wound up with an appeal, not to the good sense of the people, but to their unnatural feelings, in a canting, hypocritical tone, and there it ends. —{{JDfairwiki|author=Brigham Young|disc=19|vol=1|start=109|end=110}}

====1847====
=====''Millennial Star''=====
<blockquote>
Religious Impostors.
 
In the second volume of a neat, cheap but, flimsy and ephemeral compilation or periodical, published among the hundreds of similar and better works by W. and R. Chambers of Edinburgh,…. this "Miscellany" of the Messrs. Chambers, Edinburgh…. in this they quote only from the "Rise, Progress and Causes of Mormonism, by Professor J. B. Turner, New York, 1844," and “little work” by a Rev. Mr. Caswall, A.M., Professor of Divinity, Kemper College, Missouri, &c., &c., who visited the city of the Mormons -- Nauvoo -- in the year 1842. …. Again, the article before us reads -- "Joseph Smith, the youthful imposter! followed the profession of a money digger," which being corrected should be read as follows: -- "He was for a time a farmer's assistant; his employer requested him on some occasions to dig in certain portions of his estate where money was supposed to have been concealed" -- and while he thus did what his master required, he followed the profession of a money digger!
That money has been concealed in this continent, before and during the times of the late wars in America, as well as aforetime by the ancient inhabitants, is generally believed, and I doubt not this is the fact; and were I an owner of the soil, to get good crops and perhaps money, I might probably induce my posterity to believe I had hid some in my fields; thus would I secure for them, ample irrigation and an abundant reward to satisfy their money digging propensities. Oh! covetous generation, how will ye escape if you dig for silver ore, iron, lead, or copper; or cull and dig for such miserable scraps of falsehood which ye publish for money. Know ye not that thus ye are sealing you own condemnation? —''Millennial Star'' 9.6 (March 15, 1847): 85-89
</blockquote>

====1842====
=====''Millennial Star''=====
<blockquote>
GREAT DISCUSSION ON "MORMONISM," BETWEEN DR. WEST AND ELDER ADAMS, AT THE MARLBORO CHAPEL, BOSTON.
 
From the Weekly Bostonian, July 2.
 
Mr. Editor,—In the haste of my remarks last week. I briefly referred to the proceedings of the first three evenings of the discussion, but necessarily omitted several interesting features which I wish now to notice. The last paragraph of my communication which was inserted as the paper was going to press, stated, that the discussion closed on Friday night; but for want of time and room in your columns, my sketches of the last two evenings were reserved till this week. Dr. West spent much of the second and third evenings in reading from a Mormon pamphlet, containing a history of the rise of their church....Dr. West's chief effort the first part of the evening, was to impeach the character of Smith and the Mormon witnesses; for this purpose, he read from an old pamphlet what appeared to be a certificate from some twenty or thirty citizens of the state of New York, representing Harris and Smith's family as being money diggers, superstitious and visionary, and that they had no confidence in their pretended discoveries. ....In the reply, Mr. Adams said, the certificate from the citizens of New York ..... If Mr. Smith dug for money, he considered it was a more honourable way of getting it than taking it from the widow and the orphan; but a few lazy hireling priests of this age, would dig either for money or potatoes. —''Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star'', 3.5 (September, 1842): 87-92
</blockquote>

===Joseph, seer stone, and treasure===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph used a seer stone to try to find treasure|location=the ''Ensign''}}
====1987====
=====''Ensign''=====
* Some sources close to Joseph Smith claim that in his youth, during his spiritual immaturity prior to his being entrusted with the Book of Mormon plates, he sometimes used a stone in seeking for treasure. Whether this is so or not, we need to remember that no prophet is free from human frailties, especially before he is called to devote his life to the Lord’s work. Line upon line, young Joseph Smith expanded his faith and understanding and his spiritual gifts matured until he stood with power and stature as the Prophet of the Restoration.
: —{{Ensign1|author=Dallin H. Oaks|article=Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents|date=October 1987|start=63}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=309b71ec9b17b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

===Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge trial===
{{HiddenFact|fact=In 1826, Joseph was brought up on charges of being a "disorderly person" for using a stone to "see things"|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====1994====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
'''Highlights in the Prophet’s Life''' 20 Mar. 1826: Tried and acquitted on fanciful charge of being a “disorderly person,” South Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York. New York law defined a disorderly person as, among other things, a vagrant or a seeker of “lost goods.” The Prophet had been accused of both: the first charge was false and was made simply to cause trouble; Joseph’s use of a seer stone to see things that others could not see with the naked eye brought the second charge. Those who brought the charges were apparently concerned that Joseph might bilk his employer, Josiah Stowell, out of some money. Mr. Stowell’s testimony clearly said this was not so and that he trusted Joseph Smith. —{{Ensign1|author=Anonymous|article=Highlights in the Prophet’s Life|date=Jun 1994|start=24}} {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=1aa6425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

==Book of Mormon==
===The stone and the hat===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph generally utilized a stone placed in his hat to translate|location=The ''Friend'', The ''Ensign'', lds.org, and a book by Apostle Neal A. Maxwell}}
Joseph actually used a stone which he placed in a hat to translate a portion of the Book of Mormon in addition to or instead of the "Urim and Thummim." This fact was found hidden in the official Church magazines the ''Ensign'' and the ''Friend'' on the official Church website lds.org. See if you can determine when this fact became "hidden," and why it appeared in the ''children's'' magazine.

====1997====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"Martin Harris related of the '''seer stone''': 'Sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin'" —Neal A. Maxwell, “‘By the Gift and Power of God’,” ''Ensign'', Jan 1997, 36 {{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=e491dbdcc370c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1993====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"David Whitmer wrote: ' '''Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light'''; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine.'" —Russell M. Nelson, “A Treasured Testament,” ''Ensign'', Jul 1993, 61. {{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=05169209df38b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1988====
=====''Not My Will, But Thine''=====
<blockquote>
"Jacob censured the "stiffnecked" Jews for "looking beyond the mark" (Jacob 4:14). We are looking beyond the mark today, for example, if we are more interested in the physical dimensions of the cross than in what Jesus achieved thereon; or when we neglect Alma's words on faith because we are too fascinated by the '''light-shielding hat reportedly used by Joseph Smith during some of the translating of the Book of Mormon'''. To neglect substance while focusing on process is another form of unsubmissively looking beyond the mark." —Neal A. Maxwell, ''Not My Will, But Thine'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1988), 26.
</blockquote>
====1987====
=====''Ensign''=====

<blockquote>The scriptures indicate that translation involved sight, power, transcription of the characters, the Urim and Thummim or a '''seerstone''', study, and prayer.</blockquote>

<blockquote>After returning from a trip to Palmyra to settle his affairs, Martin began to transcribe. From April 12 to June 14, Joseph translated while Martin wrote, with only a curtain between them. On occasion they took breaks from the arduous task, sometimes going to the river and throwing stones. '''Once Martin found a rock closely resembling the seerstone Joseph sometimes used in place of the interpreters and substituted it without the Prophet’s knowledge.''' When the translation resumed, Joseph paused for a long time and then exclaimed, “Martin, what is the matter, all is as dark as Egypt.” Martin then confessed that he wished to “stop the mouths of fools” who told him that the Prophet memorized sentences and merely repeated them." </blockquote>

Kenneth W. Godfrey, “A New Prophet and a New Scripture: The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon,” ''Ensign'', Jan 1988, 6-13.(both quotations on page 11)

====1977====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"There he gave his most detailed view of 'the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated': “'''Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light.'''" —{{Ensign1|author=Richard Lloyd Anderson|article=‘By the Gift and Power of God’|date=Sep 1977|start=79, emphasis added}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=5a921f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1974====
=====''Friend''=====
<blockquote>
"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 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=5250e07368d9b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

===The stone and Nephite interpreters===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph used a seer stone and the Nephite interpreters to translate the Book of Mormon.|location=The ''Ensign''}}

====1977====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"...the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone." —{{Ensign1|author=Richard Lloyd Anderson|article=‘By the Gift and Power of God’|date=Sep 1977|start=79, emphasis added}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=5a921f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

==Book of Mormon authorship theories==
{{HiddenFact|fact=The Church doesn't mention secular Book of Mormon authorship theories which involve workes such as Ethan Smith's ''View of the Hebrews'' or the Spalding manuscript|location=General Conference, ''Ensign''}}
=====October 2009 General Conference=====
<blockquote>
For 179 years this book has been examined, and attacked. Denied and deconstructed. Targeted and torn apart, like perhaps no other book in modern religious history. Perhaps like no other book in any religious history, and still, it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born, parroted and died. From Ethan Smith to Solomon Spalding, to deranged paranoid, to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination, because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young, unlearned translator. 
—Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, General Conference talk, Oct. 4, 2009
</blockquote>

====2002====
=====''Liahona''=====
<blockquote>
He also bore his testimony in these words: “Friends and brethren my name is Cowdery, Oliver Cowdery. In the early history of this church I stood identified with [you]. … I … handled with my hands the gold plates from which [the Book of Mormon] was translated. I also beheld the interpreters. That book is true. Sidney Rigdon did not write it. Mr. Spaulding did not write it. I wrote it myself as it fell from the lips of the prophet.” 8 Even though Oliver came back, he lost his exalted place in the Church. 
—James E. Faust, “‘Some Great Thing’,” Liahona, Jan 2002, 53–56 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=d9918d00422fe010VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1993====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
It is strange to me that unbelieving critics must still go back to the old allegations that Joseph Smith wrote the book out of ideas gained from Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews and Solomon Spaulding’s manuscript. To compare the Book of Mormon with these is like comparing a man to a horse. It is true they both walk, but beyond this there is little similarity. 
—
Gordon B. Hinckley, “My Testimony,” Ensign, Nov 1993, 51 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=42ea425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1992====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
At one time, it was popular among critics to contend that a literary work of Joseph Smith’s day, a manuscript authored by the Reverend Solomon Spalding (also spelled Spaulding), influenced the plot of the Book of Mormon. Spalding died in 1816, but his manuscript survived and was used by Eber D. Howe to advance a “Spalding theory” in the first anti-Mormon work of note, Mormonism Unvailed, (Painesville: E. D. Howe, 1834; original spelling preserved.) Howe held that Sidney Rigdon had been responsible for taking Spalding’s manuscript from a printing establishment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later making it available for publication through Joseph Smith. 
—Larry C. Porter, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, June 1992, 27–29 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a8e394bf3938b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1986====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Enemies threatened to knock down the walls of the temple. Philastus Hurlburt was excommunicated and in bitterness set in motion the Spaulding manuscript story of the origin of the Book of Mormon with all of the mischief that for years followed that concoction. 
—Gordon B. Hinckley, “Go Forward with Faith,” Ensign, Aug 1986, 3 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=9bf1ef960417b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
These restored truths came fully formed. Joseph Smith did not receive them through Solomon Spaulding, Ethan Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, or any others to be advanced by those desperate for any explanation other than the correct one. 
—Neal A. Maxwell, “‘A Choice Seer’,” Ensign, Aug 1986, 6 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=b422ef960417b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1984====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
This interpretation initially appeared in the first anti-Mormon book, Mormonism Unvailed, a work published by Eber D. Howe and, most believe, authored by Philastus Hurlburt, an apostate. This hypothesis for the formulation of the Book of Mormon can best be summed up thus: “The Book of Mormon is the joint production of Solomon Spaulding and some other designing knave.” They conjectured this “knave” to be Sidney Rigdon. 
—Keith W. Perkins, “Francis W. Kirkham: A ‘New Witness’ for the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, Jul 1984, 53 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=511005481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1977====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Every few years the opponents of the Church dust off one of the timeworn theories about how the Book of Mormon “really” was written. One of the dustiest is the theory that the Book of Mormon is based on a stolen manuscript written by Solomon Spaulding, a would-be novelist who died in 1816. 
—Orson Scott Card, “Spaulding Again? ,” Ensign, Sept. 1977, 94–95 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c6a21f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
So it was that they sought to take the divine stamp away from his translation of the Book of Mormon. They determined to “humanize” his work by saying that he himself had composed the volume, or that he stole it from Spaulding, or that Sidney Rigdon wrote it, although it was published well before Joseph ever heard of Sidney Rigdon. 
—Mark E. Petersen, “It Was a Miracle!,” Ensign, Nov 1977, 11 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=12641f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1976====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Would you respond to the theories that the Book of Mormon is based on the Spaulding manuscript or on Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews? 
—Bruce D. Blumell, “I Have a Question,” ''Ensign'', Sept. 1976, 84–87{{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=8044fd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

==B.H. Roberts and the Book of Mormon==
{{HiddenFact|fact=It is claimed that B.H. Roberts lost his testimony of the Book of Mormon|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====1983====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"The claim is made (in some anti-Mormon tabloids) that toward the end of his life, B. H. Roberts found insuperable difficulties with the Book of Mormon and even that he lost faith in it." —{{Ensign1|author=Truman G. Madsen|article=B. H. Roberts after Fifty Years: Still Witnessing for the Book of Mormon|date=Dec 1983|start=11}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c30805481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>



==Book of Mormon geography==
{{HiddenFact|fact=The Church only recently created the "limited geography theory" of the Book of Mormon to counter DNA claims|location=Two issues of the ''Ensign'' published in 1984}}
====1984====
=====''Ensign''=====
John L. Sorenson discussed a limited geographical model for the Book of Mormon in 1984:
*{{DiggingPt1}}
*{{DiggingPt2}}

==Polygamy==
===The practice of plural marriage during Joseph's lifetime===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Plural marriage was instituted during Joseph Smith's lifetime|location=Priesthood/Relief Society lesson manual, the ''Ensign''}}
====2007====
=====Lesson manual: ''Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith''=====
<blockquote>
This book deals with teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith that have application to our day....This book also does not discuss plural marriage. '''The doctrines and principles relating to plural marriage were revealed to Joseph Smith as early as 1831. The Prophet taught the doctrine of plural marriage, and a number of such marriages were performed during his lifetime.''' —The 2008-2009 lesson manual ''Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith'', (2007), pages vii–xiii {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1992====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Her great trial came when the prophet revealed to Emma that they would be required to live the ancient law of Abraham—'''plural marriage'''. Emma suffered deeply hurt feelings because of it. While she agreed with this doctrine at times, at other times she opposed it. Years later, Emma is purported to have denied that any such '''doctrine was ever introduced by her husband'''. —Gracia N. Jones, “My Great-Great-Grandmother, Emma Hale Smith,” ''Ensign'', Aug 1992, 30 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=4e2694bf3938b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1989====
=====''Ensign=====
<blockquote>
The Prophet introduced several doctrines relating to the temple including the temple ceremonies and '''plural marriage, which some could not accept'''.... —William G. Hartley, “The Knight Family: Ever Faithful to the Prophet,” ''Ensign'', Jan 1989, 43 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=3ccb27cd3f37b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1978====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
How a family accepts members who join it by marriage is, in some ways, analogous to how a Church accepts members who join it by baptism. The experiences of '''plural marriage''' make the analogy even closer....'''the Prophet Joseph Smith recorded a revelation to the Whitneys on plural marriage'''....The Whitneys gave their daughter into the system of plural marriage and received into their family other plural wives. —D. Michael Quinn, “The Newel K. Whitney Family,” ''Ensign'', Dec 1978, 42 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=f4a4d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1977====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Starting '''during Joseph Smith’s own lifetime''' but limited to a few dozen families until its official announcement in 1852, '''plural marriage brought a powerful new challenge''' to the equanimity of Latter-day Saint family life... —Davis Bitton, “Great-Grandfather’s Family,” ''Ensign'', Feb 1977, 48 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=369a1f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1973====
=====''New Era''=====
<blockquote>
The great prophet Elias, whom Joseph Fielding Smith says is Noah..., appeared and bestowed upon their heads the keys of the dispensation of Abraham, or in other words, as Elder Bruce R. McConkie says in ''Mormon Doctrine''...the keys of celestial and '''plural marriage'''. —Jerry C. Roundy, “The Greatness of Joseph Smith and His Remarkable Visions,” ''New Era'', Dec 1973, 7 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=cd7b46581c79b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

===Joseph's marriages to young women===
====The ''Ensign''====
{{HiddenFact|fact=Some of Joseph Smith's marriages were to young women|location=The ''Ensign''}}
*'''June 1979 ''Ensign''''': Although little Don Carlos Smith died a short time later, Emily and Eliza continued to live in the Smith home, where, in the summer of 1842, '''both girls “were married to Bro. Joseph about the same time, but neither of us knew about the other at the time; everything was so secret”''' (Emily, “Incidents,” p. 186). —{{Ensign1|author=Dean Jessee|article=‘Steadfastness and Patient Endurance’: The Legacy of Edward Partridge|date=Jun 1979|start=41}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a40b615b01a6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
*'''December 1978 ''Ensign:''''' How a family accepts members who join it by marriage is, in some ways, analogous to how a Church accepts members who join it by baptism. The experiences of '''plural marriage''' make the analogy even closer....'''the Prophet Joseph Smith recorded a revelation to the Whitneys on plural marriage'''....The Whitneys gave their daughter into the system of plural marriage and received into their family other plural wives. —D. Michael Quinn, “The Newel K. Whitney Family,” ''Ensign'', Dec 1978, 42 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=f4a4d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}

===Brigham Young's practice of polygamy===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Brigham Young practiced polygamy|location=lds.org, the ''Ensign''}}
====Church web site lds.org====
*Polygamy — or more correctly polygyny, the marriage of more than one woman to the same man — was an important part of the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a half-century. The practice began during the lifetime of Joseph Smith but became publicly and widely known during the time of Brigham Young. —LDS Newsroom, lds.org {{link|url=http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/background-information/polygamy-latter-day-saints-and-the-practice-of-plural-marriage}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''July 1980 ''Ensign''''': In Sunday School someone mentioned Brigham Young and polygamy... —Meryl C. Liptrott, “Waking from the Nightmare,” Ensign, July 1980, 54–55 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=66c9fc3157a6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''February 1976 ''Ensign''''': Brigham Young, born on June 1, 1801, at Whittingham, Vermont, was 43 years old when he was called to the leadership of the Church. For over 33 years he lead the Saints, guiding them through some of their heaviest persecution—the exodus from Nauvoo, the crossing of the plains, the colonizing of the desert, the polygamy trials—until his death on August 29, 1877. —“Brigham Young,” Ensign, Feb 1976, 80 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ebcbfd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}


==Doctrine and Covenants==
===Changes to D&C revelations===
{{HiddenFact|fact=The revelations contained in the Doctrine and Covenants were edited and modified from their original form|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''July 2009 ''Ensign''''': In some instances, when a new revelation changed or updated what had previously been received, '''the Prophet edited the earlier written revelation''' to reflect the new understanding. Thus, as his doctrinal knowledge clarified and expanded, so did the recorded revelations. They were characterized by the changing nature of his understanding of the sacred subject matter. The Prophet did not believe that revelations, once recorded, could not be changed by further revelation. —{{Ensign1|author=Marlin K. Jensen|article=The Joseph Smith Papers: The Manuscript Revelation Books|date=July 2009|start=46–51}}{{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=51d61d7888312210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''February 1985 ''Ensign''''': Many of the '''editing changes occurred after the revelations were printed''' in the Book of Commandments. —{{Ensign1|author=Melvin J. Petersen|article=Preparing Early Revelations for Publication|date=February 1985|start=14}}{{link|url=http://library.lds.org/library/lpext.dll/ArchMagazines/Ensign/1985.htm/ensign%20february%201985.htm/preparing%20early%20revelations%20for%20publication.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0}}
*'''January 1985 ''Ensign''''': However, a correct understanding of the nature of the revelations the Prophet Joseph Smith received and how he updated them in light of continued revelation explains why many changes occurred. Indeed, '''each of the sections has been edited to some degree''', demonstrating that Joseph Smith did not receive all these revelations as word-for-word dictations from the Lord (although he may have received some this way). Rather, he received inspiration and wrote the revelations using his own words, often couched in Victorian English. —{{Ensign1|author=Robert J. Woodford|article=How the Revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants Were Received and Compiled|date=January 1985|start=27}} {{ea}} {{link|url=http://library.lds.org/library/lpext.dll/ArchMagazines/Ensign/1985.htm/ensign%20january%201985%20.htm/how%20the%20revelations%20in%20the%20doctrine%20and%20covenants%20were%20received%20and%20compiled.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0}}
*'''December 1984 ''Ensign''''': This was the beginning of controversies and charges made by persons who do not know or understand that '''the text of recorded revelation can be edited and “changed.”''' First, we must recognize that Joseph Smith’s purposeful changes are in a different category from copying errors. —{{Ensign1|author=Robert J. Woodford|article=The Story of the Doctrine and Covenants|date=December 1984|start=32}} {{ea}} {{link|url=http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1984.htm/ensign%20december%201984%20.htm/the%20story%20of%20the%20doctrine%20and%20covenants.htm?f=templates$fn=document-frame.htm$3.0$q=$x=$nc=8554}}
*'''May 1974 ''Ensign''''': Some have alleged that these books of revelation are false, and they place in evidence changes that have occurred in the texts of these scriptures since their original publication. They cite these changes, of which there are many examples, as though they themselves were announcing revelation. As though they were the only ones that knew of them. '''Of course there have been changes and corrections'''. Anyone who has done even limited research knows that. When properly reviewed, such corrections become a testimony for, not against, the truth of the books. —{{Ensign1|author=Boyd K. Packer|article=We Believe All That God Has Revealed|date=May 1974|start=93}} {{ea}} {{link|url=http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1974.htm/ensign%20may%201974.htm/we%20believe%20all%20that%20god%20has%20revealed%20.htm?fn=document-frame.htm$f=templates$3.0}}; also in {{CR1|author=Boyd K. Packer|date=April 1974|article=We Believe All That God Has Revealed|start=137}}

==First Vision==
===Multiple accounts===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph recorded multiple accounts of the First Vision, and some of the details of these accounts differ from one another|location=The ''Ensign'', CES Student Manual}}
Critics charge that the existence of multiple accounts of the [[First Vision/Accounts|First Vision]] has been hidden. A review of just some of the sources demonstrates that this is simply false:
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''January 1985 ''Ensign:''''' On at least four different occasions, Joseph Smith either wrote or dictated to scribes accounts of his sacred experience of 1820. Possibly he penned or dictated other histories of the First Vision; if so, they have not been located. The four surviving recitals of this theophany were prepared or rendered through different scribes, at different times, from a different perspective, for different purposes and to different audiences. It is not surprising, therefore, that each of them emphasizes different aspects of his experience. —{{Ensign1|author=Milton V. Backman, Jr.|article=Joseph Smith's Recitals of the First Vision|date=January 1985|start=8}}{{link|url=http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1985.htm/ensign%20january%201985%20.htm/joseph%20smiths%20recitals%20of%20the%20first%20vision.htm}}
*'''January 1996 ''Ensign:''''': I am glad, for example, that we have several accounts of the First Vision, the ministry of Christ, the Atonement, the plan of salvation, the signs of the last days, and the conditions during the millennium. None of the various accounts exhaust the subject; each contributes to its advancement line upon line, even though important elements may be repeated. We need not regard them as competing or as being at odds with each other, but rather, as enhancing our understanding of the whole. {{Ensign1|author=Keith Meservy|article=Four Accounts of the Creation|date=January 1986|start=?}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=2e478949f2f6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''April 1996 ''Ensign:''''' How many First Vision reports were made while the Prophet was alive? It is better to ask how many independent accounts came from contact with the Prophet. Some vision narratives were republished and are really copies of an original record. We now know of nine contemporary reports from the Prophet himself or from those who personally heard him relate his first vision: (1) the Prophet’s handwritten description in 1832, an attempt to start a manuscript history of the Church; (2) a Church secretary’s brief 1835 journal entry of Joseph talking with a visitor who called himself Joshua, the Jewish minister; (3) the 1838 history discussed above, published in 1842 and now in the Pearl of Great Price; (4) Orson Pratt’s publication, the first publicly disseminated, of the Prophet’s vision in his Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, issued in 1840 in Edinburgh, Scotland; (5) Orson Hyde’s revision of Orson Pratt’s pamphlet, published in 1842 for German readers and adding some insights that may have come from his contact with Joseph Smith; (6) the Wentworth Letter, created in response to editor John Wentworth’s inquiry and published by Joseph Smith in 1842 in Times and Seasons; this account adapted parts of Orson Pratt’s pamphlet; (7) Levi Richards’s diary about Joseph Smith preaching in the summer of 1843 and repeating the Lord’s first message to him that no church was His; (8) a newspaper interview in the fall of 1843; (9) Alexander Neibaur’s 1844 journal entry of a conversation at the Prophet’s house. {{Ensign1|author=Richard L. Anderson|date=April 1996|article=Joseph Smith’s Testimony of the First Vision|start=}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=67017cf34f40c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''January 2005 ''Ensign:''''' During the lifetime of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the story of his First Vision was told in print several times, by him (in 1832, 1835, 1838–39, and 1842), or by others who had heard his account and retold it (in 1840, 1842, 1843, and 1844). —{{Ensign1|author=Ronald O. Barney|article=The First Vision: Searching for the Truth|date=January 2005|start=14–19}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=d7805ef93e84b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

====CES manuals====
*'''CES Manual 2003''': Church Educational System, “Additional Details from Joseph Smith’s 1832 Account of the First Vision,” in ''Presidents of the Church: Student Manual'' (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2003), 5–6. {{link|url=http://institute.lds.org/manuals/presidents-of-the-church-student-manual/pres-ch-01-03-1.asp}}
*'''CES Manual 2003''': Church Educational System, “The First Vision,” in ''Church History in the Fullness of Times: Student Manual'' (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2003), 29–36. {{link|url=http://institute.lds.org/manuals/church-history-institute-student-manual/chft-01-05-3.asp}}
====Books====
*'''2005''': {{OpeningtheHeavens|author=James B. Allen and John W. Welch|article=The Appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith in 1820|start=35|end=75}} See also ''BYU Studies'' version:{{pdflink|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?prodid=1954&type=7}}
*'''2002''': {{PWJSOrig|start=5|end=6, 75–76, 199–200, 213}}
*'''2002''': {{PWJS|start=9|end=20}}
*'''1989''': {{PJSVol1|start=6|end=7, 127, 272–73, 429–30, 444, and 448–49.}}
*'''1985''': Dean C. Jessee, “The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” in Robert L. Millet and Kent P. Jackson, eds., ''Studies in Scripture, Volume 2: The Pearl of Great Price'' (Salt Lake City: Randall Book, 1985), 303–314.
*'''1984''': Dean C. Jessee, ''The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision (Mormon Miscellaneous reprint series)'' (Mormon Miscellaneous, 1984).
*'''1980''': Milton V. Backman Jr., ''Joseph Smith’s First Vision: Confirming Evidences and Contemporary Accounts'', 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980).
*'''1981''': Adele Brannon McCollum, “The First Vision: Re-Visioning Historical Experience,” in Neal E. Lambert, ed., ''Literature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experience'' (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1981), 177–96.
*'''1971''': Milton V. Backman, ''Joseph Smith’s First Vision: The first vision in its historical context'' (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971).
*'''1970''': {{IE|author=James B. Allen|article=Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision–What Do We Learn from Them?|date=April 1970|start=4|end=13}}

==Kinderhook plates==
===Joseph and the Church thought the Kinderhook plates were authentic for many years===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Many in the Church believed that the Kinderhook plates were authentic for many years until they were shown to be forgeries. Joseph was offered the chance to translate them, but did not.|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''August 1981 ''Ensign:''''' "A recent electronic and chemical analysis of a metal plate (one of six original plates) brought in 1843 to the Prophet Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, appears to solve a previously unanswered question in Church history, helping to further evidence that the plate is what its producers later said it was—a nineteenth-century attempt to lure Joseph Smith into making a translation of ancient-looking characters that had been etched into the plates. Joseph Smith did not make the hoped-for translation. In fact, no evidence exists that he manifested any further interest in the plates after early examination of them, although some members of the Church hoped that they would prove to be significant. But the plates never did." —{{Ensign1|author=Stanley B. Kimball|article=Kinderhook Plates Brought to Joseph Smith Appear to Be a Nineteenth-Century Hoax|date=Aug 1981|start=66}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=b6a8aeca0ea6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

==Kirtland Safety Society==
===Bank was unchartered===
{{HiddenFact|fact=The Kirtland Safety Society was unchartered, failed, and Joseph Smith was legally charged because of this.|location=The ''Ensign''}}

* {{Ensign1|author=Milton V. Backman Jr.|article=A Warning from Kirtland|date=Apr 1989|start=26}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=821f27cd3f37b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
* {{Ensign1|author=Milton V. Backman Jr.|article=Kirtland: The Crucial Years|date=Jan 1979|start=24}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=8b25d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
* {{Ensign1|author=Ronald K. Esplin|article=Hyrum Smith: The Mildness of a Lamb, the Integrity of Job|date=Feb 2000|start=30}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=62606a4430c0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
* Glen M. Leonard, “Triumph and Tragedy,” ''Tambuli'' (Mar 1979): 34. {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ad105991d66db010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
* {{Ensign1|author=Larry C. Porter|article=Christmas with the Prophet Joseph|date=Dec 1978|start=9}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=4444d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*{{Ensign1|author=Russell R. Rich|article=Nineteenth-Century Break-offs|date=Sep 1979|start=68}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=09cd615b01a6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

===Bank was held to be illegal===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Kirtland Safety Society was judged illegal.|location=''BYU Studies''}}

*{{BYUS1|author=Dale W. Adams|article=Chartering the Kirtland Bank|vol= 23|num=4|date=Fall 1983|start=467–482}}{{pdflink|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?Type=7&ProdID=885}}
*{{BYUS|author=Marvin S. Hill, Keith C. Rooker and Larry T. Wimmer|article=The Kirtland Economy Revisited: A Market Critique of Sectarian Economics|vol=17|num=4|date=Summer 1977|start=389|end=471}}{{pdflink|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?Type=7&ProdID=1457}}
*{{BYUS|author=Paul Sampson and Larry T. Wimmer|article=The Kirtland Safety Society: The Stock Ledger Book and the Bank Failure|vol=12|num=4|date=Summer 1972|start=427|end=436}}{{link|url=http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/byustudies&CISOPTR=277&CISOSHOW=271&REC=2}}
*{{BYUS|author=Scott H. Partridge|article=The Failure of the Kirtland Safety Society|vol=12|num=4|date=Summer 1972|start=437|end=454}}{{pdflink|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?Type=7&ProdID=655}}

==Martyrdom==
===Joseph fired a gun at Carthage Jail===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph Smith was smuggled a gun while in Carthage Jail, and fired it at his attackers|location=Joseph's gun displayed in the Museum of Church History and Art, ''History of the Church'', The ''Ensign'', Primary lessons 32 and 37}}
====Museum of Church History and Art====
*Joseph's pistol is displayed in the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City, Utah, and labeled as such. An image of the pepperbox pistol may be viewed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JosephSmithPepperbox1.jpg here]]]

====The ''Ensign''====
*'''June 1994 ''Ensign:''''' The Prophet dropped to his brother. “Oh! My poor, dear brother Hyrum,” he groaned. The deep look of sympathy on Joseph’s face fastened itself to Elder Taylor’s mind. The Prophet then stood, and with a firm step he went to the door, '''pulled the pepperbox from his pocket, and, reaching around the door casing, fired blindly into the hallway. He snapped all six shots.''' Half discharged, striking three men. —{{Ensign1|author=Reed Blake|article=Martyrdom at Carthage|date=June 1994|start=30}} {{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=35b6425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''April 1984 ''Ensign:''''' ...the Mormons on the inside of the jail, '''including the Smiths, presented pistols through the windows and doors''' of the jail, and fired upon the guard" —{{Ensign1|author=Larry C. Porter|article=I Have A Question: "How did the U.S. press react when Joseph and Hyrum were murdered?|date=April 1984|start=22–23}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ed0c05481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}} A photo of the pistol is in January 1984 edition of the ''Ensign''.
====Church lesson manuals====
*'''Primary manual, 1997:''' The brethren tried to bar the door shut and use their few weapons to drive off the mob. '''Joseph Smith fired a pistol''' and John Taylor used his heavy cane to try to knock down the guns of the mob as they were pushed into the room through the door, but there were too many people in the mob for the brethren to defend themselves. —“Lesson 37: Joseph and Hyrum Smith Are Martyred,” ''Primary 5: Doctrine and Covenants: Church History'' (1997), 210. {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=048ba41f6cc20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=637e1b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}} Note that the pistol is here described even in a children's lesson manual!
*'''Gospel Doctrine manual, Lesson 32''': '''Joseph continued snapping his revolver''' round the casing of the door into the space as before. —“To Seal the Testimony”, ''Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual'', 183. {{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c2719207f7c20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=32c41b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
====The ''History of the Church''====
*''History of the Church'' tells about the pistol x 2.
There are many more references to the pistol in Church publications.
{{SeeAlso|Joseph Smith/Martyrdom/Joseph fired a gun|Joseph Smith/Martyrdom/Hiding Joseph's gun|l1=Joseph Smith fired a pistol|l2=Hiding Joseph's gun}}

==Word of Wisdom==
===Joseph drank wine===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph drank wine while at Carthage Jail|location=''History of the Church''}}
[[Word_of_Wisdom|Joseph and others drank wine]] at Carthage. This fact is presented without apology in {{HoC1|vol=6|start=616}}:
<blockquote>
Before the jailor came in, his boy brought in some water, and said the guard wanted some wine. Joseph gave Dr. Richards two dollars to give the guard; but the guard said one was enough, and would take no more.
 
The guard immediately sent for a bottle of wine, pipes, and two small papers of tobacco; and one of the guards brought them into the jail soon after the jailor went out. '''Dr. Richards uncorked the bottle, and presented a glass to Joseph, who tasted, as also Brother Taylor and the doctor, and the bottle was then given to the guard''', who turned to go out. When at the top of the stairs some one below called him two or three times, and he went down. {{ea}}
</blockquote>

==Joseph and politics==
===Joseph's campaign for President===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph campaigned for President of the United States|location=The ''Ensign''}}

*'''February 2009, ''Ensign''''': It was unanimously decided that '''Joseph Smith would run for president of the United States on an independent platform'''. Thus began one of the most fascinating third-party presidential campaigns in American history. —Arnold K. Garr, “Joseph Smith: Campaign for President of the United States,” Ensign, Feb 2009, 48–52 {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ea469d9ff732f110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}

==The Book of Abraham==
===The papyri and the Book of the Dead===
{{HiddenFact|fact=The text of the Joseph Smith papyri does not match the text of the Book of Abraham|location=The ''Improvement Era '', the ''Ensign''}}

*'''August 1968 ''Improvement Era:''''' The largest part of the papyri in the possession of the Church consists of fragments from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. —{{IE|author=Hugh Nibley|article=A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price|date=August 1968|start=56|end=57}} This issue contains color photographs of the papyri. A scan of the page from the article can be viewed [[Book of Abraham/Book of the Dead/Scan (full size)|here]].
*'''March 1976 ''Ensign:''''' A Book of Breathings text that closely matches the Joseph Smith version (and there are precious few of them) is the so-called Kerasher Book of Breathings. It too has a frontispiece, only in this case it is the same as our Facsimile No. 3, showing that it too is closely associated with our text." —Hugh Nibley, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, Mar. 1976, 34–36 {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=294cfd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''July 1988 ''Ensign:''''' Why doesn’t the translation of the Egyptian papyri found in 1967 match the text of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price? —Michael D. Rhodes, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, July 1988, 51–53 {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a8c1d7630a27b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}



==Violence and conflict==
===The Danites===
{{HiddenFact|fact=A group Church members called the Danites attacked non-Mormons|location=The ''Friend'', the ''New Era'', the ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Friend''====
*'''July 1993 ''Friend''''': One Mormon, Sampson Avard, formed a group, called the Danites, to seek revenge on the Missourians. But when the Danites attacked the nonmembers, it only gave them more reason to distrust the Saints. —Sherrie Johnson, “Persecutions in Missouri,” Friend, Jul 1993, 47 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=042555faa5cab010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
====The ''New Era''====
*'''March 1972 ''New Era''''': Zane Grey, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joaquin Miller, and a host of lesser-known writers have used the Danites, but perhaps the most well-known treatment is that of A. Conan Doyle in A Study of Scarlet... —Neal E. Lambert and Richard H. Cracroft, “Through Gentile Eyes: A Hundred Years of the Mormon in Fiction,” New Era, Mar 1972, 14 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=6abc18e7c379b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''April 1979 ''Ensign''''': Sampson Avard, an elder in Far West, may have taken license from the address to organize a covert society called the Danites which engaged in activities that did much damage to the Church’s reputation. —Max H Parkin, “Missouri’s Impact on the Church,” Ensign, Apr 1979, 57 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=bcf7d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
====Other Church magazines====
*'''March 1979 ''Tambuli''''': Exaggerated reports of this confrontation reached Governor Boggs. He was told that the Saints were burning towns, driving established settlers from their homes and undermining civil authority through the activities of a group known as the “Danites”—a band of avengers. Joseph Smith was charged with being the prime instigator but had nothing to do with it and exposed the participants when he became aware of it. —Glen M. Leonard, “Triumph and Tragedy,” Tambuli, Mar 1979, 34 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ad105991d66db010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

====Mountain Meadows Massacre====
{{HiddenFact|fact=Members of the Church perpetrated the massacre of a wagon train in 1857|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''September 2007 ''Ensign''''': For a century and a half the Mountain Meadows Massacre has shocked and distressed those who have learned of it. The tragedy has deeply grieved the victims’ relatives, burdened the perpetrators’ descendants and Church members generally with sorrow and feelings of collective guilt, unleashed criticism on the Church, and raised painful, difficult questions. How could this have happened? How could members of the Church have participated in such a crime? —Richard E. Turley Jr., “The Mountain Meadows Massacre,” Ensign, Sep 2007, 14–21 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=1c234dc029133110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|sorenson.pt1}} {{DiggingPt1}}
#{{note|sorenson.pt2}} {{DiggingPt2}}
#{{note|gregory.1}} Cited in {{FR-18-1-16}}

Alleged hiding of facts in Church history

2010-01-23T19:17:02Z

DavidKeller: /* 1988 */

__NOTOC__
=Hiding the facts in Church history=

==Folk Magic==
===Joseph and "folk magic"===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Some have seen "folk magic" elements in early Church history|location=General Conference, the ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*From the day that Joseph Smith walked out of the grove in the year 1820, critics and enemies—generation after generation of them—have worked and reworked the same old materials. They have minutely explored the environment in which Joseph Smith lived ''in an effort to rationalize—some on the basis of folk magic and the occult—the remarkable things which he did''. Early in this fishing expedition, one of them gathered affidavits from neighbors and associates in an effort to undermine the character of Joseph Smith. This old bale of straw has been dished up again and again as if it were something new. They have raked over every available word that he spoke or wrote, and they then in turn have written long tomes and delivered long lectures trying to explain the mystery of his character and his work....

:As I have already mentioned, from the beginning of this work there has been opposition. There have been apostates. There have been scholars, ''some with balance and others with an axe to grind'', who have raked over every bit of evidence available concerning Joseph Smith, the prophet of this dispensation. I plead with you, do not let yourselves be numbered among the critics, among the dissidents, among the apostates. That does not mean that you cannot read widely. As a Church, we encourage gospel scholarship and the search to understand all truth. Fundamental to our theology is belief in individual freedom of inquiry, thought, and expression. Constructive discussion is a privilege of every Latter-day Saint....

:Of course, there are items in our history which, ''when pulled out of context and highlighted, separated from the time and the circumstances in which the events took place, may raise some questions''. Remember, however, that no Church leader of whom I am aware, past or present, has ever claimed perfection. They have been and are human, including those who have served as Presidents of the Church. The Lord has always used those he has found most suitable for His purposes. Notwithstanding some human weaknesses, they have accomplished great and remarkable things, and this even while enemies have been snapping at their heels. The work has moved steadily and consistently forward, and the only losers have been those who, in a spirit of criticism, which usually has begun in a very mild and innocuous way, have in some instances literally read, talked, and written themselves out of the Church because they looked only for the negative, read only the negative, and discussed only the negative.

:To all Latter-day Saints, I say, keep the faith. When you study, do so with balance.

::—{{Ensign1|author=Gordon B. Hinckley|article=First Presidency Message: Keep the Faith [from Young Adult Fireside 23 June 1985]|date=Sep 1985|start=3, italics added}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=cd908949f2f6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

*As most of you know, in the last four or five years we have passed through an interesting episode in the history of the Church. There came into our hands two letters that were seized upon by the media when we announced them. They were trumpeted across much of the world as documents that would challenge the authenticity of the Church. In announcing them we stated that they really had nothing to do with the essentials of our history. But some few of little faith, who seemingly are always quick to believe the negative, accepted as fact the pronouncements and predictions of the media. I recall a letter from an individual who asked that his name be taken from the records of the Church because he could no longer believe in a church that had to do with an experience with a salamander.

:Now, as you know, these letters, together with other documents, have been acknowledged by their forger to be total frauds and part of an evil and devious design which culminated in the murder of two individuals.

:I have wondered what those whose faith was shaken have thought since the forger confessed to his evil work....

:Out of this earlier episode has now arisen another phenomenon. It is described as the writing of a “new history” of the Church as distinguished from the “old history.” It represents, among other things, ''an effort to ferret out every element of folk magic and the occult in the environment in which Joseph Smith lived to explain what he did and why''.

:''I have no doubt there was folk magic practiced in those days. Without question there were superstitions and the superstitious.'' I suppose there was some of this in the days when the Savior walked the earth. There is even some in this age of so-called enlightenment. For instance, some hotels and business buildings skip the numbering of floor thirteen. Does this mean there is something wrong with the building? Of course not. Or with the builders? No.

:Similarly, the fact that there were superstitions among the people in the days of Joseph Smith is no evidence whatever that the Church came of such superstition.
::—{{Ensign1|author=Gordon B. Hinckley|article=‘Lord, Increase Our Faith’ [General conference address]|date=Nov 1987|start=51, emphasis added}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a95f79356427b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

==Treasure seeking and seer stones==
===Joseph the "money digger"===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph was involved with "money digging"|location=''History of the Church'', the ''Ensign''}}
See if you can determine exactly at which point in history this fact became "hidden" by the Church.
====2001====
=====''Ensign''=====
* An enterprising farmer by the name of Josiah Stowell came 30 miles from his farm in Bainbridge Township, Chenango County, New York, carrying a purported treasure map and accompanied by a digging crew. The company took their room and board with the Hale family. On the crew were Joseph Smith Jr. and his father. Lucy Mack Smith records that Josiah “came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys, by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.” The Smiths had initially refused Josiah’s invitation in October 1825. However, the reality of the family’s difficulty in meeting the $100 annual mortgage payment on their farm and Stowell’s promise of “high wages to those who would dig for him” finally persuaded them both to join in the venture.
: — {{Ensign1|author=Larry C. Porter|article=Joseph Smith’s Susquehanna Years|date=Feb 2001|start=42}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a2f6a1615ac0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

::[Note that this article cites such anti-Mormon or hostile sources as
::*{{CriticalWork:Tucker:Origin Rise and Progress|pages=41-42}} (describes Martin Harris' trip to Charles Anthon)
::* ''Baptist Register'', Utica, New York, 13 June 1834, 68. (reprint of ''Susquehanna Register'' material, below)
::* ''Susquehanna Register'', Montrose, Pennsylvania, 1 May 1834. (the [[The_Hurlbut_affidavits|Hurlbut-Howe]] affidavits, with focus on money-digging)]

====1987====
=====''Ensign''=====
* Treasure-seeking was a cultural phenomenon of that day. It was indulged in by upright and religious men such as Josiah Stowel. Young Joseph Smith accepted employment with Stowel at fourteen dollars a month, in part because of the crushing poverty of the Smith family. Joseph and his older brothers had to scour the countryside for work in order to construct their home and make the annual payment on the farm, which they were in imminent danger of losing and finally lost for nonpayment shortly after this period.
: —{{Ensign1|author=Dallin H. Oaks|article=Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents|date=October 1987|start=63}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=309b71ec9b17b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

* It is unfortunate that the writers who did the earliest work of gathering information about the Smith family were more concerned with blackening their reputation than with finding the facts. Interviewers not only ignored the positive things about the Smiths, but distorted many answers to mean what the interviewer wanted them to mean. For instance, Mormon apostate Philastus Hurlburt collected affidavits in 1833 that contain repetitious variations on the theme that “digging for money was their principal employment.” Though evidence involves the Smiths and their neighbors in treasure searching—a common practice in many American communities at the time—this was not their main occupation. Their true “principal employment” was conversion of one hundred acres of timbered wilderness into a cleared farm with dwellings, fences, and wheat and maple-sugar production....

: Alvin is notably absent in most of these reports, except when listed as a member of the family or mentioned as in demand as a hard worker. He made no lasting impact on community memory as a religious leader, though he was included in one detailed money-digging tale evidently intended to suggest that magical activities were involved somehow in finding the Book of Mormon.
: —{{Ensign1|author=Richard Lloyd Anderson|article=The Alvin Smith Story: Fact and Fiction|date=Aug 1987|start=58}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=1e9971ec9b17b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD#footnote5}}

====1902====
=====''History of the Church''=====
*"Was not Joseph Smith a money digger?" Yes, but it was never a very profitable job for him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it. —Joseph Smith's own answer to the question, ''History of the Church'' Volume 3, p. 29

====1864====
=====''Millennial Star''=====
<blockquote>
Editorial [editor was George Q. Cannon], “The Truth Vindicated by the Conduct of its Enemies”
“The most serious charge that was brought against the Prophet Joseph, by the enemies of the Church in its early days, was that he had been a ‘money digger’—had been engaged with some person or persons in searching in the earth for the precious metals. This was considered by them so disreputable an avocation, that the mere report that he had been engaged in it was deemed sufficient to forever debar him from the society of those who prided themselves upon their respectability and social standing. The idea that the Lord would communicate his will to, or in any way have anything to do with, a ‘money digger,’ was deemed preposterous and blasphemous” (264) — ''Millennial Star'' 26 (1864): 264-6.
</blockquote>

====1853====
=====''Journal of Discourses''=====
*I can sum up all the arguments used against Joseph Smith and "Mormonism” in a very few words, the merits of which will be found in OLD JOE SMITH. IMPOSTOR, MONEY DIGGER. OLD JOE SMITH. SPIRITUAL WIFE DOCTRINE. IMPOSTURE. THE DOCTRINE IS FALSE. MONEY DIGGER. FALSE PROPHET. DELUSION. SPIRITUAL WIFE DOCTRINE. Oh, my dear brethren and sisters, keep away from them, for the sake of your never dying souls. FALSE PROPHETS THAT SHOULD COME IN THE LAST DAYS. OLD JOE SMITH. ANTI-CHRIST. MONEY DIGGER, MONEY DIGGER, MONEY DIGGER. And the whole is wound up with an appeal, not to the good sense of the people, but to their unnatural feelings, in a canting, hypocritical tone, and there it ends. —{{JDfairwiki|author=Brigham Young|disc=19|vol=1|start=109|end=110}}

====1847====
=====''Millennial Star''=====
<blockquote>
Religious Impostors.
 
In the second volume of a neat, cheap but, flimsy and ephemeral compilation or periodical, published among the hundreds of similar and better works by W. and R. Chambers of Edinburgh,…. this "Miscellany" of the Messrs. Chambers, Edinburgh…. in this they quote only from the "Rise, Progress and Causes of Mormonism, by Professor J. B. Turner, New York, 1844," and “little work” by a Rev. Mr. Caswall, A.M., Professor of Divinity, Kemper College, Missouri, &c., &c., who visited the city of the Mormons -- Nauvoo -- in the year 1842. …. Again, the article before us reads -- "Joseph Smith, the youthful imposter! followed the profession of a money digger," which being corrected should be read as follows: -- "He was for a time a farmer's assistant; his employer requested him on some occasions to dig in certain portions of his estate where money was supposed to have been concealed" -- and while he thus did what his master required, he followed the profession of a money digger!
That money has been concealed in this continent, before and during the times of the late wars in America, as well as aforetime by the ancient inhabitants, is generally believed, and I doubt not this is the fact; and were I an owner of the soil, to get good crops and perhaps money, I might probably induce my posterity to believe I had hid some in my fields; thus would I secure for them, ample irrigation and an abundant reward to satisfy their money digging propensities. Oh! covetous generation, how will ye escape if you dig for silver ore, iron, lead, or copper; or cull and dig for such miserable scraps of falsehood which ye publish for money. Know ye not that thus ye are sealing you own condemnation? —''Millennial Star'' 9.6 (March 15, 1847): 85-89
</blockquote>

====1842====
=====''Millennial Star''=====
<blockquote>
GREAT DISCUSSION ON "MORMONISM," BETWEEN DR. WEST AND ELDER ADAMS, AT THE MARLBORO CHAPEL, BOSTON.
 
From the Weekly Bostonian, July 2.
 
Mr. Editor,—In the haste of my remarks last week. I briefly referred to the proceedings of the first three evenings of the discussion, but necessarily omitted several interesting features which I wish now to notice. The last paragraph of my communication which was inserted as the paper was going to press, stated, that the discussion closed on Friday night; but for want of time and room in your columns, my sketches of the last two evenings were reserved till this week. Dr. West spent much of the second and third evenings in reading from a Mormon pamphlet, containing a history of the rise of their church....Dr. West's chief effort the first part of the evening, was to impeach the character of Smith and the Mormon witnesses; for this purpose, he read from an old pamphlet what appeared to be a certificate from some twenty or thirty citizens of the state of New York, representing Harris and Smith's family as being money diggers, superstitious and visionary, and that they had no confidence in their pretended discoveries. ....In the reply, Mr. Adams said, the certificate from the citizens of New York ..... If Mr. Smith dug for money, he considered it was a more honourable way of getting it than taking it from the widow and the orphan; but a few lazy hireling priests of this age, would dig either for money or potatoes. —''Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star'', 3.5 (September, 1842): 87-92
</blockquote>

===Joseph, seer stone, and treasure===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph used a seer stone to try to find treasure|location=the ''Ensign''}}
====1987====
=====''Ensign''=====
* Some sources close to Joseph Smith claim that in his youth, during his spiritual immaturity prior to his being entrusted with the Book of Mormon plates, he sometimes used a stone in seeking for treasure. Whether this is so or not, we need to remember that no prophet is free from human frailties, especially before he is called to devote his life to the Lord’s work. Line upon line, young Joseph Smith expanded his faith and understanding and his spiritual gifts matured until he stood with power and stature as the Prophet of the Restoration.
: —{{Ensign1|author=Dallin H. Oaks|article=Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents|date=October 1987|start=63}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=309b71ec9b17b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

===Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge trial===
{{HiddenFact|fact=In 1826, Joseph was brought up on charges of being a "disorderly person" for using a stone to "see things"|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====1994====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
'''Highlights in the Prophet’s Life''' 20 Mar. 1826: Tried and acquitted on fanciful charge of being a “disorderly person,” South Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York. New York law defined a disorderly person as, among other things, a vagrant or a seeker of “lost goods.” The Prophet had been accused of both: the first charge was false and was made simply to cause trouble; Joseph’s use of a seer stone to see things that others could not see with the naked eye brought the second charge. Those who brought the charges were apparently concerned that Joseph might bilk his employer, Josiah Stowell, out of some money. Mr. Stowell’s testimony clearly said this was not so and that he trusted Joseph Smith. —{{Ensign1|author=Anonymous|article=Highlights in the Prophet’s Life|date=Jun 1994|start=24}} {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=1aa6425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

==Book of Mormon==
===The stone and the hat===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph generally utilized a stone placed in his hat to translate|location=The ''Friend'', The ''Ensign'', lds.org, and a book by Apostle Neal A. Maxwell}}
Joseph actually used a stone which he placed in a hat to translate a portion of the Book of Mormon in addition to or instead of the "Urim and Thummim." This fact was found hidden in the official Church magazines the ''Ensign'' and the ''Friend'' on the official Church website lds.org. See if you can determine when this fact became "hidden," and why it appeared in the ''children's'' magazine.

====1997====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"Martin Harris related of the '''seer stone''': 'Sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin'" —Neal A. Maxwell, “‘By the Gift and Power of God’,” ''Ensign'', Jan 1997, 36 {{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=e491dbdcc370c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1993====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"David Whitmer wrote: ' '''Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light'''; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine.'" —Russell M. Nelson, “A Treasured Testament,” ''Ensign'', Jul 1993, 61. {{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=05169209df38b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1988====
=====''Not My Will, But Thine''=====
<blockquote>
"Jacob censured the "stiffnecked" Jews for "looking beyond the mark" (Jacob 4:14). We are looking beyond the mark today, for example, if we are more interested in the physical dimensions of the cross than in what Jesus achieved thereon; or when we neglect Alma's words on faith because we are too fascinated by the '''light-shielding hat reportedly used by Joseph Smith during some of the translating of the Book of Mormon'''. To neglect substance while focusing on process is another form of unsubmissively looking beyond the mark." —Neal A. Maxwell, ''Not My Will, But Thine'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1988), 26.
</blockquote>
====1987====
=====''Ensign''=====

<blockquote>The scriptures indicate that translation involved sight, power, transcription of the characters, the Urim and Thummim or a '''seerstone''', study, and prayer.</blockquote>

<blockquote>After returning from a trip to Palmyra to settle his affairs, Martin began to transcribe. From April 12 to June 14, Joseph translated while Martin wrote, with only a curtain between them. On occasion they took breaks from the arduous task, sometimes going to the river and throwing stones. '''Once Martin found a rock closely resembling the seerstone Joseph sometimes used in place of the interpreters and substituted it without the Prophet’s knowledge.''' When the translation resumed, Joseph paused for a long time and then exclaimed, “Martin, what is the matter, all is as dark as Egypt.” Martin then confessed that he wished to “stop the mouths of fools” who told him that the Prophet memorized sentences and merely repeated them." </blockquote>

Kenneth W. Godfrey, “A New Prophet and a New Scripture: The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, Jan 1988, 6-13.(both quotations on page 11)

====1977====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"There he gave his most detailed view of 'the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated': “'''Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light.'''" —{{Ensign1|author=Richard Lloyd Anderson|article=‘By the Gift and Power of God’|date=Sep 1977|start=79, emphasis added}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=5a921f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1974====
=====''Friend''=====
<blockquote>
"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 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=5250e07368d9b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

===The stone and Nephite interpreters===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph used a seer stone and the Nephite interpreters to translate the Book of Mormon.|location=The ''Ensign''}}

====1977====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"...the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone." —{{Ensign1|author=Richard Lloyd Anderson|article=‘By the Gift and Power of God’|date=Sep 1977|start=79, emphasis added}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=5a921f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

==Book of Mormon authorship theories==
{{HiddenFact|fact=The Church doesn't mention secular Book of Mormon authorship theories which involve workes such as Ethan Smith's ''View of the Hebrews'' or the Spalding manuscript|location=General Conference, ''Ensign''}}
=====October 2009 General Conference=====
<blockquote>
For 179 years this book has been examined, and attacked. Denied and deconstructed. Targeted and torn apart, like perhaps no other book in modern religious history. Perhaps like no other book in any religious history, and still, it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born, parroted and died. From Ethan Smith to Solomon Spalding, to deranged paranoid, to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination, because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young, unlearned translator. 
—Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, General Conference talk, Oct. 4, 2009
</blockquote>

====2002====
=====''Liahona''=====
<blockquote>
He also bore his testimony in these words: “Friends and brethren my name is Cowdery, Oliver Cowdery. In the early history of this church I stood identified with [you]. … I … handled with my hands the gold plates from which [the Book of Mormon] was translated. I also beheld the interpreters. That book is true. Sidney Rigdon did not write it. Mr. Spaulding did not write it. I wrote it myself as it fell from the lips of the prophet.” 8 Even though Oliver came back, he lost his exalted place in the Church. 
—James E. Faust, “‘Some Great Thing’,” Liahona, Jan 2002, 53–56 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=d9918d00422fe010VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1993====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
It is strange to me that unbelieving critics must still go back to the old allegations that Joseph Smith wrote the book out of ideas gained from Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews and Solomon Spaulding’s manuscript. To compare the Book of Mormon with these is like comparing a man to a horse. It is true they both walk, but beyond this there is little similarity. 
—
Gordon B. Hinckley, “My Testimony,” Ensign, Nov 1993, 51 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=42ea425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1992====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
At one time, it was popular among critics to contend that a literary work of Joseph Smith’s day, a manuscript authored by the Reverend Solomon Spalding (also spelled Spaulding), influenced the plot of the Book of Mormon. Spalding died in 1816, but his manuscript survived and was used by Eber D. Howe to advance a “Spalding theory” in the first anti-Mormon work of note, Mormonism Unvailed, (Painesville: E. D. Howe, 1834; original spelling preserved.) Howe held that Sidney Rigdon had been responsible for taking Spalding’s manuscript from a printing establishment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later making it available for publication through Joseph Smith. 
—Larry C. Porter, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, June 1992, 27–29 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a8e394bf3938b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1986====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Enemies threatened to knock down the walls of the temple. Philastus Hurlburt was excommunicated and in bitterness set in motion the Spaulding manuscript story of the origin of the Book of Mormon with all of the mischief that for years followed that concoction. 
—Gordon B. Hinckley, “Go Forward with Faith,” Ensign, Aug 1986, 3 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=9bf1ef960417b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
These restored truths came fully formed. Joseph Smith did not receive them through Solomon Spaulding, Ethan Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, or any others to be advanced by those desperate for any explanation other than the correct one. 
—Neal A. Maxwell, “‘A Choice Seer’,” Ensign, Aug 1986, 6 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=b422ef960417b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1984====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
This interpretation initially appeared in the first anti-Mormon book, Mormonism Unvailed, a work published by Eber D. Howe and, most believe, authored by Philastus Hurlburt, an apostate. This hypothesis for the formulation of the Book of Mormon can best be summed up thus: “The Book of Mormon is the joint production of Solomon Spaulding and some other designing knave.” They conjectured this “knave” to be Sidney Rigdon. 
—Keith W. Perkins, “Francis W. Kirkham: A ‘New Witness’ for the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, Jul 1984, 53 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=511005481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1977====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Every few years the opponents of the Church dust off one of the timeworn theories about how the Book of Mormon “really” was written. One of the dustiest is the theory that the Book of Mormon is based on a stolen manuscript written by Solomon Spaulding, a would-be novelist who died in 1816. 
—Orson Scott Card, “Spaulding Again? ,” Ensign, Sept. 1977, 94–95 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c6a21f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
So it was that they sought to take the divine stamp away from his translation of the Book of Mormon. They determined to “humanize” his work by saying that he himself had composed the volume, or that he stole it from Spaulding, or that Sidney Rigdon wrote it, although it was published well before Joseph ever heard of Sidney Rigdon. 
—Mark E. Petersen, “It Was a Miracle!,” Ensign, Nov 1977, 11 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=12641f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

====1976====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Would you respond to the theories that the Book of Mormon is based on the Spaulding manuscript or on Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews? 
—Bruce D. Blumell, “I Have a Question,” ''Ensign'', Sept. 1976, 84–87{{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=8044fd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>

==B.H. Roberts and the Book of Mormon==
{{HiddenFact|fact=It is claimed that B.H. Roberts lost his testimony of the Book of Mormon|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====1983====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
"The claim is made (in some anti-Mormon tabloids) that toward the end of his life, B. H. Roberts found insuperable difficulties with the Book of Mormon and even that he lost faith in it." —{{Ensign1|author=Truman G. Madsen|article=B. H. Roberts after Fifty Years: Still Witnessing for the Book of Mormon|date=Dec 1983|start=11}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c30805481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
</blockquote>



==Book of Mormon geography==
{{HiddenFact|fact=The Church only recently created the "limited geography theory" of the Book of Mormon to counter DNA claims|location=Two issues of the ''Ensign'' published in 1984}}
====1984====
=====''Ensign''=====
John L. Sorenson discussed a limited geographical model for the Book of Mormon in 1984:
*{{DiggingPt1}}
*{{DiggingPt2}}

==Polygamy==
===The practice of plural marriage during Joseph's lifetime===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Plural marriage was instituted during Joseph Smith's lifetime|location=Priesthood/Relief Society lesson manual, the ''Ensign''}}
====2007====
=====Lesson manual: ''Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith''=====
<blockquote>
This book deals with teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith that have application to our day....This book also does not discuss plural marriage. '''The doctrines and principles relating to plural marriage were revealed to Joseph Smith as early as 1831. The Prophet taught the doctrine of plural marriage, and a number of such marriages were performed during his lifetime.''' —The 2008-2009 lesson manual ''Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith'', (2007), pages vii–xiii {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1992====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Her great trial came when the prophet revealed to Emma that they would be required to live the ancient law of Abraham—'''plural marriage'''. Emma suffered deeply hurt feelings because of it. While she agreed with this doctrine at times, at other times she opposed it. Years later, Emma is purported to have denied that any such '''doctrine was ever introduced by her husband'''. —Gracia N. Jones, “My Great-Great-Grandmother, Emma Hale Smith,” ''Ensign'', Aug 1992, 30 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=4e2694bf3938b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1989====
=====''Ensign=====
<blockquote>
The Prophet introduced several doctrines relating to the temple including the temple ceremonies and '''plural marriage, which some could not accept'''.... —William G. Hartley, “The Knight Family: Ever Faithful to the Prophet,” ''Ensign'', Jan 1989, 43 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=3ccb27cd3f37b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1978====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
How a family accepts members who join it by marriage is, in some ways, analogous to how a Church accepts members who join it by baptism. The experiences of '''plural marriage''' make the analogy even closer....'''the Prophet Joseph Smith recorded a revelation to the Whitneys on plural marriage'''....The Whitneys gave their daughter into the system of plural marriage and received into their family other plural wives. —D. Michael Quinn, “The Newel K. Whitney Family,” ''Ensign'', Dec 1978, 42 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=f4a4d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1977====
=====''Ensign''=====
<blockquote>
Starting '''during Joseph Smith’s own lifetime''' but limited to a few dozen families until its official announcement in 1852, '''plural marriage brought a powerful new challenge''' to the equanimity of Latter-day Saint family life... —Davis Bitton, “Great-Grandfather’s Family,” ''Ensign'', Feb 1977, 48 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=369a1f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

====1973====
=====''New Era''=====
<blockquote>
The great prophet Elias, whom Joseph Fielding Smith says is Noah..., appeared and bestowed upon their heads the keys of the dispensation of Abraham, or in other words, as Elder Bruce R. McConkie says in ''Mormon Doctrine''...the keys of celestial and '''plural marriage'''. —Jerry C. Roundy, “The Greatness of Joseph Smith and His Remarkable Visions,” ''New Era'', Dec 1973, 7 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=cd7b46581c79b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
</blockquote>

===Joseph's marriages to young women===
====The ''Ensign''====
{{HiddenFact|fact=Some of Joseph Smith's marriages were to young women|location=The ''Ensign''}}
*'''June 1979 ''Ensign''''': Although little Don Carlos Smith died a short time later, Emily and Eliza continued to live in the Smith home, where, in the summer of 1842, '''both girls “were married to Bro. Joseph about the same time, but neither of us knew about the other at the time; everything was so secret”''' (Emily, “Incidents,” p. 186). —{{Ensign1|author=Dean Jessee|article=‘Steadfastness and Patient Endurance’: The Legacy of Edward Partridge|date=Jun 1979|start=41}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a40b615b01a6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}
*'''December 1978 ''Ensign:''''' How a family accepts members who join it by marriage is, in some ways, analogous to how a Church accepts members who join it by baptism. The experiences of '''plural marriage''' make the analogy even closer....'''the Prophet Joseph Smith recorded a revelation to the Whitneys on plural marriage'''....The Whitneys gave their daughter into the system of plural marriage and received into their family other plural wives. —D. Michael Quinn, “The Newel K. Whitney Family,” ''Ensign'', Dec 1978, 42 {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=f4a4d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}

===Brigham Young's practice of polygamy===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Brigham Young practiced polygamy|location=lds.org, the ''Ensign''}}
====Church web site lds.org====
*Polygamy — or more correctly polygyny, the marriage of more than one woman to the same man — was an important part of the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a half-century. The practice began during the lifetime of Joseph Smith but became publicly and widely known during the time of Brigham Young. —LDS Newsroom, lds.org {{link|url=http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/background-information/polygamy-latter-day-saints-and-the-practice-of-plural-marriage}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''July 1980 ''Ensign''''': In Sunday School someone mentioned Brigham Young and polygamy... —Meryl C. Liptrott, “Waking from the Nightmare,” Ensign, July 1980, 54–55 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=66c9fc3157a6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''February 1976 ''Ensign''''': Brigham Young, born on June 1, 1801, at Whittingham, Vermont, was 43 years old when he was called to the leadership of the Church. For over 33 years he lead the Saints, guiding them through some of their heaviest persecution—the exodus from Nauvoo, the crossing of the plains, the colonizing of the desert, the polygamy trials—until his death on August 29, 1877. —“Brigham Young,” Ensign, Feb 1976, 80 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ebcbfd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}


==Doctrine and Covenants==
===Changes to D&C revelations===
{{HiddenFact|fact=The revelations contained in the Doctrine and Covenants were edited and modified from their original form|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''July 2009 ''Ensign''''': In some instances, when a new revelation changed or updated what had previously been received, '''the Prophet edited the earlier written revelation''' to reflect the new understanding. Thus, as his doctrinal knowledge clarified and expanded, so did the recorded revelations. They were characterized by the changing nature of his understanding of the sacred subject matter. The Prophet did not believe that revelations, once recorded, could not be changed by further revelation. —{{Ensign1|author=Marlin K. Jensen|article=The Joseph Smith Papers: The Manuscript Revelation Books|date=July 2009|start=46–51}}{{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=51d61d7888312210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''February 1985 ''Ensign''''': Many of the '''editing changes occurred after the revelations were printed''' in the Book of Commandments. —{{Ensign1|author=Melvin J. Petersen|article=Preparing Early Revelations for Publication|date=February 1985|start=14}}{{link|url=http://library.lds.org/library/lpext.dll/ArchMagazines/Ensign/1985.htm/ensign%20february%201985.htm/preparing%20early%20revelations%20for%20publication.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0}}
*'''January 1985 ''Ensign''''': However, a correct understanding of the nature of the revelations the Prophet Joseph Smith received and how he updated them in light of continued revelation explains why many changes occurred. Indeed, '''each of the sections has been edited to some degree''', demonstrating that Joseph Smith did not receive all these revelations as word-for-word dictations from the Lord (although he may have received some this way). Rather, he received inspiration and wrote the revelations using his own words, often couched in Victorian English. —{{Ensign1|author=Robert J. Woodford|article=How the Revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants Were Received and Compiled|date=January 1985|start=27}} {{ea}} {{link|url=http://library.lds.org/library/lpext.dll/ArchMagazines/Ensign/1985.htm/ensign%20january%201985%20.htm/how%20the%20revelations%20in%20the%20doctrine%20and%20covenants%20were%20received%20and%20compiled.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0}}
*'''December 1984 ''Ensign''''': This was the beginning of controversies and charges made by persons who do not know or understand that '''the text of recorded revelation can be edited and “changed.”''' First, we must recognize that Joseph Smith’s purposeful changes are in a different category from copying errors. —{{Ensign1|author=Robert J. Woodford|article=The Story of the Doctrine and Covenants|date=December 1984|start=32}} {{ea}} {{link|url=http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1984.htm/ensign%20december%201984%20.htm/the%20story%20of%20the%20doctrine%20and%20covenants.htm?f=templates$fn=document-frame.htm$3.0$q=$x=$nc=8554}}
*'''May 1974 ''Ensign''''': Some have alleged that these books of revelation are false, and they place in evidence changes that have occurred in the texts of these scriptures since their original publication. They cite these changes, of which there are many examples, as though they themselves were announcing revelation. As though they were the only ones that knew of them. '''Of course there have been changes and corrections'''. Anyone who has done even limited research knows that. When properly reviewed, such corrections become a testimony for, not against, the truth of the books. —{{Ensign1|author=Boyd K. Packer|article=We Believe All That God Has Revealed|date=May 1974|start=93}} {{ea}} {{link|url=http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1974.htm/ensign%20may%201974.htm/we%20believe%20all%20that%20god%20has%20revealed%20.htm?fn=document-frame.htm$f=templates$3.0}}; also in {{CR1|author=Boyd K. Packer|date=April 1974|article=We Believe All That God Has Revealed|start=137}}

==First Vision==
===Multiple accounts===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph recorded multiple accounts of the First Vision, and some of the details of these accounts differ from one another|location=The ''Ensign'', CES Student Manual}}
Critics charge that the existence of multiple accounts of the [[First Vision/Accounts|First Vision]] has been hidden. A review of just some of the sources demonstrates that this is simply false:
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''January 1985 ''Ensign:''''' On at least four different occasions, Joseph Smith either wrote or dictated to scribes accounts of his sacred experience of 1820. Possibly he penned or dictated other histories of the First Vision; if so, they have not been located. The four surviving recitals of this theophany were prepared or rendered through different scribes, at different times, from a different perspective, for different purposes and to different audiences. It is not surprising, therefore, that each of them emphasizes different aspects of his experience. —{{Ensign1|author=Milton V. Backman, Jr.|article=Joseph Smith's Recitals of the First Vision|date=January 1985|start=8}}{{link|url=http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1985.htm/ensign%20january%201985%20.htm/joseph%20smiths%20recitals%20of%20the%20first%20vision.htm}}
*'''January 1996 ''Ensign:''''': I am glad, for example, that we have several accounts of the First Vision, the ministry of Christ, the Atonement, the plan of salvation, the signs of the last days, and the conditions during the millennium. None of the various accounts exhaust the subject; each contributes to its advancement line upon line, even though important elements may be repeated. We need not regard them as competing or as being at odds with each other, but rather, as enhancing our understanding of the whole. {{Ensign1|author=Keith Meservy|article=Four Accounts of the Creation|date=January 1986|start=?}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=2e478949f2f6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''April 1996 ''Ensign:''''' How many First Vision reports were made while the Prophet was alive? It is better to ask how many independent accounts came from contact with the Prophet. Some vision narratives were republished and are really copies of an original record. We now know of nine contemporary reports from the Prophet himself or from those who personally heard him relate his first vision: (1) the Prophet’s handwritten description in 1832, an attempt to start a manuscript history of the Church; (2) a Church secretary’s brief 1835 journal entry of Joseph talking with a visitor who called himself Joshua, the Jewish minister; (3) the 1838 history discussed above, published in 1842 and now in the Pearl of Great Price; (4) Orson Pratt’s publication, the first publicly disseminated, of the Prophet’s vision in his Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, issued in 1840 in Edinburgh, Scotland; (5) Orson Hyde’s revision of Orson Pratt’s pamphlet, published in 1842 for German readers and adding some insights that may have come from his contact with Joseph Smith; (6) the Wentworth Letter, created in response to editor John Wentworth’s inquiry and published by Joseph Smith in 1842 in Times and Seasons; this account adapted parts of Orson Pratt’s pamphlet; (7) Levi Richards’s diary about Joseph Smith preaching in the summer of 1843 and repeating the Lord’s first message to him that no church was His; (8) a newspaper interview in the fall of 1843; (9) Alexander Neibaur’s 1844 journal entry of a conversation at the Prophet’s house. {{Ensign1|author=Richard L. Anderson|date=April 1996|article=Joseph Smith’s Testimony of the First Vision|start=}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=67017cf34f40c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''January 2005 ''Ensign:''''' During the lifetime of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the story of his First Vision was told in print several times, by him (in 1832, 1835, 1838–39, and 1842), or by others who had heard his account and retold it (in 1840, 1842, 1843, and 1844). —{{Ensign1|author=Ronald O. Barney|article=The First Vision: Searching for the Truth|date=January 2005|start=14–19}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=d7805ef93e84b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

====CES manuals====
*'''CES Manual 2003''': Church Educational System, “Additional Details from Joseph Smith’s 1832 Account of the First Vision,” in ''Presidents of the Church: Student Manual'' (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2003), 5–6. {{link|url=http://institute.lds.org/manuals/presidents-of-the-church-student-manual/pres-ch-01-03-1.asp}}
*'''CES Manual 2003''': Church Educational System, “The First Vision,” in ''Church History in the Fullness of Times: Student Manual'' (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2003), 29–36. {{link|url=http://institute.lds.org/manuals/church-history-institute-student-manual/chft-01-05-3.asp}}
====Books====
*'''2005''': {{OpeningtheHeavens|author=James B. Allen and John W. Welch|article=The Appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith in 1820|start=35|end=75}} See also ''BYU Studies'' version:{{pdflink|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?prodid=1954&type=7}}
*'''2002''': {{PWJSOrig|start=5|end=6, 75–76, 199–200, 213}}
*'''2002''': {{PWJS|start=9|end=20}}
*'''1989''': {{PJSVol1|start=6|end=7, 127, 272–73, 429–30, 444, and 448–49.}}
*'''1985''': Dean C. Jessee, “The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” in Robert L. Millet and Kent P. Jackson, eds., ''Studies in Scripture, Volume 2: The Pearl of Great Price'' (Salt Lake City: Randall Book, 1985), 303–314.
*'''1984''': Dean C. Jessee, ''The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision (Mormon Miscellaneous reprint series)'' (Mormon Miscellaneous, 1984).
*'''1980''': Milton V. Backman Jr., ''Joseph Smith’s First Vision: Confirming Evidences and Contemporary Accounts'', 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980).
*'''1981''': Adele Brannon McCollum, “The First Vision: Re-Visioning Historical Experience,” in Neal E. Lambert, ed., ''Literature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experience'' (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1981), 177–96.
*'''1971''': Milton V. Backman, ''Joseph Smith’s First Vision: The first vision in its historical context'' (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971).
*'''1970''': {{IE|author=James B. Allen|article=Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision–What Do We Learn from Them?|date=April 1970|start=4|end=13}}

==Kinderhook plates==
===Joseph and the Church thought the Kinderhook plates were authentic for many years===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Many in the Church believed that the Kinderhook plates were authentic for many years until they were shown to be forgeries. Joseph was offered the chance to translate them, but did not.|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''August 1981 ''Ensign:''''' "A recent electronic and chemical analysis of a metal plate (one of six original plates) brought in 1843 to the Prophet Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, appears to solve a previously unanswered question in Church history, helping to further evidence that the plate is what its producers later said it was—a nineteenth-century attempt to lure Joseph Smith into making a translation of ancient-looking characters that had been etched into the plates. Joseph Smith did not make the hoped-for translation. In fact, no evidence exists that he manifested any further interest in the plates after early examination of them, although some members of the Church hoped that they would prove to be significant. But the plates never did." —{{Ensign1|author=Stanley B. Kimball|article=Kinderhook Plates Brought to Joseph Smith Appear to Be a Nineteenth-Century Hoax|date=Aug 1981|start=66}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=b6a8aeca0ea6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

==Kirtland Safety Society==
===Bank was unchartered===
{{HiddenFact|fact=The Kirtland Safety Society was unchartered, failed, and Joseph Smith was legally charged because of this.|location=The ''Ensign''}}

* {{Ensign1|author=Milton V. Backman Jr.|article=A Warning from Kirtland|date=Apr 1989|start=26}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=821f27cd3f37b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
* {{Ensign1|author=Milton V. Backman Jr.|article=Kirtland: The Crucial Years|date=Jan 1979|start=24}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=8b25d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
* {{Ensign1|author=Ronald K. Esplin|article=Hyrum Smith: The Mildness of a Lamb, the Integrity of Job|date=Feb 2000|start=30}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=62606a4430c0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
* Glen M. Leonard, “Triumph and Tragedy,” ''Tambuli'' (Mar 1979): 34. {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ad105991d66db010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
* {{Ensign1|author=Larry C. Porter|article=Christmas with the Prophet Joseph|date=Dec 1978|start=9}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=4444d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*{{Ensign1|author=Russell R. Rich|article=Nineteenth-Century Break-offs|date=Sep 1979|start=68}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=09cd615b01a6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

===Bank was held to be illegal===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Kirtland Safety Society was judged illegal.|location=''BYU Studies''}}

*{{BYUS1|author=Dale W. Adams|article=Chartering the Kirtland Bank|vol= 23|num=4|date=Fall 1983|start=467–482}}{{pdflink|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?Type=7&ProdID=885}}
*{{BYUS|author=Marvin S. Hill, Keith C. Rooker and Larry T. Wimmer|article=The Kirtland Economy Revisited: A Market Critique of Sectarian Economics|vol=17|num=4|date=Summer 1977|start=389|end=471}}{{pdflink|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?Type=7&ProdID=1457}}
*{{BYUS|author=Paul Sampson and Larry T. Wimmer|article=The Kirtland Safety Society: The Stock Ledger Book and the Bank Failure|vol=12|num=4|date=Summer 1972|start=427|end=436}}{{link|url=http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/byustudies&CISOPTR=277&CISOSHOW=271&REC=2}}
*{{BYUS|author=Scott H. Partridge|article=The Failure of the Kirtland Safety Society|vol=12|num=4|date=Summer 1972|start=437|end=454}}{{pdflink|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?Type=7&ProdID=655}}

==Martyrdom==
===Joseph fired a gun at Carthage Jail===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph Smith was smuggled a gun while in Carthage Jail, and fired it at his attackers|location=Joseph's gun displayed in the Museum of Church History and Art, ''History of the Church'', The ''Ensign'', Primary lessons 32 and 37}}
====Museum of Church History and Art====
*Joseph's pistol is displayed in the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City, Utah, and labeled as such. An image of the pepperbox pistol may be viewed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JosephSmithPepperbox1.jpg here]]]

====The ''Ensign''====
*'''June 1994 ''Ensign:''''' The Prophet dropped to his brother. “Oh! My poor, dear brother Hyrum,” he groaned. The deep look of sympathy on Joseph’s face fastened itself to Elder Taylor’s mind. The Prophet then stood, and with a firm step he went to the door, '''pulled the pepperbox from his pocket, and, reaching around the door casing, fired blindly into the hallway. He snapped all six shots.''' Half discharged, striking three men. —{{Ensign1|author=Reed Blake|article=Martyrdom at Carthage|date=June 1994|start=30}} {{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=35b6425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''April 1984 ''Ensign:''''' ...the Mormons on the inside of the jail, '''including the Smiths, presented pistols through the windows and doors''' of the jail, and fired upon the guard" —{{Ensign1|author=Larry C. Porter|article=I Have A Question: "How did the U.S. press react when Joseph and Hyrum were murdered?|date=April 1984|start=22–23}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ed0c05481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}} A photo of the pistol is in January 1984 edition of the ''Ensign''.
====Church lesson manuals====
*'''Primary manual, 1997:''' The brethren tried to bar the door shut and use their few weapons to drive off the mob. '''Joseph Smith fired a pistol''' and John Taylor used his heavy cane to try to knock down the guns of the mob as they were pushed into the room through the door, but there were too many people in the mob for the brethren to defend themselves. —“Lesson 37: Joseph and Hyrum Smith Are Martyred,” ''Primary 5: Doctrine and Covenants: Church History'' (1997), 210. {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=048ba41f6cc20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=637e1b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}} Note that the pistol is here described even in a children's lesson manual!
*'''Gospel Doctrine manual, Lesson 32''': '''Joseph continued snapping his revolver''' round the casing of the door into the space as before. —“To Seal the Testimony”, ''Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual'', 183. {{ea}} {{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c2719207f7c20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=32c41b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
====The ''History of the Church''====
*''History of the Church'' tells about the pistol x 2.
There are many more references to the pistol in Church publications.
{{SeeAlso|Joseph Smith/Martyrdom/Joseph fired a gun|Joseph Smith/Martyrdom/Hiding Joseph's gun|l1=Joseph Smith fired a pistol|l2=Hiding Joseph's gun}}

==Word of Wisdom==
===Joseph drank wine===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph drank wine while at Carthage Jail|location=''History of the Church''}}
[[Word_of_Wisdom|Joseph and others drank wine]] at Carthage. This fact is presented without apology in {{HoC1|vol=6|start=616}}:
<blockquote>
Before the jailor came in, his boy brought in some water, and said the guard wanted some wine. Joseph gave Dr. Richards two dollars to give the guard; but the guard said one was enough, and would take no more.
 
The guard immediately sent for a bottle of wine, pipes, and two small papers of tobacco; and one of the guards brought them into the jail soon after the jailor went out. '''Dr. Richards uncorked the bottle, and presented a glass to Joseph, who tasted, as also Brother Taylor and the doctor, and the bottle was then given to the guard''', who turned to go out. When at the top of the stairs some one below called him two or three times, and he went down. {{ea}}
</blockquote>

==Joseph and politics==
===Joseph's campaign for President===
{{HiddenFact|fact=Joseph campaigned for President of the United States|location=The ''Ensign''}}

*'''February 2009, ''Ensign''''': It was unanimously decided that '''Joseph Smith would run for president of the United States on an independent platform'''. Thus began one of the most fascinating third-party presidential campaigns in American history. —Arnold K. Garr, “Joseph Smith: Campaign for President of the United States,” Ensign, Feb 2009, 48–52 {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ea469d9ff732f110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}} {{ea}}

==The Book of Abraham==
===The papyri and the Book of the Dead===
{{HiddenFact|fact=The text of the Joseph Smith papyri does not match the text of the Book of Abraham|location=The ''Improvement Era '', the ''Ensign''}}

*'''August 1968 ''Improvement Era:''''' The largest part of the papyri in the possession of the Church consists of fragments from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. —{{IE|author=Hugh Nibley|article=A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price|date=August 1968|start=56|end=57}} This issue contains color photographs of the papyri. A scan of the page from the article can be viewed [[Book of Abraham/Book of the Dead/Scan (full size)|here]].
*'''March 1976 ''Ensign:''''' A Book of Breathings text that closely matches the Joseph Smith version (and there are precious few of them) is the so-called Kerasher Book of Breathings. It too has a frontispiece, only in this case it is the same as our Facsimile No. 3, showing that it too is closely associated with our text." —Hugh Nibley, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, Mar. 1976, 34–36 {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=294cfd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
*'''July 1988 ''Ensign:''''' Why doesn’t the translation of the Egyptian papyri found in 1967 match the text of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price? —Michael D. Rhodes, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, July 1988, 51–53 {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a8c1d7630a27b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}



==Violence and conflict==
===The Danites===
{{HiddenFact|fact=A group Church members called the Danites attacked non-Mormons|location=The ''Friend'', the ''New Era'', the ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Friend''====
*'''July 1993 ''Friend''''': One Mormon, Sampson Avard, formed a group, called the Danites, to seek revenge on the Missourians. But when the Danites attacked the nonmembers, it only gave them more reason to distrust the Saints. —Sherrie Johnson, “Persecutions in Missouri,” Friend, Jul 1993, 47 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=042555faa5cab010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
====The ''New Era''====
*'''March 1972 ''New Era''''': Zane Grey, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joaquin Miller, and a host of lesser-known writers have used the Danites, but perhaps the most well-known treatment is that of A. Conan Doyle in A Study of Scarlet... —Neal E. Lambert and Richard H. Cracroft, “Through Gentile Eyes: A Hundred Years of the Mormon in Fiction,” New Era, Mar 1972, 14 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=6abc18e7c379b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''April 1979 ''Ensign''''': Sampson Avard, an elder in Far West, may have taken license from the address to organize a covert society called the Danites which engaged in activities that did much damage to the Church’s reputation. —Max H Parkin, “Missouri’s Impact on the Church,” Ensign, Apr 1979, 57 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=bcf7d0640b96b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}
====Other Church magazines====
*'''March 1979 ''Tambuli''''': Exaggerated reports of this confrontation reached Governor Boggs. He was told that the Saints were burning towns, driving established settlers from their homes and undermining civil authority through the activities of a group known as the “Danites”—a band of avengers. Joseph Smith was charged with being the prime instigator but had nothing to do with it and exposed the participants when he became aware of it. —Glen M. Leonard, “Triumph and Tragedy,” Tambuli, Mar 1979, 34 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ad105991d66db010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

====Mountain Meadows Massacre====
{{HiddenFact|fact=Members of the Church perpetrated the massacre of a wagon train in 1857|location=The ''Ensign''}}
====The ''Ensign''====
*'''September 2007 ''Ensign''''': For a century and a half the Mountain Meadows Massacre has shocked and distressed those who have learned of it. The tragedy has deeply grieved the victims’ relatives, burdened the perpetrators’ descendants and Church members generally with sorrow and feelings of collective guilt, unleashed criticism on the Church, and raised painful, difficult questions. How could this have happened? How could members of the Church have participated in such a crime? —Richard E. Turley Jr., “The Mountain Meadows Massacre,” Ensign, Sep 2007, 14–21 {{link|url=http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=1c234dc029133110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|sorenson.pt1}} {{DiggingPt1}}
#{{note|sorenson.pt2}} {{DiggingPt2}}
#{{note|gregory.1}} Cited in {{FR-18-1-16}}

Racial issues and the Church of Jesus Christ/Brigham Young/Race mixing punishable by death

2009-12-06T16:17:31Z

DavidKeller: /* Criticism */

{{RacePortal}}

==Criticism==
"...Brigham Young said race mixing was punishable by death."

{{CriticalSources}}

[[Master-slave race mixing ]]

==Response==
This criticism refers to a pair of statements, but more often the latter, made by Brigham Young:

*If they [a mixed race couple] were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc1}}

*Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.{{ref|jd1}}

The "chosen seed," in LDS doctrine, are those who hold the Melchizedek priesthood (see {{s||DC|107|40}}). So, Brigham is likely addressing his remarks particularly to those under the "oath and covenant" of the priesthood. This is not surprising, since the rest of the United States was certainly not listening with any respect to the Mormons, whose polygamy and doctrines they regarded with abhorrence.

With the Civil War at full burn, Brigham went on to declare: "I say to all men and all women, submit to God, to his ordinances and to His rule; serve Him, and cease your quarrelling, and stay the shedding of each other's blood." He is thus in the mode of condemning the United States and the "nations of the earth" for their sins, and he then says:

:If the Government of the United States, in Congress assembled, had the right to pass an anti-polygamy bill, they had also the right to pass a law that slaves should not be abused as they have been; they had also a right to make a law that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. '''For their abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent'''.{{ref|jd2}}

As governor of Utah Territory in 1852, Brigham Young had promoted legislation that he takes the US government to task for not passing. Positioning Utah to be strategically admitted to the Union as a slave state, Brigham Young nevertheless advocated humane treatment of slaves and provisions for their eventual release. Summarizing the 1852 legislation, Lester Bush wrote:

:Though Negro slaves could no longer choose to leave their masters, some elements of consent were included. Slaves brought into the Territory had to come "of their own free will and choice"; and they could not be sold or taken from the Territory against their will. Though a fixed period of servitude was not prescribed for Negroes, the law provided "that no contract shall bind the heirs of the servant ... for a longer period than will satisfy the debt due his [master] ..." Several unique '''provisions were included which terminated the owner's contract in the event that the master had sexual intercourse with a servant "of the African race,"''' neglected to feed, clothe, shelter, or otherwise abused the servant, or attempted to take him from the Territory against his will. Some schooling was also required for slaves between the ages of six and twenty.{{ref|bush1}}

In the 1863 context, Brigham Young did not sympathize with pro-abolitionist sentiments in the North or the pro-slavery sentiments in the South, but advocated a moderate, middle ground. His practical remedy for a master coercing sexual relations with a foreign slave was not the master's death as Old Testament styled retribution might require, but the slave's freedom.

==Brigham's Remarks in Historical Context==

Brigham made his remarks, then, in the context of a civil war over the issue of slavery. Brigham condemned the ''white male'' (and perhaps priesthood holder) who "mixes" with black Africans. Why?

When would a white person "mix their seed" with the blacks? At the time, black slaves could not legally marry—this was a "human right," and the slave-holding states were very careful not to let blacks marry, since to do so implied that they had human rights (and, if they have one right, why not a right to be free?) As a history of marriage in the United States noted:

:The slaveholder's callous lust—his moral violence as well as his physical cruelty—gave abolitionists their most effective theme. Sexual abuse of female slaves by rape, incest, forced mating, and concubinage figured even more sensationally in abolitionist literature than the sale of slave family members..."No part of the dark and hidden iniquities of slavery" deserved revelation more than its travesty of the "nuptial covenant" with "odious lusts," the abolitionist George Bourne intoned, referring to the master's unchecked freedom to use the bodies of his female slaves.{{ref|cott1}}

Representative Justin Morrill, who would help write the first anti-polygamous legislation, thundered that "By the license of Slavery, a whole race is delivered over to prostitution and concubinage, without the protection of any law."{{ref|morrill1}}

So, under what conditions would a white priesthood holder (or any white) be mixing their seed with a black woman? All too often, this was under the context of what was essentially rape and assault. Many slave-holders kept their own children in slavery, as they sired children on black slaves who could not refuse. By law, any child born to a slave was automatically a slave. One southern woman wrote:

:God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system...the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from the clouds.{{ref|cott2}}

Blacks created a variety of their own arrangements which formalized these "informal" marriages, but families were always at risk of being broken up and sold by their owners, with no recourse. A major element of post-Civil War federal policy was the establishment of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which had "the aim to reorient slaves' sexual and family behavior around legal marriage,"{{ref|cott3}} a goal which had been impossible under generations of slavery.

Intermarriage with blacks was either illegal or virtually unheard of, and for decades after the Civil War, courts repeatedly rebuffed efforts by mixed race couples to legalize their unions.{{ref|cott6}}

Thus, a good part of Brigham's objection likely rested on the circumstances which would attend most white male/black woman pairings in his day. He would have likely known of no counter-examples—no relationships with blacks could be legal, and most resulted from duress.

Spiritual death seems an appropriate punishment for a priesthood holder who behaved in such a way, and literal capital punishment might not be too severe if "the law of God" could be administered by a genuine prophet. There are few crimes more grievous than to treat others as subhuman, and rape the powerless.

==Conclusion==

Brigham Young's comments were a condemnation of abuse and rape of helpless black women, and not an overtly racist statement condemning interracial marriage.

In 1863, couplings between black women and white men would virtually always be a relationship of a staggering power imbalance, with few rights for the woman, who was often forced into sexual activity. Her children would have been automatic slaves if she was a slave, and the men under no legal responsibility to provide for her or the children. (This failure to provide for offspring was a common Mormon criticism of Gentile non-marriage relationships when contrasted with plural marriage.)

Unlike contemporary 1860s fears for the virtue of ''white women'' when subjected to the predation of black men,{{ref|cott4}}. Brigham was far more worried about white men abusing their position of political and cultural superiority.

This is not to say that Brigham did not share some ideas about the desirability of keeping races separate; virtually everyone of his era did. American ethnologists taught that whites and blacks were separately created races, the mixture of which would corrupt both.{{ref|cott5}}

But, when in the same speech Brigham Young condemns the whites for their treatment of blacks, and threatens punishment for white men who have what is likely forced intercourse with black women, it is not fair to portray him as a ravening racist with no concern for the downtrodden. His fire and brimstone is all for the aggressor; his sympathy is for those who were mistreated.

==Endnotes==

# {{note|jd1}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=110|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}}
# {{note|jd2}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=111|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}} (emphasis added)
# {{note|cott1}} Nancy F. Cott, ''Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000), 58.
# {{note|cott2}} Mary Boykin Chestnut, diary, from ''Root of Bitterness'', ed. Nancy F. Cott (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1972), 209; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 59.
# {{note|morril1}} Morrill (Vermont), 1860; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 74.
# {{note|cott3}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 84.
# {{note|cott6}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 101–104.
# {{note|cott4}} See Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98—99.
# {{note|cott5}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98–99.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===

{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===

{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}

===Printed material===

{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}

Racial issues and the Church of Jesus Christ/Brigham Young/Race mixing punishable by death

2009-12-06T16:14:28Z

DavidKeller: /* Criticism */

{{RacePortal}}

==Criticism==
"...Brigham Young said race mixing was punishable by death."

{{CriticalSources}}

[Brigham Young on master-llave race mixing]

==Response==
This criticism refers to a pair of statements, but more often the latter, made by Brigham Young:

*If they [a mixed race couple] were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc1}}

*Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.{{ref|jd1}}

The "chosen seed," in LDS doctrine, are those who hold the Melchizedek priesthood (see {{s||DC|107|40}}). So, Brigham is likely addressing his remarks particularly to those under the "oath and covenant" of the priesthood. This is not surprising, since the rest of the United States was certainly not listening with any respect to the Mormons, whose polygamy and doctrines they regarded with abhorrence.

With the Civil War at full burn, Brigham went on to declare: "I say to all men and all women, submit to God, to his ordinances and to His rule; serve Him, and cease your quarrelling, and stay the shedding of each other's blood." He is thus in the mode of condemning the United States and the "nations of the earth" for their sins, and he then says:

:If the Government of the United States, in Congress assembled, had the right to pass an anti-polygamy bill, they had also the right to pass a law that slaves should not be abused as they have been; they had also a right to make a law that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. '''For their abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent'''.{{ref|jd2}}

As governor of Utah Territory in 1852, Brigham Young had promoted legislation that he takes the US government to task for not passing. Positioning Utah to be strategically admitted to the Union as a slave state, Brigham Young nevertheless advocated humane treatment of slaves and provisions for their eventual release. Summarizing the 1852 legislation, Lester Bush wrote:

:Though Negro slaves could no longer choose to leave their masters, some elements of consent were included. Slaves brought into the Territory had to come "of their own free will and choice"; and they could not be sold or taken from the Territory against their will. Though a fixed period of servitude was not prescribed for Negroes, the law provided "that no contract shall bind the heirs of the servant ... for a longer period than will satisfy the debt due his [master] ..." Several unique '''provisions were included which terminated the owner's contract in the event that the master had sexual intercourse with a servant "of the African race,"''' neglected to feed, clothe, shelter, or otherwise abused the servant, or attempted to take him from the Territory against his will. Some schooling was also required for slaves between the ages of six and twenty.{{ref|bush1}}

In the 1863 context, Brigham Young did not sympathize with pro-abolitionist sentiments in the North or the pro-slavery sentiments in the South, but advocated a moderate, middle ground. His practical remedy for a master coercing sexual relations with a foreign slave was not the master's death as Old Testament styled retribution might require, but the slave's freedom.

==Brigham's Remarks in Historical Context==

Brigham made his remarks, then, in the context of a civil war over the issue of slavery. Brigham condemned the ''white male'' (and perhaps priesthood holder) who "mixes" with black Africans. Why?

When would a white person "mix their seed" with the blacks? At the time, black slaves could not legally marry—this was a "human right," and the slave-holding states were very careful not to let blacks marry, since to do so implied that they had human rights (and, if they have one right, why not a right to be free?) As a history of marriage in the United States noted:

:The slaveholder's callous lust—his moral violence as well as his physical cruelty—gave abolitionists their most effective theme. Sexual abuse of female slaves by rape, incest, forced mating, and concubinage figured even more sensationally in abolitionist literature than the sale of slave family members..."No part of the dark and hidden iniquities of slavery" deserved revelation more than its travesty of the "nuptial covenant" with "odious lusts," the abolitionist George Bourne intoned, referring to the master's unchecked freedom to use the bodies of his female slaves.{{ref|cott1}}

Representative Justin Morrill, who would help write the first anti-polygamous legislation, thundered that "By the license of Slavery, a whole race is delivered over to prostitution and concubinage, without the protection of any law."{{ref|morrill1}}

So, under what conditions would a white priesthood holder (or any white) be mixing their seed with a black woman? All too often, this was under the context of what was essentially rape and assault. Many slave-holders kept their own children in slavery, as they sired children on black slaves who could not refuse. By law, any child born to a slave was automatically a slave. One southern woman wrote:

:God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system...the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from the clouds.{{ref|cott2}}

Blacks created a variety of their own arrangements which formalized these "informal" marriages, but families were always at risk of being broken up and sold by their owners, with no recourse. A major element of post-Civil War federal policy was the establishment of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which had "the aim to reorient slaves' sexual and family behavior around legal marriage,"{{ref|cott3}} a goal which had been impossible under generations of slavery.

Intermarriage with blacks was either illegal or virtually unheard of, and for decades after the Civil War, courts repeatedly rebuffed efforts by mixed race couples to legalize their unions.{{ref|cott6}}

Thus, a good part of Brigham's objection likely rested on the circumstances which would attend most white male/black woman pairings in his day. He would have likely known of no counter-examples—no relationships with blacks could be legal, and most resulted from duress.

Spiritual death seems an appropriate punishment for a priesthood holder who behaved in such a way, and literal capital punishment might not be too severe if "the law of God" could be administered by a genuine prophet. There are few crimes more grievous than to treat others as subhuman, and rape the powerless.

==Conclusion==

Brigham Young's comments were a condemnation of abuse and rape of helpless black women, and not an overtly racist statement condemning interracial marriage.

In 1863, couplings between black women and white men would virtually always be a relationship of a staggering power imbalance, with few rights for the woman, who was often forced into sexual activity. Her children would have been automatic slaves if she was a slave, and the men under no legal responsibility to provide for her or the children. (This failure to provide for offspring was a common Mormon criticism of Gentile non-marriage relationships when contrasted with plural marriage.)

Unlike contemporary 1860s fears for the virtue of ''white women'' when subjected to the predation of black men,{{ref|cott4}}. Brigham was far more worried about white men abusing their position of political and cultural superiority.

This is not to say that Brigham did not share some ideas about the desirability of keeping races separate; virtually everyone of his era did. American ethnologists taught that whites and blacks were separately created races, the mixture of which would corrupt both.{{ref|cott5}}

But, when in the same speech Brigham Young condemns the whites for their treatment of blacks, and threatens punishment for white men who have what is likely forced intercourse with black women, it is not fair to portray him as a ravening racist with no concern for the downtrodden. His fire and brimstone is all for the aggressor; his sympathy is for those who were mistreated.

==Endnotes==

# {{note|jd1}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=110|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}}
# {{note|jd2}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=111|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}} (emphasis added)
# {{note|cott1}} Nancy F. Cott, ''Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000), 58.
# {{note|cott2}} Mary Boykin Chestnut, diary, from ''Root of Bitterness'', ed. Nancy F. Cott (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1972), 209; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 59.
# {{note|morril1}} Morrill (Vermont), 1860; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 74.
# {{note|cott3}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 84.
# {{note|cott6}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 101–104.
# {{note|cott4}} See Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98—99.
# {{note|cott5}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98–99.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===

{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===

{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}

===Printed material===

{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}

Racial issues and the Church of Jesus Christ/Brigham Young/Race mixing punishable by death

2009-12-05T23:23:02Z

DavidKeller: /* Response */

{{RacePortal}}

==Criticism==
"...Brigham Young said race mixing was punishable by death."

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==
This criticism refers to a pair of statements, but more often the latter, made by Brigham Young:

*If they [a mixed race couple] were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc1}}

*Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.{{ref|jd1}}

The "chosen seed," in LDS doctrine, are those who hold the Melchizedek priesthood (see {{s||DC|107|40}}). So, Brigham is likely addressing his remarks particularly to those under the "oath and covenant" of the priesthood. This is not surprising, since the rest of the United States was certainly not listening with any respect to the Mormons, whose polygamy and doctrines they regarded with abhorrence.

With the Civil War at full burn, Brigham went on to declare: "I say to all men and all women, submit to God, to his ordinances and to His rule; serve Him, and cease your quarrelling, and stay the shedding of each other's blood." He is thus in the mode of condemning the United States and the "nations of the earth" for their sins, and he then says:

:If the Government of the United States, in Congress assembled, had the right to pass an anti-polygamy bill, they had also the right to pass a law that slaves should not be abused as they have been; they had also a right to make a law that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. '''For their abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent'''.{{ref|jd2}}

As governor of Utah Territory in 1852, Brigham Young had promoted legislation that he takes the US government to task for not passing. Positioning Utah to be strategically admitted to the Union as a slave state, Brigham Young nevertheless advocated humane treatment of slaves and provisions for their eventual release. Summarizing the 1852 legislation, Lester Bush wrote:

:Though Negro slaves could no longer choose to leave their masters, some elements of consent were included. Slaves brought into the Territory had to come "of their own free will and choice"; and they could not be sold or taken from the Territory against their will. Though a fixed period of servitude was not prescribed for Negroes, the law provided "that no contract shall bind the heirs of the servant ... for a longer period than will satisfy the debt due his [master] ..." Several unique '''provisions were included which terminated the owner's contract in the event that the master had sexual intercourse with a servant "of the African race,"''' neglected to feed, clothe, shelter, or otherwise abused the servant, or attempted to take him from the Territory against his will. Some schooling was also required for slaves between the ages of six and twenty.{{ref|bush1}}

In the 1863 context, Brigham Young did not sympathize with pro-abolitionist sentiments in the North or the pro-slavery sentiments in the South, but advocated a moderate, middle ground. His practical remedy for a master coercing sexual relations with a foreign slave was not the master's death as Old Testament styled retribution might require, but the slave's freedom.

==Brigham's Remarks in Historical Context==

Brigham made his remarks, then, in the context of a civil war over the issue of slavery. Brigham condemned the ''white male'' (and perhaps priesthood holder) who "mixes" with black Africans. Why?

When would a white person "mix their seed" with the blacks? At the time, black slaves could not legally marry—this was a "human right," and the slave-holding states were very careful not to let blacks marry, since to do so implied that they had human rights (and, if they have one right, why not a right to be free?) As a history of marriage in the United States noted:

:The slaveholder's callous lust—his moral violence as well as his physical cruelty—gave abolitionists their most effective theme. Sexual abuse of female slaves by rape, incest, forced mating, and concubinage figured even more sensationally in abolitionist literature than the sale of slave family members..."No part of the dark and hidden iniquities of slavery" deserved revelation more than its travesty of the "nuptial covenant" with "odious lusts," the abolitionist George Bourne intoned, referring to the master's unchecked freedom to use the bodies of his female slaves.{{ref|cott1}}

Representative Justin Morrill, who would help write the first anti-polygamous legislation, thundered that "By the license of Slavery, a whole race is delivered over to prostitution and concubinage, without the protection of any law."{{ref|morrill1}}

So, under what conditions would a white priesthood holder (or any white) be mixing their seed with a black woman? All too often, this was under the context of what was essentially rape and assault. Many slave-holders kept their own children in slavery, as they sired children on black slaves who could not refuse. By law, any child born to a slave was automatically a slave. One southern woman wrote:

:God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system...the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from the clouds.{{ref|cott2}}

Blacks created a variety of their own arrangements which formalized these "informal" marriages, but families were always at risk of being broken up and sold by their owners, with no recourse. A major element of post-Civil War federal policy was the establishment of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which had "the aim to reorient slaves' sexual and family behavior around legal marriage,"{{ref|cott3}} a goal which had been impossible under generations of slavery.

Intermarriage with blacks was either illegal or virtually unheard of, and for decades after the Civil War, courts repeatedly rebuffed efforts by mixed race couples to legalize their unions.{{ref|cott6}}

Thus, a good part of Brigham's objection likely rested on the circumstances which would attend most white male/black woman pairings in his day. He would have likely known of no counter-examples—no relationships with blacks could be legal, and most resulted from duress.

Spiritual death seems an appropriate punishment for a priesthood holder who behaved in such a way, and literal capital punishment might not be too severe if "the law of God" could be administered by a genuine prophet. There are few crimes more grievous than to treat others as subhuman, and rape the powerless.

==Conclusion==

Brigham Young's comments were a condemnation of abuse and rape of helpless black women, and not an overtly racist statement condemning interracial marriage.

In 1863, couplings between black women and white men would virtually always be a relationship of a staggering power imbalance, with few rights for the woman, who was often forced into sexual activity. Her children would have been automatic slaves if she was a slave, and the men under no legal responsibility to provide for her or the children. (This failure to provide for offspring was a common Mormon criticism of Gentile non-marriage relationships when contrasted with plural marriage.)

Unlike contemporary 1860s fears for the virtue of ''white women'' when subjected to the predation of black men,{{ref|cott4}}. Brigham was far more worried about white men abusing their position of political and cultural superiority.

This is not to say that Brigham did not share some ideas about the desirability of keeping races separate; virtually everyone of his era did. American ethnologists taught that whites and blacks were separately created races, the mixture of which would corrupt both.{{ref|cott5}}

But, when in the same speech Brigham Young condemns the whites for their treatment of blacks, and threatens punishment for white men who have what is likely forced intercourse with black women, it is not fair to portray him as a ravening racist with no concern for the downtrodden. His fire and brimstone is all for the aggressor; his sympathy is for those who were mistreated.

==Endnotes==

# {{note|jd1}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=110|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}}
# {{note|jd2}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=111|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}} (emphasis added)
# {{note|cott1}} Nancy F. Cott, ''Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000), 58.
# {{note|cott2}} Mary Boykin Chestnut, diary, from ''Root of Bitterness'', ed. Nancy F. Cott (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1972), 209; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 59.
# {{note|morril1}} Morrill (Vermont), 1860; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 74.
# {{note|cott3}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 84.
# {{note|cott6}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 101–104.
# {{note|cott4}} See Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98—99.
# {{note|cott5}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98–99.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===

{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===

{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}

===Printed material===

{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}

Racial issues and the Church of Jesus Christ/Brigham Young/Race mixing punishable by death

2009-12-05T23:19:25Z

DavidKeller: /* Response */ added Dec. 3 quote

{{RacePortal}}

==Criticism==
"...Brigham Young said race mixing was punishable by death."

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==
This criticism refers to a pair of statements, but more often the latter, made by Brigham Young:

:If they [a mixed race couple] were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc1}}

:Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.{{ref|jd1}}

The "chosen seed," in LDS doctrine, are those who hold the Melchizedek priesthood (see {{s||DC|107|40}}). So, Brigham is likely addressing his remarks particularly to those under the "oath and covenant" of the priesthood. This is not surprising, since the rest of the United States was certainly not listening with any respect to the Mormons, whose polygamy and doctrines they regarded with abhorrence.

With the Civil War at full burn, Brigham went on to declare: "I say to all men and all women, submit to God, to his ordinances and to His rule; serve Him, and cease your quarrelling, and stay the shedding of each other's blood." He is thus in the mode of condemning the United States and the "nations of the earth" for their sins, and he then says:

:If the Government of the United States, in Congress assembled, had the right to pass an anti-polygamy bill, they had also the right to pass a law that slaves should not be abused as they have been; they had also a right to make a law that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. '''For their abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent'''.{{ref|jd2}}

As governor of Utah Territory in 1852, Brigham Young had promoted legislation that he takes the US government to task for not passing. Positioning Utah to be strategically admitted to the Union as a slave state, Brigham Young nevertheless advocated humane treatment of slaves and provisions for their eventual release. Summarizing the 1852 legislation, Lester Bush wrote:

:Though Negro slaves could no longer choose to leave their masters, some elements of consent were included. Slaves brought into the Territory had to come "of their own free will and choice"; and they could not be sold or taken from the Territory against their will. Though a fixed period of servitude was not prescribed for Negroes, the law provided "that no contract shall bind the heirs of the servant ... for a longer period than will satisfy the debt due his [master] ..." Several unique '''provisions were included which terminated the owner's contract in the event that the master had sexual intercourse with a servant "of the African race,"''' neglected to feed, clothe, shelter, or otherwise abused the servant, or attempted to take him from the Territory against his will. Some schooling was also required for slaves between the ages of six and twenty.{{ref|bush1}}

In the 1863 context, Brigham Young did not sympathize with pro-abolitionist sentiments in the North or the pro-slavery sentiments in the South, but advocated a moderate, middle ground. His practical remedy for a master coercing sexual relations with a foreign slave was not the master's death as Old Testament styled retribution might require, but the slave's freedom.

==Brigham's Remarks in Historical Context==

Brigham made his remarks, then, in the context of a civil war over the issue of slavery. Brigham condemned the ''white male'' (and perhaps priesthood holder) who "mixes" with black Africans. Why?

When would a white person "mix their seed" with the blacks? At the time, black slaves could not legally marry—this was a "human right," and the slave-holding states were very careful not to let blacks marry, since to do so implied that they had human rights (and, if they have one right, why not a right to be free?) As a history of marriage in the United States noted:

:The slaveholder's callous lust—his moral violence as well as his physical cruelty—gave abolitionists their most effective theme. Sexual abuse of female slaves by rape, incest, forced mating, and concubinage figured even more sensationally in abolitionist literature than the sale of slave family members..."No part of the dark and hidden iniquities of slavery" deserved revelation more than its travesty of the "nuptial covenant" with "odious lusts," the abolitionist George Bourne intoned, referring to the master's unchecked freedom to use the bodies of his female slaves.{{ref|cott1}}

Representative Justin Morrill, who would help write the first anti-polygamous legislation, thundered that "By the license of Slavery, a whole race is delivered over to prostitution and concubinage, without the protection of any law."{{ref|morrill1}}

So, under what conditions would a white priesthood holder (or any white) be mixing their seed with a black woman? All too often, this was under the context of what was essentially rape and assault. Many slave-holders kept their own children in slavery, as they sired children on black slaves who could not refuse. By law, any child born to a slave was automatically a slave. One southern woman wrote:

:God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system...the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from the clouds.{{ref|cott2}}

Blacks created a variety of their own arrangements which formalized these "informal" marriages, but families were always at risk of being broken up and sold by their owners, with no recourse. A major element of post-Civil War federal policy was the establishment of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which had "the aim to reorient slaves' sexual and family behavior around legal marriage,"{{ref|cott3}} a goal which had been impossible under generations of slavery.

Intermarriage with blacks was either illegal or virtually unheard of, and for decades after the Civil War, courts repeatedly rebuffed efforts by mixed race couples to legalize their unions.{{ref|cott6}}

Thus, a good part of Brigham's objection likely rested on the circumstances which would attend most white male/black woman pairings in his day. He would have likely known of no counter-examples—no relationships with blacks could be legal, and most resulted from duress.

Spiritual death seems an appropriate punishment for a priesthood holder who behaved in such a way, and literal capital punishment might not be too severe if "the law of God" could be administered by a genuine prophet. There are few crimes more grievous than to treat others as subhuman, and rape the powerless.

==Conclusion==

Brigham Young's comments were a condemnation of abuse and rape of helpless black women, and not an overtly racist statement condemning interracial marriage.

In 1863, couplings between black women and white men would virtually always be a relationship of a staggering power imbalance, with few rights for the woman, who was often forced into sexual activity. Her children would have been automatic slaves if she was a slave, and the men under no legal responsibility to provide for her or the children. (This failure to provide for offspring was a common Mormon criticism of Gentile non-marriage relationships when contrasted with plural marriage.)

Unlike contemporary 1860s fears for the virtue of ''white women'' when subjected to the predation of black men,{{ref|cott4}}. Brigham was far more worried about white men abusing their position of political and cultural superiority.

This is not to say that Brigham did not share some ideas about the desirability of keeping races separate; virtually everyone of his era did. American ethnologists taught that whites and blacks were separately created races, the mixture of which would corrupt both.{{ref|cott5}}

But, when in the same speech Brigham Young condemns the whites for their treatment of blacks, and threatens punishment for white men who have what is likely forced intercourse with black women, it is not fair to portray him as a ravening racist with no concern for the downtrodden. His fire and brimstone is all for the aggressor; his sympathy is for those who were mistreated.

==Endnotes==

# {{note|jd1}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=110|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}}
# {{note|jd2}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=111|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}} (emphasis added)
# {{note|cott1}} Nancy F. Cott, ''Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000), 58.
# {{note|cott2}} Mary Boykin Chestnut, diary, from ''Root of Bitterness'', ed. Nancy F. Cott (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1972), 209; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 59.
# {{note|morril1}} Morrill (Vermont), 1860; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 74.
# {{note|cott3}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 84.
# {{note|cott6}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 101–104.
# {{note|cott4}} See Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98—99.
# {{note|cott5}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98–99.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===

{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===

{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}

===Printed material===

{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}

Joseph Smith/Seer stones/"Rock in hat" used for Book of Mormon translation

2009-12-05T22:40:51Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

{{draft}}
=Why did Joseph use the same stone for translating the Book of Mormon that he used for "money digging"=
==Criticism==
Joseph was given a set of Nephite interpreters along with the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was produced. In addition, Joseph already possessed and utilized several seer stones. Although Joseph began translating the Book of Mormon using the Nephite interpreters, he later switched to using one of his seer stones to complete the translation. Critics (typically those who reject Mormonism but still believe in God) reject the idea that God would approve the use of an instrument for translation that had previously been used for "money digging." The following questions are raised:
#Would God approve the use of a "magic peep stone" in translating a sacred record?
#Why would Joseph ''not'' continue to use the sacred interpreters provided with the Nephite record?
#Didn't Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge trial prove that he had previously been using his stone for nefarious purposes?

==Response==

For a more detailed treatment of this subject, see Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.

===A "magical peep stone?"===

Brant Gardner notes that Joseph filled the role of "village seer," and that the invitation of village seers to assist local treasure diggers was actually an English tradition. According to Keith Thomas,
<blockquote>
There was not necessarily anything magical about the search for treasure as such, but in practice the assistance of a conjurer or wizard was very frequently invoked. This was partly because it was thought that special divining tools might help, such as the 'Mosaical Rods' for which many contemporary formulae survive. {{ref|thomas1}}
</blockquote>

Gardner continues by confirming that "[w]hat the modern world tends to know about the village seers is the result of only one of the ways in which their talents were put to use. Since they could see that which was hidden, local seers became involved in the mania of digging for lost treasure." {{ref|gardner3}} Add to this the statements regarding Joseph's money digging activities mentioned in the [[The Hurlbut affidavits|Hurlbut affidavits]], and it is easy to see why critics wish to make an issue regarding Joseph's utilization of the his "treasure seeking" seer stone to assist in the translation of the Book of Mormon.

{{Detail|Joseph Smith/Money digging|The Hurlbut affidavits|l1=Joseph Smith and "money digging"|l2=The Hurlbut affidavits}}

===Joseph as a glasslooker: the 1826 Bainbridge "trial"===

Even Joseph himself noted that he was sought out by Josiah Stowell ("Stoal") to use the stone to find hidden valuables. ({{scripture||JS-H|1|55-56}}) Stowell "came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye."{{ref|lucymack1}}

Stowell eventually joined the Church; some of his family and community religious leaders {{ref|keller1}}, however, brought charges against Joseph in court for events related to this treasure seeking effort. This led to what is commonly referred to as Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge "glasslooking trial." Although this proceeding was used to accuse Joseph of being a "disorderly person" and attempting to defraud Stowell, it should be noted that Stowell actually testified in Joseph's defense. The report of the result of this proceeding varies depending upon who is telling the story. Some say that Joseph was found "guilty," or "condemned." Others indicate that he was "discharged." Constable De Zeng indicated that the proceeding was "not a trial." A synthesis of all the evidence indicates a favorable outcome for Joseph Smith.{{ref|keller2}}

Gardner concludes that "[t]he implication is that since Joseph used a peep stone, he must be seen in the same category as those who ran a scam with one. Clearly the 1826 court appearance tells us that some contemporaries considered him in that category....However, the fact that the communities would be willing to follow the confidence scheme simply tells us that there was an existing belief system in which seer stones were considered effective and acceptable." {{ref|gardner4}} More recent critics, notably Dan Vogel, have argued that Joseph belongs in the category of a pious fraud, a model that others have found incoherent and inadequate to explain Joseph's successes and failures as a village seer (and later prophet) and his tendency to polarize acquaintances into believers or debunkers. {{ref|keller3}}{{ref|luke1}}

{{Detail|Joseph Smith/Legal trials/1826 glasslooking trial|l1=Joseph's 1826 glasslooking trial}}

===Why did Joseph continue translating the Book of Mormon using the seer stone instead of the Nephite interpreters?===

The Nephite interpreters which were given to Joseph along with the plates consisted of two stones set in a bow, resembling a pair of "large spectacles." Martin Harris described the Nephite interpreters as being "about two inches in diameter, perfectly round, and about five-eighths of an inch thick at the centre.... They were joined by a round bar of diver, about three-eights of an inch in diameter, and about four inches long, which with the two stones, would make eight inches."{{ref|harris1}}

The Nephite interpreters, therefore, were yet another set of seer stones. It is unsurprising that Joseph would be completely comfortable with these instruments, given his experience with the use of seer stones up to that time.

Latter-day Saints associate the term "Urim and Thummim" with these interpreters. Gardner notes,
<blockquote>
We all know that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon;mdash;except he didn't. The Book of Mormon mentions interpreters, but not the Urim and Thummim. It was the Book of Mormon interpreters which were given to Joseph with the plates. When Moroni took back the interpreters after the loss of the 116 manuscript pages, Joseph completed the translation with one of his seer stones. Until after the translation of the Book of Mormon, the Urim and Thummim belonged to the Bible and the Bible only. [51] The Urim and Thummim became part of the story when it was presented within and to the Great Tradition. Eventually, even Joseph Smith used Urim and Thummim indiscriminately as labels generically representing either the Book of Mormon interpreters or the seer stone used during translation. [52] {{ref|gardner5}}
</blockquote>

After the loss of the 116 pages, contemporary accounts are very clear that Joseph continued the translation using his seer stone. In later years, the term "Urim and Thummin" was retroactively applied to both the Nephite interpreters ''and'' to Joseph's seer stone. Thus the use of "Urim and Thummin" tends to obscure the fact that two different instruments were employed.

{{Detail|Book of Mormon/Translation/Method|l1=Chronology of statements regarding translation methods used for the Book of Mormon}}

===The stone and the plates===

Joseph's seer stone may even have played a role in the location of the plates and the Nephite interpreters themselves. There is considerable evidence that the location of the plates and Nephite interpreters were revealed to Joseph via his second, white seer stone. In 1859, Martin Harris recalled that "Joseph had a stone which was dug from the well of Mason Chase...It was by means of this stone he first discovered the plates."{{ref|stoneplates1}}

Some critics have sought to create a contradiction here, since Joseph's history reported that Moroni revealed the plates to him ({{s||JS-H|1|34-35,42}}). This is an example of a false dichotomy: Moroni could easily have told Joseph about the plates and interpreters. The vision to Joseph may well have then come through the seer stone, as some of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants (e.g., Section X) would later be revealed. One account matches this theory well:

<blockquote>
I had a conversation with [Joseph], and asked him where he found them [the plates] and how he come to know where they were. he said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his [seer] stone and saw them in the place of deposit."{{ref|henryharris1}}
</blockquote>

Joseph used his white seer stone sometimes "for convenience" during the translation of the 116 pages with Martin Harris; later witnesses reported him using his brown seer stone.{{ref|variousstones1}}

==Conclusion==
The conclusion drawn by critics that Joseph used a "magical" or "occult" stone to assist in the translation of the Book of Mormon is entirely dependent upon their own preconception that the use of such an instrument would ''not'' be acceptable by God. Believers, on the other hand, ought not to take issue with a distinction between one set of seer stones versus another. As Brant Gardner notes: "Regardless of the perspective from which we tell the story, the essential fact of the translation is unchanged. How was the Book of Mormon translated? As Joseph continually insisted, the only real answer, from any perspective, is that it was translated by the gift and power of God." {{ref|gardner6}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|thomas1}}Keith Thomas, ''Religion and the Decline of Magic'', 234 quoted by Gardner in ''Joseph the Seer...''
#{{note|gardner3}}Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.
#{{note|lucymack1}} {{biosketch|start=91|end=92}}
#{{note||keller1}}David Keller, [http://www.fairblog.org/2008/03/27/the-bainbridge-conspiracy/ The Bainbridge Conspiracy], Fair Blog, March 23, 2008
#{{note||keller2}}David Keller, [http://www.fairblog.org/2008/12/17/not-guilty/ Not Guilty], Fair Blog, Dec. 17, 2008
#{{note|gardner4}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''
#{{note|keller3}}David Keller, [http://www.fairblog.org/2008/05/05/seer-or-pious-fraud/ Seer or Pious Fraud], Fair Blog, May 5, 2008
#{{note|luke1}}Trevor Luke, "The Scandal in the Practice: Joseph Smith as a Religious Performer" 2009 Sunstone Conference
#{{note|harris1}} Joel Tiffany, "Mormonism—No. II," ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 165–166; cited in VanWagoner and Walker, footnote 27.
#{{note|gardner5}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''. Gardner references [51] J. V. Coombs, ''Religious Delusions: Studies of the False Faiths of To-Day'' and [52' Richard Van Wagoner and Steve Walker, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing'", ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'' vol. 15, no. 2 (Summer 1982):62, who note that "These stones could not have been the Nephite interpreters, yet Joseph specifically calls them 'Urim and Thummim.' The most obvious explanation for such wording is that he used the term generically to include any device with the potential for 'communicating light perfectly, and intelligence perfectly, through a principle that God has ordained for that purpose,' as John Taylor would later put it."
#{{note|stoneplates1}} Mormonism—II," ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 163, see also 169; cited in Ashurst-McGee (2000), 286.
#{{note|henryharris1}} Henry Harris, statement in E.D. Howe ''Mormonism Unvailed'' (1833), 252; cited in Ashurst-McGee (2000), 290.
#{{note|variousstones1}} See {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=320|end=326}}
#{{note|gardner6}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''

==Further reading==
*Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.

Joseph Smith/Seer stones/"Rock in hat" used for Book of Mormon translation

2009-12-05T22:27:25Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

{{draft}}
=Why did Joseph use the same stone for translating the Book of Mormon that he used for "money digging"=
==Criticism==
Joseph was given a set of Nephite interpreters along with the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was produced. In addition, Joseph already possessed and utilized several seer stones. Although Joseph began translating the Book of Mormon using the Nephite interpreters, he later switched to using one of his seer stones to complete the translation. Critics (typically those who reject Mormonism but still believe in God) reject the idea that God would approve the use of an instrument for translation that had previously been used for "money digging." The following questions are raised:
#Would God approve the use of a "magic peep stone" in translating a sacred record?
#Why would Joseph ''not'' continue to use the sacred interpreters provided with the Nephite record?
#Didn't Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge trial prove that he had previously been using his stone for nefarious purposes?

==Response==

For a more detailed treatment of this subject, see Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.

===A "magical peep stone?"===

Brant Gardner notes that Joseph filled the role of "village seer," and that the invitation of village seers to assist local treasure diggers was actually an English tradition. According to Keith Thomas,
<blockquote>
There was not necessarily anything magical about the search for treasure as such, but in practice the assistance of a conjurer or wizard was very frequently invoked. This was partly because it was thought that special divining tools might help, such as the 'Mosaical Rods' for which many contemporary formulae survive. {{ref|thomas1}}
</blockquote>

Gardner continues by confirming that "[w]hat the modern world tends to know about the village seers is the result of only one of the ways in which their talents were put to use. Since they could see that which was hidden, local seers became involved in the mania of digging for lost treasure." {{ref|gardner3}} Add to this the statements regarding Joseph's money digging activities mentioned in the [[The Hurlbut affidavits|Hurlbut affidavits]], and it is easy to see why critics wish to make an issue regarding Joseph's utilization of the his "treasure seeking" seer stone to assist in the translation of the Book of Mormon.

{{Detail|Joseph Smith/Money digging|The Hurlbut affidavits|l1=Joseph Smith and "money digging"|l2=The Hurlbut affidavits}}

===Joseph as a glasslooker: the 1826 Bainbridge "trial"===

Even Joseph himself noted that he was sought out by Josiah Stowell ("Stoal") to use the stone to find hidden valuables. ({{scripture||JS-H|1|55-56}}) Stowell "came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye."{{ref|lucymack1}}

Stowell eventually joined the Church; some of his family and community religious leaders {{ref|keller1}}, however, brought charges against Joseph in court for events related to this treasure seeking effort. This led to what is commonly referred to as Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge "glasslooking trial." Although this proceeding was used to accuse Joseph of being a "disorderly person" and attempting to defraud Stowell, it should be noted that Stowell actually testified in Joseph's defense. The report of the result of this proceeding varies depending upon who is telling the story. Some say that Joseph was found "guilty," or "condemned." Others indicate that he was "discharged." Constable De Zeng indicated that the proceeding was "not a trial." A synthesis of all the evidence indicates a favorable outcome for Joseph Smith.{{ref|keller2}}

Gardner concludes that "[t]he implication is that since Joseph used a peep stone, he must be seen in the same category as those who ran a scam with one. Clearly the 1826 court appearance tells us that some contemporaries considered him in that category....However, the fact that the communities would be willing to follow the confidence scheme simply tells us that there was an existing belief system in which seer stones were considered effective and acceptable." {{ref|gardner4}} More recent critics, notably Dan Vogel, have argued that Joseph belongs in the category of a pious fraud, a model that others have found incoherent and inadequate to explain Joseph's successes and failures as a village seer (and later prophet) and his tendency to polarize acquaintances into believers or debunkers. {{ref|keller3}}{{ref|luke1}}

{{Detail|Joseph Smith/Legal trials/1826 glasslooking trial|l1=Joseph's 1826 glasslooking trial}}

===Why did Joseph continue translating the Book of Mormon using the seer stone instead of the Nephite interpreters?===

The Nephite interpreters which were given to Joseph along with the plates consisted of two stones set in a bow, resembling a pair of "large spectacles." Martin Harris described the Nephite interpreters as being "about two inches in diameter, perfectly round, and about five-eighths of an inch thick at the centre.... They were joined by a round bar of diver, about three-eights of an inch in diameter, and about four inches long, which with the two stones, would make eight inches."{{ref|harris1}}

The Nephite interpreters, therefore, were yet another set of seer stones. It is unsurprising that Joseph would be completely comfortable with these instruments, given his experience with the use of seer stones up to that time.

Latter-day Saints associate the term "Urim and Thummim" with these interpreters. Gardner notes,
<blockquote>
We all know that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon;mdash;except he didn't. The Book of Mormon mentions interpreters, but not the Urim and Thummim. It was the Book of Mormon interpreters which were given to Joseph with the plates. When Moroni took back the interpreters after the loss of the 116 manuscript pages, Joseph completed the translation with one of his seer stones. Until after the translation of the Book of Mormon, the Urim and Thummim belonged to the Bible and the Bible only. [51] The Urim and Thummim became part of the story when it was presented within and to the Great Tradition. Eventually, even Joseph Smith used Urim and Thummim indiscriminately as labels generically representing either the Book of Mormon interpreters or the seer stone used during translation. [52] {{ref|gardner5}}
</blockquote>

After the loss of the 116 pages, contemporary accounts are very clear that Joseph continued the translation using his seer stone. In later years, the term "Urim and Thummin" was retroactively applied to both the Nephite interpreters ''and'' to Joseph's seer stone. Thus the use of "Urim and Thummin" tends to obscure the fact that two different instruments were employed.

{{Detail|Book of Mormon/Translation/Method|l1=Chronology of statements regarding translation methods used for the Book of Mormon}}

===The stone and the plates===

Joseph's seer stone may even have played a role in the location of the plates and the Nephite interpreters themselves. There is considerable evidence that the location of the plates and Nephite interpreters were revealed to Joseph via his second, white seer stone. In 1859, Martin Harris recalled that "Joseph had a stone which was dug from the well of Mason Chase...It was by means of this stone he first discovered the plates."{{ref|stoneplates1}}

Some critics have sought to create a contradiction here, since Joseph's history reported that Moroni revealed the plates to him ({{s||JS-H|1|34-35,42}}). This is an example of a false dichotomy: Moroni could easily have told Joseph about the plates and interpreters. The vision to Joseph may well have then come through the seer stone, as some of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants (e.g., Section X) would later be revealed. One account matches this theory well:

<blockquote>
I had a conversation with [Joseph], and asked him where he found them [the plates] and how he come to know where they were. he said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his [seer] stone and saw them in the place of deposit."{{ref|henryharris1}}
</blockquote>

Joseph used his white seer stone sometimes "for convenience" during the translation of the 116 pages with Martin Harris; later witnesses reported him using his brown seer stone.{{ref|variousstones1}}

==Conclusion==
The conclusion drawn by critics that Joseph used a "magical" or "occult" stone to assist in the translation of the Book of Mormon is entirely dependent upon their own preconception that the use of such an instrument would ''not'' be acceptable by God. Believers, on the other hand, ought not to take issue with a distinction between one set of seer stones versus another. As Brant Gardner notes: "Regardless of the perspective from which we tell the story, the essential fact of the translation is unchanged. How was the Book of Mormon translated? As Joseph continually insisted, the only real answer, from any perspective, is that it was translated by the gift and power of God." {{ref|gardner6}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|thomas1}}Keith Thomas, ''Religion and the Decline of Magic'', 234 quoted by Gardner in ''Joseph the Seer...''
#{{note|gardner3}}Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.
#{{note|lucymack1}} {{biosketch|start=91|end=92}}
#{{note||keller1}} David Keller, [http://www.fairblog.org/2008/03/27/the-bainbridge-conspiracy/ The Bainbridge Conspiracy], Fair Blog March 23, 2008
#{{note||keller2}} David Keller, [http://www.fairblog.org/2008/12/17/not-guilty/ Not Guilty], Fair Blog, Dec. 17, 2008
#{{note|gardner4}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''
#{{note|harris1}} Joel Tiffany, "Mormonism—No. II," ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 165–166; cited in VanWagoner and Walker, footnote 27.
#{{note|gardner5}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''. Gardner references [51] J. V. Coombs, ''Religious Delusions: Studies of the False Faiths of To-Day'' and [52' Richard Van Wagoner and Steve Walker, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing'", ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'' vol. 15, no. 2 (Summer 1982):62, who note that "These stones could not have been the Nephite interpreters, yet Joseph specifically calls them 'Urim and Thummim.' The most obvious explanation for such wording is that he used the term generically to include any device with the potential for 'communicating light perfectly, and intelligence perfectly, through a principle that God has ordained for that purpose,' as John Taylor would later put it."
#{{note|stoneplates1}} Mormonism—II," ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 163, see also 169; cited in Ashurst-McGee (2000), 286.
#{{note|henryharris1}} Henry Harris, statement in E.D. Howe ''Mormonism Unvailed'' (1833), 252; cited in Ashurst-McGee (2000), 290.
#{{note|variousstones1}} See {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=320|end=326}}
#{{note|gardner6}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''

==Further reading==
*Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.

Joseph Smith/Seer stones/"Rock in hat" used for Book of Mormon translation

2009-12-05T22:21:11Z

DavidKeller: /* Joseph as a glasslooker: the 1826 Bainbridge "trial" */

{{draft}}
=Why did Joseph use the same stone for translating the Book of Mormon that he used for "money digging"=
==Criticism==
Joseph was given a set of Nephite interpreters along with the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was produced. In addition, Joseph already possessed and utilized several seer stones. Although Joseph began translating the Book of Mormon using the Nephite interpreters, he later switched to using one of his seer stones to complete the translation. Critics (typically those who reject Mormonism but still believe in God) reject the idea that God would approve the use of an instrument for translation that had previously been used for "money digging." The following questions are raised:
#Would God approve the use of a "magic peep stone" in translating a sacred record?
#Why would Joseph ''not'' continue to use the sacred interpreters provided with the Nephite record?
#Didn't Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge trial prove that he had previously been using his stone for nefarious purposes?

==Response==

For a more detailed treatment of this subject, see Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.

===A "magical peep stone?"===

Brant Gardner notes that Joseph filled the role of "village seer," and that the invitation of village seers to assist local treasure diggers was actually an English tradition. According to Keith Thomas,
<blockquote>
There was not necessarily anything magical about the search for treasure as such, but in practice the assistance of a conjurer or wizard was very frequently invoked. This was partly because it was thought that special divining tools might help, such as the 'Mosaical Rods' for which many contemporary formulae survive. {{ref|thomas1}}
</blockquote>

Gardner continues by confirming that "[w]hat the modern world tends to know about the village seers is the result of only one of the ways in which their talents were put to use. Since they could see that which was hidden, local seers became involved in the mania of digging for lost treasure." {{ref|gardner3}} Add to this the statements regarding Joseph's money digging activities mentioned in the [[The Hurlbut affidavits|Hurlbut affidavits]], and it is easy to see why critics wish to make an issue regarding Joseph's utilization of the his "treasure seeking" seer stone to assist in the translation of the Book of Mormon.

{{Detail|Joseph Smith/Money digging|The Hurlbut affidavits|l1=Joseph Smith and "money digging"|l2=The Hurlbut affidavits}}

===Joseph as a glasslooker: the 1826 Bainbridge "trial"===

Even Joseph himself noted that he was sought out by Josiah Stowell ("Stoal") to use the stone to find hidden valuables. ({{scripture||JS-H|1|55-56}}) Stowell "came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye."{{ref|lucymack1}}

Stowell eventually joined the Church; some of his family and community religious leaders {{ref|keller1}}, however, brought charges against Joseph in court for events related to this treasure seeking effort. This led to what is commonly referred to as Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge "glasslooking trial." Although this proceeding was used to accuse Joseph of being a "disorderly person" and attempting to defraud Stowell, it should be noted that Stowell actually testified in Joseph's defense. The report of the result of this proceeding varies depending upon who is telling the story. Some say that Joseph was found "guilty," or "condemned." Others indicate that he was "discharged." Constable De Zeng indicated that the proceeding was "not a trial." A synthesis of all the evidence indicates a favorable outcome for Joseph Smith.{{ref|keller2}}

Gardner concludes that "[t]he implication is that since Joseph used a peep stone, he must be seen in the same category as those who ran a scam with one. Clearly the 1826 court appearance tells us that some contemporaries considered him in that category....However, the fact that the communities would be willing to follow the confidence scheme simply tells us that there was an existing belief system in which seer stones were considered effective and acceptable." {{ref|gardner4}} More recent critics, notably Dan Vogel, have argued that Joseph belongs in the category of a pious fraud, a model that others have found incoherent and inadequate to explain Joseph's successes and failures as a village seer (and later prophet) and his tendency to polarize acquaintances into believers or debunkers. {{ref|keller3}}{{ref|luke1}}

{{Detail|Joseph Smith/Legal trials/1826 glasslooking trial|l1=Joseph's 1826 glasslooking trial}}

===Why did Joseph continue translating the Book of Mormon using the seer stone instead of the Nephite interpreters?===

The Nephite interpreters which were given to Joseph along with the plates consisted of two stones set in a bow, resembling a pair of "large spectacles." Martin Harris described the Nephite interpreters as being "about two inches in diameter, perfectly round, and about five-eighths of an inch thick at the centre.... They were joined by a round bar of diver, about three-eights of an inch in diameter, and about four inches long, which with the two stones, would make eight inches."{{ref|harris1}}

The Nephite interpreters, therefore, were yet another set of seer stones. It is unsurprising that Joseph would be completely comfortable with these instruments, given his experience with the use of seer stones up to that time.

Latter-day Saints associate the term "Urim and Thummim" with these interpreters. Gardner notes,
<blockquote>
We all know that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon;mdash;except he didn't. The Book of Mormon mentions interpreters, but not the Urim and Thummim. It was the Book of Mormon interpreters which were given to Joseph with the plates. When Moroni took back the interpreters after the loss of the 116 manuscript pages, Joseph completed the translation with one of his seer stones. Until after the translation of the Book of Mormon, the Urim and Thummim belonged to the Bible and the Bible only. [51] The Urim and Thummim became part of the story when it was presented within and to the Great Tradition. Eventually, even Joseph Smith used Urim and Thummim indiscriminately as labels generically representing either the Book of Mormon interpreters or the seer stone used during translation. [52] {{ref|gardner5}}
</blockquote>

After the loss of the 116 pages, contemporary accounts are very clear that Joseph continued the translation using his seer stone. In later years, the term "Urim and Thummin" was retroactively applied to both the Nephite interpreters ''and'' to Joseph's seer stone. Thus the use of "Urim and Thummin" tends to obscure the fact that two different instruments were employed.

{{Detail|Book of Mormon/Translation/Method|l1=Chronology of statements regarding translation methods used for the Book of Mormon}}

===The stone and the plates===

Joseph's seer stone may even have played a role in the location of the plates and the Nephite interpreters themselves. There is considerable evidence that the location of the plates and Nephite interpreters were revealed to Joseph via his second, white seer stone. In 1859, Martin Harris recalled that "Joseph had a stone which was dug from the well of Mason Chase...It was by means of this stone he first discovered the plates."{{ref|stoneplates1}}

Some critics have sought to create a contradiction here, since Joseph's history reported that Moroni revealed the plates to him ({{s||JS-H|1|34-35,42}}). This is an example of a false dichotomy: Moroni could easily have told Joseph about the plates and interpreters. The vision to Joseph may well have then come through the seer stone, as some of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants (e.g., Section X) would later be revealed. One account matches this theory well:

<blockquote>
I had a conversation with [Joseph], and asked him where he found them [the plates] and how he come to know where they were. he said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his [seer] stone and saw them in the place of deposit."{{ref|henryharris1}}
</blockquote>

Joseph used his white seer stone sometimes "for convenience" during the translation of the 116 pages with Martin Harris; later witnesses reported him using his brown seer stone.{{ref|variousstones1}}

==Conclusion==
The conclusion drawn by critics that Joseph used a "magical" or "occult" stone to assist in the translation of the Book of Mormon is entirely dependent upon their own preconception that the use of such an instrument would ''not'' be acceptable by God. Believers, on the other hand, ought not to take issue with a distinction between one set of seer stones versus another. As Brant Gardner notes: "Regardless of the perspective from which we tell the story, the essential fact of the translation is unchanged. How was the Book of Mormon translated? As Joseph continually insisted, the only real answer, from any perspective, is that it was translated by the gift and power of God." {{ref|gardner6}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|thomas1}}Keith Thomas, ''Religion and the Decline of Magic'', 234 quoted by Gardner in ''Joseph the Seer...''
#{{note|gardner3}}Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.
#{{note|lucymack1}} {{biosketch|start=91|end=92}}
#{{note|gardner4}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''
#{{note|harris1}} Joel Tiffany, "Mormonism—No. II," ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 165–166; cited in VanWagoner and Walker, footnote 27.
#{{note|gardner5}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''. Gardner references [51] J. V. Coombs, ''Religious Delusions: Studies of the False Faiths of To-Day'' and [52' Richard Van Wagoner and Steve Walker, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing'", ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'' vol. 15, no. 2 (Summer 1982):62, who note that "These stones could not have been the Nephite interpreters, yet Joseph specifically calls them 'Urim and Thummim.' The most obvious explanation for such wording is that he used the term generically to include any device with the potential for 'communicating light perfectly, and intelligence perfectly, through a principle that God has ordained for that purpose,' as John Taylor would later put it."
#{{note|stoneplates1}} Mormonism—II," ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 163, see also 169; cited in Ashurst-McGee (2000), 286.
#{{note|henryharris1}} Henry Harris, statement in E.D. Howe ''Mormonism Unvailed'' (1833), 252; cited in Ashurst-McGee (2000), 290.
#{{note|variousstones1}} See {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=320|end=326}}
#{{note|gardner6}}Gardner, ''Joseph the Seer''

==Further reading==
*Brant A. Gardner, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?], 2009 FAIR Conference presentation.

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T14:45:44Z

DavidKeller: /* Early Brigham Young's Administration (1844-1852) */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration (1844-1852)===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterward he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing. He was adamantly against racial amalgamation (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more context). While allowing that interracial couples should not be denied baptism, he introduced a ban on temple service for them and/or their offspring.

However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on priesthood or temple restrictions he imposed. A definitive statement wasn't made by him until 1852 in a legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Governor Young declared "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it." {{ref|bush5}} Like the Missouri period, the Saints were externally pressured to adopt racial policies as a political compromise. At the time, this was deemed to be the best pathway to statehood.

Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to these pivotal events as examples of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bringhurst2}}Newell G. Bringhurst, ''Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism'' (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), ??.
#{{note|bringhurst3}}''Saints, Slaves, and Blacks'', ??
#{{note|sc_dvd1}} Church Historian's Office. General Church Minutes, 1839–1877, March 26, 1847, in ''Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'', 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 2002), 1:18.
#{{note|sc_dvd2}} General Church Minutes, March 26, 1847.
#{{note|sc_dvd3}} General Church Minutes, April 25, 1847.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell G. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T14:41:39Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration (1844-1852)===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterward he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing. He was adamantly against racial amalgamation (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more context). While allowing that interracial couples should not be denied baptism, he introduced a ban on temple service for them and/or their offspring.

However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on priesthood or temple restrictions he imposed. A definitive statement wasn't made by him until 1852 in a legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Governor Young declared "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it." {{ref|bush5}} Like the Missouri period, the Saints were externally pressured to adopt pro-slavery policies as a political compromise. At the time, this was deemed to be the best pathway to statehood.

Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to these pivotal events as examples of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bringhurst2}}Newell G. Bringhurst, ''Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism'' (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), ??.
#{{note|bringhurst3}}''Saints, Slaves, and Blacks'', ??
#{{note|sc_dvd1}} Church Historian's Office. General Church Minutes, 1839–1877, March 26, 1847, in ''Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'', 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 2002), 1:18.
#{{note|sc_dvd2}} General Church Minutes, March 26, 1847.
#{{note|sc_dvd3}} General Church Minutes, April 25, 1847.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell G. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T14:11:25Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration (1844-1852)===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterward he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing. He was adamantly against racial amalgamation (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more context). While allowing that interracial couples should not be denied baptism, he introduced a ban on temple service for them and/or their offspring.

However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on priesthood or temple restrictions he imposed. A definitive statement wasn't made by him until 1852 in a legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Governor Young declared "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it." {{ref|bush5}} Like the Missouri period, the Saints were externally pressured to adopt pro-slavery policies as a political compromise. At the time, this was deemed to be the best pathway to statehood.

Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to these pivotal events as examples of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bringhurst2}}Newell G. Bringhurst, ''Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism'' (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), ??.
#{{note|bringhurst3}}''Saints, Slaves, and Blacks'', ??
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell G. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T13:46:35Z

DavidKeller: /* Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852 */ snipped O'Donovan quote for brevity

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration (1844-1852)===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterward he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing. He was adamantly against racial amalgamation (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more context). While allowing that interracial couples should not be denied baptism, he introduced a ban on temple service for them and/or their offspring.

However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on priesthood or temple restrictions he imposed. A definitive statement wasn't made by him until 1852 in a legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Governor Young declared "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it." {{ref|bush5}} Like the Missouri period, the Saints were externally pressured to adopt pro-slavery policies as a political compromise. At the time, this was deemed to be the best pathway to statehood.

Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to these pivotal events as examples of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T13:41:36Z

DavidKeller: /* Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852 */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterward he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing. He was adamantly against racial amalgamation (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more context). While allowing that interracial couples should not be denied baptism, he introduced a ban on temple service for them and/or their offspring.

Walker Lewis' biographer, Connell O'Donovan has argued "that William McCary’s troubling actions at Winter Quarters in the spring and fall of 1847, Young’s discovery of the Lewis-Webster marriage in December 1847, and Walker Lewis’ high standing in African Freemasonry, were the three most important factors in Brigham Young’s instigation of a priesthood ban against all men with African ancestry in late 1847 or early 1848."{{ref|connell1}}

However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on priesthood or temple restrictions he imposed. A definitive statement wasn't made by him until 1852 in a legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Governor Young declared "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it." {{ref|bush5}} Like the Missouri period, the Saints were externally pressured to adopt pro-slavery policies as a political compromise. At the time, this was deemed to be the best pathway to statehood.

Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to these pivotal events as examples of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T12:38:36Z

DavidKeller: /* Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844) */ cut time line -- too much trivia

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc_dvd4}}

Walker Lewis' biographer, Connell O'Donovan has argued "that William McCary’s troubling actions at Winter Quarters in the spring and fall of 1847, Young’s discovery of the Lewis-Webster marriage in December 1847, and Walker Lewis’ high standing in African Freemasonry, were the three most important factors in Brigham Young’s instigation of a priesthood ban against all men with African ancestry in late 1847 or early 1848."{{ref|connell1}}

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well. However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered in an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T02:39:34Z

DavidKeller: /* Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844) */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

'''Other notable events during Joseph Smith tenure'''

'''1830''' The Book of Mormon was published. It describes an inherited, yet not immutable, Lamanite curse associated with skin color brought on by apostasy and schism.
'''1830''' The Book of Moses was revealed. It expands on curses given to Cain, Lamech, and their lands ({{s||Moses|5|25,36,52,56}}). It also describes a cursed nation and region called Caanan during Enoch's dispensation due to apostasy ({{s||Moses|7|8,10,15,20}}). 
'''1831''' According to W. W. Phelps very late recollection, Joseph Smith received a revelation encouraging Saints to marry Indians. 
'''1831''' Many members are caught up in a wave of false revelations in Ohio. Black Pete is excommunicated for his spurious prophetic claims. Pete may have brought up the possibility of interracial marriage with Joseph Smith, but no revelation addressing white/black unions was forthcoming. 
'''1835''' The Book of Abraham was revealed. It addresses a Pharaoh's lack of priesthood rights and associates that with Pharaoh's Canaanite blood and lineage from Ham, Egyptus (meaning forbidden), and the first Pharaoh that Noah cursed ({{s||Abraham|1|21-27}}). It also described a premortal council wherein noble spirits were selected to become rulers. ({{s||Abraham|3|22-27}})) 
'''1836''' Patriarchal blessing given to Elijah Abel. "To be made equal to thy brethren", but no lineage declared. Elijah Abel ordained a seventy and received the Kirtland endowment, the last known black male to participate in a temple ordinance until 1978. He may have just missed another opportunity by serving a mission during Joseph Smith's introduction of Nauvoo temple ordinances. 
'''1837''' Wilford Woodruff noted the apostasy of Isaac van Meter. 
'''1841''' Joseph Smith expounded on Noah's curse on Canaan. Canaan accused Noah of being drunk. Noah cursed him and the curse has persisted with his posterity until then. {{CHC1 | vol=4|start=445}} 
'''1842''' Joseph Smith identifies contemporary blacks as the seed of Cain {{CHC1 | vol=4|start=501}}. 
'''184?''' Joseph Smith taught that, upon conversion, gentile blood is transmuted into Israelite blood. This might be an overlooked explanation for why exceptional blacks were ordained during Joseph Smith's tenure as their cursed blood would no longer be an issue on an individual basis. 
'''184?''' Patriarchal blessing for Anthony Stebbings, Jane Manning's brother-in-law and the man whom Joseph Smith, in the capacity of municipal judge, fined for the unlicensed selling of liquor. Joseph was moved to sell his horse to help Anthony raise money to free his daughter from slavery. 
'''1844''' Joseph Smith, in the capacity of municipal judge, fined a a pair of black men for proposing to a white woman in violation of an anti-miscegenation statute. 
'''1844''' Joseph Smith's presidential platform made provisions for gradually freeing slaves. Josiah Quincy would later praise Joseph as being ahead of his time. 
'''1844''' Jane Manning invited to be sealed to Joseph Smith. 

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc_dvd4}}

Walker Lewis' biographer, Connell O'Donovan has argued "that William McCary’s troubling actions at Winter Quarters in the spring and fall of 1847, Young’s discovery of the Lewis-Webster marriage in December 1847, and Walker Lewis’ high standing in African Freemasonry, were the three most important factors in Brigham Young’s instigation of a priesthood ban against all men with African ancestry in late 1847 or early 1848."{{ref|connell1}}

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well. However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered in an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T01:21:40Z

DavidKeller: /* Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844) */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Some other notable events during Joseph Smith tenure: 
1830 The Book of Mormon was published. It describes an inherited, yet not immutable, Lamanite curse associated with skin color brought on by apostasy and schism.
1830 The Book of Moses was revealed. It expands on curses given to Cain, Lamech, and their lands ({{s||Moses|5|25,36,52,56}}). It also describes a cursed nation and region called Caanan during Enoch's dispensation due to apostasy ({{s||Moses|7|8,10,15,20}}). 
1831 According to W. W. Phelps very late recollection, Joseph Smith received a revelation encouraging Saints to marry Indians. 
1831 Many members are caught up in a wave of false revelations in Ohio. Black Pete is excommunicated for his spurious prophetic claims. Pete may have brought up the possibility of interracial marriage with Joseph Smith, but no revelation addressing white/black unions was forthcoming. 
1835 The Book of Abraham was revealed. It addresses a Pharaoh's lack of priesthood rights and associates that with Pharaoh's Canaanite blood and lineage from Ham, Egyptus (meaning forbidden), and the first Pharaoh that Noah cursed ({{s||Abraham|1|21-27}}). It also described a premortal council wherein noble spirits were selected to become rulers. ({{s||Abraham|3|22-27}})) 
1836 Elijah Abel received the Kirtland endowment, the last known black male to participate in a temple ordinance until 1978. He may have just missed another opportunity by serving a mission during Joseph Smith's introduction of Nauvoo temple ordinances. 
1837 Wilford Woodruff noted the apostasy of Isaac van Meter. 
183? Patriarchal blessing given to Elijah Abel. To be made equal with his brethren and lineage declared to be of Canaan. 
183? Joseph Smith identifies contemporary blacks as the seed of Cain. 
184? Joseph Smith taught that, upon conversion, gentile blood is transmuted into Israelite blood. This might be an overlooked explanation for why exceptional blacks were ordained during Joseph Smith's tenure as their cursed blood would no longer be an issue on an individual basis. 
184? Patriarchal blessing for Anthony Stebbings, Jane Manning's brother-in-law and the man whom Joseph, in the capacity of municipal judge, fined for the unlicensed selling of liquor. Joseph Smith was moved to sell his horse to help Anthony raise money to free his daughter from slavery. 
184? Joseph Smith's presidential platform made provisions for gradually freeing slaves. Josiah Quincy would later praise Joseph as being ahead of his time. 
184? Jane Manning invited to be sealed to Joseph Smith. 

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc_dvd4}}

Walker Lewis' biographer, Connell O'Donovan has argued "that William McCary’s troubling actions at Winter Quarters in the spring and fall of 1847, Young’s discovery of the Lewis-Webster marriage in December 1847, and Walker Lewis’ high standing in African Freemasonry, were the three most important factors in Brigham Young’s instigation of a priesthood ban against all men with African ancestry in late 1847 or early 1848."{{ref|connell1}}

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well. However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered in an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T01:20:27Z

DavidKeller: /* Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844) */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Some other notable events during Joseph Smith tenure:
1830 The Book of Mormon was published. It describes an inherited, yet not immutable, Lamanite curse associated with skin color brought on by apostasy and schism.
1830 The Book of Moses was revealed. It expands on curses given to Cain, Lamech, and their lands ({{s||Moses|5|25,36,52,56}}). It also describes a cursed nation and region called Caanan during Enoch's dispensation due to apostasy ({{s||Moses|7|8,10,15,20}}). 
1831 According to W. W. Phelps very late recollection, Joseph Smith received a revelation encouraging Saints to marry Indians. 
1831 Many members are caught up in a wave of false revelations in Ohio. Black Pete is excommunicated for his spurious prophetic claims. Pete may have brought up the possibility of interracial marriage with Joseph Smith, but no revelation addressing white/black unions was forthcoming. 
1835 The Book of Abraham was revealed. It addresses a Pharaoh's lack of priesthood rights and associates that with Pharaoh's Canaanite blood and lineage from Ham, Egyptus (meaning forbidden), and the first Pharaoh that Noah cursed ({{s||Abraham|1|21-27}}). It also described a premortal council wherein noble spirits were selected to become rulers. ({{s||Abraham|3|22-27}})) 
1836 Elijah Abel received the Kirtland endowment, the last known black male to participate in a temple ordinance until 1978. He may have just missed another opportunity by serving a mission during Joseph Smith's introduction of Nauvoo temple ordinances. 
1837 Wilford Woodruff noted the apostasy of Isaac van Meter. 
183? Patriarchal blessing given to Elijah Abel. To be made equal with his brethren and lineage declared to be of Canaan. 
183? Joseph Smith identifies contemporary blacks as the seed of Cain. 
184? Joseph Smith taught that, upon conversion, gentile blood is transmuted into Israelite blood. This might be an overlooked explanation for why exceptional blacks were ordained during Joseph Smith's tenure as their cursed blood would no longer be an issue on an individual basis. 
184? Patriarchal blessing for Anthony Stebbings, Jane Manning's brother-in-law and the man whom Joseph, in the capacity of municipal judge, fined for the unlicensed selling of liquor. Joseph Smith was moved to sell his horse to help Anthony raise money to free his daughter from slavery. 
184? Joseph Smith's presidential platform made provisions for gradually freeing slaves. Josiah Quincy would later praise Joseph as being ahead of his time. 
184? Jane Manning invited to be sealed to Joseph Smith. 

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc_dvd4}}

Walker Lewis' biographer, Connell O'Donovan has argued "that William McCary’s troubling actions at Winter Quarters in the spring and fall of 1847, Young’s discovery of the Lewis-Webster marriage in December 1847, and Walker Lewis’ high standing in African Freemasonry, were the three most important factors in Brigham Young’s instigation of a priesthood ban against all men with African ancestry in late 1847 or early 1848."{{ref|connell1}}

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well. However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered in an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-04T01:17:01Z

DavidKeller: /* Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844) */ added chronology

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Some other notable events during Joseph Smith tenure:
1830 The Book of Mormon was published. It describes an inherited, yet not immutable, Lamanite curse associated with skin color brought on by apostasy and schism.
1830 The Book of Moses was revealed. It expands on curses given to Cain, Lamech, and their lands ({{s||Moses|5|25,36,52,56}}). It also describes a cursed nation and region called Caanan during Enoch's dispensation due to apostasy ({{s||Moses|7|8,10,15,20}}).
1831 According to W. W. Phelps very late recollection, Joseph Smith received a revelation encouraging Saints to marry Indians.
1831 Many members are caught up in a wave of false revelations in Ohio. Black Pete is excommunicated for his spurious prophetic claims. Pete may have brought up the possibility of interracial marriage with Joseph Smith, but no revelation addressing white/black unions was forthcoming.
1835 The Book of Abraham was revealed. It addresses a Pharaoh's lack of priesthood rights and associates that with Pharaoh's Canaanite blood and lineage from Ham, Egyptus (meaning forbidden), and the first Pharaoh that Noah cursed ({{s|Abraham|1|21-27}}). It also described a premortal council wherein noble spirits were selected to become rulers. ({{s|Abraham|3|22-27}}))
1836 Elijah Abel received the Kirtland endowment, the last known black male to participate in a temple ordinance until 1978. He may have just missed another opportunity by serving a mission during Joseph Smith's introduction of Nauvoo temple ordinances.
1837 Wilford Woodruff noted the apostasy of Isaac van Meter.
183? Patriarchal blessing given to Elijah Abel. To be made equal with his brethren and lineage declared to be of Canaan.
183? Joseph Smith identifies contemporary blacks as the seed of Cain.
184? Joseph Smith taught that, upon conversion, gentile blood is transmuted into Israelite blood. This might be an overlooked explanation for why exceptional blacks were ordained during Joseph Smith's tenure as their cursed blood would no longer be an issue on an individual basis.
184? Patriarchal blessing for Anthony Stebbings, Jane Manning's brother-in-law and the man whom Joseph, in the capacity of municipal judge, fined for the unlicensed selling of liquor. Joseph Smith was moved to sell his horse to help Anthony raise money to free his daughter from slavery.
184? Joseph Smith's presidential platform made provisions for gradually freeing slaves. Josiah Quincy would later praise Joseph as being ahead of his time.
184? Jane Manning invited to be sealed to Joseph Smith.

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc_dvd4}}

Walker Lewis' biographer, Connell O'Donovan has argued "that William McCary’s troubling actions at Winter Quarters in the spring and fall of 1847, Young’s discovery of the Lewis-Webster marriage in December 1847, and Walker Lewis’ high standing in African Freemasonry, were the three most important factors in Brigham Young’s instigation of a priesthood ban against all men with African ancestry in late 1847 or early 1848."{{ref|connell1}}

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well. However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered in an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-03T23:33:07Z

DavidKeller: /* Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852 */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[ Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22 | curse of Cain through Ham]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing]] for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc_dvd4}}

Walker Lewis' biographer, Connell O'Donovan has argued "that William McCary’s troubling actions at Winter Quarters in the spring and fall of 1847, Young’s discovery of the Lewis-Webster marriage in December 1847, and Walker Lewis’ high standing in African Freemasonry, were the three most important factors in Brigham Young’s instigation of a priesthood ban against all men with African ancestry in late 1847 or early 1848."{{ref|connell1}}

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well. However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered in an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-03T23:29:08Z

DavidKeller: /* Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852 */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Early Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the [[curse of Cain through Ham | Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22]]. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a child. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see [[Brigham Young on race mixing|Brigham_Young_on_race_mixing]] for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc_dvd4}}

Walker Lewis' biographer, Connell O'Donovan has argued "that William McCary’s troubling actions at Winter Quarters in the spring and fall of 1847, Young’s discovery of the Lewis-Webster marriage in December 1847, and Walker Lewis’ high standing in African Freemasonry, were the three most important factors in Brigham Young’s instigation of a priesthood ban against all men with African ancestry in late 1847 or early 1848."{{ref|connell1}}

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well. However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered in an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-03T21:07:26Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the {{curse of Cain through Ham | Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22}}. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a mulatto. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see {{Brigham Young on race mixing|Brigham_Young_on_race_mixing}} for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well.

However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered to an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-03T13:04:06Z

DavidKeller: /* After Joseph Smith */

{{RacePortal}}
==The origin of the priesthood ban==

The origin of the priesthood ban is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Its origins are not clear, and this affected both how members and leaders have seen the ban, and the steps necessary to rescind it. The Church has never provided an official reason for the ban.

Members have generally taken one of three perspectives:
# the ban was based on revelation to Joseph Smith, and was continued by his successors until President Kimball
# the ban did not originate with Joseph Smith, but was implemented by Brigham Young by revelation
# the ban began as a series of administrative policy decisions, rather than a revealed doctrine, and drew partly upon ideas regarding race common in mid-19th century America. The passage of time gave greater authority to this policy than intended.

The difficulty in deciding between these options arises because: 
a) there is no contemporary account of a revelation underlying the ban; but 
b) many early members nevertheless believed that there had been such a revelation; and 
c) priesthood ordination of African blacks was a rare event, which became even more rare with time.

The history behind the practice in the modern Church of withholding the priesthood based on race is described well by Lester Bush in a 1984 book.{{ref|bush1}} A good timeline can be found at FAIR's '''BlackLDS''' site: {{fairlink|url=http://www.blacklds.org/mormon/history.html}}.

===Joseph Smith's Administration (1830-1844)===
As Mormons settled into Missouri, some of their viewpoints about slavery ({{s||DC|101|79}},{{s||DC|87|4}}) did not mesh well with those of the older settlers. The 1831 Nat Turner Rebellion left many southerners nervous as church leaders later recognized: "All who are acquainted with the situation of slave States, know that the life of every white is in constant danger, and to insinuate any thing which could possibly be interpreted by a slave, that it was not just to hold human beings in bondage, would be jeopardizing the life of every white inhabitant in the country.{{ref|bush2}}" Unfortunately, this recognition came after mobs persecuted the Missouri saints and destroyed their press in part because of W. W. Phelps's editorials supporting abolition.{{ref|bush3}}

Under these precarious conditions, early missionaries were instructed to not teach or baptize slaves without their master's wishes (see {{s||DC|134|12}}). Late, perhaps unreliable, recollections suggest that Joseph Smith received inspiration that blacks should not be ordained while contemplating the situation in the South.{{ref|bush4}} These accounts must be weighed against records of free blacks receiving the priesthood such as Black Pete (1831 OH), Elijah Abel (1835 OH), Joseph T. Ball (1837 MA), Isaac van Meter (<1837 ME), and Walker and Enoch Lewis (Fall 1843-Nov. 1844 MA). Since Ohio had a law discouraging Blacks from migrating there, this put a damper on early proselyting efforts which were largely based on the principle of the gathering.{{ref|bringhurst2}} Parley Pratt wrote in 1839 that the Church had less than a dozen Black members.{{ref|bringhurst3}}

Those who hold that the ban had a revelatory basis see the early ordinations as events which occurred prior to the revelation or without knowledge of it, while those who see the ban as more of a social/cultural phenomenon point to these ordinations as an example of the "pragmatic grounds" upon which decisions about black ordination were made.

===Brigham Young's Administration 1844-1852===

The start of Brigham Young's administration saw a continuation of Joseph Smith's policies. William McCary was baptized and ordained at Winter Quarters in October 1846. The following March, Brigham acknowledged the validity of the ordination of Walker Lewis that likely occurred during Joseph's tenure, "we [have] one of the best Elders an African in Lowell [,MA] -- a barber." {{ref|sc_dvd1}} The priesthood ban then became more comprehensive to include not only slaves and free blacks in the South, but all persons deemed to have inherited the {{curse of Cain through Ham | Blacks_and_the_priesthood/The_%22curse_of_Cain%22_and_%22curse_of_Ham%22}}. Three pivotal events in this development were the apostasy of William McCary, the interracial marriage of Walker Lewis's son, and the passing of slavery legislation in Utah Territory.

McCary approached Brigham Young with complaints that racial discrimination was a motive behind other Mormon leaders questioning his strange teachings. President Young satisfied McCary that ideally race should not be the issue. Praising Walker Lewis as an example, Young suggested "Its nothing to do with the blood for [from] one blood has God made all flesh" and later added "we don't care about the color." {{ref|sc_dvd2}} Shortly thereafter McCary was excommunicated for apostasy. In April, Brigham Young departed with the vanguard pioneer company for the Rocky Mountains only to return around December to face additional race-based problems.

In April, Elder Parley P. Pratt had warned of the Saints about following schisms led by those like James Strang and William McCary. Significantly he referred to William McCary as "this black man who has got the blood of Ham in him which linege was cursed as regards the priesthood" {{ref|sc_dvd3}}. McCary had married a Stake President's white daughter and advocated polygamy before his excommunication and afterwards he began drawing away Mormon women to be sealed to him in a carnal manner.

Also awaiting Brigham was William Appleby, the president over eastern branches of the Church. He had encountered the Lewises and suspected William Smith had acted improperly by ordaining a black elder. He was also alarmed that Enoch Lewis had married a white wife and had a mulatto. Brigham responded to this news in a manner that is, by modern sensitivities, quite disturbing (see {{Brigham Young on race mixing|Brigham_Young_on_race_mixing}} for more cultural context):
:If they were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.

At this time it would appear that not only a priesthood restriction was in place, but a temple restriction as well.

However, Brigham Young did not present a specific revelation on the subject. His most declarative statement "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it" {{ref|bush5}} was delivered to an 1852 legislative, rather than ecclesiastical forum. Those who believe the ban had a revelatory basis point to this as an example of a prophet learning "line upon line," with revelation being implemented more rigorously. Those who see the influence of cultural factors and institutional practice behind the ban consider this evidence that the ban was based on Brigham's cultural and scriptural assumptions, and point out that such beliefs were common among most Christians in Antebellum America.{{ref|smith1}}

===Later views===

* In 1879, John Taylor conducted an investigation and concluded the policy had started under Joseph Smith, rather than Brigham Young, despite receiving mixed information.{{ref|bush6}}
* As part of this investigation Zebedee Coltrin recalled that Joseph Smith said in 1834 that "the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood." However, this claim is suspect given Coltrin's errors on the circumstances of Elijah Abel's ordination, participation in Kirtland temple ordinances, and retention in the Seventies quorum all under the supervision of Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush6a}}
*President George Q. Cannon in 1895 asserted that some of Young's teachings about miscegenation and the seed of Cain had first been taught by Joseph Smith.{{ref|bush7}}
* Nearly forty years after the ban started, B.H. Roberts was the first to argue, based on the Book of Abraham, that the curse of Cain had continued to modern blacks through the lineage of Ham.{{ref|bhroberts1}}
* Joseph Fielding Smith opined that blacks may have been less valiant in the pre-mortal conflict between God and Satan (however, he rejected that they may have been neutral in the war in heaven).{{ref|jfs1}}
* David O. McKay believed that the ban was "not doctrine but...policy," as reported by Sterling McMurrin,{{ref|mcmurrin1}} his son Llewelyn McKay,{{ref|llewelyn1}} and Elder Paul H. Dunn.{{ref|dunn1}} President McKay told Elder Marion D. Hanks that "he had pleaded and pleaded with the Lord, but had not had the answer he sought."{{ref|mckay1}}
* The "Missouri policy theory" attributing the ban to Joseph Smith arising from condition in Missouri was first popularized in 1970 by author Stephen Taggert,{{ref|taggert1}} and President Hugh B. Brown reportedly embraced it.{{ref|brown1}} Other authors found this theory wanting.{{ref|bringhurst1}}
* Harold B. Lee was inclined to reconfirm the ban,{{ref|lee1}} though Church Historian Leonard Arrington

:...asserts that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during'three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple,...but the only answer he received was "not yet." Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful.{{ref|lee3}}

Following Joseph Fielding Smith's death, President Lee did say, "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time."{{ref|lee2}}

===President Kimball===

* President Kimball began his administration by holding a press conference. When asked about the ban, he said:

:[I have given it] "a great deal of thought, a great deal of prayer. The day might come when they would be given the priesthood, but that day has not come yet. Should the day come it will be a matter of revelation. Before changing any important policy, it has to be through a revelation from the Lord."{{ref|kimball1}}

* He had previously written to his son:
:"...I have wished the Lord had given us a little more clarity in the matter. But for me, it is enough...I know the Lord could change His policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error (?) which brought about the deprivation. If the time comes, that He will do, I am sure."{{ref|kimball2}}

*In 1976, he mentioned
:"his concern for giving the priesthood to all men, and said that he had been praying about it for fifteen years without an answer...but I am going to keep praying about it."{{ref|kimball3}}

==Endnotes==
#{{note|bush1}}{{NeitherWhiteNorBlack0}}
#{{note|bush2}}''Neither White nor Black'', 56; citing {{EMS1|start=122|vol=2|date=January 1834|article=Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri|author=Editor}}
#{{note|bush3}}''Neither White nor Black'', 55.
#{{note|taggert1}}Steven Taggert, ''Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1970).
#{{note|brown1}}{{Sunstone|author=Edwin B. Firmage|article=Hugh B. Brown in His Final Years|vol=11:6|num=67|date=November 1987|start=7|end=8}}
#{{note|bringhurst1}} {{BlackAndMormon1|start=13|author=Newell K. Bringhurst|article=The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People}}
#{{note|bush4}} ''Neither White nor Black'', 61,77.
#{{note|bush5}}''Neither White nor Black'', 70–72.
#{{note|smith1}}For a history of such ideas in American Christian thought generally, see H. Shelton Smith, ''In His Image, But...: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910'' (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972), 131. ISBN 082230273X.
#{{note|bush6}}''Neither White nor Black'', 77–78.
#{{note|bush6a}}''Neither White nor Black'', 60–61, 77–78.
#{{note|bush7}}''Neither White nor Black'', 79–81.
#{{note|bhroberts1}}B.H. Roberts, "To the Youth of Israel," ''The Contributor'' 6 (May 1885): 296–97.
#{{note|jfs1}}{{DoS1|vol=1|start=65}}
#{{note|mcmurrin1}} Sterling M. McMurrin and and L. Jackson Newell, ''Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin On Philosophy, Education, and Religion'' (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996), 199–201; cited in {{LYS-CD1|start=chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17}}
#{{note|llewelyn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5, footnote 17.
#{{note|dunn1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20, page 5–, footnote 17.
#{{note|mckay1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', chapter 20 working draft, 13.
#{{note|lee1}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', 204–205.
#{{note|lee3}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22, footnote 105; citing for the affirmative Arrington, ''Adventures of a Church Historian'' and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998; for the negative, L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.
#{{note|lee2}}Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 20, page 22; citing Goates, ''Harold B. Lee'', 506, quoting UPI interview published November 16, 1972.
#{{note|kimball1}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 1; citing Charles J. Seldin, "Priesthood of LDS Opened to Blacks," ''Salt Lake City Tribune'' (10 June 1978), 1A.
#{{note|kimball2}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 4; citing letter of 15 June 1963 to Edward Kimball.
#{{note|kimball3}} Kimball, ''Lengthen Your Stride'', working draft chapter 21, page 7; citing F. Burton Howard to author, June 15, 1995; F. Burton Howard, interview by author, July 30, 2002.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===
{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}
===FAIR web site===
{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===
{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}
===Printed material===
{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}
[[de:Schwarze_und_das_Priestertum/Ursache_des_Priestertumverbots]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-03T10:10:36Z

DavidKeller: /* Later views */

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-12-03T10:05:47Z

DavidKeller: /* Missouri and the 1830s */

Racial issues and the Church of Jesus Christ/Brigham Young/Race mixing punishable by death

2009-12-01T06:51:09Z

DavidKeller: /* Response */

{{RacePortal}}

==Criticism==
"...Brigham Young said race mixing was punishable by death."

{{CriticalSources}}

==Response==
This criticism refers to a statement made by Brigham Young:

:Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.{{ref|jd1}}

The "chosen seed," in LDS doctrine, are those who hold the Melchizedek priesthood (see {{s||DC|107|40}}). So, Brigham is likely addressing his remarks particularly to those under the "oath and covenant" of the priesthood. This is not surprising, since the rest of the United States was certainly not listening with any respect to the Mormons, whose polygamy and doctrines they regarded with abhorrence.

With the Civil War at full burn, Brigham went on to declare: "I say to all men and all women, submit to God, to his ordinances and to His rule; serve Him, and cease your quarrelling, and stay the shedding of each other's blood." He is thus in the mode of condemning the United States and the "nations of the earth" for their sins, and he then says:

:If the Government of the United States, in Congress assembled, had the right to pass an anti-polygamy bill, they had also the right to pass a law that slaves should not be abused as they have been; they had also a right to make a law that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. '''For their abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent'''.{{ref|jd2}}

As governor of Utah Territory in 1852, Brigham Young had promoted legislation that he takes the US government to task for not passing. Positioning Utah to be strategically admitted to the Union as a slave state, Brigham Young nevertheless advocated humane treatment of slaves and provisions for their eventual release. Summarizing the 1852 legislation, Lester Bush wrote:

:Though Negro slaves could no longer choose to leave their masters, some elements of consent were included. Slaves brought into the Territory had to come "of their own free will and choice"; and they could not be sold or taken from the Territory against their will. Though a fixed period of servitude was not prescribed for Negroes, the law provided "that no contract shall bind the heirs of the servant ... for a longer period than will satisfy the debt due his [master] ..." Several unique '''provisions were included which terminated the owner's contract in the event that the master had sexual intercourse with a servant "of the African race,"''' neglected to feed, clothe, shelter, or otherwise abused the servant, or attempted to take him from the Territory against his will. Some schooling was also required for slaves between the ages of six and twenty.{{ref|bush1}}

In the 1863 context, Brigham Young did not sympathize with pro-abolitionist sentiments in the North or the pro-slavery sentiments in the South, but advocated a moderate, middle ground. His practical remedy for a master coercing sexual relations with a foreign slave was not the master's death as Old Testament styled retribution might require, but the slave's freedom.

==Brigham's Remarks in Historical Context==

Brigham made his remarks, then, in the context of a civil war over the issue of slavery. Brigham condemned the ''white male'' (and perhaps priesthood holder) who "mixes" with black Africans. Why?

When would a white person "mix their seed" with the blacks? At the time, black slaves could not legally marry—this was a "human right," and the slave-holding states were very careful not to let blacks marry, since to do so implied that they had human rights (and, if they have one right, why not a right to be free?) As a history of marriage in the United States noted:

:The slaveholder's callous lust—his moral violence as well as his physical cruelty—gave abolitionists their most effective theme. Sexual abuse of female slaves by rape, incest, forced mating, and concubinage figured even more sensationally in abolitionist literature than the sale of slave family members..."No part of the dark and hidden iniquities of slavery" deserved revelation more than its travesty of the "nuptial covenant" with "odious lusts," the abolitionist George Bourne intoned, referring to the master's unchecked freedom to use the bodies of his female slaves.{{ref|cott1}}

Representative Justin Morrill, who would help write the first anti-polygamous legislation, thundered that "By the license of Slavery, a whole race is delivered over to prostitution and concubinage, without the protection of any law."{{ref|morrill1}}

So, under what conditions would a white priesthood holder (or any white) be mixing their seed with a black woman? All too often, this was under the context of what was essentially rape and assault. Many slave-holders kept their own children in slavery, as they sired children on black slaves who could not refuse. By law, any child born to a slave was automatically a slave. One southern woman wrote:

:God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system...the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from the clouds.{{ref|cott2}}

Blacks created a variety of their own arrangements which formalized these "informal" marriages, but families were always at risk of being broken up and sold by their owners, with no recourse. A major element of post-Civil War federal policy was the establishment of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which had "the aim to reorient slaves' sexual and family behavior around legal marriage,"{{ref|cott3}} a goal which had been impossible under generations of slavery.

Intermarriage with blacks was either illegal or virtually unheard of, and for decades after the Civil War, courts repeatedly rebuffed efforts by mixed race couples to legalize their unions.{{ref|cott6}}

Thus, a good part of Brigham's objection likely rested on the circumstances which would attend most white male/black woman pairings in his day. He would have likely known of no counter-examples—no relationships with blacks could be legal, and most resulted from duress.

Spiritual death seems an appropriate punishment for a priesthood holder who behaved in such a way, and literal capital punishment might not be too severe if "the law of God" could be administered by a genuine prophet. There are few crimes more grievous than to treat others as subhuman, and rape the powerless.

==Conclusion==

Brigham Young's comments were a condemnation of abuse and rape of helpless black women, and not an overtly racist statement condemning interracial marriage.

In 1863, couplings between black women and white men would virtually always be a relationship of a staggering power imbalance, with few rights for the woman, who was often forced into sexual activity. Her children would have been automatic slaves if she was a slave, and the men under no legal responsibility to provide for her or the children. (This failure to provide for offspring was a common Mormon criticism of Gentile non-marriage relationships when contrasted with plural marriage.)

Unlike contemporary 1860s fears for the virtue of ''white women'' when subjected to the predation of black men,{{ref|cott4}}. Brigham was far more worried about white men abusing their position of political and cultural superiority.

This is not to say that Brigham did not share some ideas about the desirability of keeping races separate; virtually everyone of his era did. American ethnologists taught that whites and blacks were separately created races, the mixture of which would corrupt both.{{ref|cott5}}

But, when in the same speech Brigham Young condemns the whites for their treatment of blacks, and threatens punishment for white men who have what is likely forced intercourse with black women, it is not fair to portray him as a ravening racist with no concern for the downtrodden. His fire and brimstone is all for the aggressor; his sympathy is for those who were mistreated.

==Endnotes==

# {{note|jd1}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=110|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}}
# {{note|jd2}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=111|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}} (emphasis added)
# {{note|cott1}} Nancy F. Cott, ''Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000), 58.
# {{note|cott2}} Mary Boykin Chestnut, diary, from ''Root of Bitterness'', ed. Nancy F. Cott (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1972), 209; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 59.
# {{note|morril1}} Morrill (Vermont), 1860; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 74.
# {{note|cott3}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 84.
# {{note|cott6}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 101–104.
# {{note|cott4}} See Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98—99.
# {{note|cott5}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98–99.

==Further reading==

===FAIR wiki articles===

{{BlacksPriesthoodWiki}}

===FAIR web site===

{{BlacksPriesthoodFAIR}}

===Video===
{{BlackSaintsFAIRVideo}}

===External links===

{{BlacksPriesthoodLinks}}

===Printed material===

{{BlacksPriesthoodPrint}}

Joseph Smith/Seer stones

2009-10-23T04:40:09Z

DavidKeller: /* Why did use of the seer stones subside? */

{{JosephSmithPortal}}
{{question}}
==Questions==
* What can you tell me about Joseph's seer stone? What is its relation to the "Urim and Thummim"?
* Did Joseph place his seer stone in his hat while he was translating the Book of Mormon?

===Source(s) of the Criticism===
*{{CriticalWork:Abanes:Becoming Gods|pages=45, 351 n. 144; 56 357 n. 40}}
*{{CriticalWork:Abanes:One Nation|pages=41, 500 n.2-4}}
*{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows|pages=Chapter 2}}
*{{CriticalWork:McKeeverJohnson:Mormonism 101|pages=Chapter 8}}
*{{CriticalWork:Ostling:Mormon America|pages=26}}
*{{CriticalWork:Palmer:Insider|pages=2}}
*{{CriticalWork:Tanner:Changing World|pages=22}}
*{{CriticalWork:Wikipedia:Joseph Smith, Jr.}}

==Response==
{{Epigraph|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 {{Link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=5250e07368d9b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD}}}}
{{parabreak}}
===How many seer stones were there?===

Joseph first used a neighbor's seer stone (probably Sally Chase, on the balance of historical evidence, though there are other possibilities) to discover the location of a brown, baby's foot-shaped stone. The vision of this stone likely occurred in about 1819–1820, and he obtained his first seer stone in about 1821–1822.{{ref|mcgee1}}

Joseph then used this first stone to find a second stone (a white one). The colour and sequence of obtaining these stones has often been confused,{{ref|confused1}} and readers interested in an in-depth treatment are referred to the endnotes.{{ref|mcgee2}}

Joseph would later discover at least two more seers stones in Nauvoo, on the banks of the Mississippi. These stones seem to have been collected more for their appearance, and there is little evidence of Joseph using them at that late date in his prophetic career.{{ref|mcgee3}}

===How did Joseph obtain his second seer stone?===

The seer stone was reportedly found on the property of William Chase in 1822 as Chase described it:

:In the year 1822, I was engaged in digging a well. I employed Alvin and Joseph Smith to assist me.... After digging about twenty feet below the surface of the earth, we discovered a singularly appearing stone, which excited my curiosity. I brought it to the top of the well, and as we were examining it, Joseph put it into his hat, and then his face into the top of his hat.... The next morning he came to me, and wished to obtain the stone, alleging that he could see in it; but I told him I did not wish to part with it on account of its being a curiosity, but I would lend it.{{ref|chase1}}

Martin Harris and Wilford Woodruff were to later confirm this account after Joseph's death.{{ref|chaseconfirm}}

===What did the stones look like?===
One witness reported (of the first, brown stone), from 1826:

:It was about the size of a small hen's egg, in the shape of a high-instepped shoe. It was composed of layers of different colors passing diagonally through it. It was very hard and smooth, perhaps by being carried in the pocket.{{ref|stonesize}}

The second stone:

: [the] Seer Stone was the shape of an egg though not quite so large, of a gray cast something like granite but with white stripes running around it. It was transparent but had no holes, neither on the end or in the sides.{{ref|secondstoneappear}}

===For what purpose(s) did Joseph use the stones prior to the restoration?===

As noted above, Joseph used the first stone to find the second.

Martin Harris recounted that Joseph could find lost objects with the second, white stone:

:: I was at the house of his father in Manchester, two miles south of Palmyra village, and was picking my teeth with a pin while sitting on the bars. The pin caught in my teeth and dropped from my fingers into shavings and straw. I jumped from the bars and looked for it. Joseph and Northrop Sweet also did the same. We could not find it. I then took Joseph on surprise, and said to him--I said, "Take your stone." I had never seen it, and did not know that he had it with him. He had it in his pocket. He took it and placed it in his hat--the old white hat--and placed his face in his hat. I watched him closely to see that he did not look to one side; he reached out his hand beyond me on the right, and moved a little stick and there I saw the pin, which he picked up and gave to me. I know he did not look out of the hat until after he had picked up the pin.{{ref|pin}}

Joseph's mother also indicated that Joseph was sought out by some, including Josiah Stoal, to use the stone to find hidden valuables. He

:came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.{{ref|lucymack1}}

Joseph referred to this incident in {{scripture||JS-H|1|55-56}}.

Stoal eventually joined the Church; some of his family, however, charged Joseph in court for events related to this treasure seeking. Stoal testified in Joseph's defense. (See ''FAIRwiki'' article on the trial [[Joseph_Smith's_1826_glasslooking_trial|here]].)

Joseph Knight also said that, at the command of the angel Moroni, Joseph looked into his seer stone to learn who he should marry. He "looked in his glass and found it was Emma Hale."{{ref|marryemma1}}

===How were the stone(s) involved in the translation of the Book of Mormon?===

There is considerable evidence that the location of the plates and Nephite interpreters (Urim and Thummim) were revealed to Joseph via his second, white seer stone. In 1859, Martin Harris recalled that "Joseph had a stone which was dug from the well of Mason Chase...It was by means of this stone he first discovered the plates."{{ref|stoneplates1}}

Some critics have sought to create a contradiction here, since Joseph's history reported that Moroni revealed the plates to him ({{s||JS-H|1|34-35,42}}). This is an example of a false dichotomy: Moroni could easily have told Joseph about the plates and interpreters. The vision to Joseph may well have then come through the seer stone, as some of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants (e.g., Section X) would later be revealed. One account matches this theory well:

:I had a conversation with [Joseph], and asked him where he found them [the plates] and how he come to know where they were. he said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his [seer] stone and saw them in the place of deposit."{{ref|henryharris1}}

Joseph Knight recalled that Joseph was more excited about the Nephite interpreters than the gold plates:

:After breakfast Joseph called me into the other room, set his foot on the bed, and leaned his head on his hand and said, "Well I am disappointed."
:"Well, I said, "I am sorry."
:"Well, he said, "I am greatly disappointed. It is ten times better than I expected."
:Then he went on to tell the length and width and thickness of the plates and, said he, they appear to be gold. But, he seemed to think more of the glasses or the Urim and thummim than he did of the plate for, said he, "I can see anything. They are marvelous."{{ref|knight1}}

Martin Harris later described the Nephite interpreters as

:about two inches in diameter, perfectly round, and about five-eighths of an inch thick at the centre.... They were joined by a round bar of diver, about three-eights of an inch in diameter, and about four inches long, which with the two stones, would make eight inches.{{ref|harris1}}

Despite having the Nephite interpreters, Joseph Smith often used the seer stone to translate. This led to an episode in which Martin tested the veracity of Joseph's claim to use the second, white stone to translate:{{ref|harriswhite1}}

:Once Martin found a rock closely resembling the seerstone Joseph sometimes used in place of the interpreters and substituted it without the Prophet’s knowledge. When the translation resumed, Joseph paused for a long time and then exclaimed, “Martin, what is the matter, all is as dark as Egypt.” Martin then confessed that he wished to “stop the mouths of fools” who told him that the Prophet memorized sentences and merely repeated them.{{ref|mouthoffools}}

Joseph also seems to have sometimes removed the Nephite stones from the "silver bows" which held them like spectacles, and used them as individual seer stones. Joseph used his white seer stone sometimes "for convenience" during the translation of the 116 pages with Martin Harris; later witnesses reported him using his brown seer stone.{{ref|variousstones1}}

===Did Joseph lose the seer stone(s) and/or the Urim and Thummim?===

Following the loss of the 116 pages, the Lord told Joseph:

:1 NOW, behold, I say unto you, that because you delivered up those writings which you had power given unto you to translate by the means of the Urim and Thummim, into the hands of a wicked man, you have lost them.
:2 And you also lost your gift at the same time, and your mind became darkened.
:3 Nevertheless, it is now restored unto you again; therefore see that you are faithful and continue on unto the finishing of the remainder of the work of translation as you have begun.
:4 Do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided to enable you to translate; but be diligent unto the end. ({{s||DC|10|1-4}})

Thus, "it" (Joseph's gift) was restored to him, but there is no indication that the Nephite interpreters (Urim and Thummim) were also returned, Joseph having also lost "them." That is, after repenting, Joseph would recover his seer stones, but apparently not the Urim and Thummim. Some Church sources have seen this as the point at which Joseph received the seer stone for the first time, but this is likely incorrect:

:As a chastisement for this carelessness [loss of the 116 pages], the Urim and Thummim was taken from Smith. But by humbling himself, he again found favor with the Lord and was presented a strange oval-shaped, chocolate colored stone, about the size of an egg, but more flat which it was promised should answer the same purpose. With this stone all the present book was translated.{{ref|hr1}}

This source is clearly somewhat confused, since it sees Joseph as getting his dark stone ''after'' the 116 pages, when it likely dates to 1822 at the latest (see above).

David Whitmer, who only came in contact with the translation after the loss of the 116 pages, indicated through a friend that

:With the sanction of David Whitmer, and by his authority, I now state that he does not say that Joseph Smith ever translated in his presence by aid of Urim and Thummim; but by means of one dark colored, opaque stone, called a 'Seer Stone,' which was placed in the crown of a hat, into which Joseph put his face, so as to exclude the external light. Then, a spiritual light would shine forth, and parchment would appear before Joseph, upon which was a line of characters from the plates, and under it, the translation in English; at least, so Joseph said.{{ref|sh1}}

Joseph also used the seer stone to keep himself and the plates safe, as his mother recorded:

:That of which I spoke, which Joseph termed a key, was indeed, nothing more nor less than the Urim and Thummim, and it was by this that the angel showed him many things which he saw in vision; by which also he could ascertain, at any time, the approach of danger, either to himself or the Record, and on account of which he always kept the Urim and Thummim about his person.{{ref|lucymack2}}

We see here the tendency to use the term "Urim and Thummim" to refer to Joseph's seer stone (or to the Nephite interpreters, which would have been too large for Joseph to carry on his person undetected). This lack of precision in terminology has, on occasion, confused some members who have not understood that either or both may be referred to by early LDS authors as "Urim and Thummim." To Joseph and his contemporaries, they were all the same type of thing, and merely differed in the strength of their power and ability. Clearly, devices from the Lord when directed by an angelic messenger (such as the Nephite interpreters) would outrank a seer stone found on one's own.

===What is the relation between Urim and Thummim and seer stones?===

As seen above, members of the Church tended to conflate the seer stone with the Nephite interpreters (never called "Urim and Thummim" by the Book of Mormon text; the label is a modern application).

The Book of Mormon makes reference to a stone that likely has reference to Joseph Smith's seer stone (as distinct from the Nephite interpreters):

: And the Lord said: I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem, a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light, that I may discover unto my people who serve me, that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, yea, their secret works, their works of darkness, and their wickedness and abominations.{{s||Alma|37|23}}

Joseph Smith's "code name," used for the publication of some sections of the Doctrine and Covenants to hide the recipients from their enemies, was "Gazalem." And, at his funeral, W.W. Phelps also applied this name to Joseph.{{ref|gazalem1}}

Alma's account then goes on to speak of the Nephite interpreters:

:24 And now, my son, these interpreters were prepared that the word of God might be fulfilled, which he spake, saying:
:25 I will bring forth out of darkness unto light all their secret works and their abominations; and except they repent I will destroy them from off the face of the earth; and I will bring to light all their secrets and abominations, unto every nation that shall hereafter possess the land.{{s||Alma|37|24-25}}

Thus, "stone" (singular) may well be distinct from the "interpreters" (plural) possessed by the Nephites. The Book of Mosiah makes clear that the interpreters consisted of "two stones":

: 13 Now Ammon said unto him: I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the records; for he has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters, and no man can look in them except he be commanded, lest he should look for that he ought not and he should perish. And whosoever is commanded to look in them, the same is called seer.
:14 And behold, the king of the people who are in the land of Zarahemla is the man that is commanded to do these things, and who has this high gift from God.{{s||Mosiah|8|13-14}}
:…
:13 And now he translated them by the means of those two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow.
:14 Now these things were prepared from the beginning, and were handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting languages;
:15 And they have been kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord, that he should discover to every creature who should possess the land the iniquities and abominations of his people;
:16 And whosoever has these things is called seer, after the manner of old times. .{{s||Mosiah|28|13-16}}

The first use in print of "Urim and Thummim" to refer to the interpreters was in January 1833:

:[The Book of Mormon] was translated by the gift and power of God, by an unlearned man, through the aid of a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles--(known, perhaps in ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim).{{ref|wwphelps1}}

Members of the Church seem to have used the term interchangeably on many occasions.{{ref|interchange1}}

===Why did Joseph tend to use the seer stone more than the Nephite interpreters?===

The size of the interpreters may have been a significant barrier to their use. William Smith, Joseph's brother, described the Nephite instruments as

:too large for Joseph's eyes; they must have been used by larger men.{{ref|williamsmith1}}

Charles Anthon agreed when he later recalled Martin Harris' description and wrote:

:These spectacles were so large that if a person attempted to look through them, his two eyes would have to be turned towards one of the glasses merely, the spectacles in question being altogether too large for the breadth of the human face.{{ref|anthon1}}

===Why did use of the seer stones subside?===

These Urim and Thummim were the means of receiving most of the formal revelations until June 1829. That was the time of completing the Book of Mormon, which was translated through the Nephite interpreters and also Joseph's other seer stone(s). After this, seer stones were generally not used while receiving revelation or translation. (The JST and the Book of Abraham translations both began with seer stone usage, but Joseph soon quit using them.{{ref|JSTandBoA}}) Following his baptism, receipt of the Holy Ghost, and ordination to the Melchizedek priesthood, Joseph seems have felt far less need to resort to the stones.{{ref|priesthood1}} He had learned, through divine tutoring, how to receive unmediated revelation—the Lord had taken him "line upon line" from where he was (surrounded with beliefs about seeing and divining) and brought him to further light, knowledge, and power.

This perspective was reinforced by Orson Pratt, who watched the New Testament revision (JST) and wondered why the use of seer stones/interpreters (as with the Book of Mormon) was not continued:

:While this thought passed through the speaker's mind, Joseph, as if he read his thoughts, looked up and explained that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he was inexperienced in the Spirit of inspiration. But now he had advanced so far that he understood the operations of that Spirit and did not need the assistance of that instrument.{{ref|prattuandt}}

===Are there any Biblical parallels to Joseph's seer stone understanding?===

The idea of sacred stones acting as revelators to believers is present in the Bible, and Joseph Smith embraced a decidedly "non-magical" and "pro-religious" view of them:

:In Revelation, John incorporates past religious symbols into his message. Thus the most internally consistent interpretation of the "white stone" combines with the book's assurance that the faithful will become "kings and priests" to the Most High (Rev. 1:6). These eternal priests will be in tune with God's will, like the High Priest with the breastplate of shining stones and the Urim. In Hebrew that term means "light," corresponding to the "white" stone of John's Revelation. This correlation should be obvious, but Joseph Smith is virtually alone in confidence that John sees the redeemed as full High Priests: "Then the white stone mentioned in Rev. 2:17 is the Urim and Thummim, whereby all things pertaining to a higher order of kingdoms, even all kingdoms, will be made know." As for genuine religion, Joseph Smith perceived the stone of John's vision not as a stone of chance but as a conduit of enlightenment and a reward of worthiness of character.{{ref|revelationjohn1}}

===What happened to the seer stones?===

As noted above, the Nephite interpreters were apparently reclaimed by Moroni following the loss of the 116 pages, and were only seen again by the Three Witnesses ([http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/thrwtnss Testimony of Three]).

Van Wagoner and Walker write:
: David Whitmer indicated that the seer stone was later given to Oliver Cowdery: "After the translation of the Book of Mormon was finished early in the spring of 1830 before April 6th, Joseph gave the Stone to Oliver Cowdery and told me as well as the rest that he was through with it, and he did not use the Stone anymore.” Whitmer, who was Cowdery's brother-in-law, stated that on Oliver's death in 1848, another brother-in-law, "Phineas Young, a brother of Brigham Young, and an old-time and once intimate friend of the Cowdery family came out from Salt Lake City, and during his visit he contrived to get the stone from its hiding place, through a little deceptive sophistry, extended upon the grief-stricken widow. When he returned to Utah he carried it in triumph to the apostles of Brigham Young's 'lion house.'"...

[Van Wagoner and Walker here confuse the two seer stones, so this section is not included here, given that better information has since come to light.]

:...Joseph Fielding Smith, as an apostle, made clear that "the Seer Stone which was in the possession of the Prophet Joseph Smith in early days . . . is now in the possession of the Church." Elder Joseph Anderson, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve and long-time secretary to the First Presidency, clarified in 1971 that the "Seer Stone that Joseph Smith used in the early days of the Church is in possession of the Church and is kept in a safe in Joseph Fielding Smith's office.... [The stone is] slightly smaller than a chicken egg, oval, chocolate in color."{{ref|fatestone}} (This would be Joseph's first, "shoe-shaped stone," which was given to Oliver Cowdery, and then to his brother-in-law Phineaus Young, brother of Brigham Young.{{ref|fatestone1}})

Joseph's second (white) stone is also in the possession of the LDS First Presidency.{{ref|2ndstonefate}}

===Has the Church tried to hide Joseph's use of a seer stone?===

The Church has been very frank about the seer stone's use, though the ''product'' of the translation of the Book of Mormon is usually given much more attention that the ''process''.

Text translated with the Nephite interpreters was lost with the 116 pages given to Martin Harris—see {{s||DC|3||}}. The Church's ''Historical Record'' records Joseph's use of the seer stone to translate all of our current Book of Mormon text:

:As a chastisement for this carelessness [loss of the 116 pages], the Urim and Thummim was taken from Smith. But by humbling himself, he again found favor with the Lord and was presented a strange oval-shaped, chocolate colored stone, about the size of an egg, but more flat which it was promised should answer the same purpose. With this stone all the present book was translated. [Note that the chronology of Joseph's acquisition of the stone is here somewhat confused. The use of the stone, however, is clearly indicated.]{{ref|hr1}}

References to the stone are not confined to the distant past. Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Twelve Apostles described the process clearly in an ''Ensign'' article:

:Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.{{ref|nelson1}}

It would be strange to try to hide something by having an apostle talk about it, and then send the account to every LDS home in the official magazine!

====Other mentions in Church materials====
Similar material is also found in other Church publications, some of which are included below:

* {{Ensign1|author=Richard Lloyd Anderson|article=‘By the Gift and Power of God’|date=Sepember 1977|start=79}}{{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=5a921f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1}}
* Hyrum Andrus, ''Joseph Smith, the Man, the Seer'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1960), 102. {{GL1|url=http://gospelink.com/library/doc?doc_id=271098}}
* {{FR-6-1-14}}
* {{BYUS|author=Marvin S. Hill|article=Money-Digging Folklore and the Beginnings of Mormonism: An Interpretative Suggestion|vol=24|num=4|date=Fall 1984|start=?|end=??}}{{GL|url=http://gospelink.com/library/doc?doc_id=282646}}
* {{IE1|author=Francis W. Kirkham|article=The Manner of Translating The BOOK of MORMON|date=1939}} {{GL1|url=http://gospelink.com/library/doc?doc_id=242545}}
* Joseph Fielding McConkie, Craig J. Ostler, ''Revelations of the Restoration: A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants and Other Modern Revelations'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 2000), D&C 9. {{GL1|url=http://gospelink.com/library/doc?doc_id=352684}}
* {{JBMS-2-2-14}}
* {{DFS1|article=A Brief Debate on the Book of Mormon|vol=1|start=350}}{{GL1|url=http://gospelink.com/library/doc?doc_id=205446}}
* {{BYUS1|author=Royal Skousen|article=Towards a Critical Edition of the Book of Mormon|start=52|date=Winter 1990|vol=30|num=1}}{{GL1|url=http://gospelink.com/library/doc?doc_id=282960}}

The charge that the Church is "hiding" or "suppressing" this material cannot be sustained.

==Conclusion==

{{nw}}

==Endnotes==

#{{note|mcgee1}} {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=200|end=215}}
#{{note|confused1}} See, for example, {{CHC1|vol=1|start=129}}; Roberts was followed by Richard S. Van Wagoner, Dan Vogel, Ogden Kraut, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, and D. Michael Quinn. See discussion in Ashurst-McGee, 247n317.
#{{note|mcgee2}} {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=200|end=283}}
#{{note|mcgee3}} {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=200|end=201}}

#{{note|chase1}} Eber Dudley Howe, ''Mormonism Unvailed'' (Painesville, Ohio: Telegraph Press, 1834), 241-242; cited in {{Dialogue|author=Richard Van Wagoner and Steven Walker|article=Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing|vol=15|num=2|date=Summer 1982|start=48|end=68}}
#{{note|chaseconfirm}} See Van Wagoner and Walker, 54.

#{{note|stonesize}} W. D. Purple, ''The Chenango Union'' (3 May 1877); cited in {{NewWitnessForChrist1|vol=2|start=365}} (See Van Wagoner and Walker, 54.)
#{{note|secondstoneappear}} Richard Marcellas Robinson, "The History of a Nephite Coin," manuscript, 20 December 1834, LDS Church archives; cited in {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis1|start=264}}

#{{note|pin}} Joel Tiffany, ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 164;cited in Van Wagoner and Walker, 55.
#{{note|lucymack1}} {{biosketch|start=91|end=92}}
#{{note|marryemma1}} {{BYUS1|author=Dean C. Jessee|article=Joseph Knight's Recollection of Early Mormon History|vol=17|date=August 1976|num=1|page=31}}; cited in {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis1|start=281}}

#{{note|stoneplates1}} Mormonism—II," ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 163, see also 169; cited in Ashurst-McGee (2000), 286.
#{{note|henryharris1}} Henry Harris, statement in E.D. Howe ''Mormonism Unvailed'' (1833), 252; cited in Ashurst-McGee (2000), 290.
#{{note|knight1}} Joseph Knight, cited in Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, ''Saints Without Halos: The Human Side of Mormon History'' (Salt Lake City, Signature Books, 1981), 6. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized. The original text reads: "After Brackfist Joseph Cald me in to the other Room and he sit his foot on the Bed and leaned his head on his hand and says, well I am Dissopented. Well, say I, I am sorrey. Well, says he, I am grateley Dissopnted. It is ten times Better then I expected. Then he went on to tell the length and width and thickness of the plates and, said he, they appear to be gold. But he seamed to think more of the glasses or the urim and thummim than he Did of the plates for says he, I can see anything. They are Marvelous."
#{{note|harris1}} Joel Tiffany, "Mormonism—No. II," ''Tiffany's Monthly'' (June 1859): 165–166; cited in VanWagoner and Walker, footnote 27.
#{{note|harriswhite1}} Tiffany, 163.
#{{note|mouthoffools}} Told in ''Millennial Star'' 44:87; quotation from {{Ensign1|author=Kenneth W. Godfrey|article=A New Prophet and a New Scripture: The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon|date=January 1988|start=6}}{{link|url=http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1988.htm/ensign%20january%201988.htm/a%20new%20prophet%20and%20a%20new%20scripture%20the%20coming%20forth%20of%20the%20book%20of%20mormon.htm}}
#{{note|variousstones1}} See {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=320|end=326}}

#{{note|hr1}} ''The Historical Record. Devoted Exclusively to Historical, Biographical, Chronological and Statistical Matters'', (LDS Church Archives), 632,; cited in Van Wagoner and Walker, 54. Note that Van Wagoner and Walker contain inaccurate information about the stones, their provenance, and order of discovery.
#{{note|recoverurim}} See Joseph Smith's 1838/9 history in {{EarlyMormonDocs1|vol=1|num=73}} and {{LucyMackSmith-Anderson1| start=428}}
#{{note|sh1}} ''Saints' Herald'' 26 (15 November 1879): 341.

#{{note|gazalem1}} The material on "gazelem" is derived from Van Wagoner and Walker, 56.
#{{note|wwphelps1}} {{EMS1|vol=1|num=8|date=January 1833|author=William W. Phelps (uncredited)|article=The Book of Mormon|start=58}}; cited in Van Wagoner and Walker, 53. {{link|url=http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/u?/NCMP1820-1846,5765}}
#{{note|interchange1}} See discussion in Van Wagoner and Walker, 59–63.

# {{note|williamsmith1}} William Smith interview by J. W. Peterson and W. S. Pender, 4 July 1891, reported in ''The Rod of Iron'' 3 (February 1924): 6-7; ''Saints' Herald'' 79 (9 March 1932): 238; cited in VanWagoner and Walker, footnote 27.
#{{note|anthon1}} Charles Anthon letter to E. D. Howe, 17 Feb. 1834, published in E.D. Howe, ''Mormonism Unvailed'', 17; cited in VanWagoner and Walker, footnote 27.

#{{note|JSTandBoA}} {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=334|end=337}}
#{{note|priesthood1}} {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=332|end=333}}
#{{note|prattuandt}} {{MatureJS}} ; citing Orson Pratt, "Discourse at Brigham City," 27 June 1874, Ogden (Utah) Junction, cited in {{MS|author=Orson Pratt|article=Two Days´ Meeting at Brigham City|vol=36|date=11 August 1874|start=498|end=499}}

#{{note|revelationjohn1}} {{MatureJS}}

#{{note|fatestone}} Van Wagoner and Walker, 58–59 (citations removed).
#{{note|fatestone}} {{Ashurst-McGee-Thesis|start=230|231}}
#{{note|2ndstonefate}} Quinn, ''Early Mormonism and the Magic World View'' 242–247.
#{{note|hr1}} ''The Historical Record. Devoted Exclusively to Historical, Biographical, Chronological and Statistical Matters'' (LDS Church Archives), 632.
#{{note|nelson1}} David Whitmer, ''An Address to All Believers in Christ'' (Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887), 12; cited in {{Ensign1|author=Russell M. Nelson|article=A Treasured Testament|date=July 1993|start=61}}{{link|url=http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=05169209df38b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1}}



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*{{Dialogue|author=Richard Van Wagoner and Steven Walker|article=Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing|vol=15|num=2|date=Summer 1982|start=49|end=68}} {{link|url=http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/dialogue&CISOPTR=16574&REC=16}}{{NB}}
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[[de:Joseph_Smith_und_Sehersteine]]

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-10-22T19:14:21Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

Template:Book:Bush Mauss:Neither White Nor Black

2009-10-22T19:04:35Z

DavidKeller:

Lester E. Bush, Jr. and Armand L. Mauss, eds., ''Neither White Nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church,'' (Salt Lake City, Signature Books, 1984), {{{start}}}–{{{end}}}. ISBN 0941214222. {{link|url=http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/neither/neithertitle.htm}}

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-10-22T19:01:35Z

DavidKeller: /* Endnotes */

Origin of the priesthood ban

2009-10-22T18:49:19Z

DavidKeller: /* Later views */

Book of Mormon/Witnesses/Recant/Did Oliver admit hoax

2009-08-30T20:58:29Z

DavidKeller: /* Provenance of the letter */

==Criticism==
Critics claim that Oliver Cowdery admitted to his law partner that the Book of Mormon was a hoax, and that it was derived from the Spalding manuscript.

===Source(s) of the criticism===
*Robert B. Neal, COWDERY'S RECANTATION CONFIRMED, "Sword of Laban" Leaflets, No. 13., ''The American Anti-Mormon Association'', 1907.
**Stephen Van Eck, "The Book of Mormon: One Too Many M's," (2002). (Source: Neal)

==Response==
===Letter from Judge W. Lang===
The following letter was published in an anti-Mormon flyer in November 1881. The letter is said to have been written by Judge W. Lang, a law partner of Oliver Cowdery during the period between his excommunication and re-baptism. The entire letter is reproduced below:

:TIFFIN, O., Nov. 5, 1881,

:DEAR SIR: -- Your note of the 1st inst. I found upon my desk when I returned home this evening and I hasten to answer. Once for all, I desire to be strictly understood when I say to you that I cannot violate any confidence of a friend, though he be dead.

:This I will say, that Mr. Cowdery never spoke of his connection with the Mormons to anybody except to me. We were intimate friends.

:The plates were never translated and could not be, were never intended to be. What is claimed to be a translation is the "Manuscript Found" worked over by Cowdery. He was the best scholar amongst them. Rigdon got the original at the job printing office in Pittsburg, as I have stated. I often expressed my objection to the frequent repetition of "And it came to pass" to Mr. Cowdery, and said that a true scholar ought to have avoided that, which only provoked a smile from Cowdery. Without going into detail or disclosing a confided word, I say to you that I do know, as well as can now be known, that Cowdery revised the "manuscript," and Smith and Rigdon approved of it before it became the "Book of Mormon."

:I have no knowledge of what became of the original. Never heard Cowdery say as to that.

:Smith was killed while Cowdery lived here. I well remember the effect upon his countenance when he read the news in my presence. He immediately took the paper over home to read to his wife. On his return to the office we had a long conversation on the subject, and I was surprised to hear him speak with so much kindness of a man that had so wronged him as Smith did. It elevated him greatly in my already high esteem, and proved to me more than ever the nobility of his nature. Cowdery never gave me a full history of the troubles of the Mormons in Missouri and Illimois, but I am sure that the doctrine of polygamy was advocated by Smith and opposed by Cowdery.

:Then when they became rivals for the leadership, Smith made use of this opposition by Cowdery, to destroy his popularity and influence, which finally culminated in the mob that demolished Cowdery's house the night when he fled.

:This Whitmer you speak of must be the brother-in-law of Cowdery, whose wife was a Whitmer. It may be true that Whitmer has the original MS.

:Now as to whether Cowdery ever "openly denounced Mormonism," let me say this to you: No man ever knew better than he how to keep one's own counsel. He would never allow any man to drag him into a conversation on the subject. Cowdery was a Democrat and a most powerful advocate of the principles of the party on the stump. For this he became the target of the Whig stumpers and press, who denounced him as a Mormon and made free use of Cowdery's certificate * at the end of the Mormon Bible to crush his influence. He suffered great abuse for this, while he lived here on that account.

:In the second year of his residence here, he and his family attached themselves to the Methodist Protestant Church, where they held fellowship to the time they left for Elkhorn.

:I have now said about all that I feet at liberty to say on these points, and hope it may aid you some in your researches. If Mrs. Cowdery is still living, I would be glad to learn her post-office address, so as to enable me to write to her.

:You have now the substance of all I remember on the subject and if it proves of any benefit to your enterprise (to which I wish you success), you are certainly welcome. I could only answer your questions in the manner I did, because some of them were not susceptible of a direct answer by me. Resptfully yours, W. LANG.

===Analysis of the letter===
There are a number of items mentioned in the letter which make this claim suspect.
#The letter was written over thirty years after Oliver Cowdery's death.
#The idea that Oliver would claim that the Book of Mormon was derived from the [[Book of Mormon and Spaulding manuscript|Spalding's "Manuscript found."]] This claim was made by Lang in 1881, while the Spalding theory still had some traction. The theory collapsed three years later in 1884 with the discovery of Spalding's manuscript. The primary support for the Spalding theory were the [[The Hurlbut affidavits#Spalding manuscript claims and reliability|affidavits collected by Doctor Phiastus Hurlbut]] from Solomon Spalding's family and neighbors published in E.D. Howe's 1834 anti-Mormon book ''Mormonism Unvailed.'' With the discovery that the Spalding manuscript did not support their theory, critics postulated the existence of a ''second'' Spalding manuscript in order to explain the affidavits of Spalding's neighbors. Critic Fawn Brodie actually ''discounted'' these affidavits, suggesting that some "judicious prompting" by Hurlbut may have been involved in the affidavits that were gathered to support the Spalding theory.{{ref|brodie1}}
#The idea that Sidney Rigdon obtained the Spalding manuscript while in Pittsburgh. Sidney Rigdon did not meet Joseph Smith until after he saw the Book of Mormon for the first time. There is absolutely no source which indicates a connection between Sidney and Joseph prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon.
#The author's insistence that he cannot "violate any confidence of a friend, though he be dead," yet share a detail which would be as devastating as this, then conclude by saying that he "really can't say much more "[w]ithout going into detail or disclosing a confided word" of his friend. Lang even covers the fact that Oliver never said this to anyone else by claiming that "Mr. Cowdery never spoke of his connection with the Mormons to anybody except to me."

===Provenance of the letter===
The 1881 letter is no longer extant and there is reason to believe that all or part of the letter is a forgery. After reviewing claims made about the letter's provenance, Spalding theory researcher Dale Broadhurst concludes, "Judge Lang's purported 1881 reference to Solomon Spalding's ''Manuscript Found'' should be viewed with a modicum of scholarly distrust." Broadhurst proposes a scenario where William Lang's surviving son could have been duped into authenticating the handwriting and reproduction of the letter.

It seems unlikely that two Spalding theorists (William Lang and Thomas Gregg) suppressed Oliver's devastating admission in their own publications. A third Spalding theorist, Rev. Robert B. Neal, printed the 1881 letter between the first two only after their deaths. In the same 1906 tract, Neal also published the known forgery ''Defense in a Rehearsal of My Grounds for Separating Myself from the Latter-day Saints.'' That he pointed out his sensational Oliver Cowdery material to his readers specifically to raise money may indicate an additional motive for fabricating evidence.

As noted, William Lang's own writings published in his lifetime do not use Oliver Cowdery to support the Spalding theory. Lang's 1880 ''History of Seneca County'' mentions Cowdery multiple times. For example, Lang became a legal apprentice to Cowdery soon after his 1840 move to Tiffin, Ohio (p. 387). In a lengthy appendix on Mormonism (p 646- ), Lang makes a reference to Cowdery being "a respected citizen" who had lived there, and a few paragraphs later introduces the Spalding theory without using Cowdery as a source. He also has a two-page biography (p. 364-5) about Oliver Cowdery where he hints that "Cowdery had more to do with the production of the Mormon Bible than its history ever gave him credit for," but nothing connects Oliver to the Spalding manuscript.

The supposed recipient of the letter, Thomas Gregg, was a long time newspaper publisher in the Hancock, Illinois, area. His intermittent associate in the newspaper business, Thomas Sharp, had played a large role in stirring up anti-Mormons to kill Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Frank Worrell, Gregg's brother-in-law, had failed to protect the Smiths as a guard at Carthage jail and was later shot by the deputized Porter Rockwell at the behest of the non-Mormon sheriff, Jacob Backenstos. Many of his publications over a 50-year span set forth his less-than-impartial version of Mormon history. For example, his 1880 History of Hancock county contained a lengthy Mormon section. More to the point, in 1890 he published the 550 page ''The Prophet of Palmyra''. Gregg's biographer describes it thusly:

:It is not so much a biography of Smith as a history of the Latter Day Saints' Church from the appearance of The Book of Mormon through the exodus from Illinois. Here, too, Gregg's attitude toward the Prophet and other Mormon leaders is consistently negative. He views The Book of Mormon as a carefully planned deception, based partly on Solomon Spaulding's ''Manuscript Found'' (c. 1813), and he relies on a number of Mormon exposes - such as E. D. Howe's ''Mormonism Unveiled'' (1834) and William Harris's ''Mormonism Portrayed'' -for information about Smith.

Despite a desire to defend and document the Spalding theory, Thomas Gregg did not print William Lang's supposed 1881 letter. This may point to the letter being a forgery. An alternative is that Gregg found it unethical to print the letter because it betrayed confidential information or was deemed not credible enough. Robert Neal was clearly less burdened by ethical considerations or less discerning about what he published. None of these proposed scenarios inspires any confidence that Oliver, did in fact, retract his testimony of the Book of Mormon to William Lang in private and to no one else.

===What did Oliver himself say?===
Oliver Cowdery made many statements during his life, even during the period during which he had been excommunicated from the church, in which he confirmed his testimony of the Book of Mormon. Oliver even testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon as he was dying.

:Oliver Cowdery just before breathing his last, asked his attendants to raise him up in bed that he might talk to the family and his friends, who were present. He then told them to live according to the teachings contained in the Book of Mormon, and promised them, if they would do this, that they would meet him in heaven. He then said, ‘Lay me down and let me fall asleep.’ A few moments later he died without a struggle.{{ref|cowdery1}}

This is not consistent with Lang's story of a man who readily admitted to a hoax of the magnitude that he suggests.

==Conclusion==
If not among the forgeries promulgated by Robert Neal, William Lang's letter repeats the standard Spalding theory and disingenuously assigns this claim to Oliver Cowdery, who had been dead for over thirty years and was not available to rebut the claim.

==Endnotes==

#{{note|brodie1}}Fawn M. Brodie, [[No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith|''No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith'']] (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 446–447.
#{{note|cowdery3}} Andrew Jenson, ''LDS Biographical Encyclopedia'' (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1901), 1:246.

==Further reading==

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