Growing up, I remember hearing tales of Joseph Smith receiving revelations that warned him of impending plots by the Liberty jail guards to poison him and his followers, or to feed them "human flesh." In retrospect, it seems obvious that these miracles never happened. Either they were made up after the fact, as faith promoting lies, or they are proof that Joseph Smith suffered from paranoia. They may even account for some of the harshness of the Mormon leaders' stay in Liberty, if they were regularly missing meals, due to belief in a supernatural plot to kill them. Such a false belief would have resulted in the men throwing out significant portions of their rations, which would not have helped their situation.

Strangest of all, is the story of the Negro slave who had his arm amputated, and then the arm cooked up to feed to Smith and his cohorts. If I remember right, the story provided a lot of generic detail about the slave, but little in the way of hard biographical detail. Not only does this story sound made up, but it actually reveals a great deal of racism among the Mormons. It wasn't simply that they were being fed human flesh, the authors of the story try to make it sound even more horrible by pointing out that it was a black man's arm, as if this is somehow even more disgusting, than any other person's flesh.

Until they Mormons can point to biographical detail on exactly which poor slave lost his arm, beyond the word of convicted liar Joseph Smith, I am calling BS on this whole affair.

Well, the place he *really* needed miracles was in Carthage Jail.

Ba-dum-bump!

You know what the last thing to cross Joseph Smith's mind was? The ground.

do you think any stories told by mormons are true ?

Gosh, golly gee, these are new ones to me! I must have been at the wrong slumber party.

I was given the impression that Joe was not even concerned about dying before he became a martyr for the Mormon cause. His thoughts were only on spiritual matters before he was so tragically gunned down. I was in junior high seminary when this was thrown at me, and I thought to myself that this information was evidence of a miracle from the Mormon God that Joe could be given that kind of peace and presence of mind.

Many years later when I realized that there was evidence that Joe had wine delivered to him in jail, plus a gun, I thought somethings are not adding up here. Oh, plus, I was told he took his garments off (because the garments advertised loud and clear his involvement in polygamy and he knew it was not a good plan to be wearing them).

Did he need the wine to numb his worries, concerns, maybe even fears? Why did he need a gun??? And, he took OFF his garments? My mind was whirling.

Yeah, Joe proudly made the statement, and I paraphrase, well, no man knows my history. I think, by this statement, that he thought he had succeeded in duping the world. He thought he had shown the world the image he wanted them to see, hiding behind this persona the real Joe, the conman Joe.

Has anyone heard of heavenly beings appearing at any of the recent temple dedications as happened back in the early days such as at Kirkland? Very strange that God seems to have abandoned his one true church. I know that nothing like that happened when I was at the dedication in Dallas, oh those many years ago. Likewise how about those stories of the horrors experienced by the killers of Brother Joseph? Tall tales are big in the church. Spin is big in the LDS scene.

Most likely the spiritual visitors were just made up. However, I would not put it past Joseph Smith to fake such events, and for the early members to be gullible enough to fall for it. After all, it has been a tradition for Evangelical ministers to pull tricks on their congregations for centuries, and Smith once apprenticed to an Evangelical minister in his money finding days.

I never heard about the slaves arm. The story told to me in seminary was that the guards called it "Mormon beef." It had come from murdered saints. Later Jo described the texture of the meat to "experts" and it was determined that it was in fact human. Anyone else hear this version?

version I heard was an angel told him it was human flesh - a negro to boot - so he was not to consume it.

Why did they do that asked the young me, to which the answer was; if he had eaten it he would have been a cannibal and would have been denied entry to heaven. I suppose the negro part was added to reflect brigham young's teaching that one drop of negro blood (even if consumed apparently) would deny the person entry to the celestial kingdom, but justified in story telling as the anti mob making doubly sure Joe couldn't get into heaven.

Funny how the anti-mormon lot know exactly what the mormons believe? Having Joe tried by the law was not good enough, oh no, they wanted to prevent Joe's spirit reaching the heights of the celestial glory. It HAS to be satan leading them. (sounds like the witchfinders in the 17th century)

"The story told to me in seminary was that the guards called it "Mormon beef." It had come from murdered saints."

That bit alone tells us that the story is false. The only Mormons killed during the major stage of the Missouri conflict were the 17 at Haun's Mill, which took place on October 30, and was many miles away from Liberty. Smith and his accomplices weren't imprisoned in Liberty Jail until December 1.

Some Mormon apologists have alleged that Mormons were raped and murdered while being driven out of Missouri, but all of those allegations have been proven false. Missouri militiamen even provided stores of corn for the Mormons to eat on their way out of the state. And on the day after the Haun's Mill massacre---which was committed by an unauthorized, renegade militia unit---another state militia unit came upon the scene, and they caught and killed a hog for the surviving Mormons to eat.

So the idea that non-Mormon Missourians were subhuman, evil people who would feed human flesh to prisoners awaiting trial is specious and is refuted by known facts. That allegation is just another in the long line of false stories invented to make Mormonism's opponents look evil and make the church and its leaders appear to be poor, persecuted, innocent little lambs.

I find it doubtful that any "expert" could determine the composition of meat, based on a description of it's texture, especially if the witnesses had not eaten it.

One wonders why TBMs have the need to repeat such nonsensical stories to one another. It would seem that if they actually knew "beyond a shadow of a doubt" as they all too often state, they would not have to keep re-convincing themselves with silly miracle stories like this whopper.

"One wonders why TBMs have the need to repeat such nonsensical stories to one another."

If they didn't have those false stories to repeat, Mormonism wouldn't exist. Such tales are the very foundation of the church.