Link: http://richkelsey.org/joseph_smith_money_digging_accounts.html

You know, we can read this now and go, "geez, there was no end to the lengths he would go to lie and deceive other people in his fraud schemes," but I have actually read things by people who use this as justification for the peep stone in the hat.

They claim that God had given him this "gift" for a reason. His family knew he had it but didn't understand that it had come from God for a purpose (so when he was older he'd know how to look into the stone and read the words of almightygawd).

Yeah, cause God had no other way of getting the BOM translated. And either God didn't know correct grammar and how to spell or JS' "gift" wasn't fine-tuned enough to read the correct words off the rock. That's why there were thousands of changes that had to be made to the text.

I appreciated the Widtsoe quote at the beginning. That was back in the days when church leaders and apologists steadfastly denied all of the accounts of Joseph Smith's fraudulent money-digging practices---even though Smith himself admitted to it:

"'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."

And even though Smith admitted in his 1838 autobiography that he went to Pennsylvania to work for Josiah Stowell specifically to look for an "old Spanish silver mine"; and his mother, Lucy Mack Smith, wrote that Stowell hired Joseph "on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys, by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye"---those "keys" being his seer stone(s).

I also appreciated the quote from the 1831 "Palmyra Reflector":

"It is well known that Jo Smith never pretended to have any communion with angels, until a long period after the pretended finding of his book, and that the juggling of himself or father, went no further than the pretended faculty of seeing wonders in a 'peep stone,' and the occasional interview with the spirit, supposed to have the custody of hidden treasures." (THE REFLECTOR, Feb. 18, 1831)

I note that most of the other quotes in the article were from sources decades after the events occurred. Many Mormon apologists, of course, reject a lot of those sources, on the grounds that they're either too far removed and too late, or that some of them were obtained by the anti-Mormon researcher Philastus Hurlbut. That's why I always try to cite the pre-Hurlbut sources, which are 1833 and earlier. For instance, Mormon apologists discount the late accounts of Smith's 1826 court hearing. But the one written by Abram Benton in 1831 cannot be so easily dismissed:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/ny/miscnyse.htm

To read it, scroll down to the "Evangelical Magazine And Gospel Advocate" of April 9, 1831.

Also, many years ago, when I was researching these issues, I compiled some of the early published accounts regarding Smith's money-digging, which also related how he and Sidney Rigdon "invented" Mormonism:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1506373,1506777#msg-1506777

This kind of early information should be factored into articles written on this subject.

One more item: even though most Mormon apologists have traditionally rejected all of the reports of Smith's money-digging which were collected by Hurlbut, two of those testators were Isaac Hale, Joseph's father-in-law, and Peter Ingersoll, who was a young man that Joseph had hired to truck Emma's belongings. But an article in the February 2001 Ensign magazine cites Hale's and Ingersoll's affidavits as credible historical sources:

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2001/02/joseph-smiths-susquehanna-years?lang=eng

It's kinda difficult for Mopologists to reject Hurlbut's affidavits, when the church's official magazine quotes from them.

randyj

Thanks for commenting, the information you provided & the links.

"Thanks for commenting, the information you provided & the links."

You're welcome. This information is vital to telling the true story of Mormon origins, so I try to provide some of it whenever the subject comes up.

If I ever get a chance to pick your brain over a cup of coffee, I'd be a happy fella. ;)

If apologists reject those sources for happening so long after the event, does that mean they reject the 1st Vision? Wasn't the first written account around a decade after the even supposedly happened?

"If apologists reject those sources for happening so long after the event, does that mean they reject the 1st Vision?"

Nope. Mormon apologists have double standards for which historical info to accept or reject. If a source favors the church, they accept it. If it hurts the church, they reject it.

But as I pointed out with the Isaac Hale and Peter Ingersoll affidavits, some sources contain material that church scholars find helpful to furthering the church, but they don't mention the portions of the same sources that damage the church's story. And the scholars know that most of their TBM audience will never read the complete original sources, so the scholars feel fairly safe in using just the favorable parts. But the apologists' problem nowadays is people like us on the internet who are publicizing the complete sources and pointing out the double standards.

randyj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...Mormon apologists have double standards for
> which historical info to accept or reject. If a
> source favors the church, they accept it. If it
> hurts the church, they reject it.
>
> But as I pointed out with the Isaac Hale and Peter
> Ingersoll affidavits, some sources contain
> material that church scholars find helpful to
> furthering the church, but they don't mention the
> portions of the same sources that damage the
> church's story.

The LDS official "History of the Church by Joseph Smith, Jr." which the church has published throughout its history actually contains thousands of these "selective" (out of context and misleading) quotes. Dean Jessee, of the LDS Church Historian's office, is on record stating that it should never be quoted or relied upon without independently verifying the original sources.

Without question, Mormonism is built on lies and gross misrepresentations. Anyone spending the time to become familiar with the recently published Joseph Smith Papers will soon realize this fact.

Good find. Thank you for posting the link.

This is yet another proof that there exists honest verifiable history and "Mormon Mythical History". Only fools reject the first and believe the untrue second one.