This time it's serious. My daughter (YW age) was whisked off to Logan this evening to attend the Martin Harris Pageant.

What do they tell people at the pageant? I need to know so I have some basis for talking to her about it.

Thanks.

It's supposed to be a faith promoting attempt to transform a 19th century crackpot who was an inconsistent and wavering witness into respectable, steadfast believer in the Book of Mormon and defender of the faith.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2017 11:21PM by Strength in the Loins.

Do they burn his wife effigy with the 116 pages pinned to her chest? Or is there a scary basement scene with evil grimy men plotting to destroy JS?

I mean, if it's faith-promoting, you gotta go all the way.

Do they relay Martin Harris's comment upon hearing the prophet was dead?

"They should have killed him sooner!"
--Martin Harris

I remember going to this pageant, sometime in my early married days, 1973 or maybe a little later. I think my wife and I went with a church group or maybe even my parents but I don't remember now. I also don't remember much about it.

I think I read that Martin Harris beat up his wife badly after she "lost" the 116 pages.

Domestic violence is just sick.

I bet this part didn't make it into the pageant.

Do you really believe there were 116 lost pages?

I have not heard anything to the contrary. There is nothing supernatural about this claim. Joseph Smith composed or plagiarized this first draft of his story in a scheme to defraud Martin Harris of his money. Martin Harris was suspicious, or awed or something, and wanted to examine the manuscript more closely. Joseph Smith was hard-pressed and was afraid of losing his mark, so he gave in. But there were no copy machines back then, so he had to give him the one and only copy of the story he had written.

Lucy Harris hid or destroyed the manuscript, to try to expose Joseph Smith's fraud. She figured he would stampede or confess or produce a second manuscript different from the original.

In a way, Joseph Smith did expose himself. He came up with a stupid story about brass plates containing the same story from a different character's perspective -- Something which always bothered me, even when I was an active Mormon. Hundreds of years of records condensed onto one book of gold plates weighing like sixty pounds, and Moroni carries it hundreds of miles, but then he also had this spare set of brass plates he was also lugging around?

Do you not?...or is there just some aspect of the church story that you doubt? The fact that Martin took the pages to show his wife is pretty well documented.

I have been trying to find some chronology of the last time Martin gave JS cash and when he (Martin) took the papers to show his wife. I suspect that they "used him up" and then sent *some* 116 pages of crap with him to show his wife (whom JS and Rigdon knew would destroy them). I think it was a ruse to get Martin out of their inner circle. I think he was their primary "mark" and when he was broke, they disgraced and dismissed him.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2017 12:48AM by kathleen.

"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering kaboom?" - Marvin the Martian

Not quite Martin but just as looney.

The first person cheated by the nascent church. A foolish man who sold the farm for magic plates. Dumb as a beanstalk.

Blast from the past!

Back in my TBM days I took my doubting niece to this non-event. It turned out to be a badly acted play out in the middle of someone's field. It underwhelmed both my niece and myself.

I suppose this has been updated and possibly made, if possible, more appealing but I just remember it being very hard for either of us to remember.

It's my understanding that almost everything from the church's PR department focuses on the importance of strengthening one's testimony so as not to be lured away from TSCC by Satan. So, they probably turned up the volume to make is sound more important to NOT LEAVE THE CULT!

Too bad Sister Harris wasn't gay. Then they could have gotten a "two fer" out of this boring story. Gay and doubting. Shame, shame, shame.

I think this story is well covered in the South Park episode on Mormonism.

Dumb,dumb,dumb,dumb,dumb.

These inactments don't seem to compliment the intelligence of the audience, do they?

Indoctrination is easy/simple when readers/listeners want to believe; social pressures Seal the Deal in favor of tscc.

Martin Harris is a very important factor in the coming forth of the church.

According to Dale Morgan, it was through Martin that Joseph realized that if someone gave you $5 for find a lost cow by looking in a seerstone, they would demand it back if you failed.

Martin showed that people will gladly give you $50 for the Lord and never hold a grudge.

According to Dale, that was the point when the Book of Mormon was no longer a key to finding treasure, but would instead become a religious record of a lost people.

-from Dale Morgan's book "On Early Mormonism"

is from Trenton (so is my mother) and he just had to see it. He asked many of his friends to go and nobody would, so he went alone last night. He agreed it was BORING.

I always found this type of thing BORING even as a TBM. I actually did like Saturday's Warrior back in about 1974, but that was it. Hated sitting through dance festivals. Can't figure out why anyone would want to be in one (my sister was). The lds church has so many boring things they do. I tried really hard to like these things and never did. I did feel guilty for not "feeling the spirit" over stuff like this. Youth conference--OH MY HELL!

He was easily one of the wackiest early members. It is bizarre such an event would exist.