Qcmbr: I don't believe in that person as a divine being and the myth of Christ is awful to me. A cult is a cult. So agreed.
So you’re willing to pre-judge any religious group based on the negative things people say about them? I don’t understand how anyone can read Isaiah 53 without seeing Christ...or understanding the law of sacrifice. What other reason would God have for commanding that an animal without blemish be offered up unless to act as a teaching device? I don’t know why the Greeks, Babylonians and others would offer up animal sacrifices because, to them, the smell of the sacrifices pleased their gods. But to the Hebrews, animal sacrifice had a much deeper meaning in that it pointed to Christ.
You could argue that it wasn't sexual but then you'd have to argue that since the sealing keys weren't given till later on, that Joseph was simply marrying pluraly with no celestial hope or promise. I can think of no rational reason why someone would simply marry additional women for no particular reason.
Since I haven’t made the plural marriage issue a point of study, I know that the vast majority of disdain came from external sources. But as we’ve stated, God is the author and framer of all righteousness. If there is no God, there can be no right nor wrong. FairMormon describes the Fanny Alger incident thus:
Probably the wife about whom we know the least is Fanny Alger, Joseph's first plural wife, whom he came to know in early 1833 when she stayed at the Smith home as a house-assistant of sorts to Emma (such work was common for young women at the time). There are no first-hand accounts of their relationship (from Joseph or Fanny), nor are there second-hand accounts (from Emma or Fanny's family). All that we do have is third hand accounts, most of them recorded many years after the events.
Unfortunately, this lack of reliable and extensive historical detail leaves much room for critics to claim that Joseph Smith had an affair with Fanny and then later invented plural marriage as way to justify his actions. The problem is we don't know the details of the relationship or exactly of what it consisted, and so are left to assume that Joseph acted honorably (as believers) or dishonorably (as critics).
There is some historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored, so it is perfectly legitimate to argue that Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger was such a case. Mosiah Hancock (a Mormon) reported a wedding ceremony; and apostate Mormons Ann Eliza Webb Young and her father Chauncery both referred to Fanny's relationship as a "sealing." Ann Eliza also reported that Fanny's family was very proud of Fanny's relationship with Joseph, which makes little sense if it was simply a tawdry affair. Those closest to them saw the marriage as exactly that—a marriage.
The keys for eternal sealing were restored by Elijah in 1836. All marriages up to that point were systematically sealed with the proper keys, but not everything came at once. Helen Mar Kimball, the one I mentioned earlier, she suffered through the persecutions in Nauvoo and made it out to Utah, where she lived to a ripe old age. She was the one supposedly victimized by Joseph Smith, but shortly before her death she wrote:
I have long since learned to leave all with [God], who knoweth better than ourselves what will make us happy. I am thankful that He has brought me through the furnace of affliction [and] that He has condescended to show me that the promises made to me the morning that I was sealed to the Prophet of God will not fail [and] I would not have the chain broken for I have had a view of the principle of eternal salvation [and] the perfect union which this sealing power will bring to the human family [and] with the help of our Heavenly Father I am determined to so live that I can claim those promises.
I was referring to the Book of Mormon which Joseph tried to sell the copyright of with its impossible historical events, incorrect flora and fauna and anachronisms. I did post links to the books he lifted style and content from earlier in this thread but you missed them; I care enough about you to do your homework though....
First, please tell me about the incorrect “flora and fauna and anachronisms” the Book of Mormon is guilty of. Meanwhile, I took a look at your “books [Joseph Smith] lifted style and content from and I’m stunned. Do you really believe these books are where Joseph Smith got his writing style from? (As far as content, I’m unsure of how to piece your arguments together here.) It’ll take more than a few “it came to pass” phrases to get very far with that argument, which is why no modern anti-Mormon I know of today uses it.
In the books you listed, where are the Hebraisms that are found throughout the Book of Mormon? All I saw were some “thees” and “thous” and some of the formal English used in the Book of Mormon. But where are the chiasms? Where are the simile curses?
Apologist Dr. Daniel C. Peterson said the Book of Mormon would be more fairly compared with another well known book:
The only book that I could think of that may even resemble it in some way (some people have pointed this out) is something like J. R. R. Tolkiens Lord of the Rings. But we need to remember that Lord of the Rings was produced over a period of about 30 years by a man with a doctorate who taught at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. It's quite a different thing than a book that was produced in about two months. So the very existence of the book is an astonishing thing. It was not something that could just be produced by an upstate New York farm boy just off the top of his head.
The Book of Mormon was produced in two months and comprised some 420,000 words, a phenomenal feat, plus, as Peterson notes, it generates “a plausible and coherent geography can be deduced from the book that was produced so rapidly.” The writers quote from each other frequently and appropriately, small, obscure towns that are mentioned once turn up many pages later and a long time in the future, yet the town is in the same spot. Writers of fiction usually always get these things wrong, he said.
Then there are the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. Martin Harris gave hundreds of accounts of it, and the story was always the same. There were no lapses in memory or contradictions. The same was true of David Whitmer. Again, Peterson notes: “[Whitmer] was given many opportunities to step back from his witness, to say, ‘Well, I might have been mistaken’ or ‘Joseph Smith fooled me,” or something like that. He never availed himself of that opportunity. He always stood by his witness. In fact, he did more than stand by it—he insisted on it. He had his testimony of the Book of Mormon placed on his tombstone. That, I think, is striking.”
Very similar things can be said of all the witnesses—all those who saw the plates directly, or those who felt them while in a canvas bag.
Peterson also has notes: “...ancient Near Eastern law did distinguish between thieves and robbers very rigidly, and particularly, ancient Israelite law did. Thieves were thought to be local. They stole from their neighbors; they were common; they were a nuisance, but they weren't really a threat to society. So when they were caught, they were dealt with judicially, civilly, usually by their neighbors, their townspeople, and they weren't a big deal. Robbers, on the other hand, were a very big deal. They were a threat to society. They were seen as outsiders, as brigands, as highwaymen. They would organize in groups, they would swear binding oaths; they would extort ransom from the people around them. And when they were caught, they were often caught by the military. This was a military thing, a kind of war. They were dealt with not civilly, but militarily, and they were subject to summary execution. They were quite a different thing [from thieves].
“Now, it's notable in the Book of Mormon,” he adds, that “thieves and robbers are never confused, and robbers—specifically the Gadianton robbers—are dealt with as a military problem, just as they would have been under ancient Israelite law, but not necessarily the way we think of them today because we don't make this clear distinction. So the Book of Mormon is found to be in precise agreement with ancient Near Eastern—and specifically, Israelite—concepts and usage.”
These are only a few items, and there are many more. You really think your evidence against is better than my evidence for?
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