LDS Primary Manual; “One winter night a group of men who believed Ezra Booth’s letters got drunk and attacked the homes of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon in Hiram, Ohio. Joseph had been up late caring for his adopted son, who had the measles, and had just fallen asleep when the angry mob broke into the house. The men dragged Joseph outside, swearing and threatening to kill him. They choked him, tore off his clothes, and tried to push a paddle of hot tar and a bottle of acid into his mouth. The bottle of acid broke, chipping one of Joseph’s teeth and causing him to speak with a whistle for the rest of his life…”
There are two issues at hand that we’ll be looking at today with this Mormon teaching.
The first one comes with the events when Joe Smith was tarred and feathered.
I vividly recall the day I sat in my primary class and was taught the very same lesson these poor kids are taught today. There’s nary a word why Smith was tarred and feathered and no mention of any key players. This is nothing but a woe-is-me story for Joe Smith and the Church playing on the heart strings of young children with no life experience.
No hint is given that events precipitating being tarred and feathered were the cause or that Smith had already been in trouble and went to court for his unsolicited sexual advances against twelve young women. Twelve! Here’s what Fawn Brodie had to say about that night;
“Fortified by a barrel of whiskey, [the mob] smashed their way into the Johnson home on the night of March 24, 1832 and dragged Joseph from the trundle bed where he had fallen asleep while watching one of the twins. They stripped him, scratched and beat him with savage pleasure, and smeared his bleeding body with tar from head to foot. Ripping a pillow into shreds, they plastered him with feathers. It is said that Eli Johnson demanded that the prophet be castrated, for he suspected Joseph of being too intimate with his sister, Nancy Marinda. But the doctor who had been persuaded to join the mob declined the responsibility at the last moment…” – No Man Knows My History, p 119
The second issue in this Primary teaching is quite silly, but alas, serves as another example of how the Church lies to and indoctrinates the young people in their care. The lesson says;
‘The bottle of acid broke, chipping one of Joseph’s teeth and causing him to speak with a whistle for the rest of his life…”
Now I wouldn’t have given this a second thought had I not come across documentation refuting this statement. I was actually looking for other items of interest awhile back and didn’t think anything of it until I read the Primary lesson.
Here’s what a gospel doctrine teacher had to say in his book ‘Of Curious Workmanship’ –
Of Curious Workmanship, pp 15-16; “Now I’ve had a whistle sound in my nose before and it’s very irritating, almost as annoying as listening to someone complain about a whistle in their nose. I’m sure Joseph was equally annoyed. He eventually had his broken tooth fixed in Nauvoo, Illinois, presumably by the only dentist there, Alexander Neibaur (see Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon, p. 145).” – Edgar G. Snow, Jr.
Having a chipped tooth in and of itself isn’t noteworthy, but what they said about it is! They said this caused him to ‘whistle’ for the rest of his life. If the tooth was causing the problem and then repaired I would imagine the whistle was taken care of as well eh?
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