“If God does not save men by truth, he certainly will not save them by lies. And if the old gospel is not competent to work a revival, then we will do without the revival.” – Charles Spurgeon
Leaders of the LDS Church picked up where Joe Smith left off by indulging themselves with a major ‘do-over’ through the pen of renowned church historian, BH Roberts.
The work we’re looking at today was written by Mr. Roberts in 1930, telling us that it’s long after the actual event a century prior.
Smith’s lies are deplorable, and making excuses by retrofitting them into Church History books, is nothing less than reprehensible. Especially so when it’s done by feeding it to members, young and old alike, which is what they’ve done here.
The Church must’ve felt their story would be easier to believe by explaining away the contradictions found in their own published history, thus the rewrite. However, this still doesn’t explain why Smith was using tools of witchcraft to ‘translate’ the golden plates he supposedly dug out of a hill in upstate NY.
As a heads up – there’s not a free online version provided by the Church for this particular work. We did find it, however, on someone’s private server which you can access in the link below.
A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1930], 1:128 – 129 “Chapter X … There will appear between this statement of David Whitmer’s and what is said both by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery a seeming contradiction. Joseph and Oliver both say the translation was done by means of the Urim and Thummim, which is described by Joseph as being “two transparent stones set in a rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate;” while David Whitmer says that the translation was made by means of a Seer Stone.
The apparent contradiction is cleared up, however, by a statement made by Martin Harris. He said that the Prophet possessed a Seer Stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as with the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he sometimes used the Seer Stone.
Martin said further that the Seer Stone differed in appearance entirely from the Urim and Thummim that was obtained with the plates, which were two clear stones set in two rims, very much resembling spectacles, only they were larger.” – B. H. Roberts
You can find more info on this saga at MormonThink.com, detailing how the Church decided it’d be more malleable to members if they retro-engineered the whole story. This was listed as #17 in their list, ‘lying for the Lord’.
In 2017 the Church announced an updated 4 volume series containing updated info, and historical events since the last time they did this. For more info see their news release here.
The most important thing in this fiasco is making sure we continue to pray for those lost in this web of lies, and share the truth of Jesus with them!
With Love in Christ;
Michelle
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