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Intro to “More Wives Than One” by Kathryn Daynes

Posted by Mormon Heretic on October 25, 2009 in Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews, polygamy, Women

My book club is reading More Wives than One, by Kathryn Daynes.  I am loving this book!

You may remember my earlier post outlining my perspective on Polygamy, as well as Bushman’s perspective.  I must say that I was very uncomfortable with many of these aspects (and I still am.)  Daynes outlines the much more public practice of polygamy from the Utah period.  Since the Mormons practiced it more openly, perhaps that is the reason for less discomfort while reading this book.  Some of these stories still leave me shaking my head in amazement.

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“Healthy Bucksom Lassies”: “ Spalding’s “Manuscript Found” Part 2

Posted by Mormon Heretic on October 19, 2009 in Book of Mormon, Early Mormon History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews

This is part 2 of my in-depth look into Solomon Spalding’s only known novel, “Manuscript Found.”  I’ve previously discussed the Spalding Theory of Book of Mormon origins, and given an introduction to Spalding’s only known manuscript discovered by LL Rice in Hawaii.  The original manuscript is located at Oberlin College in Ohio.

One of the most striking features to me concerning the document is the extremely poor spelling.  I would hope that Spalding would be a “tolerable schollar” (his spelling on page 43.)  At first, I started circling all the words that he misspelled, but I got tired of it after a while because there were so many.  Here’s a sampling of some.

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10 Reasons Why the Book of Mormon Took Place in Peru

Posted by Mormon Heretic on October 14, 2009 in Archeology, Book of Mormon, Geography, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews, Scripture, South America

From time to time, I get an email from George Potter.  He has a website called the Nephi Project.  I heard him speak a few years ago on research he has done in Yemen.  His research is pretty well-respected, and it appears he has a very good candidate for Nephi’s Harbor, and he may have found the River Laman in Saudi Arabia that is mentioned by Lehi in the Book of Mormon.  (I really need to write a review of his and another researcher’s work–they are really good.)  Potter thinks that Lehi and his family followed the frankincense trail to Yemen before setting sail for the New World.

George has recently shifted his focus from the Old World to the New World.  George is a proponent that the Book of Mormon lands are in Peru.  His latest newsletter dated Oct 13, 2009, says,
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Introduction to Spalding’s “Manuscript Found” Part 1

Posted by Mormon Heretic on October 11, 2009 in Book of Mormon, CoC/RLDS, Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews, Scripture

I was surprised at the recent burst of activity on my post back in April titled, Debunking the Spaulding Manuscript Theory. One of my commenters (Roger) seem to believe the Spaulding Theory still has merit.  I even had Craig Criddle stop by.   He is a leading proponent of the theory and published a peer-reviewed article at Oxford in support of this theory.  (You need a subscription to read it, but the abstract can be found there.)

Roger took issue Brodie’s characterization that Spaulding’s manuscript was “devoid of religious material”, and made several references to religious writings in this comment.  So, if Roger is right, it seems there should be quite a few religious similarities between this Spaulding manuscript, and the Book of Mormon, right?

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Balaam: Prophet, Wicked One, Both, Neither?

Posted by Mormon Heretic on October 4, 2009 in Archeology, Ethics, Israel, Judaism, Mission, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Old Testament, Scripture, Theology

I finally got around to one of my requests!  Tara and I have been discussing several topics, such as the Priesthood Ban, Polygamy, and Abraham, and the story of Balaam always seems to come up.  She takes the position that Balaam is a fallen prophet, but I think he never was a prophet.  Here’s my case.  What do you think?

Balaam has to be one of the most intriguing characters in the Bible.  He is one of only 7 gentile prophets mentioned in the Bible.  The others are Beor (Balaam’s father), Job and his 4 friends.  My favorite part of the story of Balaam is the talking donkey–it is the only place where an animal speaks (unless you count the serpent in the Garden of Eden.)   Ascertaining Balaam’s character can be a bit of a challenge.  On the one hand, the story of Balaam in Numbers 22-24  says the he not only talked with God, but a destroying angel appears to prevent him from cursing Israel.  On the other hand, he is referred to as “the wicked one” in Revelations.  So which is he?

Let’s get some background and a brief synopsis of the story of Balaam.

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Reddick Allred: Mormon Hero

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 28, 2009 in Archeology, Book of Mormon, Early Christian History, Early Mormon History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews

This is a post to talk about a lesser known Mormon hero.  My wife has many pioneer ancestors.  In reading The Forgotten Kingdom, by David Bigler, he makes a few references to Reddick Allred, who is a distant uncle of my wife.  I wanted to highlight a good, Mormon man, relatively unknown, who just did the best he could.

Chapter 5 deals with the Handcart disasters so many Mormons are familiar with.  The Martin and Willie Handcart companies started for Utah too late in the year, and ended up stranded in early blizzards in Wyoming.  Reddick Allred was part of the rescue team.  Here’s what the book says on page 115,

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U of U Really is School of the Prophets

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 23, 2009 in Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews

Back in July, the University of Utah football team signed a player out of California by the name of Joseph Smith.  I joked that with his signing, and President Hinckley and President Monson’s status as alums of the U, that it was the “School of the Prophets.”  (Joseph Smith had originally set up a School of the Prophets to teach the LDS leadership back in the Nauvoo days.)  Well, it turns out that it’s no joke, and comes straight from the mouth of none other than Brigham Young!

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The Anti-Polygamy Raids

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 19, 2009 in Book of Mormon, Early Christian History, Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews, polygamy, Scripture, Women

If one searches around the bloggernacle, you’ll find a snarky comment about how the church traded polygamy for statehood, or that the church just wimped-out on polygamy.  Such comments don’t seem to take into account how much pressure the US government was putting on the church–it was literally trying to snuff it out if the church didn’t back down from polygamy.  I’d like to get into some of these details leading up to the Manifesto.  I talked about the Manifesto previously in the context of whether the prophet would ever lead the church astray.  It should be noted that the church had been fighting anti-polygamy legislation for nearly 30 years, so I think it should be noted that the Manifesto banning polygamy in 1890 was not a spur-of-the-moment quick capitulation.  UPDATE:  I just finished Forgotten Kingdom, and I want to add some additional information.  I’ve highlighted this in purple below.

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Successors of Consecration: Tithing and Fast Offerings

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 13, 2009 in Consecration, Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews, Movies, polygamy, Tithing

I’ve learned a lot about consecration in the last few books.  While most of us know that tithing was instituted as a “lower law” because the early saints weren’t capable of the “higher law” of consecration, I have still learned some interesting things about both tithing and fast offerings.  For example, Fast Offerings were instituted due to the grasshopper attacks in 1855.  Those of us who live in Utah are all familiar with the famous seagull invasion where the seagulls saved the crops of the saints in 1848.  However in 1855 and 1856, the grasshopper attacks were much worse, and the seagulls were overwhelmed.

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Carthage Conspiracy: Trial of Joseph’s Assassins

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 8, 2009 in Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews

I’ve recently been invited to a website called StayLDS.com.  Let me quote the mission of StayLDS:

StayLDS.com is dedicated to helping people who are struggling in some way to remain involved in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after a major shift in (or challenge to) their faith. We are committed to being a supportive, positive environment in which people with any difficulty can commune openly and honestly in a spirit of love and support.

I think I was invited there since I deal with many of the topics in church history that people find problematic.  I think it is ok to deal with these tougher issues.  I don’t always have orthodox responses, but I strive to put them in proper historical context, and I want to help people stay in the church.  In a way, I feel like a missionary. In addition to the resources on the front page, there is a forum where most anybody can ask a question and create a discussion.

One of the people there took great issue with the fact that a gun was smuggled into the Carthage Jail, and he felt like the church was covering up this fact.  I’ve known a gun was smuggled to Joseph for years from visits to the Carthage Jail in Illinois, and the tour guides do not try to hide this fact.  Anyway, I’ve already promised to post on the book called  Carthage Conspiracy by Dallin H Oaks.  The writer at StayLDS inspired me to detail the fact that Elder Oaks had already published about the smuggled gun in 1975.

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