Joseph Smith Papers

[Mormorrisey]

He said "its not important to me that Mormon was a real man who kept the golden plates for our day."

You know, this really, really, really irritates me. Not that he said it, because I agree with it, but clearly it is the editors of the JS papers, Bushmans, the Givens, Prince, all these "church intellectuals" can get away with saying stuff like this because they have given thousands, sometimes millions (in the case of Prince) of dollars to the cause, and are prominent members. They can get away with being "questioning" members, and because I'm an internet nobody, I have to play on my phone in church and not say anything for fear of getiting into trouble. It's ridiculous.

I'm somewhat hopeful that once the older guard dies out these kinds of things can be said in church meetings, but I also fear that once inoculation takes hold, the newer inoculates will parrot the company line. We'll see.

[blazerb]

He said "its not important to me that Mormon was a real man who kept the golden plates for our day."

You know, this really, really, really irritates me. Not that he said it, because I agree with it, but clearly it is the editors of the JS papers, Bushmans, the Givens, Prince, all these "church intellectuals" can get away with saying stuff like this because they have given thousands, sometimes millions (in the case of Prince) of dollars to the cause, and are prominent members. They can get away with being "questioning" members, and because I'm an internet nobody, I have to play on my phone in church and not say anything for fear of getiting into trouble. It's ridiculous.

I'm somewhat hopeful that once the older guard dies out these kinds of things can be said in church meetings, but I also fear that once inoculation takes hold, the newer inoculates will parrot the company line. We'll see.

I totally agree. I don't know the parameters about who can say what. I think some wards allow a lot more dirt to be brought forward in church. I see posts in the bloggernacle describing some pretty open discussions in GD class that seemed to be received well. Maybe I could have remained a believer if I could have discussed controversial issues without causing a ruckus. I don't know if that would have been good for me or not. It would have caused me a lot less angst, but I would have been walking around with my eyes half closed.

[GoodBoy]

My question is why do they need a big team of church-sponsored people working on this? Why not just take pictures of all of these original documents and post them to the internet for everyone to study?

[wtfluff]

My question is why do they need a big team of church-sponsored people working on this? Why not just take pictures of all of these original documents and post them to the internet for everyone to study?

That's not how whitewashing works?

[Grace2Daisy]

I would point out the papers openly discuss controversial issues with the practice polygamy, using terms like "conjugal relations" (xxv) and "polyandrous marriages" (xxvii), and refuse to shy away from facts that the Church has in the past ignored. They admit that Smith likely consummated some, but not all, of his plural marriages, they list several plural wives who were already married to other men at the time of their sealing to Smith, and they detail the secretive nature of this controversial practice during the period.

My reason for this would be, many of those in attendance actually knew this? This is all in the papers.

[Charlotte]

I would point out the papers openly discuss controversial issues with the practice polygamy, using terms like "conjugal relations" (xxv) and "polyandrous marriages" (xxvii), and refuse to shy away from facts that the Church has in the past ignored. They admit that Smith likely consummated some, but not all, of his plural marriages, they list several plural wives who were already married to other men at the time of their sealing to Smith, and they detail the secretive nature of this controversial practice during the period.

My reason for this would be, many of those in attendance actually knew this? This is all in the papers.

I can't find it right now, but if I'm not mistaken, the JSP editors also say that God explicitly commanded it all. That's not very scholarly, in my opinion. The scholarly thing would have been to just present the actual records pertaining to polygamy and leave it there.