Hugh Nibley And The Defense Of The Book Of Abraham

“We have often been asked during the past months why we did not proceed with all haste to produce a translation of the papyri the moment they came into our possession. Well, for one thing others are far better equipped to do the job than we are, and some of those early expressed a willingness to undertake it. But, more important, it is doubtful whether any translation could do as much good as harm.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, BYU Studies, Spring 1968, page 251)

“... the presence on the scene of some of the original papyri, including those used by the Prophet in preparing the text of the Book of Abraham and the facsimiles wi their commentaries, has not raised a single new question, though, as we shall see, it has solved some old ones.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, Improvement Era, May 1968, page 54)

Richard A. Parker, egyptologist who declared the sensen papyrus as part of the Egyptian Book of Breathings and nothing else, is credible even to top Mormon scholars:
"[Richard] Parker [is] the best man in America for this particular period and style of writing.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, speech at the University of Utah, May 20th, 1960)

“Did he [Joseph Smith, Jr.} really think he was translating? If so he was acting in good faith. But was he really translating? If so, it was by a process which quite escapes the understanding of the specialists and lies in the realm of the imponderable....
“Today nobody claims that Joseph Smith got his information through ordinary scholarly channels. In that case one wonders how any amount of checking along ordinary scholarly channels is going to get us very far.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1968, page 101)

“Of particular interest to us is the close association of the Book of Breathings with the Facsimiles of the Book of Abraham. It can be easily shown by matching up the fibers of the papyri that the text of Joseph Smith’s Pap. No. XI was written on the same strip of material as Facsimile Number 1, ... our ‘Sensen’ Papyrus is closely bound to all three facsimiles by physical contact, putting us under moral obligation to search out possible relationships between the content of the four documents.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, BYU Studies, Winter 1971, pages 160-161)

“A few faded and tattered little scraps of papyrus may serve to remind the Latter-day Saints of how sadly they have neglected serious education.... Not only has our image suffered by such tragic neglect, but now in the moment of truth the Mormons have to face the world unprepared, after having been given a hundred years’ fair warning.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, BYU Studies, Winter 1968, pages 171-172)

“ ‘The papyri scripts given to the Church do not prove the Book of Abraham is true,’ Dr. Hugh Nibley said... Wednesday night. ‘LDS scholars are caught flat-footed by this discovery,’ he went on to say. According to Dr. Nibley, Mormon scholars should have been doing added research on the Pearl of Great Price years ago. Non-Mormon scholars will bring in questions regarding the manuscripts which will be hard to answer because of lack of scholarly knowledge on the subject.... Dr. Nibley said ‘worldly discoveries are going to bury the Church in criticism’ if members of the Church don’t take it upon themselves to become a people of learning.”
(BYU's Daily Universe, December 1st, 1967)

“I don’t consider myself an Egyptologist at all, and don’t intend to get involved in the P.G.P. [Pearl of Great Price] business unless I am forced into it....”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, “Letter to Dee Jay Nelson,” June 27th, 1967, reprinted in Mormonism – Shadow or Reality? by Sandra and Jerald Tanner, page 308)

Thomas Ferguson And The Book Of Abraham

“One life-long defender of Joseph Smith [Ferguson] made his own independent investigation of Joseph’s ability as a translator of Egyptian records, utilizing recognized Egyptologists without telling them a word about the issues that were at stake. Their verdict agreed with the findings of Mr. Nelson and Dr. Baer. Consequently, he came to reject the Book of Abraham and the claims put forth by Joseph Smith as a translator of ancient languages.”
(Wesley P. Walters, “Joseph Smith among the Egyptians,” The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, v 16, Winter 1973, page 45)

“At that time [December 2, 1970], Thomas Stuart Ferguson told us frankly that he had not only given up the Book of Abraham, but that he had come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was not a prophet and that Mormonism was not true. He told us that he had spent 25 years trying to prove Mormonism, but had finally come to the conclusion that his work had been in vain. He said that his training in law had taught him how to weigh evidence and that the case against Joseph Smith was absolutely devastating and could not be explained away.”
(Sandra and Jerald Tanner, relating correspondence with Ferguson, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality?, page 103)

“Nibley’s Era articles on the Book of Abraham aren’t worth a tinker – first, because he is not impartial, being the commissioned and paid defender of the faith. Second, because he could not, he dared not, he did not, face the true issue: ‘Could Joseph Smith translate Egyptian?’ I clipped every one of his articles, and have them in a single file – and I have reviewed them – looking in vain for that issue.”
(Thomas Ferguson to James Boyack, March 13th, 1971; see Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters, page 261)

Cost Of The Original Book Of Mormon In 1830

“After the Book was published, I frequently bantered him [Martin Harris] for a copy. He asked fourteen shillings a piece for them; I told them I would not give so much; he told me [they] had had a revelation that they must be sold at that price. Sometime afterwards I talked with Martin Harris about buying one of the Books and he told me they had had a new revelation, that they might be sold at ten shillings a piece.”
(Henry Harris, in Mormonism Unvailed, page 252)

“The Mormons said the price of the ‘Book of Mormon’ was established at $1.75 by revelation. It did not sell well and they claimed to receive another to sell it at $1.25.”
(Sylvia Walker, Naked Truths About Mormonism, volume 1, page 1)

“Five thousand copies were published – and they said the angel told Smith to sell the book at a price which was one dollar and eight cents per copy more than the cost, that they ‘might have the temporal profit, as well as the spiritual.’”
(David Marks, Baptist minister, The Life of David Marks, 1831, page 341. Quote made after visiting with David Whitmer and the Whitmer family)

Mormonism's Hatred Towards Christ And His People

"And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth..."
(Doctrine and Covenants, section 1, verse 30)

“My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.”
“I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.’”
“He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, ‘Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.’ I then said to my mother, ‘I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.’ It seems as though the adversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom; else why should the powers of darkness combine against me?
(Joseph Smith, Jr., Joseph Smith–History, verse 1, pages 8–26)

"What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world"
(Joseph Smith, Jr., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, page 270)

"...all the priests who adhere to the sectarian religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels."
(Joseph Smith, Jr. , The Elders Journal, verse 1, number 4, page 60)

“Nothing less than a complete apostasy from the Christian religion would warrant the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
(Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, verse 1, page 40)

“He did send His angel to this same obscure person, Joseph Smith jun., who afterwards became a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, and informed him that he should not join any of the religious sects of the day, for they were all wrong; that they were following the precepts of men instead of the Lord Jesus; that He had a work for him to perform, inasmuch as he should prove faithful before Him.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 2, page 171)

"Brother Taylor has just said that the religions of the day were hatched in hell. The eggs were laid in hell, hatched on its borders, and then kicked on to the earth."
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 6, page 176)

"When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was groveling in darkness."
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 5, page 73)

"With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world."
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 8, page 199)

"The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God"
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 8, page 171)

“...the time came when Paganism was engrafted into Christianity, and at last Christianity was converted into Paganism rather than converting the Pagans. And subsequently the Priesthood was taken from among men, this authority was re-called into the heavens, and the world was left without the Priesthood—without the power of God—without the Church and Kingdom of God.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 22, page 44)

"Christians—those poor, miserable priests brother Brigham was speaking about—some of them are the biggest whoremasters there are on the earth, and at the same time preaching righteousness to the children of men. The poor devils, they could not get up here and preach an oral discourse, to save themselves from hell; they are preaching their fathers' sermons —preaching sermons that were written a hundred years before they were born. ...You may get a Methodist priest to pour water on you, or sprinkle it on you, and baptize you face foremost, or lay you down the other way, and whatever mode you please, and you will be damned with your priest.
(Mormon Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, verse 5, page 89)

"Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century."
(Mormon Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, verse 6, page 167)

"Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom."
(Mormon Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, verse 10, page 127)

"What! Are Christians ignorant? Yes, as ignorant of the things of God as the brute beast."
(Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, verse 13, page 225)

"What does the Christian world know about God? Nothing... Why so far as the things of God are concerned, they are the veriest fools; they know neither God nor the things of God."
(Mormon Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, verse 13, page 225)

"Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the ‘whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent."
(Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, page 255)

"But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of Christian Churches ... But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance"
(Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, verse 18, page 172)

“... who, in his right mind, could, for one moment, suppose the Bible in its present form to be a perfect guide? Who knows that even one verse of the whole Bible has escaped pollution so as to convey the same sense now that it did in the original.”
(Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt, “The Bible and Tradition, without Further Revelation, an insufficient Guide,” Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon – Number 3, December 1st, 1850, page 47)

“This great apostacy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now. A short time after the death of the last of the Apostles, the Christian Church, what few of them remained, were persecuted from mountain to mountain, from den to den, from one cave of the earth to another, and from nation to nation until they were entirely exterminated and rooted out of the earth. Well, what was left? An apostate Christianity, a Christianity without revelators, without any voice of God, without any Prophets to unfold the future, without visions, without any communications from the heavens.”
(Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, verse 18, page 44)

“This class of men, calling themselves Christian, uniting with the various forms of the pagan religion, adopting many of their ceremonies and institutions, became very popular, and finally some of the pagans embraced Christianity and were placed, as it were, upon the throne, and what they termed Christianity became very popular indeed. How long has this order of things existed, this dreadful apostacy, this class of people that pronounced themselves Zion, or Christians, without any of the characteristics of Zion? It has existed for some sixteen or seventeen centuries. It has spread itself and grown and gone into the four quarters of the earth. It is the great ecclesiastical power that is spoken of by the revelator John, and called by him the most corrupt and most wicked of all the powers of the earth, under the name of spiritual Babylon, or in other words Babel, which signifies confusion. This great and corrupt power is also represented by John as presenting a golden cup to the nations, full of all manner of filthiness and abominations.”
(Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, verse 14, pages 346)

“But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be. They say, "We have built chapels unto the name of the Lord; we call our Churches Christian Churches, they are called the Church of Christ, St. John's Church, St. Paul's Church, St. Peter's Church, and after others of the ancient Apostles;" and one who had never studied the pattern which God has given of the Christian Church would almost really believe that they are Christian Churches. But there has been a long apostacy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance, and they are represented in the revelations of St. John as a woman sitting upon a scarlet colored beast, having a golden cup in her hand, full of filthiness and abominations, full of the wine of the wrath of her fornication; that in her forehead there was a name written—"Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots." This kind of a church has existed in great abundance, for as John the Revelator says, she was to have her dominion upon many waters, and she was to make all nations drunken with the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”
(Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, verse 18, page 172)

“Q. After the Church of Christ fled from earth to heaven, what was left?

A. A set of wicked Apostates, murderers, and idolaters, who, after having made war with the saints, and overcome them, and destroyed them out of the earth, were left to follow the wicked imaginations of their own corrupt hearts, and to build up churches by human authority, and to follow after the cunning craftiness of uninspired men; having no Apostle, Prophet, or Revelator to inquire of God for them: and thus, because of wickedness, the Church, and Priesthood, and gifts, and ordinances and blessings of the everlasting Gospel, were taken from the earth, and reserved in heaven until the fulness of times, when it was predicted that they should again be restored among men to continue until the end should come.”
(Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, Chapter 16, page 205)

"The Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called"
(Mormon Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, verse 2, page 196)

"After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon."
(Mormon Apostle George Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth, page 324)

"Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness."
(Mormon Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, verse 3, page 266)

"For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the ‘Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men."
(Mormon Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, verse 3, page 282)

"...the Book of Mormon remains secure, unchanged and unchangeable, ...But with the Bible it was not and is not so....it was once in the sole and exclusive care and custody of an abominable organization [Christianity], founded by the devil himself, likened prophetically unto a great whore, whose great aim and purpose was to destroy the souls of men in the name of religion. In these hands it ceased to be the book it once was."
(Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, The Joseph Smith Translation, pages 12-13)

“Believers in the doctrines of modern Christendom will reap damnation to their souls.”
(Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, see pages 45-46)

“... all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ.... in large part the worship of apostate Christendom is performed in ignorance, as much so as was the worship of the Athenians who bowed the Unknown Gods.”
(Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pages 269, and 374-375)

"This is not just another Church. This is not just one of a family of Christian churches. This is the Church and kingdom of God, the only true Church upon the face of the earth..."
(Mormon Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, pages 164-165)

“We accept that as a statement which came to him [Joseph Smith's vision in which he was told all other religions were "abominations"], which is printed, of course, and published in his history as a statement. But we go forward with a friendly relationship, with a respect for people everywhere and with an effort to accept them as we meet them and, where opportunity exists, to talk with them and explain to them what we believe.... We don’t criticize them for what they believe. We accept the good that comes of that understanding which they have, but we feel we having something to offer beyond what they have.”
(Mormon Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, interview with Richard Ostling, as quoted in Mormon America, by Richard and Joan Ostling, page 323)

“Said he [a Protestant minister] ‘I’ve been all through this building, this temple which carries on its face the name of Jesus Christ, but nowhere have I seen any representation of the cross, the symbol of Christianity. I have noted your buildings elsewhere and likewise find an absence of the cross. Why is this when you say you believe in Jesus Christ.’ I responded:‘ I do not wish to give offense to any of my Christian brethren who use the cross on the steeples of their cathedrals and at the altars of their chapels, who wear it on their vestments, and imprint it on their books and other literature. But for us, the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ.’ He then asked: ‘If you do not use the cross, what is the symbol of your religion?’ I replied that the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship.”
(Mormon Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference, April 1975)

“… we can see the situation in which the world now stands that the eyes of the whole world are blinded, that the chuches have all become corrupted, yea every church upon the face of the earth; that the Gospel of Christ is nowhere preached.”
(Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith Jr.'s mother, letter to Solomon Mack, January 6th, 1831, reprinted, in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, verse 1, page 216)

“God is not at its head, making that church [i.e., Christianity] – following the appearance in it of Satan – no longer the church of God. To say that Satan sits in the place of God in Christianity after the time of the apostles is not to say that all that is in it is Satanic.”
(Kent P. Jackson, “Early Signs of Apostasy,” Ensign, December 1984, page 9)

Brigham Young - The Dictator

"I sometimes say to my brethren, 'I have been your dictator for twenty-seven years-over a quarter of a century I have dictated this people; that ought to be some evidence that my course is onward and upward.'"
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 14, page 205, August 13th, 1871)

"As formerly, I present myself before you this morning in the capacity Providence has lead me to occupy, acknowledged and sustained by you as the dictator, counsellor, and adviser of the people of God."
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 9, page 267, April 6th, 1862)

“The man whom God calls to dictate the affairs in the building of his Zion has the right to dictate about everything connected with the building of his Zion, yes even to the ribbons the women wear; and any person who denies it is ignorant.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 11, page 298, February 3rd, 1867)

"President Young is our governor and our dictator. It is for me to walk with him, and for you to walk with those who go before you."
(Mormon Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, verse 7, page 19, July 16th, 1854)

“[Heber C. Kimball] declared to the people that Brigham Young was his God, and their God, and the only God they would ever see if they did not obey him: ‘Joseph Smith was God to the inhabitants of the earth when he was amongst us, and Brigham is God now.’ This strain was caught up and reiterated by many of the elders, from Orson Hyde, the president of the twelve apostles, down to the most ignorant teacher, and to question it openly was to be put under the ban.”
(T.B.H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints, 1873, 1904 edition, page 294)

“There is no despotic monarchy in the world where the word of the sovereign is so absolute as in Utah. And never, in the whole history of Mormonism, has the despotic rule been so arbitrary as it was during the period of, and for a short time after, the Reformation [Brigham Young’s reign].”
(Ann Eliza Young, wife of Brigham Young, Wife number. 19, 1875; Chapter 18)

“[Young’s] power and influence is so great, that no officer neither of the Territory or the Government, who is Mormon, will dare to disobey his will.”
(Jacob H. Holeman, letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, December 28th, 1851; see Abanes, One Nation Under Gods, page 230)“... he [Brigham Young] had tried to control the [Gentile] merchants, but could not do it. They would go to hell if they did turn a sharp corner.”
(Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, September 16, 1868, page 1, LDS Archive, Salt Lake City)

Animals In The Book Of Mormon

The following animals did not exist in the americas at the time that the book of mormon claims they were.

1) Cow
2) Domestic Goat
3) Calf
4) Horse
5) Ass
6) Bull
7) Cattle

"The terms cattle, horses, sheep and so on are mentioned at several points in the Nephite record. And it is dismaying to some who wish to be dismayed, I believe and a few others who (honestly) wish an answer could be provided why there are not cows like we mean cows, horses like we mean horses, sheep like we mean sheep. The fact is that all the ancient studies say those animals simply were not present in the New World. Period. They were not here."
(John Sorenson, LDS Apologist, FARMS)

Changes Made To The Book Of Commandments

“And he [Joseph Smith, Jr.] has a gift to translate the book [of Mormon], and I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift.”
(Book of Commandments - Chapter 10)

This was then changed to....
“And you have a gift to translate the plates; and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you; and I have commanded that you should pretend to no other gift until my purpose is fulfilled in this; for I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished.”
(Doctrine and Covenants 5:4)

“[Y]ou have another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you things: behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands, for it is the work of God.”
(Book of Commandments 7:3)

This was then changed to....
“[Y]ou have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron; behold, it has told you many things; Behold, there is no other power, save the power of God, that can cause this gift of Aaron to be with you.”
(Doctrine and Covenants 8:6-7)

“In 1835 in Kirtland another committee was appointed to fix up the revelations for print again... I was often in Joseph’s office, and know positively that some of the revelations were so altered, mutilated and changed that a good scholar would scarcely know them. In one revelation I counted 20 alterations! Hence, who can depend on them? I cannot. I will not.... All your trouble arises from your taking that mutilated and altered Doctrine and Covenants.”
(Mormon Apostle William E. McLellin (1806-1883), Saint's Herald, verse 17, pages 556-557)

“In 1835 the Doctrine and Covenants began a policy of retroactive editing by reversing previous meanings, adding concepts and whole paragraphs to the texts of previously published revelations. The official alteration of pre-1835 revelations is the more fundamental context for the later pattern of editing in the History of the Church.”
(D. Michael Quinn, “On Being a Mormon Historian (and Its Aftermath)”)

Quotes From David Whitmer Regarding The 'Book Of Commandments'

“The revelations in the Book of Commandments up to June, 1829, were given through the ‘stone,’ through which the Book of Mormon was translated.”
(David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, An Address to All Believers in Christ, 1887, page 53)

“[The] revelations ... were printed in the Book of Commandments correctly... just exactly as they were arranged by Brother Joseph and the others. And when the Book of Commandments was printed, Joseph and the church received it as being printed correctly.”
(David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, An Address to all Believers in Christ, page 56)

“After the translation of the Book of Mormon was finished, early in the spring of 1830, before April 6th, Joseph gave the stone to Oliver Cowdery and told me as well as the rest that he was through with it, and he did not use the stone anymore. He said he was through the work God had given him the gift to perform, except to preach the gospel.”
(David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, An Address to all Believers in Christ, page 32)

“Is it possible that the minds of men can be so blinded as to believe that God would give these revelations – command them to print them in His Book of Commandments – and then afterwards command them to change and add to them some words which change the meaning entirely? As if God had changed his mind entirely after giving his word? Is it possible that man who pretends to any spirituality would believe that God would work in such a manner?”
(David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, Saint's Herald, February 5th, 1887)

“When it became generally known that these important changes had been made in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, many of the brethren objected seriously to it, but they did not want to say much for the sake of peace, as it was Brother Joseph and the leaders who did it. The majority of the members – poor weak souls – thought that anything Brother Joseph would do, must be all right; so in their blindness of heart, trusting in an arm of flesh, they looked over it and were led into error.”
(David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, An Address to all Believers in Christ, page 61)

“You have changed the revelations to support the error of high priests. You have changed the revelations to support the error of a President of the high priesthood, high counselors, etc. you have altered the revelations to support you in going beyond the plain teachings of Christ in the new covenant part of the Book of Mormon.... You who are now living did not change them, but you who strive to defend these things, are as guilty in the sight of God as those who did change them.”
(David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, An Address to all Believers in Christ, page 49)

An Expert Analysis Of The Book Of Abraham

“In more recent times the half-dozen leading Egyptologists who have been asked to examine the facsimiles agree that they were ordinary funeral documents such as can be found on thousands of Egyptian graves.”
(No Man Knows My History, Fawn Brodie, page 175)

“It is difficult to deal seriously with Joseph Smith’s impudent fraud.... Smith has turned the Goddess [in Facsimile No. 1] into a king and Osiris into Abraham.”
(Dr. A.H. Sayce, Oxford professor of Egyptology, printed in Joseph Smith Jun. As a Translator, by F.S. Spaulding, page 23)

“... these three facsimiles of Egyptian documents in the ‘Pearl of Great Price’ depict the most common objects in the Mortuary religion of Egypt. Joseph Smith’s interpretations of them as part of a unique revelation through Abraham, therefore, very clearly demonstrates that he was totally unacquainted with the significance of these documents and absolutely ignorant of the simplest facts of Egyptian writing and civilization.”
(James H. Breasted, Ph.D, Egyptologist, Haskell Oriental Museum, University of Chicago, as cited in Joseph Smith Jun. As a Translator, page 26-27)

Concerning Facsimile No. 1:
“This is a well-known scene from the Osiris mysteries, with Anubus, the jackal-headed god, on the left ministering to the dead Osiris on the bier. The penciled restoration [done by Joseph Smith Jr.] is incorrect. Anubus should be jackal-headed.”
(Professor Richard Parker, Wilbour Professor of Egyptology and Chairman of the Department of Egyptology at Brown University, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Volume 3, number 2, Summer 1968, page 86)

“Richard A. Parker is the Wilbour Professor of Egyptology and Chairman of the Department of Egyptology at Brown University.... He remarks that the Book of Breathings is a late (Ptolemaic and Roman periods) and greatly reduced version of the Book of the Dead.... He would provisionally date the two Book of Breathings fragment in the Church’s possession to the last century before the first century of the Christian era...”
(Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1968, page 86)

“I myself studied Egyptian hieroglyphics at UCLA several years ago in the hope of resolving some of the problems connected with the ‘Book of Abraham’ in Joseph Smith’s favor. Unfortunately, as soon as I had learned the language well enough to use a dictionary I was forced to concede that Joseph Smith’s translation was mistaken, however sincere it might have been. Facsimile No. 2 in the Pearl of Great Price contained enough readable writing to convince me that it had purely Egyptian significance. This was a disappointment....
“After the appearance of the photographs of the papyri... I made some attempt to translate the ‘Book of Breathing(s)’ text.... It belongs to a kind of literature which is alien to Christianity and to our Church....
“Let us not lose sight of what I think is the primary importance of this papyri find. It can free us from our dilemma about excluding Negroes from the Priesthood. Perhaps our Father in Heaven intended the papyri to come to light now just for that purpose.”
(Naomi Woodbury, Mormon scholar, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Autumn 1968, page 8)

“I must conclude that Joseph Smith had not the remotest skill in things Egyptian-hieroglyphics. To my surprise one of the highest officials in the Mormon Church agreed with that conclusion... privately in one-to-one [c]onversation.”
(Thomas S. Ferguson, Scriptural Exegete for Translation Services of the LDS Church, letter dated March 13th, 1971)

“Ferguson said that the thing that first led him to serious question the Church was the papyri purported to be the source of the Book of Abraham. He said he took a photograph of the papyri to a couple of friends of his that were scholars at Cal., Berkeley. They described the documents as funeral texts. This bothered Ferguson in a serious way! Later he said that he took the evidence to Hugh B. Brown.... After reviewing the evidence with Brother Brown he [Ferguson] said that Brother Brown agreed with him that it was not scripture. He did not say or infer that it was his evidence that convinced Brother Brown of this conclusion. But nevertheless, he did say that Hugh B. Brown did not believe the Book of Abraham was what the Church said it was.”
(Stan Larson, Quest for the Gold Plates, page 138)

“Is it possible that a record written by Abraham... containing the most important revelations that God ever gave to man, should be entirely lost by the tenacious Israelites, and preserved by the unbelieving Egyptians, and by them embalmed and deposited in the catacombs with an Egyptian priest?... I venture to say no, it is not possible. It is more likely that the records are Egyptian.”
(William S. West, “A Few Interesting Facts Respecting the Rise, Progress and Pretension of the Mormons,” pamphlet, 1837, as quoted in Stan Larson, Quest For the Gold Plates, pages 89 and 122)

“To any one with knowledge of the large class of [Egyptian] funeral documents to which these belong, the attempts to guess a meaning are too absurd to be noticed. It may be safely said that there is not one single word that is true in these [i.e., Smith’s] explanations.”
(Dr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, London University; quoted in F.S. Spalding, Joseph Smith, Jr., As A Translator, 1912, page 24)

“To sum up, then, these three fac-similes of Egyptian documents in the ‘Pearl of Great Price’ depict the most common objects in the mortuary religion of Egypt. Joseph Smith’s interpretations of them as part of a unique revelation through Abraham, therefore, very clearly demonstrates that he was totally unacquainted with the significance of these documents and absolutely ignorant of the simplest facts of Egyptian Writing and civilization.”
(James H. Breasted, Ph. D., Haskell Oriental Museum, University of Chicago; quoted in F.S. Spalding, Joseph Smith, Jr., As A Translator, 1912, pages 26-27)

“I return herewith, under separate cover, the ‘Pearl of Great Price!’ The ‘Book of Abraham,’ it is hardly necessary to say, is a pure fabrication.... Joseph Smith’s interpretation of these cuts is a farrago [confused mixture] of nonsense from beginning to end.”
(Dr. Arthur C. Mace, Assistant Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Egyptian Art; quoted in F.S. Spalding, Joseph Smith, Jr., As A Translator, 1912, page 29)

“We have often been asked during the past months why we did not proceed with all haste to produce a translation of the papyri the moment they came into our possession. Well, for one thing others are far better equipped to do the job than we are, and some of those early expressed a willingness to undertake it. But, more important, it is doubtful whether any translation could do as much good as harm.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, BYU Studies, Spring 1968, page 251)

“... the presence on the scene of some of the original papyri, including those used by the Prophet in preparing the text of the Book of Abraham and the facsimiles wi their commentaries, has not raised a single new question, though, as we shall see, it has solved some old ones.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, Improvement Era, May 1968, page 54)

Richard A. Parker, egyptologist who declared the sensen papyrus as part of the Egyptian Book of Breathings and nothing else, is credible even to top Mormon scholars:
"[Richard] Parker [is] the best man in America for this particular period and style of writing.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, speech at the University of Utah, May 20th, 1960)

“Did he [Joseph Smith, Jr.} really think he was translating? If so he was acting in good faith. But was he really translating? If so, it was by a process which quite escapes the understanding of the specialists and lies in the realm of the imponderable....
“Today nobody claims that Joseph Smith got his information through ordinary scholarly channels. In that case one wonders how any amount of checking along ordinary scholarly channels is going to get us very far.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1968, page 101)

“Of particular interest to us is the close association of the Book of Breathings with the Facsimiles of the Book of Abraham. It can be easily shown by matching up the fibers of the papyri that the text of Joseph Smith’s Pap. No. XI was written on the same strip of material as Facsimile Number 1, ... our ‘Sensen’ Papyrus is closely bound to all three facsimiles by physical contact, putting us under moral obligation to search out possible relationships between the content of the four documents.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, BYU Studies, Winter 1971, pages 160-161)

“A few faded and tattered little scraps of papyrus may serve to remind the Latter-day Saints of how sadly they have neglected serious education.... Not only has our image suffered by such tragic neglect, but now in the moment of truth the Mormons have to face the world unprepared, after having been given a hundred years’ fair warning.”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, BYU Studies, Winter 1968, pages 171-172)

“ ‘The papyri scripts given to the Church do not prove the Book of Abraham is true,’ Dr. Hugh Nibley said... Wednesday night. ‘LDS scholars are caught flat-footed by this discovery,’ he went on to say. According to Dr. Nibley, Mormon scholars should have been doing added research on the Pearl of Great Price years ago. Non-Mormon scholars will bring in questions regarding the manuscripts which will be hard to answer because of lack of scholarly knowledge on the subject.... Dr. Nibley said ‘worldly discoveries are going to bury the Church in criticism’ if members of the Church don’t take it upon themselves to become a people of learning.”
(BYU's Daily Universe, December 1st, 1967)

“I don’t consider myself an Egyptologist at all, and don’t intend to get involved in the P.G.P. [Pearl of Great Price] business unless I am forced into it....”
(Dr. Hugh Nibley, “Letter to Dee Jay Nelson,” June 27th, 1967, reprinted in Mormonism – Shadow or Reality? by Sandra and Jerald Tanner, page 308)

“One life-long defender of Joseph Smith [Ferguson] made his own independent investigation of Joseph’s ability as a translator of Egyptian records, utilizing recognized Egyptologists without telling them a word about the issues that were at stake. Their verdict agreed with the findings of Mr. Nelson and Dr. Baer. Consequently, he came to reject the Book of Abraham and the claims put forth by Joseph Smith as a translator of ancient languages.”
(Wesley P. Walters, “Joseph Smith among the Egyptians,” The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, verse 16, Winter 1973, page 45)

“At that time [December 2, 1970], Thomas Stuart Ferguson told us frankly that he had not only given up the Book of Abraham, but that he had come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was not a prophet and that Mormonism was not true. He told us that he had spent 25 years trying to prove Mormonism, but had finally come to the conclusion that his work had been in vain. He said that his training in law had taught him how to weigh evidence and that the case against Joseph Smith was absolutely devastating and could not be explained away.”
(Sandra and Jerald Tanner, relating correspondence with Ferguson, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality?, page 103)

“Nibley’s Era articles on the Book of Abraham aren’t worth a tinker – first, because he is not impartial, being the commissioned and paid defender of the faith. Second, because he could not, he dared not, he did not, face the true issue: ‘Could Joseph Smith translate Egyptian?’ I clipped every one of his articles, and have them in a single file – and I have reviewed them – looking in vain for that issue.”
(Thomas Ferguson to James Boyack, March 13th, 1971; see Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters, page 261)

“A collection of pa[p]yrus manuscripts, long believed to have been destroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871, was presented to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here Monday by the Metropolitan Museum of Art..... Included in the papyri is a manuscript identified as the original document from which Joseph Smith had copied the drawing which he called ‘Facsimile No. 1’ and published with the Book of Abraham.”
(Deseret News, November 27th, 1967)

“The church admits that it had been been suppressing a fragment of the papyrus for 130 years.”
(Improvement Era, February 1968, page 40-H)

“Outside of a few associates, Dr. Clark [of BYU] had kept the fragment a matter of confidence, under instructions from the Historian’s Office, for over 30 years.”
(The Saga of the Book of Abraham, by Mormon scholar Jay M. Todd, page 364)

“The Book of Abraham
Translated From the Papyrus, By Joseph Smith
A Translation of some ancient Records, that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt.”
(heading of the “Book of Abraham,” Pearl of Great Price)

“I have in my possession a photostatic copy of the manuscript of Prophet Joseph Smith’s translation of Abraham 1:1 to 2:18. This manuscript was bought by Wilford Wood in 1945 from Charles Bidemon, son of the man who married Emma [Smith] after the death of the Prophet. The original of this manuscript is in the Church Historian’s Office in Salt Lake City. The characters from which our present book of Abraham was translated are down the lefthand column and Joseph Smith’s translation opposite, so we know approximately how much material was translated from each character.”
(Dr. James R. Clark, Pearl of Great Price Conference, December 10th, 1960, pages 60-61)

“A more careful examination of these [papyri] revealed the startling fact that one of the papyri of the Church collection, known as the Small Sensen Papyrus, contained the same series of hieratic symbols, which had been copied, in the same order, into the Book of Abraham manuscript next to verses of that book! In other words, there was every indication that the collection of papyri in the hands of the Church contained the source which led to a production of the Book of Abraham.”
(Richley Crapo, Mormon scholar, Book of Abraham Symposium, April 3rd, 1970, page 27)

“... both books were translated from the same Egyptian language, and if the translator failed in the translation of the one book, our faith in his translation of the other must necessarily be impaired.”
(A.B. Mercer, The Utah Survey, September 1913, page 5)

“It may be helpful to suggest that the ‘Book of Abraham’ represents simply the product of Joseph Smith Jun.’s imagination, wrought out in the midst of what to him must have been a very crucial and demanding complex set of circumstances.”
(Richard P. Howard, R.L.D.S. (Reorganized LDS Church) Historian, New York Times, May 3rd, 1970)

“I see no evidence that Joseph Smith had a correct conception of ‘Egyptian religious practices’ or that a knowledge of such was essential to the production of the Book of Mormon.”
(Stephen E. Thompson, “Egyptology and the Book of Abraham,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, volume 28, number 1, Spring 1995, page 160)

“No one ever suggested explanations like that – the idea that the papyri was a catalyst for inspiration or a mnemonic device – before November 1967... They had to find new explanations to account for the Book of Abraham, after-the-fact explanations.”
(Stan Larson, as quoted in Mormon America, by Richard and Joan Ostling, page 283)

“[The] ‘Book of Abraham’ was a work of Joseph Smith’s imagination and had no basis in fact. The Mormon leaders did not know how to deal with Spaulding’s pamphlet. Mormon historian B.H. Roberts admitted that there ‘were no Egyptian scholars in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who could make an effective answer to the conclusions of the eight scholars who in various ways pronounced against the correctness of Joseph Smith’s translation...”
(A Comprehensive History of the Church, volume 2, page 139)

Bruce R. McConkie States Mormons Are Not To Have A Personal Relationship With Jesus Christ

It is no secret that many false and vain and foolish things are being taught in the sectarian world even among us about our need to gain a special relationship with the Lord Jesus. . . . In an attempt to be truer than true [Christians] devote themselves to gaining a special, personal relationship with Christ that is both improper and perilous. . . . Another peril is that those involved begin to pray directly to Christ because of some special friendship they feel has been developed. In this connection a current and unwise book, which advocates gaining a special relationship with Jesus, contains this sentence—“Because the Savior is our mediator, our prayers go through Christ to the Father, and the Father answers our prayers through His Son.” This is plain sectarian nonsense. Our prayers are addressed to the Father and the Father only. They do not go through Christ.
(Bruce R. McConkie, Church News, Page 5, March 20th, 1982)

What Joseph Smith And Mormons Have Written About The Apostle Paul

Jedediah M. Grant wrote:
“When Peter came to Antioch,” says Paul, “I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed,” &c. Paul does not gain much credit with the Mormons for taking this course. We know he had no right to rebuke Peter; but some man said he was like Almon Babbit, he wanted to boast of rebuking Peter. He thought it was a feather in his cap because he coped with Peter and rebuked him. Had that affair come before a “Mormon” tribunal, they would have decided in favour [sic] of Peter, and against Paul. We believe when Paul rebuked Peter, he had in him a spirit of rebellion, and was decidedly wrong in rebelling against the man who held the keys of the kingdom of God on earth.
(Journal of Discourses, Volume 1, Page 346, 1853)

[The Apostle] Paul, if Joseph Smith is a blasphemer, you are. I say there are Gods many and Lords many, but to us only one, and we are to be in subjection to that one and no man can limit the bounds or the eternal existence of eternal time. Hath he beheld the eternal world, and is he authorized to say that there is only one God? He makes himself a fool if he thinks or says so, and there is an end of his career or progress in knowledge.
(Joseph Smith - History of the Church, Volume 6, Pages 474-475)

Paul had seven churches, and they drove him off from among them; and yet they cannot do it by me.
(Joseph Smith - History of the Church, Volume 6, Page 478)

I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.
(Joseph Smith - History of the Church, Volume 6, Pages 408-409)

Early Mormon Prophets And Apostles Claimed That Manogomy Was Evil

BYU Bookstore Practices And Promotes Witchcraft

Mormon Hatred

Mormon Racism - Part 2

Mormon Racism - Part 1

Gordon Hinckley's Response When Asked Why Brigham Young Taught That Adam Was God

"Brigham Young said if you went to Heaven and saw God it would be Adam and Eve. I don't know what he meant by that." Pointing to a grim-faced portrait of the Lion of the Lord, as Young was called, Hinckley said, "There he is, right there. I'm not going to worry about what he said about those things." I asked whether Mormon theology was a form of polytheism. "I don't have the remotest idea what you mean,"
(Gordon B. Hinckley Interview in "Lives of the Saint", New Yorker, January 2002)

The Untold Story Of The Death Of Joseph Smith

Mountain Meadows Massacre

“After prayer Brother Higbee said: ‘Here are the orders,’ and handed me a paper from [President] Haight... Brother Higbee was then to give the order: ‘Do Your Duty to God!’ At this the Danites were to shoot down the men; the Indians were to kill the women and larger children, and the drivers of the wagons and I was to kill the wounded and sick men that were in the wagons... The Mormons were then at war with the United States, and we believed all Gentiles should be killed as a war measure, to the end that the Mormons, as God’s chosen people, hold and inhabit the earth and rule and govern the globe.”
(John D. Lee Diaries)

“The Mormons ‘courageously’ performed their part of the blood bath, after which they took binding oaths to stand by eachother, and to always swear that the massacre was committed by Indians alone.’ This was the advice of Brigham.”
(John D. Lee, as quoted in Inside Story of Mormonism, page 64)

“For the deed at Mountain Meadows there is no excuse. The perpetrators were never held guiltless by the Church and the Church must not be condemned because of the vile deeds of a few of its members.”
(The Restored Church, pages 484-488)

“On Thursday evening, Higbee, chief of the Iron Danites, and Klingensmith, Bishop of Ceder City, came to our camp with two or three wagons and number of Danites all well armed. I can remember the following as a portion of those who came to take part in the work of death which was so soon to follow, viz: [19 names listed]... I know that our total force was fifty-four Danites and three hundred Indians. As soon as these gathered around the camp I demanded of Brother Higbee what orders he had brought. Brother Higbee reported as follows:
‘It is the orders that the emigrants be put out of the way. President Haight has counseled with Bishop Dame, and has orders from him to put the emigrants to death; none who is old enough to talk is to be spared....’
“The Danites then in Council now knelt down in a prayer circle and prayed, invoking the Spirit of God to direct them how to act in the matter. After prayer Brother Higbee said:
‘Here are the orders,’ and handed me a paper from Haight.... Brother Higbee was then to give the order: ‘Do your duty to God!’
(John D. Lee Diaries)

“While in Cedar City Brigham preached one night. In his sermon, when speaking of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, he said, ‘I am told there are some of the brethren who are willing to swear against those who were engaged in that affair. I hope there is no truth in this report. I hope there is no such person here, under the sound of my voice. But if there is, I will tell him my opinion of him, and the fact so far as his fate is concerned. Unless he repent at once of that unholy intention, and keep the secret, he will die a dog’s death, and go to hell. I must not hear of any treachery among my people.’
“These words of Brigham gave great comfort. They insured our safety and took away our fears....
“Afterwards I was arrested (on about the 9th of November, 1874) and taken to Fort Cameron, in Beaver County, Utah Territory, and placed in prison there.”
(“Being the Confession of John Doyle Lee, Danite,” The Mormon Menace, 1905)

“One little child, about six months old, was carried in its father’s arms, and it was killed by the same bullet that entered its father’s breast; it was shot through the head…. McCurdy went up to Knight’s wagon, where the sick and wounded were, and raising his rifle to his shoulder, said: O Lord, my God, receive their spirits, it is for thy Kingdom that I do this.’ He then shot a man who was lying with his head on another man’s breast; the ball killed both men…. Knight then shot a man with his rifle; he shot the man in the head. Knight also brained a boy that was about fourteen years old. The boy came running up to our wagons, and Knight struck him on the head with the butt of his gun, and crushed his skull. By this time many Indians reached our wagons, and all of the sick and wounded were killed almost instantly. I saw an Indian from Cedar City, called Jose, run up to the wagon and catch a man by the hair, and raise his head up and look into his face; the man shut his eyes, and Joe shot him in the head. The Indians then examined all of the wounded in the wagons, and all of the bodies, to see if any were alive, and all that showed signs of life were at once shot through the head…. Just after the wounded were all killed I saw a girl, some ten or eleven years old, running towards us, from the direction where the troops had attacked the main body of emigrants; she was covered with blood. An Indian shot her before she got within sixty yards of us. That was the last person that I saw killed on that occasion.”
(John D. Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, pages 241-242)

“The scene of the massacre, even at this late day [1859], was horrible to look upon. Women’s hair, in detached locks and masses, hung to the sage bushes and was strewn over the ground in many places. Parts of little children’s dresses and of female costume dangled from the shrubbery or lay scattered about; and among these, here and there, on every hand, for at least a mile in the direction of the road, by two miles east and west, there gleamed, bleached white by the weather, the skulls and other bones of those who had suffered.”
(J.H. Carleton, “Special Report on the Mountain Meadows Massacre: Part 2, The Dilemma of Blame,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 14th, 2000)

“That which we have done here [building a monument to victims of the Mormon Meadows Massacre] must never be construed as an acknowledgement of the part of the church of any complicity in the occurrences of that fateful day.”
(Gordon B. Hinckley, quoted in Smith, “Mountain Meadows Massacre: Part 3, The Dilemma of Blame,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 14th, 2000)

“Our task for today is not to look backward, nor rationalize, nor engage in any kind of retroactive analysis nor apology.”
(Rex E. Lee, BYU President, September 15, 1990. - See Abanes, One Nation Under Gods, page 254)

“… those who committed the Mountain Meadows atrocity were not heartless, cold-blooded killers. They were ordinarily good men who committed a tragic crime in the name of safeguarding their homes…. Perhaps the most important point to remember is that no matter whom we might think guilty of the crime in this tragic affair, their descendants had nothing to do with it…. Not a single descendant of any man who participated in the massacre bears a shred of guilt, nor does any other living Latter-day Saint. And neither Brigham Young nor any other general authority of the Church was guilty of perpetrating the deed.”
(Russell R. Rich, Ensign to the Nations: A History of the LDS Church from 1846 to 1972, 1972, pages 241-242)

The Mormon Doctrine Of Blood Atonement

“I [am] opposed to hanging, even if a man kill another, I will shoot him, or cut off his head, spill his blood on the ground, and let the smoke thereof ascend up to God; and if ever I have the privilege of making a law on that subject, I will have it so.”
(Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, volume 5, page 296, 1949)

“[My life was in danger] if I remained there, because of my protest against the doctrine of Blood Atonement and other new doctrines that were brought into the Church.”
(Apostle William Smith, brother of Joseph Smith, Jr., Temple Lot Case, page 98)

“I will tell you how much I love those characters. If they had any respect to their own welfare, they would come forth and say, whether Joseph Smith was a Prophet or not, ‘We shed his blood, and now let us atone for it;’ and they would be willing to have their heads chopped off, that their blood might run upon the ground, and the smoke of it rise before the Lord as an incense for their sins.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 2, page 179, February 18th, 1855)

“The time has been in Israel under the law of God, the celestial law, or that which pertains to the celestial law, for it is one of the laws of that kingdom where our Father dwells, that if a man was found guilty of adultery, he must have his blood shed, and that is near at hand.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 4, page 219)

“Will you love your brothers and sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood? That is what Jesus Christ meant.”
(Brigham Young, Deseret News, April 16th, 1856)

“Any of you who understand the principles of eternity – if you have sinned a sin requiring the shedding of blood, except the sin unto death – would not be satisfied or rest until your blood should be spilled, that you might gain the salvation you desire. This is the way to love mankind.”
(Brigham Young, Deseret News, April 16th, 1856)

“I say, rather than that apostates should flourish here, I will unsheath [sic] my bowie knife, and conquer or die [Great commotion in the congregation, and a simultaneous burst of feeling, assenting to the declaration.]. Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put to the line, and righteousness to the plummet [Voices, generally, ‘go it, go it.’]. If you say it is right, raise your hands [All hands up.]. Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in this, and every good work.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, page 83)

“Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife, and put a javelin through both of them. You would be justified, and they would atone for their sins, and be received into the Kingdom of God. I would at once do so, in such a case; and under the circumstances, I have no wife whom I love so well that I would not put a javelin through her heart, and I would do it with clean hands.... There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made with their God, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, pages 108-109)

“If you want to know what to do with a thief that you may find stealing, I say kill him on the spot, and never suffer him to commit another iniquity. I will prove by my works whether I can mete out justice to such persons, or not. I would consider it just as much my duty to do that, as to baptize a man for the remission of his sins.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, pages 108-109)

I know that there are transgressors, who, if they knew themselves and the only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness, would beg of their brethren to shed their blood, that the smoke might ascend to God as an offering to appease the wrath that is kindled against them, and that the law might have its course.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 4, page 43)

“Now take a person in this congregation who has knowledge with regard to being saved... and suppose that he has committed a sin that he knows will deprive him of that exaltation which he desires, and that he cannot attain to it without the shedding of blood, and also knows that by having his blood shed he will atone for that sin and may be saved and exalted with the God, is there a man or woman in this house but what would say, ‘shed my blood that I may be saved and exalted with the Gods?’”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 4, pages 219-220)

“It is true that the blood of the Son of God was shed for sins through the fall and those committed by men, yet men can commit sins which it [the blood of Christ] can never remit.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 4, page 54)

“This is loving your neighbour as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 4, page 220)

“If men turn traitors to God and His servants, their blood will surely be shed, or else they will be damned, and that too according to their covenants.”
(Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, volume 4, page 375)

“It is not fully comprehended why it was necessary that Jesus Christ should leave the heavens, ... and come upon the earth to offer himself up a sacrifice; ... why this should be, why it was necessary that his blood should be shed is an apparent mystery.... What sins of the world did he take away? We are told that it is the sin which Adam committed.”
(Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, volume 10, pages 114-115)

“The people of Utah are the only ones in this nation who have taken effectual measures... to prevent adulteries and criminal connections between the sexes. The punishment, for these crimes is death to both male and female. And this law is written on the hearths and printed in the thoughts of the whole people.”
(Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, page 223)

“I say, there are men and women that I would advise to go to the Presidency immediately, and ask him to appoint a committee to attend to their care; and then let a place be selected, and let that committee shed their blood. We have amongst us that are full of all manner of abominations, those who need to have their blood shed, for water will not do, their sins are too deep a dye... I believe that there are a great many; and if they are covenant breakers we need a place designated, where we can shed their blood... Brethren and sisters, we want you to repent and forsake your sins. And you who have committed sins that cannot be forgiven through baptism, let your blood be shed, and let the smoke ascend, that the incense thereof may come up before God as an atonement for your sins, and that the sinners in Zion may be afraid.”
(Apostle Jebediah M. Grant, 2nd counselor to Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 4, pages 49-51)

“We would not kill a man, of course, unless we killed him to save him...”
(Apostle Jebediah M. Grant, Deseret News, July 27th, 1854)

"I would have a tendency to place terror on those who leave these parts [Utah], that may prove their salvation when they see the heads of thieves taken off, or shot down before the public... I believe it would be pleasing in the sight of heaven to sanctify ourselves and put these things out of our midst.”
(Apostle Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, page 73)

“... We may talk of men being redeemed by the efficacy of his [Christ’s] blood; but the truth is that that blood has no efficacy to wash away our sins. That must depend upon our own action.”
(Apostle Amasa M. Lyman, Apostle, Journal of Discourses, volume 7, page 299, 1859)

“Has Jesus done anything that will bring salvation to you and me? The chief of what he has done is that he has revealed the plan of the Gospel – the scheme of human redemption, and manifested himself among his brethren; and we may say he has done a great deal more, for he has shed his blood for it. So have others shed their blood. But whose blood has cleansed you and me? It is said that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sins. Then why is it that we remain sinners? It is simply because the blood of Jesus has not cleansed us from sin – because it has not reached us.”
(Apostle Amasa M. Lyman, Apostle, Journal of Discourses, volume 7, page 298)

“... inasmuch as the blood of Christ was shed for original sin unconditionally, but for the remission of actual sin conditionally.”
(Apostle Charles W. Penrose, Journal of Discourses, volume 21, pages 81-82)

“The principle, the only one that beats and throbs through the heart of the entire inhabitants of this Territory, is simply this: The man who seduces his neighbors wife must die, and her nearest relative must kill him!”
(Apostle George A. Smith, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, page 97)

“Joseph Smith taught that there were certain sins so grievous that man may commit, that they will place the transgressors beyond the power of the atonement of Christ. If these offenses are committed, then the blood of Christ will not cleanse them from their sins even though they repent. Therefore their only hope is to have their blood shed to atone, as far as possible, in their behalf. This is scriptural doctrine, and is taught in all the standard works of the Church.”
(Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, volume 1, pages 135-136, 1954)

“The Mormons believe in blood atonement. It is taught by the leaders, and believed by the people, that the Priesthood are inspired and cannot give a wrong order. It is the belief of all that I ever heard talk of these things – and I have been with the Church since the dark days in Jackson County – that the authority that orders is the only responsible party and the Danite who does the killing only an instrument, and commits no wrong.... Punishment by death is the penalty for refusing to obey the orders of the Priesthood.
“I knew of many men being killed in Nauvoo by the Danites. It was then the rule that all the enemies of the Prophet Joseph should be killed, and I know of many a man who was quietly put out of the way by the orders of Joseph and his apostles while the Church was there. It has always been a well understood doctrine of the Church that it is right and praiseworthy to kill every person who speaks evil of the Prophet. This doctrine was strictly lived up to in Utah...”
(Elder John D. Lee, Brigham Young’s adopted son and member of the Danites, John D. Lee Diaries)

“I married Jesse Hartly, knowing he was a ‘Gentile’ in fact, but he passed for a Mormon, but that made no difference with me, although I was a Mormon, because he was a noble man, and sought only the right. By being my husband, he was brought into closer contact with the members of the Church, and was thus soon enabled to learn many things about us, and about the Heads of the Church, that he did not approve, and of which I was ignorant, although I had been brought up among the Saints; and which, if known among the Gentiles, would have greatly damaged us. I do not understand all he discovered, or all he did; but they found he had written against the Church, and he was cut off, and the Prophet required as an atonement for his sins, that he should lay down his life. That he should be sacrificed in the endowment rooms; where human sacrifices are sometimes made in this way. This I never knew until my husband told me, but it is true. They kill those there who have committed sins too great to be atoned for in any other way. The Prophet says, if they submit to this he can save them; otherwise they are lost. Oh! that is horrible. But my husband refused to be sacrificed, and so set out alone for the United States: thinking there might be at least a hope of success. I told him when he left me, and left his child, that he would be killed, and so he was. William Hickman and another Danite, shot him in the canyons; and I have often since been obliged to cook for this man, when he passed this way, knowing all the while, he had killed my husband. My child soon followed after its father, and I hope to die also; for why should I live? They have brought me here, where I wish to remain, rather than to return to Salt Lake where the murderers of my husband curse the earth, and roll in affluence unpunished.”
(Miss Bullock of Provo, Utah, quoted by Mary Ettie V. Smith, in Nelson Winch Green, Mormonism: its rise, progress, and present condition…, 1858, 1870 edition, page 273)

“In the excavations made within the limits of Salt Lake City during the time I have resided there, many human skeletons have been exhumed in various parts of the city…. I have never heard that it was ever the custom to bury the dead promiscuously throughout the city; and as no coffins were ever found in connection with any of these skeletons, it is evident that the death of the persons to whom they once belonged did not result from natural causes, but from the use of criminal means.”
(R.N. Baskin, Reminiscences of Early Utah, 1914, pages 154-155)

“It was one of the hot-beds of fanaticism, and I expect that more men were killed there, in proportion to population, than in any other part of Utah. In that settlement it was certain death to say a word against the authorities, high or low.”
(DaniteWilliam Hickman, Brigham Young’s Destroying Angel, 1964, page 284)

Concerning two captured Confederate commissioners in Utah, Brigham Young said he: “would put them where they would never peep. He [Brigham Young] uttered this sentiment with such a wicked wording of the lower jaw and lip, and such an almost demon spirit in his whole face, that quite disposed to be incredulous on those matters...”
(New York Tribune, July 15th, 1865)

“In the past decade, potential jurors in every Utah capital homicide were asked whether they believed in the Mormon concept of ‘blood atonement.’”
(Salt Lake Tribune, November 5th, 1994, page D1)

“Just last month, attorneys for condemned child-killer James Edward Wood in Pocatello, Idaho, argued that his defense was undermined by a visit from local [Mormon] church leaders who talked to him about shedding his own blood....
“His [Wood’s] attorneys contend Wood is a victim of a Mormon belief in ‘blood atonement.’ ... Judge Lynn Winmill... heard hours of testimony during the past week about Mormon doctrine on apostasy and forgiveness of sin. Wood’s lawyers even asked the bishop who presided over the church court that excommunicated Wood about secret temple rituals involving symbolic throat and slashing or disembowelment, but Winmill did not require him to respond.”
(Salt Lake Tribune, November 5th, 1994, page D1, D5)

“Accordingly, the doctrine asserts that those who commit certain grievous sins such as murder and covenant-breaking place themselves beyond the atoning blood of Christ, and their only hope for salvation is to have their own blood shed as an atoning sacrifice. In his writings, Joseph Smith only hinted at the doctrine, Brigham Young successively denied and asserted it, Joseph F. Smith ardently defended it, and in more recent years, Hugh B. Brown repudiated it and Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie both have vigorously defended it in principle while staunchly denying that the Church has ever put it into actual practice, whereas most other General Authorities have prudently preferred to remain silent on the subject. It should be noted that the whole notion of blood atonement is so obviously linked to the Mormon literal mind-set that it does not seem to admit of a mitigated, symbolic interpretation and is either accepted or rejected outright, depending on one’s level of literalistic belief.”
(Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, volume 15, number 3, page 93)

“To whatever extent the preaching on blood atonement may have influenced action, it would have been in relation to Mormon disciplinary action among its own members. In point would be a verbally reported case of a Mr. Johnson in Cedar City who was found guilty of adultery with his step-daughter by a bishop’s court and sentenced to death for atonement of his sin. According to the report of reputable eyewitnesses, judgment was executed with consent of the offender who went to his unconsecrated grave in full confidence of salvation through the shedding of his blood. Such a case, however primitive, is understandable within the means of this doctrine and the emotional extremes of the [Mormon] reformation.”
(Dr. Gustive O. Larson, BYU Professor, Utah Historical Quarterly, January 1958, page 62, note 39)

“From the days of Joseph Smith to the present, wicked and evilly-disposed persons have fabricated false and slanderous stories to the effect that the Church, in the early days of this dispensation, engaged in a practice of blood atonement whereunder the blood of apostates and others was shed by the Church as an atonement for their sins... there is not one historical instance of so-called blood atonement in this dispensation, nor has there been one event or occurrence whatever, of any nature, from which the slightest inference arises that any such practice either existed or was taught....
“But under certain circumstances there are some serious sins for which the cleansing of Christ does not operate, and the law of God is that men must then have their own blood shed to atone for their sins.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, page 92)

“Well, if I understand Elder McConkie [in the above quote], he was saying that, although earlier Church leader’s never believed, preached, or practiced blood atonement, we actually do believe in it and would practice it if we had the legal and political power to do so. (Even thought we didn’t when Brigham Young presided over the theocratic territory of Deseret.)”
(Keith Norman, Mormon scholar, Sunstone, August 1990, page 11)

Mormon Leaders Condemn Inter-Racial Marriage

“Had I anything to do with the negro, I would confine them by strict law to their own species...”
(Joseph Smith, Jr., January 2nd, 1845, History of the Church, volume 5, pages 21-218)

“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 10, page 110)

“Your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and white races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs until now.... there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this area, toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.”
(LDS First Presidency (George Albert Smith), letter to Virgil H. Sponberg (critic of the anti-black ban), May 5th, 1947, quoted in Lester E. Bush, Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview, page 42)

“We must not inter-marry with the Negro. Why? If I were to marry a Negro woman and have children by her, my children would oil be cursed as to the priesthood. Do I want my children cursed as to the priesthood? If there is one drop of Negro blood in my children, as I have read to you, they receive the curse. There isn’t any argument, therefore, as to inter-marriage with the Negro, is there?”
(Apostle Mark E. Peterson, “Race Problems – As They Effect the Church,” Address given at the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, delivered at BYU, August 27th, 1954)

“However, in a broad general sense, caste systems have their root and origin in the gospel itself, and when they operate according to the divine decree, the resultant restrictions and segregation are right and proper and have the approval of the Lord. To illustrate: Cain, Ham, and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, page 114)

“Brigham Young made a very strong statement on this matter when he said, ‘... shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.’ God has commanded Israel not to intermarry. To go against this commandment of God would be to sin. Those who willfully sin with their eyes open to this wrong will not be surprised to find that they will be separated from the presence of God in the world to come. This is spiritual death.... It does not matter if they are one-sixth Negro or one-one hundred and sixth, the curse of no Priesthood is still the same.... To intermarry with a Negro is to forfeit a ‘Nation of Priesthood holders.’”
(Elder John L. Lund, The Church and the Negro, pages 54-55, 1967)

Mormonisms Blasphemous View Of The Birth Of Jesus Christ

“While brother Joseph was referring to the provinces of God, I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is purely philosophical. The birth of the Saviour was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood – was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 8, page 115)

“... I believe the Father came down from heaven, as the apostles said he did, and begat the Saviour of the world; for he is the ONLY-begotten of the Father, which could not be if the Father did not actually beget him in person.... I believe the Father came down in His tabernacle and begat Jesus Christ.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, page 238)

“... In relation to the way in which I look upon the works of God and his creatures, I will say that I was naturally begotten; so was my father, and also my Saviour Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, he is the first begotten of his father in the flesh, and there was noting unnatural about it.”
(Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, volume 8, page 211)

“God, the Father of our spirits, became the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.... The fleshy body of Jesus required a Mother as well as a Father. Therefore, the Father and Mother of Jesus, according to the flesh, must have been associated together in the capacity of Husband and Wife; hence the Virgin Mary must have, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the Father.... He had a lawful right to overshadow the Virgin Mary in the capacity of a husband, and beget a Son, although she was espoused to another; for the law which He gave to govern men and women, was not intended to govern Himself, or to prescribe rules for his own conduct.”
(Orson Pratt, The Seer, page 158)

“Now, we are told in scriptures that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God in the flesh. Well, now for the benefit of the older ones, how are children begotten? I answer just as Jesus Christ was begotten of the flesh... Jesus is the only person who had our Heavenly Father as the father of his body.”
(Joseph Fielding Smith, Family Home Evening Manual, pages 125, 126, 1972)

“Christ Not Begotten of Holy Ghost... Christ was begotten of God. He was not born without the aid of Man, and that Man was God!”
(Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, volume 1, page 18, 1954)

“Christ was Begotten by an immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, page 547, 1966)

“And Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of this Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events, for he is the Son of God, and that designation means what it says.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, page 792, 1966)

“As far as this life is concerned, [Jesus] was born of Mary and of Elohim; he came here as an offspring of that Holy Man who is literally our Father in heaven. He was born in mortality in the literal and full sense as the Son of God. He is the Son of his father in the same sense that all morals are the sons and daughters of their fathers.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mortal Messiah, volume 1, page 330)

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that some Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost.”
(Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, page 7)

“Thus, God the Father became the literal father of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born of a mortal mother and an immortal father.”
(Gospel Principles, page 57, 1988)

“[Jesus Christ] was willing to make payment because of his great love for mankind, and he was able to make payment because he lived a sinless life and because he was actually, literally, biologically the Son of God in the flesh.”
(Messages for Exaltation, For the Sunday Schools of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gospel Doctrine Class, pages 378-379, 1967)

Baptism For The Dead?

One of the most bizarre teachings in mormonism, is "baptism for the dead".
I remember a few years ago a mormon missionary here in England telling me that they did a baptism on behalf of Adolf Hitler and were excited about the spooky things that happened during the ceremony.

Below are some quotes from Joseph Smith and followers about this bizarre practice.

"The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead."
(Joseph Smith, Jr., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Chapter 9, page 356)


“This doctrine of baptism for the dead is a great doctrine, one of the most glorious doctrines that was ever revealed to the human family; and there are light, power, glory, honor and immortality in it.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 16, page 167)

“When Joseph received the revelation that we have in our possession concerning the [baptism of the] dead, the subject was opened to him, not in full but in part... Then women were baptized for men and men for women, & c.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 16, pages 165-166)

“I will here say, before closing, that two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, "You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God." There were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights. I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them. The thought never entered my heart, from the fact, I suppose, that heretofore our minds were reaching after our more immediate friends and relatives. I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others; I then baptized him for every President of the United States, except three; and when their cause is just, somebody will do the work for them.”
(Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, volume 19, page 229)

“This practice [baptism for the dead] is especially offensive to Jews. A highly sensitive vicarious baptism issue erupted publicly in the mid-1990s when baptism for Jewish victims of the Holocaust – some 380,000 of them – created an angry backlash from the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. The names had all been submitted by nine zealous Mormons who had visited concentration camps and Holocaust museums in Europe. The situation surfaced when Ernest Michel, a founding member of the survivors’ organization, discovered in the genealogical library that his parents, both of whom died at Auschwitz, had been given Mormon baptisms. In 1995, after a year of negotiations, the church agreed to remove all such names and to refrain from baptizing deceased Jews unless they were ancestors of living LDS Church members or the church had written permission from all living members of the person’s family.”
(Richard and Joan Ostling, Mormon America, pages 189-190, see “Church to Stop Baptizing Holocaust Victims,” Sunstone, 18:3, number 100, December 1995)

Mormonisms Heretical View Of Baptism

“If the sinner will repent of his sins, and go down into the waters of baptism, and there be buried in the likeness of being put into the earth and buried, and again be delivered from the water, in the likeness of being born—if in the sincerity of his heart he will do this, his sins shall be washed away. Will the water of itself wash them away? No; but keeping the commandments of God will cleanse away the stain of sin.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 2, page 4)

“Baptism is just as essential to salvation, as Faith and Repentance. Without being immersed in water no man can enter into the fulness of Celestial glory: for baptism is instututed for the remission of sins; and if a person does not take the necessary steps to obtain pardon of sins, of course, he cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.”
(Orson Pratt, The Seer, page 255)

“But who in this generation have authority to baptize? None but those who have received authority in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints: all other churches are entirely destitute of all authority from God; and any person who receives Baptism or the Lord’s supper from their hands will highly offend God, for he looks upon them as the most corrupt of all people. Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the “whore of Babylon” whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. And any person who shall be so wicked as to receive a holy ordinance of the gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent of the unholy and impious act.”
(Orson Pratt, The Seer, page 255)

Arrogant, Prideful Quotes From Mormon Prophets

"...if any man preach any other Gospel than that which I have preached, he shall be cursed; "
(Joseph Smith, Jr., The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, page 366)
(Also found in History of the Church, volume 6, page 365)

“Come on! ye persecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet... When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go.”
(Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, volume 6, pages 408-409)

“If I had forty wives in the United States, they did not know it, and could not substantiate it, neither did I ask any lawyer, judge, or magistrate for them. I live above the law, and so do this people.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, page 361)

“Brother Cannon remarked that people wondered how many wives and children I had. He may inform them that I shall have wives and children by the million, and glory, and riches, and power, and dominion, and kingdom after kingdom, and reign triumphantly.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 8, pages 178-179)

“If you do not know whose right it is to give revelations, I will tell you. It is I.”
(Brigham Young, “October Conference Minutes [October 6th, 1844],” Times and Seasons, October 15th, 1844, volume 5, number 19, page 683)

“I have never preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call scripture.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, verse 13, page 95)

“ ‘Brother Brigham,’ said I, with a firmness of resistance I had never before felt in his presence, ‘are you my Saviour?’
‘Most assuredly I am,’ said he. ‘You cannot enter the Celestial kingdom, except by my counsel. Do you doubt it?’”
(Mary Ettie V. Smith, quoted in Nelson Winch Green,
Mormonism: it’s rise, progress, and present condition. Embracing the narrative of Mrs Mary Ettie V. Smith, 1858, 1870 edition, page 201)

“… kings would tremble upon their thrones at my word…. I should become a Counsellor & multitudes should seek counsel at my mouth & I should have great wisdom & power to fly through the midst under heaven… I should have power over my enemies & have long life & bring many into the kingdom of God Also that I should have the riches of the earth.”
(Wilford Woodruff, 1836-1837 - Diary, under April 4 11, 1837, reprinted in Dean Jessee, “The Kirtland Diary of Wilford Woodruff,” BYU Studies, Summer 1972, volume 12, page 388)

Mormonisms View Of Angels

“Angels are those beings who have been on an earth like this, and have passed through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. They have kept their first estate far enough to preserve themselves in the Priesthood. They did not so violate the law of the Priesthood and condemn themselves to the sin against the Holy Ghost as to be finally lost. They are not crowned with the celestial ones. They are persons who have lived upon an earth, but did not magnify the Priesthood in that high degree that many others have done who have become Gods, even the sons of God.”
(Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 9, Page 103)

“Angels are of the same race as men. They are, in fact, men who have passed from the rudimental state to the higher spheres of progressive being. Some have died and risen again to life, and are consequently possessed of a divine, human body of flesh and bones, immortal and eternal. They eat, drink, sing and converse like other men. Some of them hold the keys of Apostleship and Priesthood, by which they teach, instruct, bless, and perform miracles and many mighty works. Translated men, like Enoch, Elijah, John the Apostle, and three of the Apostles of the Western Hemisphere, are also like angels. They are ministers, both to men upon the earth, and to the world of spirits. They pass from one world to another with more ease, and in less time than we pass from one city to another. They have not a single attribute which man has not. But their attributes are more matured, or more developed, than the attributes of men in this present sphere of existence.”
(Apostle Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology, Page 112)

“What are angels? They are intelligences of the human species. Many of them are offsprings of Adam and Eve. That is they are men, who have, like Enoch or Elijah, been translated; or, like Jesus Christ, been raised from the dead; consequently they possess a material body of flesh and bones, can eat, drink, walk, converse, reason, love, fight, wrestle, sing, or play on musical instruments. They can go or come on foreign missions, in heaven, earth, or hell; and they can travel space, and visit the different worlds, with all the ease and alacrity with which God and Christ do the same, being possessed of similar organizations, powers and attributes in a degree.”
(B.H. Roberts, LDS Church Historian, Mormon Doctrine of Deity, Page 256)

Mormonism Barred Black People From Their Priesthood Until 1978

"At the time the devil was cast out of heaven, there were some spirits that did not know who had authority, whether God or the devil. They consequently did not take a very active part on either side, but rather thought the devil had been abused, and considered he had rather the best claim to the government. These spirits were not considered bad enough to be cast down to hell, and never have bodies; neither were they considered worthy of an honorable body on this earth."
(A speech by Elder Orson Hyde, delivered before the High Priests' Quorum, in Nauvoo, April 27th, 1845, printed in Liverpool, page 30.)

"The very fact that God would allow those spirits who were less worthy in the spirit world to partake of a mortal body at all is further evidence of his mercy."
(Mormonism and the Negro, part 1, pages 48-50.)

"It is the Mormon belief that in our pre-mortal state there were a large number of individuals who, due to some act or behavior of their own in the pre-existence, forfeited the right to hold the Priesthood during their mortal lives...the Negro is thus denied the Priesthood because of his own behavior in the pre-existence."
(The Church and the Negro, pages 42-43.)

"As a result of his rebellion, Cain was cursed and told that "the earth" would not thereafter yield him its abundance as previously. In addition he became the first mortal to be cursed as a son of perdition...The Lord placed on Cain a mark of a dark skin, and he became the ancestor of the black race.
(Moses 5; Genesis 4; Teachings, page 169)."
(Mormon Doctrine by Bruce McConkie, page 109.)

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so."
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 10, page 110.)

By reading the Journal of Discourses, Volume 13, page 95 and 264, the reader will clearly see that Brigham Young states that his teachings were as good as scripture.

"...the church went to court on several occasions to block Negroes from moving into the San Francisco neighborhood in which the headquarters was located."
(The Christian Century, September 29th, 1965, page 1184.)

On Oct. 28, 1865, the Mormon Church paper Millennial Star printed an article which stated that "Mormonism is that kind of religion the entire divinity of which is invalidated, and its truth utterly rejected, the moment that any one of its leading principles I acknowledged to be false..."
The Mormon write John J. Stewart stated: "If we as members of the Church are going to pick and choose among the Prophet's teachings, and say ‘this one is of God, we can accept it, but this one is of man, we will reject that,' then we are undermining the whole structure of our faith..."
(Mormonism and the Negro, page 19.)

"The prophets have declared that there are at least two major stipulations that have to be met before the Negroes will be allowed to possess the Priesthood. The first requirement relates to time. The Negroes will not be allowed to hold the Priesthood during mortality, in fact, not until after the resurrection of all of Adam's children. The other stipulation requires that Abel's seed receive the first opportunity of having the priesthood....the last of Adam's children will not be resurrected until the end of the millennium. Therefore, the Negroes will not receive the Priesthood until after that time... this will not happen until after the thousand years of Christ's reign on earth."
(The Church and the Negro, 1967, pages 45-48.)

Albert B. Fritz, NAACP branch president, said at a civil rights meeting Friday night that his organization promised not to picket the 133rd Semi-Annual General Conference of the Church on Temple Square. He added, however, that the NAACP will picket Temple Square, next Saturday if the Church does not present an ‘acceptable' statement on civil rights before that day."
(Deseret News, October 5th, 1963.)

"Some 3,000 students, led by the BSU, paraded peacefully on the school's campus in Seattle Monday over the issue of alleged racism at BYU."
(Deseret News, March 10th, 1970.)

"The demonstration was the latest in a series of protests against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) because the church bars Negroes from its priesthood."
(Deseret News, January 10th, 1970.)

Gordon Hinckley Admits Mormons Worship Another Jesus

"In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints 'do not believe in the traditional Christ.' 'No, I don't. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak. For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in this the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. He together with His Father, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in the year 1820, and when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of the ages.'"
(LDS Church News Week ending June 20, 1998, page 7 )

Joseph Smith Made A False Prophesy About The United States

(History of the Church, volume 5, page 394 - May 1843)
"President Smith, in concluding his remarks, said that if the government, which received into its coffers the money of citizens for its public lands, while its officials are rolling in the luxury at the expense of its public treasury, cannot protect such citizens in their lives and property, it is an old granny anyhow; and I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left, for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women and children, and the wholesale plunger and extermination of thousands of her citizens to go unpunished, thereby perpetrated a foul and corroding blot upon the fair name of this great republic, the very thought of which would have caused the high-minded and patriotic framers of the Constitution of the United States to hide their faces with shame. Judge, you will aspire to the presidency of the United States; and if ever you turn your hand against me or the Latter-day Saints, you will feel the weight of the hand of Almighty upon you; and you will live to see and know that I have testified the truth to you; for the conversation of this day will stick to you through life.
(History of the Church, volume 5, page 394 - May 1843)

This prophecy from the pen of Joseph Smith never came to pass.
This was a false prophecy.

Deuteronomy 18:20
"But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in My Name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die."

Deuteronomy 18:22
"When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that [is] the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, [but] the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."

Brigham Young Boasts About His Many Wives

"Brother Cannon remarked that people wondered how many wives and children I had. He may inform them, that I SHALL HAVE WIVES AND CHILDREN BY THE MILLION, and glory, and riches and power and dominion, and kingdom after kingdom, and reign triumphantly."
(Journal of Discourses, Volume 8, page 178)

"I could prove to this congregation that I AM YOUNG; for I could FIND MORE GIRLS WHO WOULD CHOOSE ME FOR A HUSBAND THAN CAN ANY OF THE YOUNG MEN."
(Journal of Discourses, Volume 5, page 210)

"The next man who came on to the carpet wanted to know HOW MANY WIVES BROTHER BRIGHAM HAD. I replied, '... I will guess, if that will do you any good....if I may judge from APPEARANCES, I SHOULD PRESUME HE HAS SOME FIFTY OR SIXTY.'"
(Mormon Apostle Ezra T. Benson, Journal of Discourses, Volume 6, pages 80-81)

Brigham Young Tells How Emma Smith Shall Be Damned To Hell For Rejecting Polygamy

"Emma took that revelation, supposing she had all there was; but Joseph had wisdom enough to take care of it, and he had handed the revelation to Bishop Whitney, and he wrote it all off. After Joseph had been to Bishop Whitney's he went home, and Emma began to teasing for the revelation. Said she—'Joseph you promised me that revelation, and if you are a man of your word you will give it to me.' Joseph took it from his pocket and said— 'Take it.' She went to the fireplace and put it in, and put the candle under it and burnt it, and she thought that was the end of it, AND SHE WILL BE DAMNED as sure as she is a living woman. Joseph used to say that he would have her hereafter, IF HE HAD TO GO TO HELL FOR HER, AND HE WILL HAVE TO GO TO HELL FOR HER AS SURE AS HE EVER GETS HER."
(Journal of Discourses, Volume 17, page 159)

The Lost Book of Abraham

Oliver Cowdery Accuses Joseph Smith Of Having An Affair With Fanny Alger

Below is a quote from a letter written on January 21st, 1838.
In this letter Olivery Cowdery accuses Joseph of having a "dirty, filthy affair":

“When he [Joseph Smith] was there we had some conversation in which in every instance I did not fail to affirm that what I had said was strictly true. A DIRTY, NASTY, FILTHY AFFAIR OF HIS AND FANNY ALGER'S was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deviated from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself.”
(Letter written by Oliver Cowdery and recorded by his brother Warren Cowdery; see photograph in The Mormon Kingdom, Volume 1, page 27)

Heber C. Kimball Said That Apostate Mormons Will Have Their Bowels Kicked Out

Heber C. Kimball, was a member of the First Presidency, here is what he said:

"Judas lost that saving principle, and they took him and killed him. It is said in the Bible that his bowels gushed out; but they actually KICKED HIM until his bowels came out. "'I will suffer my bowels to be taken out before I will forfeit the covenant I have made with Him and my brethren.' Do you understand me? Judas was like salt that had lost its saving principles—good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.... It is so with you, ye Elders of Israel, when you forfeit your covenants.... I know the day is right at handwhen men will forfeit their Priesthood and turn against us and against the covenants they have made, and they will be DESTROYED as Judas was."
(December 13th 1857, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Journal of Discourses, Volume 6, pages 125-126)

Brigham Young Declared Death To Inter-racial Couples

“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the AFRICAN RACE? If the WHITE man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the PENALTY, under the LAW OF GOD, IS DEATH ON THE SPOT. THIS WILL ALWAYS BE SO.”
(Journal of Discourses, Vol. 10, page 110)

Bruce R. McConkie Claims That Blacks Are Inferior

Mormon Church leader Bruce R. McConkie, writes about the denial of equality for Africans:

“NEGROES IN THIS LIFE ARE DENIED THE PRIESTHOOD; under NO circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty. The gospel message of salvation IS NOT CARRIED AFFIRMATIVELY TO THEM... “NEGROES ARE NOT EQUAL WITH OTHER RACES WHERE THE RECEIPT OF CERTAIN SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS ARE CONCERNED...”
(Mormon Doctrine, 1958, p. 477)

THE EVIL FRUIT OF JOSEPH SMITH AND BRIGHAM YOUNG'S POLYGAMY

JOSEPH SMITH AND THE OCCULT

MORMON FALSE PROPHETS ATTACK THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

WE WORSHIP GOD IN CHRIST

We as “Christians” worship God as He identifies Himself in His Word, as He reveals Himself in Christ, and as He draws us to Himself by His Spirit. We worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the true and living God in the Trinity of His sacred Persons.

We worship ONE God who subsists in Three Persons. We cannot fully understand or explain this great truth, but we know it is true because this is how God reveals Himself in Christ by His Spirit to us. Our knowledge, connection, and acceptance with the Godhead is in the Person and finished work of Christ who redeemed and justified us by His obedience unto death on the cross –“For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” (Colossians 1:19-20) … “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power:” (Colossians 2:9-10)

When we praise, honor, exalt, and worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we praise, honor, exalt, and worship the Godhead – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We can give no greater honor to the Father and to the Holy Spirit than when we trust, rest in, follow, and worship God the Son incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ.

By Bill Parker

How Joseph Smith Translated The Book Of Mormon

The True Character Of Joseph Smith

Mormon Grant Palmer On The Book Of Mormon

Mormonism And DNA

Lifting The Veil Of Polygamy

Joseph Smith - A Ravening Wolf

Beautiful Nauvoo: Where Joseph Smith Is The Superstar

False Prophecies And Revelations Made By Joseph Smith

Mormonism Denies The Virgin Birth Of Christ

“While brother Joseph was referring to the provinces of God, I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is purely philosophical. The birth of the Saviour was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood – was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 8, page 115)

“... I believe the Father came down from heaven, as the apostles said he did, and begat the Saviour of the world; for he is the ONLY-begotten of the Father, which could not be if the Father did not actually beget him in person.... I believe the Father came down in His tabernacle and begat Jesus Christ.”
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, page 238)

“... In relation to the way in which I look upon the works of God and his creatures, I will say that I was naturally begotten; so was my father, and also my Saviour Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, he is the first begotten of his father in the flesh, and there was noting unnatural about it.”
(Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, volume 8, page 211)

“God, the Father of our spirits, became the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.... The fleshy body of Jesus required a Mother as well as a Father. Therefore, the Father and Mother of Jesus, according to the flesh, must have been associated together in the capacity of Husband and Wife; hence the Virgin Mary must have, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the Father.... He had a lawful right to overshadow the Virgin Mary in the capacity of a husband, and beget a Son, although she was espoused to another; for the law which He gave to govern men and women, was not intended to govern Himself, or to prescribe rules for his own conduct.”
(Orson Pratt, The Seer, page 158)

“Now, we are told in scriptures that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God in the flesh. Well, now for the benefit of the older ones, how are children begotten? I answer just as Jesus Christ was begotten of the flesh... Jesus is the only person who had our Heavenly Father as the father of his body.”
(Joseph Fielding Smith, Family Home Evening Manual, pages 125, 126, 1972)

“Christ Not Begotten of Holy Ghost... Christ was begotten of God. He was not born without the aid of Man, and that Man was God!”
(Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, volume 1, page 18, 1954)

“Christ was Begotten by an immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, page 547, 1966)

“And Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of this Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events, for he is the Son of God, and that designation means what it says.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, page 792, 1966)

“As far as this life is concerned, [Jesus] was born of Mary and of Elohim; he came here as an offspring of that Holy Man who is literally our Father in heaven. He was born in mortality in the literal and full sense as the Son of God. He is the Son of his father in the same sense that all morals are the sons and daughters of their fathers.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mortal Messiah, volume 1, page 330)

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that some Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost.”
(Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, page 7)

“Thus, God the Father became the literal father of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born of a mortal mother and an immortal father.”
(Gospel Principles, page 57, 1988)

“[Jesus Christ] was willing to make payment because of his great love for mankind, and he was able to make payment because he lived a sinless life and because he was actually, literally, biologically the Son of God in the flesh.”
(Messages for Exaltation, For the Sunday Schools of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gospel Doctrine Class, pages 378-379, 1967)

Mormon Racism - An Anthology

Examining Facsimile One From The Book Of Abraham

Joseph Smith And The Mormon Church Lied About Their Practice Of Polygamy

THE JESUS OF MORMONISM

WHICH JESUS?

"But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him."
2 Corinthians 11:3-4

The apostle Paul spoke of those who would come preaching another jesus; of those who would receive another spirit and accept another gospel. The question we pose to you, the reader, is:
‘Which spirit have you received, which gospel do you believe and WHICH JESUS HAVE YOU ACCEPTED?’

THE ‘JESUS’ OF MORMONISM:

The jesus of Mormonism is not the Second Person of the Trinity, as there is no Trinity at all according to Mormon doctrine. The Mormon jesus was a pre-existent spirit, the spirit-brother of the Devil and was married to both Mary and Martha! Brigham Young, the successor to Mormon founder Joseph Smith, declared that the Mormon jesus‘ sacrifice on the cross was ineffective for the cleansing of some sins. Man himself has to atone for those sins that the blood of the Mormon jesus could not atone for. The Mormon jesus is a false jesus and no Savior at all.

THE TRUE JESUS:

There is only one True Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible: the One Whom God gives testimony to. The One Who died, was buried and rose again "according to the Scriptures" (see 1 Corinthians 15:1-4). There is only one Savior whom God recognizes as His Son and only His Son saves: the Jesus Who is not only the Son of God but IS God Himself. The true Jesus IS the Second Person of the Trinity (1 John 5:6,7), unlike the Mormon jesus. The resurrected body of the true Jesus was made up of ‘flesh and bones’ (Luke 24:39)

The true Jesus died on the cross at Calvary and His shed blood, that is his physical death, DID atone for all the sins of everyone for whom He died. His sacrifice was a once and for all substitutionary sacrifice that requires no repetition and no supplementary act on the part of man in order for it to become effective. His physical death IS sufficient to cover every sin—past, present and future—of all those whom God gave to Him.

The jesuses promoted in the false gospels of religion failed to fully atone for sin by their ‘death’ on the cross. The true Jesus’ atonement for His people was fully efficacious for the redemption of everyone for whom He poured out His blood:

"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross"
Colossians 2:14

"...but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself"
Hebrews 9:26

"...we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all"
Hebrews 10:10

"For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified"
Hebrews 10:14

"...unto Him (Jesus) who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood"
Revelation 1:5

All these Scriptures testify to the fact of the all-sufficiency and all-efficiency of Jesus’ once and for all sacrifice for His sheep on the cross. As the different gospels preached by these false religions are no Gospel at all, so too, their different jesuses are no Jesus at all and, therefore, no Saviour at all!

It is of crucial importance that we believe in the right Jesus. In fact it is a matter of life and death. The jesus you have is identified by the doctrine you believe in. There are billions of people on this earth but only one you and one me. So too, there is only ONE God and ONE Lord Jesus Christ. There is only ONE Savior and if one does not abide in His doctrine, if one does not believe in the only Gospel which reveals the Righteousness of Christ, without which no one can be saved, then one is without God and without hope:

"Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God..."
2 John 9

"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth...For therein is the Righteousness of God revealed..."
Romans 1:16,17

Imagine a room full of different jesuses. Above their heads are written: ‘The jesus of the Mormons’; ‘The jesus of the Faith Movement’; ‘The jesus of Roman Catholicism’; ‘The jesus of Arminianism’ etc. The characteristics, the attributes, the history and the redemptive work of the jesus you follow must be in accord with the Jesus of the Bible or you have accepted the wrong jesus (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Why error is so deadly in this matter of who the Savior is and what He has done, is that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

If one does not hold to the truth about Jesus, how can one be said to have the True Jesus at all?

The doctrine which distinguishes and identifies the jesus you believe in must be in accord with the Scriptures or you have been taught, and do follow, one of the many counterfeit saviors. The true Jesus is the One whose physical death upon the cross, alone fully atoned for the sins of everyone for whom He died. Only this Jesus is the real Savior; only this Jesus provides salvation for His people, the ones whom God chose before the foundation of the world and gave to His Son (Ephesians 1:4 & John 17:2,3). Accept any other jesus, however much he might resemble the true Jesus, however sincerely you believe him to be the true Jesus, and you have embraced a satanic counterfeit who will lead you to an eternal hell.

By Moreno Dal Bello

JOSEPH SMITH HAD OVER 30 WIVES

Joseph Smith - Head In His Hat

MORMON ANTHROPOLOGIST T MURPHY TELLS HOW HE CAME TO THE STARTLING TRUTH THAT DNA PROVES THE BOOK OF MORMON TO BE FALSE

JOSEPH SMITH'S MANY WIVES

THE ORIGINAL MORMON MASONIC TEMPLE RITUALS

HOW DID JOSEPH SMITH TRANSLATE THE BOOK OF MORMON?

Was the book of Mormon produced by occult methods?

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the book of mormon was translated.

Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine.

a piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing.

One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English.

Brother Joseph would read off the english to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written downand repeated to brother Joseph to seeif it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear.

Thus the book of mormon was translated......

(John Whitmer - 1877)

Emma Smith revealed the same occult method:

"In writing for your father, i frequently wrote day after day...He sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictatinghour after hourwith nothing between us."

(The Saints Herald - may 19 - 1888)

QUOTES FROM FALSE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH

Joseph Smith blaspemously boasts that he did more than Jesus to keep a church together.
"God is in the still small voice. In all these affidavits, indictments, it is all of the devil--all corruption. Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on the top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet . . . "
(History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408-409).

False Prophet Smith claimed the book of mormon was more correct than the infallible 100% perfect word of God - the Bible
"I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." (History of the Church, Vol. 4, page 461)

Just one of Joseph Smith's numerous false prophecies
". . .I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left . . . "
(History of the Church, Vol. 5, p. 394.)

Joseph Smith said mothers have babies in eternity and some are on thrones.
"A question may be asked, ‘Will mothers have their children in eternity?' Yes! Yes! Mothers, you shall have your children."
(Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, page 10).

"Eternity is full of thrones, upon which dwell thousands of children reigning on thrones of glory, with not one cubit added to their stature."
(Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p. 10).

Joseph Smith said there were many Gods
"Hence, the doctrine of a plurality of Gods is as prominent in the Bible as any other doctrine. It is all over the face of the Bible . . . Paul says there are Gods many and Lords many . . . but to us there is but one God--that is pertaining to us; and he is in all and through all"
(History of the Church, Vol. 6, page 474).

"In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and people it."
(Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p. 5).

Joseph Smith blasphemously taught the Trinity is three gods.
"I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods."
(Teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith p. 370).

Joseph Smith said God was once a man.
"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens...I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form -- like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man....it is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God, and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and will take away and do away the veil, so that you may see....and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did."
(Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p. 3).

Joseph Smith said our greatest responsibility is to seek after our dead.
"The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead"
(Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, page 7).

Joseph Smith said that there are men living on the moon who dress like Quakers and live to be nearly 1000 years old. Since he was wrong about the moon, is it safe to trust him regarding the way to Heaven?
(The Young Woman's Journal, Vol. 3, pages 263-264.
See reprint in Mormonism -- Shadow or Reality? by Jerald and Sandra Tanner, page 4.)

BRIGHAM YOUNG - IDOLATROUS FALSE PROPHET

False Prophet and successor to Joseph Smith publicy and forcefully taught that Adam was our
God and Father - in fact he was so adamant about this false revelation that he said one would be eternally damned unless they agreed with his view.

On April 9, 1852, Brigham Young publicly preached the Adam-God doctrine.
In this sermon he declared:

Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later ... the earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael, these three forming a quorum, as in all heavenly bodies, and in organizing element, perfectly represented in the Deity, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
(Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pp.50-51).

Again Brigham Young states:
"It has been said that Adam is the God and Father of the human family, and persons are perhaps in fear and great trouble of mind, lest they have to acknowledge him as such in some future day. For our part we would much rather acknowledge Adam to be our Father, than hunt for another, and take up with the devil."
(Millennial Star, vol.15, p.825).




Also this statement was made:
"...every Knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that he is the God of the whole earth. Then will the words of the Prophet Brigham, when speaking of Adam, be fully realized—'He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do.' "
(Millennial Star, vol.17, p.195).

In his journal and autobiography, Joseph Lee Robinson commented that he feared Apostle Orson Pratt would apostatize because of his opposition to the Adam-God doctrine:

"Oct. 6th attend Conference, a very interesting Conference, for at this meeting President Brigham Young said thus, that Adam and Eve, ware the names of the first man and woman, of every Earth that was ever organized, and that Adam and Eve were the natural father and mother of every spirit that comes to this planet, or that receives, tabernacles on this plannet, concequently we are brothers and sisters, and that Adam was, God our Eternal Father, this as Brother Heber remarked was letting the cat out of the Bag, and it came to pass, I believed every word ... our Beloved Brother Orson Pratt told me he did not believe it. He said he could prove by the Scriptures it was not correct. I felt very sorry to hear professor, Orson Pratt say that, I feared lest he should apostetize..." (Journal of Joseph Lee Robinson, Microfilm copy in LDS Genealogical Library).

In spite of the opposition, Brigham Young continued to teach the Adam-God doctrine. In 1873, just a few years before his death, he declared:
How much unbelief exists in the minds of the Latter-day Saints in regard to one particular doctrine which I revealed to them, and which God revealed to me—namely that Adam is our Father and God.... Our Father Adam helped to make this earth, ... he and his companions came here. He brought one of his wives with him.... Our Father Adam is the man who stands at the gate and holds the keys of everlasting life and salvation to all his children who have or who ever will come upon the earth.... We say that Father Adam came here and helped to made the earth. Who is he? He is Michael.... He was the first man on the earth, and its framer and maker. He, with the help of his brethren, brought it into existence. Then he said, "I want my children who are in the spirit world to come and live here. I once dwelt upon an earth something like this, in a mortal state. I was faithful, I received my crown and exaltation. I have the privilege of extending my work, and to its increase there will be no end. I want my children that were born to me in the spirit world to come here and take tabernacles of flesh, that their spirits may have a house, a tabernacle or a dwelling place as mine has, and where is the mystery?" (Deseret News, June 18, 1873).

SORRY PEOPLE, THE BLASPHEMIES CONTINUE:

The Father of Jesus Christ (according to false prophet young)
Since Brigham Young was teaching that Adam was the father of our spirits, it was very easy to teach that Adam was also the father of Jesus. In a discourse delivered April 9, 1852, Brigham Young declared:
When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family ... I could tell you much more about this; but were I to tell you the whole truth, blasphemy would be nothing to it, in the estimation of the superstitious and over-righteous of mankind. However, I have told you the truth as far as I have gone.... Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven. Now, let all who may hear these doctrines, pause before they make light of them, or treat them with indifference, for they will prove their salvation or damnation (Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pp.50-51).

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

By Chris - Jesus' Boy

The First Vision

Joseph Smith's First Vision

How Did Joseph Smith "Translate" The Book Of Mormon?

NO ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE BOOK OF MORMON

As the Mormon church were claiming at one point that the book of mormon was used by the National Geographic Society in order to locate ancient archaeological sites one man felt the need to write to the NGS for confirmation and this was their response.

National Geographic Society

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036

January 11, 1990

Dear Mr. Larson:

Thank you for writing to the National Geographic Society.

The Society has never used the Book of Mormon to locate archaeological sites, and we do not believe that any of the places named in the Book of Mormon can be placed geographically by the evidence of archaeology. So far as we know there is no archaeological evidence to verify the history of early peoples of the Western Hemisphere as presented in the Book of Mormon.
I hope you will find this information useful.

Yours truly,

Pamela Tucci
Research Correspondence

If the National Geographic Society can find no archaeological evidence to support the book of Mormon - there simply isn't any.

FURTHER EVIDENCE TO CEMENT THE FACT THAT JOSEPH SMITH LIED SEVERAL TIMES ABOUT THE APPARENT 'FIRST VISION' ENCOUNTER

This is Joseph Smiths official First Vision Account written in 1938:

Sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester, there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but soon became general among all the sects in that region of country ... and great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties .... Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for the Presbyterian, and some for the Baptist ... my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect ... but so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible ... to come to any certain conclusion who was right, and who was wrong .... So in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty ... I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God .... I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head .... When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description .... One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other 'This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!' .... I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right, (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong) and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong .... I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors [believers] of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen and fifteen years of age ... yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common among all the sects all united to persecute me.
— Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith - History 1:5-8, 14-19, 22

If the above account is true - we have to ask ourselves the questions:

Why did Brigham Young not know about this?

Why did Joseph Smith's mum not know about this?

Mormon Apostle Hugh B. Brown declared:
The First Vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith constitutes the groundwork of the Church which was later organized. If this First Vision was but a figment of Joseph Smith's imagination, then the Mormon Church is what its detractors declare it to be - a wicked and deliberate imposture (The Abundant Life, pp. 310-311).

In his 1838 account, Joseph Smith stated that his mother, sister and two brothers were led to join the local Presbyterian Church as a result of that 1820 revival. However,
Joseph's mother, Lucy, tells us that the revival which led her to join the church took place after the death of her son, Alvin. Alvin died on November 19, 1823, and following that painful loss Lucy Smith reports that,
about this time there was a great revival in religion and the whole neighborhood was very much aroused to the subject and we among the rest, flocked to the meeting house to see if there was a word of comfort for us that might relieve our over-charged feelings (First draft of Lucy Smith's History, p. 55, LDS Church Archives).

How did the story of Mormon origins become so confused? Part of the answer is found in the fact that Joseph Smith himself told the story several different ways.

Joseph's mother, likewise, knew nothing of a vision of the Father and the Son in the Sacred Grove. In her unpublished account she traces the origin of Mormonism to a bedroom visit by an angel. Joseph at the time had been pondering which of all the churches were the true one. The angel told him "there is not a true church on Earth, No, not one" (First draft of Lucy Smith's History, p. 46, LDS Church Archives).

Still another version of the First Vision was published in 1834-35 in the periodical, Latter-day Saints Messenger and Advocate (Vol. 1, pp. 42, 78). This account was written by LDS leader Oliver Cowdery with the help of Joseph Smith. It tells how a revival in 1823 caused 17-year-old Joseph Smith to be stirred up on the subject of religion.

According to Cowdery, Joseph desired to know for himself of the certainty and reality of pure and holy religion (p. 78). He also prayed if a Supreme being did exist, to have an assurance that he was accepted of him and a manifestation in some way that his sins were forgiven (Ibid., 78, 79). According to this account, an angel (not a deity) appeared in Joseph's bedroom to tell him his sins were forgiven.

The conflicts produced by this account are numerous.

First, the date of the revival is given as 1823, instead of 1820.

Second, if Joseph had already had a vision of the Father and the Son in 1820, why did he need to pray in 1823 about whether or not a Supreme being existed?

Third, when the revival prompts him to pray, the personage that appears is an angel, not the Father or Son. Fourth, the message of the angel is one of forgiveness of sins, rather than an announcement that all the churches were wrong.

These widely divergent accounts raise serious questions about the authenticity of Joseph Smith's First Vision story. Different people may have varying views of the same event, but when one person tells contradictory stories about the same event, we are justified in questioning both the person and the truthfulness of the story.

Persecution Or Acceptance?

Today's First Vision story not only runs into trouble with the historically verified date of the Palmyra, New York revival and with Joseph's earlier accounts of the event, it also conflicts with what we know about his early years in Palmyra. In his official version Joseph Smith claims he was persecuted by all the churches in his area "because I continued to affirm that I had seen a vision." However, this is contradicted by one of Joseph's associates at the time. Orsamus Turner, an apprentice printer in Palmyra until 1822, was in a juvenile debating club with Joseph Smith. He recalled that Joseph, "after catching a spark of Methodism . . . became a very passable exhorter in evening meetings" (History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, 1851, p. 214).

Thus, instead of being opposed and persecuted as his 1838 account claims, young Joseph was welcomed and allowed to exhort during the Methodist's evening preaching.

This point is supported by Brigham Young University historian and LDS bishop, James B. Allen. Allen found virtually nothing to support Joseph's claim that he told the First Vision story immediately after it happened in 1820, and suffered persecution as a result, or even that Joseph was telling the story ten years later:

There is little if any evidence, however, that by the early 1830s Joseph Smith was telling the story in public. At least if he were telling it, no one seemed to consider it important enough to have recorded it at the time, and no one was criticizing him for it. Not even in his own history did Joseph Smith mention being criticized in this period for telling the story of the First Vision ("The Significance of Joseph Smith's First Vision in Mormon Thought", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Autumn 1966, p. 30).

JOSEPH LIED.......AGAIN

Where do i begin, there is so much information, lies, distortions and cover ups regarding the first vison claim of false prophet Joseph Smith.

Joseph Smith wrote his 'official account' of the first vision in 1838 - this was published in times and seasons in 1842, a whole 2 decades after the event was alleged to have taken place.

What most mormons have never been told is the fact that there were between 6 and 9 earlier drafts of the 'first vision' - i will attempt to present some of these accounts to you below and also add some hand written comments by men and women who new Joseph personally.

These accounts and been repressed or ignored by the mormon leaders in an attempt to authenticate the official first vision account.

Out of all the accounts that we shall see, his final 'official account' is least credible and he should have stuck to one of his previous drafts, instead of going into extreme ficticious lies about an event that probably never occured.

The earliest account we have was written by Joseph in 1832, in this account his age is changed, his reason for seeking the Lord is changed, the event is changed, the presence of an evil power is not there,there is no mention of a revival and also the number of divine personages in the vision.

Here is the exact wording of his draft - word for word including spelling mistakes:
marvilous even in the likeness of him who created him (them) and when I considered upon these things my heart exclaimed well hath thewise man said the (it is a) fool (that) saith in his heart there is no God my heart exclaimed all all these bear testimony and bespeak an omnipotant and omnipreasant power a being who makith Laws and decreeeth and bindeth all things in their bounds who filleth Eternity who was and is and will be from all Eternity to Eternity and when I considered all these things and that (that) being seeketh such to worship him as worship him in spirit and in truth therefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go and to obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in (the) attitude of calling upon the Lord (in the 16th year of my age) a piller of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the (Lord) opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph (my son) thy sins are forgiven thee. go thy (way) walk in my statutes and keep my commandments behold I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life (behold) the world lieth in sin and at this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned asside from the gospel and keep not (my) commandments they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them acording to th[e]ir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which (hath) been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Ap[o]stles behold and lo I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud (clothed) in the glory of my Father and my soul was filled with love and for many days I could reioice with great Joy and the Lord was with me but [I] could find none that would believe the hevnly vision nevertheless I pondered these things in my heart about that time my mother and but after many days Joseph Smith's Handwritten First Vision (click on the link to the left and see the photographic evidence for yourself)

So if the above version is true why did Joseph change it 6 years later?
If the 1838 account is true, why did he write this draft?
conclusion - obviously both were lies.

Below we can see the major differences between the 1832 account and the 1838 account.

1832

personages = Smith claimed only a vision from Jesus
Seeking God = Bible reading stirred Smith to seek God
Churches wrong = Smith already knew this

1838
personages = Smith claimed a vision of both the Father AND the Son.
Seeking God = A revival motivated Smith to seek God Churches wrong = 'two personages' informed Smith that all the churches are wrong

Joseph Smith, Nov. 1835 - "...I received the first visitation of Angels when I was about 14 years old..." Personal writings of Joseph Smith, pg. 84 [It should be noted that this entry has been changed in the History of the Church, Vol. 2, pg. 312. It now reads "my first vision" instead of "visitation of Angels"]

So in this latest account of the first vision we see Jospeh Smith claiming that it was many angels that visted him.

Now here comes the interesting part: What saith the future leaders of mormonism? what saith his family regarding the alleged first vision?

Brigham Young - "The Lord did not come with the armies of heaven ... but He did send his angel to this same obscure person, Joseph Smith jun., who afterwards became a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, and informed him that he should not join any of the religious sects of the day, for they were all wrong" Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 171 (1855)

Wilford Woodruff - "The same organization and Gospel that Christ died for ... is again established in this generation. How did it come? By the ministering of an holy angel from God, out of heaven, who held converse with man, and revealed unto him the darkness that enveloped the world ... He told him the Gospel was not among men, and that there was not a true organization of His kingdom in the world" Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 196 (1855)

Orson Hyde - "Some one may say, 'If this work of the last days be true, why did not the Saviour come himself to communicate this intelligence to the world?' Because to the angels was committed the power of reaping the earth, and it was committed to none else." Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p. 335 (1854)

George A. Smith - "...he [Joseph Smith] went humbly before the Lord and inquired of Him, and the Lord answered his prayer, and revealed to Joseph, by the ministration of angels , the true condition of the religious world. When the holy angel appeared , Joseph inquired which of all these denominations was right and which he should join, and was told they were all wrong" Journal of Discourses, vol. 12, p. 334 (1863)

George A. Smith - "[Joseph] was enlightened by the vision of an holy angel. When this personage appeared to him, one of the first inquiries was 'Which of the denominations of Christians in the vicinity was right?' " Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p. 78 (1869)

John Taylor - "None of them was right, just as it was when the Prophet Joseph asked the angel which of the sects was right that he might join it. The answer was that none of them are right." Journal of Discourses, vol. 20, p. 167 (1879)

George Q. Cannon - "But suppose that the statement that Joseph Smith says the angel made to him should be true-that there was no church upon the face of the earth whom God recognized as His, and whose acts He acknowledged-suppose this were true..." Journal of Discourses, vol. 24, pg. 135 (1889)

William Smith- "He accordingly went out into the woods and falling upon his knees called for a long time upon the Lord for wisdom and knowledge. While engaged in prayer a light appeared in the heavens, and descended until it rested upon the trees where he was. It appeared like fire. But to his great astonishment, did not burn the trees. An angel then appeared to him and conversed with him upon many things. He told him that none of the sects were right..." William Smith On Mormonism , By William Smith, Joseph Smith's brother. pg. 5 (1883)

"The angel again forbade Joseph to join any of these churches, and he promised that the true and everlasting Gospel should be revealed to him at some future time. Joseph continues: 'Many other things did he (the angel) say unto me which I cannot write at this time' " Church Historical Record, Vol. 7, January, 1888

Brigham Young - "Do we believe that the Lord sent his messengers to Joseph Smith, and commanded him to refrain from joining any Christian church, and to refrain from the wickedness he saw in the churches, and finally delivered to him a message informing him that the Lord was about to establish his kingdom on the earth..." Journal of Discourses, Vol. 18, pg. 239

I don't know about you but i find it strange that Brigham Young who knew Joseph personally, aswell as others knew nothing of a visitation by God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: Joseph LIED

By Chris - Author of www.TestAllThings.wordpress.com

WOE TO YOU JOSEPH SMITH

Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last.
I have more to boast of than ever any man had.
I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam.
A large majority of the whole have stood by me.
Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it.
I boast that no man ever did such a work as I.
The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)
[Whole sermon click here.]

- Joseph Smith: founder, prophet, seer, and revelator of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Yet the bible says:

2 Timothy 3: 1-5
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be LOVERS OF THEIR OWN SELVES, COVETOUS, BOASTERS, PROUD, BLASPHEMERS, disobedient to parents, unthankful, UNHOLY,
WITHOUT NATURAL AFFECTION, truce-breakers, FALSE ACCUSERS, INCONTINENT, FIERCE, DESPISERS OF THOSE THAT ARE GOOD, TRAITORS, HEADY, HIGH MINDED, LOVERS OF PLEASURES MORE THAN LOVERS OF GOD;
Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof: FROM SUCH TURN AWAY.

Matthew 16:18
And i say unto thee, That thou art Peter(little stone), and upon this rock(Jesus - huge boulder)i will build MY church; AND THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT.

MY EXPERIENCE IN MORMONISM - DAVID McCAMENT

A WAY WHICH SEEMETH RIGHT:
My Experience in Mormonism

by David A. McCament, Formerly LDS -

FOR STEVE'S FULL TESTIMONY PLEASE CLICK ON ONE OF THE CHAPTER HYPER - LINKS.

ALTERNATIVELY PLEASE VIST WWW.WHYWELEFTMORMONISM.BLOGSPOT.COM FOR STEVE'S + HUNDREDS OF OTHERS WHO LEFT THE MORMON CHURCH.


Of all the faithful members of the Church I have ever met, I never thought I'd be one of those seemingly faithless few who leave it.

But I did.

I did because of God.

I admonish every Latter-day Saint to carefully consider the source of their testimony. If it is the Holy Ghost bearing witness in your bosom then be honest and ask yourself why are there so many doctrines of Mormonism in disagreement with the Bible? Why was Joseph Smith heavily involved with the occult at the same time he professed to be a prophet of God? How could the Bible now be incomplete when Jesus said in Matthew 24:35 that His words would never "pass away"? Why the attack by Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon on the Bible in the first place? Was Jesus right or wrong in saying that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church? The necessity of a Restored Church and modern revelation is at stake. How can you know what to believe in? It all depends on whether you take God at His Word or Joseph Smith at his.

If you are LDS and convinced the Church is true, I urge you to reconsider for Biblical reasons. Ponder the meaning of this verse from Proverbs 14:12: "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." I was once certain the Church was true - that it was the "way which seemeth right." You too may believe with every fiber of your heart that the Church is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God but the Bible warns you that your heart can be easily deceived, a deception leading to death:
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

"He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool, but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered." (Proverbs 28:26)
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." (Proverbs 3:5)
"He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" (Isaiah 44:20)
Please don't let the lying spirit of Mormonism deceive your heart and keep you from recognizing the truth. Stop trusting in your feelings and start trusting in the Lord with all your heart. You do not hold the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods of the Bible, but you don't need them to work the works of God: you need to believe in Jesus (John 6:28,29). You don't need to have your Temple Endowments and years of active Church service to make you righteous before God. You can't; those things won't help. Seriously consider what Jesus did for everyone who puts their trust in Him: He "blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross"(Colossians 2:14); "For God made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)
This is the work of God. This is what the Bible teaches, "...that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name." (John 20:31)
This is the account of what great things God has done for me and what He has promised me through faith in Him. This is my testimony. May it be yours, too, I pray in Jesus' name and for His glory. Amen.

-Dave McCament

"And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them who are sanctified." (Acts 20:32)

DEAR READER - PLEASE FEEL FREE TO E-MAIL DAVID WITH ANY QUESTIONS

Email David McCament formerlyLDS@yahoo.com

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Who Really Wrote The Book Of Mormon?