Just_A_Guy

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/revelations-in-context/oliver-cowderys-gift?lang=eng The entire “Revelations in Context” series is excellent.

Welcome aboard! As you likely know, glossolalia was practiced in the early LDS Church (the first known instance involved Brigham Young, and those with him were skeptical about it until Joseph Smith himself expressed approval). It occurred intermittently through the late territorial period, with Eliza Snow being a noted practitioner. JS taught that a true manifestation of the gift would always be accompanied by another person present being given the gift of interpretation. I think that as the world has tilted more towards rationalism, and in conjunction with D&C 50 (and the circumstances that underlay that revelation), European and American Saints have gotten more suspicious of those sorts of “charismatic” spiritual gifts—both because we are culturally groomed to find them unseemly, and because they are so easily counterfeited by the adversary. (And even if you think you’re experiencing the gift, it takes a lot to put yourself publicly “out there” and have faith that someone else will get the interpretation and that you won’t end up looking like a complete kook). We expect not to receive these sorts of manifestations—and so, we don’t.

There’s a lot there thought-provoking and attractive in the article, but let me play devil’s advocate for a minute. I confess I don’t know much about what Anglican clerics of Collins’s station actually did (then or now). It would be interesting to know what Austen thought of clerics generally (wasn’t her father one? And wasn’t there a sort of view through the period that the clergy was more or less a dumping ground for the mediocre younger sons of the gentry/ nobility?) You get the impression that at least some measure of self-discipline and sexual restraint was expected (cf Darcy’s observation that Wickham “must not” (IIRC) join the clergy). And you get the feeling that whatever was expected of clergymen, Sense and Sensibility’s Edward Farrars would probably do it in good faith and with good intentions, if nothing else. But it’s hard to imagine any of those characters (at least, as I recall them) crafting really effective sermons, or providing particularly solid life-advice to congregants seeking counseling, or offering material charity to the poor in a way that wasn’t at least a little bit cringeworthy. And - again, I don’t know what contemporary Anglican discourse really looked or sounded like; but it seems telling to me that (again, so far as I can remember) none of these priestly candidates ever says anything about Jesus Himself. The entire Church, for Austen, seems more an enforcer of convention than a repository of spiritual vivification; and we know from Collins’s final letter to Mr. Bennet that he himself is capable of (and advocates for) great cruelty which even Bennet (not a particularly kind man himself) recognizes. One could potentially respond to the author of the article of the OP that Collins is at heart a secular humanist in a collar—the sort of amiable bumbler intent primarily on cashing out his own legacy of life-happiness while giving perfunctory service to forms created by predecessors better than himself whose purpose he is incapable of comprehending; and the type of person who through ignorance and apathy permitted and enabled the spiritual (and then temporal) rot of the British Empire.

Elder Holland gave a talk at BYU 20-odd years ago (later printed in the Ensign in condensed form) that deals specifically with the interplay between this verse, revelation generally, and the experience(s) of Moses. I believe it was entitled “Cast not away your confidence”, or something similar.

Administratively, I don’t believe there’s a way to perpetually mark a record in a way that would make a posthumous sealing impossible. Theologically, I think such a sealing would likely be void.

I believe you can seal dead unmarried couples if they had a child together.

It’s a great result. FWIW, though, my my understanding is that Trump actually got quite a few appointments on the 9th Circuit during his first term and it has drifted towards the center in the past decade.

I believe your parents would need to be posthumously sealed to each other (deceased people can be sealed to all of their spouses) and then you would be sealed to your parents. See CHI 38.4.2.2.

Where do we get the idea that David never saw the translation process? A significant portion of the work was done (and the job was finished) at his family's farm, in the small cabin in which the Church would later be organized. Whitmer claimed, in his Address to All Believers (p. 11), that he saw the work being done. Joseph Smith himself said that David Whitmer was available to serve as a scribe for him (see here, p. 8). You've also forced () me to drag out my copy of Brandt Gardner's Translating the Book of Mormon, wherein he also cites an 1883 account by William Smith in which William claims JS used "the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light" and an 1870 account by Elizabeth Whitmer Cowdery (who would grow up to marry Oliver Cowdery) who wrote that "[JS] translated the most of [the Book of Mormon] at my Father's house. And I often sat by and saw and heard them translate and write for hours together. Joseph never had a curtain drawn between him and his scribe while he was translating. He would place the director in his hat, and then place his <face in his> hat, so as to exclude the light, and then [read?] to his scribe the words (he said) as they appeared before him." Translating the Book of Mormon, 7 [editorial marks original to Gardner]. As I understand it, the interpreters recovered with the plates were attached to the breastplate but resembled eyeglasses or "spectacles" and could be detached. Even so, as Don Bradley writes in The Lost 116 Pages, Some nineteenth-century reporters say that the lenses of the interpreters were set too wide for Joseph's eyes, making it uncomfortable for him to use them simultaneously while they rested on the rod [that linked the two stones]. Joseph's father, a wearer of spectacles himself, reportedly said that the interpreters were set one and a half inches wider than the lenses of ordinary spectacles, indicating either that Joseph was not using it in the way intended by its inventor or that the device holding the interpreters was designed for a person of extraordinary size. The Lost 116 Pages, 49. Bradley goes on to bring in some really interesting descriptions of the interpreters to explain how they link to the symbols of the compass and square, and points out additional logistical issues that may have been presented by using the interpreters. Harris outright says it, IIRC. Emma heavily implies it, saying explicitly that after the loss of the 116 pages the brown stone, not the interpreters (which she labeled the "Urim and Thummim"), were used. Gardner cites to a couple of other historians (separate articles by Stephen Ricks and John Welch), but I'm not sure what additional primary sources they may have used in formulating their conclusions. See Translating the Bo0ok of Mormon, 290-291, note 25. Weellll . . . sort of. First off--as an aside, Gardner's Translating the Book of Mormon also addresses the linguistic evolution through which the interpreters/seer stone were Biblicized as the "Urim and Thummim". See pp. 127-129. As for the Elder's Journal article: The thing about it is that as you read the entire article it becomes pretty evident that in that particular forum Joseph is by turns being facetious, flippant, and/or evasive. On a variety of topics he obviously knows far more than he's telling: Question 1st. Do you believe the bible? Answer. If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does. For there are none of the religious sects of the day that do. [Is that doctrine, Brother Joseph? ] Question 3rd. Will every body be damned but Mormons? Answer. Yes, and a great portion of them,unless they repent and work righteousness. [Now, Brother Joseph; don't tease us. You received D&C 76 six years ago!] Question 5th. Do you believe Joseph Smith Jr. to be a prophet? Answer. Yes, and every other man who has the testimony of Jesus. “For the testimony of Jesus, is the spirit of prophecy.”—Rev. 19: 10. [Brother Joseph! I get that you're trying to make friends and elevate those around you, but don't sell yourself short here!] Question 6th. Do the Mormons believe in having all things common? Answer. No. [Brother Joseph, you were getting revelations on the United Order seven years ago. Are you sure there isn't more you'd like to say here?] Question 7th. Do the Mormons believe in having more wives than one. Answer. No, not at the same time. But they believe, that if their companion dies, they have a right to marry again. But we do disapprove of the custom which has gained in the world, and has been practised among us, to our great mortification, of marrying in five or six weeks, or even in two or three months after the death of their companion. We believe that due respect ought to behad, to the memory of the dead, and the feelings of both friends and children. [Brother Joseph, haven't you already received the fundamentals of what will later be canonized as D&C 132? Does the name Fanny Alger ring a bell?] And from there, the interview morphs on into playful banter as Smith addresses questions about whether he was a money digger, whether he stole his wife, etc; as well as more serious questions about, e.g., abolitionism (where he insists, contra earlier Church publications, that "we do not believe in setting the Negroes free"). The point I'm trying to make here is not that Joseph is being deliberately dishonest in this article. But he is being evasive; he is giving simplistic and glib answers and refusing to be publicly drawn out on topics that are by turn complicated, sacred, and/or deeply personal. Seven years ago, Joseph had publicly told Hyrum that "it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the book of Mormon, & also said that it was not expedient for him to relate these things &c." I don't think we should read the Elders' Journal article as an attempt to comprehensively and publicly expose what Joseph had already defined to be sacred and confidential.

David, not Oliver. And yeah, Harris’s narrative suggests the seer stone was also used, at least sometimes, before the loss of the 116 pages (because of the incident he records of swapping out the stone while serving as a scribe, and AFAIK he didn’t serve as a scribe after the loss of the 116 pages). But AFAIK Harris’s narrative doesn’t place the Jaredite interpreters back in Joseph’s possession after they’d been taken away from him. What primary source do we have that clearly, unequivocally distinguishes between the Jaredite interpreters and the seer stone and unequivocally says that JS used the former and not the latter *after* the loss of the 116 pages?

Because that’s what three of the people who saw him using it, said that he used; and they were more specific than JS tended to be.

Also beats mine from 2023 when I crossed back into the US from Canada after buying a boat there. We expected (and got) lots of customs paperwork; but apparently there’s another person out there with my name and birthdate who . . . lacks my sterling moral character and is on an international watchlist of some sort. It took them a couple hours to figure out I’m not him. Ultimately I was saved by the fact that I (unlike my evil doppelgänger) am not Latino and I (also unlike my evil doppelgänger, and in spite of @LDSGator’s relentless efforts) have not gotten a neck tattoo.

Also, if you’re in Utah and someone says there’s a warrant for your arrest, you can check that at https://warrants.utah.gov.

Well, hang on a second. If a teacher or a guidance counselor at my children’s school repeatedly told them that “to even ask if you are transgender means that you are indeed transgender”, and repeat that admonition even after my child protested that they thought they were mostly comfortable with their natal sex, and then continue to drag my child into a bunch of struggle sessions in which the child is badgered with questions such as “are you sure you’re not transgender? You seem transgender to me? Your bigoted parents are holding you back, aren’t they? Are you sure you aren’t transgender? You said you feel awkwardness about your body. That sounds trandgender. Don’t you see how great it is to be transgender? If you don’t come out and say transgender, you might hurt yourself in the long run. You might die! You’ll DIE!!! We don’t want you to die! Shouldn’t you just go ahead and tell everybody your transgender?” – not only would those school personnel not suffer consequences; but in many states, they would be hailed as providing “excellent mental healthcare“; and any efforts I as a parent made to learn anything about these conversations would be summarily shut down. And if my LGBTQ coworker made a habit of saying “JAG, you are so insistent on being ‘straight’ with your hetero marriage and your six kids and your conservative politics and your traditional religious values, that you simply must be a repressed gay man!” — I would be putting my job in real danger if I openly affirmed that “no, I’m actually quite sure I’m straight and that homosexuality is not for me.” And you and I both know that not one HR director out of ten, would subject my coworker to any kind of discipline for what they have been doing. It’s not about a truly universal right to “human dignity” by having your sexuality and your chosen gender expression be unquestioned. It’s about implementing a dizzying cat’s cradle of oft-incoherent rules (spoken and unspoken, and any one of which could result in your getting fired at the drop of a hat); tasking the enforcement of those rules to people who hate you and want to see you suffer; and then decreeing that a certain elite class of LGBTQ overlords is exempt from all those rules.

You should read Stapley’s “The Power of Godliness”. It’s heavy stuff—I really need to do a second reading of it to get a better handle on the material; he really digs into the way that our ideas on “priesthood” have developed over the history of the Church —but for purposes of this discussion it is maybe most relevant to note that Stapley claims that early LDS anointings for health did not include a “sealing” component until after Elijah’s return. He notes that modern confirming-of-anointings-for-health are the only modern approved use of the sealing power outside of temples.

In family scripture study this week (we are redoing the BoM), it was suggested that maybe the Liahona was coated in small writing; and maybe one would only notice it had “changed” if one made a habit of studying it closely on a routine basis. As to the pointers, I’ve entertained the notions that the second pointer may have pointed: —To “intermediate” objectives—not campsites, but hunting locations or water sources or to the current whereabouts of wandering livestock that had been left to forage; —To a cardinal direction (true north or true east); —The way back to Jerusalem.

I’ve always thought that about Church magazines; but then every so often you stumble on some nugget online and find it’s from the 2015 Ensign or something. I have a low tolerance for schmaltz, and I tend not to read Church magazines because they seem to tend to have a lot of it. But I admit, I seem to miss out on a lot of pearls as a result.

The context of Ether 3:23 had led me to believe that the Jaredite U&T was just two of the clear stones the Brother of Jared had previously created. But you're right, the text doesn't explicitly say that. The U&T that Joseph Smith recovered from the stone box as shown to him by Moroni, seems to have been the Jaredite U&T. See D&C 17:1. And yes, I don't think the Church has ever come out and said (or even hinted) that it still has that relic. So, this is Rough Stone Rolling, p. 70: Lucy Smith said that Joseph received the interpreters again on September 22, 1828, and that he and Emma did a little translating, but the need to prepare for winter intervened.46 [Footnote 46] [cites Lucy Mack Smith, Biological Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and his Progenitors for Many Generations. Liverpool, Eng.: S.W Richards, 1853., 125-126. Although the assertion clashes with other accounts, David Whitmer said Moroni did not return the Urim and Thummim in September. Instead Joseph used a seerstone for the remaining translation. Kansas City Journal, June 19, 1881, Omaha Herald, Oct 17, 1886; Interview (1885), in Whitmer, Interviews, 72, 157, 200. Of the translation process, Emma said, "The first that my husband translated, was translated by the use of the Urim and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a dark color." Emma Smith Bidamon to Emma Pilgrim, Mar 27, 1870 in EMD [Dan Vogel. ed. Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996-2003], 1:532 I don't recall the BoM suggesting that the Liahona led Lehi or any Lehite to a pair of Nephite interpreters--am I missing something? It does seem like a pretty safe bet that the Nephite kings had some sort of interpreters, because Mosiah I is able to read the Jaredite stone (Omni 1:20) and Ammon later tells Limhi that Mosiah has one and is therefore a seer (Mosiah 8). Maybe that was the Liahona, maybe it was something else--I'm not aware of the text specifying. But Mosiah still chooses to use the Jaredite interpreters (which Limhi's people had found along with the 24 gold plates) to translate the Jaredite record (Mosiah 28). Joseph seems to have evolved to the point where considered any sort of physical media to be an inferior means of receiving revelation.

That was Sally Chase. IIRC her brother or uncle was a Methodist minister, and it was while digging a well on their property that Joseph had found one of his stones in the first place. IIRC, there's a quote out there from Brigham Young to the effect that Satan is a master of natural law (including that which appears supernatural) and is capable of generating whatever apparently-miraculous manifestation he wishes, unless a higher power intervenes. (If you compel me, I'll look it up; though I'm lazy at the moment). I'm not sure that it's as easy as saying "this means of revelation is always spurious"--that there's a discernible difference between a "Urim and Thummim" versus a "seer stone", and that the former is always godly and the latter is always satanic; or that the former is capable of doing things that the latter intrinsically cannot do. We know that God has given revelation through glass created by the Brother of Jared and touched by God's finger; we know He did it through the throwing of stones ("casting of lots"); we know He could give it through the Hebrew U&T (however they worked); we know He could do it do it through Oliver Cowdery's use of a divining rod; and the record seems pretty clear that (whether or not it was the source for some/all of the BoM text) Joseph Smith did receive true revelations through his seer stone. Further, he seemed willing to label other people's seer stones as "Urim and Thummim"--for example, per the autobiography of Wandle Mace, we have that instance where seer stones are brought to Nauvoo by some British saints; and Smith reviews them and "pronounced them to be a Urim and Thummim as good as ever was upon teh earth but he said, 'they have been consecrated to devils'". Ultimately I think it's the source of the power, not the means through which the power is manifested, that makes the difference. Another thing worth noting is that we have references to Joseph Smith having/using/showing people his "Urim and Thummim" well into the Nauvoo period (see generally, here). If that was the Jaredite interpreters, and Joseph never did return them to Moroni . . . then where are they now? And if the Church really does have them hidden away in the First Presidency vault, then why would they go along with this dog-and-pony show about some other seer stone being the instrument of translation? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Be really, really careful with the JSF. Their founder was not a good guy. Key personnel involved in the foundation today are not honest people. I'm sorry, I can't elaborate. I would almost never refer someone to the cesspool that is Reddit, but . . . there's a thread on the JSF's founder over there; and among the other nonsense that usually abounds in Reddit, someone has actually posted something that's pretty close to the truth. So, the true story about them *is* out there and can be discerned by a healthy combination of skepticism and revelation. Back to the primary sources, though: FWIW, both Emma Smith and David Whitmer supported the idea that the U&T (Jaredite interpreters/"spectacles") were used on the 116 pages; and the seer stone following the loss of those pages. But they are, of course, relatively late recollections. Still, the notion that the story of the seer stone's role in the production of the BoM was intended to discredit Joseph Smith strikes me as problematic for several reasons. First, David Whitmer didn't think seer stones were shameful. He, and his family, loved the idea of seer stones. Shortly after Joseph Smith gives his brown stone to Oliver Cowdery in spring of 1830 following completion of the Book of Mormon translation, Whitmer family son-in-law Hiram Page starts getting revelations through his own stone--and most of the Whitmer family is initially firmly in support of him, until D&C 28 reins them all back in. Whitmer's diminishing confidence in Joseph Smith's leadership coincided with Joseph Smith's resorting to the seer stone as a means of revelation less and less often. For his part, David Whitmer had his own seer stones; which he passed on to his descendants and which they used with some regularity. For David, citing the role of a seer stone in the origin story of the Book of Mormon does not diminish the book's credibility or miraculous nature; it enhances it. Second, I think it's assuming facts not in evidence to suggest that either Whitmer or Emma Smith "hated" Joseph to the point that they were willing to deliberately publicly lie about him. Yes, they disagreed with him--loudly and stridently, at times. But they were both fiercely devoted to Joseph Smith's early status as a prophet and the cause of Mormonism. Emma lionized him to the end of her days; and Whitmer--from what I see of his statements--tended to look back on his associations with Joseph with more regret and "pity" than actual animus. Third, both Whitmer and Emma were fierce proponents of the Book of Mormon to the end of their lives. I don't think there's anything in their histories suggesting that they would have deliberately tried to undermine or bring shame upon the authenticity of that book as an authentic, ancient, divinely-restored record. The fact that people disagree with Joseph Smith about various things, does not render them wholly dastardly. Fourth, the seer stone-as-translation-instrument account was confirmed by Martin Harris even when at times when he was quite friendly to the Utah church and would have no motive to tell an origin story that he thought would somehow debase the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith's ministry. And, finally: A lot of this pooh-poohing of any source who didn't cross the plains with Brigham tiptoes around a rather uncomfortable truth: Most of the people who were involved with the Smith family when the Book of Mormon was being written, didn't come to Utah with President Young. The BoM witnesses didn't. (Harris, of course, came decades later). The Smith family, didn't. Those of the Hales who converted, didn't. The Whitmers didn't. The Stowells didn't. The majority of the Twelve (as originally constituted in 1835) didn't. If we dismiss the accounts of all the people who were there and saw the BoM being translated, on the grounds that they failed to stay faithful to the Utah Church and are therefore somehow suspect in their recollections; then on this topic we're forced to retrench into a sort of historical know-nothingism. Because Joseph Smith himself isn't telling: He flat-out said that "it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon". Yep. There have have been a number of articles about this; and not all of the accounts perfectly reconcile. There are a *lot* of inconsistencies--how many stones were there, what did they look like, when and where was each one acquired or used or given away (see, e.g., here). But I think the all-too-common response to simply throw all of it out and say "It was the Jaredite interpreters, and nothing but the Jaredite interpreters, all the time" is just not correct.

I think I’m slightly upwards of the solid middle at this point, especially for public sector lawyers my state. But, spending most of your 20s and 30s earning $50K or less plays heck with your retirement planning. If I live long enough, I will probably retire around 69. 67, if we’re willing to economize.

1. To clarify, I meant the BYU humanities programs specifically. I understand that a lot of its STEM-type programs are very well regarded. But as a history major who flirted with a postgrad degree and going into academia; I was pretty bluntly told by several history department folks that a BYU BA in history was likely to be a liability if I pursued that career path. 2. I actually wouldn’t recommend going into law if you didn’t a) completely love/geek out over arcane points of law, b) have *certainty* that you’d be in the top 10% of your law school graduating class (including at least a 170 LSAT), or c) know someone who was prepared to offer you a job on graduating from law school. The employment situation (at least in Utah) is just too tight; and AI is going to gut the job market (especially transactional practice). My understanding is that “mean” salary figures for practicing lawyers are goosed by the top 10% making $250K+, while the bottom 40-50% are making under $70K (often, significantly so).

Statehood for Canada and Greenland would mean four more Dem seats in the Senate, and half a dozen reliably blue votes in the electoral college. Probably more; since I can’t possibly visualize Candy agreeing to be *only one* state. I don’t think it’s right to deprive Canadians or Greenlanders of the right to take part in electing their national government; and I frankly don’t want either culture having a say in *my* elected national government.

The story I was told about BYU as a history student there 20 years ago was that BYU’s STEM majors were so rigorous that they tended to have high drop-out rates; and since BYU admin wanted to keep students moving along and have them out in 4 years, their solution had been to have a number of not-obnoxiously-difficult humanities/social sciences programs that could be completed in under 3 years so that the STEM dropouts could switch majors and graduate with a degree in *something*. Which sort of makes sense—being a Church school and in the wake of the September 6 thing, BYU was never going to get a ton of academic respect in those sorts of fields anyways. And I think BYU generally wants its degrees to translate into employability and stable income, which—let’s face it—isn’t something that humanities/social sciences degrees have the best track record of doing. I suppose it makes sense for them to focus on STEM and the professions, even if it means we mathematical dullards are sort of left to our own devices.

“. . . And if I had ever learnt, I should have been a true proficient!” —Lady Catherine de Bourghe

Two semi-random observations: 1) Sanderson has “to-heck-with-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on” kind of money. He doesn’t have to write a dadgum thing that he doesn’t want to write. 2) There is currently something of a minor reformation going on at BYU. Whether Sanderson is still employed there when the dust settles, is anyone’s guess.