Maverick

I never insisted that anyone who doesn’t agree with my conclusions must provide a better explanation. Nor did I say that if they don’t it proves that my position is the most logical. I said if people are going to repeatedly dismiss my explanations out of hand in a condescending way, without ever providing any alternative explanation for any of the evidence, then all they’re doing is crying foul, which doesn’t contribute anything useful to the discussion.

I know you’re trying to make a joke, but with all due respect, this is a terrible example and not at all applicable to this conversation.

In an 1879 interview with President John Taylor Zebedee Coltrin (a very faithful church leader who had been intimately acquainted with Joseph Smith and had remarkable spiritual experiences, such as seeing God the Father and Jesus Christ during the school of the prophets) related the following experience from 1834: According to Brother Coltrin's testimony, Joseph Smith did explicitly state that black men have "no right and cannot hold the priesthood" and also stated in other settings with other individuals that "no person having the least particle of Negro blood can hold the priesthood." Zebedee Coltrin also relayed the following about Elijah Abel, a faithful church member of 1/8 African decent, who had been ordained an Elder and Seventy in 1836, and whose ministerial license Joseph Smith had even signed: According to Brother Coltrin's testimony, Joseph Smith did not know that Elijah Abel was partially of African decent when he was initially ordained, but some time later when he discovered his lineage, he took action and Brother Abel was dropped from the Seventies quorum. Corroborating Zebedde Coltrin's testimony is Joseph F. Smith. In the minutes of a meeting of the First Presideny and Quorum of the 12 Apostles in 1908, the following is recorded: It is not presently known where Joseph F. Smith got his information. Whether he was relying on Zebedde Coltrin testimony, which he deemed credible, he had learned this through personal interviews with other individuals, he had seen it in a record that is no longer extant, the Holy Ghost reveal this to him, or some combination of these things is not presently known. What is known is that both Joseph F. Smith and Zebedde Coltrin where faithful leaders of the church, who were of the highest character. An additional source corroborated the testimony of Zebedee Coltrin and the statement by Joseph Fielding Smith. In 1970, Caleb Shreeve, the son of Patriarch Thomas Shreeve, sent a letter to the First Presidency relaying the testimony of his father, who had been intimately acquainted with Elijah Abel. The letter was "Declaration of Fact" that was also signed by his two living siblings, Eva Shreeve and Arnold Shreeve, declaring what their father had relayed to them many times prior to his death. While this account is admittedly very late, and from Thomas Shreeve's children, all three living children affirmed the truthfulness of what their father had told them.

I appreciate you sharing a book that you believe provides a better explanation of the origins of the priesthood ban. I clicked on the thread you had created and read your description of the Introduction: My research into the subject does not support the three phases Reeves claims for the Priesthood ban. I will provide more direct evidence very soon, which supports my position that the ban originated with Joseph Smith, not Brigham Young.

No, it does not say this, and you know that. As I already mentioned it says he publicly announced it in 1852. He also publicly announced plural marriage in 1852 and we know that was started by Joseph Smith (though some people deny this, anyway). What Joseph Smith taught matters. He is on record teaching all or most of the things that were taught in association with the ban by Brigham Young, John Taylor, Parley P. Pratt, and many other prophets and apostles for over 100 years. And his teachings on blacks remaining under the divine curse put upon the Canaanites anciently by God through the hand of Noah, is very strong evidence that he considered them under the curse in regards to the priesthood in Abraham 1. I will also point out here that the essay does not make any attempt to address or even mention Abraham 1, even though it is arguably the most important scripture associated with the ban. Which just goes to show that thoroughly addressing the topic was not the intent of the essay. That's not a criticism by the way. It simply a reality. The essay was intended to help people deeply troubled by the ban not lose their testimonies over it. It allows for multiple possible conclusions. It opens up the possibility that the ban was merely a policy put in place by Brigham Young with no doctrinal basis, while also allowing for members to continue to believe that it was put in place by God, that Joseph Smith taught it, and that the previous teachings about it are true. And as @Vort pointed out earlier, the church has never declared the previous teachings regarding the priesthood ban to be false. The church says that they don't apply today because the ban was lifted in 1978, and no longer expects the church membership to accept them as official doctrine. When you refuse to actually address the evidence and provide what you believe are better explanations, while making claims about the essay that are inaccurate as the only justification for why you keep insisting that my explanations of the evidence regarding the teachings of Joseph Smith are wrong, then unfortunately going back and forth in circles is the natural outcome. But if you would like to wait patiently for me to get to the direct evidence you desire maybe we can finally make some progress. I will have it up soon.

People don’t have to agree with me and I don’t expect that those who don’t remain silent unless they are willing to provide an alternative explanation for the evidence. As I said, stating that there isn’t enough evidence to reach a definitive conclusion is a reasonable response. But I maintain that repeatedly condescendingly dismissing my explanations out of hand over and over again while refusing to provide any alternative explanation for any of the evidence is nothing more than crying foul, which adds nothing to the discussion.

I think of one is going to be as dismissive about my analysis of the evidence, particularly in such a condescending manner that has been displayed by the person I was responding to, then one should be willing to provide what one believes is a more reasonable explanation for the evidence. Otherwise it's little more than crying foul. Yes, this is fine. I have no problem with anyone taking this position. I'm not trying to force my conclusions on anyone, but I do think that if people are going repeatedly declare them poor in a dismissive manner, they should be willing to provide what they believe is a better explanation for the evidence. Otherwise, like I said, they are simply crying foul, which doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion.

Q Walker Lewis is the only other documented black man to have been ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith's lifetime. He lived in Lowe, Massachusetts. It's not known whether Joseph Smith was aware of his ordination, let alone of his race. He was ordained by William Smith, who was excommunicated shortly thereafter for serious transgression and teaching false doctrine. What Brigham Young meant in 1847 when he referenced Brother Lewis as "one of the best Elders" and acknowledged that he was an African is not completely clear. Was he acknowledging the validity of his priesthood ordination or was he simply praising him as a faithful male member of the church? I will discuss the statement by Joseph F. Smith in the minutes of a meeting of the first presidency and quorum of the twelve, along with other corroborating evidence. You're correct that we don't know if President Smith based his statement on information that he had that we don't have access to today, if he based it solely on the testimony of Zebedee Coltrin, if he received divine inspiration as president of the church on the matter, or some combination of these possibilities. It wouldn't necessarily have been recorded contemporaneously and there's no guarantee that if it was that such a record would have survived. But we're jumping the gun here. Let me provide the evidence and my analysis and then we can delve into it more fully.

The essay doesn’t make any declaration that the ban did not start with Joseph Smith and began with Brigham Young instead. The essay also doesn’t address any of the evidence I have presented, so this is not a valid answer. You keep insisting that my interpretation of the evidence is no good, yet you refuse to provide what you believe is a better explanation. Do you have a better explanation for the specific evidence I presented or not?

The purpose of this thread is to look at the evidence that the priesthood ban began with Joseph Smith, not to debate the accuracy or truthfulness of what he and many other church leaders taught regarding black Africans being under a divine curse. Having said that, you do raise an interesting point about the nature of the curse upon Canaan and his descendants to be the servant of servants, considering that throughout history a large portion of these descendants were not slaves. To address your specific point, Joseph Smith and the other latter-day prophets, who connected the curse upon the Canaanites to be the servant of servants to the enslavement of black Africans, where undoubtedly aware that throughout history many descendants of Cain and Canaan were not slaves, and that in the case of the original Egyptians, they even enslaved Israelites anciently. They also were aware that not all blacks within the United States at that time, let alone the world at large, were enslaved, And there is no indication that Joseph Smith or any other prophet thought that the free blacks needed to be enslaved or that it was wrong for them to free. They did however believe that slavery was at least part of what was decreed by God when he cursed the descendants of Canaan to be the servant of servants and that it was wrong to interfere with the purposes of God in this matter. As for the priesthood ban, as will be shown when I provide direct evidence that the ban began with Joseph Smith, it was claimed by the highest authorities in the church that the priesthood ban was put in place by revelation and the express command of God, not that it was based on speculative interpretation of scripture about the application of an ancient curses in modern times.

I believe my conclusions are the most logical explanation for the available evidence. If you want to call my conclusions reasonable speculation instead, that’s your right. I don’t see any value in squabbling over terminology. And there’s nothing wrong with the narrative I’m supporting with evidence. If people think they have a better explanation for the evidence and the origin of the priesthood ban, then I would love to hear their explanation. Truth will prevail.

If you think you have a better more reasonable interpretation of the evidence, please provide it.

If you think you have a better explanation for any specific analysis of the evidence that I believe is the most logical conclusion, I’m all ears.

We see what we want to see I guess…

I will provide the direct evidence that Joseph Smith denied blacks the priesthood, and that he revoked the priesthood of Elijah Abel, who is the only documented man of African decent (he was 1/8 black and of a light complexion) whose priesthood ordination Joseph Smith is known to have been aware of, once he discovered his lineage. So far I've just been laying the groundwork with contemporaneously recorded statements by Joseph Smith, the scriptures, and several statements by apostles, who were personally tutored by Joseph Smith, shortly after his death.

In this, we do not agree. Joseph Smith doubtless said the above, and I expect he considered the idea of intermarriage between white people and black people to be objectionable, perhaps even repugnant. That was the common belief of his time. He may or may not have shared this belief, but he certainly supported the idea of drawing that societal distinction, as show in the above quote. However, your quote is misleading in that you put a period at the end, indicating the end of the sentence, when in fact the sentence continued. In full, the sentence read: "Had I anything to do with the negro, I would confine them by strict law to their own species and put them on a national Equalization." Read in the context of the rest of his quote, for which you provide the link, it's clear that Joseph Smith was not talking about preventing intermarriage between whites and blacks. I think Joseph Smith was clearly referring to interracial marriage with blacks being forbidden when he said that if it were up to him he would "confine them by strict law to their own species." I added the period by mistake, there was no intent on my part to misrepresent what he said. I simply wanted to focus on the part of his statement where he opposed interracial marriage with blacks, because this was an associated teaching with the priesthood ban. In his capacity as the mayor of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith also enforced anti-miscegenation laws: Since we know that Joseph Smith believed that black Africans are descendants of Canaan and that they were under a divine curse that was put upon them anciently that was still in effect in his day, he would have found scriptural support for opposing interracial marriage with them, especially for Israelites. Abraham made his servant covenant not to get a wife for his son Isaac from among the Canaanites. Isaac forbade Jacob from taking a wife from among the Canaanites. The Lord commanded Israel not to intermarry with the descendants of Canaan through his prophet Moses. All of the tribes mentioned below are descendants of Canaan, see Genesis 10:6, 15-18. The most logical conclusion is that since the Lord's ancient people were forbidden from marrying the Canaanites, that Joseph Smith would have believed that this was forbidden with black Africans in his day, due to the curse which he believed they were still under.

I think the priesthood ban makes most people today very uncomfortable and for whatever reason it's easier to accept the idea that Brigham Young was the author or if it and not Joseph Smith. We see a similar thing going on with the recent resurgence of the old disproven RLDS narrative that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced plural marriage, which is being promulgated by a vocal minority group of members and former members.

I do believe that the ban began with God, based on what the scriptures and teachings from God’s prophets (middle men to you) state. However, this thread is about evidence that Joseph Smith instituted the ban in this dispensation. I don’t know how versed you are in the methods of historical inquiry, but making interpretations based on the available evidence, including indirect evidence, is good historical scholarship, provided that the interpretations are reasonable and can be supported by the evidence. As I stated before, the Race and the Priesthood essay was obviously not intended to do a comprehensive analysis of the issue. The intended purpose appears to have been to fill a need to provide an answer for people who were troubled about the ban and going through a faith crisis. Not including the evidence I have provided thus far has nothing to with the quality of my historical scholarship. I will provide more direct evidence that Joseph instituted the ban and denied black men the priesthood during his lifetime soon. So far I’ve only been laying the groundwork.

In a previous post evidence was provided suggesting that the priesthood ban began with Joseph Smith, not Brigham Young. Contemporaneously recorded teachings of Joseph Smith were provided showing that he taught that black Africans are descendants of Cain and Canaan and that they were placed under a divine curse anciently that had not been lifted yet, and would not be until God lifted it. Joseph Smith quoted from Genesis 9:25-27 to support this teaching. In his inspired translation of the Bible, he also added a phrase to this passage (which has been bolded): This added phrase suggests that the curse put upon Canaan referred to black Africans and that the mark of the curse that was put upon them was black skin so that they could be identified among all men throughout the succeeding generations. As noted in the previous post, Abraham 1, which was brought forth as the word of God and holy scripture through Joseph Smith, states that Canaanites were cursed anciently "pertaining to the Priesthood" and that this lineage "could not have the right of Priesthood." From this we would expect that since Joseph Smith taught that black Africans were descendants of Cain and Canaan and under a divine curse put upon them by God, that included being cursed to be the " servant of servants," that he would have believed that the ancient curse in regards to the priesthood applied to them as well. On April 1, 1845, just over 9 months following the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, apostle and future church president John Taylor published the following in the Times and Seasons: John Taylor made the exact same argument that Joseph Smith did in his letter to Oliver Cowdery in 1836 regarding the curse of God upon the descendants of Canaan to be the servant of servants, and that the misguided abolitionists were attempting to interfere with the divine decrees of God, but were powerless to do so. Additionally, John Taylor stated that the curse was the result of Ham having "dishonored the Holy priesthood" and that the curse of black skin put upon the Canaanites always follows an "apostate of the Holy Priesthood." In making this statement John Taylor is making the connection between the divine curse upon the Canaanites under the hand of Noah to be the "servant of servants" found in Genesis 9 and the divine curse put upon the Canaanites under the hand of Noah "pertaining to the Priesthood" found in Abraham 1. As mentioned previously, apostle Parley P. Pratt also stated in 1847: So we have two apostles, who were personally tutored by Joseph Smith, teaching that the curse upon black Africans included a curse "pertaining to the Priesthood.” Both statements were made well before Brigham Young's public announcement of the ban in 1852, suggesting that this was taught to them by Joseph Smith and/or the Holy Ghost, not Brigham Young. Additional evidence that Joseph Smith very likely instituted the priesthood ban can be found in related teachings that were taught by Brigham Young and other leaders of the church in conjunction with the priesthood ban. These teachings include: 1. Black Africans were under a divine curse put upon them by God that had not been lifted yet 2. They were descendants of Cain 3. They were descendants of Canaan 4. They were cursed to be the servant of servants and it was wrong for abolitionists to interfere with designs of God in this matter 5. The curse would not be lifted until God lifted it 6. The curse included black skin 7. Interracial marriage between black Africans and other races was forbidden 8. The curse was the result of some action or inaction before this life Teachings 1-6 have already been shown to have been taught by Joseph Smith in contemporaneously recorded statements. The related teaching that interracial marriage between black Africans and other races was forbidden was also taught by Joseph Smith in a contemporaneously recorded statement to apostle Orson Hyde in 1843: Earlier in this same recorded statement to Orson Hyde, Joseph Smith made a remark which could suggest that he believed that the curse was caused by some action or inaction before being born: In 1845, less than a year after the martyrdom, Orson Hyde taught: Orson Hyde made this statement two years after having the documented conversation about the status of blacks with Joseph Smith quoted from above. It is likely that Joseph Smith taught him more than what is stated in the brief record of their conversation quoted from above. A distinct possibility is that Joseph Smith taught Orson that blacks were less valiant before this life as a mystery of the kingdom that he was not told to reveal at that time, but then was later authorized by Brigham Young/and or the Holy Ghost to reveal it. In any event, as shown in this post and the previous one, contemporaneously recorded statements by Joseph Smith match up remarkably well with the related teachings associated with the priesthood ban that were taught publicly as doctrine by the top leadership of the church for over 100 years. Based on this evidence, one would expect the Prophet to have also believed and taught that black men could not hold the priesthood under the divine curse placed upon their race by God anciently, until it would be lifted by God in a future day.

You're projecting again. Sounds good.

If you take the statements I provided at face value then you must believe that Joseph Smith denied black men the priesthood and instituted the priesthood ban. You’re projecting.

These sources and others which I will provide are reliable sources from trustworthy individuals. Just as reliable, if not more so, than a number of later statements on other topics by church leaders and faithful witnesses who knew Joseph Smith personally that the church holds up as the gospel truth. And these sources have been used by church historians in the past before the ban was lifted to show that it originated with Joseph Smith, and they weren't being intellectually dishonest. As @Just_A_Guy pointed out, the present day church historians who have written about the ban, such as those who wrote the Race and the Priesthood essay, have their own biases, that prevent them from truly going where the evidence leads them, because they refuse to believe that God could do things that they consider "racist." But let's not jump the gun. I will provide the relevant information from these sources, and others, with links to the original sources, in a separate post soon and then we can discuss them. Please be patient a little bit longer. You can do it. Whatever you want to tell yourself.

You’ll notice that Jesus didn’t say that it was wrong to stone her. Instead he said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” He was pointing out their hypocrisy and whatever he wrote in the sand caused them to turn away. My theory is that he listed sins that they were guilty of that were also punishable by death under the law of Moses. The truth is that it really doesn’t matter whether she was stoned to death and then suffered in hell for her sins or if she later died of natural causes and suffered the same fate. If she ended up having to suffer for her sins anyway, being stoned to death would have been part of that and would have actually lessened her suffering in hell. Perhaps she ended up fully repenting and turned away from all of her sins after this incident. Then again, perhaps she didn’t and she ended up suffering in hell anyway. We aren’t told what happened to her.

If you're really this impatient and want to read ahead, I provided a list of statements and sources in the other thread, but then Neurotypical insisted on links to the original sources so he could verify that they weren't fabricated through AI. Tracking down all of the links to the original sources takes time, believe it or not.

I wanted to respond to this comment, too. While I agree with you that the ban was instituted by God and is not the product of racism on the part of Joseph Smith, Brigham, etc., I also understand why people would conclude that it was the product of racism and not from God. I believe that the Race and the Priesthood essay was intentionally written in the way it was to allow for this belief. It seems to leave room for both beliefs, or some combination of the two. I consider the belief that it was all an error caused by the racism of past leaders to be highly problematic, but also I understand that this position may be the only way for some members in our current society, that is hyper focused on condemning and denouncing anything that even remotely appears to be racist, to put the issue on the shelf and retain a belief in the church and the restoration.