Books Joseph Smith Owned

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Catholic Manual, Catholic Piety during the Nauvoo time. I wonder what the content of those books is. Maybe Fr. Alleman who was in the area at the time gave them to him. JS apparently had a positive opinion of him, although he laughed when asked what he thought of JS.
 
I wouldn’t call that an impressive library. And it seems that when Joseph was translating the book of mormon, his library was scarce. And that is not surprising because his mom and dad were not rich. Critics will have to come up with different logic about JS being a learned man.
 
why_me said:
I wouldn’t call that an impressive library. And it seems that when Joseph was translating the book of mormon, his library was scarce. And that is not surprising because his mom and dad were not rich. Critics will have to come up with different logic about JS being a learned man.
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Really? How many books does it take to be a learned man? Abe Lincoln did not have many books growing up and becamse a learned man reading what he had, mostly the Bible. I beleive he was more learned than Mormons what to claim.
 
why_me said:
I wouldn’t call that an impressive library. And it seems that when Joseph was translating the book of mormon, his library was scarce. And that is not surprising because his mom and dad were not rich. Critics
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are now at work researching the Spalding/Rigdon theory despite vehement protests form the LDS church. This re-activates a very old argument. I agree with some of your comment.
 
LongJourney said:
are now at work researching the Spalding/Rigdon theory despite vehement protests form the LDS church. This re-activates a very old argument. I agree with some of your comment.
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I agree his parents were not rich, but that does not mean he was not learned. Again, I refer to Abe Lincoln
 
SirThomasMore said:
I agree his parents were not rich, but that does not mean he was not learned. Again, I refer to Abe Lincoln
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True. However, samples of his writing, and accounts of his activities say that he was not self-educated. We have plenty of information about Abe’s hungry mind. All accounts of JS indicate only an interest in conning people and involvement in folk-magic.
 
true. I have read things by Joe that made me think he was very educated, and some that made me think otherwise, always leaving me to wonder if the uneducated writing was more of the con. I believe, however, he DID know how to use people to get what he wanted. When he wanted a house, he just told his flock that God told him to tell them to build him a house and they went and built him a house.

I believe that Jose used other people, like Cowdrey and Rigdon, to help him write the Book of Mormon. Andf, as the only Scripture available to him was the KJV, in Joe’s mind, that is whay Scriptures had to sound like, so he wrote the Book of Mormon in that style. And, because “and it came to pass” sounded scriptural, he peppered the B of M with hundreds of them.
 
I have read things by Joe that made me think he was very educated, and some that made me think otherwise, always leaving me to wonder if the uneducated writing was more of the con
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Remember, he used educated scribes for most of what he “wrote.” However, to each their own, so long as you recognize the next sentence. It all comes down to “He was a con artist”

One of the Conneaut witnesses said, upon reading the BoM, “Well, Ol 'it came to pass has come back alive!” referring, of course, to Solomon Spalding.
 
LongJourney said:
Remember, he used educated scribes for most of what he “wrote.” However, to each their own, so long as you recognize the next sentence. It all comes down to “He was a con artist”

One of the Conneaut witnesses said, upon reading the BoM, “Well, Ol 'it came to pass has come back alive!” referring, of course, to Solomon Spalding.
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Yes, I know he used scribes. And yes, he was a con man. Were you aware that when Joe was in Ohio, he heard there was buried treasure and went to find it? He was still treasure hunting when he was a “prophet:”
 
Years ago, I worked in a major telecommunications corporation. There was a manager who would leave a book out on a stand by her desk. I found out by a supervisor, she never read the book, just kept people guessing, and creating a persona.
 
Thanks 'Beca. I’m busy changing “Solomon wrote” to “Solomon probably wrote” Everything is theoretical until we see God face-to-face. :o
 
Fr. Alleman MUST have given it to Joe. It is an explanation of Catholic doctrines, aimed at anti-Catholic Protestants. 😃
 
On the mormon claims thread I posted newspaper accounts of the book of mormon when it was published, from hostile sources. The newspapers had Joseph as ignorant. They claimed this because this is what the neighbors told the papers. In other words, Joseph did not make a learned impression on people. And because of this, no one actually believed that Joseph wrote the book of mormon and they looked for another source for the book and after Rigdon was baptized certain critics looked to him as author. And of course that fizzled out too.
 
LongJourney said:
. We have plenty of information about Abe’s hungry mind. All antimormon accounts of JS indicate only an interest in conning people and involvement in folk-magic.
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I corrected your post. You really need to read up on your sources and not rely on critical of mormonism sites. I would recommend Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman for starter. It is published by knopf in 2005. You may discover that there was no con. 🙂
 
If you think calling someone a Korihor is a compliment, I will accept your editing of my post.

As for Bushman’s book being balanced and unbiased, I believe it is among the best of them. I just finished reading Grant Hardy’s new book Understanding the Book of Mormon. It is probably also is as good a book as a Mormon could write about his religion.
 
I don’t know that it really matters who actually wrote the BoM. There are plenty of evidences that show it to be a work of fiction, and no evidence that supports it as anything else.

Who compiled the fictions, wrote additional pieces and did the editing, are just talking about who hung the picture after it was framed. In other words, you’d have to take the BoM much more seriously than I would, to even care.
 
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