LDS/Mormon Images of Joseph Smith

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Wow using south park.

I’ve heard a lot of differing stories about the various ways and means of translating the plates. To be honest I don’t think the particular tool is much of an issue in the grand scheme of things.
 
teancum79 said:
Wow using south park.

I’ve heard a lot of differing stories about the various ways and means of translating the plates. To be honest I don’t think the particular tool is much of an issue in the grand scheme of things.
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ha, that is one funny episode.
 
Some parts where, but I’m always bothered when only half a story is told and a very capable leader ( regardless of people liking him or not) is made to look like incompetent.
 
teancum79 said:
Some parts where, but I’m always bothered when only half a story is told and a very capable leader ( regardless of people liking him or not) is made to look like incompetent.
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South Park is a cartoon, I don’t think anyone takes it as an academic or theological portrayal.

I enjoy Family Guy, it is one of the funniest shows I have ever seen. It portrays things about Catholicism, but in a way that is so wrong yet reflects what really happens sometimes, in an over exaggerated fashion. Which makes it even funnier.

Just because something is humorous, it doesn’t mean it is disrespectful. Sometimes humor is the best way to convey an idea, in a non-threatening way.

South Park is more blunt in its humor, but like I said, I doubt anyone is taking it as fact. And really, that was the point that website was making. The LDS Church doesn’t teach that Joseph Smith put his head in hat that had a rock in it. It is very plausible that more than one LDS person first heard this from that South Park episode. Irony at its finest.
 
RebeccaJ,

agree with your very healthy attitude towards the cartoons.

Sometimes though i feel the makers of the series of cartoons - “South Park, Team America and Drawn Together” seem to have a few outstanding sexual problems. 🙂
 
abucs said:
RebeccaJ,

agree with your very healthy attitude towards the cartoons.

Sometimes though i feel the makers of the series of cartoons - “South Park, Team America and Drawn Together” seem to have a few outstanding sexual problems. 🙂
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No doubt.
 
Sorry, but I wasn’t asking about the South Park cartoon. I should have been more precise. I was interested in all of the pictures above the South Park screen shot. I was wondering why the Mormon images of Joseph Smith are of a man sitting at at table looking at golden plates and transcribing, when this was not the actual method of translation recorded. Basically, I was wondering why Mormon artistic representations of the transcription of the Book of Mormon are not rendered with a more accurate portrayal, i.e. a hat and peep stone?
 
There are many opinions and stories about the methods of the translation. That much of the time the translation was done with him looking at the plates is well documented. But as I said before the tool used is a minor detail. It is the results that matter.
 
So, the hat and peep stone is only one version of events? I didn’t realize that. What are the other versions?
 
the results are very much in question due to the method. the faith promoting version is that he put on urim and thumim like spectacles and literally read from the plates. that would be considered translation. the documented accounts from back then do not support this and instead show us that the plates were covered in a “safe” location and that he placed the seer stone in his hat and read from the visions given in it. this wold be considered revelation. (as opposed to translation). there are no plates, there is no urim & thummim BUT there is a seer stone in the LDS vault. so it sure looks like the peep stone version is the most believable. significance? translating actual writings wold explain human viewpoints, grammatical errors, poor writing style, etc. dictating what is seen in vision would create an expectation of “the most perfect book written”. the vision method also puts everything into the realm of faith in joseph smith. This i think is problematic for mormons already but it makes him no different than mohamed and the koran. (ironic that joseph smith made the same observation)
 
It’s one view. I’ve not looked into a lot, but from what I understand is the plates had a device called a urim and thumim (sp?). They where specifically designed to be used to translate. I’ve heard (sorry can’t verify) that over time Joseph needed the help of them less and less. The “peep stone” thing tends to be circulated mostly by people who wish to discredit the prophet. I do believe that he had a stone that he was able to see things with. Sadly the historical records of the era are limited pretty much to two kinds. Ones kept by the LDS and ones kept by people who hated them. Obviously both sources objectivity can be questioned. Frankly I’d not be bothered if he did the translations sitting on a stump with his fingers in his ears humming a song. It’s the results.
 
teancum79 said:
It’s one view. I’ve not looked into a lot, but from what I understand is the plates had a device called a urim and thumim (sp?). They where specifically designed to be used to translate. I’ve heard (sorry can’t verify) that over time Joseph needed the help of them less and less. The “peep stone” thing tends to be circulated mostly by people who wish to discredit the prophet. I do believe that he had a stone that he was able to see things with. Sadly the historical records of the era are limited pretty much to two kinds. Ones kept by the LDS and ones kept by people who hated them. Obviously both sources objectivity can be questioned. Frankly I’d not be bothered if he did the translations sitting on a stump with his fingers in his ears humming a song. It’s the results.
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yet the stone used to be displayed at BYU, you can still find pictures of it. read the section headings in your D&C you will see the sections that were “revealed” to him from it. The journals that have been kept by the LDS are clear on the method. nowhere was there a claim that he just “read” the plates physically with no external aids. apparently you’ve not studied LDS history much. your last sentence pretty much sums up the most common mormon position. kind of makes it ot a translation and once again we are back to having to take everything on JS word. (and he wasn’t a very trustworthy individual ot begin with) the results? what would that be? the BoM? doesn’t really describe mormon doctrine or practice. it copies from the bible for it’s good parts and tells storie sin the rest. towards the end it kind of quickly says “oh yeah the catholics are wrong” with no real explanation. we can look at the indirect results… the D&C (keeps changing so you can’t really pin it down on doctrine) which justified polygamy :rolleyes: then there’s the PoGP…book of abraham? yeah that’s pretty telling in the results department and pretty much destroys any dream of JS being a “translator”. the LDs temple ceremony? that keeps changing too (too many folks getting creeped out) but is at it’s core stolen from the masons. nothing of any value there. look JS didn’t really produce much worth touting even his own family left his church. look at his legacy…we can see it in the FLDS today…
 
teancum79 said:
It’s one view. I’ve not looked into a lot, but from what I understand is the plates had a device called a urim and thumim (sp?). They where specifically designed to be used to translate. I’ve heard (sorry can’t verify) that over time Joseph needed the help of them less and less. The “peep stone” thing tends to be circulated mostly by people who wish to discredit the prophet. I do believe that he had a stone that he was able to see things with. Sadly the historical records of the era are limited pretty much to two kinds. Ones kept by the LDS and ones kept by people who hated them. Obviously both sources objectivity can be questioned. Frankly I’d not be bothered if he did the translations sitting on a stump with his fingers in his ears humming a song. It’s the results.
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Dude, you really need to learn some Mormon history. Here’s the account by David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon; most of the translation was done in his home:

“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 down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.”

There are numerous similar accounts, including by Emma Hale Smith; his first wife (he only had one at that time). I don’t blame you if you’ve not been taught this material, none of the Mormons I grew up with had been either. They always told me that he used spectacles given to him by the angel to read the plates. Owing to the consistency of that story over time, I have to assume that they simply had never been told the truth. I only learned about the “seer store in the hat” bit by researching it myself. Those pictures of him sitting with the plates in plain view in front of him, including the one in the missionary manual, are blatant and deliberate deception.
 
I find the assumptions of deception and of my lack of history studying offensive.

I’ve read form several accounts and heard a lot of varying stories about how the translation was done. Having not been their myself and having seen first hand and often how people tend to distort information I am not one to run out and claim as truth every story that I come across. I never said that Joseph did not have the seer stone. I believe I said that the reports of his use of it where circulated more often by those opposing the church. That he could have used the seer stone for some of it and not others (as one of the stories I ru into suggest) is passable. I was not there.

As to the value of the Book of Mormon if people have an issue with it I suggest they take it up with the Almighty.
 
What I find more interesting is how the LDS are slowly adopting the Catholic practice of venerating their own “saints” (though the term in the LDS sense would be a little misappropriated here since according to the LDS ALL members of the church are saints).

By this I mean that we are beginning to see more increasingly in Mormon culture a deeper sense of respect for their “founding father” so to speak so much that busts, and eve life-size STATUES of such prominent Mormons as Joseph Smith Jr., Brigham Young, John Taylor, etc. are gracing LDS meeting houses, Temple Visitor Centers, and LDS Insititutes of Religion across the globe.

Granted the LDS have not yet taken up the practice of praying through these “proto-saints” but I wouldn’t be surprised if they one day did.

Just an interesting parallel I noticed.
 
I don’t know how to imbed images here (if someone could teach me that would be most appreciated), but in the mean time:

ldsartworks.com/

candacesalima.com/statues.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JSMB_foyer.jpg

travel.webshots.com/photo/1287139472066438335VDhLPF

Just a few examples of the phenomenon I noticed.

Not to mention Hymn #36 in the 1985 LDS Hymnal “They, the Builders of the Nation” uses language strikingly similar to what Catholics use to venerate our ‘saints’. “…] Honor praise, and veneration To the founders we revere! List our song of adoration, BLESSED, honored Pioneer.”

Sorry for deviating a bit from the OP of the thread, but I just don’t see the huge scandal in leaving out a small detail in the alleged translation process of the BoM.

Are our depictions of the Nativity any more insincere, or untruthful because we don’t show the actual labor of the BVM GIVING birth to Jesus?
 
Some of that art work is way old. I don’t think there is much of a change there.

As far as respecting those in the past thats been a long standing tradition. There are some folk heroes now and than, but we are a long ways from praying to or asking dead people to pray for us.
 
teancum79 said:
Some of that art work is way old. I don’t think there is much of a change there.

As far as respecting those in the past thats been a long standing tradition. There are some folk heroes now and than, but we are a long ways from praying to or asking dead people to pray for us.
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Duly noted (as I mentioned in my post) however I don’t think that “praying for dead people” or asking the deceased to pray for us is such a large leap from “baptizing dead people” “sealing dead people” “taking out endowments on behalf of dead people” etc. For this reason I wouldn’t be surprised if the LDS eventually took up this Catholic practice.

As with any comparison, there will always be obvious differences between the two species being compared.
 
xixxvmcm85 said:
Duly noted (as I mentioned in my post) however I don’t think that “praying for dead people” or asking the deceased to pray for us is such a large leap from “baptizing dead people” “sealing dead people” “taking out endowments on behalf of dead people” etc. For this reason I wouldn’t be surprised if the LDS eventually took up this Catholic practice.

As with any comparison, there will always be obvious differences between the two species being compared.
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True comparisons can be tricky, but the founding concepts behind doing work for the dead is so different than what catholics have told me their reasons are for asking the dead to pray for them that the only real connection I can see is the word “dead”
 
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