LDS: The 'first copy' of the Book of Mormon??

[Lion_of_Narnia]

Interesting that you’re so sure of your “facts.” I’ve taught LDS history for nearly 20 years in a university setting and I’ve researched in quite a few libraries information about what Joseph Smith reported. I can say without hesitation that your claim above has no basis in fact. Joseph Smith never, ever explained the process of translation. A few others did, but long after Smith was dead. None of those who explained it as you purport Joseph Smith “reported” ever claimed that Joseph Smith explained it to them. Where do you come up with claiming this as something Joseph Smith stated?

Alma

Emma Hale Smith (Mrs Joseph Smith): *“In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.” * 8 vols. (Independence, Missouri: Herald House, 1951), “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” 3:356

David Whitmer (1 of the # Witnesses) & BoM scribe: *“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.” *David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Missouri: n.p., 1887, p. 12.

Edward Stevenson, friend of Martin Harris (another of the 3 Witnesses) “*Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say “Written,” and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used.” * Edward Stevenson, “One of the Three Witnesses,” reprinted from Deseret News, 30 Nov. 1881 in Millennial Star, 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.

url link: irr.org/mit/divination.html

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Alma147,

It’s my understanding that the mormons believe there was a “great apostasy”, after the death of the final apostle. With this it seems the mormons believe Christ’s Church completely disappeared from the earth until it was restored by Joseph Smith in 1829. If these statements are correct, please consider the following verses.

Mat 7:24 Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock,
Mat 7:25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock.
Mat 7:26 And every one that heareth these my words and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand,
Mat 7:27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof.

Do mormons believe Christ to be a wise man who built his house on rock, or like the foolish man who built his house on the sand?
Consider the following verse.

Mat 16:18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

If a great apostasy had taken place and Christ’s Church completely disappeared, wouldn’t Christ’s promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it make Christ wrong?

It seems to me that Christ presupposes that the Church will always exist through the following verses.

Mat 18:15 But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother.
Mat 18:16 And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand.
Mat 18:17 And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.
Mat 18:18 Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.

How do mormons account for Jesus telling us in Matthew 28:20 “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”? Doesn’t this mean Christ will be with His Church always?

I cannot see, through the scriptures provided above, how Christ’s Church could have completely disappeared until 1829.

May the peace of the Lord be with you.
Prodigal Son1

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

Your premise is mistaken. There are Native Americans who arrived in America long after the end of the Book of Mormon (Navajo Indians arrived barely 600 years ago.)

The Dine people (Navajo and Apache) of the American Southwest arrived in that area of the country about 800-600 years ago–but they had been in what is now Canada for a LONG time prior–they are part of the Athabaskan language group, with fellow members of that group in Canada to this day. Their arrival on this continent is apparently part of the undisputed Clovis emergence, circa 12,000 BP (Before Present). The LAST major Asian migration into North America is the Inuit (Eskimo) people, if memory serves me, circa 3,000 BP

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

… Joseph Smith never, ever explained the process of translation. A few others did, but long after Smith was dead None of those who explained it as you purport Joseph Smith “reported” ever claimed that Joseph Smith explained it to them. Where do you come up with claiming this as something Joseph Smith stated?
Alma

So the “Three Witnesses” you rely upon, and Smith’s own wife (and others, see the link) just cobbled this up for what purpose? Parsinomy demands the Smith told them what he was seeing–or purported to see.

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

… Joseph Smith never, ever explained the process of translation. A few others did, but long after Smith was dead None of those who explained it as you purport Joseph Smith “reported” ever claimed that Joseph Smith explained it to them. Where do you come up with claiming this as something Joseph Smith stated?
Alma

So the “Three Witnesses” you rely upon, and Smith’s own wife (and others, see the link) just cobbled this up for what purpose? Parsinomy demands the Smith told them what he was seeing–or purported to see.

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

… Joseph Smith never, ever explained the process of translation. A few others did, but long after Smith was dead None of those who explained it as you purport Joseph Smith “reported” ever claimed that Joseph Smith explained it to them. Where do you come up with claiming this as something Joseph Smith stated?
Alma

So the “Three Witnesses” you rely upon, and Smith’s own wife (and others, see the link) just cobbled this up for what purpose? Parsinomy demands the Smith told them what he was seeing–or purported to see.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

That’s the weirdest part of the story. The “gold plates” were not even in the room when Joseph was “translating”. They were reportedly hidden in another place. Joseph had his seer stone in his hat and supposedly read the words as they appeared on the glowing stone.

It makes me wonder why Joseph went through the bother of a story about digging up gold plates when he never really used the plates in the translation process.

THIS IS NEWS TO ME!!!

This really turns things upside down for me (as if the situation could get any more weird). I was under the impression the seer stones were like a magnifying glass that when held over the plates would translate whatever word it was covering…NOW I hear the plates werent even there? What good are the plates?

The same could be said for people who didn’t believe that Jesus was resurrected. He should have appeared to everyone and proved he was God. However, it doesn’t seem to me that’s how God establishes truth. “Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly; Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God.” (Acts 10:40-41)

According to passages like 1 Cor 15:6 Jesus appeared to over 500 people. That is very very different from 11 closely related people (two families) claiming to see the plates.
Further, the Resurrection of Jesus was confirmed by major miracles like Pentecost and other such miracles at the hands of the Apostles.

If Jesus’ Church crashed a few years after He Ascended and didnt appear for 1800 years later I would expect evidence on the same scale.

Each copy of the Book of Mormon has statements by two groups of men: 8 witnesses and 3 witnesses stating what they saw. The statement of the 8 says:

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; **and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; **and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. **And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, **and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen. And we lie not, God bearing witness of it.

So what is all this stuff about a lump under a blanket and reading out of a hat with the plates in a different room? If true, then why were they not there during translation?

The claim by Joseph Smith was that it “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.” That’s quite different than claiming perfection. I’d also say that his claim for its correctness had to do with doctrinal concepts rather than grammar.

Im not sure what you mean by “grammar” considering a misplaced comma, misspelled word, two words swapped, etc can drastically change the meaning of a passage. I would really expect the greatest prophet who ever lived, speaking in the name of God, to have the gift of good/propper grammar.

Hopefully you now see that we don’t believe in “inerrancy.” Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the records into English–records that weren’t written by God but rather by prophets. In fact, the book in several places says that they made the record according to their understanding and language and there was certainly a possibility of error. I don’t believe there are doctrinal errors, but I wouldn’t claim perfection for it in any other consideration.

This is quite frankly a very disturbing foundation to built theology off of. The way you word this it is as if these men were not so much inspired by God but rather historians recording what they saw. How would you feel if a prophet of God handed you a book and said “this is how I understand things, though I could be wrong”?

Does God want us to know what the Bible says or not? Why didn’t He insure that every copy was inerrant?

Im talking about the originals here, both for the NT Epistles and the first English translation of BoM. Im not talking about copies of the originals. Copies of the originals were not likely done by Prophets, much less the greatest prophet whom ever lived. I would expect the greatest prophet of all time would have the divine gifts to get his translations right.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

continued–

Have you ever compared two Greek manuscripts of the New Testament? I don’t know how you’d arrive at a percentage for variances, but one of my copies includes footnotes indicating alternate readings. There are easily a hundred notations per page.

I dont know the actual data, that is why I said “for arguments sake”. I would imagine that each manuscript is similar enough that if a person held any given two manuscripts he would see substantial agreement among them. Carrying this over to the Mrs Harris situations I would expect the next copy to be very very close to the original.

How would you know that the originals came out perfect unless you had one? That can only be a giant assumption with no possible way to prove it.

It is a very reasonable assumption to make given the fact we accept by faith that the Bible is inspired. If you believe the Bible is inspired that is a much greater act of faith than believing they were originally inerrant (which would be a given at that point).

Anything else would be the absurd and even blasphemous assumption that God inspired men to write error and that the God of the universe couldnt even provide proper grammar. That is a low view of God and a low view of Scripture. And to make matters worse you appear to be saying the greatest prophet of all time couldnt make an identical copy of an already existing work. Im sure there are non prophets out there who could translate any book of the NT from Greek into English with a high level of accuracy in each of copy they translated.

I’ve never heard Joseph Smith referred to as “the greatest prophet of all time” yet you’ve written it twice in your message. That simply isn’t a concept proposed by Mormons.

No offense, but either you dont know much about the LDS faith or your trying to hide something. Here is a quote I came across last year and I would assume it is one of the most popular passages a Mormon could ever know and memorize: "Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. (Doctrine and Covenants 135:3)
If this doesnt say Joseph Smith is the greatest Prophet of all time the the quote is utterly worthless and misleading.

No, the plates wouldn’t fit in a hat. Joseph Smith said that God provided with the plates two stones in a silver bow called the “urim and thummim” that would give him the ability to translate the plates into English. He learned that he didn’t have to have the plates together with the U&T in order to translate. There is no description provided by Harris about Joseph Smith using a hat. Those descriptions are of later episodes of translation after Harris was excluded from participation.

This is just weird. What good are the plates at that point if they arent even required to extract the information? The whole idea that the PLATES themselves were translated falls flat at that point because the plates weren’t even on location.

They were friends and family of Joseph Smith. That’s often discounted because they were friends and family (father, 2 brothers). I recall that Jesus selected Peter and Andrew and James and John–two sets of brothers, and Jude is referred to as the brother of Jesus. I doubt people are willing to discount their testimonies because they were friends and family as well.

Actually that does discount his claims in my opinion. There were virtually two families involved here, with no miraculous signs to back them up. The Apostles represented at least 4 families, and the number of disciples who saw and heard Jesus reached several hundred or more. On top of that the Apostles and disciples performed miracles and such to confirm their claims. There is no comparison between the Apostles and 500 brothers and two families, half of whom were Smiths.

Invariably, these calculations are made using estimates of solid gold–which isn’t realistic.

Of course they are realistic, I just proved it in my post. If there were 5 plates of solid gold with reasonable dimensions of 6 by 6 by 0.5 inches then the total weight would be about 60 pounds. It IS realistic for them to be solid gold and around 60 pounds given proportions like the ones I gave.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

FACT: (sorry if this resembles the begining of *the Da Vinci Code): *There is no witness of the BoM’s transcribing where Smith was said to have the plates exposed in front of him, Smith reading from said plates like you and I would read from a book–so many LDS depictions of this event are missleading at the very least

I dont quite understand what you are saying here.

The way I always envisioned this, before this thread, was that Joseph Smith had the plates in front of him on a table with the seer stones acting like glasses that made the words on the plates appear in English, and from there he recoreded the words on a piece of paper on the table next to the plates. Now it appears the plates werent even in the room and he was reading out of a hat (with only the stones in it) to a scribe.

Are you saying there are passages from LDS literature and even paintings/pictures of Smith sitting at a table in the manner I just described? IF SO, you appear to be saying nobody witnessed this.

FACT: All the witnesses of the “translation” (almost all of the them became Mormons) said Smith looked into a stovepipe hat where Smith had placed his favorite seerstone. The “plates” were either supposedly under a blanket or often not even in the room at all.

This is big, if the plates were not even in the room or under a blanket then really what is the point of them?

When I hear the word “translate” I envision looking at a page of something in a foreign language and writing down the corresponding English word, this event was not technically “translating”.

Also, you said almost all of them became Mormons. What about that stuff I have heard where some of these people were excommunicated and repudiated their testimonies?

FACT: Smith reported the words of the BoM appeared before him (in the darkness of the hat) in words of light. Smith would call out the words of the text–and the text would not change until one of the scribes (Mrs Smith or Cowdrey) repeated them correctly.

If this is true then the claim he couldnt make a “exact copy” (or even very close) for Mrs Harris is false. If the word does not leave until it is affirmed to be correct then only one version would be possible.

Conclusion: This is NOT a work of translation–like a scholar would take a clay tablet and translate the Babylonian cuniform into English–this is a work of supposed direct revelation–with a sort of “proofreading” in the process. IF this is actually revelation, there is NO reason why Smith couldn’t have produced an exact reproduction of the lost manusript.

I would have to agree with this Conclusion. The term “translate” is in fact incorrect and very misleading, I would hope such a term is not used on official LDS works. There is nothing “translate” about it, it is, as you describe, direct revelation. And if it is direct revelation that makes the plates superfluous and eliminates the possibility of errors (unless God couldnt get the same story right twice in a row ).

David Whitmer (1 of the # Witnesses) & BoM scribe: "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." David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Missouri: n.p., 1887, p. 12.

This obliterates the claim that Smith would not be able to produce a copy for Mrs Harris. This type of “divine protection” is what I would expect from a prophet, not the idea that he could have made errors or forgot what he wrote.

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

I…The way I always envisioned this, before this thread, was that Joseph Smith had the plates in front of him on a table with the seer stones acting like glasses that made the words on the plates appear in English, and from there he recoreded the words on a piece of paper on the table next to the plates. Now it appears the plates werent even in the room and he was reading out of a hat (with only the stones in it) to a scribe.

Response: Exactly!

Are you saying there are passages from LDS literature and even paintings/pictures of Smith sitting at a table in the manner I just described? IF SO, you appear to be saying nobody witnessed this.

R: Lots of LDS approved artwork show it–and the South Park depiction is far more accurate

This is big, if the plates were not even in the room or under a blanket then really what is the point of them?

R: To provide a pre-text for believing the otherwise unsupported word of a neer-do-well "Tresure digger"

Also, you said almost all of them became Mormons. What about that stuff I have heard where some of these people were excommunicated and repudiated their testimonies?

http://www.exmormon.org/file9.htm

"… testimony of David Whitmer given later in life. In his Address to All Believers in Christ, page 27, Whitmer declares, "If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to ‘separate myself from among the Latter-day Saints, for as they sought to do unto me, so should it be done unto them.’ In the spring of 1838, the heads of the church and many of the members had gone deep into error and blindness. I had been striving with them for a long time to show them the errors into which they were drifting, and for my labors I received only persecutions."

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Lion,

That quote you gave does not have Witmer repudiating his testimony of the plates, though it does look like some kind of infighting broke out and he got fed up.

 

[PaulDupre]

There is no solid proof that the witnesses to the Book of Mormon recanted their testimonies, though the later statements of Oliver Cowdery are extremely suspect (I should start a thread on that).

But Joseph Smith himself, after excommunicating several of the witnesses for opposing his adulterous affairs and financial frauds, called them “liars, counterfeiters and blacklegs of the blackest and deepest dye.”

Well, which kind of men were these witnesses to the Book of Mormon? Were they honest men of good report whose witness we should accept as credible, or were they “liars, counterfeiters and blacklegs of the blackest and deepest dye.”?

I don’t believe they could be both.

Paul

 

[PaulDupre]

The way I always envisioned this, before this thread, was that Joseph Smith had the plates in front of him on a table with the seer stones acting like glasses that made the words on the plates appear in English, and from there he recoreded the words on a piece of paper on the table next to the plates. Now it appears the plates werent even in the room and he was reading out of a hat (with only the stones in it) to a scribe.

I want to point out that there is no record of Joseph Smith ever using the Urim and Thummim that he claimed to find in the stone box with the gold plates. These Urim and Thummim were the “seer stones” that Joseph described as being like large spectacles in golden frames.

Instead Joseph used, in both his treasure digging and his “translating”, the green stone that his brother Alvin found while digging a well. The LDS organization still has that green stone in the vault in SLC.

Again, I wonder why he ever bothered with the story of the magic spectacles if (like the plates) he never used them.

Paul

 

[Catholic_Dude]

There is no solid proof that the witnesses to the Book of Mormon recanted their testimonies, though the later statements of Oliver Cowdery are extremely suspect (I should start a thread on that).

But Joseph Smith himself, after excommunicating several of the witnesses for opposing his adulterous affairs and financial frauds, called them “liars, counterfeiters and blacklegs of the blackest and deepest dye.”

Well, which kind of men were these witnesses to the Book of Mormon? Were they honest men of good report whose witness we should accept as credible, or were they “liars, counterfeiters and blacklegs of the blackest and deepest dye.”?

I don’t believe they could be both.

Paul

Ah, now I see what you are saying. It is totally irresponsible and absurd for the greatest Prophet of all time to use the testimony of these witnesses in every copy of the Book of Mormon to give it credibility and then to turn around and accuse them all of being liars, back stabbers, etc.

I would like to see these quotes because if that is true then that destroys the credibility of the Book of Mormon without even turning past page 1. You cant paint your star witnesses as frauds and liars and expect their testimony to hold any weight.

I want to point out that there is no record of Joseph Smith ever using the Urim and Thummim that he claimed to find in the stone box with the gold plates. These Urim and Thummim were the “seer stones” that Joseph described as being like large spectacles in golden frames.

Instead Joseph used, in both his treasure digging and his “translating”, the green stone that his brother Alvin found while digging a well. The LDS organization still has that green stone in the vault in SLC.

Again, I wonder why he ever bothered with the story of the magic spectacles if (like the plates) he never used them.

Paul

WHHHHAAAT? The seer stones were not what he was using in the hat? This is off the charts bizarre. So now neither the plates nor the Urim/Thumim were used…WHAT is the point of them?

This is really too much for me. Joseph Smith comes into town one day boasting of finding plates and seer stones and they dont play any role in the translating of the book of Mormon???

 

[CentralFLJames]

WHHHHAAAT? The seer stones were not what he was using in the hat? This is off the charts bizarre. So now neither the plates nor the Urim/Thumim were used…WHAT is the point of them?

This is really too much for me. Joseph Smith comes into town one day boasting of finding plates and seer stones and they dont play any role in the translating of the book of Mormon???

This is the normal progression of a deluded individual who becomes self-possessed with “himself”. Mr Smith originally conceived to use “supernatural instruments” as a translation tool to preempt the easily anticipated charges and objections of “human fallibility” and to preempt the fact that he had no personal credibility nor prior religious pedigree. But as in all human fabrications once they start gaining traction the seed of human pride and hubris wants to glorify the individual. So Mr. Joseph Smith’s “ego” started believing himself to really be a prophet. He as “the prophet” began looking forward to see himself vulnerable to becoming personally irrelevant by his contemporaries who’s fickle human nature would eventually claim that he was just “lucky” enough to be the one to find the “divine instruments”. In and of himself that left Mr. Smith too vulnerable to losing control of “the story”. There was nothing special about Mr. Smith personally if everyone demanded to see the mysteriously missing tablets and he could not produce them. After-all, any ol’ person could have stumbled over those same supernatural implements (had they really ever existed).

No, Mr. Joseph Smith had to make himself the center of the new religion by giving himself the intrinsic personal power to see and prophesy great things by making himself the only tangible and witness-able instrument of God. Thus his pride and ego are revealed in how the story changes pattern to highlight the new religion’s progressive personal dependence on only “Mr. Smith”. This happens after he has established a core “following” of early disciples that are gullible enough or motivated enough through other means to give him any audience at all.

Its just amazing to me how so many people could buy into the nonsense of Mr. Joseph Smith so quickly.

James

 

[wmscott]

There was a list of Mormon beliefs that appeared in a post a while back that contained things like

1.They become gods of their own planet when they die.
2.
3.
4.
And so on. Does anyone have that list ready? If so, please post it again for me. Thanks

 

[AMDGtoo]

The way I always envisioned this, before this thread, was that Joseph Smith had the plates in front of him on a table with the seer stones acting like glasses that made the words on the plates appear in English, and from there he recoreded the words on a piece of paper on the table next to the plates.

Don’t feel badly about what you had always envisioned. I believe that’s how it is portrayed to most people. (Some time ago, I had taken my daughter to her LDS doctor’s appointment and while waiting in the waiting room, I noted copies of the LDS magazine, The Ensign and that’s the way a picture of the event was portrayed.)

 

[wmscott]

There was a list of Mormon beliefs that appeared in a post a while back that contained things like

1.They become gods of their own planet when they die.
2.
3.
4.
And so on. Does anyone have that list ready? If so, please post it again for me. Thanks

Never mind, I did some research and found out what I needed to know. Boy am I amazed at the stuff they believe and how bizarre it is.

 

[PaulDupre]

Don’t feel badly about what you had always envisioned. I believe that’s how it is portrayed to most people. (Some time ago, I had taken my daughter to her LDS doctor’s appointment and while waiting in the waiting room, I noted copies of the LDS magazine, The Ensign and that’s the way a picture of the event was portrayed.)

All of Mormon “history” is highly revisionist, presenting Joseph and his behavior in a squeaky-clean fiction. Most Mormons are unaware that their history and their scriptures have been “doctored”, and that’s the way their leaders want it.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Don’t feel badly about what you had always envisioned. I believe that’s how it is portrayed to most people. (Some time ago, I had taken my daughter to her LDS doctor’s appointment and while waiting in the waiting room, I noted copies of the LDS magazine, The Ensign and that’s the way a picture of the event was portrayed.)

Guess what I found on the LDS.org webage:
seminary.lds.org/content/manuals/html/bm-ssg/images/p-182-2.gif
library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Curriculum/img/img03237.jpg

http://seminary.lds.org/content/manuals/html/bm-ssg/images/p-182-2.gif

Homepage - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Discover a service-oriented, globally-connected Christian church that is led by a prophet of God and seeks to follow Jesus Christ and His restored gospel.

www.churchofjesuschrist.org

I consider these pictures “historically” inaccurate and even deceptive.