Book of Mormon Evidence

THE ANNOTATED EDITION OF THE BOOK OF MORMON
Page v, vii, ix, and 585

THE OLD TESTAMENT:
“I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries whither I have driven them.” (Jeremiah 23:3)
THE NEW TESTAMENT:
“I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd.”
(John 10:14-16)
THE BOOK OF MORMON:
“And verily I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said: ‘Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd.’” (3 Nephi 15:21) “…for behold, I know My sheep and they are numbered.” (3 Nephi 18:31)

Above: Christ Appears to the Nephites in North America
by Kendra Burton

YEA, come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him,
and deny yourselves of all ungodliness;
and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness,
and love God with all your might, mind and strength,
then is His grace sufficient for you,
that by His grace ye may be perfect in Christ;
and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ,
ye can in nowise deny the power of God.
(Moroni 10:32)
ND He shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions
and temptations of every kind;
and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith,
‘He will take upon Him the pains and the sicknesses of His people.’
And He will take upon Him death,
that He may loose the bands of death which bind His people;
and He will take upon Him their infirmities,
that His bowels may be filled with mercy,
according to the flesh,
that He may know according to the flesh how to succor His people
according to their infirmities.
(Alma 7:11–12; see Isaiah 53:4)

The Book of Mormon—a Book from God
Elder Tad R. Callister Oct 2011(Emphasis Added)

But why is the Book of Mormon so essential if we already have the Bible to teach us about Jesus Christ? Have you ever wondered why there are so many Christian churches in the world today when they obtain their doctrines from essentially the same Bible? It is because they interpret the Bible differently. If they interpreted it the same, they would be the same church. This is not a condition the Lord desires, for the Apostle Paul declared that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). To help bring this oneness about, the Lord established a divine law of witnesses. Paul taught, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (2 Corinthians 13:1).

The Bible is one witness of Jesus Christ; the Book of Mormon is another. Why is this second witness so crucial? The following illustration may help: How many straight lines can you draw through a single point on a piece of paper? The answer is infinite. For a moment, suppose that single point represents the Bible and that hundreds of those straight lines drawn through that point represent different interpretations of the Bible and that each of those interpretations represents a different church.

What happens, however, if on that piece of paper there is a second point representing the Book of Mormon? How many straight lines could you draw between these two reference points: the Bible and the Book of Mormon? Only one. Only one interpretation of Christ’s doctrines survives the testimony of these two witnesses.

Again and again the Book of Mormon acts as a confirming, clarifying, unifying witness of the doctrines taught in the Bible so that there is only “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” For example, some people are confused as to whether baptism is essential for salvation even though the Savior declared to Nicodemus, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). The Book of Mormon, however, eliminates all doubt on that subject: “And he commandeth all men that they must repent, and be baptized in his name, … or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God” (2 Nephi 9:23). https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/the-book-of-mormon-a-book-from-god?lang=eng

“Holy One of Israel by Ken Corbett www.kencorbettart.com

Book of Mormon References to Deity
by Charles D. Tate

In a day when many claim that the “Mormon Church” is a cult and certainly not a Christian church, it is interesting to note that the Book of Mormon has 476 references to the Lord Jesus Christ by name. With 531 pages in the text of the 1981 LDS edition, that averages nearly one reference per page. Of all the other Christian scriptures, only the Gospels, which abundantly use the name Jesus because they present synopses of his life, have more references to him by name.

Lee Crandall and Susan Easton Black did studies on the frequency of all references to Deity in both the Book of Mormon and the New Testament. They found that even with 1,349 fewer verses than the New Testament, the Book of Mormon makes 108 more references to the Lord. (Because Jehovah was actually the premortal Christ, and because the Savior directs the affairs of the world, most of the references to Deity in the Book of Mormon refer to Jesus Christ.)

I, too, had long known that almost every page of the Book of Mormon refers to Deity. In my Book of Mormon classes I would have the students let their copies of that scripture fall open randomly to any page. We would see how many times the books would fall open before we found one of the few pages that did not contain a specific name of God. Pronoun references did not count.

We learned a great lesson—the Book of Mormon is a Christ-oriented book. I had heard estimates that there are fewer than 50 of the 531 pages in the Book of Mormon on which a name of God does not appear. Not satisfied with guesswork, I set out to count the pages that did not contain a name of Deity.

To my delight, I found that only 30 of the 531 pages contain no specific name reference to Deity. Furthermore, many of those 30 pages make references to God without using names.

For instance, two pages record catastrophes and “a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the earth” (3 Ne. 9:1), but the source, Jesus Christ, is not identified by name until the third page.

Two more pages describe Lehi’s vision of the tree of life. (1 Ne. 8:1–35.) Nephi later tells us that the tree and the rod of iron in the vision are the love of God and the word of God. (1 Ne. 11:21–22; 1 Ne. 15:23–24.)

To those who say Latter-day Saints don’t respect Christ or don’t worship him, we need simply point to the Book of Mormon. If they read only the book of Moroni, they will encounter 215 references to him in its thirteen and one-half pages. Page 519 alone has 26 references to Deity. The Book of Mormon is a volume of scripture that centers on God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. It records the Lord’s dealings with the Nephites and witnesses to the world that the Bible is true, that Jesus is the Christ, and that God still speaks from the heavens.

Charles D. Tate, professor of English, Brigham Young University, https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/1992/04/research-and-perspectives-book-of-mormon-update?lang=eng

Names of Christ in the Book of Mormon
By Susan Ward Easton

Even statistically, he’s the dominant figure of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon was preserved to come forth in these latter days to convince “the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God.” Its purpose is to verify the divine Sonship of the Nazarene to those who “ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ.” (Moro. 10:4.)

The divinity of Christ is proclaimed by prophets in the Book of Mormon. They had a conviction of his divinity because the Holy Ghost had revealed it unto them.

Through the instrumentality of the Holy Ghost, these prophets also knew that their writings were to bear testimony that Jesus is the Christ. This they solemnly did, more than I had ever realized. In a word-by-word study, I have found some form of the Lord’s name mentioned an average of every 1.7 verses in the Book of Mormon. (See Table 1.)

I have found that the Savior is referred to by one hundred different names—from the first reference to him as “Lord” in 1 Nephi 1:1 [1 Ne. 1:1] to the final reference to him as “the Eternal Judge” in Moroni 10:34. [Moro. 10:34] (See Table 2.) Each of the one hundred names signifies a different attribute or characteristic of the Lord and was used appropriately to convey the prophets’ recognition of who he is and what his mission represents. For example, “Savior” means that Christ came to save his people from their sins. “Holy One” signifies that he is holy and without sin, being perfect in all things. “God of the Whole Earth” reflects his universal interest in all men and their redemption. “Lord of Hosts” indicates that Christ is a God of battles. And “Lord Omnipotent” means that Christ is the Lord of all, possessing all power. The names given to our Lord take on new significance when they are approached through a thoughtful and sensitive study of their meanings. His profound character, his singular mission, and his divine relationship to man are thereby more clearly revealed.

Further understanding of man’s relationship to Christ, the central figure of the Book of Mormon, occurs through a study of the periods of apostasy, contention, and war. Fewer references to Christ are made during these periods of darkness, probably because his influence is lessened due to the unrighteous actions of man. (See Alma 50–59, for example.) During periods of peace, joy, and prosperity, which come through man’s keeping the commandments, the names of Christ are used profusely, indicating the abundant presence of his Spirit. (See 4 Ne. 1, for example.) Thus, the righteous actions of the people brought the influence and blessings of Christ among them.

Being aware of the number of references to Christ, having an understanding of the meanings for each name, and knowing when his influence can be greatest upon the earth can inspire reverential awe for our Savior. The witness of his divinity, however, must come personally to each of us—we cannot rely exclusively on the testimonies of others. The conviction that Jesus is the Christ occurs only when God, the Eternal Father, manifests the truth of it “by the power of the Holy Ghost.” (Moro. 10:4.) To the prayerful and the sincere, the Book of Mormon bears a powerful testimony that “Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God.” https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/1978/07/discovery/names-of-christ-in-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng

Charts adapted from Susan Easton’s

2 Nephi 25:26
“And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”

Below: He Truly Was the Son of God
by Clark Kelley Price

Yea, even so He shall be led, crucified, and slain,
the flesh becoming subject even unto death,
the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father.
And thus God breaketh the bands of death,
having gained the victory over death,
giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men—
having ascended into heaven,
having the bowels of mercy,
being filled with compassion towards the children of men,
standing betwixt them and justice,
having broken the bands of death,
taken upon Himself their iniquity and their transgressions,
having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice.”
The Prophet Abinadi
(Mosiah 15:7-9)

What is truly missing in the world? What have the newsmakers, politicians, students, homemakers, tycoons, children, and overall our entire world and society forgotten?

Jesus Christ!

“This is my church, and I will establish it; and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of my people.” Mosiah 27:13

It was the Savior Himself who said, “For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…

“And how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses’ name then it be Moses’ church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name then it is my church.”

Thus, the name of the Church is not negotiable. When the Savior clearly states what the name of His Church should be and even precedes His declaration with, “Thus shall my church be called,” He is serious. And if we allow nicknames to be used or adopt or even sponsor those nicknames ourselves, He is offended.” President Russell M Nelson 

What is the word missing in today’s world?  

Jesus Christ!

In the world today when the politicians and pundits, and broadcasters act like they know God, they use the name, god, not JESUS CHRIST. Why” Because saying god is politically correct becaause god could mean Mohammed, or Buddah, or god as three in the same body, or it could mean simply a belief in something, a higher power, our conscious, or to atheists it could mean no one in particular. Yes in the world today we rarely hear His name, even Jesus Christ. We substitue His name with god and the politically correct think they are doing good to even mention  god.

Brothers and sisters, let’s not forget the name Jesus Christ! Let’s use it now more than ever. The only words I substitute for Jesus Christ is “The Lord” or “The Savior” as these names don’t say god to me but say Eloheim and My Father as well as Jesus Christ.

The NAME Which is Given

D&C 18:23 Behold, Jesus Christ is the name which is given of the Father, and there is none other name given whereby man can be saved;
24 Wherefore, all men must take upon them the name which is given of the Father, for in that name shall they be called at the last day;
25 Wherefore, if they know not the name by which they are called, they cannot have place in the kingdom of my Father.

Anoynomous Words

This is circulating via email and text. I DO NOT KNOW the author but his/her thoughts are profound.

My great friend Tonya Meldrum sent this to me and said, “I don’t believe in coincidences either…”

“It is officially spring, the sun is beginning to shine, the snow is almost gone, and it is 2020.

200 years exactly since the spring of 1820, when a young man went into the woods to pray. I know so many great people who have been trying to focus on this miraculous event. So many who have been trying to prepare for this upcoming general conference, that it might be unforgettable.

And then, so shortly before this incredible time, many of our lives have been turned on their sides. The world is currently full of fear, and panic.

I do not believe this is a coincidence. As Joseph Smith knelt in prayer, what proceeded his wondrous answer? Darkness, fear, and panic. The Lord allowed this, I know without a shadow of a doubt that He did not have to, but He did.

I have often pondered why. I believe it had many purposes. Possibly to show the stark contrast between light and dark. To teach us the reality of that opposition. I also believe it allowed Joseph to prove he was ready to receive such great light.

How did Joseph prove himself? How did he escape? He continued, as he had started, to turn to the Lord “Exerting all his powers to call upon God.”

How do we escape the uncertainty and fear that proceeds this unforgettable conference? Continue, as so many of us started. Turn to the Lord, call upon Him, focus on the light that is coming. That light is always found in “Hearing Him.” Prepare to hear Him in all the words spoken and sung.

As we prepare to celebrate that glorious day where a “pillar of light” delivered this young man, have we forgotten what immediately preceded it? Often, the answer is yes, because it pales in comparison to the glory that followed.

From the Dedicatory Prayer of the Salt Lake Temple, 6 April 1893

In 1893, three years before Utah became a state, the Salt Lake Temple was completed after 40 years of sacrifice-filled construction. As is customary, a dedicatory prayer was offered by Wilford Woodruff, then president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Heavenly Father, when Thy people shall not have the opportunity of entering this holy house to offer their supplications unto Thee, and they are oppressed and in trouble, surrounded by difficulties or assailed by temptation and shall turn their faces towards this Thy holy house and ask Thee for deliverance, for help, for Thy power to be extended in their behalf, we beseech Thee, to look down from Thy holy habitation in mercy and tender compassion upon them, and listen to their cries. Or when the children of Thy people, in years to come, shall be separated, through any cause, from this place, and their hearts shall turn in remembrance of Thy promises to this holy Temple, and they shall cry unto Thee from the depths of their affliction and sorrow to extend relief and deliverance to them, we humbly entreat Thee to Turn Thine ear in mercy to them; hearken to their cries, and grant unto them the blessings for which they ask.

Almighty Father, increase within us the powers of that faith delivered to and possessed by Thy Saints. Strengthen us by the memories of the glorious deliverances of the past, by the remembrance of the sacred covenants that Thou hast made with us, so that, when evil overshadows us, when trouble encompasses us, when we pass through the valley of humiliation, we may not falter, may not doubt, but in the strength of Thy Holy name may accomplish all Thy righteous purposes with regard to us, fill the measure of our creation, and triumph gloriously, by Thy grace, over every besetting sin, be redeemed from every evil, and be numbered in the kingdom of heaven amongst those who shall dwell in Thy presence forever.” This was emailed to me by my friend David Hocking.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/details/salt-lake-temple/prayer/1893-04-06?lang=eng

March 26. Same date, 10 years apart. Could that be significant?
March 26, 1820 First Vision
March 26, 1830 Book of Mormon first sold (See at the bottom of the blog)

Dr. John C. Lefgren lives in Pennsylvania and owns his own business. He has a PhD in economics, served as a Foreign Service Officer with the US Department of State and was an officer with a major bank in New York. In 1980 his book April Sixth was published by Deseret Book. Since his youth he has had an active interest in Church History. He has developed a property in Vermont near the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial and has a business producing maple syrup. (It’s called “Land of Joseph” syrup, available in Utah grocery stores)

In his book from 1980, “April Sixth”, John Lefgren said that “On Tuesday, April 6, 1830, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized according to the commandment of the Lord. Why was that date chosen? What was special about the sixth of April?

“For the last century and a half,” the author wrote, “Latter-day Saints have continued to believe that the timing of the restoration of the Church of Christ has an association with the birth of Christ.” April Sixth shows justification for this belief as it links three historic events: the birth of Christ, the death and resurrection of Christ, and the nineteenth-century restoration of the Church of Christ. His friend Dr. John P. Pratt said the following about the book. “Lefgren states that his intent is “to show how the modern revelation concerning the significance of April 6th is in perfect harmony with other sacred writings” (p. 12). That is, he proposes that the belief that Jesus was born on 6 April 1 B.C. is consistent with all LDS scripture, but not necessarily with all secular sources. (All dates refer to our Gregorian calendar.) The reviewers claim that Lefgren also believes the “resurrection of Jesus fell on April sixth. He does not; his date for the Resurrection is 3 April A.D. 33 (p. 61).”

Thirty-eight years after the publication of his first book, Dr. Lefgren again looks to the Mosaic Law for the ordering of days and how this calendar connects to the birth of Christ as synchronized by the world’s largest geometric clock. He examines the very minute for the numeric harmony of the sign for the birth of Christ — a sign which ancient people witnessed in the Heartland of America. The identification of this moment is found in a time line from more than 2000 years ago and relies on 6 primary sources: (1) the exact movements of the earth around its axis; (2) the exact movements of the earth around the sun; (3) the exact movements of the moon around the earth; (4) the exact physical alignment of 3,000 acres of ancient earthworks in Newark, Ohio; (5) the exact 5-year prophecy of the coming of Christ by Samuel, the Lamanite; and (6) the exact eyewitness testimony of the fulfillment of the prophecy by Nephi, the Son of Nephi. All these sources point to the same moment in time and place.

At the FIRM Foundation Conference in April, 2018 in Layton, Utah, Lefgren spoke about his new book which is entitled “The Sign Before the Birth of Jesus Christ;  As Witnessed in Newark, Ohio, 6:29 P.M., Tuesday April 6th, 1 B.C.; The 5-Year Prophecy of Samuel, the Lamanite; The Sun and the Moon Keeping Ancient Time at the Newark Earthworks.” He has an amazing story of why he feels the Book of Mormon events happened in the United States, which I will share with you at a later date.

Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning: Sun 26 Mar 1820? By John C. Lefgren

Two researchers working independently have come up with evidence pointing toward a date for the First Vision. Detailed weather reports coupled with maple sugar production cycles point to the compelling possibility.

[Editor’s Note: John P. Pratt, who proposed the Sun 26 Mar 1820 date for the First Vision based on evidence from the Enoch calendar, was not aware of these results for either the March weather of 1820, nor that maple sugar production might be a factor in determining the date. In fact, Pratt’s article had already been reprinted as part of his new book Divine Calendars before he received any word of this corroborating evidence.]

What was the date of the First Vision?
What is the most important date in Church history? There have been days on which some very important visitors have come. John the Baptist, as well as Peter, James and John all came to restore the priesthood. The Savior, Moses, Elias and Elijah all came on the same Easter Sunday in 1836 to restore important priesthood keys, and that day has been shown to have important calendrical significance.[1] But there was one day on which Heavenly Father himself appeared to man in the latter-days. Has there been a more important day in LDS Church history than the day of the First Vision?

In the October 1998 General Conference President Gordon B. Hinckley stated:

Our entire case as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rests on the validity of this glorious First Vision. It was the parting of the curtain to open this, the dispensation of the fulness of times. Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to the path of salvation and eternal life.[2]

The First Vision is fundamental to our religion, but what was the date on which it occurred? All that we have known about the date is that it “was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring” of 1820 (JSH 1:14). It has been assumed that this brief description could only be used to narrow down the date to have been within the period of late March to early April, with a Sunday being the most likely day on which a farm boy would have been able to actually go to the woods to pray.[3]

Meridian Magazine has published an article by Dr. John P. Pratt which stated that evidence from the Enoch calendar implied that by far the most likely date for the First Vision was Sunday, March 26, 1820.[4] When I learned of his proposed date, my interest in this problem was immediately rekindled. Two decades ago, about the time my book April Sixth[5] was published, it occurred to me that the First Vision might have happened on April 6, 1820. Knowing that the vision had been on a beautiful day, I sought weather records to verify whether that date was at least a candidate. To my delight I found that detailed weather records had been kept only eighty miles from Palmyra, but to my disappointment I found it had snowed the night before April 6, and had been cloudy and freezing weather all that day. I did not pursue the study further. Thus, when I recently learned of Pratt’s proposed date in March, I immediately sent to the National Archives for the microfilms of the weather journal, which resulted in the results published here.

Let us now attempt to identify the precise day of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s First Vision. My approach is divided into two parts. First, let us make a selection of all plausible days in early spring which are identified from original 1820 weather records. Second, from the set of possible days, let us consider maple sugar production, which leads to identifying Sunday, March 26, 1820, as by far the most likely day for the First Vision to have occurred.

Early Spring Weather, 1820
According to Joseph Smith’s account, there are five conditions which relate to the time of the First Vision: (1) “On the morning of”, (2) “a beautiful”, (3) “clear day”, (4) “early in the spring” (5) “of eighteen hundred and twenty” (JSH 1:14). Using these conditions, I offer the following criteria for selecting a set of possible days from an 1820 weather diary which would satisfy his statement. Here are the selection criteria:

“Morning” is a time after sunrise and before midday. This means that I will examine weather conditions which are reported for the morning.
“Beautiful” is an indication of a moderate temperature and no strong wind. I propose to look for mornings when the temperature is higher than 40 Fahrenheit with no strong wind.
“Clear” relates to the sky. In the mornings of the possible days there are no clouds, no snow, no sleet, and no rain.
“Spring” in North America is March, April, and May. For my examination, I propose that “in early spring” means a time which is after March 1st and before April 15th.
“Of eighteen hundred and twenty” means a day in the year 1820.

My research begins at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. In the early part of the nineteenth century, Sackets Harbor, New York, was a shipbuilding center for the United States Navy. During the war of 1812 this place played an important role in defending the northern border of the United States from British invasion. Sackets Harbor was once the location for one third of the country’s Army and one quarter of its Navy.

In 1820 Dr. W. Wheaton was an officer and surgeon who was stationed with the United States Second Infantry at Madison Barracks in Sackets Harbor. He was located on a bay where the Black River flows into Lake Ontario, about eighty miles from Palmyra. Sackets Harbor and Palmyra are generally in the same weather system which is influenced and homogenized by Lake Ontario (see map).

At the time of Dr. Wheaton’s assignment, the U.S. Surgeon General required medical officers to keep weather diaries. At Madison Barracks in 1820 Dr. Wheaton observed and recorded temperatures and weather conditions for each day at 7:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m. At the end of each month he filed his weather reports to the Office of the Surgeon General, Washington, D.C.
In 1953 the United States Weather Bureau collected climatological records and asked the National Archives and Records Administration to microfilm weather diaries. As a part of this effort, Dr. Wheaton’s original 1820 weather diaries from Madison Barracks were included.

[6] This record is the source to determine daily weather conditions and to select a set of possible days for the First Vision. The record is included in full in the notes at the end of this article,[7] with the column for the temperatures and morning weather shown in the accompanying reproductions of the microfilm image.

The weather for early spring is summarized in Figure 1, which shows the 7 a.m. temperatures as well as whether the weather was clear (yellow) or cloudy/rainy/snowy (grey)

March in 1820 came in like a lion. During the first two weeks of March there were five snow days for a total accumulation of 23 inches. During these two weeks there were only three of forty-two temperature readings above freezing. It seems appropriate to exclude the first half of March from any consideration for the First Vision. There was an increase in the average temperature during the third week of March with daily readings above freezing. Nevertheless, the weather was mostly cloudy and at no time in the early morning was the temperature above freezing. Beginning on March 22 there is a break in the weather with rising temperatures. Friday March 24 the weather is clear and the morning temperature is above 40. This day is the first day in the set of possible days for the First Vision. Saturday March 25 is also clear and warm and is the second day in the set of possible days. Sunday morning March 26 is clear with a temperature of 56, the highest of any day that early spring. This day is the last of three consecutive clear days and is included in the set of possible days. The 2 p.m. temperature for both March 25 and 26 was 64, so they were both “beautiful days” that might stand out in young Joseph’s memory has having been unusually pleasant. Monday morning March 27 the weather becomes cloudy and the temperature begins to drop. During the last four days of March average temperature readings decline and during the first week of April there is snow, sleet and rain. On Thursday April 13 the ice breaks up on Lake Ontario and by Saturday April 15 the weather is clear with morning readings above forty degrees. This day is too late in the spring to be included in the set of possible days.

Now let us turn to a brief overview of how maple syrup is produced, which will indicate that the first two of those days would most likely have been long, arduous work days producing maple syrup. Moreover, that same cycle indicates that there would have been no more sap to gather nor process on Sunday, March 26, leaving it the sole and ideal candidate to have been the date of the First Vision.

Maple Sugar Production

The Smith family produced maple sugar which was an important source of their food, as well as a commodity which was traded for other foods and services. Maple sugar was about the only source of sugar at that time; cane sugar was rare and expensive. By the late 1800’s, cane sugar became much less expensive and replaced maple sugar for most purposes.

Lucy Mack Smith wrote of her years in Palmyra, “In the spring after we moved onto the farm we commenced making maple sugar of which we averaged one thousand pounds per year.”[8] That’s a lot of sugar, and it was all produced during a few weeks of spring. It was not a hobby or casual endeavor for them, it was an important source of sustenance which engaged their full time effort for brief periods entirely governed by the weather. Let’s review the production of maple sugar to understand why two of the three possible days for the

The harvesting of maple sugar is extremely temperature dependent. Maple sugar comes only from the northeast of North America and is part of our early history. The English settlers learned maple syrup and sugar production from the Native Americans.[9] The harvest of maple sugar occurs in the early spring. For hundreds of years farmers in New England have tapped millions of trees and have observed that the flow of maple sap is governed by a cycle of freezing and thawing temperatures. In recent years scientists have developed a theory to explain a mechanism by which sap runs. Their investigation includes the measurement of negative and positive pressures in the tree’s sapwood. When the temperature is below freezing the cells have a negative pressure relative to the atmosphere. The negative pressure causes water in the ground to move into the roots. The incoming water becomes sap as enzymes in the roots convert starch into sugar. When the temperature rises above freezing the cells develop positive pressure which causes the sap to rise up the tree. Over this cycle the pressures in the sapwood fluctuate from a low of twenty pounds to a high of forty-five pounds per square inch. Thus, negative pressure brings water into the root system and positive pressure pushes sap up the tree.

In an effort to understand the pump effect of a maple tree’s negative and positive pressures, scientists measure the dissolution rate of carbon dioxide. When temperatures are below freezing, carbon dioxide has a high dissolution and causes negative pressure. When temperatures are above freezing the dissolution rate falls releasing gas into the sap which produces positive pressure. Sometimes the release of carbon dioxide is so quick that the sap becomes a carbonated “spring tonic”. (It is pressurized carbon dioxide which is used to carbonate soft drinks.) This cycle of freezing and thawing temperatures is required for the sap to continue its flow. If temperatures stay above freezing for more than thirty hours, positive pressures fall as the sapwood literally runs out of gas. When this happens farmers are happy to take a break.

Sugar makers in 1820 gathered maple sap in wooden buckets. They boiled the sap in a series of iron kettles which hung over an open fire. At one end, where the fire was highest, water boiled off. As the sap thickened into syrup they ladled it into the second kettle, where the fire was lower, and added fresh sap to the first kettle. In this way, they removed the water without burning the sugar. In the last kettle they stirred liquid sugar until it crystallized and then poured it into wooden molds to form blocks.

The early settlers considered maple sugar a wonder of the New World. To produce one thousand pounds of maple sugar, as Lucy Smith recorded, the Smith Family in 1820 tapped more than 500 trees, collected 60,000 pounds of sap, and boiled off water by burning 10,000 pounds of wood.

From Figure 1 it is possible to determine that the family’s sugaring would have started in earnest on Saturday, March 18, and continued until Saturday, March 25. Because sap can go sour like milk, the family has to make sugar while the sap runs. All the members of the Smith Family would have been fully involved with sugar production. Even if the sap ran for only a few hours, the boiling fire could burn for as much as twenty hours.

Each family member understood that the spring harvest of maple sugar was a vital source of food and no other activity was as important.

By Saturday noon March 25 at the latest, the temperature readings would have been above freezing for more than thirty hours and the maple sap had stopped running. The boiling fires would have had to be fed for the rest of that day to finish the process. By Saturday night, every one would have been exhausted. Thus, Sunday would have been a rest day even if it had not been the weekly Sabbath day.

In preparation for the final draft of this article and to independently verify that scenario, on October 5, 2002 I traveled to the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial in Vermont. On that day I arranged to meet John and Shirley Pease as well as Bruce Johnson. These people come from families who have been involved in maple sugaring for as many as seven generations. They have first-hand experience with the effects temperature and weather have on sugar production. Each spring for the last fifty years these New Englanders have “sugared” and they know the intense effort required to collect and to boil sap. I presented to them copies of the March and April 1820 weather diaries and I asked them to describe what the Smith Family would have done to make one thousand pounds of maple sugar. Their review of the weather diaries identified the first “run” as beginning on Sunday, March 5. They estimated that the “run” lasted one day and produced less than one fourth of the season’s sugar. The second “run” started on Monday, March 13, and lasted for two or three days. This “run” produced more than one fourth of the season’s sugar. It was clear to them that the big “run” started on Saturday, March 18 and with sap running through Friday, March 24. They said that during this “run” the Smith Family would have kept boiling fires for twenty-four hours a day, through Saturday, and that they would have produced about half of the season’s sugar. They also said that some members of the family would have worked as much as twenty hours per day as they tried to keep pace with the flow of the sap, so that it would not go sour. They claimed that no other harvest or agricultural activity is as intense and demanding as maple sugaring. Thus they verified the conclusion in detail.

One note from one of Joseph’s several accounts of the First Vision implies that he had indeed been cutting timber on the day prior. The editor of the Pittsburg Gazette visited Nauvoo in 1843 and interviewed the Prophet. His rendition of what the Prophet said included the following:

“I immediately went out into the woods where my father had a clearing, and went to the stump where I had stuck my axe when I had quit work, and I kneeled down, and prayed, saying, O Lord, what Church shall I join?”[10]

If that account is accurate, then it would seem to be both an indication that the axe had been left there on the previous day, and that he had been clearing trees with it. Those trees would have been used as the firewood needed to boil down the sugar.

Conclusion

Combining all of this evidence, there were three days of early spring on which the weather qualified as being possible for the First Vision. On the first two of them the Smith family would almost certainly have been totally occupied in producing maple sugar. On the third of those days, there would have been no more work to do in producing maple sugar, and it would have been a day of rest. That day coincided with Sunday, the weekly Sabbath. Thus it is one day which is indicated as being far more likely than any other for the First Vision. It must have been on the morning of Sunday, March 26, 1820, that Joseph Smith reached out to God and the glorious response changed the course of history. The brief statement that the marvelous event occurred “on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring” of 1820 was enough to pinpoint the very day it occurred.

Notes
Pratt, J.P. “Symbolism of Passover and of Elijah’s Return,” Ensign 15, No. 7 (July, 1985), pp. 55-64.
Hinckley, Gordon B., “What Are People Asking About Us?” Ensign (Nov. 1998), p. 71.
Enders, Donald L., “The Sacred Grove,” Ensign, Apr. 1990, p. 15.
Pratt, John P. Enoch Calendar: Another Witness of the Restoration,” Meridian Magazine (5 Aug 2002).
Lefgren, John C., April Sixth (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1980).
Microfilm T907-358, New York Reel No. 1-152.

The following table is taken from Dr. Wheaton’s weather diary. Each numbered line represents a day. Temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit for 7:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m. are in the columns labeled 7, 2, 6. The “Morning” and “Evening” columns are short statements about sky’s condition and the direction of the wind. The last column is for “General Remarks.”

Marc – 7 – 2 – 6 – Morning – Evening – General Remarks
Wed 1 25 31 37 Cloudy – N Cloudy – W
Thu 2 10 15 21 Clear – W Clear – W
Fri 3 18 16 23 Cloudy – N Snowing – SW
Sat 4 23 25 31 Clear – NW Clear – W Some Snow last night – 3 inches
Sun 5 39 40 40 Cloudy – S Cloudy – S
Mon 6 20 21 12 Snowing – N Cloudy – W Snow last night – 6 inches
Tue 7 7 16 17 Cloudy – W Snowing – N
Wed 8 9 14 14 Snowing – N Snowing – N Heavy fall of snow – 16 inches
Thu 9 16 22 20 Snowing – N Hail – N
Fri 10 24 26 29 Clear – N Clear – W Snow continues until this morning
Sat 11 22 28 23 Clear – N Clear – N
Sun 12 12 29 27 Clear – N Cloudy – N
Mon 13 31 37 34 Cloudy – N Cloudy – NW
Tue 14 35 39 35 Snowing – NE Snowing – N This night high winds with snow
Wed 15 30 36 34 Clear – NW Cloudy – WNW
Thu 16 30 35 32 Cloudy – WNW Cloudy – NW
Fri 17 26 34 32 Cloudy – NE Clear – NW
Sat 18 38 42 38 Cloudy – N Clear – WNW
Sun 19 32 43 48 Cloudy – NE Clear – SW Last night high winds from S and SW
Mon 20 48 46 40 Cloudy – SW Snowing – NE Last night high winds from NW
Tue 21 36 40 41 Cloudy – SW Clear – NW
Wed 22 30 32 34 Cloudy – S Clear – NW
Thu 23 40 46 44 Cloudy – NNE Clear – SW Pleasant night with moon light
Fri 24 44 50 49 Clear – NE Clear – SW
Sat 25 54 64 50 Clear – SSW Clear – S
Sun 26 56 64 64 Clear – SSW Clear – SW
Mon 27 55 44 42 Cloudy – W Clear -W&NW high High winds this night from W & NW
Tue 28 42 45 40 Clear – W Clear – NW
Wed 29 31 34 36 Clear – W Cloudy –
Thu 30 22 26 25 Clear – NW Clear
Fri 31 30 34 34 Snowing-NW Snowing – NE April 7 2 6 Morning Evening General Remarks
April 7 2 6 Morning Evening General Remarks
Sat 1 31 32 30 Clear – NW 5 Cloudy – NW High winds
Sun 2 30 32 23 Clear – NNW Cloudy – NW
Mon 3 22 32 30 Clear – NE Clear – WSW High winds from W and NW
Tue 4 30 40 40 Clear – NE Clear – WSW
Wed 5 40 49 49 Cloudy – ESE 6 Cloudy – SSE Snow and rain this evening
Thu 6 32 33 36 Cloudy – NE Cloudy – W
Fri 7 38 39 36 Cloudy – SE Snowing – ENE Snow and sleet this evening
Sat 8 36 33 38 Cloudy – ENE Cloudy – W
Sun 9 32 40 38 Clear – NE Clear – W
Mon 10 36 38 37 Clear NW Clear – NW High winds
Tue 11 36 38 37 Clear – WSW 6 Clear – SW High Pleasant evenings
Wed 12 48 52 56 Cloudy – SW Clear – SW High
Thu 13 40 44 44 Clear – W Clear – SW High This day the ice in the lake is broken up
Fri 14 42 48 46 Clear – N Clear – SSW Pleasant
Sat 15 40 58 57 Clear – N Clear – W Fine pleasant evening

Coray, Martha J.
, “Biographical Sketches of the Mack Family and Autobiography of Lucy Mack Smith,” c. 1845, LDS Church Historical Department, Salt Lake City, Utah, as quoted in footnote 2 of Enders’ article referenced above in footnote 3.
One current reference on the internet for Native American maple sugar production methods is at http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/maple.html.
Backman, Milton V., Jr., Joseph Smith’s First Vision (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971, Appendix G, quoting the editor of the Pittsburg Gazette in an account published in the New York Spectator, Sept. 23, 1843. Above article appeared in Meridian Magazine March 25, 2011.

To purchase our new Annotated Book of Mormon click here:

March 26, 1830
Exactly 10 years after the First Vision

“On Friday, March 26th, 1830, the world’s most important publishing event in the 19th Century took place at the Egbert B. Grandin Bookstore in Palmyra, New York. Eight months prior, eight men and boys began to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, to print and leather-bind 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon. The book became available for the public to read. This was a great event. The book is the clearest physical evidence that God had stretched forth His hand to prepare a people for the Second Coming of His Son. After the publication of the book, Joseph Smith said he was then able to return the gold plates to Moroni.

The publication of the Book of Mormon occurred before the organization of the Church of Christ. Every new member in this dispensation would be asked to accept the Book of Mormon before going into the waters of baptism.

The life of Joseph Smith can be divided into three periods of time. The first period was from his birth in Sharon, Vermont until the day of his First Vision on Sunday, March 26th, 1820, in Palmyra, New York. The second period was from the day of his First Vision until the day when the Book of Mormon was printed and made available to the world on Friday, March 26th, 1830.

Let’s consider four dates that divide the life of Joseph Smith into these three parts.

(1) Birth of Joseph Smith, Monday, December 23rd, 1805. John Pratt’s Article here)

Joseph lived with his parents who were landless tenants on five different farms in Vermont and New Hampshire and then moved to upstate New York.

(2) The appearance of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, Sunday, March 26th, 1820. John Pratt Article Here;

Joseph lived with his family and worked with his father to improve farm. The next ten years were the most stable period of Joseph’s life.

(3) The publication of the Book of Mormon on Friday, March 26th, 1830. (John Pratt’s article here)

From the date of the publishing of the Book of Mormon until his death at Carthage, Joseph was in constant motion. With the Book of Mormon as his major witness, he would organize the Church of Christ, create branches in tens states and four foreign countries, reveal God’s Word to the Saints, and build the largest city in Illinois.

(4) Death of Joseph Smith, Thursday, June 27th, 1844. (See article at bottom about Josephs birth and death dates)

According to heaven’s grand plan, it was essential that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, would appear to the fourteen-year-old farm boy in the Sacred Grove on the beautiful morning of Sunday, March 26th, 1820. Exactly ten years later in the same city of Palmyra, the Book of Mormon became a witness that God’s Hand was once again moving to increase the faith of people who would become members of the Church and Kingdom of God in the Last Dispensation. All this was done through a divine plan that God directed through the life of Joseph Smith. Looking back on his life, we imagine that Joseph Smith remembers two great days in his life. The first day was when he went into the woods to pray. The second great day was when he had finished the printing of the Book of Mormon. Both of these days took place on the same day of the calendar and in the same area of Palmyra.

Let’s rejoice that in God’s grand plan, Joseph was true and faithful to his calling. Because of the First Vision and because of the publishing of the Book of Mormon, faith has increased in the world and many souls have come unto Christ as God prepares a people for the Second Coming of His Son.” by John C. Lefgren PhD

Joseph Smith’s Birth: 1 Tebeth

“The Prophet Joseph Smith was born on Mon 23 Dec 1805. That is close to the winter solstice, which usually occurs on 21 December, which has led to the suggestion that his birth symbolized the time when darkness would begin to recede and that the light would return to the earth.^[5] But that date is about two days off, according to our calendar. When we looked at the Savior’s birth and death dates, we saw that his birth was timed down to the quarter-day period before the midnight which commenced Thu 6 Apr 1 BC. Similarly, his resurrection must have been after midnight and before dawn on the morning of Sun 3 Apr AD 33. If the Savior’s birth and death were timed so precisely, we might expect that of Joseph Smith to have been also. At this point it might be well to remember that the Lord tends to use the calendars which he has revealed, rather than the one originating with Julius Caesar, which we currently employ. On the Hebrew Calendar, the four seasonal markers are the first days of the months Nisan (spring), Tammuz (summer), Tishri (autumn) and Tebeth (winter).

What was the day 23 Dec 1805 on the Hebrew Calendar? While the true Hebrew Calendar is not yet perfectly understood, all indications are that the evening of 23 Dec 1805 began the Hebrew day 1 Tebeth, the precise day of the winter solstice on that calendar.^[6] The identification of Joseph Smith as one of the four angels associated with the four seasons suggests that his birth date was carefully planned to coincide with one of the four seasonal markers on a calendar which God has endorsed. On the Hebrew calendar, the first day of every month is considered a holy day, so Joseph Smith was not only born on a holy day, but apparently was the standard bearer for the day of the winter solstice throughout all time.” by John Pratt

Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom: 10 Tammuz

“The two Testators of the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times died about 5 p.m. on Thu 27 Jun 1844. Was that a date of significance on the Hebrew Calendar? That date was 10 Tammuz. Is that a holy day on the Hebrew Calendar? Yes and No.

The answer is “No” because currently it is not a holy day, but the answer should be “Yes” because it is tied to the fall of Jerusalem and fits the pattern of four Days of Atonement. Let us consider each of these aspects in more detail.

Currently on the Hebrew calendar there is a period of 3 weeks during the summer, often called simply “The Three Weeks.” They begin with a fast day on 17 Tammuz and end with a fast day on 9 Ab, three weeks later. Those three weeks tend to begin in late June or early July, depending on the moon’s phase, which is the basis of beginning the Hebrew month. Both of those days are associated with the fall and destruction of Jerusalem, both by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC and also by Titus in AD 70. The three weeks are observed as a “dark time”, a time to contemplate the fall of their holy city and temple. During those three weeks, traditionally no weddings or other joyous celebrations are observed, particularly those involving music.^[8]

The fact is that the actual day of burning of the temple both times is believed to have occurred on the last day of the fast, 9 Ab. I have researched this claim, and accept it as true. The temple was apparently burned the first time on Sat 23 Jul 587 BC, 9 Ab on the Hebrew Calendar. It was destroyed again on Sat 2 Aug AD 70, which was also 9 Ab.^[9] Hence, there is strong reason to remember the day 9 Ab as a fast day of mourning, and as the end of a period of sadness.

What about the first day of the Three Weeks, being 17 Tammuz? It turns out that it is only known to be associated with the fall of the second temple, being the day on which the daily sacrifice was stopped.^[10] In a way, that was the beginning of the destruction of that temple. Most scholars do not believe, however, that the date was associated in any way with the first fall of Jerusalem. Instead they point to the day 9 Tammuz when the city of Jerusalem fell (2 Kings 25:3, Jer. 39:2, 52:6). Shortly after the fall, there was a fast held in the fourth month (Tammuz) and most scholars feel it was held on either the 9th or 10th of Tammuz at that time. If it was the 10th, then it would have coincided with Joseph and Hyrum’s martyrdom date on their calendar.

Tempting as that might be, I don’t think it was the case. I believe the ancient fast of the fourth month was indeed held on 17 Tammuz, just as it is today. There is reason to believe that it commemorated the day on which Nebuchadnezzar first took captives from Jerusalem, including Daniel, on Sat 18 Jun 605 BC, 17 Tammuz, shortly after he won the Battle of Carchemish in Syria.^[11] The very day probably marked the official beginning of the 70 years of captivity to Babylon according to the Lord’s reckoning on the Hebrew Calendar. That data point would have been well known during the captivity, and would represent the beginning of the days of mourning.

So if the Hebrew fast days are correct, what about Joseph Smith’s death date? It turns out that it completes the pattern of Four Days of Atonement on the Hebrew calendar. Currently there are three out of four possible days, which are associated with the four seasons. The official “Day of Atonement” is on the tenth day of the seventh month, Tishri, in the fall. It is a fast day, and the holiest day of the year on the Hebrew Calendar. It has a counterpart in the spring, which is the tenth day of the first month, Nisan. That is the day on which the lamb was to be chosen to be the Passover sacrifice. There is also a corresponding fast day in the winter, being the tenth day of the tenth month. That was the day on which Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of Jerusalem, and the Lord commanded Ezekiel to write it down to remember it (Ezek. 20:1, 2 Kings 25:1, Jer. 52:4). The fourth such day to complete the set of one atonement day for each season would be the tenth day of the fourth month, being 10 Tammuz, the day on which the two witnesses were martyred.

Thus, even as the birthday of the Prophet Joseph Smith marks one of the big four season starters, so also does his death date mark one of the big four days of atonement. Even as the holy days on the Hebrew Calendar often were not recognized until the key event of that day occurred, such as the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, so also has this holy day not been recognized until after the martyrdom.” by John Pratt

Mark of the Michigan Mound Builders
Yod-Hey-Vau (Ojibwa Tongue)
The Creator’s Son
Deity or God
Son of the Right Hand
Egyptian Discovery of America

     Wayne May publisher of Ancient American Magazine says, “I first learned of this Son of the Great Spirit from Ricardo Baeza, an Ojibwa medicine man in Golden Valley, Minnesota. He approached me after my lecture about the Michigan Plates. Collectively, they were associated with Daniel Soper and Father Savage, early preservers of a large group of copper artifacts and stone tablets unearthed from numerous mounds throughout the state of Michigan, beginning in the 1840’s.

     The objects, today scattered across the United States and Canada in mostly private collections, feature portrayals of familiar scenes from mostly the Old Testament and three or more, undeciphered, written scripts, together with depictions of what appear to be persons from Europe or Near East in hostile interaction with Native Americans. Although condemned out of hand as fraudulent by the archaeologists, the so-called “Michigan Plates” or “Soper- Savage Collections” continue to intrigue independent antiquarians, who believe the artifacts were made by an Old World religious community in the upper Midwest during the 4th Century A.D or earlier. In the 1950’s, Henrietta Mertz was the first researcher to identify the “tribal mark or mystic symbol” which commonly appears throughout the collection.

     Following my Golden Valley slide presentation of the Michigan Plates, Mr. Baeza told me that he could actually read some of the glyphs that appeared on the Soper- Savage tablets, explaining that their symbolic meaning was part of his tribe’s sacred tradition. He added that the so-called “mystic symbol” represented the name of the Creator’s Son, pronounced in the Ojibwa tongue (reading the cuneiform characters from right to left) as “Yod-hey-vau”. This name, he said really has an additional syllable, but the fourth is pronounced only once a year in a sacred ceremony and then only by a tribal holy man in the great lodge. Mr. Baeza’s explanation sparked my memory of an article by Ancient American author, David Deal, in Ancient American’s Stone, Clay, Copper, Archives of the Past, March/April, 1994 Issue #5, entitled, “The Mystic Symbol Demystified”.

     In the midst of her investigation (Henriette Mertz), and the Father with whom she had been working on the Michigan tablets was coincidentally contacted by missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Aware of their second scriptural book (the Book of Mormon) that testified to the presence of Christ in America, the priest invited them to inspect the Soper-Savage collection. Intrigued, the missionaries wasted no time in contacting Milton R. Hunter of Salt Lake City, Utah, a researcher of American antiquities.

     After several months of communication and visits to Notre Dame, the school officials chose to turn over the collection to Hunter rather than Henriette. She was nonetheless afforded enough time with the artifacts to complete her research for The Mystic Symbol. Elliot Soper, son of Daniel Soper, offered his father’s collection to Hunter after having learned of Notre Dame’s transference of its artifacts. Hunter’s expanded collection of Michigan plates and related items was kept warehoused in the historical archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah for a period of time where the historical department allowed Ancient American staff and Triple A Productions to photograph Mr. Hunter’s collection in its entirety for continued study. Today the collection is kept by the Michigan Historical Society.

     The evidence of the Michigan Tablets and Burrows Cave stones suggests that some fundamentally important culture-bearer visited our Western Hemisphere in pre-Columbian times. Was it actually the Christ? Or one of his disciples? Whatever his true identity, the arrival of this person left a deep impact on the tribal memories of Native Americans. Their “Yod-hey-vau” is remarkably similar to the biblical Je-ho-vah who seems to be portrayed throughout the Michigan plates. Was the East Star Man and Peace-Maker known to so many indigenous North American tribes really Jesus Christ? Perhaps the imminent translation of the Illinois and Michigan artifacts will answer that question.” The Mystic Symbol by Wayne N. May Publisher of Ancient American Magazine.

     “One of the most important events in prehistory is the early discovery of America by the ancient Egyptians. Recently an article appeared in Ancient American magazine, describing it. However, the source of this article was a large petroglyph from Europe. It appears that the Mystic Symbol is the first known American petroglyph, which confirms this early discovery. So, apparently, it is a combination of a time glyph and a geographic glyph. The spikes appear to represent dynasties or kings, but also important crossings of the Oceans.”  Dr. R.M de Jong

     “Father and Sons” (Tablet Picture Below) “God the Father’s face is never shown.  To his right is Son of the Right Hand (Jesus Christ) and to his left is Son of the Left Hand (Lucifer).  Sometime during the First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. to the Council in 381A.D., the Gospels were decided as to what and which would comprise the Holy Bible.  At this time the understanding of the two sons of God was well known.  However, the Holy men of the day decided that God could not have such an evil son as Lucifer.  So the two Sons of God was changed to one Son and the other would become the Devil.  It was also decreed that any church that kept the two son doctrine would be subject to excommunication, or even burned at the stake for preaching false doctrine.  The two sons of God were no longer preached.  This information was first brought forward by David Allen Deal in the publication of Ancient American magazine.  This very doctrine of the Two Sons resurfacing in North America in the western woods of the State of Michigan was another support for the authenticity of the Michigan Plates.  This doctrine was buried and hidden when the Nicene Creed was accepted and enforced by Roman Catholic Church by the year 381A.D.” Wayne May, ldsarchaeology.com 877-494-0044

My blog is one of interesting information. I don’t claim it is all truth for I don’t know everything of course. I know the story behind those Michigan plates and I think there is some truth to them. There are many forgeries as well I believe. I have seen with many artifacts the so called experts rarely say anything but that they are all fake. I find very little truth behind many of these so called experts. 
I share the information and then expect each of us to study and pray about what is truth just as I do. I always say on my blog, don’t believe me, I am just an instrument for information and ideas that many have never considered. I want you to make up your own mind.

By Keith H. Meservy

“We are frequently told that Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament (see Bible Dictionary, “Jehovah,” 710–11). But when we open our Bibles, we find little evidence that this is so. What is missing in the translations is clear in the original Hebrew text, where Jehovah, the Savior’s Old Testament name, appears over 5,000 times!

Why then is Jehovah missing from our Bible translations? The answer can be found in the way His name has been treated by Jews since the days of Malachi and Zechariah. Jehovah is the name of God, and devout Jews, out of reverence for Him, never say His name. Instead they substitute Adonai, a Hebrew title meaning “Lord.” So whenever they speak of Him or read aloud His name from scripture, they substitute Adonai (Lord).

LORD (in small capital letters)

King James translators of the Hebrew Bible followed Jewish practice. Instead of printing Jehovah, the name of God, they substituted the English title LORD, printed in small capitals, every time the name Jehovah appeared in the Hebrew text.

Lord (in lowercase letters)

Lord is also printed in lowercase letters (as Lord and lord) in the King James Version of the Bible. Lord is a title that refers to rulers of various kinds—heavenly and earthly—such as God, king, husband, governor, prince, prophet, father, captain, and angel. The heavenly ruler is designated by Lord, the earthly ruler by lord. Neither of these titles, printed in lowercase letters, is a substitution for the name Jehovah. Simply put, LORD equals Jehovah, while Lord or lord refers to an earthly or heavenly ruler.

Knowing the distinction between LORD and Lord helps us understand the story of Hannah and Eli in 1 Samuel 1:1–28. In verse 11, Hannah makes a vow with the LORD for a child. Then when Eli, the high priest, accuses her of being drunk (v. 14), Hannah says, “No, my lord.” Her use of lord shows her reverence for the high priest. Her calling upon the LORD shows her pleading with Jehovah. When we understand the distinctions between LORD, Lord, and lord, we can see what publishers have done. We can find Jesus Christ in the Old Testament by substituting Jehovah for LORD whenever it appears. Then something wonderful happens. Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ, appears from beginning to end of this great book as the God of the Old Testament.

The Savior’s ministry on earth did not begin with His birth. He is “the eternal I AM,” the Lord God Omnipotent who appeared to the patriarchs and prophets of old, who delivered Israel from Egypt, who gave the law on Sinai, and who guided and inspired the righteous prophets, priests, seers, judges, and kings of the Old Testament.”
Keith H. Meservy is an emeritus professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and a member of the Pleasant View Third Ward, Provo Utah Sharon East Stake.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2002/06/lord-equals-jehovah.html?lang=eng#series_title1

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, “To the Lord’s covenant people, names—particularly proper names—have always been very important. Adam and Eve themselves bore names that suggested their roles here in mortality (see Moses 1:34; 4:26) and, when important covenants were made, men like Abram and Jacob took on new names that signaled a new life as well as a new identity. (See Gen. 17:5; 32:28). Because of this reverence for titles and the meanings they conveyed, the name Jehovah, sometimes transliterated as Yahweh, was virtually unspoken among that people. This was the unutterable name of Deity, that power by which oaths were sealed, battles won, miracles witnessed. Traditionally, he was identified only through a tetragrammaton, four Hebrew letters variously represented in our alphabet as IHVH, JHVH, JHWH, YHVH, YHWH…

Repentance and faith, service and compassion—now is always the right time for these. The past is to be learned from, not lived in, and the future is to be planned for, not paralyzed by. God has declared himself in the present tense. I am the Great I AM.

The prescribed method for coming to knowledge (and subsequent freedom) is to “give diligent heed to the words of eternal life” (D&C 84:43), yet many of us spend precious little time with those words.” Whom Say Ye That I Am? Jeffrey R. Holland Ensign Sept. 1974.

Written in Paleo-Hebrew and used from 1000 BC – 400 AD,   represents the name “Jehovah”, or the tetragrammaton. All throughout the Old Testament, the word ‘LORD’ (all small caps), replaced the sacred name “Yahweh” as described above. “I Am” in Hebrew is “Yahweh” and “Adonai” is the Hebrew word for LORD. 

See additional information on by blog here: https://www.bofm.blog/yahweh-yhwh-yod-hey-vah-jehovah-jesus-christ-and-lord/

“…When…first commanded to testify of these things they [The Three Witness] demurred and told the Lord the people would not believe them for the book concerning which they were to bear record told of a people who were educated and refined, dwelling in large cities; whereas all that was then known of the early inhabitants of this country was the filthy, lazy, degraded and ignorant savages that were roaming over the land. The Lord told us, in reply that he would make it known to the people that the early inhabitants of this land had been just such a people as they were described in the book, and he would lead them to discover the ruins of great cities, and they should have abundant evidence of the truth of that which is written in the book…” – David Whitmer, Interview with James H. Hart (Richmond, Mo., 21 August 1883), as printed in Deseret Evening News, Salt Lake City, Utah as published in Annotated Book of Mormon by David Hocking and Rod Meldrum page 560.

This abundant evidence of the truth is here. It is in the art and archaeology, the geopgraphy, records, science, and philosophy, and every known learning of the people of today. The Native Americans are and were indeed Children of God who had trugth among them and will be theirs again. We know this and preach this.

“Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.” 2 Nephi 1:7

The duty we Americans have for living in this wonderful land is to simply obey the Commandments. As we do this we are then able to bless the lives of others, especially our brothers and sisters the Lamanites and the Jews. I am impressed with the deep love the Prophet Enos had for his brethren the Lamanites.

Enos 1:10 “And while I was thus struggling in the spirit, behold, the voice of the Lord came into my mind again, saying: I will visit thy brethren according to their diligence in keeping my commandments. I have given unto them this land, and it is a holy land; and I curse it not save it be for the cause of iniquity; wherefore, I will visit thy brethren according as I have said; and their transgressions will I bring down with sorrow upon their own heads.

11 And after I, Enos, had heard these words, my faith began to be unshaken in the Lord; and I prayed unto him with many long strugglings for my brethren, the Lamanites.”

Our Prophet today, Presiden Nelson has warned us, “Whenever I hear anyone, including myself say, I know the Book of Mormon is True, I want to exclaim that’s nice but it isn’t enough. We need to feel deep the inmost parts of our hearts that the Book of Mormon is unequivocally the word of God. We must feel it so deeply that we wouldn’t want to live even one day without it. I might paraphrase President Brigham Young in saying, I wish I had the voice of seven thunders to wake up the people to the truth and power of the Book of Mormon.” Elder Russell M. Nelson Sept 30, 2017 General Conference.

As the Lord began to bring His people back to the Promised Land, we know other Israelites were already here although they didn’t have the priesthood amongst them.

A big test was now upon the New Settlers. How would we treat the people who already occupied this land? Even as we had been promised this land would we reach out to the Native Americans and help bless their lives, or would our greed take over and would we destroy this great people? We know what happened. What are we doing today to give back to these wonderful Natives so they may have the blessings of the Book of Mormon that we have?

1492: Extensive civilizations and religions were established across the continent by Native Inhabitants.
1790: Numbers of settlers where on the increase (pop. 4 million), demand for land forced the Indians westward.
1830: The Indian Removal Act saw the Indians east of the Mississippi River moved to the west.
1860: Discovery of gold in the west and establishment of reservations, diminished the Native land base.
1890: A further 90 million acres of Indian land was lost due to allotment policies.

Trail of Tears

1. The Book of Mormon, which contained Lehi’s prophecies, was first offered for sale in Grandin’s Bookstore March 26, 1830. The infamous “Indian Removal Act” was passed by Congress on May 28, 1830.
2. In speaking to the Lamanites and others who are disobedient, the Book of Mormon said, “and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten.” 2 Nephi 1:10-11
3. At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the “Trail of Tears.”
4. Indian removal took place in the Northern states as well. In Illinois and Wisconsin, for example, the bloody Black Hawk War in 1832 opened to white settlement millions of acres of land that had belonged to the Sauk, Fox and other native nations.
5. If we as Americans don’t wake up and strive more diligently to obey the Lord we will have the same horrible fate of our good brethren the Lamanites.
6. The promise of a blessed land is only to those who are righteous.

A Jewish Duty: Creating A More Representative Judiciary

By RABBI SHMULY YANKLOWITZ January 2, 2014,

Of all the wisdom and political theory from the great Thomas Paine that has endured perhaps some of his wisest words were those he imparted on the eve of the American revolution: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must… undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” (The American Crisis, Number IV: Philadelphia, September 12 [1777]). Paine’s words are both thoughtful and inspiring and serve as a reminder that we must constantly defend and enhance our justice system in America to support freedom.

President Obama has nominated Diane J. Humetewa to serve on the U.S. District Court for the district of Arizona as a federal judge. Humetewa, Professor of Practice at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and a member of the Hopi tribe, helped establish one of the nation’s first programs for victim services, and was later appointed by President George W. Bush to be the first Native American woman to serve as the U. S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.

Update: “Confirmed in 2014 as the first Native American woman and enrolled tribal member to serve as a federal judge, Humetewa is one of three Native Americans in history to serve in this position.” Source

Continued from RABBI SHMULY YANKLOWITZ, “She previously served as counsel for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and to the Deputy Attorney General for the U.S. Justice Department, and was a member of the U.S. Sentencing Guideline Commission, Appellate Court Judge for her tribe, and chairperson for the Arizona U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Committee. If she is confirmed, she will be the first Native American woman to serve as a federal judge, and the only active judge. Senator John McCain is among those who are supporting her candidacy, making it likely that she will receive at least some bipartisan support.

Native American tribes have been grossly mistreated by the United States for centuries, with hundreds of broken treaties, stolen land, brutal violence and even murder characterizing our relationship with America’s native peoples. One of the grossest examples of this miscarriage of justice occurred to the Cherokee nation, which had been located in the state of Georgia and some other areas of the southeast.Wary of the intentions of Georgia to seize its land, the Cherokee undertook numerous efforts to maintain their land by attempting to assimilate into American culture, including abandoning their traditional lifestyle, adopting the Christian religion, establishing a written language, a constitution, school system, and negotiating treaties with the United States in 1785, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1794, 1804, 1805, 1807, 1816, and 1819. Unfortunately for the Cherokee, President Andrew Jackson, who hated Native Americans, was elected President in 1828. President Jackson had Congress pass the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the removal of all Native Americans in the east to land west of the Mississippi river. In addition to the President and Congress’ efforts, Georgia also passed laws that facilitated the confiscation of Cherokee land.

In the spirit of assimilation, the Cherokee Nation utilized the American justice system and sued the State of Georgia. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, where the Chief Justice, the Federalist John Marshall, was a strong political opponent of President Jackson (as he had also opposed President Thomas Jefferson 30 years earlier), possibly indicating a fairer solution to the forced removal. Contrarily, however, Chief Justice Marshall refused to intervene on behalf of the Cherokee, and evidenced the paternalistic, racist philosophy of his era in his infamous decision Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia (1831). In the opinion, Marshall wrote that the Cherokee did not qualify as a foreign nation deserving treaty rights, in spite of the numerous treaties that had been ratified by the Senate, and that they constituted “domestic dependent nations.” In Marshall’s words:

They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when their right of possession ceases; meanwhile, they are in a state of pupilage. Their relations to the United States resemble that of a ward to his guardian. They look to our Government for protection, rely upon its kindness and its power, appeal to it for relief to their wants, and address the President as their Great Father.

The Cherokee were the fifth Native American tribe pushed west in 1838, in a forced march that became known as the “Trail of Tears.” According to historians, the march resulted in the deaths of over 5,000 Cherokees. Originally, the U.S. government promised land and aid to Native American tribes. However, the United States officially began to view Native land as “unassigned territory,” and subsequently in 1885, 1889, and 1893, land in Oklahoma was opened to thousands of “settlers” who quickly journeyed west and claimed the land for their own. This mass repurposing further eroded Native American lands, and in 1907 Oklahoma was formally recognized as a state. While Native American tribes, to this day, have some land (reservations), these lands are almost invariably located on marginal land that has little value and little agricultural productivity.

While this all seems like distant history, the difficulty of obtaining any justice for Native Americans remains a problem; likewise, resistance to considering members of Native American tribes as equal citizens is still strong. Today, the House of Representatives is resisting efforts to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act because, among other things, it would allow Native American tribal police the right to apprehend non-natives who attack women on tribal land. As a result of gap between State and tribal law, female victims of violence are left to suffer at the hands of violent offenders without legal recourse. For example, Diane Millich, a Southern Ute Native American living on tribal land, was the victim of domestic violence by her husband, a white man. The Southern Ute Tribal Police were not allowed to arrest her husband because he was not a Native, and the local County Sheriff’s office could not go on the tribal land to arrest him. When Millich’s husband traveled onto Federal Bureau of Land Management land and wounded another person with a firearm, he was finally arrested, but then only after the authorities literally measured the area of the crime with a tape measure to ensure the crime was committed on non-tribal land. Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped than other American women, and about 60 percent will experience the horrors of domestic violence. The loopholes in State, Federal, and Tribal law are what allow Native women to be victimized; it is imperative that action be taken by Congress to pass the Violence Against Women Act.

As Jews, we know that justice for oppressed individuals and populations is at the core of the Jewish tradition and built into human conscience. This was our core commitment, even prior to the Sinai revelation, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explained:

The moral imperative was not disclosed for the first time through Abraham or Sinai. The criminality of murder was known to men before…What was new was the idea that justice is an obligation to G-d, His way not only His demand; that injustice is not something G-d scorns when done by others but that which is the very opposite of G-d; that the rights of humans are not legally protected interests of society but the sacred interest of G-d. G-d is not only the guardian of moral order, ‘the Judge of all the earth,’ but One who cannot act unjustly (Genesis 18:25,” (G-d in search of Man, 136).

We must approach communities that we do not understand with humility. Political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that we fail to truly understand and comprehend what others have to offer, be it Africans, Peoples of the East Indies, or Native Americans, when we exploit, beat into submission, and judge others through our perceived understandings of right/wrong and enlightened/savage. We are, in Rousseau’s language, “pretend[ing] to judge mankind:”

Although the inhabitants of Europe have for the past three or four hundred years overrun the other parts of the world and
are constantly publishing new collections of travels and reports, I am convinced that the only men we know are
Europeans…we do not know the Peoples of the East Indies, who are exclusively visited by Europeans more interested in
filling their purses than their heads. All of Africa and its numerous inhabitants, as remarkable in character as they are
in color, still remain to be studied; the whole earth is covered with Nations of which know only the names, and yet we
pretend to judge mankind!

Tragically for Native Americans, our legal system reflected the ignorance and violence of our singular perspective of justice. The consequences of that reverberate not only in our history books but are currently being experienced on tribal lands and in the halls of our political and legal institutions.

One important way of ensuring that the American legal system is more fair and representative of all of our nation’s citizens is by having more diverse judicial nominees and appointees. Native Americans are a minority group that has infamously and tragically been ignored and left without adequate representation. President Obama has stated that when considering judicial nominees he looks for individuals who understand “that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory” and who “identif(y) with people’s hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.” Justice is not all intellect. It requires empathy, personal narrative, and being deeply connected to the people. Confirming Professor Diane J. Humetewa as a District Judge, and reauthorizing the Violence Against Woman Act, will be at least a positive step toward equal justice.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Executive Director of the Valley Beit Midrash, the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Founder and CEO of The Shamayim V’Aretz Institute and the author of “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America.” https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/a-jewish-duty-creating-a-more-representative-judiciary/

Read my blog about some of the Lamanites in America who are Heores to all and especially to their own people. https://www.bofm.blog/josephs-remnant-lamanites-in-todays-america/

The painting above was created to show the plausibility of the First Nephite Temple built near Chattanooga, Tennessee. In several articles below in the year 1935, an ancient Egyptian Temple actually was found on the Clinch River between Chattanooga and Knoxville Tennessee.

The tools of faith shown in this painting above, were likely utilized by Nephi and subsequent Prophets, and delivered to Joseph Smith in our day. The Lord said through Joseph Smith, “Behold, I say unto you, that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in the wilderness, on the borders of the Red Sea. And it is by your faith that you shall obtain a view of them, even by that faith which was had by the prophets of old.” D&C 17:1-2.

Nephi’s breastplate in this painting represents Nephi’s readiness for the protection of his people and was not necessarily the one that Joseph Smith found at Cumorah. The breastplate at Cumorah was possibly one of those mentioned in Mosiah 8:10, given to Mosiah by Limhi’s explorers. This Jaredite breastplate was handed down to Alma (Mosiah 28:20), and eventually to Moroni to be buried with the other tools of faith at Cumorah. Mosiah (the second) used seer stones or interpreters, to translate the twenty-four Jaredite plates (Mosiah 28:13), as his grandfather Mosiah (the first) interpreted the Jaredite stone record (Omni 1:20). These seer stones are represented in the painting and may have been handed down from Lehi or Nephi. Moses and the Israelites were also blessed with similar tools of faith that physically represented spiritual things. “…The ark of the covenant overlaid roundabout with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.” Hebrews 9:4-5.

After Nephi and his people were driven into the wilderness and found a place to settle, Nephi continued to instruct and serve his people. “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon’s temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine.” 2 Nephi 5:15-16 italics added.

Nephites built mainly of wood, and earth as you can see quotes below. At times they waited for trees to grow up and they used cement. Cement is not stone. There is no indication of building with large cut stone as shown in Central America. Hewn or cut stone would be against the Law of Moses. Only one place mentions stone in the Book of Mormon and it says, “Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land. ” Alma 48:8 Notice it says “walls of stone” not “stone walls” as compared in the cartoon below:

Heleman 3:11 “And thus they did enable the people in the land northward that they might build many cities, both of wood and of cement.”

Jarom 1:8 “And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war—yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war.”

Mosiah 11:8 “And it came to pass that king Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper;

9 And he also built him a spacious palace, and a throne in the midst thereof, all of which was of fine wood and was ornamented with gold and silver and with precious things.

10 And he also caused that his workmen should work all manner of fine work within the walls of the temple, of fine wood, and of copper, and of brass.”

See more about stone walls and buildings here: https://www.bofm.blog/stonehenge-of-north-america-walls-of-stone/

More about building with earth and wood here: https://www.bofm.blog/nephite-building-materials-wood-dirt-cement/

How Manifest Destiny Destroyed Book of Mormon Evidence

January 12, 2015 by JA Benson

In 1934, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), was constructing a dam which would flood a portion of the Clinch River in East Tennessee. Because the area to be flooded included a Hopewell Native American mound, a group of archeologists were called in to excavate the site. The archeologists came upon an amazing discovery when they uncovered the ruins of a large stone and wood structure. So unlike any other find found at a Hopewell site, British Egyptologist, James Rendel Harris from the London Museum, was consulted. At the site, Harris identified the structure as an “Egyptian Temple”. A single newspaper article documents this account.

I know! Amazing! An Egyptian temple in East Tennessee of all places, AND why is this fact not widely known??!! I’ll tell you why, Dear Reader, our ignorance of the Egyptian temple ruins in East Tennessee is the consequence of Manifest Destiny.

When European colonists settled North America they found immense earth mounds and earthwork enclosures, larger than Giza in Egypt. Manifest Destiny and all that, it seemed prudent to plow it all under.The vanquished Native inhabitants were deemed ignorant savages. In regards to the Native Americans, consequentialism was the morality of the day, in other words “the ends justify the means”.

“The geography of the Book of Mormon has been a complex issue with multiple factors involved.  For example, when the book was first published, it was commonly thought that Native American Indians had never achieved the level of “civilization” as defined in the book Ancient Society by Lewis Henry Morgan which had become the handbook of instruction for the US government in dealing with the Indians.  Morgan proposed that all human societies evolve through three stages of development, from being ignorant savages (a term he then used to label the Native Americans) to barbarism and finally on towards civilization.  John Wesley Powell, Ephraim George Squier and Morgan were three highly influential men in science, politics and Native American affairs, governing such organizations as the AAAS (American Association for Advancement of Science), the Bureau of Ethnology, the Smithsonian Institution, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and were very active politically.  Both Powell and Squier’s fathers happened to be Methodist ministers in Palmyra New York in the 1820’s when the Book of Mormon was first published and these men began what non-Mormon scholars have called the “wanton destruction” of the ancient history of the Mound Builder civilization.” -Rod L. Meldrum

Over parts of the eastern half of the United States, farmers put their plows to what they wanted to believe was virgin turf. They uncovered arrowheads by the bucketfuls, clay pots, long metal “knives” and occasional stone boxes with the bones of the dead. Thousands of mounds and earthwork stockades were leveled with shovels.  Native American pottery, and other artifacts, and even the bones themselves sometimes made it into private collections. For the most part the metal was melted down and recycled. For a time, bones were ground up into fertilizer, and the unwanted artifacts were thrown into trash piles. European civilization was the victor, and it was in the best interest to promote a Anglo-Saxon version of history. As the immense earthworks were leveled, the North American Native population was completely conquered by wiping away the history and accomplishments of the ancient inhabitants.

Least we frown and waggle our forefingers at our European ancestors with our modern 21^st century morality; this conquering business was nothing new to humanity. One group of humans subduing another group of humans seems to me pretty typical human behavior. Conquerors all over the world, throughout recorded history, and across all civilizations, have made it part of their conquering to erase the traces of the previous dynasties.

Battle of Franklin

A perfect example of what occurred in the eastern US, both north and south and including the mid-west, happened where I live. Just south of the town of Franklin Tennessee, on the southern edge of the Eastern flank of the Battle of Franklin where the Army of the Ohio soundly beat the Army of Tennessee on that fateful afternoon of November 30, 1864, is a completely demolished Hopewell Mound Site of the Mississippian period (900-1450AD) identified as the DeGraffenreid Site.

Our house sits on the edge of a ridge just a few yards from a large bend in the Harpeth River, right outside of the approximately 20 acre DeGraffenreid Site in a quiet middle-class subdivision of modest red brick homes. Most people would never guess the rich and varied history of land which has been inhabited by humankind for at least a thousand years. I, in fact did not know about the DeGraffenreid site literally right under us, until very recently, and we have lived here for 22 years.

To give you a little history lesson, Dear Reader, the first known inhabitants of our little piece of heaven were the Hopewell Natives of the Mississippian period. Later American settlers, most notably a family of moonshiners who spanned several generations, before, during and after the Civil War, who proudly claimed to be the “biggest moonshining outfit in the county” lived on our property situated between a narrow neck of  land between the 20 acre DeGraffenreid site and 5 Mile Creek which empties into the Harpeth River. The moonshiners were shut down in the 1930’s by a no-nonsense county sheriff who filled the family car with bullet holes and threatened to do the same to the family if they didn’t cease and desist with the illegal distillery. During the Civil War, several skirmishes happened nearby and a Confederate Calvary regiment commanded by Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest camped on our property after the Battle of Franklin.

The DeGraffenreid mounds, one large and eight significantly smaller, were enclosed by an immense stockade. Farmers in the 1800’s greatly damaged the site by leveling the mounds and the stockade. Amateur archeologists shortly after the Civil War carted off some of the artifacts. At the turn of the last century, an early Monsanto company mined the area for phosphate, so by 1919 all traces of the mounds were gone.

Red dot is where the Benson homestead is probably located

After extensive damage was done, during the late 1960’s, we can thank University of Tennessee-Knoxville archeologist H.C. (Buddy) Brehm who visited the site and conducted a meager salvage of the remaining items and more importantly provided documentation of the  DeGraffenreid site. Without Mr Brehm we would know, even less, of the DeGraffenreid site. Unfortunately where these relics are today, cannot be determined. An interesting bit of information from burial mound H1:

“four copper crosses (copper plates embossed with a copper cross design)”. From Potash From Pyramids: Reconstructing Degraffenreid (40WM4)–A MIssissippian Mound Complex in Williamson County Tennessee

I did a little digging to find out more about Buddy Brehm and I came across this forehead slapping tidbit:

SIAS members Bob Ferguson (center) and Buddy Brehm (right) discussing the sabertooth cat find with an unidentified worker, summer 1971. Photo courtesy of Les Leverett.

“During this time there was not a State Archaeologist or antiquities laws in Tennessee, nor were there any universities interested in the archaeology of the region. State laws did not yet protect prehistoric human remains, and when an ancient graveyard was encountered during development, the graves were open to whoever wanted to dig them. My memories from that time include seeing Boy Scout troops digging graves to earn their “Indian Lore” badges, and housewives digging with their kitchen utensils. SIAS members were also present on these sites, though with the intention of recording as much information as possible before graves were bulldozed away. ” John T Dowd

See: https://tennesseearchaeologycouncil.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/30-days-of-tennessee-archaeology-day-26-archaeology-in-middle-tennessee-in-the-1960s-and-70s/

If this all weren’t so tragic, it would be really hilarious in a Keystone Cops kinda way. Think about it, Dear Reader, if this chunk of tantalizing history could exist unknown to me, a person who loves history, right under my nose for two decades….

This brings us to Wayne May and Rod Meldrum. Neither of these gentlemen hold degrees in history or archeology, but instead are Book Of Mormon enthusiasts who are able to think outside the box and have spent many years studying and visiting the Hopewell Civilizations, documenting their discoveries. They maintain that the destruction of other Hopewell sites, similar to the DeGraffinreid site, was repeated over much of the eastern half of the United States, including the mid-west. May and Meldrum believe the North American Hopewell civilizations were the People of Lehi and the Jaredites, and the events described in the Book of Mormon played out not in Mesoamerica, but right here in the United States. May and Meldrum have amassed an amazing amount of data to support their claims.

You can look at the vast evidence they have collected in two presentations available on Youtube. These presentations by Wayne May are long, but well worth your time. We popped a whole lotta popcorn and watched the videos for a couple of Family Home evenings (parent, young adult, high school and elementary age family members). I am happy to report a good time was had by all. Source https://www.millennialstar.org/tag/degraffenreid-stie/

Secrets About ‘Tennessee’s Ancient Egyptian Temple’ Revealed

“The project identified 23 sites in the area that soon became the bottom of a series of lakes created by the dam. There were 29 mounds at the sites: 20 earth mounds, 9 stone mounds, and several village areas. Twelve of the mounds were found to be burial mounds and 17 had prehistoric structures associated with them. A total of 54 wooden structures were identified. The subsequent report on the project related that all of important sites were excavated and all of the artifacts and other archaeologically important materials were preserved. The full report was published by the Smithsonian as “Ethnology Bulletin 118” and was written by Webb. The report contains dozens of intriguing photos of the mounds, excavations, artifacts, and skeletal remains.

One mound, the “Irvin Mound,” had a row of 10 standing stones, most of which were about 2-4 feet in height. Adjacent to the line of standing stones was the remains of a rectangular building formed by cedar posts. Inside this rectangular building was another line of small standing stones.

Oddly, a copper coin, button, and bead were found at a depth of 18 inches inside another structure under a smaller adjacent mound”. Ancientpages.com Aug 15, 2018

Prehistoric American Indians in Tennessee

The following essay was sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2009 and the Tennessee State Museum. For more on Tennessee history visit: http://www.tn4me.org Download PDF by Jefferson Chapman, McClung Museum, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The state of Tennessee is long and narrow, stretching 432 miles from the high mountains of the Appalachians and the Great Smoky Mountains on the east to the Mississippi River on the west. Moving from east to west, the state is divided into six major physiographic provinces (Figure 1): the Unaka Mountains (Appalachians), the Great Valley, the Cumberland Plateau, the Highland Rim which surrounds the fifth, the Central Basin, and the Gulf Coastal Plain of West Tennessee (Folmsbee, Corlew, and Mitchell 1969). The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers and their tributaries flow through the state and a number of rivers in West Tennessee are tributaries of the Mississippi River. These physiographic provinces and river valleys provide a diversity in natural resources and environments that have affected human settlement and adaptation for millennia. While there are many differences in the prehistoric Indian cultures found in East, Middle, and West Tennessee, there are general characteristics that they shared over time.

Figure 1. Physiographic provinces of Tennessee (Luther 1977).

Our knowledge of the prehistoric Indians of Tennessee is a result of over 150 years of archaeological investigations. Archaeology is the scientific discipline responsible for the recovery and interpretation of the remains of past cultures. Modern archaeology has three basic objectives: first, employing excavations and analysis based on scientific principles, archaeologists seek to develop temporal sequences of past cultures; second, archaeologists seek to reconstruct the lifeways of past human societies; and third, archaeologists address the evolution and operation of cultural systems—topics such as the origins of agriculture and changes in political organization. Places where cultural remains are found are called sites, and these may be as simple as a location where several arrowheads are found and as complex as a ten acre village and mound complex.

Scanty written information about the Indians of Tennessee and the Southeast come from chronicles of the sixteenth-century Spanish (Hudson 1990), seventeenth-century French (Williams 1928), and eighteenth-century British expeditions (King 2007). As Euro-American settlers moved westward across Tennessee in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the many mounds and earthworks they encountered became a focus of speculative interpretation, often based on scripture or comparison to cultures in other parts of the world. The most pervasive was the theory of the Mound Builders which held that the ancient mounds were the remains of an extinct culture, likely the Canaanites and Lost Tribes of Israel (Silverberg 1968).

By the 1870s, antiquarian collecting and speculation were replaced with more systematic excavations in Middle (Jones 1876, Putnam 1878, Thruston 1890) and East (Thomas 1894) Tennessee and these clearly demonstrated that the prehistoric mounds and villages were constructed by the American Indians and that the occupants may have been ancestors of historic tribes of the Southeast. By the 1920s, excavations made it clear that many sites were occupied over time by successive Indian groups (Harrington 1922).

With the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933, there began a massive archaeological recovery program using federal relief workers (CWA, WPA) in valleys to be inundated. Between 1934-1942, surveys and excavations were conducted in the Pickwick, Guntersville, Chickamauga, Kentucky, Watts Bar, Douglas, and Fort Loudoun reservoirs. In addition, limited excavations were conducted at the Obion, Link, Pack, and Mound Bottom sites in Middle and West Tennessee. This period saw the establishment of professional archaeology in the state and increased enormously our understanding of the prehistoric Indian occupations locally.

In the 1940s a technique to date organic material (charcoal, wood, bone, shell) from archaeological sites was developed. Called radiocarbon dating (Libby 1955), archaeologists were now able to determine how long ago sites had been occupied—and suddenly the Indian occupation of Tennessee became very long.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a series of state and federal laws enacted that are designed to protect, preserve, and manage archaeological sites (TCA 11-6-101 et seq., The Reservoir Salvage Act of 1960, National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, The Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act of 1974, and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979). Among other things, these laws required that for any project on state or federal land, or that is funded by or permitted by state or federal agencies, the project must identify and mitigate the impact on archaeological sites. Consequently, there has been an enormous amount of archaeological work done in Tennessee over the past 40 years ranging from major reservoir projects such as the Tellico, Normandy, and Columbia, to road, bridge, sewer line, and transmission line projects.

Archaeologists divide the time humans have been in eastern Tennessee into periods. These periods are both references to some span of time, and to some stage in a continuum of increasing social complexity.

The result of the past 150 years of archaeological work is that we now know a lot about the prehistoric Indian occupation of Tennessee. Archaeologists divide the time people have been in Tennessee into a series of major periods (Figure 2). These periods are both references to a span of time and to a stage in a continuum of increasing social complexity. Ancient native peoples formed numerous and varied social and political groupings that changed through time during each of the archaeological periods. Although ancestral to native peoples of today, the ethnic and tribal affiliations of these ancient societies are unknown. The prehistoric peoples of Tennessee may well be the ancestors of several southeastern tribes.

The First Tennesseans: The PaleoIndian Period

Figure 3. Clovis type spear points, lengths 5.4 and 4.7 inches. Ernest J. Sims Collection

One of the big issues in American archaeology is the peopling of the New World. The traditional explanation has been that during the last Ice Age, the sea levels were as much as 300 feet lower than today thus exposing a dry land bridge across the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska. Around 13,000 years ago, bands of hunters with their families crossed into North America and radiated across the continent, their presence recorded by Clovis points (Figure 3)—a distinctive lanceolate stone spear point with flutes or grooves on each face and named for the Clovis site in New Mexico where they were found in association with extinct mammoths.

In the last two decades evidence has mounted that suggest an earlier, pre-Clovis arrival of people into the New World (Malakoff 2008). Monte Verde, a site in Chile, is dated 14,500YBP (Dillehay 1989, 1997). Human feces from Paisley Caves, Oregon, have been dated 14,300YBP (Curry 2008); and genetic studies comparing modern Native American genes to native Siberians show that the populations diverged 15-20,000 years ago (Goebel et al. 2008). These and other data indicate a date of 15,000+ YBP for the beginning of the PaleoIndian period.

Figure 4. Mastodon molar and bones at the Coats-Hines site.

Evidence for PaleoIndians in Tennessee comes primarily from finds of fluted spear points and other distinctive cutting and scraping stone tools. Over 1,000 fluted points have been found across the state and over 100 sites identified. Concentrations of these artifacts may indicate the location of base camps where a number of activities would have occurred. A particularly good example is the Carson-Conn-Short site in Benton County (Broster and Norton 1993), which contains over forty hearths. The greatest concentration of evidence for PaleoIndian occupation is the western valley of the Tennessee River and the Central Basin particularly along the Cumberland River. This may be due to the high-quality chert resources in the western valley and the availability of mineral-rich soils, springs, and licks in the Central Basin where animals such as the mastodon, an extinct Ice Age elephant, likely congregated (Breitburg and Broster 1994).

Two sites show the direct association of humans with mastodons, At the Coats-Hines site in Williams County, thirty-four stone artifacts were found with the remains of a juvenile male mastodon (Figure 4); stone tool cut marks were present on a vertebra (Breitburg et al. 1996). At the Trull site in Perry County (Norton, Broster, and Breitburg 1998), a modified section of a mastodon tusk was found.

PaleoIndians have been often referred to as big game hunters, focusing on the now-extinct large animals of the last Ice Age (Figure 5). A more accurate description would be to call them generalized foragers who supplemented their diet of plant foods and small game with an occasional opportunistic killing of a mastodon. To understand the cultural organization of the PaleoIndians, archaeologists look at studies of living groups of foragers and construct theoretical models. Thus we believe that PaleoIndians were organized into bands in which several related families occupied and exploited a certain territory. A typical band may have numbered twenty to twenty-five persons and been comprised of a mother and father, their unmarried children, their married sons with their families, a few uncles and aunts, and a grandparent or two (this assumes that the society was organized along male lines; later societies were organized along female lines).

This social group had little political organization except for a nominal leader chosen perhaps for his hunting prowess. The band moved occasionally to take advantage of the seasonal availability of certain plants and animals, but probably also had a base camp where a greater portion of their time was spent. Bands would join with other bands from time to time to hunt game, to exchange items, or for marriage between groups. Religious beliefs probably focused heavily on a respect for and an explanation of various natural forces. Of particular importance would be ceremonies designed to assure success in the hunt and continued abundance of game. In times of sickness or stress, the band looked to a shaman who was thought to have received power from supernatural forces.

Clothing can be assumed to have been sufficient for the environment in which the group lived. Similarly housing would range from simple lean-tos to more elaborate enclosures as the weather and mobility warranted. One must realize that these bands did not wander aimlessly. Their culture was an adaptation to whatever situation they encountered, and although band level society seems “primitive” when compared to later more complex groups, it provided all the physical and spiritual needs of the group.

References

• Breitburg, Emmanuel and John B. Broster 1994 Paleoindian Site, Lithic, and Mastodon Remains in Tennessee. Current Research in the Pleistocene 11:9-11.
• Broster, John B. and Mark R. Norton 1993 The Carson-Conn-Short Site (40BN190): An Extensive Clovis Habitation in Benton County, Tennessee. Current Research in the Pleistocene 10:3-5.
• Curry, Andrew 2008 Ancient Excrement. Archaeology 61(4):42-45.
• Folmsbee, Stanley J, Robert Corlew and Enoch L. Mitchell 1969 Tennessee: A Short History. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.
• Goebel, Ted, Michael C. Waters, and Dennis H. O’Rourke 2008 The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas. Science 319(5869):1497-1502.
• Harrington, M.R. 1922 Cherokee and Earlier Remains on Upper Tennessee River. Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, Indian Notes and Monographs, Miscellaneous Series No.24.
• Hudson, Charles 1990 The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566-1568. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington.
• Jones, Joseph 1876 Explorations of the Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge No. 259. Washington, DC
• King, Duane H. (editor) 2007 The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake: The Story of a Soldier, Adventurer and Emissary to the Cherokees, 1756-1765. Museum of the Cherokee Indian Press, Cherokee, NC.
• Libby, Willard 1955 Radiocarbon Dating. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
• Luther, Edward T. 1977 Our Restless Earth: The Geologic Regions of Tennessee. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.
• Malakoff, David 2008 Rethinking the Clovis. American Archaeology 12(4): 26-31.
• Morgan, William N. 1999 Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
• Norton, Mark R., John B. Broster, Emmanuel Breitburg 1998 The Trull Site (40PY276). Current Research in the Pleistocene 15:50-51.
• Putnam, Fredrick W. 1878 Archaeological Explorations in Tennessee. Eleventh Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology 2 (2):305-360).
• Silverberg, Robert 1968 Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archaeology of a Myth. New York Graphics Society, Ltd.
• Simek, Jan F. and Alan Cressler 2008 On the Backs of Serpents: Prehistoric Cave Art in the Southeastern Woodlands. In David Dye, Cave Archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands: Essays in Honor of Patty Jo Watson, pp. 169-191. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.
• Thomas, Cyrus 1894 Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethology, Washington.
• Thruston, Gates P. 1897 Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States. Second Edition. The Robert Clarke Company, Cincinnati.
• Williams, Samuel Cole (editor) 1928 Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 1540-1800. The Watauga Press, Johnson
  City, Tennessee.
• Yarnell, Richard A. 1993 The Importance of Native Crops during the Late Archaic and Woodland Periods. In Foraging and Farming in the Eastern Woodlands, edited by C. Margaret Scarry, pp. 13-26. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

“In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it. It is the war between good and evil, and we are belligerents defending the good. We are therefore obliged to give preference to and protect all that is represented in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have made covenants to do it.

Some of our scholars establish for themselves a posture of neutrality. They call it “sympathetic detachment.” Historians are particularly wont to do that. If they make a complimentary statement about the Church, they seem to have to counter it with something that is uncomplimentary.

Some of them, since they are members of the Church, are quite embarrassed with the thought that they might be accused of being partial. They care very much what the world thinks and are very careful to include in their writings criticism of the Church leaders of the past.

They particularly strive to be acclaimed as historians as measured by the world’s standard. They would do well to read Nephi’s vision of the iron rod and ponder verses 24–28.,,,

And I want to say in all seriousness that there is a limit to the patience of the Lord with respect to those who are under covenant to bless and protect His Church and kingdom upon the earth but do not do it…

…Those of you who are employed by the Church have a special responsibility to build faith, not destroy it. If you do not do that, but in fact accommodate the enemy, who is the destroyer of faith, you become in that sense a traitor to the cause you have made covenants to protect…

I would not contribute to publications, nor would I belong to organizations, that by spirit or inclination are faith destroying. There are plenty of scholars in the world determined to find all secular truth. There are so few of us, relatively speaking, striving to convey the spiritual truths, who are protecting the Church. We cannot safely be neutral.” The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect Elder Boyd K. Packer

“We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.” D&C 121:39

BYU and Organic Evolution

“In the mid-20th century, President Joseph Fielding Smith published a large volume expressing his concerns regarding Darwinism and the theory of evolution, in part because several of his colleagues among the general authorities desired it of him. He taught regularly that Darwin’s philosophies were “a trick of the devil inspired by Lucifer” as a way to deceive both Christian and non-Christian alike. He taught that the Darwinian doctrines remove the three foundations upon which the Gospel is built:; namely, the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. President Smith further taught that those who are guilty of promoting organic evolution will be held accountable before God, and will receive the fruits of their spiritually-destructive labors.[footnote] Finally, President Smith taught that organic evolution stands as Satan’s chief weapon against the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our day:
“. . . organic evolution is Satan’s chief weapon in this dispensation in his attempt to destroy the divine mission of Jesus Christ. It is a contemptible plot against faith in God and to destroy the effective belief in the divine atonement of our Redeemer through which men may be saved from their sins and find place in the Kingdom of God. There is not and cannot be any compromise between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the theories of evolution. Were evolution true, there could be no remission of sin.” Quoted by “FAITH CRISIS: Did the LDS Church Lie? (Part 1 )” by James and Hannah Stoddard chapter 9

Why did President Joseph F. Smith dismiss three professors from Brigham Young University in 1910 for teaching organic evolution?

Source: https://josephsmithfoundation.org/faqs/science/13-3-byu-professors-why-did-president-joseph-f-smith-dismiss-three-professors-from-brigham-young-university-for-teaching-organic-evolution/

Commentary

Please see Boyd K. Packer’s speech that touches heavily on this event. A source for the history on this subject is Brigham Young University: A School of Destiny, compiled by Ernest L. Wilkinson and W. Cleon Skousen or Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years, vol. 1, by Ernest L. Wilkinson. 

Note to reader: In researching information on this subject, please be careful to find a history of this incident that is not negative toward President Joseph F. Smith and the history of the Church. Most modern writers take the position of the modernist/evolutionist and feel that President Joseph F. Smith was in error and that the true heroes of this story are the professors who contended with the Prophet. Brigham Young University has had a very interesting history when it comes to the teaching of Darwinian evolution. Brigham Young Academy, the forerunner of BYU was established to refute the false theories of Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and Louis Compton Miall all prominent biologists who dedicated much of their lives to establishing the doctrine of organic evolution as the solution to the mystery of life. Please see this FAQ for details. Later during the presidency of Joseph F. Smith the University moved far from its moorings. New highly educated professors were hired who desired to move the teaching environment far from the foundation laid by President Brigham Young and Karl G. Maeser. President Boyd K. Packer explained the situation:

. . . we must go back to 1910. George Brimhall, having already served 19 years as president of BYU, determined to establish a recognized teachers college. He had hired three professors: one with a master’s degree from Harvard, one with a doctorate from Cornell, and the other with a doctorate from Chicago. They hoped to transform the college into a full-fledged university. They determined that practicality and religion, which had characterized the school, must now give way to more intellectual and scientific philosophies. The professors held that “the fundamentals of religion could and must be investigated by extending the [empirical] method into the spiritual realm,” and they “considered evolution to be a basic, spiritual principle through which the divinity in nature expressed itself.” The faculty sided with the new professors and the students rallied to them.¹

The three BYU professors mentioned above taught these concepts, as well as other false scientific and philosophical theories including:

1. The Bible contains many myths and large portions of scripture should not be taken literally.
2. The accounts in scripture of the Creation, Fall, Flood, Confusion of Tongues and other events should not be considered actual events.
3. The theory of evolution should be treated as a demonstrated law and applications of it to gospel truths give rise to many curious and conflicting explanations of scripture.
4. The writings of prophets should not be held as fixed eternal truth, but as evolving over time.
5. The scriptures should be interpreted in the light of modernism.

George Brimhall, President of BYU, was apprised of the influence that this teaching was having on the BYU students. Some of the students “frankly told him they had quit praying because they learned in school there was no real God to hear them.”². After learning of the weakening of the students’ faith, President Brimhall had this dream:

He saw several of the BYU professors standing around a peculiar machine on the campus. When one of them touched a spring a baited fish hook attached to a long thin wire rose rapidly into the air. . . . Casting his eyes around the sky he [President Brimhall] discovered a flock of snow-white birds circling among the clouds and disporting themselves in the sky, seemingly very happy. Presently one of them, seeing the bait on the hook, darted toward it and grabbed it. Instantly one of the professors on the ground touched a spring in the machine, and the bird was rapidly hauled down to the earth. On reaching the ground the bird proved to be a BYU student, clad in an ancient Greek costume, and was directed to join a group of other students who had been brought down in a similar manner. Brother Brimhall walked over to them, and noticing that all of them looked very sad, discouraged and downcast, he asked them: Why, students, what on earth makes you so sad and downhearted?” Alas, we can never fly again!” they replied with a sigh and a sad shake of the head. Their Greek philosophy had tied them to the earth. They could believe only what they could demonstrate in the laboratory. Their prayers could go no higher than the ceiling. They could see no heaven—no hereafter.”

The issues surrounding the three professors became more serious. President Brimhall defended his professors, but as time continued the pressure became great. Eventually, President Joseph F. Smith had the professors removed from the faculty. President Smith gave this reasoning for his actions in the matter:

Recently there was some trouble…in one of the leading Church schools—the training college of the Brigham Young University—where three of the professors advanced certain theories on evolution as applied to the origin of man, and certain opinions on “higher criticism,” as conclusive and demonstrated truths. This was done although it is well known that evolution and the “higher criticism” . . . are in conflict on some matters with the scriptures, including some modern revelation . . . The Church, on the contrary, holds to the definite authority of divine revelation which must be the standard; and that, as so-called “science” has changed from age to age in its deductions, and as divine revelation is truth, and must abide forever, views as to the lesser should conform to the positive statements of the greater; and, further, that in institutions founded by the Church for the teaching of theology, as well as other branches of education, its instructors must be in harmony in their teachings with its principles and doctrines . . . as teachers in a Church school they could not be given opportunity to inculcate theories that were out of harmony with the recognized doctrines of the Church, and hence [they were] required to refrain from so doing . . . ”³

President Smith clearly understood the consequences of allowing teaching to occur on Church campuses that destroys faith. He also clearly understood the contradictions between the theories of Darwinian Evolution and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of these consequences have been illustrated by President Boyd K. Packer. President Packer explained the result of this experience on one of the professors:

And now to Sunday, January 8, 1956. President David O. McKay came to Brigham City to dedicate a chapel built for students of the Intermountain Indian School. I stood next to him to introduce those who came forward to shake his hand. A very old man, a stranger to me, came forward on the arm of his daughter. He had come some distance to speak to President McKay. It was impossible for me not to hear their conversation. He gave President McKay his name and said that many years ago he had taught at BYU. President McKay said, “Yes, I know who you are.” Tears came as the old man spoke sorrowfully about the burden he had carried for years. President McKay was very tender in consoling him. “I know your heart,” he said. That old man was one of the three professors who had been hired by President Brimhall in 1910.”⁴

This is the experience of one of those “learned” professors who strayed from holding to the rod of iron. What of the consequences to the President who hired the learned professors and weakened the faith of unsuspecting students? For unknown reasons President Brimhall ended his own life with a hunting rifle. These are all tragic experiences, but the true casualties are the students and those that have been influenced through the years by these subtle philosophies. President Boyd K. Packer has taught that these issues are serious:

The knowledge that we are the children of God is a refining, even an exalting truth. On the other hand, no idea has been more destructive of happiness, no philosophy has produced more sorrow, more heartbreak, more suffering and mischief, no idea has contributed more to the erosion of the family than the idea that we are not the offspring of God, but only advanced animals. There flows from that idea the not too subtle perception that we are compelled to yield to every carnal urge, are subject to physical but not to moral law. The man-from-animal theory has been passed about enough to be pronounced true on the basis of general acceptance. Because it seems to offer logical explanations for some things, it is widely taught and generally accepted as the solution to the mystery of life. I know there are two views on the subject. But it is one thing to measure this theory soley against intellectual or academic standards, quite another to measure it against moral or spiritual or doctrinal standards. When the theory that man is the offspring of animals is planted in young minds, it should be accompanied by careful instruction to set it in isolation in the garden of the mind until faith is well rooted. Otherwise, seeds of doubt may spring up and choke out the seedling of faith, and the harvest will be bitter fruit and the giver will have served the wrong master.”⁵

President Howard W. Hunter also spoke strongly of where we should stand on the issue of modernism:

The Old Testament unfolds the story of the creation of the earth and mankind by God. Should we now disregard this account and modernize the creation according to the theories of the modernists? Can we say there was no Garden of Eden or an Adam and Eve? Because modernists now declare the story of the flood is unreasonable and impossible, should we disbelieve the account of Noah and the flood as related in the Old Testament? Let us examine what the Master said when the disciples came to him as he sat on the Mount of Olives. They asked him to tell them of the time of his coming and of the end of the world. Jesus answered: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” (Matthew 24:36–39). In this statement the Master confirmed the story of the flood without modernizing it. Can we accept some of the statements of the Lord as being true and at the same time reject others as being false? When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, and they discussed the matter of the death of her brother and the resurrection. Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”(John 11:25) . Both of these statements, the one regarding Noah and the fact of the flood and the one in which he declared himself to be the resurrection and the life, were made by the Lord. How can we believe one and not the other? How can we modernize the story of the flood, or refer to it as a myth, and yet cling to the truth of the other? How can we modernize the Bible and still have it be a guiding light to us and a vital influence in our beliefs? There are those who declare it is old-fashioned to believe in the Bible. Is it old-fashioned to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God? Is it old-fashioned to believe in his atoning sacrifice and the resurrection? If it is, I declare myself to be old-fashioned and the Church to be old-fashioned. In great simplicity, the Master taught the principles of life eternal and lessons that bring happiness to those with the faith to believe.” ⁶

Gospel Classics: The Origin of Man

By the First Presidency of the Church From Improvement Era, Nov. 1909, 75–81; capitalization, punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling standardized and color added.

“God created man in his own image” (Gen. 1:27).

In the early 1900s, questions concerning the Creation of the earth and the theories of evolution became the subject of much public discussion. In the midst of these controversies, the First Presidency issued the following in 1909, which expresses the Church’s doctrinal position on these matters. A reprinting of this important First Presidency statement will be helpful as members of the Church study.

“Inquiries arise from time to time respecting the attitude of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints upon questions which, though not vital from a doctrinal standpoint, are closely connected with the fundamental principles of salvation. The latest inquiry of this kind that has reached us is in relation to the origin of man. It is believed that a statement of the position held by the Church upon this subject will be timely and productive of good.

In presenting the statement that follows we are not conscious of putting forth anything essentially new; neither is it our desire so to do. Truth is what we wish to present, and truth—eternal truth—is fundamentally old. A restatement of the original attitude of the Church relative to this matter is all that will be attempted here. To tell the truth as God has revealed it, and commend it to the acceptance of those who need to conform their opinions thereto, is the sole purpose of this presentation.

“God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” In these plain and pointed words the inspired author of the book of Genesis made known to the world the truth concerning the origin of the human family. Moses, the prophet-historian—“learned,” as we are told, “in all the wisdom of the Egyptians”—when making this important announcement was not voicing a mere opinion, a theory derived from his researches into the occult lore of that ancient people. He was speaking as the mouthpiece of God, and his solemn declaration was for all time and for all people. No subsequent revelator of the truth has contradicted the great leader and lawgiver of Israel. All who have since spoken by divine authority upon this theme have confirmed his simple and sublime proclamation. Nor could it be otherwise. Truth has but one source, and all revelations from heaven are harmonious with each other. The omnipotent Creator, the maker of heaven and earth, had shown unto Moses everything pertaining to this planet, including the facts relating to man’s origin, and the authoritative pronouncement of that mighty prophet and seer to the house of Israel, and through Israel to the whole world, is couched in the simple clause: “God created man in his own image” (Gen. 1:27; see Moses 1:27–41).

The creation was twofold—first spiritual, secondly temporal. This truth, also, Moses plainly taught—much more plainly than it has come down to us in the imperfect translations of the Bible that are now in use. Therein the fact of a spiritual creation, antedating the temporal creation, is strongly implied, but the proof of it is not so clear and conclusive as in other records held by the Latter-day Saints to be of equal authority with the Jewish scriptures. The partial obscurity of the latter upon the point in question is owing, no doubt, to the loss of those “plain and precious” parts of sacred writ, which, as the Book of Mormon informs us, have been taken away from the Bible during its passage down the centuries (see 1 Ne. 13:24–29). Some of these missing parts the Prophet Joseph Smith undertook to restore when he revised those scriptures by the spirit of revelation, the result being that more complete account of the Creation which is found in the book of Moses, previously cited. Note the following passages:

“And now, behold, I say unto you, that these are the generations of the heaven and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that I, the Lord God, made the heaven and the earth,

“And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For I, the Lord God, created all things of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth. For I, the Lord God, had not caused it to rain upon the face of the earth. And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men; and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them, and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air;

“But, I, the Lord God, spake, and there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

“And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created; but spiritually were they created and made according to my word” (Moses 3:4–7; see also Moses 1 and Moses 2, and compare with Gen. 1 and Gen. 2).

These two points being established, namely, the creation of man in the image of God, and the twofold character of the Creation, let us now inquire: What was the form of man, in the spirit and in the body, as originally created? In a general way the answer is given in the words chosen as the text of this treatise. “God created man in his own image.” It is more explicitly rendered in the Book of Mormon thus: “All men were created in the beginning after mine own image” (Ether 3:15). … If, therefore, we can ascertain the form of the “Father of spirits,” “The God of the spirits of all flesh,” we shall be able to discover the form of the original man.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is “the express image” of His Father’s person (Heb. 1:3). He walked the earth as a human being, as a perfect man, and said, in answer to a question put to Him: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). This alone ought to solve the problem to the satisfaction of every thoughtful, reverent mind. The conclusion is irresistible, that if the Son of God be the express image (that is, likeness) of His Father’s person, then His Father is in the form of a man; for that was the form of the Son of God, not only during His mortal life, but before His mortal birth, and after His Resurrection. It was in this form that the Father and the Son, as two personages, appeared to Joseph Smith, when, as a boy of 14 years, he received his first vision. Then if God made man—the first man—in His own image and likeness, He must have made him like unto Christ, and consequently like unto men of Christ’s time and of the present day. That man was made in the image of Christ is positively stated in the book of Moses: “And I, God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the beginning, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and it was so. …

“And I, God, created man in mine own image, in the image of mine Only Begotten created I him; male and female created I them” (Moses 2:26–27).

The Father of Jesus is our Father also. Jesus Himself taught this truth when He instructed His disciples how to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven,” etc. Jesus, however, is the firstborn among all the sons of God—the first begotten in the spirit, and the only begotten in the flesh. He is our elder brother, and we, like Him, are in the image of God. All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.

“God created man in His own image.” This is just as true of the spirit as it is of the body, which is only the clothing of the spirit, its complement—the two together constituting the soul. The spirit of man is in the form of man, and the spirits of all creatures are in the likeness of their bodies. This was plainly taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith (see D&C 77:2).

Here is further evidence of the fact. More than 700 years before Moses was shown the things pertaining to this earth, another great prophet, known to us as the brother of Jared, was similarly favored by the Lord. He was even permitted to behold the spirit-body of the foreordained Savior, prior to His incarnation; and so like the body of a man was gazing upon a being of flesh and blood. He first saw the finger and then the entire body of the Lord—all in the spirit. The Book of Mormon says of this wonderful manifestation:

“And it came to pass that when the brother of Jared had said these words, behold, the Lord stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by one with his finger. And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood; and the brother of Jared fell down before the Lord, for he was struck with fear.

“And the Lord saw that the brother of Jared had fallen to the earth; and the Lord said to him: Arise, why hast thou fallen?

“And he saith unto the Lord: I saw the finger of the Lord, and I feared lest he should smite me; for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood.

“And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger. Sawest thou more than this?

“And he answered: Nay; Lord, show thyself unto me.

“And the Lord said unto him: Believest thou the words which I shall speak?

“And he answered, Yea, Lord, I know that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth, and canst not lie.

“And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said: Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back into my presence; therefore I show myself unto you.

“Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters.

“And never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, for never has man believed in me as thou hast. Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image? Yea, even all men were created in the beginning after mine own image.

“Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh” (Ether 3:6–16).

What more is needed to convince us that man, both in spirit and in body, is the image and likeness of God and that God Himself is in the form of a man?

When the divine Being whose spirit-body the brother of Jared beheld took upon Him flesh and blood, He appeared as a man, having “body, parts and passions,” like other men, though vastly superior to all others, because He was God, even the Son of God, the Word made flesh: in Him “dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And why should He not appear as a man? That was the form of His spirit, and it must needs have an appropriate covering, a suitable tabernacle. He came into the world as He had promised to come (see 3 Ne. 1:13), taking an infant tabernacle and developing it gradually to the fulness of His spirit stature. He came as man had been coming for ages and as man has continued to come ever since. Jesus, however, as shown, was the Only Begotten of God in the flesh.

Adam, our first progenitor, “the first man,” was, like Christ, a preexistent spirit, and like Christ he took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a “living soul.” The doctrine of the preexistence—revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days—pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches that all men existed in the spirit before any man existed in the flesh and that all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner.

It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.

True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man.

Man, by searching, cannot find out God. Never, unaided, will he discover the truth about the beginning of human life. The Lord must reveal Himself or remain unrevealed; and the same is true of the facts relating to the origin of Adam’s race—God alone can reveal them. Some of these facts, however, are already known, and what has been made known it is our duty to receive and retain.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity. God Himself is an exalted man, perfected, enthroned, and supreme. By His almighty power He organized the earth and all that it contains, from spirit and element, which exist coeternally with Himself. He formed every plant that grows and every animal that breathes, each after its own kind, spiritually and temporally—“that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal, and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual.” He made the tadpole and the ape, the lion and the elephant, but He did not make them in His own image, nor endow them with godlike reason and intelligence. Nevertheless, the whole animal creation will be perfected and perpetuated in the Hereafter, each class in its “distinct order or sphere,” and will enjoy “eternal felicity.” That fact has been made plain in this dispensation (see D&C 77:3).

Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.”
Joseph F. Smith
John R. Winder
Anthon H. Lund
First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints November 1909

Brigham Young

President Young saw the dangers of false philosophies and desired Church schools to combat them. The two primary concerns that rested upon President Young were evolution (Darwinian evolution) and Marxism (socialism/communism). The Presidents of the Church have continually warned of the dangers of teaching that man descended from lower forms of life and President Young was no exception. President Young felt that the theories of Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley, who was known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his advocacy of the theories of organic evolution, were corrupting the youth among the Saints in his day. Another prominent Darwinist, Louis Compton Miall, was also noted as a threat to the youth. Because of this, President Young used his own financial means to create an academy where these false philosophies could be refuted. This Academy was named Brigham Young Academy and later became Brigham Young University. Brother Hugh Nibley once commented that the purpose of Brigham Young University as envisioned by Brigham Young was to confront the false doctrines promoted in Darwinian evolution.

“The purpose of the BYU, then, is to challenge the reigning philosophies of Darwinism and what today is commonly called Social-Darwinism ^[1]—not to forbid their teaching but to present the gospel alternatives to it. Instead of which we still embrace both with uncritically open arms . . .” ^[2]
Additionally, President Young felt that socialism, the political outgrowth of evolution, should also be countered. Currently, there is no institution of higher learning in the world today that we are aware of that is dedicated to the refutation of these dangerous philosophies using the doctrines of the gospel as contained in latter-day revelation. President Young envisioned schools that fit these criteria:

1. False philosophies, including Darwinism and Marxism, should be expressly countered.
2. The doctrines of the Gospel, as contained in Latter-day revelation, should be used to counter these false philosophies.
3. The primary text of the school should be the standard works of the Church, and no doctrines contrary to the scriptures should be promoted.
4. All textbooks or teaching materials would be created by individuals with complete faith in the doctrines of the Gospel as contained in the scriptures and taught by latter-day prophets of God.
5. All teaching materials would be manufactured by the Saints assuring that all of the above criteria were met.

President Young saw the dangers of false philosophies and desired Church schools to combat them.” Source: Joseph Smith Academy

See more information at our blog here: https://bookofmormonevidence.org/evolution-at-byu/

Heritage is defined as:
a) Something that is handed down from the past, as a tradition:
b) Something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion:
c) Something reserved for one:

Lineage is defined as:
a) direct descent from an ancestor
b) ancestry; family; stock
c) descendants from a common ancestor

Below is some very interesting information about heritage and lineage. Just as Lehi may have several heritages, Joseph Smith in a like manner has several heritages. There is also some interesting information about Joseph Smith’s DNA and showing he is of Irish descent.

LEHI’S MANY HERITAGES by Hugh Nibley.

“The caravans of Egypt and Israel pass each other, guided through the sands by those men of the desert (Arabs) who were the immemorial go-between of the two civilizations.

1. ARAB: Arab designates a way of life, and was applied by the Jews to their own relatives who remained behind in the wilderness. , Manasseh lived furthest out of Jerusalem and had contact with Arabs the most.
2. ISRAELI: Of Manasseh through Joseph and the 12 tribes of Israel.
3. EGYPTIAN: Language of Lehi consists of learning of Jews and language of Egyptians: Heritage, culture. Ammon was Manasseh’s nearest neighbor and is an Egyptian name.
4. HEBREW: Lehi means Jaw Bone in Hebrew. From Eber, Jewish because they live near and around Jerusalem. Learning of the Jews.
5. CHRISTIAN: Through Christ, and lived the law of Moses

Arabic Names: LAMAN, LEMUEL
Egyptian Names: NEPHI, SAM
Israeli Names: JACOB, JOSEPH”

Lehi in the Desert by Hugh Nibley Chapter 2 (numbering and subheadings added)

Joseph Smith was a pure Ephraimite

“It is the house of Israel we are after, and we care not whether they come from the east, the west, the north, or the south; from China, Russia, England, California, North or South America, or some other locality. … The Book of Mormon came to Ephraim, for Joseph Smith was a pure Ephraimite, and the Book of Mormon was revealed to him.” (Brigham Young Journal of Discourses 2:268–69.)

“Is it possible for the same person to be an Israelite by birth and yet be considered a Gentile?”

Although President Young identified Joseph Smith as a “pure Ephraimite” in the above quotation, so far as the Prophet’s family or blood lines were concerned, Brigham Young and others have recognized that (1) Joseph Smith was from a Gentile nation and (2) some of Joseph Smith’s progenitors may have come from bloodlines other than that of Ephraim. (See Journal of Discourses, 2:268.)

President Joseph Fielding Smith also provided insight on how the term Gentile could apply to Joseph Smith even though he was a descendant of Jacob (Israel) through Joseph, the father of Ephraim:

“In this Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, the gospel came first to the Gentiles and then is to go to the Jews. However, the Gentiles who receive the gospel are, in the greater part, Gentiles who have the blood of Israel in their veins. There is a very significant statement in the words of Moroni as recorded on the title page of the Book of Mormon that it was ” … ‘To come forth … by way of the Gentile. …’

“How did the Book of Mormon come forth? By the hand of Joseph Smith. Yet we read in the Book of Mormon [see 2 Ne. 3:7–15] that Joseph Smith is the descendant of Joseph who was sold into Egypt by his brethren, nevertheless he came by ‘way of the Gentile,’ according to Moroni’s prediction.” (Answers to Gospel Questions, 4:39.)

Thus, Joseph Smith was of the house of Israel so far as his family or blood lines were concerned, but he came from a Gentile nation and thus might also be considered a Gentile in the political or geographical sense.

Lehi= Manasseh; Ishmael= Ephraim; Mulek= Judah;

“Whoever has read the Book of Mormon carefully will have learned that the remnants of the house of Joseph dwelt upon the American continent; and that Lehi learned by searching the records of his fathers that were written upon the plates of brass, that he was of the lineage of Manasseh. The Prophet Joseph informed us that the record of Lehi, was contained on the 116 pages that were first translated and subsequently stolen, and of which an abridgement is given us in the first Book of Nephi, which is the record of Nephi individually, he himself being of the lineage of Manasseh; but that Ishmael was of the lineage of Ephraim, and that his sons married into Lehi’s family, and Lehi’s sons married Ishmael’s daughters, thus fulfilling the words of Jacob upon Ephraim and Manasseh in the 48th chapter of Genesis, which says: “And let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the land.” Thus these descendants of Manasseh and Ephraim grew together upon this American continent, with a sprinkling from the house of Judah, from Mulek descended, who left Jerusalem eleven years after Lehi, and founded the colony afterwards known as Zarahemla and found by Mosiah—thus making a combination, an intermixture of Ephraim and Manasseh with the remnants of Judah; and for aught we know, the remnants of some other tribes that might have accompanied Mulek.” (Erastus Snow, JD 23:184) Also see page 9 of the Annotated Book of Mormon by David Hocking and Rod Meldrum Purchase Here

“Speaking about Lehi’s people, “Joseph wrote, “They were principally Israelites, of the descendants of Joseph.” It is possible that Joseph Smith was referring to Zoram after all, clarifying he was not a Jew. He may have been referring to those who accompanied the Mulekites (presumably Phoenicians). But it is also possible that he was referring to others who accompanied Lehi… To summarize: I think Lehi brought servants and landed in a mostly uninhabited area in Florida, among a small population of hunter/gatherers who lacked a well-organized society.” Jonathan Neville Moroni’s America page 84-86

Summary

“DNA research into Joseph Smith Jr.’s genealogy has turned up a surprise, according to Ugo Perego, director of operations at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation: A rare DNA marker shows that the assumption Smith’s family line came from England is probably wrong.

SANDY, Utah — DNA research into Joseph Smith Jr.’s genealogy has turned up a surprise, according to Ugo Perego, director of operations at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation: A rare DNA marker shows that the assumption Smith’s family line came from England is probably wrong.

The Smiths were Irish.

Perego was speaking at the 10th annual Mormon Apologetics Conference presented by the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research this week at the South Towne Exposition Center in Sandy. He recounted the investigation into Joseph Smith’s DNA and some of the results.

The primary means used to investigate Joseph Smith’s DNA was the Y chromosome — a part of DNA that is only passed from father to son and has few mutations.

Elaine Nichols, a specialist in Joseph Smith’s genealogy, according to Perego wrote in 1991 that Smith’s line can only be followed with confidence back to Robert Smith, possibly born in 1626. Robert Smith showed up in 1638 in Boston, Mass., as an indentured servant to another man. No parents known. No siblings known.

“At that time we thought: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we can reconstruct the Joseph Smith genetic signature, the paternal-line signature … and then, somehow,… collect samples from Smiths in England, particularly in the area where we think (Robert Smith) came from, see if we find similar genetic signatures there, and perhaps bridge the gap between the Utah or Mormon Smiths and those in England — and find a way to bridge this genealogical gap using DNA,'” Perego said.

By using DNA samples from several known Joseph Smith Jr. and his father’s descendants, an accurate example of his Y chromosome DNA profile was identified. There was no need to test his blood or bones or hair or anything.

“If I had Joseph Smith standing by me and be able to (take a sample of his cells) and get some DNA from him, I wouldn’t know any additional information than what I already know based on the (samples) of his descendants. That is how accurate this information is,” Perego said.

Having this accurate DNA profile also enabled testing of his alleged descendants through polygamous or plural wives.

Perego showed part of a list of alleged children of Joseph Smith through other wives. The DNA of a number of the alleged children was identified and compared:

Moroni Pratt was not his child, contrary to what Fawn Brodie speculated in her critical biography of Joseph Smith, “No Man Knows My History.”

Zebulon Jacobs was not his child.

Oliver Norman Buell was claimed by Brodie to be a son of Joseph Smith. She had compared his photograph with Joseph Smith III. “Even the hairstyle was the same,” Perego said, eliciting some laughter from the crowd. But notwithstanding the physical similarities, Buell was not Smith’s child.

Mosiah L. Hancock was not his child either.

Using other DNA tests, Perego also hopes to determine whether Josephine Rosetta Lyon is a daughter of Joseph Smith. So far he has collected 120 DNA samples from her descendants. He says they should know in the “next year or so.” (See 2016 results here. “Joseph Smith apparently was not Josephine Lyon’s father, Mormon History Association speaker says.”)

“My testimony of Joseph Smith has absolutely nothing to do with to what extent he practiced polygamy,” Perego said. “But there is an interesting situation in which there are literally thousands of people descended of these individuals that are wondering, based on what has been written, whether or not they are descendants of Joseph Smith, and so here you have a chance to tell these people how things are.”

Whether Joseph fathered some of the other children on the list may never be known, because some of them died too young to have any children themselves. “I’m not really in the business of going around and digging up graves and testing,” Perego said.

Perego then returned to his search for Joseph Smith’s ancestor in England. Because Joseph Smith’s last certain ancestor on the Smith paternal line, Robert Smith, was indentured to a man who had property in Kirton, Lincolnshire, England, the assumption was made that Robert Smith was also from Kirton.

Another Robert Smith was found there who had a son named Robert at about the correct time. This new Robert Smith was assumed to be the father of the younger indentured servant Robert Smith who came to America — even though the connection was weak. Smith is a common name, of course, and Robert was the most popular first name at the time.

This is where the trail goes completely cold using standard genealogical methods. Perego’s goal was to see if any traces of the Smith family DNA were still in the area. If Robert Smith came from that area, some matching DNA should remain in living Smiths. This would add some support to the genealogical record.

Perego wrote letters to 1,100 Smiths in the Lincolnshire area asking for DNA samples. Thirty-three people responded, but testing showed zero matches with Joseph Smith’s DNA.

The Joseph Smith DNA was unusual for Smiths — even among Smiths in the United States.

Without any success in the target area, Perego cast a wider net — using both Joseph Smith’s specific DNA Y chromosome profile and a “haplogroup” to look for matches. A haplogroup is a grouping of Y chromosome profiles that share similar characteristics. These haplogroups are usually very geographically specific.

First, Perego put the Joseph Smith DNA profile into the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation database of 23,403 Y chromosome DNA samples. He was looking for matches from about the time when Robert Smith came to America. He found close matches, many of which were Irish.

From there, Perego identified a part of Joseph Smith’s DNA that had a very rare marker called M222. With this “higher resolution” he found that the same marker was found in Northwest Ireland — with a little bit in Lowland Scotland.

Finally, Perego looked at a study published in 2006 that dealt with this same area of Ireland. A Y chromosome profile had been found that was attributed to the many descendants of “Niall of the Nine Hostages,” a fifth-century Irish warlord who was the ancestor of the kings of Ireland up to the 10th century. Perego compared that Y chromosome with Joseph Smith’s profile and found they matched very closely. This was another indication that Smith’s ancestors along his paternal line were not just Irish, but probably related to Irish royalty.

“Perhaps this indentured servant, this 12-year-old boy, was an Irish descendent, perhaps only one or two generations before they were living in Ireland … and moved to England,” Perego said. “Irish people were not viewed too well in England, perhaps there was a surname change. Perhaps Smith was not a Smith, was something else at some point.”

Perego speculated the Irish Smiths were likely not in England for many generations, otherwise he would have found a lot of genetic matches from the samples he collected from the English Smiths who live now in that area.

“I hope that that doesn’t change anybody’s testimony here,” he joked. “I feel OK about the Irish people.” E-mail: [email protected]

DNA tests rule out 2 as Smith descendants – Scientific advances prove no genetic link

By Carrie A. Moore, Deseret News Published: Saturday, Nov. 10 2007

LDS Church founder Joseph Smith married as many as 30 women.

Summary

After more than a century of speculation about whether LDS Church founder Joseph Smith had children with any of his plural wives, a local geneticist said he recently has crossed two such purported descendants off the list of potential candidates.

After more than a century of speculation about whether LDS Church founder Joseph Smith had children with any of his plural wives, a local geneticist said he recently has crossed two such purported descendants off the list of potential candidates.

Ugo Perego, director of operations at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, told the Deseret Morning News that technological advances in DNA testing during the past couple of years have helped prove with “99.9 percent certainty” that two early Latter-day Saints thought by some to be Smith’s children are not his descendants. They are:

• Mosiah Hancock, son of Clarissa Reed Hancock, who was married to Levi Hancock.
• Oliver Buell, son of Prescindia Huntington Buell, who was married to Norman Buell.

Perego said that brings to five the number of people that some believed were Smith descendants whose paternal DNA does not match up with his. To date, at least seven other early Latter-day Saints have been identified in various historical documents or in later writings as potential Smith offspring, he said.

In 2005, Perego said DNA testing also ruled out three other alleged male descendants — Moroni Llewellyn Pratt (son of Mary Ann Frost Pratt, married to Parley P. Pratt), Zebulon Jacobs (son of Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith, married to Henry Bailey Jacobs) and Orrison Smith (son of Fanny Alger).

Some candidates are surrounded by what he called “strong historical evidences like journal entries,” while other alleged descendants have little historical basis to be related, other than “speculation based on conclusions that sometimes may have been too rushed,” Perego said.

In Hancock’s case, “historically, there is nothing about him. In fact, another son of Levi Hancock is more in question, named John Reed Hancock.” Mid-20th century historian and author Fawn Brodie, in her book “No Man Knows My History,” had “quite a lot about John Reed Hancock,” he said.

Brodie also believed Buell was Smith’s child, born during the early church’s days in Far West, Mo., he said. “She goes quite far to explain why she thought this was the case. The time was perfect because (Prescindia’s) husband was gone from the church, and there was a plural marriage that took place while he was gone.”

Brodie also offered as evidence a photo of Buell resembling two of Joseph and Emma Smith’s sons, writing that his “physiognomy … seems to weigh the balance overwhelmingly on the side of Joseph’s paternity.”

Historians say Smith was married to as many as 30 women before he was killed by a mob in June 1844.

Perego also has gathered DNA samples on about 120 descendants of Josephine Rosetta Lyon, daughter of Sylvia Sessions Lyon, who was one of Smith’s wives. But Y chromosome evidence, used to determine paternal relationships from father to son, is not present for Lyon because she is female. The effort to determine Lyon’s parentage is ongoing, he said.

His most recent findings were presented as a paper at the annual John Whitmer Historical Association conference in Kirtland, Ohio, in late September. The group’s officers since have asked Perego to put his presentation into an article format suitable for publication in their next annual journal.

The list of approximately 12 people alleged to have been Smith’s children “may grow over time,” Perego said, noting historical documents continue to surface. “I’m not saying the list I have is definitive or complete at all. But out of those we have data for, there is no evidence from DNA at this point that Joseph Smith had any children from women other than Emma Smith.

“In the future, if DNA data will be able to be collected and tested, we might know otherwise. But right now, we’re able to eliminate five children from that list. There may be some cases we might never be able to test at all.”

While Y chromosome DNA is passed from father to son and is most accurate in identifying living people, mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to daughter and is more often used in paleontology and archaeology, Perego said. As a result, there are distinct limitations on the testing that can be done to date because such testing on a living — and cooperative — male descendant requires an unbroken male line.

Perego has mapped Smith’s DNA by retrieving samples from living descendants of two sons he had with Emma Smith — Joseph Smith III and Alexander Hale Smith. “Their Y chromosomes were identical, so we know for 100 percent sure what Joseph Smith’s Y chromosome looked like. We can now use that standard to verify any other alleged sons,” which he did with those who have been eliminated as possible descendants.

“For 160 years people have been writing in books or speculating that these people could have been Joseph Smith’s children. When people write something in a book, many people refer to that almost as a fact. Brodie went on and on about Buell, talking about the timing and the picture — everything seems to indicate Buell was Joseph Smith’s son. But the DNA says otherwise.”

Perego said he was not only able to eliminate Smith as their father, but also was able to confirm that the men who were married to Hancock’s and Buell’s mothers were actually their biological fathers.

As he finds living descendants of people in question, Perego said he will be happy to continue to test them. “I think this will always be a work in progress. Hopefully, someday we’ll be able to test some of the girls as well, when genetic testing is developed to accurately conclude if some of these girls were or were not his descendants.”

Plural wife Sylvia Sessions Lyon left a deathbed affidavit for her daughter, Josephine, telling her that her father was Joseph Smith. In terms of circumstantial evidence, “that is probably the strongest case out there, but it involves a daughter. I’ve collected maybe 120 samples from descendants of Josephine, but as of today, there is not an accurate method” to prove parentage. (See 2016 results here. “Joseph Smith apparently was not Josephine Lyon’s father, Mormon History Association speaker says.”)

Perego’s work is an independent project that Sorenson has allowed him to work on, rather than something the foundation does full-time, he said. His motive, he said, is truth, not glory.

“As a scientist, I like to look for truth. If there is a book that says this person was Joseph’s son, and I have evidence that’s not right, it’s important for me to offer an alternative explanation from science that people can refer to. New authors in the future can then take that new genetic evidence into consideration.

“My goal is not at all a crusade to prove or disprove either that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy or that he had children from women other than Emma. I have no agenda to prove or disprove.

“There are legitimate cases of individuals studying family history who have a pedigree chart in front of them that shows” Smith as a third-great-grandfather.

“Because there is some evidence like a book or a rumor in the family, individuals don’t know who to put on their pedigree chart. We’re talking about real people who want to know who they are descended from.

“Most have told me they don’t really care if they come from Joseph Smith or from someone else. They just want to know which one.”

For information on DNA testing for family history research, see Sorenson’s Web site at www.SMGF.org.

E-mail: [email protected]

A Prayer for us Today

Thought you might enjoy this interesting Prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate some years ago.

I have found several versions of this prayer on the internet. The exact quote isn’t as important as how it relates to our life today.

It seems prayer still upsets some people. When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open a session of the Kansas Senate Congress in about 1996, everyone was expecting the usual generalities; But this is what they heard:

Here is that Kansas Senate Prayer, with Restored Names/Title:

Except for words in the brackets, Joe Wright spoke these words when he prayed at the Kansas Senate opening ceremony on January 23, 1996. SOURCE

“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, “Woe to those who call evil [pleasant],” but that’s exactly what we’ve done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.

*We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism.
*We have worshiped other [latter day mighty ones] and called it multiculturalism.

*We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.
*We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

*We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
*We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

*We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
*We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

*We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem.
*We have abused power and called it political savvy.

*We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition.
*We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

*We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our fore-fathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us O [YaHuWaH our ELoHiYM] and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas, and who have been ordained by you, to govern this great state.

Grant them your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask it in the name of your son, the living Savior, [YaHuWShu’A HaMaShiYaCx.]
[Amaen].”

Below is a video that differs from the above quote as it adds more insight and vigor. I think you will enjoy it.

Remember the words of Moroni to us? He saw us in OUR DAY as did Nephi, Joseph Smith and other great Prophets. What did they see? What would they say to us? Let’s review the amazing words of Moroni below.

Moroni’s Words to Us

35 Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.

36 And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts.

37 For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

38 O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world?

39 Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?

40 Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads?

41 Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer. Mormon 8:35-41

Elder Gordon B. Hinckley, 1st Counselor to President Ezra Taft Benson, proclaimed that the Book of Mormon “is as current as the morning newspaper”, in its descriptions of the problems of today’s society. The Power of the Book of Mormon, Ensign June 1988

The American Prophet Moroni testified that “Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.” Mormon 8:35

Using these two quotations as a guide, author Rod Meldrum explores some of the Book of Mormon prophecies that pertain to our day and compare them directly with news headlines from the mainstream media of the USA.

To understand the signs of our day, we must read the Book of Mormon!

The Book of Mormon Prophets warned a very specific nation about the consequences of being wicked, upon God’s Promised Land. In Rod Meldrum”s latest DVD, he clearly demonstrates how the Book of Mormon is as “Current as the Daily News.”

In his 2-hour presentation Rod discusses the 4 Sacred Covenants that George Washington invoked at St. Paul’s Cathedral during his inauguration – the same sacred ground the New York Twin Towers collapsed on during 911. Take a trip through current news headlines and see why America’s promised blessings are now being revoked, leaving her in grave peril and judgment from God. With this warning will the people living in our nation, foretold by ancient prophets in the Book of Mormon, still serve Jesus Christ, the God of this sacred covenant land?

The Book of Mormon Current as the Daily News! Trailer HERE!

Purchase multiple copies of the same DVD to share with your friends and you will receive a huge discount. Let’s share the message! Purchase The Book of Mormon Current as the Daily News below:
1 DVD for $20
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The Land of Jerusalem is desolate and yet also beautiful. The Land of Jerusalem is beautiful and it is called wonderful. The Land of Adam and Eve is low and flat with no mountains, and yet it is also lush and green with gardens all around. How are the two lands of promise both beautiful and desolate?

• places of Israel’s dwellings shall become desolate until fulfilling of covenant, 3 Ne. 10:7.
• Israel’s seed shall make desolate cities to be inhabited, 3 Ne. 22:3 (Isa. 54:3).

• desolating scourge to go forth, D&C 5:19.
• Saints are gathered to prepare against day when desolation is sent forth, D&C 29:8.
• nothing to be shown forth except desolations upon Babylon, D&C 35:11.

Desolation; not because the land is not desirable, but because of the sadness of events that transpired there. At Cumorah, the sadness is in reference to the end of two once righteous nations, making it a place called Desolation. In the Bible the place Abomination of Desolation was speaking of Jerusalem, not because it wasn’t a beautiful land. The prophecy referred ultimately to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and consequently the “abomination” must describe some occurrence connected with that event.  Webster dictionary says. “extreme sadness caused by loss or loneliness” “the condition of a place or thing that has been damaged in such a way that it is no longer suitable for people to live in : the state or condition of being desolate”

As you look at the map below, you will see desolation as spoken of in the Book of Mormon as the far north country of the United States and a little into Canada. In fact the Hill Cumorah is in the “Land Desolation.” At any moment in time a place that was once full of animals, trees, people and great harvests, could bcome a land of desolation because of a curse, or a war or as a designation of the Lord. Understanding this will help you as your read the Book of Mormon on what is meant when you hear the word “desolation.”

Prairies as Lands of Desolation?

On Shoal creek, where there is water, there are some tolerable mill seats, but, the prairies,— those “old clearings,”— peering one over another, as far as the eye can glance, flatten all common calculation, as to timber for boards, rails, or future wants, for a thick population, according to the natural reasonings of men. The Book of Mormon terms these prairies the land of Desolation; & When I get into prairie so large that I am out of sight of timber, just as the seaman is “out of sight of land in the ocean,” I have to exclaim what is man and his works, compared to the Almighty and his creations? Who hath viewed his everlasting fields? who hath counted his Buffaloes; – who hath seen all his deer on a thousand prairies? .. The pinks variegate these wide spread lawns, without the hand of man to aid them; and the bees of a thousand groves, banquet on the flowers unobserved, and sip the honey-dews of heaven. Nearly every skirt of timber to the state line on the north, I am informed has some one in it. The back settlers are generally very honorable, and more hospitable than any people I ever saw, you are, in most instances. welcome to the best they have. W. W. Phelp’s

16 June 1836 • Thursday

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-b-1-1-september-1834-2-november-1838/188

Jerusalem & New Jerusalem

People today when they see land in Jerusalem and Jackson County, Missouri see it as “desolation”, or a less desired place to live. The world doesn’t value this land as anything more than land to pass by, that seems somewhat barren, lacking in beautiful large trees, with few gardens, and only small streams that run through. Though that may be true today, these two sacred areas of land will be made whole once again and today’s people will rue the day, that they once called it desolate. For the Saints of the Lord will inhabit these sacred grounds as “CHOICE” Lands forever.

What we may call beautiful today, such as the large mountains in the Rocky’s or Appalachians, may one day be made low and replaced by those rolling hills of a beautiful garden, even as Eden was. “We apply mountain to the largest eminences on the globe; but sometimes the word is used for a large hill.”  Webster’s 1828 English Dictionary

“This beautiful region of country [Missouri] is…the land of Joseph or the Indians, as they are called…The world will never value the land of Desolation, as it is called in the Book of Mormon, for anything more than hunting ground, for want of timber and mill-seats: The Lord to the contrary notwithstanding, declares it to be the land of Zion which is the land of Joseph, blessed by him, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew… Thou [Jerusalem] shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land [Zion] any more be termed Desolate.” The Evening and Morning Star Vol. 1 No. 5 October 1832 Page 71

 “And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, this land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it. Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel 36:34-38 

The simple rolling hills of today’s Missouri are chosen. Today they are “plains” tomorrow they will be “Zion”. The rocks and grasslands of Jerusalem today are barren and desolate, and tomorrow they will be called “Blessed”.

“…The mountains of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and on the plains of Olaha Shinehah, or the land where Adam dwelt…” D&C 117:8

“This is Shinehah, which is the sun. And he said unto me: Kokob, which is star. And he said unto me: Olea, which is the moon.” Abraham 3:13

“The plains of Olaha Shinehah, or the place where Adam dwelt,” wrote President Joseph Fielding Smith, “must be a part of, or in the vicinity of Adam-ondi-Ahman. This name Olaha Shinehah, may be, and in all probability is, from the language of Adam. We may without great controversy believe that this is the name which Adam gave to this place, at least we may venture this as a probable guess. Shinehah, according to the Book of Abraham, is the name given to the sun. (Abraham 3:13.) It is the name applied to Kirtland when the Lord desired in a revelation to hide its identity. (Sec. 82.) Elder Janne M. Sjodahl commenting on the name, Olaha Shinehah, has said: ‘Shinehah means sun, and Olaha is possibly a variant of the word Olea, which is “the moon.” (Abraham 3:13.) If so the plains of Olaha Shinehah would be the Plains of the Moon and the Sun, so called, perhaps because of astronomical observations there made.’ We learn from the writings of Moses that the Lord revealed to the ancients great knowledge concerning the stars, and Abraham by revelations and through the Urim and Thummim received wonderful information concerning the heavens and the governing planets, or stars. It was also revealed by the Prophet Joseph Smith that Methuselah was acquainted with the stars as were others of the antediluvian prophets including Adam. So, it may be reasonable that here in this valley important information was made known anciently in relation to the stars of our universe.” (Church History and Modern Revelation, 2:97–98.)

The Covenant of the Lord is upon both lands forever. These lands will be the eternal lands of the Lord’s chosen. Those of us who live by the Lord’s law will be blessed on the lands He has set apart for our good. From Jackson County to Far West, to Adam-ondi-Ahman is Desolate to those who see it only as barren lands, and it is Promised to those of us who understand the Covenant on the land. As further evidence of this land being blessed, we read the following:

“Section 116, taken from an inspired entry in the Prophet’s history, was first placed in the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876 under the direction of President Brigham Young:

Friday, May 18. —I left Far West, in company with Sidney Rigdon, Thomas B. Marsh, David W. Patten, Bishop Partridge, Elias Higbee, Simeon Carter, Alanson Ripley, and many others, for the purpose of visiting the north country, and laying off a stake of Zion; making locations, and laying claim to lands to facilitate the gathering of Saints, for the benefit of the poor, in upholding the Church of God. …

Saturday, 19. —This morning we struck our tents and formed a line of march, crossing Grand River at the mouth of Honey Creek and Nelson’s Ferry. Grand River is a large, beautiful, deep and rapid stream, during the high waters of Spring, and will undoubtedly admit of navigation by steamboat and other watercraft. At the mouth of Honey Creek is a good landing. We pursued our course up the river, mostly through timber, for about eighteen miles, when we arrived at Colonel Lyman Wight’s home. He lives at the foot of Tower Hill (a name I gave the place in consequence of the remains of an old Nephite altar or tower that stood there), where we camped for the Sabbath.

In the afternoon I went up the river about half a mile to Wight’s Ferry, accompanied by President Rigdon, and my clerk, George W. Robinson, for the purpose of selecting and laying claim to a city plat near said ferry in Daviess County, township 60, ranges 27 and 28, and sections 25, 36, 31, and 30, which the brethren called ‘Spring Hill,’ but by the mouth of the Lord it was named Adam-ondi-Ahman, because, said He, it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet.” (History of the Church, 3:34–35.)

Indeed, the Land’s of Promise are in Jackson County Missouri, and Jerusalem. Both are forever blessed and will be the dwelling places of the Lord’s people in the last days. The Lord will make the Desolate, blessed again.

To understand the land of Missouri and its sacredness, here is what Wilford Woodruff said.

“During our travels we visited many mounds thrown up by the ancient inhabitants, the Nephites and Lamanites. This morning, June 3rd, we went on to a high mound near the river. From the summit we could overlook the tops of the trees as far as we could see. The scenery was truly beautiful. On the summit of the mound were stones which presented the appearance of three altars, they having been erected, one above the other, according to the ancient order of things. Human bones were seen upon the ground. Brother Joseph requested us to dig into the mound; we did so; and in about one foot we came to the skeleton of a man, almost entire, with an arrow sticking in his backbone. Elder Milton Holmes picked it out, and brought it into the Camp, with one of the leg bones, which had been broken. I brought the thigh bone to Missouri. I desired to bury it in the Temple Block in Jackson County; but not having this privilege, I buried it in Clay County, Missouri, near the house owned by Col. Arthur and occupied by Lyman Wight.” The arrowhead referred to is now in the possession of President Joseph F. Smith, Salt Lake City, Utah. “Brother Joseph,” continues Wilford, “feeling anxious to learn something of this man, asked the Lord, and received an open vision. The man’s name was Zelph. He was a white Lamanite, the curse having been removed because of his righteousness. He was a great warrior and fought for the Nephites under the direction of the Prophet Onandagus. The latter had charge of the Nephite armies from the Eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains. Although the Book of Mormon does not mention Onandagus, he was a great warrior, leader, general, and prophet. Zelph had his thigh bone broken by a stone thrown from a sling but was killed by the arrow found sticking in his backbone. There was a great slaughter at that time. The bodies were heaped upon the earth, and buried in the mound, which is nearly three hundred feet in height.” History of the Life and Labors of Wilford Woodruff. As recorded in his daily journals prepared for publication by Matthias Cowley The Deseret News Salt Lake City, Utah 1909 page 41 (See also Joseph Smith Papers History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834] page 483)

On another occasion the Prophet wrote: “Adam-ondi-Ahman is located immediately on the north side of Grand River, in Daviess county, Missouri, about twenty-five miles north of Far West. It is situated on an elevated spot of ground, which renders the place as healthful as any part of the United States, and overlooking the river and the country round about, it is certainly a beautiful location.” (History of the Church, 3:39.)

Concerning Adam-ondi-Ahman, Zerah Pulsipher, a member of the First Council of Seventy, wrote:

Daviess County was a beautiful place situated on Grand River. First rate land and plenty of good timber where we supposed there had been an ancient city of the Nephites, as the hewn stone were already there in piles also the mound or alter built by Father Adam, where he went to offer sacrifices when he was old. Leaning upon his staff, prophesying the most noted thing that should take place down to the latest generation therefore it was called Adam-ondi-Ahman.11

The Far West

The far west, as the section of country from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains may justly be styled, is not only distant from the Atlantic States, but different. Its principle river, running rapidly from the 48th to the 39th degree of north latitude, is always rily, always wearing away its banks and always making new channels: It is rightly named Missouri; for in plain English, it looks like the waters of misery,-or troubled water:-even as the sea which the prophet said, Casts up mire and dirt. With the exception of the skirts of timber upon the streams of water, this region of country is one continued field, or prairie, (as the French have it, meaning meadows,) and there is something ancient as well as grand about it, too; for while the eye takes in a large scope of clear field, or extensive plains, decorated with here and there a patch of timber, like the orchards which beautify the farms in the east, the mind goes back to the day, when the Jaredites were in their glory upon this choice land above all others, and comes on till they, and even the Nephites, were destroyed for their wickedness: Here pause and look to the east, and read the words of the prophet: Wo to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which is on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine! Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.-The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: and the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people, and for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.

To return: this beautiful region of country is now mostly, excepting Arkansas and Missouri, the land of Joseph or the Indians, as they are called, and embraces three fine climates: First, like that of New-York; second, like Missouri, neither northern nor southern; and third, like the Carolinas. This place may be called the centre [center] of America; it being about an equal distance from Maine, to Nootka sound; and from the gulf of St. Lawrence to the gulf of California; yea, and about the middle of the continent from cape Horn, south, to the head land at Baffin’s Bay, north. The world will never value the land of Desolation, as it is called in the book of Mormon, for any thing more than hunting ground, for want of timber and mill-seats: (See Map Below for a description) The Lord to the contrary notwithstanding, declares it to be the land of Zion which is the land of Joseph, blessed by him, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things of the earth and fulness [fullness] thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together from the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.

When we consider that the land of Missouri is the land where the saints of the living God are to be gathered together and sanctified for the second coming of the Lord Jesus, we cannot help exclaiming with the prophet, O land be glad! and O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord: For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Thou [Jerusalem] shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land [Zion] any more be termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married, [joined together] so that the land of Zion, and the land of Jerusalem will be one, as they were before the days of Peleg: For in his days the earth was divided or separated to receive the oceans, on account of wickedness. Peleg died 305 years after Noah’s flood: Abram’s father was born 210 years after the flood, and Abram 288 after, which brings to mind Joshua’s words unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor, and they served other gods. The building of Babel was wickedness, and serving other gods was wickedness: so that dividing, or opening the earth to let in the waters, which were in the beginning gathered unto one place, is one of the Lord’s great miracles, and shows to the world that them that look for signs among the wicked, have them to their own condemnation in all ages.

But, reader, stop and pause at the greatness of God; and remember that even Moses, when on the top of Pisgah, lifted up his eyes and looked westward first, to view the promised land.

    Evening and Morning Star Vol. 1 No. 5 October 1832 Page 71

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/NCMP1820-1846/id/28104