Criticism of Mormonism/Books/American Massacre/Chapter 1

FAIR Answers—back to home page

Introduction

A FAIR Analysis of: American Massacre A work by author: Sally Denton

Chapter 2

Claims made in "Chapter 1: Palmyra, 1823"

3

Claim
Joseph Smith is claimed to have been visited by a "spirit" named Moroni.

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  History unclear or in error: Moroni was an angel in the earliest sources, not a "spirit."
• Larry E. Morris, "'I Should Have an Eye Single to the Glory of God’: Joseph Smith’s Account of the Angel and the Plates (Review of: "From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism")," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 11–82. off-site
• Mark Ashurst-McGee, "Moroni as Angel and as Treasure Guardian," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 34–100. [{{{url}}} off-site] wiki

4

Claim
 Author's quote: [I]n that moment the charismatic teenager claimed to have become God's chosen instrument to reveal to the world that all religions were false and corrupt.

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  Internal contradiction: The First Vision preceded Moroni's visit, which the author reports in the next item.

4

Claim
Joseph is claimed to have made "excited proclamations to the public" regarding his First Vision.

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  Prejudicial or loaded language

4

Claim
The author claims that Joseph experienced "hundreds of mythical persecutions" throughout his life.

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  Prejudicial or loaded language
• The author does not make clear which of Joseph's persecutions she considers "mythical." Perhaps the time that he was tarred and feathered? Perhaps the time that he was shot and killed by a mob?
•  Internal contradiction: Author later describes some actual persecutions.

4

Claim
Joseph is claimed to have spent his leisure time leading a band of treasure diggers.

Author's source(s)

• Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 16. ( Index of claims )

Response

•  Quotes another author's opinion as if it were fact
• The author simply repeats Fawn Brodie's assertion.
• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Money digging

4

Claim
Joseph is claimed to have been "apprenticed" with a man who was described as "a peripatetic magician, conjurer and fortuneteller."

Author's source(s)

• Carl Carmer, The Farm Boy and the Angel (1970), p. 53.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: The magician Walters as a mentor to Joseph Smith?

5

Claim
The "autumnal equinox and a new moon" were considered to be "an excellent time to commence new projects."

Author's source(s)

• D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 167 ( Index of claims )

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Book of Mormon recovered on autumnal equinox

5

Claim
Joseph's family is claimed to have had a "nonconforming contempt for organized religion."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  Prejudicial or loaded language
•  History unclear or in error: Joseph's mother and three siblings joined local churches; this can hardly been seen as "contempt" (see JS-H 1꞉7).

6

Claim
Lucy Smith is claimed to have "abandoned traditional Protestantism" in favor of "mysticism and miracles."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

• Lucy joined the Presbyterian Church (JS-H 1꞉7).
• Many Christians of the day believed in miracles, and saw a decline of miracles as evidence that Christinaity needed to be revitalized, reformed, or restored.
• For a detailed response, see: Lucy Mack Smith and the Presbyterians

7

Claim
Joseph is claimed to have "detested the plow as only a farmer's son can."

Author's source(s)

• Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 18. ( Index of claims )

Response

•  Quotes another author's opinion as if it were fact
• The author repeats a very recognizable quote from Fawn Brodie. This is Brodie's opinion—there is no primary source to back up this claim.
•  Mind reading: author has no way of knowing this.

7

Claim
Joseph is claimed to have told stories about the Mound Builders, who, according to the author, were a "thousand-year-old lost race fabled to have been slaughtered and buried on the outskirts of Palmyra."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

• We are unsure how the author determined that the Mound Builders were slaughtered and buried on the outskirts of Palmyra. The author shows that she knows very little about the Mound Builders. In reality, the mounds were quite numerous and were located in many different parts of the country.
• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith's "amusing recitals" of ancient American inhabitants

7

Claim
Joseph entertained his family with tales of the ancient inhabitants of the area.

Author's source(s)

• Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches, p. 85.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith's "amusing recitals" of ancient American inhabitants

8

Claim
The author claims that Emma was warned not to touch the plates because she would suffer "instant death if her eyes fell upon them."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.
• The usual source for this claim is The Hurlbut affidavits.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Viewing gold plates would result in death?

8

Claim
 Author's quote: Nephi's two older brothers, Laman and Lemuel, were evil sinners, causing God to curse them and all of their descendants with a red skin.

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.
• Brodie makes the claim of a curse of "red skin" in Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 43. ( Index of claims )

Response

•  Quotes another author's opinion as if it were fact
• There is no mention of "red skin" in the Book of Mormon.
• The claim that the Lamanites were cursed with a "red skin" originated in Fawn Brodie's book No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith. This indicates that author's shallow research by repeating Brodie's idea without attribution, and without determining that it is unsupported by any source even in Brodie's book.
• For a detailed response, see: Red skin curse

9

Claim
The author claims that the Book of Mormon was rooted in "the conviction that all believers were on the road to Godhood, that a heaven existed where all men could be saved and then go on to create their own worlds."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  History unclear or in error:
  • Theosis is not a preoccupation of the Book of Mormon.
  • The Book of Mormon likewise says nothing about the saved "creat[ing] their own worlds."

9

Claim
The author claims that Joseph Smith's "evangelical socialism" was a precursor to "Marxian communism."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided, but compare to the almost identical treatment in Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Moody Press, 1979), 59.( Index of claims ).

Response

•  Prejudicial or loaded language: The differences between the United Order and Marxism are numerous, and include:
  • voluntary versus involuntary
  • focused on God and Christ versus atheistic
  • private ownership versus no private ownership
• For a detailed response, see: Communism and the United Order

10

Claim
The author describes the LDS conception of God as "a corporeal being residing on a planet orbiting a star called Kolob and sexually active with a Heavenly Mother and other wives."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Mormonism and the nature of God/"Celestial sex"