Oliver was truthful about everything except...

Reading Saints reminds me of a post I made years ago on my Letter VII blog.

The authors of Saints have publicly acknowledged they created a false narrative present to promote their agenda regarding a so-called "neutrality" position on Book of Mormon geography. But as you read the book, the authors rely quite a bit on Oliver Cowdery's accounts.

Readers of Saints see plenty of citations to Oliver's writings. But they also see his observations in Letter VII about the New York Cumorah are completely censored.

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Letter VII from Messenger and Advocate, July 1835

Those who reject Letter VII cite no reasons other than their preference for a different location for the Hill Cumorah.

It is interesting to take a look at Oliver Cowdery's participation in the Church to put Letter VII in context. When he wrote it, he was the Assistant President of the Church. He had been commanded by revelation to select materials to publish. All eight of Oliver's letters about history are accepted by Church historians as important insights into the early events of the Church. 

The only ones who object to any of Oliver's writings are the Mesoamerican advocates who reject just a few paragraphs out of one of the eight letters.

Oliver published Letter VII in July 1835. In February 1835, he, as one of the Three Witnesses, had selected the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He gave them their aspostolic charge. In April 1836, he, along with Joseph Smith, was visited in the Kirtland temple by Moses, Elias, Elijah, and the Savior Himself. Oliver and Joseph were given the keys of the gathering of Israel and the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham.

Mesoamerican advocates expect you to believe that Oliver Cowdery could faithfully record the entire Book of Mormon, most of the Book of Moses, and much of Church history. Oliver could faithfully edit and publish two Church newspapers, the Book of Commandments, and the original Doctrine and Covenants. He could accurately write the statement for the Three Witnesses. Of all the writing he did, you're supposed to believe he was faithful and accurate except for a few paragraphs in one letter, solely because those paragraphs contradict the opinions of the scholars.

Here is the chronology. Everything that is okay is marked green. The items the scholars object to is marked red.

	Date	Event
	1829 April	Transcribes Book of Mormon as Joseph dictates
	1829 May	Receives Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist, baptizes Joseph and is baptized by him
	1829 May	Receives Melchizedek Priesthood from Peter, James and John
	1829 June	Sees the plates and angel as one of the Three Witnesses
	1829 June	Completes Book of Mormon and makes a printer’s copy, supervises printing and publication
	1830 April	Helps organize the Church as a Second Elder and apostle, ordains Joseph Smith as First Elder
	1830 June	Transcribes Book of Moses 1:1 through 5:43
	1830 Oct.	Leaves on mission to the Lamanites
	1830 Nov.	Baptizes Sidney Rigdon
	1831 Jan.	Arrives in Jackson County, Mo.
	1831 Summer	Meets Joseph in Jackson County
	1831 Nov.	Takes revelations from Ohio to Missouri for publication
	1832	Helps Phelps with printing operation in Missouri
	1832 Apr.	Approves Book of Commandments
	1833 Nov.	Sets up printing press in Kirtland, reprints Evening and Morning Star
	1833 Dec.	Begins editing Evening and Morning Star
	1834 Feb.	Chosen as founding member of Kirtland Council
	1834 May-Aug.	Leader in Kirtland after Zions Camp left
	1834 Oct	Edits LDS Messenger and Advocate and Northern Times
	1834 Oct	Publishes Letter I about Church history, part of which is in the current Pearl of Great Price
	1834 Nov	Publishes Letter II about Church history
	1834 Dec	Publishes Letter III about Church history
	1834 Dec	Ordained by Joseph Smith as “Assistant President of the Church”
	1835	Publishes Letter IV about Church history
	1835 Feb	With David Whitmer and Martin Harris, selects first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
	1835 Feb	Gives apostolic charge to the Twelve Apostles
	1835 Mar	Publishes Letter V about Church history
	1835 Apr	Publishes Letter VI about Church history
	1835 May	Resigns from Messenger and Advocate
	1835 July	Publishes Letter VII about Church history
	1835 Aug.	Gets Doctrine and Covenants approved for printing
	1835 Oct.	Publishes Letter VIII about Church history
	1836 Mar.	Resumes editing the Messenger and Advocate
	1836 Apr.	Visited in Kirtland temple by Moses, Elias, Elijah, and Christ, receives the keys of the gathering of Israel and dispensation of gospel of Abraham
	1836 July	Accompanies Joseph to Salem, MA
	1837 Feb.	Turns over printing company to Joseph and Sidney
	1838 July	“Excluded from fellowship” for accusations against Joseph
	1848 Nov.	Rebaptized into the Church
	1850 March	Dies in Richmond at home of David Whitmer

Selective standards toward historical sources

The power and influence of M2C is evident in the way that the book Saints features a variety of selective standards toward the historical accounts.

The most egregious, of course, is authors' deliberate violation of their own claim that they wanted to portray characters in their narrative present, meaning as those characters saw themselves at the time. This is an ideal way to write history; it puts readers into the actual world of the people they are reading about.

However, because of their desire to promote a modern narrative about Book of Mormon geography, the authors created a false narrative present by portraying figures in Church history as unaware of the Hill Cumorah in New York.

To create this false narrative present, the authors used a variety of selective standards. Let's look at some.

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The authors claimed that Joseph Smith never referred to the "hill in New York" where he got the plates as the hill Cumorah.

However, they know that Lucy Mack Smith gave us a direct quotation of Joseph referring to the hill as Cumorah in 1827 before he even got the plates. The editors avoid this evidence by editing around it, as I showed in another post.

They also know that in D&C 128:20, Joseph specifically referred to Cumorah. How did they get around this evidence that contradicts their narrative present? Simply by quoting portions of D&C 128 from before and after verse 20 (see p. 477).

The authors also know that Joseph Smith helped Oliver write the eight historical letters that they cited many times, but they don't inform readers that Joseph had the letters copied into his personal history, or that he approved the republication of these letters multiple times.
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They also apply a selective standard to the evidence they cite throughout the book.

Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that the editors were correct; i.e., let's pretend Joseph never referred to Cumorah. Is that a justification for censoring the term?

The editors don't apply that standard with regard to other topics. Throughout the book, they write about what Joseph thought, felt, wanted, etc., all based on their inferences.

On page 434, they acknowledge that "Joseph himself left no record of his own views on plural marriage or his struggle to obey the commandment. Emma too disclosed nothing about how early she learned of the practice or what impact it had on her marriage. The writings of others close to them, however, make clear that it was a source of anguish for both of them."

This lack of an actual record is no obstacle because this is a topic the authors of Saints wanted to discuss. The book goes on to make speculative statements such as this: "Yet Joseph felt an urgency to teach it to the Saints, despite the risks and his own reservations."

Making reasonable inferences is fine, but notice the selective standard. The authors censor Cumorah because they claim Joseph "left no record of his own views" on Cumorah, but they also censor "the writings of others close to them" that "make clear that" Joseph and his associates all believed Cumorah was in New York.

IOW, on the topic of plural marriage, the authors of Saints speculate at length about what Joseph thought, based on the writings of others. But on the topic of Cumorah, not only do they censor what Joseph actually said and wrote, but they censor the writings of others that corroborated Joseph's own words.
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Another example is the treatment of Parley P. Pratt's autobiography and its sources. When Pratt wrote something that fit the narrative the authors wanted, they freely quoted from his writings.

For example, on pages 367-8, they related Joseph Smith's rebuke of the prison guards in Richmond, Missouri, in 1838. They provide a direct quotation of what Joseph said, taken from Pratt's Autobiography (which in turn was based on a letter Pratt wrote in 1853).

However, Matt Grow, one of the historians who defended the censorship of Cumorah in Saints, provided a different interpretation of this quotation in another book. Here's an explanation from an article about the topic.

Givens and Grow provide the following assessment of the narrative: “Written years after Smith’s death, the account describes a hero of inspiring proportions; if Pratt did not express such veneration during Smith’s lifetime, distance and the aura of martyrdom made it easier for Pratt, as his disciple, to describe such a moment of mythic splendor. With his tendency toward Victorian grandiloquence, his Manichean worldview, and the sense of poetic license, Pratt perhaps embellished the scene. . . . However, there is no reason to doubt the essentials of the account.” Givens and Grow, Parley P. Pratt, 144. The fact that Pratt did not even mention the rebuking incident in his History of the Late Persecutions (most of which he wrote between December 1838 to mid-March 1839), supports Givens and Grows conclusion that over time, the incident became even more impressive in his mind.

http://mormonhistoricsites.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/%E2%80%9CSilence-Ye-Fiends-of-the-Infernal-Pit%E2%80%9D-Joseph-Smith%E2%80%99s-Incarceration-in-Richmond-Missouri-November-1838.pdf
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I bring this up to show how, when it fits the desired narrative, the authors of Saints had no problem providing direct quotations, even when they knew the quotations were first recorded 15 years after the event, were never mentioned earlier, and were probably embellished on top of that.

But when a quotation from the same source contradicts the desired narrative, it becomes unreliable and subject to censorship.

The New York Cumorah contradicts the modern M2C narrative, so the authors of Saints censor it, even though Parley P. Pratt's Autobiography included the following quotation.

"This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him, Cumorah, which hill is now in the State of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario county." p. 57.

The authors of Saints also dismissed Lucy Mack Smith's quotation of Joseph Smith referring to Cumorah in 1827, apparently because she didn't record it until 1845, although she related it verbally prior to that. M2C advocates say Lucy's memory was unreliable on this one point (the New York Cumorah), but they cite her account throughout Saints and other accounts of Church history.
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M2C and Saints - the hand in the glove

We've seen how the pretexts given for censorship in Saints don't hold up to even cursory scrutiny.

Saints is an attractive book in terms of design and content. It is very well done. It's a nice glove. But I think M2C is the hand in the glove of Saints.
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It's apparent to everyone now that the editors of Saints censored the term Cumorah solely to "uphold" their idea of "neutrality" regarding Book of Mormon geography, an intellectual construct from the late 20th century that has no place in Saints.

This concept of "neutrality" was articulated by M2C scholars in their effort to justify erasing the New York Cumorah from the record. That's why the Saints editors invoked it to justify censoring the term Cuomrah.

While we all want to give the historians the benefit of the doubt, the pretexts they've given so far merely confirm their interdependence with M2C ideology. Recent actions by the M2C intellectuals demonstrate how they are adding Saints to the academic cycle they have been using to impose M2C on members of the Church.

Here's the academic cycle.

Saints was written to fit right in.

We have to add it to the circle labeled "Meso Art & Media."

Now, it's not only students at BYU and CES who are being taught that the prophets and apostles are wrong about the New York Cumorah.

Thanks to Saints, everyone in the Church is being taught that the prophets are wrong. 

Saints is even using an intentionally false historical narrative to do it!
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This false historical narrative is what the M2C intellectuals have been promoting for years, but until Saints, they didn't have the full, explicit cooperation of the historians the way they do now.

After all, the Introduction to the Book of Mormon still refers to the New York Cumorah:

After Mormon completed his writings, he delivered the account to his son Moroni, who added a few words of his own and hid up the plates in the Hill Cumorah.

If there is no course correction to return to the teachings of the prophets and apostles about the New York Cumorah, that language will certainly be changed to read something such as this:

After Mormon completed his writings, he delivered the account to his son Moroni, who added a few words of his own and hid up the plates in a large hill in Manchester township, Ontario County, New York.

Actually, I suspect the Introduction has already been changed for the 2020 edition of the Book of Mormon. Don't be surprised when that edition comes out.

Which is a tremendous irony, to put it mildly.
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Back to the hand-in-the-glove relationship between the M2C advocates and Saints.

Book of Mormon Central Censor BOMCC is an integral part of the M2C citation cartel. BOMCC is famous for its corporate goal of proving the Book of Mormon is a Mesoamerican codex and its policy of censoring anything that contradicts M2C.

Actually, it goes further than that; BOMCC censors anything that doesn't support, promote, or at least accommodate M2C--except when it criticizes those views without giving an opportunity to respond.

On its blog, BOMCC posted the essay by the historians that justified their censorship of Cumorah.  People read BOMCC to confirm their M2C biases, and the essay fits their M2C narrative perfectly. No BOMCC readers will recognize the logical and factual fallacies n the essay because they want to believe M2C.

But BOMCC is pushing Saints even more than that.

Now they're citing Saints as authority for their M2C ideology, exactly as the Academic Cycle predicts. I discussed an example here:

https://bookofmormoncensor.blogspot.com/2018/10/no-wise-477.html

You'll say that Saints was not intended as an academic reference, and I agree, but BOMCC is hardly known for academic rigor. None of their material is peer-reviewed, in any real sense. It is reviewed solely for adherence to M2C ideology.

Don't be surprised to see BOMCC cite Saints more and more in the future. And don't be surprised to see more and more "hand-in-glove" cooperation between M2C intellectuals and the historians.

(I already have more examples I don't have time to describe here.)

The "hill in New York" problem

One of the pretexts offered by Church historians for censoring the term "Cumorah" in the first volume of Saints is that Joseph Smith's 1838 history does not use the term "Cumorah."

Here's how the passage (now JS-H 1:51) reads:

51 Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario county, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box. 

The historians point out that this history was not dictated by Joseph Smith but was instead compiled by Mulholland from records available to him but which we don't have now. That's how they explain why the 1838 history says it was Nephi who visited Joseph in 1823 instead of Moroni.

I discussed that in my analysis of their statement about Cumorah, but people have more questions, so I'll answer a couple of them.

1. Why didn't the 1838 history refer to Cumorah?

The long-held answer was that we don't know, because none of the participants left an explanation. All we could do was make inferences based on the evidence and our own perspectives (biases).

It turns out that we do have an explanation, and it is right in the 1838 history. I'll show you below, after we review how the editors of Saints handled the 1838 history.

Without citing any evidence, the Saints editors claimed the omission from the 1838 history reflected Joseph Smith's uncertainty about the New York Cumorah and this in turn justified their censorship of the term in Saints.

They claim the omission also justified their creation of the false historical narrative about Cumorah in Saints. That is, they created characters in Saints who had never having heard of the word Cumorah or its connection to the New York hill.

I think this was a post hoc pretext, invented after the Book was published because they had been asked for an explanation for the censorship of Cumorah. To understand why they came up with this pretext, you need to know more of the intellectual genealogy of their claim.

The only way M2C (the Mesoamerican/two Cumorahs theory) can retain any credibility whatsoever among Latter-day Saints is by destroying belief in what the prophets have taught about the New York Cumorah. 

Consequently, M2C intellectuals, their followers, and the historians who accommodate them (including the producers of Saints) claim the omission of Cumorah from the 1838 history reflects  Joseph's uncertainty about the New York Cumorah and/or his "evolving views" about that setting.

You'll notice, though, that they never cite any evidence to support this view. It's the worst kind of confirmation bias--the kind that doesn't even claim to have evidence.

The best they can do is advocate the following logic:

(i) point to the anonymous editorials in the 1842 Times and Seasons that describe ruins in Central America as having been left by Nephites;
(ii) attribute these anonymous articles to Joseph Smith; and
(iii) argue that a New York Cumorah doesn't fit their belief in a limited geography Mesoamerican setting that requires a Mesoamerican Cumorah, so therefore Joseph Smith, too, came to reject the New York Cumorah.

If I have misunderstood or misstated the position of the M2C intellectuals and their followers and facilitators, I'd be happy to correct any errors immediately. They all have my contact information.

But I don't expect them to contact me because they really have no better explanation.

That's what makes the Saints book so fundamentally dishonest the way it portrays this issue.
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For an alternative explanation of the omission of Cumorah from the 1838 history, I have a much simpler explanation. Actually, the history itself explains why it did not include the term Cumorah.

The 1838 history was intended for an audience other than members of the Church.

Notice the introduction:

1 Owing to the many reports which have been put in circulation by evil-disposed and designing persons, in relation to the rise and progress of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all of which have been designed by the authors thereof to militate against its character as a Church and its progress in the world—I have been induced to write this history, to disabuse the public mind, and put all inquirers after truth in possession of the facts, as they have transpired, in relation both to myself and the Church, so far as I have such facts in my possession.

The intended audience had never heard of the Book of Mormon. They had never read it. They wouldn't recognize the term Cumorah. Without a detailed explanation far beyond the scope or intention of the history, the term would have only caused confusion to readers.

The term Cumorah was simply irrelevant to the purpose of the 1838 history.

In fact, recall that Mulholland, who compiled the history, mentioned to Joseph that he needed to provide a physical description of the hill to make the history complete. That makes sense because the general public was not familiar with Joseph's story--unlike members of the Church.

Now, consider the 1838 history in the context of 1842, when it was published in the Times and Seasons in Nauvoo.

The year before, Joseph's brother Don Carlos had published President Cowdery's eight historical letters. Joseph had characterized them as essays on Priesthood when he had given them to Don Carlos in the fall of 1840 with instructions to publish them. Don Carlos published them in serialized form. Letters VI and VII overlapped, but the portion of Letter VII that described the New York Cumorah was published in the Times and Seasons under the heading "Rise of the Church" on April 15, 1841.

During the following year, 1842, the 1838 history was serialized. The section describing the "hill of considerable size" was published in the May 2, 1842, Times and Seasons under the heading "History of Joseph Smith."

There may have been some Church members in 1842 who were unaware of the previous year's publication of Letter VII's identification of the hill as Cumorah, but as we just saw, the primary audience for the 1838 history was the public, not members of the Church.

(Some articles were published in the Times and Seasons with the hope that other newspapers would pick them up. Sometimes this succeeded. For example, a few years ago I was doing historical research in Massachusetts when I found an 1842 newspaper that had republished the Times and Seasons material on the Book of Abraham.)
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A few months later, Joseph Smith wrote a letter to members of the Church. It is now D&C 128, except the way it's published in the scriptures omits a key detail.

Here's how the letter originally appeared in the Times and Seasons:

TIMES AND SEASONS.
CITY OF NAUVOO,
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1842.

LETTER FROM JOSEPH SMITH.

Nauvoo, September 6, 1842.

TO THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS, SENDETH GREETING:—
As I stated to you in my letter before I left my place, that I would write to you from time to time, and give you information in relation to many subjects, I now resume the subject of the baptism for the dead; as that subject seems to occupy my mind, and press itself upon my feelings the strongest, since I have been pursued by my enemies.
(Times and Seasons III.23:934 ¶1–5)

This letter was not addressed to the general public. It was an intimate letter written specifically for members of the Church about a topic that involved members of the Church, not the general public.

In that context, verse 20 makes perfect sense:

20 And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets—the book to be revealed. 

The audience for D&C 128 was members of the Church who all knew what Joseph meant by the term Cumorah. They had read Letter VII in various Church publications. They had heard Lucy Mack Smith's accounts. They knew what Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, W.W. Phelps, and others had taught. After he joined the Church, Heber C. Kimball had personally visited the hill Cumorah in New York and remarked that the embankments were still there. Brigham Young knew that Joseph and Oliver had visited the depository of Nephite records inside the hill.

The difference in the intended audience for the two documents explains why one refers to Cumorah and the other does not. 

The 1842 letter written to members of the Church refers to Cumorah without further explanation because members of the Church all understood the reference to Cumorah without needing any further explanation.

The 1838 history written to the public does not refer to Cumorah because the public wouldn't understand a reference to Cumorah without further explanation, and such an explanation would have detracted from the point of the history.

This, to me, is the most plausible explanation for the omission of Cumorah from the 1838 history. And it's based on actual facts, including the words of the documents themselves.

Does anyone disagree? If so, I'd like to hear your rationale.

M2C people need not reply unless they offer a additional facts. You don't need to repeat the same semantic arguments you've been making for years.
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2. The second question people have is, why did the 1838 history refer to Nephi as the individual who visited Joseph Smith in 1823? 

You can read the original 1838 history here.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/5

Notice the insertion on the original manuscript: <​*Moroni​>. <​*Evidently a clerical error; see Book Doc &amp; Cov., Sec 50, par 2; Sec 106, par 20; also Elder’s Journal Vol. 1, page 43. Should read Moroni.​>

It was published with the Nephi name in the Times and Seasons on April 15, 1842. It had been previously published this way in the Millennial Star in 1841.

The normal explanations by LDS scholars are sort of plausible, but they don't really make sense. Basically they blame a clerical error.

E.g., see https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Moroni%27s_visit/Nephi_or_Moroni

We've already seen how the 1838 history was not written or dictated by Joseph Smith; instead, it was compiled from other documents that are no longer extant.

In 1876, Orson Pratt offered this explanation:

The discrepency in the history … may have occurred through the ignorance or carelessness of the historian or transcriber. It is true, that the history reads as though the Prophet himself recorded [it, that he] was [doing the] writing: but … many events recorded were written by his scribes who undoubtedly trusted too much to their memories, and the items probably were not sufficiently scanned by Bro. Joseph, before they got into print.

In my view, this explanation alone undermines the reliability and credibility of the 1838 history, at least when parsed word-by-word and relied on as a "main historical source" as a pretext for censoring Cumorah from the Saints book.

The problem with the 1838 history also undermines the theory that Joseph Smith was the acting editor of the Times and Seasons in 1842, but that's another topic.

The key question here is, why would Joseph's scribes, historians, or transcribers have come up with the name Nephi in the first place?

The answer implicates the phony story in the Saints book of Mary Whitmer being shown the plates by Moroni.
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Mary Whitmer sees the plates.
Painting from Book of Mormon Central Censor.
M2C scholars say this old, heavy-set man
was Moroni. The actual participants said
he was one of the Three Nephites.

As I've previously discussed, Mary said the messenger was "Brother Nephi." David Whitmer said it was the same messenger who he met on the road from Harmony to Fayette, the old man who said he was taking the Harmony plates to Cumorah.

David remembered the event specifically because it was the first time he had ever heard the word Cumorah.

Of course, the description of the old man by David and Mary completely contradicts the description we have of Moroni.

Plus, David said Joseph identified the messenger as one of the Nephites. Joseph's mother Lucy said Joseph got the plates to show the eight witnesses from one of the Nephites.

We know from 3 Nephi that one of the Twelve was named Nephi. We don't know the names of the three who were chosen to remain in mortality, but there's a 25% chance (at least) that Nephi was one of the three.

If one of the Three Nephites was named Nephi (as Mother Whitmer called him), and Nephi was as involved with the plates as these witnesses related (both the Harmony and the Fayette plates), it makes sense that Joseph's scribes could have become confused about whether it was Nephi or Moroni who originally visited Joseph Smith.

IOW, they would have known that both Moroni and Nephi visited Joseph on multiple occasions, and these visits often (or always) had something to do with the plates.

At least, for me, this is the most plausible explanation, and one supported by evidence.

The long-repeated explanation that Joseph's scribes just somehow erroneously invented the name Nephi is nonsensical.
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3. Bonus question: Why did Saints use the phony story about Moroni visiting Mary Whitmer?

Based on the pretexts they gave us for censoring Cumorah in the Saints book, we can infer they had a similar motive for writing a phony story about Moroni.

Here's the rationale.

The editors have admitted they had a policy to "uphold" their concept of "neutrality" regarding Book of Mormon geography. To do so, they had to create a false historical "narrative present."

As we've seen, the actual people living as Joseph's contemporaries had no such "neutrality" in mind. They all believed Cumorah was in New York. Several of them wrote about it, and no one questioned it--ever.

The Mary Whitmer story presented a dilemma. It's a great story--a female witness of the gold plates--but as related by the actual participants, it affirms the New York Cumorah. That narrative contradicts the editors' policy of "upholding" the anachronistic "neutrality" narrative.

What to do?

Trusting that most members would neither know nor discover what David Whitmer said about the events, the editors found an article by Royal Skousen that explained how Mary Whitmer's descendants invented the Moroni version--complete with phony dialog that made its way into the Saints book.

Here was the perfect solution.

The editors of Saints now had an actual citation to support their phony narrative present. None of the reviewers would know about David Whitmer's statements. Nor would most readers.

[BTW, the encounter with the messenger going to Cumorah is also being systematically scrubbed from Church history, as I explained here:
http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2017/12/opening-heavens-but-censoring-history.html]

Consequently, millions of readers around the world who read Saints will learn a phony story about Church history, purely because the editors wanted to accommodate their M2C peers.
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Most of you already know how the phony Mary Whitmer story impacts M2C, right?

For those who don't know, it's simple.

If the messenger (presumably Nephi) was taking the Harmony plates to Cumorah, as he said, what possible explanation could there be?

The only viable explanation is that there were two sets of plates: the original plates (the "Original Book of Mormon" as Joseph described it), and the plates of Nephi (D&C 10) that Joseph didn't get until he got to Fayette.

This, in turn, corroborates what Oliver Cowdery said about Mormon's depository in the Hill Cumorah in New York.

But that means Letter VII is correct.

See the problem for M2C?

The M2C intellectuals, their followers and their facilitators, all have to discredit David Whitmer's account of the messenger taking the plates to Cumorah.

The phony Mary Whitmer story is part of that effort.

Of course, our historians are telling us they had no such thing in mind. They simply omitted the actual history and replaced it with a phony account because they wanted to "uphold" "neutrality."
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If you're like me, you still have one question.

Does anyone really believe the explanations given to us by the editors of Saints?

Prophets vs Saints: Pres. Romney

Some people think the book Saints should not be subject to criticism. Maybe they think criticism of the book is equivalent to criticism of the authors, the Church, or something else apart from the words on the page. However, I don't think Saints has been, or ever will be, canonized as scripture.

I think Saints is an awesome book, but deeply flawed because of the way it imposes late 20th century M2C ideology onto figures in Church history who had never heard of, let alone contemplated, the idea that Joseph and Oliver and their contemporaries were ignorant speculators who misled the Church about the New York Cumorah. 

Because I think the flaws in Saints could be easily corrected, I've offered some suggestions, both before and after the book was published. So far, all my suggestions have produced is the bizarre list of justifications for censorship that I wrote about in the previous post on this blog.
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To someone well informed about Church history, the revisionist Church history in Saints is not anything new. We've seen a pattern of Church history revisionism, driven largely by M2C ideology. We've come to expect that M2C intellectuals and their followers will censor references to the New York Cumorah at every opportunity.

Those familiar with Church history have shrugged our shoulders and laughed off these academic games because we know what the prophets and apostles have taught. We sustain prophets, not intellectuals.

But this is no longer a laughing matter.

Many Church members are ignorant of the teachings of the prophets and apostles about the New York Cumorah. This ignorance is growing, an inevitable development now that employees at BYU and CES teach students that the prophets were wrong.

In its current form, Saints not only contributes to that ignorance; it insures that this ignorance will be passed on to current and future generations around the world.

In this post, I provide an example of the teachings of the prophets and apostles that contradict the false historical narrative in Saints. This is an important General Conference address by President Marion G. Romney. You can read or watch the original here.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1975/10/americas-destiny?lang=eng

As you read these excerpts, realize that the intellectuals who promote M2C, and the historians behind Saints who are revising Church history to accommodate M2C, are teaching their students and readers that President Romney was merely expressing his own opinion--and that he was wrong. They are teaching people that President Romney and other prophets and apostles were misleading members of the Church about the New York Cumorah.

Four Presidents of the Church were in attendance when President Romney gave this talk and not one ever corrected the supposedly wrong teachings about the New York Cumorah.

To the contrary, a member of the Twelve reiterated the New York Cumorah three years later, also in General Conference. We'll look at some of these additional affirmations of the New York Cumorah in upcoming posts.

I've highlighted key passages in red.
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America’s Destiny


President Marion G. Romney 
of the First Presidency

My beloved brothers and sisters, I invite you to join in a prayer that while I speak you and I may both enjoy the Spirit. I will give you a lesson today that the Lord has taken great pains to bring to us.

Among the questions frequently raised in connection with our upcoming national bicentennial is “Can we maintain our basic freedoms, peace, and prosperity for another 200 years?”

The answer to this question is yes, if we shall individually repent and conform to the laws of the God of this land, who is Jesus Christ....

It is my purpose in making these remarks to point out from the record of ancient inhabitants of America that the foregoing decrees have been carried out.

In the western part of the state of New York near Palmyra is a prominent hill known as the “hill Cumorah.” (Morm. 6:6.) On July twenty-fifth of this year, as I stood on the crest of that hill admiring with awe the breathtaking panorama which stretched out before me on every hand, my mind reverted to the events which occurred in that vicinity some twenty-five centuries ago—events which brought to an end the great Jaredite nation.

You who are acquainted with the Book of Mormon will recall that during the final campaign of the fratricidal war between the armies led by Shiz and those led by Coriantumr “nearly two millions” of Coriantumr’s people had been slain by the sword; “two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children.” (Ether 15:2.)

As the conflict intensified, all the people who had not been slain—men “with their wives and their children” (Ether 15:15)—gathered about that hill Cumorah (see Ether 15:11).

“The people who were for Coriantumr were gathered together to the army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz were gathered together to the army of Shiz. …

Thus perished at the foot of Cumorah the remnant of the once mighty Jaredite nation, of whom the Lord had said, “There shall be none greater … upon all the face of the earth.” (Ether 1:43.)

As I contemplated this tragic scene from the crest of Cumorah and viewed the beautiful land of the Restoration as it appears today, I cried in my soul, “How could it have happened?”

The answer came immediately as I remembered that some fifteen to twenty centuries before their destruction, as the small group of their ancestors was being divinely led from the tower of Babel, the Lord “would that they should come forth even unto [this] land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people.

“And he had sworn in his wrath unto the brother of Jared [their prophet-leader], that whoso should possess this land … from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them.

“And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land,” wrote the ancient prophet-historian, “that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity.

“For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God.” (Ether 2:7–10.)

Pursuant to this decree concerning the land of America, the Jaredites were swept off in the manner we have reviewed, because, rebelling against the laws of Jesus Christ—the God of the land—they “ripened in iniquity.”

Nor were they the only people who anciently were divinely led to this choice land to grow in righteousness to be a mighty nation and then to deteriorate in wickedness until they ripened in iniquity and were, pursuant to God’s decree, swept off.

I emphasize “divinely led” because, as above indicated, the Lord told them that they were being so led, and “that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord....

This second civilization to which I refer, the Nephites, flourished in America between 600 B.C. and A.D. 400. Their civilization came to an end for the same reason, at the same place, and in the same manner as did the Jaredites’. From the account of their death struggle, I quote:

“And now,” says Mormon, their historian, “I finish my record concerning the destruction of my people, the Nephites. And it came to pass that we did march forth before the Lamanites … to the land of Cumorah. … And when … we had gathered in all the remainder of our people unto the land of Cumorah, … my people, with their wives and their children, did … behold the armies of the Lamanites marching towards them; and with that awful fear of death which fills the breasts of all the wicked, did they await to receive them....

The tragic fate of the Jaredite and the Nephite civilizations is proof positive that the Lord meant it when he said that this “is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity.” (Ether 2:9.)

This information, wrote Moroni, addressing himself to us who today occupy this land, “cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles” (now, Gentiles is the term used by the Book of Mormon prophets to refer to the present inhabitants of America and to the peoples of the old world from which they came), “[this] cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God—that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done....

God gave us victory in the Revolutionary War. We are indebted to him for our nation’s independence. He has prospered us in every righteous endeavor. He established the Constitution of the United States “by the hands of wise men whom [he] raised up unto this very purpose.” (D&C 101:80.)

He himself with his Beloved Son appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith to open a new dispensation of the gospel of Jesus Christ here in this land. He has established his Church here and has sent and is sending representatives thereof into every nook and corner of the land—and as far as possible to all the earth—to declare and teach the laws of Jesus Christ, the God of this land.

He has revealed anew and repeated over and over again the ancient decree: “This is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God” concerning this land. (Ether 2:10.)

This knowledge has been revealed to us that we “may know the decrees of God—that [we] may repent, and not continue in [our] iniquities until the fulness come, that [we] may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon [us] as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done.” (Ether 2:11.)

We are living in the dispensation of the fulness of times, which will be climaxed by the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. Concerning the approach of that event and what is in store for the inhabitants of the earth between now and then, the Lord said 144 years ago:

“The wrath of God shall be poured out upon the wicked without measure. …

“Wherefore the voice of the Lord is unto the ends of the earth, that all that will hear may hear.”...

Now my beloved brethren and sisters everywhere, both members of the Church and nonmembers, I bear you my personal witness that I know that the things I have presented to you today are true—both those pertaining to past events and those pertaining to events yet to come. The issue we face is clear and well defined. The choice is ours. The question is: Shall we of this dispensation repent and obey the laws of the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, or shall we continue to defy them until we ripen in iniquity?

That we will repent and obey and thereby qualify to receive the blessings promised to the righteous in this land, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Amen.