By Jerald and Sandra Tanner
Since we began publishing material on Mormonism in 1959, we have waited in vain for the church to make a response. Although a large number of people have left the Mormon Church because of our publications, church leaders seem to feel that their best policy is silence. Since they apparently cannot find a way to refute our allegations, they believe that the less people know about our publications the better. In an article written in Utah Holiday, February 1978, David Merrill observed:
The official attitude of the Mormon hierarchy toward the Tanners has been one of silence and apparent unconcern. They have, however, actively discouraged LDS scholars and intellectuals from jousting with the Tanners . . .
[Bold in quotations is added for emphasis and does not appear in originals.]
Prior to the publication of our book, Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon, in 1990, church scholars at Brigham Young University and F.A.R.M.S. followed the church leaders’ advice and studiously avoided locking horns with us. With the publication of our work on the “black hole,” however, they apparently realized that it was time to speak up. After remaining virtually silent for over thirty years, Mormon scholars have suddenly come out like an army to attack us. They have recently published three reviews, containing seventy-five pages, castigating our work on the theory of a black hole in the Book of Mormon! These reviews appear in F.A.R.M.S.’ publication, Reviews of Books on The Book of Mormon, vol. 3.
While the Mormon apologists who wrote these articles against us are not as vicious in their attack as those who took on the Mormon scholars who they consider to be “disaffected Latter-day Saints,” they are rather condescending in their approach. Furthermore, one of the authors, John A. Tvedtnes, directly accuses us of dishonesty:
Jerald and Sandra Tanner are two of the best known critics of the Latter-day Saint Church, its doctrines, history, and scriptures. As such, it is strange to see them come out with a book in which they profess themselves to be the “good guys” (my wording) in the anti-Mormon debate. They claim, for example, to have believed in the divine origin of the Book of Mormon as late as 1960, and that they began a sincere search to prove that the book was true, but found more and more evidence that it was not. This, they write, was painful to them (pp. 1, 7). (Reviews of Books on the Book of Mormon, vol. 3, page 188)
In a footnote at the bottom of the same page, John Tvedtnes argues that our account of how we came to disbelieve the Book of Mormon is simply not true:
These statements are at variance with what Sandra Tanner once told me about how she came to lose her faith as a teenager, and make me wonder how they can criticize Joseph Smith for making similar “changes” in his story.
This is certainly a very serious charge to make against our integrity, and we assure the reader that it is without foundation in fact. What we wrote in our book, Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon, concerning our early belief in the Book of Mormon is absolutely correct. We not only believed in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon in 1960, but we continued to believe in it until 1962. While Mr. Tvedtnes cannot find a scintilla of evidence to support his charge, we have abundant proof that we were supporting the Book of Mormon until near the end of 1962. We have, for example, a book which was given to us by the noted Mormon scholar Francis W. Kirkham. In this book Dr. Kirkham made the following inscription: “To newly found friends and believers in the Book of Mormon. Mr & Mrs Jerald Tanner. Frances W. Kirkham[,] Salt Lake City, Utah[,] July 22, 1960.” Furthermore, in a book “Copyright 1962,” Mormon writer Kate B. Carter wrote the following:
. . . Jerald Tanner . . . when asked what he and his followers believed, wrote: “We believe the Bible and the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. . . .”
Mr. Tanner has written a number of tracts which he distributes freely on such subjects as the Book of Mormon, Priesthood, Marriage, proof that the Book of Mormon and the Bible agree . . . (Denominations that Base Their Beliefs on the teachings of Joseph Smith, 1962, page 51)
Prior to our marriage in 1959, we had read a tract by David Whitmer entitled An Address to All Believers in Christ. Whitmer, of course, was one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. We were impressed with his message that the Book of Mormon was authentic but that the church had fallen into some serious errors such as polygamy (see Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? page 568, for a statement concerning this matter). Like David Whitmer, who separated himself from the Mormon Church, we continued to believe in the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon and promoted belief in it until 1962. John Tvedtnes seems to feel that there is a contradiction because “Sandra Tanner once told me about how she came to lose her faith as a teenager . . .” There is no misrepresentation here. Sandra was eighteen years old at the time we were married. She was still a teenager until January 1961. She lost faith in the teachings of the Mormon leaders while “a teenager,” but did not lose faith in the Book of Mormon until late in 1962 when she read The Golden Bible, by M. T. Lamb.
It is interesting to note that Darrick Evenson was promoting the same theory as John Tvedtnes—i. e., that we were not really believers in the Book of Mormon in the early 1960’s. While we cannot determine whether Mr. Tvedtnes got the idea from Mr. Evenson or vice versa, we do know that Evenson visited F.A.R.M.S. and that a representative from that organization attended one of his meetings. In any case, we feel that Mr. Tvedtnes and F.A.R.M.S. should publish a retraction concerning this erroneous charge.
Although three Mormon apologists have devoted seventy-five pages to our book, Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon, we cannot see that they have made a dent in the theory. Moreover, some major errors appear in the reviews. We have been working on a detailed response to the allegations found in these reviews. In preparing this response, we have discovered a great deal of new evidence to show that the Book of Mormon is not taken from ancient gold plates, but is in reality a 19th-century production. We plan to publish our response to the critics within the next few months.
We feel that Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon is one of the most important studies that we have published and that all our readers should be aware of its contents.
[Note: Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon has since been integrated into our book, Joseph Smith’s Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon.]
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