Category: Documents and Discoveries
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The Mormon Document Scandal
Hofmann Charged With Murder and Selling Forgeries By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In the last issue of the Messenger we reported that Mormon document dealer Mark Hofmann was not only a suspect in the October 15th Salt Lake City bombing’s case but that police were also investigating the possibility that Mr. Hofmann had been selling…
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LDS Documents and Murder
By Jerald Tanner As I left the Salt Lake City Post Office on October 15, 1985, I noticed that the east side of Main Street was blocked off by the police. Later I was to learn that a murder had been committed at the Judge Building—less than a block from where I obtained my mail.…
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1826 Trial Record Recovered
By Wesley P. Walters [At our request Wesley P. Walters has prepared the following.] On March 20, 1826, four years before he published the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, Jr. was hauled before the local court in Bainbridge, New York. He was accused of being “a disorderly person and an imposter” because of his claim…
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More Discoveries!
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In his book, Nightfall At Nauvoo, the Mormon writer Samuel W. Taylor commented that “the Salt Lake City Messenger, contains some of the liveliest reading ever to emerge from the city of the Saints.” In the Messenger we have tried very hard to provide information that is both accurate and…
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Fake Documents and the Harris Letter
By Jerald Tanner In the Messenger for June 1985, we reported that we had learned that someone had “been making up material and attributing it to Joseph Smith. Since such an individual has the ability to create the text of a document like the Salamander letter, we are making a very serious investigation into this…
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“Salamandergate”: Mormon Church Caught in Magic Cover-up
Jerald and Sandra Tanner summarize the evidence for and against the authenticity of Mark Hofmann’s questionable documents, expressing their views candidly for the record.
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Dilemma of a Mormon Critic
By Jerald Tanner As we have indicated in the previous article, the evidence derived from physical testing seems to be pointed to the conclusion that the Salamander letter, attributed to Book of Mormon witness Martin Harris, is genuine. Since I have spent years proving that early Mormonism is linked to magic and money-digging, this news…
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The Salamander Letter
Strange Letter Attributed to Mormon Witness By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In the March issue of the Salt Lake City Messenger we announced the discovery of a very important letter which was supposed to have been written by Book of Mormon witness Martin Harris. The existence of this letter was confirmed on March 7, 1984,…
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Embarrassing Letters
Jerald and Sandra Tanner report on two important letters (Josiah Stowel letter and Martin Harris letter) that seemed plausible but not without troubling questions.
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Moroni or Salamander?
Reported Find of Letter by Book of Mormon Witness By Jerald and Sandra Tanner For a month or two there have been rumors circulating that an extremely important letter written by Book of Mormon witness Martin Harris has been discovered. Although there has been an attempt to keep the matter quiet until the document has…