Category: Forgeries
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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…
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Joseph as a Prophet
An Important New Document Comes to Light By Jerald and Sandra Tanner The evidence we presented in another article in this issue of the Messenger shows that Joseph Smith failed as a translator. In this article we will show that the Mormon Church now faces a similar problem with regard to his role as a…
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Kinderhook Plates (newsletter update)
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner While we give a detailed report concerning Joseph Smith’s “translation” of the Kinderhook plates in our book Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? new and important information has recently come to light. The Mormon publication Times and Seasons for May 1, 1843, reported that these plates were found in a mound in Kinderhook,…
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Joseph Smith’s “Caractors” Found!
Important Discovery Puts President Kimball On The Spot By Jerald and Sandra Tanner On May 3, 1980, the Church Section of the Mormon newspaper, Deseret News, reported that an amazing discovery had been made: A hand-written sheet of paper with characters supposedly copied directly from the gold plates in 1828, and also bearing other writing…