Category: Truth and Discernment
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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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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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By Their Fruits
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In Matthew 7:15-16 Jesus is reported to have said: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? While Joseph Smith and Brigham Young claimed to…
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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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Joseph As a Translator
Although Robert and Rosemary Brown’s book, “They Lie in Wait to Deceive,” highlighted the false credentials of Egyptologist, Dee Jay Nelson, it did little to resolve the problems of the Book of Abraham.
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Communists in Zion?
FBI Documents to be Sought in Court By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In the last issue of the Messenger (November 1980) we pointed out that an employee of the Mormon Church by the name of Steven Mayfield was caught spying on us under the alias “Stan Fields.” After some investigation we learned that Mr. Mayfield…
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The Changing World of Mormonism: Chapter 7
The Godhead In the book of Isaiah 44:8 we read: “. . . Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.” Joseph Smith’s first published work, the Book of Mormon, seems to be in harmony with the teachings of the Bible on this point, for it states that there is only…
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The Changing World of Mormonism: Chapter 6
The First Vision Mormon Apostle LeGrand Richards proclaims: “On the morning of a beautiful spring day in 1820 there occurred one of the most important and momentous events in this world’s history. God, the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph Smith and gave instructions concerning the establishment of the kingdom of…