An Evaluation of Joseph Smith’s “Rocky Mountain Prophecy”

By Johnny Stephenson

Condensed and used by permission from:
https://mormonitemusings.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/playing-f-a-i-r/

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I often come across this scenario on Mormon Facebook Pages and other sites as I browse the internet: Self-proclaimed Mormon “apologists” using material from FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research) to “prove” that critics of Mormonism are dead wrong about issues that the critics claim prove the LDS Church has manipulated or lied about its history. Case in point—Joseph Smith’s “prophecy” recorded in the History of the Church:

“I prophesied that the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to death by our persecutors or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease, and some of you will live to go and assist in making settlements and build cities and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.”¹

[Bold in quotations is added for emphasis and does not appear in originals.]

I. LDS Challenging “Anti-Mormons”

On a Facebook Page titled “Challenging Anti-Mormon Apologetics,”² I came across the following post:

LDS Honesty: Lying for the Lord . . . also says the following:

4. The famous Rocky Mountain Prophecy was a later addition to the official church history and not uttered by Joseph Smith as a prediction that the Mormons would inhabit the Salt Lake Valley. Despite the fact it is not authentic; the church presented it as such for more than a century. The “Rocky Mountain Prophecy” was added after the Mormons arrived in Utah. (The Changing World of Mormonism, p. 406) The church had no intentions of giving this information to members, in order to make their history appear more faith promoting.

Contemporary documentation says otherwise.³

What is this “contemporary documentation” they speak of? If one pursues the FAIR link that the Facebook Page references, one comes upon the Mormon apologist response to the allegation that Smith’s famous Rocky Mountain “prophecy” was inserted into the Manuscript History of the Church at a later date. But has FAIR proved their point? Let’s start with their conclusion and work our way back. FAIR states,

To accept a “forgery” theory, we must accept that all of the people listed above who remembered Joseph speaking about the Rocky Mountains were lying or fabricating their experience. Furthermore, we must also accept that Joseph was sending explorers to the west with no real expectation of moving, and the discussion of heading west by both members and enemies was all idle talk.⁴

This is a classic case of diverting the issue. Jerald and Sandra Tanner actually state in The Changing World of Mormonism,

In our book Falsification of Joseph Smith’s History, page 10, we stated concerning this prophecy:

There is some evidence that Joseph Smith considered going west to build his kingdom, but since we now know that the Mormon Historians actually compiled Joseph Smith’s History after his death and that they drew from many sources, we cannot help being suspicious of the authorship of this prophecy.⁵

We see that the Tanners did indeed admit that “there is some evidence that Joseph Smith considered going west”, so why does FAIR state,

But, to claim that the account of him discussing and even prophesying a move to the west rests on nothing but “forgery” is to distort and ignore too many sources, from too broad a time period, over what is essentially a peripheral issue.

Notice how FAIR is trying to tie this specific “prophecy” to any discussion about the Rocky Mountains, and that any discussion of moving west by Smith must also be classed as spurious. Then, if they can show that Smith discussed it, this makes the Tanners deceptive. FAIR is trying to set their own criteria here, but this is not what the Tanners claim at all, as I have shown above.

The Tanner[s’] claim was not that Smith never discussed the Rocky Mountains, or moving the church west; it was that a prophecy was fabricated by Mormon Historians (most likely based on exaggerations by contemporary Mormons well after the fact) and placed in the official History of the Church as an actual specific statement (prophecy) made by Joseph Smith. The specific charge made by the Tanners was this,

Important evidence concerning Joseph Smith’s prophecy that the Mormons would come to the Rocky Mountains has recently come to light. This prophecy was reported to have been given in 1842 in Illinois. Joseph Smith himself was supposed to have said:

While the Deputy Grand-Master was engaged in giving the requisite instructions to the Master-elect, I had a conversation with a number of brethren . . . I prophesied that the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to death by our persecutors or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease, and some of you will live to go and assist in making settlements and build cities and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. (History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 85)⁶

The Tanners go on to explain how they acquired a photograph of the very manuscript page of the History containing the prophecy. However, the prophecy has obviously been added to the manuscript at a later date. The Tanners continue,

. . . The situation, then, boils down to the following: we have two handwritten [history] manuscripts, books D-1 and D-2. Neither of these books were even started until after Joseph Smith’s death [in 1844]. In both cases the prophecy concerning the Mormons coming to the Rocky Mountains was interpolated in a smaller handwriting. From this evidence we can reach only one conclusion: the famous “Rocky Mountain Prophecy” is not authentic.⁷

FAIR singles out both One Nation Under Gods, by Richard Abanes, and Jerald and Sandra Tanner[’s] book The Changing World of Mormonism, (and since they imply that Richard Abanes probably got his information from the Tanners, I will focus on the argument made in Changing World). FAIR makes these points of criticism:

Jerald and Sandra Tanner claim that a prophecy from Joseph about the Saints’ move to the Rocky Mountains was forged after the fact and inserted into the History of the Church. They provide the following sources for this claim:

• History of the Church 5:85.

• Joseph Smith’s Manuscript History, Book D-1, page 1362

• Brigham Young University Studies, Summer 1971, p. 469

• Davis Bitton, “Joseph Smith in the Mormon Folk Memory,” The John Whitmer address, delivered at the Second Annual Meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Association, Lamoni, Iowa, September 28, 1974, unpublished manuscript, p.16 [This article is now available in “Joseph Smith in the Mormon Folk Memory,” in Restoration Studies, ed. Maurice L. Draper, vol. 1, (Independence, Missouri, 1980).]⁸

FAIR concludes, “This use of sources is dishonest and misleading.”

II. Un-FAIR?

FAIR maintains that the Tanner[s’] use of these sources are “dishonest” and “misleading.” Let’s take this point by point and see if that is the case. FAIR states,

None of these sources support the argument:

• The BYU Studies article from 1971 is Dean Jessee’s account of the authorship of the History of the Church. It says nothing about adding a “Rocky Mountain Prophecy,” and the Tanners neglect to provide the perspective on authorship practices in 19th century history that Jessee provides. They thus hide the material that answers their objection. Readers can fortunately access these ideas on the wiki.⁹

Can we point out that FAIR doesn’t explain that the History of the Church still retains Joseph Smith’s name as author and it doesn’t explain how the history was compiled from other people’s diaries? And they must have missed the Tanners when they explained, “. . . we now know that the Mormon Historians actually compiled Joseph Smith’s History after his death and that they drew from many sources . . .” Do all the Mormon “Authorities” who quote this “prophecy” from the History bother to explain the background behind it, or that in using it this way they tout Smith’s prophetic powers as though he had actually penned those lines? But the real question that FAIR doesn’t address about the quote from Jessee is why the Tanners used it. Not only does FAIR not explain this, they don’t even offer a link or internet address to the book! They don’t even bother to quote what the Tanners said! Here is the Tanner[s’] explanation:

We are now happy to announce that a photograph of the portion of the original handwritten manuscript containing this ‘prophecy’ has been located at the Visitor Center in Nauvoo, Illinois. Wesley P. Walters of Marissa, Illinois, has sent us a photograph of this page. . . . This photograph is taken from “Joseph Smith’s Manuscript History,” Book D-1, page 1362.

An examination of the photograph revealed that the part concerning the Mormons becoming “a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains” was crammed in between the lines of the text in a much smaller handwriting. This indicated that the famous prophecy had been added to the manuscript sometime after this page had originally been written. When we published an enlarged edition of Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? we stated that “Dean C. Jessee’s study proves that this prophecy could not have been written in “Joseph Smith’s Manuscript History” until at least a year after Joseph Smith’s death. He shows that page 1362 of the Manuscript History—the page containing the prophecy—was not even written until July 4, 1845!

We reasoned that if the page was not written until July 4, 1845, then it was likely that the interpolation containing the prophecy was not added until after the Mormons came to Utah. We have recently found new evidence which further undermines the authenticity of this prophecy. Fortunately, in 1845 Brigham Young had ordered the scribes to make a “duplicate handwritten copy of the History” (Brigham Young University Studies, Summer 1971, p. 469). We examined this second manuscript, Book D-2, p. 2, and found that the “Rocky Mountain Prophecy” was written in very small handwriting between the lines. In other words, it was obviously added at a later time to this manuscript.¹⁰

So the reason that the Tanners quoted Jessee from his 1971 article, was to prove that the Manuscript History and the duplicate weren’t written until 1845, a year after Smith died, and that the prophecy was added even later than that. The Tanners then quote an address by assistant LDS historian Davis Bitton where he discusses the absence of a contemporary source for the prophecy.¹¹ They also included a photo (in their on-line version of the book) of the page in question from the Manuscript History [see photo below]. This photo absolutely supports the argument and FAIR doesn’t deal with the Manuscript History addition.

[Also see photo online at The Joseph Smith Papers website.]

FAIR is not playing fair because they are not telling you why the Tanners used the BYU Studies source. And they do not discuss Bitton’s acknowledgment that “no such prophecy in the handwriting of Joseph Smith or published during the Prophet’s lifetime” exists. How many Mormons are going to go to the trouble of reading what the Tanners wrote? Especially when FAIR doesn’t quote them. FAIR then goes to the Davis Bitton source and states,

• Davis Bitton’s article specifically rejects the Tanners’ claim:

Two errors have been made regarding this Rocky Mountains prophecy. The first is to reject it out of hand as a later invention of the Utah Mormons. There is enough discussion of possible westward moves during the later Nauvoo period to think that Joseph Smith, in one of his prophetic moods, might well have said something of the sort. The second error, even more serious, is to seize upon these fragments as the basis for concluding that Joseph knew exactly what the future held in store for the Saints down to every last detail. Like the constitution-by-a-thread prophecy, the Rocky Mountains prophecy probably had a basis in an actual statement. The two prophecies are alike, too, in the fact that they were extremely popular later on when they served the needs of the Saints for encouragement.¹²

First, the Tanners did not “reject it out of hand as a later invention,” they show credible evidence that it was indeed added later. Second, a statement that one is thinking about moving west someday, or sending out exploration parties, is far different from prophesying that one will, with specific details about what happens before and after. Thirdly, (and most important) it is the Mormons that are “seizing upon these fragments as the basis for concluding that Joseph knew exactly what the future held in store for the Saints down to every last detail,” and that is why this is not a “peripheral issue.” Here is a little more of the Tanner[s’] use of Davis Bitton’s article that FAIR doesn’t quote,

The situation, then, boils down to the following: we have two handwritten manuscripts, books D-1 and D-2. Neither of these books were even started until after Joseph Smith’s death. In both cases the prophecy concerning the Mormons coming to the Rocky Mountains was interpolated in a smaller handwriting. From this evidence we can reach only one conclusion: the famous “Rocky Mountain Prophecy” is not authentic. The church historical department has Joseph Smith’s diary for 1842-43, but the first entry does not appear until December 21—some four months after the prophecy was supposed to have been given. Mormon scholars have been unable to come up with anything to support the authenticity of this prophecy.

The Tanner[s’] argument continues,

Davis Bitton, an assistant church historian, has written almost five pages concerning this matter. He frankly states that “there is no such prophecy in the handwriting of Joseph Smith or published during the Prophet’s lifetime, but it was referred to in general terms in 1846 during the trek west. After the arrival in the Salt Lake Valley the prophecy was frequently cited and became more specific as time went on” (“Joseph Smith in the Mormon Folk Memory,” The John Whitmer Address, delivered at the Second Annual Meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Association, Lamoni, Iowa, September 28, 1974, unpublished manuscript, p. 16).

Davis Bitton goes on to state that “The manuscript history covering this period was written in 1845. . . .” This is, of course, a year after Joseph Smith’s death. Mr. Bitton then admits that the prophecy is an “insertion” which was added into the manuscript as “an afterthought” (p. 18). Although Davis Bitton cannot find any real evidence that Joseph Smith made the famous “Rocky Mountain Prophecy,” he does feel that there was “a time when something like this might have been said by Joseph Smith with considerable plausibility. Anytime during the last four years of his life, . . . the Prophet had good reason to consider possibilities for relocation. It can be demonstrated that he considered the possibility of settling in Oregon (or on Vancouver Island). He was attempting to negotiate some kind of colonization venture in Texas . . .” (p. 17).

Mr. Bitton admits that other changes were made in Joseph Smith’s documents to support the idea that he knew the Mormons would come to the Rocky Mountains:

And in February 1844 the Prophet was organizing an exploring expedition to go to the West. There are some interesting changes in the way the description of this expedition was written by Willard Richards, secretary of Joseph Smith at the time, and the later revisions. The original, handwritten version reads: “Met with the Twelve in the assembly room concerning the Oregon Expedition.” This has been modified to read “the Oregon and California Exploring Expedition.” Continuing, the Richards manuscript reads, “I told them I wanted an exposition of all that country,” — which has been changed to “exploration of all that mountain country.” There are other such changes that make one suspect that the later compilers of the history, notably George A. Smith and his assistants in the 1850s, were determined to have Joseph Smith contemplating the precise location where the Saints had by then settled. Oregon would not do; Oregon and California as then defined at least included the Rocky Mountains. If the Prophet could be made to say “mountain country” instead of just “country,” it would appear that he clearly had in mind the future history of his followers (pp. 17-18).¹³

If we go by what FAIR states, we have Bitton refuting himself! They have to perpetuate an outright lie to make their point (that Bitton’s article specifically rejects the Tanner[s’] argument). Bitton’s article in no way rejects the Tanner[s’] claim that the specific prophecy, recorded in the History of the Church was an insertion after the fact. It was, and Bitton agrees that it was, stating that “there is no such prophecy in the handwriting of Joseph Smith or published during the Prophet’s lifetime.” The Tanners also reveal Bitton’s speculation that the prophecy might be based on something Smith might have said. But the bottom line is Smith didn’t say those specific words, and there is no proof that he did. Is FAIR’s claim that the Tanner[s’] use of Bitton is “dishonest”? We see that it is not, and that the Tanners are more than fair, admitting that Smith “considered going west to build his kingdom.”

III. FAIR’s Evidence Is No Evidence

FAIR also attacks the Tanners and Richard Abanes for the use of the History of the Church source. FAIR quotes a footnote by B. H. Roberts, where he supports the authenticity of the “prophecy” with a quote by Anson Call. But is the Anson Call reference used by Roberts and FAIR credible?

As “evidence” FAIR writes,

The prophecy source is the biography of Anson Call, in August 1842. The relevant section reads as follows:

A block schoolhouse had been prepared with shade in front, under which was a barrel of ice water. Judge Adams, the highest Masonic authority in the State of Illinois, had been sent there to organize this lodge. He, Hyrum Smith and J. C. Bennett, being high Masons, went into the house to perform some ceremonies which the others were not entitled to witness. These, including Joseph Smith, remained under the bowery. Joseph as he was tasting the cold water, warned the brethren not to be too free with it. With the tumbler still in his hand, he prophesied that the Saints would yet go to the Rocky Mountains, and said he, “This water tastes much like that of the crystal streams that are running from the snow-capped mountains. I had before seen him in a vision, and now saw, while he was talking, his countenance change to white, not the deadly white of a bloodless face, but a living, brilliant white. He seemed absorbed in gazing upon something at a great distance and said, “I am gazing upon the valleys of those mountains.”

. . . This was followed by a vivid description of the scenery of these mountains, as I have since become acquainted with it. Pointing to Shadrach Roundy and others, he said: “There are some men here who shall do a great work in that land.” Pointing to me, he said, “There is Anson, he shall go and shall assist in building up cities from one end of the country to the other, and you,” rather extending the idea to all those he had spoken of, “shall perform as great a work as has been done by man, so that the nations of the earth shall be astonished, and many of them will be gathered in that land and assist in building cities and temples, and Israel shall be made to rejoice.”. . . (Tullidge’s Histories, Vol I. History of Northern Utah, and Southern Idaho.—Biographical Supplement, p. 271)

Thus, the accusation must be not only that the Church decided to “forge” a prophecy by Joseph, but that Anson Call did as well. Can we assess how likely these claims are?¹⁴

We certainly can assess them, because FAIR is not being fair here either. The first thing they want you to believe is that the Anson Call source is from “August 1842.” There are all kinds of problems with this, which B. H. Roberts mentions in that History of the Church footnote that FAIR quotes. Here are some of the problems that Roberts encountered,

It is thought important that the following statement from a biography of Anson Call, by Edward Tullidge, should be made part of the history of this prophetic incident, as doubtless the testimony of Brother Call relates to the same incident as that described in the Prophet’s text of the History, notwithstanding some confusion of dates that exists in the Call testimony. It will be seen that the Prophet fixes the date of his prophecy on Saturday, the 6th of August, 1842. In Whitney’s History of Utah, Vol. IV.—(Biographical section of the history, p. 143), the date on which Call heard the prophecy, is given as the 8th of August, 1842. While in Tullidge’s biography of Call the date is given as the 14th of July, 1843, evidently an error. There is no entry in the Prophet’s journal for the 8th of August, 1842, and the entries for the 8th of August, 1843, and the 14th of July, 1843, relate to matters of quite a different character. Tullidge, in relating Anson Call’s recollection of the incident also says that J. C. Bennett was present on the occasion, which must also be an error, as the rupture between Bennett and the Church and its authorities occurred and he had left Nauvoo previous to the 6th of August, 1842. In the Call statement as published by Tullidge, the name of Mr. Adams, the Deputy Grand Master Mason in charge of the ceremonies, is given as George, it should be James.¹⁵

Tullidge’s biography of Call was written in 1889. So when did Call actually first write down the prophecy he claimed that Smith made? Certainly not when it is claimed to have happened (August 1842), since he is wrong about so many details. Notice that even in his notes, Roberts tries to make it seem as if Smith wrote the prophecy and put it in his history himself.

It seems that Anson Call kept a journal, but the prophecy is not found there. He wrote an autobiography taken from his journals that ended at the year 1839. He later wrote what he called a “Life Sketch” which included his recollection of Smith’s prophecy. However, his account is obviously written well after the fact, because of the problems with the historical data that B. H. Roberts notes in his History of the Church footnote. Also, his journal ends when Smith escaped from Liberty Jail in 1839! The “prophecy” was obviously written later, and appears to be unfinished in the copy that Alice Burton had in her possession because it breaks off mid sentence near the end.¹⁶

FAIR’s sarcastic comment that Call “forged” his “prophecy,” is the most realistic conclusion, because the historical details don’t line up with the facts.

Since FAIR has no evidence that there was a specific Rocky Mountain prophecy uttered by Smith that was recorded in his lifetime, they choose to befuddle the issue with a series of quotes that they claim bolster the premise that there was probably a prophecy. Most of these are remembrances of Mormon authorities long after the fact—which prove nothing at all.

One interesting quote they use is from Wilford Woodruff’s Journal.¹⁷ On November 24, 1878, Woodruff wrote on the “Inside Front Cover Fly Sheet” of one of his Journals some “true sayings” of the “Prophet Joseph” that he says he copied from Philo Dibble’s “record.” These “true sayings” are supposedly Dibble’s recollection of Smith’s last address before the Nauvoo Legion.¹⁸ It is obvious from a quick reading that these are not journal entries from the period, or even written on those dates or shortly after the events because, like Call’s account, they are so full of inaccuracies.

Dibble first gives the date of the 22[nd] of June, 1844, and says that Smith “called us [The Nauvoo Legion] out in order and to my astonishment Counselled us to give up our arms” and then prophesied to them that they would “gather many people into the fastness of the Rocky Mountains as a centre for the Gathering of the people.” He then thanked them, dismissed them and told them to “take care of your wives, children and homes.” But the speech was actually given on June 18, and the Legion did not give up their arms until June 24.

Dibble then writes that “on the 23d day of June 1844” Smith, dressed in his General’s uniform, gave his last speech to the Nauvoo Legion. If he had dismissed them the day before, (as Dibble attests) and said his obvious farewell (“take care of your wives, children and homes”) why would he give them a “last speech” the next day? Also, Dibble’s date of June 23, 1844, for the “last speech” of Smith before the Nauvoo Legion is incorrect. Dibble uses parts of Smith’s speech as recorded by those who were there and later published in the History of the Church, and then has Smith saying,

. . . for you will yet be called upon to go forth and Call upon the freeman from Main to gather themselves to gather to the Rocky Mountains and the red man from the west, and all people from the North and from the South, and from the East to go to the west to establish themselves in there strong holds in their gathering places, and there you will gather the red Man to their center from their scattered and dispersed situation to become the strong arm of Jehovah who will be a strong Bulwark of Protection from your foes . . . ¹⁹

With the confusion as to dates it is obviously Dibble’s later recollections.

After quoting numerous people’s recollections of Smith mentioning a move to the Rocky Mountains, FAIR concludes with,

To accept a “forgery” theory, we must accept that all of the people listed above who remembered Joseph speaking about the Rocky Mountains were lying or fabricating their experience. . . . It could be, of course, that Anson Call forged his account, and all the Church leaders and members lied about remembering Joseph speak about the matter. But why then appeal to “many of you” remembering Joseph speaking about it? Why not claim it was a private, secret teaching given to the apostles—for, they certainly also reported these. If the claim was fraudulent, why risk exposure?

Or, the story could have started after the Saints reached the valley, and simply grown in the telling with members “remembering” the story as it was retold to them. But, the contemporary evidence would seem to argue against this, and witnesses often mentioned how struck they were by Joseph’s remarks. They also described him discussing this idea in a variety of setting, which argues against an accumulated “folklore.”²⁰

FAIR thinks it “strange to see critics argue that Joseph would not prophesy about this,” because they claim that critics say he “was always larding his ideas with prophetic pronouncement,” and I agree. He did. I will also show that the accumulated “folklore” argument fits the evidence perfectly.

Again we see FAIR combining two different issues and tying them together; implying if the prophecy itself was fraudulent that Smith’s discussing the matter must also be based on something “fraudulent.” The Tanners do not say that Smith never spoke about it, they admit that he did. The Tanner[s’] “evidence” for the invention of the specific prophecy is legitimate though, while FAIR’s evidence doesn’t appear to be any evidence at all.

Also, Call’s appeal to “many of you” was made because Smith did in fact make vague statements about the west. This obviously grew into a full blown “folklore” prophecy as did the story about Brigham Young transforming into Joseph Smith while he was making the case for claiming leadership of the Church.

I do agree with one point that FAIR makes: that Smith “discussed moving to the west several times, and likely prophesied about it.” Given the Mormons’ history of being driven out of every place they settled in, it sure wouldn’t be bad odds to do so and get that right. But it wasn’t this particular “prophecy” given in those words on that date; the details are completely different, and he made other “prophecies” about the west and Nauvoo that were completely false. This makes Smith a good guesser, but a bad prophet.

IV. The Real Issue

What is the real issue that the Tanners and Richard Abanes and others are getting at here? It is this: there were changes made in Joseph Smith’s History after the fact and written in as his actual words, without any contemporary documents to authenticate them. As B. H. Roberts writes in New Witnesses for God,

At that date, August 6th, 1842, the Rocky Mountains seemed like a country afar off to the people of Illinois. The Missouri River was the extreme frontiers of the United States. All beyond that was well nigh an unexplored wilderness filled with savages. The church was fairly settled at Nauvoo, the state authorities were apparently very friendly, the future of the Saints in Illinois seemed propitious. Yet in the midst of all these favorable circumstances the Prophet predicted much affliction for some of the Saints, death from persecution for others, apostasy for many, and for the great body of the church an exodus to the Rocky Mountains, where some of those present who were listening to the prediction, should live to assist in making settlements and building cities in the Rocky Mountains where they would see the Saints become a mighty people.

There can be no question as to the reality of these two predictions, the one of March, 1831, and the other of August, 1842, or of their being of a character to test the divine inspiration of him who uttered them. That they were proclaimed some years before the events predicted in them began to be fulfilled, or even there was any thought or prospect of such events taking place, is well known; that the latter prophecy has been fulfilled to the uttermost, the whole history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from August, 1842, until now witnesses. The Saints suffered many afflictions in Illinois. Their homes, fields, stacks of grain, stock and other property were destroyed; their prophets and a number of others were killed outright by mob violence; many more perished from exposure and disease occasioned by being driven from their homes at an inclement season of the year. In those trying times, following the martyrdom of the Prophet and the expulsion from Nauvoo, many turned away from the faith, and it is too generally known to need comment, that the great body of the church made its way to the Rocky Mountains, where cities, towns and villages have been founded, the wilderness subdued, and the Saints are fast becoming a mighty people.²¹

Even knowing the problems with Call’s recollection of Smith’s “prophecy,” Roberts still insists that “the latter prophecy has been fulfilled to the uttermost,” and touts it as a test of “the divine inspiration of him who uttered them.” In 1891 Assistant Church Historian Andrew Jenson repeats the “prophecy” to a group of students,

“I need spend no time to prove the fulfilment of this remarkable prophecy. All of you who are present in this hall tonight can testify to its literal fulfilment. The Latter-day Saints have indeed become a mighty people in these mountains, numbering as they do now about two hundred thousand souls, organized into thirty-two stakes of Zion, or nearly five hundred wards and branches; and this does not include the Saints in Mexico and Canada. It is also a matter of history that the Saints, for years after the prediction was uttered, continued to suffer persecution and affliction from their enemies; that many apostatized, while others, who proved faithful and true to their covenants, were put to death for conscience’ sake, and the remainder were driven by a ruthless mob from the beautiful city of Nauvoo into the western wilderness in the year 1846.” ²²

Apostle Erastus Snow would add to the folklore in 1916:

“Joseph Smith, when he uttered this prophecy, when he beheld this vision, was standing upon the banks of the Mississippi River, fifteen hundred miles from where we now are. Yet he saw the Rocky Mountains, and the crystal streams flowing from yonder canyons, and I doubt not that if he had led his people to this land, as he once purposed doing, he would have recognized it as a familiar scene, having beheld it in vision, by the seeric gift, before he saw it with the natural eye. But the Prophet was not destined to fulfill his own prediction; his martyrdom prevented; and the Lord raised up another mighty man to carry out the project, to become the founder of Utah, and the redeemer of the Great American Desert.”²³

On the Church’s official site, under “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith” they are still peddling the folklore,

The Prophet was well aware that he and all of the Saints living in Nauvoo were in an increasingly dangerous situation. As Nauvoo grew larger, some of the people who lived in the area began to fear the growing political and economic power of the Saints, and mobs began again to harass them. The Prophet was in particular danger, for authorities from Missouri made repeated efforts to capture him, and apostates from the Church became increasingly hostile in their efforts to destroy him. On August 6, 1842, the Prophet declared that the time would come when Church members would be forced to leave Nauvoo:

“I prophesied that the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to death by our persecutors or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease, and some of you will live to go and assist in making settlements and build cities and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.”²⁴

The footnote they give for the quote references the same interpolated manuscript that the Tanners expose as having been added after the fact:

History of the Church, 5:85; from “History of the Church” (manuscript), book D-1, p. 1362, Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.²⁵

In July of 1997, LDS Apostle M. Russell Ballard once again references the same spurious prophecy in a New Era article,

The pioneer exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, began on February 4, 1846. Nearly four years earlier, in August of 1842, the Prophet Joseph Smith shared his foreknowledge of the trek west: “I prophesied that the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to death by our persecutors or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease, and some [would live to] build cities and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains”. . . ²⁶

The impression the Church today gives is not that this “prophecy” is a conglomeration of various and sundry statements by Smith, or even an amalgamation of them crafted into a coherent “prophecy,” but a valid, specific statement uttered by Smith on a particular day and inserted by Smith himself into his own history. What the evidence shows is that this is not only an interpolation, but it is an insertion of something that there is no evidence that Smith ever said in those precise words, on that particular day. The Tanners are absolutely correct in their use of sources to prove this, and their conclusion that this “prophecy” is “not authentic.”

Conclusion

FAIR boasts on their site:

FAIR has been defending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints online since 1997. Our mission is to provide well-researched answers to challenging questions within a faithful context.

However, as we have seen, their methods are shoddy and deceptive. If one were to systematically go through each of their reviews, one can come to the same conclusion for the majority of their efforts. Their vilification of the Tanners as “dishonest” is especially disturbing, for as we see by the evidence from this one instance, the Tanners are vindicated by the facts, and it is FAIR who is shown to be dishonest and misleading.

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Footnotes:

1. Joseph Smith, History of the Church, (Deseret Book), vol. 5, ch. 4, p. 85. ↩︎
2. “Challenging Anti-Mormon Apologetics” is a Facebook Page that describes itself as “A group where the members discuss issues brought up by critics of Mormonism on Face Book.” ↩︎
3. Fair Article: Criticism of Mormonism Books, One Nation Under Gods, use of sources, forged Rocky Mountain prophecy, hereafter, Criticism—One Nation. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Changing World of Mormonism, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1981), p. 405. ↩︎
6. Changing World, p. 405. ↩︎
7. Ibid., p. 406. ↩︎
8. Fair Article: Joseph Smith prophecies, Forged Rocky Mountain prophecy, Tanners use of sources, hereafter, Tanner’s sources. ↩︎
9. Ibid. ↩︎
10. Changing World, pp. 405-406. ↩︎
11. Changing World, p. 406, citing Davis Bitton, “Joseph Smith in the Mormon Folk Memory,” The John Whitmer address, delivered at the Second Annual Meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Association, Lamoni, Iowa, September 28, 1974, unpublished manuscript, p. 16. ↩︎
12. FAIR, Tanner’s sources. ↩︎
13. Changing World, pp. 405-406. ↩︎
14. FAIR, Criticism—One Nation. ↩︎
15. History of the Church, footnote [4], vol. 5, pp. 85-86. ↩︎
16. See “Anson Call-Excerpts from his Autobiography,” https://user.xmission.com/~plporter/lds/ansoncall.htm ↩︎
17. Criticism—One Nation. ↩︎
18. This material is only included in the Appendix to Wilford Woodruff’s Journal as published on the New Mormon Studies CD-ROM, Signature Books, 2009. It was not included in the 1985 printing of the Wilford Woodruff’s Journal published by Signature Books. ↩︎
19. Ibid. ↩︎
20. FAIR, Criticism—One Nation. ↩︎
21. B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God, Deseret News, 1911, vol. 1, ch. 22, pp. 302-303. ↩︎
22. A Lecture Delivered by Elder Andrew Jenson before the Students’ Society, in the Social Hall, Salt Lake City, Friday Evening, January 16, 1891. Brian Stuy, Collected Discourses, vol. 2, p. 161. ↩︎
23. LDS Conference Report, April 1916, p. [67]. ↩︎
24. Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, LDS Church, 2007, p. 517. ↩︎
25. Ibid., p. 526. ↩︎
26. “Faith in Every Footstep,” by M. Russell Ballard, New Era, July 1997. ↩︎

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