Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions Part 4

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Viewpoint on Mormonism. The program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry since 1979. Mormonism Research Ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism.

So glad you could be with us for this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism, I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry. And with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at M. R m. This week, we've also been very privileged to have Dr. Rob Bowman with us. He's the president of Faith Thinkers. And you can check out their Web site at Faith Thinker's dot org. Faith Thinker's has all the number of articles on a wide range of apologetics issues, including the subject of Mormonism. And, Rob, I welcome you back to the show. And I want to thank you for your contribution when it comes to the topic of Mormonism. You've been an excellent voice out there in trying to show proves for our Bible, as well as showing the problems of Mormonism. And your new book, Jesus's Resurrection and Joseph's Visions, examining the foundations of Christianity and Mormonism certainly once again hits the ball right out of the park. And I really do. Thank you for that.

I appreciate that, Bill.

Today, we want to talk about Joseph's visions. Yesterday, we were talking about the bodily resurrection of Christ.

Now I want to kind of switch gears, but you included a section on Joseph Smith, the treasure hunter, and his pound of flesh at age 170. It talks about Joseph Smith, use of a seer stone to search for buried treasure, something the Mormon Church didn't readily recognize or talk about, though they didn't really hide it. There are mentions of it in Mormonism's past, but now they've officially come out and admitted to this. But could you tell our listeners a little bit about Joseph Smith and his family's involvement with the occult? And I mean, I don't mean that in a like how it's understood by many moderns today is like devil worship or anything like that. It's not that at all. But could you explain about Joseph Smith family's involvement in the occult, including how he used these magic stones or these rocks, this rock to do treasure hunting?

Yes. Well, like many people in Joseph Smith's day, the Smith family, the men in the Smith family especially, were involved in various divination practices. Divination is a kind of activity in which one is attempting to find things or find out things using a kind of paranormal or predator, natural or supernatural means. But it's a it's a it's a kind of magic and it can take various forms of a very common form and just stay. And and that's still around to this day is the divining rod in which people would claim to be able to find water or buried treasure or any number of other things using or using a rod or a branch twig even. But typically it's some kind of a wooden rod. And Joseph's father used a divining rod and other people that Joseph was associated with used a divining rods. And Oliver Cowdery, for example, used one. It's even mentioned in one of the early revelations in Mormonism that was later revised to sort of hide a little bit of what that was about. So they were involved in these kinds of practices. Now, the one that's most interesting, though, is Joseph's use of rocks or what were called peep stones or seer stones to search for buried treasure. And Joseph wasn't the first person to do this. He didn't invent the idea. The fact there was a young lady living in Joseph's area that was doing it before him and he may have picked up the practice from her and made it even gotten his first stone from her. What you did was you would use the stone, the rock to look for buried treasure. And one way that was this was done was you would put the rock in a hat, you would bury your face into the hat upside down so that nobody could see the rock and you couldn't see outside the hat. And then you would announce that the rock or stone was providing you with information, directions, perhaps, which way to walk to find the buried treasure. And Joseph. Gauged in the use of seer stones to search for buried treasure. For about five years or so in the eighteen twenties. In fact, he got into some legal hot water at one point over it. So this was something that Joseph was doing throughout the period. By the way, when he was supposedly having annual visits from the angel Moroni.

What I find fascinating, though, is in Joseph Smith history found at the back of the preliterate price, he mentions that because he was hired by a man by the name of Josiah Stoll to look for a silver mine, that that is how he was called a money digger. He came to be called a money digger. But yet the Joseph Smith papers that have come out recently tend to tell us that that's not really true, that Joseph Smith is not really being truthful in that statement, that he was really known to be a money digger prior to being hired by Josiah Stoll. And that's why Josiah Stoll did hire him, because he had already had that reputation in Joseph Smith.

History gives the impression that Joseph was just one of the hired hands. That was taken to the site to do the digging. And that isn't true. Joseph was hired specifically on the strength of the belief that Stoll had that Joseph was capable of looking for buried treasure, using the rock in the hat method. And so that was the whole point. He was hired for his ability reportedly is a reputation as a seer or as somebody who was able to use divination using the stone to look for buried treasure. And that's why he went. Joseph doesn't even mention that part of the story and makes it sound like he was just one of the hired hands who was doing the actual turning over of the dirt. And so, yes, you're right. That account I'm sorry to have to say this, but that account is a glaring example in Joseph Smith history of Joseph not telling the truth about what really happened to him and what he was really doing. And that raises serious questions about the credibility of that account. Because if we know and we do know that Joseph is not giving the story straight at that point in the account, why do we trust everything else he says? And this this actually comes up on several different issues in that very short book of Joseph Smith history.

One thing that has surprised me is how readily Mormons don't find a problem with the Seer stone any longer. When we used to bring this up before the church admitted it in one of their gospel topics essays, we would have Mormons vehemently deny this and basically accuse us of lying. But since the church has come out with this, it's like, oh, well, OK, I guess I can believe that. Have you noticed that? And does that surprise you how quickly the mindset of the Latter-Day Saints changes just because the church happens to come out and admit something in an official manner?

Well, I think it's a little bit more than that. Actually, I think not only is it because the church has admitted that Joseph used Seer stones to look for a buried treasure, but that they felt the church has also admitted, which was very kept, very quiet for the most part until a few years ago, that Joseph used one of those very stones that he had been using previously to hunt for buried treasure, that he used one of those very stones to dictate his translation of the Book of Mormon.

So now what Mormons are doing, instead of say, oh, I don't believe that stuff about seer stones. Joseph looking for buried treasure and taking offense at the idea that Joseph used one of those rocks to translate the Book of Mormon now turning around saying, well, but how do you explain it? If Joseph was dictating the Book of Mormon with his face buried in a hat looking at Iraq, and he was able to produce this marvelous, long, complicated book of the Book of Mormon and just two months. I mean, my goodness, doesn't that prove that it's a miracle and that it's a revelation? So they're actually now trying to turn the seer stone into an apologetic asset to say it's still a miracle that Joseph was able to produce the Book of Mormon even if he did it, using this instrument that had a checkered past.

I raised the question, so I think I probably better answer it if if if Joseph is dictating the book, one with his face buried in a hat and it's blocking all the outside light and he's dictating, you know, several pages a day for two months and producing this book called The Book of Mormon. How does he do it? Well, a lot of people when I say a lot, I don't mean a majority of people are very, very small minority of people. But nevertheless, quite a number of individuals throughout history have had an amazing ability to speak extemporaneously, to talk off the top of their head and to keep it going. And. Come up with all kinds of interesting sounding things and keep track of where they are and the story that they're telling and on and on and on. And justice seems to have been one of those persons. Now, the reason why I think that we can determine from the text of the Book of Mormon that that's actually what happens is there are two styles in the Book of Mormon. There's the Book of Mormon when it's not called in the Bible. And there's the Book of Mormon when it is quoted in the Bible. When the Book of Mormon is quoting the Bible, it sounds like the Bible. And it's the sentences are poetic very often because he's usually quoting Isaiah or something like that. They're generally fairly short and compact statements. But when it's not quoting them the Bible, the Book of Mormon is extremely repetitive and rambling, long run on sentences. And it's it's a typical way that people would speak if they're making it up as they go along. But when Joseph is quoting the Bible, of course, it does sound like that. So I think what we have in the Book of Mormon is internal evidence that Joseph was, in fact, speaking off the top of his head for a great part of the Book of Mormon, but not quite all of it.

Rob, we have about a minute left. And I want to ask this question. When it comes to the Book of Mormon and the gold plates, there were supposedly 11 witnesses to prove that this was real. But a Mormon who's listening to this might be thinking, yeah. So I'm going to ask you, Rob, what do you do with the 11 witnesses?

Well, probably 30 seconds isn't enough to do this justice.

But I, I tend to believe that most or all of the 11 witnesses at least thought they saw what they said they saw. I don't really have a problem with the eight witnesses because all they said they saw were some metal plates with some great engravings on them. I think Joseph could have manufactured those plates himself. Explain in the book why I think that that's a likely explanation, not just making it up off the top of my head. There's actually good evidence that Joseph could have done that. As for the three witnesses, the most interesting part of that is that he says that they saw an angel besides the plates. That is harder to explain. If you take it seriously, however, I think we have reasons from their own testimonies, in some cases think that this was a kind of wishful thinking, spiritual experience in their mind and not an actual visitation of a real angel showing them real plates.

We've been talking to Dr. Rob Bowman. He's the president of Faith Thinkers. And you can check out their website at Faith Thinker's dot org. Rob has written the book Jesus's Resurrection and Joseph's Visions Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism. You can order it online either through u t l m dot org. That's Utah Lighthouse Ministry dot org or any other online book service.

And tomorrow we're going to wrap up our series with Rob and talking about this book, Jesus Resurrection and Joseph's Visions.

Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding Morman is a research ministry. We encourage you to visit our Web site at W W W dot m or M dot org, where you can request our free newsletter, Mormonism researched. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism.

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