Bildquelle: Joseph_Smith,_Jr._portrait_owned_by_Joseph_Smith_III.jpg Autor: Likely William Warner Major see https://web.archive.org/web/20230122022915/http://silverepicent.com/photofound/photofound/Photograph_Found/Appendix_C.html Lizenz: Public domain
Hyrum Smith, Samuel H. Smith, Alvin Smith, Don Carlos Smith, William Smith, Katharine Smith Salisbury
Wohnsitz
Newel K. Whitney Store
Zeitraum
Partner
? – 1844
Emma Smith Ehefrau
? – 1844
Eliza Roxcy Snow Ehefrau
? – 1844
Zina D. H. Young Ehefrau
? – 1844
Lucinda Morgan Harrisová Ehefrau
? – 1844
Helen Mar Kimball Ehefrau
? – 1844
Almera Woodward Johnson Ehefrau
1841 – 1844
Louisa Beeman Ehefrau
1842 – 1844
Sarah Ann Whitney Ehefrau
1843 – 1844
Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman Ehefrau
1843 – 1844
Emily Dow Partridge Ehefrau
Joseph Smith war Vater von 5 Kindern, darunter Julia Murdock Smith (* 1831), Joseph Smith III (* 1832), Alexander Hale Smith (* 1838), David Hyrum Smith (* 1844).
Joseph Smith war ein US-amerikanischer Gründer der Kirche Christi, der am 23. Dezember 1805 geboren wurde und am 27. Juni 1844 verstarb. Er wuchs in einer bibelgläubigen, wirtschaftlich notleidenden Familie auf, die oft umziehen musste. In seiner Jugend beteiligte sich Smith an der Schatzsuche mit einem Seherstein und litt an einer Knocheninfektion, die ihm ein leichtes Hinken hinterließ. Nach Smiths eigenen Berichten erschienen ihm 1820 Gott und Jesus in einer Vision. Drei Jahre später erschien ihm der Engel Moroni mit dem Auftrag, goldene Platten zu übersetzen. 1827 erhielt Smith die Platten und übersetzte sie mit Sehersteinen. Das daraus entstandene "Buch Mormon" wurde im März 1830 veröffentlicht. Kurz darauf, am 6. April 1830, gründete Joseph Smith die Kirche Christi, die rasch Anhänger gewann und mehrfach umzog. In den 1830er Jahren begann er, die Polygamie als göttliches Prinzip zu lehren, was er geheim hielt und zu Spannungen mit seiner Frau Emma sowie Konflikten mit der Bevölkerung in Missouri führte. Nach einem Racheaufruf verhaftet, gründete Smith 1839 Nauvoo, wurde Bürgermeister und Miliz-General. 1844 kandidierte er zum US-Präsidentenamt. Im selben Jahr ordnete Smith die Zerstörung einer kritischen Zeitung an, was zu seiner erneuten Verhaftung führte. Am 27. Juni 1844 wurde Joseph Smith mit seinem Bruder Hyrum in einem Gefängnis in Carthage, Illinois, von einer Milizgruppe überfallen und tödlich getroffen.
Joseph Smith wurde in Sharon, Vermont, USA, geboren.
Bilder zum Thema Joseph Smith
Bildnachweis
Bildquelle: 329_MSS_P_24_B2_F14.jpg Autor: Wikipedia / Charles Roscoe Savage Lizenz: gemeinfrei
Photo of a stipple drawing of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Back label- C.R. Savage, Art Bazar...Medals...1890.
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON - UPPER PAGE DETAIL
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
http://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Shown is a scrap book journal page found in a small manuscript journal. Affixed by fish glue is John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 dated Book of Mormon reaffirmation of his testimony as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 bible. Next to this image of the letter is a printed text readout. On 6 May 1877 Whitmer had sent this testimony letter to Joseph R. Lambert (1845 - 1932) a Bishop in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS) in Missouri.
Aside from founder Joseph Smith, John Whitmer was the most prominent co-founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The charter establishing the Church was signed on April 6, 1830 at father Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s. Fayette, NY log cabin. Later, in the year 1831, John Whitmer became the very first Church historian; appointed to this position by Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
Conversely, in early 1838 John Whitmer became the very first Mormon to become excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Almost forty years past his excommunication, when Whitmer executed his 6 May 1877 reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon, never to that day had he rejoined the LDS Church.
This original John Whitmer manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Nephi, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
As it was, Martin Harris, one of the first devout Mormon disciples, was one of the scribes who had come to Harmony, PA. to help Mormon Prophet Smith translate the Gold Plates. At one point Harris had taken 116 transcribed pages to show his wife back in Palmyra, NY - but became lost or destroyed.
Upon learning of this loss, Angel Moroni retaliated and took back the Gold Plates from Prophet Smith. With no physical proof of the Gold Plates existing, this cast uncertainty on to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which would follow the work into the future.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior. In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
John Whitmer served as a scribe during the translation of the sacred Gold Plates at Harmony, PA.
The Book of Mormon was published in March of 1830, in Palmyra, New York just the month before.
When Prophet Joseph Smith first heard of the growing number of converts in Kirtland, Ohio, John Whitmer was sent by Smith out to Kirtland to provide much needed leadership.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer, "commanded by God" by the hands of Prophet Smith was anointed to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
Problems arising at the church headquarters in Kirtland involving the Kirtland Safety Society bank compelled Joseph Smith and fellow Mormon Sidney Rigdon to relocate to Far West in early 1838. This excommunication was caused by John Whitmer's reporting on the truths of certain indiscretions made by Joseph Smith against fellow Church brethren when the Prophet Smith had come out to Far West.
It was at this time in 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West to act as a missionary - that this great turmoil arose. Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would not think that this would be the case.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
Looking through numerous histories, records and even author Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents masterwork, one will see, after much study, that just a couple of other first person actual handwritten letters by a bona fide respective Book of Mormon Witness exist in physical form as Book of Mormon testimony - between all of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
Not long before Joseph Smith was murdered at the Carthage, Ill. jailhouse while awaiting trial in 1844, he had hid the original Harmony PA. executed original Gold Plates translation manuscript behind a cornerstone at the Illinois based Nauvoo House at Nauvoo. The thick hand executed manuscript document for the 1830 Book of Mormon contained the signature page attesting as true testimony. It asserted the authenticity of the statements made in the Book of Mormon as being truthful. Each of the Three and Eight Witnesses found in the Book of Mormon signed their respective signatures in their own separate hands. The Oliver Cowdery "printer's copy" was only executed in his own hand, making the document merely a non-legal facsimile.
Some years after the 1844 murder of Joseph, the Mississippi River crested it banks at Nauvoo, and the original Harmony, PA. executed Book of Mormon manuscript became severely water damaged and soaked. When the manuscript was removed in 1881 from behind the Nauvoo House cornerstone by Louis C. Bidamon, Joseph Smith's widow Emma Smith's second husband, the horrific damage was discovered. More damage occurred when Bidamon gave cut squares as souvenirs to visiting Mormons.
Only 28% of the document remained intact and 72% was destroyed. Most importantly, the original Book of Mormon manuscript signature page was completely destroyed. The only true viable link to the Gold Plates was severed forever.
The original Harmony manuscript translation remains as a distressed mostly incomplete remnant.
But the link to the Gold Plates still exists, having been preserved with the discovery of the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony.
The premise behind the BYU lectures Richard Lloyd Anderson gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
Thus, in the end, the 6 May 1877 hand executed and signed Whitmer Book of Mormon manuscript letter stands as the most important physical legal affidavit in the world that exists linked to the fabled Gold Plates of Angel Moroni. It supports that such plates physically existed and that the original Book of Mormon from 1830 stands as a wholly valid and truthful account.
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon that exists or ever written.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols., 5:247-249, original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON - UPPER PAGE DETAIL
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
http://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Shown is a scrap book journal page numbered 39 found in a small manuscript journal. Affixed by fish glue is an important 6 May 1877 dated testimony by John Whitmer reaffirming his original testimony as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 Book of Mormon bible. Whitmer had sent this testimony letter to Joseph R. Lambert (1845 - 1932) of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS) in Missouri.
Aside from founder Joseph Smith, John Whitmer was the most prominent co-founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The charter establishing the Church was signed on April 6, 1830 at father Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s. Fayette, NY log cabin. Later, in the year 1831, John Whitmer became the very first Church historian; appointed to this position by Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
Conversely, in early 1838 John Whitmer became the very first Mormon to become excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Almost forty years past his excommunication, when Whitmer executed his 6 May 1877 reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon, never to that day had he rejoined the LDS Church.
This original John Whitmer manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Nephi, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
As it was, Martin Harris, one of the first devout Mormon disciples, was one of the scribes who had come to Harmony, PA. to help Mormon Prophet Smith translate the Gold Plates. At one point Harris had taken 116 transcribed pages to show his wife back in Palmyra, NY - but became lost or destroyed.
Upon learning of this loss, Angel Moroni retaliated and took back the Gold Plates from Prophet Smith. With no physical proof of the Gold Plates existing, this cast uncertainty on to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which would follow the work into the future.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior. In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
John Whitmer served as a scribe during the translation of the sacred Gold Plates at Harmony, PA.
The Book of Mormon was published in March of 1830, in Palmyra, New York just the month before.
When Prophet Joseph Smith first heard of the growing number of converts in Kirtland, Ohio, John Whitmer was sent by Smith out to Kirtland to provide much needed leadership.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer, "commanded by God" by the hands of Prophet Smith was anointed to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
Problems arising at the church headquarters in Kirtland involving the Kirtland Safety Society bank compelled Joseph Smith and fellow Mormon Sidney Rigdon to relocate to Far West in early 1838. This excommunication was caused by John Whitmer's reporting on the truths of certain indiscretions made by Joseph Smith against fellow Church brethren when the Prophet Smith had come out to Far West.
It was at this time in 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West to act as a missionary - that this great turmoil arose. Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would not think that this would be the case.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
Looking through numerous histories, records and even author Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents masterwork, one will see, after much study, that just a couple of other first person actual handwritten letters by a bona fide respective Book of Mormon Witness exist in physical form as Book of Mormon testimony - between all of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
Not long before Joseph Smith was murdered at the Carthage, Ill. jailhouse while awaiting trial in 1844, he had hid the original Harmony PA. executed original Gold Plates translation manuscript behind a cornerstone at the Illinois based Nauvoo House at Nauvoo. The thick hand executed manuscript document for the 1830 Book of Mormon contained the signature page attesting as true testimony. It asserted the authenticity of the statements made in the Book of Mormon as being truthful. Each of the Three and Eight Witnesses found in the Book of Mormon signed their respective signatures in their own separate hands. The Oliver Cowdery "printer's copy" was only executed in his own hand, making the document merely a non-legal facsimile.
Some years after the 1844 murder of Joseph, the Mississippi River crested it banks at Nauvoo, and the original Harmony, PA. executed Book of Mormon manuscript became severely water damaged and soaked. When the manuscript was removed in 1881 from behind the Nauvoo House cornerstone by Louis C. Bidamon, Joseph Smith's widow Emma Smith's second husband, the horrific damage was discovered. More damage occurred when Bidamon gave cut squares as souvenirs to visiting Mormons.
Only 28% of the document remained intact and 72% was destroyed. Most importantly, the original Book of Mormon manuscript signature page was completely destroyed. The only true viable link to the Gold Plates was severed forever.
The original Harmony manuscript translation remains as a distressed mostly incomplete remnant.
But the link to the Gold Plates still exists, having been preserved with the discovery of the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony.
The premise behind the BYU lectures Richard Lloyd Anderson gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
Thus, in the end, the 6 May 1877 hand executed and signed Whitmer Book of Mormon manuscript letter stands as the most important physical legal affidavit in the world that exists linked to the fabled Gold Plates of Angel Moroni. It supports that such plates physically existed and that the original Book of Mormon from 1830 stands as a wholly valid and truthful account.
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon that exists or ever written.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols., 5:247-249, original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON - UPPER PAGE DETAIL
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
http://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Shown is a scrap book journal page numbered 39 found in a small manuscript journal. Affixed by fish glue is an important 6 May 1877 dated testimony by John Whitmer reaffirming his original testimony as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 Book of Mormon bible. Whitmer had sent this testimony letter to Joseph R. Lambert (1845 - 1932) of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS) in Missouri.
Aside from founder Joseph Smith, John Whitmer was the most prominent co-founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The charter establishing the Church was signed on April 6, 1830 at father Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s. Fayette, NY log cabin. Later, in the year 1831, John Whitmer became the very first Church historian; appointed to this position by Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
Conversely, in early 1838 John Whitmer became the very first Mormon to become excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Almost forty years past his excommunication, when Whitmer executed his 6 May 1877 reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon, never to that day had he rejoined the LDS Church.
This original John Whitmer manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Nephi, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
As it was, Martin Harris, one of the first devout Mormon disciples, was one of the scribes who had come to Harmony, PA. to help Mormon Prophet Smith translate the Gold Plates. At one point Harris had taken 116 transcribed pages to show his wife back in Palmyra, NY - but became lost or destroyed.
Upon learning of this loss, Angel Moroni retaliated and took back the Gold Plates from Prophet Smith. With no physical proof of the Gold Plates existing, this cast uncertainty on to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which would follow the work into the future.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior. In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
John Whitmer served as a scribe during the translation of the sacred Gold Plates at Harmony, PA.
The Book of Mormon was published in March of 1830, in Palmyra, New York just the month before.
When Prophet Joseph Smith first heard of the growing number of converts in Kirtland, Ohio, John Whitmer was sent by Smith out to Kirtland to provide much needed leadership.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer, "commanded by God" by the hands of Prophet Smith was anointed to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
Problems arising at the church headquarters in Kirtland involving the Kirtland Safety Society bank compelled Joseph Smith and fellow Mormon Sidney Rigdon to relocate to Far West in early 1838. This excommunication was caused by John Whitmer's reporting on the truths of certain indiscretions made by Joseph Smith against fellow Church brethren when the Prophet Smith had come out to Far West.
It was at this time in 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West to act as a missionary - that this great turmoil arose. Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would not think that this would be the case.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
Looking through numerous histories, records and even author Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents masterwork, one will see, after much study, that just a couple of other first person actual handwritten letters by a bona fide respective Book of Mormon Witness exist in physical form as Book of Mormon testimony - between all of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
Not long before Joseph Smith was murdered at the Carthage, Ill. jailhouse while awaiting trial in 1844, he had hid the original Harmony PA. executed original Gold Plates translation manuscript behind a cornerstone at the Illinois based Nauvoo House at Nauvoo. The thick hand executed manuscript document for the 1830 Book of Mormon contained the signature page attesting as true testimony. It asserted the authenticity of the statements made in the Book of Mormon as being truthful. Each of the Three and Eight Witnesses found in the Book of Mormon signed their respective signatures in their own separate hands. The Oliver Cowdery "printer's copy" was only executed in his own hand, making the document merely a non-legal facsimile.
Some years after the 1844 murder of Joseph, the Mississippi River crested its banks at Nauvoo, and the original Harmony, PA. executed Book of Mormon manuscript became severely water damaged and soaked. When the manuscript was removed in 1881 from behind the Nauvoo House cornerstone by Louis C. Bidamon, Joseph Smith's widow Emma Smith's second husband, the horrific damage was discovered. More damage occurred when Bidamon gave cut squares as souvenirs to visiting Mormons.
Only 28% of the document remained intact and 72% was destroyed. Most importantly, the original Book of Mormon manuscript signature page was completely destroyed. The only true viable link to the Gold Plates was severed forever.
The original Harmony manuscript translation remains as a distressed mostly incomplete remnant.
But the link to the Gold Plates still exists, having been preserved with the discovery of the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony.
The premise behind the BYU lectures Richard Lloyd Anderson gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
Thus, in the end, the 6 May 1877 hand executed and signed Whitmer Book of Mormon manuscript letter stands as the most important physical legal affidavit in the world that exists linked to the fabled Gold Plates of Angel Moroni. It supports that such plates physically existed and that the original Book of Mormon from 1830 stands as a wholly valid and truthful account.
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon that exists or ever written.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols., 5:247-249, original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
http://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Shown is a letter found contained in a small manuscript journal where it was affixed by fish glue on page 39. This important 6 May 1877 dated testimony by Mormon John Whitmer reaffirms his original testimony as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 Book of Mormon bible. This letter testimony by Whitmer was sent to Joseph R. Lambert (1845 - 1932) of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS) in Missouri.
Aside from founder Joseph Smith, John Whitmer was the most prominent co-founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The charter establishing the Church was signed on April 6, 1830 at father Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s. Fayette, NY log cabin. Later, in the year 1831, John Whitmer became the very first Church historian; appointed to this position by Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
Conversely, in early 1838 John Whitmer became the very first Mormon to become excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Almost forty years past his excommunication, when Whitmer executed his 6 May 1877 reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon, never to that day had he rejoined the LDS Church.
This original John Whitmer manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Mormon, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
As it was, Martin Harris, one of the first devout Mormon disciples, was one of the scribes who had come to Harmony, PA. to help Mormon Prophet Smith translate the Gold Plates. At one point Harris had taken 116 transcribed pages to show his wife back in Palmyra, NY - but became lost or destroyed.
Upon learning of this loss, Angel Moroni retaliated and took back the Gold Plates from Prophet Smith. With no physical proof of the Gold Plates existing, this cast uncertainty on to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which would follow the work into the future.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior. In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
John Whitmer served as a scribe during the translation of the sacred Gold Plates at Harmony, PA.
The Book of Mormon was published in March of 1830, in Palmyra, New York just the month before.
When Prophet Joseph Smith first heard of the growing number of converts in Kirtland, Ohio, John Whitmer was sent by Smith out to Kirtland to provide much needed leadership.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer, "commanded by God" by the hands of Prophet Smith was anointed to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
Problems arising at the church headquarters in Kirtland involving the Kirtland Safety Society bank compelled Joseph Smith and fellow Mormon Sidney Rigdon to relocate to Far West in early 1838. This excommunication was caused by John Whitmer's reporting on the truths of certain indiscretions made by Joseph Smith against fellow Church brethren when the Prophet Smith had come out to Far West.
It was at this time in 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West to act as a missionary - that this great turmoil arose. Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would not think that this would be the case.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
Looking through numerous histories, records and even author Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents masterwork, one will see, after much study, that just a couple of other first person actual handwritten letters by a bona fide respective Book of Mormon Witness exist in physical form as Book of Mormon testimony - between all of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
Not long before Joseph Smith was murdered at the Carthage, Ill. jailhouse while awaiting trial in 1844, he had hid the original Harmony PA. executed original Gold Plates translation manuscript behind a cornerstone at the Illinois based Nauvoo House at Nauvoo. The thick hand executed manuscript document for the 1830 Book of Mormon contained the signature page attesting as true testimony. It asserted the authenticity of the statements made in the Book of Mormon as being truthful. Each of the Three and Eight Witnesses found in the Book of Mormon signed their respective signatures in their own separate hands. The Oliver Cowdery "printer's copy" was only executed in his own hand, making the document merely a non-legal facsimile.
Some years after the 1844 murder of Joseph, the Mississippi River crested its banks at Nauvoo, and the original Harmony, PA. executed Book of Mormon manuscript became severely water damaged and soaked. When the manuscript was removed in 1881 from behind the Nauvoo House cornerstone by Louis C. Bidamon, Joseph Smith's widow Emma Smith's second husband, the horrific damage was discovered. More damage occurred when Bidamon gave cut squares as souvenirs to visiting Mormons.
Only 28% of the document remained intact and 72% was destroyed. Most importantly, the original Book of Mormon manuscript signature page was completely destroyed. The only true viable link to the Gold Plates was severed forever.
The original Harmony manuscript translation remains as a distressed mostly incomplete remnant.
But the link to the Gold Plates still exists, having been preserved with the discovery of the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony.
The premise behind the BYU lectures Richard Lloyd Anderson gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
Thus, in the end, the 6 May 1877 hand executed and signed Whitmer Book of Mormon manuscript letter stands as the most important physical legal affidavit in the world that exists linked to the fabled Gold Plates of Angel Moroni. It supports that such plates physically existed and that the original Book of Mormon from 1830 stands as a wholly valid and truthful account.
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon that exists or ever written.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols., 5:247-249, original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
http://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Shown is a manuscript letter found in a small manuscript journal. Affixed to page 39 by fish glue is an important 6 May 1877 dated testimony by John Whitmer reaffirming his original testimony as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 Book of Mormon bible. This letter of testimony by Whitmer was sent to Joseph R. Lambert (1845 - 1932) of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS) in Missouri.
Aside from founder Joseph Smith, John Whitmer was the most prominent co-founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The charter establishing the Church was signed on April 6, 1830 at father Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s. Fayette, NY log cabin. Later, in the year 1831, John Whitmer became the very first Church historian; appointed to this position by Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
Conversely, in early 1838 John Whitmer became the very first Mormon to become excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Almost forty years past his excommunication, when Whitmer executed his 6 May 1877 reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon, never to that day had he rejoined the LDS Church.
This original John Whitmer manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Mormon, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
As it was, Martin Harris, one of the first devout Mormon disciples, was one of the scribes who had come to Harmony, PA. to help Mormon Prophet Smith translate the Gold Plates. At one point Harris had taken 116 transcribed pages to show his wife back in Palmyra, NY - but became lost or destroyed.
Upon learning of this loss, Angel Moroni retaliated and took back the Gold Plates from Prophet Smith. With no physical proof of the Gold Plates existing, this cast uncertainty on to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which would follow the work into the future.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior.
In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
John Whitmer served as a scribe during the translation of the sacred Gold Plates at Harmony, PA.
The Book of Mormon was published in March of 1830, in Palmyra, New York just the month before.
When Prophet Joseph Smith first heard of the growing number of converts in Kirtland, Ohio, John Whitmer was sent by Smith out to Kirtland to provide much needed leadership.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer, "commanded by God" by the hands of Prophet Smith was anointed to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
Problems arising at the church headquarters in Kirtland involving the Kirtland Safety Society bank compelled Joseph Smith and fellow Mormon Sidney Rigdon to relocate to Far West in early 1838.
This excommunication was caused by John Whitmer's reporting on the truths of certain indiscretions made by Joseph Smith against fellow Church brethren when the Prophet Smith had come out to Far West.
It was at this time in 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West to act as a missionary - that this great turmoil arose. Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would not think that this would be the case.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
Looking through numerous histories, records and even author Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents masterwork, one will see, after much study, that just a couple of other first person actual handwritten letters by a bona fide respective Book of Mormon Witness exist in physical form as Book of Mormon testimony - between all of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
Not long before Joseph Smith was murdered at the Carthage, Ill. jailhouse while awaiting trial in 1844, he had hid the original Harmony PA. executed original Gold Plates translation manuscript behind a cornerstone at the Illinois based Nauvoo House at Nauvoo. The thick hand executed manuscript document for the 1830 Book of Mormon contained the signature page attesting as true testimony. It asserted the authenticity of the statements made in the Book of Mormon as being truthful. Each of the Three and Eight Witnesses found in the Book of Mormon signed their respective signatures in their own separate hands. The Oliver Cowdery "printer's copy" was only executed in his own hand, making the document merely a non-legal facsimile.
Some years after the 1844 murder of Joseph, the Mississippi River crested its banks at Nauvoo, and the original Harmony, PA. executed Book of Mormon manuscript became severely water damaged and soaked. When the manuscript was removed in 1881 from behind the Nauvoo House cornerstone by Louis C. Bidamon, Joseph Smith's widow Emma Smith's second husband, the horrific damage was discovered. More damage occurred when Bidamon gave cut squares as souvenirs to visiting Mormons.
Only 28% of the document remained intact and 72% was destroyed. Most importantly, the original Book of Mormon manuscript signature page was completely destroyed. The only true viable link to the Gold Plates was severed forever.
The original Harmony manuscript translation remains as a distressed mostly incomplete remnant.
But the link to the Gold Plates still exists, having been preserved with the discovery of the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony.
The premise behind the BYU lectures Richard Lloyd Anderson gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
Thus, in the end, the 6 May 1877 hand executed and signed Whitmer Book of Mormon manuscript letter stands as the most important physical legal affidavit in the world that exists linked to the fabled Gold Plates of Angel Moroni. It supports that such plates physically existed and that the original Book of Mormon from 1830 stands as a wholly valid and truthful account.
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon that exists or ever written.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols., 5:247-249, original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON - UPPER PAGE DETAIL
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
http://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Shown is a scrap book journal page numbered 39 found in a small manuscript journal. Affixed by fish glue is an important 6 May 1877 dated testimony by John Whitmer reaffirming his original testimony as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 Book of Mormon bible. Whitmer had sent this testimony letter to Joseph R. Lambert (1845 - 1932) of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS) in Missouri.
Aside from founder Joseph Smith, John Whitmer was the most prominent co-founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The charter establishing the Church was signed on April 6, 1830 at father Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s. Fayette, NY log cabin. Later, in the year 1831, John Whitmer became the very first Church historian; appointed to this position by Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
Conversely, in early 1838 John Whitmer became the very first Mormon to become excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Almost forty years past his excommunication, when Whitmer executed his 6 May 1877 reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon, never to that day had he rejoined the LDS Church.
This original John Whitmer manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Nephi, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
As it was, Martin Harris, one of the first devout Mormon disciples, was one of the scribes who had come to Harmony, PA. to help Mormon Prophet Smith translate the Gold Plates. At one point Harris had taken 116 transcribed pages to show his wife back in Palmyra, NY - but became lost or destroyed.
Upon learning of this loss, Angel Moroni retaliated and took back the Gold Plates from Prophet Smith. With no physical proof of the Gold Plates existing, this cast uncertainty on to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which would follow the work into the future.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior. In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
John Whitmer served as a scribe during the translation of the sacred Gold Plates at Harmony, PA.
The Book of Mormon was published in March of 1830, in Palmyra, New York just the month before.
When Prophet Joseph Smith first heard of the growing number of converts in Kirtland, Ohio, John Whitmer was sent by Smith out to Kirtland to provide much needed leadership.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer, "commanded by God" by the hands of Prophet Smith was anointed to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
Problems arising at the church headquarters in Kirtland involving the Kirtland Safety Society bank compelled Joseph Smith and fellow Mormon Sidney Rigdon to relocate to Far West in early 1838. This excommunication was caused by John Whitmer's reporting on the truths of certain indiscretions made by Joseph Smith against fellow Church brethren when the Prophet Smith had come out to Far West.
It was at this time in 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West to act as a missionary - that this great turmoil arose. Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would not think that this would be the case.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
Looking through numerous histories, records and even author Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents masterwork, one will see, after much study, that just a couple of other first person actual handwritten letters by a bona fide respective Book of Mormon Witness exist in physical form as Book of Mormon testimony - between all of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
Not long before Joseph Smith was murdered at the Carthage, Ill. jailhouse while awaiting trial in 1844, he had hid the original Harmony PA. executed original Gold Plates translation manuscript behind a cornerstone at the Illinois based Nauvoo House at Nauvoo. The thick hand executed manuscript document for the 1830 Book of Mormon contained the signature page attesting as true testimony. It asserted the authenticity of the statements made in the Book of Mormon as being truthful. Each of the Three and Eight Witnesses found in the Book of Mormon signed their respective signatures in their own separate hands. The Oliver Cowdery "printer's copy" was only executed in his own hand, making the document merely a non-legal facsimile.
Some years after the 1844 murder of Joseph, the Mississippi River crested it banks at Nauvoo, and the original Harmony, PA. executed Book of Mormon manuscript became severely water damaged and soaked. When the manuscript was removed in 1881 from behind the Nauvoo House cornerstone by Louis C. Bidamon, Joseph Smith's widow Emma Smith's second husband, the horrific damage was discovered. More damage occurred when Bidamon gave cut squares as souvenirs to visiting Mormons.
Only 28% of the document remained intact and 72% was destroyed. Most importantly, the original Book of Mormon manuscript signature page was completely destroyed. The only true viable link to the Gold Plates was severed forever.
The original Harmony manuscript translation remains as a distressed mostly incomplete remnant.
But the link to the Gold Plates still exists, having been preserved with the discovery of the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony.
The premise behind the BYU lectures Richard Lloyd Anderson gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
Thus, in the end, the 6 May 1877 hand executed and signed Whitmer Book of Mormon manuscript letter stands as the most important physical legal affidavit in the world that exists linked to the fabled Gold Plates of Angel Moroni. It supports that such plates physically existed and that the original Book of Mormon from 1830 stands as a wholly valid and truthful account.
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon that exists or ever written.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols., 5:247-249, original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
https://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Shown is a scrap book journal page numbered 39 found in a small manuscript journal. Affixed by fish glue is an important 6 May 1877 dated testimony by John Whitmer reaffirming his original testimony as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 Book of Mormon bible. Whitmer had sent this testimony letter to Joseph R. Lambert (1845 - 1932) of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS) in Missouri.
Aside from founder Joseph Smith, John Whitmer was the most prominent co-founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The charter establishing the Church was signed on April 6, 1830 at father Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s. Fayette, NY log cabin. Later, in the year 1831, John Whitmer became the very first Church historian; appointed to this position by Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
Conversely, in early 1838 John Whitmer became the very first Mormon to become excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Almost forty years past his excommunication, when Whitmer executed his 6 May 1877 reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon, never to that day had he rejoined the LDS Church.
This original John Whitmer manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Mormon, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
As it was, Martin Harris, one of the first devout Mormon disciples, was one of the scribes who had come to Harmony, PA. to help Mormon Prophet Smith translate the Gold Plates. At one point Harris had taken 116 transcribed pages to show his wife back in Palmyra, NY - but became lost or destroyed.
Upon learning of this loss, Angel Moroni retaliated and took back the Gold Plates from Prophet Smith. With no physical proof of the Gold Plates existing, this cast uncertainty on to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which would follow the work into the future.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior. In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
John Whitmer served as a scribe during the translation of the sacred Gold Plates at Harmony, PA.
The Book of Mormon was published in March of 1830, in Palmyra, New York just the month before.
When Prophet Joseph Smith first heard of the growing number of converts in Kirtland, Ohio, John Whitmer was sent by Smith out to Kirtland to provide much needed leadership.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer, "commanded by God" by the hands of Prophet Smith was anointed to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
Problems arising at the church headquarters in Kirtland involving the Kirtland Safety Society bank compelled Joseph Smith and fellow Mormon Sidney Rigdon to relocate to Far West in early 1838. This excommunication was caused by John Whitmer's reporting on the truths of certain indiscretions made by Joseph Smith against fellow Church brethren when the Prophet Smith had come out to Far West.
It was at this time in 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West to act as a missionary - that this great turmoil arose. Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would not think that this would be the case.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
Looking through numerous histories, records and even author Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents masterwork, one will see, after much study, that just a couple of other first person actual handwritten letters by a bona fide respective Book of Mormon Witness exist in physical form as Book of Mormon testimony - between all of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
Not long before Joseph Smith was murdered at the Carthage, Ill. jailhouse while awaiting trial in 1844, he had hid the original Harmony PA. executed original Gold Plates translation manuscript behind a cornerstone at the Illinois based Nauvoo House at Nauvoo. The thick hand executed manuscript document for the 1830 Book of Mormon contained the signature page attesting as true testimony. It asserted the authenticity of the statements made in the Book of Mormon as being truthful. Each of the Three and Eight Witnesses found in the Book of Mormon signed their respective signatures in their own separate hands. The Oliver Cowdery "printer's copy" was only executed in his own hand, making the document merely a non-legal facsimile.
Some years after the 1844 murder of Joseph, the Mississippi River crested its banks at Nauvoo, and the original Harmony, PA. executed Book of Mormon manuscript became severely water damaged and soaked. When the manuscript was removed in 1881 from behind the Nauvoo House cornerstone by Louis C. Bidamon, Joseph Smith's widow Emma Smith's second husband, the horrific damage was discovered. More damage occurred when Bidamon gave cut squares as souvenirs to visiting Mormons.
Only 28% of the document remained intact and 72% was destroyed. Most importantly, the original Book of Mormon manuscript signature page was completely destroyed. The only true viable link to the Gold Plates was severed forever.
The original Harmony manuscript translation remains as a distressed mostly incomplete remnant.
But the link to the Gold Plates still exists, having been preserved with the discovery of the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony.
The premise behind the BYU lectures Richard Lloyd Anderson gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
Thus, in the end, the 6 May 1877 hand executed and signed Whitmer Book of Mormon manuscript letter stands as the most important physical legal affidavit in the world that exists linked to the fabled Gold Plates of Angel Moroni. It supports that such plates physically existed and that the original Book of Mormon from 1830 stands as a wholly valid and truthful account.
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon that exists or ever written.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols., 5:247-249, original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
http://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Shown is a scrap book journal page numbered 39 found in a small manuscript journal. Affixed by fish glue is an important 6 May 1877 dated testimony by John Whitmer reaffirming his original testimony as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 Book of Mormon bible. Whitmer had sent his testimony letter to Joseph R. Lambert (1845 - 1932) of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS) in Missouri.
Aside from founder Joseph Smith, John Whitmer was the most prominent co-founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The charter establishing the Church was signed on April 6, 1830 at father Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s. Fayette, NY log cabin. Later, in the year 1831, John Whitmer became the very first Church historian; appointed to this position by Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
Conversely, in early 1838 John Whitmer became the very first Mormon to become excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Almost forty years past his excommunication, when Whitmer executed his 6 May 1877 reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon, never to that day had he rejoined the LDS Church.
This original John Whitmer manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Mormon, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
As it was, Martin Harris, one of the first devout Mormon disciples, was one of the scribes who had come to Harmony, PA. to help Mormon Prophet Smith translate the Gold Plates. At one point Harris had taken 116 transcribed pages to show his wife back in Palmyra, NY - but became lost or destroyed.
Upon learning of this loss, Angel Moroni retaliated and took back the Gold Plates from Prophet Smith. With no physical proof of the Gold Plates existing, this cast uncertainty on to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which would follow the work into the future.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior.
In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
John Whitmer served as a scribe during the translation of the sacred Gold Plates at Harmony, PA.
The Book of Mormon was published in March of 1830, in Palmyra, New York just the month before.
When Prophet Joseph Smith first heard of the growing number of converts in Kirtland, Ohio, John Whitmer was sent by Smith out to Kirtland to provide much needed leadership.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer, "commanded by God" by the hands of Prophet Smith was anointed to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
Problems arising at the church headquarters in Kirtland involving the Kirtland Safety Society bank compelled Joseph Smith and fellow Mormon Sidney Rigdon to relocate to Far West in early 1838.
This excommunication was caused by John Whitmer's reporting on the truths of certain indiscretions made by Joseph Smith against fellow Church brethren when the Prophet Smith had come out to Far West.
It was at this time in 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West to act as a missionary - that this great turmoil arose. Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would not think that this would be the case.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
Looking through numerous histories, records and even author Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents masterwork, one will see, after much study, that just a couple of other first person actual handwritten letters by a bona fide respective Book of Mormon Witness exist in physical form as Book of Mormon testimony - between all of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
Not long before Joseph Smith was murdered at the Carthage, Ill. jailhouse while awaiting trial in 1844, he had hid the original Harmony PA. executed original Gold Plates translation manuscript behind a cornerstone at the Illinois based Nauvoo House at Nauvoo. The thick hand executed manuscript document for the 1830 Book of Mormon contained the signature page attesting as true testimony. It asserted the authenticity of the statements made in the Book of Mormon as being truthful. Each of the Three and Eight Witnesses found in the Book of Mormon signed their respective signatures in their own separate hands. The Oliver Cowdery "printer's copy" was only executed in his own hand, making the document merely a non-legal facsimile.
Some years after the 1844 murder of Joseph, the Mississippi River crested its banks at Nauvoo, and the original Harmony, PA. executed Book of Mormon manuscript became severely water damaged and soaked. When the manuscript was removed in 1881 from behind the Nauvoo House cornerstone by Louis C. Bidamon, Joseph Smith's widow Emma Smith's second husband, the horrific damage was discovered. More damage occurred when Bidamon gave cut squares as souvenirs to visiting Mormons.
Only 28% of the document remained intact and 72% was destroyed. Most importantly, the original Book of Mormon manuscript signature page was completely destroyed. The only true viable link to the Gold Plates was severed forever.
The original Harmony manuscript translation remains as a distressed mostly incomplete remnant.
But the link to the Gold Plates still exists, having been preserved with the discovery of the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony.
The premise behind the BYU lectures Richard Lloyd Anderson gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
Thus, in the end, the 6 May 1877 hand executed and signed Whitmer Book of Mormon manuscript letter stands as the most important physical legal affidavit in the world that exists linked to the fabled Gold Plates of Angel Moroni. It supports that such plates physically existed and that the original Book of Mormon from 1830 stands as a wholly valid and truthful account.
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon that exists or ever written.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols., 5:247-249, original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
Killing of Joseph Smith by a mob as he falls from Carthage jail
Bildnachweis
Bildquelle: Biographical_Sketches_title_page.jpg Autor: Wikipedia / Lucy Mack Smith (d. 1856), published for Orson Pratt by S. W. Richards Lizenz: gemeinfrei
Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations, title page.
The ivory knob on this cane contains locks of Joseph Smith's hair, while the wood is made from the wood of the coffin used to carry Smith from Carthage to Nauvoo. see Cunning folk traditions and the Latter Day Saint movement. This cane is found at the Church History Museum.
JOHN WHITMER 6 MAY 1877 TESTIMONY TO THE BOOK OF MORMON & EARLY PITMAN SHORTHAND CHARACTERS COMPRISING COMMENTARY AUTHORED BY JOSEPH R. LAMBERT OF THE RDLS CHURCH
JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE - ROCHESTER, NY PRESENTATION
http://www.sndup.net/bkcb
Found in the "Scrap-Book" journal of RDLS Bishop Joseph R. Lambert (1845-1932) are pages numbered 38 and 39 to which affixed by paste are "Early Pitman" shorthand annotations on page 38, and on page 39 is found the Mormon co-founder John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 dated testimony. The document reaffirms the original testimony given by Whitmer as one of the Eight Witnesses found in the 1830 Book of Mormon bible.
When John Whitmer executed his reaffirmation testimony to the Book of Mormon on 6 May 1877, almost forty years past his excommunication, never to that day had Whitmer rejoined the LDS Church.
This original manuscript letter of testimony supports and validates that the fabled Gold Plates of Mormon, as delivered to Prophet Smith by Mormon's son Angel Moroni, were real and truly existed.
When the Lambert Journal was initially found in the year 2001, besides the John Whitmer 1877 testimony, the journal was filled with 1870's newspaper clippings of Mormon interest. Additionally pages of odd text written in an unknown form was found. It was perplexing. They were thought at first to be Mormon hieroglyphics that had been modified from original reformed Egyptian texts. Or it was thought that the odd inscriptions could have been a form of characters found along the lines of Joseph Smith's papyri.
For about five years after the scrap book's year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack at Renninger's open-air antique flea market in Mt. Dora, Florida, nothing much was understood about it outside of the existence of the John Whitmer testimony; A testimony believed to be unknown to anybody within the Mormon faith. The Mormon newspaper clippings in English affixed to the pages were interesting to read, but the handwritten comments in a strange hieroglyphic form seen written next to the clippings remained undecipherable. This kept further formidable research from being conducted.
At one point looking through an old late-1800's book on Pitman shorthand at an antiques show in the year 2006, historian Lipack noticed a certain character he remembered seeing in his Mormon journal.
According to the Pitman book, it came to be understood as being the word for "God." After purchasing the little book on Pitman, Lipack started to contact Pitman shorthand organizations and Pitman study groups in both the US and Canada, and sent samples of the journal's text to them for members to try deciphering the strange code. To no avail however could any of these groups accomplish this needed function. They were Pitman practitioners by trade, or had used Pitman in prior years, but never saw Pitman symbols of the sort or form as found in the Joseph R. Lambert Mormon scrap book Journal.
It was finally later in the year 2006 that historian Lipack noticed a new update on the online internet Pitman shorthand study group site he was monitoring in Canada. A short two-line posted classified advertisement by a woman named Dorothy Webb Roberts had appeared. The ad offered services citing the shorthand services of Dorothy Roberts in in the realm of transcribing what she called "Early Pitman" shorthand. Seeing this notice, an effort was immediately put forth to contact Dorothy Roberts about her ability to conduct transcriptions in the area of "Early Pitman" shorthand.
Dorothy Roberts was originally from England and had worked for the Queen's Service in South Africa as a shorthand practitioner and secretary. Becoming quite proficient at shorthand and stenography, Dorothy Roberts also taught a instructional course on Pitman's shorthand protocols, which she had developed an advanced knowledge of. But this was the more modern Pitman shorthand.
Going forward, ultimately Dorothy Roberts came to perfect the transcription of "Early Pitman" shorthand in 1995 after transcribing three old Civil War diaries brought to her attention. Shortly thereafter Dorothy Roberts was given a citation from the Library of Congress for being the first person in the world to perfect this form of 'lost' shorthand.
Roberts came to be the only person in the world who could transcribe "Early Pitman" shorthand at this time.
Historically, the "Early Pitman" shorthand practice had been slowly phased out by the 1880's and replaced by a newer form of Pitman shorthand.. This was after the aging inventor Isaac Pitman handed his business over to his sons, who went ahead and modified the original "Early Pitman" into a more modern form that was used well into the 20th century.
Further documentation regarding the Journal contents has come forward revealing that it was Joseph R. Lambert's sisters who had become adept in "Early Pitman" shorthand and had executed the strange Journal transcriptions for their brother Joseph R. Lambert.
More substantial authentication and provenance to the John Whitmer 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony subsequently came forward about nine years after its initial year 2001 discovery by historian Richard Warren Lipack.
A happenstance online internet search in 2010 brought forth a revealing article by Mormon historian Richard Lloyd Anderson.
The article was found in a January 30, 2005 BYU publication. It cited quotes from a letter dated January 29, 1884 to E. L. Kelley written by Joseph R. Lambert. This 1884 letter amazingly cited the 6 May 1877 Whitmer letter Lambert had received seven years prior. In the 1884 letter, Lambert quoted several lines written by Whitmer exactly as was found in the Book of Mormon testimony found in the Journal that historian Richard Warren Lipack had discovered!
Serving as a finite means of authentication, today the 1884 Lambert letter resides in the archives of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO. (the former RLDS). This gives the Lambert Journal and Whitmer testimony irrefutable provenance and also serves as irrefutable authentication.
After Joseph Smith became settled in Kirtland himself and others began to gather there, in March 1831, John Whitmer was anointed by Smith to write and keep a regular history. (Documents & Covenants 47:1).
From Kirtland, Whitmer eventually relocated in 1837 to Far West, Missouri to attend to missionary work. In 1838, the year after John Whitmer had first arrived in Far West a great turmoil arose which ultimately led to John Whitmer's excommunication from the Church.
Increasing loan debts that the Church had with the Kirtland Safety Society bank brought on by Smith wanting to keep a Mormon militia ready against anti-Mormon factions prompted Smith to come out to Far West to solicit from Church parishioners property to help pay the Kirtland bank loan. This property was in the form of cattle, chickens, livestock and such to resell - that Prophet Smith had sought.
But the Prophet just took these properties carte blanche in the form of a outright theft. And John Whitmer precisely reported this in a truthful manner without reserve.
Joseph Smith did not approve of this action, as it was an embarrassment to the Prophet. Thus, in 1838 John Whitmer became the first Mormon to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And John Whitmer never returned to the LDS Church, yet he would always keep and support his testimony found reproduced in the Book of Mormon; even to the day he would meet his maker the Lord Almighty.
John Whitmer would die on July 11, 1878, approximately 14 months after he executed this most significant testimony to the Book of Mormon for Joseph R. Lambert.
The question arises as to if a man so close to nearing his death at meeting his maker God would tell a lie in the face of his God when asserting his testimony involving his God and Lord Savior?
One would think not.
Thus, the statements provided in the 6 May 1877 John Whitmer testimony clearly support that the Gold Plates existed and are the true and faithful origins of the Book of Mormon. This is irrefutable.
In Dan Vogel's five volume masterwork: "Early Mormon Documents" published between the years 1996 and 2003, not a single mention of the May 6, 1877 John Whitmer testimony is made. Dan Vogel had access to the same RLDS Church archives just as LDS BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would have a few years later.
It was however in the year 2005 that the BYU historian Richard Lloyd Anderson would publish notice of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 Book of Mormon testimony just a few years following Dan Vogel's earlier effort that failed to do so. Richard Lloyd Anderson's identification, documentation and showing the existence of John Whitmer's 6 May 1877 hand written and signed Book of Mormon testimony is of immeasurable significance.
The premise behind Richard Lloyd Anderson's BYU lectures that he gave and also what is found in his 2005 BYU published work entitled: Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, was that the Book of Mormon is wholly supported by the written and printed testimony of these Witnesses, in that these testimonies serve as legal affidavits.(2)
The very hands that touched and "hefted" the Book of Mormon Gold Plates are the very hands that wrote to what can be considered the most formidable letter of testimony to the Book of Mormon extant ever.
(1) Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City), Signature Books, 1996-2003), 5 vols, 5:247-249., original in Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1878; citing a letter from P. Wilhelm Poulson to Editors (31 July 1878) from Ovid City, Idaho.
(2) Richard Lloyd Anderson, Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses (Salt Lake City), Brigham Young University, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 31, 2005.
Proceed to following links for more information;
https://www.mormonkey.com/home-/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI4Y0Wb_WA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2qaYLGjkc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mormonkey.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okul4py2vAI&t=9s
View southward of the explanatory monument/marker installed behind (i.e. due west of) the Church of Christ (Hedrickite) headquarters building in the 1990s. This stone marker replaced an obelisk-like stone marker unveiled on August 3, 1967, which was located several dozen yards east-southeast of the one shown here. The 1967 monument/marker commemorated a century since the Hedrickites arrived in Independence Missouri the Spring of 1867.
Contemporary copy of the Daviess County, Missouri, Circuit Court's indictment of Joseph Smith, Jr., charging him with treason. The charges derived from Smith's actions in the 1838 Mormon War. The indictment is signed by George W. Dunn, circuit attorney. Members of the grand jury included Adam Black. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Frontispiece, entitled "The Prophet Pronouncing the Greek Psalter to be a Dictionary of Egyptian Hieroglyphics," from Henry Caswall, The Prophet of the Nineteenth Century; or, The Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, To Which is Appended an Analysis of the Book of Mormon, London: Rivington, 1843.
A daguerreotype that is claimed to be of Joseph Smith from 1844. See: Romig, Ronald; Mackay, Lachlan (Spring/Summer 2022). "Hidden Things Shall Come to Light: The Visual Image of Joseph Smith Jr". John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. 42 (1): 28–60.
Nota spese del Judge Albert Neely relativa al processo di Joseph Smith Jr. Copia del documento trovato in Norwich, New York scoperto da Wesley P. Walters - Originale del 1826
Joseph Smith's First Vision in a stained glass triptych, originally placed in the Los Angeles Adams Ward Chapel from 1913 until 1959, when the chapel was razed. The window is now kept in the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, US. On April 6, 1830, Smith founded the Church of Christ in upstate New York, now The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Joseph Smith's First Vision in a stained glass triptych, originally placed in the Los Angeles Adams Ward Chapel from 1913 until 1959, when the chapel was razed. The window is now kept in the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, US. On April 6, 1830, Smith founded the Church of Christ in upstate New York, now The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Pepper-box pistol used by Joseph Smith, Jr. in an attempt to defend himself at Carthage (Illinois) jail on June 27, 1844. Currently displayed in the Church History Museum, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Nauvoo Charter, see History of Nauvoo, Illinois. This charter was later seen as giving too much power to Joseph Smith. Located at the Church History Museum
A photograph of the important part of W. W. Phelps' copy of the 1831 revelation which commands Mormons to marry Indians so that their posterity would become "white." The original is held by the historical department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Joseph Smith from a daguerreotype taken by Lucian Foster (November 12, 1806-March 19 1876) sometime between 1840 and 1844, submitted to the Library of Congress in 1879 by Smith's son Joseph Smith III. This is a 3rd generation copy which has been heavily edited by an artist. Much controversy has surrounded this image and scholars questioned whether it came from a daguerreotype or a closely related painting.
In 2009, Kim Marshall came forward with a unedited 2nd generation contact print given to her by her grandmother. An image that precedes the Library of Congress image of Joseph Smith in regards to editing and photographic detail, proving that in fact both photos originated from a long lost daguerreotype photograph of the LDS leader.
Kim Marshall's research may be seen at http://josephsmithjr.co
1843 Photograph of Joseph Smith, Jr. by Lucian Foster (November 12, 1806-March 19 1876).
This photograph is believed by many experts to be a daguerreotype of Joseph Smith taken in 1843 by Lucian Foster, and there is no dispute of the fact it is a faithful representation of the likeness of Smith, as it is similar in appearance to the painted portrait owned by the Joseph Smith family. Joseph Smith III, eleven years old at his father's death, said the portrait was the best likeness of his father.
The authenticity of the photograph has been affirmed by several scholarly studies, but some suggest the daguerreotype was made from a painted portrait. See http://comevisit.com/lds/faq-dld.htm .
The image was copyrighted in 1879 by Smith's son Joseph Smith III (Copyright No. 9810). The original daguerreotype has been lost, but this photo reproduction (slightly re-touched) is kept on file at the Library of Congress.
The words "Characters on the book of Mormon", "the book of Mormon" and "The interpreters of Languages" and, below, four characters in Reformed Egyptian.
Title: Tarring and feathering Joseph Smith
Abstract/medium: 1 print : wood engraving.
Bildnachweis
Bildquelle: The_Voice_of_Truth.djvu Autor: Wikipedia / Joseph Smith Jr., Henry Clay (letter), John C. Calhoun (letter), Thomas Ford (letter) Lizenz: gemeinfrei
The voice of truth: containing General Joseph Smith's corresondence with Gen. James Arlington Bennett; appeal to the Green Mountain Boys; correspondence with John C. Calhoun, Esq.; views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States; pacific innuendo, and Gov. Ford's letter; a friendly hint to Missouri, and a few words of consolation for the "globe;" also, correspondence with the Hon. Henry Clay (1844)
Title: The youthful prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Oliver Cowdery, receiving the Aaronic priesthood under the hands of John the Baptist, May 15,1829
Abstract/medium: 1 print : lithograph ; 92 x 61 cm (sheet)
Joseph Smith war ein 🙋♂️ Gründer und erster Prophet der Mormonen
Wie alt wurde Joseph Smith?
Joseph Smith erreichte ein Alter von ⌛ 38 Jahren.
Wann hat Joseph Smith Geburtstag?
Joseph Smith wurde an einem Montag am ⭐ 23. Dezember 1805 geboren.
Wo wurde Joseph Smith geboren?
Joseph Smith wurde in 🚩 Sharon, Vermont, USA, geboren.
Wer sind die Eltern von Joseph Smith?
Die Eltern von Joseph Smith heißen Joseph Smith, Sr. und Lucy Mack Smith.
War Joseph Smith verheiratet oder hatte er eine Partnerin?
Ja, Joseph Smith war verheiratet. Als Ehepartner ist Emma Smith, Eliza Roxcy Snow, Zina D. H. Young, Lucinda Morgan Harrisová, Helen Mar Kimball, Almera Woodward Johnson, Louisa Beeman, Sarah Ann Whitney, Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman und Emily Dow Partridge bekannt.
Hatte Joseph Smith Kinder?
Ja, Joseph Smith war Vater von insgesamt 5 Kindern. Die Namen der Kinder lauten u. a. Julia Murdock Smith (* 1831), Joseph Smith III (* 1832), Alexander Hale Smith (* 1838) und David Hyrum Smith (* 1844).
In welchem Sternzeichen wurde Joseph Smith geboren?
Joseph Smith wurde im westlichen Sternzeichen Steinbock geboren.
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