Priesthood Restoration timeline - Official church narrative vs Historical timeline

[ap1054]

This is freakin awesome jfro18.

[jfro18]

Thanks all - I'm going to try and get this formatted much cleaner this week and maybe see if I can get it tossed up on a website or something so it can look a lot nicer/more organized.

If it turns out OK, I'm going to work on the translation process next along with blacks and the priesthood, given that they are going to be patting themselves on the back about that in just under 3 weeks now.

I'm also working on getting a timeline going for when different points of crisis occur. So far I'd say the bigger ones (kirtland bank failure, people leaving church,etc) seem to be after the priesthood story changes, but I also need to work on areas like Fanny Alger, polygamy issues, etc. If anyone has any of those they think are notable let me know - so far just have Zions March, bank collapse, Oliver exed, Whitmer leaves... obviously so much more to go in that regard.

The good thing is I can keep adding to these topics as I go - just need to be clear on updates so no one things I'm hiding anything.

[blazerb]

If you are looking for "faithful" sources, you might try this document: https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/prie ... -documents. It includes quotes regarding the restoration of the priesthood made by anyone before the death of Oliver Cowdery. It is clear to me that there is a progression in the details of the accounts that seems fabricated to me. Most of concern to me is the account of the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood in the history of the church prepared under JS's direction. There is no mention of Peter, James, and John. Just a voice from heaven directing them to organize the church. From the timeline in the document, it does not appear to have occurred before June 1829. Of course after that, there is no opportunity for Peter, James, and John to have appeared near the Susquehanna to JS and Oliver until mid 1830. It's all just fiction.

[jfro18]

If you are looking for "faithful" sources, you might try this document: https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/prie ... -documents. It includes quotes regarding the restoration of the priesthood made by anyone before the death of Oliver Cowdery. It is clear to me that there is a progression in the details of the accounts that seems fabricated to me. Most of concern to me is the account of the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood in the history of the church prepared under JS's direction. There is no mention of Peter, James, and John. Just a voice from heaven directing them to organize the church. From the timeline in the document, it does not appear to have occurred before June 1829. Of course after that, there is no opportunity for Peter, James, and John to have appeared near the Susquehanna to JS and Oliver until mid 1830. It's all just fiction.

This is another great source to show that the priesthood restoration story as now told is completely retrofitted to fit a faith promoting narrative.

Thanks for sending - I need to pull a few details from this especially to highlight how loose the church is with terms in order to fit them into any situation when the need arises.

[Yobispo]

Love it. Excellent work.

*I'm not familiar with Grant Palmer, but you cite him a few times. Does his work withstand scrutiny? I know he was an outspoken critic of the church so some people will discredit him for that alone (his bias).

His book was a page-turner for me. The one thing that many of us have a hard time pinning down is, "If it is NOT true, how did JS come up with all of it?" Grant makes an attempt to answer the question. I personally loved his chapter on the Golden Pot because it shows how these fantastical stories were part of the ether of Joseph's world. The new stuff coming out about Dartmouth (Lucy Code - youtube) adds to this. In a few years with more scholarship, I think we'll have a pretty clear picture of where JS got all his ideas. Opinion: Oliver was part of the creative team. I didn't think so before, but now I do.

[Hagoth]

I finally got around to reading this. Great stuff jfro18! The most powerful presentation for me would be to see the two timelines side-by-side just to show how dramatically different they are.

If it were me I'm not sure I would even bother with FAIR. Or the CES letter for that matter. Both are sources that the other side sees as untrustworthy. It's a lot harder to argue against primary sources.

FAIR is just a bunch of non-authoritative hobbyists propping up their own testimonies with elaborate kludges that do as much damage to their cause as good.

[jfro18]

I finally got around to reading this. Great stuff jfro18! The most powerful presentation for me would be to see the two timelines side-by-side just to show how dramatically different they are.

If it were me I'm not sure I would even bother with FAIR. Or the CES letter for that matter. Both are sources that the other side sees as untrustworthy. It's a lot harder to argue against primary sources.

FAIR is just a bunch of non-authoritative hobbyists propping up their own testimonies with elaborate kludges that do as much damage to their cause as good.

I want to get this up on a website so that it can be formatted better, so maybe I'll start with the timelines and then expand on that below. I think that would allow for a more powerful hook and then still allow for me to back up the info below.

I like including FAIR because if you are a believing Mormon who reads this, you'll immediately go there. By including FAIR it gives the chance to spell out why they are being misleading --It took me (literally) 2-3 reads on every FAIR topic because I could see what they were doing... the first time I read through FAIR's reply to the CES letter I actually thought "Oh man I don't agree with them, but they score a lot of points." In reality half of what they're replying to isn't even the argument being made, which they are of course well aware of.

Just need some time to get this together... and a website... I don't want to just be a 'clone' of CES Letter or MormonThink but would love to be able to have something that I can post pages on topic by topic. Need to get my creative thinking cap on too.

[Reuben]

I don't know if this is anything like what you have in mind, but there's a format whose analogue I would love to see realized.

Whether each of the church's historical truth claims holds should be based on historical evidence. But there's an awful lot of it, non-experts have a hard time weighing it and deciding what it means, and there's a lot of ambient adversarial argument, some of which is done in bad faith or with a self-deceptive slant.

It seems a good model for deciding the truth of most of these claims would be a civil trial by jury. The defendant would be the church, with FAIR apologists as the defense team. The prosecution would include people like Jeremy Runnells and Grant Palmer. Historians, believers like Richard Bushman and unbelievers like Jan Shipps, would be expert witnesses. Each Mormon or investigator would be a separate jury. Each jury's task: determine whether the event happened like the church says it did.

That's kind of what happens already, but with some huge deviations. There are no agreed-upon rules for stating claims, admitting evidence, making arguments, or calling witnesses. The defense recruits the jury onto the defense team before the trial starts, so the prosecution responds by recruiting defense team members during the trial. And there's no judge. It's a fiasco.

It would be great to have a judge to keep the jury in the jury box instead of wading into the fight in the floor, to uphold standards, and to help the jury weigh evidence and arguments. (You're already doing a lot of this.) I'm not suggesting an actual courtroom drama script as the format, just something that functions in a similar way. And because I'm just spitballing and have little stake in this, I haven't thought at all about what it would look like.

[Red Ryder]

Great idea Rueben!

Perry Mason style...

[jfro18]

OK - Work has beat me down pretty good the last week or so, but should be getting better soon so I want to work on this again.

I was thinking of registering a domain to toss this on since I can format it to look a lot better, and then slowly add topics as we go. It will be hard to differentiate a ton from mormonthink since they are effectively doing that, but I want to incorporate more of the LDS official items to rebut (essays especially). I guess I won't look at this as a replacement for MT but just another way of looking at stuff that (hopefully) comes off in a way that addresses apologists alongside of presenting church history without getting into stuff that is a big fringe-worthy.

Anyone have any suggestions in that regard? And anyone have any ideas on a domain name that could be helpful? Was thinking of something that was more 'straight' like mormondialogue or mormondiscussions as opposed to a fun one... although a fun one might be better to get people to look at it.

It'll be an ongoing project - I've been kind of doing it on my own anyway, so might as well toss it up in case it could help anyone else going through faith questions/crisis.

I really wanted to get something up before the church's Be One event, but that might be pushing my luck timewise quite a bit.

[IT_Veteran]

mormondoctrine.com is available as a premium domain from name.com. Low low price of only $33K and it can be yours! Renewal will be $12.99 though.

[IT_Veteran]

Also, priesthoodrestoration.com is available.

[jfro18]

mormondoctrine.com is available as a premium domain from name.com. Low low price of only $33K and it can be yours! Renewal will be $12.99 though.

Man you have got to love domain squatters!

The one I saw that was interesting was ldsdialogue... but again that almost seems *too* scholarly. But I don't want to do stuff like ldsexposed or ldsunveiled or something which implies you're going for the jugular. I want to try and present everything as evenly as possible even though it will also rip apart apologist arguments when the are being misleading.

[IT_Veteran]

mormondialog.com is also available but dialogue isn't. I thought of registering it for the project I mentioned earlier, but I don't think the site I had in mind would be as much about two-way conversation as that implies.

[jfro18]

mormondialog.com is also available but dialogue isn't. I thought of registering it for the project I mentioned earlier, but I don't think the site I had in mind would be as much about two-way conversation as that implies.

Yeah - I was thinking same about the two-way stuff since it's more going to be a collection of posts/topics rather than a back and forth (although I'd love a back and forth to it for sure)...

I just don't know if a more "fun" site name would be good or if it's better to keep it more straight so people take it more seriously... of course I'm kidding myself in thinking this will make a difference to anyone regardless.

[IT_Veteran]

I just bought mormon-education.com. More to follow

[jfro18]

I just bought mormon-education.com. More to follow

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

[Arcturus]

Thanks all - I'm going to try and get this formatted much cleaner this week and maybe see if I can get it tossed up on a website or something so it can look a lot nicer/more organized.

jfro18 - did this ever go anywhere? Would love to see the product if you were able to get it done.

[moksha]

Years from now we might hear about the miracle of Bednar and the pickle.

In that case, let's hope that Jfro has a detailed timeline of the pickle story in a clear and understandable graphical format. Something detailing from when President Bednar first told of the pickle in General Conference, to the newest apostle, Elder Stephen O. Smoot, recollecting the President Bednar's miracle in General Conference and its subsequent publication in the Ensign.

[jfro18]

Thanks all - I'm going to try and get this formatted much cleaner this week and maybe see if I can get it tossed up on a website or something so it can look a lot nicer/more organized.

jfro18 - did this ever go anywhere? Would love to see the product if you were able to get it done.

I just added it into the larger site with the essays - the priesthood stuff is on the top bar at https://ldsdiscussion.wixsite.com/mysite

I'm going to add in one more page to that which will detail the problems with the restoration that are apparent from the timeline, and why the apologetic arguments do not add up... kind of a mash-up of what I have there now but with more details.

If only there were a few more hours in each day... so many topics to get to and so little time!