Origins of Mormon Doctrine

[Hagoth]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qyTCSU ... oJid0/view

Thanks Arcturus. This looks excellent.

[jfro18]

This is getting more coverage today as John Dehlin posted the Dartmouth article on his Facebook page...

I need to add this onto my "Joseph Smith Mixtape Theory" list, but I've been trying to find out if the summary list of topics Joseph could've borrowed from were taught or if it's a stretch. Did anyone dig in further beyond the article from the John Whitmer Historical Association?

This is the summary of topics that Hagoth posted in the OP:

-A concept of the preexistence derived from Greek philosophy
-Atonement covenant made before the earth was created
-Plan of salvation agreed upon in the preexistence
-Father, Son and sons of men were together in the preexistence
-Spiritual death was man's condition after the Fall
-Son's church would exist in all ages after the Fall
-Types and shadows of hte covenant found in the scriptures
-Oaths and covenants are Deity's legal structure
-Light, borrowed light and the light of reason would guide
-Melchizedek Priesthood is co-eternal with God
-Priesthood is the source of the Son's authority
-Aaronic Priesthood promised to Aaron's descendants
-Free Agency and the right to choose is integral to the plan
-Degrees of Glory is the structure of the Eternities
-Consecration to Christ is required for the highest exaltation
-Revelation required to know ultimate nature of God
-Spirit is a simpler form of matter
-The prosperity cycle is the natural direction of history
-Millions of peopled worlds
-Father argues for justice and Son argues for mercy

[Arcturus]

I tried to dig into this more after reading the Behrens article. There's not much out there in the public domain. John Dehlin posted some pdf images from the Dartmouth library, containing the actual writings of John Smith - the early theologian at Dartmouth who penned the theological ideas.

I would imagine that if you wanted to dive deeper into this, you'd have to access the Dartmouth library and read all you can about John Smith.

Edit: Also could be promising to look into all of the citations in the Behrens article.

[jfro18]

When this was posted here a few months ago I looked into some of the writings that were linked and they were so hard to read... its like some of the church scans where it's just awful handwriting that's semi faded, etc.

But I will try to see if I can plug into this more later - it is really interesting although you'd think it there were any true smoking guns they would've been uncovered by now since this was written 12 years ago.

So much crazy stuff in the Mormon origin story... it's amazing.