{"id":2978,"date":"2014-11-23T17:47:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T00:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourthoughts.ca\/?p=2978"},"modified":"2014-11-23T17:47:59","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T00:47:59","slug":"27-things-in-the-mormon-churchs-new-articles-i-never-learned-growing-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourthoughts.ca\/2014\/11\/23\/27-things-in-the-mormon-churchs-new-articles-i-never-learned-growing-up\/","title":{"rendered":"27 things in the Mormon Church\u2019s new articles I never learned growing up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past year or so, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been releasing articles on particular <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\">topics<\/a> through their website.<\/p>\n<p>I have personally found several of the articles encouraging because they cover things I never learned growing up: things I learned only as an adult and only through blogs, podcasts, and anti-Mormon websites.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know why I never learned these things. What I do know is that I never learned them in Primary, Sunday School, Aaronic Priesthood classes, Seminary, or Institute, or even on my mission. I never read them in a church magazine (although recently a handful of them have appeared in <em>Ensign<\/em> issues) or lesson manuals.<\/p>\n<p>I present below several recent articles and direct quote from each showing facts and ideas I had to learn through non-official channels.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\/book-of-mormon-translation\">Book of Mormon Translation<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThe other instrument, which Joseph Smith discovered in the ground years before he retrieved the gold plates, was a small oval stone, or \u2018seer stone.\u2019\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAs a young man during the 1820s, Joseph Smith, like others in his day, used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cApparently for convenience, Joseph often translated with the single seer stone rather than the two stones bound together to form the interpreters.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAccording to these accounts, Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\/first-vision-accounts\">First Vision Accounts<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201che wrote or assigned scribes to write four different accounts of the vision.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIn addition to the firsthand accounts, there are also five descriptions of Joseph Smith\u2019s vision recorded by his contemporaries.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201c1832 account . . .\u00a0He wrote that \u2018the Lord\u2019 appeared and forgave him of his sins.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201c1835 account . . .\u00a0the appearance of one divine personage who was followed shortly by another. This account also notes the appearance of angels in the vision.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\/race-and-the-priesthood\">Race and the Priesthood<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cDuring the first two decades of the Church\u2019s existence, a few black men were ordained to the priesthood.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThere is no reliable evidence that any black men were denied the priesthood during Joseph Smith\u2019s lifetime.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIn 1852, President Brigham Young publicly announced that men of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cEven after 1852, at least two black Mormons continued to hold the priesthood.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham\">Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cOther times, his translations were not based on any known physical records.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cNeither the rules nor the translations in the grammar book correspond to those recognized by Egyptologists today.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201csome Egyptologists had said that Joseph Smith\u2019s explanations of the various elements of these facsimiles did not match their own interpretations of these drawings. \u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cNone of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham\u2019s name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham. \u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\/peace-and-violence-among-19th-century-latter-day-saints\">Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Everything in the section about the Danites<\/li>\n<li>Everything in the section about the Mountain Meadows Massacre<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo\">Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cJoseph married many additional wives\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe oldest [of Joseph\u2019s wives], Fanny Young, was 56 years old. The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of Joseph\u2019s close friends Heber C. and Vilate Murray Kimball, who was sealed to Joseph [at 14 years old].\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cJoseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cEmma approved, at least for a time, of four of Joseph Smith\u2019s plural marriages in Nauvoo, and she accepted all four of those wives into her household.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201c[Emma\u2019s]\u00a0decision to \u2018receive not this law\u2019 permitted him to marry additional wives without her consent.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\/the-manifesto-and-the-end-of-plural-marriage\">The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cUnder exceptional circumstances, a smaller number of new plural marriages were performed in the United States between 1890 and 1904\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cOf the 315 marriages recorded in the ledger, research indicates that 25 (7.9%) were plural marriages . . .\u00a0. Of the 25 plural marriages, 18 took place in Mexico, 3 in Arizona, 2 in Utah, and 1 each in Colorado and on a boat on the Pacific Ocean.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The entire section on The Second Manifesto.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I see these new articles as a step in a positive direction, where the Church has begun accepting the fact researchers have known for decades. I\u2019m happy to see the Church moving towards openness and transparency on topics for which historians were excommunicated just a few short years ago.<\/p>\n<p>I am happy my children can potentially grow up in a Church where these things are taught readily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past year or so, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been releasing articles on particular &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ourthoughts.ca\/2014\/11\/23\/27-things-in-the-mormon-churchs-new-articles-i-never-learned-growing-up\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">27 things in the Mormon Church\u2019s new articles I never learned growing up<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,2,54,55,59,36,22,184,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blacks","category-book-of-mormon","category-first-vision","category-joseph-smith","category-murder","category-polygamy","category-priesthood","category-race","category-scriptures"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - 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