FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows/Epilogue
< Criticism of Mormonism | Books | Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows(Redirected from Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows/Index/Epilogue)
FAIR Answers—back to home page
Response to claims made in "Epilogue: The Ghosts of Mountain Valley"
| Chapter 19 | A FAIR Analysis of: Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, a work by author: Will Bagley
|
Appendix |
Response to claims made in Blood of the Prophets, "Epilogue: The Ghosts of Mountain Valley"
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: 367 - The Author states that historian Thomas Alexander claimed that "the Indians made them do it
- Response to claim: 378 - The author claims that the massacre is not an aberration, but a "fulfillment" of Joseph's teachings
- Response to claim: 379 - The author refers to "early Mormonism’s peculiar obsession with blood and vengeance"
Response to claim: 367 - The Author states that historian Thomas Alexander claimed that "the Indians made them do it"
The author(s) of Blood of the Prophets make(s) the following claim:
Author says that historian Thomas Alexander claimed that "the Indians made them do it."Author's sources:
- Thomas G. Alexander, Utah, the Right Place: The Official Centennial History (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1995), 132. [ATTENTION!]
FAIR's Response
Question: Did historian Thomas Alexander claim that "the Indians" forced Mormons to commit the Mountain Meadows Massacre?
Alexander responds: "I did not say, as Bagley flippantly claims I did, 'the Indians made them do it'"
Historian Thomas Alexander is claimed by the author of Blood of the Prophets to have held the position that "the Indians made them do it" (i.e., commit the Mountain Meadows Massacre).[1]
The author is willing to distort the position of his historical colleague to score a rhetorical point, just as he selectively presents the evidence of the past to the same end.
Responded Alexander to this claim:
The massacre at Mountain Meadows remains one of the most heinous and least understood crimes in the history of the American West. How a militia unit of "God-fearing Christians" could have murdered more than 120 people in cold blood seems beyond comprehension. In a previous book, I attempted to understand the massacre by comparing it to "the massacres of Christian Armenians by Moslem Turks, of Jews by Christian Germans, and of Moslem Bosnians by Christian Serbs." I did not say, as Bagley flippantly claims I did, "the Indians made them do it" (367). On reflection, the massacre should reveal to each of us our vulnerability and our potential—however well hidden—for acts of unspeakable atrocity. [2]
Response to claim: 378 - The author claims that the massacre is not an aberration, but a "fulfillment" of Joseph's teachings
The author(s) of Blood of the Prophets make(s) the following claim:
The massacre is not an aberration, but a "fulfillment" of Joseph's teachings.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
Response to claim: 379 - The author refers to "early Mormonism’s peculiar obsession with blood and vengeance"
The author(s) of Blood of the Prophets make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: Early Mormonism’s peculiar obsession with blood and vengeance created the society that made the massacre possible if not inevitable....
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
Notes
- ↑ Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 367.
- ↑ Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows," Brigham Young University Studies 31 no. 1 (January 2003), 167–. off-site