Criticism of Mormonism/Books/No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith/Chapter 3


A FAIR Analysis of:
Criticism of Mormonism/Books
A work by author: Fawn Brodie
 Claims made in "Chapter 4: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder"

Claims made in "Chapter 3: Red Sons of Israel"

35

Claim
  • Joseph's mother reported that he was "spinning theories" about the moundbuilders before he was twenty years old

Author's source(s)

  • Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches, p. 85.

Response

35

Claim
  • Between 1820 and 1827 Joseph decided to write a history of the moundbuilders

Author's source(s)

  • Author's conjecture.

Response

37

Claim
  • Peter Ingersoll claimed that Joseph told him that no one could see the golden Bible and live.

Author's source(s)

Response

39

Claim
  • The "magic" Urim and Thummim was found with the plates

Author's source(s)

  • Author's opinion.

Response

40

Claim
  • The four year period during which Joseph waited to get the plates corresponded with his most intensive money-digging activities

Author's source(s)

  • No source provided to support the author's allegation of "intensive" money-digging activity.

Response

40

Claim
  • Lucy Smith described the Urim and Thummim as "two smooth three-cornered diamonds set in glass and the glasses set in silver bows."

Author's source(s)

  • Lucy Smith to Solomon Mack, 1831

Response

40

Claim
  • Martin Harris described the Urim and Thummim as "white, like polished marble, with a few grey streaks."

Author's source(s)

  • Tiffany's Monthly, 1859, p. 166.

Response

40

Claim
  • David Whitmer described the Urim and Thummim as "two small stones of a chocolate color, nearly egg shape, and perfectly smooth, but not transparent."

Author's source(s)

  • Kansas City Journal, June 5, 1881.

Response

41

Claim
  • Joseph warned his family that it meant instant death to look at the plates.

Author's source(s)

  • No source provided.

Response

43

Claim
  • Joseph was able to translate the plates without unwrapping them by using his stone

Author's source(s)

  • No source specified.

Response

  • The author attributes this to Emma Smith, but does not specify the source.
  • Likely source is the interview of Emma Smith by her son Joseph Smith III.
  • Book of Mormon/Translation

43

Claim
  • Emma said that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim for the first 116 pages and then the seer stone for the remainder of the translation

Author's source(s)

  • No source provided.

Response

  • The author attributes this to Emma Smith, but does not specify the source.
  • Likely source is the interview of Emma Smith by her son Joseph Smith III.
  • Joseph Smith/Seer stones

43

Claim
  • God cursed the Lamanites and all their descendents with a "red skin."

Author's source(s)

  • No source provided.

Response

43

Claim
  • A neighbor, Lemuel Durfee. Signed an affidavit in 1833 charging Joseph with vicious habits and an immoral character.

Author's source(s)

Response

44

Claim
  • After each battle in the Book of Mormon, the dead were "heaped upon the face of the earth, and they were covered with a shallow covering" - a reference to the Indian mounds

Author's source(s)

  • Book of Mormon (1830), pp. 358, 363, 267.
  • O. Turner, Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase, p. 38.
  • Palmyra Register, January 28, 1818.

Response

46

Claim
  • Joseph's familiarity with the idea that the Indians descended from the Hebrews seems to have come primarily from Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews

Author's source(s)

  • Ethan Smith, View of the Hebrews (1825), p. 184.

Response

49

Claim
  • Joseph Smith took the whole Western Hemisphere as the setting for the Book of Mormon

Author's source(s)

  • Author's opinion. No source provided.

Response

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