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Rob4Hope wrote:
I’ll be done with this book in another day or 2 tops,…and on to the next.
James Strang…..BIG RED FLAG…
And all of JS living family joined that church and “testified” that Strang was the successor of JS?
If that is factual, WOW! ….
The apologetic answer to that is that it supports the idea that JS was genuine. Else, if they thought or knew that JS was a fraud, why would they eagerly join Strang’s movement? It’s a good answer, actually.
That being said, the premise of JS and the BoM being fraudulent has grown a lot for me recently, for a number of reasons. A fascinating work, regardless, for the sheer audacity of it, but I’m seeing a lot of smoke emanating from the BoM, and that is increasingly indicating fire.
I don’t think that everyone needed to be in on it with JS, or anyone, necessarily. One person with a gift for story telling and deception could do it, with the others oblivious. Or, potentially, some others were complicit at certain times and in certain ways. It doesn’t answer everything perfectly, but it fits in the realm of possibility.
Everything scriptural and from early church leaders describes something more like surplus… a phrase sometimes used is for those “who have means” to pay tithing, which only implies after expenses are met. To me, paying surplus tithing is the only way that harmonizes with scriptures and with the broad measure of church teachings (e.g., to save money, to not get into debt, to have food storage, to give charitably, to have large families, etc.), and is balanced across all economic classes and family sizes and nationalities, and resonates to me with the fair and “yoke is light” God of my understanding. And apparently, according to its original definition and application, even surplus tithing may be more than intended, in many cases. There’s a quote found just recently that will soon be published in the Joseph Smith Papers Project from Bishop Partridge (who was there when the D&C 119 revelation was given and was the bishop of the church at the time – so he should know), where he describes the “interest” of D&C as applying to net worth as if an investment. So if your net worth is $1,000,000, you would take 6% interest of that (6% was common interest at the time), or $60,000, and then take a tenth of that, or $6,000. Yes, for someone whose net worth is a million dollars, $6,000 could be considered a full and honest tithe, according to its original “standing law forever” definition.
To me, tithing is more like paying the gym membership. Sure, it’s important, so do it. But it’s not really a measure of anything beyond that. If you only pay the gym membership but never go and exercise, what’s the point? So faith and service and especially charity are what is more important (and emphasized much more in scriptures than tithing). Charity is what involves faith and choice and personal application. In recent years, I’ve paid much less tithing (though still full tithing, per my understanding), but try to practice much more charitable giving. And I don’t really care about a measure of blessings… I don’t think of God as a vending machine of blessings… but it feels more like the right thing to do, regardless.
This is a great article sharing several quotes in favor of the surplus method:
http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/2016/03/tithing-considered-paying-surplus/ Your bishop has no justification for interpreting tithing as gross, other than as *his* personal method. The only question he is supposed to ask is if you consider yourself to be a full tithe payer. That’s it. Now, if you say “no,” then he may ask some follow-up in order to try to help you with that. But per the last official statement in 1970, every person is supposed to determine their own method of tithing. I’m okay with the church HQ leaving that vague… some will pay gross, some basic net, some net including family expenses. It will balance out as Roy describes. That’s fine to leave it to the determination of every individual. Insisting on paying gross is wrong, though. As I noted before, it’s in conflict with so many things our church teaches and encourages. As SilentDawning said, paying tithing and then needing church welfare to make ends meet shows a screwy sense of priorities. Quote:I view tithing as primarily the method used to fund church operations. If everyone pays on gross and the church receives enough to stay in the black, than that works. If everyone pays on net and the church stays in the black, then that works too. Right now we seem to have a situation where many pay no tithing, some pay on net, and some pay on gross. I do not know what it would mean for church finances if those that currently pay on gross were to switch to net. If it caused the church finances to go into the red then I would expect to see some serious emphasis placed on paying tithing on gross. There is nothing wrong with that. The church needs to pay its bills just like everybody else.
The church has tens of billions of dollars in assets. Everyone paying on surplus would probably be a big reduction in overall revenue, but expenses could still easily be met and bills paid. (And some argue that if more people knew that they can pay on surplus and be full tithe payers, more would actually pay tithing when they currently don’t.) And sure, reduced tithing income might necessarily curtail some of the services and charitable things the church offers, but the thing is, per D&C, tithing is only meant to cover the debts of the First Presidency… the overhead and expenses of the buildings and such. We are also commanded numerous times in the scriptures to give charitably and to give service. In reducing my tithing to something closer to the surplus method, I’ve also increased charitable giving by a large factor, both in a personal sense and in the humanitarian aid offering included with tithing slips. So if everyone is doing that, those services and charities can still be funded and offered, just not via money specifically derived from tithing.
Quote:I like the quote above which says tithing is 10% of your “interest” which is a pretty ambiguous statement.
The 1970 statement says that interest is “understood to mean income.” How about understood to mean “interest”? As in, the extra. Interest is the extra amount you pay to the credit card company, or the extra amount that you get from the savings account at your bank. That’s still how we think of interest, and it was the same at the time of D&C… early leaders referred to people paying tithing only if they had means, after taking care of their families. To redefine the word in modern times to mean something different (income) would be like reading about someone from the 1940’s referring to someone else as “gay” and assuming they must have meant “homosexual.” But again, there’s no need to redefine that, as “interest” today still means “interest” in the way it did then, describing something that is an extra amount.
The rhetoric on tithing from leaders used to be “for those who have means,” or in other words, you are only tithed if you have money left over after your family’s needs are met. That comports with everything fair and loving and “yoke is light” that I feel from the God of my understanding. Paying on surplus also is in tune with many of the other teachings our church puts forth; family first, multiply and replenish the Earth, get food storage, stay out of debt, give charitably, etc. Paying on gross creates an imbalance between families of different sizes, is not an equal burden between different income levels, is not standard across different nationalities and tax rates, and has the potential to create debt in some cases. I’ve shared some examples of that here before (one example below), but the bottom line to me is that gross payment is not in harmony with church teachings, with scriptures, and with a fair and loving God. By all means, someone can pay using the gross method if they want to and *if they can really afford to,* but they shouldn’t expect any greater blessings for that, or teach that as the standard.
A person has a fixed income of $2,000 per month, and legitimate living expenses of $1,900 per month.
If they pay tithing on gross ($200), they are now $100 in debt somewhere, or possibly shorting a landlord or bill collector, or forced to borrow from family (which can strain relationships), or will need to accept a handout from the church in some way. Regardless, they have *nothing* left over; no extra money for savings, for food storage, for giving to charity, for having fun wholesome recreation, etc. It’s easy for this pattern to become burdensome, not just for the person themselves, but for those who have to continually support this person. And where is the real hope for this person to ever be able to climb out of that?
Or… they can pay tithing on their surplus ($10). Now, they are living responsibly within their means, are not incurring any debt or strain or disfavor from anyone, and have $90 left over to put some money into savings, to invest with, to give something to charity, to go on a date, to buy some food storage, etc. The church does not need to support this person, and can use those resources for people whose income is lower than their expenses, or who have no income, or who have a medical emergency, or to put into a community service project.
Which method seems more in tune with the bigger picture of the kind of life and fiscal responsibility and accountability we would prefer to encourage among our members? I realize this is one particular example, but just by the fact that this scenario does exist for some, it invalidates the idea that paying on gross could be the standard.
I’ve thought of it a similar way as Huntsman, akin to club dues. Tithing in the scriptures is pretty straightforward as money needed to pay the debts of the presidency and to help maintain church buildings and programs and such. I think we give it an unintended and unrealistic power when we turn it into something that implies faith and an expectation of blessings. To me, it is like the annual fee you pay to belong to a gym. Merely paying the fee does nothing for you but allow you access to the facility and equipment. Where you get the blessings of it is when you apply yourself and actually exercise and use the equipment regularly. That is demonstrating faith and service and effort and should indeed show results over time. So sure, paying tithing is important to help that gym remain open and its equipment available and maintained, and it’s part of your agreement to be part of that gym, but the mere paying of it is not going to bless you, necessarily. It can give you the impetus to want to work out, though, knowing that you’re paying for the right to use the gym. But then again, a lot of people pay to belong to gyms and never really go.
One thing we are told repeatedly to do in the scriptures, with a direct promise of blessings, is to be charitable and give to the poor. So I feel like we should be more matter-of-fact about paying tithing, and more zealous and encouraging of charitable giving.
This is just one reference, but I also heard a podcast about a year ago that was very detailed about the various witnesses, and that they all agreed that the seer stone was the only instrument used for the BoM (after the 116 pages): http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Seer_stones/%22Rock_in_hat%22_used_for_Book_of_Mormon_translation — The Nephite interpreters, therefore, were yet another set of seer stones. It is unsurprising that Joseph would be completely comfortable with these instruments, given his experience with the use of seer stones up to that time.
Latter-day Saints associate the term “Urim and Thummim” with these interpreters. Gardner notes,
We all know that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon—except he didn’t. The Book of Mormon mentions interpreters, but not the Urim and Thummim. It was the Book of Mormon interpreters which were given to Joseph with the plates. When Moroni took back the interpreters after the loss of the 116 manuscript pages, Joseph completed the translation with one of his seer stones. Until after the translation of the Book of Mormon, the Urim and Thummim belonged to the Bible and the Bible only. [51] The Urim and Thummim became part of the story when it was presented within and to the Great Tradition. Eventually, even Joseph Smith used Urim and Thummim indiscriminately as labels generically representing either the Book of Mormon interpreters or the seer stone used during translation. [52] [13]
After the loss of the 116 pages, contemporary accounts are very clear that Joseph continued the translation using his seer stone. In later years, the term “Urim and Thummim” was retroactively applied to both the Nephite interpreters and to Joseph’s seer stone. Thus the use of “Urim and Thummim” tends to obscure the fact that two different instruments were employed.
Old-Timer wrote:We don’t have anything that says he always used the seer stone or that he always worked in any one way, especially when there was a drawn curtain between him and the scribe, which was the bulk of the time.
Actually, the current research of the relevant witnesses concludes that only the seer stone was used for the entire BoM. The Nephite Interpreters were used for the 116 pages but abandoned thereafter. I can look up the references for that later, but I’ve heard that stated now more than once by prominent BoM scholars.
I shared a link to this thread to the A Thoughtful Faith FB group, which is a private group that I think has some connection to this site. It occurs to me now that I should have asked first before doing that, as presumably someone there could have shared it further, and Roadrunner’s connection to it perpetuated. I sincerely apologize and hope it doesn’t cause any problems. I could have and should have shared the specific content without a connection to where it came from. Or not shared it all. But as we find relevance here to have a heads up about that letter, I felt everyone at ATF would want that, too. Edit: I guess I probably over-reacted here. This is a public site, so presumably anyone could have found this thread.
A few random musings… – JS only refers to verse 5. Perhaps he stopped there and perhaps so should we.
– It takes faith to have faith. Seems like a paradox, but I think it implies that some motion or action is required. A “God can’t drive a parked car” kind of thing.
– This passage is specifically referring to “wisdom,” not necessarily prayer in general. I realize that’s probably getting too specific, but I think it leaves room for us to make general prayers with more of a doubtful mind. But I think if you are specifically looking to gain wisdom, you kind of need a sense that the source you are going to actually has some wisdom to impart.
Ah, that figures. I’m passing through Ohio next week and was about to get in touch to see if you could meet for lunch. But anyway, congrats on the new job and the move! nibbler wrote:Also we only have a few written sources for the FV. We don’t really know how it was told and how it evolved other than imagining what goes in the gaps between the written accounts. We’d need to hear the FV account many times directly from JS’s lips to really get at the point the show was making.
That’s a good point. Someone on another forum posted this quote from Richard Bushman, which speaks to the idea that only the 1832 account is reliably directly from Joseph…
Quote:I am very much impressed by Joseph Smith’s 1832 History account of his early visions. This is the one partially written in his own hand and the rest dictated to Frederick G. Williams. I think it is more revealing than the official account presumably written in 1838 and contained in the Pearl of Great Price. We don’t know who wrote the 1838 account. Joseph’s journal indicates that he, Sidney Rigdon, and George Robinson collaborated on beginning the history in late April, but we don’t know who actually drafted the history. It is a polished narrative but unlike anything Joseph ever wrote himself. The 1832 history we know is his because of the handwriting. It comes rushing forth from Joseph’s mind in a gush of words that seem artless and uncalculated, a flood of raw experience. I think this account has the marks of an authentic visionary experience. There is the distance from God, the perplexity and yearning for answers, the perplexity, and then the experience itself which brings intense joy, followed by fear and anxiety. Can he deal with the powerful force he has encountered? Is he worthy and able? It is a classic announcement of a prophet’s call, and I find it entirely believable.
This kind of cultural stuff annoys me. There are warnings in the scriptures about the wearing of costly apparel, and implications (by none other than JC) that being concerned too much about what we wear is missing the mark of what’s important. There are people who are in tatters and who are homeless and filthy who are nearer to God than many, because they absolutely need Him. Old-Timer wrote:Welcome, Grudunza. We need every type of respectful voice possible if we are to be the community we desire to be, so I am glad you are here.
As a side note, my oldest son served in the Everett, WA mission. He loved it there.
Ah yes, I’ve been to Everett many times to do shows, but I actually live across the state in what’s known as the “Tri-Cities,” though IMO it’s more like “tri-towns.”
Re: the possibility that JS was inspired by God some of the time, but perhaps not other times… I came across this webpage recently, which is from David Whitmer in 1887. Now granted, he is disaffected and I easily discount some of what’s here for various reasons, but there’s an overarching thing that he describes that I find intriguing and possibly relevant… that JS, and all prophets and leaders (and people), can be influenced at different times by God or the devil. He claims that many of the D&C revelations are not real ones or were not inspired, and though Whitmer never mentions the BoA, certainly that same idea *could* apply as well to the BoA, and yet still mean that Joseph was entirely inspired as far as the BoM and some other things.
I’m a faithful member, so I’m not saying I accept that premise, but I do find it interesting and think it could help to explain some things. Anyway, here’s the link:
http://www.greaterthings.com/Topical/DavidWhitmer.htm
