Columbus vs Cabot

Today is Columbus Day.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/10/11/a-proclamation-on-columbus-day-2024/

Last week I was in Nova Scotia, which reminded me about the discovery of North America by John Cabot.

highway from Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia
(click to enlarge)

Many Latter-day Saints think that Nephi was referring to Columbus in this passage.

12 And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land. 

(1 Nephi 13:12)

It's a reasonable interpretation that makes sense, but other interpretations are also reasonable. And it doesn't really tell us much about history or geography, other than our inference that Nephi saw future Europeans coming to the Western Hemisphere.

Nevertheless, some M2Cers (promoters of the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) claim that this identification of Columbus as the "man among the Gentiles" who "went forth... unto the seed of my brethren" means that the Book of Mormon events took place in Mesoamerica because Columbus never reached North America, per se.

It's an irrational argument for several reasons. 

1. Regardless of where Nephi and his descendants lived during through 400 AD, the "seed of [his] brethren" undoubtedly migrated far and wide, intermarried with other indigenous people, etc. Thus, if the prophets were correct about the New York Cumorah, by 1492 (over 1,000 years after the Cumorah battle) the "seed of [Nephi's] brethren" would be found throughout the Western Hemisphere. No matter where Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere, he would have encountered the "seed of [Nephi's] brethren."

2. The passage doesn't say the "man among the Gentiles" was the first to "discover" the Western Hemisphere. Even if that is implied, there is evidence that Europeans "discovered" the Western Hemisphere long before Columbus, any of whom fit the description in verse 12.

Verse 12 is part of a larger passage.

10 And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many waters; and they divided the Gentiles from the seed of my brethren.

 11 And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.

12 And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.

 13 And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.

14 And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten.

(1 Nephi 13:10–14)

3. Verse 12 works as a description of John Cabot as well as Columbus. Cabot, of course, landed somewhere in North America. 

Map by Evan T Jones - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54725020

For more info on Cabot, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot

4. There is evidence that Columbus was Jewish, not Gentile.

https://www.sciencealert.com/dna-reveals-a-surprise-twist-about-christopher-columbus

Although verse 12 might accommodate Columbus as a Jew ("a man among the Gentiles"), verse 13 refers to "other Gentiles," which wouldn't make sense if the "man among the Gentiles" was not himself a Gentile. 

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While we have come to expect our M2C friends to us Columbus as evidence that the prophets were wrong about Cumorah, it's easy to see that their arguments are irrational. We can all recognize that whether or not verse 12 refers to Columbus, it doesn't change the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah.

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BTW, the Bay of Fundy is famous for having the highest tides in the world. In one area they've measured tides up to 53 feet. On the Oregon coast, the highest tides we get are about 10 feet.

https://www.bayoffundy.com/about/highest-tides/

Low tide in the Bay of Fundy 
(click to enlarge)

WSJ on experts

The Wall St. Journal published an article about experts that makes some good points relevant to our SITH and M2C scholars at Scripture Central, the Interpreter, etc.

Historians who promote SITH (the stone-in-the-hat narrative) apply subjective, inconsistent analysis of historical sources to conclude that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery misled everyone about the translation of the Book of Mormon.

Self-proclaimed Book of Mormon scholars, particularly those at Scripture Central, who promote M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) apply subjective, inconsistent analysis of the text and extrinsic evidence to confirm their biases that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery misled everyone about the Hill Cumorah.

These LDS "experts" cite their credentials, but they ignore common sense as they reject and repudiate what Joseph and Oliver taught about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

M2C scholars confirming their biases

The WSJ article:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/jd-vance-is-right-about-experts-debate-policy-2024-election-8ff45c32?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Excerpt:

The vice-presidential debate contained a fascinating exchange in which the moderators cited an analysis from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, which estimated that Donald Trump’s economic plan would increase the federal deficit by $5.8 trillion. JD Vance responded by pointing out that the experts had been wrong about many things, economic predictions not least.

The moderators’ invocation of Wharton’s reputation was the latest example of politically motivated attempts to shut down debate by citing expertise. Mr. Vance was right that these efforts ultimately embarrass experts and undermine the public’s faith in science. In his words, “They have Ph.D.s, but they don’t have common sense and they don’t have wisdom.”

Economic experts have been wrong about many critical policies. Mr. Vance discussed the most disastrous error of all, the near-universal consensus that trade with China would benefit American prosperity and security. Once the damage was done and communities across the heartland lay ravaged, economists got around to writing about “the China shock” and “deaths of despair.” In economic policy as in investing, there’s scant difference between being late to understand and being completely wrong.

---

Other fields have their share of embarrassments too. Diplomatic experts told us that moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would start a war. Public-health experts insisted we wear masks and stand 6 feet apart on the beach. Teachers unions assured us that kids would learn as well at home on computers as in the classroom. And the notion that Covid-19 might have originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, was supposedly an idea so dangerous that only racists would entertain it.

Independent thinking is critical to democracy. Experts may have years of schooling, but they can be prone to motivated reasoning. What we need from the expert class is more humility. They know their analyses are fraught with uncertainty, but they seldom acknowledge it to the public.

There is no solution for thinking things through yourself. And as Mr. Vance emphasized, common sense and wisdom are as important as expertise.

Censorship: Stanford and Scripture Central

An article in the Wall St. Journal discusses a conference at Stanford on the topic of censorship.

The conference focused on COVID, but the principles apply to the ongoing censorship at Scripture Central. Every Latter-day Saint should wonder why Scripture Central continues to 

(i) censor and repudiate the teachings of the prophets about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon and 

(ii) refuse to engage in dialog with Latter-day Saints who still believe those teachings.

Scripture Central's M2C map
(click to enlarge)

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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/hillary-clinton-is-worried-fc8fee49?mod=opinion_trendingnow_article_pos3

On Saturday at a Stanford University conference on pandemic policy, Dr. Scott Atlas, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force in 2020, described the pressure at places like Stanford to conform to views about Covid that turned out to be disastrously wrong. The Stanford Review has published the remarks of Dr. Atlas. Here’s an excerpt in which he discusses the response at Stanford and other universities when he challenged the false consensus:

Censorship: character assassination, intimidation, and censure.

It was also nuanced – being told “stop writing x” and “write an apology for x”; colleagues told “stop defending Scott”; no more speaking at institutional events; and more.

And understand clearly – when you censor health policy, it’s not simply an abstract evil, a less-than-ideal environment for diverse views. People die. And people died from the censorship of correct health policy.

Why is Censorship used? To shut someone up, yes; but more importantly, to deceive the public – to stop others from hearing, to convince a naïve public there is a “consensus”.

But TRUTH is not a Team Sport. Truth is not determined by consensus, or by numbers of people who agree, or by titles.  It is discovered by debate, proven by critical analysis of evidence. Arguments are won by data and logic, not by personal attack or censoring others.

THAT is why lockdowners – at Stanford and elsewhere – needed censorship and propaganda; they couldn’t win on the data; they needed to delegitimize and demonize opposing views as highly dangerous, to convince the public.

And especially their LIE – the strawman “herd immunity strategy” that if you are against lockdowns, you are for “letting it rip”.  I never advised “let it rip”. It was never even mentioned, not once, in the White House – And that is not targeted protection!

We now have a frightening crisis of both competence AND integrity. Lockdowners will never admit they were wrong – on lockdowns, schools, masks, & vax mandates – and that I and others here were right – because that would take integrity.   

But TRUTH cannot be changed. Churchill was right – “Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.”

To his credit, Stanford President Jonathan Levin did not shy away from the discussion but showed up to speak and said:

We have many issues today at Stanford, and on other campuses, where views are divided, and in some cases, like this one, where feelings are raw.

Yet I believe we need to make every effort to get people who disagree, even sharply, in dialogue with one another. I believe it’s essential for us to do that as members of the faculty and university leaders – not just because it’s a way to advance knowledge, but because we need to model that behavior if we want to expect it from our students. And in today’s world, we absolutely need to ask and expect our students to be able to engage with, listen to, and debate with people with whom they disagree. My view is that we need to err on the side of talking to one another.

So I hope today’s conference will come off in a way that involves just that – thoughtful and robust discussion across different perspectives. I hope it yields some important insights about future pandemic policy – we certainly need that. Perhaps it does even bridge a few divides among those in the room.

And I hope even more that all of you will join in the larger project of trying to make Stanford and other campuses forums for the type of robust and thoughtful discussion that is at the heart of universities when we’re at our best.

 

Make America Healthy Again

People often ask me about politics. That is not normally the topic of his blog. However, the issue of censorship in modern politics is related to the ongoing censorship among prominent LDS intellectuals, so I'll discuss it here briefly.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has focused on three main issues in current American politics: censorship, the military/industrial complex, and health issues. Hence his theme of "Make American Health Again."

Here's the site for MAHA: https://www.mahanow.org/

I'd like to see a related initiative:

Make LDS discourse healthy again.

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Readers of this blog know that my primary objection to the promoters of SITH and M2C is their ongoing censorship of alternative faithful narratives, particularly their censorship of the teachings of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. 

In my view, people should be encouraged and empowered to make informed decisions by having access to all the relevant information with associated narratives, pursuant to the FAITH model of analysis. The ability to compare multiple working hypotheses is impaired by censorship and misdirection.

My main objection to the editorial content of Scripture Central and other promoters of SITH and M2C is their opposition to comparison and the FAITH model of analysis.

Among the examples are the numerous "Kno-Whys" from Scripture Central and the Gospel Topics Essays on Book of Mormon Translation and Geography, which don't even quote or cite Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, apart from brief out-of-context excerpts that mislead more than illuminate.

It is unhealthy for these prominent LDS scholars to embrace censorship and suppression of alternative faithful narratives, particularly when they censor, suppress, and oppose the plain teachings of Joseph and Oliver regarding the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

People can believe whatever they want, but censorship leads to chronic disease of the mind.

We have a similar situation in current politics, where censorship has become a major political issue. 

_____

RFK Jr., recently explained his views on an outstanding podcast with Jordan Peterson, which you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKniGfvOePc

In the podcast, RFK Jr. explains how the major political parties have changed positions in recent years and how the most serious long-term issue facing Americans is the worsening health situation.

(click to enlarge)

Some excerpts:

59:16

the three policies were Children's Health and the chronic disease epidemic, which involves the food system and getting the corruption out of the the public health agencies out of the USDA, second ending the censorship and and surveillance and number three ending the Warfare, say ending the Ukraine war immediately.

1:18:12

so we are now the sickest country in the world but we have the highest chronic disease burden in the world when my when

1:18:19

my uncle was President I was a you know 10-year-old boy um about 6% of Americans had chronic

1:18:27

illness and today 60% to and my uncle was President we spent zero in this country

1:18:35

on chronic disease zero and uh today and

1:18:42

for many chronic disease there first of all there weren't even diagnoses and there weren't drugs available um today

1:18:48

we spend $4.3 trillion so about 95% of our health budget

1:18:54

it's the biggest um and it's five times our military cost it's the biggest um item in our

1:19:03

budget and it is the fastest growing and and not only that so it destroy it's

1:19:09

destroying our country economically absolutely debilitating and all of our other issues are small towards it if you

1:19:16

just measure its economic impact it has other impacts 77% of

1:19:22

American children are no no longer eligible for the military because of chronic

1:19:28

disease and is that obesity related with kids one of them you know obesity when

1:19:34

my uncle was present was 3.4% today it's 74% and what do you think is driving the

1:19:40

Obesity epidemic uh it's it's such a transformation yeah I mean it's being driven by poison food I um you know by

1:19:49

process Ultra process wheat sugar and flour seed o

1:19:55

um soy canola sunra flour um and then uh and

1:20:03

then you know wheat and corn which are you know are um which are all all heavily

1:20:11

subsidized so those 90% of farm subsidies the crop insurance Etc go to those three

1:20:18

categories of soy coin and wheat and um and those are the feed

1:20:24

stocks for all of our processed foods they turn into sugar they're they're all nutrient baren they you know the

1:20:30

original crops were nutrient rich with the GMO corops are nutrient baren and they're heavily dependent on

1:20:36

pesticides the point of the way that the reason H GMOs are so

1:20:42

popular is because they're resistant to pass the reason they're resistant to pass right is because they are um they

1:20:50

are resistant to pesticides like lios so you can saturate

1:20:55

the whole landscape with glyphosate from airplanes and that only thing that's green is GMO corn which is you know

1:21:03

which is uh Roundup Roundup Ready it's called Roundup resistance corn and

1:21:10

because of that it's also very very heavily Laden with with pesticides

1:21:16

wheat um glyphosate is also used as a desant which means it dries out wheat so

1:21:22

it's it's sprayed on the wheat right at Harvest which means it's going right into the

1:21:27

food and when that began in 1993 that's when you saw all the the appearance of

1:21:32

all these gluten allergies and celiac disease and wheed allergies and that you

1:21:37

don't have in Europe you know you can eat spaghetti here and you're going to get eczema and all of these stomach

1:21:44

complaints then you go to Italy and you eat it and you get thin oh but here um and

1:21:51

then the corn is turned into high fr corn syrup which is just a formula for

1:21:57

making you obese and diabetic and uh Americans you know diabetes is one of

1:22:04

the diseases when I was a kid the average pediatrician saw one

1:22:09

case of diabetes in his lifetime so a 40 or 50y year career he may see one case

1:22:15

of juvenile diabetes and today one out of every three kids who walks to his office door is diabetic or

1:22:22

pre-diabetic and we spend more on Diabetes than our military budget so

1:22:28

that is you know and nobody's talking about this you know and and these are

1:22:34

the all of these autoimmune disease diabetes autoimmune disease Alzheimer's is a form of diabetes it's type three

1:22:40

diabet it comes from Poison food oh um so is it is it the is it how

1:22:46

much of it do you think is the toxin load per se and how much of it do you think is carbohydrate it's a it's the

1:22:53

overload of sugars all of those grains turn into sucros and and they're and

1:22:59

they're very low in nutrients so we're Mal nourishing K you know you're seeing high levels of obesity and in the same

1:23:06

people people who have high levels of of obesity there's also high levels of

1:23:11

malnutrition the most malnourished people in this country are the most overweight right because they're eating

1:23:17

they're eating food like food like substances yeah and then

1:23:23

that's a good phrase and then you're they're they're covered with with chemicals and pesticides plus some of

1:23:29

those are part of the food processing but some of them are pesticides Etc there's a thousand ingredients in

1:23:36

our food that are illegal in Europe and other countries so we're just Mass poisoning Us and nobody has chronic

1:23:42

disease epidemic like we do in our country that's why one of the reasons we have the highest death rate

1:23:48

from covid we we had 16% of the covid deaths in this country we only have 4.2%

1:23:54

of the world's population and so we did worse than any other country and the CDC explains that

1:24:01

says it's not our fault it's because Americans are so sick CDC said the average

1:24:08

American who died from covid had 3.8 chronic diseases right right so it

1:24:13

wasn't Co it was killing him it was chronic disease right and uh and you

1:24:18

know we had the sickest we have the highest chronic disease burden we have the highest covid death rate and and then but it's not just it's

1:24:26

it's those autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis juvenile diabetes lupus Crohn's disease all this

1:24:33

IBS all of these things had suddenly appeared in the mid 80s that you know I

1:24:38

never knew anybody with any of those disease when I was a kid yeah right the neurological diseases ADD ADHD speech

Autism rates have skyrocketed in just a few generations

1:24:46

languag Tex red syndrome narcolepsy Sleep Disorders uh Tourette Syndrome ASD

1:24:52

autism autism rat in my generation 70y old men is about

1:24:58

one in between one and 1500 and one and 10,000 that's what it is

1:25:05

today my children's generation one in every 34 kids according to CDC one and

1:25:10

every 22 in California so you know and it is it is devastating our Our

1:25:17

Generation it's our economy it's going to cause autism alone so there's a

1:25:23

reason recent paper by Mark blel that shows it'll cost a trillion dollars a year um by

1:25:29

2030 and then so then and then the Allergic Disease again which I never saw

1:25:35

as a kid I had 11 siblings 71st cousins I never knew anybody with a

1:25:42

peanut allergy why do five my seven kids have allergies you know it's so you're up

How to fight back against powerful dark forces

1:25:50

against some big some major forces in fighting that particular battle I mean

1:25:56

first of all you have to sway public opinion in that direction and then there's going to be a massive Force AR

1:26:01

raid against any possible interventions that's for sure so what tell tell me

1:26:06

what you think you could do and also tell me why you don't think you would be

1:26:12

stopped well I think they're going to try to stop us but I've been thinking about this for 40

1:26:19

years so I know how to do it and uh and

1:26:24

you know I've worked with Mark Hyman and Cy means and Casey

1:26:30

means and a lot of other people to figure out how to do it without having to go to Congress to do it all with

1:26:36

executive orders and policy changes and you know I'll give you one example I mean you can get floor out of

1:26:42

the water by executive order out of the water systems all over the country and that is you know that's a big issue with

1:26:49

public health and cancer Etc but there are other things

1:26:55

like it would be very hard you never get Congressional approval to to to ban

1:27:02

glyphosate which is causing all kinds of health problems and Cancers all over this

1:27:07

country and so um but here's what you can do you can

1:27:14

NIH has a budget of $42 billion year and it distributes that money to 56,000

1:27:21

scientists who are at research centered mainly University in North America and you know Canada the United States and

1:27:27

and some in Europe and they're supposed to be doing basic science but what they really do

1:27:34

nowaday is they do drug development for the pharmaceutical industry so NIH is now the primary incubator for new

1:27:40

pharmaceutical drugs and it changed that that rule that that changed NIH used to be the primary

1:27:48

scientific agency in the world it it change that changed in 1980 because we

1:27:54

passed a bill called the B do act that allowed NIH itself and NIH

1:28:02

scientists to collect royalties on any pharmaceutical product that they

1:28:07

developed so now that they follow the money and now what NIH does is they're

1:28:12

in a partnership with Pharma they develop new products to treat chronic disease and um and anybody

1:28:20

who tries to study the ideology the origins the causes of chronic disease that scientist

1:28:26

will be blackfall forever and so what I'm going to do at you know is change NIH and say we're

1:28:34

going to we're going to make the primary purpose of this agency to develop

1:28:40

science on what's causing chronic disease oh right now there's very little

1:28:45

science that says I corer causes diabetes that's deliberate we don't have

1:28:52

that science because the agency does not want to see that science I'm going to make sure that

1:28:58

science happens not one study but not just 20 studies but 100 studies that

1:29:03

show that now what happens when you have a 100 studies there is a a rule in the federal

1:29:11

courts in this country called the dabert rule and that says that if you believe you got sickened by a product like like

1:29:17

say you think Coca-Cola made you obese you can't sue Coca-Cola unless

1:29:23

there's at least a a critical mass of studies maybe 20 or 30 that say that

1:29:29

that's what it does it's a liability enhancer well the the judge has to make that decision about

1:29:36

whether you've passed the dabert threshold before he allows you go to to go to a

1:29:41

jury oh in a big case like when I was tried the Monsanto case I was part of

1:29:47

the trial team um the big threshold is can you pass Albert can and we had about 20

1:29:55

studies that showed that monset that Roundup caused non hodin somea and we

1:30:02

had Mouse studies we had brat studies animal studies bench studies observational studies

1:30:09

epidemiological studies so a good range of all different kinds of studies that show that once you get that critical

1:30:15

mass then you can go to a jury and once that happens the product is through so when we we sued around

1:30:21

up we had 40,000 home gardeners who had gotten non hutkins lym foma from using

1:30:28

round up at their backyards and the way that you try multi-district litigation you try one of

1:30:34

those cases at a time right one after the other in Rapid Fire till somebody says Uncle you either

1:30:41

lose them all and then you know it's you run out of money because it costs a lot of money to try a or you win them all

1:30:49

and the the uh the maker of that product then has to come to the negotiating table and and settle it we won 289

1:30:58

million in the first trial we won 89 million in the second the third trial we

1:31:03

asked for a billion dollars we got 2.2 billion from the jury and then Monsanto came to the

1:31:10

negotiating table and we settled the cases for 13 billion and they agreed to take Round Up to take uh glyphosate out

1:31:17

of home gardening products M that's what you do got it you once enough clian is

1:31:24

out there you don't have to legislate it against High fru corn there the lawyers

1:31:29

are going to come out of the woodwork and they're going to be representing a million kids with with diabetes and the

1:31:35

company is going to say we're not going to make this product anymore 

14th article of faith

Thought experiments. Which of the following two proposed versions of a 14th Article of Faith would represent what you believe? 

14th Article of Faith: We believe what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery taught about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

14th Article of Faith: We believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery speculated and misled everyone about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon because we prefer the teachings of modern scholars, including SITH and M2C.

SITH in Rough Stone Rolling

Many people ask me about Rough Stone Rolling's depiction of the "stone-in-the-hat" (SITH) scenario. 

I did a close review of that section of Rough Stone Rolling, which is now at mobom.org, here:

https://www.mobom.org/rsr-review

The problem arises from the editorial decision in that book to portray assumptions, inferences, and theories as facts.

For example, it is a fact that so-and-so wrote something down. Maybe it's a first-person account, or a second-hand account (such as an account by a reporter or interviewer), or even third-hand. But the existence of the account, which is factual, does not make the account itself factual.

A person can write a statement such as "the car was red." The existence of the statement is a fact, but it is merely evidence that the car was actually red. If we, after reading the statement, say "the car was red," we are assuming the person told the truth, but if we are precise (clear), we can say only that so-and-so said the car was red.

But many historians simply write "the car was red," rationalizing that they have "a source."

Because this is such a common problem with the way historians write history, I can't tell if they are trained to write this way, if they are unaware of the problem, or if they are simply stating their beliefs as if they were facts. 

Or maybe they are just trying to simplify history to make it readable for the public. But if that's the case, it's a serious disservice when they don't clarify the difference between facts and assumptions/inferences/theories.

This is why I often assess things using the FAITH model (Facts, Assumptions, Inferences, Theories and Hypotheses). It seems simple enough.

In the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, clarity comes first, and that requires applying the FAITH model to historical evidence.

SITH in federal court

[Note: originally posted at https://funwithsith.blogspot.com/2024/09/sith-in-federal-court.html.]

SITH (the "stone-in-the-hat" narrative about the translation that refutes what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery always said about the translation), is now being litigated at the appellate level in federal court.

As if SITH wasn't bad enough from a purely historical perspective.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/09/25/lds-tithing-church-lawyers-push/

(click to enlarge)

The media often uses this photo of the "seer stone" that doesn't match the description Emma and David gave, and can't be the one that Wilford Woodruff claimed was the Urim and Thummim in Nauvoo anyway (assuming the narrative that this is the one Oliver Cowdery had is true, which is questionable given the poor chain of custody). 

Notice the caption under the image: "(Rick Bowmer | The Associated Press) A picture of the "seer stone," shown in 2015, that Latter-day Saints believe church founder Joseph Smith used to help translate the Book of Mormon."

The caption doesn't reflect that there are at least a few Latter-day Saints who still believe what Joseph and Oliver taught, such as Joseph's statement here:

I obtained them [the plates] and the Urim and Thummim with them, by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the Book of Mormon.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/elders-journal-july-1838/10

Neither Joseph nor Oliver ever once said or implied that Joseph used a seer stone.

And yet, in federal court, the Church's own lawyer questioned what Joseph and Oliver said:

“Isn’t that a bizarre thing to say?” the church’s lead lawyer said of the plaintiffs. “They say specifically, ‘We don’t dispute that the Book of Mormon is true. We don’t dispute that it was translated by the gift and power of God. We dispute whether it was translated using the Urim and Thummim, a clear stone or an opaque stone.

“That almost sounds silly,” he continued. “Churches have the right to define, develop and evolve their own history. ... Who knows what happened in 1820 or whether he sat at a table and looked at gold plates?”

Think how different this would all be if LDS scholars had stuck with what Joseph and Oliver (and their successors in Church leadership) had said. 

But instead, the scholars decided Mormonism Unvailed, David Whitmer, and Emma's dubious "Last Testimony" have more credibility than Joseph and Oliver.

For a discussion of the SITH problem, see

https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/the-sith-problem-1829-2024.html

The whole thing is an absurd mess, partly because of Rough Stone Rolling and John Dehlin's "Faith Crisis Report" that led to the Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Translation which doesn't even quote what Joseph and Oliver said.

And of course we have the famous scholars at Scripture Central and the Interpreter continuing to promote the SITH nonsense.

More later...