Joseph Smith: Genius, Charlatan, or True Prophet

Book of Mormon LOL

If you have really read and studied the Book of Mormon, you will realize it takes more faith to believe Joseph Smith made it up, then that it came to be exactly as he claimed it did. 

Salt Lake City in Dead Sea Scrolls?

https://youtu.be/xFT1pE_6eY0?si=nDpPfnG3q1dXFoi8

Dead Sea Scroll's New Jerusalem 

Brigham Youngs Salt Lake City

1. City of God

2. Equilateral Checkerboard 

3. Set on the Cosmos (NSEW orientation)

4. Extra Wide Streets

5. Sidewalks

6. Streets Numbered from Temple

7. Abnormally Large City (18x13 mi.)

--JJBrown,2012

Now Let Us Rejoice

In 1833, W.W. Phelps wrote a hymn after witnessing the Leonid meteor shower, an event so spectacular it was thought to be the Day of Judgment. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fleeing persecution in Missouri, Phelps and his fellow Saints saw the meteor shower as a sign of divine favor, which led their pursuers to abandon their chase. The hymn “Now Let Us Rejoice” was born from this moment of salvation and rejoicing amidst adversity.

1. Now let us rejoice in the day of salvation. No longer as strangers on earth need we roam. Good tidings are sounding to us and each nation, And shortly the hour of redemption will come, When all that was promised the Saints will be given, And none will molest them from morn until ev’n, And earth will appear as the Garden of Eden, And Jesus will say to all Israel, “Come home.”

2. We’ll love one another and never dissemble But cease to do evil and ever be one. And when the ungodly are fearing and tremble, We’ll watch for the day when the Savior will come, When all that was promised the Saints will be given, And none will molest them from morn until ev’n, And earth will appear as the Garden of Eden, And Jesus will say to all Israel, “Come home.”

3. In faith we’ll rely on the arm of Jehovah To guide thru these last days of trouble and gloom, And after the scourges and harvest are over, We’ll rise with the just when the Savior doth come. Then all that was promised the Saints will be given, And they will be crown’d with the angels of heav’n,

And earth will appear as the Garden of Eden, And Christ and his people will ever be one.

Lehi's Temple Journey

Valley of Lemuel - courtyard of tabernacle. offered sacrifice, gain scripture, married.  Water flowing to red Sea fount of righteousness. 

Liminal space - pass through shazer. twisted, "mashezar" = fine twined linen.

Nahom = Holy Place, Clothed, Feast, death and resurrection.  Broken Bow and Nahom incident involve Lord miraculously providing food. Animals also provide clothing. =  sorrow, murmur, mourn, repent, comfort, joy. Raised from the dead. Brought out of darkness/netherworld and being raised to kingship and priesthood (staff and crook). Who you really are.  Messenger of light: Show others the way, Invite them, annoint them. Your own funeral Feast. 

Empty Quarter, Rub' al Khali, no-mans land. = Veil of Temple, Impenetrable 

Land of Bountiful = Eden, Holy of Holies, Milk and Honey, fruit, Ship = Ark, Revelation

Alma the Younger,  Ammon, Lamoni, Queen, Lamoni's Father- taught creation, fall, plan of redemption, Christ.... passing out, crying for mercy, and being raised to new life.  Ritual death and rebirth. 

Liahona = Aaron's Staff

Bees = milk honey. order, Aristotle, mother. 

Deborah, Debir, = bee, order

Jaredites- brought honey and seeds of all kinds.

Moutain Meadows Massacre

We give below an extract from the Lee trial, showing briefly and conclusively that the authorities of the Church a Jests Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the "Mormon" people, were innocent of any complicity whatever, in the terrible tragedy enacted at Mountain Meadows, that on the contrary President Brigham Young sought by every means in his power save the unfortunate emigrants.

Remarks made by Mr. Sumner Howard, Ex-Chief Justice of Arizona, and United States Prosecuting Attorney at the second trial of John D. Lee:

"He proposed to prove that John D. Lee, without any authority from any council or officer, but in direct opposition to the feelings and wishes of the officers of the Mormon Church, had gone to the Mountain Meadows, where the

[p. 24]

Indians were then encamped, accompanied only by a little Indian boy, and had assumed command of the Indians, whom be had induced, by promises of great booty, to attack these emigrants. All these charges against John D. Lee, he (District Attorney Howard) proposed to prove the jury by competent testimony, beyond any reasonable doubt, or beyond any doubt, and thought to appeal to the jury would be required to induce them to give a verdict in accordance with the evidence.

"James Haslam, of Wellsville, Cache County, was sworn. He lived in Cedar City in 1857; was ordered by Haight to take a message to President Young will all speed; knew the contents of the message; left Cedar City September 7, 1857, between 5 and 6 p. m., and arrived at Salt Lake on Thursday at 11 a. m.; started back at 3 p. m., and reached Cedar about 11 a. m. Sunday morning, September 13th; deliverd the answer from President Young to Haight, who said it was too late. Witness testified that when leaving Salt Lake to return, President Young said to him: 'Go with all speed, spare no horseflesh. The emigrants must not be meddled with, if it takes all Iron County to prevent it. They must go free and unmolested.' Witness knew the contents of the answer. He got back with the message the Sunday after the massacre and reported to Haight, who said, 'It is too late.'"

At the second trial the evidence was plain and direct as to Lee's complicity in the massacre; he was convicted by "Mormon" testimony, and a verdict of "guilty" was brought against him by a "Mormon" jury.

At the close of the second trial U. S. District Attorney Sumner Howard, in his opening address, repeated again that he had come for the purpose of trying John D. Lee, because, the evidence led and pointed to him as the main instigator and leader, and he given the jury unanswerable documentary evidence, proving that the authorities of the Mormon Church knew nothing of the butchery until after it was committed, and that Lee, in his letter to President Young a few weeks later, had knowingly misrepresented the actual facts relative to the massacre; seeking to keep him still in the dark and in ignorance. He had received all the assistance any United States official could ask on earth in any case. Nothing had been kept back, and he was determined to clear the calendar of every indictment against any and every actual guilty participator in the massacre.