A new video short has been posted by the Interpreter Foundation. It is entitled “Martin Harris Returns.” We hope that you will enjoy it and that, if you do, you will share it with friends and kinfolk. Please help us to spread these, and to call attention to the docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, from which they have been drawn.
An important educational illustration first published in 1884. (Wikimedia CC) Anti-Mormonism has made enormous strides since this primitive early effort. For instance, contemporary anti-Mormonism makes extensive use of computer technology and the internet. That was considerably less common in 1884.
It’s good to now have this new and more honest account of the genesis and evolution of the “CES Letter.” It took a while, of course, because, as Mark Twain probably didn’t say, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on.
Obviously, I realize perfectly well that some will respond to the research of Brothers Peterson and Hess by denouncing it as ad hominem and as ignoring the actual issues raised in the “CES Letter.” However, this will itself be a fallacious attempt to distract attention elsewhere; the issues cited by the “CES Letter” have been addressed many times. Maurine Proctor actually lists several of them. (Heck, even I undertook to examine the thing — whereby hangs a tale. But my examination of it was deeply exasperating: So many errors, so little time!) And examining the biographical background of the author of a text or a theory or a composition is entirely legitimate. (To compare a small thing to much greater things, we are the richer for having lives of Mozart and Einstein and Austen, and studies of the genesis of Darwin’s theory of evolution and of the novels of Hemingway and of the compositions of Handel. This is intellectual history)
And those who insist on exposing what they regard as the true circumstances of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration, and on stripping away false claims surrounding them, can scarcely object if others seek to better understand the true circumstances of the coming forth of a relatively influential attack on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration by stripping away seemingly false claims connected with it.
Hugh W. Nibley (b. 27 March 1910; d. 24 February 2005) Wikimedia Commons public domain image
“I have known Hugh Nibley for over fifty years. He was my teacher at BYU in the winter of 1954. I can’t remember why I took Hugh Nibley’s “Rise of the Western Church to 600 A.D.,” but its impact on my intellectual horizons was enormous. Professor Nibley was the first eccentric I ever met, and his example gave me a lifelong appreciation for the wonderfully diverse way our Creator distributed talents and spiritual gifts. As I experienced his incredible brilliance and knowledge, I also observed his humble indifference to appearance and other worldly things. He sometimes came to class with trousers and a coat that did not match, and he often wore the two-buckle combat boots that were standard issue to the foot soldiers of World War II, then recently concluded. As I came to know him better in later years, I realized that he was the epitome of the Book of Mormon teaching, “Do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor . . . labor for that which cannot satisfy” (2 Nephi 9:51).”
Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Hugh Nibley Observed, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Shirley S. Ricks, and Stephen T. Whitlock. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/hugh-nibley-observed/.
Brigham Young, ca. 1850
Brent L. Top, former professor of Church History and Doctrine and dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University, is convinced, as are some other scholars, that Brigham Young had at least one near-death experience, and possibly more than one. A notable such experience may have occurred just before the vanguard pioneer company of the Latter-day Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley in July of 1847. He talked fairly frequently about the spirit world, and it may be that he did so because he had seen it:
“Here, we are continually troubled with ills and ailments of various kinds, . . . but in the spirit world we are free from all this and enjoy life, glory and intelligence.'”
“I shall not cease learning while I live, nor when I arrive in the spirit- world; but shall there learn with greater facility.’”
“I would like to say to you, my friends and brethren, if we could see things as they are, and as we shall see and understand them, this dark shadow and valley is so trifling that we shall turn round and look about upon it and think, when we have crossed it, why this is the greatest advantage of my whole existence, for I have passed from a state of sorrow, grief, mourning, woe, misery, pain, anguish and disappointment into a state of existence, where I can enjoy life to the fullest extent as far as that can be done without a body.
“My spirit is set free, I thirst no more, I want to sleep no more, I hunger no more, I tire no more, I run, I walk, I labor, I go, I come, I do this, I do that, whatever is required of me, nothing like pain or weariness, I am full of life, full of vigor, and I enjoy the presence of my heavenly Father, by the power of his Spirit. I want to say to my friends, if you will live your religion, live so as to be full of the faith of God, that the light of eternity will shine upon you, you can see and understand these things for yourselves” (Deseret News Semi-Weekly, 28 July 1874, 1).
“I can say with regard to parting with our friends, and going ourselves, that I have been near enough to understand eternity so that I have had to exercise a great deal more faith to desire to live than I ever exercised in my whole life to live. The brightness and glory of the next apartment is inexpressible. It is not encumbered so that when we advance in years we have to be stubbing along and be careful lest we fall down. We see our youth, even, frequently stubbing their toes and falling down. But yonder, how different! They move with ease and like lightning. If we want to visit Jerusalem, or this, that, or the other place—and I presume we will be permitted if we desire—there we are, looking at its streets. If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior; or if we want to see the Garden of Eden as it was when created, there we are, and we see it as it existed spiritually, for it was created first spiritually and then temporally, and spiritually it still remains. And when there we may behold the earth as at the dawn of creation, or we may visit any city we please that exists upon its surface. If we wish to understand how they are living here on these western islands, or in China, we are there; in fact, we are like the light of the morning. . . . God has revealed some little things, with regard to his movements and power, and the operation and motion of the lightning furnish a fine illustration of the ability of the Almighty (Discourses of Brigham Young, 380, Teachings of Brigham Young, ch. 38).”
“We have more friends behind the veil than on this side, and they will hail us more joyfully than you were ever welcomed by your parents and friends in this world; and you will rejoice more when you meet them than you ever rejoiced to see a friend in this life; and then we shall go on from step to step, from rejoicing to rejoicing, and from one intelligence and power to another, our happiness becoming more and more exquisite and sensible as we proceed in the words and powers of life” (Discourses of Brigham Young, 379-380, Teachings of Brigham Young, ch. 38).
There’s still a fair amount of water left on the planet (as here, in the Amazon River), so abstaining from alcohol or even Coke products isn’t inevitably fatal and need not leave one completely thirsty. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In