From: wcsa@cbnews.cb.att.com (willard.smith)
Subject: Re: Perfect Prophets?
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 16:49:28 GMT
Summary: Significant material on Joseph Smith IS MISSING - probably due
	 to the "sack" of Far West and Nauvoo - Ezekiel was much lucker
Keywords: unscientific, false prophecies, misuse of rhetoric


I am not so convinced that all relevant material on Joseph Smith is now
conviently available. Just as libraries were burned and cities sacked in
ancient times, so Far West and Nauvoo were sacked and valuable records
destroyed. How valuable? Oliver Cowdery's early history of the Church
which dated and described several critical events in the early church's
history was in Far West before that county seat was destroyed by the
Missouri Militia.  Where is it now Barry? Some important records were
removed or taken away by individuals who left the church.

The fact is that in 1846, when the Mormons were forced to leave Illinois,
the historians attempted to collect all significant historical records
possible. All the materials they finally collected could fit in two boxes!
(see Dean C. Jessee's "The Writing of Joseph Smith's History" _BYU Studies_
11/4 [Summer, 1971]).

The printing press is indeed a blessing, but the majority of newspaper
publishers had less concern with accuracy than with using their presses
as an echo of their own opinions or simply passing on another rumor that
happened to be printed in a neighboring paper. Case in point, there are
many Newspaper articles dating from the mid 1830s to the mid 1840s
announcing the sensational deaths of JS, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, etc.
all well before their actual deaths.

Even if I ignore the fact that the Biblical record does not apply Deut
18:20 in the fashion that Barry would apply it, I am not so sure that
his argument flys very well.

In the first place, Ezekiel was living in Babylon among the first Jews
exiled to that place in 597 BC. Records about his life would not have been
destroyed when Jerusalem was sacked but would have been left intact (Since
Babylon was never sacked before Ezekiel's writings were widely distributed).

Second, Ezekiel has the distinction of not being among the "oral tradition"
type of prophet, rather he is clearly in the "written tradition" with others
like Isaiah. Any simplistic study of Ezekiel shows that his writing is *well*
structured, poetic, and symemetrical. To have removed significant condition
phrases out of his writings would have resulted in some detectable hole.

Third, Ezekiel is much closer to the creation of LXX then say someone like
Isaiah. The inclusion of Ezekiel's writings among the significant writings
of the Jews, by the time of Alexander the Great, shows how well respected
his writings were and probably how accurate they were considered.

Remember Barry, although Ezekiel is seperated from us by several thousand
years, he was not so distantly seperated from the individuals who compiled
the LXX. His "false" prophecy would have been realized by then, and yet the
the ancient Jews left it among his writings without notations of any type.
The only explanation that I can see is that the ancient Jews did not apply
Deut 18:20 in the same childlike (Barry's word) manner.

There is one last problem that needs to be addressed: Barry's attempt to
go around the problem of Deut 13:1-4 rule (not Jeremiah 28:9, Barry). The
problem is that to a Jew, the advent of Christ and the new description
of God that came from his followers would have meant that the Jews could
technically reject Christianity as a violation of this passage. In fact
technically anyone who accepted Deut 13:1-4 as scripture could technically
reject the description of God as formulated by the orthodox Christians as
coming from "False Prophets."

Attempts to use some form of "dispensationalism" to go around the problem
are actually no solution at all. Any Jew will listen and say, "This form
of dispensationalism is a Christian Concept, not Jewish." In essence, anyone
not proclaiming the same strict monothestic God as Moses is a False Prophet!
The only ones who claim that the priests of Jehovah lost sight of who and
what they were worshipping are the Christians, not the Jews. :-)
-- 

              Willard C. Smith
  Oh God, Make my Words Palatable and Sweet, | att!cbnews!iwtgo!wcsa
   Because I Might have to Eat all of Them.  | wcsa@iwtgo.att.com
Xref: sparky talk.religion.newage:3768 alt.alien.visitors:5748 sci.skeptic:14416