From: wcsa@cbnews.cb.att.com (willard.smith)
Subject: Re: Joseph a true latter-day prophet
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 11:21:13 GMT

In article <1992Oct16.001844.18498@newsgate.sps.mot.com> ACUS10@WACCVM.SPS.MOT.COM (Mark Fuller) writes:
>
>I have it, and it is quite amusing.  I object to your referring to it
>as "Quinn's little monograph" without adding that "he never openly
>accepted responsibilty for it".  The story behind this little piece of
>work is very interesting, and can be found in the Tanner's "Answering
>Dr. Clandestine", Lighthouse Ministries, Salt Lake City, Utah.

I recall distinctly when Quinn's monograph came out. There was an interesting
write up about it in _Utah Holiday_, Feb 1978.  It seems that after Sam
Weller picked up the initial 1500 copies, Jerald Tanner demanded that Sam
sell him the entire stock. Sam refused. When Jerald wrote "Answering Dr.
Clandestine," he made some very slighting remarks about Sam.

For years Sam Weller's Book store was the main outlet for Sandra and Jerald's
stuff. I purchased my Tanner's stuff at Sam's. But after "Dr. Clandestine"
Sam boxed up all the Tanner's material and returned it to them. I don't know
if Sam has started selling Tanner material, but from 1978 to 1986 Sam
wouldn't deal with their stuff.

BTW, "Answering Dr Clandestine" is an amusing piece of work. Jerald never
really justified the cases of distortion that Quinn pointed out, nor did
he ever correct them. In fact, in typical Tanner style, they set up a
number of strawman responses that never touched the issues that Quinn
raised. The only new piece of information that the Tanners presented was
the annoucement that their _Shadow-Reality_ book was going to be published
by a major publisher. In fact, a greatly watered-down version was printed
by Moody Books called _The Changing World of Mormonism_. I don't know if
it is still in print or not.

>I fail to understand what it is you are arguing.  That Marks refers
>to an area of 30 miles radius as "confined to a few towns in the
>vicinity of Junius" is meaningless when compared to Joseph Smith
>said the revivals occurred in "the place where we lived".
>
>If you are saying revivals occured in 1820 somewhere in the world,
>I agree, put someplace in the world is not, "the place where we lived".
>Other revivals in other towns fail to so markedly match the accounts
>described by Joseph Smith, William Smith and Oliver Cowdery -- which
>are in perfect agreement with the historical accounts of the 1824
>revival.  A date earlier that 1824 fails to account for references
>to Reverand Lane, who was assigned to the area in 1824, and Reverand
>Stockton who was in Skaneatles NY until 1822.  This also fails to deal
>with Smith Sr. and his apparent problem with Stockton regarding
>the death of Alvin -- which occured after 1820.

You still don't get it do you, perhaps you should got back to Quinn's
little monograph, "Jerald and Sandra Tanner's Distorted View of
Mormonism" where he addressed the problems of "dating" the first vision:

-=-=-

The question of the dating of the First Vision is an issue that lends
credence to Joseph Smith's claims, rather than undermining them. In the
criticism of others, it has been pointed out that Joseph Smith was not
consistent in the dates he assigned to this first experience: in the
1832 document it was in his "16th year," in the 1835 recital he was
"about 14 years old," and in the 1834 version was a mass of precision
and ambiguity: "in the spring of Eighteen hundred and twenty ... in
my fifteenth year ... between foruteen and fifteen years old or
thereabouts ... a little over fourteen years of age." If Joseph Smith
had been dictating a contrived "improvisation" to the dupes who were
acting as his scribes, it would have been no problem for such a
charlatan to select an arbitrary date for the First Vision and then
stick to it. This would especially be no problem for a young man who
(according to the Tanners) had be able to dictate the convoluted
narrative of the the Fictionalized _Book of Mormon_. On the contrary,
the variation in dating indicate that here was a man trying to
reconsruct events from his early life that he originally regarded as
of significance to himself alone, but now have become of interest to
people who are his followers and curious inquisitors.

In my own youth I had a religious experience (on of those primary
evidences I referred to earlier) that was very complelling to me.
Unlike Joseph Smith, I recorded the experience on the day it occurred,
but it was about ten years before I felt sufficiently confident of
myself and the integrity of others to relate the incident to a few
close associates.  I found that as I tried to describe the event from
memory I could not remember my age at the time of the experience: over
a period of time I variously told others that it had occurred when I
was 15, 16, and 17 years old, and it required a re-reading of my
contemporary recording of the even to verify my age. Had either Joseph
Smith or I been trying to invent a youthful epiphany to validate
adult pretensions, consistency would have been easy. ("Jerald and Sandra
Tanner's Distorted View of Mormonism, 1977, pp 32-33)

-=-=-=-

If you need a simple example that shows Joseph Smith was having difficulity
in reconstructing the early events of his life, please take a look at
his 1838 account, which Mr Weiss was good enough to reproduce only a few
days ago.

1- Joseph Smith states that he was born in Sharon, Vermont on Dec 23, 1805.

2- Joseph Smith states that in his tenth year or thereabouts, the family
moved to Palmyra, New York.

3- He states that about four years, later the whole family (including sister
Lucy) moved to Manchester.

Point of fact, the Smith family moved from Sharon to Palmyra during the winter
of 1816, and rented a small frame house on the eastern outskirts of the village
where Johnson Street intersects Vienna.

In 1818 (two years later, and three years before Lucy was born) the family
initiated payments on a hundred-acre farm which they were buying from
Nicholas Evertson. Before the winter of 1818 had set in, they errected a
small two room log house and moved in. The Smith property was technically
in Farmington. Between 1821 and 1823, the northern edge of their farm became
the boundary separating the town of Palmyra (which was included in a new
county called Wayne in 1823) and Manchester, a new town in Ontario County
created from Farmington.

Point of fact, Joseph Smith mixed up the sequence of when and where his
sister Lucy was born. His sister Lucy was born after they moved, not before.

If you want to fight about dating revivals in 1819-1820 and the distance from
the Smith Home, then consider simply the following:

Within five miles from Smith household one will find both Palmyra and
Manchester. The Smith farm was approximately midway between the two villages.
Were there revivals going on in Manchester in 1819-1820? Yes, as you should
know from the LDS literature, Revivals were taking place in Manchester in
1819-1820.

Within ten miles from the Smith household one will find the villages of
Phelps, Victor, and Canadaigua. Were there revivals going on in any of these
villages in 1819-1820? Yes. You may find an account of Sarepta Marsh Baker
who lived in Phelps and who describes the 1819 revival in this way: "The
revival was a religious cyclone which swept over the whole region round about
and the kingdom of darkness was terribly shaken." (Blakeslee, M.P. "Notes for
a History of Methodism in Phelps," 1886, p. 7-8).

If you want, I can continue pointing out villages and towns for every five
miles in radius from the Smith home until one can get to Rochester, which
is less than 25 miles from the Smith household. The evidence for revival
activity in Rochester is unquestionable even by Walters.

If you want to complain about all this distance, then perhaps I should point
out, that Peter Whitmer, who played a key part in these early events, lived
20 miles from the Smith household. 

If you are depending on William Smith's account, then you're really in
trouble. William Smith would have been merely nine years old at the time
(if you date the First vision at 1820). If Joseph Smith was having
problems dating things that took place when he was 14, why should one
suddenly accept William Smith's as completely accurate? 
-- 

              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