From: wcsa@cbnews.cb.att.com (Willard C. Smith)
Subject: Anthony Rose - Please respond
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 13:10:15 GMT

I am assuming that Mr Rose missed a question that I posed to him. And I
am hoping that he will see the subject heading and respond.

In an article posted on Oct 30th under the subject heading: "Willard and
the History of the Vision," Mr Rose stated:

    And actually, I have read much more LDS material than non, or anti-LDS
    material.  As far as I am concerned, the best "anti-LDS materal" is the
    church's own published works!

This concerns me a great deal. As I have been going back carefully over
Mr Rose's postings (since Sept), he has posted a number of quotations
from works such as _History of the Church_. If Mr Rose simply copied
these passages from someone else's diatribe, then all he can be blamed
for is being gullable. If Mr Rose was actually responsible for editing
of some of the quotations, then I am very disturbed by what he has done.

FOR EXAMPLE, on October 21st Mr Rose posted (under the subject of: Stephen,
the Mormon Lurker Speaking Out: Reply") the following section:

|Now, let's look at some of Joseph's prophecies.  Is there one that
|didn't come to pass?
|
|In 1843 Joseph made this prophesy:
|
|     "There are those of the rising generation who shall not taste
|      death till Christ comes.  I was once praying earnestly upon
|      this subject, and a voice said unto me, "My son, if thou
|      livest until thou art eighty-fove years of age, thou shalt
|      see the face of the Son of Man.....I prophesy in the name of
|      the Lord God, and let it be written- the Son of Man will not
|      come in the clouds of heaven until I am eighty-five years old."
|                        History of the Church Vol. 5 pg. 336
|
|Joseph would have been 85 years old before the turn of the century, and
|there is no one living today that was alive in 1843.  Therefore, we can
|say that this did not come to pass.  This was not the word of the Lord,
|as Joseph said it was.

The problem is that this "false prophecy" is a fraud of a different sort.
The quotation in HC 5:336 has been edited to make it mean something other
than what the actual passage meant. The actual passage states the following:

 Edited Out>>>  Were I going to prophesy, I would say the end [of the
 Edited Out>>>  world] would not come in 1844, 5, or 6, or in forty
 Edited Out>>>  years.
 
                There are those of the rising generation who shall not
		taste death till Christ comes. I was once praying
		earnestly upon this subject, and a voice said unto me,
		"My son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years
		of age, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man."

 Edited Out>>>  I was left to draw my own conclusions concerning this;
 Edited Out>>>  and I took the liberty to conclude that if I did live to
 Edited Out>>>  that time, He would make His appearance. But I do not
 Edited Out>>>  say whether He will make his appearance or I shall go
 Edited Out>>>  where He is.

		I prophesy in the name of the Lord God, and let it be
		written - the Son of Man will not come in the clouds of
		heaven till I am eighty-five years old.

It should be obvious to anyone, that this sections is rather choppy. It
is because it is a reconstruction of a sermon that Joseph Smith gave in
April of 1843. The notes were taken in long hand (not short hand) and it
is obvious that some of his remarks are missing. However, it is clear
from the context that the sections edited out indicate the following
important points:

1- That Joseph Smith is SPECULATING about when Christ is going to come.
   Not that he was actually predicting the year of Christ's return.

2- The edited sections point out that Joseph Smith felt that Christ
   would not return BEFORE 1890, not that he would return ON 1890.
   The only way to extract that Christ would return on 1890 from this
   passage is to include Joseph Smith's explicit provision - that Joseph
   Smith would have to be alive in 1890!

3- The edited sections points out that Joseph Smith himself wasn't quite
   sure what the experience he described meant and that he is drawing
   HIS OWN conclusions. A significant point since Mormons do not believe
   in infallibility.

All of these points are significant to any Mormon who would approach the
problem posed by Mr Rose. The fact that they have been carefully edited
out suggests a willingness to misrepresent the passage. I am not saying
that Mr Rose is responsible for this editing job. He may merely have copied
it from some other Anti-Mormon source without looking it up first, and his
claim that he obtained his material directly from LDS sources would simply
chalked up to the bravado that typically issues from exchanges of this type.

My question to Mr Rose is where did you copy this passage? Please name
your source!
-- 

              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
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc