From: gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com (Glenn Clapp)
Subject: Joseph as a prophet (ULM-3)
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:07:17 GMT


This is the final part (part 3) of the ULM article on Thomas
Ferguson.  Once again, it contains information useful to the
study of MOrmonism, the BoM, and Joseph Smith as a prophet.

-- Glenn
       
       		 	  ***


RESULTS OF SPOOFING

        Although he had written a paper criticizing Book of Mormon
archaeology, Thomas Stuart Ferguson felt that it was generally best for
those who doubted the faith to keep their "mouth shut." In a letter
written Feb. 9,1976, he gave this advice:

                "...Mormonism is probably the best conceived
   myth-fraternity to which one can belong... Joseph Smith tried so hard
   he put himself out on a limb with the Book of Abraham, and also with
   the Book of Mormon. He can be refuted--but why bother... It would be
   like wiping out placebos in medicine, and that would make no sense
   when they do lots of good....

                "Why not say the right things and keep your membership
   in the great fraternity, enjoying the good things you like and
   discarding the ones you can't swallow (and keeping your mouth shut)?
   Hypocritical? Maybe.... thousands of members have done, and are
   doing, what I suggest you consider doing. Silence is golden--etc....
   So why try to be heroic and fight the myths--the Mormon one or any
   other that does more good than ill?

                "Perhaps you and I have been spoofed by Joseph Smith.
   Now that we have the inside dope--why not spoof a little back and
   stay aboard? Please consider this letter confidential--for obvious
   reasons. I want to stay aboard the good ship, Mormonism --for various
   reasons that I think valid. First, several of my dearly loved family
   members want desperately to believe and do believe it and they each
   need it. It does them far more good than harm. Belonging, with my
   eyes wide open is actually fun, less expensive than formerly, and no
   strain at all.... I never get up and bear testimony... You might give
   my suggestions a trial run --and if you find you have to burn all the
   bridges between yourselves and the Church, then go ahead and ask for
   excommunication. (The day will probably come -- but it is far
   off--when the leadership of the Church will change the
   excommunication rules and delete as grounds non-belief in the 2 books
   mentioned and in Joseph Smith as a prophet etc... but if you wait for
   that day, you probably will have died. It is a long way off-- tithing
   would drop too much for one thing....

                "I recently wrote a paper concerning the big weak spots
   in the Book of Mormon, from the archaeological point of view and for
   $5 will make a photocopy of it for you if you wish to read it.

                "Kindly do not quote this letter and please do not cite
   me."

        If Mr. Ferguson could have seen the results of the "spoof' he
played on his family, he might have had second thoughts about the wisdom
of such a course. As it turned out, after his death his son, Larry S.
Ferguson, was convinced that his father wanted his book _One Fold and
One Shepherd_ revised and republished to the world. He talked Bruce W.
Warren, of Brigham Young University, into working on the revision, and
in 1987 it was published under the title, _The Messiah in Ancient
America_. In the Preface, p. xiii, Dr. Warren wrote the following "The
Ferguson family wanted the new book to be a tribute to Thomas Stuart
Ferguson and his abiding testimony of the Book of Mormon and the
divinity of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ." On page xv, Dr. Warren
commented: "Finally, the driving force behind the book was Larry
Ferguson, with the initial financing for the project coming from his
brother, Thomas A. Ferguson." In the Forward, p. xii, Professor Paul R.
Cheesman stated: 'With the recent additions by Dr. Bruce W. Warren, this
book should reinstate Thomas Stuart Ferguson as a source of enrichment
in the fields of study concerning Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon."

        Larry Ferguson maintains that his father discussed the revision
of his book before his death. Although we do not really know what Thomas
Stuart Ferguson told his son before his death, it seems impossible to
believe that he would have wanted it reprinted. While it is only a
matter of speculation, it is possible that his son might have asked him
why it was not reprinted and that he might have responded by saying it
needed to be revised. If Thomas Stuart Ferguson had never leveled with
his son concerning his true beliefs about the Book of Mormon, Larry
Ferguson would naturally understand his father's statement to mean that
it needed some changes made to reflect archaeological studies that were
made since it went out of print. The real meaning of such a statement,
of course, would be that it needed to be revised to show that the Book
of Mormon "is fictional... what is in the ground will never conform to
what is in the book." (Letter dated Feb. 2, 1976)

        In any case, the new book is seriously flawed because there is
no mention of the fact that Ferguson was a complete unbeliever in the
Book of Mormon during the last 12 or 13 years of his life. Bruce Warren
was undoubtedly aware of Ferguson's 29-page paper criticizing the
Sorenson and Norman papers, but he did not even refer to this important
research in the revised publication. If Ferguson were alive today, he
would undoubtedly be shocked to find his name attached to a book which
contains a map showing "Possible Book of Mormon Locations." The reader
will remember that Ferguson wrote that "there is no Book-of-Mormon
geography."

        Thomas Stuart Ferguson's _One Fold and One Shepherd_, contained
a long list of "cultural elements common to both Bible lands and
Mesoamerica." (pp. 57-72) Mormon archaeologist Dee Green felt that
Ferguson's "list of 298 traits... are at times so generalized that the
list could just as well prove that Book of Mormon people wound up in
Southeast Asia." (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1969, p.
74) Ferguson, of course, later came to conclude that the items that were
mentioned in the Book of Mormon which were not found by archaeologists
far outweighed the cultural parallels. Bruce Warren and Larry Ferguson
seem to have been completely oblivious to Ferguson's change of mind and
have included his long list of cultural parallels in the _Messiah in
Ancient America_, pp. 214-228.

        The fact that Thomas Stuart Ferguson was not forthright with
members of his family with regard to the Book of Mormon has placed them
in a very embarrassing position. They have published a book which will
lead people to the conclusion that he was a true believer. The truth, of
course, is that Ferguson believed that archaeology disproved the Book of
Mormon. The appearance of the revised book with Ferguson's name on it,
has caused scholars to probe into the last years of his life. A great
deal of documentary evidence has been discovered to show that from 1970
until his death in 1983 Mr. Ferguson was secretly undercutting the Book
of Mormon. In fact, just two months before his death he was working on a
project which he felt would show that the Book of Mormon was in reality
a 19th century production. The evidence concerning this matter will
appear in a forthcoming publication.

        One of the authors of this newsletter (Jerald) tried to discuss
the these problems with Larry Ferguson on KTALK Radio on April 17, 1988.
Mr. Ferguson would not admit that his father had lost faith in the Book
of Mormon, and when he was presented with evidence, he responded: "If
you want to kick my dead father, go ahead." He maintained that in
"February of '83" his father "kind of pulled me aside... [and] bore his
testimony of the Book of Mormon to me." He also referred to a statement
which he said his father had prepared in "the latter part of 1982." It
also appears in _The Messiah in Ancient America_, p. 283:

                "We have studied the Book of Mormon for 50 years. We can
   tell you that it follows only the New Testament as a written witness
   to the mission, divinity, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it
   seems to us that there is no message that is needed by man and
   mankind more than the message of Christ. Millions of people have come
   to accept Jesus as the Messiah because of reading the Book of Mormon
   in a quest for truth. The book is the cornerstone of the Mormon
   Church.

                "The greatest witness to the truthfulness of the Book of
   Mormon is the book itself. But many are the external evidences that
   support it.

        The introduction to this statement reads: "In 1982, the year
before he died, he included a photo and testimony in several copies of
the Books of Mormon that he distributed to non-Mormons." (Ibid.) While
we do not know for certain when this statement was first distributed, on
August 2, 1983, Thomas Stuart Ferguson's widow sent a copy of it to
Jerry Benson. In a letter which accompanied it, she wrote: "Tom was
loyal and faithful to the Church to his death." The wording of the
statement which Mr. Benson received is identical to that reproduced in
the book. Below the statement, however, we find the names "Tom and Ester
Ferguson." These names are not handwritten but appear to have been typed
on the same typewriter used for the statement itself. From this we can
conclude that the statement could have been prepared by either Mr. or
Mrs. Ferguson or they could have worked on it together. While it has the
picture of the Fergusons which was mentioned above, it is undated.

        During the radio program mentioned above, Larry Ferguson was
asked about the matter. He replied: "Well, he [Thomas Stuart Ferguson]
wrote it in his own hand. You can ask my mother if you want to." H.
Michael Marquardt did just that in a letter to Mrs. Ester Ferguson. She
did not respond, but asked her son, Thomas A. Ferguson, to handle the
matter. On May 19, 1988, he sent Mr. Marquardt a letter in which he
stated: "The type of information you seek is of a very personal nature,
and in our judgment it would be inappropriate for us to share it with
you. We do not know you nor do we know anything about you. Therefore, we
respectfully decline."

        We would prefer to believe that Mrs. Ferguson, who may not have
known the truth about her husband's loss of faith, was the one who
prepared this testimony. If, however, there is any evidence that it came
from her husband and that it was prepared in 1982, it would only show
that he was willing to go to far greater lengths than we had supposed in
playing his double game. The reader will remember that in the letter
dated Feb. 9,1976, Mr. Ferguson commented: "I never get up and bear
testimony..."

        On the radio program of April 17, 1988, Larry Ferguson declared:
"...if you ever knew my father, that's one thing he was not was a
hypocrite." Mr. Ferguson now finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. If
he concedes that the testimony he has published did not really come from
his father, he will undermine the book he has spent years in preparing.
If, on the other hand, he establishes that his father really wrote it,
he will certainly have to give up the claim that his father was not "a
hypocrite." The reason for this is that on January 4, 1983, just after
Thomas Stuart Ferguson was supposed to have written the statement, he
acknowledged that he was, in fact, engaged in a project which he felt
would prove that the Book of Mormon was not an ancient document. To
accept the information which Larry Ferguson has put forth would force
one to conclude that his father was a real chameleon, continually
changing colors as he talked with Mormons and non-Mormons.

        Whatever the case may be, we cannot help but sympathize with men
like Thomas Stuart Ferguson and B. H. Roberts (see Mormonism -- Shadow
or Reality, pp. 96D-96G) who labored for many years to prove the Book of
Mormon true and then found out that their faith was based on erroneous
assumptions. It would have been very difficult for these men to have
made a public statement repudiating the Book of Mormon. They would have
been considered traitors to the church who allowed themselves to come
under the power of the Devil. Nevertheless, when we consider the
consequences of remaining silent, we cannot help but feel that both
these men made a drastic mistake when they failed to stand up for the
truth.

EVIDENCE COMPARED

        Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt once boasted: 'This generation have
more than one thousand times the amount of evidence to demonstrate and
forever establish the divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon than
they have in favor of the Bible!" (Orson Pratt's Works, "Evidences of
the Book of Mormon and Bible Compared," p. 64)

        We feel that this statement is far from the truth. The only
support for the existence of the gold plates is the testimony of eleven
witnesses, and as we have already shown in Mormonism Shadow or Reality?
pp. 50-63, there are a number of reasons to doubt their statements. A
comparison of the archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon with
the evidence for the Bible clearly shows the weakness of the Mormon
position. This, of course, is not to imply that there are no problems
connected with biblical archaeology, or that archaeological evidence
alone can prove the Bible to be divinely inspired. Frank H. H. Roberts,
Jr., of the Smithsonian Institute, commented in a letter written to
Marvin Cowan on Jan. 24, 1963: "Archaeological discoveries in the Near
East have verified some statements in the Bible referring to certain
tribes, places, etc. On the other hand there is no way in which they
could verify the narrative parts of the Bible such as the actions,
words, deeds, etc. of particular individuals." In the same letter he
continued: "There is no evidence whatever of any migration from Israel
to America, and likewise no evidence that pre-Columbian Indians had any
knowledge of Christianity or the Bible."

        The noted Mormon apologist Dr. Hugh Nibley frankly admitted that
no ancient inscription mentioning the Nephites has ever been found, and
that "nothing short of an inscription which could be read and roughly
dated would bridge the gap between what might be called a
pre-actualistic archaeology and contact with the realities of Nephite
civilization." (Since Cumorah, p. 243)

        While the Nephites are never mentioned in any ancient
inscription, the existence of the Israelites is verified by many
inscriptions dating back hundreds of years before the time of Christ.
The "earliest archaeological reference to the people of Israel" is a
stele of the Egyptian ruler Merneptah, dated about 1220 B. C., which is
now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Information concerning this stele
is given in The _Biblical World_ (pp. 380-81). The following is a
translation of a portion of the stele:

                "Israel is laid waste, his seed is not; Hurru (i. e.
   Syria) is become a widow for Egypt."

        The noted Egyptologist John A. Wilson acknowledged that "an
Egyptian scribe was conscious of a people known as Israel somewhere in
Palestine or Transjordan." (The Culture of Ancient Egypt, 1965, p.255)

        Many ancient inscriptions mentioning the Israelites have been
found, and some inscriptions even give the names of kings mentioned in
the Bible. The New Testament mentions a number of rulers that are known
to have lived around the time of Christ. For instance, the Bible tells
us that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate. That Pilate was an
actual historical person was proved beyond all doubt in 1961 when "an
inscription with the name Pontius Pilate was found in the theater
excavations" at Caesarea. (The Biblical Archaeologist, Sept. 1964, p.
71)

        The fact that the Jews were in Palestine at the time the Bible
indicates is proven by hundreds of ancient Hebrew inscriptions that have
been found on rocks, pieces of pottery and coins. Portions of every book
of the Old Testament, except for the book of Esther, have also been
found in the collection of manuscripts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. In
addition many inscriptions from other countries verify that the Jews
were present in Palestine.

        When we turn to the Book of Mormon, however, we are unable to
find any evidence at all that the Nephites ever existed. We must agree
with the Mormon archaeologist Dee F. Green whom we have already quoted
as saying: "The first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon
archaeology exists.... Biblical archaeology can be studied because we do
know where Jerusalem and Jericho were and are, but we do not know where
Zarahemla and Bountiful (nor any other location for the matter) were or
are."

A SINKING SHIP

        In 1973, Michael Coe, one of the best known
authorities on archaeology of the New World, wrote
an article for _Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon
Thought_. In this article he addressed the issue in a
very forthright manner:

                "Mormon archaeologists over the years have almost
   unanimously accepted the Book of Mormon as an accurate, historical
   account of the New World peoples.... Let me now state uncategorically
   that as far as I know there is not one professionally trained
   archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific
   justification for believing the foregoing to be true, and I would
   like to state that there are quite a few Mormon archaeologists who
   join this group....

                "The bare facts of the matter are that nothing,
   absolutely nothing, has even shown up in any New World excavation
   which would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of
   Mormon, as claimed by Joseph Smith, is a historical document relating
   to the history of early migrants to our hemisphere." (Dialogue: A
   Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1973, pp. 41, 42 & 46)

        Since many Mormons have spread the rumor that the Smithsonian
Institution uses the Book of Mormon in its archaeological research, the
Institution has found it necessary to publish a statement denying this
claim. In the four-page document we read as follows: "1. The Smithsonian
Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific
guide. Smithsonian archeologists see no direct connection between the
archeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book."
(STATEMENT REGARDING THE BOOK OF MORMON, Spring 1986, p. 1)

        In the 1972 edition of _Mormonism--Shadow or Reality?_ pp.
102-103, we told about Mr. Ferguson reaching the conclusion that the
Book of Mormon was a spurious work. We noted that Mormon leaders "gave
'large appropriations' to support Thomas Stuart Ferguson's New World
Archaeological Foundation. This organization also failed to find
evidence to prove the Book of Mormon, and the man who organized it,
hoping that it would prove Mormonism, ended up losing his faith in the
Church." When Moody Press reprinted this statement in our condensed
work, _The Changing World of Mormonism_, Robert and Rosemary Brown tried
to cause trouble by writing a note to our publisher stating that this
was "NOT SO!" Since some of our readers had received letters from Mr.
Ferguson telling of his lose of faith and had given us copies, we were
able to easily convince Moody Press that our statement was correct. The
Browns simply did not know the full story.

        At the present time there is a Mormon scholar by the name of
Stan Larson who is "writing a biography of Thomas Stuart Ferguson." He
is very interested in knowing the truth about this embarrassing period
in Ferguson's life and has recently published a appeal in the newsletter
of the _Mormon History Association_ for copies of any letters readers
have which were written by Ferguson during the period 1968-83. If any of
our readers had correspondence with Ferguson during this period and want
to help Mr. Larson, they can mail it to us and we will see that it is
sent to him.

        The failure of Thomas Stuart Ferguson to deal with the truth he
encountered is certainly a very sad story. He seems to have tried to
rationalize his own behavior by the actions of Apostle Hugh B. Brown and
others he observed. He maintained that "thousands of members have done,
and are doing, what I suggest"--i.e., "spoof a little back" and stay
"aboard the good ship, Mormonism." We feel that there are tens of
thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Mormons, who are currently
playing this dangerous game. They would rather go down with the ship,
taking their families with them, than stand up for the truth. Some of
these people probably read this newsletter and realize that God wants
them to make a stand for the truth. We are aware of the fact that taking
such a step can be very costly, but we feel that the eternal
consequences are far too great to trifle with. In Luke 9:26 we find this
warning given by Jesus Himself:

   "For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of
   my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed,
   when he shall come in his own glory, and in his
   Fathers, and of the holy angels."

        We pray that many will step out in faith and turn their lives
over to Jesus that He may reign as King of their hearts. We made the
decision to come out of Mormonism and follow the Lord about thirty years
ago and have never regretted it for a moment. The peace and joy we have
received and the direction we have for our lives surpasses anything that
this life has to offer.


                                ***

Original copies of this article, and others of interest, are available
from Utah Lighthouse Ministry.  PO Box 1884, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110.

God Bless,

Glenn
-- 
=============================================================================
= Glenn Clapp                          |  gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com         =
= Evans and Sutherland Computer Corp.  |  My opinions are my own, but then  =
= Salt Lake City, Utah  (801) 582-5847 |  that's my opinion.                =