jesus is The only "begotten son" "son in the flesh" They beileve god is father to all,We see in Luke 3:38 that Adam is a son of God. It is only logical that we, who are descended from him, are members of the same family The book of I John gives account of our relationship to the
Father: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God" (1 John 3:2)(Job 1:6). Job makes it clear that as one of the Sons of God, lucipher was recognized by the Lord in their presence (Job 1:7- 12,2:1-6). He fell from his heavenly abode, (Luke 10:18, Rev. 12:7-9, Isa. 14:12-14), but that does
not negate that he was once a literal "spirit" offspring or child of God. These scriptures clearly show that all of us are offspring of God, our Heavenly Father--including those children who rebelled and followed lucipher. it is common sense if we are all the spirit children of heavenly father that so is lucifer"just because a child doesn't follow your path doesn't mean they are not your children! The above statement is often used by anti-Mormon detractors in an effort to make the LDS Church appear to be a non-Christian sect or cult, and by the way I dislike it when people do not finish quotes "mishmash" you forgot" The creeds which came of a finite understanding and out of the almost
infinite discussions of men trying to arrive at a definition of the risen Christ." which goes in the middle just a bit important.... in response to KirstyCristy In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints "do not believe in the traditional Christ. No, I don't. The
traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak. For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in this the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. He, together with His Father, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in the year 1820, and when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of the ages.Think of it like this: If I were to say, "you're mom is a cat," but you were to know it was not true, you can either say, "you are wrong," or you can say, "the mom of whom you speak is not the same mom that I know." Its the same idea here. The profit is saying that the Jesus that others preach is not real.
Its not really Jesus, and what they base their idea of Jesus on is incorrect information also While it is correct that several early Church leaders, primarily in the mid-Nineteenth Century, agreed with various non-Mormon Bible scholars that Jesus Christ was married, that belief has never been accepted as official Church doctrine.When
anti-Mormon detractors allempt to represent the private views of past or present Latter-day Saints as being the doctrine of the Church, they immediately lose credibility with knowledgeable Church members who understand the Church's definitions of doctrine unfortunatly those less
educated in the church do not no any better then what they are being told, also in 1890 the Manifesto came into play meaning "plural marriage" here is a site It is about 90 printed pages. It reveals THE TRUTH ABOUT ED DECKER; author of "The God Makers" books and films and various other anti-Mormon works
http://www.geocities.com/saintsaliveinjesus/decker.html
in my eyes Mr. Decker is a murderer
Decker traveled to Chile and spoke at numerous Assemblies of God churches. He told everyone who would listen that Mormon missionaries "were really CIA agents"; working for the Central Intelligence Agency. At this time, in 1980, there was great anti-American and especially anti-CIA feelings in Chile. A popular Chilean president (a Socialist) was assassinated in 1973; with the help of the CIA. The Chilean military government was supported by the CIA; even when the military government had killed thousands of young university students who supported Communism or Socialism (or even social causes) in Chile. Now, Decker was telling everyone that Mormon missionaries were "really CIA agents".
Not long after Decker was in Chile, there began bombings of LDS chapels in Chile. Over the next two decades there would be hundreds of bombings of Mormon chapels, and the killing of at least 6 Mormon missionaries in Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, by Communist forces. After 1980, Communist and Socialist organizations in Chile, and neighboring Peru and Bolivia, began to suspect that Mormon missionaries were CIA agents, and the Mormon Church simply a "front" for American imperialism.
There was an American Protestant missionary in Chile who refused to have anything to do with Decker after he began telling everyone that Mormon missionaries were really only "CIA agents".
The Saints Alive newsletter reported the murder of two Mormon missionaries in Bolivia in 1989 this way:
"LDS MISSIONARIES SHOT: A tragic shooting in La Paz, Bolivia, claimed the lives of two young Mormon missionaries, both 20 years of age, as they were returning to their apartment. A terrorist group 'Zarate Willka Armed Liberation Front' claimed responsibility,...this is the same group which claimed to have bombed a Mormon meetinghouse last year in Boliva.
Sadly, this sort of thing happens because the missionaries are identified with the CIA and other US interests...There are reasons for this perception. It is no secret that the CIA does heavy recruiting among returned LDS missionaries....It is heartbreaking that these innocent young men paid with their lives for the Church's dabling in political intrigue." (Saints Alive newsletter, June/July, 1989, p.4)
These missionaries were 19 and 20 year old boys. Killed because they were "CIA". They weren't!
The FACTS are:
*Mormon missionaries are NOT CIA agents. Decker of course knows this.
*To equate Mormon missionaries with CIA agents would threaten their vary lives in many South American countries. Decker knew this.
*The CIA does recruit out of Brigham Young University, which has a LOT of returned missionaries. But the CIA recruits out of just about all major universities in the U.S.! Returned missionaries who are recruited out of BYU are not called on missions again and pretend to be Mormon missionaries. Far, FAR, more CIA agents come from Yale or other Ivy League schools than from BYU.
Decker knew that telling people in Chile that Mormon missionaries were "really CIA agents" would put those young innocent missionaries lives in danger. He did it anyway. To date, 6 missionaries have been killed by Communist forces in South America because they were considered "CIA agents". Mormon chapels have been bombed hundreds of times for the same reason; this is no exaggeration.
Decker lied, and innocent people died.
The page has so much info on it and other links as well
here are a few pro links I know you will get all the negitive one's
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/index.html
http://farms.byu.edu/
http://ourworld-top.cs.com/mikegriffith1/id106.htm
acually http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/linksto.htm here is a page that has most of the links I have
it has anti pages as well though so just make sure you read which page you are going into first most of the Anti pages are at the bottom of the screen I do suggest you deeply research both and then see what you think
Good luck to anyone who really wants to know about the mormon religon :)
one last thing because the tanners were mentioned as well
A Marvelous Work? The Tanners Wonder (Chapter 1)
Reviewed by Kerry A. Shirts
Researcher for (FAIR) Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research
I have a suggestion. It's a rather simple one, but a necessary one. I obviously approach this material from a Mormon viewpoint, and I think there are better ways to go about understanding Mormonism than a shot gun approach as the Tanners have taken here. As an introduction, there seems to be no coherent overall plan or logic to what they are doing. My suggestion is, instead of trying to make Mormonism look insipid, would it not be better to give a more balanced view? It's just a suggestion. There is obviously a congruous aspect and overall theme to Mormonism, or it simply could not, by any stretch of the imagination, have had the success it has had. Mormonism is an overall system of religion involving both the living and the dead, rather than a hodgepodge of miscellaneous cockamamie ramblings.1 In other words, I think this first chapter is in need of a serious revision, which ought to try and present an overall approach to their reasons and researches into Mormonism. Instead the Tanners jump back and forth from one subject to another, quoting the Journal of Discourses, and then some secondary sources at least 60 years removed from Joseph Smith, in order to show what Joseph Smith thought. We have plenty of material to see what Joseph Smith said and thought as opposed to what was remembered 60 years after he was dead. And believe me, I will get into it all at a later time. It is quite likely that this sort of information from sources in the late 1800's is contaminated, from loss of memory of the tellers of the tales, at the very least. But, it's time I get to some specifics.
The start of the chapter deals with the Book of Mormon "a book which purports to be a history of 'the former inhabitants of this continent.'"2 This is O.K., but I note immediately that there is no discussion whatsoever of John Sorenson's fine work on the Book of Mormon, which goes a long way to explaining what sort of history.3 There simply is not a monolithic singular thing called history, which is only written, and understood in one and only one way.4 That the Tanners misunderstand this is obvious from their statement "Archaeologists have searched for years trying to piece together the history of the ancient inhabitants of this land, but Joseph Smith turned over one stone and found all the answers."5 Pardon my bluntness here, but this is an inane statement. My very first reaction on reading this is to roll my eyes and say "Oh Brother!" Now, is this the type of reaction anti-Mormons want with their Mormon audience? If it's not, then irresponsible statements such as this ought to be left out of anti-Mormon writings. I read a serious question in David A. Reed and John R. Farkas' book Mormons Answered Verse By Verse, that in using techniques to speak with Mormons and convince them, they ask: "isn't your goal always to lead them to Christ, and aren't you obligated to invest whatever it takes to accomplish that? Yes, of course..."6 I feel the Tanners would have been far more effective had they not made such an unwarranted claim on Joseph Smith nor Mormon scholarship. "Sixty two percent of the entire Book of Mormon deals with one particular 160 year period (130 B.C. - A. D. 30), while the following three centuries take up only four pages. The Jaredite account is even skimpier; some centuries gets no more than a couple of lines. Surely we could not label such a concise volume 'the story of the American Indian.' Even for 'the people of Nephi' it can barely be considered a history."7
Not only have I seen the Tanners already skip one of Mormonism’s premiere scholars on the Book of Mormon (and virtually anything else any Mormon has ever written on this subject!), but now they make an irresponsible statement, which, to my understanding, essentially no Mormon ever in the history of the Restoration has ever claimed. Show us where it is said that Joseph Smith now has all the answers, and specifically in the Book of Mormon. This simply is not the way to write on Mormonism for a Mormon audience. And it is absolutely unjust and cruel to perpetrate such statements on your own anti-Mormon or Christian audiences either. They have as much right to have the truth told about anything written as anyone else does. On further reflection, I note that Sorenson, Nibley, and any LDS scholar who has ever approached the Book of Mormon from history is in line with this overall statement concerning history:
"What is history? Any answer inevitably begs other theoretical issues, such as generalization, explanation, causation, objectivity, and use. Also, almost any simple definition forces one to become a partisan of some minority viewpoint. No definition, and certainly no brief definition, can encompass the many varied, often eccentric conceptions offered by historians or by philosophers. Thus one may emphasize history's subject matter, its selective criteria, its verification techniques, the logical form of its explanations, or its conceived function or use. It is therefore no surprise that the very word 'history' is a vast ambiguity."8
The Book of Mormon nowhere teaches that it contains all the answers. It simply cannot do so in light of its own definition of itself. It is a highly selective and abridged book. Two thirds of it were sealed for crying out loud! We still don't have the complete story yet. It does not, it cannot contain all truth, and all history and all the answers. This Tanneristic approach is faulty. Such hyperbole harms your case intensely, especially when the issues are researched and found far different. Consider the conclusion of H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters: "...we believe that facts exist and that an array of different interpretations is possible."9 They further state, credibly I might add, "...we have long since abandoned the simple prophet-fraud dichotomy that others still find compelling. Our intent is to understand, not to debunk."10 Now this is more in line with having a reasonable approach to Mormonism and gaining a more willing audience with us Mormons. Notice here I have deliberately quoted a known anti-Mormon (Walters), and a liberal cultural Mormon to state my case in better more supposedly "objective" terms.11 Not that I accept what Walters and Marquardt have written, for they also have been found to be on the ultra short end on many of their writings about Mormonism.12 Wesley Walters works have been shown to be especially faulty.13 But I digress.
It appears that the Tanners, rather than present a coherent investigation of Mormonism, hop, skip, and jump all over the place. First I read about the Garden of Eden in Adam-Ondi-Ahman, then I read about Zelph the supposed white Lamanite, then I read the poor selection of a secondary source concerning the Book of Abraham, (Josiah Quincy) then I read about inhabitants of the moon, then I read about Mormonism standing or falling on Joseph Smith, etc., and all this in just the first two pages of their book! Whew!
One thing which apparently galls the Tanners is Mormons stating that the Bible has been corrupted, as they note on page 1. "According to Mormon leaders the Book of Mormon is far superior to the Bible because it contains the ‘pure words of Christ.’ The Bible, they claim, has been altered by wicked priests."
And I see their point…. But not their source, which bothers me. I think this stance is skewed in some respects. For instance, the idea that the Book of Mormon is considered superior to the Bible, well what of it? It is superior in some ways, but vastly inferior in others. It’s a relative statement being either true or false depending on how one can look at it. The Bible is far superior to the Book of Mormon in using more of Peter’s sermons and detailing his actions, than the Book of Mormon does. So far as that goes the Bhagavad Gita is far superior to either the Book of Mormon or the Bible in showing the Battle of Kuruksetra with its various manifestations and implications for we human beings. I mean this apparent desire to try and make one thing superior above another really gets us nowhere…. Honestly. One can find superiority anywhere were one to try hard enough. I can state un-categorically that Homer’s Odyssey and Illiad are vastly superior to Shakespeare and were I so inclined to demonstrate that I could rather easily. I could also take the opposite stance as well. So?
The reason I bring this up is because it appears to me that the Tanners want to present Mormonism and its leaders as the quintessence of either arrogance or stupidity. This false set up with the Bible and Book of Mormon (again with no reference for me to check – ARGH!) is implying that there is something sinister going on and that Mormons actually desire to make the Bible secondary, as if that, in and of itself ,is an evil thing. And this is the right button to push on Christians who through the centuries, having lost revelation from God, had to turn to something as authoritative and guiding, and hence became Bibliolaters – that is, claiming the Bible is perfect, and the only Word of God. So, the Tanners try to make their case that Mormons are making the Bible inferior. This I honestly don’t find convincing. I mean, check anywhere whether the journal BYU Studies, or the Churches magazines, and there are all kinds of discussions on trying to understand the Bible. The Tanners apparently misunderstand that to we Mormons the Bible along with the Book of Mormon, and even the Doctrine & Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price, as well as prophetic statements made by our church leaders, are all considered scripture for us to enjoy and learn from. I mean, I am sorry I don’t find the Tanner’s set-up convincing,
And I do hope that doesn’t annoy them too awful much, but there is too much evidence the other way which they have left alone.
So anyway…. Going on…. The Zelph incident they raise on p. 2 was recently very well discussed and analyzed by Kenneth W. Godfrey, in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, so the Tanners are seriously dated in that respect.14 And see? Here we have another mini lesson in discussing Mormonism, let alone history, doctrine, or whatever. There is always new research and information coming out, so it is best to not necessarily pontificate on how abjectly wrong or right something is in Mormonism. What may be wrong yesterday is just that. Wrong then, but with new research, it turns out to be a completely different situation. This the Tanners, at least it appears to me, have yet to fathom. Apparently they believe that once something has been supposedly demonstrated incorrect or wrong, or actually downright evil, then it is obvious that we all should be jumping ship immediately and never looking back. I will explore this later on as the opportunity to do so will arise again and again.
Their discussion of the Garden of Eden on page 1 being in Missouri was also discussed by myself in a FARMS publication and hence they again find themselves outdated and saying things which are entirely irrelevant.15 The plain fact, as I noted, is that the actual location of the Biblical Garden of Eden is still not agreed on with Biblical scholars. The Tanners appear to me at least, to sincerely want to not see this crucial information. Archaeologically, the plain and brutal fact is this. The Garden of Eden is still unknown. It is that simple. As if it matters anyway. For crying out loud does salvation for Christians depend on whether the Garden of Eden’s location is known or not? This is truly silly as far as I believe. But, I mean it seems the Tanners just have to have something to say in a negative light, and so they drudge up all kinds of interesting irrelevancies all over the place. What it reflects on my take of it, is their stubborn determination to skew things with Mormonism. I believe they ought to try, when they are updating, to present a more balanced and realistic view of Mormonism. But then I am a Mormon. However, it is precisely Mormons who are their audience isn't it? Or is it?
O.K., so to get on with it already. I was laying in bed reading this first chapter, taking notes, and thinking through it all. I notice the Tanners apparently feel it is important to establish that Joseph Smith, none other, was the first to say and believe that men lived on the moon. This is quite important for the Tanners to establish apparently. They spend their entire update of this chapter trying to show they have found more sources, blessings in early Mormonism, etc., rather than showing they understand the wider context of Mormon cosmology. How they go about it is quite revealing in my opinion. It is also totally useless in my opinion, but then again, as I have noted, I am a Mormon, so obviously things like this I wish to dismiss. But, there are reasons why I want to show they are worth dismissing because they really don’t make the point which the Tanners wish to make.
I will give them credit for one thing to be sure. They didn’t stoop so stupidly low in their argument to actually proclaim this idea was a prophecy. Other anti’s have said this, but of course, without the slightest evidence.
Well, O.K., as a scientist friend of mine has always told me, what is the assumption in an argument? The argument is only as strong as the assumptions upon which it is based. In this case, the assumption appears to me to be the utter silliness of a prophet of God believing that people live on the moon. It is impossible, and wrong, and therefore the Prophet shouldn’t have believed it. This shows the Prophet to be false. That is the assumption of this argument, so far as I can see. I am willing to be corrected if I am wrong.
So what of it? Well the first thing to note is there is simply no first hand material which demonstrates Joseph Smith actually taught this. It all comes from later secondary sources. Now secondary sources have their value I must admit, as I use them heavily in many areas of my own research. However, conclusions based on secondary sources simply must be understood to be tentative and not firmly established fact. They are indicators, so to speak, not the law. This is why in my own use of secondary sources, I seriously try to get primary sources as well. This is crucial to do for sound historical research.
Context is another area that the Tanners need to sincerely work on. Once we realize that the context of the Prophet’s time was such that even astronomers and Bible scholars were indicating belief in life on the moon, the anomaly disappears. Now it might be assumed that a Prophet is supposed to teach total truth and not fall prey to the times he or she lives in, but all records, whether the Bible, Book of Mormon, D&C, PofGP, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Quran, etc., indicate this is not necessarily the case.
One very good book showing how Joseph Smith’s understanding was expanded with further light and knowledge, is Robert J. Matthews book on the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Another is Gary James Bergera, "Line Upon Line," showing that full and complete concepts are not automatically bestowed upon prophets just because they are prophets. A prophet can be mistaken in his or her belief. This has nothing to do with whether the office is true or not. There is no freedom taken away from believing something incorrect when one becomes a prophet.
But there is another approach to this topic as well. When even the followers of Joseph Smith believed in inhabitants on other planets and even in the sun, this is used as total incredulity for the Tanners. This is just too silly for words! The sun? Yeah right, as if we could exist on such a hot sphere. Notice the assumption here though. The assumption is that it is human inhabitants with flesh and blood living on the sun. Nowhere does Brigham Young say such. Do the Tanners not believe in other types of living beings besides humans? What of spiritual beings? Now it is well known that Joseph Smith taught that God dwells in everlating burnings. Heaven is hot. The angels come from realms of light according to many ancient sources. They are associated with light, heat, glory, etc. Who is to say what kind of beings Brigham Yong was talking about? Emanuel Kant, the great philosopher even noted that the universe is inhabited with many kinds of beings, and in fact our own moon and Jupiter, etc., as well as the sun are such!15
Does this prove though, to the Tanners then, that Science itself is a phony enterprise? If it proves it for Mormonism, why not for philosophy, science and religion in general? It just honestly appears to me to be a double standard based on the Tanner’s hope of making Mormonism look just plain stupid with stupid teachings. But it backfires when context is understood. In fact, the Medieval Cabalist Johann Reuchlin even noted that the "Hashamayim", is always translated in the plural, as "the heavens," a plurality of heavens and worlds the eyes have not seen yet.17
Another area which is relevant to this idea is understanding the Mormon Cosmology ideas. There is no wasted space nor planets. This was an Early Christian theme such that there was a continuous creation and destruction of worlds, and the inhabitants of them as Hugh Nibley has so remarkably demonstrated.18 The dovetailing concept of God involved with all his creatures throghout the immensity of space with inhabitants on other planets, even the moon and sun, makes much more sense with a wider view and understanding. Some of those inhabitants may very well be human, others may be spirit. We just don’t know. Nibley has shown how in the Enoch literature, the world moans and groans and quakes, and the entire cosmos shares in its fate. Nay even "inhabitants in other worlds weep too." This carried on right up into early Christian times as their writings describe it.19
What I notice is that none of this is taken into account by the Tanners. They wish to keep it narrow and confined in order to try and demonstrate a contradiction. Well, I find their methodology unconvincing. Erich Robert Paul in his magnificent detailed look into science and early Mormonism, also noted that there are simply no sources to firmly tie this teaching to Joseph Smith. Although I would add, it wouldn’t shake me if there were discovered something someday which does. In a broader and larger scale, it makes perfect sense.20 So, I find the Tanners first chapter to be a hodge-podge of delicious tidbits of gossipy wonderment, but not a convincing or conclusive discussion of much of anything.
Endnotes
See Daniel C. Peterson, "By What Measure Shall We Mete?" in Farms Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, FARMS, Vol. 2, 1990: viii, where he notes the non-Mormon sociologist, Rodney Stark said "It is possible today to study that incredibly rare event: the rise of a new world religion" (since the call of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century A.D.) "The Mormons will soon achieve a worldwide following comparable to that of Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and the other dominant world faiths."
2. Tanners, p. 1, column 1. I'll reference the Tanners by which quotes are in either column 1 or column 2 on that page.
3. John Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting For the Book of Mormon, Deseret Book/FARMS, 1985: Chapter 2. He shows quite convincingly that we are dealing with lineage history. He demonstrates from the Book of Mormon itself that it is not a complete history of everything and everyone in ancient America either.
4. Marc Bloch, The Historian's Craft, Vintage Books, 1953: 20, where he says that history has no credo, it commits us to nothing other than inquiry. And that inquiry can lead to serious problems, as Colin Renfrew notes in his Archaeology & Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, Cambridge University Press, 1990, where he states rather matter of factly, "...archaeologists have, with a few notable exceptions, failed in recent years to take adequate account of the linguistic evidence in building up our picture of the past." (p. 3). In other words, our understanding of the past is incomplete and inadequate, because we approach it incorrectly. R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Oxford University Press, reprint 1967: 9-10 notes that history is not the evidence of the past, but it is our interpretation of that evidence, with the obvious fact that we have a myriad of unanswerable questions left over after we go through the incomplete evidence. This is amply demonstrated in Robin W. Winks, ed., The Historian as Detective, Harper Torch Books, 1969: "...evidence and its evaluation remain inexact for the historian..." (p. xvi). Sir Charles Oman lamented "The human record is illogical... and history is a series of happenings with no inevitability about it." As quoted in Barbara Tuchman, Practicing History, Ballantine Books, 1981: 22. Daniel J. Boorstin, Hidden History: Exploring our Secret Past, Vintage Books, 1989: 3, notes that "The historian can rediscover the past only by the relics it has left for the present." He further explains in no nonsense language that "My own experience as a historian has brought me vivid reminders of how partial is the remaining evidence of the whole human past, how casual and accidental is the survival of its relics." (p. 4). And finally, to round out my rather small sampling of examples, Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, Deseret Books, 1967: viii, "we are not going to prove anything in this book. The evidence that will prove or disprove the Book of Mormon does not exist."
5. Tanners, p. 1, Column 2.
6. David A. Reed, John R. Farkas, Mormons Answered Verse By Verse, Baker Book House, 2nd Printing, 1993: 121.
7. John Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting, p. 50.
8. Paul K. Conkin, Roland N. Stromberg, The Heritage and Challenge of History, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1971: 130.
9. H. Michael Marquardt, Wesley P. Walters, Inventing Mormonism, Smith Research Associates, 1994: 197.
10. Ibid., p. 197.
11. The current talk of objectivity by many anti-Mormons (Jim Spencer is simply atrocious for this in his book Have You Witnessed to a Mormon Lately?) is simply silly for many reasons. One of the best explanations is given by Paul K. Conkin, Roland N. Stromberg, Ibid., where they note "Neither history nor any other cognitive discipline can be objective if that means such impossible things as certain truth or exact correspondence to some hidden reality or such unlikely, undesirable, or absurd requirements as complete neutrality, impersonality, and detachment." (p. 197). They further note "The demands of objectivity do not preclude a historian's personal interest in often quite selective historical subjects and in highly creative and imaginative constructs that are never identical to any past reality...after all, being objective, or even being true, is not the only goal of most historians; it is never the sole aim of any good historian." (p. 198). Barbara Tuchman, Practicing History, says it the best however. "There is no such thing as a neutral or objective historian. Without an opinion a historian would be simply a ticking clock, and unreadable besides." (p. 29). And further, "A reporter with no bias at all would be a vegetable. If such a thing as a ;purely objective' historian could exist, his work would be unreadable - like eating sawdust. Bias is only misleading when it is concealed." (p. 59).
12. Richard L. Bushman, "Just the Facts Please," in FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6, #2, 1994: 122-133, reviewing this book Inventing Mormonism. Also Larry C. Porter reviewed this same book in FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 7, #2, 1995: 123-143.
13. John A. Tvedtnes and Stephen D. Ricks each had a review of Walter's book The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon, in FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 4, 1992: 220-250.
14. Kenneth W. Godfrey, "What is the Significance of Zelph in the Study of Book of Mormon Geography?" in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 8/2 (1999): 72-79.
15. Kerry A. Shirts, "Terminating some Terminology Problems Between Evangelical Christians and Mormon Christians," in FARMS Review of Books, 12/1 (2000): 323-334.
16. Michael J. Crowe, The Extra-Terrestrial Life Debates: 1750-1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds from Kant to Lowell, Cambraidge Univ. Press, 1988, p. 53f.
17. Johann Reuchlin, De Arte Cabalistica, translated by Martin and Sarah Goodman, On the Art of the Kabbalah, Univ. of Nebreaska Press, 1983, p. 345.
18. Hugh Nibley, "The Expanding Gospel," and "Treasures in the Heavens," in Nibley on the Timeley and Timeless, Truman Madsen ed., Religious Studies Center, BYU, 1978, chs., 2, 3. Also see Hugh Nibley, "Unrolling the Scrolls – Some Forgotten Witnesses," in Old Testament and Related Studies, FARMS/Deseret, 1986, ch. 6.
19. Hugh Nibley, Enoch the Prophet, FARMS/Deseret, 1986, p. 14. See especially pp. 236-248!
20. Erich Robert Paul, Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1992, pp. 108-109, but read chapters 4 and 5 for a more complete treatment of the early Mormon Cosmology which the Tanners have completely missed.