If there’s a chance the church isn’t true, would you want to know?
I served a two year mission to Germany from 1990-92. I was a TBM through and through, and I worked hard to find those who were seeking for the truth. Once in a while, I would ask someone we met while going door to door, “If our church was true, would you want to know?” I was surprised when I heard this response for the first time: “No, I don’t want to know.” I asked her, “Why not?” She said: “If it’s true, I’ll have to change my life and do whatever your church asks. That’s not something I am prepared to do.” That was something that never made sense to me. Doesn’t everyone want the truth, and then want to follow wherever that leads?
Something that has always piqued my interest is the Book of Abraham. I knew the story behind how the church bought the Egyptian mummies and the papyri, and then Joseph Smith said he translated them. We even have the bonus of the three facsimiles, which were drawings taken from the papyri, and then Joseph Smith explained what the symbols and drawings meant. A few years ago I had read some of what fairmormon.org had said about it, and their explanations seemed OK. Fast-forward to January of this year. I wondered, was there anything else to read online about the Book of Abraham? I always assumed that because the church is true, no facts I could read would change that. Soon I was reading at MormonThink.com and the CES Letter how Egyptologists can easily translate and identify the facsimiles, along with the remaining parts of the papyri found in 1966. These are ordinary funerary documents, found with lots of other mummies, having nothing to do with Abraham. Abraham isn’t mentioned anywhere in the papyri. I then learned the LDS church wrote an essay about the Book of Abraham, and it backed up everything I had read from supposedly “anti-Mormon” sites:
None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham’s name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham. Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham, though there is not unanimity, even among non-Mormon scholars, about the proper interpretation of the vignettes on these fragments. Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts that were deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.
I was shocked beyond belief, and I exclaimed out loud to no one in particular: “It’s all a fraud!” My desire for knowledge had lead me to realize Joseph Smith had made it all up. It doesn’t speak to his motive, but to me it’s clear evidence that he didn’t translate the Book of Abraham like he said he did. At this point I was asking myself, if the evidence is so clear that the Book of Abraham is a fraud, what else is there I don’t know? It turns out there was a LOT I didn’t know, but I’ll save that for other posts.
At this point I had a decision to make. Like Morpheus’ offer to Neo in “The Matrix”, I could either take the red pill and embrace “the sometimes painful truth of reality” or take the blue pill and return to being a TBM, staying in the false (but comfortable) reality I had known my whole life. For me, there was no question. Just like I wanted potential investigators to do while on my mission, I want to follow the truth wherever it goes. Even if it means I’ve been dedicating large amounts of time and money to something that’s false, I had to be willing to admit I’ve been wrong all these years.
Take the red pill and embrace the possibly painful reality, or remain in ignorance with the blue pill?
Greetings, Steve:
I am a 66 year old ex-Mormon elder, possibly much older than you are. I spent from 1970 until 2000 doing the devil’s work in the LDS Church, mostly as a stake/district/branch missionary, and a ward mission leader. I like what you have to say about the BOA. I’m in Northern Virginia presently living near the Mormon apologist Michael Griffith, who has as much a seared conscience and mormonized mind as anyone I’ve ever known in the Mormon Church. The man has no real ability of separating fact from fiction, and has written a couple of books lying about the authoritative translation of Dr. Klaus Baer, from the Oriental Institute, and Dr. John Wilson, from Brown University, in the late 1960s. I personally chatted with Dr. Baer in late 1979 by telephone, before his death, and he told me in detail about his translation of the Joseph Smith papyri, and stated that Smith had definitely used the 12 fragments to create his fictional account of Abraham.
You may not know this, but California lawyer, and once-vigilant Mormon, Thomas S. Ferguson detailed in numerous letters that he wrote to people during the 1960s that he had learned from Egyptologists at U.C. Berkeley that the Joseph Smith papyri were only Egyptian funerary texts from the Egyptian Book of Breathings. You see, Ferguson had attained some prominence in the LDS Church for persuading Mormon Prophet David O. McKay to provide him with about $300,000 of church funds to establish the New World Archeological Foundation and go to Mesoamerica and South America to dig for artifacts proving the existence of Nephite and Lamanite civilizations. Ferguson spent five years searching for, at least, one Nephite coin, but found nothing, and returned to the USA an ex-Mormon who had lost all faith in the BOM. When he had heard about Dr. Klaus Baer’s translation of the JSP, he swore that he contacted Mormon Apostle Hugh B. Brown and expressed his feelings to Brown. Ferguson documented his contact with Brown in a letter that he wrote. Ferguson stated that Brown had also stated his doubts about the BOA, and told Ferguson that it shouldn’t be regarded as Mormon scripture. Later, Brown lied publicly when he was asked about what he had told Ferguson about the BOA. Dr. Stan Larson, former curator of rare collections at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah, published a collection of Ferguson’s letters in a book, and Stan, at my request, sent me copies of those letters in 2003.
The Mormon Church is the source of more lies about its theology, doctrines, and history, than any other church, besides the Catholic Church, in the world. Those essays that they published on LDS.org are purely for liability purposes. Tom Phillips (of MormonThink) had already filed a lawsuit against the LDS Church in the United Kingdom, and had it dismissed by a British Mormon judge. I’ve been endeavoring to get a USDOJ investigation going against the Mormon Church for its fraudulent missionary program intended to defraud Christian convert Mormons out of their tithing money. The Mormon Church is much like a large illegal multi-state insurance company that sells fraudulent policies to swindle unwitting Christians out of their money.
I have a Christian ministry going to acquaint unwitting Christians who know nothing about Mormonism about Mormon polytheism, through “Lesson 21-Man May Become Like God,” from the 1984 LDS Melchizedek Priesthood Personal Study Guide, “Search These Commandments,” created by, then, Mormon Apostle Gordon B. Hinckley. I succeeded in getting it placed on the MormonThink.org website at the following address – http://www.mormonthink.com/files/Lesson%2021%20Man%20Can%20Become%20Like%20God%201984.pdf
I believe that Mormon Church growth through fraudulent recruitment by missionaries can be diminished by use of “Lesson 21.” Read it and you will see. Any Christian investigator who reads “Lesson 21” will know immediately that real Mormon theology is unbiblical, un-Christian, and even contradicts the Book of Mormon, Mormon 9:9-10. Getting it out to Christians who haven’t been accosted by the Mormon missionaries is very important. Mormon apologists, like Griffith, can lie and misrepresent the facts about the BOA, but there’s no sophistry that can refute the truth of “Lesson 21.”
Great post. I once was one who couldn’t possibly see anything other than the church being true and have since gone down the rabbit hole. My husband and I are both from families that are still so devoted that the mere suggestion of another idea makes them livid. I can’t blame them though, it’s their own cognitive protection and they mean well. But man it can be so very hard navigating those relationships after you’ve had the “awakening.”