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Question: How do the witnesses of the Book of Mormon compare to the witnesses of Ann Lee's ''A Holy, Sacred and Divine Roll and Book; From the Lord God of Heaven, to the Inhabitants of Earth''?: Difference between revisions
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It's clear that comparisons between the Book of Mormon witnesses and the witnesses to Ann Lee's | It's clear that comparisons between the Book of Mormon witnesses and the witnesses to Ann Lee's book intended to discredit the former are likely going to be guilty of the false equivalency logical fallacy. | ||
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Revision as of 04:58, 5 March 2022
Question: How do the witnesses of the Book of Mormon compare to the witnesses of Ann Lee's A Holy, Sacred and Divine Roll and Book; From the Lord God of Heaven, to the Inhabitants of Earth?
Introduction to Question
One critic of the Church asks how we can believe in the Book of Mormon witnesses and not the witnesses to Ann Lee's A Holy, Sacred and Divine Roll and Book; From the Lord God of Heaven, to the Inhabitants of Earth.[1]
Response to Question
The Divine Roll and Book Fell out of Favor with Leaders, Members, and Witnesses of the Shaker Movement
The first point is made succinctly by Matthew Roper. He responded back in 1993 to the same criticism as made by Gerald and Sandra Tanner. He wrote:
The Tanners attempt to downplay the significance of the witnesses’ written testimony by noting similarities between it and several nineteenth-century Shaker writings in which some Shaker believers claimed to have seen angels and visions. “Joseph Smith only had three witnesses who claimed to see an angel. The Shakers, however, had a large number of witnesses who claimed they saw angels and the book. [In Shaker writings,] there are over a hundred pages of testimony from ‘Living Witnesses.’ “[2] But the quantity of witnesses has little meaning if those witnesses afterwards admit that they were wrong. Unlike the Book of Mormon, the Shaker Roll and Book afterwards fell into discredit and dishonor among the Shakers themselves and was abandoned by its leaders and most believers,[3] while the Book of Mormon continued to be a vitally important part of Mormon scripture to which each of the witnesses, including Martin Harris, continued to testify, even while outside of the Church.[4]
Comparison of the Different Testimonies
When comparing the testimonies of the experiences of the Book of Mormon Witnesses and the Shaker witnesses, Brian Hales offers this easy-to-read chart:
The Shakers are a Now Defunct and Discredited Religious Movement
As author Jim Bennett observed about this criticism:
So we shouldn’t accept the testimony of Book of Mormon witnesses because the Shakers, who no longer exist and who’s central claims have been completely discredited by the passage of time, claimed to see angels? How is that anything but a non sequitur? Each testimony should be evaluated on its own merits. As it stands, the Shakers no longer exist, so I don’t see much value in reviewing their testimonies.[5]
Conclusion
It's clear that comparisons between the Book of Mormon witnesses and the witnesses to Ann Lee's book intended to discredit the former are likely going to be guilty of the false equivalency logical fallacy.
Notes
- ↑ Jeremy T. Runnells, CES Letter: My Search for Answers to My Mormon Doubts (n.p.: CES Letter Foundation, 2017), 103–04.
- ↑ Jerald Tanner and Sandra Tanner, “Roper Attacks Mormonism: Shadow or Reality?” Salt Lake City Messenger 82 (September 1992): 14.
- ↑ One nineteenth-century authority on the Shakers relates, “Some of the most curious literature of the Shakers dates from this period [early-to-midnineteenth century]; and it is freely admitted by their leading men that they were in some cases misled into acts and publications which they have since seen reason to regret. Their belief is that they were deceived by false spirits, and were unable, in many cases, to distinguish the true from the false. That is to say, they hold to their faith in ‘spiritual communications,’ so called; but repudiate much in which they formerly had faith, believing this which they now reject to have come from the evil one. . . . The most curious relics of those days are two considerable volumes, which have since fallen into discredit among the Shakers themselves, but were at the time of their issue regarded as highly important. One of these is entitled ‘A Holy, Sacred, and Divine Roll and Book, from the Lord God of Heaven to the Inhabitants of the Earth.‘ . . . The second work is called ‘The Divine Book of Holy and Eternal Wisdom, revealing the Word of God, out of whose mouth goeth a sharp Sword.’ . . . These two volumes are not now, as formerly, held in honor by the Shakers. One of their elders declared to me that I ought never to have seen them, and that their best use was to burn them,” in Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States (New York: Hillary House Publishers, 1961), 235, 245, 248, 250; this is a reprint of the 1875 edition.
- ↑ Matthew Roper, "Comments on the Book of Mormon Witnesses: A Response to Jerald and Sandra Tanner," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2, no. 2 (1993): 179–80.
- ↑ Jim Bennett, A CES Letter Reply: Faithful Answers For Those Who Doubt (Sandy, UT: n.p., 2018).