Mormons: What is your explanation of the Hofmann forgeries?

Question

Here is another accurate, proveable and truthful question-sometimes known to some as a put-down, lie or slam due to difficulties answering it:

How do you explain President Hinkley purchasing all those alleged historical artafacts from Mark Hofmann thinking that they were legitimate? Where were his powers as a seer when they were found to be forgeries by non-LDS law enforcement?

Answer 1

Gordon Hinkley isnt even a very good conman. He dont make prophecies because he knows he will be proven to be a fraud like ol' Joey. He gave a now famous interview on Larry King where he flat out denied the doctrine of "Eternal Progression" (as God is, man may become, and God was once a man like us) by saying "I dont know that we teach that"

Ask them why they get their Holy Scriptures like the "Book of Abraham" from traveling circuses instead of God. Joseph Smith purchased 2 mummies and their burial scrolls from a traveling circus in 1838. Back then nobody could read Egyptian yet and ol' Joey wanted to impress his new flock of believers . He proceeded to "Translate" the burial scrolls and the end product was the "Book of Abraham" allegedly an original document written by Father Abraham himself over 4000 years ago. Amazingly, as the current story goes, "Very well preserved and still rollable". Naturally they somehow lost it and now nobody knows where it is. But they didn't loose the burial scrolls that were also purchased with the mummies. Facsimiles of the burial scrolls were published by the church in the pearl of great price and represented to be the Book of Abraham . Undeniable proof of the prophetic power of Joseph Smith. That is, until the Rosetta Stone was discovered and Egyptian could be translated. When the Egyptologists arrived to examine the Book of Abraham papyri, they found them to be ordinary burial documents for the mummies they came with. Total Fraud. I don't know what the official church line is on this one but members claim the existence of the rollable 4000 yr scroll that is allegedly now lost.
If true, the Book of Abraham would have been the most astonishing archaeological discovery of all time. A "well preserved rollable scroll" written by Father Abraham himself over 2000 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. But, oops, they lost it. I suggested to one of my Mormon acquaintences that instead of going to church on Sunday we should go to the circus. The kids all agreed. I told the parents that instead of 10% of your income it would be about 25 bucks. We might even run into some new Scriptures out there for the Prophet to translate. I hear the books of Isaac and Jacob have been floating around over at Ringling Brothers.

Answer 2

The Hoffmann Forgeries are small potatoes compared to:

The church once rushed to the conclusion that the Kinderhook Plates were evidence of Smith's 'Seer and Translator' abilities (Improvement Era, 9/62).

The current debate (actually the debate is over in scientific circles) concerning the authenticity in the Papyri translations or interpretations.

Amer-Indian DNA and the extent of Lamanite civilization as stated (many times) by Joseph Smith does not coincide at all.

But yes, I fully expected a prophet of god to know when a deception is being made on his one true church. He didn't, and in return, I don't like being deceived either.

Answer 3

I think the mormons will agree with me on this one that IF it was a real document, the mormons idea was to collect all history past and present because of geneology reasons. Either way it looked bad.

Answer 4

It is my personal opinion that Hinckley purchased those forgeries to prevent them from being spread to the public.

Answer 5

Oh that is one of the things the Mormons actually admit to.

Answer 6

A con-man getting conned!

Pretty funny!

Answer 7

His "powers as seer"? Like he can just magically tell things like by touchy feely or something?

His "powers as seer" are only what GOD decides to tell him.