Question: Is Wikipedia's portrayal of Martin Harris as a gullible, superstitious man accurate?

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Question: Is Wikipedia's portrayal of Martin Harris as a gullible, superstitious man accurate?

Martin Harris is portrayed by critics as unstable, gullible and superstitious

One critic of the Church states that Martin Harris "was known by many of his peers as an unstable, gullible, and superstitious man...."

The following quotes are taken from Wikipedia's article "Martin Harris (Latter Day Saints)" to support this assertion:

“Once while reading scripture, he reportedly mistook a candle’s sputtering as a sign that the devil desired him to stop. Another time he excitedly awoke from his sleep believing that a creature as large as a dog had been upon his chest, though a nearby associate could find nothing to confirm his fears. Several hostile and perhaps unreliable accounts told of visionary experiences with Satan and Christ, Harris once reporting that Christ had been poised on a roof beam.” – BYU professor Ronald W. Walker, “Martin Harris: Mormonism’s Early Convert,” p.34-35

“No matter where he went, he saw visions and supernatural appearances all around him. He told a gentleman in Palmyra, after one of his excursions to Pennsylvania, while the translation of the Book of Mormon was going on, that on the way he met the Lord Jesus Christ, who walked along by the side of him in the shape of a deer for two or three miles, talking with him as familiarly as one man talks with another.”[1] – John A. Clark letter, August 31, 1840 in Early Mormon Documents, 2: 271

“According to two Ohio newspapers, shortly after Harris arrived in Kirtland he began claiming to have “seen Jesus Christ and that he is the handsomest man he ever did see. He has also seen the Devil, whom he described as a very sleek haired fellow with four feet, and a head like that of a Jack-ass.” – Early Mormon Documents 2: 271, note 32. [2]

The Wikipedia article emphasizes Harris's superstitious qualities and ignores his religious qualities

The Wikipedia article from which these quotes are taken deliberately emphasizes Harris's superstitious qualities while minimizing his work for the community and his religious qualities. We recommend that readers read the following article from Roger Nicholson for a summary of the charges of his "superstitions" and a response to them:

Upon reading the Wikipedia article about Martin Harris, we encounter quite a contrast from those things that we learn in church. The first thing that we learn about Martin is that he “was a prosperous farmer,” and that his neighbors “considered him both an honest and superstitious man.” The article then goes on in detail to note that Harris’s “imagination was excitable,” that he “once imagined that a sputtering candle was the work of the devil,” and that he was considered “a visionary fanatic.” The article continues by stating that “his belief in earthly visitations of angels and ghosts gave him the local reputation of being crazy,” and that “he was a great man for seeing spooks.” It is easy to see which aspects of Harris’s life the Wikipedia article attempts to emphasize. There are a few token mentions of honesty and prosperity, followed by extensive recitations of Harris’s superstitious qualities.[3]


Notes

  1. This source is from a second-hand, antagonistic, hearsay account. The source can hardly be determined as reliable for an accurate reconstruction of Martin's behavior
  2. Wikipedia article "Martin Harris (Latter Day Saints)," off-site, citations quoted in Jeremy Runnells, "Letter to a CES Director" (2014)
  3. Roger Nicholson, "Wikipedia’s Deconstruction of Martin Harris," FairMormon Blog (23 January 2013).