Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/"Questions and Answers" on Mormon Stories/Treasure digging

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Response to questions related to Joseph Smith's treasure digging

Polygamy

A FAIR Analysis of: "Questions and Answers: What aspects of LDS Church teachings/doctrine do you still believe in, vs. not?", a work by author: John Dehlin

Translation of the Book of Mormon

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• "As a youth and young adult Joseph Smith engaged in folk magic and treasure digging"
• "find buried treasure by placing a magic stone in a hat"
• "Joseph was still able to convince many people that he had special powers"

The author's unresolved question

"(25 June 2014 revision): As a youth and young adult Joseph Smith engaged in folk magic and treasure digging"

Author's source(s)

Joseph Smith/Money digging/Was this a blot on his character

The author's unresolved question

"(25 June 2014 revision): find buried treasure by placing a magic stone in a hat"

Author's source(s)

Response to the author's claim

Joseph Smith, his family, and friends never referred to his seer stone as a "magic stone"—only hostile sources and critics of Joseph Smith call it that.

Joseph Smith used the same "rock in hat" seer stone for translating that he used for "money digging"

Jump to Subtopic:

• Gospel Topics: "As Joseph grew to understand his prophetic calling, he learned that he could use this stone for the higher purpose of translating scripture"
• Question: Why would Joseph Smith use the same stone for translating the Book of Mormon that he used for "money digging"?
• Question: What role did Joseph fill in the community as a youth?
• Question: Didn't Joseph's 1826 Bainbridge appearance before a judge prove that he had previously been using his stone for nefarious purposes?
• Question: Why would Joseph Smith not continue to use the sacred interpreters provided with the Nephite record?
• Question: Did Joseph use his seer stone to view the location of the gold plates in the Hill Cumorah?
• Question: Did Joseph Smith use his own seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon?
• Question: Did Joseph Smith use the Nephite interpreters to translate? Or did he use his own seer stone?
• Question: Did Joseph Fielding Smith say that it was not reasonable for Joseph Smith to use a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon?
• Question: Why is the "white stone" that we are to receive upon entry to the Celestial kingdom not discussed extensively in Sunday School?
• Brant A. Gardner, "Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?"

Joseph Smith and folk magic or the occult

Jump to Subtopic:

• Question: What is the distinction between belief in "folk magic" and a religious belief in the supernatural?
• Question: Were Joseph Smith's spiritual experiences originally products of magic and the occult?
• Question: What were the attitudes of Joseph Smith and his contemporaries toward "magic"?
• Question: How did Joseph Smith use his seer stones as a youth?
• Question: Was a "vagabond fortune-teller" named Walters Joseph Smith's "mentor"?
• Question: Does Lucy Mack Smith's mention of the "faculty of Abrac" and "magic circles" evidence that "magick" played a strong role in the Smith family's early life?
• Question: Did Joseph Smith, Sr. practice "divination"?
• Question: Did early members of the "Mormon" Church believe in witchcraft?
• Question: Was the fact that the recovery of the Book of Mormon plates occurred on the autumnal equinox somehow significant?
• Question: Did Joseph Smith derive his religious ideas in part from a mysticism called Kabbalah?
• Question: Did Joseph Smith have a Jupiter talisman on his person at the time of his death?
• Question: What is the source of the story about Joseph Smith possessing a Jupiter talisman?
• Stephen Robinson: "In the case of the Jupiter coin, this same extrapolation error is compounded with a very uncritical acceptance of the artifact in the first place"
• Question: Could the list of items on Joseph's person at the time of his death have been incomplete?
• Question: What is the probability that Joseph Smith possessed items related to "magic"?
• Question: Was a "magic dagger" once owned by Hyrum Smith?
• Question: Does the Book of Mormon’s reference to “slippery treasures” stem from Joseph Smith’s involvement in money digging and the occult?

The author's unresolved question

"(25 June 2014 revision): Joseph was still able to convince many people that he had special powers"

Author's source(s)

Response to the author's claim

How exactly was the young Joseph Smith able to "convince" people that he had "special powers"....unless he actually had them?

Notes