Sidney Rigdon’s testimony to his son

Last updated on: September 5, 2018 at 9:53 am by Dan Peterson

Sidney Rigdon’s testimony to his son 2018-09-05T09:53:29-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Newport Beach California Temple (LDS Media Library)

Here’s a really interesting presentation by Matt Roper and Paul Fields — just slightly under 32 minutes in length — that I commend to your attention. It deals on the basis of statistical analysis with the question of the authorship, or the multiple authorship, of the Book of Mormon:

“Abinadi to Zenos: 28 Speakers in the Book of Mormon”

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Also, for your listening pleasure — perhaps for when you’re on the walker, strolling around your neighborhood, doing the wash, mowing the lawn, or trying desperately to tune out some politician’s speech — there’s this, from the Interpreter Foundation:

Interpreter Radio Show — June 17, 2018

For this particular iteration of the show, Kris Fredericson and Bruce Webster discussed the stories of 1 Samuel (including Eli, Samuel, Saul, David, and Goliath), Fathers’ Day, fatherhood more generally, Doctrine and Covenants 121, moral relativity, and evolution.

Enjoy!

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Jeff Lindsay offers some worthwhile thoughts here:

“Joseph Smith’s Universe and Some Ruminations on Chinese Sci-Fi”

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I enjoyed this, from Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Council of the Twelve:

“Is There a Place for Me?”

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John Wickliffe Rigdon, a son of Sidney Rigdon, left a memoir of his father. It was published as Karl Keller, ed., “‘I Never Knew a Time When I Did Not Know Joseph Smith’: A Son’s Record of the Life and Testimony of Sidney Rigdon,” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1/4 (1966): 15-42. Here is something from pages 41-42, where John tells about his return from Utah Territory — he had not been positively impressed — and about a conversation with his father:

Soon after I got home, I told him the state of affairs in Salt Lake and, as it was all a humbug, I wanted to know how the Book of Mormon came into existence, for he owed it to his family to tell all he knew about it and should not go down to his grave with any such grave secrets. He said, “My son, I will swear before God that what I have told you about the Book of Mormon is true. I did not write or have anything to do with its production, and if Joseph Smith ever got that [i.e., the Book of Mormon], other [than] from that which he always told me ([that is,] that an angel appeared and told him where to go to find the plates upon which the book was engraved in a hill near Palmyra), Smith guarded his secret well, for he never let me know by word or action that he got them differently, and I believe he did find them as he said, and that Joe Smith was a prophet, and this world will find it out some day.” I was surprised, [for he was] smarting under what he thought was the ingratitude of the Church for turning him down and not having been with them for over 25 years. I must believe he thought he was telling the truth. He was at this time in full possession of his faculties. What object had he in concealing the fact any longer if he did write it? My father died in 1876 at the age of 83, a firm believer in the Mormon Church. After my father’s death, I told Mother what my father had told me about the Book of Mormon. She said, “Your father told you the truth. He did not write it, and I know, as he could not have written it without my knowing it, for we were married several years before the book was published, and if he wrote it, it must have been since our marriage. I was present and so was your sister Athalia Rigdon, who was a girl of about ten years old when the book was presented to your father, and she remembers the circumstances as well as any recollections of her life.”

Posted from Newport Beach, California

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