Question: Claims of joseph smith being convicted of fraud, evidence for against?

(Posted by: shadfurman on 2009-11-18 13:02:15)

I know I'm going to get a lot of crap from anti- mormons, for those unwilling to put forth a legitimate argument or evidence, or just filled with such animosity to only blindly criticize, your timeless uselessness will be ignored. Thanks. For everyone else: I had a well educated and thoughtful friend of mine put forth a claim that Joseph Smith had been convicted of fraud before the formation of the LDS church for reasons unrelated to the formation of the church or the authorship/ translation of the Book of Mormon. I've yet to locate any reasonable evidence distinct for the obviously biased and unreferenced plethora of anti- mormon literature. Can anyone direct me to a well documented, preferably fairly unbiased, source of evidence for or against this claim? Yahoo answers is not really for people who want to do the research themselves, its for lazy people who don't want to spend the time doing the research or for people who want others opinions. I'm in the former category, yes I'm doing SOME "research ", but it's a lot easier if someone who already knows where to find the info could just link me too it. This is the wonderful thing the internet has done with social networking. I have found transcripts with photos of the alleged indictment and find their authenticy probable. This is what I was looking for, thanks for all your help. Though the credibility of the source is easily questionable, the admittance of possible authenticy from apologists causes it to be sufficient for me. While this proves my friends claim fairly accurate, I do not read any confession of being guilty of fraud, his confession of the events are do not seem to me to be any more spectacular than other proclaimed events in the formation of the church true or not. Here is one of the sources I read. http:/ / www.utlm.org/ onlinebooks/ changech4.htm Of course however I would enjoy any thoughtful comments on the matter. Thanks again. :- )

Posted by: Truth on 2009-11-18, 13:08:22

The newspaper archives of his home town. It is also referenced in the book No Man Knows by History which was written by a BYU historian.

Posted by: Kyrcant on 2009-11-18, 13:07:07

Skeptoid.com, search for Mormon.

Posted by: johnblessed01 on 2009-11-18, 13:08:48

Correct in love.. Show the error for reproof.. This is ok to do.. In the link is the answer to your question.. How to talk to a Mormon about their faith.. Is the Book of Mormon an acceptable text? Check the link..

Posted by: Matt on 2009-11-18, 13:09:31

It's a matter of public record in the new york state court system

Posted by: Science H.Logic ! on 2009-11-18, 13:12:02

Some religions are more stupid than others. Take the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka the Mormons, for example. They believe that Jesus appeared to a guy named Joseph Smith, an American then in his mid-teens, and asked him to restore the original Christianity. That was in… the 1820’s. So let’s see: after 1,800 years, Jesus thinks his movement is not doing well in the world, so to turn things around he calls upon a teenager who happens to live in a country which at the time had less than 10 million people! Wait, there’s more! Smith also said he was told where to find an ancient scripture referred to as the Golden Plates from an angel named Moroni. He found them in 1827 on a hill near Manchester, New York, and they became the source for his 1829 translation of the Book of Mormon. The Golden Plates were written by Mormon, who was… a pre-Columbian prophet-warrior. They wrote in a language Smith called “reformed Egyptian.� But was Smith able to read “reformed Egyptian“? Not needed! The words of the text appeared to him in English. I’m not making that up. Could we at least take a look at those plates? Sorry, the angel took them back… And about that hill where the Golden Plates were found? It’s called the Hill Cumorah, it’s in upstate New York, and it is described in the Book of Mormons as a place where around 250,000 soldiers and a total of about a million people were killed around the year 380 in a battle between the descendants of a couple of prophets who had left Jerusalem at the urging of God in 600 BC. A million people killed? You’d think there would be some archaeological evidence. Nope. None! Can you get any more stupid than that? Note #1: Think nobody would fall for that kind of lunacy? Think again: the worldwide membership of the Mormon Church is about 12.5 million! Note #2: One of the most prominent members of the Church is Mitt Romney, the current Republican governor of Massachusetts, and an early favorite to be the next US president! (Sigh)

Posted by: tjsgigante on 2009-11-18, 13:16:17

I took a church history class, and from what I remember, his first appearance in court happened shortly before he married Emma. From what I understand, it was one of her suitors that brought the case up. I don't remember anything they mentioned in class about any trial appearances prior to the church formation.

Posted by: William I on 2009-11-18, 13:19:42

Do the research yourself, we learned about it in AP US History Class. He was arrested a few times for fraud crimes.

Posted by: Obey me or go to hell. Love, god on 2009-11-18, 13:22:58

Science H. Logic said it all. It embarrasses me as a human, that some of my fellow humans are dumb enough to believe this garbage.

Posted by: Simon T on 2009-11-18, 14:04:45

Even the Mormon appologetics sites admit that he was arrested and tried four times. The only question is whether he was found guilty or not. The fact that the Mormon applogetics say nothing on the latest set of documents found in 2005 speaks volumes. If he had been found innocent they would have used it as evidence to vindicate their prophet. To me the fact that they have no comment on this indicates to me that he as found guilty. Considering that many of his other claims have been debunked by science this would not be surprising to me.

Posted by: gintzer on 2009-11-18, 14:21:04

Somebody on this forum about a month ago presented some evidence that he was given "leg bail ". Basically, they were asserting he was told to get out of town or face trial for glass looking. Again, it was not hard evidence of a conviction. Only, that he was charged, which is not new information to anybody. I think basically the argument was that he essentially pleaded what would be a 'no contest' in today's world and had to leave town. If memory serves, there is some dispute by Mormon apologists about the authenticity of the origin of this evidence since the person who presented it removed it from its original location. Again, no hard evidence of a conviction. If they did have it, they would be screaming and yelling and jumping up and down about it all day long. You should be able to find it somewhere, I would guess.

Posted by: Mormon Eric on 2009-11-18, 14:42:19

I don't have a copy of the book in front of me right now, but the most definitive, academic work on Joseph Smith's life is "Rough Stone Rolling " by Richard Bushman. He writes pretty extensively (without sugar coating) about Joseph Smith's early years. If I remember correctly, Joseph Smith was accused many times, but never convicted of any crime, but you'll want to double check that.

Posted by: mormon_4_jesus on 2009-11-18, 20:00:31

There was no proof that he even committed a crime, actually. There's no real record of conviction, only that he was charged and paid some kind of court costs of some kind. The deal is, that Wesley P. Walters found these records in the basement of the Bainbridge Co. NY court house, and stole them. Yes, just tore them out and took them without telling anyone. So, they COULD have been doctored by him or someone else, we will never really know. (BTW, Walters is very anti-Mormon) He didn't give them back until Bainbridge Co. SUED him to get them back. So, really, can we even trust what we see?

Posted by: socal duck on 2009-11-18, 22:47:14

Joseph was never convicted of any crimes, only accused.