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 | Thursday, Oct 27, 2005, at 10:50 AM The Lord Acknowledges Oliver's Divineing Abilities Posted By Anonymous OLIVER COWDREY -Guid- | ↑ |
| In the original Book of Commandments of 1833 we find this revelation given through Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery:
" you shall receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you ask in faith, with an honest heart...Remember this is your gift. Now this is not all, for you have another gift which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you many things:behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands, for it is the work of God;and therefore whatsoever you shall ask me to tell you by that means, that will I grant unto you, that you shall know." In the subsequent version called The Doctrine and Covenants published in 1835 the Lord seems to have wanted a different rendition. It is as follows: " Now this is not all your gift, for you have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron: behold it has told you many things; behold there is no other power save the power of God that can cause the gift of Aaron to be with you; therefore doubt not, for it is the gift of God, and you shall hold it in your hands, and do marvelous works; and no power shall be able to take it away out of your hands ,for it is the work of God" The rod reffered to above is a divining rod used to find buried treasure. When people talk about mormon culture being rich etc. I blanch a bit. This just seems like silly treasure hunting turned religion to me. I think JS and Oliver were, as Van Wagoner calls them " Pious Frauds" . Now for a little fun. Here is something that a treasure digger should never have to ask: Where is my rod? I mean, if you have the gift of Aaron why do you need to ask. Just feel for it. |
| | Tuesday, Dec 12, 2006, at 06:53 AM Oliver Cowdery's Excommunication Posted By Jim Huston OLIVER COWDREY -Guid- | ↑ |
In the Church News there were three articles dealing with Oliver Cowdery. In part these articles said:
Oliver was “the chief beneficiary of one of Joseph Smith’s most peculiar qualities; his generosity in sharing his vision.”So what did happen? In 1836 the Kirkland Safety Society Bank was formed. Orson Hyde was sent to the legislature to try to secure a charter and Oliver Cowdery was sent to secure printing plates for the bank. The charter was denied, so the bank reorganized as an anti-bank or quasi banking organization in 1837. Joseph Smith used boxes full of rocks with a layer of coins on top to show the bank assets in order to get people to deposit money. In reality most of the assets of the Mormon Church and the members was in land. At that time there was a great deal of land speculation in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri. This drove the land prices from around $7.00 per acre to around $44.00 per acre. Joseph Smith used the money that the bank did have to speculate further. By 1839 the price of land fell to the $17.00-$18.00 per acre. The bank and the Church had invested $60,000 in land and no longer had funds to cover its obligations. Oliver Cowdery was the Vice President of the anti-bank and signed most of the bank notes. Joseph Smith made himself cashier rather than an officer. At the same time, Joseph Smith started down the road to polygamy. Oliver did not support polygamy. Late in 1837 Joseph Smith wrote the following in the newspaper: I am disposed to say a word relative to the bills of the Kirtland Safety Society Bank. I hereby warn them to beware of speculators, renegades and gamblers, who are duping the unsuspecting and the unwary, by palming upon them, those bills, which are of no worth, here. I discountenance and disapprove of any and all such practices. I know them to be detrimental to the best interests of society, as well as to the principles of religionJoseph Smith also gave the following testimony: He claimed that a nonmember of the Church by the name of Sapham had told him in Kirtland that a warrant had been issued against Oliver "for being engaged in making a purchase of bogus money and dies to make the counterfeit money with." According to the Prophet, he and Sidney Rigdon went to visit Oliver concerning the matter and told him that if he were guilty, he had better leave town; but if he was innocent, he should stand trial and thus be acquitted. "That night or next," the Prophet said, Oliver "left the country" (A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri From 1836 to 1839, p.146).Sidney Rigdon testified: After Oliver Cowdery had been taken by a State warrant for stealing, and the stolen property found ... in which nefarious transaction John Whitmer had also participated. Oliver Cowdery stole the property, conveyed it to John Whitmer ... Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Lyman E. Johnson, united with a gang of counterfeiters, thieves, liars, and blacklegs of the deepest dye, to deceive, cheat, and defraud the saints out of their property....Oliver Cowdery purchased the plates and signed most of the notes from the Kirkland anti-bank when there was no acceptable collateral to back up the notes. This was considered to be counterfeiting. Joseph Smith directed him to sign notes, then accused him of counterfeiting when there was a break. In the excommunication hearing point 8 was his involvement in “bogus business” as described in a common report. The common report was the newspaper article written by Joseph Smith Jr. The testimony against Oliver Cowdrey on the subject was provided by Joseph Smith and circumstantial evidence. Another point in the excommunication was that Oliver had sold a piece of his own land without the approval of Joseph Smith. Apparently there was an additional problems between Joseph Smith and Oliver. In his reply to the Church concerning his excommunication, he complained about the theocratic rule that Joseph Smith had instituted. Oliver Cowdery responded to the excommunication in part by saying: The very principle of which I conceive to be couched in an attempt to set up a kind of petty government, controlled and dictated by ecclesiastical influence, in the midst of this national and state government. You will, no doubt, say this is not correct; but the bare notice of these charges, over which you assume the right to decide, is, in my opinion, a direct attempt to make the secular power subservient to Church direction - to the correctness of which I cannot in conscience subscribe - I believe the principle never did fail to produce anarchy and confusion.Here is a summary of charges against Oliver Cowdery and his response to the Mormon Church. http://lds-mormon.com/oliver.shtml Here is a complete transcript of the excommunication proceedings and responses to his letter: http://www.saintswithouthalos.com/m/3... On January 12, 1838, faced with a warrant for his arrest on a charge of illegal banking, Smith and Rigdon fled to Clay County, Missouri just ahead of an armed group out to capture and hold him for trial. |
| | Thursday, Feb 1, 2007, at 08:46 AM Oliver Cowdery Teaching In Manchester - As Early As 1826? Posted By JeffH OLIVER COWDREY -Guid- | ↑ |
| That's what the authors of "Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?" (Cowdery, Davis, Vanick, 2005) argued between pages 288 and 293, but I have my doubts and want to get feedback from anyone who might be more convinced by their argument.
The authors begin with a statement by Lorenzo Saunders: http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs2/... The quoted portion of the statement is this: "I received your note ready at hand and will try (to) answer the best I can and give all the information I can as respecting Mormonism and the first origin. As respecting Oliver Cowdery, he came from Kirtland in the summer of 1826 and was about there until fall and took a school in the district where the Smiths lived and the next summer he was missing and I didn't see him until fall and he came back and took our school in the district where we lived and taught about a week and went to the schoolboard and wanted the board to let him off and they did and he went to Smith and went to writing the Book of Mormon and wrote all winter. The Mormons say it [want] wrote there but I say it was because I was there."The WRWBM authors identify the two schools spoken of by Saunders: 1) the Stafford School ("in the district where the Smiths lived", Ontario Co. District #11, school on Stafford Rd. ~1.3 miles south of the Smith home) and 2) the Armington School ("the district where we [Saunders] lived", Ontario Co. District #10, school on Canandaigua Rd. ~1 mile east of the Smith home). There are other important implications if all Saunders says is true, but I want to focus on the part about Oliver's teaching activities. The generally believed chronology among scholars is that Oliver taught school in Manchester during the 1828-29 term (the exact school not specified), and spent much or all of that time boarding with the Smiths, prior to traveling to Harmony PA to write for Joseph in April 1829. Nothing is typically said about Oliver's exact activities prior to that, so Saunders's statement is very important if it can be verified. Saunders places Oliver at two different schools in different terms (albeit the second one being only a brief stint), and his chronology puts Oliver teaching in the Smith's district in 1826-27, two years before the 1828-29 term. From this, the WRWBM authors propose a new chronology that puts Oliver at the Stafford School in for the 1826-27 term, the Armington school briefly at the start of the 1827-28 term before going to work on the BoM, and then back to the Armington School for the 1828-29 term. The authors present supporting statements from people who attended the Stafford school with the Smith children that pretty solidly establish that Oliver taught at the Stafford School. Some don't mention for how long, but Saunders's statement mentions just one term and Christopher Stafford specifically said that it was one winter. A statement of John Stafford supports the Saunders claim that Oliver had taught at the Armington school, but neither of these two statements gives enough information to determine how long. Saunders's 1885 statement talks just about the brief start to the one term, but there's not specific mention that he returned to teach another term. The WRWBM authors claim that Oliver taught the 1828-29 term at the Armington school, but there's no direct evidence I see to confirm that it wasn't the Stafford School - I think they are forced to say it was the Armington school because they already used up their "one year" at the Stafford school (1826-27) in their proposed chronology. I'm not convinced of the authors' chronology, primarily because all the statements can be reconciled if we suppose just one specific error in Saunders's statement. Suppose Oliver really arrived to live and teach in Manchester in 1828, and that the year 1826 given in Saunders's statement is incorrect. Perhaps Saunders was simply wrong, or there's the possibility that an 8 in the written statement was misread as a 6 (I know that sounds lame, but it can't be denied as a possibility). Anyhow, re-reading Saunders's statement again with 1828 instead of 1826 seems to fit well with what we already know (or think we know), and I propose the following Chronology:
I still think Oliver's activities prior to the 1828-29 school term in Manchester are likely very important to understanding BoM origins. I'm just not convinced by this particular claim that puts Oliver as the teacher in the Smith's school as early as 1826. There is a separate piece of evidence that may tell us something about Oliver's teaching career. If you have Vogel's "Early Mormon Documents (vol. 5)", go to page 287 and read the letter from Lee Yost to Diedrich Willers, Jr. (1897). Yost says Oliver Cowdery was a teacher in Fayette sometime prior to Smith's arrival there (along with some other strange tales about Oliver's activities). If Yost is at least correct about Oliver being a teacher there, that could be how he and the Whitmers were first acquainted. Perhaps Oliver had taught school in Fayette in the 1827-28 term or earlier. Other clues as to Oliver's whereabouts in the 1826-28 time frame are rare. We have his name appearing here: http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/NY/miscNYS0.htm#110727 We also have a statement from David Whitmer which places Oliver in Palmyra in 1828 prior to his boarding with the Smiths, and which suggests that Oliver had indeed been acquainted with the Smiths prior to the school term: http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/MO/Miss1881.htm#060581 |
| | Thursday, Jul 30, 2009, at 09:15 AM Magic Sticks And Stones Used By The Early LDS Church Posted By SpongeBob SquareGarments OLIVER COWDREY -Guid- | ↑ |
| Many truth seekers are familiar with the magical seer stones Joseph used to translate the Book of Mormon with. But many people are not aware that Oliver Cowdery used a magic stick referred to as the Rod of Aaron to obtain revelation with.
The ‘gift of Aaron’ referred to in the Doctrine and Covenants used to be called the ‘gift of working with the rod’ in the predecessor of the D&C called the Book of Commandments. From section 7 of the BofC: “Now this is not all, for you have another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you things: behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands…” Oliver Cowdery’s gift was really a divining rod. The origins of the Church are much more involved in folk magic and superstition than we’ve been lead to believe by the LDS Church’s heavily-censored versions of its history. As the Church began to grow, the leaders of the early church were embarrassed by the magical practices that were fundamental to the development of the Church such as the use of seer stones and divining rods. If we accept the beginnings of the Church as actual events, then we must believe that the rod Oliver used was more than just a stick, and that the stone Joseph used to translate the Book of Mormon with was a magic stone. We can see why the Church has moved away from even talking about these things. The church leaders today have distanced themselves from external devices believed to have magic power, to receive God’s revelations. But the historical record is clear that the early Mormon leaders relied on special ‘sticks and stones’ in order to produce “the revelations” they claimed were from God. To learn more about Oliver’s divining rod: http://mormonthink.com/rodofaaron.htm To learn more about Joseph’s use of magic stones: http://www.mormonthink.com/transbomwe... |
 | Thursday, Aug 6, 2009, at 08:13 AM It's All Over: Oliver Knew It Was All A Fake Posted By Steve Benson OLIVER COWDREY -Guid- | ↑ |
| Stephen Van Eck, in his article, "The Book of Mormon: One Too Many M's," writes that Oliver Cowdery admitted to his law firm colleague, Judge W. Lang, that the Book of Mormon was a hoax, manufactured from Solomon Spaulding's unpublished novel, "Manuscript Found":
" . . . W. Lang, whose law firm the excommunicated Oliver Cowdery joined . . . wrote, 'The plates were never translated and could not be, and were never intended to be.' (This suggests that Cowdery still believed that there were actually plates.) "'What is claimed to be a translation is "The Manuscript Found" worked over by C.' (Cowdery) 'He was the best scholar among them.'. . . . "'Rigdon got the original at the job printing office in Pittsburgh . . . Without going into detail or disclosing a confidential word, I can say to you that I do know, as well as can now be known, that C. revised the manuscript and that Smith and Rigdon approved of it before it became the Book of Mormon.'" Eck offers this explanation of Lang's account: "Apparently Cowdery had admitted the hoax to Lang, but took all the credit for it. "This is not consistent with Cowdery being the servile follower of Smith that he had been. Had Cowdery given Smith the completed manuscript, furthermore, losing the first 116 pages of the dictated 'translation' would have scarcely been a problem. Cowdery, despite his apparent boasting to Lang, can be considered a collaborator at best, but a conspirator at least." http://secweb.infidels.org/?kiosk=art... Lang made the above-mentioned claim that Cowdery had knowingly participated in the Book of Mormon production hoax in letter Lang wrote to Thomas Gregg of Hamilton, Illinois, in 1881. Below are relevant, expanded excerpts from text of Lang's letter to Gregg: "TIFFIN, O., NOV. 5, 1881. "DEAR SIR: - Your note of the 1st inst. I found upon my desk when I returned home this evening and I hasten to answer. Once for all I desire to be strictly understood when I say to you that I cannot violate any confidence of a friend though he be dead. "This I will say that Mr. Cowdery never spoke of his connection with the Mormons to anybody except to me. We were intimate friends. "The plates were never translated and could not be, were never intended to be. What is claimed to be a translation is the 'Manuscript Found' worked over by C. [Cowdery] He was the best scholar amongst them. Rigdon got the original at the job printing office in Pittsburgh as I have stated. "I often expressed my objection to the frequent repetition of 'And it came to pass' to Mr. Cowdery and said that a true scholar ought to have avoided that, which only provoked a gentle smile from C. "Without going into detail or disclosing a confided word, I say to you that I do know, as well as can now be known, that C. revised the 'Manuscript'and Smith and Rigdon approved of it before it became the 'Book of Mormon.' I have no knowledge of what became of the original. Never heard C. say as to that." (quoted in Charles A. Schook, "The True Origin of The Book of Mormon" [Cincinnati, Ohio: The Standard Publishing Co., 1914], pp. 56-57); for the full text of the letter, see: http://solomonspalding.com/docs2/1914...) |