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Yes I believe they were talking about the urim and thummim.
Well, they mentioned the urim and thummim, but then the guy said "actually, a good deal of the translation was done with what is called a seer stone, he put the stone in the bottom of a hat to block out the surrounding light, then put his face up to it to see"
Regarding my take on "The Mormons" on PBS: The first episode wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it wasn't that objective either, i.e., they nearly always used carefully-weighted language, as in "orgy of belief," and "exhaulting in persecution," etc. (never heard any mention from my grandparents regarding their grandparents exhalting in the persecution---get real! who in their right minds would have such a reaction?).
The talking-heads were not labeled pro or con but, as a member of the LDS Church, I would judge that maybe 3 & 1/2 were pro, the rest con--and besides that what expertise do a couple of poets, an English prof., and an expert in Islamic Studies, et al, have regarding the "Mormons"? They were also throwing out 'facts' without any reference or verification of such (except for one or two references to someone's grandmother's journal).
In regard to Brigham's ordering the horrid events at Mountain Meadows, if I remember right, they based part of that "fact" on his meeting with Piutes 3 days prior to the event and supposedly telling them to have at it, and thus precepitated (and ordered) the slaughter. Problem is it's around 300 miles from where Brigham (and the Indians) were to where the sad tale was enacted. Being as there was no e-mail, no Blackberry, no phone-lines, those Indians really rode their horses at unbelievable speed in order to get to Cedar City, get the organization together, and get everyone out to Mountain Meadows to follow Bro. Brigham's supposed orders in just 3 days--and by horse or wagon it isn't just a short afternoon's ride from Cedar to the Meadows! Also, I've been to the site in question and I don't recall any bucolic springs or serene pond in the area--which brings up another, albeit minor, point: they kept using visuals which had no relationship to the sites they where talking about (guess the real sites didn't bring on enough sense of the foreboding or isolation necessary to support religious "fanaticism").
While they probably were trying (or thought they were trying) to be objective, given such a topic--Joseph either told the truth or he lied; there's no half-way point about such a thing---then it's a given that objectivity is an almost impossible goal, and it appears that the majority producing, writing, and performing come down on the side that Joseph was a liar.
Oh, and one (okay, maybe two) other things: they completely glossed over the Book of Mormon, even stating that it really hadn't/doesn't upset anyone as it didn't add anything new to existing Christian thought---which only proves that they haven't really read or studied the Book of Mormon. They also skimmed over the idea that what Joseph did was to restore to the earth the Church of Christ, the church and priesthood that had been lost over the preceding 2,000 years. Perhaps they glossed over these two ideas because they didn't dare delve into the answers?
Anyway, tonight's episode may prove to be even more interesting!
Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others all had multiple wives. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Solomon must've been sore!
Well said. I make no excuses for the practice in our history. The Church practiced Plural Marriage until such time as it became illegal. I couldn't care less what others think. My only irritation with the topic today is the idiot press and its obsession with the topic.
Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others all had multiple wives. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Solomon must've been sore!
yes, but it gets pretty annoying to get on the bus and hear kids say "hey mormon, how many wives do you have?" and stuff like that. If they don't know I let them know that we don't have that practice anymore. If they are just trying to get to me I just say something like "What, is one the best you can do?" heh, that one usually gets them to cool off
I've only watched about 70 minutes of part 1, the rest is on Tivo waiting for me. I didn't see those minutes as objective at all, and LlasaLost has an excellent point in reference to the choice of language the producers used. I'm interested to see how much reference there is to plural marriage, and if they will point out some additional facts regarding that. Such as, not all of the Priesthood practiced plural marriage. Plural marriage also allowed wives and children of murdered husbands to retain their property, and very often never resulted in "consumation". At the time, women in the US were not allowed to own property. I'm wondering too if it will be mentioned that when Utah became a state in the US, LDS women lost their right to vote and own property, because although Church Elders firmly recognized this as a right, the US government did not.
Why would anyone want to deal with that many wives!!! Talk about not thinking about anything else other, then your??
I can barely handle one, let alone 700.
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