Author: Bill McKeever
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Should Joseph Smith Appear Today
By Bill McKeever Mormons have a tendency to rarely criticize their founding prophet. To hear many of them speak, Joseph Smith was a man of impeccable character who was a beacon of morality to his followers. Brigham Young went so far as to say:
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A Greater Prophet than Isaiah?
By Bill McKeever The June 27, 1998 edition of the LDS Church News, in commemoration of the 154th anniversary of Joseph Smith’s death, quoted from a 1933 book entitled Joseph Smith an American Prophet. This book, written by John Henry Evans, was an attempt to give a ‘scientific treatment of Joseph Smith … without smothering…
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True and False Prophets
By Bill McKeever Speaking at the October, 1999 General Conference, LDS Apostle M. Russell Ballard warned his audience to “beware of false prophets and teachers.” Ballard stated “there are false prophets and false teachers who have or at least claim to have membership in the [LDS] Church.”
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Movie Review: An American Prophet
By Bill McKeever “Millions of people around the world know of him. Yet this frontier prophet of the early 1800’s found little honor and eventual martyrdom at the hands of an angry mob in his own country. Who was this Joseph Smith and what was it about his remarkable life story, which inspired such impassioned…
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The "Rising Generation" and Christ’s Second Coming
By Bill McKeever In an April 1843 general conference speech, Joseph Smith predicted that Jesus Christ would not return before he would reach the age of 85. He said, “Were I going to prophesy, I would say the end [of the world] would not come in 1844, 5, or 6, or in forty years. There…
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Faith Alone and the Joseph Smith Translation
By Bill McKeever Several LDS leaders have expressed their distain for the biblical teaching of salvation by grace through faith alone. Joseph Fielding Smith, on page 192 of The Restoration of All Things, stated, “One of the most pernicious doctrines ever advocated by man, is the doctrine of ‘justification by faith alone,’ which has entered…
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Joseph Smith – "President of the Resurrection"
By Bill McKeever Since Jesus made it clear to Martha in John 11:25 that He was the “resurrection and the life,” there has been no question among Christians as to who is responsible for the resurrection of mankind. Apparently Brigham Young, Mormonism’s second president, would care to differ.
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Joseph Smith – The Second Muhammad?
By Bill McKeever In its early years of Mormon history the LDS Church met serious resistance when it attempted to expand into the state of Missouri in the 1830s.
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Final Moments at Carthage Jail and the Death of Joseph Smith
The events leading to the death of Mormon founder Joseph Smith are much like the events surrounding his life—full of contradiction. To hear Mormons tell the story, Smith did no wrong; for others, he did no right. Like most stories, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
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“Praise to the Man” – Elevating Joseph Smith
By Bill McKeever
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Amorous Advances by the Mormon Prophet
By Bill McKeever Mormon historian Richard Van Wagoner paints anything but a flattering picture of Joseph Smith in his book Sidney Rigdon, Portrait of Religious Excess. In his chapter titled “Between Friends and Family,” he notes that “perhaps the most scandalous manifestation of Smith’s lust for manly achievement was his inclination toward extra-martial romantic liaisons,…
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The Book of Abraham
By Bill McKeever According to the Documentary History of the Church (DHC) 2:235, it was on July 3, 1835 when Michael Chandler “came to Kirtland (OH) to exhibit some Egyptian mummies.” According to the record, “There were four human figures, together with some two or more rolls of papyrus covered with hieroglyphic figures and devices.”…
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Doctrine and Covenants 137:7 – Is It Better To Have Never Known?
By Bill McKeever
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White and Delightsome or Pure and Delightsome? – A Look at 2 Nephi 30:6
By Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson For much of its history, the Salt Lake City-based LDS Church edition of the Book of Mormon taught that dark-skinned Lamanites (Indians) would eventually experience a change in the color of their skin should they embrace the Book of Mormon. Except for a single edition (1840), 2 Nephi 30:6…
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Did Mahonri Moriancumr Discover America?
By Bill McKeever Who was first to reach the New World? Many historians believe it was the Italian-born explorer Christopher Columbus, who, on August 3, 1492, set sail across the Atlantic and, three months later, landed on an island in the Bahamas he called San Salvador. Others contend that explorers from the north country, the…
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Smithsonian Institution Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon
Some Latter-day Saints, in their zeal to give tangible authenticity to the Book of Mormon, have told prospective converts that the Smithsonian Institution has used the Book of Mormon to verify sites in the New World. In response to numerous requests on this subject, the Smithsonian has issued the following paper detailing their position on…
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Headless People Don’t Do Push-Ups – the Story of Coriantumr and Shiz
By Bill McKeever Can a decapitated body lift itself up and gasp for breath? A story in the Book of Mormon seems to say so. The story is found in the Book of Ether and recounts a sword fight between a Jaredite king named Coriantumr (Ether 12:1) and Shiz, the brother of Lib (Ether 14:17).
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Was Jesus Born “at Jerusalem”?
In the early 1990s we wrote two articles and an unpublished manuscript about the mistake that we believe Joseph Smith made in the Book of Mormon regarding the origin of Jesus’ birth. We received immediate feedback from the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), an organization based at Brigham Young University in Provo,…
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A Seer Stone and a Hat – "Translating" the Book of Mormon
Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon via a seer stone is debated. Eyewitness accounts describe his use of a hat to block light during the process, raising questions about its credibility.
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Praying About the Book of Mormon – Is it Biblical?
By Bill McKeever “And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of…