When was Joseph Smith's treasure digging 'accepted' by TBM's?

[_Ray A]

I'm reading the Hofmann book 'Salamander' right now. Apparently, Hofmann faked a Joseph Smith / Josiah Stowell 'treasure digging' letter. The book mentions how 'damaging' this document would be, since it would confirm Joseph Smith's treasure digging.

However, it's a pretty widely accepted fact now that he was a treasure digger.

So my question: When did his treasure digging become a non-issue and widely accepted by the TBMs / apologists?

Ronald Walker addressed this subject in a c.1983 issue of BYU Studies, and his article mentioned "some things about Joseph Smith we need to come to terms with". Don't have the article before me, but I believe it was around this time that Church historians began addressing this "for broader public consumption". Likewise, it was the early '80s, in Dialogue, when there were many articles about Joseph Smith's alcohol drinking, and from that time on it was gradually embedded into the LDS psyche as a fact. Nearly every missionary I served with in the mid-70s was unaware of Joseph Smith's imbibing, and we even repeated the story about his refusing alcohol when he was operated on for an infected leg. The imbibing is in the 7 volume History of the Church, though many portions were excised by B.H. Roberts at the turn of the last century, when he edited the History.

[_mentalgymnast]

hi Dr. Shades. you said: Back in the Hofmann days, such Mormons were far, far more difficult to find.

MG: doesn't mean they weren't here and there, and there, and there...even pre-Hoffman.

I was a teenager in the late sixties, early seventies. I remember seeing shelves of Dialogue and Sunstone in my dad's office. I was curious and did quite a bit of reading. It was interesting stuff. Was I an anomally growing up in a Dialogue/Sunstone home? Who knows...

Maybe my father and others like him were harder to find. Doesn't mean they weren't scattered all over.

Regards,
Mg

[_Dr. Shades]

hi Dr. Shades. you said: Back in the Hofmann days, such Mormons were far, far more difficult to find.

MG: doesn't mean they weren't here and there, and there, and there...even pre-Hoffman.

Isn't that what I essentially just said?

Maybe my father and others like him were harder to find. Doesn't mean they weren't scattered all over.

Didn't I imply precisely that?

[_mentalgymnast]

hi Shades. you said: Didn't I imply precisely that?

MG: well, it looks as though we're on the same page. Those whom you refer to as internet Mormons were around, pre-internet. They were called "members of the church". In other words's, there have always been numerous members of the church that have been open to and curious (to the point of doing investigative research to some extent or another) in regards to some of those things that the nowadays "died in the wool skeptic" would like to think are "something new under the sun".

Thanks for the clarification.

Why the big deal about so-called "internet Mormons" anyway? Are they some kind of "special creation"?

Regards,
MG

[_Runtu]

How is any of that damageing?
I found it really interesting.

I'm not sure it would be damaging had Joseph not fudged about his participation in this activity. Nor would it have been a problem had church leaders and apologists not roundly dismissed the account. Nor would it had Joseph not have claimed to use the same method to see buried treasure to translate the plates.

I personally don't find peepstones any more or less preposterous than using a Urim and Thummim attached to a breastplate, so I've never really understood the desire to dismiss this information.

[_Dr. Shades]

MG: well, it looks as though we're on the same page. Those whom you refer to as internet Mormons were around, pre-internet. They were called "members of the church".

But Internet Mormon doctrines weren't so clearly (quasi-)codified and identifiable as they are now.

In other words's, there have always been numerous members of the church that have been open to and curious (to the point of doing investigative research to some extent or another) in regards to some of those things that the nowadays "died in the wool skeptic" would like to think are "something new under the sun".

But they most likely kept their newfound knowledge under wraps and tried to reconcile their faith in their own way. They weren't out peddling their justifications to the world as "the real Mormonism" until the Internet.

Why the big deal about so-called "internet Mormons" anyway? Are they some kind of "special creation"?

More like "new species."