Doctor Scratch wrote:A new, sort of "end-around" plug for the "Witnesses" movie:
SeN wrote:Martin Harris was obliged to mortgage all of the property that he owned. And he did so in the face of incessant predictions that he was throwing his money away, and against the protests and machinations of his wife Lucy, who had once believed in the forthcoming book but was now bitterly hostile. (My addition: And, as it happened, there was a boycott of the Book of Mormon that pretty well made the predictions come true.)
Why was Martin Harris so committed?
Maybe it has something to do with what looks like a wireless mic, clipped onto the back of his belt?
Even before he had become a Mormon, Harris had changed his religion at least five times.[35] After the death of Joseph Smith, Harris continued his earlier pattern by remaining in Kirtland and accepting James Strang as Mormonism's new prophet, who claimed to have a new set of supernatural plates and witnesses to authenticate them. In August 1846, Harris traveled on a mission to England for the Strangite church, but the Mormon conference there declined to listen to him;. When he insisted on preaching outside the building, police removed him.[36]
By 1847, Harris had broken with Strang and accepted the leadership claims of fellow Book of Mormon witness David Whitmer. Mormon Apostle William E. McLellin organized a Whitmerite congregation in Kirtland, and Harris became a member. By 1851, Harris had accepted another Latter Day Saint factional leader, Gladden Bishop, as prophet and joined Bishop's Kirtland-based organization.[37] In 1855, Harris joined with the last surviving brother of Joseph Smith, William Smith and declared that William was Joseph's true successor. Harris was also briefly intrigued by the "Roll and Book," a supernatural scripture that was delivered to the Shakers.[38] By the 1860s, all of those organizations had either dissolved or declined. In 1856, his wife left him to gather with the Mormons in Utah Territory while he remained in Kirtland and gave tours of the temple to curious visitors.[39]
In 1859, Harris gave an interview which described him as "an earnest and sincere advocate of the spiritual and divine authority of the Book of Mormon." It clarified that Harris "does not sympathize with Brigham Young and the Salt Lake Church. He considers them apostates from the true faith; and as being under the influence of the devil. Mr. Harris says, that the pretended church of the 'Latter Day Saints,' are in reality 'latter day devils,' and that himself and a very few others are the only genuine Mormons left." [28][40]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Ha ... Day_Saints)
So the Book of Mormon cost Harris his wife and his farm and he left the Church declaring Jospeh Smith an apostate under the influence of the devil.
So why did he get re-baptised?
In 1870, at 87, Harris moved to the Utah Territory and, shortly afterward, was rebaptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Harris, who had been left destitute and without a congregation in Kirtland, accepted the assistance of members of the LDS Church, who raised $200 (equivalent to $4,000 in 2019) to help him move west. Harris lived the last four and a half years of his life with relatives in Cache Valley. He died on July 10, 1875, in Clarkston, Utah Territory, and was buried there.
Financial imperative, nothing to do with believing in the Book of Mormon. His involvement with Joseph Smith ruined his life.
John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for most of the book, said that he had asked Harris, "Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?" According to Gilbert, Harris "looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, 'No, I saw them with a spiritual eye.'"[43] Two other Palmyra residents said that Harris told them that he had seen the plates with "the eye of faith" or "spiritual eyes."[44][45] In 1838, Harris is said to have told an Ohio congregation that "he never saw the plates with his natural eyes, only in vision or imagination."[32] A neighbor of Harris in Kirtland, Ohio, said that Harris "never claimed to have seen [the plates] with his natural eyes, only spiritual vision."[33]
I wonder if Peterson's vanity project will reflect that...
