DCP "Apologizes" for Anti-Strangite Writings

[_Dr Moore]

With almost no effort, one could likewise quote B.H. Roberts or even Gordon B. Hinckley, simply by eliminating "either" and leaving off the affirmative part.

[_Tom]

In my post linked above (addressing an Interpreter article by Peterson that compared the Book of Mormon witnesses to Strang's witnesses), I wrote:

Dismissing Strang's plates as "almost certainly forgeries," Peterson asserts that "[o]ne source reports that most of the four witnesses to the Rajah Manchou plates ultimately repudiated their testimonies" (xx). Peterson does not identify the source beyond noting that his discussion was drawn from Milo M. Quaife, The Kingdom of Saint James: A Narrative of the Mormons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1930) and Roger Van Noord, The King of Beaver Island (Champaign/Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988) (see xix, n.26). (In a footnote, Quaife's biography identified the names of the four witnesses to the Rajah Manchou plates before baldly asserting: "Like the witnesses to Joseph Smith's plates, most of these [witnesses] later apostatized and repudiated Strang" (Kingdom of Saint James, 17).)

Peterson made the identical claim regarding the four witnesses to the Rajah Manchou plates in a 2011 Deseret News column, "Defending the Faith: The story behind James Strang and his sect." A FairMormon page quotes passages from the same column, including the sentence in question.

Note that in a January 2006 message board post (quoted here), Peterson commented on the source, admitting that "the credibility of this source is suspect, since it also asserts that the Book of Mormon witnesses repudiated their testimonies, which is demonstrably false." In an August 2006 FairMormon conference address, however, Peterson did not repeat this comment. Instead, he stated: "One not altogether reliable source reports that most of the four witnesses to the Rajah Manchou plates ultimately repudiated their testimonies" (6, emphasis added).

J. Runnells has commented as follows on Peterson's 2011 claim regarding the four witnesses:

Daniel C. Peterson’s [2011 Deseret News] article states, "One source reports that most of the four witnesses to the Rajah Manchou plates ultimately repudiated their testimonies." What FAIR and Peterson fail to tell their readers about this source is that this source also asserts that the Book of Mormon witnesses likewise repudiated their testimonies of the Book of Mormon.

I recently checked a Strang biography that Peterson did not cite in either his 2011 Deseret News article or his 2017 Interpreter article: Doyle Fitzpatrick's The King Strang Story: A Vindication of James J. Strang, the Beaver Island Mormon King, and found this sentence regarding the four witnesses (p. 34):

Most of these witnesses eventually repudiated their testimonial, as did those witnessing the plates of Joseph Smith, which were also claimed to have been acquired by "divine intervention" from the hill of Cumorah.

Why did Peterson not mention in his Deseret News and Interpreter articles that the "[o]ne source report[ing] that most of the four witnesses to the Rajah Manchou plates ultimately repudiated their testimonies" also reported that the Book of Mormon witnesses did the same?

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Serious question. Can anyone think of an individual more sloppy, dishonest and intellectually bankrupt as Daniel C. Peterson?

Another serious question. Can anyone think of an individual who has plagiarized more than Daniel C. Peterson?

[_Shulem]

Serious question. Can anyone think of an individual more sloppy, dishonest and intellectually bankrupt as Daniel C. Peterson?

Joseph Smith

Another serious question. Can anyone think of an individual who has plagiarized more than Daniel C. Peterson?

Joseph Smith

[_Philo Sofee]

Serious question. Can anyone think of an individual more sloppy, dishonest and intellectually bankrupt as Daniel C. Peterson?

Another serious question. Can anyone think of an individual who has plagiarized more than Daniel C. Peterson?

The only one that comes to mind, in all seriousness to the first issue is Donald Trump.
The second issue is that he has no peers. He is the very best at it,

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Tom,

Remarkable posting and sourcing. Thank you.

- Doc

[_Doctor Scratch]

Thank you Tom! What a cold and calculating edit to the text!

Yes: that is straight-up sophistry.