Huh, that really frames the ‘religious fervor’ of the time. Luckily, we can add Denver Snuffer to that list, excepting, of course, that he views himself as an angel now.Nevo wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2023 6:26 amHe's not a Mormon, so he probably does see it as fiction, but he doesn't discuss that in his books. He describes his approach in the Introduction to Blood from the Sky: Miracles and Politics in the Early American Republic (which also looks at early Mormonism). He is not concerned with adjudicating the truth or falsity of the beliefs that he writes about, but is interested in how beliefs affect behavior.Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2023 4:57 amIsn't Adam Jortner critical of the Book of Mormon? Like, he sees it as fiction, no?
So we get passages like this:
Adam Jortner wrote:By the time Joseph Smith had his first visit from the angel Moroni (traditionally dated to 1823), angels had already visited Universalists, Catholics, Native American prophets, Freewill Baptists, and Shakers — and those are simply the angelic visits whose subjects did not claim to be dreaming. If we include all those who saw angels in a mental state only, the list gets much longer: Jemima Wilkinson visited heaven in 1776; John Colby took the same trip in 1815. Polly Davis was instantly healed when an angel appeared to her in 1792. Angels guided Sarah Alley from heaven into hell in 1798. A Vermonter named Bullard dreamed an angel warned him of the approach of bears. Julia Foote saw an angel with a scroll who commanded her to become a preacher. Abel Sarjent built his Halcyon Church in Ohio in part based on angelic communication.... (Jortner, Blood from the Sky, 7-8)
- Doc
* for those who don’t know Abel Sarjent might’ve been the inspo for Spalding and had ties to the early Mormons:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/saga/saga01b.htm
Anyhow, Uncle Dale made mention of this a few times.. . . Abel M. Sargent, Sr. and Solomon Spalding were educated easterners, contemporaries from Calvinist clerical backgrounds, who had moved [to] the thinly populated edges of frontier Ohio, during the first decade of the nineteenth century: Rev. Sargent may have never heard of Solomon Spalding, but Spalding scarcely could have escaped hearing about Sargent.
- Doc