{"id":104318,"date":"2024-03-18T19:41:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T01:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=104318"},"modified":"2024-03-18T19:46:31","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T01:46:31","slug":"brigham-young-gap-toothed-mimic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/03\/brigham-young-gap-toothed-mimic.html","title":{"rendered":"Brigham Young, Gap-Toothed Mimic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Distant<\/a>
The rebuilt Nauvoo Illinois Temple stands on the site where the first one, which was later destroyed by vandalism and arson, was built in the late 1830s and early 1840s. \u00a0(Photo from LDS.org.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Saturday, here in this very space, I posted a couple of references to the alleged \u201ctransfiguration\u201d of Brigham Young that is said by quite a few to have occurred while he was speaking to an outdoor audience of Latter-day Saints at Nauvoo, Illinois, on 8 August 1844. \u00a0(See \u201cTwo Witnesses to a Pivotal Event.\u201d<\/a>) \u00a0This speech, of course, was given in the wake of the 27 June 1844 assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith that had left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> without clear leaders. \u00a0On that same topic, I came across this passage during my reading, a few months ago, of \u201cGod Has Made Us a Kingdom\u201d: James Strang and the Midwest Mormons<\/em>, written by Vickie C. Speek:<\/p>\n

\n

William Hickenlooper later wrote to his son and daughter, both Strangites, explaining in 1855 his decision to follow Brigham Young and trying to convince them to leave Strang. \u201cThe first evidence I received that Brigham was the true successor of Joseph, was on the day when Sidney [Rigdon] set up his claim for the presidency,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBrigham\u2019s countenance his voice, gestures and everything truly represented the martyred prophet in such a striking manner I shall never forget\u2014I was convinced by the spirit of the Lord that the mantle of Joseph had fallen on Brigham.\u201d \u00a0S. S. Thornton responded to his father-in-law, explaining his conversion to Strang: I shall show by successful contradiction by your own arguments that he (Brigham Young) is an usurper, and has acted as such ever since Joseph\u2019s death. Because Mr. Young had tried to mimic Joseph for several years before his death, and on his return from Boston after his (Joseph\u2019s) martyrdom even went out and got a dentist to take out a tooth on the same side that Joseph lost one, to make himself appear as much like him as possible, that even his voice, gestures and likeness would seem like Joseph, and did, at the August conference, as you related, which was evidence to you that he was the man Joseph appointed, yet it is no evidence without he had come in at the gate, and been ordained, as the Lord had told Joseph before, which was by an angel.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The passage struck me because the exchange between William Hickenlooper and S. S. Thornton is relatively early, and because it clearly indicates that the claim of a \u201ctransfiguration\u201d was already known both in the Great Basin West and in the Upper Midwest within eleven years of the alleged event. \u00a0Please note that Thornton doesn\u2019t appear to be surprised<\/em> by the claim. \u00a0Neither does he deny that something seems to have happened. \u00a0Quite to the contrary, he freely if implicitly grants that Brigham Young seemed to look and act and sound like Joseph Smith, but he attributes the similarities to an unrecorded program of deliberate mimicry and to a dental operation that not only sounds bizarre (and, given the state of mid-nineteenth-century dentistry, sounds extraordinarily painful) but for which, so far as I know, there isn\u2019t so much as a scrap of actual supporting evidence.<\/p>\n

\"Not<\/a>
One of the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s control rooms for the weekly Interpreter Radio Show
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Interpreter Radio Show \u2014 March 10, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

For the 10 March 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Mark Johnson and Martin Tanner and Terry Hutchinson and Kevin Christensen \u2014 that\u2019s four! \u2014 discussed Come, Follow Me<\/em> Book of Mormon lesson 14, the purchase of the Kirtland Temple, and Deuteronomists in the Book of Mormon. \u00a0Their conversations are now available to you online, free of charge and at your convenience, and without commercial interruptions.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBook of Mormon in Context\u201d portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me<\/em> Book of Mormon lesson 14, will also be posted separately on Tuesday, March 26.<\/p>\n

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard live and without a safety net on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. \u00a0 Alternatively, you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cAn Apostle\u2019s Letter to a Missionary Son: Elder Spencer W. Kimball discusses being \u201cIn\u201d and \u201cOut of the Spirit\u201d\u201d<\/a> (transcribed and edited by Dennis B. Horne)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Hugh Nibley (1910-2005)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m also delighted to report that I was involved for much of the day \u2014 quite uselessly, I might add \u2014 with the recording of an interview of Don Norton<\/a> by Shirley Ricks<\/a>. \u00a0(See the brief article about Don among the 2018 recipients of the LDSPMA Lifetime Achievement Award<\/a> and the brief article about Shirley among the 2019 recipients.). \u00a0Russell Richins and James Jordan<\/a> \u2014 two thirds of our core team of filmmakers \u2014 kindly devoted several hours to filming the interview, as well as to the complicated and time-consuming task of setting up (and taking down) cameras and lights and microphones and reflectors and etc. and etc. \u00a0And Dr. Lynn T. Dayton<\/a> and Margaret Dayton<\/a> generously allowed us the use of their living room for the session.<\/p>\n

Don is virtually legendary as the teacher and mentor of editors across Brigham Young University and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and beyond, and he served for a decade as a volunteer editor for the Interpreter Foundation. \u00a0He is also well-known as an oral historian<\/a>, so it was fitting that he sat, today, for the recording of something of his own<\/em> oral history. \u00a0Between them, Don and Shirley were the production editors for the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (CWHN), so that effort of theirs \u2014 along with their experiences with and impressions of Professor Nibley \u2014 was a significant focus of the interview. \u00a0Given the fact that there is much else on our filmmakers\u2019 plate right now, it will certainly take a while for the interview to be edited and published online, but we need to capture it while we had the opportunity, and I\u2019m very much looking forward to it. \u00a0I think that many will enjoy what Don Norton has to say, and that it will be a small, niche, but nice contribution to the historical record of the Restoration in the latter half of the twentieth century and, via the CWHN, into the twenty-first.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 On Saturday, here in this very space, I posted a couple of references to the alleged \u201ctransfiguration\u201d of Brigham Young that is said by quite a few to have occurred while he was speaking to an outdoor audience of Latter-day Saints at Nauvoo, Illinois, on 8 August 1844. \u00a0(See \u201cTwo Witnesses to a Pivotal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":17464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37373,292,380,2905,4432,4378],"class_list":["post-104318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-august-1844","tag-brigham-young","tag-joseph-smith","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-nauvoo","tag-transfiguration"],"yoast_head":"\nBrigham Young, Gap-Toothed Mimic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  On Saturday, here in this very space, I posted a couple of references to 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