I recently heard the argument made that if the Mormon hierarchy actually believed in the truth of the BoM, they would not have bought the Hoffmann (sp?) forgeries, since they would immediately have spotted them as fakes and then turned Hoffmann over to the authorities rather than letting him milk the LDS church for so long. Moreover, if they were the recipients of divine inspiration, they would have known that continuing to buy fake after fake would lead to a scandal that would hurt the LDS Church and lead to several people being murdered.
The reason I bring this up is because having heard the anti-Mormon interpretation of the Hoffmann case, I wanted to know the pro-Mormon side of things.
I certainly cannot speak to the Mormon side of things, not being a Mormon.
But there are several benign possible explanations for the actions of the LDS. The leaders, especially the President, whose name I don’t quite recall, could simply have feared the scandal that would envelop the LDS if the documents came to light, even if they were fake. That is, he was buying them from a dealer who had certified them as genuine; even if he knew in his heart of hearts that they couldn’t be real, he might have acted to protect the LDS from the firestorm that would have come up if they had been made public.
Admittedly, this is not the action of a disinterested skeptic seeking only the truth. But it isn’t necessarily the action of a cynic who knows his entire church is based on a lie, either.
Finally, your assertion that they could reasonably foresee that the documents would lead inevitably to bombs and murder is not remotely defensible.
The LDS church bought some of this stuff because it was of great historical interest, and some of it they bought because they wanted to suppress it. Divine inspiration didn’t have much to do with their decisions. Hoffmann was a pretty good forger, and faked out a whole lot of people–not just the LDS church officials.
There’s a couple of really good books about the whole thing. One is The Mormon Murders, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, and the other is A Gathering of Saints, who’s author I don’t remember. Both books give a pretty complete analysis of the whole affair, and if you like true crime, they’re excellent reads.
“The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his ribcage.” --anonymous redhead
I apologize. I missed the phrase, “If they were divinely inspired…” at the beginning of the bit about their forseeing the murders; I was reacting to what I thought was the suggestion that anyone trying to conceal documents should forsee murder in the future. I now understand your point - or, as you also remind me, the point you’re repeating. Sorry - my mistake.