Thomas Stuart Ferguson

You can't set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere -- because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archaeology. I should say -- what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book.

By study of the GRAMMAR [GAEL], the recovered papyrus, and the illustrations, it is perfectly obvious that we now have the original manuscript material used by Jos. Smith in working up the Book of Abraham. Prof. Klaus Bear of Univ. of Chicago, Prof. Lutz of U.C. (Berkeley), Prof. Lesko (U.C. Berkeley) and Egyptologist Dee Jay Nelson, all agree that the original manuscript Egyptian text translates into the Breathing Permit of Hor (Egyptian God)....

Joseph Smith announced, in print (History of the Church, Vol. II, page 236) that "one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph of Egypt..." Since 4 scholars, who have established that they can read Egyptian, say that the manuscripts deal with neither Abraham nor Joseph--and since the 4 reputable men tell us exactly what the manuscripts do say -- I must conclude that Joseph Smith had not the remotest skill in things Egyptian-hieroglyphics.

I think that Joseph Smith may have had Ixtlilxochitl and View of the Hebrews from which to work.... Oliver Cowdery was in Ethan Smith's [author of View of the Hebrews] congregation before he went from Vermont to New York to join Joseph Smith.

Mormonism is probably the best conceived myth-fraternity to which one can belong....

Perhaps you and I have been spoofed by Joseph Smith....

The day will probably come--but it is far off--when the leadership of the Church will change the excommunication rules and delete as grounds non-belief in the 2 books mentioned and in Joseph Smith as a prophetic etc... but if you wait for that day, you probably will have died. It is a long way off.