Quote:
One of the documents that Hofmann forged and ultimately sold to the Church was a "blessing" supposedly given by Joseph Smith upon his son, Joseph Smith III, and naming him as his father's successor. (Incidentally, the document had been independently authenticated, so the Church officials in question were not the "suckers" they have been made out to be.)Of course the Church officials weren't "suckers," as I explained in my own Hofmann essay. The entire point in question is that if Mormonism is true, then God Himself must be a "sucker" for being fooled by a forgery, whether it was independently authenticated or not.
Now we ask: if there is any document that the Church would like to "suppress," would it not be a document that undermines the premise of apostolic succession and supports the claims of the Reorganized Church? Of course it would be. And so what, may we ask, did the Church do to "suppress" this document? Well, if you must know, the Church traded it to the RLDS Church in exchange for an 1833 Book of Commandments.As I explained, part of Hofmann's scheme was to increase the asking price by leaking news of the documents' "discovery." It's rather difficult, even for the leadership of the LDS Church, to retroactively suppress documents that are already public knowledge. In essence, their ship had already "left port," so to speak.
I find it interesting that the author chose to focus on a single forgery that happened to be sold at a later date. He conveniently neglected to mention any of the other Hofmann forgeries obtained by the Church which were not sold and which were initially suppressed, such as the Stowell Letter.
I challenge the Church's critics to come up with an explanation for the Church's actions in this instance that both (a) preserves their precious "suppression" theory, and (b) does no violence to the facts. Since I know of very few anti-Mormon theories that meet the second criterion, I feel we may be waiting a very long time.The wait is over! I have just accepted, and met, this challenge.