3:16 Video

Well, I thought I’d do a little follow up to my previous post, because I know there are going to be some questions. I found the video on YouTube, code-named “3:16”, of which the “Evangelical Christians” will be distributing on Mormon Doorsteps in Utah on March 25th (that’s next Sunday folks). I have to admit, they did their research, and in many places tell the truth like it is, but in the areas where they attack the church they never tell “the Full Story”. I refuse to link to the video here because I’ve proven all the attacks false thus far and I see no reason to spread something that isn’t true. If you do decide to watch it, I strongly encourage you to research any questions it brings up. Google has gotten really good at returning the accurate articles about these stories as one of the first or second hits in your search results, so conveniently, a simple Google search should reveal most of these claims they make false. I actually learned some things – not really anything about what is most important to us Mormons, ie that Jesus is the Christ, and that in and through Him only can we be saved (they did make that point, but for some reason in attack to us Mormons), but I did learn of many physical “evidences” that I didn’t realize before existed about events in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s life. I’ll list a few here. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask them in the comments. To me, once you understand the Mormon point of view of this video, it makes the Mormon religion seem even more glorious and wonderful to be a part of. I’m not quite sure what the evangelicals are trying to do here (well, okay – perhaps the word “Mitt” comes to mind, but why are they just targeting Utah Mormons then?). Anyway, here are my questions and answers that stood out to me from the video:

1. Did Joseph Smith teach that the moon was inhabited?
>>I highly recommend you read this article – it has some good references to back it up, and refers to almost the same questions the video asks, and some: [http://www.lightplanet.com/response/answers/moon.htm](http://www.lightplanet.com/response/answers/moon.htm)
Basically, this question came around due to a rumor based on a man in his old age, “remembering” from 50 years earlier something the Prophet had said. Regardless, who’s to say prophets can’t speculate as well? John the Revelator “saw an angel standing in the sun” (Rev. 19:17). I’m going out on a limb here (I don’t necessarily believe this), but some still speculate man ever went to the moon. Just today there is news about the possibility of caves on Mars. There is much we don’t know about planets and moons outside this planet. Who’s to say Joseph wasn’t seeing men in space suits on the moon, and just thinking they looked like Quakers, since there wasn’t really any good way at the time to describe space suits?

2. How could Joseph Smith have gotten plates from the Hill Cumorah, when the Book of Mormon claims there were great wars with metal weapons before its burial and there is no archaeological evidence to support the possibility of this?

>>Here’s a good article – the whole page is good, actually: [http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/qa/bom_metals.htm#absent](http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/qa/bom_metals.htm#absent) I’ll leave this one up to the article – it basically shows evidences that this claim just isn’t true. There are archaeological evidences, and even if not, some theorize that there could have been 2 Hill Cumorahs – one where the wars took place, and one where Moroni buried the plates. Here’s another good article: [http://www.josephtoldthetruth.com/index.php?pageid=16](http://www.josephtoldthetruth.com/index.php?pageid=16)

3. Did Joseph Smith carry around a “Jupiter Talisman”?

>>This has pretty much been confirmed as a myth. It actually has origins from a talk given in 1974, and was a bunch of hearsay, that based on the article looks like a big telephone game. There is little to no evidence to back up this myth (speaking of evidence), and all evidence seems to point to the contrary. Here’s an article explaining that myth in detail: [http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/ldsdefense/talis.html](http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/ldsdefense/talis.html)

4. Is the Joseph Smith papyri just an Egyptian funeral text?

>>I by no means am an expert on this, so I’ll leave it to the experts. To put it simple, not all Egyptologists agree on this claim from the video. Even if they did, there are so many things they admit they just don’t know about Egyptian civilization! How could they confirm without a certainty claims against what Joseph Smith translated? Regardless, here are some listed disagreements to those claims: [http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_Abraham2.shtml#facs](http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_Abraham2.shtml#facs)

Those are just the questions I didn’t directly have answers for until I researched them. I have answers for all the rest, and to put it quite simply, all the claims are false, or only portions of the truth! I do not recommend this video for anyone, especially as an education about the Mormons. However, if you do have any questions about it, please feel free to ask them in the comments.