This was new to me - JS walking on water?

[Libby]

http://earlymormon.com/wiki/index.php?***le=Joseph_Smith,_Jr._and_walking_on_w ater

Have any of you ever heard this one, before?

[Russ]

http://earlymormon.com/wiki/index.php?***le=Joseph_Smith,_Jr._and_walking_on_w ater

Have any of you ever heard this one, before?
Deleted by author. nt

[nrajeff]

Have you heard that Utah employers withhold a tenth of every employee's salary, without the employee's permission, to be donated to the LDS church's mall construction project? I "heard it from the grapevine," so you can ***ume it's true, right?

[Jill]

http://earlymormon.com/wiki/index.php?***le=Joseph_Smith,_Jr._and_walking_on_w ater

Have any of you ever heard this one, before?


Yes, Libby, he actually did attempt to walk on water. I will find the source for you. Some eyewitnesses wrote how it worked the first time and everyone was all excited. So he decided to try it a second time--not realizing that some local boys had removed a plank or two from under the water--and he fell in. I will try to find the source for you.

[Libby]

Thank you, Jill.

I think most of the documentation is in this link:

http://earlymormon.com/wiki/index.php?***le=Joseph_Smith,_Jr._and_walking_on_w ater

[Mesenja]

I took this excerpt from a post made by Smac on the Mormon Apologetic and Discussion Board in the thread "Did Joseph Smith try and walk on water?".


"The lodestar by which critics of the LDS Church are guided is that if a story A) puts the LDS Church or its prominent members in a bad light,and B) is not demonstrably falsifiable,then C) it is accepted as gospel truth." smac97


And Libby none of this changes the fact that as urloony so rightly said of ATX your new found friend at CARM.


What it invalidates is ATX's credibility. Our critics are regularly criticized for false claims and not checking facts. This time is no exception.

Yet you defend him by saying "Sigh........you know...I know the person who put this up on CARM and I know that he would not,intentionally,deceive anyone. This really is pretty confusing,because it seems it is based,potentially,in truth. I know it would be considered hearsay,but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Knowing what I know of Joseph,it would not really surprise me,if it were true."

Yes you know enough about Joseph Smith to say that he would intentionally deceive someone. Yet ATX even when he is shown to be deliberately using a demonstrably false quote to make false accusations you keep rushing to his defense yet never make any valid argument to justify his actions.


That one small clip (of urlooney's) was made up,yes,but that doesn't invalidate the rest of the evidence. I have always known ATX to be very honest and sincere.

It is one thing to be fooled and make an honest mistake but when shown your error to admit that you were wrong. It is quite another matter to try and justify the indefensible and refuse to admit your error. Talk of fitting the facts to suit the case. There is no confusion here Libby. This shows exactly the type of tactics and methods the usual suspects at CARM will stoop to as evidenced by this example of the methodology used by ATX.

[Mesenja]

I took this excerpt from a post made by Smac on the Mormon Apologetic and Discussion Board in the thread "Did Joseph Smith try and walk on water?". The quote that you are trying to reference is the following and it's source is "The Lutheran pioneer,Volume 26".




We recently read that Mormon missionaries in the mountain districts of the South try to make converts by boasting of miracles performed by Joseph Smith,the founder of their pernicious sect. Well,in a Chicago paper Charles H. Cartwell lately told how Joseph Smith was "found out" when trying to perform one of his tricks which he called miracles. Mr. Cartwell says:"Sometime in the thirties Smith and a party of his followers were proselyting in Muskingum County,Ohio. He appointed a certain day when he would show the people his wonderful powers,and that he was a second Christ,by walking on the waters of Mud Creek. The water was always muddy. A day or two before the time set grandmother's brother Robert and a couple of neighbor boys were accidentally attracted to the Mormons working at the creek,and,concealing themselves,watched the Mormons put down stakes and put planks on them from bank to bank,the plank resting about six inches under water. After the Mormons left the boys went down and took out the center plank,where the water was about ten feet deep. The next day 'Balaam' Smith came down to the creek,and,after a long exhortation,started across the creek. He was all right and on top till he came to the center,where his 'powers' seemed to leave him,and he,like McGinty,went to the bottom. This was the end of Mormonism in that county.
So we have a Lutheran newsletter quoting a Mr. Cartwell,who is quoting his grandmother,who is telling a story about something her brother and some neighbor boys supposedly did some 70 years before the telling of the tale. Boy,that's a tight chain of evidence. -Smac

[nrajeff]

"So we have a Lutheran newsletter quoting a Mr. Cartwell,who is quoting his grandmother,who is telling a story about something her brother and some neighbor boys supposedly did some 70 years before the telling of the tale. Boy,that's a tight chain of evidence." -Smac

---If that is what the attackers are using for a standard of evidence that they will unquestioningly, unskeptically believe, then I have a great opportunity for them to get in on the ground floor of a network marketing "business" that will make them millionaires before the end of the year. And the Weekly World Newspaper has an article about how Nazi Alien skeletons on the surface of Mars were photographed by the Hubble Telescope. The sources can't be verified but when you are this credulous, you ain't gonna even TRY to verify the source of the gossip, since you WANT to believe the tale is true.

[Mark Beesley]

Yes, Libby, he actually did attempt to walk on water. I will find the source for you. Some eyewitnesses wrote how it worked the first time and everyone was all excited. So he decided to try it a second time--not realizing that some local boys had removed a plank or two from under the water--and he fell in. I will try to find the source for you.
Take whatever Jill feeds you with a grain of salt. She is, after all, the author of another piece on this site about supposed "amazing facts (http://www.waltermartin.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1522)" related to the Church.

[John T]

Yes, Libby, he actually did attempt to walk on water. I will find the source for you. Some eyewitnesses wrote how it worked the first time and everyone was all excited. So he decided to try it a second time--not realizing that some local boys had removed a plank or two from under the water--and he fell in. I will try to find the source for you.

Jill

Please make them public.

The sources I found were all written about 4o years after JS died 1n 1844. To my thinking, that makes them suspect. If you could find earlier places than that, it would be great.

[Libby]

I took this excerpt from a post made by Smac on the Mormon Apologetic and Discussion Board in the thread "Did Joseph Smith try and walk on water?".



And Libby none of this changes the fact that as urloony so rightly said of ATX your new found friend at CARM.



Yet you defend him by saying "Sigh........you know...I know the person who put this up on CARM and I know that he would not,intentionally,deceive anyone. This really is pretty confusing,because it seems it is based,potentially,in truth. I know it would be considered hearsay,but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Knowing what I know of Joseph,it would not really surprise me,if it were true."

Yes you know enough about Joseph Smith to say that he would intentionally deceive someone. Yet ATX even when he is shown to be deliberately using a demonstrably false quote to make false accusations you keep rushing to his defense yet never make any valid argument to justify his actions.



It is one thing to be fooled and make an honest mistake but when shown your error to admit that you were wrong. It is quite another matter to try and justify the indefensible and refuse to admit your error. Talk of fitting the facts to suit the case. There is no confusion here Libby. This shows exactly the type of tactics and methods the usual suspects at CARM will stoop to as evidenced by this example of the methodology used by ATX.

I understand your point, Mesenja. I think many of us are often too quick to embrace things that we think help verify our beliefs...and quick to reject things that don't fit in. This issue (of Joseph walking on water) is one that I'm willing to set aside (unless or until there is better evidence brought forward). I agree with John that the evidence is too sketchy to really be credible.

[Mesenja]

I understand your point, Mesenja. I think many of us are often too quick to embrace things that we think help verify our beliefs...and quick to reject things that don't fit in. This issue (of Joseph walking on water) is one that I'm willing to set aside (unless or until there is better evidence brought forward). I agree with John that the evidence is too sketchy to really be credible.

No matter how much you hope that there is evidence of this to discredit the prophet Joseph Smith this is a dead issue.

[Libby]

No matter how much you hope that there is evidence of this to discredit the prophet Joseph Smith this is a dead issue.

As far as I'm concerned, Joseph Smith is discredited in so many ways, leaving this one issue off is a mere drop in a vast ocean.

I don't say that to be rude or offensive, Mesenja. That is sincerely what I have come to know and realize about Joseph Smith.

[Mesenja]

As far as I'm concerned, Joseph Smith is discredited in so many ways,leaving this one issue off is a mere drop in a vast ocean.

I don't say that to be rude or offensive,Mesenja. That is sincerely what I have come to know and realize about Joseph Smith.




Concerning the charge of Joseph Smith purportedly being exposed as a charlatan for making the claim of walking on water and then falling for a prank have you finally relegated this to the s**** heap of false accusations or does hope still spring eternal?

[alanmolstad]

I would like to see any links to the story of Joe Smith, ( the founder of Mormonism ), and this walking on water...

This is the very first I have even heard of this account, and I would like to see a few websites where this is talked about.

[dberrie2000]

Yes, Libby, he actually did attempt to walk on water. I will find the source for you. Some eyewitnesses wrote how it worked the first time and everyone was all excited. So he decided to try it a second time--not realizing that some local boys had removed a plank or two from under the water--and he fell in. I will try to find the source for you.

Has anyone noticed that Jill did not post one iota of material to support her claim?

[alanmolstad]

http://dev.mormonhistoricsites.org/publications/studies_spring2005/MHS_SPRING-2005_04-SUSQUEHANA-RIVER.pdf

from this it would seem that the story is an old one...