Joseph Smith and the Masonic cry of distress

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This article is a draft. FAIRwiki editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.
This page is based on an answer to a question submitted to the FAIR web site, or a frequently asked question.

Contents 1 Question 2 Answer 3 Conclusion 4 Endnotes 5 Further reading 5.1 FAIR wiki articles 5.2 FAIR web site 5.3 External links 5.4 Printed material

Question

Just before he died, did Joseph Smith begin to give the Masonic cry of distress?

Answer

It is well documented that Joseph Smith uttered the words "Oh Lord, My God," as he fell from the window at Carthage Jail. The Masonic Grand Hailing Sign of Distress is "Oh Lord, My God, is there no help for the widow's son?"

Conclusion

 ^{[needs work]}

Endnotes

• [back] Reed C. Durham, Is there no help for the widow's son?, Presentation to the Mormon History Association, Nauvoo, Illinois, April 20, 1974.

Further reading

FAIR wiki articles

Joseph Smith, Jr. wiki articles

• The Council of Fifty
• Did Joseph boast of keeping the Church intact?
• Joseph Smith's narcissism
  • Did Joseph boast of keeping the Church intact?
  • Did Joseph claim to be "better than Jesus"?
• Greek psalter
• Healings and miracles?
• Holy Ghost, Joseph Smith is the
• Kinderhook Plates
• King of the world, anointed
• Joseph Smith land speculation
• Lazy Smiths?
• Lucy Mack Smith and Joseph's "amusing recitals" of Ancient Americans
• Was Joseph Smith a martyr?
  • Martyrdom in Christian history
  • Was the Nauvoo Legion to come rescue Joseph?
• Masonic cry of distress
• Money digging/treasure seeking
  • Joseph Smith's "treasure hunting" trip to Salem
• Moonmen
• Occult activities or "magick"?
• Personal failings
  • Lazy?
• Political activities
• Seer stones, use of
• Status in LDS belief
• Teller of tall tales?
• As translator

Joseph Smith and legal issues wiki articles

• Joseph Smith and legal trials
  • 1826 trial
• Kirtland Safety Society
• Nauvoo city charter
  • Habeas corpus
  • Usurpation_of_power?
• Nauvoo Expositor
  • Nauvoo Expositor Full Text

Prophecy wiki articles

• Joseph Smith prophecies
  • Can't be killed within 5 years of August 1843
  • David Patten to serve a mission?
  • Government to be overthrown and wasted
  • Independence temple to be built "in this generation"
  • Prophetic test in Deuteronomy
  • Second Coming in 1890 (56 years)
  • Zion redeemed by September 1836?
• Official doctrine: what is it?
• LDS prophets don't prophesy?
• Prophetic inerrancy?
• Revelation after Joseph Smith

First Vision wiki articles

• First Vision accounts (Summary and index page)
  • Do Greek scholars solve the discrepancies in Paul's vision accounts?
• Religious revivals in 1820
• Conflation of 1824-25 revival?
• Early Smith family history
• Lazy Smiths?
• Contradiction about knowing all churches were wrong
• Joseph Smith did not know if God existed in 1823
• Joseph Smith joined other churches
• 1830 statement about seeing "God"
• First Vision fabricated to give "Godly authority"
• D&C 84 says God not seen without priesthood?
• No reference to First Vision in 1830s publications?
• First Vision story became more detailed and colorful after 1832?
• Controversy Concerning D&C 121:28
• The Father: A Spirit vs. Embodied
• No mention in non-LDS literature before 1843?
• Seldom mentioned in LDS publications before 1877
  • Longer version (timeline)

Claims about the 1832 First Vision account

• Only one Personage appears in the 1832 account
• 1832 account doesn't mention new dispensation
• 1832 account doesn't mention a revival
• 1832 account doesn't forbid joining a church
• 1832 account doesn't mention persecution
• Motivation in 1832 account is different
• Different age provided in the 1832 text
• Struggle with Satan not in the 1832 account
• 1832 says wicked will be destroyed but 1838 doesn't
• 1832 vision set in heaven or on earth?
• Eternal life regardless of church affiliation in 1832 text?

Claims about the 1835 First Vision account

• The "Angels" of the 1835 account

Claims about the 1838 First Vision account

• Lack of contemporary Father and Son vision until 1838?
• 1838 account modified to offset leadership crisis?

Claims about other members and the First Vision

• George Q. Cannon referred to "angels"
• Oliver Cowdery not aware of First Vision in 1834-35
• Orson Hyde referred to "angels"
• Andrew Jenson called personage an "angel"
• Heber C. Kimball denied the Father appeared
• Orson Pratt confused about "angel" or Father-Son
• Parley P. Pratt only said that "God" appeared
• George A. Smith said First Vision was an "angel"
• Lucy Mack Smith claimed "angel"?
• William Smith said First Vision was an "angel"?
• Orson Spencer said an "angel" was the first manifestation?
• John Taylor's understanding of the First Vision
• Wilford Woodruff spoke of an "angel"
• Brigham Young said the Lord didn't appear
• Brigham Young never mentioned the First Vision

Joseph Smith other visionary issues wiki articles

• Joseph Smith's early conception of God
• Moroni as an angel of Satan
• Did Nephi or Moroni appear in 1823?
• Personages who appeared to Joseph Smith
• Swedenborg and three degrees of glory  ^{[needs work]}

God wiki articles

• The Father: A Spirit vs. Embodied
• Corporeality of God
  • God is "not a man"?
• Unchanging Nature of God
• Creatio ex nihilo / Creation out of nothing
  • Creation in Colossians 1:16
  • Creation of spirits
• Downplaying the King Follett discourse?
  • Do Mormons believe they will be "gods of their own planets"?
• Elohim and Jehovah
• Foreknowledge of God
• God is a Spirit
• Godhead and the Trinity
• Heavenly Mother?
  • Latter-day Saints believe in Celestial Sex?
• Infinite regress of Gods?
• Kolob
• "No God beside me" - (includes Isaiah 43-46 issues)
• No man has seen God
• Polytheism - Are Mormons polytheists?
• Spirit bodies for humans and 1 Cor 15
• Theosis or human deification
  • Do Mormons believe they will be "gods of their own planets"?
  • Latter-day Saints believe in Celestial Sex?
  • Primary sources/Theosis

Video

Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories, Matthew Brown, 2006 FAIR Conference

• Part 1: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
• Part 2: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
• Part 3: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
• Part 4: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
• Part 5: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
• Part 5: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories

FAIR web site

• David Ferguson, "Miraculous Events in Early Church History," ((fairlink|url=http://www.fairlds.org/apol/misc/misc38.html}}

Joseph Smith FAIR articles

• FAIR Topical Guide: Joseph Smith FAIR link
  
  • FAIR Topical Guide: Character FAIR link
    
  • FAIR Topical Guide: Consent for others to enter heaven? FAIR link
    
  • FAIR Topical Guide: Family and Background FAIR link
    
  • FAIR Topical Guide: Status of Joseph Smith FAIR link
    
• FAIR Topical Guide: Prophets: Infallibility FAIR link
  

Joseph Smith other visionary issues FAIR links

• Craig Ray, "Joseph Smith's History Confirmed," (Mesa, Arizona: FAIR, August 2002) FAIR link

External links

Joseph Smith, Jr. on-line articles

• [back]  Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reappraised," Brigham Young University Studies 10:3 (1970): 285. GL direct link
• Richard Lloyd Anderson, "The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4:2 (Summer 1969): 16, 19.
• Leonard J. Arrington, "The Human Qualities of Joseph Smith, the Prophet," Ensign (January 1971): 35ff. off-site
• Richard L. Bushman, "Joseph Smith Miscellany," (Mesa, Arizona: FAIR, 2005 FAIR Conference). FAIR link
• Richard L. Bushman, Dean C. Jessee and Truman G. Madsen, "Smith, Joseph," Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 3:1331–1348. ISBN 002904040X. off-site off-site off-site
• Donald L. Enders, "The Joseph Smith, Sr., Family: Farmers of the Genesee," in Joseph Smith: The Prophet, the Man, ed. Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1993), 213—25.
• Andrew H. Hedges and Dawson W. Hedges, "No, Dan, That's Still Not History (Review of: Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet, by Dan Vogel)," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 205–222. off-site PDF link
• Louis Midgley, "Editor's Introduction: Knowing Brother Joseph Again," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): xi–lxxiv. off-site PDF link wiki
• Louis Midgley, "Two Stories—One Faith," FARMS Review 19/1 (2007): 55–79. off-site PDF link wiki
• Larry E. Morris, "Joseph Smith and "Interpretive Biography", Review of Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet by Dan Vogel," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 321–374. off-site PDF link wiki
• Daniel C. Peterson and Donald L. Enders, "Can the 1834 Affidavits Attacking the Smith Family Be Trusted?" in Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon: The FARMS Updates of the 1990s, ed. John W. Welch and Melvin J. Thorne (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999), 286—87.

Printed material

Joseph Smith, Jr. printed materials

• Richard L. Bushman, "Joseph Smith's Family Background," in The Prophet Joseph: Essays on the Life and Mission of Joseph Smith, ed. Larry C. Porter and Susan Easton Black (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988), 1–18. ISBN 0875791778. GospeLink
• Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 1. ISBN 1400042704
• Mark L. McConkie, Remembering Joseph: Personal Recollections of Those Who Knew the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 2003) (print version). ISBN 978-1570089633. GospeLink (Key source)