Posted: Jun 06, 2016 6:28 pm
Then there is the question as to whether people who joined the sects revering Joseph Smith and his Book of Mormon joined BECAUSE of that or because they were already in to the "Restorationism" idea of Christianity, and Smith and the BoM simply was a convenient vehicle to promote it? So they came to believe in the idea of the book even more than of Smith himself because it had a certain mystique to it to grant America some part in the overall Christ-oriented scheme of things. This might even explain why certain sects conceived of Smith as an original "prophet" who in February 1834 began to decline and became a false prophet with teachings that he misperceived (i.e. the view of the Temple Lot folks, the Whitmer sect, etc.).