Twenty-Six (1831)the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the
Lord have they taken away.”^45
Joseph futilely tried to convince the people that the Book of Mormon, itself, was what
the Lord prepared so that “the Gentiles [would not] forever remain in that awful state of
blindness, which thou beholdest they are in, because of the plain and most precious parts of
the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back.”^46 The early Latter-day Saints believed
in their new “bible,” but they also wanted their old one fixed—the one to which they had a
strong and enduring emotional affiliation. From the first time the people read the Book of
Mormon and realized that Joseph had the means (the Urim and Thummim) to translate the
“will of God,” the people demanded that Joseph use the rocks to put back into the Bible the
“plain and most precious parts.”^47 Joseph was overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the
desires of the people. He did his best to give them what they desired so that they would
stumble—and stumble they did.
Alexander Campbell’s Bruised Ego and Other Critics
Alexander Campbell wasn’t the first to publish a revision of the New Testament; one
of the most famous men in American history had beat him to it—Thomas Jefferson. Thomas
Campbell^48 (Alexander’s father) was a lifetime political adversary of Jefferson’s. When
Jefferson had finished a revision of the New Testament in 1802 that he called The Philosophy
of Jesus of Nazareth,^49 the document was circulated among Jefferson’s close friends and
supporters and then fell into the hands of his critics. While growing up in the Campbell
household, Alexander was exposed to the dream of every newly freed (from British rule)
American—a good education.
Despite the fact that he was uneducated, Joseph’s work clearly mastered that of
Campbell, at least in Sidney Rigdon’s mind. Campbell was so incensed with the loss of
Rigdon that he took the time to continually demean Joseph, publishing a critical
pamphlet titled, Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon: with an Examination of Its
Internal and External Evidences, and Refutation of Its Pretences [sic] to Divine Authority.^50
Joseph’s critics and enemies, mostly the “learned” of the world, used their education
and writing skills to publish many critical works against what the world now called
“Mormonism.” These men, and some women, hid behind their education and their
publications, never confronting Joseph face-to-face in public.
In standing on his two feet, Joseph had no equal when it came to confounding the
ignorant and enemies of the real truth. None would have dared confront Joseph in person,
without first using their writing skills to prepare diatribes against him; for from these
written diatribes he could not or would not make a response. In person, Joseph would have
made them look substantively foolish. Moreover, if the people wouldn’t accept his rather
high-pitched, slightly feminine voice, then his spokesman Sidney Rigdon would “be to thee
instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.” (See Exodus 4, quoted above).
The Continuing Work of the Modern-day Moses
“Instead of God” was what the people wanted. It was not what either the biblical Moses
or the modern Moses (Joseph) wanted for the people—neither “Moses” wanted followers. They
wanted the people to speak with God themselves. The ancient character commanded his
followers to gather at the base of Mount Horeb (Mount Sinai) where “the Lord [would] come