Pomeroy Tucker highlights how LDS have used Joseph's lack of education to defend the Book of Mormon.

Date
1867
Type
Book
Source
Pomeroy Tucker
Critic
Non-LDS
Hearsay
Late
Secondary
Reference

Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1867), 120-121

Scribe/Publisher
Pomeroy Tucker, D. Appleton and Company
People
Pomeroy Tucker, Joseph Smith, Jr.
Audience
General Public
Transcription

Does the reader require proof of the utter untruth of all this parade of particulars about finding any thing of the kind pretended, either in Ontario County or elsewhere? But it is a noticeable incident in the whole progress of the imposture, that the uneducated an ignorant character of Smith was turned to his advantage over his followers. His want of cultivation in respect to "the world's wisdom," precluded in their minds the idea of the exercise of any natural or acquired faculties in producing his wonderful revelations and translations. Their reasoning was: "He is unlearned of men, therefore how could he acquire the ancient learning displayed, if it were not supernaturally communicated to him?" And they argued that he could not have made the translation without the plates. Convincing logic for the Mormon fanatics!

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