FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Moroni's visit/Identity of the angel
The identity of the angel that visited Joseph Smith
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- Some Church sources give the identity of the angel that visited Joseph Smith in 1823 as "Nephi" instead of "Moroni"
- Moroni's visit: spirit versus resurrected being
- Theories that Moroni could have actually been something other than an angel sent by God
Some Church sources give the identity of the angel that visited Joseph Smith in 1823 as "Nephi" instead of "Moroni"
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- Question: Did Joseph Smith originally identify the angel that visited him as "Nephi" instead of "Moroni"?
- Question: Which sources mention Nephi as the angelic visitor who told Joseph Smith about the gold plates?
- Question: Are there sources which identify the angel that visited Joseph as "Moroni" that date prior to the "Nephi" error?
- Question: Did the prophet Nephi visit Joseph at some point in time?
- D. Todd Christofferson: "The June 1839 Manuscript History of the Church says it was Nephi who appeared to Joseph Smith in 1823 rather than Moroni"
- Improvement Era (1970): "This wording in the present Pearl of Great Price is modified from the first printing, in which the messenger was identified as 'Nephi'"
Moroni's visit: spirit versus resurrected being
Summary: Critics are anxious to paint Joseph's early experiences as linked to "magick" or treasure seeking. They thus argue that Joseph Smith described his first angelic visitor as "a dream" in which "a spirit" visited him three times in one night.
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Theories that Moroni could have actually been something other than an angel sent by God
Summary: Some critics have charged that Moroni, the resurrected prophet who gave the Book of Mormon plates to Joseph Smith, was really an angel of Satan. They base this charge on two passages in the New Testament: 2 Corinthians 11:13–15 and Galatians 1:8.
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