This Chief says:
The Cherokee pushed on to the big waters of the Mississippi, then on to the headwaters of the Ohio, where they built walled cities and huge mounds for burial. The Delaware came from the west and, with assistance from the Iroquois federation, fought to remove the Cherokee, for the time period of 7 chiefs, or approximately 200 years, before the Cherokee went East to the mountains and coast. The exodus was pressured by war to continue south with the Cherokees arriving in the Georgia area in approximately 800 to 1000 A.D.

He tells how his people were most likely desendants of or associated with the Maya. He tells about the ONE God they worshiped and how the Cherokee were originally from 12 tribes that were NOT originally in the Americas and came by ship. He writes of a people with dark and light skin and even with blond and red hair.
He tells of a people with beards and shows Maya art works showing such a people.
This chief is not LDS.
We know that MANY Nephites left and went north and were never heard from again. We do not know if Lamanites went north but we have no reason to believe they did not. We do know that Joseph Smith did not place the statements about Zelph into the scriptures. We know that President Young spoke volumes about the Adam God theory but never placed them in the official documents of the church. We know that the prophets of old made many errors in judgment and said things, of which, that God did not approve or give as revelation. Many revelations are nothing more than impressions and each individual see it ONLY from the minds set that they have at the time. Every word that came from Smith’s mouth and every word written down by the prophet or his scribes were not and are not to be considered as scripture or from God.
I find the Zelph story interesting as a side note found in the writtings of men so weak in faith that they did not get a revelation on the subject themselves.

christopher@independentamerican.org

OK, I’m going to come at this from way out in left field.

I just don’t think we can let stories like this bother us to the point where we can only enjoy the Book of Mormon as “enlightening literature” or think “maybe it didn’t actually happen but it’s still true”.

Let’s consider this:

If Joseph Smith “made stuff up”, then did the prophets after him “make things up” too ?

Wilford Woodruff, the 4th prophet of the Church, tells us that he was in the St. George temple and the Signers of the Declaration of Independence appeared to him – for two days- and requested baptism.

http://www.stgeorgetemplevisitorscenter.org/temple-sg/woodruff.html

Does this mean any of the following:

1) Wilford Woodruff had the same problem with “making things up” ?

2) WW only saw a “vision” – these were not actually spirits that appeared to him (spread over two days’ time) ?

3) Mischievious spirits appeared to WW and played an elaborate joke on him

4) Joseph Smith passed into the spirit world and convinced all the Signers that they could have another chance to be “baptized by the proper authority”. They were convinced of this in spite of the fact that many had already been baptized during their mortal life. In fact, they were so convinced that they got special dispensation from God to appear to WW in the St. George temple and berate him for not doing anything for them sooner.

It just doesn’t make sense that Joseph could “make things up” and be so convincing that even the spirits beyond the veil believe he was given special authority to do temple baptisms.

To this day, spirits still appear in the temples and ask for baptism. How could God give such authority to the same man who fabricated a story about an entire book and claimed it was written by ancient prophets ?

Well, clearly many would disagree with your characterizations of Joseph. I think there were real Nephites, even if perhaps that may be a minority view here in the comments. As for Moroni on the temples, I honestly don’t see the idolatry connection. No one worships Moroni or even prays to him the way many Catholics pray to saints.

As for Moroni, I believe the connection is Rev 14:6-8 and is taken as a symbol of the restoration. I don’t see the problem with that. Certainly some Christians do. But typically those Christians have trouble with *any* symbolism they aren’t used to.

Actually Steve, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Rereading my post, I wasn’t very clear. I just meant that we’ve attached so much to the Book of Mormon that we’re afraid of it somehow being anything other than what we’ve said, because we think that has implications for Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling, etc. If you look past that, at the book itself, I think it has a lot to offer us.

I suppose you could say similar things about the Book of Abraham, or books in the Bible. Not too many scholars take them seriously as actual history, but look at what wonderful teachings they have to offer us.

We already do this, to some extent, whether we believe it is historically accurate or not!

Nice effects are great and wonderful things — no question. Society would be better off if everybody lived the principles in the scriptures. But I’m more concerned with the central nice effect of salvation through Jesus Christ. To a certain extent, this effect only seems possible to me if in fact Jesus existed and did the things we say he did, including visiting the Nephites. If he only did some of those things, or in fact did none of those things, or if he never existed, then how can faith in Jesus Christ bring salvation?

But now that I seem to have the here and now somewhat under control (yes, I’m certain I just jinxed myself…), I suppose I must turn my thoughts a tad further afield.

Even before the Church (and in between), I always knew that there was some universal right and wrong, good and bad. Murder, mayhem and rape – always wrong. Kindness, charity and babies – always good. Put aside whether Jesus existed (which we know he did), put aside whether he was the Son of God. The man was revolutionary, he embodied all the things that are universally right and stood against those things which are universally wrong. If faith in Him, despite his “inaccuracy” means that we will do that which is “right” and refrain from that which is “wrong,” have we achieved some kind of salvation, regardless of whether that leads us to a three-tiered hereafter? Have we “saved” the souls of generations to come by leaving the world a better place?

And have we earned ourselves a place in the good part of whatever the hereafter is by embodying the apsects of the universal right while standing against universal wrong? I think so. If so, then faith in Jesus Christ, whether “accurate” or not, is salvation unto itself.

The Zelph affair did happen and Joseph made the possibly incorrect assumption that Zelph was a Lamanite because it hadn’t occurred to him that the American Indians might not have been Lamanites. He recieved revelation as to the name of the person and some details. Of course this doesn’t explain the “white Lamanite” aspect of the story, which might simply mean that he was righteous and not mean anything about his skin color.

This Zelph story always struck me as strange. I have no idea what to think of it but in my mind it should not be a central issue in any geography debates.

http://mormoninquiry.typepad.com/mormon_inquiry/2004/06/a_man_named_zel.html