Chuck Brocka, an Evangelical anti-Mormon, wrote the following recently:
Now for Oliver Cowdery, he did deny the Book of Mormon! And this is why a poem was printed about him in the Mormon publication, “Times and Seasons” (1841, vol. 2, p. 482).
“Or does it prove there is no time because some watches will not go?
Or prove that Christ was not the Lord because that Peter cursed and swore?
Or Book of Mormon not his word because denied by Oliver”.
Obviously, Chuck lacks google; had he searched on this phrase, he would have found this discussion by Richard Lloyd Anderson and was published in the Ensign; on this, he writes:
The poem is a secondary comment, not a primary source. It is rhetoric, not history. To qualify for the latter, it would have to be based on demonstrable knowledge Joel Johnson had of Oliver outside the Church, which it is not. Johnson may simply have meant that Oliver had withdrawn from the Church and did not then stand openly for the ancient record.
. . .
When Oliver returned to the Saints, and as he approached the last year of his life, he reiterated his witness of the plates and the priesthood—the same testimony that he had held since the beginning of the Restoration:
“I beheld with my eyes, and handled with my hands, the gold plates. … I was present with Joseph when an holy angel … conferred, or restored, the Aaronic Priesthood. … I was also present with Joseph when the Melchizedek Priesthood was conferred by the holy angels of God.” (Journal of Reuben Miller, Oct. 21, 1848, at LDS Archives. See also Richard Anderson, “Reuben Miller, Recorder of Oliver Cowdery’s Reaffirmations,” BYU Studies 8 (Spring 1968): 277–93.)
Furthermore, Johnson's poem is without any evidential value as Johnson never had any opportunity to witness any denial; Johnson was in Kirtland at the time of Cowdery's excommunication in Missouri and after that had no known contact with Cowdery. Johnson was relying on the rumour mill.
As with so many critics of the Church, Brocka lacks any intellectual honesty and integrity as he obviously has not done any research on this issue and others he raises and uncritically/gullibly accepting, hook, line, and sinker, what other anti-Mormons have written on this topic. Furthermore, it is Brocka, an Evangelical Protestnat, who is purveying a damnable false gospel (cf. Gal 1:6-9). See, for instance, my article, Why Latter-day Saints cannot believe Evangelical Protestantism is True: A Response to Dave Bartosiewicz.
For a full discussion of Oliver Cowdery et al., see Richard L. Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Deseret Book, 1981).
