Joseph Smith's February 6, 1844 Prophecy that Church Leaders would be able to live without cooking within 5 years

In his Joseph Smith as a Prophet, critic Richard Packham offered the following example of a purportedly false prophecy of Joseph Smith:

 

MORMONS WILL NO LONGER HAVE TO COOK: Feb 6, 1844. Joseph Smith prophesies that within five years the Mormons would be able to live without cooking their food. (Joseph Smith manuscript diary, omitted from the HC. Cited in Quinn, p. 642).

 

FULFILLED?: The Mormons are still cooking their food.

 

“Quinn” here refers to D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994). On p. 642, we read the following:

 

6 Feb. At a dinner party Smith "prophesied at the table that 5 years would not roll round before the company would all be able to live without cooking." The official History of the Church deletes this entry from Joseph Smith's manuscript diary.

 

The relevant text is the diary entry for February 6, 1844 from “President Joseph Smith’s Journal,” Journal, 4 vols., Dec. 1842–June 1844 in the handwriting of Willard Richards. The following is the relevant image and transcription thereof from The Joseph Smith Papers website:

Tuesday Feb 6— [5 lines blank]

evening, with Hyrum [Smith] & Sidney [Rigdon] and the 12 and th[e]ir wives at John Taylors at 5 P.M at supper very plesnt time— I prophesied at the table that 5 years would not roll rou[n]d before the company would all be able to live witho[u]t cooking

 

In spite of claims by critics of the Church, this is an example of a prophecy that was fulfilled. As FAIR noted in their response to another critic (Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods) who also claimed this was a false prophecy:

 

The 'company' referred to was the Twelve apostles and their wives, at dinner. It says nothing about all Mormons refraining from cooking. Those to whom the prophecy was addressed were soon to endure the privations of the migration to the west. At times they would have to go without fuel, and doubtless learned to subsist on fare that they would have turned down in the comforts of Nauvoo. Thus, Joseph's remarks (made "at supper...at the table") were probably prompted by the abundance of good food before them, which Joseph then prophesied they would not always have. (source)

 

Further Reading:

 

Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies