The question
of the name of the angel who appeared to Joseph Smith (the Nephi/Moroni
problem, as I call it) has been addressed rather competently by LDS apologists,
including the late Matthew B. Brown (see Matthew
B Brown on the angel Nephi/Moroni Question), so I will not be answering
this charge in this post. However, I do wish to show how this issue, as treated
by Christina Darlington, self-professed expert on “Mormonism,” proves that she
is deceptive and disingenuous. In her book, Misguided
by Mormonism, we read the following:
Joseph Smith couldn’t even keep his own angel
story straight. The official account published by the Mormon Church teaches
that Joseph Smith was visited by the angel Moroni
who buried the gold plates of the Book of Mormon. But in Joseph Smith’s handwritten
version of that account, he wrote that the angel Nephi visited him (see the image on the
next page). (Christina R. Darlington, Misguided
by Mormonism But Redeemed by God’s Grace: Leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints for Biblical Christianity [2d ed.; 2019], 65)
The image
(taken from my phone, so apologies for the quality) on p. 66 reference above is
the following:
There is a rather
odd (and theologically problematic) comment from Darlington on this issue:
Yet the angel Nephi could not have shown
Smith the location of the plates because, according to the Book of Mormon
history, he died several centuries before the plates were even written. Since
the Book of Mormon teaches that Moroni buried the plates when he was alive on
earth, the angel who showed Smith the location of the plates was later changed
from Nephi to Moroni. (Ibid., 65-66)
While I
agree that it was Moroni, not Nephi (the son of Lehi; there were many Nephis in
the Book of Mormon [though it doesn’t really matter which Nephi is in view here]), the reasoning Darlington gives is,
well, stupid. Just because Nephi died centuries before Moroni buried the plates
could not mean that he could not, as an angelic being, show Joseph Smith their location.
Could not God communicate this information to him? Seemingly, Darlington does
not believe that the dead can learn new things in the intermediate state and/or
have things communicated to them by God. This, I will admit, it a rather odd
statement, and only shows how shallow a thinker she is, as well as her being
theologically inept.