You’ve done a wonderful job–both in your initial evaluation and in your subsequent updates. You’ve gone above and beyond even what I had hoped. Thank you for all that you’ve done on my behalf. I was, and continue to be, a big supporter of what you do.

-Seth

Please let me repeat again that I meant no disrespect to Brother Smith through my unfamiliarity with his career until a week ago, or by my noting that “Church Historian” was a formal title belonging to someone else. I realize he did not apply that title to himself.

Also, I’d like you to know that more than one reader contacted me privately, appreciating the historical evaluation of Phelps’ record, but also saying that they would not comment publicly for fear that saying anything — even something academic about Phelps or historical practices — might be misinterpreted as reflecting badly in some way on Brother Smith. Their friendship with and respect for Brother Smith meant too much to risk misunderstanding. He should know how loyal some of his former students are!

I’ve made a few (slight) edits to my blog post (including some of the History of the Church sources). I think I’ll do a separate post which reconstructs the timeline using historical sources.

Apart from that, I wrote a post on Paul Thomas Smith’s credentials. If I could ask a small favor, it would be to include the link to it somewhere within this blog post you’ve written. He was kind enough to do the interview and I did him a disservice by giving him the wrong title in the video. http://sethadamsmith.blogspot.com/2011/06/paul-thomas-smith.html

Anyway, hope you’re doing well. Thanks for sending me the email with all of the stories! I’m excited to check them out!

-Seth

Post Script – I have a video of “Emma Smith’s Last Dream” coming out next week. I’ll be sure to do my homework on the video and on the article.

[Was that a threadjack? I did include "inspiring" just to try to keep it close.]

This was never — NEVER — about maligning Seth (or Phelps) or about “casting doubt” over the dream. I did not set out to prove the dream a fake; I set out to test its credibility, and that is what you completely misunderstand. This was a study in how historians check the background and context of a “new” document to estimate its credibility before weaving it into previously accepted history. It’s not so different from what lawyers do with a witness in determining his credibility before basing their case on his testimony.

One of the questions — not doubts, but questions — that a historian asks is “was this person in the right place at the right time to have witnessed these events?” If he was there, that’s a point toward his credibility. If he was not there, then he is a false witness and his testimony is discounted.

Nothing I wrote has the effect you claim — not to any critical reader. With the materials I had at hand, I was able to show that Phelps was at the right place at almost the right time, and could possibly have been at the right place at exactly the right time, although I did not have the materials on hand to demonstrate that conclusively. I invited readers to help fill in the chronology if they knew of relevant sources. Justin found those sources. That historical test — a perfectly normal, common, essential test, by the way — came out fully in favor of Phelps, and I not only acknowledged that, but I also pointed out to Seth that he had not (as of early this morning, at least) taken full advantage of that evidence by drawing attention to it on his blog.

There is no reason to remove that discussion from the first post and every reason to preserve it. The discussion addresses a relevant historical question, an obvious historical test. Deleting the discussion would only ignore and leave open a question that had to be examined.

I can hardly believe anyone with training or practice in history, as you claim for yourself, could be so ignorant of historical investigation that you can’t appreciate the necessity for examining such an obvious matter — was the witness where he claimed to be when he claimed to be? Only the most incompetent of historians, like the most incompetent of lawyers, would fail to ask that question.

Go away. You’re not bright enough to participate at Keepa, and no future comments of yours will be posted.

I also added my conclusion to the ‘video info’ section and added a video annotation to the video itself (at the end) strongly encouraging people to read about the historical context and controversy surrounding this account by clicking on the links provided in the ‘video info’ section.

I’ve added video annotations to the Paul Thomas Smith videos to serve as disclaimers and to clarify his position and I’m going through my blog to make sure that the references there are correct.

All in all, I haven’t slept too much…but I’m feeling a lot better knowing that I’m getting things right. I’ve felt a little like a first grader showing off his first science project…I’ve tried my hardest to make it my best work, but I’ve fallen short in many ways.

Thank you (and Jared T from Juvenile Instructor) for your help and patience and willingness to work with me.