David Alexander, a "Grifter/Conman" or a Martin Harris?

“This guy is a regular Martin Harris!”

The other day a friend of mine asked me to send him a link to a timeline I had posted on Mormon convert David Alexander’s religious peregrinations during his purported “47 years in evangelical Christianity” (see here, min. 20) prior to becoming a Mormon on 20 March 2023.  After seeing it, my friend responded back: “Thanks! This guy is a regular Martin Harris.”

Earlier, on the popular Mormonism Live Podcast 172 (24 March 2024), the moderator who calls himself RFM (Radio Free Mormon) said the following:

If a person wants to try and find the truth, and that’s important to them in a religious sense and they go one place, they think they found it, they realize they didn’t find it, but they gave it their best shot, they want to try something else, and they do that, and they spend their life doing that, sort of like a modern-day Martin Harris this guy is, I’ve got no problem with that. In some ways it might be, I don’t know, admirable, from a certain perspective.  But the only problem I have is with a guy joining Mormonism under the false story that he was an evangelical pastor for 47 years when actually all he was was a cult hopper from Twelve Tribes and who knows what else, but most recently probably the Twelve Tribes. And he knows it’s so problematic that when he’s asked the question directly, he spends seven minutes not answering the question but characterizing the question itself as an attack on him. (See also here 1.21-22).

I am not aware of Alexander claiming to be a evangelical pastor for 47 years, but he did claim to be an evangelical for that amount of time. 

The question before us then, as the title indicates, is whether David Alexander is better described as a Grifter/Conman or a Martin Harris. (See here 1:135-36).

The Mormon Discussions Podcast episode was not the first time I had heard the comparison made between Harris and Alexander in the month or so since Alexander popped up on my radar, nor was it the first expression of doubt I had heard, or entertained myself, that there might be more to the story about Alexander's alleged 47-year evangelical background than he was letting on.

Was Alexander an evangelical for all that time? Was he one at all?  The sticking point for me was that he did not really sound like an evangelical.  Every community develops its own set of concerns which it expresses in its own language. The reason this is so is because every community represents an ongoing conversation unique to itself, so if someone from the outside tries to jump in and take part it’s often pretty obvious they are outsides.  And so in the case of Alexander. When he talked about his past, he didn’t seem to be speaking Evangelical.

August Gottlieb Spangenberg

 So for example, if one were to ask an evangelical, “What is the most important thing for me to know when reflecting on what it means to be a Christian?”  His answer would likely be the same as that given by the Moravian August Gottlieb Spangenberg to the very zealous but as-yet-unsaved John Wesley when the latter arrived in Georgia as a missionary in 1736.  

    The day after Welsey's arrival in Savannah, he met Spangenberg and asked him his advice “with regard to my own conduct,” hoping to obtain counsel as to the best way to proceed with his own missionary work. In reply Spangenberg immediately started interrogating Wesley about his own spiritual condition: “My brother,” said Spangenberg, “I must first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are the son of God?”[1]

This was not a question Wesley was prepared for, and he says he was “surprised, and knew not what to answer.” It was the same question his father had pressed him about in his final illness the year previous (d. 25 April 1735). “The inward witness, son” the dying Samuel Wesley had stressed, “the inward witness, that is the proof, the strongest proof, of Christianity.” Years later, John Wesley admitted that “at the time I understood him [his father] not.”[2] Spangenberg observed Wesley’s surprise and probed further: “Do you know Jesus Christ?”

Wesley hesitated, then answered: “I know he is the Saviour of the world.”

    “True,” responded Spangenberg, “but do you know he has saved you?”

    “I hope he has died to save me.” replied Wesley.

    “Do you know yourself?” Spangenberg returned.

Wesley answered, “I do,” but confided more honestly to his journal: “But I fear they were vain words.”

This, from a typical evangelical perspective, is the most important question a person must ask himself and others:  Do I [you, we, they] know Jesus Christ and that he has saved not just the world but me. Do I have the witness within myself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with my spirit that I am the son of God?” (see Rom 8:16). 

Alexander often affirms that before he became a Mormon he knew that the Bible was true, and that Jesus died for his sins.  But when it comes to the question of salvation itself he usually frames it in terms not of a relationship with Jesus but of finding the organization with apostolic authority that follows Jesus correctly by keeping Jesus’ commands.  This is a strain that runs right through his history.  In contrast evangelicals focus instead on knowing Jesus himself. 

We see this difference in language and emphasis in Alexander’s description of where he was at when he joined the Twelve Tribes group in 2002, a quarter of a century after having prayed to receive Christ:   

This is what I was looking for, an apostolic people that I could be baptized into with authority.  Because by now I’d already been baptized like four times, and I’d just gotten wet, okay, because, there has to be the authority and there has to be a covenant people to be baptized into, that is the body of Christ, it actually is Heavenly Father’s covenant people...I didn’t feel any more saved than a pig in the mud...The Gospel with authority and power is designed to cut people out of the world and bring them into the kingdom of God on earth, like Paul, he says, you know, “I turned you from darkness to light, and from the Kingdom of Satan unto God,” it transfers you from the kingdoms of this world into the Kingdom of God on earth. And I knew that had never happened.” (see here, min. 21-23).

An evangelical might read the reference to Alexander's not feeling "any more saved than a pig in the mud," in the above passage as amounting to a frank confession on Alexander’s part that he had never been born again, had never received, to echo Spangenberg’s words, the witness within himself as described by Paul in Romans 8:15-16:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Or again in 1 John 3:24:

And by this we know that he [God] abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

Evangelicals would also tend to interpret the quote Alexander draws from God’s commission of the apostle Paul differently and remark on the additional details Alexander adds to it that shift its meaning in a non-Pauline direction.  Here are the words from Acts 26:17-18: 

“I [Jesus] am sending you [Paul] to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” 

For the evangelical, following the teaching of Paul himself, it is not a matter of hunting down God’s community and joining it.  It is a matter, rather, of those who are born of the Spirit being at the same time joined by the Spirit to God’s community, the body of Christ. “For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one spirit to drink” (1 Corinthians 12:13).  It is indeed very common for the new birth to occur prior to the physical rite of baptism, and also quite common to undergo the physical rite of baptism without it being accompanied by the new birth. If it were only a matter of being baptized into the body of Christ by someone with authority, then why would Paul urge the Corinthians to “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith, test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course you fail the test” (2 Corinthians 13:5). Paul himself founded the church at Corinth, so if they failed the test it was not because Paul didn’t have the apostolic authority to found a church and to baptize![3] The real issue, which Paul pinpoints in the passage, is that someone can be in a church founded by the apostle Paul himself and even baptized by an apostle and not be in the faith because Christ Jesus is not in them (See Romans 8:9).

In addition it should also be said that one can “go forward,” or “pray to receive Christ,” or even have a very deeply felt experience at some point when hearing the Gospel without it resulting, as Paul put it, in being “in the faith.”  Even prominent atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman boasts that he “asked Jesus into my heart, and had a bona fide born-again expereince.”[4]  Another famous example from the middle of the last century was Charles Templeton, sometime fellow evangelist with Billy Graham.[5]  That this is the case should not be surprising and was even spoken about by Jesus himself in the famous Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:3-8/Luke 8:5-8/Matthew 13:3-8).

In any case, the fact that Alexander’s focus is where it is, i.e., primarily on finding the one true organization to join means he doesn’t talk like an evangelical. And this naturally raised legitimate question as to whether he had really ever actually been an evangelical. In responding to this Alexander very helpfully produced a ten-video series, between 28/29 March and 5 April 2024, and titled Who is Latter Day Saint Convert David Alexander? Really?[6] In it he gave a broad outline of his various ecclesiastical associations (see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).  In the series Alexander was transparent in providing names, places, and dates of his various affiliations, making it possible to check his claims.  And while one can certainly doubt the appropriateness of his referring to certain of the groups he belonged to as, strictly speaking, “evangelical,” it is clear that in most cases (except the last group, called the Twelve Tribes) one might call them that without dissembling.

As for the Twelve Tribes, I doubt any fair-minded person would find fault with doubting the appropriateness of calling that group just another evangelical church.  Evangelical churches are generally not in the habit of unquestioningly following a modern-day prophet, as the Twelve Tribes follow Gene Spriggs, nor regarding all other churches beside themselves, including evangelical churches, as apostate.[7]

It would seem that the Twelve Tribes actually has more in common on the one hand with 1970s communal groups like Steven Gaskin’s The Farm, Father Yod’s Source Family, but especially Seattle’s Love Family (Church of Armageddon) and on the other with Mormonism, than it has with evangelicalism.  University of Montana religious studies scholar Robert Balch recently described the Twelve Tribes to me as “the Love Family, minus the sex, drugs & rock ‘n’ roll.”  Having had contact with the Love Family myself, the similarities are striking. One can read about the group in Charles P. LeWarne’s The Love Israel Family: Urban Commune, Rural Commune (Seattle & London: University of Washington Press, 2009). 

Brian Allen, the son of celebrity Steve Allen, joined the Love Family and was given the group name Logic Israel. Steve Allen also wrote a book about it entitled Beloved Son (1982).  A very helpful summary of the Love Family's teaching is provided by Steve and Brian Allen (here and here).  The scholar who has perhaps done the most work on the Twelve Tribes from a scholarly perspective is Susan Palmer of McGill University, who compiled a helpful overview of the group.[8]  

On the other hand, the Twelve Tribes are like the Mormons in imagining they are the only true Church, have a Prophet like Joseph Smith (Gene Spriggs), believe that the Early Church went into apostasy and that they represent its latter-day restoration, and even apparently have an idea that the righteous will one day have their own planet.[9]  They also send out their evangelists two by two,[10] a practice they share not only with the Mormons, but also with the No-Name Sect commonly referred to as the Two by Twos.

Joining the three groups together is the famous statement in the Ward Teachers Message for June 1945 in the LDS Improvement Era, which stated:

When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan—it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other that is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy.  God works in no other way.”[11]

This also describes the level of obedience expected in the Love Family and in the Twelve Tribes.  While a member of the Twelve Tribes, Alexander himself, then going by the name Daveed Derush, was quoted as saying “A characteristic of all the [Twelve Tribes] communities is that there is no difference of opinion.” [12]  As for the Love Family, I still remember a discussion with a friend in the Love Family giving my reasons for not accepting their principle of “agreeing to agree” with the leader Love Israel (Paul Erdmann) in everything.

So we must admit that Alexander’s claim that the Twelve Tribes is just another evangelical group is not strictly true.  Can we perhaps count it as an infelicitous rhetorical embellishment ventured in an unguarded moment of defensiveness, especially since he appears to have shifted more recently to referring to his past as “non-LDS Christianity.” (See here).  Perhaps.  We cannot as easily excuse the scorn Alexander pours on those who merely raise the question, as reflected in his tirade berating someone who did so in which Alexander suggested they would “make a really good stand-up comedian” for merely asking the question. See here, min. 12.  But if Alexander, in violation of 2 Timothy 2:24, showers contempt on those who question his own religious decisions past and present, let us at least try to continue our discussion of them in a more courteous spirit.

Is Alexander another Bill Schnoebelen?

Another accusation I heard expressed recently, namely that Alexander is “just another Bill Schnoebelen.” This is helpful because it provides a point of comparison. For those who may not remember, in the 1980s, William J. Schnoebelen presented himself and his wife first as a former Roman Catholic priest and nun who converted to Mormonism.  This got their “testimony” published in Stephen W. Gibson’s 1983 LDS Bookcraft publication, From Clergy to Convert, and then afterward as a former Satanist who had converted to Mormonism, only to discover to that their rites derived from Satanism. Schnoebelen never was a Roman Catholic Priest, nor was his wife a Roman Catholic nun. His claims about the origins of Mormon rites were also erroneous.[13] At one point Schnoebelen even claimed that LDS Apostle James E. Faust had admitted to him that Lucifer was the God Mormons worshipped in the temple.[14] I think it is important to note that Alexander is not another Schoebelen. If we would dispute Alexander’s interpretation of the meaning of this or that group or event in his past, he is nevertheless not a fraud on the level of a Schoebelen. He really did belong to the groups he said he did, and he pursued what he believed with authentic zeal, often at great cost to himself.  With the information he provided in the ten videos mentioned before one discovers that Alexander traveled, for the most part, on the hyper-Pentecostal fringe of popular Christianity.  Only his claim that the Twelve Tribes are evangelical remains problematic, especially given the fact that he was in that group most recently and for much longer than he had been in any group previous to it. 

David Alexander as a Martin Harris

But how about calling Alexander a Martin Harris, likening him to one of the three original witnesses of the Book of Mormon? And why would anyone do that? The first time this occurred to me was while reading Alexander’s enthusiastic account of becoming a member of the Twelve Tribes group, which, as already noted, is an eschatological communal group founded by Gene Spriggs in 1972. After describing his first few attempts and failures at finding or starting a church that he felt was acceptable, Alexander reports:

I moved my family 11 times over the next 23 years, through almost 20 different groups and movements that claimed to offer what I hoped for. I would find a group that promised apostolic authority, community, and love, throw my life and family into it, and then get crushingly disappointed. This happened over and over and over again.”[15]

But upon finding the Twelve Tribes group he says,

For the first time in 48 years on this earth, I saw the Gospel and the Kingdom of God in a real demonstration of the love of John 13:35, the unity of John 17:21, the life of Acts 2 & 4, and the good government of Ephesians 4:11. They preached the true Gospel to me in the power of the Spirit. I believed in it, and will forever.”[16]

These statements call Martin Harris to mind because both Harris and Alexander are/were enthusiastic joiners, as quick to affirm as they were to renounce. What women were to Wodehouse’s Bingo Little, religious sects were/are to Harris and Alexander:

Poor old Bingo was going through it once again. Ever since I have known him—and we were at school together—he has been perpetually falling in love with someone, generally in the spring, which seems to act on him like magic.[17]

Twenty churches in twenty-three years has Alexander changing churches an average of just over one a year. Of course, the situation is more complicated than that because he was in some churches quite a bit longer. So, for example, he reports having spent nine of those years in a church he started himself. This made his brushes with other churches even more brief. A fuller account of details is given here. This was also very much the story of Martin Harris. It was the reputation he’d already established for himself even before Mormonism. We see this, for example, in the recollections of his neighbors. In a statement dated 25 December 1833, and signed by no less than twenty-one of Harris’ neighbors, we read:

Martin Harris was a man who had acquired a handsome property, and in matters of business was considered good; but on moral and religious subjects, he was perfectly visionary—sometimes advocating one sentiment, and sometimes another.[18]

According to another affidavit, given by G. W. Stoddard on 28 November 1833, Harris “was first an orthadox [sic] Quaker, then a Universalist, next a Restorationer, then a Baptist, next a Presbyterian, and then a Mormon.”[19] Episcopal minster John A. Clark recalls that prior to Harris’ coming to see him personally in 1827 to talk about the discovery of the gold plates, he’d already had a “very slight acquaintance with Mr. Harris,” because he “had occasionally attended divine service in our church.” In other word, Harris also sometime attended the Episcopal Church as well.  Clark goes on to say that Harris had “been, if I mistake not, at one period a member of the Methodist Church, and subsequently identified himself with the Universalists. At this time, however [c. 1827], in his religious views he seemed to be floating upon a sea of uncertainty. He had evidently quite an extensive knowledge of the Scriptures, and possessed a manifest disputatious turn of mind. As I subsequently learned, Mr. Harris had always been a firm believer in dreams, and visions, and supernatural appearances, such as apparitions and ghosts, and therefore was a fit subject for such men as Smith and his colleagues to operate upon.”[20]

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines inconstant as “likely to change frequently without apparent or cogent reason.”  To be sure, some of the times Alexander changed religious groups it was for good reasons (see here). The same was true of Martin Harris.  In the late 1830s many of the early leaders either departed from the Church or were driven out by Joseph Smith, Sydney Rigdon and others.  Another of the three Book of Mormon witnesses, David Witmer , recalls: 

About the same time that I came out [June 1838], the Spirit of God moved upon quite a number of the brethren who came out, with their families. All of the eight witnesses who were then living (except the three Smiths) came out; Peter and Christian Whitmer were dead. Oliver Cowdery came out also. Martin Harris was then in Ohio. The church went deeper and deeper into wickedness.[21]

A key issue was Smith and Rigdon’s doctrinal innovations, which they supported by introducing doctrinal changes into the Book of Mormon and the early revelations.  But in addition to this there was the collapse of the Kirtland Bank, concerning which Warren Parrish, an officer at the bank, wrote:

I have listened to him [Joseph Smith] with feelings of no ordinary kind, when he declared that the audible voice of God, instructed him to establish a Banking-Anti Banking institution which like Aaron’s rod should swallow up all other Banks (the Bank of Monroe excepted,) and grow and flourish and spread from the rivers to the ends of the earth, and survive when all others should be laid in ruins. I have been astonished to hear him declare that we had 60,000 Dollars in specie in our vaults, and $600,000 at our command, when we had not to exceed $6,000 and could not command any more.[22]

Wilford Woodruff gives a somewhat different account of the audible prophesy, making the success of the bank contingent on the faithfulness of the brethren. But however that may be, for Harris the collapse of the Kirtland Bank was a factor in his loosing faith in Joseph Smith. In a late interview Anthony Metcalf reports that,

Harris...stated that the Kirtland Bank was a swindle, and he would have nothing to do with it.  About that time Harris began to lose confidence in Joe Smith, as a man of truth, honor, and principle, yet he believed him to be a prophet of God.”[23]

Like Harris, several other early leaders also concluded that Joseph, after completing the Book of Mormon, had become a fallen prophet.  

The Kirtland bank folded in 1837, and Harris was excommunicated in December of that same year.  Harris had also apparently been one of the dissenters at Kirtland who,

openly, and publicly, renounced the Church of Christ of Latterday Saint, and claimed, themselves to be the old standard, called themselves the Church of Christ. and set at naught B^r. Joseph and the whole Church, denounceing them as Heriticks.[24]

In adopting the name “Church of Christ,” Harris and the others were expressing their preference for the original name of the Church. 

By the time Joseph wrote his Letter to the Church in Caldwell County Missouri a year later from Liberty Jail, he was condemning not only Harris, but all three of the Book of Mormon witnesses and others as well: 

Such characters as [William E.] McLellin, John Whitmer, D. Whitmer, O. Cowdery, Martin Harris, who are too mean to mention and we had liked to have forgotten them.[25]

Richard Lloyd Anderson tells us that during Harris’ time in Kirtland, he “changed his religious position eight times, including a rebaptism [into the LDS Church] by a Nauvoo missionary in 1842.  Every affiliation of Martin Harris was with some Mormon group, except when he was affiliated with the Shaker belief.”[26] The terms by which Anderson describes Harris’ inconstancy is “religious instability.” Does the same apply to Alexander?

After Joseph’s death, Brigham Young was not the only one claiming to be Joseph’s chosen successor, and Martin Harris bounced around throwing his support behind first one and then another of them.

After being rebaptized into the LDS Church in 1842, we find that by 1844 Harris had become a Shaker, or follower of Mother Ann Lee. The Shakers also had a book that one of their group, Philemon Stewart, had supposedly received by revelation titled,  A Holy, Sacred, and Divine Roll and Book; from The Lord of Heaven, to the Inhabitants of Earth: Revealed to the United Society at New Lebanon…(1843).[27] It was Stewart’s book that, according to Clark Braden, Martin Harris is reported to have “declared repeatedly that he had as much evidence for a Shaker book he had as for the Book of Mormon.”[28] That Harris made such claims is also mentioned in a letter from Phineas H. Young and others to Brigham Young (31 Dec 1844): “Martin Harris is a firm believer in shakerism says his testimony is greater than it was of the book of Mormon.”

 

Phineas H. Young et al. to Brigham Young, December 31, 1844, here.

 

But then in 1846 we find Harris in England as a Strangite missionary, that is to say as a follower and evangelist for James Strang, another claimant to being Joseph Smith’s successor. [29] Harris was also a member of the group’s High Council.[30]
    Strang claimed the succession based on a letter supposedly written by Smith and published on the front page of the January 1864 Voree Herald. In the previous year Strang claimed that an angel had revealed the location where other ancient plates were buried under an oak tree in Wisconsin Territory at Voree.  These plates, usually called the Voree plates (and here), were retrieved and allegedly translated by Strang using the Urim and Thummim an angel had given him.  They turned out, Strang claimed, to be a document called “The Record of Rajah Manchou of Vorito.” Presumably in embracing Strang as Joseph’s true successor, Harris also would have regarded the Voree plates as genuine.

Nevertheless, trouble broke out between Harris and Strang’s group by 10 February 1847 when Lester Brook, Harris’ companion on his mission to England, reports Harris saying that

 

Joseph went to the devil as soon as he would not let him [Harris] rule, for the Lord showed him one hundred times as much as he did Joseph.  That he has taught the church all they know about the things of God, and if Strang does not let him dictate the church will go to the devil, and Strang with it.[31]

By December 1847 Martin had changed again, and we now find Harris as one of the Three Witnesses testifying to Joseph Smith having ordained not Brigham Young or Strang but David Whitmer as Joseph’s chosen successor in the newspaper for William McLellin’s group.[32]

 By 1853 Harris was a Gladdenite, a follower of Francis Gladden Bishop, another self-proclaimed successor to Joseph Smith.[33] On 16 March 1851 Bishop declared in the Kirtland Temple that the Lord had entrusted him with the gold plates along with the other items Joseph Smith claimed to have originally found with them.[34]   That same year Bishop issued An Address to the Sons and Daughters of Zion, Scattered Abroad, Through All the Earth, which announced that Joseph had been called to translate the Book of Mormon, but that he, Bishop, had been called to the greater work of bringing forth the Book of Life, which was the “sealed portion” of the Book of Mormon.   The claim was buttressed by the inclusion in the booklet of a prophecy, dated 15 June 1851, in which the Lord was said to declare: 

I have called you [the Mormons] through my servant Joseph, that ye should be my people, even my church, through whom I would bring forth my Kingdom on the earth. And now, therefore, as my servant Joseph is taken, the keys of the preparatory work of the same is with my servant Gladden, whom I have called to bear my name before all the nations of the earth.[35]

Then two years later (1855), Thomas Colburn reports Harris, now aged 71, bemoaning having followed the Shakers and Gladden Bishop and saying he planned to go to Utah and live under Brigham and the authorities there “as soon as he could get away.”  But Harris didn’t leave Kirtland.  In the following year, however, his wife Caroline, then in her late thirties, along with their children migrated to Utah.  In the meantime, in the same month as Colburn wrote of his visit, Harris issued an eight-page tract in Cleveland that was grandly titled A Proclamation and a Warning Voice unto All People, First to all Kings, Governors and Rulers in Authority, and unto Every Kindred Tongue and People under the Whole Heavens, to Whom this Word Shall Come (13 May 1855).  It’s message purported to come from Moses, Elias, Elijah and John (see, here).  In his journal for October 1855, Stephen Post explains that “Br Martin Harris had published a proclamation purporting to be given by Moses, Elias, Elijah & John through a Miss Sexton a spirit medium of Cleveland.  Wm [William] Smith got a revelation given through the same medium.”[36]

Martin Harris, William Smith, and Chilton Daniels apparently had in mind launching yet another movement.[37] 

    Later, on 22 June 1858, Wilford Woodruff reported in his journal that “The Brethren called at kirtland.  Martin Harris had reorganized the Church in this place with 6 members.  Appointed Wm. Smith their Leader Prophet Seer & Revelator.  In few days Harris drove Wm. Smith out of the place & damned him to Hell.” (see here).

In 1870 Martin Harris moved to Utah and was rebaptized yet again into the LDS Church. But a few years later he told Anthony Metcalf that he didn’t accept LDS teaching:

He [Harris] also claimed that polygamy, baptism for the dead, and such endowments as were given [at] Nauvoo and Salt Lake City, were no part of Mormonism.  I asked him why he had taken his endowments when he arrived in Salt Lake City.  He answered that ‘his only motive was to see what was going on in there.’  This was said in the presence of James Bowman, of Soda Springs, Idaho, and myself.”[38] 

Metcalf went on to report that “Harris never believed that the Brighamite [LDS] branch of the Mormon church, nor the Josephite [RLDS=Community of Christ] church, was right, because, in his opinion, God had rejected them; but he did believe that Mormonism was the pure gospel of Christ when it was first revealed.”[39] 

In the interview Harris gave the following rather sad account of what was probably his final belief to Metcalf:

Martin Harris asked me to look on his face and see how it was wrinkled with old age...He then read that part of the prophet Isaiah, which speaks of some man ‘whose visage was so marred, more than any other man’s, so shall he sprinkle the nations.’ Harris said, ‘I am that man,’ and that the vigor of youth would yet return to him, and that he would yet lead the faithful of all the Latter Day Saints back to Zion, in Jackson County, Missouri, and ‘I know it will come to pass, as well as I know that Mormonism is true.’  About two years later Harris died.[40] 

David Alexander 

When we turn to Alexander’s religious history, especially between his 1976 embrace of Christianity and his joining the Twelve Tribes group in 2002 we see a very similar pattern to that of Martin Harris.  Here is a summary timeline, which he himself describes as incomplete:

1976, June: 21 years old. Prayed to receive Christ at the House of Mercy Commune in Olympia, Washington, which was associated with Jim Durkin’s Gospel Outreach 1976, June-c. Dec. c. 1977: Lived at the House of Mercy Commune in Olympia

1978, Spring: Sent to Phoenix to start Gospel Outreach community there.

1978-1979: Abandons Gospel Outreach Project and joins Valley Cathedral, a non-denominational Charismatic Church in Phoenix, AZ.

1979-1980: Leaves Valley Cathedral with group that follows singles’ pastor Glen Melot to found his own Church.

c. 1980-c.1983: Starts attending St. Jerome’s Catholic Church in Phoenix. It is involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

1984: Starts attending Steubenville Franciscan University, a key school in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, in Steubenville, Ohio. Attends for about a year.

1985: Starts attending Evangelical Presbyterian Church in small town near Steubenville.

1985-1986: While on vacation, visits Tucson Arizona's Door Christian Fellowship, which was founded in connection with the Potter’s House group out of Prescott, Arizona.

1985-1987: Starts his own Door Christian Fellowship (not affiliated with the Arizona Church) in Wintersville, Ohio.

1987-1988: Disillusioned he attends a Prophecy conference in Cleveland Ohio, where he is invited to participate in Prophet Steve Shank’s church plant. 1987-1988: Moves to Virginia Beach, Virginia with his family and some members of Open Door to attend Steve Shank’s church plant.

1990: Living in Chesapeake, VA, in the Hampton Roads Metro Area (which included Virginia Beach) and attended Bob Fox’s Vineyard Church start-up in Chesapeake area for about six months.

1990: Moved into the Foundation Park neighborhood to help Broken Chains International for about a year.

1990-1999: Starts his own Abundant Life Church, in the Cradock district in the Tidewater area of Portsmouth, Virginia. 1995-1998: Seeks a formal connection for Abundant Life Church with the Seventh Day Baptists.

1999: Moves to Maine with group from Abundant Life to start, at his own initiative, a Christian commune which lasted about 6 months.

2002, Nov.- c. 2021: With Gene Spriggs Twelve Tribes group.

c. 2021: Leaves Twelve Tribes and moves from Katoomba, Australia, to Kiama, Australia.

c. 2021-Mar 2023: Lives in van in Kiama mostly just trying to memorize the Gospel of John.

2023, Mar 20: Alexander baptized into the LDS Church.

For more details with links see the full version of this timeline. Another parallel between Alexander and Martin Harris is that they both threw themselves enthusiastically behind any new movement or teaching they embraced, only to become disillusioned fairly quickly. Harris, it should be remembered, actually bankrolled the Book of Mormon. And later he did not settle for simply joining the Strangites, he served a mission for them in England as well. And given his support of the Strang it would seem probably that he would have also thrown his support behind the validity of the Voree Plates, the so-called “The Record of Rajah Manchou of Vorito,” as he did in the case of the book of Mormon and the Shaker Book.  And yet the very next year we find him endorsing not Strang but David Whitmer as Joseph Smith’s true successor.  It seemed very easy for Martin to make affirmations of the truth in the language of absolute certainly, only to quickly lose all confidence about them later. 

Currently the internet is full of videos of David Alexander claiming that after 47 years, he has finally found the real thing.  But it is good to recall that this is precisely what he said when he joined the Twelve Tribes group some twenty plus years ago.  Here is his report of his first encounter with that Twelve Tribes group:

Within 30 minutes after I walked in, I was utterly undone. For the first time in 48 years on this earth, I saw the Gospel and the Kingdom of God in a real demonstration of the love of John 13:35, the unity of John 17:21, the life of Acts 2 & 4, and the good government of Ephesians 4: 11. They preached the true Gospel to me in the power of the Spirit. I believed in it, and will forever. In obedience to the true Gospel, the one that unlike all the others is actually found in the Gospels, I have surrendered myself utterly to God to serve Him where He is — with His people and nowhere else.[41] [italics added]

In a post six years ago, while still a member of the Twelve Tribes, Alexander expressed a similar sentiment when he wrote concerning the Twelve Tribes:

I know for a fact that I live with the most cognitive, real and down-to-earth people I have every [sic] known...in my 64 years on this planet. (See here). 

And then, in another from the same time frame: 

I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck...I am an old hippie...child of the 60’s...64 years old...and I love where I live, I love the Twelve Tribes Communities...it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. (See here). [italics added].

But he didn’t believe it forever, not were wild horses needed to drag him away.  Rather he now says that he left because he came to the conclusion that it wasn’t biblical, quoting passages that would surely have been the very first ones to occur to a biblically literate evangelical when initially confronted with the particulars of the Twelve Tribes teaching.  (See here).

When Alexander joined the Twelve Tribes he characterized everything the groups he had belonged to before as a massive waste of time:

According to the very words of Jesus, the most radical, self-congratulatory groups in all of Christianity, including the ones I presumed to lead, are not even fit for the dunghill. Of course, I got what I deserved. I tried to save my life and almost lost it. I tried to serve God and money and deceived myself. I even became a deceiver myself. I lost most of my family. I utterly wasted the best years of my adult strength. (See here, p. 7 and here, p. 7).

And now that Alexander has joined the LDS Church the narrative is the same, except that he now includes the Twelve Tribes on the dung heap with all the others.  For particularly impassioned examples see his clip entitled “My 47 year search for truth,” and his comment referring to his pre-LDS Christian experience as “diggin’ around in the trash of my forty-seven year history as an evangelical,” (here, min. 20) and “Now I have the power to speak and act for God in power of the Holy Ghost and you (a Christian who question him about the Twelve Tribes being evangelical) don’t.  You know?  This is just the way it is Bro.  So you’re gonna have to deal with it.”  (here, min. 16-17).  After hearing the latter boorish asseveration, I could not help but recall that in the early 1980s a member of Victor Paul Wierwille’s The Way group cornering me by a copy machine and shouted at me the declaration that my Jesus was “a wimp.” Is that man, I wonder, still shouting people down as a member of the Way?  Or has he moved on to shout them down as an advocate of some other group? Or is he simply shouting them down not because he belongs to any group but simply because he is the sort of person who shouts people down?   

And this brings up an important point. The remarkable enthusiasm and absolute certainty Alexander expressed/expresses in relation to the Twelve Tribes and Mormonism appears to be something he brought to them, not something he got from them.  This he admits himself with remarkable candor in his 2003 testimony about joining the Twelve Tribes:

At first, my wife and children believed me when I told them the Kingdom of God was the most important thing on earth, that it was the only thing that had eternal reality. But they could not help but see that every time I claimed to have found God’s Kingdom, it turned out to be a mirage.[42]

How similar is this to how he recently described his past (now including his time in the Twelve Tribes) prior to becoming LDS:

This was like the story of my life, I’d be like, ‘Okay, maybe this person’s an Apostle,’ and I’d throw myself into believing in them, and following them, and get crushingly disappointed...fooled again. Bought another pig in a poke...once again looking for genuine spiritual authority in another wrong place” (see here, min. 102-103).

Here again we come to the distinction between Alexander and evangelicals, in that he is looking for an apostle or a group to follow whereas they look to Jesus who then joins them to the body of Christ through the Holy Spirit.  This really is quite a different perspective.  Further, in saying this is the view of evangelicals, I by no means intend to conceal the fact that it is also my own view. I honestly do not think Alexander has really found his spiritual place of rest in the LDS Church because I do not think it is there.  I do not believe that the knowledge and power and enjoyment of God can be obtained by joining any earthly organization no matter how correct its teaching may be.  Those things are given by God alone, which takes us back to the first question Spangenberg put to John Wesley, “I must ask first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are the son of God?” At the time Wesley was an unconverted Anglican missionary.  The problem wasn’t that Wesley was an Anglican (which he never left) the problem was that he had never been born again of the Spirit.    

The question whether or not Alexander will move on from Mormonism, adding it to his list of pigs in a poke, “fit for the dunghill,” and once again gloriously proclaim that he has finally found the real deal in some other group remains uncertain. He spent seventeen or eighteen years in the Twelve Tribes, the longest he stayed anywhere, so it is at least conceivable that he might last that long in the LDS Church. Sinasta Colluci, who had known Alexander for “many years” while in the Twelve Tribes, commented upon hearing that he had converted to Mormonism:

I love how with every religious movement he [Alexander] gets involved in, he has equal conviction that he has found the truth and he sets out to gain as many converts as he can. (see here, min. 104).

This takes us back to the question of Alexander’s similarity to Martin Harris, which I hope by now has become clear.  But in saying this we must also realize that insofar as this is the case, he also similarly shares the same kind of credibility problem that Martin Harris did.  Harris loved to testify to about seeing the golden plates.  When in the 1970s the matriarch of a Mormon family much beloved to me had the missionaries come to her home to do the missionary lessons with me, one of the most memorable things was a film the church produced about Martin Harris’ testimony. It showed him on his deathbed crying out that he had seen the plates.  The film was likely based on the testimony of Ole A. Jensen who reported visiting Harris in his final illness in the month Harris died (July 1875). Harris did not disappoint, as Jensen attests:

He [Martin Harris] said in a loud voice. as he sat up in bed, “I whis that I could speak loud enough that the whole world could hear my Testimony.  Brother, stand over so I can see you.” And then he stretched out his hand and said, Brother I believe there is an angle hear to hear what I shall tell you, and you shall never forget what I shall say...I asked the Prophet [Joseph Smith] to kneel down with me, and pray for me, that I may see the plates.  And we did so and immediately the Angel stood befor me and said ‘look’ and when I glanced at him I fell, But I stood on my feet and saw the Angel turn the golden leaves over, and I said “it is enough, my Lord and My God! Then I heared the voice of God say the book is true, and translated correctly...Brother as sure as you are standing hear and see me Just as sure did I see the Angel with the golden plates, in his hand!  And he showed them to me I have promised that I will bear witness of this truth both hear and hear after.” See here, pp. 1-3 (original spelling/punctuation retained)

Jensen reports that hearing Harris’ testimony “thrilled my whole being, I can never forget nor can I express the Joy that filled my soul.” (See here).  And indeed who wouldn’t be stirred by such a testimony to something one believed?   But when one looks at it from the broader perspective of Harris’ life and the many other confident affirmations he made along the way one cannot help but view his testimony for the Book of Mormon, no matter how eloquently presented, with a certain reserve. 

In the first place there are those who recall Harris both early and late in his life saying that he hadn’t actually seen the plates.[43]  Even Harris’ testimony to Jensen amounted to a report of a vision of an angel holding the plates, and this from a man who twenty-one of his neighbors from the early days, described as “perfectly visionary—sometimes advocating one sentiment, and sometimes another”[44], and by an Episcopal minister who met Harris in the early days before the Book of Mormon had come forth as “a firm believer in dreams, and visions, and supernatural appearances, such as apparitions and ghosts.” (see here).  

John H. Gilbert, who worked at Grandin Printers while the Book of Mormon was being prepared, said that Harris “was considered by his neighbors a very honest man; but on the subject of Mormonism, he was said to be crazy.”[45] Gilbert also reports that:

Martin was something of a prophet:—He frequently said that Jackson would be the last president that we would have; and that all persons who did not embrace Mormonism in two year[‘]s time [i.e., from the time when the Book of Mormon was being printed] would be stricken off the face of the earth.”  He said that Palmyra was to be the New Jerusalem, and that her streets were to be paved with gold.[46]

Harris similarly told James A. Clarke in 1827 that when the Book of Mormon was brought forth it “would be found to contain such disclosures as would settle all religious controversies and speedily bring on the glorious millennium.”[47]

Harris also had a bit of the snake handling preacher in him of the sort now associated with Sand Mountain, Alabama. In an entry for 16 June 1834, George A. Smith reported in his memoirs that Martin Harris claimed he could handle snakes without being harmed, an obvious reference to a verse from the longer ending of Mark (16:18), but then got bit on the foot while “fooling” with one.[48]

The credibility of Harris’s testimony to the Book of Mormon does not stand alone, but must be evaluated from the perspective of the other things he testified too also. And this seriously raises the question of why Joseph would have chosen such a gullible and spiritually inconstant person to be one of the three witnesses. Can the question whether Joseph targeted Harris in particular because of his reputation for being both rich and gullible ever be entirely ruled out?[49]

But however that may be, the credibility of Harris’ testimony to the Book of Mormon, to Strang and his Vohee Plates, and the Shaker book stand or fall together. And in fact one must really say they fall together, since they were clearly not all true, even though Harris represented them as such.   Harris himself reportedly made a link between his testimonies for the Book of Mormon and the Shaker book when he said he had “as much evidence for a Shaker book he had as for the Book of Mormon.” [50]

As we have already seen, Harris also linked his prediction shortly before he died that he would “yet lead the faithful of all the Latter Day Saints back to Zion, in Jackson County, Missouri, to the statement ‘I know it will come to pass, as well as I know that Mormonism is true.’  About two years later Harris died.[51]

Ultimately, he even issued a proclamation allegedly from Moses, Elias, Elijah and John,[52] whose actually source was reported to be through a medium in Cleveland.[53]  Harris’ reliance even on a medium rather than simply putting forth a prophesy in his own name like all the other would be successors of Joseph Smith displays his self definition as a follower rather than a leader. 

The situation with David Alexander's testimonies is much the same.  When Alexander describes the story of his life by saying, ‘Okay, maybe this person’s an Apostle,’ and I’d throw myself into believing in them, and following them, and get crushingly disappointed.” (See 3 here, min.102), it reminds us of Harris’ ongoing quest for Joseph Smith’s true successor. We are reminded of the same when Alexander says: “I want to be like Timothy, I can’t find a Paul anywhere,” (See here, min. 16). And as Harris enthusiastically testified to one alleged successor after another, in some cases with their own supposed ancient Scripture, but then quickly broke with them, he reminds us of the enthusiasm with which Alexander is proclaiming the LDS Church at present. The fact that Alexander apparently displayed the same enthusiasm for the different groups and apostles that went before, should serve as a warning to those inspired by his untroubled certainty now. His confident affirmations are open to the same doubts that enabled the following passage to be written about Martin Harris in 15 November 1846 Millennial Star (vol. 8, 124), an official publication of what we now know as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 

One of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, yielded to the spirit and temptation of the Devil a number of years ago--turned against Joseph Smith and became his bitter enemy.  He was filled with the rage and madness of a demon.  One day he would be one thing, and another day another thing.  He soon became partially deranged or shattered, as many believed, flying from one thing to another, as if reason and common sense were thrown off their balance.  In one of his fits of monomania, he went and joined the “Shakers” or followers of Anne Lee.  He tarried with them a year or two, or perhaps longer, having had some flare ups while among them; but since Strang has made his entry into the apostate ranks, and hoisted his standard for the rebellious flock too, Martin leaves the “Shakers,” whom he knows to be right, and has known it for many years, as he said, and joins Strang in gathering out the tares of the field. 

The only note that rings false in this passage is that Martin’s religious instability is something that occurred sometime after his bearing witness to having seen the golden plates of the Book of Mormon. As we have already seen Martin Harris displayed the same religious inconstancy before encountering Joseph Smith as after. 

Conclusion  

So as to our initial question, although Alexander certainly comes across as an enthusiastic salesman for whatever new religion he happens to have most recently embraced, the term “grifter” or “conman” is perhaps too strong, despite his unfortunate claim that the Twelve Tribes is “just one of the seven or so evangelical denominations that developed out of the Jesus Movement” (See here, min. 20-21).

On the other hand, Harris and Alexander are similar enough in their shared repetitive pattern of enthusiastically throwing their support behind one group after another, each time becoming quickly disillusioned and moving on.  In each case, despite their many spiritual wanderings, both Harris and Alexander displayed certain constants. Harris seemed to be too ready to believe people putting themselves forward as successors of Joseph Smith or claiming to have gotten new scripture by revelation. Similarly, Alexander, throughout his search, tended to give credence to teachers claiming to be modern day prophets and apostles, most of whom would be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism by evangelicals.

Bob Fox, whose Vinyard start-up Alexander joined and then left in c. 1990, recalls as the reason Alexander gave for leaving Fox’s church, was that he had “decided that worshipping on the 7th day [i.e., Saturday rather than Sunday] was more biblical.[54] From that time on apparently, Alexander was drawn to groups that blurred the distinction between the Old and New Covenants. Between 1995-1998 he tried to become affiliated with the Seventh-Day Baptists, in 2002 he joined the Twelve Tribes who actually gave their followers Hebrew names and believed themselves to be the reconstituted Twelve Tribes of Israel, and then finally the Mormons who claim to be led by modern-day prophets, retain Temples that include furniture that mimic Old Testament models, though used for entirely different purposes, and even reveal to members in their patriarchal blessings which tribe of Israel they allegedly belong to (see here).

As we reflect on the course of David Alexander’s life and its similarity to Martin Harris’ we may ask whether it is possible to predict what his future might hold.  While no one can predict, it seems reasonable to suggest that if Alexander acts according to the pattern displayed by his past, we should at least not be surprised to find him moving along in a little while to some other group and simply adding the LDS Church to the list of all the groups he tried and rejected before.  And supposing he does, we can expect to hear him expressing yet again, the same perfect certainty that he has finally landed in the right place that he previously spoke of in relation to the Twelve Tribes and that he speaking of now in relation to Mormonism. Further, if his past pattern holds, we can expect it to be a group that claims to have prophets, and that blurs the distinction between law and the Gospel, between the old and the new covenants. Perhaps one of the Mormon splinter groups will become Alexander’s new imagined haven of rest. Or some other group.  Or maybe he will remain in the LDS Church, for as long a period, say, as he remained in Gene Sprigg’s Twelve Tribes. He is after all, no longer a young man.  From my own perspective none of these options are very happy outcomes, just as none of Martin Harris’ were.   I would, in all sincerity, much prefer Alexander ultimately seeking and finding his peace in the one who said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29).
__________

 
[1] John Welsey, Journal 7 Feb 1736, and here, p. 23.

[2] Letter to John Smith, 22 Mar 1748, see here, p. 100.

[3] Yet in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church he even seems to downplay the rite of baptism by stressing how “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel” (1 Corinthians 1:17).

[4] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), 3. [5] Charles Templeton, Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith (Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1996).

[6] Very likely in response to Mormon Dissussions, “Who is Mormon Convert David Alexander?”

[7] See here, min. 36.

[8] Susan Palmer, “Twelve Tribes,” World Religions and Spirituality Project (WRSP).

[9] Former Twelve Tribes member Sinasta J. Colluci writes: "In the eternal age, each disciple would rule over their own planet, and God’s love would spread throughout the whole universe. It sounds ridiculous to say now, but this is what the community taught, and what I honestly believed at the time." (Better than a Turkish Prison: What I Learned from Life in a Religious Cult (n.p.: Hypatia Press, 2019),80. Alexander and Colluci knew each other in the group. See here and here, min. 1:104-105.

[10] Called “walkers, see here,” min. 32.

[11] “Sustaining the General Authorities of the Church,” Improvement Era (June 1945), 354.

[12] Drew Goodmanson, “Twelve Tribes Community, Vista,” San Diego Reader (3 Nov 2005), digital edition.

[13] Ronald V. Huggins, Lighthouse: Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Despised and Beloved Critics of Mormonism (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature, 2022), 261-266, and Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Lucifer–God Doctrine: A Critical Look at Some Recent Charges Relating to the Worship of Lucifer in the Mormon Temple (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1987).

[14] Huggins, Lighthouse, 265, Tanner and Tanner, Lucifer–God Doctrine, 35.

[15] David Alexander, “My Search for a Holy People,” It Takes a Community (Winter, 2003), 7, and here, p. 7.

[16] Ibid.

[17] P. G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves in the Springtime,” in Enter Jeeves: Fifteen Early Stories (ed. David A. Jasen; Miniola, NY: Dover, 1997), 130.

[18] E.D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH: E.D. Howe, 1834), 261.

[19] Ibid.

[20] John A. Clark, Gleanings by the Way (Philadelphia: W.J. & J.K. Simon/ New York: Robert Carter, 1842), 222-23.

[21] David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, MO: David Whitmer, 1887), 28.

[22] Warren Parrish to the editor of the Painesville Republican (5 February 1838). See here, p. 2.

[23] A[nthony] Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast: Shipwrecks and Adventures at Sea! Religious Customs of the People of India and Burmah’s Empire (n.p.: A. Metcalf: n.p, [1888]), 72.

[24] Thomas B. Marsh to Wilford Woodruff, c. 18 June 1838, 1, nt. 8.

[25] Joseph Smith, Letter to the Church in Caldwell County, Missouri (16 Dec 1838), 6.

[26] Richard Lloyd Anderson, “The Certainty of the Skeptical Witness,” Improvement Era (Mar 1969), 63.

[27] Two Parts; Canterbury, NH: United Society, 1843.

[28] Public Discussion of the Issues Between the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Church of Christ (Disciples) Held in Kirtland, Ohio, Beginning February 12, and Closing March 8, 1884 Between E.L. Kelley, of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Clark Braden, of the Church of Christ (St Louis: Clark Braden, 1884), 173.

[29]Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 8.9 (20 Nov 1846): 137.

[30] Vohee Herald 1.9 (Sept 1846): n.p.

[31] Letter from Brother Brooks to Brother Adams (10 Feb 1847), Zion's Reveille 2.9 (11 Mar 1948), 36, bottom right.

[32] “Testimony of the Three Witnesses,” The Ensign of Liberty (Dec 1847): 43-44.

[33] Brigham Young, “Saints Subject to Temptation (17 Apr 1853),” Journal of Discourses 2:127, and Thomas Colburn to the Editor (Erastus Snow), Saint Louis Luminary (May 5, 1955): 94, last column, bottom).

[34] Francis Gladden Bishop, An Address to the Sons and Daughters of Zion, Scattered Abroad, Through All the Earth (Kirtland, OH: n.p., 1851), 23.

[35] Ibid., 46-47.

[36] Stephen Post, Journal, See here, compare with Harris, Proclamation, 3.

[37] Northern Islander (1 Nov 1855), first column.

[38] Metcalf, Ten Years before the Mast, 72.

[39] Ibid., 73.

[40] Ibid. For more detail see H. Michael Marquardt, “Martin Harris, The Kirtland Years: 1831-1870,” Dialogue 35.3 (Fall 2002): 1-40.

[41] David Alexander, “My Search for a Holy People,” It Takes a Community (Winter, 2003), 7, and here, p. 7)

[42] Alexander, “My Search for a Holy People,” 7, and here, p. 7)

[43] See, e.g., John H. Gilbert, memorandum, (8 Sept 1892), 5-6; Metcalf, Ten Years before the Mast, 70; Warren Parrish, Letter to the Editor (13 Mar 1838), Waldo Patriot 1 (4 May 1838), Belfast, Maine, see here, p. 5; p. 64, here. p. 5, Warren Parrish to E. Holmes (11 Aug 1838), The Evangelist (1 Oct 1838):226-27, Carthage, Ohio, see here p. 6; Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York: D. Appleton, 1867), 71.

[44] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, see 261.

[45] Gilbert memorandum, 4.

[46] Ibid., 5.

[47] Clark, Gleanings by the Way, 223-24.

[48] George A. Smith, Memoirs, c. 1860-1880, 34.

[49] Smith ended up making similar accusations against Whitmer and Cowdery as he did against Harris, which naturally raises the question of whether, if they really were the kind of men Joseph describes them as, why did he choose them to be witnesses to the book in the first place, and why should we take them seriously as witnesses?

[50] Public Discussion, 173.

[51] Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast, 73.

[52] Harris, A Proclamation, 1.

[53] Stephen Post, Journal, See here.

[54] Bob Fox to David Capps, 10 Apr 2024.