What Are the Foundational Claims of Mormonism? - An Analysis of Sources

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I had set out to analyze and determine what the foundational claims of Mormonism were and are.  In an effort to do so, I looked at three likely sources, the Joseph Smith History, as canonized in the Pearl of Great Price; the current missionary handbook, Preach My Gospel; and a general search of LDS.org, the official LDS website.  I recorded what I found at each source and combined them for an overall listing of the foundational claims of the church.  Each of the sources will be considered separately, then summarized as a whole.


Joseph Smith History

In selecting the Joseph Smith History, I presumed that if a historical event were important enough to be canonized, it must bear careful scrutiny for overall foundational claims.  I carefully read the Joseph Smith History, as currently canonized in the Pearl of Great Price.  As an important point of reference, the heading for Joseph Smith History says, “History of the Church, Vol. 1, Chapters 1-5.”  I found that to be interesting, given the late recording of that history relative to the dates that the events were purported to have occurred.  A careful reading identified the following events as important foundational events or claims.
•    The First Vision
•    The angel Moroni’s visit
•    Translation of the gold plates into the Book of Mormon
•    Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood

My identification of each of these events are my own segmentation, not an official church segmentation.  It may be argued that the middle two events are all one in the same regarding the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon.  I separate them because they are each separate events, and can each be analyzed separately.


Preach My Gospel

Preach My Gospel gave what I considered to be the most comprehensive listing of foundational events.  Given the relatively simplistic nature of the publication, these events were fairly accessible and easily identifiable.  My review of the relevant sections (pages 31-46) of Preach My Gospel led me to conclude that this text identifies the following claims as foundational.
•    The First Vision
•    The angel Moroni’s visit
•    Translation of the gold plates into the Book of Mormon
•    Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood
•    Restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood
•    Book of Mormon publication
•    Restoration of the church structure and organization
•    Restoration of a living prophet and ongoing modern day revelation

Some of these items seemed to be pretty clear as events, some were more claims.  For example, the living prophet with ongoing revelation is not so much an event, as a claim, at least from my perspective.


LDS.org

I spent some time searching the LDS.org website in an attempt to see if there were any publications or talks with focused on the foundational events or claims of the church.  By and large, I was left with only partially relevant talks and published curriculum.  I did, however, find one talk by President Gordon B. Hinckley that was particularly relevant, “The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith” (Ensign, Nov 2002, 78).  He spoke at great length about a handful of key claims, introducing another element into the foundational events that was absent from the previous two sources.  This element is the restoration of other priesthood keys by Moses, Elijah, and Elias.  A review of this article identified the following foundational events or claims.
•    The First Vision
•    Book of Mormon publication
•    Other Priesthood keys – gathering of Israel, dispensation of the gospel, and turning the hearts of the fathers to the children


Summary Analysis

This summary analysis will provide the framework which I will use to evaluate each of the foundational claims of the church over time, one at a time.  This analysis provides a framework for identifying the claims as well as perhaps developing a subjective understanding of the relative importance that the church places on each, simply by the frequency of inclusion in these key sources.

For simplicity, I will exclude the publication of the Book of Mormon.  Although it is an event, there is no question or disputation regarding whether or not the Book of Mormon was published.  An analysis of this point is fundamentally irrelevant.

I will also combine the three elements of the “Other Priesthood Keys” into one.  The events that are purported to have occurred at the Kirtland temple are contiguous and related, so I will treat it as a single event for the purposes of the analysis.  This is done for expediency, not because any one of these claims is deemed to be insignificant.

The frequency of occurrence of each claim in these three sources will be used as a guide to developing the relative importance of each claim.  Ultimately my analysis of the relative importance is my subjective opinion, and not based upon any claims made by the church proper.

My analysis suggests that the church identifies and holds dear as foundational claims the following.  These are listed in order of importance from my perspective, based upon this analysis.

•    The First Vision
•    The angel Moroni’s visit
•    Translation of the gold plates into the Book of Mormon
•    Aaronic Priesthood restoration
•    Melchizedek Priesthood restoration
•    Restoration of a living prophet and ongoing modern day revelation
•    Other Priesthood keys – gathering of Israel, dispensation of the gospel, and turning the hearts of the fathers to the children
•    Restoration of the church structure and organization

Each of these eight foundation claims will be analyzed and evaluated.  The intent of the analysis is to examine the evidence regarding each of the claims, and make a well reasoned assessment regarding these claims.  This analysis will be naturalistic in nature.  It will not employ an analysis of supernatural evidences regarding each of these claims.  That would be a topic for yet another analysis.