The Second Elder: The question of Oliver Cowdery

Let's keep going on the Moses theme, and get another strange guess out.  This one didn't occur to me until this morning, and so its a relatively new thought.  Consider it highly speculative, and my writing some things out here is my way of actively thinking through it.  Like hanging a picture on a wall and stepping back to see if you like it there or not.

I don't think it is required, necessarily, that we find our third Chip Monk Theodore among the early Mormons of Joseph Smith's time.  But it might be nice to.  Something was surely going on in the early 1800s in terms of some of the characters I have been writing about showing up on this Earth at that time.  We have already covered our second Chip Monk Simon-Peter, for example, and guessed that he is none other than our swampy friend Thomas B. Marsh.  Similarly, Brigham Young has been found to be the unfortunate reincarnation of all sorts of bad characters.

Can we find Moses-Theodore among the early Saints?

I think we possibly can, and my mind settles right now on Oliver Cowdery as the man.

I mean, clearly there is something about Oliver.  He was called on to be Joseph Smith's scribe during the Book of Mormon translation.  He even knew about the Gold Plates before Joseph told him about them, having seen them in a vision.  He was one of the Three Witnesses.  He would take on the role of Second Elder (Joseph was First Elder), and was actually the first person baptized into the Church - even before Joseph, who baptized him.  And he would be Assistant President of the Church, a role he held until his excommunication, when it was given to Hyrum.

Oliver's relationship with the Mormon church actually followed a similar arc to that of Thomas B. Marsh, though some accounts from what I have read suggest Marsh and Oliver were not necessarily on friendly terms themselves, though I need to look more into this.  Both men would be excommunicated from the Church during Joseph's lifetime - Oliver in 1838, and Marsh in 1839.  And both would rejoin Brigham Young's church after Joseph's death, though Oliver joined much sooner than Marsh.

Both Oliver and Marsh would fall on hard times and become poor during their estrangement from the church.  In Oliver's case, as he felt an increasing desire to reconcile with the Mormons, he was limited in doing so due to his financial situation at first - health would eventually become the major limiter in the end, however.  The Mormons were moving West following their expulsion from Nauvoo, and Oliver did not have enough funds to purchase the necessary supplies to join them.

Eventually, though, he did travel to Winter Quarters in Nebraska (from his residence in Wisconsin) in 1848, where he was ultimately reinstated by a vote of the High Council stationed in Iowa.  An interesting point in his reinstatement parallels that of Marsh several years later.  Oliver Cowdery was made to renounce all claims to leadership within what was by then being called the LDS Church (Brigham's Church).  In the minutes of Cowdery's reinstatement, this was actually a huge topic of debate.  Some members of the Council had moved to welcome him back, but other members referenced letters he had written which suggested that Oliver still felt like he possessed certain Keys and authority, apparently.  He was made to renounce any claim to those Keys, or rather, to state that he had changed his mind.  In closing, he stated:

I have not come to seek place, nor to interfere with the business and calling of those men who have borne the burden since the death of Joseph. I throw myself at your feet, and wish to be one of your number, and be a mere member of the Church, and my mere asking to be baptized is an end to all pretensions to authority.

Oliver would be accepted back and rebaptized, just as Thomas B. Marsh was and, also just like Marsh, did not ever have a position of authority again in the church.  Although, this may have been partly because Oliver did not live long after his re-baptism, but church leaders were definitely concerned with him laying claim to any position of power, as they saw it.

By 1848, his health was already deteriorating.  He desired to travel out West and join the Mormons out in Utah, but both his poverty and health made this a pipe dream.  He simply could not make the trip.  In a letter he wrote to Phineas Young (Brigham Young's brother and also Oliver's brother-in-law) in 1849, he stated:

I am poor, very poor, and I did hope to have health and means sufficient last spring to go west and get some gold, that I might so situate my family, that I could be engaged in the cause of God; but I did not succeed. I was then in hope you could go . . . if I could not. Now, as neither of us went, let us not be discouraged, but press on, trusting in the Lord.

 

Oliver would die that next Spring on March 3, 1850.  He was only 43 years old.  He died at Peter Whitmer, Sr.'s house, and David Whitmer was there.  David said that Oliver died "the happiest man I ever saw."

So, the question is what to make of Oliver Cowdery.  I am a problem looking for a solution, keep in mind, and that problem is where else can we find Moses.  So, the finger is already on the scale a little bit as I am looking at various things, but Oliver seems as likely a candidate as any if we are to find Theodore-Moses among the early Mormons.

And again, we may not necessarily need to.  My current position is that Faramir-Eonwe was not among these early Mormons.  But he has an alibi in my story as the Holy Ghost, and Joseph Smith was reported to have said on more than one occasion that the Holy Ghost at that time (1830's) was a spirit and would be taking on a body in the future .  For example, here are words attributed to Joseph from a compiled source called the Encyclopedia of Joseph Smith's Teachings:

The Holy Ghost is yet a spiritual body and is waiting to take to himself a body, as the Savior did

 

And also from another compilation called The Words of Joseph Smith:

The Holy Ghost is now in a state of probation which if he should perform in righteousness he may pass through the same or a similar course of things that the Son has.

These statements are both as others heard, recorded, and understood them, so I can't vouch for their complete accuracy, but you get the core idea.  In Joseph Smith's mind, the Holy Ghost was not among them in bodily form at the time.

Now, we do have a potential alibi for Moses in Doctrine and Covenants 110.  In that account, Moses was said to appear to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery at the Kirtland Temple.  So, if that account is true, it would be very unlikely for Moses to also be Oliver, in that our script gets pretty confusing if we have Beings appearing to themselves at the same time.  I prefer to stay away from those kind of explanations.

Rather, I think we can call into question the authenticity of D&C 110.  The contents of that section were never referenced by Joseph Smith during his lifetime - same with Oliver.  Literally not one word in public or private was ever uttered by either Joseph or Oliver in relation to this purported event.  We do have an account written in the third person by Warren Cowdery, Oliver's brother, which was entered into Joseph Smith's journals.  The next we see it is in an 1843 handwritten copy by Willard Richards, who changed the writing to the first person, as if Joseph was saying it.  That is basically, as I understand it, the version we have today.  It was not publicly published until well after Joseph's death, first appearing in the Deseret News in 1852.  Orson Pratt appears to be the first church leader to publicly teach about it in 1859.  And ultimately Brigham Young would include it in the 1876 version of the Doctrine and Covenants, and it was canonized as scripture in 1880.

In other words, though I personally don't know the truth of it, a man wouldn't be faulted for putting D&C 110 in the same box as D&C 132, the revelation that Brigham Young later 'found' which supported the practice of plural marriage.  For the record, I have both down as false.

That is all to say, that if it turns out D&C 110 is legitimate, it would pretty much put a dagger in the heart of this theory, at least for me.  We don't have to accept it as so, however, and I personally don't, currently, so I don't take this as a legitimate alibi for Moses.  Thus, I feel free to search for him among the early Mormons and see if we can find him.

Oliver is most famous for being the Book of Mormon scribe.  As he said in his own words "I wrote with my own pen the entire Book of Mormon (save a few pages) as it fell from the lips of the prophet".  However, he is almost as well known for what he tried and failed to do:  Translate a portion of the Book of Mormon.

Oliver was anxious to translate just as Joseph Smith was doing.  And this desire didn't just come from Oliver, you should know, but God, in a revelation to Oliver through Joseph (in D&C 6), told him that he had given him a gift to translate, just as Joseph was doing:

And, behold, I grant unto you a gift, if you desire of me, to translate, even as my servant Joseph.

Oliver would, I believe, take this to mean the Book of Mormon.  Which is interesting, because the revelation is actually pretty clear that the translation has to do with records that had been currently held back and were not present at that time

:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, that there are records which contain much of my gospel, which have been kept back because of the wickedness of the people;

And now I command you, that if you have good desires—a desire to lay up treasures for yourself in heaven—then shall you assist in bringing to light, with your gift, those parts of my scriptures which have been hidden because of iniquity.

I think this pretty clearly spells out that it is not the Book of Mormon we are talking about... or, at least not the unsealed part of the Book of Mormon, right?  This takes us to the Brother of Jared and his writings, which I will get to in just a second. 

Despite this, Oliver and Joseph assume that Oliver can take a go at the Book of Mormon itself.  He fails utterly.  We don't have details of this, but it is referred to in D&C 9.  In that section, God tells Oliver that he doesn't need to proceed with any more attempts at the Book of Mormon - that will remain Joseph's job, and he can continue to act as scribe.

However, in that same section, it is once again alluded to the fact that Oliver may yet translate in the future, and it is with respect to other records that remain hidden or "kept back" that he will do this:

And then, behold, other records have I, that I will give unto you power that you may assist to translate.

Be patient, my son, for it is wisdom in me, and it is not expedient that you should translate at this present time.

Earlier, in D&C 8, God gives Oliver a little more detail about what these other records are:

Oliver Cowdery, verily, verily, I say unto you, that assuredly as the Lord liveth, who is your God and your Redeemer, even so surely shall you receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you shall ask in faith, with an honest heart, believing that you shall receive a knowledge concerning the engravings of old records, which are ancient, which contain those parts of my scripture of which has been spoken by the manifestation of my Spirit.

So, a specific reference is made to ancient records, which are engravings, and which contain parts of scripture that have been "spoken by the manifestation of my Spirit".  That is a really interesting phrase.  Recall that the Brother of Jared wrote things while in the presence of Jesus while Jesus manifested himself to him on the Mount in the form of a Spiritual Body, saying that that body was the "Body of my Spirit".

I am not sure why I haven't caught on to this promise to Oliver before, but is seem very clear.  Oliver is promised that he will translate ancient engravings.  Multiple times he is told this.  At the time, of course, the only such engravings known to him and Joseph were the Gold Plates, so it seemed like a good try, I suppose, to take a run at those.

But God had told Oliver repeatedly to 'be patient' and that at that present time was not the time for him to translate.

D&C 9, then, is typically held up as an example of a 'lost opportunity', and indeed it can read that way.  The standard narrative is that Oliver could have translated, but he missed his shot.   I prefer to look at it as an object lesson of a different sort.  Joseph Smith was called to translate the Book of Mormon because those where his records to translate - that was his job for a specific reason based, in part, on who he was.  I have alluded to that before, but I will write a more specific post just as to what that means for Joseph.  You can take the statement to its logical conclusion, though, in putting together a guess as to just what I mean.  Again - Restoration.  What Good Things we do and send out will return to us at a later time and be restored to us.

My belief, which is only strengthened by looking at some of these passages directed toward Oliver, is that there are specific records and ancient engravings literally still waiting for Oliver to translate.  That was the promise.  Read the entirety of Sections 6, 8, and 9 and see if you come to a different conclusion.  And although the Mormon Church - Brigham's Church - could make Oliver renounce all authority in their organization, they could not take away the gift that God said he had already given Oliver - the gift and opportunity of translating Ancient Engravings.  That remains, I think.

My belief is those Records lie in the Library of Tom Bombadil, and may take the form of both the Brother of Jared's writings as well as the Brass Plates, said to consist of 5 Books bearing Moses' name according to Nephi. 

There are other tantalizing - I mean, just tantalizing - references to Moses in some of what is found in these Doctrine and Covenants passages.  

For example, in D&C 8, after mentioning these ancient records that Oliver will at some point in the future receive and translate, God brings Moses into the discussion.   He says that the gift of Moses is also the gift of Oliver.  He repeats it multiple times, almost trying to burn it into Oliver's head that no matter what, God has given him a gift:

Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.

Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.

Therefore this is thy gift; apply unto it, and blessed art thou, for it shall deliver you out of the hands of your enemies, when, if it were not so, they would slay you and bring your soul to destruction.

Oh, remember these words, and keep my commandments. Remember, this is your gift.

This is very Moses-specific language - the gift that will enable Oliver to escape his enemies just like Moses delivering Israel through the Red Sea.   I have guessed that these ancient Records - the Rose Stone, Ithil Stone, Brass Plates, Sealed Book of Mormon, and more - will, in some fashion, create a path or an escape for Beings to leave this world and go to Tirion-Jerusalem.  In my opinion, this is exactly what God is referring to in his words to Oliver, and why he brought up Moses as his specific example, which otherwise might be a strange comparison.

It actually gets even more specific in a comparison with Oliver and his gifts with that of Moses.  And this comparison is one that the Mormon Church has completely obliterated in the current version of the Doctrine and Covenants, and it has to do with a "rod".  Here is how D&C 8:6-8 looks today:

Now this is not all thy gift; for you have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron; behold, it has told you many things;

Behold, there is no other power, save the power of God, that can cause this gift of Aaron to be with you.

Therefore, doubt not, for it is the gift of God; and you shall hold it in your hands, and do marvelous works; and no power shall be able to take it away out of your hands, for it is the work of God.

OK, so in this account we have a generalized gift said to be that of "Aaron".  Sure, it also refers to something being held in Oliver's hands, but we don't really know what that would be from this description.

Well, in the original revelation it is very clear what this Gift was:  a Dowsing or Divining Rod.  Something that would have been like this:

The reference has been removed in modern Mormonism due to fears, I imagine, of the magic or the occult being part of Mormon tradition, as well as any notion of Oliver, Joseph, or anybody associated with them as being "Money Diggers".  Here is how the original went:

Now this is not all, for you have another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you things: behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands, for it is the work of God; and therefore whatsoever you shall ask me to tell you by that means, that will I grant unto you, that you shall know.

A Divining or Dowsing Rod - like the one Oliver would have presumably had - was traditionally a forked rod that looked like the illustration above.  Here is a link if you want to dive in more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing

And also, by the way, you should know that a Divining Rod looks just like Dr. Brown's Flux Capacitor:

So, that is interesting, right?  Oliver Cowdery has a gift that has been given to him from God in relation to a Divining or Dowsing Rod.

Sound like anybody else we know?  That's right - Moses.  Moses was given a staff, by which he also had a gift or power as it related specifically to Water.  He struck a rock with his rod, and water flowed for the thirsty Israelites.  He raised his rod, and the Red Sea parted.  That was definitely a gift related to a rod, and having something to do with Water.

A Dowsing Rod was (and still is used today, by the way, by some) used to find not only Water, but also other things such as minerals, treasure, etc.  Which is why the Mormon leaders today are concerned with any mention of Oliver's Rod and potential connections with Treasure Seeking and old-school belief in magic and superstition.  But we are pro-Magic on this site, obviously.

This Rod and Gift is interesting, and maybe one of our best little winks we have that there is a connection between Oliver and Moses.  Both had gifts having to do with a Rod, and this Rod having some connection to Water.  In Oliver's case, it seems to have been primarily used, or at least God desired it to be used, as a source of Revelation, which again in the very next section, in D&C 9, God compared that spirit of Revelation to Moses parting the Red Sea.

I don't know - it seems like we could be on to something here.  I didn't know what to think when I first started writing, but now I think this is a good guess, particularly as I got into those D&C passages.  There is something to chew on here, at least.

If so, this would mean that Oliver's promises still stand.  He received those promises because he is, in fact, Moses and the Brother of Jared.  Those Records that sit at Tom's House, and were alluded to in those D&C sections, are waiting for him to fulfil the gift and promise he was given way back in the early 1800's, that gift being one of translation and bringing forth 'new' scriptures (really just the restoration of what was once known, but has been lost).  And in this case, just like Marsh who renounced any leadership within the Mormon Church but kept the role of Doorman-Usher and Deacon, Oliver didn't need to hold on to anything having to do with Brigham's church either.  He has the translation gift directly from God, and he didn't give that up.