How Jerald Tanner Identified Fake Salamander Letter (Part 2)

Jerald Tanner was the first person to publicly question Mark Hofmann’s fake Salamander Letter. His wife Sandra details how Jerald came to that conclusion.

Sandra: Jerald, realizes this, there’s a story of a document out there that claim to be by Martin Harris about the magic involvement of Joseph in the coming forth of Book of Mormon in a magic setting. So he went back to E.D. Howe’s, “Mormonism Unvailed” that has statements by the neighbors that all talk about the Smiths’ involvement in magic. And so he’s becoming more familiar with getting this fresh in his mind what these affidavits all said. And there had been a BYU Studies article a year or two before that had talked about Joseph Knight, who was an early Mormon at the Smith home at the time that coming out of the Book of Mormon. And he had read that article so he was kind of getting prepped up on his research ahead of time. So when he get that copy of the letter, he’d be able to jump right into an evaluation of it. So he gets the letter–the type copy, not the original and he’s reading through this and the more he looks at it, he says to me, “There’s something wrong. This has got phrases in it that have to come from E.D. Howe and from the Joseph Knight letters. And so someone’s making this up.”

Now I don’t think he was sure that it was Mark, but someone was making up documents. So this is a forgery. And I’m like, “Jerald, everyone accepts Mark’s documents. I mean Dean Jessee at the Church Historians Office is not going to want to accept Mark’s documents that are critical of Joseph Smith that tie him to magic unless they feel they have to. I mean, why would they? Why wouldn’t they be asking these questions?”

Jerald says, “I don’t care. I’m telling you there’s something wrong. The similarities of wording is too much there.”

She also tells her reaction!

Sandra: I’m telling Jerald we could get sued. You can’t just run around saying something’s forgery. Someone’s going to sue us. Mark will sue us for defamation or something, and Jerald says, “He’s not going to sue us.”

I said, “How can you be sure?”

And he says, “Because it’s a forgery. He has no background to prove this document.”

And I said, “Well please don’t lose my house.”

Check out our conversation…. and don’t forget part 1 describing how Sandra met Mark Hofmann.

Jerald Tanner was the first to determine the Salamander Letter was fake. — Jerald Tanner was the first to identify the fake Salamander Letter.

[paypal-donation]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:14 — 16.8MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Email | RSS | More

Love this? Donate or Subscribe

Do you love the friendly, non-bashing interviews about Mormonism here on Gospel Tangents?
Please show your support for Gospel Tangents by becoming a donor or subscriber:

No related products found.

More Podcasts with these Guests:

Get more information on the people and things discussed in this episode:

Guest: Jerald Tanner, Sandra Tanner
Mormon violence
Historical Mentions Mark Hofmann, Mormon History
Tags: forgery, GT Podcast, Hofmann forgeries and bombings, iTunes, Jerald Tanner, Mark Hofmann, murder, Salamander Letter, uncover forgery

Tell me when the next episode drops!

Date: July 21, 2018
Guest: Jerald Tanner, Sandra Tanner
Mormon violence
Historical Mentions Mark Hofmann, Mormon History
Tags: forgery, GT Podcast, Hofmann forgeries and bombings, iTunes, Jerald Tanner, Mark Hofmann, murder, Salamander Letter, uncover forgery
Posted By: RickB

Table of Contents: How Jerald Tanner Identified Fake Salamander Letter (Part 2)

Love this? Donate or Subscribe

Tell me when the next episode drops!

Subscribe

Rick Bennett, Host

More Interviews

Proud to be an Amazon Associate

Subscribe

Rick Bennett, Host of Gospel Tangents