Mormonische Zensur und Bücherverbrennungen

[Jutta]

In dem Buch "The Changing World of Mormonism", geschrieben von Jerold und Sandra Tanner, fand ich auf den Seiten 34 unf Folgende, die folgenden Aussagen:

Suppression and Book-Burning

In the year 1855 the Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt published a book entitled Key to the Science of Theology. In 1965, the Mormon-owned Deseret Book Company printed the "Ninth Edition" of this book. We have compared the 1965 reprint with the original 1855 edition and find that many important changes have been made. Hundreds of words concerning the doctrine of polygamy have been deleted without any indication. Many of Apostle Pratt's statements concerning the Godhead were changed or deleted without any indication.
Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Smith, wrote a book, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, which was published by Apostle Orson Pratt in 1853. By the year 1865, however, Brigham Young began to frown upon this book. The first presidency of the church ordered that the book "should be gathered up and destroyed, so that no copies should be left" (Latter-Day Saint's Millennial Star, vol. 27, pp.657-58).
Later Brigham Young ordered a "committee of revision" to go through Lucy Smith's book and change it to meet with his approval. Subsequently, a new edition was published by the church. In comparing the first edition with the edition printed in 1954, we have found that 2,035 words were added, deleted or changed without any indication.
Censorship seems to be a very important thing in the Mormon church. It is apparently felt that more converts can be won to the church with a bogus history than with a factual one.
For many years the Mormon church has encouraged the destruction of publications that are critical of Joseph Smith or the church. The Mormon-owned Deseret News carried an article in 1953 in which tacit approval seems to be given to book burning:
Good-natured Sven A. Wiman can manage a cautious grin when his married daughter relates...how when he returned home each evening from his part-time employment in various used book stores throughout Sweden he would produce an anti-Mormon book and then proceed to burn it. Sweden, you learn, has literally no end of anti-Church books, and Elder Wiman set himself up as a one-man cleanup committee to destroy as many of these diatribes against the Church as possible (Deseret News, Church Section, May 16, 1953, p.10). (...)

Because of the fact that many church policies and doctrines have changed, and since many changes were made in the vital records of the church before they were published, it became necessary for the Mormon leaders to hide these records from members of the church. In 1961 we were denied access to Joseph Smith's diaries and a number of other documents which were very important to our research. Even the most faithful Mormon scholars were often refused access to vital documents. Dr. Hugh Nibley, of Brigham Young University, was "refused" access to his great-grandfather's journal (see Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? pp.11-12). Ralph W. Hansen, formerly manuscript librarian for the Brigham Young University, also complained of "the relative inaccessibility to scholars of the files of the Church Historian's Office" (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Spring 1966, p.157).
After we were denied access to church records in 1961 we began a campaign to force the Mormon leaders to make these documents available. We felt that the documents belonged to the Mormon people and should be published so that all could read them. Many people criticized us saying that our efforts would only backfire and make the Mormon leaders even more determined in their policy of suppression. We hoped, however, that many members of the church would join with us in an effort to force the church historian's office to release the documents.
Although it has taken a long time, it now appears that this campaign has not been in vain. After Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought began publication in 1966, a number of Mormon writers began openly to denounce their church's policy of suppressing the records. Joseph Fielding Smith, who was church historian at the time, had been responsible for suppressing the records for many years.

Frage:

Warum will die Mormonenführung selbst (mormonischen) Historikern den Zugang verweigern? Was hat die Kirche zu verbergen? Übrigens, das zitierte Buch ist, mit Fotiokopien von Dokumenten, als PDF Datei kostenlos im Internet zu bekommen.