LDS Joseph Smith's Claim of an Apostasy is a Lie

[mmksparbud]

I am not restricting God---He just talks to His prophets directly, has never had to resort to a stone in a hat to translate anhything. He just tells His prophets what He wants them to know in visions and dreams also and He does send His angels. He has never had to resort to a language that the prophet did not know. It's JS that said God had to use a stone in a hat and give him manuscripts written in a language he didn't know---and then takes the manuscripts back! God has never done that--doesn't need to. He is pretty direct. It is obvious by the bible that he spoke it directly to Moses---the whole mountain shook and the people were afraid to even hear Him, He did it openly in front of everybody hidden only by a cloud over the mountain for their protection until they said to just tell Moses and he could relay to them what He had said. No stone in a hat, that's for sure. And I am not rejecting the BOM and all his other writings only because of the way it was given--I reject it also because I have read them. They are not true, it is not of God. None of these believes are of God, not the pre-exsistence, not the polygamy, not the we will be gods, not the New Jerusalem in Missouri, not the priesthood, ----one of the resons He gave us all those stories in the bible is for us to have an example for us of His ways. I thoroughly and completely reject it all without any hesitation at all nor fear that God will be unhappy with me in the least--He is quite happy about it in fact.

 

[BigDaddy4]

When the Mormons were thrown out of the U.S. and they chose the Salt Lake Valley as their desert home, there had to be a side of the church that dealt with the realities of settling a state and cities within the state. It is the business/development side of the church. It was and is still necessary as the community grew from nothing to a beautiful state. The business side of the church pays taxes and acts like a regular buisness.

When Jesus comes back to reign on earth, you will have the same configuration in his church/government.

Reformed Egyptian script has been discovered, you know that from many discussions about this subject, but yet you say it again. Why? The reason is that if you were forced to admit that Reformed Egyptian actually exists, you would have to admit that JS was a prophet that translated from plates written in Reformed Egyptian. So rather than admit that (heaven forbid) you decide to ignore what you know to be true.

Read this article to bring you up to date on Reformed Egyptian:
http://www.bmaf.org/articles/reformed_egyptian__lindsay

Not quite.

From your article:
[seems to offer something very much like "reformed Egyptian."]

Does not prove that it "actually exists". Nice try, but you continue to grasp at straws in a desparate attempt to validate your religions teachings.

 

[mmksparbud]

You quote from a Mormon site for verification of this unknown language???!!!!
This is just a little piece of very informative discussion on the Egyptian language.

://sofiatopia.org/maat/language.htm

Chronology
approximative, all dates BCE

Predynastic Period

• earliest communities - 5000
• Badarian - 4000
• Naqada I - 4000 - 3600
• Naqada II - 3600 - 3300
• Terminal Predynastic Period : 3300 - 3000

Dynastic Period

• Early Dynastic Period : 3000 - 2600
• Old Kingdom : 2600 - 2200
• First Intermediate Period : 2200 - 1940
• Middle Kingdom 1940 - 1760
• Second Intermediate Period : 1760 - 1500
• New Kingdom : 1500 - 1000
• Third Intermediate Period : 1000 - 650
• Late Period : 650 - 343

The first hieroglyphs of the Egyptian language, often attached as labels on commodities, were written down towards the end of the terminal predynastic period (end of the fourth millennium BCE). There is a continuous recorded until the eleventh century CE, when Coptic (the last stage of the language) expired as a spoken tongue and was superceded by Arabic.

Egyptian knew six stages :
Archaic Egyptian (first two Dynasties), Old Egyptian (Old Kingdom), Middle Egyptian (First Intermediate Period & Middle Kingdom), Late Egyptian (New Kingdom & Third Intermediate Period), Demotic Egyptian (Late Period) and Coptic (Roman Period).

In the last two stages, new scripts emerged and only in Coptic is the vocalic structure known, with distinct dialects. Archaic Egyptian consists of brief inscriptions. Old Egyptian has the first continuous texts. Middle Egyptian is the "classical form" of the language. Late Egyptian is very different from Old and Middle Egyptian (cf. the verbal structure). Although over 6000 hieroglyphs have been documented, only about 700 are attested for Middle Egyptian (the majority of other hieroglyphs are found in Graeco-Roman temples only).

Egyptian hieroglyphs is a system of writing which, in its fully developed form, had only two classes of signs : logograms and phonograms.

logogram (word writing)

A logogram is the representation of a complete word (not individual letters of phonemes) directly by a picture of the object actually denoted (cf. the Greek "logos", or "word"). As such, it does not take the phonemes into consideration, but only the direct objects & notions connected therewith.
A writing system exclusively based on logography would have thousands of signs to encompass the semantics of the spoken language. Such a large vocabulary would be unpractical. Moreover, which pictures to use for things that can not be easily pictured ? How to address grammatics ?

phonogram (sound writing)

Egyptian phonography (a word is represented by a series of sound-glyphs of the spoken sounds) was derived through phonetic borrowing. Logograms are used to write other words or parts of words semantically unrelated to the phonogram but with which they phonetically shared the same consonantal structure.

There's a lot more---check it out. Spoiler alert--Reformed Egyptian is never mentioned.

 

[ToBeLoved]

If there were Christians living in South and Central America between 600BC and 420AD and they wrote in a lanquage call reformed Egyptian, that nobody in the world knew how to translate and God wanted their record translated and given to the world, as a second witness that He is the Christ, how would He do that?

God has always used the known language of the prophets. God doesn't have His prophets write in non-existant languages.

 

[ToBeLoved]

Reformed Egyptian script has been discovered, you know that from many discussions about this subject, but yet you say it again. Why? The reason is that if you were forced to admit that Reformed Egyptian actually exists, you would have to admit that JS was a prophet that translated from plates written in Reformed Egyptian. So rather than admit that (heaven forbid) you decide to ignore what you know to be true.

Read this article to bring you up to date on Reformed Egyptian:
http://www.bmaf.org/articles/reformed_egyptian__lindsay

That means nothing. Jeff Lindsay is no Egyptologist, he is a Mormon defending his own religion.

Why don't you find some 'facts' that are not from Mormons. You desire to believe it so you look for sources.

 

[BigDaddy4]

If there were Christians living in South and Central America between 600BC and 420AD and they wrote in a lanquage call reformed Egyptian, that nobody in the world knew how to translate and God wanted their record translated and given to the world, as a second witness that He is the Christ, how would He do that?

Well, for at least 600 of those years, they weren't Christians. Reformed Egyptian - you are arguing from silliness.

 

[mmksparbud]

If there were Christians living in South and Central America between 600BC and 420AD and they wrote in a lanquage call reformed Egyptian, that nobody in the world knew how to translate and God wanted their record translated and given to the world, as a second witness that He is the Christ, how would He do that?

Same way He had us decipher the real Egyptian hieroglyphics---The Rosetta stone was found and that was the key to unlocking things. And they have deciphered the writings of the Maya and Ina and others without the methods that JS was supposed to have used. When God wants something known, He has provided the information for us to decipher. By us studying the language and slowly learning from clues He lets us find at the time of His choosing. There are still some writings from old long gone groups in various places of the world that have not been deciphered. He created us with brains that He expects us to use.

 

[Peter1000]

Same way He had us decipher the real Egyptian hieroglyphics---The Rosetta stone was found and that was the key to unlocking things. And they have deciphered the writings of the Maya and Ina and others without the methods that JS was supposed to have used. When God wants something known, He has provided the information for us to decipher. By us studying the language and slowly learning from clues He lets us find at the time of His choosing. There are still some writings from old long gone groups in various places of the world that have not been deciphered. He created us with brains that He expects us to use.

The Mayan writings were deciphered over a long period of time starting with the mid 1800's to 1981 and they are still working on them today for more clarification.

The Lord wanted to bring forth the BOM in JS time. So He provided a method for an unlearned man to be able to translate the plates and the BOM became a reality around 1830. It was the perfect way for Jesus to present JS as a prophet in modern times. Who could write a 531 page BOM? No ordinary man could have written it, it had to have come forth by the power and authority of Jesus Christ. It was a perfect way for Jesus to jettison JS to the top of the evangelical class of 1830. It set JS apart from all other church men and women of his day and started a movement that will not subside until Jesus comes a second time.

Even if the Mayan writings had been deciphered in 1800 it would not have been enough to translate the plates, for they were in the language of Reformed Egyptian, not Mayan hieroglyphs.

 

[Peter1000]

Well, for at least 600 of those years, they weren't Christians. Reformed Egyptian - you are arguing from silliness.

In a certain respect, you are right. They did live the law of Moses. But their prophets knew about Jesus's birth and earthly mission, even from 600BC and taught their people about his advent. These people looked forward to the coming of Jesus.

Five years before he came, a prophet by the name of Samuel taught the people that Jesus would be here in 5 years, and he gave them the sign that would be given when Jesus was born near Jerusalem. For 5 years the people watched for the sign. When those that did not believe thought the 5 years were up, they started to threaten the believers with death if the sign was not seen. It went like this for some weeks, until the non-believers said that if by X date the sign is not seen, they would put to death everyone that believed. The night before the date of destruction came the sign was seen and all that saw it, kneeled on their knees and praised God for His Son was born and would save us from our sins.

So absolute Christians, no, but they knew about Jesus before he was born, just like the prophets in the Jerusalem knew. Then after he was resurrected He came to the Americas and showed Himself to these people who were diligently waiting for Him. He taught them His gospel and chose 12 disciples and gave them authority to lead and guide the church after He left and went into heaven. They no longer lived the Law of Moses, but now lived the Law of Jesus Christ.

The reason the Christians wrote in Reformed Egyptian was because it was an easier language to write on gold.
Hebrew is a very wordy language and difficult to write on gold. So they chose to speak in Hebrew, but to write long records in Reformed Egyptian.

 

[dzheremi]

What is Reformed Egyptian, though? Is it a form of Egyptian, or a form of Hebrew, or a form of Aramaic, or what?

This is the problem that I have with this Reformed Egyptian idea: For the period that ends in c. mid 5th century AD (the end of the civilizations written of in the BOM, according to Mormons in this thread), we know what forms of Egyptian were spoken, and where they were spoken, and they don't match up with any LDS/BOM claims. We also know what forms of Aramaic or Classical Syriac were spoken and where they were spoken, and that doesn't match up with any LDS/BOM claims, either. I've had LDS people try to tell me that it's wrong to think of Reformed Egyptian as being a language, since it is analogous to how Egyptian passed through various written forms as it developed, but the problem with that is that no matter what stage we're looking at (e.g., Demotic, Coptic, etc.), the written form still represents an actual spoken language that unambiguously existed in a particular time and place. And we have tons and tons of documentary evidence of these languages, all over Egypt and Sudan (in the case of Coptic) and the wider Near East (in the case of Aramaic or any of its daughter languages like classical Syriac and the modern Neo-Aramaic languages). Where is even one shred of evidence of 'Reformed Egyptian' so that we can tell what language it is, who spoke it, and where? This would be a huge deal to Egyptologists, Semiticists, and general Linguists the world over, and yet there is no evidence for it.

Heck, I have a Coptic Unicode font installed on my computer right now! It ⲗⲟⲟⲝ ⲗⲓⲕⲉ ⲑⲓⲥ. I needed it to work on Coptic -- an actual, historically-attested form of Egyptian -- some time ago in various academic pursuits. There is, as far as I know, no corresponding 'Reformed Egyptian' font. Why is that? Is it that the entire world of Linguistics has avoided an ancient form of Egyptian/Aramaic/Hebrew/whatever (while working with literally every other form ever found), or is it that there is absolutely zero evidence of such a thing ever existing outside of Joseph Smith's imagination?

 

[Peter1000]

That means nothing. Jeff Lindsay is no Egyptologist, he is a Mormon defending his own religion.

Why don't you find some 'facts' that are not from Mormons. You desire to believe it so you look for sources.

Did you even read what he wrote. Why can't Mormon scientists make a statement that means something? If his research and words are true, that should mean something to you and me.

If you are willing to mark Jeff Lindsay as a Mormon so his work is useless, then you must be willing to mark a non-Mormons work as useless too, because he may be biased the other way. I'm sure your not that tuff on non-Mormon scientists.

It does not matter what you say, Reformed Egyptian has been found and is a real phenomena. There are many kinds of Reformed Egyptian depending on who is reforming it. So the Reformed Egyptian that Jeff is talking about is only to teach you that the Egyptian language was indeed reformed and that it is not impossible for other people to reform the Egyptian language for their purposes.

 

[BigDaddy4]

Reformed Egyptian - you are arguing from silliness.

In a certain respect, you are right.

Thank you.

 

[BigDaddy4]

Did you even read what he wrote. Why can't Mormon scientists make a statement that means something? If his research and words are true, that should mean something to you and me.

If you are willing to mark Jeff Lindsay as a Mormon so his work is useless, then you must be willing to mark a non-Mormons work as useless too, because he may be biased the other way. I'm sure your not that tuff on non-Mormon scientists.

It does not matter what you say, Reformed Egyptian has been found and is a real phenomena. There are many kinds of Reformed Egyptian depending on who is reforming it. So the Reformed Egyptian that Jeff is talking about is only to teach you that the Egyptian language was indeed reformed and that it is not impossible for other people to reform the Egyptian language for their purposes.

You have presented no credible evidence to make this statement true. "If", "It's possible", etc. does not mean it's true. Please stop with the false statements. Isn't that against your temple recommend to bear false witness??

 

[mmksparbud]

When the Rosetta stone was found, the deciphering went real quick. An ordinary man did write the BOM and the rest of those books. They are not God breathed. Do you think JS is the only man to have made up a very detailed and thorough account of an different world? Go to the library--Tolkien---The Hobbit and many, many more---sometimes complete with their own language---that JS was very creative is quite obvious.

Top 10 Fantasy Worlds In Literature

10Dreamlands
H. P. Lovecraft

9Pellucidar
Edgar Rice Burroughs

8Neverland
J. M. Barrie

7Shangri-La
James Hilton

6Narnia
C. S. Lewis

5Utopia
St Thomas More

4Gulliver’s World
Jonathan Swift

3The Land of Oz
L. Frank Baum

2Alice’s Worlds
Lewis Carroll

1Middle-Earth
J. R. R. Tolkien

They need to add the BOM to the list. His just happened to have been copied from the bible more, so he was really no where near as creative as the above authors. JS worked within what was available (including the reformed Egyptian writing)---those others, made up stuff from scratch.

 

[tickingclocker]

Scholars know so little about the U & T, so to make these kinds of statements is overreaching, especially the sacrilege part. You absolutely do no know if it would be sacrilege.

If God Himself or by His messenger, came to a man and gave him the U & T to translate an ancient record, who are you to say it would be sacrilege for that man to use them this way? You would have to argue with God. Good luck with that.

Yes, she is correct. Jesus has been declared our High Priest, and to this very day officially holds that office even though He is not physically on the earth at the moment. Even mormonism believes that. That's why the LDS doesn't have a "High Priest". Only the High Priest was allowed to use them. There is no other record of anyone but the High Priest using them at the command of God. JS was no High Priest, not even when he claimed to have used them, long before he began his church. Instead, he said he used his peepstone in a hat. You cannot force the bible to say what it does not, not even for your own justifications. You cannot force JS's words to say what they do not. He himself claimed he used his peepstone in his hat, according to your own church records and leaders. Either you continue to believe him and them, or you call JS a liar here and now, Peter, and walk away from mormonism. You need to answer your own self. We are not asking you to answer us. So, what is it going to be?

I understand it's hard for Mormons to face such things lately. Things they were never told before, and only now are being officially acknowledged as true. But don't go on out fake limbs to stretch the truth simply because you cannot cope with the facts your church didn't choose to share with you, in order to justify their behavior. That is no one's fault but your church's. Take it up with them if you have any misgivings or it brings up doubts. Not with the bible. Not with us. We have no say in what your church withholds or shares with its members. You, however, certainly do.

 

[tickingclocker]

The Mayan writings were deciphered over a long period of time starting with the mid 1800's to 1981 and they are still working on them today for more clarification.

The Lord wanted to bring forth the BOM in JS time. So He provided a method for an unlearned man to be able to translate the plates and the BOM became a reality around 1830. It was the perfect way for Jesus to present JS as a prophet in modern times. Who could write a 531 page BOM? No ordinary man could have written it, it had to have come forth by the power and authority of Jesus Christ. It was a perfect way for Jesus to jettison JS to the top of the evangelical class of 1830. It set JS apart from all other church men and women of his day and started a movement that will not subside until Jesus comes a second time.

Even if the Mayan writings had been deciphered in 1800 it would not have been enough to translate the plates, for they were in the language of Reformed Egyptian, not Mayan hieroglyphs.

1. It was brought about by "a" power, but it wasn't by the power of Jesus Christ.

2. There is no "evangelical" class within mormonism. It completely and utterly rejects the entire concept of "evangelical". You know it as well as we do. You are attempting to use floral sounding language here, to deceive and distort.

 

[Peter1000]

What is Reformed Egyptian, though? Is it a form of Egyptian, or a form of Hebrew, or a form of Aramaic, or what?

This is the problem that I have with this Reformed Egyptian idea: For the period that ends in c. mid 5th century AD (the end of the civilizations written of in the BOM, according to Mormons in this thread), we know what forms of Egyptian were spoken, and where they were spoken, and they don't match up with any LDS/BOM claims. We also know what forms of Aramaic or Classical Syriac were spoken and where they were spoken, and that doesn't match up with any LDS/BOM claims, either. I've had LDS people try to tell me that it's wrong to think of Reformed Egyptian as being a language, since it is analogous to how Egyptian passed through various written forms as it developed, but the problem with that is that no matter what stage we're looking at (e.g., Demotic, Coptic, etc.), the written form still represents an actual spoken language that unambiguously existed in a particular time and place. And we have tons and tons of documentary evidence of these languages, all over Egypt and Sudan (in the case of Coptic) and the wider Near East (in the case of Aramaic or any of its daughter languages like classical Syriac and the modern Neo-Aramaic languages). Where is even one shred of evidence of 'Reformed Egyptian' so that we can tell what language it is, who spoke it, and where? This would be a huge deal to Egyptologists, Semiticists, and general Linguists the world over, and yet there is no evidence for it.

Heck, I have a Coptic Unicode font installed on my computer right now! It ⲗⲟⲟⲝ ⲗⲓⲕⲉ ⲑⲓⲥ. I needed it to work on Coptic -- an actual, historically-attested form of Egyptian -- some time ago in various academic pursuits. There is, as far as I know, no corresponding 'Reformed Egyptian' font. Why is that? Is it that the entire world of Linguistics has avoided an ancient form of Egyptian/Aramaic/Hebrew/whatever (while working with literally every other form ever found), or is it that there is absolutely zero evidence of such a thing ever existing outside of Joseph Smith's imagination?

It is an interesting dilemma.

I will try to give you some information about Reformed Egyptian.

Around the year 600BC a man by the name of Lehi was a merchant trader. He would go into Egypt and trade Israel goods for Egyptian goods, then return to Israel and sell all that he had. Then return and do it again.
So he had experience in desert travel and was comfortable in this setting.

He also knew the Egyptian language so that he could do his trading with this people. In fact he passed this Egyptian language on to his children and so it was that they spoke in the language of their people and the language of the Egyptians.

When Lehi was told by the Lord to leave Jerusalem, he took his family into the desert and eventually came to a land they called Bountiful, where they were instructed to build a ship that could transport the family to the Americas. Which they did.

Lehi's travels and dealings with the Lord were written down by his son Nephi, who succeeded Lehi as the next prophet. As he started his writing, he decided to write on metal for the purpose of preserving the record. He chose gold because it was the softest metal and was present in abundance in America.

He also chose to write in the Egyptian language because the language was less wordy than Hebrew. Then because of the labor needed to write on the gold plates, he reformed the Egyptian into a short hand kind of Egyptian and eventually it was called Reformed Egyptian. It continued to be reformed over the next 1000 years until Moroni around 400AD read the entire record and took the parts that were precious to him as directed by the Lord and put this abridged record together and hid it up until the time that the Lord would bring it forth and that time frame was around 1824.

The reason you do not see a lot of Reformed Egyptian around the Americas is because only a certain amount of people over the 1000 years knew how to read and write the Reformed Egyptian. Only a few. They would have been descendants of Lehi and Nephi and would have been chosen to protect the plates and to add to them what they saw the Lord doing with the people in their particular time. So this Reformed Egyptian would not be the writing method of the common people. It was only for a few that were in the line of Lehi and Nephi, chosen to learn the language and write in the record and preserve it for the future. Just like the line of prophets from Moses to Malachi.

So no man even today could decipher the BOM prophets writings. The Lord had to establish another way to allow an unlearned man to receive and translate and bring forth the BOM, and He did it.

 

[Peter1000]

1. It was brought about by "a" power, but it wasn't by the power of Jesus Christ.

2. There is no "evangelical" class within mormonism. It completely and utterly rejects the entire concept of "evangelical". You know it as well as we do. You are attempting to use floral sounding language here, to deceive and distort.

First of all, I do not go around deceiving and distorting. I am trying to be a disciple of Christ, and as a disciple, I would be under condemnation for deceiving and distorting.

It is not within Mormonism that I would mention an evangelical class, but in the world of religion in JS time. . Apparently I did not say that clear enough, so let me say it again. The BOM was brought forth by Jesus as a second witness that He was the Christ. It also allowed Jesus to jettison JS to the top of the religious scene at that time. IOW it separated him from all the other competing evangelicals in other religions at that time.

What other evangelical in the other Christian religions had brought forth a book like the BOM, that read like the bible, because it taught people about Jesus Christ and his dealing with a people that had not even been discovered yet. It was sensational, and thousands of people thronged to hear a prophet of God in our time.

The words that comes close to the word "evangelical" are "preaching" and "missionary". The Mormon church, I believe, does more evangelical/missionary work than most churches. It is steeped in preaching and missionary work. So just because we don't have a lot of flame throwing, pulpit thumping, evangelicals in our church, we do believe in preaching and doing missionary work.

 

[Peter1000]

1. It was brought about by "a" power, but it wasn't by the power of Jesus Christ.

2. There is no "evangelical" class within mormonism. It completely and utterly rejects the entire concept of "evangelical". You know it as well as we do. You are attempting to use floral sounding language here, to deceive and distort.

You need to see the fruit produced by Lord through JS. For by their fruit ye shall know them.

It all started with a visitation from Jesus Christ.

The BOM was translated for the very purpose of teaching people about Jesus. To witness that He is the Christ.

Jesus Christ restored his true church to the earth again so that all the principles and ordinances required for salvation would be available again, so that Jesus Christ can save us.

There are millions and millions of people that have been converted to Jesus Christ.

Everything centers around Jesus Christ. Everything.

If by their fruits ye may know them, JS has clearly shown the way to Jesus Christ, not Satan.

 

[Peter1000]

Yes, she is correct. Jesus has been declared our High Priest, and to this very day officially holds that office even though He is not physically on the earth at the moment. Even mormonism believes that. That's why the LDS doesn't have a "High Priest". Only the High Priest was allowed to use them. There is no other record of anyone but the High Priest using them at the command of God. JS was no High Priest, not even when he claimed to have used them, long before he began his church. Instead, he said he used his peepstone in a hat. You cannot force the bible to say what it does not, not even for your own justifications. You cannot force JS's words to say what they do not. He himself claimed he used his peepstone in his hat, according to your own church records and leaders. Either you continue to believe him and them, or you call JS a liar here and now, Peter, and walk away from mormonism. You need to answer your own self. We are not asking you to answer us. So, what is it going to be?

I understand it's hard for Mormons to face such things lately. Things they were never told before, and only now are being officially acknowledged as true. But don't go on out fake limbs to stretch the truth simply because you cannot cope with the facts your church didn't choose to share with you, in order to justify their behavior. That is no one's fault but your church's. Take it up with them if you have any misgivings or it brings up doubts. Not with the bible. Not with us. We have no say in what your church withholds or shares with its members. You, however, certainly do.

I have already told you that you and I had similar experiences with how JS translated the BOM. I accepted the truth when received, you did not. The question is why did you not accept this information?

I hold the office of "High Priest" in the Melchisedec priesthood, in the LDS church. So LDS certainly have "High Priests". Curious that you would not know that, having been a Mormon.

There is no other record of anyone but the High Preist using them....... The problem is that the record is incomplete. Only 1/1,000th of what the Lord did for his people are recorded by his people. So there could have been other times the U and T were used by any number of prophets in the long line of prophets from Moses to Malachi. Since it is not recorded does not mean it was not done.

Even if the High Priest was the only one recorded to have used them, it doesn't mean that the Lord could not use any person He wanted to use them. See Acts 10:10-16 and ask Peter, if the Lord says something is clean, even though our traditions say it is filthy, it is clean, sayeth the Lord, if I say it is clean. The same thing applys to your illogical assumption that the Lord could not let anyone but the Aaronic priesthood High Priest use the U and T. Again you restrict the Lord from doing what He wants done. The Lord gave JS the U and T to translate, who are you to tell the Lord he cannot do that because our tradition says only Aaronic priesthood High Priests are the only ones that can use them.

I haven't done a lot of research lately on how we got the information about how JS translated the BOM. I believe there are 2 different statements from Oliver Cowdery, (the scribe used the most by JS) in which he said in one statement that JS used the U and T. He also said in another statement that JS also used a stone in a hat.

So I believe JS used both methods to translate. It is possible that the stone was a much faster way to receive info directly from the Lord, rather than have to study the characters on the plates, then translate.

Study what Mormons say, not what....