Oliver Cowdery

Oliver Cowdery (born October 3, 1806 in Wells , Vermont , † March 3, 1850 in Richmond , Missouri ) was a close companion of the religion founder Joseph Smith and co-founder of the Mormon movement . He was one of three witnesses to the gold plates . Immediately after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, he was ordained the Church's second elder , after Joseph Smith .

Oliver Cowdery

Life

Early years

Cowdery comes from a family belonging to a congregational community . At the age of twenty he went to the neighboring state of New York , where his older brothers lived, and worked there as a sales clerk in a shop until 1829. Then he became a primary school teacher. During this time he met Joseph Smith Sr. know where he lived. From him he learned about the gold plates that Joseph Smith Jr. should translate.

Book of Mormon writer and witness

Cowdery immigrated to Harmony, Pennsylvania, where Joseph Smith Jr. lived and met him on April 5, 1829 at that time. From April 7, 1829, Cowdery acted as scribe to whom Smith dictated the translations of the gold plates that would later become the Book of Mormon.

During this translation phase, Cowdery and Smith claim that they appeared angels from whom they received the priesthood . Together with David Whitmer and Martin Harris , Cowdery testified in June 1829 that an angel had shown him the gold plates and said that they were real and that the translation was correct. This testimony is reprinted as the “Testimony of the Three” in every Book of Mormon to confirm the authenticity of the book and the claim of its divine origin.

Second Elder of the Church

When the Church was formally organized on April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith called himself “First Elder” and Oliver Cowdery was bestowed the title “Second Elder”. Cowdery was thus de jure Vice President of the Church. Delayed by persecution in Missouri, his relationship with Sidney Rigdon , who was also a counselor to President Smith, was not clearly clarified until 1834: first Cowdery came in the hierarchy and then Rigdon.

In the early years of the Church, Cowdery served primarily as the editor of numerous important publications. First he prepared the manuscript of the Book of Mormon and supervised the printing, from 1831 he acted as editor of the church newspaper and the Book of Commandments, which was then renamed the Doctrine and Covenants . He served as scribe for Smith translating the Bible. Cowdery proved himself a capable preacher, author, and administrator during these years.

When the Church founded the bank called the Kirtland Safety Society (KSS) in 1837 , Cowdery was responsible for the money printing plates (note: it was customary and legal in the US at that time for bank notes to be printed by banks themselves). A short time later he became president of the "Bank of Monroe", which was bought by the church to support the Kirtland bank. However, both banks went bankrupt in March 1838.

Arguments with Joseph Smith

As early as 1835, a falling out between Cowdery and Smith became apparent. It sparked off Smith's relationship with Fanny Alger , a very young girl whom he had taken as the second wife in the sense of polygamy , which was still kept secret . Cowdery didn't think so and was very upset about this "adultery". He wrote to his brother on January 21, 1838:

“We had some conversations while he [Joseph Smith] was there, and in each of them I failed to mention that what I said was true. A filthy, disgusting, filthy affair between him and Fanny Alger was discussed and I stated with certainty that I had never strayed from the truth on this matter and I suppose this was admitted by him. "

In connection with the serious financial crisis of 1837/38 around the collapse of the church's own Kirtland Safety Society , which also represented a crisis of confidence in Smith, Cowdery stood up against Smith and again brought what he believed to be adulterous behavior into the discussion. In essence, however, Cowdery's view was that Smith, as a religious leader, was getting too involved in the secular affairs of his followers. All of this resulted in Cowdery's expulsion from the Church on April 12, 1838. The reason for the expulsion was that he accused Smith of adultery, that he had become inactive in the church and that he was acting as a lawyer against the church to obtain damages for his clients for losses in the collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society.

His position as the second man in the Church was later officially transferred to Hyrum Smith, a brother of the Prophet.

His life after church

1838–1848 Cowdery turned his back on the church. He felt that he had been treated unfairly and was very hurt that the Church had expelled him.

He continued his law degree and practiced as a lawyer first in Kirtland, Ohio, moved to Tiffin, Ohio in 1840 and finally moved to Wisconsin in 1847. He was considered a capable lawyer with brilliant speech, at the same time humble and reserved. In 1840 he became editor of a local newspaper in Tiffin. However, when it became known that he was one of the three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon and he was unwilling to distance himself from his testimony at the time, he was demoted to assistant editor.

Politically, he was very active in the Democratic Party, in which he even ran for Congress. When it became known that he was one of the three Book of Mormon Witnesses, he was ridiculed in the newspapers and lost the election.

Return to church

Even after his expulsion, Cowdery kept in correspondence with fellow church members. In it he complained above all about intolerance in the church and the practice of polygamy. In 1848 his desire to return to the Church grew stronger, and he traveled to Winter Quartes, now in Nebraska , a stopover in the Church's exodus to Utah, to meet Brigham Young . After in-depth questioning, Cowdery was rebaptized on November 12, 1848 by Apostle Orson Hyde . However, he was not given back his previous functions. He expressed a desire to move to the Rocky Mountains, but died of a respiratory disease on March 3, 1850, at his brother-in-law David Whitmer's home in Richmond, Missouri.

Controversies over Oliver Cowdery

Mormon supporters argue that since Cowdery was an essential witness for the emergence of the Mormon movement, opponents of the church tried very early on to instrumentalize him and especially his excommunication to cast the emergence of the church in a bad light. Proponents also believe that opponents of the Church seem to point out, on the one hand, that Cowdery was in the same parish in Poultney, Vermont, as Ethan Smith, the author of the book View of the Hebrews , which postulated the ancestry of the Indians from abducted Israelites .

This work has been believed by some to be a possible source for the Book of Mormon and its contents may have passed through Cowdery from Ethan Smith to Joseph Smith, who was unrelated to him. Mormon supporters believe, however, that recent research has shown that the similarities between the Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews are only very superficial.

It was also alleged that Cowdery had withdrawn his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the authenticity of the priesthood given by the hand of resurrected people. In any case, testimonials from family members who were at his deathbed say the opposite.

According to Mormons, rumors that Cowdery wanted to reform the Church and abolish polygamy after a new baptism are not supported by the documents. Cowdery has stressed in several letters that he just wanted to be a simple member.

Web links

Commons : Oliver Cowdery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

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1. ↑ Cowdery's own illustration published in: Messenger and Advocate , Volume 1, October 1834, pp. 14-16. Quoted in: Pearl of Great Price as a note on Joseph Smith's life story; Pp. 76-79
2. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants , sections 13-27
3. ^ The testimony of three witnesses , in: Book of Mormon , German, Intellectual Reserve Inc. 2003; P. Vii
4. ↑ R McKay White, Kirtland Safety Society: The Myth, the Facts, and the Good Name of the Prophet. Presentation at the FAIR conference 2009 (pdf; 220 kB)