HAVE ANY 2000-YEAR-OLD MEN PREACHED TO YOU?
(Investigator 136, 2011 January
Investigator
(#61,
65, 66 & 70) reported Mr Doug Davies' search for four 2000-year-old
Mormon men.
Davies
had told Mormon
missionaries that their prophet Joseph Smith (1805-1844) was a false
prophet because he predicted the erection of a Temple on a designated
plot of land in Missouri within one generation and it didn’t happen.
The missionaries
responded with the Mormon doctrine that four
first-century men are still alive — the apostle John and three others;
therefore Joseph Smith's generation had not died out and the prediction
is unrefuted.
That's
what set Mr Davies
on his search. Government pension departments do not give out
information on individual pensioners, not even their ages. Davies,
therefore, interviewed Mormons on whether they’d met the four oldies
and asked how to find their names in Mormonism’s International
Genealogical Index.
Mormons promote
genealogy to identify deceased people of previous
generations and baptize them by proxy. Mormon doctrine also encourages
marriage and having children. That's why Mormons have the IGI and why
Davies sought evidence for the four oldies therein.
The
2000-year-old-men
doctrine is also used to explain how Jesus' prediction of the Gospel
being preached in all nations can be fulfilled when 29 countries
including China have no Mormons. The book Latter Days (2000) by
Coke Newell (a convert to Mormonism) considers this problem and
explains that the four oldies are active in ministry! :
It
would
appear that the Latter-day Saints trust in several more decades passing
before the gospel has been preached in all the world. Wouldn't it? Not
necessarily. We do not claim to know all that the Lord may be doing in
the hands of other minsters. Firstly, there is the apostle John, he who
was translated without tasting death, whose desire (granted) was to
remain on earth and preach the gospel in many nations. Additionally,
three Books of Mormon disciples made the same request and received the
same promise. Where are they, and how effective, after two thousand
years of practice, have they been? (pp 226-227)
Newell doesn't
answer his
question "Where are they…?" and Davies' search for them ultimately
failed.
If
any 2000-year-old men
have preached to you you're invited to report it in Investigator.