Infamous Mormon: Mark Hofmann

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Summary:

Mark Hofmann was a disillusioned Mormon who was able to fool the leaders of the LDS church into thinking that documents that he forged were legitimate. In an effort to hide the forged documents from the public eye and the membership at large, the church purchased them both directly and indirectly for thousands of dollars and then quickly hid them away. The forgeries told embarrassing stories about the origins of the LDS church. Hoffman went public with his "discoveries"anyway and as a result the church did some damage control, trying to address the embarrassing issues revealed in these documents.
Hofmann made nearly 1 million dollars in forged documents "discovering" and selling document after document to the church from 1980-1985. Hofmann's schemes eventually got out of control and he ended up murdering two acquaintances in an effort to keep up with his deceptions. His lies were only discovered by two famous anti-mormons. (The Tanners) Many experts believe there are more documents out there that we are yet to discover as fake creations of Mark Hofmann.

Hofmann selling a forged copy of the Anthon transcript to Hinckley for $20,000 worth of other authentic real documents. Over the next 5 years Hofmann would sell over a dozen documents to Hinckley.

Why this matters:

  • LDS prophets, seers, and revelators are supposed to be able to see and discern, yet here they are in the same room as liar, forger, and soon to be murderer
  • The church seemed to validate the documents by purchasing them and publishing some of them and hiding away others
  • The Church defended embarrassing elements of the forged documents.

Learn More:

Orrin Porter Rockwell

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