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Anti-Mormon Claimsfailed prophecydeuteronomy 18independence templedavid patten

Joseph Smith’s ‘Failed Prophecies’ List

What about the Independence temple ‘in this generation,’ David Patten’s mission, 1891, selling the copyright in Canada, and the United States being overthrown?

Bible

The Bible answers

Bible · Jonah 3:4, 10

KJV + NRSVUE

The prophecy ‘failed’ because mercy won. That is the point of Jonah.

King James Version

And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown… And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

NRSVUE

Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’… When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

Bible · Jeremiah 18:7–8

KJV + NRSVUE

I will repent of the good or the evil I said.

King James Version

At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.

NRSVUE

At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.

Bible · Matthew 24:34

KJV + NRSVUE

This generation shall not pass. Critics who live in glass houses…

King James Version

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

NRSVUE

Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.

Book of Mormon

Also restored

Doctrine and Covenants 124:49

When they are hindered, I will require no more.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to any of the sons of men to do a work unto my name, and those sons of men go with all their might and with all they have to perform that work, and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold, it behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those sons of men, but to accept of their offerings.

Doctrine and Covenants 87:1–3

War poured out. 1861 arrived.

Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls; And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place. For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States.

Doctrine and Covenants 130:14–17

I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter. I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face. I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time.

Ancient witnesses

Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.

Jonah; Jeremiah 26:18–19; New Testament ‘this generation’

Israel already knew a true prophet could announce a judgment God later stayed. Qumran stretched older oracles onto later crises without calling Isaiah a fraud. Jesus’ own ‘this generation’ saying is still debated by the same Christians who demand a 1830s calendar from Joseph.

Deuteronomy 18 is a real test. A meme that would also sink Jonah, Micah as cited in Jeremiah 26, and Matthew 24 is not how Israel tested prophets. It is how a countercult list is built.

Faithful answers

FAIR

Alleged false prophecies of Joseph Smith

FAIR Latter-day Saints

Take the list in order. Independence temple ‘in this generation’ (D&C 84) is a commandment to build, not a weather forecast. They were driven out. D&C 124:49 is the Lord’s own exemption when enemies hinder the work; Jackson County remains a future gathering. David Patten (D&C 114) was assigned a mission and died a martyr that fall — a call is not a promise of lifespan; Jesus sent apostles who were killed too. The 1891 date is Joseph’s inference in D&C 130 after the Lord refused to give him the day; he says ‘I was left to judge’ and ‘I believe.’ That is not ‘thus saith the Lord, the Second Coming is 1891.’ The Canada copyright trip was a mission that did not sell a book — a failed errand, not a failed cosmos. The United States ‘overthrown’ warning sits next to D&C 87, which named South Carolina and a North–South war decades early. Critics hide the Civil War hit and magnify the idiom.

If Jonah survives Deuteronomy 18, Joseph may be read with the same Bible, not a stricter one invented for him.

  • Commandment ≠ dated prediction. D&C 84 told them to build; D&C 124 told them what happens when a mob stops the work.
  • ‘This generation’ is Jesus’ phrase too (Matthew 24:34). The people who weaponize D&C 84 rarely apply the same stopwatch to their Lord.
  • D&C 130 is Joseph saying he does not know which coming, and that he might see the Son by dying. He died at 38. The 1891 meme erases his own uncertainty.
  • D&C 87 is uncomfortably specific. A prophet is not false because you refuse to count his hits.
  • Deuteronomy 13 plus Matthew 7 still matter: did he turn people to other gods, or to Jesus Christ?
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Suggested videos

Faithful voices only. Most of these are independent — not official Church productions unless marked as such.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Restoration of Christ’s Church | Now You Know

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Who was Joseph Smith? | Now You Know

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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