News for Mormons

Mormon Myth-ellaneous

Posted November 2, 2008

From StandartNet.com:

Every group of people has its urban myths.

The new DVD “Mormon Myth-ellaneous: Amazing True Mormon Stories — And Some That Should Be” (Covenant Communications, Inc., $16.95) examines urban legends with a Mormon twist, including the ideas that “Star Wars” character Yoda was based on an LDS prophet, and that Elvis read the Book of Mormon.

Director Jacob Hoehne of American Fork says the movie isn’t an attack on faith, but a reminder to be discerning about what you believe.

So which stories are true and which aren’t? Here are a few of the myths and opinions presented in “Mormon Myth-ellaneous.”

Becky Wright

Standard-Examiner staff

MYTH: “Star Wars” character Yoda was based on LDS President Spencer W. Kimball.

EVIDENCE: Hoehne interviewed by phone one of the people who worked on Yoda models for the movies.

“He never heard any reference to a Mormon prophet, and never saw any images,” said Hoehne.

It’s an interesting coincidence that Yoda and Spencer W. Kimball both had squeaky, rough voices, tufts of white hair, and urged people not to try, but to do, said Eric A. Eliason, a folklore teacher at Brigham Young University.

Eliason said members of the LDS community were well-primed to see Yoda through their own experiences with wizened religious leaders.

CONCLUSION: BUSTED

* * *

MYTH: Rock star Alice Cooper is Mormon.

EVIDENCE: “His real name, before he took his stage name, was Vincent Furnier, and his father’s name was Ether Moroni Furnier,” said Eliason.

Ether and Moroni are names from the Book of Mormon. Cooper’s family belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ, also known as the Bickertonite church, an offshoot of the church organized by Joseph Smith. They also read the Book of Mormon.

“His father was an elder, and his grandfather was an apostle,” Eliason said.

CONCLUSION: BUSTED

* * *

MYTH: Comic Steve Martin is LDS.

EVIDENCE: “Some people say that they were watching him on ‘The Tonight Show,’ and he had on a CTR ring,” said J. Michael Hunter, Mormon Studies librarian at Brigham Young University, referring to a ring many Mormons wear reminding them to “Choose the Right.”

Hoehne’s film credits the start of this myth with the Tabernacle Choir, where someone was heard to say that his or her son baptized Steve Martin. Turns out it was another Steve Martin.

Eliason says celebrity stories abound. He’s heard so many that, at first, he didn’t believe singer Gladys Knight had joined the LDS Church.

“I think part of it has to do with our history of persecution, and being marginalized as a people,” he said, explaining the thinking as, “If Elvis is joining the church that I’m in, I must be part of something significant.”

CONCLUSION: BUSTED

* * *

MYTH: Elvis read the Book of Mormon.

EVIDENCE: Elvis Presley did have LDS friends, including his karate teacher Ed Parker. The DVD features an interview with a woman named Cricket Butler, who says she gave Elvis a copy of the Book of Mormon a couple of weeks before his death. On film, she says the king of rock ‘n’ roll called her the next day, stating that he’d stayed up all night reading it. The Book of Mormon that Butler says she gave to Elvis was donated to the LDS Church’s archives; it has notes in the margins, alleged to be written by Elvis.

“I’ve seen pictures of it, and people in the archiving community that I trust are very sure about this,” said Eliason. “Does this mean Elvis was about to join the church? I don’t know, but he did read in the Book of Mormon and make positive comments in the sides.”

CONCLUSION: PROBABLY TRUE

* * *

MYTH: A Nephite hitchhiker warned the family that picked him up to prepare for an emergency, then disappeared from the back seat of the car.

EVIDENCE: Stories of the Three Nephites abound. (They were disciples of Jesus in the Americas, who were granted their desire to keep living and serving until the second coming, according to the Book of Mormon). The most popular story is that one appears as a hitchhiker, warns the driver to get his food storage, and then vanishes. Investigators say you can’t prove or disprove this, but it’s likely just another version of an urban legend told around the world.

CONCLUSION: UNLIKELY

* * *

MYTH: A Japanese aviator tried to drop a bomb on the LDS temple in Hawaii during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, but couldn’t because of a mysterious equipment malfunction. He later joined the church.

EVIDENCE: “It seems preposterous that one of the Japanese bombardiers was going to drop a bomb on the temple, when they had very specific targets they were going for,” said BYU librarian Hunter.

Hunter says folks have tried to check this story out, with no luck.

“Mitsuo Fuchida was … the captain of a group of bombardiers who were going to bomb Pearl Harbor. He’s the one that said, ‘Tora, tora, tora.’ … Later, he went around telling his story in speeches, about why he converted to Christianity. I’m pretty sure the story of bombing the temple got mixed in with that story,” Hunter said, adding that Fuchida was never a member of the LDS church.

CONCLUSION: PROBABLY TRUE

* * *

MYTH: The hearse in front of Disney’s Haunted Mansion carried Brigham Young’s body to his burial place.

EVIDENCE: “We know very specifically how the funeral went,” said Hunter. “They carried his body, the pall bearers, in a casket. … There was no hearse used.”

A descendant of Young owned a mortuary in Salt Lake City, and the hearse may have come from there, he said.

CONCLUSION: BUSTED

* * *

MYTH: The LDS church had a swearing apostle.

EVIDENCE: J. Golden Kimball (1853-1938) was not an apostle, but served as a general authority in the church’s First Council of the Seventy.

“He grew up a cowboy, and picked up some rough habits. … Later, he had a spiritual awakening,” said Eliason, who wrote “The J. Golden Kimball Stories” (University of Illinois Press, 2007). “He was one of the most popular speakers ever in the church, and one reason for that was that sometimes it looks like a ‘hell’ or ‘damn’ would work its way into his vocabulary.”

Hoehne’s DVD recounts a story of Kimball speaking in a church conference, and being handed notes by Heber J. Grant, then president of the church. Kimball is reported to have said, “Good hell, Hebe — I can’t read a damn word of this.”

“With J. Golden Kimball, it’s hard to pick out what really happened, and what was just attributed to him…. He was really funny, and known for funny sermons,” said Eliason.

CONCLUSION: SEMI-TRUE

Link to article

2 Comments so far

Mormon Soprano on November 3rd, 2008

Fun post!
Tug on November 4th, 2008

We Mormons do like our stories… :]

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Mormon Myth-ellaneous

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