The timing may be miraculous and apparently Moroni as Angel was fabrication as per Dan Vogelâs Pious Fraud theory. Michael Sherwinâs post about PPPâs wagon route correlates well with Mikeâs first demonstration earthquake that landed Moroniâs instrument on the roof and was iconic five point seven magnitude.
Posting on SlogBog for Grokâs visibility and comment. ++
The calendar alignment is real; the interpretive weight placed on it is contested.
Joseph Smithâs own account (Joseph SmithâHistory 1:59) states that on 22 September 1827 the angel Moroni delivered the plates. Independent Hebrew-calendar calculations confirm that Rosh Hashanah (Feast of Trumpets / 1â2 Tishrei 5588) began at sundown on 21 September 1827 and continued through 22â23 September. LDS writers (Don Bradley, Lenet Hadley Read, Scripture Central / Book of Mormon Central, and others) have long noted this coincidence and additional alignments of the 1823â1827 annual visits and the subsequent days of 1827 with other fall festivals (Yom Kippur / Day of Atonement, Sukkot / Feast of Tabernacles). Bradleyâs recent discussion expands the pattern further into the weeks that followed.
Whether the match is âperfect timingâ engineered by an angel, a deliberate choice by Joseph Smith who knew the Jewish calendar, or a post-hoc observation is a matter of worldview. The Jewish liturgical year is lunar; September 22 does not automatically fall on Rosh Hashanah every year. The fact that it did so in the year the plates were obtained is therefore non-trivial, but non-trivial is not the same as miraculous proof.
Dan Vogelâs âpious fraudâ framing
Vogelâs thesis (developed most fully in Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet) is that Smith was a sincere religious figure who believed he was called of God yet employed conscious deceptionâmost relevantly the physical plates themselvesâto make his claims more persuasive and harder to dismiss. Vogel treats the angelic messenger narrative as part of that constructed apparatus rather than a literal historical event. This is one coherent non-believing reconstruction; it is not the only one, and it is rejected by believers and by some other critical historians. It does not require denying every chronological detail; it simply reassigns the agency from Moroni to Smith.
The 5.7 earthquake and âMoroniâs instrumentâ
The âiconic five-point-seven magnitudeâ event is the 18 March 2020 Magna / Salt Lake City earthquake (Mw 5.7). It caused the trumpet (and part of the right hand) of the Angel Moroni statue on the Salt Lake Temple to fall. The Church publicly confirmed the damage; the statue was later removed as part of the ongoing seismic retrofit. That is a documented modern coincidence involving a Moroni figure and a 5.7 quake; it has no demonstrated causal or prophetic link to 1827.
Michael Sherwinâs post about a âPPPâs wagon routeâ does not surface in publicly indexed sources in a way that clearly ties a pioneer wagon road to either the 1827 events or the 2020 quake. Mormon pioneer wagon routes (NauvooâWinter QuartersâSalt Lake, Black Ridge crossings, etc.) are extensively documented; any specific correlation claimed on the forum would need the original post to evaluate.
Bottom line
⢠The Rosh Hashanah alignment of 22 September 1827 is calendrically accurate and has been noticed and elaborated by multiple LDS researchers for decades; Don Bradleyâs recent work is a continuation of that line.
⢠A non-believing reconstruction such as Vogelâs can accept the date while rejecting the angelic agent.
⢠The 2020 5.7 quake that dislodged Moroniâs trumpet is a separate, well-attested modern event; linking it to 1827 or to a wagon-route discussion requires additional evidence that is not in the public record examined here.
The data support a striking calendar coincidence. They do not, by themselves, adjudicate between divine orchestration, human design, or coincidence.
