Joseph Smith

This article is about the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. For other persons, see Joseph Smith (disambiguation).

Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religion that continues to the present with millions of global adherents.

Joseph Smith
Portrait, c. 1842
1st President of the Church of Christ (later the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)^[1]
April 6, 1830 (1830-04-06) – June 27, 1844 (1844-06-27)
Successor	Disputed; Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith III, and at least four others each claimed succession.
End reason	Death
2nd Mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois
In office
May 19, 1842 (1842-05-19)^[2] – June 27, 1844 (1844-06-27)
Predecessor	John C. Bennett
Successor	Chancy Robison^[3]
Political party	Independent
Personal details
Born	Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-12-23)December 23, 1805 Sharon, Vermont, U.S.
Died	June 27, 1844(1844-06-27) (aged 38) Carthage, Illinois, U.S.
Cause of death	Gunshot wound
Resting place	Smith Family Cemetery, Nauvoo, Illinois, U.S. 40°32′26″N 91°23′33″W / 40.54052°N 91.39244°W / 40.54052; -91.39244 (Smith Family Cemetery)
Spouse(s)	Emma Smith ​ (m. 1827)​ Multiple others (possibly 27–49; exact number is uncertain)^[4]^[5]
Children	Julia Joseph III Alexander David others
Parents	Joseph Smith Sr. (father) Lucy Mack Smith (mother)
Relatives	Alvin Smith (brother) Hyrum Smith (brother) Sophronia Smith (sister) Samuel H. Smith (brother) Ephraim Smith (brother) William Smith (brother) Katharine Smith (sister) Don Carlos Smith (brother) Lucy Smith (sister)
Signature

Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont. By 1817, he had moved with his family to Western New York, an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening. Smith reported experiencing a series of visions, beginning with one in 1820, during which he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ). In 1823 he said he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published an English translation of these plates called the Book of Mormon. The same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian Church. Members of the church were later called "Latter Day Saints" or "Mormons", and Smith announced a revelation in 1838 that renamed the church as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communal American Zion. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri, which was intended to be Zion's "center place". During the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of the Kirtland Temple. Because of the collapse of the church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company, violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians, and the Mormon extermination order, Smith and his followers established a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois, where he became a spiritual and political leader. In 1844, when the Nauvoo Expositor criticized Smith's power and practice of polygamy, Smith and the Nauvoo city council ordered the destruction of their printing press, inflaming anti-Mormon sentiment. Fearing an invasion of Nauvoo, Smith rode to Carthage, Illinois, to stand trial, but he was killed when a mob stormed the jailhouse.

During his ministry, Smith published numerous documents and texts, many of which he attributed to divine inspiration and revelation from God. He dictated the majority of these in the first-person and said they were the writings of ancient prophets or expressed the voice of God; Smith's followers believed this, and they accepted his teachings as prophetic and revelatory. Several of these texts have been canonized by denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement which continue to treat them as scripture. Smith's teachings discuss God's nature, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious community and authority. Mormons generally regard him as a prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah. Several religious denominations identify as the continuation of the church that he organized, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and the Community of Christ.

Life

Early years (1805–1827)

Main article: Early life of Joseph Smith

Smith was born on December 23, 1805, on the border between South Royalton and Sharon, Vermont, to Lucy Mack Smith and her husband Joseph Smith Sr., a merchant and farmer.^[6][7] He was one of 11 children. At the age of seven Smith suffered a crippling bone infection and, after receiving surgery, used crutches for three years.^[8] After an ill-fated business venture and three successive years of crop failures culminating in the 1816 Year Without a Summer, the Smith family left Vermont and moved to Western New York, taking out a mortgage on a 100-acre (40 ha) farm in the townships of Palmyra and Manchester.^[9]

The region was a hotbed of religious enthusiasm during the Second Great Awakening.^[10][11] Between 1817 and 1825, there were several camp meetings and revivals in the Palmyra area.^[12] Smith's parents disagreed about religion, but the family was caught up in this excitement.^[13] Smith said that he became interested in religion by age 12. As a teenager, he may have been sympathetic to Methodism.^[14] With other family members, Smith also engaged in religious folk magic, which was a relatively common practice in that time and place.^[15] Both his parents and his maternal grandfather reportedly had visions or dreams that they believed communicated messages from God.^[16] Smith said that, although he had become concerned about the welfare of his soul, he was confused by the claims of competing religious denominations.^[17]

Years later, Smith wrote that he had received a vision that resolved his religious confusion.^[18] He said that in 1820, while he had been praying in a wooded area near his home, God and Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him his sins were forgiven and that all contemporary churches had "turned aside from the gospel."^[19] Smith said he recounted the experience to a preacher, who dismissed the story with contempt.^[20] This first vision would later grow in importance to Smith's followers, who now regard it as the first event in the restoration of Christ's church to Earth. Until the 1840s, however, Smith's accounts of the vision were largely unknown to most Mormons,^[21] and Smith himself may have originally considered it a personal conversion.^[22]

 

Smith said he received golden plates from the angel Moroni at the Hill Cumorah.

According to his later accounts, Smith was visited by an angel named Moroni, while praying one night in 1823. Smith said that this angel revealed the location of a buried book made of golden plates, as well as other artifacts, including a breastplate and a set of interpreters composed of two seer stones set in a frame, which had been hidden in a hill near his home.^[23] Smith said he attempted to remove the plates the next morning, but was unsuccessful because the angel returned and prevented him.^[24] Smith reported that during the next four years, he made annual visits to the hill, but, until the fourth and final visit, each time he returned without the plates.^[25]

Meanwhile, the Smith family faced financial hardship, due in part to the death of Smith's oldest brother Alvin, who had assumed a leadership role in the family.^[26] Family members supplemented their meager farm income by hiring out for odd jobs and working as treasure seekers, a type of magical supernaturalism common during the period.^[27] Smith was said to have an ability to locate lost items by looking into a seer stone, which he also used in treasure hunting, including several unsuccessful attempts to find buried treasure sponsored by Josiah Stowell, a wealthy farmer in Chenango County, New York, starting in 1825.^[28] In 1826, Smith was brought before a Chenango County court for "glass-looking", or pretending to find lost treasure; Stowell's relatives accused Smith of tricking Stowell and faking an ability to perceive hidden treasure, though Stowell attested that he believed Smith had such abilities.^[29] The result of the proceeding remains unclear as primary sources report various conflicting outcomes.^[30]

 

Emma Hale Smith married Joseph Smith in 1827.

While boarding at the Hale house in Harmony, Pennsylvania, Smith met and began courting Emma Hale. When Smith proposed marriage, Emma's father, Isaac Hale objected; he believed Smith had no means to support Emma,^[31] and he considered Smith a stranger who appeared "careless" and "not very well educated."^[32] Smith and Emma eloped and married on January 18, 1827, after which the couple began boarding with Smith's parents in Manchester. Later that year, when Smith promised to abandon treasure seeking, Hale offered to let the couple live on his property in Harmony and help Smith get started in business.^[33]

Smith made his last visit to the hill shortly after midnight on September 22, 1827, taking Emma with him.^[34] This time, he said he successfully retrieved the plates.^[35] He said the angel commanded him not to show the plates to anyone else, but to translate them and publish their translation. Smith said the plates were a religious record of Middle-Eastern indigenous Americans and were engraved in an unknown language, called reformed Egyptian.^[36] He also told associates that he was capable of reading and translating them.^[37]

Although Smith had left his treasure hunting endeavors, his former associates believed he had double crossed them and taken the golden plates for himself, which they believed should be joint property.^[38] After they ransacked places where they believed the plates could be hidden, Smith decided to leave Palmyra.^[39]

Founding a church (1827–1830)

Main article: Life of Joseph Smith from 1827 to 1830

In October 1827, Smith and Emma moved from Palmyra to Harmony (now Oakland), Pennsylvania, aided by a relatively prosperous neighbor, Martin Harris.^[40] Living near his in-laws, Smith transcribed some characters that he said were engraved on the plates and dictated translations to Emma.^[41]

In February 1828, Harris arrived in Harmony, and he took a sample of the characters Smith had copied to a few prominent scholars, including Charles Anthon.^[42] Harris said Anthon initially authenticated the characters and their translation, but then retracted his opinion after learning that Smith claimed to have received the plates from an angel.^[43] Anthon denied Harris's account of the meeting, claiming instead that he had tried to convince Harris that he was the victim of a fraud. In any event, Harris returned to Harmony in April 1828, seemingly convinced, and he began participating in the process as Smith's scribe.^[44]

Although Harris and his wife Lucy Harris were early supporters, by June 1828, they began having doubts about the project. Harris persuaded Smith to let him take the existing 116 pages of manuscript to Palmyra to show a few family members, including his wife.^[45] Harris lost the manuscript, of which there was no other copy.^[46] Smith was devastated not only by the loss of the manuscript, but also the loss of his first son who had died shortly after birth.^[47] As punishment for losing the manuscript, Smith said that the angel returned and took away the plates, and revoked his ability to translate.^[48] During this period, Smith briefly attended Methodist meetings with his wife, until a cousin of hers objected to inclusion of a "practicing necromancer" on the Methodist class roll.^[49]

 

Cover page of the Book of Mormon, original 1830 edition

Smith said that the angel returned the plates to him in September 1828.^[50] Smith performed some dictation of the Book of Mormon with Emma Smith scribing.^[51] In April 1829, he met Oliver Cowdery; with Cowdery as scribe, Smith launched into a period of "rapid-fire translation".^[52] They worked full time on the manuscript between April and early June 1829, and then moved to Fayette, New York, where they continued to work at the home of Cowdery's friend, Peter Whitmer.^[53] When the narrative described an institutional church and a requirement for baptism, Smith and Cowdery baptized each other.^[54] Dictation was completed about July 1, 1829.^[55]

Although Smith had previously refused to show the plates to anyone, he told Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer that they would be allowed to see them.^[56] These men, known collectively as the Three Witnesses, signed a statement stating that they had been shown the golden plates by an angel, and that the voice of God had confirmed the truth of their translation. Later, a group of Eight Witnesses — composed of male members of the Whitmer and Smith families – issued a statement that they had been shown the golden plates by Smith.^[57] According to Smith, the angel Moroni took back the plates once Smith finished using them.^[58]

The completed work, titled the Book of Mormon, was published in Palmyra by printer E. B. Grandin and was first advertised for sale on March 26, 1830.^[59] Soon after, on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ, and small branches were established in Manchester, Fayette, and Colesville, New York.^[60] The Book of Mormon brought Smith regional notoriety and hostility from those who remembered the 1826 Chenango County trial.^[61] After Cowdery baptized several new church members, the Mormons received threats of mob violence; before Smith could confirm the newly baptized members, he was arrested and brought to trial on charges of being a "disorderly person."^[62] He was acquitted, but soon both he and Cowdery fled to Colesville to escape a gathering mob. Smith later claimed that, probably around this time, Peter, James, and John had appeared to him and had ordained him and Cowdery to a higher priesthood.^[63]

Smith's authority was undermined when Oliver Cowdery, Hiram Page, and other church members also claimed to receive revelations.^[64] In response, Smith dictated a revelation which clarified his office as a prophet and an apostle, and which declared that only he held the ability to give doctrine and scripture for the entire church.^[65] Shortly after the conference, Smith dispatched Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, and others on a mission to proselytize Native Americans.^[66] Cowdery was also assigned the task of locating the site of the New Jerusalem.^[67]

On their way to Missouri, Cowdery's party passed through northeastern Ohio, where Sidney Rigdon and over a hundred followers of his variety of Campbellite Restorationism converted to Mormonism, more than doubling the size of the church.^[68] Rigdon soon visited New York and quickly became Smith's primary assistant.^[69] With growing opposition in New York, Smith announced a revelation stating that his followers should gather to Kirtland, Ohio and there establish themselves as a people and await word from Cowdery's mission.^[70]

Life in Ohio (1831–1838)

Main articles: Life of Joseph Smith from 1831 to 1834 and Life of Joseph Smith from 1834 to 1837

When Smith moved to Kirtland, Ohio in January 1831, he encountered a religious culture that included enthusiastic demonstrations of spiritual gifts, including fits and trances, rolling on the ground, and speaking in tongues.^[71] Smith brought the Kirtland congregation under his own authority and tamed these outbursts. Rigdon's followers had also been practicing a form of communalism.^[72] Smith had promised church elders that in Kirtland they would receive an endowment of heavenly power, and at the June 1831 general conference, he introduced the greater authority of a High ("Melchizedek") Priesthood to the church hierarchy.^[73]

 

A mob tarred and feathered Smith in 1832.

Converts poured into Kirtland. By the summer of 1835, there were fifteen hundred to two thousand Mormons in the vicinity, many expecting Smith to lead them shortly to the Millennial kingdom.^[74] Though his mission to the Indians had been a failure, Cowdery and the other missionaries with him were charged with finding a site for "a holy city"; they found Jackson County, Missouri.^[75] After Smith visited in July 1831, he pronounced the frontier hamlet of Independence the "center place" of Zion.^[76] For most of the 1830s, the church centered in Ohio.^[77] Smith continued to live in Ohio, but visited Missouri again in early 1832 to prevent a rebellion of prominent church members who believed the church in Missouri was being neglected.^[78] Smith's trip was also hastened by a mob of Ohio residents who were incensed over the United Order and Smith's political power; the mob beat Smith and Rigdon unconscious, tarred and feathered them, and left them for dead.^[79]

In Jackson County, existing Missouri residents resented the Mormon newcomers for both political and religious reasons.^[80] Tension increased until July 1833, when non-Mormons forcibly evicted the Mormons and destroyed their property. Smith advised them to bear the violence patiently until after they were attacked multiple times, after which they could fight back.^[81] After armed bands exchanged fire, killing one Mormon and two non-Mormons, the old settlers forcibly expelled the Mormons from the county.^[82]

Smith ended the communitarian experiment and changed the name of the church to the "Church of Latter Day Saints", before leading a small paramilitary expedition called Zion's Camp, to aid the Missouri Mormons.^[83] As a military endeavor, the expedition was a failure. The men struggled over unity, suffered from a cholera outbreak, and were severely outnumbered. Smith sent two church representatives to petition Missouri governor Daniel Dunklin for protection and support, but Dunklin declined. By the end of June, Smith deescalated the confrontation, sought peace with Jackson County's residents, and disbanded Zion's Camp.^[84] Nevertheless, Zion's Camp transformed Mormon leadership: many future church leaders came from among the participants.^[85]

After the Camp returned, Smith drew heavily from its participants to establish various governing bodies in the church.^[86] Smith gave a revelation saying that to redeem Zion, his followers would have to receive an endowment in the Kirtland Temple.^[87] In March 1836, at the temple's dedication, many participants in the endowment reported seeing visions of angels, speaking in tongues, and prophesying.^[88]

 

Smith dedicated the Kirtland Temple in 1836.

In late 1837, a series of internal disputes led to the collapse of the Kirtland Mormon community.^[89] Smith was blamed for having promoted a church-sponsored bank that failed. Oliver Cowdery (who by then was Assistant President of the Church)^[90] also accused Smith of engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenage servant in his home, Fanny Alger.^[91] Building the temple had left the church deeply in debt, and Smith was hounded by creditors.^[92] Having heard of a large sum of money supposedly hidden in Salem, Massachusetts, Smith traveled there and announced a revelation that God had "much treasure in this city".^[93] After a month, however, he returned to Kirtland empty-handed.^[94]

In January 1837, Smith and other church leaders created a joint stock company, called the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company, to act as a quasi-bank; the company issued banknotes partly capitalized by real estate.^[95] Smith encouraged the Latter Day Saints to buy the notes, and he invested heavily in them himself, but the bank failed within a month.^[96] As a result, the Latter Day Saints in Kirtland suffered intense pressure from debt collectors and severe price volatility. Smith was held responsible for the failure, and there were widespread defections from the church, including many of Smith's closest advisers.^[97] After a warrant was issued for Smith's arrest on a charge of banking fraud, Smith and Rigdon fled Kirtland for Missouri in January 1838.^[98]

Life in Missouri (1838–39)

Main article: Life of Joseph Smith from 1838 to 1839

By 1838, Smith had abandoned plans to redeem Zion in Jackson County, and after Smith and Rigdon arrived in Missouri, the town of Far West, in Caldwell County, became the new "Zion".^[99] In Missouri, the church also took the name "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", and construction began on a new temple.^[100] In the weeks and months after Smith and Rigdon arrived at Far West, thousands of Latter Day Saints followed them from Kirtland.^[101] Smith encouraged the settlement of land outside Caldwell County, instituting a settlement in Adam-ondi-Ahman, in Daviess County.^[102]

During this time, a church council expelled many of the oldest and most prominent leaders of the church, including John Whitmer, David Whitmer, W. W. Phelps, and Oliver Cowdery.^[103] Smith explicitly approved of the expulsion of these men, who were known collectively as the "dissenters".^[104]

Political and religious differences between old Missourians and newly arriving Mormon settlers provoked tensions between the two groups, much as they had years earlier in Jackson County. By this time, Smith's experiences with mob violence led him to believe that his faith's survival required greater militancy against anti-Mormons.^[105] Around June 1838, "ultra-loyal" Sampson Avard formed a covert organization called the Danites to intimidate Mormon dissenters and oppose anti-Mormon militia units.^[106] Though it is unclear how much Smith knew of the Danites' activities, he clearly approved of those of which he did know.^[107] After Rigdon delivered a sermon that implied dissenters had no place in the Mormon community, the Danites forcibly expelled them from the county.^[108]

In a speech given at Far West’s Fourth of July celebration, Rigdon declared that Mormons would no longer tolerate persecution by the Missourians and spoke of a "war of extermination" if Mormons were attacked.^[109] Smith implicitly endorsed this speech,^[110] and many non-Mormons understood it to be a thinly veiled threat. They unleashed a flood of anti-Mormon rhetoric in newspapers and in stump speeches given during the 1838 election campaign.^[111]

On August 6, 1838, non-Mormons in Gallatin tried to prevent Mormons from voting,^[112] and the election-day scuffles initiated the 1838 Mormon War. Non-Mormon vigilantes raided and burned Mormon farms, while Danites and other Mormons pillaged non-Mormon towns.^[113] In the Battle of Crooked River, a group of Mormons attacked the Missouri state militia, mistakenly believing them to be anti-Mormon vigilantes. Governor Lilburn Boggs then ordered that the Mormons be "exterminated or driven from the state".^[114] On October 30, a party of Missourians surprised and killed seventeen Mormons in the Haun's Mill massacre.^[115]

 

Smith was held for four months in Liberty jail.

The following day, the Latter Day Saints surrendered to 2,500 state troops and agreed to forfeit their property and leave the state.^[116] Smith was immediately brought before a military court, accused of treason, and sentenced to be executed the next morning; Alexander Doniphan, who was Smith's former attorney and a brigadier general in the Missouri militia, refused to carry out the order.^[117] Smith was then sent to a state court for a preliminary hearing, where several of his former allies testified against him.^[118] Smith and five others, including Rigdon, were charged with treason, and transferred to the jail at Liberty, Missouri, to await trial.^[119]

Smith's months in prison with an ill and whining Rigdon strained their relationship. Meanwhile, Brigham Young - as president of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, one of the church's governing bodies - rose to prominence when he organized the move of about 14,000 Mormon refugees to Illinois and eastern Iowa.^[120]

Smith bore his imprisonment stoically. Understanding that he was effectively on trial before his own people, many of whom considered him a fallen prophet, he wrote a personal defense and an apology for the activities of the Danites. "The keys of the kingdom," he wrote, "have not been taken away from us".^[121] Though he directed his followers to collect and publish their stories of persecution, he also urged them to moderate their antagonism toward non-Mormons.^[122] On April 6, 1839, after a grand jury hearing in Davis County, Smith and his companions escaped custody, almost certainly with the connivance of the sheriff and guards.^[123]

Life in Nauvoo, Illinois (1839–1844)

Main article: Life of Joseph Smith from 1839 to 1844

Many American newspapers criticized Missouri for the Haun's Mill massacre and the state's expulsion of the Latter Day Saints. Illinois accepted Mormon refugees who gathered along the banks of the Mississippi River,^[124] where Smith purchased high-priced, swampy woodland in the hamlet of Commerce.^[125] Smith also attempted to portray the Latter Day Saints as an oppressed minority, and unsuccessfully petitioned the federal government for help in obtaining reparations.^[126] During the summer of 1839, while Latter Day Saints in Nauvoo suffered from a malaria epidemic, Smith sent Brigham Young and other apostles to missions in Europe, where they made numerous converts, many of them poor factory workers.^[127]

 

Depiction of Smith at head of the Nauvoo Legion

Smith also attracted a few wealthy and influential converts, including John C. Bennett, the Illinois quartermaster general.^[128] Bennett used his connections in the Illinois legislature to obtain an unusually liberal charter for the new city, which Smith renamed "Nauvoo" (Hebrew נָאווּ, meaning "to be beautiful").^[129] The charter granted the city virtual autonomy, authorized a university, and granted Nauvoo habeas corpus power—which allowed Smith to fend off extradition to Missouri.^[130] Though Mormon authorities controlled Nauvoo's civil government, the city guaranteed religious freedom for its residents.^[131] The charter also authorized the Nauvoo Legion, a militia whose actions were limited only by state and federal constitutions. Smith and Bennett became its commanders, and were styled Lieutenant General and Major General respectively. As such, they controlled by far the largest body of armed men in Illinois.^[132] Smith made Bennett Assistant President of the church, and Bennett was elected Nauvoo's first mayor.^[133]

 

Smith planned the construction of the Nauvoo Temple, which was completed after his death.

The early Nauvoo years were a period of doctrinal innovation. Smith introduced baptism for the dead in 1840, and in 1841, construction began on the Nauvoo Temple as a place for recovering lost ancient knowledge.^[134] An 1841 revelation promised the restoration of the "fullness of the priesthood"; and in May 1842, Smith inaugurated a revised endowment or "first anointing".^[135] The endowment resembled rites of freemasonry that Smith had observed two months earlier when he had been initiated "at sight" into the Nauvoo Masonic lodge.^[136] At first, the endowment was open only to men, who were initiated into a special group called the Anointed Quorum. For women, Smith introduced the Relief Society, a service club and sorority within which Smith predicted women would receive "the keys of the kingdom".^[137] Smith also elaborated on his plan for a millennial kingdom. No longer envisioning the building of Zion in Nauvoo, Smith viewed Zion as encompassing all of North and South America, with Mormon settlements being "stakes" of Zion's metaphorical tent.^[138] Zion also became less a refuge from an impending tribulation than a great building project.^[139] In the summer of 1842, Smith revealed a plan to establish the millennial Kingdom of God, which would eventually establish theocratic rule over the whole Earth.^[140]

Smith also began secretly marrying additional wives, a practice called plural marriage.^[141] He introduced the doctrine to a few of his closest associates, including John Bennett, who used it as an excuse to seduce numerous women wed and unwed.^[142] When embarrassing rumors of polygamy's practice (called "spiritual wifery" by Bennett) got abroad, Smith forced Bennett's resignation as Nauvoo mayor. In retaliation, Bennett left Nauvoo and began publishing sensational accusations against Smith and his followers.^[143]

By mid-1842, popular opinion had turned against the Mormons. After an unknown assailant shot and wounded Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs in May 1842, anti-Mormons circulated rumors that Smith's bodyguard, Porter Rockwell, was the shooter.^[144] Though the evidence was circumstantial, Boggs ordered Smith's extradition. Certain he would be killed if he ever returned to Missouri, Smith went into hiding twice during the next five months, before the U.S. district attorney for Illinois argued that Smith's extradition to Missouri would be unconstitutional.^[145] (Rockwell was later tried and acquitted.) In June 1843, enemies of Smith convinced a reluctant Illinois Governor Thomas Ford to extradite Smith to Missouri on an old charge of treason. Two law officers arrested Smith, but were intercepted by a party of Mormons before they could reach Missouri. Smith was then released on a writ of habeas corpus from the Nauvoo municipal court.^[146] While this ended the Missourians' attempts at extradition, it caused significant political fallout in Illinois.^[147]

 

Researchers claim that this daguerreotype by Lucian R. Foster shows Joseph Smith in 1844^[148]

In December 1843, Smith petitioned Congress to make Nauvoo an independent territory with the right to call out federal troops in its defense.^[149] Smith then wrote to the leading presidential candidates and asked them what they would do to protect the Mormons. After receiving noncommittal or negative responses, Smith announced his own independent candidacy for President of the United States, suspended regular proselytizing, and sent out the Quorum of the Twelve and hundreds of other political missionaries.^[150] In March 1844 – following a dispute with a federal bureaucrat – Smith organized the secret Council of Fifty. Smith said the Council had authority to decide which national or state laws Mormons should obey.^[151] The Council was also to select a site for a large Mormon settlement in Texas, California, or Oregon, where Mormons could live under theocratic law beyond other governmental control.^[152]

According to researchers Ronald Romig and Lachlan Mackay, Smith posed for a daguerreotype by Lucian R. Foster sometime in 1844; the photograph was published in 2022 in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal.^[148]

Death

Main article: Death of Joseph Smith

 

A 19th-century painting depicting the mob attack inside Carthage Jail

By early 1844, a rift developed between Smith and a half dozen of his closest associates.^[153] Most notably, William Law, Smith's trusted counselor, and Robert Foster, a general of the Nauvoo Legion, disagreed with Smith about how to manage Nauvoo's economy.^[154] Both also said that Smith had proposed marriage to their wives.^[155] Believing the dissidents were plotting against his life, Smith excommunicated them on April 18, 1844.^[156] These dissidents formed a competing church and the following month, at Carthage, the county seat, they procured indictments against Smith for perjury (as Smith publicly denied having more than one wife) and polygamy.^[157]

On June 7, the dissidents published the first (and only) issue of the Nauvoo Expositor, calling for reform within the church and appealing to the political views of the county's other faiths as well as those of former Mormons.^[158] The paper decried Smith's new "doctrines of many Gods", alluded to Smith's theocratic aspirations, and called for a repeal of the Nauvoo city charter.^[159] It also attacked Smith's practice of polygamy, implying that Smith was using religion as a pretext to draw unassuming women to Nauvoo to seduce and marry them.^[160]

Fearing the newspaper would provoke a new round of violence against the Mormons, the Nauvoo city council declared the Expositor a public nuisance and ordered the Nauvoo Legion to destroy the press.^[161] Smith, who feared another mob attack, supported the action, not realizing that destroying a newspaper was more likely to incite an attack than any of the Expositor accusations.^[162]

 

Smith was shot multiple times before and after falling from the window.^[163]

Destruction of the newspaper provoked a strident call to arms from Thomas C. Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal and longtime critic of Smith.^[164] Fearing an uprising, Smith mobilized the Nauvoo Legion on June 18 and declared martial law. Officials in Carthage responded by mobilizing their small detachment of the state militia, and Governor Thomas Ford appeared, threatening to raise a larger militia unless Smith and the Nauvoo city council surrendered themselves.^[165] Smith initially fled across the Mississippi River, but shortly returned and surrendered to Ford.^[166] On June 23, Smith and his brother Hyrum rode to Carthage to stand trial for inciting a riot.^[167] Once the Smiths were in custody, the charges were increased to treason, preventing them from posting bail.^[168]

 

The death masks of Joseph Smith (left) and Hyrum Smith (right)

On June 27, 1844, an armed mob with blackened faces stormed Carthage Jail where Joseph and Hyrum were being held. Hyrum, who was trying to secure the door, was killed instantly with a shot to the face. Smith fired three shots from a pepper-box pistol that his friend, Cyrus Wheelock, had lent him, wounding three men,^[169][170] before he sprang for the window.^[171] He was shot multiple times before falling out the window, crying, "Oh Lord my God!" He died shortly after hitting the ground, but was shot several more times before the mob dispersed.^[172] Five men were later tried for Smith's murder, but were all acquitted.^[173] Smith was buried in Nauvoo, and is interred there at the Smith Family Cemetery.^[174]

After his death, non-Mormon newspapers were almost unanimous in portraying Smith as a religious fanatic.^[175] Conversely, within Mormonism, Smith was remembered first and foremost as a prophet, martyred to seal the testimony of his faith.^[176]

Legacy

 

Gravesite of Joseph, Emma, and Hyrum Smith, in Nauvoo, Illinois

Impact and assessment

Smith attracted thousands of devoted followers before his death in 1844, and millions in the century that followed.^[177] Among Mormons, he is regarded as a prophet on par with Moses and Elijah.^[178] In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, Smithsonian magazine ranked Smith first in the category of religious figures.^[179]

Mormons and non-Mormons have produced a large body of scholarly work about Smith. In it, two conflicting characterizations of Smith have emerged: a man of God on the one hand, and on the other, a fraud preying on the ignorance and credulity of his followers.^[180] Believers tend to focus on Smith's achievements and religious teachings, and minimize his personal defects; detractors and critics, meanwhile, focus on his mistakes, legal troubles, and controversial doctrines. During the first half of the 20th century, some writers suggested that Smith might have suffered from epileptic seizures or from psychological disorders, such as paranoid delusions or bipolar disorder (manic-depressive) illness that might explain his visions and revelations.^[181] Many modern biographers disagree with these ideas.^[182] More nuanced interpretations include viewing Smith as: a prophet who had normal human weaknesses; a "pious fraud" who believed he was called by God to preach repentance and felt justified inventing visions in order to convert people;^[183] or a gifted "mythmaker" whose teachings were inspired by his nineteenth-century environment.^[184] Biographers – Mormon and non-Mormon alike – agree that Smith was one of the most influential, charismatic, and innovative figures in American religious history.^[185]

Buildings named in honor of Smith

 

The Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City

 

The Joseph Smith Building on the campus of Brigham Young University

Memorials to Smith include the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City, Utah,^[186] the Joseph Smith Memorial building formerly on the campus of Brigham Young University and the Joseph Smith Building that is currently on BYU campus,^[187] and a granite obelisk marking his birthplace.^[188]

Successors and denominations

See also: Succession crisis (Latter Day Saints) and List of denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement

Smith's death resulted in a succession crisis.^[189] Smith had proposed several ways to choose his successor, but never clarified his preference.^[190] Smith's brother Hyrum, had he survived, would have had the strongest claim, followed by Smith's brother Samuel, who died abruptly a month after Joseph and Hyrum.^[191] Another brother, William, was unable to attract a sufficient following.^[192] Smith's sons Joseph III and David would also have had claims, but Joseph III was too young and David was born after Smith's death.^[193] The Council of Fifty had a theoretical claim to succession, but it was a secret organization.^[194] Some of Smith's chosen successors, such as Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, had already left the church.^[195] Emma Smith and some members of the Anointed Quorum supported appointing Nauvoo stake president William Marks as church president, but Marks ultimately supported Sidney Rigdon's claim to succession instead.^[196]

The two strongest succession candidates were Brigham Young, senior member and president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Sidney Rigdon, the senior remaining member of the First Presidency. In a church-wide conference on August 8, most of the Latter Day Saints present elected Young; they eventually left Nauvoo and settled the Salt Lake Valley.^[197] Nominal membership in Young's denomination, named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), surpassed 16 million in 2018.^[198] Smaller groups followed Sidney Rigdon and James J. Strang, who had based his claim on a letter of appointment ostensibly written by Smith (but which some scholars believe was forged).^[199] Others followed Lyman Wight and Alpheus Cutler.^[200] Many members of these smaller groups, including most of Smith's family, eventually coalesced in 1860 under the leadership of Joseph Smith III and formed the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (later renamed the Community of Christ), which now has about 250,000 members.^[201][202]

Family and descendants

See also: List of Joseph Smith's wives and Children of Joseph Smith

The first of Smith's wives, Emma Hale, gave birth to nine children during their marriage, five of whom died before the age of two.^[203] The eldest, Alvin (born in 1828), died within hours of birth, as did twins Thaddeus and Louisa (born in 1831).^[204] When the twins died, the Smiths adopted another set of twins, Julia Murdock and Joseph Murdock, whose mother had recently died in childbirth; Joseph Murdock Smith died of measles in 1832.^[205] In 1841, Don Carlos, who had been born a year earlier, died of malaria, and five months later, in 1842, Emma gave birth to a stillborn son.^[206]

Joseph and Emma had five children who lived to maturity: adopted Julia Murdock, Joseph Smith III, Frederick Granger Williams Smith, Alexander Hale Smith, and David Hyrum Smith.^[207] Some historians have speculated—based on journal entries and family stories—that Smith fathered children with his plural wives. However, in cases where it has been possible, DNA testing of potential Smith descendants from wives other than Emma has been negative.^[208]

After Smith's death, Emma Smith quickly became alienated from Brigham Young and the church leadership.^[209] Emma feared and despised Young, and he was suspicious of her desire to preserve the family's assets from inclusion with those of the church and disliked her open opposition to plural marriage. Along with William Clayton, Young excluded Emma Smith from ecclesiastical meetings and from social gatherings.^[210] When most Latter Day Saints moved west, she stayed in Nauvoo and married a non-Mormon, Major Lewis C. Bidamon.^[211] Emma Smith withdrew from religion until 1860, when she affiliated with the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, first headed by her son, Joseph Smith III. Emma maintained her belief that Smith was a prophet and never repudiated her belief in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.^[212]

Polygamy

See also: Origin of Latter Day Saint polygamy, Mormonism and polygamy, and List of Joseph Smith's wives

By some accounts, Smith had been teaching a polygamy doctrine as early as 1831, and there is evidence that Smith may have been a polygamist by 1835.^[213] Although the church had publicly repudiated polygamy, in 1837 there was a rift between Smith and Oliver Cowdery over the issue.^[214] Cowdery suspected Smith had engaged in a relationship with Fanny Alger, who worked in the Smith household as a serving girl.^[215] Smith did not directly deny having a relationship, but he insisted he never admitted to adultery,^[216] "Presumably," historian Richard Bushman argues, "because he had married Alger" as a plural wife.^[217]

In April 1841, Smith secretly wed Louisa Beaman.^[218] During the next two-and-a-half years he secretly married or was sealed to about 30 or 40 additional women.^[219] Ten of Smith's plural wives were between the ages of fourteen and twenty; others were over fifty.^[220] Ten were already married to other men, and some of these polyandrous marriages were done with the consent of the first husbands.^[221] Evidence for whether or not and to what degree Smith's polygamous marriages involved sex is ambiguous and varies between marriages; between Smith's busy life and keeping the plural marriages secret, private interactions between Smith and his polygamous wives were limited.^[222] Some polygamous marriages may have been considered special religious marriages that would not take effect until after death.^[223] The practice of polygamy was kept secret from both non-Mormons and most members of the church during Smith's lifetime.^[224]

Polygamy caused a breach between Smith and his first wife, Emma.^[225] Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich summarizes, "Emma vacillated in her support for plural marriage, sometimes acquiescing to Joseph's sealings, sometimes resisting."^[226] Although Emma knew of some of her husband's marriages, she almost certainly did not know the full extent of his polygamous activities.^[227] In 1843, Emma temporarily accepted Smith's marriage to four women of her choosing who boarded in the Smith household, but she later regretted her decision and demanded the other wives leave.^[228] That July, at his brother Hyrum's encouragement, Joseph dictated a revelation which directed Emma to accept plural marriage; Hyrum delivered the transcription to Emma, but she rejected it and was furious.^[229] Joseph and Emma were not reconciled over the matter until September 1843, after Emma began participating in temple ceremonies,^[230] and after Joseph made other concessions to her.^[231] The next year, in March 1844, Emma publicly denounced polygamy as evil and destructive, and though she did not directly disclose the secret practice of plural marriage, she insisted that people should heed only what Smith taught publicly – implicitly challenging Smith's private promulgation of polygamy.^[232]

Despite her knowledge of polygamy, Emma Smith denied publicly that her husband had ever taken additional wives.^[233] While Joseph Smith was alive, Emma spoke publicly against polygamy,^[234] and she (along with multiple other signatories directly involved in polygamy) signed an 1842 petition denying that Smith or his church propagated polygamy.^[235] After Joseph Smith's death, Emma continued denying his involvement with polygamy. When Joseph Smith III and Alexander Hale Smith specifically asked about polygamy in an interview with Emma Smith, she stated, "No such thing as polygamy, or spiritual wifery, was taught, publicly or privately, before my husband's death, that I have now, or ever had any knowledge of ... He had no other wife but me; nor did he to my knowledge ever have".^[236]

Revelations

 

An artistic representation of the golden plates with the Urim and Thummim connected to a breastplate, based on descriptions by Smith and others

According to historian Richard Bushman, the "signal feature" of Smith's life was "his sense of being guided by revelation". Instead of presenting his ideas with logical arguments, Smith dictated authoritative scripture-like "revelations" and let people decide whether to believe.^[237] Smith and his followers treated his revelations as being above teachings or opinions, and Smith acted as though he believed in his revelations as much as his followers.^[238] Smith's first recorded revelation was a rebuke chastising Smith for having let Martin Harris lose 116 pages of Book of Mormon manuscript.^[239] The revelation was written as if God were talking rather than as a declaration mediated through Smith; subsequent revelations assumed a similar authoritative style, often opening with words such as "Hearken O ye people which profess my name, saith the Lord your God."^[240]

Book of Mormon

Main article: Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon has been called the longest and most complex of Smith's revelations.^[241] Its language resembles the King James Version of the Bible. It is organized as a compilation of smaller books, each named after prominent figures in the narrative; its organization thereby resembles that of the Bible. Unlike the Bible, however, the compilation is integrated as a "uniform whole".^[242][243] It tells the story of the rise and fall of a religious civilization beginning about 600 BC and ending in the fifth century.^[242][244] The story begins with a family that leaves Jerusalem, just before the Babylonian captivity.^[245] They eventually construct a ship and sail to a "promised land" in the Western Hemisphere.^[246] There, they eventually divide into two factions: Nephites and Lamanites.^[247] The Nephites become a righteous people who build a temple and live the law of Moses, though their prophets teach a Christian gospel. The book explains itself to be largely the work of Mormon, a Nephite prophet and military figure. The book closes when Mormon's son, Moroni, finishes engraving and buries the records written on the golden plates.^[248][242]

Christian themes permeate the work; for instance, Nephite prophets in the Book of Mormon teach of Christ's coming and talk of the star that will appear at his birth.^[249] After the crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem, Jesus appears in the Americas, repeats the Sermon on the Mount, blesses children, and appoints twelve disciples.^[250] The book ends with Moroni's exhortation to "come unto Christ".^[251]

Early Mormons regarded the Book of Mormon as a companion to the Bible and a religious history of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.^[252] Parley P. Pratt said the book "filled my soul with joy and gladness", and he "esteemed the Book, or the information contained in it, more than all the riches of the world".^[253] Other readers regarded the book as the work of a fanatic or fraud and thought it was derivative of Smith's surroundings; Alexander Campbell accused Smith of writing "in his Book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years."^[254]

Scholars' assessments of the Book of Mormon vary. Some have considered the Book of Mormon a response to pressing cultural and environmental issues of Smith's times.^[255] Historian Dan Vogel regards the book as being autobiographical in nature and resembling Smith's life and perceptions.^[256] Biographer Robert V. Remini calls the Book of Mormon "a typically American story" that "radiates the revivalist passion of the Second Great Awakening."^[257] Fawn M. Brodie suggested that Smith composed the Book of Mormon by drawing on sources of information available to him such as the 1823 book View of the Hebrews.^[258] Others argue the Book of Mormon is more biblical than American; Richard Bushman writes that "the Book of Mormon is not a conventional American book" and that its "innermost structure" better resembles the Bible.^[259] According to historian Daniel Walker Howe, the book's "dominant themes are biblical, prophetic, and patriarchal, not democratic or optimistic" like the prevailing American culture.^[260] Jan Shipps argues that the Book of Mormon's "complex set of religious claims" provided "the basis of a new mythos" or "story" which early converts accepted and lived in as their world, thus departing from "the early national period in America into a new dispensation of the fulness of times".^[261]

 

According to some accounts, including that of his wife Emma, Smith dictated most of the Book of Mormon by looking into a seer stone placed in a stovepipe hat.

Smith never fully described how he produced the Book of Mormon, saying only that he translated by the power of God and implying that he had read words.^[262] The Book of Mormon itself states only that its text will "come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof".^[263] Accordingly, there is considerable disagreement about the actual method used. For at least some of the earliest dictation, Smith is said to have used the "Urim and Thummim", a pair of seer stones he said were buried with the plates.^[264] Later, however, he is said to have used a chocolate-colored stone he had found in 1822 that he had used previously for treasure hunting.^[265] Joseph Knight said that Smith saw the words of the translation while he gazed at the stone or stones in the bottom of his hat, excluding all light, a process similar to divining the location of treasure.^[266] Sometimes, Smith concealed the process by raising a curtain or dictating from another room; at other times he dictated in full view of witnesses while the plates lay covered on the table or were hidden elsewhere.^[267] After completing the translation, Smith gave the brown stone to Cowdery, but he continued to receive revelations using another stone until about 1833 when he said he no longer needed it.^[268]

The Book of Mormon was influential in the church Smith founded. The book drew some converts to the movement, some adherents incorporated Book of Mormon phrases into their speech and writing, and its depiction of a Christian church provided an early model for the Church of Christ's ecclesiastical organization.^[253] To early Mormons, the book verified Smith's claims to prophethood.^[269] Smith accepted the world described by the Book of Mormon—one in which people preserved and recovered sacred records—as his own, and he adopted the role it described for him as a prophet, seer, and translator.^[270] By early 1831, he was introducing himself as "Joseph the Prophet".^[271] Smith voiced and promulgated the revelations with confidence, as if he were an Old Testament prophet, and the language of authority in Smith's revelations appealed to converts.^[272]

Book of Moses

Main article: Book of Moses

In June 1830, Smith dictated a "revelation of Moses", in which Moses saw "the world and the ends thereof" and asked God questions about the purpose of creation and humankind's relationship to God. This revelation initiated a revision of the Bible which Smith worked on sporadically until 1833, but which remained unpublished until after his death.^[273] Smith said that the Bible had been corrupted through the ages, and that his revision worked to restore the original intent; it added long passages, rewritten "according to his inspiration".^[274] While many changes involved straightening out seeming contradictions or making small clarifications, other changes added large "lost" portions to the text.^[275] For instance, Smith's revision nearly tripled the length of the first five chapters of Genesis in what would become the Book of Moses.^[276]

The Book of Moses begins with Moses' asking God about the purpose of creation. Moses is told in this account that God made the Earth and heavens to bring humans to eternal life. The book also provides an enlarged account of the Genesis creation narrative and expands the story of Enoch, the ancestor of Noah. In the narrative, Enoch speaks with God, receives a prophetic calling, and eventually builds a city of Zion so righteous that it was taken to heaven.^[277] The book also elaborates and expands upon passages that foreshadow the coming of Christ, in effect Christianizing the Old Testament.^[278]

Book of Abraham

Main article: Book of Abraham

In 1835, Smith encouraged some Latter Day Saints in Kirtland to purchase rolls of ancient Egyptian papyri from a traveling exhibitor. Smith said they contained the writings of the ancient patriarchs Abraham and Joseph. Over the next several years, Smith dictated to scribes what he reported was a revelatory translation of one of these rolls, which was published in 1842 as the Book of Abraham.^[279] The Book of Abraham speaks of the founding of the Abrahamic nation, astronomy, cosmology, lineage and priesthood, and gives another account of the creation story.^[280]

The papyri associated with the Book of Abraham were thought to have been lost in the Great Chicago Fire, but several fragments were rediscovered in the 1960s. These were translated by Egyptologists and determined to be part of the Book of Breathing with no connection to Abraham.^[281]

Other revelations

See also: Book of Commandments, Doctrine and Covenants, and Kinderhook plates

[The Holy Spirit] may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass.

—Joseph Smith^[282]

According to Parley P. Pratt, Smith dictated his revelations, which were recorded by a scribe without revisions or corrections.^[283] Revelations were immediately copied, and then circulated among church members. Smith's revelations often came in response to specific questions. He described the revelatory process as having "pure Intelligence" flowing into him. Smith, however, never viewed the wording to be infallible. The revelations were not God's words verbatim, but "couched in language suitable to Joseph's time".^[284] In 1833, Smith edited and expanded many of the previous revelations, publishing them as the Book of Commandments, which later became part of the Doctrine and Covenants.^[285]

Smith gave varying types of revelations. Some were temporal, while others were spiritual or doctrinal. Some were received for a specific individual, while others were directed at the whole church. An 1831 revelation called "The Law" contained: directions for missionary work; rules for organizing society in Zion; a reiteration of the Ten Commandments; an injunction to "administer to the poor and needy"; and an outline for the law of consecration.^[286] An 1832 revelation called "The Vision" added to the fundamentals of sin and atonement, and introduced doctrines of life after salvation, exaltation, and a heaven with degrees of glory.^[287] Another 1832 revelation "on Priesthood" was the first to explain priesthood doctrine.^[288] Three months later, Smith gave a lengthy revelation called the "Olive Leaf" containing themes of cosmology and eschatology, and discussing subjects such as light, truth, intelligence, and sanctification; a related revelation given in 1833 put Christ at the center of salvation.^[289]

Also in 1833, at a time of temperance agitation, Smith delivered a revelation called the "Word of Wisdom", which counseled a diet of wholesome herbs, fruits, grains, a sparing use of meat. It also recommended that Latter Day Saints avoid "strong" alcoholic drinks, tobacco, and "hot drinks" (later interpreted to mean tea and coffee).^[290] The Word of Wisdom was not originally framed as a commandment, but a recommendation. As such, it was not strictly followed by Smith and other Latter Day Saints, though it later became a requirement in the LDS Church.^[291] In 1835, Smith gave the "great revelation" that organized the priesthood into quorums and councils, and functioned as a complex blueprint for church structure.^[292] Smith's last revelation, on the "New and Everlasting Covenant", was recorded in 1843, and dealt with the theology of family, the doctrine of sealing, and plural marriage.^[293]

Before 1832, most of Smith's revelations dealt with establishing the church, gathering his followers, and building the City of Zion. Later revelations dealt primarily with the priesthood, endowment, and exaltation.^[294] The pace of formal revelations slowed during the autumn of 1833, and again after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.^[295] Smith moved away from formal written revelations spoken in God's voice, and instead taught more in sermons, conversations, and letters.^[296] For instance, the doctrines of baptism for the dead and the nature of God were introduced in sermons, and one of Smith's most famed statements about there being "no such thing as immaterial matter" was recorded from a casual conversation with a Methodist preacher.^[297]

Views and teachings

Main article: Teachings of Joseph Smith

 

Smith's later theology described Jesus and God the Father as two distinct physical beings.

Cosmology and theology

See also: Mormon cosmology and Godhead (Latter Day Saints)

Smith taught that all existence was material, including a world of "spirit matter" so fine that it was invisible to all but the purest mortal eyes.^[298] Matter, in Smith's view, could be neither created nor destroyed; the creation involved only the reorganization of existing matter. Like matter, Smith saw "intelligence" as co-eternal with God, and taught that human spirits had been drawn from a pre-existent pool of eternal intelligences.^[299] Nevertheless, spirits could not experience a "fullness of joy" unless joined with corporeal bodies, according to Smith. The work and glory of God, then, was to create worlds across the cosmos where inferior intelligences could be embodied.^[300]

Though Smith initially viewed God the Father as a spirit,^[301] he eventually began teaching that God was an advanced and glorified man,^[302] embodied within time and space.^[303] By the end of his life, Smith was teaching that both God the Father and Jesus were distinct beings with physical bodies, but the Holy Spirit was a "personage of Spirit".^[304] Through the gradual acquisition of knowledge, according to Smith, those who received exaltation could eventually become like God.^[305] These teachings implied a vast hierarchy of gods, with God himself having a father.^[306] In Smith's cosmology, those who became gods would reign, unified in purpose and will, leading spirits of lesser capacity to share immortality and eternal life.^[307]

In Smith's view, the opportunity to achieve exaltation extended to all humanity; those who died with no opportunity to accept saving ordinances could achieve exaltation by accepting them in the afterlife through proxy ordinances performed on their behalf.^[308] Smith said that children who died in their innocence would be guaranteed to rise at the resurrection and receive exaltation. Apart from those who committed the eternal sin, Smith taught that even the wicked and disbelieving would achieve a degree of glory in the afterlife.^[309]

Religious authority and ritual

See also: Priesthood (Latter Day Saints), Freemasonry and the Latter Day Saint movement, and Endowment (Latter Day Saints)

Smith's teachings were rooted in dispensational restorationism.^[310] He taught that the Church of Christ restored through him was a latter-day restoration of the early Christian faith, which had been lost in the Great Apostasy.^[311] At first, Smith's church had little sense of hierarchy and his religious authority was derived from his visions and revelations.^[312] Though Smith did not claim exclusive prophethood, an early revelation designated him as the only prophet allowed to issue commandments "as Moses".^[313] This religious authority encompassed economic and political as well as spiritual matters. For instance, in the early 1830s, he temporarily instituted a form of religious communism, called the United Order, that required Latter Day Saints to give to the church all their property, to be divided among the faithful.^[314] He also envisioned that the theocratic institutions he established would have a role in the worldwide political organization of the Millennium.^[315]

By the mid-1830s, Smith began teaching a hierarchy of three priesthoods—the Melchizedek, the Aaronic, and the Patriarchal.^[316] Each priesthood was a continuation of biblical priesthoods through patrilineal succession or ordination by biblical figures appearing in visions.^[317] Upon introducing the Melchizedek or "High" Priesthood in 1831, Smith taught that its recipients would be "endowed with power from on high", thus fulfilling a need for a greater holiness and an authority commensurate with the New Testament apostles.^[318] This doctrine of endowment evolved through the 1830s, until in 1842, the Nauvoo endowment included an elaborate ceremony containing elements similar to Freemasonry and the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah.^[319] The endowment was extended to women in 1843, though Smith never clarified whether women could be ordained to priesthood offices.^[320]

Smith taught that the High Priesthood's endowment of heavenly power included the sealing powers of Elijah, allowing High Priests to perform ceremonies with effects that continue after death.^[321] For example, this power would enable proxy baptisms for the dead and marriages to last into eternity.^[322] Elijah's sealing powers also enabled the second anointing, or "fulness [sic] of the priesthood", which, according to Smith, sealed married couples to their exaltation.^[323]

Theology of family

During the early 1840s, Smith unfolded a theology of family relations called the "New and Everlasting Covenant" that superseded all earthly bonds.^[324] He taught that outside the covenant, marriages were simply matters of contract, and that in the afterlife, individuals married outside the covenant or not married would be limited in their progression to Godhood.^[325] To fully enter the covenant, a man and woman must participate in a "first anointing", a "sealing" ceremony, and a "second anointing" (also called "sealing by the Holy Spirit of Promise").^[326] When fully sealed into the covenant, Smith said that no sin nor blasphemy (other than murder and apostasy) could keep them from their exaltation in the afterlife.^[327] According to a revelation Smith dictated, God appointed only one person on Earth at a time—in this case, Smith—to possess this power of sealing.^[328]

 

Profile portrait of Smith, by Bathsheba W. Smith, created circa 1843

Smith taught that the highest level of exaltation could be achieved through "plural marriage" (polygamy), which was the ultimate manifestation of this New and Everlasting Covenant.^[329] Plural marriage, according to Smith, allowed an individual to transcend the angelic state and become a god, accelerating the expansion of one's heavenly kingdom.^[330]

Political views

While campaigning for President of the United States in 1844, Smith had opportunity to take political positions on issues of the day. Smith considered the U.S. Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, to be inspired by God and "the [Latter Day] Saints' best and perhaps only defense."^[331] He believed a strong central government was crucial to the nation's well-being, and thought democracy better than tyranny—although he also taught that a theocratic monarchy was the ideal form of government.^[332] In foreign affairs, Smith was an expansionist, though he viewed "expansionism as brotherhood" and envisioned expanding the United States with the permission of indigenous peoples and at the request of other sovereign peoples.^[333] Concretely, Smith advocated for accepting Texas into the Union, claiming the disputed Oregon country, and someday incorporating Canada and Mexico into the United States.^[334]

To protect US business and agriculture, Smith favored establishing high tariffs and a publicly-owned central national bank with democratically elected officers that would print currency but "never issue any more bills than the amount of capital stock in her vaults and the interest".^[335][336]

Smith opposed imprisonment for debt or as a criminal penalty (except in the case of murder), recommended abolishing courts-martial for military deserters, and encouraged citizens to petition their state leaders to pardon all convicts.^[335][337] He suggested that courts instead sentence convicts to labor on public works projects, such as building roads, and he proposed that providing education would make prisons obsolete.^[338] He also advocated for amending the Constitution to provide a penalty of capital punishment for public officials who failed to aid people whose constitutional rights had been abridged.^[335]

Smith declared that he would be one of the instruments in fulfilling Nebuchadnezzar's statue vision in the Book of Daniel: that secular government would be destroyed without bloodshed, and would be replaced with a "theodemocratic" Kingdom of God.^[339] Smith taught that this kingdom would be governed by theocratic principles, but that it would also be multidenominational and democratic, so long as the people chose wisely.^[340]

Slavery and race

Throughout his life, Smith held differing positions on the issue of slavery.^[341] Initially he opposed it, but during the mid-1830s, when the Mormons were settling in Missouri (a slave state), he justified slavery in an anti-abolitionist essay.^[342] Then in the early 1840s, after Mormons had been expelled from Missouri, he once again opposed slavery. During his presidential campaign of 1844, he proposed that the federal government end slavery by 1850 by paid compensation of enslavers.^[343]

However, biographer Donna Hills notes that Smith's "feelings were complex… and cannot be neatly classified as liberal."^[344] He did not support black self-government and opposed interracial marriage.^[345] Smith welcomed black Americans, enslaved and free, into church membership,^[346] but instructed against baptizing enslaved people without permission from the enslavers.^[347] He once said that black people "came into the world as slaves", but that this was a situational condition of enslavement rather than a permanent characteristic, and that black Americans were as capable of education as white Americans.^[348]

Smith and other early Mormons believed racial division was a temporary estrangement of an initially united human family and considered Smith's religious movement a divinely ordained way to restore humanity to its original relationship.^[349] However, they envisioned this unity in terms of a "white universalism" in which people of color and indigenous people would assimilate into whiteness and "overcome the legacy of spiritual inferiority of the cursed lineages into which" Smith and his followers believed people of color were born into.^[350]

See also

• 1844 United States presidential election
• Chronology of Mormonism
• History of the Latter Day Saint movement
• List of founders of religious traditions
• Outline of Joseph Smith
• Smith family (Latter Day Saints)

Notes

1. Church of Christ was the official name on April 6, 1830: Shields, Steven (1990), Divergent Paths of the Restoration (Fourth ed.), Independence, Missouri: Restoration Research, ISBN 0942284003. In 1834, the official name was changed to Church of the Latter Day Saints and then in 1838 to Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: "Minutes of a Conference", Evening and Morning Star, vol. 2, no. 20, p. 160. The spelling "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" was adopted by the LDS Church in Utah in 1851, after Joseph Smith's death in 1844, and is today specified in Doctrine and Covenants 115:4 (LDS Church edition).
2. Garr, Arnold K. (Spring 2002). "Joseph Smith: Mayor of Nauvoo" (PDF). Mormon Historical Studies. 1 (1): 5–6.
3. Jenson, Andrew (1888). The Historical Record: A Monthly Periodical. Salt Lake City, Utah. p. 843. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
4. Compton (1997, p. ^{[page needed]})
5. Smith, George D. (2010) [2008], Nauvoo Polygamy: "but we called it celestial marriage" (2nd ed.), Salt Lake City: Signature Books, ISBN 978-1-56085-207-0, LCCN 2010032062, OCLC 656848353, archived from the original on December 2, 2014, retrieved July 24, 2018.
6. Bushman (2005, pp. 9, 30); Smith (1832, p. 1)
7. Modern DNA testing of Smith's relatives suggests that his family were of Irish descent. Perego, Ugo A.; Myres, Natalie M.; Woodward, Scott R. (2005). "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith: Genealogical Applications". Journal of Mormon History. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. 31 (2): 42–60. JSTOR 23289931.; De Groote, Michael (August 8, 2008). "DNA shows Joseph Smith was Irish". Deseret News. Salt Lake City, Utah. Retrieved July 2, 2018.; "Joseph Smith DNA Revealed: New Clues from the Prophet's Genes – FairMormon". FairMormon. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
8. Bushman (2005, p. 21).
9. For the move to the Palmyra area, see Bushman (2005, pp. 27–32); for the acreage, see "Smith Family Log Home, Palmyra, New York". Ensign Peak Foundation. from the original on October 5, 2022. Retrieved December 26, 2022.
10. Martin, John H. (2005). "An Overview of the Burned-Over District". Saints, Sinners and Reformers: The Burned-Over District Re-Visited, published in the Crooked Lake Review. No. 137. Fall 2005.
11. Barkun, Michael (1986). Crucible of the millennium : the burned-over district of New York in the 1840s (1st ed.). Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815623712. OCLC 13359708.
12. Bushman (2005, pp. 36–37); Quinn (1998, p. 136).
13. Vogel (2004, p. xx); Hill (1989, pp. 10–11); Brooke (1994, p. 129)
14. Vogel (2004, pp. 26–7); D. Michael Quinn (July 12, 2006). (PDF). Dialogue Paperless. p. 3. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved December 26, 2022.
15. Quinn (1998, pp. 30–31) ("Joseph Smith's family was typical of many early Americans who practiced various forms of Christian folk magic."); Bushman (2005, p. 51) ("Magic and religion melded in the Smith family culture."); Shipps (1985, pp. 7–8); Remini (2002, pp. 16, 33); Hill (1977, p. 53) ("Even the more vivid manifestations of religious experience, such as dreams, visions and revelations, were not uncommon in Joseph's day, neither were they generally viewed with scorn.")
16. Quinn (1998, pp. 14–16, 137); Bushman (2005, pp. 26, 36); Brooke (1994, pp. 150–51); (Mack 1811, p. 25); Smith (1853, pp. 54–59, 70–74).
17. Bushman (2005, pp. 38–9) ("He had two questions on his mind: which church was right, and how to be saved."); Vogel (2004, p. 30) (saying Smith's First Vision was "preceded by Bible reading and a sudden awareness of his sins"); Quinn (1998, p. 136) (Smith wrote that he was troubled by religious revivals and went into the woods to seek guidance of the Lord); Remini (2002, p. 37) ("He wanted desperately to join a church but could not decide which one to embrace.")
18. Bushman (2005, p. 39) ("Probably in early 1820, Joseph determined to pray"); Vogel (2004, p. 30) (dating the vision to 1820–21 and rejecting the suggestion that the story was invented later); Quinn (1998, p. 136) (dating the first vision to 1820).
19. Remini (2002, pp. 37–38); Bushman (2005, p. 39) (When Smith first described the vision twelve years after the event, "[h]e explained the vision as he must have first understood it, as a personal conversion"); Vogel (2004, p. 30) (the vision confirmed to Smith what he and his father already suspected: that the world was spiritually dead).
20. Vogel (2004, p. 30); Remini (2002, p. 40) ("The clergyman, Joseph later reported, was aghast at what he was told and treated the story with contempt. He said that there were no such things as visions or revelations ... that they ended with the Apostles").
21. *Allen, James B. (Autumn 1966), "The Significance of Joseph Smith's "First Vision" in Mormon Thought" (PDF), Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 1 (3): 29–46, doi:10.2307/45223817, JSTOR 45223817, S2CID 222223353. ("... it would appear that the general church membership did not receive information about the first vision until 1840s and that the story certainly did not hold the prominent place in Mormon thought that it does today.")
22. Bushman (2005, p. 39); Vogel (2004, p. 30) ("Joseph's 1832 account [of his vision] is typical of a conversion experience as described by many others in the early nineteenth century"); Remini (2002, p. 39) ("Joseph's experience in 1820 is known today by Mormons as the First Vision ... the beginning of the restoration of the Gospel and the commencement of a new dispensation. Not that Joseph realized these implications at the time. His full understanding of what had happened to him came later").
23. Quinn (1998, pp. 136–38); Bushman (2005, p. 43); Shipps (1985, pp. 151–152).
24. Bushman (2005, p. 50); Jortner (2022, p. 38).
25. Quinn (1998, pp. 163–64); Bushman (2005, p. 54).
26. Bushman (2005, p. 42)
27. Bushman (2008, p. 21); Bushman (2005, pp. 33, 48). For more on Smith's treasure-seeking practices and on the wider culture, see Taylor, Alan (Spring 1986). "The Early Republic's Supernatural Economy: Treasure Seeking in the American Northeast, 1780–1830". American Quarterly. 38 (1): 6–34. doi:10.2307/2712591.
28. Newell & Avery (1994, pp. 17); Brooke (1994, pp. 152–53); Quinn (1998, pp. 43–44, 54–57); , Persuitte (2000, pp. 33–53); Bushman (2005, pp. 45–53); Jortner (2022, p. 29).
29. Jortner (2022, pp. 29–31); Butler, Benjamin Franklin; Spencer, John Canfield (1829), Revised Statutes of the State of New York, vol. 1, Albany, NY: Packard and Van Benthuysen, p. 638: part I, title 5, § 1 (According to New York law at the time "[A]ll persons pretending to tell fortunes, or where lost or stolen goods may be found, ... shall be deemed disorderly persons."); According to Bushman (2008, p. 22), this practice was "an illegal activity in New York because it was often practiced by swindlers".
30. Jortner (2022, p. 33) summarizes, "It is unclear what happened next." For a survey of the primary sources, see Vogel, Dan. . Mormon Scripture Studies: An e-Journal of Critical Thought. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011. See also "Introduction to State of New York v. JS–A". The Joseph Smith Papers. from the original on December 20, 2022. Retrieved December 26, 2022, which includes a calendar of documents and likewise concludes that "the lack of verifiable contemporary records renders tentative any conclusion about the case's outcome."
31. Bushman (2005, p. 53); Vogel (2004, p. 89); Quinn (1998, p. 164)
32. Newell & Avery (1993, pp. 17–18) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFNewellAvery1993 (help): "Several years later Isaac referred to his son-in-law as a 'careless young man—not very well educated' "; "Isaac gave a thundering refusal. His reason was that Joseph was a stranger."
33. Bushman (2005, pp. 53–54).
34. Shipps (1985, p. 12); Quinn (1998, pp. 163–64) writes that Smith had presumably learned from his stone that Emma was the key to obtaining the plates; Bushman (2005, pp. 54, 59) notes accounts stating that Smith believed Emma was the "key"; Easton-Flake & Cope (2020, p. 126).
35. Bushman (2005, pp. 59–60); Shipps (1985, p. 153).
36. Shipps (1985, p. 9); Bushman (2005, p. 54); Howe (2007, pp. 313–314); Jortner (2022, p. 41).
37. Bushman (2004, pp. 238–242) describes how Smith "thought he could translate Egyptian characters" and "the development of [Smith's] identity as seer and translator" within his biblically inspired worldview; Howe (2007, p. 313) writes that Smith "claimed to unearth the golden plates" and "read them".
38. Bushman (2005, p. 61) writes, "As [Smith's] former partners, the treasure-seekers thought the plates were partly theirs"; Howe (2007, p. 315) describes "neighbors who tried to steal Smith's golden plates"; Jortner (2022, pp. 36–38); Harris (1859, p. 167).
39. Shipps (1985, p. 12); Remini (2002, p. 55); Bushman (2005, pp. 60–61).
40. Remini (2002, p. 55); Newell & Avery (1994, p. 2); Bushman (2005, pp. 62–63); Smith (1853, p. 113); Howe (1834).
41. Easton-Flake & Cope (2020, p. 133) write that Emma Smith scribed "perhaps two-thirds of the text" of this initial manuscript; Bushman (2005, p. 63); Remini (2002, p. 56).
42. Shipps (1985, pp. 15, 153); Bushman (2005, p. 63).
43. Bushman (2005, pp. 63–66) (the plan to use a scholar to authenticate the characters was part of a vision received by Harris; author notes that Smith's mother said the plan to authenticate the characters was arranged between Smith and Harris before Harris left Palmyra); Remini (2002, pp. 57–58).
44. Howe (1834, pp. 269–72) (Anthon's description of his meeting with Harris). But see Vogel (2004, p. 115) (arguing that Anthon's initial assessment was likely more positive than he would later admit). Easton-Flake & Cope (2020, p. 129) explain that "Harris's time as scribe was relatively brief, lasting for only two months (mid-April to mid-June 1828)" and that "Harris remembered that he wrote 'about one third of the first part of the translation' ".
45. Shipps (1985, pp. 15–16); Easton-Flake & Cope (2020, pp. 117–119); Smith (1853, pp. 117–18).
46. Shipps (1985, p. 16) identifies the manuscript Harris lost as having been "the only existing copy". The Harrises initially kept the manuscript locked in Lucy Harris's bureau drawers. When Martin Harris wanted to show the pages to a friend while Lucy was absent, he broke the lock and moved the manuscript to his own drawers. The Harrises "later discovered the manuscript was missing", presumably stolen by an unidentified party; see Easton-Flake & Cope (2020, pp. 117–118).
47. (Bushman 2005, pp. 67–68).
48. Shipps (1985, p. 17): "Joseph [Smith] later told… that an angel came as he was praying and took both the plates and the Urim and Thummim from him".
49. (Bushman 2005, pp. 68–70).
50. Shipps (1985, p. 18): "he said that the plates and ancient seers were returned to him on 22 September 1828"; Bushman (2005, pp. 70, 578n46); (Phelps 1833, sec. 2:4–5) (revelation dictated by Smith stating that his gift to translate was temporarily revoked); Smith (1832, p. 5) (stating that the angel had taken away the plates and the Urim and Thummim); Smith (1853, p. 126).
51. Bushman (2005, p. 70) writes that Smith and "Emma did a little translating, but the need to prepare for winter intervened". For a tentative view that Smith may have dictated significant portions of the book of Mosiah to Emma Smith's and Samuel Smith's scribing, see p. 27 in Jensen, Robin Scott (2022). "The Authenticity of the Chicago Leaves of the Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: A Fragmented Approach". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. 31: 1–30.
52. Bushman (2005, p. 70) calls it a "burst of rapid-fire translation"; Bushman (2005, p. 74) (Smith and Cowdery began dictation where the narrative left off after the lost 116 pages, now representing the Book of Mosiah. A revelation would later direct them not to re-translate the lost text, to ensure that the lost pages could not later be found and compared to the re-translation); Bushman (2005, p. 71) (Cowdery was a school teacher who had previously boarded with the Smith family); Bushman (2005, p. 73) ("Cowdery was open to belief in Joseph's powers because he had come to Harmony the possessor of a supernatural gift alluded to in a revelation ..." and his family had apparently engaged in treasure seeking and other magical practices); Quinn (1998, pp. 35–36, 121).
53. Bushman (2005, pp. 70–74).
54. Quinn (1994, pp. 5–6, 15–20); Bushman (2005, pp. 74–75).
55. Bushman (2005, p. 78).
56. Bushman (2005, p. 77).
57. (Bushman 2005, pp. 77–79). The two testimonies are undated, and the exact dates on which the Witnesses are said to have seen the plates is unknown.
58. Remini (2002, p. 68).
59. For the publication of the Book of Mormon by Grandin, see Jortner (2022, p. 43); for the March 26,1830 date, see Shipps (1985, p. 154).
60. For the April 6 establishment of a church organization, see Shipps (1985, p. 154); for Fayette and Manchester (and some ambiguity over a Palmyra presence), see Hill (1989, pp. 27, 201n84); for the Colesville congregation, see Jortner (2022, p. 57);
61. Bushman (2005, p. 117) (noting that area residents connected the discovery of the Book of Mormon with Smith's past career as a money digger); Vogel (2004, pp. 484–486, 510–512) (attempts to destroy the Book of Mormon manuscript by Palmyra residents; South Bainbridge warrant for Smith's arrest after a baptismal service in Colesville came from a treasure seeking charge in 1826).
62. Hill (1989, p. 28); (Bushman 2005, pp. 116–18).
63. Quinn (1994, pp. 24–26); (Bushman 2005, p. 118).
64. Hill (1989, p. 27); Bushman (2005, p. 120) ("Oliver Cowdery and the Whitmer family began to conceive of themselves as independent authorities with the right to correct Joseph and receive revelation.")
65. Hill (1989, pp. 27–28); Bushman (2005, p. 121); Phelps (1833, p. 67) ("[N]o one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church, excepting my servant Joseph, for he receiveth them even as Moses.")
66. Hill (1989, p. 28); Bushman (2005, p. 112); Jortner (2022, p. 59–60, 93, 95).
67. Phelps (1833, p. 68) ("The New Jerusalem 'shall be on the borders by the Lamanites.'); Bushman (2005, p. 122) (church members knew that 'on the borders by the Lamanites' referred to western Missouri, and Cowdery's mission in part was to 'locate the place of the New Jerusalem along this frontier'").
68. Parley Pratt said that the Mormon mission baptized 127 within two or three weeks "and this number soon increased to one thousand". See McKiernan, F. Mark (Summer 1970). "The Conversion of Sidney Rigdon to Mormonism". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 5 (2): 71–78. doi:10.2307/45224203; Bushman (2005, p. 124); Jortner (2022, pp. 60–61).
69. McKiernan, F. Mark (Summer 1970). "The Conversion of Sidney Rigdon to Mormonism". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 5 (2): 71–78. doi:10.2307/45224203 ("Rigdon became Smith's strong right arm and spokesman"); Bushman (2005, p. 124).
70. Bushman (2005, pp. 124–25); Howe (2007, p. 315).
71. (Bushman 2005, pp. 150–52) (The "gifts" included hysterical fits and trances, frenzied rolling on the floor, loud and extended glossalalia, and grimacing); Remini (2002, p. 95) ("Joseph quickly settled in and assumed control of the Kirtland Church.")
72. Bushman (2005, pp. 154–55); Hill (1977, p. 131) (Rigdon's communal group was called "the family")
73. Phelps (1833, p. 83); Bushman (2005, pp. 125, 156–60); Quinn (1994, pp. 31–32); Roberts (1902, pp. 175–76).
74. Arrington & Bitton (1979, p. 21) (that 1,500 to 2,000 Mormons lived in Kirtland by the summer of 1835); Shipps (1985, p. 81) ("[...] millennial expectations were fused in [early] Mormonism.").
75. Turner (2012, p. 41) (that the mission had no recorded "positive response"); Bushman (2005, p. 161) (Richard W. Cummins, U.S. Agent to the Shawnee and Delaware tribes issued an order to desist because the men had not received official permission to meet with and proselytize the tribes under his authority; Cowdrey and company had the task of finding a site for "'the city' on 'the borders of the Lamanites'" which members understood as a "New Jerusalem").
76. Bushman (2005, pp. 162–163); Smith et al. (1835, p. 154).
77. Arrington & Bitton (1979, p. 21).
78. Bushman (2005, pp. 180–182).
79. Remini (2002, pp. 109–10); Bushman (2005, pp. 178–80).
80. These reasons included the settlers' understanding that the Mormons intended to appropriate their property and establish a Millennial political kingdom (Remini (2002, pp. 114)), their friendliness with the Indians (Remini (2002, pp. 114–15); Arrington & Bitton (1979, p. 61)), their perceived religious blasphemy (Remini 2002, p. 114), and especially the belief that they were abolitionists (Remini (2002, pp. 113–14)). Additionally, their rapid growth aroused fears that they would soon constitute a majority in local elections, and thus "rule the county." Bushman (2005, p. 222).
81. Bushman (2005, pp. 181–83, 235); Quinn (1994, pp. 82–83) (Smith's August 1833 revelation said that after the fourth attack, "the [Latter Day] Saints were "justified" by God in violence against any attack by any enemy "until they had avenged themselves on all their enemies, to the third and fourth generation", citing Smith et al. (1835, p. 218)).
82. Quinn (1994, pp. 83–84); Bushman (2005, pp. 222–27).
83. Smith et al. (1835, p. 237); Roberts (1904, p. 37); Remini (2002, p. 115).
84. Hill (1989, pp. 44–46) (for the petition to Dunklin and his declination as well as Smith deescalating and disbanding the camp); Bushman (2005, pp. 235–46) (for the numerical limitations, social tension, and cholera outbreak in the camp).
85. Bushman (2005, pp. 246–247); Quinn (1994, p. 85).
86. Bushman (2005, p. 247) (that much of the Church's future leadership came from members of Zion's camp); Remini (2002, pp. 100–104) (timeline of Smith introducing new organizational entities, with the presidency established in 1832, the stakes of Kirtland and Missouri and their presidencies and high councils in 1834, and the twelve apostles and quorum of the seventy in 1835).
87. Brodie (1971, pp. 156–57); Roberts (1904, p. 109) (text of revelation); Smith et al. (1835, p. 233) (Kirtland Temple "design[ed] to endow those whom [God] ha[s] chosen with power on high"); Prince (1995, p. 32 & n.104) (quoting revelation dated June 12, 1834 (Kirtland Revelation Book pp. 97–100) stating that the redemption of Zion "cannot be brought to pass until mine elders are endowed with power from on high; for, behold, I have prepared a greater endowment and blessing to be poured out upon them [than the 1831 endowment]").
88. Remini (2002, p. 116) ("The ultimate cost [of the temple] came to approximately $50,000, an enormous sum for a people struggling to stay alive."); (Bushman 2005, pp. 310–19)
89. Brooke (1994, p. 221)
90. Cluff, Randall (February 2000). Cowdery, Oliver (1806–1850), Mormon leader. American National Biography Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0802307.
91. (Bushman 2005, p. 322); Compton1997, pp. 25–42) (saying that Alger was "one of Joseph Smith's earliest plural wives"); Bushman (2005, p. 325) (speculating that Smith felt innocent of adultery presumably because he had married Alger).
92. (Bushman 2005, pp. 217, 329) The temple left a debt of $13,000, and Smith borrowed tens of thousands more to make land purchases and purchase inventory for a merchandise store. By 1837, Smith had run up a debt of over $100,000.
93. Quinn (1998, pp. 261–64); Bushman (2005, p. 328). Rigdon, Cowdery, and Smith's brother Hyrum accompanied him on this trip.
94. Bushman (2005, pp. 328–329).
95. Bushman (2005, pp. 328–330).
96. Bushman (2005, pp. 330–334).
97. Bushman (2005, pp. 331–32, 336–39).
98. Remini (2002, p. 125); Bushman (2005, pp. 339–40); Hill (1977, p. 216).
99. Hill (1977, pp. 181–82) (noting an account that Smith predicted in 1834 that Jackson County would be redeemed "within three years"); Roberts (1905, p. 24); (Bushman 2005, pp. 345, 384). In an attempt to address the crisis caused by the Mormon expulsion from Jackson County, the Missouri state legislature "informally designed" Caldwell County "to accommodate Mormons"; see p. 23 in Walker, Jeffrey N. (2008). "Mormon Land Rights in Caldwell and Daviess Counties and the Mormon Conflict of 1838: New Findings and New Understandings". BYU Studies. 47 (1): 4–55 – via JSTOR.
100. Roberts (1905, p. 24); Quinn (1994, p. 628); Brodie (1971, pp. 210, 222–23).
101. Remini (2002, p. 125); Bushman (2005, pp. 341–46).
102. Walker, Jeffrey N. (2008). "Mormon Land Rights in Caldwell and Daviess Counties and the Mormon Conflict of 1838: New Findings and New Understandings". BYU Studies. 47 (1): 4–55 – via JSTOR (Smith encouraged Latter Day Saints to acquire land in Daviess County because the unsurveyed land there was more affordable through preemption rights); LeSueur, Stephen C. (Fall 2005). "Missouri's Failed Compromise: The Creation of Caldwell County for the Mormons". Journal of Mormon History. 31 (2): 113–144 – via JSTOR ("under Smith's direction", Latter Day Saints expanded Adam-ondi-Ahman in Daviess County and established DeWitt in Carroll County).
103. Marquardt (2005, p. 463) ; Remini (2002, p. 128); Quinn (1994, p. 93); Bushman (2005, pp. 324, 346–348) (The former three were excommunicated for various land purchases and sales they had made, which called their faithfulness into question. Cowdery, whose relationship with the church had been growing more strained for about a year, was charged with denying the faith, leaving his calling to make money, insinuating that Smith was guilty of adultery, and urging vexatious lawsuits against Mormons).
104. Bushman (2005, pp. 347–48).
105. Quinn (1994, p. 92); (Brodie 1971, p. 213) ("From the bottom of his heart Joseph hated violence, but ... Joseph came to realize that in a country where a man's gun spoke faster than his wits, to be known as a pacifist was to invite plundering."); (Bushman 2005, p. 355).
106. Quinn (1994, p. 93) (describes Avard and the other Danites as "ultra-loyal"); Remini (2002, p. 129).
107. Bushman (2005, pp. 346–52) ("Although Avard may have concealed the [full extent of Danite activity] ... , Joseph certainly favored evicting dissenters and resisting mobs."); Quinn (1994, p. 93) (arguing that Smith and Rigdon were aware of the Danite organization and sanctioned their activities); Hill (1977, p. 225) (concluding that Smith had at least peripheral involvement and gave early approval to Danite activities).
108. Quinn (1994, pp. 94–95) (Rigdon's sermon stated that Mormon dissenters ought to "be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." Danites sent a letter to dissenters warning them to leave or "more fatal calamity shall befall you").
109. Remini (2002, pp. 131–33).
110. Quinn (1994, p. 96); Bushman (2005, p. 355) (Smith allowed the speech to be published as a pamphlet, and encouraged others to read it).
111. Remini (2002, p. 133).
112. (Bushman 2005, p. 357) (noting that in Daviess County, Missouri, non-Mormons "watched local government fall into the hands of people they saw as deluded fanatics").
113. Remini (2002, p. 134); Quinn (1994, pp. 96–99, 101) (Mormon forces, primarily the Danites, pillaged Millport and Gallatin, and when apostles Thomas B. Marsh and Orson Hyde prepared an affidavit against these Mormon attacks, they were excommunicated); Bushman (2005, p. 363).)
114. Bushman (2005, pp. 364–65) ("Resisting a band of vigilantes was justifiable, but attacking a militia company was resistance to the state."); Quinn (1994, p. 100) (stating that the Extermination Order and the Haun's Mill massacre resulted from Mormon actions at the Battle of Crooked River). In 1976, Missouri issued a formal apology for this order (Bushman 2005, p. 398).
115. Bushman (2005, pp. 365–66); Quinn (1994, p. 97).
116. Bushman (2005, pp. 366–67); Brodie (1971, p. 239).
117. Bushman (2005, p. 367) (noting that Smith was saved by Alexander Doniphan, a Missouri militia leader who had acted as the Latter Day Saints' legal council (pp. 242, 344)); Brodie (1971, p. 241).
118. (Bushman 2005, p. 369); (Brodie 1971, pp. 225–26, 243–45).
119. Bushman (2005, pp. 369–70).
120. Brodie (1971, pp. 245–51); Bushman (2005, pp. 375–77))
121. Remini (2002, pp. 136–37); (Brodie 1971, pp. 245–46). The Danites dissolved in 1838, though their members formed the backbone of Smith's security force in Nauvoo. (Quinn 1998, pp. 101–02).
122. Bushman (2005, pp. 377–78).
123. (Bushman 2005, p. 375); Brodie (1971, pp. 253–55) (Saying that Smith bribed the guards with whiskey and money); (Bushman 2005, pp. 382, 635–36) (noting that the prisoners believed they were an embarrassment to Missouri officials, and that Boggs' Extermination Order would cause a scandal if widely publicized); Bentley, Joseph I. (1992), "Smith, Joseph: Legal Trials of Joseph Smith", in Ludlow, Daniel H (ed.), Encyclopedia of Mormonism, New York: Macmillan Publishing, pp. 1346–1348, ISBN 0-02-879602-0, OCLC 24502140.
124. Brodie (1971, pp. 246–47, 259) (noting rebukes by Missouri and Illinois newspapers, and "press all over the country"); Bushman (2005, p. 398) (Mormons were depicted as a persecuted minority); Bushman (2005, p. 381) (Latter Day Saints gathered near Quincy, Illinois).
125. Bushman (2005, pp. 383–4).
126. Bushman (2005, pp. 392–94, 398–99); Brodie (1971, pp. 259–60) (Smith "saw to it that the sufferings of his people received national publicity").
127. Bushman (2005, pp. 386, 409); Brodie (1971, pp. 258, 264–65).
128. Bushman (2005, pp. 410–11).
129. Brodie (1971, pp. 267–68); Bushman (2005, p. 412,415). A similar Hebrew word appears in Isaiah 52: 7.
130. Prior to the charter, Smith had narrowly avoided two extradition attempts. See Quinn (1994, p. 110); Brodie (1971, pp. 272–273); Bushman (2005, pp. 425–426).
131. Quinn (1998, pp. 106–08).
132. Brodie (1971, p. 271)(The Legion had 2,000 troops in 1842, 3,000 by 1844, compared to less than 8,500 soldiers in the entire United States Army.)
133. Bushman (2005, pp. 410–411)
134. Bushman (2005, pp. 448–49); Park (2020, pp. 57–61).
135. D&C 124:28; Quinn (1994, p. 113).
136. Bushman (2005, pp. 449); Quinn (1994, pp. 114–15).
137. Quinn (1994, p. 634).
138. Bushman (2005, p. 384,404); The tent–stake metaphor was derived from Isaiah 54:2.
139. Bushman (2005, p. 415) (noting that the time when the Millennium was to occur lengthened to "more than 40 years".)
140. Quinn (1994, pp. 111–12).
141. Bushman (2005, pp. 427–28)
142. Brodie (1971, pp. 311–12); Bushman (2005, p. 460) (Bennett told women he was seducing that illicit sex was acceptable among Latter Day Saints so long as it was kept secret). Bennett, a minimally trained doctor, also promised abortions to any who might become pregnant.
143. Ostling & Ostling (1999, p. 12); Bushman (2005, pp. 461–62); Brodie (1971, p. 314).
144. Bushman (2005, p. 468); Brodie (1971, p. 323); Quinn (1994, p. 113).
145. Bushman (2005, pp. 468–75) (United States district attorney Justin Butterfield argued that Smith was not a "fugitive from justice" because he was not in Missouri when the crime occurred.)
146. Bushman (2005, pp. 504–08).
147. Bushman (2005, p. 508).
148. Romig, Ronald; Mackay, Lachlan (Spring–Summer 2022). "Hidden Things Shall Come to Light: The Visual Image of Joseph Smith Jr". John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. 42 (1): 28–60. ISSN 0739-7852. There is disagreement among historians about the identification and provenance of this daguerrotype; for an overview of arguments and positions for and against, see Stack, Peggy Fletcher (July 29, 2022). "'The Whole Affect Feels Off to Me' — Why Some Historians Doubt That's a Photo of Joseph Smith". The Salt Lake Tribune.
149. Brodie (1971, p. 356); Quinn (1994, pp. 115–116).
150. Quinn (1994, pp. 118–19) (the Anointed Quorum chose Sidney Rigdon as Smith's running mate);Bushman (2005, pp. 514–15); Brodie (1971, pp. 362–64).
151. Bushman (2005, p. 519); Quinn (1994, pp. 120–22).
152. Bushman (2005, p. 517).
153. Bushman (2005, pp. 527–28).
154. Brodie (1971, pp. 368–9) (Law believed that Smith was misappropriating donations for the Nauvoo House hotel and neglecting other building projects, despite the acute housing shortage, while Smith had no respect for building projects by Law and Foster.); Bushman (2005, p. 528) (noting that Law had been was a member of the Anointed Quorum); Quinn (1994, p. 528) (Law was criticized in 1843 and then dropped from the Anointed Quorum in January 1844, but after being defended by Hiram Smith, he rejected an April 1844 offer by Joseph Smith to be restored to church positions if he ended his opposition to polygamy).
155. Ostling & Ostling (1999, p. 14): "there is evidence that at some point Smith propositioned the wives of both Law and Foster"; Brodie (1971, pp. 369–371) (saying Smith had proposed to Foster's wife at a private dinner); Van Wagoner (1992, p. 39); Bushman (2005, pp. 660–61) (noting that Smith recounted that Jane Law had proposed to him (660–61), citing Journal of Alexander Neibaur, May 24, 1844.
156. Bushman (2005, pp. 549, 531) ("The dissenters troubled Joseph mainly because he feared plots to haul him away to certain death in Missouri"); Williams, A.B. (May 15, 1844), "Affidavit", Times and Seasons, vol. 5, no. 10, p. 541 (Affidavit stating, "Joseph H. Jackson said that Doctor Foster, Chauncy Higbee and the Laws were red-hot for a conspiracy, and he should not be surprised if in two weeks there should be not one of the Smith family left in Nauvoo").
157. Brodie (1971, p. 373); Bushman (2005, p. 538) (arguing that Smith may have felt justified denying polygamy and "spiritual wifeism" because he thought it was based on a different principle than "plural marriage"); Roberts (1912, pp. 408–412); Bushman (2005, p. 531).
158. Bushman (2005, p. 539); Brodie (1971, pp. 374) (arguing that given its authors' intentions to reform the church, the paper was "extraordinarily restrained" given the explosive allegations it could have raised); Quinn (1994, p. 138) A prospectus for the newspaper was published on May 10, and referred to Smith as a "self-constituted monarch".
159. Smith had recently given his King Follett discourse, in which he taught that God was once a man, and that men and women could become gods. Bushman (2005, p. 539); Brodie (1971, pp. 375); Marquardt (1999, p. 312); Quinn (1994, p. 139) (noting that the publishers intended to emphasize the details of Smith's delectable plan of government" in later issues).
160. Nauvoo Expositor, retrieved from Wikisource November 29, 2013; Oaks & Hill (1975, p. 14).
161. Bushman (2005, pp. 540–41); Brodie (1971, p. 377); Marquardt (2005); Marquardt (1999, p. 312). At the city council meeting, Smith said the 1843 revelation on polygamy referred to in the Expositor "was in answer to a question concerning things which transpired in former days, and had no reference to the present time" Brodie (1971, p. 377).
162. Bushman (2005, p. 541) (Smith "did not grasp the enormity of destroying a press, especially one that was attacking him.")
163. Brodie (1971, p. 394)
164. Warsaw Signal, June 14, 1844. ("Citizens arise, one and all!!! Can you stand by, and suffer such Infernal Devils! to rob men of their property and rights without avenging them. We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. Let it be made with Powder and Ball!!!"
165. Ostling & Ostling (1999, p. 16).
166. Bushman (2005, p. 546).
167. Ostling & Ostling (1999, p. 17); Bushman (2005, p. 546). Eight Mormon leaders accompanied Smith to Carthage: Hyrum Smith, John Taylor, Willard Richards, John P. Greene, Stephen Markham, Dan Jones, John S. Fullmer, Dr. Southwick, and Lorenzo D. Wasson. (History of the Church Vol.6 Ch.30) All of Smith's associates left the jail, except his brother Hyrum, Richards and Taylor. (Richards and Taylor were not prisoners, but stayed voluntarily.)
168. Bentley, Joseph I. (1992), "Smith, Joseph: Legal Trials of Joseph Smith", in Ludlow, Daniel H (ed.), Encyclopedia of Mormonism, New York: Macmillan Publishing, pp. 1346–1348, ISBN 0-02-879602-0, OCLC 24502140;Oaks & Hill (1975, p. 18).
169. Oaks & Hill (1975, p. 52).
170. A friend of Smith's, Cyrus H. Wheelock, had smuggled the pistol into the jail. "CES Slide Set G-68 – Pepperbox Pistol", Religious Education LDS Church History and Doctrine collection (photographs), Harold B. Lee Library and Department of Religious Education, Brigham Young University, This is likely the original six-shooter which was smuggled into Carthage Jail to Joseph Smith. Joseph shot and wounded three mob members with the gun during the attack on the jail..
171. Brodie (1971, p. 393) ("Joseph discharging all six barrels down the passageway. Three of them missed fire, but the other three found marks."); Bushman (2005, p. 549) (Smith and his companions were staying in the jailer's bedroom, which did not have bars on the windows).
172. Brodie (1971, pp. 393–94); Bushman (2005, pp. 549–50).
173. Oaks & Hill (1975, p. 185).
174. Mackay, Lachlan (Fall 2002). "A Brief History of the Smith Family Nauvoo Cemetery" (PDF). Mormon Historical Studies. 3 (2): 240–252.
175. Bushman (2005, pp. 332, 557–59) "The newspaper editors, almost without exception, thought of him as a religious fanatic."
176. Bushman (2005, p. 558) "His followers had thought of him first and foremost as a prophet"; Brodie (1971, pp. 396–97).
177. Brodie (1971, pp. 380, 15); Weber, Max (1978), Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology, vol. 1, University of California Press, p. 446, ISBN 0-520-03500-3; Bushman (2005, p. 352).
178. Widmer (2000, p. 97); Shipps (1985, p. 37) (making comparisons with Moses (law-giver), Joshua (commander of the "armies of Israel"), and Solomon (king));Bushman (2005, p. xx) (describing Smith as "a biblical-style prophet—one who spoke for God with the authority of Moses or Isaiah".); Brodie (1971, p. vii)(quoting a tribute to Smith, probably by Taylor, stating that Smith "has done more, (save Jesus only,) for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it".); Smith, Joseph Fielding (December 1941), "The Historical Background of the Prophet Joseph Smith", Improvement Era: 717 ("No prophet since the days of Adam, save, of course, our Redeemer, has been given a greater mission.")
179. R. Scott Lloyd, "Joseph Smith, Brigham Young rank first and third in magazine's list of significant religious figures", Church News, January 12, 2015.
180. Shipps, Jan (1974), "The Prophet Puzzle:Suggestions Leading toward a More Comprehensive Interpretation of Joseph Smith", Journal of Mormon History
181. I Woodbridge Riley (1903), The Founder of Mormonism; Bernard DeVoto (1930), The Centennial of Mormonism; Robert D. Anderson (1994), "Toward an Introduction to a Psychobiography of Joseph Smith", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (27)
182. Vogel (2004, pp. x–xi)
183. Vogel (2004, p. xxi).
184. Brodie (1971, p. ix).
185. Bloom (1992, pp. 96–99) (Smith "surpassed all Americans, before or since, in the possession and expression of what could be called the religion-making imagination", and had charisma "to a degree unsurpassed in American history".); Persuitte (2000, p. 1) (calling Smith "one of the most controversial and enigmatic figures ever to appear in American history"); Remini (2002, p. ix) (Calling Smith "the most important reformer and innovator in American religious history).
186. Rockwell, Ken; Neatrour, Anna; Muir-Jones, James (2018). "Repurposing Secular Buildings". Religious Diversity in Salt Lake City. University of Utah.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
187. Cook, Emily (June 18, 2018). "Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSB)". Intermountain Histories. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
188. Erekson, Keith A. (Summer–Fall 2005). "The Joseph Smith Memorial Monument and Royalton's 'Mormon Affair': Religion, Community, Memory, and Politics in Progressive Vermont" (PDF). Vermont History. 73: 118–151.
189. Quinn (1994, p. 143); Brodie (1971, p. 398).
190. Shipps (1985, pp. 83–84) (discussing several of the succession options); Quinn (1994, p. 143); Davenport (2022, p. 159).
191. Quinn (1994, p. 213) (after Smith was crowned king, Hyrum referred to himself as "President of the Church"), and Brigham Young agreed Hyrum would have been the natural successor; Bushman (2005, p. 555). William Smith, also a brother of Joseph Smith, later claimed Samuel had been poisoned by a follower of Young in order to strengthen Young's claim to succession. Quinn (1994, p. 153) argues that William's claim "should not be ignored" but also notes that it "cannot be verified". Anderson (2001, pp. 7501n22) points out that "William did not make this claim of poisoning until 1892", and she "found no documentation that Lucy [Mack Smith, their mother,] ever considered Samuel's death to be murder". Bushman (2005, p. 555) writes that Samuel died of bilious fever.
192. Quinn (1994, pp. 213–26); Bushman (2005, p. 555) (William Smith "made a bid for the Church presidency, but his unstable character kept him from being a serious contender".)
193. Quinn (1994, pp. 226–41) (outlining the sons' claims and noting, "Even Brigham Young acknowledged the claims of patrilineal succession and as a result never argued that the Quorum of Twelve had exclusive right of succession."); Ostling & Ostling (1999, p. 42).
194. Quinn (1994, pp. 192–98) (before his death, Smith had charged the Fifty with the responsibility of establishing the Millennial kingdom in his absence; the Quorum of Twelve would eventually claim this "charge" as their own).
195. Quinn (1994, pp. 187–91).
196. Davenport (2022, pp. 162–163); Quinn (1994, pp. 149–155).
197. Bushman (2005, pp. 556–57); Davenport (2022, p. 163) writes, "The ensuing vote was a landslide. At most only twenty people chose Rigdon to lead the Church. The vast majority of Saints put their earthly trust and their eternal hopes in Brigham Young."
198. Walsh, Tad (March 31, 2018). "LDS Church Membership Officially Surpasses 16 Million". Deseret News.
199. Bushman (2005, pp. 555–557). Rigdon's remnant denominations faded as he became erratic later in life, but William Bickerton took up the leadership of a large group of Rigdonites which ultimately became its own denomination, today called the Church of Jesus Christ; see Gutjahr (2012, p. 72). Strang's following largely dissipated after his assassination in 1856—an event from which Gutjahr (2012, p. 76) states Strangism "never recover[ed]"—though some persisted into the late-twentieth century; see Quinn (1994, pp. 210–211). Strang's current followers consist of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite).
200. Quinn (1994, pp. 198–09).
201. "Community of Christ". Encyclopædia Britannica. April 15, 2004. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
202. Peter, Karin; Mackay, Lachlan; Chvala-Smith, Tony (October 14, 2022). "Theo-History: Plano Period". Cuppa Joe (Podcast). Project Zion Podcast. Event occurs at 1:52.
203. See the posterity tree in Newell & Avery (1994, pp. 12–13).
204. Newell & Avery (1994, pp. 27, 39).
205. The adopted twins were born of Julia Clapp Murdock and John Murdock; see Newell & Avery (1994, p. 39). The adopted Joseph died after a mob broke into the Smiths' home to tar and feather Smith Jr.; the exposure may have contributed to the his death. See Newell & Avery (1994, p. 43); Jortner (2022, p. 88); "Smith, Joseph Murdock". The Joseph Smith Papers. from the original on May 18, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
206. Newell & Avery (1994, p. 102–103); ("on February 6, 1842, she gave birth to a son who did not survive. Only five months had passed between the death of her baby, Don Carlos, and this child"); Rappleye, Christine (March 19, 2021). "Remembering Emma Hale Smith, the First President of the Relief Society". Church Newsroom. from the original on January 5, 2023 ("An unnamed son was stillborn on February 6, 1842, in Nauvoo").
207. Bushman (2005, pp. 554)
208. Perego, Ugo. "Joseph Smith, the Question of Polygamous Offspring, and DNA Analysis". Persistence of Polygamy, in Bringhurst & Foster (2010, pp. 233–256){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) Perego's summary of alleged children of Smith by polygamous wives lists fourteen (236). His chapter discusses six cases of DNA analysis in detail. Successful analyses disconfirmed paternity for Smith. However, Perego notes that for other alleged cases, issues such as insufficient data and "genealogical noise" make confident conclusions impossible. For more on DNA research and Smith's alleged paternity of children of women other than Emma Smith, also see the following: . Deseret News. May 28, 2005. Archived from the original on June 30, 2006.; . Deseret News. November 10, 2007. Archived from the original on November 13, 2007.; Perego, Ugo A.; Myers, Natalie M.; Woodward, Scott R. (Summer 2005), (PDF), Journal of Mormon History, 32 (2), archived from the original (PDF) on July 25, 2006
209. Bushman (2005, p. 554); Avery & Newell (1980, p. 82).
210. Bushman (2005, p. 554) ("they left her out of their councils and even their socials"; to Young, "Her known opposition to plural marriage made her doubly troublesome").
211. Newell, Linda King (Fall–Winter 2011). "Emma's Legacy: Life After Joseph". 2010 Sterling M. McMurrin Lecture. John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. 31 (2): 1–22 – via JSTOR.; Bushman (2005, pp. 554–55). Emma Smith married Major Lewis Bidamon, an "enterprising man who made good use of Emma's property". Although Bidamon sired an illegitimate child when he was 62 (whom Emma reared), "the couple showed genuine affection for each" other.
212. Bushman (2005, p. 555).
213. Hill (1977, p. 340); Compton (1997, p. 27); Bushman (2005, pp. 323, 326). Ulrich (2017, pp. 16, 404n48) writes that "In 1837, there was as yet no hint that Joseph Smith would within a few years radically revise the meaning of marriage among the Latter-day Saints… by proclaiming 'plural marriage' " and notes that "some Mormons… interpret… this [Smith's relationship with Alger] as "an attempt at plural marriage"; Davenport (2022, p. 138) states, "In 1835 in Kirtland, she [Emma Smith] had invited Fanny Alger into their home, only to expel her after discovering she was also married to Joseph."
214. Bushman (2005, pp. 323–25); Hill (1977, p. 188) (noting that Benjamin F. Johnson "realized later that Joseph's polygamy was one cause of disruption and apostasy in Kirtland, although it was rarely discussed in public".)
215. Ulrich (2017, p. 404n48) notes, "Some writers interpret an allusion in an 1838 slander trial against Oliver Cowdery as evidence that Smith had an extramarital relationship with Fanny Alger". This was probably between 1833 and 1836. Compton (1997, p. 26) dates the relationship and marriage to "early 1833". Bushman (2005, pp. 323–326) notes Compton's dating, that Alger was fourteen in 1830 when she met Smith, that she and Smith interacted between that date and 1836, and that the relationship may have begun as early as 1831. See Smith (2008, pp. 38–39 n.81) on how Cowdery questioned whether Smith and Alger were actually married and called it "a dirty, nasty, filthy affair".
216. Bushman (2005, p. 325) : "In 1838, [Cowdery] was charged with 'seeking to destroy the character of President Joseph Smith jr by falsely insinuating that he was guilty of adultery &c.' Fanny Alger's name was never mentioned, but doubtless she was the women in question." Smith "wanted it on record that he had never confessed to such a sin."
217. Bushman (2005, pp. 323–25): "Presumably, he felt innocent because he had married Alger." "Only Cowdery, who was leaving the Church, asserted Joseph's involvement.") For an extended argument in favor of the Smith–Alger relationship being an early attempt at polygamy, see Bradley, Don. "Mormon Polygamy Before Nauvoo? The Relationship of Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger". Persistence of Polygamy, in Bringhurst & Foster (2010, pp. 14–58){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) For another view, see Park (2020, pp. 62–63), who considers the "reliable evidence" for pre-Nauvoo polygamy "very thin" such that "it seems more likely that the doctrine originated in Nauvoo in 1840, when Smith began envisioning a new society and revealed the centrality of priesthood keys, familial networks, and eternal unions", though Park grants that "the precise origins of the practice remain murky".
218. Park (2020, pp. 61–62).
219. Remini (2002, p. 153) notes the exact figure is debated. Smith (1994, p. 14) counts 42 polygamous wives; Quinn (1994, pp. 587–88) counts 46; Compton (1997, p. 11) counts at least 33 total; Bushman (2005, pp. 437, 644) accepts Compton's count, excepting one, resulting in a total of 32; Davenport (2022, p. 139) counts 37.
220. Compton (1997, p. 11); Remini (2002, p. 154); Brodie (1971, pp. 334–43); Bushman (2005, pp. 492–498); Smith's last marriage was in November 1843 to Fanny Murray, a fifty-six-year-old widow; his youngest plural wife, Helen Mar Kimball, was fourteen.
221. Bushman (2005, p. 439) writes, "All told, ten of Joseph's plural wives were married to other men" and "In most cases, the husband knew of the marriage and approved".
222. Van Wagoner (1992, p. 73n3) reports that "Melissa Lott Willis testified that she was his [Smith's] wife 'in very deed' "; Bushman (2005, pp. 418–419) states, "nothing indicates that sexual relations were left out of plural marriages" but Smith "could not have spent much time with Beaman or any of the women he married" on account of maintaining secrecy and being occupied with church business and evading Missourian extradition officers. Park (2020, pp. 67, 104–105) summarizes, "It is impossible to know how many of these marriages were consummated" and of a series of marriages Smith entered between spring 1841 and spring 1842, Park adds, "There is only evidence that one of these unions, Beman, involved sex."
223. Hales writes, "Specific evidence exists supporting that Joseph Smith personally experienced sealings for 'eternity,' not 'time and eternity' and therefore without sexual relations" and identifies five women with whom there is evidence that what Hales calls an "eternity only" sealing might be the case; see Hales, Brian C. "Joseph Smith and the Puzzlement of 'Polyandry'". Persistence of Polygamy. pp. 129–130, in Bringhurst & Foster (2010, pp. 99–152){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link); Hales (2012) (Hales discusses the historical records and context of 5–11 such sealings, which indicate they were unions for “eternity only”.); Quinn (2012, p. 5) (Quinn acknowledged in 2012 that a recently discovered historical record regarding Ruth Sayers indicates that the union applied "only to the eternities after mortal life," disproving his previously-held "decades-long" assumption that excluded eternity-only sealings.); Park (2020, p. 67) reports that those of Smith's wives who were already married to other husbands "either denied or refused to confirm that they had been physically intimate with him [Smith]… They understood the union to be spiritual in nature… with limited implications for their current life."
224. Bushman (2005, p. 491); Park (2020, pp. 61, 67); Davenport (2022, pp. 131, 136–137).
225. Bushman (2005, pp. 494–495).
226. Ulrich (2017, p. 89); Park (2020, pp. 193–194) concurs, "she vacillated between tacit resignation and outright rejection".
227. Bushman (2005, p. 439).
228. Park (2020, p. 152) summarizes, "Emma's support proved tenuous". The four women were Emily Partridge, Eliza Partridge, Sarah Lawrence, and Maria Lawrence; Emma Smith was not aware that Joseph Smith had already previously courted and married the Partridges, and they did not disclose this to Emma. See Davenport (2022, p. 138); Bushman (2005, p. 494); Remini (2002, pp. 152–53); Brodie (1971, p. 339).
229. Brodie (1971, pp. 340–341); Hill (1989, p. 119); Bushman (2005, pp. 495–96); Ulrich (2017, pp. 92–93); Park (2020, pp. 152–154). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints later canonized the text as D&C 132, in 1876; see Bringhurst, Newell G. "Section 132 of the LDS Doctrine and Covenants: Its Complex Contents and Controversial Legacy". Persistence of Polygamy. p. 60, in Bringhurst & Foster (2010, pp. 59–86){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link).
230. Bushman (2005, pp. 494–497) writes that the Smiths were sealed on May 28, 1843 and argues that Emma's participation in the endowment ceremonies may have contributed to softening her stance on plural marriage; Quinn (1994, p. 638) reports that Emma participated with Smith in the later "sealing" ceremony.
231. Smith allowed Emma to destroy a copy of the revelation (though he had already had copies made), signed property over to Emma to give her and their children more independent financial security, and promised to not marry any additional women for the rest of the season. See Park (2020, p. 154): "after Joseph had copies made—she was allowed to express her frustration by destroying the document", and "Emma did not back down at all until Joseph promised not to take any more plural wives that fall. With one exception, he remained true to his word"; Davenport (2022, p. 144): "in November he [Smith] took his last plural wife—but he hardly relinquished 'all.' He even told William Clayton that 'he should not relinquish anything.' "
232. Park (2020, pp. 195–196): "This was the most forward Emma had ever been in publicly challenging her husband."
233. Van Wagoner (1992, pp. 113–114); Quinn (1994, p. 239); Park (2020, p. 277); History of the Church 1844–1872, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1908, pp. 355–356.
234. Newell & Avery (1994, pp. 114–115); Park (2020, pp. 195–196).
235. Van Wagoner (1992, p. 53); Newell & Avery (1994, pp. 128–129). The other signatories involved in plural marriage were Eliza R. Snow and Sarah Cleveland (plurally married to Joseph Smith); and Newel K. Whitney and John Taylor, who had married plural wives; see Newell & Avery (1994, p. 128).
236. Van Wagoner (1992, pp. 113–115). Historians have proposed several possible motivations for Emma Smith's continued denials of Joseph's polygamy. Brodie (1971, p. 399) speculates that the denial was a form of revenge and animosity against Smith's plural wives; Van Wagoner (1992, pp. 113–114) posits that the subject of polygamy "evoked painful memories for Emma" and she "refused to give tongue to memory simply because she could not face the shadows of the past"; Newell & Avery (1994, pp. 292) note that Emma received covenants associated with the temple and celestial marriage which involved strict promises to maintain secrecy; they argue Emma may have extended that secrecy to plural marriage itself which she never directly repudiated. Newell and Avery also aver that "when Emma decided not to tell her children about plural marriage, it was an attempt to remove problems from their lives."); Quinn (1994, pp. 237) points out that Emma "opposed polygamy during most of the time her husband practiced it" and proposes that she did not teach her children about plural marriage because she "regarded it as the cause of his death"; Park (2020, p. 277) states that "denial" about polygamy was Emma's "method for dealing with" the experience "[a]fter years of anguish".
237. Bushman (2005, p. xxi) Smith "never presented his ideas systematically in clear, logical order; they came in flashes and bursts. ... Assembling a coherent picture out of many bits and pieces leaves room for misinterpretations and forced logic. Even his loyal followers disagree about the implications of his teaching."
238. Bushman (2005, p. xxi,173); Vogel (2004, p. xvii) (saying that Smith's private beliefs were revealed through his revelations); Vogel (2004, p. viii) (arguing that Smith believed he was called of God, but occasionally engaged in fraudulent activities to preach God's word more effectively).
239. Bushman (2005, p. 69) ("The revelation gave the first inkling of how Joseph would speak in his prophetic voice. The speaker stands above and outside Joseph, sharply separated emotionally and intellectually"); Vogel (2004, pp. 128–129); Brodie (1971, pp. 55–57) ("Although he may not have sensed their significance, these, Joseph's first revelations, marked a turning-point in his life. For they changed the Book of Mormon from what might have been merely an ingenious speculation into a genuinely religious book").
240. Bushman (2005, pp. xx, 129).
241. Bushman (2005, p. 105).
242. Maffly-Kipp, Laurie (2008). "Introduction". The Book of Mormon. Penguin Classics. New York: Penguin. pp. vi–xxxii. ISBN 978-0-14-310553-4.
243. Jortner (2022, p. 47) explains, "The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are really collections of sacred documents, not uniform wholes. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, is a uniform whole".
244. Bushman (2005, p. 85).
245. Bushman (2005, p. 85); Vogel (2004, p. 118).
246. Bushman (2005, pp. 85–87); Jortner (2022, p. 48).
247. Jortner (2022, p. 49).
248. Smith (1830).
249. Bushman (2005, p. 108); Vogel (2004, pp. 122–23, 161, 311, 700).
250. Jortner (2022, p. 49).
251. Hardy, Grant (2010). Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 180–181, 190–195, 262–263. ISBN 9780199745449; Turner, John G. (2016). The Mormon Jesus: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 30–31. ISBN 9780674737433; Smith (1830, p. 587).
252. Bushman (2005, p. 106).
253. Johnson, Janiece (April 1, 2018). "Becoming a People of the Books: Toward an Understanding of Early Mormon Converts and the New Word of the Lord". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. 27: 1–43. doi:10.5406/jbookmormstud2.27.2018.0001. ISSN 2374-4766.
254. Hughes, Richard T. (2005). "Joseph Smith as an American Restorationist". Brigham Young University Studies. 44 (4): 31–39 – via JSTOR. Hughes's quotation from Campbell can be found in Campbell, Alexander (1832). Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon. Boston: Benjamin H. Greene. p. 13.
255. Bushman (2004, p. 48) describes there having been a "widely accepted view of the Book of Mormon which holds that it can 'can best be explained… by his [Smith's] responsiveness to the provincial opinions of his time.' "
256. Vogel (2004, pp. xviii–xix).
257. Remini, Robert V. (2005). "Biographical Reflections on the American Joseph Smith". Brigham Young University Studies. 44 (4): 21–30. ISSN 0007-0106.
258. Brodie (1971, pp. 46–48, 57–73). Whether or not the Book of Mormon's content is connected to View of the Hebrews remains heavily disputed in the field of Mormon studies. Elizabeth Fenton summarizes, "Some argue that [Oliver] Cowdery must have read View of the Hebrews and shared its contents with Joseph Smith, laying the groundwork for the latter’s development of The Book of Mormon's Hebraic Indian plotlines. Others contend that it is unlikely Cowdery ever interacted with Ethan Smith—indeed, to date no archival evidence has surfaced to link them directly—and highlight the numerous differences in style and content between View of the Hebrews and The Book of Mormon." See Fenton, Elizabeth (2020). Old Canaan in a New World: Native Americans and the Lost Tribes of Israel. New York University Press. pp. 71, 224n16, 224n17. ISBN 9781479866366.
259. Bushman (2004, pp. 58–59) summarizes, "The Book of Mormon is not a conventional American book. Too much Americana is missing."
260. Howe (2007, p. 314).
261. Shipps (1985, pp. 35–36).
262. Bushman (2005, p. 72) "Joseph himself said almost nothing about his method but implied transcription when he said that 'the Lord had prepared spectacles for to read the Book.'"
263. Book of Mormon, title page.
264. Remini (2002, p. 57) (noting that Emma Smith said that Smith started translating with the Urim and Thummim and then eventually used his dark seer stone exclusively); Bushman (2005, p. 66); Quinn (1998, pp. 169–70) (noting that, according to witnesses, Smith's early translation with the two-stone Urim and Thummim spectacles involved placing the spectacles in his hat, and that the spectacles were too large to actually wear). In one 1842 statement, Smith said that "[t]hrough the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift, the power of God." (Smith 1842, p. 707).
265. (Quinn 1998, pp. 171–73) writes that witnesses said that Smith shifted from the Urim and Thummim to the single brown seer stone after the loss of the earliest 116 manuscript pages; Bushman (2005, pp. 70, 578n46) notes that "Lucy Smith said that Joseph received the interpreters again on September 22, 1828" but that "Although the assertion clashes with other accounts, David Whitmer said Moroni did not return the Urim and Thummum… Instead Joseph used a seerstone for the remaining translation"; Jortner (2022, p. 42) follows Lucy Smith's account and writes of "the removal and subsequent restoration of the Urim and Thummum by an angel".
266. Bushman (2005, pp. 71–72); Marquardt & Walters (1994, pp. 103–04); Van Wagoner & Walker (1982, pp. 52–53) (citing numerous witnesses of the translation process).
267. Remini (2002, p. 62) ("When Martin Harris had taken dictation, a blanket had been hung between the two men"); Van Wagoner & Walker (1982, p. 53) ("The plates could not have been used directly in the translation process."); Bushman (2005, pp. 71–72) (Joseph did not pretend to look at the 'reformed Egyptian' words, the language on the plates, according to the book's own description. The plates lay covered on the table, while Joseph's head was in the hat looking at the seerstone ..."); Marquardt & Walters (1994, pp. 103–04) ("When it came to translating the crucial plates, they were no more present in the room than was John the Beloved's ancient 'parchment', the words of which Joseph also dictated at the time.")
268. Quinn (1998, p. 242); Bushman (2005, p. 142) (while making revisions to the Bible, Smith still "relied on inspiration to make the changes, but he gave up the Urim and Thumm, as Orson Pratt later explained, because he had become acquainted with 'the Spirit of Prophecy and Revelation' and no longer needed it.")
269. Shipps (1985, p. 33) concludes that it was "the Book of Mormon that provided the credentials that made the prophet's leadership so effective."
270. Bushman (2004, pp. 74–76).
271. Brodie (1971, p. 84); Bushman (2005, p. 127).
272. Brodie (1971, p. 57); Bushman (2005, pp. xxi, 128, 388) ("He experienced revelation like George Fox, the early Quaker, who heard the Spirit as 'impersonal prophecy,' not from his own mind but as 'a word from the Lord as the prophets and the apostles had.' ").
273. Bushman (2005, p. 142) (noting that though Smith declared the work finished in 1833, the church lacked funds to publish it during his lifetime); Brodie (1971, p. 103) (Brodie suggests that Rigdon may have prompted Smith to revise the Bible in response to an 1827 revision by Rigdon's former mentor Alexander Campbell).
274. Bushman (2005, p. 133) (Smith said later in life, "I believe the Bible, as it ought to be, as it came from the pen of the original writers.")
275. Hill (1977, p. 131) (Although Smith described his work beginning in April 1831 as a "translation", "he obviously meant a revision by inspiration").
276. Bushman (2005, p. 138).
277. Bushman (2005, pp. 138–41) (in Genesis, Enoch is summarized in five verses. Joseph Smith's revision extends this to 110 verses).
278. Bushman (2005, pp. 133–34) ("Joseph Smith's Book of Moses fully Christianized the Old Testament. Rather than hinting of the coming of Christian truth, the Book of Moses presents the whole Gospel. God teaches Adam to believe, repent, 'and be baptized even by water'").
279. Brodie (1971, pp. 170–75); Bushman (2005, pp. 286, 289–290).
280. Bushman (2005, pp. 157, 288–290).
281. Wilson, John A. (Summer 1968). "A Summary Report". The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: Translations and Interpretations. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 3 (2): 67–88 – via JSTOR. The papyri were prepared for the funerary rites of one Ta-Shert-Min, daughter of New-Khensu. For further details about the papyri, manuscripts, and Egyptian alphabets, see Ritner, Robert K. "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham: A Response" (PDF). University of Chicago. (PDF) from the original on November 5, 2022. Retrieved January 25, 2018. Latter-day Saints have posited that the papyri could have inspired Smith to dictate the Book of Abraham as a revelation, even if it is not a conventional translation of the papyri's content. For a non-Mormon scholar's description of this Latter-day Saint position, see p. 191n83–192n83 in Hazard, Sonia (Summer 2021). "How Joseph Smith Encountered Printing Plates and Founded Mormonism". Religion & American Culture. 31 (2): 137–192.
282. Bushman (2005, p. 388).
283. Bushman (2005, p. 130) (Referring to Smith dictating revelations, Pratt said, "Each sentence was uttered slowly and very distinctly, and with a pause between each, sufficiently long for it to be recorded, by an ordinary writer, in long hand. This was the manner in which all his revelations were dictated and written. There was never any hesitation, reviewing, or reading back, in order to keep the run of the subject; neither did any of these communications undergo revisions, interlinings, or corrections. As he dictated them so they stood, so far as I have witnessed.")
284. Bushman (2005, p. 174).
285. Quinn (1994, pp. 5–6, 9, 15–17, 26, 30, 33, 35, 38–42, 49, 70–71, 88, 198); Brodie (1971, p. 141)
286. Brodie (1971, pp. 106–7); "D&C 42".
287. Brodie (1971, pp. 117–18); "D&C 76".
288. Bushman (2005, pp. 202–205); "D&C 84".
289. Bushman (2005, pp. 205–212); "D&C 93".
290. Brodie (1971, p. 166); Bushman (2005, pp. 212–213); "D&C 89".
291. Brodie (1971, p. 289); Bushman (2005, p. 213) ("Joseph drank tea and a glass of wine from time to time."); Ostling & Ostling (1999, pp. 177–78) (Smith "himself liked a nip every now and then, especially at weddings". The Mansion House, which operated a hotel, maintained a fully stocked barroom, and Nauvoo also had a brewery.)
292. Bushman (2005, pp. 253–60); "D&C 107".
293. Brodie (1971, p. 340); Bushman (2005, pp. 438–46); "D&C 132".
294. Bushman (2005, pp. 193–195).
295. Brodie (1971, pp. 159–60); Bushman (2005, pp. 229, 310–322).
296. Bushman (2005, p. 419) ("Joseph spoke like a witness or an initiate in heavenly mysteries, rather than a prophet delivering revelations from the Lord's mouth").
297. Bushman (2005, pp. 419, 421–3) Smith's first mention of baptism for the dead was in a funeral sermon in August 1840. A letter on the subject is contained in "D&C 128"..
298. Bushman (2005, pp. 419–20) (arguing that Smith may have been unaware of the other religious materialism arguments circulating in his day, such as those of Joseph Priestley); Brooke (1994, pp. 3–5);Smith (1830, p. 544) (story from the Book of Ether of Jesus revealing "the body of my spirit" to an especially faithful man, saying humanity was created in the image of his spirit body).
299. Widmer (2000, p. 119).
300. Bushman (2005, pp. 420–21); Bloom (1992, p. 101) ("Smith's God is hedged in by limitations and badly needs intelligences besides his own.")
301. Vogel, Dan (1989). "The Earliest Mormon Conception of God". Line Upon Line, in Bergera (1989, pp. 17–33){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) (arguing that Smith's original view was modalism, Jesus being the embodied manifestation the spirit Father, and that by 1834 Smith shifted to a binitarian formulation favored by Sidney Rigdon, which also viewed the Father as a spirit); Alexander, Thomas (1989). "The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine: From Joseph Smith to Progressive Theology". Line Upon Line. p. 53, in Bergera (1989, pp. 53–66){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) (prior to 1835, Smith viewed God the Father as "an absolute personage of spirit").
302. Widmer (2000, p. 119); Alexander, Thomas (1989). "The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine: From Joseph Smith to Progressive Theology". Line Upon Line. p. 59, in Bergera (1989, pp. 53–66){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) (describing Smith's doctrine as "material anthropomorphism"); Bloom (1992, p. 101) ("Smith's God, after all, began as a man, and struggled heroically in and with time and space, rather after the pattern of colonial and revolutionary Americans.")
303. Bushman (2005, pp. 421, 455) ("Joseph redefined the nature of God, giving Him a form and a body and locating Him in time and space" with a throne situated near a star or planet named Kolob); Bloom (1992, p. 101) ("Joseph Smith's God ... is finite ... Exalted now into the heavens, God necessarily is still subject to the contingencies of time and space.")
304. Vogel (2004, p. 30); Roberts (1909, p. 325).
305. Larson (1978, pp. 201, 205); Widmer (2000, p. 119).
306. Widmer (2000, p. 119); Bushman (2005, pp. 535, 544).
307. Bushman (2005, pp. 455–56, 535–37).
308. Bushman (2005, p. 422).
309. Bushman (2005, p. 199).
310. Brooke (1994, p. 33).
311. Remini (2002, p. 84).
312. Quinn (1994, p. 7) (describing Smith's earliest authority as charismatic authority).
313. Quinn (1994, pp. 7–8); Bushman (2005, pp. 121, 175); Phelps (1833, p. 67) ("[N]o one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church, excepting my servant Joseph, for he receiveth them even as Moses.")
314. Brodie (1971, pp. 106, 112, 121–22).
315. Quinn (1994, pp. 111–12, 115) (describing the expected role of the Council of Fifty).
316. Quinn (1994, pp. 27–34); Bushman (2005, pp. 264–65).
317. Quinn (1994, p. 7).
318. Brodie (1971, p. 111); Bushman (2005, pp. 156–60); Quinn (1994, pp. 31–32); Roberts (1902, pp. 175–76) (On June 3, 1831, "the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood was manifested and conferred for the first time upon several of the Elders."); Prince (1995, pp. 19, 115–116, 119).
319. Ostling & Ostling (1999, pp. 194–95); Prince (1995, pp. 31–32, 121–31, 146); Bushman (2005, p. 451) (that the Nauvoo endowment is more akin to aspects of the Kabbalah).
320. Prince (1995, pp. 140, 201).
321. Brooke (1994, pp. 30, 194–95, 203, 208) (Smith introduced the sealing power in 1831 as part of the High Priesthood, and then attributed this power to Elijah after he appeared in an 1836 vision in the Kirtland Temple).
322. Brooke (1994, pp. 221, 242–43); Brooke (1994, pp. 236).
323. Brooke (1994, pp. 256, 294); Bushman (2005, pp. 497–98) (The second anointing ceremony "was Joseph's attempt to deal with the theological problem of assurance" of one's eternal life).
324. Foster (1981, pp. 161–62). For photographic facsimiles of, transcriptions of, and contextual commentary on Smith's 1842 revelation outlining part of this theology, see Grua, David W.; Rogers, Brent M.; Godfrey, Matthew C.; Jensen, Robin Scott; Nelson, Jessica M., eds. (2021). "Revelation, 12 July 1843 [D&C 132]". The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 12: March–July 1843. 457–478: Church Historian's Press. ISBN 978-1-62972-888-9. from the original on December 18, 2022.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
325. Foster (1981, p. 145).
326. Bushman (2005, pp. 497–98) (those who were married eternally were then "sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise" through the second anointing); Brooke (1994, pp. 256–57).
327. For the "second anointing" as an answer to "the theological problem of assurance", see Bushman (2005, pp. 497–98); for murder and apostasy as the conditions which violate the covenant, see Brooke (1994, p. 257).
328. Davenport (2022, p. 143), quoting D&C 132:7.
329. Foster (1981, pp. 206–11); Compton (1997, pp. 11, 22–23); Smith (2008, pp. 356); Brooke (1994, p. 255); Brodie (1971, p. 300); Bushman (2005, p. 443) (noting that a modern Mormon interpretation of Smith's 1843 polygamy revelation ties both polygamy and monogamy to degrees of exaltation).
330. Bloom (1992, p. 105); Foster (1981, p. 145) ("[I]f marriage with one wife ... could bring eternal progression and ultimate godhood for men, then multiple wives in this life and the next would accelerate the process, in line with God's promise to Abraham that his seed eventually would be as numerous as the sand on the sea shore."); Brodie (1971, p. 300) ("[I]f a man went to heaven with ten wives, he would have more than ten-fold the blessings of a mere monogamist, for all the children begotten through these wives would enhance his kingdom.")
331. Bushman (2005, p. 377).
332. Bushman (2005, p. 522).
333. Bushman (2005, p. 516) (for "expansionism as brotherhood"); McBride (2021, p. 97) (for seeking permission and request).
334. McBride (2021, p. 97); Bushman (2005, p. 516).
335. Hickman, Martin B. (1968). "The Political Legacy of Joseph Smith". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 3 (3): 22–27. ISSN 0012-2157. JSTOR 45224011 – via JSTOR.
336. McBride (2021, pp. 101–102).
337. McBride (2021, pp. 103–104).
338. McBride (2021, pp. 104–105).
339. Brodie (1971, pp. 356–57); Bushman (2005, p. 521); Bloom (1992, p. 90).
340. Bushman (2005, pp. 522–23).
341. McBride (2021, p. 98) ("Smith’s personal opinions on race and slavery varied over the course of his life"); Park (2020, p. 70) ("Joseph Smith's views concerning race, especially in the legal and institutional realms, had been changing since the faith's founding"); Harris & Bringhurst (2015, p. 1) (state that Smith went through a "threefold change of position" on slavery, initially opposing it in the 1830s, then supporting it with a strong anti-abolitionist position in the mid-1830s, then opposing it again in the early 1840s.)
342. Bushman (2005, pp. 289, 327–28); Harris & Bringhurst (2015, pp. 21–22); Hill (1977, pp. 380–383); Brodie (1971, pp. 173, 212).
343. Hill (1977, p. 384); Harris & Bringhurst (2015, pp. 27–28); McBride (2021, p. 99).
344. Hill (1977, p. 383).
345. On Black self-government: Hill (1977, pp. 384–385); on interracial marriage: Bushman (2005, p. 289).
346. Bushman (2005, p. 289); Harris & Bringhurst, p. 19) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFHarrisBringhurst (help); Mueller (2017, p. 28).
347. Harris & Bringhurst (2015, p. 17).
348. Bushman (2005, p. 289). (Smith said, "Change their situation with the white and they would be like them.")
349. Mueller (2017, pp. 34–35, 38, 91).
350. Mueller (2017, pp. 28–29, 39). This belief in "cursed lineages" was related to a racist biblical interpretation popular among white Christians in early America which held that Noah placed a hereditary curse on Ham's son Canaan and that Canaan and Ham were the ancestors of people of Black African descent. See Mueller (2017, pp. 15–16).

References

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Works

• "History of the Latter Day Saints," in I. Daniel Rupp (ed.), He Pasa Ekklessia: An Original History of the Religious Denominations at Present Existing in the United States ... , Philadelphia, J.Y. Humphreys, 1844.

External links

 

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• Official LDS Church site about Joseph Smith
• JosephSmithPapers.org—An LDS Church project compiling primary documents relating to Joseph Smith
• Recently-discovered photo of Smith