“Joseph, Joseph, Joseph”
--Last words of Brigham Young
The ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name, and fools shall have thee in derision, and hell shall rage against thee;
While the pure in heart, and the wise, and the noble, and the virtuous, shall seek counsel, and authority, and blessings constantly from under thy hand. [D&C 122:1-2]
Recently I read an article which tossed off Joseph Smith with a phrase. It was one of those, “As we all know, Smith was a _________. You can fill in the blank with any one of a half dozen flippancies: Farm boy, evil genius, an expert in mass hypnosis, a charlatan and fraud, paranoid schizophrenic, etc, etc. But the interesting thing is the author then assumed he had handled an otherwise awkward problem, and never returned to discuss Joseph again – he just went on with his rehash of old business about the church.
I was incensed and offended. I thought, “What have YOU done, mr. author, that was so great? You trot out your resume and we will compare it with Joseph's and see just who the pretender really is!” The thought came to my mind that someone who wants to take on Joseph had better bring the “A Game!” And still they are going to fall very short of the prophet. So with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, I began to consider the little bit I know about the life, works, leadership, sacrifice of Joseph Smith.
As a base line, let's remember that Joseph had very little education. He was, basically, uneducated – except he could read because of the Bible study which the Smith Family did consistently. The more one studies Joseph, the more one realizes he knew a great deal about the Bible. In fact, as he translated Book of Mormon passages which taught familiar Bible truths, he often used Bible phraseology to express the ideas. He did this without referring to the Bible itself. The old anti-Mormon canard that we don't use or believe in the Bible is crazy – the Founder loved and was intimately acquainted with the Bible and quoted it often.
So let's take a few peeks at Joseph and what he accomplished and then ask ourselves about this resume and see if we like it.
Origins
First we are all familiar with the origin stories. The First Vision and the Moroni visits. We could spend the full time on any of this and get good value, but we won't. Here is an interesting view aspect of the visions of Joseph. These first visits were to Joseph alone. Thereafter, the significant events involving Heavenly Messengers always included other people. When John the Baptist came and bestowed the Aaronic Priesthood, Oliver was there. Same with the Melchizedek, bestowed by Peter James and John. When the 76th Section was given, there was Sidney Rigdon. The visit of the savior to the accept the Kirtland Temple, there was Oliver again. The heavenly manifestations in Kirtland were seen by many, many people, both in the temple and from the outside.
And then there are the Book of Mormon witnesses. How do you get people to sign such a document as the Three Witnesses did, then have them leave the church but never refute their testimony of the Book of Mormon. This is a good trick. The entire public life of the three witnesses was dogged by their witness of the Book of Mormon. And these were considerable men.
Martin Harris, on his deathbed, had someone hold up his right arm as he testified again of the truth of the Book. David Whitmer seemingly spent his life testifying of the Book and being interviewed by newspapers and many others who came to visit. Oliver also. Now, they did not just ADMIT they signed the statement in the Book of Mormon, they aggressively testified of its truth, and did so at every opportunity.
The Anthon Manuscript.
There is a lot of controversy about the Anthon Manuscript. What did happen when Martin Harris took those characters to New York to see Professor Anthon and perhaps a few others. [BYU Studies of a few years back gives and excellent treatment to this trip and all its details.] Do we believe Martin Harris' version or Anthon's recollections which were prodded out of him many years later? We will never really know, from a historian's point of view, what really happened. Here is what we well and truly know. Martin Harris was about to pledge his farm and a large sum of money for the printing of the Book of Mormon. He had doubts. He wanted reassurance. He took the characters and went to New York City and Columbia University. When he returned from the trip he pledged his farm. You decide what happened on the trip.
The Book of Mormon
What will yo do with the Book of Mormon? Let's just take a brief look at that and get some appreciation. Elder Bednar's, in a talk to mission presidents, told about writing a book with a colleague while he was on the faculty of a business school. It was very exciting to open this new book, which had been several years in the making, and gratifying to see the results of all that work. They were the product of a lot of effort. He began to flip through it and already could see a couple of errors. Oh well, that happens in printing. Then he thought about some interesting new data which had come to light since they had put the book “to bed.” Well, that's always going to happen. In fact, he mused, in about five years he and his co-author would probably have to completely revise the book or abandon it altogether. Things become out-dated that quickly.
Then his thoughts turned to the Book of Mormon. In contrast, he thought, this book had lasted 175 years with some printing and face-lift sort of changes since it was written on foolscap and turned over to the printer. He marveled how his book was the product of 5 years of research and work, the involvement of many graduate students and assistants, the product of professional editors and publishers and finally printed under the auspices of a large and prestigious publishing company. Poor Joseph and Oliver and a quill pen. They turned over their manuscript as a rough draft – Oliver having made an additional copy by hand just in case. [Joseph wasn't about to forget the 116 lost pages.]
The editing services were done by the printer. At first he added punctuation and paragraphs as he went [the manuscript essentially had none], then he began taking the manuscript home at night to edit it so he could use his time in the printing shop to set the type. This, briefly, is the origin of the Book which had withstood 175+ years of intense and malignant scrutiny. Instead of being a Ph.D. In his subject, Joseph knew nothing of the geography, language, culture, celebrations, customs, language, names, way of life of these people of whom he and Oliver wrote. But he got it all right.
The Evangelical Conference paper
In 1997, Carl Mosser and Paul Owen delivered a paper at an evangelical conference entitled “Mormon Scholarship, Apologetics, and Evangelical Neglect: Losing the Battle and Not Knowing It?” In this paper they very thoughtfully review Book of Mormon scholarship and point out that attacking the Church on the Book of Mormon may not be the best use of resources. In fact, reading this you can see why the Book of Mormon has stood the test of time. [The article can be found here: http://www.cephas-library.com/mormon_apologetics_losing_battle.html. You will also note that is is an unauthorized draft and the authors have republished it with additions and editorial changes. The bibliographical reference is at the top of the article.]
Why Hasn't it Been Proven True?
Trying to tear down Joseph Smith makes some otherwise intelligent people say some pretty stupid things. Like one by a couple of “scholars”: “If the Book of Mormon were true, why hasn't there been anything discovered to prove it right?” This is laughable for two reasons: [1] EVERYTHING which comes along in the fields of egyptology, Mesoamerican research, etc etc etc, substantiates to Book of Mormon claims. Here is a quick and very incomplete laundry list:
Saudi Archeology and Geography
Land Bountiful
Word Prints
Chiasmus
Reformed Egyptian
Lakish Letters
Names in the BOM
Doctrinal Consistency
Internal Consistency of the BOM
[Each of these, and many more topics, are a presentation of themselves.]
Nearly 200 years of intense scrutiny of Joseph, his life, the scriptures and the church he founded finds only the normal insignificant foibles of humanity and no evidence which proves the Book of Mormon or the church wrong.
Reason [2] After 175 years, if the Book of Mormon were FALSE, wouldn't something have popped up to prove it wrong? Everything his critics have pointed out turn out to be positive for Joseph. Machinery in the BOM, likewise cement, making Alma a male name, the Hebrew forms of the language, the fealty of the 3 and 12 witnesses, the voluntary martyrdom, and the list goes on and on.
Well, we have not yet scratched the surface on Joseph. He was an extraordinary man. Tossing him off with a flippant comment and a biased epithet just won't do. And we haven't talked about 100,000 European converts leaving their homeland in the 19th Century. We haven't talked about how the work survived after Joseph and Hyrum. We haven't talked about a steady stream of 50,000 self-supported missionaries. And you can think of thirty other things. So, if you want a piece of Joseph Smith, bring your “A Game.” I doubt it will be enough. I open with 100 million copies of the Book of Mormon printed and distributed by the year 2000. What have you got? ANYTHING like that? I didn't think so.
As a post script, here are a few more personal things about Joseph for your consideration. If the references are new to you, you can look them up or ask me about it. I have to quit, and not because I'm out of material!
How Joseph conducted his life
“I'm sorry five dollars worth”
Anthony and his slave son
Helping Emma in the house
Working side by side
Zions march, sharing authority
People coming into Nauvoo and recognizing Joseph in the crowd, though they had never seen him
People volunteering to die in his place
His return to Nauvoo and Carthage voluntarily
The Shrugging Off meeting
The sending away of the best and brightest at critical times [Kirtland, Martyrdom time]
Section 135
[If pushed, I could put together a Joseph Smith bibliography, even though others are MUCH more qualified.]
