
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith's Theology
Dialogue has a rich and long history covering Mormonism’s founding prophet Joseph Smith.
Joseph Smith’s teachings and the development of Mormon theology have had a lasting impact on religious and cultural history. Exploring the curated topics below can provide a more detailed understanding of different perspectives and scholarly discussions on Joseph Smith’s life, teachings, and historical context.

A Reflection on Joseph Smith’s Restorationist Vision of Truth
Ryan D. Ward
Dialogue 55.2 (Spring 2022): 93–102
The way of viewing truth in the Church differs from the common philosophical concept of truth as something that corresponds to the historical or present facts of a given situation.
“Truth, the sum of existence . . .”
—John Jaques, 1851[1]
The way of viewing truth in the Church differs from the common philosophical concept of truth as something that corresponds to the historical or present facts of a given situation. The Church’s version of truth is that it is something possessed by God, it never varies, is eternally fixed, and is made known to humankind through revelation.[2] This absolute view of truth is problematic because it is open to being used by those in positions of power and influence to manipulate and oppress others. Everyone is familiar with the colloquialism “history is written by the victors.”[3] This statement conveys the way that the concept of truth has been manipulated and used to oppress throughout history. The damage and trauma is littered across generations, from the ruthless persecution of so-called heretics after the adoption of Christianity as the religion of Roman empire to the Spanish Inquisition, from the Crusades to the witch hunts, from the massive slaughter, enslavement, exploitation, and oppression of Indigenous peoples throughout the world sanctioned by Christian colonizers to the use of theological and scriptural “truth” to oppress and marginalize women and other vulnerable groups throughout history and into the present day.
In some cases, the concept of absolute truth is used to explicitly oppress and exploit in the name of religion. But more often, this view of truth leads to an inadvertent discounting or marginalizing of alternative views and groups. Due to the specific gender, racial, and cultural makeup of Church leadership, some groups or issues may not be addressed or considered. At an institutional level, religious organizations, including our own, may dictate acceptable positions, doctrinal beliefs, and practices and levy penalties for nonconformity. Those with different experiences who criticize or openly challenge official teaching or narrative can be subject to informal ostracization or formal ecclesiastical discipline. Thus, tight control is maintained over the interpretation and verification of truth by leaders, and the degree to which personal experience and opinion may be held to correspond to the truth is circumscribed. Because an absolute notion of truth is vulnerable to misuse and abuse, what is needed is a way to incorporate individual, varied, and diverse human experience into our understanding and conceptual view of truth.
Truth Revealed Anew
On May 6, 1833, following the summer adjournment of the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio, Joseph Smith received a revelation that was to become section 93 of the Doctrine and Covenants. The revelation taught that all humankind existed in the beginning with God and Christ as intelligences—autonomous agents organized by God: “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”[4] In the very next verse comes a startling pronouncement which forms the basis of my exploration: “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.”[5]
There are three important aspects of the verse to consider: 1) truth is independent, 2) truth is an autonomous agent able to act for itself, 3) existence itself depends on this independence and autonomous agency.
Truth as an Independent Agent
For truth to be independent suggests that it exists outside of God’s control. It has not been created, neither can it be, according to verse 29. God is able to place it in a specific sphere, but, once placed, it functions as an autonomous agent that acts outside of God’s control. Aside from this verse, there is no further mention of the independence of truth anywhere in the scriptures. Teaching and interpretation of this concept by Church leaders often mentions this verse as indicative of the fact that there is absolute and relative truth.[6] Absolute truths cannot be changed, whereas relative truth refers to facts that someone discovers that are not veridical statements of reality but approximations that change with further inquiry, experience, and revelation.[7]
Absolute truths are here referred to as the unchanging reality of God’s relation to the world—even if people do not believe, they are still true. But it is unclear how this type of “truth” stands independent of a creator of the world to which it applies and by which it is circumscribed. Furthermore, according to Alma, God is also subject to eternal laws that must be obeyed or he will “cease to be God.”[8] This presents a conundrum in that it is unclear how laws that stand outside of God and to which he is subject could be “placed” anywhere by him, as is clearly stated in verse 30. For these and other reasons, truth here being independent does not seem to refer to an absolute truth of God or the universe that remains unchanging and unchangeable for eternity.
The fact that truth is referred to here as an autonomous agent that can act for itself has more scriptural and doctrinal parallels within our theology.[9] The doctrine of agency is critical to our understanding of the purpose and meaning of the existence of humanity. The interpretation that truth is placed by God in a sphere to act for itself is consistent with foundational Mormon teachings about agency and supports interpreting verse 30 as indicating that truth is crucially related to embodied mortal experience.
Truth as the Action of Embodied Humanity in History
If we consider embodied human beings as a critical aspect of truth, our understanding of truth necessarily has to be informed and conditioned by the critical and varied aspects of human existence. The embodied nature of our existence means that each individual will live out their lives in different places, countries, cities, and are subject to different life experiences, opportunities, and challenges as a function of their particular state, including the impacts of gender, race, and ethnicity, along with cultural, economic, political, and other factors. If embodied human existence constitutes truth, then truth must encompass the range of experiences, perspectives, choices, consequences, and life trajectories of all humanity. Truth was placed in the world as embodied humanity in all its infinite diversity and continues to be truth as we grow and act as agents throughout our lives.
To clarify, truth can be defined as the action of embodied humanity in history. As such, truth in the world is ever evolving and becoming. Verse 24 says that truth is “knowledge” of things as they are, and were, and are to come. I take this to mean that knowledge of these things comes through experience, either personally or through the works and words of others, or through divine gift of understanding the realities of human experience throughout history. In experiencing, we come to know the truth of human existence. Truth is, in actuality, things as they have been, are, and will be.[10] For individuals, then, truth constitutes knowledge of human action in history. From an omniscient perspective, truth is the actual, ongoing action of humanity in history.
Jesus as the Truth
Because truth cannot be separated from individual human experience, only one who fully experienced what all of humanity experienced could claim to understand and comprehend all truth. In section 88, Joseph revealed how Christ’s atonement and condescension into mortality had granted him such comprehension: “He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth.”[11] Now we begin to understand what Jesus means when he refers to himself as “the truth.” His life in mortality, surrounded by the suffering of the poor, oppressed, and marginalized, already had allowed him to “bear witness unto the truth.”[12] Furthermore, one interpretation of this view is that Jesus’ solidarity with humanity through his incarnation and atonement enabled him to experience all that embodied humanity had, would, and will experience. When Jesus personally experienced in mortality the sum total of human experience, he quite literally became the totality of truth.
Another interpretation that is consistent with the view of truth proposed here is that in calling himself the truth, Jesus was explicitly referring to his mortal embodiment. According to this view, Jesus was truth in the same way that embodied humanity is truth. By referring to himself as truth, Jesus affirmed this central characteristic of the truth of humanity. Although this idea may seem unfamiliar to many members of the Church, it has a long historical and scholarly tradition. At issue is the meaning of the phrase “son of man,” which appears numerous times in the Bible. The translation of the phrase from Hebrew and Aramaic indicates that it was a colloquial way of referring to a generic human being, or humanity generally, but with a specific contrast to deity in its emphasis on the mortal condition.[13]
Why would Jesus refer to himself in this way? Why not refer to his own divinity, or use the other names that have become common for him: Savior, Redeemer, Lord, Messiah? In fact, at every opportunity to embrace these titles, Jesus rejected them, preferring this diminutive generic term for humanity. The revelation by Joseph Smith that Jesus grew from “grace to grace” and “received not of the fullness at first”[14] suggests that he may have been unaware of his purpose and mission for a time. One might assume that once awareness struck, he would begin referring to his divinity, but this does not happen. There seems to be something very important to Jesus about his mortal embodiment and humanity in general. The view of truth taken here suggests that it was Jesus’ humanity that made him the truth, not his divinity. His referral to himself as “son of man” seems to indicate that he recognized the truth of his embodied mortal action as a part of the ongoing truth of humanity acting in history.
God’s Glory as Truth
We understand the purpose of this life as being to demonstrate that we can keep God’s commandments, make and keep sacred covenants by receiving saving ordinances, and become progressively sanctified through the atonement of Christ. A succinct statement of this is given in the book of Moses: “For behold, this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”[15] Here we find ourselves at loggerheads regarding what to make of a scriptural term that is used in multiple different ways. Specifically, what exactly is referred to here by God’s “glory”? At various times in the scriptures, “glory” refers to worldly fame and accolades,[16] heavenly blessing and favor,[17] exultation,[18] aesthetic beauty,[19] brightness,[20] fullness of life in the world to come,[21] and an enabling power,[22] among other things. Later in the revelation in section 93, Joseph gives as succinct a definition of God’s glory as we get in scripture, yet when considered with the view of truth explored above, it provides a key to understanding God in relation to humanity and why human existence and experience as truth is crucial to God: “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.”[23] Up until now in the revelation, Joseph has played loosely with these three terms: intelligence, light, and truth. Here he clarifies for us that intelligence, light, and truth are synonymous. Not only that, they are the glory of God. When considered in conjunction with the interpretation of truth explored above, we can interpret this verse to mean that the glory of God is the perpetual and ongoing truth being lived out in and through embodied humanity.
This definition of glory helps us make sense of Moses 1:39 in context. The way we usually read this verse is that God’s work and glory, everything that he does and the crowning achievement of his being, is to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life. But this verse comes at the end of Moses’ vision of the creation and the natural and human history of the world.[24] God has here shown Moses all of the earth’s existence and inhabitants, the whole of the natural history of the earth. He has also intimated that there are numberless other worlds and inhabitants that he has created. It is at the end of this spectacular vision that verse 39 comes. God seems to be saying that the driving force in all of creation, including humankind, is to progress toward a state of godliness. Everything that has happened, everything that is happening, and everything that will happen, is moving toward that final end. God’s glory is creation and humanity in action in history. Because this theology considers all of our experience in mortality as helping us to become like God—indeed, gods in our own right—we can therefore view God as the potentiality of humanity and creation. As such, God’s glory is necessarily incomplete and ongoing and will not be realized fully until all humanity and creation lives out the totality of its existence. As long as there is an ongoing creation that acts with agency, God’s truth and glory will continue to deepen and expand.
An Expanded Restorationist View of Truth
The view of truth as the action of embodied humanity in history cannot accommodate an interpretation of truth that includes anything less than the totality of human existence and experience. According to the current interpretation, God cannot create truth because truth is independent of God. He organizes it in creation, and it acts for itself. It is therefore not possible for any organization or religious tradition to hold either more or less truth than any other, any more than it is possible for God to create truth. This means that God also does not dictate what is true and what is not because truth is a function of embodied human experience. Intelligence, cloaked in mortal humanity, acts with agency, and this is truth. It is not something that can be revealed, verified, or witnessed to, at least not in the sense we traditionally think of. It is simply the ongoing action of humanity in history.
Rather than being a form of relativism or pointing to the belief that all truth claims are equally valid and therefore we can believe and act however we will, this position claims that truth, as understood by individuals, is incomplete because it forms only a part of the total truth as comprised by human existence. Therefore, it makes no sense to compare one “truth” to another because the sum total of all truths being lived out individually and in relation is the full truth. Thus, this view subsumes relativism within a totality of truth that is ongoing, continuously changing, and being realized in the lived experience of humanity.
Our faith tradition claims to accept all truth wherever it may be found, yet we often view and portray ourselves as holding a strict monopoly on truth. The interpretation explored here suggests that such claims are incompatible with the fundamental nature of truth as an independent agent. Thus, for our tradition to encompass all truth, we would need to recognize, accept, and claim all human experience as the ongoing truth of God. The challenge of our missionary and other efforts would not be to determine and decide how most successfully to convert others to our faith but instead how to understand and experience our lives within our covenant community in light of, and in relation to, the ongoing truth around us in our communities, cities, nations, and the world.
Within our congregations and pews, we would feel less threatened and more empowered by the diversity of experience and perspective of our members. Historically oppressed groups, such as women, racial groups, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other minorities, would be given respected places in our conversations and efforts. We would recognize that prevailing views, understandings, and treatment of some groups and individuals have been conditioned by a long history of the normalization of their marginalization and oppression in society. Failure to acknowledge this, coupled with a position on truth that denies the reality of the truth of all unique existence and experience, has amplified marginalization in our faith tradition and theology. Recognizing all lived experience for the truth it is would help us to embark on the long-needed and painful journey of justice and reconciliation. Such reconciliation would allow our faith tradition to more fully reflect and embody the full majesty and beauty of the glory of God manifest in the ongoing truth of the lived experience of humanity. I believe that the seeds of a more universal, expansive, and inclusive vision of truth were revealed, however fleetingly and opaquely, to Joseph Smith in this brief but magnificent verse. Perhaps reflections like this one can contribute to the recovery and further imagination, development, and articulation of this unique and powerful restorationist concept of truth.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. Please note that there may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and biographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
[1] From “Truth,” a poem included in the first edition of the Pearl of Great Price. It was later set to music by Ellen Knowles Melling, titled “Oh Say, What is Truth?,” and included in the LDS hymnal as no. 272.
[2] Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual, Religion 430 and 431 (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2010), chap. 1.
[3] This statement is generally attributed to Winston Churchill, although this claim is unsubstantiated.
[4] Doctrine and Covenants 93:29.
[5] Doctrine and Covenants 93:30.
[6] Spencer W. Kimball, “Absolute Truth” (devotional address given at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, Sept. 6, 1977).
[7] D. Todd Christofferson, “Truth Endures” (address to CES religious educators, Salt Lake Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Utah, Jan. 26, 2018).
[9] 2 Nephi 2:13–26; 2 Nephi 10:23; Alma 12:31; Helaman 14:30.
[10] This notion of truth parallels the thought of Hegel, who asserted that to truly know something was to know its past, present, and future state. All present “truth” is but a snapshot of the “absolute” or “totality” of truth that is becoming. See Georg Hegel, The Science of Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015; first published in German in 1812). Similarly, Harold Joachim’s “coherence” theory of truth suggests that something is true to the extent that it coheres with the character of a more significant “whole.” For Joachim, there is only one “truth,” and individual judgments or beliefs are only true “to a degree.” See Harold Joachim, The Nature of Truth (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977; first published in 1906).
[11] Doctrine and Covenants 88:6.
[13] Restoration scripture has been interpreted as indicating that the name is another title for the Savior. See Doctrine and Covenants 45:39; 49:6, 22; 58:65; Moses 6:57.
[14] Doctrine and Covenants 93:13.
[16] Proverbs 25:27; Matthew 4:8; 6:2; John 7:18; 1 Thessalonians 2:6; 1 Peter 1:24; Doctrine and Covenants 10:19; 76:61.
[17] 1 Samuel 4:21; Psalm 8:5; 62:7; 84:11; Proverbs 4:9.
[18] Psalm 149:5; Jeremiah 9:24; 1 Corinthians 3:21; James 3:14; 1 Peter 1:8; 2 Nephi 33:6; Alma 26:16.
[20] 1 Corinthians 15:41; 2 Corinthians 3:7; Doctrine and Covenants 76:70.
[21] Proverbs 4:9; 2 Corinthians 4:17; Colossians 3:4; 1 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter 5:1, 4, 10; 2 Peter 1:17; Alma 14:11; 36:28; Doctrine and Covenants 6:30; 29:12; 58:3; 66:2; 75:5; 76:6; 101:65; 104:7; 124:17; 130:2; 132:19; 133:32; 136:31; Moses 6:59; 7:3; Abraham 3:26.
[23] Doctrine and Covenants 93:36.
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Was Joseph Smith a Monarchotheist? An Engagement with Blake Ostler’s Theological Position on the Nature of God
Loren Pankratz
Dialogue 55.2 (Spring 2022): 37–72
Joseph Smith’s teachings on God found in his preaching at the April 7, 1844 general conference, known as the King Follett Sermon, and Smith’s Sermon in the Grove, given at a meeting held just east of the Nauvoo Temple on June 16, 1844, have appeared to many to give strong support to this view. There, he taught that God was not always God but developed into God over time.
Many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hold a view of God in which “God became ‘God’ at some first moment through obedience to moral principles that were given by a prior god, the Father’s Father.”[1] This supposition follows the teaching of many erstwhile theologians and authorities of the Church who have understood Joseph Smith to teach that God became God at some moment in the past, having been exalted to his divine stature by another being due to his obedience to eternal laws.[2] Joseph Smith’s teachings on God found in his preaching at the April 7, 1844 general conference, known as the King Follett Sermon, and Smith’s Sermon in the Grove, given at a meeting held just east of the Nauvoo Temple on June 16, 1844, have appeared to many to give strong support to this view. There, he taught that God was not always God but developed into God over time. Eschewing this traditional notion, Blake Ostler defends a view of God in which the head God (the Monarch) leads all other subordinate gods.[3] He argues that this kingship monotheistic view is the proper interpretation of Joseph Smith’s teaching on God. Ostler seeks to harmonize this monarchotheist viewpoint with Smith’s teaching both generally and, more specifically, in the King Follett Sermon and his Sermon in the Grove.[4] Ostler is not just making a theological argument but a historical one about what Joseph Smith’s own views were. This paper demonstrates that Ostler’s monarchotheist construal of Joseph Smith’s teaching is not supported by the evidence.[5]
An 1840 Sermon of Joseph Smith
To be successful, the monarchotheist must reconcile this theological position with the teaching of Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo period and the tradition that developed from it. One of the most important issues is reconciling the notion from classical theology that God is eternal and unchanging with Smith’s idea that God was not always God. Ostler develops an important solution to this that allows him to hold both that God was always God and that God was at one point a human. He argues that Joseph Smith’s teachings support the position that “There was an interval of time from T2 through T3 during which the Father was mortal and not fully divine, but the Father was fully divine eternally prior to T2 and forever after T3.”[6] In this argument, T2 and T3 represent time markers in the life of God. His claim is that while God the Father may not have been fully divine in one period of time, namely that period we can symbolize as between T2 and T3, still he was fully divine both prior to T2 and after T3. In the argument, the time between T2 and T3 is to be thought of as a mortal sojourn of some sort. Thus, Ostler’s contention is that Smith’s teaching is consistent with the view that God the Father was fully divine prior to and following his mortal sojourn. It is Ostler’s contention that this view is consistent with Smith’s later teaching that God was not always God found in the 1844 King Follett Sermon.
Ostler begins his argument for a rereading of the King Follett Sermon that is consistent with the monarchotheist position by first seeking to add context to this position. He points to a sermon Smith preached on February 5, 1840. In this sermon, Smith was preaching in Washington DC, describing his religious beliefs to outsiders.[7] Here Smith taught, “I believe that God is Eternal. That he had no beginning and can have no End. Eternity means that which is without beginning or End.”[8] Ostler admits that this seems to contradict what Smith says in the King Follett Sermon, in which he claims, “for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and will take away and do away the vail, so that you may see.”[9] There appears to be a contradiction between what Smith taught in 1840, in which God is said to be God eternally, and the 1844 teaching, in which the eternal divinity of God seems to be denied. Ostler’s solution to this seeming contradiction is to argue that, in fact, both of these claims are in harmony with the monarchotheist position and that the 1840 sermon helps one interpret what Smith meant in 1844.
I agree that there is not necessarily a contradiction between Smith’s two statements, but on different grounds from Ostler. Rather than supporting the monarchotheist position, the February 5, 1840 sermon appears to confirm the notion that God has not been fully divine from all eternity. In this 1840 discourse, Smith does not merely claim that God is eternal but also that souls in general are eternal and have no beginning. Just after claiming that God is eternal, having no beginning or end, he said, “I believe that the Soul is Eternal. It had no beginning; it can have no End.”[10] Matthew Livingston Davis, the scribe of the February 5 sermon, understood Smith’s point to be that neither God nor the human soul had a beginning, and they will not have an end.[11] Smith does not highlight an attribute of God in distinction to what is common to humanity; rather, he is claiming that the “soul of man” is as eternal as God is.[12] Thus, rather than setting up a seeming contradiction that needs to be resolved, the 1840 sermon supports the interpretation of Smith’s teaching in which God is thought to have eternally existed (as have all souls) but was exalted to divinity at some point in the past. This sermon shows that Smith, in 1840, taught that humans share God’s same trajectory, at least potentially. Contra Ostler, this sermon does not show that Smith taught that God was divine from all eternity. There appears to be no conflict between Smith’s 1840 sermon and his later teaching on God as understood and espoused historically by Church theologians and authorities. Having addressed this preliminary matter, I now turn to Ostler’s specific interpretations and revisions of Smith’s King Follett Sermon.
The King Follett Sermon
At the April 1844 general conference, Joseph Smith delivered a funeral oration for a man named King Follet to a crowd of Latter-day Saints estimated to be around twenty thousand in number.[13] This sermon, known as the King Follet Sermon (KFS), has become one of his most important theological discussions. In that sermon, Smith preached,
It is the first principle of the Gospel, to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us––yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did, and I will show it from the Bible . . . What did Jesus say? (Mark it Elder [Sidney] Rigdon;) the Scriptures inform us that Jesus said, ‘as the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power’, to do what? Why what the Father did; the answer is obvious, in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again.[14]
It is not part of the historical teaching of the Church that each human was fully divine prior to our mortal life. Thus, when Joseph Smith taught that God was “once a man like us,” he seemed to imply that God had not been fully divine prior to his mortal sojourn. Ostler acknowledges that passages from the KFS, like this one, can be interpreted to support the notion that “there was a time T2 at which the Father first became fully divine, but that he was not fully divine prior to T2.”[15] That is, this passage appears to be consistent with the belief that God, like humans generally, was not fully divine from all eternity, and that he was later exalted to his present fully divine stature after being resurrected from the dead. This interpretation is also consistent with the belief taught in 1840, that the Father, like all souls, has always existed without beginning and will always exist without end. However, Ostler moves the discussion of this passage in a different direction. He claims that “it is uniformly taught in Mormon scripture and by Joseph Smith that Christ was a fully divine person prior to mortality.”[16] Ostler reads the KFS to support the view that the Father was fully divine prior to his mortality. He claims that “the Father’s mortal experience was like Christ’s, and thus it is more consistent to interpret Joseph Smith to assert that the Father, like Christ, was divine before his mortal sojourn.”[17] Ostler’s contention is that the above passage of the KFS only teaches that there was a time (i.e., during his mortal sojourn) when God was not fully divine, while remaining open to the possibility that God was fully divine prior to that time. He bases this on his understanding of Jesus as being in possession of all the essential properties of divinity prior to his mortal life.
This interpretation seems far from secure. First, Smith is claiming that there is something Jesus has in common with the Father, not something the Father has in common with the Son. He is pointing out specifically that just as the Father had the power to lay down his body and take it up again, so the Son has the power to lay down his body and take it up again. This comparison says nothing of God’s ontological status prior to his mortal life. The KFS is aimed to give comfort to those grieving the loss of a beloved member of the community. This funeral sermon provides hope for those who have not been divine from all eternity by teaching that they can follow the example set by God and Jesus. Smith claims that both the Father and Jesus laid down their lives and were later exalted, and in this sermon he extends that hope to all humans generally. Ostler takes this quotation from the KFS to mean that if Jesus was divine prior to his mortal life then God was divine prior to his. However, logically speaking, Jesus’ claim to follow the Father’s example does not necessarily imply that the Father was fully divine before his mortal sojourn, even if Jesus was fully divine before his mortal existence. When predicating some distinctive attribute of person A to person B, one is not thereby committed to predicating some other feature of person B to person A. The passage does not say that what is true of Jesus is also true of the Father. Rather, it only claims that what is true of the Father is true of the Son. Thus, Ostler’s contention that this passage implies that the Father was fully divine prior to his mortal life is not substantiated.
Secondly, Ostler’s interpretation of this passage from the KFS, if correct, disproves his main point. While it may have been uniformly taught in Mormon scripture and by Joseph Smith that Christ was a fully divine person prior to mortality, it is also taught that there was a time when Jesus was first exalted. That is, Jesus was the firstborn spirit child of God in the premortal existence and progressed to divinity. For example, in the winter of 1834–35, lectures were given in Kirtland, Ohio that served as an early attempt to “formulate a systematic Latter-day Saint theology.”[18] These lectures were published in the Church’s newspaper in May of 1835, and “All seven lectures were published together later that year in the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, the lectures constituting the ‘doctrine,’ and Joseph Smith’s revelations, the ‘covenants.’”[19] While it is debated whether or not Joseph Smith personally delivered all of the lectures, the “inclusion of the lectures in the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835 strongly suggests that Joseph Smith approved of the content of the lectures.”[20] These lectures have been said to represent the “breadth and depth of the mind of Joseph Smith.”[21] “Lecture Fifth” of the Lectures on Faith teaches that Jesus, having overcome, “received a fullness of the glory of the Father.”[22] Later, in “Lecture Seventh” of the Lectures on Faith, it is taught that Jesus Christ is the prototype of a saved and glorified person. He is the example for us to follow, a person who, through faith, “has become perfect enough to lay hold upon eternal life.”[23] This early summary of the theology Joseph Smith developed depicts Jesus advancing from having a non-deified status to being one who takes hold of eternal life, having received a fullness of glory. Thus, even if Christ becomes the archetype of pre- and post-mortal divinity, his trajectory also includes an initial progression to divinity. There was a time, call it time T, when Jesus was not fully divine. Then at T1 he was exalted, then at T2 he was mortal (and not glorified), and then at T3 he was full of glory once more. Ostler has argued that the KFS passage above is consistent with monarchotheism because Smith claimed that Jesus did only what he had seen the Father do before him, and since we know that Jesus was fully divine prior to his mortal sojourn, then God must have been fully divine prior to his subsequent exaltation as well. However, the trajectory of Jesus represented in the KFS and in the Lectures of Faith appears to be one of a being who was exalted at some time after he was born of heavenly parents. If Ostler is correct in his interpretation and Jesus follows the Father’s path, then this would imply that God the Father was once a mere organized being who was later exalted, after which he became mortal and then, finally, was glorified again. Thus, if Ostler is correct, God the Father still has not been God from all eternity. Ostler’s treatment of the passage from the King Follett Sermon does not work to effectively undermine the understanding of many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who hold that “God became ‘God’ at some first moment through obedience to moral principles that were given by a prior god, the Father’s Father.”[24]
There is a second key passage in the King Follet Sermon that seems to establish the notion of a progression toward deity. Smith preached,
Here, then is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be Kings and Priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.[25]
Ostler concedes that this passage may indicate that persons “learn how to advance to become Gods by becoming a ‘god’ at some first time T1 by advancing from one capacity to another until they reach the status of gods.”[26] However, Ostler seeks to reconcile this with his own view of a static and unchanging divine status. He argues that readers should not assume “that those engaged in the process of learning to be gods cannot already be gods.”[27] Ostler claims this passage should be taken to mean only that “God the Father has been in a process of eternal progression from one exaltation to another for all eternity, and humans can commence to progress toward godhood by engaging in the same activity of progression.”[28]
Contrary to Ostler’s interpretation, this passage is aimed at communicating to mortal humans, who have (presumably) never been gods, how they may progress to “be Gods yourselves.” Humans, who at present have never been fully divine, may become so by following the same process “as all the Gods have done before” them. Smith taught humans to take as their model for exaltation other beings who have learned little by little how to progress from a small capacity to a great one. He is not talking about a separate class of eternally divine beings. Even “the only wise and true God,” in Joseph Smith’s theology, does not appear to be exempted from this mimicable process. “All Gods,” Joseph Smith explains, have followed this trajectory. The above passage is all the more remarkable because in the sermon, just prior to the quoted passage, Smith led the congregation to consider what God is like. He petitioned his listeners, “I want to ask this congregation, every man, woman and child, to answer the question in their own heart, what kind of a being God is,”[29] and Smith takes it as his “first object” to “find out the character of the only wise and true God; and what kind of being he is.”[30] The portion of the KFS quoted above is Smith’s answer to this question. What sort of being is the only wise and true God? He is a being who has learned to be God, advancing from one capacity to another, as all gods have done. Ostler’s contention does not fully consider the context and aim of the sermon.
There is a third passage in the KFS that Ostler has opened for reinterpretation. In the most well-known version of the King Follett Sermon produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith states:
It is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how He came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see.[31]
In this passage, Smith reportedly refutes the idea that God “has always been God or always had divine status.”[32] Here again, he put forward the idea that God “came to be” at a certain point, indicating that divinity occurred at a particular time.
Ostler’s strategy with this passage is to argue for a revision of the text that will allow for a different interpretation. There exists no stenographic record of this sermon. Instead, what we have are a number of individuals’ notes of the sermon. Several of these accounts were scribes from Smith’s presidential office and other authorities of the Church, making this the best recorded of Smith’s discourses.[33] Ostler’s primary argument maintains that the above statement, while supported by Willard Richards’s and Wilford Woodruff’s recollection of the sermon, is not in harmony with Thomas Bullock’s report of the discourse.[34] Ostler also points out that another observer of the address, William Clayton, omits the statement “about a refutation altogether.”
However, one should accept the traditional text as published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for three reasons. First, William Clayton’s report does convey that Smith claimed to “tell you how God came to be God.”[35] While he does not reproduce the exact phrase as Willard Richards and Wilford Woodruff, he does produce the same teaching. Presumably, for Smith to tell us how “God came to be God,” he will have to refute the idea that God has been God for all eternity.
Secondly, there is actually another version of the sermon that reports the same idea. Samuel W. Richards’s record is brief but remarkably records Smith’s refutation that God has been God from all eternity. It states, “to have eternal life, God: a man like one of us, even like Adam. Not God from all Eternity.”[36] Richards’s account provides another witness to Smith’s refutation of the notion that God has been God from all eternity, making it difficult to maintain, as Ostler does, that Smith did not teach this.
Thirdly, Bullock’s account is not out of harmony with Willard Richards’s, and Wilford Woodruff’s account as Ostler claims. Bullock’s report records, “I am going to tell you what sort of a being of God. for he was God from the begin of all Eternity & if I do not refute it.”[37] Ostler claims that Bullock’s report states that Smith does not intend to refute the idea that God has been God from all eternity. However, Bullock’s report is ambiguous, as he reports Smith to have said only, “if I do not refute it.” He does not say “I do not refute it.” The statement as recorded by Bullock could well be understood as shorthand for something like, “& [see] if I do not refute it.” Supporting this notion, Bullock notes that just after this statement, Smith went on to claim that “God himself the father of us all dwelt on a Earth same as J C himself did.”[38] This seems to refute the idea that God has been God from all eternity. God dwelt on an Earth, and during that time God was not fully divine. Bullock’s notes continue that humans have this capacity to dwell on an Earth and be exalted to divine status as well, claiming “you have got to learn how to be a God yourself & be K[ing] & Priest to God same as all have done by going from a small cap[acit]y to an[othe]r. from grace to grace until the res[urrectio]n. & sit in everlasting power as they who have gone before & God.”[39] The theology Bullock records, that God and all humans share a trajectory of progress, is entirely in line with the one reported by Richards, Woodruff, and Clayton. Ostler’s interpretation of this passage from Bullock’s report would set it against not only the other records of the discourse but against Bullock’s own account.
The idea that there is a disagreement between Bullock and the other witnesses on this point is weak. Bullock himself was responsible for preparing the minutes of the conference based on his and William Clayton’s notes.[40] These minutes were then published in Times and Seasons. In Bullock’s published minutes, Smith claimed, “We have imagined that God was God from all eternity,” but that it is necessary to “understand the character and being of God, for I am going to tell you how God came to be God.”[41] The preponderance of the reporting seems to point in one direction: namely, the interpretation Ostler seeks to avoid.[42]
As a final consideration regarding the view of God found in the King Follett Sermon, Ostler points to Smith’s reconstruction of Genesis 1:1 as proof of his monarchotheistic leanings. Smith claimed that Genesis 1:1 should be read to say, “The head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods.”[43] Ostler claims that Smith’s revision of Genesis 1:1 “entailed that there is a single God who is the head of all other gods.” As has been argued elsewhere, Smith used Hebrew “as he chose, as an artist . . . in accordance with his taste, according to the effect he wanted to produce, as a foundation for the theological innovations.”[44] In Kevin Barney’s study of Smith’s emendation of the Hebrew behind Genesis 1:1, he admits that it is difficult to piece together Smith’s exact logic in his reconstruction. Rather than attempting to follow Smith’s interpretation of the text of Genesis 1:1, Barney concludes that it seems more fruitful to interpret Smith as conjecturing that the original Hebrew of Genesis 1:1 had been altered and that his reading was the original.[45] While it may be difficult to ascertain how Smith arrived at his reconstruction of Genesis 1:1, Barney claims that the basic thrust of Smith’s argument is not as uncertain. Joseph Smith appears to make the claim that Genesis 1:1 is describing the council witnessed to in the book of Abraham 3:23, in which God called other gods to council in order to create our world. This certainly does not necessitate God’s being fully divine from all eternity, as God could have been fully divine at this point in his existence and could be the head God of this creative event. This is fully consistent with the belief that God was not fully divine from all eternity. Ostler contends that Smith “believed that the text of Genesis 1:1 had been corrupted and that it originally indicated that the head God brought forth the other gods in a council of gods.”[46] This claim will be revisited in the next section while reviewing Ostler’s claim regarding Smith’s use of Genesis 1:1 in the Sermon in the Grove.
Sermon in the Grove
Joseph preached his final sermon in a grove east of the Nauvoo Temple.[47] He began the sermon by quoting Revelation 1:6, “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His father.”[48] The King James Version of the Bible places “and His father” after “God,” which Joseph Smith took to mean that the verse was stating that Jesus makes Christians to be kings and priests under God the Father and God the Father’s father. This understanding seems to have been seized upon by Joseph Smith and used as a proof text from which to proclaim that “the Father had a father and that there is another ‘Father above the Father of Christ.”[49] In this view, God the Father of Jesus Christ also has a father.
Ostler believes that the Father of God here refers only to his earthly existence. He explains, “when the Father condescended from a fullness of his divine state to become mortal, he was born into a world and had a father as a mortal.”[50] Ostler begins his defense of this interpretation by noting that Smith continues to stress that Jesus does “precisely” what the Father did before him.[51] As we saw above, this strategy fails to suit Ostler’s purposes because, if the analogy holds, it proves too much. If Jesus truly follows the Father’s precise example, then the example is that of a person of divine parentage who became divine, entered into mortality, and exercised power to take his life up again after death. If Jesus’ divine Father was the trailblazer of this precise path, then he too would have both a spiritual and mortal father.
Ostler puts forward other evidence for his reading of this sermon in support of monarchotheism. He points to George Laub’s journal notes from this sermon. Ostler quotes Laub as reporting that “the Holy Ghost is yet a Spiritual body and waiting to take upon himself a body, as the Savior did or as god did.”[52] Ostler concludes from this that “Joseph Smith taught that already divine persons, including the Son and the Holy Ghost, take upon themselves bodies.”[53] The major problem with this use of George Laub’s journal is that Ostler’s quotation of this portion of the journal is incomplete. Laub’s sentence continues on where Ostler provides a period. Laub’s record reads, “But the holy ghost is yet a spiritual Body. and waiting to take to himself a body as the savior did or as god did or the gods before them took bodies.”[54] This indicates that Smith taught that all gods follow this path, with Jesus, Jesus’ Father, and the Holy Ghost as exemplars of the pattern. Laub’s notes go on to further extend the analogy: “the scripture says those who will obey the commandments Shall be heirs of god and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. we then also took Bodies to lay them down and take them up again.”[55] Laub’s understanding is that we do just what Jesus did, which is just what the Father did before him, and other gods before him. Laub’s journal provides deeper evidence that Smith’s thinking about God is that the Father, the Son, and we humans are but three links in an eternal chain of gods.
William McIntire’s and Thomas Bullock’s record of Smith’s Sermon in the Grove relates that in this sermon Smith returned again to his modification of Genesis 1:1.[56] Ostler contends that Smith’s understanding of Genesis 1:1 is that a monarchotheistic head God presides over a council of gods.[57] However, in Thomas Bullock’s account of this sermon, Smith understands the term “Eloiheam” from Genesis 1:1 to be translated “in the plural all the way thro––Gods––the heads of the Gods appointed one God for us.”[58] Rather than there being a head God who organizes a council, there is instead an insistence that in the beginning there were heads of the gods who appointed one God for us. Smith proclaims, “Intelligences exist one above anotr. that there is no end to it.”[59] That there is “no end to it” suggests that Smith sees no one head God at the end of the line. He states, “in the very beginning there is a plurality of Gods—beyond the power of refutation.”[60] From Thomas Bullock’s record, Smith is clear, there are a plurality of head gods who appointed one God to preside over the earth. Ostler’s contention that Smith taught there to be one head God does not hold up.
William McIntire’s report of the sermon, though brief, shares Bullock’s understanding of Smith’s use of Genesis 1:1 in the Sermon in the Grove. McIntire claims that in this sermon, Smith “proceeded to show the plurality of Gods” with his explanation of the “origanel [sic] Hebrew” of Genesis 1:1.[61] McIntire claims that Smith shared with the gathered crowd in the grove that the “Head Gods organized the Earth & the heavens.”[62] McIntire’s witness claims Joseph Smith spoke of the “Head Gods” (plural), rather than a singular “head God,” as Ostler would have it. Thus, the reports of Smith’s teaching in the Sermon in the Grove does not support Ostler’s contention that Smith taught there to be a monarchotheist Head God who presides over a council of gods. Smith teaches a plurality all the way through.
Conclusion
Ostler’s interpretation of Joseph Smith’s teaching rests on three principal arguments. First, he claims that Smith’s teaching in the KFS implies that the Father was divine prior to becoming mortal just as Jesus was divine prior to mortality. Yet the KFS was shown to be better interpreted as claiming that God was elevated to his status as God at some time in the past. Further, if we press the analogy between the Father and the Son as Ostler does, the conclusion runs contrary to Ostler’s contention and God the Father is still elevated to divinity from some state of non-divinity at some point prior to his mortal life. Second, Ostler claims that Smith’s teaching that the Father had a father from Smith’s Sermon in the Grove should be interpreted as God the Father’s having a father in mortality, and not that there was a God prior to the Father. After reviewing Ostler’s arguments, it seems clear that Smith’s point in that sermon was indeed to claim that God the Father of Jesus himself had a spiritual progenitor. Third, Ostler argues that Smith’s use of Genesis 1:1 shows that Smith believed in a monarch God who rules over a heavenly council of gods. This is a novel thesis, but as a historical argument it does not hold. The great lesson Smith stresses from his emendation of Genesis 1:1 is that there is a plurality of gods at play from the very beginning. The heads of gods appointed the God of this world to his station. This is a process Smith appears to envision having no end.
Ostler’s contention that the best interpretation of Joseph Smith’s teachings about God is to suppose God to be the head God (the Monarch) who leads all other subordinate gods has not been persuasive. Ostler’s kingship monotheism does not appear to be represented in the two key discourses of Joseph Smith that have been examined in this paper. Instead, the best interpretation of Smith’s teaching on God in those discourses is that God the Father himself had a premortal father and came to be exalted to divinity at some first moment, that Jesus followed God the Father’s example, and that humans may follow Jesus’ example in turn.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. Please note that there may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and biographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
[1] Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2006), 91.
[2] Terryl Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 63. See also: Givens, Wrestling the Angel, 60; Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology, 4th ed. (London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1877), 37; John Widtsoe, A Rational Theology: As Taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: General Boards of the Mutual Improvement Association, 1932), 175.
[3] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 442.
[4] Portions of this article draw on research from the author’s PhD dissertation. See Loren Pankratz, “Traditional Christian and Mormon Views of God and Their Compatibility with the Moral Theistic Argument: An Exercise in Ramified Natural Theology” (PhD diss., South African Theological Seminary, 2020).
[5] This paper will use the phrases “traditional view” and “traditional thought” as representing the view expressed in the paper’s opening sentence. As Samuel Brown has illustrated, there are a variety of ways Latter-day Saints may conceive of God from within this traditional viewpoint. See Samuel M. Brown, “Mormons Probably Aren’t Materialists,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 50, no. 3 (Fall 2017): 39–72.
[6] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 93.
[7] “Discourse, 5 February 1840: Historical introduction,” The Joseph Smith Papers.
[8] “Discourse, 5 February 1840.” See also, Ostler, Problems of Theism, 433.
[9] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1 [1 July 1843–30 April 1844],” 1970, The Joseph Smith Papers. See also, Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, 433.
[10] “Discourse, 5 February 1840.”
[11] “Discourse, 5 February 1840.”
[12] “Discourse, 5 February 1840.”
[13] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1,” 1968.
[14] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1,” 1970.
[15] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 435.
[16] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 438.
[17] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 438, emphasis in the original.
[18] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church History Topics, “Lectures on Theology (“Lectures on Faith”). Robert Millet calls the Lectures on Faith a “systematic study of faith.” See, Robert L. Millet, Precept Upon Precept: Joseph Smith and the Restoration of Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016), 217.
[20] “Lectures on Theology.” See also Charles R. Harrell, “This Is My Doctrine”: The Development of Mormon Theology (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), 121. Harrell claims that the consensus concerning authorship of the Lectures on Faith is that Joseph Smith “ultimately endorsed their contents and sanctioned their publication.” Joseph Fielding Smith reminds the reader that the Lectures “were not taken out of the Doctrine and Covenants because they contained false doctrine,” and that “the Prophet himself revised and prepared these Lectures on Faith for publication; and they were studied in the School of the Prophets.” See Joseph Fielding Smith, Seek Ye Earnestly (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1970), 194.
[21] Millet, Precept Upon Precept, 236.
[22] Joseph Smith Jr., Lectures on Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1985), 60.
[23] Smith, Lectures on Faith, 75.
[24] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 91.
[25] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1,” 1971.
[26] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 440.
[27] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 440.
[28] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 440.
[29] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1,” 1969.
[30] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1,” 1969.
[31] Joseph Smith Jr., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd rev. ed., edited by B. H. Roberts (Deseret Book: Salt Lake City, 1980), 6:305. See also Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, 441.
[32] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 441.
[33] “Accounts of the ‘King Follett Sermon,’” The Joseph Smith Papers.
[34] “Accounts of the ‘King Follett Sermon.’”
[35] “Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by William Clayton,” 13, The Joseph Smith Papers.
[36] Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University), 361.
[37] “Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Thomas Bullock,” 16, The Joseph Smith Papers.
[38] “Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Thomas Bullock.”
[39] “Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Thomas Bullock.”
[40] Kevin L. Barney, “Joseph Smith’s Emendation of Hebrew Genesis 1:1.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 30, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 107.
[41] “Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Times and Seasons,” 614, The Joseph Smith Papers.
[42] Stan Larson’s amalgamated text of the King Follett Sermon is in harmony with the traditional published version of the discourse. It reads, “For we have imagined that God was God from the beginning of all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so you may see.” Larson’s modern amalgamation preserves Smith refuting the idea that God was God from the beginning. See Stan Larson, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text,” BYU Studies Quarterly 18, no. 2 (1978): 201. See also B. H. Roberts, The Mormon Doctrine of Deity (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1903), 227.
[43] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1,” 1972.
[44] Zucker L. “Joseph Smith as a Student of Hebrew.” Dialogue 3 (Summer 1968): 53.
[45] Barney, “Joseph Smith’s Emendation,” 128.
[46] Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, 442.
[47] Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 378.
[48] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 442.
[49] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 444.
[50] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 444, emphasis in the original.
[51] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 445.
[52] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 445.
[53] Ostler, Problems of Theism, 445.
[54] “Discourse, 16 June 1844–A, as Reported by George Laub,” 30, The Joseph Smith Papers, emphasis added.
[55] “Discourse, 16 June 1844–A, as Reported by George Laub,” 31.
[56] “Discourse, 16 June 1844–A, as Reported by William McIntire,” 21, The Joseph Smith Papers.
[57] Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: Of God and Gods (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008), 20. See also Ostler, Problems of Theism, 443.
[58] “Discourse, 16 June 1844–A, as Reported by Thomas Bullock,” 2, The Joseph Smith Papers.
[59] “Discourse, 16 June 1844–A, as Reported by Thomas Bullock,” 3.
[60] “Discourse, 16 June 1844–A, as Reported by Thomas Bullock,” 3.
[61] “Discourse, 16 June 1844–A, as Reported by William McIntire,” 21.
[62] “Discourse, 16 June 1844–A, as Reported by William McIntire,” 21.
[post_title] => Was Joseph Smith a Monarchotheist? An Engagement with Blake Ostler’s Theological Position on the Nature of God [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 55.2 (Spring 2022): 37–72Joseph Smith’s teachings on God found in his preaching at the April 7, 1844 general conference, known as the King Follett Sermon, and Smith’s Sermon in the Grove, given at a meeting held just east of the Nauvoo Temple on June 16, 1844, have appeared to many to give strong support to this view. There, he taught that God was not always God but developed into God over time. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => was-joseph-smith-a-monarchotheist-an-engagement-with-blake-ostlers-theological-position-on-the-nature-of-god [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-04 18:47:37 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-04 18:47:37 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://dj.slanginteractive.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=30130 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

Praise to the Man: The Development of Joseph Smith Deification in Woolleyite Mormonism, 1929–1977
Cristina Rosetti
Dialogue 54.3 (Fall 2021): 41–65
However, the 1886 Revelation and subsequent statement also raised their own doctrinal questions that were continually developed through the lineage that became Woolleyite Mormonism. Namely, why was the resurrected Joseph Smith present alongside Jesus Christ at the meeting with John Taylor?
“My testimony is that Joseph Smith is at the head of this dispensation; he is a member of the Godhead and he is the One Mighty and Strong. And it is his work to set the house of God in order.”
Saint Joseph W. Musser, June 25, 1944
The Lorin C. Woolley Statement
On September 22, 1929, Lorin C. Woolley stood before a group of Mormon men and read a statement on the continuation of plural marriage. His statement began with an overview of June 1886, when leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered to raise their concerns about the government confiscating Church property over the issue of polygamy.[1] According to Woolley’s account, many of the men were in support of appeasing the government to preserve Church assets. Leading the charge of this position was George Q. Cannon who, along with Hiram B. Clawson, Franklin S. Richards, John T. Caine, and James Black, met with President John Taylor for his consideration. On September 26, 1886, unable to come to a consensus among the men, Cannon suggested that President Taylor take the matter to God.[2]
In Woolley’s recollection of the evening, he sat in his room and began reading the Doctrine and Covenants, a compilation of LDS Church presidents’ revelations, when, “I was suddenly attracted to a light appearing under the door leading to President Taylor’s room, and was at once startled to hear the voices of men talking there. There were three distinct voices.”[3] Concerned for Taylor’s well-being, who was in hiding for his own participation in plural marriage, Woolley ran to the door and found it bolted. Perplexed, he stood by the door until morning, when Taylor emerged from the room with a “brightness of his personage.”[4] Looking to Woolley, and the other men now gathered at the door, Taylor explained, “Brethren, I have had a very pleasant conversation all night with Brother Joseph [Smith].”[5] Even more perplexed, Woolley questioned the voices, only to learn that the third voice was Jesus Christ. With little additional explanation, Woolley recalled Taylor placing “each person under covenant that he or she would defend the principle of Celestial or Plural Marriage, and that they would consecrate their lives, liberty and property to this end, and that they personally would sustain and uphold the principle.”[6] Following the alleged ordination, Taylor penned the revelation, popularly referred to as the 1886 Revelation, that affirmed the continued practice of polygamy and its place as an irrevocable doctrine for Latter-day Saints.
The 1886 Revelation was a watershed moment for the development of Mormon fundamentalism. In light of government prosecution and internal persecution of polygamists within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the revelation became a touchstone that affirmed the fundamentalist position on plural marriage. At the same time, the revelation became a marker of an alternate priesthood lineage outside of the LDS Church. Rather than follow the leadership of Wilford Woodruff and the subsequent end of polygamy, a priesthood led by John W. Woolley was initiated to preserve the practice. However, the 1886 Revelation and subsequent statement also raised their own doctrinal questions that were continually developed through the lineage that became Woolleyite Mormonism. Namely, why was the resurrected Joseph Smith present alongside Jesus Christ at the meeting with John Taylor?
Since Smith’s death in 1844, Mormonism struggled to place the martyr within their cosmology. In life, Smith’s role as the prophet of the last dispensation went largely uncontested among his followers. While this remains the case, his position in death is much more complex. In Christopher J. Blythe’s work on the apotheosis of Joseph Smith and the struggle to make sense of the late prophet’s identity after death, he describes how early Latter-day Saints conceptualized their late leader, including the use of past sermons that alluded to Smith’s identity as “veiled in mystery.”[7] The most notable and often cited of these mysterious remarks stated, “Would to God, brethren, I could tell you who I am! Would to God I could tell you what I know! But you would call it blasphemy and want to take my life.”[8] Smith’s vague statement on his identity shortly before his death left a knowledge void among his believers that allowed for diverse doctrinal speculation. Summarizing the various responses to Smith’s death, Blythe shows a range of positions, from beliefs that Smith belonged within the angelic hierarchy to assertions that his place was among the godsfrom assertions that Smith belonged within the angelic hierarchy to his place among the gods.
Through doctrinal routinization, LDS leaders sought to distance themselves from the latter position and clarify Smith’s place within Mormon cosmology. Within the LDS Church, Smith was doctrinally concretized as a mortal prophet who spoke with God, but was not God. However, as the LDS Church increasingly moved away from deification, with the eventual concretization of Smith’s place as the prophet of God, but not God, Mormon fundamentalists developed a doctrine of deity that named Smith as the third member of the Godhead. Most notably, Lorin C. Woolley and the men who descend from his priesthood lineage constructed a discourse on the nature of God that placed Smith back within Woolley’s own speculative framework on exaltation.
This article analyzes deification as a discursive practice that, together with Mormon theology of embodiment, exalted Smith to deity. Within many of the largest Mormon fundamentalist groups, Smith’s position as a member of the Godhead fills the void of Smith’s claim and answers for his continued presence in the lives of the Saints. For many Mormons gathering outside of the institutional LDS Church, Smith remains present in the lives of believers and continues to serve as a source of authority for minority Mormon groups because he became one of the gods.
Mingling with Gods
Following the death of Joseph Smith, a poem turned hymn appeared in the August 1844 issue of Times and Seasons, an LDS newspaper that circulated in Nauvoo, Illinois. William W. Phelps wrote “Praise to the Man” to celebrate the life and legacy of the late prophet. While the hymn underwent its own controversy and revision in the twentieth century, the chorus remained an iconic segment of the commemorative poem:
Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven! Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain. Mingling with Gods, he can plan for his brethren; Death cannot conquer the hero again.
The writings of Phelps, and other early leaders within the Church after Smith’s martyrdom, constructed and concretized norms surrounding both faith and the language that serves as its foundation. Through writing, sermonizing, and doctrinal speculation, they created doctrines that became lived realities that governed the lives of the Saints. As authors recalled and theorized Smith’s existence, Smith’s existence came to life. In ensuing decades, Smith became an authoritative figure who governed those who believed themselves the heirs of the faith he founded.
When Lorin C. Woolley first speculated on the nature of Joseph Smith in 1932, he began with the language of Phelps’s hymn to articulate Smith’s central role in both the Church and the eschaton. The first recorded reference to Joseph Smith by Woolley occurred during a meeting of his School of the Prophets on March 6, 1932. Because Woolley did not keep a diary or a record of his revelations and doctrinal developments, early Woolleyite Mormonism is best known through the writings of the men in his Priesthood Council, the group of men ordained by Woolley to maintain the principles of Mormonism outside the bounds of the institutional Church.[9] Woolleyite doctrine recorded in Joseph W. Musser’s Book of Remembrances and the meeting minutes for the School of the Prophets give the most comprehensive overview of Woolley’s teachings.[10]
In his first lecture pertaining to Smith, Woolley expounded on Smith’s infamous “Would to God” statement. He explained:
J.S. repeated the statement—“‘Would to God I could tell you who I am.’ The saints are not yet prepared to know their Prophet leader.” Joseph S. is probably a literal descendent of Jesus Christ of Jewish and Ephraim lineage, the blood of Judah probably predominating—the ruling power. . . . Adam at head of Adamic dispensation; Christ at head of dispensation of the Meridian of Times and Joseph at the head of the last dispensation. “Would to God I could tell you who I am!” Being a God, he is mingling with Gods and planning for his brethren.[11]
In the last year of his life, Smith welcomed his followers to consider their eternality and the transformative aspects of death. In the often-cited King Follet Sermon, delivered by Smith in 1844, Smith remarked, “You have got to learn how to be a god yourself in order to save yourself.”[12] By articulating Smith as “mingling with gods,” Woolley postulated of an already exalted Smith, placing Smith within his own theological development and asserting that through his own mortal probation Smith was exalted into the realm of the gods.
Woolley maintained Smith’s unquestionable role as the prophet who restored the Church and revived the priesthood, or power of God, to earth. Having accomplished this mortal work, Mormons place Smith as the head of the final dispensation, or period of divine time in which an authorized leader holds the priesthood and ministers on behalf of God. As Woolley looked back on the leaders of various dispensations, he accounted for their potential exaltation, especially when viewed through the theological teachings of Brigham Young and the Adam–God doctrine.[13] The three dispensation periods most spoken about by Woolley were the Adamic dispensation that began humanity, the dispensation at the meridian of time led by Jesus, and the dispensation of the fullness of time led by Joseph Smith.[14] Placing these three individuals together, along with Smith’s own comments about his identity, afforded Woolley a starting point for positioning Smith not only within the realm of deity but within the Godhead of Mormon cosmology.
In the last years of his life, Smith offered several comments that alluded to his significance beyond an earthly leader of a temporal Church. The famous “Would to God” statement, paraphrased by Woolley, not only raised the question of Smith’s identity, but offered perceived sacrilege as the reason for not divulging, “But you would call it blasphemy and want to take my life.”[15] Smith’s vague comments were not a deterrent to Woolley. Rather, they were rich with meaning but in need of order and understanding. Central to the early fundamentalist worldview was the belief that doctrines are not available to all people. The assumption being that Smith could not reveal his identity to the members of the Church, but he potentially revealed it to the members of the priesthood.[16] In recollections of his time with Smith, Brigham Young, Smith’s successor as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, noted that revelations are reserved for a certain time and often only to those prepared for them.[17] For Musser and other members of Mormon fundamentalist movements, the people best prepared for the weightier doctrines were the members of the priesthood. Whereas the Church tends toward introductory doctrine and casting aside of the more challenging principles, the priesthood is reserved to maintain the entirety of the faith, including the nature of God. Similar to Brigham Young’s comment, Woolley claimed that John Taylor, the third president of the LDS Church and the one claimed to have received the 1886 Revelation and ordained the earliest members of the Priesthood Council apart from the Church, eventually came to a knowledge of Smith as a god.
One of the great challenges to historians of Woolleyite Mormonism are his unsourced statements, such as Taylor’s realization of Smith as deity. Because Woolley did not make use of primary sources, Woolley’s own revelations became the primary source material for doctrinal formation. As a prophet, Woolley took disparate histories and statements and transformed them into concrete reality. His power as a leader was his ability to sermonize discourse into doctrine, transforming theological ideas into tenets of the faith. One of the greatest examples of this was Woolley’s brief accounts of the moments leading up to Smith’s martyrdom and the implication that Smith was aware of his divine status prior to death. At a May 5, 1932 meeting of the School of the Prophets, Woolley spoke on Smith’s preaching prior to his death, “Shortly before being murdered, Joseph Smith said: ‘I am going to take my place in the heavens,’ until which time John Taylor did not have a clear understanding of who J. S. was—one of the Gods.”[18] The understanding that Smith continued working on the other side of the veil was not a controversial idea in early Mormonism. In his public sermons, Brigham Young commented on Smith’s role in the afterlife and place in the final judgement, “Joseph Smith holds the keys of this last dispensation, and is now engaged behind the veil in the great work of the last days.”[19]
Because of Smith’s role as the head of this dispensation and subsequent martyrdom, Woolley’s sermons and doctrinal developments assumed his exaltation alongside the great patriarchs of the Old Testament, who were themselves believed to be heads of their respective dispensations. As these developments formed, Woolley’s sermons spoke Smith’s deification into existence. Drawing on Smith’s own theology of embodiment, Woolley preached about Smith as intermingling between the temporal and spiritual. However, it was not until the writings of Joseph W. Musser that Smith became identified with a particular deity of this world who consciously accepted a body. It was also under Musser that the doctrine was further concretized, to the detriment of all other speculative possibilities. Whereas Woolley made Smith a god in embryo, Musser transformed Smith into a god embodied.
The Office of the Holy Ghost
In 1934, Wooley passed away, leaving Joseph W. Musser one step closer to his future role as president of the Priesthood Council. Already before Woolley’s death, Musser’s authorship of multiple doctrinal pamphlets and editorial work for the monthly Truth magazine made him the primary conduit of Woolleyite doctrine.[20] In his leadership role, Musser inherited a religious community marked by both outside prosecution and internal persecution. Having been excommunicated from the LDS Church, Musser joined the Woolley Priesthood Council, an organization that he conceptualized as the highest Joseph W. Musser expression of Mormon priesthood and the avenue for preserving Joseph Smith’s most sacred doctrines.
While most of Musser’s theology focused on the centrality of the priesthood and the continuation of plural marriage, Musser also penned the first full-length fundamentalist pamphlet on the nature of God. Michael, Our Father and Our God: The Mormon Conception of Deity as Taught by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor and their Associates in the Priesthood first appeared in volume 3 of Truth magazine and was later reprinted in four editions as a stand-alone pamphlet. The pamphlet sold for 25 cents and purportedly circulated among LDS elders quorums and Sunday Schools throughout the intermountain West.[21] In this work, Musser articulated the necessity of embodiment for exaltation and acted as an ordering agent who clarified doctrine of God in a way that solidified its place in fundamentalist theology. Through his speculative discourses, Woolley brought doctrine to life. Through his widely circulated writing, Musser solidified Woolley’s speculations as truth.
During the April 7, 1844 conference of the Church, Joseph Smith stood before his congregation and emphatically stated, “We have imagined that God was God from all eternity. These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are the simple and first principles of the gospel, to know for a certainty the character of God.”[22] In line with Smith’s statement on the first principle, Musser’s pamphlet was an attempt at Mormon theology that both defended Young’s theory of divine embodiment and accounted for human exaltation. For Musser, the goal of the pamphlet was “acquainting the Saints with the true God of Israel, His genesis, His character and attributes.”[23] Michael, Our Father and Our God, in all of its editions, fulfilled Smith’s 1844 call for the Saints to know for certain the nature of God, a not-too-distant and embodied being that was both familiar and humanity’s goal.
Whereas Woolley made claims regarding the deification of Smith, and the other members of the Godhead, Musser sought to answer the mechanics of the claims. Michael, Our Father and Our God was foremost a critique of contemporary LDS leadership that disregarded Brigham Young’s teaching of the Adam–God doctrine. This doctrine had been central to early Utah Mormonism. On April 9, 1852, Brigham Young delivered an address in the tabernacle for the semiannual general conference on the nature of God. During his sermon, Young asserted that Michael entered an earthly body in Eden and became Adam, “the first of the human family.”[24] At the end of his life, having served his God faithfully, Adam was translated back into his celestial body and attained exaltation.[25] “As a man who was exalted and became God, Adam affords spiritual beings the opportunity to follow his mortal existence and seek embodiment for the purpose of becoming gods.
To make sense of Brigham Young’s doctrine, Musser introduced his reader to “offices” and “titles” of deities. Whereas the majority of Christianity refers to the divine person as “God,” Musser sought to identify the being and the title as distinct. He explained, “The key to understanding is the difference between the individual and the office held by the individual. ‘God’ is a title or office—a principle; and yet the being who occupies this office of God is an exalted man. The office of ‘God’ has always existed and always will exist. It, the office, is without ‘beginning of days or end of years.’”[26] Within this framework, Michael currently holds the office of “God.”[27] In a similar way, furthering the doctrine from the teaching of Brigham Young, Musser posited “Jehovah” as a salvific office that works alongside God by entering a temporal body in this world to redeem humanity. By completing his divinely appointed mission on earth, Jesus attained exaltation following his tenure as the savior of this world.[28] In looking at these two beings together, Musser recognized a similarity between the Father and Son. Both experienced mortality. With this in mind, Musser sought to make sense of embodiment as it relates to the third member of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost.
Young’s doctrine faced vast criticism in the twentieth century. Musser’s LDS contemporaries quickly denounced the teaching as unfounded or noted the possibility of a misquote or misunderstanding. In response, Musser was firm in his conviction that Young’s doctrine of God was vital to human exaltation because it offered human beings a clear path forward and example of their future godliness. However, in speaking on the third member of the Godhead, Musser’s early work is not as exact or clear. If exaltation makes use of materiality as the vehicle for godliness, the implication is that gods require bodies. Early Mormon teachings on the Holy Ghost aligned with their Protestant counterparts; even Brigham Young noted that the Holy Ghost is not “a person of tabernacle as we are.”[29] For a faith that placed embodiment as a precursor to godliness, the Holy Ghost’s lack of materiality created potential problems for the Mormon conception of God.
Rather than settle on the Holy Ghost existing as a personage without embodiment, Musser used his theory of divine offices to answer for the Holy Ghost. Early in his writing, Musser referred to the Holy Ghost as “God’s witness to mankind,” the divine presence that makes God known to humanity.[30] In A Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel, Elder Franklin D. Richards and amateur historian James A. Little expound on this idea: “Everlasting covenant was made between three personages before the organization of this earth, and relates to their dispensation of things to men on the earth: these personages, according to Abraham’s record, are called God the first, the Creator; God the second, the Redeemer; and God the third, the Witness or Testator.”[31] As someone well-acquainted with early Mormon writings, Musser was familiar with the phrase “witness and testator.” However, unlike his LDS counterparts, the phrase was familiar because of its use in reference to Joseph Smith.
Like those before him, Musser believed that Smith served greater than anyone because he both witnessed God in vision and testified of him in this dispensation through the Book of Mormon and establishment of the Church despite opposition. For this reason, Musser devoted each December issue of his magazine, Truth, to the commemoration of Smith’s birth and earthly mission. Like most fundamentalist work, the magazine was largely a collection of quotes and passages from previous leaders. In addition, Musser offered commentary on the happenings in the LDS Church, community updates, most of which dealt with excommunications of fundamentalists in southern Utah, and a widely read editorial section, written by Musser, that expounded on historical issues and doctrine.
In the 1937 issue of Truth, which Musser used to commemorate the birth of Joseph Smith, an entire section of the magazine was devoted to Smith as the witness and testator. He wrote, “Joseph Smith’s mission was that of a WITNESS, a TESTATOR. He came in the ‘fulness of times,’ to re-establish God’s laws in the earth. Joseph’s dispensation is the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, when all things are to be gathered as one, never again to be taken from the earth.”[32] While Musser acknowledged Smith’s role as both witness and testator, the first public connection between Smith’s honorific title testator and attribution to godliness was not until the distribution of Michael, Our Father and Our God. Drawing the connection between Smith’s earthly role and the designation given the Holy Ghost, Musser offered his first public questioning of Smith’s role outside of temporality: “and why not Joseph Smith, who was the ‘Witness or Testator,’ ‘God the third’?”[33] This public question, the first time having appeared in a widely distributed publication, opened the theological possibility of Smith as the Holy Ghost for the entire fundamentalist movement. While he was not yet acting as the leader of the movement, Musser’s writings quickly became the voice of the growing community and carried an authoritative weight that was not found elsewhere in fundamentalism. With this public question, the doctrinal deification of Joseph Smith took shape.
Drawing on both the work of Richards and Little, as well as his own theological questioning in his pamphlets, Musser’s December 1940 issue of Truth marked a shift in the telling of Smith’s story. Whereas previous accounts recalled the First Vision, importance of priesthood restoration, and events leading up to the martyrdom, this issue responded to Smith’s curious comment, “Would to God, brethren, I would tell you who I am.” Again, drawing on Brigham Young’s sentiment that not all truths were revealed to all people, the magazine questions the great truth that Smith concealed from his Church. Responding to Richards and Little’s description of the Godhead, Musser wrote, “Who is this ‘Witness and Testator?’ None other than Joseph Smith. He alone occupies that sacred office. Even now—ninety-six years since his martyrdom—the Saints as a body are unable to comprehend the great truth; and movements are afloat to nullify some of the doctrines he established, and for which he died!”[34] While references in Woolley’s School of the Prophets abound, this moment marked the first widely circulated reference to Smith as the Holy Ghost in the fundamentalist movement. As an authoritative voice and the primary circulator of fundamentalist doctrine, Musser established Smith’s position as one of the gods as not a simple matter of speculation, but a central tenet of his faith.
While Musser’s public commentary on the Godhead evolved over time, most of his comments on the subject appeared in sermons given during meetings with members of the fundamentalist movement. During these meetings, members traveled across the state to hear from their leaders, first in homes and then in the shared Priesthood House, dedicated on August 9, 1942. This space, and the community it held, was significant for Musser, who argued that the institutional Church was not prepared for some doctrines. Rather, members of the Priesthood Council were the ones responsible for the maintenance and promulgation of higher laws, such as plural marriage and the lived practice of consecration. Musser referenced this idea in his work on Adam–God stating, “The doctrine, while sound, was too strong for mass reception. And so, with facts pertaining to creation.”[35] Rather than preached over the pulpit in LDS meetinghouses, which Musser argued would lead to the group being “hissed out” of the Tabernacle, Musser believed that the Priesthood Council was responsible for teaching the true nature of God.[36]
Musser’s articulation of potential LDS reaction to the doctrine not only positioned the Salt Lake Church as lacking in divine knowledge, it simultaneously positioned the Priesthood Council as holding special access to God. The distinction between the Church and the priesthood, with the priesthood functioning as the higher organizational structure, was an overarching theme of Musser’s writing.[37] Much like his writing on the preservation of plural marriage as a function of the priesthood, the theological development of Smith as the Holy Ghost linked the priesthood to both God and the earliest moments of the Church’s organization. For the minority Mormon movement seeking legitimization in a time of religious upheaval, the exaltation of Smith transformed the founder of the faith into a knowable deity who oversaw the truest expression of the faith.
It was during priesthood meetings that Musser made frequent reference to Smith as “the God of this dispensation,” referencing Smith’s role as the one who re-established God’s authority on the earth.[38] His first reference on February 23, 1941 argued against placing Smith in a more subordinate position than warranted, something Musser grew increasingly concerned about during his tenure in the Priesthood Council. Musser stated: “I want to protest with all the zeal and power that I have and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, against subordinating Joseph Smith, that great and glorious prophet. Joseph is a God, one of the trinity of this planet. Don’t you understand? His own people didn’t know that, for they would not have killed him had they known. He is a God in the trinity of this earth. He is going to wind up all things and will take his place with Adam our God.”[39] Unlike traditional theologies that afford God one instance of incarnation, through Jesus Christ, Musser created a worldview where godly embodiment was the rule that punctuated human existence. Rather than simply focus on a linear trajectory between mortality and godliness, Musser presented an intricate divine relationship where the gods participate in embodiment throughout the course of history.
In order to understand Smith’s role, Musser continued to draw from Richards and Little’s interpretation of the Godhead, specifically the idea that the members of the Godhead entered into a covenant prior to mortality with the understanding that they would become the gods of this world: “Joseph Smith was one of the three Gods that were appointed to come here on earth and to people this earth and to redeem it—God, the Father, the creator; God the Mediator, the Savior, the Redeemer; and God the Witness and the Testator. Before they came here upon earth, and in the presence of the great Elohim of this earth’s galaxy, they entered into a covenant which established them as the Gods, or the Trinity of this earth.”[40]
On that same year, on December 26, 1943, Musser further articulated the meeting between the Godhead to prepare for their mortal probations: “We know Joseph Smith as one member in the Godhead. He with His Father and elder brother, Jesus Christ, met before he came here in the mortal state, and met concerning their covenants with each other before they ever came here and were in their positions they assumed before ever they came here.”[41] Musser’s articulation of Smith’s prior knowledge of his divinity and future exaltation flipped the logics of apotheosis. Within Musser’s framework, Smith was not only a god in embryo, but a god embodied.
Early members of the Church speculated on the role of Smith after death, some attributing him a place in the final judgement. Most notably, Brigham Young taught that, as the head of this dispensation, Smith’s presence was essential for salvation: “no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith. From the day that the Priesthood was taken from the earth to the winding-up scene of all things, every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are.”[42] Years later, Musser would articulate the same sentiment, arguing that Smith held an essential place in the salvation of human beings as a member of the Godhead. At a Priesthood Council meeting on December 26, 1943, Musser stated, “To me, Joseph Smith is my leader and God; he is not Adam, Michael; nor Jesus Christ; but I do not expect to pass into the presence of Jesus Christ, or my Father Adam, Michel, except when I am passed upon by Joseph Smith.”[43]
While not shared by the Church down the street from the Council’s Priesthood House, members of the Council appeared to readily accept the doctrine, recording it in their journals alongside other meeting notes. After one of Musser’s first sermons on the topic, Joseph Lyman Jessop recorded his notes from the Sunday School meeting: “Many notable things were said. Pres. Musser said ‘Joseph Smith is the third member of the Godhead of this earth.’ He held up the book of Doctrine and Covenants and said in substance, ‘Here are the revelations of the Lord to this dispensation. Anyone claiming leadership must be in accord with these revelations or he cannot be of God.’”[44] Whereas Woolley spoke of Smith as deity, Musser’s writings and sermons created tangible doctrines that solidified the nature of God for members of the fundamentalist movement. Taken together, Musser ended speculation and alternative possibilities for Smith’s posthumous existence. Much like early leaders within the LDS Church, Musser and his priesthood group routinized Smith into godliness.
Gods Above Gods Infinitely
In 1944, Musser ordained Rulon C. Allred as “Second Elder,” the title given to the man who would take his place in the priesthood succession after his passing. This ordination was not without controversy, as many of the Council did not agree with the ordination.[45] However, despite protest, Allred succeeded Musser and eventually became the president of the Priesthood Council. In this role, Allred oversaw the growth and expansion of the movement, as well as the building of a temple and the implementation of ordinances outside of the LDS Church. In addition, Allred incorporated the community into a church, acknowledging that the LDS Church no longer held authority following the lifting the priesthood restriction.[46] The church he incorporated, the Apostolic United Brethren, remains one of the largest Mormon fundamentalist churches in the nation. As the new leader of the contested fundamentalist movement, Allred remained committed to teaching and expanding on the doctrinal development of Woolleyite Mormonism. This included concretizing Smith’s place as the Holy Ghost within the fundamentalist movement turned church.
As leader, Allred encouraged his Mormon fundamentalists to retain the principles of the gospel and live lives worthy to return to God and attain their own exaltation. Like his predecessors, Allred advocated for sermons without notes and frequently served as the final speaker at church meetings. One such meeting occurred on October 6, 1974 and was devoted to the Holy Ghost. In his address, Allred sought to expand on Doctrine and Covenants 93, a subject that was discussed earlier in the Sunday School meeting. What made Allred’s doctrinal exposition particularly interesting is the way he both elaborated on the work of Musser and veered in new directions, arguing for a representational embodiment and not an embodied deity limited to one probationary period. Allred asserted the abundance that exists pertaining to the spirit of God and argued for a limitless nature of deity. He explained, “But it is so limitless that even the Gods in their various positions are eternally reaching out to its laws and its ordinances and its principles its powers, its dominions and is exaltations. Therefore, there are Gods above Gods infinity.”[47] One such deity, the Holy Ghost, was viewed as so infinite in power that Allred argued no person could fully comprehend the power in mortality.
Allred’s clarification conceptualized embodiment as a reason why the Holy Ghost does not remain a constant part of the believer’s life, “But the Holy Ghost as an individual, does not abide in us. It is the Spirit which emanates from the Father and the Son which abides in us.”[48] However, at the same time, Allred began developing a theology in which the offices of the Godhead are rotating and serve as representations of godliness in various dispensations: “Jehovah, in His supreme power, having passed through these things more than Michael, therefor directed Michael. Michael was the agent through which both Elohim and Jehovah acted. He fulfilled the office of the Holy Ghost, representing the Father and the Son to all of the things under His direction and His creation and organization. This being so, here you have an individual representing the power of the Holy Ghost in creation.”[49] Allred conceptualized his theology as the Holy Ghost “bearing of the responsibility of exaltation” within the world they presided.[50] The Holy Ghost is a messenger in a specific time and for a specific people. Within this framework, Joseph Smith acted as the Holy Ghost and served in this office, but did not necessarily retain that position as an eternal and static state. Whereas Musser conceived of Smith as embodied deity, Allred argued for Smith as an embodied representation of deity.
While the spirit of God is welcomed into the life of the believer through the confirmation ordinance, the office of the Holy Ghost remains a personage in Allred’s theology. At the same time, Allred complicates the matter through his theology of infinite gods above gods. To make sense of Smith’s place within the exalted sphere, Allred argued for multiple gods, some of which preside in eternity and some in temporality:
Joseph Smith in speaking of this said there were three Gods pertaining to the spiritual world, and there are three Gods pertaining to the temporal world. These three Gods were god the Father, and He is defined as Adam; God the Son, and He is defined as the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God; and God the Holy Ghost, who held the keys of the dispensation of the fulness of times. The Prophet Joseph Smith perfectly fit this office of the Holy Ghost in this mortal world, in that we are told repeatedly in ancient and modern scripture that there would be one servant of God who would be raised up who would reveal all things in the dispensation in the fulness of times.[51]
Allred’s theology pointed to the office of the Holy Ghost as the being by which all people in this mortal dispensation participated in godliness. For Allred, Smith was not the vehicle of exaltation itself, but that which represented it. Human beings are able to come in contact with godliness through the work of Joseph Smith, the witness and testator.
On January 13,1977, Allred offered another talk devoted to the Holy Ghost. This time, the meeting was a fireside and Allred accepted questions and responded based on his knowledge of the subject, claiming much of his information from Joseph Smith and Orson Pratt.[52] During this meeting, Allred continued his theological development of multiple trinitarian Godheads, arguing, “I cannot conclude anything else but that in the spiritual creation there were the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—Elohim, Jehovah, and Michael. In the temporal creation there is the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost represented by the three distinct Beings, Adam, the Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Redeemer, and Joseph the Prophet, the witness and testator who restored all things.”[53] Whereas Musser alluded to a spiritual trinity outside of temporality, Allred concretized the idea and developed it into a complex theology of multiple gods in both temporality and eternity with Smith as the final member of the temporal Godhead.
In the same sermon, Allred addressed the LDS Church and stated that, while acknowledging the Holy Ghost as a personage of spirit, he could not commit to name the personage. Allred continued, “I cannot construe it in any other light, that as far as the temporal creation of the world is concerned, we have the perfect representation of the Father, Adam, Jehovah, God among men, the Son, the Redeemer, and Joseph Smith the Prophet, the witness and testator of both the Father and the Son, who restored all things.”[54] In response to why Allred believed the way he did, he quoted Smith, saying, “They dare not take the assumption of the Prophet Joseph Smith, who said, ‘If I were to tell you who I am, there are those upon this stand who would seek to take my life. And there is no blasphemy that can be compared with it.’”[55] Decades after Woolley first sought to fill the void left by Smith through the theological development of embodied deity, Allred affirmed that Smith’s words gave his followers a clue to the divine quest for exaltation by placing himself squarely within the doctrine.
Conclusion
Early in its founding, Mormonism radically redefined the nature of deity by centering materiality and embodiment. Through his lectures on exaltation, Smith spoke to the Saints and affirmed that God had a mortal existence much like themselves. In turn, the Saints held within them the beginnings of godliness and through mortality positioned to become gods. For Smith, mortality was not only the mediator between the temporal and spiritual, but also the vehicle back to God. At the same time, Smith began articulating his own role in Mormon cosmology with statements that were left open to interpretation and allowed for wide speculation. Though Smith’s spirit was routinized shortly after his death and concretized by the LDS Church, the theology Smith developed and his own statements on embodiment allowed for a minority of Saints to conceptualize Smith as more than a prophet.
Through the sermons and writings of Woolleyite Mormonism, the late prophet was placed within his own theological developments. As this happened, the practices of writing and sermonizing brought forth a theological reality that remains uncontested for many Mormons who follow Woolley’s priesthood lineage. Through Woolley’s sermons, Smith attained exaltation and became one of the many gods that surround Mormon cosmology and a deity known by the inheritors of the faith. In a time of upheaval for polygamous Mormons, the writings and sermons of Joseph W. Musser transformed Smith into the embodied Holy Ghost who continues to work on behalf of a persecuted religious community. Through Rulon C. Allred, Smith became a representation of an unending universe of deities, which continues as a foundational tenet of Mormon fundamentalism. Woolleyite Mormonism offers an alternate interpretation of the late martyr that takes Smith’s own statements on his divine mission, radical doctrine of embodied deity, and eternal perspective of exaltation to theologically innovative conclusions. Through the work of fundamentalist leaders who spoke Smith’s exaltation into reality, Smith fulfilled this mission and became a god.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
[1] The Edmunds–Tucker Act was passed by the Senate in January 1886. The Act disincorporated the Church, dissolved the corporation, and allowed for the federal government to confiscate Church property valued at more than $50,000. This monetary value put temples, the center of family formation and polygamous marriages, in jeopardy of confiscation.
[2] “Statements of Lorin C. Woolley and Daniel R. Bateman,” in Priesthood Items, 2nd edition, by J. W. Musser and J. L. Broadbent (n.p., 1933), 56.
[3] “Statements of Lorin C. Woolley and Daniel R. Bateman,” 56.
[4] “Statements of Lorin C. Woolley and Daniel R. Bateman,” 57.
[5] “Statements of Lorin C. Woolley and Daniel R. Bateman,” 57.
[6] “Statements of Lorin C. Woolley and Daniel R. Bateman,” 58.
[7] Christopher James Blythe, “‘Would to God Brethren, I Could Tell You Who I Am!’: Nineteenth-Century Mormonisms and the Apotheosis of Joseph Smith,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 18, no. 2 (2014): 16.
[8] Orson F. Whitney, The Life of Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake City: The Kimball Family, 1888), 333.
[9] In their later writings, the men of the Priesthood Council articulated a theology of priesthood that placed their ordinations above the LDS Church. Holding higher priesthood enabled these men to participate in rituals and practices no longer taught within the institution. Central to their mission was the preservation of polygamy. See Craig L. Foster and Marianne T. Watson, American Polygamy: A History of Fundamentalist Mormon Faith (Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2019).
[10] Woolley School of the Prophets Meeting Minutes, transcribed and edited by Bryan Buchanan, 7, photocopies in author’s possession. The Woolley School of the Prophets began meeting on September 1, 1932 in the homes and offices of its members in Salt Lake City. During the meeting, the men received the sacrament using bread and wine, participated in foot washing, and expounded on doctrine.
[11] “Praise to the Man,” Hymns, no. 27.
[12]“Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by William Clayton,” 11, The Joseph Smith Papers.
[13] Brigham Young, Apr. 9, 1852, Journal of Discourses, 1:46. Beginning in 1852, Brigham Young taught that Michael descended to earth and became a mortal, Adam. In mortality, Adam served his God faithfully and attained exaltation at the end of his life. In his exalted status, Adam is the God of this world. Young’s discourse on the nature of God outlined the nature of God and offered the Saints and tangible example of Smith’s exaltation doctrine.
[14] Doctrine and Covenants 128:20.
[15] Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, 333.
[16] Many Mormon fundamentalists teach that God gives “further light and knowledge” to people as they are prepared to receive it. Gary Barnes, an independent fundamentalist, wrote extensively on this in his pamphlet, Further Light Further Light and Knowledge: Understanding the Mysteries of the Kingdom. The pamphlet outlines the journey of Adam and Eve toward God and the necessity of receiving further light and knowledge through the acquisition of priesthood keys. He argues that all human beings must follow the same journey as Adam and Eve, receiving further light and knowledge, in order to return to God. See also Janet Bennion, Polygamy in Primetime: Media, Gender, and Politics in Mormon Fundamentalism (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2011).
[17] Brigham Young, Aug. 1831, Journal of Discourses, 3:333.
[18] Musser, Book of Remembrances, 11.
[19] Brigham Young, Oct. 9, 1859, Journal of Discourses, 7:289.
[20] Truth was a fundamentalist periodical that ran from 1935 until 1956. Each issue contained excerpts from former Church leaders, community updates (including commentary on government raids), and a monthly editorial by Musser on contemporary topics. From its inception, Musser proclaimed the magazine as centrally concerned with “the fundamentals governing man’s existence.” Truth 1, no. 1 (1935): 1.
[21] Truth 3, no. 10 (Mar. 1938): 173.
[22] “Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Times and Seasons,” 614, The Joseph Smith Papers.
[23] Joseph White Musser, “Preface to the 3rd Edition,” Michael, Our Father and Our God: The Mormon Conception of Deity as Taught by Joseph Smith, Brigham Yung, John Taylor and their Associates in the Priesthood, 4th ed. (Salt Lake City: Truth Publishing Co.).
[24] Brigham Young, Apr. 9, 1852, Journal of Discourses, 1:46. Musser argues that upon eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam’s body filled with blood and became mortal. This reflects the work of Benjamin E. Park, who wrote about Joseph Smith’s early conception of blood as the “‘corrupting’ factor associated with an earthly body.” Benjamin E. Park, “Salvation through a Tabernacle: Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt, and Early Mormon Theologies of Embodiment,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 43, no. 2 (Summer 2010): 1–44.
[25] Musser, Michael, Our Father and Our God, 109.
[26] Musser, Michael, Our Father and Our God, 85.
[27] Musser argued that Elohim is the name given to Adam’s God. Within this narrative, Adam and Eve were created on another earth governed by Elohim. In general, Musser referred to the Adam and Eve account as a “stork story” (Michael, Our Father and Our God, 100). Like parents teaching their children about storks delivering babies, Musser argues that Moses was inspired to write the account of Adam formed out of dust and Eve from Adam’s rib as a way of explaining the origins of humanity in a way that met “the mental capacities of his day” (Michael, Our Father and Our God, 100).
[28] Despite his early comments equating Jesus with Jehovah, similar to the teachings of the LDS Church, Musser’s later sermons and writings reflect a shift toward more traditional fundamentalist teachings. In a sermon given on July 23, 1941 in the home of Charles F. Zitting, Musser stated, “Our Brother, Jesus Christ, loves us and He is the Lord of this earth at the present time; He is not the Jehovah at the present time. He is the one who will be the Jehovah when the earth is sanctified.” The Sermons of Joseph W. Musser, 1940–1945, edited by Nathan and Bonnie Taylor, vols. 1–2, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Messenger Publications, 2008), 61.
[29] Brigham Young, Apr. 9, 1852, Journal of Discourses, 1:50.
[30] Musser, Michael, Our Father and Our God, 4.
[31] A Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel, second edition, compiled by Franklin D. Richards and Elder James A. Little (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Co., 1884), 1108.
[32] “JOSEPH SMITH, The Witness and Testator,” Truth 3, no. 7 (Dec. 1940): 106.
[33] “JOSEPH SMITH, The Witness and Testator,” 112.
[34] Truth 6, no. 7 (Dec. 1940): 157.
[35] Musser, Michael, Our Father and Our God, 79.
[36] “December 24, 1944,” in Sermons of Joseph W. Musser, 251.
[37] See Joseph W. Musser, A Priesthood Issue (1948).
[38] “June 28, 1942,” in Sermons of Joseph W. Musser, 109.
[39] “February 23, 1941,” in Sermons of Joseph W. Musser, 40.
[40] March 28, 1943, in Sermons of Joseph W. Musser, 157.
[41] Sermons of Joseph W. Musser, 212.
[42] Brigham Young, Oct. 9, 1859, Journal of Discourses, 7:289.
[43] “December 26, 1943,” in Sermons of Joseph W. Musser, 213.
[44] December 20, 1936, in Diary of Joseph Lyman Jessop, Volume 2 (1934–1945), 108.
[45] In his recollections of the events, Joseph Lyman Jessop, a member of the fundamentalist movement under Musser, recalled “At this service Bro. Jos. W Musser spoke and told the people of a revelation calling Bro. Rulon C. Allred to the Council of Priesthood. They (the Council) would not accept this and would not sustain him not help him lay hands and set Rulon apart to that office.” (May 6, 1951, in Diary of Joseph Lyman Jessop, Volume 3 [1945–1954], 140.) The following year, Lyman recalled Musser instructing the Saints that they were no longer required to attend meetings with the men who did not sustain Allred. This division constituted the largest split in the fundamentalist movement and the eventual formations of the largest fundamentalist groups in the United States.
[46] Allred, like many fundamentalists, argued that the government was primarily behind the lifting of the priesthood and temple ban. In addition to government pressure, Allred argued that the devil was also responsible for the pressure on the Church to “give up every principle as a Christian faith that would brand them as the Church of God.” For Allred, this included the priesthood and temple ban. “The Position of the Church Concerning Celestial Marriage and the Negro Holding the Priesthood,” in Selected Discourses and Excerpts from Talks by Rulon C. Allred, vol. 1, 1st ed. (Hamilton, Mont.: Bitterroot Publishing Company, 1981), 3.
[47] “6 October 1974. Place unknown. THE HOLY GHOST,” in Selected Discourses and Excerpts from Talks by Rulon C. Allred, 314.
[48] “6 October 1974,” 314.
[49] “6 October 1974,” 314.
[50] “6 October 1974,” 314.
[51] “6 October 1974,” 314, emphasis added.
[52] “13 January 1977. Fireside. Salt Lake City, Utah. THE HOLY GHOST,” in Selected Discourses and Excerpts from Talks by Rulon C. Allred, vol. 2, 1st ed. (Hamilton, Mont.: The Bitterroot Publishing Company, 1981), 317.
[53] “13 January 1977,” 318.
[54] “13 January 1977,” 318.
[55] “13 January 1977,” 318.
[post_title] => Praise to the Man: The Development of Joseph Smith Deification in Woolleyite Mormonism, 1929–1977 [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 54.3 (Fall 2021): 41–65However, the 1886 Revelation and subsequent statement also raised their own doctrinal questions that were continually developed through the lineage that became Woolleyite Mormonism. Namely, why was the resurrected Joseph Smith present alongside Jesus Christ at the meeting with John Taylor? [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => praise-to-the-man-the-development-of-joseph-smith-deification-in-woolleyite-mormonism-1929-1977 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-04 23:41:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-04 23:41:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=28552 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

The Secular Binary of Joseph Smith’s Translations
Michael Hubbard MacKay
Dialogue 54.3 (Fall 2021): 1–40
The debate about Joseph Smith’s translations have primarily assumed that the translation was commensurable and focuses upon theories of authorial involvement of Joseph Smith.
By 1828, Joseph Smith had carefully created copies and an “alphabet” of the characters on the gold plates to take to scholars to “git them translated.”[1] At this early stage it is easy to see him feeling around to understand his boundaries and to position himself to translate.[2] But what did it mean to translate in a secular world? According to Joseph, he sent the list of characters and a small sample of his own translation with his friend and benefactor Martin Harris to have them examined and academically translated.[3] In other words, Joseph almost immediately faced the problem of finding equivalent characters, symbols, and language to represent revelation from God. He ingenuously sent the characters and a piece of his own translation to linguists to identify a translation equivalency from the characters to English.[4]
By looking for someone to “git them translated,” Joseph opened himself up to an academic translation of the gold plates. In fact, the list of characters that he sent with Harris presented the possibility that he may have even obtained a one-to-one translation in an alphabetic format. One can only imagine Joseph Smith with a “reformed Egyptian” lexicon provided by Samuel Mitchell or Charles Anthon, sorting through the characters on the gold plates. Nonetheless, once Martin Harris returned without an academic translation of the characters, Joseph did not pursue a linguist translation or a one-to-one translation of the characters. He made a conscious decision to distance himself from a linguistic translation and accepted that the kind of translation he would produce was not done by finding equivalence between “reformed Egyptian” and English.[5] Joseph ignored all precision for equivalence in the translation by assuming that the words revealed to him constituted a translation of the characters. In other words, Joseph Smith was not in a position to know for himself whether the translation was correct; he had to trust that God was delivering the correct translation to him.
This episode highlights a central issue in the analysis of Joseph Smith’s translation projects and positions him squarely within the secular age. Were his translations based on a verifiable correspondence of symbols to English words, or did the process require a disconnected metaphysics that was incommensurable to the original symbols? The debate about Joseph Smith’s translations have primarily assumed that the translation was commensurable and focuses upon theories of authorial involvement of Joseph Smith. Scholars place their theories of translation on a spectrum in which God was completely responsible for the translation on one end and Joseph Smith was completely responsible on the other end. This is usually paralleled with another spectrum for how he translated, ranging from reading God’s translation from a seer stone to postmodern critiques about discourse.[6] With the intention of both contributing to and challenging these parallel spectrums of thought, this article will demonstrate Joseph’s realization of the incommensurability of his own translations by looking at his attempts to produce a linguistic translation. It does this by comparing three seemingly disparate translation projects that have rarely been associated together: the Book of Mormon “caractors” document (1829), the Pure Language Documents (1833/35), and the Kirtland Egyptian Alphabet (1835). Running through this examination, it will explore the tension between commensurability and incommensurability of translation.
This paper demonstrates continuity in Joseph Smith’s translation projects by tracking translation and commensurability between 1828 and 1835, giving special emphasis on “reformed Egyptian” characters and their possible English translation. These documents seem to be examples of a translation process that explicitly tried to assign a specific English meaning to a specific character from the mysterious languages from which Smith was translating. Yet, this paper challenges the theory that Joseph Smith was engaged in translation commensurability, i.e., the idea that there is a direct correspondence between two languages. Rather, this paper demonstrates that Smith’s translation projects, even in his most mechanical examples, relied on translation underdetermination, which refers both to the fact that his translations were not precise one-to-one linguistic translations and the broader idea that language offers multiple meanings and possible interpretations. It will illustrate Joseph’s failure to provide a commensurable translation of Egyptian characters and his own acceptance of an incommensurable translation.
Linguists have made it clear that perfect equivalency in translation is impossible, but philosophers of science go even further to demonstrate that our evidence at any given point is underdetermined, or insufficient in determining what beliefs we should hold about nature. Provoking the demise of twentieth-century logical positivism, Willard Van Orman Quine’s theory of the indeterminacy of translation argued that there could be multiple, equally correct translations of one word.[7] Reflecting the problem of translating, Quine skeptically challenged whether identifying synonyms was possible, questioning even whether an idea in one’s head was not a theoretical translation in the first place that needed justification, not just symbolic representation. Even native speakers misunderstand given the complex association with the language and various depths of expression and cultural meaning.[8] Joseph Smith expressed his own sense of underdetermination in his translations, as well as in his revelations. Such a close study of what he thought he was doing can reshape the current debates about his translations by focusing on the role that revelation and religious experience played in them.
This article will examine the tension present within Joseph Smith’s translations between the acceptance of an incommensurable translation and his attempts to find a commensurable translation. This binary is explored in juxtaposition with religion and secularism. The tension illustrates competing pulls between “religious” experience as the mediator of truth and a “common sense” appeal to verifiable secular knowledge.[9] In antebellum America, the competition between religious and secular knowledge shaped the quest for “true religion.”[10] Historian John Modern argues that this secular impulse in the period “conditioned not only particular understandings of the religious but also the environment in which these understandings became matters of common sense.”[11] In this view, the question of a religious and a secular knowledge are not in opposition to one another, but so intimately bound together as to shape and define the contours of each. This tension was the “connective tissue” in Joseph Smith’s world that made true religion, as Modern describes it.[12] In fact the formation of this tension and the creation of this relationship convinced Joseph Smith and his followers that they were religious in a secular world.[13] Like the brilliant research of Tomoko Masuzawa in which she showed how secularism made religion universal, the incommensurability of translation made Joseph Smith’s translations legitimate, but only through that binary.
The Book of Mormon
Translation was a process of change, but in Joseph Smith’s experience that change was not demonstrably a process of equivalent change, like a one-to-one translation of words. In the case of the Book of Mormon, for example, even claiming that there was a commensurable change between languages fails to demonstrate how they would know that. David Whitmer was one of the few witnesses of the translation that tried to make Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon commensurable with the original characters. He apparently told a reporter that “the graven characters would appear in succession to the seer, and directly under the character, when viewed through the glasses, would be the translation in English.”[14] Even if David Whitmer’s story of the translation process were true, in which words and equivalent characters appeared on Joseph’s seer stones, he still could not experience commensurability without knowing “reformed Egyptian.” This leaves Smith within a scenario in which he could not personally compare the gold plates with the English translation of the Book of Mormon. He experienced the process but he did not know through personal experience that it was correct or whether its modern translation represented a historical ontology or a nineteenth-century ontology. He simply could not know.
As early as 1829, the text of the Book of Mormon is self-aware of its incommensurability in translation. It states: “But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof” (Mormon 9:34). Mormon is self-aware of the problem of translation, since he is worried about his own ability to translate the records into “reformed Egyptian” and he is especially cognizant of the problem of future peoples being able to translate his translations and abridgements. Even reading words from a seer stone, if this is considered a petri dish for perfect transmission, still has the transformation required of the reader, not to mention the reality of errors of human cognition and inevitable reassessment of the canonical text. Just think of the issue of ontological assumptions being made by the producer of the text and the ontological assumptions being made by the reader, especially if they are separated by thousands of years and culturally at odds with each other.[15] The complexity of identity and cognition that come before speech inevitably problematize the outcome of Joseph Smith reading words from a seer stone, let alone translating cultural and ontologically oriented ideas.
The “caractors” document illustrates the point. Though there was a clear disconnect between the characters on the gold plates and the text in the Book of Mormon, Joseph still valued the copies of the characters that remained. Just because he could not assess the commensurability of the translation did not necessarily mean that he did not think it was commensurable. The interest in this kind of evidence for his translation and its relationship with the incommensurability of his translations eventually created a chain of interest in ancient characters from the Book of Mormon “Egyptian” to the book of Abraham “Egyptian.” There are several documented examples from 1828 to 1835 of Joseph identifying this tension. Below we will examine the examples of Joseph Smith attempting to translate Egyptian characters. In fact, even the Pure Language Documents are eventually connected with Joseph Smith’s most concerted efforts to verify or connect his translations back to an ancient language, or at least ancient characters.
Early Revelations
The secular tension present in Smith’s translations is also present in experiences within the leadership too. An important example is found in his history, in which Joseph noted that in November 1831, when they were compiling the early revelations that would eventually be a part of the Doctrine and Covenants, they had “some conversation . . . concerning revelations and language.”[16] Joseph’s revelation at the conference declared that through the spirit and a kind of communion with God, he produced the revelations, in which God declared that his servants were given this revelation “in their weakness after the manner of their language.”[17] Admitting the gap between religious experience and what his servants declared created space for others to experience the divine and to know that Joseph Smith’s revelations were from God. This was similar to the idea that the text led back to enthusiastic experience. The text of the revelation was connected to an experience of the divine. Joseph’s revelation promised:
I say unto you that it is your privilege & a promise I give unto you that have been ordained unto the ministry that in as much as ye strip yourselves from Jealesies & fears & humble yourselves before me for ye are not sufficiently humble the veil shall not be wrent & you shall see me & know that I am not with the carnal neither natural but with the spiritual for no man hath seen God at any time in the flesh but by the Spirit of God neither can any natural man abide the presence of God neither after the carnal mind ye are not to able to abide the presence of God now neither the ministering of Angels wherefore continue in patience untill ye are perfected let not your minds turn back & when ye are worthy in mine own due time ye shall see & know that which was confirmed <upon you> by the hands of my Ser[v]ant Joseph.[18]
Accepting the fact that his language was flawed, Joseph was asking the elders at the conference to have this experience and testify that his revelations were from God, in spite of his inability to communicate as clearly as God.
Some of the elders questioned the verity of Joseph’s revelations because of his linguistic expressions. Joseph challenged them to write a revelation themselves that would be as efficacious as the revelations that he had produced. William E. McLellin, who was the primary instigator, attempted to “write a commandment like unto one of the least of the Lord’s, but failed.” All of the elders apparently watched eagerly as McLellin made a “vain attempt of man to imitate the language of Jesus Christ.” This spectacle demonstrates the secular binaries (foundationally emerging from the binary of religion and secularism) shaping early Mormonism, never letting the divine voice stand without its companion, the secular language of humankind.[19] Writing about his prophetic role to produce revelation, Joseph wrote that “it was an awful responsibility to write in the name of the Lord.”[20]
Chart 1: Transformation/Translation Process

This builds a bridge between his translations and his revelations that we will need cross back and forth on, while focusing on translation. Before turning to another example, it’s worth noting that translation can extend beyond just intra-language translation, such as the translation between religious experience and language. George Steiner explains that “translation is one in which a message from a source-language passes into a receptor language via a transformational process,” but his point lies within the fact that “the same model . . . is operative within a single language.”[21] (See Chart 1.) On one level, Joseph Smith was translating time in one language, describing the past and even prophesying the future, all in English. But on another level of translation, he was operating within one language, translating his experience. Because his translations did not include a personal transformation between two languages, it is difficult to completely untangle his translations from his revelations. As the next example will show, they were not historically separate either.
McLellin’s challenge was neither the first time nor the last time Joseph Smith faced the problem of the indeterminacy of language with his colleagues. This all became more of a reality when he and Sidney Rigdon faced the problem of describing their vision (D&C 76) in early 1832. They eventually declared:
But great and marvelous are the works of the Lord, and the mysteries of his kingdom which he showed unto us, which surpass all understanding in glory, and in might, and in dominion; Which he commanded us we should not write while we were yet in the Spirit, and are not lawful for man to utter; Neither is man capable to make them known, for they are only to be seen and understood by the power of the Holy Spirit, which God bestows on those who love him, and purify themselves before him; To whom he grants this privilege of seeing and knowing for themselves. That through the power and manifestation of the Spirit, while in the flesh, they may be able to bear his presence in the world of glory. (D&C 76:114–18)
The Spirit was necessary to mediate the communication precisely because of the difficulty that language itself posed.
Apparently, visions were particularly difficult to translate into effective words. Yet, Joseph had produced examples of how past prophets had described their visions in some of his other revelations and translations. In fact, the Book of Mormon includes examples of visions similar to Joseph Smith’s vision.[22] (See Chart 2.) Nephi explains that John’s vision in the New Testament (Revelation) was also a vision like unto his own (“all-seeing,” panoptic, or panoramic vision). The Book of Mormon explained that both Nephi and John had “seen all things” in vision, and Nephi compared what John would write to know what he should write down about his vision.[23] They both had visions and both stayed true to their perspective of their visions.
Nephi’s perception of a shared experience with John made their experiences comparable, but their individual perspectives also mattered and determined how they wrote about the vision. Like Nephi, Joseph Smith also compared his vision (D&C 76) with John’s vision.[24] Having described a kind archetypical (panoptic) vision in the Book of Mormon and now having experienced his own vision, he turned to these other authors/prophets (such as John) to know how to write about his incommensurable vision. When he finally writes D&C 76, he explains that God commanded him and Rigdon to write the revelation, but he worries that he will not be able to communicate what he saw in writing. Eventually, he explains in D&C 76 that “Neither is man capable to make them [the experiences in the vision] known.” Language was his problem, not transcendence or knowledge, demonstrating the overarching tension of the secular binary.[25]
Chart 2: All Seeing Vision Comparison as an Archetype

Joseph’s comparison demonstrates his acceptance of the incommensurability of language. Nephi claimed that John had the same vision, and then Joseph used John’s description of his vision (Revelation) to undergird his own interpretation and perspective about his vision. Having examined the text of Revelation carefully, Joseph asked questions about the text, then God would reveal the answer with the meaning and interpretation (D&C 77). His revelation (D&C 77) about John’s vision was written down just after he had seen his own vision. This revelation suggests that he recognized his inability to write about his vision, but it also suggests that his perspective mattered. D&C 77 is an example of how he could clearly address these visionary experiences in his own context and interpretation, after accepting the incommensurability of language.[26]
This overlap between translation and revelation became even more distinct within this project to translate his vision. In fact, his experience receiving D&C 77 led Joseph to ask additional questions about John’s vision. Instead of looking for a word for translation or an acceptable interpretation, he wanted to ask ontological questions about the nature of God. In the same format as D&C 77 (a series of questions posed from the text of Revelation followed by their respective answers), he asked God what the name of God was, provoked from the text of Revelation (3:12). The title of the revelation that he received read “First Question What is the name of God as taught in the pure Language.” This was unlike D&C 77 in the fact that it was not asking for an interpretation. It was asking for a translation in “the pure language,” or in a language that was not incommensurable. That meant that God’s name could not be delivered to him in English, or Egyptian, or Hebrew. Translation into these languages would all be incommensurable, but he seemed to be asking for something more than that. He seemed to be asking for something even more than the primordial language of Adam. He was asking to eliminate the religion and secularism binary to just have religion, which would prove to be difficult, securing him in a kind of prison.
Pure Language Document(s)
Joseph Smith was aware of the problem of translatability since his own translations contemplated a time when there was no need for translation. The book of Moses, which was written within the first year after he established the Church of Christ, expressed similar concerns with the incommensurability of translation. It establishes a timeframe in the beginning of the world when there was only one language, while also claiming that it was “a language which was pure and undefiled” or the language of Adam (Moses 6:5–6). This represents a moment of pure communication, while still finding itself under the strong arm of ontological relativity and the realization that there is still a kind of translation in the movement from prelinguistic cognition and linguistic expressions. Then the book of Moses introduces the reality of translatability within its own pages by describing Enoch trying to preserve Adam’s language amid the multiplication of languages. Even though ontological relativity played a role from the beginning of this narrative, translatability is a central concern, even a central epistemology, for Joseph Smith’s scripture at the earliest stages of his ministry and reemerging in the spring of 1832.
The “Sample of Pure Language” was not just evidence of Joseph Smith’s musings about translation—it represented an important element in his epistemology. First of all, it emerged within the context of creating a framework to transform Joseph Smith’s panoptic vision (D&C 76) into English. Second, it imagined the possibility of a prelinguistic linguistics, in which there was a time when there was a single “pure language.” Scholars have generally associated the “pure language” with the language of Adam, or the “undefiled” language described in Moses 6:5–6, or as the Joseph Smith Papers has associated it with the Jaredites and the confounding of languages.[27] (See Chart 3.) Nonetheless, the “pure language” could have just as easily represented a language before Adam’s language, which was the first corrupted language. Finally, this document is revelation about translation. Though it was not published in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, it was included within the manuscript version of Smith’s revelations. Even over time, it was not forgotten though it was not broadly available. Orson Pratt preached about the revelation in 1855, explaining that “there is one revelation that this people are not generally acquainted with . . . it has never been published, but probably will be in the Church History.”[28] This revelation demonstrates the dilemma of receiving “pure” communication and the inevitable incommensurability of translation. What Joseph was doing here has been debated for decades and few have agreed upon its purpose.
One thing that is clear is that this revelation marks Joseph Smith’s cognizance of the incommensurability of language, which reveals the secular binary. The idea of it being a “sample” suggests that the content itself was not its only purpose. Answering the question of what God’s name is was clearly important, but this document suggests that it is a sample of an overarching question that was being asked. The question of language and its nature was a central feature of this document. Joseph was not only interested in theological answers; he was interested in epistemology and communication. He chased these ideas throughout his ministry until he died. The very idea of evoking an original language that was “pure” is an explicit acceptance of the incommensurability of language and translation. Change, or translation, was not a real possibility. Returning to the original language was the most effective way to access the pure knowledge that he sought. Yet, even in this document, the answer is still in English.
Chart 3: Sample of Pure Language

Joseph never forgets the fact that what has been revealed to him still has to be delivered in English and he keeps exploring this idea through the Pure Language Document. This is demonstrated through a few copies of the document. Perhaps the most telling and interesting version of the document was written in the spring of 1835 as part of a letter written by W. W. Phelps to his wife. His letter included a copy of the Pure Language Document, but combined it with characters that Joseph had produced as examples of the characters on the gold plates. Phelps borrowed six characters from the Book of Mormon characters documents and lined them up with the six expressions made in the Pure Language Document (see Comparison #1). Lined up next to the characters are six phonetic sounds, followed by a row of English/pseudo-Hebrew transliteration terms taken primarily from the Pure Language Document. Finally, Phelps aligned the six rows with what seems to be the meaning (also drawn from the Pure Language Document) of the six characters.[29] (See Chart 4.)

This is a comparison between The Caractors Document and Phelps’s 1835 letter. Four of the six characters in the Phelps letter have similar counterparts in the Caractors Document. There are multiple documents created by Joseph Smith that were like the Caractors Document that these may have been copied from.
Chart 4: W. W. Phelps Pure Language Chart, 1835

Phelps’s letter appears to be a one-to-one translation of six characters from the gold plates. His letter is the first known document to express commensurability between the characters and an English expression of the characters. Before Phelps’s chart, there was nothing. Even more remarkable is the fact that Phelps used the Book of Mormon characters, but instead of identifying a word or phrase from the Book of Mormon, he associated their meaning with the revelation that was provided in the Pure Language Document.
However, there is no extant document trying to connect the translation of the “caractors” with any specific passage in the Book of Mormon. The concepts of God, son of God, humankind, and angels are used in the Book of Mormon but never the term “ahman,” nor is the ontology expressed in the Pure Language Document found within its pages. Nonetheless, “ahman” becomes an important concept in the Doctrine and Covenants, especially in its association with D&C 78 and “Adam-ondi-ahman,” a place where Christ would return as part of the Second Coming.[30] This is strange, but it does demonstrate their efforts to identify commensurability between characters and revealed text.
There is another document that also tries to identify commensurability in a similar way. Oliver Cowdery made some notes that also point toward a kind of one-to-one translation of the characters from the Book of Mormon. Having edited this document for the Joseph Smith Papers, I can say it’s difficult to date its production with any accuracy and it was relegated to the appendix of Documents Volume 1. Nonetheless, the first part of his notes includes a verse from the book of Jacob labeled “English,” followed by an indecipherable phrase labeled “Hebrew.” Then the second part includes “Book of Mormon characters” presumably with their translation into English above (see “Written and Kept for Profit and Learning” below). Assuming this is produced at the same time, it demonstrates their efforts to make translation commensurable and binary.

The Phelps letter includes six characters that were also included in the Egyptian Alphabet. This overlap demonstrates continuity and influence from the Pure Language Document (referenced in the Phelps letter) to the Egyptian Alphabet. The definitions represent a series of different sounds and meanings, but still provide an expansion of a root sound or definition (like “beth” or “ahman”) into five degrees of ministry.
What was happening here is unclear, but the Cowdery document demonstrates their efforts to develop a correspondence translation between the Book of Mormon and the “caractors.” However, they fall short in two distinct ways. First, they are not connected to any specific passage and indeed even represent ideas and terms that are not in the Book of Mormon at all (for example, the phrase “the interpreters of language”). Second, they still don’t know the original language in order to develop a corresponding translation (interestingly, within months they begin studying Hebrew). They rely on revelation to make their translations, but not on a verifiable translation process. Because of this, even the most mechanical and minor efforts to show a correspondence of any kind, whether tight or loose, between the English text of the Book of Mormon and the mysterious script of “reformed Egyptian” still do not provide any evidence of a correspondence theory of translation. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t create a binary tension.
The Kirtland Egyptian Alphabets
The Phelps letter led to further attempts to create a kind of correspondence translation of the Book of Mormon and the gold plate characters. In the summer of 1835, the three individuals most interested in this work on translation and the search for a pure language over the previous eight years took another try at it. The Egyptian “caractors” copied from the gold plates in 1828 and Pure Language Document that Joseph Smith began in early 1828 and in 1832 have always been considered separately from the first alphabet of Egyptian characters produced in the summer of 1835. Yet, this research shows that they started that summer by examining the Egyptian from the gold plates, not the papyri. This can be demonstrated through the “Egyptian Alphabet” documents that have been assumed to have come from the papyri. Oliver Cowdery, W. W. Phelps, and Joseph Smith each worked on three separate alphabet documents, though they were copies of each other with a few idiosyncratic changes, collectively known as the “Egyptian Alphabet”; it should be relabeled the “Combined Gold Plates Egyptian and Papyri Egyptian Alphabet,” though I will continue to call it the “Egyptian Alphabet.”
This proposed title change is important. These alphabets shared a similar format and organization with Phelps’s chart including Book of Mormon characters, phonetics, transliteration, and meanings.[31] Further connecting them, some characters from the Book of Mormon “caractors” document ended up in their alphabets just like they ended up in Phelps’s letter on pure language. Some of the Egyptian characters in the alphabet documents have exact matches to the characters associated with the gold plates in 1828 (to my knowledge, the list below is the first time this comparative list has been identified in print or otherwise). Curiously, Oliver Cowdery’s edition of the Egyptian Alphabet shows more signs of being associated with the earlier Book of Mormon characters project. Cowdery’s alphabet appears to be the original or first of the three alphabet documents. Not only do the characters match many of the extant samples of Book of Mormon characters, but Cowdery also frames his alphabet like John Whitmer did for the Book of Mormon “caractors” document by calling the symbols “characters,” while Phelps and Smith called them “Egyptian.” This seems to suggest a relationship between the 1828 alphabet “caractors” project and the 1835 Egyptian Alphabet project.[32] (See Chart 5.)
Chart 5: Comparing Documents Associated with Reformed Egyptian Characters

The project that had just begun that summer to develop an Egyptian alphabet experienced an unexpected boost when the Saints came into contact with some genuine Egyptian materials. In July 1835, Joseph Smith and some helpful financiers purchased several scrolls of Egyptian papyri. Since Joseph Smith had already translated the gold plates, which were in “reformed Egyptian,” the papyri became all the more intriguing and a great way to extend their study of language. After recently returning to studying the Book of Mormon’s “reformed Egyptian,” the arrival of the mummies and papyri in Kirtland must not have seemed like a coincidence. It’s clear that Cowdery, Phelps, and Joseph were not finished with the alphabet; once the papyri arrived, Joseph continued by adding characters from the papyri to the list of Book of Mormon Egyptian. The last page of all three copies of the alphabet show the explicit shift from gold plates characters to characters taken from the newly purchased papyri. Though they stopped abruptly after including only a handful of characters from the papyri, the unfinished Kirtland Egyptian Alphabet was then a compilation of four different documents: gold plate “reformed Egyptian” characters (1828), the Pure Language Document (1833), Phelps’s letter (1835), and finally, at the end of the Alphabet, the characters from the papyri (procured in July 1835).[33] (See Chart 6.)
Chart 6
This chart demonstrates that the Egyptian Alphabet is constructed of two different sets of characters. The first set is demonstrably not from the Egyptian papyri, since six of the characters in the first set match the shape and order of six of the characters used in the Phelps letter. They are not taken from the Egyptian papyri because the Phelps letter was written before they purchased it; they also do not match any of the extant papyri. The first set resembles and occasionally matches the characters from the Book of Mormon “caractors” document, but there were multiple Book of Mormon characters documents and the “caractors” copy was likely not the primary document they used to compile the list (though there are still several exact matches with the characters from “caractors”). Cowdery wrote in 1835 that when the Egyptian papyri first arrived, they compared them to “a number of characters . . . copied from the plates.” The second set of characters does exactly what Cowdery said that it did: it compared the Book of Mormon character to the papyri characters. They copied directly from the Egyptian papyri fragment that became Facsimile 1 in the Pearl of Great Price (Fragment of Book of Breathing for Horos). The original has three columns of Egyptian characters that they copied directly from.






Egyptian Grammar and Alphabet and the Book of Abraham
After producing the Egyptian Alphabet, they turned to producing a “Grammar and Alphabet.” They continued to examine characters from the papyri and showed sustained interest in Book of Mormon characters. This new extension of the project had “antecedents in the earlier Egyptian Alphabet documents, all of which are arranged in a similar fashion,” leading back to the Phelps letter.[34] They continued to work through the same methodological dilemma of incommensurability. The “grammar” demonstrated a system in which each line of characters could be deepened by degrees (the Pure Language Document reflects a similar kind of five-part meaning). It explained that any given symbol (say a character, like an “l”) has five parts of speech that can be multiplied five times if a line is placed above the character. The “Grammar” document explains: “The character alone has 5 parts of speech: increase by one straight line thus 5 X 5 is 25 by 2 horizontal lines thus 25 X 5 = 125; and by 3 horizontal lines thus: —125 X 5 = 625.” As a general system, the possibilities of translation multiply quickly, deepening with each line or character.[35] In fact, one character in Egyptian can extend to an entire paragraph in an English definition.
When Smith, Phelps, and Cowdery addressed the fifth or final degree, a single character is lined up with an entire pericope of the text of the book of Abraham.[36] This may actually be a representation for how God’s revealed word was deeper and more profound than the surface-level definitions of the first degree. Brian Hauglid has demonstrated that some of the Egyptian characters and their associated English definitions in the “Grammar” end up in the earliest manuscripts of the book of Abraham. In those manuscripts, there is a single Egyptian character that is lined up with an entire paragraph of English. This is not a definition of a word that can be extended in its explanation like a dictionary. Something else is going on besides a commensurable translation of an Egyptian character into an English word or phrase. One Egyptian character represents a paragraph of English prose, followed by a connected paragraph of English prose that is associated with another Egyptian character. What’s most important for the argument here about the secular binary is that revealed text from the book of Abraham is being associated with actual Egyptian characters. Whether or not the text of the book of Abraham is revelation or simply derivative of the Egyptian or the “Grammar and Alphabet,” it’s still clear that revelatory translation and secular translation created a binary that represented the translation.
What could be more incommensurable? The degree system in the “Grammar” distances the characters from a one-to-one translation and adds a metaphysical component of different ranges of meaning contained within a single character. A character may refer to a single word or an entire paragraph of English. At one point they start with the fifth-degree translation and work backwards as if they know the outcome and are trying to attach the English to an Egyptian character.[37] This leads to the fact that what seems (at first glance) to be a kind of one-to-one translation is not what it appears to be. In fact, it looks like Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon. He has the characters from the gold plates and a revelatory English text but no possible way to tell if they are commensurable. He nonetheless sees them as commensurable, as would eventually be demonstrated through the publication of the book of Abraham that included a precursor claiming that it was a translation of the papyri.
Modern translators can demonstrate that Smith, Cowdery, and Phelps did not know Egyptian, making their efforts in the production of the Egyptian Alphabet, the “Grammar,” and the book of Abraham an attempt to create one side of the secular binary by trying to perform a linguistic translation. The binary did not have to actually be a linguistic translation but it did need to be secular and non-metaphysical. Though they may have felt they were getting closer to a linguistic translation, their work on the “Grammar and Alphabet” further demonstrates the incommensurability of translation that they were getting closer to. They don’t appear to be any further along in becoming linguists or knowing Egyptian, but they show clear signs of believing that there could be a one-to-one correlation in Joseph Smith’s translations with Egyptian. The efforts toward real translation also went hand in hand with the production of new scripture, since at least part of the book of Abraham was produced during their examination and study of the Egyptian papyri.[38]
Yet, all of these efforts to produce a verifiable, commensurable translation are superseded by the actual products of the translation efforts. Translation remained revelatory, though it was identified as a secular process. Maintaining a systematic line of thinking, the relationship between the “Grammar” and the book of Abraham may be an example of the process and depth of meaning rather than definition. Their process of producing the Book of Abraham could easily make claim to the fact that Joseph’s translation came from the papyri, even if none of the characters on the papyri could be directly translated into any of the words in the book of Abraham. Given their previous experience with translation, this makes sense.
The translation of the book of Abraham exhibits the same kind of method and incommensurability demonstrated in the Book of Mormon translation. In the case of Joseph Smith’s 1828 translation, he produced characters to be translated by scholars, but he also apparently provided text from revelation or seer stones. Both show efforts to decipher the meanings of the characters, but both also rely on revelation to provide the English rendition.
This metaphysical process is somewhat different from what Smith and his disciples were attempting to do with the alphabets. Phelps’s May 1835 letter used known text derived from the “pure language” from which he superimposed characters next to the text. It was an effort to assign specific meanings to specific characters. Joseph and his colleagues followed the structure (five parts or states of one definition) of the Pure Language Document with the system of degrees they designed in both the Alphabet and Grammar and Alphabet in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, but it is unclear whether the text of the book of Abraham came first by revelation or whether the characters inspired the text as an explanation.[39] Either way, it leads back to an underdetermined transference, or experience of divine communication that was derived from their exploration of a system associated with the Egyptian characters. This is like John Modern’s analysis in the fact that “true religion” is not being created by religion or religious experience, but instead it’s being created by the binary of religion and secularism or revelation and translation. Let me further demonstrate this binary with one more example.
Esotericism and Symbolic Translation
Scholars have rightfully compared the incommensurable translation described above with esotericism or attempts to understand Egyptian as a symbolic system that can only be delivered metaphysically.[40] Such an interpretation fits into a well-known intellectual tradition. Europeans struggled for centuries to make sense of Egyptian, developing it into a kind of cryptic language with no logical or systematic approach. The hieroglyphs represented mystery rather than clear expression or language. They treated the hieroglyphs like tiny pictures or symbols that could only be interpreted by ancient priests.[41] As Richard Bushman has argued, this symbolic school of Egyptian interpretation may reflect what Joseph Smith was doing in the Kirtland Egyptian Project.[42] If so, he was in good company. The Swedenborgians attached sacred meaning to the hieroglyphs, explaining that the meaning could only be accessed through divine means.[43] Bushman also points out that Smith used a similar approach to expand Hebrew later, in which simple words like “creation” became “a theory of creation.”[44] This symbolic interpretation of Egyptian drew on these mystical and esoteric theories of sacred language, demonstrating that what Joseph Smith was doing with translation was far less radical when placed within historical context. Egyptian was mysterious to everyone in the Western world.
However, Joseph and his colleagues did not buy wholesale into these mystical approaches either, since they show signs of using some of the nuanced academic approaches to Egyptian. French scholar Jean-François Champollion worked hard to break the Egyptian code by 1822. His breakthrough using the Rosetta Stone was the discovery that he disassociated the hieroglyphs with symbols and demonstrated that they represented sounds. Joseph Smith and his colleagues seem to be familiar with the implications of Champollion’s method. Beginning with Phelps’s letter, they created charts that reflected the comparative diagrams in Champollion’s work that juxtaposed hieroglyphs with phonetic scripts, a kind of comparison commonly found in the work of US-based scholars Samuel Rafinesque and Moses Stuart.[45] The Kirtland Egyptian Alphabet included names for the characters, pronunciations, and explanations. The pronunciations move distinctly away from the esoteric translation of Egyptian and represent the academic work of Champollion in the Kirtland Egyptian Projects by their use of phonetics.
Their exploration of Egyptian emphasized their interest in language but demonstrated more than any other project that their translations were underdetermined. They seemed to have accepted the fact that even if they were to break the code or understand the Egyptian characters, it wouldn’t offer them the pure language of God or even be a perfect reflection of the book of Abraham. Egyptian was certainly the entry point, but like other languages, it was corrupt in their minds, or at least deficient in its ability to deliver the pure communication of God—even a perfect one-to-one translation was still incommensurable in this respect. They did not give up on the usefulness of language, but rather they used the system it represented to see the depth of a particular message within a written language.
This gets us to the underlying tension of this article. It is clear that Joseph Smith knew that the ancient characters he was translating were inevitably incommensurable to the English translations that he offered. He did not devalue his revelatory knowledge, but rather accepted that it was more valuable than a linguistic translation that would also end up being incommensurable. Though Smith was producing translations by revelation, it still did not stop him from trying to create a system that explained and articulated that communication through language. The symbolic system of the Swedenborgians and others evoked a mystical experience by a priest, whereas Joseph was trying to give helpful precision and explanation to his translations. Comparable to Champollion’s phonetics, Joseph tried to identify the pronunciations and sounds of the characters, but then accepted the underdetermined nature of language and tried to develop a system of degrees to deepen the explanation and expand it further. In other words, Joseph did not want to accept the underdetermined nature of translation, but his struggle with it demonstrates that he was cognizant of the problem.[46]
The Prison of Language
Joseph Smith believed in a hierarchy of religious experience over language, but he couldn’t do without language. In fact, he explained, “Reading the experience of others, or the revelation given to them, can never give us a comprehensive view of our condition and true relation to God.” Yet, as he argued, “could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject.”[47] Visions and revelations were his reality, while language was his prison. Joseph questioned the validity or possibility of finding synonyms, constantly turning back to religious experience for the reality of religious truth. In a letter to W. W. Phelps, Joseph articulately explained the impact of religious experience, writing that “the still small voice which whispereth through and pierceth all things and often times it maketh my bones to quake while it maketh manifest.”[48] Yet still lamenting that “God holdeth up the dark curtain until we may read the sound of Eternity to the fullness and satisfaction of our immortal souls.”[49] This metaphor uses contradictory sensorial expressions of access (sight, touch, and hearing) to demonstrate the withdrawn nature of that access by claiming that one could read sound. The problem of reading sound is a perfect metaphor to help us access what was happening in his translations. Joseph described this division between God’s word and our earthly reality as a prison. He prayed that God would “deliver us in due time from the little narrow prison almost as it were [total] darkness of paper pen and ink and crooked broken scattered and imperfect language.”[50] Perhaps what he never fully realized was that he was describing the ever-present secular tension of antebellum American religion and that his religion itself was dependent upon that tension and the secular binary.
Joseph Smith’s theory of translation couldn’t be expressed any clearer than when he explained that language was like a prison. He could never quite secure his religious and spiritual foundations without secularizing them through an incommensurable translation. Smith was aware of the incommensurability of translation yet he still sought commensurability. Within the binary of religion and secularism, religion became universal, as mentioned above.[51] Yet secularism also de-universalized parts of religion that were not “consistent with the basic requirements of modern society.”[52] In Joseph Smith’s translations, he accepted the secular discourse of translation commensurability and maintained the tensions of the binary with incommensurability to establish the legitimacy of his translations and Mormonism. In this way, his translations were both secular and religious.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
[1] See Michael Hubbard MacKay, “‘Git Them Translated’: Translating the Characters on the Gold Plates,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo: Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2015), 83–116; Ann Taves, Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2016); Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999).
[2] Michael Hubbard MacKay, “Performing the Translation: Character Transcripts and Joseph Smith’s Earliest Translating Practices,” in Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, edited by Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Brian M. Hauglid (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2020), 81–104.
[3] Richard E. Bennett, “Martin Harris’s 1828 Visit to Luther Bradish, Charles Anthon, and Samuel Mitchell,” in The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, edited by Dennis L. Largey, Andrew H. Hedges, John Hilton III, and Kerry Hull (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2015), 103–15.
[4] Michael Hubbard MacKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, and Robin Scott Jensen, “The ‘Caractors’ Document: New Light on an Early Transcription of the Book of Mormon Characters,” Mormon Historical Studies 14, no. 1 (2013): 131–52.
[5] This was recognized as early as 1829 when Cornelius Blachtely asked for the possibility of accessing the gold plates to identify a one-to-one translation. See Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2015), chap. 12; Larry E. Morris, A Documentary History of the Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 375.
[6] For a remarkably clear examination and critique of the literature and evidences see Samuel Morris Brown, ”Seeing the Voice of God: The Book of Mormon on Its Own Translation,” in Producing Ancient Scripture, especially 146–67.
[7] Willard Van Orman Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2013), chap. 2. In opposition to the indeterminism of translation, John Searle argues that this would lead to skepticism or the possibility of anyone ever understanding anyone else. John R. Seale, “Indeterminacy, Empiricism, and the First Person”, Journal of Philosophy 84, no. 3 (Mar. 1987): 123–46.
[8] The recognition of the problem of translation has deep roots in religious studies and the translation of liturgy, scripture, and sermons. See Willis Barnstone, The Poetics of Translation: History, Theory and Practice (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993); George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (London: Oxford University Press, 1975); Lydia H. Liu, ed., Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999); Christopher R. King, One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Naoki Sakai, Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
[9] Talal Asad argues that to know what the term secular means is to understand the binaries that it creates. Secularims constrains the meaning and power of terms and concepts to their binaries and disallows a singular preference within a binary. Faith is solidified by its shift and delineating relationship with Reason. Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), 23.
[10] See Leigh Eric Schmidt, Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000); James Delbourgo, A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders: Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006); Eric R. Schlereth, An Age of Infidels: The Politics of Religious Controversy in the Early United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013); Sarah Rivett, The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).
[11] John Lardas Modern, Secularism in Antebellum America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 7.
[12] Modern, Secularism in Antebellum America, 282. Modern’s thesis is important here in its ability to identify a network of ideas that animates individuals and society to replicate and authenticate particular normative conditions. This is important for the secular idea of translation or the notion of commensurability in translation, which this article demonstrates is set in opposition to incommensurability. Compare this sense of normativity to “hyper-normativity” in Peter Coviello, Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019), 25 and 100. Talal Asad writes, “Only religions that have accepted the assumptions of liberal discourse are being commended, in which tolerance is sought on the basis of distinctive relation between law and morality.” Formations of the Secular, 182.
[13] Charles Taylor foundationally argued that secularism is a force that is opposed to religion and it is certainly not the opposite of religion. Religion in the secular age thrives, not just as a reaction to secularism but in part because of secularism. As Talal Asad has argued, secularism produces binaries that can easily be associated with good and bad religion, rational and irrational religion, both of which are relevant to the binary of commensurability and incommensurability in Joseph Smith’s translations. Asad, Formations of the Secular, 147.
[14] Edward Stevenson, “The Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon,” Millennial Star 48, July 12, 1886, 437.
[15] Quine writes, “An artificial example which I have used elsewhere depends on the fact that a whole rabbit is present when and only when an undetached part of a rabbit is present; also when and only when a temporal stage of a rabbit is present. If we are wondering whether to translate a native expression ‘gavagai’ as ‘rabbit’ or as ‘undetached rabbit part’ or as ‘rabbit stage,’ we can never settle the matter simply by ostension—that is, simply by repeatedly querying the expression ‘gavagai’ for the native’s assent or dissent in the presence of assorted stimulations.” “Ontological Relativity,” Journal of Philosophy 65, no. 7 (Apr. 4, 1968): 188.
[16] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” 161, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/167.
[17] “Revelation, 1 November 1831–B [D&C 1],” 126, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-1-november-1831-b-dc-1/2.
[18] “Revelation, circa 2 November 1831 [D&C 67],” 115, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-circa-2-november-1831-dc-67/2.
[19] Coviello argues that “secularism’s negative, its enemy, is not religion; it is bad belief.” This is framed first by the binary religion and secularism that moves to other binaries like civilizing and imbruting, or in this case, “God’s voice” and “humankind’s voice.” They thrive off one another, but appear without analysis to be trying to eliminate each other. Make Yourselves Gods, 27–29.
[20] “History, 1838–1856,” 162.
[21] Steiner, After Babel, 29.
[22] The scope of these visions is demonstrated in this passage by referencing them as including past, present, and future. “For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round” (1 Nephi 10:19).
[23] “And also others who have been, to them hath he shown all things, and they have a written them; and they are sealed up to come forth in their purity, according to the truth which is in the Lamb, in the own due time of the Lord, unto the house of Israel” (1 Nephi 14:26).
[24] According to the Book of Mormon, John is the author of the book of Revelation in the New Testament.
[25] For Samuel Brown, he has firmly moved toward the translation as metaphysical.
[26] There four typical ways of interpreting Revelation, of which Joseph Smith does not conform to or attempt to conform to in his interpretation of Revelation in D&C 77. See Grant R. Osborne, Revelation (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002), 20.
[27] Joseph Smith Papers, 2:214.
[28] Orson Pratt, “The Holy Spirit and the Godhead,” Feb. 18, 1855, Journal of Discourses, 2:342.
[29] There are multiple nonextant documents that included characters copied from the plates. The extant document includes some of them, but Phelps may have had a different copy or document than the extant document. The fact that these line up create an interesting situation. MacKay, Jensen, and Dirkmaat, “The ‘Caractors’ Document,” 131–52. See W. W. Phelps, Pure Language chart.
[30] Interestingly, notions of Adam and Adam-ondi-Ahman were added to Doctrine and Covenants (see changes in Doctrine and Covenants sections 27, 78, and 107) in early 1835 just before Phelps wrote his letter to his wife in May.
[31] Joseph Smith Papers, 4:53.
[32] Joseph Smith Papers, 1:345–52.
[33] For an example of contemporary comparison see Oliver Cowdery to William Frye, Dec. 22, 1835, copy in Oliver Cowdery Letterbook, 72, photocopy at Church History Library; Cowdery, “Egyptian Mummies—Ancient Records,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, December 1835, 235.
[34] Joseph Smith Papers, 4:112.
[35] The Grammar is “split into two parts, each of which is further divided into five subsections, called “degrees.” The degrees in each part appear in reverse numerical order. Part I begins with the firth degree and works backward to the first, then part 2 starts over with the firth degree and proceeds in the same manners.” Joseph Smith Papers, 4:112.
[36] See Brian M. Hauglid, “‘Translating an Alphabet to the Book of Abraham’: Joseph Smith’s Study of the Egyptian Language and His Translation of the Book of Abraham,” in Producing Ancient Scripture, 363–90.
[37] “Part 1 begins with the fifth degree and works backward to the first, then part 2 starts over with the fifth degree and proceeds in the same manner.” JSP, Revelations and Translations Vol. 4, 112.
[38] Hauglid, “Translating an Alphabet.”
[39] This scholarly debate continues to be waged primarily between Egyptologists (John Gee and Kerry Muhlestein) and others (like Robin Jensen and Brian Hauglid). Joseph Smith was determined that it came from God.
[40] For studies on semiotic translation, see Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976); Dinda L. Gorlée, Semiotics and the Problem of Translation: With Special Reference to the Semiotics of Charles S. Peirce (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1994).
[41] Richard L. Bushman, “Joseph Smith’s Place in the Study of Antiquity in Antebellum America,” in Approaching Antiquity, 17.
[42] Samuel Brown, “Joseph (Smith) in Egypt: Babel, Hieroglyphs, and the Pure Language of Eden,” Church History 78, no 1 (Mar. 2009): 26–65.
[43] Emanuel Swedenborg, A Hieroglyphic Key to Natural and Spiritual Mysteries, translated by James John Garth Wilkinson (London, 1874); Sampson Reed, New Jerusalem Magazine 4 (Oct. 1830): 69–71; and J. D., “Egyptian Hieroglyphs,” New Jerusalem Magazine 4 (Feb. 1831): 233–36.
[44] Bushman, “Joseph Smith’s Place in the Study of Antiquity,” 19.
[45] See Matthew J. Grey, “Joseph Smith’s Use of Hebrew in his Translation of the Book of Abraham,” in Producing Ancient Scripture; Moses Stuart, A Grammar of the Hebrew Language, 5th ed. (Andover, Mass.: Gould and Newman, 1835), 9–10 (charts no. I–III); Samuel Rafinesque, “Tabular View of the Compared Atlantic Alphabets & Glyphs of Africa and America,” Atlantic Journal (1832); Jean-François Champollion, Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1828).
[46] His late work on the Kinderhook plates demonstrates his distance from linguistic precision, but his continued prophetic and revelatory expressions show why he would be so intrigued by those plates without concern for a determinacy of language. See Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst-McGee, “‘President Joseph Has Translated a Portion’: Joseph Smith and the Mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates,” in Producing Ancient Scripture.
[47] Joseph Smith, “Mysteries of Godliness,” Times and Seasons, Oct. 9, 1843.
[48] “Letterbook 1,” 3, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letterbook-1/15.
[49] “Letterbook 1,” 4.
[50] “Letterbook 1,” 4.
[51] Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 29–30.
[52] Asad, Formations of the Secular, 182–83.
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“The Perfect Union of Man and Woman”: Reclamation and Collaboration in Joseph Smith’s Theology Making
Fiona Givens
Dialogue 49.1 (Spring 2016): 1–26
Central to Joseph’s creative energies was a profound commitment to an ideal of cosmic as well as human collaboration. His personal mode of leadership increasingly shifted from autocratic to collaborative—and that mode infused both his most radical theologizing and his hopes for Church comity itself.
Any church that is more than a generation old is going to suffer the same challenges that confronted early Christianity: how to preach and teach its gospel to myriad peoples, nationalities, ethnic groups, and societies, without accumulating the cultural trappings of its initial geographical locus. As Joseph Milner has pointed out, the rescue of the “precious ore” of the original theological deposit is made particularly onerous, threatened as it is by rapidly growing mounds of accumulating cultural and “ecclesiastical rubbish.”[1] This includes social accretions, shifting sensibilities and priorities, and the inevitable hand of human intermediaries.
For Joseph Smith, Jr., the task of restoration was the reclamation of the kerygma of Christ’s original Gospel, but not just a return to the early Christian kerygma. Rather, he was attempting to restore the Ur-Evangelium itself—the gospel preached to and by the couple, Adam and Eve (Moses 6:9). In the present paper, I wish to recapitulate a common thread in Joseph’s early vision, one that may already be too obscure and in need of excavation and celebration. Central to Joseph’s creative energies was a profound commitment to an ideal of cosmic as well as human collaboration. His personal mode of leadership increasingly shifted from autocratic to collaborative—and that mode infused both his most radical theologizing and his hopes for Church comity itself. His manner of producing scripture, his reconceived doctrine of the Trinity, and his hopes for the Nauvoo Women’s Relief Society all attest to Joseph’s proclivity for collaborative scriptural, theological, and ecclesiastical restoration.
Though Smith was without parallel in his revelatory capacities (by one count he experienced seventy-six documented visions),[2] he increasingly insisted on democratizing that gift. As one scholar remarked, “Joseph Smith was the Henry Ford of revelation. He wanted every home to have one, and the revelation he had in mind was the revelation he’d had, which was seeing God.”[3] Richard Bushman has noted how “Smith did not attempt to monopolize the prophetic office. It was as if he intended to reduce his own role and infuse the church bureaucracy with his charismatic powers.”[4] This he principally effected through the formation of councils and quorums equal in authority—and revelatory responsibility—to that which he and his presidency possessed.[5] Most remarkable of all, perhaps, was Smith’s readiness to turn what revelations he did receive and record into cooperative editing projects. With his full sanction and participation, the “Revelation Books” wherein his divine dictations were recorded bear the evidence of half a dozen editors’ handwriting—including his own—engaged in the revision of his pronouncements.[6]
It was in that work of scriptural production that Joseph recognized that theological reclamation necessarily entailed fracturing the Christian canon to allow for excision, emendation, and addition. Arguably, the most important work of reclamation and re-conceptualization is Joseph’s understanding of the nature and attributes of the three members of the Godhead whose own collaborative work and glory are “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Smith believed that the true nature and attributes of the Trinity, the truly “plain and precious things,” were either buried, revised, camouflaged, or expunged from the biblical text (1 Nephi 13). Part of his reclamation entailed a restoration of the Divine Feminine together with a revision of contemporary conceptions of priesthood power and authority in conjunction with “keys” Joseph believed had been lost following the advent of Christianity. Joseph saw himself as midwife in the restoration of the priesthood of the Ur-Evangelium. Within this framework, he envisioned collaborative roles for women and men within the ecclesiastical structure and ministry of the nascent LDS Church, evidenced in partial form in the initiatory, endowment, and sealing rites of the LDS temple.
Reclamation of Divine Collaboration
In answer to William Dever’s question “Did God have a Wife?” the LDS faith responds with a resounding affirmative.[7] Relatively recent excavation of the symbols and modes of worship attributed to the Divine Feminine both within and outside the ancient Hebrew tradition, together with salient clues within the biblical text, are helping to support Joseph’s reclamation of God, the Mother, from the textual absence to which she has been consigned. As Joseph’s theology never emerged ex nihilo, neither is it reasonable to infer his re-introduction of the doctrine of Heavenly Mother to be without canonical and, given Joseph’s penchant for rupturing boundaries, extra-canonical precedent. Joseph showed himself to be quite happy trolling every possible resource in order to reclaim what he considered was most plain and precious (D&C 91:1).[8]
Joseph’s theology was Trinitarian, but in a radically re-conceptualized way. A conventional trinity, in its thrice-reiterated maleness, could never have produced the collaborative vision of priesthood that Joseph developed. It is, therefore, crucial, for both historical context and theological rationale, to recognize that Joseph reconstitutes the Godhead of Christendom as a Heavenly Father who co-presides with a Heavenly Mother. In 1878, Apostle Erastus Snow stated: “‘What,’ says one, ‘do you mean we should understand that Deity consists of man and woman? Most certainly I do. If I believe anything that God has ever said about himself . . . I must believe that deity consists of man and woman. . . . There can be no God except he is composed of man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, or ever will be a God in any other way, . . . except they be made of these two component parts: a man and a woman; the male and the female” (emphasis mine).[9] In his 1876 general conference address, Brigham Young suggested a strik-ing equality within that Godhead, when he talked of “eternal mothers” and “eternal daughters . . . prepared to frame earth’s like unto ours.”[10]
Prescient but not surprising, therefore, is the merging of Smith’s reconstituted Godhead with the traditional Trinity. Elder Charles W. Penrose drew an unexpected inference from Joseph’s new theology when he suggested an identification of the Holy Spirit with Heavenly Mother. He responded to a Mr. Kinsman’s assertion that “the members of the Trinity are . . . men” by stating that the third member of the Godhead—the Holy Spirit—was the feminine member of the Trinity: “If the divine image, to be complete, had to reflect a female as well as a male element, it is self-evident that both must be contained in the Deity. And they are. For the divine Spirit that in the morning of creation ‘moved upon the face of the waters,’ bringing forth life and order, is . . . the feminine gender, whatever modern theology may think of it.”[11] Penrose may have been relying upon Joseph’s re-working of the creation narrative in the book of Abraham, where “movement” is replaced with “brooding”—a striking image of a mother bird during the incubation period of her offspring. (One remembers in this context Gerard Manley Hopkins’s lovely allusion to the Holy Spirit who, “over the bent/World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”)[12]
Even though recorded third-hand, the following account suggests that the prophet, Joseph, while not expressing the same identification as Penrose, was projecting the same reconstituted heavenly family:
One day the Prophet, Joseph, asked [Zebedee Coltrin] and Sidney Rigdon to accompany him into the Woods to pray. When they had reached a secluded spot Joseph laid down on his back and stretched out his arms. He told the brethren to lie one on each arm, and then shut their eyes. After they had prayed he told them to open their eyes. They did so and saw a brilliant light surrounding a pedestal which seemed to rest on the earth. They closed their eyes and again prayed. They then saw, on opening them, the Father seated upon a throne; they prayed again and on looking saw the Mother also; after praying and looking the fourth time they saw the Savior added to the group.[13]
V. H. Cassler has written, “What we have taken as absence was presence all along, but we did not have the eyes to see it.”[14] Even within our tradition, glimpses of Smith’s radical innovation have neither been sufficiently recognized nor appreciated. One such unrecognized symbol resides on the threshold of the celestial room in the Salt Lake Temple. Just above the veil on the west wall stands a remarkable, six-foot statue of a woman, holding what looks very much like a palm frond. She is flanked by two easily discernible cherubs to whom she is linked by gar-lands of colorful, open flowers. While chubby cherubs are ubiquitous in Renaissance art and could, therefore, be mistaken as merely decorative, the number and placement of the cherubs in the celestial room of the temple draw one back to the majestic, fearful Cherubim—guardians of the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies of the First Temple. The Lady of the Temple is positioned at the portal of the veil—the representation of the torn body of the Lord, Jesus Christ—through which all kindred, nations, tongues, and people shall pass into the celestial kingdom (Hebrews 10:20, Matthew 27:50–51). The original statue was purchased by Joseph Don Carlos Young, who was called by the Church Presidency to succeed Truman O. Angell as decorator of the temple interior. Young purchased the winged statue named “The Angel of Peace” and two cherubs on a visit to New York in 1877. However, during a dream vision one night Young recorded: “I felt impelled to remove the wings. Now I saw a smile and expression that I never saw before and I can now allow this . . . to be placed there.”[15] The enigmatic lady’s station at the veil of the temple, replete with crucifixion imagery, makes it unlikely that she represents Eve. Mary, the mortal mother of the Lord, is a possibility, given her maternal relationship to the Messiah. However, the Lady’s presence at the entrance to the celestial room, representing the celestial kingdom, suggests someone else. There are several key clues as to her possible identity.
Of note is the palm frond the Lady is holding. Anciently, trees were a potent symbol of Asherah, God the Mother.[16] In fact, the Menorah—the seven-branched lamp—that is reputed to have given light in the original Holy of Holies is fashioned after an almond tree, covered in gold—representing the Tree of Life spoken of at the beginning and end of the biblical text.[17] Not only are flowers fashioned into the Menorah: open flowers are one of the temple’s primary decorative motifs.[18] Palm trees also were closely associated with the First Temple with which the interior was liberally decorated together with cherubim: “And it was made with cherubims and palm trees, so that a palm tree was between a cherub and a cherub; and every cherub had two faces” (Ezekiel 41:18).[19] Palm fronds also play a conspicuous role in Jesus’ Passion—in particular his dramatic entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the day that begins the week ending in the crucifixion and resurrection of the Savior. The thronging crowds, waving and throwing palm fronds beneath the hooves of the donkey carrying the Messiah, “chant a Hoshi’ahnna’ (Hebrew “Save Us”)—a clear indication that many, if not all, the Jews present recognized that the man astride the donkey was the promised Messiah.[20] The palm fronds together with the chant suggest a recognition on the part of the thronging masses of the presence of the goddess Asherah—the Mother of the Lord—whose primary symbol is a tree.[21]
Asherah, or the Divine Feminine, is referred to in Proverbs 3:18 as the “Tree of Life.” Her “fruit is better than gold, even fine gold” (Proverbs 8:19). Those who hold her fast are called happy (a word play on the Hebrew ashr). It can be assumed, therefore, that Asherah and Wisdom (Sophia in the Greek) are different names for the same deity.[22] According to the book of Proverbs, Wisdom/Asherah is the name of the deity with whom “the Lord founded the earth” (Proverbs 3:19–20). Before the world was, She was. “Long life is in her right hand; /in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life” (Proverbs 3:16–18). Latter-day Saints are enjoined to search for her in the opening chapters of the Doctrine and Covenants because Wisdom holds the keys not only to the mysteries of God but to eternal life (D&C 6:7, 11:7).
Interestingly, the biblical association of Sophia with the Tree of Life finds powerful echo in the Book of Mormon narrative. Nephi begins the account of his vision by expressing an ardent desire to “see, and hear, and know of these things, by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him [God]” (1 Nephi 10:17, 19). Nephi’s narrative starts in the company of the Spirit, who immediately draws his attention to the Tree of Life—“the whiteness [of which] did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow . . . the tree which is precious above all.” Mary, the mortal mother of the Messiah, whom Nephi sees following the vision of the tree (the Asherah), is similarly described as “exceedingly fair and white” (1 Nephi 11:13, 15, 18). After Mary is “carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time,” she is seen bearing the Christ child (1 Nephi 11:19–20). This association of Christ’s birth with the Tree of Life, with its echoes of a Divine Feminine, is not unique to the Book of Mormon. The oldest known visual representation of the Madonna and Child effects the same conjunction. In the Roman catacombs of St. Priscilla, a fresco dated to the second century depicts the mother and child, with a magnificent Tree of Life overarching both.[23] Immediately following Nephi’s vision of Mary and the Christ child, he watches “the heavens open, and the Holy [Spirit] come down out of heaven and abide upon [Christ] in the form of a dove” (1 Nephi 11:25–27). It does not appear to be coincidental that both “Spirit” and “dove” are gendered female in Hebrew, Syriac, and Aramaic.
Augustine also finds his theological heart strings pulled by the pro-vocative power and logic of the Holy Spirit as in some sense the Wife of the Father and Mother of the Son: “For I omit such a thing as to regard the Holy Spirit as the Mother of the Son and the Spouse of the Father; [because] it will perhaps be answered that these things offend us in carnal matters by arousing thoughts of corporeal conception and birth.”[24] At about the same time, the early Church Father, Jerome, interpreting Isaiah 11:9 in light of the Gospel of the Hebrews, noted that Jesus spoke of “My mother the holy spirit.”[25] Even though Jews returning from the Babylonian captivity were essentially monotheistic, there are suggestions that their belief in a deity that comprised the Father (El), the Mother (Asherah), and the Son (Yahweh) from the First Temple tradition and before persisted. For example, in 1449 Toledo some “conversos” (Jewish converts to Christianity) were alarming their ecclesiastical leaders by refusing to relinquish certain tenets of their previous faith: “In as much as it has been shown that a large portion of the city’s conversos descend-ing from the Jewish line are persons very suspect in the holy Catholic faith; that they hold and believe great errors against the articles of the holy Catholic faith; that they keep the rites and ceremonies of the old law; that they say and affirm that our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ was [a] man of their lineage who was killed and whom the Christians worship as God; that they say that there is both a god and a goddess in heaven.”[26] As Margaret Barker has stated: “It has become customary to translate and read the Hebrew Scriptures as an account of one male deity, and the feminine presence is not made clear. Had it been the custom to read of a female Spirit or to find Wisdom capitalized, it would have been easier to make the link between the older faith . . . and later developments outside the stream represented by the canonical texts.”[27]
Reclamation of Ecclesiastical Collaboration
The reciprocal synergy of the Godhead was a catalyst—or at least precursor—to Joseph’s quest for a universal collaboration of male and female. On March 17, 1842, he took another momentous step in that direction. At that time both male and female members of the Church were actively engaged in the construction of the Nauvoo temple. Women collaborated in the enterprise primarily by contributing financially and by providing the masons with clothing. In addition, they saw to the needs of impoverished members arriving daily seeking refuge. As the number of women engaged in support of temple construction and relief efforts grew, a group of them, at the instigation of Sarah Kimball, formed the Ladies’ Society of Nauvoo. Eliza R. Snow drafted the constitution and by-laws and then took them to Joseph, who, while applauding the enterprise, suggested the ladies might prefer something other than a benevolent or sewing society. He invited the sisters to “meet me and a few of the brethren in the Masonic Hall over my store next Thursday afternoon, and I will organize the sisters under the priesthood after the pattern of the priesthood.”[28] In other words, just as the male society had been organized after the pattern of the priesthood, the women of the church would form a female society, with Joseph’s sanction and blessing, after the same pattern.
Like the men before them, the women were to be organized under the umbrella of the priesthood “without beginning of days or end of years” (Moses 1:3). Joseph further stipulated: “the keys of the kingdom are about to be given to them [the sisters], that they may be able to detect every thing false—as well as to the Elders.”[29] While it has been argued that the expression “keys of the kingdom” in regard to women refers solely to their initiation into the ordinances of the “greater [or] Holy Priesthood” in the temple, Joseph seemed to attribute to women a priestly standing. In other words, he acted on the assumption that in order to access the priesthood that “holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God” together with the temple ordinances in which “the power of godliness is manifest,” one would already need to be a priest (D&C 84:19–22). At least, there is evidence that this is how Joseph understood access to priesthood power and authority.
On March 31, 1842, Joseph announced to the inchoate Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, first, his recognition that collaboration between men and women was key to spiritual and ecclesiastical progress—“All must act in concert or nothing can be done,” he said. Second, “the Society should move according to the ancient Priesthood” as delineated in Doctrine and Covenants 84 (given in Kirtland on September 22 and 23, 1832). And, third, in order to accomplish the above, “the Society was to become a kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day—as in Paul’s day.” Eliza R. Snow understood that the women’s Society or priesthood would enable women to become “Queens of Queens, and Priestesses unto the Most High God.”[30]
Joseph’s conception of female authority may have been tied to his understanding of the New Testament. That women as well as men held Church offices in “Paul’s day” has become apparent with the recent, more accurate translations of the Greek New Testament and research into early Christian ecclesiology. In Ephesians chapter four, Paul enumerates the gifts of the Spirit imparted by the Lord before His ascension: “some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to maturity” (Ephesians 4:11–13). Women as well as men were to be found in possession of each of these “gifts.” Peter Brown demonstrates that, unlike pagans and Jews, “They [Christians] welcomed women as patrons and . . . offered women roles in which they could act as collaborators.”[31]
In his letter to the Romans, Paul sends greetings to Andronicus and Junia (perhaps Julia), commending them for their faith and stating that “they are prominent among the apostles.”[32] Later writers would masculinize the name, but Chrysostom in the late fourth century had no problem praising “the devotion of this woman” who was “worthy to be called an apostle.”[33] In the second book of Acts, Luke records the following: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17–18). The apostle Paul considered the gift of prophecy one of the greatest spiritual gifts: “Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts,” he said, “and especially that you may prophecy [for] those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” (1 Corinthians 14:1, 3). Indeed, Orson Pratt stated in 1876 that “there never was a genuine Christian Church unless it had Prophets and Prophetesses.”[34] It is, therefore, not surprising to find them mentioned in the New Testament. In Acts 21, we learn that the four unmarried daughters of Philip the evangelist possessed “the gift of prophesy” (Acts 21:8–9).
The primary role of evangelists was to teach the death and resur-rection of Jesus Christ. Raymond Brown has noted that in the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman serves “a real missionary function,” while the women at Christ’s tomb are given “a quasi-apostolic role.”[35] As Kevin Giles puts it, “the Synoptic authors agree that it was women who first found the empty tomb. And Matthew and John record that Jesus first appeared to women. The encounter between the risen Christ and the women is drawn as a commissioning scene. The Lord says, ‘Go and tell my brethren’ (Matthew 28:10, cf. John 20:17). The women are chosen and commissioned by the risen Christ to be the first to proclaim, ‘He is risen.’”[36]
Deacons are also listed among the offices in the nascent Christian Church, and women are also included. In his letter to the Romans, Paul commends Phoebe, “a deacon or minister of the church at Cenchreae” (Romans 16:1). The terms “pastors” and “teachers” are joined grammatically in Ephesians 4:11. It appears that the term “pastor” in the New Testament was the universal term referring to spiritual leadership. Among the female pastor-teachers, Priscilla is singled out for her theological acumen, instructing (together with—possibly her husband—Aquila) the erudite and eloquent Apollos of Alexandria “more accurately . . . in the way of God” (Acts 18:18, 24–26). Significantly, of the six times this couple is mentioned, Priscilla precedes Aquila in four of them—according her prominence over Aquila either in ministry or social status—or both. Rodney Stark stated in his book The Rise of Christianity that “It is well known that the early Church attracted an unusual number of high status women . . . . Some of [whom] lived in relatively spacious homes,” to which they welcomed parishioners.[37] Priscilla is not the only woman mentioned in connection with church leadership. In addition to Priscilla we learn of Mark’s mother (Acts 12:12), Lydia from Philippi (Acts 16:14–15, 40), and Nympha in Paul’s letter to the Colossians (Colossians 4:15). The apostle John addresses a letter to the Elect or Chosen Lady and her children (congregation) in 2 John 1:1. All apparently function as leaders of the Church.
The title translated as “Lady” in the New Testament is the equivalent to the title “Lord,” generally denoting social standing but possibly, in an ecclesiastical sense, denoting someone in a position of church leadership.[38] According to Stanley Grenz, the nascent Christian Church “radically altered the position of women, elevating them to a partnership with men unparalleled in first-century society.”[39] It appears that Joseph was engaged in the same endeavor in mid-nineteenth-century America. During the inaugural meeting of the Relief Society, after reading 2 John 1:1 Joseph stated that “this is why she [Emma] was called an Elect Lady is because [she was] elected to preside.”[40] While it can be argued that the aforementioned are all gifts of the Spirit that do not necessarily involve priesthood, there is evidence that Joseph saw the Spirit as directing the implementation of these gifts into specific priesthood offices.
I mention these historical precedents because it is clear that Joseph Smith was aware of them and that they influenced his directive to Emma that “If any Officers are wanted to carry out the designs of the Institution, let them be appointed and set apart, as Deacons, Teachers &c. are among us.”[41] On April 28, 1842, after reading 1 Corinthians 12 to the Society, he gave “instructions respecting the different offices, and the necessity of every individual acting in the sphere allotted him or her; and filling the several offices to which they were appointed.”[42]
And so we find that the striking degree of collaboration between men and women in the early Christian Church is replicated in the founding of the LDS Church. In this regard, Bishop Newel K. Whitney’s words are significant: “It takes all to restore the Priesthood . . . without the female all things cannot be restor’d to the earth.”[43] This implies a much broader role for women in the Church structure than temple service alone. In Joseph’s journal account following the Female Relief Society meeting of Thursday, April 28, 1842, he writes: “Gave a lecture on the pries[t] hood shewing how the Sisters would come in possession of the priviliges & blessings & gifts of the priesthood—&c that the signs should follow them. such as healing the sick casting out devils &c.”[44] Commenting on Doctrine and Covenants 25, which Joseph read at the inaugural meeting of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, he stated that Emma “was ordain’d at the time, the Revelation was given”—that is, Emma was ordained not by man but by God to the position of Elect Lady (“and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called [or chosen]” [D&C 25:3]) as Joseph was ordained/chosen by God to the position of First Elder. It is clear from Emma’s remarks two years later at the Female Relief Society meeting of March 16, 1844, that she recognized that her ordination to the position of Elect Lady with its attendant power, privileges, and authority were divinely bestowed: “if thier ever was any authourity on the Earth [I] had it—and had [it] yet.”[45]
The second Relief Society president, Eliza R. Snow, who gained and retained possession of the Nauvoo Relief Society minutes, also recognized that Emma’s authority to preside over the Female Relief Society gave the women’s organization independence: “The Relief Society is designed to be a self-governing organization: to relieve the Bishops as well as to relieve the poor, to deal with its members, correct abuses, etc. If difficulties arise between members of a branch which they cannot settle between the members themselves, aided by the teachers, instead of troubling the Bishop, the matter should be referred to their president and her counselors.”[46] Reynolds Cahoon, a close affiliate of Joseph, understood “that the inclusion of women within the [ecclesiastical] structure of the church organization reflected the divine pattern of the perfect union of man and woman.” Indeed, Cahoon continued, “the Order of the Priesthood . . . which encompasses powers, keys, ordinances, offices, duties, organizations, and attitudes . . . is not complete without it [the Relief Society]”).[47]
The source of women’s ordination, Joseph suggested, was the Holy Spirit. He understood the women to belong to an order comparable to or pertaining to the priesthood, based on the ordinance of confirmation and receipt of the Holy Spirit. To the Nauvoo women, he suggested that the gift of the Holy Spirit enabled them to “administer in that author-ity which is conferr’d on them.”[48] The idea that priesthood power and authority were bestowed through the medium of the Holy Spirit was commonly accepted among both Protestants and Catholics at that time. The nineteenth-century Quaker, William Gibbons, articulated the broadly accepted view that “There is but one source from which ministerial power and authority, ever was, is, or can be derived, and that is the Holy Spirit.”[49] For, “it was by and through this holy unction, that all the prophets spake from Moses to Malachi.”[50] The Reformed Presbyterian Magazine cites this “holy unction” as “not only the fact but the origin of our priesthood” claiming to be made “priests by the Great High Priest Himself . . . transmitted through the consecration and seal of the Holy Spirit.”[51]
Such a link between the priesthood and the gift of the Holy Spirit is traced back to the early Christian Church, based on two New Testament passages. In John 20, the resurrected Christ commissions His disciples to go into the world proclaiming the Gospel, working miracles, and remit-ting sins in the same manner He was sent by His Father—through the bestowal of the Holy Spirit: “As my Father has sent me, so send I you. When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:21–23). Peter preached that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38). And so to the Relief Society sisters Joseph “ask’d . . . if they could not see by this sweeping stroke, that wherein they are ordained, it is the privilege of those set apart to administer in that authority which is confer’d on them . . . and let every thing roll on.”[52] He called this authority “the power of the Holy Priesthood & the Holy Ghost,” in a unified expression.[53] Elsewhere he stated that “There is a prist-Hood with the Holy Ghost and a key.”[54] Indeed, Joseph presses the point even further. In a Times and Seasons article, he wrote that the gift of the Holy Ghost “was necessary both to ‘make’ and ‘to organize the priesthood.’”[55] It was under the direction of the Holy Spirit that Joseph was helping to organize—or, more accurately, re-organize—women in the priesthood.
For Joseph, the organization of the Female Relief Society was fundamental to the successful collaboration of the male and female quorums: “I have desired to organize the Sisters in the order of the Priesthood. I now have the key by which I can do it. The organization of the Church of Christ was never perfect until the women were organized.”[56] It was this key Joseph “turned” to the Elect Lady, Emma, with which the gates to the priesthood powers and privileges promised to the Female Relief Society could now be opened. The injunction given to recipients of priesthood privileges in Doctrine and Covenants 27 could, therefore, also apply equally to the nascent Female Relief Society to whom the keys of the kingdom were also promised.[57]
The fact that the Female Relief Society was inaugurated during the same period and setting as the founding of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge is helpful in understanding its intended purpose. Joseph had been raised to the Third Degree of Freemasonry (Master Mason) the day before this auspicious meeting.[58] And a plausible argument has been made that the prophet considered the principal tenets of Masonry—Truth, Friendship (or Brotherly Love), and Relief—to be in complete harmony with the reclamation of the Ur-Evangelium.[59] It can, therefore, be argued that Friendship, “the grand fundamental principle of Mormonism,” formed the sacred bond between the male and female priesthood quorums in their efforts to proclaim truth, bless the afflicted, and alleviate suffering by providing relief as they worked side by side on their united goal to build the Nauvoo temple, assist those in need, preach the Gospel, excavate truth, and establish Zion.[60]
The organization of the female society also finds instructive parallels with the creation story in the books of Genesis and Abraham. Abraham states that “the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness; and we will give them dominion. . . . So the Gods went down to organize man[kind] in their own image, in the image of the Gods to form they him, male and female to form they them” (Abraham 4:26–27). In the second biblical creation narrative, Eve is created after Adam when it was decided by the Gods that “it was not good for man to be [act] alone” (Genesis 2:18). After Adam and Eve were organized they were given the family name of Adam. He “called their name Adam” (Genesis 5:2; Moses 6:9). Adam is the family name, the couple’s surname. (One can note here the precedent set by “God” as a family name evidenced in the appellation: God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit). Erastus Snow’s remark bears repeating here: “Deity consists of man and woman. . . . There never was a God, and there never will be in all eternities, except they are made of these two component parts; a man and a woman; the male and the female.”[61]
The divinely decreed identity of the couple, Adam, is one of complementarity, two beings separated by a creative act and then reconstituted as one by divine sacrament. Only later does the name Adam come to denote the individual male rather than the couple. It is, perhaps, in this context of Adam as the family name that the following scripture from the book of Moses should be read: “And thus [they were] baptized, and the Spirit of God descended upon [them], and . . . [they were] born of the Spirit, and became quickened. . . . And they heard a voice out of heaven, saying: [ye are] baptized with fire, and with the Holy Ghost. This is the record of the Father, and the Son, from henceforth and forever; And [ye are] after the order of him who was without beginning of days or end of years, from all eternity to all eternity. Behold, [ye are] one in me, [children] of God; and thus may all become my children” (Moses 6:65–68).
In Moses, we learn that Eve labored with Adam. They worship together. They pray together. They grieve the loss of Cain together. Together they preach the gospel to their children (Moses 5:12). The right to preside over the human family was given jointly to Eve and Adam, as were the sacred rights of the temple: “And thus all things were confirmed unto [the couple] Adam, by an holy ordinance” (Moses 5:59). The sacerdotal nature of “ordinance” implies that Adam and Eve were also to collaborate in the powers inherent in priesthood. They were both clothed in holy garments representing the male and female images of the Creator Gods. Adam and Eve, therefore, represent the divine union of the God, El, and His Wife, variously known as Asherah (The Tree of Life), El Shaddai (God Almighty),[62] Shekhina (The Holy Spirit),[63] and Sophia (Wisdom). As Heber C. Kimball said, “‘What a strange doctrine,’ says one ‘that we should be taught to be one!’ I tell you there is no way for us to prosper and prevail in the last day only to learn to act in Union.”[64]
It is this union that Joseph appears to be attempting to restore with the organization of the Female Relief Society. The Nauvoo Relief Society minutes indicate that Joseph considered himself to be authorizing the women of the Church to form an institution fully commensurate with the male institutions he had organized earlier. The name the founding mothers chose for their organization was the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, possibly suggesting their recognition that what was being organized was the full and equal counterpart to the already operating male priesthood quorums.[65] John Taylor’s suggestion to name the female quorum “The Nauvoo Female Benevolent Society” in lieu of the Relief Society presidency’s proposal “The Nauvoo Female Relief Society” was rejected outright by the female presidency. “The popularity of the word benevolent is one great objection,” adding that we “do not wish to have it call’d after other Societies in the world” for “we design to act in the name of the Lord—to relieve the wants of the distressed, and do all the good we can.”[66]
It appears likely that the second president of the Female Relief Society recognized exactly that. As Eliza R. Snow told a gathering of Relief Society sisters on March 17, 1842, the Relief Society “was no trifling thing, but an organization after the order of Heaven.”[67] Indeed, Eliza later stated:
Although the name may be of modern date, the institution is of ancient origin. We were told by our martyred prophet, that the same organization existed in the church anciently, allusions to which are made in some of the epistles recorded in the New Testament, making use of the title, “elect lady”. . . . This is an organization that cannot exist without the priesthood, from the fact that it derives all its authority and influence from that source. When the Priesthood was taken from the earth, this institution as well as every other appendage to the true order of the church of Jesus Christ on the earth, became extinct, and had never been restored until now.[68]
In her poem, “The Female Relief Society: What is it?” Eliza expresses her understanding that the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo is the legitimate counterpart to the male organization by emphasizing the word “order” in the sixth and last stanza. She does so by enlarging the word in such a way that it immediately draws attention to itself, implying that she understands the “Relief Society” to be an order of the priesthood.[69] The “Chosen Lady”: Emma is so called “because [she was] elected to preside” as Joseph, the First Elder, was also elected to preside.[70] In the words of President John Taylor, “this Institution was organiz’d according to the law of Heaven—according to a revelation previously given to Mrs. E. Smith, appointing her to this important calling—[with] . . . all things moving forward in . . . a glorious manner.”[71]
The female counterpart of the priesthood would be linked to that of the male order in the appropriated grand fundamental of Masonry: friendship. One could construe that the name for the women’s organization, “The Female Relief Society, was chosen with the Masonic fundamentals of “truth,” “friendship,” and “relief” in mind—therefore empowering the female and male organizations to work together in mutual support, encouraging each other and meeting together in council—patterned after the Divine Council presided over by El, El Shaddai/ Asherah, and Yehovah. If that collaborative vision did not yet come to fruition, it did not go unnoticed by those who constituted the second generation of Relief Society sisters who were very familiar with the founding events of their organization; Susa Young Gates wrote that “the privileges and powers outlined by the Prophet in those first meetings [of the Relief Society] have never been granted to women in full even yet.”[72]
In turning “the key” to Emma as president of the Female Relief Society, Joseph encouraged Emma to “be a pattern of virtue; and possess all the qualifications necessary for her to stand and preside and dignify her Office.” In her article for the Young Woman’s Journal, Susa Young Gates, in her recapitulation of Doctrine and Covenants 25, reminds her young, female readership that Emma was not only called to be a scribe but a “counselor” to the prophet and that she was “ordained to expound the scriptures. Not only set apart but ordained!”[73] With Emma in possession of the keys to preside over the Female Relief Society, it was now possible to create a “kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day—as in Paul’s day.”[74] As in the ancient church of Adam and Eve envisioned by Joseph and, as in the early Christian Church, women would share the burdens of administering the affairs of the kingdom together with ministering to their congregations, the sick, the poor and the needy, and proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.[75]
Indeed, Relief Society sisters performed a vital role in their min-istrations to the poor and the sick—including the pronouncement of blessings of healing. For example, Helen Mar Kimball Whitney records being blessed at the hands of Sister Persis Young, Brigham’s niece, who “had been impressed by the Spirit to come and administer to me . . . She rebuked my weakness . . . and commanded me to be made whole, pronouncing health and many other blessings upon me. . . . From that morning I went to work as though nothing had been the matter.”[76] At the Nauvoo Relief Society meeting of April 28, 1842 Joseph Smith had promised that “if the sisters should have faith to heal the sick, let all hold their tongues, and let every thing roll on.”[77] Women and men would also be endowed to perform the saving ordinances performed initially in the Masonic Lodge and then in the newly constructed Nauvoo Temple in order to redeem “all nations, kindreds, tongues and people” culminating in the sealing of the human family to each other and to the Divine Family, thereby fulfilling their collaborative roles as “Saviours on Mount Zion.”
As Susa Young Gates noted, “there were mighty things wrought in those long-ago days in this Church. Every great and gracious principle of the Gospel—every truth and force for good—all these were conceived and born in the mighty brain and great heart of that master-mind of the nineteenth century, Joseph Smith, the development and expansion of these truths he left to others” (emphasis mine). Susa then added that Joseph “was never jealous or grudging in his attitude to woman. . . . He brought from the Heavenly store-house that bread of life which should feed her soul, if she would eat and lift her from the low estate of centuries of servitude and ignominy into equal partnership and equal liberty with man.”[78]
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
[1] Joseph Milner, The History of the Church of Christ, vol. 2 (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1812), v.; Joseph Milner, The History of the Church of Christ, vol. 3 (Boston: Farrand, Mallory, and Co., 1809), 221.
[2] They are treated in Alexander L. Baugh, “Parting the Veil: Joseph Smith’s Seventy-Six Documented Visionary Experiences,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations 1820–1844, edited by John W. Welch and Erick B. Carlson (Provo and Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University and Deseret Book, 2005), 265–326.
[3] Interview Kathleen Flake, “The Mormons,” PBS Frontline/American Experience (Apr. 30, 2007), retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/flake.html.
[4] Richard Bushman, “Joseph Smith and His Visions,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, edited by Terryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 118.
[5] This practice is most clearly evident in his revelation on priesthood, D&C 107.
[6] See The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Manuscript and Revelation Books, Facsimile Edition, edited by Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2009).
[7] William Dever, Did God Have a Wife? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005).
[8] Among Joseph’s reading material is Willam Hone, ed., The Apocryphal New Testament (London: Hone, 1821). For Smith’s library, see Kenneth W. Godfrey, “A Note on the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute,” Brigham Young University Studies 14 (Spring 1974): 386–89.
[9] Erastus Snow, Mar. 3, 1878, Journal of Discourses, 19:269–70.
[10] Richard S. Van Wagoner, ed., Complete Discourses of Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Smith-Petit Foundation, 2009), 5:3092.
[11] Women in Heaven,” Millennial Star 64 (Jun. 26, 1902): 410, retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/millennialstar6426eng#page/408/mode/2up. Penrose, who was editor at the time this editorial was written, is likely the author.
[12] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” Poems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), 70.
[13] Abraham H. Cannon, Journal, Aug. 25, 1880, LDS archives, quoted in Linda P. Wilcox, “The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven,” in Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fielding Anderson, eds., Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 66; see also Maxine Hanks, Woman and Authority (Salt Lake: Signature, 1992).
[14] V. H. Cassler, “Plato’s Son, Augustine’s Heir: ‘A Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology’?” Square Two 5, no. 2 (Summer 2012), retrieved from http://squaretwo. org/Sq2ArticleCasslerPlatosSon.html.
[15] Joseph Don Carlos Young, Private Notebook (no date; no pagination), currently in the possession of Richard Wright Young, grandson of Joseph Don Carlos Young, quoted in Alonzo L. Gaskill and Seth G. Soha, “The Woman at the Veil,” in An Eye of Faith: Essays in Honor of Richard O. Cowan, edited by Kenneth L. Alford and Richard. E. Bennett (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 2015), 91–111.
[16] Daniel Peterson, “Nephi and his Asherah: A Note on 1 Nephi 11:8–23,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9, no. 2 (2000): 16–25, 80–81.
[17] See Exodus 25:31–37, 37:17–22; Zechariah 4:1–3; Genesis 2:9; Revelation 22:2. See also Margaret Barker, King of the Jews: Temple Theology in John’s Gospel (London: SPCK, 2014), 34–38. Biblical quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[18] See 1 Kings 6:18, 29, 33.
[19] See also Ezekiel 40:16, 31.
[20] See John 12:12–13. The Hebrew for “Hosanna” is “Hoshi’ahnna” meaning “Save us” as noted in Margaret Barker, The Gate of Heaven (Sheffield: SPCK, 2008), 84.
[21] William Dever, Did God Have a Wife?, 101.
[22] E.g., Proverbs 1:20.
[23] See photographs of the fresco at Catacombs of Priscilla, http://www.cata-combepriscilla.com/visita_catacomba_en.html.
[24] Augustine, The Trinity, Book VII, ch 5. My gratitude to Rachael Givens Johnson for alerting me to this passage.
[25] Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord, vol. 1: The Lady in the Temple (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 104.
[26] Kenneth B. Wolf, “Sentencia-Estatuto de Toledo, 1449.” Medieval Texts in Translation (2008), retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/canilup/toledo1449. My gratitude to Rachael Givens Johnson for sharing this quotation with me.
[27] Barker, Mother of the Lord, 331.
[28] Sarah M. Kimball, “Auto-Biography,” Woman’s Exponent 12, no. 7 (Sep. 1, 1883): 51, retrieved from http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/WomansExp/id/10872/rec/17.
[29] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 38, retrieved from http://josephsmith-papers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book.
[30] Eliza R. Snow, “An Address,” Woman’s Exponent 2, no. 8 (Sep. 15, 1873): 63, retrieved from http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/WomansExp/id/15710/rec/31.
[31] Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 145.
[32] Romans 16:7.
[33] John Chrysostom, “Homilies on Romans 31,” in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, VI: Romans, edited by Gerald Bray (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 358.
[34] Orson Pratt, Mar. 26, 1876, Journal of Discourses 18:171.
[35] Raymond Brown, “Roles of Women in the Fourth Gospel,” Theological Studies 36 (1975): 691–92.
[36] Kevin Giles, Patterns of Ministry among the First Christians (Victoria: Collins Dove, 1989), 167.
[37] Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997), 107.
[38] For example, 2 John 1:1, 4, 13; 3 John 1:4.
[39] Stanley R. Grenz and Denise Muir Kjebo, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 78.
[40] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 9.
[41] Ibid., 8.
[42] Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book Company, 1991), 115.
[43] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 58.
[44] Joseph Smith, Journal, Apr. 28, 1842, in Andrew H. Hedges, et al., eds., Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 2: December 1841–April 1843, edited by Dean C. Jessee, et al. (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011), 52 (hereafter JSP, J2).
[45] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 126.
[46] E. R. Snow Smith, “To Branches of the Relief Society (republished by request, and permission of President Lorenzo Snow),” The Woman’s Exponent 27, no. 23 (Sep. 15, 1884): 140, retrieved from http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/WomansExp/id/33963/rec/1.
[47] Quoted in Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 39, 50.
[48] Ehat and Cook, Words, 115. As Ehat and Cook point out, there seems little alternative to reading the “confirmation” in his expression as a reference to the gift of the Holy Ghost (141).
[49] William Gibbons, Truth Advocated in Letters Addressed to the Presbyterians (Philadelphia: Joseph Rakenstraw, 1822), 107. Quoted in Benjamin Keogh, “The Holy Priesthood, The Holy Ghost, and the Holy Community,” Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Seminar paper, Brigham Young University, Jul. 23, 2015, n.p.
[50] Gibbons, Truth, 85.
[51] “Hours With Holy Scripture,” The Reformed Presbyterian Magazine (Edin-burgh: Johnstone, Hunter & Co, 1866), 45. Quoted in Keogh, “The Holy Priesthood, The Holy Ghost and the Holy Community.”
[52] On April 28 Joseph again visited the Relief Society meeting and discoursed on the topic of “different offices, and the necessity of every individual acting in the sphere allotted to him or her.” Given what follows it is evident that Joseph is addressing the different spiritual gifts allotted to each member of the community. For, he continues that “the disposition of man [is] to look with jealous eyes upon the standing of others” and “the reason these remarks were being made, was that some little thing was circulating in the Society,” com-plaints that “ some [women] were not going right in laying hands on the sick &c,” instead of rejoicing that “the sick could be heal’d” (Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 35–36).
[53] Ehat and Cook, Words, 7.
[54] Ibid., 64 (emphasis mine).
[55] Joseph Smith, “Gift of the Holy Ghost,” Times and Seasons, Jun. 15, 1842. Quoted in “The Holy Priesthood, The Holy Ghost and the Holy Community,” Keogh.
[56] Sarah Kimball, “Reminiscence, March 17, 1882,” in The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History, edited by Jill Mulvay Derr, et al. (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 495; emphasis mine.
[57] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 40; D&C 27:13–18.
[58] Cheryl L. Bruno, “Keeping a Secret: Freemasonry, Polygamy, and the Nauvoo Relief Society, 1842–44,” Journal of Mormon History 39, no. 4 (Fall 2013): 159.
[59] Don Bradley has illuminated these connections in “The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism: Joseph Smith’s Unfinished Reformation,” Sunstone (Apr. 2006): 32–41.
[60] Ehat and Cook, Words, 234.
[61] Snow, Journal of Discourses 19:266.
[62] For example, Exodus 6:3. For a discussion of Shaddai/Shadday as a female name, see Harriet Lutzky, “Shadday as a Goddess Epithet” in Vetus Testamentum 48, Fasc. 1 (Jan. 1998): 15–16.
[63] Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 3rd ed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), 105–06.
[64] Heber C. Kimball, Nov. 29, 1857, Journal of Discourses, 6:102.
[65] Considering the male priesthood to be the “Male Relief Society” is no stretch. The profound influence of Masonry on Smith, his choice of the Masonic Lodge for organizational purposes, the association of Masonic thought with “Relief,” and the women’s choice to employ that term explicitly in their organization’s name, all suggest that the male organization was effectively in Smith’s conception a “male Relief Society.”
[66] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 11–12.
[67] Eighth Ward, Liberty Stake, Relief Society Minutes and Records, 1867–1969, vol. 1, May 12, 1868. In First Fifty Years, 270.
[68] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” Apr. 18 and 20, 1868, in First Fifty Years, 271 (emphasis mine).
[69] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo: What is it?” in First Fifty Years, 135.
[70] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 9.
[71] Ibid., 14.
[72] Susa Young Gates, “The Open Door for Women,” Young Woman’s Journal 16 (Mar. 3, 1905): 117; retrieved http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/YWJ/id/14738/rec/16.
[73] Gates, “Open Door,” 116.
[74] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 22.
[75] Ehat and Cook, Words, 110.
[76] Helen Mar Whitney, “Scenes and Incidents at Winter Quarters,” Woman’s Exponent 14, no. 14 (Dec. 15, 1885), 106, retrieved from http://contentdm. lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/WomansExp/id/12881/rec/69.
[77] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 36.
[78] Gates, “Open Door,” 116.
2016: Fiona Givens, “‘The Perfect Union of Man and Woman’: Reclamation and Collaboration in Joseph Smith’s Theology Making” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 49 No. 1 (2016): 1–26.
Givens argues that one of the things that Joseph Smith was trying to restore was teachings taught to Adam and Eve, in particular men and women working together. Givens also highlighted the existence of Heavenly Mother.
[post_title] => “The Perfect Union of Man and Woman”: Reclamation and Collaboration in Joseph Smith’s Theology Making [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 49.1 (Spring 2016): 1–26Central to Joseph’s creative energies was a profound commitment to an ideal of cosmic as well as human collaboration. His personal mode of leadership increasingly shifted from autocratic to collaborative—and that mode infused both his most radical theologizing and his hopes for Church comity itself. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-perfect-union-of-man-and-womanreclamation-and-collaboration-in-joseph-smiths-theology-making [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-04 23:47:42 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-04 23:47:42 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=18872 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

Salvation through a Tabernacle: Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt, and Early Mormon Theologies of Embodiment
Benjamin E. Park
Dialogue 43.2 (Summer 2010): 1–44
A discussion of the theology of the body being combined with the spirit for various different reasons.
A discussion of the theology of the body being combined with the spirit for various different reasons.
[post_title] => Salvation through a Tabernacle: Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt, and Early Mormon Theologies of Embodiment [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 43.2 (Summer 2010): 1–44A discussion of the theology of the body being combined with the spirit for various different reasons. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => salvation-through-a-tabernacle-joseph-smith-parley-p-pratt-and-early-mormon-theologies-of-embodiment [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-04 23:51:01 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-04 23:51:01 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=9767 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

The Limits of Naturalistic Criteria for the Book of Mormon: Comparing Joseph Smith and Andrew Jackson Davis
William Davis
Dialogue 53.3 (Fall 2020): 73–103
Davis compares the two men, saying “Davis, like Smith, was raised in a poor household and received little formal education—Davis, in fact, would claim to have received only “little more than five months” of schooling.”
Davis compares the two men, saying “Davis, like Smith, was raised in a poor household and received little formal education—Davis, in fact, would claim to have received only “little more than five months” of schooling.”
[post_title] => The Limits of Naturalistic Criteria for the Book of Mormon: Comparing Joseph Smith and Andrew Jackson Davis [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.3 (Fall 2020): 73–103Davis compares the two men, saying “Davis, like Smith, was raised in a poor household and received little formal education—Davis, in fact, would claim to have received only “little more than five months” of schooling.” [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-limits-of-naturalistic-criteria-for-the-book-of-mormon-comparing-joseph-smith-and-andrew-jackson-davis [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-05 00:14:37 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-05 00:14:37 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=26727 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon: Co-Founders of a Movement
Steven L. Shields
Dialogue 52.3 (Fall 2019): 1–18
Shields argues that if you deny or dismiss Sidney Ridgon’s contributions to the early church, then the scripture canon during this time would need to be reinterpreted.
With the recent push by President Russell M. Nelson to refer to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by its proper name and stop using the term “Mormon,” perhaps the time has come to advocate for a more objective term for the academic study of the larger movement than “Mormon Studies,” which has tended to focus solely on the Utah-based branch. Students and scholars need a more objective name for the movement, one that is based in the history of its foundations. The studies they do must be done with a broader rubric of interpretation—not one that is focused on telling one side of the story.[1] For historical and theological purposes, then, I argue that the academic community should adopt the term “Smith-Rigdon Movement” in their studies and publications.
To call the movement “Mormonism” is confusing, even though “Mormon” and “Mormonite” are among the earliest nicknames to appear in history. A French scholar proposed referring to the movement as “Mormonisms.” His argument is that because Mormonism is widely understood, making the word plural signals there is more than one brand.[2] However, many denominations within the movement do not identify with the term.[3]
Furthermore, the term “Latter Day Saint movement” is anachronistic, regardless of whether the beginning of the movement is counted from 1820, 1829, or 1830.[4] The phrase was not introduced to the movement until 1833.[5] The name was formalized in 1834.[6] But, as with “Mormonism,” many of the denominations in the movement do not identify with the phrase.[7]
The label “restoration movement” is a retrospective gloss that introduces confusion as well. Anachronistic application of later or contemporary understanding to historical circumstances leads to fundamental misunderstanding. Joseph Smith commonly called the Church “a great and marvelous work,” but rarely used the term “restoration” in his earliest writings.[8] Many followers often talked about the “new revelation” when speaking of the Book of Mormon. In the rare times that we find restoration in Smith’s revelations, the Book of Mormon, or other writings, the term speaks of other ideas. Smith uses the word to talk about future events, about the Jewish people, or in general terms. In no case did he use the term to suggest that he understood himself to be “restoring” either the gospel or an organization.[9]
The use and meanings of restore and restoration, as has become commonplace in the Smith-Rigdon Movement, was borrowed from Reform Baptist (the Stone-Campbell movement) language in use from the early 1820s. Sidney Rigdon and those leaders who came with him when they merged with Smith introduced the language.[10] Joseph Smith’s appellation “the restorer,” the term “restored gospel” as applied to Smith’s message, and the unique definition of restoration all postdate Smith’s founding experiences. Interestingly, the earliest Ohio members of the new movement continued to call themselves “disciples” at least until the church name was formally changed in 1834.
The Churches of Christ, and independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ use the phrase “restoration movement” when writing and talking about themselves, but the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) long ago stopped using such language.[11] Academics in that tradition have long used “Stone-Campbell movement” to discuss their broader history because styles and definitions of restoration are varied.[12]
For example, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon each sought restorations that were charismatic and experiential, revelational restorationism. Alexander Campbell was noted for rational restorationism.[13] This idea is based on the belief that the Bible contains concrete facts, rather than abstract truths, and Campbell advocated a scientific method to understanding the teachings of the book. Campbell felt that by relying only on the facts contained in the Bible, Christians could come to a unity of agreement.[14] Further, the restoration vision was widely known as it had already emerged with great strength in the sixteenth century and was foundational for much of the Reformation throughout Europe.[15]
Sidney Rigdon’s importance to the movement cannot be overemphasized. When Smith and Rigdon met late in 1830, they formed a partnership, resulting in a merger of two independent movements. This had been several months in the making, from the time some of Rigdon’s followers began to believe in the new revelation represented by the Book of Mormon. Smith’s was a loosely organized collection of fewer than three hundred people scattered around the border area of upstate New York and Pennsylvania;[16] Rigdon’s was a network of several congregations and hundreds of members.[17]
The Doctrine and Covenants and other sources clearly demonstrate that Sidney Rigdon was not second to Joseph Smith, but an equal partner. The problem from our modern perspective is that by the time Joseph Smith was killed, he had become disenchanted with Rigdon. Likewise, Rigdon had become disenchanted with Smith, due largely to the cancellation of the common stock association, the Kirtland Bank debacle, and the repeated failures to establish Zion. Nevertheless, prior to this, Rigdon had remained loyal and largely hid his discouragement and frustration. His belief in Smith’s revelations and the testimony of the Book of Mormon remained strong until Rigdon’s death.[18]
Not long after Joseph Smith’s death, Sidney Rigdon was written out of the Church’s history by Brigham Young and others who disagreed with Rigdon’s position. Ever after, those writing the history of the movement have ignored Rigdon’s significant contributions that shaped the identity and message of the movement.[19][20]
James J. Strang and those who formed Community of Christ had little or no knowledge of Sidney Rigdon’s true role in forming the movement. Many of them were latecomers and not located at the center. The same is true for Granville Hedrick. Rigdon’s legacy lived on, but only in part, through William Bickerton’s Church of Jesus Christ.[21]
Joseph Smith’s religious work began taking shape by May of 1829 in New York and Pennsylvania with the first baptisms, although the foundations were several years in the making. The founding event was the Book of Mormon. Reliance on the First Vision as founding event did not happen until decades after Smith’s death.[22]
What Smith and his followers did on April 6, 1830, was organize a religious association to be legally recognized to perform marriages. They were not incorporating, nor were they forming a denomination in the modern understanding. Such an idea was counter to the ideas of Smith, Rigdon, and many others.[23] They were organizing a church in the local sense.[24] I think that is why the word “branch” emerged to refer to the scattered congregations.
Meanwhile, Adamson Bentley, Sidney Rigdon’s brother-in-law, introduced Rigdon to Alexander Campbell in 1821. Historians consider that meeting to be the beginning of the movement. Rigdon and Campbell quickly became close associates. Rigdon was known as one of the most successful and eloquent leaders in Campbell’s movement.[25]
Some scholars consider Sidney Rigdon, Walter Scott, Adamson Bentley, and Alexander Campbell as co-founders of the movement that gave birth to what is now known as the Stone-Campbell Movement.[26] The Mahoning Baptist Association, which they formed in 1820, was an alliance of like-minded ministers and congregations that were the nucleus for the later development of the Disciples movement with Campbell.[27] In the earliest years, they were called Reformed Baptists. The Mahoning Association functioned in some ways as a micro-denomination. It was geographically localized over a relatively small area. There were dozens of such associations in the United States at the time. They held annual conferences, appointed ministers to certain tasks, and declared common doctrinal statements. Sidney Rigdon was one of the bishops, supervising several congregations northwest of Warren, Ohio.[28]
By 1828, Bentley was the leader supervising several congregations near Warren, Ohio, Scott was in charge southwest of Warren, Rigdon was the leader northwest of Warren, and Campbell was the scholar and writer.[29] Walter Scott claimed to have restored the “ancient gospel,” but Campbell rejected that claim.[30]
Rigdon and Campbell parted company in the summer of 1830 over issues dealing with the role of charismata and setting up communitarian societies.[31] Eventually, Rigdon found the prophetic impulse to be powerful in his life of faith. As one scholar declared, “few sources could be more authoritative than direct revelation from God.”[32]
Historian F. Mark McKiernan explained:
Rigdon disagreed with Campbell over whether the so-called “manifestations of Spiritual Gifts” and miracles had a place in the restoration. The gifts of the spirit were the speaking and interpretation of foreign tongues, prophecy, visions, spiritual dreams, and the discernment of evil spirits. Campbell declared that the miraculous work of the Holy Ghost was “confined to the apostolic age, and to only a portion of the saints who lived in that age.” Rigdon, however, sought “to convince influential persons that, along with the primitive gospel, supernatural gifts and miracles ought to be restored.”[33]
Sidney Rigdon has been identified by some historians as one of the “Three Witnesses to the Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.” The primary holders of the title are Alexander Campbell and Walter Scott.[34] When Rigdon met Joseph Smith Jr., Smith declared that Rigdon was like John the Baptist and appointed him as a spokesperson. Interestingly, the same language was already being used to describe Barton Stone.[35] Sidney Rigdon is mentioned by name in dozens of sections of the Doctrine and Covenants; many sections were jointly received by Smith and Rigdon.
Some of the earliest believers in the Book of Mormon message had been Disciples trained by Sidney Rigdon as ministers and church leaders. They introduced their beloved leader and teacher Rigdon to the message, who finally accepted rebaptism late in 1830. By December, Rigdon traveled to New York to meet Joseph Smith Jr. and stayed for several weeks through the winter.[36]
Even though Smith and his missionaries rebaptized Rigdon and his followers, this does not suggest that Rigdon and his followers felt they were in submission to Smith or did not have authority to baptize previously. Rather it was that Smith claimed to be able to give the gift of the Holy Spirit. That was important to Rigdon and his followers. Rigdon disagreed with Alexander Campbell on this issue, which was one reason leading to their separation.[37]
The Smith-Rigdon partnership merged two distinct religious bodies and created a new one that contained features of both. They built on those foundations. Neither leader gave up cherished basic principles. Rigdon brought communalism and a fervent belief in gifts of the Spirit. Smith had the “new revelation” and oracles from God. Rigdon also brought a refined understanding of the Bible and theology. Each leader contributed to the newly shaped church body ideas and skills the other lacked.
Sidney Rigdon was well-spoken, educated, and experienced as a church leader. He was appointed to be Smith’s principal adviser and spokesperson by revelation.[38] He brought hundreds of his followers into the movement, including Orson Pratt, recognized as the first systematic theologian of the movement.[39] I believe that without Rigdon’s contributions, Joseph Smith’s church would likely not have developed its several distinct teachings and practices. Indeed, much of the theology was founded on Disciples doctrine, which Rigdon and his followers brought with them.
When Sidney Rigdon merged his faith community with that of Joseph Smith, the demographics of the movement shifted dramatically. Rigdon’s followers who were attracted to Smith’s message were at least double the New York and Pennsylvania membership to begin with, but within a few months, the newly merged church’s population in Ohio reached upwards of one thousand members.[40] These new members were not new. Most of them had been members of the various congregations of Disciples under Rigdon’s bishopric in the Kirtland area and had followed him out of Campbell’s movement.[41] Historian Mark Staker noted that former Disciples were the majority, had been taught by Sidney Rigdon, and that Smith built on that foundation.[42]
One scholar suggested that Rigdon’s influence and importance in the merger with Joseph Smith included five key points:
First, Sidney was one of the most influential figures in northern Ohio. His reputation, visibility, and prestige created instant credibility for the fledgling [Church of Christ]. Second, Sidney’s skill and fame as a religious orator provided ready audiences throughout northern Ohio. Third, Sidney brought with him a vast network of acquaintances—former Baptist and Disciple converts . . . . Fourth, Sidney’s experience as a religious organizer, trainer, minister, missionary, biblical scholar, and scriptorian far exceeded that of any other early convert. Fifth, Sidney had spent years grooming a number of individuals for the ministry: . . Edward Partridge, Newell K. Whitney, Isaac Morley, Frederick G. Williams . . . Parley P. Pratt, John Murdock . . . Orson Hyde . . . Eliza R. Snow . . . Orson Pratt.[43]
Other former Disciples included John Corrill, William E. McLellin, John F. Boynton, Lyman Wight, Levi W. Hancock, Zebedee Coltrin, Luke S. and Lyman E. Johnson, John Johnson, and Sylvester Smith. One-half of the original twelve apostles were Rigdon’s people. In fact, many of them, including Orson Hyde and the Pratt brothers, had been Campbellite preachers.[44] Indeed, of the four people who were crucial in introducing new ideas and policies, and who helped articulate the theology of the fledgling church in the early years of the movement, three were Disciples, or Campbellites—Sidney Rigdon, Parley P. Pratt, and Orson Pratt. Moreover, Rigdon had trained both Pratts as ministers. The fourth was Joseph Smith Jr.[45]
Objective studies of the movement need to understand Sidney Rig-don’s and others’ contributions to the movement as it developed, rather than judging those contributions through retrospective gloss, discounting valid and important contributions based merely on later events. Sidney Rigdon’s contributions to the original church[46] and the overall movement need to be written back into the history of the movement, regardless of what happened to his relationship with Smith in succeeding years.
Rigdon delivered every major speech and sermon in the first decade of the church’s history, dealing with faith, repentance, baptism, spiritual gifts, the Millennium, and communitarianism. The early church’s periodicals are replete with notes, prayers, texts, and comments by Rigdon. He outlined the basic theology of the movement in his Lectures of Faith[47] that were used for missionary training and canonized as equal to the revelations in the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835.[48] He laid the foundations for what has become, for some denominations in the movement, essential temple ritual. To discount or deny Rigdon’s contributions because of his later, rockier relationship with Smith and his refusal to agree with Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve would require a reinterpretation of the entire canon of scripture of the movement.[49]
Smith and Rigdon’s first joint project was revising the Bible; although Smith had begun this a few months earlier, it had languished, but now consumed much of the attention of the partners. Not long after Smith and the New York/Pennsylvania group relocated to Kirtland, the Book of Abraham project began and continued concurrently with the Bible revision.
The idea of problems with the text of the King James Version of the Bible was commonplace. There is little question that Rigdon was well informed and likely made use of Alexander Campbell’s 1826 revision of the New Testament. Scholars grounded in first-century Greek commonly agreed the King James Version was not inviolable. Between the late 1770s and the early 1830s, some five hundred different editions of the Bible or New Testament had been published in the United States.[50]
Richard S. Van Wagoner noted that Rigdon was “often called a ‘walking Bible’ by his peers in the Reformed Baptist Movement.” “That Rigdon could have been merely Sidney the Scribe, a penman whose sole function was to take down dictation, is implausible. A biblical scholar with a reputation for erudition, he was more learned, better read, and more steeped in biblical interpretation than any other early Mormon, despite his common school education. Any number of Smith’s followers could have served as clerk, but only Rigdon could have functioned as a scribe in the historical Jewish sense of the word: “a man of learning; one who read and explained the law to the people.”[51] Before Rigdon’s involvement in the Bible revision project, only about seven chapters of Genesis had been written. Manuscripts were in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery and John Whitmer. However, even those early manuscripts were revised and rewritten by Rigdon.[52]
During work on the Bible revision, while Rigdon was in New York with Smith, the idea of moving the entire church to Ohio came up. Joseph Smith’s elaboration on the Prophecy of Enoch (Inspired Version of the Bible Genesis 7; Pearl of Great Price Moses 7) spoke directly to Rigdon’s yearnings for what he believed to be a restoration of New Testament communitarianism. Rigdon’s experience with communitarianism surely influenced Smith’s revision of the idea. The communal ideas expressed in the Book of Mormon were different from Rigdon’s and different from what developed after Smith and Rigdon merged their two movements.[53]
The church was struggling in New York but booming in Ohio. Many of the early church members in New York were prosperous landowners and farmers and were not keen on being uprooted. Persuasively, Smith pronounced a revelation in December 1830, directing church members to assemble in Ohio (D&C 37). Smith declared, “God is about to destroy this generation, and Christ will descend from Heaven in power and great glory.”[54] F. Mark McKiernan noted, “Kirtland was Rigdon’s city, and while the church’s headquarters remained there the basic structure of the Mormon Church was developed.”[55]
Richard S. Van Wagoner has described Smith and Rigdon as equals. He noted that Smith “used the term ‘having a revelation’ when referring to the statements he issued in response to specific questions or crises. Rigdon was privy to the same epiphanies, and several early revelations were given to both men simultaneously.”[56] These include Doctrine and Covenants 34, 37, 40, 44, 71, 73, 76, 97/SLC 35, 37, 40, 44, 71, 73, 76, and 100.
Doctrine and Covenants 76 (both editions), dated February 16, 1832, is important evidence of Rigdon’s equal status with Joseph Smith. Rigdon was the only other person besides Smith, who claimed to have conversed with Christ, and he and Smith were together at the time.[57] The vision contains teachings about the hereafter that were often a matter of debate. Those members who had not come out of the Disciples movement were the ones who questioned the vision’s teachings. However, the former Disciples understood the vision through the lens of their rational restorationism, as taught to them by Sidney Rigdon. They were the ones who explained the teachings of the vision to others.[58]
Further confirmation of Rigdon’s equal status is found in Doctrine and Covenants 87/SLC 90, dated March 8, 1833. The text declares that both Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams “are accounted as equal with [Joseph Smith] in holding the keys of this last kingdom.” Williams, as noted earlier, was also a former Disciple.
As Zion’s Camp was assembling at Kirtland in the spring of 1834, Rigdon preached a sermon to the recruits on May 3. Rigdon announced, “that the prophet and the high council had agreed to his suggestion to change the name of the church from ‘The Church of Christ’ to ‘The Church of the Latter Day Saints,’ emphasizing the proximity of the Millennium.”[59] It was by this name the church published the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835. The name was inscribed on the entablature of the Kirtland Temple.[60]
Sidney Rigdon ordained Joseph Smith to the office of president of the high priesthood when the high priesthood was introduced into the church. The suggestion came from Sidney. His influence over the identity, mission, message, beliefs, and organizational structure of the church was disconcerting to those from Joseph’s original group. David Whitmer complained, “Rigdon finally persuaded Brother Joseph to believe that the high priests who had such great power in ancient times, should be in the Church of Christ today. He had Brother Joseph inquire of the Lord about it, and they received an answer according to their erring desires.”[61] Rigdon also ordained, or set apart, the members of the first high council at Kirtland, and was that body’s presiding officer.[62]
Sidney Rigdon was one of the best-educated members of the church. Late in 1832, instruction was given to set up a school to teach the priesthood. Variously called the School of the Elders or the School of the Prophets, Rigdon was the chief instructor. The curriculum included religious topics, but also grammar, reading, writing, history, geography, and foreign languages. None of this was new to Rigdon. He was an experienced teacher and trainer of ministers.
One of the most important contributions to the identity, mission, message, and beliefs of the young church “was Rigdon’s preparation and delivery of a seven-part series of theological lectures to a group of prospective missionaries . . . during the 1834–35 winter term.”[63] Rigdon’s lectures were canonized in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants and designated by the First Presidency as the “doctrine of the church.” The lectures had equal scriptural status with the revelations in part two of the book until 1897 in Community of Christ, and 1921 in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[64] Not only had Rigdon solidly laid the foundation for the importance of education in the movement, but he also produced the first written theology.
The Kirtland Temple was, perhaps, Sidney Rigdon’s longest-lasting visible project. When the building was dedicated, Rigdon co-presided with Joseph Smith, gave a lengthy dedicatory address, and conducted the proceedings overall. The ordinance of washing of feet, first performed in the Kirtland Temple, was “a remnant of Sandemanian theology from Rigdon’s late 1820s ministry with Walter Scott in Pittsburgh” and “Two days after the dedication [of Kirtland Temple], the foot washing ceremony, the only ordinance performed in the solemn assembly after the dedication of the temple, was performed.” Rigdon “first washed the prophet’s feet. Smith then reciprocated after with the ordinance was performed for the rest of the group by Smith and Rigdon.”[65]
Richard S. Van Wagoner noted, “Mormonism in its purest distillation is the fused product of Joseph Smith’s and Sidney Rigdon’s revolutionary thinking condensed into the prophet’s revelations.”[66] To discount human-divine interaction in revelation or to see Joseph as merely a scribe for dictated communication from God simply does not fit with Smith’s description and experience of revelation and prophecy.[67] Smith, with Rigdon, felt complete freedom to revise the texts of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the contents of the Doctrine and Covenants.
In summary, by the end of 1830, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon effected a merger. Joseph brought only a handful of members to the merged organization but brought “the gifts of the Holy Spirit,” especially prophecy and revelation. Further, those in New York and Pennsylvania were scattered and endured persecution. Rigdon, better educated and better spoken, brought his experience as a spiritual leader and his biblical scholarship. Rigdon also brought a huge network of members who were located in settled communities that were free from persecution. Smith and Rigdon clearly brought to the merger what each other needed.
Rigdon laid the foundation for educational pursuits that became a hallmark of the original church and for many of its successor denomi-nations. Smith and Rigdon blended their views of communitarianism. Rigdon proposed ideas, and Smith confirmed them by revelation. Sidney Rigdon was responsible for the basic articulation of the church’s identity, mission, message, and beliefs, with his Lectures of Faith having equal canonical standing with Smith’s revelations. His influence was far-reaching and gave shape and longevity to what otherwise may have been a short-lived religious experiment in upstate New York. Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon both had pivotal roles in shaping the movement that emerged from their partnership.
An academic name for the movement, then, should recognize their equal contributions. And the name of the study of this religious movement should recognize its roots and development and reads its history frontward rather than backward and avoid retrospective interpretive gloss.
I propose, then, that for historical and theological purposes, those in the academic community use “Smith-Rigdon Movement” in their studies and publications about the movement. Such a move will help bring objectivity to the study of the movement and broaden the lens through which the movement’s historical and theological development can be viewed and interpreted.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
The author presented on this topic at the thirty-ninth annual meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Association in Nauvoo, Illinois, Sept. 23, 2011. This is an updated and expanded version.
[1] For a catalog of almost five hundred expressions of the movement, see the author’s Divergent Paths of the Restoration, 5th edition, Greg Kofford Books, forthcoming.
[2] Chrystal Vanel, interview with author, May 9, 2011.
[3] Eber D. Howe, in early 1831, popularized the terms. “Mormonism,” Painesville Telegraph, Jan. 18, 1831, 3.
[4] Joseph Smith reported a powerful conversion experience as having occurred in 1820. Baptisms were taking place in 1829, following a reported visit from John the Baptist. Smith legally organized a “church” in 1830.
[5] Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009), 74.
[6] Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 149. See also Mark A. Scherer, “Called by a New Name: Mission, Identity and the Reorganized Church,” Journal of Mormon History 27, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 40–63. The minutes of a May 3, 1834 “conference of the elders of the church” were published in The Evening and the Morning Star. The conference met to consider “names and appellations.” Joseph Smith Jr. was chosen as moderator. Sidney Rigdon made a motion, seconded by Newell K. Whitney, that the church be called “The Church of the Latter Day Saints.” The motion passed unanimously (The Evening and the Morning Star 2, no. 20, May 1834, 160).
[7] There are also the two spelling conventions, British and American. When the British is chosen, the name favors the LDS Church in Utah with “Latter-day Saint.” If the American convention, Latter Day Saint, though used by some others in the movement, confuses the issue. For a brief summary of the hyphenation conventions, see Wikipedia, s.v. “American and British Eng-lish spelling differences; Compounds and hyphens,” last modified Sept. 18, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling _differences#Compounds_and_hyphens.
[8] For instance, see D&C 6. See also Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 1, June 1832, 6.
[9] For example, see D&C 84, 85; SLC 77, 86, 88 (SLC 77 does not appear in Community of Christ editions of the book). Doctrine and Covenants section and paragraph numbers in this article refer to editions published by Community of Christ. SLC denotes editions published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A thorough study of the use of the terms restore and restoration in the early years of the movement is needed.
[10] Staker, 19ff. Staker has an excellent outline and background history of the Stone-Campbell movement’s earliest years. Alexander Campbell introduced the language “restoration of the ancient order of things” in the 1820s.
[11] Ralph G. Wilburn, “A Critique of the Restoration Principle,” in The Renewal of Church: The Panel of Scholars Reports, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Bethany Press, 1963).
[12] Douglas A. Foster, “Community of Christ and Churches of Christ: Extraordinary Distinctions, Extraordinary Parallels,” Restoration Studies XIV (2013): 2.
[13] John L. Morrison, “A Rational Voice Crying in an Emotional Wilderness,” in The Stone-Campbell Movement: An International Religious Tradition, edited by Michael W. Casey and Douglas A. Foster (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 163–76.
[14] C. Leonard Allen and Richard T. Hughes, Discovering Our Roots: The Ancestry of Churches of Christ (Abilene, Tex.: ACU Press, 1988), 84.
[15] Richard T. Hughes, “Historical Models of Restoration,” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement edited by Douglas A. Foster, et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich., and Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 635.
[16] Wikipedia, s.v. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints member-ship history: LDS Church membership numbers,” last modified Sept. 27, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day _Saints_membership_history#LDS_Church_membership_numbers.
[17] Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 49–67, details the extent of Rigdon’s influence in the “Western Reserve.”
[18] Lloyd Knowles, “Sidney Rigdon: A Frustrated Restorationist in Pursuit of ‘The True Church,’” manuscript, dated June 29, 2012, in author’s possession, 16–17.
[19] Rigdon was also written out of the Stone-Campbell Movement history in earlier years, but recently his contributions have been more widely acknowledged. See Staker, 24, n. 3.
[20] Van Wagoner, 165−66. The beginning of the end of the Smith-Rigdon partnership was the disruption over the Kirtland Bank. A caustic meeting held in the temple at Kirtland in December 1837 tried to deal with the serious leadership crisis that had developed.
[21] W. H. Cadman, A History of the Church of Jesus Christ (Monongahela, Pa.: The Church of Jesus Christ, 1945), 4−9. Robert A. Watson, et al, A History of the Church of Jesus Christ, Volume 2 (Monongahela, Pa.: The Church of Jesus Christ, 2002), 28−34. William Bickerton was unique among the many leaders during the Fragmentation Era. He had not belonged to the original church, nor had he met Joseph Smith Jr. or other leaders. He came into contact with Sidney Rigdon’s Church of Christ in the Pittsburgh area, was baptized, ordained, and became a member of Rigdon’s “Grand Council” (similar to Council of Fifty). When Rigdon’s lack of administrative skill failed the church, Bickerton and a few elders continued in their local branches until the late 1850s when they reorganized the first presidency and other leadership councils. See Daniel P. Stone, William Bickerton: Forgotten Latter Day Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2018).
[22] Richard P. Howard, The Church Through the Years, Volume 1 (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1992) 111–12.
[23] Douglas A. Foster, “Denominationalism,” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, edited by Douglas A. Foster, et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004), 267–69.
[24] David Keith Stott, “Legal Insights into the Organization of the Church in 1830,” BYU Studies 49, no. 2 (2010): 121−48.
[25] Staker, 19−26, 31, 34, 38, 40, 47, 279, 320−21, 405.
[26] Staker, 24, n. 3.
[27] Lloyd Alan Knowles, In Pursuit of the True Church: The Attraction of Restorationism on the Nineteenth Century American Frontier: Sidney Rigdon, the Disciples of Christ, and the Mormons (Deer Park, N.Y.: Linus, 2007), 78–86.
[28] Phil McIntosh, “Mahoning Baptist Association,” in Douglas A. Foster, et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004), 501–02. Also, Richard McLellan, “Sidney Rigdon’s 1820 Ministry: Preparing the Way for Mormonism in Ohio,” Dialogue 36, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 155.
[29] Richard McClellan, “Sidney Rigdon’s 1820 Ministry: Preparing the Way for Mormonism in Ohio,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 36, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 151−59.
[30] Staker, 321. Interview with Douglas A. Foster, Stone-Campbell movement scholar, Nov. 11, 2015.
[31] Thomas W. Grafton, Alexander Campbell (St. Louis, Mo.: Christian Publishing Company, 1897), 127.
[32] Grant Underwood, The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 20.
[33] F. Mark McKiernan, The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness: Sidney Rigdon, Religious Reformer, 1793−1876 (Independence, Mo.: Herald House, 1971 [1990]), 27. An explanation of how this idea played out in the experiential primitivism, as shaped by nineteenth-century American romanticism, espoused by Joseph Smith and the early years of his church is found in Foster, et al., 637. See also Richard T. Hughes, “Two Restoration Traditions: Mormons and Churches of Christ in the Nineteenth Century,” in Casey and Foster, 356; and Gregory A. Prince, Power from on High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 63–64.
[34] Staker, 24, n. 3.
[35] Quoted in Staker, 19ff.
[36] Lloyd Knowles, “Sidney Rigdon: A Frustrated Restorationist in Pursuit of ‘The True Church,’” manuscript dated June 20, 2019, in author’s possession, 13–14.
[37] Staker, 23.
[38] Doctrine and Covenants 34; 35 SLC; 97; 100 SLC.
[39] Breck England, The Life and Thought of Orson Pratt (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985). See also Leonard J. Arrington, “The Intellectual Tradition of the Latter-day Saints,” Dialogue 4, no. 1 (Spring 1969): 17.
[40] Lee Copeland, “Speaking in Tongues in the Restoration Churches,” Dialogue 24, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 17. Richard S. Van Wagoner, “Mormon Polyandry in Nauvoo,” Dialogue 18, no. 3 (Fall 1985): 67−83. McKiernan, 36. Van Wagoner, 87.
[41] Richard McLellan, “Sidney Rigdon’s 1820 Ministry: Preparing the Way for Mormonism in Ohio,” Dialogue 36, no. 4 (Winter 2003):157−59. See also Staker, 61−62.
[42] Staker, 335.
[43] Richard McClellan, “Sidney Rigdon’s 1820 Ministry: Preparing the Way for Mormonism in Ohio,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 36, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 159. See also Scott Kenney, “Sidney Rigdon: The Baptist Years (1817−1830),” unpublished paper (copy on file) presented to Sunstone Symposium, Aug. 14, 2009, for a list of prominent Church leaders who had been Sidney Rigdon’s followers.
[44] Staker, 34, 61, 320.
[45] Arrington, 16.
[46] “Original Church” refers to the organization up to Joseph Smith, Junior’s death in 1844.
[47] These are also referred to as the “Lectures on Faith.”
[48] Van Wagoner, 162. See also Arrington, 17.
[49] This includes Doctrine and Covenants 34, 37, 40, 44, 71, 73, 76, 97; SLC 35, 37, 40, 44, 71, 73, 76, and 100; the Inspired Version of the Bible, revisions to the Book of Mormon text, and the Book of Abraham.
[50] Van Wagoner, 72.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Ibid., 73.
[53] Thomas F. O’Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 37. Van Wagoner notes, “The prophet’s syncretic ability to blend others’ ideas with his own intuition was a conspicuous feature of his career. It was not surprising that Joseph Smith’s communal vision began evolving within days of meeting Rigdon” (79). See also Van Wagoner, 74 and 85.
[54] McKiernan, 45. The section number is the same in both Independence and Salt Lake City editions.
[55] McKiernan, 66; Van Wagoner 82.
[56] Van Wagoner, 74.
[57] D &C 76. See McKiernan, 69. D&C IND 76:3a, 3b; SLC 76:11−14.
[58] Staker, 331−33.
[59] Van Wagoner, 149.
[60] Scherer, 42.
[61] Quoted in David John Buerger, “‘The Fulness of the Priesthood’: The Second Anointing in Latter-day Saint Theology and Practice,” Dialogue 16, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 10−46.
[62] Kenney, “Sidney Rigdon: The Baptist Years.” See also Van Wagoner, 163.
[63] Van Wagoner, 161.
[64] Ibid., 162. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes called the LDS Church, prefers “the” to be capitalized.
[65] Van Wagoner, 169–73.
[66] Van Wagoner, 142.
[67] See Geoffrey F. Spencer, “A Reinterpretation of Inspiration, Revelation, and Scripture,” in The Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture, edited by Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), 19–27.
2019: Steven Shields, “Joseph Smith and Sidney Ridgon: Co-founders of a Movement” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 52 No. 3 (2019): 1–18.
Shields argues that if you deny or dismiss Sidney Ridgon’s contributions to the early church, then the scripture canon during this time would need to be reinterpreted.
[post_title] => Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon: Co-Founders of a Movement [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.3 (Fall 2019): 1–18Shields argues that if you deny or dismiss Sidney Ridgon’s contributions to the early church, then the scripture canon during this time would need to be reinterpreted. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => joseph-smith-and-sidney-rigdon-co-founders-of-a-movement [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-05 00:18:40 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-05 00:18:40 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=24138 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

Pedagogy of Perfection: Joseph Smith’s Perfectionism, How It was Taught in the Early LDS Church, and Its Contemporary Applicability
Richard Sleegers
Dialogue 51.4 (Winter 2018): 105–143
Richard Sleegers contrasts 19th century Protestant teachings about salvations to what Joseph Smith taught about life after death.
It is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times.[1]
The Nauvoo period in LDS history was a time of “welding” for Joseph Smith: bringing together previous revelatory teachings and actively shaping rituals into “a whole and complete and perfect union.”[2] He believed he was opening a “dispensation,” or a pouring out of knowledge and authority from heaven, and was anxious to finish it. He had a vision—at least in the down-to-earth sense of a “goal”—of all Saints being educated in the knowledge prerequisite for a salvation he coined “exaltation.”
This exaltation can be seen as a unique form of Christian “perfectionism.”[3] Most early-nineteenth-century Christian denominations were seeking after salvation, differing in forms and degrees, but united in their desire for certainty. Denominations based on Calvinism found it in God-given grace to a select few, while Arminian-based theologies like that found in Methodism believed that all who chose Christ as their Savior could be saved. Universalists, like Joseph Smith’s grandfather,[4] went the furthest in their belief Christ would save all. The basic premise of Christian theology—forgiveness of sins through Christ’s atonement—seemed undebated, though. Each acknowledged that a power went forth from the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The debate was on how to access that power; how one could be certain that power was manifest, and hence whether salvation was sure.[5] Joseph Smith went about revolutionizing the idea of and prerequisites for salvific surety into a perfectionism that was both concrete and attainable, but to most quite unimaginable: becoming as God, or becoming gods.[6] The rationale is that to be certain one can re-enter the presence of God, one should strive to know or see God and progress to be like him.[7] In other words: he saw theophany as a precursor to theosis. Where was this to take place? In God’s temple.
But what was Joseph Smith’s pedagogy? What educational means did Smith and his contemporaries devise to make this perfectionism comprehensible and tangible? And how has that teaching continued into the present day? Are all educational means still intact and accessible? And what is needed in our time of ongoing secularization to teach this perfectionism effectively? Finally, what happens or can happen to the “temperature” (degree of devotion)[8] of Saints, when this great end goal of perfection is no longer taught as concrete and attainable, as Joseph did?
In this paper, I will answer these questions by first sketching the cultural religious context within which this perfectionism took shape. Next, I will draw from Joseph’s teachings about gaining certainty of exaltation from his revelations, public sermons, and more private teachings.[9] Third, I will examine the pedagogy, the modes of teaching, and the associated ordinances Joseph Smith devised. Fourth, I will sketch briefly the most important developments in dispensing those modes of teaching to all the Saints to this day. Finally, I will draw some conclusions, make suggestions, and raise questions about how to go about teaching perfection in our day.
Conceptual Notes
Speaking about “certainty” and its synonyms quickly leads to a debate on epistemology, especially when the terms “certain” or “sure” are coupled with “knowledge,” pointing to “truth” or “true knowledge.” All of these terms are found in Joseph Smith’s teachings (and many of his contemporaries), but most epistemological claims Smith makes refer to revelation as the ultimate source of truth. Even though Joseph and early Church leaders sought knowledge in original scripture, languages, “best books” (D&C 88:118), and Masonic temple rites, these insights had to be confirmed by revelation, either personal revelation or public revelation from the prophet himself. A great focus lay on the applicability of that knowledge to bring about salvation.
The differing Protestant (Puritan Presbyterian, Wesleyan Methodist, Universalist Unitarian, etc.) concepts of justification, sanctification, and perfection are too intricate to be discussed in full in this short paper. Instead, I will focus mainly on the division between the underlying Calvinistic, Arminian, and Universalist theologies and compare them to Joseph Smith’s perfectionism.
I will distinguish two “lines” of certainty: The first is about believers who looked for certainty that the power of God was present, and that by that presence God showed his acceptance of the exercise of their faith. In other words, that their religious acts or rites were recognized by God, and that they administered them—as a church—with (a degree of) authority. The second “line” is about surety of salvation, expanding on the first line because it has to do with reassurances received in this life about our ability to transfer to the next life in a “saved state.” We will see that the definition of that “saved state” determines a lot about these reassurances and the authority needed. We will now go into these concepts more specifically, contrasting Calvinist, Universalist, (mainly) Methodist, and LDS theologies about them.
1: Historical Context: Protestant View of Perfectionism; Search for Certainty of Salvation
Joseph Smith’s contemporary religious teachers and reformers were united in their search for salvific certainty. One could say that, as Protestants, they had left the security of Catholic sacramentalism behind and had all proposed different substitute doctrines for achieving that goal.[10] Joseph himself describes the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists as three of the main sects he and his family were in contact with. He said he “attended their several meetings as occasion would permit” and that his “mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect.”[11] This begs the question: how much did Methodist (and others’) soteriology influence or even shape Smith’s own search for a—personal and later doctrinal—surety of salvation? Despite the doctrinal differences of these Christian sects, there was some consensus on the idea that humanity’s fallen and sinful state had to be overcome through the mediation and power of Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice. As mentioned earlier, the debate was focused on how to access that power and how one could be certain that power was manifest and hence salvation was sure.[12]
Steven Harper describes the sectarian landscape as divided over the question of individual choice in salvation. For Calvinistic Presbyterians, there was no choice: God had to elect you and make it known in a spiritual outpouring of grace. For Arminian-Wesleyan Methodists, individuals could choose to accept Christ’s atonement and exercise faith to bring about good works and confirming spiritual experiences. For Universalists, no choice existed, for all were saved. The divide was present in Joseph Smith’s own family, where mother, brothers, and older sister joined the Presbyterian Church and father turned from a Universalist to a more neutral standpoint and didn’t then adhere to a particular church.[13] Joseph was most likely sparked by a Methodist camp meeting to an individual endeavor to gain certainty of forgiveness for his sins and was deciding on which church to join in pursuit of that. He attended meetings but didn’t seem to have the same level of excitement, nor experience the physical sensations that others had. This set Joseph in dire need of a different confirmation or source of certainty.[14]
Methodists looked for certainty through scripture,[15] full devotion to a Christian life, and receiving spiritual manifestations of different kinds. These were commonly sought after and celebrated when received, confirming to faithful seekers that God corroborated their efforts with an “outpouring” of his power. The most well-known spiritual manifestations, mainly derived from biblical reports, were speaking in tongues, healings, dreams, and visions. Also, very physical effects were seen, like “people [who] went into trances, jerked, rolled and crawled on the ground,” or were, in Joseph Smith’s time, at least “crying, mourning, and sighing.”[16] The feeling of being “touched upon” or “recognized” or “accepted” by God was mostly a communal experience. Among the Methodists, camp meetings were predominant in bringing about this communal excitement, aimed at a “revival” or bringing souls “from darkness to light, and from bondage of iniquity to the glorious liberty of the sons of God . . . attended with an awakening sense of sin and with a change of temper and conduct, which cannot be easily concealed.”[17]
This begs the question: once such an “acceptance” took place, did those in the congregation who were part of this group experience feel secure about their stance before God; did they feel were they “forgiven of their sins”? If so, this must have been more of an individual certainty, for not all present experienced it. The ecclesiastical counterpart of that experience was the “power” or “authority” of a church to extend the right doctrines and means whereby its adherents could have these reviving experiences.[18] If false doctrine were preached or one adhered to a corrupt faith, there was danger of damnation, or at least, such things were being preached in an effort to dissuade converts from one sect to another.[19]
Christopher Jones, in his thesis, points out that Methodists were very likely to accept dreams and visions, like Joseph Smith’s First Vision, to be authoritative revelations from God. Joseph’s vision, seen through a Methodist lens, can be seen as a conversion experience whereby God answers a prayer by an apparition of sorts, invoking spiritual gifts and/or forgiving sins. Phineas Young, a Methodist who later converted to the LDS Church, had a similar experience as Joseph when he prayed to be “made holy” to fulfil his recent calling.[20] From the earliest account of Joseph Smith’s First Vision we learn that his initial effort was indeed a search for confirmation of forgiveness of personal sin. His prayer, he writes, was answered by God appearing and saying: “Joseph, my son, thy sins are forgiven thee.”[21] This was the first certainty Joseph looked for.
Pertaining to authority as a church, Joseph sought additional certainty about which church to join, a church that would be “accepted of God.” Wesleyan teachings on power derived from “spiritual witness” were indicative of the certainty needed to be a living church. When denied, he taught, “there is a danger lest our religion degenerate into mere formality; lest, ‘having a form of godliness,’ we neglect if not ‘deny, the power of it.’”[22] This resembles a statement of the Lord in Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of his First Vision, and was part of the answer and instruction Joseph received to join none of the churches he was in contact with.[23] What was truly remarkable and very decisive for his later perfectionism—as we will see below—is that Joseph professed to receive these confirmations by God the Father and Jesus Christ in person. The accompanying conclusion, one that up to this day maybe is the greatest kick to the shins of other Christian denominations, is that the church Joseph was asked to organize was not his own, but the Lord’s, and the gospel he proclaimed was not his own, but restored by the Lord himself.
With regard to perfectionism among Methodists, John Wesley wrote three works with “perfection” prominent in their title.[24] In his treatise on perfection he defines it as follows:
that habitual disposition of the soul which, in the sacred writings, is termed holiness; and which directly implies being cleansed from sin, “from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit”; and, by consequence, being endued with those virtues which were in Christ Jesus; being so “renewed in the image of our mind,” as to be “perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.”[25]
And:
“A restoration not only to the favour, but likewise to the image of God, implying not barely deliverance from sin, but the being filled with the fullness of God”[26]
“Holy,” “cleansed from sin,” “endued with Christlike virtues,” “renewed in mind” all imply a change brought about by the exercise of faith and the working of grace, but which makes the human only “as to be” perfect as God. Receiving “the image” of God or being filled with his “fullness” seem to point more to a refinement of Christian character, not to the more literal sense of “becoming a god” Joseph Smith adopted. Methodist perfection can more readily be incorporated with their teaching of “entire” sanctification, as shown in two other quotes from Wesley, stating that perfection is “deliverance from inward as well as from outward sin” and “a Christian is so far perfect as not to commit sin.”[27] These could be taken as prerequisites to Joseph’s idea of perfection (see §2).
A lesser known influence on Joseph Smith was that of the Universalist Society, originating in Boston but present in most of New England and to which Joseph’s grandfather and father adhered,[28] or the related Unitarians. Terryl Givens quotes William Ellery Channing, the latter movement’s dominant minister, teaching that “likeness to God is a good so unutterably surpassing all other good, that whoever admits it as attainable, must acknowledge it to be the chief aim of life.”[29] It is unclear how much of this teaching passed from Joseph’s grandfather and father to him. One Universalist idea Asael Smith certainly taught that can be recognized in Joseph’s soteriology is its anti-Calvinistic conception of God’s universal salvific love: a desire to save all his children.[30] It is likely that Joseph accepted this desire that God could save all, but also adhered to the Methodist requisite of agency and exercise of faith to bring about saving grace. We will now investigate how Joseph situated this reciprocal desire for human and God to reunite in perfect unity in an almost Catholic sacramental “covenant” theology and with accompanying temple ordinances.
2: Joseph Smith’s Own View on Certainty and Perfection: The Pinnacle of Salvation
If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or possess the principles which God possesses. . . . A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, . . . . Hence [we] need revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge of the things of God.[31]
Church history scholars have argued about the doctrinal differences of the Kirtland/Missouri and Nauvoo eras. There seems to be both a continuum and a split. One general observation that we can make is that there was a shifting focus: from a literal city of Zion and urgent millennialism, to a more spiritualized seeking for a Zion society and preparing to meet God in the temple.[32] Nevertheless, many teachings on principles later incorporated in the temple ordinances can be traced back to earlier times, and just as many new teachings evolved in the last three years of Joseph’s life, as David Buerger and Andrew Ehat have abundantly shown.[33] What occurred after the shift can be described by the concepts consolidation and dissemination.[34] The bringing together (con) of principles of salvation into tangible (solid) ordinances that can be experienced, and teaching them to more and more of the saints (dis) to eventually bear much fruit (seminate). The Nauvoo Temple was built and a “Quorum of the Anointed” established to fit these purposes.
I argue that the two lines of certainty, mentioned in the introduction and §1, also came together: 1) The power of God present, acceptance by God, authority 2) Surety of salvation.
As for the first, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, while translating the Book of Mormon, described how they had received priesthood from heavenly messengers: the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist and the Melchizedek Priesthood from Peter, James, and John. A revelation received just before the Church was organized (now D&C 20) explains the several offices in those priesthoods. People were baptized, confirmed, the sacrament performed, using these priesthoods to do it with authority. In Kirtland, however, at Sidney Rigdon’s initial suggestion, a new and higher office in the priesthood was installed—after the order of the ancients—namely the High Priesthood.[35] David Buerger illustrates how the innovation of the High Priesthood allowed Joseph and the Twelve to “seal [people] up to eternal life” (D&C 68:2, 12 also 1:8–9), introducing ordinances that were later incorporated in the temple endowment,[36] and thus to do what “strict Calvinists reserved solely to God.”[37] “Sealing” is another word connoting certainty and can be seen in connection with the sealing or binding power Peter and Nephi received “to bind on earth as in heaven” and later the receiving of the sealing keys of Elijah in the Kirtland Temple.[38] Zebedee Coltrin in 1831, Jared Carter in 1832, and Orson Pratt in 1833 all testify of the outpourings of the Spirit, not only on individuals, but on whole groups that Joseph gathered in his School of the Prophets, to “seal them up” “to the Lord” “unto eternal life” “by the power of the Holy Ghost.”[39] These much resembled Methodist communal outpourings, but in a completely new doctrinal context of apostles and “prophets”[40] being called to the ministry (D&C 95:4–5).
As for the second, Joseph Smith’s first quest for personal salvation was answered by a personal visitation[41] of the Father and the Son, which is exactly the theophany that he later posed as the end goal of temple practice. I say “practice” because the gaining of knowledge, exercise of faith, and accompanying works, Joseph melted together in a development toward perfection or godhood. The temple was a place to meet God and “a place of learning” in preparation for that.[42] These can be seen as original additions to the Methodist “faith and works” required for spiritual approval from God: searching for the mysteries of God(liness) “by study and by faith,” made education into a mode of worship. We could rephrase the word worship now as “a mode to approach God,” a reciprocal act to return to him.[43] Joseph started this early on by erecting (on divine command) the previously mentioned School of the Prophets in Kirtland. It was in this school, and later—upon completion—in the Kirtland Temple, that he started preparing others to meet the Lord, preparatory for their missions as—literal—witnesses of Christ. He taught them:
How do men obtain a knowledge of the glory of God, his perfections and attributes? By devoting themselves to his service, through prayer and supplication incessantly strengthening their faith in him, until, like Enoch, the Brother of Jared, and Moses, they obtain a manifestation of God to themselves.[44]
This resembles the Methodist method to come to entire sanctification, up until the word “until” appears, after which Joseph refers to other prophets in the scriptures who were called by God in person.
To make that viable, the Kirtland Temple needed to be built. The twelve apostles Joseph Smith had chosen were charged “not to go to other nations . . . [but to] tarry at Kirtland until [they were] endowed with power from on high.”[45] Oliver Cowdery gave them this “charge”:
The ancients passed through the same. They had this testimony, that they had seen the Saviour after he rose from the dead. . . . You must bear the same testimony, that there is [p. 156[a]] but one God and one Mediator; he that has seen him will know him and testify of him.” . . . You have been indebted to other men in the first instance for evidence, on that you have acted. But . . . [p. 159] You will, therefore see the necessity of getting this testimony from Heaven. Never cease striving until you have seen God, face to face. Strengthen your faith, cast off your doubts, your sins and all your unbelief and nothing can prevent you from coming to God. Your ordination is not full and complete till God has laid his hand upon you.”[46]
This “ordination” refers to the “fullness of the priesthood,” which flows from having seen God. In other words, the Twelve had to make their “calling and election”—as apostles—sure, just like Joseph was called in the grove in 1820. The event of seeing God the Father and his Son occurred (at least for most of the Twelve[47]) “at one of these meetings after the organization of the school, (the school being organized on the 23rd of January, 1833).”[48] Afterwards the prophet Joseph said: “Brethren, now you are prepared to be the apostles of Jesus Christ, for you have seen both the Father and the Son and know that they exist and that they are two separate personages.”[49] So the same surety of “calling” he personally received in Palmyra, he also deemed necessary for the Twelve and others sent out to the ministry in Kirtland. It is interesting to see that many also received a blessing by the laying on of hands whereby their “sins were forgiven them.”[50]
Here we see a complete unity of the two lines of authority in Joseph’s conception of perfection: 1) three priesthoods were restored, including the sealing power, and 2) the most sure you can get of your salvation is by meeting God, but this was also a way of having the apostles’ “calling and election” made sure; to be able to teach with authority as witnesses of Christ. Nevertheless, this theophany to the Twelve in preparation of their ministry was only a precursor to what was about to come. Their “calling and election” had not explicitly to do with surety of salvation. The leadership were still learning, and repenting, confessing their sins to one another, bearing one another up. Theophany as a means whereby one could be sure of salvation, being sealed unto eternal life or exalta-tion, Joseph started to teach, to all, in Nauvoo.
In a sermon delivered at the Nauvoo Temple grounds on Friday, May 12, 1844 Joseph pleaded with all Saints present there: “I am going on in my progress for eternal life, . . . . Oh! I beseech you to go forward, go forward and make your calling and election sure.”[51] Surely Joseph had been adamant in his search for knowledge: the inspired or explanatory translation of the Old and New Testaments, the discussions in the School of the Prophets, the ongoing revelations, receiving the sealing keys of Elijah, the discovery of the Abraham papyri, and entering the Masonic Lodge, were all sources of knowledge—ancient and new—Joseph employed to construct his theology of exaltation. All were coming together: the knowledge and principles needed to guide all Saints to meet God in his temple and thus be sure of salvation. This surety of salvation he named after Peter’s “calling and election made sure” (2 Pet. 1:10, 19). Joseph explained in May 17, 1843, “The more sure word of prophecy means a man’s knowing that he is sealed up unto eternal life, by revelation and the spirit of prophecy, through the power of the Holy Priesthood” (D&C 131:5–6). Now the Protestants around him used these scriptures too, e.g., Calvinists talked about them, using scriptures on “sealing” to corroborate their doctrine of predestination. Methodists, like John Wesley, as we saw above, had teachings on sanctification and even perfection. But none went as far in teaching perfectionism as becoming as God. Now Joseph made one more addition, unique to LDS theology, to his concept of “exaltation”: eternal marriage, and for some plural marriage.
One day before this explanation on the more sure word of prophecy, Joseph taught:
In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; and in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; and if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom: he cannot have an increase.[52]
Joseph, who already divided the heavens up in three kingdoms of glory in his vision of February 1832 (D&C 76), now divided up the celestial glory into three degrees. The “increase” mentioned, points to similar blessings Abraham received pertaining to his posterity, “both in the world and out of this world” (D&C 132:30).[53] This revelation on both the sealing power and on the covenant of eternal (and plural) marriage, made exaltation and perfection—becoming gods—more explicit: all gods are married—or sealed to one another—and continue in procreation in the eternities. Any lesser form of salvation (“saved state”), would be a limitation to eternal progression:
For these angels did not abide my law; therefore, they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever. (D&C 132:17)
Later on in this revelation it seems to show that to have those blessings confirmed or sealed upon you while “in this world” is prerequisite for exaltation:
For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me. But if ye receive me in the world, then shall ye know me, and shall receive your exaltation; that where I am ye shall be also.[54]
Joseph was now doctrinally prepared to make these highest of blessing available to all who were “Spiritual minded” and “prepared to receive” them.[55] And he wanted to make haste, as he expected to be taken from this world and needed “to instruct the Society and point out the way for them to conduct, that they might act according to the will of God . . . delivering the keys to this society and the church.”[56] This “society” was the Nauvoo Relief Society, but it was also an allusion to the Quorum of the Anointed, in which—logically—women played an equal part, because that is where he eventually revealed all these ordinances of exaltation. Joseph started with the initiation of a select few, twenty-four couples and seventeen others to be exact,[57] but with a broader view ahead:
In this Council [Quorum] was instituted the Ancient order of things for the first time in these last days. . . . and there was nothing made known to these men, but what will be made known to all <the> Saints of the last days, so soon as they are prepared to receive, and a proper place is prepared to communicate them, even to the weakest of the Saints.[58]
That proper place was the (Nauvoo) temple, but it was still under construction, so Joseph went ahead and set up the upper room of his red brick store to serve as an ordinance room. By this last addition of marriage, the gospel of Adam and Eve one could say, the full meaning of the word “sealing” was established: this sealing of couples to one another and to God, now extended—through the Abrahamic covenant and the keys of the sealing power of Elijah (D&C 110:13–16)—to all progenitors and posterity, both living and dead, so that the entire human family could be bound together on earth and in heaven. And this led to another addition to the idea of perfection: that we “without our dead cannot be made perfect.”[59] Hence, all the ordinances that Joseph had installed were able to be performed by proxy for ancestors. The outward forms and their role in teaching perfectionism to the Saints we will discuss next.
3: Outward Forms: Joseph Smith’s Search for Fitting Ordinances: A Pedagogy of Perfection
And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; for without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live. (D&C 84:21–22)
The question is frequently asked: Can we not be saved without going through with all these ordinances &c. I would answer: No, not the fullness of Salvation, any person who is exalted to the highest mansion has to abide a Celestial law & the whole law to.[60]
Now that the doctrines were in place, consolidated, they were ready to be passed on, disseminated. How? Orally. An oral canon of scripture was about to be opened, expounded upon, and fitted to the envisioned purpose: to have every Saint who was ready to receive it meet God in person and be assured of exaltation. Oral transmission of sacred truths, which were “not to be riten,”[61] serves several important purposes. It was done by the Jews, Egyptians, Masons, and, as far as we can infer from the limited canon of the New Testament, also in the days of the early apostles.[62] Joseph considered many plain and precious things from the gospel to have been lost,[63] mostly from scripture, but much, he believed, had been preserved in oral traditions. Joseph’s discovery of the Egyptian papyri, his involvement in the Masonic temple, and his own revelations received while reading the Old and New Testaments in their original languages had helped him discover precious parts of that lost tradition. Following his pattern of dissemination, he introduced them to the Twelve and others and expounded on them in his public sermons. Then, in Nauvoo, he urged the Twelve and hundreds of others to join the Masonic lodge[64] to learn what he had learned and help him bring it into one revealed whole.
The next step Joseph took was to fit all these saving principles into a mode of teaching that would, on the one hand, be instrumental in revealing unto the participant all knowledge necessary to re-enter God’s presence. On the other hand, since it was sacred knowledge, he had to safeguard it. This put Joseph in a delicate position, and the way he went about it was to create an oral tradition of knowledge by initiation. The Masonic temple rites are the most exemplary for this mode of teaching.[65] The point I want to make about this mode of teaching is how Joseph Smith envisioned it and its purposes. It is a mode of teaching that resembles Jesus’ usage of parables: to communicate “hidden” knowledge to those who had “ears to hear,” but conceal at the same time the “pearls from the swine.”
Education[66] and pedagogy[67] are in their Latin and Greek roots almost interchangeable. “Educare” (leading out) is mostly associated with training the powers of the mind, oriented more at the transmittal and sharing of knowledge. “Παιδαγογία” or paidagōgía (leading a child) is more relational, associated with mentoring and the development of a child. In the combination of these concepts we can find the need for both teaching of principles and knowledge, and the leading, guiding, or mentoring that is part of initiation and catering to certain experiences necessary for development.
“Hidden” knowledge of principles, and the experiences necessary to internalize these principles “deeply into the bone,” are made into a whole by initiation into ordinances or rituals. Ordinances are tools in teaching, but not only that, they are—like Catholic sacraments—binding rituals designed to bring about salvation. One can view the temple ritual in both Methodist and Calvinist senses of perfection: it can be instrumental in receiving spiritual outpourings and confirming one’s holiness or standing before God. “Binding” or “sealing” are both terms referring to a covenant relationship between humans and God, meant to bridge the gap between them. Another Methodist element, one could say, is that the relationship is entered into of one’s own free will and choice. A ritual can be defined as a symbolic act, meant to “bridge a distance,” to initiate a “passage” or symbolize a relationship of “belonging.”[68] All these can be applied to the temple ordinances, which for Joseph Smith and the early leaders were seen as parts of one ritual. Maybe with the exception of baptism for the living—the first initiation rite to become a member of the Church—all other ordinances were done in temple setting: sacrament,[69] washings and anointings, endowment, marriage sealing, washing of feet, etc. (D&C 88:75; 138–41). The same pattern of dissemination emerged: all ordinances were revealed by Joseph, done or “tested” with the Twelve in Kirtland,[70] and then shared with selected men and women in the Quorum of the Anointed in Nauvoo.
The “testing” for the new (Nauvoo) additions to the endowment and marriage ordinances was done in the upper room of Joseph’s red brick store. He had asked five men who were masons to prepare the room according to his instructions. Eight people were the first to receive this improvised endowment on May 4, 1842. It is illustrative to consider how Joseph later apologized for the improvised quarters, saying to Brigham Young:
this is not arranged right, but, we have done the best we could under the circumstances in which we are placed, and I wish you take this matter in hand . . . organize and systematize all these ceremonies . . . [Brigham Young:] We performed the ordinances under Joseph’s supervision numerous times and each time I got something more so that when we went through the Temple at Nauvoo I understood and knew how to place them there. We had our ceremonies pretty correct.[71]
It was an evolving ceremony, and frankly, it has been evolving ever since,[72] which tells us something about its instrumental nature. Symbols, by their metaphorical nature, are meant to “carry over” (μετα-φέρειν) meaning from one realm of reality to another. For example, the story of Adam and Eve can have meaning within the context of their dealings with God, but at the same time carry over meaning for all (married) men and women going through mortal life. The portrayal of the stories and symbols—with exception of some key elements—does not have to be exact every time. There is constant interpretation: some (though little) by the persons portraying the symbols (live performance) and even more by the persons receiving them. In fact, every individual receiving them can make his or her own interpretations and apply them in his or her life.
Now let us look a bit closer to how these ordinances of the gospel, by initiation into higher knowledge and ritual experiences, work toward meeting God and becoming like God. Baptism is the first initiation ordinance and already points to the end from the beginning. It is symbolic of birth and death, rebirth and a new life in the resurrection. In Nephi’s words:
And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path [i.e. by baptism], I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. . . . Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. (2 Ne. 31:19–20, italics added)
Baptism resembles the path from infancy (in the gospel) to adulthood: having the Father tell you that you shall have eternal life, or, as Joseph or Peter taught: “having our callings and election made sure.” All inter-mediate ordinances can be seen as steps on the “ladder,” a pedagogy toward perfection. In the well-known King Follett Sermon delivered April 7, 1844 Joseph explained:
Here then is eternal life, to know the only wise and true God. You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves; to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done; by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory as doth those who sit enthroned in everlasting power; . . . When you climb a ladder, you must begin at the bottom and go on until you learn the last principle; it will be a great while before you have learned the last. It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it is a great thing to learn salvation beyond the grave.[73]
This last sentence again raises debate as to whether the sealing unto eternal life has to take place in this world or if it might be received in the hereafter. One could argue that, after passing through death, all will see God and know that he is. The other option is that the ordinance does have to take place in this life and that only then will progression continue after death.[74] Notwithstanding these possibilities, Joseph Smith seemed eager to prepare the Saints to meet God in this life and have the promised blessing sealed upon them in this life. All further temple instructions point to that.
Washings and anointings were among the first ordinances to be performed in this dispensation. An important part of these are the references to our own bodies and blessings connected to them. So, one’s own body becomes an instrument in sanctification, by overcoming the natural tendencies of the flesh and instead using the body to acquire these spiritual blessings. One could say the Methodist sense of perfection, becoming entirely clean of (the blood and) sins (of this generation), took on this sacramental form in Joseph’s perfectionism. Again, internalization through the ritual is very prominent, as these blessings are memorized and one’s own body—and the symbolic garments it is clothed with—serve as daily reminders. It also has a communal aspect of great trust, whereas the washings and anointings are performed by touching by a brother or sister, providing the experience that internalizes the ritual.
The endowment is even closer to a “ladder” of sanctification, as the initiate is literally taken from one phase to the other, symbolized by the different rooms one passes through, the increasing brightness of light, and the ever deeper commitments entered into. Deeper commitments also lead to deeper connection with the divine, in anticipation of reuniting with God at the end of the ceremony, where one ritually steps into God’s presence by passing through a veil (Ether 3:20).
Temple marriage is, of course, a direct symbol of uniting man and woman in God and having these relationships “sealed” beyond the grave. Children are “born into the covenant,” and covenant relationships can be extended vicariously to ancestors. Blessings pertaining to offspring in this world and the next are represented in symbolic representations of fertility.[75] Unity in marriage as a way to grow nearer to God the Father and Mother sets up family life as a learning environment as well: practicing to become gods and have an “increase” (D&C 131:4).
We could go on expanding on the symbolism of these ordinances, but I noted only some that had relation to the perfectionism Joseph taught. (See table 1, a series of principles that are taught and internalized by experiencing temple ordinances.) The LDS temple ritual is deeply pedagogical: anyone can learn new things relevant to one’s current phase of development and as the Holy Spirit may direct. This, one can say, is the perfect mode of learning, tailored, deeply spiritual, and experiential. It is revealing on the one hand, to the individual through personal revelation brought about by communal symbolic rites and experiences, and safeguards on the other hand the sacredness of these teachings by the initiation principle and the promises entered into. It is this mode of teaching I call Joseph’s Pedagogy of Perfection. In essence it is that all Saints can, of their own free will and choice, partake in ordinances as means to experience spiritual maturation, to the end purpose of meeting and becoming like God.
EDUCATION | PEDAGOGY |
Principle = Knowledge | Ordinance = Experience |
Repentance, new life, resurrection | Baptism, washed clean, out of water |
Pure life, overcome sins of generation | Washing, blessings on bodily parts |
Act righteously with power given, stewardship from small to great | Anointing, preparatory king and priest |
Set apart from the world, discipline over body, searching for truth, faithfulness | Priesthood garments, wear always, constant reminder, protection, etc. |
Line upon line, growth in priesthood power, strong against temptations of Satan | Endowment, going from room to room, learning, clothing, covenants |
Marriage for eternity, fidelity, family, offspring | Temple marriage, sealing, blessings |
. . . | . . . |
ALL: preparing to meet and be like God | ALL: preparing to meet and be like God |
Let us return to the early Saints who first received these ordinances, who were still innovating and learning to apply this new mode of teaching to their development and spiritual life. I would like to show, from their own experiences, how they thought these teachings were to be applied and disseminated. Just as Joseph had openly preached about many of the principles pertaining to exaltation and making one’s calling and election sure, partakers of the ordinances were discussing their experiences in the temple. Helen Mar Whitney recorded Amasa Lyman’s insights and experiences of the temple ordinances he received on December 21, 1845, which reveal some keys to the perceived purposes of temple pedagogy:
These things [are] to put you in possession of the means of salvation, and be brought into a proper relationship to God. . . . It is the key by which you approach God. No impression which you receive here should be lost. It was to rivet the recollections of these things in your memory, like a nail in a sure place never to be forgotten. The scenery through which you have passed is actually laying before you a picture or map, by which you are to travel through life and obtain entrance into the celestial Kingdom hereafter.[76]
According to this statement, the ritual accomplishes three things: It is meant to “bridge the gap” between humans and God (it is relational). Second, it provides a specific goal to internalize the “oral scripture” by memorizing the proceedings of the ordinances. Third, there is a close relation between our “travel through the temple” and our everyday “travel through life.”
Easily overlooked, but to me very poignant, is that the quotation above comes from minutes made of meetings held just after the performance of the ordinances. This was like a “temple testimony meeting,” with seventy-five brothers and sisters present and where several shared their views on what they had just experienced. These early Saints, under the direction of Heber C. Kimball, helped each other understand and get a testimony of these important saving ordinances. They were actively making that connection with real life, as we also see with prophets of old and others in the scriptures. This begs the question: how do Latter-day Saints, from the early times to the present, go about making that connection? How do they liken the oral scriptures of the temple to themselves? Where and when do they discuss them, to mentor one another to further initiation? Next, I want to discuss the extension of temple ordinances and of the accompanying temple education over time, and the evolving modes and policies surrounding them.
4: Extension of Teachings and Blessings to the Saints Abroad—Gathering Reversed
But there has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. . . . Even the Saints are slow to understand. I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the Saints prepared to receive the things of God, but we frequently see some of them after suffering all they have for the work of God will fly to pieces like glass as soon as any thing comes that is contrary to their traditions, they cannot stand the fire at all. How many will be able to abide a celestial law, go through and receive their exaltation I am unable to say but many are called and few are chosen.[77]
Joseph Smith’s lamentation that the early Saints were slow to understand demonstrates that he was struggling with the dilemma of widespread dissemination and selective initiation already in his day. Likewise, from the earliest days of Joseph’s teaching about perfection and eternal marriage, there have been exposés and distortions by dissenting members and others. Balancing the needs of members learning and maintaining the sacredness of the temple teachings has been a constant conundrum. Policies about both content and dissemination of temple blessings have been evolving ever since.
When Joseph Smith was martyred, he had only performed the full temple ordinances with sixty-five Saints.[78] Brigham Young continued overseeing the temple construction and performed these saving ordinances wherever possible. In the meantime, he made some late innovations to the ceremonies. Upon completion of the temple, the ordinance work started and took off at an unfathomable pace, as thousands of Saints were yearning to be “endowed” and married before their God. Just before the trek to the West, over 5,000 members went through the temple, around 600 of whom received the highest blessings pertaining to exaltation.[79]
Once in the Utah mountains, Brigham Young continued extending endowments and sealings to as many as possible as soon as possible. Before any buildings were erected, some ordinances were performed on hilltops: “Addison Pratt received his endowments on Ensign Hill on the 21st [July 21, 1849], the place being consecrated for the purpose. Myself . . . being present.”[80] Mountains were, scripturally, seen as places equal to temples and this seemed in line with earlier practices of performing ordinances elsewhere when there was no operating temple.[81] The endowment house was erected to make ordinances available before temples were finished; in 1855 endowments were continued, and in 1867 the other sealing ordinances.[82] In 1877, the St. George Temple was dedicated. Ordinances were standardized and recorded in written form the year before President Young’s death. President Taylor reinstituted the School of the Prophets in 1883, introducing “worthy” married members with the washing of feet as had been done before, but only as a reminder or repetition of blessings already pronounced and as a sign of unity and selfless service. President Taylor explained at a meeting of the school on October 12, 1883:
The reason why things are in the shape they are is because Joseph felt called upon to confer all ordinances connected with the Priesthood. He felt in a hurry on account of certain premonition [sic] that he had concerning his death, and was very desirous to impart the endowments and all the ordinances thereof to the Priesthood during his lifetime, and it would seem to be necessary that there should be more care taken in the administration of the ordinances to the Saints in order that those who had not proven themselves worthy might not partake of the fulness of the anointings until they had proven themselves worthy thereof, upon being faithful to the initiatory principles; as great carelessness and a lack of appreciation had been manifested by many who had partaken of these sacred ordinances.[83]
This remark illustrates the point of careful initiation, and the School had the purpose of preparing those who had received the “initiatory principles” to be instructed—and thus initiated—further, until they were worthy and ready to receive further ordinances. President Taylor and George Q. Cannon decided, for this purpose, “it would be advisable for the endowment to be administered in separate stages.”[84] In these first few decades of the Utah-based Church, General Authorities generally knew all Church members, so members’ progress could be monitored closely. Ordinances were mostly done by temple presidents and General Authorities, so the needed balance between members’ getting instruction and the ceremonies’ being kept sacred was maintained.
With only four temples available in the first seventy-three years of the Church,[85] converts abroad who wanted to receive the temple blessings had no choice but to come to the United States. The policy of the gathering was underlined by the idea of a “compact society”:
TO THE SAINTS ABROAD. In order that the object for which the saints are gathered together in the last days, as spoken of by all the holy prophets since the world began, may be obtained, it is essentially necessary, that they should all be gathered in to the Cities appointed for that purpose; as it will be much better for them all, in order that they may be in a situation to have the necessary instruction, to prepare them for the duties of their callings respectively. . . . And we wish it to be deeply impressed on the minds of all, that to obtain all the knowledge which the circumstances of man will admit of, is one of the principle objects the saints have in gathering together. Intelligence is the result of education, and education can only be obtained by living in compact society.[86]
This 1838 charge by Sidney Rigdon was still the standing policy at the time the Saints settled the Utah basin. A “perpetual immigration fund” provided means for converts to travel and settle, but the economic “panic” in the 1890s and the Great Depression in the 1930s probably sparked a change in policy of the gathering, as Utah Saints weren’t able to accommodate the immigrants. Nevertheless, immigration was substantial until after World War II.
The policy, however, eventually changed from gathering in Utah to gathering in “stakes of Zion” abroad. A first European-based temple came in 1955 in Bern (Zollikofen), Switzerland. With the first two stakes outside of the United States in the 1950s (Hamilton, New Zealand, and London, England), also came two temples in 1958. South America and Japan followed in 1978 and 1980. A massive surge in temple dedications abroad (and in general) began in 1983 by Gordon B. Hinckley,[87] who also started the “small temple plan,” announced in October 1997. He urged that temple blessings and “all other ordinances to be had in the Lord’s house” be available, be “presided over, wherever possible, by local men called as temple presidents, just as stake presidents are called,” and be performed by “local people who would serve in other capacities in their wards and stakes.”[88] Temples now approach 200 in number.
Judging by this trend in extending temple blessings, one could say the gathering is definitively reversed. This demanded different ways to prepare, initiate, and monitor worthiness for extension of ordinances, especially as judging worthiness was delegated to local leaders.[89] But what was the international equivalent of the School of the Prophets? There is an official temple preparation class, and up until 1990 there was a “sermon at the veil” providing some explanation on the symbolisms of the performed ceremony. But systematic teaching about the temple as in the School of the Prophets, or like the “temple testimony meetings” of 1845, have been discontinued. Whenever relevant scriptures are discussed in priesthood and Relief Society classes now, references to the temple ordinances can be made only as brief hints, as both endowed and non-endowed members are present. The communal discussion about temple symbolism is discouraged outside as well as inside the temple.[90] Still, the importance of teaching perfection and the principles and ordinances pertaining to it, have been a major mission of the Church, as stated, for example, by President Benson:
The temple ceremony was given by a wise Heavenly Father to help us become more Christlike. . . . We will not be able to dwell in the company of celestial beings unless we are pure and holy. The laws and ordinances which cause men and women to come out of the world and become sanctified are administered only in these holy places. They were given by revelation and are comprehended by revelation. It is for this reason that one of the Brethren [ElRay Christensen] has referred to the temple as the “university of the Lord.” No member of the Church can be perfected without the ordinances of the temple. We have a mission to assist those who do not have these blessings to receive them.[91]
The mission of “perfecting the Saints” and that of “redeeming the dead” are intertwined in the ability to repeat the temple ordinances for deceased ancestors. In my opinion, though, the focus has shifted to “the great work of redeeming the dead, fulfilling the mission of Elijah.”[92] There have been urges to reinvigorate temple attendance for the purpose of individual development in the gospel, but no structural communal policy changes have been made recently.
With a worldwide membership of sixteen million and adding thou-sands every day, it is understandable that the focus of teaching can shift to the basic principles. But at the same time, with more members, more will also be “ready to receive” the highest blessings of the temple, and more will strive for their calling and election to be made sure. So how can the LDS Church go about initiation in a way that is more open, to more and more members, while safeguarding the sacredness of these ordinances in an information age where all of them can be found in one Google search? In sum, how can graduating from “temple university” become more achievable? In my conclusion I will draw from all the above to make some suggestions and raise some questions on how to go about clever teaching and mentoring.
Conclusion and Suggestions: Pedagogy of Perfection: The End in Mind and Education Toward That End
“God’s earthly kingdom is a school in which the saints learn the doctrines of salvation. Some members of the Church are being taught elementary courses; others are approaching graduation and can do independent research where the deep and hidden things are concerned. All must learn line upon line and precept upon precept.”[93]
Both Moses and Jesus tried to bring the temple to the center of the religious life of their followers. They disseminated the knowledge and ordinances of the temple, first to their disciples and through them to others. Joseph Smith set up the same mode of teaching for the Latter-day Saints, a series of ordinances to be available for all who are ready to receive it. But do we teach about it in the same ways and as often as Joseph and the early Saints did? What is needed in our age?
With temple ordinances being officiated around the world and with Church leaders trying to safeguard the sacredness of the temple ordinances, it is no wonder that we tend to err on the side of not talking about the temple. We must be careful, but I think also we need to look for inventive ways to teach about the temple in order to perfect the Saints more universally. Joseph Smith was clear about this: the temple is the center of our worship, but it is for initiates. So even though the outward ordinances have been exposed,[94] the knowledge will always be safe, because it can only be received by initiatory experiences and revelation. Initiation in ritual is the safety measure.
Education is still the form of worship most dominant in LDS Church meetings and home, with Church members being encouraged to keep rereading the standard works of scripture, helped by Sunday School, seminary and institute classes. But does this bring about sufficient development? If one is to learn “line upon line,” ascending Joseph’s ladder, one needs constant hints to new possible meanings, insights[95] into new layers of deeper knowledge that were not yet “present” to the understanding. I argue that the same goes for the oral scripture of the temple. Progress without mentoring is hard.
Following Joseph’s cry to all Saints to make their calling and elections sure,[96] how are we to go about teaching that in a careful way? Enduring to the end, explained simply as not falling away on hidden paths, is not as motivating as a concrete and attainable goal in this life: the tangible sign of one’s “calling and election being made sure.” The suggestion I want to make here is that this goal could be communicated more clearly to faithful couples. In light of this great end goal, all other “work” toward it gains meaning. Enduring can become joyful, or the prospect can become a rock in times of tempest, and be preventive of becoming lukewarm[97] by the many routines and repetitions.
Joseph’s pedagogy of perfection is quite a unique form of salvation theology, which makes the LDS Church (and temple) stand out more than it blends in. This gives rise to a paradox,[98] already in Joseph’s time, of stressing the newly revealed points of doctrine (including premortal existence, eternal marriage, and exaltation) on the one hand, and wanting to be accepted as a Christian religion on the other. But the Church today, especially in Europe, is surrounded more and more by secular philosophies. Converts come from different paradigms and are less concerned about how “different” the Church is from other Christian denominations. The idea of a God who is an exalted human living in a different realm of this universe with a plan to have us come to earth for a mortal moral apprenticeship, preparatory to returning to dwell in his presence, is actually pretty “down to earth.” It fits in a disenchanted perception of God, who is not seen any more as pure Spirit and unreachable, but as a God we can relate to and even touch and meet. Likewise, the idea of developing line upon line, from the preparatory gospel to the “temple university,” advancing in the priesthood (for both male and female), is a pedagogy similar to our educational systems.
But where are the professors, the mentors, those who guide the initiation, teaching “research methods,” toward eventual “graduation”? I suggest that the LDS Church could put initiation and mentoring forward as a priority, with less concern about secretiveness, but proud that it has a tangible and achievable way to prepare faithful believers in Christ to the point where they are ready to meet him. It could take the same pride in the teachings as did the early saints who announced it in bold terms:
These teachings of the Savior [in 1 John 3:2–3; 1 Peter 1:15–16; Mat-thew 5:48; John 14:12; 17:20–24] most clearly show unto us the nature of salvation, and what He proposed unto the human family when He proposed to save them—that He proposed to make them like unto himself, and He was like the Father, the great prototype of all saved beings; and for any portion of the human family to be assimilated into their likeness is to be saved.[99]
And they could recognize, as did Bruce R. McConkie, that to continually advance toward God is an innate human desire:
Among those who have received the gospel, and who are seeking dili-gently to live its laws and gain eternal life, there is an instinctive and determined desire to make their calling and election sure. Because they have tasted the good things of God and sipped from the fountain of eternal truth, they now seek the divine presence, where they shall know all things, have all power, all might, and all dominion, and in fact be like Him who is the great Prototype of all saved beings—God our Heavenly Father. (D&C 132:20.) This is the end objective, the chief goal of all the faithful, and there is nothing greater in all eternity, “for there is no gift greater than the gift of salvation.” (D&C 6:13)[100]
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
This paper was written as part of the Neil A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2015 Summer Seminar, “Organizing the Kingdom: Priesthood, Church Government, and the Forms of LDS Worship.”
[1] From a letter by Joseph Smith “to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Sept. 6 1842, [D&C 128:18].
[2] Ibid.
[3] For an extensive treatise of precedents to LDS perfectionism (or “theosis”), see Terryl L. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), chap. 21.
[4] Richard L. Anderson, Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2003), 162, 133–35.
[5] Steven C. Harper, “First Vision Accounts: Joseph Smith History, circa summer 1832,” YouTube video, posted by LDS Church History, Apr. 15, 2015, https://youtu.be/IobA9THKx-M.
[6] It is to this day the singular most-contested doctrine upon which main-stream Christianity disavows the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a Christian religion. An example is: “Response to the 1982 anti-Mormon film The God Makers,” FairMormon, https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Criticism_of_Mormonism/Video/The_God_Makers.
[7] Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, “April 10, 1842 Wilford Woodruff Journal,” in The Words of Joseph Smith (Provo: Grandin Book Company, 1991), 113.
[8] In his Revelation (3:15–16) John writes to the Saints in Laodicea: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” A psychological commonplace is that when people lose track of their end goal, motivation decreases.
[9] I used the most original sources available: The Joseph Smith papers, or Andrew Ehat and Lyndon Cook’s Words of Joseph Smith, or other sources like Wilford Woodruff’s diary. Regarding the revelations, when no serious change was found, I refer to the LDS standard works.
[10] There is nuance that must be maintained here: not all Protestants left sacramentalism. Some reformists like Calvin and followers (e.g., Beza, Turrettini) viewed “sacraments” as instruments of grace (albeit not in the same way as Catholicism [e.g., the Council of Trent]).
[11] Joseph Smith History, vol. A-1, 2, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed Dec. 10, 2018, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/2.
[12] Steven C. Harper, in “First Vision Accounts: Joseph Smith History circa Summer 1832,” remarks “There is a serious concern, among Joseph Smith and so many others, about how to overcome fallenness. Everybody knows that you overcome fallenness by accessing the atonement of Jesus Christ. The big contention is, how do you access the atonement of Jesus Christ?” (1.42–2:00).
[13] Joseph Smith History, vol. A-1, 2, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed Dec. 10, 2018, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/2; Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012), 14–21.
[14] Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 23–25.
[15] Methodist also clung to sola scriptura; whatever “revelation” received, it must be in accordance with scripture.
[16] Milton V. Backman Jr., “Awakenings in the Burned-Over District: New Light on the Historical Setting of the First Vision,” in Exploring the First Vision, edited by Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper (Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book Company, 2012), 177–78.
[17] William Neill, “Thoughts on Revivals of Religion,” Christian Herald, Apr. 7, 1821, 708–11, in Backman, “Awakenings,” 186.
[18] The partaking of the sacrament in LDS theology can also be seen as a weekly “reviving” spiritual experience.
[19] Joseph Smith History, vol. A-1, 2, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed Dec. 10, 2018, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/2.
[20] The similarities are quite striking: in Young’s own words: “I prayed continually to God to make me holy, and give me power to do good. While in this state of mind I had a very singular manifestation. . . . when all of a sudden I saw the Heavens open and a body of light above the brightness of the sun descending towards me, in a moment it filled me with joy unutterable, every part of my system was perfectly light, and perfectly happy; I soon arose and spoke of things of the Kingdom of God as I never spoke before. I then felt satisfied that the Lord had heard my prayers and my sins were forgiven” (Young, “Life of Phinehas Howe Young,” L. Tom Perry Special Collections, HBLL, quoted in Christopher C. Jones, “‘We Latter-day Saints are Methodists: The Influence of Methodism on Early Mormon Religiosity,” MA Thesis, Brigham Young University, 2009. Harold B. Lee Library, All Theses and Dissertations, Paper 1747, 33, available at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1747/).
[21] “History, circa Summer 1832,” in Joseph Smith Letterbook 1, The Joseph Smith Papers, 3, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-book-1/9. Shortly before on page 2 Joseph states the reason for his inquiry: “my mind become excedingly distressed for I became convicted of my sins and by searching the scriptures I found that mand <mankind> did not come unto the Lord but that they had apostatised from the true and liveing faith and there was no society or denomination that built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the new testament and I felt to mourn for my own sins and for the sins of the world.”
[22] Wesley, “Sermon 11, The Witness of the Spirit II” 1, no. 2, (1767) in The Works of John Wesley vol. 1 edited by Thomas Jackson (1872), 285, quoted in Christopher C. Jones, “We Latter-day Saints are Methodists,” 42.
[23] “My object in going to enquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. . . . I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the Personage who addressed me said that all their Creeds were an abomination in his sight, that those pro-fessors were all corrupt, that ‘they draw near to me to with their lips but their hearts are far from me, They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of Godliness but they deny the power thereof’” (Joseph Smith History, vol. A-1, 3, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed Dec. 10, 2018, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/3; see also Isa. 29:13, Matt. 15:9).
[24] On Perfection (Sermon 40, 1739), Christian Perfection (Sermon 76, 1784). These were sermons on sanctification, which hints at how Wesley understood “perfection.” Also see A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (treatise, 1739).
[25] John Wesley, “A Plain Account on Christian Perfection,” in The Works of John Wesley 11, no. 29, edited by Thomas Jackson (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1872), 366–446.
[26] John Wesley, “The End of Christ’s Coming” (Sermon 62), Wesley Center, available at http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-62-the-end-of-christs-coming/.
[27] John Wesley, “A Plain Account on Christian Perfection,” 36–446.
[28] Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 17. Also, Richard L. Bushman makes a strong claim of Universalism present in the New England area and influ-ence on Asael Smith’s religious beliefs, in Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1984), 27–28.
[29] Terryl L. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 263.
[30] Richard L. Anderson, Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003), 136.
[31] Sermon delivered at Nauvoo, Ill. on Sunday Apr. 10, 1842, Wilford Woodruff Journal. In: Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds. The Words of Joseph Smith (Provo: Grandin Book Company, 1991), 113.
[32] Terryl L. Givens argued that the failed Zion’s camp can be seen as a turning point for this shift in focus. The argument was communicated orally in a group discussion during the 2015 Summer Seminar on Mormon Culture.
[33] For my description of Joseph Smith’s “pedagogy of perfection” pertaining to the doctrinal origins of the temple ordinances, I drew much from their extensive work, for which I like to express my appreciation and thanks. See David John Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (San Francisco: Smith Research Associates, 1994 / 2003), 5; and Andrew F. Ehat, “Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1982).
[34] This term is not meant to be associated with the later evolving practice of plural marriage.
[35] This was not without controversy though, since some opposed it as being imagined by Rigdon. Eventually Joseph confirmed this addition by explaining this “order of the High priesthood” as the “power given them to seal up the Saints unto eternal life. And said it was the privilege of every Elder present to be ordained to the High Priesthood” (“Far West Record,” Oct. 25, 1931, Church History Library). (Thanks to David Buerger, see note 40).
[36] This “Kirtland endowment” included washings and anointings of kinds (see History of the Church 2:379–82), the washing of feet (and face) and the sacrament (see History of the Church 2:410–30), as found in D&C 88:127–41.
[37] Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness, 5. He further explains: “Key players in the sixteenth-century Reformation used many of these sealing passages [in the Bible] as evidence for their belief in predestination. Liberal reaction to Calvinist doctrine arose early in the seventeenth century when Arminians rejected this view, asserting that God’s sovereignty and human free will were compatible, that such sealings depended on choices of the individual believer.”
[38] See Matthew 16:19, Helaman 10:4–7, and D&C 110:13–16; and Joseph Smith’s explanation in D&C 128:5–18.
[39] See Zebedee Coltrin Diary, Nov. 15, 1831, Church History Library; Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sept. 27, 1832, Church History Library; and Journal of Orson Pratt, Aug. 26, Sept. 8, 1833, Church History Library.
[40] The name for the school was received in a revelation (D&C 88:127–38), and it is interesting to see that all participants were thus seen as “prophets,” or in any case Saints that were being trained to be prophet-like ministers.
[41] Actually several visitations, because three years after his First Vision he again prayed to know his standing before God, and as an answer angel Moroni appeared: “I often felt condemned for my weakness and imperfections; when on the evening of the above mentioned twenty first of September, after I had retired to my bed for the night I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God for forgiveness of all my sins and follies, and also for a manifestation to me that I might know of my state and standing before him. For I had full confidence in obtaining a divine manifestation as I had previously had one” (History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], 5).
[42] D&C 88:118–19, 67–68.
[43] A well-known quote by Joseph is: “A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge” (Apr. 10, 1842, Wilford Woodruff Journal, in Ehat and Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith, 113). See also the opening quote of this section. Being brought back into God’s presence by gaining knowledge is an idea found in the Book of Mormon: “And because of the knowledge of this man [Brother
[44] Lectures on Faith, Second lecture, as found in Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Kirtland, Ohio: F. G. Williams & Co., 1835), 25. Italics mine.
[45] “Minute Book 1, [ca. 3 Dec. 1832–30 Nov. 1837],” Church History Library, Feb. 21, 1835, 162. Note the resemblance with Luke 24:49.
[46] “Minute Book 1, [ca. 3 Dec. 1832–30 Nov. 1837],” Church History Library, 156a–b; 159; 162.
[47] “There were members as follows: Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, William Smith, Frederick G. Williams, Orson Hyde (who had the charge of the school), Zebedee Coltrin, Sylvester Smith, Joseph Smith, Sr., Levi Hancock, Martin Harris, Sidney Rigdon, Newel K. Whitney, Samuel H. Smith, John Murdock, Lyman Johnson and Ezra Thayer.” As related by Zebedee Coltrin in “Minutes, Salt Lake City School of the Prophets,” Oct. 3, 1883.
[48] This remark by Zebedee Coltrin obscures the date when this took place. He doesn’t state the date, only the date of the organization of the School. The apostolic charge was given in 1835 and the temple dedicated Mar. 27, 1836.
[49] As related by Zebedee Coltrin in “Minutes, Salt Lake City School of the Prophets,” Oct. 3, 1883.
[50] “Minute Book 1, [ca. 3 Dec. 1832–30 Nov. 1837],” Church History Library, 154.
[51] Thomas Bullock report, Friday, May 12, 1844, Book of Abraham Project, available at http://www.boap.org/LDS/Parallel/1844/12May44.html.
[52] Joseph Smith History, vol. D-1, 1551, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed Dec. 10, 2018, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-d-1-1-august-1842-1-july-1843/194.
[53] See also Abraham 2:11.
[54] D&C 132:22–23, italics mine. This assertion can be debated, for these ordinances were and are performed also for the dead. See pp. 128–29 and note 73 further on in this paper for additional arguments on this question.
[55] Joseph Smith History, vol. C-1, 1328, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed Dec. 10, 2018, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-c-1-2-november-1838-31-july-1842/502.
[56] “Nauvoo Relief Society Minutes,” The Words of Joseph Smith, eds. Ehat and Cook, Apr. 28, 1842, 116.
[57] See table with list of initiated in Ehat, “Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances.”
[58] Joseph Smith History, vol. C-1, 1328, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed Dec. 10, 2018, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-c-1-2-november-1838-31-july-1842/502.
[59] See Doctrine and Covenants 128:15 and Hebrews 11:40.
[60] Sermon delivered at Nauvoo, Ill. on Jan. 21, 1844, in Wilford Woodruff’s Journal: 1833–1898, Typescript Volumes 1–9, edited by Scott G. Kenney (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1983).
[61] From Heber C. Kimball, in a letter to Parley and Mary Ann Pratt, dated Jun. 17, 1842, Church History Library. “We received some pressious things though the Prophet on the preasthood that would caus your Soul to rejoice. I can not give them to you on paper fore they are not to be riten. So you must come and get them fore your Self. We have organized a Lodge here. Of Masons. Since we obtained a Charter. That was in March since that thare has near two hundred been made masons Br Joseph and Sidny was the first that was Received in to the Lodg. All of the twelve have become members Exept Orson P. . . . thare is a similarity of preast Hood in Masonry. Bro Joseph ses masonry was taken from preasthood but had become degenerated but menny things are perfect” (italics mine).
[62] A complete study of aspects of the LDS temple ritual that can be traced back to Jewish, Egyptian, Masonic, and the early apostles lies far beyond the scope of this paper. Hugh Nibley’s extensive work on this can be consulted. I have focused, for the latter part of this paper, on the intended purposes of the mode of teaching that was devised.
[63] See 1 Nephi 13:20–29. Verse 26b says: “for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.”
[64] Also from Heber C. Kimball’s letter to Parley P. Pratt dated Jun. 17, 1842, Church History Library. See note 61.
[65] There are many excellent books on the comparison and evolvement of Masonic and LDS temple ordinances, e.g., Buerger compares them in The Mysteries of Godliness, 1994 / 2003), there is Matthew B. Brown’s book Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 2009), a recent article by Jeff Bradshaw, “Freemasonry and the Origins of Modern Temple Ordinances,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 15 (2015): 159–237, and again Hugh Nibley, e.g., Temple and Cosmos (Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1992).
[66] educate (v.) mid-15c., “bring up (children), to train,” from Latin educatus, past participle of educare “bring up, rear, educate,” which is a frequentative of or otherwise related to educere “bring out, lead forth,” from ex- “out” (see ex-) + ducere “to lead” (see duke (n.)). Meaning “provide schooling” is first attested 1580s. Related: Educated; educating. According to “Century Dictionary,” educere, of a child, is “usually with reference to bodily nurture or support, while educare refers more frequently to the mind,” and, “There is no authority for the common statement that the primary sense of education is to ‘draw out or unfold the powers of the mind’” (from: http://www.etymonline.com/index. php?term=educate&allowed_in_frame=0).
[67] pedagogue (n.) late 14c., “schoolmaster, teacher,” from Old French pedagoge “teacher of children” (14c.), from Latin paedagogus, from Greek paidagogos “slave who escorts boys to school and generally supervises them,” later “a teacher,” from pais (genitive paidos) “child” (see pedo-) + agogos “leader,” from agein “to lead” (see act (n.)) (from: http://www.etymonline.com/index. php?term=pedagogue&allowed_in_frame=0).
[68] Ronald L. Grimes, Deeply into the Bone: Re-inventing Rites of Passage (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2000), 16 and 121.
[69] The sacrament of course was also performed outside of the temple, in regular Sunday meetings. It seems to have been an ordinance to remember Christ’s sacrifice on any occasion the early brethren seemed fit. For an extensive treatise on the sacrament see Ugo A. Perego, “The Changing Forms of the Sacrament,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 22 (2016): 1–16, https://www.mor-moninterpreter.com/the-changing-forms-of-the-latter-day-saint-sacrament/.
[70] Except of course the new elements of the endowment ceremony and mar-riage ceremonies devised in Nauvoo.
[71] L. John Nuttall, diary, typescript entry for Feb. 7, 1877 (Provo: Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University).
[72] As the publication of this article was pending, the First Presidency announced new changes to the temple using these words: “Over these many centuries, details associated with temple work have been adjusted periodically (. . .). Prophets have taught that there will be no end to such adjustments as directed by the Lord to His servants” (First Presidency Statement on Temples, Jan. 2, 2019, available at https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/temple-worship). The last major changes in the endowment date from 1990, some minor changes in the initiatories were made more recently, diminishing the communal part of touching at the pronouncement of blessings, see below and John-Charles Duffy, “Concealing the Body, Concealing the Sacred: The Decline of Ritual Nudity in Mormon Temples,” Journal of Ritual Studies 21, no. 1 (2007): 1–21. A full account of all policy and content changes can be found in the works of David Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (San Francisco: Smith Research Associates, 1994 / 2003) and “‘The Fulness of the Priesthood’: The Second Anointing in Latter-day Saint Theology and Practice,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 16, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 10–44.
[73] Joseph Smith, Discourse, Nauvoo, Ill., Apr. 7, 1844; in Times and Seasons 5, no. 15 (Nauvoo, Ill.: Aug. 15, 1844): 613–14.
[74] A detailed account of this debate is discussed by Buerger in his article “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 43–44.
[75] This is most obvious in the Salt Lake Temple where the celestial room is adorned with many fertility symbols.
[76] Helen Mar Whitney, “Scenes in Nauvoo, and Incidents from H.C. Kimball’s Journal,” The Woman’s Exponent 12 (Aug. 1 and 15, 1883), 26, in Ehat, Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances, 115–16.
[77] Sermon delivered at Nauvoo, Ill. in front of Robert D. Foster’s hotel on Jan. 21, 1844 in Wilford Woodruff’s Journal. Italics and corrections mine
[78] History of the Church 7:543–80. See table of ordinances in Ehat, Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances.
[79] In Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 32.
[80] William S. Harwell, ed., Manuscript History of Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Collier’s, 1997), 224–25.
[81] D&C 124:29–40.
[82] Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 27–28.
[83] “School of the Prophets Minutes” 1, in Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priest-hood,” Oct. 2, 1883, 32. Italics mine.
[84] “School of the Prophets Minutes,” in Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priest-hood,” Aug. 2, 1883, Sept. 27, 1883, 32.
[85] From the dedication of the Nauvoo Temple in May 1846 until the first temple outside of Utah dedicated in Laie, Hawaii, in Nov. 1919. The four temples meant are those in Utah from St. George in 1877 on until 1919.
[86] Sidney Rigdon in “Elders Journal 1” (Kirtland, Ohio: Far West, Mo., Aug. 4, 1838), 54. Italics mine.
[87] “Temple Chronology,” http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/chronological/.
[88] The announcement was as follows: “But there are many areas of the Church that are remote, where the membership is small and not likely to grow very much in the near future. Are those who live in these places to be denied for-ever the blessings of the temple ordinances? While visiting such an area a few months ago, we prayerfully pondered this question. The answer, we believe, came bright and clear. We will construct small temples in some of these areas, buildings with all of the facilities to administer all of the ordinances. . . . They would accommodate baptisms for the dead, the endowment service, sealings, and all other ordinances to be had in the Lord’s house for both the living and the dead. They would be presided over, wherever possible, by local men called as temple presidents, just as stake presidents are called. . . . All ordinance workers would be local people who would serve in other capacities in their wards and stakes” (Virginia Hatch Romney and Richard O. Cowan, The Colonia Juárez Temple: A Prophet’s Inspiration [Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009], Appendix C. President Hinckley’s General Conference Announcement, Saturday, Oct. 4, 1997).
[89] Actually, this delegation already took place in the Utah-based Church after 1889 under President Wilford Woodruff. During these years, different standards and lists of criteria for worthiness were developed, e.g.,by President Lorenzo Snow. See Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 32–34.
[90] It goes too far for the scope of this paper to discuss all these changing trends and policies; that can be a topic for a different paper. What I derive from it is that temple education or pedagogy is not systematically embedded.
[91] Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson (Salt Lake City: Intellectual Reserve, 2014), 250–52; see also Elder Ray L. Christiansen, “Why Temples,” Conference Report (Apr. 1968), 134.
[92] In speaking in regard to the Saints becoming saviors upon Mount Zion, the Prophet Joseph said thus to his brethren [Jan. 20, 1844.]: “But how are they to become saviors on Mount Zion? By building their temples, erecting their baptismal fonts, and going forth and receiving all the ordinances, baptisms, confirmations, washings, anointings, ordinations, and sealing powers upon their heads, in behalf of all their progenitors who are dead, and redeem them that they may come forth in the first resurrection and be exalted to thrones of glory with them; and herein is the chain that binds the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, which fulfils the mission of Elijah.” See: Marriner W. Merrill, “Temple Work” General Conference, Oct. 4, 1895, Collected Discourses 4:359.
[93] Alma 21:9–10 and Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary 2 (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965), 323.
[94] Starting as early as 1842 with John C. Bennett in Nauvoo, until fairly recently with Tom Philips in England, 2012.
[95] In the literal meaning of “looking into” or “peeking.” So “dropping hints” and letting others “take a peek,” becomes part of the teaching skill. In Dutch there is a phrase that comes even closer to this skill: Een tip van de sluier oplichten, “lifting up a tip of the veil.”
[96] “I am going on in my progress for eternal life, . . . . Oh! I beseech you to go forward, go forward and make your calling and election sure.” “Thomas Bullock report, Friday May 12, 1844,” Book of Abraham Project, http://www.boap.org/LDS/Parallel/1844/12May44.html.
[97] Think again about John the Apostle’s letter to Laodicea in Revelation 3:15–16.
[98] The fourth paradox as explained by Terryl Givens in People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 53–62.
[99] “Lectures on Faith, Seventh lecture, verse 16,” as found in Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Kirtland, Ohio: F. G. Williams & Co., 1835).
[100] Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965), 325. Italics mine.
Richard Sleegers contrasts 19th century Protestant teachings about salvations to what Joseph Smith taught about life after death.
2018: Richard Sleegers, “Pedagogy of Perfection: Joseph Smith’s Perfectionism, How it was Taught in the Early LDS Church, and its Contemporary Applicabality,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 51 No. 4 (2018): 105–143.
Richard Sleegers contrasts 19th century Protestant teachings about salvations to what Joseph Smith taught about life after death.
[post_title] => Pedagogy of Perfection: Joseph Smith’s Perfectionism, How It was Taught in the Early LDS Church, and Its Contemporary Applicability [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.4 (Winter 2018): 105–143Richard Sleegers contrasts 19th century Protestant teachings about salvations to what Joseph Smith taught about life after death. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => pedagogy-of-perfection-joseph-smiths-perfectionism-how-it-was-taught-in-the-early-lds-church-and-its-contemporary-applicability [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-05 00:44:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-05 00:44:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=22902 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

A Documentary Note on a Letter to Joseph Smith. Romance, Death, and Polygamy: The Life and Times of Susan Hough Conrad and Lorenzo Dow Barnes
William V. Smith
Dialogue 49.4 (Winter 2016): 87–108
The history behind a letter that was written by missionary Jedediah Morgan Grant to Joseph Smith, which contained information about Susan Hough Conrad and her brief love writings with a missionary who was serving in England named Lorenzo Dow Barnes.
In the final year of Joseph Smith’s life, he engaged in frequent correspondence with political leaders, Church officers, family members, and others. In this paper I will consider a letter written to Joseph Smith from a Mormon missionary and presiding elder named Jedediah Morgan Grant, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1] Written in August 1843, the letter concerns—among a number of other things—a young female Latter-day Saint then living with her mother and sisters in Philadelphia. The letter is remarkable for several reasons, notably the veiled glimpse it provides into Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy. A complete transcription of the letter is found in the appendix to this article; I will quote it liberally as I flesh out its context. Note that spelling and other irregularities in quotes from the letter and other sources are found in the originals (unless noted otherwise).
With the Finneys, Beechers, Towles, Campbells, and other luminaries of antebellum American religion stood the anonymous men and women who were followers or advocates of their movements. In the “age of improvement,” Americans seemed to be moving from one idea to another, just as they moved from one place to another. The restless minds of the antebellum Atlantic World were a fertile preaching environment for the Latter-day Saints, and a core of dedicated people made up a missionary cohort that converted thousands, forming Mormonism into a history-making wedge of Americana.[2] Two such devoted Mormon souls were Lorenzo Dow Barnes (1812–1842) and Susan Hough Conrad (1818–1888). I will first give a short description of Barnes’s and Conrad’s lives as context for the Grant letter. Next, I will discuss how their lives were linked together. Finally, informed by those lives, I will discuss the content of the Grant letter and how it and Conrad figured into Joseph Smith’s marriage project.[3]
Lorenzo Barnes
Lorenzo Dow Barnes’s[4] given names register one of the most famous of American preachers of the previous generation: Lorenzo Dow.[5] Thousands of American children of the period were named after the spellbinding Methodist itinerant preacher. Born in 1812 in Massachusetts, Lorenzo Barnes and his family were part of the westward expansion. Settling in Ohio, the family came into contact with Latter-day Saints in 1833. Barnes heard and accepted the Mormon millennial message and never looked back. While Barnes tried preaching to his family, it was without success: his parents remained non-Mormon Ohio residents until their deaths.
Almost immediately after joining the Latter-day Saints, Barnes took to the missionary trail, returning to the family home in winter snows to teach school until spring. In 1834, Barnes joined the “Camp of Israel,” the hopeful group of Saints led by Joseph Smith who wished to protect those Mormons who had been ejected from their Zion in Jackson County, Missouri, the previous year. The plan, proposed by the Mormons and Missouri’s attorney general, was for the men of Zion’s Camp to escort the displaced Saints back to the Independence area (now an eastern suburb of Kansas City). Missouri governor Daniel Dunklin rejected this plan because he saw the makings of civil war in the move.[6]
The expedition was disbanded and Barnes returned to Ohio. In 1835, Barnes, like many other members of Zion’s Camp, was given a leadership role in the Church, becoming a member of the first quorum of “Seventy,” a group tasked especially with the missionary efforts of the Church.[7] He was a consistent worker who overcame a speech problem to become one of the most highly regarded Mormon leaders in his field of labor. Sent off to proselytize in the eastern states, Barnes moved through Kentucky and Virginia, and he stayed in the region until 1838, when he followed Church leaders who vacated Ohio for Far West, Missouri.[8]
Barnes didn’t spend much time in the community-building efforts before he was again sent east to preach. He remained in missionary service until 1841, when he came to the new Church center of Nauvoo.[9]
Barnes was chosen for missionary service in 1839 to travel to Britain in the wake of the Mormon apostles who began canvassing England that same year.[10] Barnes was slow in taking ship for England, spending considerable time in the Philadelphia region. Barnes became a pillar of Church leadership in Pennsylvania for several years and wrote “licenses” for other Mormon leaders who were passing through the region.[11] He returned to Nauvoo in the spring of 1841 and was named clerk for a conference on August 16, 1842.[12] On August 21, a meeting of the Mormon apostles voted that “Barnes proceed on his mission to England without delay.” Church leaders wrote to remind him of the point of his journey, and Barnes finally boarded ship for England in January 1842.[13]
Lorenzo Barnes was no Parley Pratt, but he did publish some missionary tracts, one of which, titled References, was well respected by his fellow missionaries.[14] On the ship to Liverpool, Barnes composed a poem, “The Bold Pilgrim,” about his missionary task, which he published upon his arrival in England.[15]
Barnes died in December 1842 after a short illness in Idle, Yorkshire, England, where he was buried. Two years later, Wilford Woodruff visited the gravesite and made arrangements for a headstone and epitaph.[16] The epitaph read:
Sleep on, Lorenzo, but ere long from this
The conquered tomb shall yield her captured prey.
Then with thy Quorum shalt thou reign in bliss
As king and priest for all Eternal Day.[17]
When Joseph Smith heard of Barnes’s death via letter from the leader of the Church’s British mission, Parley P. Pratt, he offered remarks in Nauvoo in praise of Barnes but also regarding the matter of his burial in England.[18] Willard Richards reported Smith saying during his remarks:
When I heard of the death of our beloved bro Barns it would not have affected me so much if I had the opportunity of burying him in the land of Zion. I believe, those who have buried their friends here their condition is enviable. Look at Joseph in Egypt how he required his friends to bury him in the tomb of his fathers[19]
Passionate about having durable connections to family and friends, Joseph Smith deployed this Hebrew Bible image as background to his own New Testament vision of triumph:
would you think it strange that I relate what I have seen in vision in relation [to] this interesting theme. those who have died in Jesus Christ, may expect to enter in to all that fruition of Joy when they come forth, which they have pursued here, so plain was the vision I actually saw men, before they had ascended from the tomb, as though they were getting up slowly, they took each other by the hand & it was my father & my son . my mother my brother & my sister & my daughter[20]
Smith’s sermon was an impressive one, and it resonated with those who heard its sentiments. Years later, Mormon elders in Britain took up a collection to finance the exhumation of Barnes’s body to send it to Utah. It would be buried near his fellow deceased Latter-day Saints.[21] Barnes died at a time when Joseph Smith’s theological ideas and corresponding institutions were beginning to reach their zenith. Barnes’s death seems to have erased him from a portrait that included most prominent Nauvoo Mormons: the kinship expansions of polygamy and “sealing” and their associated practices.[22]
Susan Hough Conrad
Barnes appears to have been unattached until 1841. Sometime during his missionary service in Pennsylvania, he began a romance with Susan Hough Conrad, a young convert whose family was friendly to Mormon-ism and who may have heard Joseph Smith preach.[23] Smith preached a number of times in Washington and the surrounding area after his 1839–40 interviews with and pleas to Washington power brokers over the losses incurred by Latter-day Saints in Missouri in the 1830s; one of his better-known sermons was recorded in a letter by Matthew L. Davis, well-known journalist and friend and biographer of Aaron Burr.[24] Conrad was not present when Smith preached that sermon, but she may have heard him preach in Pennsylvania in the days following. She related the story of having Smith in her parent’s home at this period, and in any case she was impressed by him and became a Latter-day Saint in February or March of 1840.
Both Conrad and Barnes were in Nauvoo in 1841, but their stays may have only briefly intersected there. Conrad stayed in Nauvoo a few months, roughly between April and June. While in Nauvoo, she was befriended by another Latter-day Saint woman from the Philadelphia area, Mary Wickersham Woolley, with whom she exchanged some correspondence, the content of which suggests that Conrad stayed in the Woolley household during her time in Nauvoo.[25]
One of the more important extant documents detailing Conrad’s life is her “Autograph Album.” Autograph books were a nineteenth-century fad that often occupied the new-fangled parlors of middle class Americans, where guests might be asked to pen a verse while noting their names and the place and date of signing. Orson Pratt, Parley Pratt, and George Q. Cannon were some of the writers in Conrad’s album. Conrad’s movements and encounters can be at least partially accounted for since she took the book with her on several journeys. She seems to have acquired her book in Baltimore in 1837 (the earliest entries date from November 1837). Some of the entries suggest that it was a keepsake in memory of her departure from Baltimore to Philadelphia.[26]
Within a year of the death of Joseph Smith, Conrad had married, and her first child was born in 1845 or 1846. Only a few entries in the autograph book address Susan as Wilkinson, and up through 1844 she is always noted as Miss Susan Conrad or Susan H. Conrad. Her new husband was a close family acquaintance, William B. Wilkinson (1820–1889).[27] Wilkinson’s family identified as Anglican/Episcopalian and Wilkinson was christened at Old Trinity Church in Philadelphia. Indeed, Wilkinson’s family, as more liberal Protestants perhaps, apparently hosted Joseph Smith during his 1840 visit to the area; Joseph wrote them a short letter on the subject of “Virtue” with reference to their kind service.[28] Wilkinson tolerated Mormonism but apparently did not join the faith for almost two decades. Finally, in 1861, Wilkinson united with Mormonism in Philadelphia.[29] The Wilkinsons emigrated to Utah with the James S. Brown wagon train the following year, where they established a household in the Salt Lake City Fourteenth Ward.[30]
With the rejuvenation of local Relief Societies, Conrad-Wilkinson became part the presidency of the Relief Society of the Fourteenth Ward. Records say little of this early period, but Conrad-Wilkinson is noted in reminiscent speeches as active in the work of the Relief Society.[31] Susan had never been an idle Latter-day Saint and her mother’s home—and later her own in Philadelphia—was a frequent stopping place for visiting Church missionaries and authorities. She became personally acquainted with Joseph and Hyrum Smith.[32]
Romance
Conrad and Barnes seemingly lived out their lives independent of each other. Barnes’s life was cut short at age thirty by pneumonia in England, while Conrad lived a full life. However, below these surface facts, there was a love story.
Three years after Barnes’s death, Wilford Woodruff was in Britain and visited the family who cared for Barnes during his final hours. There Woodruff discovered that his hosts had preserved Barnes’s effects, among which was a trove of love letters between Lorenzo Barnes and Susan Conrad.[33] Typical of both, they exchanged love poems over the time of Barnes’s work in England. Woodruff referred to Conrad as Barnes’s “Lover,” a term that did not carry the sexual innuendo of modern usage. She was in effect, Barnes’s fiancé. Woodruff wrote,
My feelings were keen and sensitive. As I stood upon his grave I realized I was standing over the body of one of the Elders of Israel of the horns of Joseph of the Seed of Ephraim, one of the members of zions Camp who had travelled more than 1,000 miles in 1834 for the redemption of his persecuted, afflicted brethren. Offered to lay down his life for their sake. One whose fidelity was stronger than death towards his Lover, his brethren eternal truth, & his God.[34]
Woodruff held Barnes in high regard for a number of reasons, and he found Conrad (then Wilkinson) years later in Salt Lake City to talk about her former fiancé.[35] He recorded in his journal:
It is a Cold day. I spent a part of the day in the office. I wrote a Letter to G. Q. Cannon. I visited his wife also Sister Susan Conrad or Wilconson. I conversed with her about Elder Lorenzo D Barnes.[36]
While in England visiting Barnes’s grave, Woodruff vowed that the “sealing” priesthood would be used in Barnes’s behalf. Perhaps he thought of Conrad as Barnes’s eternal spouse, though they were never posthumously sealed (see the conclusion below).[37]
Polygamy
On March 11, 1843, and again on June 2, 1843, one of Joseph Smith’s clerks wrote to Susan Conrad at Philadelphia. The second letter (and likely the first one as well) was penned by William Clayton, a close comrade of Joseph Smith, and a part of his “Kitchen Cabinet” as it were.[38] Few people knew more than Clayton about Smith’s execution of and beliefs about polygamy in Nauvoo (that does not mean Smith’s polygamy was perfectly known by anyone at the time). Clayton does not mention the subject of the June letter in his journal but notes that presiding elder Jedediah Grant wrote to Joseph Smith from Philadelphia in August.[39] While neither the March nor June letters to Susan Conrad are extant, Grant’s letter still exists, and it is this letter that forms much of the documentary background of this paper.
Grant’s August 17, 1843, letter details his struggles over the contents of the March and June letters, which evidently proposed matrimony between Joseph Smith and Susan Conrad, vouching that funds would be provided for her return to Nauvoo. The religious dynamics in the Conrad family were complicated by several issues: Susan’s father had died in 1835, and while Susan, her mother, and sister Ann were active believers in Mormonism, one other sister still living at home was not (probably Mary Conrad).[40]
While Mary tried to intercept Mormon communications to the Conrad home, she apparently did not see the March and June letters from Nauvoo. When Susan and her mother read the letters, their faith was shaken by their contents as Grant noted in his letter. However, another sister, Ann Conrad (1804–1894), prevailed on mother and daughter to ask for a private explanation from Church leaders in Philadelphia. As it happened, several apostles were in the area, including Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball, and mother and daughter hoped that Pratt could help them understand the meaning of the letters’ troublesome ideas. Grant seemed to be reluctant to have Pratt deal with the Conrad sisters, likely due to Pratt’s difficulties over polygamy. He knew of the blowup that had taken place in Nauvoo over Orson’s wife, Sarah Pratt, and so Grant took the task on himself. “I was informed that Elder P. was wanted to explain, &c, as it was not on Mathematical subjects, I, thought it might be difficult for him, to interpet it, and as he was coming back to the City next week, I thought it best to make all things shure.”
Grant continued, “so I went to work in the name of the Lord, and after using every argument that I could, they delivered” the March and June letters—under the condition that he was to obtain explanations from Joseph Smith and give those explanations to them. Grant burned the letters in the privacy of his room.[41] Grant wanted to avoid any possibility that the letters might be found by visitors, including other churchmen who often shared his room overnight during their travels. Grant noted in his letter that Kimball had previously introduced him to the idea and practice of polygamy and told Joseph Smith of his pleasure to find that Smith’s brother Hyrum (an early opponent of polygamy) “had received the Priesthood, &c.” (a euphemism for his acceptance of plural marriage). The letter thus gives early documentation of Grant’s introduction to plural marriage.[42]
Grant seems to have been unsuccessful in his attempt to get Susan Conrad to respond to the letters. “I preached, bore testimony &c, ‘will you answer it Miss S,’ ‘no I cannot think of doing it’ . . . Miss S cried like a child when these things was made known to me.” Meanwhile, Clayton reported that Joseph Smith “received a letter from Jedediah M. Grant containing information of Conrad’s having recd a letter &c.” Emma Smith, “heard J[oseph Smith] read it and appeared for a while to feel very jealous.’’[43] Grant’s letter likely contributed to Emma Smith’s continuing opposition to polygamy after a brief respite in May 1843.[44]
Conclusion
The March 11 and June 2 letters straddled the day that Barnes’s death became common knowledge in Nauvoo (see Joseph Smith’s funeral address for Barnes delivered on April 16, 1843).[45] Hence the March 11 letter, if it subtly or explicitly offered plural marriage, would have conflicted with Susan’s understanding of her relationship with Barnes, one that both seem to have kept from public scrutiny. Barnes never signed Conrad’s autograph book, and in his correspondence he only mentioned his affection for the Saints of Pennsylvania generally and “to all who may enquire after me.”[46] The June letter (at least) probably arrived well after Conrad had news of Barnes’s death in England.
Grant’s letter of August 17 is carefully written so that identities are only indicated by initials in some cases, but the evidence suggests that Clayton made a surrogate proposal of marriage to Conrad on behalf of Joseph Smith and that Conrad’s dismay and tears amounted to a rejection.[47] Conrad’s August 1844 letter to Mary Woolley (who with her husband embraced polygamy in the fall of 1843) mentioned above may have made reference to Clayton’s letters on behalf of Smith:
I feel tempted to write some thing but I dare not[,] if brother Kimball had passed this way I could have trusted one by him such as I would like to write but it is not so dear sister . . . I heard some things that completely twisted me round that if my life depended on my acting different I could not have done it, I guess Joseph would not think I had much Philosophy about me if he had seen me some times I never was nearer crazy in my life you will know what I mean.[48]
Barnes was not sealed (married) posthumously to Conrad but was eventually sealed to three other women—one dead, two living (at the time of sealing). None of them were women Barnes knew in life. Conrad and her husband, William Wilkinson, did not engage in polygamy after his conversion and their migration to Utah, though they lived through much of the federal polygamy “raid” that marked the 1880s. What Susan Conrad thought of polygamy in later years is unknown, but she maintained a vigorous alliance to the faith, one established by her associations as a young woman.[49]
While it is unclear whether the romance between Conrad and Barnes was known to Joseph Smith, it is clear that Smith wished to enfold Conrad into his sealing network of Nauvoo and that it was not to be a long-distance relationship. Conrad captured the attention of a number of prominent Latter-day Saints both in Nauvoo and in her mother’s home in Pennsylvania, but a search of published literature on Nauvoo polygamy suggests that Conrad’s case has not been considered before. Conrad consented to give up Smith’s surrogate letters and likely understood that Grant would dispose of them. She and her family, while not fully understanding Smith’s practice of polygamy, agreed to keep the letters secret. Her actions placed her in an important group of similar women, women like Sarah Kimball who quietly refused Smith’s proposals but remained a Latter-day Saint.50 Unlike Kimball, Conrad never seems to have openly discussed those tearful and confusing hours in her mother’s Philadelphia home in 1843. Susan Conrad’s sorrow over her encounter with Nauvoo polygamy and her loss of Lorenzo Barnes remained bound in the private spaces of her heart until her death.
For Appendix, see PDF below.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
[1] Grant (1816–1856) lived to become a counselor in the First Presidency of Brigham Young, taking the place of Willard Richards, who died in 1854. Grant is perhaps best known for his oratorical forge that hammered out a Mormon reform in 1850s Utah. On Grant, see Gene A. Sessions, Mormon Thunder: A Documentary History of Jedediah Morgan Grant, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007).
[2] On the general picture of antebellum American religion, see Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), chaps. 5, 8, 12; Jenny Franchot, Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Richard T. Hughes and Leonard Allen, Illusions of Innocence: Protestant Primitivism in America, 1630–1875 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Mark A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
[3] This article is based on and expands work that will appear in chapter 3 of a forthcoming book, William Victor Smith, Every Word Seasoned with Grace: A Textual Study of the Funeral Sermons of Joseph Smith. I would like to thank Robin S. Jensen of the Joseph Smith Papers Project and the staff of the LDS Church History Library for help with the documents considered in this work. I also thank Margaret Averill for her careful editorial advice.
[4] Spelled “Barns” in the 1820 US census, as well as in a number of other sources, for example, see The Elders Journal (Oct. 1837): 15.
[5] See, Lorenzo Dow Barnes, first small journal, page 1, holograph, MS 1436, LDS Church History Library (CHL), Salt Lake City, Utah. See also his second small journal, pages 53, 118. MS 1436, CHL.
[6] Dunklin hoped that ongoing negotiations between displaced Mormons and Jackson County residents would resolve the issue without militia action. They did not, but Dunklin’s delay left the Camp without its primary purpose. For a brief discussion of the political, religious, and documentary issues of Zion’s Camp see Matthew C. Godfrey, Brenden W. Rensink, Alex D. Smith, Max H. Parkin, and Alexander L. Baugh, Documents, Vol. 4: April 1834–September 1835, vol. 4 in The Joseph Smith Papers series, edited by Ronald K. Esplin, Matthew J. Grow, and Matthew C. Godfrey (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 48–96.
[7] Similarly named groups in the LDS Church now function as general and regional officers. In these early times, however, it was only the “presidents” of the Seventy that were classed with the general hierarchy of Mormonism in a practical sense, despite the entire quorum having nascent high authority according to an April 1835 revelation. On the revelation see, for example, William V. Smith, “Early Mormon Priesthood Revelations: Text, Impact, and Evolution,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 48, no. 4 (Winter 2013): 1–84.
[8] On Barnes’s early mission work and travels, see Davis Bitton, “Kirtland as a Center of Missionary Activity, 1830–1838,’’ BYU Studies 11, no. 4 (1971): 501. Barnes was named a member of the short-lived Adam-ondi-Ahman high council in 1838. See also Andrew Jenson, Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, vol. 3 (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1920), 307–08. Also, Lorenzo D. Barnes reminiscences and diaries, 1834–1839, MS 1436, CHL.
[9] Barnes was in the Philadelphia region in late 1839. On Barnes’s work there see, for example, Times and Seasons 2, no. 1 (Nov. 1, 1840): 106–07. Barnes was often working in the Chester County area. See Conference Minutes, Times and Seasons 2, no. 14 (May 15, 1841): 412–13; Conference Minutes, Nauvoo, Aug. 16, 1841, Times and Seasons 2, no. 21 (Sept. 1, 1841): 521. Barnes was appointed clerk of the Nauvoo conference. Barnes was on occasion a “traveling agent” for the Nauvoo Times and Seasons. Parley P. Pratt, Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt (New York: Russell Brothers, 1874), 331. See also an amplified version of other texts generating a pseudepigraphal work, “Journal of Don Carlos Smith,” which appears in B. H. Roberts, ed. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1902–1912), 4:394–95; Lucy Mack Smith history, 1845, Box 1, fd. 26, MS 2049, CHL. See Dan Vogel, History of Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: A Source and Text-Critical Edition, 8 vols. (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2015), 4:390, note 27. The “Don C. Smith journal” appears in the appendix to Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool, England, 1853), 283–88.
[10] Lorenzo D. Barnes, Letter to Elijah Malin, Jan. 9, 1842, Journal History of the Church 1896–2001, vol. 14, CR 100 127, CHL.
[11] The idea of a license was a common tradition among itinerant preachers and in particular, Methodists. It functioned in Mormonism in the same way as a kind of letter of recommendation, but also as a badge of authority. See for example, George A. Smith, Letter to Brigham Young, Feb. 9, 1840, CR 1234 1, CHL.
[12] See, Journal of Hayward Thomas, page 1, MS 1434, CHL. John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2012), 65–79.
[13] Peter L. Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church, 3 vols. (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1997–2012), 1:165. On the apostles’ encouragement to Barnes, see Journal of Wilford Woodruff, Oct. 29, 1840, MS 1352, CHL; Scott G. Kenny, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 9 vols. typescript (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1983–1985), 1:543.
[14] See Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, vol. 1, items 115, 116; Times and Seasons 3, no. 1 (Nov. 15, 1841): 529.
[15] See Barnes’s report of arrival to Parley Pratt in Roberts, History of the Church, 4:569–70. Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:151. “Pilgrim” appeared as a broadside in 1842; it gave Barnes’s faith-history in verse. No publisher was indicated.
[16] Woodruff took excerpts from his journal about the incident and put them in a letter to Times and Seasons editor John Taylor. Taylor published a version in the May 15, 1845 issue. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, May 1, 1845, MS 1352, CHL; Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 2:541.
[17] Woodruff journal, Apr. 26, 1845, Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 2:540.
[18] Editor Thomas Ward noted Barnes’s passing in his January 1843 Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star (hereafter Millennial Star) editorial and then inserted a long poem about Barnes. Ward noted that Barnes died at 3:15 in the morning (Millennial Star 3, no. 9 [Jan. 1843]: 159, 160).
[19] The source passage probably refers to Jacob, not Joseph. See Joseph Smith Diary, Apr. 16, 1843; Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson, eds., Journals, Vol. 2: 1841–1843, vol. 2 in The Joseph Smith Papers series, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008), 359.
[20] Ibid.
[21] The bodies of Barnes and another Mormon missionary who had died in Britain took the journey to Utah with the first group of emigrants financed by the Church’s Perpetual Emigrating Fund (Abraham O. Smoot Company). The group arrived in Salt Lake City, September 3, 1852. Orson Pratt preached a reburial sermon for the two deceased missionaries on September 12, 1852 (Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 4:145–48). George D. Watt captured a shorthand audit of a portion of the sermon. See “Historian’s Office Reports of Speeches, 1845–1885,” CR 100 317, CHL.
[22] Woodruff’s epitaph suggests his intention of making the Mormon temple blessings available to Barnes, posthumously. There is now a large literature regarding both early LDS temple practice/ritual and doctrines as well as current temple use among Mormons. For an interesting overview from a century ago with historic photographs, see James E. Talmage, The House of the Lord (Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1912). For a contextual picture of Joseph Smith’s sealing theology, see Samuel Brown, “Early Mormon Adoption Theology and the Mechanics of Salvation, Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 3 (Summer 2011): 3–52; also Samuel Morris Brown, In Heaven as it is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), chaps. 7, 8.
[23] Andrew Jackson’s designated presidential successor, Martin Van Buren, was in office. Van Buren was above all a political strategist and far less an ideologue than Jackson. Founder of two-party politics in America, Van Buren may have felt sympathy for Mormons in the Missouri violence, but holding Missouri liable for Mormon losses was outside the presidential and congressional Venn diagram. See Howe, What Hath God Wrought, chap. 10. Indeed, the Age of Jackson saw citizen violence in America reach an apex only superseded by war. On Smith’s mission to Washington for redress, see Richard Lyman Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling: A Cultural Biography of Mormonism’s Founder (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 391–402.
[24] Matthew L. Davis letter, Washington, DC to Mrs. Matthew L. Davis, New York City, New York, Feb. 6, 1840, MS 522, CHL.
[25] In particular, Susan Conrad, Letter to Mary Wickersham Woolley, Aug. 5, 1844, MS 8081, CHL. The Woolley letter passed through the hands of Mark Hofmann to the LDS church in 1985 but does not appear to be a forgery. However, it has not been subjected to complete forensic analysis. See Richard E. Turley, Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 392 (item 436). See also, Jeffery O. Johnson, “The Document Diggers and Their Discoveries: A Panel,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 55–56. Mary Wickersham grew up in Pennsylvania but her family moved west to Ohio as she reached adulthood. A young man in her circle of West Chester friends came west shortly after, possibly in search of Mary, and Edwin Dilworth Woolley married Mary Wickersham in 1831. See Leonard J. Arrington, From Quaker to Latter-day Saint: Bishop Edwin D. Woolley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 42, 45–48.
[26] See Susan C. Wilkinson autograph album, circa 1837–1844; 1860–1861, MS 3466, CHL. Several Conrad families lived in Baltimore in 1837 as shown by city directories of the time. The Baltimore Conrads did business as grocers and tavern keeps among other things. The November entries have the flavor of separation. Whether Conrad lived there some time or was only visiting is unknown.
[27] Conrad, “Autograph Album,” entries 61, 39 are signed “William.” Conrad’s brother, David, had married William Wilkinson’s sister Margaret in 1836. See also William’s death notice, “Died,” Salt Lake Herald, Jun. 29, 1889, 8.
[28] The January 20, 1840, letter read, “Virtue is one of the most prominant principles that enables us to have confidence in approaching our Father who is in heaven in order to ask wisdom at his hand therefore if thou wilt cherish this principle in thine heart thou mayest ask with all Confidence before him and it shall be poured out upon thine head and thou shalt not lack any thing that thy soul desires in truth and again the Lord shall bless this house and none of them shall fail because they turned not away the servants of the Lord from their doors even so Amen.” See Ensign (Sept. 1985): 77–78. The idea of virtue generally meant honest unselfish service, performing moral duties out of love for God and his laws, or out of recognition of human fundamental rights, and it was often used in that way in political discourse. Given Joseph Smith’s political frustrations in Washington, it was probably a topic that occupied his mind. He used the same idea in his 1838 letter from Liberty Jail excerpted as Doctrine and Covenants section 121.
[29] When George Q. Cannon passed through Philadelphia in December 1860, he noted “I also visited Mr. & Sister Wilkinson.” A year later, as missionary John D. T. McAllister passed through Philadelphia he wrote in the Autograph Album, “William B. Wilkinson and Wife, My dear Brother and Sister in the N.[ew and] E.[verlasting] Covenant . . .” showing the Wilkinson was now baptized as a Mormon. (George Q. Cannon journal, Dec. 2–6, 1860, CHL. The Cannon journal was recently digitally published by the Church Historian’s Press as The Journal of George Q. Cannon, www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon). For McAllister, see the Conrad Autograph Album, entry 66. I use “entry” rather than page number since the book is not paginated and some pages contain more than one autograph/verse. Other pages are illustrations published with the book. I count these as entries though no handwriting appears on them. Blank pages are not counted.
[30] Johnson, “Document Diggers,” confuses the Conrad and Wilkinson families, probably assuming that Susan and William were married before Conrad’s 1840 Mormon baptism, rather than applying Smith’s compliments to William’s parents. However, Conrad’s records show she was unmarried after Joseph Smith’s death. For example, see Conrad, “Autograph Album,” entry 8. The narrative is slightly complicated by Susan Wilkinson’s death notice: “Her home in Philadelphia was always open for the Elders and in her mother’s home she helped entertain the Prophets Joseph and Hyrum Smith” (Death Notice, Susan H. Wilkinson, Deseret News, Apr. 11, 1888). Apparently both the Conrad and Wilkinson homes were friendly to Latter-day Saints prior to the marriage of William Wilkinson and Susan Conrad. William’s sister Margaret had also married into the Conrad family (she married Susan’s brother, David Conrad [1807–1857]). Widowed, Margaret also came with the James S. Brown com-pany with her daughter Tacy. On the Brown company, see “Third Independent Company,” Deseret News Weekly (Oct. 8, 1862): 113.
[31] Jill Mulvay Deer, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrock, and Matthew J. Grow, eds., The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History (Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 615. The Fifty Years volume makes the same error as Johnson in terms of the Conrad and Wilkinson marriage date. United States census records show that Conrad had three children, all of whom migrated to Utah with her and her husband in 1862. See “Probate Court,” Salt Lake Herald, Jul. 17, 1889. Also see the obituary of Conrad’s first child, Robert Morris Wilkinson (1845[6?]–1928), Salt Lake Telegram, May 21, 1928, 8.
[32] Conrad, Letter to Woolley, CHL. Death notice, Susan H. Wilkinson, Deseret News, Apr. 11, 1888.
[33] Woodruff boxed up the letters and the rest of Barnes’s effects and intended to ship them to Nauvoo for the care of the Church historian. (Woodruff journal, Apr. 23, 1845; Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 2:538–39). Barnes’s papers and property, including his correspondence with Conrad, are largely missing from Church archives.
[34] Indeed, Woodruff refers to Susan Conrad as Barnes’s “intended.” (Woodruff Journal, Feb. 20–22, 1845, MS 1352, CHL; Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 2:510–16).
[35] Barnes’s reputation was still strong decades later. George Q. Cannon wrote, “I am perfectly satisfied there are men who will be counted worthy of that glory who never had a wife; there are men probably in this world now, who will receive exaltation, who never had a wife at all, or probably had but one. But what is necessary for such a case? It must be perfection before God, and a proof of willingness on their part, if they had the opportunity. I will instance the case of a man whom you perhaps know by reputation, namely that of Elder Lorenzo D. Barnes. He was a faithful man in the Church, a man of zeal, a man of integrity, a man who did all in his power to magnify his holy Priesthood, and he died when upon a foreign mission before he had one wife. The Lord will judge that man, as he will all others, according to his works and the desires of his heart, because had he lived, and had had the opportunity, I am fully satisfied he would have obeyed that law. I do not doubt that he will receive exaltation in the presence of God.” The law Cannon was speaking of was plural marriage (for eternity) (George Q. Cannon sermon, “Difference Between the True Church of Christ and the Churches of the World . . .” Oct. 31, 1880, Journal of Discourses, 22:124–25). On Woodruff’s subsequent visits with Conrad-Wilkinson, see Journal of Wilford Woodruff, Nov. 26, 1849, Feb. 9, 1864, MS 1352, CHL; Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 3:496, 6:156–57.
[36] Ibid. 6:156.
[37] D. Michael Quinn discusses Conrad and Barnes in his Same Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 139. Quinn notes that a Lorenzo D. Barnes married an Amanda Wilson in Ohio, 1841. However, this Barnes and Wilson had a child in 1852. Hence this is not the Lorenzo Barnes of this paper. See Mary Leora Smith death certificate, Jun. 22, 1923, Sunfield, Eaton, Michigan, Division of Vital Records, Lansing, Michigan.
[38] A term I borrow from the political discourse surrounding Andrew Jackson. Jackson had a group of confidants outside his presidential cabinet officers. The Kitchen Cabinet often had more to do with government and legislative outcomes than the constitutional one. In some respects, the same was true with Joseph Smith. Ultimately Clayton’s letter was destroyed (see below). For the notice of writing the June letter see William Clayton’s journal, Jun. 2, 1843, as found in George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 107.
[39] Grant traveled to Philadelphia in May 1843 after being appointed as the presiding authority in the area during an April 1843 Church conference in Nauvoo. Sessions, Mormon Thunder, chap. 4.
[40] Genealogical information on the Conrads is available through LDS records accessible online through https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:SPBP-HGQ. Generally, such records should be second sourced when possible. I have used census records and personal records (diaries, letters, etc.) whenever possible to build that source structure.
[41] J. M. Grant, Letter to Joseph Smith, Aug. 17, 1843, Joseph Smith Collection, Box 3, fd. 5, MS 155, CHL. Some spelling and punctuation modernized.
[42] Grant’s sister may have been the object of a (refused) proposal by Joseph Smith. See D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 527.
[43] William Clayton journal, Aug. 31, 1843. The original diary is not available for inspection, however the text may be found in the D. Michael Quinn papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. See also, Vogel, History of Joseph Smith, 5:669n486.
[44] By September, Emma had apparently softened again. See Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 498–99.
[45] See Wilford Woodruff’s journal for a report of the circumstances and the sermon. See also Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 2:226, and Smith, Seasoned with Grace, chap. 3, forthcoming. See also, “Sermon delivered at Nauvoo temple on Sunday April 16, 1843,” Book of Abraham Project, http://boap.org/LDS/Parallel/1843/16Apr43.html.
[46] Barnes to Malin, Jan. 9, 1843.
[47] It’s highly unlikely that Clayton was acting on his own—he makes no mention of Conrad as a prospect for plural marriage (to himself), something he is very candid about with his other plural wives and prospects. Joseph Smith’s revelation on polygamy was dictated July 12, 1843. Interestingly, Joseph Smith’s proposals and Grant’s response letter fall to the before and after sides of the July revelation. For a contextual discussion of the July revelation, see William V. Smith, Textual Studies in the Doctrine and Covenants: The Plural Marriage Revelation (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, forthcoming). Clayton’s letters to Conrad may have been written in the same way that Clayton wrote to one Sarah Crooks in his own behalf at Joseph Smith’s insistence. Clayton wrote to Crooks having secured passage for her to Nauvoo from England through funds from Smith. When Crooks arrived in Nauvoo, Clayton fully explained his intention to marry her as a plural wife. It is interesting that Clayton’s full revelation of his intent to Crooks, something she seems to have been prepared for, took place on the evening of the day Clayton wrote the second letter to Conrad (Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 107). Crooks refused Clayton.
[48] Emphasis in the original text.
[49] Her obituary and autograph book shows that in her youth Conrad met and conversed with many of the leading lights of early Mormonism like Parley Pratt and Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
The history behind a letter that was written by missionary Jedediah Morgan Grant to Joseph Smith, which contained information about Susan Hough Conrad and her brief love writings with a missionary who was serving in England named Lorenzo Dow Barnes.
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Joseph Smith and the Clash of Sacred Cultures
Keith Parry
Dialogue 18.4 (Winter 1984): 65–80
Shortly after the church was organized, one of Joseph Smith’s main priorities during his lifetime was preaching to the Native Americans, who he believed to be the descendants of the Lamanites.
Joseph Smith's Life
Shortly after the church was organized, one of Joseph Smith’s main priorities during his lifetime was preaching to the Native Americans, who he believed to be the descendants of the Lamanites.
[post_title] => Joseph Smith and the Clash of Sacred Cultures [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 18.4 (Winter 1984): 65–80Shortly after the church was organized, one of Joseph Smith’s main priorities during his lifetime was preaching to the Native Americans, who he believed to be the descendants of the Lamanites. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => joseph-smith-and-the-clash-of-sacred-cultures [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-05 00:50:10 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-05 00:50:10 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=16004 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

Why the Prophet is a Puzzle: The Challenges of Using Psychological Perspectives to Understand the Character and Motivation of Joseph Smith, Jr.
Lawrence Foster
Dialogue 53.2 (Summer 2020): 1–35
This article will explore how one of the most open-ended psychological interpretations of Smith’s prophetic leadership and motivation might contribute to better understanding the trajectory of this extraordinarily talented and conflicted individual whose life has so deeply impacted the religious movement he founded and, increasingly, the larger world.
This article will explore how one of the most open-ended psychological interpretations of Smith’s prophetic leadership and motivation might contribute to better understanding the trajectory of this extraordinarily talented and conflicted individual whose life has so deeply impacted the religious movement he founded and, increasingly, the larger world. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => why-the-prophet-is-a-puzzle-the-challenges-of-using-psychological-perspectives-to-understand-the-character-and-motivation-of-joseph-smith-jr [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-05 16:42:37 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-05 16:42:37 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=26355 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

Joseph Smith and the Structure of Mormon Identity
Steven L. Olsen
Dialogue 14.3 (Fall 1981): 89–100
Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of the First Vision has taken priority in structuring Mormon identity, despite the existence of different versions. This article explores why that version is so meaningful to Latter-day Saints, reflecting on the symbolic strucutre of the account.
In 1838, Joseph Smith reduced to written form the sacred experience which led him to establish Mormonism.[1] his narrative relates a series of heavenly visitations which Smith said had begun eighteen years earlier and had continued until 1829. Although Smith drafted earlier and later accounts of these events, only the 1838 version has been officially recognized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Smith commenced his official History of the Church with this narrative. It also appeared in an 1851 collection of sacred and inspirational writings published by the Church in the British Isles. The permanent status of this text in Mormonism was secured in 1880 by its canonization at the hand of John Taylor who had recently succeeded Brigham Young to the Mormon Presidency. Since its canonization, the "Joseph Smith story," as it is known among Mormons, has become a primary document for the explication of Mormon doctrine and the introduction for many proselytes to the Church. The text has come to demand the loyalty of orthodox Mormons and has become one of Mormonism's most sacred texts.
Remarkable is the contrast between the official status of the 1838 version and the general neglect by the Church of the other accounts. This difference in status cannot be explained by the historical accuracy of the respective accounts. Despite some serious challenges to the chronology of the official account, Mormons have firmly defended its historicity, even though several of the non-canonized versions do not suffer from these perceived historical inaccuracies.[2] Neither can this distinction be demonstrated by the degree of complementarity of the different versions. Although some inconsistencies exist among the accounts, no official attempt has been made to supplement the canonized version with many rich details from the other versions.[3] Finally, despite the principal use of the official version to validate Mormon doctrine,[4] other versions could conceivably perform these didactic functions as well. In short, the Mormon Church seems to view the 1838 "Joseph Smith story" as an account apart, a different kind of narrative from the other versions, even from those written by Smith himself. This exclusive and inviolate position reinforces its sacredness in Mormonism.[5]
One possible reason for the considerable contrast in the Mormon attitude between the canonized and all other accounts is their respective relation to Mormon identity. That is, the unquestioned loyalty to the official version may be an expression more of Mormon ideology than of Mormon historiography or theology. One of the most important roles of this text in Mormonism may be the manner in which it articulates Mormonism's self-conscious mission to mankind.
The social and humanistic disciplines abound with studies of the significance of sacred narratives, often called creation myths, for the expression and maintenance of cultural identity.[6] Meaning in such narratives has been found to be communicated through symbolic as opposed to propositional logic. That is, sensory elements in the story connected with objects, images, persons and places are combined and recombined in discernible patterns which give the story cultural significance considerably greater than that given by the events themselves. As Alan Heimert has observed,
To discover the meaning of any utterance demands what is in substance a continuing act of literary interpretation, for the language with which an idea is presented, and the imaginative universe by which it is surrounded, often tell us more of an author's meaning and intention than his declarative propositions.[7]
This imaginative universe or these symbolic patterns constitute the structure of a narrative. This article will seek to analyze in the context of Mormon identity the structures used by Smith to express, and thereby interpret, his early sacred experiences.
Although many structural theories have been developed, the structuralism of Jean Piaget possesses two distinct advantages for the present study.[8] n the first place, Piaget sees "structuring" as the human process of imposing greater degrees of order upon and deriving additional levels of meaning from preexisting oral, visual, material, written and other cultural traditions. From this perspective, the Joseph Smith story becomes as much the reflection of Smith's perceptions and intentions within an expanding Mormon world-view as the description of a series of historical occurrences.
Secondly, Piaget identifies three characteristics of a well developed symbolic logic, namely wholeness, transformation and self-regulation. These provide the model with a method of analysis and criteria of falsifiability which allow for a level of scientific rigor unattainable from more impressionistic structural theories.
Piaget's first principle, wholeness, requires that the structure of a narrative be completely developed within the story. In the same way that a good story includes all relevant elements for its complete exposition, an adequate symbolic logic must be fully expressed within the narrative.
The symbolic structure of the Joseph Smith story exhibits the quality of wholeness. Briefly, the structure of the text is based on the dynamic contrast between two pairs of opposed yet fundamental concepts in Mormonism, namely Kingdom/World and heaven/earth.[9] The Joseph Smith story symbolically expresses the ideal Mormon relation between these two binary oppositions. That is, the Kingdom/World distinction is magnified and the heaven/ earth distinction is diminished throughout the narrative until the Kingdom overcomes the World and heaven and earth are united. These developments are wholly contained within the narrative.
Piaget's second characteristic, transformation, suggests that the events of the story are ordered not only in chronological and geographical sequence but also in terms of the text's symbolic logic. In the words of the anthropologist Edmund Leach, “the chronological sequence is itself of structural significance.”[10]
Two transformational principles operate within the Joseph Smith story to produce the ideal relationships between the Kingdom and the World, on the one hand, and between heaven and earth, on the other. The first principle, evolution, is the process of creating a new condition from a quite different and outmoded condition. The evolutionary process in the Joseph Smith story symbolically creates the ideal Kingdom/World contrast. The Kingdom overcomes the World in the narrative by destroying the World's institutions, eliminating the World's influence on members of the Kingdom, and ceasing all communication with the World. The Kingdom establishes itself in the narrative through the evolution of an institutional framework of action with the Kingdom and the regeneration of the individual in the ideal image of the Kingdom.
The second transformational principle of the Joseph Smith story is dialectics, that is, the process of increasingly approximating an ideal state through the resolution of contrasts. Dialectics operate in the narrative to symbolically unify heaven and earth. This is accomplished through the resolution of two pair of contrasting elements characteristic of the heaven/earth opposition, namely light/dark and high/low.
Piaget's third characteristic of a well-developed symbolic logic is self-regulation. Self-regulation refers to the patterns in the narrative, which are analogous to meter and stanzas in poetry and rhythm and movements in music. These patterns help set the mood of the story and reinforce its meaning.
The most obvious rhythms in the Joseph Smith story consist in the division of the narrative into three vignettes, each of which is characterized by a significant heavenly manifestation. More specific devices of self-regulation in the text include repetition, series, climax, ·and denouement.
The first vignette (vv. 1-26), known to Mormons as the "First Vision," finds young Joseph searching for God's true religion but being confused and bewildered by the organized churches of his day. Strengthened in his resolve to find the truth, Joseph retires to the woods near his home to ask God directly the whereabouts of the truth. During the prayer, he is assailed by an evil presence which nearly causes his destruction. At the point of Joseph's abandonment, the evil is dispelled by a glorious light in which appear two heavenly beings, identified as God the Father and Jesus Christ. They instruct the lad to avoid all modern religions.
Three years pass before the second vignette begins (vv. 27-54), during which Joseph has been adversely influenced by his friends. Wishing to be cleansed of the resulting taints, Joseph withdraws to the security of his bedroom to seek God's forgiveness. His prayers are answered by the appearance of an angel named Moroni who calls Joseph to restore the Kingdom of God to earth.
The third vignette (vv. 55-75) opens with Joseph digging for buried treasure. Unsuccessful at this enterprise, he withdraws from the working world to begin translating sacred records which Moroni has entrusted to his keeping. This translation is eventually published as the Book of Mormon. Wishing to verify the accuracy of the translation, Joseph sends a sympathetic neighbor, Martin Harris, to Professor Charles Anthon. The professor first attests to the accuracy of the translation, but upon learning of its reputed source, he withdraws his approval in disgust.
Following this rejection, Joseph immerses himself in the work of the Kingdom, and God rewards him first by providing him a scribe, Oliver Cowdery, to assist in the translation, and second by sending the resurrected John the Baptist to authorize Joseph and Oliver to baptize each other and anyone else who believes them. The Joseph Smith story ends with Joseph secure in the heavenly Kingdom he has just restored, yet increasingly persecuted by former friends and strangers alike.
We will now consider how these events are expressed by Joseph Smith in an imaginative universe or symbolic structure which defines Mormonism's self-conscious identity. The Kingdom/World dichotomy is symbolized most dramatically by the demise of the major institutions of the World. In the first vignette, institutionalized religion is overcome by the Kingdom. As the narrative begins, Joseph has no other concern in life than to find God's true church. Instead of truth, Joseph experiences hypocrisy, contention and confusion among the “different religious parties" of the day and feels himself unable "to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong."
To seek an answer, Joseph removes himself from the religions of the World and in a grove of trees near his home communicates with two heavenly beings. They repeat four times the answer to his question of the whereabouts of the true religion. Joseph is told a) he "must join none" of the existing churches; b) "that their creeds were an abomination"; c) "that those professors [of religion] were all corrupt"; and d) again not "to join with any of them" (vv. 19-20). Although Joseph alludes to "many other things" (v. 20) he learned during the "First Vision," the divine condemnation of existing religions is the only information included in the text.
Following his experience with the heavens, Joseph defends his newfound truth not only to the minister of the sect which had once attracted him (v. 21) but to "professors of religion" in general (v. 22) and to the very "powers of darkness" (v. 20) which had so recently nearly proven his demise. From this point in the text, Joseph has no further contact with organized religion. As far as the Kingdom is concerned, this institution of the World has been negated.
The society of the World is at issue in the second vignette. For three years after the "First Vision" Joseph mingles with "all classes of men" (v. 27) and in "all kinds of society" (v. 28). In defending his supernatural experiences, Joseph is persecuted by "those who ought to have been my friends and to have treated me kindly . . .” (v. 28). These associations lead Joseph into "all kinds of temptations" (v. 28). Although he confesses that such "foolish errors" and 0foibles of human nature" were not serious (v. 28), he seeks forgiveness of God after having withdrawn from the society of the World. His visitation from the angel Moroni takes him out of the World to define his initial status in the Kingdom—translator of sacred records (vv. 34–35). Following his experience with Moroni, Joseph has no further social contacts with any worldly associate. In short, the coming of Moroni negates the society of the World.
The third vignette contains two encounters between the Kingdom and the World. As with previous encounters, the representative of the Kingdom is adversely affected by his involvement with the World. God, however, provides him a means of escape. First of all, Joseph becomes involved with the economy of the World. Although, he is not alone in this enterprise, Joseph refers to his fellow workers only in occupational terms. He does not relate to them in the text as companions or friends (v. 56).
This get-rich-quick scheme earns Joseph nothing but the reputation of being a "money-digger." Embarrassed, he withdraws from the economy of the World and begins his mission to the Kingdom. From this point in the text, Joseph never again encounters the World's economies. God, however, provides for his temporal needs by sending a "farmer of respectability," Martin Harris, with the "timely aid" of fifty dollars (vv. 60-61).
Once Joseph has begun his mission in the Kingdom, the narrative has him no longer personally involved with any institution of the World. As a result, it is Martin Harris who takes a portion of the translated manuscript and some transcribed characters from the plates to a professor of education for verification. The professor approves of both until he learns of their reputed source. Hearing that they came from an angel, he withdraws his support stating that "there was no such thing now as ministering of angels" (v. 65).
This response climaxes the widening Kingdom/World opposition. At this point, the distinction has become categorical. The World is now the arch-enemy of the Kingdom in principle as well as in practice. Reconciliation between them is no longer possible. Consequently, no further contact with the World is sought by the Kingdom. As far as the Kingdom is concerned, the institutions of the World have been overcome.
From the perspective of the World, however, the principle of opposition becomes the practice of persecution. As the Kingdom progressively overcomes the World’s institutions, the World increasingly mobilizes against the Kingdom. Opposition to the Kingdom comes first from a single Methodist preacher (v. 21) and then from "professors of religion" as a group (v. 22). In the second vignette, the source of persecution has expanded to include "all classes of men, both religious and irreligious" (v. 27). By the third vignette, "persecution became more bitter and severe than before, and multitudes were on the alert continually to get [ the plates] if possible" (v. 60).
Despite the increased opposition, the World's influence on the Kingdom wanes as its institutions are negated. In the first vignette, Joseph is ignorant, isolated and powerless as a result of his involvement with the World. In the second vignette, the World affects only his moral integrity. Joseph's involvement with the economy of the World leaves him embarrassed and penniless but does not assail his character, and the involvement with the education of the World results only in disappointment. The narrative suggests that as the World mobilizes in opposition to the Kingdom, its influence on the Kingdom declines.
Joseph's patterns of communication in the text reinforce this logical progression. In the first vignette, Joseph discusses his spiritual experiences only with the World, in the form of sectarian preachers (vv. 21-22). He comes no closer to communicate his experiences with trusted family members than to inform his mother that her religion was "not true" (v. 20).
The second vignette finds Joseph's communications exclusively with "those who ought to have been my friends" (v. 28). After the visitation of Moroni, however, Joseph initiates open communication with family members and ceases direct communication with the World. In the words of Joseph, Moroni "commanded me to go to my father and tell him of the visions and commandments which I had received,, (v. 49).
The World, however, is still informed of the activities of the Kingdom, but only in an oblique manner, as indicated by the use of the passive voice in the text: '' . . . no sooner was it known that I had [ the plates], than the most strenuous exertions were used to get them from me” (v. 60). Joseph also indicates that by this time profane communication or "rumor with her ten thousand tongues was all the time employed in circulating falsehoods" about the Kingdom (v. 61).
After Joseph begins to translate the sacred record and after he becomes authorized to enlarge the Kingdom through baptism, communication with the World ceases altogether, and communication within the Kingdom, including that between heaven and earth, becomes well developed.
Our minds being now enlightened, we began to have the scriptures laid open to our understandings, and the true meaning and intention of their more mysterious passages revealed unto us in a manner which we never could attain to previously, nor ever before thought of. In the meantime we were forced to keep secret the circumstances of having received the Priesthood and our having been baptized, owing to a spirit of persecution which had already manifested itself in the neighborhood (v. 74).
In short, as the Kingdom grows, the institutions of the World—religion, society, economy and education—are destroyed until the Kingdom has no more use for the World. The adverse effects of the World upon members of the Kingdom are also progressively eliminated. The increasing rift between the Kingdom and the World is seen as well in the mounting persecution of the Kingdom by the World and in the decreasing communications between them.
In the process of destroying the institutions of the World, the Kingdom recreates the individual in the ideal image of the Kingdom. In this respect1 Joseph Smith becomes the model of conversion in this sacred Mormon text. In the first vignette, Joseph describes himself as ignorant of the truth and unable of himself to find it: ". . . so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong" (v. 8). The "two Personages" in the 11sacred grove" give Joseph sufficient knowledge not only to satisfy his own yearnings but to withstand the opposition of the "great ones of the most popular sects of the day" (v. 23) and the very /✓powers of darkness" (v. 20). After receiving this knowledge and throughout the rest of the narrative, Joseph never lacks for confidence or resources in establishing the Kingdom.
The second vignette is concerned with Joseph's moral integrity. His involvement with the society of the World results in his committing 11many foolish errors" and displaying "the weaknesses of youth, and the foibles of human nature" (v. 28). Joseph's repeated visits with the angel Moroni assure him of his acceptance by God. From this point in the narrative, Joseph shows no evidence of any faults in his character.
In the third vignette, Joseph acquires the trait of sociality. Until this point in the narrative, Joseph's companions have been either worldly as with 1 'those who ought to have been my friends . . ." or temporary as with his father and Martin Harris. Oliver Cowdery becomes Joseph's first companion in Kingdom building, assisting the Prophet to translate the plates. Not until Oliver begins his service does Joseph use the first person plural to describe his activities in the Kingdom (v. 68).
A final quality acquired by Joseph in coming to personify the Kingdom is power. Although he experiences the great power of the Kingdom from reading the Bible (vv. 11-12), he does not possess a portion of that power until John the Baptist confers on him the "Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys [authority] of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins. . . " (v. 69). Upon being baptized, Joseph also receives the Holy Ghost which becomes an unexpected key of knowledge in establishing the Kingdom.
Joseph's experiences with the Kingdom withdraw him from a declining World and initiate him into the emerging Kingdom by developing in him the qualities of knowledge, purity, sociality and power. By the end of the narrative, Joseph has acquired not only these traits himself, but also the mechanisms in the form of baptism, Priesthood and the Holy Ghost to extend the qualities of conversion to all who will accept the Kingdom.
The evolution of the Kingdom is manifest, finally, on an institutional level in a series of activities having increasing significance for the Kingdom. The first activity, namely instruction, characterizes the Kingdom through the first two vignettes. The "First Vision" and Moroni's repeated visitations are wholly concerned with giving Joseph "instruction and intelligence . . . respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his Kingdom was to be conducted in the last days" (v. 54).
After Joseph receives the plates, the focus of institutional activity shifts to production. That is, Joseph now applies the instruction he has received to produce the first material evidence of the Kingdom's restoration, namely the Book of Mormon.
With the coming of John the Baptist the institutional activity of the Kingdom begins to shift once more from production to reproduction. That is, the Kingdom has evolved to the point at which others can begin to share in its growth. The ordination and baptism of Joseph and Oliver initiate this stage of the Kingdom's expansion.
In sum, the symbolic evolution of the Kingdom in the Joseph Smith story consists of destruction of the institutions of the World and the concurrent construction of the Kingdom. The former consists of the demise of the World's institutions, the World's influence on the Kingdom and its communication with the Kingdom. The latter involves creating the individual member in the image of the Kingdom and developing a framework of institutional activity consistent with the Kingdom's ultimate scope.
The second principle of systematic transformation in the Joseph Smith story is dialectics, which integrate the contrasting elements of heaven and earth in the text. The unification is symbolized first in the contrast of illumination, or light/dark dichotomy. As Joseph prays in the woods to find God's truth, "thick darkness gathered around" him. This darkness signals the presence of "some actual being from the unseen world," whose power causes Joseph nearly to "sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction.” Yet “just at this moment of great alarm," a pillar of light appears to disp·e1 the darkness. Joseph reports, "It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound." Within the light are "two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description'' (vv. 15-17). A more powerful contrast between light and dark could not be imagined than that which introduced Joseph to the Kingdom.
The light/dark contrast in the coming of Moroni is striking, but less so than in the "First Vision." Moroni comes to Joseph at night, which is simply the absence of light, not the presence of evil. The contrast is further muted by he light gradually dispelling the darkness. Joseph reports, "a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday" (v. 30). Joseph also uses language less sublime in describing Moroni's appearance than the "First Vision." Joseph describes Moroni's robe as having "a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen" and Moroni's countenance as being "glorious beyond description, and . . . truly like lightning" (vv. 31-32).
In the final manifestation of the Kingdom, John the Baptist appears to Joseph and Oliver during the day. The only contrast between the glory of the Baptist and the surrounding daylight is that John "descended in a cloud of light" (v. 68). Not only is the contrast minimal but it is made without further textual elaboration. In the three successive light/dark oppositions in the narrative, the contrast decreases and is the least at the point in the story when Joseph and Oliver are inducted into the Kingdom. In short, the resolution of the light/dark dichotomy symbolizes the union of heaven and earth which the restoration of the Kingdom was effecting.
Confirmation of this symbolic pattern exists as well in the opposition of elevation, or the contrast of "high" and "low." In the "First Vision," Joseph describes the "pillar of light" as appearing "exactly over my head" and descending "gradually until it fell upon me" (v. 16). The contrast between Joseph's position, namely "lying on my back, looking up into heaven," (v. 20) and the position of the "two Personages," "standing above me in the air," is considerable.
In the second vignette, Moroni appears somewhat elevated above Joseph, but less than the "two Personages." In Joseph's words, Moroni "appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor" (v. 30). The final vignette mentions no specific distinction in elevation between John the Baptist, on the one hand, and Joseph and Oliver, on the other. The only suggestion of a difference is that John lays his hands on Joseph and Oliver to confer on them the "Priesthood of Aaron" (vv. 68-69).
As the Kingdom becomes established, two of the principal symbolic distinctions between heaven and earth, namely light/dark and high/low, are eliminated. The evolution of the Kingdom also destroys all effective opposition so that by the end of the Joseph Smith story the Kingdom is secure in its foundations and optimistic in its directions. At the conclusion of the narrative, Joseph "prophesied concerning the rise of this Church, and many other things connected with the Church, and this generation of the children of men. We were filled with the Holy Ghost and rejoiced in the God of our salvation."
The symbolic logic of the Joseph Smith story expresses a fundamental aspect of Mormonism's self-conscious identity. Mormons believe that the religion founded by Joseph Smith embodies the Kingdom of God restored to earth following a long separation of man from the truth. According to Mormon reckoning, this heavenly kingdom in temporal form is destined to overthrow the kingdoms of the World and literally transform the earth into heaven. In other words, the 1838 Joseph Smith story not only experientially confirms much of Mormon theology, it symbolically defines its self-conscious identity.
None of the other versions express Mormon identity so simply yet so completely and elegantly as does the 1838 account. In fact, no other Mormon document can serve so well the role of cultural charter or creation myth. Smith's introduction to the 1838 version suggests that he intended to compose an official charter when he began to write.
Owing to the many reports which have been put in circulation by evildisposing and designing persons in relation to the rise anq progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . I have been induced to write this history, to disabuse the public mind, and put all inquirers after truth in possession of the facts ... so far as I have such facts in my possession (v. 1).
By integrating fundamental aspects of Mormon historical, theological and ideological consciousness into a simple narrative form, the Joseph Smith story becomes the model testimony among a people whose declarations of faith are often expressed in experiential terms. The text also establishes Joseph Smith as the model convert to a religion for which "overcoming the world" and "establishing heaven on earth" are as significant for the individual member as for the entire church. These slogans have been used throughout Mormon history to validate its theology, ethics, social organization and cosmology. Because the ideal Mormon relations between the Kingdom and the World and between heaven and earth are symbolically expressed in the Joseph Smith text, the narrative provides Latter-day Saints with an interpretive framework to order their lives and make meaningful their social and religious experiences.[11] The use of the text as an absolute marker of Mormon history and doctrine is largely a function of its ability to articulate the structure of Mormon identity.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
[1] Joseph Smith Jr., The Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith 2 (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1978), pp. 46-57, originally published serially in Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois), 15 March-1 August 1842. Numbers in parentheses throughout this article refer to the verse(s) in the Joseph Smith text from which the information was taken.
[2] E.g., Reverend Wesley P. Walters and Richard L. Bushman, "Round table: The Question of the Palmyra Revivals," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969), pp. 60-100.
[3] James B. Allen, "Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision: What do we Learn from Them?" The Improvement Era 73 (April 1970), pp. 4-13; Paul R. Cheesman, "An Analysis of the Accounts Relating Joseph Smith's Early Visions" (Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1965).
[4] James B. Allen, "The Significance of Joseph Smith's 'First Vision' in Mormon Thought," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1 (Autumn 1966), pp. 29-45.
[5] The Durkheimian tradition has viewed sacred phenomena as those which are separated and protected from mundane existence by ritual and moral imperatives, Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1915).
[6] Michael Lane, ed., An Introduction to Structuralism (New York: Basic Books, 1970); Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology I, II (New York: Basic Books, 1963, 1976); International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1968 ed., "Myth and Symbol," by Victor Turner.
[7] Alan Heimerl, Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 11.
[8] Jean Piaget, Structuralism, trans. Channah Maschler (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970).
[9] For present purposes, "Kingdom," "World," "Heaven" and "earth" are roughly equivalent to "sacred," "secular," "spiritual," and "material," respectively.
[10] Edmund Leach, "The Legitimacy of Solomon," in Genesis as Myth and other Essays (London: Cape Editions, 1969), p. 79.
[11] See Gifford Geertz, “Ideology as a Cultural System," in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 193-233.
1981: Steven L. Olsen “Joseph Smith and the Structure of Mormon Identity,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 14 No. 3 (1981): 89–100.
Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of the First Vision has taken priority in structuring Mormon identity, despite the existence of different versions. This article explores why that version is so meaningful to Latter-day Saints, reflecting on the symbolic strucutre of the account.
[post_title] => Joseph Smith and the Structure of Mormon Identity [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 14.3 (Fall 1981): 89–100Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of the First Vision has taken priority in structuring Mormon identity, despite the existence of different versions. This article explores why that version is so meaningful to Latter-day Saints, reflecting on the symbolic strucutre of the account. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => joseph-smith-and-the-structure-of-mormon-identity [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-07 21:02:17 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-07 21:02:17 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=16445 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

JOSEPH SMITH'S EXPERIENCE OF A METHODIST "CAMP-MEETING" IN 1820
D. Michael Quinn
Dialogue E-Paper July 12, 2006
As an alternative to myopic polarization, this essay provides new ways of understanding Joseph's narrative, analyzes previously neglected issues/data, and establishes a basis for perceiving in detail what the teenage boy experienced in the religious revivalism that led to his first theophany
Since 1967, disbelieving critics of Joseph Smith Jr.'s accounts of his “First Vision" of deity have repeated the arguments and evidence given by minister-researcher Wesley P. Walters against the existence of an 1820 "religious excitement" (revival) in or near Palmyra, New York, as affirmed by the Mormon prophet's most detailed narrative. Since 1969, Smith's believing apologists[1] have repeated the rebuttal arguments and evidence given by BYU religion professor Milton V. Backman Jr. in support of such a revival which, Smith declared, led to his vision in 1820. For four decades, both sides have continued to approach this debated topic as if there were no alternative ways to examine the materials Walters and Backman cited, and as if there were no additional sources of significance to consider. The skeptics have been uniformly intransigent, while some apologists have made significant concessions.
This essay maintains that both sides have examined their evidences with tunnel vision, while both have likewise ignored issues and documents crucial to the topic. As an alternative to myopic polarization, this essay provides new ways of understanding Joseph's narrative, analyzes previously neglected issues/data, and establishes a basis for perceiving in detail what the teenage boy experienced in the religious revivalism that led to his first theophany. This is conservative revisionism.
An oddity in Mormon studies has been the decades-long repetition of Reverend Wesley P. Walters' claim in 1967 that "no revival occurred in the Palmyra area [of western New York State] in 1820." Rejecting all reminiscent accounts by Mormons, he made this assertion because of an allegedly "massive silence" about such a revival in documents written or published during that year. Instead, he argued, "the statement of Joseph Smith, Jr. cannot be true when he claims that he was stirred by an 1820 revival to make his inquiry in the grove [of trees] near his home." Walters insisted that various evidences showed Palmyra having no revivals from the fall of 1817 until 1824. Thus, Smith allegedly invented a fictitious revival to support his allegedly fictitious "First Vision" of deity in 1820 by superimposing on that year the extensive revivals which contemporary sources clearly described for Palmyra in 1824 and the following year.[2] Likewise, a hostile biographer wrote in 1999: "There was no significant revival in or around Palmyra in 1820," adding that "no known revival occurred in Palmyra between 1818 and 1823," and repeating: "no revivals in or around Palmyra [--] 1820.”[3]
Such unconditional denials seem odd for several reasons. First, the published diary of minister Aurora Seager commented that Palmyra had a revival in June 1818. After returning to his "home at Phelps on the 19th of May," he prepared to attend the annual meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church's Genesee Conference (the organizational subdivision for western New York):
I received, on the 18th of June, a letter from Brother [Billy] Hibbard, informing me that I had been received by the [eastern] New York Conference, and, at my request, had been transferred to the Genesee Conference. On [Friday,] the 19th [of June 1818,] I attended a camp-meeting at Palmyra [nearly fourteen miles from Phelps]. The arrival of Bishop Roberts, who seems to be a man of God, and is apostolic in his appearance, gave a deeper interest to the meeting until it closed. On Monday [at Palmyra's camp-meeting,] the sacrament was administered, about twenty were baptized; forty united with the [Methodist] Church, and the meeting closed. I accompanied the Bishop to Brother [Eleazer] Hawks, at Phelps, and on the 14th of July [1818,] I set out [from Phelps] with Brother [Zechariah] Paddock for the Genesee conference, which was to hold its session at Lansing, N.Y.[4]
This narrative in itself undermined Reverend Walters' emphatic declaration that Palmyra had no revival for more than six years after the fall of 1817.
In 1969 BYU religion professor Milton V. Backman Jr. made him aware of this diary entry, and Walters should have recognized that it demonstrated a fundamental flaw in part of his argument. However, he never acknowledged this document. Furthermore, in a 1980 article where he claimed to have read the "entire manuscript" which summarized the above entry from Seager's diary,[5] Walters ridiculed a Mormon author's assertion that Palmyra's revivals of 1817 continued into 1818.[6]
The second oddity about the decades-long repetition of the minister-researcher's denials involves Palmyra's weekly newspaper. Its edition of 28 June 1820 referred to out-of-town visitor James Couser, who died on June 26th, the day after he drunkenly left "the Camp-ground" following the evening services of "a camp-meeting which was held in this vicinity."[7] The Palmyra Register’s next edition denied that its editor intended "to charge the Methodists" with selling alcohol at "their camp-ground" while they "professedly met for the worship of their God."[8] Third, farmer's almanacs—on which the Smiths and other village dwellers depended—specified that spring began on 20 March 1820 and ended when summer commenced on 21 June.[9] Traditional LDS statements that Joseph's revival-inspired theophany happened at an unspecified time "in the spring of 1820"[10] thus allow for an event as late as one minute before midnight on June 20th. Fourth, starting with Backman and BYU religion professor Richard Lloyd Anderson in 1969, for more than thirty years LDS authors cited one or both of those newspaper articles as proof that there was at least one religious revival in Palmyra during the first six months of 1820.[11]
Why have some scholars continued to deny that there was a religious revival that year? First, because Joseph Smith's most detailed narration about the pre-vision revival (and especially commentaries on it by his mother Lucy in the preliminary manuscript of her "History," by his brother William, and by his scribe Oliver Cowdery—after consultation with Joseph) referred to circumstances of Palmyra's revival in 1824-25 (such as its occurrence after the death of Alvin Smith—who died in November 1823, the preaching by Methodist minister George Lane, the revival's expansion to include the Baptists and Presbyterian preachers like Benjamin Stockton, and the conversion of "great multitudes," including several Smith family members to the Presbyterian Church). Thus, nay-sayers conclude that Joseph's dating of the crucial revival as 1820 was "anachronistic" at best, and fraudulent at worst.[12]
Second, in his 1969 expansion of the original 1967 article, Walters himself mentioned the Palmyra Register’s articles about the camp-meeting of June 1820. Paradoxically, he cited them in a footnote to support his narrative statement: "Even the Palmyra newspaper, while reporting revivals at several places in the state, has no mention whatever of any revival in Palmyra or vicinity in 1819 or 1820.”[13]
It seems mind-boggling for the minister-researcher to cite confirming documentation as if it were disconfirmation, but Walters did so for a reason he only implied (that the articles did not specify the "camp-meeting" was a "revival"), as well as for two incomplete explanations. In the footnote, he wrote: "Even the Methodist camp meeting being held in the vicinity of the village has nothing more significant reported about it than that a man had gotten drunk at the grog shops while there and died the next morning." In other words, this meeting was insignificant because Palmyra's newspaper mentioned it in passing as simply the background for reporting a man's death, not as a newsworthy event in its own right. Later in the narrative text, he gave another explanation (again only partly stated): that this 1820 meeting was merely an outdoors gathering of the local congregation at "the Methodist camp grounds a mile from Palmyra, in the wooded area adjoining the Methodist chapel." Therefore, by implication only, Reverend Walters dismissed this "camp-meeting" as a regular congregational service on the evening of Sunday, 25 June 1820—thus, not a special revival.[14]
A third reason why some scholars have continued to deny that there was a revival that year is the evidence he presented in 1967 and 1969 that there was no dramatic increase (or "spike") in the denominational membership of Palmyra and surrounding towns during 1820, as one might expect following a religious revival as extensive as Smith described: "Indeed, the whole district of country seemed affected by it, and great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties . . .”[15]
In 1969 Backman chipped away at Walters' arguments. During 1819-20, there were revivals in seven towns "within a radius of twenty-five miles of the Smith farm" and also throughout New York State, with increases among Baptists and Presbyterians both locally and statewide. Furthermore, although Methodist records for the immediate vicinity of Palmyra did not survive, existing records verified the denomination's conversions during 1820 in nearby towns, with a total increase of 2,256 Methodists in western New York as a whole for that year.[16]
Backman did not specify it in this way, but his expansive geography was justified because Joseph's phrase "the whole district of country" indicated the young man's familiarity with Methodist terms and regional organization. In July 1819 the Genesee Conference of western New York created the Ontario District, which comprised Ontario County, in which Palmyra was then located.[17] Specifically, Palmyra and Farmington (later named Manchester) were among the villages within the smaller Ontario Circuit of the Ontario District, and the Smith family lived in both villages from late 1816 through 1830.[18]
As the subdivision of a district, a Methodist circuit comprised "stations" or villages for preaching. One circuit might have few stations, while another had more than forty. Each circuit was served by an itinerant preacher (Methodist "circuit rider") who traveled on horseback to visit each station within a circuit.[19] For example, in 1817 the Genesee Conference assigned Alvin Torry to a circuit dozens of miles east of Palmyra, which circuit "embraced Scipio, Cayuga, Mentz, Elbridge, Jordan, Manlius, Onondaga, Owasco, Otisco, Auburn, Skaneateles and Spafford. . . . It was a four weeks' circuit, and all we could do in the preaching line, was to give each congregation one sermon once in two weeks; and this required us to preach almost every day in the week . . .” After the weeks necessary to make one circuit of preaching visits, the circuit-riders started all over again, whether they traveled in pairs or alone.[20]
From 1773 onward, the Methodist Episcopal Church published its annual statistics of membership for each conference (such as the Genesee), for each district within that conference, and for each circuit within that district. However, the published statistics did not reach to the level of each "station" (town/village within a circuit).[21]
Previous to 1819, Palmyra was in the Genesee Conference's same-named subdivision, "the Genesee District [which] embraced the whole territory from Cayuga Lake to Lake Erie, and from Lake Ontario, on the north, into Pennsylvania . . .”[22] Backman explained that this was "about five hundred miles" east-to-west, and "about three hundred miles" north-to-south. Also, contrary to Walters' initial assumption that the June 1820 camp-meeting took place at an existing chapel, Backman pointed out that the Methodists did not build a meetinghouse in Palmyra until 1822.[23]
In his 1980 article, the minister's most significant rebuttal was to challenge as "wishful thinking" the application to Palmyra of Methodist growth in western New York as a whole. This is the "ecological fallacy" in statistics, because an individual case can be very different from the general pattern of which it is only one part. Specifically, Walters charged Backman with wrongly calculating the statistics for Ontario Circuit:
What he should have done is to subtract the July, 1820, figures from the July, 1819, figures to look for any [Methodist] increases for the spring of 1820. Had he done this[,] he would have discovered a total loss of 59 members for the Ontario District [sic], the district where Joseph Smith lived.[24]
However, to arrive at this net loss, the minister-researcher actually did the opposite of what he described and then (at best) made an error of subtraction in the direction for which he was arguing. First, he inaccurately claimed that his calculations were based on "District" membership (roughly the entire county), when he meant the smallest Methodist unit of reported affiliation, the Ontario Circuit of a few towns/villages. Membership differences at the district level were in the hundreds during those years, and bore no similarity to the result he tabulated. Second, a comparison of the July 1819 Methodist affiliation of the Ontario District's Ontario Circuit (677 total) with the circuit's July 1820 membership (671 total) reveals a net loss of only six members. Walters was able to arrive at the non-existent "loss of 59 members" in only one way: he compared the circuit's July 1821 affiliation (622 total) with the July 1820 total of 671,resulting in a net loss of 49 which he then increased by ten. Those errors in his 1980 article (directed to evangelical ministers) appeared to be intentional, since his 1969 article (directed to Mormon apologists) correctly stated in the narrative text that the Methodist decline "for the entire circuit" was "6 for 1820," which he repeated in a 1969 source-note as "a net loss of 6."[25]
In fact, his eighteen-page article in 1980 was a polemical screed that began with the emphatic statement: "there was no revival either in Palmyra or anywhere near Joseph Smith's home in the year 1820," which Walters restated sixteen times before his concluding comment that "one cannot expect to find historical support for legendary events." Among the article's denials were: "this supposed 1820 camp meeting," and "without any evidence that there was either a camp meeting or a revival," and "nor can even a spark of a revival be found within at least a 15-mile radius of his home during that year." This 1980 response made no reference to the Palmyra Register’s articles about the villages “camp-meeting” in late June 1820—which Reverend Walters had at least mentioned in his 1969 footnote.[26]
He then prepared a book-length response, which H. Michael Marquardt revised and published in 1994 after the minister's death. Despite the expansiveness of Smith's phrase "the whole district of country," they countered that statewide, region-wide, and even county-wide indications of revivalism and moderate growth cannot compensate for no documentation to support Joseph's narrative of dramatic revivalism "in the place where we lived" during 1820.[27] By contrast, the spike in conversions described by Smith can be found only in 1824-25. In effect, they also thanked LDS apologists for demonstrating that Palmyra's Methodists had no chapel in June 1820 and therefore had camp-meetings outside for congregational purposes, apparently nullifying the significance of the newspaper's observations.[28] Like-minded authors have continued to restate Walters' 1967-94 arguments in part or whole.[29]
However, there was a crucial contradiction in Walters' claim for "massive silence" about Palmyra's 1820 revival. On the one hand, he insisted that it "is completely beyond possibility" that the local "Presbytery should have been ignorant of a great awakening at Palmyra" in 1820. On the other hand, he acknowledged that this same local Presbyterian Church declared in September 1824 that there had been "no remarkable revival of religion within our bounds," even though the Methodists were publishing reports of their own revivals near Palmyra since the late spring of that same year. Rather than acknowledging these as equivalent examples of Presbyterian myopia about the competing revivals by Methodists, Walters cited the Presbyterians for making a curious denial of the 1824 Palmyra revivals he emphasized, while he polemically used their 1820 denial as alleged proof of his argument that Palmyra had no revival that year.[30] Ironically, the minister openly used unequal standards to assess the same kind of evidence from the same source in order to arrive at opposite conclusions about 1820 and 1824.
In addition, before and after Palmyra's camp-meeting of late June 1818, the village's newspaper did not refer to this three-day revival (Friday to Monday). This silence is even more glaring because its principal speaker was Robert R. Roberts, one of only three Methodist bishops in North America.[31] This Palmyra revival (which commenced in the last days of spring 1818) also followed the pattern of "massive silence" in the kinds of documents that Walters emphasized to dismiss Joseph's affirmation of an 1820 revival in the spring.
This contemporary silence about two Methodist camp-meetings that unquestionably occurred two years apart in Palmyra should have raised fundamental doubts about the assumptions and assertions by Walters, as well as about his methodology. He discouraged such assessments by maintaining his own silence about the documentation of Palmyra's 1818 revival. Truly mystifying, however, is the fact that during four decades most apologists ignored the evidence for this 1818 revival, a confirmation that Backman himself buried in a footnote.[32]
Given ample opportunities for challenging the factual errors, historical misrepresentations, statistical gaffes, logical fallacies, and withheld evidence by Reverend Walters, various authors chose other alternatives for nearly forty years. Thankfully, LDS apologists generally avoided the disreputable approach of ad hominem attack, but a rigorous academic critique does not need to be polemical. Instead, many wrote as if his articles and book did not exist, others critiqued his writings superficially, and some apologists actually deferred to him.
Nevertheless, the most significant problem with Palmyra's camp-meeting of late June 1820 is that the Prophet specifically stated that his vision of deity occurred "early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty.”[33] Therefore, citing the Palmyra Register in June-July 1820 to demonstrate pre-vision revivalism would seem to be a fallacy of irrelevant proof, and skeptics can accurately say there is no indication of a revival there in March, April, nor even in May of that year. FARMS reviewer Gary F. Novak acknowledged that "merely finding a revival does not clear up every seeming problem with Joseph's story. . .”[34]
As a historian who has analyzed original narratives and revised documents that anachronistically changed Mormon developments,[35] I have another perspective about the fact (and it is a fact) that Smith's official narrative about 1820 included circumstances which occurred during Palmyra's revivals of 1824-25. Merging (conflating) circumstances from similar events that happened years apart will certainly confuse the historical record and will perplex anyone trying to sort out basic chronology. Nonetheless, conflation of actual circumstances from separate events is not the same as fraudulent invention of events that never occurred. Conflation also is not the combination of an actual event with a fictional event. Instead, it is very common for memoirs and autobiographies to merge similar events that actually occurred, due to the narrator's memory lapses or her/his intentional streamlining of the narrative to avoid repeating similar occurrences.[36]
I think the latter was the reason that in describing his 1820 vision, Joseph Smith's 1838 official history conflated circumstances of Palmyra's solitary Methodist revival in late spring of 1820 with the circumstances of Palmyra's extensive revivals of 1824 that resulted in his mother, his sister Sophronia, his brothers Hyrum and Samuel joining the Presbyterian Church. Joseph merged the two revivals, combined two different kinds of family conversions, and dated this multi-year conflation as 1820. While this is partially inaccurate, I see it as streamlining his narrative, not as an example of fraudulent invention.
This is not "privileging" Joseph's narrative. It is, in fact, acknowledging a general pattern in all autobiographies. A repeatedly published handbook for historical research explained that "not all discrepancies signalize a myth or a fraud. In autobiographies, for instance, one must be prepared to find errors in dates and names without necessarily inferring that the account is false. . . . It would be absurd to disbelieve the main fact [simply] because the date is two years off."[37]
Significantly, New York's Methodist Magazine also conflated its reports of multiple revivals into a single revival. For example, a March 1818 article about "REVIVAL OF RELIGION" in Maine described camp-meetings and chapel revivals in eight towns during four months, and an article that same year about "REVIVAL OF RELIGION" in Suffolk County, New York, referred to eight towns during a ten-month period.[38] An 1821 "ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL AND PROGRESS OF THE WORK OF GOD IN FOUNTAIN-HEAD CIRCUIT THROUGH THE LAST YEAR" likewise described eight towns during ten months.[39] An 1824 article about "REVIVAL AND PROGRESS OF RELIGION" referred to ten towns in six months.[40]
This conflation into one revival also appeared in reports about multiple revivals in a single city of New York State. "A SHORT SKETCH OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE CITY OF TROY" started with February 1816 and concluded: "Upwards of a year has elapsed, since this good work commenced."[41] Another "SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE CITY OF SCHNECTADY" referred to separate outbursts of religious renewal from December 1818 through April 1819.[42] Beyond the Empire State, an article on "REVIVAL OF THE WORK OF GOD IN PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA" also referred to camp-meetings from August 1819 to "last August" (1820).[43]
Even more relevant to the conflation in Joseph's 1838 history, New York’s Methodist Magazine—as indicated by the previous example—conflated into a single event various instances of revivalism that actually occurred during a year or more. The magazine's report of one "REVIVAL OF RELIGION" in four towns skipped from camp-meetings in July 1818 to camp-meetings in June of 1819.[44] Another article referred to "the memorable revival of religion in Chillicothe in 1818-19."[45] In an 1819 article, its minister-author concluded: "It is now fourteen months since this revival began, during which time it has spread an extent of more than twelve miles.”[46] An 1825 article about the "Revival in Bridgetown, N.J." referred to intermittent revivals "in this place during the two last conference years."[47] Even in the official magazine of New York's Methodists, it was standard practice to conflate time and space by regarding multiple camp-meetings and revivals as a single "revival."
This is consistent with Joseph's using the phrase "an unusual excitement on the subject of religion"[48] for local revivals that were actually separated by an interval of three or four years.[49] Then, as now, the word "excitement" has no plural, and can refer to multiple events.[50]
Whether the Mormon prophet, or a Methodist minister, or magazine editors—early nineteenth-century narrators saw no problem of accuracy when they conflated multiple revivals into one revival while giving retrospective narratives. It reflects the "presentist bias"[51]—used polemically in this case—to hold the unschooled Mormon prophet to a standard of literal accuracy not manifested by the well-educated editors of New York's Methodist Magazine in their reports about the religious “excitement” of revivalism.
Thus, when LDS apologists insist on the technical accuracy of every detail in Smith's official account of the First Vision,[52] they misread nineteenth-century narrative style and unnecessarily adopt the assumptions of disbelievers. As the most prominent example, LDS historian Richard Lyman Bushman wrote in 1994:
Can we be absolutely sure that we know Joseph must have been referring to the 1824 revival when he wrote his story? Marquardt speculates that he conflated events: "Perhaps Smith in retrospect blended in his mind events from 1820 with a revival occurring four years later" (p. 32). Possibly, but that conclusion, based on the confidence that we know better than the person who was there, seems premature to me.[53]
Resisting the reasonable explanation that Smith's official account conflated two different responses within his family to different revivals happening four years apart—an explanation which preserves the emphasis on 1820—Bushman paradoxically retreated from the traditional affirmation of 1820.[54]
He omitted from his 2005 bicentennial biography any reference to a revival that year. His "JOSEPH SMITH CHRONOLOGY" mentioned no revival, and his narrative gave specific dates only for Palmyra's "revival of 1816 and 1817." The text and source-notes also made no reference to Palmyra's camp-meeting of June 1818, although Bushman's 1969 response to Walters had cited the manuscript which mentioned it and even though Bushman's 1970 response to another skeptic had paraphrased the manuscript's description of this 1818 revival.[55]
One of the source-notes in Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling even seemed to defer to the minister-researcher's assessment "that revivals in 1824 were the background for Joseph's first vision." The book's index reemphasized this with its entry for "Palmyra, New York . . . revivals in," whose only page referred to the revival "the year after Alvin's death" (in November 1823).[56] In view of Bushman's complaint in 1994 about the Walters-Marquardt "attempt to dynamite a segment of the traditional story" by ignoring the 1820 Palmyra Register’s references to a local camp-meeting,[57] it seems extraordinary that eleven years later his 740-page biography made no mention of the newspaper article he once found so important.
Aside from citing Walters, Bushman's only implied explanation for this lapse in 2005 was the observation: "When the census taker came to the Smiths in 1820, Joseph Jr. was not listed, probably because he was living elsewhere earning [money] during the growing season."[58] Like Donald L. Enders,[59] Bushman apparently assumed that the census enumeration commenced in June 1820 (the starting month for subsequent censuses). Since he concluded that young Joseph was absent from the Palmyra area during its camp-meeting, Bushman declined to mention the Palmyra Register’s articles. However, census-takers did not begin their work until 7 August 1820.[60] Joseph's absence from the census of his family had absolutely nothing to do with his whereabouts during Palmyra's religious revival two months earlier.
Nevertheless, Bushman is only one example of the withering effect that Reverend Wesley P. Walters has had on the previously confident declarations by Mormon apologists about dating the First Vision. In a 1994 interview (not published until 2005), Milton V. Backman Jr. declined to name "a Presbyterian minister" whose "pamphlet" had prodded him to begin researching New York State's early revivalism, but the BYU religion professor commented: "During this research, I found no evidence of a great revival in Palmyra in 1819 or 1820." In a remarkable turnabout, Backman said nothing about Palmyra's 1820 camp-meeting that had been a sort of rallying cry by LDS authors for the previous decades. Instead, he claimed that Joseph Smith had been wrongfully interpreted as saying there was an 1820 revival in the immediate vicinity of Palmyra-Manchester, whereas "I found that probably there were more revivals and more people joining churches in upstate and western New York in 1819 and 1820 than in any other region of the United States." Thus, the crucial revivalism was strictly regional and allegedly not in Joseph’s neighborhood—a view that seemed to be a full-scale retreat from Backman's earlier emphasis on the Palmyra Register’s articles of 1820.[61]
Also for the bicentennial of the Mormon founder's birth, after a footnote citation to the findings and objections by the minister-researcher, James B. Allen and John W. Welch ended their 2005 essay (published by Church-owned Deseret Book Company) with these words: "In sum, this examination leads to the conclusion that the First Vision, in all probability, occurred in spring of 1820, when Joseph was fourteen years old. The preponderance of the evidence supports that conclusion."[62] While I applaud such willingness to be tentative when necessary, the evidence does not require it. In face, it demands a forthright emphasis on revivalism in Palmyra during the late spring of 1820.
For instance, there is a reasonable explanation for the lack of local reference to religious revivals in or near Palmyra, and for why the village newspaper ignored the "camp-meeting" of June 1820 until someone died. Aside from paid advertisements, it was unusual for small newspapers of this era to report local events.
In his book about New York State's village newspapers, Milton W. Hamilton explained more than forty years ago that "the editor's definition of his function included neither the purveying of neighborhood gossip nor the describing of outstanding happenings in the immediate vicinity." Why? Because small-town editors assumed that local residents would not "pay for information which they could secure by word of mouth from their neighbors." According to Hamilton, not until 1827 did a village newspaper start to regularly include local events, an editorial practice that took years to become common in rural newspapers of New York State. This was Walter A. Norton's 1991 response to the assertion of "massive silence" by Reverend Walters, a critique that skeptical authors have not acknowledged.[63] Likewise, as indication of his own silent abandonment of an 1820 revival, the seemingly exhaustive bibliography of Bushman’s 2005 Rough Stone Rolling cited neither Hamilton nor Norton,[64] even thought Bushman had criticized Walters and Marquardt in 1994 for ignoring the evidence and rebuttal.[65]
Apparently unaware of Reverend Seager's published account of a June 1818 revival in Palmyra that the village newspaper also ignored, Norton omitted this data that would have significantly strengthened his argument. However, as Norton did emphasize, the Palmyra Register was not merely reporting a local death in June 1820. Despite a disingenuous disclaimer, its editor used the dead man's drunkenness as reason to make snide comments about the Methodists who "professedly" gathered for worship. A strident advocate of alcohol "temperance," editor Timothy C. Strong was echoing a decades-long controversy.[66]
Unlike other evangelical Protestants, Methodists of this era did not require abstinence from alcoholic drinks, nor did most of the denomination's leaders even suggest it. English founder John Wesley "did not hesitate to recommend ale or beer" and approved drinking "a little bit" of wine every day, but he "drew a rather sharp line between a fermented liquor such as beer, ale, or wine and a distilled liquor such as rum or brandy." The American church's general conference meetings did not include alcohol abstinence among their numerous regulations governing personal conduct, and also followed Wesley's emphasis by forbidding Methodists only from engaging in the sale and manufacture of distilled liquors from 1780 to 1812. Until 1848, their official Disciplines did not even mention beer or wine with regard to the rank-and-file’s conduct.[67]
This official policy (or lack of it) became obvious during Methodist revivals. In a defense of camp-meetings (published in Brooklyn, New York), one minister acknowledged in 1806 that "some of the wild beasts of the people had half intoxicated themselves with ardent spirits.”[68] Two years later, a critical participant wrote that he "saw many" Methodist revivalists “drinking wine.”[69] In 1810 an observer of a camp-meeting at Bern, New York, reported that the Methodists even set up "grog-tents" to sell alcohol.[70] The official explanation for alcohol-selling "shops" at camp-meetings was to blame "those in the community who, [are] actuated from monetary motives. . ."[71] As described later in this essay, the isolated setting, physical dimensions, and duration of camp-meetings required the organizers to provide beverages for thirsty revivalists, even if a stream, river, pond, or lake was nearby. Therefore, because bottled beverages of some kind were a necessary supplement to the natural sources of water, Methodist camp-meeting attenders often brought or purchased bottles of beer and wine, which did not have the same stigma as distilled liquors and whiskeys (often called "spirituous drinks," or "spirits," or "ardent spirits").[72] Such behavior resulted in the Palmyra Register's sarcastic comments about the local camp-meeting.
This leads to the very specific understanding about the kind of religious gathering mentioned in Palmyra's newspaper of June 1820—a perspective that Walters never acknowledged and that Mormon apologists have insufficiently emphasized. In 1800 Methodists invented both the practice and term of "camp-meeting."[73] From its first issue in January 1818 through December 1828, New York's Methodist Magazine never used the term for the regular Sunday service of a congregation, whether it had a chapel or not. After attending such meetings for decades, a Methodist minister wrote emphatically: "Camp Meetings were never held to supply the lack of church buildings."[74]
Although it was customary to refer to a camp-meeting "in" or "at" a community, the gathering's structured space actually required a forest within walking distance from the outskirts of the community. Thus, the 1820 Palmyra newspaper referred to the "camp-meeting which was held in this vicinity."
Even when convening near a chapel, as in the 1819 "camp-meeting at Fountain-head meeting-house," Methodists shunned the confining structure of a building: "Here we had a large encampment" of revivalists in tents, and the writer observed that by the end of this camp-meeting, "the slain of the Lord [i.e., ecstatic converts] were lying in almost every direction—in the altar, in the woods, and in the tents. . ."[75] Even this camp-meeting's "altar" was not inside a chapel, as a non-Methodist observed at one of New York's forest-revivals in 1810: "Before the [preaching stand or] stage was a yard about thirty feet square, (which they called the altar). Their tents were made chiefly of canvas. . ."[76]
Correspondingly, in an 1819 "revival of religion" in Westchester County, New York, although there were too few Methodists to have a "house for divine worship" in the community, they could sleep in their own houses during the locals-only revival which, therefore, was called "the assembly," not "camp-meeting."[77] Repeatedly, when Methodists held a "revival of religion" in a chapel, they called it an assembly, or a "prayer meeting," or a "class meeting," but never “camp-meeting.”[78] Ignoring the denomination’s procedures, Reverend Walters and like-minded authors have also contradicted all historical documentation by even implying that Palmyra's 1820 "camp-meeting" was a regular Sunday meeting of local Methodists—with or without a chapel.
A camp-meetingwas a revival, but Methodists rarely used the cumbersome phrase "camp-meeting revival."[79] In fact, because local Methodists had no need to sleep in tents overnight in order to worship, the Palmyra Register's articles were actually emphasizing the noncongregational nature of this June 1820 gathering and its non-local attenders by referring to its "Camp-ground." In view of Palmyra's newspaper articles, it is significant that the Prophet's official reminiscence said this "unusual excitement . . . commenced with the Methodists."[80]
Moreover, there was no relevance in the objection by Walters that "the Methodists did not acquire their property in Palmyra `on the Vienna Road' until July 7th, 1821."[81] The Methodist Church rarely (if ever) owned the forested land on which its members held camp-meetings, because the only necessity was to obtain permission from the landowner for this temporary use.[82]
But if the crucial revival "in the place where we lived" actually commenced in late spring of 1820, then Joseph Smith's First Vision occurred no earlier. Why did he specify "early in the spring"[83] while giving his most detailed account in 1838? First, "early" or "late spring" might have seemed a distinction without a difference as he related events that happened eighteen years earlier in his tumultuous life.
Second, and more to the point, "early spring" of 1820 was too cold for a New York farmboy to visit "the woods" in "the morning of a beautiful clear day" for the motionless activity of solitary prayer.[84] During that year, an official of the U.S. Weather Service recorded temperatures for western New York at 7 AM, 2 PM, and 6 PM daily. After the technical arrival of spring, temperatures were under 50 degrees Fahrenheit even at two in the afternoon for all but two days during the rest of March 1820. Those relatively warmer days of 25-26 March reached no higher than 64 degrees at 2 PM, after the mornings started at 54 degrees and 56 degrees, respectively. It was snowing on 31 March, 5 April, and 7 April 1820. The first two weeks of April 1820 were chilly, reaching no higher than 58 degrees at two in the afternoon on the fifteenth, which began with a temperature of forty degrees at 7 AM. The last two weeks of April were not much better, and when the temperatures finally reached 72 degrees at 2 PM on April 21st, the morning commenced at 50 degrees. The next day was a bit warmer, but then the month cooled again until morning temperatures were in the low-fifties. The last two days of April 1820 reached only 62 degrees by 2 PM.[85] Although such weather conditions can occur on "the morning of a beautiful clear day," those frigid temperatures would not encourage any teenager to think of kneeling in a shaded grove of trees, which would be even colder than temperatures recorded by the weather service in the open air.
Published in Canandaigua, seventeen miles from Palmyra,[86] The Farmer's Diary had even predicted: "Clear and pretty cold" weather for 6-8 April 1820, with "some showers of hail, rain, or snow" for 14-18 April.[87] In one of its rare observations about local events, the Palmyra Register commented on 24 May 1820 that “we have been visited with two or three severe frosts, followed by a storm of snow, which happened on the morning of the 17th inst. [instant, i.e., of this month] . . . It is worthy of remark, that on the morning of the 17th May 1819, we had a similar snow storm, preceded and followed by very similar weather."[88] Therefore, because most people connect spring with warmer temperatures (above 70 degrees Fahrenheit), it is understandable that (eighteen-years-after-the-fact) Joseph forgot the late-arrival of spring weather to western New York in 1820.
He remembered it was warm enough to kneel in the wooded grove for an hour or so. This seemed like "early spring" in retrospect, especially because he began dictating this official narrative to clerk George W. Robinson on 27 April 1838 in Missouri, a southerly latitude where early spring was much warmer. This memory conflation (which changed western New York's chilly "early spring" of 1820 into comfortably warm morning weather) continued in the late spring of 1839 (on 10 June), when clerk James Mulholland started rewriting Robinson's 1838 version (now missing) into the final form known officially as "Joseph Smith's History."[89] Both believers and non-believers should accept the assessment of non-Mormon historian Lawrence Foster about Smith's first theophany: "whether or not an error was made in dating precisely when a vision occurred has no necessary connection with whether it [actually] occurred . . ."[90]
The unpredictability of warm days followed by chilly temperatures, rain, and even snow from March through May was why New York State's Methodists waited until late spring to schedule the first of each year's camp-meetings. They wanted a reasonable likelihood of several days with "agreeable weather,"[91] by which camp-meeting organizers meant "no rain,"[92] and "no breezes to disturb the candles, and no cold winds nor chilling damps, to render it very uncomfortable," even at night.[93]
In every report by New York's Methodist Magazine about revivals from 1818 through 1828, where the report included the word "camp-meeting," not a single one in the Northern States began earlier than June and none occurred after September.[94] The earliest reported date was 4 June 1819 when the "camp-meeting for Erie circuit" commenced.[95] In 1825 the earliest was June 7th,[96] while Palmyra hosted an 1826 camp-meeting that also started on 7 June.[97] Concerning the Susquehanna River border of western New York State, one minister wrote in 1825 that "our last camp-meeting in the district commenced on the 15th of September,"[98] and another New York camp-meeting began as late as September 26th.[99] Nevertheless, Methodist revivalists wanted to avoid the unfortunate experience of a camp-meeting in western New York's Genesee Conference that pushed the weather boundary too far into September 1817: "the season being cold and rainy, rendered our situation in the tented wilderness very unpleasant."[100] Therefore, for the best outcome, a Camp Meeting Manual later specified that these outdoor gatherings in "the latitude of the Middle States" should start no later than "the 15th of September."[101]
Small revivals did occur in the Northern States from October through May each year, but rain, cold weather, and snow limited such gatherings to homes, chapels, barns, or school houses.[102] Compared with forest camp-meetings attended by hundreds or thousands, the October-May revivals were family-sized. Because there were too few Methodists in Palmyra to have a meetinghouse until 1822, it was impossible for the village (in Ontario County at that time) to host a revival of significant size except during the camp-meeting "season," as Methodists called the revival period from June through September.[103]
A revival that "commenced with the Methodists ... in the place where we lived"[104] was not available to teenage Joseph until the late spring of any year. The "camp-meeting" mentioned by the Palmyra Register in June 1820 was the first local revival he could have attended that year.
In fact, Methodist revivals had uniform characteristics, as reported in numerous publications before 1820. By referring to early descriptions of camp-meetings, we can understand what fourteen-year-old Joseph saw and experienced at Palmyra that June. Even those who disbelieve his account of an 1820 revival have agreed that Methodism was the only denomination for which he showed any interest and participation.[105]
Methodist camp-meetings did not happen spontaneously, but were planned far in advance to occur in a physical space created according to instructions by the denomination's ministers and in printed guidelines. As the Camp Meeting Manual observed, “it was soon reduced to a regular system.”[106]
By 1817, multiple editions of a New York hymn book advised: "A Camp-meeting ought not to consist of less than fifty or one hundred tents or places for lodging" in the woods. Its Methodist author John C. Totten further specified: "It should continue, if the weather admitted, not less than three days and nights. It is not desirable to have more than two or three thousand people present, unless the majority were [converted] Christians."[107] The several-day duration was standard, and his caution was necessary because Methodist camp-meetings were sometimes attended by "two or three hundred spectators" who were not believers.[108]
Out-of-town worshippers dominated camp-meetings because the most devout followed revivalist preachers from place to place, while word-of-mouth notified an entire region of what would otherwise be a local event. From June to September, people journeyed "from fifty and sixty miles around" to attend Methodist camp-meetings.[109] While most traveled such distances in carriages, wagons, or on horseback, "a Sister Hendricks, who is the mother of seventeen children, fifteen of whom are living, walked seventeen miles to this [1819 Methodist] meeting."[110] Fifteen-year-old David Marks, a New York Baptist also living in Ontario County, walked "about 25 miles" in all kinds of weather to revivals in the early months of 1821.[111]
During the Methodist camp-meeting season, there was need for outsiders to "camp" in tents, while local residents could sleep at home--unless they wanted to participate in late night revivalism that "was carried on until morning without interruption."[112] For example, "several thousands of precious souls" attended a four-day camp-meeting at Rhinebeck, New York. There "the line of tents encircled the [preaching] ground, in most parts three deep, in number eighty five, besides covered waggons [sic]. On Thursday a person undertook to count the waggons [sic] and other carriages, and after reckoning several hundred, was obliged to desist, as he could not go through them all."[113]
Another Methodist author explained: "Sometimes there were many circles of tents divided by narrow streets and alleys, allowing room for the vast multitudes to pass, and space for small fires for the purpose of cooking." In keeping with Methodist regimentation, each camp-meeting's tent-lined "several streets, [were] numbered and labelled, so that they may be distinguished one from another" within the surrounding forest.[114]
Having a three-day duration as their minimum, camp-meetings most commonly lasted four days, according to New York's Methodist Magazine. At Long Island in August 1818, "there were from six to eight thousand people on the encampment" from Tuesday morning to Saturday morning.[115] "Between five and six thousand" attended a "Camp-meeting, held at Barre, Vermont" from Thursday to Monday in 1820.[116] "Not less than five thousand people" attended another 1820 "Camp-meeting, which commenced on Friday, July 14th," and ended on Tuesday, followed by "an extra Camp-Meeting" lasting from Friday to Tuesday in August.[117] One of the "highly favoured Camp-Meetings" in the Hudson River Valley began on 2 September 1822 "and closed on the 6th of September."[118] In 1825 a camp-meeting in the Champlain District lasted from Thursday, "the first to the morning of the fifth of September," Monday.[119]
Five-day revivals were the next most common. An 1821 camp-meeting in Kentucky started "on Friday night," and "we continued the meeting until Wednesday."[120] Another "camp-meeting” in New Hampshire "commenced on Thursday, and closed on Tuesday."[121] An 1823 camp-meeting in Maryland began on Friday, ending on Wednesday.[122] "From four to five thousand persons" attended a New Jersey camp-meeting that "commenced on [Thursday] the 5th and continued till [Tuesday] the 10th of August, 1824."[123] One in August 1825 started on Thursday and ended on Tuesday,[124] and two camp-meetings in 1826 began on Friday and ended on Wednesday.[125]
A six-day camp-meeting on Long Island was attended by "not less than 10,000" New Yorkers in August 1821.[126] An 1830s history of American Methodism (by the editor of New York Methodist Magazine in 1820-28) noted that “the meeting generally continues for four or five days, and in some instances eight or nine days.”[127]
Even that was not the maximum duration in the 1820s. One minister wrote in 1822: "This is the tenth day of the revival," and an 1825 camp-meeting in the Genesee Conference "continued ten days."[128]
Although Palmyra's 1820 camp-meeting might have been as short as three days or as long as ten days, its mention in the newspaper's weekly issue on Wednesday, 28 June 1820 gave clues for the revival's commencement. Camp-meetings started on various days of the week, but Methodists showed a clear preference for beginning them on Thursday or Friday.[129] This was so widely known that a Methodist minister in Illinois (whose first camp-meeting was in 1818) wrote: "The meetings generally commenced on Friday."[130] For example, Palmyra's three-day camp-meeting of June 1818 began on Friday.[131]
This Methodist preference indicates a likely start-date of June 22nd or 23rd (early summer) for a short revival before the newspaper story about Couser's death, with an equally likely start-date of June 15th or 16th (Thursday-Friday) for a long camp-meeting commencing in late spring of 1820. While not precise, these beginning parameters are possible because his death was "a fixed point: [where] no doubt is possible" for verifying chronology.[132]
Neither the weekly newspaper nor another "fixed point" indicated when this camp-meeting revival adjourned, but almost none did so on Sundays, according to New York's Methodist Magazine. If a camp-meeting included Sunday, it typically ended on one of the following weekdays—in the morning or around noon. Palmyra's Methodist revival was definitely not concluding when Couser left it on the Sunday "evening preceding" his death.[133] Even with the extended daylight of summer, camp-meetings never ended during evening hours, because single females and out-of-town revivalists with children needed at least half a day of sunlight to travel safely back to their homes.[134]
Six years after this revival in late June 1820, "not less than ten thousand people" attended a camp-meeting "near the village" of Palmyra.[135] Such multitudes dwarfed the total population of host-villages such as Palmyra which had 3724 residents in 1820.[136] This was just one reason why camp-meetings were sensational events wherever they occurred.
Minister-researcher Walters repeatedly distorted the historical evidence by implying that a camp-meeting was an inferior kind of revival, not even worth mentioning as "a spark of a revival" in his discussion of Joseph's narrative about "religious excitement" in 1820. For American Methodists from 1800 to 1830, a camp-meeting was the most significant kind of religious revival.
As previously indicated, Zechariah Paddock was the traveling companion of Reverend Seager after Palmyra's camp-meeting in June 1818. Paddock "was licensed to preach in Canandaigua, N.Y., in the spring of 1817," and later wrote concerning the year "1817-18," that "the woods seemed to the Methodists to be God's special earthly temple. Their greatest revival triumphs were achieved in the grove."[137] Likewise, in describing "the great revivals of religion," the 1830s History of the Methodist Episcopal Church (be the editor of Methodist Magazine in 1820-28) stated that “the camp meetings were among the most efficient means of awakening the attention of the people to the things of eternity.”[138]
In keeping with their general silence about local matters during this time-period, weekly newspapers did not need to inform a town's residents about what had happened days earlier at such gatherings. Aside from the enormous increase of visitors, another reason for not reporting the obvious to village residents was "the sound of the singing, which was heard several miles" from a Methodist camp-meeting.[139] In addition, both favorable and unfavorable observers reported that the blare of trumpets heralded the commencement of Methodist preaching at 8 AM, 10 AM, 2 PM, 6 PM, and even at midnight during these camp-meetings.[140] After the midnight sermon, it was common that "singing, prayers and exhortation were continued more or less until three o'clock next morning . . ."[141]
In the stillness of June nights, sounds from the 1820 camp-meeting's trumpets and singers easily reached the Smith farm, creating an irresistible magnet for curious teenagers who were not already at the "Camp-ground." Fourteen-year-old Joseph was known around Palmyra as "inquisitive."[142]
Aside from unusual sounds, in the evenings a Methodist camp-meeting created an enchanting sight, "illuminated in every part by lamps, and formed the appearance of a populous city." In these forest-revivals, "at night the whole scene was awfully sublime. The ranges of tents, the fires reflecting light amidst the branches of the forest-trees, the candles and lamps illuminating the ground, hundreds moving to and fro with torches like Gideon's army . . ."[143]
But three-to-ten days of religious revivalism were only part of a camp-meeting's actual duration for a community. First, it took days to clear the "Camp-ground."
It required "two whole days" to clear the campsite attended by "several thousands" at Rhinebeck, New York. "Some of the brethren came more than ten and twelve miles to assist in the preliminary labours. When the underwood and lower branches of the trees were cleared away, the [preaching] stand for the preachers [was] erected and covered with an inclined canopy of boards . . ."[144] This took days because camp-meetings required a huge space.
For example, an 1825 Connecticut "encampment stretched about three quarters of a mile through a beautiful grove of oaks and cedars." Equal to thirteen American football fields placed end-to-end, this was the space necessary for the 1825 camp-meeting's "congregation of ten thousand" as they camped in tents.[145] Because that was two or three times more people than at Rhinebeck, it would correspondingly require more time to clear the "Camp-ground" of trees and foliage—probably four to six days. This was the only description of a camp-meeting's physical dimensions in New York’s Methodist Magazine, but its attendance was the same as the following year’s camp-meeting in Palmyra.[146]
Whether at Rhinebeck or at Palmyra, New York Methodists chose heavily wooded areas in order to control access. For instance, near Albany, "the place, that they had chosen for their rendezvous, was situated in a forest, at the foot of a large hill, with a creek on the opposite side, and about one hundred rods distant [i.e., 550 yards, five football fields] from any clearing or road; so that it could not be easily approached with a carriage or on horseback, except in one narrow path."[147]
In describing a camp-meeting at Petersburgh, New York, Reverend Francis Ward specified why he and fellow Methodists preferred the painstaking labor of carving out a worship space within a forest of dense undergrowth: "The place was chosen in a close forest, and was well suited for the purpose. Surrounded on all sides by a thicket, which was rendered almost impassable by the brush and underwood piled outside the lines, and only one narrow road opening into it, we found ourselves well secured against any annoyance from the wicked: a guard having been placed at the entrance to keep out those who came intoxicated or riotously . . .”[148]
Palmyra had not hosted a revival since June 1818.[149] Even if the organizers chose the same location for this 1820 camp-meeting, they had to use axes, saws, and hatchets against two years of new trees, branches, bushes, and brambles. Reverend Ward noted that this was noisy work: "The groves echoed with the strokes of the axe . . ."[150]
Furthermore, clearing away trees and undergrowth was only the first phase in the physical preparations for a camp-meeting. As indicated, the second phase required those with skills in carpentry to build the preaching stand and cover it "with an inclined canopy of boards."[151] The third phase, which the Camp Meeting Manual regarded as “especially” important, was “the grading” (or leveling) of the ground on which tents would be pitched and of the cleared space of ground (“the altar”) in front of the preacher’s platform.[152] This flat, cleared area for the standing listeners was at least 25-30 feet square, and sometimes “two or three acres, nearly square.”[153]
There was yet a fourth phase in the physical preparations for a camp-meeting. While some families brought small tents of their own, the organizers also provided huge tents, "many of which would hold several hundred persons" each.[154] These Methodist "society tents" were of substantial construction, as described for an 1819 camp-meeting: "The place was in a beautiful grove—the tents were generally well built of plank, with good floors, so as to be quite comfortable."[155] This required more days of work by volunteer carpenters after they finished the preaching stand, plus the time needed in the surrounding woods for "the cutting of poles for [these] tents."[156] Furthermore, it required time for laborers to erect these heavy poles to secure the massive tents against collapse from the multitudes jostling in and out of them almost constantly for days. In the Champlain District, "one week preceding the time appointed for the commencement of this [camp-]meeting, a number of tents was erected; and two or three days before the meeting began, there were many engaged in rearing up [more] tents . . ."[157]
Whether Palmyra had a short camp-meeting (with opening prayer and sermon on Thursday or Friday, 22-23 June) or a long camp-meeting (opening on June 15th or 16th), the four phases of its physical preparations were expected to take a total of "some weeks."[158] In other words, these "preliminary labours" began at the Palmyra campsite as early as the first week of June 1820. Even that was no surprise to Palmyrans because, as the Camp Meeting Manual later specified, the local clergy or a Methodist circuit-rider was supposed to give the town’s residents advance “notice of several months” for the event.[159]
The village newspaper maintained its general policy of avoiding local news (except paid advertisements), but Palmyra's anticipation of this camp-meeting led to the front-page story on Wednesday, 7 June 1820 about "Great Revivals in Religion." This article described "the religious excitement which has for some months prevailed" in Schnectady and five other communities of New York State, resulting in "not less than twelve hundred” converts. Next to it another article, a letter dated 1 May 1820, stated that "the glorious work of divine Grace" in Providence, Rhode Island had resulted in "not less than FIVE HUNDRED" converts locally and that "the work has spread into" ten other towns.[160]
With a newspaper editor as shrewd as bookseller Timothy C. Strong, there is every reason to believe that (for maximum sales of this issue of Palmyra Register) he timed these front-page articles to appear during the week the camp-meeting’s noisy preliminaries started. For Palmyrans in early June 1820, the obvious question was: “What will be the results of our revival?” Although not “early spring,” the first week of June was still well within the spring of 1820.
Two years earlier, Enoch Mudge's handbook had summarized the regimentation that Methodists imposed on these gatherings: "the setting [of] the watch [i.e., sentries]—the duty of the watch—their call to the people in the morning." In addition, these sentries were "appointed to superintend the encampment at night, to keep order, to see that no stragglers are on the ground, and to detect any disorderly conduct."[161] Thus, an 1819 booklet (originally published in New York) stated: "A Methodist camp-meeting has the appearance of a military expedition. The people generally take with them their luggage, [food] stores and provisions, and encamp in a forest."[162]
In reporting on a subsequent camp-meeting at Palmyra, the Methodist Magazine described its location: "a most beautiful and picturesque grove, near the village . . ."[163] As already stated, the camp-meeting in such a "grove" sometimes extended "three quarters of a mile" (thirteen football fields in length). Marquardt and Walters acknowledged that the later camp-meeting was "undoubtedly" at the same "site which also received mention in the Palmyra paper during the last week of June 1820 . . ."[164]
Nevertheless, Walters ignored the significance of the Palmyra newspaper's report and also contradicted all the descriptions of revivals he claimed to have read in New York's Methodist Magazine when the minister-researcher wrote: “Joseph’s account of the revival does not speak of it in terms that are compatible with it having been a camp meeting. It is clearly a local meeting where one could drop in on the meetings ‘as occasion would permit.’”[165]
As previously indicated, it was only after "some weeks" of physical preparations that the Methodist organizers regarded Palmyra's "Camp-ground" as ready for the arrival of out-of-town revivalists in June 1820. Even at the smallest reported camp-meeting, "the number of Methodists [was] probably, about four hundred,"[166] but there was no way to know in advance whether attendance would be small.
The organizers had to prepare Palmyra's "Camp-ground" for an attendance of thousands, or they invited chaos. That was a potentially dangerous outcome that Methodist regimentation had avoided for two previous decades of forest-revivals. For example, prior to commencing a Delaware camp-meeting, "seats were prepared for about two thousand. Meeting opened at three [PM]—a small congregation, and a small sermon." Yet within three days, the camp-meeting's attendance was "about three thousand."[167]
The objection of Reverend Walters and others[168] about the small increase of membership in Palmyra's churches during 1820 is based on the inaccurate assumption that a several-day revival always resulted in large numbers of local converts. To the contrary, at Canaan, New York: "In the year 1808 a revival broke out, and for a short time went on gloriously; fifteen or twenty souls were delivered from the bondage of sin," and then Canaan's Methodist minister wrote enthusiastically about an 1815 revival: "In this meeting several found redemption . . ."[169] Likewise, one Methodist minister said it was "most consoling" when "about a dozen sinners were converted" out of the six hundred persons who attended a camp-meeting in September 1822.[170] It was common for Methodist ministers to regard twenty total converts as cause for celebrating the success of camp-meetings with large attendance, and Palmyra's 1818 camp-meeting resulted in "about twenty" baptized converts.[171] Rather than always producing a spike in local church affiliation, in the 1820s a Methodist revival sometimes resulted in a few conversions that "not so much resembled a sudden and violent tempest, as the soft and fertilizing shower . . .”[172]
Nonetheless, there was a very significant (and heretofore overlooked) pattern in the statistics of Methodist affiliation as reported from 1 July 1819 to 20 July 1820. It is true that Ontario Circuit (which included Palmyra) declined from 677 Methodists to 671 during this period, a net loss of six members. However, this decline of less than one percent was dramatically lower than the declines reported in July 1820 for every other circuit in Ontario District, as compared with each circuit’s membership a year earlier. From the report of July 1819 to that of July 1820, Crooked Lake Circuit had a 42.9 percent decline in Methodist affiliation, Lyons Circuit had a 44.4 percent decline, Canandaigua Circuit had a 56.0 percent decline, and Seneca Circuit had a 56.6 percent decline in Methodist membership.[173] In other words, shortly after spring 1820, the Methodist retention rate in the immediate vicinity of Palmyra was 40-50 times greater than in the surrounding region.
What can explain the radically different statistics in Ontario Circuit? The obvious answer is that there were enough local converts to Methodism at Palmyra's camp-meeting of June 1820 to compensate for the rest of the circuit's decline in membership as reported in late July. In this case, the ecological fallacy of statistics has been to regard Ontario Circuit's very small decline as reflecting a decline in Palmyra's religious affiliation. To the contrary, as only one of the circuit's several preaching stations, Palmyra's significant conversions at its 1820 revival were what raised Ontario Circuit so far above the plummeting statistics of Methodist membership in the adjacent circuits. Rather than being some insignificant event, Palmyra’s 1820 camp-meeting was a crucial factor in local Methodism and in at least one person’s life who attended it.
Orsamus Turner, a nineteen-year-old apprentice in the office of the Palmyra Register, helped set the type for the articles of June 1820 about “Great Revivals” and about the local revival. He later described Joseph Smith Jr. "catching a spark of Methodism in the camp meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road . . ."[174] Even in his most polemical publication, Reverend Walters admitted that Turner "left Palmyra about 1822," two years before the extensive revivalism the minister-researcher emphasized.[175]
From contemporary accounts of such Methodist revivals, this was what teenage Joseph experienced at the camp-meeting in June 1820:
. . . the meeting was conducted agreeably to the arrangements determined at its beginning. Family prayer in the morning at the tents; at eight o'clock, general prayer meeting at the stand; preaching; followed by exhortation, as occasion would require, at ten, two [in the afternoon], and six o'clock [in the evening], and the congregation called together by sound of trumpet. The intervals were occupied with occasional exercises [of faith and prayer] by groups of people in different parts of the [camp] ground. In the midst of those groups, one might observe some struck down to the earth by the power of God, and others agonizing for them in mighty prayer. As souls were brought out into the liberty of either justifying [grace] or sanctifying grace, and as distress changed to spiritual joy, prayer would also turn to praise, and the songs and shouts of salvation [would] break from the glad hearts and voices of scores and hundreds. . . .
. . . Now shrieks and groans of terror and distress issue from hearts pierced with the arrows of the Lord, and from hearts rejoicing in the Holy Ghost [issue] bursts of ["]glory, glory, glory,[" and those words] reverberate through the echoing woods. But these praying companies were generally broken up when the voice of the trumpet proclaimed the publication of the gospel [by preachers] . . .
On the successive days[,] we had vast congregations, who appeared possessed of invincible patience and fortitude, while with fixed attention they listened to the sermons . . .
On Friday and Saturday nights, at a very late hour, the people seemed exhausted with fatigue and retired to rest; but on Sunday night the work broke out with fresh power, and was carried on until morning without interruption. The camp exhibited a truly grand and magnificent scene. Very large fires were lighted up and blazed high all round inside the circle of tents—lighted candles were fastened to the trees, [so that] the reflection of the light on the tents and [on] the faces of the people, the variegated green of the spreading foliage above, and the deep sylvan shades which arrested the eye in every direction, were sufficient to impress the mind of the beholder with solemnity.—At twelve o'clock [midnight on Sunday,] the well known sound [of the trumpet] spread through the grove, and invited the people to attend the word of God—a profound silence ensued—the [preaching] stand was illuminated; and soon the midnight cry of judgment was anticipated: the Lord, who preached from heaven through the meeting, sent his word into the hearts of saints and sinners; the prayer meetings were increased with new convicts and converts, and on Monday morning [the camp-meeting's final day,] the love-feast commenced at the rising of the sun. It was opened with singing and prayer, and many spoke feelingly of the things of God; their joy was full, their cups were running over, and others catched the streaming bliss. . . .
[After] the love-feast[,] succeeded the last prayer-meeting . . . At length the last sermon was delivered and followed by exhortation, when the preachers, about twenty in number, drew up in a single line, and a procession was formed four deep, led by a preacher, in front of a number of little children singing hymns of praise, and followed by hundreds who joined in the songs of Zion, marching round the encampment.
. . . no eloquence can picture the animation, the affection, the tenderness of the people and preachers on separating . . . tears gushed from their eyes: some attempting to bid an adieu, sobs and sighs almost choked their utterance, while in others it was like a torrent bursting through every obstruction . . . the big drops rolled down their faces, or glistened in their eyes, and they seemed to say in the language of the ancient heathens, "See how these Christians love!" The tents were struck and the people dispersed . . .[176]
Although the above was Reverend Ward's description of a revival in Connecticut, this was how the highly regimented Methodists conducted every camp-meeting (including Palmyra's of 1820).
He verified this when next describing a Methodist camp-meeting in rural New York: "The plan of our proceeding was arranged in the usual way: family prayers at the opening and close of each day, in the tents—general prayer meetings before the [preaching] stand at eight [AM]—preaching at ten [AM], two [PM], and six o'clock [PM] in the day, and also at midnight— the intervals [in between] to be occupied with irregular [i.e., spontaneous] services."[177] This Methodist regimentation was still evident decades later in the Camp Meeting Manual’s hine-point outline for the daily “order of exercises and of domestic arrangements.”[178]
Who were the ministers at Palmyra's 1820 revival? As already indicated, the traditional Mormon claim for Reverends George Lane and Benjamin Stockton as the preachers is anachronistic conflation of memory and narrative. At a camp-meeting with small attendance, 20-40 percent of the participants were ministers who traveled from a large region surrounding the host-village (in this case, near Mount Pleasant, New York): "It was not very numerously attended, probably from 500 to 1000 persons, upwards of 200 of whom were professors of religion.”[179] But what about Palmyra’s camp-meeting?
A partial answer to that question was in the decades-later "Notes for a History of Methodism in Phelps" by Reverend M. P. Blakeslee. Harry Sarsnett said that preacher Elisha House "held" a "camp-meeting," at which Sarsnett converted to Methodism. Although Blakeslee did not give a specific date for this revival, his chronological discussion mentioned it after comments for 1 July 1819 and "for 1820," but before Blakeslee's comments on events in November-December 1820.[180]
How far in advance of November? Because participant Sarsnett remembered it as a "camp-meeting," this happened during the "season" from June to September. With the extensive preparations necessary, did two camp-meetings occur in the area between Palmyra and Phelps during the 1820 "season"? or did only one? Fragmentary evidence cannot answer that question definitely, but the evidence can support my conclusion that Sarsnett converted at the camp-meeting held near Palmyra, the same revival Joseph Smith attended.[181]
Listed as a Methodist elder since 1818,[182] House was a resident of Phelps, nearly fourteen miles from Palmyra,[183] yet much closer than Canandaigua. As indicated by Reverend Seager in June 1818, residents of Phelps traveled to camp-meetings in Palmyra, an out-of-town attendance which certainly occurred at Palmyra's revival in June 1820.
The list of unclaimed letters at Palmyra's post office provided a contemporary answer to the question of attendance at this camp-meeting, even though the list obviously did not identify all visitors. Most probably did not arrange for mail to be sent to them in Palmyra, while others picked up the mail they did receive there. The postal notices therefore mentioned only a very small percentage of actual visitors.
Nevertheless, the postmaster's notice for 30 June 1820 included "Rev. Benj. Bailey," who had traveled fifteen miles from his residence in Lyons to Palmyra, probably to attend its camp-meeting. He was the only Benjamin Bailey in Ontario County according to the censuses of 1810 and 1820.[184] As the Presbyterian minister assigned to Macedon (later named "East Palmyra"),[185] Reverend Bailey's attendance at Palmyra's 1820 Methodist revival was undoubtedly why Joseph Smith linked it with the Presbyterians, even though he conflated that linkage with the conversion of his relatives to the Presbyterian Church four years later.
In addition, the same postal notice showed that at least two ministers had journeyed long distances to Palmyra, undoubtedly to attend its camp-meeting in June.[186] Subsequently a Methodist minister in Victor, only eighteen miles distant, Samuel Talbot in 1820 was a resident of Pompey, eighty-five miles from Palmyra.[187] The postal notice also listed "Deacon Barber," but no one by the name of Barber resided in Palmyra according to the 1820 census. Although Barber families lived in Ontario County at this time, there apparently was only one "Deacon Barber" in western New York. "Deacon William Barber" (apparently a Methodist) lived near Scipioville, Cayuga County, nearly fifty miles from Palmyra. This was not an unusual distance even for non-ministerial attenders of camp-meetings.[188]
Because camp-meetings "ought to be almost continually vocal with psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs,"[189] publishers circulated hundreds to choose from. "HYMN XII" in Methodist minister Stith Mead's 1811 collection was one that Palmyra's revivalists of 1820 probably sang, just as Latter-day Saints have continued to do so to the present:
SWEET is the work, my God, my King.
To Praise thy name[,] give thanks and sing.[190]
Another selection for New York's rural camp-meetings was "Hymn 44" as published at Poughkeepsie the same year as Mead’s hymnal.
I know that my Redeemer lives,
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, he lives, who once was dead,
He lives[,] my ever living head.[191]
Of these two hymns, only the latter was in the first hymnal of the new church Joseph Smith Jr. eventually organized.[192]
Of greater importance for understanding the First Vision were other selections from New York hymnals. Among the songs Joseph undoubtedly joined in singing at Palmyra's camp-meeting in June 1820 was this one from the 1811 Poughkeepsie collection of hymns Usually Sung at Camp-Meetings:
O do not be discourag’d
For Jesus is your friend,
And if you lack for knowledge,
He’ll not refuse to lend;
Neither will he upbraid you,
Though often you request
Those words restated the "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God" passage from the New Testament's Epistle of James that Joseph said inspired him in 1820. This hymn's first line ("O When shall I see Jesus") implied that such "knowledge" could reach the teenager through actually seeing the Savior during this life.[193]
Palmyra's 1820 camp-meeting attenders definitely heard that hymn as revivalists "almost continually" participated in days and nights of singing. Its words were also in Reverend Mead's 1811 hymnal,[194] and by 1817 had been reprinted in nine editions of Totten's New York hymns USUALLY SUNG AT CAMP-MEETINGS.[195] In addition to eight printings of a Boston hymnal by1817, those words were also in two hymnals of 1819, including New York's fourth edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs For the Use of Religious Assemblies.[196] Rather than a sermon, it was a universally sung camp-meting hymn that inspired Joseph Smith with the promise of James 1:5.
From 1809 to 1817, nine editions of Totten's New York hymnal even affirmed the literal reality of having a daytime vision of Jesus:
As at the time of noon,
My quadrant FAITH, I take,
To view my CHRIST, my sun,
If he the clouds should break:
I’m happy when his face I see,
I know then whereabouts I be.[197]
By 1817, these words had also appeared in the eight editions of Boston's hymnal.[198] It should be no surprise that many American revivalists published their visions of Jesus, even of seeing the Father and Son together.[199]
In 1809 Totten's New York collection of hymns USUALLY SUNG AT CAMP-MEETINGS even explained how a young man could obtain such a vision:
ONE ev'ning, pensive as I lay,
Alone upon the ground,
As I to God began to pray,
A light shone all around.
These words with power went through my heart
I've come to set you free;
Death[,] hell[,] nor grave shall never part,
My love (my son) from thee.[200]
Although Totten did not reprint this as often as the one about daytime theophany, Palmyra's 1820 camp-meeting almost certainly sang this hymn. It was in Reverend Mead's 1811 hymnal, in the 1811 Poughkeepsie collection of hymns Usually Sung at Camp-Meetings, in Totten's 1811 edition, in the second edition of an 1818 collection of Camp-meeting Songs for the Pious, and in the second edition of Collection of Camp Meeting Hymns by the wife of famed revivalist Lorenzo Dow.[201] If (as seems very likely) Joseph sang this hymn at Palmyra's Methodist revival of 1820, it explains why the fourteen-year-old boy thought it not unusual to pray to God alone, to see Him in a "pillar of light," and to be "lying on my back, looking up into heaven."[202]
In 1820 the teenager took the words of these hymns literally, as he did the scripture from James. Even though they often read the same biblical passage and sang the same modern hymns, most Methodist ministers now regarded those words as literal only for biblical times and for the afterlife. This was a reversal in American Methodism, whose members and leaders had sometimes professed visions of Jesus from the 1790s through the first decade of the nineteenth century. However, "by the 1820s and 1830s in the mostly white Methodist Episcopal Church, there was a noticeable shift away from overt enthusiasm," especially visions and dreams.[203] As Joseph Smith said, these nay-sayers insisted "that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there would never be any more of them."[204]
In this regard, it is crucial that a leader of the Methodist Episcopal Church criticized some of those at Palmyra's June 1820 camp-meeting. In reporting on the later upsurge of revivals in the Ontario District (which included Palmyra), Reverend Abner Chase wrote on 1 July 1824 that "four years" ago [i.e., June 1820] "wild and ranting fanatics, caused the spirits of the faithful in a degree to sink." Previously a circuit-rider, he was "presiding elder" of the Ontario District in the summer of 1820. At Palmyra's 1820 Methodist camp-meeting, unnamed persons acted "wild" (like its drunk revivalist James Couser) and others said things that Reverend Chase regarded as fanatical.[205]
"Some few days after I had this vision," teenage Joseph confided his theophany to "one of the Methodist preachers who was active in the before mentioned religious excitement." The minister condemned Joseph's description "with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil . . .”[206] Various writers[207] have assumed that George Lane was the preacher, but in June-July 1820, Reverend Lane's responsibility was in the Susquehanna District on the Pennsylvania border, and there is no evidence that he attended Palmyra's camp-meeting revival in June 1820.[208]
William Barlow would be a likely candidate for this disbelieving preacher. He was circuit-rider for Ontario Circuit (in which Palmyra was located) from 1815 to July 1817. In July 1819 he became circuit-rider for his hometown of Canandaigua, seventeen miles from Palmyra.[209] However, within months he left the Methodists "in an irregular, unofficial manner," converted to "the Protestant Episcopal Church" (i.e., Anglican Episcopalian), and became Canandaigua's Episcopal rector in January 1820.[210] Without its own resident Methodist minister, Palmyra was served by circuit-riders, and Barlow's apostasy removed one of the nearest organizers for the town's camp-meeting of June 1820.
Although Methodist elder Elisha House was not currently a circuit-rider for this area,[211] his residence in Phelps was even closer to Palmyra, and it was practical for him to take over at least some of Barlow's responsibilities for the upcoming revival. As previously indicated for another camp-meeting in rural New York, "some of the brethren came more than ten and twelve miles to assist in the preliminary labours." It is therefore understandable why revival-convert Sarsnett, also living in Phelps,[212] remembered fellow-resident House as leader of the 1820 camp-meeting.
This camp-meeting was a turning point in the differing religious vitality of the two towns. Phelps had a Methodist meetinghouse by 1819, three years before Palmyra. Following Palmyra's 1820 revival, however, the Ontario Circuit (which included Palmyra) nearly maintained its rate of Methodist retention, while the Lyons Circuit (which included Phelps) plummeted. By the end of the 1820s, Palmyra was its own Methodist preaching circuit—four years before Phelps.[213] The camp-meeting of June 1820 began a shift of Methodist strength toward its host-village of Palmyra, a pattern that intensified with the dramatic revivals of 1824- 25 and continued into the next decade. It is no wonder that Joseph Smith and three residents of Phelps emphasized 1820 for this religious transition.[214]
Official appointments occurred only at the annual meetings of the Genesee Conference each July, but (during the six-month interim after Barlow's apostasy from Methodism in January 1820) Abner Chase apparently helped substitute for his abandoned duties at the upcoming revival in Palmyra. Barlow had married in the town of Pompey two years before Chase's 1818 appointment to its circuit, and the Methodist conference appointed Chase as Ontario District's presiding elder on 20 July 1820.[215]
As an isolated fact, Reverend Chase's pre-July assignment to Pompey, eighty-five miles from Palmyra, might seem to make it unlikely that he had any role in Palmyra's camp-meeting of June 1820. However, since one of his Methodist associates (Talbot) also traveled from Pompey to Palmyra before the village's postal notice at the end of June, this indicates that the two men traveled together to the camp-meeting that month.
Elisha House or Abner Chase was probably the Methodist minister who listened to the teenager's testimony of seeing God in June 1820. Either way, Chase learned of Joseph's assertion and dismissed the unschooled farmboy as a "ranting" fanatic.
Eighteen years after his First Vision of deity in 1820, Joseph Smith Jr. created problems for historical understanding by misremembering "early spring" and by conflating circumstances of that year with circumstances of Palmyra's revivals in 1824-25. Nevertheless, I disagree with BYU religion professor Paul H. Peterson's 1995 assessment "that Marquardt and Walters have a strong case in claiming that the 1824-25 revival satisfies all of the elements of Joseph's 1838 history more adequately than any other account."[216] That conclusion is based on the unnecessary assumption that all details in his account of local “excitement on the subject of religion” must apply to only one year’s experience with revivalism.
Fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith caught "a spark of Methodism" at Palmyra's camp-meeting revival in the late spring of 1820. This led him to seek forgiveness "for my own Sins" and to find theophany.[217]
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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
[1] For example, from 1994 to 1998 I published "revisionist" books that nonetheless cited Backman and emphasized his point of view about the First Vision (see my note 35 in this article). I use "apologist" as a non-judgmental, descriptive term, as explained in D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, rev. and enl. ed. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), x:
"Not every believer is an apologist, but apologists take special efforts to defend their cherished point of view—whether in religion, science, history, or some other belief/endeavor. It is not an insult to call someone an `apologist' (which I often do), nor is `apologist' an unconditional badge of honor. Like drivers on a highway, some apologists are careful, some are careless, some unintentionally injure the innocent, some are Good Samaritans, and a few are sociopaths. Like drivers, even good apologists make errors in judgment and occasionally violate the rules. The same is true for those who don't think they're apologists.
"In a tradition as old as debate, polemics is an extreme version of apologetics. Defending a point of view becomes less important than attacking one's opponents. Aside from their verbal viciousness, polemicists often resort to any method to promote their argument. Polemics intentionally destroys the give-and-take of sincerely respectful disagreement. In the resulting polarization, `all are punish'd.' Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously (and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince words—they mince the truth."
By those definitions, I have always regarded myself as an honest apologist for Mormonism, especially in its controversies (where I have acknowledged perspectives of disbelief but also options for faith, and have allowed readers to arrive at their own conclusions). As in the above book, this article uses the term "apologist" to describe authors writing from a faith-perspective I share, even though we have not always approached various topics in the same ways.
In that regard, current readers can decide whether the following is an honest summary of my above-quoted statements, or whether the following is an example of polemics. Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 292n71, commented on “his [Quinn’s] vitriolic response to his critics (some LDS apologists are, he suggests in his revised work, ‘sociopaths’[x]).”
[2] The nicknames "Mormon" and "Mormons" derive from Joseph Smith Jr.'s publication of The Book of Mormon in 1830 at Palmyra, New York, as his “translation” of extra-biblical scripture. See John W. Welch and Tim Rathbone, "Book of Mormon Translation by Joseph Smith," in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism: The History, Doctrine, and Procedure of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 5 vols. (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 1:210-12. Wesley P. Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969): 67 (for “massive silence”), 61 (for “cannot be true”), 66 (for Palmyra “revivals in the years 1817, 1824, 1829, etc.”), 77n44 (for “reports of the 1816 [Palmyra] revival can be found in” various sources, with last citation as “Nov. 1, 1817”). Although Walters published a similar article by that title in Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 10 (Fall 1967) in which these quotes first appeared, he expanded it by one-third for what Dialogue’s editors called a “reprint” in their introductory essay, “Roundtable: The Question of the Palmyra Revival” (69). Because readers are more likely to have access to the Dialogue version of Walters’ article, I quote from it and cite its pagination. With one exception (in my note 13), I do not indicate variations between his 1967 and 1969 articles of the same title.
[3] Robert D. Anderson, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999), 9, 69, 75. For discussion of this biography’s unrelenting hostility, see D. Michael Quinn, “biographers and the Mormon ‘Prophet Puzzle’: 1974-2004,” Journal of Mormon History 32 (Summer 2006): 229.
[4] E. Latimer, The Three Brothers: Sketches of the Lives of Rev. Aurora Seager, Rev. Micah Seager, Rev. Schuyler Seager, D.D. (New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1880), 12 (for Aurora’s death in 1819), 21-22 (for quotes, including his 1818 “diary”); also F[rancis]. W. Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York: Nelson & Phillips, 1876), 139, for the July 1818 annual meeting in Lansing, New York, attended by Methodist bishop Robert R. Roberts; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828 (New York: T. Mason, G. Lane, J. Collord, 1840), 316 (for Billy Hibbard in New York Conference), 317 ("Aurora Seager goes to the Genesee Conference"), 318 (for Aurora Seager in Clarence Circuit of Genesee District in Genesee Conference and for "Zechariah" Paddock in Ridgeway Circuit of Genesee District—his brother Benjamin G. Paddock was assigned to a different district (roughly a county) this year and was less likely to be the "Brother Paddock" in Seager's diary entry). For modern studies, see Charles A. Johnson The Frontier Camp Meeting: Religious Harvest Time (Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1955); Dickson D. Bruce, And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meeting Religion, 1800-1845 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1974); Kenneth O. Brown, Holy Ground: A Study of the American Camp Meeting (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992).
Although the town of Vienna did not change its name to Phelps until the 1850s, various sources had previously referred to Phelps as if it were a town (including Reverend Seager in 1818 and the U.S. censuses from 1820 to 1850—see my note 212), when Phelps was actually a "township" containing several towns. Likewise, History of Ontario County, New York (Philadelphia: Everts, Ensign, and Everts, 1876), 179, noted: "seven villages have an existence, either wholly or in part, within the bounds of Manchester," the township where the Smith family lived in the village of Farmington (later named Manchester) during the 1820s (see my note 18). Because several quotes in my narrative text refer to the town by its subsequent name of Phelps, my narrative uses the later name instead of the cumbersome alternatives "Vienna (later named Phelps)" or "Phelps (called Vienna in 1820)." For 13.6 miles as the distance from Palmyra to Phelps, consult http://www.mapquest.com/directions on the Internet. For explanation of this article's use of Mapquest, see my note 86.
[5] Milton V. Backman Jr., "Awakenings in the Burned-Over District: New Light on the Historical Setting of the First Vision," BYU Studies 9 (Spring 1969): 307, 307n14. His footnote did not cite Seager directly, but referred to a document whose full title and location are "NOTES FOR A HISTORY OF METHODISM IN PHELPS by Rev. M. P. Blakeslee, 1886," photocopy of typescript (17 numbered pages), Folder 5, MSS 847, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Blakeslee's manuscript stated on page 7: "Some interesting notes are gathered from published portions of the diary of Rev. Aurora Seager. He mentions the quarterly meeting held in Phelps, [where] Jonathan Huestis, the presiding elder preached. This was on Saturday, May 23, 1818. . . . Mr. Seager also mentions in his diary a camp meeting at Palmyra, which he attended on the 19th of June, at which Bishop Roberts was present. At this meeting he says twenty were baptized and forty united with the church." Blakeslee's page 8 also gave the first name for the Methodist identified as "Bro. Hawks" in Seager's published diary. For the connection of Phelps with Vienna in western New York and for the distance of nearly fourteen miles from Palmyra to Phelps, see my note 4.
Aside from pre-publication access to Backman's 1969 article (see my note 13), Wesley P. Walters, "A Reply to Dr. Bushman," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969): 98, indicated that he had read Blakeslee's manuscript by commenting that Richard L. Bushman "appeals to an equally late reminiscence by a Mr. Sarsnett" (see narrative for my note 180 and comments within notes 180-81). Neither Backman nor Bushman mentioned Sarsnett in their articles of 1969, a name Walters knew in this regard only because he had already consulted Blakeslee's manuscript, which was in a source-note for Bushman, "The First Vision Story Revived,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 9 (Spring 1969): 93n15.
In addition, Wesley P. Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," Journal of Pastoral Practice, 4 (1980), No. 2: 103, also referred to his having read "Blakeslee's entire manuscript, which catalogues events consecutively under separate years ..." Despite the fact that Walters had read the "entire" Blakeslee document (and therefore knew about this published diary reference to a Palmyra revival in June 1818) and despite the corresponding fact that a copy of Blakeslee's "Notes" is in Folder 13, Box 164, of H. Michael Marquardt's research papers, Manuscripts Division, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, they did not acknowledge that Palmyra had a camp-meeting revival in June 1818--neither in H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters, Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record ([San Francisco:] Smith Research Associates, 1994), 18-19, 35n11, 239 (index for "Palmyra, NY . . . revival . . ."), nor in H. Michael Marquardt, The Rise of Mormonism: 1816-1844 (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2005), 19, 20n20, 668 (index for "Palmyra, New York . . . revival"), 670 (index for "Revival in Palmyra"); also comments within my notes 13 and 165. However, in fairness to Walters and Marquardt, see text discussion for my notes 32, 55, 56, 61, 62, 66, as well as comments within my notes 32, 52, 55, 56, 61, 62, 149.
[6] Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 108, stated that the author "erroneously moves the revival date [in Palmyra] ahead a year (shades of Backman) to 1817-1818." Compare with my note 5.
[7] "Effects of Drunkenness," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 28 June 1820, [2]; Richard Lloyd
Anderson, "Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision Through Reminiscences," BYU Studies 9 (Spring 1969): 380. Because I cannot find a modern transcription that is readily
available in print or on the Internet of this important article, here it is in full:
"Effects of Drunkenness.—DIED at the house of Mr. Robert M'Collum, in this town, on the 26th inst. [i.e., instant, of this month,] James Couser, aged about forty years. The deceased, we are informed, arrived at Mr. M'Collum's house the evening preceding [i.e. Sunday, June 25th], from a camp-meeting which was held in this vicinity, in a state of intoxication. He, with his companion who was also in the same debasing condition, called for supper, which was granted. They both stayed all night—called for breakfast next morning—when notified that it was ready, the deceased was found wrestling with his companion, whom he flung with the greatest ease,—he suddenly sunk down upon a bench,—was taken with an epileptic fit, and immediately expired.—It is supposed he obtained his liquor, which was no doubt the cause of his death, at the Campground, where, it is a notorious fact, the intemperate, the lewd and dissolute part of the community too frequently resort for no better object, than to gratify their base propensities.
"The deceased, who was an Irishman, we understand has left a family, living at Catskill [in]this state."
[8] "`Plain Truth' is received," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 5 July 1820, [2]; also quoted in Walter A. Norton, "Comparative Images: Mormonism and Contemporary Religions as Seen by Village Newspapermen in Western New York and Northeastern Ohio, 1820-1833" (Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1991), 255. Because I cannot find a modern transcription that is readily available in print or on the Internet of this important article, here it is in full:
"`Plain Truth' is received. By this communication, as well as by the remarks of some of our neighbors who belong to the Society of Methodists, we perceive that our remarks accompanying the notice of the unhappy death of James Couser, contained in our last [weekly issue], have not been correctly understood. `Plain truth' says, we committed `an error in point of fact,' in saying that Couser `obtained his liquor at the camp-ground.' By this expression we did not mean to insinuate, that he obtained it within the enclosure of their place of worship, or that he procured it of them, but at the grog-shops that were established at, or near if you please, their camp-ground. It was far from our intention to charge the Methodists with retailing ardent spirits while professedly met for the worship of their God. Neither did we intend to implicate them by saying that `the intemperate, the dissolute, &c. resort to their meetings.'—And if so we have been understood by any one of that society, we assure them they have altogether mistaken our meaning."
[9] This requires some explanation because all U.S. almanacs in 1820 skipped a step, due to their publishers' assumption that American farmers were so knowledgeable about both the seasons and astrology that they did not need an explanation that spring begins when the sun enters Taurus in March and that summer begins when the sun enters Pisces in June. Like all the other almanacs, the one published near the Smith home simply gave astrological symbols showing that for "1820—3d Mo. MARCH," the sun enters Taurus on 20 March, and for "1820—6th Mo. JUNE," the sun enters Pisces on 21 June. See THE FARMER'S DIARY, OR BEER'S ONTARIO ALMANACK FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1820 (Canandaigua, NY: J. D. Bemis, [1819]), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 47953 in the "Early American Imprints, 2nd Series," microform collection available at university libraries. For Canandaigua as nine miles from Joseph Smith's home, see his mother's statement in Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucy's Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 369.
The words "spring" and "summer" were absent from nearly all U.S. almanacs published in 1820, but The Farmer's Almanack For The Year of Our Lord 1820 (Portland, ME: A. Shirley and F. Douglas, [1819]), Shaw and Shoemaker item 47948, specified that the "THIRD MONTH. MARCH 1820" was the month of "spring's return" and that the "SIXTH MONTH. JUNE 1820" was when "summer's full bounty will be displayed." For the general public's astrological awareness, upon which these early almanacs relied, see George Lyman Kittridge, The Old Farmer and His Almanack (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924), 39-61; Marion Barber Stowell, Early American Almanacs: The Colonial Weekday Bible (New York: Burt Franklin, 1977); David J. Whittaker, "Almanacs in the New England Heritage of Mormonism," BYU Studies 29 (Fall 1989): 91-92, 109; Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1998 ed.), 21-24.
[10] Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London and Liverpool: Latter Day Saints Book Depot, 1854-86), 11: 2; Brigham H. Roberts, The Missouri Persecutions (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon and Sons, 1900), 10; James E. Talmage, "A Theophany Resplendent," Improvement Era 23 (April 1920): [514]; Brigham H. Roberts, ed., A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: "By the Church," 1930), 1: 51; Joseph Fielding Smith, The Restoration of All Things (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1945), 30; David O. McKay, Pathways to Happiness (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1957), 42; Roy W. Doxey, The Doctrine and Covenants Speaks, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1964), 1: 10, 524, 2: vivii, 13-14; Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982), 57, 74, 87, 100, 105, 112, 125, 175, 334, 389; Dean Hughes, The Mormon Church: A Basic History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1986), 5; Ezra Taft Benson in I Know That My Redeemer Lives (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), 215; James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints, rev. and enl. ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 8; Milton V. Backman Jr., "First Vision," in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2: 515; Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Joseph Smith: The Choice Seer (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996), 35, 37, 114, 367; Clyde J. Williams, ed., Teachings of Howard W. Hunter (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997), 28; Gordon B. Hinckley, Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997), 141; Terryl L. Givens, The Latter-day Saint Experience in America (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), 9; Stephen C. Harper, "On the Eve of the First Vision," in Susan Easton Black and Andrew C. Skinner, eds., Joseph: Exploring the Life and Ministry of the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 31.
[11] Backman, "Awakenings in the Burned-Over District," and Anderson, "Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision," BYU Studies 9 (Spring 1969): 309, 380; Bushman, "First Vision Story Revived," 87, 93n14; Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), 458n30; Milton V. Backman Jr., Joseph Smith's First Vision: Confirming Evidences and Contemporary Accounts, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), 74; Norton, "Comparative Images," 254-56; Richard Lyman Bushman, "Just the Facts Please," FARMS Review of Books 6 (1994), No. 2: 126, and 126n3; Paul H. Peterson, untitled book review, BYU Studies 35 (1995), No. 4: 214; Gary F. Novak, "`The Most Convenient Form of Error': Dale Morgan on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review of Books 8 (1996), No. 1: 155, 155n69; Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1998 ed.), 136, 456n2; Craig N. Ray, Joseph Smith's History Confirmed (Redding, CA: Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research [FAIR], 2002), 5; Davis Bitton, "The Charge of a Man with a Broken Lance (But Look What He Doesn't Tell Us)," and Stephen C. Harper, "Trustworthy History," FARMS Review of Books 15 (2003), No. 2: 261, 295. However, see narrative text for my notes 57, 61.
[12] Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 62-64; Walters, "Reply to Dr. Bushman," 95-96; Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 98-100; Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 15-16. The anachronisms are best presented in the verbatim printing of the Smith family's reminiscent accounts and Cowdery's narrative, as discussed in footnotes by Dan Vogel, comp. and ed., Early Mormon Documents, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996-2004), 1: 58n19, 59n20, 146n1, 213, 243n33, 288n87, 306nn103-104, 487n13, 490nn1-2, 494n5, 495nn6-7, 504n4, 512n8, 513n10.
Compare Roberts, Comprehensive History, 1: 51-53; Joseph Smith, Jr., et al., History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Period I: History of the Joseph Smith, the Prophet and ... Period II: From the Manuscript History of Brigham Young and Other Original Documents, ed. B.H. Roberts, 7 vols., 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), 1: 2-3, available as "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 5-7, in recent editions of The Pearl of Great Price, published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Salt Lake City, Utah; Backman, "Awakenings in the Burned-Over District," 69; Larry C. Porter, "Reverend George Lane—Good `Gifts,' Much `Grace,' and Marked `Usefulness,'" BYU Studies 9 (Spring 1969): 337-38; Milton V. Backman Jr. and James B. Allen, "Membership of Certain of Joseph Smith's Family in the Western Presbyterian Church of Palmyra," BYU Studies 10 (Summer 1970): 482-84.
[13] Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival" (in 1969 Dialogue "reprint"), 67 (for narrative quote), and 78n47 (for citation to Palmyra Register's "issues of June 28 and July 5, 1820, p. 2"), which latter citation was not in the source-notes of his original 1967 article in Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society. Before submitting his article for its expanded "reprint" in Dialogue, Walters had pre-publication access to Backman's 1969 article, as did Richard L. Bushman for his "First Vision Story Revived" in the same issue of Dialogue. Bushman cited (93n13) Backman's essay by its preliminary title "An Awakening," but Reverend Walters did not acknowledge it as his source for the articles of 1820 he cited. The minister-researcher’s 1969 article also rebutted Backman's arguments without acknowledging the existence of the 1969 article in BYU Studies to which Walters was actually responding.
That the minister recognized he was violating an expectation of honest disclosure in scholarly writing is obvious from Wesley P. Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," Journal of Pastoral Practice, 4 (1980), No. 2: 92-109, in which he complained on page 93: "Although written to answer our [1969] article [which had been "revised and enlarged"--92], Dr. Backman nowhere refers to it, either in the text, the footnotes, or in the 12-page Bibliography of his [1971] book." Walters added with obvious irritation on 94n2: "In the second edition (1980) of his book, Dr. Backman finally included in a footnote (p. 195) a passing reference to our [1967] article. However, he has still avoided all reference to the enlarged version of this article in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. He is aware of its existence for he quotes from Dr. Richard Bushman's rebuttal to it (p. 196), but he ignores our reply. The footnotes in that [1969] printing answered a number of criticisms raised by Dr. Backman in his present edition [of 1980]." Walters' ministerial readers in 1980 might have been puzzled by this claim that his 1969 article had replied to criticisms in Backman's book, which was first published in 1971. If Walters recognized that the two editions of Backman's book gave the reverend-researcher's 1969 article the same silent-treatment as Walters had given his advance reading of the BYU professor's 1969 article, Walters did not explain this to his fellow ministers in 1980.
In making this and other stark assessments about the publications by Wesley P. Walters, I hope that I am not perceived as engaging in polemics or in ad hominem attacks (see my note 1). Aside from trying to avoid both, I personally regarded him as a kind, thoughtful, and congenial man--a diligent researcher who invited me to his home in Marissa, Illinois, for dinner, for hours of engaging conversation, and for an overnight stay during one of my research trips in the mid-1970s. Nonetheless, while writing about Mormon history, Reverend Walters demonstrated academic and ethical lapses that I cannot ignore (nor minimize) while I closely examine the same topics and (especially) the same sources. See text discussion for my notes 6, 25, 26, 30, 165; see text after my notes 32, 78, 136; see comments within my notes 5 and 165; also see the minister-researcher’s ethical lapses involving his unauthorized removal of official documents about Joseph Smith's 1826 court appearance for treasure-scrying, as related (with copy of letter from New York county court officer to Walters) in Larry C. Porter, "Reinventing Mormonism: To Remake or Redo," FARMS Review of Books 7 (1995), No. 2: 141-43. When I began researching and writing this present essay in 2005, I did not want to mention Porter's observation and initially rejected it as tangential to my analysis. Even after my own unexpected discoveries of the minister-researcher's ethical lapses, it required dozens of re-writes before I concluded that Porter's observation seemed too relevant to withhold from my essay's commentary about the historical approach of Reverend Walters toward Joseph Smith Jr.
[14] Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 69 (for "adjoining" quote), 78n47 (for the happenstance reference to the camp-meeting); with a close paraphrase of Walters' note-comments in Marquardt, Rise of Mormonism, 20n20.
[15] Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 64-65, 66, 69, 76n37, 77n40; Walters, "Reply to Dr. Bushman," 98-99; compare Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 2-3; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 5.
A fourth argument against the 1820 revival has involved analysis of land transactions to dispute Joseph's statement that it began "some time in the second year after our removal [from Palmyra] to Manchester," Ontario County, New York. I skip that discussion-controversy here because it seems to be another example of the Prophet's conflation of actual events surrounding Palmyra's small revival of 1820 with the village's extensive revivals of 1824-25 (see narrative text for my notes 36-38). However, readers may agree with me that there is logical circularity (and corresponding weakness) in nay-sayer objections about this matter, as most recently expressed in the summary by Marquardt, Rise of Mormonism, 12.
[16] Backman, "Awakenings in the Burned-Over District," 311 (for quote), 314-18 (for statistics); also Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 34n7 ("The records of the Palmyra Methodist Church were burned in a fire at Rochester, New York in 1933").
[17] Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 160.
[18] For the Smith family's residence in first Palmyra and second in Farmington (later named Manchester), New York, see Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 2; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 3. For both towns during this period as in the Methodist Ontario Circuit of Ontario District, see Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 63; Backman, Joseph Smith's First Vision, 70; Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 97.
While Joseph Sr. arrived in Palmyra by the fall of 1816, his wife Lucy arrived with Joseph Jr. and the other children after the snows of winter had begun. Since 1816 was a very cold year (due to worldwide cooling caused by the massive explosion of an Indonesian volcano), it is unclear whether the entire family arrived in Palmyra in late 1816 or early 1817. Compare two prize-winning biographies: Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), 21 ("they began their trip perhaps as late as January 1817" in leaving Vermont for Palmyra, New York) and 542 (for their departure from Manchester in December 1830); Richard Lyman Bushman "with" Jed Woodworth, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), [30] ("the Smiths arrived in western New York in the winter of 1816-17"), with no specificity about their departure from Manchester in 1830.
Although it is customary to list co-author(s) in narrative references, my text refers only to Bushman as the biographer, because the preface of Rough Stone Rolling (xxiii) clearly showed that he claimed to be the biography's author and that Woodworth's role as "collaborator" was significantly less than co-authorship. However, for bibliographic accuracy, my source-notes include Woodworth with each citation.
[19] George Peck, Early Methodism Within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference from 1788 to 1828 (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1860), 353 ("On horseback, and to a Methodist preacher there was then no other mode of conveyance"), 355 ("circuit rider"); Milton V. Backman Jr., "The Quest for a Restoration: The Birth of Mormonism in Ohio," BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 348 (concerning "the Grand Circuit which consisted of forty-four preaching stations in Ashtabula, Geauga, and Trumbull counties" of Ohio); also Backman, Joseph Smith's First Vision, 70.
[20] William Hosmer, ed., Autobiography of Rev. Alvin Torry (Auburn, NY: William J. Moses, 1861), 214 (for Torry's assignment to the Ulysses Circuit at the Genesee Conference annual meeting at Wilkesbarre in 1827, "this circuit embraced all the country lying between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, from the town of Enfield to Ovid. Within the bounds of that circuit, there are, at the time of my writing this, nine different stations, with as many ministers"); also Milton V. Backman Jr. wrote: "One of the most famous [Methodist] circuit-riders of early America was Peter Cartwright. At the age of sixty-eight, this itinerant had a circuit [of] almost 500 miles by 100 miles," in American Religions and the Rise of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1965), 284, citing W. P. Strickland, ed., Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher (New York: Carleton & Porter, 1857), 484-86.
[21] Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773- 1828; also Bushman, "First Vision Story Revived," 87 ("Methodist figures take in an entire circuit and fail to note changes in smaller locales"); Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 97 ("The individual church figures are not available, it is true, but the membership figures for the Ontario Circuit on which Palmyra was located are part of the printed Minutes of the denomination").
[22] Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 142, referring to the situation before July 1819.
[23] Backman, "Awakenings in the Burned-Over District," 308 (for quote), 305 (for chapel); his statement of dimensions was taken from "GENESEE CONFERENCE," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 5 (November 1822): 428. Backman observed that Joseph's phrase might have the "meaning possibly [of] western New York or eastern and western New York and not necessarily Palmyra, Farmington [later named Manchester], or just the neighborhood where he lived" (315). However, see narrative text for my note 61.
[24] Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 103 (for "wishful thinking"), 103-04n6 (for statistical quote, emphasis in original). For "ecological fallacy" (a term and concept Walters did not actually use), see Wikipedia on the Internet, whose entry cites Stephen K. Campbell, Flaws and Fallacies in Statistical Thinking (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974). Because the Methodist membership reported in July 1819 was larger than the membership reported in July 1820, Walters wrote that the 1820 figures should be subtracted from the 1819 figures. Statistically, later figures should always be subtracted from the earlier figures, which would show "negative growth" in this instance.
[25] Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 66, 76n21. For narrative flow, I reverse the order of the first two phrases as quoted from his text on page 66, but the meaning remains the same as in the original. Aside from my narrative's quotation from his above source-note, his source-note (77n41) for the statements on page 66 correctly reported the total "white and Negro membership for the Ontario Circuit," as given for 1819, 1820, and 1821 in Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 330, 346, 366. With reference to his 1980 article's claim for an arithmetical result of "59," those numbers were also not a stray memory of contiguous numerals in the figures for Ontario District in 1820 (the newly created district's first annual report), nor in 1821, nor in the difference between those years. The Ontario District (roughly the entire county) had 3128 "white" and 19 "colored" members in 1820 (3147 total), and had 3528 "white" and 17 "colored" in 1821 (3545 total), which was an increase in Ontario District of 400 "white" members, a loss of two "colored" members, and a net increase of 398. Created in July 1819, the Ontario District was not in the 1819 report for the period from July 1818 to 1 July 1819. See comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[26] Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 92 (for "there was no revival"), 100 (for "this supposed 1820 camp meeting"), 104 (for denial of "either a camp meeting or a revival"), 106 (for denial of "even a spark of a revival"), 109 (for "legendary events"); also see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165. For definition of "polemics," see my note 1.
[27] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 2; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 5.
[28] Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, xxvi-xxviii, 15-41 (with page 29 for new chapel in 1822), 36n13; also see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[29] Dan Vogel, Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988), 43n32; Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: 58n19, 288n87, 306n103, 2: 424n6, 3: 94n31, 416n2, 5: 390; Anderson, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith, 106-07; Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 240-44; Vogel, Making of a Prophet, 587n11 (for discussion on his page 58); Marquardt, Rise of Mormonism, 13-16, 670 (index citation for "Revival in Palmyra").
[30] Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 64 (for the local Presbytery's statement about "no remarkable revival" in 1824), 77n39 (for "completely beyond possibility" about similar statement of alleged absence in 1820); also Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 18, 22, in which Marquardt dropped his deceased co-author's statement of "beyond possibility." See comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[31] Latimer, Three Brothers, 22 (for quotation from Reverend Aurora Seager's "diary" about his attendance with "Bishop Roberts" at Palmyra's camp-meeting, 19-22 June 1818); also Blakeslee, "NOTES FOR A HISTORY OF METHODISM IN PHELPS," manuscript page 7; compare Palmyra Register's weekly editions (on Tuesdays during this period) from 19 May 1818 through 21 July 1818 for total absence of any reference to this Methodist revival; "Who are the bishops and superintendents?" in Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 290 (for 1817), 305 (for 1818); also Charles Elliott, The Life of the Rev. Robert R. Roberts, One of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York: G. Lane and C. B. Tippett, 1846), 167; Worth Marion Tippy, Frontier Bishop: The Life and Times of Robert Richford Roberts (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1958), 106, 130. Neither biographer mentioned Roberts' attendance at Palmyra's camp-meeting nor at most other revivals after his ordination as bishop in 1816, emphasizing instead his attendance at regional and national meetings.
[32] Concerning the evidence he cited from BYU's library, Backman commented in 1980: "Blakeslee discusses in his manuscript history a camp meeting held near Palmyra in 1818, in which twenty were baptized and forty converted to the Methodist society, and which was not reported in the newspapers and religious journals of that age" (Backman, Joseph Smith's First Vision, 74n34). Rather than burying the last phrase in a footnote, Backman should have emphasized this fact repeatedly in the text as the most significant answer to the "massive silence" argument by Walters, to whom Backman was responding. However, because Backman subordinated this conclusive evidence for Palmyra's 1818 revival and its absence from newspapers, those facts failed to show up in subsequent writings by both apologists and disbelievers. Compare text discussion for my notes 4, 5, 55, 66, as well as comments within my notes 5, 55, 149; also see comments about Walters and his approach in following paragraph of the narrative text and within my notes 5, 13, 165. For definition of "apologist," see my note 1.
[33] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 5; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 14.
[34] Novak, "Most Convenient Form of Error," 155.
[35] D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books/Smith Research Associates, 1994), 5-32 (for analysis of revised documents and problems of anachronism), also 268n10 (for citation of two of Backman's publications about the First Vision, with acknowledgement of the differing view by Walters and Marquardt), and with my concluding statement (269n10): "For me this is sufficient evidence from two different directions that Smith's vision of deity occurred in 1820, as officially dated." In 1998 I restated this in Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1998 ed.), 136-37, 456n2 (citing both Backman and Walters, but emphasizing Backman's point of view), and 457nn9-10 (citing Backman and Bushman, but not Walters, nor Marquardt).
[36] For example, Victor H. Matthews, A Brief History of Ancient Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2002), 80 ("an unintentional conflation of events"); also Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. by Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 83. Also see my note 180 for similar conflation of revivals by Mrs. Sarepta Marsh Baker and Reverend M. P. Blakeslee.
[37] Jaques Barzun and Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher, 4th ed. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), 119. Also see my note 180 for similar conflation of revivals by Mrs. Sarepta Marsh Baker and Reverend M. P. Blakeslee.
[38] "REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN KENNEBECK DISTRICT" [page-heading], Methodist Magazine [New York City] 1 (March 1818): 119-20; "REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN SUFFOLK COUNTY," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 1 (June 1818): 237-40. This periodical had no issues for 1829 and changed editorial format in the first issue of its "new series" in January 1830, after which it did not give the same attention to individual revivals. For its editorship, see my note 127.
[39] "ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL AND PROGRESS OF THE WORK OF GOD IN FOUNTAIN-HEAD CIRCUIT THROUGH THE LAST YEAR," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (February 1821): 69-71. Although there is a town of the same name in New York State, the article's internal references identify this as Fountain-Head, Kentucky.
[40] "REVIVAL AND PROGRESS OF RELIGION ON WEST-JERSEY DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 7 (March 1824): 115-16.
[41] "A SHORT SKETCH OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE CITY OF TROY, A.D. 1816," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 1 (April 1818): 152 (for its beginning), 154 (for quote).
[42] "A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE CITY OF SCHNECTADY," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (July 1819): 275.
[43] "REVIVAL OF THE WORK OF GOD IN PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (May 1821): 197-99.
[44] "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON OHIO DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (August 1819): 308-10.
[45] "REVIVAL OF THE WORK OF GOD IN CHILLICOTHE, OHIO," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (April 1825): 155.
[46] "ACCOUNT OF THE LATE REVIVALS OF RELIGION IN THE PROVINCE OF UPPER-CANADA," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (January 1819): 33 (for above title, with page-heading of "REVIVAL" on all subsequent pages for this article), 37 (for quote).
[47] "Revival in Bridgetown, N.J." [page-heading], Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (June 1825): 238.
[48] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 2; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 5. He referred to this as the "before mentioned religious excitement" in Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 6; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 21.
[49] During 1824-25, Palmyra experienced its most dramatic revivalism of the 1820s, but in "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON ONTARIO DISTRICT," letter dated 1 July 1824, Methodist Magazine [New York City] 7 (November 1824): 426, Reverend Abner Chase (currently the presiding elder of this district) indicated that this was a crescendo of revivalism that actually began in 1823: "The work [of revivals] has been gradually progressing for eight or ten months." Ten months before his letter was 1 September 1823, a little over three years since Palmyra's camp-meeting of late June 1820. Even though Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 105, quoted from this letter, the minister-researcher asserted on page 104: "Just how Joseph could be stirred in 1823 by a revival that did not occur until September 1824, the writer does not explain." Walters disregarded the possibility that just as a spring 1820 camp-meeting was a likely catalyst for Joseph Smith's vision of deity, a September 1823 revival was a likely catalyst for his vision of an angel on 21 September 1823. For the latter, see Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 9-11; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 27, 29-33; see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165. For other circumstances of Joseph's 1823 epiphany, see Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1998 ed.), 137-58.
[50] Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. "excitement." For example, "Great Revivals in Religion," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 7 June 1820, [1], used the phrase "religious excitement" to describe seven different locations/occurrences of revivalism in New York State.
[51] Barzun and Graff, Modern Researcher, 50 (for "the distortions brought about by ‘present-mindedness,’ the habit of reading into the past our own modern ideas and intentions"); Harry Ritter, Dictionary of Concepts in History (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 9 ("the conscious or unconscious attribution of present attitudes, values, and modes of behavior upon the past is `presentism,' an inexcusable violation of the past's integrity"); Paul K. Conkin and Roland N. Stromberg, Heritage and Challenge: The History and Theory of History (Wheeling, IL: Forum Press, 1989), 204; also James B. Allen, "Emergence of a Fundamental: The Expanding Role of Joseph Smith's First Vision in Mormon Religious Thought," Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980): [43], began the article with this statement: "One of the barriers to understanding history is the tendency many of us have to superimpose upon past generations our own patterns of thought and perceptions of reality."
[52] Larry C. Porter, "Reinventing Mormonism: To Remake or Redo," FARMS Review of Books 7 (1995), No. 2: 129 (referred unapologetically to "apologists"--see my note 1) and insisted on page 125: "If the long-established Latter-day Saint chronology of events can be thrown out of whack, then doubt can be cast on the integrity of the whole continuity of occurrences recounted by the Prophet and the brethren in the recorded history of the Church." To avoid what he perceived as a slippery slope, his essay regarded only one kind of historical revisionism as legitimate: "when valid dates and events are discovered," they can "readily be added to the early chronology of Mormonism" to fill in the "numerous informational voids [which] are to be found in the early history of the Latter-day Saint Church." In other words, filling gaps within traditional LDS history is legitimate as long as that process does not revise a single date or interpretation in the official-or-traditional accounts.
It was apparently for this reason that neither in his essay against the approaches of Wesley P. Walters and H. Michael Marquardt, nor in Porter's doctoral dissertation about pre-1831 Mormonism, nor in its publication (for which he added information to some of the source-notes)—nor in other historical articles, nor in any of his other book reviews against critics of Smith's claims for an 1820 revival--has Porter even mentioned the Palmyra Register's references to a local camp-meeting in June 1820, despite its repeated citation since 1969 by other apologists for Smith's claims (including myself). See Larry C. Porter, "A Study of the Origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 1816-1831" (Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1971), 45-62 (no reference to Palmyra Register in section, with source-notes, on "The Revival of 1820"), 341-42 (no reference to Palmyra Register in bibliography of "NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS"); Porter, A Study of the Origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History and BYU Studies, 2000), iii ("occasionally, the author has included additional information in the endnotes to update old material"), 17-23 (no reference to Palmyra Register in section on "The Revival of 1820"), 39-40 (no additions to the source-notes for "The Revival of 1820"). Paradoxically, without those citations, Porter made a revisionist expansion of Joseph's official history to allow for chronological possibilities beyond "early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty," as follows: "The `First Vision' probably occurred before July, 1820" (see Porter, "Study of the Origins," 58; Porter, Study of the Origins, 21). I have no explanation for why Porter made that statement while declining to mention possible evidence for a June dating of the First Vision; also see note 61.
[53] Bushman, "Just the Facts Please," 128. As an odd coincidence in typesetting, Marquardt's quote appeared on the same numbered page in books published eleven years apart. Compare Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 32, with Marquardt, Rise of Mormonism, 32.
[54] Seventeen years earlier, a similar retreat seemed to occur in BYU religion professor Paul R. Cheesman's The Keystone of Mormonism: Early Visions of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Provo, UT: Eagle Systems International, 1988), 9-21, which discussed the 1820 vision without specifically asserting that there was a revival that year, instead stating on page 9: "It was during one of these revival periods that four of the Smith family were influenced and united with the Presbyterian Church."
[55] Bushman "with" Woodworth, Rough Stone Rolling, [xiii, for "JOSEPH SMITH CHRONOLOGY"], 35, 37 (for quote), 39-41, with no specific mention of the Palmyra Register articles, nor of a revival of 1820 in the endnotes on 569-71; compare with Bushman's 1969 "First Vision Story Revived," 93n15 (which cited "M. P. Blakeslee, `Notes for a History of Methodism in Phelps, 1886,' pp. 7-8, copy located in the Brigham Young University Library. Cited in Backman, `An Awakening,' note 16"); Richard L. Bushman, "Mr. Bushman Replies," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 5 (Autumn 1970): 8 ("In June of 1818, for example, twenty people were baptized and forty united to the church"), which was a close paraphrase of Blakeslee's manuscript (see my note 4). Aside from failing to mention the 1818 revival in Palmyra, Bushman's biography in 2005 avoided specific reference to an actual "revival" in 1820 while discussing Smith's "First Vision," substituting a less affirmative comparison of Smith with "countless other revival subjects" (39).
[56] Bushman "with" Woodworth, Rough Stone Rolling, 46 (for revival "after Alvin's death"), 729 (index entry). The source-note (570n57) on the matter referred to "a debate on the timing of the revivals. For the argument that revivals in 1824 were the background for Joseph's first vision, see Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 15-41. The [earlier] rebuttal is in Backman, see Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 15-41. The [earlier] rebuttal is in Backman, seemed to tip the scales in favor of 1824 and against Smith's veracity. In Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 53, 192, Bushman at least mentioned the year 1820 in the text and source-note about this matter.
[57] Bushman, "Just the Facts Please," 124 (for quote), 126, and 126n3, which replayed his less emphatic 1969 complaint in Bushman, "First Vision Story Revived," 87, 93n14.
[58] Bushman "with" Woodworth, Rough Stone Rolling, 32. See Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 3: 422-23, for the Smith family's residence as Farmington (later named Manchester), next to Palmyra, during the 1820 census.
[59] Donald L. Enders, "The Joseph Smith, Sr. Family: Farmers of the Genesee," in Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate Jr., eds., Joseph Smith: The Prophet, the Man (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1993), 215, where Enders claimed that "enumerated in June, [the] (1820 Federal Census), also identifies the Smith family as living there by June 1820," thus giving the wrong month for the census (see my note 60).
[60] Ronald Vern Jackson, ed., New York 1820 Census Index (North Salt Lake, UT: Accelerated Indexing Systems, 1977), 17 (for date census began); Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 3: 422, that "census taking by law was to begin on the first Monday in August (7 August 1820) and was completed by 5 February 1821."
[61] Steven C. Harper, "History Is People, Places, Sources, and Stories: An Interview with Milton V. Backman, Jr.," Mormon Historical Studies 6 (Spring 2005): 99-100 (for interview occurring during 1994 meeting), 110-11 (for quotes). For the 1988 retreat by BYU religion professor Paul R. Cheesman about the 1820 revival, see my note 54; for the 1989 reversal by BYU historian Marvin S. Hill, see my note 90; for the 1995 concession by BYU religion professor Paul H. Peterson, see the quote for my note 216; for several kinds of retreat in Richard Lyman Bushman's 2005 biography, see narrative discussion for my notes 54-57; for the tentativeness of BYU professors James B. Allen (historian) and John W. Welch (lawyer) in 2005, see following quote (for my note 62).
The First Vision and its related topics were not among the issues examined in John-Charles Duffy, "Defending the Kingdom, Rethinking the Faith: How Apologetics Is Reshaping Mormon Orthodoxy," Sunstone 132 (May 2004): 22-55. Nonetheless, the shifts in apologist positions regarding traditional claims for an 1820 revival are consistent with Duffy's observation (37) that "orthodox intellectuals are willing to judge the truth of traditional faith claims by how well those claims coincide with conclusions yielded by scholarship." However, it is inexplicable that LDS apologists eventually abandoned their own confirming evidences and deferred instead to the polemical writings by Reverend Walters whose historical lapses and misrepresentations can be so easily demonstrated and documented.
[62] James B. Allen and John W. Welch, "The Appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith in 1820," in Welch "with" Erick B. Carlson, eds., Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 55. See also the decades-earlier statement of a more liberal probability by apologist Larry C. Porter in last sentences of my note 52.
[63] Milton W. Hamilton, The Country Printer: New York State, 1785-1830, 2nd ed. (Port Washington, Long Island, NY: Ira J. Friedman, 1964), 139 (for quote), 143 (for Cayuga's newspaper in 1827), as quoted in Norton, "Comparative Images," 249, also 252n69 for Hamilton's emphasis on the 1827 newspaper. On page 249, Norton also cited David J. Russo, "The Origins of Local News in the U.S. Country Press, 1840s-1870s," Journalism Monographs, No. 65, ed. Bruce H. Westley (Lexington, KY: Association for Education in Journalism, 1980), 2, for this assessment of the national pattern of the early 1800s: "In the intimate little rural communities of this time, local news would be spread by word of mouth long before a weekly newspaper could be put into print."
Neither Hamilton, Russo, nor Norton claimed that there was a total absence of local events in village newspapers. Norton explained (250): "Village editors like Timothy Strong did publish some items of local interest. These included the local advertisements which sustained the paper, some deaths and marriages, legal notices, town celebrations, especially for the Fourth of July or for the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, town meetings, and church dedications. In larger villages unusual accidents, spectacular fires, and serious crimes were occasionally reported. These few items, however, except for the advertisements, were usually brief and occupied only a few lines or paragraphs in the paper. ... But society news, town gossip, individual religious experiences, and other village incidents did not appear in the local paper."
Too late to be included in Marvin S. Hill's relevant publications, or in the publications of Reverend Walters before his death, or in Dan Vogel's early publications--Norton's 1991 dissertation was absent from all source-notes and bibliographies in the previously cited books by Robert D. Anderson, H. Michael Marquardt, Grant H. Palmer, and from Vogel's post-1991 publications. Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 2: 555, did list Hamilton in the bibliography for that volume, but only because of a footnote citation to establish a man's place of death (518n4), not to cite Hamilton's explanation for the absence of local news in village newspapers like Palmyra's.
[64] Bushman "with" Woodworth, Rough Stone Rolling, 686, 699.
[65] Bushman, "Just the Facts Please," 126 and 126n3.
[66] Norton, "Comparative Images," 254-56 (for the newspaper editor's opposition to alcoholic beverages and his tongue-in-cheek apology to the Methodists), with no reference in Norton's bibliography to the sources that verified Palmyra's 1818 revival--Aurora Seager's diary, its publication by Latimer, and its summary by the Blakeslee manuscript in BYU's Library (see my notes 4, 5, 31). This oversight was especially odd, because Milton V. Backman Jr. (see my note 32) served as the main adviser for Norton's dissertation. For other apologists who overlooked Seager's published reference to Palmyra's 1818 revival (despite its location in BYU's library), see my notes 55 and 149.
[67] Ivan Blackwell Burnett Jr., "Methodism and Alcohol: Recommendations For a Beverage Alcohol Policy Based on the Ever-Changing Historic Disciplinal Positions of American Methodism," D.M. dissertation, Claremont School of Theology, 1973, 33-34 (for Wesley's views and practices, with order of quotes reversed in my narrative), 80-81 (for regulations from 1780 to 1812), 90 (for new emphasis in 1848).
[68] Francis Ward, An Account of Three Camp-Meetings, Held By the Methodists, At Sharon, in Litchfield County, Connecticut; at Rhinebeck, in Dutchess County [New York State]; and at Petersburgh, in Renssalaer County, New York State (Brooklyn: Robinson and Little, 1806), [6], available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 11793.
[69] Anonymous, A Faithful Narrative of the Transactions Noticed At the Camp-Meeting, In Goshen, Connecticut, September, 1808 (N.p., 1809), 18, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 17473, emphasis in original; also see Anonymous, The Camp Meeting. By the Druid of the Lakes (N.p.: 1810), 5, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 19707.
[70] Anonymous, A Treatise on the Proceedings of a Camp-Meeting Held in Bern, N.Y.[,] County of Albany; Which Commenced on Friday, the Seventh of September, 1810, and Ended the Monday Following, By a Spectator (Albany: Webster and Skinner, [1810]), 10, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 21512.
[71] Nathan Bangs, A History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2 vols. (New York: T. Mason and G. Lane, 1839), 2: 268.
[72] B. W. Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual: A Practical Book for the Camp Ground (Boston: H. V. Degen, 1854), 134, observed that a camp-meeting "will consume an amount of water entirely incredible to persons not experienced in such matters ..." Although Methodists located their revival campsites near a stream or other natural source of drinking water, camp-meetings sometimes extended thirteen football fields in length (see my note 145), which required some revivalists to make a mile-roundtrip from their tents for a drink of water. Thus, forest-revivalists needed bottled beverages.
[73] "Introductory remarks to Short Sketches of Revivals of Religion, among the Methodists in the Western Country," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (May 1819), 186 ("In the summer [of 1800,] they took to the woods. The people in order to accommodate themselves, carried provisions for their families and beasts, in their waggons [sic]; erected tents, and continued some days in the exercises of singing, praying and preaching! Thus commenced what has since received the appellation of `Camp-Meetings'"); also Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "camp-meeting"; Charles Yrigoyen Jr. and Susan E. Warrick, Historical Dictionary of Methodism (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996), 45.
[74] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 24.
[75] "ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL AND PROGRESS OF THE WORK OF GOD IN FOUNTAIN-HEAD CIRCUIT THROUGH THE LAST YEAR," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (February 1821): 72, also a less-detailed reference to a forest "camp meeting at Pleasant-Run meeting-house" on page 70. Although there is a town of the same name in New York State, the article's internal references identify this as Fountain-Head, Kentucky. For an example of Methodist families bringing their own tents, see George Peck, The Life and Times of Rev. George Peck, D.D., Written By Himself (New York: Nelson & Phillips; Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden, 1874), 79-80 ("During this [1817-18] visit[,] a camp-meeting was held at Columbus, some ten miles from my father's. We took our tent, and spent there a very pleasant and profitable season").
See the family-sized tents in illustration labeled "A western camp meeting in 1819. after lithograph by J. Miller," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969): 60. This lithograph, for style and convenience, depicted barely 150 attenders, giving a false impression that camp-meetings were the size of a small congregational meeting; see also last comments in my note 145. Sources cited in this article (including New York's Methodist Magazine from 1818 through 1828) described no camp-meeting with fewer than 400 attenders and described many with attendance in the thousands.
[76] Anonymous, Treatise on the Proceedings of a Camp-Meeting Held in Bern, N.Y., 3; also Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 131 ("The altar should generally be at least twenty-five feet square"); see the preaching stand and space in front of it for revivalist listeners in illustration labeled "A western camp meeting in 1819. after lithograph by J. Miller," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969): 60. Concerning the physical misrepresentations within this commonly published lithograph see last paragraph in my note 75 and see last comments in my note 145.
[77] "REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN WEST FARMS," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (May 1819): 200.
[78] "A SHORT SKETCH OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE CITY OF TROY, A.D. 1816," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 1 (April 1818): 152-53; "A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE CITY OF SCHNECTADY," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (July 1819): 275; "REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN KENSINGTON CHAPEL, PHILADELPHIA, Methodist Magazine [New York City] 7 (November 1824): 399; "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON ROCKINGHAM CIRCUIT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (July 1826): 273-74 (which began with summer camp-meetings, then shifted to October "prayer-meetings”— the latter described as "this revival ... at the Spring Creek meeting-house"); "REVIVAL OF THE WORK OF GOD AT UTICA," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (August 1826): 309 (which began "in the month of March last, at a prayer-meeting held at the meeting-house"); "Extract of a letter from the Rev. B. Sabin, dated Ithica [sic], Jan. 13, 1827," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 10 (March 1827): 133; "Revival in Baltimore," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 10 (April 1827): 181 ("confined to Wesley chapel").
[79] For an example of the longer phrase (by contrast to numerous references only to "camp-meeting” before and after), see Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 185, quoting from a description of meetings in 1821; also see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[80] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 2; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 5.
[81] Walters, "Reply to Dr. Bushman," 99; repeated in Vogel, Religious Seekers, 42n21, in Vogel, Making of a Prophet, 589n33, in Marquardt, Rise of Mormonism, 49. For the connection of Phelps with Vienna in western New York and for the distance of nearly fourteen miles from Palmyra to Vienna (now named Phelps), see my note 4.
[82] See Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, [3], 11, for the separate references in 1806 to arrangements with the owner and "proprietor" to use their forested lands as the site for camp-meetings; John F. Wright, Sketches of the Life and Labors of James Quinn, Who Was Nearly Half a Century a Minister of the Gospel in the Methodist Episcopal Church (Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern and R. P. Thompson, 1851), 101 (for a camp-meeting "in the month of September, 1810, that we pitched our tents in a beautiful sugar grove, on the lands of Richard Lee"); Peck, Early Methodism Within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference from 1788 to 1828, 154 ("the camp-meeting on Squire Light's ground"), 322 ("a camp-meeting in September of this year on the land of Edward Paine"); Peck, Life and Times of Rev. George Peck, 82 ("a camp-meeting on Broome Circuit, on the ground of Charles Stone"); also Bushman, "Mr. Bushman Replies," 8 ("Again in 1820 the Palmyra paper referred to activities at the Methodist camp ground. But the Methodists did not own property yet. As was the usual practice elsewhere, they held camp meetings on borrowed land").
By the 1850s, American Methodists had chapels in virtually every town and in most villages. Even then, the Methodist Church did not own the land on which it held camp-meetings, and Gorham's 1854 Camp Meeting Manual, 122, said it was always necessary for the organizers to carefully consider: "Will the owner of the ground, or of contiguous woodlands, allow the cutting of poles for tents, and the use of wood for fuel?"
[83] For Joseph Smith's 1838 account as the only one of his various retellings to specify "early spring," see Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: 27-28, 36, 37, 39, 44, 60, 169-70, 181-82, 184, 187-88, 189-90, 192, 194, 207, 208.
[84] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 4-5; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 14. I acknowledge the subjectivity in this discussion of chilly-cold weather as a barrier to morning prayer in a grove of trees. In itself, this is a weak argument against "early spring" for the First Vision, but the role of history is to avoid seeing evidence in isolation. When combined with the discussion connected with my notes 103-04, this weather-data seem compelling as further evidences that Palmyra's camp-meeting of June 1820 was, in fact, the catalyst for Joseph's prayer-vision that actually occurred in late spring.
[85] Partial photos of the left-side in manuscript pages for March-April 1820 of the weather diary kept at Sackets Harbor, western New York, plus complete transcription of left-and-right side for March 1st through April 15th, in Don C. Lefgren, "Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning: Sun., 26 Mar 1820," Meridian Magazine: The Place Where Latter-day Saints Gather, Internet publication on 9 October 2002 (available at http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/lds/meridian/2002/vision).
Holding to Smith's "early spring" description, Lefgren argued that 25-26 March 1820 (Saturday-Sunday) were the only possible days warm enough for young Joseph to attempt to pray in a forested grove, and Lefgren chose Sunday as likelier. Even those two days seem very unlikely for a visit to pray under shade trees, since the outside temperature would have been no higher than 59 degrees Fahrenheit at 10 AM—even in direct sunlight.
[86] Consult http://www.mapquest.com/directions on the Internet (for 17.05 miles as the distance from Palmyra to Canandaigua, New York). Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 106, referred to "Canandaigua, which according to the 1824 gazetteer was 13 miles from Palmyra." Even though that source strengthens my narrative commentary (especially in connection with my note 209) about the near proximity of the two towns, this article gives various mileages from the Internet source, due to its easier access for readers (as compared with the difficulty of consulting an old gazetteer, which also did not give distances between all the towns mentioned in this article).
[87] THE FARMER'S DIARY, OR BEER'S ONTARIO ALMANACK FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1820 (Canandaigua, NY: J. D. Bemis, [1819]), calendar for April, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 47953. These farmer's almanac predictions for weather varied from town to town within the same state. For example, FARMER'S DIARY; OR Catskill Almanack, FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1820 (Catskill, NY: J. S. Lewis, [1819]) predicted different weather for 15-16 April 1820 ("C. [Clouds] together then clear"), with "and more pleasant" for 18-20 April. Available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 47954.
[88] "SNOW STORM," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 24 May 1820, [2].
[89] Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: 54 (for the spring dates in which this history was dictated/written, first in 1838 and again in 1839). He made no reference to the idea of a seasonal-temperature conflation as discussed in my narrative.
[90] Lawrence Foster, "First Visions: Personal Observations on Joseph Smith's Religious Experience," Sunstone 8 (September-October 1983): 40. This echoed Marvin Hill, "The First Vision Controversy: A Critique and Reconciliation," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15 (Summer 1982): 41 ("if Joseph Smith in 1838 read back into 1820 some details of a revival that occurred in 1824, there is no reason to conclude that he invented his religious experiences"), which seemed to be a confident conclusion to Hill's observation on page 37: "even by Walters' standards[,] the 1819-20 season of revivals was not so dull as Walters said."
Nevertheless, despite criticizing Walters for his polemical approach, this 1982 article was a mid-point in the BYU history professor's gradual acceptance of the minister-researcher's basic argument, as stated in Marvin S. Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight From American Pluralism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 193n54 ("I set down here my reasons for believing that none of the small revivals around Palmyra and environs before 1823 and described by Backman satisfy all the conditions in Joseph's descriptions"). There was one indication that Hill was already moving toward his 1989 conclusion by 1982: he referred to Backman's use of the Palmyra Register without acknowledging that Backman cited it to show that Palmyra had a camp-meeting revival in 1820 ("First Vision Controversy," 36).
[91] "ACCOUNT OF A CAMP-MEETING AT BARRE, VT." Methodist Magazine [New York City] 3 (December 1820): 470.
[92] "ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD IN NEW-HAMPSHIRE DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (March 1821): 109, concerning "our camp-meeting in September last.”
[93] "DESCRIPTION OF A CAMP-MEETING HELD ON FAIRFIELD CIRCUIT, LANCASTER DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (December 1819): 475.
[94] For references to which months a "camp-meeting" occurred (including its variant spellings) in the Northern States, see Methodist Magazine [New York City] 1 (March 1818): 119; 1 (June 1818): 237; 1 (September 1818): 356; 2 (February 1819): 75; 2 (June 1819): 233, 235; 2 (August 1819): 308, 309, 310; 2 (December 1819): 474; 3 (May 1820): 199; 3 (December 1820): 470; 4 (January 1821): 70-71; 4 (February 1821): 78; 4 (March 1821): 109; 4 (May 1821): 197; 4 (October 1821): 387, 392-93; 5 (March 1822): 116; 5 (October 1822): 375, 394; 5 (December 1822): 474, 475; 6 (March 1823): 117; 6 (October 1823): 397; 7 (March 1824): 115, 116, 117; 7 (September 1824): 353; 7 (October 1824): 397; 7 (November 1824): 436; 8 (March 1825): 111; 8 (April 1825): 158, 159, 162; 8 (June 1825): 240; 8 (July 1825): 285; 8 (August 1825): 321; 8 (November 1825): 436, 438, 440; 8 (December 1825): 481, 482, 483, 484; 9 (August 1826): 313; 10 (September 1827): 423; 11 (April 1828): 161; 11 (June 1828): 234, 235; 11 (September 1828): 356.
Because of the more temperate weather in the Southern States, Methodist camp-meetings were reported as early as May but no later than October for the South in Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (June 1819): 223; 3 (April 1820): 156; 4 (January 1821): 37; 4 (February 1821): 70, 71; 4 (May 1821): 191-92, 193, 194; 4 (December 1821): 475; 5 (October 1822): 400; 6 (February 1823): 72, 74, 75; 7 (September 1824): 351, 352, 353; 7 (November 1824): 436; 8 (November 1825): 442; 8 (December 1825): 487; 9 (July 1826): 273; 9 (November 1826): 432, 433, 475; 11 (April 1828): 160; 11 (July 1828): 279. When it was unclear to which region various articles referred, I compared the named circuits and districts with entries in Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828.
[95] "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON OHIO DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (August 1819): 308-09.
[96] "GOOD EFFECTS OF CAMPMEETINGS," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (August 1825): 321.
[97] "GENESEE CONFERENCE," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (August 1826): 313.
[98] "STATE OF RELIGION ON THE SUSQUEHANNAH DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (December 1825): 482.
[99] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 17.
[100] "ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN ONEIDA DISTRICT, IN THEGENESEE CONFERENCE," written on 2 August 1818, Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (February 1819): 75.
[101] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 123. Although this 1854 manual also recommended a start-date no earlier than "the 20th of June," New York's Methodists were obviously having successful camp-meetings during the first week of June from 1819 to 1826.
[102] "ACCOUNT OF THE LATE REVIVALS OF RELIGION IN THE PROVINCE OF UPPER-CANADA," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (January 1819): 33; "Account of a remarkable revival of Religion in Chillicothe, (O.) [Ohio]," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (June 1819): 239 ("From the commencement of this revival of religion--say in October last, till the close of it in the month of February following"); "A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE CITY OF SCHNECTADY," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (July 1819): 274-75 (regarding revival meetings from December 1818 through April 1819); "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON ONTARIO DISTRICT," letter written on 25 January 1825, Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (April 1825): 159 (in Palmyra, "at a prayer meeting at Dr. Chase's, there were seven [converts]"); "Extract of a letter from the Rev. B. Sabin, dated Ithica [sic], Jan. 13, 1827," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 10 (March 1827): 133. This periodical published many other reports of winter revivals in chapels and houses from 1818 to 1828, but I did not take notes on most of them because of my research emphasis on camp-meetings. My notes show no references to barn-revivals in the Methodist Magazine.
For October-May revivals in barns and school houses, see Hosmer, Autobiography of Rev. Alvin Torry, 17-18 (Methodist revival in a barn); Maxwell Pierson Gaddis, Brief Recollections of the Late Rev. George W. Walker (Cincinnati: Swormsted & Poe/R. P. Thompson, 1857), 112 (in 1825 the Methodist "congregation was too large to crowd into the dwelling-house, and the meeting was held in a large barn, which was no uncommon occurrence at that early period"); "REVIVAL OF RELIGION: EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM REV. CYRENIUS M. FULLER, DATED Dorset, [Vermont,] March 28, 1822," The American Baptist Magazine and Missionary Intelligencer [Boston]3 (September 1822): 437-38 ("Meetings were attended almost every day ... In one instance[,] after attending a lecture at a school house, a number of young people returned to a neighbouring house when it was soon ascertained, that one of the family had entertained a hope in Christ during the meeting"). This Baptist minister used "lecture" to refer to sermons given on days other than Sunday.
[103] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 120, referred to its "season"; also the more contemporary "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON SCIOTO DISTRICT, (OHIO)," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (June 1819): 233 ("Camp-Meetings have been rendered a great blessing to this country, especially during the last season"); also, "ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD IN HOLSTON DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 7 (September 1824): 352 ("Our first Camp-Meeting was held in the last week of July. ... Many in the neighbourhood have become convinced of the utility of Camp-Meetings, and have resolved to build tents by the next season").
[104] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 2; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 5. For narrative flow, I reverse the order of these separate phrases, but the meaning remains the same as in the original.
[105] Walters, "Reply to Dr. Bushman," 99; Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 101; Vogel, Religious Seekers, 30; Hill, Quest for Refuge, 12; Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 54-55, 61n49; Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: 59, 59n21, 213; Anderson, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith, 5, 140; Palmer, Insider's View of Mormon Origins, 44, 252; Vogel, Making of a Prophet, 59, 127-29, 505; Marquardt, Rise of Mormonism, 48, 50, 136.
[106] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 16 (for quote), which was a briefer statement in 1854 of the 1839 observation by Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 265 ("soon led to a regular method of holding them in different parts of the country, by previous appointment and preparation"). For Bangs, see my note 127.
[107] A Collection of the Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs, with the Choruses Affixed: As usually sung at Camp-Meetings, &c. To Which Is Prefixed A Concise Account of the Rise of Camp-Meetings, And some observations relative to the manner of conducting them, 3rd ed. (New York: John C. Totten, 1813), 5 (for Totten as Methodist), 5-6 (for quotes), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 28180; John C. Totten, comp., A Collection of the Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs, with the Choruses Affixed: As usually sung at Camp-Meetings, &c. To Which Is Prefixed A Concise Account of the Rise of Camp-Meetings, And some observations relative to the manner of conducting them, 5th ed. (New York: By the author, 1815), 7 (for Totten as Methodist, also 24, 94), 7-8 (for quotes), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 34391. The same quotes appeared on pages 7-8 in Totten's eighth New York edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs in 1817 (not in Shaw and Shoemaker, but a copy available at Special Collections, Honnold Library, Claremont Colleges, Claremont, California).
[108] Anonymous, Treatise on the Proceedings of a Camp-Meeting Held in Bern, N.Y., 6.
[109] Robert Drew Simpson, ed., American Methodist Pioneer: The Life and Journals of The Rev. Freeborn Garrettson, 1752-1827 (Rutland, VT: Academy Books/Drew University Library, 1984), 318 (for quote from diary entry on 4 August 1809 about a Delaware camp-meeting that began on Thursday); Peck, Early Methodism Within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference from 1788 to 1828, 166 ("This year [1809] the first camp-meeting was held in Luzerne county. ... People were there from fifty miles around"); Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 16 ("three persons were converted about thirty miles off, on their way to the camp meeting").
[110] "COPY OF A LETTER TO REV. JAMES QUINN," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 3 (February 1820): 79. She walked this distance to a revival held at a "quarterly meeting."
[111] Peter Crawley, "A Comment on Joseph Smith's Account of His First Vision and the 1820 Revival," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 6 (Spring 1971): 107.
[112] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, [6]; see end of the first paragraph within my note 75 for example of a family bringing its own tent.
[113] I Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 12.
[114] Wright, Sketches of the Life and Labors of James Quinn, 107 (for the camp-meeting's "narrow streets and alleys"); Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 266 (for its "numbered and labelled" streets); see my note 155 for distinction between the small "family tents" and the huge "society tents." For Bangs, see my note 127; for the extensive size of typical camp-meetings and its corresponding misrepresentation in a commonly published lithograph, see last paragraph in my note 75 and see last comments in my note 145.
[115] "A SHORT ACCOUNT OF A CAMP-MEETING HELD AT COW-HARBOUR, LONG-ISLAND, WHICH COMMENCED AUGUST 11th, 1818," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 1 (September 1818): 356 (for beginning on Tuesday morning and for its attendance), 359 (for ending on Saturday morning).
[116] "ACCOUNT OF A CAMP-MEETING AT BARRE, VT.," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 3 (December 1820): 470-71 (Thursday to Monday).
[117] "ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD IN NASHVILLE DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (May 1821): 191-92, 194.
[118] "PROGRESS OF THE WORK OF GOD ON HUDSON-RIVER DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 5 (December 1822): 474-75.
[119] "CAMPMEETING ON THE CHAMPLAIN DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (December 1825): 484; also Anonymous, A Short Account of the Proceedings of the Camp Meeting, Holden By the Methodists, In Pittsfield, [New York,] June 1808, by a Spectator (Albany, NY: Van Benthuysen & Wood, 1808), 24 ("during the four days this meeting was holden"), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 16234.
[120] "ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL AND PROGRESS OF THE WORK OF GOD IN FOUNTAIN-HEAD CIRCUIT THROUGH THE LAST YEAR," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (February 1821): 72. Although there is a town of the same name in New York State, the article's internal references identify this as Fountain-Head, Kentucky.
[121] "ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD IN NEW-HAMPSHIRE DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (March 1821): 109.
[122] "ACCOUNT OF CAMP MEETINGS ON THE BALTIMORE DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 6 (October 1823): 397.
[123] "ACCOUNT OF A CAMP-MEETING IN GLOUSTER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 7 (October 1824): 397. For narrative flow, I reverse the order of these separate phrases, but the meaning remains the same as in the original.
[124] "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON ROCKINGHAM CIRCUIT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (July 1826): 273, regarding previous year's camp-meeting.
[125] "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON HANOVER CIRCUIT," and "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON BOTETOURT CIRCUIT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (November 1826): 432, 433.
[126] "ACCOUNT OF A CAMP-MEETING HELD ON LONG-ISLAND, NEW-YORK STATE, FROM THE 7TH TO THE 13TH OF AUGUST, 1821," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (October 1821): 387. This occurred at a time when a resident referred to Brooklyn as "this village," in "PROGRESS OF THE WORK OF GOD IN BROOKLYN, LONG-ISLAND, Methodist Magazine [New York City] 6 (March 1823): 117.
[127] Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 266; Abel Stevens, Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, D.D. (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1863), 203 (for his appointment as presiding elder of the Rhinebeck District of eastern New York in May 1813), 222 (for end of that appointment in June 1817), 243 (from "1820-1828, Bangs was also editor of the Methodist Magazine"). Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 79n55 cited an 1853 edition of Bangs (which had same volume and page as for my quote from the 1839 edition); see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[128] "REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 5 (October 1822): 400; Peck, Life and Times of Rev. George Peck, 144 (for the 1825 camp meeting). Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 75n19, cited Peck's autobiography; see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[129] When days of the week or dates of the month were given in the sources cited for this article, 63 percent of camp-meetings began on Thursday or Friday, compared with a random expectation of 28.6 percent for those days combined. In addition to the starting days already given in the text for meetings of four to six days duration, Thursday or Friday was the starting day for the shortest camp-meetings (three-days) in Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, [3, "Our camp meeting was held at Sharon, from Friday the 27th"], 17 ("the camp meeting at Petersburgh began on Friday the 26th"); Anonymous, Treatise on the Proceedings of a Camp- Meeting Held in Bern, N.Y. specified in the title that it Commenced on Friday, the Seventh of September, 1810, and Ended the Monday Following; "DESCRIPTION OF A CAMP-MEETING HELD ON FAIRFIELD CIRCUIT, LANCASTER DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (December 1819): 474 (began Friday and ended on Monday). Also Thursday or Friday was the starting day for camp-meetings whose closing dates were not given in Peck, Early Methodism Within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference from 1788 to 1828, 154 ("Saturday, 11, brought us to the camp-meeting on Squire Light's ground. We found it had been in operation two days," i.e. since Thursday), 242 ("August 9 [1805--Friday]. A Camp-meeting was held on my circuit, which was kept up almost day and night"), 429 ("Our camp-meeting commenced on the 13th of September [Thursday]" in 1821), 437-38 ("This year [1825] a camp-meeting was held in Canaan, commencing on the seventh of September"--Wednesday); "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON OHIO DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (August 1819): 309 (for Friday, 4 June 1819 and Thursday, 10 June 1819); "ACCOUNT OF THE REVIVAL AND PROGRESS OF THE WORK OF GOD IN FOUNTAIN-HEAD CIRCUIT THROUGH THE LAST YEAR," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (February 1821): 70-72 (for Friday, 11 June 1819, followed by camp-meetings starting on the two following Fridays); "ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD IN NASHVILLE DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (May 1821): 193-94 (for Friday, 21 July 1820, for Thursday, 3 August 1820, for Thursday, 21 September 1820); "PROGRESS OF THE WORK OF GOD ON HUDSON-RIVER DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 5 (December 1822): 474 (for Thursday, 27 June 1822); "ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD IN HOLSTON DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 7 (September 1824): 352 (for Friday, 19 September 1823); "GOOD EFFECTS OF CAMPMEETINGS," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (August 1825): 321 (for Friday 24 June 1825); "STATE OF RELIGION ON THE SUSQUEHANNAH DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (December 1825): 481 (for Thursday, 11 August 1825, and for Thursday, 15 September 1825).
[130] John Stewart, Highways and Hedges; or, Fifty Years of Western Methodism (Cincinnati: Hitchcock and Walden; New York: Carlton and Lanahan, 1872), 80 (for quote), with 1818 as the year of his first camp-meeting (44, 51).
[131] Latimer, Three Brothers, 22; Blakeslee, "NOTES FOR A HISTORY OF METHODISM IN PHELPS," manuscript page 7.
[132] Barzun and Graff, Modern Researcher, 115.
[133] "Effects of Drunkenness," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 28 June 1820, [2], which is fully transcribed in my note 7.
[134] In one instance, Methodist ministers were unable to dissuade some revivalists from leaving an August camp-meeting with their families on Tuesday evening, but the camp-meeting itself adjourned during the daytime on Wednesday. See "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON HANOVER CIRCUIT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (November 1826): 433.
[135] "GENESEE CONFERENCE," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (August 1826): 313.
[136] "Aggregate amount of each description of persons within the Northern District of New York," with totals for various towns, including Palmyra, from unnumbered page in manuscript U.S. census of 1820 for Ontario County, New York, microfilm 193,717 in LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[137] Samuel Gregg, The History of Methodism Within the Bounds of the Erie Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1865), 194 (for Paddock's licensing in 1817); Z. [Zechariah] Paddock, Memoir of Rev. Benjamin G. Paddock (New York: Nelson & Phillips; Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden, 1875), 163n (for "special earthly temple"); compare my note 4 about the latter author and his brother Benjamin.
[138] Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 142 (for second quote); my note 127. Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 79n55 cited an 1853 edition of Bangs (which had same volume and page as for my quote from the 1839 edition); see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[139] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 11.
[140] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, [4], [5], 6; Anonymous, Treatise on the Proceedings of a Camp-Meeting Held in Bern, N.Y., 4-5, 9; Anonymous, Short Account of the Proceedings of the Camp Meeting, Holden By the Methodists, In Pittsfield, [New York], [5], 7, 8, 12, 13. In keeping with Methodist regimentation wherever these camp-meetings were held, "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON OHIO DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 2 (August 1819), 310, reported: "The solemn trumpet had summoned us to the concert of prayer"; and "ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD IN NASHVILLE DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (May 1821), 192 ("We had the trumpet blown according to the order of the meeting"); also "GOOD EFFECTS OF CAMPMEETINGS," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (August 1825): 321; "Campmeeting at Compo, Con. [Connecticut]," and "NEWBURGH CAMPMEETING," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (November 1825): 435, 441; also Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 267.
[141] "A SHORT ACCOUNT OF A CAMP-MEETING HELD AT COW-HARBOUR, LONGISLAND, WHICH COMMENCED AUGUST 11th, 1818," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 1 (September 1818): 359; Anonymous, Faithful Narrative of the Transactions Noticed At the Camp-Meeting, In Goshen, Connecticut, 12 ("about three o'clock [AM,] as I judged, the exercises concluded ... [and] I wished for day," emphasis in original); also Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, [6]; Anonymous, Short Account of the Proceedings of the Camp Meeting, Holden By the Methodists, In Pittsfield, [New York], 12-13, 21 ("Thursday morning at one o'clock [AM,] a sermon was preached"), 22 ("Between the hours of four and five [AM,] they formed their circular prayer meetings").
[142] Orsamus Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase (Rochester, NY: William Alling, 1851), 214, reprinted in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 3:49.
[143] "Campmeeting at Compo, Con. [Connecticut]," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (November 1825): 438 (first quote); Wright, Sketches of the Life and Labors of James Quinn, 108 (second section of quotes).
[144] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 12 (for "several thousands"), 11-12 (for rest of my quotes); see the preaching stand, with its inclined roof of boards, in illustration labeled "A western camp meeting in 1819. after lithograph by J. Miller," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969): 60. Concerning the physical misrepresentations within this commonly published lithograph, see last paragraph in my note 75 and see last comments in my note 145.
[145] "Campmeeting at Compo, Con. [Connecticut]," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (November 1825): 438 (for quote and also "a congregation of ten thousand"). For a mile as equal to 1760 yards, see "WEIGHTS AND MEASURES" entry-chart in any standard dictionary, or do Google search on Internet; for American football field as 100 yards in length, see DK Illustrated Oxford Dictionary (London: DK Publishing; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 317, or do Google search on Internet. Thus, three-fourths of a mile equals 1320 yards, which equals 13.2 football fields. Compare with the inaccurately compressed space and unrealistic visual perspective in illustration labeled "A western camp meeting in 1819. after lithograph by J. Miller," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969): 60; also see last paragraph in my note 75.
[146] "GENESEE CONFERENCE," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (August 1826): 313 (for "not less than ten thousand people" attending Palmyra's camp-meeting).
[147] Anonymous, Treatise on the Proceedings of a Camp-Meeting Held in Bern, N.Y., [3]. For a rod as equal to 5.5 yards, see "WEIGHTS AND MEASURES" entry-chart in any standard dictionary, or do Google search on Internet; for length of football field, see my note 145.
[148] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 17.
[149] Latimer, Three Brothers, 22; Blakeslee, "NOTES FOR A HISTORY OF METHODISM IN PHELPS," manuscript page 7; Backman, "Awakenings in the Burned-Over District," 307; Backman, Joseph Smith's First Vision, 74n34. Disbelievers of Smith's narrative about an 1820 revival are not the only ones who have overlooked Palmyra's 1818 camp-meeting revival, as described by Reverend Seager. Anderson, "Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision," 373, likewise claimed that the town's pre-1820 revival was in 1817. See the same oversight as discussed in narrative for my notes 32, 55, and 66.
[150] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 3.
[151] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 12.
[152] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 125.
[153] Anonymous, Treatise on the Proceedings of a Camp-Meeting Held in Bern, N.Y., 3 ("about thirty feet square"); Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 131 ("at least twenty-five feet square"); Anonymous, Faithful Narrative of the Transactions Noticed At the Camp-Meeting, In Goshen, Connecticut, 5 ("two or three acres"); also see revivalists standing in the cleared "altar" space in front of the preaching stand, in illustration labeled "A western camp meeting in 1819. after lithograph by J. Miller," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969): 60. Concerning the physical misrepresentations within this commonly published lithograph, see last paragraph in my note 75 and see last comments in my note 145.
[154] "Campmeeting at Compo, Con. [Connecticut]," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (November 1825): 438. In contrast with the organizer's comment in 1825 that his camp-meeting's tents had a capacity of hundreds, in 1839 Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 266, more conservatively suggested that the largest tents should accommodate "a hundred individuals" each. See end of the first paragraph within my note 75 for example of a family bringing its own tent.
[155] "LETTER FROM THOMAS KENNERLY," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 3 (April 1820): 156, concerning a camp-meeting "in August last." Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 125, 140, distinguished between "family tents" and the "society tents" provided by the Methodist organizers. For "society" as another way of referring to the Methodist Church, see "`Plain Truth' is received," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 5 July 1820, [2], which is fully transcribed in my note 8; The Discipline of the Methodist Society: As Adopted in the City of New-York, 16th of July, 1821 (New York: "Printed for the Society" by Bolmore, 1821); also see the family-sized tents in illustration labeled "A western camp meeting in 1819. after lithograph by J. Miller," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969): 60. Concerning the physical misrepresentations within this commonly published lithograph, see last paragraph in my note 75 and see last comments in my note 145.
[156] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 122.
[157] "CAMPMEETING ON THE CHAMPLAIN DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (December 1825): 483.
[158] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 125, which stated in full: "For obvious reasons, the clearing of the ground, trimming of trees, and especially the grading [i.e., leveling of the ground in front of the preaching stand], should be done some weeks before the meeting." By implication, his estimate of "weeks" included the time necessary to erect "an hundred family tents, or their equivalent in society tents" which he had already mentioned on this page.
[159] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 120-21.
[160] "Great Revivals in Religion" and "Extract from a letter from a gentleman in Providence, R.I. to his friend in this town, dated May 1, 1820," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 7 June 1820, [1]. Emphasis in originals.
[161] Enoch Mudge, The American Camp-Meeting Hymn Book (Boston: Joseph Burdakin, 1818), vii (for first quote), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 44918; Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 267 (for second quote).
[162] Anonymous, A Poetical Description of a Methodist Camp-Meeting (Philadelphia: N.p., 1819), 14n, first printed in New York City in 1807 as A Poem Written on a Methodist Camp-Meeting, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 49145.
[163] "GENESEE CONFERENCE," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 9 (August 1826): 313.
[164] Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 29.
[165] Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 101. His statement of unconditional generality about the characteristics of "a camp meeting" went far beyond that page's arguments against apologist claims for a revival in Vienna (now named Phelps), New York in 1819-20. In 1969 Walters claimed in "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 77n46, that he had "examined all the issues of the following ... The Methodist Magazine (Jan. 1818-Dec. 1821)," and he cited various issues of the magazine's volumes for 1824, 1825, and 1826 in his 1969 source-notes 75nn19-20, 76n22, 76n30, 76n32, 77n43, 79n59.
To me, it is therefore inconceivable that this minister-researcher was unaware of the repeatedly described characteristics of camp-meetings in that official Methodist source, characteristics which he either misrepresented or concealed in his articles of 1967, 1969, 1980, and in his posthumously published book of 1994. Thus, I can only conclude that Reverend Wesley P. Walters knowingly and intentionally misled his readers about the significance of camp-meetings that he knew occurred on the outskirts of Palmyra in June 1818 and in June 1820. See comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5 and 13.
[166] Report in 1810 by Anonymous, Treatise on the Proceedings of a Camp-Meeting Held in Bern, N.Y., 10. By contrast, Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 266, stated in 1839 that his experience was with camp-meetings in New York, and that "five hundred" was their smallest attendance (268). Not only had he served as presiding elder of the Rhinebeck District in the eastern part of the state from 1813 to 1817, but Bangs was also editor of the Methodist Magazine from 1820-1828 (see my note 127). Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 79n55 cited an 1853 edition of Bangs (which had same volume and page as for this quote from the 1839 edition), and this should have alerted Walters to the fact that Palmyra's camp-meetings of June 1818 and June 1820 should not simply be dismissed as insignificant; see the two paragraphs in narrative before my note 137, and see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[167] Simpson, American Methodist Pioneer, 318 (for diary entry on Thursday, 4 August 1809).
[168] Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 64-65, 66, 69, 76n37, 77n40; Walters, "Reply to Dr. Bushman," 98-99; Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 96-98; Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 17-18; Palmer, Insider's View of Mormon Origins, 241, 243; Marquardt, Rise of Mormonism, 13, 15-17.
[169] "AN ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD IN CANAAN, N.Y.," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 3 (October 1820): 393.
[170] "REVIVAL OF THE WORK OF GOD ON OCONEE DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 6 (February 1823): 72.
[171] "REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN WELLFLEET," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 4 (February 1821): 78 (for "upwards of twenty" converts); "ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF GOD ON RHINEBECK DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 7 (September 1824): 353 ("ever since our Camp-meeting in Hilldale, in September last, about twenty, principally heads of families, have been added unto the Lord's people in this place"), emphasis in original. Concerning the previously quoted minister who felt comforted with a dozen converts out of 600 revivalists, he next held another camp-meeting that "was more numerously attended than the others ... and about twenty converted" at the largest of these camp-meetings in September 1822. See "REVIVAL OF THE WORK OF GOD ON OCONEE DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 6 (February 1823): 72. For Palmyra's 1818 camp-meeting, see quotes for my note 4 and within my notes 5, 32, 55.
[172] "Revival in Bridgetown, N.J." [page-heading], Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (June 1825): 238.
[173] Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 345-46 (1820 statistics of total "white" and "colored" members for all circuits in Ontario District), as compared with 330 (1819 statistics of total "white" and "colored" members for the same circuits in what was then "Genesee District"), which are summarized here as follows: Lyons Circuit had 374 total in the July 1820 report, as compared with its previously higher total of 673 in the July 1819 report; Seneca Circuit had 438 total in the July 1820 report, as compared with its previously higher total of 1,010 in the July 1819 report; Ontario Circuit had 671 total in the July 1820 report, as compared with its previously higher total of 677 in the July 1819 report; Canandaigua Circuit had 88 total in the July 1820 report, as compared with its previously higher total of 200 in the July 1819 report; Crooked Lake had 374 total in the July 1820 report, as compared with its previously higher total of 656 in the July 1819 report. Such comparison is not possible for the following circuits listed for Ontario District in July 1820, but not in the report for 1819: Catharine, Danville, and Prattstown. Because the above minutes do not specify the exact dates these reports were submitted for the Genesee Conference's annual meeting, see Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 158 (for its annual meeting and reports as of 1 July 1819), 165 (for its annual meeting and reports as of 20 July 1820).
[174] Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, 214, reprinted in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 3: 50; also discussion in Anderson, "Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision," 378-84. For the connection of Phelps with Vienna in western New York and for the distance of nearly fourteen miles from Palmyra to Vienna (now named Phelps), see my note 4.
Vogel, Making of a Prophet, 589n33, implied that it is anachronistic to apply Orsamus Turner's description to 1820 (since "the Methodists did not acquire their property in the woods on the Vienna Road until July 1821"). However, Making of a Prophet, 153, contradicted Vogel's apparent objection by affirming: "It was this kind of revival meeting that Joseph Jr. experienced firsthand on the outskirts of Palmyra Village," and Vogel's index (705) identified this statement on page 153 as applying to "Palmyra (NY) ... revivals (1817)." With regard to the 1817 revival he affirmed, Vogel clearly recognized that the Methodists had no need to own the property on which they held a revival (as discussed in text for my note 82 and within the note itself). However, he paradoxically seemed to assert that such ownership was necessary in 1820, the year for which he denied there was a Palmyra revival.
As part of a letter to the editor in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 16 (Spring 1983): 6, Marvin S. Hill referred to Turner's statement and commented: "Charles Brown says that Joseph acquired a `spark of Methodist fire' on the Vienna Road and became an exhorter in the evening meetings. We have no indication here as to whether Joseph's interest was brief or otherwise, but Brown's comment that he was an exhorter at `meetings' suggests some length of time." Hill wrote as if (1) Brown were alive to be a contemporary witness of an 1820 revival and (2) as if Brown's statement were independent of Turner, both of which I sincerely wish were true. However, neither of which was the case. Hill was referring to a source described in Backman, Joseph Smith's First Vision, 16n20, as "Charles Brown, `Manchester in the Early Days.' Files of the Shortsville Enterprise Press, October 18, 1902; October 25, 1902, copy located in the Brigham Young University Library." Not alive to be a credible witness of anything in 1820, Brown was obviously paraphrasing in 1902 what he had read in Turner's 1851 book. Also see comments about Hill's approach in my note 90.
[175] Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 100; also Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 29, 44, 54-55; Vogel, Religious Seekers, 29-30; see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[176] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, [4-5], 6-9. Likewise, "many fell to the ground under the mighty power of God, while shouts of the redeemed seem to rend the heavens," in "A SHORT ACCOUNT OF A CAMP-MEETING HELD AT COW-HARBOUR, LONG-ISLAND, WHICH COMMENCED AUGUST 11th, 1818," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 1 (September 1818): 359.
[177] Ward, Account of Three Camp-Meetings, 12.
[178] Gorham, Camp Meeting Manual, 155-56; also in the 1839 edition of Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 2: 266-67, which included a tenth rule that applied only to New York City, where Bangs had been editor of the Methodist Magazine from 1820 to 1828 (see my note 127).
[179] "GOOD EFFECTS OF CAMPMEETINGS," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 8 (August 1825): 321.
[180] "NOTES FOR A HISTORY OF METHODISM IN PHELPS by Rev. M. P. Blakeslee, 1886," manuscript pages 7-8. Walters, "Reply to Dr. Bushman," 98, referred disparagingly (and without mentioning Reverend House) to the "late reminiscence by a Mr. Sarsnett reporting a camp meeting near Vienna."
Interestingly, Backman and Bushman ignored Sarsnett's testimony about the 1820 camp-meeting and instead emphasized Blakeslee's very quotable statement by Mrs. Sarepta Marsh Baker (sometimes without identifying her by name) that this revival was a "religious cyclone which swept over the whole region round about." Blakeslee's phrase (also on page 7 of his manuscript) was "flaming spiritual advance." See Backman, "Awakenings in the Burned-Over District," 308; Bushman, "First Vision Story Revived," 88-89; Bushman, "Mr. Bushman Replies," 8; Backman, Joseph Smith's First Vision, 89. By contrast, Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 105, wrote that in giving this description, "Blakeslee is three years too early," an assessment repeated in Hill, "First Vision Controversy," 38 ("was three years too early"), and in Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 32 ("three years too early").
Ironically, neither believing apologists nor disbelieving critics have been willing to consider that Mrs. Baker's statement (which they often attributed to Blakeslee) was a conflation that linked the 1820 camp-meeting she and other residents of Phelps attended with the dramatic revivals in "the whole region" during 1824-25. Likewise, for Blakeslee's quotable phrase. My view is that Mrs. Baker and Rev. Blakeslee both made the same kind of conflation that Joseph Smith Jr. did in his own narratives.
[181] Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 102-06, dismissed Blakeslee's account as both irrelevant and erroneous, but again made no comment about the eyewitness Sarsnett's emphasis on Elisha House. Instead, he attacked Blakeslee's passing comment: "For 1820, Loring Grant and John Baggerly were the preachers" (manuscript page 7). To the contrary, Walters asserted: "when the Rev. Blakeslee speaks of the year 1820, he does not mean the calendar year 1820, but the Methodist conference year 1820 ... [which] ran from the summer of one year to the summer of the next, in this case between the summer of 1820 and 1821," and concerning Grant and Baggerly, "these men were not appointed to the Lyons Circuit (on which Vienna was located) until the July 1820 conference, too late to fit the `spring of eighteen hundred and twenty' date mentioned in Joseph Smith's account" (103); stated similarly in Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 30-31. Emphasizing the precise date of 20 July 1820 for the appointment of Grant and Baggerly is one way of understanding Blakeslee's chronological introduction to Sarsnett's reminiscence, but it is not the only way.
First, the manuscript's narrative clearly indicated that Sarsnett converted to Methodism at a "camp-meeting" before the events Blakeslee chronicled for November-December 1820. As indicated in my narrative text, the first essential question is how far in advance of November? Blakeslee did not address that question, but the camp-meeting season began in June. The second essential question is where exactly? Blakeslee understood that Sarsnett's camp-meeting occurred "on the farm of W.W. Gates" on the outskirts of Phelps (then named Vienna), but Palmyra's newspaper (which Walters did not mention in his assessment of Blakeslee) verified that by Sunday, 25 June 1820, a camp-meeting was occurring in the "vicinity" of Palmyra. The newspaper's apprentice Orsamus Turner said Joseph Smith's conversion occurred "in the camp meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road" (see my note 174), but Vienna (now named Phelps) did not have its own newspaper in 1820, so residents depended on the Palmyra Register. As acknowledged in my narrative, the evidence connecting Palmyra's 1820 camp-meeting with Blakeslee's narrative is nowhere near definitive, but it allows for my conclusion that the two accounts referred to the same camp-meeting, a revival that residents of Phelps attended on the outskirts of Palmyra. For the connection of Phelps with Vienna in western New York and for the distance of nearly fourteen miles from Palmyra to Phelps, see my note 4.
Second, Reverend Baggerly's association with Phelps did not begin in July 1820. The History of Ontario County, New York stated (181) that he had been the resident minister of "the Methodist Episcopal Church at Clifton Springs" since 1808, and that Clifton Springs was one of the "villages" that were "partly in Phelps" (179). Concerning the ease of Reverend Baggerly's attendance at Palmyra's June 1820 camp-meeting, Clifton Springs was only ten miles distant. Baggerly (sometimes spelled "Beggarly" or "Beggerly") was assigned to the Crooked Lake Circuit as of July 1818, replacing Loring Grant as its circuit-rider (Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 302, 318, 337). Due south of Syracuse and nearly seventy-seven miles from Baggerly's residence in Clifton Springs, Crooked Lake involved enormous distances for his assignment as circuit-rider, but this was not uncommon. For example, Aurora Seager resided in Phelps (Vienna) while his assigned circuit was in Clarence, New York (my note 4), nearly eighty-two miles from his home; also Hosmer, Autobiography of Rev. Alvin Torry, 214 ("I immediately took leave of my mother, and started for my circuit, which was some sixty miles distant" from home); Peck, Early Methodism Within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference from 1788 to 1828, 353 ("it took me nearly a week to reach my circuit"); also consult http://www.mapquest.com/directions on the Internet (for 9.94 miles as the distance from Palmyra to Clifton Springs, New York, for 76.65 miles from Clifton Springs to Crooked Lake, New York, for 81.7 miles as the distance from Phelps to Clarence, New York)
Third, Reverend Grant's association with Phelps apparently also pre-dated 1820. After Baggerly replaced him in the Crooked Lake Circuit, Grant was assigned to the Seneca Circuit in Ontario District for 1818 and 1819. Depending on which Seneca village the circuit centered, Grant's assignment was either very close (8 miles) or relatively close (25 miles) to Phelps, where both Grant and Baggerly were reported as residents in the 1820 census. Like Seager, Torry, Peck, and Baggerly, Reverend Grant also traveled from his residence to his assigned circuit. See Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 318, 337; Jackson, New York 1820 Census Index, 18, 192; consult http://www.mapquest.com/directions on the Internet (for 8.22 miles as the distance from Phelps to Seneca Castle, Ontario County, New York, for 25.2 miles as the distance from Phelps to Seneca Point, Ontario County, New York).
[182] Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 141.
[183] Jackson, New York 1820 Census Index, 235. For the connection of Phelps with Vienna in western New York and for the distance of nearly fourteen miles from Palmyra to Vienna (now named Phelps), see my note 4.
[184] "List of Letters REMAINING in the POST-OFFICE at Palmyra, June 30th 1820," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 19 JULY 1820, [4]; Ronald Vern Jackson, Gary Ronald Teeples, and David Schaefermeyer, eds., New York 1810 Census Index (Bountiful, UT: Accelerated Indexing Systems, 1976), 12; Jackson, New York 1820 Census Index, 18; consult http://www.mapquest.com/directions on the Internet (for 15.0 miles as the distance from Palmyra to Lyons, New York).
Because he was a resident of Palmyra (Jackson, New York 1820 Census Index, 247), my narrative does not include "Rev. Jeremiah Irons," even though he was also in the above list. Whereas non-residents were in the list because mail was intended to reach them while they visited Palmyra, Reverend Irons might actually have been away from his Palmyra residence during June, despite the village camp-meeting. However, my own view is that he attended it and was the reason for Joseph Smith's linking the Baptists with the 1820 revival held by the Methodists. For Irons as Palmyra's Baptist minister, see Minutes of the Ontario Baptist Association Held At Avon, September 22d and 23d, 1819 (N.p., 1819), 3, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 47119; Minutes of the Ontario Baptist Association, Holden At Benton, September 26th and 27th, 1821 (Canandaigua, NY: John A. Stevens, 1821), 3, not available in Shaw and Shoemaker, but in Lee Library; Backman, Joseph Smith's First Vision, 65.
[185] James H. Hotchkin, A History of the Purchase and Settlements of Western New York, and of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Presbyterian Church in That Section (New York: M. W. Dodd, 1848), 376 ("Rev. Benjamin Baily [sic] was installed as pastor, and sustained to that relation till Sept. 5th 1821, when he was dismissed"). Backman, Joseph Smith's First Vision, 69, follows Hotchkin's spelling of "Baily."
[186] "List of Letters REMAINING in the POST-OFFICE at Palmyra, June 30th 1820," Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 19 JULY 1820, [4], for "Deacon Barber" and "Samuel [sic] Talcot." The latter was a misspelling, as demonstrated in Jackson, New York 1820 Census Index, 457, which shows no head-of-household named Samuel Talcot, and only two persons named Samuel Talcott--one in Madison County and one in Herkimer County. The same index-page shows no Samuel Talbotor Talbut in Palmyra, nor even in Ontario County, but does list Samuel "Talbott" in Pompey, Onondaga County. My narrative text identifies Barber and explains the significance of the town of Pompey for Palmyra's 1820 camp-meeting.
[187] Consult http://www.mapquest.com/directions on the Internet (for 84.74 miles as the distance from Palmyra to Pompey, New York, and for 17.85 miles as the distance from Palmyra to Victor, New York); History of Ontario County, New York, 203 (for "Rev. Samuel Talbot" as one of the early Methodists in Victor); see my note 186 for identifying him as the person listed in Palmyra's postal notice for 30 June 1820 and for his residence in Pompey.
[188] Jackson, New York 1820 Census Index, 24 (for absence of persons named Barber in Palmyra, with the only other Ontario County families by that surname living in Gorham, Groveland, Seneca, and Victor); Elliot G. Storke, History of Cayuga County, 1789-1879 (Syracuse, NY: D. Mason, 1879), 422 (for "Barbers Corners, which place derives its name from Deacon William Barber who was an early settler [in 1796], and died there February 2d, 1844, aged 77"), also 373 (for incorporation of a "Methodist Society" in 1846 by William B. Barber, possibly a namesake-son of Deacon Barber); with no further information (according to research report dated 3 July 2006) about Deacon William Barber in the files of the Cayuga-Owasco Lakes Historical Society, Moravia, New York, which has assembled information about several towns, including Scipio. This "Deacon William Barber" is different from the William Barber of Gorham, Ontario County, whose biographies do not mention him holding any church office. Consult http://www.mapquest.com/directions on the Internet (for 49.76 miles as the distance from Palmyra to Scipioville, New York, and for Scipioville as the town nearest the junction named "Barbers Corners" on maps). For fifty-to-sixty miles as a distance traveled by camp-meeting attenders, see my note 109.
Various denominations have the office of deacon, but I have been unable to find William Barber as a deacon, minister, or preacher in any of the following sources relevant to the churches of western New York during this period: "Who are the deacons?" (followed by names for all of North America) each year in Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 22-568; Minutes of the Cayuga Baptist Association Held With the First Church in Camillus, Sept 18 and 19, 1817 (Auburn, NY: H. C. Southwick, 1817), which included deacons, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 40094; Minutes of the Cayuga Baptist Association, Held With the First Church in Marcellus, September 16th and 17th, 1818 (Auburn, NY: J. Beardslee, 1818), which included deacons, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 43195; Minutes of the Ontario Baptist Association Held At Avon, September 22d and 23d, 1819, which included deacons; Minutes of the Ontario Baptist Association, Holden At Benton, September 26th and 27th, 1821, which included deacons; Hotchkin, History of the Purchase and Settlements of Western New York, and of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Presbyterian Church in That Section, which also included Congregationalist ministers; A. Russell Belden, History of the Cayuga Baptist Association (Auburn, NY: Derby & Miller, 1851), which included congregations from Scipio to Palmyra; "A list of all who have been members of the Genesee Conference, but whose names were taken from the roll previous to the Centennial session, 1910," in Ray Allen, A Century of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1810-1910 (Rochester, NY: By the author, 1911), 69.
[189] Totten's third New York edition (1813) of Collection of the Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 6; his fifth New York edition (1815) of Collection of the Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 8; his eighth New York edition (1817) of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 8.
[190] Stith Mead, A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs (Lynchburg, VA: Jacob Haas, 1811), 23, with copyright [page 4] for "Rev. Stith Mead [--] Preacher of the Gospel [--] M.E.C. [Methodist Episcopal Church]," available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 23361.
[191] Hymns on Select Passages of Scripture: With Others Usually Sung at Camp-Meetings, &c. (Poughkeepsie, NY: Paraclete Potter, 1811), 83-84, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 23081.
[192] Emma Smith, A Collection of Sacred Hymns for the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Kirtland, OH: F. G. Williams, 1835), "Hymn 79. L.M." [Ladies Meeting hymn] (for "I Know that my Redeemer lives").
[193] Hymns on Select Passages of Scripture: With Others Usually Sung at Camp-Meetings, 80 (with first line: "O When shall I see Jesus" on page 79); compare with Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 4; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 11-12.
[194] Mead, General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 110 (for "HYMN LXIV--Longing to see Jesus," with first line: "O WHEN shall I see Jesus" on page 109). In all the reprintings of this hymn before 1820, only Mead phrased one line as "He'll not forget to lend."
[195] A COLLECTION OF THE MOST ADMIRED HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS, With the Choruses affixed, AS USUALLY SUNG AT CAMP-MEETINGS, &c. (New York: John C. Totten, 1809), 78, first edition, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 17250; John C. Totten, comp., HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS, WITH THE CHORUSES AFFIXED: as usually sung at CAMP-MEETINGS, &C, 9th ed. (New York: By the author, 1817), 64, available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 42312.
[196] Elias Smith and Abner Jones, Hymns, Original and Selected, For the Use of Christians, 8th ed. (Boston: Thomas G. Bangs, 1817), 4 (for "HYMN I. P.M. [Prayer Meeting hymn] Longing for Heaven," with first line: "O WHEN shall I see Jesus," and with last line as the variant: "Though offner you request"), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 42133; Amos Pilsbury, The Sacred Songster; Or, A Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs For the Use of Religious Assemblies, 4th ed. (New York: Duke Goodman and Abraham Paul, 1819), 162 (for "Hymn CXLVI. O WHEN Shall I see Jesus," with last line as the variant "Though often you request"), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 49117; The Spiritual Songster: Containing a Variety of Camp-Meeting, and Other Hymns ("Frederick-Town," MD: George Kolb, 1819), 33-34 (for "Hymn 15. O When Shall I See Jesus"), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 49481.
[197] Totten's first edition of COLLECTION OF THE MOST ADMIRED HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS (1809), 101 (titled "THE HEAVENLY MARINER," with first line: "THROUGH tribulation's [sic] deep" on page 100); also repeated republished until Totten's ninth edition, titled HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS, WITH THE CHORUSES AFFIXED: as usually sung at CAMP-MEETINGS, &C, 81.
[198] Smith and Jones, Hymns, Original and Selected, For the Use of Christians, 114 (for "HYMN CVIII. P.M. [Prayer Meeting hymn] The Heavenly Mariner").
[199] For quoted examples of American theophanies published from 1791 to 1826, see Neal E. Lambert and Richard H. Cracroft, "Literary Form and Historical Understanding: Joseph Smith's First Vision," Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980): 34-35, for published examples by Protestants whom Lambert and Cracroft dismissed as "St. Pauls-on-the-Hudson" (33); Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1998 ed.), 14-16; Richard Lyman Bushman, "The Visionary World of Joseph Smith," BYU Studies 17 (1997-98), No. 1: 183-204; Bushman "with" Woodworth, Rough Stone Rolling, 41; also Peck, Early Methodism Within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference from 1788 to 1828, 187, observed that in 1800 "the Spirit was poured out from on high upon multitudes, and men and women, old and young, dreamed dreams, saw visions, and were filled with the spirit of prophecy."
[200] Totten's first edition of COLLECTION OF THE MOST ADMIRED HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS (1809), 122 ("PART II" OF "Hymn 85. C.M. [Camp Meeting hymn] THE BACKSLIDER. PART I," with first line: "YE happy souls," by which the second part of the hymn was also indexed).
[201] Mead, General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 63 (for stanza "One ev'ning, pensive as I lay"), which began on page 62 ("HYMN XXII. Recovery from despair," with first line: "YE happy souls, whose peaceful minds"); Hymns on Select Passages of Scripture: With Others Usually Sung at Camp-Meetings, 87 (for "The Backslider.—Part II,” with first line: "One ev'ning, pensive"), which was continuation of hymn on 62 (with first line: "Ye happy souls"); A COLLECTION OF THE MOST ADMIRED HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS, With the Choruses affixed, AS USUALLY SUNG AT CAMP-MEETINGS, &c., 2nd ed. (New York: John C. Totten, 1811), 122 ("PART II" OF "Hymn 64. C.M. [Camp Meeting hymn] THE BACKSLIDER. PART I," with first line: "YE happy souls" on page 120), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 22563; Peggy Dow, A Collection of Camp Meeting Hymns, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: D. Dickinson, 1816), 119 (from "86. A SPIRITUAL HYMN," with first line: "Ye happy Souls"), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 37468; Social and Camp-meeting Songs for the Pious, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: F. Lucas, J. J. Harrod, and John D. Toy, 1818), 130 (of "HYMN 81," with first line: "YE happy souls" on page 128), available as Shaw and Shoemaker item 45747.
[202] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 5, 6; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 14, 16, 20.
[203] John H. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 121-22 (with visions of Jesus on 114, 122), and 124 (for quote); also W. Stephen Gunter, The Limits of "Love Divine": John Wesley's Response to Antinomianism and Enthusiasm (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books/Abingdon Press, 1989), 13 ("This specific accusation of special inspirations and revelations was generally labelled enthusiasm"); and Umphrey Lee, The Historical Background of Early Methodist Enthusiasm (New York: AMS Press, 1967), 147-48 (founder John Wesley "would listen respectfully to the most boresome accounts of visions and inner impulse. But practically speaking, he so regulated this enthusiasm by doctrinal and organizational safeguards," that the final result was: "In Methodism, then, English enthusiasm in the classic sense, came to an end").
[204] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 6-7; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 21.
[205] Abner Chase's letter from Milo, New York, 1 July 1824, published as "REVIVAL OF RELIGION ON ONTARIO DISTRICT," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 7 (November 1824): 435; also Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 265, 286, 301, 318, 337, for Chase as responsible for more than one circuit from 1815 until his 1820 appointment as presiding elder of the Ontario District (which included Palmyra). He was still its presiding elder when he wrote this letter.
Because of the importance of Chase's letter to this essay and due to the erroneous use of his words as cited below, here is the full text of his statement on 1 July 1824 about the Ontario District: "Four years since, Unitarianism or Arianism seemed to threaten the entire overthrow of the work of God in some circuits on this District, and on some others, divisions and wild and ranting fanatics, caused the spirits of the faithful in a degree to sink" (Methodist Magazine, 7:435).
To support the existence of revivals before the First Vision of 1820, Hyrum L. Andrus, Joseph Smith: The Man and the Seer (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1960), 65, mistakenly applied Chase's words to the Genesee Conference's annual meeting of July 1819. However, Chase's 1824 statement about "four years" was an unambiguous reference to 1820 and (in context of his emphasis on revivals) applied to the Ontario District. Likewise, because of that local reference within the reverend's statement, Chase's words did not apply to the Genesee Conference's annual meeting of 20 July 1820, which convened in Niagara, Upper Canada (see Conable, 165; Porter, "Reverend George Lane," 332). There also was no conflict at the Niagara meeting, but instead "a dispassionate multitude [who] eagerly listen to the word of life," as described in the letter of ministers Henry Ryan and William Case from Niagara on 28 July 1820, published as "State of Religion In Upper Canada," Methodist Magazine [New York City] 3 (October 1820): 395.
On the other hand, to dispute the existence of a Palmyra revival in the year claimed for the First Vision, Walters, "New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival," 80n65, also misapplied Chase's 1824 statement by claiming that it referred to a dispute at the meeting of the national General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Baltimore in 1820 (the first convened since 1816). Walters was wrong for several reasons. First, Chase referred specifically to local developments of "this District" in New York, not to distant Maryland. Second, "wild and ranting fanatics" did not fit the way the Methodist minister's autobiography described his opponents in the calm and longstanding dispute: "For eight years previous to this the `presiding elder question' had agitated the Church generally and our Conference in particular ... But there were moments during the session of that General Conference when the fears of many were exacted for the safety and unity of the Church. But God interposed, and though a partial secession afterward took place, yet it was comparatively small," as quoted in Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 159, with capitalization differences from the original in Abner Chase Recollections of the Past (New York: Joseph Longking, 1846), 125-26. Third, "wild and ranting fanatics" was not consistent with the detailed minutes of this 1820 controversy, during which minister-delegates calmly expressed their opposing views at the General Conference in Baltimore, politely asked for extensions of the allotted time so that they could continue their arguments, which extensions the opposing delegates joined in voting to grant to the speakers. See Journals of the General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1796-1836 (New York: Carlton & Phillips, 1855), 211-13, 231, 236; see comments about Walters and his approach within my notes 5, 13, 165.
[206] Smith, et al., History of The Church, 1: 6; "Joseph Smith--History," 1: 21.
[207] Roberts, Comprehensive History, 1: 53, 56n10; John A. Widtsoe, Joseph Smith: Seeker After Truth, Prophet of God (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1951), 16; Hyrum L. Andrus, Doctrinal Commentary on the Pearl of Great Price (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1967), 429; Charles D. Tate Jr., "BYU Studies in the 1970s," BYU Studies 31 (1991): 2; comment of editors Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor for Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith, Revised and Enhanced (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996), 106n12; Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: 61n25.
[208] Porter, "Reverend George Lane," 335; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 337, 352; Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 160, 170.
[209] Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 265 (for Barlow in Ontario Circuit as of July 1815), 286 (for Barlow in Ontario Circuit as of July 1816), 318 (for Barlow's appointment to the Canandaigua Circuit in July 1819). For the distance, see my note 86.
[210] History of Ontario County, New York, 111 (for the date of Barlow's conversion in January 1820 from Methodist minister to being rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Canandaigua); Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 168 (for his abandoning Methodism at an unspecified date before the annual meeting of the Genesee Conference on 20 July 1820); parish register of Saint John's Episcopal Church, Canandaigua, New York (for Barlow performing his first Episcopal ordinance, a marriage, on 13 January 1820), microfilm 1,420,001, item 18, in LDS Family History Library.
[211] Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 337, 352.
[212] Jackson, New York 1820 Census Index, 403, listed only one Sarsnet/Sarsnett family in the entire state (with John as head-of-household in Phelps, Ontario County). He was the father of the 1820 camp-meeting's boy-convert Harry Sarsnett, who was about ten years old at this date. See microfilm 444,288 at LDS Family History Library for 1850 census of Phelps, Ontario County, New York, manuscript page 387, for Harry "Sarsnet" as age forty in 1850 (i.e. born in 1810). For the connection of Phelps with Vienna in western New York, see my note 4.
[213] Bushman, "Mr. Bushman Replies," 8 (for Phelps as "the more vigorous of the two villages in 1819 and 1820" regarding Methodism); Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 569 (for the creation of Palmyra Circuit within the Ontario District in 1828, in addition to the pre-existing Ontario Circuit), compared with 536-37 (when there was no Palmyra Circuit within that district as of the 1827 report); Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1829-1839 (New York: T. Mason, G. Lane, J. Collord, 1840), 158 (for the creation of "Vienna" Circuit within the Ontario District in 1832), compared with 111-12 (when there was no "Vienna" Circuit within that district as of the 1831 report); also narrative text for my note 173 about dramatic differences in rates of Methodist retention for Ontario Circuit (which included Palmyra) and Lyons Circuit (which included Phelps) after Palmyra's camp-meeting of June 1820. For Vienna as the name for the town of Phelps until the 1850s, see my note 4; for significance of Methodist circuits, see narrative discussion for my note 19.
As a clarification, I do not claim that 1820 was the only turning point for the comparative strength of Methodism in these two towns. Because the early membership records have been destroyed (see my note 16), it is not possible to verify whether the Methodist affiliation shifted back and forth between the two towns before 1820. Furthermore, since I have not made comparisons after the 1832 conference report, I have no knowledge about changes of Methodist strength in Palmyra and Vienna (now named Phelps) during subsequent years.
[214] Aside from Joseph Smith's statement quoted for my note 15, see my note 180 for discussion of references by Phelps resident Harry Sarsnett to this "camp-meeting" and by Reverend M. P. Blakeslee and Mrs. Sarepta Marsh Baker (also residents of Phelps) to this 1820 revival as causing a "flaming spiritual advance" and "religious cyclone which swept over the whole region round about"; also narrative text for my note 173 about dramatic differences in rates of Methodist retention for Ontario Circuit (which included Palmyra) and Lyons Circuit (which included Phelps) after Palmyra's camp-meeting of June 1820.
[215] "Barlow Marriage Records of New York," available as http://www.barlowgenealogy.com/NewYork/nymarr.html on the Internet; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, For the Years 1773-1828, 318 (for Chase's 1818 appointment to Pompey Circuit in Chenango District of Genesee Conference), 337 (for his same assignment as of July 1819); Conable, History of the Genesee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 143, 162, 170; also Chase Recollections of the Past, 125.
[216] Paul H. Peterson, untitled book review, BYU Studies 35 (1995), No. 4: 214, emphasis in original, as restatement of Walters, "Joseph Smith's First Vision Story Revisited," 98 ("The revival that occurred in Palmyra in the winter of 1824-1825, on the other hand, is the only one that matches all the details as set forth by Joseph Smith"--which Walters specified as "Joseph Smith's 1838 story" on page 99n4); also similar statement by Marvin S. Hill within my note 90.
[217] For significance of Joseph's seeking forgiveness prior to his First Vision, see Lambert and Cracroft, "Literary Form and Historical Understanding: Joseph Smith's First Vision," 36-37, 39; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1: 5-6; Quinn, Origins of Power, 3; McConkie and Millet, Choice Seer, 35, 370-71; Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: 27-28; Bushman "with" Woodworth, Rough Stone Rolling, 39-40.
As an alternative to myopic polarization, this essay provides new ways of understanding Joseph's narrative, analyzes previously neglected issues/data, and establishes a basis for perceiving in detail what the teenage boy experienced in the religious revivalism that led to his first theophany. This is conservative revisionism.
[post_title] => JOSEPH SMITH'S EXPERIENCE OF A METHODIST "CAMP-MEETING" IN 1820 [post_excerpt] => Dialogue E-Paper July 12, 2006As an alternative to myopic polarization, this essay provides new ways of understanding Joseph's narrative, analyzes previously neglected issues/data, and establishes a basis for perceiving in detail what the teenage boy experienced in the religious revivalism that led to his first theophany [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => joseph-smiths-experience-of-a-methodist-camp-meeting-in-1820 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-06 00:58:16 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-06 00:58:16 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=30803 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith
Richard Lloyd Anderson
Dialogue 4.2 (Summer 1971): 13–28
ormon history is a part of this magnificent proliferation of data and research techniques. Its own archives are in the midst of classification by professionally competent standards. There is hope for a new era, in which Mormon and non-Mormon may meet on the common ground of objective fact.
The second half of the twentieth century is an exciting time both to live and to pursue research. The field of history as a whole has been characterized by change and revision in past decades. New points of view are responsible for much rewriting of history. But if that is the major source of modification, historical composition, like current theology, will be characterized by impermanent (and perhaps impertinent) fashions. Any historian with the deep love of his discipline hopes for something better.
The study of the past is now characterized by the greater availability of information. Rare publications and inaccessible manuscripts can now he duplicated and placed in the private files of researchers. Indexes and other methods of information retrieval are constantly more available. There is no shortage of records in any historical field—only an acute deficiency of time on the part of the historian. Mormon history is a part of this magnificent proliferation of data and research techniques. Its own archives are in the midst of classification by professionally competent standards. There is hope for a new era, in which Mormon and non-Mormon may meet on the common ground of objective fact.
Since history attempts to reconstruct complex lives and movements by means of often meager documentation, it would be naïve to believe that research will neatly settle all questions of Mormon history. What can be realistically envisioned, however, is the better identification of the chief sources from which responsible historians must draw their inferences. Since history is a discipline whose accuracy is entirely dependent upon the testimony of eyewitnesses of events, a better study of the lives of the early Latter-day Saints will give the. perspective from which to evaluate their contemporary publications, diaries, and. recollections. Basically, the study .of Mormon origin resolves itself into the credibility of the earliest Mormons. Once this question is stated, the difficulty of answering it lies in the terribly conflicting opinions about Joseph Smith from the beginning. But one seasoned in human experience is hardly shocked to find vigorous reformers at the heart of controversy. In terms of probabilities, one ought not to take the angry reaction of some of Joseph Smith's neighbors at face value. One striking at the establishment will stand squarely before a vigorous backlash. The majority of the Smith family left personal recollections of their Palmyra-Manchester life. Yet non-Mormon historiography has virtually canonized antagonistic neighborhood affidavits. Since L.D.S. writing is even now very poorly publicized and distributed, the libraries of this country have typically ignored the main publishers of Salt Lake City and have ordered from trade lists containing interpretations of the Smiths based on hostile sources. Consequently, textbooks and studies are produced in ignorance that Mormon sources are relatively detailed on Mormon origins and present a picture of the Smiths quite opposite the malicious exposures. It is appalling to visit the smaller libraries and theological schools of the United States and see how consistently the typical Mormon collection simply does not make available the Smiths’ own recollections of their early lives. Such one-sided selectivity. whether accidental or not, cannot promote authentic history.
In the time of shoddy television and stereotyped movies, one, might even doubt that such a thing as authentic history is wanted. Perhaps the age that preferred the Victorian image of oppressed Mormon females to factual sociology is succeeded by our own that prefers historical novels to history itself. What is commonly labeled as the leading biography of Joseph Smith was immediately characterized by Vardis Fisher as "almost more a novel than a biography," on the ground that the author "rarely hesitates. to give the content of a mind or to explain motives which at best can only be surmised."[1] The ground of that criticism is the point of responsible history—speculations make fascinating reading, but do not qualify as factual until documented. Good history possesses a toughness of fiber that cannot be achieved by mere name dropping. That is to say, numerous footnotes are not the proof of history. That is historical which carefully follows the precise course laid out by sources invariably in a position to know - and which confesses ignorance where there is no such course. In the book just mentioned, there is only a partial compliance with source-oriented history.
No Man Knows My History builds its picture of young Joseph Smith as a religious deceiver· mainly from "the detailed affidavits of his Iieighbors.”[2] The story of obtaining these statements must leave an impression of crumbling foundations of any study erected upon these. One Philastus Hurlbut was excommunicated from the L.D.S.· Church for sexual immorality and duplicity in his professions of repentance.[3] With a clear motive of retaliation, he sought to e,c.pose Mormonism and its founder. His hatred against Joseph Smith is fairly measured by a court decree thereafter placing Hurlbut under bond "to keep the peace," based on the finding that the Mormon Prophet "had ground to fear . . . Doctor P. Hurlbut would wound, beat, or kill him, or destroy his property. . . .”[4] Hurlbut had a thesis to prove, since his work of collecting evidence was promoted and subsidized by an anti-Mormon citizens' committee, who publicly indicated their goals to establish Solomon Spaulding as the real author of the Book of Mormon and to "completely divest Joseph Smith of all claims to the character of an honest man, and place him at an immeasurable distance from the high station which he pretends to occupy.”[5] Nor is it clear that the personal statements gathered by Hurlbut present only the problem of vindictive· bias. His documents were shortly published by the editor E. D. Howe, who in later life held the opinion that “Hurlburt was always an unreliable fellow. . . .”[6]
The first scene of activity for this affidavit prospector was Conneaut, Ohio, the form.er home of the amateur historical novelist, Solomon Spaulding. Taking formal statements from relatives and friends who could equate the names and historical portions of Spaulding's fiction· with the Book of Mormon plot and personalities, Hurlbut produced eight different statements that prove the point too well. Mrs. Brodie observes:
It can clearly be seen that the affidavits were written by Hurlbut, since the style is the same throughout. It may be noted also that although five out of the eight had heard Spaulding's story only once, there was a surprising uniformity in the details they remembered after twenty-two years. . . . The very tightness with which Hurlbut here was implementing his theory rouses an immediate suspicion that he did a little judicious prompting.[7]
The foregoing statements were taken in Ohio and Pennsylvania in August and September, 1833. After a month, the persistent Hurlbut spent about six weeks in western New York gathering signatures, now on the supposed bad character of the Smiths. About a dozen individual affidavits were taken, but the bulk of the signatures were appended to two collective statements, one of which listed Palmyra residents who agreed that Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sr. were "entirely destitute of moral character, and addicted to vicious habit.”[8] In this case the Prophet publicly repudiated such charges, admitting youthful vitality and. human imperfections, but bluntly denying serious wrongdoing.[9] Faced with Hurlbut and fifty-one signatures on the one hand, and the straightforward avowal of Joseph Smith on the other, Mrs. ·Brodie finds no difficulty in ruling out "viciousness" and asserts, "his apology can be accepted at full value.”[10]
Since it is fairly demonstrable that Hurlbut heavily contaminated the Spaulding affidavits with his own theories and language, the question is why the Palmyra-Manchester affidavits should be treated as infallible sources. The non-Mormon historian of revivals, Whitney Cross, is blunt:
Every circumstance seems to. invalidate the obviously prejudiced testimonials of unsympathetic neighbors (collected by one hostile individual whose style of composition stereotypes the language of numerous witnesses) that the Smiths were either squatters or shiftless ‘frontier drifters.’[11]
If the negative testimonials are this unreliable on their essential charges, one may wonder why Mrs. Brodie relies upon them in outlining a detailed picture of supposed moneydigging on the part of the Smiths. This is completely open to question as an after-the-fact distortion of the same dimension as the discredited Spaulding story, falsely enshrined in Hurlbut's other affidavits. If Mrs. Brodie finds Joseph Smith more credible in a simple statement than fifty-one neighbors swearing on the same issue, it is time for all Mormon historians to seriously examine the detailed histories of Joseph Smith and his mother as potentially the most reliable sources for Mormon foundations because they are essentially the only ones who wrote about the period from consistent first-hand knowledge.
[Editor’s Note: See PDF for printed version of Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 17–18].
The Palmyra-Manchester residents who knew the Smith family did not uniformly consider them disreputable. If ai dozen individual statements were made against the early Mormons at the instigation of an enterprising apostate, two dozen individuals from the same area joined the new religion and sacrificed because of their faith in Joseph Smith's story.[12] A total of sixty-two names were printed in two blanket condemnations of the Smiths as "destitute of moral character" or "a lazy, indolent set of men."[13] But Lucy Smith describes an illuminating incident that can now be definitely dated in 1825 that speaks to the contrary. Like many another impoverished pioneer family, the Smith family deferred payments on their land contract. Mother Smith reports that a new land agent was falsely informed that the family was unreliable and unable to meet their final payment, which was counteracted by Hyrum's immediate visit to their family friend, Dr. Robinson. Indignant, he responded as follows:
[T]he old gentleman sat down, and wrote at some considerable length the character of the family—our industry, and faithful exertions to secure a home, with many commendations calculated to beget confidence in us with respect to business transactions. And, keeping this writing in his own hands, he went through the village, and in an hour procured sixty subscribers.[14]
Sixty-two negative signatures are obviously balanced by the some sixty favorable signatures plus Dr. Robinson's that Hyrum took to the Canandaigua land agent. On closer examination of the negative signatures, the question is how well' most of the individuals knew the Smiths. Lucy Smith indicates that the family physician was Dr. McIntire, whose name is ·notably absent in the 1833 condemnations.[15] No one in Palmyra was more responsible than the son-in-law of Dr. Robinson, Alexander McIntire. He was repeatedly president of the county medical association and a community leader. Mother Smith describes two occasions when he went out of his way to defend the Smiths against persecutions in the community.[16] The major financial transaction that Joseph Smith ever had in Palmyra was the printing of the Book of Mormon, and the practie.al businessan who negotiated with him and performed the job, Egbert B. Grandin, is also notably absent from the negative affidavits. The support of Dr. Gain Robinson in procuring a testimonial for the Smiths is impressive; his obituary in 1.831 stated that he was “deeply lamented by a large circle of relatives, and this whole community."[17]
Several Mormon converts investigated the Smiths' community reputation before Hurlbut, and they were not dissuaded from accepting the reliability of the Prophet's family. John Corrill, who had known Sidney Rigdon in Ohio prior to his conversion, wrote the following words after he had left the L.D.S. Church and no doubt is accurate on Rigdon's general experience in the Palmyra area:
[A]fter Rigdon had joined the Church in Kirtland, he was afraid that he had been- deceived,· so he and Edward Partridge went to the State of New York to inquire further into it. Rigdon said he went to the enemies of the Church to find out their feelings and objections, and then went to its friends and heard their story, and became satisfied that it was true. . . .[18]
Lucy Smith remembered the arrival of the two men at their temporary home in Waterloo, N.Y., and Partridge's report of their visit to the Smiths' former neighborhood of Manchester:
[H]e had made some inquiry of our neighbors concerning our characters, which they stated had been unimpeachable, until Joseph deceived us relative to the Book of Mormon. . . . Having heard that our veracity was not questioned upon any other point than that of our religion, he believed our testimony. . . .[19]
What Hurlbut sought to prove is obvious from examining the most redundant themes of his affidavits. In this study, there is only space for evaluating his main and most important contention. Almost every Palmyra-Manchester statement contains a reiteration of the theme of no occupation but moneydigging:
The general employment of the family was digging for money.
A great part of their time was devoted to digging for money. . . .
At that time [1820], they were engaged in the money digging business, which they followed until the latter part of the season of 1827.
It is well known, that the general employment of the Smith family was money digging and fortune-telling. . . . It was a mystery to their neighbors how they got their living.
They were a family that labored very little—the chief they did, was dig for money.
Their great object appeared to be, to live without work. While they were digging for money, they were daily harassed by the demands of their creditors, which they never were able to pay.[20]
A simple study of the economics of the Smith family in this period can determine the accuracy of this main contention of the affidavits. After a short period of merchandising upon arrival in the Palmyra area about 1816, the next identifiable livelihood for the men is operating the Manchester farm. Lucy's account reads:
My husband and his sons, Alvin and Hyrum, set themselves to work to pay for one hundred acres of land, which Mr. Smith contracted for with a land agent. In a year we made nearly all of the first payment, erected a log house, and commenced clearing. I believe something like thirty acres of land were got ready for cultivation the first year.[21]
Anyone familiar with the patterns of settlement of western New York will recognize the above description as accurately reflecting the physical and economic realities of the period. All. land in this region was purchased on contract, often from land agents representing large interests. The forest had to be cleared, which was done in stages, with the building o( the inevitable log house in the beginning. Orasmus Turner, the respected historian of western New York, was in 1819 a hard-working printer's apprentice in his late teens, and of the Smiths-and their farm he later wrote: "Here the author remembers to have first seen the family, in winter of ’19, ’20, in a rude log house, with but a small spot underbrushed around it.”[22] One may test Lucy's recollection of purchasing a hundred acres. Title to this land was never recorded in the Smith name, as will shortly be discussed. However, Lemuel Durfee, who purchased the land while they resided on it and permitted their continued tenure, alluded both to the Smiths and this property in his will, referring to "the Everton lot, situate in the northwest comer of the Town of Manchester . . . on which Joseph Smith now lives, containing about one hundred acres of land.”[23] Lucy’s memory on this point is precise.
All of the Smith recollections of this early period mention the hard work of the whole family for survival. William, for instance, consistently attributed stories of family laziness to community resentment after Joseph had told of his religious experiences. A typical statement follows, in direct answer to mention of the charge that the family was "lazy and indolent":
We never heard of such a thing until after Joseph told his vision, and not then, by our friends. . . . We cleared sixty acres of the heaviest timber I ever saw. We had a good place, but it required a great deal of labor to make it a good place. We also had on it from twelve to fifteen hundred sugar trees, and to gather the sap and make sugar and molasses from that number of trees was no lazy job.[24]
Lucy Smith indicates that wheat became the staple crop of the farm,[25] which was generally true for the region, but there were other major sources of income. She describes the "cooper's shop" across the road from the cabin and relates brief employment of Joseph Smith, Sr. at this trade in Canandaigua.[26] Pomeroy Tucker refers to the "manufacture and sale of black-ash baskets and birch brooms" on the Smith farm, handicrafts utilizing coopering skills.[27] This type of activity is specifically confirmed by the 1820 census, which listed professions in three categories: agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. Of the three male adults listed in the Smith family, two are placed in "agriculture" and one is placed under "manufactures."[28] This probably means that Joseph Smith, Sr. plied his trade of coopering and similar production, whereas Alvin and Hyrum, then twenty-one and twenty, were engaged mainly in the heavy work of farming. The instructions to the census takers on this point in 1820 read as follows:
[I]n the column of manufactures will be included not only all the persons employed in what the act more specifically denominates manufacturing establishments, but all those artificers, handicrafts men, and mechanics, whose labor is preeminently of the hand, and not upon the field.[29]
The two young adolescent sons, Samuel and Joseph, were not listed with their family on the 1820 census. This tends to confirm another Smith recollection. William said:
Whenever the neighbors wanted a good day's work done they knew where they could get a good hand, and they were not particular to take any of the other boys before Joseph either.[30]
Joseph recalled the realities of the general period about 1823 in like terms:
[W]e were under the necessity of laboring with our hands, hiring by days works and otherwise as we could get opportunity; sometimes we were at home and sometimes abroad, and by continued labor were enabled to get a comfortable maintainance.[31]
The 1820 enumeration was held by law during August and September, and the twelve-year-old Samuel and the fourteen-year-old Joseph were likely boarded temporarily at another farm for some type of harvest labor. Another instruction to the enumerators seems to apply to them:
It follows . . . that any person who, at the time of taking the number of any family, has his usual abode in it, is nevertheless, not to be included in the return of that family, if his. usual place of abode was, on the first Monday of August, in another family.[32]
A survey of the Smiths' sources of income must include the "distinct" recollections of Orsamus Turner about the teenage Joseph: "He used to come into the village of Palmyra with little jags of wood. . . .”[33] Pomeroy Tucker stated that the Smith family retailed cord-wood, as well as small crops and vegetables, and he also claimed that on holidays the Smiths, particularly Joseph, did not rest, since they sold "cake and beer in the village on days of public doings."[34] Lucy Smith also indicates that she supplemented the family income by painting oil cloth and selling it.[35] All in all, the number of activities of the Smiths is a devastating refutation to the group affidavit claiming them to be "lazy'' and "indolent." One of the most glaring inconsistencies in Mormon historiography is the repeated insistence of Pomeroy Tucker that the Smiths lacked "habits of profitable industry" right after describing five different farming, manufacturing, and trading activities. His communityimposed theory evidently did not fit his own recollections. The Prophet's younger brother William is far more believable when he insists that his family was so intent on economic survival that they worked continually and did not have the unoccupied time alleged in the Hurlbut depositions.[36]
It must weigh heavily in the balance of history that Oliver Cowdery, later a ,discriminating and astute lawyer, lived a school term in the Smith home in 1Manchester in 1828-9 and defended the Prophet and his family as "industrious, honest, virtuous, and liberal to all."[37] As far as opportunity to observe, this single opinion based on day-by-day experience at close quarters should count for more than all of the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits, which caricature their subjects. instead of measure them as the able people that their later careers show them to be. Cowdery said in direct reference to the Palmyra-Manchester statements that he personally had “the testimony of responsible persons” to contradict the character assassination of the affidavits.[38] Although the historian would like to have the depositions of New York neighbors who respected the Smiths, perhaps it says something for the confidence of Joseph Smith in his own position that he declined to fire a return salvo of testimonials to his good character. But at least one person is known who fits Cowdery's description (and Rigdon's and Partridge's) of non-Mormon neighbors who respected the honor and industry of the Smiths.
When the chief compositor for the Book of Mormon, John H. Gilbert, was approached· in 1879 regarding available recollections of the Smiths, he wrote:
Mr. Orlin Sanders, who lives about two miles south of the village, was well acquainted with the Smith family. and probably recollects many things I know nothing about.[39]
Whether Gilbert followed a local practice of shortening the full name of Orlando Saunders or was inexact in his recollection is not clear. However, his recommendation of Saunders as in a firsthand position to know about the Smiths squares with Orlando's birth to a pioneer Palmyra family in 1803, the Saunders' residence in the immediate neighborhood of the Smith farm, and the intriguing fact that Orlando's sister Melissa married Willard Chase, whose name appears on a Hurlbut affidavit.[40] Saunders was interviewed by the able Kelley brothers, RLDS leaders of legal and documentary orientation, and he volunteered no lore about money digging, but instead made pointed remarks about the practical charity of the Smiths and Joseph Smith's consistency in attributing the Book of Mormon to the coming of an angel. On the specific issue of industry, he said:
[T]hey have all worked for me many a day; they were very good people. Young Joe (as we called him then) has worked for me,· and he was· a good worker; they all were. I did not consider them good managers about business, but they were poor people; the old man had a large family.[41]
The proof that Saunders is accurately reported here is the independent interview about a year earlier of Frederic G. Mather, a non-Mormon professional writer, whose paraphrase of Saunders' words fits precisely the key ideas recorded by the Kelleys:
Orlando Sanders . . . tells us that the Smith family worked for his father and for himself. He gives them the credit of being good workers, but declares that they could save no money.[42]
If the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits are unreliable in their basic claim about the life of the Smiths in New York, can the historian trust the only remaining sources, the histories of Joseph and Lucy Smith? Their consistency in subtle interrelations of independent recollection must be impressive, but one may relate each to non-L.D.S. public records that verify certain details of the Smith stories. It has been shown above that Lemuel Durfee's will proves the Smith occupancy of a farm of about one hundred acres, in precise agreement with the later recollection of Lucy Smith—and that the 1820 census fits in detail the recollections of Lucy, Joseph, and William of the family economics of that time. The Manchester location of the family in that census also fits the chronology of Lucy and Joseph regarding the move to that farm before the time of the First Vision, a fact independently verified by a road survey of June 13, 1820, in the Palmyra Township records, indicating that "Joseph Smith's dwelling house" was already standing at that time.[43]
The chronology of the family history is further supported by the existing gravestone of Alvin, which reads: "In memory of Alvin, son of Joseph and Lucy Smith, who died November 19, 1823, in the 25th year of his age."[44] By this time, according to Joseph and his mother, the young Prophet had received the visit of the angel, in which Alvin devoutly believed. And there are other verifications of the accuracy of the Smith history of this early period that necessitate outlining some events of the years 1825 and 1826 rather fully.
The first incident that Joseph relates after Alvin's death is working for Josiah Stoal, who paid for excavation of a supposed Spanish silver mine in Harmony Township, Pennsylvania. Joseph evidently discouraged the project at the outset and toward the end "prevailed with the old gentleman to cease digging. . . .”[45] A set of statements about this period exists from Joseph Smith's in-laws and their Pennsylvania friends. Although appearing in the same publication with E. D. Howe's first publication of the Hurlbut affidavits, they were apparently procured by Howe• direct correspondence independent of Hurlbut.[46] Prejudiced and even vitriolic against Joseph (who had among other crimes stolen Emma from them), the statements from the Hale circle allege superstitious mineral witching on the part of Joseph .and also claim that he confessed that there was no merit in such practices. Since it is doubtful that the Hales had firsthand knowledge of Joseph engaging in such practices, it is only fair to accept his explanation that he did not take the project seriously, a point which when stated to the Hales, may have been wrongly interpreted as a confession of former involvement.[47] For all of their prejudice, the affidavits from the Hale circle are far closer to the known claims of Joseph Smith regarding the Book of Mormon than Hrulbut’s Palmyra-Manchester productions. Mather interviewed Harmony residents about 1880 who remembered Joseph Smith as "a good and kind neighbor," which shows- that the Pennsylvania affidavits also tell less than the full story about the young Prophet.[48]
Joseph dates his first Pennsylvania stay as October, 1825, and Isaac Hale's statement identifies the month of November for the Spanish mine project, with termination "about November 17, 1825," a close approximation of the Prophet's chronology. Lucy tells the dramatic story of the loss of their partially paid-up property immediately after Joseph came back from Pennsylvania to his parent's home in New York:
Soon after his return, we received intelligence of the arrival of a new agent for the Everson land, of which our farm was a portion. This reminded. us of the last payment, which was still due and which must be made before we obtain a deed of the place.[49]
Lucy gives the due date of this. final payment, perhaps· already an extension, as December 25, 1825.[50] Joseph Sr. and Jr. had set out again for the Susquehanna area to collect money from their wheat crop. As discussed earlier, certain parties falsified the Smiths' reliability and purchased their farm from the new land agent. Lucy indicates that this agent was incensed at the misrepresentations, and in-a complicated series of negotiations the Smiths finally interested an older Mr. Durfee in purchasing the property and permitting their continued occupancy, with the deed recalled and cancelled from the misrepresenting parties. The documentary evidence that Lucy is correct here has been given in part. Lemuel Durfee's will identified the Manchester property as that of the Smiths' and referred to its extent of "about one hundred acres.” Since it was made on June 12, 1826, a half year after the above incidents, and refers to “the Everton lot . . . on which Joseph Smith now lives,” it also proves the tenancy of the Smiths after Durfee took title.[51] The names and date on the· actual deed harmonize precisely with Lucy Smith's history. This instrument of record is dated December 20, 1825. in which Eliza Evertson and David B. Ogden, executors under the will of Nicholas Evertson, convey ninety-nine and one-half acres in Manchester to Lemuel Durfee of Palmyra.[52]
In narrating the loss of the. farm, Lucy Smith is somewhat inexact in only one respect. She indicates that Joseph had gone to Pennsylvania to bring Emma. home as his wife at the dose of. 1825, when the Smiths' land tide failed to mature. She also recalls that Hyrum had been recently married at
this time. Both events are in correct sequence, at the right season of the year, but are evidently placed a year too early as Lucy recalled them two decades later. Hyrum's marriage (November 2, 1826) was given in the correct year in the genealogical section of Lucy's memoirs, perhaps from written records.[53] This dating is authenticated by its report in the Wayne Sentinel, November 24, 1826.[54] Joseph gives his marriage date as January 18, 1827,[55] and Lucy perhaps confused the business trip to Pennsylvania about a year earlier with the marriage trip to Pennsylvania. It would be easy for Mother Smith to associate the marriages with the events of late 1825, when in reality the romances were taking place then. But it is remarkable that when Lucy Smith's dictated history is inaccurate in chronology, the deviation is confined to narrow limits.[56]
To restate the question posed at the outset, which are the authentic sources of early Mormon history? The chief actors, the Smith family, produced two narrative histories of the early period from the vantage point of eyewitnesses. At literally scores of critical points it can be demonstrated that the framework of external events related by Joseph and Lucy is historically reliable. This paper has merely surveyed those verifications from the move to Manchester about 1818 up to 1827, when the Book of Mormon drama began in earnest.[57] The counter-sources, the Manchester-Palmyra affidavits, are clearly not factual in their main allegation, the supposed indolence of the Smiths. In summary, the histories of Joseph and Lucy Smith in this period prove to be basically accurate in every case where there is some vital or legal record that permits verification of the story. The Smith histories are correct on the move to Manchester prior to 1820, the status of the father as a craftsman and the younger sons' boarding out at that date, as also the erection of the first Smith house in Manchester by then. Alvin's gravestone establishes his death in 1823, as the Lucy-Joseph chronology requires. The loss of the farm follows in 1825, the precise time stated by Lucy's narrative, which correctly furnishes the number of acres and the grantor Evertson and the grantee Durfee, and the will of the father proves the tenancy of the Smiths upon this land after title was lost. The marriage of Hyrum the following year is also factual, fitting approximately into Lucy's reconstruction from memory. This independent verification of about a dozen facts in the most remote period of the Smith histories is an impressive record. The question. raised is obvious: if Joseph and Lucy Smith have written authentic history on a practical level, can they not also be trusted in reporting the revelations that motivated their lives?
Like a law case, the point of history is to allow the participants to tell their own story. The historian of Mormonism really disqualifies himself if he cannot empathize with the spiritual experience .at the heart of this new religion. If this is preposterous, then perhaps he should write about other phases of Mormonism where his naturalistic bias does not so limit him. History may be poorly equipped to affirm or deny the truth of Joseph Smith's visions, but it can nevertheless assess the credibility of the historical tradition that asserts those visions. Credit ratings are compiled by instances of reliability. Whereas one can document the lack of such reliability in Hurlbut's Palmyra-Manchester affidavits, the factual content of the histories. of Joseph and Lucy Smith is demonstrably high. The logical conclusion from these realities is that the narratives of the Prophet and his mother must stand as the essential sources for Mormon origins.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.
Richard L. Anderson is one of the most versatile scholars in the Church. Holder of an L.LB. from Harvard, and Ph.D. in Ancient History from Berkeley, Professor Anderson now teaches Religion and History at Brigham Young University. In this article, which was delivered at the fourth annual Dialogue Board of Editors Dinner, he sheds light on the question of evidence for the early period of Church history, which was raised in the Spring, 1969, issue of Dialogue, by Rev. Wesley Walters, and demonstrates to both Mormon and non-Mormon historians the importance and consistency of the most primary of sources, the testimonies of Joseph and Lucy Smith. He has been studying the witnesses of the Book of Mormon for many years and will soon publish a new book on this subject.
[1] Vardis Fisher, “Mormonism and Its Yankee Prophet,” New York Times Book Review Section, November 25, 1945.
[2] Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York, 1946), pp. 23-4.
[3] Times and Seasons, Vol. 6 (1845), pp. 784–5. Also cit. Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Salt Lake City, 1946), Vol. 1, pp. 352–355. See also Benjamin Winchester, The Origins of the Spaulding Story (Philadelphia, 1840), pp. 1–11. Although L.D.S. records spell the surname Hurlburt, it is preferable to follow D. P. Hurlbut's own preference as indicated by his will at the Sandusky County courthouse, Fremont, Ohio, which agrees with the early signature on the certificate discovered with Spaulding's manuscript.
[4] Journal of the Court of Common Pleas, Geauga County, Ohio, Book M, p. 193, April 9, 1834. Also cit. History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Independence, Missouri, 1951), Vol. 1, pp. 444–446.
[5] Painesville Telegraph, January 31, 1834. Changes in the text of quotations are limited to spelling and punctuation.
[6] Ellen E. Dickinson, New Light on Mormonism (New York, 1885), p. 73.
[7] Brodie, op. cit., pp. 423–4.
[8] E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, Ohio, 1834), pp. 261–2.
[9] L.D.S. Messenger and Advocate, Volume 1 (December, 1834), p. 40. Howe’s preface to Mormonism Unvailed was written in October, 1834, and the initial advertisement for the book appeared in the Painesville Telegraph, November 28, 1834.
[10] Brodie, op. cit., p. 18.
[11] Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District (Ithaca, 1950, 1965), pp. 141–2. Although Cross accepts the treasure hunting thesis of the affidavits, it is open to the identical objections that he raises against the testimonials to laziness.
[12] Pomeroy Tucker furnishes the names of this many converts in the vicinity of Palmyra and Manchester. Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York, 1867), pp. 38–9. Cf. the printed letter from Palmyra, March 12, 1831: “Their numbers may be twenty in this vicinity . . .”; Painesville Telegraph, March 22, 1831.
[13] Howe, op. cit., pp. 261–2.
[14] Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith (Liverpool, 1853), p. 95. This incident occurred no later than December 20, 1825, the date at which the title to the Smith farm was transferred to Lemuel Durfee, as discussed below.
[15] Ibid., p. 87.
[16] Ibid., p. 113, p. 141.
[17] Wayne Sentinel, June 26, 1831. Lucy Smith mentions another half-dozen individuals who befriended the family in various difficulties and can be presumed to have a favorable opinion of them.
[18] John Corrill, A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (St. Louis, 1839), p. 17.
[19] Lucy Smith, op. cit., p. 170. [Editor’s Note: The footnote within the text is not provided in the PDF, but the footnote within the footer is provided.]
[20] Howe, op. cit., pp. 232, 237, 240, 249, 251, 260.
[21] Lucy Smith, op. cit., p. 70.
[22] Orsamus Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham’s Purchase and Morris’ Reserve (Rochester, 1852), p. 213.
[23] Will of Lemuel Durfee, Surrogate’s Court, Wayne County Courthouse, Lyons, New York.
[24] Interview of J. W. Peterson with William Smith, Zion’s Ensign, Vol. 5 (1894), No. 3, p. 6, also cit. (with minor inaccuracies) Deseret Evening News, Jan. 20, 1894. Tucker, op. cit., p. 14 also refers to the Smiths’ “making of maple sugar and molasses in the season for that work . . .” Lucy Smith, op. cit., p. 95 also refers to their “sugar orchard.”
[25] Lucy Smith, op. cit., p. 92.
[26] Ibid., pp. 108–9, p. 165.
[27] Tucker, op. cit., p. 14.
[28] US Census, Ontario County, New York, Farmington Township, Family 524.
[29] "Instructions to Marshals — Census of 1820," cit. Carroll D. Wright, History and Growth of the United States Census (Washington, D. C., 1900), p. 135.
[30] Interview of Peterson with William Smith, op. cit.
[31] Times and Seasons, Vol. 3 (1842), pp. 771-2, also cit. Joseph Smith, op. cit., p. 16-17.
[32] "Instructions to Marshals—Census of 1820," op. cit., pp. 135-6.
[33] Turner, op. cit., p. 213.
[34] Tucker, op. cit., p. 14.
[35] Lucy Smith, op. cit., pp. 70, 107.
[36] See, e.g., Sermon of William B. Smith on Deloit, Iowa, June 8, 1884, cit. Saints’ Herald, Vol. 31 (1884), p. 643: “After my father’s family moved to New York State, in about five years they cleared sixty acres of land, and fenced it. The timber on this land was very heavy. . . . We built a frame dwelling house and out buildings. My brothers Joseph and Hyrum had to work. Joseph did not have time to make gold plates.”
[37] L.D.S. Messenger and Advocate, Vol. 2 (1835), p. 200.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Letter of J. H. Gilbert to Mr. Cobb, Feb. 10, 1879, Palmyra, New York. A microfilm of this ms. was kindly loaned to me by Larry C. Porter. Palmyra sources and interviewers are divided on the spelling of the surname. Saunders must be correct, since that is the spelling in the will and estate papers at the Wayne County courthouse, Lyons, N.Y.
[40] See Thomas L. Cook, Palmyra and Vicinity (Palmyra, New York, 1930), pp. 235–7.
[41] Saints’ Herald, Vol. 28 (1881), p. 165. Since Cook indicates that “Orlando came into possession of the homestead” at his father’s death in 1825, several years exist when he might have employed the Smiths himself. The brief obituary notice of Enoch, the father, appeared in the Wayne Sentinel, October 18, 1825.
[42] Frederic G. Mather, “The Early Days of Mormonism,” Lippincott’s Magazine, Vol. 36 (1880), p. 198. An interview is confirmed by another quotation from Orlando Saunders, p. 205. For Mather’s biography, see National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 20 (New York, 1929), pp. 492-3.
[43] Palmyra Town Record, Book 1, p. 221.
[44] Photographs of the inscription are in the L.D.S. Historian’s Office. The notice of Joseph Smith, Sr., published the following September 29, 1824, in the Wayne Sentinel, verifies the 1823 death date. [Editor’s Note: The in-text footnote number is not in the PDF version of this article; however, a footer footnote exists, so it has been added here.]
[45] Times and Seasons, Vol. 3 (1842), p. 772, also cit. Joseph Smith, op. cit., p. 17. Cf. Lucy Smith, op. cit., p. 92: “Joseph endeavored to divert him from his vain pursuit, but he was inflexible in his purpose and offered high wages. . . .”
[46] Letter of E. D. Howe to Isaac Hale, February 4, 1884, Painesville, Ohio, cit. Susquehanna Register, May 1, 1834, cit. New York Baptist Register, Vol. 11 (1834). Howe's letter discloses that Hale had written to Hurlbut but that Howe wished verification and sought an attested statement "to lay open the imposition to the world." A battery of sworn statements were made in the Harmony, Pennsylvania area by Hale and his neighbors, published first in the newspaper at the county seat of Susquehanna County, and then reproduced in slightly abbreviated form by Howe.
[47] The Smith histories and the Hale affidavit all agree that the contact of the Hales with Joseph was through the latter boarding at Isaac's home. Since Isaac Hale told Joseph that he "followed a business that I could not approve," one must assume that Hale never participated in the digging operations at the "Spanish Mine" and therefore relied on hearsay for Joseph Smith's supposed "peeking" activities in locating treasure. What the Hales knew personally was that Joseph Smith associated with a questionable operation (a point of view shared by Joseph Smith), but these statements really do not prove that the young Prophet was mystically locating treasure unless the Hales were themselves involved. In relation to what Isaac and Alva remember Joseph saying to them, what is assumed to be ridiculous is likely to be distorted in that direction in the telling.
[48] Mather, op. cit., pp. 200–1.
[49] Lucy Smith, op. cit., p. 92.
[50] Ibid.
[51] See n. 23 supra.
[52] Book 44, pp. 232-234, Ontario County, New York. The deed no doubt contains the correct spelling of Evertson, and the “Everson” of Lucy Smith and the “Everton” of the Durfee will are approximations.
[53] Lucy Smith, op. cit., p. 40.
[54] The notice reads: MARRIED — In Manchester . . . Mr. Hiram Smith, to Miss Jerusha Barden.”
[55] Citation at n. 31, supra.
[56] See examples in Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision Through Reminiscences,” Brigham Young University Studies, Vol. 9 (1969), pp. 390–1.
[57] See ibid. for several striking confirmations of Lucy Smith’s basic accuracy from Palmyra sources around 1830.
[post_title] => The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 4.2 (Summer 1971): 13–28ormon history is a part of this magnificent proliferation of data and research techniques. Its own archives are in the midst of classification by professionally competent standards. There is hope for a new era, in which Mormon and non-Mormon may meet on the common ground of objective fact. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-reliability-of-the-early-history-of-lucy-and-joseph-smith [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-06 01:01:39 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-06 01:01:39 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=17654 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

Cunning and Disorderly: Early Nineteenth-Century Witch Trials of Joseph Smith
Manuel W. Padro
Dialogue 54.4 (Winter 2021): 35–70
When we assess Joseph Smith’s early trials as if the word “pretended” indicated deliberate deception on Joseph’s part, we miss the larger picture.
Believers’ Demonology and Diabolical Witchcraft Legislation
The New York disorderly persons statue belongs to a specific legislative history aimed at magic and witchcraft. Legislation aimed at policing treasure seeking, the use of seer stones, and finding lost and stolen items through a gift from God or other supernatural means was meant to curb the influence of “the cunning-folk.”[8] Cunning-folk were folk-Christian healers whom religious authorities conflated with “diabolical witches” in early modern Europe, an imaginary category of people who were alleged to renounce their baptism and swear loyalty to the devil and his war on Christendom.[9] Folk-Christian beliefs covered a range of magical practices. The King Henry Witchcraft Act of 1542 marked the earliest Anglophone legislation aimed at curbing treasure seeking. Queen Elizabeth’s Witchcraft Act of 1563 repealed and replaced King Henry’s Act and was subsequently superseded by the King James Witchcraft Act of 1604.[10] All three intended to control the diabolical witch, but their language reveals their intent to penalize the cunning-folks’ spiritual practices. This was also true of other acts passed throughout the British Isles.[11] In 1692, the Massachusetts colony passed a witchcraft act based on the King James Act of 1604, explicitly targeted cunning-folk practices, including treasure seeking.[12] This was the cornerstone upon which all Anglophone witchcraft legislation was founded, including the pretended witchcraft legislation of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. The cultural conversation around demonology informed this legislation’s development. Early modern demonologies began in a Roman Catholic environment obsessed with controlling heresy.[13] These works fused ideas from the Bible, Patristic writings of the early church, the Lives of Saints, Greco-Roman literature, and classical poetry to construct a historical foundation of the “witch” stereotype. This stereotype combined with diabolized depictions of popular fairy belief, folk-Christianity deemed superstitious by religious authorities, heresy, and popular concerns about maleficium. Continental believers’ demonologies targeted the folk-Christian observances of the cunning-folk as examples of superstition and a living tradition of witchcraft.[14]This tool could be abused against a wide variety of people regardless of the content of their beliefs and practices. For example, demonologist Nicholas Rémy claimed that a woman whose practices were completely orthodox could still be guilty of witchcraft, that witches were guilty of imitating Elijah and Elisha, and that witches were guilty of using religion to mask their alleged diabolism.[15] Thus folk-Christian practices were easily distorted into diabolical witchcraft by religious and legal authorities. English demonologies appeared in the decades after the English Reformation when religious leaders led “a Henrician assault on popular religion.”[16] Fear of cunning-folk carried over to North America, where Cotton Mather attributed the rise of witchcraft in New England to the arrival of Quakers, cunning-folk, and Native American shamans.[17] When Richard Boulton wrote one of the last significant believers’ demonologies in England, paraphrasing Exodus 22:18, he asserted, “wise Women are not fit to live,” without elaboration.[18] He fully expected his eighteenth-century audience to understand that the cunning-folk were the witches targeted in English demonology and anti-witchcraft law. At the beginning of the Second Great Awakening, Ezra Stiles would preach a sermon conflating cunning-folk activities and Native American spiritual practices with witchcraft. He did so to “lay this whole Iniquity open, that all the remains of it might be rooted out.”[19] Concerns over the diabolical witch and the cunning-folk would continue in the Anglophone world into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.[20]Skeptical Demonology and Pretended Witchcraft Legislation
Belief in the “diabolical witch” was the orthodox position between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, but there were also detractors. The Dutch physician Johann Weyer argued that the devil took advantage of imbalances in the humor of black bile to produce a mental illness (melancholy). He argued that the devil did so to generate illusions that deceived people into believing that witches were real and that magic was efficacious.[21] Weyer still targeted cunning-folk practices and conflated them with necromancy, but he denied their efficacy. English skeptic Reginald Scott argued that the sorcerers of the Bible, the religious authorities of the pagan world, Catholic priests, and cunning-folk—whom he called “cozening witches”—all utilized sleight of hand and deception, not actual demonic powers, to lead people into idolatry or to deceive them.[22] These skeptical demonologists described the beliefs and practices of pagan religions, Catholicism, Christian enthusiasts, and the cunning-folk as false prophecy, legerdemain, juggling, and pretended powers. They remained a vocal but marginalized position within demonology throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the eighteenth century, skeptical demonology replaced believing demonology as the dominant view, and unorthodox spiritual practices came to be defined as pretended by those in power. In the Anglophone world, this included the practices of cunning-folk, gypsies, Catholics, and Indigenous peoples. However, it also included the beliefs and practices of charismatic Christians pejoratively labeled “enthusiasts.” For example, Reverend Francis Hutchinson cited the beliefs and practices of radical Protestants known as the French Prophets as pretended. In his book on this religious minority, he consistently defined charismatic Christian claims to spiritual power as enthusiasm, pretended, legerdemain, and juggling.[23] The King George Witchcraft Act of 1735 ended diabolical witchcraft as a legal category in England and Scotland and made “pretended” the legal standard in Enlightenment England.[24] The King George Witchcraft Act of 1735 developed within a broader legal environment that had produced similar statutes throughout Europe.[25] The first of these was the French Edict of 1692, which reclassified witchcraft into crimes like poisoning, sacrilege, and pretended powers. Notably, a similar law produced in the same environment defined Protestantism as a pretended religion and penalized Protestant leaders for advocating pretended religion.[26] In colonial America, the state used anti-vagrancy legislation to control religious deviants like Jesuits, Quakers, and Enthusiasts by labeling them vagabonds and disorderly persons, then penalizing them for breaking vagrancy law.[27] Skeptical witchcraft legislation continued to be developed in the American colonies and then the United States into the nineteenth century.[28] When New York drafted the 1813 disorderly person statute, it continued this trend by utilizing the language of early European witchcraft legislation. The relevant portion of the law addresses vagrancy and defines a disorderly person as “all jugglers [those who cheat or deceive by sleight of hand or tricks of extraordinary dexterity], and . . . all persons pretending to have skill in physiognomy, palmistry, or like crafty science, or pretending to tell fortunes, or to discover where lost goods may be found.”[29] This statute had much in common with the anti-vagrancy and pretended witchcraft legislation of the Anglophone world of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, a product of a larger legal environment that employed the King George Witchcraft Act of 1735 as a model.[30] This model preemptively defined religious and spiritual unorthodoxy as pretended witchcraft, magic, or religion. By categorizing people’s beliefs and practices as pretended this legislation allowed the state to discriminate against unorthodox spiritual traditions by deliberately conflating them with criminal deception. Legislation based on skeptical demonology continued in nineteenth-century England with the 1824 Act for the Punishment of Idle and Disorderly Persons, and Rogues and Vagabonds, in that Part of Great Britain called England.[31] This act criminalized “every person pretending or professing to tell fortunes, or using any subtle Craft, Means, or Device, by Palmistry or otherwise, to deceive and impose.”[32] According to Owen Davies, the clause was “widely used in prosecuting rural cunning-folk.”[33]Throughout the British Empire and its former colonies, the government used anti-vagrancy legislation and skeptical witchcraft legislation to categorize people’s genuine beliefs and religious practices as “pretended” as late as the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.[34] Besides Joseph Smith, only one other well-known example of disorderly person prosecution for treasure seeking in early America employs the word “pretended” to describe alleged supernatural gifts—the disorderly person charges against Dr. Luman Walters.[35] Walters’s case is only known due to newspaper articles discussing a documented case in New Hampshire.[36]Because the notes from Luman Walters’s trial are not available, it is impossible to explore how the court used “pretended” in disorderly person trials in the nineteenth century. But through Walters’s alleged conviction in New York we can see how this legislation was used to penalize Walters for cunning-folk practices.[37] Later allegations that Walters was a necromancer reveal the underlying religious bias which conflated cunning-folk with witches.[38] Although it is tempting to read “pretended” as fraud, there is reason to be cautious. According to Lynne Hume, in Anglophone witchcraft legislation “‘pretends to exercise’ means something else. The presumption is that people are not able to do these things and therefore whoever says they can is acting in a fraudulent manner.”[39] In previous generations, legal authorities and religious authorities superseded the cunning-folks’ beliefs and practices by presuming that the cunning-folk were diabolical witches. After the Enlightenment, the same psychological process allowed Anglophone legal authorities to recategorize genuine belief and practices as pretended witchcraft. In both cases the legal system deliberately conflated unorthodox spiritual traditions with another crime to enable the policing of unorthodox spirituality. This tells us more about the beliefs of those in power than it does about the traditions these legal categories were designed to punish.The Coexistence of Pretended Witchcraft and Diabolical Witchcraft Paradigms
Despite legal skepticism, belief in diabolical witchcraft continued into Joseph Smith’s lifetime and beyond.[40] The nineteenth-century repeal of Ireland’s 1586 witchcraft statute inspired the publication of the anonymous pamphlet Antipas, which conflated Catholicism and Dissenters with witchcraft and urged Parliament to restrict both groups’ religious activities. The pamphlet would have had a broad audience. As Andrew Sneddon has explained, “for the vast majority of those placed lower down the social ladder, especially those living in small, close-knit rural areas, the existence of the malefic witch continued to be regarded as a threat to their property and persons in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The same holds true for North America.”[41] The diabolical witch doctrine still had its believers in Joseph Smith’s early nineteenth-century environment, although the law no longer recognized diabolical witchcraft as a reality. Smith’s critic Alexander Campbell argued for a synthesized demonology that allowed for pretended necromancy and diabolical necromancy to coexist as two different kinds of witchcraft.[42] Campbell’s use of necromancy charges in witchcraft allegations was a standard pattern within the Second Great Awakening.[43] Likewise, treasure seeking became a primary target of witchcraft fear and belief during this period.[44] People who feared cunning-folk, alleged false-prophets, Catholics, Atheists, non-white spiritual practices, and religious movements like the Quakers, the Shakers, and the Wilkensonians saw the practices they feared most as both pretended and diabolical, often describing these groups as practicing necromancy.[45] In the early nineteenth-century environment of legal skepticism and the common suppressed belief that diabolical witches existed, one would expect to find the categories of pretended witchcraft and diabolical witchcraft used to label Joseph Smith’s folk-Christian practices of treasure seeking in 1826 as well as charismatic expressions of Christian belief in 1830.Context of Joseph Smith’s 1826 Pretrial
When Joseph Smith, a young treasure seeker, had his first visionary experience, local religious leaders reacted negatively in ways that Smith family members considered surprising.[46] At the age of fourteen, an unnamed assailant fired a bullet at Joseph Smith as he returned home.[47] In 1823, Joseph Smith experienced an envisioned visitation of an angel, who declared that Smith would be a prophet and uncover a buried scripture. Within a year of this experience, rumors began to circulate that someone had disinterred and dissected his older brother Alvin’s body.[48] Dan Vogel and Michael Quinn believe that these were allegations of utilizing part of Alvin’s body to acquire the golden plates. These rumors portrayed the act of acquiring the golden plates as a form of necromancy.[49] These allegations may have been an initial, failed, attempt to charge Joseph Smith with a crime. As William Morain points out, “violating a grave” was “a felony offense for which, in 1824, he could have been incarcerated in the New York state prison for five years.”[50] A year later, in 1825, Josiah Stowell heard about Joseph Smith’s gift for using his seer stone, perhaps tied to rumors of Joseph’s 1823 vision of an angel who led him to the gold plates. Josiah Stowell requested that Joseph reside at his home as a farmworker who would aid Stowell in his treasure seeking. Joseph’s parents agreed, perhaps to remove him from a dangerous environment. However, trouble followed Joseph Smith Jr. to Bainbridge, New York. In 1826, Stowell’s nephew took Joseph Smith to court as a disorderly person.[51] Allegations of witchcraft continued after the trials as well, with some ascribed to Joseph’s life in the 1820s. In 1834, testimonies ascribed to Smith’s neighbors appeared in the anti-Mormon book Mormonism Unvailed.[52] The affidavits in this book describe Smith’s activities through the paradigms of pretended and diabolical witchcraft. In one of these affidavits, discussing a period between the 1826 and 1830 hearings, Sophia Lewis, who also served as Emma Smith’s midwife, reported that Joseph and Emma’s child died horribly deformed at birth. Her affidavit is notable because the diabolical witch’s doctrine and folklore viewed deformed births and stillbirth as evidence of witchcraft.[53] Shortly after Alvin’s death, Emma Smith returned to her parents’ Methodist church in Harmony. When Joseph Smith attempted to attend, it sparked a controversy that included church members’ allegations of necromancy and other witchcraft practices. In the 1879 remembrances of these events, Emma’s relatives made it clear that those involved in this controversy believed Joseph Smith “was a conjurer” and “a sorcerer,” clarifying that these were forms of “witchcraft.”[54] This same Methodist congregation later threatened violence against Joseph Smith, which forced him to move to the home of Peter Whitmer Sr. in Fayette, New York.[55] Beginning in 1830, Joseph Smith’s restorationism utilized the example of the Christian curses used by Old Testament Prophets, as well as Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament. Joseph instructed his missionaries and followers to employ ritualized dusting of feet and clothing as a testament against those who persecuted them and rejected their message. This practice continued into the 1890s and would have provided ample material for those who believed that Joseph Smith and his followers were witches.[56] Allegations of witchcraft continued in February 1831 with Alexander Campbell’s publication of “Delusions,” an anti-Mormon article in his periodical the Millennial Harbinger.[57] In this article, Campbell uses familiar skeptical tropes and employs demonology to compare Joseph Smith and Mormonism with false prophecy, enthusiasm, and witchcraft. He directly compared Joseph Smith to Simon Magus and Elymas, the sorcerers of the Bible.[58] Campbell leaves no room for equivocation: “I have never felt myself so fully authorized to address mortal man in the style in which Paul addressed Elymas the sorcerer as I feel towards this Atheist Smith.”[59] During the same year, mobs pursued Joseph Smith’s followers as they left New York for Ohio.[60] In 1832, Campbell’s “Delusions” was reprinted as a pamphlet.[61] In Kirtland, potential anti-witchcraft violence can be seen in the mob that attacked Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon in 1832. While remembering this event, Joseph Smith recalled that these attackers cried out “Simond! Simond!” which he interpreted as a reference to their Campbellite leader Simond Riders. As a victim of a tumultuous mobbing by Campbellites, Smith may have misheard shouts of “Simon! Simon!” comparing Joseph Smith to Simon Magus. While they assaulted Joseph Smith, the mob attempted to destroy his ability to speak (and therefore prophesy, curse, or bewitch). Joseph remembered the mob shouting, “God dam it . . . Let us tar up his mouth!”[62] They simultaneously attempted to force a “phial” of liquid into his mouth. Joseph claimed that the mob decided not to kill him, but instead they would “scratch me well. . . . All my clothes were torn off me except my shirt collar; and one man fell on me and scratched my body with his nails like a mad cat.”[63] Afterward, Smith had to scrub the tar from his lips to “breath more easily.”[64] The easily overlooked use of scratching has tragic gravity. In the nineteenth century, “scratching above the breath,” was widely believed to be a means of deactivating a witch’s powers and was consequently a common aspect of extrajudicial anti-witchcraft violence.[65] Echoes of witchcraft belief continued later into Joseph Smith’s life. In 1834, the Campbellite E. D. Howe would publish the Hurlbut affidavits in his work Mormonism Unvailed. This work reads like a combination of skeptical and believers’ demonologies, describing Smith’s alleged folk-Christian activities through the pretended and diabolical witchcraft paradigms. As late as 1835, Smith complained of Campbell’s continued witchcraft allegations.[66] The following year, Joseph Smith’s last recorded treasure quest ended with a revelation that encouraged his companions to “inquire diligently concerning the more ancient inhabitants and founders of this city; For there are more treasures than one for you in this city” (D&C 111:9–10). This treasure quest took place in Salem, Massachusetts, suggesting that the troubles that had followed Smith to this point in 1836 could be explained through a knowledge of early American witchcraft belief and violence. In 1837, Smith’s enemy Grandison Newell accused Joseph of attempting to murder him. He claimed that Smith, the “high priest of satan,” had bewitched two assassins who stopped short of murdering Newell when they “broke the spell of the false prophet” and “were restored to their right minds, and are now rejoicing that they were not left to the power of the devil and co-adjutor Smith, to stain their souls with a crime so horrible.”[67] It would appear that many of Smith’s enemies accused him of witchcraft and magic throughout his early life and career. According to the standards established by Alan Charles and Edward Peters, there are three sources of materials in witchcraft studies.[68] The first and most reliable archival documents consist of court records and verified reproductions of contemporary pamphlets.[69] The second type is literary sources. These documents require caution, recognizing that the authors’ biases shaped these accounts, often overshadowing the beliefs and actions of the accused. Nevertheless, historians of witchcraft utilize these documents by controlling for allegations of diabolism injected into these accounts by their authors. The third category are pictorial sources.[70] In Joseph Smith’s 1826, 1829, and 1830 disorderly person proceedings, only the court bills fall into the category of archival records.[71] We do not have the original trial notes or pictorial sources, only literary sources. Two of the literary records used to reconstruct the 1826 pretrial are known as the Pearsall narrative and the Purple narrative. The Pearsall narrative exists only in articles claiming to recreate the original pretrial notes. The first of these articles appeared in 1872 with subsequent version printed in 1883 and 1886.[72] The Purple narrative is purportedly authored by William Purple as a memoir of his alleged role as notetaker at the 1826 pretrial. It was published in 1877.[73] Additionally, for the 1830 cases, there are accounts written by Joseph Smith, his mother, and other friendly observers, a rarity in witchcraft records. An additional narrative account related to the 1830 disorderly person cases is a letter ascribed to Justice of the Peace George H. Noble, who oversaw the Colesville disorderly person proceedings of 1830.[74] As with all sources, these narrative accounts should be read cautiously—the events they describe may not accurately reflect what took place in court. They may also include deliberate or unintentional distortions of these events. As in all narrative accounts of witch trials, we must account for the injection of demonological stereotypes in descriptions of Joseph Smith’s alleged behaviors.The 1826 Pretrial: Folk-Christian Belief
The narrative accounts of the 1826 disorderly person pretrial feature evidence that they fall into the larger pattern of religiously persecuting cunning-folk. In the Purple narrative, there is strong evidence about Joseph Smith’s, his followers’, and his father’s folk-Christian beliefs. The Purple narrative describes Joseph Smith as a “Seer,” a term for cunning-folk who compared themselves to Old Testament prophets.[75] The Purple narrative addresses the cunning-folk practice of utilizing seer stones. It also affirms that these were genuinely held beliefs: “Deacon Stowell and others as firmly believed it.” As an afterthought, the Purple narrative claims that Josiah Stowell’s “ward and two hired men . . . were, or professed to be, believers.”[76] The Purple narrative’s description of Joseph Smith’s acquisition of his seer stones includes folk-Christian practices. It claims that after seeing a vision of a particular stone, Joseph Smith set off to find his seer stone, and the narrative provides significant detail about how he washed the stone after he found it. This detail is less perplexing when one reads the writings of Karl Herr, a modern Pennsylvania Dutch cunning man. In his book on his folk-Christian practices, Herr provided a theological justification for the washing of miraculous stones before praying to God and asking for God’s blessing upon the stone.[77] This fits a larger pattern of Joseph Smith consecrating his other seer stones, as observed by Mark Ashurst-McGee.[78] This may be a description of Joseph consecrating his first seer stone. The Purple narrative also portrays the stone’s powers within a folk-Christian paradigm, claiming that when Joseph had the stone, “he possessed one of the attributes of Deity, an All-Seeing-Eye,” repeating an earlier description of Joseph Smith’s alleged gifts as a seer as an “omniscient attribute.”[79] According to this account, Joseph Smith Sr. defended his son’s alleged gift and “described very many instances of his finding hidden and stolen goods” and that he “swore that both he and his son were mortified that this wonderful power that God had so miraculously given him should be used only in search of filthy lucre, or its equivalent in earthly treasures, and with a long-faced, “sanctimonious seeming,” he said his constant prayer to his Heavenly Father was to manifest His will concerning this marvelous power. He trusted that the Son of Righteousness would some day illumine the heart of the boy, and enable him to see His will concerning him.”[80] These testimonies of Smith’s divine powers were a recurring theme in the Purple narrative. The next witness was Deacon Josiah Stowell, who affirmed the testimonies of Joseph Sr. and Joseph Jr., giving several examples of the junior Joseph Smith’s abilities. Stowell “delineated many other circumstances not necessary to record,” affirmed that Smith possessed the abilities he claimed, and “described very many circumstances to confirm his words.” The Purple narrative then reports that Justice Neely questioned Stowell’s belief in Joseph Smith’s alleged abilities as a treasure seer, “Do I believe it?” says Deacon Stowell, “do I believe it? no, it is not a matter of belief: I positively know it to be true.”[81] The Purple narrative claims Joseph Smith told his fellow treasure seekers that the treasure “could not be obtained except by faith, accompanied by certain talismanic influences. So, after arming themselves with fasting and prayer, they sallied forth to the spot designated by Smith.”[82] These talismanic influences are likely a description of the folk-Christian amulets utilized by treasure seekers, four of which Joseph Smith Sr. is believed to have owned.[83] According to both the Purple and Pearsall narratives, these talismanic influences were necessary to break a protective spell placed on the treasure by the person who buried it. When their attempts to acquire the treasure proved unsuccessful, the Purple narrative hints at the folk-Christian motivation for the treasure quest: a struggle against the devil over the souls of sinners seeking redemption from purgatory.[84] “After some five feet in depth had been attained without success, a council of war against this spirit of darkness was called, and they resolved that the lack of faith, or of some untoward mental emotions, was the cause of their failure.”[85] The Purple narrative alternates between folk-Christian descriptions and justifications for Joseph Smith’s behavior and alternating depictions of these practices as diabolical.[86] When demonologists argue against public perception of cunning-folk beliefs and practices, they systematically described the common perception that practices were powered by the Christian God. Demonologists would then attempt to refute commonly held opinions by arguing that folk-Christian practices were blasphemous forms of false Christianity disguising an implicit pact with the devil. For those who believed demonologists rather than folk-Christians, evidence of folk-Christian activity was evidence of witchcraft. Notably, the Pearsall narrative is relatively circumspect on this aspect of the 1826 pretrial. While it discusses Joseph Smith’s seer stone use and treasure seeking, it does not give a detailed account of what power he ascribed these abilities to nor details that would allow us to compare his alleged practices to the ethnographic record. In place of these details, it systematically describes Joseph Smith’s motives and activities as pretended. In the Pearsall narrative, Joseph Smith does not confess to deception; instead, his accusers describe Joseph’s practices and beliefs as “pretended.” Despite this insistence on pretension, the Pearsall narrative claims that Josiah Stowell “positively knew that the Prisoner could tell and possessed the art of seeing those valuable treasures through the medium of said stone.” It describes this belief as an “implicit faith in Prisoners skill.” Outside of these two comments, the Pearsall narrative does not contain the kind of detail that allows us to see folk-Christian practices and beliefs found in the Purple narrative.The 1826 Pretrial Allegations of Diabolical Witchcraft
The Purple narrative about the 1826 pretrial demonstrate that Smith’s accusers viewed Smith’s folk-Christian activities as witchcraft. This is not surprising, considering early New English law and New York literature defined treasure seeking as witchcraft.[87] Rather than describing Smith’s activities as pretended, the Purple narrative describes Smith’s activities in terms of diabolical witchcraft. The Purple narrative claims that Joseph Smith had “unlimited control over the illusions of their sire,” hinting at witches’ alleged ability to magically control the minds and behaviors of their victims. Consequently, Josiah Stowell’s relatives came to see Smith as an “incubus . . . eating up their substance, and depriving them of their anticipated patrimony,” alluding to the witches’ ability to use magic to funnel off wealth from their victims through a demon familiar. The Purple narrative describes Josiah Stowell’s drive to engage in treasure seeking as a “monomaniacal impression to seek for hidden treasures,” hinting at the early modern conflation between mental illness, bewitchment, and possession. Stowell allegedly “camped out on the black hills of that region for weeks at a time.” The document’s author referred to treasure quests as “nocturnal depredations on the face of Mother Earth,” hinting at the nocturnal assembly of the Witches’ Sabbath.[88] The Purple narrative hints at maleficium through its use of “the fabled shirt of Nessus,” the poisoned shirt that killed Hercules, as a metaphor for Joseph Smith’s impact on Josiah Stowell’s spiritual welfare. Stowell’s neighbors, church members, and family tried to “dissuade” him from engaging in treasure seeking, suggesting concerns about religious boundary maintenance. The Purple narrative describes Joseph Smith’s seer stone as a “magic stone,” overlooking the Christian identity ascribed to it by Joseph Smith Sr., who defined his son’s abilities as a gift from God. It also describes Joseph Smith as an incubus, one of the demons strongly associated with witchcraft among believers in the diabolical witch doctrine. Johnathon Thompson’s testimony once again describes the treasure quest as “nocturnal labors.” It claims that those who buried the treasure had placed a protective charm upon it through an animal sacrifice. Thus, along with faith, acquiring the treasure required “certain talismanic influences.” The Purple narrative demonizes Joseph Smith’s treasure seeking through claiming that he and his fellow seekers utilized an animal sacrifice to an evil spirit to dismantle the charm. Notably, this point contradicts the document’s earlier claim that the treasure quest was “a council of war against this spirit of darkness.” The Purple narrative claims that Josiah Stowell “went to his flock and selected a fine vigorous lamb, and resolved to sacrifice it to the demon spirit who guarded the coveted treasure. Shortly after the venerable Deacon might be seen on his knees at prayer near the pit, while Smith, with a lantern in one hand to dispel the midnight darkness, might be seen making a circuit around the pit, sprinkling the flowing blood from the lamb upon the ground, as a propitiation to the spirit that thwarted them.” It then describes the allegation of animal sacrifice as “a picture for the pencil of a Hogarth!” and claims that it came from a diseased mind inspired by the Arabian Nights. These are explicit references to “the Four Stages of Animal Cruelty” by William Hogarth and the Arabian Nights story “The Tale of the Old Man and the Hind.” In both stories, animal cruelty leads to similar cruelty toward human beings, with the Arabian Nights story culminating in the sacrifice of a human being enchanted to look like livestock. These allusions suggest that Purple was well aware that Joseph Smith was accused of human sacrifice in the same region.[89] Allegations that Joseph Smith and treasure seekers sacrificed animals built upon demonological stereotypes that witches performed animal sacrifices at their Sabbaths.[90] The Purple narrative’s allusion to a “diseased mind” may be a reference to skeptical demonology’s etiology of witchcraft as a product of diabolical illusions experienced by the mentally ill or perhaps believers’ demonology, which argued that witches could cause mental illness. The penultimate paragraph of the document also builds upon demonological stereotypes about demons and witches causing mental illness. The author of the narrative claims that the 1826 courtroom in Bainbridge enabled the “evincing” (revealing the presence) of “the spirit of delusion that characterized those who originated that prince of humbugs, Mormonism.” This would appear to be a memory colored by William Purple’s later knowledge of Mormonism, as it demonizes the Book of Mormon’s claim that the Holy Spirit will confirm the book’s truth after sincere and inquisitive prayer through a voice or feeling experienced as a burning in the bosom. Quakers made similar claims about the Holy Spirit speaking to believers through the inner-light. New English Calvinists like Increase Mather characterized these claims as a form of demonic possession.[91] The Purple narrative’s allegations of diabolism reflect New English witchcraft belief and the author’s awareness of local gossip about Joseph Smith’s alleged necromantic and pretended activities, as well as what he claims to have witnessed in the courtroom.[92] Just as the Pearsall narrative glosses over the 1826 pretrial’s folk-Christian elements. It is also reserved regarding Smith’s alleged diabolism. Nonetheless, the Pearsall narrative does contain a possible hint of diabolical witchcraft belief. Its depiction of Johnathon Thompson’s testimony contains a reference to the protective charm that treasure buriers allegedly placed on their treasures.[93] The Pearsall narrative’s lack of allegations of diabolism reinforces what is already known about authors who wrote for nineteenth-century Anglophone audiences: when writing for educated audiences, they downplayed common people’s belief in witches.[94] However, this lack clashes starkly with the Purple account’s emphasis on diabolical witchcraft over pretended witchcraft as well as the anti-witchcraft violence and belief that can be found in other descriptions of Joseph Smith’s early adulthood.Allegations of Delusion and Pretended Practices
As noted earlier, the first skeptical demonologist, Johann Weyer, argued that witches were deceived by the devil, who utilized an imbalance of black bile. This imbalance was believed to cause “melancholy” or depression. It was used to explain a wide variety of visionary experiences, and Weyer used this paradigm to argue that alleged witches were deceived and delusional but not guilty of actual witchcraft. The Purple narrative provides some examples of this paradigm. It employs a skeptical demonological argument that Joseph Smith’s visions of treasures were a “cherished hallucination” and that the treasure quest was a product of “the hallucination of diseased minds.” It reveals Mr. Stowell’s sons “caused the arrest of Smith as a vagrant, without visible means of livelihood,” a potential reference to the trope of the begging witch. The document goes onto describe Mormonism as a “mighty delusion of the present century.” Purple claimed that witness Johnathon Thompson “could not assert that anything of value was ever obtained by them.”[95] The Purple narrative portrays Joseph Smith’s treasure quest as genuinely held folk-beliefs treated as delusion or diabolized as the influence of evil spiritual powers through witchcraft. However, the Purple narrative does not describe “pretended” practices or beliefs, nor does it claim that Smith was deceiving Stowell and the other treasure seekers. Among skeptical demonologists who wrote after Weyer, the use of the word “pretended” to describe supernatural claims of miraculous power is not a clear-cut statement about fraud. It is a recategorization of disparaged religious beliefs and practices to better police and penalize them. This is most commonly seen in skeptical English demonologists’ descriptions of non-Calvinist religious traditions from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This understanding of the word “pretended” also appears in the Pearsall narrative’s depiction of the 1826 pre-trial. The Pearsall narrative follows this tradition. It relies almost entirely upon “pretended” powers, claiming that Joseph Smith “had pretended to tell by looking at this stone, where coined money was buried in Pennsylvania, and while at Palmyra he had frequently ascertained in that way where lost property was of various kinds.” Oddly, it depicts Josiah Stowell as claiming that Joseph Smith Jr. “pretended to have skill of telling where hidden treasures in the earth were by means of looking through a certain stone.” When compared to statements in both narratives that assert Stowell’s belief in Smith’s abilities, this statement seems to be an insertion or a scribal distortion. In the Pearsall narrative, Johnathon Thompson testified that Joseph Smith Jr. “pretended to know” where the treasure was buried and “pretending that he was alarmed” when they thought their shovels had hit a chest. The Pearsall narrative then claims that Johnathon Thompson believed “in the prisoners professed skill, that the board he struck his spade upon was probably the chest but on account of an enchantment, the trunk kept settling away from under them while digging.” This should be compared to the Purple narrative’s version of Johnathon Thompson’s testimony. There, Thompson never presents these alleged practices or beliefs as pretended. On the contrary, the Purple document’s version of the Johnathon Thompson testimony portrays Smith’s folk-Christian beliefs as genuine even if it later repackages them as delusional beliefs leading to unprofitable diabolical witchcraft. Thus, potential scribal distortion also appears in the Johnathon Thompson testimony. The Pearsall narrative’s consistent depiction of Smith’s activities as “pretended” also occurs in its presentation of the Horace Stowell and McMaster[96] testimonies. The two literary sources for the 1826 pretrial diverge strongly on their description of Smith’s activities as pretended witchcraft and diabolical witchcraft. Of these two accounts, the Purple narrative matches the allegations of diabolism that Smith’s neighbors claimed to have of his activities after 1824. However, the Pearsall account contains the justice’s itemized fee bill, which matches Justice Neeley’s and Constable De Zing’s bill of costs.[97] This conundrum would suggest that the Pearsall account is not a faithful reproduction of the original trial notes. It would appear that working with the original notes, Emily Pearsall may have fabricated an account of the trial by removing elements of folk-Christian belief frequently associated with witchcraft and the allegations of diabolical witchcraft. For example, Joseph Smith Sr.’s and Joseph Smith Jr.’s testimonies, which explicitly characterize treasure seeking as a Christian act in the Purple narrative, are both completely omitted in the Pearsall narrative. These elements of Joseph Smith’s early life would have triggered the skepticism of a late nineteenth-century audience. Their absence in the Pearsall narrative reflects a later reframing of the events. By the last quarter of the century, Salem had been cemented as a symbol of national embarrassment. As Gretchen A. Adams notes, by “the 1860s and well beyond,” the shameful memory of Salem, “more often described the excesses and passion of the persecuting ‘hunter’ than the beliefs and practices that created the ‘hunted.’”[98] If the original trial notes included Smith’s confessions’ folk-Christian belief conflated with witchcraft or if it contained allegations of diabolical witchcraft, the recreation of these elements in the Pearsall articles from later in the century would have triggered skepticism among people from Emily Pearsall’s generation of Americans. William Purple, on the other hand, was from an ante-bellum generation of nineteenth-century Americans who had not internalized this understanding of Salem or skepticism about diabolical witchcraft. Hence, Purple’s account included the folk-Christian confessions from both Joseph Smiths. For William Purple and other believers in diabolical witchcraft, the conflation of folk-Christianity with witchcraft meant that the Smiths’ confessions of folk-Christian activity would have been seen as blasphemous confessions of implicit pacts, which believers imagined to be witchcraft. On the other hand, Emily Pearsall would have been motivated to modify an account of the 1826 pretrial by stripping the actual trail notes of inconvenient and embarrassing material, focusing instead on post-Enlightenment concerns with pretended witchcraft, painting it as fraud. In order to do so, the Pearsall narrative had to eliminate allegations of animal sacrifice and insinuations of human sacrifice as well as allusions to magical thought control and magical theft that were later reported in the Purple narrative. Additionally, the Pearsall narrative evades the first name of one of the witnesses, who is simply described as McMaster. The Pearsall narrative’s scribal insertion portraying Josiah Stowell as describing Joseph Smith’s practices as pretended suggest that Emily Pearsall may have added and embellished material in her account. This is suggested by alleged accounts of deliberate deception in the Horace Stowell, Arad Stowell, and McMaster testimonies. These accounts of deliberate deception do not appear in the Purple narrative. Further evidence for selective distortion in the Pearsall account can be found in the Pearsall narrative’s guilty verdict, which strongly contradicts William Purple’s claims that the prisoner was discharged on Josiah Stowell’s testimony. The motive and the ways the Pearsall account do not match the larger body of evidence would strongly suggest that such a chain of events shaped the final document used to generate this account. The divergences in these narratives suggest that the allegations in the pre-trial as remembered by William Purple focused on diabolical witchcraft while Emily Pearsall heavily edited her account to create a narrative that focused on post-Enlightenment concerns with pretended powers.The 1829 Charges in Lyons
Charges of witchcraft continued to follow Joseph Smith. In March 1829, Lucy Harris gathered a larger number of Joseph Smith’s enemies from Palmyra to bring him to court in Lyons for “pretending” to have the gold plates.[99] Lucy Mack Smith’s account of these events focuses on testimonies of pretended belief. However, considering that this legal dispute appears to have mostly involved Manchester and Palmyra residents, these affidavits’ contents may have been similar to the allegations of diabolism in Joseph Smith’s early life found in the Manchester affidavits of E. D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed.[100] For example, William Stafford describes the sacrifice of a black sheep, a component of the myth of the diabolical Witches’ Sabbath.[101] Willard Chase’s report of angel Moroni appearing as a witch’s familiar spirit in the form of a black toad at the gold plates’ alleged burial site is combined with depictions of Joseph and Emma allegedly acquiring the plates while dressed for a black mass.[102] The presence of outright allegations of diabolical witchcraft in the abortive 1829 proceedings may explain why the justice of the peace in Lyons subsequently tore up the affidavits and requested that the accusers “go home about their [sic] business, and trouble him no more with such ridiculous folly.”[103] The witchcraft belief of the populace and conservative religious authorities met a firm wall of judicial skepticism in the courtroom. Lucy Mack Smith’s suppression of witchcraft belief in her account of these proceedings reflects larger trends in the nineteenth century of underreporting witchcraft belief. As victims of these allegations who lived in the public eye, the Smiths would have been wise to downplay allegations of diabolism as a means of preserving their safety from anti-witchcraft violence as well as their reputations.The 1830 Charges in Bainbridge and Colesville
As Smith’s reputation increased, so did the accusations of witchcraft. In 1830, Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon. Soon afterward, newspapers insinuated witchcraft in their depictions of this event. The Rochester Daily Advertiser referred to Martin Harris as “blindly enthusiastic.”[104] In neighboring Vermont, the Horn of the Green Mountains claimed that Smith’s influence over Martin Harris was due to Smith’s “hocus pocus.”[105] In New York, the Gem compared Smith and his followers to “Salem Witchcraft-ism and Jemima Wilkinsonian-ism” before discussing treasure seeking in terms reminiscent of witchcraft.[106] Other sources show further allegations against both pretended and diabolical witchcraft. Abner Cole made witchcraft allegations against Joseph Smith in The Reflector by defining treasure seekers like the cunning-man Luman Walters and Joseph Smith as both pretended and diabolical “witches and wizards.”[107] After the publication of Abner Cole’s witchcraft allegations, Joseph Smith exorcised the devil out of Newell Knight, who then saw visions of heaven. A mob gathered to destroy the dam used for baptism and to threaten Joseph and his followers at the Knight home. He was then charged with being a disorderly person in Bainbridge. The constable who arrested Joseph told him that the trial had been a ruse, with the mob intending to capture Joseph before the trial. In this proceeding, Joseph Smith successfully appealed to the statute of limitations. Though, he was promptly rearrested and taken to Colesville, where he faced prosecution for treasure seeking and performing what his Presbyterian prosecutors presented as a charismatic exorcism.[108] In the 1830 cases, Smith’s prosecutors also leveled charges of pretended religion. In the narrative accounts of these proceedings, Joseph Smith’s treasure seeking and seer stone use are described by his opponents as pretended. However, Smith’s opponents also described the explicitly Christian exorcism of Newell Knight as pretended in spite of the genuine belief of those involved. Like Francis Hutchinson’s writings on the French Prophets, and the French Edict against the “Pretended Reformed Religion,”[109] Smith’s opponents defined the early Latter-day Saints’ beliefs as pretended. Thus, interest in Smith’s earlier practice of allegedly pretended treasure seeking is not necessarily indicative of a concern for fraudulent economic activities. It is demonstrative of how the post-Enlightenment legal system categorized unorthodox beliefs and practices as false, bypassing the genuine belief of those involved. Not all of the allegations in these proceedings were of allegedly pretended powers. Some of the first witnesses testified to what Joseph Smith euphemistically calls “the most palpable falsehoods.”[110] The falsehoods are potentially found in a letter attributed to Justice of the Peace Noble, “Jo. and others were Diging for a Chest of money in night could not obtainit- [sic] It they procured one thing and an other together with [a] black Bitch the Bitch was offered a sacrifise [blo]od sprinkled prayer made at the time (no money obtained) the above Sworn to on trial – Sir a Small Volume at least might filed Similar to the above.”[111] It is likely that the justice of the peace initially recognized these as diabolical witchcraft allegations in a legal system that did not recognize diabolical witchcraft as a reality, much less a crime. Ultimately, this court case turned in Joseph Smith’s favor and he was released. However, just as a mob of anti-witchcraft Methodists had harassed Joseph Smith in Harmony, Pennsylvania, he and his followers were likewise harassed by mobs leading up to and during the 1830 proceedings. At the end of the Colesville case, the sheriff who had arrested Joseph had to provide a diversion to ensure that Smith could safely escape the mob awaiting him outside the courthouse.[112] These anti-witchcraft mobs would have seen their persecution as a fulfillment of God’s law (Exodus 22:18). After the trials, the mobs in Pennsylvania and New York would regather in their attempts to punish and potentially kill Joseph Smith.[113] The intensity of the extrajudicial violence that hounds Joseph during this part of his life is disproportionate to the alleged crime of fraud. However, when we recognize that these trials were about witchcraft, the inner demonologies motivating the persecution of Joseph Smith are obvious.Conclusion
An analysis of the English legislation that informed nineteenth-century New York cases against Joseph Smith between 1826 and 1830 demonstrates that treasure seeking and the cunning-folk use of seer stones had a long association in Anglophone law and theology as a form of witchcraft. This represented an effort to impose the demonologists’ religious doctrine onto the treasure seekers’ beliefs and practices, which was part of a larger effort to police nonorthodox religious and spiritual practices through the legal system. Religious leaders and legislators classified treasure seeking as witchcraft during the era of the witch-hunts. After the Enlightenment, the legal system adopted skeptical demonology’s classification of cunning-folk activities as “pretended witchcraft and magic.” The beliefs of competing forms of Christian and non-Christian religions were also defined and penalized as being “pretended.” Outside of the legal system, people classified treasure seeking as diabolical witchcraft, pretended witchcraft, or both, depending on their personal beliefs about witchcraft. Those who practiced treasure seeking saw it as an expression of their Christian faith. Thus, competing ascriptions and beliefs about treasure seeking and seer stone use meant that the courtroom was a battleground between beliefs about treasure seeking. The government could impose its own definition of pretended witchcraft and magic onto the beliefs of folk-Christians while negating the diabolical witchcraft beliefs of accusers who maintained early modern belief in the diabolical witch. When we assess Joseph Smith’s early trials as if the word “pretended” indicated deliberate deception on Joseph’s part, we miss the larger picture. Joseph’s enemies were primarily concerned with witchcraft. They chose to prosecute him for “pretended witchcraft and magic” under the 1813 disorderly person statute because it was the only legal resource available for penalizing activities which Joseph’s enemies conflated with witchcraft. Their only alternative was extralegal anti-witchcraft violence in the form of mobbing. The fact that they utilized both judicial and extrajudicial means while accusing Joseph Smith of diabolical witchcraft would indicate that pretended witchcraft, magic, and religion were only a superficial concern, if they were truly a concern at all. While Joseph Smith, his father, and Josiah Stowell define their treasure seeking in terms of folk-Christianity, others saw something more nefarious. Rather than mere fraud, these early legal charges indicate that diabolical witchcraft was an important paradigm motivating those who persecuted Joseph Smith’s early treasure seeking and claims to the gift of prophecy. The testimonies of Joseph, his father and Josiah Stowell indicate that Joseph’s treasure-seeking was a folk-Christian activity motivated by genuine belief in the religious value of these activities.Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. Please note that there may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and biographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR. [1] Appendix: Reminiscence of William D. Purple, 28 Apr. 1877 [State of New York v. JS-A],” 3, The Joseph Smith Papers (hereafter JSP); Appendix: Docket Entry, 20 Mar. 1826 [State of New York v. JS-A], 1, JSP. [2] History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], 42–48, JSP; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 8, 5–7, JSP; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 9, 12–13, JSP; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk 10, 1, JSP; Joseph Knight, “Joseph Knight, Sr., Reminiscence, Circa 1835–1847,” in Early Mormon Documents (hereafter EMD), 5 vols., edited by Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996–2003), 4:22–24; Newel Knight, “Newel Knight Journal, Circa 1846,” in EMD, 4:30–35; Hamilton Child, “Hamilton Child Account”, in EMD, 4:220–21. [3] See Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, 2nd ed (1945; New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 16–33; Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 48–52; Jan Shipps, “The Prophet Puzzle: Suggestions Leading to a More Comprehensive interpretation of Joseph Smith,” in The New Mormon History, edited by D. Michael Quinn (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2009), 53–74; Gordon A. Madsen, “Being Acquitted of a ‘Disorderly Person’ Charge in 1826,” in Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith’s Legal Encounters, edited by Gordon A. Madsen, Jeffrey N. Walker, and John Welch, (Provo: BYU Studies, 2014), 71–92. [4] Madsen, “Being Acquitted,” 71–92. [5] Dan Vogel, “Editorial Note: Bainbridge (NY) Court Record 20 March 1826,” EMD 4:244. [6] Owen Davies and Willem De Blecourt, ed., Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004) 6–7. [7] Thomas Waters, “‘They Seem to Have All Died Out’: Witches and Witchcraft in Lark Rise to Candleford and the English Countryside, c. 1830–1930,” Historical Research 87 no. 235 (Feb. 2014), 136–37. [8] Owen Davies, Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007), 10–11, 20, 59, 73, 93–96, 120, 126, 174–77, 180. [9] Davies, Popular Magic, 61–62, 63, 185–96; Patrick J. Donmoyer, Powwowing in Pennsylvania: Healing Rituals of the Dutch Country (Kutztown: Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center of Kutztown University, 2017), 15–41; David W. Kriebel, Powwowing Among the Pennsylvania Dutch: A Traditional Medical Practice in the Modern World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), 13–62, 261–62. See also Laura Stokes, Demons of Urban Reform: Early European Witch Trials and Criminal Justice, 1430–1530 (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 3. For the witch as an imagined category of people, see Juliette Wood, “The Reality of Witch Cults Reasserted: Fertility and Satanism,” in Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Historiography, edited by Jonathon Barry and Owen Davies (Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Norman Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). [10] Barbara Rosen, “Laws and Punishments,” in Witchcraft in England 1558–1618, edited by Barbara Rosen (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1972), 51–58. [11] Davies, Popular Magic, 4–9. Julian Goodare, The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002), 12; Julian Goodare, “The Scottish Witchcraft Act,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 74 no. 1 (Mar. 2005): 39–67; Andrew Sneddon, Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland, (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), 27. For more information on the relationship between Scottish, English and Irish legislation, see Sneddon, “Witchcraft Legislation and Legal Administration,” in Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland, 25–33. [12] Manuel Padro, “Redemption: The Treasure Quest and the Wandering Soul,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 40 no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2020): 57. [13] Michael D. Bailey, Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy and Reform in the Late Middle Ages (State Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003); Hans Peter Broedel, The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003). [14] Fae Honeybell, “Cunning Folk and Wizards in Early Modern England” (master’s thesis, University of Warwick, 2010), 67–69; Jean Bodin, On the Demon-Mania of Witches, translated by Randy A. Scott (Toronto, ON: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Victoria University in the University of Toronto, 1995); Martin Del Rio, Investigations into Magic, translated by P. G. Maxwell-Stuart (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000). [15] Nicholas Remy, Demonaltry Libri Tres, edited by Montague Summers, translated by E. A. Ashwin, (1595; Secaucus, N.J.: University Books, n.d.), 32, 146, 156. [16] Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (1992; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005), 415; William Perkins, A Discourse on the Damned Art of Witchcraft (Cambridge, UK: Centrell Ledge, 1618); George Gifford, A Discourse of the Subtill Practises of Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers (London: Toby Cooke, 1587); George Gifford, A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraft(London: Printed by R.F. and F.K., 1603); Thomas Cooper, The Mystery of Witch-Craft (London: Printed by Nicholas Okes, 1617); Richard Bernard, A Guide to Grand-Jury Men divided into Two Books, (London: Printed by Felix Kingston for Ed. Blackmore, 1627.) [17] Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana Books I and II, edited by Kenneth B. Murdock and Elizabeth W. Miller (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), 321–341. See also Daniel Defoe, A System of Magick, or, A History of the Black Art, (London: Andrew Miller, 1728). [18] Richard Boulton, The Possibility and Reality of Magick, Sorcery, and Witchcraft, Demonstrated, or a Vindication of a Compleat History of Magick (London: Printed for J Roberts, 1722), 134 [19] Ezra Stiles, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, edited by Friederich Bowditch Dexter (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1901), 385–86. [20] Owen Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736–1951 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1999); Owen Davies, A People Bewitched: Witchcraft and Magic in Nineteenth-century Somerset (Trowbridge, UK: David & Charles, 2012); Owen Davies, America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft After Salem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). [21] Johann Weyer, “De Praestigiis Daemonum,” in Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance, edited by George Mora (Binghamton: State University of New York at Binghamton, 1991). [22] Reginald Scott, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (London, Eliot Stock, 1886). This position was taken up by Thomas Ady in A Perfect Discovery of Witchcraft (London: Printed for R.I., 1661). It was also the paradigm of John Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (London: Printed by J.M., 1677), 32–34. See also Robert Filmer, An Advertisement to the Jury-Men, of England, (London: Printed by I.G. for Richard Royston, 1653); John Wagstaffe, The Question of Witchcraft Debated, 2nd ed. (London: Edw. Millington, 1671). [23] Francis Hutchinson, A Short View of the Pretended Spirit of Prophecy (London: Printed for John Morphew, 1708). [24] Ian Bostridge, Witchcraft and It’s Transformations: c.1650-c.1750 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 141–42. [25] Brian P. Levack, “The End of Prosecutions,” in Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 75–76; Roy Porter, “Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment, Romantic and Liberal Thought,” in Ankarloo and Clark, Witchcraft and Magic, 211; Johannes Dillinger, Magical Treasure Hunting in Europe and North America: A History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 9–27, 114–46. [26] King Louis XIV, AN EDICT OF THE French King, Prohibiting all Publick Exercise of the Pretended Reformed Religion in his Kingdom (N.P: G.M., 1686). [27] Massachusetts, The book of the general lauues and libertyes concerning the inhabitants of the Massachusetts (Cambridge, MA: Printed by Matthew Day according to order of the General Court, 1648). For statutes targeting Anabaptists, see pages 1–2; Heresy, see page 24; and Jesuits see page 26; and Richard Bushman, From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765 (1967; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 186. [28] Davies, America Bewitched, 45–47, 51–55. [29] Madsen, “Being Acquitted,” 74. [30] Jerome S. Handler and Kenneth M. Bilby, Enacting Power: The Criminalization of Obeah in the Anglophone Caribbean, 1760–2011 (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2013); Government of Canada, “Criminal Code: Version of Section 365 from 2003-01-01 to 2018-12-12,” Justice Laws Website, accessed Mar. 19, 2020, https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46 /section-365-20030101.html; Cortenay Ilbert, “Legislation of the Empire, 1895,” Journal of the Society of Comparative Religion 1 (1896–1897): 90–98; The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development of South Africa, “Witchcraft Suppression Act 3 of 1957”, accessed on Nov. 13, 2020; Malcom Voyce, “Maori Healers in New Zealand: The Tohunga Suppression Act of 1907,” Oceania 60, no. 2 (Dec. 1989), 102–10. [31] “1824: 5 George 4 c.83: Vagrancy Act,” The Statutes Project (website), accessed August 27, 2021. [32] “1824: 5 George 4 c.83: Vagrancy Act,”§ 4. [33] Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 54. [34] Davies, Popular Magic, 20–28; Davies, America Bewitched, 52, 54–60, 62, 65; Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 61–78; Sneddon, Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland, 124–48. [35] D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 118–19. [36] James Giddings, “Escape from Justice,” Concord (N.H.) Gazette, Sept. 1, 1818; D. Michael Quinn also points out that there is an allegation of a second disorderly person conviction in New York against Luman Walters. This allegation has not yet been substantiated. Quinn, Early Mormonism, 118–19. [37] Quinn, Early Mormonism, 118–19; Abner Cole, “Gold Bible, No. 05,” in EMD, 2:246. [38] Abner Cole, “Book of Pukei—chap. 1,” The Reflector (Palmyra, N.Y.), June 12, 1830, 36–37; Abner Cole, “Book of Pukei—chap. 2,” The Reflector (Palmyra, N.Y.), July 7, 1830, 60. [39] Hume, “Witchcraft and the Law in Australia,” 146. See also Introduction to State of New York v. JS-A, JSP. [40] Thomas Waters, “‘They Seem to Have All Died Out,’” 134–53. [41] Sneddon, Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland, 98. [42] See Alexander Campbell, “An Address Delivered to the Popular Lecture Club, Nashville, Tennessee, March 10, 1841,” Millennial Harbinger(Bethany, Va.) Oct. 1841, 457–80. [43] Adam Jortner, “‘Some Little Necromancy’: Politics, Religion, and the Mormons, 1829–1838,” in Contingent Citizens: Shifting Perceptions of Latter-day Saints in American Political Culture, edited by Spencer W. McBride, Brent M. Rogers, and Keith A. Erekson (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2020), 17–28. [44] Padro, “Redemption,” 40–80. [45] Jortner, “Some Little Necromancy,” 17–28. [46] Times and Seasons, 1 Apr. 1842, 748, JSP; William Smith, “William Smith Interview with E. C. Briggs, 1893,” EMD, 1:512. [47] Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 5, 4, JSP. [48] Joseph Smith Sr., “To the Public,” copy of Wayne (N.Y.) Sentinel, Sept. 29, 1824, in EMD, 2:217–18. [49] Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), 56–58; Quinn, Early Mormonism, 160–61. [50] William D. Morain, The Sword of Laban: Joseph Smith Jr. and the Dissociated Mind (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1998), 147. Morain cites Laws of New York, Forty-Second Session, chap. 117, 1819, p. 279. [51] Introduction to State of New York v. JS-A, JSP. [52] E. D. Howe, ed., Mormonism Unvailed, edited by Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2015), 231–53. [53] Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), 14–19. [54] Heil Lewis, “Heil Lewis Rejoinder, 4 June 1879,” in EMD, 4:308. [55] RoseAnn Benson, Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith: Nineteenth-Century Restorationists, (Provo: Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center, 2017), 120. [56] Samuel R. Weber, “‘Shake Off the Dust of Thy Feet’: The Rise and Fall of Mormon Ritual Cursing,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought36, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 108–39. [57] Alexander Campbell, “Delusions,” Millennial Harbinger (Bethany, Va.), Feb. 1831, 85–96. [58] Campbell, “Delusions,” 95, 96, 122. [59] Campbell, “Delusions,” 96. [60] Joseph Knight, “Joseph Knight, Sr., Reminiscence, Circa 1835–1847,” in EMD, 4:24. [61] Alexander Campbell, Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon; with an Examination of its Internal and External Evidences, and a Refutation of its Pretenses to Divine Authority (Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1832). [62] History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 Dec. 1805–30 Aug. 1834],” 206–7, JSP. [63] History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 Dec. 1805–30 Aug. 1834],” 206–7, JSP. [64] History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 Dec. 1805–30 Aug. 1834],” 207, JSP. [65] Stephen A. Mitchell, “Witchcraft Persecutions in the Post-Craze Era: The Case of Ann Izzard of Great Paxton, 1808, Western Folklore 59, no. 3/4 (2000): 308, 314; Mike Slater, The Old Woman and the Conjurors: A Journey from Witch Scratching to the Conjurors, and the Southcottian Millenarian Movement of the Early 19th Century, (Woodbury, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 2020), 1–45. [66] Letter to the Elders of the Church, Nov. 30–Dec.1, 1835, 227, JSP. [67] Grandison Newell, “To Sidney Rigdon-Letter No 02,” Painesville Telegraph, Painesville, Ohio, Vol. III, No. 21. [68] In the case of pamphlets, extreme caution must be applied “because often pamphlet writers were often perfectly willing to distort official records in the interests of a more dramatic story or particular point of view.” See Alan Charles Kors and Edward Peters, Witchcraft in Europe 400–1700: A Documentary History, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 22–23. The Joseph Smith Papers have provided an analysis of the primary sources of the 1826 hearing. See Introduction to State of New York v. JS-A, JSP. [69] Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 22–23. [70] Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 23–24. [71] Dan Vogel ed., EMD, 4:257–71. [72] Introduction to State of New York v. JS-A, JSP. [73] Introduction to State of New York v. JS-A, JSP. [74] Wesley P. Walters, “From Occult to Cult with Joseph Smith, Jr.,” Journal of Pastoral Practice 1, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 133–37. [75] For biblical justification, see Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies (New York: New York Review of Books, 2007), 22, 51, 58. [76] Appendix: Reminiscence of William D. Purple, 28 Apr. 1877 [State of New York v. JS-A], 3. JSP (hereafter Reminiscence of William D. Purple). [77] Karl Herr, Hex and Spell Work: The Magical Practices of the Pennsylvania Dutch. (Boston: Weiser Books, 2002), 118–21. [78] Mark Ashurst-McGee, “A Pathway to Prophethood: Joseph Smith Junior as Rodsman, Village Seer, And Judeo-Christian Prophet” (master’s thesis, Utah State University, 2000), table 2, 318. [79] These seem to reference the same all-seeing-eye of God that was sometimes a feature of New English churches even as late as the nineteenth century. See Alice Morse Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England (New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons, 1891), 16. [80] Reminiscence of William D. Purple. [81] Reminiscence of William D. Purple. [82] Reminiscence of William D. Purple. [83] Padro, “Redemption,” 48. [84] Padro, “Redemption,” 48. [85] Reminiscence of William D. Purple. [86] An 1877 account of the pretrial discussed the treasure quest as a “faith (and practice),” reinforcing the practice’s religious nature. “Bainbridge (NY) Republican, 23 August 1877,” in EMD, 4:138. [87] Padro, “Redemption,” 55–58, 73–78. [88] Reminiscence of William D. Purple. [89] Dan Vogel disproved allegations of human sacrifice in the Susquehanna River Region. See Vogel, Joseph Smith, 73. [90] Padro, “Redemption,” 61–64. [91] Increase Mather, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (Boston: Printed by Samuel Green for Joseph Browning, 1684), 341–44. [92] This gossip can be found in Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 231–53; Heil Lewis, “Heil Lewis Rejoinder, 4 June 1879,” in EMD, 4:303–5. [93] This was an element of treasure lore common to the German settlers of Pennsylvania and New York. See Padro, “Redemption,” 48. [94] Waters, “‘They Seem to Have All Died Out,’” 149–53; Owen Davies, “Witchcraft Accusations in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Europe,” in The Routledge History of Witchcraft, edited by Johannes Dillinger (London: Routledge, 2020), 289–98. [95] Reminiscence of William D. Purple.” [96] This may have been Cyrus McMaster, who was later involved in the 1830 disorderly hearings See Vogel ed., EMD, 4:10, 63, 63n40, 260. David McMaster is another possibility; see Vogel ed., EMD, 4:248, 259. [97] Introduction to State of New York v. JS-A, JSP. [98] Gretchen A. Adams, The Specter of Salem: Remembering the Witch Trials in Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 120. [99] Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 9, 12–13, JSP. [100] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 231–53. [101] Padro, “Redemption,” 58; Remy, Demonolatreiae Libri Tres, 40–41. [102] “The relation of witches to toads (or frogs) is notorious . . . toad-familiars are as commonplace as cats.” See George Lyman Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England (New York: Athenuem, 1972), 181–82. [103] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 387; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 8, 7, JSP. [104] Reprinted in Francis Kirkham, A New Witness for Christ in America, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Zion’s Printing and Publishing Company, 1848) 31. [105] Kirkham, New Witness, 40. [106] Kirkham, New Witness, 47–48. Jemima Wilkinson was associated with a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed for poisoning. [107] Cole, “Book of Pukei—chap. 1,” 36–37; Cole, “Book of Pukei—chap. 2,” 60; Abner Cole, “Gold Bible No. 3,” in EMD, 2:243. [108] History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2],” 42–45, JSP. [109] King Louis XIV, AN EDICT OF THE French King, Prohibiting all Publick Exercise of the Pretended Reformed Religion in his Kingdom (N.P: G.M., 1686). [110] History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], 46, JSP. [111] Walters, “From Occult to Cult with Joseph Smith, Jr.,” 135. [112] History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], 42–48, JSP. [113] History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], 53, JSP. [post_title] => Cunning and Disorderly: Early Nineteenth-Century Witch Trials of Joseph Smith [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 54.4 (Winter 2021): 35–70
When we assess Joseph Smith’s early trials as if the word “pretended” indicated deliberate deception on Joseph’s part, we miss the larger picture. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => cunning-and-disorderly-early-nineteenth-century-witch-trials-of-joseph-smith [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-06-06 01:08:06 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-06-06 01:08:06 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=28748 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

"’I Never Knew a Time When I Did Not Know Joseph Smith": A Son's Record Of The Life And Testimony Of Sidney Rigdon
Karl Keller, editor; John Wickliffe Ridgon
Dialogue 1.4 (Spring 1966): 15–42
Not very long after the death of Sidney Rigdon, the influential preacher and compatriate to Joseph Smith in the first years of the Church, his son, John Wickliffe Rigdon, wrote an apology for his father.
From time to time we plan to publish in Dialogue original documents or little-known writings that speak with a personal voice from the Mormon cultural heritage and historical experience. Karl Keller, who has edited the following manuscript lecture by Sidney Rigdon's son, is a frequent contributor to Dialogue and a member of the Board of Editors; he has recently taken a position as Assistant Professor of English at San Diego State College, has just published an article on Emerson in American Literature, and has a book on Emerson and an anthology of Mormon literature in preparation.
Edited by Karl Keller
Not very long after the death of Sidney Rigdon, the influential preacher and compatriate to Joseph Smith in the first years of the Church, his son, John Wickliffe Rigdon, wrote an apology for his father. He delivered it at Alfred University and other colleges and communities in the Central New York area around the turn of the century, in an attempt to revive interest in his almost entirely forgotten famous family and in an attempt to clear his father's name once and for all of criticisms connected with the founding of Mormonism.
The son, who moved in his last years to New York City after losing all his holdings in the oil refinery business and meeting with only small success as a lawyer, wrote the lecture obviously out of pride for his father. But he appears to have written it also as a way of explaining his father to himself. His main emphasis in the lecture, as the reader will detect, is the great fame and fortune that Sidney Rigdon might have achieved had he been able to adapt his abilities and his personality fully to any one philosophy—Baptist, Campbellite, or Mormon. He sees his father as a tragic figure and is perhaps trying to account for the family's decline through an exploration of that tragedy. Yet the son's main point is that his father did much for the Church, and, though he was rejected by it and became bitter, he kept his faith—and that, to the son, transcends the tragedy. As an "outsider" he is obsessed with that transcendence.
The son is no great writer (it is difficult to see how he, with all his redundancy and verbiage and, to his New York listeners, minute detail, could have kept an audience's attention), yet the affection with which he remembers people and incidents and the effort at dramatizing events make his lecture worth reading. "I was there, I saw the makings of things, I watched a great man rise and fall," he seems to be saying. He senses well that through his father he has played a small and possibly significant role in history. He does not have much verve of language, yet his pride in his father's heroism and his efforts to understand his father's tragedy keep his narrative alive.
According to the few remaining relatives of the Rigdon family in the area of Friendship, New York, where Rigdon went with his family after the death of Joseph Smith, all of the other personal records written by Sidney Rigdon and his family have been destroyed. (A granddaughter and the only remaining descendant of Sidney Rigdon—a woman now residing in Florida and wishing to remain anonymous—reports that after returning to New York Rigdon wrote "novels and other books/' hut, she says, these have all been destroyed by the family.) And so these lecture notes of John Wickliffe Rigdon become the most intimate report of Rigdon extant. Yet the lecture has, as far as I can find, never been published or known widely outside of the quiet little town where he lived his last years and where he died in 1876.
Also in the late 1890's after he had rejoined the Church, the son took the time to write out these lecture notes in a longer form. He called his manuscript the "Life Story of Sidney Rigdon." That work was never published and is now in the Church Historian's Office in Salt Lake City. Although permission has never been granted anyone to publish or to quote extensively from that version,[1] I have gained permission from President Joseph Fielding Smith to collate the text of the manuscript printed here with the one in the Historian's Office. They are very" similar in form and approach, though the Salt Lake manuscript has more detail and relates several additional events in the life of Sidney Rigdon.
In September, 1900, John W. Rigdon visited the First Presidency of the Church and offered to sell the "Life Story" of his father to the Church. It was purchased at that time but was never published, though I think the son assumed that the Church would print and distribute it. The style is the same as the manuscript printed here, but it is considerably less dramatic and more redundant, without being much more explicit. In expanding his narrative for the version that he gave the First Presidency, he has in some instances drawn at length upon sources already in print (for instance, some of Sidney Rigdon's sermons from Joseph Smith's History and from the Times and Seasons are included complete).
In the "Life Story" the son makes himself out to be much more favorable toward the Church than he does in this lecture. He makes no mention of the Spaulding Theory and does not call into question the authority of the Reorganized Church, as he does in the version printed here. And he makes his purpose more explicit; it is, he says, to correct "some of the erroneous beliefs that have heretofore been entertained of the character and purposes of Sidney Rigdon." The version printed here is altogether much more succinct and readable, however, than the "Life Story." I have referred in my footnotes to significant differences between the two manuscripts.
As long as John W. Rigdon's other "Life" remains under the protective custody of the Church Historian, the version printed here remains the only available primary source of the final testimony of Sidney Rigdon.
In editing the manuscript, I have regularized the spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and have made sentences and paragraphs out of the writer's sometimes incoherent notes, in order to facilitate reading. I have also added connecting words and articles where they are needed, but have noted all otherwise significant changes with brackets or in footnotes wherever there is likely to be controversy over the writer's intent. Yet I have left the manuscript intact so that the reader might sense the style for himself.
The lecture was written out in longhand in a rambling style that made informal delivery easy and additional commentary possible. The manuscript has yellowed slightly with time but is kept for anyone to see by a distant cousin of the author (again a relative who asked to remain anonymous) at her farm home near Cuba Lake where the Rigdon family once lived for a short time. I am indebted to Mrs. Sam Hess of Frien4ship,·New York, for obtaining the manuscript for me to edit for publication in Dialogue.
In July, 1965, the town of Friendship, near where I lived at the time, held a Sesqui-Centennial commemoration and celebrated Sidney Rigdon as one of the town's most famous sons, even though few in the area had ever heard of the man and his influence on early Mormonism. Mrs. Hess, a Roman Catholic, was largely responsible for the revival of interest in Rigdon at the time. The site of the RigdonRobinson farm on Jackson Hill, the later Rigdon house on Main Street in Friendship, and the Rigdon family graves outside of town were made points of interest, largely through the influence of Mrs. Hess. It was during this commemoration that I first became acquainted with the Rigdon history· in the area and became aware of the existence of this manuscript.
During this celebration, a commemorative service was conducted by President H. Lester Petersen of the Cumorah Mission and President H. H. Christensen of the Susquehanna District of the Church at the local Baptist church, a building that Rigdon was forbidden to enter all the days of his life in Friendship, New York. That event was symbolic; for Sidney Rigdon, if only in a small way, came thus into some of the fame that he so passionately desired. With the publication of this manuscript by his son, he perhaps comes into a little more.
The Life and Testimony of Sidney Rigdon
John Wickliffe Rigdon
I am the only living child of Sidney Rigdon. who died in the town of Friendship, Allegany County, New York, in the summer of 1876, and who was at the time of his death almost 83 years old. There were twelve children in my father's family; they are all dead except myself. Sidney Rigdon joined the Mormon Church in the year of 1830 at Kirtland, Ohio, and in the year 1833 was ordained Joseph Smith's first counselor, which position he retained up to the time of Joseph Smith's death at Carthage. Ill. (He was killed by a mob on the 27th day of June 1844.)
I never knew a time when I did not know Joseph Smith. I knew him from my earliest recollections up to the time of his assassination at Carthage in the State of Illinois. I was as familiar with him as I was with my own father. I used to see him almost every day of my life. My father and his family almost always lived very close to him. I used to see him every day and sometimes much oftener.
When my father and mother joined the Mormon Church at Kirtland, Ohio, he, my father, was living at a little town called Mentor in the State of Ohio about five miles from Kirtland. He was, at the time he joined the Mormon Church, preaching what was then Campbellitism, now called Christian, and soon after he joined the Mormon Church, he was charged with having written the Book of Mormon. He always denied the same to friend and foe alike, but they would not believe him. The world claimed that he stole one Solomon Spaulding's manuscript and from that concocted out of the said manuscript the Book of Mormon.[2] He used to tell them he never saw Spauldings [manuscript] in his life, but the people of the world would not believe him and continued to assert that he did write the Book of Mormon and gave it to Joseph Smith to introduce to the world. The religions of the world were determined to prove, if they could, that the Book of Mormon was not obtained as Joseph Smith claimed (i.e., that an angel from heaven appeared to him and told him where to go and find that which was buried in a hill near Palmyra, N.Y.). The fact [is] that Joseph Smith had the book, all that knew him said he did not know enough to have written it, and somebody else must be found who they thought could have written it; for to admit that an angel appeared to Joseph Smith and told him where to go to find it was a reflection on their religion, and their religion must be maintained at all hazards, and therefore they selected Sidney Rigdon as the man.
Perhaps it might be well enough for me to tell you what kind of a man Sidney Rigdon was and then you will see why the world claimed he was the author of the book. Sidney Rigdon was born in the year of 1793 in Washington County, Pennsylvania.[3] His father, William Rigdon, was a farmer living on a farm ten miles from Pittsburg, being then a city of about 10,000 inhabitants. His father, William Rigdon, married a wife by the name of Nancy Gallaher. They bad four children. Sidney Rigdon was the youngest. He had two brothers and one sister. His oldest brother, Carvel Rigdon, married and moved on a farm near to the old homestead. The second brother, Loami Rigdon, was a sickly boy and unable to work on the farm. His sister, Lucy Rigdon, married one Peter Boyer, who owned a farm near the old homestead, and moved with her husband to his farm, leaving Loami Rigdon and Sidney Rigdon on the old homestead with their father and mother.
It was the rule in the country that when a boy was too feeble to work on a farm, they would send him to school and give him an education. Loami Rigdon was too sickly and feeble to labor on a farm, and his parents decided to send him to school and give him an education. Sidney Rigdon wanted to go to school, and pleaded with his father and mother to let him go with his brother to school, but they would not consent to let him go, saying to him that he was able to work on the farm and he could not go. At last finding they would not let him go to school, he said to them in anger that he would have as good an education as his brother got and they could not prevent it. So his brother Loami was sent to school; he went to Lexington, Kentucky, and studied medicine and became a physician. He never returned to the old homestead to live but went to Hamilton in the State of Ohio and there practiced medicine for over forty years, leaving Sidney Rigdon and his father and mother on the farm to live.
Sidney Rigdon, after his brother Loami Rigdon had gone to Lexington, borrowed all the histories he could get and began to read them. His parents would not let him have a candle to read by night; he therefore gathered hickory bark (there was plenty of it around the old farm), and he used to get it and at night throw it on the old fireplace and then lie with his face and head towards the fire and read history till near morning unless his parents got up and drove him to bed before that time. In this way, he became a great historian, the best I ever saw. He seemed to have the history of the world on his tongue's end and he got to be a great biblical scholar as well. He was as familiar with the Bible as a child is with his spelling book. He was never known to play with the boys; reading books was the greatest pleasure he could get. He studied English grammar alone and became a very fine grammarian. He was very precise in his language.
At length his father, William Rigdon, died, leaving Sidney Rigdon and his mother alone on the farm. At length they got tired of living alone on the farm. It was lonesome and they sold the farm and his mother went to live with her daughter, Mrs. Peter Boyer, and Sidney Rigdon went to study theology under a Baptist minister by the name of Peters who belonged to what was called the straight Baptists.[4] (I do not know what straight Baptist means, unless it is those Baptists who believe in infant damnation, and that, it would seem to me, to be straight enough for almost anyone.) After getting his license to preach, he went to Pittsburg and preached a short time there and then went to the town of Warren, Trumbull County, in Ohio, and remained there about two years.[5] He did not have any particular charge of a church, but whenever a vacancy occurred in the country, he always filled it, and in that way got a reputation of being a very eloquent preacher.
Nature made him an orator and his great knowledge of history of the Bible gave him the knowledge so he was able to talk on almost any subject. He was of a natural religious tum of mind and he delighted in preaching the gospel.
At length he got married.[6] He married a daughter of Jeremiah Brooks, who was also a great Baptist. Soon after his marriage he and his wife started on their wedding tour to go to Pittsburg to visit his brother, his mother, and his sister, who resided ten miles from Pittsburg. They went on horseback; that is the way they rode in those days. They reached Pittsburg on Saturday night and stayed there overnight. One of the members of the Baptist church who had heard my father preach came to see him and wanted to know if he would not come to the Baptist church and preach to them Sunday morning. He said they had one of the largest churches in the city of Pittsburg, but the church had become divided and they had no minister and had no preaching in the church, and he would be much pleased if he would come and preach to them Sunday morning. He told the brother he would. The brother gave notice that night that there would be preaching in the church.
The next morning quite a little congregation gathered at the church to hear him preach. After his discourse was ended and the congregation were dismissed, he told the congregation that he was going out into the country about ten miles from the city to visit his brother and mother and sister and should remain out there about four weeks, and if they wished him to come into the city and preach to them every Sunday morning during the time he remained out in the country, he would do so, as he could ride into the city every Sunday morning and preach to them and then go back in the afternoon. This offer they gladly accepted and my father preached in the church for four Sundays in succession. When he got ready to go home, he and his wife again came to Pittsburg and stayed overnight, and quite a number of the members of the church called to see them and wanted to know if he would not, when he got back homeJ come back and take charge of the church and be their pastor. They said to him that they had the largest congregation in Pittsburg when they were united and they thought from what they had heard of his preaching that he could unite them and they would be much pleased to have him come back and be their minister. He said to them that he would take the matter under advisement and when he got home he would consider the matter and let them know.
When he got home, he told his father-in-law of the offer the church at Pittsburg had made him, and he, being a great Baptist, urged him by all means to accept it, as it was not very often a young minister received such an offer. It might be the making of him and give him a great reputation. He therefore informed the members of the church at Pittsburg that he accepted their offer and would soon come to Pittsburg and become their pastor. Soon after informing them of his acceptance, he returned to Pittsburg with his wife and became the pastor of the Baptist church.[7] It was not long after he took charge of the church until he united the church, and he had the largest congregation in the city, and in less than one year he had the reputation of being one of the most eloquent preachers in the city. Everything went smoothly along; fame and fortune seemed to be within his grasp.
At Iength[8] an old Scotch divine came to Pittsburg and wanted to know of my father if he preached and taught the Baptist confession of faith [regarding] infant damnation. He told him that he did not, as he did not believe it and would not teach it. The Scotch divine replied to him that he would have to teach it, as it was part of the Baptist confession of faith. My father replied to him that he did not care if it was a part of the Baptist confession of faith. It was to him too horrible a doctrine for him to teach and he would have nothing to do with it. His refusal to teach the Baptist confession of faith occasioned quite a stir among the congregation. The older members of the church thought he ought to teach it, as it was a part of their confession of faith, while the younger members thought he acted wisely in refusing to teach the doctrine. My father, seeing there was to be a division in the church, tendered his resignation and the church got another minister.
After resigning the pastorship of the Baptist church, he remained in Pittsburg about two years.[9] After that [he worked] in a tan yard with his brotherin-law, Richard Brooks, who was a tanner and conyer [?] by trade who started a tannery in Pittsburg. My father contributed some money to the business. At the end of two years they sold the tannery.
Soon after that Sidney Rigdon became acquainted with Alexander Campbell, who was a very leanred man but not much of an orator.[10] He and Campbell got their heads together and started what was then called the Campbellite Church, now called Christian.[11] Sidney Rigdon baptized Campbell and Campbell baptized him, and the church was started. There was not much to their confession of faith. It was to believe on the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, be baptized for the remission of your sins, and take the Bible for your guide was all there was of it. Its simplicity recommended itself to the general public, and Sidney Rigdon went to Mentor, Ohio, and commenced to preach the doctrine.[12] He soon had quite a large congregation.[13] They built him a church and he again seemed to be on the high road to fame and fortune.
One day the congregation asked him what he was going to charge them per year for his preaching. He said, nothing; he said the apostles asked nothing for their preaching and he was not a-going to charge anything. They said to him in reply that he had been giving them the gospel and now they were akgoing to give him something. They bought him a little farm coming right up to the edge of the village and built him a house. It was almost ready for him to move into when along came Parley Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, and one Ziba Peterson with the Book of Mormon.[14] It was a bound volume and it was the first time Sidney Rigdon ever saw it or ever heard of the man called Joseph Smith.[15] Parley Pratt presented the book to my father in the presence of my mother and my oldest sister, Athalia Rigdon Robinson, who was a young girl of ten years of age. Parley Pratt used to be a Baptist minister and was somewhat acquainted with Sidney Rigdon.
In presenting the Book of Mormon, he said, "Brother Rigdon, here is a book which is a revelation from God. One Joseph Smith, a young boy, had an angel appear to him who told him where to go to find the plates upon which the book was engraved. They were gold plates. Joseph Smith went as directed by the angel and found the plates in a hill near Palmyra, N. Y., and brought them to his home and there by the power of God translated them, and it was the everlasting gospel given to the children of men."
My sister and mother told me that my father replied to Parley Pratt, "You need not argue the case with me. I have one bible which I claim to have some knowledge {of] and which I believe to be a revelation of God. But as to this hook, I have some doubts, but you can leave it with me when you go away in the morning and I will read it, and when you come again I will tell you what I think about it."
Pratt said he would do it. "But," said he, ''will you let us preach in your church tonight?" My father hesitated for a moment and finally said it would probably do no harm and they might preach in the church if they wished to do so.
Quite a little congregation gathered at the church to hear the strangers preach their strange doctrines about an angel appearing to a young boy who told him where to go to find a book engraved upon gold plates hid up in a hill near Palmyra, N. Y., which had the everlasting gospel to preach to the children of men engraved upon it. Oliver Cowdery and Parley Pratt preached. Peterson did not say anything. Pratt spoke last. At the conclusion of his remarks, Pratt asked my father if he had any remarks to make. If so he should be pleased to hear him.
Sidney Rigdon arose and said, "Brethren, we have listened to strange doctrines tonight but we are commanded to prove all things and to hold fast to that which is good. I would caution you not to be too hasty in giving your opinion upon what you have heard, but give this matter your careful consideration and then you will be better prepared to tell whether it is true or not."
The meeting was dismissed and Cowdery, Pratt, and Peterson went home with my father and stayed over night. And in the morning when they went away, they left him the Book of Mormon, telling him that they were going to the town of Kirtland about five miles from there and would be back in about two or three weeks.
My father, immediately after the strangers had gone away, commenced to read the book. He got so engaged in it that it was hard for him to quit long enough to eat his meals. He read it both day and night. At last he had read it through and pondered and thought over it.
At length Pratt and his two companions got back. My father asked them who this Joseph Smith was and how much education he had. They said he was a man about 22 years old and had hardly a common school education.[16] My father replied if that was all the education he had, he never wrote the book. Pratt told my father that they had converted some people at Kirtland while they were gone and were a-going to baptize some of them the coming week and would be pleased to have him and his wife come down and see them at the time that the baptism took place. My father promised that they would and did so, and while there and before they left for Mentor, they were both baptized into the Mormon Church.[17]
When they got back and his congregation heard of what he had done, they were furious at him and said to him that if he had remained a Campbellite and continued to preach the gospel which he had helped to create, he might [have] gone down to the grave as one of the great divines of the age, but now he had gone and thrown it all away and was a-going to follow a fool of a boy who claimed an angel had appeared to him and told him where to go to find some plates of gold upon which there was engraved the Book of Mormon, which was to be the foundation of the Mormon Church. It was nonsense and a man of his knowledge ought to have known better than to have had anything to do with such impostures. He ought not to have let them preach in their church, should not have let them stay overnight in his house, and should have refused to have anything to do with them. My father replied to them that they could talk to him as they pleased [but] he was convinced in reading the Book of Mormon that the doctrine preached by the Mormons was true and he was a-going to preach the doctrine, let the consequences be what they may.
He was not permitted to move into the little house which they finished for him to live in, and the Campbellite Church refused to have anything more to do with him. Therefore, he took his family and his little belongings and went to a little town called Hiram, about two and a half miles from Kirtland, and then lived with those people who had been baptized by Parley Pratt and his associates at Kirtland.[18]
When be had got there with his family, they wished him to go to Palmyra to see Joseph Smith, and he went and saw Joseph at that time,[19] being the first time he ever had seen or met him, and he never saw the Book of Mormon until Parley Pratt presented it to him at Mentor, Ohio. He did not see the plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, but he talked with him and also the witnesses who saw the plates and helped to write the book as translated by Joseph Smith from the plates. After spending a few days with Joseph Smith, he came back to Hiram firmly convinced that he had found the everlasting gospel to preach to the children of men.[20] In 1833 he was ordained to be Joseph Smith's first counselor, which position he held up to the time that Joseph was killed at Carthage, Ill., in the month of June 1844.[21]
Not long after he had moved to Hiram, Ohio, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were taken out of bed one morning before daylight and tarred and feathered by a mob. The mob came and got Rigdon first. He was a man weighing about 225. They dragged him some distance over the frozen ground by his heels, bumping the back of his head, so that when they got him to the place where they were to put the tar and feathers on him, he was insensible. They covered him with tar and feathers and pounded him till they thought he was dead and then went to get Joseph Smith. He found them.[22] but they got hold of him at last and carried him out, and they took him where Rigdon lay, and Joseph thought he was dead. The mob covered him with tar and feathers and pounded him till they got tired and left them both on the ground. Soon after the mob left, Joseph Smith got up and went home, not very badly hurt. He was bruised some about the head. My father must have lain on the ground for some time where the mob left him. At last he got up in a dazed condition and did not know where he was nor where to go, but at last he got his face turned toward his home, more by accident than design, and went reeling along the road not knowing where he was; he would have passed his house but my mother was out the door watching for him and went out as he came along and got him in the house. She got the tar and feathers off from him as best she could and got him to bed. In the morning Joseph Smith came over to see him, but he was crazy. He wanted him to get him his razor. Joseph Smith wanted to know what he wanted it for. He said that he wanted to kill his wife. Joseph Smith soothed him as best he could and left him. In a few days my father regained his mind.
Soon after getting over the effects of the tar and feathers, they took their horses and started for Jackson County, Missouri, a distance of about 1000 miles.[23] They laid out the town of Independence in Jackson County and selected a site for a temple and came home. They left a few Mormons in Independence. Missouri. Among the number was W. W. Phelps. He was publishing a little paper at Independence which was published once a month.[24]
But the few members of the church at Independence got to quarrelling with the Missourians and they drove them out of Jackson County and they went into Clay County, and there they got into trouble again with the Missourians.[25] Philo Dibble was shot. Dibble told me he was shooting at the Missouri mob and went to load his gun after shooting at them but found that the end of his powder horn had been shot ,off and powder spilled. He saw a hole through his coat and unbuttoning it found a hole through the vest. He did not examine any farther since he then was in no pain. He remained there looking at the boys shooting at the Missouri mob for nearly an hour. At last pain came on and he was in dreadful agony. After the fight was over he was attended by his brethren and got well and lived to be about 83 years of age and was buried at Sah Lake, and the ban that wounded him in the fight in Clay County, Missouri, remained in the body when it was carried to his grave.
The Missouri mob drove the few saints from Clay County, but told them if they would go into Caldwell County, Missouri, they might stay there. They would not be disturbed. So they moved into Caldwell County and founded the town of Far West. Joseph Smith and Rigdon, after returning again to Ohio, concluded that as the Missouri mob was acting so badly, they would make the gathering place Kirtland, Ohio, about two and a half miles from Hiram. They accordingly moved their families to Kirtland.[26] There was where my first recollections began.
There they began the erection of a temple. I remember well while they were building the temple. It was finished in 1836 and was dedicated. Sidney Rigdon preached the sermon.[27] How the Mormons succeeded in building the temple I could never understand. They had no money but somehow contrived to get the lumber. And the members of the church worked from early morning till ten or twelve at night. Some got board, some didn't, so at the end of three years it was finished and was one of the largest houses then in the State of Ohio.
On the day when the temple was to be dedicated, there was a great time of rejoicing by the members of the Church.[28] They could not all get into church the first day, so the ceremony was continued on a second day. My father preached the sermon on the first day. He took for his text Psalm 8 of the Savior:[29] Foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. He said that this was the first temple that had ever been erected and dedicated to the service of the living God in modem times that he had any knowledge of. This sermon was said to be one of the great efforts of his life.[30]
What glorious times the Saints had when the temple was dedicated and what shouts of Hosannah have I heard from the old temple while the Mormons were permitted to worship God within its walls! The people came to church every Sunday because they wanted to come. You could not keep them away. A great many strangers came to hear the Mormons preach. My father usually preached on Sunday morning and great crowds, both members and strangers, came to hear him.
The upper story of the temple was used for schools. I went to school the last year we remained at Kirtland. Elias Smith, who was probate judge of Salt Lake in 1863, was my teacher.
It seemed, however, that Mormons were not permitted to remain at Kirtland a great length of time after completion of the temple. In less than two years from its completion Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were forced to leave Kirtland on account of their starting of the Kirtland Bank.[31] My father opposed it. He said it would not be legal as they had no charter. He did not wish to have anything to do with it, but Joseph Smith thought differently and persuaded Father to sign bills as president and Joseph signed them as cashier. They gave their notes for the silver needed to start the bank. It ran but a short time as they could not get the silver to redeem the bills; the bills came back to the bank faster than silver could be gotten to redeem them with. And the bank went down.[32]
The notes which they had given to get hard money to redeem the bills came due. One Warren Parrish, who used to be a good Mormon and who got notes in his possession and had apostatized from Mormonism, got angry with Joseph for some reason unknown to me and told Joseph that he had notes which Joseph and Sidney had given upon which they had borrowed money to start the bank with. And they were about due. And if the notes were not paid at maturity, he would sue them and get judgment against Joseph and Sidney, and if judgment was not paid, he would put them in jail where they would stay until judgment was paid. There was a law in the State of Ohio to the effect that if one got a judgment on a debt against another and it was not paid, he could be thrown into jail and remain there until he paid it. As they could not pay judgment, all they could do was to get out of the state.[33]
Therefore, in the winter of 1837, they and their families started for Caldwell County, Missouri, a distance of about 1000 miles. I was attending school in the upper part of the temple when we left. On coming home from school one day in the afternoon of the day we left, I saw considerable commotion about my father's house. I inquired of Mother what was the reason. She said, nothing that concerned me. In the evening I saw several men come to our house and whisper a time and go away. I wanted to know of Mother what was the trouble, but could get no reply; and was at last ordered to bed. And I and my brother Sidney went to bed.
Along in the night, I was awakened by a man trying a pair of shoes on my feet. I asked what he was doing. He said he had gotten me a new pair of shoes. I said that was all right, but had he not better wait till morning, then I could try them on better. He said, "You go to sleep and don't ask questions." I did so. Not long after that, my brother and I were awakened and told to dress as we were going away. I asked where we were going, and he said to a land flowing with milk and honey that I had heard talked so much about. Well, I thought, if I was going to that land which. was flowing with milk and honey, it was a pretty good place for me to go. And I wanted to go. That night about twelve o'clock we started in om open lumber wagon, leaving my brother-in-law, George W. Robinson, behind to sell some property and get two spans of horses, a carriage, and another lumber wagon and meet us at Dublin in the State of Indiana, where we were to wait for him to come up.
We rode all night in the lumber wagon, which we left Kirtland in. Joseph Smith met us with all his family just as we were leaving the village of Kirtland. We stopped the next morning a little after daylight to get breakfast at a hotel and from there went to Akron, Ohio. A short distance from there we stopped at a friend's house and stayed some two days in order to put covers on the wagons so we would be warmer. Then we again started for Dublin, Indiana, and reached there without accident. There we waited three weeks[34] for Robinson to come up. When we came to Dublin, we all started for Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri.
We travelled together for a while and then separated, as it was difficult for us to get accommodations travelling together. Joseph Smith took one half of the party, my father the other. We agreed to meet in Indiana and we did meet there,[35] and then separated again. Joseph Smith was to cross the Mississippi River at Scunedy and we were to cross the Mississippi at Louisiana, twenty miles below.[36]
We left Joseph Smith in Indiana and got along all right till we got to a town called Paris, Illinois, where we stayed overnight. In the morning there was a great snowstorm. It would be called a blizzard now. We had prairie to cross of about ten miles and were cautioned not to attempt to cross it in such a storm. The people said the road was filled up with snow and we would be liable to get lost and, if we did, be frozen to death. But my father thought differently and thought we could get across without trouble. We could see woods on the other side and we started, but we had not been out but a short time when the storm was so great that we could not see across the prairie, and there was no road to be seen. Robinson took the lead and a man by the name of Darrow followed him in an open wagon. I and my brother were in the third wagon. We had lost sight of Robinson and Darrow when one of the four wheels of the wagon I was in came off and let us down in th