Joseph Smith: Founder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints Part II

 Death

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

On June 7, the dissidents published the first (and only) issue of the Nauvoo Expositor, calling for reform within the church but also appealing politically to non-Mormons. The paper alluded to Smith's theocratic aspirations, called for a repeal of the Nauvoo city charter, and decried his new "doctrines of many Gods". (Smith had recently given his King Follett discourse, in which he taught that God was once a man and that men and women could become gods.) It also attacked Smith's practice of polygamy, implying that he was using religion as a pretext to draw unassuming women to Nauvoo to seduce and marry them.

Fearing the Expositor would provoke a new round of violence against the Mormons; the Nauvoo city council declared the newspaper a public nuisance and ordered the Nauvoo Legion to destroy its printing press. During the council debate, Smith vigorously urged the council to order the press destroyed, not realizing that destroying a newspaper was more likely to incite an attack than any of the newspaper's accusations.

Destruction of the newspaper provoked a strident call to arms from Thomas C. Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal and longtime critic of Smith. Fearing mob violence, Smith mobilized the Nauvoo Legion on June 18 and declared martial law. Officials in Carthage responded by mobilizing a small detachment of the state militia, and Governor Ford intervened, threatening to raise a larger militia unless Smith and the Nauvoo city council surrendered themselves. Smith initially fled across the Mississippi River, but shortly returned and surrendered to Ford. On June 25, Smith and his brother Hyrum arrived in Carthage to stand trial for inciting a riot. Once the Smiths were in custody, the charges were increased to treason, preventing them from posting bail. John Taylor and Willard Richards voluntarily accompanied the Smiths in Carthage Jail.

On June 27, 1844, an armed mob with blackened faces stormed Carthage Jail, where Joseph and Hyrum were being detained. Hyrum, who was trying to secure the door, was killed instantly with a shot to the face. Smith fired three shots from a pepper-box pistol that his friend, Cyrus H. Wheelock, had lent him, wounding three men, before he sprang for the window. (Smith and his companions were staying in the jailer's bedroom, which did not have bars on the windows.) He was shot multiple times before falling out the window, crying, "Oh Lord my God!" He died shortly after hitting the ground but was shot several more times by an improvised firing squad before the mob dispersed.

Legacy

Immediate aftermath

Following Smith's death, non-Mormon newspapers were nearly unanimous in portraying Smith as a religious fanatic. Conversely, within the Latter Day Saint community, Smith was viewed as a prophet, martyred to seal the testimony of his faith.

After a public funeral and viewing of the deceased brothers, Smith's widow – who feared hostile non-Mormons might try to desecrate the bodies – had their remains buried at night in a secret location, with substitute coffins filled with sandbags interred in the publicly attested grave. The bodies were later moved and reburied under an outbuilding on the Smith property off the Mississippi River. Members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church), under the direction of then-RLDS Church president Frederick M. Smith (Smith's grandson), searched for, located, and disinterred the Smith brothers' remains in 1928 and reinterred them, along with Smith's wife, in Nauvoo at the Smith Family Cemetery.

Impact and Assessment

Modern biographers and scholars – Mormon and non-Mormon alike – agree that Smith was one of the most influential, charismatic, and innovative figures in American religious history. In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, the Smithsonian ranked Smith first in the category of religious figures. In popular opinion, non-Mormons in the U.S. generally consider Smith a "charlatan, scoundrel, and heretic", while outside the U.S. he is "obscure".

Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's legacy varies between denominations: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and its members consider Smith the founding prophet of their church, on par with Moses and Elijah. Meanwhile, Smith's reputation is ambivalent in the Community of Christ, which continues "honoring his role" in the church's founding history but deemphasizes his human leadership. Conversely, Woolleyite Mormon fundamentalism has deified Smith within a cosmology of many gods.

Buildings named in honor of Smith

Memorials to Smith include the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City, Utah, the former Joseph Smith Memorial building on the campus of Brigham Young University as well as the current Joseph Smith Building there, a granite obelisk marking Smith's birthplace, and a fifteen-foot-tall bronze statue of Smith in the World Peace Dome in Pune, India.

Successors and denominations

Smith's death resulted in a succession crisis within the Latter Day Saint movement. He had proposed several ways to choose his successor, but never clarified his preference. The two strongest succession candidates were Young, a senior member and president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Rigdon, the senior remaining member of the First Presidency. In a church-wide conference on August 8, most of the Latter Day Saints present elected Young. They eventually left Nauvoo and settled in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah Territory.

Nominal membership in Young's denomination, which became the LDS Church, surpassed 16 million in 2018. Smaller groups followed Rigdon and James J. Strang, who had based his claim on a letter of appointment ostensibly written by Smith but which some scholars believe was forged. Some hundreds followed Lyman Wight to establish a community in Texas. Others followed Alpheus Cutler. Many members of these smaller groups, including most of Smith's family, eventually coalesced in 1860 under the leadership of Joseph Smith III and formed the RLDS Church, which now has about 250,000 members.

Family and descendants

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

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

After Smith's death, Emma was quickly alienated from Young and the LDS leadership. Emma feared and despised Young, who in turn was suspicious of Emma's desire to preserve the family's assets from inclusion with those of the church. He also disliked her open opposition to plural marriage. Young excluded Emma from ecclesiastical meetings and from social gatherings. When most Mormons moved west, Emma stayed in Nauvoo and married a non-Mormon, Major Lewis C. Bidamon. She withdrew from religion until 1860 when she affiliated with the RLDS Church headed by her son, Joseph III. Emma maintained her belief that Smith had been a prophet, and she never repudiated her belief in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

Polygamy

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

In April 1841, Smith secretly wed Louisa Beaman, and during the next two-and-a-half years he secretly married or was sealed to about thirty or forty additional women. Ten of his plural wives were between the ages of fourteen and twenty; others were over fifty. Ten were already married to other men, though some of these polyandrous marriages were contracted with the consent of the first husbands. Evidence for whether or not and to what degree Smith's polygamous marriages involved sex is ambiguous and varies between marriages. Some polygamous marriages may have been considered solely religious marriages that would not take effect until after death. In any case, during Smith's lifetime, the practice of polygamy was kept secret from both non-Mormons and most members of the church. Polygamy caused a breach between Smith and his first wife, Emma; historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich summarizes by stating that "Emma vacillated in her support for plural marriage, sometimes acquiescing to Joseph's sealings, sometimes resisting."

Revelations

According to Bushman, the "signal feature" of Smith's life was "his sense of being guided by revelation". Instead of presenting his ideas with logical arguments, Smith dictated authoritative scripture-like "revelations" and let people decide whether to believe, doing so with what Peter Coviello calls "beguiling offhandedness". Smith and his followers treated his revelations as being above teachings or opinions, and he acted as though he believed in his revelations as much as his followers. The revelations were written as if God himself were speaking through Smith, often opening with words such as, "Hearken O ye people which profess my name, saith the Lord your God."

Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon has been called the longest and most complex of Smith's revelations Its language resembles the King James Version of the Bible, as does its organization as a compilation of smaller books, each named after prominent figures in the narrative. It tells the story of the rise and fall of Judeo-Christian religious civilization in the Western Hemisphere, beginning about 600 BC and ending in the fifth century. The book explains itself to be largely the work of Mormon, a Nephite prophet and military figure. Christian themes permeate the work.

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

Smith never fully described how he produced the Book of Mormon, saying only that he translated by the power of God and implying that he had read its words. The Book of Mormon itself states only that its text will "come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof". Accordingly, there is considerable disagreement about the actual method used. For at least some of the earliest dictation, Smith's compatriots said he used the "Urim and Thummim", a pair of seer stones he said were buried with the plates. However, people close to Smith said that later in the process of dictation, he used a chocolate-colored stone he had found in 1822 that he had used previously for treasure hunting. Joseph Knight said that Smith saw the words of the translation while, after excluding all light, he gazed at the stone or stones in the bottom of his hat, a process similar to divining the location of the treasure. Sometimes, Smith concealed the process by raising a curtain or dictating from another room; at other times he dictated in full view of witnesses while the plates lay covered on the table or were hidden elsewhere.

Bible revision

In June 1830, Smith dictated a revelation in which Moses narrates a vision in which he sees "worlds without number" and speaks with God about the purpose of creation and the relation of humankind to deity. This revelation initiated a revision of the Bible which Smith worked on sporadically until 1833 but which remained unpublished until after his death. He may have considered it complete, though according to Emma Smith, the biblical revision was still unfinished when Joseph died.

In the course of producing the Book of Mormon, Smith declared that the Bible was missing "the plainest and precious parts of the gospel". He produced a "new translation" of the Bible, not by directly translating from manuscripts in another language, but by amending and appending to a King James Bible in a process which he and Latter Day Saints believed was guided by inspiration; Smith asserted his translation would correct lacuna and restore what the contemporary Bible was missing. While many changes involved straightening out seeming contradictions or making small clarifications, other changes added large interpolations to the text. For example, Smith's revision nearly tripled the length of the first five chapters of Genesis into a text called the Book of Moses.

Book of Abraham

In 1835, Smith encouraged some Latter-Day Saints in Kirtland to purchase rolls of ancient Egyptian papyri from a traveling exhibitor. He said they contained the writings of the ancient patriarchs Abraham and Joseph. Over the next several years, Smith dictated to scribes what he reported was a revelatory translation of one of these rolls, which was published in 1842 as the Book of Abraham. The Book of Abraham speaks of the founding of the Abrahamic nation, astronomy, cosmology, lineage, and priesthood, and gives another account of the creation story. The papyri associated with the Book of Abraham were thought to have been lost in the Great Chicago Fire, but several fragments were rediscovered in the 1960s. Egyptologists have subsequently determined them to be part of the Egyptian Book of Breathing with no connection to Abraham.

Other revelations

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

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

Smith gave varying types of revelations. Some were temporal, while others were spiritual or doctrinal. Some were received for a specific individual, while others were directed at the whole church. An 1831 revelation called "The Law" contained directions for missionary work, rules for organizing a society in Zion, a reiteration of the Ten Commandments, an injunction to "administer to the poor and needy" and an outline for the law of consecration. An 1832 revelation called "The Vision" added to the fundamentals of sin and atonement, and introduced doctrines of life after salvation, exaltation, and a heaven with degrees of glory. Another 1832 revelation was the first to explain priesthood doctrine.

In 1833, at a time of temperance agitation, Smith delivered a revelation called the "Word of Wisdom", which counseled a diet of wholesome herbs, fruits, grains, and sparing use of meat. It also recommended that Latter Day Saints avoid "strong" alcoholic drinks, tobacco, and "hot drinks" (later interpreted to mean tea and coffee). The Word of Wisdom was originally framed as a recommendation rather than a commandment and was not strictly followed by Smith and other early Latter-Day Saints, though it later became a requirement in the LDS Church.

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

Views and teachings

Cosmology and theology

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

Smith taught that God was an advanced and glorified man, embodied within time and space. He publicly taught that God the Father and Jesus were distinct beings with physical bodies. Nevertheless, he conceived of the Holy Spirit as a "personage of Spirit". Smith extended this materialist conception to all existence and taught that "all spirit is matter", meaning that a person's embodiment in flesh was not a sign of fallen carnality, but a divine quality that humans shared with deity. Humans are, therefore, not so much God's creations as they are God's "kin". There is also considerable evidence that Smith taught, at least to limited audiences, that God the Father was accompanied by God the Mother. In this conception, God fully understood is plural, embodied, gendered, and both male and female.

Through the gradual acquisition of knowledge, according to Smith, those who received exaltation could eventually become like God. These teachings implied a vast hierarchy of gods, with God himself having a father. In Smith's cosmology, those who became gods would reign, unified in purpose and will, leading spirits of lesser capacity to share immortality and eternal life.

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

Religious authority and ritual

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

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

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

Theology of family

During the early 1840s, Smith unfolded a theology of family relations, called the "New and Everlasting Covenant", that superseded all earthly bonds. He taught that outside the covenant, marriages were simply matters of contract and that in the afterlife, individuals who were unmarried or who married outside the covenant would be limited in their progression toward Godhood. To fully enter the covenant, a man and woman must participate in a "first anointing", a "sealing" ceremony, and a "second anointing" (also called "sealing by the Holy Spirit of Promise"). When fully sealed into the covenant, Smith said that no sin or blasphemy (other than murder and apostasy) could keep them from their exaltation in the afterlife. According to a revelation Smith dictated, God appointed only one person on Earth at a time—in this case, Smith—to possess this power of sealing. According to Smith, men and women needed to be sealed to each other in this new and everlasting covenant (also called "celestial marriage") to be exalted in heaven after death, and such celestial marriage, perpetuated across generations, could reunite extended families of ancestors and descendants in the afterlife.

Plural marriage, or polygamy, was Smith's "most famous innovation", according to historian Matthew Bowman. Once Smith introduced polygamy, it became part of his "Abrahamic project," in the phrasing of historian Benjamin Park, wherein the solution to humanity's chaos would be found through accepting the divine order of the cosmos, under God's authority, in a "fusion of ecclesiastical and civic authority". Smith also taught that the highest level of exaltation could be achieved through polygamy, the ultimate manifestation of the New and Everlasting Covenant. In Smith's theology, marrying in polygamy made it possible for practitioners to unlearn the Christian tradition which identified the physical body as carnal, and to instead recognize their embodied joy as sacred. Smith also taught that the practice allowed an individual to transcend the angelic state and become a god, accelerating the expansion of one's heavenly kingdom.