Joseph Smith

I have the great blessing and privilege of teaching the Gospel Doctrine class in our ward. This year we review Church History and the Doctrine and Covenants. For the first time, I can use as reference for this class Richard Bushman's Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling, and Volume I of Joseph Smith's Journals, books not available during the preceding cycle.

Richard Bushman has given me wonderful insight into Joseph Smith's life. He supports the contention of Michael Quinn that the generally accepted belief in magic among the more rustic population of New England helped both Joseph Smith, his family and the early adopter's of Mormonism believe Joseph's fantastical story of angels and golden plates and interpreters, including seer stones, initially used to find treasure and subsequently used in translation of the plates. But he points out repeatedly that Joseph Smith's own self image changed repeatedly during his life, and that in the summer of 1828, Joseph obtained a prophetic voice. Not just the gift of translation, but the ability to speak in the third person voice, the voice of God, with his first revelation a rebuke of his weakness in giving the 116 translated pages of the BM to Martin Harris and a similar rebuke to Martin Harris, himself. Joseph was poor and he depended on Martin's time and money to get the plates translated and the book published, and yet, speaking for God, he rebukes in the most forceful terms Martin for his failures in what is now Section 3 of the D&C. Remarkable! And just the first in a series of changes that took place, often year by year, in Joseph's realization of his gifts, powers, and prophetic mission. Like the description of the Savior, he grew, grace by grace, to his full stature - beyond what many could accept, always on the cutting edge, right through the King Follett discourse.