"[29] Smith said he recounted the experience to a preacher, who dismissed the story with contempt. [27], Years later, Smith wrote that he had received a vision that resolved his religious confusion. [188] Smith's sons Joseph III and David also had claims, but Joseph III was too young and David was yet unborn. Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership. Smith was then released on a writ of habeas corpus from the Nauvoo municipal court. For other persons, see. W Dan Vogel was a masterful editor of the five-volume Early Mormon Documents , and perhaps his encyclopedic knowledge of the primary sources is part of the problem with this biography. [258] Matter, in Smith's view, could neither be created nor destroyed; the creation involved only the reorganization of existing matter. [121], Smith bore his imprisonment stoically. Governor Lilburn Boggs then ordered that the Mormons be "exterminated or driven from the state". [315], the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, This article is about the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. [146] While this ended the Missourians' attempts at extradition, it caused significant political fallout in Illinois. [65], Smith's authority was undermined when Oliver Cowdery, Hiram Page, and other church members also claimed to receive revelations. In any event, Harris returned to Harmony in April 1828, and continued as Smith's scribe. Smith's revelations often came in response to specific questions. [67] Shortly after the conference, Smith dispatched Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, and others on a mission to proselytize Native Americans. [42], Smith made his last visit to the hill on September 22, 1827, taking Emma with him. [254] The pace of formal revelations slowed during the autumn of 1833, and again after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. [287] According to Smith, only one person on Earth at a time—in this case, Smith—could possess this power of sealing. [249], Also in 1833, at a time of temperance agitation, Smith delivered a revelation called the "Word of Wisdom," which counseled a diet of wholesome herbs, fruits, grains, a sparing use of meat. [132] The charter also authorized the Nauvoo Legion, an autonomous militia whose actions were limited only by state and federal constitutions. [266] 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. [24] With other family members, Smith also engaged in religious folk magic, which was a relatively common practice in that time and place. During this time, a church council expelled many of the oldest and most prominent leaders of the church, including John Whitmer, David Whitmer, W. W. Phelps, and Oliver Cowdery. Smith said the translation was a religious record of Middle-Eastern indigenous Americans,[44] and were engraved in an unknown language, called reformed Egyptian. [123] On April 6, 1839, after a grand jury hearing in Davis County, Smith and his companions escaped custody, almost certainly with the connivance of the sheriff and guards. They unleashed a flood of anti-Mormon rhetoric in newspapers and in stump speeches given during the 1838 election campaign. CHL. [313], Smith declared that he would be one of the instruments in fulfilling Nebuchadnezzar's statue vision in the Book of Daniel: that secular government would be destroyed without "sword or gun", and would be replaced with a "theodemocratic" Kingdom of God. Members of the church were later called "Latter Day Saints" or "Mormons", and Smith announced a revelation in 1838 which renamed the church as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. [312] However, he opposed baptizing them without permission of their masters, and he opposed interracial marriage. At the age of seven Smith suffered a crippling bone infection and, after receiving surgery, used crutches for three years. [302] In July 1843, Smith dictated a revelation directing Emma to accept plural marriage,[303] but the two were not reconciled until September 1843, after Emma began participating in temple ceremonies. [229] The language of authority in Smith's revelations was appealing to converts, and the revelations were given with the confidence of an Old Testament prophet. [194] Others followed Lyman Wight and Alpheus Cutler. The Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants were added to the canon of scripture, and Smith spoke as if more revelations and translations would accumulate in the future. [25] Both his parents and his maternal grandfather reportedly had visions or dreams that they believed communicated messages from God. [172] Smith was buried in Nauvoo, and is interred there at the Smith Family Cemetery. [89] In March 1836, at the temple's dedication, many participants in the endowment reported seeing visions of angels, speaking in tongues, and prophesying. Vogel’s thesis is that Joseph Smith’s motivation for founding a new religion arose in conflicts that occurred within his semi-dysfunctional family. [139] At first, the endowment was open only to men, who were initiated into a special group called the Anointed Quorum. On April 6, 1830, Smith organized a few dozen believers into a church. Never a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. [64] He was acquitted, but soon both he and Cowdery fled to Colesville to escape a gathering mob. [38] In 1826, Smith was brought before a Chenango County court for "glass-looking", or pretending to find lost treasure. [246] 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. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Attracting converts from Europe as well as the United States, Nauvoo grew to rival Chicago as the largest city in the state. Meanwhile, non-Mormon hostility in the surrounding county had been growing for the usual reasons, and, when the press was closed, irate local citizens brought charges of promoting riot against Smith and his brother Hyrum. He believed that every man could be a priest and that everyone had in him the possibility of the divine. [126] Smith also attempted to portray the Latter Day Saints as an oppressed minority, and unsuccessfully petitioned the federal government for help in obtaining reparations. [294] Smith never denied a relationship, but insisted it was not adulterous, presumably because he had taken Alger as an additional wife. [137] An 1841 revelation promised the restoration of the "fulness of the priesthood"; and in May 1842, Smith inaugurated a revised endowment or "first anointing". It tells the story of the rise and fall of a religious civilization beginning about 600 BC and ending in 421 AD. For women, Smith introduced the Relief Society, a service club and sorority within which Smith predicted women would receive "the keys of the kingdom". Harris persuaded Smith to let him take the existing 116 pages of manuscript to Palmyra to show a few family members, including his wife. Author of. [293] Cowdery suspected Smith had engaged in a relationship with his serving girl, Fanny Alger. Absolutely resolute in all of his projects, he never became discouraged, even under the most trying circumstances. [155] These dissidents formed a competing church and the following month, at Carthage, the county seat, they procured indictments against Smith for perjury and polygamy. [94] Having heard of a large sum of money supposedly hidden in Salem, Massachusetts, Smith traveled there and received a revelation that God had "much treasure in this city". [217] After the crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem, Jesus appears in the Americas, repeats the Sermon on the Mount, blesses children, and appoints twelve disciples. An 1831 revelation called "The Law" contained: directions for missionary work; rules for organizing society in Zion; a reiteration of the Ten Commandments; an injunction to "administer to the poor and needy"; and an outline for the law of consecration. (Courtesy Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence, MO.) [216], Christian themes permeate the work; for instance, Nephite prophets in the Book of Mormon teach of Christ's coming, and talk of the star that will appear at his birth. [81], In Jackson County, existing Missouri residents resented the Mormon newcomers for both political and religious reasons. [54], Smith said that the angel returned the plates to him in September 1828. [34] Smith reported that during the next four years, he made annual visits to the hill, but, until the fourth and final visit, each time he returned without the plates. [219] Modern historian Fawn Brodie has called the Book of Mormon a response to pressing cultural and environmental issues of Smith's times, saying that Smith composed the Book of Mormon drawing from scraps of information available to him. 1. Smith, Joseph, Jr. When Smith proposed marriage, Emma's father, Isaac Hale objected, primarily because he believed Smith had no means to support Emma. (the exact number of wives is uncertain.). The Book of Mormon told the 1,000-year history of the Israelites, who were led from Jerusalem to a promised land in the Western Hemisphere. [205] When most Latter Day Saints moved west, she stayed in Nauvoo, married a non-Mormon, Major Lewis C. 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