This man tells the truth; he’s believable.

Professor Arthur Henry King’s trust in Joseph Smith as a human being, which I’ve mentioned in related prior posts here, was essential to his eventual faith in the doctrines and practices restored through the Prophet: “Because Joseph Smith talked about his experiences in the way he did, I was able to believe him, and having that belief, I could then go on to say, ‘This man tells the truth; therefore, I ought to believe other things he tells me, even though I haven’t got the same evidence of those.’”[1]

The distinguished American historian Richard Bushman is struck by the “one breathless sentence” in which Joseph Smith told the story of his first encounter with Moroni, in his 1832 autobiographical sketch:

When I was seventeen years of age I called again upon the Lord and he shewed unto me a heavenly vision for behold an angel of the Lord came and stood before me and it was by night and he called me by name and he said the Lord had forgiven me my sins and he revealed unto me that ino the Town of Manchester Ontario County N.Y. there was plates of gold upon which there was engravings which was engraven by Maroni & his fathers the servants of the living God in ancient days and deposited by the commandments of God and kept by the power thereof and that I should go and get them and he revealed unto me many things concerning the inhabitants of the earth which since have been revealed in commandments & revelations and it was on the 22d day of Sept. AD 1822 and thus he appeared unto me three times in one night and once on the next day and then I immediately went to the place and found where the plates was deposited as the angel of the Lord had commanded me and straightway made three attempts to get them and then being excedingly frightened I supposed it had been a dreem of Vision but when I considered I knew that it was not thereore I cried unto the Lord in the agony of my soul why can I not obtain them behold the angel appeared unto me again and said unto me you have not kept the commandments of the Lord which I gave unto you therefore you cannot now obtain them for the time is not yet fulfilled therefore thou wast left unto temptation that thou mightest be made acquainted with the power of the advisary [adversary] therefore repent and call on the Lord thou shalt be forgiven and in his own due time thou shalt obtain them for now I had been tempted of the advisary and saught the Plates to obtain riches and kept not the commandments that I should have an eye single to the glory of God.[2]

“The passage has an endearing candor to it,” observes Professor Bushman.

Joseph admits his teenage transgressions and his hope for forgiveness. He comes across as a learner trying to understand what he is to do. He is baffled when he cannot get the plates and wonders for an instant if he had just dreamed the vision. He is terrified that he has done something wrong. The angel at times frightens him. When he is rebuked, Joseph recognizes that he had been thinking of gold and riches, not of the glory of God. He is relieved to record the assurance that by repentance he could be forgiven and get the plates eventually. . . . The passage captivates a reader, making it hard to doubt Joseph’s sincerity.[3]

[1] Arthur Henry King, “An Account of My Conversion,” in Arthur Henry King, Arm the Children: Faith’s Response to a Violent World (Provo: BYU Studies, 1998), 43.

[2] Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:7-8. [See this.]

[3] Bushman, “The Recovery of the Book of Mormon,” 24, 25-26.

Posted from Mentor, Ohio