Joseph Smith: Deceiver or Deceived?

For one of the manuscripts that I’m tinkering with, I’m trying to outline the issues and options as clearly as I can, for myself and for readers.  Here’s a hasty first try, which follows a lengthy summation — still under construction — of various items of evidence and several distinct lines of argument:

It seems unlikely that Joseph was consciously deceptive. Let’s examine the various possibilities under this heading:

It seems unlikely that he was consciously and dishonorably deceptive and working alone.

There is good reason to believe that he was an honest, sincere person who was seeking to do the will of God.

The Book of Mormon and many of his other revelations and doctrines seem beyond his capacity to produce.

The Book of Mormon was clearly written by multiple authors, not including Joseph Smith.

Others shared in and witnessed his revelations.

It seems unlikely that he was consciously though idealistically deceptive and working alone.

The Book of Mormon and many of his other revelations and doctrines seem beyond his capacity to produce.

The Book of Mormon was clearly written by multiple authors, not including Joseph Smith.

Others shared in and witnessed his revelations.

It seems unlikely that he was consciously and dishonorably deceptive, working in company with co-conspirators.

There is good reason to believe that he was an honest, sincere person who was seeking to do the will of God.

The Book of Mormon and many of the other revelations and doctrines of Mormonism seem beyond any nineteenth century individual or group’s capacity to produce.

No suggested alternative author of the Book of Mormon matches its wordprints.

No evidence points to any other alternative authors.

The kind of multiple authorship evidenced in the Book of Mormon is difficult to imagine from any conspiracy.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Joseph’s revelations, doctrines, and documents.

No motive for such a conspiracy is evident.

The conspiracy would have had to be extensive, and it is difficult to imagine that such a conspiracy would leave no traces and have no leaks.

It seems unlikely that he was consciously though idealistically deceptive, working in company with co-conspirators.

The Book of Mormon and many of the other revelations and doctrines of Mormonism seem beyond any nineteenth century individual or group’s capacity to produce.

No suggested alternative author of the Book of Mormon matches its wordprints.

No evidence points to any other alternative authors.

The kind of multiple authorship evidenced in the Book of Mormon is difficult to imagine from any conspiracy.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Joseph’s revelations, doctrines, and documents.

The conspiracy would have had to be extensive, and it is difficult to imagine that such a conspiracy would leave no traces and have no leaks.

It is unlikely that Joseph Smith was a madman or in any other sense sincere but deceived.

There is no evidence that he was insane.

The Book of Mormon and many of his other revelations and doctrines seem beyond his capacity to produce.

The Book of Mormon was clearly written by multiple authors, not including Joseph Smith.

Others shared in and witnessed his revelations.

Tangible objects such as the golden plates, the Urim and Thummim, the breast plate, the stone box in the hill, were observed by other people, and cannot, therefore, plausibly be described as originating in hallucination.

Sincere prayer to God is evidenced at almost every stage (e.g., before the First Vision, before the encounter with Moroni, before the experience of the Three Witnesses), making satanic deception a difficult thesis to maintain.

It seems that the proposition that Joseph was a true prophet is the only one left standing, since the others face insuperable difficulties. Moreover, it is supported by an abundance of eyewitness and inferential evidence.

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Here’s an interview with the non-LDS historian Max Perry Mueller that some might find of interest:

“The Book of Mormon and racial reconciliation”

He was on the BYU campus on Wednesday for a small presentation, to which he invited me.  Unfortunately, although I thought I would be able to attend, in the end I could not.

Ten days ago, I posted an item about another interview with Dr. Mueller that had appeared in The Atlantic:

“When Mormons Aspired to Be a ‘White and Delightsome’ People”

And here’s a prior item of mine regarding Max Perry Mueller:

“‘Why I Went Back to Church'”

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We attended a concert tonight by the extraordinarily interesting (and Grammy Award-winning) vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth.  I was surprised to learn from one of our sons (who joined us at the concert) that, among the members of the group, is the violinist and composer Caroline Shaw, who is the youngest person ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for music.  Having studied at Rice and at Yale, she’s now a doctoral candidate at Princeton University.  I can’t help but wonder what it must be like for the music faculty of Princeton to have a Pulitzer Prize-winning graduate student.  It would, I think, be somewhat strange.  There could be, I can well imagine, status issues.