More preliminary notes on the apparent sincerity of Joseph Smith:   Even many of Joseph’s critics wrestled with the possibility that he might actually have been honest and sincere.  Josiah Quincy sums up his account of his 1844 visit to Nauvoo with the comment that, “If the reader does not know just what to make of Joseph Smith, I cannot help him out of the difficulty.  I myself stand helpless before the puzzle.”[1]  In June 1851, a journalist... Read more

    Some additional notes:   Joseph’s honesty seems clearly evidenced as well by his own sacrifices for the cause he proclaimed—something that becomes rather more difficult to explain if he was insincere. So did his family and those who believed in his message.[1] He was arrested repeatedly, and, from the very earliest days, he and his followers were subjected to harassment and worse.[2] “The Prophet Joseph,” George A. Smith recalled of the march of Zion’s Camp, took full share... Read more

    From Carol Cornwall Madsen, Emmeline B. Wells: an Intimate History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2017), 49-50.   Could the church survive the loss of its murdered prophet, many wondered, and if so, who should now govern it?  It was not long before several made claim to that position, while others left the church to develop their own forms of Mormonism.  Some, disillusioned and apprehensive, simply left Mormonism altogether.  But the majority stayed the course, and in August, when... Read more

    Notes on the situation in Judaism after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in AD 70:   The scholars now reigned supreme within Palestinian Judaism. Family, social standing, and wealth no longer mattered. All that mattered was learning. Study, the scholars said, was even more important than keeping the commandments.[1] They did not claim revelation themselves, and they did not recognize revelation to others. This is well illustrated by the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer... Read more

    Some more notes on how we got to the rise of Islam from the close of the New Testament period:   Rabbi Johanan sought and received permission from the victo­rious Roman authorities to set up a Jewish religious center at Jab­neh, or Jamnia, to the west of Jerusalem. There, with the Jewish state gone and its traditional leadership destroyed, an assembly of rabbis met and, still under the title of “Sanhedrin,” set about to answer the questions that... Read more

    I’ve written previously about the rebooted film Joseph Smith, American Prophet:   “Defending the Faith: ‘Joseph Smith, American Prophet’ shares story of Restoration, to air on PBS”   For those of you who haven’t managed to see it yet, or who would like to watch it again, there will be an opportunity to view the film tonight on KBYU-TV.  I’ve seen it listed for 8 PM, Utah time, but it seems that the correct schedule puts it at... Read more

    Among other things, my wife and I belong to a monthly reading group that meets to discuss both Mormon- and (usually) non-Mormon-oriented books. Officially titled but seldom actually called the “Gadianton Polysophical Marching and Chowder Society,” it was founded many years ago by a group of young Latter-day Saint faculty and graduate students associated more or less with the University of California at Santa Barbara.  But it long ago moved to Utah (where we were invited to join it) as its... Read more

    The so-called “Red Brick Store” in Nauvoo served both as an office for Joseph Smith and the First Presidency and as a business intended to help the Prophet support his family.  (Brigham Young later recalled that it never worked very well in that regard, because Joseph gave too much merchandise away.) An incident that occurred in the store is one of many that illustrate something about Joseph’s charitable nature.  Accounts like this are helpful to keep in mind when, as often happens,... Read more

    I taught Lesson 41 from the Gospel Doctrine manual today.  Actually, what I had to say was only very loosely related, if at all, to the outline given in the lesson manual.  But it was inspired by the topic of that lesson, which is “Every Member a Missionary.”   So that topic is on my mind.  Which will explain a bit of what follows:   I ran across a Facebook item from Sister Annie LeFevre, who is serving... Read more