{"id":26648,"date":"2015-09-24T21:30:55","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T03:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=26648"},"modified":"2015-09-24T21:30:55","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T03:30:55","slug":"on-josephs-sense-of-humor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/09\/on-josephs-sense-of-humor.html","title":{"rendered":"On Joseph’s sense of humor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"Kirtland's<\/a>
The first temple of the Church, in Kirtland, Ohio
(LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Humor is in short supply among fanatics, and is something carefully avoided by most pretenders to sanctity. Yet George Q. Cannon remembered Joseph Smith\u2019s \u201csense of gentle humor.\u201d[1] Likewise, his modern biographer Robert Remini, a preeminent scholar of Jacksonian America and a non-Mormon, writes that he \u201ccame to like the man very much,\u201d not only because he possessed \u201ccompelling charisma, charm, persuasiveness,\u201d but partly because Joseph Smith was \u201cjoyously funny.\u201d \u201cI like them when they\u2019re funny. Andrew Jackson was not<\/em> funny.\u201d[2]<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

There is perhaps even a trace of humor apparent in his mother\u2019s recollection of his return home after his First Vision. Leaning against the fireplace, he answers his mother\u2019s concerned question about what is wrong: \u201cI have learned for myself,\u201d she recalls him saying, \u201cthat Presbyterianism is not true.\u201d[3] Rather an understatement of what had just occurred. But, notes Professor King, \u201cWe have to remember that his mother had joined the Presbyterian Church shortly before this. How do you assess that as a conversation between a fourteen-year-old and his mother? All mothers know that sort of thing really happens to them with their teenagers.\u201d[4] Nonetheless, Joseph\u2019s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, remembered him at the age of fourteen as \u201ca remarkably quiet, well disposed child,\u201d although she insists that, prior to that age, there was nothing unusual in his childhood.[5]<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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[1] Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet<\/em>, 342.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2] As quoted by Dennis Lythgoe, \u201cWriter finds \u2018his Joseph,\u2019\u201d Salt Lake City Deseret News<\/em> (13 October 2002), E10.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3] Joseph Smith \u2013 History 1:20.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4] King, \u201cJoseph Smith as a Writer,\u201d 291.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5] Lucy\u2019s Book<\/em>, 329.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Posted from Mentor, Ohio<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Humor is in short supply among fanatics, and is something carefully avoided by most pretenders to sanctity. Yet George Q. Cannon remembered Joseph Smith\u2019s \u201csense of gentle humor.\u201d[1] Likewise, his modern biographer Robert Remini, a preeminent scholar of Jacksonian America and a non-Mormon, writes that he \u201ccame to like the man very much,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Joseph's sense of humor<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Humor is in short supply among fanatics, and is something carefully avoided by most pretenders to sanctity. Yet George Q. 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