![\"A](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/Tippets_Valley.jpg\")
<\/a>Irrelevant, strictly speaking, but very pleasant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Here are some notes from an unpublished and as yet incomplete manuscript of mine:<\/p>\n
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The nineteenth century Chamber\u2019s Encyclopedia<\/em> said of Joseph Smith that<\/span><\/p>\n From his early years he was regarded as a visionary and a fanatic; a fact which is of the utmost importance as affording a clue to his real character, and an explanation of that otherwise unaccountable tenacity of purpose and moral heroism displayed in the midst of fiercest persecution.\u00a0 A mere impostor . . . would have broken down under such a tempest of opposition and hate as Smith\u2019s preaching excited.<\/strong>[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI really do believe,\u201d says Joseph Smith\u2019s non-Mormon biographer Robert Remini, \u201cthat he believed himself to be a prophet of God.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 He was \u201ca man absolutely convinced that his religious authority came directly from God.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n If Joseph Smith was honest\u2014if he was, as Remini\u2019s final summation has it, \u201ca decent man who claimed to be a prophet of God\u201d[4]<\/a>\u2014that leaves only the general, broad notions that he was (b) mad, or in some other way sincerely deceived, or that (c) he was a true prophet. For he never modified or mitigated his claim that the Book of Mormon had been revealed to him and translated by divine power. He always claimed to be a prophet of God.<\/span><\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Find original.<\/span><\/p>\n [2]<\/a> 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]<\/a> Remini, Joseph Smith<\/em>, 87.<\/span><\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Remini, Joseph Smith<\/em>, 181-182.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It being Friday, a new article has been published in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u201cIf I Pray Not Amiss\u201d\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Happy reading! \u00a0Happy weekend!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Yet another new entry has been published on my Mormon Scholars Testify<\/a> site:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Holly Hamilton-Bleakley<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For the 23 September broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show<\/a>,\u00a0Steve Densley, Matthew Bowen, and David Calabro discussed Jared Ludlow\u2019s new book on the Apocrypha, the new LDS history\u00a0Saints<\/em>, and the subject of Bishop\u2019s interviews and disciplinary actions.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You can now listen to that broadcast, at your leisure, online:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Interpreter Radio Show \u2014 September 23, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n