![\"Emma](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/emma-smith-nursing-sick-gorka-138059-gallery.jpg\")
<\/a>Emma is shown tending the sick following the Latter-day Saint exodus from Missouri. In the background, in the upper left, the Prophet Joseph carries one of the sick toward her.
(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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On several occasions over the past few years, in various venues \u2014 see here<\/a>, for example \u2014 I\u2019ve published a list of four books that I recommend as a kind of \u201cbasic\u00a0 packet\u201d for people struggling with their testimonies, and I\u2019ve explained that I think it important to preemptively strengthen faith as well as to fend off attacks, criticisms, or doubts.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Let me explain a little bit of what I have in mind:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Suppose that, one day, you hear a shockingly negative report about someone.\u00a0 What effect will the report have upon your opinion of that person?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Phrased in such a way, the question is essentially unanswerable.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because it matters very, very much whether you\u2019ve had any other prior experience or knowledge about the person in question, and, if so, what kind of experience or knowledge that was.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Suppose that this report is the first thing you\u2019ve ever heard about him.\u00a0 In that case, the report will almost inevitably color your opinion of him in a fundamental way, because it\u2019s the only \u201ccolor\u201d you have<\/em> for him, the only information that you possess<\/em> about him.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Suppose, as an alternative scenario, that you\u2019ve known him to be a bad sort for a very long time.\u00a0 You\u2019re not surprised to hear this latest account, and it fits right into the picture of him that you\u2019ve had in your mind for years.\u00a0 It won\u2019t require a lot of additional evidence \u2014 if, indeed, it requires any further evidence at all \u2014 to persuade you that the report is true.\u00a0 The new account doesn\u2019t fundamentally transform your opinion of the person, but it does reinforce your pre-existing opinion.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Now suppose, instead, that this person has been a friend of yours for several decades.\u00a0 You\u2019ve always known him to be good, honorable, reliable, and kind.\u00a0 The report that you\u2019ve just heard about him simply doesn\u2019t fit with the man you know, doesn\u2019t seem consistent with his character as you\u2019ve observed it over the years.\u00a0 You don\u2019t necessarily pronounce the report a lie, but you\u2019re certainly more inclined to withhold judgment, to give him the benefit of the doubt, to suspend your verdict until you can get his side of the story.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to take quite a bit of solid evidence to persuade you to revise your long-standing opinion of your friend.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Now, I think that this parable, if you will, can be applied to both Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If someone runs into an argument against the Book of Mormon, the weight that she is going to give to that argument will depend, to a significant degree, upon her general evaluation of the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 If she\u2019s studied it and found it rich with spiritual treasures, she\u2019ll be more inclined to minimize the argument\u2019s force than if she doesn\u2019t know the Book of Mormon very well and doesn\u2019t value it, let alone if she already holds the book in contempt or derision.\u00a0 But she will also be more resistant to this argument against the Book of Mormon, in my view, if, having read Richard Anderson\u2019s Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses <\/em>\u2014 to choose just one possible resource \u2014\u00a0she is persuaded that the Witnesses were telling the truth about the plates and the angel and the confirming voice of God.\u00a0 (Please notice that, this time at least, I have not mentioned the Witnesses<\/em> theatrical film<\/a>, the docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em><\/a>, the short Witness-related videos<\/a> that the Interpreter Foundation continues to post every Saturday evening, and the Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em><\/a> website.) And, likewise, if she\u2019s read Grant Hardy\u2019s Understanding the Book of Mormon<\/em> and is convinced that Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni were distinct historical individuals, it\u2019s going to be much more difficult for her to be won over to the view that Joseph Smith just made the whole thing up, including them<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In a similar fashion, imagine that a Church member runs into claims about Joseph Smith and early Mormon plural marriage that disturb him.\u00a0 (This rather murky topic is, perhaps, the single most difficult, most challenging, Latter-day Saint historical issue.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n There are some excellent scholarly resources on the question \u2014 including, for example, Gregory L. Smith\u2019s review \u201cGeorge Smith\u2019s Nauvoo Polygamy,\u201d in the now defunct\u00a0FARMS Review<\/em> 20\/2 (2008): 37-123 (still available online at https:\/\/archive.bookofmormoncentral.org\/content\/george-d-smiths-nauvoo-polygamy?gclid=Cj0KCQjw7KqZBhCBARIsAI-fTKIa5o7oRzyS1uUXj7bCRowssd2gYTuWYpJh8rnijXYWuetrmR1vUAAaAq6qEALw_wcB<\/a>), and the anthology, edited by Newell G. Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster, entitled The Persistence of Polygamy: Joseph Smith and the Origins of Mormon Polygamy<\/em>.\u00a0 (I find three essays \u2014 Don Bradley, \u201cMormon Polygamy before Nauvoo? The Relationship of Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger\u201d; Brian C. Hales, \u201cJoseph Smith and the Puzzlement of \u2018Polyandry,\u2019\u201d; and Craig L. Foster, David Keller, and Gregory L. Smith, \u201cThe Age of Joseph Smith\u2019s Plural Wives in Social and Demographic Context\u201d \u2014 especially useful.) \u00a0Brian Hales\u2019s website, Joseph Smith\u2019s Polygamy<\/em><\/a>, is indispensable.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But the nature of the sources is such that it probably isn\u2019t enough merely to fight a rearguard action on this issue \u2014 particularly in our society, which tends, for very good reason, to be deeply cynical about sexual matters and very aware of hypocrisy concerning them.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen far too many philandering preachers, far too many hypocritical \u201cfamily values\u201d politicians.\u00a0 What needs to be done is to examine carefully the question of Joseph Smith\u2019s general character.\u00a0 Is he the kind of man who, when difficult and seemingly irresolvable issues arise, should be given the benefit of the doubt?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Mark McConkie\u2019s impressive collection of eyewitness testimonials (Remembering Joseph Smith<\/em>) argues powerfully that he was a good, honorable, reliable, and kind man whose character does, indeed, merit that kind of trust.\u00a0 And John Welch\u2019s anthology of articles (Opening the Heavens<\/em>), along with the Anderson and Hardy books, supplies strong evidence that he did genuinely receive divine revelation.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s a little bit of what I had in mind.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Posted from Newport Beach, California<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 On several occasions over the past few years, in various venues \u2014 see here, for example \u2014 I\u2019ve published a list of four books that I recommend as a kind of \u201cbasic\u00a0 packet\u201d for people struggling with their testimonies, and I\u2019ve explained that I think it important to preemptively strengthen faith as well […]<\/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-96790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n