Spencer W. McBride, Jeffrey D. Mahas, Brett D. Dowdle, and Tyson Reeder, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents Volume 11: September 1842-February 1843 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2020).
John C. Bennett, con man, and political insider, and former Joseph Smith confidante, left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in July 1842. His departure catalyzed a series of changes within Joseph Smith’s religious movement, particularly as the Latter-day Saint prophet and his followers scrambled to adjust to the curious media’s attention and their neighbor’s vitriol.
Those changes are transcribed, annotated, and verified in the 105 documents that comprise the eleventh volume of the Documents series of the Joseph Smith Papers, released in October 2020. These documents fall broadly into three categories. First, the extradition attempts led by Lilburn W. Boggs, related to an assassination attempt that took place on May 6, 1842. The Missouri governor believed that the Latter-day Saints bore responsibility, and, so his logic went, it must have happened on Joseph Smith’s orders. The Latter-day Saint leader won a court case that denied Missouri’s extradition attempt—Smith’s followers celebrated at parties and in song.[1]
Smith was also busy trying to put out the gossipy blaze that was John C. Bennett’s speaking tour. The former Nauvoo mayor and member of the LDS Church’s First Presidency had published several letters that shared scandalous details about Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage. As the JSPP editorial team writes, “Smith was, in fact, secretly practicing plural marriage in Nauvoo by this time.” Furthermore, “he had introduced the practice to a small circle of Latter-day Saint, but most church members were not aware of it.”[2] Bennett spun some yarns and “seemingly fabricated” several of his claims, but the truth was irrelevant to a hungry public’s appetite for salacious details about the Mormon prophet.[3]
Lest readers and historians forget, Joseph Smith was also a religious leader. Documents 11 shows how Smith directed his church, oversaw the temple’s construction, wrote editorials for the Church’s newspaper, and elaborated on his teachings regarding the practice of vicarious baptism for the dead. Of utmost importance is also remembering that Joseph Smith felt a deep-seeded duty to protect “his family and his fellow Latter-day Saints from persecution.” (JSPP Press Release).
Map of Nauvoo
The JSPP volume editors for D11 were gracious enough to meet with scholars and journalists to share a few personal reflections and highlights.
Spencer McBride began with a quote from Joseph Smith’s journal from a different JSPP volume to introduce what the Latter-day Saint prophet said about his leadership: that he did not expect perfection from his followers and they should not expect perfection from him. Infallibity was never on the table. Which, McBride reminds us, is important to keep in mind for both devotional members of the Church and scholars. I would add a paraphrased line from O Brother Where Art Thou: one’s ideals and one’s actions don’t always align.
Historian Spencer W. McBride explains how Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo used the still-unfinished Nauvoo temple for worship services in 1842 and 1843
Brett Dowdle introduced a letter from September 7, 1842 on baptisms for the dead. Like Dowdle, I was fascinated by the time that Smith took, while in isolation while evading Missouri’s authorities, to dictate such a long letter. Smith included an immense amount of detail, he said that “you may find this very particular,” but it’s because of his commitment to preserving a record that could be used by God at judgment. Historians everywhere may have different concerns, but I think I speak for us all when I say “thank you for insisting on careful recordkeeping!”
Brett Dowdle introduction records of baptism for the dead in Nauvoo
Jeffrey Mahas explained that Joseph Smith spent a lot of this time in hiding while negotiating his way out of Missouri’s arrest warrants, related to a murder attempt on Lilburn W. Boggs’ life. Mahas calls this likely the greatest legal victory of Joseph Smith’s life. When returning home from court, several Saints composed a song, including lines by Eliza R. Snow. MAHAS THEN SANG THE FIRST VERSE. Friends, this was a time never to be forgotten.
After a stirring rendition of the jubilee song, Mahas pointed out that the song praised Thomas Ford, who later becomes notorious in Mormon history. Eliza R. Snow’s wrote:
“Protection’s wreath again will bloom Reviv’d by Thomas Ford; Which under Carlin had become Like Jonah’s wither’d gourd…
Like Freedom’s true and genuine son, Oppression to destroy, His Excellency has begun To Govern Illinois…
His ‘Mormon’ subjects fondly trust, The citizens will share, A legislation wise and just, While he retains the Chair, While foul oppression’s &c.
The Jubillee Songs, Docs 11, 334.
On to the Q&A:
Dowdle noted that the September 7 letter was special because he doesn’t necessarily produce long letters or discourses like that document, but that he’s still operating with “space” to think. McBride noted that Smith’s life was busy at this time (per usual), but that he was still busy. The types of documents are unique in this period because he’s not preaching, but he’s able to produce a lot of documentation, including on things like currency. Mahas added that he is in hiding, but still near Nauvoo. Smith ends up moving thirty miles upriver from the City of Joseph, where he doesn’t have friends, family, or scribes to record his thoughts at this point (Smith preferred to dictate rather than write). A later account by someone who spent time with Joseph Smith at this time remembered a lot of boredom.
In response to a question about Bennett, McBride said that Joseph Smith was on the defensive, but that it’s essential to remember that many of Smith’s teachings are geared towards assuring converts moving to Nauvoo. Many are coming to Illinois expecting jobs and could be disappointed in what was available. Smith’s concern was with the Saints, though it would be oversimplifying to discount Bennett’s speaking tour against Mormonism.
A question came in about the consistency in annotation, style, etc. comes from frequent review, collaboration, and a consistent effort to have an authorial voice.
Our friends at BOMSA are holding their annual conference this week. Be sure to check out all the presentations, but we are particularly excited about the historical presentations (listed below):
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9
10:15 PM-12:15 PM
Robin Jensen (JSPP), “A Preliminary Examination in to the Authenticity of the University of Chicago Leaves of the Original Book of Mormon Manuscript (Alma 3:5-4:2; 4:20-5:23)
Janiece Johnson (Neal A. Maxwell Institute), “Scripturalizing the Book: Book of Mormon Authority and the Material Record”
Christopher Jones (BYU), “A Necessary Book for Dark-Skinned People’: Reading the Book of Mormon with the First Missionaries to the Pacific”
Thanks to friend of JI Matthew Grow for reaching out to us regarding this announcement!Further information can be found at the Communcal Studies Association website.
Sessions will begin at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time and end at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. Each session will be 90 minutes in length, generally with three presenters speaking for 25 minutes with time for questions. Viewers will be able to query speakers in real time via the Q & A tab. There will be 15 minutes between sessions. Our business meeting, election and awards ceremony will occur on Friday evening.
Registration will be on our website at conference registration. Cost for registration will be just $50 for members, $60 for non-members and $10 for students and current communitarians. We hope this low price will encourage many to attend who might not otherwise be able to afford the transportation and lodging expense of an in-person conference. So please spread the word!
Kurt Manwaring has published an interview with Joseph Geisner, over on his site, From the Desk. Geisner has published in Sunstone, the John Whitmer Historical Journal, the Journal of Mormon History, and Irreantum. Joe is an avid book collector of the New Mormon History, and rare and collectible Mormon books. An excerpt from Manwaring’s site on Geisner’s new edited collection, Writing Mormon History: Historians and their Books is available here; click over to From the Desk to read the rest!
CCHSF Autumn Lecture Series: Community of Christ’s Global History
Community of Christ Historic Sites Foundation (CCHSF) is hosting online lectures every Thursday night at 7:00 pm (Central) from October 1 – November 19, 2020. Each week CCHSF will journey, through the pages of church history, to a new area of the world. The 8-week series will feature church history around the globe: Korea, India, England, Southeastern Nigeria, Canada, and the Holy Land.
The online lectures are free and open to the public with any donations received going to support the ongoing preservation and maintenance of Community of Christ historic sites.
In the previous installments of this series, I have given a brief history of the research Don Bradley and I have been conducting over the last three decades on the Kinderhook plates episode in early Mormon history.
As explained in the previous installment (2 of 4), I had found what I believed to be the source of the content of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Kinderhook plates: The Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL).
So, as I was saying, in the spring of 1996 I delivered a presentation at MHA in which I argued that Joseph Smith did translate (mistranslate) a portion of the fraudulent Kinderhook plates but that he had attempted this translation by secular methods. (For the basic outline of the argument, see the previous installment.)
A few months after the presentation, I found the source of the content of the translation.
It was in the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language.
If I remember it correctly, I started studying the Kinderhook plates episode in the fall of 1990, soon after I completed my mission and returned to BYU—and there found the magnificent run of BX8600 books in the 4th-floor stacks of the Lee Library. I spent countless hours between there and the old Special Collections (with its stunning window view of Mount Timpanogos).
A decade earlier, historian Stan Kimball had obtained permission to conduct destructive testing on the one extant Kinderhook plate—in order to determine whether it was ancient or modern. In the late nineteenth century, men from Kinderhook, Illinois, claimed that the plate had been fabricated there in 1843 and then planted near a decomposed skeleton in a nearby American Indian burial mound. This was all in preparation for the excavation and “discovery” that followed. The problem was that, according to the History of the Church, when Joseph Smith was shown the plates he believed they were genuine and even translated a portion of their inscriptions. So, were the plates genuine or bogus? ancient or modern? The destructive testing conducted in 1980 conclusively demonstrated that the plate and its inscriptions were a 19th-century fabrication.
Kurt Manwaring has published an interview with Matthew Grey, over on his site, From the Desk. Grey earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. An excerpt from Manwaring’s site on Joseph Smith, translation and Hebrew is posted below; click over to From the Desk to read the rest!
Why did Joseph Smith assume he could gain insights into the Egyptian language and Book of Abraham by studying Hebrew?
Matthew Grey: There is evidence that many early Latter-day Saints—including Joseph Smith, W.W. Phelps, and Oliver Cowdery—naturally adopted some of the assumptions circulating in their nineteenth century intellectual climate, including the common views mentioned above that supernatural means were necessary to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and/or that Egyptian was a linguistic system related to Hebrew (both having descended from the original “pure language” of humanity) that could be illuminated through Hebraic insights.
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “Large civilizations leave behind evidence of their existence. For instance, I just read that scholars estimate the kingdom of Judah to have been around 110,000…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “I have always understood the key to issues with Nephite archeology to be language. Besides the fact that there is vastly more to Mesoamerican…”
Steven Borup on In Memoriam: James B.: “Bro Allen was the lead coordinator in 1980 for the BYU Washington, DC Seminar and added valuable insights into American history as we also toured…”
David G. on In Memoriam: James B.: “Jim was a legend who impacted so many through his scholarship and kind mentoring. He'll be missed.”
Recent Comments
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “Large civilizations leave behind evidence of their existence. For instance, I just read that scholars estimate the kingdom of Judah to have been around 110,000…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “I have always understood the key to issues with Nephite archeology to be language. Besides the fact that there is vastly more to Mesoamerican…”
Steven Borup on In Memoriam: James B.: “Bro Allen was the lead coordinator in 1980 for the BYU Washington, DC Seminar and added valuable insights into American history as we also toured…”
David G. on In Memoriam: James B.: “Jim was a legend who impacted so many through his scholarship and kind mentoring. He'll be missed.”