Richard Bushman Recounts His Youthful Faith Crisis

In a recent post about the Book of Mormon musical, famed LDS scholar Richard Bushman recounted his own faith crisis around the time of his mission. I found it quite interesting in the way - maddeningly vague though it is - that Bushman presents himself coming to grips with his crisis and regaining faith in the Book of Mormon:

I had my Elder Price moment, as many Mormons do, but during my sophomore year at Harvard. Writing a paper on Nietzsche and Freud had raised lots of questions about religion in general.

When I went off to Halifax to preach the gospel, I was pretty shaky in my belief. For three months I wrestled with questions about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Was it a hoax, a bold, fraudulent effort to create a myth? Had Joseph Smith hoodwinked his friends - and the rest of his followers including me?

I studied everything and prayed hard for some kind of light. In time I arrived at a rational explanation that allowed for a miracle in the book's production, but along the way I experienced something more important than the book itself. I caught a glimpse of a higher form of human flourishing, something forceful and ennobling which I can only call sacred. It was this encounter with a kind of elevated goodness in the book that won me over.

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling - 04

Richard L. Bushman

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

Chapter 4: "A New Bible: 1830" (pp. 84-108)

In the first through third chapters of this biography, Richard Bushman skillfully covers the life of Joseph Smith from its beginnings up until the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830, offering a brief survey of the initial public reaction to it. Here in the fourth chapter, Bushman steps back from the chronology of Joseph's life and adopts a more thematic approach; this chapter concerns itself entirely with the Book of Mormon. Bushman opens with a concise summary of the subject matter of the text:

The Book of Mormon is a thousand-year history of the rise and fall of a religious civilization in the Western Hemisphere beginning about 600 BCE. A briefer history of a second civilization, beginning at the time of the Tower of Babel and extending till a few hundred years before Christ, is summarized in thirty-five pages near the end. The founders of the main group were Israelites who migrated from Jerusalem and practiced their religion in the New World until internal wars brought them to the verge of extinction in 421 CE, when the record ends. During the thousand years, wars are fought, governments crumble, prophets arise, people are converted and fall away, and Jesus Christ appears after His resurrection. (84)

After a mention of divided literary reception of the text - noting, for instance, Mark Twain's reference to it as 'chloroform in print' on the one hand but Fawn Brodie's favorable assessment of it on the other - Bushman notes that most contemporaries of Joseph Smith seem to have classified it as a 'bible' in some sense. This was the case outside of Joseph's movement, of course - newspapers derided it as the 'Gold Bible' - but also the case inside of Joseph's movement, as when Martin Harris called it the 'Mormon Bible' while negotiating with E. B. Grandin to get it printed. Bushman notes that the format of the text creates a strongly biblical feel, although one major difference is that in the Book of Mormon, "these books are not divided into histories and prophetic books" (85).

Bushman then goes on to give a more detailed summary of the plot of the Book of Mormon, beginning with the prophet Lehi in Jerusalem just before the onset of the Babylonian Captivity. Lehi and his family "are led into the wilderness of the Arabian peninsula" and wander in the wilderness for eight years before constructing a ship somewhere along the seacoast, perhaps on the Arabian Sea (85). Eventually they reach their promised land, universally understood as the New World but never explicitly stated to be so in the text itself. After reaching their destination, "the migrants build a temple and follow the law of Moses much like the society they left in Palestine, but their religion is explicitly Christian" (85). The quarrels of Lehi's children result in the formation of factions that develop into rival civilizations: the Lamanites and the Nephites, who "battle year after year until, after a thousand years, the Lamanites destroy the Nephites" (86). The final Nephite prophet, Moroni, completes the collection of texts inscribed on golden plates and buries them; it is 1400 years later that he returns as an angel to lead Joseph Smith to them. At this juncture, Bushman makes special note of the way in which, according to the Book of Mormon, the New World experienced three full days of darkness between the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, and that Jesus visited the Nephites after his resurrection, delivered the Sermon on the Mount, appointed twelve Nephite disciples, instructed them in baptism and communion, and then departed (86).

The Book of Mormon, as Bushman describes it, presents itself as primarily the work of the Nephite military leader and prophet Mormon (the father of Moroni), who led the Nephites from 327 to 385 during their nation's twilight (86). Mormon ventures to the hill Shim, where a wide assortment of Nephite records are stored, and from these records Mormon compiles a history onto a new set of plates (87). As Bushman tells it, the resulting text is "an elaborate framed tale of Mormon telling about a succession of prophets telling about their encounters with God" (87). After offering a sense of the sweeping depth of the world that is evoked, Bushman mentions some of the main characters: Nephi the son of Lehi; Sariah the wife of Lehi; the Nephite king Benjamin who addressed his people from a tower; the "warrior missionary" Ammon who served under a Lamanite king; Alma, a Paul-like figure who underwent a radical conversion to become "a champion of the gospel"; Moroni the Nephite general; the Lamanite prophet Samuel who warned the Nephites from a wall; the heretics Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor; the assassin Kishkumen; and Gadianton, who organized "secret bands for robbery and murder" (88).

After making a note that the bulk of the 584 pages of text must have been dictated in around three months at most, Bushman moves onward to survey early criticism of the Book of Mormon. Early local criticisms, even before the book was released, regarded it as "part of a scheme to swindle gullible victims" like Martin Harris; newspaper editors "placed Joseph Smith in a long line of false prophets beginning with Muhammad" (88). Among early critics, one of the most reasonable initial critiques was by American religious leader Alexander Campbell, another restorationist theologians and the founder of the Disciples of Christ; his attention was drawn to Joseph Smith's movement when it began drawing converts from his own movement, including one of his preachers, Sidney Rigdon. Campbell took the Book of Mormon seriously and presented a critique in his Millennial Harbinger on 7 February 1831. He alleged that Joseph Smith had "cobbled together fragments of American Protestant culture, mixed theological opinions with politics, and presented the whole in Yankee vernacular. The book had touches of anti-Masonry and republican government, interspersed with opinions on all the contemporary theological questions", which was understandable a quite suspicious mix for an allegedly ancient document (89). Campbell regarded the plot and the character array as simply a 'romance' (90).

Later critics wanted to give more attention to explaining how a seemingly illiterate Joseph Smith could possibly have produced such an intricate and lengthy plot. In 1834, Painesville Telegraph editor Eber D. Howe published the findings of Doctor Philastus Hurlbut, an excommunicated Mormon who "found a half dozen old-timers in Conneaut, Ohio, who thought the Book of Mormon resembled a novel written twenty years earlier by Solomon Spaulding, a Dartmouth graduate and former town resident" (90). As they remembered it, Spaulding's novel talked about "lost tribes of Israel moving from Jerusalem to America led by characters named Nephi and Lehi", and some even recalled the names 'Moroni' and 'Zarahemla' (90). When Hurlbut found Spaulding's widow, he eventually did uncover a 'Manuscript Found' written by Spaulding, but this was about a group of Romans who were blown off course to America and lived among the Indian tribes and wrote down their experiences, with the conceit that Spaulding discovered their Latin manuscript and translated it into English. Hurlbut concluded that the residents of Conneaut must have been talking about yet another story by Spaulding; he decided that Sidney Rigdon had obtained this other manuscript in Pittsburg, transformed it into the Book of Mormon, and then conveyed it to Joseph Smith and only later pretended to be converted when missionaries reached him with the finished product in 1830 (90).

For decades, this 'Spaulding theory' remained the dominant critical explanation for the Book of Mormon until the 'Manuscript Found' resurfaced again in 1884 in Hawaii and came into the hands of Oberlin College president James Fairchild, who examined it and concluded that there never was a second manuscript and so that there was simply no good evidence for the 'Spaulding theory' (91). This opened the way for new critical explanations to emerge, and around the turn of the century, people like I. Woodbridge Riley, Theodore Schroeder, and Walter Prince began to maintain that the Book of Mormon "showed signs of Joseph Smith's psychology and culture, and so must be his work" (91). This was the perspective adopted in 1945 by Fawn Brodie, niece of David O. McKay and biographer of Joseph Smith. In 1977, interest in the Spaulding theory briefly revived at the suggestion that perhaps Spaulding's own handwriting appeared in the original Book of Mormon manuscript, but the handwriting experts then backed off from their own suggestion.

Bushman then mentions first a number of arguments from critics and then a number of arguments from defenders, and I would do Bushman's presentation a disservice if I didn't quote both. First, he states:

The modern critics write with the same confidence as the nineteenth-century skeptics. They are certain that any reasonable person who takes an objective, scientific approach to the Book of Mormon will recognize "the obvious fictional quality" of the book. They point to evidence in the book of the anti-Masonic agitation stirring New York in the years when it was being translated. In the doctrinal portions, they see anti-Universalist language and imitations of camp-meeting preaching. The critics complain that the Isaiah passages quoted by Nephi draw upon portions of the book now thought to be pseudepigrapha, composed long after the Nephites left Jerusalem. Turning to archeology, they point out that archeological digs have produced no evidence of Nephite civilization, yielding no horse bones, for example, an animal named in the Book of Mormon. Most recently, an anthropological researcher has claimed that Native American DNA samples correspond to Asian patterns, precluding Semitic origins. In view of all the evidence, the critics believe defense of the book's authenticity is hopeless. (92)

This, of course, is only a brief sampling of the criticisms, and here as in the third chapter, Bushman regrettably gives a noticeably slanted portrayal of the current field of research. As will be seen, he casts the critics as uniformly intellectually arrogant and lacking in expertise, while the defenders of the Book of Mormon are characterized as unquestionably superior scholars who nevertheless express a commendable epistemic humility. Both of these are caricatures, and Bushman's work is all the worse for their inclusion. Here is his presentation of the work of Book of Mormon defenders, which of course omits any mention of the further strong rejoinders presented to some of these points by the critics:

The proponents are not searching for a single conclusive proof that the Book of Mormon is ancient; instead they draw attention to scores of details that resemble the local color and cultural forms of ancient Hebrew culture, many of them unknown even to scholars when Joseph Smith was writing. They find passages written in the Hebrew poetic form of chiasmus, where a series of statements reverses at a midpoint and repeats itself in reverse order. The proponents notes how chapters about a Nephite king bestowing his crown on his son conform to the coronation rituals of antiquity. The "reformed Egyptian" in the Book of Mormon, the proponents say, compares to ancient Meroitic, which used Egyptian characters to write Meroitic words. The extended parable of the olive orchard in Jacob 5 reveals an accurate understanding of olive tree culture. In response to the absence of horse bones in Latin American archeology, the proponents point out that no archeological evidence of horses has been found in regions occupied by the Huns, a society dependent on horses. Proponents are quick to note that a Book of Mormon archeological site in the Middle East has been tentatively located. The Book of Mormon describes Lehi's journey down the Arabian peninsula and directly east to the Gulf of Arabia. Here Lehi's people came upon a pocket of fertile land and bounteous food in an otherwise desert area. A site in Oman fulfills many of the Book of Mormon requirements. Along this route, a site has been located that bears the name "Nhm," corresponding to the name Nahom given in the Book of Mormon as one stop on Lehi's journey. On point after point, the proponents answer the critics and assemble their own evidence. Unlike the critics, they do not claim their case is conclusive; they accumulate evidence, but admit belief in the Book of Mormon requires faith. (93)

Even if it should happen that the proponents are correct in their arguments - which is far from a foregone conclusion - this sort of prose is ill-befitting a historian of Bushman's caliber. Moving along from the thoroughly biased presentation of this dispute, Bushman goes on to laud the revisionist view of Book of Mormon geography. He has no choice but to grant that early readers of the book - including, though he doesn't mention it here, Joseph Smith himself - all firmly believed that Book of Mormon geography covered essentially the whole of North and South America (93). This had been the universal view of Latter-day Saints until recent revisionist interpretations emerged. Bushman notes that these scholars have questioned whether such a scope is feasible in light of the journeys on foot recorded in the text; thus, he says, the action may have been confined to "a patch of land comparable in size to ancient Palestine" (93). Bushman does not deal with the numerous obstacles for the limited geography thesis, such as the strong sense in the text that the land of the Book of Mormon is the land of the Native Americans, with several key sites (e.g., the Hill Cumorah, the burial site of 'Zelph', etc.) being obviously far, far removed from the 'limited geography' locales. This makes room for the existence of numerous other civilizations alongside the Nephites and Lamanites; Bushman claims, though provides no evidence, that "tiny hints of their presence turn up in the text" (94). Finally, Bushman briefly notes that non-LDS scholars have virtually uniformly dismissed LDS apologetic claims, but quickly rushes on to the isolated handful of "maverick" scholars and others who have produced research that could be used to support Book of Mormon authenticity (94). As in so many cases before, Bushman soft-peddles many things that could cast too much doubt on LDS beliefs, preferring to give wildly disproportionate emphasis to the exceptions rather than the rule. It may be that the maverick scholars are completely right and the mainstream scholars are wrong, of course, but Bushman's citations of critics of LDS apologetics are so few and far-between that the reader is not enabled to investigate this further.

Leaving this all behind, Bushman observes that most early readers - both the early Mormons and their early critics - regarded the Book of Mormon as being "a history of the Indians" (94). Joseph Smith clearly regarded the Lamanites, for instance, as being 'the forefathers of our western Tribes of Indians'. However, Bushman wishes to call all of this into question. He asserts that there was no reason that Joseph Smith in particular should have been interested in the origin of the Native Americans, despite the general fascination with the topic in the United States at that time. Bushman states that "the Smiths exhibited no particular interest in the original occupants of the land until Joseph got involved with the gold plates" (95). Bushman does grant that, among the many speculations on the issue that were prevalent in the 1820s, one was that the Native Americans were descended from the lost tribes of Israel; Bushman admits that this was popular but stresses that it was not universally accepted (95). Bushman mentions how in 1823, Vermont minister Ethan Smith published his View of the Hebrews promoting this idea; it talks about migrations from Palestine to Ameica with the result being a great civilization that split into a civilized branch and a savage branch, with the latter winning out in the end; there is also a possibility that Oliver Cowdery was familiar with this work before he went to meet Joseph Smith (96). After all, Ethan Smith was Oliver Cowdery's pastor during the period when View of the Hebrews was written. Bushman does not delve further into some of the other similarities that have been seen between the texts.

However, Bushman says, the Book of Mormon "was not a treatise about the origins of the Indians, regardless of what early Mormons said" (96). It was very different from other such treatises, because it never used the word 'Indian' and also didn't attempt to assemble evidence and argue a case. Of course, both of these are irrelevant as to whether the Book of Mormon was a nineteenth-century story about Native Americans. Bushman also notes that other such works usually drew alleged parallels between Native Americans and the Old Testament, whereas the Book of Mormon is unique by presenting the prophets as teaching "pure Christianity" even before Christ's coming (96). Bushman must grant, however, that early Mormons disregarded these differences and "eagerly cited all of the scholarship about the original inhabitants of North and South America as proof of the book's accuracy" (96). Bushman cautions, however, that where other books set among the Native American contained numerous references to stereotyped Native American practices, the Book of Mormon never used Native American names for things and lacked any of the "trademark Indian items" (97). Bushman notes that, while bows and arrows were used, they were accompanied by more classical weapons foreign to Native American use; the closest the Book of Mormon "comes to an Indian identification is the description of Lamanites as bloodthirsty and bare-chested" (97).

Bushman's next area of attention is the alleged racism of the Book of Mormon, since it talks about the Lamanites being marked with dark skin as a curse from God, and then presenting the Lamanites as stereotyped savages, which sounds "like the Jacksonian view of Indians common to most Americans in 1830" (98). Bushman counters, however, that the Native Americans are presented as being God's chosen people destined for greatness in world history. As presented in the Book of Mormon, "the Lamanites are destined to be restored to favor with God and given this land, just as Jews are to be restored to the Holy Land"; Bushman also notes that, despite their evil dark skin, the Lamanites are sometimes presented as occasionally righteous (98). Bushman reads the Book of Mormon as stressing the greatness of the Native Americans and presenting the later European settlers as Gentile interlopers whose sole function is to support the Native Americans or else be doomed to perish. This reading is, needless to say, highly idiosyncratic.

Bushman's next area of focus is the relationship between the Book of Mormon and the Bible. He notes that the Book of Mormon relies heavily upon the Bible, often reproducing considerable segments of it and including numerous common phrases - rendered, of course, in the style of the King James Version. The Book of Mormon is presented as a further confirmation of the Bible, and yet "the Book of Mormon challenges the authority of the Bible by breaking the monopoly of the Bible on scriptural truth" (99). The Book of Mormon charges that "biblical revelation has been depleted" and "declares the Bible to be deficient" (100). Bushman goes on to claim that the Book of Mormon presents a highly nuanced understanding of the Bible, not as "a book of holy words, inscribed by the hand of God in stone", but rather as texts "coming out of a people's encounter with God" (100). Bushman's efforts not withstanding, it seems clear that the verses he cites do not bear the tremendous philosophical weight he places upon them. Bushman moves on to note how the Book of Mormon presents all the tribes of Israel as having their own distinctive scriptures to someday contribute, and observes how the Book of Mormon castigates and ridicules all Christians who don't accept its message and who instead think that the Bible contains the fullness of scripture to be given in this age (100). The Book of Mormon, as it presents itself and as Bushman presents it, "is but one record in a huge world archive", and this paves the way for Joseph Smith as producing further new American scripture (101).

Bushman next attacks the popular American reading of the Book of Mormon as a nationalist text. Bushman observes that the vision of future Gentile prosperity in the land occupies a mere nine verses of the Book of Mormon, and "American constitutionalism is faintly invoked and then dismissed" (102). For Bushman, the style of government in the Book of Mormon is thoroughly un-American, presenting monarchy rather than anything approaching democracy. He grants that there are some mitigating points, but notes that there is a transition from monarchy to rule by judges, not rule by a constitutional republican government. In this new judgeship, successors to the first judge inherit the office, which exalts aristocracy. "The most valued features of republican government - regular elections, a representative legislature, and checks and balances - are absent. Moreover, throughout the text, church and state are liberally intermixed" (103).

The Book of Mormon does not focus on liberty but rather on an extension of Israelite history, focusing on the themes of apostasy and restoration; the Book of Mormon rejects the popular American self-conception as a new Israel and instead restores that term to fleshly Israel. Israel is the focal point. As Bushman goes on to say:

In the Book of Mormon, Gentile Christianity has apostatized. The book repeatedly condemns Gentile religion - for disbelief in revelation and miracles, for preaching for pay, for disregard of the poor, for erasure of key parts of the Bible. Although long favored by God to become a mighty people, the Gentiles have built up false churches as monuments to their own pride. Now they have a choice. They must either join Israel or be cast off. (103)

The Book of Mormon itself represents a great turning point, the beginning of the fall of the Gentiles and the renewed rise of Israel. The book "was not only the herald of restoration; the Book of Mormon was the instrument for accomplishing it" (104). As Bushman presents it, this "turned American history upside down" by rejecting the Europeans and favoring the natives, by exalting the Book of Mormon rather than the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, by stressing the gathering of lost Israel rather than the establishment of liberty. While the early Latter-day Saints understood the Book of Mormon as a confirmation of their old beliefs and patriotism, Bushman charges them with seriously misunderstanding their own book. Whatever the merits of a few of his points, I think the contrast between, on the one hand, the entire prophet-led community in which the text came forth and the whole tradition of its authorized interpreters, and on the other hand, an isolated historian treating all these issues in a single chapter of a biography, speaks for itself.

Bushman finally moves on to the role of Joseph Smith. He stresses that, at a mere age of twenty-three, Joseph Smith "dictated the Book of Mormon without any practice runs or previous writing experience. It came in a rush, as if the thoughts had been building for decades" (105). Bushman dedicates some space here to pondering the ways in which Joseph Smith might have seen himself in the text he was producing; Bushman compares Joseph to the character of Nephi (106). Bushman also observes that the production of this text marks the victory of Joseph's religiosity over his impulse towards treasure-seeking, because the Book of Mormon "thinks like the Bible" (107). In the Book of Mormon, religion is "a public concern", with messages directed to communities and the focus being on the national and communal rather than the individual.

Bushman concludes with a brief investigation of what captivated early converts about the Book of Mormon. For some, it was a sense of the presence of the Spirit as they read; for others, it was the very fact that the book was there at all. Bushman stresses that the overwhelming emphasis of the Book of Mormon is simply the gospel of "Christ's atonement for the world's sins", which resounds in passages that "anchored Mormonism in orthodox Christianity", despite all the later doctrinal and practical innovations (108). For the Latter-day Saints, "the Book of Mormon, their third testament, held them to the fundamentals" and bound them to certain traditional Christian beliefs at a time when 'higher criticism' was soon going to begin eroding it in some mainline churches. Bushman here perhaps overplays the degree to which the Latter-day Saints actually were kept anchored by the Book of Mormon.

Overall, while Bushman presents a decent summary and treatment of the Book of Mormon, this chapter was marked by a number of serious flaws. On the one hand, his treatment of criticisms of the Book of Mormon was so obviously slanted in favor of its defenders that one wonders if Bushman at this point even considered attempting to be balanced. On the other hand, he seems determined to minimize all standard readings of the text in favor of a radically idiosyncratic and revisionist approach that, if Bushman is right, went virtually unnoticed by prophets, apostles, and devout students of this work for over 150 years. In the space provided, I simply don't think Bushman has been entirely successful on that score. From here, however, Bushman goes on in his fifth chapter to cover the establishment by Joseph Smith and his early followers of the Church of Christ.

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling - 03

Richard L. Bushman

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

Chapter 3: "Translation: 1827-30" (pp. 57-83)

In the first and second chapters, Richard Bushman covered Joseph Smith's story from his family roots first up to his family's move to Palmyra, NY, and then beyond that up to the brink of Joseph Smith's retrieval of the golden plates from the Hill Cumorah. The first chapter covered several generations and the second chapter covered eleven or twelve years, but the third chapter marks the beginning of a major slow-down, with only the time period from 1827 to 1830 being covered. Bushman begins with lofty statements about Joseph's liminal position between "visionary supernaturalism" and "folk beliefs" on the one hand and "rational Christianity" on the other (57). Bushman then moves on to the issue of the golden plates, noting very few of the alternative suggestions of what exactly might have happened; Bushman goes on to dismiss them as merely speculative in a way that is, in this instance, far more 'believer' than 'historian'. As Bushman writes:

These explanations keep the story within the realm of the ordinary but require considerable fabrication themselves. Joseph "may" have done this and "probably" did that. Since the people who knew Joseph best treat the plates as fact, a skeptical analysis lacks evidence. A series of surmises replaces a documented narrative. (58)

As a historian, quite frankly, Bushman ought to be far more sensitive to the nature of historical reconstruction which in most circumstances requires that the honest historian offer up these "mays" and these "probablys". The stark difference between Bushman's approach at this sensitive spot and his approach elsewhere is, at least to my eyes, highly apparent. A less invested writer might simply have stated that documentation reveals an object that Joseph Smith asserted to be golden plates and which others believed, with varying degrees of verification, to be golden plates, and which may have indeed been golden plates but which others have explained in other ways. This pattern of Bushman's suddenly soft treatment at various sensitive areas is one of the few stunning weaknesses in Bushman's otherwise magisterial work - that, and his related habit of offering only a sparse few examples of alternative explanations in a very cursory fashion.

Moving on, Bushman picks up the narrative on the evening of 21 September 1827, where Joseph Knight Sr. reportedly saw Joseph Smith Jr. making preparations to retrieve the plates and worrying about interference from their neighbor Samuel Lawrence (59). Joseph left for the Hill Cumorah late that night, driving off with Emma in Joseph Knight's wagon. They returned after breakfast. Joseph presented to his mother an object wrapped in a silk handkerchief, which she claimed were like a pair of three-cornered diamonds connected by bows. Joseph did not immediately bring the plates home with him, but rather carved a hole in a birch log in the woods and hid them inside of it, which gave Joseph time to have a chest made for them. Unfortunately, despite attempts to keep things secret, it wasn't long until Willard Chase was already leading groups attempting to find them. When the Smith family learned this, it was time to bring the plates home as Bushman describes:

Joseph set out alone, still dressed in the linen frock he had been wearing to dig the well. Lucy Smith said he wrapped the plates in the frock and put them under his arm. Martin Harris later estimated that the plates weighed forty or fifty pounds, and Joseph carried them three miles. Wary of interference, Joseph thought it better to leave the road and travel in the woods. His caution proved useless. While he was scrambling over a tree that had fallen across the path, a man struck him with a gun. Joseph knocked the man down and ran off at full speed, still with the heavy plates under his arm. A half mile further he was assaulted again and again made his escape. Yet a third time someone tried to stop him before he finally reached home, speechless with fright and fatigue and suffering from a dislocated thumb. (60)

Hyrum brought Joseph a cherrywood chest for the plates, and Joseph buried the box beneath the hearthstones in their west room. An armed 'mob' attempted to rush their house, but all the Smith men dashed out with a yell and frightened the mob off into the woods. After that, Joseph transferred the plates to the local cooper's shop, separating them from the box.

He buried the box under a floorboard and hid the plates themselves in a pile of flax in the shop loft. That night Willard Chase and his sister Sally Chase with her green glass came with their friends to search. They rummaged around outside but did not come in. Lucy learned later that Sally Chase told the men the plates were in the coopering shop. The next morning, the Smiths found the floor torn up and the box smashed. To their relief, the plates were safely buried in the flax. (61)

This raises a whole batch of questions about the validity of Sally Chase's paranormal powers, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms to perhaps address after reading other books. In the meantime, Joseph knew he had to get out of there, and so Lucy Mack Smith approached a prosperous friendly Palmyra family: the Harrises. When Lucy Smith talked to Lucy Harris about the plate, she "immediately pressed money on Lucy Smith to assist in the translation". As Bushman describes, people like the Harrises - both Martin and Lucy - "were looking for wonders like their Puritan ancestors but as children of the Enlightenment were wary of being deceived. They wanted to believe but would retaliate if they detected fraud" (62). Both Martin and Lucy Harris went about their own ways of trying to verify their hopes. Lucy Harris desperately wanted a glimpse of the plates but was rebuffed; after she had a dream about the plates that night, she persuaded Joseph to accept a $28 loan. Martin Harris, on the other hand, contented himself with talking to each of the Smiths separately and seeing that their accounts matched up. (Frankly that sounds like a remarkably low standard.) Martin Harris was also permitted to lift the box that the plates were in, and then received a 'still small voice' in his soul that, as he saw it, confirmed that the plates were real.

When the people of Palmyra began threatening to tar and feather Joseph unless he showed them the plates, he fled town two days earlier than he'd announced his departure and hid the plates in a barrel full of beans. They went to Harmony and stayed in a house provided by Emma's parents. Isaac refused to let the plates stay in his house if he wasn't allowed to see them, and so he hid the plates in the woods for a time and moved with Emma into a small two-room house owned by her brother Jesse Hale. Joseph and Emma purchased that house and thirteen acres of land for $200 and made the last payment in August 1830; they lived there for 2.5 years.

Once finally settled, Joseph began the process of copying some of the figures and translating them. Martin Harris arrived in Harmony in February 1828, and Joseph arranged for Harris to take the characters east to be examined by a linguist (63). Harris stopped with several different figures - including Luther Bradish and Samuel Latham Mitchill - but the most famous by far was his encounter with Charles Anthon, a professor of classical studies at Columbia College, who was already renowned for his 1825 encyclopedia A Classical Dictionary. Unfortunately, it's not entirely clear what happened at that meeting. Anthon wrote two discordant accounts of it in 1834 and 1841, neither of which agrees with what Harris said happened. In 1834, Anthon said that he had refused to offer Harris any written opinion at all. In 1841, Anthon said that he had given Harris a clear written opinion so as to expose the fraud. Also, Anthon's description of the characters does not match up with the 'Anthon Transcript' published in 1844. Those characters are Egyptian, while Anthon described what he saw as a bunch of Greek and Hebrew letters and symbols for natural objects, and Harris claimed that Anthon told him that the characters were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic. Harris also said that Anthon gave him a written opinion but then seized it and tore it up when he found out about the origin of the characters and was told he couldn't see the plates. Harris also attributed to Anthon a statement about being unable to read a sealed book, which Joseph understood in terms of Isaiah 29:11-12.

Martin Harris told his wife Lucy that he intended to help Joseph translate the plates, and Lucy became very determined to see them for herself to decide once and for all whether it was real or a hoax. She searched the Smith property, became frustrated, lamented publicly that Joseph intended to cheat her husband, and tried to talk Martin into giving up his plans. Joseph and Martin worked together from 12 April 1828 to 14 June 1828, with a curtain dividing the two of them and Joseph using the 'interpreters', the Urim and Thummim. By June 14, they had produced 116 pages of foolscap with text, but Martin Harris still had doubts and began pestering Joseph to at least let him show the manuscript to people. Although Joseph received negative answers twice through the interpreters, Martin convinced him to try a third time, which resulted in permission. Joseph insisted that Martin would only be allowed to show the manuscript to a few people: his wife, his brother, his parents, and his sister-in-law. Martin swore an oath to comply (66), and Moroni took the interpreters from Joseph (68).

As Martin Harris went, Emma gave birth to a firstborn son, Alvin Smith, who died the same day. Joseph eventually went north to Manchester to check up on Martin Harris... and got some very bad news. Martin had indeed showed the manuscript to his wife, which pleased her; Lucy Harris then allowed Martin to store the manuscript in her bureau. But then Martin decided to show the manuscript to a friend (contrary to his oath) while his wife was away, and so he picked the lock and marred his wife's bureau. Then Martin began to show the manuscript to all of his friends. Lucy Harris was angry with Martin over her bureau, and by the time Joseph reached the area, the manuscript had gone missing. Lucy Mack Smith assumed that Lucy Harris must have taken it with nefarious purposes to alter the manuscript and thus debunk Joseph. Joseph, meanwhile, was utterly despondent and returned to Harmony in July 1828. Moroni briefly returned the interpreters to Joseph, and through them he received a harsh revelation (D&C 3) that put him on probation but also included a promise of comfort.

During this dark period, Joseph and Emma attended Methodist meetings as a way of placating Emma's family. Joseph asked to be enrolled in the Methodist class led by Emma's brother-in-law, but her cousin Joseph Lewis was outraged and objected that Joseph, as a 'practicing necromancer', wasn't fit to participate (69). Bushman notes "no evidence of attendance", but Joseph's name did remain on the roll for six months. On 22 September 1828, Joseph received the interpreters from Moroni again, and although he and Emma did a bit of translating, their focus was on preparing temporally for the upcoming winter. In the early wintery months of 1829, Joseph received a revelation for his father (D&C 4). Emma acted as Joseph's scribe for further translation efforts, with Samuel Smith occasionally helping as well. The plates were kept either in a red morocco trunk or wrapped in a linen tablecloth on the table (70).

Late in the day on 5 April 1829, Samuel Smith brought a new visitor to the Smith household in Harmony, a 22-year-old bachelor named Oliver Cowdery. (Bushman does not mention the family ties between the Smiths and the Cowderys.) On their way to Harmony, Samuel and Oliver stopped in Fayette to visit Oliver's friend David Whitmer and promised to send back word about the plates. Cowdery eventually earned the family's trust. On 7 April 1829, a new burst of translation activity began that lasted until the project's completion in June. Bushman explains the method of translation:

By the time Cowdery arrived, translator and scribe were no longer separated. Emma said she sat at the same table with Joseph, writing as he dictated, with nothing between them, and the plates wrapped in a linen cloth on the table. When Cowdery took up the job of scribe, he and Joseph translated in the same room where Emma was working. Joseph looked in the seerstone, and the plates lay covered on the table. Neither Joseph nor Oliver explained how translation worked, but Joseph did not pretend to look at the "reformed Egyptian" words, the language on the plates, according to the book's own description. The plates lay covered on the table, while Joseph's head was in a hat looking at the seerstone, which by this time had replaced the interpreters. (71-72)

Bushman mentions two major paradigms for understanding the process: 'composition' and 'transcription'. As a Latter-day Saint, naturally Bushman wishes to favor the latter. He dismisses the former as calling for "a precocious genius of extraordinary powers who was voraciously consuming information without anyone knowing it" (72). He notes that the eyewitnesses to Joseph's activity all believed that he was performing transcription from the text that appeared in his seerstone. As Bushman goes on to say about transcription and its harmony with Joseph's past in folk magic, "The boy who gazed into stones and saw treasure grew up to become a translator who looked in a stone and saw words" (73).

Bushman notes that Cowdery was able to believe in Joseph so readily in part because Cowdery himself "used a rod to discover water and minerals"; he had a 'gift of working with the rod' as described in the original version of a revelation (D&C 8) that was later changed to remove the clear endorsement of divining rods. Bushman explains of Cowdery:

His [Cowdery's] family may have engaged in treasure-seeking and other magical practices in Vermont, and, like others in his culture, melded magic with Christianity. For a person with his cultural blend, an angel and gold plates had excitement and appeal. The revelation said nothing to discourage Cowdery's use of his special pwoers. [...] Rather than repudiate his claims, the revelation redirected Cowdery's use of his gifts. (73)

At this juncture, Cowdery wanted to try his hand at translating but failed - as explained by another April 1829 revelation (D&C 9) - because he neglected to first put in human effort before asking for God's confirmation. The translation project continued as normal, and in May 1829 they had to finally face the quandary of the missing 116 pages. A May 1829 revelation (D&C 10) directed him not to retranslate that portion, but rather to translate the plates of Nephi that covered the same period, which they began in late May or early June. Bushman also mentions the revelations that were given because of questions that arose during the translation process. In April 1829, for instance, Joseph and Oliver were at odds over what happened to the apostle John, and so a revelation (D&C 7) was given stating that John was still alive and would live to see the Second Coming.

They also had questions about the issue of authority, and were so disturbed that they went to the Susquehanna River to pray. According to Joseph's account given nearly a decade later, John the Baptist appeared to them to ordain them to the Aaronic Priesthood so that they could validly baptize one another at last (and also re-ordain each other to the Aaronic Priesthood thereafter, for some reason), and John promised them an even higher priesthood later. Cowdery mentioned the story in 1834, the first time it was ever told.

As tensions rose in Harmony over the translation work, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery transferred to the Whitmer farm in Fayette. At this point, Bushman notes that the Whitmers were Pennsylvania Germans and members of the German Reformed Church. Translation continued, with others such as John and Christian Whitmer also taking turns as scribes, though Cowdery remained the primary scribe. Joseph began to make quite a few converts, whom he baptized. In the meantime, there was still interest in seeing the plates, and eventually Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer persuaded Joseph to seek a revelation about it. This revelation "promised them a view not only of the plates but of the breastplate, the Urim and Thummim, and two sacred objects accompanying the plates - the sword of Laban and the Liahona, the miraculous ball with a compass given to Lehi by the Red Sea to set his course" (77-78).

Around 1 July 1829, the manuscript of the translation was at last finished, and on a day soon after that, the time came. Joseph took Harris, Cowdery, and Whitmer into the woods to pray for a while. After a time, Harris left, acknowledging that he was the obstacle. After Harris left, the others reported a vision in which an angel held the plates for them to see, and they also beheld the breastplate, the sword of Laban, and the Liahona lying on a table in their vision. When this was finished, Joseph sought Harris out and prayed with him until they together received the same vision. Joseph was relieved to finally not be alone (78).

A few days later, the time came for a return to Palmyra to arrange for the printing of the manuscripts. At the place in the old log house where the Smith family prayed, there gathered - in addition to Joseph Smith Jr. - also Joseph Smith Sr., Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, John Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Christian Whitmer, Peter Whitmer Jr., and Catherine Whitmer's husband Hiram Page. As Bushman describes what came next:

There Joseph showed them the plates, this time without an angel present. They turned over the leaves, examined the characters and the workmanship, and held the plates in their own hands. They later signed a statement saying what they had seen and testifying that they knew 'of a surety, that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken.' (79)

Bushman does note in passing, at least, that others have observed that the family loyalties may mitigate the merit of their testimony and that some have suggested that this, too, was a visionary experience through 'spiritual eyes', or perhaps the result of pressure exerted by Joseph Smith Jr. As at the previous sensitive spot, here once again Bushman cursorily notes in very sparse fashion a few of the alternative theories, but engages in no interaction with them whatsoever.

On 11 June 1829, Joseph got a copyright for the Book of Mormon after depositing the title page in the Utica office of R. R. Lansing, a clerk of the U.S. district court for the Northern District of New York. He also successfully - though not at first - negotiated with Egbert G. Grandin, a Palmyra printer, to print the first copies of the Book of Mormon. Martin Harris mortgaged his farm as security, which led to his wife divorcing him; Martin Harris eventually sold the farm on 7 April 1831. In the meantime, printing began in Palmyra, although awareness of growing hostility persuaded Joseph to direct Cowdery to transcribe another copy of the manuscript for safekeeping. Cowdery delivered the first 24 pages of the manuscript to Grandin's print shop in mid-August (80).

On 4 October 1829, Joseph returned home to Harmony, but soon there was trouble in Palmyra yet again. In September 1829, a former justice of the peace named Abner Cole began publishing a weekly periodical called The Reflector under the pseudonym 'O. Dogberry'. He commented on the upcoming "Gold Bible" through the fall, but on 29 December 1829 he actually printed lengthy excerpts from the yet-unpublished manuscript. After a confrontation with Joseph Smith, Cole printed excerpts yet again in the 13 January 1830 and 22 January 1830 issues of The Reflector, but it stopped there. In the meantime, the people of Palmyra were coming to regard the Book of Mormon as "a blasphemous rival to orthodox Christianity" (81). When the Smith family in Palmyra refused to back down, they were censured and suspended from communion by the Western Presbyterian Church. The people of the area attempted to persuade Grandin to stop the printing, but Martin Harris sold a portion of his farm to raise funds so the printing could continue (81). In the meantime, Hyrum urged Joseph to sell the copyright in Canada and requested that Joseph seek a revelation on the matter. In response, Joseph promised Oliver Cowdery and Hiram Page success if they went to Toronto, but things fell through (82). Here, Bushman carefully avoids stating definitively that this promise was given as a revelation, though in light of Hyrum's request, that's at least implicit in Bushman's text.

Grandin announced in the 26 March 1830 issue of the Wayne Sentinel that the Book of Mormon, a work printed in 'large Duodecimo' and running about 600 pages in length, was at last available for sale at the Palmyra Bookstore. The book didn't sell well, as a consequence of the boycott against it. Still, this put Joseph on the national stage, at least slightly. A brief notice had first appeared in the Wayne Sentinel about the Book of Mormon on 26 June 1829. Papers in Rochester made note of it in late August and early September 1829. After publication in the spring of 1830, substantial comments appeared in the Rochester Republican, the Rochester Daily Advertiser, and the Rochester Gem. Of course, these early comments were seldom favorable. Joseph was presented as a "full-blown religious imposter" (82). The editors used vocabulary drawn both from the province of false religion - such as 'enthusiasm', 'fanaticism', and 'blasphemy' - but also from treasure-seeking - such as 'charlatan' (83). The Smith family and their supporters ignored the negative press entirely. Strangely, Bushman notes, neither Joseph nor his mother Lucy ever mentioned the day when bound copies of the Book of Mormon first became available; Bushman also observes how little Joseph was mentioned in the preface to the first edition, and on that note of the book taking on "a life of its own", he concludes the third chapter (83). Many of the strengths of the previous chapters are present in this one as well, but as has been seen there are some critical weak points as well. In the fourth chapter, Bushman turns his focus away from the chronology of Joseph Smith's life and instead hones in on the Book of Mormon itself.

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling - 02

Richard Lyman Bushman

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

Chapter 2: "The First Visions: 1816-27" (pp. 30-56)

In the first chapter, Richard Bushman gave an excellent treatment of the Smith family up to their move to Palmyra, NY, in late 1816 or early 1817. In the second chapter, Bushman plunges into the next eleven years, a time period that includes some of the most important formative events of the young Joseph's prophetic career. After some brief coverage of the history and layout of the region up until that point, Bushman turns his attention to the Smith family's entrance, noting that they initially lived in Palmyra without a farm, maintaining themselves through a small shop, Lucy's oilcloth table coverings, and hired labor performed by Joseph Smith Sr. and his older sins (31). When they made enough money to contract for a farm, "the Smiths located a wooded tract less than two miles south of Palmyra village on Stafford Road", and Joseph Smith Sr. paid $600-700 for 100 acres of land there in July 1820. However, at least a year before that, the Smiths built a small log house on the adjacent property of a local merchant named Samuel Jennings (32). After clearing the land through fire and beginning to farm, the Smiths were able to finally harvest a wheat crop in 1821. Funds remained tight and they continually fell short on their payments, though, and so they continued to pursue other lines of work as well (33). Having covered this and offered readers an excellent map of Palmyra and Manchester on page 34, Bushman next turned to the life of young Joseph Smith Jr. and his religious experiences:

During the fourteen years following the Smiths' move to Palmyra in 1816, Joseph Jr. had the experiences that led him to believe he was a prophet. In 1818, when he was twelve, he began to be troubled about his sins, though apparently no one in the family knew about it. Around 1820, the visions began, first of the Father and the Son and then, three years later, of the angel who gave instructions about the gold plates. In 1830, at twenty-four, he published the Book of Mormon, organized a church, and was identified as "a seer, a translator, an apostle of Jesus Christ." (35)

To gain insight on Smith religious culture at this time, Bushman mentions several of the dreams - which Lucy called "visions" - that Joseph Smith Sr. had around the same time period. The dreams expressed a sense of yearning for relief and a sense that it was just beyond reach. Bushman also tells us about the churches of Palmyra at the time:

Four churches met within a few miles of the Smiths' house. Presbyterians had the largest congregation in Palmyra village and in 1820 the only meetinghouse in the center. The Methodists, the next largest group, constructed a building of their own in 1822, followed by the Society of Friends in 1823. Two miles west of the village, a large congregation of Baptists had met in a meetinghouse since 1808, and in the eastern part of the township stood a second Presbyterian church. (36)

All in all, it sounds to me that in the 1818-1820 period, Palmyra probably offered relatively weak religious options, and so I can partly sympathize, I suppose, with the sense of religious dissatisfaction that the Smiths felt. Bushman notes, however, the impact of the religious revivals that swept through the village just as the Smiths were arriving. An endnote does reveal, however, that these churches were fairly small, with the Presbyterians having only 65 members and others even less (569 n. 24). Bushman also notes that, between the ages of twelve and fifteen, Joseph Smith Jr. read the Bible and regarded it as divine revelation but "was confused by the failings of the Christians in the town. Like his mother earlier, he was aware of more hypocrisy and contradiction than harmony or devotion" (37). Bushman remarks, however, that evidence does indicate that Joseph Jr. was favorably disposed towards Methodism. During these years, "Lucy joined the Western Presbyterian Church in Palmyra, probably the best established church in the village. Hyrum, Sophronia, and Samuel went to church with their mother, but Joseph Sr., Alvin, William, and Joseph Jr. stayed home" (37). Joseph Jr.'s participation in a juvenile debating club may also have driven him to contemplate the existence of God, but his case for it rested on the beauty of the universe (38).

Nevertheless, his religious tumult remained. Joseph felt a great concern for deciding between the various churches in the town, and since he felt that the Bible couldn't answer his questions, he opted to beg God for an extrabiblical answer. Bushman notes that in 1820, Joseph resolved to pray verbally and so went into a clearing in the woods for some privacy. Joseph initially understood his purported experiences in terms of "a personal conversion", in which he received "the message of forgiveness and redemption he had wanted to hear" (39). Bushman also notes that most early converts to Mormonism "probably never heard about the 1820 vision", and also usually didn't hear about his other early visions (39). Analyzing Joseph's varied and sometimes discordant retellings of the 'First Vision' experience, Bushman notes:

In the 1835 account and again in 1838, the balance of the two parts of the story - personal forgiveness as contrasted to the apostasy of the churches - shifted. Joseph's own salvation gave way to the opening of a new era of history. The promise of forgiveness through faith in Christ was dropped from the narrative, and the apostasy of Christian churches stood as the central message of the vision. The 1832 report emphasized general moral degeneration: "the world lieth in sin at this time and none doeth good." In 1838, by contrast, Joseph reported that he was told to join none of the sects. "All their Creeds were an abomination in his sight. . . . 'They teach for doctrines the commandments of men.'" The decay was doctrinal and institutional, as well as moral. The later accounts of the vision supplied the church with a founding story. (40)

What Bushman says next, however, is in my opinion one of the most helpful portions of the entire chapter, and it covers Joseph Smith Jr.'s interaction with the 'hostile' clergyman. I can do no better than to share a portion of what Bushman says:

Joseph did tell a Methodist preacher about the First Vision. Newly reborn people customarily talked over their experiences with a clergyman to test the validity of the conversion. The preacher's contempt shocked Joseph. Standing on the margins of the evangelical churches, Joseph may not have recognized the ill repute of visionaries. The preacher reacted quickly and negatively, not because of the strangeness of Joseph's story but because of its familiarity. Subjects of revivals all too often claimed to have seen visions. In 1826 a preacher at the Palmyra Academy said he saw Christ descend "in a glare of brightness, exceeding ten fold the brilliancy of the meridian Sun." The Wayne Sentinel in 1823 reported Asa Wild's vision of Christ in Amsterdam, New York, telling him that all denominations were corrupt. At various other times and places, beginning early in the Protestant era, religious eccentrics had claimed visits from divinity. Norris Stearns published an account in 1815 of two beings who appeared to him [...] The clergy of the mainline churches automatically suspected any visionary report, whatever its content. [...] The only acceptable message from heaven was assurance of forgiveness and a promise of grace. Joseph's report of God's rejection of all creeds and churches would have sounded all too familiar to the Methodist evangelical, who repeated the conventional point that "all such things had ceased with the apostles and that there never would be any more of them." The dismissal widened the gult between Joseph and the evangelical ministry. He felt that the clergy had picked him out for persecution. (40-41)

In short, Joseph's message was not a shocking one. It was a not-uncommon experience in the midst of the revivalist fervor for newly converted persons like Joseph. And so while the young Joseph perceived himself as being singled out, in actuality he was simply being dismissed as one more person who, like all the others, was having false visions pretending to go beyond what the apostles delivered once and for all to the people of God. I believe that this is an absolutely critical thing to understand about Joseph Smith's interactions with representatives of allegedly "apostate" Christianity in his day.

Moving past the First Vision, Bushman notes that in 1822 Alvin Smith began to build a new frame house of the family. Alvin had gathered money for the mortgage, but when the agent died in 1822, the Smiths decided to use it to build a new house rather than save it for later collection. As it turned out, that was a mistake. Bushman then takes some time to, as he frequently does, present Joseph Smith Sr. as a weak father who felt that he had failed his family and who was prone to drinking (42). Bushman also notes that, after the First Vision, Joseph Smith Jr. also felt himself being drawn back into sin; occasionally, Bushman observes, "he drank too much" (43).

On the evening of 21 September 1823, the Smith family had a discussion about the lack of any seeming agreement between the churches - in short, standard fare for Smith family opinion. After everyone went to bed, Joseph Smith Jr. stayed away to pray to God for forgiveness - and then he received yet another vision (43). This was the first of Joseph's numerous purported encounters with an angel named Moroni, though Bushman concedes in an endnote that in the 1838 account of the experience, Joseph said that the angel was Nephi, which Bushman asserts is "a puzzling mistake" (572 n. 57). Bushman quotes from the familiar account of Moroni telling Joseph about the golden plates that tell about the 'former inhabitants of this continent' and about the 'two stones in silver bows' that were the Urim and Thummim, all buried in a hill conveniently close by. Interestingly:

Moroni quoted Old and New Testament prophecies relating to the final days of the earth: the third and fourth chapters of Malachi, Acts 3:22-23, Joel 2:28-32, and Isaiah 11. These were the texts the clergy used to teach about the millennium. Joseph knew them well enough to note small departures from the words in the Bible. Hearing the familiar texts from the angel confirmed the common belief that the last days were near and Joseph was to prepare. (44)

Working out in the field the next day, Joseph seemed drain, and so his father sent him back to the house, but while climbing over a fence, Joseph Jr. passed out and awoke to see Moroni yet again, who "repeated the message of the previous night and commanded Joseph to tell his father", which he then did (45). Joseph Smith Sr., being himself a visionary, was already disposed to believe his son's experience, and so father counseled son to obey the angel. Thus, Joseph Smith Jr. went to the hill southeast of the family farm, a trip of about three miles. Thanks to his vision, Joseph Smith Jr. went to the scattered trees near the top of the western slope, dug away the dirt, and pried up a stone beneath which he found "the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate" (45). Joseph was overcome with a sense of greed over the golden plates, and when he touched them, he felt a painful shock and was thoroughly rebuked by Moroni and forbidden from having the plates until he got his motive straight. That evening, Joseph Smith Jr. informed his family about the encounter, and everyone believed him (46). Tragedy, however, soon struck:

Less than two months after Joseph went to the hill, Alvin fell sick with bilious colic. The doctor prescribed a large dose of calomel, a compound of mercury and chlorine thought to promote the discharge of bile. Lucy thought the calomel lodged in Alvin's stomach, and, according to her, the combined exertions of four physicians could not remove it. Feeling death was near, Alvin called the family to the bedside. He urged Joseph Jr. "to be a good boy, and do everything that lies in your power to obtain the Record." On November 19, 1823, Alvin died. (46)

The next year, Palmyra was swept by another revival, one strong enough to get even Joseph Smith Sr. to attend a few meetings, but Joseph Smith Jr. held back, saying that he could learn better by going into the woods alone and reading the Bible than by fellowshipping with other Christians (46). The frame house was completed in 1824, and the time for collection came due, and consequently Joseph and Hyrum looked for work in the countryside. In October 1825, Joseph Smith Sr. and Joseph Smith Jr. took a job digging in Pennsylvania for one Josiah Stowell Sr., "who believed that a Spanish silver mine was buried near Harmony, Pennsylvania" (47). After their first digging expedition, Stowell and one Joseph Knight Sr. "agreed to lend the Smiths money with next year's wheat crop as collateral" (47). In the meantime, the Smiths were being sued for payment by the frame house's carpenter, Russell Stoddard, as well as being hounded by their new land agent, John Greenwood. The only solution was for the Smiths to allow a local Quaker landholder named Lemuel Durfee to buy the farm and allow them to rent it and continue to benefit from the improvements they made (47).

At this point, Bushman finally begins to delve deeper into another subplot, namely that of 'digging'. In 1822, Joseph Smith Jr. discovered some stones that he believed allowed him to see things that natural eye could not see - in short, seerstones. He discovered one of them while digging a well with Willard Chase. One of his stones was dark and the other was white; he believed strongly in them throughout his life, as did his followers. "For a time Joseph used a stone to help people find lost property and other hidden things, and his reputation reached Stowell" (49). Unfortunately for Joseph, Willard Chase - who had initially discovered one of the stones but let Joseph take it home - eventually decided that he wanted it back very badly. His sister Sally Chase also had such a stone, as did numerous other people in the area; it was a prevalent part of their New York "culture of magic" (49). "Money-digging was epidemic in upstate New York. Stories of spirits guarding buried treasure were deeply enmeshed in the region's rural culture" (50). While newspaper editors and ministers tended to express dismay over the gullibility of this propensity to folk magic, many ordinary people were completely comfortable with their involvement in the occult, and the Smiths were no exception. As Bushman observes:

In addition to rod and stone divining, the Smiths probably believed in the rudimentary astrology found in the ubiquitous almanacs. Magical parchments handed down in the Hyrum Smith family may have originally belonged to Joseph Sr. The visit of the angel and the discovery of the gold plates would have confirmed the belief in supernatural powers. For people in a magical frame of mind, Moroni sounded like one of the spirits who stood guard over treasure in the tales of treasure-seeking. The similarities may even have made the extraordinary story more credible in the Smith family. (50)

Since I'll eventually be examining another book that engages this subject in much greater depth, I'll save my editorializing about Joseph Smith's involvement in this magic subculture for then. Bushman goes to great pains to contend that around 1823, Joseph Smith Jr. "began to orient himself away from treasure and toward translation" (51). By 1825, 'Joseph apparently felt that 'seeing' with a stone was the work of a 'seer,' a religious term, while 'peeping' or 'glass-looking' was fraudulent" (51). A complaint was brought against Joseph in early 1826 as "a disorderly person" on the grounds of a New York law that "specified that anyone pretending to have skill in discovering lost goods should be judged as a disorderly person" (52). Bushman doesn't delve into the outcome of the case, however, which is unusual for him, though in an endnote he does make reference to claims of an 'honorable acquittal' (574 n. 90).

Bushman moves on to say that Joseph spent the bulk of 1826 in southern New York, going to school and working for Stowell in Bainbridge and possibly also working in Joseph Knight Sr.'s carding mills in Colesville. Joseph returned to Manchester only briefly in the fall of 1826 for his annual appointment with Moroni at the Hill Cumorah, but Joseph may have even left before Hyrum's marriage on 2 November 1826 to Jerusha Barden.

During Joseph's expeditions in Harmony, he and his father had been boarders at the home of a man named Isaac Hale and found himself "attracted to the tall, dark-haired Emma", Isaac's daughter (53). Joseph decided already by December 1825 that he intended to marry her (572 n. 72). Hale objected, however, to Joseph's attempts to court Emma. This gives Bushman an occasion to offer a brief physical description of Joseph:

In January 1827, Emma visited Josiah Stowell in Bainbridge and saw Joseph. He was a handsome young man, over six feet tall with broad chest and shoulders, light brown hair, blue eyes, and long thick lashes, bushy brows, and a little beard. (53)

When Joseph was 21 years old and Emma was 22, they eloped and were married in South Bainbridge at the house of Zechariah Tarble on 18 January 1827. Instead of returning to Harmony, the pair of them moved to Manchester. Emma was worried that her family would be furious and didn't make contact until she sent for her belongings in the summer of 1827, and when Joseph and Emma went to meet Isaac in Harmony, Isaac "tearfully rebuked Joseph for stealing his daughter and said he would rather follow her to her grave than have her married to Joseph", but after Joseph assured Isaac that his treasure-seeking days were over, Isaac calmed down and allowed the couple to move onto his property (54).

Although Joseph was beginning to reorient himself to a more religious path of life, the treasure-seeking mentality still did affect him and his family. Bushman notes that Joseph Sr. and Lucy "admonished Joseph to be rigorously obedient to the messenger's instructions, just as exact compliance with prescribed rituals was required for successful money-digging" (54). However, by 1826 even Joseph Smith Sr. was beginning to see the plates "less and less as a treasure and more and more as a religious history" (54-55). Of Joseph Smith Jr.'s religious life, Bushman again remarks:

Joseph Jr. was left on his own to find answers. Although the revivals brushed his life and probably awakened concerns about his sins, he found salvation in a private vision, not in a camp meeting. He was bred to independence. The message of apostasy in the First Vision coupled with the rebuff received when he reported his vision widened the gulf between Joseph and the churches. After 1820, it was fairly certain he would cut a path for himself. (55)

Bushman goes on to suggest that if anything in the Smith family dynamic drove Joseph toward this prophetic vocation, it could only be "the desire to redeem his flawed, loving father", though Bushman of course does not belief that this alone can suffice to explain the course of Joseph's life (55).

In 1827, Joseph and Emma returned to Manchester, and Joseph was sent into the village on business. He returned late and exhausted, dropped into a chair, and then reported that Moroni had accosted him on the road and warned him that the time to bring forth the record had come. This is where Bushman concludes the second chapter, artfully positioning the reader at the edge of yet another focal point in Joseph's life. In this chapter as in the first, Bushman presents his portrait of Joseph's life artfully and with a masterful treatment of the sources. As himself a Latter-day Saint, Bushman of course does not attempt a critical, non-LDS reconstruction of what might have happened, nor does he consider it essential to his task as a historian to do so. For non-LDS readers, this can sometimes be a bother (especially in those instances where Bushman does not adequately air the issue at all), but there are more skeptical biographies of Joseph Smith available (though perhaps not enough). All in all, up to this point Bushman's biography is nevertheless a very useful and informative resource as well as, quite simply, an enjoyable read.

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling - 01

Richard Lyman Bushman

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

Chapter 1: "The Joseph Smith Family: To 1816" (pp. 8-29)

And so our summary/review of Richard Bushman's seminal biography Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling at last commences! After a brief prologue recounting Josiah Quincy Jr.'s account of his visit to Joseph Smith Jr. in May 1844, Richard Bushman launches into the first chapter of his monumental biography of Joseph Smith by examining the history of his ancestors. The opening pages of the chapter - begun from the perspective of immediately after Joseph's death - make clear that much of the material for this early portion is dependent upon the account of Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith Jr.'s mother. Following this line, Bushman begins by recounting Lucy's own ancestry. Lucy Mack Smith was the daughter of Solomon Mack and Lydia Gates. Solomon was born on 15 September 1732 in Lyme, Connecticut, as the son of Ebenezer Mack and the grandson of John Mack, a prosperous trader. When Solomon was four, however, Ebenezer lost his land and Solomon had to work for a "hard-hearted and miserly farmer" (10). Solomon Mack became obsessed with becoming wealthy. Solomon served in the French and Indian War and used his discharge pay to buy a farm in Lyme. He married Lydia Gates in 1759. At this point, Bushman informs us that Lydia was the daughter of Daniel Gates, a deacon from the nearby Connecticut town of East Haddam. Bushman then recounts Solomon's later risky ventures, in which he sold his property in Lyme to gain rights to 1600 acres in New York as well as some property in New Hampshire.

Lucy Mack herself was born on 8 July 1775 in Gilsum, New Hampshire. Solomon learned the art of making saltpeter from Lydia's brother and "earned a dollar a day teaching the art from town to town" (10). He enlisted in the army and, in 1778, "signed on with the crew of a privateer" (11). Solomon was more absent than present from his home life for fourteen years, continually grasping after more, but in 1788, "he returned home with little to show for his exertions" (11). Solomon felt defeated, but Bushman notes that "the Mack family did not dwell in mean poverty. At various times, they owned farms and houses. Solomon had the capital to purchase land, freight vessels, buy a schooner, and to owe and be owed hundreds of dollars" (11). In 1811, Solomon Mack experienced a religious conversion.

As for Lucy's life, Bushman notes that she remembered her early life as marked by persistent death and illness. She watched Solomon endure repeated injuries, and in the 1790s she endured the deaths of her sisters Lovina and Lovisa from consumption. Lucy described her life in 1794 as having been one of grief, brooding, and melancholy. She attempted to turn her attention to religious activities - Bible reading and prayer - but felt that the heavily sectarian attitude of Christianity in her day was a serious obstacle (a considerable foreshadowing of her famous son's later struggles). Lucy's religious instruction came mostly from her mother Lydia, who had joined a Congregational church at age thirty. Lucy's brother Jason became "a religious seeker before he was sixteen, pursuing the spiritual gifts of early Christianity outside of established churches", and at age twenty became a lay preacher. Bushman notes that "Mack religion was family religion, and nothing outside the family satisfied her [Lucy]" (13).

After Lovisa and Lovina died, Lucy moved in with her brother Stephen, who had in 1793 moved to Tunbridge, Vermont, to pursue a career as a merchant. Stephen became a close friend of an older man who had moved to Tunbridge in 1791: Asael Smith. While at Tunbridge, Lucy met Asael's second son Joseph, whom Bushman describes as "a strong, tall young man of twenty-three" (13). After returning home for a while, Stephen persuaded Lucy to return to Tunbridge. Lucy married Joseph Smith on 24 January 1796, the marriage being performed by a justice of the peace named Seth Austin.

At this point, Bushman turns his attention to the Smith family. In 1638, a twelve-year-old Robert Smith sailed from England, and his descendants came to reside ten miles north of Salem in the village of Topsfield (14). Robert's son Samuel Smith was one of the accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. Samuel had a grandson named Samuel who "was repeatedly chosen assessor, selectman, town clerk, representative to the General Court (the Massachusetts legislature), and delegate to the Provincial Congress. Most important, Samuel was frequently chosen moderator of the town meeting, a position commanding universal respect" (14). This Samuel, who died in 1785, was the father of Asael Smith. Asael did not grow up wealthy for all his father's prestige, and hence "Asael scrambled for a toehold in the spare New England economy, much like Solomon Mack" (14).

In 1767, when Asael was 22 years old, he married Mary Duty of Windham, New Hampshire, and had three children during the five years he still lived with his father. The second of these children, Joseph Smith Sr., was born 12 July 1771. For the next several decades, Asael and Mary continually moved from town to town trying to establish themselves. Asael enlisted in the army in 1776 and inherited half of his father's property in 1785. After a trade with his brother Samuel Jr., Asael realized that the old farm was a hopeless cause, and so he sold in in 1791, leaving Asael, Mary, and their eleven children in need of a home. They purchased 83 acres of land in Tunbridge, Vermont, and in November 1791, "the Smiths crowded into the fourteen-by-ten-foot hut built by Jesse and Joseph and prepared for the Vermont winter" (15).

Here, Asael and his family achieved a measure of success. Joseph Smith and Lucy Mack, after their marriage, received a farm from Asael. By 1802, "the Smiths had a compound of adjoining farms totaling between 300 and 400 acres", which "brought Asael modest eminence in Tunbridge" (15). Between 1811 and 1820, Asael and many of the children moved to St. Lawrence County in New York. At this point, Bushman takes the opportunity to note that in 1830, Joseph Smith Sr. visited his family there to bring copies of the Book of Mormon, with the result that four of the brothers converted, and Asael and Mary were favorable. Asael died in 1830, but in 1836 three of the brothers as well as Mary moved to Kirtland to join the other Latter-day Saints. Bushman then gives some excellent insights into the religious texture of Asael's family:

The switch to Mormonism was not difficult for Asael. He had been dislodged from the crumbling orthodoxies of New England Congregationalism. His father had seen to the baptism of all four of his children in Topsfield's Congregational church, but after the Revolution, Asael drifted away from orthodoxy. He was drawn to the teachings of John Murray, a Universalist preacher, who emigrated from England in 1770 and began preaching in Gloucester, Massachusetts, about fifteen miles from Topsfield in 1774. [...] Murray carried the Calvinist idea of irresistible grace to its logical conclusion and included every soul within the circle of divine love. [...] Asael was moderator of the group [the Tunbridge Universalist Society], and Joseph and Jesse were among the seventeen [members]. That was the high point of the family's Universalism. Thereafter, Asael's children gravitated back toward orthodoxy before turning to Mormonism; Universalism became an overlay on family religion. But Asael's own convictions did not waver; his grandson George A. Smith remembers him writing "quires of paper on the doctrine of universal restoration" before his death. (17)

Bushman at this point finally resumes the chronological sequence of the narrative, turning to the early married years of Joseph Smith and Lucy Mack Smith. They stayed in Tunbridge for six years. "A first son died in childbirth, and then two years after their married Lucy bore a second son, Alvin, followed two years later by a third boy Hyrum" (18). The family then moved seven miles west to the larger town of Randolph, where Joseph opened a store with good he'd purchased from Boston on credit. Around this time, Joseph began to contemplate getting in on the ginseng trade. (Ginseng could be shipped to China and sold for a high price.) A merchant named Stevens tried to pay Joseph $3000 for the lot, but Joseph refused. Joseph wanted to circumvent middlemen in hopes of making even more money. However, Stevens' son sailed to China on the same ship and reported falsely to Joseph that the venture had been a failure. In fact, the product had sold well and Stevens cheated Joseph. When Joseph found this out, Stevens fled to Canada, and Joseph's attempts at pursuit failed. In the meantime, "Joseph found he had $2,000 in bad debts from his customers and nothing to pay the $1,800 owed in Boston", and so he sold the farm for $800 and used Lucy's $1000 wedding gift to pay off his own debts (19). And so the Smiths became tenants rather than owners. They moved seven times in the next fourteen years, mostly in a small circle between the Vermont towns of Tunbridge, Royalton, and Sharon. In 1811, they crossed the Connecticut River to Lebanon, New Hampshire, and then over again to Norwich, Vermont, and finally in 1816 moved to New York.

After sketching this picture, Bushman returns to the details, noting that in the spring of 1803, the Smiths were in Tunbridge for the birth of their daughter Sophronia. They later rented a farm from Solomon Mack. Bushman notes that Joseph and Lucy had a strong social network of Lucy's father and brothers in the area for support. While living on their rented farm in Sharon, VT, Lucy gave birth to another son on 23 December 1805: Joseph Smith Jr., the subject of this biography. They then moved to Tunbridge again, and Samuel Harrison Smith was born there on 13 March 1808. Then in Royalton, Ephraim Smith was born on 13 March 1810 (and died on 24 March 1810), and William Smith was born 13 March 1811. Despite some losses and the constant moves, Lucy remembered this time as a fairly happy one. The family moved to New Hampshire in 1811. "Hyrum, age eleven, was sent a few miles north to Moor's Charity School, associated with Dartmouth College. Alvin, thirteen, and Sophronia, eight, went to common school. Joseph Jr., five, and his two younger brothers, Samuel and William, three and six months, remained at home. In the summer of 1812 a baby girl, Katherine, joined the family" (20).

However, in 1812 and 1813, the Connecticut Valley was swept by an intense outbreak of typhoid fever, with which all of the Smith children fell ill. Sophronia nearly died. Joseph Jr., age six, was free of the fever after two weeks, but he developed a sore in his armpit and endured two weeks of intense pain before it could be diagnosed and lanced. That infection cleared up, but Joseph began to experience great pain in his left shin and ankle - osteomyelitis. Three weeks later, Dr. Stone made an eight-inch incision, which gave only temporary help. The bone had become infected. The doctor then had to make an even deeper incision, down to the bone itself. Still the infection didn't clear, and so Dr. Stone had to consult some of the surgeons at Dartmouth Medical College, such as Nathan Smith and Cyrus Perkins. They proposed amputation. Lucy and Joseph Jr. both objected, and Lucy begged the doctors to simply excise the infected portions of bone. Fortunately for Joseph Jr., Nathan Smith had great experience in the area and had developed an advanced surgical procedure for just such an occasion:

As the operation began, Lucy went out into the fields and left Joseph in his father's arms, the infected leg resting on folded sheets. The surgeons bored holes on each side of the leg bone and chipped off three large pieces. Joseph Jr. screamed when they broke off the first piece, and Lucy rushed back into the room. Sent away, she came back again as the third piece came off. Blood gushed from the open wound, and Joseph lay on the bed drenched in blood. (21)

As Joseph slowly recovered, fourteen additional pieces of bone began to surface. Recover took three years. The Smiths sent Joseph to live in Salem for a time with his uncle Jesse. Joseph hobbled on crutches until the family moved to New York. "From age seven to ten, he was either in bed or on crutches. To the end of his life he was slightly lame, possibly because of the trauma" (21). Using this episode as an insight into Smith family dynamics, Bushman presents Lucy as "a spirited woman, outspoken and candid, forceful under pressure", who gave a high-strung sort of comfort (22). Joseph Smith Sr., on the other hand, was emotional but steady, capable of bearing what Lucy's nerves couldn't.

After a brief discussion of Lucy's affection for her husband, Bushman notes that her "only explicit reservation about her husband was his diffidence about religion. After his brief flirtation with Universalism in 1797, Joseph Sr. hovered on the margins of the churches. Her own quest for peace of mind and a church had not slackened since girlhood, and her husband's refusal to become involved troubled her" (23). Bushman tells the story of when, in Randolph in 1803, Lucy fell ill and sensitive to sound, and a Methodist exhorter knocked on their door, being turned away by Lydia so as not to disturb Lucy any further. This gives Bushman an occasion to describe evangelical preaching at the time of the Second Great Awakening:

The main purpose of evangelical preaching was to set people on a quest for salvation. The conventional method was to convict people of their sins, to persuade them that they were utterly unable to please God through sheer obedience. Lucy's sense of "a dark and lonesome chasm, between myself and the Saviour" was a classic expression of the feeling the preachers wished to evoke. Having been brought so low, she should have been prepared to throw herself entirely on the mercy of God and plead for grace. In the ideal case, a new hope arises in the heart, and the person begins to rejoice in the glory and goodness of God. That realization opens a flood of happiness and love and an overwhelming sense of the beauty of the world. The scriptural phrase "born again" describes exactly the renewal that has occurred. (24)

Although Lucy didn't listen to any of this preaching during her illness, she was no doubt familiar with it. During her illness, when it seemed she might die, Lucy describes having begged the Lord to spare her life, and in return having heard a voice from heaven comforting her, after which she regained health. After a continued search for comfort among the churches of her area, she decided that none of them were what she was looking for. "She resigned herself to Bible reading and self-instruction. Eventually she found a minister to baptize her without requiring that she join a church" (25). Lucy did attend Methodist meetings in Tunbridge, and Joseph Sr. accompanied her, although his father Asael and brother Jesse were irate over Joseph's behavior. The revivals did excite Joseph Sr.'s interest in religion, but he couldn't accept "the institutional religion of his time", as expressed in several of the striking dreams he had around the time in 1811 (25). Joseph Sr. saw the religious scene of his day as "empty and silent, or fiercely hostile to true wisdom and understanding", harshly condemning the 'class of religionists' (26). Bushman presents readers with a striking, helpful, and well-presented smmary of Smith family religion:

It would be hard to place the Smiths in any one religious tradition. The family's religious culture was too eclectic. Smith and Mack relatives comprised an inventory of late-eighteenth-century alternatives. Joseph Sr.'s dreams linked him to radical Protestantism with its taste for spiritual manifestations. Solomon Mack underwent a classic evangelical conversion at the end of his life. Lucy's crisis in 1803 took the same form. Her brother Jason was a seeker. Asael's Universalism was a form of vernacular rationalism, an offspring of the Enlightenment. Asael used Thomas Paine's Age of Reason to quash Joseph Sr.'s flirtation with Methodism. Possibly in Vermont and certainly later in New York, Joseph Sr. was involved in magical practices, an unorthodox but not unusual way of connecting with the supernatural. The Smiths were exposed to a conglomeration of doctrines and attitudes, some imported from Europe, others springing up in New England, none sorted or ranked by recognized authority, all available for adoption as personal whim or circumstances dictated. The result was a religious melee. (26)

Turning away from the subject of religion, Bushman notes that after the Smiths were financially broken by the medical bills, they moved in 1814 to Norwich, Vermont, and rented a farm from 'Squire Moredock'. Lucy painted oilcloths, and Joseph Sr. likely "peddled small items and hired out as a farmhand" (27). By this time, their family was increasingly on its own. Unfortunately for them, their crops failed several years in a row. In their third year there - the "year without a summer" - snow fell in June. (A few months earlier, in March 1816, Lucy had given birth to Don Carlos Smith.) The cold and dry summer led thousands of Vermonters to leave the state, and it was in this migration that the Smiths left Vermont for New York.

In the summer of 1816, Joseph Sr. set out for Palmyra, New York. The rest of his family followed him later, but not before being hounded by last-minute creditors, leaving Lucy with only $60-80 for the trip. She and her children traveled with Caleb Howard and his team, and Bushman notes that by the end of the trip, Lucy "was paying innkeepers with clothing and bits of cloth" (28). Also unfortunately, Caleb Howard was - for want of a better word - a jerk. (I can think of several better words, actually, but they all seem to be profane...) Wanting the daughters of the Gates family (another group of fellow-travelers) to ride next to him, he forced Joseph Jr. to limp through the snow for days at a time. When Alvin and Hyrum protested, Caleb Howard struck them with the butt of his whip. When the Smiths ran out of money a few miles west of Utica, Caleb Howard tossed their belongings into the street and nearly set off with their wagon and team, but Lucy caused a scene and succeeded in retaining their things. Joseph Jr. was assigned to the sleigh of the Gates family, and one of their boys knocked Joseph down, leaving him in a pool of his own blood. A stranger found Joseph and carried him into Palmyra. "Lucy arrived at Palmyra, after a journey of three to four weeks, with a few possessions and nine cents. Her last payment to the innkeepers was made with Sophronia's eardrops" (29).

The first chapter of Bushman's biography makes clear that Bushman has mastered the primary sources needed to present a robust picture of Joseph Smith's life. He writes captivating and engaging prose, effectively drawing the reader into the plights and fortunes of the Smith family. One can't help but sympathize with them, especially with the many sufferings of Joseph Smith Jr. In the second chapter, Bushman presses onward to cover Joseph's life from their 1816 arrival in Palmyra through 1827.

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling - Review Hub

The first book we'll be covering in our book review series is Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling: A Cultural Biography of Mormonism's Founder (2005), written by Richard Lyman Bushman with assistance from Jed Woodworth. Richard Bushman (b. 1931) is an emeritus professor of history at Columbia University and is himself an active Latter-day Saint who lives in New York City. The book itself is, as one might guess, a biography of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844), the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. It is published by Alfred A. Knopf (a division of Random House) and won the 2005 Best Book Award from the Mormon History Association, as well as the 2005 Evans Biography Award from University of Utah's Mountain West Center for Regional Studies. Further relevant links:

• Amazon
• Deseret Book
• LibraryThing
• Wikipedia

And now, for the links to our review/summary posts themselves:

1. The Joseph Smith Family: To 1816
2. The First Visions: 1816-27
3. Translation: 1827-30
4. A New Bible: 1830
5. The Church of Christ: 1830
6. Joseph, Moses, and Enoch: 1830
7. The Kirtland Visionaries: January-June 1831
8. Zion: July-December 1831
9. The Burden of Zion: 1832
10. Exaltation: 1832-33
11. Cities of Zion: 1833
12. The Character of a Prophet: 1834
13. Priesthood and Church Government: 1834-35
14. Visitors: 1835
15. Texts: 1835
16. Strife: August-December 1835
17. The Order of Heaven: January-April 1836
18. Reverses: April 1836-January 1838
19. Trials: January-July 1838
20. War: August-December 1838
21. Imprisonment: January-August 1839
22. Washington: September 1839-June 1840
23. Beautiful Place: April 1840-April 1841
24. Temporalities and Spiritualities: 1841
25. Stories of Eternity: Spring 1842
26. Perils: May-December 1842
27. Thickets: 1843
28. City and Kingdom: 1843-1844
29. Confrontations: January-June 1844
30. Epilogue

Not being as familiar as I'd like yet with the full and detailed story of Joseph Smith, I suspect I'll mostly be absorbing the narrative in this book, so please bear with me; this 'review' will be very heavy on the summary and relatively light on evaluation, in order that it can also serve as an introduction to the life of Joseph Smith for myself and my non-LDS readers. Thanks for reading!

Also, I highly encourage you to look at a much briefer (but better) review by Tim over at LDS & Evangelical Conversations.