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< Mormonism and Wikipedia | Joseph Smith, Jr.
A FairMormon Analysis of Wikipedia: "Joseph Smith" A work by a collaboration of authors (Link to Wikipedia article here)
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Founding a church (1827–30) |
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The article has remarkable balance right now. Any attempts to deliberately add Mormon POV will both spark an edit war and in the end degrade the literary quality of the current article because of the difficulty of clearing the corpses from the battlefield when it concludes. Improvements in this article are more likely to come from deletions than additions.
—Editor "John Foxe," 13 January 2009 off-site
I think Smith is handled with kid gloves in this article. There needs to be more emphasis on the fraudulent means that he used to start his religion and also the emphasis on sex at the end of his life.
—Editor "John Foxe," posting using his banned sockpuppet "Hi540," 13 January 2009 off-site
Joseph Smith, Jr. was born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont to Lucy Mack Smith and her husband Joseph, a merchant and farmer.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , pp. 9, 30; Smith (1832) , p. 1.
After a crippling bone infection at age eight, the younger Smith hobbled on crutches as a child.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , p. 21.
In 1816–17, the family moved to the western New York village of PalmyraAuthor's sources: *Bushman (2005) , p. 30.
and eventually took a mortgage on a 100 acre farm in nearby Manchester town.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , pp. 32–33. From about 1818 until after the July 1820 purchase, the Smiths squatted in a log home adjacent to the property. Id.
During the Second Great Awakening, the region was a hotbed of religious enthusiasm.Author's sources: *Shipps (1985) , p. 7.
Although the Smith family was caught up in this excitement,Author's sources: *Brooke (1994) , p. 129 ("Long before the 1820s, the Smiths were caught up in the dialectic of spiritual mystery and secular fraud framed in the hostile symbiosis of divining and counterfeiting and in the diffusion of Masonic culture in an era of sectarian fervor and profound millenarian expectation.").
they disagreed about religion.Author's sources: *Vogel (2004) , p. xx (Smith family was "marked by religious conflict".); Hill (1989) , pp. 10–11 (noting "tension between [Smith's] mother and his father regarding religion").
Joseph Smith may not have joined a church in his youth,Author's sources: *Smith said that he decided in 1820, based on his First Vision, not to join any churches Smith (Mulholland) , p. 4. However, Lapham (1870) said that Smith's father told him his son had once become a Baptist).
but he participated in church classesAuthor's sources: *Smith is known to have attended Sunday school at the Western Presbyterian Church in Palmyra Matzko (2007) . Smith also attended and spoke at a Methodist probationary class in the early 1820s, but never officially joined (Turner (1852) , p. 214; Tucker (1876) , p. 18).
and read the Bible. With his family, he took part in religious folk magic,Author's sources: *Quinn (1998) , p. 30("Joseph Smith's family was typical of many early Americans who practiced various forms of Christian folk magic."); Bushman (2005) , p. 51 ("Magic and religion melded in the Smith family culture."); Shipps (1985) , pp. 7–8; Remini (2002) , pp. 16, 33.
a common practice at the time.Author's sources: *Quinn (1998) , p. 31; Hill (1977) , p. 53 ("Even the more vivid manifestations of religious experience, such as dreams, visions and revelations, were not uncommon in Joseph's day, neither were they generally viewed with scorn.").
Like many people of that era,Author's sources: *Quinn (1988) , pp. 14–16, 137.
both his parents and his maternal grandfather had visions or dreams that they believed communicated messages from God.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , pp. 26, 36; Brooke , p. 1994; Mack (1811) , p. 25; Smith (1853) , pp. 54–59, 70–74.
Smith later said that he had his own first vision in 1820, in which God told him his sins were forgivenAuthor's sources: *Smith (1832) ; Bushman (2005) , p. 39 (When Smith first described the vision twelve years after the event, "[h]e explained the vision as he must have first understood it, as a personal conversion".)
and that all the current churches were false.Author's sources: *No source provided
The Smith family supplemented its meager farm income by treasure-digging,Author's sources: *Quinn (1998) , p. 136.
likewise relatively common in contemporary New EnglandAuthor's sources: *Newell (Avery) , pp. 16("Money digging, or treasure hunting, was widespread among the rural areas of New York and New England as well as the area of Pennsylvania near the Hales'.")
though the practice was frequently condemned by clergymen and rationalists and was often illegal.Author's sources: *Quinn (1998) , pp. 25–26, 30. "Despite the fact that folk magic had widespread manifestations in early America, the biases of the Protestant Reformation and Age of Reason dominated the society's responses to folk magic. The most obvious effect was that every American colony (and later U.S. state) had laws against various forms of divination." (30)
Joseph claimed an ability to use seer stones for locating lost items and buried treasure.Author's sources: *Quinn (1987) , p. 173; Bushman (2005) , pp. 49–51; Persuitte (2000) , pp. 33–53.
To do so, Smith would put a stone in a white stovepipe hat and would then see the required information in reflections given off by the stone.Author's sources: *Brooke (1994) , pp. 152–53; Quinn (1998) , pp. 43–44; Bushman (2005) , pp. 45–52. See also the following primary sources: Harris (1833) , pp. 253–54; Hale (1834) , p. 265; Clark (1842) , p. 225; Turner (1851) , p. 216; Harris (1859) , p. 164; Tucker (1867) , pp. 20–21; Lapham (1870) , p. 305; Lewis (Lewis) , p. 1; Mather (1880) , p. 199.
In 1823, while praying for forgiveness from his "gratification of many appetites,"Author's sources: *Smith (Mulholland) , p. 5 (writing that he "displayed the weakness of youth and the
corruptionfoibles of human nature, which I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptationsto the gratification of many appetitesoffensive in the sight of God," deletions and interlineations in original); Quinn (1998) , pp. 136–38 (arguing that Smith was praying for forgiveness for a sexual sin to maintain his power as a seer); Smith (1994) , pp. 17–18 (arguing that his prayer related to a sexual sin). But see Bushman (2005) , p. 43 (noting that Smith did not specify which "appetites" he had gratified, and suggesting that one of them was that he "drank too much").
Smith said he was visited at night by an angel named Moroni, who revealed the location of a buried book of golden plates as well as other artifacts, including a breastplate and a set of silver spectacles with lenses composed of seer stones, which had been hidden in a hill near his home.Author's sources: *Smith (Mulholland) , p. 4.
Smith said he attempted to remove the plates the next morning but was unsuccessful because the angel prevented him.Author's sources: *Mormon historian Richard Bushman argues that "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." Bushman (2005) , p. 50.
During the next four years, Smith made annual visits to the hill, only to return without the plates because he claimed that he had not brought with him the right person required by the angel.Author's sources: *Quinn (1998) , pp. 163–64; Bushman (2005) , p. 54 (noting accounts stating that the "right person" was originally Smith's brother Alvin, then when he died, someone else, and finally his wife Emma).
Meanwhile, Smith continued traveling western New York and Pennsylvania as a treasure seeker and also as a farmhand.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , pp. 47–53; Newell (Avery) , pp. 17; Quinn (1998) , pp. 54–57
In 1826, he was tried in Chenango County, New York, for "glass-looking," the crime of pretending to find lost treasure.Author's sources: *Hill (1977) , pp. 1–2; Bushman (2005) , pp. 51–52; (1829), Revised Statutes of the State of New York Packard and Van Benthuysen off-site ("[A]ll persons pretending to tell fortunes, or where lost or stolen goods may be found,...shall be deemed disorderly persons.")
While boarding at the Hale house in Harmony, he met Emma Hale and, on January 18, 1827, eloped with her because her parents disapproved of his treasure hunting.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , p. 53.
Claiming his stone told him that Emma was the key to obtaining the plates,Author's sources: *Quinn (1998) , pp. 163–64; Bushman (2005) , p. 54 (noting accounts stating that Emma was the key).
Smith went with her to the hill on September 22, 1827. This time, he said, he retrieved the plates and placed them in a locked chest.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , pp. 60.
He said the angel commanded him not to show the plates to anyone else but to publish their translation, reputed to be the religious record of indigenous Americans.Author's sources: *Smith (Mulholland) , pp. 5–6
Joseph later promised Emma's parents that his treasure-seeking days were behind him.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , pp. 54
Although Smith had left his treasure hunting company, his former associates believed he had double-crossed them by taking for himself what they considered joint property.Author's sources: *Harris (1859) , p. 167; Bushman (2005) , p. 61.
They ransacked places where a competing treasure-seer said the plates were hidden,Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , pp. 54 (treasure seer Sally Chase attempted to find the plates using her seer stone).
and Smith soon realized that he could not accomplish the translation in Palmyra.Author's sources: *Bushman (2005) , pp. 60–61; Remini (2002) , p. 55.
Wikipedia references for "Joseph Smith, Jr." |
FairMormon regularly receives queries about specific LDS-themed Wikipedia articles with requests that we somehow "fix" them. Although some individual members of FAIR may choose to edit Wikipedia articles, FairMormon as an organization does not. Controversial Wikipedia articles require constant maintenance and a significant amount of time. We prefer instead to respond to claims in the FAIR Wiki rather than fight the ongoing battle that LDS Wikipedia articles sometimes invite. From FAIR’s perspective, assertions made in LDS-themed Wikipedia articles are therefore treated just like any other critical (or, if one prefers, "anti-Mormon") work. As those articles are revised and updated, we will periodically update our reviews to match.
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Again, the answer is no. The truth is that Wikipedia is generally self-policing. Highly contentious articles do tend to draw the most passionate supporters and critics.
Although some LDS-related Wikipedia articles may appear to have a negative tone, they are in reality quite a bit more balanced than certain critical works such as One Nation Under Gods. Although many critical editors often accuse LDS-related Wikipedia articles of being "faith promoting" or claim that they are just an extension of the Sunday School manual, this is rarely the case. Few, if any, Latter-day Saints would find Wikipedia articles to be "faith promoting." Generally, the believers think that the articles are too negative and the critics believe that the articles are too positive. LDS Wikipedia articles should be informative without being overtly faith promoting. However, most of the primary sources, including the words of Joseph Smith himself, are "faith promoting." This presents a dilemma for Wikipedia editors who want to remain neutral. The unfortunate consequence is that Joseph's words are rewritten and intermixed with contradictory sources, resulting in boring and confusing prose.
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The ability to quickly and easily access literature critical of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been made significantly easier through the advent of the Internet. One of the primary sites that dominates search engine results is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit.” Wikipedia contains a large number of articles related to Mormonism that are edited by believers, critics, and neutral parties. The reliability of information regarding the Church and its history is subject to the biases of the editors who choose to modify those articles. Even if a wiki article is thoroughly sourced, editors sometimes employ source material in a manner that supports their bias. This essay explores the dynamics behind the creation of Wikipedia articles about the Church, the role that believers and critics play in that process, and the reliability of the information produced in the resulting wiki articles.
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