Difference between revisions of "Mormonism and Wikipedia/Joseph Smith, Jr./1831 to 1838"

Revision as of 16:51, 15 October 2017

FAIR Answers—back to home page

An analysis of Wikipedia article "Joseph Smith"

Reviews of previous revisions of this section

19 May 2009

Section review

Life in Ohio (1831–38)  Updated 9/3/2011

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

When Smith moved to Kirtland, Ohio in January 1831,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

his first task

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

was to bring the Ohio congregation within his own religious authority

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

by quashing the new converts' exuberant exhibition of spiritual gifts.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• Bushman, p. 151: "Joseph had to restrain the excesses without discouraging spiritual gifts altogether."
• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Rigdon's congregation of converts included a prophetess that Smith declared to be of the devil.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Prior to conversion, the congregation had also been practicing a form of Christian communism, and Smith adopted a communal system within his own church, calling it the United Order of Enoch.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• It is Brodie's own opinion that Joseph got the idea for the United Order from Sidney Rigdon. Bushman notes that the establishment of the Order "put Joseph Smith's Zion in company with scores of utopians who were bent on moderating economic injustices in these years."

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

At Rigdon's suggestion,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• Again, it is only Brodie's opinion that Rigdon suggested the Joseph revise the Bible.
• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith began a revision of the Bible in April 1831,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Bible/Joseph Smith Translation

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

on which he worked sporadically until its completion in 1833.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

 Correct, per cited sources
}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Rectifying what Rigdon perceived as a defect in Smith's church,

Author's sources:

1. Prince (1995) , p. 116.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith promised the church's elders that in Kirtland they would receive an endowment of heavenly power.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Therefore, in the church's June 1831 general conference,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• Brodie's source is Ezra Booth. Brodie's note on p.111: :

Booth's detailed account of the conference and the story of his own disillusionment were written in a series of letters to Edward Partridge and published in 1831-2 in the Ohio Start at Ravenna. They were reprinted in E. D. Howe: Mormonism Unvailed.

• Booth claims the following (Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 189-90):

It now became clearly manifest, that "the man of sin was revealed," for the express purpose that the elders should become acquainted with the devices of Satan; and after that they would possess knowledge sufficient to manage him. This, Smith declared to be a miracle, and his success in this case, encouraged him to work other and different miracles. Taking the hand of one of the Elders in his own, a hand which by accident had been rendered defective, he said, "Brother Murdock, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to straighten your hand; in the mean while endeavoring to accomplish the work by using his own hand to open the hand of the other. The effort proved unsuccessful; but he again articulated the same commandment, in a more authoritative and louder tone of voice; and while uttering with his tongue, his hands were at work; but after all the exertion of his power, both natural and supernatural, the deficient hand returned to its former position, where it still remains. But ill success in this case, did not discourage him from undertaking another. One of the Elders who was decriped in one of his legs, was set upon the floor, and commanded, in the name of Jesus Christ to walk. He walked a step or two, his faith failed, and he was again compelled to have recourse to his former assistant, and he has had occasion to use it ever since.

A dead body. which had been retained above ground two or three days, under the expectation that the dead would be raised, was insensible to the voice of those who commanded it to awake into life, and is destined to sleep in the grave till the last trump shall sound, and the power of God easily accomplishes the work, which frustrated the attempts, and bid defiance to the puny efforts of the Mormonite.

• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

he introduced the greater authority of a High ("Melchizedek") Priesthood to the church hierarchy.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

The church grew as new converts poured into Kirtland.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

By the summer of 1835, there were fifteen hundred to two thousand Mormons in the vicinity of Kirtland

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

expecting Smith to lead them shortly to the Millennial kingdom.

Author's sources:

1. Brodie (1971) , pp. 101–02, 121.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Though Oliver Cowdery's mission to the Indians was a failure,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

he sent word he had found the site for the New Jerusalem in Jackson County, Missouri.

Author's sources:

1. Brodie (1971) , p. 108.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

After he visited there in July 1831, Smith agreed and pronounced the county's rugged outpost

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Independence to be the "center place" of Zion.

Author's sources:

1. Smith (Cowdery) , p. 154.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Rigdon, however, disapproved of the location, and for most of the 1830s, the church was divided between Ohio and Missouri.

Author's sources:

1. Brodie (1971) , p. 115.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith continued to live in Ohio but visited Missouri again in early 1832 in order to prevent a rebellion of prominent Saints, including Cowdery, who believed Zion was being neglected.

Author's sources:

1. Brodie (1971) , pp. 119–22.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith's trip was hastened

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

by a mob of residents led by former Saints who were incensed over the United Order and Smith's political power.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

The mob beat Smith and Rigdon unconscious and tarred and feathered them.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• Bushman (p. 179): "The historian Fawn Brodie speculated that one of John Johnson's sons, Eli, meant to punish Joseph for an intimacy with his sister Nancy Marinda, but that hypothesis fell for lack of evidence." The editor cites Bushman, but only includes Brodie's speculation without noting that the her hypothesis was disproven.
• Regarding the story of why Joseph was tarred and feathered, Brodie gets the woman's name wrong—it is "Marinda Nancy," not "Nancy Marinda." The account is further flawed because Marinda has no brother named Eli.
• Van Wagoner in Mormon Polygamy describes the tar and feather incident. Unfortunately, Van Wagoner tucks this information into an endnote, where the reader will be unaware of it unless he checks the sources carefully:

One account related that on 24 March [1832] a mob of men pulled Smith from his bed, beat him, and then covered him with a coat of tar and feathers. Eli Johnson, who allegedly participated in the attack "because he suspected Joseph of being intimate with his sister, Nancy Marinda Johnson, … was screaming for Joseph's castration." There is more to the story than this, however—much more. Van Wagoner even indicates that it is "unlikely" that "an incident between Smith and Nancy Johnson precipitated the mobbing."

• Todd Compton casts further doubt on this episode. He notes that Van Wagoner's source is Fawn Brodie, and Brodie's source is from 1884—quite late. Clark Braden, the source, also got his information second-hand, and is clearly antagonistic, since he is a member of the Church of Christ, the “Disciples,” seeking to attack the Reorganized (RLDS) Church.
• For a detailed response, see: Marinda Nancy Johnson
• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

The old Jackson Countians resented the Mormon newcomers for various political and religious reasons.

Author's sources:

1. These reasons included the settlers' understanding that the Saints' intended to appropriate their property and establish a Millennial political kingdom (Brodie (1971) , pp. 130–31; Remini (2002) , pp. 114), the Saints' friendliness with the Indians (Brodie (1971) , p. 130); Remini (2002) , pp. 114–15), the Saints' perceived religious blasphemy Remini (2002) , p. 114, and especially the belief that the Saints were abolitionists (Brodie (1971) , pp. 131–33; Remini (2002) , pp. 113–14).

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Mob attacks began in July 1833,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

but Smith advised the Mormons to patiently bear them

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

until a fourth attack, which would permit vengeance to be taken.

Author's sources:

1. Quinn (1994) , pp. 82–83 (Smith's August 1833 revelation said that after the fourth attack, "the Saints were "justified" by God in violence against any attack by any enemy "until they had avenged themselves on all their enemies, to the third and fourth generation.," citing Smith (Cowdery) , p. 218).

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Nevertheless, once they began to defend themselves,

Author's sources:

1. Quinn (1994) , pp. 83–84 (after the fourth attack on 2 November 1833, Saints began fighting back, leading to the Battle of Blue River on 4 November 1833).

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

the Mormons were brutally expelled from the county.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Under authority of revelations directing Smith to lead the church like a modern Moses to redeem Zion by power

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

and avenge God's enemies,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

he led to Missouri a paramilitary expedition, later called Zion's Camp.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

When the camp found itself outnumbered, Smith retreated and produced a revelation explaining that the church was unworthy to redeem Zion in part because of the failure of the recently disbanded

Author's sources:

1. Brodie (1971) , p. 141.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

United Order.

Author's sources:

1. Roberts (1904) , p. 108 (quoting text of revelation); Hill (1989) , pp. 44–45 (noting that in addition to failure to unite under the celestial order, God was displeased the church had failed to make Zion's army sufficiently strong).

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Redemption of Zion would have to wait until after the elders of the church could receive another endowment of heavenly power,

Author's sources:

1. Brodie (1971) , pp. 156–57; Roberts (1904) , p. 109 (text of revelation).

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

this time in the Kirtland Temple

Author's sources:

1. Smith (Cowdery) , p. 233 (Kirtland Temple "design[ed] to endow those whom [God] ha[s] chosen with power on high"); Prince (1995) , p. 32 & n.104 (quoting revelation dated 12 June 1834 (Kirtland Revelation Book pp. 97–100) stating that the redemption of Zion "cannot be brought to pass until mine elders are endowed with power from on high; for, behold, I have prepared a greater endowment and blessing to be poured out upon them [than the 1831 endowment]").

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

then under construction.

Author's sources:

1. Construction began in June 1833 Remini (2002) , p. 115, not long before the first attack on the Missouri Saints.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Zion's Camp was a major failure

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• Bushman states,

Was Zion's Camp a catastrophe? Perhaps, but it was not the unmitigated disaster that it appears to be. Most camp members felt more loyal to Joseph than ever, bonded by their hardships. The future leadership of the Church came from this group. Nine of the Church's original Twelve Apostles, all seven presidents of the Seventy, and sixty-three other members of the seventy marched in Zion's Camp. (Bushman, p. 247)

• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

that stunned Smith for months

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Violates Wikipedia: Citing sources off-site— There is either no citation to support the statement or the citation given is incorrect.
  
  The cited source (Bushman, p. 322) does not contain the phrase "stunned for months, scarcely knowing what to do." This sounds more like Brodie.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

and resulted in a crisis in Kirtland.

Author's sources:

1. Brodie (1971) , p. 160; Quinn (1994) , p. 87 (noting that in October 1834, Smith only gathered two votes in his failed election as Kirtland's coroner).

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

But Zion's Camp also led to a transformation in Mormon leadership and culture.

Author's sources:

1. Quinn (1994) , p. 85.

FAIR's Response

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Just before Zion's Camp left Kirtland, Smith disbanded the United Order

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• It is only Brodie's opinion that Joseph saw Missouri as "a chance to erase the whole economic experiment."
• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

and changed the name of the church to "Church of Latter Day Saints."

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Name of the Church

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

After the Camp returned, Smith drew heavily from its participants to establish five governing bodies in the church, all of equal authority to check one another.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

He also produced fewer revelations, relying more heavily on the authority of his own teaching,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

and he altered and expanded many of the previous revelations to reflect recent changes in theology and practice, publishing them as the Doctrine and Covenants.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Doctrine and Covenants/Textual changes

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith also claimed to translate, from Egyptian papyri he had purchased from a traveling exhibitor, a text he later published as the Book of Abraham.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Book of Abraham
• For a detailed response, see: Book of Abraham/Joseph Smith Papyri

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

The Saints built the Kirtland Temple at great cost,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

and at the temple's dedication in March 1836, they participated in the prophesied endowment, a scene of visions, angelic visitations, prophesying, speaking and singing in tongues, and other spiritual experiences.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  
• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

The period from 1834–1837 was one of relative peace for Joseph Smith.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Nevertheless, after the dedication of the Kirtland temple in late 1837, "Smith's life descended into a tangle of intrigue and conflict"

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

and a series of internal disputes led to the collapse of the Kirtland Mormon community.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Although the church had publicly repudiated polygamy,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Polygamy

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

behind the scenes there was a rift between Smith and Oliver Cowdery over the issue.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith had by some accounts been teaching a polygamy doctrine as early as 1831.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  
• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Polygamy

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Sometime between 1833 and 1836, Smith engaged in a furtive relationship with his adolescent serving girl Fanny Alger.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Plural wives/Fanny Alger

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Although Cowdery claimed the relationship was a "filthy affair,"

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  
• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Plural wives/Fanny Alger

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith insisted the relationship was not adulterous, presumably because he had taken Alger as a plural wife.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  
• Bushman notes,

On his part, Joseph never denied a relationship with Alger, but insisted it was not adulterous. He wanted it on record that he had never confessed to such a sin. Presumably, he felt innocent because he had married Alger."

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Cowdery, who was in the process of leaving the church,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

was eventually charged with slander and expelled from the church.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  
• Bushman cites Far West Record, 163 (Apr. 12, 1838)

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Emma Smith "suspected a relationship and threw Fanny out of the house."

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• The Ostlings state,

The comely sixteen-year-old Fanny Alger, a hired girl living with the Smiths in Kirtland, became the prophet's plural wife in 1833 when he was twenty-seven. In a pattern that was to be repeated several times, Emma suspected a relationship and threw Fanny out of her house.

• The Ostlings do not provide precise endnotes for the reference. In the endnotes on page 405 for the related chapter, they cite "Early Mormon polygamy and Emma's reaction to the principle: Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith: Prophet's Wife, "Elect Lady," Polygamy's Foe, p. 64.
• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Plural wives/Fanny Alger
• For a detailed response, see: Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mormon America: The Power and the Promise for an overview of the Ostlings' book.

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Building the temple left the church deeply in debt, and Smith was hounded by creditors.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• According to the cited source, the remaining debt on the temple was $13,000, and "Joseph opened a merchandise store, but the venture called for still more capital. The month after he returned from Salem, he borrowed $11,000 for land purchases and store inventory. John Corrill heard the store inventory eventually cost between $80,000 and $90,000. The borrowing went on through 1837 until Joseph had run up debts of over $100,000." (Bushman, p. 329)

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

After Smith heard about treasure supposedly hidden in Salem, Massachusetts, he traveled there and received a revelation that God had "much treasure in this city."

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Money digging/"Treasure hunting" trip to Salem

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

After a month, he returned empty-handed.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith/Money digging/"Treasure hunting" trip to Salem

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith then turned to wildcat banking, establishing the Kirtland Safety Society in January 1837, which issued bank notes capitalized in part by real estate.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• Bushman p. 328: It should be noted that Bushman states that in addition to the capital, that "[t]he rest of the issue was secured by land. In actuality, the Safety Society was a partial 'land bank,' a device New Englanders had once resorted to in their cash-poor, land-rich society."
• For a detailed response, see: Kirtland Safety Society

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith invested heavily in the notes

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Kirtland Safety Society

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

and encouraged the Saints to buy them as a religious duty.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• For a detailed response, see: Kirtland Safety Society

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

The bank failed within a month.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

As a result, the Kirtland Saints suffered intense pressure from debt collectors and severe price volatility.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

Smith was held responsible for the failure, and there were widespread defections from the church,

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  Correct, per cited sources
  

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

including many of Smith's closest advisers.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

•  References not included in the Wikipedia article
  Bushman states the following on page 626, note 42: "Milton Backman notes that none of the bank's largest shareholders and only eight percent of all shareholders left the Church. (Backman, "Kirtland Temple," 221.)
• From Bushman, "David Patten, a leading apostle, raised so many insulting questions Joseph 'slap[p]ed him in the face & kicked him out of the yard.'"

}}

The author(s) of Check link or content make(s) the following claim:

After a warrant was issued for Smith's arrest on a charge of banking fraud, Smith and Rigdon fled Kirtland for Missouri on the night of January 12, 1838.

Author's sources:

FAIR's Response

• Bushman states, "Joseph and Rigdon left Kirtland in the night on January 12, 1838. The lawsuits were building up, and apostates were feared to be plotting more desperate measures. Joseph claimed that armed men—whether Mormons or irate creditors, he did not say—pursued them for two hundred miles from Kirtland." (Bushman, p. 340)
• For an analysis of Fawn Brodie's critical work, see A FAIR Analysis of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith.

}}

References

Wikipedia references for "Joseph Smith, Jr."

Further reading

Mormonism and Wikipedia