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Martyrdom of Joseph Smith |
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Mormons consider Joseph
Smith, Jr. (1805–1844), the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church), to be a true prophet. The Prophet Joseph,
who was ultimately killed by his religious and political foes, is remembered as
a martyr for the cause.
On June 25, 1844, Governor Thomas Ford
of Illinois
told the state militia that Joseph and his brother Hyrum were "dangerous
men" (History of the Church, 5:563) and guilty of treason. The two
brothers went to Carthage, Illinois, to deliver themselves up to the
"pretended requirements of the law" (Doctrine and Covenants 135:1),
according to the demands of the governor. Joseph Smith said of the event,
"I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s
morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men.
I shall die innocent, and it shall be said of me—He was murdered in cold blood"
(Doctrine and Covenants 135:4).
After delivering themselves up, Joseph
and Hyrum were confined in Carthage
Jail. The men were accompanied by John
Taylor and Willard Richards, members of the Church administrative body
known as the Quorum of the Twelve. The four men remained in the jail for two
days, during which time the jailers treated them well and friends visited them.
On June 27, 1844 a mob, made up of members of the town militia who were in
charge of protecting Joseph, overran the jail. The mob, later described by John
Taylor as men who were "armed" and "painted black"
(Doctrine and Covenants 135:1) entered the room in which the men were being
held. The room was on the second floor of the jail, at the top of the stairs.
The mob forced the door open and poked their gun barrels into the room. They
began shooting, despite efforts by Willard Richards to deflect the gun barrels
with his walking stick. Hyrum Smith was shot multiple times and died, falling
to the floor. John Taylor was also shot in several places. He was not killed
but sought refuge by rolling under the bed. Joseph Smith ran toward the window
where he was shot in the back from inside the jail and shot in the chest from
outside the jail. He either fell or leaped out of the window, landing on the
ground outside the jail, where he was again shot by members of the mob. The
Prophet Joseph Smith died at that time. (See History of the Church,
6:602-618, also Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual, 348).
John Taylor and Willard Richards were
both present at the martyrdom and survived. John Taylor, who later became the
third President and Prophet of the Church, wrote: "Hyrum was shot first
and fell calmly, exclaiming: I am a dead man! Joseph leaped from the window,
and was shot dead in the attempt, exclaiming: O Lord my God! They were both
shot after they were dead, in a brutal manner " (Doctrine
and Covenants 135:1).
To this day, Joseph Smith is
remembered by Mormons as the first prophet of the Restoration, accomplishing
tasks that established the Lord's true Church again to the earth. John Taylor
makes this point clear, in his record:
"Joseph
Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for
the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.
In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon,
which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of
publishing it on two continents; has sent the fullness of the everlasting
gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has brought
forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and
Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of
the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints, founded
a great city, and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great,
and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the
Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his
own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum" (Doctrine and Covenants 135:3).
Mormons believe that Joseph Smith is a
"testator," meaning he "provided to mankind a witness of God’s
covenants." When Joseph Smith died, his death
"place[d] a seal of truth on the testament" (Doctrine and
Covenants Student Manual, 350).
Joseph Smith, Jr. gave his life to the
cause of building what is known by some as the Mormon Church, Mormons believe
Joseph Smith, through divine guidance and instruction, introduced the restored
Gospel of Jesus Christ back to the earth. After having restored precious truths
that had long been lost, through the power of the Lord, the Prophet Joseph
sacrificed his life. Mormons today "look to the Prophet with reverence
because of what he did for their understanding of Jesus Christ and His
mission" (Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual, 349). In this way
Mormons are ever grateful to Joseph Smith's righteousness and obedience to the
divine mission he had in life.
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Book of Mormon Origins |
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There are three possible explanations for the origin of the Book of Mormon. One is that it is a product of
spontaneous generation. Another is that it came into existence in the way Joseph Smith said it did, by special
messengers and gifts from God. The third is the hypothesis that Joseph Smith or some other party or parties simply
made it all up. No experiments have ever been carried out for testing any of these theories. The first has not
even been considered, the second has been dismissed with a contemptuous wave of the hand, and the third has been
accepted without question or hesitation.
And yet the third theory is quite as extravagant as the other two, demanding unlimited gullibility and the
suspension of all critical judgment in any who would accept it. It is based on the simple proposition that since
people have written books, somebody, namely Smith or a contemporary, wrote this one. But to make this thesis stick
is to show not only that people have written big books, but that somebody has been able to produce a big book like
this one. But no other such book exists.
Where will you find another work remotely approaching the Book of Mormon
in scope and daring? It appears suddenly out of nothing--not an accumulation of twenty-five years like the Koran,
but a single staggering performance, bursting on a shocked and scandalized world like an explosion, the full-blown
history of an ancient people, following them through all the trials, triumphs, and vicissitudes of a thousand years
without a break, telling how a civilization originated, rose to momentary greatness, and passed away, giving due
attention to every phase of civilized history in a densely compact and rapidly moving story that interweaves dozens
of plots with an inexhaustible fertility of invention and an uncanny consistency that is never caught in a slip or
contradiction. We respectfully solicit the name of any student or professor in the world who could come within ten
thousand miles of such a performance. As a sheer tour-de-force there is nothing like it. The theory that
Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon simply will not stand examination. - Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah
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The Book of Mormon is a Translation |
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The book starts out with a colophon telling us whose hand wrote it, what his sources were, and what it is about;
the author boasts of his pious parents and good education, explaining that his background was an equal mixture of
Egyptian and Jewish, and then moves into this history establishing time, place, and background; the situation at
Jerusalem and the reaction of Nephi's father to it, his misgivings, his prayers, a manifestation that came to him in
the desert as he traveled on business and sent him back post-haste "to his own house at Jerusalem," where he has a
great apocalyptic vision.
All this and more in the first seven verses of the Book of Mormon. The writer knows exactly what he is going to
say and wastes no time in saying it.... We can imagine our young rustic getting off to this flying start, but
can we imagine him keeping up the pace for ten pages? For 588 pages the story never drags, the author never
hesitates or wanders, he is never at a loss. What is really amazing is that he never contradicts himself.
- Hugh Nibley, Collected Works Vol. 8
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The Book of Mormon Challenge |
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The Book of Mormon is often dismissed as gibberish by those who have never taken the trouble to read it.
In fact, its very existence poses a serious puzzle if it is not what it claims to be - an ancient record.
Below is the Book of Mormon Challenge, an assignment that Professor Hugh Nibley at BYU sometimes gave to
students in a required class on the Book of Mormon. The following text is taken from the Collected Works of
Hugh Nibley, Vol.8, Ch.11, Pg.221 - Pg.222:
Since Joseph Smith was younger than most of you and not nearly so experienced or well-educated as any of you at
the time he copyrighted the Book of Mormon, it should not be too much to ask you to hand in by the end of the
semester (which will give you more time than he had) a paper of, say, five to six hundred pages in length.
Call it a sacred book if you will, and give it the form of a history. Tell of a community of wandering Jews
in ancient times; have all sorts of characters in your story, and involve them in all sorts of public and
private vicissitudes; give them names--hundreds of them--pretending that they are real Hebrew and Egyptian
names of circa 600 b.c.; be lavish with cultural and technical details--manners and customs, arts and industries,
political and religious institutions, rites, and traditions, include long and complicated military and economic
histories; have your narrative cover a thousand years without any large gaps; keep a number of interrelated local
histories going at once; feel free to introduce religious controversy and philosophical discussion, but always in
a plausible setting; observe the appropriate literary conventions and explain the derivation and transmission of
your varied historical materials.
Above all, do not ever contradict yourself! For now we come to the really hard part of this little assignment.
You and I know that you are making this all up--we have our little joke--but just the same you are going to be
required to have your paper published when you finish it, not as fiction or romance, but as a true history!
After you have handed it in you may make no changes in it (in this class we always use the first edition of the
Book of Mormon); what is more, you are to invite any and all scholars to read and criticize your work freely,
explaining to them that it is a sacred book on a par with the Bible. If they seem over-skeptical, you might tell
them that you translated the book from original records by the aid of the Urim and Thummim--they will love that!
Further to allay their misgivings, you might tell them that the original manuscript was on golden plates, and that
you got the plates from an angel. Now go to work and good luck!
To date no student has carried out this assignment, which, of course, was not meant seriously. But why not? If
anybody could write the Book of Mormon, as we have been so often assured, it is high time that somebody, some
devoted and learned minister of the gospel, let us say, performed the invaluable public service of showing the
world that it can be done." - Hugh Nibley
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Structure and Complexity of the Book of Mormon |
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First Nephi gives us first a clear and vivid look at the world of Lehi, a citizen of Jerusalem but much at home
in the general world of the New East of 600 B.C. Then it takes us to the desert, where Lehi and his family
wander for eight years, doing all the things that wandering families in the desert should do. The manner of
their crossing the ocean is described, as is the first settlement and hard pioneer life in the New World dealt with....
The book of Mosiah describes a coronation rite in all its details and presents extensive religious and
political histories mixed in with a complicated background of exploration and colonization. The book of Alma
is marked by long eschatological discourses and a remarkably full and circumstantial military history.
The main theme of the book of Helaman is the undermining of society by moral decay and criminal conspiracy;
the powerful essay on crime is carried into the next book, where the ultimate dissolution of the Nephite
government is described.
Then comes the account of the great storm and earthquakes, in which the writer, ignoring a splendid opportunity
for exaggeration, has as accurately depicted the typical behavior of the elements on such occasions as if he were
copying out of a modern textbook on seismology.... [Soon] after the catastrophe, Jesus Christ appeared to the most
pious sectaries who had gathered at the temple.
...Can anyone now imagine the terrifying prospect of confronting the Christian world of 1830 with the very words of
Christ? ...
But the boldness of the thing is matched by the directness and nobility with which the preaching of the Savior
and the organization of the church are described. After this comes a happy history and then the usual signs of
decline and demoralization. The death-struggle of the Nephite civilization is described with due attention to
all the complex factors that make up an exceedingly complicated but perfectly consistent picture of decline
and fall. Only one who attempts to make a full outline of Book of Mormon history can begin to appreciate its
immense complexity; and never once does the author get lost (as the student repeatedly does, picking his way
out of one maze after another only with the greatest effort), and never once does he contradict himself. We
should be glad to learn of any other like performance in the history of literature.
- Hugh Nibley, Collected Works Vol. 8
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The four types of biblical experts |
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There are four kinds of biblical experts: At the very top are the professionals who have been doing biblical research all their adult lives. They are usually
professors in leading universities in various fields that are related to the Bible such as archaeologists, historians,
paleographers, professors of the Bible, and professors of Near Eastern languages and literature.
These people are the most credible of all biblical experts and do not let religious views get in the way of the truth.
This is why a lot of them consider themselves to be nonbelievers in the modern Christian and Jewish faiths. Their
reputation and standing in the academic community is very important to them. This causes them to be cautious and not
rashly declare statements upon any subject without presenting verifiable proof for their claims. It is to them that
encyclopedias, journals and universities go to for information. Their community is very small, but extremely
influential in the secular world. One distinctive feature of this group is the difficulty outsiders face when
reading their writings which causes them to be a fairly closed society.
The second group of biblical experts are those who have legitimate degrees and may have initially been in the first
group but were spurned by the first group for being unreliable because they disregard demonstrable proof simply
because their religious convictions teach otherwise. For them, their religion's teaching overrides real biblical research. Very few of them can be considered Fundamentalists.
The third group of biblical experts are the "biblical experts." These people disregard the works and conclusions
of the first group, and view the second group as their mentors. Nearly all anti-Mormons who produce anti-Mormon
paraphernalia fall into this group. Their views are purely theological and display ignorance of legitimate biblical
studies. Their arguments are non-rational and are frequently sensational hype and empty rhetoric. These people are
very vocal and constantly parade their "expertise" upon the unknowing masses by giving seminars in various churches
and religious schools. Nearly all of them are Fundamentalists.
The fourth group of "biblical experts" are those who have never read the Bible completely and do not even know the
history and contents of the Bible. They are completely reliant upon materials produced by the third group and may
have five verses in the Bible memorized to quote at people they encounter (in nearly every instance John 3:16 and
John 14:6 are included in these five verses) to give the impression they are experts in the Bible. They usually
need the Table of Contents to find various biblical books and are extremely vocal in their condemnation of Mormonism.
They personify the wise adage:
The less knowledge a man has, the more vocal he is about his expertise.
They read an anti-Mormon book and suddenly they're experts on Mormonism:
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The remainder of Christians are those who believe in the Bible but never read it. The Bible is a very complex
book for most Christians and seems to possess a power that intimidates them. This is why a normal Christian is
impressed whenever he or she encounters an individual who can quote scripture. It is this ignorance of the Bible
that causes some to proclaim themselves "biblical experts."
I am not aware of anyone in the first group of biblical experts who are anti-Mormon. If anything, real biblical
scholars who know Mormon theology have a profound sense of admiration for it and are usually astonished that so many
facets of Mormonism reflect authentic biblical teachings. They are frequently puzzled at how Joseph Smith could find
out the real biblical teaching since modern Judaism and Christianity abandoned them thousands of years ago. Uniquely
Mormon doctrines such as the anthropomorphic nature of God, the divine nature and deification potential of man,
the plurality of deities, the divine sanction of polygamy, the fallacy of sola scriptura, the superiority of the
charismatic leaders over the ecclesiastical leaders and their importance, the inconsequence of Original Sin
because of the Atonement of Christ, the importance of contemporary revelation, and so forth are all original
Jewish and Christian thought before they were abandoned mainly due to Greek philosophical influence.
Mormonism to these scholars is the only faith that preserves the characteristics of the early chosen people.
This doesn’t mean these scholars believe Mormonism is the true religion, since their studies are on an intellectual
level instead of a spiritual one.
On the other hand, the leaders of the anti-Mormon movement are nearly all in the third category with a couple
in the second. Real biblical experts (who aren’t Mormon) and are in the first category normally refer to
the “biblical experts” in the third group as the “know-nothings” or the “Fundamentalist know-nothings.”
These terms aren’t completely derogatory, but are accurate descriptions of the knowledge of the “biblical experts”
in the third group. Ed Watson - Mormonism: Faith of the 21st Century
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