Reddit reviews Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

> In my understanding polygamy is not officially gone from church doctrine, but rather just not currently practiced. Reading OD1 seems to confirm this as in no place does it strictly repeal it. Is this true? Will polygamy be practiced in the Celestial Kingdom and would it be practiced again should the laws of marriage in the United States change to permit it?

Yes, it is still doctrinal and does still shape sealing policies. I've been taught that it would be practiced again in the future and that it is practiced in the CK. I don't, however, believe that.

> I've heard rumors and read accounts of prominent Mormon leaders (Joseph Smith & Brigham Young in particular) marrying women who already had husbands that were still living. Is this true? What is the reasoning behind this?

Yes, it's true. I don't know the reason. It's one of the most troubling aspects of the historical practice of polygamy.

> In the afterlife, can someone marry my wife? (We are sealed in the temple)

Who really knows what exactly will happen in the afterlife?

> Brigham Young had children with multiple (like... 15ish?) wives? Why were these children not permitted to have a father they didn't share with so many others? Did Utah Territory have a significantly larger female population than male?

Brigham had children with 16 of his 55 wives. In a lot of cases, I don't really see a significant difference between growing up with Brigham Young or Heber C Kimball as your father and growing up without a father—especially when those fathers spent so much time off on missions. Utah didn't have significantly more females than males. The census actually indicates that there were more men than women. AFAIK, it was only a small number of men that were able to get a large number of wives. Elder Widstoe talks about it in his book "Evidences and Reconciliations", and concludes that they practiced polygamy not because there were surplus women but because they believed that God commanded it.

> D&C 132:62-64. Do we still believe that? Why is that still in the scripture, it seems very... ... not what I learn in Sunday School. Man owning women, man sleeping with many women - women being denied the same, if the original wife disagrees God will "destroy" her... this is a bit concerning, please tell me I'm misunderstanding this.

No, I think that you do understand these verses. I don't know whether or not "we" (the Church) believe them, but I don't accept them. They're in the canon, but any lesson that includes section 132 is usually selective about how it covers it and mostly just covers the blessings of eternal (one man and one woman) marriage.

Polygamy is difficult to understand and easy to judge. There was some good that came out of it (including me), but a lot of it was also done poorly.

If you really want to learn more about polygamy, I would recommend reading history books.

Here are some good ones you could look into:

• Mormon Polygamy
  
• Mormon Enigma
  
• In Sacred Loneliness
  
• Rough Stone Rolling
  
• Joseph Smith's Polygamy
  
  I would also recommend reading what Parley P Pratt wrote about polygamy in his autobiography, as well as this essay that the church recently put out.

Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman:

http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532


The best researched biography of Joseph Smith by an award winning historian who taught at Harvard, Columbia and BYU who is also an active believing Latter-day Saint.


Edit: If you like archaeology and the Book of Mormon, then try Mormon Codex by John L. Sorenson:

http://www.amazon.com/Mormons-Codex-Ancient-American-Book/dp/1609073991/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450660578&sr=1-1&keywords=Mormon+Codex

Rough Stone Rolling would be a good place for her to start. You might enjoy it as well. It was written by an LDS historian, so it shouldn't be too scary, but it does tell a slightly different story than what we'd typically hear from the Church. It's not a book that's likely to convince her the Church isn't what it claims to be, but it could help her to see that the Church isn't particularly forthcoming with a lot of its history, and get her thinking on those terms.

I'm not sure if your friend already owns or has read this book, but it is a really interesting balanced view of Joseph Smith. It talks about some of the more difficult issues in early Mormonism, but explains them in a way that leaves room for belief.

"Rough Stone Rolling" by Richard Bushman

https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532

The Book of Mormon at 531 pages.

An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon is also interesting, despite its flaws.

Rough Stone Rolling

Don't read "anti" stuff. Read Being Logical by D. Q. McInerny, Rough Stone Rolling or No Man Knows My History (your choice), and then examine your copy of Preach My Gospel. Knowing that there are reasonable alternative explanations around for the historical perspectives the Church offers, look at the arguments for the Church in the manual. Ask yourself: are they valid? Are they sound? Are there logical fallacies employed in crux arguments (e.g. is it affirming the consequent to believe that spiritual feelings guarantee the possible but not singular potential causes for those feelings)?

Edit: added some links

I recommend that you read this article and that you read this book.

An excerpt from the article:
>Sometime after Henry and Zina were married, Joseph told Dimick Huntington, Zina’s brother, the story of why he was compelled to introduce plural marriage, and asked that Dimick tell the story to Zina. As Zina is quoted by one author to have said, “Tell Zina I have put it off and put it off until an angel with a drawn sword has stood before me and told me if I did not establish that principle [plurality of wives] and live it, I would lose my position and my life and the Church could progress no further.”

I would also add that Celestial law supersedes the Levitical law.

I suggest reading those things and go to the Lord about it to give you peace.

I too had questions about this and have been patient in receiving understanding. [D&C 50:40] -
>"Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth."

Start here.

http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532 - Rough Stone Rolling - The best biography of JS that I've ever read.
http://mormonthink.com/ - Probably the best researched and least partisan resource.
http://20truths.info/ - 20 Truths about Mormonism

Well there's this which is very basic.

If you want something more there is also this and this for short introductions by two of our foremost scholars. However, if you want to dig deep you will probably like this overview of Mormons in general as well as this standard scholarly work on Joseph Smith and this scholarly work on the Book of Mormon.

So, take your pick what level of intro you want and jump in! (And never forget to read the Book of Mormon itself!.) Good to meet you!

Here's how I would put the many Joseph Smith books out there. I would be intrigued with others thoughts:

Joseph Smith 101 - LDS.org / anything put out by the Church (hagiographical with definite faith-promoting angle)

Joseph Smith 201 - Truman G. Madsen's Joseph Smith the Prophet (my first foray into JS while on my mission), things put out by Deseret Book (tend to be more friendly), FAIR Mormon (apologetic, faith-promoting angle)

Joseph Smith 301 - BYU Studies on Joseph Smith (especially the 1970s pieces written during a more "free" time of LDS history access), Donna Hill's Joseph Smith the First Mormon (written by non-Mormon, fairly friendly and objective)

Joseph Smith 401 - Richard Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling, Tippets and Avery's "Emma Hale Smith: Mormon Enigma," any Dialogue and Journal of Mormon History article pertaining to Joseph Smith.

Graduate-level Joseph Smith - Joseph Smith Papers for primary source documentation, Dan Vogel's "Early Mormon Documents," (again, source documentation), Fawn Brodie's "No Man Knows My History" (again for source documentation that she had unavailable to us in 2016). Primary sources allow you to begin your own research. I'm not very good in this area, but I do try.

Not sure if this fits under your definition of "world religions" but Mormonism is currently undergoing an interesting, scholarly reassessment of its history. Mormons have a pretty unique and (if I may say so myself) fascinating cosmology that you may enjoy learning about. If you're interested I would start by reading Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling.

Rough Stone Rolling. The author is a retired Ivy League (Columbia) history professor and a Mormon. The idea behind the biography is to tell the whole story of Joseph Smith, warts and all. The author cites extensively to journal entries, letters, newspaper articles, etc. written during Joseph Smith's life. This biography discusses many unflattering aspects of the founder of Mormonism, including Smith's: (i) polygamous marriages, (ii) marriages to underage girls; (iii) secret marriages to ployandrous women; (iv) the use of a magic rock and a hat to translate the Book of Mormon; (v) criminal charges for fraud; (vi) erroneous "translation" of Egyptian scrolls said to be written by Moses, later found to be common Egyptian funerary scrolls; (vii) substantial debts, the result of several failed business ventures; and (viii) Smith's lying and attempts to cover up all of the foregoing, which ultimately lead to his death.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400077532?pc_redir=1413704830&robot_redir=1

Kolob is the first explanation. This is directly from the LDS scriptures on their site

Rough Stone Rolling is the best book about Joseph Smith there is

The Oxford Short Introductions Series has a great volume on Mormonism that covers the faith in a very even-handed and neutral manner. If you're pressed for time, this would probably be the best thing to read. The Dummies and Idiot's Guide are actually not that bad in their presentation of the faith; they're both by what would be termed "liberal Mormons" and do a pretty good job of being realistic in their presentation (though both still being very positive, of course, but they're not conversion texts).

To understand the different faiths in the Latter Day Saint movement you need to understand the history of the faith as so much of the faith claims are rooted in historical events. Books like Rough Stone Rolling and No Man Knows My History give a good overview of Joseph Smith's life. The upcoming Brigham Young biography by John Turner seems like it will also be a good source for information on Young's tenure as president of the Church as it will discuss some of the darker/stranger issues like blood atonement and Adam-God. If you want to go in depth on the history of the Temple ritual, I'd recommend Buerger's The Mysteries of Godliness.

The last information I would give is that most (but not all) books published by Christian publishers should probably be avoided. Nowadays most of them are factual in their content, but their presentation is not meant to provide an understanding of the LDS Church but rather is meant to provide a multiplicity of reasons not to associate with the faith. A few exceptions I'd say are most books by Sandra and Gerald Tanner, and By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus which is an amazing overview of Joseph's "Book of Abraham" and the history and implications of the papyri Smith used in producing it which were rediscovered in 1967 to the subtle consternation of the CHurch ever since.

Here is a multi-volume work of the history if the LDS church written by B.H. Roberts. It's like 80 years old so it is a bit outdated in a few areas.

Rough Stone Rolling is a biography of Joseph Smith written by Richard Bushman. It is generally considered to be the pretty good historically and is pretty well cited.

I also find Wikipedia to be a pretty good starting point for studying different topics in LDS history. Apparently there does end up being some editing wars for a lot topics so you have to be careful.

A new 4 volume narrative history of the LDS church has also been announced and will start coming out next year. That might end up being good.

Edit: just realised I didn't read your post well enough. I just gave you general history sources when you were asking for specific leads. Sorry about that. I hope someone else the info you're looking for.

Others have given good suggestions, but I'll add my own thoughts. First, let me recommend "Joseph Smith--History" which you can read here, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1?lang=eng. That is the canonical description of the initial events (visions, angelic visitations, etc.) that led him to found the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was written by Joseph Smith himself in the mid 1830s. If you have downloaded the LDS "Gospel Library" app for Android/iPhone, it's also available via Scriptures->Pearl of Great Price->Joseph Smith--History. It's just a few pages long.

Secondly, I recommend the Book of Mormon, which we view as a book of ancient holy scripture like the Bible. According to Joseph Smith's account, he was given the ancient record from an angel of God and translated it miraculously in 1829 (when he was 23), then returned the ancient record to the angel when complete. It describes God's dealings with a branch of the Israelites who migrated to the Americas around 600 BC. It's named after Mormon, who (according to the book) lived around 400 AD and was instrumental in compiling the records of the various prophets before him in addition to adding his own account. This book is core to my own personal witness that he was a true prophet. It's around 450 pages long, and as scripture it is fairly dense, so it's not just something you can read in an afternoon. You can read it online here, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng, or in the "Gospel Library" app via Scriptures->Book of Mormon. Or, if you would like a hard copy, you can request a free copy here: https://www.comeuntochrist.org/beliefs/book-of-mormon-request. (Free books are made possible by donations of church members.) Someone else recommended a few chapters to begin with, which sounded good to me. I'll add a suggestion, namely 3rd Nephi chapters 11-27 where it presents an account of Jesus visiting these people after his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. And starting from the beginning is also not a bad plan. Certainly read the modern introduction and the testimony of the various witnesses who said Joseph Smith showed them the ancient plates from which the book was translated.

Thirdly, for a more in-depth historical view, I strongly recommend Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman, https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532. He's an award-winning biographer, and this is a fantastic book with a very complete description of Joseph Smith's life. (Also quite lengthy, but I found it easy to read.) To me it strikes a great balance between being respectful towards Joseph Smith and those who view him as a prophet (Bushman himself is a believer), and being historical and not afraid to talk about things Joseph Smith did which were somewhat questionable. It made Joseph Smith a very human figure to me. Most other accounts of Joseph Smith's life by contrast are very one sided--presenting only the good about Smith to argue that he was a true prophet, or presenting only the bad about Smith to argue that he was a fraud.

Good luck in your quest to learn more! Don't hesitate to ask more questions here.

SECTION | CONTENT
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Title | Jehovah's Witnesses v. Mormons - Ep. 1 - Faith versus Faith (with Jonathan Streeter)
Description | In this new series I explore the similarities and differences between Jehovah's Witnesses and other high control groups. First up are the Mormons, with ex-Mormon vlogger and blogger Jonathan Streeter answering my questions about the various beliefs and practices of the LDS Church. Resources mentioned in the video: 1. LDS.org Official Gospel Topics Essays: https://www.lds.org/topics/essays?lang=eng&old=true Essay acknowledging that Joseph Smith married 14-year-olds and other men's wives: https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng&old=true 2. Rough Stone Rolling: sold in official church bookstore here: https://deseretbook.com/p/joseph-smith-rough-stone-rolling-richard-l-bushman-5351?variant_id=104298-paperback On amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532 3. Insider view on Mormon Origins, on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Insiders-View-Mormon-Origins/dp/1560851570/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SP990KXWHKW4G8ZH8G8S  4. CES Letter: http://cesletter.com/ 5. "Letter for my wife and children" - similar to CES letter above, but with a softer tone. More accessible. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B18W3AgWXw6zMUllRW85bXc0RWc/view 6. FAIRMormon Apologetic website: https://www.fairmormon.org/ 7. Exmormon Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/ 8. Mormon Stories Podcast: http://www.mormonstories.org/ 9. Jonathan’s Website: http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVTCFh3uDMH0GZlwl1JOoHQ FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/ThoughtsOnThingsAndStuff/ 10: Mormon Spectrum (for finding local support groups): http://www.mormonspectrum.org/  Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/cedars Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cedarsjwsurvey Buy my book, "The Reluctant Apostate": http://a.co/5qFN4JU
Length | 1:30:08






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Read the LDS "Gospel Principles" manual, located here.

You could also read "Rough Stone Rolling" to learn more about Joseph Smith and the Church's founding. Rough Stone Rolling is generally considered a reasonable account, by both ex mormons and active mormons.

Books:
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No man knows my history - History with the anti-mormon bias.

Emma Hale Smith story - History from Emma's eyes written by two faithful members, quietly blacklisted for not being faith promoting enough.

Rough stone rolling - History written from a very faithful LDS, but with a page or two after every page of facts defending the LDS church's position and authority. The goal was to surpass Brodie's no man knows my history, but it wasn't as popular.

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Websites:
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"FAIR" - Mormon apologetic group. They will support each point above while wrapping it in a page long defense that boils down to "no problem, keep believing".

Mormonthink the Premier website on factual documentation from a neutral or anti perspective. It's about finding the facts and building judgement rather than finding a position and supporting it with facts and belief.

Wives of joseph smith - List of all validated wives of Joseph

Joseph's declaration of Monogomy (wikipedia) - Note this was canonized in 1835, and removed in the 1880's (ironically just a few years prior to the LDS church abandoning the practice). Note: this is still sourced in the history of the church.

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More sources, including podcasts, available upon request.

While I don't consider it to be a cult, the history of Mormonism is extremely interesting, as is the life of it's founder, Joseph Smith.

A good book written by a member of the church is called "Rough Stone Rolling." Another great one by a non mormon is called "No Man Knows My History"

This is a particular difficulty in Mormon history--for a long time anything put in print seemed to have an extreme bias one way or another. In recent years there seems to be a greater effort in Mormon Studies in adhering to better historical standards that I think result in better, more accurate, and less biased narratives. Personally, I don't think I'd use Krakauer as a source because he's a good writer, but not a historian.

I think better sources to use would be:

Richard Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling (2005). Bushman was a history professor at Columbia University and is a Mormon. His bio of Smith will likely be considered the "standard" bio for years to come. It's a bit longish, but I think it's very readable regardless if you are Mormon or not.

Robert V. Remini's Joseph Smith (2002) is a quick read--a lot shorter than Bushman and a good overview. Remini was a history professor at the University of Illinois and is not a Mormon. He's best known for his massive biography on Andrew Jackson, a contemporary of Smith.

Fawn M. Brodie's No Man Knows My History (1945) is old, but is still often referenced. Brodie was a history professor at UCLA. She was raised Mormon, but was later excommunicated. Her book is a psychobiography which is a historical approach that has largely fallen out of fashion these days.

I'd definitely recommend looking at josephsmithpapers.org. It is an on-going publication project that is putting digital images and transcriptions of all of Joseph Smith's personal papers as well as the papers produced by his clerks under his direction. You'll find letters, revelations, early editions of the Book of Mormon, and all sorts of stuff! I'd take a look at Smith's own personal history written in 1832, and his history begun in 1838 and continued over the years even after his death and finally finished in 1856. (For more info on these specific documents, be sure to read the text under "Historical Introduction" in the bottom half of the pages.)

Another good narrative on that site is the book written by Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith. You can find the published 1853 version here. (Skip most of the early stuff--she spends a lot of pages talking about her own parents and childhood. While interesting, it's probably not pertinent for your paper.)

The site also has a good overview of Joseph Smith's life and his papers written by Richard Bushman and Dean Jessee too.

There are a lot of academic journals out there too that will have articles about various aspects of Joseph Smith's life or of his contemporaries (in no particular order): BYU Studies, Journal of Mormon History, John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, Mormon Historical Studies. You can find articles in BYU's Studies in Mormon History database and I bet JSTOR or other places probably have some of them.

If you need help finding info on a specific aspect on Smith, feel free to send me a message and I'll try to help best I can.

It seems to me that you are having a bit of a crisis of faith /u/villaged . I'm sorry it took me so long to figure that out about you.

Joseph Smith was a guy that was far from perfect. Changing the story of the First Vision is only the tip of the iceberg. If you'd like to learn more about the man the founded Mormonism I would recomend stopping in at Deseret Book and picking up Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard L. Bushman. This is a book that is great for folks that are not sure about Mormonism and don't want to read any "anti-Mormon" literature. If you'd like to learn more after that you can wander into the Utah Lighthouse Ministry and speak with the awesome folks there.

Another wonderful resource for folks that have questions is New Order Mormon. The moderators of the board there work very hard to keep the discussion open and to help folks get honest and well researched answers to their questions.

As for me personally, I left Mormonism almost 10 years ago because I couldn't stay in a church that was (in my opinion after doing my own research) lying to me about its founding. I don't believe that Joseph Smith had a vision of God and Jesus, and I think he was a con man that started a religion. I think that Brigham Young was a tyrant that forced people to do his will and he put them in situations where they had no choice but to follow his commands.

That being said, I love Mormons. Most of my family is Mormon and many of my closest friends are Mormon. I guess this is why I feel like I need to defend incorrect statements about Mormons. I'm not trying to convert or deconvert anyone, I just want the truth out there.

If you have other questions that you'd like to discuss with me please feel free to message me. Or you can find me on NOM or some of the other boards I mentioned above. I hope you are able to find peace.

Namaste

> Can you think of any parts of the Smith narrative that don't fit with the sex-and-power idea, outside of trivialities?

Have you ever read anything about Joseph Smith from a sympathetic perspective? I don't mean apologist literature. I mean work that is actually trying to understand Joseph Smith, rather than to support a preexisting thesis. Things like Rough Stone Rolling, In Heaven as it is on Earth, American Crucifixion, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, etc. When the events of Joseph Smith's life are put into their full, rich historical context, it quickly becomes apparent that J.S.'s motivations were complex and variegated. Certainly sex and power played a role, but so did sincere, intense religious belief, a desire to unite and redeem his family, and a firm conviction that God was working through him. For instance, the money digging events can only be understood when put into the context of early 19th century folk religion, as Quinn does in Early Mormonism. This is not an avaricious Joseph Smith, but someone who is trying to help lift his family out of poverty using methods of folk religion that were ubiquitous in the region.

It's interesting to hear NOMs or other apologists explain this. Richard Bushman acknowledges this, but somehow passes it off like it would be expected of a boy from back then.

After all, the world was very different back then. He was a good boy from the country. /s

Joseph did posses a stone that he believed helped him see things which were hidden. His translation was initially through the Urim and Thummim, and as he learned to use that easier, he used his stone, and at some point probably no stone at all.


I don't have sources handy, so hopefully someone else will post some. A great book with tons of sourced info is Rough Stone Rolling. Fantastic book.