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Joseph Smith, Jr. was the leader and founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Being Continuationist, the movement is characterized by a belief that the miracles, visions, prophecies, and revelations attributed to the biblical era continue still today, contingent upon need and the faith of those involved. This belief is based both upon scriptural teachings in the Bible and Book of Mormon and upon accounts of such miracles performed by Smith.
While prophecies, visions, and revelations are often considered miracles in and of themselves, Christian belief includes belief in a number of other types of miracles as well. According to various accounts, Joseph Smith performed a number of such miracles.
Professing to be a prophet, Joseph Smith predicted a number of future events that he said would come to pass.
While a prophecy deals specifically with future events, visions and revelations deal with the more general aspects of human experiences. Smith's First Vision was the most important and most frequently criticized vision or revelation that he claimed to receive. Other such revelations can be found in the Doctrine and Covenants, a compendium of some of the most important of his revelations, and in other works such as his sermons and in his translation of the King James Version of the Bible.
David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, eventually denounced Smith, as a "fallen" prophet rather than a "false" one. He made this distinction on a number of occasions. For instance, many years after his apostasy from Smith's church, Whitmer reacted to claims that he had denied the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon by paying to have his testimony of its authenticity published in three different newspapers. He testified that he and Smith had shared a number of angelic visitations and other spiritual experiences. [1]
Joseph Smith claimed to receive power from God to translate ancient texts from dead languages into English. He said he did this by means of "the gift and power of God" and by means of the Urim and Thummim, which he said was delivered to him by an angel named Moroni. The most prominent of his translations was the Book of Mormon. However, he also made corrections and additions to biblical accounts, which can be found in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible and in the Pearl of Great Price. Many Christians are critical of Smith's assumption that he had the right to change the Bible, but believers in Smith's message and calling hold that he was simply expanding and clarifying the biblical text, or correcting problems introduced into the Bible by imperfect or conniving translators and transcribers over the centuries.
According to a number of eye-witness accounts, Joseph Smith is credited with the miraculous healings of a large number of individuals.
On a number of occasions, Smith is credited with the casting out or warding off of evil spirits and demonic presences. One account attests that, upon visiting the house of Joseph Knight of Colesville, New York, in April 1830, Smith cast Satan out of Knight's son Newel. [10]
Critic Fawn Brodie contends that Smith did not truly have the power to heal and has cited certain circumstance in which he reportedly tried to heal people but failed. [11]
In keeping with Joseph Smith's message, many of those who believe he was a prophet also believe that the miraculous works attributed to him may still be performed by those who hold the priesthood authority that he restored to the world. One example of this is the account of Lorenzo Snow raising Ella Jensen from the dead. [12]
In the process of traveling to the Salt Lake Valley in the face of persecution and settling there, the Latter-day Saints also reported a number of other miracles. One of these was the miracle of the quail, in which the famished pioneers, not having been given time to gather ample foodstuffs before being ousted from their homes, reported that thousands of quail suddenly flew into camp and fell at their feet, exhausted. [13]
The Angel Moroni is an angel whom Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, reported as having visited him on numerous occasions, beginning on September 21, 1823. According to Smith, the angel Moroni was the guardian of the golden plates buried near his home in western New York, which Latter Day Saints believe were the source of the Book of Mormon. An important figure in the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, Moroni is featured prominently in its architecture and art. Besides Smith, the Three Witnesses and several other witnesses also reported that they saw Moroni in visions in 1829.
In Mormonism, the restoration refers to a return of the authentic priesthood power, spiritual gifts, ordinances, living prophets and revelation of the primitive Church of Christ after a long period of apostasy. While in some contexts the term may also refer to the early history of Mormonism, in other contexts the term is used in a way to include the time that has elapsed from the church's earliest beginnings until the present day. Especially in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "the restoration" is often used also as a term to encompass the corpus of religious messages from its general leaders down to the present.
According to Latter Day Saint theology, seer stones were used by Joseph Smith, as well as ancient prophets, to receive revelations from God. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that Smith used seer stones to translate the Book of Mormon.
David Whitmer was a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who eventually became the most interviewed of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's golden plates.
Thomas Baldwin Marsh was an early leader in the Latter-day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who served as the quorum's first president in the Church of the Latter Day Saints from 1835 to 1838. He withdrew from the church in 1838, was excommunicated from it in 1839, and remained disaffected for almost 19 years. Marsh was rebaptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in July 1857, but never again served in church leadership positions.
David Wyman Patten was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was killed at the Battle of Crooked River and is regarded as a martyr by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is referred to twice in the Church of Jesus Christ's Doctrine and Covenants—once in section 114 and posthumously in section 124.
The Three Witnesses is the collective name for three men connected with the early Latter Day Saint movement who stated that an angel had shown them the golden plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon; they also stated that they had heard God's voice, informing them that the book had been translated by divine power. The Three are part of twelve Book of Mormon witnesses, who also include Smith and the Eight Witnesses.
Warren Farr Parrish was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement. Parrish held a number of positions of responsibility, including that of scribe to church president Joseph Smith. Parrish and other church leaders became disillusioned with Smith after the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society and left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1837. In 1838, they formed a short-lived church in Kirtland, Ohio which they called The Church of Christ, after the original name of the church organized by Smith. This church soon disintegrated as the result of disagreement between its leaders. By 1844, Parrish was working as a Baptist minister in the Fox River area of Wisconsin & Illinois.
Polygamy in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or plural marriage, is generally believed to have originated with the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. According to several of his associates, Smith taught that polygamy was a divine commandment and practiced it personally, by some accounts marrying more than 30 women, some of whom had existing marriages to other men. Evidence for Smith's polygamy is provided by the church's "sealing" records, affidavits, letters, journals, and diaries. However, until his death, Smith and the leading church quorums denied that he preached or practiced polygamy. Smith's son Joseph Smith III, his widow Emma Smith, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints challenged the evidence and taught that Joseph Smith had opposed polygamy. They instead claimed that Brigham Young, the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, introduced plural marriage after Smith's death. In 1852, leaders of the Utah-based LDS Church publicly announced the doctrine of polygamy.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Adam and Eve were the first man and the first woman to live on the earth and that their fall was an essential step in the plan of salvation. Adam in particular is a central figure in Mormon cosmology. Robert L. Millet, a Latter-day Saint author, wrote of the church's perspective:
Few persons in all eternity have been more directly involved in the plan of salvation—the creation, the fall, and the ultimate redemption of the children of God—than the man Adam. His ministry among the sons and daughters of earth stretches from the distant past of premortality to the distant future of resurrection, judgment, and beyond.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, the term Urim and Thummim (;) refers to a descriptive category of instruments used for receiving revelation or translating languages. According to Latter Day Saint theology, the two stones found in the breastplate of Aaron in the Old Testament, the white stone referenced in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, the two stones bound by silver bows into a set of spectacles (interpreters) that movement founder Joseph Smith said he found buried in the hill Cumorah with the golden plates, and the seer stone found while digging a well used to translate the Book of Mormon are all examples of Urim and Thummim. Latter Day Saint scripture states that the place where God resides is a Urim and Thummim, and the earth itself will one day become sanctified and a Urim and Thummim, and that all adherents who are saved in the highest heaven will receive their own Urim and Thummim.
The Book of Mormon witnesses were a group of contemporaries of Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen the golden plates from which Smith translated the Book of Mormon. The most significant witnesses were the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, all of whom allowed their names to be used on two separate statements included with the Book of Mormon. Critics have challenged the nature and reliability of the accounts, but church leaders contend that none of the witnesses ever denied what they saw.
There are several explanations as to the origin of the Book of Mormon. Adherents to the Latter Day Saint movement view the book as a work of divinely inspired scripture, which was written by ancient prophets in the ancient Americas. Non-Mormon theories of authorship propose that it is solely the work of man.
Possibly as early as the 1830s, followers of the Latter Day Saint movement, were practicing the doctrine of polygamy or "plural marriage". After the death of church founder Joseph Smith, the doctrine was officially announced in Utah Territory in 1852 by Mormon leader Brigham Young. The practice was attributed posthumously to Smith and it began among Mormons at large, principally in Utah where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had relocated after the Illinois Mormon War.
The standard works of Mormonism—the largest denomination of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints —have been the subject of various criticisms. Latter-day Saints believe the Book of Mormon is a sacred text with the same divine authority as the Bible; both are considered complementary to each other. Other Mormon sacred texts include the Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants, which are also recognized as scripture. Religious and scholarly critics outside Mormonism have disputed Mormonism's unique scriptures, questioning the traditional narrative of how these books came to light and the extent to which they describe actual events. Critics cite research in history, archeology, and other disciplines to support their contentions.
Steven Craig Harper is a professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. He was a historian for the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From 2019, he is the Editor-in-Chief of BYU Studies Quarterly.
This is a chronology of Mormonism. In the late 1820s, Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, announced that an angel had given him a set of golden plates engraved with a chronicle of ancient American peoples, which he had a unique gift to translate. In 1830, he published the resulting narratives as the Book of Mormon and founded the Church of Christ in western New York, claiming it to be a restoration of early Christianity.
This is a bibliography of works on the Latter Day Saint movement.
Cunning folk traditions, sometimes referred to as folk magic, were intertwined with the early culture and practice of the Latter Day Saint movement. These traditions were widespread in unorganized religion in the parts of Europe and America where the Latter Day Saint movement began in the 1820s and 1830s. Practices of the culture included folk healing, folk medicine, folk magic, and divination, remnants of which have been incorporated or rejected to varying degrees into the liturgy, culture, and practice of modern Latter Day Saints.
