Joseph Smith And The Beginnings Of Mormonism

Download or read book Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism written by Richard L. Bushman and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1987-01-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The core of Mormon belief was a conviction about actual events. The test of faith was not adherence to a certain confession of faith but belief that Christ was resurrected, that Joseph Smith saw God, that the Book of Mormon was true history, and tht Peter, James, and John restored the apostleship. Mormonism was history, not philosophy. It is as history that Richard L. Bushman analyzes the emergence of Mormonism in the early nineteenth century. Bushman, however, brings to his study a unique set of credentials - he is both a prize-winning historian and a faithful member of the Latter-day Saints church. For Mormons and non-Mormons alike, then, his book provides a very special perspective on an endlessly fascinating subject. Building upon previous accounts and incorporating recently discovered contemporary sources, Bushman focuses on the first twenty-five years of Joseph Smith's life - up to his move to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1831. Bushman shows how the rural Yankee culture of New England and New York - especially evangelical revivalism, Christian rationalism, and folk magic - both influenced and hindered the formation of Smith's new religion. Mormonism, Bushman argues, must be seen not only as the product of this culture, but also as an independent creation based on the revelations of its charismatic leader. In the final analysis, it was Smith's ability to breathe new life into the ancient sacred stories and to make a sacred story out of his own life which accounted for his own extraordinary influence. By presenting Smith and his revelations as they were viewed by the early Mormons themselves, Bushman leads us to a deeper understanding of their faith.''A brilliant piece of research and writing by one of America's top historians. It is written with style and felicity, and it deals with all the difficult topics that must be probed in describing and interpreting the controversial early history of Mormonism. It is simply an outstanding work.''--Leonard J. Arrington, co-author of The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints''A brilliant piece of research and writing by one of America's top historians. It is written with style and felicity, and it deals with all the difficult topics that must be probed in describing and interpreting the controversial early history of Mormonism. It is simply an outstanding work.''--Leonard J. Arrington, co-author of The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints

Download or read book Joseph Smith and the Origins of The Book of Mormon, 2d ed. written by David Persuitte and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-07-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just as a growing interest in millennialism at the turn of this century has rejuvenated religious debate and questions concerning the fate of the world, so did Mormonism develop from millennial enthusiasm early in the nineteenth century. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and a provocative, even controversial figure in history, declared that he had been given the authority to restore the true church in the latter days. The primary source of Smith's latter-day revelation is The Book of Mormon, and to fully understand his role as the founder of the Mormon faith, one must also understand The Book of Mormon and how it came to be. Unfortunately, the literature about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon is permeated with contradiction and controversy. In the first edition of this impressive work, David Persuitte provided a significant amount of revealing biographical information about Smith that resolved many of the controversies concerning his character. He also presented an extensive comparative analysis positing that the probable conceptual source for The Book of Mormon was a book entitled View of the Hebrews; or the Tribes of Israel in America, which was written by an early New England minister named Ethan Smith. Now in an expanded and revised second edition incorporating many new findings relating to the origin of The Book of Mormon, Mr. Persuitte's book continues to shed much new light on the path Joseph Smith took toward founding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Download or read book No Man Knows My History written by Fawn M. Brodie and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 1995-08-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first paperback edition of the classic biography of the founder of the Mormon church, this book attempts to answer the questions that continue to surround Joseph Smith. Was he a genuine prophet, or a gifted fabulist who became enthralled by the products of his imagination and ended up being martyred for them? 24 pages of photos. Map.

Download or read book Visions in a Seer Stone written by William L. Davis and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-04-08 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this interdisciplinary work, William L. Davis examines Joseph Smith's 1829 creation of the Book of Mormon, the foundational text of the Latter Day Saint movement. Positioning the text in the history of early American oratorical techniques, sermon culture, educational practices, and the passion for self-improvement, Davis elucidates both the fascinating cultural context for the creation of the Book of Mormon and the central role of oral culture in early nineteenth-century America. Drawing on performance studies, religious studies, literary culture, and the history of early American education, Davis analyzes Smith's process of oral composition. How did he produce a history spanning a period of 1,000 years, filled with hundreds of distinct characters and episodes, all cohesively tied together in an overarching narrative? Eyewitnesses claimed that Smith never looked at notes, manuscripts, or books—he simply spoke the words of this American religious epic into existence. Judging the truth of this process is not Davis's interest. Rather, he reveals a kaleidoscope of practices and styles that converged around Smith's creation, with an emphasis on the evangelical preaching styles popularized by the renowned George Whitefield and John Wesley.

Download or read book Joseph Smith written by Richard Lyman Bushman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-03-13 with total page 786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founder of the largest indigenous Christian church in American history, Joseph Smith published the 584-page Book of Mormon when he was twenty-three and went on to organize a church, found cities, and attract thousands of followers before his violent death at age thirty-eight. Richard Bushman, an esteemed cultural historian and a practicing Mormon, moves beyond the popular stereotype of Smith as a colorful fraud to explore his personality, his relationships with others, and how he received revelations. An arresting narrative of the birth of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling also brilliantly evaluates the prophet’s bold contributions to Christian theology and his cultural place in the modern world.

Download or read book The Pearl of Greatest Price written by Terryl Givens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-04 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pearl of Greatest Price narrates the history of Mormonism's fourth volume of scripture, canonized in 1880. The authors track its predecessors, describe its several components, and assess their theological significance within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Four principal sections are discussed, along with attendant controversies associated with each. The Book of Moses purports to be a Mosaic narrative missing from the biblical version of Genesis. Too little treated in the scholarship on Mormonism, these chapters, produced only months after the Book of Mormon was published, actually contain the theological nucleus of Latter-day Saint doctrines as well as a virtual template for the Restoration Joseph Smith was to effect. In The Pearl of Greatest Price, the author covers three principal parts that are the focus of many of the controversies engulfing Mormonism today. These parts are The Book of Abraham, The Book of Moses, and The Joseph Smith History. Most controversial of all is the Book of Abraham, a production that arose out of a group of papyri Smith acquired, along with four mummies, in 1835. Most of the papyri disappeared in the great Chicago Fire, but surviving fragments have been identified as Egyptian funerary documents. This has created one of the most serious challenges to Smith's prophetic claims the LDS church has faced. LDS scholars, however, have developed several frameworks for vindicating the inspiration of the resulting narrative and Smith's calling as a prophet. The author attempts to make sense of Smith's several, at times divergent, accounts of his First Vision, one of which is canonized as scripture. He also assesses the creedal nature of Smith's "Articles of Faith," in the context of his professed anti-creedalism. In sum, this study chronicles the volume's historical legacy and theological indispensability to the Latter-day Saint tradition, as well as the reasons for its resilience and future prospects in the face of daunting challenges.

Download or read book History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints written by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: