Book Review: Joseph Smith by Richard Lyman Bushman

Book Review: Joseph Smith by Richard Lyman Bushman
Monsters and Critics - of the decidedly unorthodox Joseph Smith, founder and prophet of Mormonism. Bushman (History emeritus continues, with depicting a real Joseph Smith, not a flawless or idealized

Joseph Smith praised as 200th birthday nears

Joseph Smith praised as 200th birthday nears
Salt Lake Tribune, United States - Oct 3, 2005 Joseph Smith was a poor, uneducated farm boy in the 1820s when, Mormons believe Latter-day Saints believe Smith translated an ancient record of Jesus Christ's

Mormon church founder's arrest records rediscovered

Mormon church founder's arrest records rediscovered
Times Union - NORWICH, N.Y. -- A local historian has rediscovered historical records that detail how Mormon church founder Joseph Smith was arrested on four occasions while living in Chenango County in the mid-1820s. documents to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which

Spanish devotional marks LDS roots

Spanish devotional marks LDS roots
Salt Lake Tribune - Sep 18 11:27 PM
Walter Alor drove from Utah County on Sunday to attend a Latino devotional in the Salt Lake City conference center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He said the Spanish-speaking devotional, which celebrated the 175th anniversary of the church and the 200th birthday of the church's founder Joseph Smith, was the 10th of its kind he has attended over the years. He comes for Save to My Web

Book Review: Joseph Smith by Richard Lyman Bushman

Book Review: Joseph Smith by Richard Lyman Bushman
Monsters and Critics - of the decidedly unorthodox Joseph Smith, founder and prophet of Mormonism. Bushman (History emeritus continues, with depicting a real Joseph Smith, not a flawless or idealized

LDS leaders recount life of Joseph Smith; announce memorial celebration (Casper Star-Tribune)

LDS leaders recount life of Joseph Smith; announce memorial celebration (Casper Star-Tribune)
SALT LAKE CITY -- Declaring the proceedings "an inspirational feast at the table of the Lord," the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley, closed the faith's 175th semiannual general conference by announcing plans for a December celebration to commemorate the birth of church founder Joseph Smith.

Smith Descendants Come Together for 200th Anniversary

Smith Descendants Come Together for 200th Anniversary
KSL-TV, UT - Sep 30, 2005 Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has been the focus of a nearly year long tribute that church leaders and members have

Fall harvest

Fall harvest
The Wichita Eagle, KS - Sep 4, 2005 (Houghton Mifflin; September). "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling" by Richard Lyman Bushman -- New biography of the founder of Mormonism. (Knopf; October).

A New Namesake LDS president praises Joseph F. Smith legacy at

A New Namesake LDS president praises Joseph F. Smith legacy at
Provo Daily Herald, UT - Sep 21, 2005 Joseph F. Smith, who was the church's sixth president and the last church president to be personally acquainted with the prophet Joseph Smith -- his uncle

Leo Tolstoy's comment to Dr. White, US Ambassador to Germany

"Dr. White, I am greatly surprised and disappointed that a man of your great learning and position should be so ignorant on this important subject. The Mormon people teach the American religion; their principles teach the people not only of Heaven and its attendant glories, but how to live so that their social and economic relations with each other are placed on a sound basis. If the people follow the teachings of this Church, nothing can stop their progress -- it will be limitless. There have been great movements started in the past but they have died or been modified before they reached maturity. If Mormonism is able to endure, unmodified, until it reaches the third and fourth generation, it is destined to become the greatest power the world has ever known."

- As reported by Dr. White to Thomas J. Yates, Cornell University, 1900.

The New York Herald - April 3, 1842

"... Joseph Smith is undoubtedly one of the greatest characters of the age. He indicates as much talent, originality, and moral courage as Mahomet, Odin, or any of the great spirits that have hitherto produced the revolutions of past ages. In the present infidel, irreligious, material, ideal, geological, animal-magnetic age of the world, some such singular prophet as Joseph Smith is required to preserve the principle of faith, and to plant some new germs of civilization that may come to maturity in a thousand years. While modern philosophy, which believes in nothing but what you can touch, is overspreading the Atlantic States, Joseph Smith is creating a spiritual system, combined also with morals and industry, that may change the destiny of the race."

The New York Sun - September 1843

"It is no small thing, in the blaze of this nineteenth century, to give to men a new revelation, found a new religion, establish new forms of worship, to build a city, with new laws, institutions, and orders of architecture, to establish ecclesiastic, civil and military jurisdiction, found colleges, send out missionaries, and make proselytes in two hemispheres: yet all this has been done by Joseph Smith, and that against every sort of opposition, ridicule and persecution."

A Groundbreaking Look at Mormonism

For years historical studies of the LDS church were locked into stalemate, with apologists for the church and its antagonists determined to prove or disprove the truth claims made by the founder, Joseph Smith. Harold Bloom, the well-known literary critic, broke the stalemate in the long section on Mormonism in this book by setting aside questions of advocacy and looking at the Mormon gospel as a cultural artifact. There he found some amazing things. Somehow Smith had revived ancient doctrines of Jewish mysticism and Christian hermeticism that had been lost for years. Bloom also explains how Mormonism comes as close as possible to a religious distillation of the American ethos: *the* American religion, as Tolstoy once said. Bloom described Smith as "a religious genius." This is quite a compliment from a self-described Jewish atheist, of course. Bloom helped open a whole new interest in Mormons by the larger culture, as indicated by such things as Tony Kushner's play, "Angels in America."