Like most Latter-day Saints of my generation, I grew up with a sanitized, out sized Joseph Smith as a persecuted demigod who worked endless streams of wonders against tall odds in his short 38 1/2 years on earth. I did not worship the man, but I was in awe of him as I still am. As I matured and developed a more nuanced view of my prophet, I had an abiding curiosity to know more about Joseph the man. Todd Compton and I were classmates at BYU. When his In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith came out in 1997, I was taken aback for a time. My respect for the prophet never waned, but I had even more desire to understand what made him tick.
When Richard Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling: Joseph Smith: A Cultural Biography of Mormonism's Founder appeared in 2005, I became a Bushman groupie. I attended his lectures from Provo to Ogden, asking many questions and carefully weighing his responses. Bushman had a deep understanding of the prophet that I was anxious to absorb. In the end, one sentence from Bushman helped me understand who Joseph really was. Bushman said, "Joseph sucked the air out of every room he ever entered." Joseph was such a powerful presence that no one else held a candle to him. He was supremely confident, without peer. It was always Joseph and the seven dwarfs. People hung on his every word. He had an opinion about and a ready answer for everything. He was often attacked from afar but seldom contradicted in person. That made sense to me given the nature of Joseph's interaction with deity and the divine.
A few weeks ago I was privileged to spend time with Mike MacKay of the BYU Religion faculty. He worked on the Joseph Smith Papers Project and authored the very important From Darkness Unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon. I asked MacKay how he would characterize Joseph the man. "Joseph had a green thumb for religion" was his reply. As he shared examples of what he meant, I came to understand that post 1829 Joseph consciously fit every person, place, or thing he ever encountered into his expansive religious vision somewhere. That prompted me to ask MacKay one important question: "Did Joseph ever say 'I don't know'?""No" was his quick reply.
In our current era of internet-inspired transparency, we hear the brethren say "We don't know" frequently. See for example, Pres. Uchtdorf's frank talk entitled "Come, Join with Us" in October, 2013 General Conference or the Gospel Topics Essays such as "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies." Top scholars say "I don't know" all the time. "I don't know" is a fundamental situation endemic to the human condition.
One result from Joseph's tendency to never say "I don't know" were the 1834 Zion's Camp tales about Zelph, Onandagus, and the plains of the Nephites associated with Naples-Russell Mound 8 near Griggsville, Pike County, Illinois. See the 1989 article by Kenneth W. Godfrey entitled "The Zelph Story." Was the germ of the variant Zelph accounts revelation to the prophet? Was it well-meaning speculation? As with so much of the extra-canonical material attributed to Joseph Smith, we don't know.
When Richard Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling: Joseph Smith: A Cultural Biography of Mormonism's Founder appeared in 2005, I became a Bushman groupie. I attended his lectures from Provo to Ogden, asking many questions and carefully weighing his responses. Bushman had a deep understanding of the prophet that I was anxious to absorb. In the end, one sentence from Bushman helped me understand who Joseph really was. Bushman said, "Joseph sucked the air out of every room he ever entered." Joseph was such a powerful presence that no one else held a candle to him. He was supremely confident, without peer. It was always Joseph and the seven dwarfs. People hung on his every word. He had an opinion about and a ready answer for everything. He was often attacked from afar but seldom contradicted in person. That made sense to me given the nature of Joseph's interaction with deity and the divine.
A few weeks ago I was privileged to spend time with Mike MacKay of the BYU Religion faculty. He worked on the Joseph Smith Papers Project and authored the very important From Darkness Unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon. I asked MacKay how he would characterize Joseph the man. "Joseph had a green thumb for religion" was his reply. As he shared examples of what he meant, I came to understand that post 1829 Joseph consciously fit every person, place, or thing he ever encountered into his expansive religious vision somewhere. That prompted me to ask MacKay one important question: "Did Joseph ever say 'I don't know'?""No" was his quick reply.
In our current era of internet-inspired transparency, we hear the brethren say "We don't know" frequently. See for example, Pres. Uchtdorf's frank talk entitled "Come, Join with Us" in October, 2013 General Conference or the Gospel Topics Essays such as "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies." Top scholars say "I don't know" all the time. "I don't know" is a fundamental situation endemic to the human condition.
One result from Joseph's tendency to never say "I don't know" were the 1834 Zion's Camp tales about Zelph, Onandagus, and the plains of the Nephites associated with Naples-Russell Mound 8 near Griggsville, Pike County, Illinois. See the 1989 article by Kenneth W. Godfrey entitled "The Zelph Story." Was the germ of the variant Zelph accounts revelation to the prophet? Was it well-meaning speculation? As with so much of the extra-canonical material attributed to Joseph Smith, we don't know.